#this is an au where barry joins the bureau

[umbraastaff]

AU where Barry (possibly by joining the Bureau) manages to become an 11th level wizard on Faerûn and (re)learns Magic Jar

if it doesn't cause him to remember things, his fellow reclaimers are like "damn dude your soul projection looks pretty uh... red-robed... what's up with that" "how the fuck should i know my soul's never left my body before"

on the other hand, if the fact that he's a lich & outside of his body does give him the undead voidfish immunity? lots of fun to be had with that. having to convince himself to cast this spell regularly to get new info even though from his alive perspective, he just blacks out for a bit and then wakes up with a migraine and a coin full of new recordings. attempting to cast it while on the bureau once and failing / instantly getting sick

[kravkalackin]

"It's magic day! It's magic day! Sir it's magic day!"

"Oh boy, yep. That sure is a thing," Barry said, trying not to appear as nervous as he actually was. He liked Angus, but he was starting to think it might have been a mistake to agree to this. He just wasn't sure how much of his magic was actually teachable.

"Sorry sir, I can tone it down, I'm just so excited to begin my training into the magical arts," Angus said, and Barry had to resist letting out a sigh. It looked like they were doing this.

"No, you're good. I uh, I guess how much do you know about magic, to start? " he asked. Maybe he could just kind of guide the kid. He wasn't a wizard, but he tried to keep that on the down low. Sure, no one could really say shit, not unless they wanted to find a new reclaimer, but still. He knew the whole warlock thing could make people nervous.

"Well I've studied all about the different schools of magic and the techniques and stuff, but for some reason whenever I try to cast a spell I just can't get the dang magic to come out," Angus said, and okay, Barry could do that. He could help with that.

"You're probably overthinking it," he said, smiling and knocking on the kids head. "Got too much rattling around in that big brain of yours," he added, Angus laughing a bit at that.

"How am I supposed to cast then if I'm not thinking about it?" he asked, and it was a good question. Barry paused for a moment, trying to decide what spell would be good to start with.

"Okay, uh, how about we start with mage hand. Pretty simple spell, the incantation and all that junk ain't the hard part," he started, and Angus nodded. Lifting up the umbrastaff, Barry tried to put the feelings into words. He'd never been great at words, no one paid him to think.

"Magic is a force, okay? It's as real as gravity, or heat, or- or love. Its a part of you, and even if someone can't do magic, they still got it. You can try and command it, and that works well enough for some people, but personally I find it easier to just sort of guide it. Let it flow out of you and have the spell shape it instead of trying to force it," he said, casting a simple mage hand as he did.

"That was very eloquently put sir," Angus said, and Barry quickly shrugged.

"Just uh, speaking from the heart or the soul or whatever, I guess," he said. With that though he started working Angus through the spell, instructing him to let the magic flow. The first attempt didn't exactly turn out pretty, but it was still magic. He got steadily better the more he tried.

"Mr. Barry sir, can I ask you something?" Angus said as they started to wrap up.

"Shoot."

"Where did you learn magic?" he asked, and Barry sighed.

"I didn't really... learn. Warlocks don't learn our magic, I mean, I guess you could say I learned it from the Raven Queen, that'd probably be the most accurate," he said, Angus seeming to think that over for a moment.

"Can I ask why you picked the Raven Queen as your patron sir?"

"Throwing a bunch of hard balls today, huh kid?" he asked. Angus looked like he was gonna apologize, but before he could Barry sighed. They were alone, but he couldn't help being nervous. He did trust Angus though, so after a moment he continued.

"I lost someone. Someone I loved more than anything Angus. I don't- I'm not real sure I'm a whole person anymore, without them. And well, the Raven Queen is the goddess of death. I figured that something that powerful, it didn't matter where they went, if I had someone like that on my side, I'll be sure to see them again someday."

"I'm so sorry sir. I hope you find them someday soon," Angus said, and Barry smiled at that, reaching over to ruffle the kid's hair.

"Thanks kid," he said, turning them back towards the magic lesson after. They kept them up after that, and by the end of the week Angus was getting pretty good.

When they went to learn prestidigitation through something went wrong. All Barry could do was watch in shock as his umbrastaff spelled out L U P into the wall.

"Lup? What does that mean? What?" he asked, not expecting any kind of answer as he stared down at the umbrella. He could barely hear as Angus thanked him for the new mystery to solve.

And that night when he laid alone in his dorm, he stared up at the large coin he'd had on him ever since he crawled out of that weird cave. The coin that had lead him to Gundren, led him to meeting Magnus and Merle and watching Taako die in Phandalin.

The coin that had been completely silent since he'd gotten up to the moon.

The dull weight in his chest felt so much heavier when he read that word, but he didn't know why.

The coin was still silent, not offering any answers.

[crystalkitty1220]

IBVS AU and/or songfic and/or animatic I had come up with a while ago but never got around to making: The Night the Lights Went Out in Foxfield

The AU is clearly based off of the song The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia by Reba McEntire but if you don't want spoilers for the AU read the rest of this before listening to the song.

(IBVS is by onebizarrekai)

Trigger warnings: character death, murder, the song mentions hanging and guns. Nothing really spooky, it's just dark.

First off, there's a few things changed from normal IBVS so that the AU works a bit better. Nevin and Chris are dating, because otherwise the whole main plot of the song would be gone. Nevin and Drew have negative and positive auras respectively, which is already a headcanon/theory of mine but in this AU it's canon. Otherwise, just some characters acting a bit out-of-character so that the plot works better.

It starts with Drew and Nevin coming back home from a vacation or trip of some sort. Drew takes the role of the narrator from the song, and Nevin is the narrator’s brother and main character. Nevin takes a walk to the park as soon as he gets home, and sits down on a park bench. Isaac appears out of nowhere, as to be expected from Isaac. He takes the role of Andy Wo-Lo. Isaac tells Nevin, as in the song, “Sit down, I’ve got some bad news that’s gonna hurt.” “Your boyfriend ain’t home tonight,” He proceeds to inform Nevin that Chris has been seeing Harley behind his back, and then shamefully admits to also spending a night with Chris.

Nevin is extremely angry, and Isaac gets scared and leaves. On his way home, Isaac runs into Drew and Edward. Drew asks if he’s okay and Isaac recounts the conversation he just had with Nevin, and mentions that he’s worried about how Nevin will take this.

Nevin takes a bit of time to cool off in the park before going home. Before he gets to his house, he checks inside Chris’ window to see if he’s there. He’s not.

Still very pissed off, Nevin decides Isaac ran off too quickly and Nevin didn’t get any time to interrogate him or give him a piece of his mind. So, he goes to pay Isaac a visit. However, he notices two sets of footprints (it had been raining earlier and the ground was still wet about an hour and a half ago, but was now dry enough for footprints not to be left anymore) leading behind Isaac’s apartment building and follows them. At the end of the trail, he finds Isaac. Well, Isaac’s body, with his head bashed in.

Barry, who was just trying to take a nice stroll around the town but got curious about two pairs of footsteps he found, finds Nevin standing over Isaac’s body. Nevin opens his mouth to explain, but Barry interrupts him. "Why'd you do it?"

Cut to a scene in the forest near Edward's house, where Ed, Barry, and Charlie are having a trial for Nevin. They chose to leave Drew out because they weren't sure he would want to (or was mature enough to) deal with this situation. They also tried to find Chris, but nobody could (not even Charlie, who admitted to feeling like something was seriously wrong and demanded to join in on the trial). Nevin rancorously claims that Chris is probably at Harley's house just like Isaac said, but his bitterness doesn't really help his case. Charlie is also really insistent that Nevin did something to Chris, accusing him of kidnapping or murdering him.

Barry asks why they couldn’t just take this to the police, but Ed reminds him that the police will note how it looked like Isaac was hit over the head and just think they’re all crazy when they bring up Nevin possibly doing that with his superstrength. And even if they do find Nevin guilty, how is anyone supposed to keep him locked up? He literally has superstrength and some kind of goop power, there’s no way any normal person could safely keep Nevin anywhere without him escaping. The police could do an investigation but Nevin's trial was the Investigation Bureau of the Very Supernatural's responsibility.

They discuss how the footprints leading behind Isaac's building were Nevin-sized footprints, and how Nevin has no alibi because nobody had seen him since Isaac told him about the Chris situation (Barry even called to ask Drew when the last time he saw Nevin was). The trial goes on, Nevin’s aura not exactly working in his favor and Drew not here to calm everyone down. Barry mainly just wants to come to a fair conclusion, Ed is trying his best to hold it together and acts like he just wants to protect Foxfield but in reality he’s distraught over Isaac and wants whoever killed him to be punished, and Charlie just seems convinced something happened to Chris and is determined to either get Nevin to fess up or find Chris and make sure he's safe.

Eventually Edward finds Nevin guilty. In the song the judge makes the decision to execute the main character, but this is IBVS so I decided to change that part. Instead Ed calls up Dez and ask her to find a sort of reverse summoning ritual. A trapping ritual. Of course she asks what this is for, but Ed insists that he'll explain in school and that he just needs the ritual right now. Dez finds one which will trap a subject in a parallel dimension frozen in time (frozen, except for the subject) and can be reversed to free the subject if necessary. One needs to create the reversal ritual themself so that nobody can just go around freeing every trapped soul in existence. She sends a picture of this page to Ed.

And so, Nevin gets trapped in the knockoff-Eighth-Day until there's proof it wasn't him. Then comes the hard part of telling Drew and Chris. Well, it seems just Drew, because Chris is still nowhere to be found. Edward and Barry try to explain to Drew what happened in the least upsetting way possible, telling him that the police wouldn’t have been able to do anything and how they’re sorry but just letting Nevin roam around while he was the main suspect wasn’t an option. They don’t tell Drew about the reversal because they’re afraid he’ll bring Nevin right back.

And, well, perhaps this is the best time to listen to the actual song. I couldn’t do it justice.

[scullydubois]

Only the Light: Ch. 8

8/? | AU where Melissa moves in with Scully after Scully’s abduction | angst, msr slow-burn, some fluff | currently: s2, ep 12, Aubrey | T (for now?) | 2.3k | previous chapters | read on ao3 | tagging: @today-in-fic

Scully deals with the trauma of her nightmare when she and Mulder meet BJ in the park; a migraine leads Scully to breakdown to her sister.

[this is an especially angsty part...TW for mild implication of rape]

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

The rest of their breakfast passes without fanfare. After their conversation about love languages, neither feels like diving into particularly deep topics. Mulder spends their meal providing commentary on the songs other customers picked off the jukebox, turning Scully into a captive audience who occasionally nods, chuckles, or otherwise utters a phrase of approval. It’s not that they’re bored of each other, but that they feel they should preserve their energy for the taxing conversations sure to come along with the case. The electricity between them lingers in the air, waiting for a match to spark it. When the waitress asks if they want to split the bill, Mulder gallantly insists that he will take care of it, then pulls out the Bureau credit card with a wink his partner’s way. To Scully, his wink feels like a lighter flaring into flame. A brief moment of blaze, there and then gone again. One day, she swears to herself, one day she will let him ignite her heart. 

Back in the car, they buckle up and reacclimate themselves with 1994. The local country music station hums in the background, too low to make out any lyrics. It’s just a few stoplights to the park, not even long enough to get through an entire song.

They find BJ at a picnic table nestled among Aubrey’s fall colors. She notices them first, waves them over. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Mulder says as he and Scully take a seat across from the detective.

Scully is struck by reality’s intrusion on the version of BJ she met in her nightmare. BJ is not heavily pregnant; she does not even show. She’s not covered in blood either, but looking polished in a pantsuit. Yet the sight of her conjures up vivid images from the dream, ones that Scully hoped would stay hidden in her psyche forever. The resolute darkness of Duane Barry’s eyes, like his soul had been sucked out of him. The way droplets of blood splattered when he pulled BJ by the collar. And the image of her own body, how it had been desecrated and she hadn’t felt a thing. She felt nothing.

“How are you, BJ?” she asks, her voice stiffer than intended.

BJ rests her hands on the wooden table. “I’m okay.” Then-- “I’ve made some decisions.”

Scully nods, not wanting to pry. The three of them sit with the silence. Sometimes this is all you can do. Her courage gathered, BJ looks to Mulder. 

“I don’t know if Agent Scully told you, but I’m pregnant. It’s Tilman’s. It’s made things...complicated.”

“I’m sure,” Mulder replies, not particularly moved by this announcement. 

“I don’t think it will impact the case in any way, but I wanted to be open with you. Staying quiet about it was only making the situation tougher.”

“Well, thanks for sharing.”

Scully shoots Mulder a look, as if to chastise his blase attitude toward BJ’s courage. He doesn’t see it, which makes her feel oddly guilty, like she had talked about him behind his back. 

Across the park, a little girl plays with her dog. They run through a pile of leaves together, and she takes a tumble. 

“Ow!” the girl exclaims loud enough to be heard throughout the park. BJ stands up, her gaze snapping toward the sound. Scully turns, fighting the urge to join BJ. The girl’s mother bends to check the girl for injury and seeing that she’s okay, sets her on her feet. BJ exhales, joins the agents back at the table.

“The mothering instinct,” BJ monologues. “I've been feeling it a lot lately. I used to hate it when my mother hovered over me. I swore I'd never be like her.”

Scully’s throat tightens. She felt the gravitational pull too. I mean, she’s always liked kids, but she’s not sure she would be a good mother and so she’s tried not to think much about it. Certainly her situation is unfavorable for motherhood. What kind of life would it be for a kid to have their mother gone all the time? She knows what it’s like to tuck herself into bed without a goodnight kiss and a bedtime story...to feel like an afterthought in a parent’s life. It made her push herself harder, trying to shed the inadequacy her father must have seen in her. And still she fell short. Is it all in her head, this fledgling maternal instinct? Or is it a sign of changing brain chemistry?

“I think we all feel that way at some point or another,” Mulder says. For a moment, Scully thinks he’s read her mind. She’s about to ask him whether there’s such thing as a paternal instinct when BJ continues on--

“My father was a cop. A good cop. That's all I ever wanted to be. He'd say what we're doing here is nonsense. That you can't solve a crime from a dream.”

Scully is somewhat relieved to know that she’s not alone in failing to measure up to a father’s expectations. This is not the point of the conversation, but this is what her mind latches on to. Her own father felt that the X-Files was a waste of time,, and she could never put into words why the work was so fulfilling to her. It’s not medicine; the results aren’t as obvious. Yet she can’t help but feel like she and Mulder are tuning into a rarely heard frequency, listening to its message, and passing it on. Little by little that will change the world, won’t it?

“Well, I've often felt that dreams are answers to questions we haven't yet figured out how to ask,” Mulder offers, rising to meet the gravity of the moment. Scully wonders what question her nightmare was answering. She shudders at the thought.

---------

Her skull feels like it’s being cut in half with a chainsaw, there is no other way to put it. She’s lying stretched out on her motel bed, a washcloth over her eyes, praying the pain away. Migraines aren’t a common occurrence for her, but she recalls all the times her mother would turn off the television, pull the curtains, and lay flush in her recliner in an attempt to ward off the pain. As little as she was, Scully would pull a step stool over to grab a glass from the cabinet, then fill it with water and bring it to her mother like a dog itching for a treat. She’d get a ‘thank you’ from her mom’s quiet, steady voice and sometimes a pat on the head, but nothing she could subsist on. She always wished for a little more to fill the deficit in herself. Now she understood. Pain chips away at your capacity for love.

What had started as a dull roar now felt more like the scream of a banshee. It came on suddenly around 4 while she and Mulder were reviewing the evidence of the 1942 murders. Their day had been pretty slow, one of paperwork and manila folders and bureaucracy. Not a lot of progress on the case. It’s as if her brain weren’t working hard enough, and so decided to punish her by making work impossible. She let on nothing of her plight until the way back to the motel when she leaned her head against the window and Mulder asked if she was okay. She responded nonchalantly, saying it was just a headache, and he in his savior complex offered to stop for Aspirin, but she insisted she had some in her suitcase. She did--a bottle with only two left--and she took them both. So far they’ve done nothing to combat the pain. 

It occurs to her that her ardent desire to avoid coming off as a damsel in distress doesn’t exactly mesh with Mulder’s tendency to be the hero. What is she to make of that? Nothing, not in her current state of mind.

She lies there, wonders if it’s reached a late enough hour to change into her pajamas. She can’t deal with the monotony of the shower tonight, not even if Mulder’s on the other side. She turns, glances at the digital alarm clock. 8:09pm. Certainly that’s appropriate pajama time, right? She can never be sure that Mulder won’t come knocking on her door with a new interpretation of the evidence for her to shoot down or a theory somehow more outlandish than his original. She likes that they keep each other on their toes, but tonight that’s not where she wants to be.

Her head berates her for sitting up. She figures that if that’s wishful thinking, changing clothes will be too, so she lays right back down. She has gotten very used to ending up back where she started.

Seeing as modern medicine is failing her, she decides to try meditation. Missy swears by it, but Scully doesn’t see the benefit of willingly turning off your brain. She can hear her sister now: “It’s not about turning off your brain, it’s about transcending your thoughts and being present with the world.” Since when am I not present with the world, she always wants to reply. She can’t afford not to be present with the world.

But the older sister always has some semblance of sway over the younger one, so Scully closes her eyes and listens to the nothingness of the room around her. Well, it’s not exactly nothing, but nearly so. The mini-fridge, which she doesn’t dare touch even if the bill isn’t her responsibility, hums like it has something to prove. The remaining leaves on the trees in the parking lot rustle with the wind. In the adjacent room, Mulder’s TV is on. She can hear the droning chitter-chatter of sports commentators. Baseball, probably. That’s played in the fall, right?

She slips out of active listening and into mindless musing on her lack of sports expertise. Her father was never a sports junkie himself, but her brothers were. She was often made the referee of their wrestling matches or t-ball games, having been deemed more impartial than Melissa. And yet her understanding of plays and pitches and batting averages never progressed from there. She could name all 206 bones in the body in alphabetical order, but she couldn’t tell you what 3rd down meant. Usually she doesn’t care, but at the moment, this is making her indescribably sad.

Overcome by her isolation, she grabs the phone off hook, dials her own number. Melissa picks up right before it stops ringing.

“Hello?”

“Missy…” she doesn’t know it’s going to happen until she opens her mouth and tears fling themselves down her face.

“Dana, what’s wrong? Did something happen? Are you safe?” Missy’s voice is concerned but controlled, like a 911 operator. 

“I-I’m okay,” Scully manages, in probably the least convincing delivery ever.

“Where are you?”

“I’m in the motel. Mulder and I are safe, we’re okay,” she stammers. 

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Melissa says with utter calm. 

“My head is pounding, Missy, and I know mom used to get migraines, but I’ve never felt anything like this before--” Her voice catches, a sob slips out. “And I’m scared, Missy. Something’s wrong with me.”

“It sounds like you need medical attention, honey.” Melissa always knows when to slip in a term of endearment. “Can Mulder take you to the hospital?”

“No, no, it’s not like that.” She squeezes her eyes shut, sees stars. She hopes Mulder can’t hear her crying. The embarrassment of hurting is almost worse than the hurt itself. She pulls the bed sheet over her head like some over-dramatic teenager. She wouldn’t be able to look Mulder in the eye if he heard this next part. 

She sniffles. “I’m six days late, and I’m never late, and I can’t be pregnant unless…” She wonders what would happen if she just stopped the sentence there and never spoke of it again. Could she do that? Would Melissa mind? 

She lets the bottom drop out from under her. “...unless they did something to me.” The words are barely audible, she hates to have them on her tongue. Worse still, she’s not even the subject in her own sentence. She’s the object, of course. 

She hears Missy take what she’s deemed “a cleansing breath.” Then--”Can you come home? Tonight, tomorrow morning?”

“I...What would I tell Mulder?” Her tears have stopped flowing, but her brokenness still lives in her voice. 

“Anything. That I locked myself out of the apartment, that it’s mom’s birthday, maybe the truth. That man will listen to whatever you say. He’s not gonna stop you.”

“Well, I have to tell the FBI something.” 

“Say you have a family emergency. Or that you’re experiencing trauma from work-related events. You don’t owe them anything, Dana.”

Scully knows this, but could never operate as if she actually believed it. The FBI is her job, her duty, her choice. How can she be up in arms about something she wished upon herself? 

She takes as deep a breath as the pain in her head will allow. “I’ll fly out tomorrow morning.”

“Call me with the deets before you take off. I’ll pick you up.”

“Okay.” Scully feels a rush of safety, of being held & supported. “Thank you,” she breathes. Missy has saved her from herself.

“You’re welcome. And Dana…?”

“Yes?”

“We’re gonna figure this out. Whatever it is, we’re gonna figure it out.”

Scully flutters her eyelids shut, feels the temptation of tears at the back of them. “I know...Thank you. I love you.”

“I love you too,” Missy echoes. “Get some rest, and try not to worry. I’ll see you in the morning.” 

Scully wonders what gene her sister has that gives her such a distinct ability to say the right thing every time. She wishes she hadn't missed that boat. How much easier would life be? 

She notices that Missy has refused to hang up first. “Goodnight, Missy,” she says into the phone.

“Goodnight, Dana. Sleep well.” Her words are a balm to the soul. 

Scully puts the phone back on the hook, feeling like Missy just put hope back in her vocabulary. Hope or belief? Which is stronger?

[the-ipre]

Here’s an AU! Sometime after the mindwipe but before the events of the podcast, Lup, in her body but with no memories, shows up at the moonbase

- There is a cave-in in Wave Echo Cave and a red-robed skeleton and its umbrella get crushed. A red-robed spectre flies out of the rubble, crackling with electricity, and then Lup goes to find her family. She casts a locate spell on the Starblaster, discovers that for some reason there’s a second moon in the sky, shrugs an incorporeal shoulder, and flies up there. Imagine her surprise when she is yeeted back to solid ground. She felt the anti-lich ward, and it hurt, which is pretty wild because in this form she usually can’t feel much, but that was like the time Taako had tossed a metal spoon over his shoulder and accidentally cracked her in the forehead. Nursing a headache, she started to get the feeling that something was wrong.

- Lup doesn’t know quite what’s going on, but when she finds Taako, casting cantrips and making their aunt’s meals for an exuberant crowd, he is totally afraid. Nothing in the way of recognition, and he said that all he could hear was static when she tried to tell him that It’s me, it’s Lup, your sister. With a frown and a crackle of electricity, she left to take matters into her own hands. Every part the necromancer that her husband was, she found her way to an auction where she bought a contraption that could build a new body, and after gathering up a few pieces of bone that was exactly what she did. She remade herself, created a makeshift ship that could hopefully get her to the false moon, and gave herself instructions. 

- When Lup was back in her body, it was all that she could do to listen to the bracelet she found wrapped around her wrist and get in the ship. Coordinates were already set, and she was in a daze as she got sent up to the smaller moon in the sky. She knew her name was Lup, and she knew that she was missing a lot, and she didn’t know much more than that. When she made it up to the moon her ship was almost falling apart – this planet didn’t have top quality spaceship materials, after all, and she wasn’t as good at transmutation as Taako was – but she found herself standing in front of a middle-aged woman who could only look on in an incomprehensible mix of horror, shock, and relief. Something in Lup said that the lady should have been younger, but that thought burst like a bubble before she could really look at it.

- Lucretia takes Lup in, because what else is she to do, and Lup joins a flourishing BoB. Although her memories of the past are spotty, she begins to make new memories, and it is surprisingly easy to find a family with these people that she isn’t related to. She hones her magic, and gets to know her coworkers and friends, and over time she does start to develop a bit of a crush on Lucretia. There’s a part of her heart that’s missing something, and Lucretia fills that in a way that she can’t explain, and Lup explains that away as hey, my kind-of-boss is hot and powerful, I’ve got a crush. Nothing ever happens between them – Lucretia couldn’t let that happen, and Lup pined for 50 years, it’s not like she would make the first move – but, over a couple months, she strangely finds a home. 

- Lup ends up getting kind of close to Davenport, what with both of them having spotty memories, and at one point when she sees him down the hall she opens her mouth to call out Cap’nport, but the word gets stuck in the back of her throat and she can’t remember what she was saying a moment later. 

- She doesn’t get inoculated until a few months in when Lucretia announced, out of the blue, that she could finally tell Lup what was going on. The baby voidfish had finally provided a redundancy, and Lup was the first of the seven birds – other than Davenport – to be told about the relics. Memories of a war and of magic beyond comprehension flooded through her mind, but what she caught the most was a song. It was a duet, played by a violin and a piano, and it was on the tip of her tongue and she knew it was important, but anytime she tried to figure out why she suddenly lost track of her train of thought. The first time that Lucretia heard Lup humming her and Barry’s duet, she almost had a heart attack. 

- THB get brought up to join the Bureau, and Lup and Taako are essentially the pointing spiderman meme because hey, you look like me, hey what little you remember of your past also sounds kind of like mine, what the fuck? They can’t make the full connection, though, but they get on like a house on fire and Lup joins THB on their adventures as a reclaimer. (When she hears that they came from Phandolin and that a cave system had been excavated to reveal a powerful gauntlet, something feels like it’s reached into her stomach and is twisting her guts, but again, like so much in her life, her thoughts static away when she tries to pull them apart. She blames the sickening feeling on all those deaths, and leaves it at that).

- After Goldcliff, when they find themselves in Captain Captain Bane’s office, the Red Robe stares at Lup in a way that should make her uncomfortable, but something keeps her from leaning back until he approaches her, looking as hopeful as a faceless lich can. He tries to talk to her, tries to tell her that It’s me, it’s Barry, where were you? But some of it is static and some of it is weird and as much as something in her gut begs for her to trust him, she can’t. When they get back to the moon base – low level as they are they managed to mosey on away from the lich because he wasn’t trying to hurt them – they end up telling Lucretia about the Red Robe and how wasn’t that so weird, it was like he knew you Lup, whack. After the debriefing, Lucretia goes back to her office and screams. 

- Lup, in real time, does get to tease Taako about going on a date with death. Even though they can’t remember that they’re siblings, they still act like it, and Lup finds it hilarious that Taako not only seduced the dude trying to kill them, but he also later sought him out for a date. (It’s payback for the one time that she was like “hey so that Red Robe, huh” and Taako wouldn’t let her live down that she thought he had a cool voice and a unique presence.)

[flamyangelwings]

Return of the TAZ:B AUs

So three primary tenants for this particular AU.

Voidfish Ichor also inoculates anything erased by their child, but it takes effect slowly.

Lucretia figured out out the third option on her own, and is planning to put her shield around the Hunger, but thinks that she’ll be trapping herself with it for eternity/until it dies and then she’ll die. 

Magnus is Lucretia’s twin brother, older by two hours.

After joining the BoB, Merle, Taako, and Magnus start having Weird Dreams™. 

All three think they’re the only one 

And then until Midsummer happens, when the scouts of the Hunger appear and all three basically “wait, were those dreams real?”

The three are pulled aside by Davenport, who is secretly fully coherent and remembers everything, having been inoculated earlier than them. 

Davenport has kept playing his role even after remembering, unbeknownst to Lucretia though, he’s trying to find the Starblaster.

Lucretia has mentioned her plan to Davenport aloud, since he ‘wouldn’t be able to hear her anyway’ and she finds comfort in talking to him

Davenport fills them in.

Then comes Candlenights, when Barry shows up, the boys give a codeword that signals Davenport to slip away and disable the Anti-Lich barrier and cut communication with the Moon Base.

They explain everything to Barry, which then includes further explaining under Zone of Truth when Kravitz shows up.

Barry is now a Reaper

Barry is slipped into Taako’s Pocket Spa 

Other than that it goes the same, including their pardons, up until the Director asks her question “What have I done...to lose your trust?”

Behind her, Davenport gives a nod, and Taako magics the door shut. She’s suddenly on alert

Did Barry possess Taako to get onto the base? Did one of the ghosts they were facing?

Behind her, Davenport speaks

“I-I don’t think you-you really to ask, Lucretia.”

Lucretia freezes and looks around at the four five of them as Barry appears.

“Funny story my dude, apparently drinking voidfish ichor also slowly immunizes you against their kid’s ichor.”

“Happy Candlenights Lucretia, this is an intervention.”

“Shit.”

So after the intervention, and an argument about Lucretia’s plan to sacrifice herself that ends in a better plan

Which is 100% just a better planned out version of the final battle because they have several months to actually plan.

Cue the L.U.P. incident and the freeing of Lup.

Followed by the summoning of Barry and the Reaperfication of Lup.

And now that Lucretia’s in the know, Davenport starts publicly ‘recovering’, saying a few more phrases every week, dressing more like a ship captain.

It’s a known rumor around the Bureau that he was the Director’s mentor when she was younger, and was damaged mentally during the Relic Wars. This kind of ‘confirms it’.

The explanation given is that she found out he and Merle knew each other “because Merle was a beach dwarf.” and Merle's presence was ‘’’actually being useful at healing for once’’’.

A few months later, shortly before the Eleventh Hour, Carey is giving Angus Rogue training [because he’s adorable] when they overhear Magnus and the Director arguing and both roll Nat 20s on stealth.

Magnus is worried that the Director is overworking herself, and thinks she needs a break. 

Carey and Angus agree with him, but are kind of surprised at the sheer level of disrespect Magnus is showing the Director

At least until:

“Did you live those years in some sort of time bubble?”

“Excuse me?”

“Did you. Mentally experience. The twenty years you were forcibly aged.”

“No, but that has-”

“So I’m still the older sibling here.”

The Director takes in a hissed breath and looks around, but doesn’t manage to roll high enough on insight to spot Carey and Angus.

“Magnus! I am your boss!” she hisses, in a displeased tone

“Lucretia!” he returns in the same tone, before continuing, “I am your older brother-”

“By two hours!” 

“And I’m telling you to go get some rest, or else I’m getting Cap’nport on my side. I agreed to keep this quiet and be respectfulish in public because your old lady look is part of the whole Director persona, and I don’t want to damage the BoB’s morale or whatever, but if you think for a second I won’t call you out if you keep working yourself to death, then I’d suspect your old lady mind must be going.”

Lucretia sighs exasperated, surrendering, “I...will take this weekend off.”

“Every weekend.”

“One day a week, unless something pressing comes up”

“Deal.”

Carey and Angus slip away and swear secrecy to the other.

Angus is a curious boy and investigates though.

Carey is busy being Shook at the discovery that the Director is Magnus’ twin sister???

The other missions go pretty straightforward, not much changes other than the guys having more experience and it happens earlier.

Magnus straight up knows where he left the Chalice.

When it’s time for Wonderland, Lucretia calls in backup

Lup and Barry enter Wonderland alongside the boys, both in their living bodies.

Lydia and Edward are not happy to have other Liches there.

They are less happy when they discover that those Liches are actually Reapers.

The Vogue Elves are reaped, and the Bell is got.

Wonderland is destroyed.

There are still two months until the Hunger is due, but this time they’re ready.

[motherfuckingmagicbrian]

Lich Brian Au

(A little something for @luxwing based off an ask they sent)

Lucretia didn’t know she was hiring a lich. If she did know she probably would have anyway. If he died he would have been in the know so better keep it under wraps. What she did know was how similar Brian was to the twins.  The similar voice cadence, the eccentric fashion, use of pet names, and when it boiled down to it, a sense of loyalty. She could see Taako in the way he squared his shoulders before casting a spell and Lup in how he put himself in dangers way for someone else. Brian was also the last straw. When she lost him to the thrall of the gauntlet she knew she couldn’t do this anymore. Not alone. She had to stop finding stand-ins for her family and then sending them to their deaths. So she found the boys (and Barry, on accident) and she hoped they may be able to help Brian. 

Brian didn’t mean to join the BOB, he mostly lucked into it. If it could be considered luck to find a secret moon base that rebels undead and divine creatures while currently on the run for death crimes. He wasn’t a lich for nefarious purposes either. It’s a lot more complicated. You see he was going to outlive his fiancé by a few hundred years. So they struck a deal, something that made sense in the name of true love. But his fiancé was afraid to do the ritual alone. What if something happened to Brian and Ara was all alone. So they did it together, agreed to be each other’s phylactery (If Lucretia has know just how similar he really was to Lup, maybe she wouldn’t have hired him).

Ara didn’t know about the Bureau. It was Brian who did all the necromantic dirty work and felt he would be safer planet side. He didn’t think about what would happen if he died because he no longer thought about death. (He would think about death later, when he looked at his engagement ring, or where it was supposed to be if he had a body, and realized Ara didn’t remember him.)

When he first died he didn’t realize it. Being under the Guantlet’s thrall felt like he was floating outside of his body. So when he really was floating outside his body it took him a few seconds. Not enough time to say anything, not even a goodbye to Bryan. Then he was devoured by the Umbrastaff. He tumbled into the velvety room and landed in his back. There was a spectral woman floating above him and she looked eerily familiar to the elf he was just talking to and fighting. She looked sad and angry. He threw up his hands in scrambled into an upright position, best he could without any real sensation.

“Whatever it iz I can explain. It wasn’t my fault.”

“No. No it’s not. If it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine. I created that damn gauntlet.”

“You know darling, you look an awful lot like that nice elf man that uhh, let’s say did me in. Any relation?”

She laughed dryly.

“That would be my twin brother, Taako. It’s a long story.”

“Well I love your cadence, dear. Where you from?”

[selkie-elf]

Au where the wonderland liches join the bureau

You are speaking my language. Note: I have a lot of feelings and headcanons about these two, so these might become headcanons on top of headcanons.

- They join bureau a bit after the unsuccessful necromantic ritual where they tried to bring Keats back to life. Lucretia sees potential in them and the twins are more than happy for the protection given by the bureau. Also Lucretia has to admit it to herself, they remind her of a certain pair of twins. 

-The twins insist on only staying on the moon. Edward doesn’t want to step his feet on the earth ever again, way too scared of everything and everyone wanting to kill him. Lydia misses her little tailor shop, but knows the risks of showing her face in her hometown again.  They ask Brian to go and make sure that the flowers on Keats’s grave are in bloom once in a while. 

- Edward gets weirdly close with Davenport. Even if Davenport might not remember a lot of his illusion magic, seeing the young elf make beautiful illusions almost with no effort catches his attention. With the little communication he can do, he gives some small tricks and tips to Edward.  Edward also grows close to Brian. Two dramatic elves on the moon was a good idea.

- Lydia has harder time finding her place on the moon. She is still deeply scarred from the unsuccessful ritual and has a lot nightmares.  Lucretia, another woman with a lot of regrets in her past offers her friendship and kindness, something Lydia has not felt for long.

To Lucretia, Lydia is like a caricature of Lup. There is still that same passion, the same wrath, but unlike Lup, Lydia is cold. She has learned not to be reckless, to watch her every step. Sometimes Lucretia wonders if Lup would have ended up same way, if her and Barry’s lich ritual would have gone wrong. 

- One night, Lydia asks Lucretia a very hard question. She has seen the way people can be erased by the Voidfish. So she pleads Lucretia to erase  her, Edward and Keats. She is too tired to live with her guilt anymore. 

And Lucretia does. Lydia holds Lucretia’s hand as she watches Fisher eat her existence away. Next time, when the twins ask Brian to take flowers to Keats’s grave, Brian informs them that the gravestone had been removed. When he had asked the priest why, she had answered “ No one could read the name on that stone anymore. I don’t think it was anyone worth remembering”

[chrisis-averted]

TAZ shuffle AU

I saw Seven Birds. The Twins, The Loveless, The Guardian, The Lonely Journal Keeper, The Luminary and The Restless One.

AU where everything is the same up to the moment they create the Relics.

Magnus goes missing as he went to Refuge to hide the Temporal Chalice, in reality he got sick in Refuge and stayed there until the memory spell hit and then, not remembering where he came from, stayed in Refuge until the bubble went up. Trying to find June, he fell down a mining shaft and got frozen in time for 6(?) years.

Lucretia didn't try to separate the twins, but as they were forgetting, Lup killed herself in front of Taako before she could forget Barry and the shock destroyed Taako. Lucretia then tried to erase Lup completely, but this reduced Taako to a nonverbal state not unlike Davenport's in canon: understanding she couldn't make him leave alone, she kept him with her as her assistant.

Barry survives, but losing Lup and the memories of the journey made him revert to the unloving necromancer he was before joining the IPRE. Lucretia leaves him in some university but he soon founds his own necromancy circle/cult and seeks the Relics for himself.

Davenport doesn't completely lose his mind, instead Lucretia, not knowing much about his life before the IPRE, leaves him in a gnomic community. He's more serious and adventurous than the other members of his race, though, so he soon leaves, looking for adventure.

Merle finds joy in a life in a small town on the beach, that is ruled by a tyrant. He becomes an inspirational/religious figure for the Rebellion and frees the town: his wife and kids get killed by the same tyrant after a while and this causes him to drop the bible and take on adventuring as a battleaxe-wielding fighter/paladin.

Davenport, a rogue/illusion wizard, Merle a former cleric/fighter/paladin and Barry, a sorcerer, take Gundren Rockseeker's job. Davenport for adventure, Merle for money, Barry for the Relic itself.

Lup makes her first appearance as the "Red Robe" immediately after Phandalin is destroyed and begs them to destroy the Gauntlet, before Killian brings them on the Bureau.

Barry falls in love with the lich/ghost lady.

Barry's followers die in Phandalin's destruction, so he joins the Bureau hoping to "use it" to find Relics that are powerful but not as uncontrollable as the Gauntlet.

Barry, Davenport and Merle become Reclaimers.

Taako is Madame Director's assistant/personal chef, he's got the Umbrastaff already but doesn't use it as a casting focus. He's not allowed to ever leave the Moonbase (Lucretia fears seeing Lup might break him even further).

Barry joined the BoB to get the Relics for himself but he starts to enjoy passing time with those two small idiots, so everytime he finds a relic (Oculus, Sash) he's like "eh, this one is not really my thing, I'll take the next one" and gives it to the Bureau.

Lup helps them in Goldcliff and starts to flirt with Barry. She's not as careful as him in canon, so they hear her talking static from time to time.

In Crystal Kingdom Kravitz tells Barry is a lich, Barry, who has no memory of ever having done the ritual, doesn't believe him on the spot but realizes after he might have been right.

Davenport becomes Angus' magic teacher/tutor, they both understand pretty soon there's something wrong with the Reclaimer's memories.

They find and save Magnus in Refuge, he helps them escape the Bubble and lead the Purple Worm outside, and has to watch June growing up without him. In the end, they leave him in Refuge, even though he wears a red robe he doesn't remember anything about the Relics.

Lucretia is delighted they found him and he's alive and she has to keep herself from bringing him in.

Kravitz appears in the Reclaimers' dorm and takes by surprise Taako that was only there to clean/put stuff in order. He's curious about him having a similar high number of deaths and starts hanging around him. Lucretia finds out Taako is beginning to talk/respond again around Kravitz and allows him to stay on base.

Meanwhile, the Reclaimers and Angus investigate the Red Robes and the Bureau.

Lucretia sends the Reclaimers in Wonderland: Merle is the one to spin skull and end up in a mannequin ("I'm TALL!"), Barry uses Magic Jar except...ops, he's a lich and now he also remembers everything for a while. He and Lup completely destroy Lydia and Edward. Barry tells them Lucretia has been hiding their past from them and then returns to his body, unable to remember what happened.

[internationalhouseofblupjeans]

An Eighth Bird, Born Out of the Storm - Chapter 20

Based loosely on the Luume'irma headcanon from @interstellarvagabond

Eighth Bird AU.

Lup sends a message, Angus cracks the case, and Barry has a bittersweet reunion.

Thank you to Calcu from the writer’s chat for Beta'ing!!

Also on AO3 (link in the source)

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9  Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 below Chapter 21 Chapter 22

“Lucy, this isn't fair! I mean, a human? No offense but without this whole … planar bullshit, Barry would be so dead by now! But he's not and I'm going to have his kid and I cant believe I fucked up so bad Luce! I told him it was just a fling but it wasn't! Not even then! What the fuck do I do? What even are we? What do I even do?”

It was much like the scrolls I had read. The steamy romance novels that were more aggravating than entertaining, but I wanted to help my friend. I wanted her to be happy. I wanted this to work

“Lucretia, she is just … she's everything to me but I don't want to ruin our closeness. I mean,I don’t just love her because we're having a kid. I …I've known her over forty-five years, had all this borrowed time and now I can't imagine life without her.”

And I wrote it down. If we ever get back to our home, then everyone will learn about this tragic romance. This romance that would have been doomed on our home world because of the cruel passage of time.

I selfishly hope they will have more time.

- Excerpt from Lucretia’s Journals, cycle 45

Lup watched Barry climb out of the tank and her heart nearly exploded. It had been so long since she had seen him. So long since she had felt him.

And she was trapped in this damn umbrella.

Barry listened, intently to the instructions from the coin, his expression softening as his former self instructed him.

“... You feel a dull weight in your chest. It’s a weight of a love that defined and redeemed you but you’ve forgotten who that weight belongs to …”

He’d done this. He’d done this countless times. Had to relive each time …

It was too much. She didn’t want to watch this, but she had to.

This Barry was different. This was the Barry before joining the IPRE. The Barry that had been tormented in school. The Barry who had to become scrappy. Who had to learn as much as he could and stayed in university until he was in his forties because he couldn’t find a place to fit in.

The Barry that existed before he became her Barry.

Lucretia … What did you do?

Then Taako started to rant. Started to say that he couldn’t trust anyone.

Which … Would absolutely not do.

She whispered to him. Trying to get his attention as he gave in to the ideas that were being planned. As he coaxed Barry into his Pocket Spa.

“Trust Barry … Love Barry …”

She realized, after several repetitions, that he was gripping the staff, as if he had heard her voice.

“Taako! It’s … It’s me! It’s your sister! It’s me … Trust Barry …”

It was too much energy. Too much work.

She stopped, abruptly, feeling the strength almost leave her completely. She was fading. She had been using too much energy and the staff was going wild, consuming it.

If she wasn't careful, there wouldn't be anything left.

If they left this world, would she even reset?

She couldn't think about that right now.

She had to rest. She had to hope.

~

Angus did not believe them for a second.

Magnus was not dead. He couldn’t be dead.

It wasn’t that he was denying what they had said. He just knew, just from watching how the mannequin walked, that Tres Horny Boys were not being completely honest.

He now had several questions.

What was the Bureau hiding?

What were Merle and Taako hiding?

What really happened to Magnus?

What really happened to his mother?

He had already discreetly marked the sphere with a piece of chalk. He had a little bit of time before the Animus Bell was “destroyed” so he decided to observe Merle and Taako for a little while.

He watched from afar as Taako, Merle, and their “mannequin” went to the Fantasy Costco. Angus had already been inside, having snuck around behind Garfield, and had seen the vat with the body growing inside. He hadn’t asked Garfield why it was there, but as he watched the trio walk in, he started to hypothesize.

Did they know about the vat? No, they couldn’t have. They hadn’t been to the back offices.

Why would they be going into Fantasy Costco anyway? The relics had all been reclaimed, supposedly (and Angus had his suspicions about that), so there was no need for any more adventures.

He made his way to the relic disposal chamber once again. He knew that he only had moments before Lucretia arrived to dispose of the relic. He hid himself and waited.

He watched as the sphere was taken up. Watched as the relic was “destroyed”

Watched as an unmarked sphere returned in its place.

Bingo.

He needed to find Taako and Merle. He trusted them the most now.

He wished he could still trust The Director.

~

Barry sat in the pocket spa. There was something comforting but also unnerving about being in this tiny, enclosed space.

It was strange, but it had also been nice being around Merle and Taako. The mannequin that called himself “Magnus” was upsetting, but it felt like it was upsetting on a deeper level than just on a “this is a sentient mannequin” level.

He sighed and nibbled on his cucumber sandwich. He wanted to know where he was, what was going on …

He heard a sound in his pocket. He dug into it to feel a second coin. He raised an eyebrow as he listened to it crackle to life.

“Barry,” he heard his voice say. “You … You’ve gotta make it this time. This is the only chance you have. And if they try to leave and you haven’t had the V̨͏̵o̶̧͏i̧̢̕͟͡d̶̴̨̕͢f̛͘i͜͢s̵̢̡͟͞h̨͘ ̡̢͞ic͝͞͝h̶̕͡͝o͜r̢͏ then you can’t let them go. You can’t let them leave him, Barry. You can’t. It will destroy … Just … Please follow all of my instructions, even if Taako, Magnus, and Merle don’t …”

Barry listened intently, feeling that weight again. Who was the coin talking about? Who was he leaving? He didn’t want to leave anyone. Even though he’d needed to put on a tough exterior, he never imagined abandoning anyone.

The pocket spa opened and he looked up to see Taako’s face in the ceiling.

“Uh …” Barry started.

“Barry?”

“Yeah, yeah can I uh … get out of here? It’s a li’l cramped,” he asked.

“No! What are we looking for?”

Barry tried to think but it dissolved into static.

He slammed his eyes shut.

“Uh … I have no idea. I’m - This - I …”

The pocket spa slammed shut and Barry was alone again.

He sighed and returned to his cucumber sandwich.

“Asshole,” he muttered.

He heard the first coin crackle to life outside, his own voice giving out advice.

Somehow, he felt like the coin that he had discovered was just as important.

~

She was a swirl of emotions.

She was losing energy, but she needed to try and stay together.

If they were able to leave, then would she even be pulled out of this plane with them? Would there be anything left of her soul after this?

She was so tired from just trying to exist. She needed to rest.

But as she felt her surroundings continue to shift and change and heard Barry’s voice through the coin, she knew she had to hold on.

If the Hunger arrived before they could leave, Taako would need her.

It could be one last thing she did for her brother.

~

“I don’t know, but I feel like I trust you.”

Those words would bounce around in Taako’s mind for a long time. Even though he had made a big deal of not trusting anyone anymore, this man … this Red Robe who apparently forgot everything, trusted him.

He therefore couldn’t hold it against Lich Barry or Pocket Barry when the trap was completely wrong.

When the alarm had almost sounded, had almost ended their adventure, he learned he could trust someone else.

He saw the dome of magic over the alarm bell, turned, and saw his pupil.

“Hell yeah! Nice magic, little man!” He cheered.

His relief turned to panic as he saw the determined expression on Angus’ face.

“Start talking! I - I need to know what you know …”

~

Barry felt a tingle. And then the realization that he could not hide any longer. He wasn’t sure what was compelling him, but he yelled as loudly as he could.

“Hey! I’m hiding in this guy’s bag and I’m getting kinda claustrophobic and also I’m not supposed to be up here!”

He started to climb out of the spa, out of Taako’s bag -

And then he saw the boy.

His heart nearly ripped in half, and he couldn’t tell why. He didn’t understand why it hurt so much to look at this child.

This child who looked almost like he did.

He didn’t listen as Taako spoke. As Taako told everything to this boy. His brain wouldn’t let him. It was just trying to make sense of the child who stood in front of him.

Every time he tried to make sense of it, the words just didn’t make sense.

This child looked so much like he did.

Was he his s̶o̢̢̢͠҉n̢͞҉̕?

But the child was a half-elf.

Had he been in love with an elf? Was that who the weight belonged to?

Where was his partner?

~

Angus was watching Barry intently.

This was the man who the Red Robe had possessed. This was the man he had met as a child.

And yet he was here again.

And he still was going by Barry. Still looked so familiar.

It didn’t make sense until Taako had talked about Magnus. About Magnus’ soul being taken out and put into a mannequin.

About his body being destroyed.

About him being a Red Robe.

As he looked at Barry, and then at Taako, his mind tried to make sense of everything.

The nightmares he’d had about the Red Robe. They had been so fuzzy, so blurry, but there was something about that face that now, looking at Taako, seemed familiar.

But Taako didn’t have any family. There was literally no record of anyone related to Taako. No Sun Elves named U’tot’im’t’cuk or Tostaada. No elves with the last name of Taaco or Frum’Teevee or Lastname or any of the aliases that Taako had gone by.

Nothing.

The thought “My mother is a Red Robe” kept trying to form, but each time it did, it went away. The thought “Barry Bluejeans really is my father” wouldn’t stick.

He needed to get a grip on it.

He needed to get past that door.

When Taako threw Hole Thrower at the door, Angus peered inside to see a small tank inside the room.

The coin crackled to life, the instructions being interrupted by static, bright lights, and the screaming of the alarm.

Taako grabbed a flask and dipped it into the tank and drank a little before handing it to Merle and then to Angus.

As Angus drank, he looked over to the tank to see a smaller Voidfish.

A baby.

He looked over at Barry who had dipped his own canteen in. Looked around as everyone suddenly remembered.

And then he felt the mild headache.

His mother. His mother had been a Red Robe.

The song he had heard. It was one she sang to him before he was born. It was one she sang as she …

As she died …

As she died, left her body, and then vanished.

His mother was gone …

And his father … Even now, looking at Barry, there were no grand secrets revealed about his father.

He looked around the room at Taako, Merle, and Barry.

Perhaps, they were good enough.

His eyes locked with Barry’s as the man regained his composure, just enough to coach everyone through remembering.

“... Take it slow, I’m begging you. You gotta take it slow …”

Other than the revelation that his mother was a Red Robe and that there was a baby voidfish, Angus didn’t understand. His head only hurt a little, but it wasn’t like much had been lost.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! I just see this Voidfish! This cute Voidfish …” he started.

He couldn’t tell them. He didn’t want this mystery to have been solved like this.

He’d held out hope for so long.

He looked up at Barry whose face had nearly crumpled with a flash of grief.

Then Lucretia appeared and began to explain. And as she explained, he heard the name again.

Lup …

He could see Barry and Taako nearly crumble as Lucretia apologized for …. For what?

“I’m so sorry Taako, Barry … There was nothing I could do.”

He looked between the two men. Barry’s hand went to his mouth as he seemed to realize the loss. Taako was shaking with a rage he had never seen before.

And then Davenport …

Davenport drank from the flask and then spoke.

“Lucretia? What have you done?”

[impressivepress]

The Political Life and Cinema of Comrade Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin’s sympathy for the working class defines all his most famous silent films.

In September 1952, Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) looked back at New York on board the Queen Elizabeth. He was bound for Europe, to introduce the continent to his latest film Mousieur Verdoux. On the ship, Chaplin learned that the US government would only let him return to the US – where he had lived for the past three decades – if he subjected himself to an immigration and naturalisation inquiry into his moral and political character. “Goodbye,” Chaplin said from the deck of the ship. He refused to submit to the inquiry. He would not return to the US until 1972, when the Academy of Motion Pictures gave him an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement.

Why did the US government exile Chaplin? The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) – the country’s political police – investigated Chaplin from 1922 onwards for his alleged ties to the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA). Chaplin’s file – 1,900 pages long – is filled with innuendo and slander, as agents exhausted themselves talking to his co-workers and adversaries to find any hint of communist association. They found none. In December 1949, for instance, the agent in Los Angeles wrote, “No witnesses available to testify affirmatively that Chaplin has been member CP in past, that he is now a member or that he has contributed funds to CP.”

Beside the charge that he was a communist, Chaplin faced the accusation that he was ‘an unsavoury character’ who violated the Mann Act – the White Slave Traffic Act of 1910. Chaplin had paid for the travel of Joan Barry – his girlfriend – across state lines. Chaplin was found not guilt of these charges in 1944. It has subsequently been shown in a number of memoirs and studies that Chaplin was cruel to his many wives (many of them teenagers) and ruthless in his relations with women (Peter Ackroyd’s 2014 book has the details). In 1943, Chaplin married the playwright Eugene O’Neill’s daughter – Oona. She was 18. Chaplin was 54. They would have eight children. Oona Chaplin left the US with her husband and was with him when he died in 1977. There was much about Chaplin’s life that was creepy – particularly the way he preyed on young girls (his second wife – Lita Grey – was 15 when they had an affair and then married; he was then 35). FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had considerable evidence to sift through here, but none of it was found to be sufficient to deport Chaplin.

What was the smoke that got into Hoover’s nose from the fire of Chaplin’s politics? From 1920 onwards, it was clear that Chaplin had sympathies for the Left. That year, Chaplin sat with Buster Keaton – the famous silent film actor – to drink a beer in Keaton’s kitchen in Los Angeles. Chaplin was at the height of his success. With Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith, Chaplin created United Artists, a company that broke with the studio system to give these four actors and directors control over their work. Chaplin was then working on The Kid (1921), one of his finest films and based almost certainly on his childhood. Keaton recounted that Chaplin talked “about something called communism which he just heard about”. “Communism,” Chaplin told him, according to Keaton, “was going to change everything, abolish poverty.” Chaplin banged on the table and said, “What I want is that every child should have enough to eat, shoes on his feet and a roof over his head”. Keaton’s response is casually insincere, “But Charlie, do you know anyone who doesn’t want that?”

Chaplin came to the US just after the Russian Revolution. He saw the growing lines of unemployment and distress in the US – an unemployed population that grew from 950,000 (1919) to five million (1921). This was a time of great class struggle – the Palmer Raids conducted by the government against the communists, on the one side, and the general strike in Seattle as well as the Battle of Blair Mountain by the mineworkers of Logan County, West Virginia, on the other side.

Chaplin’s silent films were anchored by the figure of the Tramp, the iconic poor man in a modern capitalist society. “I am like a man who is ever haunted by a spirit, the spirit of poverty, the spirit of privation,” Chaplin said. That is precisely what one sees in his films – from The Tramp (1915) to Modern Times (1936). “The whole point of the Little Fellow,” Chaplin said in 1925 of the tramp figure, “is that no matter how down on his ass he is, no matter how well the jackals succeed in tearing him apart, he’s still a man of dignity.” The working class, the working poor, are people of great resourcefulness and dignity – not beaten down, not to be mocked. Chaplin’s sympathy for the working class defines all his most famous silent films.

It was Chaplin’s popularity and his message that disturbed the FBI. “There are men and women in far corners of the world who never have heard of Jesus Christ; yet they know and love Charlie Chaplin,” noted an article that an FBI agent clipped and highlighted in Chaplin’s file. Chaplin’s plainly-depicted criticism of capitalism did not fail to impress the world’s peoples nor disturb the FBI. “I don’t want the old rugged individualism,” Chaplin said in November 1942, “rugged for the few and ragged for the many.”

The great limitation in his films is the depiction of women. They are always damsels in distress or rich women who are desired by poor men. There are few ‘women of dignity’, women who – at that time – were in pitched battles for their own rights. In fact, many silent films in both the UK and the US disparaged the Suffragette movement of their time – from A Day in the Life of a Suffragette (1908) to A Busy Day (1914, which was originally titled A Militant Suffragette). In this latter film, only six minutes long, Chaplin plays a suffragette who is boorish and then dies by drowning.

The film was released the same year as Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960) founded the East London Federation of Suffragettes to unite suffragette politics with socialism. Pankhurst, unlike Chaplin, would join the Communist Party and – in 1920 – would author A Constitution for British Soviets. She would leave the Communist Party, but remained a devoted communist and anti-fascist for the rest of her life. If only Chaplin’s sexism had not blocked him from celebrating his contemporaries such as Pankhurst, Joan Beauchamp (another Suffragette and founder of the British Communist Party) as well as her sister Kay Beauchamp (co-founder of The Daily Worker, now Morning Star) and Fanny Deakin.

What drew Chaplin directly into the orbit of institutional left-wing politics was the rise of fascism. He was greatly troubled by the Nazi sweep across Europe. Chaplin’s film The Great Dictator (1940) was his satire of fascism – a film that should be watched by all in our times.

Two years after that film was out, Chaplin flew to New York City to be the main speaker at a Communist-backed Artists Front to Win the War event. Chaplin took the stage at Carnegie Hall on 16 October 1942, addressed the crowd as ‘comrades’ and said that Communists are “ordinary people like ourselves who love beauty, who love life”. Then, Chaplin offered his clearest statement on communism – “They say communism may spread out all over the world. And I say – so what?” (Daily Worker, October 19, 1942). In December 1942, Chaplin said, “I am not a Communist, but I am proud to say that I feel pretty pro-Communist”.

Chaplin was impressed by the principled and unyielding stand taken by the communists against fascism – whether during the Spanish Civil War or in the Eastern Front against the Nazi invasion of the USSR. In 1943, Chaplin called the USSR “a brave new world” that gave “hope and aspiration to the common man”. He hoped that the USSR would “grow more glorious year by year. Now that the agony of birth is at an end, may the beauty of its growth endure forever”. When asked a decade later why he was so vocal about his support for the USSR – including with appearances at the communist fronts such as the National Council for American-Soviet Friendship and the Russian War Relief – Chaplin said, “during the war I sympathised much with Russia because I believe that she was holding the front”. This sympathy remained through the remainder of his life.

Chaplin had not calculated the toxicity of the Cold War era in the US. In 1947, he told reporters, “These days if you step off the curb with your left foot, they accuse you being a communist”. Chaplin did not back off from his beliefs or betrayed his friends. At that same press conference he was asked if he knew the Austrian musician Hanns Eisler, who was a communist and who wrote the music for many of Bertolt Brecht’s plays. He had fled Nazi Germany for the US to work in Hollywood. Eisler had composed songs for the Communist Party (he would write music for the anthem of the German Democratic Republic – Auferstanden Aus Ruinen). Chaplin came to his defence. When asked about his association with Eisler at that 1947 press conference, Chaplin said that Eisler “is a personal friend and I am proud of the fact…I don’t know whether he is a communist or not. I know he is a fine artist and a great musician and a very sympathetic friend”. When asked directly if it would make any difference to Chaplin if Eisler was a communist, he said, “No it wouldn’t”. It took a lot of courage to defend Eisler, who would be deported from the US a few months later.

When Chaplin died in Switzerland in December 1977, he was mourned far and wide. In Calcutta, where a Left Front government had only just come to power in a landslide in June, artists and political activists gathered the next day to mourn him. The main speaker at the memorial service was the Bengali film director Mrinal Sen. In 1953, Sen had written a book on Chaplin – illustrated by Satyajit Ray.

Neither Sen nor Ray had made any of their iconic films as yet (both released their first films in 1955, Ray’s Pather Panchali and Sen’s Raat Bhore). “Without a moral justification,” Sen said at the memorial meeting, “cinema is ridiculous, is atrocious, is an outrage. It is a social activity. It is man’s creation.” The gap between art and politics should not be too wide, Sen warned. He was thinking of Chaplin’s films, but also of his own. At that time, Sen was working on Ek Din Pratidin (One Day, Everyday), a superb film that chronicles the possibilities of women’s emancipation. Here Sen went far beyond Chaplin. His communism included women.

~

Vijay Prashad · 29. Jul 2017.

Vijay Prashad is the author of The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution from LeftWord Books.

[kravkalackin]

okay actually i’ve been thinking about this au all night and consider a balance au where everyone is just sort of... jumbled around

in this lucretia’s plan goes off almost without a hitch. Lup dodged the knife, got the gauntlet put away, and was able to come back. She’s there when they forget, and even though Barry is panicking because he doesn’t know who she is it’s too late by the time he realizes what’s wrong, and he doesn’t die (yet, anyway).

No, Lup stays, but they haven’t seen Magnus in over a year now. He went out to place his relic, and he just... never came back. It leaves an emptiness in the crew, even as they celebrate their plan working, watch as the hunger doesn’t arrive. It worked, so his relic must still be out there. He must still be out there somewhere. 

Magnus’s absence is another reason why Lucretia feels she needs to enact her plan. One of the relics took him immediately, how can they call that a success? Still, by the time she starts he’s already been gone for over a year, there isn’t quite that same urgent search as there had been for Lup. She forces herself to take her time, to be as careful as possible. She can edit Davenport’s life around the mission better, and even he can be sent out to the world. 

The one, tiiiiny problem is when she goes to place Merle, and he... didn’t forget. He asks if this is some kind of prank they’re pulling on him, real funny guys, and eventually admits that okay, sometimes he uses water from Fisher’s tank to water his plants because it’s closer than the kitchen and maybe sometimes when he’s tired he drinks from his watering can and sometimes those two things overlap. 

So Lucretia explains her plan, explains that this is temporary, that the relics weren’t working and her shield will, and she begs him not to stop her and he doesn’t. Maybe she’s right, maybe the others do deserve a break, but she’s not getting out of this so easy missy. Oh no, ain’t no reason to do any of this without backup.  

They set the others up with their lives. Taako and Lup with a cooking show, Davenport with his own boat and a small but hardworking crew, and Barry... Barry’s hard to place. She had hoped to place him working at a school, maybe a university, but with the mission erased so much of his knowledge of the arcane and sciences were as well. 

Merle’s the one who suggests putting him up at a temple. The creep always did like weird dead things, he is a weird dead thing, he’ll be right at home. Lucretia supposes that’ll work and sets him up at a temple of the Raven Queen. 

It doesn’t last long. Maybe a bit longer than it should have, but Kravitz doesn’t think anyone would blame him for not looking for liches in their own temples. It doesn’t take much to kill him, but once he’s a lich he’s able to get away. To realize what’s going on, and to try to set it right. 

He finds the cloning pod, sets up a coin recording and gives himself a few simple instructions. He has a wife, he needs to find her no matter what the cost and find a way to get back the memories that were lost. Also, if a handsome man in a black suit with raven motifs shows up run away please. 

Davenport’s time on the sea is as far as he can remember, the happiest he’s ever been. This is what he was born to do, what his life should be. He cares about his crew and they care about him and they take care of each other. 

One day he pushes too far though. He always wanted to go further, to have more dangerous adventures, to push the limits and come out on top. Some of those limits are there for a reason though. When they end up being attacked, Davenport almost manages to out run the pirates. He always expects his ship to be able to do more than it should though, and the old girl finally gives out on him. 

He’s thrown overboard, small enough to be able to hide among the debris from the ship, to cling to a piece of wood and wet cloth until they leave. The rest of his crew isn’t so lucky. Once he finally manages to get back to shore, Davenport decides to take a break on the ocean for a while. 

Sizzle It Up with Lup and Taako is great. They’re a well oiled machine, and they’re well on their way to make something of themselves. They have an audience that loves them, their cookbook sales are great, they’re happy. Everything is perfect. 

And then one day Lup wakes up and Taako is just... gone. There’s a note on the table saying he went out for supplies for their show tonight, and she doesn’t think anything of it. Not until the hours pass, and he’s still not there. Not until she goes to town, and no one has seen him all day. It doesn’t make any sense, she went to sleep and her brother was here and now he’s not and he’s not dead, he can’t be dead, she has to find him. 

She puts the show on hiatus and starts to look. 

After Barry, Kravitz was already on the look out. Finding Taako had been a bit more intentional, and he thought he would be more prepared when one of these things turned into a lich, but Taako was surprising in a whole new way. As soon as he fell and the lich form arose, he wasn’t going in for a fight. No, he wanted to make a deal. 

The end of the world was coming, and they all just forgot. Really, it was a simple compromise. Kravitz leaves his sister and Barry alone. He stops trying to kill his fucking family, and Taako will get this whole mess sorted out. He’ll find Lucretia and Merle and make them stop, make sure the hunger doesn’t destroy this plane, and won’t cause anymore undead problems.

Kravitz agrees, mostly on the behest of the Lady of Fate, but Taako needs to work with them. Taako gets rid of the body, he doesn’t want Lup to find it and get upset, and he tells himself it’ll be quick. As soon as she remembers she’ll understand him leaving, she would have done the same. 

Lup, Barry, and Davenport end up being hired by one Gundren Rockseeker, on the recommendation of one of his cousins. They join the Bureau of Balance, and even though the Director is standoffish her kindness shines through, and even though Merle is... odd there’s something comforting about him. They like it here. 

Magnus has been in Refuge for about a week. Magnus was just stopping through, thankful for the rest after Jack and June found him in the desert. He didn’t plan on staying for very long. This bubble makes it hard to leave, but he’s only been gone for about a week. He can’t remember where he was supposed to go at this point, so it must not have been that important. 

Besides, it’s only been about a week. 

[trustlup]

anyway me and @starsshinedarkly77 are back at it again with a good hockey taz au (thanks rachel mcelroy for making me love the puck sport again):

they’re the dirtiest team ever and like not cause they try to be but they’re entire team of assholes and will literally check anyone

magnus is by far the worst because if someone hits him or one of his teammate then he chases them and Does a Hit but Lup is also up there

they are guaranteed to have at least one person in the penalty box at a time without a doubt but somehow manage to not die while still always being in power play

the team originally starts with ipre members but bureau joins a year later

julia joins a year later after moving back from taking a shit job and there’s a lot of. lup cries when julia lifts her the first time

normally new people get hazed but julia is. hm. too beautiful. 

Davenport is the coach and he suffers 

Lucretia is the Assistant Coach and also suffers

at any moment you can hear davenport screaming at the team

merle does the zamboni? and i guess he also drives the team everywhere? he also preaches to them? they don’t know where they got him but they love him

mags is defense, taako is right wing, lup is center, killian is goalie, carey is forward, barry is a goalie, julia is a center, avi is d

lup and mags and carey are a terrifying trio 

taako simply goes out does one single slap shot then leaves regardless if he makes it or not he doesn’t give two shits about the shift schedule

none of them do actual plays and davenport screams

magnus wears only a t shirt and shorts to practice while lup and taako are completely bundled up 

johann is their ref

sloane and hurley are on a rival team and kravitz is their ref

y’all know the drama

hot tub parties after practice

i don’t even know where to begin with weird pregame and post game habits they have besides kissing sticks and a fish that has to sit on top of the goal

at any point during practice lup and mags will charge each other at top speed and only stop at the last second before killing each other

they only manage to run into each other a couple times but each time lup nearly dies

alcohol is strictly banned after an incident where someone nearly choked on a hockey stick for a shitty blow job joke 

magnus’ two front teeth are fake after getting them knocked out and bleeding everywhere and well. some people on the team might have found that a bit hot.

they all try and coach the peewee team which consist of angus, mookie, mavis, june, and other kids

angus is the unofficial team mascots and he always gets to hold the trophy first

anyway there’s more but i’m tired

[ness-writes]

First little one shot of character relationship exploring I’m doing for TAZ characters. This one got lengthy, as some do. I’m leaning toward a full fledged AU with single dad Taako and this was me getting a feel for it. Feel free to send in some requests for drabbles so i can explore some more relationships!

“Ango, let’s go, Lup is waiting on us!”

Taako slung a picnic basket over his arm, fixing the collar of his shirt in the mirror. He looked fucking cute, and the almost hour he’d spent doing his makeup seemed to be totally worth it. They were meeting everyone at the park for a picnic, their usual monthly meeting with their ‘family.’ Lup was waiting in the car outside with most of the rest of the food, and Angus was still in his room.

“Put some pep in you step, bubula, can we go?” Taako called again, finally hearing the shuffling of feet upstairs. A moment later, Angus was coming downstairs, outfitted in shorts, a button up shirt, and a sweater vest, wearing the very stylish sneakers Taako had gotten him the last time they’d gone shopping.

“S-sorry, Taako! I couldn’t find my wand.” He said sheepishly, wringing his hands in front of him. Taako rolled his eyes and ruffled his hair.

“Don’t apologize to me, pumpkin, apologize to your Aunt Lup.” Taako teased, hiking up the basket and pushing the door open.

Lup, rather dramatically, leaned all the way out of the window. “You boys are too slow, let’s goooo.”

“Sorry, Aunt Lup!” Angus called, jogging over to the car, already slightly breathless. It was sort of unusual for Angus not to have his entire life together, which Taako found a bit strange, but he still seemed in good spirits and was talking animatedly to Lup, so he figured it hadn’t been that important.

Lup grinned and gave Angus a hug leaning over the back seat as Taako climbed in, resting the picnic basket in his lap. “Yuck, you’re all sweaty.” She teased, kissing his forehead. “Been running?”

“Y-yes, I couldn’t find my wand and I had to—“

“No worries, kid, so long as we get this show on the road like, now.” She gave Taako a quick side hug before putting the car into drive, veering out of the driveway and down the road. “I think Magnus is bringing stuff to play kick ball, so just know I’m going to demolish you, Ango.”

Taako watched Angus smile from the backseat, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes all the way. The kid had never really been one for sports.

“Well that’s hardly fair, Lulu, kid’s half your size.” Taako said, rolling his eyes.

“But he’s magic, Taako, he can hold his own. Besides, Magnus can be on his team, that’ll definitely give him a heads up, right Angus?”

Angus nodded, smiling again and leaning to rest his head against the window. He looked tired. Maybe he was getting anxious at night again. He’d never been one to bottle anything up, really, but Taako knew he always had some degree of hesitance when it came to sitting down to talk about it.

“You tired, pumpkin?” Taako asked, finally, raising an eyebrow at him as he turned around in his seat to face him.

Angus chuckled, shaking his head. “A little bit, I guess. I must have stayed up too late reading last night.” He admitted, smiling sheepishly. “I’m okay though! I’m just excited to see everyone at the park.”

Taako nodded, vowing to bring it up later, before looking back toward the road.

The rest of the drive was filled mostly with Taako and Lup singing along to the radio and Angus’ tiny giggles from the back seat. They arrived at the park only a few minutes late, and Magnus and Avi met them at the car to help unload the food. Lucretia was out already setting out blankets in the shade of the trees that surrounded the clearing where there were bases already set up for a game of kickball.

Climbing out of the car, Taako barely had a second to breathe before Magnus was enveloping him in a crushing hug. As Taako rolled his eyes, Magnus moved on to follow suit with Lup and then with Ango, putting the kid on his shoulders and carrying him over to the clearing where Lucretia greeted him warmly.

Taako hated to admit how much he enjoyed these stupid, meaningless gatherings, but it was always good to see his friends and old teammates back together after the Bureau of Balance had officially disbanded.

“Taako, it’s wonderful to see you.” Lucretia said as he walked over, smiling at him, Angus already positioned in the shade next to her. “How have things been?”

“Great, great, Lucy. Things with Krav have been going great, Ango McDango here is killin’ this magic shit, Lup and I are working on the restaurant. Shit’s going pretty fuckin’ good. How’s about you? How’s that book coming along?”

“It’s going pretty good, I suppose.” Lucretia said, smiling. “I could use a proof reader, if I could borrow your charge sometime next week.” She mused, elbowing Angus.

Angus smiled tiredly up at her, the same strange, half smile he’d been doing all day. “I would love to proof read for you!”

“You heard it.” Taako said, smiling. “Come on and eat before it gets cold!” Taako called as he glanced at his phone, scrolling up to answer a text from Kravitz. He’d be there in a few minutes.

Taako made a plate for himself and one for Angus, handing it over to him and bumping him with his arm as he sat down. “You okay, bubula?” He asked, softly. “We don’t have to stick around if you’re tired, Ango, you know that.”

Angus shook his head quickly, rolling his eyes. “I want to stay! Really! And I want to see Mr. Kravitz. He’s coming, right?” He asked, blinking up at Taako as he, with carefully measured movement, took a bite of a sandwich.

“That he is. Should be here pretty soon.” Taako said, “Just, you let me know if you wanna make a run for it, okay?” Angus nodded earnestly in reply, and Taako sighed tiredly, leaning back on his hands.

Everyone chatted idly while they ate, practically the entire Bureau of Balance staff present, minus Merle, who was traveling with his kids. People complimented Taako and Lup’s cooking and asked questions about the restaurant and about how Angus was doing. Taako didn’t get up from his spot next to Angus until he heard the tell-tale noise of a portal from the astral plane being opened and Kravitz appeared somewhere near the edge of the clearing. Lup and Magnus both waved as Taako hopped up, jogging over to his boyfriend and throwing his arms around his neck. Avi whistled as they kissed, Taako rolling his eyes as he drew back.

“Hello, love.” Kravitz said, smiling. “How’s it going?”

“Hey, handsome. Shh, shh, give me a second to admire you.” He joked, resting a hand with perfectly painted nails on Kravitz’s cheek. “Mmm, nice, nice, very good. It’s going good, Krav. How’s about you?”

“Much better, now.” He smiled earnestly, kissing Taako once more before drawing away and taking his hand instead.

Kravitz had turned up right as everyone was finished eating, joining Taako on one of the picnic blankets as everyone got ready to play kickball in the clearing. Taako had taken up the official title of score-keeper and cheerleader, content to sit in the shade with his boyfriend while everyone chose teams. Lup and Magnus were captains, and just as his sister had predicted, Magnus picked Angus first.

Things got intense quickly, and while Taako chatted idly with Kravitz at the sidelines, he stopped several times to shout, “Fuck ‘em up, Ango!” as he went up to play.

“You’re quite the cheerleader, darling.” Kravitz teased, squeezing Taako’s hand.

“Oh hell yes I am—who else is gonna do it? I’m certainly not gonna sweat my ass off running around in these heels but I still want to be involved.” Taako said, looking up at him and grinning. “Besides, if I’m off playing how am I supposed to be with you?”

“Fair point.” Kravitz chuckled, kissing his forehead. “I like that you cheer for both teams.”

“Of course I cheer for both teams, what kind of loser—“

Taako paused when Lup shouted his name, glancing away from Kravitz and looking around for her. The game had come to a halt, and Magnus, Lup, and Barry were all standing around Angus, who was on the ground.

“Shit.” Taako breathed, pushing to his feet. He ran, actually fucking ran, over to where they were standing, glaring halfheartedly at the heap on the ground. “Whoever threw a ball at my kid is going to fucking suffer—“

“Nobody hit him, Taako, he just collapsed.” Magnus said, watching as Taako dropped down to his knees. Jesus, these tights were so getting grass stains.

“What do you mean he just collapsed? What the fuck happened?” Taako demanded, worry masked by anger seeping into his voice. Angus’ eyes were closed, but his face was scrunched up, and his hair was plastered to his face with sweat. Carefully, Taako lifted Angus up into his lap, cursing under his breath. “Gods, he’s fucking burning up.” He muttered, making quick work of wrangling him out of his sweater vest and untying the bowtie around his neck. “Ango? Hey, Angus, pumpkin, open your eyes.” He said, keeping his voice as firm as he could manage.

Lup and Magnus were both kneeling next to him, everyone else waiting a few paces away. Angus’ eyes fluttered, his eyebrows drawn, his gaze glassy. “W-what? What’s going on?” His voice was croaky and his focus was far away, but Taako felt the anxiety in his chest unfurl slightly. He pulled Angus closer into his arms and squeezed, tightly.

“Fuck, kid, you scared the shit out of me, what the hell?” Taako demanded, his voice muffled into his hair.

“I-I’m sorry, I just… I got a little dizzy, I guess I just…” Angus’ voice hitched, and Taako squeezed him tighter. “I didn’t mean to, to scare you…” He whispered.

Taako exhaled slowly, pulling back slightly and resting a hand against Angus’ cheek. “Okay, it’s okay. Don’t get worked up, you just… spooked me a little, yeah? Got ol’ Taako good.” He said, squeezing his arm.

“No tears, little dude, just relax. You could bake a cake on that forehead.” Lup said, fingers drifting across Angus’ face. “I think we need to get you out of here, huh?”

Angus looked like he was about to cry, but he nodded anyways, fingers curling into Taako’s shirt. Taako took that as initiative, standing carefully and hoisting Angus up on his hip. “Alright, bubula, hold on.” He muttered, squeezing him gently and giving him a second to get comfortable before he started walking.

Kravitz stood off in the shade, handing Taako his bag and kissing his cheek, soft and sincere despite the grimace he wore. “I’ll get all of this cleaned up and bring it to you later.” He said, his gaze worried as he glanced at Angus, who’d hidden his face against Taako’s shoulder and had gone alarmingly silent. “Do you think you’ll need a healer?”

Taako paused for a moment, noting how Angus tightened his grip on his shirt. “Not sure, yet. I’ll let you know. Thanks, Krav, I’ll see you later.” He muttered, kissing Kravitz quickly and carrying Angus toward the car, where Lup was already waiting.

“You better call me once you get this sorted out.” Magnus said, opening to door as Taako carefully stooped down and climbed into the back seat. The AC was blasting already, and Magnus pushed a bottle of water into his free hand as he got settled with Angus in his lap. “I can come by with anything you guys need.”

Taako nodded, carding his fingers through Angus’ hair and letting out a breath. “Yeah. Yeah, will do, Maggie. I’ll let you know.” He said, fingers stalling as Angus’ shoulders hitched with an uneven breath. “We’re gonna get home and get this one back in bed.” He said, giving Angus a squeeze.

“Yeah, okay, cool.” Magnus said. “Feel better, Ango, I’ll see you guys around.”

They received several waves from their crowd of friends as Lup drove off, Taako shifting slightly. “Hey, pumpkin, we’ll be home soon. How’re you holding up?”

Angus didn’t say anything, at first, shaking his head as his shoulders hitched with a hiccup. His breath was hot against Taako’s shoulder, his skin sweaty and clammy. “I’m s-s-sorry, Taako…”

Taako frowned, pulling Angus back just a little to get a good look at his face. “Woah, there. What are you apologizing for?” He lifted a hand to swipe away the tears that were gathering in his glassy eyes.

“F-for ruining our d-day out…” Angus hiccupped, his shoulders trembling with the effort to keep it together. “I just really wanted to… w-wanted to see everyone, and I know you wanted to see Kravitz, so I didn’t want to say that I wasn’t f-feeling well, and I just…”

“Slow down, bubula. It’s okay, it’s all cool.” Taako soothed, stroking along his cheeks. “Breathe, okay? It’s okay. You’re not in trouble.” He promised, trying to keep his voice measured. “Promise, really. You just take it easy for a minute and try to calm down. That’s all you’ve gotta do.”

Angus nodded just slightly as Taako conjured a handkerchief and wiped his face clean. Lup was quiet as she drove, and Angus simply slumped back against Taako’s chest when he couldn’t come up with anything else to say.

When they arrived home, Taako carried Angus inside and up to his room while Lup looted around for human medicine downstairs. Once they got inside of Angus’ room, Taako carefully deposited him on the bed and went to grab some pajamas, helping him get out of his sweat drenched clothes and into something lighter. Angus kept his eyes shut the entire time, too tired it seemed to even keep his head up.

“You are in for some well deserved z’s, Agnes.” Taako joked healfheartedly, tucking back a stray strand of hair and sighing. “And some dope ass soup, when you’re feeling up to it.” He said, trying for a little smile.

Angus nodded slowly, glancing up when Lup entered the room with a glass of water and a tiny cup of some kind of potion. “Alright, little dude, down this shit and you’re good to go.” She said, handing over the littler cup and waiting for him to drink it before handing over the water. “You’ve got a killer fever, there, but Merle said that oughta help with it.” She said, smiling and ruffling his hair gently. “I’ll be downstairs, Taako, if you need anything.” Taako shot her a grateful smile and sat back against the headboard of Angus’ bed, motioning for him to get comfortable.

Once they’d both gotten situated, fitting with practiced ease in the bed, Taako wrapped an arm around Angus and gave him a squeeze. “I’m gonna preface this by saying you’re not in trouble.” He began, fingers curling through Angus’ hair. “But that back there, that’s no good, kay? Fainting, all that—scared the crap out of me, Agnes, and that’s not gonna fly. Next time you’re not feeling good, you gotta speak up, okay?”

Angus nodded against his side, heavy lidded and worn down. “I’m sorry, Taako, I promise I won’t do it again… I just didn’t want to have to stay home when we haven’t seen everyone in so long…” He said, sighing. “I thought maybe it would just go away.”

“No dice there, huh? Like I said, I’m not mad or anything, but you can’t pull that shit again. You’re gonna give ol’ Taako a heart attack. If you’re missing the people, all you’ve gotta do it say so. We can organize more hang times. Capisce?”

“Yes, sir.” Angus said, nodding a little and settling further into Taako’s side. “Sorry you didn’t get to hang out with Kravitz for very long.”

Taako rolled his eyes. “You can make up for it later, kiddo. Just get some sleep, got it? Your croaky voice is pitiful.”

When Lup came up to check on them an hour later, she found Angus passed out in bed, Taakos arms wrapped dutifully around him as he combed his fingers through his hair like it was his job.

“You wanna break from babysitting duty?” She asked in a whisper.

Taako rolled his eyes. “I’ve got this. Do me a favor and call Mags, let him know Ango’s fine. It’s probably just some shitty human cold or something.”

Lup flashed him a thumbs up. “Can do. Barry’s gonna come over in a bit, he’s going to grab some stuff at the store for Angus. I’m raiding your fridge and borrowing your TV. Yell if you need something!”

Taako stuck out his tongue. “I need you to shut up before you wake up my kid. Do whatever you want.”

Lup blew a kiss at him, slipping out of the room just in time to miss the sappy look Taako gave Angus before settling back against the headboard to fulfill his duty as an elven pillow for the rest of the day.

[the-ipre]

Au where instead of Lup going missing looking for the gauntlet, Barry goes to try and find the Animus Bell and gets trapped in Wonderland

- Barry’s relic is not as loud as Lup’s is, but what he hears of it makes his heart sink. It is being used by liches who use the suffering of others to fuel their necrotic afterlife, and that idea makes him want to go full Reaper on them. He may be a lich, sure, but he is kept together by love, and by his connections to his family, and definitely not by torturing innocent people until every drop of misery is squeezed out of them and they die. His version of the “natural order” might not line up with the Raven Queen’s, but he has a strong set of morals and the way that his relic is being used goes against every single one of them, and he decides that he has to do something about it. Fewer people may be dying because of the Animus Bell, but every piece of their suffering is partially on him, and he can’t just stand by anymore.

- He leaves a note to Lup saying I love you, and that he shouldn’t be gone for too long, and then he teleports down to the world below. It isn’t hard to find Wonderland, what with how he’s been searching for any and all information that he can find about it, and when he gets there he is instantly on guard. Not that he wasn’t already, but he is a fan of working in labs and staying strictly out of the spotlight, and this place is all spotlights. It’s all noise, and blinding lights, but when a door opens with Barry’s name over it and an image of the Animus Bell projected on the fog screen, he just has to grit his teeth and head on in. He can’t stand the vogue elves who are like what the twins would be in a much worse timeline, but he keeps continuing on because he has to get his relic back. With every challenge and every new thing he loses and all the people he passes who have lost even more, he is ever more sure that he has to make sure this stops.

- There’s no healing in Wonderland but he can tell that Lydia and Edward are pulling their punches because they know that he’s a lich, and they seem mostly like they are keeping him busy and miserable while trying to figure out just what to do with him. Making his way through alone is rough, and the miasma of the place keeps telling him to give up, but he has to get the Animus Bell and if he can do that without burning his last body, that would be great. Besides, he is a powerful magic user, and he’s had a hundred years to hone his craft, and it’s not like he’s going to be taken down by a slime just because it keeps multiplying and also electrocutes him if he gets to close. He’s fine.

- He’s a bit shocked when they tell him that he made it to the final round, isn’t that excellent! At this point he’s lost half an arm and a fair few hit points and his vision is worse so his prescription doesn’t even fit him anymore and it doesn’t feel real that it’s all finally over, but who is he to look a gift horse in the mouth. Before he can do anything, though, the chime of a bell echoes through his head and a red-robed figure flies backwards out of the corpse that crumples to the ground. He has a moment to prepare to fight, to gather the negative energy that lies thick and heavy in the air and prepare to blast bolts of it at the lich twins, but then a voice that sounds very much like his curves around the back of his mind. You don’t want to do that, bud, it says, and his skeletal hands fall. Don’t you want to join them? He wants to say no, but before he can it continues. Well, not like you have a choice.

- The Animus Bell, which has control over the necrotic, takes control over its maker. Barry becomes a behind the scenes worker of Wonderland, always partially aware of what he is being forced to do but unable to stop himself from creating creatures to fight the contestants, from casting the spells to steal sacrifices after people spin the wheel, from doing his best to make it living hell for the sufferers who were bought by the idea of their greatest desire. He wants to call out when he sees Lucretia, and for a moment he does get a message across, but then the Bell’s hold wraps even tighter around him as the vogue elves tut. Lucretia loses so much, even after finding the answer to the persistent question of what happened to Barry, and she goes off to create the Bureau of Balance. Barry stays in Wonderland for ten years, fighting to hold onto himself, to hold onto his memories of Lup and Taako and all of the rest of the birds, even while he is unable to control himself. If he gets unstable he might tear the place apart, but he doesn’t know how he could get back to himself, not alone as he is.

- It is so, so long, and Barry suffers just as much as the others who come to Wonderland, but when he sees Merle, and Magnus, and Taako, and Lup, all coming in through the open tent flap, for the first time he feels hopeful. They might be a group of chucklefucks who don’t seem to remember all that they went through, but they are his family, and they’ve saved the world before. Maybe he can save himself for them. 

- Things get tougher, though, when he has to take their sacrifices. He is the one to magically sever Magnus’ finger, to take Merle’s darkvision and then the eye itself, to take Taako’s beauty and Lup’s intelligence and he is so close to breaking out of his shackles but he can’t quite do it yet. He just has to grit his skeletal teeth and watch his family suffer, and when the vogue elves are distracted he siphons away a little bit of energy, and then a little more. He’s been doing it for years, but never quite with a purpose other than stay undead and himself. Now, he has a reason to break free, and Lup is right there, and as he slurps up a bit more misery he feels power beginning to simmer under his necrotic flesh. He watches them fight, and he watches them survive, and when they make it to the final room and make their stand, he makes his as well. He puts on a show of force when the lich twins try to use the bell to kick Magnus out of his body as well, and with that tiny thinning of the power he is finally able to break free.

- A beam bursts through the top of the tent that holds Wonderland, and things fall apart, and things come together. The four reclaimers don’t know this red robed figure who saved them, but they gather the bell and listen when the dude talks, because something makes them want to trust him, and he did just save their asses. He goes back up to the moon with them, and Lucretia never had any reason to put up an anti-lich ward this time around, what with Barry being gone, and it sure is something of a shock when he appears and tells Lucretia you have to inoculate them, can’t you feel the Hunger almost here? She does, a mix of regret and fear as she looks at him, crackling with energy but finally here, and himself, and when the others finally remember they make themselves ready for the apocalypse. 

- When Lup gets her memories back the first thing she does is try to hug Barry, and when that doesn’t work she rests her forehead against where his should be, laughing and there are tears too, because Barry was gone for so long and she didn’t even know, but he’s here now, and sure the world may be about to end, but Barry’s back. Barry summons a mage hand to hold Lup’s face and for a moment they can ignore everything, that he’s dead and she lost her memory for a decade, that he lost himself for a decade and she can’t even hold him, and for a moment they can just exist together.

- Then the Hunger attacks, and the Voidfishes project their messages out into the planar system, and the world starts fighting back. Barry and Lup start fighting too, back to back as they sling spells, feeling safe, and at home, and in love, even as the world threatens to end, again. 

[randomstarmuffin]

Whoops ok sorry I'm neck-deep in au territory now so I'm reblogging this again. (Sorry if this already exists in the notes I'm not gonna look rn)

AU where this DID happen, and somehow Lucretia never knew so she still goes through with her plan like normal. She's running around the ship trying to round everyone up and is super emotional over the choice she's just made and they're like "oh hey sup cretia? U good?"

Specific (crack?) au idea:

Taako and Lup were the ones who were dared + drank from Fisher's tank

Lup is still missing in this au :(

But so what I'm saying is it's just Taako who's there and unaffected

He's not panicking bc he's not forgetting, so he doesn't kill Barry (so he's alive and does forget)

Taako realizes what's happened quickly and is rightly pissed at what Lucretia tried to/did do

However. As pissed as I think he'd be, there's still a big difference between the threat of having almost lost everything, the attempt at erasing his memories, and the canon version where he was so, so lost for a decade and had to deal with realizing just HOW lost he was in a matter of minutes during story and song.

Essentially, I'm saying that he's pissed at Lucretia but he didn't actually have to live through losing everything and so they're still antagonistic towards each other but it's not quite as tense as in canon (at the end)

For some contrived reason, Taako doesn't manage to or doesn't know to get to Fischer's tank then and there and make everyone remember

Insert aforementioned "sup, cretia?" moment here where Taako confronts her on the deck of the starblaster

Again, some contrived reason means Taako retreats and lets her go through with taking everyone else to the places she found for them (*including alive Barry)

Lucretia still makes the bureau

The bureau vs Extremely Terrible Red Robe Taako Taaco

He shows up on the moon base all "sup thugs nice moonbase, hm. Luce gets points for the drama of inventing a fake moon, but she loses points for excessive spheres. Hold up, is that a fantasy gachapon?"

(Leon is still harrassed in this au.)

((On that note, Garfield the Deals Warlock is probably also still Slicer of T'pire Weir Isles-ed too))

Anyways idk why, Contrived Crack Plot reasons, but Taako just lets them be for long enough that Lucretia can like have built it up a little I guess.

And while hes letting her do that, he assembles his own team

A team of coincidentally incompetent competent strangers

So yeah Taako almost immediately rounds up everyone else after Luce drops them off and convinces them to join him somehow idk

JULIA IS ALSO THERE

Bc Taako gets to the other boys quickly before Governor Kalen can fuck up Raven's Roost

And Magnus keeps getting "ooh wanna see some cute baby pics"-ed by this total stranger beautiful elf wizard guy somehow? Weird. The guy also keeps making up totally untrue stories about him, but, hey, Julia thinks it's kinda funny so who's Magnus to stop her from smiling, yknow

I still want Mookie to exist but I dont really know how to accomplish it. It's possible somehow but for now we ignore Merle and Hecuba bc idk how to reconcile it

Ok but heres what I'm actually trying to get to

Taako recruits Barry (somehow, why is this guy weirdly kinda charming? why does being around this group of misfits make the ache in his chest just a little lighter, since when was there an ache in his chest at all???)

And the thing is. Taako keeps volunteering Barry for every excessively dangerous task and Barry is ????????? But somehow either through awkwardness / not wanting to say no and somehow inevitably trusting this weird stranger, he always says ok?

But somehow, he never manages to die

In the words of my friend who sent me this post and had to hear the bones of this au in the first place, "Unkillable Barry that would be more helpful dead is so great"

Basically theres lots of banter all around, between the crew of People Who Dont Remember And Taako and then also between Taako and Lucretia

I'm trying to think of this antagonist dynamic and it's on the tip of my tongue but.. either way it's just them like knowing each others entire life story and not actually hating each other but just being at odds.

The bureau and uh... alternate tres horny boys? are both very confused bc they have no idea if Lucretia and Taako hate each other or want to have brunch together next weekend (and possibly they might have had brunch together the weekend previous?)

OH I've got it, sort of kind of like Magneto and Professor X, a little. That sort of vibe but like shifted a lil to the left

Anyways yeah. The ground crew find Lup and get her out quicker, Taako yells at her for making a magic focus that eats magic when she is MADE OF MAGIC, Lup yells at him bc "if *you're* so smart then why didn't you say anything sooner???"

They refuse to explain how they're siblings. By which I mean they keep coming up with more and more ridiculous and bogus reasons for Lup to be a lich and say something different every time they're asked: that they're really one soul split apart in a terrible necromantic ritual and theyll never be at peace again, or "what are you talking about, we look identical? Are you feeling ok?", or that Lup's husband had a thing for it and she just went with it (this devolves into a bunch of bickering literally 5 feet from Barold. Coincidentally, it is the closest to the actual truth that either of them ever say), or that Lup ate a really bad sandwich one day, or that it's actually TAAKO who's cursed to be so hot and beautiful for eternity, woe is him for losing his skeletal death-y body-less floating robe aesthetic...

But uh anyways yeah i guess that's all I got. Really just had to get this au out of my system before I could continue with my night. Apologies for going so off the rails on this post op, it is a very extremely good and true post and it made me laugh and then .2 seconds later after I thought I was moving on it made my brain go "!!!!"

The most unbelievable aspect of TAZ:Balance is that in all those years, on a ship inhabited by Merle, Magnus, Taako and Lup, nobody ever dared one of the others to drink from Fisher’s tank.