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butterflies-dragons · 4 years

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You’ll Be Queen One Day

This is something I wanted to say about the current debate of Queen Sansa.

For a big faction of the fandom, Queen Sansa is only D&D fan fiction and that won’t be Sansa’s endgame in the Books. ¡¡¡NEVER!!!

According to Bryan Cogman, the man named by GRRM himself as the Keeper of the Lore, hints of Sansa’s Show endgame as Queen in the North were there since the Pilot Episode back in Season One:

BRYAN COGMAN: In the pilot, Sansa’s main function was informing members of her family and the audience that the only thing she wanted was to get out of Winterfell and go live in the big city and become queen—except a very different kind of queen than the one she ended up being. So Sansa’s storyline was always meant to have a note of triumph at the end, especially after all that she went through in the middle of the series. It was appropriate that she came full circle at the end. She was the only Stark left in Winterfell and leads the North into this new chapter. She’s the best hope for the North’s future.

—Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon: Game of Thrones and the Official Untold Story of the Epic Series by James Hibberd

"Winter Is Coming"

“In the pilot, Sansa’s main function was informing members of her family and the audience that the only thing she wanted was to get out of Winterfell and go live in the big city and become queen.”

Please take note that GRRM was very involved in the first four seasons of the Show. Especially the first one, he participated in the casting, he was part of the original pilot, he travelled to filming locations, he wrote one episode per season, etc.

Season 1, Episode 1: "Winter Is Coming". Directed by Tim Van Patten & Written by David Benioff & D. B. Weiss.

SANSA: Do you think Joffrey will like me? What if he thinks I’m ugly? CATELYN: Then he is the stupidest prince that ever lived. SANSA: He’s so handsome. [CATELYN rolls her eyes.] SANSA: When would we be married? Soon or do we have to wait? CATELYN: Hush now. Your father hasn’t even said yes. SANSA: Why would he say no? He’d be the second most powerful man in the kingdoms. CATELYN: He’d have to leave home. He’d have to leave me. And so would you. SANSA: You left your home to come here. And I’d be queen someday. Please make father say yes. CATELYN: Sansa… SANSA: Please, please. It’s the only thing I ever wanted.

Watch the scene here.

Curiously enough, the immediately previous scene was a scene of Dany, the one where she said to Viserys: “I don’t want to be his [Khal Drogo] Queen. I want to go home.” A scene straight from the Books:

"I don't want to be his queen," she heard herself say in a small, thin voice. "Please, please, Viserys, I don't want to, I want to go home."

—A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

What a contrast with Sansa’s scene!

But Sansa’s scene is not from the Books. We don’t have any scene between Sansa and Catelyn at Winterfell.

Sansa wanted romance more than being a monarch. She certainly was not opposed to marry a prince or a king, but her wishes were more about romance, being a Lady in a song, a wife of a gallant knight, and a mother of future ladies and gallant knights.

This is what happened in the Books:

“Honors?” Ned laughed bitterly.

“In his eyes, yes,” she said.

“And in yours?”

“And in mine,” she blazed, angry now. Why couldn’t he see? “He offers his own son in marriage to our daughter, what else would you call that? Sansa might someday be queen. Her sons could rule from the Wall to the mountains of Dorne. What is so wrong with that?”

“Gods, Catelyn, Sansa is only eleven,” Ned said. “And Joffrey … Joffrey is …”

She finished for him. “… crown prince, and heir to the Iron Throne. And I was only twelve when my father promised me to your brother Brandon.”

—A Game of Thrones - Catelyn II

"Joffrey likes your sister," Jeyne whispered, proud as if she had something to do with it. She was the daughter of Winterfell's steward and Sansa's dearest friend. "He told her she was very beautiful."

"He's going to marry her," little Beth said dreamily, hugging herself. "Then Sansa will be queen of all the realm."

Sansa had the grace to blush. She blushed prettily. She did everything prettily, Arya thought with dull resentment. "Beth, you shouldn't make up stories," Sansa corrected the younger girl, gently stroking her hair to take the harshness out of her words. She looked at Arya. "What did you think of Prince Joff, sister? He's very gallant, don't you think?"

—A Game of Thrones - Arya I

Catelyn pushed Ned to accept the betrothal while Sansa corrected Beth’s comment about her being Queen.

* * *

Later in the the Fourth Episode of the First Season, Cogman wrote a scene between Sansa and Septa Mordane where the septa says that Sansa will be Queen someday.

Again, this scene is not from the Books.

"Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things"

Season 1, Episode 4: "Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things". Directed by Brian Kirk & Written by Bryan Cogman.

SEPTA MORDANE: Someday your husband will sit there and you will sit by his side. And one day, before too long, you will present your son to the court. All the lords of Westeros will gather here to see the little prince... SANSA: What if I have a girl? SEPTA MORDANE: Gods be good, you'll have boys and girls and plenty of them. SANSA:What if I only have girls? SEPTA MORDANE: I wouldn't worry about that. SANSA:Jeyne Poole's mother had five children, all of them girls. SEPTA MORDANE: Yes, but it's highly unlikely. SANSA: But what if? SEPTA MORDANE: If you only had girls, I suppose the throne would pass to Prince Joffrey's little brother. SANSA: And everyone would hate me. SEPTA MORDANE: Nobody could ever hate you. SANSA: Joffrey does. SEPTA MORDANE: Nonsense. Why would you say such a thing? That business with the wolves? I've told you a hundred times... A direwolf is not... SANSA: Please shut up about it. SEPTA MORDANE: Do you remember your lessons? Who built the Iron Throne? SANSA: Aegon the Conqueror. SEPTA MORDANE: And who built the Red Keep? SANSA: Maegor the Cruel. SEPTA MORDANE: And how many years did it take to build... SANSA: My grandfather and uncle were murdered here, weren't they? SEPTA MORDANE: They were killed on the orders of King Aerys, yes. SANSA: The Mad King. SEPTA MORDANE: Commonly known as the Mad King. SANSA: Why were they killed? SEPTA MORDANE: You should speak to your father about these matters. SANSA: I don't want to speak to my father, ever. SEPTA MORDANE: You will find it in your heart to forgive your father. SANSA: No, I won't.

Watch the scene here.

* * *

Later in the the Sixth Episode of the First Season, there is a scene between Sansa and Joffrey where the prince says that Sansa will be Queen someday.

Once again, this scene is not from the Books.

"A Golden Crown"

Season 1, Episode 6: "A Golden Crown". Directed by Daniel Minahan. Story by David Benioff & D. B. Weiss & Teleplay written by : Jane Espenson and David Benioff & D. B. Weiss.

SEPTA MORDANE: My prince. SANSA: My prince. JOFFREY: My lady. I fear I have behaved monstrously the past few weeks. With your permission? Joffrey offers Sansa a necklace. She turns around, for him to put it on her, as acceptance. SANSA: It’s beautiful. Like the one your mother wears. JOFFREY: You’ll be queen someday, it’s only fitting that you should look the part. Will you forgive me for my rudeness? SANSA: There’s nothing to forgive. JOFFREY: You’re my lady. One day we’ll be married in the throne room. Lords and ladies from all over the Seven Kingdoms will come, from the last hearth in the North, to the salt shore of the south. And you will be queen over all of them. I’ll never disrespect you again. I’ll never be cruel to you again. Do you understand me? You’re my lady now, from this day, until my last day. The two share their first kiss.

Watch the scene here.

I think that Sansa & Septa Mordane scene and Sansa & Joffrey scene were written from this Book scene:

“The king is dead.” Sansa could not say how she knew it, yet she did. The slow, endless clanging filled their room, as mournful as a dirge. Had some enemy stormed the castle and murdered King Robert? Was that the meaning of the fighting they had heard?

She went to sleep wondering, restless, and fearful. Was her beautiful Joffrey the king now? Or had they killed him too? She was afraid for him, and for her father. If only they would tell her what was happening …

That night Sansa dreamt of Joffrey on the throne, with herself seated beside him in a gown of woven gold. She had a crown on her head, and everyone she had ever known came before her, to bend the knee and say their courtesies.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa IV

So far we have:

Sansa: “And I’d be queen someday.”

Septa Mordane: “Someday your husband will sit there [Iron Throne] and you will sit by his side.”

Joffrey: “You’ll be queen someday.”

The Sansa and Joffrey scene even got his own theme, a song composed by Ramin Djawadi called:

You’ll Be Queen One Day

¿Why changing “Someday” for “One Day”? Maybe this curious detail means nothing... Maybe it means something... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Why reiterate some many times that Sansa will be Queen, if it was clear that Sansa was betrothed with the Crown Prince Joffrey Baratheon, the Heir of the Iron Throne? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“—except a very different kind of queen than the one she ended up being.”

This is not the first time that Cogman alluded of that old say that says: “Be careful what you wish for” in regards of Sansa. He said something similar about Sansa’s arc in Season Five, specifically her marriage with Ramsay Bolton.

Basically, when we decided to combine Sansa’s storyline with another character in the books it was done with the idea that it would be hugely dramatically satisfying to have Sansa back in her occupied childhood home and navigate this Gothic horror story she’s found herself in and, of course, to be reunited with Theon – setting her on the path to reclaiming her family home and becoming a major player in the big overall story.

This stupid line “hugely dramatically satisfying” is BS of course. Men..........

I have the impression that after they run out of canon material, D&D, Cogman and all, decided to recycle old plots. Here with Sansa, they basically gave her ANOTHER ONE GOTHIC HORROR STORY.

Since they didn’t like Sansa’s Vale plot as Alayne Stone, they gave Sansa “another lesson” like Kings Landing and Joffrey: “Be careful what you wish for”.

Sansa wished for a Southern Courtly Life with her Prince in Kingslading, and she got a Ghotic Horror Story.

Sansa started to wish to return North, to Winterfell, to her Home, and D&D, Cogman and all decided to gave her Ghotic Horror Story 2.0 in Winterfell with Ramsay. Sexual abuse included. Men..........

GRRM uses “Be careful what you wish for” theme very often, you just need to read his tale: “In The Lost Lands” or re-read Cersei’s story with Maggie the Frog. And as I just mentioned, Sansa’s wishes for a life at court in the south with her gallant Prince Joffrey. But D&D are just... not so good adapters.

“So Sansa’s storyline was always meant to have a note of triumph at the end, especially after all that she went through in the middle of the series.”

¿How the majority of the fandom interpret these Cogman’s words? This way: “Queen Sansa is a reward for Sansa’s Season Five arc.”

But Season One is four seasons before Season Five, and there were hints since the Pilot Episode...

The fandom: SANSA WILL NEVER BE QUEEN, ¡¡¡NEEEVEER!!!

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

“It was appropriate that she came full circle at the end. She was the only Stark left in Winterfell and leads the North into this new chapter. She’s the best hope for the North’s future.”

Full Circle: From wanting to be Queen consort in the South to be the Queen in the North, by her own right.

Sansa’s Show endgame is also very in line with characters getting what they wished for but not in the way they thought. That is like the bit that follows: “Be careful what you wish for” = “You might just get it.” Seriously, go and read GRRM’s tale: “In The Lost Lands.” You can thank me later.

Please also take note that GRRM has repeatedly said that:

Sansa is a major character. Part of the core that dominates the story.

He knows the endgame of the major characters for decades.

You can read more here.

So, if Queen Sansa is only D&D fan fiction, then WHOA! They planned it all since the very beginning, since the pilot episode itself. How surprising! Especially since GRRM was very involved in the Show back then.

D&D wrote the pilot: “Sansa’s main function was informing members of her family and the audience that the only thing she wanted was to get out of Winterfell and go live in the big city and become queen.” AND GRRM LET THEM.

Cogman wrote a scene that was not from the Books where Septa Mordane says that Sansa will be Queen someday. AND GRRM LET THEM.

D&D wrote a scene that was not from the Books where Joffrey says that Sansa will be Queen someday. AND GRRM LET THEM.

D&D commissioned Ramin Djawadi to compose a theme for Sansa called: “You’ll Be Queen ONE Day,” for Sansa and Joffrey scene. AND GRRM LET THEM.

D&D wrote that Sansa’s Show endgame was being crowned Queen in the North. AND GRRM LET THEM.

And if you wanna read about Queen Sansa from the Books, please read these posts: Here and Here.

Good night.

#Sansa Stark #The North Remembers #Queen in The North #Game of Thrones #ASOIAF #GRRM

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nimsajlove · 3 years

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road to recovery (II/?)

Second part, I dont really know WHAT this is. But it still ended up here, so you jugde it.

Ao3 Brothers-AU Part I , Part III

*~*

„That's it for today, let's set up the camp.“, Cody instructed over the com, general relief and approval got back to him and the men crashed down, right where they were standing. The few shinys they had with them were careful to set up the tents immediately. The older clones watched them for a few seconds, amused, and Cody finally took pity on them. „Put that stuff away and sit down for a moment. This is not going to be rated by anyone.“, he instructed the younger ones and reluctantly they let go of their tasks.

Cody watched with a smile as the men gathered in groups to take a few minutes to breath, he was about to do the same and had just put his backpack down when his communicator flashed. Huh, so was the cruiser back? Unusual, the Admiral had planned to stay away for at least two more rotations. He took the call, an unexpected voice greeted him. „Commander Cody, I hope it's going well with the new men.“ It sounded like Plo Koon was smiling. Cody was never quite sure about that, the General rarely sounded worried or restless. He always seemed to be at peace. „General Plo Koon, what can I do for you?“, Cody answered and decided that he could sit down despite the conversation. „Nothing for me Commander, but I'm here to do a favor for Ahsoka.“, Plo Koon admitted. Ah, things got a little clearer now. Cody didn't know much about what Ahsoka had to do in the Jedi Temple. But he knew she hadn't left the temple walls in weeks. A message from Rex, full of concern for the young woman, had also made Cody thoughtful. „She convinced the council to send Kenobi back to you. The shuttle is just getting ready to take off.“, Plo Koon explained when Cody didn't react immediately.

That was good! Even if this was more of an enjoyable hunt than a battlefield, the presence of the General would lift the spirits of the men even further. Hardly thought through, a fine drizzle set in and sullenly Cody glanced up at the darkening sky, which peered through the canopy of leaves. In a short period of time, the rain would continue to pick up and guaranteed not to stop at night. It made the nights on that moon surprisingly cold. The men around him began to pitch the tents and Cody remembered the blank look General Kenobi had had when he left a few days ago. „Is there anything I and the men should watch out for?“, Cody asked and he heard a low murmur on the other end, was that Wolffe? „I think you will know best how to handle him, that is all.“, Plo Koon replied. „Got it, General.“, Cody muttered thoughtfully and cut the connection. That was... not particularly helpful. So was Kenobi's condition unchanged?

Cody was about to take off his helmet when a message appeared. Cody fixed the little icon and it opened.

‚The General is not sure himself. Tano seems to be the only one to know whats going on.‘

So Wolffe was there after all! It was disturbing that the Jedi could not assess the condition of one of their own. On the other hand, it was kind of nothing new after so many suicide missions they had sent Kenobi on... If Kenobi was still as moody and slow as he was a few days ago, then Cody had to keep as much stress away from him as possible . He looked around, took off his helmet and put it next to his backpack. Then he went to help with the tents.

*~*

The last tent was up, the rain had gotten heavier and pattered relentlessly on Cody's helmet. Even though he was leaning directly against a tree. He wondered briefly if he should wait outside any longer, when a noise caught his attention. He looked up hastily and took a few steps away from the tree, a shuttle flew over the camp and landed in the small clearing on the edge of which Cody was standing. As soon as it touched down, the door opened and the ramp extended.

Kenobi wasn't the first figure Cody saw. In fact, it was a different, familiar face. Echo took a step forward on the ramp before waiting and looking back. The Jedi appeared behind him, Cody saw at first glance that his condition had only worsened. He moved slowly, his shoulders pulled forward and his hands hanging limply by his sides. Kenobi followed Echo and as he approached, Cody saw the deep shadows under the Jedi's eyes. „General.“, Cody greeted him carefully and Kenobi nodded once. Echo approached Cody and handed him a datapad, so was he just a messenger? „Wolffe had asked me to accompany him, and on the occasion Ahsoka thought I would give you all the information about the enemy positions that she could find here.“, the ARC explainedand although his calm voice sounded forced. There was deep concern in his eyes. It was clear that Kenobi's condition had caught his eye too. „Thanks, I'll take care of everything.“, Cody muttered, taking another look at his General, Echo nodded and turned back. Cody waited until he disappeared into the shuttle and took off again. Only then did he fully turn to Kenobi.

On closer inspection, the General didn't just look tired. His cheeks looked thinner than a few weeks ago. A development that he had been watching concerned for some time. And nothing seemed to have improved in his absence! The reddish hair stuck close to Kenobis skull, the rain had soaked the General in no time. An annoying quirk of the place, Cody liked it less and less. Maybe he should just make sure that Kenobi got dry as soon as possible... „Sir, we've set up a place to sleep for you.“, Cody started carefully and when the Jedi slowly nodded, he waited. But instead of answering, he just pulled a stiff hand from the folds of his cloak and told Cody to go ahead. He did so hesitantly, every few steps he glanced over his shoulder. The General didn't walk right next to him, as usual. No, he trudged a few steps behind Cody, placing his feet so unevenly that Cody feared he would fall. Where was the great General Kenobi? This was worse than any injury, any period of insomnia Kenobi had had during the war. And Cody knew exactly when the Jedi was sleeping and when not! He had spent an eternity studying Obi Wan Kenobi and knew the difference between a wakeful look and the soft shadows that did not disappear even after long meditation.

Kenobi didn't even look like he was meditating at the moment. He was just... empty. From the glassy gaze that was dull on the floor to the sagging shoulders. Oh, thank the maker that the men were already in their tents. Cody himself probably wouldn't sleep that night, he had sacrificed his tent for his General and would just make sure that the Jedi would actually sleep. Then he would find a nice tree for himself, hide from the rain, and study Ahsoka's plans. This was exactly how the evening would go and no different!

Cody quickly threw these plans overboard when he opend the entry of the tent and Kenobi looked at him confused. „This is not my tent.“, stated the Jedi, so he was still mentally present after all. Impressive. „Right Sir, this is mine. We don't have yours with us, so you will stay here.“, Cody explained and when Kenobi still looked at him confused, without moving, he reconsidered his judgment on the General's condition. His eyes seemed even more glassy than a few moments ago. And he was still wet. Sighing, Cody put a hand on the Jedi's shoulder and pushed him into the tent, then locked the entrance behind him. There was a soft splash and Cody whirled around, Kenobi was sitting on the floor in his wet clothes and didn't seem to notice that he was shaking.

Great, Plo Koon could have mentioned that Kenobi's condition had gotten worse. A little uncertainly, Cody took off his helmet and put it on the floor next to the entrance so that he wouldn't forget it later. Kenobi shifted a bit and whatever he was trying to do, it seemed to cost energy. The tremors got worse, if Cody didn't intervene... „Sir, we put a set of Blacks aside for you.“, Cody muttered and approached his General, he had noticed that Kenobi was traveling without luggage. Again. Cody would contact the Admiral at the earliest opportunity to get some things from Kenobi's quarters. Kenobi didn't react, so he put a hand on the Jedi's shoulder and squeezed lightly, he looked up. At least something! „It's okay, I just have to keep an eye on her...“, the Jedi muttered. Cody didn't understand any of it. Wow, something new. Couldn't the Jedi speak clearly? But this was HIS Jedi, so it would be worth a try… „Her?“, Cody asked carefully and crouched down so he brought himself to Kenobi's eye level. The General's gaze seemed far away. „Ahsoka.“ So that was the simple answer, Kenobi wanted to keep protecting her despite the huge distance between him and Ahsoka Tano? There was no longer any reason to do so, the war was over and Ahsoka was bound to new duties in the temple. At least for now. Besides, the girl was great at taking care of herself!

Cody sent a quick prayer to whoever and asked for a little more patience, this would probably be his job for quite some time. Taking care of his lost Jedi. He had to admit there were worse things than getting your own General back on his feet. But there was something in him that didn't like it when Kenobi looked at him blankly. It almost hurt. He knew the feeling, mostly it occurred when Kenobi was floating in a bacta tank for more than 24 hours and Cody had no choice but to trust the technology and medics. Maybe it was the helplessness that always came over him. Maybe not. There were more important puzzles to be solved now. For example, whether the death of Skywalker really had grown such strong fear of loss in Kenobi. Cody eyed his General one more time and decided, yes. „She is in the temple, safe. As soon as she moves, Rex knows it.“, Cody tried to get rid of the fear. Chaos in his head, infinite calm in his voice. He had always been able to do that. Kenobi still didn't move, okay. Fine. Then Cody would have to resort to good old trooper methods now. “I'm sorry Sir, you are not a shiny. But you act like one, so…”, Cody muttered, reaching with his hands under Kenobi's arms, heaving him back onto his feet. The Jedi swayed briefly, then caught himself and rubbed his face with one hand. That was still soaking wet! Kriff.

With one hand, Cody supported Kenobi at the elbow, he didn't trust the Jedi's legs, with the other he grabbed the clothes that he had put aside for the General. Ah, a medic had been so free to contribute a towel. Very nice. "Change, now.", instructed Cody and indeed his command tone seemed to get through to Kenobi. With still stiff hands the Jedi tried to open the outer robe, no chance. Cody knew that since an injury on such a stupid chunk of ice of planet, Kenobi's hands had been reluctant to cooperate on bad days. Today was a bad day, and Cody dared to say the worst of them all. Sighing, he put the things on the nearby bunk before he began to help the Jedi with quick fingers. If another member of the Order entered this tent now, he would find himself in serious need of explanation as a Commander. But, luckily for him, Kenobi was the only Jedi around in the system. So it was easy to get him out of his layered robes quickly. Hey, the undershirt was dry. That was at least something. Cody quickly took the black top from the bunk, held it open with his hands and held it so that Kenobi only had to stick his arms and head into it. He looked up briefly and when he met the confused and tired gaze of the Jedi, Cody's thoughts suddenly smoothed out. How many of his men had looked at him like that at least once? He never thought that it would be his own General's turn at some point. Even though he was taller than Cody, he looked so small and confused. „It's okay, I'll help you. Okay?“, Cody muttered, this time his gentle tone echoing the tenor of his thoughts. This was perhaps more familiar to him than he had initially thought. Kenobi slowly reached out his hands and Cody helped him into the top with a gentle smile. Well, that looked a lot better than the wet robes. Cody was glad that Kenobi wasn't that much bigger than the clones, otherwise they would have had serious problems finding clothes.

When Kenobi's head came back into his visual he blinked a few times and his eyes seemed clearer. „I am sorry Commander.“, he muttered, and Cody felt a small flicker of pride. He had made part of the way, Kenobi sought contact with him on his own initiative. That was good, for Cody it was a sign that the initial shock had been overcome. Well, better late than never. Right? „It's okay.“, he muttered and directed Kenobi to the bunk, there he pressed the black pants into the Jedi's hand. „You can do that?“, he asked and couldn't hide the slightly teasing tone. Kenobi nodded, satisfied Cody straightened up again and began to dispose of all weapons, carefully stacking them next to his helmet. Because no matter how calm and familiar the whole thing was, watching his General was definitely not appropriate. Only when Kenobi sat down again with a sigh, Cody glanced back and smiled contentedly, he came back over to the bunk and grabbed the towel. And while Kenobi stared a little annoyed at his unruly hands, Cody began carefully to dry the Jedi's wet hair. Well, as good as possible with a towel. „Cody?“, Kenobi asked softly. „Mhm?“ „Why did that happen?“ Ah, at this point they have been allready a few weeks ago, the Jedi seemed to keep spinning in circles. And Cody followed, of course, and was ready to have that conversation again. Until Kenobi would break out of this cycle. „Because Sidius planned it that way.“, he muttered his answer, waiting and knowing Kenobi would ponder Sidius now. About the failure of the Jedi. He had done that the last couple of times. „Was I a bad master?“ Cody paused, that was a different question than usual. He had no pre-planned answer for this one! Kriff. His pause seemed to prompt Kenobi to just keep babbling. „I should have saved him...“ „Sir...“ „Why was I so blind?“ „General?“ „I was his master and I betrayed him, like I left down Ahsoka before.“ „General Kenobi.“ „It was my fau-“ „Obi Wan!“

Cody grumpily took the towel down and stared at the Jedi, he had finally managed to break through Kenobi's senseless talk. He looked up at Cody with sad blue eyes. Cody wasn't exactly sure what he was up to. But gently straightening Obi Wan Kenobi's head seemed like a good option. „You are an excellent master. Ahsoka survived this war because she watched you just like she watched Skywalker. It's not your fault that your padawan chose a path, where you can't follow him.” Obi Wan blinked slowly, then looked down. Had Cody ruined today's little progress? He hoped not, to start all over again might get his patience to snap for today. But well... had there ever been anything Cody hadn't done for his General? Okay, maybe he would be able to start all over again, should it be necessary.

„Sorry.“, Obi Wan muttered into his beard and sighing, Cody put the towel aside. „It's okay, neither you nor I can help it.“, he tried to calm down and although Obi Wan nodded, Cody could not fail to see that he had started to shiver again. However, this could also come from the cold and exhaustion. Because Cody was sure Obi Wan wasn't crying. Not yet at least, this phase would definitely come. „How about some sleep?“, Cody suggested, sitting on the bunk next to Obi Wan. He had never dropped formality with his General. But tonight was sure to be okay, Obi Wan needed a friend, not a Commander.

„Can‘t.“ Obi Wan sounded as exhausted and empty as he looked. The Jedi tapped his temple with one hand. „Too loud.“ Then he let his head fall to one side, landing on Cody's shoulder. That was okay too. Reluctantly, he raised a hand and ran his fingers through Obi Wan's hair, slid up to the inclined temple and began to massage it in gentle circular movements. Despite the armor, he could feel the tension leaving Obi Wan's body. „Better?“, he asked anyway and got a weak sound of approval. Well then, he probably wouldn't leave this tent today after all. „Sleep, I'll stay here.“

*~*

The rain outside was pounding heavily on the tent, the temperature was cool and the air was uncomfortably wet. But Cody made no move to at least keep the cold away. Instead, he wrapped the thin blanket from his backpack a little tighter around his shoulders, reached into his helmet, which was lying next to him, and found the regulator for the usually very helpful warming function of his armor. That would keep his legs warm, the upper part of the armor he had piled next to the bunk.

Like that he sat slightly bent forward on the foot end of the bunk and while his left hand rested on Obi Wan's lower leg, he used the data pad on his knees with his right. Beside him Obi Wan was shaking, despite the thick blanket and insulating blacks, and Cody Thumb ran reassuring circles over the Jedi's lower leg. They urgently needed to get rations, preferably the red ones for high energy needs. If his body was supplied with enough energy, Obi Wan wouldn't suffer from the cold too much... For a moment he heard the footsteps of the two troopers on guard outside, then they fell silent again. He turned his attention to the datapad, a file at the top of the list could only have been written by Ahsoka. It was handwritten, kriff that girl had a bad hand. Sighing, he concentrated to decipher the sentences.

A brief account of how she organized Kenobi's trip. That she had personally chosen Echo to go with him. That she hoped it would help the Jedi.

‚He's very attached to you and if I'm right and you reciprocate those feelings, then I'm confident things will turn out better. I entrust you with its wellbeing.

P.S. Ask your men about the red ration bars. I gave them a few more shortly before you left. I had the feeling that they could be unsefull.‘

Well done, Ahs‘ika. She must have been one step ahead of him then. Maybe two. Cody glanced at the sleeping figure of Obi Wan, the light from the datapad just enough to see his face. Cody leaned forward carefully and pulled the covers a little higher until they almost touched Obi Wan's chin. The Sith should get him if he wouldn't help his Jedi. Ahsoka could rely on Cody.

#star wars #clone wars #after the war #clone commander cody #obi wan kenobi #brothers-au #is this codywan?#i am not sure #plo koon

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ramenandchill · 4 years

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Character criticism

Today’s criticism: The entirety of the show Boruto

Hood day/night my children. How are you all? I hope you all are eating your veggies and drinking your water. I hope you all are taking care of yourselves to the best of your abilities and that your all doing well back home, wherever home may be.

Today, we’re going to be tackling the mess that is essentially the anime,Boruto. Basically why it’s not as good as it could be, and why it has potential. I even have an alternative plot for Boruto, and I thought I would share that with you all, my loves.

So first, let’s summarize what Boruto is;

Boruto:next generations is a spin-off show to the Naruto series. A series that once followed the life of Naruto Uzumaki and his fellow friends as growing shinobi, now follows his son Boruto Uzumaki and his friends, who are the next generation of ninja growing up in the shinobi world.

In depth: the setting takes place in a now peaceful shinobi world, where the 5 great nations are no longer at war or no longer have bad blood anymore. Naruto Uzumaki is now the 7th Hokage of Konoha, and Sasuke Uchiha serves as the shadow Hokage, protecting Konoha from the outside. Most of the Konoha 11 have children. These children are learning to be ninja, and are growing up to become extremely powerful each day.

Though this plot sounds very entertaining, it is far from that and the lazy writing shows through many parts of the Anime. Here are some problems I’ve encountered with the plot and characters itself.

1. The children are extremely overpowered- for one, the children in Boruto are too overpowered. One thing that was interesting about Naruto was that we got to grow with the kids and see them develop their powers. Though some were prodigies at a very young age, we got to see them develop even more and we realized that they weren’t too ultra powerful and that they could be beaten. Once we as the audience realized that our beloved Naruto characters were only kids who weren’t all prodigies, the suspense was amped up quite a lot. The chunin exams is a great example. In the forest of death, many of the genin weren’t too powerful, and we saw a lot of genin groups die in the forest of death. We even saw a Sannin, Orochimaru, sneak into the exams and bite Sasuke, which caused the main plot to kick off. A lot of the times, we weren’t sure that our faves would make it out of their life or death situations. But In Boruto, the suspense is not there. We know that most of the kids, especially the 3 main characters, Boruto, Sarada, and Mitsuki are all powerful. There’s no “if” they are gonna make it out. We also don’t get to see much hit or misses from the children. We don’t get to see their trial and error with learning their parents jutsus and developing their own so it’s hard to grow with them. Their powers ensure that they get out of most situations, and it takes away from the hard work their parents did to reach the level they are at. Their powers look rather more genetic (which I’m sure they mostly are), than actual hard work.

2. The next generation-another problem is that the kids are essentially carbon copies of their parents personalities. They aren’t their own selves, which very much annoys me. I rather see the kids be their own person, rather than adapt ALL parts of their parents personalities. I don’t mind the children having small parts of their parents incorporated into them, but Boruto really takes it to new heights. The personalities are more copy paste. Most of them act exactly how their parents do or once did. One of the few characters this probably doesn’t go for is Mitsuki, as he’s rather pleasant compared to his father, orochimaru.

3. The lack of screen time- this is a minor issue to me, but I don’t appreciate how a lot of the interesting characters like Sarada are glazed over. The other teams besides Team Konohamaru are usually not shown progressing as much, and are given the much shorter end of the stick than the main characters, which is rather annoying.

4. The Konoha 11- the Konoha 11 have been greased so badly. Their powers seem heavily downgraded, and their character designs look awful. A lot of them look like pedophiles and Shino looks like a can of bug spray. Their powers seem very light, compared to in the Naruto series. For example, Shino not being able to control his bugs and messing up, is a regular for the shows gag unfortunately. That’s so unnatural because we know Shino is very serious and calculated and careful, so that gag is not funny at all. Even Naruto, who’s a master at shadow clone jutsu, has reverted back to his childhood. His clones are ineffective but they do it as a gag, which is dumb. They have made some of the Konoha 11 a shell of there former selves, which frustrates me. They were so cool in shippuden and such, but now their once cool and mysterious powers are downgraded for laughs, which aren’t funny.

5. Naruto and sasuke- Naruto and Sasuke are horrible fathers. For people who should want to make the most of family because they never had any, they don’t even spend time with their kids, which is so dumb. Naruto does Hokage work, but nothing is stopping him from making shadow clones to do the work for him, so that he could spend time with his family. Sasuke is even worse to the point where seeing Sasuke triggers Saradas sharingan because of the overwhelming emotion she felt from seeing him for the first time in years(I also hate how Sarada just bonds with him after an episode. Their relationship would need mending and building considering how long sasukes been gone. He doesn’t know much about her, so he should learn steady over a period of time like how it is in real life). That’s awful. They could be there for their families but their not, which is so weird for characters of their backgrounds.

6. The plot itself- the plot itself drags on for very long and in my opinion isn’t interesting. The plot is constantly jumping. The Arcs aren’t that intruiging and follow benign story plots that could only possibly serve as filler. It takes so long to get to the main plot of Borutos story. Here’s a list of the 17(Yes,17) arcs that have occurred in Boruto so far;

I can tell you that a lot of these are pretty much anticlimactic and waste time. Some are cool to sit through, like the time travel arc or Kara Actuation, but some are like the War arc of shippuden. If something’s like the war arc of shippuden, I rather smell someone’s booty than watch that again. So please, you can even read the plots yourself, and find that they aren’t that captivating.

7.The Villains- last but not least, we have the very copy paste villains. Just recently we’ve gotten some newer villains with a new agenda but it won’t be a breath of fresh air for long. For example, we know that so many of the villains such as Momoshiki, have been just copy-pastes of Kaguya. Their a Naruto and Sasuke level threat which we know that both Naruto and Sasuke could beat them any time. I’m bored of seeing Naruto and Sasuke fight villains that we know they will beat anytime. And with the villains point- I bring to you why Boruto has potential. You see, the Kawaki arc(Kara arc) showed that Boruto could turn into a show about a rivalry, and we saw the clip of Kawaki and Boruto fighting at the very beginning of the series. This is cool that a character like Kawaki who is shown in the end to have a strong resentment towards the ninja world for making him what he is, eventually will try to go the mile to end the age of shinobi. We will have to wait for this, sadly and I wished they introduced this sooner.

Alt plot: my alt plot goes a bit like this. Let’s say that the peaceful world is not exactly completely peaceful. The 5 nations aren’t at war anymore but the smaller countries within them aren’t exactly that peaceful. There aren’t a lot of casualties at all, but some people are still a tad bit resentful.

Let’s say that some of the great nations have become docile. The New generation of kids no longer learn how to be ninjas. Instead they go to regular school and for those who would like to be ninjas, there is a fake kitty-program for them to take. It’s not serious enough for them, though. Jonin still go on message delivering missions. The Hokage is still there, all of that.

Now let’s say a character like Kawaki and an organization behind them, a small one, has been wronged by the shinobi world. They aren’t exactly like the Akatsuki, open with their deeds. However, they are internal threats like Danzo almost, who live within the village. Nobody suspects them because they pose as regular citizens in the lands that no longer practice the way of shinobi life as they once did.

Now let’s say this organization start taking out unsuspecting Jonin. One by one, 2 by 2, Jonin are turning up dead left and right. Nobody can really explain their deaths yet, but their deaths are really disturbing. Next, Anbus investigate, but some of them are even taken out too.

The Hokage and village are becoming restless once again. Then citizens start going missing and dying. This doesn’t just happen in Konoha though, this also happens in other nations. This can make a rift between the nations who think that the other nation is sabotaging them, which can influence bad blood again. These villains are tearing up the almost perfect world from the inside out. They bring back people like Kakashi, Yamato, Tsunade, Kurenai, Gai, basically everyone from the old days, and the Konoha 11 for their lines of defense.

People propose that the children should learn to be true shinobi. Some argue that they shouldn’t, but it is decided that the children should learn to protect themselves and their lands. So now, medical ninjitsu classes are taught, ninjitsu, chakra types, genjutsu. The ninja school is rehashed.

Sasuke comes back to the village and is asked if he’s seen anyone enter the village but the answer is no, which gives a clue.

Soon, the children graduate and learn important lessons about friendship and teamwork. We watch them work hard to learn and perfect their parents Jutsus. we watch the trial and error, but we watch them turn out great in the end. They can even have Boruto face off against this villain when he gets older.

They learn from the oldest Shinobis and earn their powers, instead of just having them materialize them and genetically master them.

(p.s honestly Temari and Shikamaru should’ve had twins, one boy and one girl, have them both be smart but have one learn shadow possession and one learn wind style. The boy is obvi Shikadai who learns shadow possenion cuz that’s already cannon, and the girl Tomoe, could learn wind style from Temari. She doesn’t have to be a carbon copy, but she could still learn her mother’s craft.)

Thank you for coming to my ted talk my loves, and I’ll see you on the next episode of Character Critisims.

#anime #naruto #boruto #analysis #ted talks

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mrs-nate-humphrey · 3 years

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I know you have a lot of ships on gg, including Derena. So, were you satisfied that they were endgame? And if they had to end up together, how would you have changed it to make more sense? Also, how do you feel about Lily/ Rufus? :)

this is a great ask, because it’s gonna get me to reveal a nugget of truth that’ll contextualise everything, lmao. derena was, as most of you know, my first major gg ship, and honestly, they were so captivating, very few ships (esp, very few m/f ships) had won my heart like that. so. when s2 started and we had all the derena being weird bits in the first few episodes, it would be an understatement to say that i was let down. i was literally like, “i don’t want to watch this show if it’s going to slander dan and serena!!!” and i. stopped watching gossip girl.

as someone who’s finished watching the whole show, i can look back in retrospect and laugh at that moment specifically, because it was such a “damn, you ain’t seen nothing yet” kind of moment. but at the time, dan and serena - as individual characters, and as a couple, made me really happy. and uni was really dragging me down, and nothing was making me happy, so i remembered the way season 1 of gg had distracted me from like, how sad i was, and. i looked up whether or not dan and serena were endgame.

so!!! the derena wedding is THE THING that made me finish watching gg. along the way, i was surprised and taken aback by hidden depths of the characters, and the way i viewed them changed. 2x06 made me see the potential of dan and nate, and i was truly a goner, no coming back from that. out of all the canon gg ships we have, most people know, dan & blair are my favourite. like. i love the dair dynamic so much. but. i can’t really hate derena endgame, because it’s the thing i stayed for. and it’s ironic that by the time it came around, i didn’t really want it. but there was a time when i REALLY did. when i was really sad and the only thing that helped was dan & serena. so!!! that is why i go so hard for them every now and then, lmao.

uhh, if derena had to be endgame, i think dan’s character arc would need to sort of go elsewhere? like if he had the same restless need-to-leave-the-city energy to him that serena did, maybe then they’d be truly happy. i just feel like they don’t really work as an endgame relationship because of what their ideal futures would be like. dan would want to be a dad, to have one of those white picket fence kind of settled futures, which is exactly what serena didn’t want. she wanted to be free!! i also don’t feel like serena would want kids (the way she looked at dan when he was holding milo! kldhsgkhdg.) and i personally cannot see a middle ground, but i know other people can. i really just wanted derena to be best friends at the end of the show. exes on good terms.

lily/rufus is a great ship!! i am not a big fan of their characters individually - though with lily it’s kind of like, i am fascinated by how awful she is, whereas with rufus it’s like *flinches every time he does something* but i liked them as a couple! i also really love the whole premise of their pre-series relationship, it’s like a fic premise for your OTP. lead singer in a band meets travelling photographer who tours with them, she’s a sheltered girl from a shitty family, he’s.... young enough to think their story has a happy ending. idk. all these little nuggets of rufly’s past, on the road, lily accompanying him on his tours... i loved that stuff. and when they were married/established relationship, they were like, the ONE relationship that didn’t have any drama and that communicated, which, makes sense, given how many years it took them to get there. so yeah, i like rufly! i’m not in fandom for them, though, if that makes sense.

#anon #long post #derena #rufly #dan humphrey #serena van der woodsen #apparently it's ivy does a tell-all hour #also when i say im not in fandom for rufly it's like #i don't really see myself writing fic for them #or looking for edits of them #or whatever #they were cute! but im not hyperfixating

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take-in-time · 4 years

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In honor of Critical Role playlists coming back, I thought I would revisit my second playlist for Caduceus Clay that I made before I realized that all posts with links got killed on arrival.

Caduceus Clay 2.0 on Spotify, listen along if you like.

So here’s my thoughts reflecting on how Cad has grown and changed in four (4) parts:

Alone in the Blooming Grove

Extraordinary Machine - Fiona Apple

This song is of course on the first official Caduceus playlist, and I feel like this is the best representation of his ‘all is as fate determines’ mindset that we are first introduced to him with. Plus, “I am the baby of the family... so everybody care and wears the sheep’s clothes while they chaperone.” Clay family feels, they are a close knit group yet Caduceus is the one to stay behind.

Winter Song - The Head and the Heart

Inspired by Cad not knowing how many seasons he was alone for. “We’re just praying that we’re doing this right. Though that’s not the way it seems.” “I will miss the days we had.” This entire song hits for Cad alone.

Solitude Is Bliss - Tame Impala

A decade of being alone because he was supposed to stay and look after the Blooming Grove. Of course he tried to convince himself to be okay with that. “Nothing else matters, I don’t care what I miss. Company’s okay, solitude is bliss” Is that true for Cad? No. But he also used to cast Calm Emotions on himself so...

The Great Unknown - Grouplove

Leaving the farm to go into the Great Unknown! “Cause nothing really lasts forever.” When the time comes to leave, Cad takes one last look and steps into the uncertainty of the Mighty Nein with an optimistic goal to save his home.

Wise Caretaker

Think About Your Troubles - Harry Nilsson

Another song from the official playlist. I feel like this is who Cad becomes when the Nein need the wise figure to lean on, right when they start traveling with him. Of course the tea and decomposition themes help.

Japanese Ceremonial Tea (Interlude) - The Electric Sons

I can close my eyes and hear Cad tell me all the narration in this song. “Now what is it that’s wrong?”

Moonsmoke - Caamp

I vibe with Caamp for Caduceus in general. But this song in particular has it all: mentions of death, talking to birds, communing with nature, tokes. Caduceus is still this otherworldly figure to the Nein at this point and this song has those vibes.

Grow - The Oh Hellos

It would be easier to list the ways this doesn’t make me think of Caduceus. The Wildmother be up in here! “Just leave it alone child, and let it grow.” “See the ground all around, yeah it was always holy.” “Leave the ruins where they fall... and let the wild take over.”

Wait... Caduceus has Problems too?

Second Child, Restless Child - The Oh Hellos

Another Oh Hellos song because I could write a thesis on how every song of their’s connects to Caduceus, but I limited myself to three (3) for this playlist. Caduceus was both the responsible child and the problem child in my mind. It’s possible! He desperately loves his family yet hides from answers about them. He’s questioning whether or not he’s doing the right thing. “You've got to go on, further than you've ever gone. You've got to run far from all you've ever known.”

My Life, My Love - Family and Friends

When doubt creeps in, Cad is learning that his life is not turning out like he thought it would when he was a child. He left to fulfill his goals, but how when the Nein are running around from pirates to cities without sunlight.

“Lately these days I can't help but get this feeling I am sinking And the ground beneath my feet, I think, is starting to believe me I try to run but I don't know how All my thoughts are made of doubt And the silence steals the words from my mouth I guess I have not been myself for some while now.”

“Are you where you want to be?”

Canary - The Ballroom Thieves

So usually The Ballroom Thieves remind me strictly of Fjord. And that bleed over into choosing this song for Caduceus. The nature (Wildmother) themes of this song make me think of Cad helping Fjord with his pact even when Cad was going through doubts.

I Have Made Mistakes - The Oh Hellos

Last Oh Hellos song for now, but I’m never truly done. I feel like a major part of Caduceus’ character arc is showing that he doesn’t know everything, and doesn’t have to accept that just because something happens, it’s fate. This song is about growth and can really apply to the Mighty Nein as a whole. “We are not alone in the dark with our demons. We have made mistakes, but we’ve learned from ‘em.” Caduceus is learning to get help instead of just helping others.

The Mighty Nein ARE his family

Friends - The Lone Bellow

“I got some friends with trouble sleeping.” “I've got some friends that roll with punches. Can make a struggle feel like a waltz with loved ones” “I've got some friends that swim in oceans.” “And help me feel the love I'm holding. And let go of the pain” Have I mentioned that I love the Mighty Nein!?!

Happiness Is Not A Place - The Wind and The Wave

He didn’t go back to the Blooming Grove after saving his family and saving his home and completing the mission he set out to do. Why?

“don't you know happiness is not a place, it's the road you take and who you choose to walk it with. And the grass ain't always greener on the other side It's okay. But I wish it was easy like it sounds. Just believe one day. And your walls start coming down. Trust me things are gonna be alright.”

I Will Go On - National Park Radio

So where does it go from here? Caduceus isn’t done growing just because he saved his home. He’s opening up more to his friends, helping and being helped in return. The Mighty Nein never stop moving after all.

Life We Chose - Jared & The Mill

One of the key points for Cad staying is that he chose to. It wasn’t because it was what he was supposed to do for his family. But there are still dangers and possibly death ahead of the Mighty Nein. This song is melancholy and sad and a reminder of struggles. But the ending was what I wanted for this playlist. It punches up and turns this sadness into hope. The Mighty Nein and Caduceus’s story is far from over.

If you made it this far, thank you!

#caduceus clay #critical role #critical role playlist #character playlist #i said i would write an essay and here it is #my meta isn't the best pls go read some beautiful cad posts that inspired this #thx cad stan community

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mysaldate · 5 years

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(UM seduction methods anon here) Im in awe over how much you write for so many character, every day! Do you have any hc on how they live? (where they live? living conditions?) BUT please dont push yourself or anything either!

Thank you so much for worrying about me! I’m simply trying to do my very best for all of you! And thank you also for such wonderful and original requests!

The living conditions of the Upper Moons headcanons

Daki&Gyuutaro

This one will be short since we know quite a lot about them. They’ve lived in the red lights district for their whole lives. In the streets and usually with little more than just their clothes on but they had each other.

They stayed in even after they became a demons. No surprise, there’s plenty of food and nobody will really care if a couple girls disappears.

They don’t have separate rooms of course. These two are literally inseparable so of course they wouldn’t bother with something like that. There’s nobody to tease them about it either since people are not aware of there even being two of them and as for their fellow demons, those just don’t care. Except maybe for Douma but he wouldn’t tease them about it.

We got to see their room so there’s not much to be said about the decorations either. Daki is a stylish girl and she likes to show it off even in the way she sets up their room – even if nobody much gets to see it.

Kaigaku

He never really had much of a home per say. He became an orphan at a young age (if he wasn’t abandoned as a baby already) and then was chased out of Gyomei’s temple as well. Jigoro took him in but unfortunately enough, that relationship didn’t really work out either. Strangely enough, he felt most at home when he was outside, travelling from one mission to another.

After he became a demon, he stayed with Kokushibou for a short period of time but that was just before Muzan approved of his existence. After that, he had to find his own territory – which wasn’t really too hard anyway. He picked a run-down old house as his shelter from the sun for the day but he didn’t really care much how it looked, at least not at first.

It’s not that he wouldn’t like company but there’s not really anyone to share his place with. Humans wouldn’t hang out with him, other demons literally can’t. Other Upper Moons won’t.

He first didn’t care at all how the place looked but after some time, he decided that since he didn’t have anything to do during the day anyway, he could at least try to decorate the place a bit. So while the sun is up, he does little things inside, like sweeping the floors or painting the walls. He even learnt to sew to make curtains. And at night, when he’s not out hunting, he does other reparations. Even he is surprised by how much fun he can have, giving the place a personal touch.

Gyokko

Being an artist, it’s not unlikely that he lived in an open, arid room before he became a demon. Lots of sunlight too. And occassionally, a companion or two but those never really stuck around for long. His place was filled with various unfinished art pieces.

Now that he’s a demon, he can’t have the luxury of a sunny appartment. His pots, however, work as a little pocket dimension so that’s an upgrade? Of sorts? It doesn’t really have a set shape either, it’s a little bit like Nakime’s Infinity Fortress but shapeless, like the walls are made of water or another liquid and constantly change form.

He lives with plenty of goldfish. The entire place is nearly filled with aquariums of various shapes and forms. You know how people make mazes for hamsters, guinea pigs or even cats? Well, those are nothing when compared to the lengths Gyokko goes to for his fishies. It’s not just glass, coloured or plain, either. Sometimes he would use the nichirin blades or pretty hairpieces of his victims’ to decorate the elaborate fishtanks as well. If a human ever strays in, it’s the last thing they say.

Gyokko LOVES decoration. Aside from his fishtanks, he has numerous statues, paintings and just about everything else you can think of. Both handmade and stolen. For his handmade art, he usually uses bodies or bodyparts of his victims, possibly their blood too. It serves both as an artpiece and a food reserve just in case he ever gets to a position where he’s forced to starve. Surprisingly enough, his pots are great at preserving things. Oh, and let’s not forget about the amount of detail he puts to the exterior of his pots!

Hantengu

Back when he was a human, he didn’t really have a home, naturally. He couldn’t afford it. And most people wouldn’t let him stay more than one night, chasing him out often with sticks and stones. He had to travel all the time and preferably somewhere far away where the rumors about him didn’t reach yet. Due to this, he becomes restless when he has to spend a long time in one place.

Now, as a demon, he also doesn’t stay in one place all the time. He usually sneaks in a house, kills the family and stays there for a few days before moving on to the next one. Some of his other personalities, namely Sekido and Karaku, find this a little useless and bothersome but they wouldn’t really fight him on it.

Speaking of whom, his other personalities split when they have time to be alone as well, taking care of him and the house. It’s a great way to keep him safe as well since at least one of them is always on guard for possible intruders. They get along... somewhat well. There are the usual conflicts between Sekido and the others. Karaku is careless about their cover, Yoroko likes to make pranks on them and Aizetsu tends to lock himself in his room for hours on end. Poor Sekido is left with the task of housework, making sure they don’t get discovered too soon, acting as the voice of reason... and he still has to go out hunting and stay on guard when it’s his turn.

Yoroko likes decorating stuff and Karaku loves to watch him but their taste is strange to everyone but them. Surprisingly enough, Hantengu as well as Aizetsu both can actually create rather beautiful tapestries and Zohakuten sometimes paints when Sekido is just too done with the three useless dorks.

Nakime

She used to be your typical hikikomori. Nakime spent all her time in her room, with nothing but a pile of books and her biwa. It wasn’t a big room either. While her room did have windows, she prefered them covered and read in the light of an oil lamp. As expected, it wasn’t too good for her eyes...

She lives in the Dimensional Infinity Fortress now. A place she can fully control and knows everything about, one that bends to her will and where she can transport anyone anywhere at any time, just as she wants. The only exception seems to be Muzan who comes and goes as he sees fit (at least until the current arc but y’all already know how I feel about that). It’s not that she minds it, she still knows where and when he enters and leaves and even if she didn’t, it’s not like he would ambush and kill her for no reason (right?).

Despite providing rooms specifically suited for the Upper Moons, she much enjoys her solitude. Even when they’re in and she has to keep an eye on them (I’m sorry, I’ll stop with the puns now), she keeps her distance. Try to annoy her, or even just seek her company, and you will mercilessly get thrown out. An exception, again, is Muzan. He doesn’t live there with her though and only seeks her out when he has work for her to do.

Decoration of the rooms varies greatly, mostly based on what are they used for. Most of the Fortress is not decorated since Nakime sees no reason to waste time and effort on that. However, there are special parts that deserve special attention. Just as an example, there’s Muzan’s upside-down lab, Douma’s lotus pond, that traditional japanese area Kokushibou first appeared in... And of course, the execution platform that’s now decorated with the red of the Lower Moons’ blood.

Akaza

Again, we have a very good canon idea about his life as a human. First living with his father and then spending some time in the streets, he eventually ended up staying at Keizo’s house, taking care of Koyuki. He had his own room there too but it didn’t really matter because he spent most of his time by Koyuki’s side anyway. Rumor has it he dragged his futon to her once when she was having a nightmare and never moved out until she got all better.

He’s pretty much a street rat as of now, looking for challenges and new foes to fight for the most part. During the days, he usually stays still outside, in dense forests or deep caves. He’s not particularly picky. Sometimes he stays there during the night too, setting up a campfire and waiting for someone to wander close. For some reason, he doesn’t really like cities, especially during the festival season.

So yeah, he lives alone. At least usually he does. It’s not all that rare for Douma to find and bother visit him. He doesn’t want company. Getting attached would make him weak. The more people you care about, the easier it is to take advantage of you.

The only thing he cultivates in his surroundings is his own body. No, I’m not talking about the tattoos, though those certainly are a decoration as well. Rather, it’s his muscles and strength. However, he still prefers to have some manners over raw power, hence why he keeps refusing Douma’s more than generous offers to hunt down some girls together even if that could make him stronger.

Douma

Grew up in the temple in the forest. High up on a mountain overlooking a small town, it’s not a place with the most access to society. But cults are usually like that. When he was about three years old, his father planted two magnolia trees in the courtyard so that the place is a little more lively and the trees can grow tall to provide lots of shade in summer since the sun could be quite annoying. If only he knew...

Loyal as he is, Douma stays at the temple even now. He had it expanded a little and even had a lotus pond build right behind his room so he can calm his thoughts at least a bit after every session. He used to need it more than he does now, especially since he now also has the one made by Nakime that is way better and more spacious.

Canonically, there is at least one temple servant staying with Douma at the temple. But honestly, it wouldn’t be quite like him to satisfy himself with a single person. There’s probably a number of people taking care of the place, both temple servants and maidens. They also serve as a source of entertainment and possibly even as a last-resort snack just in case. There also used to be Kotoha and Inosuke for a short period of time but well...

While he is quite childish and it might sound just like him to go overboard with decorating stuff, that’s not entirely true. Really, the most he has is the skull closet with engraved golden door. That and the pot in which he planted Kotoha’s head but that one is a gift from Gyokko so it doesn’t really count.

Kokushibou

As with most of them, we were blessed with enough info on Kokushibou’s, or rather Michikatsu’s, homes. Growing up a samurai, he never had time to spare, little to no friends and a bride who was most likely found for him without him having any say in it, it’s really not that much of a surprise he would elect to leave it all behind and become a demon slayer since it gave him significantly more freedom.

Even as a demon, not much have changed. During the day, he stays at a mansion like the samurai lord he is, and at night, he goes out to hunt down the pests in the area, more often than not treating himself with a bountiful feast while he’s at it. He also has a room in the Infinity Fortress but like the majority of the Upper Moon demons (actually everyone but Douma), he enjoys his solitude way more.

He has a few servants at the mansion. Ones that get replaced every once in a while when they mysteriously disappear. But the salary is high enough to let any major rumors die out in a blink (I know, I promised, I’m sorry) so the most he has to deal with are whispers about him overworking his servants to the point where they rather abandon the money and run away under the cloak of the night.

You would probably find the house eerily plain but he’s used to it. The backyard is where he spends most of his time aside from his room and those two are the only actually decorated places in the house. And they’re still kept neat and practical for the most part. He rarely has anything that wouldn’t serve a purpose, both when it comes to items and people.

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kindafooey · 4 years

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Blood Chains - Chapter 29

Prologue

Arc I: Chapter 1 // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 //Chapter 5 // Chapter 6 // Chapter 7 // Chapter 8 // Chapter 9 // Chapter 10 // Chapter 11

Arc II: Chapter 12 // Chapter 13 // Chapter 14 // Chapter 15 // Chapter 16 // Chapter 17 // Chapter 18 // Chapter 19 // Chapter 20 // Chapter 21

Arc III: Chapter 22 // Chapter 23 // Chapter 24 // Chapter 25 // Chapter 26 // Chapter 27 // Chapter 28 // Chapter 29

Epilogue

Entry No. 0

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Late fall, year 2042

“Bill… You’re being absurd.”

“Sure I am, what’s your point?”

“You cannot possibly expect me to envision a place I’ve never seen.”

“Ever heard of imagination? The sky tram between humanity and infinity, or better yet, the human existence itself?”

“Yes, but… at the very least, I need guidelines. You must give me some kind of a framework to work with. A compass, if you may.”

Bill spread his arms in a show of frustration. “A compass? Come on, Brainiac, you know a compass won’t cut it! What year are we living in? Did we just revert back to thinking inside the box again? Whatever happened to testing the limits of theoretical reality and breaking the boundaries of common sense? How’d you even survive out there for three whole decades? What’s the point of going Multiversal if you’re just gonna play by the boring old rules of a single universe?”

“All right, all right”, Ford smiled. “I will try. Anywhere I want to go, was it? But with no purpose, and no particular direction to take… In short, what you want me to do is to choose an ideal destination, then… reconstruct it from the very fundamentals, and… reach beyond.”

Until recently, ever since Ford’s laryngeal cancer had reached its terminal stage and deemed him earthbound for his remaining days, Bill had agreed to replace their intergalactic travels with imaginary tours mimicking their past destinations with surprisingly little begrudging. After the man’s first heart attack, however, his companion had grown restless and moody, and somewhat impatient; without a warning, he would disappear for days at a time, and return just as abruptly demanding Ford’s undivided attention for hours on end with a bizarre roleplaying campaign like the one he was conducting now.

Well, he couldn’t deny that this dilemma Bill was so persistently making him rack his brain over was quite the fascinating one.

“Simply put”, he summed up his chain of deduction that was supposed to surpass deduction itself, “picturing the destination is only the beginning of the journey, and ultimately irrelevant. What’s truly of essence here is the momentum of imagination that follows.”

“That’s it, Fordsy”, Bill spurred him on, “that’s what I’m talking about. See, your last round out there was different. Your favorite hooded Nanny had given you a friendly push down the road of getting one back at good old Bill, and that silly little vengeance of yours was the compass guiding you from one dimension to another! In the Multiverse, everything’s just a stone’s throw away, so it’s not a matter of distance. Getting the ball rolling with no gravity to speak of, now that’s the hard part! Unless you’ve been shoved on a specific hill to tumble down – again, thanks to Seven-Eyes – your only way around is to be a stone that throws itself! You can go anywhere you wanna go, as long as you’ve got the momentum of free will on your side! That’s how you really get places in the infinite!”

Ford frowned, trying to keep his focus on the meandering explanation. Lately, there had been times when he hadn’t been able to follow Bill’s course of thought, and he didn’t quite understand his sudden fixation on these abstract thought experiments to begin with, when their time – Ford’s time – was inevitably growing shorter by the day. He wanted to let it slide and just be content with Bill spending time with him for a change; but now, he felt compelled to ask. “Bill… What is the purpose of this?”

Bill glared at him with his arms crossed. “Have you been listening to anything I’ve said in the past few weeks? Or did cancer get your braincells, too? The purpose is to not have a purpose! Ditch the depth and think in the fourth dimension. Hell, why not fifth while you’re at it? You’ve got the wit for it, you know that as well as I do. You just gotta follow through is all.”

Ford let out a quiet sigh. The answer he’d gotten was just about as relevant to the question as he could’ve expected, but perhaps it had clarified something else after all. He cleared his throat softly, feeling a bit of an irritating tickle somewhere in the back of his throat. “All right. I think I’m getting the hang of it. For instance, if we were to use ‘Dimension X’ as our primary destination, and assume the existence of a parallel timeline ‘YX’ where two differentials A(X) and B(YX) apply…”

He began to form an equation, one that was based on his study of the wormholes he’d used in his fugitive years to travel from one dimension to another; as Bill had stated, the laws of Multiversal physics were more akin to math with a metaphysical twist where the traveler’s will functioned as a parameter of its own. Reducing it all into an abstract equation was grueling work for his brain, but judging from the approving look Bill granted him, he was certainly on the right track.

“That’s it, there’s the IQ I came here for! Now for the best part – this is where the real theoretical fun begins.” Bill reached to place something on Ford’s palm. It was a twenty-sided die, one they’d purchased from an interplanetary tabletop fair nearly fourteen years ago. With countless microscopic specks of extraterrestrial minerals gleaming inside, it resembled a pocket-sized galaxy of its own; it was one of his favorites. “Time to roll for initiative, old friend.”

“As you wish”, Ford smiled. Suppressing an unpleasantly dry cough that was fighting its way through his airways, he rolled the die on the nightstand. It landed on a two. “Ah… That’s too bad.”

Bill squinted in an unhappy manner for a second before shrugging nonchalantly. “Eh, just give it another shot. Who’s counting? And put your mind to it this time, IQ, I can tell you’re spacing out.”

“I’ll do my best.” Ford tried again; this time, he rolled a one. “Huh. This isn’t my day, it seems.”

“Try again”, Bill ordered him, now clearly irked.

Still forcing down the persistent cough, the man did as he was told, and got yet another low score.

Bill snatched the die from the table and glared at it. “This thing rigged or something? One more time, Fordsy.”

But now, Ford could no longer hold back the violent coughing fit that forced out the air in his lungs. The die slipped out of his grip and rolled onto the floor as the man rasped for breath, struggling to stop the coughing that he knew would render him incapable of speaking for the rest of the night, and probably tomorrow as well, if it got out of hand.

Bill rolled his eye and heaved a fed up sigh that was verging on melodramatic. “Oh boy… Here we go again.”

He floated up, threw a resigned look at the die on the floor – once again, it had landed on a one – and went to fill the empty glass of water on Ford’s nightstand from the jug nearby.

“Drink up, buddy. You know the drill.” He brought the glass to Ford and held it to his lips.

His expression was dull as he watched the man swallow one cautious sip of water, then another, drawing deep inhales through his nose until the coughing gradually calmed down.

“I hate this”, Ford could hear the demon muttering under his breath. “I hate this.”

He made an attempt of a slant smile as Bill put the glass down. The sound of his breathing was still ragged from the fit. “I don’t… take much pleasure in this, either”, he managed to say after a while, his voice hoarse and barely audible.

“No kidding.” Bill shot another glance in the direction of the fallen die. “So, now that that’s out of your system, let’s get back to rolling, shall we? Fifth time just might be the charm, or the hundredth, won’t know ‘til you try, amiright?”

“Ah, yes. Well…”

Ford leant into the pillows stacked up behind his back and fell quiet, focusing on settling his breath. Bill waited for him to continue for as long as his patience allowed, which wasn’t particularly long. “Well, what?” he barked eventually.

“To tell you the truth…” the man started, weighing his words. “Do you remember our second year after your resurrection? The winter following the superanomaly crisis, to be precise.”

“Sure, what about it?”

“By the end of the winter, you were exhausted by our revisal of the unified theory of weirdness, were you not? You said, what was it again… That you needed a vacation –“

“– from giving a damn, yeah. Well, when you’re locked up in a relatively comfy cage, might as well use the opportunity to take it easy for a change is all it meant.”

Ford nodded. “You must know, then, how tiring it can be to keep your intellect fast at work at all times. Even more so when you’re unable to access your usual resources… or when you’re ridden with an illness that wears away your physical strength.”

“You gotta be kidding me, Sixer.” Bill gave him an incredulous stare. “Is that your excuse? You’re too tired to roll one tiny piece of alien plastic? You wanna give up and drop dead just because you’re tired?”

Ford smiled, albeit a bit sadly. “You might call it the blessing of mortality. Perhaps I’ve come to the point in my life where I can allow myself to rest instead of constantly striving for greatness. We can continue our thought experiment at a later time… But for now…”

Ford expected his companion to argue that there might not be a later time for much longer, but to his surprise, Bill seemed to have no fight left in him; for a fleeting moment, Ford could’ve sworn he looked as worn out as the man felt himself.

“Fine”, he spat out. “Let’s not play, then. In fact, if you’re so tired, let’s not even talk. Let’s not do anything. Let’s just…”

He floated up and put his hands almost violently on Ford’s face. The kiss that followed felt somewhat unfamiliar as well, a mixture of anger and frustration that was poorly concealed under forced gentleness. It was like a battle cry shouted at an empty field, only expecting its own echo to answer.

Ford did try to answer, though. He tried. But not for long.

“I’m sorry, Bill.” He truly was sorry. “As much as I… It’s a little overwhelming right now. The pain, that is.” He pressed his fingers lightly against his throat.

“Yeah”, came a cross whisper. “Figures.”

Ford drew back a little in futile search for eye contact. “You understand, right?” he asked softly. “I want you to be the only thing I –“

“All right, all right, no need to make it sappy. Just listen to yourself. Sheesh.” Bill let out an odd huff, visibly distraught as he sat back down on the bed.

Ford reached to take Bill’s hand in his, but retreated when he received a bitter glance as a wordless sign to back off. “Instead, I would like to simply spend time with you, and… not do anything, as per your earlier suggestion”, he said quietly. “If that’s all right with you, of course.”

“You’re falling apart, old man”, Bill muttered as if he hadn’t even heard him. “Your mind, your meatcage…” He turned away to gaze out of the window. “There’s no point anymore, is there? It’s all pointless, isn’t it?”

“Bill”, Ford started, but was interrupted by a familiar knock on his door. With a deep breath, he raised his eyes from the demon.

“Come in, Dipper.”

Ford pushed away the echo of Bill’s words and smiled as he saw his great nephew step in. Even though Dipper was already a grown man well into his forties, something boyish had remained that never allowed Ford to stop likening him to the overenthusiastic young apprentice he’d once been.

“Hey, Grunkle Ford”, came the man’s greeting. “Brought your soup and medicine for the night… Oh, hey, Bill.” It was merely an acknowledgement of the demon’s presence. “Didn’t expect to see you here. I thought Mabel was supposed to be with Grunkle Ford today.”

“Oh, Star? Pulled a switcheroo right under your nose”, Bill said haughtily. “Then again, who knows? Maybe she’s here right now, turned herself into a piece of furniture or something. Or maybe she turned herself into me! Maybe I’m her! You can’t tell, can ya?”

“Oh, really? Well, if you’re her, you must know how many seahorse orphans she adopted after she visited an orphanage in Hippocampolis.”

The demon squinted. “I wanna say… one and a half?”

“Nice try. She adopted all of them. Put the place right out of business.” Dipper turned to his uncle. “How’s your throat?”

Ford coughed softly. “Well”, he said with a wry smile, “it won’t kill me, I know that much.”

Something about his words didn’t seem to sit right with Bill. He rose from the bed with a darkened expression.

“And that’s that, folks”, he announced in a dull tone. With the same air of apathy, he put on his hat and tucked his cane under his arm. “Yeah… That’s my cue.”

“Bill?” Ford blinked in confusion. “Are you leaving?”

Bill didn’t answer; as he floated swiftly past Dipper, he swatted a handful of medicine off the tray the man was carrying, making them patter on the floor like raindrops.

“Hey! What was that for?”

“He doesn’t need’em, Pine Tree”, Bill muttered moodily while heading for the door. “Won’t make a difference. Not anymore.”

“Bill… Wait.”

The triangle demon stopped still at Ford’s hoarse call, but didn’t turn around.

“Will I see you in the morning?”

It was as much a plea as it was a question; it had been nearly a week since Bill’s last visit, and it pained Ford to see him leave so abruptly. Who knew when… and whether he would still be…

At last, his gaze met Bill’s. It lasted for several seconds, but no words were exchanged. Ford knew that look – he’d seen it once before, twenty-four years ago, when Bill had first urged him to pursue immortality. Only now, it cast a dour shadow on his face.

There ’s no point anymore, is there?

And with that, he turned away and was gone; and Ford knew there was no point calling out after him. Not anymore.

Dipper, who was busy collecting the pills scattered across the floor back onto the tray, raised his eyes to throw a worried glance at his uncle. “Grunkle Ford, your voice is almost gone”, he pointed out with a frown. “Has Bill been forcibly chatting you up again? For how long –“

“This one’s on me, Dipper”, Ford interrupted him gently. “I’ve neglected my own need for hydration, that is all. He was only keeping me company.”

“Yeah, that’s just what I mean. He doesn’t bother doing anything else for you.” Dipper straightened up and counted the pills one more time for good measure. “Man. After all these years… I still can’t believe the nerve of that guy.” As he put the tray down on the nightstand, he almost stepped on the twenty-sided die on the floor. “What the – were you guys playing DD&D?”

Ford let out a short laugh. “Well, not quite, but… something like that.”

“Huh. That reminds me, have you heard? There’s a new edition coming up soon”, his grand nephew told him, his voice gaining a note of enthusiasm as he drew a chair by Ford’s bed. “They’re planning to release it just in time for the holiday season, but Pacifica’s got sources in the industry, so she might be able to grab one in advance. She promised to send us a copy as soon as there’s one available.”

“That is exciting news”, Ford smiled. He knew why Dipper was in a hurry to get one; despite all his readiness to face the inevitable, it saddened him to realize it might be too late for the two of them to play the new game together.

“In the meantime, would you care to continue on one of our older campaigns?” he then suggested, gesturing at the set of dice and neatly stacked character sheets on the desk. “It would be a nice change of pace after the more exhausting rendition Bill and I were playing. We have everything we need right here.”

Dipper hesitated. “Grunkle Ford, if you’re not feeling well –“

“I’m fine, Dipper. If my past experiences are anything to go by, it’s nothing this soup can’t heal.”

“Well, it is a Bertie Brew”, Dipper said with a slant smile. “She really takes after her aunt. Next thing we know, she’ll be ruling over, I dunno, the bird kingdom or something. Okay, if you’re sure…” He cracked his knuckles, flashing an excited grin that flooded Ford’s chest with nostalgia. “Let’s play. I’ll be the Dungeon Master and do most of the talking, so you can rest your voice for a bit. Tell me if you need a break, all right? Now, where were we…”

The strange shadow in Bill’s eye haunted Ford throughout his game with Dipper, and stretched into his dreams after he’d drifted off to sleep; but it wasn’t until his lonely awakening to an early dawn that he knew it for sure.

Bill wasn’t coming back.

As the man placed his hand on his chest and felt his heartbeat unusually low and irregular, he knew the reason as well.

“It’s time”, he whispered into the quiet of his room. “Isn’t it?”

The first time had occurred in the middle of a visit to Mabel’s court, and he’d immediately found himself surrounded and tended to by his whole extended family. Ford himself had been the most terrified out of them all… For some reason, it felt less frightening now that he was alone.

He was almost in awe of his own calmness. By all means, it should have been the other way round; last time, thanks to Bill, he’d at least known from the beginning that it wouldn’t be fatal. “Sure, it stings a little, but you’ll live, big guy! You’re not ninety-two yet, remember?” Well, he was ninety-two now… And this time, Bill wasn’t here to throw amused, seemingly indifferent jabs making light of his pain and fear of death.

Truthfully, being showered with those unfeeling jokes now would’ve been just as comforting as it had been back then.

He closed his eyes for a moment. He should’ve known, of course… There was no disillusionment in his realization of Bill’s absence. The demon had proven himself far more malleable than Ford could’ve ever anticipated, but loss – of power, freedom, or a friend – was the one mortal reality he’d never learnt to accept, let alone see eye to eye with.

There was no disillusionment, and no disappointment, either – there shouldn’t have been disappointment, but… Now that the long wait of this day was over, he found himself thinking fondly of a foolish daydream where Bill had stayed by his side until the end.

But no, this was to be expected. Last night, after twenty-four years of using every trick he’d had up his sleeve to goad Ford into resisting his natural death, Bill had finally admitted his defeat. And out of every sore loser Ford had met in his lifetime, the tantrum-happy triangle demon certainly had it the worst. What was there left for him to do but disappear?

And as for Ford himself…

He had no regrets. All through the years, he’d kept Jheselbraum’s prophecy close to his heart, always mindful of the terrifying power no human should possess surging within himself. The oracle herself had told him he’d already surpassed humanity simply by accepting the visions of knowledge Bill had shared with him. He couldn’t deny it; there had been times – passing moments – when he’d been overpowered with a sense of distance from his own kind. Then again, it wasn’t as though feelings of alienation had ever been unknown to him in the first place.

Oh, well… At the very least, his fated demise didn’t appear to be in a hurry. The more he thought about it, and the longer he lay there waiting, the more anxious he felt at the idea of being found dead in his room. Perhaps he still had time to change that. He thought of somewhere he’d rather be; the answer, when it came to him, felt almost obvious.

If… he could still make it there… that would be the perfect place.

It was time to leave.

The sickness had taken a heavy toll on his physique, so much that even moving around the house took a considerable effort. He had an aid for that, though, one that Bill had endlessly ridiculed him for despite occasionally sporting one himself. Once fully dressed, he took a firm grip on the walking cane that was waiting for him by his bed, and took a few unhurried steps towards the door.

This… would be it.

Somehow, the finality of leaving hadn’t fully dawned on him until he was already on his way out. The sudden realization of this being the last he’d see of his room, his home, flooded his chest with an ache so painful that he had to support himself on the doorframe, wondering for a fleeting moment of terror if it had already begun.

But it didn’t last for long; he’d premeditated this moment countless times in his mind ever since he’d learned of his time and cause of death from Bill. If this was his farewell to the Mystery Shack… the house was already perfect as it was, aged and rundown, patched up, renewed and full of life, and he didn’t want to change the slightest bit of it. The hollow emptiness he’d felt within its walls after Bill’s demise was no longer but a faded memory.

His home had kept on living even without Bill, without Stanley, and it would keep on living without him… as if it had a lifeforce of its own.

Slowly, arduously but without haste, he made his way downstairs. He didn’t want to wake up the family – these past decades shared had been a farewell enough, and by now, nothing was left unsaid. But someone was awake, waiting for him in her worn armchair that was now more stitches and patches than what little was left of the original fabric.

“Greetings, Abuelita”, he said with a note of pleasant surprise. For a few years now, the elder of the house had been prone to sleeping around the clock whenever she was residing in her physical vessel. It was quite a rare occasion to see her fully awake and manifested, especially at such an early hour.

Abuelita answered with her usual placid smile. With a subtle gesture, she invited Ford to approach until he was standing right next to the armchair; and when the man leant even closer, he suddenly found his face being cupped by two wrinkly hands.

He closed his eyes by instinct as he felt a soft, maternal kiss land on his forehead.

“Off you go now, mijo.”

For a few seconds, Ford allowed himself to lean into the inexplicable warmth of the hands that were long gone.

“I’ll see you later”, he said half-jokingly, wearing an awkward grin. Abuelita spared him the usual look of quiet judgment, and simply shook her head with a smile.

He headed to the back door to fetch his old trenchcoat, but then decided to exit through the gift shop instead. A walk through Trevor’s cryptic art gallery brought a smile on his face, reminding him how the next generation was steadily taking the Mystery Shack’s legacy into whole new directions while staying true to its characteristic weirdness. Recently, Trevor’s little sister had dipped into the business as well: the gift shop had taken to selling experimental potions that Bertie had been busy brewing as part of her apprenticeship under the invisible wizard’s guidance.

On his way out, he passed by the Founder’s statue, and stood still for a moment to take one last look at the face he’d dearly missed every day for almost seventeen years. He’d never held any personal beliefs regarding the afterlife. But if, he now thought, such faith would allow him to imagine a reunion…

He reached to give a gentle pat on the bronze arm. “Who knows”, he muttered. “Perhaps we’ll meet again soon.”

It was merely a comforting sentiment, a farewell to what would be the last image he’d ever see of his brother; but when he turned away from the statue, as if mimicking Abuelita, he shook his head with a nostalgic smile. As much as the thought warmed him, he couldn’t fool himself.

He stepped outside, and when the old, creaky door closed with a soft ‘clack’, he knew he’d left his home for the last time.

He leant heavily onto his cane as he walked across the yard with slow, weary steps. His hearing had remained impeccable until the end, and even though it was still too dark to see them, the tinkling sound of delicate spikes of frost covering the lawn reached his ears with ease as they were shattered on his path. It was an odd, friendly sound – like echoes of raucous, childlike laughter ringing all around the Mystery Shack. There had certainly been laughter, with the children racing around, the twins, and Bill… Ford had never thought he would laugh so much in his adult life, let alone his late years when his brother was no longer with him.

Despite everything, thinking back on these past decades filled him with memories of such intoxicating happiness… he could hardly believe they were his own.

Before crossing the edge of the forest, he raised his gaze to see the morning sky. The stars were already fading, but the one constellation his eyes always instinctively sought out was still there to be found.

His path through the woods felt longer than ever before, but he knew it by heart. As he reached the narrow brook, he halted his steps to search for a small bottle in his pocket; inside the bottle was a letter he’d written some time after his first heart attack. It was his farewell message for his entire family, but the letter itself was addressed to his grand niece, who would surely know how to act as a messenger and fill in the gaps where Ford had found no words.

He knelt down by the brook and sent the bottle off into its lazy stream, knowing it would eventually find its way to Mabel and her underwater kingdom. Gravity Falls was… weird that way.

Standing up from his crouched position took more time and effort than he’d expected, and with every step he took forward, he was more and more aware of the clenching pain in his chest that made it difficult to breathe. Not a moment too soon, he thought. He would reach his destination just in time.

At last, he made his way through what had been just thick shrubbery over two decades ago, and was now a young grove preparing for its annual hibernation.

And there he was.

There were no longer any signs of past events and terrors that had once taken place in this clearing. It was almost like a shard of reality of its own, separate from the life that had wandered there in hopes for a peaceful end.

Ford gazed at the place where Bill’s petrified form had once been. This was proving to be the hardest part, as he’d known to expect… He’d allowed himself the faintest, most ludicrous bit of hope that Bill would be waiting for him here, but by now, he knew that they would not meet again.

Perhaps it was for the best. If Bill had been with him now, he… might not be able to let go, after all.

Finally giving in to the pain in his chest, he searched for support from the nearest tree and sat clumsily down on the ground, leaning his head against the cold trunk. It was almost comfortable, and the pain hadn’t grown excruciating just yet. He still had time to think… and try to find solace for what had been left unresolved.

His lingering regrets weren’t many. He’d made peace with an admirable number of his own downfalls, and once he’d learned to forgive himself, he’d found it rather easy to forgive those who had wronged him as well. The memory of Bill’s betrayal was no longer painful… but there was one thing, one of the demon’s past transgressions, that he’d never been able to accept or understand: even now, Ford found himself resenting the cruelty Bill had shown on the day of Stanley’s funeral.

Perhaps he would have to let some deeds go unforgiven.

He closed his eyes; he felt dizzy, his breaths were heavy, his body shivering, his forehead covered in cold sweat. It wouldn’t be long now… At the very least, it looked like the coughing fit that had interrupted Bill and his game of dice would be his last. Compared to that, this was a merciful way to go.

Now that it had come to this, he found comfort in being alone.

Clarity in distance.

He was free to envision any reality as if it was his own, and no one would tell him otherwise.

In his last moments, fooling himself came with ease. But what he imagined wasn’t the afterlife.

They had been together since birth… no, since the beginning of time. Inseparable, bound by something other than chains. He could see Bill through the eyes of his childhood, through the eyes of his countless other selves that might’ve come into existence somewhere in the distant Multiverse, and whether it was through hatred or similarity, yearning or distance, he was always somehow connected with Bill; because there was no Stanford Pines without Bill Cipher.

It wasn’t perfect, and it wasn’t painless… but in the end, it only lasted for the blink of an eye.

Somewhere in the woods, a captive of this realm watched his chains fall apart; and his laughter was crazed with grief.

Only minutes after receiving the letter, diving through the teleportal to Gravity Falls and flying into the forest as fast as her feet could carry, Mabel discovered her brother in the clearing, hugging the body of his great uncle and crying comfortlessly against the lifeless shoulder.

He refused to let go even as Mabel eventually regained enough composure to remember Ford’s instructions regarding the day of his passing. With her superhuman strength, she carried both men out of the woods in her arms; Ford’s body was picked up by the Valentinos as soon as they received the news, and cremated that same afternoon.

It was all done too quickly for anyone to fully comprehend what had happened, and when the ashes were brought back to the Mystery Shack in the evening, the family was clueless as to what to do with them. Speaking for everyone, Melody admitted it felt wrong to have them in the house when so little time had passed since his death. Everyone agreed – it was still far too easy to imagine Ford taking a nap upstairs or even working at his desk as usual, as if nothing had changed.

“I don’t know”, Mabel said quietly, holding the wooden box to her chest. “He never seemed like an urn-dwelling kinda guy to me. Maybe we should just… let them both go.”

Ford had never spoken of how he’d wanted his funeral arranged, but Soos proposed an idea that the whole family agreed would be the perfect way to honor his departure.

At sundown, they gathered on the shore of a small river flowing from Lake Gravity Falls. Cradling both Ford and Stanley’s ashes in her arms, Melody asked if anyone would like to say a few words; but no one spoke. The wounds were too fresh.

Soos stepped forward and gently settled a miniature of the original Stan-o-War he’d crafted for this purpose in the quiet flow, holding it in place while Mabel and Dipper placed their grunkles’ ashes on its deck. Mr. Mystery cast his eyes down, hesitating; but as the rest of the family gathered around him, each placing a hand on the boat, he managed to smile.

He could’ve held on forever on his own, but together, it was a little easier to let go.

They stood by the water for a long time, watching over the twins’ last voyage, until it was time to head home. But as the family turned reluctantly away from the river, their eyes were met with a familiar figure moving towards the riverbank a small distance away.

“Hey, isn’t that Mr. Bill?”

“Bill!”

“Where have you been? Bill, it’s me! It’s us! …Bill?”

But aside from a fleeting, inexpressive side glance towards the family, Bill paid them no attention as he floated past them towards the river. When Mabel started rolling up her sleeves in preparation to stretch out her arms and drag him over by force, Dipper grabbed her by the shoulder and shook his head.

“He’ll join us if he wants to.”

But he never did.

Regardless, the humans stood still, watching him from a distance, unable to leave him behind. He was… family, after all.

Dipper glanced at his twin. “Hey, Mabel… did you notice anything different about him?”

“Oh…” Mabel fell quiet and thought back for a bit while drying her tears on her sleeve. “You mean his bowtie?”

“Yeah. It was the same as mine. The same as Soos and Trevor’s… and Bertie’s, too.” Dipper pointed at his bowtie that had an old-fashioned, somewhat unusual shape to it. “I’d recognize that weird knot anywhere… It was tied exactly the way Grunkle Stan taught me back when we were kids. The way his dad had once taught him.”

Turning their eyes back to the river, they saw that the demon had taken off his hat, holding it to his front as he watched the now distant silhouette of a boat drifting away on nearly still waters.

As if by an unspoken agreement among the rest of the family, the responsibility for going through and figuring out what to do with Ford’s belongings had been left to Dipper. The man accepted the duty that had naturally fallen on him without complaints, but neglected it persistently all through the holiday season. In his youth, he’d snuck into his great uncle’s unoccupied room often enough with no pangs of guilt; now, the researcher’s absence felt like an insurmountable wall that grew between the room and Dipper every time he tried to approach it. After the holidays, he visited Pacifica in search of both reassurance and distraction, and ended up extending his stay for a full month.

Finally, towards the end of February, he opened the door – but not before he’d knocked first out of a well-learnt habit.

He stood in the doorway for a long while, breathing in the chilly air that had the distinct smell of a room with no resident. When he eventually stepped in, he went straight to the old glass panel window and opened it, careful as to not rely too much on the 60-year-old hinges. As the usual murky tint created by the panels was washed out by the brisk daylight of an early spring afternoon, Dipper’s shoulders relaxed. It felt easier to look around, and inspect whatever items and mementos he could find.

A fractured glass prism. A framed family photo. A cup of coffee with old dregs still stuck to the bottom, accompanied by an empty teacup sitting next to it. Countless souvenirs from their intergalactic travels… and a tall pile of journals, the newest one still spread open on Ford’s desk.

Dipper frowned. The last journal was something Ford had started working on after Bill had taken the habit of going missing for days; it was, as he’d told Dipper, his last attempt to pass the unified theory of weirdness on to the next generation of science. Although – he’d had to admit – it was probably a futile effort, as there was no way he could write down, in the little time he’d had left, everything he and Bill had discovered in twenty-five years of endlessly branching discussions.

But now, there was something on the open pages that caught Dipper’s attention.

‘Entry No. 0.’

The beginning note, already cryptic enough on its own, was followed by what appeared to be a short statement written in code.

Dipper froze. He knew this code language by heart. He recognized the handwriting as well – it wasn’t his great uncle’s, but he’d seen it before, in encrypted riddles that had later devolved into cruel taunts scribbled all across the pages of journal three. Why would Bill leave a message in code that he knew Dipper would understand?

It didn’t make sense.

He took the journal in his hands and leafed through it. The contents were just as he’d expected: charts, patterns, abstract sentences he couldn’t make heads or tails of – reading it was like trying to solve a riddle in an alien language with no vocabulary and only a vague understanding of the grammar. But now…

Perhaps this strange message… was a key. Perhaps it was a sign… that it was finally his turn to take over the grand unified theory of weirdness.

All of a sudden, Dipper’s heart was pounding with excitement. I should consult the Axolotl first. It crossed his mind, but somehow – for the first time since the day he’d made a deal with her – the Axolotl’s guidance felt irrelevant.

Regardless, a small, timid part of his brain continued to oppose him. It could be a trap. If I do this, he might come back to haunt me.

But he already knew; he’d felt it in his blood. Bill would never return.

He had nothing to fear.

Dipper spent the next hour printing out copies of each page of the journal. Once he was done, he took his materials back upstairs and moved the researcher’s desk aside, clearing a large empty space in the back of the room. After a moment of hesitation, he pinned one page on the wall. Then another. His confidence grew along with the feeling of familiarity as he grabbed a pair of scissors, cut a page into five separate sections, and rearranged them into what looked like a loosely defined map. In his own room, from an old, long abandoned storage box hidden under his bed, he found a bundle of red string.

Once again a mystery hunter, he was soon absorbed in his work – never realizing that something was missing from the big picture.

----

Now, time for a very important afterword... So we still have an epilogue left, which I've already mostly written - both two versions of it, actually. Yes, you read that right, folks! There are two different versions of how this story could end, and the decisive factor will be... *drum roll* you! Don't worry, I'm not asking you to choose between one or the other. All I'm asking you to do - under no obligation, of course, but I'd appreciate it beyond words if you could participate in this - is answer the following question:

Do you think Bill deserves a second chance?

Imma be real with you from the get-go: this is a trick question. A red herring, if you may. It's not asking what you probably think it's asking. (Some of you with a more in-depth read into the themes of this story might actually have the right idea, but I won't lie - it's convoluted as hell.) However! I want you to answer the question as it stands, as if there was no hidden meaning you're supposed to decipher. I've implied something, yes, now all you gotta do is disregard that implication completely. I want your answer to be honest, even if the question wasn't. That's... the trick part of it, in a way. So, one more time from the top: do you think Bill deserves a second chance?

You can answer in Ao3′s comment section for this chapter, by replying to this post, via an ask either anonymously or by your own username, or through the instant messaging system, whichever option suits you best. If you can, please make your answer either a "yes" or "no", though I'm not turning down other kinds of answers, either. If you can elaborate on the reasoning behind your answer, I'd love to hear it, but it's in no way obligatory, so no pressure.

So, the ball is in your court now, my wonderful audience! I hope I'm not putting too much weight on your shoulders, but after having come all this way depending on your support and readership, it'd be a hack move of me to decide the ending on my own.

The epilogue will be out on May 29th! Until then, thank you. <3

#Blood Chains #gravity falls #fanfiction #billford #stanford pines #bill cipher #dipper pines #mabel pines #soos #melody

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thatsparrow · 4 years

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(alan grant/ellie sattler • post-fallen kingdom • read on ao3)

"Goddamn Hammond," Alan says when he sees the push alert from the New York Times. Then, "Ellie, wake up." It's somewhere near 2 A.M. but Nublar and Sorna had turned him into a light sleeper and that particular nervous habit has proved harder to kill than a genetically engineered raptor. His glasses are still sitting on the nightstand and so he has to squint a little at the screen to read it properly—Ellie and the kids gave him hell for weeks when he finally caved and increased the font size—but his eyes aren't so bad that he can't recognize the earth-shaking magnitude of the situation spelled out by the headline.

LIVE: Seven different species of dinosaurs have been spotted in and around the Northern California town of Mendocino. They are believed to have originated from the closed Costa Rican theme park, Jurassic World.

"Alan?" Ellie asks, half asleep and eyes blinking shut against the light off the screen. "What is it?" He offers the phone in lieu of an answer, waits as her vision adjusts enough for her to read it, knows she's finished when her whole body goes fossil-still.

"Goddamn Hammond," Alan says again, pressing his fingers against the bridge of his nose. "I don't care that he's dead. Damn him for his recklessness, damn him for the parks, and damn him for every act of foolishness that's followed." He lets out a slow sigh, rubs at his eyes. "I'd never admit it to the bastard, but Ian was right. It was only a matter of time until something like this happened."

Ellie has the full article open now, but it's no more than a short paragraph, this story is developing at the bottom. "We don't know what this is, yet. Maybe it's just another San Diego."

"A half-dozen people dead plus some kid's labrador?"

"Short term," Ellie says. "Containable. It sounds like whatever species have been seen so far are all herbivorous."

"You trust the people of Mendocino to know the difference?"

"I trust them to recognize sharp teeth." She sighs, pulls her thumb across the screen to refresh the article even though it's been no more than a minute. "What a mess. What an absolute mess." She hands the phone back to him, lets out a tired exhale. "What I wouldn't give to put Hammond's genie back in the bottle."

"What should we do?"

"Sell any remaining stock in InGen?" He raises an eyebrow at her and she smiles a little, but there's no humor in it. "That was a joke. I don't know, Alan—what can we do? We're academics, not dinosaur hunters. Our only relevant experience here is not having died twenty-five years ago. We could offer ourselves up in an advisory capacity, I guess, but even then, there are plenty of people out there who have done hands-on work with them. Whatever insight we may have had is outdated by over a decade at this point. Comparatively, we're like—"

"Dinosaurs?"

"Exactly."

Alan exhales, considering. "You're right, I know that, but I just—" he breaks off, turning over the phone in his hand. There's a video embedded in the article, a grainy thumbnail of what looks like the back of a Stegosaurus. The way the image is frozen, it looks like the Stego's tail is in mid-motion, suspended on an arc that would take it through the wall of a garden shed. With any luck, Ellie is right, and all the theropods were killed by the eruption on Nublar. Then again, if luck was playing any role here, Hammond's experiments should have failed at the start. "It feels like we should be doing something, doesn't it?"

"It does."

"What if we drove up there?"

"To Mendocino?" Ellie asks, and he nods. "Tonight?"

"I was thinking first thing in the morning, maybe. Wait until more reports come in. Who knows—maybe this will all have been cleared up by then, anyway."

"You think?"

"No, but I've never tried being an optimist before."

Alan refreshes the article again and sees a new paragraph of text, bare bones information that mentions three additional species—including a suspected Allosaurus—have been spotted near I-20 heading east. Life finding a way. Goddamn Malcolm. Goddamn Hammond. Goddamn it all.

—

The next day does bring more news, and none of it good. The current theory is that Hammond's former partner, Benjamin Lockwood, funded some sort of rescue operation to Nublar, retrieved an unknown number of species that were brought to his Northern California estate for a black market auction, and at some point during this process—predictably, Alan thinks—the dinosaurs escaped and bedlam ensued. Further details include: Lockwood's body in an upstairs bedroom, his death attributed (surprisingly) to natural causes; correspondence between Lockwood's assistant, Eli Mills, and an auctioneer, both of whom are still missing, though suspected dead (and, Alan presumes, suspected eaten); and an unknown theropod body in Lockwood's front hall, impaled on the horns of an Agujaceratops skull. Most of the servers in the lab below the estate were blown skyward, but of the data that's been recovered, it seems to be another genetic experiment, a cross-breeding of the Indominus with a Velociraptor.

("They never fucking learn," Alan says when he gets to that section of the report, hands white-knuckled around his coffee cup. "This has Wu's fingerprints all over it. Not enough to put raptor and rex DNA in a blender with whatever else they could get their hands on—no, he had to scale it down and make it twice as clever. If this wasn't intended for military application, I'll eat my hat, then buy another one and eat that, too.")

Though the article leaves a good number of questions unanswered, it does make clear that Hammond's follies have again found their way to the mainland, and with a sense of permanency this time. New sightings are reported with alarming frequency as the morning goes on, increasing in both the number of different species and the distance they've traveled from Lockwood's estate. Tracking efforts have been mobilized, but it's all too little, too late—not to mention the public debate that sparks up again over the question of recapturing or killing.

"Okay," Ellie says once they've read through the reports, putting her phone face-down on the kitchen table and burying her face in her hands. "It's a mess. Officially. This makes what happened in San Diego look like an incident at a petting zoo. We've got at least twenty species running loose—including, so far, a T. rex, a Baryonyx, and an Allosaurus—that are all spreading further apart by the moment, and as of now, the best method of tracking them is to wait for someone standing by to post about it to Twitter."

"I hate Twitter," Alan says, reflexive.

"I know you do." Ellie smiles at him a little, then lets out a slow breath. "So what should we do? We know more than we did last night, but really it's just enough to tell us that this situation is worse than we could have imagined. I'm ready to jump in the car and start driving if you are, but at this point, I'm not sure what good that would do."

"Might feel better than just sitting here," Alan says, lacing his hands behind his neck to keep them from reaching for his phone again. "But no, you're right, I'm not sure what it would actually accomplish."

Ellie's quiet for a moment, fingers drumming an absent rhythm on the table. They weren't exactly young when Hammond first brought them to Nublar, but looking now at the ridged veins on the back of her hands—thinking of the new wrinkles across his own forehead and his hair that's gone grey-white in recent years—it strikes Alan how much older they've both become. Maybe too old to be playing games like this.

"Can I ask you something?" Ellie says.

"Always."

"Imagine that we did have a plan, and we knew exactly what was needed to make a difference here—what side of the debate would we be on?"

"What do you mean?"

Her hands are still restless, index finger tapping lightly against the wood. "Half the world seems to think they should be shot down as they're spotted, and the other wants to see them safely rounded up and brought to some sort of preserve. We never talked about it much when it was a question of the eruption on Nublar, but now I'm curious"

Alan frowns a little, brows pulling together. "They're dangerous, Ellie. That's more true than ever with no fences or open ocean between them and the rest of the world."

"The sauropods aren't."

"They're megafauna that belong to a different age. They can still do damage on a scale that society isn't ready for." He looks at Ellie, a little surprised. "You think they should be kept alive? After everything that's happened?"

"Don't get me wrong, I'll be the first to agree that everyone would be better off if all of the raptors had died before they'd hatched, but—" she breaks off, smiling at him a little helplessly. "I don't know, Alan. I think back to when Hammond first drove us around in that Jeep and you turned my head to look out the window and it—it was all of my childhood dreams come to life. Nothing could compare to seeing the bones that I'd spent my life studying brought to life in front of me and standing sixty feet tall, and I know you felt that, too. Look, say what you will about Hammond—and God knows that I have—but whatever may have been the end result, you can't deny that there was something noble in his intentions."

"I seem to remember another saying that has to do with 'good intentions'."

"Alan—"

"They're not real, Ellie. You know that. They are, at best, distantly removed cousins of the dinosaurs that really lived, and probably more closely resemble whatever amphibian DNA that Wu mixed into the fossilized blood. Whatever you felt—whatever we felt—on Nublar after seeing them for the first time, it was just a fantasy."

Ellie's smile turns a little sad. "It was a pretty spectacular fantasy." She pauses, then reaches out to take one of Alan's hands, both of them weathered and older, palms still a little callused from years spent in the field. Ellie's thumb runs a gentle pattern over his skin. "I'm going to ask you for a favor now, alright? For me, and for the sake of your younger self, I want you to imagine a world where it's not all or nothing. Where kids can grow up learning that raptors actually had feathers, and where they can visit a preserve and see the drawings from their picture books come to life. You don't have to remind me of all the bad that's come from the parks and Hammond's efforts, but you can't lie to me and pretend that there wasn't some good in there, too."

Alan makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat—which is as close as he's willing to get to a yes—but then he does let his mouth twitch towards a smile, lifts their joined hands and presses a kiss to her knuckles. As if he could ever say no to anything she asked of him.

Ellie gets up and moves to take their emptied mugs to the sink, and as she starts to run the water, Alan does as she's requested, allowing himself to remember the bright moments among the bad. Weighs the terror he'd felt at seeing the T. rex chewing through the Jeep's roof towards Lex and Tim against the moment of resting his palm against the gentle curve of the Brachiosaur's nose. Watching the Spino's hungry jaws carve through the hull of the Kirbys' chartered plane with all the ease of crushing a soda can. Leaning his body on the belly of the Triceratops and feeling its breath thrumming all the way through his chest.

No, Ellie's not wrong—for all his flaws and his arrogance, Hammond had managed to build something beautiful. Still, it's just as much a lie to pretend that the near-death experiences shouldn't weigh heavier than the rest. Were those brief moments of splendor really worth Muldoon or Arnold or any of the others who'd lost their lives for the sake of Hammond's hubris? Not to mention whatever poor civilians might now stumble into the path of the wandering Allosaurus or Baryonyx or any other not-yet-identified theropods who have found their way to the mainland. It's too much cost with not enough reward. Would it be worth it if the carnivores were gone? You can't play that game when the technology is already there; someone is always going to get ambitious and want something with more teeth.

It's a question that keeps him up at night, even after he and Ellie have decided that there's nothing for them to do at the moment—other than keep an eye on their phones and wait for a call from the government or InGen. So they wait, and Alan wonders, and meanwhile news reports still surface with regular frequency of sightings. It's a disaster with no obvious answer, and he's no closer to coming up with any sort of solution—but at least if there's a decision to be made, it won't be coming from him.

And then the presumed-dead Claire Dearing calls Ellie about a potential rescue mission for the last remaining Velociraptor and the whole question suddenly stops being so theoretical.

Goddamn it.

#jurassic park #jurassic world #fallen kingdom #alan grant #ellie sattler #my fic

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ecoamerica · 2 months

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youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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theskyeandsea · 4 years

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Shifty Strangers || Ulfric & Skylar

Tagging: @big-bad-ulf

Location: Coffee Plus

Notes: While fueling up on coffee, Ulfric sniffs out another shifter in White Crest.

Ulfric wasn’t usually the type to frequent coffee shops, but after a long restless night of impromptu guard duty he needed some kind of pick-me-up to get through the day’s appointments at the parlor. It wouldn’t end well if he fell asleep with a needle in his hand. The line that waited for him inside Coffee Plus was both a curse and blessing. The former because the longer he had to wait the higher his chances of dozing off on the spot, the latter because it meant a higher chance of avoiding Celeste until she left for work. Though even if she did chances were her scent would still be waiting for him. After just one night, and even with his senses dulled so close to the new moon, it seemed everything in his trailer was contaminated with hunter stench. Hints of it even clung to him somehow, despite the copious amounts febreze he’d sprayed all over himself as soon as he left.

Taking a spot at the end of the line, Ulfric caught wind of another scent that pulled him out of his funk about his own acquired funk. It radiated from the young woman in front of him, reminding him of the ocean and… blue gatorade? But there was a familiar animalistic undercurrent that provided an instant jolt to his awareness that no coffee could hope to achieve. Not a wolf, but close enough to be comforting after the strange series of events he’d just been through. “Hey,” He tapped her lightly on the shoulder, using the beat before she turned around to face him to scramble together an excuse to talk to her. “Uh... would you recommend anything off the menu here? I’d usually only just go for a black coffee. I’m a creature of habit, you know how it is. But sometimes a change can be nice, right? I feel like trying something different before my shift.” It wasn’t the best or most subtle icebreaker, but hey, he was tired, and if she caught on maybe he could warn her about the beast hunters that were circling over White Crest like vultures. Or at least, he could put off having to face the hunter in his own home for a while longer.

Coffee Plus was more crowded than usual, which was honestly really good to see. It was cool that so many people in town liked to support their local businesses. And, even though she had her thermos and coffee machine, Skylar had decided to treat herself to a nice Americano from the shop. Waiting in line, she scrolled through her phone, a small frown crossing her face as she realized that Remmy and Morgan hadn’t responded to her. Had something happened? Mmmmm, no, they were probably fine. Maybe they were busy. Maybe the two of them decided to go and enjoy the sunshine, somewhere safely away from the ghost that was threatening Morgan. They were fine. She slid her phone back into her pocket and continued to wait in line patiently. As she waited, Skylar started slightly when someone gently tapped her shoulder. A tall bearded man with tattoos-- had she done something wrong? She didn’t think she cut in front of him. “Hm? Oh, sorry, I really only get espresso here, so it’s really not that different from a drip coffee.” She said, his deliberate intonation going over her head. “But, they use really high quality roasts here, so it should be good no matter what you choose.”

“Espresso’s not a bad idea. If a shot of caffeine’s what you’re after why complicate that?” Ulfric shrugged, doing his best to hide his disappointment at what seemed to be a rebuff of their shared status. Did she not know what she was? It seemed unlikely, the recently transformed usually carried a much stronger aura of panic around them. If this young woman had recently undergone an unexpected evolutionary upgrade she was handling it remarkably well. Then again her response didn’t seem terse enough for her to be one of those in the self-loathing, deep-in-denial, human-passing crowd. “Crazy times we’ve been having, huh? With the fish rain and the squid thing,” He decided to try again, after a moment to scratch his beard in contemplation. He had time to kill, and if he ended up making a fool of himself he could always blame the early hour. “You strike me as someone who likes to get out on the water. You know, got a real affinity for the sea? I’m more of a terrestrial animal myself. It’d be good to hear a more informed take on it.”

“Mhm. And this place does a really nice Americano. I usually make my own coffee and take it into work, but I figured I could treat myself today.” Skylar said with a polite smile, gesturing to the thermos that was tucked into the water bottle pouch of her work bag. Given the amount of caffeine it took to make her feel anything, her coffee habit had really added up over the years. Alain had been right-- the machine and thermos had been a good investment. As the man continued to speak to her, she blinked a little. Why was he talking to her? Not that she minded conversation, or that it was harming anything. She’d woken up early to ensure she had extra time to get from the coffee shop to work with ample time to spare. But… she hadn’t really anticipated having a chat with someone. “Mhm, pretty weird stuff. Between that and the blood puddles and the darkness… White Crest is anything but boring.” She laughed. When his words turned to talk of the ocean, of water, Skylar’s blood froze. “Huh? No, not really. I don’t even know how to swim very well.” She said, confusion bringing out an ounce of truth.

“Huh. My mistake, I guess,” Ulfric sighed, still not entirely convinced that he was wrong. He’d grown very confident in his shifter radar but maybe the lingering eau de hunter was throwing it off? “You smell like someone that would be more at home on the ocean. Not that you smell bad or anything, or that I go around sniffing strangers that often,” He inarticulately apologised, noticing her growing tension every time mentioned the sea. Still, one last shot, then there would be so little time left before Ink Inc. opened that he could justify going straight there and ideally he might even be able to warn her about the escalating hunter threat before she had firmly decided never to talk to him again. “Like I said, I’m more suited to land so I do most of my hunting there but do I like to fish on occasion--” If you could call catching salmon in your maw straight out stream fishing. “And your sc-- something about you seemed familiar, like maybe we had something in common. But if you don’t feel the same I’ll just leave you to go about your business.” The wolf backed off a bit stepping to the side of the line, before rummaging in his pockets for change. “Let me buy you that Americano at least though, for your troubles. ”

Smell like someone who would be at home in the ocean? What did that mean..? Skylar blinked in confusion as the man continued to speak with her about it. As he continued to talk, her eyes widened. Wait a second, did he? Was he-- Oh god. Rio had mentioned how Hunters who hunted people who changed shapes could sense others. Hand tightening on her workbag, she stiffened. “I-- I guess?” She stammered, trying to figure out how to best deny this. But if he was a Hunter, why would that be something smelling related? She really wished that Rio had told her more about how Hunters figured out who people are. Hunting on land? Fish on occasion? Oh god. He was a Hunter and he’d figured out what she was and he was going to try and take her skin or just actually try and kill him. “I-- No, no, you’re okay. Really, you don’t need to do that.” Skylar said, waving her hands in a slightly panicked gesture.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you,” Ulfric backed away even further, holding up his hands and nodding in acknowledgement towards the barista who had begun glaring at him for harassing their customer. “Nevermind about the coffee,” He conceded, depositing the change he’d got out into the tip jar instead. Turning back to the young woman he then cautioned her in a hushed but carefully enunciated tone. “I just wanted to warn you; There are owls in our bog. Pigs in our forest. There are… I don’t know the American expression but there are a lot of people around town right now looking to do folks like us harm. Take care of yourself, alright?” The wolf moved around in a wide arc around her, allowing her space as he made his way towards the exit of the Coffee Plus, his original purpose for being there abandoned. Clearly he wasn’t going to be much use to anyone until he got some rest, he thought, running his fingers through his hair and letting out a frustrated sigh. Maybe he could find a discreet place in the shop to nap before his first consultation arrived.

The confused expression on Skylar’s face only grew as the man backed out of the line, tossing his money in the tip jar and then he gave a strange warning. Bog? Pigs? American expression? “I really don’t understand but, you really don’t need to go-- Oh no.” She said in dismay as she watched the man hurry out of the coffee shop. She really hadn’t meant to chase someone off like that, but… she didn’t know what he was talking about. At first, he’d seemed like a hunter, but then he was saying something ominous about owls in the woods? Did that mean he wasn’t one? Turning back to the barista, she placed her order, pausing when they asked her if she wanted anything else. “Um. And a large drip coffee, please. No room for cream.” She added.

When her drinks were slid across the counter, Skylar hurried out the door and looked around. He was a tall man with a large bushy beard. He was the kind of person who would stand out in a crowd, and the early morning streets of White Crest certainly weren’t crowded. Spotting him, Skylar hurried after him, moving as quickly as she dared with two hot drinks in her hands. “Sir?” She asked timidly after him. “I felt bad that you didn’t get a coffee because of… all that. So, um, please.” Skylar held out the large travel cup.

Ulfric had just finished firing off a quick text to Ariana, ‘Got to rush to work. Don’t be late for school. I’ll pick up food for you + C on the way home’ when he heard the young woman call out to him and pivoted back to her. “That’s nice of you,” he accepted the offered coffee graciously. “Clearly I need it.” He took a long steadying sip. “I’m Ulfric, by the way, that would’ve been a smarter way to start. Here,” He retrieved a glossy business card for Ink Inc from his scuffed leather wallet. “If you change your mind and ever want to talk to someone about, well, changing you can contact me here. Or if you’re ever in trouble,” He held it out in the hopes of exchanging it for the kindly offered caffeine, but if she didn’t take it there was still a chance she’d remember his name if she ever needed it. He was fairly certain he was the only Ulfric in town. “I might be biased but I think we’re safer and stronger if we stick together.”

When the man held out the business card, Skylar hesitated for a moment. She wasn’t entirely certain what to expect from him-- first he’d seemed like a Hunter, dropping hints about things that he might know what she was, but then… he’d backed off. Given, they were in a public space, but the streets weren’t busy. He could easily just grab hold of her, attack her, without her being able to do anything. But instead, he was holding out a business card and saying something about changing. Frowning, she took the card from him, looking at it briefly. “Ulfric Haakonsson.” She read outloud, her tongue stumbling over the strange last name. “Sorry. I’m not good with unfamiliar names. But, um… what do you mean by that? Sticking together? Do you--�� She balked, looking around carefully. There was no one around, at least, no one she could see nearby. “Are you… different?” She asked, not sure how else to frame her question.

Ulfric grinned as she took the card. Doing one small uncomplicatedly right thing felt like a massive relief amidst the tangled mess of conflicting priorities he’d suddenly found himself in with the Bennetts. “Don’t apologize, that’s my great-great-grandfather Haakon’s fault for sticking us with one,” He waved off her apology, unable to hold in a laugh at her downplayed question. Compensating for still keen but less than peak performance hearing, he glanced along the street to confirm no one was in earshot before answering. “Around the full moon, sure.The rest of the time it depends who’s defining normal. Unfortunately for us those with the least tolerance for things deemed irregular, tend to be the most... well-armed. What about you?” He flipped the query back around on her, encouraged by her apparent curiosity. “Are you saying you consider yourself ordinary?”

When the man-- Ulfric-- let out a laugh, Skylar blinked in confusion. Had she said something funny? She didn’t quite understand why he would be laughing. But, when he mentioned the full moon, her stomach lurched. Werewolf. He was a werewolf, he must be. She didn’t know of any other kind of creature--person, that turned with the full moon. And… that must be how he could tell that she was some kind of creature as well. Because his sense of smell. He could tell what she was just at a glance. Biting the inside of her cheek, Skylar weighed her options. He knew she wasn’t human. She couldn’t lie. She hated that she couldn’t keep it a secret from him. But… if he was telling her what he was, he must be a good person, right? He was honest. And he’d said those kind words, of being stronger and safer together. They were words she’d heard from Ricky, but had been long abandoned. Could she trust this man? Realizing she hadn’t answered, Skylar cleared her throat. “No. Not really,” Her words came out in a slightly halting tone, not sure how to put what she was into meaningful euphemisms. “I don’t always feel comfortable in my own skin. And the sea, it’s where I’m meant to belong. I’m just not always… the best at dealing with it.” She said, hoping he would understand what she meant.

“Well, the world we’re living in certainly doesn’t make it so easy,” Ulfric replied thoughtfully, milling over the young woman’s words for clues that could be matched with what he knew of other shifter species. The mention of skin pointed towards selkie, but the comment about not being comfortable in hers was confusing and a little concerning. The close-knit colony he’d heard about in Iceland frequently returned to sea in their true forms, and he didn’t see putting it off for extended periods could possibly be healthy. Then again the current climate in White Crest wasn’t exactly friendly towards shifter habits. “Maybe it’s best if you lay low for a while,” He added with a hint of sadness. “Hunting season is heating up and they don’t tend to discriminate between one ‘beast’ and the next.” He mimed quotation marks with his free hand to make it clear he didn’t really believe that label hunters had slapped on all shifters and supernatural animals applied to them. “Just keep in mind my offer, alright? If you’re ever finding things too much to handle on your own.”

“No, it really doesn’t.” Skylar agreed, hoping that he understood what she’d meant. Did he realize that she was a selkie? She wasn’t quite sure how else she could make it clear, without just saying “I turn into a seal sometimes.” And this wasn’t quite the time or place to make such a statement. The man’s advice, words about a hunting season, they rang loud and clear. People were out in White Crest, looking to harm them. Looking to hurt people who were… like her. Who could change into things, even if they didn’t really want to. Swallowing, Skylar nodded. “Thanks for the advice.” She said with a nod, though her mind couldn’t help but go to Nic and to Rio and to how they were different. They weren’t just mindless murderers. They were good people, stuck in roles they didn’t quite like either. “I will. I… I might take you up on that.” She offered a small smile.

“That’s all I can ask for.” Ulfric nodded, understanding why she’d remain hesitant. Unfortunately, there was only so much he could say to reassure her of his trustworthiness in the middle of the street. “Be seeing you around then, maybe.” Returning her smile, he gave a semi-reluctant wave goodbye before continuing in the direction of the parlor. He would just have to hope that the few words of warning he’d been able to give her would be enough to keep her from harm until she did decide to reach out or the problem was permanently, bloodily resolved. The news had undoubtedly added to the weight on the young shifter’s shoulders, and he did feel a small pang of regret for that. But, he concluded, as he arrived at the shuttered Ink Inc. shopfront, a few more blissful moments of ignorance weren’t worth dying over. It wasn’t until he got the heavily bolted shop door open that he realized he’d never got her name or any way to check up on her himself. Faen, he was going to need a lot more coffee.

#p: ss #p: ulfric haakonsson

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hlupdate · 4 years

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Harry Styles twirls in the center of the floor of the L.A. Forum, dancing wildly to his new song “Golden.” The venue is deserted. It’s Thursday afternoon, just a few hours before the release of his hotly awaited second album, Fine Line. He’s rehearsing for Friday night’s big album-release celebration show. (Outside the arena, the parking lot is full of tents—fans from around the world have been camping out all week, awaiting a spot on this floor.) After a few hours of rehearsing with his band, Harry cuts loose as the new album begins to blast over the speakers, breaking into a dance of joy. It’s probably the last time he’ll ever hear this song in a room where nobody else is dancing.

Backstage, he lounges on a leather couch in his corduroy flares, a string of pearls and a yellow T-shirt depicting a panda and the words “I’m Gonna Die Lonely.” He and his musical wingman, Tom “Kid Harpoon” Hull, argue over the set list for the upcoming world tour, even though it doesn’t start until April. His mother reaches for an apple; ever the dutiful rock-star son, Harry directs her to the bowl where the tastier apples are hidden. He’s restless with anticipation for the world to hear his new songs, and he’s not doing a great job of hiding it.

Fine Line is the soulful, expansive, joyous pop masterpiece Harry’s been reaching for ever since he blew up nearly ten years ago, as the heart-throb of One Direction. As he sings in “Lights Up,” the single that dropped in September, he’s stepping into the light. “It all just comes down to I’m having more fun, I guess,” he says. “I think ‘Lights Up’ came at the end of a long period of self-reflection, self-acceptance,” he says. “Through the two years of making the record I went through a lot of personal changes—I just had the conversations with myself that you don’t always have. And I just feel more comfortable being myself.”

His life has changed in oh so many ways—some involving the occasional magic mushroom, others involving the even more psychedelic power of a broken heart. The music ranges from the Laurel Canyon hippie soft-rock vibe of “Canyon Moon”—Harry calls it “Crosby, Stills and Nash on steroids”—to the R&B pulse of “Adore You.” Fine Line is a break-up album that’s often sorrowful, but reflecting the introspective evolution of a 25-year-old navigating the seas of Having Sex and Feeling Sad, despite having spent so much of his youth in the spotlight. He’s refusing to follow trends or fit any formula. “The overall arc is just that I tried to redefine what success means to me. I tried to rewire what I thought about it. A lot changes in two years, especially after coming out of the band and just working out what life is now. I feel so much freer, making this album—you get to a place where you feel happy even if the song is about the time when you weren’t that happy.”

The first time Harry played this album for me, back in June, it was a few miles away in L.A.’s Henson Studios, the same room where his idol Carole King made Tapestry—for him, sacred ground. “I look back on the last album,” he said then, referring to his 2017 solo debut. “And I thought I was being so honest, just because there’s one line about having a wank. I had no idea. You write a song that’s pretty open and honest, and you think that’s just my song, but then you hand it over to people, and it’s like, ‘Oh fuck!’ Until people hear them, they’re not even songs. They’re just voice notes.”

Here is Harry’s song-by-song guide to Fine Line—along the creative and emotional journey he took while making it.

“Golden” The first song written for Fine Line, on the second day of the sessions at Shangri-La Studios in Malibu. “That was always the first one I played to people,” he says. “That was just always going to be Track One.” It’s a blast of vintage Seventies SoCal soft-rock, the kind of Laurel Canyon mellowness that suffused his first album, layered in guitars and harmonies. “When we wrote ‘Golden,’ we were sitting around the kitchen in the studio, and I was playing it on guitar. There were five of us singing the harmonies—the acoustics in the kitchen made it sound so cool, so we thought, this song’s gonna work.”

Even in this sunny SoCal pop tune, there’s a tinge of bittersweet loss—as the sun goes down, he pleads, “I don’t wanna be alone.” As he says, “I don’t know much about Van Morrison’s life—but I know how he felt about this girl, because he put it in a song. So I like working the same way.”

“Watermelon Sugar” Harry did this fruit-crazed jam on Saturday Night Live, stretching out with his live band. He wrote “Watermelon Sugar” with producer Tyler Johnson, Tom Hull and guitar sidekick Mitch Rowland; as with the whole album, he worked with members of his tight rotating cast of friends and collaborators, rather than the usual hit squad of pros. “If you’re going in with session writers or something, you spend one or two days there, and there is no way that person really cares about your album as much as you do. Because they’re into something else tomorrow. I know that Mitch, Tyler, Tom, Sammy [Witte], Jeff [Bhasker] wanted the album to be as good as I wanted to be. They don’t care about if it’s their song or not. They’re not concerned how many songs they get on an album. They want it to be the best album it can possibly be. We’ll bond over music we love and things we’re going through. It’s not like there’s one person in the group that’s like, ‘Well, no, I don’t talk about that. I just make beats.’”

A massive influence on the album—and on his life—is his experience on his first solo tour, stepping out without One Direction. “The tour, that affected me deeply. It really changed me emotionally. Having people come to sing the songs. For me the tour was the biggest thing in terms of being more accepting of myself, I think. I kept thinking, ‘Oh wow, they really want me to be myself. And be out and do it.’ That’s the thing I’m most thankful for, of touring. The fans in the room is this environment where people come to feel like they can be themselves. There’s nothing that makes me feel more myself than to be in this whole room of people. It made me realize people want to see me experiment and have fun. Nobody wants to see you fake it.”

“Adore You” “‘Adore You’ is the poppiest song on the album,” he says of the latest single. “This time I really felt so much less afraid to write fun pop songs. It had to do with the whole thing of being on tour and feeling accepted. I listen to stuff like Harry Nilsson and Paul Simon and Van Morrison, and I think, well, Van Morrison has ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ and Nilsson has ‘Coconut.’ Bowie has ‘Let’s Dance.’ The fun stuff is important.”

“Lights Up” After kicking off his solo career with “Sign of the Times,” a sprawling glam-rock piano epic, Harry surprised many fans with his first single from Fine Line: a succinct, sleek R&B groove. “When I played it for the label, I told them, this is the first single. It’s two minutes thirty-five. You’re welcome.” It came late in the sessions—“Lights Up,” “Treat People with Kindness” and “Adore You” were written in the final week this spring, in a burst of inspiration.

For Harry it has something to do with stepping out on his own. When he began songwriting, it was as a member of the group. “‘Happily,” that was the first time I saw my name in the credits. I liked that. But I knew I’d only sing part of it. I knew if I wrote a really personal song, I wouldn’t sing it. It was like a safety net. If a song was too personal, I could back away and say, ‘Well, I don’t have anything to do with it.’ The writing was like, “Well if I was going to write a song about myself, I’d probably never sing it.” It’s like story-telling sometimes if you’re like telling a really personal story then the voice changes every few lines, it doesn’t quite do the same thing. As the songs got more personal, I think I just became more aware that at some point there might be a moment where I would want to sing it myself.”

“A turning point was “Two Ghosts,” a ballad from his solo debut. “’Two Ghosts’ I wrote for the band, for Made In the AM. But the story was just a bit too personal. As I started opening up to write my more personal stuff, I just became aware of a piece of me going, ‘I want to sing the whole thing.’ Now I look at a track list and these are all my little babies. So every time I’m playing a song, I can remember writing it, and exactly where we were and exactly what happened in my life when I wrote it. So the whole show is this massive emotional journey, you know? That’s a big difference, rather than every twenty minutes you go, ‘Oh, I remember this one.’”

“Cherry” The most powerful moment on Fine Line—a raw confession of jealousy. His engineer Sammy Witte was playing an acoustic guitar riff that Harry overheard and loved. “That was the moment of saying, yeah, I want my songs to sound like that,” he says. It ends with a female voice speaking French, while Harry jams on guitar. “That’s just a voice note of my ex-girlfriend talking. I was playing guitar and she took a phone call—and she was actually speaking in the key of the song.”

“Falling” A dreamy soul ballad. “Tom had come up to my place to grab something and he’d sat at the piano and I’d just got out of the shower and he started playing, and then we wrote it there. So I was completely naked when I wrote that song.”

“To be So Lonely” “The song ‘To Be So Lonely’ is just really like articulation of Mitch’s brain. Even when Mitch plays to himself, he’s got the swing.” The song was composed on a guitalele—a ukulele with six strings. “They’re really good for writing on, because you can travel with them. I had one of those with me in Japan, so they’re really good for spur-of-the-moment ideas.”

“She” A fantastic six-minute rock epic with a loopy guitar excursion, as if the Prince circa “Purple Rain” jammed with Pink Floyd circa “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” “Mitch played that guitar when he was a little, ah, influenced. Well, he was on mushrooms, we all were. We had no idea what we were doing. We forgot all about that track, then went back later and loved it. But Mitch had no idea what he did on guitar that night, so he had to learn it all over from the track. That one to me feels really British. I usually sing with a slight American twang, because the first person I ever listened to was Elvis Presley. When I’ve been doing the track listing, and ticking off the ones to definitely make the album, it’s always in the first three to be ticked. That’s a phenomenal song.”

“Sunflower, Vol. 6” An experimental trip with “deep cut” written all over it. “I would love people to listen to the whole album. I want people to listen to every song. Even with streaming and playlists, I love listening to records top to bottom. So I want to make make albums that I want to listen to top to bottom, because that’s just how I listen to music.”

“Canyon Moon” “I was in a pretty big Joni hole,” Harry admits. Inspired by his Southern California surroundings—and his obsession with Joni Mitchell’s 1971 classic Blue—he tracked down Joellen Lapidus, the woman who built the dulcimer Mitchell plays all over that album. Back in the day, Lapidus introduced Mitchell to the wonders of the mountain dulcimer; Joni took it backpacking around Europe and wrote some of her most classic songs on it. Harry and Tom Hull got their first lesson in the instrument from Lapidus herself, at her house in Culver City. He proudly calls this song “Crosby, Stills and Nash on steroids.” When he played Fine Line for Stevie Nicks this summer, she picked this as her favorite—and as you may know, Stevie’s opinion means a lot to the young man she called “my little muse Harry Styles.”

“Treat People With Kindness” This up-with-people sing-along doesn’t sound like anything else on the album. It began after the slogan was featured prominently on Harry’s first solo tour. “I told Jeff, I would love to someday write a song called ‘Treat People With Kindness.’ And he was like, ‘Why don’t you just do it?’ It made me uncomfortable at first, because I wasn’t sure what it was—but then I wanted to lean into that. I feel like that song opened something that’s been in my core.”

“Fine Line” The longest and most eccentric song on the album—one of the first to be written, as a simple folkie ballad, but it kept expanding and evolving. “It’s a weird one,” he says. “It started simple, but I wanted to have this big epic outro thing. And it just took shape as this thing where I thought, ‘That’s just like the music I want to make.’ I love strings, I love horns, I love harmonies—so why don’t we just put ALL of that in there?” It typifies the spirit of the whole project. But he knows he can’t please everyone. “When my granddad first heard ‘Lights Up,’ he was, ‘Yeah, I had to listen to it a couple times to get it. But I’m just glad you’re still working.’ It was funny, but I thought, I’m just glad I’m still working.”

#Harry Styles #fine line #stunt mention

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nobeliumoxygenoxygen · 5 years

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the league on a plane

i just came back from japan (which was awesome!!) and i randomly got inspiration (which was most likely also because of the villain arc we’re getting!! shigarakis character page!! togas backstory!!) so pls enjoy these crack headcanons where the league somehow get on a plane and stay unrecognised

toga is window seat window seat window seat all the way

which probably isn't a good idea because she'll start feeling restless ten minutes after takeoff

also when another teen like three rows behind gets a nosebleed she's ecstatic; dabi has to physically restrain her but it doesn't stop her intense staring

and she squeals and flails when there's turbulence only because it's fun - none of the lov would be scared, like why would they, they're villains

magne: spinner are you ok--

spinner: what of course

magne: do you--

spinner: i'm not holding onto the armest what are you talking about magne

magne: i was going to ask about your motion sickness

dabi manages to snag the middle seat only because shigaraki demands the aisle seat

(putting those two together with toga was probably not the best idea)

and so dabi makes himself as assholey as possible - bathroom every half an hour, especially during meal times

shigaraki: what do you mean you need to go you went ten minutes ago im not lifting my food for you

dabi: fine, if you want piss all over you

(toga, little sister voice: grossssss dabi)

shigaraki: it'll be all over you

dabi: not if i aim just ri--

shigaraki: fine

and flicking on his desk light thing when it's lights out so that shigaraki gets jolted awake (because they're the league, they must be light sleepers if they've survived this long)

shigaraki is so close to disintegrating the next flight attendent that walks by and gives him a smile

he's suspicious of everyone and so what if father is slipping onto the aisle he needs space

compress gets stuck alone a row behind spinner and magne but that's fine because he manages to get stuck with a school teacher on a trip with their high school students (of which they should have hidden this fact from toga because now she’s glancing at the students often and the league’s very suspicious) and gets to show them a lot of magic tricks

it gets old really quickly but compress is charismatic enough that they're fine

the kids are but the teacher is a bit exasperated because this is their return trip so they really really wanted to just sleep not have this masked man show them five hundred card tricks that are, admittedly, good, but not right now

despite how much spinner wants to be a decent traveler, he ends up swayed by magne into being huge trolls (when spinner isn't dying inside because of turbulence and/or when he overhears someone talking crap about stain--almost nothing can stop spinner when he’s on the warpath)

they have this poor man stuck in between them in the middle seat and the two usually time their toilet breaks and leave together and then when they come back they're laughing but as soon as they sit down they're silent

the man's sweating buckets - he thinks they're talking crap about him and they are

they send messages to each other using the seat messaging feature and give each other dares to do when the man is finally sleeping

twice is in the seat next to spinner so there's an aisle between them but he alternates between scolding the two and encouraging them

spinner: she dared me to put my salmon in his cup

twice: you shouldn't do that! go for it!

he sleeps like a baby though and it's such an experience for the lov to see their twice not hyperactive. only problem is he sleeps for one hour and then he's up and awake

he watches tons of movies but makes loud gasps and conflicting commentary which annoys the people next to him but he's really engrossed in the movies so he doesn’t notice and besides, he wouldn't stop anyway

kurogiri is, unfortunately, placed like five rows ahead so he can't be damage control rip

he's a good traveler though - polite, his mist makes it easy for people to pass him and he quietly does his own thing

but he uses his mist to check on them frequently despite how many times the flight attendants are like "please do not do that sir, you're scaring the baby that is right behind you"

(one time he looks back and he does his equivalent of a smile because aww most of them are sleeping look how peaceful they are oh wait dabi's glaring at twice where is toga great she's still staring at that nosebleeding teen and what's this magne's putting something in the man's cup well it was nice while it lasted)

they are chaotic and it's a miracle they don't get banned from airplanes

dabi, smirking because he successfully annoyed shigaraki more times than he can count: that was fun while it lasted

twice: totally!!! i was so bored!!

spinner: what was the purpose of this again? did this further our agenda at all?

magne: dont pretend you didnt enjoy it spinner

shigaraki, on the verge of dusting dabi and toga: kurogiri take us home

yes they went on a plane for the sake of going on a plane together (or did they?? kurogiri may or may not have returned to the bar with more stuff than he boarded with)

don't ask what happened to the people who were meant to be in their seats

a rushed visual made using paint just in case it’s needed - key: toga’s yellow; dabi’s black; shigaraki’s grey; magne’s red; spinner’s green; twice’s blue; compress’s orange; kurogiri’s purple

#bnha #league of villains #dabi #shigaraki tomura #toga himiko #kurogiri #mr compress #sako atsuhiro #magne #hikiishi kenji #twice #bubaigawara jin #league of villains imagines #league of villains scenarios #league of villains headcanons #bnha imagines #bnha scenarios #bnha headcanons

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imagine-loki · 5 years

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The Slutty Webs One Weaves

Title : The Slutty Webs one Weaves

Chapter NO. 2 of 10?

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki’s Asgardian wife learns women write fanfiction about him on a trip to Midgard. She’s edgy for the duration and lets him have it when they get back.

Author: lokilover9

Rating: M

Notes: Hello everyone. I will get to writing another chapter of Irked, but for now, here’s a mini crack fic. Should be good for a laugh or two.

When Loki and Astrid entered their vehicle in the Towers underground, he opened portal, exiting in the woods on Staten Island and she pouted.

"Not hiking again, Loki. Skunks are mean."

He tisked. "Bushy tailed scoundrels. I did warn you to keep away."

"I thought it was cute. Where are we?"

"A dumping location of one golden eyed jester. No matter." He conjured a cabin and opened its door. "Still wish to get naked?"

They fucked for hours until Astrid lay spent, resembling a deflating blow up doll.

"Dress now my lovely? I'll gather your belongings from the truck."

With her brain afloat in subspace, she hazily replied. "Yes Master." *****

They entered Asgard and Heimdall arched a brow at her bedraggled appearance. "Welcome back, my lady."

"Midgardians make edible panties."

Loki scooped her into his arms. "Nothing a good slumber can't fix. Ta ta, jester." He chuckled upon pulling a key from his pocket when undressing. "I dare to ponder your predicament before realizing this missing, Cootyoodles." *****

Weeks passed while down on Midgard, several burglaries had occurred in rich homes around New Jersey. Only cash was ever stolen, yet the thieves exceptional skill at avoiding detection was a growing concern.

Pepper and Tony sat watching the news.

~ "Another burglary in Jersey last night left police no closer to identifying a suspect. More at eleven." ~

"Didn't the thiefasaurous make a peanut butter and banana sandwich at the last house,? I'd love to know how they're hacking the security cameras. Clever bastard."

"Could be a woman, but definitely a pro."

"There's an erotic vision. You dressed as a bandit, searching a homeowner's porn reserve while snickering at their amatuer bondage supplies."

"Why risk imprisonment? Were the porn in your 'Butch's Bitch' file dvd's, they'd line a path from here to Miami."

"Ooooh, does that mean we're on the same page?"

"Mmm..no. You're horny and I'm craving nachos. Please unravel yourself from my thigh?"

Stark playfully gnawed on it. "And if I don't? What then, Mistress?" He obeyed when the lights flickered and Jarvis announced a security breach. "Speaking of bandits, ours is an Alien God breaking a promise."

"Jarvis never detected him before."

"Likely an impish forewarning attempt. I'd bet a thousand he's hoping I'm shackled to the coffee table, sucking a rubber cock for his own amusement."

'Note to self.' Thought Pepper. 'Add to 'to do' list.' "What makes you think him so savage?"

"Loki's a sexual deviant."

"Oh?"

'Blabbermouth. Now she's intrigued.' "Everything back to normal, Jarvis?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Told ya and I know just where to find the prick." Tony stepped onto the sixtieth floor to find it minimally illuminated by the moon. "Nice touch, Snowflake. A prelude to another smug entrance? Consider it your last." When met with silence, he angrily strolled to the rooms center. "Show yourself! NOW!"

More silence, except for the hum of the approaching elevator.

"Huh. Never pegged you for a coward." Tony didn't intend to fight Loki. Merely to end their friendship, while emphasizing the seriousness of his boundaries being overstepped.

The intruder judged otherwise.

The door slid open and from behind the bar, came a sphere of light travelling at warp speed, making a whooshing sound as it encompassed his suit pieces, halting their pursuit, then dropping them to the floor in a clanging heap.

Stark sat crouched on his knees, enthralled by a figure slowly emerging from the shadows.

"I am not a coward Iron M..Man."

He lurched forward and the swaying soul fell limp in his arms as the rooms lights flickered on. "What the hell?" Moments later, he rushed off the elevator to a shocked Pepper. "Meet our intruder."

"A child???"

"Surprise?"

She offered a warm cloth as he timed the wee souls pulse. "Heart rates good."

"Who…"

"Didn't get a name." Clad in males clothing a size too big and a snug fitting Captain America cap, the child was filthy. Upon removing it, a mass of knotted, raven hair fell over his arm.

"He's a she?"

"Apparently." Desperate to rouse her, Tony kept talking, while wiping her face. "Can you hear me, kid? Come on, wake up." His actions revealed flawless, alabaster skin, high cheekbones, a perfect nose and overly pink lips. Her fingers were long and slender, as were her limbs and the more he looked at her, everything began to click. "If her eyes are green, someone has some 'splaining to do, Lucy."

The girl stirred, scrambled from his lap, bolted across the room and halted in a battle stance, fists raised, brows furrowed and her piercing green eyes, wildly darting between him and Pepper.

He slowly rose, arms in the surrender position. "Easy, Little Warrior. We won't hurt you."

"Where's my hat?" She sternly demanded.

Tony slid it across the floor and she planted it sideways on her head, sloppily tucked her hair inside and returned to battle stance. "Liar! I came to you for help and was almost attacked!"

"My goof, kid. Ya scared me. What's your name?"

"Brianna. It means strong, virtuous and honorable."

"Perfect for a female warrior. A brave one too."

Pepper cut in. "Hi Brianna, I'm..."

"Virginia Potts, born September 27nth, 1972 in Arlington, Virginia, CEO of Stark Industries and one badass role model. Nice to meet you."

She smiled. "Ditto. Are you injured at all?"

The girls fists lowered. "No, just hungry and exhausted."

"Unacceptable." Said Tony. "What can we get ya?"

"A peanut butter and banana sandwich?" They threw it together and she wolfed it down with a glass of milk. "Have any tater tots?"

"Sure do. Brianna, is there anyone we should call?"

Her scowl returned and an unseen force, swiftly elevated their phones, suspending them inches below the twenty foot ceiling. "Mom's awal, and Daddy's unknown. Alert anyone of my whereabouts and after escaping their captivity, I'll return 'undetected' to enact revenge."

"O-kaaay. Any ideas on the spunk doner, Virginia?"

"Really, Tony?"

"Just sayin'. We promise not to alert anyone without your permission kid, if first, I get a promise or two in return."

"You dare making commands knowing what I'm capable of?"

"Hear me out, Little Warrior. Please?"

She chomped into a tater tot. "I'm listening."

"I've some questions."

"You can ask, but don't expect answers for every one. What else?"

"You stay a while. At least until finding a Tower to call your own."

"No way, Jose. I'm the restless type."

"A month then?"

Stark played the puppy eyes card as Brianna sized him up like a scheming Clint Eastwood might a brazen saloon patron.

"A week and we take it from there."

"Deal."

Once their phones safely landed, she asked to use the bathroom. Pepper lead her to a guest room and was stopped at the door. "Thanks. A little privacy, please?"

After it closed, Tony snuck into the hall and quietly relayed of first encountering the girl. "It's irrefutable. That's Loki's mini me in there."

"Her powers are undeniably similar, but without a paternity test..."

"And how do we achieve that? Shimmy up the bifrost and demand Prince Jezebel see a phlebotomist? Fuck, if they're not related, where 'did' she come from? Maybe we're being invaded by the real Body Snatchers."

"Who've begun with a child in a Captain America hat, they specifically sent here?"

"Have any better conclusions? I suspect she's the burglar too."

"Why, because they like the same sandwich?"

"Think, Butch. If she can break in here, houses are a piece of cake."

"Think, Cootyoodles. Even with powers to hack security systems, how does a child that young burglarize nine houses without being seen, heard or leaving behind any dna?"

"Never underestimate your opponent." As Tony rambled on about examples, she seemed distant. "Butch?"

"I just realized something. Brianna said her Mom was awal. We're avid news watchers and there hasn't been a local Amber Alert for months. What if she isn't looking for her? What if no one is?"

"Perhaps we're both getting carried away and Brianna's…a special breed of Leprechaun that eats feet. We sleep in my suit boots and problem solved."

Pepper smirked. "What exactly happened to you in space? Stay here while I check on her?" Soon she called to him in a whisper. "Come look at your opponent."

Stark's real heart melted when seeing Brianna asleep in the large tub. A bath towel covered her little body and another lay folded beneath her head. "Poor kid. I'll move her to the bed."

"No don't, Tony. I think she crawled in there to feel safe." *****

In the morning, they found an open box of Count Chocula cereal beside a dirty bowl in the kitchen.

"I hadn't opened that yet."

Pepper yawned. "And?"

"It's half empty."

"Awesome. If she's anything like you jacked up on sugar, please hide it?"

He popped a handful into his mouth. "I thought you liked my inner child?"

"Not when he's Dash from the Incredibles. What's that noise?"

"I'll go look." Stark opened Brianna's door to a six inch knife whizzing towards it. "Morn..WHOA!" He closed it within an inch as she aimed another. "DROP the weapon, Little Warrior!"

She casually tossed it onto the bed. "'Sup?"

"'Sup?!? Those aren't toys, young lady! You could've removed half my face!"

"Nah, my aims too polished. See for yourself."

Pepper arrived to find him gawking at the wall. "Hi Brianna. Tony?"

"Iron Man's upset 'cause I short circuited his Arc Reactor."

"Kinda. Feast your eyes on why, Virginia."

A wooden cutting board hung centimeters from the door frame, impaled by eight knives and Brianna sighed. "I'd almost made a perfect x, until interrupted."

"Hey, I knocked..once."

"But didn't wait for permission to enter."

"Let's not argue, hm? Coffee's done, Tony. Would you like a bath, Brianna?"

"With bubbles?"

"Raspberry Sorbet, scented."

Butch later regretted leaving behind the bottle as Little Warrior had a blast, pouncing into the mountainous sea of bubbles the Jacuzzi's jets summoned and soaking the floor. After loaning her a small t shirt and a pair of leggings she secured around her waist, she watched in amazement as like with their phones, an unseen force carefully lowered the cutting board into the girls awaiting arms.

"Ready, Badass."

"Call me Pepper, please?"

"Sure."

Once in the kitchen, Tony learned of her trick. "Just another checkmark on the growing listy poo of spunky d' evidence, Virginia. Thanks kid, I'll take that." The board seemed super glued to the island as he tried apprehending it. "Make that two checkmarks."

The silverware drawer opened, nudging his butt, as Brianna climbed onto a stool with a mischievous smirk and hovered a fist over the knives. "Scooch your booty, or be turned into swiss cheese." Her hand opened, releasing a pea sized light that burst into a mist with the snap of her fingers. As she slid back, it encompassed only the board, individually plucked each knife from its surface, neatly steered them into the drawer and vanished after it closed.

Tony's mind was projecting a vision of Loki on a cheesy, 70's era game show, its animated host announcing; "Our grand prize winner, ladies and gentlemen! The willy nilly, cock weilding, Prince Jezebelll!"

Brianna's voice silenced the fanfare. "I promise not to play with knives anymore."

"Erm..that's great. About those questions, kid."

"Shoot."

"Why the target practice?"

"Saw it on tv once. It kills boredom."

'And a charging rhinoceros, no doubt.' "These balls of light…"

"I call them my magic and maneuvered this one slower, to give you an idea of how they work. Neat, huh?"

"Very and the one used on my suit?"

"Nothing special."

"How do you create them and the unseen force?"

"Classified."

"Have you greater abilities?"

"Enough to make David Copperfield seem a quack."

"How did you break into my tower?"

"Top Secret."

"How did you get here?"

"Walking, buses, taxis, trains and one bicycle."

"By yourself?"

"Mostly."

"How long was your trip?"

"Nine days."

"How did you afford it?"

"My allowance."

"Why the boys clothing?"

"You already know."

"Where are you from?"

"Are you done insulting me?"

He froze. "Excuse me?"

"Nearly every question, except number 5, were tests to see if I'd slip up and surpass revealing the basics. Magic aside, you're trying to assess my intelligence, so here's some insight. Every response minus 'target practice', was either a lie, or half truth. Why? I am never going home and therefore will never reveal more about myself than I decide necessary. If that's unacceptable, tell me now, I'll thank you for the hospitality and be on my way. Oh, and the ball used on your suit? It was bigger, faster, and more powerful out of necessity."

The only person Tony felt might know more about Brianna was Thor, but couldn't risk breaking his promise. She was brilliant, yet seemingly naive to the constant danger she was in. Iron Man would protect her, whilst awaiting further guidance from wherever the cosmos were plotting to chuck it. The heavens, perhaps? The tooth fairy? Captain Kangaroo?

"We'd much prefer you stayed." Said Pepper. "Please don't be angry with Tony? It's difficult not to think of how frantic we'd be if our child went missing."

Brianna's face softened for merely a second, before she re poised herself. "You would?..Look, I'm a survivor, so don't bother worrying about me. May I make my request now?"

"Please do, Little Warrior."

"Your fellow Avenger, Thor. Do you trust him?"

'All this for the God of Thunder?' Thought Stark. "With my life. Is he your favorite and you'd like an autograph, or a picture together?"

"Don't have a favorite Avenger. Just need you introduce us."

'Wut?' "I could, but that means alerting him you're here."

"If you trust him, I trust him."

"I'm grateful for your faith in me. He'll ask why?"

"I need him to set up a second meeting with is brother, Loki."

And there was Tony's guidance. A beam of light, trailing from the realm of Asgard, down through Earth's clouds and settling on P.J.'s prodigy, igniting her aglow.

"Eh he. Why not? Nothin' like those warm and fuzzy feelings amongst kin, right Virginia? Pardon me ladies. Cootyoodles has a call to make and a suit to tweak."

Brianna giggled. "Who gave Iron Man that name?"

"A friend, but he prefers Tony. Feel like watching a movie with a badass role model?"

"Okay, but none of that fairy tail, princessy stuff. Ever see Bram Stoker's Dracula?"

"Isn't that violent for someone your age?"

"Nope and guuurl, what a love story. The blood and guts are awesome too."

#loki #lover #submission #Submitted fic #chapter 2 #the slutty webs we weave #lokilover9

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