#so she just has to come up with a new backstory and maybe even a new name and just AHHH yknow

[unlikelycupcaketrash]

You want more?

I gotchu

(It’s all Danny and Lancer with the Waynes crack) (probably)

New rare pare just dropped??? Why do I kinda love Bruce/lancer

what is Mr lancers first name?? *one google search later* we don’t know but it starts with an L :/

I dub thee: Lucas

Lucas “Luke” Lancer (hell yeah, alliteration!)

So anyway Tim and Danny meet and are suspicious of each others odd behavior but ultimately end up with a more or less “I don’t ask questions about where you sneak off to and your spontaneously unimportant injuries and you don’t ask about me and mine yeah? Alr.” Type relationship, and actually hang out a lot.

The first few times Tim asked Danny about that Danny would always say that “you haven’t unlocked enough of my backstory” and move on. Tim doesn’t like this but he gave up on trying because he cant find anything weird about his paper trail and Danny’s a chill guy so it’s probably fine, I mean it not like he’s a vigilante right?

In the show his top speed was 112 mph so ima say he keeps improving his speed as he goes back n forth from Gotham to amity because let’s be so fr Valarie is handling most of the ghosts but there are some nights where it gets too much and she hast to call in backup, and by some nights I mean twice a month at least. What can I say? Amity park ghosts are mean and don’t care about your education

After Jason gets back whatever plot shenanigans you want make it so that lancer is checking up on Danny at the same time Jason has to pick up Tim for whatever and Jason recognizes Lucas but he doesn’t recognize jay yet (he will later), see where I’m going with this? Ok so they get talking (the literature nerds) and Jason decides to double down on shipping Luke with Bruce. Bruce could seriously use the normal and positive influence and hey he’s good with kids so why not? It’ll be funny!

How could he do this the most efficiently, effectively and flamboyantly?? A gala probably, but first Bruce and lancer need to be to the level of friends where they would interact/maybe even seek each other out at a high society event, so *sigh* I guess he’s going to have to invite Danny and lancer to a family dinner or something, but he’s not close enough to either of them do do that without it being weird! His whole plan is falling apart!

Oh Timmy!!!!!~~ has Jason ever mentioned that your his favorite brother?? and he’ll give you his desert at the monthly family dinners for three months if you do this one little thing for him?

So Danny ends up being invited to a Wayne dinner and oh Mr. Lancer you come in too, you came all this way, we insist! (He realizes Jason is Jason Wayne at the dinner btw)

Tim is floundering around Danny because this is the first time Danny looks well rested and with actually styled but also messy hair and what the fuck that’s his roommate! He has no right to look this cute! Tim can see his freckles instead of the ever-present eye-bags and-! wait what why is his heart beating so fast, he’s been trained by the bat! A cute boy should not be able to affect him as much as it is. He need to do some more heart rate exercises because why is Danny so cute all of a sudden and maybe it’s one of his meta powers? No they’re roommates, they live together, he would’ve noticed, and now he’s spiraling but he can’t really stop and-

Bruce is similarly struggling but he can deal with it by being such a clueless bimbo and tired dad because why are so many of his kids here? It’s not even the monthly dinner yet? Is it because of Danny and Lucas? It probably is, he should invite them over more, jay is here and talking passionately about whatever lit thing with Lucas and he will totally invite Luke over more, I mean see how much he cares about his kids? Gah he’s just so perfect- wait what?

DCxDP: The Roomate

Despite all their madness, it's no secret in Amity Park that the Fentons are certified geniuses. When Maddie and Jack Fenton first move to town, they are all anyone can talk about.

Maddie was well known among women because, at the time, women in STEM were rare, and it was even rarer for them to actually gain recognition for their efforts. Her work, confusing to most of the public, meant a lot to the women in Amity Park.

Before she arrived, she had been featured in three separate magazines: one for science, another for sponsoring a scholarship for STEM women, and the last for her inventions of self-defense accessories to arm young women. Yes, most didn't know about her until they learned that she was moving into their small town, but that was beside the point.

Her husband was a little less known, but it came as no surprise that he was also said to be rumored as a well-educated man. He had two PhDs. Two.

At the time, almost everyone in Amity Park had a high school diploma, the highest degree level of the masses. Sure, some well-off families could send their children four towns away to the closest college, but it was rare.

It was also a privilege—a means to show off at the annual street market, where the proud mothers would smugly describe their children's dorm rooms or majors to the tightly smiling neighbors.

In the early eighties, having a higher education made people appear more respected, and here was Jack Fenton, a man who had two Ph.D.s and was rumored to be working on his third. The man who had bought out the old Steward faculty building by the main street was having a crew removed into a home/laboratory.

Everyone buzzed for weeks about the new neighbors, and sharing any new details about them was exciting. It may be strange to people outside their little town, but with a population size of at least five thousand (at least in the eighties when the Fentons arrived. and the population grew well into the thousands when Axion Labs was built), news of changes was rare and few in between.

Amity Park didn't have big-shot names on their roads, much less stay to live. Heck, they only recently started getting a carnival to go by, and that was at least seventeen years since the Fentons moved in.

So, it was no surprise that Fenton's daughter showed just as large a brain as she did. Yes, the Fentons were less academic types than they were expecting, showing a rather odd obsession with the paranormal, but no one could deny their ability to build anything.

The Fenton boy was the only one who didn't live up to the family name. Danny was on the right path until Freshman year, when his grade rapidly dropped to the bottom of his class, he vanished for hours on end and went into destructive fits randomly.

He has been found among enough rooms ripped apart to know that Fenton was out of control. School staff spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Fenton often, and the two parents genuinely seemed to take their conversations to heart, attempting to instill better behavior within Danny.

Nothing seems to work. No grounding, detentions, community work, or group meetings seem to get through the boy's head. The Fentons were at their wit's end with their youngest. Mrs. Fenton, fretting that her son had never behaved like this.

Then, ghost attacks started appearing around the same time to make things worse. While the town laughed at them at first, everyone quickly realized the Fentons were one of the few who could provide defense against the ghosts. Throughout more and more attacks, the people started to defer to the Fentons in times of crisis.

The people who once booed them now rallied around them, and it took no time for everyone to acknowledge that the Fentons were now among the highest in the town's social ladder.

That came with some benefits.

"Are you sure this would help Danny?" Maddie asks, staring at the pamphlet in obvious doubt.

"Mrs. Fenton, I assure you that I would not have recommended Daniel for the program if I didn't think it would help him," Mr. Lancer responds with great patience. "It is apparent that he is dealing with something that needs more support than the school staff can provide."

"But to send him away?" Jack cuts in, looking close to tears.

"Don't think of it as sending him away. Think of it as putting him in an environment that can help him. Frankly, Daniel is struggling here. He's been having more and more destructive fits, his teachers have noticed he's paying less and less attention in class, and a few students have even approached me saying he seems to be hiding weapons in his bag."

"Weapons?" Maddie gasps. "Our Danny?"

"Rest assured, we have done searches and investigations as these accusations are not accepted without reason. Daniel does not seem to have any on him, but I worry he may be facing severe bullying if children were willing to lie about something so serious." Mr. Lacner sooth swiftly. He sighed, leaning back in his seat as neither adult looked particularly happy by his words. "The staff and I attempt to step in when we can, but bullies always find ways to slip past us. For example, bothering him off campus. I just think Daniel will be better away from those causing him harm, especially if he really is dealing with a previously unknown mental illness."

He pulls out more pamphlets, one with testimonies from previous program participants. When Lancer left Amity Park for college, he never planned to return. He got his teaching degree alongside his associates in English and History.

Lancer had taught at a different school, a more well-known and better-funded school, but he missed his small town. He missed the neighborly people, the less noise, and Amity's clean, crisp air. He found himself quitting his Gotham Academy job in Grades six to eight, moved back home, and attempted to drag Casper High out of its failing pit.

He still struggled as the school couldn't find enough teachers. He taught four different subjects—math, History, English, and Science—whenever he could, and there was almost no funding.

But Casper High was slowly getting better every year due to the connections Lancer had made in his seven-year tenure as a Gotham Acadamy Professor. One of these connections was the father of his favorite English student.

Bruce Wayne.

Mr. Wayne attended every single one of Jason's plays, and as the Drama Club sponsor, Mr. Lancer would chat with him. Most people knew Wayne was an airhead, but Wayne was delightful to be around. Like Mr. Lancer, he cared deeply about education and always took the teacher's suggestions to bring up at PTA meetings.

When Lancer chose to move back to Amity, Jason was devastated and insisted he had Bruce's number. It was heavily implied that the board wanted Lancer gone due to his "questionable" teaching plan—he tried to teach empathy a little too much, according to some parents—and the boy thought his sudden departure was due to this.

Mr. Wayne assured him if he had been let go or pressured into leaving, he would provide Lancer with an entire team of lawyers. Touching as it was, Lancer assured them he was leaving on his own accord.

He contacted Mr. Wayne, asking for advice on how to apply for school grants or any other tips the billionaire could give him. The man was the most involved Father Lancer had ever met, including fundraising and supporting art programs.

Casper High had been this close to removing Band, Drama, Cheerleading, soccer, and Baseball because it needed more money to afford them. Not to mention all the other clubs that had vanished when Lancer was a Casper student. Bruce was happy to help him save the programs for the students.

It was the main reason Lancer was made vice principal so quickly. He was basically keeping Casper High running.

Two years later, he heard the news that Jason had been murdered. It shattered Lancer's heart. He went to the funeral and watched Mr.Wayne slowly fall apart. Even as he returned home, he tried to reach out to the man whenever he could.

It may have felt different to the other man, but Lancer always thought they were friends. Eventually, Mr. Wayne bounced back—never forgot—from Jason's death, and slowly, the gap between them was reconnected.

The reason for Mr. Wayne's mental recovery was the one that suggested this program. He had personally invited Mr. Lancer to send Daniel.

"Tim Drake is a brilliant boy," Mr. Lancer continued, watching the two couples struggle to decide. "His team is filled with trained psychologists, he has the facilities to deal with Meta children, and Daniel won't be uncomfortable rooming with him as a teenager himself."

Maddie looks at Jack, but while she sees the hurt in his eyes, she also sees his resolve. "Alright, we'll send Danny to the Meta Mentoring Program. It's what's best."

"I'll let Mr. Drake know he'll have a roommate."

[apdreadful]

Since the election I have deactivated some of my social media. Blocked some people I never should have ever engaged with to begin with, and unfollowed several accounts on IG that just don’t bring me joy.

And 911onabc was one.

Is it because Buck & Tommy didn’t end together? No. I’m a grown ass adult. I can be irritated by the something and not be dramatic or hateful about it.

It was because several storylines lately have been complete bullshit.

They start strong with solid good storytelling. But then..eh we’re bored. Only whatever we do absolutely can not make sense!

The lazy fucking way they wrote Christopher’s character out, and that weird ass doppelgänger storyline.

New season? Let’s start by putting Bobby and Athena through to some major disaster! Hey it worked last season! Let’s do it again! (Do not even get me started on that fucking drug cartel shit..what the hell even was that??)

We are only allowed to have one character or couple drama free at a time. And if we can’t come up with a plausible way to create discord or havoc, we’ll just do some stupid shit instead!

Spend several seasons showing the deep strong bond between Eddie and Christopher. Gavin’s family moves? Just make it something dumb..but fast! I know let’s have him get mad at his dad and ask to move in with his grandparents!! Never mind he’d never do that!

The amount of psychological trauma they have inflicted on Maddie. The near death experiences of Chimney. Jesus. Just what tf?

Hmmm. Karen and Hen..the fans would revolt if we broke them up. So let’s go after their kids!! And we can’t make it about them being gay! Let’s create this over the top villain Councilwoman Ortiz. Who’s the mother of that drunk coked up dude from the accident. Only we absolutely cannot have Hen or anyone defend what happened or shut that shit down by saying “Your son was a fucking menace and maybe if you hadn’t kept covering for him he would have gotten some fucking help and not caused an accident.” Also do not mention Hen was cleared of all wrong doing. Nope. Logic has no place here!

Ok so the fans have been clamoring for Buddie. But Eddie Diaz is straight. Period.

So hey! Let’s make Buck bisexual. And tell everyone we are getting him off the hamster wheel (because really, we’ve given him the emotional depth of a teaspoon for a while now)..And his love interest/boyfriend should be Tommy Kinard, who used to work at the 118, and we will invest time to give him a compelling backstory, and lay a ton of Easter eggs showing how richly we can mine this pairing and these characters.

And make them HAPPY for several episodes. Blissfully in love. And then totally out of the blue, let’s break them up. But the reason has to be complete bullshit, totally against character out of left field BULLSHIT. Like they should start out the episode great and about 80 percent in..wait! Let’s also make him the SAME Tommy Abbie from season one was engaged to before she started banging Buck! And then let’s make Tommy who is so into Buck it’s palpable, dump him because he’s afraid of getting his heart broken! Even though it’s one of the most tired, overdone, stupid tropes ever!!

Yeah. I don’t know WTF is going on in the writers room I would swear it’s like there’s this talented group of writers who start stories, and then they go out in Wilshire Blvd and ask some random person on the street to write the ending, but they have to do it, right there in the next 20 minutes.

No I am not going to stop watching 911 forever. I just don’t really want to see them on my IG. This last stunt, sparked only incredulity and scorn.

[lightningarmour]

Absolute comics first thoughts

For the first time since the end of DOOMSDAY CLOCK I've been persuaded into paying money for a DC comic, and two, no less.

I've been 100% checked out of the DC sphere for about 5 years, only occasionally seeing some news here or there about the latest crossover event or fave character or what have you, and I regard those with the passing interest one might have in seeing a hot air balloon. Nothing has drawn me back partly because I'm old now and don't have the time or inclination to try catching up on years of crossover event, status quo altering storylines and yadda yadda.

I had heard about the new ABSOLUTE line of titles, but from the initial teasers and previews, not the least of which was the character design for Absolute Batman with his giant stupid fat bat symbol, I just wrote it off as them doing yet more edgy elseworlds stories, and thought no more on it until maybe three weeks ago. I saw a little roundup of details about Absolute Superman from an interview with Jason Aaron and it caught my attention.

I've gone on at length in the past about how I think that any earnest attempt at writing Superman for modern audiences that keeps true to the "idea" of Superman without making a cynical edgelord version of the character would need to depict Superman as a politically engaged, class conscious individual at least, and a full on Leninist at best. Now obviously I do not expect DC comics to publish a comic about communist superman without it being a laughable piece of propaganda like RED SON, but nonetheless, hearing that Absolute Superman is about a superman who is fighting a mining corporation to protect a community of abused labourers, and re-imagining Krypton as a caste-based society that was destroyed by reckless exploitation of the environment, I was certainly interested.

I resolved to check it out at least. I'd seen some of the details about Absolute Batman, that he's not a billionaire and whatever and still wasn't too interested, but realized I'd heard basically nothing about Absolute Wonder Woman. "She didn't grow up on Themyscira" okay what does that mean?

At this point both Batman and Wonder Woman were out so I looked it up and found some pages from Absolute Wonder Woman #1 and was pretty much instantly hooked because the art was tremendous, and Wonder Woman is flying on a skeleton pegasus with a huge Guts sword and like, that just fucking rocks ass, come on. So I was now sold on two Absolute series, I decided eh, what the hell I'll check out Absolute Batman #1, maybe I could be convinced.

So now that I've read all three first issues of the new ABSOLUTE Universe, I have some thoughts.

ABSOLUTE BATMAN #1 is a confused mess. I think that Batman, being easily the most popular DC character, with the broadest demographic appeal, has too much baggage. You'd kind of think that with a character like this where everyone knows his whole basic backstory, you could gloss over the details a bit more, but this issue is so concerned with establishing and referencing as many iconic Batman characters as possible, it's so bloated.

in this one(1) issue they set up or directly show you: Alfred Pennyworth, Jim Gordon, Barbara Gordon, Harvey Bullock, Killer Croc, Penguin, Riddler, Cat Woman, Two-Face, Black Mask, Ras Al Ghul, and of course we cannot go even one single issue without giving you The Joinker. It's too much. Ease off. We're not going to encounter probably two thirds of these people for ages. And, frankly establishing that half of Batman's presumptive rogue's gallery just so happened to be Bruce Wayne's childhood friends is dumb as shit. The dynamic between all of them is going to follow the exact same "gasp, could it be that my old friend is now a criminal?!" dynamic like 5 times in a row.

This is easily the most edgy of the current Absolute series and is basically exactly what I assumed the whole imprint was going to be, but it really feels in places like Scott Snyder wanted this to be a Batman that was darker and more violent but then DC editorial was like "no, Batman can't kill people" so he adjusted the script as little as possible to reassure the audience that he's rolling non-lethal damage as he stabs the shit out of people with his ear-knives and chops their hands off.

Despite all the parts I don't like about how they portray Batman, the thing that pisses me off is I really like the way they are doing Bruce Wayne.

Typically Bruce Wayne, the billionaire is kind of a hard character for me to like because of how much he serves this kind of great man power fantasy(yes, I know, superhero comics are inherently fascist) He has a vendetta against the concept of crime because his parents were killed by a criminal, so he takes it upon himself to "protect" Gotham, but in many depictions of Batman it's kind of like, what exactly is his connection to the city other than he lives there and presumably is the HQ of Wayne Enterprises. he views it the way a rich person would, dirty and too full of undesirable people who must be punished so that he, a wealthy socialite can enjoy the place without having to see the underclasses.

Making Bruce a working class urbanist is such a more interesting way of exploring the character. He loves the city because he grew up in it's streets, played in it's parks, attended it's schools, rode it's busses. Adding the layer on that that he became a civil engineer and worked with the municipal government does for the first time I've ever seen something interesting with Gotham by kind of interrogating the notion of what makes a city what it is. Is it the infrastructure, the people, the civil servants? It's the most interesting Bruce Wayne has ever been.

But then as Batman he's just fucking mutilating people and blowing them up with bombs and whatever. Yawn. I think that the Batman aspect also annoys me because it so blatantly disregards the central premise of the Absolute line. What if Batman wasn't a billionaire? Well then he wouldn't have access to tons of money and resources to do his Batman shit! So they like, half-ass that by giving him the kind of stripped-down arsenal. No gadgets and gizmos, just knives and a hunk of bat shaped metal used as a battle axe. But then oh yeah he also has some kind of miracle fabric that he can use as like tendrils or whatever and it's completely bullet-proof and so on and so forth. Like, Batman really really does not feel in any meaningful way like he is working at a disadvantage in this version of the story, and that just makes the whole thing so damn boring.

ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #1 fucking kicks ass. This was by kind of a wide margin the best issue of the three series debut issues. I think that unlike Batman and Superman who both have quite a lot of baggage tied into their backstories and supporting cast and so forth, Wonder Woman has never quite achieved the level of iconography as they have so there's almost more freedom to do something new without hitting a bunch of prescribed plot points. In fact she might be the one of the trinity who has had the most attempts to re-imagine her and spruce her up to get people interested. I recall back in 2010 they did a big shake up that was not too dissimilar to this new take on the character. What if she never grew up on Themyscira? What if she didn't have the favour of the gods, etc. And I really liked that one, so I guess it's no surprise I'd be fond of this new version as well.

I think the number one thing that hooked me on this issue is the artwork, tbh. It's my favourite style so far of the Absolute comics, and everything just looks so cool and big and epic and awesome. That's it. It's just cool as hell.

The next most important thing is it has much better pacing than the other issues. You get a very simple, very effective set-up. The Amazons have been punished by the gods so this baby is being raised in hell by a witch. That's it. Good, effective time lapse of her growing up interspersed within the action scenes of her fighting monsters. It's simple and to the point but still leaves me invested int he mystery and wanting to know more. And again, it did not feel the need to shoe-horn a bunch of characters in so you can do the soyjack point at the issue. They could have easily shoved Steve Trevor in there as one of the soldiers responding to the freaky monster pyramid but that would have just been lame. It's confident enough in itself to not have to try and get you with low hanging fruit.

I don't really have much else to say, it's just cool and good and I'm unequivocally excited for more.

ABSOLUTE SUPERMAN #1 is a solid start. Now I'll admit I'm way more of a Superman-head than I am for Batman or Wonder Woman. This was the series that made me interested in the Absolute experiment in the first place, so I'm probably way more willing to be lenient towards a Superman title than say Batman.

That being said, this one also has like Batman, aspects I really like, and others I'm a bit iffy on, though not in as wide a gulf as Absolute Batman. As I said before, I've spent probably too much time trying to think of how to reinvent Superman in a modern context and, specifically, from a politically left-wing perspective, and I'll say that so far I think they're doing a decent job.

It's obviously nothing new to look at Superman as an immigrant story. Going all the way back to Siegel & Shuster, who were children of Jewish immigrants, the whole idea was what if this guy came from somewhere else. I think that the way that Jason Aaron has interpreted that concept for a modern context is actually quite brilliant. It's almost less of what if Superman was an immigrant than what if Superman was a refugee? Rather than unable to return to his homeland, but finding a new home with loving foster parents we are given the suggestion that he's never had a stable home since arriving on Earth. Moving from one place to another, nowhere to go home to, hiding among the economically exploited peoples of the global south.

It's such a riveting set up, I'm really excited to see how this version of the Character is informed by his history.

I also like the use of Krypton as kind of a heavy-handed double metaphor for stratified class society and the dangers of climate change. Like, it is presumably already dead and gone and unable to like, textually affect the story so who cares if it's allegorical nature is too on the nose. I also really like the notion of Kal El having like, living memory of Krypton, rather than only knowing about it from recordings on an alien flash drive or whatever.

I think the use of this "Lazarus" corporation as a kind of stand-in blanket evil corporation that does every kind of exploitative, extractive, broadly seen as morally wrong kinds of industries a bit hokey but hey it's a comic. I love the use of the Peacemakers as the like, corporate PMC security force though, that's fun. I am pretty curious if Lazarus is going to be a kind of fake-out Lexcorp. Like Luthor is the head of it but they called it by a different name so as not to ruin the surprise of his introduction. That or maybe it's related to Ras Al Ghul? Who knows, but I'm interested in what their whole deal is. They not only operate diamond mines and factory farms but also like, hunt down alien technology to reverse engineer?? And employ a Brainiac. curious as to what the deal is with the screaming jars. Does being shrunk down just like, really hurt? Seems like almost going overboard with the concept. Like not only does he shrink down cities and put them in jars but he also tortures the shrunken people? Like why, what's he getting out of it?

Some of the iffy parts for me include the suit AI thing he's got because I'm frankly sick of that trope by now. Ever since Iron man it's like every fucking character in comics has to have some kind of tech suit with a quirky robot voice. I'm willing to give it a chance on the grounds that it's like alien technology so sure whatever. I kind of like that he has to fucking charge the suit with a solar panel. I am curious about what exactly the breakdown is with the suit. He uses his x-ray and laser eyes so presumably it's still Kal himself who has super powers and they're not like, imbued by the suit. The suit seems like it is regulating his powers in some way. Like without it he couldn't control them and would cause havoc, but the fact that he has to like charge the suit's battery is kind of funny. Like, is the suit solar powered and his powers are just inherent no matter what, or does he still derive his power from sunlight as well? Fuzzy on the rules.

I also don't like the Lois reveal. It's just dull. Who care. The little teaser of Kent Farm is interesting to me. Feels like several different ways they could pivot:

Kal El's rocket lands and blows a hole in their barn, they find him and are frightened of him so they call the authorities/Lazarus and Kal flees.

Similar to above but they care for him like usual before Lazarus shows up looking for the alien craft and kill the Kents to remove any witnesses

Altogether it does enough things I'm interested in to keep me going with it despite the few quibbles I have. So far it's 2/3 on the Absolute universe and with the "phase 2" or whatever announced I'm 100% guaranteed also picking up Absolute Flash because it's my boy Wally and Jeff Lemire writing, like come the fuck on, how could I resist that.

[aromanticasterisms]

my god lingsha's design is so ass. my god

[tvrningout-a]

i’m on my way home after visiting my grandparents but what if i make chiyo a lil isekai au as a treat… maybe a general one if other people are interested in that genre, but also specifically for rin’s world 👀 what if there’s a god of travel and time and whatnot who is just a goofy little guy who plucks her out of her dimension bc “ these mortals need a fresh look on things and i like your manga series ( ooh those battle scenes are good ) and you were talking about going far away anyway hehe ”

meanwhile chiyo is so confused and cursing and is just very lucky that she stumbles upon rin who goes “ lmao you’re saying a god decided to turn your life upside down?? join the club 💜 ” and all i’m saying is it would be fun and interesting to write and i just really wanna write my lil dork in this setting since i’m obsessed with it atm :’ )))

[dadvans]

my favorite line in the entire bucktommy saga is maddie's reading of "wait, it's the same tommy?" because at that point you know this girl has been THROUGH IT way too many times in a short period, like:

her soon-to-be husband comes home. he just fake called out sick from work to fly into a hurricane with his closest coworkers, her disaster-prone brother she mostly raised included, to save his boss and his wife. he tells her all about it, adrenaline still pumping the day after he comes back from the COAST OF MEXICO, and is like, no, it's fine! see, my old co-worker tommy works in air ops and I saved his life once, and we used to be super tight--[insert 10 minute off-topic backstory about how tommy used to be a jackass but now he's different here]--until he moved away, and funny enough, buck was the guy who filled in for him? anyways, tommy's the coolest, we could've died but we didn't! how was your shift at dispatch, honey

her brother she pretty much raised comes over and also brings up this tommy guy. yeah, he's so cool! do you think it would be weird if i called him up and asked for a tour of harbor? he just seemed like a neat guy, i want to be his friend, you think chim would put in a good word for me?

her brother she pretty much raised comes over AGAIN and is like, okay FUCK this tommy guy, he's so cool and knows everyone and his meat is huge!!! my best friend likes him more than me and they're doing things without me and i'm so sad about this in a really abstract way, can i please have a bagel

her soon-to-be husband comes home in the middle of this and is like, yeah he's cool and knows everyone and his meat is definitely huge. LOVE that guy!

her brother she pretty much raised shows up at her workplace and is like, remember how i was experiencing jealous thoughts and feelings because the coolest guy i've ever met with the biggest meat isn't paying attention to me and is new besties with my best friend? i may have caused bodily harm about this and yes i did involve your almost husband as a co-conspirator

approximately 2-to-3 business days pass where she experiences quiet. maybe too much quiet

her brother she pretty much raised comes over for a fourth time and is like, i lied to my best friend who i was just telling you i was angry at and s l i g h t l y injured because he kept hanging out with this other guy i was trying to hang out with and totally unrelated but i went on this date with someone and lied to my best friend about it and oh yeah it's the same guy but that is so besides the point it's not even worth mentioning

justice for maddie

[3d-wifey]

This is such a niche ask, but I saw that you do Mortal Kombat. Can I ask for some flirty intro dialogue? You know like the conversation the characters have b4 the fight? But like with a Goddess!reader who's basically Hecate? like a Nyx/Hecate fusion if that makes sense. Oh and can you do what some of her taunts would be? I feel like those and her fatalities would be illusion and tarot based :)))

Flirty Intro Dialogue

Pairings: Johnny Cage x Reader; Noob Saibot x Reader; Erron Black x Reader; Dark Raiden x Reader; Cassie Cage x Reader; Shang Tsung x Reader

A/N: (Back to using gifs for headcanons). This is just for the MK 11 timeline. Once MK 1 comes out, I'll do new ones. Had to do a little research fan fiction-wise for this one, but I got a good amount out (plus some taunts the reader would say during the fight). I put a lot of thought into the reader's backstory in the MK universe, even though it'll never be used lol. Please, feel free to request more of these characters or some intros for different characters. Maybe even request a one-shot? Who knows ;)

Behind the Scenes: You know how when Erron Black shows up in the intro, he's looking at a Wanted poster of his opponent? I feel like Goddess!reader has something like that where she's looking at a tarot card that's different for each character before it disappears into mist. Another opening is the reader strutting in shapeshifted into her opponent, before turning back. Her friendship fatality has her stirring a comically large witch's caldron and Noob Saibot pops out in a cloud of mist.

You: Jonathan Carlton

Johnny Cage: Sexy witch goddess.

You: I…Hmm.

-

You: I can feel the magic coursing through your veins. You are one of my Night children, Jonathan.

Johnny Cage: You don’t mean that literally, right? Because it would suck to have the hots for my mom.

You: (sighs)  And what a waste.

-

Johnny Cage: Somebody pinch me, I must be dreaming.

You: Do you dream of me often, Mortal?

Johnny Cage: Ohho, absolutely.

-

Johnny Cage: Somebody pinch me, I must be dreaming.

You: (sighs) How many times must you make that joke?

Johnny Cage: You know you love it!

-

Johnny Cage: So…what are my chances of getting you into my next movie?

You: I’ve told you. I have no desire to appear on your “big screen”.

Johnny Cage: I was thinking we’d make a different kind of movie.

-

Johnny Cage: Goddess of dreams, huh? Can I call you Sandman?

You: You may call me whatever you please, dear mortal.

Johnny Cage: Oh, you do not wanna give me that kind of power.

-

Johnny Cage: Heard you and Shinnok had a thing.

You: A…thing?

Johnny Cage: You two boned! Get it? Cuz he’s a skeleton.

-

Johnny Cage: Tarot, huh? Card tricks are cool and all, but do you got any other witchy gimmicks?

You: I'm particularly fond of palm reading.

Johnny Cage: ...So what I'm hearing is, you're good with your hands?

-

Johnny Cage: You, Fujin, and Raiden go way back, huh?

You: Since the dawn of time.

Johnny Cage: (grimace) Yeesh, they've been friend zoned that long?

-

Johnny Cage: Not so fast, Hermonie.

You: Must you always spout such inane drivel?

Johnny Cage: Someone's been using their word-a-day calendar!

-

Johnny Cage: I've never met a non-evil Eldar God.

You: Evil is quite subjective.

Johnny Cage: I'll remember that next time I'm kicking one's ass.

Noob Saibot: My Goddess.

You: Bi-Han.

Noob Saibot: The shadows cling to your presence. 

-

Noob Saibot: Many have wanted me to yield to their command.

You: Oh?

Noob Saibot: Only you have succeeded, My Goddess.

-

You: You are not touched by the Night, dear Bi-Han. You are shrouded in it.

Noob Saibot: What better way to show that I belong to you?

You: It certainly seems that way, doesn’t it?

-

Noob Saibot: The shadows whisper your name.

You: (smiles) What do they say about me?

Noob Saibot: That your beauty is combated by no other. They speak only the truth for their Goddess.

-

You: You have been a steadfast worshiper, Bi-Han. How shall I reward your loyalty?

Noob Saibot: I only ask for one thing: to be your consort.

You: Hmm. That could be arranged.

-

Noob Saibot: I do not want you to be upset with me, but I will not take back what I said.

You: Your brother cares for you, Bi-Han.

Noob Saibot: Yet, here we are.

-

You: Why must we fight?

Noob Saibot: I wish to prove to you my might, My Goddess.

You: Oh, dear wraith. For you, my love is freely given. You have already earned it.

-

Noob Saibot: You're different than the other Eldar Gods. You...care.

You: Do you think me weak?

Noob Saibot: Never.

-

You: Care to spar?

Noob Saibot: I'd be honored.

You: Then don't take it personally when I beat you.

-

Noob Saibot: The shadows crave your touch.

You: Only the shadows?

Noob Saibot: I'll always long for you, My Goddess.

-

You: Do you fear me, dear Bi-Han?

Noob Saibot: I respect you.

You: (sigh) That wasn't a no.

Erron Black: You've got quite the pretty penny on your head.

You: Are you here to kill me then, Erron Black?

Erron Black: With a face like that, I wouldn’t dream of it.

-

Erron Black: You got any love spells up your sleeve, witchy? I swear ’m good for it.

You: Love is not something to take lightly. Who do you have in mind?

Erron Black: (smirks)  Look in a mirror, darlin’. 

-

Erron Black: You the Goddess of lust, by any chance?

You: That is not a purpose I was created to serve.

Erron Black: Pity. You’d certainly suit it.

-

Erron Black: You had something to ask me, beautiful?

You: Yes. What is “reverse cowgirl”?

Erron Black: (smirks) How ‘bout I show you the ins and outs after this?

-

Erron Black: ’M not usually one for marriage, darlin’.

You: Neither am I.

Erron Black: I don’t have to be the only one, as long as I’m your favorite.

-

Erron Black: You ever find out why Shinnok offed you?

You: I believe he wanted to turn me into his revenant bride. He became rather desperate after I declined his proposal.

Erron Black: (chuckle) Well, I guess I can’t blame the guy.

-

Erron Black: Why don’t you take a peek into ol’ Erron’s dreams? Swear you won’t be disappointed.

You: I’ve seen your dreams. I must say, you give me very generous proportions.

Erron Black: Then you must know I’m a very generous lover.

-

Erron Black: I've struck gold

You: How so?

Erron Black: Well, you're here, ain'tcha?

-

Erron Black: You cast a spell on me, Goddess?

You: I have not, Erron Black.

Erron Black: Do you want to?

-

Erron Black: How 'bout you and I see where the night takes us?

You: Do you think you can keep up?

Erron Black: Trust me. I may be fast on the quick draw, but I don't shoot quick.

-

Erron Black: You've got the magic touch.

You: A good deal of my powers flow through my hands.

Erron Black: I want 'em on me.

You: I’ve heard of how you…disposed of Shinnok.

Dark Raiden: After what he did to you, after how I mourned, I would behead him a hundred times over.

You: It isn’t judgment you sense in my voice. I would have killed him myself if you hadn’t beat me to it.

-

You: Do you still desire me, even as you are now?

Dark Raiden: If you need to ask, then I have failed to show you my devotion.

You: Hmph.

-

Dark Raiden: Will you abandon me too, my love?

You: It is not in my nature.

Dark Raiden: They do not deserve your blessings.

-

Dark Raiden: How have you…How are you here?

You: I sensed my presence was needed and returned to my corporal form just in time to be put in Kronika's void.

Dark Raiden: You could not sense how much I needed you, how much I mourned?

-

You: We are in such uncertain times, my vision is clouded.

Dark Raiden: I’m sorry for the part I play in your duress, my love.

You: You are only doing your duty. It’s how you’re going about it that leaves me weary.

-

Dark Raiden: How can you find such beauty in their shortcomings?

You: The Night welcomes all into her shadowed embrace.

Dark Raiden: You are wasted on them!

-

Dark Raiden: I was so lost without your guidance.

You: When I died?

Dark Raiden: When you were taken from me!

-

Dark Radien: How did Shinnok do it?

You: He lied to me and attacked me when I let my guard down.

Dark Raiden: (growls) If I could, I would bring him back to enact justice upon him once more.

-

You: I have but one wish.

Dark Raiden: Anything.

You: I wish for you to come back to me.

-

You: Is it true? What you've done?

Dark Radien: It was the only way.

You: You have lost yourself.

-

You: We've never fought before, have we?

Dark Radien: We never needed to for me to know you're the stronger between us.

You: Flattery will not save you.

Cassie Cage: You know, I think I’m finally understanding why Raiden lost his marbles.

You: How so?

Cassie Cage: I think I’d lose my shit too if someone like you was taken from me.

-

Cassie Cage: Are you a good witch or a bad witch?

You: I’m…afraid I do not understand.

Cassie Cage: Oh, you have got to let me take you on a movie date.

-

Cassie Cage: Who’s your favorite: Fujin or Raiden? Come on. You can tell me.

You: I’m a Goddess. Why would I limit myself to one lover?

Cassie Cage: You dirty girl.

-

Cassie Cage: What are you the Goddess of again?

You: (hesitates) …It would be easier to list what I am not the Goddess of.

Cassie Cage: (whistles) And I thought my parents expected a lot of me.

-

Cassie Cage: Come on, just one kiss!

You: I am older than you could possibly imagine.

Cassie Cage: An older woman. What’s not to love?

-

Cassie Cage: I heard you died. So, how are you standing here in all your godly beauty?

You: I have much power over death and the comings and goings of the Underworld. My soul simply dispersed there.

Cassie Cage: Yep. That’ll do it.

-

Cassie Cage: So…You didn’t happen to see that one dream, did you?

You: I’ve seen all your dreams, Cassandra. And I’m flattered.

Cassie Cage: (clears throat) …Right.

-

Cassie Cage: It’s a full moon

You: She calls to me and all who feel her light.

Cassie Cage:…You’re not gonna turn into a werewolf, are you?

-

Cassie Cage: You gonna turn me into a frog, Goddess?

You: It’s a possibility.

Cassie Cage: (shrugs) As long as you change me back with a kiss.

-

Cassie Cage: Heard you hung out with Jacqui.

You: Yes, though she didn’t mention you at all.

Cassie Cage: She is the worst wing woman.

-

You: You’ve come to my crossroads. Do you need my guidance?

Cassie Cage: Just wondering if you could teach me a trick or two.

You: So it’s my protection you seek.

Shang Tsung: Your beauty entices me

You: My power entices you.

Shang Tsung: Two things can be true at once.

-

Shang Tsung: Soon, you shall be my bride.

You: You cannot tie down a Goddess; you cannot tie down the Night.

Shang Tsung: I can try.

-

Shang Tsung: Do my powers impress you, Goddess of magic?

You: They certainly intrigue me, Sorcerer.

Shang Tsung: Allow me to give you a closer look.

-

Shang Tsung: Every time I invoke my magic, I do so in your name.

You: Your loyalty changes with the moon’s phases.

Shang Tsung: I devote myself to you, my Goddess.

-

Shang Tsung: I want something more valuable than your soul.

You: Such as?

Shang Tsung: Your love.

-

Shang Tsung: You forgave Shinnok, but not I?

You: I did not forgive him. He killed me when I refused to be his bride.

Shang Tsung: I will succeed where he has failed.

-

Shang Tsung: I kneel at your altar, my Goddess.

You: You needn’t prostrate yourself before me.

Shang Tsung: It is never a hardship to be on my knees for you.

-

You: Do you fear me?

Shang Tsung: I’d be a fool not to.

You: Then why challenge me?

-

Shang Tsung: You have the godly brothers on quite a tight leash.

You: I demand no loyalty from them.

Shang Tsung: It’s doubtful that they stray far from you.

-

You: Kronika spared me in hopes of using my powers. When I refused, she cast me into the void.

Shang Tsung: We have been similarly wronged by her.

You: That is why we must aid Luai Kang in defeating her.

-

Shang Tsung: You are the last Eldar God.

You: Yes. And I shall help Luai Kang in his creation of the new timeline.

Shang Tsung: Then this will be goodbye for now.

Taunts

You: The Wheel of Fortune comes for us all. You: Your future is uncertain. You: You cannot hide from the Night’s embrace. You: Knell in repentance. You: Your path ends here. You: You are lost. You: It is simply an illusion. You: You challenge an Eldar God? You: Will you make an offering? You: You are forgiven. You: I will lead your spirit through the gates of the Netherrealm. You: You shall not pass. You: Are you seeing double? You: Allow me to guide you.

[cup-o-stars]

Relativity Falls Lore Concept- The Oracle and Bill

The Oracle:

I was initially inspired by the Twitter user @SUwu159's depiction of the Oracle in their take on Relativity Falls, and made my own adaptation as I learned about her in canon.

(Assume she can change colors because I couldn't pick what I liked most)

This version of The Oracle isn't malicious per se, and does not desire the same conquest or chaos sought out by Bill. But she likes universes to be organized and quaint (or answers to another high power that demands it), and finds fulfillment in achieving these goals through any means necessary.

The Oracle and Dipper:

(Sorry if this dialogue tastes like a corndog in your mouth. I just needed to write a semi-resolution to Dipper's side of the relationship, ha.)

Getting into the real struggle with the Pines family. Dipper and Mabel don't fight and hold grudges like the Stans (that we've seen of), so my opinion is that they drifted apart in their late teens and twenties, both feeling pressured to be less attached at the hip. My current belief (though I'm very willing to rewrite this section) is that Mabel and Dipper both poured a lot of energy into pretty niche fields, and being very busy meant very short and rare windows to reach out. Both assumed the other was doing bigger and better things and felt self conscious / childish for wanting eachother's company.

I'm still considering Mabel's backstory, since I think she probably hit lower points than Dipper. You know. Starving artist, lol. But Dipper entered into paranormal investigation, pest control, etc. before his ghost + monster catching went far enough for his name to gain some notoriety. Hell, maybe Pacifica's family reached out to him to take care of "rats" that were actually ghosts, cementing his interest in Gravity Falls and giving him a window inter supernatural work.

Dipper was taken on as something of an apprentice to the Oracle 30ish years before canon as word of his good and dangerous deeds spread. However, what was at first a personal dream come true (saving lives with nerd magic) soon became a personal hell as the Oracle began to overwhelm Dipper with knowledge of various futures and universes where everything he cared about could be destroyed. He's always been over prepared and incredibly paranoid, and became obsessed with protecting the world by acting as a partner to the Oracle.

He ends up doing- or not doing- a lot of morally ambiguous things and gaining a lot of enemies. He is too ashamed to face his family- especially Mabel- with what he's done and burden them, giving the Oracle more to use against him to keep him working for her. Basically "you've already done all this and risked it all, there's nowhere to go if you stop now." Eventually this ends in her seeing him fit for her work and convincing him to hide out in and save other universes, which he gets trapped doing for the next three decades.

Little throw away idea: Pacifica could have been an investor or partner, but left as they uncovered secrets about the Northwest family. Maybe she wanted to undo something (debating making any of the Oracle's powers time related just because I hate time travel) or stop a current show of corruption, but Dipper had to stop her for the "greater good."

In the main universe, Mabel goes to Gravity Falls upon news of her brother's disappearance, searching for any loose end to trace back to him.

I love that in canon, Dipper is willing to do anything for Mabel, and Mabel gives it back. Dipper here spends all of his life keeping as many versions of her as safe as he can, and she spends all her life trying go seek him out- maybe even dropping a larger opportunity outside of Gravity Falls for her art and settling on business at the shack. Dipper wants Mabel alive, Mabel wants them both happy. I like the idea that it's Dipper and Mable vs. The Future but the future is a demon, alien thing.

Which leads me to...

Bill Cipher:

I'm actually gonna cover a couple versions of Bill I think are fitting for this AU, because I initially wasn't sure if I wanted him here at all.

Child Bill:

Pretty straight forward. Bill as a baby, child thing is tempting and this is the au where he'd exist. Personally though, I think Ford's friendship with Fidds would be more enriching to his growth, and Bill's personality is so close to Stan's they would likely be competing to fill very similiar roles. (If Bill behaves differenty as kid, I don't know about it.) Honestly, Bill is super similiar to Ford and Stan, and works better as a kind of foil or antagonist because of that (imo). I do find the mental image of Ford carrying Bill around funny. I do not enjoy human bill like, conceptually, so I'm probably never gonna design one as an adult or child, lol.

It would be cool to see a world where Bill didn't accidentally kill his parents though.

Bill - Reincarnated Original

Technically I guess they could all be reincarneted (especially baby Bill), but this version of Bill experienced and holds memories of the original canon events in GF. Beings like Bill and the Oracle can remember recent/soon approaching lives, and catch glimpses of more distant cycles as well.

What I like about Bill's recent role as an antagonist to Ford and Stan is that he constantly describes them in the terms of their worst traits, and sees them through the lens of the roles the world placed on them. In this AU, Bill is the epitome of the past (in this case a past life) coming back to bite the twins. He rattles their progress in communication as well as their sense of inner peace by bringing old Glass Shard Beach issues into Gravity Falls.

(Depicted here-> moments after Ford summons Bill using the same ritual as Gideon.)

The drawback to this is that it feels a lot like covering old ground.

Simply Bill:

This is pretty much just regular old Bill with the same fresh perspective as everyone else, and also the one I'm going with. He tried and failed to get Dipper's trust in the past and had to lay low at the arrival of the Oracle. Once they left, Bill targeted Mabel. I think it could be very interesting for Mabel and Bill to either have a fresh relationship wherein Bill is actively taking advantage of her desperation to find Dipper, or for Bill to be an old betrayal (not romantic, but not dissimilar to the opportunistic exes Stan and Ford have to be wary of and beat back under the rug regardless).

Either he shows himself to Mable early on, or decides that Gravity Falls is both Oracle-free and worth the time after either Ford or Mable summon him. Afterall, 30 years isn't much to him.

Maybe he exists in the background like he's always done, or the kids (being snoopy and disrespectful of Mabel's secrets) discover what Mabel's doing and run into him on their own.

Whether Bill is aware of the original series or not, I think he could be neat to stick in between Stan and Ford again for conflict. My favorite aspect about Relativity Falls is the prospects of the Stans having a larger support system and better tools to help themselves with. Beating Bill faster and better would be the ultimate testament to Mabel and Dipper's skills as functioning role models, even if Mabel is currently blinded by her focus on Dipper.

Stan and Ford will fight and they will make up, but this time maybe they can overcome it on their own.

I also think a good idea is having Ford and Stan's issues be completely Bill free (outside of like an episode or two's worth of relevance, unless he put them into a particularly stinging situation). It would feel fresher and also streamline the plot, lol.

Overview:

- Dipper is stuck travelling the multiverse with the Oracle and keeps himself sane by thinking of Mabel and protecting various versions of her.

- Mabel is investigating his disappearance in Gravity Falls and is working on a portal/portal equivalent with Bill to bring him back.

- The kids may or may not be aware of this.

Looking at the main series of events, I think it'd be neat go back to the apprenticeship conflict, where Ford could be approached by the Oracle (or something else that makes sense) with the promise of being a "hero," but knows better now because of Dipper and his experiences with Bill. It's kind of a more convoluted version of Ford's proposal to Dipper in canon, and they basically learn the same thing, lol. You can hang out with ghosts if you want, but demons are gonna get you. Maybe being a child with siblings is all you need.

(Stan could also be offered this, given the Oracle already knew he- or at least someone with his face- would beat Bill, but I think it's well established he isn't very interested in doing anything without family.)

All in all, things might be a bit crowded with two antagonists. But I do like the concept of Bill's arrival and subsequent chaos triggering Dipper and the Oracle's return to Mabel's dimension. I also love the idea of Bill, the Oracle, and some secret third thing all trying to pull the Pines family apart, and it's like a Man vs. God turned into a Family vs. Destiny thing, idk. Just trying to make it feel bigger.

Thank you for reading all this. It was a lot to draw. Next time I do anything for Relativity Falls, I'm gonna go back to the smaller things like Mabel bonding with the kids and stuff like that.

[tropicalcryptid]

Ok so She-Ra pulled such a great hat trick with Hordak's characterization, and I LOVE it

One of my favorite things about 2018 She-Ra is Hordak's story and development (and Entrapdak cough but that's not the point of this particular post), and the cleverest thing is that so much of it is actually being set up and told to us in seasons 1 and 2 before we even realize that that's what's happening.

When we first see Hordak in the show, he's giving "generic evil overlord" vibes. Garden-variety baddie. Maybe a little more reasonable than some and clearly capable of long-term thinking, but that just serves to make him intimidating. Everything about him--the way he runs his empire, his armor, his color scheme, his minion, his Villainous Eye Makeup(TM), even his name--are all projecting to the audience "yup, Acme Bad Guy here. Move right along."

But then, backstory. And everything snaps into focus. Not only is it one of the first big oh SHIT moments of the show, where we suddenly zoom out and realize that there is SO much more going on than we realized--it's also the start of the audience seeing Hordak as a character rather than an archetype. Suddenly we realize that he's not conquering Etheria because he wants power, or hates happiness and sparkles, or whatever--he's doing it out of a desperate attempt to prove his worth to his brother/creator/god. This moment where Hordak lets Entrapta in is also the moment the show lets us in on what makes our favorite spacebat tick.

On top of that, we've also seen him bonding with Entrapta and opening up to this person that he respects and trusts...probably the only person he's ever respected or trusted apart from Prime. And she's Etherian--someone of a lower species, someone he's supposed to subjugate, someone who he has been raised and trained and programmed and mind-controlled into believing is below him in every way.

But instead she's brilliant and creative and mesmerizing. She's not afraid of him, and she's fascinated with his work. For the first time since being abandoned by Prime, Hordak finally has someone that he can talk to, who is on his level and both understands and cares about the science! (because he is a giant nerd). She's kind to him, a mere defect. And it just sends his whole worldview into a spin, and that's all before--

Bam, mans is a goner. Entrapta's "Imperfections are beautiful" comment punches right through all the toxic bs that Hordak has been steeped in his entire life. You can see on his face here--I think it's the moment Hordak fell in love with Entrapta, but this is also the face of a spacebat reevaluating his entire worldview. If Entrapta, who is amazing, believes something different from Prime...what does that mean? If Entrapta, who is brilliant, believes that he is worth something, and that she herself is a failure...

Well. We know what happens after that, and how Hordak begins to doubt, and eventually fights back against Prime (and remembers his love for Entrapta after TWO mind wipes help my heart ack). But we also get to see what life in the Galactic Horde looks like: the only life Hordak ever knew before coming to Etheria.

It's not nice.

It's really not nice.

Prime operates in a very specific way, and we learn a lot about it in season 5. Prime expects complete obedience, devotion and worship from his clones. He allows no individuality from his subjects, not even a name. Failure or deviations are punished, mind-wiped, or destroyed. We even learn from Wrong Hordak that facial expressions are considered a privilege reserved for Prime (apart from, presumably, expressions of rapture caused by being around Prime).

And once we learn all of this, suddenly thinking about season 1 Hordak becomes very interesting indeed. The time we spend with the Galactic Horde and Prime throws absolutely everything that we know about Hordak into a whole new context. Now all those traits that made him a generic villain are actually hugely effective characterization! And what that characterization is telling us is that Hordak had already moved much farther away from Prime than we (or, probably, he) had realized, even long before he met Entrapta.

Horde Prime does not allow his underlings to have names, personalities, or any differences of appearance. Not only does Hordak allow this among his own troops, he chose a name for himself as well! Season 5 tells us that his very name is an act of blasphemy against his god. And yet Hordak took one for himself, and that name is part of the core identity he is able to hold on to when rebelling against Prime.

Horde Prime cast Hordak out when he showed signs of physical imperfections. Hordak not only keeps Imp (who is by all appearances a failed clone or similar experiment) around, he treats Imp more gently than we see him treat anybody or anything before Entrapta. Imp is not simply "generic evil guy's minion," he is proof of Hordak's capacity for compassion, and evidence that Hordak cannot bring himself to cast aside "defects" as easily as Prime. Considering where Hordak came from, Imp's existence is a huge, flashing neon sign telling the audience this guy here is better than the hell that molded him, and we don't even realize it until 4 seasons after it's been shown to us!

Very cool, ND.

There's more, though. Hordak's red and black color scheme? His dark eye makeup and lipstick? Very Evil Overlord chic. But nope! Actually these are actually expressions of individuality on a level that Hordak knows would be abhorrent to Prime!

Reading between the lines, I see this as Hordak desperately trying to reconcile two diametrically opposed beliefs in his head: (1) devotion to Prime, whose approval he desperately craves, and (2) maintaining some degree of unique personhood, of Hordak, from which to draw strength. Because a failed, defective clone cannot survive on a hostile world, cut off from the hivemind and from Prime's light. A failed clone cannot create an empire to offer Prime as tribute, nor build a spacetime portal from scraps and memory to call Prime back. A failed clone cannot create cybernetic armor to keep his hurting, weakened body alive; to force himself to keep going no matter what, to fight through the pain and the doubt by sheer force of will.

But maybe Hordak can.

And so there it is. Hordak had plenty of time to gain and explore his individuality while separated from Prime, but I think the reason he did it so effectively (while still deluding himself that Prime would forgive him for these little sins, if only Hordak could prove his value) is because he had to.

Wrong Hordak gained his individuality surrounded by kind, quirky people who took care of him; Hordak was ripped from the hivemind by Prime himself and had to fight for his survival against all odds. And that produced a dangerous and damaging foe for Etheria. But it also produced the one clone with the strength of will to defy Prime himself.

This is long and rambling, but ultimately my point is that 1) I love Hordak, and 2) I love love love love that the show was so clever about his characterization. We learn so much about him and how much progress he's already made in breaking from his psycho abusive cult upbringing, and we don't even recognize it until the show wants us to. Hordak had come so far, all on his own, before he met Entrapta. She just helped push him over the edge and finally realize (at least consciously) that Prime's worldview might not be the correct one.

Idk, I just don't know if I've ever seen all the trappings of Basic 80's Villain(TM) so successfully subverted, where looking back 4 seasons later is actually a smack in the face with the "effective character building" stick. Amazing.

[yumeka-sxf]

According to this tweet from Endo, today's new chapter will be the final installment of the "Henry x Martha backstory" arc...and it definitely went out on a high note! The part where Martha meets Henry's wife was absolutely heartbreaking...in particular the below page, starting with an upside down view of the scene, showing how the world is literally warping for Martha, followed by shards and shreds of her various memories with Henry, all the while the "throb, throb" of her heart is overlaying all the panels. Definitely one of Endo's best portrayals of a truly shocking moment.

It's also interesting that we never see Lucia's face, despite her having a big panel when she first appears.

Endo has done this before with other characters, Loid's parents being the other big example. We also never see their faces, despite them appearing several times during his flashback arc.

With the few examples we've had, to me it seems like Endo hides the faces of characters who 1) appear as flashbacks only and 2) who have had a significant emotional impact on the character whose memories they appear in, but at the same time, that character has since done their best to get over the painful memories associated with them. So they basically represent some past trauma for the character (even if they don't necessarily dislike them) but in the current time, they've more or less left that part of their past behind. Hence why their faces are obscured in the character's memories. This is also why I think we'll never see Loid's parents or Lucia's faces outside of flashbacks. This is just my interpretation of course, and I'm curious if there will be more examples in other characters' flashback arcs.

But back to Henry and Martha, I also liked the fact that, despite her broken heart, Martha still saw Lucia as a good person and became friends with her. Henry seems to love her as well. This actually ties back very well to what Martha tells Becky at the end of her story about how dangerous it is to latch onto preconceptions and prejudices without knowing the truth.

In Becky's simple world, she would see Lucia as the "evil seductress who stole Henry away" and Martha has to get him back. But as Martha said, things aren't always that simple and don't always adhere to our preconceived notions. Sometimes things can't end up exactly how you want or expect, so you have to be grateful for what you have and see things as they truly are, despite living with lingering regrets. In fact, this whole speech from Martha at the conclusion of her flashback was extremely deep and profound. Not many people can write both comedy and drama so well, but Endo is certainly one of them.

Also, is this Wiesel's first appearance? Still waiting for the doggy play date chapter with Wiesel, Bond, Max, and Aaron! 🐶

Since it's been so long since I read the first chapter of this arc, I couldn't remember if Martha had actually revealed the identity of her lover in her story, but makes sense that she didn't. I can imagine Becky storming into school yelling at Henderson and causing total embarrassment for all 😅 Funny that she almost guessed correctly though.

I'm surprised we never found out how Martha started working for the Blackbells, but that's an easy enough mystery to solve - she needed work after the wars were over, and being a bodyguard suited an ex-soldier. Also seems like she never told Henry her true feelings either...maybe by the time Lucia died, it was too late and they had both grown somewhat apart by then, and/or they had some additional falling outs about Martha joining the other wars, etc. It just wasn't meant to be and the message of the story was Martha coming to terms with that and being wiser for it.

In conclusion, this was a great arc that really shows Endo's range as a writer who can do both comedy and drama very well. Despite Henry and Martha being side characters, I have a feeling that the struggles they experienced will have relevance later in the series. But for now, I look forward to seeing the Forgers and other characters again (and getting back to the last major uproar of Anya telling Damian about her powers...seems like ages ago, lol). Endo will be taking a well deserved break, so the next new chapter will be on August 19th!

I also have some new posts planned in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for those as well 😀

[hihellomy]

SAHSRAU IDEA

WARNING:Religious themes, cult themes, semi existencisl crisis, Boothill leaks(backstory)

Now listen ever since Boothill leaks dropped of his backstory i hated the IPC, and then i went on to learn more about them and damn. If Sahsr were real theyd be dead by now.

Like i take my hatred seriously, i just started Topaz's quest and i was nitpicking the most humbling options and the ones that were most pessimistic towards IPC, i decided to not pull ANY IPC CHARACTER, Topaz, Aventurine, Jade, Im not pulling any of them, f the shield and f the treasure, and my love for Boothill is visible, hes the reason i redownloaded (i was still very much in the tutorial part) and kept the game this time, and while my saving could have been bigger(i got a bit greedy on standard pulls) their at 110 with no pity on both character and weapon banner, i am getting that mf

And thew self aware lenses the Astral express is debating, the IPC arent perfect, yes, but they have friends there, they DID help places, but their grace refused to have anything even remotely positive towards them, should they...cut off all ties? If it pleases their grace maybe, and they cant deny how valid your concerns are, they are bad people, they have disapointed their grace, in fact youd be happy if they got wiped wouldnt you? No, youd want them alive. To torture them, and then... For their last breath will serve as a suficient offering

The IPC meanwhile are sweating bullets, some of them are aware of how rotten they are, some genuanly believe they are good, Topaz unfortunatly falls into the second category, she and Numpy are reaching high and low for only the best treasure for your offerings, pleading, begging you to forgive their actions, and maybe you could, if she felt and never looked back, burning away what was left, Aventurine's hands better off being choped off, its vibrating from panic, hes pacing back and forth, chewing on his glowes, can he even leave if he wanted to? who would he turn to? what would he do then? He may have been blessed by Mama Fengu but you... You are anything else, he doesnt like the IPC either but he knows that if you could, youd travel back in time and give him the coldest responses, and death threats behind that beautiful, safe screen. Jade, Miss Jade, Powerful and in control Jade, knew she was the most screwed from the three, it was no secret, what she did to Aventurine, her slaves, they held their usual expressions but she knew they were smilling on the inside, awaiting your rescuse from her hands, she knows turning over a new lief wasnt an option, youd just laugh at the idea she could reddem what she did, all she can do is call Diamond and seek a solution, what else is there

Boothill, Ive never seen him happier, he cant wait for hes release, for you to come pick him up, get him a brand new gun, give him all those thingamagics to make him stronger, to better make you happy, you care so much about him, hes your favorite, he hopes youll be happy w ith his trial and still choose him, hell do his best there! Oh he can already hear and see it all when the prophecy comes true, for when that stupid, cage breaks.... The wedding bells... The little rascals.... He already has a few names planned! Isnt he so great?

[sunderwight]

SVSSS AU where Shen Yuan's younger sister does a villainess transmigration.

The world she ends up in was originally a dating game and visual novel with some light RPG and crafting elements. Playing as purehearted main girl Qiu Haitang, one could choose any number of routes to pursue, from dashing Liu Qingge, to scholarly Mu Qingfang, sexy ice demon Linguang Jun, cute-but-domineering younger half-demon Luo Binghe, and so on. It was an interesting game, though it notoriously inspired some frustration when some of the more interesting side characters (like Yue Qingyuan) were completely unavailable as romantic options, and inspired at lot of rumors about hidden content and demands on future DLC expansions.-

Shen Meimei hadn't particularly liked the game. Sure, she played every route to 100% completion, bought all the extras, the official soundtrack, and the merch (fanmade as well as what slim-pickings existed officially), but that shouldn't be mistaken for approval. Much of that was in fact a desperate quest to figure out what the hell was even going on! Ignore the play time listed for this scathing Steam review, everyone! It shouldn't be factored into any assessments!

The game had several problems, in Shen Meimei's opinion.

The main issue was the lack of follow-through on the buildup of the backstory. Qiu Haitang's whole family was killed one night, maybe-probably by her sketchy as fuck ex-fiancee, who was also a hostage being kept by the Qiu family as leverage against a rival family. Which begged so many questions! Shen Meimei had suspected all along that there was more to it than met the eye (not just because the evil family shared her surname) but it was never deeply delved into. The whole thing only even got resolution in some of the routes, and the most thorough was Luo Binghe's. Luo Binghe had a huge vendetta against Shen Qingqiu, Haitang's sketchy former fiance, which left a lot of room for doubt about his investigating the issue. Was Shen Qingqiu really to blame? Or was Luo Binghe just taking advantage of an opportunity to pin SOME crime on him, since he couldn't really get him for the shit he actually did to Luo Binghe himself? What about the hints regarding that Wu Yanzi guy? Why did those never seem to amount to much? Were the Qiu family really stupid enough to betroth their only daughter to a hostage, or was something else going on? And what about Xiao Qi, the slave boy servant of the Qiu who was mentioned a few times as another possible survivor or witness, but who never comes up again?

Shen Meimei played through everything, certain that there had to be some way to actually solve or gain clarity on the Mystery of the Qiu Family Murders, but even after completing the main routes and unlocking and completing the hidden ones -- nothing! It was all just swept aside in favor of tepid romance arcs, made all the more insufferable because of the compelling subtext between the male love interests. Like, why were any of these guys even interested in Haitang when they so clearly had more going on with each other?

Annoyance over a game Shen Meimei lost too many hours of her life to was one thing, of course.

Transmigrating into the younger sister of notoriously sketchy ex-fiance Shen Qingqiu was another!

Bad news: in the routes where Shen Qingqiu is prosecuted for his crimes, his whole family goes down with him. So if this goes poorly, not only will he be punished, but so will Shen Meimei!

Worse news: this fictional version of her family is almost identical to her actual real family. To the point where she would be checking everyone else for transmigration, except that no one but her seems aware that anything is odd. Shen Qingqiu acts exactly like her older brother, right down to his particular flavor of prickly social behavior and cynicism. And their middle brother is a chronically ill nerd who hate-reads trash novels and is completely fascinated by weird monsters (a much more worrisome trait in a world that actually has a lot of those...)

In short, her life is on the line, and so is her family's!

Damn you, Veiled Heroine Games! If you hadn't abandoned so many plot threats, Shen Meimei might actually know what was going on and be able to neatly circumvent everything! But now she has to figure out how to win the protagonist back over, rescue her brothers, and solve (and possibly further cover up...) the mysterious Qiu family murders, all while keeping Luo Binghe away from Shen Jiu, and preventing Qiu Haitang from completing any of the romance plotlines that will cause troubles for them! Which is most of them!

[eddies-ashtray]

Okay but: Eddie and fem!reader. Maybe they’re lab partners or friends or something, and Eddie has had a crush on reader FOREVER, so long that he’s just about given up on it being reciprocated. Like “I’ve come to terms with it, I’ll just pine from afar forever.” But one day reader just flat out says she likes him, or like “are you ever going to ask me out or????” and he is just absolutely floored.

Thank you for the request, anon! I hope you like what I came up with!

(Content: Lots of oblivious Eddie, a splash of oblivious reader, childhood bullying, pining Eddie, vague references to biology shit I know nothing about (sincerely, a humanities major), & a completely unnecessary backstory).

WC: 2.2k

♡*♡*♡

Eddie hadn’t always lived in Hawkins, Indiana with uncle Wayne. For his first few years, he lived with his mother and father in the city of Indianapolis. Then, when his mother passed away when Eddie was seven, and his father could no longer afford to live where they had always lived, they moved back to his fathers hometown of Hawkins. 

Eddie knew right away he disliked being the new kid at Hawkins Elementary. He knew no one and no one knew him, but they all knew each other. He felt like a zoo animal; something foreign and strange for the other kids to gawk at from a safe distance, but never someone to approach, never someone to play with at recess. He was ignored and simultaneously singled out and picked on constantly. 

One chilly October morning at first recess when the leaves had just begun to turn, Eddie perched on the swing in the playground, once again alone. As he stared into the damp sand beneath him, the grating sound of a familiar voice shouting took him off guard.

Instinctively, he looked up, small hands clutching the cool chain links of the swing and watched as Andy approached. He felt his stomach drop like it had when his mom took him to the fair and let him ride the kiddie coaster when he was five. 

“Get off the swing, it’s my turn now,” demanded Andy when he stopped in front of Eddie on the swing. 

“But…there are other swings,” Eddie said meekly, pointing to the other three swings to his left, gently swaying in the breeze. 

“Yeah, but you’re on my swing!” Andy argued. 

Eddie felt something else bubbling up inside him, different from the usual humiliation he felt when confronted with Andy or any of the others who saw him as an easy target. Something that quickened his breath and made his fists tighten on the chains.

“It’s not your swing!” Eddie argued back. This was the first time he had ever done so in his weeks at his new school. 

As soon as he’d said it, as soon as he’d let the anger bubble over, he regretted it. Because Andy took two steps forward and before Eddie could even process what was happening, Andy shoved Eddie off the swing. 

He fell into the sand with a thud, a dull ache immediately throbbing on his tailbone. And though he’d had worse injuries and the soft sand helped to break his fall, he still felt hot tears brim in his eyes and his bottom lip wobble as Andy cackled cruelly and took his seat on his swing. 

But before the tears could spill over and cause him further humiliation, a small hand came into view, one outstretched to him where he lay in the sand. The hand was attached to an arm, a body, a face which he had never seen before. This girl was not in his class, though she looked to be about his age.

Eddie didn’t trust the hand, worried this was going to be another cruel joke. So he continued to lay in the sand, unmoving. 

“C’mon, let’s go play over there,” she said, looking back at the play structure with the rusted monkey bars and silver metal slide. 

And because she just seemed like she wanted someone to play with, Eddie decided to trust her. So, he took her hand and she helped him up, both of them grunting with the effort of it.

“I’m Y/N, what’s your name?” The girl said as they walked away from the swings. 

“Eddie,” He sniffled. 

And, so, ever since you had shown him that small kindness, Eddie had been quite enamoured with you. Though you had not become close friends after that day, Eddie remained grateful for what you had done for him. You had shown him that he wasn’t alone and that people could be kind. 

Eventually, he found his people, but you always had a special place in his heart. 

 ***

About a decade later, Eddie finally, miraculously, gets paired with you in biology. After all these years of admiring from afar and (as much as he hates to admit it) pining after you, he finally had an excuse to talk to you, to get to know the very first person in Hawkins to ever show him kindness. 

“Hey, did you want to come over after school so we can finish filling out this worksheet? I know it’s not due until the end of next week, but if we get this done today, we can get to work on the final assignment,” You say, absentmindedly shuffling through weeks of notes and worksheets. 

But Eddie doesn’t hear what you’re saying despite the fact that his eyes are on you. That’s the problem, really. Of course, he loves the sound of your voice, is eager to listen to anything you have to say, thinks he could listen to you talk about all the different shades of white in the colour spectrum or the different types of bricks that there are for hours on end. 

But today, you wore a new lip gloss that made it nearly impossible for Eddie to focus on anything but the shiny pout of your lips. 

Finally, you look up from your assorted papers, your pretty eyes (God, you have such pretty eyes) connecting with his. 

“Eddie? You okay?” 

“Hm? Yeah, yeah. Totally…What were you saying?” He asks, head dipping lower so he can hear you over the din of the busy classroom. 

You lean in slightly, unconsciously, before you repeat yourself, and he can feel your soft breath on his skin. Eddie forces himself to suppress a shiver as goosebumps raise on his forearms. 

Yes, yes, he knows he’s pathetic; nearly sighing in satisfaction at the feeling of your breath on his skin. But inevitably, his feelings for you have only grown stronger since you became lab partners at the start of the term. But he doesn’t want to screw this up. And he has to admit, he feels silly for pining after you all these years, so he doesn’t want to confess his feelings, especially when he can’t be sure that you feel the same. He couldn’t face that all too familiar feeling of humiliation if you rejected him–which, in all honesty, he feels is fairly likely; you’re his polar opposite, you would look ridiculous together. 

So, he’s trying to convince himself he’s okay with just being friends. 

“Yeah, sounds good,” Eddie agrees to your plans. 

He inhales the scent of your strawberry shampoo as you shift away and neatly stack your papers together. 

Clearly, he is not. 

  ***

Somehow, Eddie has the great misfortune (and pleasure) of ending up doing your shared homework in your bedroom. He must be in hell. More to his true feelings though, he must be in heaven. 

He had assumed you would sit down at the kitchen table and get to work, but when Eddie began wandering in the direction of your kitchen, you called out to him.

“Where are you going?” 

“Oh,” Eddie says, turning to see you halfway up the shag carpet stairs. “I just thought we’d be working in the kitchen.” 

“My bedroom is better. C’mon,” You say, turning and continuing your trek up the stairs. And what can he do but follow?

But Eddie can’t imagine what you’d meant when you said your bedroom was ‘better’. Is sitting on your bed, your bare right thigh grazing his denim clad left one, better than sitting on separate chairs in your kitchen? In some ways (in fact, in many ways), this is definitely better. But it is definitely not better for his concentration. Or his sanity.  

“So, this one here,” You say, your shoulders brushing as you lean over his lap to point at the diagram on his worksheet. “Is the superior articular process, and this one is the inferior articular process.”

Eddie might pass out. 

He watches you as you scribble the words onto your worksheet in small print and proceeds to inscribe the same words onto his worksheet in the same place. 

He suffers through the afternoon, surrounded by artifacts of your life, dying to pick up every last trinket on your dresser and request a detailed history of the object, dying to unpin the photographs from your cork board and examine every last square inch of the image. He resists the urge to lean even further into you or to rest his head on your shoulder when he gets bored. He stops himself from staring as you pick out a cassette and begin swaying to the music as it croons from your cassette player. 

After all that suppressing and resisting, you finally conclude, “Alright, I guess we’re done.”

And Eddie swears that despite your chipper tone, your satisfaction with finishing the homework, there’s a hint of something else. Something akin to disappointment. But he couldn’t imagine why. 

He ignores it as he packs up his things, shoves his pens and his doodle-cluttered papers into his backpack. He ignores it as you walk down the stairs together. He ignores it as he laces his boots up. He ignores it as you open the door for him. And he ignores it as he says goodbye to you and walks out your front door. 

He only gets halfway down your driveway before he stops in his tracks at the sound of your voice. 

“Oh, for God’s sake, Eddie!” You shout. You don’t quite sound angry, more fondly exasperated than anything. 

This, he cannot ignore.

He spins around on his heels.

You’re strolling down your driveway towards him with determination.

You’re stopping in front of him, looking up at him, hands on your hips like you're about to admonish him for tracking mud in the house. 

He blinks. Once. Twice. Still not getting it as you stand in front of him in your frilly white socks without shoes. 

“Were you ever going to ask me?” You wonder genuinely, eyes searching his for answers he isn’t giving you. 

“Ask you what?” Eddie replies, genuinely perplexed. 

A soft smile creeps onto your face, like a reassuring realization is coming to you. 

“You really don’t know?” You ask softly. 

Eddie shakes his head. You look down at your socks for a moment before meeting his eyes again. 

“I wanted you to ask me out. Y’know…on a date?” You explain, swaying nervously, hands held sweetly behind your back.

Eddie’s lips part gently in shock, all his synapses firing at once. He cannot comprehend that his childhood crush–this girl who he’s been absolutely smitten with since he was seven–has just confirmed that she feels about him the same way he feels about her. 

“Eddie? You alright?” You ask, reaching out to place your hand on his bicep. He hadn’t known he needed steadying until your hand met his skin. 

With that touch, a sudden surge of confidence rises within him. 

His dimples pop into his cheeks as he grins. It’s not self-satisfied or cocky. How could it be? He never would have thought she would want to go out with him. 

His heart pounds against his chest as he says sincerely, “Just give me a time and place and I’ll be there.”

“What?” Now it’s your turn to be oblivious. 

“For our date,” Eddie replies simply, like he isn’t about to pass out asking the prettiest girl he’s ever seen on a date. 

For a moment, your eyes light up and then an embarrassed smile spreads across your face before you bury your face in your hands. Then they slide around to frame your face and you look up at him, clearly embarrassed about your lack of understanding. 

Nonetheless, you reply, “Friday, 7PM? Pick me up here? I don’t really care what we do, I-”

But you don’t complete the sentence. Instead, you glance at your socks again.

“You what?” Eddie wonders, dying to hear what you have to say. 

You meet his gaze again. “I just wanna see you.” 

Butterflies erupt in his belly. But he tries his best to keep his cool, to not squeal like a schoolgirl right now. That, he can save for later when you’re not standing in front of him, eyes shining in the setting sunlight. 

For now, Eddie gasps in faux flattery (though he really is quite flattered) and proceeds to fan himself with his hand, like a demure princess. “Well!” 

“Oh, shut up,” You say, lightly shoving his shoulder. “I had us doing homework in my bed and you still didn’t get it!” 

Eddie laughs softly at your willingness to tease him back and his face flushes at the reminder of his obliviousness. 

“In my defence, that’s pretty damn subtle,” Eddie quips and you roll your eyes fondly. 

“Just pick me up on Friday, you idiot!” You shout as you begin making your way back towards your house. 

“See you Friday,” Eddie confirms, shouldering his backpack as he watches you walk back inside and he starts slowly walking backwards down your driveway. He’s still watching before you shut the door, nearly in disbelief that any of this actually just happened, that you’re even real. 

You wave as he reaches the end of your driveway. He waves back. 

Eddie starts planning your date on his walk home and by the time he gets back to the trailer, he knows exactly what you’re going to do this Friday. 

♡*♡*♡

Thank you so much for reading, please reblog if you enjoyed!

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[love-of-the-red-star]

That time I got reincarnated as an Aeon

(Series)

Chapter two: This is not a good day to be a god.

Warnings: Spoilers for Aventurine’s backstory, some canon divergent stuff as I’m taking creative liberties. Reader is kind of biased but also not. People aren’t really having a good time. Good ol Eldritch horror. This chapter is a bit more serious in tone than the last ones.

“Mr. Yang, can we please switch the channel?”

Welt, being the nearest person near the techy T.V you absolutely had no fucking idea how to operate yet had obliged to your request, because you see, the news channel had no problem broadcasting your latest breakdown for everyone to hear.

You could have sworn you saw Pompom almost cry from the sound of your eldritch version and honestly you wouldn’t blame them— if you were them, you were sure you’d cry at the sound of your own voice too because what the fuck was that—

Why you even cried? Well, you accidentally freed a planet.

From existing. By simply accidentally dropping your tears on it because you cried watching a planet from thousands of light years away that you’re pretty sure is Sigonia come to conflict.

How you accidentally did more damage than Nanook and haven’t ended up being assimilated to them is beyond you, but you remembered you still have some agendas, you can’t be eaten yet.

It wasn’t exactly your fault your true form was a little too big that rogue planets who had the unlucky chance to get too near you ended up being quite literally disassembled. You just hoped there were no sentient life forms in it.

Continuing on with breakfast, Himeko drank her weird smelling coffee near you, unperturbed and probably used to hearing the news airing out your dirty laundry. (She’s still a little shaken from hearing the crying, but knowing you personally has made it seem.. less terrifying.)

You munched on your toast, thanking Pompom for making it the way you liked it; being slightly on the burnt side.

Welt had switched the channel to a different network, this time, there’s sports. Everyone seemed content on seeing sweaty men on a soccer field instead of hearing your not so pleasant and probably horrifying sounding distress so it was a win.

Then you randomly remembered Sigonia.

“Hey uh.. Himeko? Do we have data on this specific star cluster here?” You asked as you scribbled on a piece of paper, hoping at least that Akivili had made it there at least once.

Himeko peered through the paper and frowned. “….” She seemed hesitant, which confirmed your suspicion. “We don’t… the rail hasn’t gone that way just yet.”

Well shit. It seemed like you couldn’t take the express with you without you heading there and establishing a space anchor first.

But that would take time. Too much time. And you realized that logically there would be little to no benefit of a space anchor in a harsh desert planet— you cut those thoughts as soon as they came, you weren’t going to think like the IPC.

It’s up to you to establish a connection then. But could you even make it in time?

————————————

Your projection had disappeared after breakfast, leaving the express once again to wander as they pleased as you returned to your original body to peer into Sigonia— specifically Sigonia IV once again.

It’s surprisingly lively for a desolate place. It made sense, people do live there, and it made you smile at the resilience they presented despite their circumstances.

You should bless them, you thought, maybe placing it under the guise of their mother goddess if you’re remembering their belief system correctly. She.. unfortunately does not exist, but you do.

You won’t let them know that though for the sake of their peace.

You just wish the two clans would free themselves from hatred; logically it would be more beneficial to work together in a place like that, and it made you feel bad for the Katicans in a way— to be caged by their own prejudice they can’t see beyond words or envy that they’d choose to simply wipe out another clan out of those feelings. It was just sad, a little pathetic almost.

You didn’t want to be biased, but you do know you have sides to take if you wanted to be free of something. In this situation, you don’t think there was an option to simply have the two of them be on equal terms— not for now at least. Maybe you should consult Xipe? But where even are they?

For the sake of quieting your strangely human conscience, you chose to bless the Avgins in their little festival, in the hope that you’d steer them away from their written fate.

You know it’d be hard to fight, but you’d be damned if you didn’t try.

It had taken you to seeing little Kakavasha for a good while for you to finally crack and get down there yourself.

There was no way you were going to let him suffer a life that you knew was going to happen to him, not if you could do something about it. And lucky for you, you were an Aeon, and you were an Aeon that did whatever they damn wanted.

You had said fuck you to fate that day and took the form of an Avgin woman, not before leaving a message to Boothill that you hope he’d receive considering you’re not delivering it through your phone number— you were delivering your message through sheer will.

————————

Assimilating with the Avgin had come rather easily. It had made you feel bad to deceive them— you had pretended to be injured, no, it was more like you intentionally let your projection appear injured, as you approached their camp.

You had called yourself “Delia”, and they were keen on accepting that. They had taken care of you and kids cooed over the patterns of the skirt that you wore, asking you how you had created it.

Your only saving grace had been a young girl who appeared almost the same physical age as you, shooing away the people who crowded you too much. (Not that there was even many of them, there were three at most, and they were children.)

You had only awkwardly laughed as she shot them a look, something about how the “patient” needed to be left alone.

“Sorry about them, they can be excitable when they see something pretty.” She said to you, squeezing a wet rag before she wiped your face with it. It’s embarrassing to be taken care of like you were a baby, but if it’s what it took to try and free them, then you’re willing to sacrifice your dignity a little more— if you were being honest, you’d take this over hearing the sound of your own crying on the television.

“It’s fine.” You smiled as she put the rag down and checked your “injured” leg.

“A few more days and you’d be good to go. Though…. You’re healing faster than people normally would…..” You could sense the suspicion in her tone, and inwardly you smiled mischievously. “Never mind, I suppose that’s a good thing. The sooner you heal, the sooner you’re out of the bed and can go around and move about.” She nodded to herself in her assessment of you and left the tent.

It was days later that you found that she’s funnily enough, Kakavasha’s sister.

By that time, you were known by the people around you, but you didn’t know them.

Kakavasha had been one of those who knew you in courtesy of his older sister; and now he’s here, shyly peeking over the table as you scribbled away into a sheet of paper.

He’s curious as he peered over your work. “It’s the stars you see on the left side of that mountain.” You told him, hesitantly he brings his pointer finger and holds it over the tear drop shapes.

“What’s this?”

“It’s rain.” You explained, and the little boy that you once knew to be the gambler tilted his head.

“Why is there so many of them?” Ah right, this place didn’t rain much.

“The sky is crying.” You told him and he simply frowned.

“Sister said you have a lot of stories.” He decided to change the topic, probably sensing your awkwardness. How embarrassing for a little kid to know you’re not good at speaking, but you know you’ll eventually learn how to better yourself in doing so.

“Yes I do, wanna hear one of them?” Your smile returned, and little Kakavasha, with his one missing front tooth, reflected your expression.

“I’m taking that as a yes. I’ll tell you the story of a girl who lost everything to the rain…”

————————

Two Sigonian months (you’ve counted the hours, and put them into months to prevent yourself from going insane from saying the numbers) and you’re pretty sure you’ve ran out of tales you’ve parodied from the original you told him and the other children. Kakavasha had brought it upon himself to stick by your side funnily enough, saying something about not caring if you repeat the tales to him again.

His mother had brought you to the side some time ago, thanking you for the diversion you gave to the children from the reality they were in.

You were combing a sleeping Kakavasha’s hair when you had heard it. The dreaded call for aid for the next Kakava festival.

And there was no time for the space anchor you were just starting to make.

Your hands paused, and you gently set the child’s head off your lap and into a pillow before disappearing into the night.

You returned 6 system hours later. Then another 18 system hours went by before you disappeared again and reappeared exactly after six hours. That continued on for days as the festival grew nearer.

——————————

Unbeknownst to you, this was utterly terrifying for the galaxy rangers aside from Boothill to receive messages from a nonexistent number. It had come in the form of a cipher, then actual comprehensive texts, then another cipher again and all of them would increase in frequency— as if the one who was calling for help was making it a point that it was urgent.

All of it had led to the answer of Sigonia IV despite the other strange contents of those messages.

Sometimes it wasn’t even texts at all, sometimes it was calls in the same six system hour time span that they’d receive those messages. They’d receive the call, and they would receive static sounds that formed words— gibberish half the time, but still beckoning them to Sigonia IV.

Some of them had put their phone down sometimes as the calls manifested into sounds that made them shudder all the way to their bones. They couldn’t describe the noise, but it put some sort of primal reaction out of them enough that some of them went 72 system hours without sleep.

As irrational and ridiculous as it sounded, there were very little things that galaxy rangers feared.

Whatever was sending them these things were one of them.

Sometimes it would be their TV, and Boothill had the unfortunate fate of listening to the strange cacophony that if he had been a human he was sure it would have terrified him enough he’d piss himself. There was something wrong about the waves it emitted, it wasn’t a normal glitch or a hack sort of glitch, but rather something else.

SOS, Sigonia IV, SOS, Sigonia IV. The message were a repeat.

In the calls he received, he would have thought he was having a fever dream when he found they didn’t exist in his call logs until his fellow rangers confirmed they received the same message.

He remembered receiving the text once before all this— a strange occurrence, but not exactly a coincidence.

They received the same messages again for this night. Except the ending sequence changed.

Bring people. Avgin. IPC not help. SOS. Sigonia IV. Send HELP.

After the last sequence had indicated the date, the TV short circuited and the lights dimmed.

“Oh fudge me.” Boothill muttered, whoever or whatever was even sending these things were clearly going agitated. “Looks like we’re going to be on a roll boys, I don’t think it’s wise to priss off this cutie pie so best we don’t ignore that signal for any fudging longer than we already had.”

“Say less, and I hope to the aeons I get a good nights sleep when we’re done.”

—————————————

Part I, Part II, Part III [HERE], Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII….

And that’s a wrap for part two! I know it lacks jokes but come on. But yeah we’re going on the more serious territory for a bit before we go back for the jokes. Heavily unedited and written in the middle of the night.

[tossawary]

In "The Princess Bride", Westley is (forgive this phrasing, I mean it relatively fondly) "a petty bitch of a man", but I can kind of see where he's coming from giving Buttercup a hard time at the beginning. It's a very human thing to have a temper.

He went off to seek his fortune and was attacked by pirates, which I assume was a bloody and unpleasant experience. He had to beg for his life and spent a long time as their captive, threatened with death every single day, even if it later turned into a less serious morbid joke. Life on the crew of the most famous pirate in the world was presumably pretty harsh at times and he worked his ass off training himself up to be worth feeding and keeping alive, then to be able to hold his own in this new life. Piracy is hardly a very safe profession.

For all we know, Westley did attempt to send letters home, but he probably had to work hard to scrounge up the money for it and find someone semi-legitimate willing to carry it, and this is hardly an era of reliable mail. He probably had to just hope that Buttercup 1) wouldn't hear the news of his first ship's destruction and/or 2) would trust in his love for her enough to know that he was alive and fighting to come back.

When Westley finally becomes the Dread Pirate Roberts, he's still stuck with the former Dread Pirate Roberts for a little while, and then he has a pirate crew who have expectations of him. He cannot sail the damn ship himself. It probably took a lot of work, threats and persuasion and the slow building of trust, in order to get a ship full of men to eventually take him back to Florin. Like, would he even have told them about Buttercup? (It would be funny if there's a crew of pirates out there cheering Westley on in True Love.) Would he have had to promise them some reward?

He also went out in the world to make his fortune and he already knows that he's dreadfully late, so maybe his position is, "Okay, I will build up trust with my crew by building up our fortunes, WHILE slowly but surely moving back across the world in the direction of Florin so that I can see the love of my life again. This hellish experience traveling all over the damn world will all have been worth it for her."

It's possible that Westley was mostly having silly pirate adventures worthy of a comedic operetta, but based on the tragedies of Inigo and Fezzik's own backstories, this world is not actually that nice. Westley is being flippant and lighthearted when he later summarizes things for Buttercup, but he does seem to be one to make light of / ignore his personal suffering. I do think that he did probably make some friendships through this hardship and had some good experiences along the way, especially near the end, but I also think that the beginning of his journey must have been really shit.

So, Westley fights hard to get back home, then lands somewhere in Florin and is on his way back to the farm, but then finds out from some random villagers (or Buttercup's parents) that his shitty former prince is marrying an incomparably beautiful milkmaid named Buttercup. Like...? The love of his life didn't wait for him (she thought he was dead and is also being forced into this, so that Humperdink can murder her to start a war, Buttercup did nothing wrong) and traded up for some SHITHEAD PRINCE??? That has to HURT. (And Westley does not like admitting to feeling pain!)

Even if he loves mischief and drama, Westley is being an unnecessarily huge jerk when he kidnaps Buttercup away from her kidnapping, but also yeah, I see how his temper might be running hot. He's struggling with the fact that his True Love might have moved on after he's probably been using her memory as a thin rope of sanity for years.

[sentientcave]

Retirement Party

Chapter 6 - The Butterfly Effect

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Contains: No Y/N (2nd POV but Reader is an OC), Kidnapping, Forcible relocation, Dubcon, Plus-sized Reader/OC, female Reader/OC, Everyone learns new things about each other, Manipulation, PTSD, Doll has a tragic backstory, Poorly translated Spanish, Lots of introspection

~4.2k - MDNI - Dark fic! Please mind the content warning above but honestly nothing particularly bad happens this chapter.

John gives you space for the next few days, letting you settle in around the edges of his own routine. You’ve always been an early riser, and so is he, but he starts every day with a run, and you prefer a slower pace. You’ve taken to coming downstairs after you hear the front door close, and stretch on the living room floor (you wouldn’t call it yoga, but you’ve spent the last few years keeping up with the Kinsey kids, and you know how important it is to maintain flexibility), and make coffee before you go back upstairs to get dressed and ready for the day. John always showers first thing after his run, but after the second day he starts taking off his shirt before he drinks a glass of water at the sink, watching you from the corner of his eye to see if you’re looking.

And maybe sometimes you are. It would be a useless endeavour, pretending that he’s not nice to look at. He’s big, barrel-chested, with thick, muscular arms, and he’s hairy in a way that’s unbelievably attractive, and he gleams with sweat after his runs. If he didn’t look so damn smug every time he catches you looking, you’d probably gladly spend a few long minutes studying him. Something about the man makes your fingers itch to pick up a pencil.

You just orbit around each other for those first few days. He’s working on some project outside, and you putter around the house a bit and look for new jobs online. You were surprised that he didn’t confiscate your laptop to keep you from calling for a rescue, but he made no effort to stop you from using your laptop or your phone. Perhaps he’d really listened when you’d tried to set boundaries. He’s certainly given you space to adjust.

On Wednesday, you video call your Lola— It’s been routine for ages, since you always had Sundays and Wednesdays off from work— and catch up. You start the call shortly after John leaves, to give yourself some time to talk privately. It’s nice to see her familiar, wrinkled brown face, even if she’s half the world away from you.

She clocks that you’re not at home right away, and gets that sly, knowing smile when you tell her you’re staying with a friend. “¿Estás viendo a alguien?” she asks. “¿Un joven tal vez?” Are you seeing someone? A young man perhaps?

“No nada de eso. Sólo quedarme con un amigo.” No, nothing like that. Just staying with a friend. Once again, lying to make it seem like you’re not in trouble. It’s not like your Lola would be able to do anything about your situation anyway. You would just worry her.

Of course, Lola is much too observant not to see that you're hiding something-- Even if all she sees of you is a video call once a week, you're her granddaughter and she knows you. "Dalisay," she says, her tone a mocking approximation of sternness. "Eres una mujer adulta. Me gustaría saber que eres feliz, que estás saliendo con alguien agradable. No tienes que mentirme. Mientele a tu otra abuela.” You are a grown woman. I would like to know you're happy, that you’re seeing someone kind. You don't have to lie to me. Lie to your other grandmother.

You laugh. "¡Es complicado Lola! Él es—" It's complicated Lola! He's—

The door opens, and John limps back in, early. "Rolled my ankle," he explains, taking your wide-eyed look as concern. "Just need some ice."

"Muéstramelo," Lola demands, laughing. "Tiene una voz hermosa.” Show him to me. He has a handsome voice.

John turns toward you, frowning. "I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?"

"I always call Lola on Wednesdays-- John, sit down, you need to ice your ankle, what are you doing?"

He's standing on one leg, in the middle of the kitchen, fishing a mug out of the cupboard rather than getting something cold and sitting right down. "I--"

You're not sure what possesses you, but you get up, and you make him sit, and you go to make him his coffee and wrap a bag of frozen peas in a tea towel. When you turn around, he's reached across the table to pull your laptop closer, smiling at the camera when Lola claps he hands together, beaming.

"Es guapo, Dalisay. Pero no joven, ¿eh?" She says, laughing. He's handsome, Dalisay. But not young, huh?

"No," he agrees, "soy demasiado viejo para ella. Todavía soy lo suficientemente egoísta como para intentarlo de todos modos.” I'm too old for her. I'm still selfish enough to try anyway. Lola laughs at his honesty, pleased with John already.

You set down the coffee and glare at him. But you gently set the ice pack on his raised ankle. He pulls you into his lap, sitting you on his other thigh. "John!" You protest.

"Oh, relájate, apo,” Lola chides, unhelpfully reading the situation just the way John wants her to. She seems impressed by John's accented Spanish, happy to not need to translate her words to English to speak with him. She speaks English perfectly well, but she prefers Spanish, calls English clunky and ungraceful. "Yo también fui joven una vez. Me preocupaba que ella nunca encontrara a alguien.” Oh lighten up, apo. I was young once too. I was worried she would never find someone.

"No es que ella no pudiera,” John says. "Ella es tan hermosa, pero mantiene la distancia." It's not that she couldn't. She's so beautiful, but she keeps her distance.

“John, stop that,” you say, and you do mean the way he’s talking, but you also mean the hand that’s firmly gripping your hip, kneading your soft flesh. It’s not hard enough to bruise, not even enough to hurt, but it’s distracting, and makes your heart flutter. The movement is also hitching your skirt up a little higher on your thighs.

The innocent, laughing look he gives you is no help. “Sorry, love.” He kisses your shoulder, his hand sliding up to your waist instead.

You glance over at the screen, wincing when you see two of your cousins crowded into the screen with Lola, all of them stifling laughter and one of them holding a chubby baby.

“He needs to buy you a ring, cuz,” Ligaya says, waving her baby’s chubby hand at you. “Say hello Berting, that’s your auntie Dalisay and her boyfriend.” She and her sister, Ceci dissolve into giggles. The baby laughs too, although he doesn’t have any idea what’s going on around him.

“He’s too old to be anyone’s boyfriend,” you grouse.

“He looks more like husband material to me,” Ceci crows. She points a threatening finger at the webcam. “You’d better be good to her! She’s our favourite cousin.”

“Y mi nieta favorita,” Lola says, And my favourite granddaughter, cupping her hand around her mouth as if that would keep Ligaya and Ceci from hearing her. They both laugh, unoffended, Ceci batting Lola’s shoulder lightly.

“I will,” John promises. “She makes it easy. She’s much too good for the likes of me.”

“And don’t you forget it, English!” Ligaya agrees. “Are you coming to see us for Christmas this year, Lisay? There’s at least four babies you haven’t met yet.”

“I’m not sure I can afford to this year. We’ll see if I can find work—”

“¿Qué pasó? ¿Perdiste tu trabajo?” Lola asks. What happened? Did you lose your job?

“You practically raised those niños!” Ligaya protests, as if that would change the facts of the matter. “They love you!”

You grimace, and haltingly explain that Mr. Kinsey had made a pass at you, and you’d been fired so that he and his wife could work out their marital issues. Apparently you’d been just too tempting to have around, despite the fact that you had less than zero interest in your former employer. By the end of your explanation, Lola looks ready to fight, and Ligaya and Ceci both look furious too. “It’s alright,” you say, trying to convince yourself as much as you are them. “I wouldn’t have been able to leave if they didn’t fire me. And I didn’t want to be raising someone else's’ kids forever.”

Ceci wiggles her eyebrows at you. “Yeah, Lisay, you want your own babies, eh?”

“You should start painting again,” Ligaya suggested, flicking Ceci with the hand not currently supporting her son. “You could sell prints online, portrait commissions. You’re as good as your mother, and she made it into that London Gallery.”

Lola notices the way your smile strains and shoos your cousins away. “El consejo es bueno aunque graznan,” she says. “Eres demasiado buena para dejar de pintar.” The advice is good, even if they quack. You’re too good to stop painting.

You change the subject, and Lola talks some about the children, about neighbourhood gossip, catching you up on everything before you end the call. You sigh, sinking into John unconsciously. He’s so big, and so solid, you wish you could do away with that undercurrent of fear ruining the little comfort his arms would provide you otherwise.

“Why’d you stop painting?” he asks.

“It’s not the same anymore.”

“Is anything ever the same?”

You twist to look at him. His eyes are too blue, piercing though you like he’s able to read the thoughts in your head. You have to remind yourself that he can’t, that he doesn’t know you well enough even to guess. You’re getting to know him pretty well though, and you recognize this earnestness, this plea to let him in, to let him help. John is a man who needs to do something all the time, that needs to focus on a task. You wonder what it is that nips at his heels so sharply— Is is inherent, genetic, something unavoidable, written in the core of his very deepest, truest self? Or is it just that he’s running from something, and must stay in motion, driving himself ever forward to keep it from catching up?

“Have you ever lost anyone, John?”

Surprise widens his eyes for a flickering second, before he hides it behind a tight smile. “Think we’re talking about you, Doll.”

“You don’t have to answer. I think it’s just easier to understand, when you have. Painting just reminds me of my mam. It’s like trying to swim with lead shoes on. It’s so hard to keep my head above the water that it’s easier just not to swim.”

“Maybe you could try takin’ off the lead shoes,” he suggested, his arms tightening around you. Levity and reassurance, like he knows exactly what you need. “Or maybe you just shouldn’t go swimmin’ alone.”

“A lifeguard,” you say, rolling the thought around in your head. Maybe that was the problem, the empty space was too apparent when there was no one around to fill it. You’d painted the flowers on the credenza with Ripley there, and that had even been nice. You’d thought it was just a fluke, but you hadn’t really thought about why it had been different. “That’s an interesting thought.”

“Did you have everything you’d need? We can look through the boxes for your supplies.”

You shake your head. “No. Yes. I have watercolours somewhere. Just no acrylics. But I could start with watercolours.”

“Yeah? We can look now, if you like.”

“Maybe in a bit. I’ll make breakfast first.”

“I can do it,” he offers quickly. “I want to take care of you.”

As much as you aren’t quite ready to admit it, he already is. “No, I think it’s my turn. Just give me a minute. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, but this is kind of nice.”

He hums his agreement, picking up his coffee. You think he’s doing it so he can’t kiss you, and you’re so pleased that he’s starting to get it that you almost consider kissing him instead.

But you don’t. You just let yourself enjoy the moment.

Maybe that’s enough, for now.

You decide that having him sit and watch you painting would be awkward, so once you hunt down your watercolours and a sketchbook with heavy paper, you set up outside while he works. He’s constructing some kind of frame over a concrete pad, a covered porch, you think. You sit out of the way, facing the copse of trees that surround the house, and the overgrown, weedy garden. It looks like it had been set up early in the season with the best of intentions, but you suspect that it was too hard on his knees and back. He’d made the mistake of planting everything straight in the ground— You probably would have suggested planter boxes, if you’d been here in the spring. Then he could have sat on a stool— It would have helped keep the bunnies out too. The few tomatoes left on an abandoned vine have little bites nibbled out of them— Almost everything has little bites taken out of it.

It makes you smother a laugh. It’s easy to imagine John railing against nature— He’s so stubborn, there’s no way he gave up for a good long time— Cursing the rabbits and deer, leaning over the once-neat rows until his back ached. There’s a pair of rusting garden shears stuck out of the ground, evidence that he quit in a fit of pique some months ago.

He’s looking at you— He has a sense for when you let happiness slip through, like a hound picking up a rabbit’s trail in the woods. You can feel the burn of those bright blue eyes on you, the heavy weight of his attention. Does he make note of everything you smile at? You wonder how long the list is now. Puppies, the Stuart kids, Lola and your cousins, and now his poor attempts at gardening. You haven’t really let much else get past your careful, polite mask, knowing full well that stone-walling him is your best defence. He’s searching for an opening, and once he finds it, he’ll pop you open like a clam.

It seems inevitable. Still, he’ll have to work for it, if he wants you to let him in. He’s already set himself the first of his Herculean tasks, to get you painting again. It would be easier to face the Nemean lion. Your grief has sharp teeth, unblunted even after a decade, still dug deep into your heart.

“You aren’t painting,” John says in your ear. His hands settle on your shoulders, holding you in your seat when surprise would launch you a few centimetres into the air.

You turn your head to look at him, and he’s far too close. “You aren’t working.”

“Takin’ a break. You look like you’re thinkin’ hard about something. What’s on your mind, Doll?”

“Your garden. Must have been a storm of misfortunes to make you give up.”

“Few things get the better of me, but this was one of ‘em. Have to settle for buyin’ produce at the shops like everyone else.”

“It’s not really so hard.”

“You the expert in gardening?”

“No, I just used to help my gran with her garden. Picked up a thing or two about keeping green things alive.” You take a dry paintbrush and dust it over his fingertips idly.

“That the one we talked to today?” he asks.

“No, that’s Lola. Gran is the Scottish one.”

He hums, smooths out tension in your shoulders with his thumbs, catching the slightest touch of your skin at the collar of your sweater. "Didn't think you had family in the UK."

You tip your head back, looking up at him. He shifts, leaning his forearms on the back of the chair, hanging over you. "Just my Gran, she got remarried a bit before we moved to Manchester. She thought her husbands-- Well, I'll say kids, but they were full adults, older than my mam already-- She thought they were more respectable than my parents. Wouldn't categorize her as a real warm and fuzzy lady."

"You don't talk then?"

"No. Not since my parents died. We had a proper row at the funeral and she's never apologized, and I'm certainly not going to."

"Learnin' a lot about you today, Doll."

“That I’m stubborn and that I distance myself from the people that love me?” you ask, flicking the paintbrush at the tip of his nose. His whole face scrunches, and it’s kind of endearing. You’re already feeling soft about him from this morning, because Lola liked him, and because he didn’t ask if she spoke English, just launched right into Spanish that was a maybe a little rough around the edges, but good enough.

“That,” he agrees. “But I think it’s good that you hold your ground. You’re not stubborn for the sake of it, you say what needs to be said. I’d bet good money that you were in the right.”

“It doesn’t always matter who’s right and who’s wrong, John. Sometimes you have to set aside ego to make things right.”

“Tryin’ to teach an old dog new tricks?” he asks.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll teach yourself. Now go on, get. You’re distracting me.” You wrap your hands around one of his, and press a fleeting kiss to a spot between his thumb and his wrist before releasing him. “And be careful of your ankle. If you need to carry something heavy, let me help you.”

He laughs and withdraws, his shadow sliding over your page as he moves away. “Yes ma’am. You’re pretty cute when you’re bossy.”

“I’m always cute,” you say blithely.

You don’t look at him, so you miss the way he glances back over his shoulder, blue eyes burning. “You’re damn right about that.”

Ducking your head down to hide your smile, you pick your pencil up and look back to the garden. Something about the red-handled shears stuck in the soil speaks to you, so you lightly sketch it out on the page, humming to yourself quietly. The next things you need to hunt down are your headphones and the old mp3 player so you can listen to music while you paint.

There’s something soothing about hearing John work anyway. The whirr of his drill as he screwed framing lumber into place, or the buzz of his saw when he cuts pieces to size. He’s methodical, exacting— What makes him so good at building probably made him a poor gardener too. He can cut and fit pieces of wood together to make any shape he pleases, he can make a plan and nothing will fight back against it, beyond a warped bit of lumber here and there, but a garden grows as it will, and there’s no controlling the wind or the sun or the rain, let alone the creatures that might come looking for something tender and green.

That same struggle plays out between the two of you. He sees a map and a destination where you see a landscape. The journey, the exploration, is what matters to you, the light and shadow, the soft growing things and the hungry teeth that nip at the roots. In his mind he’s already built a house at the top of the hill, and he wants to pull you inside, lay you down, plant his seeds in a different garden, watch something new grow. It’s not simply impatience, but a need for control, for surety.

He exerts that control outwards, bending the world to the shape he likes. You’ve always turned it inwards, pulling in on yourself, turning your life into a safe little cocoon, turning deprivation and isolation into an art. Constructing masks to get you through, reliable scripts, being whomever you need to be to make things easier.

And perhaps it was easy, but it was lonely too.

Maybe they really had done you a favour. By pulling you out of your comfortable routine, they’ve forced you to face yourself, for the first time in ages, to ask yourself what it is that you want, to see who you are.

You feel like a butterfly, wings still damp and unfurling, perched in John’s hand. He could risk letting you fly away, or he could force you to stay by destroying some integral part of you. There’s no telling which path he intends to take, not yet.

You can just hope.

It might be insane— It certainly feels insane— but you really want him to be a good man. Not just out of self-preservation, although it probably weighs something in the equation, but because you want him. He’s right when he says there’s something here, something that’s been rolling around in the back of your mind since Ghost dumped you in his lap. It hasn’t even been a week, but it feels longer.

You keep half an eye on him while you put the first pale washes of colour onto paper. A few small versions first, to get a handle on light and shadow, colour values, just to remember how to mix colours the way you want to, and then start on the larger version, feeling a little more confident.

You’ve just blocked in the base colours when you notice that John’s limping again, and showing no sign of stopping his work. Sighing, you set your paintbrush down and stand. “John,” you say gently, putting yourself in the path between the saw set up and his lumber pile. “It’s time to take a break.”

“No, I’m fine, Doll. Get back to your painting.” He tries to move around you, but you side-step and block his path again. “It’s just a sprain,” he says, exasperated. “I’ve worked through worse.”

As if that was a good reason to ignore pain. “And you never considered that maybe you shouldn’t have had to?”

He frowns down at you. The difference in your heights has to be at least a foot, but he has a funny way of tucking in his chin and hanging his head when you’re standing close like this, and looking at you straight on anyway. A soft little hand settles on his stomach, unbidden— You’re not sure that you’ve instigated contact with him before, it’s always been him reaching out for you, his big hands achingly gentle. Is anyone ever gentle with him? Is he ever gentle with himself?

“The work will still be here tomorrow,” you remind him. “You have time to rest.”

A raindrop splashes on your outstretching arm. The two of you look up in tandem, at a heavy grey cloud that’s rolled over head— It hasn’t blocked out the sun yet, and neither of you had noticed it creeping up— and then at each other. “Guess the weather agrees with you,” John says.

You both scramble apart and into action. John covers the pile of lumber and the saw with tarps, weighed down with a few odd bricks so they won’t blow away, and you quickly pack up the water colours and your paintings. You don’t get there in time to stop a few splashes of rain from hitting the page, but you get everything inside before it’s completely soaked and set it on the kitchen table for the moment.

While you’re filling the kettle and looking outside, watching the rain splash against the window, John comes in too, and looks at your work. “The rain ruined it,” he says. “I should have been paying more attention to the weather.” There’s guilt in his voice, as if it’s his fault that the rain chose to fall where and when it did.

You set the kettle to boil, and join him, studying the paintings. Each of them unrefined— The smaller ones are just work-ups anyway, but the raindrops have warped the colours, creating voids with saturated edges. You wouldn’t say they’re ruined. There’s an artistry to incident, story preserved on paper in a way that your art wouldn’t do alone.

“No, I like it better this way,” you say decisively. “It underlines the theme of futility, don’t you think? How we’re at the mercy of the weather, whether we like it or not.”

“S’pose so,” he admits grudgingly.

His mouth is set so it almost disappears under his moustache. He really does hate the reminder that he has no control over some things. You dash upstairs and grab a couple of towels and tuck them under your arm, and take John’s hand, leading him out onto the front porch.

He follows you without resistance, although there’s a funny, curious look on his face. “What’re you doing?”

You let go, and put the towels down on the bench. “What does it look like I’m doing?” The rain is coming steadily now, the sky turned darker, sun all but blotted out, and it’s cold on your skin when you step out from the shelter and into the downpour. You throw your arms out and spin, laughing.

There are many things in this life that you can’t control. Things that are fixed, unchanged and immovable, laws of nature, the whims of weather, and Captain John Price. But you have choices too. You can try to move a mountain, but you’d be better climbing over it. You can choose to struggle against the current, or let it sweep you along. You can dance in the rain rather than wish it were sunny.

And you can hold out your hand, and invite John to dance with you.

Image Credits: Banner Dividers