#while also utterly loathing each other because they see so much of themselves in the other

[myristicisms]

‘ Embrace your dreams ’ had always been a remark that rung clear as a damned bell through his mind every waking second, though in some odd and even amusing way Zack can't help but to wonder if this had been what Angeal thought his student would do with his words of encouragement. Turks were often secretive and damn near impossible to understand, Squall Leonhart even moreso to read when the First had been graced with the brunette's company just after Modeoheim. He'd found the brunette to be apprehensive and frankly quite rude, though there was a lingering loneliness behind wolf blues that Zack had known all too well.

The sable haired warrior always did his best to see the best in everyone he ever came across, this including the likes of former commander Rhapsodos even but when it came to Squall, the longer he knew the brunette man and managed to slowly break down the Turk's walls, the more optimistic he managed to be; No, he didn't fully know his friend's story but they'd both come to some understanding that each would share whatever they felt comfortable with whenever they were ready, as it stood, Zack happened to be more than happy to share his tale and simply wait patiently for Squall to reciprocate; What little he had been confided to was desperately clutched deep within his heart, secrets to never even touch his tongue simply out of respect and a deep desire to reserve the honor of keeping someone so far away's trust; To maintain his friendship that he so desperately wanted to morph into something more.

It's that desperation combined with remembering the fact that Angeal always told him to chase what he'd wanted that led him into his poor companion's personal space, leather clad fingers pushing away familiar brown hair that he's touched dozens of times before while tending to injuries or simply just because he'd wanted to. And often, most lingering touches had been purely because Zack wanted to see both of Squall's eyes, to appreciate the scar that trailed across the man's features. Turquoise eyes often flickered to the brunette's lips too, typically under the guise of staring at the scar the Turk received on a mission they'd had together but seldom was that ever the case. He pauses, looks utterly distraught for a mere moment before glancing right back down at his dearest companion and offers a gentle smile, something he'd often only reserved for those he cared for.

At times, Zack truly and utterly loathed his enhanced hearing; It was far too difficult trying to ignore the gossip carelessly mumbled around ShinRa but the gentle thumping of Squall's heart turning more rapid had brought some sense of satisfaction that made the other woes he'd held worth it; He knows it's not irritation or even fear because Squall Leonhart wasn't a man who froze when faced with a situation he didn't want to be in, if the Turk wanted Zack to back off, he'd have said something by now because the man never hesitated to voice his wrath; Especially not whenever Zack was on the short end of that stick, rare as it was. The silence often would drive him mad too, anxiety often settling its claws against his ribs when left to his thoughts for too long and yet this too only served as a silent permission as a warm palm gently cups the side of Squall's face; far more confident in its gestures it seemed.

Then, just as gently as the rest of Zack's prior movements had been, plush lips gently press themselves to the brunette's, careful in placement and hesitant in nature yet tender and full of many words the First Class operative was too big a coward to actually speak, not without knowing that what he felt wasn't one sided because a physical rejection he could handle; Hearing the words though would destroy ShinRa's ever devoted mutt and Zack was as much a coward as any regular human being when it came to risking his heart being broken; Unfortunately though, he was also foolish and hopeful enough to take the chance and he only hoped said chance would prove to be a blessing rather than a curse.

HE'D ALWAYS MADE IT WELL KNOWN TO THE MAN HIMSELF THAT HE WAS SOMEONE WHO WAS HARD TO READ. Practically a walking surprise, the gun-blader could hardly say whatever he'd come to expect from him was ever accurate or played out how he'd thought it should've. Usually, he had a heavy handle on that particular skill of his, honing it as sharp as he'd managed to be able to get an perfect read on someone long before he'd approached so he could anticipate what action to take next.

In his line of work, being able to make such a call well in advance held the difference between life & death, & yet . . . here the frustrating bastard was yet again proving that for all his self-perceived skill in this field, for all the things he'd seen or claimed he had — he still couldn't anticipate just who Zack Fair was, what it was he'd wanted, or whether his intentions were completely pure with no malicious motives.

Every bone in his body wants to trust him, but given his past, all he'd seen . . . it's a hard task to accomplish. In his opinion, there was no such thing as a good man — but Fair came scarily close. But it'd never upset the other. No, instead, the optimistic, forever sunny First would always reassure him that whatever answer Squall's given when he did ask him anything, it was fine in the end. While many SOLDIER's were hardheaded, stubborn, bearing their own sort of inflated pride at even making it within these ranks, Zack carried himself differently in a way that couldn't help but lure his attention.

He was genuine. Honest in his empathy, while ensuring his attitude was one that never harmed, always did his best to uplift those in his presence & under his care.

That sort of gentle tenderness was rarely seen by the Turk, enough that once he’s face to face with it for as long as he had been, getting to know the other man bit by bit, it stuns him frozen solid when the other reaches over to brush a bit of his dangling bangs from his eyes, slow as gloved fingers tuck the odd strands behind an ear more securely — he isn’t sure just how to react, what he’s supposed to do. He moves like he’s going to startle him, & maybe it’s wise he is, because Squall’s heartbeat is pacing so loud it’s hard to think logically, breath curiously catching in his throat as he glances up to watch the strange man with wide, questioning eyes.

His pen ceases its glide along the pages it scrawls atop, grip tightening in some budding anticipation, some fear, wielding it like a weapon if only for comforts sake. When Fair moves his hand to hover, a canopy ready to cradle the curved edge of his jaw in the open side of his palm, Squall exhales through his nose with a slow swallow.

❝ . . . Can I? ❞

The bastard doesn’t even need to ask.

*Send “...Can I?” for my muses reaction to yours asking to kiss them. ➤ @myristicisms [ ; ] “ Can I…? ”

[pennylogue]

Steven is a Diamond, and that’s okay.

So, Steven’s way too caught up in the fact that he’s a Diamond right now, and therefore a hideous and overpowered monster who can’t hope to be understood by normal humans or normal gems. Let’s talk about that.

For all Steven’s enthusiasm to be a Crystal Gem and to demonstrate his powers, he’s always been weirdly ashamed of how being half-Gem affects his ability to live alongside humans. I don’t think he’s ever really decided how to feel about it. It’s only after seeing Steven growing substantially and changing his hair and getting diamond eyes, now that it’s clear that his physical form is so malleable to how he thinks of himself and what he wants to be, that it really hits me how growing up with Greg and around so many humans has affected his identity. How sort of…quietly unhealthy it was, to go around with his gem covered up all of the time, and his appearance so determinedly human. I mean, think of how upset and ashamed he was when he decided his inhuman aging would screw up his friendship with Connie.

Right now, Steven is a whirlpool of self-loathing mixed into repressed issues and trauma with the Diamonds and hatred for his mother, and because he’s feeling so disconnected from and alienated and misunderstood by both other humans and other gems, because his gem powers are being triggered by his trauma, he’s connected some dots and blamed it all on being a Diamond. 

Looking back at that quiet “No,” at the end of “Fragments”, it’s easy to identify it as one of horrified realization. And you know, this is the logical conclusion of Steven’s feelings about his mother in “Mindful Education”, of “Storm in the Room”, of “Volleyball”—but it’s also the sum of a lot of other things:

Peridot: The Diamonds are the Gem matriarchs! …We live to serve them.

The culmination of Peridot flipping to the Crystal Gems is tied directly into her rejecting the Diamonds. Diamonds are introduced as the symbol of everything wrong with Homeworld.

Garnet: “How dare you fuse with a member of my court? You will be broken for this!”

…

Garnet: Pink Diamond thought for a moment, and then laughed; a wicked, empty sound. “You wish to save these life-forms at the expense of our own? Ha! Don’t be absurd. Return to your post, and I will forget your insolence.”

Diamonds are shatterers. They hate fusion. They hate Earth and organic life. They hate Garnet. They’re the evil queens in Garnet’s fairy tale. 

Garnet: The Earth belonged to Pink Diamond. Destroying her was the only way to save the planet. For Amethyst to be herself, for Pearl to be free, for me to be together. For you to exist.

Free will and the Diamonds are utterly opposed. It might be a tragedy that Pink Diamond was killed, but she was a monster, like the other Diamonds. The  ultimate enemies of the Crystal Gems.

We got almost five seasons of the Diamonds being spoken of this way. You see how terrified every Gem is of the Diamonds, whether they worship them or despise them. 

And then we found out a) Rose Quartz was one of them. And b) that Steven is one of them. 

Hey, quick question–anyone remember what Sapphire said, right in front of Steven, after the reveal?

Sapphire: Of course she was a Diamond. What a long road she took, to torture us all like this...

…Yeah, we never really got his feelings on b, did we?

I think Steven was so overwhelmed by everything else that was going on and everyone’s reactions, and later so eager to jump on the chance that being seen as one of the Diamonds gave him to fix the corrupted gems and help everyone, that we’ve never really seen him process this realization. Steven drew a very clear line in the sand. The Diamonds are the Diamonds, and Steven is Steven. The Diamonds are wrong about everything, so they’re also wrong about him being Pink, the same way everyone else in the series who’s called him another name has been wrong. He’s not Rose Quartz. He’s not Pink Diamond. 

Except…that second part isn’t true. Sure, Steven has a human body. Sure, Steven’s not the original Pink Diamond. That doesn’t mean he’s not a Pink Diamond. 

But it was easy back then, right? Because Steven was so, so different from them. A Crystal Gem. A defender of fusion. Weak. Small. Human-colored. Harmless. And as Steven says in the finale promo:

I don’t hurt people. I help people.

Yeah, there’s no way that building an incredibly black-and-white mindset with impossibly high standards for himself to create and hold on to a sense of identity was going to backfire.

So yeah, we never really saw Steven process that he was supposed to be one of these terrifying rulers. Except now he’s hurting people. In fact, it seems that all he can do is hurt people. And since he’s only able to see the bad things he can do, the amount of horrible power he has and how isolating it is and how terrifying it is–of course he blames it on what’s always seen as the source of so many horrible things. 

No wonder he’s having an identity crisis! He’s always told himself that he’s different than the Diamonds. He’s better than them. He has to be. So if he’s doing everything wrong, if he’s a freak, if he’s a shatterer, than it’s because he’s a Diamond. He’s just like them. He’s just as bad as them. He’s just as much a monster as the Diamonds are.

It’s complicated, what’s going on. Steven’s very, very wrong. But he’s also, strangely, right on target.

The thing is, this isn’t happening because he’s a Diamond, it’s because he’s human. He’s experienced trauma while growing up and is trying to react to it in a very human way. He literally has PTSD and CPTSD, and if you’ll look up the symptoms you’ll see he’s showing all of them. He’s not a monster. He’s part-human, so his symptoms are manifesting in partially inhuman ways. And that means he just happens to have the power to do a lot more damage than other humans when he lashes out in a way that is, once more, very characteristic for humans. But you know, even the best of humans can do a lot of damage, too, especially when they never really get over trauma. After all, Greg sure did a number on Steven. 

The flip-side of this is that the hilarious irony of ancient magical rocks trying to treat themselves as perfect and inhuman alien beings has always been that, that in reality, they’re every bit as fucked up and human as humans are. That’s the whole point of the Crystal Gems and the Homeworld Gems. Remember back when Garnet seemed so perfect? Peridot seemed pretty alien and unfeeling at the beginning, right? Jasper, Topaz, Aquamarine, it goes all the way up to the Diamonds. 

The whole point of the Diamonds and why the old system was broken was that the Diamonds tried to present themselves as perfect beings without flaw, when in fact they were all just as much a disaster as every other Gem. Remember back when Rose Quartz was a flawless goddess? Yellow and Blue were terrifying when we first saw them, but then we saw them comforting each other at the Zoo. They’re literally just a screwed-up family grieving and dealing with the death of one of their own–White’s first appearance painted her as this terrifying and totally inhuman being above even Yellow and Blue, but in the end, every one of the Diamonds is a normal, flawed person…just vested with the power to do a lot more damage than most.

The thing about White, was that she was so sure she had to be perfect, that she had to make everything better, but in the end, the solution was just to…let go. Accept that she was imperfect, and live with the consequences of it. Let other people help her. Stop trying to fit into being something she’s not, and just let herself be who she is. 

Does any of this sound familiar?

All four of the original Diamonds had destructive powers. All four of the original Diamonds experienced a change and made a conscious choice to control themselves and try to stop using their powers to negatively affect others. White Diamond might be stuck being White Diamond, but as “Homeworld Bound” made clear, she’s also the only one who gets to decide what that means.

So you know what?

You can call Steven half-Gem and half-human, but that doesn’t really describe what he is. He’s a human with a Gem. A Gem with a human form. None of that’s good or bad. It is what it is. And as much as it sucks to be different from everyone else, he’s also the only one who gets to decide what being different means to him. Steven Universe isn’t Rose Quartz and he’s not his mom, but just like he’s a human, he’s also Pink Diamond, and that isn’t bad. 

And I think that’s what he needs to hear from everyone. The solution at Steven’s birthday party wasn’t to react to the situation they were in and cheer him up the same way you’d cheer up a baby. He wasn’t just a baby, he was Steven stuck in a body that he didn’t know how to control. What he actually needed was to hear from Connie that she wanted to be there for him, no matter how strange he was. 

He needs the people he loves to stop telling him he’s “better than” his trauma and his diamond powers, to stop freaking out at how much damage he can do or treat it like a problem to be fixed. To not tell him that they know he’s going through, they’ve been there, too. They haven’t, and that’s not what he needs to hear. He needs to hear that none of what he is is bad. That his loved ones will be there for him and will love him unconditionally. 

And I think that’s what will allow him to accept himself; accept that if he’s a Diamond then he’s also a human, if he’s human then he’s also Pink Diamond–and, just like the previous Pink Diamond, he’s the one who gets to decide what that means.

TL; DR I actually really hope diamond eye Steven is permanent for non angsty reasons. This kid needs to stop being ashamed of his identity.

[curligurl0896]

So getting to read @thejakeformerlyknownasprince 's FMA AU reminded me of my own ideas for a FMA/Animorphs fic. A crossover, in this case, a Megamorphs of sorts (complete with rotating narration) because I really want an excuse to have the Animorphs interact with the characters of the FMA universe. I don't have enough ideas worked out to confidently write a whole fanfic yet, so I think I'll just share some of my ideas so that at least they don't stay inside my head forever like the vast majority of ideas that I either never finish enough to post it or just never get around to at all, especially when my brain is always generating new plot bunnies instead of focusing on developing the ones I already have, it's so distracting lol

(Also maybe y'all could give some suggestions if you wanna, I'd definitely appreciate it lol)

Anyway, here it is:

First off, the answer as to how exactly the Animorphs end up in the FMA universe: I was kicking around a few ideas for this, and was originally thinking something along the lines of like, a freak accident that somehow results in them ending up in front of the Gate of Truth, but I think a better idea would be for an alchemist (or perhaps even several alchemists) to end up in the Aniverse, get Yeerkified, and the Yeerk (or Yeerks, as it may be), intrigued by the memories and knowledge of an alternate Earth where you can manipulate matter and shape it according to your will with nothing more than a well drawn chalk circle (or even less than that if you've been through the Gate, as the Yeerk(s) will eventually discover), lured in by the idea of a legendary object that supposedly can be used to circumvent a pesky little law known as Equivalent Exchange, decides to pull something of a "Tom's Yeerk and his Yeerk buddies a la book 52" deciding to start their own colony in the FMAverse where they won't have to answer to the Council of Thirteen or the Visserarchy (well, at least the ones higher ranked than the Yeerk in charge, who, I imagine, would have to be a Sub-Visser at the very least to have the power to arrange all this) in addition to being able to use alchemy, which, much like the morphing power, can be used for a massive variety of things, ranging from merely convenient to pretty damn useful in a pinch to OP as fuck to even just downright terrifying.

It takes a lot of time and meticulous planning, of course, as they have to find a way to transport the Yeerks, their ship, and all the other stuff they'll need to thrive over there through the Gate and into the FMAverse-- all while in a universe where alchemy flat out doesn't work. The Yeerks have to figure out how to get around that issue, and it takes at least a year of research and using their new hosts' alchemical knowledge to work out a solution, but they work it out, and soon enough they get everything set up and ready to go. At some point, the Chee find out about this secret unknown project going on, inform the Animorphs about it, and Jake decides that they should at least check it out on the off chance that it's something big.

That's where the story officially starts: with our team of traumatized teenage shapeshifters at the location where this thing is being set up (haven't figured out the where yet). They've spent the past several days spying on these Yeerks, but still aren't sure what exactly is going on-- they keep talking about opening a gate-- and aren't sure if it's worth it. Marco's convinced the whole thing is ridiculous, especially after overhearing a human Controller mention something about a "Philosopher's Stone" ("What is this, Harry Potter? Are they gonna wave wooden sticks around and yell in Latin?") . Rachel is bored at this point, and just wants to kick ass and call it a day-- they were probably up to no good anyway. Cassie isn't particularly keen on the asskicking part, but she's been having a bad feeling about all this that she can't shake, and Tobias agrees that something fishy is going on and says they should wait a few days-- after all, from what they've gleaned, whatever plans these Yeerks had would be set in motion very soon. Ax, being Ax, declares as usual that he'll just go along with whatever Prince Jake orders, though when Jake presses him about his opinion, he just says he isn't sure what to make of it. In the end, they keep it up for a couple more days, and sure enough, the time comes for the Yeerks to "open the gate", whatever that means.

After all the time they'd spent spying on the Yeerks, it is conveniently now, when the Yeerks are about to do their thing, that they're discovered. It quickly turns into a fight, and the Animorphs attempt to bail as they're soon overwhelmed-- and then the Gate is opened.

None of them had any idea what to expect next. They certainly weren't expecting the blue lightning that erupted around them in a massive circle, seeming to originate from the curving lines that had been so painstakingly carved into the floor. They aren't expecting the atmosphere to turn dark and purple and creepy, or for a giant grey eye to suddenly appear beneath them, or for wavy black tentacle arms to come out of that eye. And they definitely were NOT expecting to abruptly find themselves in the white void of Zerospace.

Only they aren't in Z-space, exactly. Surrounded by it, sure, but somehow they stand there, as if on solid ground, surrounded by the eerie blankness that had once nearly suffocated them to death.

Each Animorph is utterly alone, with nothing and no one else in sight. That is, until they hear a voice, one that sounds like several voices speaking in unison, and suddenly they see a figure-- or, more accurately, an outline of a figure, with only shadows to mark where the figure ended and the void began. The figure is shaped like a human in all but Ax and Tobias's case: the figure Ax sees is shaped like an Andalite, and Tobias's version takes the form of a bird.

Truth gives the whole "I am God, I am the world, and I am also you" speech, then informs them they can't pass through the Gate without payment. Suddenly, there's a huge gateway where previously there was nothing. Truth is unconcerned with the fact that these "A-ni-morphs" have zero clue what's going on-- it simply takes the required toll and sends them on their way.

Except the toll is literal body parts-- which, even then, isn't usually a big deal for an Animorph, but in this case it absolutely is a big deal, because, as they'll soon discover, there's no way they're going to just replace their lost limbs through morphing. It's expressly forbidden for one to simply have nice things in this universe; in other words, Truth isn't letting them off the hook that easily.

The discovery that they're not able to replace their lost body parts through morphing is especially horrifying to Ax, because, well, y'know... book 40. The one that every Ax fan, and really anyone who otherwise genuinely enjoys Ax's character, would like to pretend never fucking happened.

In fact, given Truth's precedent for irony when extracting payment from people who've opened/been through the Gate in the series, I have no doubt in my mind that Ax would end up suffering the exact same fate as Mertil. Andalites, after all, place high value on their tail blades, especially the warriors; it's their number one go-to weapon when shit hits the fan. Ax himself is such a warrior, in fact it's a huge part of who he is as a person. Needless to say I think yeeting Ax's tail blade would be the exact kind of twisted irony that Truth would employ.

He gets over himself eventually-- well, sort of. However, it takes him a long time to truly come to terms with it-- instead of accepting that the attitudes he'd been taught his whole life regarding those who aren't fully able-bodied are actually shit, I feel like he'd be more likely to double down on them, internalizing them, and actually go into full-on self loathing as a result.

He holds his metaphorical tongue, though, upon seeing that Tobias has suffered a payment that is arguably far more cruelly ironic-- given that Tobias is a bird, given that his initial attraction to the morph that eventually became his default body came from the sense of freedom and escapism only provided through flying, I think it's fairly obvious what Truth would take: his wings.

As for the others: Rachel has lost her arm (for basically the same reason Ed did), Cassie loses her hands (which she uses to, you know, help injured animals and stuff), and as for Jake... well, it was a bit of a struggle, the best I could come up with is the idea of him going blind much like Mustang did after being forced to open the Gate (though maybe not for the same reason, though... idk. If anyone has any better suggestions, please let me know lol, I couldn't think of any solid ideas for what body part would be ironic for Jake to lose). Marco is the only one who doesn't lose any outwardly visible body parts-- what he loses is his voice.

At some point, they are discovered, taken into custody by the Amestrian military, and eventually they end up in Colonel Mustang's office. Mustang listens to their story with a massive dose of skepticism. He isn't sure what to make of these bizarre barefoot children, nor their claims of fighting bodysnatching slugs from outer space by turning into animals, nor their wingless pet hawk, nor... well, he could only assume the other creature was some sort of chimera, although he had zero clue what animals could have possibly been used to make something with blue fur and extra eyes.

At this point, they're about to do a morphing demonstration to prove to the Colonel that they aren't completely batshit, when suddenly the door is slammed open, and a teenage boy with blond hair and sharp golden eyes comes sauntering in, accompanied by a hulking giant covered head to toe in a suit of armor.

The boy immediately starts shouting at Mustang, calling him a bastard and accusing him of wasting his time, to which Mustang responds by merely rolling his eyes and sighing, as if this sort of thing happens all the time (spoiler alert: it does). After a moment, the kid stops as he takes notice of the other kids standing in the room.

"So," he says, calmly, as if he wasn't yelling at his superior just a moment ago, "what's the deal with these fuckers?"

The casual use of the kind of language that would have surely landed them in hot water back home was quite shocking, but they don't comment on it. Instead, Rachel says, in a voice sweet as honey, "Oh, look, Marco. He's just as short as you are."

Before Marco could turn to glare daggers at her (come on, it wasn't like he could argue back in that moment), the boy goes absolutely ballistic, and the armored guy has to physically restrain him as he screams obscenities at Rachel ("The fuck did you just call me, you freakishly oversized bitch? I'll show you too-fucking-short-to-fucking-sit-at-the-fucking-table-without-a-fucking-booster-seat! Call me short one more fucking time, I fucking dare you to! You think I give a shit that you're a girl? I'll fuck that pretty face of yours right up, just you fucking wait--")

"Brother!" The armored guy cries. "Calm down!" Then, to the Animorphs: "I'm sorry about my brother's behavior. He's, um, a bit sensitive about his height."

"A bit sensitive" is the understatement of the century, but none of the Animorphs call him out on it. They're too dumbfounded by the sound of his voice, which sounds sweet, innocent, and, despite his size, sounds like it belonged to a boy no more than nine or ten years old.

And that's where I'm going to leave it for now, since I've spent way too long on this post already. I have a few other ideas, but mostly in bits and pieces, not really any more comprehensive plot points beyond this point. Please do let me know what you think!

[dangermousie]

If you ever fancied a show which really took its male lead apart in every way....

I love AHM! First off, to get this out of the way: Rygel and Chiana’s ‘Titanic’ moment cracks me up and I also love the fact that Chiana conclusively earned her was on the ship by helping to birth Moya’s child (The girl seems to be drafted into being a midwife: she helps J&A to give birth later, doesn’t she? Heh). I love that the show can have funny moments even in the middle of grimness.

Which brings me to the parts I really want to talk about: the Gammak base stuff. I love that as soon as Aeryn finds out John has been captured, she gets out of bed, even though she can barely stand, even though she is only walking through pure strength of will, and prepares to go down to rescue John (and I love that D’Argo and Zhaan go with her). This, here, is the key to why J/A is my ultimate ship: they rescue each other. He will risk everything for her, he would die for her, if necessary. But so would she. She repays sacrifice with sacrifice, loyalty with loyalty, and love with love. And oh, John so needs rescuing. I find the condition John is reduced to quite painful to watch, actually. The torture is not only a horrible mental violation, it is physically awful, as well. His utter helplessness and his horror at his helplessness (both in the Chair, where he is literally bound so he can’t even move his head, and in the cell, where he has barely energy to crawl) are supplemented by his terror. Crichton is terrified and he can’t quite hide it. Added to the horror is the sheer objectification he undergoes. To Crais, he was a person. A person to be hunted and killed, but it was personal. To Scorpius, with his dispassionate researcher’s voice, he is less than a bug. And yet, he somehow goes on, but it’s the fact that he is doing it despite what it’s costing him, despite being in severe pain and while scared to death, that makes me love him all the more. And I love that he is protecting Gilina, someone he is not in love with. He undergoes all of this for Gilina. When Scorpius asks him “what could possibly be worth all of this?” the “what” isn’t love but gratitude, because he owes Gilina, for helping him, for helping Aeryn. Could I love John any more? Unlikely. Sheer decency rocks. But he clearly cannot hold on much more. When he is brought back to the cell after his last turn in the chair, even though he earlier thought Stark’s device was useless, he wants to try it now because he cannot face the thought of going to the Chair again. But he shakes and can’t stop and he can’t even crawl, but collapses. And OMG, Stark! I love the moment where Stark, so unexpectedly tender, so sane after all, unties his mask and releases the thought projection thingy. And the thought that Stark still has all that compassion after years in this place is amazing, and I love that you see John try to process not being in pain for a moment because he’d forgotten what it feels like. And I love how through it all, Stark just keeps stroking his hair, the way you would a child’s, and John falls asleep because he is finally relaxed enough and not in pain enough to be able to do so. It actually probably saves them all later, because when Aeryn gets here, he is able to move, even though haltingly (and I like how it’s consistent through the ep, that it’s hard for him to run or even walk). And then…and then! We get one of my favorite moments in all of the show.  Because the door opens and…it’s Aeryn. “This is the radiant Aeryn Sun” tells John to Stark, and all the love and hope and disbelief in his voice and relief, just kill me.

Because she is alive and she came for him, when he thought he would never ever get out of here, and his first words to her are to find out if she is OK, even though he is a mess himself. He is as grateful for concrete proof of her being OK as he is for being rescued.

And of course, Aeryn gets a bit of her own back, in the Aeryn-Crais confrontation (I wonder if Crais is a closet S&M freak. He never paid attention to Aeryn before but he sees her as a person after the Chair. I really loathe him i this ep, as he is hitting John who is already being tortured in the Chair and utterly helpless. I think John almost welcomes that because it allows him to focus though.) She finally confronts her personal demon and rejects Peace Keepers and I love that scene. OK, Gilina, you are an idiot. In the middle of a dangerous escape from a super-secret base, while everyone is hunting you, and the guy with you has been tortured within an inch of life and sanity? Is not the time to ask whether the cute guy likes you. You need to go with them anyway, because you’ll be hunted and killed. I love that neither Aeryn nor John can discuss it, partially because WTF!timing, but also because they aren’t prepared for themselves. I love the scene on the roof and yet it makes me sad. Crichton and Stark, shooting everything, reveling in the violence and mayhem, it’s the reaction to the enforced helplessness and degradation of the Chair. Now they can hit back.

But that’s the thing. From now on, John will never be parted from his gun, from now on, it’s PK uniform of one sort or another for him. When he says ‘Shoot him, Gilina!’ re: Scorpy, there is a bit of crazed triumph in his voice, delight, no hesitation. I cannot blame him one bit, but I miss the sweet natured John, who has finally been bent out of recognition.

And we get the tag with Gilina and I bet John will feel tremendous guilt about her death. When he leans in and kisses her gently? Waaaaah. There is so much here, I really must stop somewhere.

[feastfic]

On my computer right now and I just spent like, I think maybe only an hour on this??? 

But hi!!! I wrote a thing! And I really want to say things about what inspired me to do this and why I thought of this, so if you wanna know please lmk! (Please I really wanna talk about this AU digjasobjn)

So since this took less than an hour and it’s currently almost two in the morning for me (and I took my sleeping meds) this is probably rushed and doesn’t have as much going for it as I wanted, so please keep that in mind!

This will be under the cut for spoilers, and tw in advance for implied/mentioned murder. Also wildly out of character behavior but it makes sense in the context of the AU I promise; but enough of me going on. Here it is!

He was just… mad these days. Well, not mad. But certainly unhappy. Upset, maybe, was the best word to use.

Ever since he and the rest of Team Snakemouth left the Swamps, he seemed a different bug. Ever since he’d killed The Beast- a rightful act of revenge, of vengeance for his previous friends- he was bitter.

He didn’t even quite know why he felt this way. Kabbu couldn’t tell if it was a new onset grief for losing his team, rage at The Beast, fear of losing the people he currently cared about. There was so much to feel about, and not enough of him to contain all of these feelings.

So he just decided not to contain it. Not around Leif or Vi, of course. There was no way he’d expressly show them how he felt. Not when these feelings were so destructive, so unlike how he normally was. Kabbu was not a bug to hate easily or quickly. But he had a feeling that that was what was going on. He hated- no, loathed; utterly despised this feeling. He wanted, needed to take it out somehow.

He didn’t seem to care about much anymore. His fighting skill wasn’t any better or worse off, but both Leif and Vi knew something was up. Other bugs that the team had previously encountered also could tell very easily that something was up with the typically gentle beetle.

Where he was once careful in battle, he was no longer. His caution was thrown to the wind, it felt like. More nicks and scratches collected themselves on his body, not out of the battles he’d won, but just out of his lack of self-preservation.

“What is up with you lately?” Vi popped the question as they took residence in the hotel underneath the termites’ dome. “Ever since we left that swamp you’ve been acting all weird.” Even her normally sarcastic tone was tinged with real and genuine concern. Not that she’d ever say that she cared any time soon, of course.

Kabbu gave her a side-eyed look, his arms held crossed as he leaned forward on the leaf bed he got when the room was rented out. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He stated bluntly, his gaze focusing on the bee on the bed right across from him. Behind her was Leif, silently watching the two of them talk. The moth had gotten quieter since the swamps, too.

“You’ve been all… all- I don’t know! You just haven’t been yourself and there’s no reason for it, Kabbu!”

“We agree with Vi. You’ve had a big change in character.” Leif said, quiet but as direct as ever.

With both of them on his case, there wasn’t a lot that Kabbu could say. He didn’t want their sympathy, he didn’t want them worrying about him. How could he ever tell them that he didn’t know if he even wanted to be part of the team anymore? Well, he didn’t have to. And, well… he could always just leave out of nowhere. Not that he was thinking of doing that.

He waited until the lights of the dome dimmed- the termites were going to rest as well now. To his side, he heard Vi’s soft snoring, but had to sit to make sure Leif was asleep too. It was a good thing he was, or else this would get awkward and stressful fast. 

There was nothing he chose to bring along. Except for the explorer badge that he and Vi got on their first day as an official team. It’d be only Vi now, but she had Leif. They’d be like every other team- a party of two, instead of their devious three. And that was it- he was never the item carrier; the bag with all of their things always went to Vi, where she’d protect their belongings as valiantly as she could. So the badge was just another thing that she’d keep.

Well, that was basically it now. Bringing along nothing with his person, Kabbu slipped out of the room in silence. He took the elevator back down to the ground floor, leaving for the great doors that had welcomed him into the dome just yesterday. The guards there of course asked him about his intentions and why he was leaving- alone especially- but he just coated his answer with a white lie.

“I’m only going to take the ant tunnel. It isn’t far from these gates.”

The two termites glanced at each other, their antennae twitching between one another like they were exchanging a telepathic message.

“Well,” one began, before letting out a sigh; “alright, but just go to that tunnel, alright? We don’t need any of those Farland beasts coming through. I’m sure you understand.”

“I do; don’t you worry.” 

The other guard worked the mechanism that opened the gate. Not all the way, only just enough to let Kabbu step through. When he entered the foggy abyss of the Forsaken Lands, the gate clanked shut behind him not long after. He nearly disappeared into the pressing grey surrounding him, so much so that he could barely even see the two termites standing watch outside their kingdom. That was certainly a good thing for him, at least.

He wasn’t going to the tunnels. What he needed was time to himself. Figure out what he was going to do now. Because leaving the team was sort of a big deal, even if he’d been considering it for a while. 

In theory he could join something like the bandits, or stake off for himself somewhere out in the wilds. No, the bandit idea wouldn’t work- they’d recognize him, even if that Astotheles character gave them heed about his defeat to Team Snakemouth before his disappearance. And while he could just live off in nowhere, that wasn’t the life he wanted to live now.

What he wanted was to make a big change. Something that’d get the attention of everyone. With the Wasp King being under high pursuits and being a bigger threat, he could get away with many more things. But what? What was there that he could do? He just wanted to break something, really. He wanted to do something to take out the way he felt so crushed about everything that happened in the swampy grasslands. Let everyone know what The Beast did to him.

By doing the same thing to everyone else. 

He looked down at his carapace in the deep fog, turning over his arms to look at all of the scratches that would remain on him either until he died, or until his next molt. But he was an aged man- he hadn’t molted in forever; not since he was much younger. These scars might as well be permanent, then. All of these would bear witness to whatever he decided on doing.

Oh, did he know it was wrong. He hated himself for it. Hurting innocent bugs was still something he didn’t want to do from the bottom of his heart. It wasn’t that he felt that it was all he could do though, but it was the thing he wanted to do most. He was scared. Both of the possibility of his actions, himself, and if he’d be caught. 

Fear. 

It was what he was going to make everyone else feel.

The same suffocating, horrible, gut-wrenching fear he once felt.

If he couldn’t bring himself to be the grand hero that everyone held Team Snakemouth up to be, then he simply wouldn’t. He was no team leader, he was no Green Ranger. He was Kabbu, damned.

If he was so sure of this course of action, he’d become someone like who he was once fighting against. 

The wasps were the enemy, or perhaps once were. He’d start there. Keep the pretense of doing good.

Those troopers wouldn’t know what hit them, or any of the other damned… things he’d sparred with. 

Oh, no. He wasn’t going to stop there. He just needed a gateway. Surely he wouldn’t feel bad about hurting a few of those folk. He’d work his way up; he just needed a way to get his initial anger out is all. It just so happened that a certain kingdom worked in his favor as a target.

He’d go from revered to hated, to where bugs would fear to speak his name for the things he’d done. Where exterminating a few wasps would first be looked up upon by other kingdoms, when the numbers began stacking higher and higher concerns would rise. Nobody would know it was him, not for a very, very long time.

From hero, to anti-hero, to villain.

He’d be a bad guy if it meant he didn’t have to live in guilt and sorrow for his own past. 

Only he mattered to himself now, and he was going to make sure that nobody got in his way or tried to change this path he was choosing. 

He walked further in the fog, until all he could make out of his surroundings were the cracks in the rock beneath his feet. This would be a long path for himself. 

Many countless nights full of himself hating himself, nights where he thought this was the best idea he’d ever had. Nights where he cried, where he laughed to himself. Going from his past self to whatever he’d be called was nothing easy.

But time passed. Days turned to weeks, which turned to months. He was only a fraction of his former self. Down the line he’d forgotten most of what inspired him to go on this outburst, but there was no turning back now. He’d abandoned his humanity just a month ago- these past thirty days were the easiest he’d had in what felt like years. 

And there was no telltale signs about Leif or Vi ever since he left. He’d heard of the talk when he first left; he entered towns from time to time cloaked in leaves and scraps of fabric bugs left about, shielding himself from observant eyes. People wondered what could’ve possibly happened.

They weren’t finding out any time soon.

At least, not from him. He was a little busy with… other things.

Which reminded him, as he sat alone in a small pub off the center of Defiant Root. The bar was a common ground for other bugs in shady business, so Kabbu fit right in. Ironic. But that was besides the point.

He didn’t like calling his craft murder. Nor assassination, or anything like that. But terms meant nothing when anyone else would know what it was called. What he was doing was never anything he’d thought he’d be able to do, but as it turned out, dealing with crippling survivor’s guilt and other feelings for so long made you numbed out to such things like death.

There was no joy out of it, but he didn’t do it just to do it. There was still the motive of fearmongering. He just didn’t know how far he’d take it.

Well, he’d find out in a week.

Because on his marks right now was a certain general. That’d surely get people to talk.

[k7l4d4]

A Steven Universe AU

Hello all! Today, I am going to document an AU I had for Steven Universe! I would like to personally thank my friend Flamestar50 for the help I received to build this AU. I am going to mark down the information for the AU I had discussed with Flame when discussing this AU, so here I go! To note, the information will be about the questions Flame asked me, and my responses.

Okay, I talked to Flame and they are okay with this. Enjoy fully.

ALRIGHT!! Basically, assuming you know who Doctor Priyanka is hopefully, before Canon starts, Greg accidentally says something to Rose while they are talking after she got back from a particularly stressful mission, and it causes all the repressed pain and guilt, along with a not so healthy dollop of self-loathing, to come surging to the forefront. 

To better process her feelings, Rose heads to the Beach and, well, ends up lamenting to herself, attracting the attention of a visiting Priyanka Maheswaran (Hope I spelled that right), who decided to approach the giant gem and get her to talk about her feelings.

Flame: huh, how does that go

Me: Well, because Rose has a LONG history of not thinking things all the way through and often not being able to see the full picture accurately, she ultimately decides to just spill it all. To vent every little thing about herself, all her actions, all her choices, all her mistakes, to a total stranger, because she genuinely cannot TAKE IT anymore! 

Surprisingly, or probably not, Priyanka is moved, and understandably worried, by Rose's pain, and makes a point of comforting her, with Rose herself having shapeshifted back into her Diamond Form for the first time in CENTURIES. 

Priyanka is genuinely in awe of all that Rose has done, and all that she has been through, and decides it is her duty as a medical professional, albeit not one licensed in psychology, to take on Rose as her patient, as the Gem is clearly not in a healthy or safe emotional state. Oh, and the other Gems and Greg all ended basically overhearing the whole thing while the two are none the wiser.

Flame: oh no, how did they react

Me: Well, shock for the most part. Amethyst and Garnet are, understandably, angry at being lied to, yet they can't bring themselves to be angry because, unless you've got a serious callousness to you, it is hard to be angry at someone who so clearly loathes themselves so completely and utterly. 

Pearl is mostly shocked, and a touch despondent, that Rose had withheld all this hurt and inner turmoil from her. Greg? He doesn't know how to process what is going on, but what he does understand is that Rose, the person he loves more than anything else in the world, the one who finally made him see his own value and worth and could never even try to judge him, is hurting, and in need of comfort. They basically decide to shift the discussion back to the Temple for the rest of the initial event.

Flame: How will this effect Steven in the future?

Me: Well, I haven't finished describing the set up just yet, but it will have its effects on his future (HA! Snuck in the reference!). After moving back to the Temple, Priyanka in tow, the Gems (and Greg) basically hash out everything they can. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl are all understandably distressed and hurt by the secrets Rose has been carrying, but the sheer pain and hurt she clearly feels about herself convince them to work through it together. 

For Amethyst, it partially convinces her to stop bottling up her insecurities, not after seeing what a wreck it made of Rose. Garnet knows she will have to fully confront her feelings on the subject later, but decides to be there for the others now. Pearl just wants to finally help Rose the way she feels Rose helped her. And Rose? She just feels such intense, unconditional joy and love at the fact that they don't see her as a monster, that they still love her, flaws and all, that she doesn't have to run away anymore. 

The revelation of her feelings acts as a catalyst that causes her to involuntarily shapeshift into a new default state that merges her Diamond and Quartz forms, a symbol of her finally accepting herself completely, taking the name Rose Diamond; she isn't going to pretend she is something she's not anymore, she's going to show the whole world the entirety of who she is, flaws and all, so she can finally start to grow. 

And then they realize that they never got Priyanka's name, and everyone starts cracking up at the sheer absurdity of it all, Rose included! I got more, but that is the initial intro to the AU.

Flame: what else ya got

Me: Well, because of her sense of obligation, and the fact that she honestly enjoys Rose's company, Priyanka more or less becomes the Gems' therapist, and often silently screams in her own head that she isn't trained for this. One of the things Rose does once she comes clean is to try and make amends for the things that came about due to her lies; for starters, she releases Bismuth, after she tracks down Lion that is (that crazy feline does whatever it wants, I swear). 

Much like in canon, Bismuth is snapped out of her hyper-blood-rage once she is exposed to the Corrupted Gems and figures out that the Corruption partially came about due to her giving the idea of faking her shattering to Rose. Bismuth is MASSIVELY uncomfortable around Rose, and often adopts a loose, battle-ready stance whenever around her, but, partially due to working with Priyanka to help treat her PTSD, is gradually coming around. 

Bismuth more or less does her own thing, but makes an effort to be there when needed, like when the Gems find an experimental Warp Pad. The Warp Pad, according to the notes Pearl finds, is supposed to be the ultimate escape system, allowing any being to enter the warp stream and proceed to a pre-determined Warp Pad across the Galaxy, and the next time that corresponding pad is used it will automatically bring them back. 

Upon discovering that information, and seeing that the Warp Pad hasn't been set yet and still can be, Rose, without actually explaining to the others, uses the warp to rescue Spinel. I'm gonna leave it here for you to process and ask questions before I proceed.

Flame: Oh god, how is spinel gonna react to this version

Me: Well, considering she is still near-totally innocent, she basically asks if she won the game. Yeah. Rose basically cries her eyes out, and tearfully says that, yes, Spinel, you're the winner, and gets an ecstatic hug that feels just a little too tight. 

Upon noticing that Spinel is subtly shying away from the plants, and that the roots of some have actually started growing over her, Rose carefully picks a weary Spinel up, and carries her over to the warp pad back to earth. When Spinel asks where they are going, Rose simply says they are going home, getting a content smile in return. Upon returning through the experimental warp, Rose is bombarded by a storm of panicked shouting from the other gems, only for them to calm down at the ragged Spinel in Rose's arms. 

Rose attempts to brush off the danger of using an untested piece of potentially lethal tech, only for the warp to blow up behind them; none of them were hurt, it was more like a collapse, but the implication that that could've happened while she and Spinel were in the warp stream causes all the gems to shoot Rose looks that scream "We told you so." I'll let you process this while I gather my thoughts.

Flame: oh dear

Me: Yeah, Rose doesn't like to think things through when there are people who need help she can give. After carefully explaining who Spinel was and the situation surrounding her, which involves Pearl face-palming, Garnet pinching the bridge of her nose, Amethyst a little shell-shocked, and Bismuth pummeling a concrete pillar into gravel in anger, they take the sweet gem back home. 

After making sure Spinel is situated comfortably, Rose breaks the news; she never planned on coming back. As Spinel freezes up, whether from shock or hurt is up to debate, Rose explains that she had never understood Spinel, always seeing her as a silly doll that the other Diamonds gave her to be a toy who couldn't take things seriously, with each word causing Spinel to slowly shake her head, shuddering more and more, before Rose apologizes for being a bad friend. 

Before Spinel can completely LOSE IT, Rose, tears of shame, regret, and heartbreak, pulls Spinel into an impromptu hug, begging, pleading, for the chance to let Spinel be happy. After calming down enough not to lash out in out of control pain, Spinel, shaken but not broken, asks as calmly as she can to be alone for a little while. They give her her space. And another pause point!

Flame: I thought she was gonna lose it, I sure would have.

Me: She came VERY CLOSE, but Rose's presence, which she still associates with good things and happier times, manages to keep her just stable enough to go off the deep end. Spinel quickly becomes a regular patient for Priyanka, who makes a point to try and help the child-like gem to grow and develop as an individual like it's her personal missions. 

Over time, Spinel gradually manages to come to terms with her situation. Spinel developed a phobia of plants due to her time in the garden, but also enjoys gardening, seeing it as a representation of her happiest memories, as well as a way to conquer her fear by leveraging control over the plants. 

With prompting from Priyanka for the both of them, Rose and Spinel make an effort to rebuild their old relationship into something healthy for the both of them; for Rose, it is a chance to finally befriend and learn about Spinel as a Gem, and not the toy she treated her as, and for Spinel, it is a way to come to terms with her past and start making new friends in the present and future. 

The two manage to reach a mostly amicable bond, but things occasionally get tense between them; Rose's past actions left deep scars on Spinel's heart, as while she still acts like her happy-go-nuts self, albeit tempered with proper emotional reading, she now holds a deep disdain for other gems and gemkind as a whole, making an exception only for those who've also been burned by Gem Culture and her friends, often acting similar to her initial debut self when communicating with gems who don't meet this small criteria. 

Spinel genuinely loathes the fact that she is a Gem now, and finds human company effortlessly more enjoyable than any time she spends with other gems, no matter how much she views said gems as friends and family (Spinel very much enjoys the concept of family, and sees it as one of the many ways organic beings are superior to Gems in her eyes).

Flame: awww,poor spinel

Me:Yeah, she's a sad bean, but she wouldn't change herself for anything in the universe! Did I ever give the name for this AU? If not, the name is Here For You. One of the biggest divergences from canon in this AU? Rose lives after giving birth!! 

How you may ask? When you are good friends with a doctor, and you suddenly spring on them that you, a non-human, non-organic alien plans to have a half-human child and you most likely won't survive the experience, you can expect them to put their foot down and help with the situation. 

Priyanka essentially grills Rose on everything she knows about her race's biology, such as it is, her understanding of human biology, and makes her research methods to create gemstones and such; Priyanka isn't willing to have Rose relapse into her suicidal impulses again, even if it is to bring a child into this world, and is dead set on finding a way for them both to survive. 

With Priyanka's help, and some scavenged Gem Tech from the Kindergartens, Rose manages to conceive (HA!) A method to have a fully half-gem-half-human child without killing herself. It largely involves artificially mixing her own gem essence with that harvested from old injectors and eating. SO much eating. Rose essentially is ingesting and absorbing the needed materials to build a human fetus and Diamond Proto-Gem together as one, without sacrificing her own gem in the process. And it works!! Mostly.

Flame: what do you mean mostly

Me: Well, the process was completely experimental, and they had no actual clue what they were doing, just making their best guess. The process worked, but it left Rose horrifically weakened. Her Gem's internal structure was dangerously demineralized, as in it lost a lot of minerals that compose its structure, and became insanely fragile and delicate as a result. 

Giving birth essentially permanently crippled Rose; she can no longer shapeshift at all, her bubbles have a high chance of popping after forming and she can no longer teleport them, and a lot, if not all, of her powers besides her healing tears have been hamstrung to near uselessness. 

She is now both weaker, and slower than any human, and constantly falls unconscious at random to conserve her compromised energy reserves. But it was worth it to bring her twins into the world!! ...Maybe that had something to do with it...

Flame: wait, twins!?!

Me: YES!! ULTIMATE SURPRISE REVEAL!! Yeah, in canon, before they settled on whether they were having a son or a daughter, Rose left two tapes behind for whichever gender her child ended up being, Steven Or Nora. So, in this one, she ended up giving birth to Twins!! Nora and Steven Diamond Universe!! 

To clarify, Rose would've been weakened no matter what happened, but giving birth to twins nearly shattered her and permanently affected her abilities, not that she'll ever regret it, though she grows frustrated with how frailly she is treated by the others. You wanna hear about the twins next? 

Oh, and in case I forgot to mention it, the twins were only partially an accident, as Rose didn't intend to have two kids, but is fine with it, she just overdid it on the eating and stuff needed to create the children and had just enough left over to jumpstart the development of a second child. Yeah.

Flame: go on and tell me about the twins!

Me: YES!! Due to Priyanka's influence, both twins end up actually, you know, GOING TO SCHOOL. Steven is, well, basically exactly the same, and still heavily takes after both his dad and Rose's Quartz form, but being around other kids his age has improved his social skills and given him a larger group of peers and pals. 

Nora is a bit of the opposite, polite, a little standoffish, neurotic, snarky when stressed, with a vicious temper towards anyone that hurts or messes with Steven, she basically looks like a miniature, human Pink Diamond in terms of appearance. Nora has a natural knack for her gem powers, and more easily manifests those powers more closely associated with Pink Diamond as opposed to Rose, with her Gem Weapon being a MASSIVE Two-Handed (Zweihander) sword whose foremost section resembles the shield everyone thought it would originally be, whilst still possessing her family's flower motif. 

Nora is the younger of the two by about five minutes, but is much more mature as compared to Steven, not helped by him still having his aging problem while she ages more normally, and people are often shocked at both her age, as her height and attitude give her an older feel, but that she is also both Steven's TWIN and the technical younger of the two!! 

It kinda mindblows people. (I was considering shifting some of Steven's personality, but I couldn't bring myself to do it)

Flame: any last points

Me: Well, Spinel basically becomes Beach City's premiere part-time employee, as she works on and off at literally every place in town at some time or another, and she bluntly refers to Greg as "The Deadbeat." 

Spinel adores the twins, often serving as their babysitter, as well as a babysitter to most of the other kids in town, and basically acts as their bodyguard whenever she goes on missions. Oh! I also have special plans for Lapis, as well as some other Homeworld Gems, but I'll save those for tomorrow. 

Due to their parents being friends, Connie basically grew up with Steven and Nora, and is currently entering the phase of life when people start to develop more mature crushes, and has shown signs of crushing on both of them. Yikes.

[mochuelovelli]

Lilith for the character ask?

Oh boy, a controversial character! Gotta say, I stan James Charles /J

How do I feel about this character?:

On a real note, I do like Lilith as a character. When we first meet her, she's pompous and proud. Oozing with entitlement, she's easy to route against and you like to see her get worked up and "brought down" to Eda's level as the wild which so eloquently put it. Later on, but not too much later that it feels disingenuous, we really get to see her show that she cares for her sister. One might believe it is *Eda* being ridiculous, as far as the audience is aware, Lilith's offer holds little downsides. Eda would be cured and be afforded the luxuries of the upper class AND keep her magic. All she had to do was be the Emperor's soldier.

As to not get off track by talking about Eda, (im sure Lilith herself would loathe that lol) Lilith's reveal to have cursed her sister over a spot in the emperor's coven was...controversial to say the least. I don't think it's unpopular to voice that, yeah. It could've been communicated better to the audience since I saw plenty of commentators and regular fans themselves either thought Lilith cursing her sister was *needlessly* petty and not at all thought out (which yeah it kinda was).

From where I stand on that issue is, yeah, Lilith's whole reason to curse her sister could've been avoided by just talking to her sister and asking her to let her have this. BUT, I think a lot of people forget that the Emperor's coven would want to limit the number of powerful witches in their coven. Sure, Belos would want to be protected by a bunch of loyal soldiers, but he wouldn't want too much of the population to ever have a much power as him. So limiting the number of members in not just his coven but possible in the other major covens, would aid in controlling that population.

This might be pure hogwash but like, there are a ton of other "lesser" covens. So in my mind, it's more likely that the general population of witches gets sorted into one of the various miscellaneous. If you think limiting yourself to only practicing Illusion magic sucks, imagine only practicing whatever the fuck the "swag coven" does.

Lol gonna add a page break this shit is getting too long

Romantic Ships for this character?:

Hm, it's only s1 and we haven't seen her interact w/ many characters outside of her fam/Belos/actual children. I kinda jokingly ship here with Steve lol. Kikimora and her also have a funny dynamic but in all actuality, I don't ship her w/ anyone rn.

Non-Romantic Ships for this character?:

Her and Hooty lol. I mean Eda is an obvious answer but like, Hooty fucking with Lilith is too funny to not want to see. Her and King would be great too, probably get some good B plots out of it. It would be a good contrast since they both can be petty but in different ways and I think that would help flesh out their characters a bit more and maybe cause some introspection (at least on Lilith’s end lol)

Unpopular opinion about this character?:

Lol. I feel like she is such a divisive character in general that most opinions about her aren’t too out of the main stream. I guess a more meta take is that when she’s portrayed in fanworks, usually fanfic but not exclusively, very...one note lol. She’s usually a pretty flat, boring character in an attempt to highlight the contrast between her and Eda. She’s the straight-laced, “responsible” sibling who has a chip on her shoulder. In fanon, that equates to her characterization to either be like, completely and utterly apologetic to the point where it becomes unbelievable for any person to do. Her apologizing or making amends is usually quickly forgiven by Luz/and or Eda. Sure, Luz is very forgiving person naturally but like?? She’s wasn’t mad in canon too much about THEIR well being (almost getting impaled), she was specifically pissed about Lilith betraying Eda. 

So, if Lilith is a big part of your story (and it’s working in the realm of canon), then this should be a problem which doesn’t get resolved by just ONE big action. I also feel like her being on better terms with Eda would come BEFORE Luz since Eda’s main gripe with her would be about her being annoyed by Lilith’s controlling nature and the fact that she didn’t trust her enough to talk about her feelings back when she was first cursed (also her using Luz against her but I feel like that would probably be a hurdle that wouldn’t really be over come until Lilith in turn would be willing to sacrifice herself for Luz while also making an effort to care for Luz as a person not just see her as a “pet”). Hhhh this section is so long and its kinda bleeding over in the next question so-

Something I wish will happen or would have wanted to happen in canon?:

yall if you are still reading I am so sorry sksk

I want Lilith in general, not to be forgiven by either Luz or Eda. Eda probably early on stating about how she is unsure if she could EVER forgive her sister for what she has done. BUT, critically, Eda would see that Lilith is trying and she is willing to work with her (with a unhelpful dose of teasing) because at the end of the day she still loves her sister. For the relationship they had before everything with south, for knowing her side of the story even though she believes it doesn’t justify her actions. She understands and sympathizes, she’s grown a bit softer thanks to Luz, which is very funny since I want Luz to be the one who is the hardest to convince Lilith actually had a change of heart but more on that later. 

Before I move on to what I want her path towards forgiveness with Luz looks like, I want to bring up a parallel that I haven’t seen many people make. Fans always talk about the parallel between the Clawthornes and Luz/Amity, and rightly so because there is a lot to extrapolate there, but I think another interesting dynamic that might be interesting to see in s2 would be an episode that focuses on lost friendship/sisterhood with the Clawthornes and Amity and Willow. It’s kinda funny that Amity and Willow’s friendship was ruined because Willow was too “weak” while Eda was too “powerful”. In a potential episode, it can show the progression both Eda/Lilith and Willow/Amity are making in rekindling their relationship with each other. For Eda and Lilith this would be a lot more rough around the edges since it both be either the first or one of the first attempts at doing so while Willow/Amity would maybe be further along yet still have some major/minor hang ups with one another. With Willow/Amity, their relationship would either be rounding the bend of fully moving past the “idk how to feel about you stage” or it is stated outright that Willow forgives Amity, (and by forgive, I mean in the “we both know what you did, you’ve actually changed. we won’t have the same relationship that we once had but I’m okay with trying again”). In contrast, Lilith and Eda would reach a understanding and come up with some ground rules on how to handle each other (Eda’s main take away from this “episode” would be what I previously stated in the last question), ones that will be more like guidelines cuz its Eda lol. Also what separates the Clawthornes conflict from the Willow/Amity one (besides the obvious) is that the Clawthornes both know how the other works. Which buttons to push and all that so both of them are going to have to learn to resist doing that, at least a bit, in order to actually progress. 

ANYWAYS, I also want Luz to be the one to regard Lilith the coldest. Luz refusing to let Lilith teach her anything despite probably having more practical/book smarts knowledge on magic theory than Eda because she doesn’t trust her. If they are gonna use that masked dude as a spy, I want Luz to assume Lilith is somehow a coconspirator. This plot thread doesn’t have to be going at 100% the whole time, (in fact I would want it to be a temp thing maybe lasting a couple eps at most or like, just something that is hinted at but not dived deeply until the second half of the season). Really, Lilith has a hard time because Luz straight up doesn’t give her the opportunity to really express her regret/remorse. Lilith probably won’t at first give her a ton of reasons to forgive her as she usually attempts at coming back at Luz’s snide remarks with her own quippy comebacks. Sksk a really angsty end to an attempt could include Lilith saying something to Luz after going on a small talk with her (where yeah Lilith has improved but still needs noticeable work) that she “reminds her a lot of Eda” and Luz bites back with something like “Oh yeah? You going to curse me too? You want another person you can force to do what YOU want?”. 

Hell maybe “parental problems” could have Lilith poke at, either on purpose or accidentally, Luz’s feelings about going back to the human world and Camila. Lilith reminding her, maybe unknowingly, reminds her a lot of her mom and that causes her to blow up on her. Luz would hate that comparison, thinking about how similar her mom and Lilith are to one another. That because she still has such a strong dislike of Lilith, it bleeds over into how Luz views Camila and vice versa. In that, both Camila and Lilith value respect, an adherence to the rules, have a great sense of wisdom (arguably for Lilith lol /hj), and (eventually for Lilith once she gets to know Luz better) a genuine want for Luz to succeed and belief in her even though they are critical of her actions at times. Sure Eda reminds her of that more, motherly protective kind of love, in which she would do anything for her to be happy and healthy. Lilith can be the other side of that, the worry and slight doubt. That familiar way they each go about trying to understand and get close to Luz yet not quite getting it yet would still do whatever she’d ask for her sake. Luz at first would take Lilith being disappointed in her actions as an accomplishment. As they grow closer and the more Lilith reminds her of her mom, it becomes scary. The disappointment hurts and in an effort not to feel like that again and to not want to think about the comparison between Lilith and her mother she will snap back at her. Eventually Lilith would then have to change again and reassure her that she cares and by extent, her mother cares to. It is here Lilith is willing to let go of being so constantly controlling and learns to encourage first (or do some form of the compliment sandwich) and Luz comes to peace with her feelings about her mother and understands her position better. To be able to love herself even if she knows that she will always try to do her best. 

oh my fucking god you made it im so sorry i guess i had a lot of thoughts. fffffff

[popculturebuffet]

Scooby Doo (2002) Review: The Most Punchable Fred Jones of All Time

It’s one last hurrah for Halloween as I take a look at the often derided 2002 Scooby Doo Movie! See what happens when you combine future superstar director James Gunn with .. the guy who thought directing the Smurf’s movie and Big’s Mama’s House were good ideas. Oh and with a splash of the guy who wrote the loveable family film Cheaper by the Dozen and the utterly loathed Percy Jackson film. It’s as messy as you’d expect with that.. but is it BAD? good, so bad it’s good, just sorta okay? Come with me as I try to find out under the cut with a full review. 

I’ve always loved Scooby Doo. I grew up with the guy, watching reruns of the non-scrappy classic series from Where Are You to the Scooby Doo Movies, the three Superstar 10 movies (Boo Brothers, Ghoul School and Reluctant Werewolf), or the at the time brand new What’s New Scooby Doo. And later in life i’d absolutely adore Mystery Incorporated.. minus the whole Shaggy, Scooby Velma love triangle, but i’ll likely cover that at some point or sooner, you can comission reviews from me for 5 bucks each, 5 dollars off group orders if you really want to make me suffer through that that bad. But getting off self promotion point is I loved and still love the franchise. While I”ve yet to see “Scooby Doo and Guess Who”, though given there’s Weird Al, Kristan Schaal and Urkel episodes you can be sure i’m going to eventually, and Scoob was VERY ehhh even if Dick Dastardly was awesome. But despite my history with the great dane much like with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, despite my rich history with the franchise I haven’t dove in yet and with a friend who could use a nice halloween suprise and loves scooby doo, I figured now was the time to take a look at it.  And since i’d been wanting to take a look at it again anyway, and decided going big wasn’t a bad way to start, i’m taking a look at the 2002 Scooby Doo movie. I saw this flim first run in a drive in, and saw the sequel the same way and loved it as a kid, and fondly remember checking out the Sountrack Preview page back before youtube existed to make checking out soundtracks easier. It was a simplier time. And even rewatching it later with my nieces, I found myself liking it.  And the thing was almost every time this film comes up it’s with a turned up nose. The CGI, the confused audience, the deciding to cast Freddy Prinze Junior.. all terrible decisions that overshadow the film, when it’s not that bad. It’s not GREAT, but it’s not TERRIBLE either. So what is it then? Well i’ll tells ya. Let’s start with

PRODUCTION: Wait James Gunn Wrote This?

At the turn of the millneium Scooby Doo was back on top. After waning popularity during the Scrappy era, the advent of the warner affilated Cartoon Network meant a whole new generation of kids (raises hand) got to experince Scooby Doo for the first time. This new audeince lead to Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, the first of the franchises 80 or so DTV movies that will continue on long after the earth dies, and brought back the franchise after it’s long slumber. Scooby Doo went from dead to as popular as he was in his hey day again. Naturally Warner wanted to cash in and thus this movie was born.  Originally the film was supposed to be a more adult project, a send up of the franchise with more sex jokes and what not than made the final cut according to writer James Gunn. Yes, the same James Gunn who wrote and directed the Guardians of the Galaxy movie and whose currently saving the suicide squad. It was one of Gunn’s earlier films but just from when he’s talked about it, you can tell he genuinely cared about the project.  Along for the ride with our future Guardian was his co-writer, Craig Titely,  who i’m convinced only came in to do punch ups as the guy has only written three other movies. One of them was being one of MANY writers on Cheaper by the Dozen and thus likely not doing much of note with that, and the other.. is being the only writer on Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief’s movie adaptation.. aka the movie the fanbase and general audiences rejected in droves yet SOMEHOW got a sequel. Which is somehow still worse than his other film, one that asks “was the moon landing a hoax?” Spoilers, it wasn’t. Point is this isn’t a resume that screams co creator and more screams “Guy brought in to kid freindly this up”. More on that in a minute.  The director is another less than reassuring face: Raja Gosnell, whose credits BEFORE this film were Home Alone 3, Never Been Kissed and Big Momma’s house.. so already he dosen’t have the best track record but somehow got worse because AFTER this film and it’s sequel he directed both live action Smurfs Movies and the universally hated Show Dogs, aka the film  that thought dog rape was funny. The fact this film isn’t out and out terrible is a miracle. 

Even more so because naturally, as Studios tend to do they interfered: The film was supposed to be more adult, cracking jokes about common things fans of the series growing up thought like Velma is Gay or Shaggy’s a stoner, and having both be fully true. But wanting to appeal to kids, Warner gradually lightned it, hence Craig, and Raja clearly having no shame gladly took it instead of you know.. standing his ground.  So Velma has a love intrest thrown in and her kiss with Daphne is gone, while Shaggy’s toke smoking was lowered to subtext.. because either of those things is bad apparently? I dunno the 2000′s were fucked. 

Point is THAT’S why these films are so tonally confused and why I don’t hold it agains the film now I know: It wasn’t James Gunn or even, as dumb as he is, Raja Gosnell’s fault that the film had some tones clashing when the studio was demanding it, instead of you know, thinking this through at all and realizing more kids cared about Scooby Doo than they would’ve josie and the pussy cats instead of bringing it up DURING production, when most of the adult stuff was in there. It’s also why the sequel has no real adult stuff, though it’s STILL damn good, but i’ll get to that some other day. 

The film was also shot at an actual theme park in australia. Neat. 

So yeah the film’s humor kind of ping pongs between knowing adult winks and kids stuff. We get Scooby dressing like a grandma in the same film shaggy enhales his demon possed love intrests breath like weed. The jokes themselves on average are pretty good: Some of my faviorites include the grandma scene, everything rowan atkinson does, Velma getting drunk off her ass, and the instructional video bit which is easily my favorite bit of the episode and one of my faviorite scooby doo jokes period:

This is even FUNNIER to me on rewatch, as we now know this is an instructional video for demons.. and that Scrappy clearly had enough problems with his demon horde to have to pay for this thing. It tis glorious.  However there also are also a few that HAVE NOT aged well, are very creepy at best and disgusting sexual assault at worst with Daphne getting her ass grabbed by the Luna Ghost at the start being treated as a joke and Fred oggling Daphne’s body when he’s in it being treated as a ha ha and not...

So yeah the humor’s USUALLY good, but the slipups are noticable and do bring things down a bit when they come by. So the humor is decent if mixed and the production’s a nightmare, how’s the plot? The Plot: Scoob, We’re Getting the Band Back Together!

I won’t be as through as usual because this is a 90 minute movie, I’m running behind as is and it’s 20 years old, 

We start with your standard mystery inc case with the Luna Goose, aka Old Man Incel who resented Pamela Anderson for not boning him. But Fred hogging the glory during the resulting News Cast leads the gang to start fighting over lingering tensions: Velma is tired of Fred hogging all the credit when she does most of the legwork solving things, Daphne is tired of being kidnapped and being mistreated by Velma and Freddy who laugh at the idea of her doing more, and Fred..

We’ll get to him later. Shaggy is the only one wanting to stick together, but no one’s having it and the group breaks apart and Matthew LIllard REALLY sells Shaggy’s heartbreak over his friends all abandoning him well. 

Two years later though, with Shaggy and Scooby naturally getting stoned and eating large quantities of food on the beach, have made peace with retirement, and have apparently had to duck tons of people coming to them to solve mysteries since they aren’t about that. The latest in that line is a man representing Emile Mondovarius, the owner of Spooky Island, a vast island resort and theme park. Naturally since it has spooky in the name the boys want nothing but Mondovarius does what honestly every previous guy coming to them should’ve done: offers them an all you can eat buffet.  Since they’ve done more traumatizing for Dog Treats, they agree and it soon turns out the entire gang was invited, though none of them but Shaggy and Scooby are happy to see each other. I will say one of my complaints about the film is it never tackles the emotions behind the breakup: while the teams slowly repairs there are never any outright apologizes or scenes of them recociling or scenes of Shaggy chewing them out for abandoning him due to their spat. It just skips over the emotional bits to either wave a joke for the kiddies around or scream 

Really the jokes aren’t bad, the film just has trouble with actual emotion or depth that could’ve been there and tries for it once in a while, but dosen’t really do anything with it. The gang splitting up’s a good concept, and at this point on Scooby Doo on Zombie Island had really used it, and that was one where they were clearly still close friends and were still in touch they just quit mystery solving for a while till Zombie Island happened. Mystery Incorpreated would finally give this story justice later: Instead of over a petty ego squabble, the gang broke up over underlying tensions: The revelations about Fred’s dad caused him to go try and find himself, Velma alienated herself by hiding things from them, and Shaggy was shipped off to Military School and Scooby doggy prison camp... thankfully the last two didn’t last and Scooby rescued Shaggy with a tank but the tension DIDN’T go away: While the gang mostly reunited, Velma took time to forgive them and also tried bringing in the friend/girlfriend she’d made in the meantime only for her friends to isolate her and throw her out while Daphne took her time to return due to being hurt by fred. It’s complex and good stuff versus here where it’s just “WE’RE APART BECAUSE WE HATES EACH OTHER. And now we’re NOT”. It’s just a waste of a good concept and i’ m glad the franchise got around to doing it right. 

But my gripes aside our heroes head to the resort and meet Mondevarious, who admits outright to having tricked then and with confronted with the gang being broken up, makes it clear he knews.  “That’s the thing about broken things.. you can put them back together.”

And so he did. He needs the Gang’s help as he’s worried about the island and something going wrong there: The teens are leaving polite, well behaved. and clearly not themselves as one reacts to an old friend by neck lifting him and tossing him aside. Something’s deeply wrong here and the gang’s intrest is piqued enough to stay though everyone but Shaggy is determined to solve it themselves out of ego. Mondvarius is played by Rowan Atkinson and while I watched the bean movie as a kid this is where I fell in love with the guy, with later watches of Blackadder confirming that in my college years. Rowan just brings a fun dorky energy to the character and a nice earnestness too but when he later takes a turn for the bad, he does that well too. Atkinson is HIGHLY underated in my opinon and easily the MVP of this film’s supporting cast.   So the investigation begins, and we get our supsects: The first we met on the plane, Mary Jane, a kind blonde played by Isla Fisher who got the job becasue Gosnel, in a rare good decision, saw how talented she was and while still picking Sara Michele Gellar for Daphne, made sure she had  a part. She’s a nice sweet girl who Shaggy falls for and Scooby’s annoyed by it.. though unlike earlier the film beats mystery inc easily here as it’s a more understandable conflict and dosen’t act like Dog Issues is a thing people says. Again i’ll get to that clusterfuck of an arc some day. The other two are N’Goo Tuna, a shady worker at the park who spouts off the legends of the island. In a nice twist, he’s NOT the vilian, as is obvious but is his right hand man. He also has his own right hand and muscle in Zarkos a cool looking Luchador and N’Goo’s muscle. Also N’Goo may be one of the worst names in Scooby Doo History, and that includes Dabba Doo. But the legend claims the island was once owned by demons who want revenge since the resort took the island from him. 

The other is probably my faviorite non Rowan Atkinson character, Voodoo Maestro, played by Miguel Nunez. He’s basically just a guy who lives on the fringes of the island and also hates the resort and tries using voodoo curses. He’s honestly a delight from his attempt to sacrifice a chicken (An already dead one at that), to his general hammy and annoyed at dealing with these teenagers demeanor. NAturally he has nothing to do with this but he’s still a fun addition and I wish he was in more scnenes than the two he gets.  But with what they’ve gathered the gang all end up at a spooky castle attraction, with Scooby and Shaggy of course being bribed by daphne while Velma and Fred show up indpeendntly and end  up finding the weird training video from earlier but all get caught when the traps are activiated> There’s also a farting contest which.. eh not funny to me but i’ve seen so much worse i’m not even remotely upset. But then the traps trigger though during the chaos Fred and Velma are forced to work together and finally start doing so, and Daphne finds a clue: A mysterious pyramid known as the damon righus and finally gets some, if not nearly enough, credit.  So the gang is back together.. even if it’s a tenative peace, the high from solving this and relay to their boss the suspects, including him, though Fred assures Mondovarius it’s just because he’s spooky and rowan’s character’s delight over that is fucking glorious.  So the gang enjoys some down time at the local bar, with Fred and Daphne doing their own look ins, Scooby and Shaggy eating and encountring mary again and Velma getting hit on by a dude while looking over the ritus, revealing it’s some sort of soul sucking aparatus, and going into their history... which is really just an excuse to bring Scrappy in who in this universe, is a horny egotistical little shit whose abandoned as a result. ANd before anyone boos he’s not a puppy here, he’s got.. dog dwarfisim.. which while .. how does that even work... means he’s a grown ass man and deserved this. We also get drunk velma and Linda Caredenlli is a delight

The night gets interupted by terrible cgi monsters, the aformentioned emon who soul suck most of the college kids present and also get fred and velma who both find out these are very much real. We also get the best song on the soundtrack, man with a hex. It slaps. But it makes good chase music as with Mondvarious, Fred and Velma captured, the rest of the gang and mary escape.  The next morning we get a surreal as hell scene as everyone’s partying, Fred’s talking in slang and Velma with clevage, thank you, is chatting up.. Sugar Ray? For those younger of you they were a band at the time. They were a big thing. Not half bad but faded away. They looked as 2000′s as hell though. WHy Smash Mouth gets all the memes and not them is beyond me. Look at lead singer Mark McGrath!It’s like the early 2000′s gained sentience and took a human form. But the gang is quickly forced to run from sugar ray, though they get Daphne in a deleted scene. Why it was deleted I dunno. Point is Shaggy, Scooby and Mary are all alone.. oh and Mary’s possessed. Shaggy and Scooby argue over it because Shaggy just thinks Scooby is jealous and while he is .. why would he lie about this? He’s as cowardly as you are. But Scooby falls through the floor, and Shaggy is now going solo but luckily finds his friends souls, and eveyrone elses in a massive cool looking vat and frees them all.  Velma, when the demon leaves her and confronts her, finds out sunlight kills the demons and saves Daphne from hers... only to find Fred in her body. Daphne is naturally horrified and we do get a great bodyswapping scene.

Our heroes reconvince on the beach where htey find the Maestro who explains what’s going on to a point, with the gang’s clues filling in the blanks: The ritus, which they stole back earlier, is used for a ritual that will allow the Demons to rule over the earth for “a thousand years of darkness” but it requires a pure soul to work. Cue our big bad talking Scooby into being their willing sacrifice since Scooby dooes not understand what a sacrifice is.  Shaggy naturally rallies the group to go save him after their understandably worried since they usually dealt with weirdos in costumes and not the apocalypse.. well okay Velma and Fred aren’t, Daphne dealt with this kind of thing once a week back in Sunnydale. So they set up a plan to destroy all the demons at once by unleashing the soul bath, setting them all loose and then using a spooky disco ball from one of the attractions rigged up over the ritual area to shine the light in. It’s classic scooby doo. 

Things naturally go wrong as while Shaggy goes to rescue scooby and makes up with him, he’s caught, so are fred and velma and they have to scramble, while Daphne looses a fight with the luchador up top while trying to let the light in to finish the trap. Meanwhile Shaggy saves Scooby’s soul just as Mondovarious sucks it out by shoving the guy.. revealing him to be a robot! DUN DUN DUN. And inside is Scrappy.. which you all probably knew already but try to act suprise who wanted to conquer the world as revenge for the gang abandoning him and because again, in this universe he’s kind of an asshole. He absorbs the souls gathered so far and merges with the damon ritus, because we’re operating on video game rules now apparently, so final boss time.  But we get a great climax as Scrappy chases scooby, Daphne goes buffy on Zarkos ass , and as a result he shatters the glass and lets the light in releasing the disco ball the kill the demons.. man I love that I get to type things like that. Scooby removes the ritus and defeats his nephew and the day is saved. Velma hooks up with random guy, Daphne and Fred get together, I die inside a little and Shaggy and Mary Jane bond. At the press Fred does his good deed for the movie by letting Velma explain things and get the spotlight and the group have firmly reunited. THE END. Overall it’s a solid plot, that works well, comes together in the end and was well put together, it’s more the filling that causes it to tilt back and forth a bit, but overlal outside of the issue I mentioned it’s a good scooby doo plot. While some have pointed out it is similar to zombie island, a case reuniting the gang, the person who brought them there wanting to sacrifice them, or just scooby here, monsters being real, it works because everything else is so different. But since there’s more to break down and it’s easier to give it it’s own section let’s look at...

THE CHARACTERS: NOT HALF BAD, FRED CAN GO FUCK HIMSELF. 

So we’re down to character.. and since there’s a blonde, preeening, selfish, arrogant, sleazy, sexist, obnoxious, loud mouthed, useless elephant in the room, let’s start with Fred. And to quote it’s always sunny....

Yeah so that fury of a thousand crashing waves (Cracks Knuckles): Fred is the worst part of this movie, the worst version of the character across the entire franchise that i’ve seen with the sincre doubt that there is ANY version worse than this. Everything I said above is true and THEN some. He is one of the most unlikable characters i’ve seen in a film that wasn’t INTENDED to be. There’s just NOTHING to like about him. Nothing. He treats his “Friends” like garbage, all four of them: He basically ignores shaggy and scooby at best and treats them as if they were nothing. For Velma he’s your classic power abusing douche who pushes her to the side and often steals the credit for things she did. He’s still a good mystery solver, but he acts like he does all the work to the press and takes all the credit when Velma works as hard as he does if not harder. And worst of all is Daphne, who he basically either treats like some moron who gets kidnapped due to incompetence and not because creepy old dudes want to feel her up, which given the intro is VERY likely the reason she’s the resident victim of the group, and not like a person, or like a pair of boobs and legs he wants to bang or feel up creepily while he’s in her body. For fuck’s sake his reaction to finding out he’s in her body is a creepy and smug “I can see myself naaaakeddd” If that dosen’t make you want to smack him get off my blog. And they get together in the end! 

Who who wanted that. I genuinely want the presumibly original ending where Daphne and Velma hook up and Fred falls off a pier and is never seen again. The acting does not help. While the other four gang members are expertly cast Fred was given to Freddy Prinze Junior, who made a career out of playing arrogant dicks who are somehow the main character so I can’t fault the casting but I can fault that he can’t delver any line without that smug air of trying to be cool douche and it’s at it’s worst with Fred since Fred’s already written as the biggest creepiest douche in the world and Freddy somehow makes it WORSE. He also has zero chemstiry with Daphne, which would be weird given he and Sarah Michelle Gellar had dated for 2 years at this point and as of this writing have been together for 20 overall and have two wonderful kids together... but given how badly written Fred is here, I can’t blame either of them. And i’m sure FPJ is a swell guy, loves his kids loves his wife seems like a really plesant guy, nothing against him as a person, but at least at this point in his career he wasn’t very good. And I am actually planning on trying to seek out one of his later works in his career to see if he’s gotten better in recent years, and willing to give him the benifit of a doubt that he probably has. I just don’t like him here, and while the script does most of the work he only makes it worse.And works before this (Pup Named Scooby Doo) and after this (Mystery Incorperated) would prove you can give fred a personality that’s not dick tip, so fuck this character, fuck the writing.. and I hope Freddy is having a happy halloween with his loving wife and children, seriously I meant it I have nothing against him as a person. A terrible actor can still be a WONDERFUL guy. 

Now that’s thankfully put to bed, let’s pivot over to Shaggy, whose easily the best of the cast. Matthew Lillard looks the part pefectly, has the right combination of heart and goofus and has some great comedic timing. Granted Scream had already proven the guy’s got genuine talent, but still he’s great here and is currently playing Shaggy in most films and productions, except Scoob which.. was far from it’s only mistake but easily the biggest. There’s not much else to say: the guy IS Shaggy and is the only person whose taken up the roll to equal Kasey Casem in it. As for how he’s written.. he’s basically the same and apart from one line of him wanting to leave everyone to their deaths, which feels like it was added later, he’s written really well and is easily the most likeable of the group. 

Scooby is alright. Not the best version but funny and charming enough when he needs to be and while I hated the CGI at one point.. it’s honestly not that bad. It’s not GREAT, but time has actually been very good to it both in how it’s held up and in the fact we’ve gotten SO MUCH WORSE with so much better techlogies. I mean.. Cats exists.. Marmaduke Exists.. the Bill Murray Garfield exists. This was offputting at the time but now it’s just okay. But character wise he’s good and again not much diffrent. 

Velma is the second best casting of the movie. Played by Linda Cardenelli, who i’ve harbored a crush on for a good few decades now and admire mostly for her talent and charm, Linda kills the roll and easily slips into it as easily as Matt did, and while not picking it up full time like he did, still did it a few times afterword and played hot dog water in mystery incorperated, so she did finally get to play a Lesbian Velma it just took a while. And while Velma being gay is kind of sterotyping, it would’ve been nice to have been kept in instead of edited out for bullshit reasons. But overal her character is decent: While she ALSO bullies and belittles daphne like fred, unlike fred it comes less from just being a douche and more from insecurity. As her scene at the bar makes clear she feels undervalued like the other, like the nerd who the cool kids LET hang out with them instead of part of the team. While it dosen’t make her treatment of Daphne OKAY, it makes Velma understandable. We also get Velma Clevage which.. okay not sure if the world needed that but whatever. Point is it’s throughly likeable portryal that I wish got some character growth.  Finally out of the main 5 there’s Daphne, whose alright. Not as good as the other two, as it feels they lean a bit too heavily on her having taken self defense and wanting ot be tougher, but Sarah Michelle Gellar gives her a ton of charm and likeablity that her husband’s character sadly lacks. There’s just a fun, adorable energy to daph that ends up coupling with her buffy style badassery at the end and Sarah plays both beautifully. The script didn’t give her a ton to work with, though that’s the same for all four of htem, but Sarah really made the character work and made her somewhat memorable despite not being as good as Linda or Matthew. Basically not the best, but still a comfortable third ahead of scooby doo and jackass jones. 

As for the rest of the cast, Rowan Attkinson i’ve covered and is utterly fantastic as is the Voodoo Maestro, and both should get hteir own hbo max spinoff together. The minons.. stupid name and luchadoor are decent enough, nothign special but they have presence and do the job of goon well. And Mary Jane is alright.. the joke is WAY too on the nose to be funny and she’s mostly just there to be sweet, but she’s harmless. Not good but not bad.  So finally we have our big bad, Scrappy. And i’m.. mixed about this. On one hand, Scott Innes, who it turns out is also from Missouri good on you dude!, does a terrific job and I couldn’t tell it wasn’t don messick as Scrappy and he plays him as evil great. On the other.. it’s just kinda goofy. Out of all the tips of hte hat to scooby stuff this feels the most over the top. Scrappy was hated, including by james gunn.. so he’s the bad guy. It’s just a bit on the nose, and the twist is pretty easily teligraphed since Scrappy suspciously is mentioned in one scene so him showing up at all is pretty easy to see coming. It’s not terible but it’s not great. His demon minons also just suck.. the designs are wonky and their cgi, unlike scooby and scrappy’s, is just REALLY bad and dated, and even as a kid I never liked them. 

FINAL THOUGHTS:  Scooby Doo is a decent but messy movie. The clashing tones, dated humor and godawful version of fred drag it down at times, and it’s very clear this had a lot of hands in the pot. But.. I still enjoy it. It’s not the best scooby ever, tha’ts mystery incorpeated, but it has great atmosphere, some good ideas, an utterly spectacular with one exception cast, and some really funny jokes. I genuinely feel the film is overhated when it’s a unique, weird and wonderful slice of Scooby. For better or worse there’s no other Scooby doo property quite like it, and that’s what makes it so fun. And it has enough good performances and jokes to smooth out the edges. It’s not the best, it’s a mess.. but sometimes a mess is fun and I like this flim for being a fun mess I can enjoy with my nieces and talk about to all of you. And sometimes that’s all you need.  Thank you for reading this. If you like this you can comission your own review: 5 bucks for a tv episode, 15 for a movie, 10 for an hour long special, and 5 dollars off when you order more than one episode of a show at a time. Just send me a direct message or ask on here and we’ll get started. Until then you can check out my backlog of reviews, check this space every monday for ducktales reviews, and VOTE DAMMIT VOTE. Until we meet again it’s been a pleasure. Play us out Atomic Fireballs, it’s been a wonderful halloween. 

[fallintomyhands]

Blacked out card for @barisifandomevents !

Fake Relationship: Dreams – Asmodesgold (M) 

·        Barba gets the flu. Carisi gets more than he bargained for. A sweet, soft fic full of longing and loving care.

Wedding:  In Vino Veritas – etothepii ( E ) 

·        A bachelor party, a wedding, late nights in the office, and confusion. One of my favorite fics of Carisi figuring himself out, featuring a lot of unique but realistic situations, tenderness and heat, angst, and hopefulness. A fandom must read.

Alternate Universe: The Primitive and Sanctified – Konigsberg ( E ) 

·        Demons exist, unbeknownst to SVU… except the members counted amongst their ranks. This is one of my favorite stories of all time, and please don’t let the supernatural elements (or the fact this is sadly still a WIP) “scare” you away! The “monstrous” elements are used to perfectly capture characterization, and this is the most tender fic I’ve ever read.  Makes you want to crawl into the soft, dreamy feelings and live there forever. Please give this a shot if you haven’t already; perfection.

Crack Fic: Overstepping – rellkelltn87 (M) 

·        A raid on a real-life mad scientist goes horribly wrong, and ends with Carisi “in a family way.” I never thought I’d see an mpreg story in this fandom that could come off so believable, but this author works miracles (in a much kinder way than her characters!) Part casefic, part romance, all suspense, don’t pass this one up, you will not be disappointed!

Based on a Movie:  Do Monsters Dream? – bourgeois ( E ) 

·        Shape of Water AU in which Sonny works at an aquatic research facility and meets someone special. Takes place in a timeline where we see Carisi struggling after the Tom Cole incident, heart wrenchingly portrayed through his losses, personal and professional, and his meeting of another lonely, imprisoned soul. Beautifully written, absolutely captivating prose, wistful, heartfelt and magical.

Animals:  Yuletide by the Fireside – Juniperhoot 

·        First Christmas with a new love, and unfortunately a new, smaller paycheck. Tenderness, cozy domesticity, and the most adorable dog ever singing along to bad TV music numbers; what more could you want? If your answer was ‘thoughtful characterization’ – that’s here too!

First Date:  Everything Seems a Little Bit Sweeter – rafaelbaseball, burgeois 

·        Barba is obsessed with a YouTube chef, and enters a contest to meet him for dinner. One of the earliest fics I was obsessed with. The whole series is lovely, and the actual date is so tentative and lovely it makes my heart clench. Barba finding himself not in the age group of Sonny’s fans is painfully relatable and a stroke of genius.

Carisi Family:  A Healing Year – Adrianna_m_scovill (M) 

·        A year in the life of Barba and Carisi, in which Barba faces his insecurities and begins to heal, and to love. A fantastic story from start to finish, with top notch characterization and intense emotions, steamy sex, and everything in between. I chose this for my family fic not just because there’s a lovely holiday spent with the Carisi family, but because the fic also embodies how Carisi manages to make everyone in his life his family. Utterly captivating story from an author that always makes an emotional impact.

Soulmates:  Choose To Be With You – Robin Hood 

·        Sometimes the person who has your heart doesn’t have your soul. Great take on the soulmates trope, heartfelt, heartbreaking, mature. Insightful characterization of both characters, but especially Carisi, who faces an impossible situation, and reacts exactly how I believe the character would do.

Get Together:  Noche Sin Estrella – Lambnoire 

·        Casefic in which Barba is injured, and Carisi figures something out about himself when his protective streak becomes something more. A pretty much perfect fic; perfect characterization, strong and realistic casefic, recurring canon characters that feel true to themselves, whump that expresses the right amounts of terror without delving outside the scope of the show, and a slow burn journey of romance and self-acceptance that is meticulously paced, utterly realistic and hits every emotional mark flawlessly. Now that it’s back, make sure you don’t miss out.

Break Up:  Every Time We Touch – OblivionCastro 

·        Soulmate AU where the touch of your partner gives you pain.  A 5+1 fic, a soulmate fic, but mostly, a lyrically written story of enduring pain and enduring its loss. A wonderful metaphor for the agony of love and loss that brings me to tears every time.

Secret Relationship: Pink (& Other Promises) – leslielol 

·        Barba and Carisi fall together, and decide to keep it under wraps for a while; results vary. A common premise with uncommonly good prose. Vivid, lyrical language wraps around a soft story about affection, subterfuge, and acceptance.  A very different look at Barba and Carisi than the author’s main fic, but no less enduring and amazing.

WIP:  Much Farther To Go – nukablastr (M) 

·        The threats on Barba’s life have been declared a cold case, but Carisi decides to do some investigating on his own to protect the man he loves. This is the third part of a long series detailing the “missing” events in S17, and exploring beyond into “what could have been” if this major plot hadn’t been dropped. I added part 3 for the WIP, but recommend reading from the beginning. This story is expertly paced and plotted, and feels absolutely like it could be a piece of canon. One of the seminal works of the barisi fic fandom; read it if you haven’t.

Shadowing:  Mind if I Sit Down? – Larkin21 ( E ) 

·        Another episode tag based story from S17, featuring Carisi and Barba entering into a casual relationship behind the scenes. There’s not really many (or any!) full stories of Carisi shadowing Barba, but I was glad to be able to include this series, which features a full chapter on the shadowing episode. Again, I recommend reading the entire series, as it’s full of fantastically written plot and characterization, seamlessly weaving deep insights on the characters and blisteringly hot sex into the best seasons of the show. Another not-to-be-missed series!

Get Together:  I’m gonna leave it all out there to dry – littleblacksubmarine  ( E ) 

·        Carisi is barely keeping it together, and Barba is waiting to be allowed to help; a story of depression, self-loathing, comfort and devotion told through incredibly poignant intimate and sexual encounters. An unusual depiction of a very dark Sonny, and a protective, self-sacrificing Rafael who’s there for him every painful step of the way. Amazing story that captures perfectly some very different aspects of the characters than we typically see, and still feels 100% true. This story has broken and healed my heart so many times.

Holiday:  Pass Here and Go On – abogadobarba 

·        After the events of Undiscovered Country, Barba and Carisi reconnect, by chance, on a train of all places. Full of atmosphere, literary references, and some of the best prose in the fandom. This story is pure poetry, creating a tone of loneliness and longing, the sense of expanse and yet confinement that only travel can bring, and ultimately peacefulness and hope.  

Alternate Career Rafael: In This Light – Astronaut_Milky (M) 

·        Barba is a photographer, Carisi is a model, both men destined to keep finding… and losing, each other. Beautiful, sexy story about two men whose jobs keep bringing them together, and tearing them apart, full of light and heat and beautiful people and beautiful imagery.  

Undercover:  Have You Ever Wished For An Endless Night? – minnesotamemelord 

·        Carisi goes undercover at a high-powered legal event, and runs into someone familiar. A look at Sonny getting to go undercover at a nicer event than we normally see! Well written characterizations, and some interesting contemplations on unique issues, such as Carisi’s opinion on wealth and the wealthy that felt so spot on I immediately felt they were canon. Also, poor Rafael; he has such terrible friends!

5+1:  We Had No Haste – alwaysbuddy 

·        Carisi and Barba meet over and over in the most coincidental of places, but succumb to their own insecurities. Breathtaking story about two should-be fated lovers who continue to meet and connect over a multitude of vacations, but can’t bring themselves to reach for what they want, until they fear it may be too late. Gorgeous, atmospheric, romantic and sad, in equal measure, with an ending that’s happy, but still exudes a sense of so much lost time. This fic haunts my thoughts in the best ways.

Cooking:  Sustenance – AhumanFemale, tiberius (E ) 

·        Barba’s friends buy him a live-in chef for a time, so he can stop living on pretzels and coffee. Sweeping piece of art that exudes sensuality and the feel of time slipping through your fingers.

First Meeting:  Here and Now – wormghoul 

·        Barba and Carisi meet, and have a whirlwind romance, at LSAT camp before being parted until they meet again at SVU. The imagery and language used in this story has stuck with me for a long time. Shockingly, wrenchingly accurate descriptions of the feelings of holding memories dear, “as a talisman,” and the devastating feelings of having them torn away from you by reality… but also the hope that they can be made anew.  

Crack Fic:  It’s Not Too Late/Gag Order – cupidmarwani 

·        Carisi has a superpower, and has reached the end of his rope. Carisi has seen too much, and has the power to burn it all down. Barba wants to save him, but has to face stark reality. Short, intense story about the toll Carisi’s job takes on him, and how he becomes one of the monsters that he used to fight. Depressing, heartbreaking, terrifyingly relatable, this is an overlooked gem.

Confession:  Him. – keraunoscopia 

·        Carisi struggles with his sexuality and internalized homophobia, and seeks aid from the Church.  Quiet, powerful, painful, and so, so beautiful.

Domestic:  Daylight – cypress_tree ( E ) 

·        Carisi stays the night for the first time and Barba sees him in the sunlight. Short, sweet, hot. What’s more domestic than two people in love, unwilling to get out of bed and leave one another’s presence?

Fix It:  Good Morning – Kaye_21 (M) 

·        A threat to Barba’s life does not end well – repeatedly! Another “supernatural” style fic that shouldn’t be overlooked, even if it’s not your genre. Barba, stuck in a room with Carisi and a man out to kill them both, needs to figure out what is required of him to prevent their deaths, before he loses his mind. Fantastic character study. Terrifying, sad, sexy and hopeful. I chose this one for “fix it,” since as barisi itself could be considered a canon “fix it” or missed opportunity, and this fic itself embodies Barba himself finding a way to be that fix.

[astyle-alex]

[Fanfic] Start With Why | the Old Guard

WhooHoo! New fanfic! It's always a great day when I can start posting a new project! (Especially, when I have  a whole project entirely completed and can post it  with confidence that it won't be pushed off on hiatus because I get derailed in the middle of writing).  This was is already complete at 6 parts and will wrap up right before 2020 (finally) comes to a  close.

Start With Why

Fandom: the Old Guard Pairings: Background Nicky x Joe Characters / Focus: OT5 + Copley, reacting to Booker's betrayal Rating: Gen Audiences Warnings: None (well, language, because the team are all quite colorful) Total Word Count: 10,288 Chapter Word Count: 2,017

Summary:

The thing about betrayal is that it hurts. Sometimes it hurts too much to see the broader situation clearly. But after Booker's betrayal, the team has to look at themselves and see how every one of them is culpable. Booker may have done the deed, but his measly 200 years makes him a child to the others, especially Andy, and like babysitters are to blame when their charge sets the curtains on fire, the Family needs to ask themselves WHY and accept the honest answers. Why Copley, Why Merrick, and Why something made Booker believe that his choice was the right one for his Family...

||   Read on Patreon    |   Read on Ao3   ||

Part I :: ANDY

In the Immediate After, Andy is both utterly numb and entirely electrified. She’s chilled through her old bones from the icy weight of deadened muscles, and yet lit from inside by a fire she’d forgotten how to feel as they escape Merrick Labs. That conflicted state of incomparable feeling persists as they drive to a safehouse 20 minutes outside the London center-city, one with enough bathrooms to allow each member of their tragic little band to claim one for themselves (though, obviously, Joe and Nicky share one, regardless).

The privacy of that permeating sense of space permits them all to take their own time in separating themselves from the immediate horror of what they’d just gone through.

It allows them to clean up in their own ways and refocus on the fact that this isn’t really over, not yet. There are still two frickin’ cosmic elephants in the room.

Booker is the first one, the most critical and the most painful.

Copley can wait until a point later in the After.

Andy takes longer than usual— than she used to.

By the time she’s washed away the blood and viscera, by the time the shower has worked the worst soreness out of her aching muscles, and by the time she’s redressed her still-unhealed wounds, Booker’s already gone. Nile, too.

They’ve crossed the little hamlet’s main street to a bar perched right on the coast. The Prospect of Whitby’s an old haunt of theirs, a regular watering hole they’ve indulged in for a few hundred years now (with careful periods of avoidance as generations change over). Booker’s ordered a round of beer for all of them, ensured that he’d selected each of their favorites and instructed the bartender to keep them coming all afternoon, before stepping away— as close to out of sight, out of mind as he could possibly think the rest of them would tolerate.

He’s doing his best not to antagonize them any more than he already has— staying close enough to feel like they’ve got adequate supervision on him, and yet staying far enough away to keep from starting an actual brawl.

Meanwhile, Nile’s claimed a table in the back. It’s their usual spot— the one high-top that’s got the most obvious throw of tactical advantage in the place. Nile doesn’t wave when she spots Andy in the pub’s gloom, but she manages a stiff smile before she glances over her shoulder towards the wrap-around balcony to which Booker has retreated.

“He thinks you’re all gonna rip his limbs off or some shit,” Nile states, with that wonderfully refreshing, un-subtle archness of hers. “Seems pretty sure about it.”

“He’s been drawn and quartered before,” Andy replies, knowingly side-stepping Nile’s unspoken question. “He knows there’s a particular appeal to it as a punishment for us.”

Nile doesn’t take Andy’s shit and shoots a flat look her way that makes old warrior, unbearably, want to flash a cheeky smile. It hurts for Andy to feel such lightness in her chest when her heart is hung so heavy.

“We can’t just let this go, Nile,” Andy tells her, sympathetic.

The kid’s only known Booker a few days. She can’t possibly fathom the sting of this betrayal— can’t possibly grasp how it feels to have a rent torn through their reality when they’ve lived with such a small circle of Family being the only people in the world they trust.

It’s not her fault that she can’t understand, not by any means, but that doesn’t change how she truly cannot understand it.

Nile’s part of the Family, now, so she deserves to weigh in, but she’s just a baby…

Andy aches with pity for her— pity mixed with pride— and let’s her smile soften as the ghosts of 6000 years flicker through the shadows trapped behind her eyes.

Nile draws breath to say something more, but she doesn’t get a chance before Joe and Nicky walk in. They look better, Andy notes with the kind of relief that hits like a car crash, but they also look haunted in a way she’s never seen in them before.

Even after losing Quynh, even after nearly losing touch with Andy (as Andy nearly lost herself to the throes of a depressive psychosis that made her lash out), they’d never broached the sorry state of looking even half this fucking devastated.

They have every reason to feel that way, Andy knows, but as the debate over what to do about Booker gets started— with Nile wanting nothing more than an apology from the man who’d betrayed them and Joe wanting to send large dismembered pieces of him to the moon— Andy feels more and more exhausted.

The ‘debate’ soon becomes a mostly circular argument between Joe and Nile.

Nicky shows his favor for one side’s point or the other’s in a pantomime of subtle touches, nods, and eyebrow raises. He doesn’t just blindly support Joe in this— in anything, really… (it’s endlessly comforting for Andy to be reminded of how healthy their relationship is and how Nicky has remained wholly his own person even after a thousand years as part of a set binary-unit)— but he doesn’t speak up with any of his own suggestions, points, or grievances.

Andy just stares at the ceiling.

She listens to their points, listens to both sides.

Gets more and more frustrated with what she’s hearing from them— frustrated with them altogether. As they’ve been arguing, Andy has realized something very important about the little family she’s managed to gather around her.

“You’re all such fucking children,” she mutters— loud enough for them to hear, apparently, as they abruptly stop arguing and stare at her with a mix of confusion and insult.

Andy is not a mother to these people. At most, she’s an older sister, much older, maybe, but just a sister— not someone who should be in a position to dictate right from wrong for them.

But they are just all so fucking young.

A thousand years is nothing.

Joe and Nicky are like teenagers to her, suddenly— teenagers, at best.

Booker is a toddler in a tantrum and Nile, poor sweet fucking Nile, is an innocent, gurgling infant with that blindingly happy baby innocence shining from her frickin’ skin.

“Why’d he do it?” Andy mutters, gaze drifting out towards Booker’s back.

“He wanted it to end,” Nicky supplies, the reserved statement lilted in Nicky’s way of recognizing that a deeper question should be asked while admitting that he doesn’t know what that question should be.

“Bastard just wanted to get himself an out,” Joe spits, snarling into his beer as Nicky joins Andy in looking out the window at Booker’s back.

Andy sags in her seat.

She knows it’s not that fucking simple.

And she knows they know it, too.

Booker did this for himself, yes, but he also did it for her.

And she can’t imagine that he did what he did without knowing that it would be enough to affect Joe and Nicky, too. That he did it without realizing that escape for him and Andy meant something horrible to Nicky and Joe…

But there’s another question, too, one that not even Nile has thought to ask yet.

Joe and Nile’s argument has picked back up while Andy’s gotten lost inside her head.

It stops abruptly as Andy kicks out at the stool across from her and curses as she hits the table with her fist. They stare at her in various stages of grief and high concern as she stands up and stalks out to the rail where Booker’s banished himself to standing vigil.

“Why Copley?”

Booker blinks and frowns at her with a clear pain in his eyes.

“Answer me, Book,” Andy snarls, eyes on the ocean. “Why fucking Copley?”

Booker tries, shifting uneasily beside Andy as a few false starts claw up his throat. Andy lets him be, leaves him to struggle instead of barking at him to get on with it. She knows he’s trying, that he’s forcing himself to really answer instead of giving her an easy line meant mostly to provoke her righteous fury.

Knowing that he’s really trying does not stop Andy’s grip on the rail from going white-knuckled as he struggles to get his stupid shit together.

And then, finally, Booker sighs and huffs the confession, “I believed him.”

Andy’s posture doesn’t change a fraction, but her eyes snap sideways to assess the loose, defeated curl of his posture.

“I believed him, Andy,” Booker says again, telling her heavily, “I believed in him.”

“And Merrick?”

Booker doesn’t flinch at Andy’s venom. He just looks ashamed.

“I never met him,” Booker admits. “Copley found him and said he was the right person for it all. I checked him out, but he wasn’t very social. And I guess he was just too young or too careful for any big scandals to have come to light. His company had done some legitimately good things, things that have directly saved thousands of lives. What I found seemed solid.”

The regret and pain and self-loathing are all pitiably evident in his little speech— it’s the most words he’s strung together with her since… long before they stormed Copley’s home office.

“He was a kid,” Andy almost agreed. “200 years, and you’re still a fucking dumbass when it comes to trusting kids… but why Copley? Why trust that jerkwad so damn much?”

Booker doesn’t answer right away— can’t answer, more like.

“Because he believes in you,” Booker says, closing his eyes and hanging his head like a man at prayer— his voice cracked with the weight of fraying Faith.

It makes Andy turn to face him more fully, makes her have to fight hard to hold back from breaking her fist on his face at the painful thought that anyone might still believe in the pathetic god damn wreck of a useless, fragile fucking person she’s become.

She’d been an impotent immortal for a century, at least. And these last few decades…

Her efforts to save the world have all been nothing but a futile drop in the god damn ocean, and if she’s honest with herself, Andy can admit that all her efforts had probably always been a senseless and pitiably ineffective pretense at helping people… all 6000 years of this shit.

It had all just been something shiny and simple to flatter her own damn ego.

She’d never really saved anyone.

She’d kept a couple people alive, sure, but she’d never really made things better.

Not in any way that mattered in the long run.

But Booker turns to her, looking more broken than she’s ever seen a man survive and says, “You do so much good, Andy… We do so much good. And Copley sees it. This was supposed to be a gift, to all of us— to the whole god damn world. It was supposed to be one more bit of good, but one that could give us something back, for once.”

It hurts like nothing Andy’s ever felt to have that flung at her, to feel a cherry-picked array of words she knows she’s said too often to ignore their clear impact on her team… It hurts too much to ignore the bite of having that impact thrown back in her pathetic, ancient face.

“Maybe we don’t fucking deserve it,” Andy spits, pushing off the rail and storming back inside the pub— running away to where she knows Booker won’t follow.

The others are looking at her expectantly as she throws herself back into her previously abandoned chair and chugs her beer as fast as she can down it— mortal liver be damned.

When the glass is empty, she slams it down and kicks herself back until her chair is tipping at a dangerous angle with her neck wholly exposed and pointed up to the ceiling.

“God damn fucker really thought this shit would help,” she reports— uncertain if the wail she hears behind the words is clear in her voice or simply screaming in her skull.

- - - - -

Author's Notes:

I love Andy's complicated relationship with Booker, truly.

NEXT TIME: Booker reflects on his own actions, mistakes, and shortcomings. Until someone makes him think about his potential.

||   Read on Patreon    |   Read on Ao3   ||

<3

[jonthethinker]

Expositor Beauregard And The Mighty Nein

Others have said it before, but because I think it should be screamed from the mountaintops everyday, Beau’s growth is so fucking good!

I think back to the runaway monk we met at the beginning of this campaign, all sharp edges and curt words and no roots, committed to convincing the world she doesn’t care about anything and she’s fine on her own (but the loneliness already showing as she asks Jester and Fjord whether they’re going to leave town without her.)

Then we have Beau now, who has deep friendships with every member of the Mighty Nein sans possibly Caduceus and Yasha (who still fall under the domain of her protective instinct, and who she still very much considers her people.) It could be argued that Beau is the sturdy foundation of the Nein, offering each other member of the Nein some sturdy ground to stand on to grow themselves:

Travis has mentioned Beau’s commitment as first mate as a comfort for Fjord, and when he was deliberating whether to reveal his accent to the group, He never doubted that Beau would continue to support him if he told the group the truth. Their easy relationship is among my favorites on the show, and when the action starts they’re never out of sync.It is safe to assume that to the half-orc orphan who very much attended the school of hard knocks and has every reason to distrust others, having a friendship in which the only thing that is asked is a willingness to call Beau on her bullshit and an openness to Beau calling him on his, is an immeasurably important feature in Fjord’s current life and one he wouldn’t trade away for anything.

Beau is undoubtedly fiercely protective and supportive of Jester, and made it clear to her that she will support Jester being more honest about negative feelings she has, while also standing up to Jester when she thought she was making a reckless decision in how to confront her father if it meant keeping Jester safe and the door open for a healthy relationship with said parent. Jester has in Beau someone who will continually encourage and support her through thick and thin, and have a good time along the way. I want to say a hell of a lot more about their friendship and the parallels of their lives, because their friendship is the most precious thing to me in all of critical role, but that’s not what this meta is about, so I’ll save it for another time.

Her sisterly relationship with Nott is something that is easy to forget about, but I imagine it means more to Nott than is let on; Nott was a bit of an outsider even as a halfling. Since the Iron Shepards (And arguably before, in Hupperdook,) Nott has had an easy relationship in Beau, with Beau being about as judgement free as Nott has ever experienced. The two are playful with each other in a way I imagine Nott wishes she could have been with her brothers, and Beau’s willingness to forgive Nott for any harmful decision she has made (a certain bullet in the ass comes to mind) can’t be underscored in its importance towards the goal of keeping Nott’s beaten-up heart healthy.

While I disagree with some in the fandom who think that Beau’s friendship with Caleb is the single most important relationship in his life right now (which to me has been unquestionably, from the beginning, Nott, and is nowhere near changing to anyone else in my humble opinion,) to say their friendship has not been a critical step in his growth as a character is absurd. Caleb perhaps had not planned on one of the keys to his success in his wizardly pursuits as well as the reclamation of his humanity being a rough-and-tumble friendship with a blunt, somewhat aggressive monk with a knack for getting him to admit to things he never wanted to admit to, but life doesn’t often go according to plan. Despite a rocky beginning, their friendship has evolved into something beautiful, with Beau always there to keep Caleb grounded, whether he risks letting his thirst for knowledge drag him into trouble, or his past begins to eat him alive. And it’s certainly nice to have someone around who can help him find that book he’s looking for.

Beau’s relationship with Yasha has been interesting from the get-go, what with Beau immediately seizing on the opportunity to flirt with the giant, introverted barbarian. While shipping discourse tends to dominate the discussion of their interactions, we shouldn’t ignore the chance to take a crack at what these moments mean to the characters as individuals.

With hindsight and insights Marisha has given on Talks, I’ve gathered that to Beau these moments were driven by this weird relationship in Beau’s mind between sex and power. She uses these casual, almost doomed to fail, encounters with women as a band-aid to avoid confronting her actual problems with developing intimate, meaningful romantic or platonic relationships with women she’s physically attracted to. She sort of game-ifies the encounters into a power struggle between her and her potential conquest; the end goal not being the sex or denial thereof, but of the buzz of the conflict itself. On the outside it looks like a pure expression of ego, and some of it may be, but I interpret it mostly as a deflection from Beau’s clear struggles with self-loathing and her fear of abandonment; I speculate that to Beau, after how things ended with Tori, has not allowed herself to feel the same about anyone else (With the recently revealed exception of Jester, who is all too conveniently deemed inaccessible; “She has a thing for Fjord, and so it’s not a possibility,”) for fear of utterly letting down yet another women she loved.

With Yasha I take these moments as a sort of siren’s song. Here she is, having lost the most precious person in all her life, a love she knew was forbidden but pursued anyway, and clearly blames herself and her desire for Zuala as the very reason she died. To Yasha, the lesson she learned from all of this is not that her tribe was wrong, but that her desires are wrong, that she can’t trust herself to want anything, and can’t trust herself to love without getting someone hurt (A feeling only exacerbated by the death of Molly trying to save her from the Iron Shepards.)

So she feels all this and then there’s this monk who relentlessly flirts with her. Their first interaction indicates to me that Yasha has had some experience handling this sort of thing since joining the circus, and with arms like those, how could she not? But Beau just keeps going and going the more time they spend around one another, and Yasha has eyes, and Beau does indeed have those abs, and is incredibly persistent and almost admirably self-assured about herself, and okay maybe eventually even the tough Barbarian might be flustered and stutter a little bit.

And that would be that, if that’s all their relationship was. But Yasha being the quiet one who looms to the back in social interactions and group planning watches the others, Beau included, and maybe begins to see another side to the monk. The side that clearly cares a great deal about this group. Who looks out for the others and will gladly put her body on the line to protect them. Beau isn’t as sturdy as Yasha, can’t take as many hits and depends on avoiding being hit in the first place, but still there she is, tanking a Hydra, rushing to the front lines and protecting her friends. There she is, reassuring party members in a well-meaning if a little rough around the edges sort of way. There she is, comforting Yasha after she reveals her past to the group, seeking a way to relate to her even when it’s clear Beau doesn’t share personal details often.

So to Yasha, Beau is a few things. She’s someone who she can rely on to keep this lovely found family alive no matter the personal cost. She’s someone who can be leaned on and relied on not to judge. And she’s someone who makes her feel like a person, not just a tool or a wall of muscle, or a burden to be dealt with, but a person. I think Beau will be second only to Jester in the importance she will play in Yasha’s recovery and victory over her grief and guilt, which, let’s face it, is a long road yet to be traveled, but a road made all the easier due to Yasha’s friends of the blue persuasion.

Caduceus sees in Beau potential. Where he may get frustrated or confused by many in the Nein, I think in Beau he finds a reliable and easy to understand set of motivations. Beau wants to keep the Mighty Nein happy, healthy, and most importantly alive, and maybe make a positive difference in the world along the way. While her gruff demeanor can sometimes grate him the wrong way, I feel her actions have spoken for her in Caduceus’ mind. I take that he feels that while he may be the only adult in the room, Beau is definitely the rather mature teenager that can often be trusted to make decisions in his absence. Condescending? Of course. But a delightfully Caduceus-like thing to think.

This long diatribe is not me saying that Beau is the be all end all of the Nein, but just my way of illustrating the impact of her and her growth on her friends, and the role she plays within the Nein. The other members have had just as much of an impact on her. From Fjord’s trust and charm training, to Jester’s love and support and faith in strangers, to Nott’s open ear and sisterly banter, to Caleb’s ability to establish goals and remind her of both the forest and the trees, to Yasha’s fierce protectiveness and soft treatment of their friends, to Caduceus’ encouragement to tell the truth and be open and the successes that attitude has led to.

And to Molly, who arguably, made this growth possible, or at least as quickly progressive as it has been. Without him pushing her towards making the world better than she found it, it’s hard to imagine the road she would have had to travel to get to where she is now, fighting to save the world, standing up to and earning the respect of her Cobalt Soul mentors, sharing her feelings with the group, and allowing herself to love.

Beau is my favorite character on Critical Role. She has been for a very long time, but my love for her has only aged like a fine wine. From barely being able to meditate at all, to mentally transporting herself to a beach in Nicodranas in order to escape Obann’s thrall. From telling Jester she didn’t worry too much about her well-being, to telling her on several occasions that she loves and cares about her. From being incredibly antagonizing towards Molly, to getting a tattoo in his honor very visibly on the back of her neck. Her Journey to become the Expositor she is today has been an absolute delight, and her journey towards forging the ties she has with this beautiful found family have been heartwarming and some of the best storytelling I’ve ever seen. And she has so much potential for growth and I just can’t wait to see more.

[sightofsea]

❝ I can feel you staring at me, why don’t you just come in? ❞ for south downs please?

;)))

"I can feel you staring at me, why don’t you just come in?"

Aziraphale doesn't have to look up from his book to know that Crowley is hanging around the doorway, feet constantly crossing the threshold to the study before second guessing themselves. He also doesn't m have to look up to see Crowley trying out several different starter sentences on his mouth, each one failing more than the last, before a monumental sigh is sounded.

No, he doesn't have to look up at all. When you'd been together as long as they had, inferring such things came as easily to him as blinking and breathing: rough in practice at the start before becoming something of a habit.

Crowley walks up in front of him, hands in his pockets and looking more than a little nervous. The grimace on his face is in danger of being fixed there permanently.

"You have to promise not to get mad," he starts, which is never a good sign of anything.

Aziraphale sets the book down and looks at him with pitiable exasperation. "Oh, you didn't poison the neighbor's garden again, did you?"

"That batch of roses had it coming," Crowley defends, quick as a whip. They've had that argument a thousand times already. "I will not apologize for that. And, er. No. No, it's not that."

Aziraphale frowns. "Then what is it?"

Crowley grimaces again. "Promise you won't get cross."

"Why would I be cross with you?"

Crowley breathes out through his nose and crosses his arms. "Look, I know after everything and we sort of had this agreement of you know, 'open communication' and 'telling each other how we feel' and all that--" He says the words like they're sour apples in his mouth.

"Crowley," says Aziraphale, slowly. "You were the one who suggested those things."

"I know," Crowley hisses. He shakes his head. "Anyways, I've um. Been keeping a secret. From you. For a while."

A thousand possible scenarios run through Aziraphale's head. He thinks about the last few weeks. Crowley has been acting rather strange, going away for long periods of time on the weekends and being vague about where he went. Crowley wouldn't be one to be disloyal--Aziraphale knows him well enough to know he's alright on that front. But other things--Crowley's been talking with Hell again, Crowley has been wanting to move back to London, Crowley wants to go back to being friends again after all this time and wants some space--it all adds up very quickly, and the blood drains from Aziraphale's face a bit.

"What is it?"

"Promise you won't get cross," Crowley repeats.

"I'll promise when you tell me what is."

Crowley breathes out again, arms crossed tight. Looks at his tapping foot, looks up at the ceiling. "I think it'd make more sense to show you."

Show him? "Show me? Whatever do you--"

"It's a lot to explain. Just--come with me. I'll take you to it."

Aziraphale sets down the book and nods. "Alright," he says, and tries to ignore the heavy feeling settling in his stomach.

**

"This is utterly ludicrous, my dear boy," Aziraphale states. He's been blindfolded, Crowley keeping his hands on his hips to guide him through. He'd been told to put it on in the car, which had thrilled him slightly because usually this sort of thing went the other way around, but he had been sorely disappointed to be met with a ten minute car ride and Crowley giving him instructions to not trip over this and that. "I'm an angel of the lord, this is demeaning."

"Just--just wait, alright?" They take a few more steps, and Aziraphale is greeted with the smell of dust, cedar baked in the sun, and carpet. It's a familiar smell. They take a few steps further before Crowley stops the both of them. "Alright, take a look."

Aziraphale unties the blindfold, and is greeted with a bookshop. His bookshop, or an approximation of it. It's all the same books, the same shelves, and the same chairs, only rearranged to fit a much more angular space. Shelves after shelves line the place, with another room dedicated to even more shelving, and even that isn't enough to hold it. Books are stacked in piles on the floor, as yet unsorted. His till sits on a small wooden countertop, and the whole place emits a warm glow from the overhead lighting.

"The lease was up on your old shop," Crowley explains. "And I didn't know whether or not you wanted to just move everything into the house, and I know you've liked the break from the customers and everything, but. You without a bookshop. Seemed a bit wrong." When he looks at Aziraphale, his eyes are wide behind his sunglasses. "Please don't be cross."

"My dear boy, why would I be cross?" Aziraphale asks. He's genuinely amazed.

"It's expensive," Crowley lists. "It means I touched your stuff without your permission--your organizational structure is completely out the window as well, but it was bullocks. I only understood half of it and that's because I've known you for so long. And then there's the fact that you'd be working again, and the people trying to buy your books, I mean I could go on, really."

Aziraphale considers this. Those are some...less fortunate things. But he likes the new building. He likes organizing things. And, though he's loathe to admit it, he does enjoy selling books to customers. Or, he likes finding ways so they won't buy the books in the first place--you can only be the good influence for so long before something has to snap.

Crowley is staring at him. Waiting for him.

"Is it alright?"

Aziraphale takes a couple steps forward. Crowley follows after. He reaches a small half alcove, the books bathed in the evening sun, where a red leather chair rests in the corner. He runs his hand along the spine of first edition Perestroika.

He turns to Crowley, who's still waiting for him. He grabs him by the lapels of his blazer and kisses him, firmly. A little desperately--Crowley's bought him a bookshop after all, there's only so much restraint he can have in this kind of situation. He's one copy of Paradise Lost away from having them christen the whole bookshop.

He breaks away. "I love it." Crowley cracks a love-dope smile, breaking the last of his restraint, and Aziraphale pulls him close again. He walks them backwards until his calves hit the chair, and he pulls Crowley down onto his lap, excited to pull every little noise out of him as a means of saying 'thank you'. Hands are going everywhere, hair, neck, chest, back, bottom. Crowley carves his fingers into the back of Aziraphale's neck, up his hair. Aziraphale's lightly sucking on Crowley's Adam's Apple and trying not to laugh at the symbolism. Crowley makes a half-choked sound, and Aziraphale grins, and neither of them hear the tinkling of the shop bell.

"Hello?" calls a voice. "Anyone? I'm looking for a book on--oh, dear Lord."

They both come up for air, and Aziraphale sees a woman standing by the door, mouth agape and a hand on her chest. He can't tell if she's offended at the act or their respective gender presentations, and he's frankly too distracted to care.

"The shop is closed," he says. "Come back tomorrow at noon."

"Or two," supplements Crowley.

"Or eight in the morning." The woman blinks, and Aziraphale grins sheepishly. "Depends on where the stars are positioned, really." The woman isn't moving. Aziraphale wiggles his hands. "Ta." The woman, having the sudden need to go down the street to the bakery, exits quickly.

It's quiet for a moment, with the exception of their breathing. They don't need to breath anyway, but it's nice. The sounds are very, very nice.

"Well," says Crowley. "That was a thing."

Aziraphale smiles and pushes Crowley off of his lap lightly. Crowley whines in response, and Aziraphale takes his hand. "Come," he says. "I'm sure there's a lovely soft Persian rug waiting for us in the poetry section."

Crowley nods his head to the side, smiling slightly. "There is now."

Aziraphale leads them further into the shop, two dots retreating from the street window as the sign on the door flips suddenly from OPEN to CLOSED, and stays that way for a long, long time.

[baebeyza]

Wait, did I actually make a Beast Wars II rant??? Well, that’s what’s under the cut! ~ Though it aint even a rant, just my thoughts, a little review. 

Plot: This is the show I call aimed at kids more than any other show I’ve seen. And with kids I mean toddlers. And it’s not just the lighthearted tone, it’s also in the story structure:  If you wanted to tell the plot of Beast Wars II, you could prolly tell it in 10 episodes. But the show has 44 episodes. Meaning there is a lot of stuff that does not further the plot. In fact, the actual plot doesn’t even start until half way through the show.  The first half introduced a few character groups, which are important to the plot later on. But each of these groups had multiple episodes for them, which didn’t even matter at the end, even when the episodes themselves had some decent story.  So looking at the show as a whole, I’d say it has a...decent plot. Compact, makes sense, has some nice things. But there was barely any real sense of escalation, no real excitment most of the time and the stakes were never framed as high, So as an adult, this show was a little hard to get through, but it’s not the fault of the show, it’s simply a show for toddlers who just wanna watch some robots do funny stuff. 6/10, but not the show’s fault 

Characters: Heroes: Lio Convoy and Lio Junior: Good characters, had an arc, had a nice dynamic, cute scenes towards the end. Lio Junior craved a parent figure, which Lio Convoy wasn’t ready to serve as, prefering to be seen as Junior’s commander. But at the end he finally called Junior his son, so SWEET! <3  Lio Convoy was a really nice Optimus Prime, team dad and all, and Lio Junior, while I can see him being frustrating, has some nice development. So those I really like, that worked for me :D (Also I really liked Lio Junior’s voice actress, she did a really good job!) Apache: One episode exploration of his deal. Thinking he’s too weak and incompetent for Lio Convoy, but I guess he gets over that. Reminded me of G1 Ironhide. Bighorn: Sentimental hothead. Diver: Careful guy, had one episode beef with Bighorn which never got touched upon again. Tasmanian Kid: The annoying teen. Had more to do in the movie, where he related to Lio Junior and begged the others to show some sympathy for the young boi.  Scuba: The cool one who saves the day Skywarp: Doesn’t like elephant puns Santon: Makes elephant puns Yeah that’s all. Most them are utterly boring and have no interesting dynamics or scenes whatsoever, which is a damn shame. The heroes of a show being the worst part of it. Don’t hate any of them either, which makes it worse - hating them would mean they actually DID something meaningful to make me hate them. (PS: Lio Junior, Skywarp and Santon combine to Magnaboss) Insectrons: First seen as villains, these bots were simply peeps living on Gaia and wanted the heroes to be gone and not disturb their peace, but lately joined them against the Destrons.  I can’t remember them all, but I liked Scissor Boy, he was adorable ~ Jointrons: Characters I HATED and LOATHED when it was about them, but somehow, SOMEHOW, they grew on me. They are totally obnoxious, annoying, have a weird speech pattern, are prolly offensive mexican stereotypes, cause problems all the time and don’t learn shit.  And YET...I couldnt hate them much, because they had some sincerity, they had fun being themselves and they had some goddamn FRIENDSHIP! (which cannot be said about the heroes). I even grew to like their annoying speech and was delighted whenever they showed up again ~ They can also combine, but I can’t spell the name of the combiner. Destrons, bad guys: Galvatron: Awesome, best guy, good boss, prolly hugs his soldiers off-screen, gives credit, dynamic with Megastorm could have been done better, but the end of their arc was actually really damn cute <3 He’s evil in a way where he thinks it’s all for the better, which works for the toddlers this show is aimed at I guess. Also we need more pink dragons!  Megastorm (later Gigastorm): Galvatron’s younger brother and The Starscream, tries multiple times to get rid of Galvatron, but they eventually get some good brotherly moments at the end, which I digged.  The general idea was that he’s a bratty, brown-nosed loud-mouth younger brother with Galvatron around, but shows his true, cruel colours without him. And while the concept worked at first, I found it sad that he became more pathetic as the show went on, without ever being a real threat again. I can deal with lil shit characters, but I don’t like pathetic you know. Also a disappointment for me - I wasnt a fan of his Gigastorm form! I like FACES! Starscream and BB: Best couple, true friendship, the babes. Starscream was also The Starscream, but towards Megastorm, which was hilarious. Starscream was the flamboyant, vain dude and BB his ever-loyal bodyguard, maybe even lover. They were a highlight, I have to say ~ Their upgrades as Hellscream and Max-B were a little ugly though. Dirge and Thrust: More annoying for the most part, but even they got an episode for themselves that shows a good friendship, and a good relationship to Megastorm. Which is always nice, they got more depth than the heroes at least ~ Later they became Dirgegun and Thrustor. The Autorollers: They had a few episodes for themselves, but I like with the Insectrons, I can’t really recall them. They were the building force of the Destrons. The Seacons: Space pirates who were almost always in beast mode, which I found sad. (again, I like faces). They were nice though as they had a really sweet dynamic - their boss, Half Shell, was really a good leader and always  apologized for any mistake, while his crew comforted him. This group also has the only female transformer of the show, and what do they do? Add a love triangle with her loving Scuba and Bighorn loving her. It was as obnoxious and annoying as it sounds.  They can combine into God Neptune. Others: Artemis and Moon: These characters who appear in every episode are androids built to guard Gaia after the humans left it. And of course they designed the guardians to be a waifu and a kawaii bunny. One might think they are totally needless to the plot, but especially towards the end their help was needed for the heroes to win, so overall I aint gonna complain about them ~ Artemis is a treasure alone for her love on Starscream (and Scuba) and I will not complain about Starscream thirst :D

[wolftheidioticfan]

THROWS fanfic at Count Lucanor tag before running away in fear of being seen.

I wrote this at like 9-10 am after staying up all night long and I do not know how to write and this is rooted so deep in headcanon that I will die of sheer embarrassment from having interests and writing. Also kinda rushed because I started getting way too self conscious midway through oop. B nice to me ok bye Ahhhh-

Nights without much going on in terms of the trial were nice enough, he supposed. Quiet, calm, and no unnecessary death at the hands of some blasted old man’s curse. Usually, peaceful nights like this were spent in his room, conversing with his closest friend and most trusted castle official, but tonight had been...a little off for the kobold. He was much more lost in his own head, leaned back against the bed as he stared blankly at the ceiling above.

He could hear The Camerlengo speaking, rambling about whatever was on the very strange man’s mind that day, but for the love of it all Patronio could not make out a single word of it, too focused on his own mind. Tonight’s worry was just how much the world had changed since this awful, awful curse had befallen the castle. The jester sighed softly to himself. This was never how he had imagined things would end up, cast aside by the rest of the world and put in-charge of some horrid ‘tests’ that did little more than dismember anyone who would dare take part in them.

It just wasn’t fair. He was in a time period far, far from his own, and completely unable to even take part in a single activity, nor know a single soul outside of the castle. Just how much had passed by? Advanced? While he was here to rot away, forgotten.

The sudden quiet of the room caught his attention, causing Patronio to let out a confused hum in response.

“You are not listening!” The Camerlengo’s loud, boisterous voice sounded out in the small room, “You know one person cannot have a reasonable conversation with themselves!”

The kobold chuckled, keeping his eyes steady at the dusty ceiling, “Sorry...I’m sorry, really. I’m listening now.”

“You are not!” The tall monster of a man snapped back, pointing a finger into the jester’s side, “The Camerlengo would like to know why you are ignoring him!”

Patronio squealed from the clawed jab to his ribs, squirming away, “I’m just- a little lost in thought is all. I’m sorry my dear friend, truly, it was not my intention.”

“Oh!”

And then it was quiet again. Uncomfortably so for the jester, causing him to sit up and see just what exactly his friend was doing. He blinked once or twice when he noticed the other’s eyes directly on him.

“Well! What is it you are thinking about?” The Camerlengo grinned, “That could be a good conversation piece!”

Patronio sighed heavily, pressing his fingers down into the soft paw-like pad in the middle of his palm, waving his other hand dismissively, “No, no, it’s really nothing interesting. What were you trying to tell me again, something about the garden?”

His friend’s eyes narrowed slightly, placing his hands on his hips in a disappointed manner as he spoke, “Well! He thinks you keep far too much to yourself lately! Very unlike you, Jester.”

Rolling his eyes – though with a lack of pupils, the action was mostly pointless- the kobold sighed heavily. He knew how this would go, this was a common pattern the two had gone through many times before. If The Camerlengo was set on something, it was rare for him to ever give up on the subject. Something he could admire in the tall man’s work, but something he’d utterly loathe when it came to things he’d much rather keep to himself.

“I don’t have a choice here, do I?” Patronio half hissed, flopping onto his back once more, resting his hand on his cheek with a puff.

“Not if you are going to be so gloomy and distant, no!”

He groaned in response.

“Besides, it is not a good idea to hide things! You know this. What else would friends be for?”

He hated when the other was right like that.

“...Fine,” the jester huffed, “You win.”

Quiet for a moment. Then two.

“Well?” The Camerlengo prodded, “Are you to talk or not, Jester?”

Nope, no getting out of this. Patronio loathed the serious conversations about emotions and fear...They were never any fun at all and only reminded him of the harshness of the situation the castle had been tossed in. With another annoyed groan, he began with the first thing on his mind.

“...A lot of time has passed, you know,” He blinked at the ceiling. When had he last dusted up there?, “The towns and world we once knew is now….very different. Yet, we are still stuck in the same days as before this wretched curse.”

He expected a quip or two, or something stupid and unrelated to be uttered from his friend, but for once found disappointment when no words were spoken. Great, he was simply listening. Why did he have to be quiet now, of all times? Discussions like this were not the kobold’s favorite! He knew this, right?

Of course he did, Patronio realized. That was exactly why he was silent, knowing the small blue creature would leap at any small opportunity to push this awkward conversation aside and change the subject. Blasted.

He gripped his cloak tight, thumb running across the slightly worn fabric as he continued, “I’m unsure how much has changed, what with being bound to this castle and forest. It is frightening to know that I-...That all of us have been forgotten to time. We have nothing to bind us to this timeline, no one to...remember who we were.”

Balling his fist, he fought back the crack he felt coming in his voice, “Is it not cruel, to be cursed to forever roam in a world that does not need you? Only to exist as a pawn for a game that no one, not even the one ‘in control’ can win? Isn’t it cruel to have caught all the innocents in it as well, forcing them to look to a lonely, foolish court jester for their guidance?”

“Jester-”

“And isn’t it just awful? Awful to know that after being forced into this terrible leadership, that everyone who has died blames you? And that-...if you really think about it, it is all true after all? But what are you supposed to do then, let down everyone else whom wishes not to be apart of this curse? Doom them to an enteral prison because you don’t want to be blamed? Selfish! Selfish to become so cowardly! Perhaps you are deserving of your shame then!” His voice had raised without realizing it, hissing and spitting his self-anger freely, “Yes! Cower away dear fool, cower away and let others die as you lie to their faces about these trials!”

Was he crying? Patronio felt like he was crying. It hurt.

“Jester! Jester...” He simply whined when The Camerlengo’s thumb brushed his face, wiping off the cascade of tears he was now very, very aware of, “What has gotten into you?”

“...I...I never asked for this,” the kobold murmured, shoving the other’s hand off himself, “I never wanted this! I am merely a jester-….How could one ask me to just let others die? I only wanted-...I wanted to bring joy.”

“...He knows, Jester,” It was always strange when the tall man was quiet, soft spoken even, “The Camerlengo knows you are not to blame for this curse.”

“Yes, I know you understand that,” He grumbled, shoving the hand away once more, “Knowing so many people’s blood is on your hands however-...”

“But it is not! You know that. You did not….cause this.”

“But I continue to go along with it.”

“For the sake of the castle, yes? The Jester is no coward, he is only doing what has been forced on him!”

“...Hm,” Patronio sighed in half acknowledgment, “Yes, this is…for everyone...”

“Then why blame yourself so harshly? He...does not see the reason to.”

“I know, I know my friend,” He hummed, “Not much ever makes sense, does it?”

“No, not often.”

“...I’m aware this is no fault of my own. I suppose it’s just morphed into guilt due to well...I am the “face” of this entire operation now, since The Count’s death.”

“Ah...He sees, then.”

Quietness took over again, mixed with the heavy breathing of the previously sobbing kobold. Why had it gotten quiet again? He didn’t like it. Would he just speak already? This-

“Augh!” Patronio hissed, feeling himself quickly lifted from his very comfortable spot, “Let me go!”

The small male thrashed wildly from being so suddenly grabbed, slowly turning into small squirms as he was firmly pressed against his friend’s chest in a hug. A half growl escaped him, dying off in his throat as a hand gently rubbed the back of his head.

“...Do you still want to be let go, Jester?”

He puffed a bit, gripping The Camerlengo’s coat in his hands tightly, “...No. But do warn me before you do that! I don’t appreciate being grabbed like that.”

“Well! You looked like you needed a hug, so The Camerlengo decided to help with that!” The tall man smugly smiled.

Settling further in his friend’s arms, the kobold just let out a soft ‘eugh’ in response, squinting when he was met with a loud laugh. Whatever, this was fine.

“You worry of being forgotten?”

“...We already have been, my friend. There is not a soul left to remember any of us here.”

“Hm, well that certainly can’t be right!”

Patronio arched his eyebrow in confusion, “What do you mean by that? Years- Centuries have passed.”

“We are still here, are we not?”

“...Yes?”

“Simple! We remember eachother, yes? He remembers you, you remember The Camerlengo! We are not forgotten then.”

“Hah...” The kobold snickered once, slowly elevating into a full laugh, “Yes, yes...Of course we remember each other, you strange man! We’re friends, after all.”

“Well then! Someone remembers you, then! And therefore, someone does not blame you either!”

His giggling continued, rubbing his face further against his friend’s coat, realizing perhaps he truly did need this conversation after all. The other’s laughter joining in only heightened the strange joy the silly words had brought the kobold.

“See, you see? The Jester is very good at bringing joy!”

He snorted, squeezing just a little harder, “Stop, you’re going to make me cry again...You goof...”

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

hi! I am one of your fans on ao3. I love your immortal Lily series and I just can't stop thinking about a crossover of "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" and "When Harry Met Tom". Sorry to bother you but I am so curious. Would you please tell me what may possibly happen if Lily and Wizard Lenin meet Harry and Tom?

Glad you enjoy my work so much.

Well, the way I see it, this can happen two ways. The first, Lily and Wizard Lenin mysteriously end up in the “When Harry Met Tom” warped timeline (as always I blame Rabbit) or else Harry and Tom end up in “Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus” (I blame Harry’s bottomless stupidity).

Lily and Wizard Lenin Mess Up “When Harry Met Tom”: 

In the first case Lily would either try and fail to get the pair of them into Hogwarts (much to Wizard Lenin’s irritation) or else would say, “To hell with Hogwarts! I’ve already been in the 1990′s I don’t need to go in this weird version of the 1940′s dimension”. So, as a result, Lily and Wizard Lenin probably end up sitting around Hogsmeade a few days wondering what the hell they’re going to do now. 

Wizard Lenin, not simply being lost in time but dimensions as well, probably officially gives up at this point. Either Lily bullshits them home (which isn’t happening because reasons) or else they have to do something dangerously unknown and stupid like walking through the veil of death (and Wizard Lenin likes being alive). So, to get him out of his sudden alcoholic stupor and general “woe is me, life is pointless, I have to live in an era where I went through puberty all over again” Lily probably suggests that they can start from scratch. They’re still in an England, after all, and Wizard Lenin wasn’t really attached to anything in the 1990′s. It may take a while, but they can just pick up his world dominating schemes here. Conveniently some dark lord of the day named Grindelwald, whose hair looks oddly like coleslaw gone bad, has done ¾ of their work for them.

Naturally, having the literal god that is Lily on his side who has natural right to the elder wand, Wizard Lenin and Lily anticlimactically defeat Grindelwald and take over his forces with their eyes set on England. The true seat of Wizard Lenin’s non-existant empire.

Also naturally, Wizard Lenin is moody and ambivalent as he likes the idea of ruling Western Europe but not so much the reality and he likes the reality that Lily could easily do it on a much faster scale than he ever could even less. So, moody brooding Wizard Lenin is moody and brooding.

Harry, meanwhile, who has been at Hogwarts this whole time trying and failing not to make ways in her teenage narcissism falsely concludes that whatever actions she’s taken at Hogwarts have somehow led to the premature defeat of Grindelwald and the rise of this new dark lord out of absolutely nowhere (details on Wizard Lenin hanging around in France being sparse at this point).

Feeling absurdly guilty as well as her need to fix everything. Harry decides to drop out of Hogwarts and go confront this mysterious dark wizard who was powerful enough to utterly destroy Gellert Grindelwald.

Tom, being a fool in love and denial, rushes out with her damning his education to hell in order to prevent her inevitable gruesome demise. Harry is unappreciative and unimpressed but can’t seem to shake him and really can’t afford to get him killed (the future has plans for Tom Marvolo Riddle after all). 

Harry likely plans some very stupid kind of ambush with Tom trying to make it less stupid (though infinitely more cowardly) and bringing up the very good points of, “This really really really is not your responsibility, Harry”. However, probably around this point, Wizard Lenin makes a public appearance giving some ridiculous speech without any heart in it (that still gets rapturous applause as he’s just so damn pretty and charismatic it hurts) with Lily at his side and Harry realizes things have gone to funky town and back.

Tom Marvolo Riddle, it seems, has time traveled back to the past as well as Harry and like the Terminator is undoubtedly trying to stop her from doing whatever she’s doing to stop him (which makes him more Kyle Evans than the Terminator, but we’ll ignore that). Worse, he’s brought her underage mother along with him. And for reasons Harry can’t quite figure out, they’ve taken over France.

Harry naturally feels very betrayed by Tom, who was turning out to be less terrible than she’d assumed, while he’s just very weirded out by the whole thing and has no explanation himself (except he thinks time travel’s right out). He concludes, hesitantly, that that man up there may be his father. Tom then remembers his daydreams of grandeur and legacy, of a father who isn’t from the white trash Gaunts, and his ego explodes all over the place as he is now, in his mind, crown prince of this new magical empire. Naturally, he now must meet this man and adore him/rant at him for leaving him in that goddamned orphanage for sixteen years when he had the time to pick up that red-head girl standing with him.

Seeing what the king looks like, Tom proposes a new plan, he’ll take an aging potion (which should get him to look eerily like the newly crowned emperor of the magical holy roman empire) and take Harry in with him. This should get them past any low level guards and they’ll make their way in. This is just the kind of desperate idiocy that appeals to Harry, and while she doesn’t like Tom Riddle coming along in any capacity, agrees with the thought that she may have to destroy him in the past in order to prevent his time travelling future self from being here and taking over everything.

On their way in, they’re confronted by Lily, who quickly figures them out and is also very weirded out by what she correctly realizes is a time travelling biological sister of sorts and a Wizard Trotsky aged Tom Riddle. Lily has a lot more experience with this wibbly wobbly timey whimey bullshit than either Tom or Harry. 

Lily then decides that this has to be taken up to Wizard Lenin, no matter how depressed he is, and maybe acting as a mentor for his alternate younger self will somehwo cheer him up (since the prospect of crushing all of Albus Dumbledore’s hopes and dreams doesn’t appear to be doing the trick). 

Neither Harry nor Tom expected it to be this easy, but Lily has the ins they need, and soon enough they find themselves meeting Wizard Lenin who is already so past done he can’t even see the point where he was done anymore.

Naturally the most ridiculous conversation ever recorded is had at this point in which each party member is coming from it at very different angles. Tom is hurt and betrayed by the prospect of his cool dad abandoning him for so many years yet equally yearning for that idea of paternal guidance, Harry is increasingly confused and alarmed by the idea that this older Tom Riddle isn’t acting like Voldemort and doesn’t seem to recognize her at all (worse the girl she assumed was her mother is very much not her mother) which means that Harry has really gone and screwed things up, Lily is trying to rouse Wizard Lenin from his bout of depression via ridiculousness, and Wizard Lenin hates the very idea of his teenage self and is very tempted to murder the poor boy just to wipe all memory of Tom Marovlo Riddle from existence.

Lily forces things into a state of peace, offers to continue Harry and Tom’s education (since they now certainly can’t go back to Britain), which Wizard Lenin of course balks at knowing full well how capable Lily is at teaching the children, and schemes to give Wizard Lenin and Tom some good quality father and son bonding while she gets closer to the sister she never knew she had.

Both of these ventures go fantastically poorly.

Tom and Wizard Lenin grow to loathe each other with every passing moment. Wizard Lenin realizes Tom is hopelessly infatuated with what he sees as Lily Lite, has little to no perspective, and is an overemotional mess. Tom, for his own part, sees that Wizard Lenin and Lily are alarmingly close, sees Lily as a more crass Harry with absolutely no sense of propriety, and finds his older counterpart passionless and pathetic.

Harry and Lily, similarly, completely fail to see eye to eye and despite getting over the time travel hurdle rather quickly (Lily having figured it out in a second) realize they have vastly different world views. Lily cares greatly for the fate and happiness of a select few, but has no loyalty to the world or any noble cause. Lily would gladly let the muggleborn population suffer if it meant Wizard Lenin’s happiness, she doesn’t believe it does, but she’ll let him figure that out for himself. Harry, naturally, is horrified by this as she’s the opposite. She cares greatly for the world as a whole but has more trouble connecting to people individually and will allow her relationships to fray in the face of just cause. That, and Harry likes quidditch, which is clearly unforgiveable.

Wizard Lenin and Lily likely then meet, going over their various disappointments and what they might have expected. They conclude that they gave it a good try but maybe it’s just time to go and take over England already. Or, you know, go on vacation or something. Lily’s always wanted to go and terraform the moon, you know.

Harry and Tom have a similar moment, probably being angsty teens that they are give into hormones after Tom says something ridiculous yet romantic. They’re then abruptly thrown out of the palace by Lily who tells them good luck and good riddance and if they’re looking for England it’s across the channel.

Harry and Tom enter the chaos that is “Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus:

Via ancient magical ritual gone terribly wrong, prancing fairies, or what have you Harry and Tom find themselves whisked to the wrong future. Harry, naturally at first is delighted (and panicked as Tom isn’t supposed to be here) then really panicked as Tom being here seems to have changed everything. Tom, meanwhile, is just hopelessly confused and alarmed realizing that his future has passed by in a blink of an eye.

In a hopeless daze of depression the pair try to enter Hogwarts. Dumbledore, on meeting them, is alarmed and confused but for his own purposes that are filled with so many spoilers we’re not going to touch them, allows them entrance into Hogwarts.

There they meet what Harry figures is the her that somehow comes about with Tom Riddle MIA for fifty years. Although why Tom Riddle disappearing would produce red hair is beyond her. Naturally Harry wants to know and compare herself against this alternate self and quickly finds herself frustrated and alarmed as Lily is… Lily. Lily is at once vastly more powerful than Harry, far more intelligent, but callous and indifferent to the fate of the world. This Harry clearly does not have a people saving thing, Harry concludes.

Lily, meanwhile, is weirded out but again figures it out fairly quickly being a connoiseur of the strange and unnatural. She tries to judge what kind of Tom Riddle she’ll be dealing with today as well as what her other self might have up her sleeve and want. Lily reports back to Wizard Lenin but also endeavors to keep an eye on the pair as, if they’re anything like her, then Harry is undyingly loyal to Tom and Tom Riddle has plans for this place that will not align with Wizard Lenin’s or the good of Hogwarts.

Harry tries and fails to befriend her old buddies, who are for one reason or another in Lily’s camp, and only manages to get close to Ron who for the most part hisses and spits about Eleanor Lily Potter and how he once thought she was so cool.

Tom is mistaken frequently for Lenin Rabbitson’s dark haired evil twin, or else Lenin Rabbitson with a dye job, and finds himself very annoyed while also intrigued by this and does some digging into the Rabbitson brother’s mysterious and horrific past (told by Wizard Lenin in Defense one day in an effort to shut Lockhart up already). 

He also tries and fails to figure out who picked up the mantle of Voldemort if he himself wasn’t there. Eventually he finds Tom’s special award for the school and NEWT exam records, and realizes that somehow, a Tom Riddle was in fact left behind even as he was whisked ahead. He has this mysterious doppelganger out there stealing his name and his future. Tom doesn’t take this well.

Lily tries and fails to befriend the pair, working on assumptions that just aren’t true, and eventually ends in a kind of uneasy truce with the pair of them as they realize that to learn anything of importance all of them have to get closer to one another.

Wizard Lenin, stressed from his ongoing campaign while also intrigued, probably sets up a meeting to meet the pair for himself. During a Hogsmeade trip he meets Tom Riddle and it’s a very surreal encounter in which, according to magical lore, Tom Riddle is facing the omen of his own demise. They end up dueling to the death.

Harry and Lily end up intervening, each taking their respective Tom Riddle’s side, and the story would then likely end with this faceoff unresolved.

TL;DR

None of them would get along at all.

[mdelpin]

Metaphorical Dreams of a Broken Soul - Chapter 2

Gratsu Bingo 2019, Gratsu Week 2019 Prompt: Breath(e) AO3 | FF.Net | Ch 1

Metaphorical Dreams of a Broken Soul

Chapter 2

Gray's eyes opened to pitch darkness. His breathing was ragged, his heart beating so fast it pained his chest. He sat up slowly, cradling his face in the palm of his hand until he felt himself free of the nightmare's hold on him.

He allowed himself a few minutes to calm down before thinking about what had happened. He’d had that nightmare more times than he cared to remember and until today it had always been the same. Why the hell had Natsu shown up? It was bad enough to see Ur or his parents sacrifice themselves for him, but fucking Natsu? That was a nightmare in and of itself.

He could still see the cocky expression on the idiot’s face when he ran off to fight Deliora. It was just like him too, rushing in without a single thought in his head as to the consequences.

Even though Gray's breathing had evened out, he still couldn't get Natsu's final screams out of his head.

Fuck! He didn’t need this.

Gray wanted to get up and go check on Natsu, just to make sure he was okay even though he knew it was stupid. It was just a dream, it wasn’t real. But those screams wouldn’t stop echoing in his head.

Fuck!

He decided to go out for a walk, and if he happened to pass by Natsu's room, well, that was just a coincidence. It wasn't like he actually cared what happened to him. Once he was assured the idiot was fine, he exited the dorm and spent a few hours walking around Magnolia, trying to make himself tired enough to fall back asleep.

Xxx

Gray had told himself it was a one-time thing. A fluke caused by him following Natsu on his first solo job to make sure he was okay. That had been true for about a week, but now, Natsu had become a permanent fixture of his nightmare. And every time it happened, Gray had to watch Deliora kill his friend. He'd lost count of the number of times he'd woken up to the sound of Natsu's screams ringing in his ears after being forced to watch Natsu disintegrate.

He was having trouble sleeping, and it was making him irritable, especially against the one he held responsible for his misery. Gray knew he was being unfair, it wasn't like Natsu had placed himself there on purpose, but there were just so many times he could watch Natsu die before he had to admit that a part of him also died each time it happened. He loved Ur and his parents deeply, but they only existed in his memories, Natsu was someone he saw every day.

And that confused him. Why Natsu? Why not Erza or Cana? He'd known them longer, and frankly, they were much more pleasant.

No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't come up with a rational explanation. But all of these thoughts naturally made him more aware of Natsu. He started noticing little things that needed improving, stupid stuff like shaky stances and wild punches because whether he admitted it to himself or not, he'd now developed an actual fear that one day Natsu would no longer be there and just maybe it would be his fault.

Still, he told himself it had nothing to do with him being concerned about Natsu. No, it was just that Gray was better at these things, and it was his responsibility as a fellow guild member to correct these weaknesses.

Gray provoked fights as often as he could, pushing them both to become ever stronger. But of course, this only worked when Erza wasn’t around. She was determined they be friends even if she had to knock their heads together to accomplish it. While it had given them a healthy fear of Erza, it hadn’t really helped their own friendship any.

She would force them together at any opportunity, and Gray began to wonder if she was using them as an excuse to ease her own loneliness. The three of them couldn't be any more different. Probably the only things they had in common was a dark past and their love of fighting, and fight they did.

But they also played, as more and more kids joined the guild, Jiichan was determined to give them as regular of a childhood as he could provide them. Especially given their pasts. So in between jobs, there were trips to the beach and picnics during holidays or special events. There were parties for birthdays and to celebrate accomplishments. They became a family in every sense of the word, but still Gray kept Natsu at a distance.

He never invited Natsu to go on jobs with him, even though he knew how much Natsu preferred to go on missions with others. Even though he thought it might actually be fun for the two of them to fight together for a change. It was a risk he wasn’t willing to take.

And that’s the way things would have continued if the universe weren’t set against him. But it was. How much more evidence did he need? All it took was one job to change everything.

Erza showed up one day carting a ridiculous horn, and to everyone's shock asked Natsu and Gray to help her out on a job. That had quite simply never happened before, and even though they both tried to get out of it, there was no real way they could say no to Erza.

Despite all of Gray's attempts at keeping his distance from Natsu, they'd ended up being on a team together.

Gray had had a bad feeling about the job from the start. It didn’t help that he’d had that stupid nightmare the night before or that the new girl, Lucy, had tagged along. He didn’t know much about her, but he felt a slight resentment towards her for taking up so much of Natsu’s time. Time that Natsu would have otherwise spent fighting with him.

Erza had sent the two of them after the leader of a dark guild, and they'd decided to split up to be able to cover more ground. It was the right decision, but as Gray looked at Natsu's retreating back, he found himself whispering, "Don't die on me" like some lovesick girl.

He found he didn't care, watching Natsu walk away from him had been hard. The genuine fear that something would happen to the Fire Dragon Slayer just for being on a mission with him was an old one and not one he could quickly dispel. His mind immediately going to the last few seconds of his dream. It didn't help that ultimately the villain they'd had to fight was another Demon of Zeref.

But Gray was older now and stronger. Between him, Natsu and Erza they'd been able to defeat the demon made out of Living Magic with ease. And that was a turning point for him.

It took him a while to get used to the idea, but it turned out that unlike what he'd feared initially, being able to keep an eye on Natsu helped calm his anxiety. It also allowed him to do something he never thought he'd want to do. Observe Natsu outside of the guild.

To his amazement, there was a lot more to Natsu than he'd ever given him credit for. Sure he was an annoying cocky asshole, who whined if he didn't get his way, and was utterly useless in a vehicle, but he was also surprisingly kind.

Natsu considered everyone a friend unless they proved themselves otherwise. He was also very forgiving, and when he wasn't afflicted with excess energy or motion sickness, he could be a lot of fun to hang out with. He was incredibly creative as a fighter, able to think his way through difficult opponents and find ways to turn his perceived weaknesses into strengths, and that was something that Gray admired, even if he was loath to admit it.

A more troubling development to Gray was that he found himself admiring Natsu more than was considered normal between friends. Because of the dreaded dream, he'd not only turned Natsu into the most important person in his life for the last seven years but somewhere along the way he'd begun to care for him as well. To want to keep him close, and to do other things he was afraid to acknowledge, not liking what it might say about him.

But Gray was not one to lie to himself, and he'd certainly never felt that way about any of the girls in the guild. In fact, Gray had the nagging suspicion he might be gay.

He was slowly coming to terms with the idea. He hadn't talked to anyone about it, although he had a feeling that Erza had her suspicions. And of course, he had no idea which way Natsu swung, which made everything even more complicated. What did it mean when Lucy hung all over Natsu, and he didn't respond?

With Erza gone on a mission, Gray decided to step back from team jobs until she returned and do some soul searching, figure out what the hell he was feeling and what if anything he wanted to do about it.

He wasn’t troubled when Natsu and Lucy were absent from the guild when he arrived. He figured they’d have gone on a job to make some rent money for Lucy.

He sat in his usual spot at the bar, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. He was actually relaxing when Mira noticed an S-Class mission was missing. And then Laxus mentioned he'd seen Happy flying out the window of the forbidden second floor with a piece of paper.

Makarov asked Laxus to go fetch them before they got in over their heads and when the S-Class Mage refused Gray volunteered to go in his stead, hiding his rage so Makarov wouldn’t have a reason to deny his request.

Gray rushed to the port city of Hargeon, knowing they'd have to hire a boat to get to the island that had put in the job request. Finding them without much effort, he tried to convince them to come back before they were expelled, or even worse, Erza came looking for them.

He thought he’d been angry when he’d learned about Natsu’s recklessness. That was nothing compared to how he felt now that he’d come to in a boat after the moron had knocked him out and tied him up, determined to continue his mission no matter what.

And Gray could feel himself getting sucked into that smile, and those eyes and the unspoken challenge.

Xxx

"It's impossible!" Gray's voice came out in a whisper. They'd fallen into a cave that lay underneath some ancient ruins they'd found while exploring the island, looking for anything that might help them break the curse the island seemed to be under. Not surprisingly, Natsu's recklessness had caused the fall.

Gray still couldn't believe what he was looking at, and he couldn't stop staring. The creature from his nightmares, the one he'd thought had been moved to a glacier somewhere off the Northern Continent was in front of him, its features still in a hideous snarl. Just what had Natsu gotten them into? And Gods, why was Natsu here?

The logical part of his brain understood that Deliora was locked away and in no position to hurt Natsu or anyone, but the panicked part of him that had watched Natsu die more times than he cared to count was freaking out.

“How?”

Just how did Deliora even get to this small island? While he was filled with the familiar dread, he found he almost wanted to touch that ice. To feel his Master, who had given her life to seal his darkness. She'd been forced to cast Iced Shell, turning her body and will into a prison of unmeltable ice.

It had been the only way to defeat the demon, Gray knew that. But it had hurt, and it still haunted him. So much had changed for him since that day, but the guilt he felt at causing his Master's death had never gone away.

“You know what that is?” Lucy asked, her voice full of curiosity.

Gray nodded, not trusting himself to answer yet, his brain jumbled as all his thoughts and fears fought each other for control.

“Are you okay?” Natsu’s concerned gaze warmed Gray’s heart until he realized there was no reason for it.

Why was Natsu looking at him like that? The only person in the guild that knew anything about what happened to him was Jiichan, and Gray knew he'd never tell anyone. There was something else, having watched Natsu so closely all these years he could easily recognize when Natsu was feeling guilty about something.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Gray responded, feeling puzzled and already trying to think of reasons why Natsu might be feeling guilty. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Uhm, no reason,” Natsu looked away and stared at the monster in the ice and then back at Gray again, and now Lucy and Happy were also looking at the Fire Dragon Slayer strangely.

“Flame Brain?”

Natsu ignored him and asked in what passed as quietly for him, “What is that thing?”

Gray stared at him for a moment longer, still trying to make sense of what was going on. It would have to wait though, figuring out why Deliora was here was more important.

"Its name is Deliora. Ten years ago it went around the Northern Continent, destroying everything in its path. No one knew where it came from or how to stop it." Gray's voice sounded flat as he attempted to distance himself from the events that had changed his life so completely.

“My Master, Ur, gave her life to trap it in a prison of unmeltable ice. I don’t understand, it should be hundreds of miles from here.” Gray looked at his friends, his brow furrowed as he tried to work out the problem in front of them.

“We should keep exploring, “ Lucy suggested, “Maybe we can find something that can help explain this.”

“You guys can go explore if you want,” Gray revealed, “I’m going to stay here until the moon comes out. The villagers said the curse had something to do with the moon. It can’t be a coincidence.”

Natsu, Lucy, and Happy began to argue about what to do but having already made his decision, Gray tuned them out.

He sat across from the large block of ice and stared at it with hatred. He knew he was being ridiculous, but he didn't want to take his eyes off the demon. Just as he was beginning to travel through his memories, he felt someone sit next to him. He assumed it would be Lucy wanting to ask a lot of questions, but to his surprise, it was Natsu.

"Okay, that's it," Gray snapped, happy to redirect his frustration to something else. "You're acting strange as hell. What's going on in that pea-sized brain of yours?"

"Nothing, can't a guy just offer support to his friend?" Natsu attempted to look offended at the question but failed miserably.

“Natsu?” Gray pressed, “I can’t help but notice that you were the only one who didn’t look surprised by what I said.”

“I was, I mean what happened in Isvan was terrible, I just process stuff differently,” Natsu sputtered.

“Funny, I never said anything about Isvan,” Gray’s eyes narrowed as he took in his friend’s discomfort.

“Uhm you didn’t?” Natsu laughed nervously as his fingers played with the fringes of his scarf in a gesture that Gray recognized all too well. “Pretty sure you did.”

"That's it!" Gray grabbed Natsu by his beloved scarf and pulled him closer to him, his other hand already shaped into a fist. "We've got hours to wait, and I'd love nothing better than to beat you into a pulp for getting us into this mess. So spill or else!"

“Guys, come on, we’re in the middle of a job,” Lucy tried to calm the situation down, “ Isn’t this reckless even for you?”

“Stay out of it!” Natsu and Gray yelled in unison.

“They wouldn’t be so high and mighty if Erza were here,” Lucy muttered to Happy making the cat snort in agreement.

Gray stared into Natsu’s eyes, catching the way they flickered away from him nervously before he was shoved away forcefully. “Fine, I’ll tell you.”

Natsu gazed down at his hands as he spoke, “I went into one of your dreams.”

“What are you talking about?” Gray was panicking, which dream had Natsu seen? “How is that even possible?”

“Look, don’t get mad, okay?” Natsu pleaded, “It was a spell I learned from a book. It was supposed to be a prank. I just wanted to challenge you to a fight when you weren’t expecting it. I thought it would be funny.” Natsu looked miserable.

“But it wasn’t, it was terrible, and I -- I saw some of what happened back then,” Natsu admitted, “You probably don’t remember…”

“You think I don’t remember?” Gray retorted, his voice glacial as he tried to keep himself from pouncing at Natsu and beating the ever-living shit out of him for the blatant invasion of his privacy.

“I never did it again, I swear,” Natsu was quick to reassure him, “I don’t even remember how to do it anymore!”

“You asshole!” Gray seethed, and this time he did punch the moron in the jaw as hard as he could, and he felt no remorse whatsoever. “Do you have any idea what you did?”

Natsu rubbed his jaw, “Okay, I probably deserved that. What are you talking about?”

“Your stupid spell, it somehow changed my dream. For the last seven years, I’ve watched you give up your life for me. My nightmare turned into Deliora killing you!”

Natsu gaped at him, his mouth opening and closing like a fish until words finally came out, “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

"I was ten, I just thought it'd be funny. I wasn't expecting… and I felt bad about it ever since." Gray could hear the regret in Natsu's words, and he slowly began to calm down. He looked behind them to see Lucy and Happy staring at them in shock, neither seeming capable of saying anything.

“Can you guys give us a minute?”

“I’m not sure that’s such a great idea,” Lucy started before Natsu interrupted her.

"We'll be fine, just see if you can find anything more in the ruins, Happy can fly you back to us if you get into any trouble." Natsu smiled at her reassuringly, and Gray could feel the rumblings of jealousy in his stomach, but he ignored it.

They waited for Lucy and Happy to get far enough away before saying anything more, each needing the extra time to figure out how to proceed.

“If you felt so badly, why didn’t you tell me before?” Gray demanded angrily.

“How could I?” Natsu pointed out, “You’re so fucking private, it’s impossible to have that type of conversation with you. Besides, soon after that, you were only interested in using me as a punching bag.”

Gray sighed, knowing Natsu was telling the truth. He'd made it his personal mission to both make Natsu stronger and push him away. It was the only way he knew to keep him safe. "Fine, but just for the record, it would have been nice to know."

“Can I ask you something about the dream?” Natsu entreated, olive eyes pleading with Gray.

Gray thought about it and decided it couldn't hurt, with what he'd seen in the dream Natsu already knew more about his past than anyone else in the guild, barring Jiichan. There were some things he wanted to know too, and he wasn't sure they would get another chance to talk about it.

He nodded his head slowly waiting for Natsu’s question.

“There was one thing I never understood,” Natsu puzzled, “The blood on your hands that appeared out of nowhere. What was that about?”

Gray sucked in his breath, feeling like he’d been punched in the stomach. Damn instinctual lizard!

“I have a lot of blood on my hands, “ Gray tried to explain, “My mother and my father both died trying to protect me from that thing.”

Gray's voice oozed with hatred as he glared at the frozen demon, "And you've already seen what happened to my Master."

"And then I went and did the same thing," Natsu guessed, frowning as Gray confirmed it with a nod, "I'm so sorry Ice Block. You have to believe I never meant for this to happen."

Gray managed to chuckle, “I know, Pinky. You’re not smart enough to pull off something like this on purpose.”

“Hey!” Natsu grumbled, even though he knew the ice mage was right. He let the insult pass, not wanting to break the tentative truce they’d reached.

“My turn, why did you do it? You knew you were in a dream, it wasn’t real to you.”

“It was plenty real, seeing how you were acting made it real to me,” Natsu explained slowly making it seem to Gray like he was reliving the experience, the pain in his voice only reinforced that thought. “I couldn’t let it kill you, I had to protect you, just like you had been trying to protect me throughout the dream. I guess maybe we’re not all that different, huh?”

“I guess not.”

“Wait! Is the dream why you were such an asshole to me?”

“Partly. I wanted to make sure you were as strong as you could be,” Gray suddenly laughed mischievously, “ but you’re also annoying as fuck.”

Natsu grumbled, but Gray could see an amused smile on his lips, even as he muttered, "You're one to talk."

“Natsu, promise me that if we have to fight this thing, you won’t do what you did in the dream.”

“How about this?” Natsu hedged, “How about we try to do the one thing we didn’t try then?”

“You mean to fight it together?”

“Yeah, I mean we did pretty well against Lullaby,”

"Lullaby was weaker, and we had Erza with us," Gray pointed out, "Nothing against her, but I don't think any of Lucy's spirits are going to be strong enough to help if it came down to it."

Natsu snorted, “You really don’t think Erza will show up soon? They sent you to come get me, and we haven’t returned. Who do you think is going to be next?”

Gray thought about it and realized Natsu was right, odds were that Erza would get there soon and that could change many things, but only if she got there in time.

“I can’t watch you die again, Natsu,” Gray said honestly, “Not like that.”

“Stop looking at me like that,” Natsu complained.

“Like what?”

“Like you already think I’m going to die, I was ten back then. I’m a lot stronger now, so are you!” Natsu reminded him, “If this thing somehow comes back to life we’ll take it out, and whoever is behind this. We’re Fairy Tail, it’s what we do!”

They both grinned at that, feeling reassured by the familiar phrase. Natsu and Gray both sat down, keeping watch over Deliora together.

“Can I ask you one last thing?”

“Are you sure we can handle any more touchy-feely crap?” Gray snorted.

“You’re probably right,” Natsu agreed and went back to staring at the demon.

“Ugh, just ask. Now I’m curious.”

"Uhm okay, it's just that lately I've noticed you staring at me oddly, and your scent changes when you do. When I asked Erza about it, she said I should just ask you, but it never seemed like a good time."

Gray had been expecting all sorts of questions but not that one, and he could feel his cheeks flush with embarrassment at being caught ogling his friend. Shit! What was he supposed to say? This wasn't exactly the best time to confess his feelings, or was it? Deliora might kill them, and then he'd never know if his feelings might have been returned.

Natsu peered at him, looking confused once again as he sniffed the air.

“What is wrong with you? You look like Happy does when I catch him sneaking a fish…”

“Level with me, how far away are Lucy and Happy?”

Natsu lifted an eyebrow but did as Gray asked, sniffing the air some more, “Pretty far away, I can barely make out their scents.”

This was insanity, Gray knew it, but fortune favored the bold and all that bs that Jiichan loved to spout at them.

“Look, that dream messed me up, I spent a lot of time worrying about you, and then thinking about you and somewhere along the way I started to like you.”

“You... like me?” Natsu repeated the words slowly, like someone who was trying to understand a difficult passage in a book. His face scrunched in disbelief as he peered over at Gray.

Gray nodded, and he could feel his face changing colors once again, making him wish he hadn’t said anything because he had no idea what Natsu’s response meant.

“Well, aren’t you going to make fun of me?” Gray snapped when the minutes passed without Natsu saying anything.

“Why would I make fun of you for that?” Natsu stared at Gray with a perplexed expression, “I’m just trying to wrap my head around it, I mean you have to admit you act like you barely tolerate my existence most of the time.”

Gray scratched the back of his head, “This is… confusing for me. I’ve never thought of another guy this way, or girl really, so I’ve been kind of fighting it.”

"You shouldn't fight your feelings. You are what you are, and nothing will change that. Igneel used to say that to me all the time, and now I'm saying it to you." Natsu smiled at Gray, his tone encouraging but his gaze sad as he mentioned his long lost father.

"That sounds wise for an overgrown lizard," Gray retorted, trying desperately to lighten the tone of their conversation. They were already surrounded by his past, and now Natsu was bringing up his. "What else did he have to say?"

“He said that when I fell in love, I should fall in love with the person, regardless of the body they were in.”

“Didn’t realize dragons were so liberal.” Gray smiled.

“I still miss him, you know,” Natsu said with a sigh.

“I know,” Gray said simply, “I miss my parents and Ur too, but hey at least you might see him again someday.”

“You think so?”

"I know so, you're too stubborn to ever give up," Gray smirked as he took a chance and ruffled Natsu's hair roughly, trying to get a rise out of him, "It's one of the things I like about you."

"How did you know you liked me?" Natsu asked seriously.

"I, uhm, think about you a lot, and I worry about you being safe, and sometimes just thinking about some of the things you do brings a smile to my face," Gray answered, feeling incredibly embarrassed but sensing that Natsu was trying to sort through something. "I want to feel closer to you and do things like hug you when you're upset. Uhm, and finding you attractive was sort of a big hint too."

“Is that what that is?” Natsu looked at him with amazement.

Gray nodded, expecting Natsu to realize that’s how he felt about Lucy. He looked back to Deliora, not wanting to see the moment Natsu realized he liked someone else.

“I guess I like you too then,” Natsu surprised Gray by wrapping him up in a fiery embrace.

“All those things you said, I feel them too.” Natsu let go of Gray before the ice mage even had a chance to register what was happening. He grinned cheerfully as he asked, “So, does this mean you’re mine?”

Gray was still feeling embarrassed by the whole exchange, but he was able to nod in agreement.

"I haven't had someone of my very own since Igneel left," Natsu said happily, and Gray's heart melted at his innocence. He wanted to kiss him then but was stopped from doing so by a sword being pointed at his neck.

“You were supposed to bring the idiots back, not go with them,” Erza growled in displeasure, “I had to hijack a pirate ship to get here.”

Natsu and Gray turned to see Lucy and Happy bound and gagged behind a fuming Erza.

With the appearance of Erza, Gray found himself releasing a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding. He wasn't sure how the rest of this quest would pan out, but he did know that if it came down to it the three of them would be able to defeat Deliora like they had Lullaby. He would trust his friends to help him overcome his demons, instead of pushing them away like he'd done before.

And when all was said and done, he and Natsu would embark on their own adventure. Gray felt himself growing excited about his future for the first time since he was a child and looking at the ice that covered the demon he knew that wherever Ur was, she was glad.

A/N: I finished it, I’m not entirely thrilled with it but I know it’s the best I can do for now. Perhaps I’ll revisit it at a later time. Thank you to everyone who left me messages of encouragement. My husband has his first interview tomorrow, so hopefully, something will pan out soon. This is my last entry for Gratsu Week as my bonus day entry has already been posted. Thank you so much for reading!