#this horrible lonely year is when she became madam director

[elvencantation]

sooooooo I paused in the middle of episode 65 of taz balance and my angst senses were tingling so much i had to write a lucretia fic

the year of stone

Lucretia wakes up alone in a ship that has been shot down. A ship that is much too quiet with six of its seven occupants gone. A ship she does not know how to repair, much less fly. She has a year. A year to learn, a year to run, a year to fight. A year to survive with the hope of thousands of universes dropped onto her shoulders alone.

1.8k words, character study, stream of consciousness, all hurt no comfort, mostly

[pheonixfiregauntlet]

“And she was different after that, in a way that made the rest of you proud. She spent less time chronicling your journey and more time participating in it. She became fierce and confident and decisive. She wouldn't go on to found the Bureau of Balance for decades still, but this horrible lonely year, this is when Lucretia became Madam Director.“

[swiftzeldas]

moodboards: lucretia (the adventure zone)

she became fierce and confident and decisive. she wouldn't go on to found the bureau of balance for decades still, but this horrible lonely year, this is when lucretia became madam director.

[pinkrapunzelgirl]

“You’ve all had difficulties on this journey, but you’ve never been alone before, not like this. You never knew that weight, and Lucretia lived with it, along with all the other challenges that this world threw at her everyday for a year. And she was different after that, in a way that made the rest of you proud. She never volunteered to stay back with the ship again. She spent less time chronicling your journey and more time participating in it. She became fierce and confident and decisive. She wouldn't go on to found the Bureau of Balance for decades still, but this horrible lonely year, this is when Lucretia became Madam Director.” - The Adventure Zone Balance

Holiday gift for my friend @lemonsandbullshit

[ohsweetflips]

god remember when lucretia had to spend a cycle alone, flying the starblaster in a world that so badly wanted to take her down, but she perservered, she had to keep going, because, if she died, that was it, that was the end of the world, and she wasn’t going to let the world (or her family) down like that, and she did it, she fucking did it, and she became so much more confident and ambitious and sure of herself and, to top it all off, griffin said, “she wouldn’t go on to found the bureau of balance for decades still, but this horrible lonely year, this is when lucretia became madame director” as lucretia’s main music theme plays

[thomaturgy]

“And she was different after that. In a way that made the rest of you proud. She never volunteered to stay back with the ship again. She spent less time chronicling your journey, and more time participating in it. She became fierce and confident and decisive. She wouldn’t go on to found the Bureau of Balance for decades, still, but this—this horrible, lonely year. This is when Lucretia became ‘Madam Director’ a top.”

[baserbeanz]

“She wouldn't go on to found the Bureau of Balance for decades still but this, this horrible lonely year, this is when Lucretia became Madam Director." 

[taz-quotes]

Griffin: You wake up a year later, and you’re on the Starblaster again and it looks kind of rough. Some of those metal panels that one of you, I forget who, recovered from the robot cycle? They’ve been sort of bolted onto just a big hole in the side of the hull of the ship. And there’s a few other components too that have been replaced, and you’re back on the deck and you are in your recorded state. And when you come to, you kind of look around at each other and as you get your bearings you see Lucretia just slump down, her back up against the bridge and her head is in her hands and her breathing is labored and you hear her muttering to herself saying-

Lucretia: I made it. I made it! They tracked me down… and I got away on the ship, but they kept following. For a year I ran and I hid- and I had to fight, and I had to repair the ship in secret, I had to learn how to repair the ship. I was the only one. If I died too- I don’t even know how to fly the ship. I- I fucking made it!

Griffin: And over the next few days she tells you about this year that she had, her constant pursuit by the officers of this court, the marauders in these outlying villages that tried to take the ship away from her, of all these forces that constantly threatened to end her and permanently end your escape from The Hunger for good. And you’ve all had difficulties on this journey, but you’ve never been alone before, not like this. You never knew that weight. And Lucretia lived with it, along with all the other challenges that this world threw at her every day for a year.

And she was different after that, in a way that made the rest of you proud. She never volunteered to stay back with the ship again. She spent less time chronicling your journey and more time participating in it. She became fierce and confident and decisive. She wouldn't go on to found the Bureau of Balance for decades still, but this, this horrible lonely year, this is when Lucretia became Madam Director.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

for the character ask meme: one member of the IPRE (your pick!)

*slams my fists down* L U C R E T I A.  This is just gonna be…it’s just gonna be rough.  I’ve made a few goofs about the Director here and there but I literally have not written a happy headcanon here.

Send me a character and I’ll write 10 headcanons!

Lucretia’s hair has been white all her life.  Her mother suffered a bit of a magical mishap halfway through her pregnancy and there was a lot of concern that Lucretia would die, or be born with three heads, or the gods only know what else, but instead she was a perfect, healthy baby girl with skin like black walnut wood and tightly crimped white curls and all the usual number of limbs.  She wore her hair long for all her childhood and all her time in the IPRE, usually tied back into a ponytail that poofed out into a snowy cloud like a halo behind her.  On the Starblaster, as the crew grew closer, she let the others come up with new ways for her to wear it, letting Lup cast spells to turn it straight as bone (and long enough to brush her knees), or teaching Magnus how to twist it into dreadlocks, or letting Merle braid it with flowers and oils that kept it soft and strong.  Sometimes Lup and Taako would team up with two Mage Hands each and she’d have eight hands turning her hair into a thousand tiny perfect plaits.  It reset after each cycle, after all–Lucretia was game for anything, as long as it didn’t require her to cut her hair.  

After Lucretia became Madame Director, after the Bureau had been founded and the moon base was under construction and all her journals were gone, the Director stood in front of her mirror and took a razor to her hair until it was a cap of curls less than half an inch long, and all the glorious clouds of white lay littered around her feet.

Lucretia’s resume might say ‘biographer’ but it would be more accurate to call her a ‘war correspondent’.  A universe where a significant majority of the population has powerful magic means that even a minor civil dispute can be some pretty impressive hijinks, and Lucretia was kind of like Angus, a wayward twelve-year-old wandering into the local dragon-vs-hero battle and writing furiously in the background while dodging fireballs without looking up.  By the time she got recruited by the IPRE as a young twenty-something, she’d ghostwritten about fifteen books and every journalist worth their salt knew that, if you needed someone to go somewhere horribly dangerous and write something about it with no concern for their own safety, you wanted Lucretia.  Lucretia’s class is Multitasker and she’s level 450 with a prestige class in Unflappable and she didn’t exclusively get that from her time on the Starblaster.

Lucretia and Magnus were an odd pair, as far as most people could tell, but they fell in together immediately and with a vengeance.  It was never an issue of romance or sex–Lucretia only occasionally remembers that those are things that people experience–but Magnus was big and jovial and seemed to fill a room with his booming voice, and Lucretia leaned toward him like gravity and was surprised to find that he could be quiet and soothing as easily as loud and boisterous.  Lucretia never had a brother, before, but she thought sometimes that Magnus was what brothers were like, affectionate and rough and protective.  So protective.  Magnus died in almost one in five cycles, more than anyone except Merle–and Merle’s many deaths were quick, painless things.  Magnus died trying to find the Light, bled out as they tried to save him or fell protecting their backs as they ran, and after his tenth death Lucretia hurled herself at him, at the start of the next cycle, and burst into tears.  He had to be more careful, she said as he hesitantly rubbed her back.  He had to remember that they were waiting for him to come back, he had to remember that the crew was waiting for him.  Sometimes Lucretia thinks about telling Magnus those exact words and she hates herself.

Lucretia couldn’t stand the idea of abandoning her crew, even after the voidfish took their memories at her behest.  Davenport, of course, she took on as an assistant–she didn’t know, she had never imagined that she would reduce him so far, her brilliant, competent, well-spoken captain.  She cried for an hour and a half, locked alone in a room, before she could stand to face him again.  She attended Merle’s wedding, took a private bet with herself that it wouldn’t last more than two years.  She attended Magnus’ wedding, too, and that one, oh, that one she thought would last–news of the destruction of Ravensroost came just months later, and Lucretia’s chest hurt with the need to go and hug Magnus and let him cry into her shoulder the way he had when worlds died.  Barry was…a problem to track, to say the least, and Lucretia was never quite sure if he was alive or dead or just a very competent illusionist.  Liches are such a pain.  Seeing Taako playing up to an audience without Lup at his shoulder was jarring, but he seemed…not happy, but like he was enjoying himself, at the very least, and then Glamour Springs happened and Taako dropped off the map and Lucretia’s heart stopped.  Lup was dead and if Taako died too, she would never forgive herself.

Lucretia hired Magic Brian for a lot of reasons, among them his competence, but his voice–his voice reminded her so much of the twins.  On her better days, she would listen to him talk and her wistfulness would be a small part of her, not enough to really distract her.  On her worse days, she would hear Brian laugh from across the room and there would be a lurch in her chest as her head snapped up and she looked for a flash of red and identical smirks, and the crashing revelation was like losing them all over again.

In theory, the Bureau of Balance uniform is blue and silver.  Lucretia chose it on purpose, because she couldn’t take the way her throat closed up every time Davenport wore a red coat.  She doesn’t enforce it, but generally speaking people don’t wear a lot of red because it makes them stick out like a sore thumb.  She should have known that Magnus and Merle and Taako wouldn’t give a damn one way or another.  Merle still dresses a little bit like a train crash in a tropical print shirt, and Taako’s sense of style remains Unique, but they both usually have at least one item of red clothing on at all times.  Magnus has a red bandana that he wears around his neck like it’s sewn in place.  When it’s pointed out to them, Carey making a joke about how “well, no one ever has to wonder who you are, you all dress in red!”, they laugh it off and make excuses about how it’s just what’s in their closet.  They just don’t feel right without some red.  Lucretia, overhearing this, has to excuse herself, because she can’t tell if she’s going to laugh or cry.

Lucretia is tired a lot of the time.  She can’t tell if it’s because her body is older, now, older than she’s ever been but also nowhere near the age she really is, or because she’s so lonely.  There are days where she’s just numb, where the only thing that gets her out of bed is Davenport standing there looking expectant, and other days where she breaks everything in her office, until she runs out of things to throw and is left staring at a room full of shards through a haze of tears she doesn’t remember crying.  It shocks her, a little bit, to wake up on the first day after she’s recruited the boys, and actually think I can’t wait to see what happens today.  It’s the first time in years that her reflection smiles at her.

Lucretia sits with Junior sometimes and just…talks to them.  Tells them about all the things that no one knows, that no one remembers, talks about the Starblaster and all the worlds they visited.  She talks about how Lup and Taako could cook an entire feast with a bunch of shitty phosphorescent mushrooms, and how Davenport banned the pair of them from piloting the ship except in a crisis because while Taako was learning the controls Lup shouted do a barrel roll and he almost killed them all.  She talks about Magnus and his huge stupid heart that he always wore on his sleeve, and how it broke every year that they failed to save a world.  She talks about Barry and the way he once accidentally became the messianic leader of a necromantic cult, and about how Merle had to swoop in and save him from being sacrificed by riding a treant into battle.  She talks about the year where she was alone because they had all died, they died and she escaped and she thought that this would be like that year, but this is worse.  Seeing them see her and not know her, knowing they’re literally inches away, it’s so much worse.  Junior presses their tentacles against the glass when Lucretia starts crying, and she presses her hands back.

Lucretia hasn’t slept for more than three hours straight in a decade.  She has nightmares, you see.  This is a known, but unspoken, thing at the Bureau.  The Director wanders the halls like a homeless ghost at odd hours, not really checking up on anything so much as just…drifting.  Sometimes she finds another person, wandering, and brings them back to her office for tea, but there’s never any discussion of it.  One night, after Refuge, she passes the Reclaimers’ dorm and hears the sound of clattering and murmured voices, a familiar ramble about who the fuck makes powdered chocolate why do people not love themselves Magnus do not FUCKING touch that pot, and she has her hand on the doorknob and is about to walk inside on weary autopilot before she remembers.

After the dust settles, Lucretia goes and sits on the floor in the mostly-dark voidfish room.  Not very Directorly, perhaps, to be sat on the floor in the light of the voidfish tank with her old jacket in her lap, but she’s finished her task and she’ll be unDirectorly if she wants to.  Besides, there are tearful reunions happening, and she feels horribly out of place.  This is their victory, this is what she worked for all these years, what she sacrificed everything for, and she just feels empty, because even after all this, her crew, her family, is still outside and she’s in here, in this base that has been more or less her self-made prison.  It is, she thinks, no more than she deserves, but the part of her that’s still a reserved twenty-something biographer newly thrust into the spotlight had wished for something else.  The sound of footsteps takes her off-guard, and she looks back over her shoulder, away from the voidfishes, to see Davenport.  He looks sharp and alert in a way she’s sorely missed, but he also looks…unsure.

“You, ah.  You cut your hair,” he says, and Lucretia raises a hand thoughtlessly, as if she’s not used to the short length.

“It was too much work to take care of it alone,” she says, the lie she always tells about why she keeps it so short, and Davenport huffs at her, cracks a faint smile.  She’s a very tall human, and sitting, they’re almost on eye level.  

His eyes fall to her jacket, in her lap, and he sighs.  “Come on,” he says.  “Everyone’s getting drunk.  You’d better join us or they’ll come get drunk here, instead.”

“I thought maybe–”

“We’re still going to have a talk,” he says sharply, interrupting her.  “But get up off that floor and come have a goddamn drink, Lucretia.”

“Yes, Captain,” she says softly, and after she stands, he takes her hand and leads her back into the light.

[chryseis]

And over the next few days she tells you about this year that she had, her constant pursuit by the officers of this court, the marauders in these outlying villages that tried to take the ship away from her, of all these forces that constantly threatened to end her and permanently end your escape from The Hunger for good. And you’ve all had difficulties on this journey, but you’ve never been alone before, not like this. You never knew that weight. And Lucretia lived with it, along with all the other challenges that this world threw at her every day for a year.

And she was different after that, in a way that made the rest of you proud. She never volunteered to stay back with the ship again. She spent less time chronicling your journey and more time participating in it. She became fierce and confident and decisive. She wouldn’t go on to found the Bureau of Balance for decades still, but this, this horrible lonely year, this is when Lucretia became Madam Director.

[flashwitch]

Too Soon To Say I'm Sorry

Here on AO3

Summary:

After that year alone, Lucretia changes.

Notes:

"And you’ve all had difficulties on this journey, but you’ve never been alone before, not like this. You never knew that weight. And Lucretia lived with it, along with all the other challenges that this world threw at her every day for a year.

And she was different after that, in a way that made the rest of you proud. She never volunteered to stay back with the ship again. She spent less time chronicling your journey and more time participating in it. She became fierce and confident and decisive. She wouldn't go on to found the Bureau of Balance for decades still, but this, this horrible lonely year, this is when Lucretia became Madam Director."

The Adventure Zone, Episode 65: Stolen Century Chapter 6. 

Lucretia still loves the crew. She still trusts the crew.

But…

There is something inside her, something small and sharp and dark, a little voice at the back of her head. It doesn’t reset with everything else each cycle. It’s just there.

It says ‘Are you sure?’. It says ‘is that the right way?’. It says ‘You don’t have to listen to them.’

And she ignores it because it is small and she is not. And she loves the crew and she trusts the crew and after all, she’s just there to write things down. Davenport is the Captain. He knows best.  

And it’s strange having them all around again. She never noticed how loud they all are. When it was just her and Fisher, everything was quiet and still, and she doesn’t miss that, the endless silence, but it is hard hearing all of their voices again.

She puts herself forward more, she’s not as scared, she speaks up and her voice is not as loud as theirs but they listen anyway.

It doesn’t happen all at once. There isn’t a moment where she breaks and says ‘no, do it my way’. It’s little things, over the cycles.

It’s Lup, teasing her. The same way she teases everybody. The same way she teases Taako and Barry for goodness sake. It’s loving and silly and Lup makes fun of herself as much as she does everyone else and it’s never been meant maliciously.

But one day Lup is teasing her, prodding her to come outside and pick fruit and she will go eventually but she is writing and it’s important, Lup. And Lup calls her a nerd and something pings through her. Something cold. The small, sharp, dark thing that’s lived in her heart since That Cycle speaks up. It says, ‘you all died and I was alone’. It says, ‘a nerd would have died, a nerd wouldn’t have saved you’. It says, ‘shut your useless mouth.’

And Lucretia, she is appalled. She feels heat rush to her cheeks. Lup is her friend. Her sister. The crew are family. She goes to her room and reminds herself that she is just one member of the crew. That they love her and she loves them. That Lup doesn’t mean anything, and they are all nerds. IPRE only accepts nerds, had been the joke back in the day. It had started when Taako had asked Magnus what a Jock was doing signing up for Planer Travel. There were no Fantasy Sportsball teams in space!

Later she finds them all outside and Lup pulls her over and Taako throws her one of that Not Apples that they’d picked and she took a bite. It tasted sweet and slightly floral and she smiled. For a little while she could pretend she was one of them still.

The next time it happens, it’s Davenport. They are on the planet Magnus has dubbed Puppytown and the Hunger is coming. They have the Light, but a lot of these dogs are going to die.

“We get as many on board as we can, we can save lives!”

“And have how many more mouths to feed? And we can’t bring them home. It would be cruel, Magnus.”

And the little voice snaps out ‘so we just leave them? They’re helpless. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’ And she just stops, frozen for a moment. Because Davenport is the captain. He knows what he’s talking about. Of course he does.

But…

These are puppies. Surely they could save a few…

“Magnus, fine. We’ll take what we can, but if there isn’t a safe place for them in the next cycle, that’s on your head.”

And so they take on the dogs and drop them off at the next place and it’s fine. It’s all fine. Davenport made the right decision, he just needs time to think of all the consequences. You can’t press him into doing what you want.

And it’s fine.

The next time it’s something ridiculous.

They are having a good cycle. They found the light early. The world they’re on is quiet and mostly peaceful and they’ve made a niche for themselves and it is nice. They’re all enjoying it.

It starts off differently this time, or maybe she’s just relaxed enough to notice it starting this time. Her skin feels tight. They are too loud, too close. She clenches her hands and takes a slow deep breath. She backs up to sit a little way away, where she is still part of everything, but everything isn’t so close.

She fiddles with her necklace and tries to relax. There is no need to be on edge here. She is safe. She is with the crew. Everything is fine.

Then Merle drops unexpectedly into the seat beside her and her carefully curated calm is cracked open.

‘They don’t know’, the small sharp thing says. ‘They don’t know what you’ve been through. They have no idea.’ And Merle is talking to, saying something about something, she isn’t sure what, there’s a ringing in her ears. ‘You are stronger than all of them’.

And she has to get up, she has to get away, and she hurries an apology to the cleric and heads off out of the way.

She never talks about that cycle. That year. She never talks about being alone. About hiding and running and fighting and having to plan and do everything by herself. She doesn’t talk about how she had been shot in the leg with one of those strange weapons and how she’s had to patch herself up silently hiding in an alley behind a doctor’s surgery. She doesn’t talk about watching the Hunger descend and thinking ‘good.’

She doesn’t talk about how she hadn’t been sure that she could survive.  

Some nights she wakes up screaming, but that isn’t unusual. They all have nights like that.

She doesn’t tell them she feels responsible for them, because that is ridiculous, right? She is younger than everyone except Magnus. She is not strong, she is not a leader, she is just there to write the story. She isn’t supposed to be a hero.

And then Lup has an Idea. And it is a dangerous idea. She can see that it isn’t going to work. Or if it does work, it will have consequences. So she tells them her idea. And she is proud of her idea, she really believes it will work.

But it was doomed before she even started speaking. They all see her as an innocent little sister. As someone to be protected and ignored.

That isn’t fair. She knows it isn’t fair. But it’s how she feels and she can’t help that.

Besides, as soon as it was Lup who came up with it, Lucretia knew it was useless to argue. She tries anyway, because she needs to, but she knows it’s hopeless. Because Lup will have Taako and Barry on her side as a given. And the three of them are good at talking and they are good at getting people to listen, and between the three of them all they need to do is persuade one more to get a majority. She would have to persuade all three of the others by herself.

So, when they decide exactly as she knows they would, she goes along. She creates her own relic. She hopes it might work. She hopes she’s wrong.

She’s not wrong.

The plan ‘works’ for a given value of ‘works’.

It’s afterwards that everything goes wrong.

And she is very good. She doesn’t say ‘I told you so’ even though she did. She hates this. She hates that  the things they have put out into the world have caused such turmoil. She hates seeing the crew so defeated, so broken. They are still trying to act like this is a victory but she has seen Barry crying more than once, Taako is being quiet¸ Davenport has been spending more and more time alone.  Lup is just… gone They are falling apart.

She just wants to help. She knows her plan would work. She isn’t stupid. She isn’t young or innocent. Not anymore.

She just… she can fix this. She can’t fix the nightmares, she can’t fix all the places they’ve lost, she can’t make everything better. But she can fix this. She can make it so they don’t feel bad. She can perfect her plan.

She can do this.

They’ll thank her when all is said and done. She knows they will.

They have to.

[reiguns]

"And she was different after that, in a way that made the rest of you proud...She became fierce and confident and decisive. She wouldn't go on to found the Bureau of Balance for decades still, but this, this horrible, lonely year, this is when Lucretia became Madame Director." Photograph by tony24photography (IG) || TonyPerdomo Photography (FB) Lucretia cosplayed by me

[rogue-rook]

many highlights from The Stolen Century from a first-time TAZ listener (here there be spoilers)

oh hot damn a flashbacks episode!!!!!

“everything begins, and i mean that quite literally, with the light of creation”

the IPRE has some real nostalgic space exploration nasa vibes to it

travis: “i would like to state that, canonically, magnus calls him “cap’nport” because magnus, like I, loves portmanteau”

suggested names for the ship boat thing: boaty mcboatface, spinnaker (which just means boat), stinky spinnaker, laser spinnaker, hyper spinnaker, flying boat, tail spinnaker, fighting spinnaker, lightbringer, sky spinnaker, sky boat, sky weaver, star dancer, starblaster! the winner! starblaster!

the way they arrived at “starblaster” was such peak mcelroy Creative Nonsense

the reporters at this IPRE press conference have had increasingly silly names

justin: “taako and lup go to a bar and do what they always do at a bar, which is hustle people at pool” i love them so much! i didn’t love taako all that much for the majority of this story but now i think he’s cool as shit

I’m so SO SO SO SO SO EXCITED for lup to be a part of this and be a real character and not just a fucking GHOST haunting taako’s umbrella

magnus wants to go train with the bear of power and that’s the most on-brand thing for him to possibly want to do

travis: “magnus doesn’t kill animals if he can help it” not animals, but of course he has no problem killing dwarves, elves, liches, wizards, ya know, all those PEOPLE he’s killed

justin: “taako and lup are gonzo, they're out of here" magnus: “i’m like checking on bear cubs and making sure everyone's okay" merle: “im like increasing everybody’s speed with spells’ very on brand of everybody here

travis: “okay griffin i have a very important question that i should have asked before-” griffin: “is about your fucking hard candy supply?”

the entire set up of this arc is so fun and good 

justin: “yeah i've got a fucking genius plan and I'm gonna fix everything! come close, griffin, because I'm about to blow your game wide open. I’m going to make a fake light of creation. I’m gonna spend this year like a survivor contestant on their last legs, crafting a false hidden immunity idol. I’m going to craft, to the best of my ability, a fake light of creation. a decoy, if you will!” THIS IS GENIUS

taako: “okay, that’s all well and good but lup and i are going scrapping. this is the most civilized- this is the most technologically advanced place that we’ve been to yet, and I wanna load the ship up with all the valuable mechanical components I can find, so I’m going fucking looting, I’m gonna destroy as many robots as it takes, I’m gonna take these motherfuckers apart piecemeal, so I can take whatever cool magic is powering them. I’m going to loot this motherfucker to brass tacks, I’m gonna just loot and pillage” merle: “burnt earth” taako: “yes exactly”

lup: “i believe one of these times we’re going to get this right. and we’re going to find a way to defeat the hunger and save everybody inside of it. I have to believe that to keep doing what we do, becasue I have to believe that I’m going to get those 15 dollars back from greg fucking grimmaldis” lup is as cool and funny and DOPE as I was hoping she would be

one of these eps, they just kicked it on a beach for 35 minutes and were shitheads about merle’s attempt at gifts. the literal goddamn definition of a bottle episode. im only like 75% sure davenport was even in this fucking episode

travis has named magnus’s fish, magnus’s father-in-law, a rando reporter at the IPRE press conference, and a kid at one of the stolen century planets “steven”. all of those people/fish are called steven, because apparently travis has a thing for that name

clint just called lucretia “lucinda”

well now i understand why merle’s died 50 million times

taako: “i got bad news for everybody. our arch-nemesis is MORRISSEY”

magnus gets excited to learn to carve wood bc its something he could do with knives and weapons and shit and im like oh THATS the most magnus thing he could possibly do!!!

hey cool so barry and lup’s adorable love OWNS MY ASS

that was the sweetest falling-in-love story ive ever heard and it was like 5 fucking minutes. @ fanfiction writers throw all your barry/lup friends-to-lovers fics directly at my head PLEASE

davenport: “lup can you blow it up?" lup: "can i...blow up a mountain?....well, YEAH! but lets save that for a last resort" the legato conservatory person: “i'm going to firmly request that you don’t blow up our sacred mountain”

taako: “hey I’m taako, from TV” griffin: “uh okay-” justin: “what?” griffin: “you haven’t been on tv yet” clint: “it’s aspirational” justin: “yeah, its aspirational. hey I’m taako from TV. you’re all pretty wanged. you’re pretty fucked. there’s good news and bad news, and the bad news I’ve already covered, with the fucked-ness that you are”

jesus, shit got DARK

oh my god the voidfish that magnus saved in the stolen century is the same one on the bureau of balance base. that’s some heart-tingly shit. that’s that GOOD STORY SHIT

griffin: “your adventures in the back half of these cycles are more fraught than the first half” OH IM SORRY? MORE FRAUGHT??? REALLY, GRIFFY?

griffin’s judge character dude: "magnus, you have fought with others your entire life, throughout your adolescence you celebrated strife. i didn't mean to make that rhyme"

one of the future crimes accused of the IPRE crew is “cruelty to a child who loves them” and im like oh. maybe i shouldnt have wanted somebody to call them out on being mean to sweet ango

oh man i wanna hug lucretia so bad and take care of her and make sure she’s okay

griffin: “she wouldn’t go on to found the bureau of balance for decades, but this horrible lonely year, that’s when she became Madame Director” okay, yep, i love her, and i just remembered i was worried for SO LONG that she was hoarding the relics for her own gain and jesus christ IM SO SORRY I THOUGHT THAT, EVERYBODY, I REGRET IT SO BAD

magnus reading fisher the voidfish a story more like GREAT JOY AND HAPPINESS

justin: “taako like walks by [the voidfish] and you just hear him shout ‘give him the complete works of nathaniel hawthorne next!” griffin: “YOU FUCKING HATE THAT GUY!” justin: “fuck that guy” clint: “what do you have against nathaniel hawthorne???” justin: “he is the worst writer and everybody has to read him and it makes kids HATE reading” clint: “last of the mohicans???” justin: “thats- not him, thats james fenimore cooper” griffin: “BOO-YAH!!! [singing] take him toooo schoool” justin: “yall i know the name of TWO authors from that time period, and he did the ONE pull, that’s gonna sound so fucking smart” oh man maybe I really need to reevaluate my ranking of Favorite Mcelroys, justin just reached for the Deepest Cut To Make Me Love Him

magnus: “i don’t find anything useful in this library, so let that be a lesson, kids, you’ll never find anything useful reading books” yeah take that, you punk ass book jockeys

griffin: “I base it on just how much i like the scene, right? so take plus two bond” whoa what GRIFFY DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A SYSTEM FOR THIS SHIT?? HE’S JUST HANDING OUT BONDS AND ASSETS WILLY NILLY????

magnus: “oh, could i have been learning magic instead of feeding books to my buddy?” griffin: “your scene was really good though” magnus: “oh man i could have become a wizard” yeah and break the continuity of THE ENTIRE GODDAMN SHOW

this Lup and Taako’s Greatest Day chaotic destruction is the most fun shit that’s happened in this show

taako: “I pull off her blindfold to reveal this planet’s ONLY DMV. there’s one DMV on the entire planet” this planet has no people and no animals and no living anything besides the 7 ipre crew and yet there’s a DMV leftover from whatever civilization used to be here. UH UH UH SURE JUSTIN

jesus christ i can’t believe lup’s lich form dabbed in the goddamn middle of this ritual

travis: “griffin, i know this wasn't in the instructions you sent us, but I want to make a lightsaber, can I do that?" griffin: "absolutely not!"

the KrebStar is a dope name

griffin: "so like a lotta bear stuff, then, huh?" travis: "look im leaning into it"

travis: “I’m going to name the helmet BearFace- ya know, naming stuff isn’t magnus’s strong suit- and I’m going to call the pendant 2th Necklace”

griffin: “and she’s holding an umbrella” justin: “fuck you” THIS MOMENT IS SOOO GOOD

justin: "I think i speak for the rest of us, and like the entire audience, when i say I cannot wait to see what these fucking 7 items are"

“that was the last conversation you had with your sister” hey griffin. fuck you

“not all exits are equal” HEY GRIFFIN. REALLY REALLY FUCK YOU

oh man lucretia. i can’t believe you did that to everybody. man that’s. that’s rough

this is heartbreaking holy shit. barry begging his bestfriend TO KILL HIM so he won’t forget the love of his life is SOME GUTWRENCHING SHIT HOLY SHIT

this is a really amazing story and I’m so impressed with the way it evolved from a goofy mcelroy joke podcast into such an amazing compelling story

[prinxlyart]

And she was DIFFERENT after that. In a way that made the rest of you PROUD. She never volunteered to stay back with the ship again. She spent less time chronicling your journey and more time participating in it. She became FIERCE and CONFIDENT and DECISIVE. She wouldn’t go on to found the Bureau of Balance for decades still, but this, THIS HORRIBLE LONELY YEAR. This is when Lucretia became Madam Director.