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nevertheless-moving · 4 years ago

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Unnamed Extremely Bad Plan to Defeat Darth Sideous AU - SW AU NO 9

Hopefully writing down this star wars au will help me exorcise the cringe demon that helped midwife it. Time travel au where obi-wan and Anakin come up with an extremely SPECIFIC and UNCOMFORTABLE plan to defeat Palpatine because it unfortunately, would actually work, as it capitalizes on one of Palpatine’s easiest to reach political vulnerabilities. This is not a unique plan- there are other au’s like this, but this one is mine. When searching for ways to explain exactly why this anti-sith strategy inspires such cringe and delight in myself I realized, with sinking dread, I have seen this in an Always Sunny episode...which yeah. I might be over reacting but hey, cringe is a personal phenomenon, everyone’s different.

Anyway! Uh here’s a bunch of plot that will eventually culminate in the plan.

*Too much plot, aaaah*. **All plot actually.** ***Its 1 am and this is still a draft*** ****It’s 2am**** *****This post will be just be background I guess.*****

*******STAR WARS AU NO 9 LAZILY OUTLINED CHAPTER ONE*********

Force ghosts Darth Vader and Ben Kenobi have had time to yell at one another without need for breath, and have more-or-less come to terms with the trainwreck that was their shared life. I wouldn’t call them well adjusted, but they’re more stable then they were the last decade or so of their living existence.

In haunting Luke, they end up encountering an artifact in an ancient Willis temple that offers spirits the chance to fix the mistakes they made in life. It doesn’t truly unwrite what’s been done, but it lets you create an alternate timeline. So this galaxy will still be what it is, but some alternate galaxy somewhere could at least have it better. Its almost never been used, because becoming one with the force usually lets you accept the past, but viewed objectively, Vader and Ben’s lives involved an extreme amount of yikes. They say goodbye to Luke and are flung backwards and sideways.

Anakin is holding his mother as she dies. Obi-Wan is landing on Genosis.

Vader just barely manages to avoid slaughtering the tuskens. To be honest, he doesn’t really get why he shouldn’t- his moral compass is still pretty f-ed up. He’s fairly certain the force is just torturing him, but still he controls himself (for Padme for Luke for Leia).

I’m gonna say well-adjusted!Vader sees murder in general as more of a vice than a sin- on par with having a beer. And really well adjusted Vader is willing to admit to himself that he’s an alcoholic, he seriously cannot regulate, its a problem. He really can’t let himself go, because he’ll just end up spiraling. And so he restrains himself and only seriously maims a few of the adult raiders.

Vader figures he can always come back later and slowly torture them to death if this whole ‘save the future’ thing doesn’t pan out.

Obi-wan leaves his shuttle and hides under a rock for 30 minutes. He calculates thats just enough time for him to pretend he went on an extremely effective and sneaky fact finding mission- just in case anyone checks R4′s records. Gets back in shuttle and gets the fuck out of there, much to Dooku’s chagrin, who lost sight of him after the shuttle landed and is now going to have to switch to one of his alternate start-the-war plans.

On the flight back he reports everything to the council- fallen Dooku and the separatist leaders, the trade federation and the massive droid army, Jango Fett the clone template of the republic army (?) working for the separatists. He briefly comms Anakin, but anyone hacking into their conversations would hear only a nonsensical, rambling conversation. Later, a hacker might turn over the idea that they were speaking in elaborate code, but why would Jedi invent such a thing during peacetime?

The war still starts; at this point in the timeline it was inevitable; the artifact was only designed to give them the chance to correct their own failings, not the galaxy’s. Palpatine still gets his emergency powers.

The same day the armies are discovered, separatist war ships take off to engulf Ryloth. The Jedi are instructed by the senate to lead the clone army and provide immediate relief-this will not be a repeat of the republic’s inaction on Naboo. It’s both better and worse than the first Battle of Genosis. So many more civilians are caught in the crossfire. The first titanic battle is not contained to evacuated droid factories, but rages across an entire populated world. The battle lasts for weeks.

The main reason this fight is less deadly is solely due to the fact that General Kenobi manages to maneuver his way into high command of the entire army.

“I believe assumptions were made since I was the first point of contact with Kamino, Masters,” the Knight explained apologetically to the arriving high council members. “I realize its not quite appropriate, but for right now I am the Jedi most familiar with our forces and the enemies. I would, of course, prefer to cede the role to someone else.”

The assembled Jedi can feel the truth in that statement.

“For better or for worse, advance troops were directed by the senate to land planetside and have met heavy resistance. I managed to redirect them to a more defensible position, where they can provide surface based cover fire for incoming reinforcements. The battle has already begun.” He received a grim nod of approval from Master Windu.

“I feel the need to say now, that if there’s one thing I learned from my time as a general on Melida/Dann, or in working against Death Watch on Mandalore, its that having a clear chain of command is vital for a military to succeed. I don’t need to remind some of you that leadership breakdowns were what ultimately ended both the Stark Hyperspace War and the Yinchorri Crisis,” Masters Koon and Tiin exchanged looks before deliberately sending forth a small force wave of approval, understanding where this briefing was leading.

“I believe that unnecessarily restructuring command before the battle is won here could do far more harm than good.” The reminder of Obi-wan’s unusually militaristic apprenticeship put some of the assembled knights at ease even as it inspired a twinge of guilt in the older masters.

“In command you are, General Kenobi,” Master Yoda finally acknowledged. “A Jedi Master you will be, once done this battle is. Have us do, what would you?”

The battle lasts for weeks, and when its over, the commanding Jedi and Troopers involved will openly acknowledge that had anyone else been in command, it would’ve lasted months, if not years. Facing down logistical, strategic, and tactical problems on a scale unheard of for a thousand years, High General Kenobi does not falter.

Enemy reinforcements seem unending. For all their preparation, every single trooper is new to war, and secretly concerned that should they fall, they will be replaced with cadets who hadn’t even finished their training.

Obi-Wan is putting out fires before they can start. Much to their shock, clone commanders are informed that they will, for the time being, remain in charge of their troops. With a handful of exceptions, Jedi ‘Generals’ were in fact, to be treated as a cross between highly skilled commandoes and advisors with abnormally sourced field intelligence.

“All of you have spent your lives training to lead your brothers into combat. The Jedi Masters and knights who are being assigned to your divisions have not received such training.”

General Kenobi addressed the division commanders, some in person, some over holocomm. All focused in rapt attention as their General reordered the shape of their lives using language they could understand.

“The command structure I am issuing is designed to maximize our ability to utilize our respective strategic capabilities, while minimizing potential loss of your life. It will be our great privilege to serve alongside such an army, and while I fully expect a complementary exchange of knowledge in time, for now, focus on survival.”

The Jedi received similar briefings, tailored for their broader array of combat and military experience. Some, including Jedi Master Pong Krell and Grandmaster Yoda, were pulled aside and tasked with the essential mission of infiltrating and destroying the Droid factories on Genosis. If they were to have a chance of winning this war, they they would need to cut off the seemingly unceasing flow of droid reinforcements.

An elite squadron of Arctroopers and Jedi field operatives were covertly dispatched, Grandmaster Yoda himself in command. Considering Count Dooku had yet to appear anywhere near Ryloth...the grandmaster had the best chance of bringing in the fallen separatist leader alive for questioning.

Shortly after they left, Anakin arrived, having finally turned over Padme’s protection to her regular guard. With the military creation vote past, the assassination risk was considered minimal. The real delay in his arrival came from her repeated attempts to join the Grand Army of the Republic on Ryloth with the intent of coordinating humanitarian assistance. Eventually he managed to convince her that she could do more good in the senate.

After all, he pointed out, someone would need to followup the military creation act with a bill to grant clones equal citizen rights. Otherwise, the legal grey area that cloning fell under and their non-republic origin would inadvertently make the clones slaves.

His borrowed Nabooan cruiser entered the warzone with the grace and efficiency as a small neutron bomb.

Those close enough to see its flaming descent watched in horror, realizing that the high generals own padawan would likely be a war casualty before he ever engaged in combat.

The legion nearest to soon-to-be-ground-zero, under the command of Captain Rex of the 501st, were distracted by heated combat, as the temporary barricade they had put up to defend the civilian population gave way to droidika artillery.

While reloading, several dozen troopers happened to look up to see a speck detach itself from the hull as at spiraled in the lower atmosphere. Hope spread that the Jedi had managed to activate some sort of eject hatch. A skilled shocktrooper could probably control and and survive such a fall with luck, which mean a Jedi almost certainly could.

A few tactical scouts charged with watching the skies confirmed that the speck was indeed a humanoid. No chute was visible, but even 8 days into the war, rumors had already spread about how Master Windu had passed off his chute mid-air to a troopers who had been damaged by suppressing fire, cushioning his free fall solely with the tank he crushed upon landing.

Only one trooper, stationed in the town clock tower specifically to track the Padawan’s arrival and issued with a high-resolution farscope, saw the whole thing. Fortunately for his credibility later, in its current setting, the scope automatically logged photos every 5 seconds, ensuring that for years to come Obi-Wan would have a flipbook as evidence that he was not the crazy one.

CT-3609 or Blink (as he was named after winning the division wide staring contest on Kamino two year prior) forwarded the trajectory of the vehicle to command, who confirmed his analysis that it would impact two clicks out from their makeshift fort and not present a risk to civilian or trooper lives.

As it traversed the stratosphere a figure (desperate repair droid, Blink assumed) emerged from the cockpit to perch on the nose of the ship. As it entered the troposphere, it became painfully obvious that the figure jutting out from the hull of the ship was in fact not a humanoid droid, but an unarmored human. The Jedi stood on the prow of the ship, seemingly impervious to and oblivious of:

air resistance

centrifugal force

normal space gravity

Blink’s slack-jawed bewilderment

the flames engulfing the ship below him

At this range, the smirk on the man’s face was visible (man? boy? kriff is he even through puberty?). Several miles above the surface he leaped, diving towards the ground like a bird of prey.

To the west, the ship made impact with the ground, sending a shockwave that shook the tower just enough for Blink to lose visual in the final moments of descent. Cursing, as while he was confident the Jedi would inexplicably survive, he really wanted to see how. The trooper scanned the droid-engulfed farmland to the north for a crash site, to no avail. Lingering smoke from the burnt countryside negatively impacted visibility low to the ground.

Rather than trying to articulate his report into words, he sent the 50-odd frames the farscope had saved, as well as the coordinates for the jedi’s projected radius of touchdown. A quick radio over to long range electro-ballistics ensured that his landing wouldn’t be marred by friendly fire.

He awaited follow-up questions on the absurd entry method, which, when they came, mostly consisted of variations on “...Is this for real?” and eventually “Can you set the scope to video for a little while?” and finally “Do you think that’s how he got the name Skywalker?”

There was a temporarily lull in fire from the west, likely a ripple effect from the ship’s explosion. From his vantage point Blink could see his batchmates using the opportunity to try and plug the holes in their barricade with broken droid pieces. Regardless of the itch to join them, he knew he couldn’t leave his post until the Jedi actually arrived in camp. Finally, a distant explosion and thick pillar of smoke gave the Jedi’s position away.

He tried to make out details, but the scope had a difficult time focusing through the haze. Manually trying to fine tune the scope’s settings, Blink caught a glimpse of what looked like half a hover tank sailing through the air to impact with a trade federation troop carrier in a fiery explosion. Several more explosions, flying droid artillery, and plumes of smoke were caught on record before visual contact with the source was established. He was mostly visible as a blue blur, lightsaber mowing a meandering path towards their location.

It wasn’t until Skywalker braced himself in place to punch a droidaka into pieces that Blink caught actual sight of the man. Only his eyes were visible, nose and mouth covered by layers of cloth. He blurred, then reappeared on top a massive missile launcher attached to an absurdly heavily armored vehicle. A minute or so of rapid blue flashes passed, the longest he had seen concentrated in one area. Then Skywalker was gone, movement clearly visible as he for once he moved in a straight line, plowing a rapid path away from the launcher.

Less than 30 seconds later, Blink had to wince away from the scope, as a burning white explosion temporarily overwhelmed the direct light filter. The trooper panicked for a moment, thinking he had gone both deaf and blind, but the abrupt, sucking silence ended after a moment with a deafening sonic boom. The shockwave rattled the farscope, nearly knocking it over, but Blink managed to steady it and himself in time.

A cheer emerged from pleasantly surprised vod below. The entire droid legion that had been guarding the missile launcher and apparent ordinance bay was flattened.

It took a moment for the realization to set in that the background noise of missile and and anti-missile collisions directly overhead had slowed pace. With the northern flank gone, artillery were able to redouble efforts to the east, and a second white hot shockwave ensued, signaling that the tide of battle had shifted. It was almost too easy for the republics electro-ballistics to tactically devastate the surrounding forces.

Eventually some sort of win/loss programming must have set in and all forces outside of a certain radius began retreating southward, conceding the scorched land to the republic army. It was cadets work to clean up the final suicidal droid charge.

A commotion ensued as Skywalker leapt the barricade with a mid-air flip. The vod greeted him with cheers, as they correctly assumed his appearance had something to do with the skirmish’s decisive victory.

Blink sent the video of the battle to command and quickly packed up his scope and assorted equipment. Hurrying down the battered tower, Blink thought to himself that this Anakin Skywalker was the best sort of Jedi a trooper could ask for.

uh sorry i got really sidetracked there moving on

Kenobi and Skywalker quickly become the face of the war once again

they grit their teeth a bit, but when they finally have a moment to really plan they eventually agree that to take down Sideous they have to cut off his political power in addition to everything else, and taking advantage of their public personas was the most accessible way to do so (*evil laughter*)

While Dooku wasn’t captured, Yoda heard the truth in his old student’s cryptic warnings about a Sith in the Senate, and the council begins carefully editing their release of tactical plans to the Chancellor’s office in the hopes of ferreting out the spy in their midst.

Pong Krell looses two arms in his duel with Dooku. Obi-Wan successfully hides his smug pleasure at the news. Anakin enjoys makeing comparisons between him and Grievous.

Kenobi doesn’t allow the origin of the clones to go unexamined, although he agrees that if the public were informed that they don’t actually know who ordered them it would probably cause panic.

The ‘inhibitor chips’ are ‘discovered’ early on and Anakin leads the effort to ensure that they are phased out and removed immediately. This consists of reminding every Jedi who even hesitates about how how he as a child slave had some experience with control chips and unless you want to take a leaf out of the hutts books lets start doing brain surgery chop chop mmmkay?

(This isn’t to say that Vader doesn’t still a twinge of shame at acknowledging his slave roots. But it is eclipsed by the burning guilt that he knowingly acted as slave master to his troops for decades after Sideous wiped their minds. He tried to rationalize it to himself, after all he didn’t immediately understand what Order 66 had done to the troopers. But while the morality of murder was more of an intellectual concern than a personal one, treating people as things...)

The Kamonions are a little harder to budge, referencing contracts that they refuse to allow the Jedi to see

Finally Vader snuck into the Chief Medical Scientist’s home while she was sleeping and straight-up threatened to murder her and burn down her lab. At the risk of losing her life’s work, Nala Se complied.

Vader left with the final threat that in the event that Darth Tyranus caught wind and activated Order 66 prematurely, he would kill 100 Kamonians for every Jedi felled by troopers. Shaak Ti was pleased by the cloners sudden change of heart. Tyrannus, and by extension, Sideous, are in the dark.

Obi-Wan frequently publicly confronts Palpatine about the troops citizen status, urging him make use of his emergency powers to grant them citizenship and full pay, with the option to leave the army should they so wish.

Anakin manages to play off his avoidance of the Chancellor as disappointment in his perceived lack of dedication to anti-slavery efforts

Finally Palpatine gives in- regardless of what happens next, the troops will be looked after.

With 2/3rds of the troopers dechipped, Vaderkin is eager to kill Sideous again, but after several intense screaming matches and sparring sessions, the time travelers come to the agreement that even if they succeed in their duel, with things as they were, the perception of the Jedi military coop would cause mass civil unrest. The scattered sith apprentices, while individually weak, were more than capable of magnifying that fear and anger until the galaxy breaks. Darth Sideous wanted to ensure that if he couldn’t have the galaxy, no one would.

(Vader knows this. Sideous enjoyed monologuing, and much of his plotting couldn’t be safely bragged about until after he had decisively won, leaving Vader as the unwilling receptacle for years of pent-up rants and self-satisfied gloats about the inevitability of his victory)

Continued Here

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blitzturtles · 4 years ago

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Title: Nothing Else Matters

Rating: Teen and Up

Fandom: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo

Pairing(s): NaraFugo / FugoNara

Summary: [In a world where it takes Pannacotta a while to come home after the events of VA...]

Patience is not a concept, but a word that bounces around in Narancia’s mind. An echo of syllables rather than something that has meaning. He can repeat it to himself as many times as he would like, but he will find none of whatever it was that Bucciarati wished to impress upon him when he spoke the word in the first place.

Notes: Also, this was honestly an excuse to write Fugo with long hair and scars.

Narancia is not patient. He is not capable. His only lapses in action come when he sleeps or when it is absolutely necessary for survival. The only things he has ever waited for are food and medical care; the latter of which nearly killed him. For Narancia, there is no virtue in patience; only unending anxiety. Worry that gnaws at his already chapped lips and pulls the threads loose in the cuffs of his sleeves. It keeps him up at night with questions that never receive answers.

How is patience a form of high moral standard (what does that even mean?) when it could mean that Fugo is out there by himself? Possibly in danger. With no one to watch his back in a Passione that is rapidly changing around him in a way that he surely is not prepared for.

It’s been a year. One very long year, and that’s accounting for the fact that Narancia spent several miserable weeks in the hospital after a two week long coma. He remembers looking out the window, unable to see the street from so high up, yet hoping he might catch a glimpse of white-blonde hair off in the distance. He had never given up hope that Fugo would stop by one day, even if only to sneak in for a moment. That day had never come, and now countless more have passed.

Giorno does his best to reassure Narancia that Fugo is alive, but that only brings about more questions and concerns. Alive is a pretty low bar to set, but it’s better than some of the scenarios that have run through Narancia’s head. It’s better than dead at Diavolo’s hands-- indirectly or otherwise--, but it only does so much to soothe Narancia’s nerves.

He can’t bring himself to ask how Giorno knows that Fugo is alive. That he’s at least surviving out there in the world where the most powerful crime syndicate is undergoing significant restructuring. Has Giorno seen him? Spoken to him? Does Fugo visit him?

Giorno’s got eyes in more places than Narancia can wrap his head around, so it’s possible that Giorno’s monitoring Fugo from a distance. And Narancia tries to ignore how that thought makes his chest ache. As if Fugo is some kind of threat to them.

The problem is that Fugo could be a threat. If he had it in him. He has more information on those closest to the Don than anyone else in the entirety of Passione combined, but he’s not a traitor. Narancia knows that like he knows the sky is blue, an observable and undeniable truth.

What almost hurts more is the thought that Fugo is talking to Giorno directly. That he’s gone to see the Don on more than one occasion, or that he has some means of reporting to Giorno that none of them are privy to. That Narancia knows of, anyway. He wouldn’t be entirely surprised to hear that Bucciarati also knows of Fugo’s whereabouts, but that thought doesn’t hurt nearly as badly as the idea that Fugo is avoiding him.

Narancia does some avoidance of his own. Mostly, it’s calendars that he can’t stand to look at. He tries his best to steer clear of them, but it’s been hard ever since he started up school again. Everything operates on a damn schedule with school. Tests, homework, tutoring (remote and not through Fugo, and he hates it)... It’s never ending, and the moment he gets his hands on one, he’s counting back all the time that’s passed.

Today marks one year, two months, and three days, and patience has gotten him absolutely nowhere.

______

Giorno sends for Narancia while Narancia is busy studying in the mansion’s library. He gives Mista-- the one often sent to collect for the child Don, whether it be man or money-- a look of confusion, with one eyebrow cocked and eyes searching, but Mista only shrugs,

“Dunno, dude. You’re gonna have to go see for yourself, I guess.”

Narancia doesn’t know how Mista can sound so detached. These kinds of things drive him crazy. He wants to know, and he wants to know now. Patience is bullshit, and he’s tired of pretending otherwise.

______

The door to Giorno’s office is a large, heavy oak thing carved with expert hands. Narancia’s fingers sink into the grooves that make up the design of foliage and wildlife. He’s found himself tracing various parts of this door more times than he can count. The scene is beautiful. One of the artist’s whim, but she had clearly understood her client, given how perfectly it fits Giorno. It’s often the first impression people get of the Don when they’re called upon. The door comes across as unnecessarily ornate, but, truly, it’s a reminder. Besides, the whole thing had been a gift. Not a single penny had been spent (well, not in commission, anyhow.)

Narancia likes it because he can usually find something he hasn’t noticed, some groove he hasn’t touched. The surface is surprisingly smooth for wood, and it feels nice under his fingers. He’s used it as a distraction before; a way to pass the time while idling outside of Giorno’s office, either as a living radar or as an invited guest.

He’s almost never there for a mission briefing. It’s rare that he gets sent out on field work at all anymore. He’s technically an ex-mafioso now. School is supposed to be his priority (it’s not), which means mafia work is saved for everyone else. Most of the time. Which raises the question: what does Giorno want?

“Come in!” Giorno calls loud enough to be heard. It startles Narancia out of his thoughts, but he brushes it off quickly and reaches for the door, only stopping for a moment because he can hear a second voice. A quiet murmur that Giorno responds to in a gentle cadence of his own. One that’s meant to be reassuring, yet sends alarm bells off in Narancia’s head. He flips Aerosmith’s radar over his eye, checking the signatures in the room. There’s definitely only two, but that doesn’t give him a whole lot to work with.

Rather than keep his boss waiting any longer, Narancia pushes the door open and peers inside, half expecting the stranger to be holding a weapon of some sort. Instead, the man stands there, stiff as a board with his back facing Narancia. He has a ratty hoodie on with the hood being pulled up in such a way that Narancia can’t see any of the man’s features. It does nothing to settle his unease. Something is going on, and he feels wholly underprepared.

“It’s alright,” Giorno says, standing from his chair and moving around his desk. Narancia doesn’t know if he’s trying to reassure the stranger or him, but he has a feeling that neither of them feels any more at ease than before the Don spoke. And what Giorno says next makes even less sense, but is definitely aimed at the stranger, “He’s been waiting for this.”

Slowly, the unknown man reaches up to lower his hood. It seems to take an eternity, but the moment Narancia sees his face is the moment when he feels like someone has punched him in the gut hard enough to go through layers of skin and muscle and fat. There’s a horrible twist in his stomach before an odd, detached hollowness settles in, and all he can do is stare in disbelief.

Fugo’s fingers linger on the rim of his hood. He holds it tight around his neck, still partially obscuring his hair and part of his jaw. His fingers remain clenched in the fabric so tightly that his knuckles have gone white, and he stands there, seemingly frozen part way through his reveal. His mouth is too obscured to see the full extent of his expression, but his brows are drawn in a frown. Bright red eyes dart suddenly from Narancia to Giorno, searching. He looks ready to run, and that’s enough to kick Narancia’s brain back into gear.

“You bastard!” Narancia’s lunging at him in an instant without bothering for his knife. He grabs at Fugo’s hood, and his fingers clasp tightly in the bunched fabric before Fugo’s hands.

Giorno moves to get between them with a hand raised, prepared to force the two apart if need be. Gold Experience manifests behind him, no doubt prepared to create a literal barrier to prevent any bloodshed.

“Don’t,” Fugo breathes, eyes darting to Giorno. “Don’t,” he repeats, “It’s fine.”

“Fuck you!”

Fugo doesn’t flinch at the exclamation, though he does sink his gaze downward and refuses to look up at Narancia. No amount of time could have prepared him for this particular reunion. Getting into contact with Mista and Giorno again had been hard enough, and that hadn’t exactly been his choice. This is an entirely different matter. One more complex than he knows how to deal with, and that’s exactly why they’re in this situation now: because he hadn’t known how else to do this.

Rude as it is to stick Giorno in the middle of all of this, it’s the only way that Fugo could assure that he would follow through with his plan to finally reintroduce himself to the rest of the team. He’s already proven himself to the Don. To Giorno. And to Mista. Though he hardly feels as though he deserves their trust. No matter how often Giorno reassures him otherwise. Still, this is more complicated.

Narancia stares him down with a fire in his eyes. Aerosmith’s radar vanishes from existence, which at least means Fugo won’t be shot, but that’s little consolation given the rage rolling off of Narancia in waves. His fists press into Fugo’s jaw, causing him to wince, and just like that something… snaps. Either inside of Fugo or in the air. It’s like a crack of thunder that rings in his ears.

“I hate you,” Narancia nearly sobs into his ear the moment he gets his arms around Fugo. He pulls him into a crushing hug with no warning and repeats the phrase ad nauseum. They both know the words aren’t true, though Fugo deserves them to be.

“I’m sorry,” Fugo breathes his response, and not just because Narancia is trying to squeeze the life out of him. His own eyes are burning with tears. Months of pent up emotions spill forward in an unstoppable avalanche, and all either of them can do is hang on tightly to the other until the worst of it passes.

Fugo barely has a moment to catch his breath before Narancia is reaching, and he flinches. Narancia’s eyes widen and his mouth falls open a bit. Nothing needs to be said for Fugo to know that he’s added one more hurt to a very long list.

“Just,” Fugo tries and glances helplessly at Giorno, but the Don seems to have made his escape in the little outburst of chaotic emotions once he had realized the two weren’t a threat to one another. “I’m different.” It sounds ridiculous in his own ears, and it doesn’t cover the reality of what he’s hiding behind his hood and his clenched fists.

Narancia laughs. A startled sound that gets ripped from him before he really processes the words, or the look on Fugo’s face. He feels bad almost immediately and tries to recover the situation by saying, “You’re you.”

Fugo inhales deeply and holds his breath a moment before he drops his hands away finally. The hood falls down around his shoulders, and he has to steel himself to avoid turning away.

“Oh,” Narancia sucks in a breath. He reaches his hands to either side of Fugo’s mouth, only hesitating a moment when Fugo stiffens, but he forces his own hands steady enough to brush his thumb over the newly gnarled skin. Well, not that new, he supposes. The scars are healed enough; no longer the bright, angry red that they once were, but it’s clear they had been painful. They may still be. Narancia thinks it must hurt when they pull at the corners of Fugo’s mouth whenever he speaks.

“Purple Haze,” Fugo explains without really explaining. He gives a half shrug and stares down, but he’s startled when Narancia surges forward and kisses him. Of all the reactions he had been expecting, that has to have been the last on his list.

It’s not as if kissing is new to them. They’ve done it plenty of times before, when they were together. Before Fugo chose to stay behind and watched Narancia swim off after the boat without him. When his feet had been cemented to the ground underneath him and his heart had been hammering in his chest and his stomach had been doing its best to turn itself inside out because they were all going to die, and nothing he could do or say would change it.

He doesn’t deserve Narancia now. Doesn’t deserve his undying devotion and his freely offered affection. He can’t justify asking for forgiveness, much less another chance at what they had before, yet here they are.

Narancia draws back with a gasp of air. His eyes bore into Fugo’s, searching, and he must find whatever he’s looking for because he’s grinning wide. “You look badass, Panna,” he says and steals a second kiss while Fugo’s brain reels violently.

The next time they break apart for air, Narancia runs both hands and eyes over Fugo, undoubtedly searching for more marks. More changes, and he finds them in the form of Fugo’s hair, which has gotten absurdly long in his time away. He can’t bring himself to let anyone cut it, and it hardly bothers him.

There’s a moment he worries that Narancia might hate it, but Narancia has his hands in the soft, white locks with that same, goofy look on his face. “You look so pretty with your hair like this,” he tells Fugo with so much love in his voice that it almost burns.

“How can I look badass and pretty?” Fugo asks, though it isn’t important. It’s something to focus on. Something that means nothing at all. His hair is inconsequential. A safe topic for him to latch onto until his heart stops pounding painfully in his chest.

“You’re asking me!” Narancia says in a non-answer. He brushes his fingers through Fugo’s hair again and again, and all Fugo can do is lean into the touch that he’s missed for so long. He hasn’t been able to let anyone else get close since that day with the damned boat. It had been like being thirteen again. Where he felt alone and scared; every noise making him jump and check over his shoulder, prepared for something ugly and unspeakable, but the only real, irreparable damage that he’s taken is from his own Stand. A penance for all the hurt that he’s inflicted on those that he cares about most.

“Does Bucci know you’re back? He’s going to lose his mind, but oh! Too bad, because I call Panna time first, and I’m not giving it up for nothin’,” not even to Bucciarati, who Narancia has the utmost respect for. He doesn’t care; he’s waited so long for this, and Fugo came back with new scars and pretty hair. They’re both things he wants to commit to his memory via the longest cuddle session he can get away with.

“Not yet, and I think he’ll understand,” Fugo replies with the barest of smiles.

“Good, let’s go!” Narancia moves his hands from Fugo’s hair to grasp at one of Fugo’s. He intertwines their fingers and tugs hard enough to nearly knock Fugo off balance, but Fugo recovers enough to allow himself to be dragged along.

He still feels like a raw nerve. Fight or flight are just on the edge of his conscious brain, and his ribs ache from the way his heart continues to beat too hard and too fast. There’s a lingering feeling that he doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t deserve any of this, but he pushes the self-hatred down for now. Somehow, Narancia doesn’t hate him, and nothing else matters.

#narafugo #fugonara #narancia ghirga #pannacotta fugo #giorno giovanna #jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #vento aureo #golden wind #jjba part 5 #blitzwrites #blitz

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famedroleplayarchive · 3 years ago

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There won’t be an activity check today and you can count it as a free week because I have some big but hopefully not too big news. Famed is going to undergo a restructuring, and this is going to involve me asking everyone who would like to remain in the group to resubmit an application to keep their muse(s).

To be clear, this is not a complete revamp. Most of the major processes of how the roleplay work will not change and claims and development on muses will be able to be kept unless you put them in a majorly different position (in which case, claims that will no longer work can be refunded!), but the the size of the roleplay will be cut down over half from 135 spots to 65 spots. Many of the groups will be merged and all will be changed to some extent so that we have a total of thirteen groups, all with four to six members instead of the over twenty groups, many of which are rather large, we have now.

I want to disclaim that I know there will be members who connect less with the roleplay after the restructuring. I also want to apologize to anyone who is inconvenienced by the changes made, but please know I am only making these changes because I feel it is absolutely critical to the long-term life of the roleplay. A restructuring of some sort is something I’ve been thinking about for probably over a year or so now and I’ve been trying to avoid it for the sake of disrupting everyone as little as possible, but it’s become apparent to me that it’s necessary to keep the roleplay going, not because of member activity but because of my own ability to handle everything as an admin. I created Famed over four years ago when I was in a much different place in my life and had very little experience with idol roleplays and no experience at all running an idol roleplay, so I haven’t always been totally happy with how everything is set up. While I always did my best to make sure I was confident I could handle things before adding anything else onto my plate, naturally, several major life events have occurred over the past four years, especially the last one, that have altered the amount of time and energy I can commit to roleplaying, often making it draining and difficult to manage the group at its current scale.

Taking on another admin or mods would ultimately mean quite a bit more being required of me for at several months in order to evaluate any options presented to me and to help introduce a new person to all of the intricacies of the roleplay at a speed we’d both we comfortable with. It would also require me to be able to find someone I would be confident placing that responsibility on since I wouldn’t want to do it by half measures, which isn’t a guarantee. With all of that considered, I feel that this restructuring is the best course of action to keep the roleplay alive for the foreseeable future instead of risking my own discontent and stress leading to a fizzling out of the roleplay. The changes being made are all ultimately being made in hopes of making a more enjoyable and sustainable roleplaying experience in the long term for everyone involved, including me on the admin side and hopefully members as well!

Speaking of which, this will also be a chance for members to look at their own experience in the roleplay and muses and make their own changes to their muses as they find appropriate for improving their roleplay experience. I’ll be asking everyone to send in an updated application for the new changes since some details will probably have to change for every muse to some extent. Members are welcome to change what they feel necessary (or might be required by nature of the changes), from the muse’s group, to their position, faceclaim, age, background, etc. This means you’ll be able to pick new past claims made on your application too and a new past claims system is being put in place that will actually allow muses to have a more established career in their backstory! You’ll also be able to potentially refund points claims made that no longer fit changes you have to make to your muse, but that will be handled once the re-application process has been completed.

New main blogs have been created for the purpose of having a fresh start void of any old information that might still be lingering around blogs that will no longer be accurate. The new structure of the groups and companies can be found here on the new main (the URL will be changed to famedroleplay tomorrow!). On August 15 at noon EDT, exactly forty-eight hours after this post, I will be opening up for reserves to keep muses. You may only reserve spots for existing muses at this time, not for new muses, and muns will unfortunately now have to be limited to a maximum of three muses due to the decreased size of the roleplay.

Currently in-use faceclaims will be held for the muses they are used for unless the mun chooses to reserve a different faceclaim for the muse or until the period of accepting applications for keeping muses is up. Since groups, positions, and model groups have been moved around so much, I decided not to assume the assignment of positions to any muse, so it will be up to muns to reserve the spot they feel best suits their muse. Everyone will get a couple of days to look positions over before reserves are accepted to make the reserving of positions as fair as possible. I plan to do three acceptances on August 18, 22, and 25 that will be reserved solely for those applying to keep their muses, and the August 29 acceptances will be the first time we open for new muses again. Activity will start up as normal on August 22!

Members planning on keeping their muse may continue to write during this time if they’d like and work out that they’ll be keeping those plots, but points can’t be collected for anything that wasn’t already in progress since you might end up retconning it anyway.

Thank you all in advance for your understanding and I hope you’re able to find this exciting in some way! I know I’m hopeful for what I see as a fresh phase of Famed. Famed version 1.2, if you will. I’m aware this will likely be the end of the road for some who aren’t as interested in the new structure or can’t find muse within it or just don’t agree with my decisions, and to anyone who finds this to be your parting of ways with Famed, thank you for the time you did dedicate to the group! I do request to please avoid sending rude messages for the sake of being rude if the restructuring isn’t your cup of tea, but I will be sad to see anyone go who does leave. The alternative was me most likely, at best, having to put the roleplay on hiatus by the end of the year to take time to deal with real life, so this choice has been made so that I don’t have to do that and I can keep this home for so many wonderful muses running as long as possible!

A post with more information about the process of re-applying has already been posted to the new main by the time this post goes up. Check out the updated FAQ on that blog as well since it highlights a few of the more major changes already!

#fmdadmin #queued post

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fmdhyeju · 3 years ago

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restructuring task #1: changes (+5 tracker points)

assuming your muse has changed in some way, be it internally or as a result of a change of the external factors around them, how is your muse different? these can be as small as an opinion on a song they hadn’t released previously or as big as a major change in their background. // tw: suicide, wc: 330

the biggest change that hyeju has gone through is the reconstruction of her family background. nothing dramatic has happened to them as the skeleton of her family remains the same (she has both parents, an older brother and a younger brother) but their position in society has become significantly less important. before the revamp, hyeju’s parents were written as wealthy entrepreneurs who had a lot of influence in the business world because of how big their corporation was. having her parents be that big and yet have nobody know that lipstick’s hyeju was their daughter seemed unrealistic as time went on so i decided that a change in their position would be the right choice. now, they’re still business owners and were still very much controlling which led to the eventual suicide of her older brother (also something that hasn’t changed), but they’re not as influential so today, who her family is would be public knowledge.

another thing that has changed is that hyeju never runs away from home now. after the death of her brother, she still remains in the min household, but she does disconnect even further with her family sans her younger brother who has also been shifted into being someone that hyeju is a lot closer with in this verse. he’s become attached to her after hyesung’s death, and so it’s likely that she’ll mention him more often than before.

other than that, very little has changed about hyeju. her personality is probably the most unchanged. the opinion on the kind of music she releases is also not very different. she still vibes more with the mature sounding releases rather than their early graceful ones though she had no problem performing them when she was younger aka when they did initially get released. still has problems with bc entertainment as a company itself, but she loves her members and has an overflowing amount of pride for her group which was true before the revamp as well.

what does your muse think of their company and their group? // wc: 291

because of the fact that she comes from a family that runs its own business, hyeju can’t help but view bc entertainment in a negative light. while it’s true that lily and herself would be nowhere without the help of the company and the influence they have in the industry, she still dislikes the overbearing nature of bc as a whole. she’s not someone to rebel simply because that involves too much energy and time, but she isn’t shy about shit talking the company behind closed doors and sometimes even in front of the cameras (which is why bc wasn’t the biggest fan of sending her out onto variety shows early on in lily’s career). now that she’s established herself as a veteran idol, the reigns on her have loosened a bit especially since the company’s more focused on their junior groups, but that doesn’t change what she thinks of bc.

lily, on the other hand, is a group that she’d guard with her whole life. for a group that had their breakthrough quite early on in their career, hyeju thinks there’s no denying that they’re still a very influential and successful group within the industry. though the general public might not be interested in every single new release of their’s, the general love and attention that the group receives is still there, and she’s proud of the legacy that her and her members have been able to build up. some of their earlier releases aren’t songs that she’d love to perform today—she believes they’ve aged out of a few of them—but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t adore the group as a whole. she’s also very attached to her members and everything they’ve been through together for close to a decade.

is your muse on their first contract or their second? if they’ve renewed, what were their feelings around that at the time and what were their hopes for their second contract? if they haven’t renewed, what are their current thoughts on the end of their eventual first contract? // wc: 276

lily renewed their contract back in 2019 so hyeju is now on her second contract with bc entertainment. all she needed for a renewal was the confirmation that all her members would renew with her. she doesn’t care about the company as much as she cares for the group, and she would have gone wherever her members wanted to go as long as the four of them were on the same page. if that meant leaving altogether and starting somewhere new, she would have been up with that. if it eventually meant having to disband because some of the members weren’t up to being an idol anymore, she would have followed through with that as well. anything she could do to keep the lily name either alive or untarnished would have been what influenced her decision.

there’s not a whole lot that she expects or even desires from the company. as long as they continue to give lily frequent comebacks that don’t end up looking cheap and rushed, she’s fine with whatever comes her way. her individual activities have always been up her alley of things she enjoys doing and so if things remain the same, that isn’t something she’d complain about either. hyeju’s not very selfish when it comes to individual activities either, and she usually accepts what is given to her. she really does think that as long as lily isn’t pushed to the back burner and completely ignored for two years straight, that’d be alright with her. the push into a more mature sound is something that she enjoys because she believes that’s only natural as they continue to grow as a group.

what are your muse’s goals and motivations? // wc: 295

there’s no specific goals or motivations currently on hyeju’s mind. odd thing to say seeing that everybody around her seems to be so ambitious and ready to venture out into new things. however, she’s content by simply living with the flow. ever since she got accepted as a trainee, it seems that her life has been taking her down this path that she’s never planned, and she doesn’t mind it. sure, it might not hurt to be a little more motivated and have things that she wants to accomplish, but she doesn’t think it’s a bad thing to not have any of those.

with lily, she would like if they have another mega hit. she’s not sure how possible that may be with how far along down their career they are since it’s completely normal for groups to sort of die out and rely more on their fanbase than anything, but having another national hit like gee would only solidify their place in the industry, and she thinks that would be nice. even if it doesn’t happen though, she wouldn’t be upset. some of their songs are repeatedly covered by their juniors, and she thinks that’s already a legacy that’s going to be hard to beat.

if she’s thinking non-career wise, hyeju thinks it would be nice to be able to perform with lily for as long as she can and then eventually retire into a more quiet place. somewhere like jeju island perhaps where she can out of the limelight and then return to perform only when she feels like it. a life sort of like lee hyori’s. despite not appearing like it, she does eventually want to settle down and get married, but it’s not an immediate need in her life right now.

what is one conflict, internal or external, that your muse is currently dealing with, has recently dealt with, or will need to deal with in the future? // wc: 268

at the moment, there’s no big conflict going on in her life. the biggest thing is probably her family, but they won’t be an immediate problem to her. again, they’re not some big shots in korea anymore and instead just run their own family business so it’s not like hyeju’s name is constantly being associated with them and vice versa. however, there are plans for her to try to settle things out with her family in the future especially in the case of her brother’s death. that’s still very much unspoken about in the min household unless it’s brought up by hyeju, but she rarely does that either since she’s not home nor does she contact her parents frequently.

the biggest conflict that will eventually come to hyeju is probably the stagnant nature of her life and how that may drive her to feel sort of lethargic for a while? i think that’s only natural when it comes to someone like hyeju who lives by the flow of where life takes her instead of planning out each step. she’s living such a good life right now though since she’s young, rich and successful so if anything were to happen to lily’s career or her relationship with her members, that’d probably become a big obstacle in her life. for someone who’s so unconcerned by what goes on, she does really enjoy having stability in her life so it’d be interesting to see what she would have to go through if something so stable in her life, like lily, were to take a turn. of course, if that ever happens.

if your muse has established career claims, what are their thoughts on their career so far? if they do not, how do they feel about not having individual activities yet? what would they like to do in the future, if anything? if they don’t have ambitions for individual activities, explain why. // wc: 372

hyeju currently has established career claims in modeling, music and creative claims in lily’s discography. modeling is something that she’s been pushed into since the beginning because fans have dubbed her to be quite stylish. personally, she doesn’t think she’s doing anything out of the blue but sometimes it seems that the most ordinary of outfits can be seen as fashionable. magazine shoots and brand deals are fun in her opinion, and she wouldn’t mind getting more of those. they’re quite minimal when it comes to actual participation as she acts as the face of a brand for a couple of months and does maybe one or two shoots and appearances in total. but they do get her name out there in some kind of way.

being lily’s lead vocalist means she’s also had a few ost’s here and there. nothing huge as she’s not some power vocalist like minah—her strength comes mostly in stability—but there have been times where she’s been sought out for the sweet tone of her voice. or so she’s been told.

she’s participated in three of lily’s songs so far: baby maybe, boom pow love and goodbye. baby maybe was very minimal participation, but she was around when the producers were writing lyrics and she threw out a couple of ideas here and there that they helped polish up and bam, she was listed as one of the lyricists for the song. boom pow love and goodbye came along in similar ways. she didn’t really sit down and think long and hard about writing a song or whatever, but it usually came in sudden inspiration or thoughts that the producers liked and helped her out with. which is why all her participation is partial at most. she’s not the next paul mccartney or whatever.

there’s not a lot she desires for her solo activites, and she’s pretty content with what she gets now. bc hasn’t been shy about venturing her out as a soloist either, and she’s enjoyed the songs given to her as a whole and would like to continue to release more music as a soloist because they allow her to perform differently on stage as the songs and concepts aren’t up lily’s usual lane.

#famedrstask1 #( ✧ — headcanon. )

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twdmusicboxmystery · 4 years ago

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TWD Flagship Series Ending and How It Might Affect Beth/TD

I’m sorry I didn’t get my thoughts out sooner. I woke up to like three fires I had to put out (figurative, of course) so it too me longer than usual to get these written up. But, here we go:

Okay, so I know everyone is freaking out about yesterday’s news. I feel ya. I’m obviously very sad that the flagship series will be ending.

But having said that, it doesn’t entirely surprise me. And it doesn’t really bother me, at least not in the way everyone seems to think it will.

I have lots of thoughts about this, so bear with me. I’ll try to keep them succinct and organized.

I Still Think Beth is Returning

This is probably the most important thing for everyone to know. This announcement doesn’t affect my beliefs about Beth’s return. You’ll understand why as we go along and I explain more. It also doesn’t negate all the clues Emily and other actors have been dropping over previous months. Just keep that in mind.

It Doesn’t Surprise Me That The Show Might End Not Long After Her Return

Now, I’m gonna say that I realize now my original thinking about this was a little flawed, but I’m gonna say it anyway just to throw it out there.

As it’s taken longer and longer for Beth to return, I’ve come to realize that there would be a lot less of the show to go after her return than there was before it. If she’d have returned in S6 or S7, we would have had many seasons to go. But that hasn’t been the case, right?

I firmly believe that Beth represents Daryl’s happily ending. But that does imply it will be an ending of sorts.

And don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t have predicted the show would end in S11. You all know I’ve harped on the 15-season thing quite a bit, and I have more to say on that, which I’ll get to in a minute. I’m just saying that after Beth returns, I never thought we’d get another 10 seasons of TWD. A few, sure, but not double the amount or anything.

Okay, so let me make some broad statements here.

1) Gimple said he had until S15 planned, and I believe him.

2) I still think he has plenty of material so that they could have gone on through season 15.

3) I don’t think any of that content is being scrapped, curtailed, or cut short in any way.

So how can all of those things work together? Well, this is my biggest belief about this whole thing:

I don’t think they’re changing any of their original plan. I think they’re just shuffling and restructuring the way they’re going to give it to us.

A lot of things have changed over the past few years: technology, the fact that people stream-watch much more often than live-watch, CoVid, etc. So basically, I still think they’ll continue to tell the story through what would have been season 15, but they’ll be doing it through alternate series, spinoffs, movies, etc., rather than keeping it all to the main series.

Now, some of the skeptics out there are bound to think my beliefs about this are awfully convenient, and I’m just holding out hope that Beth will still return.

But I’m not JUST talking about Beth story lines. There are other things to consider here that we can prove. And I’ll get to them.

But the next question is:

Why Would They Continue the Story in Other Spinoffs, Rather Than Just Keeping to the Main Series?

I wasn’t sure about this at first, either. The only thing I could come up with on my own is that there are certain business/monetary/logistical concerns behind the scenes that make this a better model for AMC to make use of, rather than continuing the flagship series. And really, we’re never going to totally understand all of that because for legal/privacy reasons they’re never going to give us the details.

But then, the always-insightful @wdway said some things that really helped light bulbs go on in my head.

We were discussing this and she said something about how, since Daryl isn’t a character in the comic books, and Carol died very early on in the story (at the farm, I think?), with this spinoff that will focus on Daryl and Carol, they’re heading into territory that has absolutely no comic book source material.

And that really made sense to me. So, here’s my underlying belief about WHY they’re ending the flagship series after S11, even though they still have more story they’re planning to tell.

I Believe They’re Ending the Story after the Commonwealth Arc, Specifically Because the Comic Books Ended.

Because here’s the thing. Even with the extended S11, I still don’t think that will be enough time to cover the two major story lines they’ve been hinting at and slowly uncovering over recent seasons: the Commonwealth and the Helicopter People.

The only way to cover BOTH of those so quickly is to REALLY short change one or the other of them, and I think we have ample evidence and foreshadowing that that won’t be the case.

So, here’s the jist of it. Back when Gimple took over and planned his 15-season arc, they couldn’t have predicted a lot of what’s happened since. They couldn’t have predicted technology, COVID…or that Kirkman would suddenly, without any warning, decide to end the comics. So, even though they’ve always put their own spin on things, and have definitely done things that weren’t in the comics at all (i.e. Beth and Daryl), they’ve still always stuck to the major arcs from the comic books. (The Farm, The Prison, Alexandria, AOW, Whisper War, and now The Commonwealth.)

I think they decided to pivot and change formats as soon as Kirkman ended the CBs. They just haven’t announced it until now. So, I think season 11 will focus completely on the Commonwealth, but they’ll end it and switch to something entirely new to continue telling the story of the Helicopter Group. And even though they’re advertising it as focusing on Daryl and Carol, keep in mind that Rick and Michonne are also still out there. We’ll have them to look forward to in the Rick Grimes Films as well. And of course they still have FTWD, TWB, and these other spinoffs they’re talking about.

Do you see what I mean? I don’t think they’re changing or curtailing the story they’ve always planned on telling. They’re just changing formats. So the main series will end with the source material from RK’s comic books. The rest will be a new series that is 100% AMC’s own.

I hope that makes sense. This is why it doesn’t really worry me and I don’t think it negatively impacts Beth’s story or return at all.

Okay, let’s switch gears and talk about the spinoff.

When I read the press release, the first thought I had was, “Well, that’s vague.” The press release really doesn’t tell us much. It’s hard to draw many conclusions from it. And it doesn’t say other characters (like Ezekiel, for example) won’t be in it. Just that it will focus on Daryl and Carol.

And I get that, again, that may sound convenient, but that’s why I explained everything above first. Knowing that this is probably just switching formats to continue the same story, it doesn’t sound quite as convenient anymore, does it?

The second thing I thought when I heard this (and my fellow theorists said they had the exact same thought, which kind of validates it in my head) is that this whole Carol/Daryl thing is probably tied to the New Mexico symbolism.

If you remember, starting in 10x01, they started randomly referencing New Mexico a lot, in conjunction with the idea of the two of them taking off on Daryl’s bike and just leaving. I know that idea isn’t our fandom’s favorite, but it was obvious to me that this was a foreshadowing and that it will happen at some point. So I’m relatively sure that this spinoff about Daryl and Carol will be them going to New Mexico together.

Here are some posts where I talked about the NM symbolism: X, X, X,

The thing is, guys, I’ve also always believed that it will be a Beth thing. That it will mirror them taking off together to search for Beth in 5a. So either way, I think Beth will be involved in that spinoff series.

@wdway told me she’s believed for a while that S11 will be another “Daryl searches for Beth” season. TD has believed for a LONG time that there will need to be another search on Daryl’s part. That there may even be something of a replay of events in Coda, but that it will end differently. In a good way, rather than in the disaster that was Coda.

So, either Beth and Daryl will get a reunion sometime in S11, but then something will happen and she’ll be taken again. Probably by the helicopter people. And Daryl will need to go look for her.

Or.

Maybe they won’t get a reunion at all in S11. That would definitely suck more, but maybe, while the audience, and various characters in the show *coughs Eugene* know about Beth, maybe Daryl really doesn’t find out until the end of the season, and he’ll just be busy dealing with the Commonwealth situation. But then, at the end, he finds out she’s alive and jumps on his bike to go find her. And, as in 5x02, Carol goes with him.

I also think Ezekiel will probably figure heavily in this. I’ve harped on and on about his death fake out, right? I do think it will happen some time in S11. And I think it’s possible that the season (and series) will end with Carol still not knowing that he’s really alive. Or maybe she’ll find out he’s with Beth and that will be part of the reason she goes with Daryl too.

Now, obviously this is all conjecture with a liberal splash of head canon. But given the symbolism and foreshadowing we’ve identified, especially these past two seasons, and how often TD has been right about this sort of thing, I really think there is a VERY good possibility that this, or something close to it, is what’s really happening here.

So yeah. I think I’ll shut up, now. The short of it is, I think they’ll continue the story line after S11, just in different story vehicles. I think Beth will still return and be a big part of the story moving forward. And I think S11 (and the series) will end with a lot of unresolved story lines that will move to other parts of the franchise. Therefore, aside from being sad to say goodbye to the flagship series in principle, this really doesn’t worry me all that much.

At the very least, we know we’ll be getting more Daryl after the series officially ends. Which is a good thing.

Thoughts?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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flightfoot · 5 years ago

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Alya (and Nino)

Note: I’m specifically talking about the Alya and Nino from @angelofthequeers excellent fic “Hold Me By Both Hands” There be spoilers!

AO3

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Alya gets a prominent storyline of her own in Hold Me By Both Hands, with Nino serving as her Deuteragonist.

At first Alya mostly has a supporting role, not too different from canon. Even from the first chapter though, things start diverging quite a bit, including with Alya, with Marinette going into a lot more detail with why Lila’s assertions should be taken with a grain of salt, pointing out that Ladybug saving Lila doesn’t really make Lila that impressive or interview-worthy. Ladybug’s saved a LOT of Paris. Along with pointing out that even if her claims of being Ladybug’s best friend WERE true, it’d be highly irresponsible for her to be bragging about it, and dangerous to broadcast her association with Ladybug in case Hawkmoth went after her or the people around her for leverage. That’s enough to prompt Alya to do a rethink about Lila’s other claims and take them with a grain of salt, along with taking down the interview in case it attracted the wrong kind of attention.

But the part I really loved about the sequence was this bit:

“Ladybug’s saved half of Paris,” Marinette points out. “Lila’s not the only person she’s saved.” She hasn’t even saved Lila before. “If anyone was going to be her best friend, I’d think it’d be someone like you, right? You’re the one she gave that interview to. She wouldn’t even think of agreeing to that interview when I asked until I mentioned that you’d be the one interviewing her. She’s only saved Lila once, but she’s talked to you loads of times.”

“Oh – well, I mean, you’ve got a point there.” Alya practically swells before Marinette’s eyes. (Chapter 1)

Marinette’s pulling at the threads, unraveling Lila’s lies, but… she’s not doing it by tearing down Alya for believing her. She’s boosting her up instead by just stating the truth. And that subtle reminder that Marinette got Alya that first interview, while also saying that she agreed to it because it was with ALYA… it’s just so good! Marinette cares about Alya a lot, and wants her to know how much she appreciates and respects her, even if when it comes to Ladybug, she has to do it in a roundabout way.

It’s not too big a deal when Alya (and also Nino, who heard part of it) begin to doubt Lila, she’s ultimately just a girl who brags and makes up stories at this point. A little disappointing that some of the things she’d say she might be able to set up obviously aren’t feasible, but nothing especially worldshaking.

No, Alya only really shows dislike for Lila once she starts harming her friends – at first when she just pretends that SHE was the main organizer behind the protest to get Adrien back in school instead of Marinette, and later on with how Lila keeps touching Adrien. She still keeps her confrontations civil and to-the-point though.

“Lila, why did you try and take credit for Marinette’s idea?” Alya says. “Why’d you tell Adrien that you were the brains behind everything, but you let Marinette take charge?” (Chapter 4)

She points it out and asks, but allows for explanation, since it looks bad, but Lila still giving her a chance to defend herself and explain. This sort of questioning should serve her well as a reporter, holding people to account, but allowing them room to give context to their actions.

Alya and Nino also join in on poking holes in Lila’s lies like Marinette was back in Heroes Day, to about the same level of effect.

There’s a lot of nice just… friendship fluff with Alya and Marinette hanging out together having fun, with the occasional hiccup like during Chloe’s party, but nothing that a good conversation can’t help with. Neither of them want to harm the other, and as long as they’re willing to sit down and talk things out, with neither of them meaning any harm, but occasionally just getting the wrong idea or not realizing a problem, it’s nothing they can’t handle.

Just… all the little sequences of Alya and Marinette hanging out, just having a normal friendship – not one completely devoid of any semblance of conflict or disagreement, but one where they can work those things out because they’re willing to do so, and normally just enjoying each other’s company – it really makes them feel alive and REAL.

The casual establishment of their friendship and of Alya’s character makes the kickstarting of her own subplot all the more satisfying, since the reader has good reason to be invested in Alya, even beyond already being invested in her via canon.

Ladybug and Chat Noir start thinking about recruiting help, Ladybug putting forward Alya’s name, naturally.

“Well…” Ladybug chews her lip. “Alya’s the Ladyblogger, right? She’s already familiar with our job. And she loves us, so I know she’d never betray us. Also…maybe she’ll have a new appreciation for our secret identities if she’s got one of her own?”

“Makes sense,” Chat Noir says. “But why the Fox? Alya’s a pretty forceful person…from what I’ve seen.”

“Trixx is a crafty kwami,” Ladybug says. “I think he would be a good influence on Alya and help balance out that forcefulness. And the Fox corresponds to wood, right? That push to grow and hang back to get the facts first could be just what Alya needs, especially after why she was akumatised into Lady Wifi.” (Chapter 19)

She’s got multiple reasons, both positive and negative, but all pushing towards making Alya the fox. On the positive side, she KNOWS how loyal Alya is to them, that she wouldn’t turn against them, that they can rely on her. But also acknowledging some of her flaws and recognizing how giving her Trixx, making her a superhero, can help her grow, rather than simply taking those as marks against her. The need for subtlety and to hang back combining with Alya’s more naturally forceful, action-oriented nature… the balance helps reinforce the themes of the show, and of the fic in particular taking pains to make the different relationships between characters (Ladybug and Chat Noir especially) more balanced overall.

Alya’s drive, her impulsivity, is only a bad thing if left untampered – going too far the other direction can be just as bad. So Ladybug recognizing that and specifically choosing the fox for her, helping her restructure her mindset a bit, to foster the need to take the time to gather information and analyze the situation before acting? I just really love her looking at Alya and thinking about what kind of support and scenarios would be most useful in fostering her development. It really shows why Ladybug’s a good leader here – not just because of her ability to make up plans on the fly, but for how she’s supporting her teammates.

Ladybug still gives Alya a bit of a test, with telling her she needs to give it back at the end, but she’s not singling Alya out for this – she and Chat do it for most people they end up giving Miraculous too, when practical. It’s a reasonable precaution, even though they DO trust the people they’re giving them too generally.

The banter, the playfulness when they give Alya her Miraculous, just… just getting to have fun with the three of them interacting, Alya getting to have a good time in her own right… it’s sadly rare to see that, to see her own emotions, feelings, and story get a prominent role. It’s great showing her being support for Marinette, but it’s also great to see her friends helping and supporting her as well.

Seriously, Alya’s living her best life getting to be a superhero and banter with Ladybug and Chat Noir (I really love the banter), and seeing her just getting to be happy and excited and just generally being portrayed in a positive light and having a good time, it’s a really big relief and break from the negativity I often see towards Alya in fanfics.

Ladybug’s evaluations of Alya are really great, positive but showing where there’s room for improvement, and actively trying to help her on that path, being constructive rather than tearing her down.

“Besides, imagine the chaos of having unlimited illusions everywhere without a timer once you’re more experienced,” Ladybug says. “You wouldn’t know what’s real or what’s not. The Fox is suited to hanging back and annoying the enemy, remember?”

“Hanging back? That doesn’t sound like me at all,” Rena Rouge says.

“Which is why we picked you for the Fox,” Ladybug says. “It’s not always about what power you’re best suited to, but what that power can teach you. I get the feeling that you’ll benefit from learning how to be a true Fox, especially since you wanna be a professional journalist someday. Hang back, gather information, confuse your opponent, then get out of there. Even if you prefer to be in the thick of things, it’s all about learning how to use your wits under stress. He did say that aggressive foxes were a thing, didn’t he?” (Chapter 19)

Ladybug’s up front about her reasons for making Alya the Fox in particular, when at first glance it doesn’t seem like it’d suit her – something which Alya also realizes. Ladybug’s really intent on bringing out her teammates true potential and helping them shine, both as a superhero AND as a civilian here, with giving Alya experience honing skills she’ll need as a reporter, but that she hasn’t exercised much so far.

Something else I really love about this whole chapter? The first illusion Alya makes.

Right, right. I think I’ve got it.” Rena Rouge’s brow furrows, then she unslings her flute and raises it to her lips to play a short tune. “Mirage!” She flings the orange orb at the end of her flute and when it hits the ground in front of her, a small group of people appear in a flash of orange light.

Wait. Why is Chat Noir looking at himself? Well, not technically himself, but his civilian self. Adrien. And Marinette, and Nino, and a few other people who he assumes are Rena Rouge’s parents and sisters. Except that they’re slightly fuzzy around the edges and very obviously not real.

“Guess what, guys!” Rena Rouge crows. “I’m a superhero! I’m Rena Rouge! Me, Alya!”

“Oh my gosh, really?” Illusion Marinette bounces on the spot. “That’s so, so cool, Alya!”

“We all know how much you love superheroes, especially Ladybug!” illusion Adrien says.

“I’m so proud of you, babe!” illusion Nino says.

“Our daughter, a hero!” illusion Mrs Césaire says, and illusion Mr Césaire beams and hugs her.

“Super Alya! Super Alya!” the illusion twins chant.

“Not bad, sis,” illusion big sister says. Rena Rouge’s necklace beeps and loses a tail segment, so she sighs and reaches out to touch illusion Nino, and the group of people disappear in another flash of light and the faint sound of flute music. (Chapter 19)

She gets to do what she’s forbidden to do in reality, to tell the people she cares most about that she’s a superhero, to see them be proud and happy for her, to experience it.

And she’s NOT portrayed as selfish for wanting this. It’s recognized as being natural, and being something to commiserate with her over since she can’t have this in reality (well, as far as she knows anyway, considering that half the people she wants to show end up being Miraculous Wielders). Her emotions are recognized and validated.

“Rena?” Ladybug says softly when Rena Rouge says nothing for a few moments. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Rena Rouge turns to face them, and Chat Noir’s stomach lurches at the sight of her glossy eyes. “I just…had to tell them somehow. At least I’ll have that memory with me.”

“You know we’d love nothing more than for you to be able to tell your friends and family, right?” Ladybug says. “But all it would take is one brainwashing or mind-reading akuma…”

“Not even Ladybug and I know who each other are,” Chat Noir says. He slips an arm around Rena Rouge, and she smiles and leans into his embrace. “Considering how many hits I take for her, that’s probably a good thing.”

“You’re gonna give me a heart attack one of these days,” Ladybug mutters as she joins the embrace, sandwiching Rena Rouge between herself and Chat Noir. They stand there in silence, squished together, ignoring Rena Rouge’s Miraculous when it beeps again.

“You know,” Rena Rouge eventually says. “I never would’ve put this on the Ladyblog, even without you guys asking me. I don’t care about the world knowing who I am. I just want my close friends and my family to be proud of me…”

Alya considers Adrien to be one of her close friends? Chat Noir can’t help but squeeze Rena Rouge tighter after that, not that she’ll know why.

“I think they already know just how miraculous you are, even without superpowers,” Ladybug says. (Chapter 19)

They reinforce why this can’t happen, but gently, while giving her support all the while – physically with the hugs as well as verbally by telling her the people she cares about already know how great she is, even without her now being Rena Rouge. She doesn’t have to deal with any of this on her own. Her friends are there to support her.

She gets to hang out with them some more later too, just getting to talk and banter and laugh. It’s somewhat fillerish – it doesn’t move the plot forward much, and doesn’t really tell stuff about Alya that the audience doesn’t already know, but – it’s important in its own right. Seeing her talk about her freebie list, joke about adopting Chat, and talking about stuff that’d happened recently, it all helps develop her and make her feel like a part of this world, and not one that just exists when the plot requires it, promotes her as a person with her own thoughts and feelings and… and presence beyond being a satellite character around Marinette.

Alya’s first major conflict of her own comes with Mr Alternative News blogger, Lars Vos, who is just a PRICK. Seriously, dude jacked her footage and then whined when she told him off for it. He’s akumatized into Faux News, who can make whatever he says a reality.

I really liked how the design for him purposely mirrored a fox, drawing parallels between him and Alya visually, as well as just continuing with the fox = illusions/lies/just generally making it look like something’s real that isn’t.

He goes after Alya’s work in particular, makes it personal, using his newfound powers to steal all the work she put into the Ladyblog for his own website and making the Ladyblog into just a random, amateur website with barely anything on it. Not something that would stick after the guy’s deakumatized, but it’s still really hurtful for Alya, even KNOWING that it’ll all be restored.

And Ladybug and Chat Noir RECOGNIZE that, comforting her, giving her emotional support.

“Hey.” Ladybug grabs Rena Rouge by the biceps and squeezes gently. “We’ll take care of it, okay? We’ll defeat Faux News and the Ladyblog will go back to normal.”

“What milady said,” Chat Noir agrees. “Like we’re gonna let some ugly Rena knock-off win. Hawkmoth deserves our Miraculouses if we lose to this guy.”

Rena Rouge snorts and wipes her eyes, even though her mask conceals any traces of tears. “Thanks, guys. I just…god, I can’t stand people who steal others’ work.” (Chapter 29)

Of course, even with that support, she’s only human. It helps, but she’s not really calm enough to fight the akuma with a level head, which gets to be a bit of an issue.

“There’s too many of them!” Ladybug says. “And Rena’s too angry to focus on a proper Mirage!”

“You no-good fake!” Rena Rouge shrieks in the background, inadvertently confirming Ladybug’s assessment. “Stop hiding behind your little fans and face me like a proper fox!”

“Rena, take a chill pill!” Chat Noir calls. Naturally, he’s ignored. “Okay, uh, maybe it wasn’t a good idea to let her take this one?”

“We should’ve made her sit it out,” Ladybug agrees while elbowing a young man in the solar plexus and dropping him like a sack of bricks. “Too personal. I think I’ll have to…Lucky Charm!” A little red and black candle falls into her hands. (Chapter 29)

Her rage is especially a liability with the specific powerset she has, since it really requires her to be calm and able to think critically and concentrate in order to use it effectively. It’s one of the issues with deliberately giving her a Miraculous that requires a mindset that clashes with her personality; it’s useful in honing specific skills she needs to develop, but in a more emotional situation like this one, it’s a liability. Though she’d have been in a bad situation regardless, with the anger making her reckless and potentially easier to trick into making a damaging mistake.

So Chat needs to choose a new ally to help, giving Nino time to shine. He’s been a part of the group before this but didn’t really have his own arc per se, mostly just hanging out and giving Adrien some support when it comes to his crappy father.

Chat looks for something a little different when choosing an ally-Miraculous pair; Ladybug deliberately chose against type when giving Alya the Fox in order to help her shore up her weaknesses, while Chat chooses a Miraculous first, then tries to find someone who matches it well right away, whose strengths match those of the Miraculous. Which probably has to do with it being an emergency; with Alya they had the luxury of being able to train with her first, while in this case, the Miraculous Wielder’s gonna be dumped into battle immediately. There isn’t time for them to learn the ropes.

His choice of wielder is pretty much inevitable. Adrien just doesn’t have a very large social circle.

Nino’s naturally on board with it, even if he’s not chomping at the bit like Alya was. Mostly because hey, he can actually help protect Alya, since she can be pretty reckless sometimes.

I really like the dynamic that builds up between Rena Rouge and Carapace, with both of them being offended at the insinuation that they might be romantically interested in each other and having this sort of rivalry. It adds an interesting twist to their dynamic, especially with how it mirrors the Love Square in a bizarre sort of way.

Anyway, more of that comes in later. Back to Alya.

After defeating Faux News, she KNOWS she messed up and even assumes that Ladybug’s gonna want her Miraculous back.

Because I messed up big-time.” Alya still hasn’t looked up from the ground. “I made everything worse. I let my anger get in the way. And if you can’t trust me to –”

“Stop!” Ladybug holds up a hand, and Alya’s mouth clacks shut. “I’m not taking the Miraculous, Alya.”

“You’re not?” Alya’s head whips up, revealing the newfound shine in her hazel eyes.

“You don’t lose it for making a mistake, little kit,” Trixx says from Alya’s shoulder.

“Trixx is right,” Ladybug says. “Both Chat Noir and I trust you with our lives, and we’ve made plenty of mistakes between us. It’d be hypocritical to take your Miraculous from you. But it can’t happen again.” (Chapter 30)

I really liked this. Because yeah, she messed up and it was dangerous… but it wasn’t the sort of mistake where she should have her Miraculous taken away. It’s something she can learn from and work on, and it’s just… well, it’s just a normal, human mistake. It’s a damaging one that put her in danger, but like Ladybug said, she and Chat have made mistakes too. Sometimes emotions override good judgement.

I also really liked Ladybug’s approach on how to prevent this from reoccurring.

“I should’ve realised that the battle was too personal,” Ladybug says. “This is a battle you should’ve sat out, Alya, and I’m sorry that I didn’t recognise that from the start.”

“Well, it’s not like you could’ve told me,” Alya says. “And wasn’t it safer for me to be Rena, anyway? So he couldn’t find me?”

“Yes, but we shouldn’t have let you get involved,” Ladybug says. “I’ll talk to Chat. We might implement a rule that you’re not allowed to get directly involved if we feel it’s too personal, unless we desperately need your help. One mistake could’ve leaked your secret identity or compromised your ability to be part of the team.” (Chapter 30)

I’ve talked about how I like Ladybug’s approach of trying to bring out the best in her teammates before, to help them grow, and this is an extension of that sort of philosophy I think, this idea of “ok these are the people I’m managing, how can I help them reach their full potential and maneuver them for the best outcome?” It’s not based on rewards and punishments, but on talking things out and just plain treating the other person with respect. Seriously, she’d be a great manager and is a really good team leader.

Ok I’m reading through some of the Rena-Carapace interactions some more and damn they are just really funny. Like, just having them know each other and having the same interactions they do as Alya and Nino is fine, but the little twist in their dynamic with the love-hate relationship and just generally sassing each other as superheroes makes it a lot more intriguing than it would be otherwise and gives an opportunity for a different sort of banter than Rena has with most of the others.

That’s most of the rest of the story, with Alya just hanging out with Marinette and co. and bantering with teammates as Rena Rouge. It’s a nice way to keep her involved and keep things interesting while not focusing in on a subplot with her specifically, since other subplots need room to shine. But it’s still a treat to see her in any scene she’s in.

Oh, though just to finish it off, the Nino-Alya reveal near the end when everyone reveals their secret identities is just pure gold.

In any case, I just really loved the whole arc with Alya, especially how even when she made mistakes she wasn’t yelled at, but instead she and Marinette would talk and work things out, would try for a constructive approach instead of the punitive one I often see in salt. It’s just a real breath of fresh air.

#miraculous ladybug #hold me by both hands #alya cesaire #alya sugar #fanfic analysis #ml analysis

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anistarrose · 5 years ago

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Fear The Reaper A Lot, Actually - Chapter 4

AO3

Chapter Summary: An unlikely friendship springs from a book club, while secrecy becomes more important than ever for Tres Horny Boys. Kravitz receives a summons. Angus does a hit.

Characters: Kravitz, Taako, Barry Bluejeans, Angus McDonald, Magnus Burnsides, Merle Highchurch, Noelle | No-3113, The Raven Queen, The Director | Lucretia, misc. BoB cameos

Relationships: Taakitz, Angus McDonald & Taako, Barry Bluejeans & Kravitz, Kravitz & Angus McDonald

Don't let the Lunar Interlude-esque setting confuse you — this update's a long boi! If you can't already tell how much I love Angus McDonald, then the next few thousand words should make it pretty clear.

***

Some days, Kravitz found paperwork relaxing. Today was not such a day.

The Raven Queen was almost always receptive to his suggestions about how to restructure the forms, and happy to do what she could to minimize the bureaucracy and tedium inherent to almost any other office job. But today, Kravitz’s unbeating heart just wasn’t in his work — just like yesterday, after he’d returned from Wave Echo Cave.

So it was simultaneously a relief and a surprise when a blue glow flashed in his peripheral vision, and he felt the telltale tug of a summons from the Material Plane, specifically…

“The moon?” he muttered out loud. “What is with these people and ridiculous floating secret bases?”

The pull of the summoning spell was designedly weak, and easy for Kravitz to shrug off if needed — but he wasn’t going to pass up an excuse to get out of the office, and try to part ways with Taako on a better note this time. Maybe he could ask around, find out if anyone knew what Lucas and Noelle were up to…

In a cozy bedroom on the moon, a hissing plume of smoke emanated from a sapphire arrowhead, embedded in the soil of a potted plant. As the smoke solidified, Kravitz’s human form took shape, and instinctively scanned his new surroundings for dangers or necromantic abominations.

Two floor-two-ceiling bookshelves were stuffed with novels and encyclopedias, and glow-in-the-dark stars covered the ceiling. The bed was neatly made, but was so small it couldn’t have accommodated anyone larger than a gnome, or a halfling… or a human child.

“Hello again, Mister Grim Reaper,” said Angus. He sat on a tiny wooden chair, pen in hand and notebook open to a fresh page. “I’ve got a number of questions for you.”

Kravitz plucked the arrow from the potted plant, and the electric blue glow of the sapphire faded. “Does Taako know you have this?”

“Nope. But if he did, he’d probably endorse me breaking the spirit of the law, if not the letter — after all, you never said that only Taako could summon you this way.”

Kravitz holds up his hands. “I didn’t mean to sound accusatory. I was just… expecting to meet with Taako today, so this surprised me. But I’d be happy to answer your questions — provided they don’t take more than an hour or so.”

Angus narrowed his eyes. “Will you answer me honestly?”

Seeing no reason to lie to even the most precocious of ten-year-olds, Kravitz declared: “I swear to answer truthfully upon my oath to the Raven Queen.”

“Then tell me — why are you so nice?”

“Pardon?”

Angus glared at him. “You know exactly what I mean — why are you so helpful? You tried to reap my friends’ souls, and told them they that could only save themselves by accomplishing an impossible task! But then, you — you saved them yesterday, and even healed them! What are you playing at?!”

Immensely grateful that he’d set the terms on his own honesty oath, Kravitz told the truth with a few details omitted. “I helped them because they seemed like nicer people than most of the bounties I hunt — and in that strange sort of ‘begrudging respect’ way, I guess I’m growing fond of them.” Taako even moreso than the others.

“If you were really fond of them, you wouldn’t be trying to kill them in the first place,” Angus muttered, lowering his gaze.

“I’m sorry,” Kravitz told him, and that too was the truth. “It’s just what my job demands —”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have gotten into this line of business!” Angus screamed, wiping tears from his eyes. “In two months, I’m gonna lose three of the closest people I have to family, and it’ll all be because I’m just a kid detective who can’t track down a couple of liches — but it’ll also be because of you! I hate you, and I hate everything you stand for!”

Angus’s fist sunk harmlessly into Kravitz’s raven-feather cloak, but he staggered backwards like he’d punched a brick wall, falling to his knees and taking off his glasses to sob — but against his better judgement, Kravitz kneeled down at Angus’s side.

“Don’t count out Taako and the others just yet,” he whispered. “I’ve seen them do miraculous things — escaping from me in the laboratory, for one thing, and banishing Legion, for another. If they can defeat thousands of unruly undead souls in combat like that, then they might just be worthy opponents for even the most crafty and powerful of liches.”

“You’re sure they’ll be okay?” Angus sniffed.

“No,” Kravitz admitted. “I’m not sure. I wish I could be, because I really don’t want to send them to the Astral Plane. But they’ve got help — not just your smarts, but my scythe as well, because I don’t intend to just stand idly by without giving them a fighting chance. I… truthfully, Angus, when I offered them the deal, I wanted to bring an end to the headache they’d given me by any means necessary. But they’ve earned my respect since then, and though the deal can’t be undone, there’s no rule stopping me from aiding them. I don’t want to reap their souls if there’s any way I can avoid it, any excuse or loophole.”

Angus rubbed his nose. “Do you — do you normally like reaping people’s souls?”

Kravitz took a moment to think about his answer. “I was a human like you, once. Alive, and precocious, and always getting in over my head. When I died, and started serving the Raven Queen as a reaper, I felt like I had discovered my life’s purpose, even though it ironically required becoming undead as a prerequisite. My duty is to keep the balance of the universe — to save lives by stopping liches, necromancers, and their foul servants from upsetting that balance — but I remember what it felt like to be mortal, to have mortal loved ones. So… I don’t enjoy watching people grieve, because it feels all too familiar.”

He sat down, and crossed his legs. “I don’t tell a lot of people about this, but in a way, if I’d come to terms with death and grieved more quietly when I was alive… well, let’s just say I probably wouldn’t be a reaper today.”

Angus managed a smile. “You know, you’re nothing like the Grim Reaper in the Caleb Cleveland, Kid Cop books.”

“Oh? I know there are… a variety of misconceptions about me floating around in the world, but I haven’t read that series. Are they detective stories?”

“They’re the world’s greatest detective stories,” Angus declared, “and I own every installment!” For the first time since his ill-fated attempt to punch Kravitz, he stood up, and selected a book from his bookshelf. “This is the first one that you — well, not really you — show up in.”

Kravitz took a look at the cover illustration, which featured a child in a deerstalker hat standing back to back with a deathly pale man, dressed in tattered gray robes and wielding an iron scythe. The title read Caleb Cleveland and the Mask of Death.

“Not much of a resemblance, is there?” Kravitz mused. “I guess can’t fault them for the iron scythe, because that’s what everyone seems to expect, but iron and celestial magic don’t always get along — better than iron and fae magic for sure, but still not especially well.”

“His personality isn’t a whole lot like yours either, sir,” Angus sheepishly admitted. “This is the start of the five-book Grim Reaper arc, which starts off with the reaper helping Caleb solve murder mysteries until Caleb’s previously-struggling private detective agency — which he started after his schism with the corrupt police establishment in the last book — is renowned throughout the country. But then Caleb realizes that the reaper is just trying to bring about an era of prosperity and increased population density, so that he can kill the maximum number of people possible while poisoning the water supply! And of course Caleb disavows his partnership with Death, but the reaper spends the next four installments of the arc committing more murders as revenge — which initially felt like a little bit of a motivation downgrade, if I’m being honest, but it also led to some great continuity between books as well as some really well-written horror that unsettles without pulling on cheap shock value! So they turned out to be some of my favorite books in the series, and… I’m sorry if I judged you a little hastily because of them. You’re a whole lot nicer than the Grim Reaper I expected.”

“You don’t have to apologize. You’re hardly the first person to misjudge me for my line of work, and I don’t expect you to be the last.” Kravitz flipped through the book, which was full of underlined words and fan theories neatly written in the margins. “Actually, do you mind if I borrow this? I’ve always loved mystery novels.”

“You really want to read it?” Angus’s eyes lit up. “Uh, well, I should probably start by giving you the first book in the series, otherwise a lot of callbacks to previous adventures won’t make sense. But I guess I did kind of just spoil the whole plot of Books 21 through —”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kravitz assured him with a smile. “And I think I will take Book 1 to start out, please.”

“Alrighty, then!” Angus selected a well-worn book from his shelf and handed it to Kravitz. “Could you, um… let me know what you think of it when you finish reading?”

“I absolutely can. Oh, and Angus?”

“Yes?”

“You sound like a marvelous detective. If anyone can crack the case of these liches, I believe it’ll be you — but don’t beat yourself up if you can’t, alright? That’s a lot of pressure to put on someone, and you’re a growing kid — you need your rest.”

Angus nodded. “I’ll try to remember that, sir.”

***

Angus gave directions to the three Reclaimers’ shared dorm, but didn’t specify which individual room was Taako’s, so on a hunch, Kravitz knocked on the door of the room that smelled the most like baked goods. Sure enough, he heard Taako shout “It’s unlocked!” over the banging of bowls and cookie sheets.

“You need to look after your arrows better,” Kravitz warned him as he entered. “If someone with more malicious intentions than Angus were to steal one, then they could easily lure me into a trap.”

Taako blinked. “Whoa, what happened to your accent? I thought you were a stranger and almost chucked a bowl of gingersnap dough at your head!”

Kravitz narrowed his eyes. “Did you really? You look like you’ve got a pretty firm grip on it, there.”

“No, you called my bluff. I’m too good of a chef to just go chucking perfectly good food whenever someone spooks me — the point is, what is up with your voice, my dude?”

“It’s, um… a work accent,” Kravitz explained. “My normal voice isn’t that intimidating. As you can tell, heh.”

“Still wouldn’t want you to slice me up with a scythe, though. You gotta give yourself more credit.” Taako rolled a small handful of gingersnap dough into a ball, dusting it with sugar and placing it in the corner of a fresh cookie sheet. “And to answer your complaint earlier, Angus wasn’t as slick as he thought he was when he swiped that arrow, but I let him get away with it ‘cause I knew neither of you two dorks would try to fight each other or anything like that.”

“He actually did want to fight me for a minute or two,” Kravitz replied, “but we worked it out and now we’re apparently… book club buddies? I’m not sure, I’m no good with kids — or maybe I’m better with kids than I’m consciously aware of?”

Taako snorted. “I didn’t endear myself to little Ango at first either, but now I guess I’m his hero, and his teacher, and maybe even his emotionally adopted uncle or something? There’s just something magical about that kid.”

“Absolutely, but… he seemed stressed.” Kravitz sighed, and Taako’s expression softened. “I suppose this is partly my fault, but there’s an awful lot of pressure on him.”

“Yeah, he — he doesn’t find it so funny when me an’ the boys joke about death, I’ve been noticing. I’ll make sure he takes some time off the case to relax — you think that would help him?”

“I think that would be a good place to start.” Kravitz nodded, glancing over the sheets of oatmeal cookies cooling on the adjacent counter. “You look like you’ve been keeping busy yourself.”

“Yeah, the Director was so thrilled with my Candlenights macarons that she requested a couple batches of oatmeal-white chocolate and some gingersnaps. Guess she read my cookbook or something — ‘cause my whole cookie portfolio is choice, don’t get me wrong, but those are a couple of my top-tier baked goods after the macarons.”

“They smell heavenly — and I should know, working in the Astral Plane! Do you mind if I try one?”

“Wait!” Taako pushed Kravitz’s hand away from the tray. “I didn’t check them for — hang on, you’re already dead, right? You know what, go for it. Sorry about that.” Under his breath, he added: “It’ll be fine. Perfectly fine.”

Confused and a little concerned, but too polite to decline Taako’s offer, Kravitz took a bite of an oatmeal cookie. It was still slightly warm, and the white chocolate melted in his mouth, but he couldn’t imagine it being any less of a delight after having cooled, either.

“So, how many of these does your boss actually want,” asked Kravitz, “and how many can I take back home? They’re just as good as they smell!”

“Course they are,” Taako snickered. “Gimme a few minutes here, and I’ll make you a little gift baggie.”

“Speaking of gifts, that reminds me —” From an inside pocket of his cloak, Kravitz procured four new summoning arrows. “I spoke with the Raven Queen, and was able to arrange an exception to that… company policy, the one about summoning me for business only.”

Taako didn’t look away from his cookie sheet, but his ears immediately perked up.

“You can use them outside of emergency situations — within reason, of course,” Kravitz continued. “I don’t want to manifest in the middle of, I don’t know, a heated debate about moon bylaws, or whatever it is that you people vote on up here.”

“Actually, it turns out moon society is kinda authoritarian.” Taako finished filling the first sheet with gingersnap dough, and began work on a second. “But be honest — how much of this was actually premediated on your part, and how much is just a spur of the moment decision now that you know I’ll give you free baked goods?”

“It was premediated, but make no mistake, the baked goods are a bonus,” Kravitz chuckled. He neglected to mention that there had been no company policy in the first place, nor had there been a conversation with the Raven Queen. Part of him just wanted to give Taako his Stone of Farspeech number like he had with Angus, and bid farewell to the archaic summoning rituals altogether, but it would still be handing over personal information to an active bounty, and there were some lines even Kravitz didn’t dare cross — at least, not yet. “But as good as it is to be able to keep in touch with you, there’s something I should probably warn you about sooner rather than later.”

“Fire away.”

“I assume you were looking for Lup in Wave Echo Cave the other day. But that didn’t unveil many clues to you, did it?”

“Unveil? No matter you and Angus are starting a book club, you speak in the same detective mambo-jumbo. But you’re right, we found zilch.”

“Are you going to start looking for Barry Bluejeans next, by any chance?”

Taako made a funny expression. “Yeah, I guess that’s the plan. But, well, we also agreed that the plan should be to stay on the moon to rest and train for a couple days — ‘cause Magnus has been a bad influence, and we all rushed into the cave expedition just a day after we almost died averting the crystal apocalypse. You saw how that worked out for us.”

Kravitz nodded. “Today is the first day I’ve actually seen you without bags under your eyes. It suits you.” The last part slipped out without Kravitz thinking it through, but it prompted a wink from Taako, which Kravitz considered among the better possible outcomes of impromptu flirting.

“But getting back on topic,” he continued, “I wanted to warn you about Barry. I’ve encountered him a number of times, and he’s not exactly a normal lich.”

Taako sat down on a stool and crossed his legs. “Well, you dunno what my reference point is for liches. He could be a totally regular, run-of-the-mill lich by my standards — maybe a little spooky, but nothin’ to write home about, you know?”

“Then you’d be consorting with some pretty strange liches, because Barry is a very confusing one. Most liches are either antisocial or obsessed with grim monologues, but Barry has held a handful of coherent brief conversations with me — all of which started out weirdly normal, until he started rambling nonsense about the planar system with a genuinely unsettling amount of conviction.”

“Oh, those liches,” Taako muttered, nodding along. “Always saying the darndest things.”

“I feel like you’re not taking this as seriously as you could.” Kravitz narrowed his eyes. “To be fair, I’ve never seen Barry hurt innocent mortals, which is another way he differs from essentially all other liches — but that doesn’t mean that he’s not a threat, especially if you’re hunting him down. After all, there’s a reason I’ve spoken to him several times, but never successfully captured him.”

Kravitz thought back to one of his first and most troubling encounters with Barry, about a year after the end of the Relic Wars. They’d crossed paths by accident, in a seaside town recently demolished by a serpent of the Oculus’s creation, and Barry had exploited the shambles of the port to his advantage, hurling fishing nets and tattered sails at Kravitz as he made his escape.

“You can’t run from justice forever, Bluejeans!” Kravitz had shouted, slicing through a weighted net with his scythe. “Your kind all wind up in the Eternal Stockade eventually!”

“I’ve spent decades bracing myself for the end of apparent eternity and the exhaustion of apparent infinity,” Barry had replied matter-of-factly. “If your prison could really stay intact until the end of time, then I’d be happy to hunker down there with everyone I love and wait for this storm to blow over.”

With a flick of a spectral hand, he’d flung a half-dozen crates of rotten fish at Kravitz’s head. “But you don’t see me handing my soul over without a fight, so… I guess that should tell you everything I think about your so-called ‘eternal’ stockade.”

Kravitz had easily dodged the crates, but stepped right into the epicenter of the geyser that erupted from beneath the dock a moment later, launching him into the air. By the time he’d flown back down to sea level, Barry had been long gone.

“You know, if he still seems pretty chill for a lich,” Taako mused, dragging Kravitz back to the present, “and he’s harmless except for when you try to capture him, then… why are you still trying to capture him? Why not just let him do his thing?”

Kravitz sighed. “That’s a good question, and I’m honestly curious… why do you think I haven’t given up on him?”

“Well… ‘cause liches are illegal, right? Is this a trick question?”

“That’s the answer I was expecting, and you’re not wrong — but that’s not the entire story, either,” Kravitz told him. “I also don’t want to leave Barry to ‘do his thing,’ as you put it, because I don’t know what ‘his thing’ entails. I’ve heard him allude to needing something specific out of undeath, but I don’t know what that is — if it’s immortality, or power, or something else altogether. I don’t know if he’s just putting on a harmless facade while he waits for me to let my guard down.”

Taako nodded. “You think he’s planning something.”

“I know he’s planning something. Most liches, they’re unpredictable because the combination of undeath and their hunger for power has eroded their sense of logic and driven them insane. And at first, I thought this was the one thing Barry had in common with them — with his nonsensical grim warnings, and haphazard pattern of popping up in the last places I expect — but over the past decade of hunting him, I’ve gradually realized he isn’t insane at all. He just bases his decisions off of information that no one else in the universe seems to possess, and constructs plans that no one else in the world understands. He’s unpredictable, but not irrational — and coming from a spellcaster as powerful as he is, that honestly terrifies me.”

Taako whistled. “Guess we’ve really got our work cut out for us, then.”

“I’ll leave you with this: please, if you track Barry Bluejeans down but he seems civil, and reasonable, and harmless, you still cannot and should not trust him, no matter what he tells you. With liches, even abnormal ones, you can’t risk anything less than constant vigilance. Take it from someone who learned it the hard way centuries ago, and has been significantly better at his job ever since.”

“Aww, you’re worried about us,” Taako snickered as he placed the gingersnaps in the oven. “But I read you loud and clear — you don’t need to worry about me falling for a lich’s tricks, of course, but I’ll remind the other two goofuses to be careful.”

He frowned, closing the oven door. “Although, now that I think about it… what does Barry even look like as a lich? I don’t actually know what we should be searching for, but I’m assuming it’s not a normal-ass dude in jeans.”

“Oh, you can’t miss him. Most necromancers spring for black or gray robes, but his is bright red.”

Taako’s eyes went wide. “You know those grim warnings you mentioned him giving? Would they happen to be about, uh, the hunger of all living things?”

“You’ve met his lich form, too?” Kravitz slapped his forehead. “Were you also the best man at his wedding? Do you golf with him on Saturdays?”

“Man,” Taako muttered, “I am so glad we decided not to tell the Director about this.”

***

Angus found Noelle in the Bureau’s gym, dumping a cooler of water on her teammates as they finished an intense workout. On the other side of the room, Avi was thoroughly demolishing Brad Bradson at an impromptu game of half-court basketball, and a small but rowdy crowd had gathered to watch.

“Not gonna lie, I’d kill to be a tireless cyborg like you, Noelle,” Carey groaned, overdramatically collapsing into Killian’s arms. “I’m exhausted.”

“I dunno. If training didn’t make my arms ache, then I don’t think it would be half as satisfying,” Killian replied, wiping her brow. “Although some laser eyes to pair with my crossbow might be pretty kickass.”

“I’m enjoying the whole swappable body parts thing more than I thought I would,” Noelle said. “At first I was worried I’d accidentally fry a whole bunch of people with my arm cannon, but it turns out I can just take it off for non-violent occasions!”

“Hey, Angus!” Carey called out, waving to him. “Got any strong opinions about cyborgs and integrating technology into our bodies?”

“Um, I was actually just here to ask Noelle a few questions. Is this not a good time?”

Noelle shrugged. “Well, we just finished training for the day, so I don’t see why not.”

Angus beamed. “Great! But do you mind if we conduct the interview somewhere… a little quieter than this gym?”

Noelle raised an arm, shielding Angus from a stray basketball. “Sounds like a plan.”

Upon arriving in Noelle’s as-of-yet sparsely furnished dorm, Angus sat cross-legged on the floor and opened to a fresh page in his notebook.

“So, Magnus told me that you had a run-in with Barry Bluejeans shortly before his death in Phandalin. I’d never want to force you to think back to traumatic memories, but if there are any details you recall about him off the top of your head, that could be vital to our investigation.”

“I appreciate the concern, but it’ll be alright,” Noelle assured him. “I’ve already been thinkin’ back to that encounter a lot, ever since I learned Barry was a lich — ‘cause he really, really didn’t act like how I was always told liches would behave. See, he… he almost took a blast of fire to the chest while he was shepherding us into that stockroom, and even then, he told us to stay in there while he risked his life trying to lead the dwarf away. He was so brave, and he even got that dwarf out of the bar… but still not far enough away, I guess.”

“Was he using any spells? Magically redirecting fire? Did he try to teleport you to safety?”

“No, no spells that I saw. He threw a chair across the room to distract the dwarf at one point, but that was with his own two arms and I imagine a whole lot of adrenaline, not any sorta spectral mage hands or whatever it is that wizards use.”

“Hmm.” Angus clicked his pen. “I hate to say it, but if he didn’t cast a single spell, then it sounds like he really wasn’t trying that hard to save the town…”

“No, that’s not it. I’m sure of it. He told us not to be afraid, but he was… he was scared. Did a real good job of hiding it, but he was shaking as he closed that door to that stockroom and went back into the bar to face the fire. I sincerely believe he was doin’ everything he could to save us from the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet, and it just… wasn’t enough.”

“I wonder if Lich Barry has — or rather, had a kinder but more incompetent twin brother,” Angus mused, jotting down the thought in his notes. “It would make more sense than — wait. What did you just say about the gauntlet?”

“That Barry tried to save us from it? I guess I didn’t know what it was called back then, not until after I died and I remembered the Relic Wars —”

“Exactly! Noelle, you’re a genius!” Angus sprung to his feet. “We need to go talk to Johann!”

Noelle floated after him as he raced out of the room and towards the nearest elevator. “About what? The Voidfish?”

“Right! Maybe Barry didn’t cast any spells when he was alive because he didn’t remember that he could!”

“So when he died, the memories would’ve all rushed back to him, and he could go back to his lich-y business!” Noelle finished. “But why would the Bureau have erased information about Barry, of all people?”

“I don’t know,” Angus admitted as they stepped into the elevator and it began to descend. “Maybe he used to work with them, and went rogue? I’d ask the Director, but…”

“She’s not in on the lich-hunting secret, right. But you’ll probably have to tell her eventually, won’t you? Y’all can’t keep sneaking out forever.”

“Oh, I know. But the Reclaimers are going to be the ones to break the news to her, not me. They were the ones who lied about it in the first place, after all.” The elevator doors opened, and Angus sprinted out at full speed towards Johann’s office. “Johann, I have a question! Is there a way to check what people the Voidfish has erased?”

Johann gingerly set down his violin, and tapped his head. “You’re looking at it. I’ve been in charge of feeding info to the Voidfish basically since the Bureau got started, and lucky for you, I’ve got a pretty good memory for who and what gets erased from the rest of the world.”

He sighed. “I kinda… I feel like the least I can do is remember them when no one else will, you know? ‘Cause it’s what I hope someone will do for me when I’m gone, and… well, that got real depressing real fast. You probably don’t want to hear that, kid — so just tell me, who do you need to know about?”

“I realize now that I’m forming the question in my head that this might sound like a goof,” Angus admitted, “but have you ever erased information about someone named Barry Bluejeans?”

Johann laughed. “You’re right, that does sound like a goof! I can’t remember hearing about him before, never mind erasing him — and I’d definitely remember a name like that, trust me.”

“Oh.” Angus’s face fell. “I was so sure…”

Noelle drifted over to the Voidfish’s tank, watching the swirling galaxy patterns drift by. “Don’t give up, Angus. You might still be onto something — maybe the info could’ve gotten erased before Johann was in charge here, or maybe before the Bureau even found the Voidfish.”

Johann nodded. “Yeah, maybe. You want me to ask the Director about it?”

“No!” Angus and Noelle shouted in unison.

“Not yet,” Angus added hurriedly. “Maybe eventually. I’ll need to talk to Taako and the others about it first.”

“Okay, whatever,” Johann shrugged. “I don’t really understand what’s going on here, but you do you.”

As Noelle rode the elevator back to the roof with Angus, she asked: “So, what’s our next move?”

“I guess we should go tell the Reclaimers about the break in the case, or lack thereof. And maybe make an argument for coming clean to the Director, while we’re there.”

They made their way back to the Reclaimers’ dorm, but upon opening the door, every one of the room’s occupants jumped out of their seats in shock.

“Oh, it’s just you two,” Taako sighed, lowering his Umbra Staff. “Try and knock next time! I thought you were Lucretia coming to bust our secret meeting!”

The living room looked exactly how Angus would expect the site of an impromptu clandestine gathering to look, with dozens of papers scattered about and a corkboard lying on the coffee table. Red and blue strings connected dozens of thumbtacks, and the center of the board was occupied by a red crayon drawing of a disembodied robe.

Merle chuckled, elbowing Magnus. “You know, if you’d really wanted to keep our meeting secret, then we woulda made sure our ‘security guard’ actually locked the goddamn door —”

“That’s not important right now,” Magnus interrupted, closing the door and motioning for Noelle and Angus to join the circle around the coffee table. “What’s important is that you two haven’t let anything slip to Lucretia since the last time we talked!”

“Um, we haven’t, but…” Angus frowned. “We were actually thinking it might be better to let her in on the secret. I have a lot of questions that only she can help us answer —”

“Then they’ll just have to go unhelped!” Taako declared, magically silencing Angus’s Stone of Farspeech. “If you tell her our lives depend on arresting one of the Red Robes, she’ll go ballistic!”

Angus blinked. “I think I’m missing a lot of context here, sir.”

“I think I’m missing even more,” Noelle added.

Magnus pointed at the drawing of the Red Robe. “See this? This is Barry’s true form, according to Kravitz. And according to Lucretia, the Red Robes are all super duper evil, so she’s not too keen on us talking to them. Or interacting with them any more than we have to, really.”

“Well, what’s supposedly so evil about them?” Noelle asked. “Are they all liches?”

“No! Well, actually, they might be,” Merle admitted. “I dunno the states of all their souls, but we do know they made the Grand Relics!”

“What?” Noelle gasped.

“You know, like the Philosopher’s Stone?” Magnus added. “And the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet?”

“No, I know what the Grand Relics are, but there’s gotta be some mistake,” Noelle replied. “Barry was trying to stop the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet from going off and incinerating the whole town — and even if he was amnesiac when I met him, I just can’t imagine him ever creating something like that. It just doesn’t make sense —”

“Nothing about Barry Bluejeans makes sense,” Angus agreed. “There must be something we’re missing…”

“I’m sure there is, but one way or another, I’m pretty sure Barry did help make the Relics,” Magnus told them. “He’s popped up near almost every one of them, except for the Oculus —”

“Yeah, remember when you sensed a lich in the Cosmoscope, Noelle?” Taako chimed in. “That was Barry. He rooted through Lucas’s trash and said some ominous shit about billions of lives getting devoured. Doesn’t that sound like a guy who could be the evil mastermind behind the Relic Wars?”

“Well, why don’t we just ask him?” Merle spoke up. “I mean, it’s not like we have any trouble finding the guy even when we’re not looking for him, ha! — so next time we run into him, how about I cast Zone of Truth, and ask what he has to do with the Grand Relics?”

“That’s a great idea, sir!” Angus exclaimed, but his face fell after just a moment. “But if Barry usually just shows up around the Relics, and we have no idea where the last three are, then how will we know where to look for him? We don’t have the time to wait for another to surface randomly like the Philosopher’s Stone and Gaia Sash did.”

“Kid’s got a point, Merle,” Taako admitted, rubbing his chin. “But as long as we don’t have any other leads… I can think of at least once place it wouldn’t hurt to check, and maybe even grace with a séance!”

“Phandalin?” Noelle asked, and Taako nodded.

“Exactly! Sure, the last time we revisited an old stomping grounds didn’t go so well, but Phandalin’s just a flat circle where you can see danger coming from any direction. What could go wrong?”

***

End notes:

Some miscellaneous headcanons about the stuff in Angus’s room: Magnus made the bookshelves and chair, Lucretia provided the bed and helped Angus attach the stars to the ceiling, and the books are almost all Angus’s own. It took a while to bring them all up to the moon, but Lucretia was happy to help, and she and Taako both gave Angus a few more novels to add to his collection.

Next chapter has some exciting stuff happening, including an appearance from a certain lich that the boys may or may not be hunting, so stay tuned! I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to hold the every-other-Tuesday update schedule after Chapter 5, because long story short:

I got a part-time job that doesn’t take up that much time, but does occupy the part of the day when I’m usually in the mood to write.

I had mild insomnia for like a solid 4 nights, which I have since recovered from but not before it threw a wrench in my writing process, so that burnt through a “buffer” pre-written chapter or two.

I’m by no means abandoning this fic, but if updates slow down to more of a monthly pace after Chapter 5, this is why! Just wanted to give you all a heads-up.

#taz #taz balance #taakitz #taako taaco #kravitz taz #angus mcdonald #magnus burnsides #merle highchurch #no-3113 #lucretia taz #barry bluejeans #taz balance spoilers #fic: FTRALA #rosalia writes fic

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rosenthrns · 5 years ago

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✦ ▓ AND WHO GOES THERE? oh, it’s just [ OLENNA TYRELL ]. some say [ HER ] resemblance to [ ANGELA BASSETT ] is almost uncanny, but the [ SIXTY-SIX ] year old has been in the capital for [ FORTY YEARS ]. many suspect that they are the notorious [ SENESCHAL ] of the [ TYRELL ] family: perhaps that has made them [ CONNIVING ] && [ UNYIELDING ] of late, when they used to be so [ METHODICAL ] && [ SILVER-TONGUED ]. during the daylight hours, [ OLENNA ] can be found working as a [ FORMER SENATOR ], but when night falls over king’s landing, they are best remembered listening to [ FEELING GOOD BY NINA SIMONE ]. may the gods be with them in these dark streets.

hey now, hey now i’m mac, im 23 and i live in the pst. i didn’t know i needed this rp until i found it, and i honestly was so shocked when i found out i could play the fucking queen of thorns herself olenna tyrell. and whomst better to play a queen than the queen mother angela bassett ? nOBODY !! so feel free to read, and dm me for plotting !!

THE QUEEN OF THORNS.

her father once told her, one hot virginia afternoon as they walked through the winding vineyards of her family home, that power was to be taken, not earned, not given away --- least of all to those that looked like them. he told her a lot of things in passing especially when he grew older, some important, some not, but these words always stuck with olenna. afterall, she had seen him claw his way up from nothing, taking what he could, sacrificing what he could, fighting for what he could. all in the name of creating a legacy for their family.

runceford redwyne was a crafty man in his day, driven by the need to do better by his children, by his wife. they knew they were never supposed to fly above their station, to be left in the dirt like the generations before them even with the false notion of equality in their faces. but runceford was determined to soar, and in the childhood years of olenna’s life, they would climb from their single-room wooden shack to a manor overlooking acres and acres of land.

she could hardly remember it now, but the vineyard used to be as destitute as they were. a piece of land once owned by her father’s employer, tending to the grounds that he would later take when he saw the chance. when the old patriarch of the farm had finally died, the will had evidently left the land, the manor and a large sum of money to olenna’s own father. it was never made clear to her, what her father did, but she could still recall the timid fear in the eyes of the owner’s children as runceford proudly collected his inheritance.

there as no opposition, no utterance of retaliation, just a clear understanding that whatever he did was enough to keep the dogs at bay. it was the first time olenna saw what could be done with enough ambition and enough planning, and it would certainly not be the last. as she grew up, she only saw her father’s vineyard grow until it became the liquor giant it is today, establishing redwyne spirits co., one of the largest distributors to the american south. she watched, from afar, as her father took meetings in the barrel rooms, made deals under the dining room table, collected more than his fair share. olenna watched, then, as runceford took her brother under his wing, teaching him all that olenna wanted to learn.

it was not for a lack of trying either, as olenna would request time and time again to learn the art of the deal, to make her mark on her family’s history. but runceford, with all his love, would rather olenna have some deniability, and instead turned her onto politics. first in city council, then at the state legislature. she was still young but far wise beyond her years. by the time she was in her twenties, she had accomplished a lot for the state of virginia, namely in the agriculture and commerce sectors at the very least to boost policies for her own family gain.

all this work was appreciated, but olenna wanted more, wanted the power her father had tenfold. she knew better than to bite the hand that fed her but she knew she had the ability to soar higher than her father ever dreamed of. she broke off her engagement to daeron targaryen, a man her father had arranged for her with the intent of political power, and moved to king’s landing anyway to find something she can build up herself like her father had before her.

she eventually found luthor tyrell, a man with a business he inherited and a will she could easily bend. there was potential, not a lot of it, but it was enough to help her leverage the acquisition of a dying conglomerate and through dealings of her own, not to mention her connections to high places, created tyrell and associates. she won her husband over to deal with the company, while she made good with her connections to build the citadel underneath it. they worked in tandem to raise their businesses as well as the tyrell family name from nothing, and did together for a number of years until their son, mace, was old enough to walk.

she returned to politics, again working to benefit the industries she had a stake in and later ran for senate once tyrell and associates was stable enough to stand on its own. splitting her time between d.c. and king’s landing only gave her more pull when it came to dealing with the other families competing in king’s landing. her network now not only included those of the eastern seaboard, but across the entire country and even into foreign territories.

by the time her children started having children, olenna’s legacy was already put into place and ticking. she had retired from government but her role in politics still flowed like blood through the lifeline of king’s landing. if you wanted something done, you would go to olenna.

but olenna knew her legacy needed to be sustainable without her. she had been preparing her eldest daughter, mina, since birth to take over, to follow in her mother’s footsteps, to keep the tyrells in power. mina was everything to her, until she was nothing. olenna never knew heartbreak until she held her beloved daughter’s body in her arms, silent and shaking with fury in her eyes.

olenna was now left to restructure the politics of her family, making the difficult decision of announcing her newest heir. it may seem out of bounds, to declare one of the youngest, her margaery, but when has olenna never been anything but methodical. she’ll deal with the family later, but in the meantime, olenna has bigger lions to tame.

WANTED CONNECTIONS.

FLOWER BUDS; are you someone who wants a break from the patriarchal structure of society ? are you someone who wants to be appreciated for your worth, your ability, your achievements ? do you want to overthrow the men in your life for the power you deserve ? then allying with olenna tyrell sounds like the best thing for you ! think about it...olenna...her power...her mind...taking YOU ?? under HER WING ??? think of all she can teach you. of course...she needs to find you useful to her as well.

POLITICAL ALLIES; her power not only stems from being the baddest bitch alive, but it also comes from her ability to schmooze and make deals with people even if she all she wants to do is stab someone in the eye. she’s a lady, she knows how to put on a face for the sake of getting shit done. they don’t have to like each other, they just have to work together. not to mention she still has connections with people in government and the 1%.

POLITICAL ENEMIES; idk why you would try to go against her *cough* tywin *cough* but maybe the tyrells have wronged you in some way that you would try to vilify a sweet old woman who is just trying to live her best life with her grandkids. try to come for her, i guess, but don’t just expect her to sit idly by and let you do it.

A COMMON ENEMY; can you believe olenna trended #LANNISTERISOVERPARTY world wide ?? currently, olenna wants revenge for the death of her daughter and she’s prepared to live for another sixty years to just see the fall of the lannisters. if you have the same goal, slide into olenna’s secretary’s assistant’s dms to submit your plea and ally with her. who knows, you might get to your goal a lot quicker.

GARDEN PARTY; this is purely for spilling the Tea™️ and giving information ( whether intentionally or over several glasses of wine ) to olenna that may be useful to her. you’ll be given a handwritten invitation to her private garden where tea and shade are a plenty. and if she learns something that she can later use against you or an enemy then that’s on you, she caught you slipping.

#vixere:intro #points.#20 /#g*d this got long

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midnightactual · 5 years ago

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Story

“Oh? You want me to play at being Scheherazade?” Yoruichi asked, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “Fine, I’ll tell you a story. How about... How I came to exist.”

“Whatever you might’ve heard about the history of Soul Society is a bunch of propaganda designed to puff it up and make it sound good. Soul Society wasn’t around for a million years, nor did Shinigami exist before it. It all began about 70,000 years ago.”

“Soul Society’s never been interested in archaeology, so these dates are nebulous and’ve been determined through rather arcane means, but bear with me. Some 5 or 6 million years ago, the ancestors of humans split off from the ancestors of chimpanzees, and began their own evolutionary course. As they grew more complex, they began to develop more and more reiryoku. This led to a certain kind of reishi accumulation on Earth. This accelerated dramatically with the emergence of anatomically modern humans 200,000 years ago. It finally crossed a critical threshold when humans became recognizably behaviorally modern, around 80,000 years ago.”

“This concentration of reishi had strange and unusual effects. The reiryoku and reiatsu of the human population soared. For a time, death ceased to meaningfully exist. The bright beacons of human reiatsu also attracted other spiritual entities—now called Yōkai—and many hybrids emerged: Hanyō. For a time there was peace, and no difference between a human and a Plus. It wouldn’t last.”

“Something about this configuration was unstable. Hollows began to appear. With no effective means of stopping them, they began to replicate out of control. What are now called Menos were soon roaming the planet, and it seemed humanity and the Yōkai alike would quickly go extinct, with all souls being absorbed into a single Menos.”

“That’s when what’s now known as the Soul King arrived from... somewhere. It was a thing which might be called divine. I can see your reaction: yes, there are ‘Gods’ out there. Many more than one. No, they aren’t exactly pleasant or necessarily benevolent.”

“Although it destroyed the existing Menos, the remaining humans and Yōkai were terrified by the implications. That was when they discovered the closed cycle of reincarnation, and learned that the Soul King’s powers could obliterate souls.”

“Five individuals chose to act. Each had their own plan. One was afraid the Soul King’s powers would be used against humanity, and that they must take it for themselves. One concerned themselves with Hell, which had already come to exist after a fashion by that time. One wanted to restructure the world to bring permanent balance. One wanted to find a way to purify Hollows and turn them back into souls. And one wanted to expand the cycle of reincarnation to other beings, like Yōkai.”

“The last three were the ancestors of the Kuchiki, the Shiba, and the Shihōin, although they weren’t called that at the time. The third was a Hanyō man—half human, half cat Yōkai—named Yuvan. In the end, the five met and agreed to pursue all five of their ideas. They devised a ritual to bind the Soul King and split existence into realms, thus creating Soul Society, Hueco Mundo, the various pockets of the Dangai, and leaving Earth reishi impoverished.”

“Those five became the progenitors of the Five Great Noble Families, and they and their supporters, such as Hyōsube Ichibē, became the first Shinigami. Their ritual created a great cataclysm and left scarcely more than 1,000 humans alive on the planet. It also dispersed some of the powers of the Soul King and Menos in strange ways, leading to the eventual emergence of the Quincy and Fullbringers.”

“Things would go on rather quietly for almost another 60,000 years. The Five Great Noble Families identified and interbred with powerful humans and Pluses who emerged during this time in order to strengthen their bloodlines. All of them claimed different regions of old world Earth to ‘recruit’ from. The Yuvan—the later Shihōin—were particularly fond of South Asia at this time.”

“Eventually, 10,000 years ago, the Neolithic Revolution on Earth caused human populations to rapidly expand. Soul Society became increasingly organized in response. Around 6,500 years ago, in various river valleys, human civilizations entered the Bronze Age. It was at this time that Soul Society was split into theoretically coequal Eastern and Western Branches.”

“To begin with, the Eastern Branch looked after the civilizations of the Indus and Yellow Rivers, and all surrounding regions. The Western Branch looked after the same around the Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates. There was an effort at this time to associate the Yuvan with the Western Branch on the basis of ‘shared development’. However, perceiving that Ichibē already favored the Eastern Branch, the Yuvan demanded they be associated with it instead. Two of the Five Great Noble Families were initially assigned to the Western Branch, two to the Eastern Branch (the later Kuchiki and Shihōin), and one to go between them (the later Shiba). Minor branches could come and go more freely.”

“As you might expect, the Western Branch began with an aesthetic like that of the Fertile Crescent and Egypt, while the Eastern Branch had one like that of India or China. Over time, these would evolve. The Western Branch’s evolution was rather more pronounced. All this would come to a head around 2,500 years ago, when Ichibē declared he had discerned the ‘true names and natures’ of both branches, and the Five Great Noble Families themselves.”

“For the Eastern Branch, this was when the focus on Japanese aesthetics was established. It was also when the names Kuchiki and Shiba were given out, and the Yuvan became the Shihōin. The name was Ichibē’s way of referring to our profession and penchant for soldiery; although it means ‘Four Maple Court’, his intended allusion was apparently ‘Bloodshed Institution’. During this time, the newly minted Shihōin changed their primary focus to Ryukyu and Kyushu, while the Kuchiki concerned themselves with northern Japan. It was only in this time that intermixing with ‘commoners’ began to be restricted. Shortly thereafter, the Gotei 13 and the Shin'ō Academy were founded.”

“The Western Branch... well, that’s its own story. But by 500 years ago, interaction between the charges of the Eastern and Western Branches was growing more common and intense, and various additional reforms were undertaken. It was in the aftermath of those, on what by the reckoning of the Gregorian calendar would be January 1st, 1591, when I was born.”

Yoruichi gave a little grin. “Of course, that’s only how I got here.”

...

These are just my thoughts and should be taken with a grain of salt. I’m sort of working off what Can’t Fear Your Own World has revealed about the history of Bleach, while also strongly disagreeing with a lot of it and providing my version of it. (This post seems to be largely identical. This one’s accuracy is debated somewhat, but I find a few of its ideas interesting.)

Although I would admit that it certainly seems that Kubo decided to move to pattern the cosmology of Bleach off of Buddhism’s, I would argue two points against assuming that Buddhism is “true” in Bleach and that this structure is immutable and eternal. First, within Bleach’s verse Buddhism would clearly have been derived from this structure, not the other way around. (That is to say, while in real life Bleach is based on Buddhism, in Bleach Buddhism is based on Bleach; presumably as propaganda by Ichibē.) Second, Bleach presented itself as a kind of urban fantasy to begin, and repeatedly invokes scientific concepts, so I feel it’s appropriate to treat it from a realistic perspective rather than a spiritual one. Notably, Buddhism also doesn’t seem to much care about creation mythos.

The existence of Shinigami and Quincy prior to the emergence of humanity is fairly illogical given that humans can become both. This would require the fragments of the Soul King acting like miniature Hōgyoku and synchronizing humanity to function as vessels for these abilities, or something. In addition to being convoluted, I think that removes the human element from both groups, which are otherwise very clearly depicted as human, so I’m going to say that neither existed before humans did. Almost everything in the Bleach universe should, thematically, derive from baseline humans in my opinion.

The exception is my decision to include Yōkai. The idea that Sajin just comes from a line of cursed were-people strikes me as the most boring method of handling his backstory, and this fails to explain things like Hiyosu, or Akon’s horns, or some of the wilder phenotypic aspects of the population (strange hair and eye colors, gigantism, dwarfism, and so on). Introducing a non-human element that has largely been eliminated or suppressed solves all these issues handily. (Soul Society is probably pretty racist against most of their descendants, and they tend to be left to rot in Rukongai or imprisoned in the Maggot’s Nest. My feeling is the Shihōin are sympathetic for obvious reasons, and this is why they associate with the Shiba, who are generally anti-authoritarian.)

The existence of a permanently deathless realm for all eternity doesn’t square too well with things like evolution, so I regard it as being a temporary circumstance brought about by the emergence of humans. Anatomically modern humans have been around for about 200,000 years. That said, there were still some tweaks left to be made. Humans didn’t become “behaviorally modern” until approximately 80,000–40,000 years ago. Likewise, the human population was also severely bottlenecked 70,000 years ago, going perhaps as low as 1,000 individuals. I’ve decided to combine these things together.

The history of Soul Society going back one million years is also nonsensical, as Yoruichi indicates. This would give the Kuchiki an average Clan Head leadership time of 35,714 years (across 28 Heads), and the Shihōin an average Clan Head leadership time of roughly 45,454 years (across 22 Heads, as Yūshirō’s tenure as the 23rd has been so short). Those are averages, meaning you could expect both longer and shorter ones. That’s a problem when, given Yamamoto appears to have aged 20–40 years across the last 2,000 or so years, a Shinigami can be generally inferred to live around 5,000 years, or perhaps 10,000 on the outside. (If longevity is correlated with reiryoku, we might expect Yamamoto to be one of the oldest. The Clans also seem to have existed from the start. The major exception to this would be Ichibē, who is clearly kinda weird anyway.)

Picking 70,000 years gives the Kuchiki an average Clan Head leadership time of exactly 2,500 years, and the Shihōin an average Clan Head leadership time of roughly 3,181 years. That first, very round number, speaks to me given the Kuchiki were the first Clan introduced within the narrative, and fits in very nicely with the above observations. This would also make Yoruichi’s abdication after only about 100 or so years far less scandalous.

The Soul King here (and the other “gods” in Bleach, such as the Quincy’s “God” or Giriko’s “God of Time”) can be thought of as Lovecraftian in nature. To draw a contemporary analogy, if the Soul King is like Jenova in Final Fantasy VII, then Quincy would be like Sephiroth. Another analogy to make might be that of Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters. Over the trilogy it starts, it’s revealed that Godzilla is a sort of natural and universal occurrence. Planets that can support life come into existence, life evolves to a certain level of complexity, and eventually a civilization appears which experiments with powers beyond its control or understanding (e.g., nuclear weapons), which produce something like a Godzilla: an apex lifeform that can reconfigure the entire planet around its existence. A Godzilla, in turn, is like a fruit produced by a plant, and the thing that comes in to eat the fruit is Ghidorah, a transdimensional horror. Here, Hollows are the fruit like Godzilla, and the Soul King is the eater like Ghidorah.

Soul Society having permanently had a Japanese aesthetic from a million years before Japan even existed is also nonsensical, given Japanese culture clearly evolved from domestic iteration upon Chinese and Korean inputs. (It implies there is something “uniquely special” about Japanese culture in a Manifest Destiny way that is more than a little problematic.) Setting the adoption of Japanese mores some 2,000 years ago alleviates this somewhat, but one must still imagine that either Soul Society evolved “along with” Japan, or that Japan’s history “conformed to” Soul Society’s existing image. This is still less bad than “Japanese culture is quasi-divine.”

Ichibē’s selection of Japan and the timing given here could be reckoned to play into the foundational myth of Japan, but I didn’t really want to go too deeply into that.

I kind of ignore the Tsunayashiro in this formulation as, in my opinion, it’s very clear they’re a retcon introduced in Can’t Fear Your Own World, did not actually exist “behind the scenes” in previous material, and were rather narratively inserted to tie events together and provide a new antagonist. They could be fit into this formulation, but I’m not particularly interested in doing so.

Likewise, although the “Western” Soul Society could be tied to what’s shown in Burn The Witch, I don’t find that depiction to be particularly interesting, engaging, or creative. I don’t think it “fits,” as it were. So I’ve made my own, although they could theoretically be united. (I imagine the Western Branch Shinigami would look more like Men In Black or Kingsmen in the present, personally, although some might still have affects like Valkyries or what have you.)

The first Shihōin, Yuvan, being a Hanyō is pure conjecture, but it’d handily explain their yellow eyes, and Yoruichi’s (inherited) ability to become a cat. You can basically think of Yuvan as the cat version of Inuyasha, probably with black hair and dark skin.

Given that the change to Japanese happens later, the name Shihōin (along with the others) is to be taken as an invention. On the one hand, you might think of this as like “the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha” becoming “the House of Windsor.” On the other, you might think of it as like Ichibē renaming shinuchi into bankai (indeed, I’m attributing it to him). Shihōin means “Four Maple Court,” but I think this wasn’t chosen at random. Maples are most known for how they change color in the autumn. Maple leaves have a kind of outward spray shape, and are often red. Falling red, spraying leaves... sort of evokes bloodshed. Their name could be read as evocative of “Bloodshed Institution.” Considering they’re soldiers, this feels very appropriate. It also fits Yoruichi’s poem quite well. (Some additional commentary on that here.)

As to what the older or original name for the Shihōin was, I find the simplest answer to be a patronymic surname based on the name of the first one. Nobody has any idea what human language was like 70,000 years ago, as even the Proto-Indo-European language only dates back to approximately 6,500 years ago. So, I looked at Sanskrit names and picked Yuvan, which can mean (among other things), “young king” or “heir apparent.” I doubt anyone really cares about this.

Shinigami aging is poorly defined, but it seems to proceed at normal rates for at least the first five years before starting to slow down, meaning that one doesn’t spend decades as a baby or toddler. If we take Rukia as an example, it seems to take roughly 150 years to go from an infant to being approximately 16 physically. If we take Byakuya as an example, it seems to take about 50 years to go from being approximately 16 to being in one’s early 20s, and a further 50 years to reach one’s mid-20s. After that, it seems to move at a rate of about 1 year physically per 100 years elapsed. Considering that humans fully (cognitively) mature at around 25, this makes sense. So we can say it probably takes about 250 years for a Shinigami to completely mature (10 times as long in total), and from then on they age at about 1/100 the normal rate.

I’ve always felt Yoruichi is around 27, physically, so this gives her an age of around 400–450. Since Bleach seems to pay at least some token attention to the Chinese zodiac (e.g., Ichigo, being born in 1985, is an Ox, which fits his Full Hollow form in an interesting way), I decided to describe her exact year of birth largely based on that. My answer is January 1, 1591. This makes her a Yang Metal Tiger by birth year. January would make her “inner animal” an Ox. The 1st was a Tuesday, making her “true animal” a Dragon. Given her name I think she would be born between 11 PM and midnight, making her “secret animal” a Rat. I think all of these aspects suit her quite well. She would be 429 years old today as a result.

(As a random piece of errata: Metal is associated with the autumn, old age, and white and silver, while one of the Tiger’s lucky colors is orange; these nicely dovetail with her using the personal pronouns of an old man, and her preference for orange and white.)

This all means that Yoruichi’s ethnicity is essentially Indo-Japanese (over the last several generations anyway) with a dash of Yōkai blood.

The Shiba going back and forth between the Eastern and Western branches is a reference to their odd phenotypic expressions (e.g., Kaien and Kūkaku having green eyes, Karin having gray eyes, Ichigo having orange hair and Yuzu being blonde when Masaki’s lighter hair should’ve been recessive which implies Isshin was carrying a recessive gene, etc.) and their preference for Chinese-style clothing.

The Eastern Branch’s backdrop is not exclusively limited to India and China, or later Japan. (Nor would the Western Branch’s be to its starting locations.) I imagine things like, say, Hachigen’s Balinese demon mask, or Shinji’s Pharaoh mask, could be reflections of this.

There are probably some more things I wanted to say, but forgot, so I might make additional observations on this later.

#In Character #Drabble #Long Post #Headcanons #[ OOC Notes are under the cut ]#[ to explain/substantiate ]#[ I spent a fair amount of time discussing and contemplating this ]#[ so I'm pretty pleased with it ]#[ kudos to ]#mysteriousshopkeeper #[ for listening to me prattle on ]

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solacefruit · 5 years ago

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Hello! This is the person who wrote the one shots on Quotev — the one that anon went through so much trouble to get sent your way. If you’d be willing, I would appreciate genuine critique of my work — I’m genuinely looking for how I might improve my writing, and I haven’t been getting very much feedback. Apologies if you’re too busy or if this bothers you!

Hello there! I’m willing to give you my thoughts on your work, since you’ve asked so politely and gone to such effort, but before I do that, I’d like to preface everything by saying that I’m going to approach this answer more or less the same way I would give feedback to students in a class. I think that’s most helpful. I also hope none of this feedback comes off as harsh or hurtful, because that’s not at all my intention.

You clearly know how to write well: your work is well-edited, with only a few errors here and there (be careful using semicolons, they can be very tricky). It’s clear you know the rules of writing, so I don’t think you’ve got a lot of room for improvement there.

The stories themselves, though, didn’t click for me as a reader. I didn’t get pulled into the world you’ve created and I didn’t connect with your characters. That doesn’t mean that what you’ve done is bad, though! But I am going to suggest some ideas for restructuring your work that might help make your stories more dynamic and effective in capturing and retaining your reader, or showing off your skills and ideas to better effect.

Your first story begins with the description of the character in a lot of depth, but I cannot recommend this as an opening paragraph. If you’re ever writing a manuscript, you need to remember that your first page is your first–and often only–chance to hook your reader and convince them to keep going. (Especially true if you’re sending your work to a publisher!) Because of that, a lot of good stories begin with first page or two that does everything it can to tell you who, what, where, and the tone of the book.

Very few good stories start with the “I have black hair and blue eyes and today I am wearing a big hat” type character description, unless that is actually important–i.e., The Little White Horse begins with Maria detailing to herself what she’s wearing, because she’s vain and it brings her comfort to know she looks beautiful, which matters because… [and then the plot begins]; the first Harry Potter book describes the Dursleys in very Dahl-esque fashion, which matters because… [contrast them to the peculiar happenings of the plot emerging]. What your character does is almost always more interesting than what they look like, so it’s often a sensible idea to prioritise your narration accordingly. Both of the above examples tell you who, the tone of the story, and then what is happening, while filling in other details so you know where and when by the end of the first chapter.

Something else I noticed in your work is that you’re a keen world-builder with a lot of ideas, but I found your stories to be a little overwhelmed by that, rather than enriched by it. This is something I’ve seen a lot in young creative writers, so it’s definitely not you and it’s not actually a fault, exactly–but it can detract from your work and make your work actually less inviting to read, rather than more, and that’s something that’s important for speculative fiction writers to be aware of. I’m currently working on a series of tips and tricks requested by popular demand, so I’ll probably elaborate more on this later, but basically, your world-building should be an iceberg: you know how immense it is, but your reader will only see a small delicious fragment of it.

Oversupplying world-building details often makes works impenetrable or–most commonly–overshadows the characters and plot and sinks interest in the ship story. (For me, the most egregious example that jumps to mind is Foundling by D.M. Cornish but that’s a rant for another day). Your work isn’t too overcrowded, I feel, but for me, I got the sense that you used your stories as vessels for your world-building, instead of using your world-building to decorate and deepen your stories. The reason this causes problems is because people–myself included–are most often motivated to read because they relate, connect to, or are curious about characters, rather than a world. (Worlds are very fun, don’t get me wrong! It’s just that world-building tends to be most fun for the people doing it, not the people reading it).

Finally, something I wanted to bring to your attention is style, and particularly streamlining it and leaning into your own voice. At the moment, your work is a little heavy with what I think of as “fanfiction-itis” for lack of a better concept. It’s basically an overall tendency to 1. be uncertain about what person the story is told in, or jump between views. This can be a choice! But it’s one you should be making consciously. There’s first-, second-, and third-person, but in third-person, there’s also an omniscient narration and limited narration. Each can be used to huge effect–but you need to pick the right one for the story you’re telling and stick to it. 2. over-rely on epithets and character description. Often this is a result of the above when it’s third-person omniscient. As a rule of thumb, you don’t really need to use epithets much at all. “The taller boy,” “the blonde girl,” and so on doesn’t add anything, but it does often distract and make the writing look a bit… juvenile to experienced writers. Unless the description is saying something about the character that’s worth knowing, it’s usually best not to bother with it. “The black-furred warrior walked by” says a lot less than “Blackfur stalked past, scowling.”

3. use unnecessary or tautological dialogue tags. I’ve seen a lot of “said is dead” passed around on this site, and that’s great advice to follow if you want your work to be unenjoyable and annoying to read. Said is the most useful dialogue tag, because it is invisible to us, and many other “common” tags are likewise useful–things like asked, or replied. You only need to use a different and noticeable dialogue tag when it changes the dialogue in a meaningful way. For example: i. “what did you do?” he queried. ii. “what did you do?” he asked. iii. “what did you do? he asked cautiously. iv. “what did you do?” v. “what did you do?” he said, but he was looking away, distracted. The first one’s dialogue tag is useless and clunky: we know he asked a question, there’s a question mark there, but unlike “asked,” queried really stands out and can break the flow of reading. The second one is unobtrusive, but doesn’t tell us anything about the tone of his question: he could be angry, purely curious, scared, who knows! The third one tells us his tone, but be careful not to overuse adverbs–that’s J.K. Rowling’s curse. The fourth tells us that, whatever he’s asking about, he’s worked up about it and it’s probably not great! The fifth is an example of how you can actually turn dialogue tags into full sentences sometimes. By being precise with your dialogue tags, you can make your dialogue really pop, and also not distract your reader.

4. tell, rather than show. We’ve all heard “show, don’t tell” as writing advice, but there are actually a lot of times when “telling” is perfectly fine. However, broadly speaking, characters tend to feel more alive if you make them act out their personalities, rather than recount them to your reader. If someone has a big personality, you don’t need to say it: it’ll become abundantly clear from their actions soon enough!

By being aware of these things and making conscious choices–even if your conscious choices are to keep doing these things!–your strength and skill in storytelling will improve. It looks to me that you’ve gotten to the point where now you have to hone the talent you already have, which means that being precise and self-reflective about your writing style and choices is probably going to be the best course for you to improve going forward.

I hope this is helpful to you! I want to stress that all of this advice is offered in a “take what is useful to you, leave the rest” spirit. For every piece of writing advice, there’s excellent writing that contradicts it, so honestly a lot of good writing is just knowing when to follow advice and when not to, when to follow a rule and when to break it. Good luck with all your future work!

#reply #advice #this is basically the kind of thing that my tips and tricks guides will look like by the way. thank you everyone for the support!#it's very flattering and lovely to see so many people excited to hear me talk. always takes me a little by surprise but in a nice way.#also i hope this is mostly easy to read and coherent. today was not a good health day and i'm on some wild painkillers right now.#oh also fun fact: joke rowling's favourite book growing up was the little white horse. hence why i've linked them here.#it's such a shame that joke rowling is such a terf dingbat because she's regrettably such a helpful teaching touchstone.#the other month i was teaching high schoolers and it's so useful to be like 'okay so in harry potter--' and immediately they Get It.

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bookburnt · 5 years ago

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a primer course on T.MA for my mutuals who followed me from other blogs and would like to know what the fuck i’m talking about! (hi, guys. love you.) GONNA BE SPOILER-HEAVY IN HERE.

First off, big ups to the T.MA wiki, which you can consult on anything here, but this post is intended to serve as a very basic overview of the concepts relevant to this blog without forcing y'all to go into wiki levels of detail. The first part of this post is some general TMA terms and concepts, and the second part is some characters who have been relevant to Gerry's story specifically. If you're here for a better understanding of Gerry’s arc and don't care so much about the worldbuilding, scroll down to where I start talking about “who’s...?” and that should help you out.

what’s a “Leitner?” A Leitner is a book but spooky. They make bad things happen and, optionally, give you weird powers. They're usually tied to one of the fourteen(ish) Entities, which I will get into in a bit. Gerard hates these goddamn books, and has a knack for finding them and destroying them. His mother, Mary Keay, ran an antique bookstore that did serious business in them.

what’s an “avatar?” An avatar is a (former?) human working closely with one of the Entities. Over time, the influence of their Entity changes them, often granting them certain powers in exchange for a psychological and physiological need to serve their Entity.

what are these “Entities?” / what’s this “Hunt?” Put as simply as possible, the Entities are, like... fear elementals. There are roughly 14 different entities, though the boundaries between them aren’t clearly drawn in all circumstances. As follows, a quick overview:

The Eye. Fear of being surveiled. The need to know the answers to questions that may destroy you.�� The Eye is tied to the Magnus Institute. Its avatars can have the ability to magically Know things, understand all languages, and compel others to answer any questions they ask. Gerry was tied to the Eye and had some capacity for Knowing stuff, but wasn’t fully its avatar - or if he was, he refused to feed it, which must have hastened his death.

The Desolation. Fire, but without the warm fuzzy bits. Pure unhinged destruction. Desolation avatars can and will set you on fire with their minds. Gerry’s extensive burn scars are the result of fucking around with a Desolation cultist and finding out. (The cultist also fucked around with Gerry and found out. He’s not around anymore.)

The Hunt. Being tracked by something that won't stop until it kills you. The thrill of the chase. Hunt avatars are capable of killing other avatars, even those who would otherwise be unkillable. The possibility of Gerry being tied to the Hunt is never discussed in canon, but I’ve got my theories. (That last phrase is a link to a post discussing those theories, it just isn't showing up like a link on desktop for some reason.)

The End. Death and dying. Manifestations of the End often involve disruptions of the natural processes of life and death. For instance, the fucked-up necromancy book that Gerry got trapped in after dying was an outcropping of the End.

The Corruption. Bugs, disease, rot, etc. The Corruption's avatars may spread disease wherever they go, or they might just be chock full of worms. Potential of controlling a worm army.

The Flesh. The inherent weirdness of existing in a body. Cannibalism. Flesh avatars may be hulking, twisted parodies of the human form. They might steal your bones, turn you inside out, eat you, or all of the above.

The Distortion. The inherent weirdness of existing in a mind. Doors that shouldn't be there. Getting lost. Being unable to trust your own thoughts. Distortion avatars look, well, distorted when seen in reflections or through glass. Will probably try to get you to go through a door that wasn't there before. You won't like what's on the other side.

The Slaughter. War. Violence. Man's inhumanity to man. The Slaughter often manifests in groups as well as in individuals, so you could get an episode of mass hysteria where an entire small town turns to butchering one another, or you could get an office assistant who just aches to do murder.

The Web. Spiders. Being controlled by external forces. Can operate in extremely subtle ways. Can also just be an unkillable spider who wants you to have a bad time.

The Vast. Really big things. Heights. Your own terrifying insignificance on the cosmic scale.

The Buried. Claustrophobia. Being buried alive.

The Lonely. Being completely alone. Like, completely alone, and never coming back.

The Dark. What it says on the tin.

The Stranger. Something that's not quite right. A joke that you're not in on. Clowns and/or mannequins that might kill you and take your skin.

BONUS: The Extinction. While the other 14 fears have been established for a while (the most recent is the Flesh, which only really came into its own with the advent of mass meat farming), the Extinction is a nascent entity born of anxiety around the idea of the human race destroying itself, and/or being replaced by something else. The boundaries of what constitutes an Extinction manifestation, rather than just a warping of one of the other fears, are unclear.

what’s a “ritual?” Rituals are ways the Entities’ followers and avatars try to influence the world, usually with the end goal of making our world somewhere their Entity can live and feast full-time instead of just sporadically popping in.

what’s the “fearpocalypse?” The only successful ritual to date, as of the end of S4. Possibly the only successful ritual ever, given that it ended the world as we know it and let all 14 fears fully through the gate to fuck everything all the way up. The sky is full of eyeballs now and that's not even the biggest problem. This happened a while after Gerry’s death, but I have a verse where, due to his previous ties to the End and the general befuckening, Gerry is brought back to have a bad time with everyone else.

who’s Mary Keay? Gerard's mother, founder and proprietor of Pinhole Books. Had ambitions of starting a dynasty of supernatural power, starting with her only son Gerard, who ended up having other ideas. Flayed herself in a ritual to make herself “beyond death” via the fucked-up necromancy book mentioned earlier. Gerard was primed to take the fall for her seeming murder, but was let go after the book disappeared from evidence and several key witnesses retracted their testimony. Despite the ritual being incomplete, Mary remained tethered to the world of the living for five years before Gertrude Robinson finally wrapped that up.

who’s Gertrude Robinson? Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, and a stone-cold BAMF with a habit of sacrificing those close to her for (her idea of) the greater good. The late Eric Delano asked her to look after his son Gerry, so naturally she let him live in torment with his abuser’s revenant for five fucking years, then swooped in when he was truly desperate. She got rid of Mary Keay for good, and got Gerard to travel the world with her attempting to prevent various apocalyptic rituals. The two would often pose as mother and son to strangers. Being tied to the Eye, Gertrude seemed to be aware of Gerard’s impending death. After he passed away, she bound him into that fucked-up necromancy book and left him behind. (More on that here.) Gertrude was shot to death about a year later while trying to burn the Magnus Institute down and thereby prevent its head, Elias Bouchard, from doing anything apocalyptic. (Tragically, she did not succeed. SEE: “fearpocalypse.”)

who’s Eric Delano? Gerry’s father. Died too early to ever really get to know Gerry, despite the sacrifices he made to restructure his life for fatherhood. (We don’t need to go into the why of it here, but he did have to gouge his eyes out to try to be a stay-at-home dad. And he did it. We stan.) Unfortunately, he’d fallen in love with Mary Keay, who used him to produce an heir for her planned empire, then murdered him with a pair of garden shears and bound him into that fucked-up necromancy book. She later passed his page off to Gertrude Robinson, who spoke with him. In that conversation, he asked her to look after Gerry and begged her to burn his page, as being bound into the book was a world of suffering.

who’s Jurgen Leitner? A rich, reclusive Norwegian who thought it would be cool and smart to start a library explicitly for corralling forces beyond human comprehension. (He was wrong, and also stupid.) Collected spooky books and put his name in them, giving them their common name. Gerard hates this guy, associating him with the books that dominated his mother’s mind and indirectly ruined his life. He hunted Leitner down and nearly beat him to death for personal reasons. Upon meeting Leitner, he came away with the impression that this was just a scared old man, and couldn’t possibly be actually responsible for Jurgen Leitner’s library. Ultimately, he chose to spare Leitner's life. Unless we're talking about my canon-divergent Hunter!Gerry au, in which case he did not.

Anyways, hope this has been helpful. There's... a lot going on in TMA, but hopefully I've hit the parts that are most relevant to my writing here. If you have any questions about canon, please feel free to ask!

#and return from the ashes you call | RE: MARY ⚿#with all the lies in the books | RE: LEITNER ⚿#I'm writing this letter and wishing you well | RE: GERTRUDE ⚿#⁠he said son when you grow up— | RE: ERIC ⚿

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synthes · 5 years ago

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the calibration of this schematic execution doesn’t relent to the weight of the night. breathing past the material feels more and more odd even when he’s done this kind of plan more than what he can count with both hands. the ccg isn’t exactly being very… inventional with their plans, the ambush almost too expected for his liking that sai believes they did not even try. is that it—are they taking the strix lightly now? which might fork the impressions, whether it is good or bad. the implication is something to digest later as now, he needs to comprehend the circumstances, exiting the somewhat… deliberate traps set in the building. not exactly careless, so he believes they have not totally yielded when it comes to their defense as of yet, but he cannot say if it’s a positive sign. or at least, not now.

the breathing is harsh, but syncopated still. sai does not really entertain any smidgen of trepidation, opting to push everything to the back of his mind. he’s not here to pity himself, trapped in a decrepit establishment for the time being. information retrieval perhaps should not really be the forte he’s aiming to obtain, but at the same time he consciously set up this scheme to ensure that none of the ghouls could follow him. this isn’t another extraction as he’s certain they wouldn’t let their base, in spite of the size, bare like this. and now that he cannot truly escape by himself, he wonders if he will get out of this unscathed… if at all. what’s worse than death would be being held captive by the ccg, which is never in his plot. to be used, experimented on, perhaps—

well, not the right time to prolong such thoughts either. he is to vacate the building as soon as there’s the slightest opening, and so, he eyes the army, knowing they’re closing in as they wait in the alley after some surged into the rundown office to capture him firsthand. they know him as just another ghoul, supposedly, so he wonders if this time they double the amount of forces because they know he’s something else. a flightless, disguised demon, roaming among the ghouls. if they have discovered such knowledge, this might as well be a possible guillotine. but there’s no room for restructuring the mindscape, now, as the blueprints of the building that he’s memorised remind him that this isn’t another high-rise. time is ticking. seconds that flicker as he opens the windows, sliding out of the chamber through the fire exit. gunshots, silenced. eruption of muttered cacophonies as they notice sai’s presence, barrels now aimed his way.

he doesn’t bother with the stairs. there are eighteen… twenty… twenty-three men crammed in the backstreet. right. well, it’s either a feast or a beat tonight, he doesn’t know which yet but he is quick to jump off the rail, the 17th level nothing if not a mere height scare that he will survive. the trip is never a thrill when he has the ccg agents shooting at him, and he does have a bullet grazing his arm, but the cut should heal by the time he’s landing. and he lands well, gravitational impact causing him to roll around to brace his fall while simultaneously unsheathing his sais, launching himself into combat as soon as he’s back on his feet—even prior, stabbing the knee of the nearest man trying to gun him down. sai is never forgiving, but the onslaught of bullets isn’t exactly promising him an easy fight. he’s quick to alternate his sai-wielding with the daggers, tossing some at the directions of the men trying to corner him. at this rate, however, it’s impossible to not be cornered, and he eventually is. it is safer to have a wall on his back as well, anyway.

one hand holding a sai, the other grabs the glock since he’s getting impatient, knowing that the men will keep pouring into the way, plus those out of the building. he shoots one, another. the latter is still alive—the children of the night. so, it’s true that ccg has recruited the supernaturals to join their rank. he’s done for if they start with recruiting demons, although it is a slim idea considering that old higher demons do not meddle it businesses they deem trivial. but alas— and that’s when his train of thoughts is fractured. the kagune swims into his view, recognition dawning on him. he’s quick to seize the momentum, using the element of surprise to his advantage. another bullet to the head. and another, another. before he knows it, thorn has reached him, and the best that he can ask as he slashes another man’s neck with his sai is, “are you alright?” well, her answer isn't the most optimistic, but he’ll take it as a good sign. “ten to go, then i’ll feast.” and he exchanges the emptied gun for a dagger, aiming at the throat again. “nine.”

“if i can still breathe, i’m fine.” — from this, still accepting. ft. @cvvalier: ga duri.

#ans.#thr.#thr: cha sejong.#chr: cha sejong.#cvvalier #tw knife #tw gun #tw violence #tw blood #tw wounds

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barefootdancinghospital · 5 years ago

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“The world might be ending.

* * *

There’s a commonly replicated piece of anarchist folk art that means a lot to me. I don’t know who drew it. It’s a drawing of a tree with a circle-A superimposed. The text of it reads “even if the world was to end tomorrow I would still plant a tree today.”

I grew up into anarchy around this piece of art. It was silkscreened as patches and posters and visible on the backs of hoodies and the walls of collective houses. It was graffitied through stencils and it was photocopied in the back of zines. It’s a paraphrasing of a quote misattributed to Martin Luther (the original protestant Martin Luther, not Martin Luther King, Jr., although plenty of people misattribute the quote to him as well). The original quote is something like “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” The earliest reference to it anyone can seem to find is from the German Confessing Church, a Christian movement within Nazi Germany that sought to challenge Nazi power. The quote was used to inspire hope, to inspire people to action.

That’s something I can get behind.

* * *

There’s this book that means a lot to me, On the Beach, by Nevil Shute. I’ve never read it. I can’t bring myself to. I think about it quite often, regardless.

The novel describes a nuclear war destined to kill all life on earth, and it describes the last days of people living in Australia waiting for the inevitable death of all things. It describes how they live their lives, how they find meaning during the apocalypse. It’s a book about how to live without hope. It’s a book of resignation.

It’s too much for me, I think, at least right now.

* * *

The world might be ending.

A lot of people will argue with me about that. They will correctly point out that for large numbers of people all over the world, especially in the parts of the world long ravaged by Western imperialism, the world has been ending for a long time. They will correctly point out that the world itself isn’t going anywhere, that change is constant, and even if what is left behind by climate catastrophe and war is a scorched desert, it’s probable that life will continue. Human life, non-human animal life, and plant life will all, in some form or another, survive all of this.

People will argue, correctly once more, that most every generation has believed that the world was ending. The machine gun slaughter of World War I, the genocide of World War II, the Doomsday Clock of the Cold War, the AIDS epidemic, those all must have felt like the apocalypse. For entire peoples, they were. Yet here some of us are today, alive.

None of those arguments detract from the fact that it sure feels like the world is ending.

Mountains are blown up for coal to pump poison into the air, pipelines clearcut the last vestiges of the wild to help us pump more poison into the air. Oceans are swallowing islands, hundred-year storms happen every year, and it feels like every day we break new climate records. A sense of urgency about coming disaster is fueling a rise of “I got mine, fuck you” nationalism, and climate scientists are being ignored to an unconscionable degree.

The world is ending.

It’s always ending, but it’s ending a lot right now. For me and the people I’m close to, it’s ending more dramatically than it was when I was born thirty-seven years ago.

That’s fucking paralyzing.

The news is full of extinction and fascism and death and death and death.

And we’re expected to get up in the morning and go to work.

* * *

For awhile, I coped by means of a cycle of denial and panic. The potential apocalypse was, basically, too-much-problem. I couldn’t wrap my head around it or its ramifications, so I acted like it wasn’t happening. Until, of course, some horrible event or reminder of the apocalypse broke over a certain threshold and sent me spiraling into despair. Then numbness took over once more and the cycle began again.

That didn’t do me much good.

About a year ago, I decided to embrace four different, often contradictory, priorities for my life. I run my decisions past all of them and try to keep them in balance.

Act like we’re about to die. Act like we might not die right away. Act like we might have a chance to stop this. Act like everything will be okay.

Act like we’re about to die

Every breath we take is the last breath we take. You Only Live Once. Smoke em if you got em. Do As Thou Wilt. Memento Mori. Our culture is full of euphemisms and clever sayings that focus around one simple idea: we’re mortal, so we might as well try to make the most of the time we have.

Embracing hedonism has a lot to recommend it these days. It’s completely possible that the majority of us won’t be alive ten or twenty years from now. It’s completely possible, although a lot less likely, that a lot of us won’t be alive in a year.

I used to think, when I was younger, that I was a terrible hedonist. As a survivor of sexual and psychological assault and abuse, I’ve never had much luck with drug use or casual sex. But fucking and getting wasted, while perfectly worthwhile pastimes, aren’t the only ways to live in the moment. Hedonism is about the pursuit of pleasure and joy. The trick is to find out what gives you pleasure and joy.

For myself, this has meant giving myself permission to pursue music, to sing even though I’m not trained, to play piano and harp. To travel, to wander. To seek beautiful moments and accept that they might be fleeting. I’ll rudely paraphrase the host of the rather wholesome podcast Ologies, Alie Ward, and say “we might die so cut your bangs and tell your crush you like them.”

My hedonism is a cautious one. I’m not looking to take up smoking or other addictions. I’m not trying to live like there’s a guarantee of no tomorrow, just a solid chance of no tomorrow. Frankly, this would be true regardless of the current crisis, but it feels especially important to me just now.

Act like we might not die right away

Preppers have a bad reputation for a good reason. The people stockpiling ammunition and food in doomsday bunkers by-and-large don’t have anyone else’s best interests at heart. Still, being prepared for a slow apocalypse, or dramatic interruptions in the status quo, makes more and more sense to more and more of us.

Preparing for the apocalypse is going to look different to every person and every community. For some people it will mean stockpiling necessities. For other people, securing the means to grow food.

One thing I’ve learned from my friends who study community resilience and disaster relief, however, is that the most important resource to shore up on isn’t a tangible one. It’s not bullets, it’s not rice, it’s not even land or water. It’s connections with other people. The most effective means of survival in crisis is to create community disaster plans. To practice mutual aid. To build networks of resilience.

Every apocalypse movie has it all backwards when the plucky gang of survivors holes up in a cabin and fends off the ravaging chaotic hordes. The movies have it backwards because the ravaging hordes are, in the roughest possible sense, the ones doing survival right. They’re doing it collectively. Obviously, I’m not advocating we wear the skulls of our enemies and cower at the feet of warlords (though wearing the skulls of would-be warlords has its appeal). I’m advocating staying open to opportunity and building collective power.

There are infinite reasons not to count on holing up in a cabin with your six friends as an apocalypse plan, but I’ll give you two of them. First, because living a worthwhile and long life as a human animal requires connections with a diverse collection of people with diverse collections of skills, ideas, and backgrounds. It’s all fun and games in your cabin until your appendix bursts and none of you are surgeons—or you’re the only surgeon. Likewise, small groups of people who tend to agree with one another are subject to the dangers of groupthink and the echo chamber effect, which will limit your ability to intelligently meet challenges that face you.

Second, because by removing yourself from society, you’re removing your ability to shape the changes that society will go through during crisis. If you go hide in the woods with your stockpile and your buddies, and fascists take over, guess what? It’s kind of your fucking fault. Because you weren’t at the meeting when everyone decided whether to be egalitarians or fascists. And guess what? Now that rampaging horde is at your doorstep, and they want your ammo and your antibiotics, and they’re going to get it one way or the other. Fascism is always best stamped out when it starts. It’s never safe to ignore it. Not now, not during any Mad Max future.

Tangible resources do matter, of course. Any likely scenario that prepping is good for won’t be so dramatic as an utter restructuring or collapse of society. It might mean food shortages, power outages, water contamination. It never hurts to keep nonperishable food, backup sources of power, and water filtration systems around for yourself and your neighbors.

Still, this is a terrible basket to put all your eggs into. You probably shouldn’t live out your days, whether they’re your last ones or not, over-preparing for something that may or may not come to pass.

Act like we might have a chance to stop this

We can and we should stop the worst excesses of climate catastrophe. We can and should stop fascism by whatever means necessary. Throwing up our hands and walking away from the problem is no solution.

It’s hard to remember that we have agency. Unless we were raised ultra-rich, we’ve had the concept of political and economic agency stripped from us at every turn. We’ve been told there are two ways to effect change: vote for politicians or vote with our dollars. Politicians in western democracies are likely incapable of changing things as dramatically as they need to be changed, and they certainly won’t bother trying unless we motivate them to do so in fairly dramatic ways. As for economic agency, there is a small handful of men with more wealth—and therefore power—than the rest of us combined.

We’ve been told we cannot take matters into our own hands, politically or economically. We’re not allowed to have a revolution. We’re not allowed to redistribute the wealth of the elite.

You’ll be shocked to know that I don’t put a lot of stock in what we are and aren’t allowed to do.

Still, even if we give ourselves permission to undertake it, revolution feels like an insurmountable challenge. We’ve got, optimistically, ten years to completely overhaul the economic system of the planet. It can be done. It has to be done. Yet it feels like it won’t be done.

We’re all running the cost/benefit analysis of acting directly. We all have different “fuck it” points—the point beyond which we can no longer prioritize our immediate wellbeing but instead must act regardless of the outcome. In the meantime, we’re waiting until it seems like we can act and actually have a chance of winning.

All over the world, even in some Western countries, people are no longer waiting. They’re acting. We need to be helping them, supporting them with words and actions, while we get ready to act here as well.

The revolution needs mediators and facilitators, medics and brawlers. It needs hackers and propagandists and it needs financiers and smugglers and thieves. It needs scouts and coordinators and it needs musicians and it needs people invested in the system to turn traitor. It needs lawyers and scientists and bookkeepers and copyeditors and cooks and it needs almost everyone, almost every skill.

One thing it doesn’t need, though, is managers. The people who claim to know how to run a revolution don’t know how to run a revolution or they would have done it by now. The authoritarian urge, to decide what the revolution should and shouldn’t look like, how people should and shouldn’t express their rage and reclaim their agency, will fail us every time. Authoritarian communism is the death of any revolution. Authoritarian liberalism is the death of any revolution. Even the more dogmatic anarchists will get in the way if given a chance. The revolution cannot be branded. Despite Hollywood representations of rebellions, they don’t work as well under a single banner. They are diverse, or they are not revolutions.

The revolution cannot be controlled by a vanguard of activists; if it is, it will fail. The revolution must be controlled by its participants, because only then will we learn how to claim agency over our own lives and futures.

We have a chance to stop this.

I forget that sometimes, but I shouldn’t.

Still, I can’t count on hope alone, or the days when hope fails me would lay me low.

Act like everything will be okay

All the times the world has come close to ending before, it hasn’t. It’s ended for some people, some cultures. Civilizations have collapsed. Ecosystems have radically shifted. Species have gone extinct—including the species of humans before homo sapiens. Colonization was an apocalypse. Some people survived those apocalypses, but plenty more didn’t.

Still, the world is still here and we’re still here.

Capitalism is a sturdy beast, quite adept at adaptation. Marx was wrong about a lot of things, and one of those things was the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism under the weight of its own contradictions. With or without capitalism, the society we live in might stagger on. We might curb the worst excesses of climate catastrophe through economic change or wild feats of geoengineering.

I won’t bet on it, but I won’t bet entirely against it either.

As much as I need to live like I might die tomorrow, I need to live like I might see a hundred years on this odd green and blue planet. Unless things change, I’m not burning every bridge. I’m trying to maintain a career. If I was certain to die under a fascist regime by 2021, there wouldn’t be much point in writing novels: they take too long to write, publish, and reach their audience. I get some joy from the writing itself, sure, but I get more joy from putting my art in front of people, of letting it influence the cultural landscape. With novel writing in particular, that takes time. That takes there being a future. I want there to be a future. Almost desperately. Not enough to bank on it completely.

I’m keeping some small portion of my time and resources invested in the potential for there to be a future is important for my mental health, because it keeps me invested in maintaining that health.

* * *

The world might end tomorrow, and it might not. If we can help it, at all, we shouldn’t let it end. We still ought to act like it might.

We ought to figure out what trees we would plant either way.

If you appreciate my writing and want to help me do more of it, please consider supporting me via Patreon.

“

#climate change

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raywritesthings · 6 years ago

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What Have They Lost? 1/?

My Writing Fandom: Arrow, The Flash Characters: Barry Allen, Iris West, Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Connor Hawke, Cisco Ramon, Ted Grant Pairings: Barry Allen/Iris West, Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: "I can definitely tell you that there’s a way we’re going to bring [Laurel] back and she’s going to be alive and well. And Flashpoint might have a little bit to do with that." -Wendy Mericle AKA: The AU where that wasn't a blatant lie, and Flashpoint has bigger repercussions for Barry's friends and allies than he first realized. Notes: So, probably not wise to start yet another WIP without finishing the one I have going but...I got really excited about this idea and wanted to see what people thought. If this is continued (which I hope to do so), things may get a little confusing as certain characters will be going by different (more comic book accurate) names, but I'll do my best to make that clear when introducing them. There are characters referenced in this chapter who will have a bigger role going forward, and when that happens I will add their character tags. Similarly, if some characters haven't been mentioned at all yet, that doesn't mean they won't be in the story. Their character tags will be added later, too. Much thanks to @colorofmymindposts for beta-ing this chapter and helping me restructure some things. It's a much better beginning as a result. Title is pulled directly from a line in DC Rebirth by Geoff Johns while song titles and lyrics were pulled from both the Black Canary solo book and Green Arrow Rebirth, and I make no claim of owning any of them. I hope you all enjoy and let me know your initial impressions! *Also can be read on my AO3*

Barry felt that, all things considered, life was treating him fairly well lately.

Of course, he’d had to fix the mistake he’d made going back in time to save his mother, and even now there were consequences from that. The team hadn’t been happy to learn that truth, and he worried his and Cisco’s friendship would never again be quite what it was. There were things that had resulted from his meddling that he would always feel guilt over.

But not this. Not him and Iris. Despite an awkward first attempt at a date and the second getting interrupted as well, they were falling into a better pattern now as a couple.

She found him in his lab one late morning while Julian was out at a crime scene, so they had the space to themselves for a bit. Iris wrapped her arms around his middle from behind and placed her chin on his shoulder, though he doubted it was to see the spectrometer he was working with.

“Any plans for tonight?”

Barry shook his head. “Nothing specific. You know, just,” he waved a hand to indicate general Flash stuff, which Iris understood with no trouble.

“Think you could take a break for one night?”

Barry raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Because I got concert tickets and I want you to go with me.”

A concert? That wasn’t usually his scene. “How’d you get them?”

“Daria in Arts and Entertainment gets sent them sometimes and she can’t make tonight work, so she offered them to me.”

Daria in Arts and Entertainment? That probably meant this was some kind of pop thing, didn’t it? Barry’s face scrunched up.

“I don’t know, Iris…”

“Bear, come on.” She squeezed him tight for a moment before letting go and taking a couple steps back. “It’s Birds of Prey!”

“Am I supposed to know them?”

“They’ve only been my favorite band since college, so I would hope so,” she remarked, and Barry turned around with a frown. He could have sworn Iris always said she liked the pop star Cassidy best. “They do some slow stuff, too. I know how you like your jazz,” Iris added with an indulgent roll of the eyes. “So are you in or out?”

He knew Iris still wanted to do some normal couple stuff as well as more extravagant dates. And if she was happy, Barry was sure he could put up with some music that might not be his taste.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m in. It’ll be fun.”

“Great.” Iris leaned in and pecked him on the lips. “Gotta head back to work, but I will see you later for our date. I’ll text you the details.”

“Okay.” Barry watched her go, his smile falling off his face as she disappeared down the stairs. If this was Iris’ favorite band, he was going to have to do some research.

He went to his computer and searched the name Birds of Prey, only finding articles about a band and their lead singer, a woman only known as Dinah.

“Triumphant return to Central City after particle accelerator accident,” he read aloud to himself from the bit of preview text from one article. What did that mean? And why did the name Dinah sound oddly familiar to him?

A knock on his lab door called his attention, and he was busy the rest of the afternoon with casework, even with Julian’s added assistance. Rather than resume his internet search after his shift ended, Barry decided to pursue a different avenue of inquiry.

Cisco was present when he rushed into STAR Labs. His friend barely looked up from the computer monitor he’d been studying.

“Cisco, hey, what do you know about Birds of Prey?”

That question caught the engineer’s attention. “Uh, you mean one of the greatest musical groups of our time?”

“Yeah. Sure.” How did everybody already know this band besides him?

“They’re stopping here on their comeback tour. I think it’s tonight, isn’t it? I missed the online bid for tickets.”

“Iris got two from her coworker, so we’re going tonight,” Barry revealed.

Cisco groaned. “Lucky. I only saw Dinah live once, back when she was doing open mic nights around colleges, you know?” Cisco’s gaze got a faraway look. “I had a poster of her on my wall all through grad school. I’d give anything for a picture with her.”

“Well, I can’t promise that, but I can try and get you a picture of just her.” Barry checked his phone. “I’ve got to meet Iris at the house.”

“Yeah, have a good night.”

“You, too.” It hadn’t been perfect, but Cisco had at least been willing to open up to him about some topic, even if it was one that made little sense to Barry.

He arrived home and changed quickly into clothes better suited for a concert. Iris already had the keys to the car, so she drove them over rather than him running them. They parked on the street near the venue and joined a fast-growing line to get in.

“So, everybody keeps calling this the comeback tour,” Barry began. “What’re they coming back from?”

“You really didn’t hear?” When he shook his head, Iris continued, “They were performing on stage the night of the particle accelerator explosion.”

“And there was an accident,” he said, repeating what he had read before.

“Yeah, the sound equipment and everything, you know? I mean, the band manager got them all off the stage before anyone got too hurt, but there were all kinds of rumors about Dinah’s voice being damaged or the trauma being too much to let her go back on stage.”

“Wow,” was all Barry could come up with.

“Yeah. But, she got back in the game. This is their last stop on the tour, at least for now. People are wondering if they might go international next.”

They had passed through the doors and now were too busy looking for their seats to talk. They weren’t right in the front row, but Arts and Entertainment writers were clearly given a good spot, probably in hopes the review would be better.

The lights dimmed, and a voice came over the systems. “Central City, here tonight is the band that needs no introduction. This is...Birds of Prey!”

The obligatory fog machine obscured things as the musicians all got into place. He counted two redheads and a woman with hair so dark it almost bordered on black. Nothing about them seemed to stand out in his memory.

But he didn’t need the large screens on either side to tell who the woman was that strode confidently downstage to the mic in the center. Even if it should have been impossible.

“Laurel?”

The crowd was too loud around them, and Iris was busy with cheering and didn’t hear him or see his distress.

How could it be possible? He still remembered standing in front of Laurel’s grave, watching as Oliver tried to hold back the anguish that had been in the wet sheen of his eyes and the deep lines of his face. He didn’t think he could ever forget that look. It hadn’t just been Barry’s team who’d loved her.

And yet she was standing above him on a stage, so alive.

“Hello, Central City! It is good to be back.” Laurel paused to let the cheers subside. “I wanted to make sure we stopped here on tour. Had a bit of a fight for it. You can ask Ted.”

Iris leaned over to tell him, “Ted’s the band manager. He’s practically a father to her.”

“He is?” Who was Ted? Where was Captain Lance?

Iris nodded but gave him a second look. “You okay?”

He felt incredibly faint, actually, but there was no time to explain anything to Iris. There were people all around them and Laurel was speaking again.

“But Ted agreed, because we don’t walk away from things. Right, Central City?”

Laurel paused again for cheers. Someone out in the crowd shouted a, “We love you!”

“I love you, too!” She replied with a beautiful smile. “No matter how many times we get knocked down, we get back up. So let’s get up and get things started!”

She motioned back to the band, and the dark brunette hit her drumsticks together four times before the rest of the music started up. People were already on their feet, and Barry stood as well to see better. Now that he was over the shock he started taking more of her appearance in. There was still her blonde hair cascading down her back, but that was about where the similarities ended in how this Laurel styled herself. She had on a blue tank top, ripped up jean shorts, and fishnet leggings on under those. Fishnets!

Was it Siren? Was this all just some trick? And yet even as he thought that it made little sense. Iris’ favorite band since college, Cisco’s poster in grad school...somehow, Laurel Lance had been a member of this band for years.

But she’d been a hero. They all knew that. Or they had.

The song they were performing now seemed to be called Fish Out of Water, judging by the chorus. Barry could relate to that feeling. Then it hit him that Laurel actually had a really good voice. He’d never known that about her, whether it had even been true before...all this.

Because it was dawning on him what this was. Just like the changes that had occurred to his friends’ loved ones because of his meddling, the only explanation for Laurel not only being alive but drastically different than he remembered was the timeline being altered. But how could he have missed this?

If this much was different, what else had changed in Star City? He’d spoken to Felicity briefly since returning to this timeline and realized John now had twins instead of a daughter, but what about Oliver? Were he and the others okay?

“I’m gonna slow things down a bit,” Laurel was saying. “Even if I know you guys like things fast around here.”

Iris nudged him in the side with a big grin. It faded as he looked at her, though. “Seriously, Bear, you okay?”

“It can wait.” Now wasn’t the time or place to get into it. He wasn’t even sure how to explain to Iris that a woman she had never met but admired was now still a woman she had never met but admired just in a different way.

“If ya broke the wings of a blackbird, baby...it’s a joke to think she’ll look backward, baby,” Laurel sang. She looked...sad, somehow. Not in an obvious way. The confidence was still there, but it was like something was missing. And Barry thought he knew what it was.

His mind raced as the band closed out with another louder number to get people cheering right at the end.

“How do you feel about pretending to be from Arts and Entertainment?” He asked at more of a shout in Iris’ ear to be heard.

She raised both eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

Barry ran instead, back to her office at Central City Picture News to grab a camera and a couple of press passes. When he reappeared at her side, she blinked in surprise.

“Barry—”

“It’s kind of important that we talk to her. I’ll explain on the way home.”

Iris looked unsure, but she nodded, trusting him. Barry felt a boost of confidence at that; the rest of his teammates weren’t that willing to trust in his ability these days.

They made their way backstage with the passes and waited as Laurel and the others exited the stage. Barry felt a little stunned to watch her approach this close despite seeing her up on the stage. She was real and alive and a part of him wanted to rush forward and hug her — but that would probably get them kicked out.

There were a few lucky fans with special passes there, too, and he watched as the woman and sometimes-teammate he’d known signed autographs and took selfies with them. He snapped a couple of pictures with the camera he’d borrowed for appearance’s sake.

“Great show tonight, Dinah,” Iris called out to get her attention. She held out her hand when the other woman approached. “I’m Iris West with Central City Picture News. Huge fan, really.”

“Thanks for coming out,” said Laurel, her eyes only briefly passing over Barry, and it was so strange not seeing even a hint of recognition there. Had they never met in this timeline? What did this mean about whether she knew the others?

“So what’s next for the band?” He asked. “International, somewhere else in the states? Star City, maybe? It’s our, uh, sister city,” Barry added when both Laurel and Iris gave him odd looks.

“Funny you should say that. We’ll be taking some time off in Star, yeah. Ted and me, anyway. The other girls are stopping home in Gotham, but Ted’s got a place there.” She nodded back towards an older man with flecks of gray in his hair and a few lines in a deeply tanned face.

“Great,” said Barry.

“Your new song, Blackbird. It’s really good, and the lyrics, uh, what’s the story behind that?” Iris asked. Barry knew he’d put her on the spot and that this style of interview wasn’t exactly her specialty. He thought she was doing a great job, though.

Laurel shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of false starts in life. A lot of things I’ve had to walk away from. You learn to live with it.” She glanced over at Ted again who made some kind of motion. “Listen, there’s a girl scheduled to meet me in the green room, so if we could wrap this up?”

“Yeah, absolutely. I’ll message your people if I think of anything else to ask,” Iris said quickly. “Thanks so much for your time.”

“Yeah, thanks Lau— uh, Dinah,” Barry remembered at the last second. Her eyes jumped to his with a sharp look.

“Yeah. You too.” Laurel said quietly. She turned and walked away, glancing back at them over her shoulder once.

“So what was that actually about?” Iris asked in his ear. Barry gave a start and looked away from the hallway Laurel had disappeared down. They went through a side exit and started the walk back to the car.

“I know her. Or knew her. Um, before I changed the timeline.”

Iris’ eyes widened. “Really? How?”

“She wasn’t a singer. She was the Black Canary. A hero, part of Oliver’s team. She died last spring—” Iris stopped in her tracks, expression one of alarm. Barry reached for her hand to keep her moving down the sidewalk. “—or she did in that timeline. I don’t know how this happened.”

Iris was quiet for a few moments, processing the information. “Well, at least she’s here in this timeline?”

“Yeah, but,” Barry began. He shrugged. “It’s so different. She doesn’t even go by the same name!”

He remembered seeing Dinah on the gravestone, only then realizing they’d all been calling her by her middle name the whole time. What made a person decide to change names? How far back did this divergence from the timeline go?

Iris was frowning, discomfort showing on her features. She had defended his actions in changing things to the rest of the team, but was this a step too far? What did she think of him now? “Well, Bear, I think you’re just going to have to leave this be,” she said eventually. “It’s too late to change things.”

“I know. I just — I need to check on the others in Star, okay? Just so I know what’s been going on if we ever have to team up sometime.”

“Okay.” Iris let him go with a kiss, and then Barry was off running again, first to get his suit and then to Star City.

What was Team Arrow like without a Black Canary? What was Oliver like? He didn’t know too much about the other man’s relationship with Laurel, but they’d obviously been close judging by how affected he’d been at the funeral. What would Barry be like without one of his teammates? He couldn’t even imagine it.

He entered the cave and stopped, calling out to make sure the space wasn’t as empty as it appeared. “Hey, Ollie, you in? Really need to talk to — woah!”

Barry didn’t quite dodge out of the way of two arrows connected by a wire that shot out and pinned him to the wall behind him.

A young man, teenager really, with blonde hair and dark skin emerged from behind a support beam. He carried a bow and quiver of arrows and was grinning as he approached. “Gotta watch your surroundings better, Flash.”

“Connor,” said a familiar voice, the tone only slightly warning.

“I’m only messing, dad,” said the teenager to Oliver as the older man approached. Barry felt his mouth drop open. Since when did Oliver have a second son?

Oliver himself seemed different, somehow, in ways that were hard to define. The stubble he usually had could more accurately be called a goatee, and there were lines in his face that Barry could have sworn hadn’t been there. But he didn’t look as abjectly miserable as the last time Barry had seen him.

“What’s going on, Barry?”

He decided to just cut to the chase. “What do you know about Dinah Laurel Lance?”

Oliver’s face scrunched up. He frowned, though it was more in confusion than anything else. Then the worst possible answer left his lips.

“Who?”

#lauriver #westallen #barry allen #laurel lance #iris west #oliver queen #arrow #the flash #cisco ramon #ted grant #connor hawke #black canary #green arrow #my writing

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