#that was like only a vague 5%-10% of what i have concocted now

[chacharoni]

okay so i still have that one character whose design i need to flesh out a bit better but for the time being the one i have looks alright so i went on to draft the first 5 pages and im surprised how much better i like this version ??

i’ll incorporate bits of the previous draft in this now too and fix some issues it had but oh man oh boy, im so excited for this and i’ve managed to maintain my interest in the story for over a month now wtf

[yamchaas]

Welcome back to Jessie Yamchaas drink and episode reviews- Today we will be reviewing- Episode 71 of Dragon ball Super and Green Tea topped with whipped cream cheese concoction I saw in a youtube video late last night that disturbed me, keep reading if either of these intrigue you-

First things first, I had to make my drink to accompany my episode rewatch, here he is in all his glory:

Looks wise? Not the prettiest drink, slightly “shreks swamp after the honeymoon” vibes, but looks don’t matter- it’s about the taste. Taste wise? This shit disgusting, what in the actual fuck- Janice, girl, you said this was nice in your video what is this- The whipped cream cheese sits on top of the bitter tea so your first sip is straight up just this weird cream cheese and then you get bitter tea and its fuckin bad- 0.5/5, won’t make again.

Okay now we have that horror out of the way lets move on to something less terrible, surely- Yamcha playing baseball :)

Okay, first things first- animation. WHERE THE HELL IS YAMCHA’S CAKE? WHERE HE FUCKIN THIGHS AND HIS BUTT AT? BASEBALL TIGHT PANTS ARE WONDERFUL BUT WHERE ALL THE MEAT GONE?? YAMCHA ALWAYS HAD MEAT BRO, HE ALWAYS HAD JUICY THIGHS BRO 😭- Okay but with that out of my system there no other glaring issues with the animation in this episode, sure some of the distant shots are funky but I’m not bothered too greatly by that, it’s actually fairly well done- I especially appreciate the scenes where they focus on Yamcha’s technique and of course the cool wolf shot sings to me so all and all no complaints beyond Yamcha being too small.

As for plot, Champa and Beerus are having a “friendly” match between universes 6 and 7, hijinks ensue- This is filler, there’s not much plot to speak on.

Utterly in love with the line from Yamcha that he left Tien and Chiaotzu behind, super funny and a nice little throwback to the Res F movie- Also, they’re married <3 But I do just have to say it does utterly flummox me that Tien is not included in this episode, there’s genuinely no reason for him not to be here and I can’t help but to imagine how fun the episode could have been if Tien was on the universe 6 team to even out the numbers- They never gave us the Yamcha/Tien rematch at the tournament so it could have been a fun way of giving us some kind of rematch and banter all these years later, but sadly they just didn’t take the opportunity- Also no Tien Baseball Tight pants 😭😭 Disappointing.

Whis and Vados look nice :) Vegeta being obsessed with topping Goku once more, nothing new here. Gohan’s a sweety, also nothing new here.

Now some positives: Yamcha being so encouraging and a good team leader is very sweet to see, love that actually. I also love that they made these amazing warriors not very good at something that isn’t fighting, like it’s comical but it’s also nice in a way? Like yes, Goku is unbelievable in so many ways but he struggles to learn baseball- Its nice to be reminded these characters have flaws and struggle in different aspects of life, just like regular people do too- Really like that.

Love them incorporating Yamcha’s use of spirit control into his baseball skills, it’s just fun and cool, no complaints from me at all.

Piccolo being good at baseball is cute and I like it.

Now on to everything else-

This episode truly hurts my feelings, it’s so unnecessarily mean for no reason and I know people might say “but doesn’t he technically win? and wasn’t he better than everyone?” Those are the only scraps he gets- Literally Yamcha speaks in a total of 10 super episodes and this is the only episode that we could even vaguely call a Yamcha episode and it’s just a joke on him 90% of the time-

18 questioning if Yamcha should be captain and being nasty about his skills truly fucks me off- Like he’s been the best baseball player on earth for 20+ years, the show acts like Yamcha is completely useless and it just grates on me- Yamcha trained with King Kai, he can hold his own against the ginyu force- He’s not weak. He’s just plainly not!! Sure he’s not Goku level, or even Piccolo, but that’s okay, because he is human!! He’s still an amazing martial artist and baseball player and he’s also a good friend with a kind heart. The show playing into the useless pathetic Yamcha memes is cheap. It’s just cheap.

As for the he weird, kinda implied Bulma/Yamcha stuff in this ep HATE HATE MALICE BITE KILL- Actually fuck off. The blush pisses me off so bad-  Like Yamcha has never acted hung up on Bulma, he was a bit annoyed when Trunks was a tiny baby, which was fair! But other than that he just treated her like a regular friend, no unrequited love. Also I’m pretty sure this is the nicest Bulma has ever been to Yamcha... Ever. In like the entire series as a whole. So... That’s telling.

Also supers insistence that Yamcha’s this cocky, smarmy guy will never cease pissing me off! The Yamcha we leave in Dragon Ball Z has been remarkably chill and humble for years, so why now is he suddenly a dickhead again? This is more prevalent in other episodes but does feature here too. Bad writing- Bad characterization. Bad.

And it ends on the dead fucking Yamcha meme pose- Because of course it does. Because it’s cheap and it’s nasty and that’s all there is to it. They took a character that used to be a main character. A loved character. And they played into the dudebro, abridged series, meme-ifcation to get cheap laughs rather than give this character the dues he deserves. They literally couldn’t even give him one (1) episode. This is actually worse than the fucked cream cheese green tea drink- By a large margin.

NOTABLE, QUOTABLE:

“C’mon let’s see some pep in your step!”

“Wow- It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Yamcha this fired up!” 😭😭 Dude seeing Yamcha confident and excited and Goku being so happy makea me 😭😭

“Let the Yamcha show you what it’s like to dominate on the mound-” I’ll let The Yamcha dominate on my moun- *Comically large hook snatches me by the neck, pulling me and my computer chair off stage*

“The wolf fang pitching fist ball-” Tien, I need you to kiss this man on his dumb mouth, please.

“Yeah for a washed up fighter that’s not bad.” 18 I GOT MAD LOVE FOR YOU BUT IMMA THROW HANDS WITH YOU BITCH IF YOU KEEP THIS UP- “But Jess she’s a powerful android and you’re some chick-” Yeah but don’t you know the power of love is the strongest force in the world? Also I grew up in the country and have reserved farm strength so 😤

“It’s an honour to have this of bat” Cabba I dont know what the fuck this means but I’m fuckin happy to see you mate- You a good boy!! “Watch closely master, I’m going to hit this and prove I’m worthy of your teaching-’ stupid lil bitch ass vegtea don’t deserve this sweety 😤

“What are you even doing here, I’m totally out of my league, at this rate I’d be lucky to walk off the field alive... C’mon Yamcha, keep your head in the game, we are going to win this.” TIEN IF YOU DONT GENTLY AND SWEETLY BRUSH THIS MANS CHOPPY MULLET FROM HIS FACE AND SWEETLY KISS HIS LIPS ON GOD-

Winning shot of the epsiode:

Thanks for tuning in to my review of drink and episode uhhhhhh see you again uhhhhhhh if someone gives me a drink and a episode to watch :)

[leon-scott-kennedy]

So Covert, I Hardly Knew Him

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV

Part V: Evacuate

Files flashed past on the screen, the download stalled at 94%. Close, but not quite. Leon needed a few more minutes, but Ada hadn’t followed him back to the lab. He cursed and glanced back at the screen just as new info flitted across the screen, and for a moment, he forgot to breathe.

“No...” Leon choked. “That’s not- No-”

A shrieking alarm blared, the grating sound echoing through the cursed halls. Surprisingly, the emergency light over the busted door flashed red in a steady pulse of danger.

Leon growled. “Fucking Ada. That’s my move.”

“All personnel, please evacuate the facility,” a soothing voice instructed to an empty wasteland of death, destruction, and decay. “Unauthorized access has been detected. The facility will self-destruct in 7 minutes.”

For a moment, Leon stood mesmerized by the comforting flicker of familiarity of the ridiculousness of his emanate death until Ada sprinted past the door at full speed. Not even a cursory glance in his direction. Typical.

“7 minutes? What’s wrong with the standard 10?” Leon said. Breaking from his stupor, he spun back to the screen. The computer had progressed a few percent. “Come on. Come on!”

If the information gleaned could be trusted, then Leon’s unscathed escape had jumped the priority queue. The situation now proved to be more significant than initially assumed. Wilson’s betrayal had been one thing, but this? Even the tiny fraction of information Leon learned threatened the entire foundation of democracy that his government was built on.

DOWNLOAD COMPLETE

“... self destruct in 4 minutes...”

“Fuck.” Leon none too gently snagged the drive out of the port, shoved it into the front zippered pocket of his leather jacket, and sprinted for the door, fumbling with his phone. He nearly dropped the phone, but he managed to tap a few commands and slip it back into his jacket while at a full run. “That elevator better be working.”

An enraged roar echoed through the halls. Leon’s heart stuttered in his chest. Dark hallways. The stench of decay. Screams and moans of the living and dead. Racoon City. That terrifying roar never left Leon’s nightmares.

“Oh fuck,” Leon wheezed. “Not again.”

Leon raced after the retreating mercenary, not daring to look behind him as he retraced their steps through the maze of corridors until he hit the main juncture. The lights above the elevator door slowly and steadily blinked down. Ada stood beside the door, arms crossed over her chest, glaring at the lights like she alone had the power to speed them along.

“What did you do!” Leon skidded to a stop beside the elevator and jabbed at the up button in righteous fury until Ada smacked the back of his hand like a child.

“So quick to lay blame,” Adad said, but her attention wasn’t on Leon. It was back down the hall they’d fled.

Another roar echoed through the building. This time closer.

“God damn it, Ada!” Leon followed her stare to the end of the hall. In the shadows, a lumbering, hulking outline of one of the Tyrants from containment, fully animated and extremely pissed off. “Oh, what the hell.”

Leon jabbed frantically at the elevator button as if he could magically speed up its descent with his urgency, and this time, Ada didn’t stop him. The elevator dinged. Only one of the doors slid open and barely enough for them to squeeze through, but they both scrambled into the lift. Ada immediately darted right, but Leon nearly fell through the massive hole cut in the bottom of the elevator car. He flailed for a moment, arms windmilling before he caught his balance and collapsed into the side of the elevator and abused the close door button. Ada’s backdoor wasn’t quite a mystery anymore.

The Tyrant sprint down the hall, growing alarmingly closer at an increasingly worrying rate. The door started to slide closed, but the Tyrant was close enough for the pulse of its deformed heart to be visible through the shrinking gap in the door. The elevator shuddered and jerked into motion, smoothly rising.

The grating tear of the metal doors below being ripped open echoed through the shaft. Both Leon and Ada peered down through the gaping hole in the floor at the Tyrant clawing its way after them, then at the tiny lights above the door that blinked with each sub-level. At this rate, they weren’t going to make it.

“Self-destruct in 2 minutes.”

The elevator jerked violently, knocking Leon back into the wall as the gears and motor ground against the force pulling them down. Suddenly, the car dropped several inches, and the emergency brakes screeched to a halt, locking them in place. Metal creaked and strained. Together, Leon and Ada pried open the elevator door to find the car about four feet short of the main floor.

Leon eyed the short wall of concrete. “I really don’t fancy getting cut in half.”

“Would you prefer the alternative?” Ada holstered her handgun and stepped up.

A crack echoed through the shaft. A quick glance down at the Tyrant climbing the elevator shaft was enough to have Leon drop to his knee and boost Ada up through the shrinking gap. One last look down, Leon hoisted himself up over the ledge with minimal help from Ada seconds before the elevator car shuddered and slipped another few inches. A large deformed hand grasped through the hole, pulling the car further down.

Relief at avoiding being cut in half by seconds is brief because Leon was up and running, sprinting after Ada in the darkness. He caught up to her halfway across the factory floor, grabbed her arm, and urged her faster as the timer ticked down.

Ada was first to scramble up the rubble that blocked the door.

“6 -5 -4 -3 -”

Leon hauled himself up through the narrow gap, again grateful he’d never been one to hit the gym, and threw himself out of the factory, tackling Ada to the ground as a deep rumbling boom erupted behind them. The heat of the explosion ripped across him. He tugged his leather jacket up over their heads to shield them best he can from the bits of debris that rained down.

As the smoke cleared, Leon noticed they weren’t alone. A string of troops armed with assault rifles stared them down from the treeline.

“We’ve got company.”

The team was well organized. Guns held tight at the ready like they expected Leon and Ada to suddenly rush them, the men approached in close formation.

Leon slowly climbed to his feet, silently drawing his weapon and strategically placing his body between the advancing men and Ada. The men wore no identifying markers. Just simple black tactical combat gear, helmets, and goggles.

“Drop your weapons,” a man yelled. He stood at the center of the group, the only clue that he held any position of power in the small militia, and more alarming, he had no accent. No discernible accent. Just American.

“Fuck,” Leon cursed under his breath, and then louder, “we don’t want any trouble.” But he wasn’t stupid enough to drop his weapon. So instead, he let it hang loosely from his thumb as he slowly raised his hands in surrender.

A sharp pain shot through the base of Leon’s skull. He clutched the back of his neck and spun just in time to watch Ada lower an empty syringe. “Ada.”

The betrayal wasn’t what shocked him. He knew Ada would try to take the data from him. He knew her priorities, but what he didn’t expect was for her to casually step over him as he staggered and fell, his vision growing foggy with every passing second.

Momentarily, Ada paused to dig through his pockets for the thumb drive. Once again, he found himself at the mercy of Ada Wong. His vision swam. Ada was already on the move before he could even form a protest or think of fighting her off.

“Thank you, Ms. Wong,” the masked commander said. “Your help has been invaluable.”

“The money?” Ada asked. She continued casually past the armed troops towards the tree line. The whirl of a chopper overhead broke the eerie stillness of the forest.

“Already transferred. I’d ask you for the research files.”

Ada didn’t break stride as a harness dropped from the chopper above. “Consider it my bonus,” she said.

Leon clawed at the ground, trying to climb to his feet, to follow her, but his body felt heavy, his muscles vaguely cooperative. “I was the job.”

Ada looped her arm through the harness and tugged, testing the integrity. “It’s just business, Leon.”

Two men grabbed Leon under the arms and hauled him upright. His legs gave out. “It always is,” he slurred, head drooping.

“Have fun, boys.” Ada waved cheekily as the chopper lifted her into the air.

The last thing Leon saw was Ada Wong dangling from a helicopter over the treetops as he struggled feebly against two armed men. They wrestled him to the ground far too quickly and pinned him so whatever concoction Ada had injected could take full effect. He could only hope it was a sedative because a replay of Spain wasn’t high on his list of priorities; the eggs hatching, the constriction of organs, the loss of control as his nerve system was hijacked. Regrettably, he didn’t find out because the butt of a rifle smacked him in the back of the head.

<< First | < Prev | Next >

[the-blind-assassin-12]

blog tag

I was tagged by @shanediomorrissey & @something-tofightfor - thanks to both of you!!

1. Why did you choose your url?

It’s the title of a Margaret Atwood novel, and the number 12 has significant meaning to me/my family. Also? I cannot see a thing without my glasses and I know BJJ so technically I *am* a blind assassin.

2. Any side blogs?

Nope! All my stuff goes here, like a junk drawer.

3. How long have you been on tumblr?

I started this blog in 2019 but I have been lurking far longer than that.

4. Do you have a queue tag?

I do not. I typically don’t queue posts, and I’m terrible at tagging.

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

I had a dream about Billy Russo from The Punisher being in a relationship with a blind person and it was really nice land I wanted @something-tofightfor or @its-my-little-dumpster-fire to write it for me but they both said “go fish” as they were already concocting fabulous Billy stories of their own, and so I went fishing and now here we are.

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

It’s the cover art for the novel I named my blog after.

7. Why did you choose your header?

It’s a quote from the novel I named my blog after. I flipping love Queen Margaret Atwood.

8. What’s your post with the most notes?

I think it’s an old Billy one shot called Crack the Shutters but to me that’s funny because it’s very short and not at all what I consider to be my best work.

9. How many mutuals do you have?

Not sure! I don’t know if there’s a way to check this on the dashboard??

10. How many followers do you have?

572 and I’m grateful that you all think my blog is worth watching!

11. How many people do you follow?

About 100 or so

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

Most of what I post is shit 🤣

13. How often do you use Tumblr each day?

Some would say “too often” but I never really cared what some would say.

14. Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

Nothing that ever blew up or become something unnecessarily dramatic. I’m human and I’ve said/done things that were mistakes but I’ve never intended to be hurtful towards anyone, and I much prefer talking things over with someone than making a vague (or extremely direct) post about it because that only escalates things further.

15. How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

NOBODY TELLS ME WHAT TO REBLOG, DAMNIT.

16. Do you like tag games?

I do!!! They can be fun.

17. Do you like ask games?

YES!! I’m an open book so I love answering questions about literally anything. Whether it’s about something I’m writing or just something you’re curious about or a number from an ask game list, please always feel free to ask away!

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous?

Psst... there is no such thing as tumblr fame ✌🏻

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

I have a VERY SMALL number of mutuals I would hop in front of a bus for, does that count?

Tagging: @gollyderek @beautifuldesastre @pheedraws @alraedesigns @valkblue @skyshipper @cannedsoupsucks @paracosmenthusiast

[heathered-beinn]

BTS American Hustle Life Ep4

Ep 3 recap: BTS are in LA to learn about hip hop. During that episode they met their dance teacher, Jenny Kita. She set them a few challenges including a solo demonstration, a dance battle against professional dancers, and the task of choreographing a dance routine in small groups. J-Hope’s dance skills shone the brightest throughout which was both a surprise and a delight! Jin, despite being the least proficient dancer in the band, tried really hard and it paid off in the final challenge – he and J-Hope were deserving winners.

We also started to see the friendships between the band members more, which was quite lovely. I really hope this continues in the series.

 On to Episode 4!

Holy cow, that dorm is an absolute pigsty. Ewwww! The amount of water bottles alone makes me want to cry.

Lol, I wonder how RM and Jimin ended up having to clean the dorm up?

They did a good job with it though and somehow managed to find some fun in between. The bathroom scene was hilarious!

Like last episode Jimin appears to have dropped some of his mask. Maybe I’m just seeing things but in this ep he just seems a little softer around the edges - more playful rather than loud and over-the-top. I think RM is good company for him. I’m not sure how to word it without accidentally making it look like I think the other lads treat him poorly (which I don’t believe they do!!) but I think RM is quite respectful to Jimin? As the leader RM’s attention will be pulled in many directions and when he can give spare undivided attention he probably spends it more on his elder bandmates as they are closer to his own age. However, I get the sense that when he does focus on Jimin he does it with the kind of patience and gentleness that the others are maybe not quite so liberal with? That’s not to say he won’t tease Jimin or joke around with him (he does) but so far it comes across as a little warmer than the others perhaps because he’s naturally gentler in nature? I’m probably talking out my **** here but that’s just what I’ve sensed.

One final thing: Jimin’s English is really improving!

So while Jimin and RM are cleaning the dorm, Suga, V, and Jungkook are on laundry duty. LMAO how is that fair? I was thinking that the “chores” were punishment for losing the challenge in Ep3 but Jimin and RM were so close to winning and yet seem to have been given the worst chore?

LOL, how can those three lads make laundry seem so complicated??

They really are big kids – I’m glad they can find ways to have fun though. But ewwwwwwwwww Jungkook, the 3/5/7/10 second rule is a myth, don’t eat things off the ground – particularly in a foreign country!!

Woah!!! they licked each other’s ice creams without hesitation!

To be honest I think it is more of a reflection on my own culture rather than theirs that this seemed so surprising to me. Generally sharing food without the ‘ew that’s got your spit on’ and other hang-ups – particularly between boys - ends around 8-10 years old here.

Jungkook sweetie, I really doubt you’ve put on much weight – are you sure you haven’t just grown another few inches? It certainly looks like you’ve grown. At this point you might end up towering over Suga and Jimin.

Ah so Jin and J-Hope are food shopping. So maybe these chores are not punishments for losing the challenge. I’d still like to know how Jimin and RM got the short straw to clean the dorm lol.

Oh good grief, BTS cooking – after their challenge in the first series I dread to think what poor concoction they’re going to come up with.

OK so J-Hope’s cheese sticks verdict… V = X, RM = XX, Jimin (so cute as he bounded over like an excited puppy) = too polite to use his new English word “disgusting”

Jin’s ham on toast concoction: LMAO at Jin blowing on the forkful before feeding Jimin. No comment on Jimin’s tongue action though…

It seemed to taste okay judging by Jimin’s reaction. RM does not agree lol. It was cute how Jin was feeding the rest of the toast to Jimin and Jungkook like a parent feeding infants.

After what I wrote earlier about RM it’s nice to see the other lads interacting with Jimin more. I wonder if some of the impatience that occasionally comes across is simply down to the editing?

So we move on to a new day and the whole group are heading to Long Beach by foot. Crikey, Jungkook looks like he’s grown another inch over night!! Why on earth is he wearing two layers in the LA heat???!!

It’s great to see that BTS are still ‘star struck’ by celebrities. I guess, back then, the band were not that well known – at least not like they are now. They certainly did not cross my radar – not like 1D did.

LMAO – V randomly saying he drooled when he saw Warren G. What?????!!!!

Warren G seems a great guy; very chill and calm with the band. *Again I’m going to say it but I love how BTS have the confidence to say another man looks handsome like they did when admiring the photo in the record store*

Yeah Warren G is a really decent guy.

There’s something fundamentally poetic in the way that Jimin said of Warren G, Snoop Dogg, Nate, (in a tone of amazement and disbelief) “They were just elementary kids but became legends”. I mean, BTS were once ‘elementary school’ kids and while, in that moment, Jimin did not know how big the band would get, the same sentiment applies to BTS.

So their new challenge is to write lyrics based on their own lives to Regulate.

Good boys; slapping on the sunscreen – thumbs up for skin care!

Oh good grief Jin, if the American dorm is slowly becoming like your Korean dorm then I shudder to think what state your Korean dorm is in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oooh so the band are opening up a little about their lives in order to make lyrics for their rap.

After a bit of travelling by bus and making friends with the locals, Jin and J-Hope settle down in a park to talk. We learn Jin started off acting and not singing? Now that’s interesting! Not all of BTS had joining a band or even BTS’ music style in mind from the beginning. Jin also has a brother and he was into hip hop so Jin had some knowledge of it before joining the band.

J-Hope’s turn and he admitted when he first joined the band everyone was a rapper and he was the only dancer which made him feel remote.

This, again, is really interesting to learn as this was the scenario I was pinning on Jimin – unless there were different BTS members back when J-Hope joined? I really don’t know how the band was formed so I hope at some point they talk about this. I liked how Jin admitted he was surprised to hear about J-Hope feelings. They should talk like that more often.

RM and Jimin travel to another part of town – near the school/college that some of the most famous rappers in the music industry attended. I really like the motto of the building “Enter to learn go forth to serve”. I’m not American so I don’t know it’s true connotations but to me it’s simple and strangely compelling. Like; ‘We don’t care who you are either come in and learn and repay by using it to serve the community - or travel forth on down the street and sign up for the army and serve that way. There’s a purpose for everyone.”

RM and Jimin talking <3

Jimin’s answer to what he found difficult when he joined the band is fascinating. While the translation felt a little off, it reads as he cares a lot about what others think of him and doesn’t want to let anyone down or let any of his (self-perceived) shortcomings hold others back. In order to achieve this he spent a lot of time trying to catch up or improve so that no one could easily spot his weaknesses. Ultimately, he wants to care less what others think of him so he can lose some of the pressure? I really think there is a lot more to this “want to care less about what others think” than the vague answer he gave (or was edited in). His starting phrase “I should live quietly for the sake of my team” was quite a loaded sentiment and didn’t quite follow what he said next – definitely some careful editing there.

RM’s sentiment echoes this. He talked about seeing a very over-weight man walking around LA topless and admired the man’s confidence to not care what other people thought. RM wants some of that confidence to stop constantly watching out for what others thought about him. This is the type of pressure many celebrities talk about a lot. In my opinion, any one remotely “famous” are seen as role models (rightly or wrongly) and society holds them to ridiculous standards. Make one mistake and that’s you cancelled like you are some item in a shop that can be returned for a refund. I personally think people have a very skewed idea about what makes a ‘role model’. For me, a role model shouldn’t be perfect but when they do make mistakes they should own up to it, apologise, and attempt to fix or make up for any hurt caused. We, as their fans, need to relearn how to accept an apology, forgive human errors, allow people to learn, and move on. Min rant over.

Moving on: Suga, V, and Jungkook are down near the beach front discussing their lyrics. The way V instantly thought of his Dad tells me he’s quite family orientated. It was touching the way he said he made him the person he was today.

Jungkook’s thoughts where based more on his internal thoughts of himself as a person and a musician. It was very honest of him to admit that back home he’d been pretty confident of his talent but once he joined (BigHit?) he quickly realised there was a lot of people with as much, if not more, talent than him and it knocked his confidence. I wish Suga had spoke more about his own thoughts rather than just write the lyrics.

 Challenge Day:

To be fair, all three groups rose to the challenge and not only had some great lyrics but sounded polished and rehearsed. We only got snippets of the songs but from what we did hear I would struggle to pick a winner. I guess, for me, it would feel like picking one’s persons’ struggles over another’s. Hard to judge.

Lol at Suga oversharing about being in the toilet when he was writing *crying with laughter face*

Awww, Suga, V, and Jungkook won. They definitely tried harder with this challenge than the one in ep 3 so I felt it was deserved.

Final musings:

Another interesting episode. I think the band learned a lot more about hip hop this episode and Warren G was a real gent. We also learned more about each band member in terms of their thoughts and experiences when joining the band. We (I) also learned more about their personalities which hadn’t been so clear in previous eps and series. I think the editing can misconstrue some moments so I’m probably going to re-evaluate my musings on each band member from time to time – this is a good thing though!

Looking forward to ep 5!

[ysalamiri-queen]

2019 Fic in Review

Inspired by @myevilmouse I’m going to sum up all the writing I’ve been up to the past year. I’m really proud of what I’ve accomplished, and thanks to you all for the encouragement to put my ideas out into the world! This has been a year of trying new things, and really growing as an author I feel… And wow according to AO3 I’ve written about 400k words in the past 12 months, damn. So let’s get to the list, going from the beginning of the year to the end, and as always please heed the tags on these before reading.

Note: As I go back, I’m realizing a lot of the links were messed up or are just straight missing. I am on the Mobile App so things can get messy. Please visit my works page on AO3 HERE to see all of these on my page under JessKo and my other pseuds.

1 Late Night at the Slab

Idea: Filling a prompt for the Thryce server in which some, uh, unique Chiss anatomy was assigned.

Result: A 3-way with Thrawn, Arihnda, and Eli and my first foray into the more Xeno side of things in a Modern AU setting. Yeehaw!

2 The Trouble With Free-Roaming Ysalamiri

Idea: Based on some adorable ysalamiri cuddles art by @strength-through-order I wanted to write some Thranto fluff.

Result: Ysalamiri-filled Thranto fluff X’D

3 Inquisitor’s Debt

Idea: What if the Grand Inquisitor changed sides at the end of Rebels season 1?

Result: Some fun throwbacks with Obi-Wan and Caleb Dume leading up to Quizzy defecting with Ezra.

4 Ancient Stems

Idea: Eli Week drabbles based on the Vanto Week prompts.

Result: A silly buzz droid narrative with Thrawn and some cute slice of life Eli backstory/Ascendancy days bits.

5 Charnsuka

Idea: Kinky stuff with Lord Garmadon when he’s an Anacondrai.

Result: Kinky stuff with Lord Garmadon when he’s an Anacondrai. Sorry Zane!

6 Caged Like Prized Birds

Idea: Again inspired by the awesome Chiss anatomy and Thrux drawings by @strength-through-order , I wanted to craft a narrative around Armitage, as a young man, stumbling upon a clone of Thrawn.

Result: Man, this might just be one of my favorite things I’ve ever written, had so much fun plotting it out and the smut is mmm! Tentacles everywhere~ I’ve gone back to re-read this a lot, I’ll admit it. I hope you all enjoyed it too.

7 Quiet On Set

Idea: Must. Write. Talos.

Result: A cute little platonic x-reader with everyone’s favorite Skrull. This was my first MCU fic too.

8 Diagnostic

Idea: Wanted to apologize to Zane for the damages done in Charnsuka with some Glacier shipping fluff.

Result: A silly glacier thing leading to a bit of foolery. I’m happy with it!

9 Heron Soaring

Idea: A continuation of the plot line from Heron Rising with Kanan and Thrawn.

Result: Too many feels… but some great sex to soften the blow, Kanera too!

10 Patron

Idea: Responding to a tumblr prompt from @wukeskywalker regarding Thrawn commissioning LOADS of artworks of Eli.

Result: More Thranto fluff! I see a trend here…

11 Black Heron

Idea: Kanan x Pryce for @myevilmouse , I think this was our first ‘collaboration’ on something!

Result: Juahir hires a special someone to show Arihnda a good time!

12 Red Heron

Idea: @star-wars-rebels-4 is always an amazing wealth of ideas for Grand Inquisitor, and encouraged a work featuring him and Kanan.

Result: Delicious back alley smut when an undercover Jedi is caught!

13 Warm Homecoming

Idea: Give my and a friend's OCs some cute fluff.

Result: OC fluff and a vacation to Hoth!

14 sowing the seeds

Idea: Add something cute to the spank war project.

Result: Another contender for my ‘favorite thing I’ve ever written’ rank. Two chapters of pining, cooking lessons, and sweet slick smut.

15 Red Frost

Idea: After watching “The Evil of Frankenstein” with @sneakybunyip ‘s amazing movie night group, I wanted to do something fun with Victor and Hans.

Result: A fun little adventure fic with some huddling for warmth to boot. Victor and Hans are the hammer-horror-verse Thranto send tweet.

16 a setting sun to hide the ruins

Idea: What if I tortured Kanan to the point he turned evil and joined the Inquisitors (and went a little insane in the process)

Result: Instead of torture, let’s just use some serum that drives him mad. Perfect. Smut ahoy, pretty much a dead dove type fic.

17 Pinktown

Idea: When browsing abandoned towns in Florida, I came across Flamingo… what if Thrawn had been exiled here instead.

Result: An alternate history of Thrawn’s exile and eventual discovery by the Empire. Huge thanks for @badgerandk on this one for the perfect epilogue and beta.

18 the sun rises to only illuminate the stranger i have become

Idea: Setting sun… part 2! But it’s actually what happens before sun?

Result: How Kanan ended up where he is for ‘a setting sun’... lots of imp smut and again, it's sort of a dead dove style fic.

19 Frozen Over

Idea: Ar’alani x Eli Vanto

Result: Somehow me and my writing partner ended up at sensory deprivation focus on this one.

20 Shape of Honor

Idea: Well, this one started in 2018 but ‘finished’ in 2019. Still working on the epilogue. Lots of tweaks… If you are not familiar, this is my AU in which it explores how the Thrawn novel and Rebels show would be altered if Palpatine distrusted Thrawn from their first meeting and accused him of being a Chiss spy. Vaguely inspired by the film The Shape of Water.

Result: Well it's nearly a novel now, isn’t it. This was a great adventure in learning how to create compelling story arcs. I’m extremely satisfied with how it is shaping (lol) up.

21 Datura Stamonium

Idea: Thrawnbine ovi smut.

Result: Oops it has plot now, a whole backstory with Eli and such and so fourth. Will need further stories told…

22 Desert Entropy

Idea: Luke/Wedge modern AU shenanigans.

Result: Also pulled Nath/Wyl and the Rogue Squad/Alphabet Squad peeps into this. Set in Vegas, Luke and Wedge meet and have a cute little romance, but some legal troubles set them back (Palpatine, as always, is That Bitch™) Very happy ending!

23 The Great Eli and Thrawn Prank War

Idea: See Chapter 1: Mullet Thrawn

Result: This thing really grew up, and thanks to all the contributors for allowing me to join in! My contributions were: 7-Bombs Away! In which a bit of drama brews and Thrawn makes a paint bomb that forces him and Eli back into being roomates. 11-Tooka Troube 2: Electric Boogaloo in which Eli finds his quarters slowly filling up with Tooka plush toys, and then something huge goes off in supply. 17-The Bitch is Back In which who knew Thrawn could sing?!

24 Clipped Wings to Keep Us from Flying

Idea: Continuing the story line from Caged Like Prized Birds

Result: Dragging Eli and the OG Thrawn into this, seeing that their stories were left untold in the first work. Also Armitage and the clone are up to all sorts of cool things. Still a WIP, on the list to keep working on this year!

25 I’ll do what I can.

Idea: Some Ronan/Krennic feels post Treason

Result: A Ronan character study that I really needed to get out of my system and finally a stable alliance between Krennic and Thrawn!

26 Purple Heron

Idea: @punk--kenobi and I concocted some fun Kanan/Zeb/Hera smut featuring Lasat heat cycles.

Result: Ah this came out so cool, full of emotion and wonderful imagery. Massive kudos to @punk--kenobi for beta-ing my portion and contributing some of the best smut one can find!

27 Ninjago Angst Week 2019

Idea: Do some 1-shots for Ninjago Angst Week

Result: ow right in the feels. Each character got a highlight in their own ‘dark retelling of a canon or canon adjacent event’ chapter.

28 Vertigo

Idea: Thing’s don’t go right planetside for Eli, Pik, and Waffle in Treason.

Result: Big oof. I hope Eli can one day forgive me… I even put strain on the end game Thranto! Bittersweet ending and lots of angst.

29 More Than Just a Treat

Idea: What is Obi Wan up to in the desert…

Result: Aunt Beau and baby Luke baked him cookies obviously!

30 Datura Metel

Idea: Continuing the Datura cycle…

Result: Just how Eli ended up where he did in the first installation.

31 Here & Now

Idea: Some Thranto Fluff! For @jewelliffer

Result: A camping trip for shore leave! And a marriage proposal for extra sugar.

32 Monster Under the Bed

Idea: Benevolent Boogeyman Chiss

Result: Modern AU Thranto spooky sillies. Bit of an intense climax but they talk it out!

33 Haunted by Sentiment

Idea: Nath is in denial of being the Squad Dad for @glassprowlers

Result: Nath’s very bad no good oh so terrible day! It's very silly and I really like how it ended up, the title is way more serious than the story itself XD

34 Pulse

Idea: Werewolf AU Lavashipping

Result: Oops Kai is a werewolf! Good thing Cole is here to help him figure out how to press on.

35 Stories from Area 51

Idea: remember the raid Area 51 meme? I do! Gotta clap them alien cheeks!

Result: Oh no it got PLOTTY! Pretty much all of my favorite characters and ships cherry-picked and plopped down into a Men In Black style facility in the middle of the desert. I really have a thing for the desert huh…

36 Good Day

Idea: The “truth” behind the “Good day, Lieutenant Vanto” from Thrawn in Treason.

Result: Oh stars the FEELS! Thrawn is in deep water and he KNOWS IT! GAH!

37 Fur Ball

Idea: Chiss are mogwai/gremlins…

Result: Silly Thranto fluff. Thrass shows up too! Feeding them after midnight is actually a good idea here… Grow your own ideal man!

38 Came Back Haunted

Idea: A mission fic centered around the @peters-pumpkin-day prompts.

Result: Ice planet survival with Tarkin, Krennic, Galen, and Ronan.

39 Sewn Together

Idea: This drawing actually is what lead to the fic-

Result: A fairly unique reuniting of Thrawn and Eli after both return to the Ascendancy.

40 Spiked Heron

Idea: Oh no… Kanan gets himself in deep poodoo this time.

Result: Devaronians really like humans huh? The next chapter is half way written I swear it is coming soon!

41 A Colder Embrace

Idea: Thrawn/Purrgil/Ezra and Luke/Wampa for SW Rare Pairs.

Result: It's very cold on Hoth… and even colder in space.

42 Surround

Idea: Luke/Wedge for SW Rare Pairs

Result: Luke has to confront Wedge post ESB regarding what is, essentially, his deserting the Rebels.

43 What Happens Planetside…

Idea: Eli/Pik/Waffle for SW Rare Pairs

Result: heheh a scrumptious Eli sandwich! And surprise tentacles because, well, why not?

44 Hesperidium

Idea: Fluffy Kylux for the Kylux Secret Santa event

Result: Ah its so sweet you might get a cavity

45 Reanimator

Idea: Lovecraftian eldritch horror Thranto

Result: This is the sort of project that it takes 2 months to fine tune each chapter, so bear with me, but I can promise a wonderful, creepy ride is ahead!

46 Floral

Idea: Luke/Faro for SW Rare Pairs. Enjoy the Jedi lovin’, @myevilmouse

Result: Sex pollen and accidentally defecting from the Empire. Whoops!

47 The Harch

Idea: Bouncing off of THIS art by @mamidlo , we worked together to create this plot. Very much inspired by the Hammer Horror films, such as Dracula and Frankenstein.

Result: A fun and spooky romp of Kallus and Zeb getting trapped in a creepy castle featuring mind controlled drones and a species-obsessed Harch. This was my first time posting the entire story at once, too!

Wow, I can not believe how much has been written this year. Thank you all again for reading and kudos-ing and your amazing comments. I’d not be here without the support and love <3 Cheers to 2020 and much more fic ahead!

[pi-cat000]

MSA: Take Two (part 10)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9

Part 11: here 

.

Apparently, Vivi needs time to process the fact that her Arthur is not in any danger because she stands in quiet contemplation for several long seconds. Her face scrunches, brows creasing, and she massages her chin thoughtfully. Most likely, she is revising whatever theories she’d concocted since their last encounter. Arthur uses the brief reprieve to float over to Vivi’s desk and right the lamp he’d accidentally knocked over. However, when he reaches to touch it, the bulb flickers on, startling him. He hastily jerks his hand back. The lamp goes dark. Arthur hesitates, but nothing explodes, so he hovers his hand near the lamp, watching the light spark. A quick check under the table confirms that it is not plugged in. Perplexed, he switches sides, but his metallic arm elicits the same response. Weird, but also fascinating. Arthur must be producing some form of charge, creating an electric field. It can’t be the static because, now he is relaxed, the sparks - which are usually jumping every which way - have quietened, becoming almost non-existent.

“I think it’s pretty cool.” Vivi, having finished her reflection, steps beside him and gives her lamp an excited grin, like it’s not just a faulty bit of electronics.

“Uh.” Arthur is not sure if ‘cool’ is the right word. He pulls back. The lamp flickers off.

“Your anchor does that too,” Vivi continues, pointing at his heart. Impulsively, Arthur coves it, drawing back and angling away.  

Vivi freezes and quickly flushes with embarrassment, stepping back, “Sorry. Was that rude? It felt rude.”

Arthur jumps to reassure her, “No…I mean…Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”

She doesn’t buy it. “If it’s rude, you should let me know. None of this ‘I’m fine' when you’re obviously not, nonsense,” Vivi orders, actually rolling her eyes to show exasperation. She’s got the determined air about her that he has come to associate with a lecture on honestly and sharing one’s feelings.

Deliberately, Arthur moves his hand back to his side, motioning awkwardly, “It was the pointing that made me uneasy. I don’t think I like other people being near it.” He then quickly makes to continue their conversation, “What were you saying about this thing producing an electric field?”

Vivi falters, “Oh…” seemly thrown, like she’s not used people being immediately honest with her.  She recovers quickly, “Okay. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve been carrying you in my purse. Mystery said we shouldn’t leave you lying around, and it felt wrong to stash you someplace random. I totally fried my phone and laptop.”

Vivi’s been carrying around his heart thingamajig in her purse? Arthur is surprisingly okay with this setup.

“I don’t mind. I think I would rather you carry me around than be left alone somewhere…” If he had a mouth, he would probably be grimacing, “What do mean by ‘fried your phone’?”

“You kind of short out nearby electronics. My whole bag caught fire,” Vivi elaborates, sounding way too enthused about the subject. “It was my fault really, I should have known that keeping you and my phone in the same spot wasn’t the best idea. The laptop thing was definitely my bad. Of course, if Mystery had just told me about the plasma stuff straight away, I might have cottoned on sooner.” She delivers the last sentence with an irritated frown.

“It...I mean 'I' must produce some type of charged electric or magnetic field,” He reasons, briefly glancing down at the heart, “I can probably fix your phone…Once I figure out how to control it." He tries to sound as apologetic as possible, hoping to compensate for his lack of facial features. His fingers let out several sparks.

“Oh! Hold on,” Vivi pipes, spinning to hurry and inspect a specific pile of books, “I have something for you.” She yanks out a thicker notebook form near the top then pulls free three additional tombs, all very old going off their many scuff marks. “I’ve been writing down everything I learn. You should read it. Maybe you’ll get some ideas.”

The pile wobbles dangerously before tipping over to scatter more paper across the floor. Vivi pays it not mind. Instead, she settles down at the centre of her blue, tasselled carpet, flipping open the notepad. Arthur floats closer, curious. She pats the floor next to her, beckoning him to sit, continuing to comment, “Also, Mystery says these books aren’t ‘entirely useless’ which is pretty much a glowing recommendation coming from him. I annotated the margins when I noticed a crossover in the information.”

Cautiously, Arthur drifts down into a cross-legged position, peering at the notepad. Not wanting to touch the paper, he simply examines the first page. It is covered in Vivi’s squiggly handwriting, with sticky-notes protruding at odd angles on all sides. Arthur recognises a few diagrams, describing a magnetic field, and some other info on lightning. Vivi flips the book around, so he is not trying to read upside-down.

“How long did this take you?” He wonders out loud, “How long have I been out?”

“About a week,” Vivi turns the page for him, “There’s a whole lot of stuff about elemental affinities further in. Did you know people have auras that naturally resonate with an element? Therefore, if a ghost is strong enough, it will automatically mimic its elemental affinity.”

Arthur nods vaguely. His own Vivi, the future Vivi, had come up with a similar theory after they’d run into one too many elemental themed ghosts. It’s nice to have confirmation. It’s also nice that Vivi can learn about this stuff without putting herself in danger.

“Anyway. Since you’re only mimicking lightning, this electricity or lightning will only act per your understanding of electricity or lightning. Of course, it’s also influenced by your emotions and mental state, which is kind of tricky to control, but it’s a start.”

“That…makes a bit of sense.”

He’s not sure how this information will help him manage the lightning because one doesn’t just stop understanding scientific facts, and figuring out his emotions sounds just as impossible. However, Arthur finds the act of simply knowing is already making him feel a load better. Sure, being dead was terrible, but he hadn’t realised how badly the lack of control and understanding was affecting him until it wasn’t.

He glances up to Vivi, “Thank you…for doing this.”

“Heh, it was nothing. Besides, Lewis was the one to make the connection between your mental state and your level of control, that you wouldn’t hurt us. Also, you, the other you, explained all the technical sciency things. So, I didn’t do much, aside from accidentally fry my laptop.”

“It means a lot.” He reiterates firmly. In his timeline, Vivi had harboured a lot of guilt after the incident, which had manifested in a refusal to accept credit for her work. It had taken him an embarrassingly long time to notice. Good to know he could skip that drama this time around. Finally, he’ll be able to repay her for everything.

With new determination, Arthur reaches out to carefully turn the next page without help. Vivi stares openly then glances down. Her next smile is soft and more private. A smile for herself.  The amusement trickles back, warming his core. This time, instead of fading immediately into that void of numbness, it hangs over him like a cozy blanket.

Arthur still needs to figure out a way to exist in the same space as Lewis long enough to explain himself properly, but, in this moment, he is just going to enjoy the warmth.

.

NOTE: So Lewis was supposed to be in this part, but this conversation took more words then I planned. He’ll be in the next part though. 

Part 11: here

[justanotherwannabeclassic]

Finding Neverland (13/?)

Summary: When Juliet Jones and Gideon Gold fall through a time portal and find themselves in Neverland, finding a way back home is the least of their worries. One wrong step can irreversibly change the course of history, placing both of their existences in jeopardy. As Juliet attempts to ensure her parents are on course to falling in love, Gideon struggles with the realization that he’s about to meet his deceased brother for the very first time. Will they succeed in preserving the timeline, and what happens when these star-crossed lovers realize their respective families’ goals are at odds? Relationships: Gideon Gold x OC Swan-Jones kiddo, Captain Swan, references to Rumbelle and slight Swanfire

Read now on AO3.

Previous Chapters: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

Chapter 13

Her plan needs an operation name.

Plans with operation names tend to be more successful -- at least, that’s what the storybooks have told her. Operation: Cobra. Operation: Mongoose. Operation: Light Swan. Operation: Whatever Random Animal Comes to Mind. Operation names had always been Henry’s forte, but since Juliet had long ago made it her own form of rebellion to be the opposite of Henry in a number of ways, she finds herself lacking in the whole “naming operations” department.

Most pressing, however, is that Juliet’s plan needs to actually exist outside of the vague conceptualization of “let’s hook -- pun only kinda intended -- my parents up.” That’s the end goal, right alongside “don’t die” and “get back to the correct point in time.” Though, Juliet reasons, if she fails at part one -- the aforementioned hooking up of her parents -- then she’ll just fade from existence, technically not dying.

After all, she can’t really die if she never existed in the first place.

How comforting.

All of this weighs heavily on her mind, but instead she focuses on naming the whole damn sort-of plan because that feels the least daunting. She needs a win right now, and naming her operation will be it. Only what will it be? She doesn’t know. Henry is the poetic one in the family, stronger with metaphors and fun naming conventions. Juliet’s creativity comes in the form of art and photos. She’s visual, and unfortunately, operation names are not that. 

“Operation: Anything having to do with a Swan” feels a little too on the nose.

“Operation: Kittens” sounds a bit too cute for a  life or non-existence scenario, no matter how much she likes kittens.

She’s still mulling over a name when she notices her father approaching her, coconut in hand. Operation: Coconut, it is. The operation name might not be an animal, but she doesn’t totally have to follow in Henry’s footsteps, pleasing her inner rebellious teen. And despite hating coconut water -- a fact this version of her father apparently doesn’t know -- seeing him with something in hand clearly for her makes her smile, and that’s enough.

“Hi there.”

“Morning.” He holds out the coconut, which she takes gratefully. She can power through pretending to drink coconut water if it means spending more time with him. She misses him -- the version of him she knows and loves -- terribly. “I know that Emma mentioned you weren’t fond of coconuts, but you need sustenance for what’s coming.”

She stares up at him, blinking in confusion, until she realizes that he’s referencing their plan to steal Pan’s shadow. Everything from the previous night is somewhat fuzzy. Try as she might to stay awake, Juliet had found herself dozing when the others had begun discussing the next steps toward successfully saving Henry. She thinks the plan they concocted involved something to do with using her and Emma’s magic, and she resolves to better inquire about the plan some more. At the moment, however, she’s more interesting in the first half of her father’s statement. Emma mentioned that Juliet didn’t like coconuts. That means that they had talked about her, a fact that ignites a small bit of hope. “You guys talk about me?”

“When it’s relevant, yes.”

“What makes it relevant?”

“When you get kidnapped by Pan.”

“Oh, that.” It makes sense. Dimly, she wonders what it was like when she disappeared. She knows that Gideon hadn’t reacted well -- that much she could tell from the way he had refused to let go of hand as they trekked back to camp. But the others? She isn’t sure. Up until now, her father’s past self had acted indifferent since he had found her and Neal outside of Echo Cave. Did he care when she had gone missing? Juliet isn’t sure she wants to know the answer.

“Aye, that.” He glances over the part of camp where Gideon is speaking in a low voice to Neal. She wonders what they’re saying. Her father turns back to her, and scratches behind his ear. It’s an action she’s seen plenty over the course of her life, one that indicates that he’s particularly nervous about whatever he plans to say next. “Listen, love, Pan is a monster. He enjoys both sowing discord and hurting people.”

“I kind of figured that part out when he had his crew kidnap me. And when he attempted to proposition my boyfriend into killing everyone -- which he wasn’t going to do, by the way.” Juliet makes a point of stressing that Gideon wasn’t going to hurt them. Recalling his hesitance outside of Echo Cave, she isn’t positive that her father truly believes her, but it’s worth a shot. She knows that Hook doesn’t actually have a reason to trust Gideon at this juncture, but she still finds her father’s attitude unfair and feels the desire to defend the man she loves. “Pan probably knew you were lurking in the bushes, anyway. He wanted you to think that...that Romeo was was the bad guy, making you not trust him. Sort of like how everyone here doesn’t trust you, even though you’re one of the good guys.

“I’m no hero,” he says with a false sort of laugh. He rights himself quickly enough, and once again runs his fingers through his hair. “At any rate, his stunt at Echo Cave was one such example of that.”

“Neal and I got ourselves out of it.” By revealing way too much information, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“Aye, but not without a few bruises, it seems.” He casts another significant glance over his shoulder toward Gideon. For a moment, Juliet struggles to recall just what he’s referencing. Then she remembers Neal’s cover.

As grateful as she is for Neal’s quick thinking, she’s not fond with his particular choice of lie. It had been clever and believable, especially since she’s pretending to be someone that ran away from her family for a man, but she doesn’t like that Gideon is now forced to feign anger and hurt in regards to their relationship.

Her father looks like he’s about to say something else, but he’s cut off by Neal announcing, “Hey, Romeo and I are going to get some water. When we get back, we can leave to get the shadow.”

Juliet doesn’t pay attention to Regina’s argument in response, but instead focuses on Gideon and his resolute expression. He takes a deep breath before following behind Neal and disappearing into the jungle. She’s curious about how the conversation will play out, halfway worried about the effect that it might have on Gideon, but mostly glad he gets the chance to spend time with Neal.

“He loves you.”

Hook’s voice pulls her attention. She wonders now what he would say to her if she actually did come to him with her non-existent worries about whether she and Gideon were moving too fast. Romantic relationship advice had always been more of her mother’s forte. It wasn’t that her father was bad at it, but Juliet had always felt more comfortable turning to her mother -- probably the gender thing. Regardless of who she went to first for advice, her father had always provided a shoulder to cry on when needed. Of course, now that she actually needs his shoulder to cry on, he’s not the same man. 

“Did you really come over here to discuss my love life?”

“No, I didn’t. I came over to ensure your safety.” He continues to stand over her, a large, looming figure covered in black. “However, I did spend an extended period around him. He was driven mad with worry after he realized you disappeared.”

“He’s that kind of guy.” She sits the coconut down and pokes at the ground. She doesn’t want dwell on the effects that her kidnapping had on her boyfriend. She might have been the primary victim in the situation, but her loved one had also been unfairly hurt in the process. As angry as she already had been with Pan, she feels it double in her chest. She’s come to realize exactly why her father had always referred to Peter Pan as a demon.

“Aye, he is.” Her father fixes her with an intense stare. “He seems like the sort of man who would understand if you had reservations regarding your relationship.”

Had this conversation taken place thirty years in his future, Juliet might find his concern to be sweet. Instead, she feels a bubble of guilt forming in her gut at the slight worry in his eyes. She loathes the protracted lies she and Gideon have needed to weave to maintain their covers. She’s uncomfortable lying to her parents in this manner. Though she’s told her fair share of lies to them in the past -- what kid hasn’t lied to their parents every now and then? -- her actions now feel more insidious...and there’s nothing she can do about it except lie some more.

She looks away from her father, the loss of eye contact making her deceptions easier.  “We’ll figure it out. We always have.” She picks up the coconut. “Thanks for this, and checking on me, and discussing my love life even if that wasn’t your full intention.”

“Right.” Juliet thinks he might turn to leave, but he continues to stare at her carefully. “What? Is there something on my face?”

“I should have asked Swan to do this,” he murmured, casting his eyes skyward. He sighs deeply. “Love, did Pan or any of his crew touch you in any way…?”

“Touch me…?” It takes a moment for her to process. “Oh my God.”

Suddenly, she’s fifteen again, drunk off wine coolers and rum stolen from her parents’ liquor cabinet. Juliet remembers the night -- the “unofficial” cast party celebrating the closing of  the school’s production of Legally Blonde: The Musical. (She had been Elle, thank you very much.) Juliet had been reckless then, believing herself unbreakable and immortal in only the way teenagers can. Instead of crashing for the night in Susan Sparrow’s basement, she’d decided to walk home -- she only lived a mile away -- and sneak in through her bedroom window.

“My dad’s the best pirate, so that means I’ve inherited the best sneaking skills. It’s a fact!”

How she would sneak through her second-story bedroom window that night, Juliet didn’t have the opportunity to find out. Her father, by chance thanks to a night patrol, had found her emptying the contents of her stomach into Grumpy’s azaleas.  

Juliet remembers how he had ushered her into the back of the patrol car and driven her home.  She remembers his tight, but loving embrace when he carried back into their house, and tucked her into bed. And, she remembers the lecture she’d received the next day, just the two of them on the back porch swing.

“I loathe that we live in a world that forces me to tell you these things, and I recognize what I’m saying places a burden on you that shouldn’t be yours, but sweetheart, you have to stay safe. I’m not saying don’t imbibe ever. I’d be a hypocrite if I tried. But the world -- and yes, even Storybrooke -- is not a kind place, and it is full of people who enjoy preying on the vulnerable, and inebriation makes us more vulnerable.”

“Dad--”

“When I was just a pirate, I saw terrible men do awful things, and overheard the most sordid of tales. While laying with a consenting woman was always policy on my ship, it was not like that for everyone. And last night, when I found you sick and alone, I was reminded of those men.”

“But nothing happened!”

“And I want nothing to ever happen. The prospect of it, even thinking that -- Juliet, promise me that if you are ever in a situation like that again, you will call someone. Your mother or I, Henry, your grandparents, or even Neal. It doesn’t even have to be family. It can be a trusted and sober friend. Don’t get behind the wheel yourself, or try to wonder home disoriented. We will find you.”

He’d been so concerned then. As much as it embarrasses her now, Juliet had written off his concern as parental paranoia. He’d always had an overprotective streak, the result of his own past trauma. It hadn’t been until she’d grown older and lived a life outside of the protective watch of her parents that she truly began to understand her father’s warnings.

But the man standing before her now isn’t her father -- not yet, anyway. His concern for her isn’t paternal, but it’s still there. As starved as she had been for his attention the previous night, she’s grateful for whatever care he can muster -- even if the delivery lacks his normal affection. At least this way she can pretend that the man before her is the Killian Jones she knows and loves.

She’s happy when she finally doesn’t have to lie. “Nothing happened. I promise.”

He smiles, the relief evident. “Good.”

 -/-

 “So...what do you think of Neverland?”

Small talk has always been an enigma for Gideon. While working with patients, it comes naturally to him. He thinks it’s because he can hide behind the mask of the white coat, and that small talk helps his patients -- especially the kids -- relax. In social situations, however, he finds himself at a loss for words, stumbling over the dumbest of questions.

Like asking his brother what he thinks of the hell hole that is Neverland.

But he has his reasons. Kind of. When Gideon had been younger, he’d asked his father about Neverland and Peter Pan. The concept of an island where no one ever ages had been appealing to him as a child. Truly, it sounded like an awfully big adventure. That had been the moment Gideon first learned that his grandfather was Peter Pan. His parents -- because his father, understandably, felt this was a story best told with his mother present -- had given him the sanitized version of the truth behind Neverland and Peter Pan. Henry and, later, Juliet’s father had given him the unsanitized version. Over the years, he had wondered what his brother’s adventures entailed, and now that Neal is here, Gideon has the opportunity to ask….even if it feels like a stupid question.

It probably is a stupid question, but it feels safe. The novelty of actually getting to know his brother hasn’t fully sunken in, not in the way that matters. Part of him feels as if he’s wasting the moment. Another part of him still wants to run away back to camp. The part of him that recognizes his running back empty-handed would be suspicious keeps him in place.

“I think I wasted way too much of my life here. So, it sucks.” Neal looks over his shoulder. “Please tell me you didn’t ask me to go get water with you so we could discuss Neverland.”

“Um, not really, no.” Gideon looks down at the ground, cheeks flushing red. He takes note of the vines and roots, making certain to not also trip. “J thought it would be good for us to have the chance to talk. You know, without others.”

“So your girlfriend made you drag me out here.”

“Pretty much, yeah.” Realizing how terrible that sounds, he continues, “It’s not that I didn’t want to without her pushing things along, it’s just a lot. It’s weird.”

“Because I’m dead in the future.”  He can’t see Neal’s face. His brother is continuing to push forward toward some pond -- they do have to come back with water, after all. But, Gideon can see the tenseness in his shoulders and hear the heaviness in Neal’s voice. It reminds him of his patients, the ones who had been given the worst medical news. And, in a way, Juliet had handed Neal his own death sentence.

“Something like that.” Gideon takes a deep breath. “I mean, have you ever spent your whole life wondering about someone, having all of these questions, and knowing you might never get answers? And now, suddenly, you an get answers and it feels...daunting.”

There’s a long pause before Neal answers. “Yeah, I get that. Guess it’d be like that if I met my mom again.”

Gideon winces at Neal’s response. “So you meant what you said back at camp? About your secret at Echo Cave?”

“Something like that,” Neal parrots. He stops then, and turns to Gideon. Looking him in the eye, he says, “Just so you know, I was making that stuff up about what I said about your girlfriend. She never said anything about moving too fast.”

“Uh, yeah, I know.”

“You didn’t act like it.”

“I thought it would blow our cover if I was too blase about it.” He shrugs, even though Neal doesn’t appear entirely convinced. “But thanks for your quick thinking. That was helpful.”

“I couldn’t exactly say your girlfriend said you were both from the future,” Neal replies. His expression then turns curious. “Speaking of covers, please tell me your name isn’t actually Romeo. I know Belle loves books, but --”

“It’s not. Just the first thing that came to mind.” Gideon refrains from mentioning that he’s half-convinced that he and Juliet are some incarnation of Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers. Henry had mentioned once that Shakespeare had been an Author. “My name is actually Gideon.”

“Gideon Gold, huh?”

“Not all of us can be named Baelfire.” Neal barks out a laugh, and for a moment, Gideon feels a surge of pride. He’s able to make his brother laugh. “Mom’s the one who named me -- after a character from a book -- so you got that part right.”

“And about Belle, apparently.” There’s a twinkle in Neal’s eyes, and Gideon’s stomach immediately drops. He’s struck by how easy Neal had been able to weasel information about the future out of him. Sensing his panic, Neal raises his hands in supplication. “Hey, that part I had figured out since your girlfriend said you were my brother. The way my -- our -- father is with Belle, it wasn’t hard to put two-and-two together. Besides, you look a bit like her.”

Gideon breathes a sigh of relief. “Father says that’s a good thing.”

“Better to inherit her looks than the crocodile skin,” Neal says with a small laugh. “Look, we still need to get water. How about on the way, we talk about normal sibling things -- things that aren’t full of spoilers about the immediate future, so you can stop having a panic attack every time something comes up.”

Gideon cracks a smile.  “Sounds like a plan.”

As they make their way toward the pond, Gideon and Neal trade questions. They start with small questions -- favorite colors, foods, and books -- but quickly the questions grow a bit deeper. Neal listens intently as Gideon shares horror stories from his medical residency and explains his motivations for choosing the medical profession. Neal, in turns, opens about about starting over in the Land Without Magic. By the time they reach the pond, they’re trading stories about living in New York.

“I don’t know if it comforts me to know that the subway system is still a mess that far in the future,” Neal says, dismay evident from his tone to his face after Gideon recounts nearly missing his test in undergrad because he had been trapped in a stalled train.

“Look at it this way, the more things the change, the more they also stay the same. You can count on it like death and taxes.” Gideon immediately regrets his choice of words. I am an idiot.

“Some of us can count on death more easily than others.”

“I’m sorry you had to find out about that. I can’t imagine it’s easy knowing.”  Gideon fills his skein with water. “Juliet wouldn’t have told you if she didn’t have to. I’m pretty sure she feels bad about that.”

Neal scoffs. “Pretty sure?”

“We didn’t exactly have much time to discuss her specific feelings on the matter.” There’s something in Neal’s tone that sets Gideon on edge, but he doesn’t let it show.

“From where I was sitting, she didn’t seem to like me too much.”

“She hardly knows you. Besides, she told me that she didn’t think you were the worst. She even called you charming,” Gideon answers. He feels the need to defend Juliet, even though Neal hasn’t said anything completely off-base.

“She completely blew her gasket when I kissed Emma,” Neal says, and this time Gideon recognizes that his older brother is now hedging for clues about the future.

“I think that’s an extreme read of the situation,” Gideon sighs deeply. He had known this area of conversation was unavoidable, insofar that Juliet had requested that he do whatever possible to discourage Neal from pursuing Emma. Gideon knows he needs to do this, but he hesitates. His conversation with his brother had been going so well, and now he’s going to ruin it all.

“You know, for a brief moment, I thought she was my kid. Once I found out she was from the future, I thought that might be the reason she seemed so mad at me in the cave. I died and left her, and there was some lingering  resentment, and I hoped...” Neal rubs the back of his neck, and looks skyward. “Anyway, then she said you were my brother, and that killed that dream.”

“We’re not the Lannisters.” Their respective family trees might be convoluted, but they’re not blood related. Gideon shudders at the thought. Still...he can’t quite blame Neal from going down that mental path. Knowing his feelings for Emma, it only makes sense.

“Yeah, I hoped not,” Neal says with a broken sort of laugh. “But she’s related to Emma, right? She said her family was here, and she looks a lot like Emma.”

“I think we’re getting into spoiler territory.”

“You know that’s basically confirming my suspicions, right?” Neal kicks a rock into the water. He doesn’t look at Gideon, and for that Gideon is grateful. “So what is she, like her sister? It seems pretty obvious Snow and Charming might want another kid. They don’t strike me as a one-and-done kind of pair.”

They’re not, Gideon thinks. They have another son. They named him after you. He’s a police officer, and lives in Storybrooke with his husband, and they’re in the process of adopting twins. Of course, he can’t tell Neal any of that.

“Listen, Neal…” Gideon comes up short with what to say. He settles on, “You already know a lot about the future.”

“I’m honestly a little surprised the others haven’t noticed the resemblance.”

“They’re not looking for one. People see what they want to see.” Like how you think she’s Emma’s sister. He’d been worried about it, at first, believing that someone might note the similarities in appearance. No one has, and if they’ve thought about it, they’ve held their tongues. They don’t see them as Gideon Gold and Juliet Jones, but rather Romeo and Juliet from far off Verona. Juliet is just another pretty blonde in a sea of pretty blondes, just like how he’s another guy. They’re not looking for family resemblances in the way that Neal is.

“Why’d she not want me kissing Emma anyway?”

“Because you and her didn’t happen back then, er, now. And we’ve changed enough already. We don’t want to wreck the timeline even more than we already have,” Gideon explains slowly. He wonders if this is what Neal had really be trying to get at when he started asking about Juliet. “So you can’t do that anymore. Kiss Emma, I mean.”

Goal: accomplished.

“How can you even know that?”

Or not.

“You know how Henry has his fairytale book with everyone’s stories? There’s another book in the future where that includes this whole adventure, and a ton of stories that happened since Emma first arrive in Storybrooke,” Gideon huffs out. His frustration is growing. Why can’t Neal understand? He feels like a villain, crushing the heart of his victim. “And you and Emma? You’re not in it, at least not as lovers, not since first left her way back when.”

“You love you girlfriend?”

“What?” This is not the direction Gideon had expected the conversation to go. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“It’s a yes or no question. Do you love her?” Neal is once again facing him. Gideon takes in the hard set of his brother’s shoulders, the way his arms are crossed, and his knitted brows. Neal will not back down from this train of thought.

“Of course I love her.”

“How much?

“Really?”

“Humor me.”

Gideon casts his eyes skyward. This is not how he expected to be discussing his love life with his deceased brother. “I have a ring. Back home. I’m planning to propose soon. Going by that, I love her quite a bit.” He pauses, thinking of an earlier conversation. “She’s all my heart.”

Neal’s expression momentarily softens. “Wow, congrats. I hope she says yes.”

“Unsurprisingly, so do I.” He’s fairly certain that she will say ‘yes’. Their friends seem convinced of that fact. Her family, too. The aforementioned Neal Nolan, who acts more like Juliet’s closest friend and confidant than uncle, has even made Gideon promise to run by any proposal plans. “She’s going to agree to it no matter what, but you want the whole thing to be something she’ll remember, right?”

“Okay, so you have this girl--”

“--woman--”

“--woman, fine, you get the point. You have this woman that you love. Now imagine finding out you’re going to die, that you’re going to lose absolutely everything, and you don’t know when or how, but it’s definitely going to happen -- and soon, by the sound of things. You can’t tell me that you won’t do everything possible to hold onto the person you love,” Neal pleads with him. And, in a way, he’s right. If the world ended tomorrow, he’d want nothing more than to spend it with Juliet in his arms. But--

“What do you think I’m trying to do?” Gideon doesn’t even try to hide the defeat in his voice. He doesn’t want to be having this conversation. What he wants is for Neal to not even pursue Emma, for them to just act like brothers-- whatever that means. What he wants for the weight of the future to be lifted from both their shoulders. What he wants it to not be the bad guy. He can’t always get what he wants. “Neal, I understand the future is terrifying, and I know you’re probably thinking about every single thing you regret--”

“You know? I don’t think you have any idea how I feel! I’m going to die, and you have a future with your girlfriend to run back to!”

“A future that might not even exist,” Gideon argues, his voice rising. He runs his fingers through his hair and takes a step back. “You’re the one who doesn’t get it. We didn’t even want to be here. We fell through a goddamn portal. J and I, we didn’t even try to, and we fucked things up. Things are bad right now, universe ending bad. So, while I might be sympathetic to your plight -- it fucking sucks -- it’s not high on my priority list.”

Neal blinks, clearly taken aback by Gideon’s outburst. “What are you even talking about?”

“Things that were supposed to happen didn’t end up happening, which set off a domino effect of preventing other things from happening, and we don’t know how to fix it.” His answer comes out in a half-sob, the weight of everything at stake finally taking over.

“Could what you did hurt Henry? Emma?”

“Definitely.”

“Then tell me how I can help.” Neal walks over and places his hand on Gideon’s shoulder. “If Emma and Henry’s future is really in danger, tell me what you two messed up, and I will help fix it.”

Gideon shakes his head. “We can’t. We already told you too much.”

“Look, I already know too much, and I’m a dead guy walking. And by the sound of things, you two are completely in over your head. You need help,” Neal insists. “You know I’m right.”

Gideon considers Neal’s offer. They need help. Desperately. But, “You’re not going to like what we have to do.”

“I kind of already figured that part out.”

Gideon suddenly wishes desperately for Hook’s flask of rum. Juliet is going to kill him. But, if they pull this off, she’ll still exist. That will be something worth celebrating, assuming Neal doesn’t kill him because of the words that come out of his mouth next.

“We need to get Emma and Hook to kiss.” Neal recoils as if Gideon had just burned him. “What.” It’s not a question.

“We need to find a way for Hook and Emma to kiss. They had their first kiss in Neverland, you see, and I know for a fact that the events that led to that kiss didn’t happen, which means that they likely didn’t kiss.” His explanation feels silly, because a kiss feel simple, not monumental. But it’s the first kiss in a series of many more kisses, that will ultimately lead to a fuller and happier life.

“I don’t get it. You’re worked up over them kissing? Wait--first kiss? How many times do they kiss?”

“It’s never crossed my mind to keep count.” Now, that’s a train of thought I don’t need to follow.  Gideon shakes his head, he needs to focus. As expected, Neal isn’t handling the information well. “As for the ‘getting worked up over them kissing’ part, that kiss kind of sets up a chain of very important events. It’s a domino effect.”

“He ran away with my mom, and now he’s kissing the mother of my son. That’s a little messed up, don’t you think?”

“I told you that you wouldn’t like what we had to do.”

“I can’t...I don’t understand how that kiss helps keep Emma and Henry safe.” Neal looks utterly defeated. Gideon wonders how he would feel if someone said that Juliet absolutely needed to be kissing someone else. He decides not to dwell on the thought.

“Like I said, it’s a domino effect. I can’t fully quantify it, but trust me when I say that their futures as I know it depend on this kiss. My future own depends on this kiss.”

“Your future? How--” He stops, eyes widening in realization. He shakes his head. “No, no, no, no.”

Gideon doesn’t know what to say, so he keeps his mouth shut. He’s at a loss for what to do. His mother would know what to say -- she’s the most empathetic person he knows. He’d inherited Belle’s love of books, but not this. For as long as he’s known her, she’s always found a way to bond and sympathize with strangers. Blood relations or not, Neal is still a stranger to Gideon, making it all the harder.

“God, and I thought she was mine and Emma’s kid. Guess I was half right, huh?” Neal turns away from Gideon, and kicks angrily at a ground. “Seriously? Her and him?”

“If it makes you feel better, they’re very happy together.”

“It doesn’t.”

Gideon bites his lip. Unsure of what else to say on the topic of the Swan-Jones relationship, he attempts a different tactic. “He would talk about you to me. Hook, I mean, in the future. Even before Juliet and I were together, we’d talk about you and he’d tell me stories.”

“To ease his guilty conscience,” Neal snorts.

“Maybe, but not in the way you think,” Gideon tells him. It’s strange to defend Juliet’s father to his brother. He recognizes the reasons why Neal resents them, but the Killian Jones Gideon knows is so far removed from one Neal knows, knew. “He told me once that one of his biggest regrets in life was what happened between you and him and Pan. I’m pretty sure he and our father have talked about you, but I’m pretty sure they’d both deny it if anyone asked.”

“Gideon, I’m glad you like your girlfriend’s father,” Neal begins, and Gideon realizes this is the first time he has said his realization aloud, “but Killian Jones is the last person I want in this scenario. He destroyed my family, and you’re asking me to help make sure he raises my son with the woman I love while I...while I’m dead.”

“Then don’t do it for him. Do it for me, your brother. Do it for Juliet, who has no control over who her parents are.” Gideon grabs Neal’s arm, forcing Neal to finally look him in the eyes. “You’re hurt and you’re angry, and that’s a perfectly understandable way to feel. But don’t let your feelings result in either me or Juliet getting harmed. I spent my entire life wondering who you were, don’t let it be this.That’s not fair. Hook, Henry, Emma -- they all told me that you were a hero. So prove it. Be a hero.”

“Just--can you give me a moment, please?” Neal asks, his anger giving way to something that sounds a lot like defeat. “Let me think. You owe me that.”

Gideon opens his mouth to argue that he doesn’t owe Neal anything right now, but he finds himself saying, “Yeah, we can wait.”

Neal moves away, sitting at the edge of the pond. Gideon hesitates before joining him. Silently, they sit and stare at the water. Moonlight cuts through the dense foliage of the jungle, creating slivers of light on the water. It’s beautiful, Gideon thinks. Years earlier, he and Juliet had rented a cabin upstate. The cabin was by the lake, and he remembers the two of them sitting laying on the bank, looking up the stars. They’d discussed their hopes and dreams, and began to tentatively make plans for the future they might have together. Sitting beside his brother, Gideon wonders if that future might ever come to pass.

[emilyplaysotome]

Chapter 5 - From Good to Bad

Catch up on Chapter 1 - 4 here! (or just Chapter 4)

A leopard cannot change his spots and it would seem that Soryu Oh was destined to be on the wrong side of the law.

There was no ski mask, no hiding of features - just the man I’d known for some time looming over me in a similar fashion to how he’d once stood over me in his suite, as I cowered beneath him on a couch back at the fictional Tres Spades. His hair was slicked back and I found myself frozen beneath him, unclear as to why he was resorting to petty thievery.

“Hurry the fuck up!” He yelled as the train began to slow into Queensboro plaza.

“Ok…ok…I’m just going to reach for my wallet…”

Soryu’s eyes darted and he clicked his tongue in an irritated fashion.

“Shit!”

I held my wallet out to no one as I caught his back running towards an adjacent car. In my own, two NYPD officers barreled through the doors at the opposite end and began to chase him. It all happened so quickly that I barely could process what had transpired, but as the train pulled into the station I realized that the doors refused to open. After a short commotion in the empty train car next door, I watched as the subway finally allowed people on and off, and Soryu was escorted out in handcuffs by a plain clothed officer.

“Are you ok miss?” asked an African American cop. He stood at least 6 feet tall and peered down at me with a concerned expression.

“Yes. I’m fine.”

He handed me his card and I took it.

Terek Bishop was a detective at the NYPD. He was quite striking, with handsome features, short cropped hair and a clean-shaven face. He was the type of officer that broke the pot belly, doughnut eating stereotype and instead had the body of pro athlete with an intellectual sharpness that comes with outsmarting criminals on a daily basis.

He told me that the man who had moments ago held me up had been terrorizing the trains at night and made me sit on the platform at Queensboro Plaza as he took an official statement from me. After a good 15 minutes of talking, he finished his report and noted that I would most likely be called in as a witness against Soryu.

It never crossed his mind that I knew the man who had momentarily forgotten about me or his past life in this world. I was happy that Soryu had been apprehended yet if he was to end up in jail I had absolutely no clue as to how exactly I’d get that kiss. It was unlikely that I’d be able to meet Soryu through a dating app considering he was a criminal and seeing as how I had no idea insofar as how one schedules a conjugal visit, I could feel the king laughing at me from his invisible vantage point.

My face flushed as Terek took down my information and my mind started to run away with itself. Luckily he didn’t seem to notice and instead noted that someone from his unit would get in touch.

“Sorry for keeping you out so late ma’am,” he said politely and I found myself stopping him with the realization that Soryu wasn’t the only one Terek might be able to help me locate.

“You don’t happen to work with a Jin Namba?” I asked cautiously. “I think he’s NYPD as well…”

Terek shook his head with a smile and said, “We’re a large organization ma’am. Name sounds familiar but I don’t think I know him. You a friend of his?”

“Something like that.”

“You could call the main switchboard but that’s about the best I can do for you.”

“The switchboard?”

“Yeah, hold on. Hey Fuller?”

Terek spoke into his walky and I heard a static-y type of sound before the man on the other end of the line provided me with a phone number. Terek told me I could give it a call and be put in touch with an officer, should Jin Namba be NYPD.

I thanked him, well aware of the fact that I didn’t know if the king had left Jin’s profession intact or if he’d turned him into something else entirely. Coupled with the fact that even if he was still NYPD, I couldn’t just call him on a professional line and ask him out on a date.

Regardless though, these were questions best handled after a good night sleep and being keenly aware that the clock was nearing 1 am on a work night, I needed to get to Meg’s and get myself to bed.

The next day I rolled in to the office overtired and with a latte the size of my head.

For the most part being a manager meant not being subjected to the same sort of scrutiny when it came to arrival and departure times at work. However, maintaining an atmosphere built on “fairness” meant that I upheld the expectations set for my underlings. I wanted to roll in late but instead I dragged my haggard ass outta bed and was in my office by 9:30 knowing full well that I was an example for the junior employees that tended to go out more often than I did these days.

I had hoped to get through the morning with as little human interaction as possible, but as luck would have it Anita decided to pay me a visit around 10 AM. She was one of my few real friends at the office, seeing as how we were both senior level people and often found ourselves stuck on different iterations of “manager island”. She was an executive creative director, and with a twinkle in her eye she plopped herself down and announced that they were pitching for a new account.

“Do you remember when we did all that work for Marriott?”

“Vaguely - why do you ask?”

“A much, much sexier hospitality brand is coming down the pike for a pitch in a month and I’m looking for all those consumer testimonials you did.”

“Hmm.”

I could feel my metaphorical feet dragging as I waded through my old files and Anita knew me well enough to smirk and ask, “What did you get up to last night?”

“Oh, not much.”

“That’s not what this seems like…”

“I had a date if you must know.”

“A date?” She asked with a perplexed expression, “but wait…you and…”

It was then that I’d realized I’d messed up. I hadn’t really wanted to talk about our breakup seeing as how I wanted to believe I’d get the opportunity to see him again and figure out my feelings once and for all. As stressful as this new game was, I hoped that it would allow me to solidify what I wanted and get it but I hadn’t really wanted to broadcast the journey to those in my real life.

“Please, keep it on the DL,” I said. “I’m still hoping we’ll get back together.”

“So you went out with him?”

“Not exactly…”

“Noami…I’m not judging, just confused.”

“It’s a long story that I don’t feel like getting into,” I said quickly. “And I found the presentation. Should I slack it to you?”

Anita nodded and said, “Thanks. And if you ever want to talk I’m here. I won’t push, just saying.”

“I appreciate that.”

Anita left and I found myself thinking about Meg’s return and the fact that I was mostly on my own. I spent a good portion of the day trying to figure out how I could loosely explain my dilemma to friends, but other than Leon I had a hard time believing anyone in this world could comprehend what had happened to me during my time down the otome rabbit hole. I found myself thinking of those last few days when all I wanted was my New York friends to offer their advice and support on what man I should take back to this world, yet now that I was home I had no way of leaning on them.

I trudged through as much work as I could handle and around 4 pm decided that I was mentally done for the day. Luckily for me, that meant laying low in my office having no pending meetings and most of my department busy with their assigned work.

As I once had in an otome cafe, I pulled out a new notebook and wrote the names of the men I was looking for in order to help get some sense of organization or a plan. I’d fallen into a date with Hiroshi, but having met Soryu once more realized that I couldn’t just keep swiping and hope to run into these men. I’d need to be slightly proactive and hope that the king had preserved some of their defining characteristics considering there were traces of the men they had been in both Soryu and Hiroshi.

At the moment I figured outside of waiting for my park date with Hiroshi on Saturday, I could follow up with Terek and feign some story of wanting to look Soryu in the eyes and confront the man who had accosted me on the train. For Jin, I could call the NYPD switchboard and confirm whether or not he was an employee. If he was, I’d have to concoct a story to meet up with him and if he wasn’t I’d cross that bridge when I got there. Hijikata and Zyglavis’ whereabouts remained a complete mystery at the moment and I jotted down a few clues and interests ranging from martial arts to chocolate cake.

Taking into account the size of New York City, the exercise felt far more futile than it had back in otome-ville where I’d had the upper hand. Even though you’d think I’d have the home game advantage considering we were in New York, the vastness of the city left me feeling like I was attempting to locate a bunch of golden needles in a dirty, rat infested haystack.

With these men I’d have to cross my fingers and hope we’d cross paths on an app, while researching hot new spots that may have opened up and attracted them.

Then, there was the last man that the king summoned who at the moment remained a total mystery. When he had noted this fact I initially thought the man in question might be Shunichiro Tachibana and I’d be lying if my heart hadn’t been hopeful of this fact. Zyglavis never knew, but I continued to play Shun’s routes from time to time seeing as how Irresistible Mistakes never had the issues that the other games had upon my return to this world. However, as I mustered up the courage to launch the game with the hope that Shun’s route would be mysteriously unavailable, I couldn’t help but think that was far too easy considering how duplicitous the king was…

…and when Shun’s route loaded without issue, I could feel my heart sink.

If I was being honest (and somehow the king’s games always forced me to take a long, hard look in the mirror), Shun and Hijikata were always the two that I questioned saying goodbye to. With Hijikata, I didn’t have a choice to explore where that relationship could leave as I was taken back to the future before it could unfold. Shun, on the other hand, was someone who had always matched well with me on paper and it was nothing more than a fleeting gut feeling that made me leave him behind.

It may sound ridiculous, but I was jealous of his MC whenever I’d read his stories and as a result, that emotion that bubbled up made me question why it was that I had deemed him not my match. He really would have been the most perfect boyfriend, and having played more and more of his routes I realized that I’d gone with someone I had more information about over someone I was getting to know. His dismissal haunted me more and more as Zyglavis and I had a harder time being together and I often wondered how he would have handled his jealousy.

Now it was clear to me that we would not be getting a second chance to find out, and despite being at work that realization did not prevent tears from welling up in my eyes. I was happy that most of the office had headed home, but there were enough of my employees left that I attempted to compose myself as I hid behind my monitor.

By the time I’d finally composed myself, I was in an empty office and had little choice but to go back to Meg’s and pack in anticipation of returning home this weekend. She was set to return tomorrow evening and we discussed having dinner together before I went back to my empty studio on the Upper East Side.

I was surprised at how hard I was taking the news that Shun was most likely not the mystery man brought here from the otome world, and convinced that I needed to cheer up pushed myself to recover with a yummy dinner and marathon of Vanderpump Rules. Naturally, it’s the moments of feigned positivity when the universe decides to throw another gut punch and though one could argue it was my fault for having my attention on my phone instead of the street in front of me I accidentally careened into a beautiful woman.

I didn’t mean for her to topple over in such a dramatic fashion, but she looked up at me stunned with large doe-like eyes as her long legs were sprawled out on the pavement. Before I could off her an apology or my hand for that matter, a familiar man flew out of the restaurant she’d been waiting in front of and rushed up to her.

“Are you ok?” He asked.

“I think so.”

“Someone could have gotten hurt as a result of your carelessness!” he chided, confirming my suspicions and adding to what was already proving to be a downer of a day.

Zyglavis’ not only had a girlfriend, but she appeared to be everything that I was not.

Read Chapter 6

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[getoffthesoapbox]

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Luke & Kylo

The tragedy of Luke and Kylo is as timeless as it is rare in modern storytelling. The master who failed the student, and the student who failed the master. The lesson which could only be taught at the end, when hope was all that was left. The lesson which could only be learned, when all was lost. These things are part of all our lives, if we’re lucky enough to live to see the other side of them.

While I have a significant bone to pick with how Luke and Kylo’s past unfolds, the relationship between these two characters is sunk deep into the marrow of this story and manages to rise above its narrative shortcomings to be something which, with time, will stand out as a high point of the Star Wars meta narrative, in this writer’s humble opinion.

This is the fifth post in my Star Wars The Last Jedi First Impressions series. The list of the topics this series covers, including links to the previous posts, is included below:

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - A Flawed Triumph

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - The Thematic Heart

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Finn & Rose

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Luke & Rey 

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Luke & Kylo ← we are here

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Luke & Leia

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Rey’s Trajectory

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Kylo’s Trajectory

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Rey & Kylo

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - The Romantic Heart

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Misleading Love Polygons

[SW:TLJ] First Impressions - Schrödinger's Futures

This behemoth got away from me and ran off on its own. Can’t win ‘em all, I suppose. ;)

Although Kylo and Luke don’t meet until the end of the film, their narratives are twined together throughout every moment. Luke is clearly the father figure who failed Kylo, not Han, and it shows.

Let’s start with the backstory, which is where my biggest hang ups are with the Luke/Kylo trajectory. We don’t get much illumination on what actually went down at Luke’s little academy--we don’t know how old the padawan are for one thing (Kylo was at least in his twenties, which makes it likely the other padawan were of age). We don’t know when Kylo was shipped off to Uncle Luke’s, or what his family circumstances were, or even why he was sent to jedi training, other than vague hints from Han and Leia in TFA. We don’t even know if Kylo wanted to go or if he was pushed into it.

While this backstory may be covered in ancillary material, it creates a massive yawning crater where Kylo’s motivations should be in the trilogy itself. I won’t cover this here (this I’ll cover during Kylo’s section), but I do want to point out that this makes it difficult to fully understand Kylo’s perspective--and the characters from the original trilogy’s perspectives as well.

So, let’s take several assumptions as “fact,” despite them not being confirmed:

For whatever reason, Leia and Han were afraid of their son, distanced themselves from him, and shipped him off to Luke in his teens. (How can we know this? From what Kylo didn’t do: he didn’t run home to Mommy and Daddy when Uncle Luke tried to kill him. If he was close to his parents, he’d have run to them rather than the owner of the nasty voice in his head.)

Kylo trained with Luke and his padawan at Luke’s academy for 5-10 years (depending on how old he was when he was shipped out). This would mean that the students at Luke’s academy could potentially be friendly or unfriendly to Kylo for a wide variety of reasons--we know nothing about them (more on them in a moment).

At some point Luke began to view his nephew with suspicion and lost his senses enough to ambush him at night in a tent, ransack his dreams without him knowing, and determine (even if only briefly) to kill him rather than the villain in his head.

Given the sheer list of assumptions I had to make above, I think it’s pretty clear we have a very weak and unfleshed-out backstory for Kylo and Luke that doesn’t even begin to cover the sheer emotional turmoil between them or explain a blasted thing at all. While the “twist” of multiple perspectives may work on an initial viewing, it’s not enough to justify anything either of the two characters do before or after their hut confrontation.

As much as I like The Last Jedi, I think this is terrible writing on Rian’s part. I’m all for Luke failing--I love failure in heroes. I’m not for out-of-character failure which does not serve the character and only serves the “plot” such as it is. This is a contrivance Rian concocted which doesn’t work and falls flat on review. If Luke knew about Snoke’s involvement with Kylo, he should have gone after Snoke. Kylo was at his side fighting this thing in his head! That should have encouraged Luke to help Kylo! It’s utterly preposterous that this is what makes Luke turn on Kylo.

Now, if Luke hadn’t known about Snoke, that’d be a different thing entirely, but if that was true, then the minute Leia told him the real cause of Kylo’s potential for turning (which we know for sure she was aware of), Luke should have picked his rear up and raced across the galaxy with Han and Leia to kick Snoke into the black hole from which he came and drag Kylo home by the ear. So I have a terrible time buying this from Luke as even remotely in character.

I probably would have felt better if Luke had tried to take Snoke down and failed there and that’s the reason he is in exile. If he tried to reach Kylo after Snoke had corrupted him and failed, then his descent into despair is completely understandable. But, alas, that’s not how things went down.

Setting Luke aside, we have Kylo. Now, obviously, we’re hampered here by not knowing a blasted thing about what was going on through Kylo’s mind at this time in his life--to his credit, even when he talks to Rey, he’s cryptic and secretive; he never once tries to justify himself to her and only gives the barest hint of an explanation for his own past. Kylo doesn’t seem to think he’s a good guy in any way, even if he thinks he’s justified, which I find incredibly troubling, but more on that in the post on his trajectory. Regardless of what was going on in his head at the time, there are a few things in Kylo’s response to Luke that I don’t feel justify his character on a narrative level:

Kylo was 20-some-odd years old and up until this point in his life had shown no signs of “going off the rails” into darkside land, despite some turmoil in his head.

Even if Kylo was angry at Luke, Leia, and Han, how on earth does that turn into him killing half the uninvolved padawan just because Luke tried to attack him? That makes absolutely no sense. Even if we go back to the dreadful prequels, Anakin at least had proper setup for the murder of the padawan in the third film. What on earth does Kylo have?! His vendetta is personal--it’s not ideological like Anakin’s! His only enemy should be Luke, and at most Han and Leia too, but no one else.

Given the two items above, I don’t think I’ll be satisfied with Kylo’s backstory until the temple burning is cleared up (along with how Kylo got to be so estranged from his parents, who clearly loved him, that he wouldn’t run home to them in the first place), and I’m afraid JJ won’t do it because, well, it’s JJ. When has he ever cleared anything up?

They can get away with not explaining this to us in this film because Luke obviously awoke to find the temple burning (so he wouldn’t know and would just make assumptions based on the dead bodies), and Kylo of course is closed-mouthed with Rey and won’t open up to her beyond what’s absolutely necessary. Right now my head canon on this is that when Kylo escaped the hut, half the padawan who probably envied him as the teacher’s pet or disliked how cocky he was attacked him, and the other half who were his friends defended him. When his friends found out how Kylo was nearly killed by his uncle, they decided to abandon ship with him. So there was no “murder” in the “muahahah I have gone evil” sense, but it was just a brawl between jedi and Kylo’s side had the better/stronger boys, who probably were able to overpower the others since they had the prodigy on their side. (Also, fairly sure these kids are either the KoR who were killed off over time or Snoke had them secretly dispatched in order to get Kylo to his side. If Kylo had friends, there’s no way he’d go to Snoke--abusers have to isolate their victims and make them dependent on them--which Kylo clearly is--, after all.)

Anyway, tangent aside, this is the only part of the Kylo/Luke story that I flat out dislike and can’t come to terms with, more’s the pity. The rest is absolutely perfect in every way.

After his failure, Luke can’t face Leia or Han and he knows he has no leverage with Kylo--he himself broke the bond between them by choosing the dark side response over the light side response. With shame heavy in his heart, he begins to reassess his life and falls deeply into the grips of nihilism--he failed “once,” and by extension reflects on the failures of all the jedi before him. Once on this mental trajectory, the only conclusion is naturally that the jedi should be destroyed. This is echoed in his discussions with Rey--he views the past of the jedi as a string of useless failures. It is Rey who reminds him that he once saved the galaxy, but he feels his failure with Kylo negates that victory.

This descent into nihilism after a deep and traumatic personal failure is something that strikes me to the core, as I only recently overcame a similar descent in my own life. Luke’s struggle reflects my own, and I applaud Rian for this because he nailed it. Luke can’t see any purpose in action anymore; he can’t see how he can help make things better when he’s only ever made things worse in his own estimation. Nothing Rey says can help him, and even R2D2’s reminder of his past idealism is written off as “cheap.” Luke heeds the call out of obligation initially, and watching him wrestle with finding the light again is painful and heartbreaking, but it also offers such a message of hope for all of us in the real world who have failed in ways we cannot justify. It’s a message for our times in a way we haven’t seen in modern filmmaking, and that’s quite the achievement for a silly franchise about wizards in space. ;)

What’s interesting to me during this section where Luke is working with Rey is that Kylo, although he knows Rey is bonding with Luke, doesn’t seem to have any jealousy or envy toward Rey, nor does he try to push his resentment onto her. He does tell her “his side” of the story (such as it is, and it’s certainly not all of it)--but his words feel more like a warning for her than an attempt to sway her from liking Luke, at least in my estimation. He’s such a strange character in many ways; there’s a deep center of love within him that he suppresses, and even his hatred seems filled with how fiercely he loves. I have my thoughts on why his story unfolds the way it does, but more on that later.

Luke eventually comes upon Kylo and Rey during their little hut tryst, and what he thinks of them together, I don’t really know. I think initially he must have felt a bit betrayed by Rey and afraid of what she was involving herself with, but at the same time Luke loves Kylo, so it’s hard to imagine he doesn’t want Rey to help his nephew where he cannot. But he’s wise enough to know Rey’s plan is doomed to fail--he has a better grasp of what Kylo’s currently grappling with than Rey does. When Rey leaves to go to Kylo’s side, Luke is overwhelmed by his own helplessness; he thinks he’s lost Rey now too.

Yoda is the one who helps Luke realize what he can still do to help Rey, and through helping her, reach out to the nephew he failed. Yoda reminds Luke that they lost Kylo, but they can’t lose Rey. This, in my estimation, is more than merely “Kylo’s a lost cause and Rey’s not,” as one might expect from the original trilogy’s black and white mindset. I understood Yoda to mean that Luke can’t bring Kylo back because that’s Kylo’s decision, but Luke can still influence and help Rey find the right path. And Rey wants to bring Kylo back, so all of it circles together into one grand solution for Luke--he can teach Kylo the final lesson, which Yoda reminds him is not only that great masters fail, but also that they overcome failure and face the people they’ve harmed, if they still can. They own up to their mistakes and they act to rectify them by whatever means they can. 

This is, indeed, the master’s lesson and on a meta level is the right one for our times. No one is perfect, and everyone makes serious, often life-altering mistakes, and these mistakes hurt the people around us, but even the worst mistakes can be atoned for and overcome if one takes responsibility for one’s role in them. This is the lesson Luke must teach Kylo, in order to keep Rey’s faith in the law and the hope and the balance of the universe intact.

So Luke faces Kylo. But Kylo, by this point, has lost everything other than an empty dream planted into his head by a master whose life he took with his own hands for a girl who offered him her own pipe dream variant. The Kylo Luke faces is a lost, angry child whose world has at last crumbled at his feet, and he’s lashing out with his toy army at the remainder of the things that have hurt him--his mother’s crumbling resistance, Rey’s and his father’s ship, and the man who steps out to stop it all: his uncle.

Luke appears before Kylo in the guise Kylo knew him as--a middle-aged man with a full brown beard, not the grizzled ancient Rey met. Luke is here for Kylo, not for anyone else, not for Rey, not for Leia, not for the resistance. He came for Kylo. The boy he ran from for over half a decade. He at last arrives to face the person he hurt and take responsibility for it.

At first Kylo clearly doesn’t want to deal with Luke. Like a child, he orders Hux’s his army to point every last gun on Luke and fire at once. It’s a bit overkill, which Hux points out in one of my favorite moments in the whole film. Of course, Luke’s a projection, so he survives it all. With his characteristic good cheer, he deliberately antagonizes Kylo by flicking his shoulder to indicate how helpless Kylo is against him.

Predictably, Kylo is a Skywalker, so being a hothead is in his blood, as Luke surely knew from their time together. Kylo is frozen in time, an adolescent trapped in a man’s body, and the boy Luke knew is still here, even if he’s out of control. Kylo orders his men to stand down while he takes Luke on alone, as Luke intended.

The showdown between Luke and Kylo is probably the second best part of the film (the best goes to the entire Red Room sequence, in my humble opinion). It’s cinematic as an old western, and the difference between the young and the old is clearly highlighted in the body language of long silhouettes the two characters cast. Kylo is hunched over, defensive--for all his posturing and screaming, his body language is that of a frightened, wounded beast. Luke’s posture is steady and easy, a man who has found peace with himself after years of self-torment.

Luke lets Kylo make the first move between them. It is Kylo who demands if Luke’s come here to fix him and “save” him and bring him back to the light. It’s clear from this how deeply Kylo was hurt by Luke, and also how much love he bore for his uncle. In his heart of hearts, perhaps he always wanted his uncle to come and save him--to be the Luke of Legend and rescue him like he rescued his father once long ago.

But Luke is not here for that, because he knows there’s more to Kylo than even Kylo knows. What Luke says to Kylo sets the tone for the whole fight and tells the audience exactly why he’s here--he tells Kylo the words he always wanted to say, that he’s sorry for what he did. Kylo immediately lashes out with all the fury of the hurt child and with false bravado declares that he’s going to destroy the resistance and Luke too, and when Luke’s gone there will be no more jedi.

And here at last is the lesson of failure that Luke teaches Kylo. In a callback to Rey’s first lesson, Luke says, “Amazing. Every word of what you just said is wrong.” He tells Kylo that the rebellion is reborn and that he will not be the last jedi.

What I love about this line is that it’s clearly meant to be provocative for Kylo in the short term, but it’s so much more than a provocation to a villain--Luke never once says that “Rey” is the last jedi (a manipulative film trick of cutting to Rey implies this, but the words actually don’t). What Luke says is that “he” will not be the “last.” This is the exact same thing they did with Maz back in TFA--Maz told Rey her parents couldn’t return, but someone still could.

Just like Rey in TFA, Kylo makes a wrong assumption (which is the same assumption the audience makes). In TFA, Rey thought the person who could still return to her was Luke--but it was not Luke, it was Kylo. In TLJ, Kylo thinks Rey is the last jedi, but she is not--she is part of the total rebirth of the jedi and Kylo is too. Kylo and Rey together will create the new order, and as we see with broom boy in the ending, neither of them will be the “last.” The force has awakened throughout the galaxy and the jedi will be reborn.

Luke did not come to teach Kylo that he would never succeed and that he was a doomed villain who would be crushed by Rey--he came to give Kylo the lesson he’ll need when his world at last crumbles around him and he sees the truth of himself and the love Rey will extend to him and the path of atonement he needs to take to right the wrongs he’s committed.

Kylo stupidly doesn’t listen to Luke; he declares he’ll tear everything down, including Rey (lol, whatever, Kylo, more on that later). Luke reminds Kylo that if he strikes his uncle down in anger, Luke will always be with him, just as Han is, which is exactly Luke’s plan and the only way he knows how to be by Kylo’s side without putting the entire galaxy in danger.

I think Luke didn’t want Kylo to actually bear the burden of his death, which is why when Kylo does strike him, he discovers that Luke is merely a force projection. As Kylo realizes how he’s been played, Luke gently says to him, “See you around, kid.” The love in his voice and the assurance of his return to Kylo both break my heart--Kylo meant so much to Luke and Luke is going to make sure Han’s and Leia’s boy finds his way back to the path he was meant for, even if it’s not the path they wanted for him.

Kylo is left more alone than ever, as he’s abandoned by Rey and Leia. In what should have been his most triumphant moment, he’s no more than a lost and devastated boy kneeling with a projection of his father’s dice in the middle of the ruins of an old military base, surrounded by the bones of a historical past he can’t seem to escape no matter what he does, despite it not even being his personal past.

When I first saw the film, Luke’s choice hit me really hard, and I had to think about it for a long time. In the end, I do think this was the best way to help Rey and Kylo. Kylo can’t be reached through conventional means; he’s too hurt and devastated and torn up inside. He needs someone to help him from within, and since there are no therapists in this universe, a force ghost he can’t kill (unless he cuts himself off from the force, which he’ll never do because he’ll lose his ability to talk to Rey if he does) is the perfect solution.

I hope we get to see Kylo trying to ignore Luke pestering him during the next film, and I hope Luke helps Kylo realize the unnecessary destruction, devastation, and harm he’s caused over his own petty grievances and the people he’s hurt and stepped over on his path to destroy both himself and the legacy he inherited. Through this, Kylo may at last come to see the steps he needs to take to begin atoning for all of it. I don’t want Han’s sacrifice in the first film to go to waste, and I don’t want Leia to lose everyone she loves, because that’s too bleak for Star Wars and too bleak for our times--we need hope, and there’s no hope in an ending like that. 

By narrative necessity, Kylo has to get his act together in the next film--too many people are counting on him for him not to, and I just don’t see enough darkside in him to justify him playing Supreme Ruler for very long. Surely he’ll see, now that Snoke is gone, that it was never his dream to begin with--it was some stupid thing Snoke put in his head, no different than Luke, Leia, and Han expecting him to be some great jedi and save the world.

It’s time for Kylo to find his own path, acknowledging the legacy of not only his family’s past but his own failures, and freeing himself to atone and make the most of the sacrifices that have been made for him. Luke standing by his side throughout this journey is the best thing that could have happened for him, in my estimation. =)

Until next time!

[theincorrigiblemagpie]

Rishton Ka Chakravyuh - The Mother of All Recaps

Ugh so as some of you may have guessed, I stopped watching for a bit. This had nothing to do with the show going drastically downhill *cough*like-some-others-I-could-mention*cough* and everything to do with my life suddenly becoming a little too stressful to keep up with a convoluted daily soap like RKC.

Luckily, my faithful friend Juhi whom I had corralled into watching with me, and who is more dedicated than I am, kept up and also gave me regular text updates. And today, after having missed about 40-ish episodes, I finally sat down and watched bits and pieces and all of the last week’s episodes and can return to business.

The thing is, SO MUCH happens in any single given episode, it’s next to impossible to catch up completely if you fall too far behind. I’m going to do a listicle of important things that happened and ofc, my unsolicited opinions on them, and take it from here. This isn’t strictly chronological because a lot of the points happen at the same time and overlap back and forth, but this is roughly the order of things. I think I may not be able to keep up with daily recaps because I’m not sure I have the time and energy but I’ll do my best.

Just to give you some idea, I stopped watching around episode 24 and we’re on episode 72 now so in everything that follows has happened in 42 episodes (about a month and 3/4). 

1. There is a court order for a DNA test to conclusively deal with the matter of whether Anami is Baldev’s daughter or not. Anami AND Pujan try to fudge the test and end up cancelling each other’s fudging-efforts out and the court declares Anami to be Baldev’s legitimate daughter. (So much for Adhiraj’s “security” which was just Ila in disguise means demote this clodpole right away.)

2. Post-test Gayatri and Satarupa are obviously ecstatic but Vikram is unwilling to declare Anami heir because he’s a chauvinist pig and Baldev also refuses to acknowledge her because he’s useless like that. For some odd reason, Adhiraj also feels betrayed? Don’t ask me to explain the inner workings of men’s minds.

3. Anami decides to run away and makes a plan with the Pathaks and everything for all of them to leave North India altogether (a wise decision-- no good comes of living in N India, full offense to people who like living there). They hope to escape Lal Mahal’s sphere of influence. But then Anami discovers that Vatsalya was her twin brother, the same one she met on the ghats and saved, who later died in an accident. She’s devastated that she lost her twin before she had a chance to know him and decides that running away won’t give her closure or answers and she must stay and fight.

4. Gayatri and Satarupa team up to get acceptance for Anami but Vikram tries to thwart them every step of the way. On the other hand, Narottam manipulates Anami into sympathizing with him by showing himself as the unwanted, mistreated outsider of Lal Mahal. He IS nutty Sudha’s son and he’s effeminate because after birth he was given to a group of kinnars to bring up? And Sudha is locked in an asylum of some kind.

5. Satarupa, who hasn’t learned a jot about how to handle Anami, tries warning her against Narottam with the opposite result of Anami befriending both Narottam and sneaking off to meet Sudha and hang out with her. Narottam, as you may have guessed, is in league with Sudha to take over Lal Mahal and Royal Steel, which they see as THEIR inheritance and right.

6. Adhiraj and Anami have formed an alliance that was initially shaky with Adhiraj’s feeling of betrayal over the truth of Anami’s DNA test and also the fact that Adhiraj ordered a second DNA test secretly which Anami finds out about from jealous Ila. They decide to work together anyway to find out what happened to Vatsalya and keep Anami safe but they become actual friends and there is the whole creepy romance angle again. 🙄

*sigh*

7. Satarupa next bullies Anami into taking admission into the fanciest college in the city and attending classes there. Anami keeps showing up everyone who underestimates her from the Principal to snooty rich kids who are friends of Avdhoot’s. And in the process, becomes BFFs with Tanya who also attends the same college.

8. There is one very annoying side plot involving Tanya and Avdhoot who deliberately manipulates his way into her good graces and charms her because he knows she’s Dheeru’s daughter.

9. Dheeren Pandey aka Dheeru is Adhiraj and Tanya’s dad who has his own agenda against Lal Mahal (obv attuned to Adhiraj’s vengeful feelings). He used to be an employee of Royal Steel until something mysterious happened that he was made to take the fall for. We have flashbacks of him being dragged away by the cops while a smol Adhiraj and Tanya watch and sob. Presumably also related to the mother’s death.

10. With the lack of faith in Vikram and the future, the Royal Steel board was going to allow a hostile takeover by a third party but Dheeru who has somehow acquired 25% shares offers to bail out Vikram if he’s made a 50-50 partner. Satarupa backs him and forces Pujan, Kamini and Vikram to also.

11.That’s why Avdhoot is interested in Tanya. Even Pujan and Kamini think that if Avdhoot marries Dheeru’s daughter, his road to inheriting will become even smoother. I don’t believe anyone at Lal Mahal knows that the son is Adhiraj although Anami finds out that Tanya and Adhiraj are siblings (but she doesn’t know the Dheeru angle).

*takes a deep breath and continues*

12. Pujan and Avdhoot try to get rid of Anami by poisoning her and having her kidnapped but Adhiraj saves her at the last minute. He brings her home and also gets a court order saying that if there are further threats to Anami’s life at Lal Mahal and if she feels unsafe at all, the court will assume custody of her. They just make up any laws they like in this show.

13. Not only Satarupa and Gayatri but also Sudha and Narottam don’t want this. Sudha and Narottam see Anami as their ticket to the Lal Mahal throne. They believe that her do-gooding crusader side will make her fight tooth and nail for their haq and establish them at Lal Mahal.

14. Vikram keeps undermining Anami at every meeting and family thing and brings up Avdhoot as heir. He makes Avdhoot sit in on company meetings and tries to train him in business matters but Avdhoot is a right nincompoop and it FINALLY starts giving him second thoughts. Especially when Anami steps up to all occasions whether asked to or not, shows wisdom beyond her years, and generally is more competent.

15. Nervous about this, Satarupa and Gayatri plot to first get Anami interested in the business by using Vatsalya’s diaries and books and making it a mission of sorts for her, and then roping in Dheeru to train her. She sees through some of it and refuses to meet Dheeru but voluntarily starts reading Vatsalya’s business books and diaries. Just a side note to say Vatsalya had the makings of a good socialist and was just one step away from writing ‘Sieze the means of production!’ wrt to the Royal Steel workers. I’m on board for an Anami-led revolution where Baldev is guillotined FIRST.

16. Ofc she meets Dheeru anyway on the road where he saves a blind man from being run over by a bike and she teaches the biker a lesson about thinking of others. They both come away favourably impressed with one another.

17. Adhiraj catches on to Anami sneaking out at night all the time with Narottam and warns her to be careful. They concoct a story about Narottam seeing a psychiatrist at night and he appears to buy it. 🤦🏿‍♀️

18. Sudha and Narottam plant Naina in Lal Mahal by sending her to Satarupa with information about the dude who’d tried to kidnap Anami. Satarupa trusts Naina immediately (umm WHY) and when she asks for a job, assigns her as Anami’s security detail (what the actual fuck). Satarupa tries to torture the dude into revealing info about his master but he knows nothing as he was an anonymously hired mercenary. (Satarupa plays a frighteningly good mob boss in these scenes, as I’ve mentioned before.) Luckily, the paanwala-informer clues Adhiraj into Naina’s role and tendency to let Anami slip out so there is that.

*getting so tired*

19. Anami says she wants a Durga Puja at home and Vikram initially refuses because apparently there is a curse and every time they’d tries to do Durga Puja, something or the other has gone wrong. Satarupa and Baldev also do not want this because of Vatsalya’s recent demise. But Anami and Gayatri convince everyone and they decide to do the Puja dhoom-dhaam se. Anami claims all responsibility for the puja.

20. The upcoming puja appears to bring everyone closer and they’re all vaguely happy preparing for it. Ofc Pujan tries to sabotage it by loosening the screws of the palanquin that is to bring the idol in so that it falls and breaks. I’m reasonably certain that Anami will stop this somehow. Anyhoo, Dheeru is also invited. (I like how Vikram and Gayatri pretend absolutely NOTHING is wrong with Dheeru. Like they didn’t see him arrested, dragged forcibly from Lal Mahal years ago. Dheeru ofc has reason to appear pleasant. Baldev is upfront about his hostility and Satarupa is equally upfront about the fact that she doesn’t particularly like him but the compromise was necessary to keep Royal Steel intact and with them.)

21. One annoying cousin of Avdhoot’s appears from “Europe” or “America” (I’m vague on this) on the day of the puja and he’s basically a lecherous and aiyaash version of NK from IPKKND. He starts harassing Poonam right away. My god, literally all the men in this show are trash except for cinnamon roll, Vatsalya.

22. Dheeru, Adhiraj, Tanya are set to appear at Lal Mahal for the first time together. Both Poonam and Tanya ship Adhiraj-Anami and since it would be very OOC for either Anami or Adhiraj to daydream about one another, Poonam does the dreaming on their behalf like a dazed Gul-Khan-show-shipper. I see you, makers, I see you.

*falls down dead*

[neurotoxia]

Getting to know meme

Tagged by @crookedspoonfic :D

1. Coke or Pepsi? I could do without either, but Coke if I have to pick 2. Disney or Dreamworks: Disney 3. Coffee or tea: Tea. Always. I have a cabinet full of the stuff (and I get the evil eye every time I bring home more...). Coffee, I only like in sugary, milk-laced concoctions that are only vaguely recognisable as coffee. 4. Books or movies? Both. 5. Windows or Mac? Mac 6. DC or Marvel? Marvel 7. Xbox or Playstation? Playstation. 8. Dragon Age or Mass Effect? Mass Effect. 9. Night owl or early bird? Night owl, though I get up fairly early anyway. The joys of having trouble sleeping 10. Cards or chess? Cards. Though I’d love to be better at chess. 11. Chocolate or vanilla? Vanilla. But it depends, there’s some things I prefer with chocolate 12. Vans or converse? Converse 13. Lavellan, Trevelyan, Cadash or Adaar? I see words but they make no sense 14. Fluff or angst? Angst! 15. Beach or forest? Forest. Beaches are nice when they’re empty and it isn’t blazing hot. 16. Dogs or cats? Cats! 17. Clear skies or rain? I love rain, but only when I don’t have to be in it. 18 Cooking or eating out? I love trying new restaurants, but eating out is pricey. I like cooking well enough, but I’ve never enjoyed it as much as baking. 19. Spicy food or mild food? Both. 20. Halloween/Samhain or solstice/yule/Christmas? Halloween isn’t a thing here and my family is actually a fairly pleasant bunch, so I guess Chistmas.  21. Would you rather forever be a little too cold or a little too hot? I can deal with a little too cold better than with too hot. 22. If you could have a superpower what would it be? Invisibility would be neat 23. Animation or live action? Depends.  24. Paragon or renegade? What? 25. Baths or showers? I like a nice soak, but my inner Scrooge McDuck demands I take showers 26. Team cap or team ironman? Team Ironman. Sorry, Steve. 27. Fantasy or sci-fi? No real preference, but there’s at least two fantasy universes I care about, so I suppose that’s a win for fantasy. 28. Do you have three or four favourite quotes, if so what are they? I’m not really too big on these, or at least not enough to have a list of favourites. There’s some quotes I love when I read them, but I’m not really extracting life lessons or inspiration from them, so I don’t keep them around. At the moment, my brain is still filled with Lord of the Rings, which has some excellent quotes. But I won’t be caught dead quoting LotR for another few months.

29. YouTube or Netflix? Netflix 30. Harry potter or Percy Jackson? Harry Potter 31. When do you feel accomplished? In that short period when I finish a paper or fic and not enough time has passed yet for me to start finding faults everywhere. 32. Star Wars or Star Trek? Star Wars. 33. Paperback books or hardback books? I love hardbacks, but they’re expensive 34. To live in a world without literature or without music? I’d rather leave the planet 35. Pale faded colours or vibrant colours? Both, but only when contrasted against something neutral 36. Good characterization with a bad plot or a good plot with bad characterisation? Good characterisation. I can forgive a lot if the characterisation is right 37. Favourite Disney movie? The Great Mouse Detective 38. TV show adaptations or movie adaptations? Both 39. Museum or library? Both. 40. High School musical or Camp Rock? Neither. 41. Three songs that have a special meaning to you? This is really hard because I have always music running in the background, and I’ve never tied any profound meaning to a song. And in 9 out of 10 I don’t give a damn about lyrics, so I can’t pull from that either. But, here are three songs that I tie to certain periods, events, etc.

Orgy - Blue Monday (This band has been so defining for me. I would definitely be a different person without Orgy and later Julien-K) Behemoth - At the Left Hand ov God (First Death Metal band I saw live, still one of the best I’ve ever seen. Before that show I’d only casually listened to some death metal songs here and there, Behemoth changed my mind) Tenacious D - Dude (I totally miss you) (TD just straight up reminds me of Saturday nights with the boyfriend and his best friend. And now I made myself sad.)

42. what happened to question 42 where is it 43. Favourite smells? Rain 44. If you could do your life over, would you and why? I’m good where I’m at. Maybe make some different choices about university. 45. Would you kill someone you love to save 20 strangers? Probably not. 46. If you could have personally witnessed anything, what would you want it to be? I always kind of wanted to witness Roman times.  47. If you had to pick one colour to represent you as a person, what would it be and why? Black. 48. What passion would you pursue if there were no restrictions on your life (money, time, ability/education, etc)? Travel. I want to see so many places but I couldn’t afford it so far and I doubt I’ll ever get to see all the places that I want to see. 49. If you could have any animal for a pet, what would it be (can also be a mythical one)? Cats. A load of cats. That’s all I need. 50. What is your spirit animal? The Kakapo. 

Anybody may steal this, tumblr refuses to let me tag people. Because of course it does.

[allyinthekeyofx]

Dreamcatcher - Chapters 22&23

Prologue&chapter 1   Chapters 2&3   Chapters 4&5   Chapters 6&7

Chapters 8&9  Chapters 10&11   Chapters 12&13   Chapters 14&15

Chapters 16&17   Chapters 18&19   Chapters 20&21

here you go @scully-loves-ruthie​ @shalomksenia​ @thexfphile​ - sorry I didn’t post yesterday, work was crazy!

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

St Mary's Hospital. Cleveland Ohio. May 7th 11:01pm

Something was different.

Even as Mulder struggled to regain his senses he knew. For one thing he could hear voices, vague and distorted but voices nonetheless, surrounding him as they melded together; the words not yet discernible, they just buzzed irritatingly inside his head, constant, impossible to ignore.

He was aware of the heavy sheets that weighed down his aching body, starched clean sheets that in normal circumstances might have been comforting but that now seemed constricting. Binding even.

And, as he came further towards the surface, something else struck him.

The smell here was all wrong.

A strong scent of antiseptic and cleaning fluid.

An unmistakable scent.

The scent of medicines.

Of hospitals.

Absurdly pleased that he had been able to make the connection, Mulder attempted to open his eyes. But the heaviness persisted, dragging him down. Refusing to free him.

It wasn't time yet. He knew that.

So despite himself he began to drift once again, to block out the voices that seemed closer suddenly, more familiar as they whispered his name.

But the one voice that might have prompted him to throw off the chains that bound him in unconsciousness was Scully's.

And hers wasn't among them.

XXXX

He was unsure as to how much time had passed when the voices returned. But they seemed clearer; able to separate one from the other he could hear them clearly beside him.

"He's coming out of it."

It was enough to prompt him to ease his eyes open, surprised suddenly by the pain that accompanied the action. His whole head ached. From his jaw line to his crown the pain was all consuming, making the images before him swirl together in a blurring mass as he fought to hold on to consciousness. The effort became almost too much as his hands found their way to the stainless steel tubular bars that were attached to the side of the bed. Their use in the main was to prevent the patient from falling, but now Mulder curled his fingers around them as he pulled himself to the side, turning his head as a wave of nausea overtook him. The room tilted crazily, reminding him of long forgotten fairground rides from his childhood.

Back then it had been fun.

Nothing fun about it now though as the nausea gave way to painful retching, each action threatening to tear his already aching head apart with the violence of the spasms.

Under normal circumstances Mulder might have felt embarrassed by the fact that he was puking over the side of the bed like some kid who had over indulged in cheap vino, especially in front of his superior Agent, but right now it didn't even cross his mind.

Because right now he just wanted it to stop.

A hand on his shoulder, reassuringly solid.

"Take it easy Mulder it's okay."

And then that same voice, hardening with authority as he directed some unseen presence in the room.

"Get a Doctor in here right now."

Mulders released his grip on the bars, hand groping the air, trying to connect with Skinner, who for some reason seemed to be wavering back and forth in front of him. Eventually he gave up and dropped his head back on to the comforting softness of the pillow again, closing his eyes in an attempt to block out the pain.

His voice, when it came sounded strange even to him.

"Scully...where is she?" he managed shakily.

He didn't hear Skinner's answer. Barely even acknowledged the fact that the words had left his mouth before the room once more began to spin sickeningly, before the sounds around him were replaced with the buzzing as everything went dark again.

XXXX

The next time he awoke there were no voices. Just softly muted sounds that suggested to him that it was night.

He'd spent enough time in hospitals to know that the sounds never really ceased. They simply became quieter in deference to the hour as voices were lowered to hushed whispers and the only sounds to shatter the silence were those of patients crying out in the night or of the occasional whisper of soft-soled footsteps that passed by in the corridors outside.

Mulder kept his eyes closed, breathing evenly until he felt it was safe to attempt to open them again. When he did he felt dizzy, out of himself somehow, as though his head had been stuffed with cotton wool. But that was okay because it was at least preferable to the pain he had experienced earlier.

His hand ached and he gingerly brought it up so that it was in his field of vision, realising that the source of the ache belonged to a plastic IV tube that snaked in to the back of his hand and around his wrist to carry on upwards. He followed the tubing with his eyes until he discovered its source; a plastic bag of clear fluid that he guessed was probably a combination of saline and pain relief. Morphine maybe? That would certainly account for the heavy feeling he was experiencing.

He discovered that keeping his hand aloft was just too much effort and he allowed it to drop, catching the IV line as he did so. Pain flared briefly around the area and he groaned softly.

Before he had even finished, the voice reached him.

"Mulder?"

Almost simultaneously Skinner's face appeared beside him, concerned, relieved and so damn tired looking.

"How are you feeling?"

Mulder  swallowed heavily before answering, his throat uncomfortably scratchy.

"How do I look?"

"The truth?"

Skinner tipped his head on one side as he regarded the younger man beside him.

"You look like shit."

Mulder shrugged, wincing as he did so.

"Thanks"

His eyes narrowed as he allowed his gaze to scan his surroundings.

"Where's Scully?"

Skinner blinked, wishing he were able to buy himself a bit more time before answering. But Mulder had a right to know. He deserved to know. But that didn't make it any easier.

For the last few hours he had divided his time unevenly between his two agents, spending the majority of time at Mulders bedside, understanding the futility of remaining with Scully while she was in her present condition.

He also realised that no such rationale would prevent Mulder from going to her.

During the hours he had spent here Skinner had concocted and discarded a dozen different ways to break the news to Mulder in a way that might prevent him from leaving his bed immediately and heading off to find her. He also knew there was no easy answer, that whatever he said, Mulder would do just as he damn well pleased.

It was a pattern he had become accustomed to over the years.

So instead, he cleared his throat and decided on a direct approach.

"She's up in the ICU."

Before the words were fully out of his mouth he watched Mulder react in exactly the way he had known he would and he shot out a hand that connected solidly with Mulder's chest to prevent him from sitting up.

For a second, Mulder fought against him, but weakness and fatigue eventually won out as he allowed Skinner to push him backwards on to the pillows.

"Take it easy." Skinner advised.

But he knew Mulder was beyond that. He had that look in his eyes that reminded Skinner of a rabbit caught in the headlights, frantically seeking a means of escape, a way to get to her.

Slowly, he removed his hand as Mulder relaxed slightly beneath him.

"The ICU?"

"Yes."

"Why? She was fine.......she was injured but........"

His voice trailed off.

"What's wrong with her?" he demanded finally.

Skinner sighed.

"I wish I could tell you. The medical personnel here don't have the first clue. When she....when you...came back she wasn't breathing..."

"WHAT?!"

Mulder pushed himself up again and this time Skinner didn't try to restrain him despite the beads of sweat that formed on his agents' forehead.

"What do you mean? I’m telling you, she was fine. She spoke to me....."

Skinner shook his head.

"Mulder, whatever happened to you both, whatever you think you remember...there is no way she could have spoken to you, given the condition she’s in.....”

“Condition?  What are you talking about?”

Mulder struggled back into a semi-upright position, confusion all too evident on his face as he frowned at Skinner who cleared his throat uncomfortably, faltering suddenly, hating himself for having to be the one to deliver the news.

Seniority sucked sometimes.

“Skinner?.....what condition?”

"I’m sorry Mulder but the way she was when you...when she...came back was bad, really bad and..well, she is in a critical condition and not expected to live through the night."

He levelled him with his gaze, needing him to understand, that there was no denying the truth of the seriousness of the situation.

“She’s dying Mulder.”

XXXXX

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

St Mary's Hospital. Cleveland, Ohio May 8th 6:03am

Skinner frowned as he rounded the corridor that led to Scully's room. It had been a long night. Both the emotional and the physical costs had been enormous for them all.

Finally, just ten minutes ago he had managed to reach Margaret Scully on the telephone after trying to track her down for the better part of yesterday and last night.  She had been out of town and apparently not picking up her messages from wherever she was. Finally though, his cell phone had trilled and the FBI dispatcher had patched her through.

To break this kind of news to someone face to face was difficult enough. To have to do it long distance was practically impossible. But break the news he had, listening to the laboured breathing on the other end of the line as his words had finally sunk in; the sound of Scullys mother as she desperately attempted to hold on to her composure long enough for him to furnish her with the details.

He wished with all his heart that he could have downplayed the gravity of the situation in some way. That he could have offered her some thread of hope to cling to as she made the journey here.

But much as he wished it might be so, he knew that it would be wholly unfair of him.

Because even though Scully had surprised them all that night as she clung onto life tenaciously the signs were certainly not promising.

In fact, only an hour previously one of the ICU team had quietly pulled Skinner to one side and gravely informed him that it wouldn't be long. That whatever precarious hold she currently had on life was slipping away.

Slowly but surely Dana Scully was dying by degrees.

Kept alive by machinery until such a time as the medical personnel were directed to cease in their efforts to keep her alive. Without the equipment surrounding her she would die almost immediately. That had been spelled out plainly for Skinner as he attempted to find something, some crumb of hope that she might come out of this.

Not to mention the  fact, he was having a hard time reconciling that she was even there at all, much less attempt to furnish Margaret Scully with any kind of measured reasoning because while he couldn't deny what he had witnessed in Scully's motel room, he couldn’t begin to make sense of it, couldn't explain how she suddenly appeared before him.

He had been questioned at length by the medical personnel, unable to furnish them with the answers they needed and it had been patently obvious that they didn't believe him.

He couldn't blame them. He hardly believed it himself.

But he had seen it and no matter how much he tried to deny it to himself, he knew what he had seen to be true.

In the blink of an eye, Scully had just been there.

Just like that, and truthfully, in the immediate aftermath of her return, Skinner hadn't had time to really question it, so intent had he been in bringing her back to them.

It had been maybe five minutes from the time he placed the call to the emergency services to the time they barrelled through the motel room door and swept him out the way.

Five minutes that had seemed like five years as he breathed for Scully. Five minutes that stretched into eternity. Five minutes of switching to autopilot as he performed chest compressions, muttering encouragement to her through clenched teeth. Five minutes in his life that he had no doubt would return to haunt him for years to come.

But his efforts had, in some small way at least, been rewarded.

The EMTs had spent almost an hour attempting to stabilize her before loading her into the depths of the ambulance along with an unconscious Mulder. They had been rewarded by the faintest, flickering pulse that fluttered feebly beneath their fingertips like a dying butterfly.

The tiniest spark of life.

Of hope.

Skinner had insisted on riding in the ambulance with them.

The harried EMTs hadn't argued. Time was of the essence and they hadn't wanted to waste any by engaging in fruitless discussion with this man. All of their energies were focused on Scully, on keeping her alive until they could get her to the hospital.

Twice they had almost lost her.

Twice they had brought her back.

And all the while, Mulder lay not two feet away from her, deeply unconscious and oblivious to the drama that was being played out beside him.

For that at least, Skinner was thankful.

Their job done, they had passed her over to the crash team in the ER department and departed silently.

Skinner hadn't even had time to thank them.

Since then, each hour that passed had seemed to merge and meld into the other. He had divided his time as best he could between staring numbly down at Scully as she lay, naked beneath a single sheet in the ICU, and sitting by Mulders bedside staring equally numbly as he wondered how the hell he was going to tell him about his partner's condition.

And of course Mulder had awoken and the second the realization had sunk in, he had done exactly as Skinner had expected him to.

Despite the combined protests of several medical staff, the younger man had heaved himself from his bed, ripping out the canular as he did so, ignoring the blood that dripped from his hand in a steady stream of red droplets, and demanded to be reunited with his clothes.

His doctor had been summoned to try to talk some sense into him and had been rewarded by the charming profile of Mulder's clenched jaw as he completely ignored him.

It was, Skinner noted, like trying to hold back the wind itself, because regardless of how it may endanger his own health, there was nothing, nothing on this earth that would keep Mulder from his partner.

Eventually they had all realized the futility of their efforts and with much shrugging of shoulders had left him alone with Skinner to sign the necessary disclaimers and get dressed.

He had followed Mulder to the ICU and been there to offer a steadying hand as Mulder caught the first glimpse of his partner.

Even Skinner had to admit that it was a shocking sight.

Scully lay there with what seemed like a hundred tubes attached to her body, unmoving, unresponsive. They hadn't even bothered to dim the lights around her bed, and the harsh glare had made her appear even paler than she actually was.

In fact, if Skinner were honest with himself, she looked like she was dead already; a corpse beneath that plain, blue cotton sheet, kept alive until someone came along and pulled the plug.

He had watched as Mulder sucked in his breath at the sight of her, stepped forward to offer his assistance as the younger man folded before him in a manner that suggested someone had just sucker punched him in the gut.

Mulder had angrily shrugged his hand away.

There was nothing he could say, nothing he could offer to make one iota of difference  as Mulder stumbled away from him and crossed the small space that separated him from his partner. Skinner watched silently as he extended a shaking hand towards her, his fingers gently brushing away a strand of hair that had fallen over her pallid face.

And time seemed to stand still.

Long moments passed that would become lost in his memory before Mulder finally lowered his body to the single chair that sat like a sentry beside the bed, long moments as he stood there watching the younger man slip his fingers beneath Scully's hand, wishing he could give him something, anything to ease his pain.

But Mulder was oblivious to everything, his every fibre was concentrated on the woman lying before him, and Skinner doubted he would have even heard any words of comfort he may have been able to muster. So he had simply turned on his heel and left them together.

But now he had returned only to find Mulder still in that same position. If he had moved at all, Skinner could see no evidence of it.

He felt strangely like an interloper, as on some level he always had where these two agents were concerned. Oftentimes he had caught himself wondering about the relationship they shared, wondering just how deep their commitment to each other actually went.

One thing he was certain of - they had ceased being merely professional people thrown together in the course of their work a long time ago. What they shared went so much deeper. It was as though each only existed as a part of the other.

And most times he envied them.

But not now.

Right now he thanked God that he wasn't in Mulders shoes.

"How is she?"

The question was redundant. He already knew what the answer would be.

But he needed something to draw Mulders attention away from her. He needed to look into his face. He needed to check how he was doing right now.

He immediately wished he hadn't. He wished he hadn't needed to affirm what he already suspected.

Mulders eyes, when they met his, were shockingly blank, vacant even. All the light that habitually shone from them was extinguished by the long hours he had sat here.

His voice when it finally came sounded flat. Lifeless.

"The same."

Skinner nodded.

"Her mother's on the way here."

Mulder glanced at Scully then closed his eyes briefly. Skinner would never have believed it possible unless he had actually witnessed it, but it seemed like Mulders face drained of even more colour. He hadn't shaved and the stubble was like a black rash against his skin.

As he watched him, Skinner immediately understood.

Guilt.

It was practically palpable.

"Mulder..."

He stopped, though, as Mulder once again turned tortured eyes toward him, locking gazes with his superior as he uttered a silent plea. And Skinner heard him. Even without words he heard him.

What am I going to tell her?

And for once in his life, Skinner just didn't know the answer. He doubted anyone did.

XXXX

Dreamcatcher. May 8th. Time unknown.

The first thing Scully saw when she opened her eyes was a face. A small, elfin face framed with a halo of dark hair.

It was peering down shyly at her, green eyes questioning even as the tiny, rosebud lips offered the most tremulous of smiles.

"I thought you weren't ever going to wake up."

She frowned as the child's words reached through the fog that had descended all around her.

There was something about the child that was familiar. That face, those lips. Somewhere in her memory she had seen her before.

But where?

Scully fought against the tiredness, willing herself into full wakefulness as she gradually became more aware of her surroundings.

She was lying on a mattress of fleece. So soft it almost seemed as though it were made of spun silk, cushioning her against the uneven surface of the ground beneath it. A similar, much thinner blanket covered her almost to her chin, and a sudden memory of another time danced fleetingly into her mind only to be gone seconds later.

Mulder.

He always covered her with blankets when she was sleeping.

She had lost count of the amount of times she had awoken with the soft warmth tucked around her. She wasn't sure exactly when it had started although it was possibly back in the days when she still had cancer and towards the end she had seemed to be permanently freezing.

At a time when Mulder was desperately trying not to disappear in to the ether of his own darkest fear, unable to put in to words his emotions, he had simply tried, in his slightly clumsy way, to take care of her.

But Mulder wasn't here.

He had been inexplicably replaced by this child.

A little girl who seemed almost ethereal in her beauty, a child Scully had seen somewhere before.

She closed her eyes, forcing her mind back.

Rich, ebony hair spread across a pillow of ivory silk...

And then it came to her.

A child locked inside herself in that sterile hospital room, a child who had whispered to Scully even as she had drifted towards her, making the barest contact before the girl’s Father had intervened.

Like a bolt of lightening the realization slammed into her brain, throwing off all vestiges of sleep as she opened her eyes, scrambling upright she grasped the child's arm.

To confirm to herself that she was real. That the child before her was really who she thought it to be.

"Gina?"

CONTINUED CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

[themadcapmathematician]

Quick run down of my tdc ocs, if anyone cares:

Sky

-fat short and v cute -has freckles to spare -is technically part of that whole Luxia Court thing but she never shows up to any of the meetings and they kinda sorta denounce everything she does -basically the leader of this illegitimate gang because she makes up the good speeches -she used to believe in god, now she only beleives in anarchy and punching people -owns 50 colorful rain boots and 100 umbrellas but never has them around when its raining -Pretty Shapeshifting™ but every form can murder you -once strangled a dragon with her bare hands when she was 12 -is vine famous across 45 different dimensions -has strong opinions about the carebears

Jeck

-second in command, adoptive older brother to Teino -golden hair, blue eyes, scars on every inch of his body -an old man at age 23 -Everything Hurts -threatens people with his cane -speaks several languages including sarcasm -guile hero -his favorite thing to do is lift up his shirt and point to his mastectomy scars and go “I paid good money for these ones. The rest were free” -has no fashion sense and is just enough aware of it to be frustrated -writes moody wattpad poetry -is exactly the kind of person who worries if he’s only read 5 books this week

Greyblade

-is technically sorta SIC, but more of a consultant; responsibilities are for chumps -Ripped™ -the unholy spawn of science and sins too depraved to ever be forgiven -is a huge anime nerd -once ate 10 3 lb bags of candy in one sitting -is probably centuries if not millennia old but she might as well be 12 -will never die and bemoans it every day -*jumps off of a cliff into the abyss* “parkour” -is vaguely an evil villain but everyone just accepts it -the most vodka aunt ever for someone who can’t get drunk -doesn’t get any buzz from smoking either but she does it bc she thinks it makes her look “cool” -acts like she doesn’t care but if you hurt her family she’ll fucking eat you -solves most problems, sometimes even math problems, with violence

Dracco

-say their name wrong, that’s how its pronounced -was mortal enemies with Jeck and Teino but now they’re all chill -too tall -has gills -disowned by their whole planet and several smaller neighboring planets -gets angry and a little bloodthirsty but is mostly a giant softy -most prized possession is a huge sword-knife with a name in their native alien langauge that probably translates to “stabby mcstabbington the third” -no impulse control -will die if they don’t swim or take a bath twice a day -only eats eggs if raw. Claims cooked eggs are “some sickening perversion of nature only humans could concoct”

Teino

-younger adoptive brother to Jeck -a small and angry child -swears the most out of the entire gang -“my family could beat up your family” -you know that trope where they say “no weapons” and the people take out an absurd number of weapons hidden on their persons? That trope is Teino -fights dirty -“you can’t tell me what to do, you’re not my REAL mom” -owns exactly one shirt that wouldn’t receive a dress code violation due to being “innapropriate.” That shirt looks blank but in very tiny print reads “fuck the police” in a similar color font to the rest of the shirt -hasn’t even met you and has already stolen your wallet

Ingmund

-the new kid -much like Greyblade, she kind of just showed up one day and they all just accepted it -is a literally universe devouring non-corporeal being that takes the form of a small human woman -always hungry, always snarky -True Neutral and proud, but has a soft spot for humans after living among them -is ok with saving the multiverse she guesses -a quiet observer -mostly likes watching people make fools of themselves and laughing at their misfortune

Chloe

-She is a doctor. What is she a doctor in? Everything -they’re all adults but she’s the only real adult here -is literally the only reason this band of morally ambiguous beings of godlike power haven’t accidentally erased an entire reality yet -one time she saved some aliens and they offered her magic long life juice. She drank it. Her biggest regret -the Luxia bureaucracy and all bureaucracies that ever have and ever will exist can eat her ass -She took a hypocratic oath but it would be hypocritical for her not to slap a bitch from time to time

[paradoxicalca]

[OC] What if there were 100 hockey teams?

reposted with permission after a confusing series of deletionsIf that title reminds you of anything, that’s because I did the same thing for the NBA last summer when I was still young and virile. Now, as I've graduated high school and entered the twilight of my life, I find myself drawn to the concept again, like a retired sailor to the entrancing and unforgiving sea -- but this time not just for any sport I happen to watch, but for my all-time favorite sport, ultimate frisbee. Wait, no, hockey.“Now Jake,” you might be wondering, nonplussed that you somehow know my first name, “Why? Why any of this? Don’t you have anything better to do? Aren’t there a wide variety of issues arising out of an NHL suddenly in triplicate?”To answer the former, no.The latter, though, requires a bit of a longer explanation, and I actually have a variety of reasons I think you’ll find more than convincing.100 NHL teams means more hockey to watch, I think we can all agree that would be cool and goodHockey fans are incredibly insecure about their sport, and adding 100 teams would really make headway towards dunking on people who never really had that strong of an opinion on hockey and just want to have a quiet and friendly dinner for once in their godforsaken lives, would you please quiet down for half an hour?100 NHL teams means 69 new teamsI didn’t want to repeat points from the NBA post but, again, this is the only realistic way San Diego could get an NHL teamThe talent pool would be so diluted that a ton of people who really want to play in the NHL could do it, and I want as many people to be happy as possible in this and everything elseMy buddy Thomas would be so hyped dude let me tell youHockey isn't exactly an unpopular sport, most of these teams would only be hemorrhaging a large amount of money instead of a gigantic amount of moneyNow that my facts and logic have thoroughly persuaded you, we have to consider an issue that comes up with this post and not with the NBA one: the NHL is much more north-heavy in its fans than basketball, with hockey fans disproportionately Canadian or from the northern states. How could anyone accommodate for this? What kind of brilliant mind could concoct a solution? I hear you cry. Well I couldn’t find a brilliant mind, actually, so you’ll have to accept my solution.I decided the only fair way to figure this out was to index the number of Twitter followers each team had, since that’s increasingly a good way of measuring fanbase numbers, and divide the number of followers of Canadian teams by American teams. This panned out to 6,941,000 Canadian fans and 21,698,000 American fans, which means roughly 32% of new teams, or 22 out of 69, are gonna be Canadian, which seems fair to me.(Side note: I realized about halfway through this process that northern places like Boston and Detroit are lumped in with places like Carolina and Florida with this plan, not accurately representing the split between the Sun Belt and the Snow Belt, but I had to click through 31 Twitter accounts and my internet’s really slow, I truly could not be bothered to redo it.)(Second side note: when I googled “NHL teams fanbase sizes,” every site I found gave me Facebook fan numbers, but for some reason Canadian teams have much better representation on Twitter than on Facebook, so I decided to go with that because I felt bad for them.)Anyway! Let’s get to team making.We start with putting teams back in cities that lost one, which means one team for each of the cities on this Wikipedia list. Well, actually not every city, only the ones that are missing a team. Actually not all of those too, since while the Americans played in cities that no longer have teams (specifically Brooklyn), both are within a reasonable distance of a modern team. God, this is kind of a pain. Whatever, that’s 38 teams, let’s move on.Next we’ll be dispersing 22 teams across Canada. But where? I’ll start with one team for every province and territory, which means, yes, an NHL team will finally be gracing AWG Arena in Iqaluit. We’ve all been waiting for it. This will create 7 teams, each more inevitably successful than the last.Okay, 15 more, that can’t be tough, right? Just take the most populous metropolitan areas, slap a team on their biggest arena, call it a day. Easy as beating Tampa in the first round. So there’s 60 teams.3.5. ...Actually that just added about 14 more to southern Ontario. New rule, disperse them amongst the biggest metropolitan areas with a cap at 4 more for southern Ontario. As easy as beating Pittsburgh in the first round. There’s 60 teams.We can finally get down to the US. We’ve got 40 teams left, which leaves us a lot of wiggle room, but let’s start out by doing the same thing we did with Canada, but one team for every northern state. There isn’t really a set definition of the northern US, so I thought I’d go by snowfall, which was kind of hard to find (to my Californian shock, the amount of snowfall a region gets varies year by year) -- eventually I went with this very cozy map of the chance a county will have a white Christmas, and based on that found a vague definition of northern states. That’s 79 teams.That added up fast. There’s only 21 left! That’s only two-thirds of the current NHL! We’ll start working through them by first by adding extra teams to cities that can support them but don’t have them already, which will only be three more in Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia. There’s 82 teams.5.5. I theoretically could have added one to the Detroit metropolitan area, as well, but I'm gonna say I didn't because the place seems too monolithically Red Wings-supporting and not because I straight up forgot to.Alright, 18 left. I don’t really have any arbitrary things to fill now, so I’ll just disperse them among the bigger cities and the ones that have been named as good possible expansion cities for the NHL. In case the rest of this post didn’t seem arbitrary enough, this is where it really goes off the rails.In 1969, Clarence Campbell, president of the NHL, said that "it is conceivable that the Stanley Cup will be played for in Moscow in the not too distant future.” And you know what? I’m gonna listen to him, because the drama of a Moscow NHL team would be awe-inspiring. Let’s put some more in Europe, too. God abandoned all of my projects years ago, we can commit whatever sins we want.And that’s 100 professional hockey teams in 1 professional hockey league! To keep with the current NHL team structure as closely as possible, the teams have been divided into two conferences of 50 (renamed the Southwestern and Northeastern because I'm ontologically opposed to calling the likes of North Carolina "western"), each composed of 5 divisions of 10. The team names are all 100% serious attempts with reasoning behind all of them. The division names are the exact opposite, with absolute minimal effort put in.Southwestern ConferenceSnowed Out For Half The Season DivisionAlaska Timber WolvesYukon MalamutesYellowknife WhalehornsNunavut Aivit /// Nunavut WalrusesKalaallit Nunaat Nanot /// Greenland Polar BearsWood Buffalo CranesEdmonton OilersCalgary FlamesSaskatoon StallionsRegina Buffalo BonesShould’ve Pulled Their Weight in the Civil War (And Also British Columbia) DivisionVancouver CanucksVictoria SpiritsAbbotsford CascadesSeattle EmeraldsPortland RainbudsIdaho PinesMissoula CutthroatsBillings MagicWyoming BroncsColorado AvalancheAbsolute Nexus of Ice Hockey Culture DivisionSacramento GrizzliesOakland OaksSan Jose SharksLos Angeles KingsAnaheim DucksSan Diego AcesVegas Golden KnightsArizona CoyotesUtah GullsNew Mexico BombersThought “IceGators” Was An Acceptable Name For A Professional Hockey Team DivisionOklahoma City BlazersDallas StarsHouston AerosSan Antonio BatsNew Orleans BrassTampa Bay LightningFlorida PanthersAtlanta ThrashersCarolina HurricanesNashville PredatorsBack To The Cornfields DivisionSt. Louis BluesKansas City ScoutsIowa GoldfinchesOmaha TornadoesSouth Dakota ChoppersMinnesota WildNorth Dakota MooseDuluth RaptorsMarquette MartensWinnipeg JetsNortheastern ConferenceDivision Of The Unsalted Seas, Which I Learned Was A Name For The Great Lakes While Finding Duluth’s Team And Is So Much Cooler Than The Great Lakes DivisionMilwaukee BadgersChicago BlackhawksChicago SoulIndiana BeastsCincinnati StingersColumbus Blue JacketsPittsburgh PenguinsWest Virginia RattlesnakesDetroit Red WingsGrand Rapids MastodonsOverpopulated (For Some Reason) DivisionHampton Roads RhinosWashington CapitalsBaltimore SkipjacksPhiladelphia FlyersPhiladelphia HellbendersNew Jersey DevilsNew York RangersNew York IslandersHartford WhalersSyracuse OlympiansGood Ol’ Ontario Boys DivisionLondon MarquisHamilton TigersKitchener EaglesMississauga BullsToronto Maple LeafsKingston BattalionBuffalo SabresRochester ScorpionsOttawa SenatorsSudbury FalconsPrincipally Anti-British DivisionProvidence RedsBoston BruinsBoston LibertyNew Hampshire ChinooksVermont MilitiaMaine CatsHarfangs de Sherbrooke /// Sherbrooke OwlsCanadiens de Montréal /// Montreal CanadiensWanderers de Montréal /// Montreal WanderersNordiques de Québec /// Quebec NordiquesQuintilingual DivisionSéismes de Saguenay /// Saguenay EarthquakesMoncton Phoenix/Phœnix de MonctonHalifax OspreysNewfoundland LandseersCharlottetown Blue JaysLondon LionsCoqs de Paris /// Paris RoostersStockholm Väringalidet /// Stockholm VarangiansМосковские медведи /// Moscow BearsПетербургские тюлени /// St. Petersburg Grey Seals(The three slashes indicate a translated, but unofficial version of the name -- the Moncton Phoenix’s name looks different because it’s officially in both English and French)Here's a map of all the teams, by the way. It was mostly a reference for making divisions, so there's no names or anything, but it might be interesting to look at.So we've got 100 NHL teams at our disposal now, but we don't have players for most of them. The NHL's guidelines state that a team can have no less than 20 and no more than 23 players, which means we need somewhere between 1,380 and 1,587 players to fill out all these rosters. As far as I'm aware, hockey players are a reasonably important part of hockey teams, so finding some more would probably be wise.Thankfully it won't be hard. the NHL is far and away the most prestigious level of ice hockey anywhere in the world, averaging almost triple the attendance of the next highest league, and the global nature of ice hockey means that there are people from all over the world who would love to play for the NHL. We won't be hurting for players here. The leagues we'll poach them from might. But we won't.However, if we just have an expansion draft for the new teams, they'll be left with CHL/AHL/KHL/NL/SHL/&c.-tier caliber to match the first 31 teams' NHL caliber -- it'll be patently unfair. To ensure the parity hockey fans love to boast about, we'll give each team three players to protect, and throw the rest into the draft. Three is enough to maintain an old core, I feel, but not too much to keep your entire talent base; teams like San Jose and Boston would still be good, but not excessively so.Also the draft will be held in a randomly-selected new city, regardless of its facilities (or lack thereof), each team will be given 30 seconds to make its pick, and Eric Andre will be the host. That feels right.The season probably won't look too different, we don't need to reinvent the wheel here, we just need to restructure things a bit. I'm thinking we expand the season to 113 games, starting the season a full month early -- 9 series of 3 against intradivision teams, 30 of 2 against intraconference teams, and 26 games for interconference teams to be divvied up as the teams see fit. I foresee absolutely no possible negative consequences that could come from this.Following this, there's the playoffs, which I've decided to make a little bit complex. Each conference will see 24 teams make the playoffs, with the rounds going through a standard seeded format until there are 6 teams in total left. At that point, they'll be combined and re-seeded, and the #1 and #2 seeds enjoy a bye as #3 plays #6 and #4 plays #5. The winner of those two series plays the #1 and #2 seeds, respectively, and the winner of those series goes on to the Stanley Cup.That's 6 rounds, if you were curious. I could've just gone with a 64-team playoff, but that's kind of boring and also longer -- this is more streamlined. It also sucks, but I'm kind of working with a 100-team league here, if you hadn't noticed. If you've got a better idea, I'm all ears.What are the ramifications of this, you might wonder? I don't really know, honestly, and I'd hate to find out. They'd probably be worse than any of us would think in entirely unexpected ways, something like the exorbitant amount spent on the Paris team being the final nail in the coffin for the worst recession in recent French history or something.The only way this could really work would be if it were a kind of tiered system, like in European leagues. Have a couple levels of professional hockey, have the winners of each league advance to the next-highest and the losers be demoted to the next-lowest. Smaller markets could have their own teams without worrying about competing with juggernauts, and we might even see some Cinderella stories -- an unreal Cup run by Sherbrooke from the 3rd level to the 1st, or an owner of an NHL team tanking it so hard it falls to the dregs. That would be really cool and be a whole lot of fun for a whole lot more fans, which is why the league will never do it.That’s about all I’ve got, to be honest. I know I used this joke on the NBA post, but it's true here too -- it's 2 A.M. as I write this and I have to wake up in like 4 hours, I've rapidly run out of the energy to care. Thanks for reading, sorry for wasting your time, make sure to give your grandma a call when you’ve got the chance [OC] What if there were 100 hockey teams? Source

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52,000 Voters Decided The Top 10 Pokémon (And Got About Half Right)

  Recently, Reddit user Mamamia1001 concocted a survey to discover what people's favorite Pokémon were. 52,000 people placed their votes, and in the end, we got a pretty clear idea of which monsters people liked and which monsters would make people cross the street if they saw them coming down the sidewalk. Overall, only four Pokémon got zero votes (Hoenn High School's Most Likely To Be Forgotten Bug Silcoon, The Pokémon That Seems To Be Made Of Spare Parts Of Other Pokémon Gothita, Stay Away From Me And My Children Eelektrik, and Awwww Poor Yungoos), but we can't focus on those right now. We have to look at the top ten, which are, in my opinion, a mixed bag.

  So, let's check out the most popular Pokémon of all, as decided by these survey takers. I think they got about half right, and the others, I'm baffled by.

  10. Dragonite (551 Votes)

      Dragonite is my favorite Pokémon and I've had one in nearly every game since 1998. I fell in love with it when a giant one lumbered up to Ash and Bill and the gang in "Mystery at the Lighthouse," and there's been a big, dragon-type spot in my heart since then. So they definitely got this one right...but they also got it very, very wrong. Dragonite should be #1. 

  9. Eevee (581 Votes)

    First off, Pikachu isn't even in the top 10. So let that sink in for a bit. But somehow, Eevee, star of the Pokémon Let's Go, They Were Out Of Pikachu edition, made it to #9. To paraphrase a judgmental parent, I am both ANGRY and DISAPPOINTED. Eevee is the blandest Pokémon imaginable. It's like being offered a bunch of different varieties of pizza and then only eating the crust.

  8. Gardevoir (585 Votes)

    I sorta get this one. Gardevoir's pretty cool. I wouldn't put it in my Top 10, but then again, my Top 10 would just be Dragonite ten times, so what do I know?

  7. Lucario (604 Votes)

    Ah Lucario, the Sasuske of Pokémon. If any Pokémon was going to go through a deep, spiritual My Chemical Romance phase, it would be Lucario. I've actually never used one in the main games, but I have done my fair share of Lucario-playing in the Super Smash Bros. series and LET ME TELL YOU...he's okay.

  6. Umbreon (607 Votes)

    Umbreon is better than Eevee and has a higher slot on this list, so things seem to be looking up. It's probably my second favorite Eevee-lution after Jolteon, but I guess Umbreon is a little cooler and edgier, being a "Dark" type and all. Also, I like its Pokedex entry in Soul Silver which states "When darkness falls, the rings on the body begin to glow, striking fear in the hearts of anyone nearby." That's pretty rad and gives some credibility to what is essentially a mutant cat.

5. Blaziken (613 Votes)

Blaziken is cool, but as far as vaguely human-shaped things that evolve from definitely bird-shaped things go, it's just a less awesome form of GARUDAMON from Digimon. Remember when Garudamon stopped Myotismon that one time? That was great. Someone should make a survey about Digimon.

4. Bulbasaur (710 Votes)

Awwww. I can't argue with this one. The first Pokémon and my little plant puppy, Bulbasaur will forever remain underrated. It was the most stable of the original trio of starters and so picking it didn't contain the drama of Charmander or the "Deal with it" attitude of Squirtle. Instead, you just got a dang ol' good boy that would be your pal forever. 

3. Arcanine (923 Votes)

Arcanine? Okay, I guess. I just remember when it showed up in the second episode of the anime on a picture along with the Legendary Birds, trying to convince us that it, too, was a Legendary. Not quite, Arcanine, but you get points for confidence.

2. Gengar (1,056 Votes)

I wouldn't suspect Gengar, but I'm fine with Gengar. In fact, Gengar was one of the first three Pokémon to appear ever, as you got it and Nidorino in the opening if you picked Pokémon Red, and it and Jigglypuff if you picked Pokémon Blue. So Gengar is woven into the fabric of our collective pop culture consciousness as a Pokémon staple. Also, it was soooo fun to beat Elite 4 Agatha's Gengar and then discover that she had another, stronger Gengar. That totally didn't make all of my Pokémon faint, like, three times in a row when I was nine.

1. Charizard (1,107)

Unlike Gengar, I totally expected Charizard. He had the most personality out of all of Ash Ketchum's Pokémon with the exception of the one that rode on his shoulder. It was the most desired card for the first few years of the Trading Card Game. It was the final evolution of the starter that you picked when you were feeling...dangerous. And it's a great Pokémon in its own right. So this list finished off nicely, and it makes up for the fact that y'all picked Eevee, who is an Honorable Mention at best.

Of coure, I kid. Eevee is cute, but I'm just not a huge fan. However, if you ARE a huge fan of Pokémon, you can watch a ton of episodes on Pokémon TV FOR FREE, RIGHT NOW.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com