#this is. only loosely based on canon just because of how cool and mysterious she is in the books???

[meadow-roses]

okay kinda random and not really based on the books at all but quick headcanon dump about Jupiter and Lady Glen

Imagine, the new king has recently ascended to the throne. There's a good deal of unrest going on due to the wars within and around the borders. Natalia has not become a fully unified nation yet, despite all the work Walter Good did during his reign. One of the independent warrens see this as their chance to take control. Under the pretense of submitting to the Natalian monarchy, they send an assassin playing the part of ambassador to infiltrate the court, set the stage for a coup, and do away with this upstart-king. The problem is, in order for her to pull this off, she has to become a trusted member of the young king's inner circle. Despite her rigorous childhood training (or maybe because of it) Glen is not immune to the power of friendship, and eventually finds herself in a difficult situation. She can't go back to her old life without completing the mission, and at this point she doesn't want to go back. She's made a place for herself here in the Natalian court, has actually become a member of the friend group, and has fallen in love with the king (however unfortunately irrational that is 😔) She doesn't want to continue living this double life, but if she told them the truth would they believe that she'd truly changed sides? Treason is... a very serious offence that Jupiter as king can't just ignore.

When the warren Glen is from realizes the single assassin is not being successful, the malcontents attempt a more direct attack, and Glen ends up revealing her cool skills to defend the king and prove her loyalty.

[thefairyletters]

✨ Spooky Recs✨

I read a lot of fanfictions... More than I am proud of. I thought I should recommend as I go before I lose sight of their existence among the sea of my favorites.

Since past few days I have been craving for some creepy, unnerving fanfics that will keep me restless and awake at night. I remembered my favorites and wanted to read more of the kind so I looked up, patiently going through each story that sounded compelling. I also revisited old stories for nostalgia's sake.

Of course, rare as they are, in Naruto fandom no less, it's even harder to find a horror and mystery fic that is well written, not dropped under 2 chapters, and really keeps your attention.

🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹

Genre: Horror, Mystery, Comedy

I've rated 4 aspects of the work -

Writing – I don't judge writing based solely on the grammar and vocabulary. I also consider how the author expands upon a subject, if they are consistent with the facts, if they are able to keep the attention of the readers regardless of their creative writing skills.

Characters – If the characters are well-developed, in their given character, if OCs have any real significance to the story.

Plot – How gripping is the storyline, if the story sticks to its original plot, the structure of the story, plot holes.

Flow – Mother-of-slow-burn, slow-but-steady, steady, fast, I-am-speed

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When the flowers cry : TCOOKIES777 || M || AO3/FFN || SasuSaku || Goth Horror || Post-Canon, set during Blank Period || Ongoing

When one of the greatest medical-nin in the world goes missing in what should have been a simple delivery to the Land of Spring’s Hidden Snow Village, the rest of Team 7 must reunite to find her. But even the most powerful team of shinobi will find themselves challenged in a battle against the supernatural. With Sasuke's return, vengeful ghosts of the past will test him and his love.

My thoughts : One of the best stories I've read in a while, and top tier SS stories. I read this in one sitting. I never listen to music while reading, preferring silence, but for this one, I suggest you do as the author says. Also, keep some tissues and food with you. This story is major in mystery and minor in horror but otherwise full of SS fluff.

Writing: 10/10

Characters: 10/10

Plot: 9/10

Flow: Steady, if a bit confusing (but that's why it's mystery)

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Kyuro : silver_shot || T || AO3 || SasuSaku || Mystery || Post-Canon || Complete

“Oh,” says Naruto, “well, its sort of like that. Except in this village, the story has a way more darker ending – it basically goes like this: the girl and the guy plan to run away together. The guy steals a bunch of treasure, and stashes it away. But then, when he goes to get the girl at her village, he kills her and decides to run away with all that money. But then he is killed by the guards of the girls village and now they're both dead and the treasure is hidden away somewhere”. Sasuke stares blankly at the blond, “that story makes no sense”.

My thoughts : I know you must be thinking the same thing as Sasuke – "makes no sense". I did too, but it's a pretty cool short story. It lies on the funny, creepy side that slowly starts to lose its funny touch. SS makes stupid mistakes later on but it could be because they are MCs. The ending is very ambiguous. It's not my favorite mystery but it is something. Enjoyable read but not something I will pick again.

Writing: 8/10

Characters: 8/10

Plot: 8/10

Flow: Fast

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Moon stuttering in the sky : xfrinz || T || AO3 || Gen || Mystery || Pre-Shippuden || One-shot

Kakashi is suspicious of many things about Haruno Sakura. Too many things about her don't make sense, with too many incongruous explanations.

My thoughts : Author of this story just summarised Pre-Shippuden in less than 4k words and made some tiny changes to it. Not much though. One of my favorite gen fics yet. Read it if you haven't yet. You'll feel more sad than thrilled tbh. But worth it.

Writing: 10/10

Characters: 10/10

Plot: 10/10

Flow: I-am-Speed

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Breath mints : silver_shot || T || AO3 || SasuSaku || Comedy-Mystery || Post-Canon || Ongoing (maybe)

Their home no longer exists with the life it once had – in fact no settlement thrives anymore; they exist only in a snapshot that contradicts time itself. Families within their own homes sleep in a slumber that they cannot wake from. Those that were chatting on the street prior to the event simply drop their heads and remain unresponsive.

My thoughts : I picked it up for Mystery but I stayed for Comedy. But of course that's not to say supernatural elements in this story is not it, but it sure pales in comparison to effortless humor in this story. Lee and Kiba pair is something you don't see often but they get along too well here. Charactisation is on point as well. SS angst! + NS angst (but it's downplayed)

Writing: 10/10

Characters: 10/10

Plot: 9/10

Flow: Steady

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The Curse : sincerelyLen || T || FFN || SasuSaku || Horror || Post-Canon || Ongoing

Team 7 is unexpectedly assigned an S-Ranked Mission involving an unsolved mystery of 10 years. An eerie adventure that will test their teamwork, strengths, and greatest fears. Do you believe in Curses?

My thoughts : My all-time favourite horror Naruto fanfiction. To me, this sets the standard of how mystery and horror elements should be handled. I have never been able to get this story out of my mind even it's been years. Perfect charactisation of Team 7 with Smart-yet-Stupid!Sakura, I-can-fight-aliens-and-reanimated-corpses-but-keep-ghosts-away-from-me!Naruto and I-dont-get-paid-enough-for-this!Sasuke. I especially love OCs here. They kinda reminds me of Pillars from KnY. You must read this story, loosely based on Zombie apocalypse + curse concept.

Writing: 10/10

Characters: 10/10

Plot: 10/10

Flow: Slow-but-Steady

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Silent High : Istoria || T || FFN || Gen || Mystery || Post-Canon || Complete

A bit of the Silent Hill series mixed in with Naruto. Trapped in an illusion whose rules are unknown, they struggle to find answers before darkness consumes them.

My thoughts : One of the best mystery fanfictions I've read. I especially loved how this story handled Genjutsu in the best possible way it could without it turning into some cliche, ghost story. Though really, this story has shown what my greatest fear actually is. I will never be able to leave my back open to a wheelchair. This story has simple writing yet it gives you creeps with the twists and turns. A must read one because it is unlike any other in this list.

Writing: 9/10

Characters: 10/10

Plot: 10/10

Flow: Steady

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Silence of the Damned : Daystar Clarion || T || FFN || Gen || Psychological Horror, Mystery(?) || Pre-Shippuden || One-Shot

When Naruto wakes up to a dead body in his bathroom, he begins a quick spiral into madness.

My thoughts : Listen to Halsey's Control while reading this. Quite chilling, deals with mental issues and morbid but in a fascinating way. It gives a new meaning to Dark!Naruto, but one that actually makes sense. I never saw the ending coming... I had something else in mind and I was convinced it would be, but nope. Here's a sequel to this One-Shot (Uzumaki's War) which I never picked up.

Writing: 10/10

Characters: 9/10

Plot: 9/10

Flow: Slow-but-steady

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To the Victor : Letta || T || FFN || NaruSaku || Psychological Horror || Shippuden || One-Shot

Naruto loses the fight and Sakura is a trophy of war.

My thoughts : A very twisted NS, if you squint. It's not horror but it might as well be... it is still a disturbing story to see from the eyes of Sakura. Quite chilling to be in Sakura's shoes. But I love this because it is one shot and I loved the ending.

Writing: 9/10

Characters: 10/10

Plot: 8/10

Flow: Steady

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Under the Skin : BukkakeNoJutsu || T || FFN || Team 8 || Body Horror || Pre-Shippuden || One-Shot

Your actions don't make you a monster. Your reasons do.

My thoughts : There's a reason why Shino is my favourite team 8 member. In my opinion, Shino is also one of the strongest Shinobi of his generation. His clan techniques are just that horrifying. This story is testament to that. He is so terrible.

Writing: 10/10

Characters: 10/10

Plot: 10/10

Flow: Slow-but-steady

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Instant Message : Keelah || T || FFN || SasuSaku || Murder mystery || Modern AU || Incomplete

She gave him names to kill, in order not to be killed herself. But having blood on her hands was turning out to be much worse than dying. "…There's still round 2…3…4…" When does this game end? She asked. "Don't you see, Sakura?" He said, "It never does."

My thoughts : I read this story a long time ago and have read this twice. Personally, it has the most interesting concept of all stories in the list. It reminds me of Vocaloid series, "Bookmark of the end". Kind of. To those who are thinking of picking this up, go ahead! It's a great book and has one of the best suspense I've read in Fandom. BUT, it has been stopped in mother-of-all-cliffhangers and Author is MIA for 4 years now. But, all things considered, it remains to be one of the best stories I've read.

Writing: 10/10

Characters: 9/10

Plot: 10/10

Flow: Steady

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Monomoth : Ohtze || M || FFN/AO3 || SasuSaku || Horror || AU || Incomplete

Everything ends, eventually. Eight years after the war, Sakura's unhinged and Sasuke's obsessed. The fields are filled with corpses.

My thoughts : I read this story right after "The Curse", my favourite. From what I remember, Sakura and Sasuke are both mentally deranged, in different ways. Lots of death and gore to stomach, so not for weak readers. There's no speak of fluff in this one. Zero, Zilch, Nada. I wouldn't call it your classic 'Horror', but it is very disturbing, so psychological horror is more like it. Don't eat food while reading this one. Did I mention how Sakura is mentally disturbed beyond help in this one? And Sasuke is obsessed. If these suit your tastes, go ahead.

Writing: 10/10

Characters: 9/10

Plot: 10/10

Flow: Slow

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I hope you enjoy this list. Let me know your opinion in comments.

[awoken-lights]

NAME :  Bo, it’s not this legally yet but I am in the middle of trying to get my name legally changed soooo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

NICKNAME : Boo & Gremlin are the two most common I think, Kana is used too. Pretty much am always down for more though lol

FACECLAIM :   I don’t have one.

PRONOUNS :   They/Them, I respond to she/her out of habit, but prefer they/them.

HEIGHT :   5′7″ ish? I don’t remember

BIRTHDAY :   May 7th

AESTHETIC :  I am very much the edgy type, dark colors with golden accents, gothic, scary stuff, etc.

LAST  SONG  YOU  LISTENED  TO :  Paralyzed by Mystery Skulls

FAVOURITE  MUSE(S)  YOU’VE  WRITTEN : Probably; Kayden (my soulsborne oc that I’m also active on), Isiel, Coreopsis, Ehries, Rhialla, & though Halo is new I am really enjoying her.

⤷ GETTING  TO  KNOW  THE  ACCOUNT

WHAT  INSPIRED  YOU  TO  TAKE  ON  THIS  MUSE : Well, I pretty much only write OC’s and even when I put them in canon roles (like Isi being the YW/part of the YW fireteam) I usually tend to decide to RP my OC’s if I think they’ll be fun to RP, because I’m hoping that RP will help with developing them as a character. Most of the time I just pick the OCs that I think will be the most fun to RP.

FAVOURITE  ASPECTS  OF  YOUR  CURRENT  MUSE :  For Isiel, it’s a couple things. I love writing characters that show devotion through loyalty and love and while it’s not something I necessarily write as often as I’d like, Isiel is very much a ‘ride or tie’ type of person both platonically and romantically. I also like the way she tries to balance being hopeful for the future & more potential relations (both platonic and romantic) & not loosing her sense of fun/playfulness while being a somewhat cynical person who has experienced so much loss and bloodshed that she has a warped view of herself as being part humanity and part burning monster. I think the way she struggles and tries to handle her mental health issues as well is also probably one of my favorite things about her because it just impacts so much of what I write for/with her. For Coreopsis (since they’re the second most written muse here) I think one my favorite aspects is how, no matter how soft they appear and are, they’re also 100% willing to throw down (and even yell at a paracausal force of nature/deity apparently) for the ones they love and care about. Coreopsis knows what it’s like to be betrayed in the worst situations and so now, when they give out loyalty, it is partially based on gut instinct and partially from careful consideration. I also love their constant nature and their love of taking old/unloved/broken things (namely rusted metals or broken bits of pottery) and turn them into something beautiful as a way of coping with their own trauma.

BIGGEST  INSPIRATION(S)  TO  WRITING :  Some of the time (maybe half?) it’s the idea/set up of a thread that makes me want to write it out. Otherwise, it’s usually music related to my muses (listening to music and making animations in my head), seeing/making aesthetics, or seeing quotes that give me an idea that I want to write out, and art of tropes/dynamics usually helps too.

FAVOURITE  TYPES  OF  THREADS :  I LOVE fluff and wholesome things in threads, hurt/comfort is probably my highest placed favorite because I think it’s important to show the trauma and angst (either from backstory or previous threads or based on ideas/plotting) and then giving the characters a chance to recover or discuss what happened with someone who cares about them and wants to be there for them/help them out with dealing with the pain. I also like angst (esp when it’s done for character development/is done with plotting) and while I’ve never really done any of this kind, I think fighting threads (either with the muses fighting together or each other) are really cool and seem like a lot of fun.

Tagged by: @pollaplous (Thank you Kindy :D I give you soup and bread <3)

Tagging: @cosmicdeities, @yellowfingcr, @arcbright, @arcwarlord, @acehuntd,  @orphidian, and whoever else wants to do this!

[innovativestruggles]

Daisuke & Suzue’s Relationship Is Still Unclear

Okay I just finished watching Episode 4 and ta-da!~ Daisuke discloses that Suzue is a relative.

At first I thought it was the most anti-climatic reveal - ever (actually, it still is!). He said it so monotonously as well. Was pretty funny. 

Anyways, I gotta be really honest here but something really really does not sit well with me. What I mean by that is Suzue’s very over enthusiastic lovey dovey (almost obsessive) behaviour towards Daisuke. 

I am wondering whether this anime is going down the cousin x cousin pathway? Like they do in Black Butler re; Ciel x Elizabeth or something. Because it’s common in anime shows for this whole cousin x cousin thing going on I don’t know. Regardless, i have my theories. So let’s hear it.

The reason why I decided not to drop this whole Daisuke x Suzue relationship kinda thing even after Daisuke disclosed Suzue is a relative are for the following reasons;

1. The OP. OMFG THE OP!

JUST LOOK AT THEM OMG! SERIOUSLY?! It is so fucking romantic and don’t go making weirdass excuses that this is considered normal in an incestuous relationship. Because it is not. Gross.

2. Like i mentioned earlier, Suzue is way too over the top, almost obsessive with Daisuke. In the novel, she is Daisuke’s father’s secretary, so she does tend to the every day needs of the Kambe family as well. To what extent I don’t know but it seems the anime extrapolated this a bit more. Either way, the anime is following the novel quite a bit here.

3. Suzue being the relative completely disregards the sibling theory (which a lot of us non-sibling theory believers have used canonical evidence to dismiss). It also explains why she may look slightly similar to Daisuke. Who knows? But she may also not be blood related as well (see below).

4. Daisuke did not specify what sort of relative she is to him. A cousin? Distant cousin? Cousin’s cousin? How far away? Did one of her parents remarry into the Kambe family and therefore she is considered a Kambe? What about adopted family member? In the novel, Daisuke specifically stated to Suzue that she is “like family” and “consider [you] as family.” Also in the novel, when Suzue plays the decoy role, she would tell people (the men she tries to woo in order to catch them) that she and Daisuke are related/family.

5. I know the anime is loosely based on the novel, but judging from what I have seen so far and comparing novel vs. anime, there are quite a lot of elements they preserved. So I am not surprised that they are following the novel quite closely, with the exception of Haru as an anime only character (and some other bits and bobs).

6. I also noticed something as well in the episode

Daisuke never revealed to the audience why he left the mansion in the first place but it definitely has something to do with Suzue. There is still a lot of mystery that surrounds her and he seems quite rattled when he saw those (creepy) messages from Suzue cropping up on billboard signs and cash registers (lmao!). Even upon his return, he didn’t really acknowledge her, whereas the reverse reaction could be seen with Suzue.

In the novel, Suzue is extremely fond of Daisuke. Conversely, Daisuke is a bit standoffish with Suzue and i am getting very similar vibes regarding their relationship in the anime as well. So again, if they follow the novel, I don’t know whether Daisuke said “Suzue is a relative” because he just considers her as family or whether she is truly blood related. And again, I feel as if the show is still deliberately leaving their true relationship hidden. 

7. They are being vague again. First it’s her as ‘Kambe’ without specifying the relationship, then it’s ‘his grandmother’ without mentioning Suzue, now it’s ‘she’s a relative’ without showcasing what type of relative. I.e. Mikasa from Attack on Titan considers herself “as family” to Eren, so there could be that type of dynamic based relationship between Daisuke and Suzue as well. Who knows?

8. Can I revisit the crazy over the top Suzue again please? THIS WOMAN HAS LOST A LOT OF SLEEP OVER THIS MAN WHO DISAPPEARED FOR LIKE LESS THAN A DAY! And she is overly dramatic, lost her cool and just...i don’t know, but THIS WOMAN BEEN SITTING OUTSIDE JUST WAITING FOR HIM TO COME HOME! AND LOOK AT HER FACE! JUST LOOK AT HER BLUSHING FACE WHEN SHE SEES HIM!

And Daisuke is just as standoffish as ever. I don’t know about you but based on the vast anime I’ve watched, Suzue fits a very certain stereotype - that is, when a character likes someone, they act very overly possessive, protective and just wishy washy ...you know what I mean...so regardless of whether she is a relative or not, I am quite certain that Suzue has feelings for Daisuke.

9. The producers specifically stated in the interview that they added depth to Suzue’s character whilst preserving the original novel Suzue. I can definitely see this being done with her character personality. With regards to her relationship status to Daisuke, I honestly think it would be very poor on their part to turn a non-blood related love interest into a blood-related non-love interest. Just saying. I mean, they might have done it, but again, they did not specify anything. Suzue could still not be blood related (as Daisuke did not make it very clear). But if she is, I am curious to know how distant they are from each other. Would it be like so distant that they can still be considered as potential partners? I.e. Uchiha clan in Naruto or Soma family in Fruits Basket. Members from these families are all considered as relatives to one another (either by blood (distant blood) or marriage) and this could very well be similar in this circumstance re; Daisuke and Suzue.

10. Suzue’s role in the house is interesting. Especially attending to Daisuke’s everyday needs. I am wondering whether it is a hierarchal thing (because this can happen in certain families where there are main families and branch families) or whether again, Suzue was just adopted into the family/seen as a family member, but have taken on the role of attending to Daisuke’s needs. I find it very interesting how Suzue switched from calling Daisuke without honourifics in front of Haru, to calling him Daisuke-sama. That just means there is definitely a hierarchal difference and she is there for serve. Whether as a lower member of the Kambe family or secretary turned adopted family member, I am unsure.

Concluding Thoughts

These are all very speculative of course and I don’t like taking things on face value, especially when they hyped up Suzue’s mysteriousness from the very beginning. Something just does not sit right with me with the reveal and I think what really put me off drawing a solid conclusion was Suzue’s infatuation like behaviour towards Daisuke and how Daisuke was STILL vague about Suzue being ‘a relative.’ 

Of course, all this could be redundant and they may just stop it at Daisuke and Suzue are relatives. But I honestly doubt it. I really think there is more to it than meets the eye. There are 7 episodes left and they still have yet to reveal more family issues on Daisuke’s end. I think we will see a lot of this in the coming eppys.

Anyways, until the anime fully confirms the exact nature of Daisuke and Suzue’s relationship - if they are relative, what kind of relative? - then I will keep speculating.

And please feel free to refute any of the stuff I just said as long as you can back it up with some sort of evidence (either from the novel or anime itself). I know the anime is only based loosely on the novel but because I can see the anime drawing quite a lot of stuff from it, I will accept it as some form of canonical evidence. Please be civil and respectful. That’s all I ask.

Happy Speculating !~

[peppersonironi]

Hey, Sis! (Batfam/Young Justice Crossover)

{Read on Ao3}

Rating: General Audiences

Category: Gen

Fandoms: Batman - All Media Types, Batman - Comics, Young Justice (Cartoon)

Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake, Tim Drake & Members of the Team (Young Justice), Tim Drake & Cassie Sandsmark, Tim Drake & Jaime Reyes, Tim Drake & Garfield Logan, Tim Drake & La'gaan, Cassandra Cain & Bruce Wayne, 

Characters: Tim Drake, La'gaan (DCU), Jaime Reyes, Garfield Logan, Cassie Sandsmark, Bruce Wayne, Unnamed Drug Dealers, Megan M'orzz, Members of the Team (Young Justice), Dick Grayson, Bart Allen, 

Additional Tags: Meet the Batfamily (DCU, )Humor, BAMF Cassandra,  Cain, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Batfamily (DCU, )Cassandra Cain is Black Bat, Good Older Sibling Cassandra Cain, Tim Drake-centric, Protective Batfamily (DCU), Caring Batfamily (DCU), Team, Cassandra Cain is an angel, A deadly one!, Batfam Meets Young Justice

Summary: “How is she doing that,” Cassie muttered in awe as the woman leapt above the heads of some goons, bringing them crashing down before moving on to others.“That can’t be real,” Jaime replied, “Not even Nightwing is that good.”Tim held back the urge to chuckle. They didn’t know the half of it.

AKA: Gamma Squad is in a bit of a pickle, and a mysterious figure rescues them. (Spoiler: it's Cass)

A/N: Just a short interlude while I work on the next installment in this series (It'll have ALL members of the batfam in it. I've only written a 1/4, and it's already over ten pages. So that's why it's taking so long!). This one has BAMF!Cass, so what else is required?Once again, post season 2, but ignoring season three. Batfam haven't introduced themselves to the Team, so they think it's only Dick and Tim, and they know Babs is Oracle.Oh, Cass wears her Batgirl Costume, but goes as Black Bat. I just think they fit better, y'know?

Text:

“Okay, this is bad.”

Tim looked over to where Jaime was struggling in his bonds, and sighed. He was right, this was definitely not how the mission was supposed to go.

It was just supposed to be a recon mission - no, really - where they gathered info on a drug ring in Washington DC that seemed to be spreading a type of crack that affected metahumans in negative ways. The plan was to sneak around their base by the docks, see how much supplies they had, the number of thugs, and their set up. Because of this, only Gamma Squad was sent, consisting of Robin, Blue Beetle, Lagoon Boy, Beast Boy, and Wonder Girl.

La’gaan had gone in first, using the water as cover, but they had lost contact quickly. The others had gone in to provide backup, and within fifteen minutes, they were all tied up. Cassie was also knocked unconscious, tied with her own lasso.

Tim wiggled around under the ropes, bringing his ankle just within reach.

“What are you doing?” Gar whispered.

Tim slipped a finger into his boots and pressed his panic button. He looked over to Garfield “Calling for help,” he whispered back.

Jaime frowned. “But everyone is already out on separate missions. They won’t get to us for hours.”

Tim shrugged. “Batman will think of something.”

“He better,” La’gaan muttered.

*****

Half an hour later, and no one had come. The group was restless, especially with Cassie having woken up ten minutes before.

Everyone perked up, however, when the door opened up. But it wasn’t a rescue. Instead, the Boss stood smirking in the opening as over a dozen thugs streamed around him and began to pull them up and out the door into the main area of the warehouse.

Cassie and La’gaan began to struggle, but Tim sent them a look that clearly conveyed his thoughts: “Stand down, see what info we can gather and wait for backup.”

They rolled their eyes, but stopped resisting.

Soon enough they were tied in a group by some crates in the warehouse, surrounded by forty goons in varying levels of armed. The drug Boss stood a little ways away from them, just out of arm’s reach.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

No one spoke.

The man sighed. “I guess we’ll do this the hard way, then.” He motioned to a woman standing to the side, and she came forward carrying a toolbox. He reached in and pulled out a wrench. “Who’s first?”

Tim bit his lip and glanced at the Team. He was prepared to go in their stead, but what was taking the others so long? Why hadn’t Bruce sent someone? He opened his mouth to offer himself up when it happened.

The skylight shattered, and a figure dressed all in black fell through. Their cape snapped open, slowing their fall just enough for them to roll safely to the floor and spring up in a fighting stance. Tim grinned at the new arrival.

The femine figure stood dressed in a leather and kevlar suit with the yellow outline of a bat, utility belt, and cowl with bat ears and stitching over her mouth. Her cape flowed around her shoulders, pooling at her feet.

There were several cries of alarm at the sight, and Tim felt his team tense behind him, not knowing the figure. The young woman didn’t say anything, only tilting her head in a curious manner.

“What are you waiting for?” the Drug lord announced, waving his wrench around, and stumbling back, “get -”

He was suddenly cut off by the woman’s hand darting out and jabbing a pressure point in his neck. He collapsed to the floor without another word.

For a long moment, no one breathed. Then the thugs rose up like an angry wave and attacked.

The woman rose up to meet them, efficiently taking down whoever came in her way. She spun and kicked out at three thugs, turning just as quickly to flip over and strike a pair of women with baseball bats. She fought so effortlessly, it was almost like she was dancing.

“How is she doing that,” Cassie muttered in awe as the woman leapt above the heads of some goons, bringing them crashing down before moving on to others.

“That can’t be real,” Jaime replied, “Not even Nightwing is that good.”

Tim held back the urge to chuckle. They didn’t know the half of it.

Soon enough, the warehouse which had previously been filled to the brim with criminals had transformed into a sea of groaning bodies atop the floor.

The woman turned to them at that moment, and strolled confidently through the masses. She stopped directly in front of Tim, staring down at him.

“You,” she proclaimed confidently, “are an idiot.”

Tim grimaced. “Hey, our intel didn’t cover how much man power they had! We thought we’d be fine.”

She continued to look down at him.

“You gonna let me loose?”

She didn’t let up.

Tim sighed. “Okay, I’m sorry. I won’t go into any more reckless situations, which cause you to have to come get me out.”

She nodded. “Not true, but okay.”

She knelt down and pulled out a sharped batarang. Within seconds, Tim’s bonds were cut loose. She turned and helped him free the others.

“Who are you?” Jaime asked, eyes wide when everyone was freed.

The woman tilted her head and looked to Tim, somewhat expectantly.

Tim sighed. “This is Black Bat,” he said, “my sister.”

*****

“I still can’t believe you have a sister,” Cassie said, glancing back to where Cass was patching a scrape on her arm in the back of the batplane she’d flown to DC.

“Let alone one that’s so freaking cool!” Garfield added, grinning.

“Seriously,” Jaime said, echoing Cassie’s earlier thought, “How did she do that stuff? I thought Batman didn’t allow metas in Gotham?”

Tim resisted the urge to laugh, thinking of a certain glow-in-the-dark brother of his. “Black Bat isn’t a meta … she’s just awesome.”

His teammates rolled their eyes, but didn’t get a chance to say anything else as Cass made her way to the front, a bandage around her left bicep. She looked around, eyeing everyone, before moving to the pilot’s seat. She sat down and turned off autopilot.

“Almost there,” she said, “sit.”

*****

“What do you mean ‘they were compromised’!” M’gann exclaimed, glaring at Batman. “Why didn’t you tell us?!”

Batfam frowned - oh, what a surprise - “You were on a separate mission, and you couldn’t be pulled.

“Of course we could be pulled,” M’gann argued. “They’re members of the Team, and when they’re in trouble, we help!”

“You weren’t necessary,” Batman said, and quickly continued when M’gann opened her mouth again, “I already sent one of my own operatives to aid them.”

M’gann frowned. “But the new intel said there were ten times as many henchmen there than previously thought! How could oneperson get them out of that?!”

Suddenly, Dick started to laugh. Everyone whirled to face him, only to find the acrobat leaning against a wall, trying to catch his breath.

“Oh gosh,” he said after a moment, “You sent her?”

Batman nodded.

Dick straightened and let out a long sigh. “Oh, those thugs don’t stand a chance.”

Batman nodded. “That was the thought.”

The Team looked back and forth between them. There was something they were missing, right?

An alert sounded, and the group turned to the now opening bay in the mountain. In which flew a sleek black jet - clearly a Batplane. It came in and set down beside the bio ship. A moment later, it opened up.

Out strolled a petite figure dressed in all black, with bat ears and a yellow Batsymbol on their chest. Honestly, she looked like a female batman. Except Batman didn’t have that weird stitching over his mouth.

Behind her Gamma Squad followed tentatively. Robin came out and stood by Nightwing, and the others slowly made their way to the group.

The Team’s eyes, however, were on the stranger. She continued up  till she was face-to-face with Batman.

“Hello, Black Bat,” the Dark Knight said, “Did the mission go well?”

Black Bat nodded. “Idiots, but safe.”

Why did Batman look like he was resisting the urge to smile? Or maybe that smallest corner of his mouth was twitching from all that frowning he did. Yeah, that must be it.

She tilted her head. “You were worried.”

Batman sighed, looking long at her, pointedly ignoring the stares of the surrounding heroes. “Yes.”

She nodded, then stepped forward and gave him a hug.

Black Bat wrapped her arms around Batman.

Hug.

Physical affection.

What was going on?!

Oh, but the real kicker was when he hugged her back. They held onto each other for a few seconds before Black Bat pulled back.

“Send me out more,” she said, “avoid stupid.”

Robin let out a yelp. “Excuse me? It was one time! Not my fault the info was outdated!”

Batman and Black Bat turned simultaneously to stare him down. The boy wonder shrinked a little and slunk behind Nightwing under the combined glares of the bats.

Oh yes, this girl was totally Batman’s mini-me.

Batman turned back to the girl and nodded. “You can join on a mission or two. Might keep the boys in check.”

Black Bat nodded. “Boys are dumb.”

Batman didn’t have a chance to reply, as at that exact moment, Bart ran into the room from where he’d been getting after mission snacks.

“Oh my gosh, why didn’t you tell me Black Bat was here?” He demanded.

“Do you know her?” M’gann asked.

Bart shook his head. “No, but I know of her!” he turned to Black Bat, vibrating in excitement. “You’re incredible, did you know that? You were one of my favorite bats to learn about!” he paused for a split second, in which he flashed away and came back with a notebook and pen in his hand. “Could I have your autograph?”

Black Bat nodded and took the supplies. A moment later, however, she looked back at him. “I … uh, can’t … um, you know …”

Bart looked confused for a moment, and then brightened. “Oh, right! Could you draw a picture then?”

Black Bat tilted her head before opening up the pages and drawing a big smiley face on it. With Bat ears.

Bart’s eyes were filled with pure joy as he looked down at the simple drawing. “IhavetheautographfromsomethatcankickShiva’sbutt!”

Bart left with a grin on his face and a whoosh of air. A moment later, a loud crash came from the recreational area.

“I’m okay!”

Batman sighed. “He broke something I’m going to have to pay for, didn’t he?”

Black Bat  hummed as she reached up and patted his head comfortingly.

It was at this point that M’gann had had enough. First, she wasn’t alerted when members of her Team were in jeopardy. Then, and unknown operative was sent in without her consent. Now, said operative just gained permission from Batman to join the group?

“Who is she!?” M’gann demanded, her hands on her hips.

The pair of bats turned on her at that moment, but she didn’t back down. After a moment, Batman spoke.

“This is Black Bat, my daughter. She is incredibly skilled and operates in Hong Kong and Gotham.”

The young woman seemed to preen under the praise.

“You have a daughter?” Conner asked.

Robin and Nightwing looked to each other before saying in unison: “Spoilers!”

Batman glared at them before turning back to the group. “Yes, I do.”

M’gann considered the girl, she seemed capable, if she could save Gamma squad from what apparently were impossible odds. And it would be nice to get more girls on the Team …

“Fine,” she said, turning to Black Bat, “You can come join us on a mission or two, if you want.”

Black Bat bounced on her heels in excitement.

Nightwing turned to Batman. “You know if she’s allowed to join, the others will want in too.”

There was a pause, then M’gann asked quietly.

“Others?”

[sheliesshattered]

This Isn’t A Ghost Story - Chapter 4

Whouffaldi non-canon AU. 8 chapters, will be about 32,000 words when complete. Rated Mature for heavier themes, including in this chapter, please contact me privately if you’re worried about triggering topics. Clara Oswald/Twelfth Doctor. Mystery, pining and angst with a happy ending. Available on AO3 under the same username and title. Updates every Friday.

This Isn’t A Ghost Story

Chapter 4: The Past

By the time she arrived at the house, Clara’s hands were shaking so badly, it took her three tries to unlock the front door. Her tears hadn’t stopped the entire drive over, and in the two a.m. darkness her sniffling sounded loud in her own ears.

Finally managing to fit the key into the lock, she let herself into the foyer and closed the door behind her. She dropped her keys and purse on the table, but couldn’t make her fingers uncurl from the crumpled coroner’s report still clutched in her other hand. The house was silent, dimly lit by a lamp in the parlour and another at the top of the stairs, and for a moment she was seized by a sense of déjà vu so strong it was nearly vertigo. It had only been a few hours since she’d gone home for the evening, but it felt like she’d been away for far longer than that. She needed her ghost, she needed to talk to him after all that she’d read, she needed—

“Clara?” came his voice before she could call out to him, and she felt her breath leave her in a rush. She had never been so grateful to hear his familiar voice, and she looked up at him, finding him standing at the top of the stairs. “What are you doing here?” he went on, sounding concerned, as he descended the staircase towards her. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“I— I had to see you,” she said, her voice shaking almost as badly as her hands, and she swiped roughly at the wetness on her cheeks. “I couldn’t wait ‘til the morning.”

His steps quickened, and he didn’t stop until he was barely an arm’s length from her, seeming reassuringly solid and real in the dim light. “What’s wrong?” he asked, searching her face. “What’s happened?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she told him, stumbling over her words as her tears continued to fall, “and the box was— I had to know. I read her journal, I couldn’t stop myself. You were trying to protect me, and I just—” She cut herself off, shaking her head, trying to sort through her jumbled thoughts. “The twenty-third of November,” she forced out, looking up at him.

His expression shuttered. “What about it?” he asked warily.

“I was born on the twenty-third of November, 1986.”

“Clara, I am aware of your birthdate,” he said evenly.

She held up the crumpled paper in her hand. “Twenty-third of November, 1928. That’s the day she, the day my great-grandmother—”

“Yes,” he interrupted her.

“I was born fifty-eight years to the day—”

“Yes,” he said again, even more forcefully. “And? What is it exactly that you’re asking?”

She stared at him, grasping for the words as tears slipped down her cheeks. “Why?” she finally said. “Why would she do that to herself? Why would she leave her three month old child like that?”

He studied her face for a long moment. “I think you know why, my Clara,” he said softly.

“I don’t,” she shook her head, tears thick in her voice. “I’m trying to understand. I tried the entire drive over here, but I don’t— Why?”

He looked away, chewed at his lip. “You asked me once, when you were about eight years old, when it was that I died. Do you remember that?”

Clara nodded. “1927. You wouldn’t tell me the date, but you said it was in 1927.”

“I couldn’t very well tell you,” he said slowly, “at eight years old, that I died on your birthday in 1927.”

Realisation dawned. “She killed herself on the anniversary of your death.”

“Yes,” he said quietly, barely a breath.

“But... why?”

He looked at her in confusion, eyes glinting a silvery blue in the lamplight. “Why?”

“You said— you said you talked to her, after you died. Like we talk now. And in her journal she said— She hadn’t really lost you, so why would she—”

“I had stopped talking to her, stopped appearing to her,” he cut her off, voice soft. “Shortly before Margot was born. I wanted her to move on, even if I couldn’t. To live her life in the land of the living. I thought I was... a distraction from that. I worried if anyone found out that she was talking to her dead husband, that it would cost her everything, that she would end up in some sort of institution. Instead, I—” He stopped, swallowed harshly. “I was the one who cost her everything. By deciding I knew what was best. By ignoring her. By not protecting her like I should have done.”

She stared at him, tears still tracking down her face. “This is what you didn’t want me to know.”

“Clara...” He closed his eyes briefly, expression pained.

“You thought I wouldn’t be able to forgive you for it. That it would change the way I see you.”

He hesitated. “I didn’t want you to know about this, no.”

“...But?” she prompted, feeling like there was more he wasn’t saying.

His gaze found hers again. “What am I supposed to do, Clara? Which mistake should I repeat? Not protecting you? Or deciding that I know best?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, shaking his head. “You found out this much, you won’t stop digging until you’ve found every horrible thing there is to find. And I don’t know what that will do to you. I can’t protect you from yourself. I’m not sure I ever could. All I can do is be here to try to pick up the pieces.”

She studied his ageless face, so very dear to her. “Then promise me one thing,” she found herself saying.

He huffed out a humourless laugh. “Just the one thing?”

“Promise me you won’t ever ignore me like that.” She had to swallow down the inexplicable again that tried to append itself to the end of that sentence. “Promise me that you will never stop talking to me.”

“Clara—”

“If you love me—” The words caught in her throat and she stopped. It was an unspoken line never before crossed, a word never before spoken between them, and she quickly added, “—in any way, you’ll stay.”

One corner of his mouth curled up in a sad smile. “So long as it’s my power to stay, I don’t think I will ever be able to leave you, my Clara.”

“Good,” she said, her tears making her voice crack. “I refuse to lose you. I won’t allow it.”

“Five-foot-one and crying,” he said fondly. “I never stood a chance.” He reached up and brushed away a tear as it rolled down her cheek, his long fingers steady and just slightly cool against her skin.

Clara stared at him in shock, trying to fit this newest revelation into her over-full mind. “You’re... rather solid,” she said, more eloquent words failing her.

“Always am, this time of the night,” he replied, eyebrows drawing together. “It’s the lack of sunlight. I thought you knew that.”

“I’m never here this late,” she reminded him, shaking her head. Seized with a sudden realisation and an urge she couldn’t deny, she took a step forward and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly.

Her ghost went rigid beneath her touch, only slowly relaxing. “Clara,” he breathed against her hair, seeming to remember what to do with his arms. He held her carefully, like he thought she might shatter, but the substantial realness of him was better than anything she could have hoped for. “My Clara.”

“You cannot imagine how long I’ve wanted to do this,” she said into his shoulder.

“I have some idea,” he replied, drawing her closer.

Clara clung to him, unwilling to let the moment end. She had thought about hugging her ghost so often over the years, but the reality of being held by him far outpaced even her best dreams. It was exactly the sort of comfort she needed after all the discoveries of the day, and gradually her tears stopped.

“I don’t think you should drive home tonight,” he said quietly, gently pulling away from her. “You’re upset, and it’s late. Sleep here, go home in the morning.”

She stepped back and nodded, but said, “I don’t know if I can sleep. It’s all still clattering around my mind, everything I read.”

He carefully prised the paper from her hand, smoothed it out and read it. “Coroner’s report,” he said grimly. “As though the journal wasn’t bad enough.”

She hesitated, then asked, “You’ve read the journal?”

“Only the final entry. But I was there for most of the rest of it. Come on,” he said, clearly changing the subject, as he folded the paper and tucked it away in his trouser pocket. “There’s still some chamomile tea in one of the decorative tins in the kitchen. Maybe a cup will help you sleep.”

“Why do I get the feeling that you’re just trying to distract me?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Because I am,” he said dryly, then turned and led the way down the hall. Sighing, Clara followed after him.

She sat at the table and watched him move around the kitchen, confidently pulling items from drawers and cupboards as he prepared the loose-leaf tea. It was still strange to think of this as his house, as the house he had bought with his wife, where they had hoped to build a future together. And tragic, too, given the way things had turned out. Based on the dates in her great-grandmother’s journal, they had lived here for just over two years before his death, between the summer of 1925 and the autumn of 1927.

“Were you happy?” Clara asked into the comfortable silence.

Her ghost glanced over at her from his position near the stove, eyebrows raised in question.

“When you lived here with my great-grandmother,” she clarified. “Were you happy, together in this house?”

He brought her the cup of steaming tea and sat down across from her before he answered. “We were very happy,” he said softly, staring at his hands folded on the tabletop. “And very much in love.”

Clara’s heart clenched in her chest, and she didn’t reply until she was certain of the strength of her voice. “I’m sorry it didn’t end well,” she said, feeling like the words were horribly inadequate. “That you didn’t get more time together. You deserve to be happy.”

He looked up at her across the width of the table, his familiar face ageless and ancient. “Things end,” he said gently. “That’s all. Everything ends, and it’s always sad. But everything begins again too, and that’s always happy.”

“And have you been happy?” she asked before she could stop herself. “In the years I’ve known you?”

His gaze searched her face for a long moment before he said, “Very happy, my Clara. As much as a dead man can be. Now, drink your tea. It’s a few hours yet before dawn, and you should try to sleep.”

She decided not to argue with him, starting to feel fatigue pull at her now that the adrenaline of her discovery had passed. “You told me as a child that I shouldn’t stay the night here,” she said between sips of warm chamomile tea. “Why?”

He looked away and was quiet for so long that she began to wonder if he would answer at all. “You never slept well here, when you were small,” he finally said. “You would wake up crying, even screaming sometimes. Ellie seemed to think it was just being away from home, but I always worried it was this house specifically, something about it that you knew even before you were old enough to talk.”

“Well, it certainly wasn’t you.”

“What?” he asked, meeting her gaze, eyebrows drawing together.

Clara shrugged though a sip of tea. “Gran’s house is haunted. That’s the sort of thing that might scare some kids. Most, probably. But you’ve never scared me.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“I mean it,” she said, smiling at him over the rim of her cup. “If ghosts are meant to be scary, you’ve failed utterly.”

“Glad to hear it,” he said dryly, then after a moment added more seriously, “I’ll stay with you tonight, if you want. So you’ll know you’re safe. Hopefully I’m wrong, and you’ll sleep fine, but just in case.”

That longing for what could have been that she’d felt when looking at the wedding photo bubbled up again, but she shoved it away. He was her ghost, and she was his Clara, and that would have to be enough. “I would like that,” she said softly, her eyes on her tea. “Thank you.”

She led the way upstairs a few minutes later, choosing the back bedroom where he’d played her great-grandmother’s song for her earlier, and snuggled in beneath the quilts and blankets that she had laid out on the bed in a bid to make the house look inviting to potential buyers. Her ghost lingered uncertainly nearby until she patted the space beside her, but she drifted off to sleep before he’d finished making himself comfortable on top of the coverlet.

--

Clara woke suddenly, bolting upright and gasping for breath, all of her senses on high alert in the darkened bedroom. On instinct she reached for the Doctor beside her, her fingers curling desperately around his shoulder.

“Clara?” he asked, sounding confused.

“There’s someone downstairs,” she hissed, keeping her voice low, fear gripping her.

With a sigh, he put his hand over hers and squeezed it gently. “There’s not.”

“I heard a window break!” she insisted. “Someone’s in the house—”

“Clara, Clara, listen to me,” he said, sitting up beside her and taking her hands in his. “You had a nightmare,” he went on, leaning in close and trying to catch her gaze. “Just a nightmare, yeah? Everything’s alright. Trust me, there is no one in this house but you and me.”

She blinked at him, trying to make his words fit into her consciousness in between the frantic beating of her heart. “No,” she said, shaking her head, “I’m certain I heard—”

“It’s just your mind playing tricks on you. Nothing but a bad dream,” he assured her. “It’s over now, try not to think about it.”

There it was again, a noise like a rock shattering glass, coming from downstairs. “The window,” she whispered urgently, turning towards the bedroom door.

He shifted closer to her, cupping her face in both hands, commanding her attention. “It’s not real,” he said, gently but firmly. “What you’re hearing, it’s not real, it’s not happening now. Focus on now, this moment here with me.”

Clara tried to do as he asked, but it kept slipping away into the sound of breaking glass and the certainty that there was someone else in the house with them. She stared at him, forcing her frantic mind to react, to focus only on her immediate surroundings. The quiet stillness of the bedroom, the muted blue of her ghosts’s eyes in the low light, the familiarity of his voice, the feel of his fingertips, solid and cool against her skin. This moment.

“It was just a bad dream?” she said in a small voice, still not completely convinced.

“Yes,” he replied, holding her gaze. “And it’s over now.”

“It felt so real,” Clara said, unable to quite shake the lingering unsettled feeling.

“I know,” he said, his thumbs sweeping across her cheekbones soothingly. “I know it did. It’s alright.”

“Why do I have nightmares in this house?” she asked, the words bubbling out of her as soon as the thought crossed her mind. “I’ve never slept well here, since I was a baby, you said. Why?”

“Clara,” her ghost said in a warning tone, “just leave it be.”

She wrapped her hand around his wrist before he could pull away from her. “That wasn’t the normal sort of nightmare, was it?” she said, more statement than question. “You said earlier that you worried I knew something about this house, even before I was old enough to talk. What is it? What could I possibly have known when I was that young? What did I just dream?”

“I also told you that sometimes the past is better left buried,” he said, voice low.

“And sometimes not knowing the truth is a lot scarier than the facts themselves!” she shot back.

“And sometimes it’s not!” he snapped, surprising her. He sighed and shook his head in apology. “My Clara,” he said softly, his hands still gently holding her face. “Sometimes the truth is so terrible that you’re better off not knowing. Please let me protect you from this? Just this once?”

“Oh, god,” she said in realisation, nausea rippling through her. She wasn't sure how she knew, but she knew. “I wasn’t wrong about someone breaking into the house, was I? Only, it’s not happening now.”

“Clara, please.”

“Why do I know that? How? What was that dream?” The sound of footsteps downstairs drew her attention, and she looked to the door again. “Doctor,” she whimpered, her grip on his wrist tightening as terror surged through her, “there’s someone in the house.”

“Clara, Clara,” he said, leaning close to look into her eyes. “You can’t think about it. Focus on something else. Focus on me.”

She shook her head within his unrestraining hold. “You were there, too,” she said, sounding distant in her own ears. “I heard your voice from downstairs, and then a gunshot, and—”

“Not that memory,” he said quickly. “Anything else, any other memory. Please, Clara. You have to make yourself think of something else. The church in Glasgow. Think about the church in Glasgow.”

“The church in Glasgow?” she repeated, staring at him in confusion as her mind spun chaotically and her heart thundered.

He nodded. “It had stained glass windows and dark wood pews, remember? It was small, but we still only filled the first quarter of it.”

It was just a flash, there and gone, but for a moment she could see it. “It smelled of incense,” she said, utterly certain, the knowledge welling up from some deep, long-buried corner of her mind.

“Yes, good. What else?”

“I— I don’t know.”

“Your flowers,” he prompted. “That day at the church, what colour were your flowers?”

“Blue,” she replied immediately. “My bouquet was blue and white, and the flowers in my hair were blue. How do I know that?” she demanded, looking up at him. “That wasn’t me, how do I know that?”

“You know how, my Clara. Think it through.”

She heard breaking glass again, and looked towards the door. “The window,” she choked out. “Someone’s in the house.”

“There’s no one,” her ghost insisted, cool fingertips pressed to her face to pull her attention back to him. “It’s your mind trying to relive the trauma. Don’t let it. Think about— think about Cairo. The museum, yeah? The first time you saw me. Focus on that.”

“I can’t,” she said, a sob catching in her throat. Someone was in the house, and the gunshot—

“Try, Clara, please. For me. Think about Cairo, and the museum, and say the first thing that comes into your head.”

She took a deep breath and screwed her eyes shut, trying to force herself to focus on the impossible, to forget about the sound of breaking glass and think of the Doctor instead. “The first time I saw you, you were scowling,” she said, seeing it in her mind’s eye.

“Was I?” her ghost asked, sounding almost bemused through his worry.

She nodded absently. “And then someone said something to you, and you laughed, and I thought...”

“What did you think, my Clara?” he prompted when she didn’t go on. “Stay in that moment.”

“I thought you looked— interesting. Intriguing. With your angry eyebrows and your laugh-lines. I thought ‘that is a face I would like to get to know.’”

“Good, that’s good. What else do you remember? What did we drink that night? It was a party, what did they serve?”

“Champagne,” she said without hesitation. “But I didn’t like it, it was too dry.” She opened her eyes and looked at him, his face inches from hers. “How do I know that?” she demanded.

He didn’t answer her question, but pressed on instead. “You came to Thebes, almost a week later, do you remember that? Do you remember the first moment you saw me there?”

She searched within herself for the answer and somehow, miraculously, found it. “You were at the dig site,” she murmured, wrapped up in the unfamiliar memory filling her mind, crowding out everything else. “I saw you before you saw me, and you... You just looked so beautiful standing there, I wanted everything to stop. I wanted nothing to change, ever again. But then you looked up, and you grinned when you saw me. And I thought...”

Clara stumbled to a stop, feeling like the reality of what was happening was just outside her grasp, profound and unseen, some force of nature begging to be recognised. “I thought, ‘that is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with.’ No,” she corrected herself, staring at him, that same heartbreaking longing coursing through her, identical to that remembered moment standing in the bright sunshine of Thebes. “I thought, ‘that is the man I want to spend the rest of the life of the universe with.’ I didn’t even know your name, but I knew—”

Swallowing past the tears forming in her eyes, she shook her head, words failing her. It was too much, her own emotions twisted up with the impossible images in her mind, her love for him tangled together with memories that couldn’t possibly be hers. “But that wasn’t me,” she insisted, her voice breaking, even as she wished desperately that she had been the woman who had met him in 1921. “That was her. My great-grandmother. How can I know that? How can I know any of that?”

“You know how, Clara,” he said again, gently wiping away a tear with the pad of his thumb. “Deep down, you know the truth. I think part of you has always known.”

She flickered her gaze over his familiar face, trying to understand, trying to fit the scattered pieces inside her together. In that moment, she wasn’t certain of anything — except that she loved him, and had always loved him. Her whole life, as long as she could remember, she had loved this man, her ghost. Loved him even though it was impossible, he was impossible. He would never feel that way about her, there could never be any chance of a future together. It was utterly hopeless, but that had never been enough to change the way she felt about him.

“Please, just see me,” he murmured.

Her eyes locked with his, pale blue in the dim light spilling in from the hallway. She knew every fleck of green in those eyes, every line on his face, every streak of silver in his hair, with as much certainty as she knew her feelings for him. And maybe, in the end, that was all she needed to know. Maybe it all added up to the same thing. The photos and the journal, her birthdate and that nightmare, her love for him and her longing for what might have been. There had only ever been one answer to any of it, and finally, Clara spoke aloud the only truth she could find.

“It was me,” she whispered, sure of it down to her bones. “It was me that met you in Cairo, and followed you to Thebes and to Glasgow. It’s me in those photos.”

“Yes,” he said, voice soft and emphatic. “It’s always been you. You found me again, like you promised you would.”

She stared at him, the enormity of that truth somehow not overwhelming her but completing her, the missing piece she had been searching for all her life. “I love you,” she said, the words bursting out of her, unwilling to let another moment pass before she told him. “I didn’t just realise that,” she clarified. “I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. But I didn’t know it was something I could say.”

Her ghost — the Doctor, the man she loved, her husband — smiled at her softly, wiping another errant tear from her face. “I have loved you for more than ninety years, my Clara. I didn’t think I would ever hear you say those words again.”

Leaning in, Clara closed the short distance between them and kissed him, her hands finding their way to his hair as he pulled her closer. It was miraculous, and ridiculous, and incredible, the solid reality of him against her. She had dreamed of this for so long, wished for it for so many years, without realising that it had always been hers to claim. Kissing him felt like coming home. She pressed closer to him, trying to remember him and memorise him all at once.

“Not that I’m complaining,” she said breathlessly when they finally parted, her forehead resting against his, “but I’m still a little unclear on the how of all this. If I’m her, then I— I died. How is any of this even possible?”

He gently kissed her eyelids and her forehead, then shifted them around so that he was leaned against the headboard and her head was resting against his chest, his arms around her. “Reincarnation is the word you’re looking for, I think,” he replied. “Rebirth. Same soul, new life.”

She mulled that over, adding it to the truths she had found inside herself. “That’s a thing that can happen?” she asked.

“Apparently. I know as much about this as you do. But it’s hard to deny the evidence in front of us.”

“So all those times I joked about us bantering like an old married couple...?”

“Well, one of us is old, anyway,” he said ruefully.

She pressed a kiss over his silent heart. “How long have you known?”

“There wasn’t a single moment,” the Doctor said, holding her close and running the backs of his fingers up and down her arm idly. “It was countless little clues, over the years. The fact that you could see me, for one thing. The way you turn your head, the way you laugh, a phrase here and there. Your kindness, and your never giving up. And your eyes, of course. The past few years you’ve started to look more and more like yourself, your previous self, but there was always something familiar about your eyes. It was only in the last decade or so that I became convinced it was really you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She felt him shrug. “At what point, exactly, would it have been appropriate to inform you of my suspicions? By the time I was certain of it, you’d never shown any signs that you remembered, not really. Not like tonight. And I thought...”

“What?” she asked when he didn’t continue.

He hesitated, his hand stilling, and then said, barely a breath, “I thought it might be best if you never remembered. If I remained just the ghost that haunted your Gran’s house, and you went on with your life, not knowing the truth.”

“Live my life in the land of the living,” she said, repeating his earlier words. “Is that why you didn’t want me staying the night here? You thought it might trigger my memories?”

“No,” he said, taking a deep breath and sighing it out. “I didn’t want you to have nightmares like the one you just had, and the ones I suspect you had when you slept here as a baby. If that was the cost of remembering, I didn’t want you to have to pay it. Even if it meant you never remembered me.”

“That was a memory, too, wasn’t it?” she asked in a small voice, already knowing the answer. “That nightmare.”

“Clara...”

“Doctor,” she said, angling herself to look up at his face without moving away from him, “I know you’re trying to protect me, but I need to know the truth. All of it.”

“You know everything important—”

“But I don’t, do I?” she interrupted. “There are key facts I still don’t know. How you died, who my Gran’s father was, what exactly it was I just dreamed about. If you won’t tell me, you know I can find the answers on my own.”

He sighed. “I have no doubt you will.” He was quiet a moment, then said, “If I give you the basics of it, will you stop digging for the memory and let it be?”

Remembering the terror that had gripped her when she’d first woken from the nightmare, she nodded against his chest.

“Alright then,” he said quietly. “But in the morning. Some facts are too terrible for this hour of the night, and you should try to sleep again, if you can.”

“What makes you think it’ll go better this time?” Clara asked, burrowing deeper into his embrace and trying to keep her mind from straying to the memory of breaking glass. It was strange to think that when the sun rose, she would be back to not being able to touch him, but in that moment she was unspeakably grateful for the comfort of being held, secure in the arms of the man she loved.

The Doctor ran his fingers through her hair soothingly. “I could hum the song for you,” he suggested. “It seemed to help, before. Maybe it’ll help now.”

“My song,” she said, smiling against his chest.

“Yes, your song,” he agreed, and kissed the top of her head. “The song I wrote for you, my Clara.”

She drifted to sleep to the sound of that song, and didn’t wake until morning.

--

Chapter 5: The Present

[hippomanblog]

Three Houses Characters, Ranked On Their Likelihood To Dab: Part III: Golden Deer and Church

Everyone, I have done it.  They tried to hunt me down, planted explosives in my dab lab and bees in my car, but I escaped the bombs and befriended the bees and now I’m here, here to present you with the final installment in my magnum opus, a comprehensive ranking of how likely each playable character in FE3H is to perform The Dab. Perhaps you thought I would stop at the Leicester Alliance and its students, surely finishing on the upbeat note of lighthearted Claude and pals, but much like von Riegan himself, von Hippoman has a scheme.  Like a [SPOILER REDACTED] fired from [SPOILER REDACTED], I’m gonna blow your minds with all the Church of Seiros aligned characters too.  Because you deserve to know.  Let’s save Fodlan together.

Minor Spoilers For Post-Timeskip Will Follow!

The list, as always, is Canon.  Thank you.

Claude: 14/10: The Master Tactician, the Golden Deer, the Schemer, the Dabmaster.  There are many challengers to the throne, but Claude von Riegan sits comfortably upon it, arm bent, face in elbow, unleashing the one and only God-Shattering Dab.

(gravityemblem314 suggested a ranking of 69/10 for Claude, but please, this is science,not NICE science.  @camelpimp​ mentioned that Claude likely instituted a mandatory pre-battle dab for the Golden Deer, that’s also canon.)

Alois: 12/10: The kids...they love to dab.  Alois wants to be hip and cool with the kids, and if his jokes aren’t enough to do it, surely his sweet dabs will do it!  Especially if he mixes them together.  He can frequently be seen in the dining hall, asking for some extra sauce on his meals.  When the students ask how much, he replies “Oh, just a...DAB” and he JUST FUCKIN’ LETS LOOSE.

Hilda: 10/10: Claude’s faithful (if not dependable) sidekick and friend shares in his affinity for the dab, but not quite to the same degree.  Claude’s sick dabs require a level of effort frankly beyond the Goneril scion, so she’s more into casual usage.  That said, it’s A LOT of usage. Raphael: 9/10: The big man of the Golden Deer loves to dab.  He’s absolutely jacked, so the sheer power contained in those moves could shatter stone, and once did, resulting in a renovation of Raph’s dorm room and a migraine for Seteth.  Despite his enthusiasm, he’s very, very bad at them, but nobody wants to point it out.  He’s just so happy.

Flayn: 8/10: Flayn is absolutely in for this.  She is totally, 100%, definitely a Young Human after all and this is what Young Humans do, they dab. Flayn does it all the time, often in a big circle with Annette, Caspar, and Claude.  Seteth is yearning for the sweet embrace of death.

Catherine: 7/10: She’s usually pretty jazzed about something, and all that excess energy has to go somewhere.  One time she impaled a man with Thunderbrand mid-dab but she doesn’t like to talk about it.

Manuela: 7/10: Manuela is at a crossroads.  On one hand, it’s not the classiest thing in the world, and she’s a pretty classy lady with some standards, you know?  But on the other hand, the students love it and they do say it makes her look younger.  The debate is meaningless because when she gets drunk she just lets loose anyway.

Leonie: 6/10: High energy Leonie is always ready for a challenge, and this counts.  She’d never seen a “dab” before coming to Garreg Mach, but it’s so much more fun than the usual high society shit people try to foist on her so hey, why not?  Plus, she heard from Byleth that Jeralt knows how to hit the dab too.  He was just covering a cough, though.  He can’t convince her of that.

(thanks to kokorikopi for assisting in this fascinating Eisner Family Trivia)

Ignatz: 5/10: Sure, Ignatz never really had any interest in dabbing.  It seemed sorta silly to him.  But Raphael kept begging him to try it, and he wasn’t going to turn down such a pleasant request.  So he did, and wait a minute.  You could do something artsy with this, right?  Ignatz is in search of a dab that is truly effervescent, an aesthetically pleasing pose to delight the senses and advance the culture of Fodlan through its grace.  Godspeed, you young visionary.

(Raphael and Ignatz ideas contributed by gardenvarietyfox!)

Seteth: 5/10: Seteth got caught sneezing by Caspar once and he started chanting “DAB SETETH DAB”.  It became a monastery meme for a while and Seteth could not leave his office without being hounded to perform the accursed dance.  Flayn likes it, though, so he doesn’t mind.  Too much.  Okay he minds a lot.

Lorenz: 4/10: At first Lorenz Hellman Gloucester would rather have been eviscerated by a weedwhacker than do something so base as dab.  However, through his experiences with his classmates, he came to realize that the dab is a powerful diplomatic tool.  It speaks much with little effort and helps to connect with commoners across Fodlan.  He still sucks at it but he’s trying.

Cyril: 4/10: Cyril wasn’t born in Fodlan, and frankly he finds their trends weird and doesn’t really care for them.  But they’ll usually start cheering and get out of his way to let him get to cleaning if he does it, so hey, when in Rome...

Lysithea: 3/10: Lysithea is already extremely short, meaning her arms have little dab power.  Whenever she dabs, someone calls it “cute” and it absolutely infuriates her.  So dabbing is for fools, obviously.  That said...after defeating a certain mounted masked marauder...she may have let herself indulge a little bit.  Don’t tell anyone.

Hanneman: 2/10: Ain’t no Crest of Dabbylad now is there?

Marianne: 2/10: Oh, poor Marianne.  She’s having a bad day, and a bad week, and a pretty crummy year.  She doesn’t feel like she has anything to dab about, and if she does, everyone will probably just laugh at her and point their fingers at the bad dabber.  Thankfully, the other Deer are there for her, and they gave her time.  Eventually, slowly and carefully, she did it.  It was terrible, but only one person told her that.  Hilda Goneril was later seen tossing a mysterious sack into the Garreg Mach pond.

Shamir: 1/10: Catherine won’t stop doing it.  She just will not stop doing it, and she’s so absolutely sick of it.  She’s this close to shooting an arrow through one of her partner’s arms the next time she does it.  Seiros hasn’t done anything about it yet and that’s why Shamir is an atheist.

Gilbert: 1/10: Dab?  What is that?  Does my daughter do that?  Hmm.  Didn’t get it from me.  I ABANDONED HER. And so we reach the end.  Through a comprehensive knowledge of the cast’s dabability, surely they can find a way to put aside their differences and work together to make a brighter future for Fodlan. By reading these posts, you have unlocked the Golden Ending.  I had it all along.  Thank you and goodnight.

[rainbowkittyblossomwings]

So I don’t want to get into a huge retrospective of how 2020 was for me, because it’s personal and I think we can all agree things have been bad. So instead I’d like to talk about great video games I got into in 2020!!! These games didn’t necessarily come out in 2020 just things I discovered and I’d like to talk about my top 10 faves

1.       The first best video game I discovered in 2020 is the entire Trails Series (I played all of them in 2020, cold steel, ao, zero, and Sky). Initially I played Cold Steel 1 because my friend told me it was like “Playing Code Geass the anime”. The story was pretty easy to get into of a guy going to military school and you’re placed in the special class for commoners and nobles when there’s a huge class divide in your country. From there it had some basic anime tropes like a dating simulator like thing and various cliched characters, like the tsundere, the guy who’s trying to get everybody to work, the music kid, and the noble, you know?

But Cold Steel wasn’t cliché in the least bit. I played it after surgery recovery so I was in a lot of pain and out of my mind, but each character had depth, the entire world was fleshed out and after each game more of the story and the villains were revealed, secret robot technologies were given to the main characters and they slowly became more and more powerful after that.

I wanted to know more and more about the world so I played the first series trails in the sky and the Japanese only series, Zero and Ao, and they were even better. Not only that but in this JRPG there were canon gay characters that had traits to their character besides “I’m gay.” There were a lot of lesbians for me to pick and choose between as faves.

Not only that but I find none dating sim video games difficult cuz I get easily frustrated and rage quit. Cold Steel was turn based combat and never made me feel like rage quitting because they had a function called “Retry but easier” where if you died you could start the same battle but make it easier. That made it so I only had to die five or so times on things I was really stuck on and then I could move on with the story. And the game never felt like a grind fest and I could make the game faster in combat.

This series I may have discovered in 2020 but it’s become just as beloved to me as any other series. It’s one of my faves.

2.       My second favorite game in 2020 was 13 sentinels : Aegis Rim. I love time travel so much and everytime a new time travel anime or game comes out I get super excited. Aegis Rim was a game that had all sorts of cool tropes, like time travel, memory loss, androids, different realities, and psychic dreams and it just sounded cool. Not only that but there were 13 different protagonists to play and I had seen it reviewed in LGBT+ articles, saying it had a canon gay character and a canon nonbinary character! It was a very fun game and part of the story followed a point and click formula and the other half followed a kinda strategy blowing up giant robot monsters formula, and I enjoyed it. Also the music and the art was amazing.

3.       The House in Fata Morgana was my third favorite game I discovered in 2020!!! It was a visual novel I had gotten in 2019 but never started because “They didn’t have anime eyes so IDK if it’ll be interesting.” I had seen a lot of horror visual novel people review it though with stellar reviews. I ended up playing it when I was sick and man was it an amazing story. It gave me a lot of respect for people who write short stories that wrap up nicely, and a lot  of the characters were flawed but I really enjoyed reading their stories.  The story was pretty basic in the beginning of a maid telling you several different stories of the previous owners of the mansion she worked in, and the tragedies that befell them throughout her time there, and I really liked the sort of tragedy feel. One of the stories reminded me of Greek tragedies like Oedipus, and as the story got deeper and deeper and connected plot threads of the previous owners it became very cool. Also the game was very LGBT+ friendly with trans and bi characters and possibly an aro character too???

4.       Hades was my fourth favorite game in 2020!!! A lot of people have already talked about Hades before and what it’s about but I’d like to talk about why I liked it. As mentioned before I have a problem with video games that rely on skill. I get so frustrated that I either start yelling or crying because I don’t believe that the muscle memory will ever get into me or that I’ll ever be good enough to get past the hard part. It’s incredibly distressing and it makes me feel bad because I’m like “why can’t I do a simple thing other people can easily do?” Hades is one of the few games that taught me that eventually I will succeed, and the muscle memory will come to me. As you probably know Hades has god mode which increases your damage resistance every time you loose. I got to the max god mode very quickly of 80% and for about 10 runs even that wasn’t enough to beat the first boss and I was incredibly frustrated. I was like “they should have raised it to 90% cuz if even their worst players couldn’t beat the boss on easy mode then they’re missing out.” But as people have probably told you, Hades rewards failure. Each run you learn a bit more and get better skills and friendships with people due to grinding. And eventually I stuck to it and beat the first boss, and then all the other bosses. The muscle memory finally hit and I beat Hades and got the true ending and I’m really glad the developers made it accessible enough that even the worst players could beat it and I’m glad they rewarded failure.

5.       My next favorite is Chaos;Child, which wasn’t made in 2020, but I did discover it in 2020. It’s another horror visual novel but by the people who did Steins;Gate. I absolutely adore Steins;Gate because of the time travel so I was curious about the other games in the series. Everyone said Chaos;Child was the murder mystery of what Steins;Gate did to time travel and they were right. It was a psychic murder mystery story and although it was very gorey it was very fun and I really liked the characters

6.       Sixth favorite was Café Enchante a new otome dating sim released in 2020! You run a coffeshop for monsters basically and I adored it!!! I was a little worried before I got it that it would be boring because what kind of plot can you make in a coffeeshop? But it was very cute and I loved the monsters and the lore. Despite my misunderstanding the entire game did not take place in the coffeeshop and instead went into various monster worlds and expanded on the lore of each world in each route. The art was wonderful and I just love fake monster lore about Fae and beasts and angels and stuff and it was just a wonderful game and is one of my new fave otome titles.

7.       I played Ai: the somnium files in 2020! I knew it would be a favorite of the year because it was made by the same people who did the zero escape series. It had a very different tone of the zero escape series of course, instead of being about psychics it’s about the inner workings of the mind. You play a detective going into people’s psyche’s to try to catch a murderer basically. It reminded me a lot of ID;invaded an anime that I think came out this year? Anyway it was a cool story and I liked the graphics but I did not like the timed missions. Without a guide I would have died.

8.       The dark horse of 2020 was Untitled Goose Game. I did not expect to get it but my friend gifted to me and I hadn’t played it yet. And as everyone can tell you it’s just a fun time harassing people as a goose. It has 2 player mode so my sister and I played it together and it was great. I liked feeling like grand theft robbers and saying “BOOK IT” as we stole people’s stuff.

9.       My ninth favorite game I played in 2020 was Little Busters! It’s by the same people who did Clannad so I knew I would be crying by the end. Clannad’s team is known for their great story telling and heart wrenching characters. It’s about a team of friends who start a baseball team and then it gets sad and time loop-y from there. I played Clannad too in 2020 but it was a little too homophobic for me to let it make it to this list and I don’t remember any homophobia in little busters, so little busters gets its spot.

10.   Finally we get to Persona 5 Royal. I didn’t play much of the original persona 5 besides at my friends apartment so I was able to finally have a copy of this game on my own!!! I loved the idea of going into mean people’s minds and changing their hearts so they could understand the wrong that they did, it was just a good concept. I also loved that Persona 5 royal added a safety mode so you can loose and yet not die. It was a great game of 2020 and it only makes it so low because I spent way too many hours on it (135) and it was a great amazing game that I loved and enjoy talking about but would not replay because it’s just so long and I’m not quite sure what would be different on  replay. Also I’m sad that you can’t date the boys because I love them. They are good beans. Either way though I’d recommend it if you haven’t played before and it was very fun, and still one of the best games of 2020.

If you want me to talk about any of these games in more depth instead of just a short review tell me!!!

[cosmonaughtt]

how I'd rewrite Danny Phantom

forever salty that elmer glue ruined such a good concept so it’s my territory now

Ghosts are dead, 100%. The science behind it is very paranormal investigation-y but the Fenton family is ten thousand times better than the other “ghost hunters” of their time.

Also, there are some ghosts that come from metaphorical deaths. I.E. Pandora, she technically didn’t exist but when the Ancient Greek culture died out, so did the gods and goddesses. They’re not technically ghosts but they are ectoplasm-based, so they get lumped in with them.  

The Fenton family has been a bit dysfunctional for the past four years (10-14 for Danny, 12-16 for Jazz) because it took four years for Jack and Maddie to build the ghost portal. Jazz took over and learned how to really clean the house, while Danny learned how to cook. He’s not the best, but Danny can definitely make some good Ramen from scratch.

Maddie and Jack realized a bit later that the portal had overtaken their life and feel really bad for abandoning their kids, and when it didn’t work they tried to rekindle those relationships. Even with it working, they still do.

We all know what happened when the portal finished; it didn’t work. Because Jack put a switch on the inside that should’ve been on the outside, not the “on-off” button. The switch was loose and when Danny knocked into it, the portal turned on, because it was just waiting for a little spark-- like how when a cord is not totally plugged in. 

This was the beginning of summer, around the end of May, and a month after it was technically done. Danny (no stranger to the hospital, he’d been in a few times when he was younger because he was born two weeks premature) was in the hospital until August, a few weeks before school started. He was exempt from his eighth-grade exams and passed all of his classes, so the district let him slide.

Danny doesn’t have an ice core. As cool as it is (pun intended) it makes no sense in the narrative. Like, he was electrocuted, and he’s got the “ghost-stinger” ability, why would he have ICE POWERS? He’s got an electricity core instead (slightly inspired by the electric undead oops). 

His ghost sense is less of a mist and more of a gut feeling, and he literally becomes a static electricity magnet.

Danny’s character is a bit closer to the show.

He's quiet around strangers, but open with his friends. Trust thing.

Still made fun of for being the kid of two weird parents, but he’s honestly used to it by high school. He’s also bullied for his autism and ADHD, but he’s been bullied for them for about ten years so he’s used to it.

Still wants to be an astronaut-- science is his best subject, second to math. History is his third-best, he hates English and Gym class.

He’s tiny and scrawny, like a toothpick. It comes from being a sick child, though after the accident he’s able to lean out and gain a bit of “muscle”. 

After the accident, he gets a bit paler than he was before and doesn’t tan. There’s also a Lichtenberg scar covering about half of the right side of his body from the accident, going from his fingertips, up his arm and over his chest, neck, about down to his knee. 

He’s incredibly self-conscious about it but it doesn’t hurt, weirdly enough. For the “first season” he covers up and wears a lot of sweaters and long-sleeves. 

His pulse and body temperature are much below normal. The hospital was concerned with this after the accident, but after a few days of him seeming fine, they had to drop it. Danny can also hold his breath about five times longer than a normal human.

Is he half-dead? Yes, technically. Does he not try and think about his mortality? Yes.

He enjoys puns and jokes still, though he makes them more as Phantom.

Speaking of Phantom, no, he doesn’t go by “Danny Phantom”. Just Phantom. He is trying to avoid dissection from his parents, you know. 

Phantom has no scars from the accident, the only thing that he has in common with his human half is the mole on his cheek, but it’s green now (because yes, both halves have freckles!) because of his ectoplasm. He’s much more floaty, and if you don’t focus on him  he looks like he’s made of television static. He also has little fangs.

You can see his details better up close, and the longer you spend with Phantom, the more details you can see. All ghosts are like that, their energy is on the fritz all the time and human eyes need to adjust to it to understand certain features. The only reason Sam  and Tucker know him right away is because they watched him, y’know...

Danny is asexual, only realizing the identity in the middle of freshman year when Sam literally had to explain that yes, Danny, sexual attraction is a thing and not made up. (Based on my own experience.)

Sam and Tucker are both different in this story, but they still remain Danny’s only friends. They have other friends, though.

Sam is still goth.

She wears all black and even dyed her ginger hair black. There aren’t many surviving photos of Sam with her natural hair, she made sure of it. 

Sam is like... punk-goth? Punk-goth-grunge? She identifies as goth, but her clothes can fit all three categories, really. 

100% bisexual, has bi pins all over her bag. Out to her parents, who are slowly trying to understand. She doesn’t mind they/them pronouns, either, and her gender identity is just a shrug with middle fingers.

She knows a lot of the LGBT students at school and is the vice-president of the GSA she helped found. 

Both Sam and Danny had a mutual crush on each other through half of freshman year and all of eighth grade, Sam decided that she’d rather be friends and Danny realized it was mostly him wanting to be friends. 

Sam is vegan. She isn’t as pushy about it as she is in the show (I feel like it was extreme and really made fun of vegans/vegetarians, I know it’s a kids show but still) and all of her family is vegan, too. She’s big on animal rights, but recognizes the line to not cross.

Her family is also Jewish, like in canon.

Though she did campaign and successfully get the school  cafeteria to have a “Tofu Tuesday” every other week, so that’s something, at least!  (And where Mystery Meat would start)

Still mourns My Chemical Romance, into all music like that. 

Tucker is still a “nerd”, but he doesn’t get picked on by the jocks for being a nerd. 

He’s pretty hipster, too. His red beret is now a red beanie, and he has naturally curly hair poking out. He loves his natural hair, he just  loves the beanie.

His “nerd”  seems from his technological abilities. He has the latest smartphone a month after it comes out, and always has a “tablet”/iPad knockoff in his bag. He knows how to take things apart and sell them for money, and is also pretty good at programming.

Tucker DEFINITELY has a gaming channel. He only has about 3,000 subscribers, but that’s still pretty good. His most-popular video is him talking about the Indie game industry. He might try and program some of his own games (ahemPhantomfangameahem)

He loves meat, just like in the show. He jokes about it a lot with Sam, and Sam jokes back. Sometimes they can lead into fights if neither are in the mood, but both of them are pretty good-natured about it.

Tucker is a ladies-man, and a man’s-man, and a nonbinary’s-man-- he’s pansexual. Doesn’t figure out that’s a thing until he stays behind school one day to help Sam with the GSA, but once he does he’s out and proud. Still flirts terribly, though, but now no one is immune from his terrible flirts.

Scared of doctors and needles-- had a bad experience as a child, projects it on everything medicine-related. Tries to avoid taking medicine at all cost, unless it’s really severe. Hates flu season, can be a bit of a hypochondriac/germaphobe. Has one of those Bath and Body Works  hand sanitizer things on his bag.

Out of the trio, he’s more terrified of the ghosts, though after a while he gets used to them.

The A-Listers and school remain mostly the same.

Wes Weston is 100% a thing.

The A-Listers are more preppy than before, and definitely try and get away with what they can with modern fashion-- at least, Paulina and Star will. Dash and Kwan are a bit fashion-deaf (Kwan. Owns. Crocs.)

They’re still jerks and Dash still picks on Danny a lot, but the teachers are more competent and he can’t get away with more physical stuff unless no one is looking. Dash is probably a victim of his own domestic abuse at home and takes it out on people-- totally wrong and not moral, but he doesn’t think there’s much of an option. Only Kwan and Paulina know about his situation.

Kwan is pretty smart and strong, but he dresses like a disaster. He mostly sticks to wearing his letterman jacket and a black t-shirt and jeans, but if he ever has to “dress-up” or wears something else, it’s awful. Cargo shorts galore. Crocs. Someone get the Fab 5 to help  him, please.

Paulina is pretty prissy, and doesn’t like getting dirty often. She’s a cheerleader and she’s good at it, but she’s only second-in-command of the squad, or however that works. She doesn’t mind, less work for her to do, and the person in charge enjoys it a lot. Paulina tends to make fun of Sam and Tucker’s clothes often, and like the rest of the A-Listers, everything listed above for Danny (sans the Phantom thing). Once Phantom becomes big, she gets a huge celebrity crush on him, probably has ten different Stan accounts for him.

Star is the head cheerleader, and enjoys every moment of it. She also enjoys math, and she’s really good at  that too. Of the canon characters, only Danny can keep up. She isn’t good at much else academia-wise, though she does enjoy a bit of biology and forensics. Much smarter than most people think-- it will astound you.  

Valerie is a part of their squad at first, only because she, Paulina and Star live in the same neighborhood. After Valerie moves to an apartment, their friendship falls apart after a big fight-- this is entirely not ghost-related, by the way. Vlad only contacts her after learning that her dad was hurt in a ghost attack and Phantom wasn’t there to help, and emotionally manipulates her. She becomes the Red Huntress and hunts Danny, and they do date for a few months before calling it quits. I’m not big on shipping, per say, but if there has to be a canon endgame, it’ll be these two.  

Wes Weston. He’s technically canon? I guess? But also fanon? Either way, having a character like Wesley Weston trying to expose Danny as Phantom and always failing is hilarious, but can also introduce other things into the series as well. How does Wes know? Is he like, psychic, or something...? 

 Oh, and Vlad.

He’s much more emotionally manipulative. Danny was really considering having him train him in ghost-powers and stuff until Vlad made an off-comment about Jack, and Danny saw through the act.

They’re very much enemies. Not frenemies, but enemies. Danny is terrified of Vlad, but doesn’t want him to hurt his family.

Vlad, above all, wants a family. He missed out on those years being in and out of the hospital because of his own, botched accident, and he has scars all over his face from the “ecto-acne” that he hides with makeup.

He’s equivalent to Elon Musk, but less of a weeabo. DALV Corporations has a lot more stock in experimental sciences, though, including paranormal investigation. When he learns that Jack and Maddie had successfully created the Ghost Portal, he puts a lot more funding into their projects and reconnects. 

Still got the creepy Maddie-crush. Does get a cat named Matti, though (no connection or correlation, shut up, Daniel). Hates Jack because of his own accident, and begins to despise him even more for not noticing the scars left on Danny’s accident, too.

Less of a vampire in ghost form. He has a fire core, which makes a lot of his ectoplasm heat-based. Probably has laser eyes that Danny desperately tries to emulate but alas, cannot. The only reason he has a leg up on Danny is experience, not strength. He was only blasted in the face, not the whole body, after all.

At some point there’s probably an argument with Vlad and the Fentons and he decides “screw it” and makes an offset of DALV that focuses on ghost-hunting.

No Mayor thing, but he does move away from Wisconsin to live  in Amity Park.

Amity Park is... Well, it’s something.

It was already a pretty creepy town before the ghosts get involved.

It was already a pretty creepy town before the ghosts get involved. 

There’s always been unexplained murders, disappearances, and strange lights in the sky that no one could identify—a lot of hints towards something other-than-ghosts existing, which makes sense. 

Amity Park is much weirder after the ghost portal opens. Not because of the ghost attacks and their ghostly superhero, but because the veil was torn a bit, and it was felt throughout the town. 

On the moment of Danny’s accident, there was a massive power outage, and they become a bit more frequent to everyone’s dismay.  Much of the older residents of the town are against ghosts—if excepting Phantom, on occasion. The younger residents are more open to the undead spectres, though, and are much less afraid of them. 

Phantom becomes a youth icon, and his twitter account that started off small and as a joke gets him national popularity. 

Tucker, naturally, rides this wave and gets a giant boost in YouTube subscribers, especially after he posted a few videos with Phantom. No one questions this except the A-Listers, who just want to know howhe did this. 

Okay that’s enough of an info-dump I don’t want to spoil everything. I’ll probably post this stuff on my ao3—calling this story “Hero Complex” for now, still working on the title.

[missblogging]

MY ENTIRE WORLD IS FALLING APART.... CAMP CAMP SEASON 3 SPOILERS!!!

HOLY. FUCKING. SHITBALLS... SEASON 3 EPISODE FUCKING 5 HAS GOT ME SCREAMING... Ok, so we’ve got our jasper death, and while my prediction of how and what caused his death was wrong, I was right about the fact that parts of his body might be capable of traveling to other parts of the camp site. I was ALSO correct at the fact that David has NO IDEA that jaspers dead... so that explains why he still decided to celebrate The Order of the Sparrow. And I’m full on making it canon that Max is actually of Indian heritage and full on respects it as much as he respects the fact that David has been lied to about jaspers death and didn’t want to scare the shit out of him or y’know be the reason he might possibly blame/kill/(shoot down the camp) himself... so umm... ouch? Also because of what he said before Campbell had read the “ideas” that we’re inside the folder. The first thing he said about the second paper that was inside was “nothing but racist scams and stupid movie ideas...” RACIST SCAMS... which later on reveals what Campbell’s thoughts of that second page was, “hmm, Indian casino, what am I? Gonna give them the land back?” ...so umm wow that was pretty fucked up.... but hey! At least we can confirm that Max is full on Indian! Some friends of mine were at first thinking Mexican based off of the camp cool kids episode but umm... NAHHHHHHH And I think all of those jaspvid shippers can be happy to know that they can write jasper and David as best friends without the worry of going off the plot because hEY ITS CONFIRMEDDDDD But I have sad new to make... if I am correct, this might be the final season of camp camp.... now before you throw shit at me!!! *entire fandom halts while holding tomatoes, ladders, chairs, and a angry quartermaster* I’m only saying this because of the fact that one, one of our biggest mystery’s has been answered and that usually means it’s coming to a close, two the fact that both David and max had a little switcheroo in both endings for seasons one and two, and three the fact they decided to show holiday episodes that still somehow connect to the series (although I’m not so sure about the Christmas special) Yes while this sounds depressing and all that shit, we’ve still got Nomad of Nowhere! Meaning more mystery and cute shit going on!!! But for now I guess, let’s just keep our eyes on more of the secrets that are going to show themselves throughout the series!!! But after looking through the episode one final time (with my youngest sister, she’s one and her favorite characters Gwen... I’m regretting my choices...) I realized at the end of the episode with Cameron confessing who started the idea and everything, I noticed on his jumper suit had the numbers 8311, and by changing that to a date, we get August 31, 201X(?) I’m not exactly sure what year it is, but after learning that there are smart phones, fiber spinners, and global warming issues (especially the Christmas miracle that occurred over here in Texas) I believed that the year they were settling on, like gravity falls for example, was the year they started the show... 2016... The year where all hell went loose... So yeah! That’s all I’ve got so far and I guess we’ll have to wait until A. I think of weird shit at 3 in the morning or B. Until the next episode shows, so... Later!!!

[oasis888]

AY BE NICE TO ME I HAVE ANXIETY

1) What is your MCs name? Where did they get it in canon, and how did you come up with it?

Their name is Ellie bc they are a self insert and i suck with names bc there are so many options i keep changing it. Canonically...Well, it's just her name idk ask her parents

2) How old is your mc?

Honestly? I have no idea but I'd say around 25-26 27 even just for the fun of it

3) What are their pronouns?

She/They

4) Where did they live on earth?

Greece. I refuse to make my oc live in America so she lives in my house 😎

5) Fashion sense?

Thirfted clothes mostly and grundge fairycore/loose shirts and tight pants. Yknow, the vampire 🤝 pirate look. Also yes, she shows sideboob to add flavour

6) Weapon of choice?

One of those sexy war axes fantasy characters have OR a fancy wizard book she pulls spells out of. Both if I'm feeling nice that day

7) What’s their family like?

What family? 🤨

8) Do they have friends on earth? If so, who are they?

As surprising as it might sound, she does. They're mostly based on my friends so it would take a while to describe them all but yes they are as chaotic and fatherless as my mc dw

9) Past romances?

No <3

10) Do they drink alcohol? Can they handle their liquor?

Yes. And absolutely. My mc is me at heart so she is an alcoholic <3 get help girl 🤨

11) Do they handle spice well?

Sure

12) Where are their parents from? Are they connected to their culture at all?

Yeah they are connected to their culture. They grew to love it, but at first they kinda uh didn't like it let's keep it at that. Again, she is based off of me so some of these questions are gonna be kinda sort (i said, you know, like a liar)

13) Personal theme song? Or top 5 songs that describe them.

Oh i fucking love this one

1. Body, Mother Mother

2. Laplace's angel (hurt people? Hurt people!), Will Wood

3. Problems, Mother Mother

4. Flight of the crows, Jhariah

5. B.F.F, Destroy Boys

Honorable mentions: Necromancin Dancin, Bear Ghost. Bitchboy, The Oozes

14) What magic would they practice if given the chance?

Illusion magic, anything to do with fire, probably something really destructive.

15) Do they prefer staying in one place, or traveling around?

I dont know. Both? Neither?

16) Do they prefer staying in and reading a book or going out and being physically active?

Going out. Mostly to drink and scam people. She's a con artist ☆

17) Hot or cold weather?

Freezing 😫 we aren't cowards here 🤨

18) Tea, coffee, or hot chocolate?

Alcohol 🥴 but since that's not an option (ok 🤨👍) tea.

19) Skirts or pants?

Pants. Or really long, flowy skirts 😎 Ykow the ones. Yes, you do.

20) Whats their relationship with the love interests like? Did they choose their romance option after some time, or immediately?

They started out as friends since Ellie doesn't like relationships, but they naturally moved over to lovers after a while. Ellie wanted them to stay friends for a little longer because in her eyes, this was a decision she couldn't back out of. But seeing how much she loved felix and how happy he makes her, she let it happen, hoping this relationship would be better.

21) Is their romance more of a slow burn, or love at first sight?

Slowburn all the way baby we die like men!!! Slowburn, angst, major character death, minor character death, gore, heavy themes, death, 500k words.

22) Are they a fast learner? Hands on or book reader?

They're a fast learner, yeah. However they have a horrible memory, so mostly hands on because of that. She reads books sometimes but its only mystery. Any type of mystery really, she's a big fan of that genre of books

23) What was in their bag from earth?

Snacks, a lighter, a pack of cigarettes, her wallet, a few hair ties, a cool rock she found, her phone, playing cards and a pair of dice (dont ask)

24) What do they think of secondary characters (Escell, Florian, Scylla, Tulsi, Elowen, Saaros, Ayanna) ?

She thinks Escell is a piece of shit but really hot (ofc she does, stupid fuck) always lowkey flirts with him but only to piss him off. She thinks he's annoying and very unlikable.

Florian.....be my dad pls i love u

SCYLLA??? SHES SO HOT???? HOW IS HIS WHOLE FAMILY SO HOT??? Ellie loves her 👍

Tulsi. Tulsi, yeah. Shes nice. Ellie likes her but she doesn't know her that well. They think its really cool shes a blacksmith and makes weapons and stuff 10/10

Elowen my beloved......... hot cat girl....... yeah 👍

She doesn't like Saaros very much, they're very serious and Ellie is drawn to more chaotic people. That's it. I had more to say but i cant articulate my thoughts very well so that's all u get 😎

AYANNA? AYANNA???? HOLY SHIT. HOLY SHIT. AYANNA MY BELOVED THEY LOVE HER SO MUCH THEY THINK SHES SO FUN AND COOL

25) What’s their health like? Do they have mental health diagnosis, are they disabled? How does this affect them in Astraea, how do their Love interests help them?

A lot of mental illness. I'm telling u. She jokes about it a lot but doesn't want to really talk about it. She's used to doing everything herself so she doesn't ask for help. She's not diagnosed 😔 her knee is really messed up after an accident in her childhood so she sometimes has trouble walking, running or standing for long periods of time

26) What’s their music taste like?

Hell itself. Dont ever give her the aux she'll play lemon demon, cavetown, poppy, grandson, mitski and glass animals in that order. Shes a menace. Put her in jail

27) Do they like swimming?

Absolutely not. She hates the ocean. She hates everything in the ocean. She'd fight god to remove the ocean in the next patch notes. Absolutely fucking not she doesn't

28) Zoos or aquariums?

Aquariums bc she thinks the colorful fish are really cool. Yes, I'm a liar. Cry about it.

29) Museums or amusement parks?

Museums. She likes history and learning about it. Looking at paintings and sculptures from other eras and centuries is really nice.

30) What were their hobbies before coming to Astraea?

Video games and music. That's it, final price. Take it or leave it.

31) Who is their love interest? What’s their dynamic like?

Felix.

Goblin (derogatory) and quiet, shy, nerdy guy that occasionally raises the dead i guess

32) How would their closest person describe them to someone who doesn’t know them? How would you describe them?

Stupid fuck that has an obsession with making jokes about fucking people's parents. Cant do math. Would rip someone's head off for 20 bucks. Probably not human now that i think about it. Stupid fuck (classic flavour) (the classic flavour is bland btw) stupid idiot, sometimes funny. Actually a caring person sometimes.

The way I'd describe them would get me banned, so i won't. (Lie) (i just don't want to type and entire essay bc once i start i won't stop)

35) What’s a flower/planet/star/color/etc you associate with them?

Flower I'd say any kind of lily bc i think they're all really pretty but also one of those nice purple ish blue flowers idk what they're called.

Color I'd say either dark purple or dark green. Maybe even a nice shade of classic wizard blue. I like that color too.

33) How would you describe their fighting style?

Playing dirty tm, throwing things like coins, glass, sand, dirt, grass, anything she can get her hands on. Very chaotic and disorganized, always changes. Very emotion oriented, she misses a lot but still swings out of anger. Shit talks her enemies to throw them off. Taunts them. Screams at them. Every trick in the book.

34) Do you have a face claim or voice claim?

Wouldn't you like to know weatherboy

Last Legacy MC questions!

this will probably be expanded in the future but heehoo

1)     What is your MCs name? Where did they get it in canon, and how did you come up with it?

2)     How old is your mc?

3)     What are their pronouns?

4)     Where did they live on earth?

5)     Fashion sense?

6)     Weapon of choice?

7)     What’s their family like?

8)     Do they have friends on earth? If so, who are they?

9)     Past romances? 👀

10)  Do they drink alcohol? Can they handle their liquor?

11)  Do they handle spice well?

12)  Where are their parents from? Are they connected to their culture at all?

13)  Personal theme song? Or top 5 songs that describe them.

14)  What magic would they practice if given the chance?

15)  Do they prefer staying in one place, or traveling around?

16)  Do they prefer staying in and reading a book or going out and being physically active?

17)  Hot or cold weather?

18)  Tea, coffee, or hot chocolate?

19)  Skirts or pants?

20)  Whats their relationship with the love interests like? Did they choose their romance option after some time, or immediately?

21)  Is their romance more of a slow burn, or love at first sight?

22)  Are they a fast learner? Hands on or book reader?

23)  What was in their bag from earth?

24)  What do they think of secondary characters (Escell, Florian, Scylla, Tulsi, Elowen, Saaros, Ayanna) ?

25)  What’s their health like? Do they have mental health diagnosis, are they disabled? How does this affect them in Astraea, how do their Love interests help them?

26)  What’s their music taste like?

27)  Do they like swimming?

28)  Zoos or aquariums?

29)  Museums or amusement parks?

30)  What were their hobbies before coming to Astraea?

31)  Who is their love interest? What’s their dynamic like?

32)  How would their closest person describe them to someone who doesn’t know them? How would you describe them?  

33)  How would you describe their fighting style?

34)  Do you have a face claim or voice claim?

35)  What’s a flower/planet/star/color/etc you associate with them?

[gellcrt]

hc + durmstrang

HEADCANONS ;; some old meme where you send me hc + a word & I rant.

       Laughs bitterly,  becausethere are no words in the English language, nor in any other languages thatGellert has mastery of, to describe how much Gellert despised (and was ill-suited for ) that place ( you know how I sometimeswonder whether or not he would have turned out to be who he is in a moreliberal environment. I suppose that is a difficult point to assess, but Ibelieve that environment shapes you as much as biology does, and that you growto become who you are through your interactions… so…  ). Bitter feelingsaside, my view of Durmstrang Institute is heavily based on  the (generallyunpleasant) reality of the average 19th century learning institution… so let’sgo. 

i. Basic canon.

          Canonically, Durmstrang Institute is known to be a(n uplottable)four-story castle, therefore certainly smaller than Hogwarts. We can infer afew things from this, the most relevant being that the number of studentsattending the Institute is low. Why? Because the castle needs to include allthe necessary facilities for the students (classrooms, dormitories, etc.) andstaff, and other general-use spaces (great hall, library, storage, nursing wing, etc). Thispoint is further reinforced in canon, without being directly so: whileDurmstrang does accept international students, it does notaccept muggleborns, and it’s likely that mixed-blood families with very liberalviews will feel somewhat uncomfortable sending their children there, given theschool’s reputation.  ( But A, Viktor wasn’t a bloodpuritysupremacist and he came from Durmstrang!! me: sure, I’m not saying thateveryone shares the prejudice, andlet’snotforgetaboutKrum’sgrandfatherbeingmurdered. but it’s unlikely that families would send theirchildren to a school whose values weren’t, at least in part, shared by theinstitution. also, I like to think that the there was a bit of evolution inperceptions vis a vis muggles and muggleborns in the 1900′s, but that’s anotherhc for another time….). 

          Where was I - yes, ok, so. Few students. Also,given the limited space, you’re probably living in tight quarters witheveryone; so they’ll be in your business, and you in theirs. Lovely.

          Canonically, we also know thatDurmstrang is located next to mountains, at least two lakes ,and glacier(s)( !!! ). It’s plausible that it has an outlet to an open bodyof water, given their mode of transportation ( listen, how the heck Hogwarts’lake would be connected to it remains a mystery; seriously JKR, what are yousuggesting, inter-lake connections?? I mean… hm… I… I sort of likethis… ). Aaaand, that’s it. That’s the canon, and I wish there was muchmore of it, but so it is (there are a few other tidbits down below, but for thesake of clarity, I just merged them in). Moving onto my hc’s.

ii. Grounds.

        Durmstrang’s grounds are vast ——quite beyond those of Hogwarts, Forbidden Forest and all—— and are, in Gellert’s own not-so-humble, always-stubbornly-decided-and-god-help-you-if-you-try-to-alter-it opinion, the Institute’s only redeeming quality. He has lost countless hours wandering about the grounds, over the years, but many more would be required for a thorough exploration of the land. ‘Tis, from this prospect only, a pity that Gellert’s time at The Institute was cut short, as it was one way in which his time wasn’t waster. Really, if you’re going to cut class or ‘waste’ hours meant for sleep, you might as well spend them on something interesting ( which often meant books of his own choice or work of a more. .. .err, practical nature, but just as often, meant endless hours spent hiking, or getting lost ). 

         As I can only ever picture Durmstrang in Norway ( fite me!! where are my Norwegian followers?? ), I always tend to picture the landscape surrounding Tindefjellbreen and its magnificent views (1, 2, 3). The Tindefjellbreen glacier is actually situated in the Jostedalsbreen National Park, which seems a good/easy enough location for some powerful muggle-repellent charms, so I hc Durmstrang as being situated there.

iii. Architecture.

        Founded in early-to-mid-13th century, the castle is fashioned in thelatest architectural style of the time, which is to say thoroughly Gothic…  how apropos for a castle whose very name is derived from Sturm undDrang ( i.e. basically meaning ‘turmoil’ —— let’s forgetfor a moment that this phrase was only coined in the 17thcentury. I’m always happy to ignore points on which JKR makes no sense. at anyrate, this screams out what a happy, carefree place!! right? ).Nevertheless, some Romanesque influences can become visible if you have an eyefor them( e.g. in some areas of the castle such as the dormitories, the massivepillars and tiny windows distinctly resonate with this style ). In general, thecastle points to a preference of its architect (and likely its commissioner)for the early English Gothic style, rather than the French, or Merlin forbid,the flamboyant Italian style. Though listen,underneath its prim and proper, straight-spined and stick up the arse air…Durmstrang is freaking dramatic. Just look at these freaking doorways,like wtf. Man, that inyourface gothic style, asdfghjkl….!! Repeatafter me:  dra. ma. tic.

          Onthe outside, the light-coloured stone and almost delicate architecture, withits steep roofs, exquisite details ( just look at those flying buttresses! they might as well belace-made-stone, asdfghjkl  ), pointed arches, and overall height leave animpression of grandeur rather than oppression.Although almost intimidating in its exterior beauty ( if one is inclined toappreciate architecture ), it isn’t forbidding. 

          Onceyou set foot inside the castle, especially in the winter months, yourenthusiasm for it might be taken down a notch. Although the great hall anddormitories do have fires burning for the comfort of the staffand students ( listen, one cannot have the promising scion of a noble familysuffer through such a trifling thing as dying from being subjected to inhumantemperatures. I don’t believe for a second that parents, no matter how strict,would put up with it - save that barbarous practice forthe muggles and muggleborns!! ), the rest of the castle is generally damp, andquite cool, if not downright freezing. There’s a particularly nastydraft in the northwestern wing, so cold it can turn your blood to ice on aDecember morning, as Gellert would sourly inform you. If you ever hadany….  ah, mild issues with a fellow,just vigorously aguamenti  at him on such amorning, in such a place, and let nature do the rest…. But we’re digressing.Generally speaking, cold temperatures? Shivering? Well, you’re expectedto suck it up. Strength of will in the face of adversitybuilds character, and all of that.

         The dormitories themselves are simple and utilitarian,without frills ( there is a complete lack of richly-coloured, hangingdraperies, of tapestries, of any decorations. the style isutterly spartan and meant to highlight the utility of theplace. this is not a place of enjoyment or comfort or bonding. itis a place that provides you with a bed to sleep in, andnothing else. you are not to expect luxury from it, lest you become prone toindolence. you are not to spend time ‘socializing’ before bed, lest you becomeprone to mischief. curfew is at 21:30, and you better be asleepby 21:31. this was not a particularly happy pairing to Gellert’s naturalinclination to generally stay awake at night, and even less so with his naturalinclination to break rules ).

         The hallways bear a large number of lancet windows ( tall, narrow windowswith sharp pointed tops ) - some of colourful cubic-mosaic stained glass(reserved for the most important, official venues), but mostof transparent glass, which do nothing to relieve theoppressive atmosphere. They are also tastefully decorated with chiseleddog-tooth moldings and rows of candles ( although in Gellert’s time,these were  already self-lighting, thus sparing a lot of inconvenience forthe castle’s inhabitants ).

        The classrooms aresurprisingly large, and allow for easy movement. Students sittogether at wooden tables, facing the professor’s desk. However, approximatelyhalf of the classes are conducted outside, rather than inside,especially those requiring physical activity.

iv. House System.

        The loose ‘house system’ was instilled several centuries after thefoundation of the school (in the 1400s, approximately), as a direct influencefrom ongoing communication with Hogwarts ( the house system was, at first, arather odd concept for them, what with being generalpractice in the UK and its colonies, without it being a widespread system in placesthat were not a part of the British empire ). The change was a matter of longdebate and disagreements, but finally survived the test of time for itspracticality. Still, it is in no way comparable to the system seen at Hogwarts(or in the Commonwealth in general). Students are split into five houses, thenames of which are of Thracian origin: skilas,  udrénas, semla, spinda,zvaka, and represent the five elements (because I like throwing in wiccanelements into my fiction, that’s why). At present, it is a common rumour that thehousenames were assigned by First Headmistress Vulchanova, in honour of herancestors. Given that she was of Bulgarian ethnicity, and therefore likely tobe of Daco-Thracian descent, this is not an unlikely hypothesis, although itcannot be confirmed by any written account ( this hypothesis is, in fact, false- what with the system being implemented centuries after her deathday.but history has a tendency to get facts distorted over time… ) 

         Thestudents do not bear specific house colours (their uniforms are the same), donot go through any special sorting ceremony (they are arbitrarily assigned to a‘house’ based on the principle of keeping the numbers equal), and aren’t evenrequired to share the same dormitories (which are assigned based onthe same principle, but separate the students by sex and age bracket (11-12, 13-14, 15+). Students in the same “house” are requiredto share a period of thirty minutes together per day, and the eldest areexpected to guide and bear responsibility for their younger housemates’behaviour. Thus, the ‘houses’ could almost be considered akin to‘study groups’, as well as a loose system of auto-regulatory surveillance groups ( what a pleasant thing to always be kept an eye on, both byadults and by your own peers. ). Of note: since the oldest students in each “house” are responsible for the younger’s behaviours, they also incur punishment when a housemate breaks the rules, or displays what could be considered “bad behaviour”. This makes them very… eager… to keep an eye out and correct such behaviour themselves, as they see fit. As long as it does not inconvenience the staff,  this is tolerated, and in subtle ways, even encouraged. ( It’s out of the scope of this small essay to describe some of the infamous happenings in boarding schools in that era, because this is already a small essay, but if you’re familiar with them – you can assume all of that was happening. )

          The ‘friendly competition’ amongst housesnever amounts to much. It isn’t rewarded, or even acknowledged beyond a brief mention at theend of the term reviewing general behaviour. Some houses claim bragging rights in the hallways (those are generally more than enough to stimulate the majority of students), but there is no point system in place, etc.

v. Curriculum.

          I could probably write another 2k on my hc’s on the curriculum alone, so I will only jot down a few notes here. I always imagined the curriculum at Durmstrang to be more practical  than that of ‘present day’ Hogwarts. This is not only due to the different time period, but also to the difference in values between the institutions, with Durmstrang encouraging students to acquire specific skillsets via firsthand experiences, and Hogwarts providing them a wider breadth of knowledge based on a more theoretical approach (i.e. it can be simmered down to a difference in do vs think type of philosophy). This isn’t a critique of either teaching style, just my own perspective on what “teaching philosophy” each school adopted. Therefore, subjects appearing as more “superfluous” or uncertain, such as divination (covered in ‘History’), astronomy (offered as a standalone course, but it’s dreadful), herbology (covered in ‘Potions’), care of magical creatures, etc., were less focused on. History may seem superfluous, but it was heavily focused on as a matter of pride and principle (and happened to be Gellert’s favourite subject, as I pretty much mention at every turn, welp; he just!! feels so strongly!! about this!! okay!! ). In turn, subjects that had direct, quick practical applications (transfiguration, charms, dueling, the dark arts and defence against, potions, rituals and curses) were more heavily focused upon (and were, obviously, mandatory). Language courses, runes, magical theory, etc., were offered as electives.

         Insofar as I see it, Durmstrang also strongly encouraged a healthy mind and body, and included a rigorous, mandatory morning exercise regime for all students, prior to breakfast. By their fourth year, students could opt to have these exercises covered in a ‘class’ (flying, navigation, etc.), as long as they adhered to it. The emphasis on ‘doing, rather than learning about it theoretically’  and on being physically fit is also seen in their dueling classes - Gellert’s dueling style is very active and dynamic as a result of this (the dramatic aspect is all his own doing, welp).

Random trivia.

I can’t stand some views I’ve seen suggesting that Durmstrang is extremely misogynistic, or doesn’t accept girls (wtf). First of all, the school had a First Headmistress. Secondly, this literally goes against canon. I think there would be some degree of misogyny as was common at the time, but if anything – hell, I see them as more progressive than anything. I don’t  know why some people take the whole ‘pureblood superiority’ and turn it into sexism like ???? why???

Corporeal punishment was not only accepted, but seen as necessary. A ruler across your palms or a cane across the back of the legs, like muggles, was the least of your problems. This was also a widespread attitude at the time, so….

There was no “dating” tolerated at school, and no PDA. Whatsoever. You better keep that secret or someone is bound to rat on you, and you won’t like the consequences.

If you opted to take navigation as phys ed., basically, you could get pretty darn good at sailing. It was also a really enjoyable class based on cooperation and teamspirit, and many students made genuine friends here! 

The school colours are red, gold, black, and white. ( The official banner has green in it but SHRUG;; )

All books in the library could be read by any student. Even those that could accidentally kill you. If it physically injured you, it was a lesson taught, and hopefully learned.

Casual reminder that  the political climate in Norway at the time was… interesting, as it only secured its independence in 1905. Gellert smiled at this when he first read the officially proclamation.

Ffs, the teachers were human, and not barbaric, not children-hating monsters. They were just very strict regarding rules and regulations, and they often bore the burden of ‘if anything goes amiss or if there is a complaint, it’s your fault and responsibility’. They worked in a pretty high-stress environment, with little support. StopdemonizingDurmstrangprofs,mostofthemdidokay. Some were, of course, jaded with their position and dgaf. That being said, they also did nothing about issues between students, bullying, etc., sat children down to understand their perspectives, etc.  The prevailing mentality was one of you listen to authority and deal with it. 

 Dueling was taught not only formally (in class), but also informally via a club, which held ranked competitions once per season. Students in the top three positions could be unofficially challenged by anyone, at any point, and these duels were a bit of a sensation.

Those furhats & co. are an absolute necessity.

You did learn the Unforgivables. What better way to defend yourself than to be prepared?

As is typical for Northern and inland Norway, food consisted more of meat and fish than of vegetables (excepting potatoes and onions). Fruit was rare, unless in season. Nevertheless, you never went hungry!

Two words: aurora borealis!!  ( it’s high up north, after all!)

Saturday afternoons and Sundays were free periods. Thank Circe.

[irinapaleolog]

What is Star Wars about, really? It’s a good question, one we’ve pondered for 42 years. Star Wars is so broad, so dense, and at times so frustratingly transparent, that you can graft just about any sort of meaning onto it. And yet, its mass appeal is often distilled to one word: Star Wars is about hope. But what does it mean to have hope?

Everyone will offer a different answer. Hope can mean defiance in the face of adversity. It can mean happily ever afters. It can mean togetherness, family, friendship–those little things worth fighting for, even knowing they’re temporary. At its best, Star Wars captures that, freezing tiny moments of hope in amber. Luke, Leia, and Han hugging after the destruction of the Death Star. Anakin Skywalker clutching the face of his pregnant wife, Padmé. Finn and Poe escaping the tyrannical First Order.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the final film in this epic saga, is meant to tie a bow on the franchise, which began with A New Hope. Reasonably, one would expect those messages to come through more elegantly and emotionally than ever before. But the result is instead a sad case of confused identity. It’s a film that thinks it’s doing what it needs to, while ultimately delivering a series of rushed, soulless, and ill-defined points of logic. It’s “hopeful” if your idea of hope is tragic and cyclical to the point of feeling regurgitated. There are moments of optimism immediately staked through in heart in favor of “the next big set piece.” It’s a cruel and unsatisfying ending to a forty-year legacy, and one that feels openly critical of itself and everything it stands for, but shrugs its way to the finish line instead.

The Disney era of Lucasfilm was fit more for profit than integrity from the get-go, and the need to rush out a new episodic film loaded with the original’s stars felt as bankable as it was inevitable. Suffice it to say, the Star Wars sequel trilogy attracted critics, but the first two films shuffled through a variety of production woes to successful, appealing conclusions. J.J. Abrams’ The Force Awakens paired a new cast of characters with our legacy trio–Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Han Solo (Harrison Ford), and Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher)–creating a spark of whimsical magic that overshadowed its derivative setbacks. Rian Johnson delivered a wild animal of a sequel with The Last Jedi , a surprising and frankly revolutionary studio blockbuster that turned the series’ larger story on its head. It was as divisive as it was fertile with big, new, promising ideas. The film ended with the Force decentralized from a few exclusive bloodlines and democratized, reigniting hope in the galaxy.

Unfortunately, The Rise of Skywalker picks up on none of those loose threads. The film begins with a flippant dismissal of many if not all of The Last Jedi‘s themes. The opening crawl explains that Emperor Palpatine has inexplicably returned (and I do mean inexplicably–we never learn how), and has been orchestrating the First Order experiment from the beginning. Somehow, he groomed Ben Solo into Kylo Ren from afar, and now locks his sights on Rey from Jakku, our unruly, orphaned Force user and Kylo’s counterpart. From the outset, Abrams shrinks the Star Wars universe back down to a more immediately interconnected, even insular size. Palpatine is back because, uh, sure, why not?

The story plays out as antagonistically as that. Abrams, returning as co-writer/director to replace Colin Trevorrow, demonstrates a bewildering sense of his audience’s wants and needs. Does he think we don’t care about the mysterious resurrection of the saga’s most selfish and mystifying villain? Is he purposely leaving gaps in the story for canon material to fill in? Did he think a single thing out beyond “looks cool, feels OK, boom, bang?” Who knows. But the movie opens with the reintroduction of Palpatine, them immediately launches us into the Millennium Falcon, where Finn (John Boyega) and Poe (Oscar Isaac) quickly discover that there’s a mole in the First Order. We’re then teleported to a new Resistance base where Leia trains Rey (Daisy Ridley) in the ways of the Force. Before we’re oriented in this location, we’re shuffled into another adventure jam-packed with MacGuffins, whirlygigs, and ultimately dead ends.

The adventure is poorly defined and confusing, but Abrams doesn’t expect us to be smart. He’s content to race through every would-be meaningful moment at the quickest possible pace, exploiting that whiplash effect to distract us from the story’s garbled plotting. We know that our heroes are on a race to find Palpatine, and are looking for something called a “wayfinder” that will lead them to his location. There are only two wayfinders, and Kylo Ren finds the other one in an opening scene. Abrams creates a sense of urgency, but we don’t really know why, and no one seems convincingly terrified that the universe is on the brink of absolute annihilation. At least the original trilogy only featured one Death Star at a time, and developed centralized locations that defined personal stakes and brewed emotion. This film has a whole army of planet-destroying ships, locations with no names or personalities, and characters previously emphasized who are here utterly left to the wind.

And that’s the real failure of The Rise of Skywalker. It mishandles literally every character, except, arguably, C-3PO. Rey gets tacked onto a legacy story that erodes the entire thematic heart of not just The Last Jedi, but even Abrams’ own The Force Awakens. By some disgusting leap of imagination, she’s Palpatine’s granddaughter. Rey’s parents weren’t actually alcoholics who sold her for drinking money (a bit never reconciled), but good people who loved her enough to protect her from Gramps, and apparently, themselves. Finn (John Boyega) is suddenly and inexplicably Force sensitive, which is a nice little treat and possible nod to the end of The Last Jedi, but is only really employed to detect when Rey’s in peril. Outside of one nice moment with Jannah (Naomi Ackie), a fellow defected stormtrooper he meets on the road, his arc from indentured villain to Rebel hero goes largely unaddressed. Worse, even his relationship with Poe feels weirdly underdeveloped.

Poe (Oscar Isaac), meanwhile, is very much “present,” but that’s really all he is. He became something of a de facto leader at the end of The Last Jedi, but Abrams fails to hint at any sense of real authority or growth here. He bickers with Rey and continues to act like a self-important flyboy, echoing a roguish Han Solo-esque fearlessness, but where his presence is maximized, his importance really isn’t. His story and Leia’s should be more interconnected after she taught him a valuable lesson last time around, but the loss of Carrie Fisher unfortunately obstructs his development as a character. Using a mishmash of unused footage from The Force Awakens, they try to conjure her spirit elsewhere, but it doesn’t totally work. That said, the movie at least attempts to do right by her legacy.

Further, Leia’s death in the film helps create two of its best moments. She uses a last ounce of strength to send Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) a memory of his father, Han, who reappears with some paternal advice. It should be a silly moment, but tonally it absolutely works, sold completely by the fine work of Ford and Driver. As father and son reconnect, Kylo Ren finally transforms back into Ben Solo–he tosses his jagged lightsaber into the abyss and goes off to save Rey, who he loves. This whole sequence is preceded by a lightsaber duel where Kylo is left mortally wounded; Rey heals him, and confesses her feelings for the man he could be. Love–and hope–seem temporarily destined to win.

And they do… sort of? The third act is where The Rise of Skywalker totally loses sight of everything it’s trying to be. Rey is drawn into Palpatine’s lair, and there’s a lot of business about Sith and Jedi that doesn’t really make sense. Above them, the war between the “Final Order” (Palpatine’s new name for the galactic baddies) and the Resistance rages, a total lazy mirror to the end of Return of the Jedi. Palpatine wants to funnel his strength into Rey via some ancient ritual, but Ben shows up. Ben and Rey fight together against Palpatine, Rey summons the spirit of all of the Jedi who ever lived, and she beats her grandpa with his own superpower (in a very Harry Potter-esque showdown) before dying. Ben uses the last of his life power to resurrect her–a nice mirror of their Death Star scene earlier in the film–and they kiss. But he then dies, leaving Rey once again as the galaxy’s only real Force of hope. She temporarily reunites with the Resistance–who defeated the Final Order with the help of Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), appearing in the movie just long enough to serve as a deus ex machina–before jetting off to Tatooine. And finally, Rey takes on the last name Skywalker and sees Luke and Leia’s Force ghosts. The end.

Unbelievably, a lot more happens than that. Abrams introduces Zorii Bliss (Keri Russell), a fun, masked ex-fling of Poe’s who’s super cool but completely inconsequential to the plot. Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose Tico effectively takes a Resistance desk job, which feels particularly insulting after everything she accomplished in The Last Jedi. There are more “Force Skype” scenes between Rey and Kylo, and Rey confronts her own inner darkness, manifested in “Dark Rey,” while Abrams introduces a cute new droid named D-O, and throws a lot of other random things at the wall that never stick (like a visit with the ghost of Luke Skywalker during a temporary detour to Ahch-To). It’s as messy as it is ambitious, and Abrams and co-writer Chris Terrio’s deserve some credit for spinning such a clotted web that you’re frequently distracted from all of the holes in it.

But then there’s the whole hope thing. And there’s really no cohesive sense of it here. As a series-ender, this story should resonate more than it does. The Last Jedi contends with the past more, and better, than Skywalker does; it wrestled with the sins of the Jedi and Sith, and kicked open a bigger door for generations to come. Skywalker says nothing about where they, or we, go from here. It ends with Rey abandoned and alone, except for her Force ghost friends, on another desert planet. The one person in the galaxy who ever understood her dies. And he evidently doesn’t redeem himself successfully enough to become a Force ghost. Is death really the only avenue to peace and purpose? Effectively, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Leia Organa all died to save Ben, who then died to save Rey. What is her next step? The movie doesn’t say, or seem to know. It’s a domino effect, with nothing but tragedy at the end of every spill.

That idea could work if the moments in between felt rewarding, or the losses served larger narrative or thematic ideas. But in this story, meant to be a conclusion to a single film, a trilogy and a nine-film saga, they don’t. Rey, Finn, and Poe share only a superficial sense of camaraderie. Their future adventures will lead to moments of happiness and enlightenment along the way. But why does Abrams ignore or de-emphasize those feelings? In The Rise of Skywalker, hope is little more than a ghost. And after more than 40 years, it’s one that Star Wars is still chasing, with no real end in sight.

[nera-solani]

Rules: List all the things you’re currently working on in as much or little detail as you’d like, then tag some friends to what they’re working on: writing, art, giftsets, whatever.

Tagged by @jdragon122 :D I kinda did this before, but I’m really flattered you tagged me for this and there’ve been some changes since last time, so I’m just gonna do it again.

The list is really long.

Seeing as I am a person who has a lot of ideas all at once, I am currently overflowing. Some of them are only one page yet, while others are almost a book of their own. Most of them are actually original works and only two of them are fan fiction, one of them posted on AO3. I will just give you a little excerpt of my many WIPs, but won’t post any excerpts of the ones that are in german. That’ll be easier.

About humans, angels and everything in between: This is the fan fiction I’m mainly working on. You can find it on my AO3. It is Dean/Castiel and I am planning to write an explicit chapter at some point. Maybe I’ll exclude it from the main plot and post it in a series instead, but I don’t know yet. The current chapter will probably be the second last one in case I don't spontaneously decided to add another one at the end. This thing was originally intended to “not get out of hand”, then almost 100k happened. Ooops.

Summary: When a girl randomly shows up at the bunker, claiming she knew Charlie, tells them about having visions, Dean and Sam struggle, trying to figure things out. Meanwhile, Castiel is still possessed by Lucifer and Amara is doing God only knows what. Things keep getting stranger, as Crowley develops a really weird relationship with the newcomer and God decides to be creative by creating a new creature.

Current Unpublished Chapter (19): yet unnamed

Crackfic No. 1 (working title, unpublished): This is a Destiel fan fiction I’m currently writing with a friend of mine sameywinchester. The general idea was that there is an alternate universe where Dean was never born, Sam is a Samantha and Cas has a female vessel. In that universe “Supernatural” is a TV show and when Sam and Cas watch it, they start shipping Destiel. Since they know that the show is based on an alternate world, they decide to travel there to make Destiel canon. The whole thing might be a little confusing at first, since my friend writes female!sam and I write female!cas like they were telling the story in turns and also kind of having a conversation, but it’s a lot of fun.

I can't really post this thing here, since it’s partly flush right and flush left. I’ll try with a screenshot...

Flush right is Sam and flush left is Cas. We have a few possible titles, maybe someone of you can tell me what title you like best.

A match made in another universe

The weirdest love story ever told

What is happening? - A love story

Shipping across borders

Infinite Me – Timetravel and other impossibilities (unpublished): This is one of my original works. I initially started writing it in german, but as it only had one page yet, it took me less than an hour to translate it. It’s the story of a lonely time traveler, who tries to make her way through eternity, seeing as for (in the beginning) unknown reason, she cannot die. Being very old and often alone doesn't really improve her personality either...

Time is relative. But what does that even mean? The scientists of earth profess, one cannot travel back in time. Just forward. It’s linear, they say. Like a river. And one also can’t make a river flow backwards. That’s true. But what those scientists don’t know, is that time is much more similar to a river than they think. In fact, a river is the best example I can think of at all. Let me explain it… Just imagine, you’re sitting in a canoe, floating down a river. The river you’re on, is time. The canoe, your own timeline. As long as you don’t do anything and just drift, time progresses normally for you. But if you start to paddle, you move faster forward than your surroundings. You travel forward in time. That is possible for example, when one circles in a spaceship closely around a black hole. So far, so good. Scientists know about that. Now let’s assume, you want to a spot upstream. Paddling back isn’t possible, the current is far too strong. It wouldn’t even be possible with an engine attached to you canoe. Still clear.  But how are you gonna get back there then? Your scientists say, it’s not possible. I say, they don’t think far enough. Traveling back in time is possible. Back to our river. You can’t paddle back. But you can paddle to the bank, get out of the canoe and walk upstream. There, you set it back into the water, get inside and the journey can continue. It’s simple as that. Admittedly, the execution isn’t at all that easy, but in a few hundred thousand years you’ll understand it to a certain degree.

Casebook of a Psychopath (unpublished): This is a crime story, that follows and is told by a psychopath who struggles to be normal, while helping the police with their cases and a neuroscientist/psychiatrist who wants to study her, because she actually manages to live with her “defect”. There is not much of it existing yet, I’m still working on the first chapter.

Chapter I’m working on (1): “The Science of Introduction”

“I’m coming!”, I called out and walked to the apartment door. As I took a peek through the spyhole, I spottet two policemen waiting there. One of them I knew, the other one I was completely unfamiliar with. A young man, probably not long on duty yet. I could imagine why they were here. When I opened the door, the younger one already held out his badge and said, “NYPD, I’m Detective Louis, this is Detective Cruz. Sorry, for the disturbance, but are you Natalie Fox?” Cruz, who was standing behind the young man, smiled and winked at me. “That I am, how can I help you, Detective?”, I replied, knowing what was to come. “You have to come to the precinct, Miss.”, the new one said. Not again… I pulled myself together, to keep from rolling my eyes. “Of course, why is that?”, I asked, to keep up the appearance that I had no idea. “You’ll find out, as soon as we’re there.”, he said. Sure, what else… I walked with them into the vestibule, locked my apartment door, took my coat off the peg and followed them outside to their car. The trip took only a short time. The presidium wasn’t far. Actually, we could’ve walked, but whatever… When we arrived, the new one led me through the big office room with the many work desks of all the detectives and directly to an interrogation room. He seemed really proud to have “caught” me. As we walked past the Captain’s bureau, I could see, that he struggled to suppress a grin. I had to smile. That looked like him. After we had arrived at interrogation room 1, the new one told me to sit down, so I did. I put my hands on the table and linked my fingers together. “How long is this going to take? I have an appointment with a client”, I took a look at the clock, “in a bit more than half an hour.” “It’ll take as long as long as it’ll take.”, he answered. How cute, he wanted to look cool and impress his colleges.

Black winged Angel (unpublished): So, with 73 pages, this is by far my longest original work. It is in german, so there will be no excerpt. It is basically about a young woman who is bored of her life, until she finds herself in danger, and gets rescued by a mysterious man who turns out to be an actual angel. Together they cross the country in an attempt to find the mysterious black winged angel, who is according to a prophecy supposed to defeat the devil once and for all.

About Gods and Ravens (unpublished): Okay, so this could possibly be described as a weird Avengers/X-Men mashup and is based loosely off a really strange dream I had some time ago. It is also in german, but I’m thinking about translating it at some point. I’m not sure how, but I managed to tell the complete life story of the main character from her birth to her thirties in 4 pages without giving too much away. If we look at it as an Avengers/X-Men mashup, the story would be set a few years after New York. A short summary:

The world has come to peace again and there is an organization for extraterrestrial matters that recruits mutants (some of them have helped fighting off the first invasion). Amalia is something special. She fits into three of the mutant-categories and is far more powerful than any of them. But she is also seemingly broken. Life never meant well with her and she doesn’t let anyone near herself. That is, until she meets another soul, who is probably even more broken than herself. Loki. Yes, Loki. The one who lead the first invasion on earth and is now suspected to stand behind the recent attacks. But he keeps claiming to be innocent. Amalia believes him. Together they have to race against the clock and through the galaxy to find out who really is responsible for those attacks. And then there is also Amalias new friend Athena…

With a writers imagination (working title, unpublished): This is a little meta, because it is told by a writer, who has written books before, and now found out that in another universe, her books are reality. One of her main characters shows up on her doorstep and tells her about that and asks her for help, cause apparently the villain she wrote, got out of control. This actually only consists of the idea, a beginning and an ending (yes I already have the ending). But I like the idea very much, so I’ll just give you what I already have of the beginning.

I’ve just arrived back home. I hung up my coat, sat down at the kitchen table and opened my laptop to start writing. My jeans are ripped, my shirt singed. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what day it is… I’m writing this book for my loyal readers – my longtime fans if you will – and for my old friends. So, in fact for everyone, who might worry about me. A few weeks ago, I disappeared completely out of the blue. I can imagine that my disappearance might have caused some turmoil, so I decided to write down the recent events. First of all, I want you to know that I’m alright. Admittedly, I’ve seen better days, but I am okay. Due to the recent events following in quick succession, I’m not sure where to start… I think it would be best to start by telling something about myself. My name is Tessa Grays, which many of my readers should already be familiar with.

A love to die kill for (unpublished): Well, this is not really a WIP, because I haven’t written anything down yet. My writing process works the way, that I only start working when I have the basic story already in my mind. I already know how this is supposed to end, but I have literally no idea how to start. So, for me, it is a WIP, cause my mind is still working on fleshing out the plot. I’m thinking about writing it as a Destiel Serial Killer AU and then later changing the names and publishing it like a book. You know, like it happened with Fifty Shades of Grey, wouldn't it be awesome if this got even more successful? Whatever. So, everything I’ve got about this is in my brain. Except the cover I drew a few moths ago. I’ll just leave that here for you…

Tagging: since I did this before I don't really have anyone to tag, so whoever wants to do this, do it​!

[livingwithashipname-blog]

i used to love scorpion but it's become mediocre since the second half of season 2 bc all they've done is bait waige. tbh, it's not a good ship and maybe i'm biased bc i've headcanoned walter as aromantic (which would've worked much better in terms of his character since the show seems to be telling ppl with higher IQ that to find a place they belong they have to develop EQ to "evolve" when as a society, we should be accepting them and not making them fit in with us)

No offense anon, but…  Is there a question in this?  It’s unclear exactly what you’d like to discuss or know from me.  But I chose to take my time with this response in order to open a discussion within the fandom.  This isn’t a rant.  Lol!

I disagree with the notion that the show is telling its audience that high IQ, low EQ individuals have to develop EQ to evolve or fit into society.  This insinuates that the geniuses sacrifice their intellect in order to become less socially inept.  This is simply not the case.  One of the show’s core messages is to communicate the benefits of emotional intelligence in relation to one’s goals to share that intellect with the masses - learning to adapt without sacrificing identity.  The message is continuously addressed with Walter O’Brien because he is the genius with the lowest EQ, the creator of Scorpion, and uses his business as a hub for like-minded individuals with various skill sets.  

What makes us different from animals as humans is cognition - the ability to reflect on our thoughts and experiences and act on them to change ourselves and our environments.  Walter is not efficient at processing emotion to label it properly, meaning that he can not identify behaviors to which he can not relate.  This does not mean he can not emote, but the amount of EQ he gains over time is learned.  It does not derive from within.  The same is true of the other geniuses to a lesser extent.  (Elyes Gabel talked about this at the cast’s first SDCC appearance - Walter has an emotional vault that he struggles to access.)  Furthermore, Walter’s environment contributes to how well he can regulate his emotions.  In the show, Walter’s intelligence was fostered as a child through his work for the government.  But his emotional development was only fostered through Megan because she accepted him for his differences unlike his parents.  This is why he was so protective of her medical care and fought hard on an intellectual level to save her.  Since Walter’s emotional development is an arc for the entire series, his character will be written to show his successes and failures in various aspects of his life in relation to his life goals.  

As far as attraction is concerned, Walter could be written as aromantic in relation to his genius.  This would have been a great and intriguing development.  But various moments in the show suggest that Walter, at the least, is romantically attracted to women for now.  Therefore, his emotional intelligence will also have an impact on any romantic relationship he seeks to have given the show’s premise.  If you’ll indulge me, allow me to explain using recent scenarios from the show, present the conundrum that lies within fandom, and how that conundrum is capitalized in order to “bait” fans on Waige under the cut.  It’s long, so don’t say I didn’t warn ya! 😜

Examples from Canon

In episode 2.22 Hard Knox, the team mobilized to help Ralph win his court battle.  Ralph tried to explain his program’s functions to Walter, but he couldn’t understand Ralph’s approach.  Sadly, Walter projected his frustration over a problem he couldn’t solve in that moment onto Ralph.  This led to Ralph walking away feeling defeated and Paige threatening to quit.  When he realized the mistake in his behavior, he approached Ralph and said this, “what upset me is that you were willing to slow down for me to-to let me go down the wrong road, when that would’ve hindered you, because I couldn’t grasp your work.  Never hobble your intelligence for anyone… because if you do that in this garage, imagine what you’ll have to do out there… for humans.  The world needs to catch up to you… because if-if it can, just a little, imagine what a… a beautiful place it could be.”  This example is unique because it reinforces the show’s core message in IQ vs. EQ on the basis of intelligence, not emotion.

In 3.15 Sharknerdo, Walter argued with the client over the way he stated the service fee instead of accepting the fact that the client was not interested in learning the correct way to communicate $109,000.  This cost the team their job and dismantled the weeks of work Paige did to secure that contract.  Paige was rightfully frustrated because Walter couldn’t get like Elsa and let it go. 😂  Plus, it’s even more frustrating that Walter secured a new job on contingency, where payment is only guaranteed upon completion of services.  This is bad for Walter despite the fact that Paige is the liaison for several reasons: 1) he talked with the client in her absence, 2) he lost a job with a secured fee and replaced it with a less secure one (that’s not good business when you have employees to pay), and 3) he is the boss of Scorpion who makes the final decisions.  In Paige’s absence, he is the next point of contact for independent jobs (those not issued through Homeland Security).  This is the statute of limitations when it comes to his goals for Scorpion.  He has to acquire skill sets to make him more efficient at communicating with average/high EQ, non-geniuses if he wants to diversify his clientele to do more good in the world.  In other words, he has to learn and apply approaches on an EQ level to appeal to normals in order to get them to his level or create an equal playing field.  Another great example of this can be found in his interaction with the foreman in 3.14 The Hole Truth after his talk with Happy.  I apply the same tactic as a researcher.  I have to know my audience and how to address them in order to communicate my findings and spark interest.  If I do not, I limit my reach and open doors to miscommunication and misunderstanding.  

Also take into consideration instances where Walter has lied about facts in order to achieve the greater good.  Episode 2.04 Robots is a great example.  What’s also interesting about this episode and others in which this has happened is that Walter doubts the scope of his own emotional intelligence.  The same is seen with Happy Quinn whose EQ is closer to Walter’s.  If you have read any of my reviews, I talk about this doubt factor several times.  Walter and Happy have demonstrated emotional mastery in both their work and personal lives.  Their main issue is consistency outside the limitations their logical brains impose on their emotional functionality.  Yet overall, they improve each season.

This show is loosely-based on the real Walter O’ Brien, who is an executive producer.  If you ask him to choose between IQ and EQ, he will tell you, EQ over IQ, from his own personal experiences which has been infused widely throughout this show.  You can read that interview HERE and learn what he did to create the show.  It’s very enlightening!

Fandom Realities

Here’s the conundrum that stems from fandom.  (If you read the interview, then you already got a sense of what I am about to say.)  Scorpion is an action dramedy in two parts - personal stuff and mission stuff.  And these two elements are interchanged in every episode.  However, the majority of fan commentary on the show is about the romances first, the other personal storylines second, and the missions last.  This means the greatest pull, as far as spoilers and other marketing strategies are concerned, is information on the ships whether it’s through social media, press releases, or cast interviews.  The majority of fans don’t get excited over the missions (or else that would be reflected in fandom convo and creations).  Scorpion covers some real projects like the Chernobyl dome and the Svalbard Doomsday Vault (both of which are really cool btw).  And I am curious if an upcoming episode will take a note from a docu-drama on Mars that debuted on National Geographic.  Anyways, Waige is not canon and yet Waige-centric episodes receive behind-the-scenes exclusives on pop culture news sites like Entertainment Online.  Katherine McPhee and Elyes Gabel are sent out on press to talk about them.  You do not see similar treatment with the other ships because Waige is the main ship of the show.  All others are side ships, regardless how much exposure they get.  Quintis is highlighted in the storyline because the relationship is between two main characters, who are both high IQ, low EQ individuals, as opposed to Callie (RIP 💀) which is between a main and a guest, both of whom have average/high EQ.  

The showrunners, writers, cast have alluded and established in many ways that Waige is an endgame, slow burn otp.  The mystery lies in WHEN this will happen.  It would be stupid for them to reveal that information.  But they use episodes to answer that question for the fans.  As fans, we can choose to trust what is there to put our expectations in check or fall for the bait!  Besides, we get more receipts the more the writers use more than one episode to foreshadow.  If we don’t like what we see after some time, we have to determine what is the breaking point and move on or devise a new plan to indulge the content (e.g., skip episodes, binge later).  We also have to take into consideration that some decisions are in the hands of network execs.  At the end of the day, it makes no sense to engage in endless emotional masochism over something we no longer enjoy.  It’s silly!  But I digress.  If you want to know more about my theories on Waige, feel free to go to my page, type “the Waige flip” in the search engine, and read all about it.  As someone who ships Waige, I don’t have any questions on them until season 4, episode 12/13.

I will not argue whether Waige is a good ship or not because it’s not my place to police opinion.  What I will say is that Waige is an intriguing pairing because it is a relationship between a low EQ individual and a high EQ individual - a genius and a normal.  (Btw, high IQ, high EQ individuals exist - it’s a function of nature vs. nurture.  But that’s a topic for a different day!).  Melvester had the same dynamic, but the EQ gap between Megan and Sly was much less than that between Walter and Paige.  For this reason, Waige will always face unique challenges.  Like I said at the beginning of all this, Walter’s emotional development is a series arc and his triumphs and failures will extend to his personal life.  But one thing this show does well is communicate understanding in the team’s decisions, both geniuses and non-geniuses, whether you agree with their stances or not.  That’s necessary given the show’s premises!

If you’ve read up to this point, CONGRATS!!! You have survived another Emanda’s Inner Sanctum analysis/thought piece!  Toodles peeps! 😘✌🏾️

[elspethsunschampion]

Fact or Fiction: Chapter Fifteen

Rated M for abuse, sexual content, and discussion of rape/non-con.  Canon-typical violence.

Summary: It’s Ral Zarek’s sixth year at Hogwarts. And everything would be fine if Jace wasn’t totally occupied with his new girlfriend, to the point where it’s honestly kind of weird, and Ral’s starting to be concerned. Now if only everyone would stop telling Ral he’s just jealous and LISTEN to him…after all, he’s NOT just jealous, right? (Sequel to Send to Sleep.)

Ships: Jace Beleren/Ral Zarek, Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy, Luna Lovegood/Hermione Granger, Nissa Revane/Chandra Nalaar, Elspeth Tirel/Teysa Karlov

A/N: Many, many thanks to @paperclipminimizer for beta-ing and checking my timeline, as well as answering all my questions about Harry Potter. Thanks also to Juri, @dragons-suck, and everyone on Sketchydoodles’ Vorthos server for listening to me rant about this thing as it took shape.

Also available on AO3 and FFnet.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen: Mind Extraction

          It was three days after Jace had tentatively started going to class again. He still hadn’t quite managed to shake off his habit of needing Elspeth and Ral with him pretty much everywhere, even though he knew it was silly. There were only a few weeks of class remaining, or Jace didn’t think he’d even have bothered trying to go back. But something in him stubbornly didn’t want to give Liliana the satisfaction of keeping him out of class entirely for the rest of this semester.

           So he and Ral were walking to Potions, hand in hand. Neither Jace nor Ral had actually said anything about the fact they were now apparently in a handholding relationship, and Jace wasn’t sure he wanted to disturb the balance. He got to hold Ral’s hand, which meant that he always knew that his friend was right there and completely fine. And it gave him a peculiar warm sensation in the center of his chest, which maybe wasn’t surprising, because frankly he still desperately wanted to snog Ral until he couldn’t breathe. He just wasn’t exactly sure how to approach that discussion, and Ral hadn’t said anything either. Jace really wished he knew whether that was because Ral was trying to be careful with him, or whether it was because he honestly didn’t feel that way anymore. Technically, he supposed he could find out, but—no. He wasn’t going to do that. No.

           “Excuse me. Mr. Beleren?”

           Jace looked up and took half a step backwards. He didn’t recognize the man standing on the path in dark, unassuming robes.

           “Um,” he said, instinctively moving behind Ral. “Yeah, I’m Jace.”

           “My name is Venser, and I’m with the Department of Mysteries. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?” With a flourish of his wand, he produced a sheaf of official-looking paperwork, which he gave to Jace to look over.

           “I—I don’t—”

           “We’ll be late to class,” Ral said, squeezing Jace’s hand firmly.

           “I can speak with your professor, or it can wait until after class if you prefer.”

           Jace, whose stomach was turning over uneasily, shrugged inside his cloak. “I—I guess—no, it’s okay, Ral. We can come now.”

           “Fantastic, this won’t take very long. I have a temporary office for the occasion.” He set off at a fast pace, his robes swirling behind him. Ral exchanged a look with Jace, then called over to Elspeth, who was trailing a few paces behind them with Teysa. “Hey, Elspeth, can you tell Professor Granger about this guy?”

           “She probably already knows,” Jace muttered to his feet, though Elspeth was nodding firmly. “We knew there’d be some kind of inquiry about all this shit.”

           “Yeah, well, I want her to know anyway,” Ral responded irritably. Despite his words, the hand that held Jace’s was gentle.

           “O-Okay,” Jace agreed faintly as they trailed after Venser.

           The man from the Department of Mysteries appeared to have set up shop in one of the old offices along the third floor corridor. Jace had passed it a fair amount. It was still mostly empty, with a desk and bookshelves lined with more dust than books, but a silver pensieve had been set up on the desk, and a sheaf of papers was scattered beside that.

           Venser bent over the desk, frowning, and carefully worried out one of the papers. “I’ll just need you to sign this,” he said, passing it over to Jace. “None of this will take long.”

           Jace stared down at it, a sudden chill suffusing his bones.

           Memory Removal Acknowledgment Form

           It has been determined that, due to a magical accident or other unfortunate incident, you possess a set of memories that are not your own. After a careful assessment of the circumstances, the Department of Mysteries has determined that said memories possess information vital for national wellbeing. As such, a professional legilimens has been tasked to perform a legilimency-based memory withdrawal and movement charm. None of your own memories will be affected. The side-effects of this procedure are minimal. Possible side-effects include minor dizziness, disorientation, and nightmares of empty spaces. All side-effects should fade within seven days. If any persist, please notify a healer.

           Please sign to indicate that you have read and understand the aforementioned procedure.          

_________________________________

           “Um,” Jace said. “Wait, what?”

           “Oh, sorry, I should’ve explained, shouldn’t I?” Venser looked up with what was probably intended to be a reassuring smile. Jace did not feel reassured. “I’m sorry it’s taken so long for us to send someone. There was quite a bit of paperwork. But you don’t need the Sleeper’s memories, and there’s a lot in there that will be useful to us.”

           It was very true that Jace had been trying not to think about the set of muddled memories he had acquired during his brief stint in Liliana’s mind. And he’d been seriously considering obliviating himself, at least of those. But the way that Venser cavalierly spoke of just taking away something that was inside Jace’s head, when he’d never even met the man before—

           “No, thank you,” Jace managed.

           Venser blinked at him. “Er,” he said. “I’m afraid it’s not up for debate.”

           Oh, Merlin. Jace could feel his breath snagging on something. He tried to take in more air, but he couldn’t quite manage it. “I—I—” he stammered.

           “It’s not a painful procedure,” Venser said, in confusion. “Honestly, I’m really sorry about everything that’s happened to you, but this will help. There’s no danger—I know the form is a bit scary, but it’s just covering all its bases.”

           “Leave him the fuck alone,” Ral said at this point. “I don’t care who you think you are, but no one else is fucking with Jace’s head if he doesn’t want them to.”

           “Mr.—er—” Venser floundered. “This is a matter of magical security. We need access to every possible angle of the Sleeper’s memories, and we can’t have them residing in the head of a seventeen-year-old boy.”

           Jace needed to say something, because he couldn’t, he couldn’t let Ral get in trouble, but he couldn’t get out a single word. He didn’t have enough breath left, he didn’t have anything. He scrabbled for the clasp on his cloak, and Ral turned to him.

           “Jace. No. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

           Jace was shaking his head, but he wasn’t sure what he was shaking his head against.

           “I’m sorry if I sprang this on you too suddenly,” Venser apologized. “It really is quite important, but we’ve been under some pressure at the department. I can give you a few minutes to yourself, if that will help. It didn’t occur to me this would be a problem.”

           The world was collapsing inwards. Ral was saying something else, something about, “why the fuck would this not be a big deal?” but Jace couldn’t hear him, because—oh no—this hadn’t happened in years, but the roaring in his ears was being replaced by screams, and the dusty shades of grey of the office were peeling away in front of him to be replaced by charred ruins, flickering green in the light of his wand.

           Someone was screaming. It was loud. There was something over his ears, but it didn’t cut the sound at all. Someone else was saying his name, but he couldn’t find them, because he didn’t know where to look, and everything was dark and the fear was rising to drown him. His breaths echoed shallow in his ears.

           A chill of cold air ran down the back of his neck. The metal of the telescope burned cold against his hand, and the grainy image of a shooting star flickered across his vision. Paper rustled at his ear, and someone’s voice was saying his name over and over again.

           “What is going on in here?”

           Jace was back, cloak still over his head and his shoulders, but the fastening was loose, and there were hands on his, breath on his mouth.

           “Ral,” he gulped hoarsely.

           “Right fucking here. No one’s gonna touch you.”

           “He punched me in the face!”

           Jace was still shaking, and it was hard to focus, but he managed to look past Ral to see that Mr. Venser was sitting on the ground, nursing what looked like a very broken nose.

           “Is this true, Mr. Zarek?” asked Professor Granger’s cool voice.

           “Nope,” Ral said insouciantly. “He was going to touch Jace, so I shoved past him. Guess I got him with my elbow.”

           “You lying—”

           “Mr. Venser. Had you touched Mr. Beleren, you would most likely have injured him and probably yourself as well. Were you not aware that he is a very powerful natural legilimens? Mr. Zarek saved you from quite a nasty experience. Jace, are you all right?”

           “I th-think so,” Jace managed. He squeezed Ral’s hand to make sure he was still there.

           “Could someone do something about this?” Venser asked irritably. “I really need to get back to the reason I was—”

           “I will punch you again,” Ral blurted, and Jace groaned.

           Hermione sighed. “Mr. Zarek, please,” she said. “You are not in trouble yet, but maybe stop talking while you’re ahead?”

           “He wants to erase Jace’s memories!” Ral growled.

           “He admitted to punching me!” Venser snapped.

           “That is ridiculous,” Hermione said coolly. “Wizards do not punch people. That’s what wands are for. Surely you’re not telling me you think Mr. Zarek cannot use that wand?”

           Venser sputtered. “They’re not his memories anyway! I was sent by the Department of Mysteries to collect the Sleeper’s memories!”

           “I d-don’t,” Jace whispered, but it was so hard to talk. Finally, he managed to force it out. “I don’t want anyone else in my head. Definitely not somebody I don’t even know!”

           “I have my orders,” Venser responded. “I told you, it’s a minor procedure and—”

           “I don’t give a fuck!” Jace responded, throat tightening. “They’re my memories, and it’s my fucking head and I just—just—”

           “They are not your memories. They are the memories of the Sleeper, and—”

           “Er-hem,” Hermione cut in sweetly. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me when I said that Mr. Beleren is a natural legilimens?”

           “I—yes, I heard you, but what does that—”

           “Well, if you’ll recall the Ministry Statute on Modification of Memory, only memories that are acquired via learned magic constitute grounds for removal. Jace’s legilimency isn’t learned magic.”

           “That’s absurd—and in any case, we’d only need an extra signature—”

           “I’m not signing anything,” Jace stammered, and Ral’s arms tightened around him.

           “The boy is underage—”

           “I assure you, his guardian will sign no such thing. You’re lucky you’re talking to me and not Ranna, because she would do a great deal more than punching you in the nose for trying to coerce Jace into a mind modification he’s afraid of.”

           “You mean Ranna Beleren, the—” Venser caught Jace’s murderous look and bit off whatever he’d been about to say. “Look, Professor, the Department of Mysteries believes this information is necessary for everyone’s protection. I promise you, even if you send me away—”

           “Absolutely no one will be touching Jace without his consent ever again,” Professor Granger said tightly. “I don’t care what you think you need it for, I will personally—”

           Venser got to his feet. “This isn’t going to be the end of this.”

           The door opened. “I’ve heard more than enough. Get off of my school grounds.” Professor Potter entered, followed by two redheaded adults Jace didn’t recognize.

           Blinking rapidly, Venser took a step backwards. “Mr. P-Potter, I—”

           “Professor, actually,” Professor Potter said. “You might also remember that I’m the Boy Who Lived, as well as being on good terms with pretty much the entire Auror Office. And I don’t know if you know Ron?”

           “Hi,” said the redheaded man. Professor Granger made a soft surprised noise as he stepped forward. “Ron Weasley? Think we met last year at that awful departmental mixer. You won’t be getting any support from my office, mate.”

           Venser’s lips tightened slightly. “Well, I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said. “The Sleeper’s dying quickly, and these will be the only memories left of some of what she’s accomplished.”

           “You want to know how to rape someone better?” Jace snarled incredulously.

           “No, we want to know how to better protect people, and sometimes the best defense is a good offense,” Venser replied testily. “There’s no need to be so melodramatic. I suppose your memories aren’t going anywhere. If you change your mind, here’s my card. You may be hearing from my office again in the future.”

           As soon as he was out the door, Jace ripped the card in half before leaning against Ral. “Can everyone please just leave me alone?” he said tiredly. “I’m late for class, Professor Malfoy will want to know where the hell I’ve been.”

           “Yes, of course, Jace,” Professor Granger said immediately. “You can go ahead to class and tell Draco I can give you both a late note if he requires it, though I don’t think he will.”          

           The redheaded woman who hadn’t spoken thus far put out a hand and helped Jace back to his feet. “Hi,” she said. “I’m not going to give you my card, but I’ll be around for a few days if you want to talk. I’m Ginny Weasley. Spent the first year of my Hogwarts career crying to a best friend who turned out to be Voldemort so I’ve got a bit of an idea of what you’re going through.”

           Her frank manner was disarming, and Jace managed a small smile at her. “Thanks,” he said carefully. “I’ll, um, I’ll drop by.”

           Hermione leaned back against the wall as Jace left the room with Ral still hovering in a way that was more like a mother hen than Hermione had ever seen in a seventeen-year-old boy and definitely odd for the notoriously irascible Mr. Zarek.

           “That was amazing timing, Harry,” she said, and then she turned to Ginny and to the third person in the room, whom she had been trying to avoid thinking about too hard. “Ginny. R-Ron. Nice to see you both.”

           Ginny gave her a bright smile and a little wave. Ron shuffled his feet awkwardly, ran his hand through his hair, and then stepped forward. “Hermione,” he said, and there was almost a stilted, foreign sound in his words. “I wanted to apologize.”

           She blinked. “What?”

           “I am an ass, a twat, and a pillock,” Ron said to his feet. “I was jealous, and I didn’t trust you, and I shoved all my shite at you without listening when you tried to help, didn’t help with any of your shite, ruined our relationship, and I’m bloody afraid I’ve ruined our friendship as well. Which I miss. A lot. But I don’t want you to take me back as a friend if you’re not all right with that, I just wanted you to know that I know that I, Ron Weasley, am a giant great git, and I know it.”

           That hadn’t been what Hermione had expected at all. She felt her stomach turn over, tears welling up in her eyes. “Oh,” she sniffed, then her lips twisted to the side. “Can I punch you?”

           “I definitely deserve to be punched. You can punch me if it’ll help.” Ron shuffled awkwardly. “Although, I mean, you’re a wizard, aren’t you? Didn’t I just hear you say that wizards don’t punch people?”

           Hermione punched him. “Ouch,” she said, shaking out her hand. At least she’d remembered to keep the thumb on the outside. Ron stared at her with his mouth open, then put a hand to his jaw.

           “Mean right hook,” he said, working it as he rubbed it.

           She threw her arms around him. “Oh, Ron, I missed you so much!” she sobbed into his shirt.          

          He froze for a minute, then gingerly put a hand on her hair.

           “Merlin, I am really sorry, ’Mione. Oy, don’t cry. I let you punch me so you wouldn’t cry.”

           “Too bad,” sniffed Hermione. “You get to deal with both, you ass.”

           “S’pose that’s fair.”

           “He’s been practicing being less of a git,” Harry said affably. “Can I join in on this hug?”

           For answer, Hermione stretched out with one arm, snagged his shirt front, and pulled him into it. For one long moment, it was just three old friends once again, and everything seemed to swing into place. And then, of course, it got awkward—Ron shuffled his feet, Hermione felt her hair tickling her nose—but there was still a filled-in warm spot in the middle of Hermione’s stomach that had been aching a little up until then, and now it wasn’t.

           The sunlight that filtered in through the curtains of the Hufflepuff common room caught golden in Emmara’s hair. Jace lay back in her lap and looked up at her, and she smiled back at him. Her hand running through his hair was inexpressibly gentle. “Is this nice?” she asked, and he nodded, trying not to stare too hard, trying to figure out if there was something he needed to do to make this keep happening. Part of him wanted to touch her perfect breasts, feel the way her grey sweater rucked up beneath them, but part of him just wanted to look.

           The warmth of the sunlight became the warmth of a quilt as Jace slowly blinked his eyes open. The pleasant feeling left from the dream evaporated into horror as he realized he was lying next to Ral, back pressed against the other boy’s. A gasping sob rose into Jace’s throat, and the next second he was throwing himself out of bed. He struck the floor hard enough to send pain twingeing through both knees, and he barely stopped himself from crying out.

           He’d been having good dreams about Liliana. He’d been having good dreams about the woman who’d violated him, who’d tortured his best friend in front of him. Jace thought he was going to be sick. In the bed, Ral made a sleepy little questioning noise, and Jace scrabbled to his feet. He had to get out of the suddenly-suffocating darkness.

           Stumbling into the corridor, the bright yellow lights helped calm his racing heart, but he still felt close to vomiting. Jace slid slowly down the wall, trying to stifle his sobs, desperate not to wake anyone else up.

           “Oy, you okay?”

           Jace sniffed, gulped, and gasped, hastily trying to press the tears back into his eyes. “F-Fine,” he muttered and looked up to see the red-haired woman who had introduced herself as Ginny Weasley.

           “You look about done-in,” she said. “Want to come by my room for a butterbeer and tell me about it?”

           “As long as I’m not bothering you, I guess.”

           Ginny shrugged. “I never sleep well in strange beds, so, no, you’re not bothering me.”

           Miserably, Jace trailed after her. A few steps down the corridor, he realized that Kallist had followed him and was now dribbling concernedly on his shoes. “Kallist, I’m fine, go back to Ral.” Jace waved a tired hand, but the little cloud just vibrated slightly, as if he were shaking his head, and spat lightning. “Sorry,” Jace mumbled. “I think he might get your room wet.”

           Ginny shrugged. “It’s not really my room anyway,” she pointed out. “C’mon in.”

           She waved him into a cosy little room, starting a roaring fire in the fireplace with a flick of her wand and a muttered incantation, then went over to the cupboard in one corner and came back with two mugs and an amber bottle.

           “Here,” she used her wand to vanish the top of the bottle and poured a generous helping of the foaming liquid into a mug, which she handed to him. “Knock yourself out.”

           “Thanks.” Jace sipped at it automatically. The warmth of the liquid was grounding, he had to admit.

           “Go ahead, sit.” She waved at the little sofa in front of the fire. “I’ll take the arm so you don’t feel crowded.”

           Awkwardly, Jace sat down. The pillows sank under him, and he had to grab at the sofa arm to avoid overbalancing.

           “Oh, yeah, should’ve warned you, sorry.” She hopped onto the sofa arm on the opposite side of the couch, which Jace appreciated. Kallist floated into his lap.

           “Don’t drizzle,” Jace told the cloud sternly, and Kallist spat a happy lightning bolt at Jace’s nose.

           “So,” Ginny said, taking a long draft of her own butterbeer. “Bad dreams?”

           Jace hunched his shoulders inwards, wishing he could say yes. Well, he could, but what was the point of deceiving everyone? He was pretty sure he deserved whatever response he’d get. He shook his head. “No,” he forced out through gritted teeth. “Good ones.”

           “Oof.” Ginny groans, running a hand through her hair. “Fuck, those are the worst.”

           “Wh-What?” Jace had been prepared for responses running from awkward sympathy to horrified disgust. He hadn’t been expecting what sounded like actual commiseration.

           “Yeah, back when Harry and I were still together, I once had this really—domestic dream about Tom Riddle. You know. Voldemort. We were baking a pie or something together, everything was really fluffy and happy, and that was it, there wasn’t anything dark or weird or bad.” She sighed. “I woke up at 2 am and didn’t feel like I deserved to be sleeping near Harry, so I went into the kitchen and got very, very drunk.” She winced. “Noooot a great idea when I had an important match the next day. Harry tried to be Very Supportive, but he’d no idea how to even start.”

           Jace swallowed. “I hate myself,” he said in a low voice. “I mean, how could I dream something good about her? I was asleep next to Ral. I got him tortured. She tortured him.”

           “You can’t control your brain,” Ginny said. “I mean, you just can’t. It’s horrible. It’s awful. Dreams like that are one of the worst things I can remember having over the past decade, and I can remember some pretty fucked-up things. It’s not your fault.”

           “But it is, I’m so sick of people telling me it’s not.”

           “Me, too.” Ginny shrugged. “I mean, Jace, would you say an eleven-year-old girl was at fault for being duped by Voldemort?”

           He shook his head.

           “Most people wouldn’t. But I did. Because I was that eleven-year-old girl, and I shouldn’t’ve listened to him. I should’ve seen through him, or asked for help, or done anything to stop the possession before it was too late. I was so lucky I didn’t get anyone killed. That’s—what I was most grateful to Harry for. Not so much that he saved my life but that he saved everyone else’s.”

           “But—”

           “But this is you?”

           He glared at her. “Okay, I get it, I’m selfish.”

           “Okay.” Ginny smiled at him. “Then be selfish. Take care of yourself.”

           “I don’t—I don’t deserve to.”

           “Well, that’s not very selfish.”

           “God, are we doing fucking logic traps now?” Jace hunched his shoulders inward, trying to stop himself from throwing his damn mug at the wall.

           Ginny shook her head. “No. I’m just not too good at this. Honestly? I dealt with a lot of this shite by getting preeeeetty smashed. It just sucks. It’s not going to magically get better, no matter what I say. And I’m really sorry about that.” She pulled a face at him. “I’d give you some firewhiskey, but Hermione would probably skin me alive.”

           He had to laugh a little at that. “I just want to not feel like this, but not having the feelings is almost as bad as having them. I know my mum gets worried when I act like I don’t care, but I—I don’t want to care? It really hurts.”

           “It’ll get better.” Ginny tugged at her long hair. “I’m sorry. I’m so very fucking sorry that I can’t tell you something more useful than that. But, Jace—just hang on, okay? Your friends care about you. Even if you’re going to blame yourself and hate yourself and feel awful, remember that they want you to be okay. If you can’t take care of yourself for yourself, take care of yourself for them.”

           Jace squirmed, thinking about Ral’s reaction if he knew the kinds of things Jace was thinking about himself right now. “Ugh. I’ll try.”

           “Best thing you can do.” Ginny gave him an awkward smile. “Um, cheers?”