#we've been over this a hundred times but I still can't get over it

[barcaatthemoon]

rugby girl || lucy bronze x reader ||

lucy introduces you to her teammates, and they all very quickly come to the same conclusion.

minors dni, 18+, smut ahead.

you really did hate seeing lucy so worked up. the woman was rarely ever nervous about anything, and yet, she was a wreck over the idea of you meeting her teammates. the two of you had been together for a long time, far too long for neither of your friends nor families to have been introduced. you had accidentally run into a couple of her teammates before, but that was really it.

"luce," you whined as you pulled her onto your lap. it was easy to manuever her to straddle your thigh as you sat on the couch. lucy grumbled a little about getting the apartment ready, but she made no moves to stop you as you pulled her down to grind against you. "relax. i am more than happy to help if you can't."

"i am relaxed, i swear," lucy told you. you nearly laughed at the way that she had said it. her jaw was clenched and her teeth were grit together so close that you swore it had to hurt a little. still, lucy was insistent that she was fine up until the moment that your hands ran over her thighs.

lucy melted into your touch in the same way she had at least a hundred times before. you let your hands inch up further and further until they had slipped beneath the bottom hem of her shorts. lucy spread her legs a little wider and lifted her hips up to let you tug her shorts down.

"i thought you had to get the apartment ready," you teased. "isn't there so much to do?"

"i need to change, this is helping," lucy mumbled against your lips. you smiled into another kiss. lucy was always a little pushy with her kisses, but the teasing remarks died as soon as you felt her arousal against your fingers.

sex on the couch right before company wasn't an ideal situation, so you kicked lucy's shorts and underwear under the couch as you lifted her up. lucy let out a little squeal as she sank down onto your fingers. a rush of arousal was shot through lucy's body as she thought about the position that you had her in. your strength was nothing short of a turn-on for the english defender.

"fuck me, please," lucy began to beg as she started to bounce on your fingers. you let her use you to get off as you carried her back into the bedroom. lucy was quickly getting lost in her own pleasure. "(y/n)!"

"shh, it's okay." you sank down onto your knees in front of the bed that you had just laid lucy down on. her complaints were quickly quieted as your mouth replaced your fingers. you knew that it wouldn't be enough for long, and the next time that lucy opened her mouth, you slipped your fingers back inside of her.

your name fell from lucy's lips like a prayer as she grabbed your head and forced a little more pressure on her clit. you kept lucy on the edge, not giving her enough to cum until she asked for permission first. you got to sit back and watch her cum, two fingers working in and out of her at a relentless pace as your thumb toyed with her clit.

"come on now, we've got just enough time for a shower if you don't dawdle," you told her. lucy didn't want to move, so you helped her up onto her feet. the two of you were a bit rushed in getting ready, but lucy was out of the bedroom just in time to greet the first few of her teammates who were arriving.

the voices made you nervous, worse than lucy had been earlier. fucking lucy usually worked both ways, but now you were suddenly afraid of what they'd think of you. you were sure that they were all perfectly nice women, but you had always had a bit of trouble getting along with those of your own gender. you weren't exactly the most feminine of women, and growing up, it had been hard having to hear all of the backhanded compliments and straight insults about your appearance and body.

"i'm sure that (y/n) is on her way out. she usually doesn't take this long after a shower," lucy told her teammates. they were all very eager to meet you. there had been an obvious change in lucy's demeanor, and keira was especially interested of what could have caused it. she knew that it was definitely sex related, if only for the little extra swagger in lucy's normally cocky walk.

"where did the two of you meet?" ingrid asked.

"sport award show," lucy answered. she glanced back at the bedroom, relieved when she finally saw you begin to walk out. "oh, here she is. come on in babe. it's just alexia, mapi, ingrid, irene, keira, and sandra right now."

"hello," you greeted the group. you gave a small wave, unsure of what to think when mapi's jaw dropped. everybody sort of looked over at the tattooed defender in confusion until she spoke up.

"you, you're (y/n)," mapi said. you nodded slowly, unsure of how to proceed. "i, um, i am a fan. you are a badass, way too cool to be dating lucy."

"excuse me!" lucy exclaimed with a huff. you laughed as you pulled lucy into your arms for a kiss. she shrunk back a bit, which was when mapi seemed to notice something else. unfortuantely for lucy, keira also noticed it, but she was nice enough not to say anything.

"she's got you wrapped around her finger," mapi laughed. she had no room to talk, infamously whipped beyond recognition for ingrid. lucy was about to say something, but you stopped her with a small squeeze of your arms around her waist. "i like how you play, it's aggressive. lucy, is she so ag-,"

"mapi!" ingrid scolded with a sharp slap to mapi's chest.

"only when she's been bad," you answered. lucy's cheeks were burning bright red as her teammates dissolved into fits of laughter. "i'm going to get a drink. do you have something yet?"

"can you get my gatorade from the fridge?" lucy asked you. you nodded and ran off to go get it. you stayed in the kitchen for a little longer than you needed to just to let lucy's teammates give their first impressions of you.

"a rugby player? that's definitely not what i expected," ingrid said politely. you smirked a little to yourself, knowing exactly what they meant. lucy gave the impression to most people that she was effortlessly dominant. she had never been that way with you, not that you were complaining at all.

"i wasn't really either, but i'm happy that we're together. she's good for me," lucy said as she glanced over towards the kitchen.

"yeah, i can tell." lucy's gaze flicked over to keira, who was sitting on the couch with a warm smile on her face. their relationship had been long, far too long for them to just give everything up. their romantic feelings were long gone, but the trust and care in each other would never fade. lucy hoped that she could build that with you, but that she could do things differently.

eventually, you did make your way back to the living room again. more of lucy's teammates began to fill the apartment, and it felt like a party. they all seemed to have stories about lucy to tell, and you even offered a few of your own to everybody. with each of your own stories, you noticed the look in mapi's eyes as she stared intently and listened.

much to lucy's dismay, it was obvious that the two of you were going to become fast friends. in your eyes, mapi was just a physically smaller version of you. the two of you shared a lot of interests, and your spanish was much better than lucy's, so the two of you had quite a few little jokes going early. you were saddest to see her go at the end of the night, but only until lucy was pulling you back to the bedroom for some cuddling and drunken kisses.

"they all love you," lucy said happily. her tone quickly switched however as she mumbled the next part much louder than she had intended to, "but they all think i'm a bottom."

"you kind of are babe, but that's okay. i wouldn't want it any other way," you reassured her. lucy looked at you with completely lovestruck eyes before you pressed a kiss to her lips. it was crazy sometimes how easily you could wind her up or calm her down. "get some rest, okay? i'll make you breakfast in the morning."

"i love it when you cook for me," lucy mumbled into the side of your neck.

"i love you, luce."

"i love you too, ya big teddy bear." as if for emphasis, lucy gave you a big squeeze as she tugged you closer towards her.

[luveline]

would you ever be willing to write the day spencer and stripper!reader met in the grocery store? i’ve always loved the concept when you’ve referenced it in the story, i would love to read it👀 you’re absolutely incredible and i can never say anything not anon to you because my blog is flooding you with notes constantly and i’m embarrassed😅

thank you for your request ❤️ fem!reader, 1.5k

cw for domestic violence and workplace abuse

There's this weird organic grocery store by Spencer's place that's far too expensive, but it's a ten minute walk, so that's where he goes. (Weird in separation to organic.) 

He needs a lot of groceries now he's home for the week. Bread, vegetables, rice, flour if he wants to try and make pancakes, which he does. He also needs a new pen to write a letter for his mom, but Leaven is slightly too small for a stationery section. 

He doesn't know what he'll say to her in this one. Maybe that the cases he's going on are easy, or that he's been reading about crows. She's not feeling well lately. It might help her to know he's doing gentle things, even if it isn't true. 

No, he thinks. Can't lie to her. He never lies to his mom. 

Eggs. Sugar. Coffee grounds. He fills his cart. It'll be a lot to carry on the way home, but better to do it in one go. He likes keeping busy but he's a human being, too, and he's looking forward to spending at least sixteen hours in bed after dinner tonight. 

You look tired, too. 

Your back is turned, but Spencer knows it's you. You must live close by, he's been seeing you duck in and out for months. Usually with a loaf of bread or a single box of painkillers tucked in your pocket. You don't steal, he'd be able to tell, and he wouldn't say anything if you did, anyways. All he knows about you is that you have a nice smile when you have the energy, and your voice is like silk. Purposeful or by nature, he's yet to guess. 

You're standing by the end of the aisle near the checkouts with a basket hanging from your fingers. All you're buying today is a box of pancake mix and a bag of peas. 

Weird, he thinks with a smile. Spencer likes weird stuff. It's quirky. 

You turn to see which checkout is empty and Spencer's smile abruptly drops. 

You have a bruise across half of your face. It isn't strictly fresh —he can see the split skin on your cheek starting to close in on itself, and your purpled eye is open (though barely). You're frowning. Spencer knows how bad it hurts to get hurt like that. For a split second he can't believe someone could do that to another person, and then he remembers the hundreds of women he's had the privilege to meet at their most vulnerable, who trusted him, and he thinks maybe he's capable of helping another one. 

“Hey,” he says. 

You meet his eyes with a funny smile. “Hey. Sorry, am I in the way?” you ask, your voice stretched, thin but not weak. 

“No, you're not, it's… I see you here all the time.” 

You hold your breath. When you talk, it rushes out. “So?” you ask wearily.

“Are you okay?” 

Your funny smile fades as Spencer's had. He supposes that's the talent of cruelty. Even when it's over, it's not truly over. Your bruise still hurts, and Spencer still needs to know you'll be okay when you go home tonight. 

“I see you all the time too. We've… we've actually spoken before, haven't we?” you ask after a moment. 

“Yeah, about spirometry. I was out of breath running and–” It doesn't matter. You asked him if he was okay, and he explained that he was, just that his lungs don't hold much air on account of his own laziness, and it doesn't matter. “Are you? Alright? It's a bad bruise.” 

“It's getting better.” 

It might be, but there's something so raw about seeing you standing there in your sweatpants too big for you and a hoodie with a hole in it, purple and yellow contusion across your eyes and nose like the clumsy stroke of a paintbrush. Spencer will admit to feeling sorry for you.

“Can I talk to you?” he asks, knowing this isn't the right place. “There's the cafe at the front? Let me pay for my stuff and–” 

“I'm really okay–” 

“You had a cast on your wrist two weeks ago and now you're here with a limp and a really bad bruise,” he says softly, imploringly, “I just wanna talk to you about it. You don't have to say yes, I'm not trying to be weird, but I–” 

You cut off his mile a minute speech with a small smile. “Okay. I'm not, you know, doing anything anyways. It'll be nice to sit down.” 

Spencer knows it's dumb, but he wants to show he has good intentions. He takes your basket out of your hands and nods toward the cafe past the checkouts. “I'll come and meet you.” 

“You don't have to,” you say, gesturing at the basket. 

“The damage is done, right? This place is ridiculous.” He doesn't like the way you're holding your hip. It makes him feel sick, even though there's no proof one way or another to say you've been hurt beyond your bruising.

He pays for his things and yours and meets you at the cafe. He's half expecting you to have bolted, but you sit at a table near the entrance, completely still. 

Spencer puts his two bags under the table and offers you your pancake mix and peas in their own bag. 

“Thanks.” 

“Yeah, no problem.” 

“It was my boss.” You look at your fingers, spreading them slowly over the table top. “I’m a dancer. Sorry. I know you’re going to ask.” 

“And he hit you?” 

“Yeah.” 

Spencer knows the number for every women’s shelter in every state, but he doubts it would matter to you. He can tell already that you’d say no. He can tell you’re scared, even if you don’t realise it yourself. “Is it getting worse?”

You can’t offer him anything else. He understands how that feels. There have been moments where he desperately wanted to tell someone, anyone, what was going on in his life, but he always holds his secrets like a perpetual ache in his throat. It’s like he can’t tell someone, even if they ask. 

Sometimes he just wishes they’d ask twice. 

“You can tell me. It won’t sound stupid,” he promises. He’s in some odd place between Agent Reid and young, terrified Spencer, determined to help you, but not sure how. “It’s getting worse, right?” 

“Yeah,” you say, the weight of tears on your tongue. 

“You’re a dancer. Is he just a boss– Does he… abuse you financially?” 

You laugh wetly. “He’s not my pimp.” 

He can feel his face heating up.’“No, but do you get paid on time? Everything you earn?” 

You shake your head. “No, I don’t get paid on time. He takes a percentage, and somehow there’s always another percentage, and then discipline. And now…” 

“Now he’s hitting you.” Very badly. 

“I’m not stupid.” 

Spencer frowns gently, talks softly, “I didn’t mean to imply that you were.” 

“No, I know, but I need you to know I’m not stupid. When we talked before, you– you’re so smart, I bet you know so many smart people.” 

He’s not sure where you’re going with this. Perhaps you don’t want to talk about being hurt anymore. It must be a kind of torture to be hurting and know that that hurting will come again. There isn’t an end in sight for you, just right now. 

“Can I buy you something to eat?” 

“I have money,” you say, taking your small purse from your pocket. There are a few notes wedged inside. 

“You can’t take painkillers on an empty stomach, and you should take painkillers again soon. You had some before you came, and they’re wearing off.” He meets your confused frown with a frown of his own. “Your hands are twitching like you want to move away from yourself.” 

“You’re very perceptive,” you say in that smooth murmur. Power clawed back, he thinks. You’re protecting one of the things you can control about how you’re seen when everything else is far from it. 

“I’m a profiler. Do you,” —he tries not to sound hoity toity— ��know what that is?” 

“No.” 

“I’m an FBI agent.” You’re laughing as he takes out his badge. He joins you. “I know it sounds like I’m making it up.” Spencer offers you his identification passport slowly, so you know he isn’t wielding it around to be an asshole. “I’m in the behavioural analysis unit. We analyse the way people act. That’s why I know you’re in pain.” 

You take his badge, looking between his photo and his real face with a growing smile. “If you need all that to know I’m in pain, you’re not as smart as you think,” you tease, gesturing to the mottled skin of your bruise sweetly. 

Spencer buys you both cold sandwiches from the front of the shop and a drink to wash down your aspirin. It’s awkward, he guesses, but he’s used to that by now, and under it he can feel your palpable relief. You trust him to not hurt you, if nothing else, and he can work with that. 

[sanguineterrain]

Hi again 😊 You suggested i could send another prompt, sooo… maybe you & Jason have been together awhile, and you’re kidnapped by (choose your villain) and Jason is worried and frantic but trying to not show it of course, and negotiating for your safety? Ends up rescuing you of course, in whichever way you prefer, and then they find comfort in each-other 💗

I haven’t had time or energy to work on my WIP lately so this is very lovely and gratifying 😂👌🏻💗

aghh that's the worst! wishing you luck on your wip!! i'm glad you like these <3 requests are open for jason, dick, and MAWS!clark kent btw!

this one is very batfam focused hehehe. ft dramatic ass jason and his surprise kidnapped fiancé lol.

jason todd x gn!reader. tw: violence, kidnapped reader, reader is pushed off a building for a moment but they're okay dw <3, batfam feels, jason being a protective bf, bruce being a GOOD DAD! c:

****

"Actually, if we're being honest, if anyone has the most trauma in this family, it's—"

Batman grunts. "Really, Spoiler, not now."

The comm line crackles as Stephanie sniffs. "Fine. Stay in denial."

"Bats."

Every bat and bird in Gotham goes still.

"Hood?" Barbara asks carefully, already tracking his comm link.

"Oracle," he says, clipped. "I'm gonna get right to it: I need a favor. Can you help? Yes or no."

"Little Wing, where have you been?" Dick asks. "We've all—"

"Shut up, Nightwing," Jason growls. "Either you help me or not. Which is it?"

"We'll help you, Hood," Bruce says, voice washing over Jason like a balm.

Jason takes a deep breath. It's okay. He'll find you. Batman always beats the bad guys.

He fiddles with his jacket zipper. Moments tick by. Dick remains crouched on a rooftop. Damian is similarly poised.

"My..." Jason swallows. "My... fiancé's been taken."

The comm explodes with noise. Jason winces and digs the bud out of his ear for several seconds.

"Fiancé?!"

"You're getting married—"

"When was this—"

"Who are—"

"Enough," Jason growls, finally shoving the bud back into his ear. "I don't have fucking time for this. Yes, I am engaged, and they've been taken. No more questions."

"Tt. You are engaged? Impossible. Batman, clearly someone has hacked the line pretending to be Hood," Damian says, folding his arms.

Jason rolls his eyes. "Believe it or not, demon bird, I found someone crazy enough to marry me."

"Little Wing, I—I'm really proud of—"

"Shut up!" Jason pinches the bridge of his nose. This was a bad idea. You're in trouble, and Jason intends to tear Gotham apart to find you, but involving his family? Has he really stooped so low...

Deep breath. His focus is you. You're the only person that matters.

"Look, I'm telling you because Oracle's tracking me anyway, and B would snoop until he figured out who I'm really looking for, so it's easier to just tell you. But make no mistake: you aren't my family, and you won't see us again after tonight."

Bruce's throat tightens. His cape flutters in the wind.

"Very well," he says after a couple beats. "Last known location?"

"I'm sending you the address now. I've retraced my steps a hundred times though, and I can't—" Jason grits his teeth. He can't tear up or break things, not again. "Fuck. I can't fucking find them, B. I... I don't know if-if maybe I'm too late—"

"You're not," Dick says automatically. "We'll find them, Little Wing. We'll bring them home."

****

Your head is on fire.

It feels like there's a thousand needles pelting your skull. Whatever you were drugged with, it's hard stuff, and it hasn't worn away yet.

You look up; you're gagged and tied to some kind of support beam. As your vision clears, you see that you're in one of the new high rise-in-progress. Only the skeleton of the building has been completed because if Bruce Wayne isn't involved, construction takes forever to complete.

Faintly, you recall Jason mentioning something about a construction company leaving half finished projects across the country and using them as havens for criminal activities.

Yeah. This is not good.

"Where the fuck is he?" The voice echoes across the concrete floor foundation.

"Mike, we sent—"

"I don't give a fuck what you did; obviously, you screwed up! He's not coming!"

You close your eyes, trying not to throw up on your gag. Your head spins when you open your eyes again.

Who's not coming? Your rescuer? Or somebody worse than your kidnappers?

You try to take a deep breath, but your chest tightens instead.

"Fine," Mike barks in the adjacent room. "If that hooded psychopath doesn't show up, we'll just dump this one. That'll send a message. Prepare the explosives."

A door swings open, and you flinch. You cower, shrinking from the figure.

"You better hope he shows," the guy growls, and cocks his gun. "Your boyfriend is the only reason you're still alive. It'll be such fun to watch him fall to his death, don't you think?"

You try not to show your swelling panic. How does he know about you and Jason? And you have to warn him. Explosives. Jason's walking straight into a trap, without backup, because you know he'll be alone. He always works alone.

Mike sneers and waves the gun around.

"Oh, yeah. I know your secrets. In bed with Gotham's biggest crime lord. You must be his favorite. I can see why."

"Mike!" someone shouts. "We got company!"

Mike's eyes blaze cruelly. "Showtime. You're coming with me."

You thrash as hard as you can because if there's one thing Jason taught you, it's to always fight back.

Mike backhands you hard enough to send you sprawling. Your hands are bound, so you can't catch yourself, and you hit your head on the concrete. Blood pools in your gums.

"Try that shit again, bitch," he snarls, and hefts you up.

He drags you up a flight of stairs. Your head throbs, and now your jaw aches. You're too dizzy to try to fight back again.

You end up on the roof, which is a miasma of beams and wooden lattices. Wind cuts through your face, and you close your eyes so they don't water.

"Hood!" Mike crows. "Wonderful of you to join us!"

"Wish I could say the same," Jason says, and your heart leaps at the sound of his voice.

You start to shout through your gag because you have to warn him. It's a trap, he'll kill you both—

Mike wraps his arm around your throat and squeezes. Air stops, and you choke on your cries.

"I'll kill you," Jason snarls, and you know he wants to say more, but he's trying to protect you. "Let them go and maybe I won't break every bone in your body."

"Oh, don't worry. You two will be reunited soon. What is it they say? Love blinds you?"

"Michael Cassidy," a new voice says, deep and deadly. "Let go of the hostage. We can talk this out."

You crack open your eyes. Is that... Batman? And Robin? And... Nightwing? What—

The arm around your throat tightens and you gasp for air as you start to choke for real. Oh God. Batman's going to die because of you.

"You involved Batman?" Mike snarls, now truly irate. You feel yourself being dragged backward, toward the edge. Your stomach rolls in warning.

"Take it easy," Batman says, palms up. "We can work this out."

"You can't play fair?" Mike shouts. "Then neither will I!"

The wood beneath your feet is gone. You're falling.

"No!"

But no sooner than you fall are you caught. Warm arms encircle your waist, and you're jerked to a stop before you can fall more than a few feet.

"I got you, baby, I got you."

Jason is connected to a grapple. At the roof edge is Batman, Nightwing, and Spoiler, all holding the grapple.

You shake your head, screaming against your gag. Bomb. Bomb!

"'S alright, 's alright, sweetheart, I won't drop you."

You scream urgently through your gag, butting your head against his helmet. Jason pulls your gag half free and you choke out the warning.

"B-bomb!"

His grip tightens. "Shit. B, get out of here! Place is rigged to blow!"

The first explosion goes off. Jason meets your gaze. He's terrified, you can tell, but he tries to mask it.

"Let go," he says.

"Wh—"

"He'll catch you," Jason promises. "I trust him."

And then he lets go.

Several more explosions go off. The building begins to crumble. Dust and heat sweep across your face and lodge in your already sore throat. You scream, in the air for a few more seconds.

Then you crash into gray body armor. A cowl, a cape.

"It's alright," Batman gruffly says. "Hold on tight."

Batman swings you both to safety on an adjacent rooftop. You watch him dive back into the flames. It isn't long before Jason swings out of the smoke, then the others. He pulls off his helmet and tosses it to the side, arms open.

You run and bury your face in Jason's neck, clinging to him. He hugs your tightly and rubs your back, saying over and over, I got you.

You sigh and slacken out of exhaustion.

"I've got you, baby," he says, though his voice is wet this time. "You're safe."

Jason checks over your wounds. You see the rage cross his face several times at every bruise and cut on you. He doesn't let go of you even after he's done. He's shaking too, perhaps more than you, as he cuts your binds and completely removes your gag.

The Bats land gracefully behind you. Jason stiffens as they do.

You kiss his jaw. His gaze returns to you.

"You saved me," you say.

"I always will," he says. "Always."

"Are either of you injured?"

Batman suddenly swishes to your side. You blink, startled.

"Nothing serious," you say. Jason grunts unhappily at that. You manage a smile. "Thank you. All of you. Thank you so much."

Jason nods stiffly. "Thanks, Bats."

Nightwing smiles, face soft with affection. "'Course, Hood. And, uh, Hood's fiancé. We're there any time you need us."

"That's right, chum," Batman says. The obvious care in his voice makes you ache.

Jason had called his family. His family with whom he has a plethora of problems. He'd called them for you.

"Jay," you say, voice thick with emotion. He seems to understand instantly.

"I'll always bring you home," he vows, cupping your face. "Whatever it takes."

He pulls you to him like he can't bear to be away from you any longer.

You squeeze his wrists. "I know. It's okay, Jay. I'm okay."

Out of the corner of your eye, you see that the Bats still have not dispersed. Spoiler looks like she's about to melt into a puddle. Nightwing is the same. Even Batman looks a little sentimental.

Robin is the only one scowling, tapping his foot impatiently.

"Hood, are you not going to introduce your fiance-we-just-learned-existed-tonight?" Robin asks, arms folded.

Jason huffs. "Not with those manners, demon brat."

You roll your eyes and extend your hand to Batman. You say your name, smiling.

"It's an honor to meet you, sir," you say.

Batman laughs, and it sounds a little fond. It's also kind of weird to hear Batman laugh. "No sir necessary. It's equally an honor to meet the person my son is marrying."

Jason makes a choked little noise. You beam.

"Well," Batman murmurs. "We'll let you two get home. We'll track down the rest of Michael's thugs—"

"Come to the wedding," Jason blurts.

Batman stills. "Me?" he asks carefully.

"Everybody," Jason says, tugging you into his side. "Uncle Clark, Aunt Diana, Selina, your ten thousand kids, everyone."

He turns to you. "I-I mean, as long as that's okay with you, baby."

"Oh, Jay. It's your family. Of course I want them to come." You lean in to whisper in his ear. "I'm proud of you."

"Little Wing, c'mere!"

Nightwing tackles Jason in a hug, then drags Robin, who protests loudly, in by his cape. Spoiler snaps a picture from the sideline.

"Now that's adorable," she says.

Batman looks at you. He removes his cowl, and you gasp quietly. He smiles, and it makes him look decades younger. You guess he hasn't smiled much since he lost Jason.

"Thank you," he says.

You tilt your head. "For what?"

"For bringing him back to us."

You duck your head. "Oh, Mr. Wayne, that wasn't me—"

"Bruce," he corrects gently. "And it was. You played a bigger part than you know. You saved him. Thank you."

[tavolgisvist]

'Just call him on the phone'

Q: Aside from the millions you’ve been offered for a reunion concert, how did you feel about producer Lorne Michaels’s generous offer of thirty-two hundred dollars for appearing together on Saturday Night Live a few years ago?* A: Oh, yeah, Paul and I were together watching that show. He was visiting us at our place in the Dakota. We were watching it and almost went down to the studio, just as a gag. We nearly got into a cab, but we were actually too tired. Q: How did you and Paul happen to be watching TV together? A: That was a period when Paul just kept turning up at our door with a guitar. I would let him in, but finally I said to him**, “Please call before you come over. It’s not 1956, and turning up at the door isn’t the same anymore. You know, just give me a ring.” He was upset by that, but I didn’t mean it badly. I just meant that I was taking care of a baby all day, and some guy turns up at the door … But anyway, back on that night he and Linda walked in and he and I were just sitting there watching the show, and we went, Ha-ha, wouldn’t it be funny if we went down, but we didn’t. Q: Is that the last time you’ve seen Paul? A: Yes, but I didn’t mean it like that.

<...> Q: You say you haven’t really listened to Paul’s work and haven’t really talked to him since that night in your apartment— A: Really talked to him, no, that’s the operative word. I haven’t really talked to him in ten years. Because I haven’t spent time with him. I’ve been doing other things and so has he. You know, he’s got twenty five kids and about twenty million records out — how can he spend time talking? He’s always working.

(John Lennon, 1980, All We Are Saying, David Sheff)

*It was in 25 April 1976 **it was in 26 April 1976

Well, when I, when I was Just a little baby boy, Every night, every night I would call, Because your number, you know, Brought me such sweet joy. I've called your name, John, Every night since then But I ain't never, no, no, never Heard you calling me, My sweet, sweet babe, So, you know, you better call me back again, I call your operator but I still can't get through to you, Call me back again

(Call Me Back Again, presumably, 10 June 1976, Seattle)

Tell me, is she everything i see Or is she really not the one for me? We know, and though some may disagree But do they know the way we want to be? <…> Building something One thing made to last And holding something Special from the past And do I still believe in stories we've been told***? Are all the things she brings me worth their weight in gold? Oh yeah, (oh yeah) pure gold

(Pure Gold, Paul for Ringo, 1976)

***I remember when John and I were first hanging out together, I had a dream about digging in the garden with my hands. I’d dreamt that before but I’d never found anything other than an old tin can. But in this dream I found a gold coin. I kept digging and I found another. And another.The next day I told John about this amazing dream I’d had and he said, ‘That’s funny, I had the same dream’. So both of us had this dream of finding this treasure. And I suppose you could say it came true. I remember years later talking about it – ‘Remember that dream we had?’; ‘Yeah, that was far out’. So the message of that dream was: keep digging lads.'

(Paul McCartney to The Big Issue, Feb. 2012)

After you've gone And left me crying After you've gone Ain't no deny You'll feel blue You'll feel sad You'll miss the dearest pal that you ever had

There'll come a time And don't you forget it There'll come a time When you'll regret it****

Someday when you grow lonely Your heart will break like mine You want me only After you've gone After you've gone away

(After You've Gone, 1977, Paul's version - 'just for fun' as he said - of a 1918 popular song written by Turner Layton and Henry Creamer, and it's Frank Sinatra's (and Sophie Tucker!) version.

****the line 'Don't you forget it/When you'll regret it' reminds another old (not as old like After You've Gone but old) song -  I Love You And Don't You Forget It by Perry Como. The song, what our lads were singing in their early years so playfully:

Klas Burling: Tell us something about how you find a song… how you get the idea about a song, to write it down. John: Well, sometimes it's the words first, and then the music after. Klas Burling: Very often you've got a title, you know… Me and you, and everything like that? Paul: Yeah. We try to do that, to make it personal so it's… so we really mean it. When we sing a thing about 'I love you,' it's easier. John: (singing) 'And don't you forget it!' John & Paul: (singing together, jokingly) 'I love you and don't you forget it!' Paul: Well, you see, it's easier than singing something about the cat that lives on the hill, man. (laughter) Paul: It's a lot easier just to sing about what you feel yourself.

(August 23 1963, interview with Klas Burling)

Was I just dreaming or was it only yesterday I used to hold you in my arms And now a baby, and a another on the way [Indescernable] in a farm Now must we be alone? If it don’t feel right, don’t do it If it don’t look right, look right through it If it don’t feel right, don’t do it Just call him on the phone

(John Lennon, Real Life, Feb 1977)

We'd had a bread strike over here***** and I rang him and I was saying, What are you doing? He says. I'm baking some bread.' 'Oh! Me too.' Imagine, with the stereotypes, John and Paul talking about baking bread.

(Paul McCartney, May 2001, interview for Mojo magazine)

*****a bread strike in England was in Nov 1978

Q: Do you regret that your life has become so public? A: I realized that a good fifteen years ago. I remember actually thinking when I went on holiday somewhere, ‘God I’d really better start thinking now about keeping a few countries aside where we don’t sell records. I won’t be able to go anywhere without being recognized.’ But now I think, ‘Really, I’ve reached the point of no return. There’s no going back.’ Even if I didn’t want to sing anymore, I’d just be like Greta Garbo or Brigitte Bardot. They both retired but you’d never know it. John said this to me a year before he died. He said, ‘Be careful what you wish for, it might just come true.’ That’s the way I look at it. I wished for all this and I got it. To regret it would mean I’d have to sit here and live with negative thoughts about it. I know that would only sink me. Even if I had feelings of regret my personality would not really let them out. ‘Look mate, you don’t regret it. Look on the other side,’ that’s me. Not to sink. I always used to do that instinctively, and not allow too many negative thoughts to surface.

(Paul McCartney, April/May 1982, interview for Music Express)

The couple of years after the Beatles broke up it was very touchy because I think we suspected each other of business manoeuvres. So anyone would ring up, it would be like, “Why is he ringing?” And when you put up the defensive like that it’s very difficult to say, “I’m not! Honest!” You just don’t know where to put yourself. So we had a lot of those ups and downs for quite a few years. But the favourite thing was that if ever we talked not business – and what we ended doing, actually, was make a rule not to talk business on the phone – and on those occasions, we had really good vibes, man. And it was great; we just talked kids, we talked family, we talked cats, we talked life, rather than, “oh, what songs are doing with x business affair?” And one of the great things for me, one of the consolation prizes after John was killed, the only thing– you know, you find yourself holding on to little bits of wreckage to keep yourself afloat. And with me it was the fact that our last phonecall was really one of the best we ever had together; it was really warm, we were really friends again.

(Paul McCartney, 1984, interview for CBS Morning News)

Q: Do you remember your last conversation with John? A: Yes. That is a nice thing, a consoling factor for me, because I do feel it was sad that we never actually sat down and straightened our differences out. But fortunately for me, the last phone conversation I ever had with him was really great, and we didn’t have any kind of blowup. It could have easily been one of the other phone calls, when we blew up at each other and slammed the phone down. Q: Do you remember what you talked about? A: It was just a very happy conversation about his family, my family. Enjoying his life very much; Sean was a very big part of it. And thining about getting on with his career. I remember he said, “Oh, God, I’m like Aunt Mimi, padding round here in me dressing gown”– robe, as he called it, ’cause he was picking up the American vernacular –“feeding the cats in me robe and cooking and putting a cup of tea on. This housewife wants a career!” It was that time for him. He was about to launch Double Fantasy.******

(Paul McCartney, Dec 1984, interview for Playboy)

******Double Fantasy released 17 November 1980

I was lucky. The last few wee... months that he was alive, we’d managed to get our relationship back on track. And we were talking and having real good conversations. Real nice and friendly.

(Paul McCartney about This One, interview with Bernard Goldberg for the TV series 48 Hours, 1989)

[drunkenbagel]

Hi *shy wave*

There’s so few people on here do Pedro pascal x reader fics 😭

Could you perhaps do one where reader is a director and dating Pedro secretly and he wants to go public but she’s worried about his fans?

Please and thank you 😊

yes of course!! i love writing of dearest pedrito hehe. thanks so much to you for reading, hope you like it <3

🎥private screenings🎥

Pairing: Pedro Pascal x f!reader Word count: 2k Content: angst but happy ending, no use of y/n, fluff ending

“Okay, take 30 to rest people! Thank you! Good work!” you shouted so everyone on set could hear.

Everyone relaxed and went to do different things, some to snack, some got lost in the set. You left your headset on your chair and hopped off. A couple of people stopped you to ask questions about the next scenes, and you tried to answer them as fast as you could while walking.

You walked outside of the studio and over to where the trailers were. While you were at the door of the trailer you were looking for, you looked at both your sides so you could make sure no one saw you there, and knocked softly three times. Almost immediately, a hand yanked you inside, making you yelp in surprise.

“About time.”

You scoffed and were going to answer, but Pedro held your face with one hand, sneaking the other around your waist, and kissed you. You closed your eyes at the contact and sighed, melting into the kiss.

“Missed you” he said in a whisper, linking your forehead with his.

“It's only been a couple of days” you said with a small laugh, caressing his face softly while kissing him again. “You can get free days off of filming, but I have to be there almost always”

“We can always make it public so I can visit you whenever I'm free, that way I could kiss you or hold your hand whenever we wanted”

You sighed, getting annoyed at his words. “We talked about this, Pedro. We can't do that”

“But why? We're both consenting adults and can make choices!”

You were growing more and more annoyed by his words, getting away from his hold. “I am a director, Pedro. It can be seen as an abuse of power, and there could be serious consequences. Not to mention your raging fanbase, who would very much hate me.”

“That's not true” he protested with a sigh. “I know the fans can be a little intense sometimes, but they'd come around. They essentially like my acting and want me to be happy, and if they don't then they're not fans.”

You walked away from him while grunting, running your hands through your hair. “No! We've discussed it a hundred times. Really, can you not respect my decision?”

“Your decision also affects me too! Haven't you thought about that? It's not only you!” he shouted. “Haven't you thought how it hurts me to keep you a secret for so long? It sucks!”

“If it sucks so much maybe we need to rethink this!” you shouted back.

The moment the words came out from your mouth, you regretted them. You didn't want to break up. Fuck no. This was the best thing you ever had, the most precious and sweetest person. You looked at him, and he was frozen with a shocked expression. His eyes were teary too, and when a tear fell down your cheek you furiously wiped it off your face.

Why did you always fuck good things up?

“I have to go.”

You started to walk to the door, and opened it, but before you could say anything, Pedro stopped you, grabbing your wrist.

“Don't do this” he whispered, and you didn't turn around, but you could feel the tears in his voice. You didn't want to start crying, not when you still had quite a few hours of filming ahead.

“My break is done soon” you said, letting go of his grasp, walking to your set. On the way there you had to stop on a bathroom to splash your face with cold water and gather your thoughts. You were sure you left Pedro crying, and that broke your heart, knowing it was your fault.

You're a fucking idiot, your mind said to yourself in the mirror. Driving away the best thing you ever had over some stupid secrecy.

When you felt less shaky, you splashed your face with cold water again and went back to your chair, resuming your work. At least you had a distraction for a few more hours.

·-·-·-·-·

When you got home you walked to your room and let yourself fall down to your bed with a grunt. You couldn't stop thinking of Pedro for the whole filming, of the sadness and hurt you saw in his eyes was consuming your mind constantly.

And it was your fault.

You hurt the most happy, adorable, harmless and loving person you could find, and you hated yourself for it. And why? Because he wanted to share you with the world. But it wasn't as simple as that and you knew it. Unfortunately as a director and a woman you could probably face a hell lot of backlash for having a relationship with a coworker. Because it had started as that, developing into the most beautiful, unique and amazing relationship you've ever had.

You were just afraid of the hate wave that would come over you, especially since Pedro was very, very loved by the public. And you loved him for it, he was the sweetest person with everyone, so down to earth even with the huge rise of his fame. He was great, and you were just average. You felt like if your relationship would come out, he would realize that he could do better and just leave. You were so, so afraid of it.

A groan left your mouth again on the pillow. You were so worried of messing up your career after everything you went through to be where you were. Unfortunately, being a woman in the industry and climbing up the ladder of success was still hard. But still, you wanted to be able to kiss Pedro any time you wanted, have him by your side without having to be wary of other people, hold his hand...

“Goddammit” you muttered, taking your phone from your back pocket and unlocking it.

You weren't going to let your fear get the worst of you this time. You opened Pedro's chat and sent a text:

“Sorry for the time, but can we talk?”

You left your phone in your nightstand and changed into a comfortable clothes for bed. He wasn't probably going to answer, it was very late. After letting out a shaky sigh and getting into bed, you turned the lights off and covered yourself with the duvet. You couldn't sleep, and ended up moving around in bed.

The sudden buzz of your phone made you jump to check it. It was him. It was a message from Pedro.

“Can I go to your place?”

Your heart skipped a beat. Now? I mean, you preferred to talk face to face, but... Ah, what the hell.

“I'll be waiting.”

A few minutes after you sent the message, you heard a couple of knocks in your door. You bolted from the bed to the entrance, and tried to tidy yourself up in the mirror by the door the best you could. With a hand on the handle, you let out a shaky breath and summoned all the courage you could before opening the door.

And there he was, with tired and sad eyes, waiting at the other side of your door.

“I... I'm sorry, I was just in a bar nearby, and-”

“No need to be sorry. Please, come in” you interrupted, stepping aside so he could come in. You both sat on the couch beside the other awkwardly, not knowing what to say.

“I want to apologize” you said looking at your fidgeting hands, in a whisper. “For my behaviour. My words. I know I was cruel and I didn't mean it. I- I need you to know that I didn't mean it and I don't want to break up, that's- That's the last thing I want.”

“I shouldn't have pushed you” he said, not looking at you either.

“That's what I wanted to talk about.”

“I got it, I won't do it again. I'm sorry.”

“No you won't, because I don't want to keep the secret anymore” you said, and as soon as the words left your mouth, he looked at you, confused. You repositioned yourself on the sofa, facing him.

“I've been so scared, so obsessive with not letting anyone infiltrate my personal life, that I haven't let myself enjoy it fully. At first the secrecy was exciting, and I guess I grew accustomed to it. But you said it yourself, by keeping our relationship private I'm just hurting you, which is the last thing I want to do. That made me realize what an idiot I've been trying to protect myself from the hate that I don't even know if it'll come! I-” you took a deep breath. “If it does happen, I'm more than willing to go though it, because you're worth it. You deserve a partner that loves you loudly and proudly and I want to be able to do that because I love you.”

Pedro's mouth twitched and you thought that maybe you went too far, or gave too much of a speech. He stayed silent for a couple of seconds, and then a big smile painted his lips, eyes a bit teary.

“You don't have to do that” he said, a hand going up to your cheek to cup it. “You don't have to come out of your comfort zone”

“I've had you in the privacy of my comfort for way too long, and I think it's time that I enhance that zone. I want to be able to hold your hand, kiss you whenever I want-”

Pedro interrupted you with a quick kiss. You let out a small laugh.

“Yeah, well, just like that. So, if it's okay by you, I won't be needing to keep the secret anymore.”

“I love you” he said again and again while peppering your face with small kisses all over. You couldn't help but laugh at the tickling. When he finished with the small attack, you linked your foreheads together.

“I have to get up in a few hours to go to the studio, but please stay? I don't want you walking around at this hours of the night.”

“Alright, I have to go too anyways.”

He took his clothes off and you both went back to bed, falling asleep in the arms of one another.

Next morning you got up earlier than him, showered and started making coffee. Taking two mugs, you carried them to the bedroom and left them in the bedside table. Pedro hummed when he heard you.

“Good morning sunshine” you said, kissing his face. He opened his eyes slowly and smiled.

“Hey” he said with a raspy voice. “Is that coffee I smell?”

“Fresh out for you” you said, reaching to the small table and giving him one cup and sipping out of the other. You both stayed in the bed until finishing your coffees, talking and laughing.

After that, Pedro got dressed with some clean clothes he had at your place and you both got into your car to go to work. Before going out of your car you had to breathe a couple of times, anxiety getting a bit high.

“It's okay” said Pedro. “We don't have to go out at the same time”

“Yeah, I know. Sorry” you apologized. You let out a breath. “Okay, let's go.”

Both of you got out of the car and he took your hand while he walked up to your set, which made you smile. “Here's my stop”

“I'll see you later?” he said looking at you, still holding your hand.

“I think I finish before you, so I'll get some lunch for us both, sound good?” you said while smiling. You could feel some stares, but you didn't tear your eyes apart from his. You got closer, leaning into him until you gave him a quick peck on the lips. “I love you. See you later”

He couldn't help but smile. “Yeah, see you later darlin'”

You watched him as he left the building, and one of your friends from filming came up to you.

“Care to explain, darlin'?” she said in a mocking tone with a smile.

“Short answer, that's my boyfriend. I'll give you the long one if you have a while” you said laughing while she locked your arms together.

[foodfightnovelization]

More Foodfight! Material DISCOVERED

That's right, I'm back. Just like I prophesized in my last post, yet another treasure trove of Foodfight! goodness has been uncovered, and this might be one of the strangest to date...that's right, official Foodfight! Cinnamon Sleuth Cereal was sold at Albertsons back in 2007, over five years before the movie finally came out!

Okay, not really, but I had you going for a second, right? So, this IS a proposed packaging design for actual Cinnamon Sleuth cereal, but it never went into production, it never made it to stores and there was certainly never any actual cereal to be eaten. This, among several other designs and a collection of behind the scenes material, was sent in recently by a Foodfight! crewmember, who explained they were mockups created to show off possible tie-in products. I'm not sure why they chose Albertsons for these mockups but it's likely they were in talks with them at the time and wanted to show off designs including their branding. In any case, I just had the Cinnamon Sleuth box printed because I thought it'd look cool next to my collection of Foodfight! merchandise, and I wanted to see if anyone would be convinced this really existed.

I've included all the designs above in case you want to print your own- there are several more including another cereal, brownie packaging and milk cartons. Curiously, the milk cartons have Farmland Dairy logos on them, with Farmland Milk actually appearing in the finished film at several points. I'd say this confirms my theory these mockups were created to show to companies they were already actively working on deals with, but I can't say for certain that was the case.

Equally curious are these character sheets from 2002, seemingly showing off almost every model created during early production. There are so many fascinating layers to this- Sunshine is still a human instead of a catgirl, showcasing a very different model to the one seen in the initial trailer, and Maximilius Moose is still a dog named Panzer Pup, both aspects that were changed once the decision was made to change Dex to a dog. However, it may be that Dex's human design was edited out and replaced after the fact, given Dex's model here appears to be the one from the finished film (you can tell by the weird hands). In any case, it's fascinating to get a closer look at all these characters- while the majority of the models for the main cast were found recently (see my last post for more on this), there are a bunch of side characters here we've only seen brief glimpses of before, including the Pringles man and the scantily-clad Cherry Waifer. The most fascinating to me however are the Red and Yellow M&Ms- I've read through their scene in the movie's script, I've seen multiple versions of the storyboard, even rough layout animation in the workprint, and it's only now I'm FINALLY getting to see their actual character models and how they would've looked in the Foodfight! artstyle. Sure, they more or less look exactly as they did in M&M commercials that aired around the same time, but it's still amazing to actually see these characters modelled and rendered after analyzing so many different iterations of the scene as it went through development.

The crewmember in question also sent a folder containing over a hundred stills which while at first glance appear to be from the finished movie, are actually subtly different in multiple ways- usually lighting, facial expressions, or background textures like the sky or color of a hill. A lot of these are labelled "fix" which makes me speculate if after the movie was completed, the crew went back and tried to touch up the animation to make it look more appealing before release. Is there a slightly better looking version of Foodfight! somewhere out there in the world? Who knows, but really it would've been like trying to polish a turd. The movie was already ruined by then, and I don't think any number small changes would've done much to salvage it. However, that does bring me to my next interesting point...

There are also storyboards dated May 2011, depicting an alternate opening to the movie giving a much more cinematic introduction to the main characters. It's crazy to think they were still working on storyboards so late in production, but there IS actually a reason for this. I unfortunately can't upload the entire sequence due to this site's image limit, but what you might notice are a lot of characters being described as "flying over the audience", "flying into the camera" or knocking things "into the audience", with some of the boards having "(3D)" written in parenthesis next to them. It's my belief that very late into production, Kasanoff wanted the movie to be 3D, made popular by the then-recent Avatar, and this new opening sequence full of flashy 3D effects was drawn up to show off what they could do with the technology. It's not clear if any of this was ever actually animated, but imagine going to see a movie that advertises itself as 3D but only the first minute contains any 3D elements. Of course, Kasanoff requesting this is only speculation on my part, but given how the movie was ruined by the crew having to cater to his whim of directing the whole thing with motion capture (made popular by the then-recent Polar Express) it's no stretch to assume the 3D opening sequence was a similar situation.

There's a ton more that was sent to us as well, so much so that I could never hope to talk about all of it. However, it should be on archive.org at the time of writing this if it isn't already, and you can now access everything Foodfight! related through the official Foodfight! collection on there!

That's right, so much Foodfight! material has been uploaded over the past year that the Internet Archive gave it its own archive, allowing you to find everything in one convenient place (including my scans of the novelization and Deluxe Sound Storybook). It'll also be updated periodically whenever something new is found, so it'll always be the home to all things Foodfight!. Whether you're wanting to take a look at some concept art shown in ROTTEN: Behind The Foodfight, read through an early draft of the script, or check out something I've talked about on my blog, it's all here at your fingertips.

I don't think there's ever really going to be an end to the depth of the Foodfight! rabbithole. I thought I was done a year ago when I finished analyzing the novelization, and look at everything that's been found since then. Every time I think I'm out, this movie pulls me back in. So...in my next post I'll FINALLY show off my collection of Foodfight! merchandise and talk about what this movie means to me, but that doesn't mean it's the end for this blog. Whenever I say I'm done with Foodfight! I end up jinxing it, so if I try to conclude things now in a few months some CD will show up with a bunch of lost footage on it, I'll get mailed concept art of a bunch of characters we've never seen before, or it'll turn out Larry Kasanoff was actually D.B. Cooper the whole time. So as long as there's something new to discuss, as long as there's a Foodfight to be fought, I'll keep updating this blog from now until forever. You better duck when they launch the cream pies!

[silent-stories]

𝐃𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐋𝐄𝐓 𝐈𝐓 𝐆𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄

Pairing: Eddie x F!Reader

Summary: Eddie is in the hospital after what happened in the Upside Down but no one will let you in his room, so you wait sitting on the floor in the hallway until Wayne lets you sneak in.

Warnings: angst, blood, fluff

You were sitting on the floor as there were no chairs or benches of any kind in the hallway, your back was against one of the faded walls that looked like they hadn't been painted over in years. The dark corners of the walls let you know that no one had worried about the mold in that place.

You thought the doctors had purposely placed him in that cold, dark wing of the hospital, almost forgotten by everyone.

Probably the heating there was off or didn't work because the temperature was decidedly lower than in the others wings of the hospital and this made you understand how little the doctors cared about the only person who occupied one of the rooms there: Eddie.

It had been a week since you'd come out of the Upside Down dragging a barely breathing Eddie out, it had been a week since you'd seen him for the last time, his chocolate eyes misty with tears and full of fear closing as he rested his head on your lap in the backseat of Steve's car.

You remembered how his bloody hand had found yours as Steve was driving to the nearest hospital and you had to hold back from crying just because you didn't want to let him know how bad his condition was.

Only when his hand had stopped holding yours and you thought he was dying you begin to silently sob, your tears mixing with Eddie's blood.

He couldn't die. There were so many things you'd never told him.

Nancy had told you he was still breathing and you couldn't help but believe her words and use them as your only hope at that moment.

Your trembling hand had caressed his hair and your fingers stained of blood went through his hair until you reached the hospital. The look Nancy gave you as they were taking him to the operating room was that of someone who understood that Eddie was more important than a friend to you but no one had talked about that.

In the week since that night, you hadn't seen him once. You knew he was still sleeping but he was better, his situation was stable and he was going to wake up soon but despite all the times you begged them to let you see him, no one gave you permission to enter.

You jumped up when you saw a nurse walking in front of you and you put yourself between her and the door locked by the keys that only some of her colleagues and the doctors had.

The nurse rolled her eyes. "What do you want, again?"

"I wanna see him." You said like it wasn't what you'd been asking every day for the past seven days.

"You can't." She replied curtly, putting her hands on her hips with an annoyed air.

"Please." You insisted, your tone of voice couldn't hide your desperation.

She shook her head. "Girl, we've told you a hundred times. You're not family and he's a criminal. You can't see him."

"His uncle can!"

"Just one hour a week."

It was disgustingly little and she knew it too but she didn’t seem to care.

"Girl, he's a criminal. And he hasn't woken up yet anyway."

You clenched your jaw. "He's not a criminal."

"That will be decided by the police."

You took a deep breath to try to calm yourself.

"I'm begging you."

"You can't."

"But he's always alone."

"He is still sleeping!"

"But I want to be with him when he wakes up!"

The idea of ​​Eddie waking up alone in a bare and probably too cold room made your stomach turn.

You just wanted to see him, talk to him even if he couldn't answer you and maybe read him some of his favorite books.

You just wanted to be there.

And they didn't let you.

You didn't want that when he woke up his first thought would be that all his friends had abandoned him.

"Now get out of my way or I'm calling the security." The nurse snapped.

You looked into her eyes, hoping to find a shred of sympathy.

"Girl, move away and go home. This is my last warning."

"Please, you don't understand. Eddie is innocent and he doesn't deserve to-"

"Get out of my way!"

You looked in her eyes one last time and eventually you moved away, watching the nurse disappear into Eddie's room and come back after a few minutes, leaving you with a glare.

You sat down on the floor again and brought your knees up to your chest, waiting for something you didn't even know what it was.

After another five days, you met Wayne for the first time. You recognized him from Dustin's descriptions of him: grey hair and often wore a plaid.

You wanted to talk to him but you honestly had no idea what to say.

While fighting monsters in another dimension with your nephew, I think I developed some feelings for him and now I have nightmares every night of him dying but nobody will let me see him?

You exchanged just a glance before he entered Eddie's room using the key the nurse had given him. The slight doubt in the man's expression hinted that he was wondering what the hell you were doing there, sitting on the floor in an empty hallway.

You watched him disappear behind the door, feeling a slight envy beacuse it was something you couldn't do.

You didn't realize you'd fallen asleep when you woke up with a jolt as the door opened again.

"Jesus Christ" You muttered rubbing your eyes, you had no idea what time it was because there wasn't even a damn clock on the wall but since Wayne was leaving, you must have slept for at least an hour.

"Hey kid, what are you still doing here?" The man asked looking down at where you were sitting, though he looked defensive, his gaze was gentle as Eddie's always was.

"Oh well they…they never let me in. So I stay here hoping someone will take pity on me." You said the last part with a slight chuckle even though it wasn't far from the truth.

"You're here to... see Eddie?" The question sounded almost incredulous.

"I... yeah, I am." The fact that his uncle had a hard time believing you were there for Eddie almost broke your heart.

You stood up and held out your hand.

"I'm Y/N. I'm…I'm a friend of Eddie's."

The man shook your hand. "Wayne."

You smiled for the first time in about ten days.

It was a rainy night when Eddie finally woke up. You hoped that thee lightning didn't remind him too much of what happened in the Upise Down.

Three nurses rushed to his room and you stood in front of the closed door, helpless. Eddie had woken up and he was alone and that was exactly what you'd been trying to avoid for days.

You'd talked to Hopper now that he was back and he was doing everything he could to prove Eddie's innocence but he said he needed a bit more time.

After a few minutes they went out.

"So?"

"So what?" One of them asked as if your question bothered her.

"Is he okay?"

"He's fine." It was the only answer you got before the nurses left locking the door again.

You stood there for a few seconds undecided whether to sit down again or ask if anyone had called Wayne to let him know Eddie was awake.

You stared at the door. It didn't feel particularly thick.

You certainly couldn't break through it but you could have done something else.

"Eddie?"

You waited a moment, hoping your voice had reached him.

"Y/N?" He said your name like he almost didn't believe you were there.

Tears filled your eyes when you heard his voice again but for the first time in days they were tears of relief and joy. It was so good to hear Eddie's voice again.

Your Eddie. The boy you've known for so short but who managed to stole your heart anyway, the boy who deserved none of all the awful things that had happened to him, the boy who almost died for a city that hated him and that still did.

You dropped onto your back against the door as tears began to stream down your face. "Yeah- yeah it's me. How... how do you feel?"

"What are you doing here? It's the middle of the night." You could almost see his confused expression.

You sniffled. "I didn't want you to be alone when you woke up but those assholes won't let me in." You made a sound that was a mix between a laugh and a sob.

After a moment of silence you heard his voice again, his tone was concerned. "You're not crying, are you?"

You chuckled wiping your tears with the sleeve of your shirt. "Maybe."

"What happened?"

"What?"

"You're crying. What happened?"

"Jesus Christ, I'm crying because I'm glad you're awake, you dumb fuck."

There was another moment of silence, you could only hear the sound of rain against the roof of the hospital and some thunder rumbling in the distance.

"Eddie?"

You heard a chuckle from the other side. It was soft and it was some of the most beautiful music you've ever heard. "I've missed your insults."

You shook your head with a slight smile on your lips. "You didn't answer my question. I asked how do you feel."

Silence fell again. Every time this happened you were afraid you would never hear the sound of his voice again.

"I almost died." He said, like that was the moment he realized it.

"That's why I'm asking you."

"I remember you holding my hand."

"I did."

"I wasn't afraid."

"You weren't?"

"No. Because you were holding my hand." His voice was gentle and he said it like it was obvious he would die happy if you were there with him.

Your eyes started stinging again and your vision became blurred from tears. "But I was. I was so scared for you."

"For me? Nah, there are things more important than me, princess."

"Stop doing that all the time." A tear rolled down your cheek and landed on your lips. You felt its salty taste while talking.

"Doing what?"

"Thinking nobody cares about you. Because I do. Dustin does. Your uncle does. Mike and Lucas do. Your band does. God, even Robin, Steve and Nancy and Max do, okay?"

The rain had stopped and somehow, being able to hear Eddie's voice more clearly made you feel closer to him.

"Y/N?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for not leaving me alone."

You smiled through your tears for the second time, thinking you'd happily spend all night sitting on that cold floor talking to Eddie through some stupid locked door.

"I would never do that."

The second time you ran into Wayne at the hospital was the time he let you sneak in.

"If they catch me they'll stop letting you in too." You said hesitant. You really wanted to see Eddie but you didn't want his uncle to lose his chance because of you.

"I'll stay out here and make sure no one comes, okay?" He gave you a half smile as he turned the key in the door lock.

"Are you sure?"

"You and your friends brought him here when he was dying. If it weren't for you, he wouldn't be here now. I owe you this."

The memory of his bloody hand ceasing to hold yours crossed your mind for a second. It would have been one of those that you would not have easily forgotten.

"Okay." You said finally. "Thank you."

You entered the room closing the door gently behind you.

It was quite dark inside, the single window in the corner of the room had its blinds almost all the way down, and it was a little colder than you'd expected.

Eddie was sitting with his back against the iron headboard of the bed, a dark blanket wrapped around his shoulders was almost completely hiding the blue hospital vest he was wearing.

You thought her uncle must have brought that one.

You couldn't see the wounds on his body and maybe that was the only reason why you hadn't burst into tears yet, one on his neck was covered by white bandages lightly stained with blood.

A scratch on his cheek was superficial, unlike the other wounds which would have left deep scars.

"Hi." You said when his tired eyes despite having slept for days met yours, with a slight smile on your lips.

You had almost forgotten how they could shine despite the darkness of the room.

Or maybe it was just the tears he refused to let go.

"Hey." He looked at you like he didn't believe it was really you.

You chuckled. "You look like shit."

He laughed, some wrinkles growing on the sides of his eyes. "C'mere." He opened his arms, letting you know what he wanted.

You sat on the bed, quickly taking off your shoes to curl up next to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders to gently push him close to you after planting a kiss on his cheek, just below one of the scratches.

You held him careful not to hurt him.

"I've missed you so much, princess." He murmured as he buried his face in your neck, inhaling as if he wanted to remember your smell.

"I missed you too." You said as you pressed a tender kiss into his messy hair.

Your hand was slow and gentle as it caressed his back.

As you slowly pushed away, you brushed his hair away from his neck and your eyes fell on the bandages there. "Do they still hurt?" He knew you were also referring to those hidden by blankets and clothes.

"Not anymore now that you're here." He chuckled.

"Eddie." Your tone was almost reproachful.

He huffed. "Do you really wanna know? Like hell. But now that you're here I feel better, like every time I hear your voice through that damn door I feel less alone."

You pressed another kiss on his cheek. "My rockstar." Somehow feeling his skin under your lips reminded you that he was really there, that he was alive and that everything was going to be okay. "You'll be fine, I promise."

He chuckled at the nickname. "I don't really feel like one, right now."

You shrugged. "Once a rockstar, always a rockstar. And make sure you get back on your feet soon because I've yet to come see you play at the Hideout."

He smiled. "So you're still up for that date?"

Date.

When he had first mentioned it, when he was still hiding in the boathouse, none of you called it that. But it sounded good now.

"You think a little trip to another dimension changed my mind? It wasn't even my first time." You joked like you used to take a walk in the Upside Down every day.

He chuckled. "Good to know that."

As a calm silence fell between you, Eddie's hand found yours, resting in your lap. His pinky finger intertwined with yours before he pushed your hand into his.

You watched your intertwined fingers. "Don't let it go this time."

"What are you talking about?"

“When we were in Steve's car..." You took a deep breath. "On the way to the hospital, you blacked out and you stopped holding my hand. I watched it slip away from mine, blood dripping from your fingertips. It was horrible. "

"Princess-"

"So please don't let it go this time, at least for a while, because-"

"Princess."

You stopped talking as Eddie rested his other hand on your cheek, raising your head and making your eyes meet.

His thumb gently brushed away a tear you didn't even realize was crossing your face.

"I won't." He whispered, his lips only a couple of inches from yours. "I promise."

When his mouth brushed yours, you brought your free hand to the back of his head, fingers threading through his hair as you pulled him into a real kiss.

His lips were as soft as you'd imagined and his kiss was as gentle as you were sure it would be, when his nose bumped into yours you both laughed against each other's lips.

"Eddie?" You asked with a smirk on your lips.

"Mh."

"Are you blushing?" You only said that to annoy him and he knew it.

"Oh, fuck you."

You laughed, your hand still holding his, your fingers tracing circles on the back of his from time to time.

"I don't want you to leave." He spoke, his voice was soft.

"You just told me to go fuck myself." You laughed.

"And you just kissed me. None of this makes sense."

You laughed again, resting your head on his shoulder as your tone became slightly more serious. "I don't wanna leave either. I don't think I'll be able to come back anytime soon. We'll keep talking through the door though."

"It's not the same. I can't hold your hand and not let it go if you're on the other side of the door, you know?"

You sighed, knowing you had to go but grateful for the opportunity his uncle had given you when your gaze fell on the window in the corner of the room. It wasn't very big but a person could have entered through it for sure.

"Oh no. What are you thinking about?" Eddie asked when he saw the smirk suddenly appeared on your lips.

'Make sure to keep that window open tomorrow, okay?'

"We are on the second floor! Do you wanna kill yourself?"

"I'd be already at the hospital anyway."

"Y/N!"

You laughed. "I'll try to climb. Relax, I'll be fine."

Eddie looked at you with a mixture of disbelief, amazement and admiration written on his face. "You're crazy."

"Well, this crazy girl here just found a way to see you every day."

Eddie shook his head, chuckling, before gently pulling the hand he was still holding towards him, to press his lips against yours a second time.

"God, I love you so much."

"I know."

Tags: @jacklesdeanvessel @morning-sky7 @pipsqueakkitten @navs-bhat @michaelfuckinglangdon

[cutiecusp]

Finally.

BF! Graves x reader.

Now I know, Graves isn't our fave CoD operator, in fact every time I play as him I get hell in the lobbies still xD but I wanted to explore a best mate drabble I've been thinking of. We all know him as cocky, arrogant... and what if he is, but not to us? And we ask him for help with a problem... warning, this is a LONG one!

(tw. Virginity loss, best friend, hidden feelings, revealed feelings, kissing,teeny blood mention, smut, PinV. So MDNI!!)

"You want me to what?" Came the loud reply from your best friend.

Flinching at the volume, you press a finger to your lips, hoping no one else heard him.

"You know what I'm asking. You've probably done it a hundred times over." You hiss, eyes darting around the canteen.

"Darlin' you know I love you. We've been friends forever, but this, this I can't help you with, I'm sorry." Phillip backs off in his chair, his arms raised in mock surrender, his jaw tightly wound, as if he was going to say something further, but held himself back.

Your cheeks redden. You knew asking was probably the biggest risk in your friendship, but you trusted no one else, and you harboured feelings for Phillip ever since you both enlisted years ago, but always dampened it down due to his cocky demeanor.

"It's just a few minutes of your time, no feelings involved..." You bargain, leaning into the table.

"A few- a few minutes?" He splutters, gaining attention from the other table. He leans into your space, watching the blush flush from your cheeks.

"Sweet thing, the guy who takes your gift should be someone special. Someone you trust to make you feel good. Not a few stolen minutes on base. What's brought this on?"

"I think I'm defective." You admit softly.

"Defective how?" He presses, scooting in his chair, closing the gap between you two.

"No one else I know is a virgin at our age." You state, your cheeks stained pink.

"You go around talking about it with everyone?" He teases, hoping to break the mood.

"This isn't funny, Phillip. Why does no one want me?" You say, near tears.

What you fail to notice is that from the minute you both enlisted together, you've always been Graves' girl. He practically growls at any suitor interested in you, and the grapevine is adamant that you two are a thing. He's just too chicken to act on it.

"You'll find someone, doll." He says easily, like he's not worried about your status.

"Maybe I'll ask Ghost, he seems nice enough." You say, sliding your tray across the table, and standing up, dismissing the conversation.

"I'll catch you later." You call out as you follow Ghost into the corridor. You fail to see a pair of jealous eyes trailing your body as you leave.

A few hours go by, and curfew is approaching. You change into your pyjamas and grab your book, settling in for the night when you hear a brisk knock in the door.

Pulling it open, you find Graves, all dishevelled and mad.

"Tell me you didn't do it, doll." You smell a hint of bourbon on his breath, as he steps into your room.

You step back, shaking your head.

"D-do what?" You ask, but you already know the answer.

"Tell me you didn't give Ghost your body, baby. Tell. Me." He commands, eyes glossy with dutch courage.

"No, I didn't." You admit. You knew he wasn't the one when he turned you down gently and pointed out that someone else may want you and your gift. The very someone barging into your room.

You scoffed at Ghost, but it turns out his premonition was right.

"I.. i couldnt." You admit. Your eyes searching his for the unspoken question you were asking.

He steps into your space, his body close enough to yours that you could smell his cologne you brought him for Christmas. Your eyes flicker down to his lips, and back up to his eyes.

Involuntarily, your tongue darts out to wet your lip, soliciting a deep groan from Graves.

His arm wraps around your waist, pulling you close to him, your bodies pressed against each other.

"You know, for the longest time, doll..." He pauses, his fingers tracing patterns over your hips.

"For the longest time. I've never felt like I deserved you. I've watched you from afar take on challenges even I've flinched at. You've taken every deployment, successful in most. You are faster, stronger and far more deadly than most of the team. You are smart, funny, kind.. Your laugh makes me laugh, your heart is.. your heart is generous, and I'm glad to call you a friend."

He pauses, and cups your chin with one hand, while brushing the hair out of your face with rhe other.

"But. I'd be lying if I said that's all I want to be. Your eyes are like pools, that I could stare into for hours, your body fits into my hands perfectly... I just want to dip my feet in and taste you, to see if you taste of heaven."

"I should be the one honoured to take your gift. To pleasure you until you see stars, to give you my body as much as you give me yours. I want to own every godamn moan that comes out of that mouth. I want you." He concludes, his breath ragged in his chest.

"Please." He asks. And one word is all it takes for you to melt in his arms as he swipes his lips over yours gently, his tongue opening your mouth further.

You moan in the back of your throat as he leads you to the bed, barely stopping kissing to lay down on the sheets.

"Tell me you want this, and I'll give you all you want." Phillip whispers.

You nod, and you see him shake his head.

"Words, baby. Tell me." He insists.

"I want this, Phillip, probably have for the longest time. I want you." You admit.

Pulling back, so his body is half over you, he pulls his t shirt over his head, and you observe his body with a smile. Your fingers trace over his shoulders, down his chest and to his waistband.

"Not yet, darlin'" He admonishes gently, undoing the buttons to the top of your pyjamas, exposing the soft skin bare underneath.

He lets out a breath, his eyes darkened with desire.

"Fuck, baby. You are so beautiful." He slides the fabric off your shoulders, the cool air pebbling your nipples, as you take a shuddering breath.

"It's okay, I got you." He says, bending down to place kisses along your soft skin, before taking a nipple into his mouth, and swirling his tongue around the sensitive bud, his hand playing similarly with its pair.

With the other hand, he brings his fingers up and holds your hand flush to your head, effectively trapping you against him.

A whimper tears from your throat as you feel warmth lick your lower belly, combined with the weight of him on you, and the pleasure he was pulling from you, you thought you could burst.

"Phillip, please." You beg, although you aren't sure what you want entirely.

He chuckles against your body, his hand moving from your breast to your pyjama shorts.

"Please, what, darlin'" He asks gruffly, his fingers playing with your waistband.

"I need.. I need more." You admit, eyes wide with lust.

You see Phillip pull back on his heels, and whimper at the loss of contact. He smirks, his lip lifting at the side.

"God, darlin' you look amazing right now." He says softly, almost fully devoted.

He looks at you for permission before he wriggles your shorts down your legs, the moisture between your legs sticking to the soft fabric.

"Fuck, baby. No underwear?" He asks, surprise evident in his tone.

You shake your head shyly as he opens your legs, baring yourself to him.

"Oh, she's gorgeous." He whispers, more to himself than anything but you blush regardless.

"And so wet for me, doll." His voice thick with need, his eyes darker than coal.

You watch as he swipes his fingers through your folds firmly, collecting your nectar on his fingertips. He brings it to his mouth and sucks them clean.

You hold your breath as he closes his eyes before noticing the bulge in his jeans. You smirk a little, satisfied you weren't the only one affected.

He leans down, hooking your legs over his shoulders as he licks a heavy stripe from your clit down, pulling a delicious sound out from your lips. He suckles on your sensitive flesh until you pull his hair, guiding him to where you want him. His tongue flat, he takes his time licking building you up to your first orgasm.

It hits you out of nowhere, your eyes tightly shut, your toes curled as wave after wave hits you, you try to talk, but no sound comes out of your mouth, just a flash of bright light behind your eyes.

Phillip straightens up, and kisses you, combining your taste in your lips as you return the kiss deeply.

"You OK, darlin'" He asks, a little cockily.

"You look proud of yourself." You retort.

"I just got the prettiest girl in the world to come on my face, I'd say I'm pretty proud of myself." He replies easily.

You choke on a breath you had been holding.

"Phillip!" You chastise, mock scandalised

He grins, and heads back down between your legs.

"Phillip, I can't." You protest, your thighs a little sore.

"Gotta prep you, baby. Don't wanna hurt you." He explains, kissing your inner thighs before returning to your sensitive folds. His tongue painting masterpieces over the skin.

You gasp as you feel his finger slowly work his way inside you, the feeling intrusive, but not painful.

"There you go baby, think you could take more for me?" He asks between licks.

You nod, and you shudder as you feel a second finger match the first, but this time pressing down on a sensitive spot.

"God, Phillip.. please!" You pant as he strokes the spot over and over, that familiar warmth in your lower belly as you tighten around his fingers.

"Come for me darlin', come on my fingers." Phllip insists, picking up the pace to match your hips bucking against his fingers.

You squeal as you come, your pussy clenching around his fingers, eyes rolled in the back of your head.

"Fuck." You hear him whisper, opening your eyes, you lock your gaze with his, and find nothing but admiration and pride.

"You looked so sexy, coming on my fingers like that darlin'" He chuckles.

"Almost came in my jeans."

You look down and you could see a dark patch on his jeans, he catches you looking and raises an eyebrow.

"Off. Now." You command, your hands going to his belt.

He shucks off the denim and fabric underneath, leaving him naked in front of you.

"Do you want me to?" You swallow, unable to look away.

Phillip shakes his head.

"Won't last long if you do, darlin' and I'd rather come in that pretty cunt of yours. I assume you are on the pill?"

You nod and wrap your arms around his shoulders, pulling him to you, your lips pressed against his as he leads you both back down on the bed.

Your legs spread open as he settles between them, his soft gaze on yours.

"You ready, doll? We can always stop here."

You throw him a look, and rock your hips against his.

"Not a fucking chance." You say firmly.

He chuckles as he slides home, his length stretching you out deliciously. You gasp, and squeeze your eyes shut, and he pauses.

"You okay, baby?" He asks, concern written on his features.

"I'm good, just... adjusting." You admit, opening your eyes.

He slowly rocks his hips against yours, and any discomfort melts away as the pleasure takes over you both. You trail your hands over his shoulders and chest, feeling his skin under your touch.

"Phillip." You whisper, afraid to break the moment.

He looks down at you, your body underneath his.

"Yeah, darlin'?"

"I'm not gonna break, go faster." You urge, wrapping your ankles around his lower back.

He picks up the pace, leaning back a little, knelt at your hips as he watches where you two meet. He watches the creamy ring around the bottom of his cock, tinged with a little pink.

You are his is all Phillip can think of as he rocks against you, your body fitting against his perfectly. You pull his closer for another kiss, changing the position of your hips, taking him deeper.

You both groan at the sensation, the feeling of fullness for yourself, and the tight vice of your pussy clamping down on his cock as he guides you to another orgasm.

He brushes your hair away from your face, taking in your flushed cheeks, and glossy eyes.

"You feel so good, baby." He admits softly, his hips snapping against yours as he feels you building up to a third orgasm. His fingers softly pinching your nipples, sending a shock wave of pleasure down your spine.

"You gonna come for me, come on this cock?" He asks, smiling at the way you nod.

"Words, doll." He reminds you.

"Fuck, yes, Phillip, I'm gonna come.." You pant, your hips matching his pace as you chase your high.

You feel like you are floating as another orgasm rips through you, you didn't care how loud you were being as pleasure burst through your body.

Phillip snaps his hips to yours, following closely, his spend deep inside you. He pulls you into his body, slowly pulling himself out as he wraps his arms around you.

Sweaty and satisfied, you look up at Phillip, who places a kiss on your forehead.

"I'll run you a bath, thank fuck we have the bigger barracks." He laughs. He pulls himself from you, as your phone chimes.

'Fucking finally. Can you hear you both down the hall.' 👻

You blush and hand your phone to Phillip, who laughs.

"He's right, darlin'... fucking finally.."

...................................

A/N this turned out to be the longest drabble ever. I know some of you are here due to the Matchmaker series, which will be resumed ASAP, but I hope this appeases the writers block Gods! I appreciate everyone's likes, comments, asks, reblogs, it all means so much. ♥️

@xoxunhinged @muneca-lemon-steppa @livingoutsidethetardis @gardenof-venus @misshugs @soraya-daydreams @frudoo @azxulaa @yesornowaitidontknow @enjisbf @thevoiceinyourheadx @shadowdark00 @rynbeerose @lunamoonbby @incredible-walker @identity2212 @pukbadger @urbimom @corvid007 @wordsfromshona @shadows-empress @m00xy @canyonmooncreations @evie-119

[shaded-night]

The Price of Gift Giving

There are many things Aventurine can pride himself in. He has no shortage of talents that have gotten him as far as he has. However there are still a few things that he cannot wrap his head around. When it comes to love and showing his affection, Aventurine fumbles more often than not, even with his heightened emotional intelligence.

Now, he isn't sure what exactly he had done this time around, but his beloved Doctor seems to be frustrated with him. So here he is standing in one of the most luxury malls in all of Pier Point trying to pick out the best gift as an apology. He knows Ratio isn't big on material luxuries but as Aventurine eye's a beautiful fountain pen, he can't help but throw his card down. He pays extra to have it engraved with an owl face -the same one that adorns Ratio's shoulder- and a quaint but sweet quote, "For my Beloved Veritas". Aventurine feels confidence flow through his veins as he becomes a couple hundred thousand credits lighter. The pen is packaged nicely, the engraving hidden from view so he can surprise his boyfriend even more.

When he returns home, Aventurine can here Ratio in their shared study grumbling to himself as he no doubt marks another students paper as inadequate. Aventurine braves a smile as he tucks the small gift into his coat pocket and quietly enters the study.

"I'm home~. I see you're still working hard. Do you have time for a short break?"

Ratio sighs, sparing Aventurine a quick glance before his eyes setting back on the stack of papers .

"Unfortunately I'm on a tight deadline. I did mention to you earlier that I'd most likely will be busy all day." Ratio's voice held clear annoyance, but that's fine. Aventurine's smile faulters for only a second.

"Yes I remember you saying that. Sorry, I just don't like seeing you over work yourself."

Ratio only hums in acknowledgement as red ink fills another paper.

If Aventurine just stands here any longer he's sure to be kicked out, so to not waste anymore time he fumbles to get his gift out of his pocket.

"I have something for you." He places the box neatly on the desk, and Ratio pauses to look at it. It's not hard to guess its price, the name of the store was printed clearly on the lid. Aventurine can feel the annoyance radiating off of Ratio as he narrows his eyes at the package.

"Aventurine," said mans smile drops; Ratio never calls him that at home. "While the thought is appreciated, we've talked about your frivolous amount of gifts before. No matter how deep your pockets are, always spending isn't a good lifestyle. Honestly, is drowning me in expensive products the only thing you can do?"

It shouldn't hurt because Ratio is right; they have talked about Aventurine's unhealthy spending habits. Still, he had no issue buying anything that he thought Ratio may like. And that's what made his confidence crumble. His eyes stung and his voice was stuck in his throat. Ratio was looking at him, almost expectantly, but Aventurine couldn't form any words.

Instead he turned around, silently leaving the room. It felt humiliating standing there under his boyfriend's scrutinizing gaze. Maybe he deserved it for being inconsiderate of Ratio's thoughts on luxury goods. That was the only rational conclusion he could come up with.

~*~ When Ratio had finally emerged from the study, it was well into the evening. Aventurine could hear him in the kitchen getting himself his share of dinner Aventurine somehow managed to put together just a hour prior. He had the catcakes to thank for pushing him to get food in him. The last few hours he had just been curled up under a blanket on the couch while the snacks meowed at him sympathetically.

Eventually the noise in the kitchen died down, and was replaced with the couch dipping under Ratio's weight. Aventurine didn't move from his place under the blanket.

"Vasha," a hand fell onto Aventurine's shoulder; and maybe he's just a little too weak because a second later he wrapped himself tightly around his boyfriend. "I would like to apologize, my love. I shouldn't have been so insensitive to your gift."

Aventurine closed his eyes, letting his head fall against Ratio's chest.

"I just wanted to make you happy. I know you've been overworked lately...and I know I can't help with that kind of work. I know I said I'd work on my spending. So I guess I'm sorry too."

Fingers thread through his hair and a kiss is placed on his head.

"Change doesn't happen overnight, and I shouldn't have taken my frustration out on you. You are far more valuable than any gift, Kakavasha."

Ratio shifts and pulls the giftbox from his pocket. It was still unopened, but Ratio swiftly untied the bow around it and removed the lid. He picked up the pen, admiring the pretty swirl of blue and white along its body and it's gold accents. His thumb ran over the engraving and Aventurine feels a smile against his temple.

"It is quite a lovely pen. Thank you, Vasha. I will treasure it always."

~*~ inspired by this twt post~

rtrn is so stupid i love them

[mrs-gauche]

So, I *think* I've calmed down enough to form coherent sentences about this trailer now, after watching this about a gazillion times. 😂 There is just SO much in this and I still can't believe it's all real.. I feel like people have already dissected every single frame anyway, so here are just my poor two cents (that's a lie, it's an essay lol), I'm sure 90% of this has probably already been said lol, but I just had to write my thoughts down, so there you go. 🫠

But first, can I just ask you guys this.. Does anyone else feel SO friggin overwhelmed every time something huge like this drops? 😂😭 Like, I LOVE the collective excitement and freaking out over all this with the fandom together in real time, and maybe it's because I'm not a native English speaker, but I'm watching the trailer live and within like fifteen minutes there are already a bazillion notifications, messages, people have already made hundreds of theory posts, edits, fanart and shitposts, meanwhile I'm sitting here still looking at the FIRST FRAME and trying to process what I'm even looking at. lmaoo Like, it takes me SO long to take it fully in, calm down and look at ALL of it in detail, while I go radio silent for like two hours, making people think I just died watching the trailer, I guess. lmaooo So.. sorry if it takes me forever until I even go on here and look at everything you guys are posting. 💀 <3

Anyway, so first of all, I'd like to just generally say... Everything about this blew. me. away.

Look. After like 20 years of watching BioWare's entire animation catalogue of the same 25 movements in every cutscene, that it would make you jump every time a character but even slightly moved differently than everyone else, we're now getting a game that is SO INCREDIBLY CINEMATIC, SO SMOOTH, unlike any BioWare game before. A game where everyone just moves and expresses emotions like their own person, making everything a hundred times more immersive and impactful!!

Not only that but there's a BioWare game now with PHENOMENAL LOOKING HAIR and REALISTIC HAIR PHYSICS. Guys, do you understand this is HISTORY??? lmao We've been asking for this for YEARS and it's happening!! 😭

And the cinematography? THE CINEMATOGRAPHY?? Just looking at that very FIRST LOCATION SHOT alone. The camerawork, the composition, the fluidity of movement, the shift of focus, the lighting, the use of MoCap, the facial expressions... As someone who spent a *LOT* of time using the flycam to make cinematic gifsets of DAI, where - with all respect to the devs - 90% of the camerawork basically consisted of "zoom in/zoom out"... this. blew. my. fucking mind.

Like, they did it. They mastered the Frostbite engine on all fronts. And it truly hurts my heart seeing people compare this to Fortnite or whatever, when in my opinion this time they actually managed to find a perfect mix between stylized and realism, in favor of making the characters even more expressive and this coupled with the use of MoCap and the incredible cinematography will make these emotional scenes hit SO hard and.. ugh, I just love it so much. 🥹❤️❤️

With this being said, let's dive into it!

Okay, so I know this is super random, but it was literally the first thing I noticed about this trailer. lol Did you noticed that it said "BioWare" *before* "Electronic Arts" in the beginning, unlike that first... controversial reveal trailer, where it was the other way around? 😂 Not reading anything into this of course (or do I? lol), but.. Idk, I thought it was.. interesting. 👀

So we start off with the first of many amazing tracking shots, with the camera orbiting around Rook in this place devoid of color or life. The note at the bottom made me chuckle "Game engine footage with some costum camera angles", I was like "Oh, so they used the flycam to make this?". lol So some shots of these will look different in the final version (what kind of spoilers are they hiding?? 👀👀).

I do hope that next shot DOES end up in the game though, because holy SHIT, that FIRST wide shot already blew. me. away.

Look at the COMPOSITION of this.

Actually, you could probably take every single location/wide shot of this trailer and hang it on your wall. lol But seriously, the way this place just looks... dead. It makes me think of "void" rather than Fade.. like an ancient graveyard. The raw Fade looks generally creepy, but this is haunting even for that. There's no life, no color, no motion. It's all broken and crumbled. Almost like it reflects Solas' feelings. People are speculating if this place might change depending on Solas' state of mind.. This is the Fade after all, but Solas is here physically and this being the place that was supposed to be the new prison for the gods.. It's probably different from the rest of it.

We also see all seven statues of the pantheon from the ritual site again. Solas "I have the high ground", *literally* talking down to Rook, while standing on two separate cliffs (how did Rook even get there, I wonder? lol), like there is quite literally a rift between them (for now..!) and Solas is keeping a distance, as always. We still don't know how that connection between the two even works, I assume Rook can only contact him while asleep? But to think that this is the place where he is trapped now, where he is even more isolated than ever before, is making me so emotional. ;-;

I love how it's just black and white though. It gives the scene a destinct atmosphere that might be important, if this is where we get to see Solas doing a lot of introspection. In the art of filmmaking, the absence of color is often used to force the audience to focus on the contrast, textures, and tones present in the image, which can evoke a deep sense of emotion.

And speaking of emotions...

"You have no idea what you have done."

We had already heard that line before, but something about that booming, echoing effect they used on his voice sent a shiver down my spine!

"The blighted elven gods walk free. And all because you disrupted my ritual."

To me, he *sounds* much more frustrated here than he *looks* when saying that. lol He looks incredibly worried though, and just so tired. A moment ago, he was SO close to achieving his goal after hundreds of years of preparation and then he failed again... and now there is this completely clueless stranger who got him in this situation, but who he has to rely on now to stop these gods, when he's unable to trust anyone, and yet he can't even yell at them too much, because he *needs* them. He must be so exhausted.

And yes, it is kinda funny how they put "elven gods" in quotation marks. lol

Thank god he still has his freckles though. ❤️ We're actually seeing a lot more texture on his face here than in the gameplay showcase. And yes, not only did he get his eyebrows microbladed but apparently he's also sporting eyeliner and lipstick now. 😌✨✨ The only downside to the lack of colors here is that his super purple eyes are not poppin' anymore. lol

"You battle against gods. They will not rest until you are on your knees. Fearful. Cowering. Helpless in the face of such power."

I love how they play this line so early on in the trailer, that it makes you go "WAIT... IS THAT- NO WAY" and not until the end do we get the confirmation with the most amazing entrance ever.

We then get a shot of what I think has to be Treviso in flames and Ghilan'nain symbolically coiling her tentacles around a crow statue's head, as she's probably about to take over the city. 👀 *falls on my knees the second I meet her in the game* lol

Then there's the shot of this horrifying Blight.. lump.. growth thing that has completely devoured an elf (and several other bodies it seems) with a hair style that has everyone wondering if this could be Felassan! 🥺🥺🥺 As much as I would LOVE for Felassan to make an appearance.. I kinda hope this *isn't* him.. because good god, whatever happened to this persom here must be pretty traumatizing (are they even still alive?) and also, how do we get them out of there? lol Either way, seeing as there are Harding, Bellara and Neve accompanying Rook here, this might be earlier in the game (and this is them dicovering that the Blight is already spreading rapidly?) and yet it already shows us that this Blight is on a whole other level than anything we've seen before, and it's taking every living thing.

Then we see another snowy place (or might this be within the same area?) that's also in huge parts taken over by the Blight. You can also see a dead(?) dragon lying on the ground at the bottom right corner? 🥺

Then Elgar'nan literally pops up right next to Ghilan'nain, and btw, I love how I can't even tell where her body begins or where it ends in this shot. lmao What ARE you, Ghili?? 💀

It looks to me like maybe she was struck by a bolt/spear from a ballista or something? The Grey Wardens tried to take her out maybe? Looks like the power of Elgar'nan's mere presence blows the Wardens away then lol, like they're just insects to him.. and in the blast we can see a person that looks like Evka?? <3333 (please don't die here though 😭)

Then we're getting a first glimpse of a dragon that shows up multiple times in this trailer. Also, to me, it looks so much like the dragon from the Golden City vinyl cover, which has me like 👀👀👀👀

Next there are a few scenes from the prologue we've already seen in the gameplay showcase, but it's coupled with new lines from Varric, that have me super worried. :(

"Rook, you've got this. I've seen your work. You're clever, adaptable. And you don't know when to quit.

My first reaction to this was "Oh god no, that sounds so much like a "passing the torch" kind of dialogue to me" as in Varric either dies (PLEASE NO but it IS super suspicious how he's not seen or mentioned in any other scene so far) or retires his role as the leader of this group and hands it over to Rook. And he just sounds... weary. 🥺 I wonder what he means by "your work" though? Is he talking about things Rook has done before Varric recruited them? Or is it maybe later down the line, after Rook has already proven themselves to be a great leader? 🤔

Then we get another shot of that one dragon and our first look at Harding with the bruised face (whoever did this, come fight me!) and some poor person tangled in.. something, I'm not sure. lol

Then there's a super quick shot of the floating building in Minrathous, followed by Rook opening a gate Aragorn style, which leads me to believe that this is actually somethere IN that floating building maybe?

But the fact that Rook and everyone else seems to be wearing casual clothes in the following shots, plus the architecture in the background has me wondering if they might be at the Lighthouse actually? 👀

Especially because in the very next shot we see Rook, Bellara, Neve and Harding all in casual clothes again in front of a giant eluvian and I wonder if that's the mirror that we've read about in the Game Informer article. The special eluvian at the Lighthouse that can take you anywhere? :o

Speaking of the Game Informer article, it also told us that Rook, Harding and Neve went back to the ritual site after what happened in the beginning, which is probably what we're seeing here!

"You want allies to go after the elven gods. I've got places to look."

Well, good thing we have a clever detective on the team that apparently knows people who would willingly fight some gods. lol Notice how Harding's face is still injured in this scene. 👀 So I assume whatever happened to her must've happened at the ritual site? Btw, I love how the trailer makes it look like they're all in casual clothes and the second they're stepping through the eluvian, they're in full gear? 😂 (I'm sure those two scenes take place at different times though.) It's crazy how much different the Arlathan Forest looks now, without the cataclysmic storm and all. I love the lighting, the colors and the soft rain! :3

Then we get another gorgeous location shot to hang on the wall. <3 My guess here is definitely Anderfels, given the landscape and those "pillar ring" things we've seen before (I still have no idea what those are, the funniest guess is still griffon training flight path 😂 But something tells me those things will be important.).

"I'll be damned! A griffon!"

Davrin and Assan!! <33333 And the dialogue makes it sound like this might be the first time they meet each other?? 🥹🥹 Followed by a scene of Davrin taking care of business and what might be the return of children in DA?? 😭 Seeing that little girl made me so happy, because that was actually one of the few things on my wishlist for DA4, because I always felt like children make the world feel SO much more real and immersive and besides Kieran, children were completely absent in DAI.

Am I trippin or does it look like this child is smiling here, while running away from a horde of darkspawn?? 😶 Kids in the Anderfels are build different, I guess. lol

"In war, victory."

CHILLS!!

Then we see Assan again, who is pinning down a.. thing I can't identify. lol I'm very curious about all those cages in the background though.. 🤔

We then get one of the shots that made me freak out the most, because it's a flippin *underwater* shot of elven ruins??? 😱😱

We know it's elven because if you look very very closely, you can see a Halla statue in the distance, to the left side. I'm immediately reminded of the stories about Arlathan having sunken to the ocean floor! There's also still all that mention of Ghilan'nain's grey "goop" that smells like the ocean and another shot later on of a dragon (Elgar'nan?) emerging from the ocean! 👀👀👀

And aside from all that, it's just such a sick level design!! 😍 What do these ruins look like if you enter them in the game? How do we get there?? There's an eluvian in the middle of the ocean on the newest map that's included in the Collector's Edition! 👀👀 If that one flippin theory of mine actually turns out to be true and there are somehow two parts of Arlathan, one on the ocean floor and another in the center of the Fade/the Black City, I'll do a triple backflip. lmaoo

Then Lucanis jumps in with some incredibly smooth fighting moves against the Venatori... and PURPLE WINGS!! So we were right with our speculation about the reveal trailer! Why does he have them? Is it some connection to a pride demon that revived him? 😂 I don't know, but it looks SO cool!! And after showing off, we hear his first line "I'm ready" with that sweet sweet accent, which is just the cherry on top!! <333

What the heck is up with the sky in this one?? My first thought was the Lighthouse?? 😍😍 Because if you look closely, there are a few wolf head ornaments on the walls? 👀 And this could be in the Crossroads and just like a real Lighthouse, there's a light on the top..? 🥹

Then there's Bellara using some magical device, that looks super similar to the things that were next to the big eluvian in that other scene!

Which makes me think that this might be where we help Bellara find this artifact in order to get the eluvian at the Lighthouse to work properly (since it doesn't seem to work right without Solas, according to the Game Informer article).

"I've never seen this before. There's something kind of exciting about it!"

Not gonna lie, that line and that weird looking device gave me Peebee flashbacks from Andromeda, which I honestly wasn't the biggest fan of. 😂 But Ghil Dirthalen (member of the community council) responded to me a few weeks back on twitter and confirmed that Bellara is nothing like Peebee at all. lol So that's a relief. 😂 I'm really looking forward to learn more about her and every time I see her magical gauntlet, I'm reminded that we're *definitely* not in Ferelden anymore. lol

Anyway, we then get a few shots of the Deep Roads?? Kal-Sharok??? 👀👀 And of course, there's Harding's big reveal of her new magical powers! The animation on this looks sooo amazing!!

Like many suspect, the Titans' awakening might have something to do with this! I totally agree with what Ghil Dirthalen said on twitter recently and, rather than this being Harding having Solas' petrification powers, it's actually Solas who has the powers of the Titans/stone sense/whatever Sandal did to those ogres back then lol. (I need Sandal to return and be her "teacher" or something 🙏❤️) We know of Solas' orb, which was likely created by obtaining the heart of a Titan. And if the Titans are connected to the Forgotten Ones, Fen'Harel was once considered their ally in Dalish legends. 👀

Also, if you look closely, you can see that the moment her powers are triggered, we see the blue glowy effect all over her body, like glowy lyrium veins almost?

And that in turn could hint at something in connection to her blood? So that big injury we see on her (which is still visible in this scene btw!) was maybe the moment her blood came in contact with something that awakened these powers? (We need Valta back to explain! lol)

"What is happening to me?"

That delivery gave me chills again... She is frightened. Ali Hillis is so good. 🥺🥺🥺

Next up is the Grand Necropolis and people have already pointed out that the ceiling we see at that entrance hall or something looks like a GIANT rip cage?? 💀 (What kind of creature would be THIS big???)

First look of Emmrich in-game!!! And he's wearing a fancy new outfit!! And I paused at the perfect moment to catch Rook already falling in love with him, clearly. lmao

There are two characters next to the gate that could be anybody, really. Myrna from Tevinter Nights or Joanna from the short story "The Flame Eternal"? The guy on the right is actually giving me Executor vibes?? 👀👀👀

Then there's Giant Skeleton Monster (Manfred's mom?), and don't even ask me what this could possibly be. 😂 I just hope we don't have to fight THAT (we totally will 💀). I got flashbacks of the Human Reaper endboss in ME2. 😭😭

"Let the Fade draw close!"

There's something kinda... posh about the way he says this? 😂 Like, he's not really intimidated by Giant Skeleton Monster and it's just another Tuesday in the Grand Necropolis and Professor Volkarin is just doing his every day job. lol

Then there are two shots of what I think is somewhere in the Anderfels but snowy again, like that area in the beginning where Elgar'nan and Ghili showed up? And a destroyed watchtower that is occupied by the Wardens. Then we get a *third* and final shot of this beauty again.

"Draw the dragon out into the open. Then attack."

I assume that's Taash?? Sadly, that shot of her drawing her weapon is all we got from her in this trailer, but she looks awesome!! <333 We're gonna be Lord of Fortune buddies, even though we might disagree on the matter of dragon hunting lol (look, I don't want to *fight* dragons, I want to be *friends* with them 🫠😂❤️ I want to see them live their best lifes.. for the most part (I get to the Elgar'nan dragon and the blighted "twin dragons" in a second lol))

We see the docks of Minrathous for a split second and then a first glimpse at a romance scene between Rook and Neve? 👀 At the Lighthouse maybe?

"You and me Rook. Maybe that's what scares me."

What does she mean by that exactly? Does Neve have commitment issues? lol Or is this more like a "We're a dangerous match, Rook. We'll be too powerful of a couple. Like Bonnie and Clyde." kinda statement? 😂

And THEN... Well, then we get probably THE most badass looking introduction/entrance of any character in DA yet. lol And YES, I freaked out SO hard.

SHE'S BACK. Returning like the QUEEN that she is. 🙏 And of course, she has to come down a flight of "stairs" again. lol (And no, Claudia Black did not lie, she just wasn't contacted at the time. 😁) Gosh, that transformation is so SMOOTH. I could watch that forever, it's so darn beautiful. 😍 Again, the way this is done, cinematically.. just *chef's kiss*.

In retrospect, it seems almost like a given that she would be back because.. well, everything about the way DAI ended. lol Flemeth wanted her to inherit her "godhood", and she looks more than ever like her mother now. Remember the designer notes on that last scene in DAI.

Flemeth intends to let Solas have the power, so long as she can pass the essence of her godhood onto Morrigan, a gift Flemeth had always planned for her daughter yet one Morrigan misunderstood as hostile possession.

So, what exactly is she now? Did she receive whatever Flemeth sent through the eluvian at the end of DAI? Does she carry Mythal now?? If so, does Solas know (I NEED a conversation between those two technically "half-siblings", because Flemeth/Mythal is both their "Mother"? 😂)?? Remember when I said that this one dragon that appears multiple times here reminds me a lot of the dragon on the vinyl cover with the Golden City, which is very likely Mythal? So my very first thought was that the dragon is actually Morrigan?? lol Just throwing that out there.

It seems to me that she is with the Dalish/Veil Jumpers in the Arlathan Forest now? (Btw, if you look closely, you can see elven mosaics in COLOR in the background? :O)

"These are the times in which legends are born or slain."

That line goes so HARD aHhhh. Also, speaking of slain, that new outfit is slaying too. <33 Her return also means that the Well decision and potential consequences are back on the table, which will definitely keep me up at night again. 💀

That moment right there. She is everthing. ❤️❤️❤️ I wonder if we're gonna see Kieran again?? 🥺🥺

We then get the most impressive tracking shot and choreography of what I think is Teia and Viago fighting some Venatori?? <333333 Like, seriously, the way the camera is following his movements in this shot without a single cut, makes me think of something like flippin Games of Thrones' Battle of the Bastards. 😱 And those hair physics on Teia as she's swinging around?? Absolutely amazing.

Followed by Lucanis and.. is that Zara Renata (the character with the best name ever lol)?? Fighting over an ominous glowing staff. lol We know these two still had unfinished business with each other after the Wigmaker Job in TN.

Then we get our first in-game look of my man MANFRED (🎉🎉🎉🎉), proving yet again to be the most fashionable character in the whole game, using his pelvis effectively. lol I love him so much.

Then there's another terrifying shot of Giant Skeleton Monster, which almost looks like it's in command over the crowd of people here, like they're possessed or something? Uhg.. As if this thing wasn't scary enough. 💀

"Our gods are back. Our gods! How do we stand up against that?"

Again, CHILLLLS!! Chills all over. It's gonna be so interesting to hear what the Dalish, Bellara or Davrin think about all these revelations!

Then we see the Wardens again, confronting one of the super duper blighted "twin dragons" we see at the end (more on that later).

We see Neve using a barrier or something against a guy who wears the same armor as her, so maybe the Shadow Dragons are corrupted, too?

Then we see Rook dramatically tossing a sword on a table at Weisshaupt? And holy moly, Davrin in that new armor here looks FINE. 😍

Back in Treviso, we see a cool finishing move from Rook, obliterating a poor Venatori guy. That bow on Rook's back though (I need it)! :O

"I believe in all of us. So let's get it done."

That little pep talk from Rook certainly worked for me. lol Like, whatever it is we're doing here, I'm so pumped, let's gooooo!

Then we get literally a millisecond of a frame, where you can see Ghili lying on the floor.. with the lyrium dagger stuck IN HER CHEST??

EXCUSE ME?? They wouldn't just spoil her death like that, right?? lmao Also, that adds another billion questions about this damn flippin dagger and at this point the list of questions is getting so long that I've completely given up speculating. 😂💀 We see how Rook tries to retrieve(?) the dagger but the power it emanates pushes them back?? What the heeellll.

And then I died. No, really. lmaoo

What can I say.

I cried. I screamed. My soul left my body. It happened. We FINALLY saw him. The Dreaded Wolf, He Who Hunts Alone, Roamer of the Beyond, God of Rebellion. The one everyone's been talking about since flippin 2009. And by GOD, he lives up to his NAME.

He's dreadful, he's horrifying. He's a monster, a nightmare. He's perfect. And just like Solas, he's just a Little Guy and bald. 😭😭😭

...At least in comparison to this dragon!! Look at that friggin SIZE DIFFERENCE. Someone measured the size by comparing them to Rook, who we see for a split second before Fenny leaps in. So, make no mistake, Fen'Harel IS the size of a high dragon, like he was described in Tevinter Nights... It's just that this blighted dragon is HUMONGOUS. lol That dragon, let's call him Elgar'nan, because we all KNOW, right?? Who else could it POSSIBLY be?? He's got the horns, he's the dragon on the vinyl cover with the Blighted Black City, he's ENORMOUS!! I've been saying this forever. Fen'Harel vs Elgar'nan, Battle of Gods was all I ever wished to see and FUCK, I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT WISH CAME TRUE. 😭😭😭

And look WHERE they are fighting!! It's Minrathous, you can clearly see the floating building in the background!! Which means the Dread Wolf is OUT. He's no longer trapped, or in the Fade. Remember Sandal's prophecy "When he rises, everyone will see". And he HAS RISEN. lmao And look at the lighting!! It's the same dim, gloomy RED we've seen at the end of the reveal trailer with the eclipse. "AN ECLIPSE AS FEN'HAREL STIRRED". IT'S HAPPENING. Remember the 2020 teaser MURAL.

Is this the Black City or is it the floating building?? Either way, it's BLIGHTED. In the trailer, Minrathous has clearly been completely taken over by the Blight. "All the world will soon share the peace and comfort of my reign", that's what Elgar'nan said at the end of the 2023 teaser, and what better way to take over the world than to start with the biggest capital in Thedas, a nation which built their own empire over the ruins of Elvhenan, ruled by the most powerful mages!

And I am SO scared. You can see Elgar'nan snapping Fenny. The dragon is blighted, and maybe so is Fen'Harel. He's also clearly been through so much. "The Wolf chews his leg off to escape the trap.", is what Cole said in Trespasser. I don't think he always looked like that. In the murals and the 2022 cinematic, he has a lot more fur. And I can't help but think about the devs saying that Solas wasn't always bald either. lmao How are they connected.. are they one and the same.. are they bound to each other.. we still don't know. But I'm SO. F*CKING EXCITED. TO FIND OUT.

Those few seconds of this scene were breathtaking and whoever made this trailer knew exactly what they were doing, because the editing is so perfect as Fen'Harel charges at Elgar'nan in slow-motion and the music cuts out completely while that beautiful wolf howl can be heard and you can almost HEAR everyone's jaw dropping on the floor. lmao THAT's. how. you. do it. *standing ovation* *sobbing*

Okay. Breathe. Moving on. We gotta get to the end. lol

The very next shot is SO funny to me, because we literally just got to see Elgar'nan, the biggest flippin dragon we've ever seen in DA and it's followed by a shot in which Elgar'nan looks SO tiny next to Ghilan'nain. lmaooo

His ego doesn't allow to appear small though, I guess, so he f*cking levitates to top her in height. lmao These two ancient clowns are already killing me.

What's interesting though is that this is the exact same angle from which we left off in the gameplay showcase. And Solas is nowhere to be seen, so... did he literally just "poof" away right there into that Fade prison?? lmao

We get a quick montage of all the lovely monsters we will face. Like I mentioned, there's the Elgar'nan dragon taking a swim in the ocean, I guess? (I hope he drowns. lol) And a shot of what I think is Irelin (from TN and The Missing) doing.. something with some magical device. Someone fighting a magical "automaton" in the Arlathan Forest. lol Harding doing her THING again, acting like Toph from Avatar, literally bending the flippin earth, like a true Child of the Stone!!

And right before the end, there's one of my personal favorite shots, Rook basically bitch slapping a Pride demon into full K.O.?? lmao

The trailer ends with a final beautiful shot of Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire. lol No, seriously. A SUPER blighted pair of angry dragons, seemingly at the same snowy place that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain popped up earlier in the trailer. 👀👀👀

So, they might have something to do with this? There was a dead dragon lying on the ground in an earlier shot, so maybe the elven gods revived them? If I see Blue and Red, I'm of course immediately reminded of lyrium.. whatever that means. Or, given that they seem to be attacking Grey Wardens in this place... maybe we are looking at an altered form of Archdemons?? Or something similar to Corypheus' dragon? 👀 There is an interesting theory floating around that Ghilan'nain might look like *that* because she somehow merged with her lover Andruil. As I mentioned in the beginning, Ghilan'nain seemed to have been struck by a spear or something.. and in this shot, you can see that the red dragon is pulling a spear out of its body! Sooo... maybe that actually IS her?? And she somehow transformed into two different blighted dragons, representing herself and Andruil??? The tinfoil hat is strong with this one. lol

ANYWAY. The release date is revealed to be 31st of October, making this the best Halloween of all time!! Not only is it perfect because of its origin, Samhain, the thinning of the Veil between the living and spirits.. But also because we all get a chance to dress up as Manfred, walk into the store, buy the game and then go Trick or Treat (but mostly trick) in the name of Fen'Harel, the Trickster God. 😂😂💜💜💜

And that's it!! Now we only have to wait two months before we can all lose our collective shi— NO WAIT, OF COURSE WE'RE NOT DONE YET.

WHAT THE HELL

IS THIS

EXCUSE ME, how do you throw this in there in the background at the very last second, HELLO??? A rocky object, split in half. HUH, WHERE HAVE WE SEEN THAT BEFORE.

Oh, you sneaky sneaky people. The mural depicting a Titan's death.... Remember the description of this place in DAI's files.

"A final eluvian is situated in a beautiful bolt-hole where Solas has painted murals. Fen'Harel was here and wanted to make sure nobody ever found what the other gods were doing. This place was the breaking point for him that turned him against the gods."

Whatever this is... I think it might be the very reason why all of this is even happening. The Evanuris mined the Titans' blood and "something else" before they collapsed and sealed the Deep Roads with stone and magic.

"Terror, heart-pounding, ice-cold, as the last of the spells is cast."

"What the Evanuris in their greed could unleash would end us all. Let this place be forgotten. Let no one wake its anger. The People must rise before their false gods destroy them all."

I'll leave it at that. I'm so so so flippin excited. I want to thank all the devs involved, I'm so full of joy and can't wait to finally return back to Thedas in October. 🥹🥹🥹 (And if anyone wants to get me that "Rook's coffer" collectibles thing for my birthday two days after release, my address is— naah just kidding!! ..or AM I?? 👀😂😂)!! 💜💜💜💜💜

[ckret2]

Chapter 44 of human Bill Cipher wishing he was trapped in the Mystery Shack again:

The Eclipse: Part 2

Gravity is disappearing, and to find out why, Ford's inspecting the sites where the fabric of spacetime might have been damaged by Weirdmageddon. Dipper's glad to come along.

Bill really, really, really isn't.

"I am genuinely offering you helpful advice, that also happens to be self-serving because you idiots wouldn't trust me if I claimed I was being charitable anyway," Bill went on, as he'd been going on for the past five minutes. "This isn't a trick! I'm not running a con! I'm completely serious: being outside during an eclipse is the stupidest thing you could do. You don't want to watch it, I want to watch it even less, staying inside is mutually beneficial!"

"Do you think I should have brought my camera?" Dipper asked, determinedly ignoring Bill as he trailed behind them.

"What for?" Ford asked, also ignoring Bill.

"I've been trying to expand my Guide to the Unexplained series this summer—I've been doing longer episodes, a couple of them are ten minutes—but I wasn't sure if we'd see anything cool and my backpack was already heavy..."

"Hmm. I suspect either there won't be anything worth seeing—or, if there is, we'll be far too busy dealing with it to record footage."

"Yeah," Dipper sighed, "I guess you're right."

"This is why my journals have more illustrations than photographs."

Bill let out a loud groan of frustration before jogging to catch up with the humans. He checked the trail ahead to make sure he wasn't about to trip, then turned to walk sideways, facing Dipper and Ford as they walked. "Okay, fine, you win. So, just to be clear—the only reason you two are dragging me out here is to check a few locations for these imaginary 'micro-rips' you think are shredding the fabric of reality apart. Right? As soon as we've checked the three places you want, it's over, you admit you were wrong, and we go back to the shack?"

"Yes, Cipher," Ford sighed. "Once we've checked those locations, if we can't find evidence that any of the areas of most concern are near the one hundred thousand micro-rip danger threshold, we'll go home. Since dimensional rips could pop up anywhere around Gravity Falls, there's a possibility there could be clusters over the danger threshold away from the three areas of concern, but with no way to guess where they might be—"

"Fine. Then let's get this over with," Bill said. "Totality is in two days, if we're back home by tomorrow night we'll still avoid it. But if you try to drag me outside again after we get back, I'm hitting everyone with the Amnesia Limina curse and nobody's going outside."

With that threat delivered, Bill cartwheeled ahead of the humans, landed on his feet, and bounded ahead in long moonwalking lopes.

"Any idea why gravity's going down faster for him than the rest of town?" Dipper asked.

"Only that, if there are rips opening between us and the Nightmare Realm, perhaps they're giving Bill back some of his powers," Ford said. "Perhaps his powers are stored in the Nightmare Realm. Although I don't know how that would work." It was a better explanation than Bill's claim that he could just float better than humans, anyway.

The bracelet around Dipper's wrist momentarily tightened as Bill reached the far end of his invisible tether, then loosened as Dipper continue forward; and then tightened a second time, and a third time. From up the trail, Bill shouted, "Would you hurry up!" 

"You slow down! Some of us still have to walk!"

But even so, the slowly decreasing gravity was making the hike noticeably easier. Their backpacks sat lighter on their shoulders, and each stride seemed to carry them a little higher and farther than they expected. They startled a deer, and then the deer startled itself with how high it jumped.

"On second thought, it might not be a good idea to take him back to the shack while this is going on," Ford said. "Even if there aren't enough micro-rips in the basement, I'm not wholly convinced it won't end up the epicenter of whatever's about to happen. And if Bill wants so badly to be so close to it..."

From further up the trail, Bill shouted, "If you were any more paranoid, you'd be asking your own shadow why it's following you!"

"If you had access to any more of your powers, you'd be possessing my shadow!"

"Ha!" Bill had stopped to perch on a fallen tree that on any other day would have been far too slender to hold an adult's weight, balanced on it like a tightrope, and waited there for the others to catch up. "Fine, we don't need to go back to the shack, whatever makes you happy! As long as we get inside. Stanley's camper, a motel room, the old Corduroy cabin—hey, the Northwest place is pretty empty these days, isn't it? Is Specs renting out rooms, or...?"

"I am not taking you to Northwest Manor," Ford said. "Fiddleford's had enough trouble without letting you into his life again." Although that was only one of several reasons Ford wanted to keep them apart. For Fiddleford's safety, they couldn't risk Bill finding out that Fiddleford had been told his identity; and, now that Bill had confessed he could see through walls, they couldn't give him a chance to peer through the manor's walls and discover the ongoing paradox fuel synthesis project.

Bill laughed in disbelief. "Oh now you're concerned about somebody else's wellbeing, when it's his—fine! Fine, fine, fine! That's just fine! That's great! Terrific!" He hopped off his perch. "No evidence of self-preservation and let's not even think about respecting the triangle's wishes, but when the hillbilly might be in imaginary danger—!"

"That 'hillbilly' is one of the most brilliant men alive and the best friend I've ever known—"

"Ha!" Angrily, Bill yelled, "Some best friend, he erased you straight out of his head! You don't even know what a best friend is!"

Ford winced—he knew he'd never been much of a friend back to Fiddleford—but while he was gearing himself up to defend himself against whatever accusation Bill lobbed next, Bill turned away from the humans and stormed up the trail, leaving them behind as the weaving path took him behind several trees.

Every couple of steps, Dipper's bracelet twitched against his wrist as Bill tried to get even further ahead and was thwarted. He chuckled. "Do you think you touched a nerve?"

The corner of Ford's mouth quirked up; but he shook his head. "He's just mad he's not getting his way. As usual."

####

"I take it this is our first destination," Bill said, hands planted on his hips, looking around the forest. "This looks like the area where Shooting Star gave me the rift."

Dipper said, "You mean the place where you tricked—"

Bill shoved Dipper's hat down over his eyes. "Anyway, that aside, all the glued-shut wormholes and this are a bigger hint." He tapped the tip of one dress shoe—dusty after a walk in the woods—at the start of a long crevasse in the ground weaving through the trees.

"Yes," Ford said distractedly, taking his micro-rip scanner out of his backpack and turning it on. "This is the place." He took an initial reading, frowned, and followed the crevasse deeper into the woods.

Bill trailed along after him, gesturing at the jagged lines of bending light hanging in the air. "You did a terrible repair job, by the way. Stretching the edges of the rips to meet like that puts more stress on the reality in between the rips. You should have sutured them and let them heal naturally," Bill said. "If there are a bunch of tiny rips in the area, your own shoddy work probably caused them."

"Mm-hm," Ford said, fully focused on the scanner.

Bill's shoulders slumped. He hopped to the other side of the crack in the earth from Ford and strode ahead purposefully, ignoring him.

He glanced at a wooden sign staked next to the crack, nearly passed it, and did a double take. The sign read "MABEL'S FAULT". Bill laughed in surprise. "Who did this?"

"What—?" Dipper caught up and saw the sign. "Oh."

####

2012

Mabel's smile faded as she entered the clearing. "Oh. I... think this is the place where—Bill tricked me in Blarblar's body."

"Guess that explains all the rips in this area," Dipper said. He patted Mabel's back.

She looked down—and spotted the new crack in the ground. She gasped, immediately latching on to the distraction. "Hey, what's that! That wasn't here before!" She knelt next to the crack and peered inside. "Whoa!"

"Huh. Maybe it opened up when the rift broke?"

"How deep do you think it goes?" Mabel hopped back up, straddled the gap, and yelled down into it, "Hello!"

"Careful," Dipper said. "What if it's unstable?"

"We should give it a name," Mabel said. "It's a new geographic feature! We can put it on maps and be famous! What'll we call it?"

"Huh." Dipper stroked his chin. "Well... it looks kind of like a miniature fault line... and you were here when it formed, so I guess that kinda means you discovered it... so maybe... 'Mabel's Fault'...?"

Mabel stared at him.

Dipper's eyes widened in horror. "Oh. Ohh no."

Mabel bit her lip.

"I didn't mean it that way! I swear I didn't mean it that way—"

"Dipper!" Mabel cracked up. "We're calling it that."

"No," Dipper said, mortified. "Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. Please please don't—"

"Grunkle Staaan, Grunkle Fooord!" Mabel took off toward where they'd last seen their grunkles. "Did you hear what Dipper said—!"

"I'm sorryyy!"

####

2013

Dipper cringed. "Look, I didn't hear it until I said it out loud, okay—"

Bill burst out in shrill cackles.

"I didn't mean it!"

"Y-you're the worst brother ever!"

Dipper groaned, contemplated climbing down into the fault, and instead settled for pulling his hat down over his face again.

Ford passed by with the scanner, shot Bill a suspicious sideways look, and demanded, "What's so funny?"

Still laughing, Bill gestured at the "MABEL'S FAULT" sign.

"Oh." Ford glanced at Dipper, fought not to smile at the poor kid's embarrassment—he'd gotten enough teasing last summer—and said, "Right." He moved on.

"Hey," Bill called, "What's the score?"

Ford paused, but didn't reply.

"Well?" Bill pressed. "You're already past where the rift broke! Don't you figure that's where the most rips would be?"

Ford said, "The scanner's detecting about fourteen thousand."

Bill whistled. He meandered back to Ford's side of the fault. "Sounds like a lot. I'm telling you, the wormholes in this place should've been sutured, that's what your problem is."

"It is a lot," Ford said brusquely. He hesitated. "But."

"But?" Bill prompted.

"But... it's less than a fifth of what we'd expect to see if the fabric of reality were falling apart."

"Wow. Let me pretend to be surprised." Bill made zero effort to look surprised. "That's because the fabric of reality isn't falling apart. You idiot."

Ford glared at his scanner silently.

"You fool," Bill tried. "You buffoon."

Ford rounded furiously on him. "The more you say it's nothing, the more you just convince me that you're lying!"

"Which is stupid! If you always assume I'm lying, how do you know I'm not saying 'it's nothing' to trick you into thinking it's something when it isn't!"

"I don't know! There's no way to know with you! That's why I'm checking with a scanner!" Ford pointed aggressively at the scanner. "Because I'm a scientist!"

"You're a pretty pathetic scientist if you refuse to listen when the expert on a topic tells you what's—"

"—maybe if the self-proclaimed 'expert' weren't a mythomaniac—"

"Guys," Dipper said tiredly. "You've had this argument three times. Can we move on?"

Ford closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. "Right."

"No," Bill said. "Not until I win it."

"Can it, Bill." Ford glanced toward the sky to orient himself, looked around for the path through the trees, and started walking. "Come on. Next site—the place where the rift closed."

Bill clenched his jaw. Under his breath, he muttered, "As if I've ever done anything in my life to make me look untrustworthy..." He glanced up as well—and his gaze lingered on the sky much longer than Ford's.

####

"So I was thinking about what we could do after this," Dipper said, looking hopefully up at Ford.

It took a moment for Ford to drag himself out of his thoughts and look at Dipper. "Yes? You mean after..."

"After the ecl—" Dipper winced, "the... rips get sealed, or whatever's going on." He'd pulled out his journal and was holding it hopefully. "Maybe... I could show you the research I've been doing on the Fremont Nightwigglers? I think they've been stealing pants in town."

He gave Dipper a little more attention. "Is this one of their migration years?" 

"Yeah, I think so! One was caught on a security camera—or at least what looks like one. Here." Dipper flipped open to the two-page spread he was currently working on and held it up for Ford to inspect.

He studied the pictures, smiling slightly. "Would you look at that. Very impressive research. I only experienced one migration during my time in Gravity Falls, and they'd all but moved on by the time I caught wind of it. Never even saw one—I had to interview the townspeople to get a description of them."

"Really? I don't remember seeing them in your journals."

"Ah, they never made it in. I was focused on compiling magical spells and artifacts for Journal 2 at the time. I took some notes with the thought of putting them in Journal 1, but never felt like I'd collected enough information to write about them—especially when I hadn't witnessed one myself," Ford said. "You've already collected more here than I ever did. I wasn't even sure they were real!"

Dipper's face lit up. "Really? It's not that much—I still haven't found one yet either, it's mostly interviews about the crime spree."

"It's more real investigative work than I did on them. I only got as far as asking a couple of people at the diner to describe the local stories. You've got the dates and times they've been hitting the stores."

"I guess so." Dipper beamed proudly. "I haven't heard any 'local stories' about them, though. I only recognized them from a documentary I saw on Californian cryptids."

"That might be the Blind Eye's handiwork. Everyone recognized the name when I lived here. I'll see if I can dig up the notes I took, you might find the information valuable," Ford said. "I'm not sure where I left them, but they're probably still somewhere in my study."

"Scrapbook in your study on the top right corner of your desk," Bill said. "Under the box of glue bottles. You're welcome."

Ford threw him an irritated look. Bill had gotten ahead of them while Ford was looking at Dipper's journal, and now he was crouched beside a creek, scooping up handfuls of water, momentarily inspecting them, and letting them spill back out. The eye on the hood stared balefully up at Ford from Bill's back.

Ford asked, "What in the world are you doing."

"Communing with the dread harbingers of the coming eclipse," Bill said flatly. "You can't see them of course, they're invisible to you."

"Of course." Ford muttered, "I don't know why I bother to ask."

Under his breath, Bill mumbled, "Don't know why he bothered to ask."

Ford studied the creek and checked his map. They were hiking east toward the lake, with the town to their south and the cliff to the north; the creek ran north to south in front of them. On the other side of the creek, southeast of them, was a thicker, overgrown part of the woods, the shadows between the trees darker and quieter. "This seems like a safe place to wait," Ford said. "Dipper, you stay here while I scan the next site. Keep him out of trouble."

Dipper nodded. Bill cast Ford a sullen look, then rolled his eye and looked back at the water.

"After I've checked the next spot, we'll follow the cliffside to the lake," Ford said, pointing northeast, away from the dark area of the forest. "If there's still daylight, we can take a boat behind Trembley Falls and set up camp inside the cave."

"Sounds good." Dipper looked at Bill's tiny borrowed backpack. "You... didn't bring a tent, did you."

"Sorry, do you think I have a tent to bring?" Bill asked. "Do you expect me to slide an entire tipi out of my—"

Ford interrupted, "Dipper, you brought a tent, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Then that's sufficient. You can share my tent and we'll set up Bill's as far from ours as possible. We'll be safer that way."

Bill ignored the implicit accusation with silent dignity.

Dipper nodded. "Good idea." 

"Now, let's see..." Ford studied the creek. It was much wider than he could usually jump, but under the current gravity conditions... He bounced on the balls of his feet a couple of times, testing how light he currently felt; then took a few steps back, got a running start, and with a "hup!" leaped across the creek. He cleared it by several feet and almost ran into a tree.

Dipper gasped. "Are you okay?"

"Fine, Dipper! Just... don't know my own strength." How low was gravity now, he wondered? He could see grass swaying beneath the surface of the creek. It hadn't rained lately; without as much gravity, even water was being pulled down less, letting it rise higher and flood the creek's banks. He hoped they figured out how to reverse this before the lake flooded. When they made it into the cave, they'd have to camp on high ground. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Dipper side-eyed Bill; but when he kept gazing into the water without a word, Dipper said suspiciously, "What, no complaints about camping?"

"What's there to complain about?" Bill asked.

"I don't know, you've complained about everything else so far."

"This is the only part of your expedition that isn't a terrible idea," Bill said. "I love camping! Hypothetically. The Nightmare Realm isn't known for picturesque campgrounds. But hey, I like being surrounded by trees. And a private tent? Deluxe accommodations! It's just too bad you'll be dragging the mood down."

"Hey."

Bill laughed. "You're too easy."

Dipper scowled. "You don't seem like the type to be into camping."

"Why not?"

Dipper thought about it. "Man, I dunno, you just—seem like a city person? You're always talking about how much you want to throw wild parties, that's basically the opposite of camping in the woods."

"Is it?" Bill asked. "Welcome to the cult of Dionysus."

Given what Dipper could remember about Dionysus from the book of Greek mythology he'd read in sixth grade, he supposed wild parties and hanging out in the woods weren't mutually exclusive. So what was it about Bill that made Dipper feel so strongly that he wouldn't be caught dead roughing it?

Finally, Dipper said, "I guess it's the top hat and bow tie."

"They're not a top hat and bow tie."

He gave Bill a perplexed look. "Really? What are they?"

"Did you ever read that horror story about the bride with a velvet ribbon tied in a bow around her neck, and when her new husband unties it, her head falls off her neck and bounces down the stairs—?"

Dipper shuddered. "I'm sorry I asked."

Bill laughed.

After a brief silence, he finally dragged his eyes away from the water and impressively flicked a couple of mosquitoes out of the air with a finger. (Dipper wished he could do that. His arms were coated in soothsquito bite messages. He wondered what "BURN TACK" was supposed to mean.) Bill took off his backpack, rummaged around in it, and muttered, "I should've brought a book." He looked around the bank of the creek for a patch of sunlight, pushed his sleeves and leggings up to expose as much skin as possible, and flopped down in the light, eyes shut and hands laced on his chest over the backpack.

Dipper supposed that meant he was being ignored. He took his journal back out and flipped to the section on the Nightwigglers. He'd need some empty space to add Ford's local folklore once they got home. Was there any open space in the next few pages?

"It really shouldn't be called 'Mabel's Fault,'" Bill said out of the blue. "It's not her fault. It should be called 'Bill's Fault.' I'm the one who made it, aren't I?"

Dipper lowered his journal. "Sorry, are you actually accepting blame for something? You're admitting you did something wrong?"

Bill didn't even open his eyes. "I'm not 'accepting blame,' I'm claiming credit. Weirdmageddon was great. Can't help that you're all too boring to see that."

"But you said 'Bill's Fault.' Not 'Bill's Triumph' or something."

"Sure, because we're talking about a geological fault. Don't read too deep into it, kid."

"Pff, no, you definitely said it was your fault. I can't believe Grunkle Ford missed that—"

Bill abruptly sat up. "Hey. What's the 'next site.'"

"What?"

Bill counted off on his fingers, "Six-Fingers said there are four sites you want to hit, right? The place where the rift formed, the place Weirdmageddon started, the place the rift was during Weirdmageddon, and the place Weirdmageddon ended. The rift formed at the portal—been there—Weirdmageddon started at the fault—been there—during Weirdmageddon it was in the sky—going there tomorrow—so where did Weirdmageddon end? Wasn't it in the sky too?"

"Oh," Dipper said. "It's just. Y'know. It's just a... place."

Bill gave him a sharp look.

Dipper swallowed hard. "No big deal. Just... trees and stuff."

Bill flipped up his eye patch, staring in the direction Ford had disappeared. Dipper could see the white of his eye turning red.

"Hey!" Dipper got in front of Bill, trying to block the view of the forest. "It's nothing important. You—you wouldn't even be interested. Really."

Bill just stared straight through Dipper. And then, before Dipper could react, Bill was on his feet and bolting past him. By the time Dipper turned around Bill was already across the creek, following the path Ford had taken.

"No no no, come back!" Dipper jumped the creek and sprinted after Bill, shouting, "Don't go that way, you can't go that way, Bill—"

There was a dark, quiet knot of overgrown plant life deep in the forest, as if no animals had dared visit the area for nearly a year, leaving it to choke itself on its own greenery. Bill was headed straight for the heart of it. He moved through the trees like a swimmer through underwater ruins, kicking off trunks to propel himself forward, grabbing branches to help twist his body around and between them without slowing down—more flying than running, gravity hardly seeming to touch him at all.

He barreled past Ford and his scanner without even acknowledging him. Ford gasped, "Wait—" He turned the direction Bill had come from.

Dipper was squeezing between two trees and tripped over a hidden root. "Grunkle Ford—!"

"Dipper! You still have the bracelet!" Ford pointed, "Run the other direction!"

"Right!" He turned around and squeezed back between the dense trees.

And Ford took off after Bill.

Wild brambles tore at Bill's skin and ripped at his hoodie; he ignored the pain, letting the prickles bite into him as he forced his way through the shrubs—

And then he stood in the clearing, gasping in unsteady breaths, his wide unblinking eyes staring.

In front of him, wide unblinking eye staring vacantly into the trees, was his corpse.

"Bill!" Ford fought against the brambles, trying to figure out how Bill had gotten through. "Don't touch it! We don't know what could happen—"

Bill lunged for the statue.

The bracelet snapped tight around his wrist. Bill's fingers were inches away from his corpse's outstretched hand.

Thirty feet away, Dipper's bracelet went tight while he was trying to scramble over an ancient log. He awkwardly tried to keep his balance on the log; rather than risk toppling back in Bill's direction, he flung his weight the other way, keeping the invisible thread between them taut by leaning so far over that if it weren't for the bracelet holding him up he'd fall to the forest floor.

Bill fell to his knees, clawing at the dirt and grass with his free hand and feet, desperate to drag himself closer in spite of the completely immovable bracelet.

It seemed impossible to Ford that the thin invisible thread wrenching Bill's arm back would hold him for long; Bill would sooner dislocate his own shoulder to gain those last few inches. Ford fell out of the brambles and seized one of Bill's legs. "Bill—"

Bill tried to kick Ford in the face. "You KNEW!" he shrieked. "You knew I was here this WHOLE TIME and you NEVER TOLD ME, you ANIMALS! I could have had my body back! I COULD BE HOME!"

That was exactly what Ford was afraid of. Gritting his teeth, Ford wrapped an arm around Bill's torso and the other around his neck, struggling to get enough purchase on the torn-up ground to move Bill.

Wheezing for breath, Bill tried to kick out one of Ford's knees. Ford took advantage of the split second one of Bill's feet wasn't dug in to drag him back; he only managed to move him a few inches.

But a few inches of slack on the invisible thread was enough to throw off Dipper's balance. He instinctively tried to flail back upright, overcorrected, and tumbled off the log the wrong way. "No—!"

Bill lunged out of Ford's hold, scrabbled across the last few inches to his corpse, and planted his hand on his stone face.

He froze.

Ford froze.

Nothing happened.

"N..." Bill grabbed his arm, grabbed his hand, as though trying to shake on a deal with his own body; nothing. "No." He sounded more confused than anything. "No, no, nonono..."

He hung off the statue by his grip, pressed his forehead against their joined hands. And then he let go and slowly put his trembling hand on the dead face. And then he sat there, breathing shakily, every few seconds sucking in a hitching gasp that made his shoulders jerk.

Ford gingerly got to his feet, brushed his clothes off, and looked at Bill. He didn't move for a moment; then reached for Bill's shoulder; then stopped, curled his hand into a ball, clasped it behind his back, and turned away. "Dipper," he called. "You can come back. It's..." He cast one last glance at Bill, then forced himself to look away. "It's safe."

By the time Dipper caught up, Ford had made his way back into the overgrowth, leaving Bill alone in the clearing. Dipper started, "What...?" but fell silent when he saw Ford's face. He looked past him at Bill and winced.

Ford shoved his hands in his pockets and mumbled, "We should give him..." Dipper nodded.

Bill remained kneeling for less than a minute. Then he leaned forward, used his sleeve to wipe some of the moss off of his dead eye and the bird crap off his hat and hand, and unsteadily heaved himself back to his feet. He moved like he was very, very old. He glanced over his shoulder at Ford and Dipper. "What're you two staring at." His voice sounded like somebody was attempting to strangle him and his smile looked like a zombie had pulled its skin back on wrong. "You should've said you were waiting on me. I was just..." His eyes briefly unfocused. He shook his head. "Just taking a break." His cheeks were dry. He hadn't even cried.

They stepped back as Bill wove around the brambles. Dipper swallowed hard and asked, "Are you alr—"

"Of course I am." Bill plodded mechanically toward the path out of the dense dark woods. 

Ford asked, "Do you want t—"

"What I want is to get wherever we're pitching our tents before nightfall." Bill pulled his eyepatch back in place. "You're making us camp, right?"

They had no choice. If they wanted to get to the top of Trembley Falls, reach Gravity Peak, and get back down the same day, they had to be ready to ascend in the morning. They couldn't afford to go back to the shack tonight. "Are you s—"

"What were the readings like," Bill asked.

Ford hadn't even gotten as far as taking readings around the statue; he'd still been checking the perimeter of the overgrown zone when Bill ran past. He looked for where he'd dropped his scanner, picked it up, and checked. "215 micro-rips detected. Higher than baseline levels, but—not even as high as readings around the portal."

Voice thick with venom, Bill said, "What a surprise."

When the forest had brightened again and the creek was visible, Bill turned to travel upstream alongside it. Dipper pointed across the creek at Bill's backpack. "You forgot your..."

"Right," Bill said tiredly. He hopped across the creek. 

And gasped in shock when, instead of floating across as before, he landed heavily in the middle of the creek. He squeezed his eye shut, pinched the bridge of his nose, and took a long, silent inhale; and then he climbed out and grabbed his backpack. This time, he put enough force behind his jump to make it back across the creek. 

Dipper and Ford exchanged a look. Ford said, "Do you need a minute to dry—?"

"No."

"You could catch a cold in those damp—"

"I knew how germ theory works on your planet when your gill-breathing ancestors were still swimming around in their own feces," Bill snapped. "When I say 'no,' it's not because I don't understand, it's because I don't care. Don't treat me like I'm ignorant and don't act like you care."

Ford's jaw tightened. No, he didn't care. Bill accepted basic human decency as easily as he offered it. "Fine. Catch pneumonia."

"Fine!"

Ford pushed past Bill to lead the way to the lake. He tried not to notice how Bill was trembling.

####

Maybe ten minutes passed in silence before Ford worked up the nerve to say, "You—know why we didn't tell you." It was the closest he'd get to an apology.

Bill was silent for a long moment. "Of course I do." It was the closest he'd get to accepting it. "When I get my power back, I'm going to invent a very clumsy, easily startled species of bird whose feathers are scalpel blades. And then I'm unleashing a million in the shack, barricading the doors, and blowing an air horn."

Dipper grimaced. Ford muttered, "Thanks for reminding us not to feel too bad for you."

Bill let out a raw, broken laugh.

It was a very quiet hike to the edge of the lake. 

####

After spending the first half of the expedition trying to hurry Ford and Dipper up, now Bill was the anchor slowing them down. He trudged so slowly that Dipper kept having to stop to give his bracelet a little slack; but Bill kept moving, and Ford and Dipper agreed without speaking not to say anything about it.

By the time they reached the lake, the sun was just touching the rim of the mountain curling west around Gravity Falls. The water had risen so far, it flooded the roots of the trees nearest the shore. Far down the shore, distant dark dots, locals were doing cannonballs off the submerged pier, reveling in how high they could jump, how slowly they fell, and how their splashes hung suspended in the air.

Under the unusual conditions and with night coming on, Ford decided that it wasn't safe to try to set out for the cave under the falls. They'd camp on shore and start in the morning.

This, unsurprisingly, started another fight with Bill. "If we were falling behind, you should have said so, I'd have picked it up—!"

"I'm so sorry, I didn't want to imply you were too ignorant to tell the time—"

"The time isn't the issue, I just didn't think you'd give up for the night before it's even civil twilight—!"

Dipper just found a low hill to pitch his tent on.

When Bill noticed, he broke off the argument, flung his hands in the air in defeat, and crouched by the lake to sulk and study the water. He reflexively scratched his arm, pushed up his sleeve with a frown, and read the soothsquitos' message. "'Deeth in the mourning,'" he muttered. "What's deeth? That's not a word."

Maybe they'd been trying to spell teeth, Ford thought. Why would they warn Bill about teeth?

Ford pitched his tent, he and Dipper made a fire, and they attempted to reconstitute some of Ford's dehydrated astronaut food to mixed success. Bill stayed by the lake and tried to eat the cereal he'd brought, but gagged on the second handful and decided dinner wasn't worth the effort.

As Ford cleaned up after dinner, Dipper rummaged through his backpack. "Hey, Grunkle Ford. So..." He pulled out a portable chess kit. "I brought this to Gravity Falls back when I thought this would be a normal summer and I thought we might go camping? And, well, here we are, and I guess things are kiiinda weird, but, I mean... might as well...?"

Fiord smiled wanly. "I think that's just what we need to unwind."

They unrolled Dipper's canvas chess board and took several tries to set up the pieces on the uneven surface. Ford let Dipper take white; he figured the younger and less experienced player could use the advantage of going first.

Bill wandered over with a can of cider early in the match and crouched at the edge of the firelight to watch. He had rolled his sleeves back down, tied his bow tie, and flipped up his hood, and in the dimming flickering light he looked disconcertingly like his real self. He hadn't bothered to stuff his hair into his hood, and it gave the impression that some strange golden internal organs were spilling out of a gash beneath Bill's eye.

After watching for several minutes, Bill said, "Dibs on playing the winner."

Ford and Dipper said, "No."

"Why not!"

"Because we don't like you," Dipper said.

"Oh, come on." Bill ignored Dipper, turning toward Ford. "Remember how much fun we used to have?"

"I remember that you're an incorrigible cheat and made every game miserable," Ford said.

Bill reeled back. His face was hidden under the shadow of his hood, yet somehow the shadow gave off the impression of fury. He chugged half his cider, unslung his backpack, and dug around inside it. "Who wants to play against humans anyway." He unscrewed a bottle of cold medicine, topped off his cider, and poured the concoction down his throat. "Ugh. You're not even any good. Black's got mate in three and I bet neither of you can see it."

Ford and Dipper stared at the board, trying to find the looming checkmate.

Bill stood. "I'm gonna go hallucinate, pass out, and hallucinate some more. More fun than hanging out with a couple of nerdy losers playing a stupid game of..." He trudged off toward his tent, muttering to himself.

Ford concluded that Bill was probably making up the mate in three—although not confidently—and returned to the game with a sigh. "It will be nice to drop him back in the shack," he muttered.

Dipper nodded. "Yeah."

Ford won—not in three moves—and they started a new game. Several minutes in, Dipper asked hesitantly, "Grunkle Ford? Do you really think the micro-rip theory...?"

Ford pursed his lips, but admitted, "Out of all the locations of concern, you could argue that the spot in the sky where the rift spent a week floating has the highest probability of sustaining lasting damage, so we still need to check. But..." He shook his head. "Based on the empirical evidence—I'm beginning to have my doubts."

Dipper's shoulders relaxed; part of him had worried questioning the Acceptable Theory would be taken as disloyalty. "Then, what do you think about Bill's...?"

Ford snorted. "'Gravitational eclipse' explanation?" He propped his chin in his hand, thinking. "I'm only certain of two things: Bill knows exactly what's going on; and he's hiding something he doesn't want us to know. Everything he's told us so far is what he wants us to think is the truth, and because of that, any of it could be lies. He hasn't given us anything we can independently verify in any way—just vague claims he expects us to take his word for and refuses to elaborate on. Even if he is telling the truth, it doesn't matter. We have to act like... not like he's lying, per se; but like what he says has no correlation with whether it's true."

And thus had been the case with everything Bill had said and done since his capture. Every power he claimed he still had, and every power he acted like he'd lost. Every bit of magical, historical, or interdimensional trivia he spouted off to make himself sound smarter. Every sweet thing he'd said to Mabel, every favor he'd offered Stan—and every time he'd told Ford he wanted to be "friends."

Dipper nodded. "Mabel says that's just how Bill talks. He doesn't care about whether what he's saying is true, he just tells you what he thinks should be true."

Ford would have to keep that in mind when talking to Bill in the future. "That girl's a wizard with Bill. Maybe she's right." Still—he had a hard time believing that figuring out what Bill was really saying had actually been that simple all along. (Maybe he just didn't want it to be that simple, after all the time he'd wasted.)

Ford glanced down at the ring the Hand Witch had gifted him. The first time she'd given it to him in the eighties, she'd told him that if the ring ever turned black, he'd chosen the wrong friends and doomed himself. He couldn't tell if it was just the firelight, but as he looked in the deep blue cabochon now, he swore he saw a swirl of black spiraling beneath the surface. He wished he knew what that meant—was he supposed to trust Bill more, or had he already absentmindedly taken something Bill had said on faith that he shouldn't have? Had that swirl first appeared only now during the eclipse, or when Ford had started studying the miniature grimoire Bill had gifted him? Was it even due to Bill? Ford hadn't studied mood-ring-o-mancy.

Dipper snuck a rook onto Ford's back row. "Checkmate."

Ford huffed. "Well done." He'd been so distracted, he hadn't even noticed Dipper lining his rook up.

Dipper pushed Ford's king over. It dramatically fell in slow motion.

They packed up the chess board, put out the campfire, and slept uneasily.

####

In spite of the sedative cold medicine, Bill couldn't get any decent sleep. It wasn't even a good trip. Every time he shut his eyes for a few minutes, he hallucinated/dreamed that he was locked back in the shack staring at the high attic ceiling, or staring silently at Soos's bedroom—or watching over the town graveyard from high above; or locked like a hunting trophy in a glass display case in some local hick's darkened den; kidnapped and tied up beneath Gideon's bed; closed in a dark airless leather box; preserved like an ancient relic in the museum; hovering above Gravity Falls' valley and trees in the still night sky —

—or petrified in the middle of a quiet knot of overgrown plant life deep in the forest. 

Or still in the tent but with his head wrenched around wrong, unable to move or feel his limbs, staring out at an angle that should have been impossible—until he awoke with lungs heaving to find his body was right and he wasn't dead; only for the humanity of his shape to reassert itself and he envied the stone corpse.

He crawled out of his tent, threw up his ill-advised concoction of cider and cold medicine, and collapsed, slipping in and out of a delirious doze until morning.

####

(I have been so looking forward to inflicting this chapter on y'all. Hope you enjoyed, please let me know what you think, and if you thought that was bad then stay tuned for things getting even worse for Bill!! 🎉)

[emhm]

Coffee? Please?

Let me preface this by saying; I am not disabled and this is not about 'urgent' vet bills.

[I have an outstanding debt to pay in that regard, but the monthly payment is small and the service was already done. It was the amputation for our kitten Lucky's dead front leg.]

I do have a job and the pay is too good to quit. I work 40 hours a week and I spend almost 13 more hours just driving to and from work because our boss 'can't find a work assignment closer to where I live.' Up until about two weeks ago my partner was also working 40 hours a week on an opposing shift. We were just starting to get on top of our crushing pile of monthly bills. Then she lost her work assignment [not her fault] and he couldn't find anything else for her to do. So she lost a whole weeks pay. He found her a place, but now she's only getting 24 hours a week instead of 40. And we were already struggling to pay for the bare essentials. I was hoping so hard to just have something left when the bills were paid. But my entire tax return was used to pay for overdue bills and it still wasn't all of them.

-We have not had a working washing machine since September. Almost all of my ancient towels have rotted and ripped apart from trying to hang dry them to avoid killing the dryer too.

-Our house does not have central heat or air so we've been freezing for months with no money to buy wood for the stove. [It's warmer now but still in the low 40s at night where I am.]

-We have been flushing the toilet with buckets of water for almost a year because hiring a plumber is not happening.

-For over a year we have been fighting the flea infestation caused by the deadbeat trash-pit roommate we had to force to move out. They're biting me as well as the cats and I'm allergic to them. So I constantly have a rash on my feet and ankles. We never have money for flea drops consistently enough to get rid of them and I do not have a working vacuum to get rid of the flea eggs in the carpet.

-I just had to take on $1200 worth of debt because my tires were bald from my ungodly commute and they told me the brakes need replacing very soon.

-Our youngest cat Lucky will need to be fixed soon because she's almost old enough to go into heat. [She's indoors only but I don't want to deal with the screaming.]

Our predatory mortgage payment is almost $2000 a month with all their shitty add-on fees. My car payment is $334. The internet is $87. The power is usually $125. Car insurance is about $115. Garbage is $65. Our car is shared and I go through 1 tank +1/4 tank of gas EVERY WEEK. I owe both Sunbit AND Carecredit. We're both estranged from abusive parents and have no other family to turn to in an emergency.

I can't ask for money for fanfic. I know that's unethical and illegal.

But I can tell you that I write better/faster/more when I'm not distracted by gut-wrenching despair, crippling anxiety attacks and the bone-deep fear of quickly losing my home because I'm always two missed paychecks away from disaster. I know pretty much everyone is in the same boat, and my problems aren't unique or special.

But anything helps.

I have several hundred dollars in overdue bills from last month and it's already time for the next month's to start arriving. I feel so hopeless and I don't know what else to do besides resorting to begging.

I just set up a Ko-fi account - https://ko-fi.com/followmeontumblr

My Paypal is attached to this old email address - Nightshade518@yahoo.com

I have an Etsy shop with some things for sale - https://www.etsy.com/shop/PatchworkLaboratory

I also have a Spoonflower shop with fabric featuring my designs. [I only make $1.50 per yard that people buy though.] - https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/infamousdoctorf

And for anyone who was kind enough to read this whole thing- I do have some NSFW sketches I've drawn for "Eclipse Meets His Match" that I have nowhere safe to post. If you're bold enough to direct-message me with the line-

"I swear on all I hold holy that I am not a minor. Show me the art."

I'll let you see them. Thank you either way.

-Doc

[eriexplosion]

Tech Lives: An Ungodly Long Essay

(AKA: Turns out that my Tech Lives compilation post comment was actually a threat.)

There have been hundreds if not thousands of posts since Plan 99 aired wondering if Tech might have made it after his fall - it's probably been brought up more than any other hanging plot point, even after season 2 scooped up Omega and left us on a massive cliffhanger. Now that season 3 has started, though, Omega and Crosshair are home (for now) but we have received an almost aggressive lack of Tech info. So, I've gathered up some of the stronger Evidence for why Tech might be fashionably late but still on his way back from The Void!

THE LEAD UP

So to start, let's go back to what came before the whole Incident. This will focus mostly on season 2, seeing as that was definitely Tech's season to shine, but with bits about plotlines in season 1. Which brings us to our first bit, that's not really evidence so much as some gentle push-back on a common argument.

Doomed By Character Development?

We've all seen this particular situation before - a character is slated for a tragic death, so just before it happens the writers gives them a little extra relevance to the plot to make sure the audience really feels it when the time comes. The Clone Wars was especially good at this, giving characters like Fives an arc of his own that ended in his tragic death. Season 7 gave us a better look at Jesse, first in the Bad Batch's intro arc and then again through the Siege of Mandalore, all to bring us to the chip activation that led to his ultimate death.

When season 2 started off with one of the two intro episodes spotlighting Tech and our first breather episode of the season also spotlighting him, people started to get worried. So is it fair to say that his spotlight in season 2 was setting him up for a permadeath?

Looking at it, I don't think so, for multiple reasons. For one, Tech didn't just get a spotlight episode, his development dominated a good chunk of the whole damned season, often taking priority over the other characters that wouldn't be dropped into the mists. While giving a little bit of character development to a doomed character can be a good move, giving ALL your development to a doomed character ends up feeling like a good portion of your season was actively pointless.

The Bad Batch is not an open ended show. It seems to have been planned for the three seasons it got, and they would have gone into it knowing they had a set amount of time to work with. Dedicating so much time to developing Tech in preparation for a character death takes away all of their opportunity to develop, well, anything else.

But, along with the amount of time that was dedicated to Tech as a character through season 2, they also didn't develop him in the ways that most often get used for a doomed character. Namely...

That Sure Is A Lot Of Open Plot Lines

And not one of them got tied up. Currently, Tech has two open plot lines to himself, both started in season 2, as well as a key place in the overall show narrative arc. As the overall show narrative arc takes precedence, we'll start with that.

The Bad Batch sets up a few different narrative arcs very early. One is if clones can be more than soldiers - this is the central thing that we see them struggling against from the start, they've been created to be soldiers and don't know much else about how to function in the world. Theoretically this arc can be fulfilled with one or two of them still dying as soldiers, as long as a few of them make it to find a new life for themselves.

The arc that can't be fulfilled without everyone though is the ongoing thread of reuniting the batch. Much of the show is geared towards making the viewer want this specific end result, as soon as they talk about Crosshair, Omega says they'll just have to get him back and complete their family. The end of season 1 teases us with this only to pull it away at the last moment, then season 2 teases us with it again only to yet again pull it away, this time seemingly permanently.

Ending one of your key narrative threads you've been using to draw audiences in only 2/3rds of the way into the show and without ever resolving it... well it would be a choice. If Tech is gone for good then the last time we saw everyone together would be the end of season 1. Rewatches would lack impact because something that was made to seem so vital ended up going nowhere, and the series finale would never quite reach the height that hearing the full batch theme kick in over the team fighting droids together did. It absolutely destroys the central narrative to leave him gone without ever having reunited the family.

And then there's his personal plots.

Let's start with the obvious one. Tech got a whole potential love interest this season and they absolutely did not resolve a damn thing about it.

Again, this takes a trope that we all know - the young army man that's going to go home and finally marry his girl, who has his whole life ahead of him, but dies tragically in his final mission - and seemingly intentionally subverts the beats. Because what makes the trope work is that the plot line is resolved as soon as that young man decides how he's going to move forward. He can't die uncertain of if he's going to marry his girl, he has to make a decision, and the longer we spend on the relationship to his girl the stronger the decision has to be to consider the narrative line resolved and free him up for some tragedy.

Tech/Phee is a tentative little 'will they or won't they' romance. They're flirting, they're feeling each other out, they're seeing if they're compatible. To tie up this narrative line we would have to find out if they are or not, get a yes or a no on the question. Will they or won't they? We simply don't know because the writers didn't put a resolution in.

We do get the traditional pre-mission scene with them, which would normally be when we get the first kiss or perhaps the promise of a date, either of which would have had me digging Tech's grave for him to fall into from the second it happened. Or even a 'we can't do this right now, but maybe some day it will be the right time' which would have been a kind of lukewarm resolution but would have at least represented a decision.

Instead we get a scene that almost aggressively refuses to resolve anything. They have an awkward interaction, but not one that says they won't get together, no promises are made for the future, no decision point is reached, and the plot line is still dangling wide open when Tech falls to his supposed death. If we truly leave it off here, well, what was the Tech/Phee subplot for? Why did we spend precious time on it when it could have been spent on something else, if it was meant to make Tech's death hit harder why did it not go further?

A second subplot with Tech is that he certainly made the most progress on seeing options outside of the Empire - it starts early on in Ruins of War when he meets Romar and gets his eyes opened to the idea of cultures that existed unconnected to the war. Serenno existed before the war and before the separatists, and Romar introduces Tech to that idea of an ongoing culture. He gets a taste of racing in front of a cheering crowd, leans further into his teaching of Omega and gets new insights from her regarding their lives as soldiers, his relationship with Phee picks up right when he finds out that she is interested in the preservation of cultures. It's a quiet little subplot, but Tech was seeing the full scope of what the galaxy contained beyond being a soldier in a war.

But, like the Tech/Phee, it never resolves. He never decides to settle down, he never chooses to stop being a soldier or even openly discusses the idea of what life will look like after. Rescuing Crosshair isn't positioned as a final mission that they have to complete in order to give up their lives as soldiers. Without that decision point being reached, the plot stays open, we never find out what he Would Have Done so we don't get a sense of the future that he would lose by dying, which is what the purpose of these types of plots is for a planned permadeath.

The Kaminoans don't create without purpose and writers working on a three season timeline don't typically write without it either. So if we spent the time on Tech/Phee but Tech is dead before it ever went anywhere, if we spent time on Tech's relationship with being something other than a soldier but he never really pursues it, what is the payoff?

Too Much of a Survivor To Die?

There's also the matter of how they chose to build Tech's character this season. Namely they beefed that man's skills up incredibly high making it intensely unbelievable that he's dead without seeing some sort of concrete proof. Things we know about Tech as of the end of season 2 include:

Incredible pain tolerance - Tech fractures his femur in Ruins of War and seems shockingly unbothered by it. The femur is frequently listed as one of the most painful bones to break. This is not a broken toe the man is hobbling around on, he fractured the strongest bone in the body and kept going through the woods. He physically fought and killed a man with that busted femur.

Lightning fast mental processing - this is of course on display nowhere so much as Faster where he's put up against droids and wins by taking calculated risks that no one else is willing to try.

A cool head in stressful circumstances - this one is hilarious because he outright says it, but Tech does demonstrate time and time again that when it comes down to it, he's able to keep calm no matter the circumstances.

Essentially, we spend the entirety of season 2 setting up why Tech is the perfect person to drop out of the sky and have him survive. He has the ability to keep calm and come up with a plan in seconds and he has the grit to keep moving even if he's grievously injured once he hits the ground. When you set a character up like this, you can still kill them, but you have to work harder to do it convincingly. Leaving Tech not at the moment of death but with probably at least a minute to act in and then not showing us the body is the exact opposite.

We have a moment in The Crossing showing us Tech's precise aim, and it comes up again to brutal effect when he shoots out the connection on the rail car. If moments through the season were used to set up that particular instant of the finale, then we can't discount the numerous scenes demonstrating his survival skills as being irrelevant to his chances.

Plus, looking back at Ruins of War - one of the big moments in the episode is towards the end, where Romar tells Tech, "I'm a survivor. Remember?" The camera then lingers on Tech for a long moment. It's not the kind of action that demonstrates his capabilities as above, but it works to associate the words with Tech in the viewers mind. Romar is a survivor, and Tech is a survivor too. And when you intend to kill someone off, it's kind of an odd choice to spend that whole season setting them up as a survivor.

THE FALL

Which brings us to the scene itself. Plan 99, implied to be one of the last ditch plans that they have. It's absolutely a heartbreaking scene, and one that can be tough to analyze when it's so well done, because it's rough to watch repeatedly. But, it's worth doing, because the scene itself is FULL of questions, some structural others more based in the visual presentation.

What is Plan 99?

Well, that's just it, we don't actually know.

We know what it's implied to be, a self sacrifice plan where one of the batch gives their life for the others to get away. But in show it's never actually defined, leaving the full meaning of Plan 99 up to interpretation. It could be as simple as what it's implied to be, but that brings up questions like 'why not provide any lead up or foreshadowing for it?' and 'does killing yourself actually count as a plan?'

Removing the assumptions from it gives us room to speculate. Is the plan actually that they leave him behind, dead or alive? Hunter ordered them to do so without a plan number in season 1, but he is the sergeant, so plan 99 could easily be something that bypasses his authority - if a batcher calls a plan 99, you go and you don't question his decision. It's certainly closer to a plan if there's something they are supposed to be doing from their end rather than just an announcement of intent.

It's not strictly evidence one way or another, but it is something of note when Tech's entire sacrifice is based around a plan that we're not privy to the details of. TBB has hidden its twists in ambiguity before, so it would not be the first time that it let us assume something only to pull the rug out later. But ambiguity is not the only thing that makes this scene stand out in the raising questions department.

Pacing Goes Out The Window

Generally speaking, a self sacrifice is the climax of an episode. Think Kanan, Hardcase, Gregor, Hevy, etc - Even a minor character sacrificing their life tends to make up the most climactic portion of any given episode, let alone one of the characters from the title squad. It gets to be the big central moment, the big rush of music and feeling, the pinnacle of the viewers attention.

Tech's sacrifice is not. It happens around 5 minutes into the episode, is rapidly moved past with barely a moment to think, and then the actual climax is Omega's capture on Ord Mantell. They even repeat the music when Omega is captured, except much stronger this time, making it clear that this is the emotional crux of the episode, this is the scene that is supposed to stick with you.

The opportunity to make it the climax of an episode was certainly there. The storyline could have been adjusted to put Tech's fall at the end of The Summit, allowing more time in Plan 99 for processing his loss and making it feel final. The pacing choice is one that doesn't allow the viewer to process the loss, only giving us maybe a couple minutes of time with actual emotional reactions before we're barreling off to the next plot point. Why was Tech's death de-emphasized within the episode if it is indeed our last moment with this central character?

Tarkin, Eriadu, & Saw Gerrera

A lot goes into the set-up for Plan 99. We have Tarkin's base on Eriadu as the setting they're working within, going up against Tarkin for the first time since early season 1. This is the big leagues, and something that's come up in multiple interviews is that when going into the den of one of the franchise's big bads we have to have consequences, something to demonstrate that Tarkin is not to be trifled with.

Sounds reasonable enough. Except Tarkin doesn't actually do anything in either of these episodes. The thing that actually threw them off was Saw's planning mixing in with their own.

All Tarkin does upon finding out that the batch is stuck on the rail is order an air strike and ignore that this would kill many of his own men. This is certainly evil, but it's standard Imperial evil. Rampart would have given that order. Hemlock would have given that order. The guy in Tipping Point that we know for 5 minutes before he fried himself would have given that order.

So if the point of this finale was to demonstrate Tarkin's power, then bringing Saw in both complicates the plot and devalues what they're claiming they are trying to show. So is the point to get them to Tantiss? No, because they fail in that. They don't plant the tracker, they're no closer to finding Crosshair than they were before.

By all accounts the point of the whole endeavor is in fact just to drop Tech off a sky rail for reasons unknown and injure Omega to force them to go back to Ord Mantell. These two things could have happened anywhere in any way of course, so why choose Eriadu and why choose to complicate the plot by introducing Saw rather than letting Tarkin handle the job?

They're questions we don't have answers to yet, but they're very hard to get answers to if Tech is dead and completely out of the picture. Having a dead body on Eriadu is fairly useless to the plot, having a living Tech on Eriadu though? That has potential to move them huge leaps forward in a very short amount of time once we bring him back in. Especially given his conversation with Saw prior to everything going downhill - Tech was in favor of gathering intel from the facility rather than destroying it.

And what about Saw, anyway? If he was genuinely there to cause problems and fly away, again, that's a plot wrinkle that isn't needed and took time away from everything else. If he's there because they needed someone to pick Tech up though? There's potential there.

Did Tech's Sacrifice Mean Anything?

In universe, Tech's sacrifice means everything, of course. It's a decision made in the moment to risk everything to save his family. It's a noble deed and one he does without hesitation. But pulling away from that narrow scope of an in universe perspective, what did we accomplish narratively with his fall?

Well... not much actually! They got over the bump in the road that they encountered all of five seconds ago and promptly crashed headfirst into another, different bump in the road. Tech's dramatic sacrifice didn't allow them to escape unharmed, it didn't allow them to find Crosshair, it just allowed them to move a few steps forward, after which Omega is almost killed and then captured, which is a fairly weak reason to sacrifice a whole major character.

But not every character death is exclusively about narrative, sometimes it's about the character arc itself. So does this close out anything for Tech's character development? Again, not really. Tech has always been completely loyal to the squad and would have risked anything for his family. He never had a choice not to fall, it was either just him or the whole team, and he is an endlessly logical actor. The action would have played out the same had it happened in the series premier or the season 1 finale, or any other time in the show. If anything it's a backtrack on his character by putting him solidly back into the soldier box that the show is trying to let the clones grow out of.

Maybe it's not about Tech's character though, maybe it's about everyone else's! Does his death change anyone's trajectory? Again... no, not really. We'll get into season 3's lack of mentioning Tech later, but in the immediate aftermath of his fall, no one's course or actions is majorly changed because of his loss. Hunter wants to go back to Pabu where it's safe, the same thing he wanted to do before they ever left for this mission. Omega puts herself in danger to save her brothers, which has been one of her defining traits since season one. Wrecker is following Hunter's lead, same as he always did. (We get very little of what Echo hopes to do, but the opening of season 3 reveals that they went back to work with Rex, exactly like they were doing before.)

So narratively nothing required him to die, the character's arc isn't completed, and the other characters aren't motivated to change. If Tech dies here, it's the picture of a shock value death. It doesn't complete or inform his character, it doesn't need to narratively happen in order to put Omega on the path to being captured, and thematically it exists just to give the viewer an unnecessary gut-punch when just the failure to rescue Crosshair and the loss of Omega would have been enough.

Framing is Everything

In a death scene there's nothing more powerful than our final shot of a character. The very last we'll ever see of them, the image that will linger in our minds when we think of that character from then on. This is especially important in animation where everything has to go through several iterations before deciding on what that final look will be. You want it to be impactful, you want the audience to have one final connection to the character before they're gone for good.

So why does Tech die with his helmet on?

If there's one thing TBB is good at, it's their expression work, and a death scene is a perfect place to show off their full range, which is why most deaths meant to have a heavy impact occur with faces unobscured. Crosshair loses his helmet and takes Mayday's off so we can see both of their faces as Mayday dies, Slip, Cade, even Clone X and Wilco, all die helmetless. Looking into older series you have Kanan dying without his mask, Fives, Hardcase, Waxer all dying helmetless with one last good look at their faces and expressions.

And while Tech's helmet gives us a good look at his eyes, the rest of his face goes unseen, and Wrecker's face as he watches this happen is completely obscured. We're denied a look at a lot of their expressions as the decision is made and Plan 99 is executed, rendering it less personal than it otherwise could have been. Tech could have lost his helmet in the blast that knocked him from the rail, Wrecker could have had his helmet knocked off at some point to give us a good look at his expression. TBB isn't known for pulling its punches, so why leave our final look at Tech's face back in The Summit and not here?

Then there's the framing choices. We get some absolutely amazing shots of Tech during the fall, from taking the shot to falling backwards towards the cloudy cover - but here's where some interesting choices are made. Rather than letting our last shot of him be a face up shot that keeps eye contact with the camera as he falls, they make the choice to have him flip over, and we hold the shot as the rail car goes down after him, partially obscuring him.

Which means instead of our last glimpse of Tech being something like this.

We end up with something closer to this.

Which, while we all love those Tech crotch shots is somewhat less impactful emotionally. These frames go through multiple departments and get multiple eyes on them before going through final animation, and no one thought that leaving him face up and unobscured until he disappears into the fog would stick more firmly in the viewer's memory?

The Flip Might be Intentional

And I don't just mean out of universe, as every detail of animation is often intentional, but in universe as well. If you look closely at Tech as he falls, he seems to roll his shoulders back in order to begin flipping over. It was a specific enough detail to send me searching for a reason and I found it in instructions on how to survive a long fall - the first thing that you're supposed to do? Get into the arch position like a skydiver to slow and control your fall.

The flip was important enough to not only include but to include the small detail of Tech intentionally flipping himself over into said position. It's not a confirmation but it's an interesting detail, and one that has very few other reasons to exist.

THE AFTERMATH

Image chosen because even thinking he's alive I didn't want to pull from Omega reacting to the fall on Ord Mantell. Looking at her makes me Sad. So the fall has happened, the rail car has rushed forward and crashed, and Omega fades in and out of consciousness until finally waking up on Ord Mantell to the bad news.

"What if he's hurt?"

Omega is our POV character for the show. We may sometimes see things she doesn't, but emotionally she remains the center of the narrative, the character that the target audience will see themselves in. Her ultimate thoughts on a situation are the closest we have to a clear indicator of our intended takeaway.

So it's interesting that the first thing we hear out of her, having heard that Tech 'didn't make it,' is a firm denial. He can't be gone, he might be hurt, he needs them and they need to go back for him. And, despite Hunter continuing to talk with her about it for a bit, we never actually hear Omega explicitly take it back or verbally acknowledge Tech as dead. The closest we get is 'lost' which she also uses for Echo in The Crossing.

Now, here's where the interpretation between the adult and child audience will likely differ. From an adult perspective, this is a reasonable reaction for a child her age. It comes off as very natural that she doesn't want to accept it and that she doesn't have time to really process that it's true before the scene moves on. It makes sense from an in universe perspective.

However, the main audience is still children who actually are Omega's age and who are being presented with her as their window into this world. And their takeaway, seeing that same scene, is likely to be that Omega is correct. They don't know that Tech's dead, just because an adult says it doesn't make it true and just because Hemlock says it DEFINITELY doesn't mean it's true, they have to go back and check.

If they wanted the main audience to think that Tech is dead for sure, they could have had Omega be the one to say that he's gone, with Hunter simply confirming it for her. Alternatively, Omega accepting it when Hunter tells her would also function in the same way - ultimately, as the POV character, if Omega doesn't accept it there's a strong possibility much of the audience won't accept it either, especially without other evidence.

No Body?

And, as we all know, we simply don't have other concrete evidence. Not only are the batch given no time to look for Tech's body or any confirmation that he died, but we get a whole scene with Hemlock and the goggles where he also confirms verbally that he doesn't have a body either. There's very little reason to have him say this outside of putting a bug in the viewer's ear that he might not be gone for good.

Not only do we have that verbal confirmation, but we have multiple places where a body could have been included or implied without adding much to the runtime.

Easiest place would probably be when Omega passes out - there's a trooper's corpse right there in front of her, and it would have been very easy to make that identifiable as Tech. Have one of the boys check his pulse like Crosshair did with Mayday and then be forced to leave after confirming he's dead. Would it require a little bit of fudging the details of how he landed so close to them, sure, but it would have been narratively streamlined and easy.

Have Hemlock bring his helmet rather than his goggles (and damage it in a way clearly incompatible with survival) or confirm that he did find a body but has no use for the goggles.

Put the body in Hemlock's lab when Omega is brought there at the end of the episode. Have a sheet covering him even if you want and just one of his hands hanging out, especially the one with the distinctive light on the back of it. Give us her reaction to that.

These are just the ones that don't involve adding scenes or making major changes - instead, in a franchise known for bringing back everyone and their grandmother especially if there's no body, they chose to leave it extremely vague.

Reused Score

The soundtrack for Tech's sacrifice is fantastic, I don't think anyone can argue that. In fact it's so good that it's used occasionally used as a reason for why he's dead for real. If it's a fakeout, why go so hard on the music?

It almost sounds like a reasonable argument, except that the music isn't even unique to Tech's fall. We get the same motif later in the episode with Omega's capture, and it actually comes in even harder and more impactful there than it did with Tech falling.

Reusing bits of the music has two results. It lessens the impact of hearing it with Tech if it is in fact his Death music, because it makes it clear that he is not the central feeling of the episode but rather, Omega's capture is. As mentioned before, deaths are usually the climax of their own episodes partially to avoid them being upstaged by any other plot points, but here Omega's capture is fully prioritized over the loss of one of our central characters.

The second result is that it changes the meaning of the music. It's no longer meant specifically to underscore a tragic death, but rather a more general one of loss and separation. And if it's simply about that separation, then it no longer requires Tech to be dead to have that same impact. They're apart from each other, and that's painful enough.

SEASON 3 SO FAR

Which of course finally brings us to season 3! We're five episodes in as of the posting of this, so a full 1/3rd of the season down, which gives us a good idea of how they're handling the whole grief aspect of this scenario.

They Aren't!

That's right, we simply have not directly acknowledged or dealt with the whole 'watching your squadmate fall to a presumed horrible death' thing even once in five episodes. Tech has been mentioned by name twice, we've seen his goggles once, and Wrecker makes one sideways reference to him having not made it back.

In universe, there is a several month timeskip and it seems to be implied that the majority of the grief milestones happened in that gap. For example, we don't see Crosshair finding out from Omega, we don't see Omega grieving her brother, we don't see Phee finding out (more on her in a bit) despite her fledgling romance. Months of grieving and processing skipped over and what comes out the other side is single line mentions that go by in seconds.

This is especially apparent after episode 5, where we got something to compare it to. Crosshair has a long, painful moment of grieving with Mayday's helmet when they return to Barton IV. It's deep, personal, and intimate and we take a minute with him gathering up the helmets of Mayday and his men to set them up on the crates the same way that Mayday had honored them.

Mayday is a one episode character that was important to only a single character, Crosshair - Tech is a core member of the team present through two full seasons and shown as close to every member of the squad. Yet the single scene grieving Mayday is longer and more emotionally gripping than every short mention of Tech so far in season 3.

Narrative Grief

Seeing characters grieve their loved ones onscreen is about more than just the characters themselves. It's also part of the viewer experience - through the characters' grief, we're able to process our own grief at the loss. It makes it feel real, it makes it feel personal, and the amount of grieving needs to be proportionate to the character's importance in the story.

This is especially true in a show written for children like The Bad Batch. Kids don't typically have the same experience with death as adults, and a well written main character death within a children's show will need more time and energy spent towards making the loss feel real. We see this with deaths like Kanan's; it wasn't Jedi Night that told the viewer that Kanan was really, truly dead, it was Dume, where the characters mourned him and dealt with the aftermath.

Currently, with Tech, we do see holes in the team that make us miss Tech but they remain completely unaddressed by the characters. We see Tech's goggles, but Hunter isn't looking at them, he's looking at Lula. Omega mentions Tech having taught her all the plans, but without any real sadness on her or Crosshair's part. The closest we get to actually bringing it up are Wrecker saying 'not everyone came back' and Echo mentioning the datapad would be difficult without Tech, and both of those are only seconds long before moving on. They don't serve as any kind of catharsis for the viewer, relying more on gut punch impact and keeping the wound open rather than allowing it to heal. The difference between the treatment of Tech's death and Mayday's just makes it more stark.

How Do You Like Yearning?

Interestingly, though, it strongly resembles the writing team's handling of another situation: Crosshair's departure from the team in season 1 vs Echo's in season 2. The show even drew a lot of flack for the lack of discussion on Crosshair's betrayal, as outside of a couple conversations the matter often went unremarked on. Echo leaving, on the other hand, got a whole episode dedicated to processing the loss immediately after it happened.

So what was the difference? Crosshair's departure is part of a long term plot point. We're supposed to want him back, we're supposed to want the team to talk about him, anything that would ease the tension. The writers on the other hand want that tension to remain until it's time to actually resolve the plot. So we get those slow drips in between bigger encounters, we get opportunities for Crosshair to come home that he doesn't take, and we don't get the catharsis of the team actually talking about any of it. We're left to want and imagine it, using the yearning to keep it on people's minds more than anything.

If Crosshair had been discussed on screen long enough for the characters to actually come to terms with his absence, though, that would have made the plot feel more settled and resolved early on. It might be conversations we want to see, but it doesn't keep the viewer on edge and craving a resolution. Best case scenario we're just not as desperate for Crosshair to come home - worst case scenario we accept that he won't be returning and find the fact that he eventually does to be unrealistic.

Echo on the other hand gets their absence processed immediately, because their absence from the team is not meant to be a huge plot point. It's something the team has to deal with, yes, and the viewer wants to see them again just like Omega does, but Echo returning isn't meant to be a maybe, and it's not supposed to keep the viewer wondering and worrying. It's a when, not an if.

Similarly to Crosshair, Tech has never felt like a resolved plot point. We don't get confirmation on his death, we don't get any long term grieving, and we get drip fed acknowledgements that pry the wound back open. If we actually see the team discuss and come to terms with their grief and loss, the plot point closes, the wound closes and we begin to fully accept a team without Tech in it, which makes it harder to reinsert him into the storyline if he is in fact alive.

If he's truly gone for good, what is the point of denying closure to the audience? We know that they are capable of writing an intense mourning moment that feels completely in character for otherwise emotionally repressed men such as Crosshair, so why not give us that with the team mourning for Tech? A memorial, an intimate moment with the goggles, a short scene of Crosshair finding out about the loss, or anything at all really? Once again it's something that makes sense if he's alive and we're simply not being shown yet, but makes very little sense to not capitalize on if he's dead.

What's to Come

We have ten episodes of season 3 to go, and a lot to cover. Reviews have indicated that Tech is not explicitly brought up in the first eight, so the earliest we could possibly have a survival reveal is in episode 9. Will it actually happen? Maybe, maybe not. Though interestingly episode 9, The Harbinger, is almost exactly one year after Plan 99, just like The Return aired almost one year after The Outpost. Could mean nothing, but they do enjoy their anniversary dates.

One thing we do know for sure is coming up is Phee's inclusion - she's seen in the official trailer, as well as briefly in a recent twitter spot. This is interesting as Phee is, of course, Tech's teased love interest, and her connection to Tech has been emphasized multiple times, including on her Databank entry and the official 'what you need to know about season 3' guide. When she comes onto the scene, it's very likely that more information about Tech will too.

MARKETING, INTERVIEWS, & SOCIAL MEDIA

I wanted to keep this mostly focused on what can be seen within the show itself, but it's impossible to talk about whether or not Tech is alive without pointing to the absolutely bizarre messaging from the cast and crew, as well as the marketing choices surrounding his sacrifice. (Example: the Instagram Mourning Filter they layered over him in the official trailer, as seen above) I won't get quite as detailed here as in the above, but it does have to be mentioned.

Constant Focus

In between the end of season 2 and the posting of the season 3 trailer in late January, there were several posts on various official Star Wars media. The majority of them were about Tech and Plan 99. In fact, I don't think I ever saw anything mentioning the giant 'Omega's been captured' cliffhanger, just Tech. Over and over again.

Once a character is dead, marketing generally stops caring about them. They're forward focused after all, they want you coming back for what's to come not lingering on what won't be relevant again. So why the constant focus on Tech?

And it wasn't just the social media either - a huge portion of the trailers and reels included old footage of him too. For the most part this was from Plan 99 and bringing up his fall again to rip open those old wounds, but in one case they included action footage from The Summit. This was an interesting case, because the majority of people watching wouldn't have recognized it immediately. Fittingly, the entire comment section was full of nothing but 'Was that Tech?' style comments, which they would have known was going to be the case to start with.

So why are we so focused on a man that's supposedly dead? If he's genuinely never going to show up again why keep putting him in? Everything? While not even bringing him up all that often in the show? If he's dead, this is a truly bizarre marketing decision.

Never Say Die

In interviews or in official material. For several months the word 'dead' was never used for Tech anywhere, not in interviews, not in official material, nowhere. It took until January 23rd for all of the databank entries to be updated, and among all of the main cast he's only referred to as 'killed' once, and it's on Hunter's page not even his own. Then, the Friday before the premier, an interview came out referring to him as dead - on the part of the interviewer, not the creators themselves.

Everything else seems to use a variety of euphemisms. His sacrifice, his absence, his loss, he 'plummeted out of sight', he 'fell from a tram car', he did absolutely anything it's possible to do except outright die apparently.

It's an odd choice when there's known controversy over if he's dead or not. The standard operating protocol of course, in a planned comeback, is to refer to them as dead anyway and allow fandom to fuel its own speculation, but with a fandom as devastated as TBB's was, it's quite possible that the odd behavior had to be introduced just to keep speculation going. The only interviews that sound remotely final came out right before the episodes started coming out - if they had done that from the beginning, the chances of people outright refusing to come back to the show likely would have been higher.

Much like the marketing, this is not necessarily proof of anything - but in combination with the multiple odd things in the show itself, it's certainly suspicious. Speaking of suspicious...

What an Odd Thing to Say

The cast and crew themselves have not been skimping on making strange comments when it comes to the Tech situation.

There is of course the well known Joel Aron (lighting director for the series) tweet that came out the day of the Celebrations panel (AKA when the Tech trauma was at an all time high) and in direct reply to a fan that was having a hard time with Tech's death. It's hard to take it as anything but a reference to Tech given the timing, and it was certainly taken as being about Tech in the quote tweets. If it's not about Tech, why tease the fandom with it? And the specification for it being a mid s3 episode as well...

Also from the day of Celebrations, and from the panel itself, we have Michelle Ang saying in front of God and everybody, that Tech "doesn't come back... in this episode, at least." At the time there was a possibility she didn't know and was just leaving it open, but with that only being ten months ago and the extremely long timeframe of animation, it's almost certain that she would have been done with all primary recording by that point. If you know he's not coming back, how do you accidentally imply that he is with no one correcting it?

Dee Bradley Baker, when asked for a farewell message from Tech at a con, came out with "the life of a soldier is fulfilled by fulfilling his mission and supporting his brothers. And this was the end of mine. And that's a good thing." Which was a perfectly serviceable goodbye right up until he said that the end of Tech's (life? soldier's life? mission?) was a good thing.

During an instagram interview we have Deana Kiner, one of the composers, in response to the interviewer talking about the final episode containing a major loss, saying, "It's kind of a loss... It's complicated." The claim on twitter was that this was about Omega, because everyone knows that when someone mentions the major loss in Plan 99 they're definitely talking about Omega.

So is Tech alive? Is Tech dead? We still don't know. But while one or two of the above might be a coincidence, having all of them at once coalesce around this single character death is a lot to chew over. The Bad Batch team has shown willingness to address grief and loss prior, as well as a willingness to show us death onscreen and front and center. So why, with such an important character, sidestep it all in order to keep it vague? Why keep it from sounding final for so long, if the intent the entire time was for him to be dead for good?

We won't know until he either shows back up or the show ends. If Tech's alive, all of the above starts to make sense. If he's dead... well a lot of things will just never quite add up. I feel that this team has shown enough willingness to follow up on their trailing plotlines that they've earned my trust. Fingers crossed for a satisfying resolution for all of us, and for our boy Tech, whatever that resolution may be.

[zhivaoverdrive]

Saline Thief, 1

"They're obviously familiar with the facility... must be a patient" said Dr Chen, matter of factly.

"Or the cleaning crew?" replied nurse Laura, leaning in closer and speaking under their breath.

"Impossible. Use your eyes. Do any of the cleaning girls have tits bigger than their head?" Nurse Laura giggled softly as she looked at the camera feed again. They wished.

Dr Chen flicked through the viewfinder, bringing up the many images of the offender captured over several different nights in the last month, ultimately culminating in the current witch hunt.

"So, to recap what we know:

Our mysterious friend arrives after midnight, unlocks the storage entrance *AND* disables the alarm. The pharmacy is untouched, as is the safe and the expensive equipment. In fact nothing appears to removed at all" Dr Chen said.

Nurse Laura nodded and smiled.

"If we look specifically at last night's intrusion..." Dr Chen continued, scrolling through and isolating a few images. "2.32am, our guest first appears, face partially covered, it seems like she knows the camera is there. Next we've got her coming down the hallway towards the suites. We lose her here, hundreds of hours of footage, but..." Dr Chen trailed off as she pulled up the final capture.

"Whoa! Holy shit!" burst out Nurse Laura. "Mmm-huh. So we know what she stole. And that was just this time" said Dr Chen, nodding. "How much do you think she... took?" said Nurse Laura coyly. "That better be professional interest I hear in your voice. We don't exactly keep inventory of the stuff, but from visuals alone, I'd have to say 15-20 litres this time" replied Dr Chen "Wow! And to do it herself..." swooned Nurse Laura, the admiration clear in her voice.

"...Ahem. Now do you have any idea where she disappeared to in the middle, nurse?" said Dr Chen sternly.

She was going to catch some flak for this, there could be no doubt. The spare room in C building may have been an open secret, but Nurse Laura didn't want to be the one who spilled it. It was a perk of the job, cosmetic surgery was expensive, but the staff here could help each other out...

"Nurse?" Dr Chen’s voice cut in.

"Oh uhh, can I have a look on that thing?" said nurse Laura sweetly.

As she flicked 'randomly' through the camera feeds, the anticipation to see the intruder's antics continued to swell inside her 20 litres each…

"Ohh, is this her?" she chirped, looking up from her diligent search to catch the bosses eye.

The screen showed a 5x playback of the spare room. Splayed on the floor was their intruder, now completely topless, surrounded with bags of saline. Between sudden bursts of motion as she swapped bags were long intervals as she sat perfectly still... But in the accelerated playback of the footage, both Dr Chen and Nurse Laura could see her breasts slowly inflating, taking on more mass as they billowed outwards.

"My my, wasn't she busy. Know how long she was in there for?" said Dr Chen. Nurse Laura hit fast forward again, moving to 10x and then 20x playback speed. The intruder's ritual continued, brief spurts of motion followed by what was now very visible growth, her breasts now far larger than when she came in.

"Looks like about 2 hours? Wow!" said Nurse Laura. "Play the end, normal speed" said Dr Chen calmly. —

Amy flipped the now empty box over in frustration, flinging it out of the way. Reaching behind her, she removed what she knew were the final two bags and heaved herself to her feet. Once standing, she wobbled, the extra 30 or so kg of saline in her chest taking some getting used to. God you've overdone it this time. You still need to walk out of here you idiot. Rigging up the last two bags, Amy closed her eyes and moaned. It would all work itself out, she got what she came for. —

"I know who it is," said Dr Chen.

"Oh? Really! I can't wait to- er, catch her" said Nurse Laura.

Scrolling through a calendar on her phone, Dr Chen chuckled. "You won't need to wait long. She's booked in for Thursday" she said, showing her phone to the nurse.

Scheduled 4500-5000cc fill. High risk patient. Begged to accelerate schedule multiple times, denied due to very little natural breast tissue. Concerns over obsessive desire to disregard safe filling practices.

[yet-another-heathen]

Wick's Whump Drive - I

This is a commissioned piece for @light-me-on-pyre, who was kind enough to participate in my ongoing whump drive for Palestinian aid.

Want in? Donate $5/€5 or more to ANY Palestinian fundraiser, send me the receipt, and I'll write a custom whump drabble for you, too.

Prompt: "How would you write deconditioning?"

[ My lessons on how to write realistic conditioning can be found here. ]

---

TW | realistic whump recovery, emotional whump, brief argument, PTSD, flashbacks, intentional deconditioning attempt, implied past character death (whumper)

It wasn't the word itself this time. It was the way Caretaker said it.

"Kneel."

Whumpee went down hard. The mental cursing began when his knees were about two inches from hitting the ground. Too late to stop the movement. Plenty of time to hate himself for following through.

Where his knees hit, the jarring spike of stacking bruises felt like a punch. Failure.

Another. Fucking. Failure.

Whumpee groaned in frustration, hands balling in his hair. Then he was on his feet again, pacing. "Again."

"Whumpee, I think we've had enough for toni—"

"No! No, I need to try again! I have to get this right just once before I stop." He turned again on his heel, leaving another path in the carpet. "We keep going. I just— I just need to keep going."

Caretaker raised an eyebrow, not moving from where he knelt. With that endless patience that was beginning to grate on Whumpee's nerves, "...we have been at this for an hour. Your nerves are getting more and more frayed by the minute. You said yourself that this works best when you're calm."

"And what if I'm wrong?" Whumpee whirled around on him, tears in his eyes. "I keep failing. I've barely managed to stop myself three times this whole week. Out of what? Four dozen attempts? Five? Every time I quit I end up backsliding more and more. I can't keep giving up. This has to work."

"It will be easier—"

"Are you going to say it or not? You said you would help me!"

Caretaker looked taken aback. And just as quickly, his expression shuttered.

"What do you think I've been doing for the last hour?" he asked. "Don't forget— I still get to say 'no', too."

The reminder hit like a slap. Not because Caretaker was wrong. Because he was right.

It had taken everything Whumpee had just to keep making it through the practice sessions. With how bad things had gotten, he barely had the capacity to take care of himself right now. Let alone worry any of the people around him.

Was that how he'd been acting? Was that what Whumpee was denying him? Even the choice to be a part of this?

After standing there for another far too long moment, Whumpee let out a sigh and came back over to Caretaker. He slipped to the floor beside him, folding his knees up to his chest, back pressed to the couch.

Quieter, rougher, "...Yeah. Yeah, you do." He couldn't bring himself to look at him. "I'm sorry."

Although Caretaker didn't say anything, Whumpee could see the moment the tension in his shoulders let go. The fight passed over them like a distant shadow.

"I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this," Whumpee murmured. He wrapped his arms around his knees, resting his chin on his forearms. "Between the nightmares and the memories... I'm just... I'm so tired." Quieter still, "I can't seem to get that monster out of my head."

"You've not been sleeping." It wasn't a question.

"...I've been trying to. I really have. But I end up just laying there, thinking the same five thoughts on repeat, over and over and over. Things haven't been this bad since—"

A flash of bright light. Wrists rubbed raw. Whumpee was doubled over, arms wrapped around himself. Screaming himself raw with a flood of relief and despair and a hundred other emotions that he could never admit aloud. Blood spreading on the cement floor. Blood that finally, finally wasn't his own.

Whumpee flinched, twisting his face away from the sight. As if this was something he could just look away from. As if the memories weren't printed into his retinas like the afterimage of lightning.

He took a few slow, steadying breaths, shaking on every exhale. Clenched his trembling hands, open and closed. Open and closed. Eventually he managed a raspy, "...since before."

Caretaker watched, worried. But he knew better than to reach for Whumpee without asking first.

"Whumpee... you've been butting up against this same block for weeks now. I've watched you try everything except the most obvious thing there is. You need to rest." Whumpee opened his mouth to say something, but Caretaker cut him off before he could argue. "—I'm not telling you to quit. I know why you can't, and I would never ask it of you. But there's a difference between giving up, and taking enough time to catch your breath before the next sprint."

Whumpee averted his eyes again, throat working against the burn of building tears. But he was listening.

Softer, "You said this was something you'd be working on for the rest of your life. If that's true, then there's time. For just a few days... give yourself some of the softness you went so long without. Take enough time to be gentle with the man you're trying so hard to save."

The words had hit their mark. He watched as Whumpee's face crumpled. His breath hitched once, and he broke into a sob. Then Whumpee finally reached out for him, and Caretaker didn't hesitate to pull him into hug.

He buried his face against Caretaker's chest, everything he'd been holding back falling apart at once. Pain. Despair. Hope. Grief. All of it came pouring out with his voice.

"There. I've got you," Caretaker murmured, closing his eyes. Exhausted, but relieved that something had finally gotten through. "...I've got you."

[sexhaver]

What makes Jeweled Bird so bad?

first, some context: wayyyyy back in the stone ages when dinosaurs walked the earth and MTG first released, it was envisioned as less of a serious competitive card game people would explicitly try to minmax and more of a fun little diversion for your D&D group to play while you wait for Jared to get off his shift so you can actually start your campaign. this explains a lot of design choices that seem backasswards 30 years later. for instance, yes, Richard Garfield knew Black Lotus was unbelievably busted, but figured it was fine to print since it's not like people would do anything crazy like buy up hundreds of packs/hunt down singles on a secondary marketplace and play the game competitively for cash prizes.

one of the wackiest outcomes of this design philosophy was the concept of "playing for ante", an optional game mode/modifier where each player would begin the game by putting the top card of their library directly into "the ante", a pile of cards off to the side. whoever won the game won permanent, real-life ownership of all cards in the ante. basically "playing for keeps" but in a TCG instead of with Pogs or those weird tiny cardboard Beyblade tops that came in chip bags.

as you might guess from just reading that description, it was pretty wildly unpopular with most of the playerbase at the time and only got less popular as time went on. people didn't want to risk losing their cards, especially once the game became established and some of those cards were worth, like, actual amounts of money. and then there was the variance - it was entirely possible for you to ante up your only copy of an expensive card (meaning you were even less likely to win because now you can't draw it) while your opponent anted a basic land.

partially due to this, but mostly due to WOTC lawyers learning about the concept of "gambling laws" and WOTC PR learning about the optics of getting children into gambling, ante was officially removed from all sanctioned MTG tournaments very early into the game's lifespan (in fact i think this might have been enshrined into law before the actual first official tournament) and mostly memoryholed from the comprehensive rules, outside of section 407, which leads with this literal legal disclaimer:

there were 9 cards printed before this that explicitly reference "the ante" and do something unique to the cards in it. all of these cards have been errata'd to include the rules text "remove this card from your deck before playing if you're not playing for ante" and banned from LITERALLY ALL SANCTIONED FORMATS, including Vintage, the format whose entire appeal is "we never ban anything" (laughs in Lurrus).

okay so with the context out of the way we can start getting into why Jeweled Bird specifically is A Bad Card

first, the obvious: it's an ante card, which means you can't play it unless you're playing for ante, and if you ask anyone at your LGS to play for ante they will try to surreptitiously call the nearest retirement home to report an escapee from their memory care unit. so right off the bat it's quite literally unplayable as an MTG card (ante doesn't even work right in cube drafts, usually the last solace of jank-ass mechanics), which is not a great start.

now that we've established that ante cards are bad because they're effectively banned everywhere, let's assume we're living in some bizarro land where you've managed to convince a handful of friends to play in your personal MTG tournament bracket that allows ante. even then, all but one (don't worry we'll get to that one in a second) of the banned "ante cards" are just. unplayably bad. like absolute dogshit.

ok actually you know what i hadn't looked over all the ante cards in a while before typing up this post and now that i have i think Jeweled Bird is arguably the third or fourth best one out of the lot, and it's STILL unplayably bad in a modern context. it's effectively 1 colorless mana to draw a card, which is theoretically decent in some colors nowadays if you squint but would have actually been notably good back in its heyday. it actually gets pretty close to what WOTC was trying to go for with most of these ante card designs: you get a powerful effect (card draw for 1 colorless mana in an era when even blue had to jump through hoops for a rate that good outside of Ancestral Recall), but at the cost of adding something to the ante, but since the effect is so powerful, you should ideally be able to win the game off of it and completely negate the downside of adding your stuff to the ante.

you know what, fuck it, let's just go through the other ante cards from worst to best:

this card looks absolutely batshit until you get to the last sentence and realize it's effectively 6 mana to force your opponent to ante a card. if you spend 6 mana doing effectively nothing, you are not winning the game or that ante

this one is this low because in 99% of circumstances it's 10 mana over two turns to burn your opponent for 10. however, it takes the edge over Amulet of Quoz because 1. it just bypasses the ante zone entirely to literally steal the card directly, outcome of the game be damned 2. if your opponent has 9 or less life, they have to either let you steal their card or concede on the spot (which means they lose their ante) and 3. if i'm reading this ruling correctly you can set up the 9-or-less-life scenario with a TOKEN COPY of Bronze Tablet and give them a literal bar napkin with a doodle on it in exchange for their judge promo foil Elesh Norn:

so for 6 mana, you can heal yourself back to full at the cost of anteing an additional card. if that was all this card did, it would still be pretty bad, but the icing on this shitcake is that your opponent can just. also do that. but without spending their entire turn to cast a 6 mana spell. so now you're both on equal footing lifewise, but they have their entire turn to gain tempo advantage after you spent your turn healing them. and you gave them another one of your cards once you inevitably lose because of this. i guess theoretically you could run it in a super heavy control deck that aims to win via mill as a safety valve against aggro? idk man

this card effectively does nothing, but doing nothing for 3 mana is still an improvement over "doing nothing for 6 mana", "doing 10 damage for 10 mana over two turns", and "helping your opponent for 6 mana". i guess if you're really confident that your deck can win anyways (perhaps because of another card on this list) you could use this to force your opponent to ante another card for you to win? mostly this one is this high up here because "if the opponent doesn't concede the game immediately" is the funniest possible opening to a MTG card's rules text. like that's always true. you could add that to quite literally every card ever printed and it would change nothing other than making the game way funnier

okay so this is a three mana 1/1 with an ability that costs three MORE mana to activate that effectively just makes your opponent ante a card. i know it looks like it destroys and then literally steals an artifact, which would actually be a pretty good effect since it impacts the board (something none, but the entire thing is countered by anteing a card so that's what's gonna happen every time. at least this one can chump block

okay now we're starting to get into cards that at least make you think a little bit before deciding they suck (Jeweled Bird would go around here)

this scores higher than Timmerian Fiends for several reasons. obviously, a 4 mana 3/3 is a much better rate than a 3 mana 1/1, and the sac ability being free (other than a tap) makes it a lot more usable. the effect is even debateably good in red specifically: either it "draws" (literally legally steals irl) you a card, or it does 10 burn to the opponent's face. however, it does lose points due to the part where you, uh, have to give it away after using it once, win or lose. basically this is like Bronze Tablet but 6 mana cheaper and on a body that can actually theoretically do something. also lol at the "or conceding game" clause like Demonic Attorney, i really want to start seeing that wording on every card ever printed

now this might seem similar to Demonic Attorney at first glance, but the Oracle text makes it make more sense: "You own target card in the ante. Exchange that card with the top card of your library." notably, like Efreet and Tablet, this swap in ownership happens regardless of the outcome of the game, and unlike those two cards, you don't have to trade Darkpact itself for the card you're stealing. stealing your opponent's card out of the ante does mean that now both of the cards in there belong to you, meaning you have twice as much to lose, but hey, you just stole (and got to draw and cast, lol) your opponent's shit. "do what you must, i have already won" type beat

as powerful as Darkpact is, it's still only the second best ante card, and it is not even in the same zip code as the first best. ever heard of a little card named Ancestral Recall? draws 3 cards for one mana? and that's such a busted effect you're only allowed to legally run one copy in the one format it isn't explicitly banned in?

hahahahahahahahahaha holy shit sorry every time i remember this card i cackle at it a bit. what do you MEAN "discard your hand and draw 7 for 1 mana"?? discarding is an UPSIDE these days! people have unironically run One With Nothing, which is this card except for all the words after "discard your current hand". that "add the first drawn to the ante" bit might as well be flavor text because if you manage to lose after casting this then your deck was never even theoretically capable of winning in the first place. jesus christ.