#she probably reversed engineered that thing a ton of times
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Some Punkboy and Lisa Antics
#I find it hilarious that Lisa uses a flip phone#she probably reversed engineered that thing a ton of times#most likely modded it too or smth lmao#meanwhile Punkboy is getting his ass dragged by a rodent#Punkboy and Lisa#my original characters#my ocs#my artwork#queenyv
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Any title ideas guys? Ch.11 - What I thought would happen
Chapter Summary: This is like a directors commentary for a movie. Also known as what I thought would happen with different scenes from the original fic, but didn't.
Inspo fic: Don't say you'd rather waly by Greyscales
Meeting Ironhide:
“Hey, Ironhide. Nice to officially meet you I guess. Before you take them out again, you know damn well that your cannons are cool. Why do you need validation?” Sam panted breathlessly while fearlessly approaching the larger being.
“How do you know my designation?” He asked
A good distance away Sam sent a quick smile looking him directly not his optics “It’ll be better if I tell everyone at once.”
Ironhide accepts that and stays by her neither speaking much. (that scene with Bumblebee and the ‘Are you ok?’ was far too sweet and it sets it up during the rest of the book where something hugely dramatic happens probably to Sam, but she starts to comfort those around her, mainly Bee. Like this happens after suddenly meeting the other Autobots and killing Frenzy, then after killing Megatron by getting far too close for anyone’s comfort to both the power of the Allspark, Megatron, and Megatron’s spark, after she wakes up from changing species for the alien species. Beautifully done. I adore all of it!)
When she meets the rest of the Autobots:
After exchanging hellos, and calling them by name. Pulls out from under her shirt a hidden satchel and then holds it out to Optimus. “Here are the glasses you’re looking for. Unfortunately, The location is no longer accurate as sector 7 already found the Allspark and is holding it and Megatron under the Hoover dam somewhere. Apparently, a ton of concrete around both of them is able to hide their signatures. They’re keeping Megatron still by basically keeping him at or near arctic temperatures, that’s going to fail when they take Judy Ron and me in a few hours. They can track the benign radiation coming from your sparks. They can currently only trace the larger signatures off of organic materials” gesturing to herself with a little bit of a shrug. “It’s inevitable that anyone interacting with you all will have a similar signature. Thinking of Sector 7, the agents have already started to experiment with the radiation coming off of it. They have a whole chamber that locks from the outside. They place a piece of tech - which came around after they started experimenting on Megatron so there might be a connection with that - and combine it with the radiation of the Allspark. There’s an angry baby cybertronian inside, so they start to electrocute them until they die and take the corpse for experimenting and further researching.” Taking the time to glance around and seeing the confused and slightly dubious reaction, Sam assumes that it's due to humans having reverse engineered and developed a way to fully kill a cybertronian and so explained “Ratchet when you landed, you landed on a few power lines and were shocked pretty badly, but you merely lifted your helm and said something like ‘what a rush, right?”
“That was my exact words and actions”
“Alright, it’s gonna be like that but heavily amplified. That’s a sabot shell. They hurt like hell, which if Bee decides to interrupt their kidnapping attempt of Judy, Ron and me then he’ll experience that torture first hand,” hearing Bee’s gears whir Sam turned around in his palm, “So instead of stepping in between, maybe you could follow us to the Hoover dam and keep track of things like that, or even hacking them and saving the files that when Megatron gets free - which he will in a matter of days. The system keeping him down takes up a lot of energy and rightfully, he’s harbouring extreme anger and prejudice against humanity as a whole. So he decides to take out as much of the information they’ve gathered. If you keep a copy of the obvious lack of ethics they have and the prejudice against Cybertronians, it’ll be very likely that getting the official treaty and an actual base of operations much easier as concessions out of the massive budget of the American military has.”
Everyone pauses for a moment of stillness where Sam believes them to each be digesting the information she’s dumped on them.
In reality, they are sharing an extensive amount of information over the comms, where Bee explains that she knew his name, then apologising that she stopped some tentative plans he was going to try to get chosen and into her care by literally destroying all the other cars in the lot, and some details which she rightfully shouldn’t know, all within the first 5 minutes of getting into his cab. Ironhide collaborates her story by saying she was initially startled and called his exact designation he decided on not even a few klicks before and called out his usual greeting by subverting it herself and acknowledging that yes, his cannons are very cool.
Ratchet says that not only did she exactly state what he said, she retired the main action he did, and also that she was using the correct closest cybertronian term for their body parts and the human variety for humans.
Jazz piped up about she knew literally all of their names in order and their rank, in the order that oh so long ago they agreed upon.
Ratchet:: She definitely knows something::
Interrupting their comms, Optimus stated expertly hiding how off-kilter and unplanned this meeting had gone “What do you want us to do with this information?”
“Ideally, this would be 100% up to you Optimus, I’m absolutely no strategist, but I’ve definitely had different ideas as I’ve stewed over this in the past year. You want to trust me, but you need to verify what I’ve said. So why not just split into two groups? One to follow the coordinates in the glasses and the other to follow whenever the path Sector 7 makes. Trust but verify, Ratchet’s continual scans will say that at the very least, I’m believing every word that comes out of my mouth as the absolute truth, also sorry about the high spikes of anxiety, I’ve been diagnosed with it, unfortunately. I can only offer suggestions based on what knowledge I have. Thinking of which do you want me to remove the glasses from the cases. I tried protecting them as best as I could from Frenzy and Barricade, but they aren’t exactly friendly Cybertronian digits.”
:: I am. Not a single lie or obfuscation either. Even down to the rates of anxiety.::
Optimus took the lead again “And why start out with sharing so much information?”
“Why wouldn’t I? This is knowledge and patterns which directly affect your very life. Like someone is likely thinking, I have more information that you’ll need to know patterns to hopefully make everything easier, foreknowledge is forewarned. But, I’m more worried about the next threeish days. Whatever knowledge I have about the Mission City battle and what leads up to it, I’ll share. So while there is a saying about change negating knowledge, and knowledge negating change, I haven’t changed much. I didn’t try and sell the glasses via eBay, I stopped Bee from ruining a guy’s livelihood, and I'm not freaking out about Cybertronians, so the average police officer isn’t aware of what's up.”
They separate and unknown to Sam they do actually follow her idea and plan, because like she said trust, but verify. The usual in the fic happens, Sam gets the sparkling and the cube to shrink down while alerting the people that sabot rounds work better against Cybertronians. Ironhide and Bee start to try and get through the door and Sam recognises Ironhide and gets out of the base faster while the two bots are still in surprise about the sparkling and the cube. Approaching Bee, but briefly glancing back at Willian Lennox “I’m also going to assume that you, Mr Lennox, were about to tell Mr Epps about being able to get a signal out to some of your people and they’ve prepared to pick up at Mission city?”
“You know my nickname?” Epps muttered staring at the kid in front of him.
“How the fuck did you know that I was about to do that?” William practically demanded.
But all Sam did was turn to the two Autobots in front of her “Mission City,” In a disgusted voice. “Don’t forget to pack Sabot rounds for against the ‘cons!” she calls back to the soldiers as she speeds up towards Bee and Ironhide.
Sam bonds a little with the sparkling in her arms, but gets the attention back by announcing Starscream's attack, then the second one “Bee, on the second strike you need to be extra careful, that's where you lose your legs. This time there’s no Mikaela around to drag your torso around on the back of a tow truck.
However, this pre-warning only amplifies that she absolutely knows something and is to definitely be looked after and out for. Saving Jazz’s life - Bee only was just barely able to get him to stop from beginning the climb up the building.
The fic battle happens as per usual. The bots and Sam get back to Sector 7’s base and Sam is officially in the dark for this section of the movie; however, this is how I thought the whole interaction would go.
A random sector 7 agent walks slightly up and tries to get her to come over to the human side “So we can protect you from them.” (as per usual in the fic)
“I'm more protected with them than going with the agency which commits mass infanticide.”
The random agent pauses and asks “What do you mean by infanticide?”. This is seen by Simmons and William’s herd of agents, all of which are carefully observing everything.
Snapping her fingers Sam continues as if the agent hasn’t spoken “You’re right, infanticide is just killing a ton of children. What Sector 7 did was worse. They brought infants to life, then tortured them to death only to experiment on the corpse. Don’t even try to mentally hide behind the idea of ‘just following orders, that hasn't worked as an excuse for a lack of personal morals in around half a century, in all fields. I have more important things to do.” Completely turning on her heel Sam approached Ratchet “Hey Ratchet, do you have any extra time to add one to your patient list? I wasn’t fast enough to stop the electrocution. I want to make sure they’re alright. Gently bouncing the sparkling in her arms.
Ratchet leaned down to place his hand near the floor in an invitation that Sam willingly took. Going as far as to sit on the palm. Ratchet teased “Only if I can add one more to the list.” Sending a significant look towards Sam.
“Sure Ratchet. You haven’t done anything to discourage my trust.” Meeting his optics head-on with a beaming smile and raising an eyebrow.
The growing smile on his faceplate let her know that she wasn’t just talking about since they crashlanded on Earth, but in whatever future, she was able to see. Also that it was another verbal slap in the face to the listening-in agents that an alien who she’s officially met once garnered more trust than her own species.
Playfully narrowing his eyes “And you’re undergoing the basic evaluation?” the two of them knowing that he had her base scans already taken during their initial meeting.
“Of course. That's standard when you go to a new doctor, or even just go to see the doctor. Sparkling first, though.”
Ratchet looked at Ironhide “See this is how to be a decent patient. Preemptive care and recognising when things are out of their own medical knowledge. Be more like Sam.” while carrying Sam and Ellie in his servos to a corner of the temporary base.
After getting home from learning that her memories were affected.:
So Sam absolutely shuts down, but her memories are at stake. She knows that Fate, Destiny Karma, whoever is going to do the worst thing possible. So Sam starts up her computer after Ellie is done and wants cuddles and love before slipping into recharge. Sam starts up the computer again and begins to write as accurately everything that she knew before becoming Sam. If she was right then she would lose these memories. If she was wrong then they were going to be of use to the Autobots either way and finally they could be shared as a recording for her, later.
To everyone else, Sam is practically mute and always typing things down but interacting with Ellie. Her time inside Bee is half silent and pondering the other half is being in Bee’s cab and frantically typing. No one knows what she’s typing and she isn’t talking from the surprise. But she’s eating and sleeping and slowly greater frequencies. Ellie still gets her time on the computer while Sam is introspective and Sam interacts with Ellie but the world shifts down to those three things.
After Sam says something and is moved to the Autobot base and is with her first exam with Ratchet. Where she says “I’m putting down all the information I can of the future. I want at least you and Optimus to have full access to all of the information. You said last time that it was already affecting my brain and memories. I need to have this information known so you can be aware of the trends to look out for.”
“Ratchet is both floored at this secret and forbidden knowledge but also highly concerned with the concern and responsibility that comes from even glimpses of the future. With the knowledge she had, she saved Jazz’s life, Ellie's life, and most likely Bee’s well-being.
Sam continues in her now much softer voice even through the discomfort that she admitted to earlier “Please Ratchet. I need to get this out. I need to try and prevent you from being hunted for years before being torn apart for parts while your processor and spark are barely kept alive so some random ass company can pick at it for the information you have on Cybertronians, so this company can forcefully make their own.”
If he were human Ratchet would have already been pale from the information but this frankness of how he could possibly die if she didn’t share it, along with the miserable existence he could possibly lead to and the sheer weight that this information would have, along with the unimaginable stress that she was carrying. He would have glitched if it weren’t for his protocols demanding his attention on his two now distressed patients. (Sam and Bee were the actual distressed patients. Ellie was only distressed because Sam an Bee were. Once the two of them calmed down, then Ellie was easily put into a happier mood.)
#transformers bayverse#maccadam#bayverse optimus prime#bayverse bumblebee#bayverse ratchet#my tfp fics#sam witwicky
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These are still light cycles but they look like almost full size motorcycles because of the fin system our son and I and Hera and Freya developed and others it was the gang And My gang too and you're real and got his wife it looks like a real big engine and Poseidon and got his wife since he was a lot to do with it and we believe it and she does. They look really nice and they're hot and they can't believe it so they ordered 5 million for about 50 cars of cold or something no I think it's I think it's boron and we're sending them out right now and their mouths are open and they say I can't wait and they're going to order more and they want the car and they want to look hard they want the the Briggs & Stratton and we're calling at le car and that's not what it's called but they might put that on there and it's kind of beefy looking and it looks like Troy-Bilt a little bit and that's what our son and daughter wanted and this is the application one of them and do things are going to go everywhere cuz California starts at all they're going to be trendsetters so they better clean up their act get the s*** off the streets they have about 50% of the pipes off the streets and they've fixed most of the sewer and septic except for the city it's like jammed cuz they didn't turn the pumps on then they tried and they burned them out and our son was saying it you're burning them out and there's no macerator they shut them off all over. It's working on tons of stuff and they're getting it in shape and they're working on defense and they are getting ready for all sorts of problems and they're trying to get ships of stuff out and they're going to try and move now but boy they were really excited about the Hard knock kicker 5150 and they said he's been working on this stuff boy that would be great but really they probably want to try and retake the Midwest and that's what they're doing there but the clones are there so they see it
Thor Freya
This is great we talked about s*** all afternoon and their song is on. There's a huge number of things going on here but my husband is a wonderful person is it beautiful human being it says I'm well beyond what I thought I would be but he thought I would be he said that's good so we're apart but we're okay I get my lonely times but now I'm having a good time these things are changing it's not very nice what they're trying but they're going to have a very hard time with the clones in the max they're all going to be packed in together
Hera
They are packed in together and they're not having a good time they are fighting of course it's mild and it will increase in intensity shortly but we don't expect it to erupt and we expect them to try their West plan and they have to fight the clones right now Billy z is thinking of trying to ignite something by trying to get our son to Utah and he's going to start working on it and we know about it that is what the song is about and that's why they're going to Utah and you can see letters that are from our son that say I am coming on this date for your request it is for the viewing and it doesn't say reading because they're calling it viewing these days because people don't read it out loud and you're supposed to read it yourself and you see the Master copy on the screen and they say that this is what's yours the section and you ask questions and it's going to go like that people look at it and that's what it is looking at over and over. There's nothing really huge on it but I already left things and d is reversing it and she's going to say it's her doing it and she's in absentia and having a lawyer do it that's fine but it's really because they're forcing her to and he says right and he gets it. So we'll see when that happens if it does it's not very confident it would and he thinks that Mac might postpone it because he doesn't want corky out there at the same time and we also say that they could be full of bologna and having a safe stuff but that is what Matt thinks
Thor Freya
Right now we're going to start an offensive on the West Coast and we're going to start taking territory back it seems that 4.9% of them roughly are crammed in there and in Mexico Texas Arizona Oregon Washington State Utah parts of Colorado and parts of the South and it's despicable they're gross so we might go across the South and start taking it back and take Georgia and we do understand what you're saying we will be there too right now we give it up the bases they're all over the place including the east coast and the South there's a bunch in the south to make it easier there's a few of the East Coast one in Georgia and two in Florida both of them are ours and it's going on that way though but we're moving out I'll see your people moving huge groups and we are doing just that
Mac
Well that was short lived but we did anticipate it
Bja I'm not really saying those things well I've been programmed to and it just does not stop coming out what he says is unpleasant but it might help us I don't want to do it so I should probably stop talking you said they'll take me and stick a pull up my ass and hold me up 20 feet in the air in front of their armies coming at us on the West Coast and that will motivate us it's supposed both gay and it's weird and it's sick and it's against us
I don't want to hear any more of this we don't want to do that to you we don't need the motivation we're already motivated but boy that would work pretty good
Trump
Had enough of this s*** that's totally gross and man they clean their act up pretty quick and we figured it out
Mac
You said the Hard knock kicker 5150 we sent them over there and they couldn't handle it if we send the Bradley GT it's going to go well over the top
Thor Freya
People want to buy them all over the place and they're demanding them in every country on Earth and the Hard knock kicker 5150 by just about anybody
Olympus
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Uno reverse. 💢 for Doom. I need the essay
*cracks knuckles*
First of all. People always come up with "original Doom never had a lore, that's why is so much better than Doom 2016-2020" BULLSHIT.
Original Doom had a fuck ton of lore, 2016-2020 got rid of it, AND I'M PISSED.
Listen, I like the slayer's lore, but it sounds more like a remake rather than a sequel of the 90's series.
Original Doom started from Wolfenstein, to Quake and to Commander Keen. The whole mess with demons started with FUCKING NAZIS OPENING A PORTAL TO GET HELL ENERGY FOR THEIR WEAPONS, Hitler even straight up made a deal with the devil, basically, he could take how much energy he wanted, but if B.J. killed him, the Apocalypse with natural disasters amd demonic invasions would have started. Of fucking course B.J. killed him, and that's how we got doomed (pun intended). Now. WHERE IS ALL OF THIS IN DOOM 2016???
Characters we know that exist, such as Crash that is only mentioned in Quake, she was the drill sergeant that trained Flynn, how the fuck didn't we get more stuff about her?? Also, Stan Blazkowicz in Doom RPG, he is mentioned being Flynn's twin brother, mind you, an engineer space marine, AND ALSO A FUCKING SERGEANT, where is him?? Did he die?? Isn't him technically a primeval too???
Something that pisses me off the most. 90's Doom was Bible based, we got biblical demons such as Satan and Baphomet, but in Eternal they just got reduced to...DAVOTH??? We even got a freaking weapon shaped like an ophanim in Doom 3, C'MON HUGO.
ANOTHER THING CAUSED BY MODERN DOOM: the new Doom 64 ending. Listen, Doom 64 ended in the worst way possible, our man basically closed himself in Hell, in order to murder all demons that tried to reopen the portals and probably died doing so, but with the extra levels we got only recently...it ruined the sad ass ending. Y'all are telling me the demons fucking teleported this man back to the UAC facility because he was annoying as fuck, and now it's basically just him and the demons throwing a temper tantrum because every time they yeet him away he just fucking goes back to Hell because that is where he decided to go, despite literally being banished from it??? All of this to add the Path of Perpetual Torment screen. Couldn't you just slap that screen in the original ending without fucking up the lore?? Jesus.
If you guys also didn't notice, I absolutely despise TAG 2 and whatever the fuck Hugo came up with after the chapter in the livestreams. He basically turned every fucking not human character in to glorified aliens nicknamed demons, slayer included. Don't turn this shit in to full sci fi...Halo it's a thing for a reason, no one needs another space marine vs aliens game, c'mon it's so fucking overused nowadays. Also, Davoth's bossfight was crap. Hayden's bossfight was more entertaining and complex, and we got hyped about Flynn vs THE RULER OF FUCKING HELL since the 90's, and it's reduced...to this?? A guy in a mecha??? (We are gonna ignore the fact that now apparently there is another Super Evil Satan™ guy that is much stronger than Davoth, but still).
The wife and son thing. Sure, we all suspected he always had a family, but...MORE LORE??? NOT JUST FUCKING SLAP A PNG ON THE FLOOR OF THE FORTRESS???? BRO. We can assume she was probably a UAC scientist, since she is wearing a UAC uniform, but...other than that...?
Probably there is more I need to complain about, I'll add more stuff later, if I remember exactly what.
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Beth’s Memory Loss Arc, Part 2
So, about that line during their fight in Still. She’s referencing Sophia coming out of the barn and says, “I remember.”
I started wondering if it, too, could represent the memory loss. Like literally. In a template. So, I reverse engineered and what I found just makes total sense. Again, nothing we haven’t said before, but I think they laid out Beth and Daryl’s entire arc in the Still fight. That’s probably why (one of the reasons) it ended up being so powerful.
So, it starts when they enter the moonshine shack and goes all the way up until the hug. (I actually think we could extend it to the porch scene, but I’ll touch on that at the end.)
First, let me remind you of something I said very briefly a long time ago, about how Sasha and Bob in Alone are also Bethyl proxies. In that case of course, Bob = Beth and Sasha = Daryl. It’s just significant that Sasha is searching for her brother and Daryl will be searching for his brother, Rick.
Bob’s dialogue especially keeps running through my head. At one point, he tells Sasha she doesn’t have to be afraid, and she says forcefully, “I am not afraid.” That’s pretty much exactly what Beth and Daryl say to each other in Still.
Beth: “You don’t get to treat me like crap just because you’re afraid.”
Daryl: “I ain’t afraid of nothing.”
Later, Bob asks Sasha, “Why do you think Tyreese is dead?” He knows her well enough and can discern her mental state to surmise that the reason she keeps trying to stop, and doesn’t actually want to get to Terminus, is that she’s terrified she’ll get there only to find that Tyreese didn’t survive. She’s afraid to hope.
Now think about how that will translate with Daryl. Despite being determined to go find Rick, he may start dragging his heels at some point because he’s terrified that he’ll get there and find out it was all a hallucination, and that Rick isn’t really alive. Especially in the wake of Leah. I think Beth will talk him through that, just as Bob did with Sasha. That’s also when we see Sasha and Bob kiss, which probably means that this part of the story is where we’ll finally see ACTUAL on-screen romance between Beth and Daryl.
So, that’s just important to keep in mind as I go into this Still template. It will make more sense if you have that on the brain.
So, I’m gonna go through most of the fight here, and I’ll need to restate it even though I know we all pretty much have it memorized. Bear with me. What I’m going to show here is that the chronological order of the dialogue here corresponds with events in their arc. But it extends beyond where we are now to when they reunite, get together romantically, and perhaps beyond.
First there’s the “what are you, my chaperone?” line. I think this represents how Daryl felt about Beth in early seasons. I don’t think that he ever felt personally responsible for her, beyond her just being a member of the group, and of course a member of the family, but he always saw her as someone who needed to be protected and couldn’t survive on her own. So, his relationship to her was somewhat chaperone-like.
Then they start the game. I actually love when Daryl says, “I ain’t never needed a game to get lit before” and Beth says, “Wait, are we starting?” I feel like that’s the writers telling us this is the beginning of their arc, their relationship, their story together, etc.
Then they start the game. Beth begins with, “I never shot a crossbow.” Putting Still aside (I know; why would we, like, EVER do that? ;D) the next thing that happens in their story in 4x13, is he teaches her to shoot a crossbow.
Next, Daryl says he’s never been out of Georgia, which we all know happens right after Grady. So we’re going along in the chronology.
Beth says she’s never been drunk and done something she regretted. I think this probably represents them burning down the moonshine shack. And it’s interesting, because they don’t exactly regret it. But I still wonder if them burning down the shack somehow drew attention to them, and at some point we’ll learn that doing that is exactly what got Beth kidnapped to begin with. They drew a lot of attention to the smoke in 4b, even having Carol and girls comment on it several times.
Then he says the thing about never having been on vacation. I had to think a while about what this represented. I’m not claiming to have it totally pinned down, but I think this may just represent his time with Beth. For the first time, he feels emotionally safe and happy. To him, that probably felt like a relief. Like a vacation. Especially since vacations only last a short time before it’s back to real life, and he didn’t have very long with Beth before the shit hit.
Then Beth says she’s never been in jail, as a prisoner. Now, this may seem out of order, as Grady happens before Daryl leaves Georgia. But, 1) these could represent their two separate arcs and so they don’t need to line up that way. I think it’s more likely that 2) this represents Beth’s entire time in the CRM, not just Grady. And that will extend to long after Daryl leaves Georgia.
Of course, the prison question sets Daryl off and he gets up to “take a piss.”
So, I find this particular element of this template really interesting. Even though their separation has lasted for 5+ seasons, the part of this scene representing their separation only lasts about 30 seconds, and that’s a bit counterintuitive.
Think of it this way: Daryl gets up and walks away. We generally see representations more of Beth disappearing, but in this case, he walks away, leaving her behind. Leaving her back where he previously was.
Then we get his whole slew of I-Nevers. Never eaten frozen yogurt, had a pet pony, got nothin’ from Santa Claus, relied anyone for protection, or anything.
Some of these we think we’ve already seen, such as through Buttons. And maybe we have. But we can’t be sure. Maybe buttons, and all the ice cream references were just foreshadows of something to come. Or maybe not. No way to be sure, yet. (And remember that we have a huge ice cream theme this season at the Commonwealth. I’m just mentioning. ;D)
No matter what they point to, I think these represent things that either have or will happen before Beth returns.
Now, this is about to get really subtle and granular. I think the “Santa Claus” reference represents the moment when we, the audience, and maybe Carol, see Beth and know she’s alive, but Daryl doesn’t yet. The reason I think that is because at that point, when he’s saying all this, he’s still across the room from her. They haven’t come back together, yet. Therefore, all these things happen between the time he leaves her behind, and when they reunite. And Santa Claus = resurrection.
Most of us have thought for a long time that the line about not relying on anyone for protection points to Beth saving Daryl at some point. And notice that that comes after the Santa Claus line, but before the reunion. And I’m not saying she’ll necessarily save him before she reunites with him. That wouldn’t make tons of sense, unless it’s saving him from afar or something. But maybe it’s a matter of him not realizing it’s her in some way.
Oh, and then there’s a line I’ve never homed in on before. When Daryl is kicking stuff around and Beth is telling him to be quiet, he says, “Sounds like our friend out there is trying to call all his buddies.”
He just means the walker is being loud, which is in response to his yelling, but that just screams Carol is going to call Daryl (her buddy) to tell him about Beth.
So, then he eventually grabs her arm and drags her outside, right? Yes, I think that represents them coming back together. And I hear you: that’s a little weird since he’s being pretty borderline abusive right here. You’d think we’d have some indication of some tenderness or joy on his part. And I’m not saying there won’t be that wonderful, joyous reunion we’re all waiting for.
But here’s the thing. We’re all on the same page about Daryl maybe not believing it’s her because, especially because of Leah, he doesn’t trust his own sanity. He doesn’t trust his own eyes. I actually think that’s what most of the rest of this fight will translate to. Even when he does see her, I don’t think he’ll believe it’s her.
That’s why they did the Leah the way they did. To show that she felt very real to him, and he really can’t tell the difference. I think we’ll have a whole thing (probably more than just one scene, as this is; it may be an arc that’s several episodes or seasons long) where she has to convince him that she’s real. But more than that, she has to show him how to get his faith and sanity back. She’ll heal his psychosis and this whole hallucination problem, so he CAN tell the difference moving forward.
And like I said in my analysis of the Daryl Origins episode, she’ll have to convince him to open up to her emotionally again, just as she did in Still. Something no one else has been able to get him to do.
Think about everything they say here. When she talks about the people they lost mattering, she could be talking about their shared history prior to Grady, OR about everything that’s happened in the last 8 years since they saw each other.
Then check out these next two lines and think about how they fit in.
“You look at me and you just see another dead girl…
“…but, I made it!”
See how those work so beautifully? He literally thinks she’s the ghost of a dead girl and she’s trying to convince him that she never died.
Then the lines that so perfectly mirror Sasha and Bob.
“You don’t get to treat me like crap just because you’re afraid.” “I ain’t afraid of nothing.”
And then the remember line that started me thinking about this. “I remember.” Which may represent her getting her memory back. I think that will have already happened at this point, but maybe she tells him about how she had memory loss but now she remembers.
And the REALLY interesting thing is that here, she’s talking about Sophia. When this happens between her and Daryl in the future, they’ll be talking about her. About what happened at Grady. Because Beth = Sophia. The lost girl Daryl searched for. Which, incidentally, is probably why Kirkman said the thing about Daryl not caring about Beth any more than he did Sophia. Clearly, he’s trying to throw people off track, but I truly think that was code-speak for the symbolism, not a commentary and the romantic nature of Bethyl.
I still don’t know how the “you ain’t never gonna see Maggie again” line will translate in the future. No way to tell, yet. But we’ve always known it’s significant that he mentions Rick being dead. Where we are here, in the narrative, he believes Rick is dead, and then there were all those clues in the Daryl origins episode.
And then, of course, the hug. I think that probably represents the same thing it did here: her finally getting through to him, him finally opening up to her. Which means at that point, his faith in his own sanity will return and he’ll finally believe she’s real. It might also represent the romance angle.
So, that’s what I’ve been thinking about the past few days.
I did also say we could extend it until after the fight. I just have less to say about that. Them talking on the porch could foreshadow getting to know one another as a couple, or even just swapping stories from the past 8 years. Maybe every line in that convo will also translate to a future event, but I can’t be sure about that.
As for them burning down the shack, I just think of Dwight and Sherry in Fear and what the showrunner said of them. That they’ll be a badass power couple, now. So maybe this foreshadows Beth and Daryl burning down the CRM or something. Which I would 100% support. ;D
Thoughts?
#beth greene#beth greene lives#beth is alive#beth is coming#td theory#td theories#team delusional#team defiance#beth is almost here#bethyl
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Avengers AU idea...
The Necromantica: Lead by the Ancient One. She is the founder of the group and has been around to oversee it for centuries. No one knows what her power is, or how she's lived so long.
After a person has had a severe injury leading to their almost death, they sometimes develop unexplained powers relating to necromancy in one way or another. The Necromantica is an underground group dedicated to helping people who have discovered these new powers. They provide therapy for the trauma people have endured, train people in how to use and control their power, and are partnered with the sorcerers at Kamar Taj. The sorcerers teach the necromancers basic magic as self-defence and to give both the subjects and the sorcerers a better understanding of this phenomenon.
Although the Necromantica is a secret group, they often use their powers to protect the people of New York and are low-level enhanced individuals outside the watch of the government. They're based in an abandoned train station hidden by illusions cast by the sorcerers of Kamar Taj.
Characters:
Tony: A poor unsuspecting fool and Stephens roommate after the car crash. He's a graphic designer for a magazine company and frequently asks Stephen to pose as a drawing reference. He could just use Pinterest or even books like a normal person, but at the moment it's his only excuse to stare dreamily at Stephen without being weird.
Stephen: The victim of a car crash about a year ago. He was run off the road by drunk drivers and was near death when he was found. He was rushed to hospital and operated on by Dr. James Rhodes. He made an almost full recovery however his hands were crushed in the dashboard of the car, which resulted in severe nerve damage. They still shake and hurt, meaning Stephen is often on prescription painkillers.
He was found by the Necromantica a few days after he returned home from the hospital. Rhodey, who operated on him, is also part of the Necromantica and so was able to get his records to the group. Bucky came to visit after Stephen discovered his new necro-botanic powers and explained things. Stephen now uses the support of plants wrapped around his hands to regain full control and dexterity with them.
Art for Stephen's power ⏬ (I know I fucked up the left arm)
Dr. James Rhodes: Was in a plane crash which resulted in his near death. Before that, he was a very good surgeon however, after the plane crash he was paralysed from the waist down. After he was released from the hospital he found that a few days later, he could miraculously walk again. Rhodey's power is that he can remove injuries from things and store them up to inflict on people later. Sam came to recruit Rhodey after this. Rhodey has to be very careful about skin to skin contact with anyone because he still has the paralysis stored up: he never found a good reason to use it.
Sam Wilson: A therapist at the local clinic. He used to get the medical records to find out whom to help/recruit to the Necromantica. Now Rhodey helps get the records too. Sam is a veteran and fought in Vietnam. Although he came home with no physical injuries he had extremely bad PTSD and attempted suicide. The gun, however, misfired and his family got him to hospital in time. When he woke up he discovered he had the power to sap the lifespan from others and add it to his own.
James Barnes: One of the Necromantica's 'recruitment officers'. He is the longest-standing member after Sam and was the one who brought in Stephen. He used to be a weapons dealer in Texas however, one of the deal went south and the arms warehouse got blown up with him still in it. His arm had to be amputated, and he now has a cybernetic one designed by Thor. From the explosion Bucky gained to reanimate a person's body for a limited amount of time, no matter how much of them is damaged or missing.
Thor Thomas: the founder of a prestigious technology company and an accomplished engineer. He and his brother Loki are child abuse survivors. They were almost beaten to death by their father, who was in a drunken rage, at a young age. Thor developed the ability to magnify and manipulate the minuscule electric current flowing through organisms, although this often results in their death (it's a delicate process.) This was found out when he was returned to his parents from the hospital. His father made to slap Loki however Thor caught his hand. Sparks erupted and his mother had to pull both children away as Odin stumbled back and hit the floor. Fire burst from under him and the house burnt to the ground before the fire department could arrive.
Loki Thomas: Thor's brother. Can reveal the most likely past and future of a person and sometimes an animal. The prophecy usually centres around their death or that of someone close to them.
Steve Rogers: The Necromantica's other 'recruiting agent'. He was a foot soldier in WW2 when he fell off a train during a raid. He ended up frozen and preserved in the ice until he was found decades later. He's the only know person to wake up and recover from a cryogenic-like process. This is probably due to the power he developed over his time in the ice. Steve can freeze people down to their very core, leaving them soulless zombies. However, he can also reverse this process in not only his own victims but those of mental illness - bring them back in touch with reality and re-animate their will to live. This is why he is one of the group's main therapists who deal with PTSD.
Natasha Romanov: Another member of the Necromantica. She's an ex-KGB spy and was tortured to near death by her employers after she quit. Before this, she suspected something was going to happen to her, so she left clues to her location, which her father unravelled and followed. He got her medical help just in time and she survived after intensive surgery and being comatose for around a week. After that she aware that she could see numbers above people's heads. One was a timer ticking down to their time of death, the other a counter of how many people they'd killed. What she discovered, however, was that the timer could be edited. Someone who had meer seconds before being hit by a car could be saved by her intervening, or even just thinking about increasing the timer. It didn't always work on people with grievous injuries, however, it worked about 90% of the time.
Wanda and Pietro Maximoff: Siblings who were Iraqi exchange students in Washington D.C. After white supremacists bombed a mosque, the building collapsed, nearly suffocating them as they were stuck inside. Both were unconscious when found, but they eventually woke up. Pietro, with the ability to speed up people's lives to their time of death (he can also reverse it); Wanda with the power to operate dead things like puppets.
Li Wei: Was in a train crash in China. Was barely alive when found and needed multiple transplants: he was transferred to a hospital in New York for this. Thor's company is the one who originally developed the surgical technology that saved Li's life. After waking from his coma, Li discovered his ability to move through other people's bodies. It's not a fun experience, but he can also reach in and edit things. He was only a nurse before the crash, however after settling in New York and joining the Necromantica he completed his degree to become a doctor. He's nicknamed Vision by the group and his close friends for his ability to see into another person's body. His power is extremely useful when performing delicate operations and a group of nurses and doctors who work with him know how he does it in case anything goes wrong, and to protect the secret.
Carol Danvers: Flew rescue helicopters to collect soldiers and sometimes civillians from high-risk areas around the world. Was one on the best pilots they had until her chopper was gunned down. She was flying a new and somewhat experimatal helicopter developed by engineering researchers at the time and absorbed a ton of radiation from the engine. She had minor injuries - only a broken arm and severe bruising - but had intense radiation poisoning. Eventually she recovered: mainly due to her power. She can drain the field of life force that radiates from everything living and can store it up to expel in photon blasts.
@salty-ironstrange-shipper @stxphxn-strange @ironstrange-prompts
U probably have no idea who I am, but I like your blogs and thought you might find this cool :)
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Sparks of Life Opera Edition
I am still not over Singing a New Tune so I am going to recap for you the experience of writing that fic because there were many interesting moments over the course of those three days. Lemme start from the beginning.
- So I’m writing a fic that mostly focuses on sexual stuff but it is also mainly happening in an opera so my first order of business is to figure out what that opera is. Both the building itself and the show they’ll be watching. Because that is of utmost importance.
- I have already mentioned that SoL is located in New York so I looked up New York operas. I do not vibe with research most of the time but I vibe even less with having to come up with names for any kind of thing so research was definitely the choice here.
- I somehow get results about operas that are in the other end of the USA. That was not great. I get to the Metropolitan Opera House at last (which I might have known existed if I cared about opera in any way, shape or form) which is great! I am so close to starting the fic! Just need to figure out what opera they’re watching. Because I need that for reasons.
- I end up downloading a PDF with the seatings inside the Met Opera so that I can figure out where the hell they will be seating. But I leave that for later. I look through the actual plays that they’re having while absolutely failing with the navigation of their site. I find a show that catches my eye. It’s called The Magic Flute. I have zero idea what it’s about so I read the Wikipedia summary just to be aware. It mentions that a character has a moment when he’s singing about his search for a wife and I think “Perfect! Foreshadowing!” (since this is set pretty early on in Griffin and Valtor’s relationship).
- I decide to look up the opera and see if I can find a part of it on youtube to figure out how it will sound. I am pretty sold on it already because of the summary I read and also because it implies there is magic as a subject in it which would call back to canon. Still, I look it up. I find a full version of it on the internet with English subtitles... It is 2 hours and 35 minutes:
youtube
- “Wow, okay... that’s a bit much. But hey, it has got subtitles in English. Maybe I’d actually watch that... once I’m done with the fic. I’m just gonna listen to a little bit while I finish my research, though, so I can have an idea of what it sounds like.”
- Now it’s time to open the engagement fic - Enough to Be Yours - because I don’t remember what year they got engaged in and I need that to reverse engineer the year in which this fic is taking place so that I can make sure that The Magic Flute was being performed back then. I don’t have an year stated in the engagement fic, though. I have a date - 9th October which is Friday and that means the year is 2015. Great! So I need to figure out if they were performing The Magic Flute back in 2010. Great.
- That takes a shit ton of time and nerves as it turns out. I spent over 4 hours just researching the logistics for this fic and a lot of that was unnecessary but I’m getting ahead of myself.
- I cannot find out whether they were performing the Magic Flute in 2010. I get results of it being broadcast in English (for the first time, I believe) in 2012 but that is way too late for this fic to be happening. Also, they are speaking of a broadcast which just doesn’t work for me. So I am having a hard time over here.
- I find a list of the new titles in 2011 but nothing mentions The Magic Flute as far as I can see.
- I am now considering switching to another opera. I see an opera that is based on events from The Song of the Nibelungs (I cannot be assed to go back and check what the actual title was). That catches my eye because I have read a book that was titled The Ring of the Nibelungs, I believe, and I kinda remember stuff from it... which is what makes me hesitate because that was a big tragedy.
- Meanwhile, I have stumbled upon a trailer for The Magic Flute:
youtube
MY GOD IS THAT BEAUTIFUL! THOSE PROPS ARE FUCKING GORGEOUS! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN THAT YOU GET TO GO AND SEE THAT LIVE? THAT IS NUTS! (Also, when I mentioned paper birds (I think they are) in the fic, I meant the ones shown in 0:13, not the big one in the beginning but HOLY SHIT, DID YOU SEE THAT THING????? HOW IS THAT REAL?!?!?!?! IT IS SO FUCKING AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I CAN’T. I AM DYING. THIS IS JUST TOO BEAUTIFUL.)
- I somehow happen upon an old archive of the opera (idk how I did that but I bookmarked it in case I’ll need it again) that has information about plays going back as far as the year 1900. This is nuts! I am in too deep but I can’t pull myself away. I’ve gotten this far, I will see it through.
- I search for keyword “flute” and I get results. Some of them are pretty old but I finally find what I need. Performances of the Magic Flute in 2010! Bingo!
- ...Oh, wait, they’re all around Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Hmm... when will it be okay for them to go? I mean, Valtor has been established to have zero free time around that time of the year and I can’t see them going on the 24th or the 31st... Oh, those are matinees. Definitely no! I need them to go in the evening. And some of these are broadcasts which doesn’t work for me either.
- I looked up earlier years as well. I considered another opera again. I decided to switch up the timeline a little. It makes sense if it’s in 2009. I think they had spring performances of The Magic Flute then. Or was it 2008? Anyway, I finally settle on an early April date in 2009 (I think). Now that that’s settled, let’s go back to the seats.
- First I need to figure out what floor (let’s say) of the opera they’re on. I was thinking of the last one first (family circle) but the boxes (I figure those seats will be safest for their activities) look like this:
which isn’t vibing with me because they would be in the front row and it seems more visible. So I relocate to the previous floor (balcony) that looks like this:
That works a little better although there’s the danger of having more people in their box. But they’re sitting in box 14, seats 5 (Griffin) and 6 (Valtor) (where the arrow is pointing) and there’s only one man in seat 4 in front of them. So that is the best I can do.
- Wow, all that’s finally figured out. I decide to do all the rest of the research up front in order to be able to just write after that and not stop for another 4 hours. More on those other things later BUT I get to the part where I need to pick a vibrator and... well, I done fucked up.
- First thing that comes up for a remote controlled vibrator is Lush, of course. And I am immediately sold because it has a sound activated setting which Valtor will definitely love to utilize while in the opera.
BUT
Lush 2 (which is the first one to have the sound activated setting, I believe) came out in 2018. Even if we accept that Lush also has it, that came out in 2015. My fic is set in 2009. Searching for 2009 vibrators literally went no where so in the end I decided that the SoL verse is actually set in a parallel universe where time is a little warped so the Lush 2 is out in 2009. Plus, that way there isn’t going to be a pandemic in future installments. Overall, that works. Except that I needn’t have been so thorough with my opera research beforehand. Oh, well. It’s finally time to start writing.
- How do you write? How do you start a fic? One word in front of the other? Oh, okay, never mind. Lipstick is a girl’s best friend. Let’s start from there. And a kiss that leads to the discussion of lipstick... Damn, I forgot to spend one more hour on researching what kind of lipstick Griffin would have worn. Shame! You don’t get that detail now. I believe I didn’t even mention a shade.
- Oh, wait. Need for his breath to taste like something. Hmm, let’s see. Tonic water? Yeah, that sounds about right. Never mind that he should have probably drunk it right before getting out of the car to kiss her if it was still lingering on his breath. I mean, that’s not impossible. Just improbable.
- He’s also wearing cologne, right? Gotta research that too. How else would I get this:
and zero idea what it actually smells like despite the description. Also, did not check if that was a thing in 2009 but the story now exists in a vacuum so who cares.
- Apparently, Griffin doesn’t own any golden bracelets even though she does have a golden necklace? Or she could have a golden bracelet, just not one she likes for the current situation? Anyway, I wanted to mention Ediltrude as well because the twins always go together and that was the best I came up with. (That said, I didn’t need to put the mentions of them one sentence apart.)
- My god, I used a semicolon! That feels illegal. I sure hope I used that bitch correctly.
- Okay, I absolutely love all the banter and just flow in the car. Idk how I did that since it’s such a constricted space but I am really proud of it. However, the logistics were sometimes hard to logic my way through. I mean, Valtor doesn’t get to look at her a lot and I had to employ a red traffic light to give him the chance to do so.
- I hit a wall about three paragraphs later. Things started going in a weird direction. I was considering even deleting the last two lines but then I managed to get back on track thanks to having figured out how they met and I decided to write a little bit about that without spoiling it (that will be a fic of its own some day). Suffice it to say it was a meet-very-ugly. But it bailed me out. Also, they got over it so it’s all good.
- And now... that paragraph. You know which one I’m talking about. It stands out with the locations I’ve given. That paragraph required 30 minutes of looking at Google Earth to figure it out and I still nearly got it wrong. At that point it occurred to me that they’ll need a place to park. I mean, idk how parking is in NYC but it’s probably not the way it is in Bulgaria especially on small neighborhood streets where it’s just... park wherever (even in front of a garage if you’re brazen enough and don’t fear having your tires slashed). So first, I was going to have them coming down Tenth Avenue and passing by the backside of the Opera which is not ideal for me because I needed Griffin to figure out they’re going to the opera so that they can have the following dialogue. But there is the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts right next door so I figure Griffin will recognize the area if it’s next to a library. And I have them almost at the garage but... that’s not looking right. This garage is on 65th Street and mine is on 62nd... I have been looking at the wrong garage for the past hour. Now that I have caught that mistake, things get easier. They just drive right past the facade of the opera, take a right turn and then enter the garage. Easy peasy. For whoever’s actually paying attention to the map.
- They’re in the garage now and I have to write another kiss. Shoot! I do not vibe with writing kisses. Writing sex scenes is much easier. But I’ll try my best because this is a little bit necessary if we’re dealing with an insertion of a vibrator in a public bathroom one minute from now. (Again, logistics!) I actually went back to add in a little discomfort during the kiss (but not too much because they’re consumed with each other anyway and probably missed something) just to make it more realistic. They can’t be comfortable in the car. Also, you have got to love how I never even thought of what make the car is. But I did stop to research the tinting of the car windows.
- Now this is extremely funny but I would have had zero idea that there are different laws about how tinted your car windows can be in the USA if I hadn’t read a very extensive critique of Fifty Shades (whichever part it was that had that info). So I look up the VLT for New York and it says 70%. Great! Then it won’t be that visible through the windows what they’re doing inside. Oh, wait! VLT means Visible Light Transmission aka 70% of the light should be passing through the window. Aka it is only tinted on 30%. This much:
That’s practically nothing. You can see everything through it. Welp, then someone’s gonna see, I guess.
- Can’t believe I didn’t stop to look up clutches either. (Lmao, I was calling it a purse instead of a clutch at first even though I definitely meant a clutch. And then I remembered that clutch existed as a word. Who would’ve thought?) It’s baffling trying to figure out why my brain was prioritizing some details over others and I just genuinely have no idea what was going on.
- Griffin is blushing a lot in this. Can you tell I have no idea how else to convey Valtor giving her feelings through body language?
- I first envisioned the box being opened by the hair pin by turning it like a key. Only later did I realize that that wouldn’t be possible because the pin has two parts (whatever they’re called) and that would make turning it impossible unless all of the base fits into one hole in the lid of the box. So I had to adapt my vision to using the extensions at the ends of the hair pin like a hook that pulls the lid up once it’s clicked free. I have zero idea how that would be done but I’m sure it can be done. So yeah, anyway, the pin looks like this but with attachments at the ends to open the box:
- I might have gone a little overboard with Griffin’s reaction to having the vibrator inside her. I might have made her a bit too embarrassed but I still think that she simply wouldn’t appreciate someone knowing about what she considers a private experience (despite the very public setting).
- And I am being overly specific again with the seats but I worked for that information so you’re getting it against your will!
- Speaking of, that man in their box was pretty ignored throughout the fic. But then again Griffin wasn’t overflowing with lucidity. She is sure to have missed... A Lot, actually.
- My apologies (once again) to @her-majesty-wears-jeans for not letting Griffin punch Valtor in the face for the terrible pun he was about to make but I thought that that would ruin the mood so I had to skip it.
- I might have imagined things a little differently but then consent factored in and I had to change things up so that Griffin is clearly on board with everything. I hope it came through that way at least. She is on board even if she is very, very frustrated. She would never throw the bet just because it’s difficult for her. Though, I’m taking note for future fics of maybe being a little bit more explicit about the enjoyment of all parties involved. I just couldn’t really think of a way to convey it better back then and I am coming up with several ideas now and I will try to keep them in mind for future fics.
- I keep going back and forth on just how far into their relationship this is. Sometimes it feels like it’s not enough time for them to get this familiar with each other and sometimes it feels like too much for them to still be skirting their feelings for each other like that. Will update when I make up my mind about how long exactly it has been.
- In retrospect, probably should have picked up an opera that people would be less likely to bring their children to (as brought to my attention by @her-majesty-wears-jeans). I apologize for this. Did not consider it at all.
- A wild tangent about Griffin’s sexual experiences before Valtor popped up (for the second time now). This is giving me thoughts and I am not even sure if I’ll manage to get them all out in the bachelorette party fic. Oh, no, I am getting ideas again.
- God, I had to mention those paper birds because I adore them. Also, needed to do a time skip somehow (sure hope they don’t show up at the very end or the very beginning).
- So there are some things about the whole thing with the suit jacket that if you squint, you’ll miss the very far-fetched and convoluted ways in which I could make them make sense but again, it isn’t impossible to make them operate according to logic so good enough.
- And now for the dress:
I thought it would be reasonable for Griffin to own something like that. It doesn’t look overly expensive or dramatic.
- I swear that most of the 2% angst was an accident. Griffin was supposed to say the “You paid how much for tickets exactly just so you could fool around?” line but the following few paragraphs sprang on me out of nowhere. That was where I left it off the first day I was working on it and I wasn’t sure how to continue it. Then the angst happened.
- I do not believe the retaliation part was planned but would it really be a Griffin x Valtor story if something like that hadn’t happened? XD
- “reverberated”, “multitudinous” and “unobtainable” are probably not words that Griffin’s muddled mind would go to in that precise moment but everything else I came up with for them just did not sound right.
- I completely forgot the word for neckline and was so mad at myself for that but, luckily, I managed to remember it before posting the fic. I believe the original read “he slipped a finger under the fabric of her dress, running it over the top of her breast” which is not incorrect but just not precise enough for my liking.
- Sure hope the shortened version of the opera did not cut out the ending musical sequence. But that seems unlikely.
- The idea was running overly long in my head by having them going back to the penthouse so that I could have the scene where he picked her up so I decided to move things around and have him carry her bridal style on their way from the opera to the car. It’s not like she didn’t earn it.
- Pretty sure I had planned something a little different for the last several lines of dialogue but I couldn’t remember what so we get this. Which isn’t a disadvantage. I mean, Griffin is already thinking of marrying him. XD (That’s probably a bit of a stretch at the current status of their relationship but then again, she was thinking of a wedding, not necessarily of their wedding even though I’m clearly a little romance gargoyle that meant exactly that.)
- Originally, Valtor was supposed to floor the brakes while they were out in the NYC traffic but then I decided that doing it while still in the garage with only one car behind them and both vehicles driving at a very slow speed was a lot safer so I switched to that. It also saved me writing more words which was appreciated. I thought this fic would be a bit shorter.
- I was at a loss for how many orgasms Griffin should want from him but then the commitment line happened and that was all avoided.
#winx club#winx griffin#winx valtor#griffin x valtor#covenshipping#sparks of life#singing a new tune#trivia#trivia tuesday#research#my writing process#the magic flute#yeah no cut and this is gonna be hell on mobile#i know#i'm evil
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that’s what friends do
kim hanbin x female! reader
college! au (non idol) || 7.7k
mostly fluff, quite a bit of swearing, some suggestive themes, pretty much just friends to lovers nonsense because I’m a sucker for that
summary: you’re drunk and locked out of your apartment so what do you do? call your best friend hanbin, who you just happen to be in love with, and stay the night at his place, what could go wrong?
“I’m not drunk.”
“You definitely are.”
You roll your eyes. You’re in your best friend’s apartment, with her partner and some of your other friends. It’s a Friday night, and you wanted to celebrate the end of the week. However, your best friend doesn’t drink, so she’s mostly been watching you and laughing at all the dumb things you say.
“Are you ready to go home?” She asks. “I can drive you. I don’t want you wandering around in the dark.”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“You know I’m going home for the weekend, I don’t want to get there in the middle of the night.” You can’t argue with that. You know she’s been missing her family recently, and you don’t want to take away from her time with them.
“Okay,” you grab your bag, pulling out your phone. “Let’s go.” She smiles and goes to get her stuff.
When she’s ready, she leads you out to her car. You sit in the back, since her S.O. always gets to ride shotgun. Your single ass can’t relate.
It’s a short drive, so you just hang out in the back while the two of them talk. You’re thinking about what to do when you get home. You texted Hanbin earlier, asking if you two could study tomorrow. He hasn’t replied yet, so maybe you’ll bother him. You hate being drunk and alone. When your friend pulls into your driveway, you reach into your bag for your keys.
“It was lovely seeing you again, y/n.”
“Yeah, you too,” you reply. You can’t feel them anywhere. You turn on your phone flashlight to get a better look.
“What’s wrong?” Your friend asks. You shake your head.
“I can’t find my keys.”
“You’re joking,” she says.
“I wish I was.” She reaches out her hand so you give her your bag. She pokes around in there for a little while before coming to the same conclusion.
“You’re so dumb.” She’s not wrong. “Call your roommate, she’ll let you in.”
“She’s at her boyfriend’s tonight...” You’re getting anxious now. You don’t know what to do.
“Oh my god,” your friend hits the steering wheel. “What do we do with you?”
“Can’t she stay with your roommates?” Her partner asks. The two of you shake your heads.
“I don’t trust them to take care of her,” your friend says. “They’re good people, but y/n can be way too flirty when she’s drunk. I don’t want her sleeping with one of them.” That’s a valid point.
“I don’t have any other friends-” you start to say when it hits you. “HANBIN.”
“Who?” Your friend asks.
“You know him!” You unlock your phone so you can call him.
“Is that the guy you’re always studying with?”
“Yes!” You scroll to Hanbin’s contact icon and click it. “I’ve slept at his place before, he won’t mind.”
“Is this a good idea?” Your friend asks. “Having you sleep at a boy’s house while drunk?” You don’t answer her because Hanbin picks up right at that moment.
“y/n,” he says. “What’s up?”
“Okay, this is going to sound weird,” you reply. Your friend laughs. “I’m a little drunk and I got locked out of my apartment and I need somewhere to stay so could I maybe sleep at yours?” You’re slurring your words a little bit, but you’re hoping he won’t notice.
“Of course,” he says right away. You hear a door open. “Where are you? I’ll pick you up.”
“No, it’s okay,” you tell him. “I’m with my friend, she can drop me off.”
“Can I talk to him?” Your friend says from the front seat.
“Hold on, she wants to talk to you,” you say to Hanbin. “She needs to make sure you aren’t gonna murder me.” You can hear him nervously laughing as you give your friend the phone.
You look out the window while she asks him a gazillion and one questions. She sounds concerned when she finds out he has 2 other roommates, both guys. You’re good friends with them too, thankfully. You can’t hear Hanbin, but whatever he says must be convincing. He’s the best person you know. But then again you’re drunk, and maybe a little in love with him.
“And you’ll take her home tomorrow morning?” She asks. You turn your head and try to focus on their conversation.
“He’s not my father,” you say from the backseat. You’re tempted to make a joke about him being your daddy but you hold it in.
“Make sure she calls me tomorrow as well, so I know she’s alive.”
“For god’s sake,” you mutter to yourself.
You’ve known him since you started university, but your friend has only met him once or twice. You and Hanbin are in the same program and the same year, so you have tons of classes together. In first year, you were thrown together for a group project. While working on that, the two of you quickly became friends. You started studying for all your joint classes together, alternating hanging out at each other’s apartments. Your study sessions usually turn into the two of you watching TV or ordering take out and just talking for hours on end. Sometimes Hanbin will share lyrics or songs with you and ask for your opinion. There have been a few times where you’ve been so deep in discussion, you don’t even realize it’s midnight. On those days, you crash at his place.
Your roommate is convinced the two of you are dating, but you constantly reassure her you’re not. Every time he comes over, you lock yourselves in your room, so she probably assumes you’re making out. You wish you were, but you’re happy being his best friend too.
“If y/n gets hurt, I’m going to murder you, I hope you know that.” There goes any chance you had with him anyway. “Okay, I’ll give the phone back to her.”
You grab it right away. “I’m sorry, I know she can be scary.” You say. Hanbin just laughs.
“She cares about you, it’s a good thing.”
“So I’ll see you in like 5 minutes then?” You ask.
“Yeah, are you hungry? Yunhyeong made some food earlier, I think there’s some left.” You smile at that, he’s so sweet. Total boyfriend material.
“That sounds lovely.” You glance at your friend, who’s turning the engine on again. “I’ll be there soon.”
“Okay, bye.”
“Love you,” you reply. “Bye.”
After you hang up, your friend just stares at you in the rearview mirror. “Did you just say love you?”
“Yes,” you say awkwardly. “That’s what friends do.”
“You never tell me you love me.” She puts the car into reverse and pulls out of your driveway.
“I love you.”
“It doesn’t have the same effect now,” she says. “Are you sure he’s not your boyfriend?”
“He’s not.”
“Friends with benefits?” Her partner asks.
“No!”
“He’s cute though,” your friend points out. “Definitely your type.”
“Yeah, I know.” You stare out the window again.
“Wait, do you have a crush on him?” She glances at you in the rearview again.
“I think it’s a little more than a crush,” you say, avoiding eye contact. “I might be in love with him, it’s fine though.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“He’s not interested.”
“How do you know that?” She says right away. “He’s going to take care of you right now, while you’re drunk, what boy would do that if he didn’t have feelings for you?”
“A nice one?”
“Shut up,” she replies, turning right onto his street. “You’re drunk, you’re flirty, go get your man.”
“Should we give her some condoms or something?” You and your friend both laugh at that.
“No sex,” she says. “Not while you’re drunk.”
“Hanbin would never,” you reassure her. “He always asks before touching me.”
“He touches you?” She pulls onto his driveway.
“In a platonic way!” You’re blushing now. You’ve been crushing on him for ages, but talking about it out loud makes it so much more real. You’re almost scared to see Hanbin now. You’ll wind up saying something dumb and ruining your friendship.
“We’re here, so you can go touch him all you want.”
“Stop it!” You take your seatbelt off and open the door. “I hate you.”
“Do you want us to take you inside?”
“I’m sure I can make it to the front door,” you say. “I’m not that drunk.”
“If you say so,” your friend replies. “I’m gonna stay here and watch you go in.” Your roll your eyes, but you’re grateful for her. “Text me when you wake up tomorrow. I told Hanbin too, so you better not forget.”
“I won’t.” You grab your bag. “Thanks.” She smiles.
“You’re welcome,” you close the door, but she rolls down her window. “I love you.”
“Oh my god,” you groan and run towards the house. You’re dying to get away from her so she’ll stop clowning you.
When you get to the front door, it opens right away. Yunhyeong is there, smiling. He must’ve been expecting you.
“Hey,” he says. He notices your friend’s car in the driveway and waves. She waves back before reversing out and leaving.
“Thank god,” you mutter, kicking your shoes off. You almost lose your balance, but he grabs your arm to steady you.
“Hanbin said you’re staying over tonight.”
“Yeah, and I’m drunk,” you tell him. He’s about to say something else but Hanbin comes walking down the hallway. You immediately run over and wrap your arms around his neck.
He’s caught off guard, but he hugs you back. “Hi.” His arms are tight around you.
“I missed you,” you say, before burying your face in his neck. “So much.”
“Are you okay?” He asks, smiling. You nod and look up at him. You’re glad he’s amused.
“You smell really good.”
“You smell like vodka.” That makes you laugh. “You said you’re hungry, right?” You nod.
He untangles himself from you and walks towards the kitchen. You grab his hand without second thought. Since the two of you are usually pretty affectionate, he doesn’t think anything of it. You’re extremely grateful for that right now. You don’t want to act suspicious.
Yunhyeong joins you at the kitchen table while you have some left over french fries from their dinner. Hanbin makes sure you drink some water too, even though you tell him you’re not thirsty. You ask where Chanwoo is. When they say he’s locked in his room gaming, you’re not surprised. You make a mental note to say hi to him in the morning.
They ask about your night, and you explain how you forgot your keys and have nowhere else to stay. When they ask how much you had to drink, you genuinely can’t remember.
“You better go to sleep soon,” Hanbin says. “I don’t want you to be hungover tomorrow.”
“I don’t get hungover,” you tell him, yawning. “I’m not old.” He rolls his eyes at that.
“You can sleep in Hanbin’s room,” Yunhyeong says. “He can sleep on my floor.”
“Why can’t he sleep with me?” You two have never slept in the same bed before, but you don’t see why it would be a problem. Falling asleep in his arms would be amazing, especially since he smells so damn good. And waking up next to him in the morning? That thought alone makes you blush.
“y/n,” Hanbin says, smiling. “What did you just say?”
“I said you should sleep with me.” The two of them burst out laughing as you suddenly realize why. “Wait no, that’s not what I meant.”
“Are you sure?” Hanbin asks, making eye contact with you. You know he’s joking but it makes you flustered.
“Yes,” you mutter under your breath. You’d be lying if you said you hadn’t thought about Hanbin like that. You know he’s got some tattoos hiding under there somewhere. You’ve definitely thought about them before, particularly while imagining yourself underneath him.
“Are you finished?” Yunhyeong breaks your thoughts, pointing to your plate. You nod and he picks it up, heading to the sink.
“Thank you,” you call out after him. You might be drunk, but you’re never impolite.
Hanbin stands up and holds out his hand. “Let’s get you into bed.”
“I bet you’d like to,” you say, trying to give him a seductive look. That’s probably not even grammatically correct, but he laughs and pulls you towards his room.
“You’re ridiculous.” You sit down on his bed as he cleans up his nightstand for you. You glance at your phone quickly, no messages.
“Go take off your makeup,” Hanbin says to you, “you don’t want to look like a raccoon in the morning.”
“Raccoons are cute though,” you point out.
“That’s true.” He heads over to his closet. “But you’ll complain if I don’t make you do it now.”
“Fine,” you groan, getting up and heading to his en-suite.
You grab the micellar water and cotton pads from under the sink and use them to wipe your eye makeup off. The last time you slept over, he gave you your own toothbrush, so you grab that off the bathroom counter and brush your teeth. When you’re done, you walk back into the room, pulling the scrunchie out of your hair.
“Do you want a sweater or a t-shirt?” Hanbin asks, holding out both to you.
“T-shirt, I guess,” you reply, pulling off your own and throwing it on the floor without second thought.
“Whoa.” He rushes to cover his eyes, which makes you smile.
“You’re allowed to look,” you tell him, grabbing the shirt. “I was hoping you would see me shirtless in a totally different context, but this works too.”
“What?” He’s smirking.
“Nothing,” you say. “I probably won’t even remember this in the morning.” Hanbin doesn’t say anything to that.
“Are you still half naked?” He asks a minute or two later, with his eyes still closed. The t-shirt he gave you is a free one from one of your university’s events. He got the biggest size, which you’re grateful for right now. You decide to take your jeans off so you’ll be more comfortable while you sleep.
“Hold on.” You take them off and attempt to fold them, but in your drunken state, it’s kind of difficult. “Okay,” you say, placing them on his desk.
When he opens his eyes, he glances you up and down. You act like you don’t notice, but you’re pretty sure his gaze lingers on your legs for a moment. You haven’t shaved in a couple days, maybe he’s frightened. He clears his throat, snapping you out of your thoughts.
“I’m gonna get you a glass of water,” he says awkwardly, turning around and walking out of the room. You don’t know what to make of that.
While he’s gone, you crawl into bed and grab Hanbin’s phone charger. He’ll have to steal someone else’s if he needs it. He comes back, placing the water and a bottle of Advil on his nightstand for you.
“Do you need anything else?” He asks. You shake your head. “I’m gonna put the garbage bin closer just in case you do feel sick.” He grabs it from under his desk and puts it next to you.
“Thank you,” you say. “Seriously.”
“That’s what friends do.” He smiles at you and you groan.
“I don’t wanna be your friend,” you tell him, yawning. You knew you were tired, but you feel like you’re going to fall asleep any second, now that you’re lying down and comfortable.
“What do you want to be then?” He asks, heading over to his dresser.
“Your girlfriend.” He freezes for a second. “I’m sure you’ve thought about it too.”
“Maybe,” is all he says in return. He grabs the rest of his stuff as your eyes slowly close. “I’ll see you in the morning y/n, sleep tight.”
“Goodnight,” you mumble, rolling over.
You fall asleep soon after that, dreaming of god knows what. But you wake up when you hear a shuffling noise. You sit up and open your eyes. It seems like there’s a figure wandering around in the dark.
“Hanbin,” you say. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Sorry, I thought you were asleep.” You turn his nightstand lamp on and both of you flinch at the sudden brightness. “Are you okay?”
You nod. “Come here,” you tell him.
“Are you sick?” He’s holding his toothbrush and a notebook. He was probably coming to grab some stuff before heading to Yunhyeong’s room.
“No,” you reply, you’re still half asleep and you’re sure he can tell. “I just want you to come sit for a second.” He puts his things down, so you scoot over a little bit so there’s room for him.
“Do you need something?” You shake your head. “Why are you up then?”
“You woke me up, dumbass.” He blushes at that.
“I’m sorry.” You smile and take his hand.
“It’s okay.” He interlocks his fingers with yours. “Stay with me till I fall asleep again and I’ll accept your apology.”
“Fine.” He glances at the time on your phone. “That might take forever though.”
“Nope,” you tell him. “I have a trick.”
“A trick?”
“Yeah,” you say. “When I’m at home and I can’t sleep, there’s one thing I always think of and then I fall asleep no problem.”
“What is it?”
“You.”
“What?” He looks confused and it’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen.
“Remember when I said you should sleep with me?”
“How could I forget?” You laugh, and he does too.
“You should.” His eyes go wide. “Not like that, but also like that, I guess...” You lose your train of thought for a second because you’re thinking about him shirtless.
“y/n?” You glance at him.
“Sorry,” you smile. “When I can’t sleep, I think of you, and falling asleep with your arms around me, and it helps.”
“That’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard.” He takes your other hand in his.
“But,” you say. “When that doesn’t work, I just think about kissing you.”
“You do?” He asks. He sounds genuinely curious. Surely he’s thought about kissing you too. Otherwise you’re just making a fool of yourself right now. Although it doesn’t really matter, since you won’t remember any of it tomorrow morning.
“I think about kissing you a lot,” you admit.
“Oh really?” You brain suddenly realizes there’s not that much space between the two of you, and it would be really easy to just do it now but you hold back.
“You should kiss me,” you tell him. “To help me sleep, I mean.”
“Drunk you is so entertaining.” He reaches up to brush some hair out of your face, which makes your heart beat a little faster.
“You’re not saying no,” you point out. He moves his hand down, pulling you in by the neck.
“I’m not.”
You blink. He’s looking at you like he does actually want to kiss you, but you might just be imagining it because you’re drunk. But you also really want to kiss him and now seems like a really good opportunity if you would just-
Your thoughts get cut off because suddenly Hanbin’s lips are on yours. He gives you a quick kiss, but you shake your head, wrapping your arms around his neck.
“What?”
“Kiss me properly.”
“You’re ridiculous y/n,” he laughs.
You quickly shut him up by placing your lips on his again. He kisses you deeper this time, taking your comment to heart. You get lost in the kiss, leaning back onto the bed and pulling him down with you. You expect him to stop before this gets out of hand, but he doesn’t. There’s a small part of you that’s scared of what this means for your friendship, but god, it feels so good to finally kiss him that you don’t even care.
When he pulls away, it takes you a few seconds to open your eyes. Looking up at him feels so surreal. You think you might be dreaming. You run your fingers through his hair and it’s as soft as you remember. Maybe not.
“Better now?” Hanbin asks quietly, never taking his eyes off your lips.
“Yeah,” you whisper. He glances into your eyes for a second, before leaning down for another kiss. This one’s softer, more gentle.
“Good,” he says, sitting up. You miss him as soon as he moves away. “Go to sleep.”
“I’ll try, but no promises.” He smirks at that.
“Sorry.” You shake your head.
“Don’t be.”
He smiles and kisses your cheek. “Goodnight y/n.”
“Goodnight,” you say back, closing your eyes and drifting off to sleep again.
The next morning when you wake up, you feel much better. You must’ve slept pretty well. When you grab your phone off the nightstand you almost knock over the glass of water Hanbin left there for you.
Right, Hanbin.
The last thing you remember is him leaving the garbage bin by your bed and saying goodnight. You vaguely remember making some suggestive jokes, but nothing too terrible. You didn’t totally ruin your friendship, as far as you know.
When you check your phone, you see a text from your best friend. Instead of replying, you call her. She’s glad you’re still alive. She asks about Hanbin and whether anything happened overnight. She sounds kind of disappointed when you tell her you just ate and went to sleep. She’s got plans for the day so you can’t talk for long, but she promises to text you later.
You stay in bed for a little while longer, scrolling through your socials. Hanbin knocks on the door about half an hour later. He asks how you’re feeling and tells you to take whatever you want from his closet. You decide to take a shower so he grabs you a towel. He tells you to come join them when you’re done.
Once you’re finished, you quickly pack up your things. Then, you grab your phone and head towards the kitchen. You’re walking down the hall, when you hear Chanwoo say your name.
“I’m so sad I didn’t get to see drunk y/n, she sounds like a lot of fun.”
“She’s very entertaining.” That’s Hanbin’s voice.
“She was flirting with you too,” Yunhyeong says. You creep a little bit closer, staying close to the wall, so they don’t notice you eavesdropping.
“Maybe.” Hanbin pauses for a second. “She said something in my room later on.”
“She was in your room?” Chanwoo asks.
“What did she say?” Yunhyeong asks, ignoring him.
“After r I got her some water and Advil, she said thanks and I was like ‘that’s what friends do,’” you hear someone groan at that. Probably Chanwoo. “She said she doesn’t want to be my friend.”
Your heart starts to beat a little bit faster. You’re praying you didn’t say anything too dumb. And if you did, you hope Hanbin will just write it off as you being drunk.
“She said she wants to be my girlfriend.” You cringe. It’s not terrible, but you’re still embarrassed.
“I knew it,” Yunhyeong says. “You’re soulmates.”
“Shut up,” Hanbin replies. “She was drunk, she probably didn’t even mean it.”
“I think she did.”
“We’ve seen the way y/n looks at you.” You cringe at that too. Have you really been that obvious?
“That’s not it though,” Hanbin says. You wish he would just shut up. You don’t want to know what other dumb shit you said. “I kissed her.”
“You what?” Yunhyeong says exactly what you’re thinking. You and Hanbin finally kissed and you don’t even remember it? You’re never drinking again.
“It wasn’t planned,” Hanbin sounds worried now. “I didn’t mean to, she was just talking about how much she likes me and I couldn’t help myself, and now I’ve ruined our friendship.”
“What did she say about liking you?”
“She said that when she can’t sleep, she thinks about falling asleep in my arms, and if that doesn’t work, she thinks about kissing me.” You roll your eyes. All of that is true, but you don’t know why your drunk self felt the need to share it with him.
“She’s practically in love with you,” Chanwoo says. He’s not wrong. You are in love with Hanbin, maybe he’ll finally realize now.
“What are you going to do?” Yunhyeong asks.
“I don’t know.” Hanbin sighs. “She doesn’t even remember it happened, when I said hi to her this morning, she acted like everything was normal.” You don’t know if you’re grateful for that. Maybe if you did remember, you could actually address it and somehow get him to date you already.
“Maybe that’s what she wants,” Chanwoo says.
“But is it what you want?” Yunhyeong asks.
There’s a moment of silence before Hanbin responds.
“No.”
“I knew it.” Chanwoo sounds so smug.
“What do I do?”
“How do you feel about y/n?” Yunhyeong asks. This is what you’ve been waiting for. You take a small step closer to the kitchen.
“What kind of question is that?” Hanbin responds. “When she said she wanted to fall asleep with me, I really wanted to get into bed next to her.” That makes you blush.
“Simp.”
“She’s adorable to begin with, but she’s like a thousand times cuter when she’s half asleep,” he says. You smile to yourself.
“Tell us more,” Yunhyeong says.
“Does he have to?” Chanwoo groans.
“I mean, y/n’s my best friend. She makes me laugh, she makes studying for the worst courses bearable somehow, I love spending time with her, I love it when she falls asleep with her head on my shoulder and I hate it when she cries,” he says. You’re shocked at how quickly he answers. “But I also love it when I can make her stop crying. I don’t know, I just really like her and I have no idea what to do about it.”
“You’re in love with her, we been knew.” Chanwoo sounds 100% sure. He’s not wrong, that is what it sounds like. “And we all know your lyrics are about her too.”
“What?”
“It does sound like you love her,” Yunhyeong says.
“Shit,” Hanbin mutters under his breath. Your heart’s racing, waiting to hear what he says next. “Yeah, I think I do.”
You lose your focus, ignoring whatever Yunhyeong and Chanwoo say next because you can’t believe it. Your best friend, the boy you love with all your heart, loves you too. You don’t know what to do next, but that’s a pretty good start.
“I should go see if she’s done,” you hear someone say, which snaps you back to reality.
You rush back to Hanbin’s room and sit down at his desk, trying to act casual. There’s a bunch of notebooks piled against the wall, so you grab one, pretending to read it. Until something catches your eye.
If feelings could be controlled, I would’ve thrown mine away a long time ago. I’m talking bout you and me, when I try to take a step forward, you take his hand and become distant.
You’ve seen some of Hanbin’s lyrics before, but only the ones he’s shared with you. It feels like an invasion of his privacy, but you can’t help but wonder if these are about you, especially after what Chanwoo said in the kitchen.
I’ve got feelings for you and you’re embarrassing me. Why are you so pretty if you’re not mine?
Your eyes jump to the top of the page, looking for a date. He wrote this a year and a half ago. You try to go back in your memory to figure out what was happening around that time, when it hits you.
You dated this guy in your English class that October. You remember he came up to you after one of your lectures and asked if you and Hanbin were dating, since you always seemed to be together. You laughed and rolled your eyes. He said he was glad he had the chance to finally talk to you, since that was one of the few classes you had without Hanbin. He asked if he could take you out for dinner that weekend and you said yes. When you told Hanbin, he didn’t seem disappointed, but he must have been if he wrote this. Your ex wound up leaving you after three months. He didn’t explicitly say it, but you suspect he was jealous because you spent more time with Hanbin than him. It was true, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
You never mentioned anything about your breakup to Hanbin, but he knows you too well. You wound up telling him about it when you were up late one night talking. He held you while you cried, but he never said a bad word about your ex. Later on, you realized you were crying more about how you’d never have Hanbin than the actual breakup.
While thinking about that, you realize Hanbin hasn’t dated anyone in the time you’ve been friends. You know he has tons of other friends, and you know some of them also have crushes on him, but he never seemed interested. Now you know why.
Yunhyeong appears in the doorway at that exact moment, smiling at you. You put the notebook down, trying to act natural.
“Hey,” he says. “Have a nice shower?”
“Yeah, it was great,” you reply, awkwardly.
“You called your roommate, right?” You nod. “Are you going to head home soon?”
“You trying to get rid of me?” You ask, jokingly. Yunhyeong immediately shakes his head.
“Hanbin said you have some midterms and papers due this week that you seemed pretty stressed about. We just assumed you’d want to head home and work on those.”
“That’s kind of both of you,” you say. “Perhaps you have a point.”
“Do you want me to walk you home?”
“Where’s Hanbin?” You’re scared to see him, but you’re also excited. You’re curious as to how he’s going to act around you now. You didn’t really have a proper conversation earlier.
“I’m right here,” he suddenly appears next to Yunhyeong in the doorframe. You can’t stop yourself from smiling when you see him. He smiles back, which makes you a little flustered. “Have a nice shower?”
You roll your eyes. “I smell like you now.” Hanbin raises his eyebrows at that, and Yunhyeong smirks.
“I’m gonna go find Chanwoo,” he says. “I’ll leave you two alone.”
“Are you gonna stay for a little while?” Hanbin asks. You can’t tell if he wants you to, so you shake your head.
“I should probably work on my philosophy paper.”
“I should do that too.” You want to stay, and work on it together, but he doesn’t suggest it. You’re too scared to.
“Text me when you’re done,” you say. “You can send it to me and I’ll edit it for you.” He smiles at that.
“Thank you in advance.” You smile back. “I can drive you home as a token of my gratitude.”
“Can we walk?” It’s only 5 minutes, surely the two of you can act normal for that long.
“Sure,” he replies. “Have you got all your stuff?” You nod, grabbing your bag from the bed. Yunhyeong offered you one of his tote bags to put last night’s clothes in, so you pick that up as well.
You follow Hanbin into the kitchen, where Yunhyeong and Chanwoo are still eating their breakfast. You say bye to both of them, and promise to see them again soon. Chanwoo laughs at that. Normally you wouldn’t think anything of it, but now it makes you feel slightly anxious. You ignore that feeling and go to put on your shoes.
Once you’re outside, you feel so much better. Hanbin must notice, cause he’s looking at you with a weird expression on his face.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he says, walking down his driveway to the sidewalk. “They say fresh air is good for hangovers.”
The second you get over to him, you give him a smack. “I’m not hungover.”
“Sure you aren’t.” He gestures to the tote bag in your hand. “I can take that.”
“Thanks,” you hand it to him. “And thanks for putting up with drunk me.”
“It’s fine,” is all he says.
“Sorry if I said anything dumb.”
“You’re always saying dumb things, y/n, last night was no different.” You roll your eyes at that.
“I didn’t do anything stupid, did I?” You ask quietly. It’s the perfect opportunity to bring up the kiss.
“Of course not,” he says quickly, smiling at you. “You were actually kind of boring.”
“Shut up,” you mutter. He bumps his shoulder against yours as you turn off his street. While you walk, you send your roommate a text to let her know you’re on your way home. She says she’ll leave the door unlocked.
You and Hanbin talk about your midterms for the rest of the way. You’re slightly disappointed he doesn’t mention anything about last night, but you understand if he doesn’t want to ruin your friendship. You don’t want to bring it up because you don’t want to admit you were eavesdropping.
When you get to your front door, he makes sure you get in safely before saying bye.
“Thanks again,” you say, as the two of you stand in your doorway awkwardly.
“That’s what friends do.” You groan at that, which makes Hanbin blush. You must’ve had the same reaction last night when you said you wanted to be his girlfriend. You wish you could remember.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, right?” He nods.
“Of course.”
You give him a quick hug and say thanks again before he leaves. Once you close the front door, your roommate pops out from her room.
“So?” She asks, running over to you.
“What?” You put your things down in the hallway and follow her into the living room.
“Something’s up,” she glances you up and down as you sit down in the armchair. “You spent the night at his place, you’re wearing his clothes, your hair is wet - that only means one thing.”
“It’s not what you think,” you tell her, pulling Hanbin’s sweater tighter around you. It smells so freaking good, you’re never giving it back. Even though you have like 5 other hoodies from him.
“What is it then?” She raises an eyebrow.
“How much time do you have?”
“More than enough,” she smiles. “Let me put the kettle on.”
============
Things with Hanbin stay the same during the week. You edit each other’s essays and study for your midterms over FaceTime. He invites you over on Friday night to celebrate being halfway done with the semester. Apparently Chanwoo lost some bet between the three of them and he’s buying dinner. How could you say no?
The day of, you’re about to leave when your roommate catches you in the kitchen.
“Please tell me you’re not wearing that.” You glance down. You’re wearing one of Hanbin’s t-shirts and a pair of sweats.
“What’s wrong with this?” You ask. “We’re not going clubbing.”
“Yeah, but you want him to sleep with you, don’t you?” That makes you blush. “You should at least wear some makeup.”
She grabs your hand and pulls you into your room. While she goes through your closet, you shoot Hanbin a quick text saying you’re running late. This better be worth it.
In the end, your roommate lets you keep his shirt on. She says it makes you look more “fuckable,” whatever that means. You wind up changing into jeans and throwing a plaid shirt on top (which is also Hanbin’s, but you don’t tell her that). She brushes some brown eyeshadow on for you and picks out a nice shade of lipstick, which also happens to be smudge proof (“since you’ll be making out”). After you swipe it on, she finally lets you put your shoes on to leave. You’re unlocking the front door when she stops you again.
“What now?” She drops a couple of condoms into your hand. “Oh my god.”
“You and Hanbin would have adorable babies, but I don’t think now is the right time for either of you-”
“Why does everyone think I need condoms?” You say, mostly to yourself. You stuff them into your bag anyway.
“I just want you to be prepared.”
“I appreciate that.” She smiles and opens the door for you.
“You have your keys, right?” You roll your eyes but hold them up. “Good, now go get laid!”
You feel bad about running late, so you speedwalk to Hanbin’s. You get there in less than 3 minutes, which you’re quite proud of. When he opens the door, he smiles at you.
“Is that my shirt?” You blush.
“Yes.” You push past him so you don’t have to look at him any longer. It wasn’t so bad in class, because the two of you had something else to focus on. But now that you’re back in his house, you’re feeling anxious again. He still thinks you don’t know about the kiss.
“y/n!” Chanwoo appears in the hallway. “Pizza got here like 10 minutes ago, come have it while it’s hot.”
You follow him into the kitchen, where he grabs you a plate. While he does that, you open the fridge to grab a drink. The second you pick up a can, Hanbin magically shows up and takes it from you.
“I don’t think so.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.” You go to take it back, but he holds it above his head so you can’t reach.
“Kim Hanbin,” you say, trying to use your serious voice. “Give me back my drink or else I’ll never proofread your essays again.”
“I can easily find someone else to do that.” He keeps the can raised. You rolls your eyes but reach for it anyway. That makes Hanbin laugh as he tries to keep it away from you.
“Can you two stop flirting?” You almost forgot Chanwoo was there. Whoops. You glance at Hanbin and he seems as caught off guard as you, which makes you feel better. You snatch the drink out of his hand while he’s distracted.
The three of you sit down and eat, talking about your classes and your plans for the weekend. Yunhyeong shows up about 15 minutes later. He walks through the door holding way too many grocery bags, so you immediately run over to help.
“Thanks, y/n,” he says, handing you some of them. “I’m glad someone cares about me.”
“Of course I do,” you tell him. Hanbin comes over to help you put them away while Yunhyeong has some pizza.
When you’re done, you jump onto the counter. Hanbin gets a glass of water and sits next to you.
“Have this.” He holds it out.
“Excuse me?”
“It’s important to stay hydrated while you’re drinking.”
“Shut up,” you tell him. “I’ll be fine.”
“Fine as you won’t remember anything?” You freeze. It’s about time he said something, you just didn’t expect it to be like this.
“Is that really such a bad thing?” You tease, but he doesn’t smile.
“Yeah y/n,” he says, running a hand through his hair.
“Fine,” you take the water from him and have a sip. “I don’t want to forget anything that happens today.”
“Good,” he says.
“You better make it memorable then.”
“Oh, I will.” You don’t know what to make of that.
“What did I tell you about flirting?” Chanwoo says suddenly, getting your attention. You roll your eyes, but Yunhyeong changes the subject.
“Who was that girl I dated in first year? I can’t remember her name.”
“Alex?” He shakes his head. “I have no idea then, sorry.”
Yunhyeong runs through some other names, none of which you recognize. To be fair, you only became friends with Yunhyeong and Chanwoo last year. Sure, you spent time in their apartment, but they mostly left you and Hanbin alone to do whatever.
“Wait!” You say suddenly, remembering a story Hanbin told you a while back. Everyone stops and looks at you. “Is she the one who said you were a bad kisser?”
“Yeah,” Yunhyeong replies. “That’s the worst insult I’ve ever gotten.”
“Can’t relate.” Chanwoo looks smug.
“Have you even kissed anyone?” You ask him. “You’re like 12.” That makes Hanbin laugh.
“Shut up,” He says. “I’m only 2 years younger than you.”
“Hanbin’s probably the best kisser out of all of us then,” Yunhyeong points out. You bump your shoulder against Hanbin’s and he smiles.
“Says who?” Chanwoo asks. “We should run a survey.” You roll your eyes.
“What are you going to do?” You reply. “Make out with every girl on campus and ask who they liked best?”
“Well you and Hanbin have already kissed so-” Yunhyeong doesn’t finish his sentence. All of you are staring at him.
“I’m sorry, what?” You ask. You could just tell them you already know, but you decide not to. You want to see how this plays out.
“When you were drunk,” Hanbin jumps in, turning to face you. “It was just a dumb kiss, it didn’t mean anything.”
“It didn’t?” You ask.
“Do you even remember it?”
“No,” you shake your head, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings for you.” You hear Yunhyeong gasp. Hanbin just looks surprised.
“Did I say anything?” You ask him.
“You said-”
“Shut up Chanwoo,” Hanbin looks at you. “You said you wanted to be my girlfriend.” You could take a second and weigh your options, but you also know if you don’t say something now you probably never will.
“Well, I do.” Your voice shakes a little, but you’re confident in your answer.
“You do?” You might be imagining things, but Hanbin looks happy.
“Yeah.” He thinks for a second, then jumps off the counter.
“Come on.” He holds out his hand, so you take it. Neither of you say anything to Yunhyeong and Chanwoo as you walk right past them, down the hall to Hanbin’s room.
He follows you in and closes door behind you. Now that you’re alone, you don’t know what to do. You glance at Hanbin and he looks just as nervous as you. He’s leaning against the door. You wish he would come hold your hand or sit next to you or anything.
“y/n,” he starts to say, but you cut him off.
“I’m scared.”
“What?” He looks so concerned. You love him for it. “What’s wrong?”
“Come here,” you say without thinking. Hanbin sits next to you and takes your hand as you lean against him. It feels so natural.
“What is it?” He asks quietly, rubbing his thumb over the back of your hand.
“What if we fuck this up?”
“We won’t,” he says right away.
“Listen,” you reply. “You’re my best friend, and I absolutely adore you, but if we do this, and we fall in love and date and whatever and it doesn’t work out, where does that leave us?”
Hanbin turns to look at you. “Haven’t we already fallen in love?”
You answer him by leaning in and giving him a small kiss. You’re surprised at your boldness, but it feels right. When you pull away, the two of you smile at each other. You really do love him.
“Is that what our first kiss was like?” You ask, breaking the silence. “I’m so sad I don’t remember it.”
“It wasn’t like that, no,” he tells you.
“Oh god,” you groan. “Was it like messy and weird? I wasn’t that drunk, was I?”
“No,” he shakes his head. “It was actually really nice.”
“Can we do a reenactment?” Hanbin blushes. “Oh my god, was it like something out of a R-rated movie?”
He shakes his head again. “Maybe like 14A?” You gasp.
“You’ll have to show me.”
“Not today,” he says, “I have things to do.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” You frown.
“Just, uh,” he looks down. “If I kiss you like that again, I’m pretty sure I know what’ll happen next.”
That makes you blush. “Okay cool,” you say awkwardly. “We’ll save that for another time.”
“Good plan,” he smiles at you. “Should we go back out there?” He gestures to the door.
“What do we say?”
“What do you mean?” He asks.
“We’ve been in here, alone, for how long? That’s not what friends do. They’re going to have questions.”
“We’re not friends,” Hanbin says.
“No?” You ask, trying to ignore the fact that your heart rate’s gone up. “What are we then?”
Before he can answer, you hear Chanwoo’s voice outside. “If you two are fucking in there, let us know so we can leave.”
“We’re not!” You and Hanbin yell back in unison.
“Okay good,” Chanwoo responds. You both wait until you hear him walk away.
“Let’s go, so they stop speculating about what we’re doing in here.” You get up. Hanbin doesn’t. “What?”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
“Oh my god,” he groans. “Did you really have to quote Star Wars right now?” You smile, as he stands up.
“Sorry,” you tell him.
Hanbin kisses your forehead, taking your hand. You give him what’s mean to be a quick kiss on the lips, but he wraps his arms around you, holding you close.
“I love you too,” you whisper once he pulls away.
“Thank god for that.” You roll your eyes. “Come on.”
You’re not ready for the constant teasing you’re going to get from Yunhyeong and Chanwoo, but you don’t mind. Hanbin’s yours now, so at least you’ll suffer together. That’s what friends do, right?
#ikon#kim hanbin#hanbin#hanbin scenario#hanbin imagine#ikon scenario#ikon imagine#kpop#fluff#I suck at tagging rip me#also love how I'm doing this on my work break yikes#I'm just glad this is done and sorry in advance for any typos
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Fightin’ Back Chapter 6
Chapter Summary: Seeing Stan's memory erased is the only time any of us have ever seen Ford cry.
Chapter Notes: and this chapter makes six! I would like to give a personal thank you to every one of my readers who has stuck with me through this story from the very chapter, and all of my friends on discord for encouraging me to keep writing in times where I thought I was going to give up.
This story marks the first multi-chapter fic I've already sought through to the very end, and it makes me so, so happy that all of you are here to experience it with me. Thank you once again for taking this journey to me, and we're wrapping up this arc with Weirdmageddon 3.
The soft, desperate sound of choked sobs is unmistakable as it slices through the quiet night air like a knife. Dipper’s eyes pop open at the sound, and he sits up in his sleeping bag in the living room. He hadn’t been crying in his sleep, had he? He brings a tentative hand to pat as his cheeks, but no, they’re perfectly dry.
But…if that hadn’t been him, then…
He turns his glance towards Mabel’s sleeping bag beside his. She sure looks like she’s asleep, but she’s got her back turned towards him, and he knows for a fact that’s usually a sign that she’s hiding something.
“Mabel?” he whispers loudly. “Are you okay?”
She jumps, but when she shifts to face him she doesn’t look like she’d been crying either. “That’s not you?” She squints towards him as she sits up. “I’ve been sitting here for like, five minutes trying to figure out how to wake you up without scaring you”
“But…” Dipper shakes his head. “What else could it be?”
Mabel scratches at her head. “Maybe the unicorn barrier broke and the shack itself is crying?”
Dipper shakes his head. “Couldn’t be. Grunkle Ford said that if everything reset after Weirdmageddon then the unicorn barrier should’ve come back too”
“Not everything” she murmurs into her sleeping bag, and Dipper sighs as he turns his glance towards Stan’s recliner.
Which is…empty.
When it hadn’t been when they fell asleep.
Dipper’s up to his feet before he knows it, and between one blink and the next Mabel is on her feet too. “Where do you think he could’ve gone? Do you know how dangerous it is for Stan to be wandering around town like this? At this time of night?”
He doesn’t realize he’s pacing back and forth until he feels Mabel’s hand gently gripping at his shoulder. “Woah, take it easy there, bro-bro. I’m sure we’re just overthinking things. I mean, he couldn’t have gone that far in two hours, right?”
“Mabel! You’re not helping!” he starts pacing back and forth again. “He could be anywhere! He could walk right into the lake and drown, or into the manotaur cave, or-”
“In the kitchen?”
“What?”
Mabel points towards the kitchen lights that’ve been flicked on. Dipper takes her hand in his own and runs towards the kitchen before she has time to protest. Stan’s nowhere in sight, but Ford is sitting at the table with his head buried in his arms. At first glance, Dipper would think he must’ve fallen asleep writing additions in his journal again, but at a second, closer look, he can see that his shoulders are trembling. If he really listens, he can hear the hitched breaths barely escaping him.
Dipper takes a cautious step towards him. “Grunkle Ford?”
Ford bolts upright, messily scrubbing at his eyes. “Dipper?”
“And Mabel” Mabel waves hello, and takes a seat at the table beside Ford. “Is everything okay, Grunkle Ford?” She places a gentle hand on his arm, and a broken sigh escapes him as he reaches a hand to hers and squeezes it gently. He squeezes his eyes shut, like he’s milliseconds away from breaking down again.
“I’ve tried everything,” he swallows. “I’ve tried reverse engineering the memory gun, I’ve tried showing him pages from our old high school yearbook, I’ve even tried…” he exhales sharply. “I’ve even tried bringing him downstairs to see if…coming into contact with any of the portal remains would be enough to trigger a tactile memory, but nothing’s working.” He buries his face back into his arms, muttering an indecipherable self-deprecating comment into the sleeve of his sweater.
Dipper takes a seat on the other side of Ford, and shares a melancholy glance with Mabel. She nods, and he places a gentle hand on Ford’s shoulder. He doesn’t flinch, but he doesn’t reciprocate the gesture either. “Hey, Grunkle Ford? What if Mabel and I took over for a little bit?”
“We ate a ton of Grunkle Stan’s apocalypse meat before we came to rescue you from the Fearamid, and we’ve been asleep for the past two hours. Now, I may not have been turned into a gold statue myself, but it didn’t look to me like you were getting any sleep when you were petrified in place for like, three days”
A soft chuckle escapes Ford as he sits up and wipes at his eyes with his wrist. “Thank you, but…” he shakes his head. “It wouldn’t be fair of me to ask for your help” He twines his hands together. “You’ve already been through enough as it is because of me”
“Nonsense,” Mabel insists, standing to tug Ford to his feet. He complies, and she begins dragging him towards Stan’s bedroom. A quick glance over her shoulder at Dipper, and he’s standing to his feet to take Ford’s unoccupied hand in his own. “You take the night off. Dipper and I can take over and sleep in shifts until you’re rested enough to take over for us”
“Are you sure?” Ford frowns as he steps through the doorway of Stan’s bedroom. “I’d hate to burden you with such an emotionally tolling responsibility”
Mabel pulls her hand away from Ford’s to pull back the blankets on the bed and pats at the pillow. Ford’s lips twitch downward like he doesn’t think it’s a good idea, but his exhausted body moves on autopilot and makes that decision for him. He practically flops over on the bed, and Mabel smiles as she covers him back up with the blanket.
“You can never be a burden to us, Grunkle Ford” Mabel whispers, and leans to plant a soft kiss on his forehead. “Besides! Dipper and I are used to this. We’ve been taking care of Grunkle Stan and keeping him out of danger practically all summer.” She delicately reaches to remove his glasses for him, and places them on Stan’s nightstand. She places a gentle hand on Ford’s shoulder, and turns towards Dipper.
“You think you can take the first shift with Stan? Something tells me he won’t fall asleep unless someone stays in here with him.”
Dipper’s glance turns to Ford. His eyes are still red and puffy from crying, and there’s a miserable expression plastered to his face. His chest is rising and falling in a scattered pattern, like one poorly-phrased sentence is all it’ll take to push him over the edge again.
“Sure,” Dipper replies, placing a gentle hand beside Mabel’s on Ford’s shoulder. “I’ll yell if anything goes wrong, okay? Where is he?”
“In my study room” Ford’s reply is muffled by his pillow. “I was going to bring him in here, but...” he squishes his face even further into the pillow. “I just didn’t have the heart to step foot in here alone”
Oh.
Dipper sighs. “I get it. I don’t think I would’ve had the heart to bring him in here either,” he takes a knee so he can make better eye contact with Ford. “But honestly, from me and Mabel both, thank you so much for what you’ve already done for him. I think he appreciates it a lot”
The laugh that escapes Ford’s lips is cold and bitter. “Thank you,” he echoes. “And here I thought those words couldn’t possibly hurt me any more than they already have”
Dipper’s sure Ford probably hadn’t meant to say that loud enough for him to hear, so instead of responding Dipper leans forward and throws his arms around Ford in a hug. Ford doesn’t reciprocate, but he doesn’t quite pull away from the gesture either. “I’ll come back to see how you’re doing in a few hours if you’re still awake, okay?” he whispers as he gives Ford an affectionate squeeze before he stands to his feet. Without waiting for a response he knows isn’t coming, Dipper turns heel and walks out the door.
Stan’s sitting up straight with his hands folded neatly together when Dipper steps into the room. “Hey!” he flashes a grin, but it quickly falls when he struggles to come up with a name. “…Where’d the tall guy go? Y’know, the guy who looks like he hasn’t slept in years?”
Dipper can’t help the laugh that escapes him. It’s reassuring that his sense of humor is just as harsh as it’s always been, that’s for sure. “Just fell asleep, if you’re willing to believe” he steps forward and takes a seat beside Stan on the couch. “He thought it’d be a good idea if someone came in and checked in on you, though”
“Oh.” Stan’s lip is a tight line, like he knows Dipper isn’t telling him the complete truth. “I dunno. Think I’m starting to get a headache from all these questions. Was gettin’ close to playing along and pretending I knew what he was talking about before he suddenly stood up and walked out of the room without a word about where he was going”
“I see…” Dipper’s voice trails off awkwardly, and he shakes his head. “Okay, but what about…physically? Is there anything I can help you with in that department?”
“Oof,” Stan practically collapses back against the couch, like just asking was enough to make every muscle in his body ache at once. “Was starting to wonder when someone would ask. S’kinda awkward to ask for a cup of water when you’re surrounded by people who start sobbing every time you make eye contact with them, am I right?” He gently nudges Dipper with his elbow, but his expression falls when Dipper does not start laughing with him.
“Right, I can imagine,” Dipper flashes him a fake smile to spare Stan’s feelings, and stands to his feet. “Anything else, while I’m already out of the room?”
“Medicine, if you’ve got any” Stan groans. “I’ve had a killer headache for the past hour. Feels like I’ve been shot to the head” he dramatically brings his wrist to his forehead, and Dipper tries his hardest to choke down the sob that builds in his throat at his choice of phrasing. Turns out it didn’t matter either way, because when he notices the horrible burn marks all over his wrist and hand the sound escapes him anyway.
“Oh my gosh, Stan, your wrist!” Dipper cries, collapsing to his knees at the sight. He reaches for Stan’s wrist, pauses for a moment, but decides it’d probably be better to leave them alone. “No wonder you have a headache! Anyone else would’ve passed out from that kind of burn ten minutes ago!”
“My wrist?” Stan stares at him blankly for a moment, before pulling his wrist from his forehead to look at it. “Huh,” he says nonchalantly. “Guess I was too busy being interrogated by the guy in the red turtleneck to notice”
Dipper stands to leave, and pauses in the doorway. “I’ll be right back, okay? Don’t move”
Stan huffs. “I don’t have that many options as far as places to go, kid”
“Right, right…” Dipper murmurs, and pats the doorframe as he rounds the corner. As he walks towards the kitchen, he nearly collides with Mabel slinking her way out of Stan’s bedroom.
“How is he?” she asks, folding her hands together.
Dipper scrubs a hand down his face. “Just as bad as Grunkle Ford said. How’s Grunkle Ford doing? I thought he didn’t want to be alone”
“Oh, he doesn’t! I just wanted to get him an extra blanket and Waddles to keep him extra company”
Dipper smirks. “I don’t know how comfortable he’d be with a pig crawling into bed with him”
Mabel gasps. “Waddles is a gentleman! Don’t knock cuddling him to sleep ‘til you try it. Besides, if Waddles already loves Stan, I’m sure it’s only inevitable that he’ll love Ford, too!”
“Yeah, well good luck convincing Ford of that”
“Will do!” she grins, and bounces off in the opposite direction.
Dipper rolls his eyes affectionately, and makes his way towards the bathroom to grab the burn cream and ace bandages. Dipper knew that Bill’s hand always became engulfed with blue flames each time he shook hands with somebody to make a deal, but he never knew those flames could ever cause any real harm to those who shook his hand. Even when he shook Bill’s hand the morning of Mabel’s puppet show, the flames to him felt ice cold, as if he were coming into contact with a ghost.
Though, Dipper recalls with a shudder, that very well could’ve just as easily been the feeling of his own soul being ripped from his body.
He shakes that thought off by slamming the medicine cupboard shut. No, that’s not important right now. He’s got plenty of time to have an existential crisis about that later. He pockets the medicine and bandages and slams the bathroom door shut on his way out for extra measures.
“Took you long enough,” Stan smirks when he comes back into the room. “Was starting to think that you fell asleep on me too”
Dipper hums in acknowledgement, and takes a knee again. He pops open the cover of the burn cream, and wordlessly offers out his hand to Stan. Stan frowns, but complies and places his hand on top of Dipper’s. For a few moments the two of them sit in silence as Dipper covers the worst of Stan’s burn in cream, until Stan suddenly clears his throat.
“Hey…” he pauses for a brief moment. “…Dipper, thanks for uh, helping me out. Don’t mean to come across as aggressive. I make jokes when I’m uncomfortable.”
Dipper’s about to brush the comment off with a quick “It’s fine, I get it,”, but his heart nearly stops in his chest when he fully processes what Stan just said.
“What did you just call me?” he asks, and can’t seem to keep the shake out of his voice.
“Dipper?” Stan shrugs, and taps at his own forehead. “Y’got a mark on your forehead that looks like the big dipper, I figured that’s an easier nickname to remember then just calling you kid”
“…Oh” Dipper’s half-smile slips off his face, and Stan’s expression falls as well.
“What, do kids at school bully you with that nickname? There something else you want me to call you instead?”
“No!” Dipper nearly shouts, and his cheeks tint pink as he clears his throat to correct himself. “I mean no, Dipper’s fine”. He clicks the container of the burn cream shut, and places it down on the ground beside him as he begins wrapping Stan’s wrist with the bandage. “Kids at school tend to call me everything but Dipper. I’m just lucky my sister is less afraid of getting detention for punching a kid in the face then I am”
“Hah!” Stan barks, slapping the armrest of the couch with his uninjured hand. “That reminds me of a story from when I was a kid. Y’see-” he starts, but as soon as he shifts his position to get more comfortable he’s overcome with a sudden violent coughing fit. He curls in on himself, and Dipper doesn’t miss the way he’s tightly gripping at his chest.
…What was that advice Stan had given him about rib injuries earlier this summer? Dipper scratches at his head, looking around the room for some sort of reminder, and his eyes fall on a couch cushion that’s been kicked to the ground.
That’s right.
“Here,” Dipper hands him the cushion. “Someone told me that holding these to your chest while you cough will make it hurt less,” he says, and gestures with a thumb towards the kitchen. “I’ll go see if the fridge is still working so I can bring you an ice pack”
Stan raises an eyebrow, but takes the cushion from Dipper and places it against his chest. “What, you some kind of doctor in training or somethin’?”
“No,” Dipper shrugs as he backs out of the door. “Just learned from a pretty great caretaker, is all”
As Dipper rounds the corner towards the kitchen, he notices the door to Stan’s bedroom is cracked open. He peeks his head inside, and sure enough, Waddles is curled up on the bed, fast asleep underneath Ford’s arm. Mabel is sitting in a chair that she pulled up beside them, her eyes interchangeably fluttering open and closed.
He knocks lightly on the doorframe so as not to wake Ford. “Pssst, Mabel!”
She jumps, rubbing at her eyes. “Dipper? Is it time to swap shifts already?”
“Not yet,” he shakes his head. “But I need to talk to you.”
“Oh,” she hops off of her chair, and closes the door gently behind her as she follows Dipper into the hallway. “Okay, but make it quick before Waddles senses I’m missing and wakes Grunkle Ford”
“That’s just the thing,” Dipper whispers. “It’s about Grunkle Stan”
“What?” she whisper-shouts. “What happened to him? Is he okay?”
Dipper raises his hands in the air defensively. “Nothing! Nothing happened to him, he’s fine” he rubs at the back of his neck. “Better then fine, actually. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but I think he’s starting to get his memory back”
Mabel’s eyes go huge. “Really?” she nearly shouts, before slamming her hand over her mouth. She grabs Dipper’s hand and drags him into the kitchen. “Really?” she asks again, quieter this time. “That’s great! What makes you say that?”
“Well I can’t say for sure,” Dipper opens the freezer door and feels around for a bag of frozen peas. “But…he just called me Dipper” he tosses a half-empty bag back and forth in his hands to judge its temperature. “And I think he was going to tell me a story about Grunkle Ford just before I left the room”
“That’s great!” Mabel grins. “How’d you get it out of him? I thought Grunkle Ford said he’d tried everything!”
“He did,” Dipper takes a seat at the table. “That’s why I don’t want to get my hopes up. All I did was just…let him talk” he sighs. “I want to be just as excited about this as you, but…I don’t want it to turn out to just be one big coincidence”
Mabel takes a seat at the table beside him. “There must be something we’re missing. What did Grunkle Ford say he already tried?”
“He showed him every page of their high school yearbook, Mabel, I’m not sure we can get any more direct then that”
“Hmmm…” Mabel taps at her chin, taking a glance around the room as if the answer’s going to be right in the room with them. A minute passes before she stops, and turns to Dipper in the arm. “That’s it! Dipper, I’ve figured it out!”
“You have?”
“Yeah!” She beams. “Dipper, don’t you see? The reason nothing worked with Grunkle Ford is because it was too much! Reading him an entire yearbook? Bringing him downstairs to the lab and rambling on about an interdimensional portal? It’s no wonder Stan hasn’t been able to pay attention! He needs to figure these things out one at a time, not all at once!”
Dipper gasps. “That’s why he kept complaining about having a headache! He was processing too much information in one go! Mabel, you’re a genius!”
“Pssh,” Mabel waves a hand in the air. “I know”
Dipper hops down from the chair and walks to open the pantry door. He pushes aside what’s left of the canned meat and the boxes of pasta, and grins when he finds what he’s looking for. “Aha!” he beams, pulling an unopened bag of toffee peanuts and a can of Pitt Cola out of the pantry. “Thanks Mabel!” he shouts, and grabs the bag of frozen peas off of the table as he sprints back to Ford’s study room.
~~
“Hey,” Dipper says as he pushes his way back into Ford’s study room. “Sorry that took so long, I was trying to multitask and get you some food, but this is all we could find”. Dipper drops the bag of peas onto the couch carelessly, and offers the bag of toffee peanuts and the can of soda directly to Stan.
Stan’s eyes go wide at the sight, and he snatches the bag out of Dipper’s hand, ravenously tearing it open. “You kiddin’?” he shovels a handful of toffee peanuts into his mouth. “I’d kill for these things. Haven’t had ‘em since…” he pauses, the bag dropping carelessly to his lap. He scratches at his head, his face scrunching up in a blend of concentration and confusion, before he sits back against the backrest of the couch. “…Since I was a kid, at least”
“Yeah?” Dipper sits on the couch beside Stan, handing him his makeshift ice pack. “What was that like?”
Stan snorts. “What, the last time I had toffee peanuts? Surprised I remember them at all, since Pa always said no when I asked for ‘em. How am I supposed to remember how I felt when I always had to sneak my allowance out of the house to buy ‘em at all?”
It’s working.
Dipper laughs, shaking his head. “I meant your childhood, but if you want to go into the minute details, then be my guest” He shifts in his seat to turn towards Stan. “What about the story you were about to tell me before I left the room?”
Stan grins, and he shifts in his chair too, careful to keep his ice pack in its place. “Well, I took a lotta boxing classes as a kid, y’see? Pa thought it would be good if I learned to defend myself, ‘cause he was sick of seein’ me come home with black eye after black eye. But what Pa doesn’t know is that the reason I was comin’ home with them at all is because I was already defending myself plenty.” He puffs out his chest as best he can. “All those classes were doing was teaching me how to throw even harder punches at those bullies. But wouldn’t ya know it? I didn’t tell a soul at school I was takin’ those classes at all. So one day when I was about eleven years old, Crampelter and his gang were harassing my brother, so I-”
The cocky grin on Stan’s face falls off of his face and shatters to the ground in thousands of broken pieces. His face goes through about a dozen different expressions in a number of seconds, and his eyes are darting around the room like he’s looking desperately for something that isn’t there.
“My-my brother, he-” Stan stutters, tightly gripping at the cushions of the couch. “Years later, he sent me this…this postcard, and I-” he holds his hands out in front of him like he’s holding the ghost of it in his hands, and violently shakes his head. He turns his gaze towards Dipper again, and his chest is rising and falling rapidly like he’s in the midst of a panic attack. He holds out his hands, and they’re trembling. “Wh-what’s happening to me?”
“Woah, woah, Stan, you’re okay! Everything’s okay” Dipper grips his shaking hands. “Just…keep going. Keep telling me about your brother”
Stan sighs. “He’s more than just my brother, kid. He’s my twin brother. He sent me this postcard telling me to get to his place as urgently as possible, but then there was this big fight, and…” his voice drifts off. “It’s all my fault,” he whispers urgently, dropping his head in his hands.
Dipper frowns, unsure what to do. He knows he can’t just wake up Ford and bring him in the room, because that’s just going to cause Stan to panic even more. He’ll think he’s dreaming, or that Ford is some kind of guilt-induced hallucination. The most he can do is get Stan to keep talking, because if he keeps talking and keeps remembering it’s only inevitable that he’ll remember Ford is okay too.
Dipper scooches closer to Stan on the couch, and gently places a hand on Stan’s leg, wordlessly encouraging him to continue. Stan flinches at the gentle gesture, but messily scrubs at his face with his wrist as he clears his throat. “He got sucked into this…portal…thingy. I tried for hours to turn it back on, but nothing budged.” He shakes his head. “So I had to resort to the only option I had left. He’s a scientist, y’see? And he kept all his research in a series of journals. I figured he had to have the blue prints for the portal somewhere in those things. So I searched, and I searched, and I put the thing back together with what I had, but…” he trails off. “I haven’t seen him since”
“Well…” Dipper starts, trying to encourage him to keep remembering. “What’ve you been doing since? You can’t just be spending every day trying to get it to work, right?”
Stan raises an eyebrow. “Whaddya take me for, some kind of hermit? I still gotta earn money to feed myself somehow, and if my time living in…” he pauses. “Uh, acting…college. Yeah. If I’ve learned anything from acting school, it’s how to con suckers out of their money. So I turned my brother’s house into a tourist trap to scam the suckers who live here into paying my bills for me.”
He shakes his head, and a warm smile overtakes his face. “It was gettin’ real monotonous, lemme tell ‘ya. Then wouldn’t you know it? Just as I was starting to give up hope, I get a phone call from a hospital in California telling me to get down there as soon as I could. Figured I had nothing left to lose, so I closed down shop for a few days and made the eight hour drive to California myself.”
Stan’s tearing up again. “And wouldn’t you know it? My niece-in law had twins. A boy and a girl” he nudges Dipper. “If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say they’re about your age, kid. Wonder if you’d get along with them. Now, they named the boy Mason, but they didn’t call him that when they were talking to family. They wanted to distinguish him from his sister, y’see, and he had a real funny looking birthmark on his forehead, so they called him-”
And all at once, he’s going through the same motions he had when he’d first mentioned Ford’s name. His expression is changing, and twisting, and his eyes are darting around the room until they land on Dipper. He opens his mouth to say something, closes it, and opens it again. He sits there for what feels like minutes, looking like a fish out water.
But then the fog clears from Stan’s eyes, and Dipper is suddenly crushed in such a tight hug that he can’t breathe.
“Dipper!” Stan shouts. “You crazy, stubborn maniac, you’re okay!” He barks loudly in laughter, and squeezes Dipper even tighter. “I can’t believe it! I’d thought I lost you for good! There was blue fire everywhere, and then a flash of bright white, and-”
He jumps to his feet, knocking the toffee peanuts and the ice pack for his chest to the floor. “Mabel!! Mabel was there, in-in this forest clearing, asking if I was okay, and-” he freezes. He turns back towards Dipper, and takes a knee. “and Ford! Where’s Ford?”
Dipper laughs. “Fast asleep, if you’re willing to believe,” he says, and before Stan can stand to his feet or do anything else spontaneous, he throws his arms around Stan’s neck, clinging to him tightly.
“Heh,” Stan laughs, and brings his arms around Dipper to return the hug. “I missed you too, kiddo,” he whispers, and pulls away to ruffle up Dipper’s hair. “Feels good to know you’ve been taking care while I was gone”
Dipper doesn’t respond to that, just chuckles wetly before throwing his arms around Stan once more.
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So since Tyrian's arrest screen didn't list everything he was wanted for, what else do you think he did? My brother thinks arson, I think more along the lines of torture.
It’d probably be easier to ask, “What crimes didn’t he commit?”
I think you’re both right. Arson and torture seem like equally valid possibilities, but they’d have to be the result of context and circumstance. On one hand, Tyrian always struck me as someone that’s adaptive, flexible, and capable of improvisation, which is why I doubt he’d be averse to either. On the other hand, Tyrian appears to have a modus operandi—speed and stealth. Like most Faunus, seeing in the dark (presumably with tapeta lucida, the eyeshine a lot of nocturnal and crepuscular animals have) affords him an advantage many of his victims lack. That, coupled with his stinger, sets him up by default for a very specific tactic: hit-and-run assassinations. Catch your target off-guard, deliver the killing blow, then melt back into the shadows before anyone’s the wiser. Fire lacks discretion, and torture involves prolonged interaction with the victim (which increases the odds of him getting caught, as time/duration would be proportionate to the risk of being discovered).
If a situation called for it (like setting a car on fire in order to distract pursuers), or he was contracted to complete a specific job (like torturing someone for information), then I could definitely see him committing arson and torture. But if he’s recreationally killing, then I think it’s more likely that he’d indulge in his preferred repertoire, envenomation and stabbing.
The nice thing about his criminal record being truncated (with a “see attachment for more details” appended to the file) with multiple redacted sections is that it leaves a lot of room for speculation. Bear in mind that much of this is either conjectural with little supporting evidence, or my personal headcanons.
One of the things that I found interesting about Tyrian’s character was his reverence of Salem. “Goddess” isn’t just an affectionate title or a term of endearment—he literally apotheosizes her. Compare that to how his teammates interact with her. While they treat her with respect, none of them use the same venerating language as Tyrian (“Your Grace,” “my lady,” “our divine savior,” “our goddess”). This tells us that his worship of her isn’t the norm amongst her followers, which also means that he has a reason for doing it.
Personally, I’ve never been a fan of labelling people who commit heinous crimes as crazy or insane—not only because it implicates nonviolent mentally ill and neurodivergent people, and scapegoats them for the actions of others—but because in this instance, it robs Tyrian of the complexity that comes with rationalizing one’s choices. Tyrian’s decision to deify Salem shouldn’t stem from some sort of psychopathology, but rather a logical, personal, or historical precedent.
Let’s reverse-engineer this thought process:
Tyrian worships Salem.
Salem (in Tyrian’s eyes) is the extreme embodiment, manifestation, or expression of cathartic violence.
Tyrian worships this form of violence.
And what else in RWBY’s universe embodies those traits?
The Creatures of Grimm.
So, with that in mind, let’s talk about all the illegal things Tyrian’s done over the course of his life, and more specifically, why.
Archotherolatry: This is a term I coined for my RWBY worldbuilding blog. If you break down the etymology, archotherian (Greek - ruling beast, the scientific term for Grimm) + -latry (Late Latin - worship of), it translates to “the worship of Grimm.” The practice was outlawed by the King of Vale (King Ozark) after the Great War. While the decision was rooted in common sense—like, you really don’t want people to see the Grimm as gods for fairly obvious reasons—Ozark had ulterior motives for outlawing it. You see, Ozark was one of Ozma’s incarnations, and the immediate predecessor of Ozpin. While archotherolatry had been falling out of favor over the last few centuries, it was still a religion with a presence in certain corners of Remnant. Salem used to recruit these cultists directly into her ranks. By making the practice illegal, Ozma was hoping to cut off a potential source of followers.
Prior to meeting Salem, Tyrian was one of the surviving few practitioners of the faith. Not only that, but he had a particular mania about it. Grimm worship in Remnant changed depending on where in the world you went, but one of the recurring practices involved human sacrifice. Now, while Tyrian didn’t subscribe to any specific holy doctrine and wasn’t a member of any secret groups, he did adhere to certain rites and ceremonies. He savored the taking of lives, but even more than that, he enjoyed offering up his victims to the Grimm. During the months that Pickerel spent hunting him down, his trails would often lead him to secluded areas outside cities or towns. There he’d often find a large ornately-detailed circle on the ground painted with blood, with the tattered corpse of the victim lying in the center. The surrounding trees and rocks would sport eye-like patterns drawn in blood, similar to the patterns seen on the bony white protrusions on a Grimm’s body.
When selecting potential victims, Tyrian didn’t discriminate. Gender, age, nationality, race, economic background—they all bleed red, so it didn’t matter. Not technically, anyway. That wasn’t to say he didn’t enjoy abducting business owners that were prejudiced against Faunus, or that he didn’t find ironic humor in sacrificing Huntsmen to the Grimm. He just wasn’t particularly choosy about who he sacrificed.
In a similar vein, I think this is how Salem first learned about Tyrian’s existence. Whenever her scouts or sentries returned to Evernight and reported in, they’d inform her about a man that would drag people into the woods and invite the Grimm to feast upon them. This possibility excited Salem for several reasons: not only was he predisposed to loyalty to her, but the fact that he’d clearly been doing these sacrifices for some time meant he was talented. It took a lot of skill to kill so many people without being caught by the authorities. She needed an assassin, and he would do perfectly.
When Tyrian wasn’t feeding people to the Grimm, he probably murdered for sport. He thrilled in the hunt, in the dizzying slick of blood beneath his fingers, the intoxicating coppery smell, the beautiful song of his victims as they cried, begged, and screamed. Acts of violence honor the Grimm, but in addition to that, he simply relished in the joy of killing. And he was good at it.
Of course, sacrificial manslaughter doesn’t pay the bills, so Tyrian had a day job. Well, I say “day job,” but it was more along the lines of contract killer/thief/kidnapper/smuggler. Tyrian operated largely out of Mistral’s criminal underworld, particularly in the capital (though depending on the work he was doing, he’d travel to Wind Path or Kuchinashi). Potential clients sought him out and hired him for any number of jobs: collect the debt that this person owes me and kill them if they refuse to pay; abduct the member of this rival syndicate and bring them to these coordinates; assassinate someone for me, and bring back proof that they’re dead; transport this contraband (weapons, drugs, Dust) and ensure the shipment arrives safely; kill these people and destroy the evidence; capture this person and extract information from them by whatever means necessary; follow this person without being detected, and collect information about their routine. Although Tyrian preferred jobs that involved bloodshed, he’d still accept contracts for more mundane work (even if he found it somewhat boring). Tyrian didn’t have a ton of dealbreakers in terms of jobs, though he refused to do anything that involved sexual assault. (Even serial killers have standards.)
Destruction of public and private property was likely an unintended or indirect consequence of his work. As much as Tyrian enjoyed wanton carnage, he prided himself on being stealthy and thus had to exercise some level of restraint, so as to not leave behind damning evidence in the form of collateral damage. Breaking a window or kicking in a door is a liability. Accidentally setting off a Dust explosion is a good way for the authorities to track you. That being said, there were a few memorable occasions where Tyrian absolutely wrecked shit up. Perhaps the most noteworthy of these was the day that he was finally captured by Atlesian and Mistrali law enforcement. On the day of his arrest, Tyrian caused nearly 50,000 lien’s worth of property damage, including the destruction of three Paladins.
Tyrian’s name, while spoken among the criminal element, was unknown to the public. Even so, he garnered a reputation as Anima’s most infamous serial killer. People often referred to him by his title: The Ghost in the Mist. (Years later, a documentary by the same name was released. It was an hour-long production that detailed his activity in Mistral, all of his victims, an analysis of his signature, and other relevant or interesting trivia. It even featured an interview with Pickerel, prior to his death. Tyrian absolutely loves this documentary and has re-watched it several times.)
I’m sure there’s more that he’s done that I can’t think of presently, but hopefully this gives you a general idea of all the criminal activity I think he’s committed.
#rwby#rwby thought dump#tyrian callows#salem#f. pickerel#rwby worldbuilding#mistral black market#asks#the word count for this is 1500 words#consider this an act of penance on my part for not responding sooner#grimm#grimm worship#archotherolatry#i hope you liked some of these!#kittencowfrog#my posts#i speak#ozpin#ozma#king of vale
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For 2k/200, I think the Naruto fandom deserves more Karin/Hinata, and you're one of the few that ever writes content for them. I keep going feral over the sheer potential they'd make as a power couple. Like, Karin would definitely help Hinata find a way to eradicate the Caged Bird Seal. And chakra chains plus lion fist/gentle fist? Deadly.
[Ao3 Link.]
“Do you think you can do it?” Hinata asks. Her voice is hushed – barely a breath, even though the two of them are alone in Karin’s apartment. There’s enough seals plastered everywhere to keep out even Naruto, if Karin so wished it, but it doesn’t change the tension that hangs in the air, the frightening details that lay between them on the table.
Karin presses her lips together. “Maybe,” she says. Medical seals are her specialty – everything to do with biology. She picked up a lot, some reluctant some not, from Orochimaru. This, ironically enough, does fall under that category. Despite what it’s used for, it is a medical seal. It affects the wearer’s biology, is hooked up directly to their neural pathways and possibly their chakra ones as well, and that means it’s something that Karin can maybe, maybe deal with.
She looks up from the papers and meets Hinata’s eyes square on. “It won’t be pleasant,” she warns. “I’ll need a test subject, and it might be painful.”
Hinata hesitates. “Would it… would it be deadly?”
Karin scoffs at that, shaking her head and wrinkling her nose. “What do you take me for, some amateur? Painful, sure, but never deadly. I’m no Orochimaru.”
Hinata pales. “I didn’t- I didn’t mean-“
“I know,” Karin interrupts, not wanting to hear whatever apology she’s stuttering out. Mostly because it’ll take forever. “I didn’t take it like that. But don’t worry, seriously, whoever plays test subject won’t be in that kind of harm.” She’s not a monster, geeze.
After a moment, Hinata nods. “I think… Neji-nii will be okay helping,” she says quietly.
Good. Perfect. “Can you activate the seals?” she asks.
Hinata looks startled. “What?”
“Can you activate the seals?” Karin gestures at the rough sketch on the table before them, and Hinata somehow looks even more nervous.
“Um, I can…” she says, which is great.
“Perfect,” says Karin, and Hinata stares at her like she’s insane. Except like, polite about it? It’s weird. “I’ll need your help, too. I need to see how it works.”
Hinata stares at Karin for a long moment. “That’s… what you mean by painful,” she whispers.
Karin nods. “Among other things. You still in?”
She waits, only semi-patient, while Hinata seems to mull it over. “If… if Neji-nii agrees,” she says, not quite meeting Karin’s eyes. “Then I’ll help.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
---
Neji agrees.
---
“Explain it… again, please,” Hinata says, almost begging Karin. Despite the weariness she feels in her bones, she can see the terror on the other girl’s face, and she sighs.
“Neji’s got a diagnosis seal on him,” Karin says – and indeed, the longsuffering boy has a paper seal stuck to his cheek. “I want you to activate the Caged Bird Seal, just for a little, so I can get a proper look at how it’s affecting him and where it has its hooks in.”
Hinata nods, very slowly. “You can do that with the seal?”
Karin waves a hand. “And I can sense his chakra fluctuations. It’s fine, trust me.”
“Neji-nii?” she asks softly.
He meets her eyes. “Hinata,” he says, simply. “I’d rather just have it be done.”
Karin can’t exactly blame him – she’s not sure how painful it is, or even if Neji has had to endure it before, but it’s apparently bad enough to terrify Hinata and make her shake, and make Neji tense and ready. But that solidifies it for Hinata, because they both agreed and they’ll have to do it no matter what, so she might as well do it. There’s no use prolonging it.
She nods, and opens her mouth.
Neji screams. It’s horrifying. That kind of scream would be horrifying from literally anyone, but somehow it’s even worse than it would be because it’s coming from Neji.
He screams, tears springing to his eyes as he clutches his head and falls to his knees and it’s over with in less than a minute, maybe 30 seconds of it at most but Karin thinks she’s going to hear that ringing in her ears for the rest of her life, see the way his chakra ripples every time she closes her eyes.
Hinata runs to her cousin, pressing hands to his shoulders as she calls his name, frantic with worry, and Karin tries to pull herself together.
She’s seen awful things. Experienced awful things. Hell, she’s done awful things to many of the strays that Orochimaru brought home, things she doesn’t want to remember she’s done because they’ll make her stomach turn.
But she’s never quite heard anyone scream like that.
Karin refuses to show weakness, breathing in and out and then dropping to her knees as well. She pulls the seal paper off of his face, rolls up her sleeve and shoves her arm in his face. “Bite,” she orders, and shaking, he does.
---
Fortunately, the data is enough.
Karin can see where the seal has sunk its claws in – can tell what neural pathways its hooked in, see how it destroys them.
(It would take maybe ten minutes of the seal, and you could completely destroy someone’s mind. It’s a really good thing she’s never met Hinata’s father because she’s very positive she would just start swinging on sight.)
Unfortunately, she doesn’t think she’ll be able to take the seal off. It’s sunk deep enough in, burned its way into Neji’s mind, and attempting to remove it could cause major damage. That’s the case with most seals like this, so she can’t exactly say she’s surprised.
What she can do, however, is negate it. Slap another seal on top to stop any possible damage. Even if it’s activated, make it so it does absolutely nothing – that’s doable. That’s something Karin is sure she can do.
The issue here, though, is test subjects.
Karin can’t test this on people. Not that she has… qualms about it, honestly, because she’s done a lot of shit throughout the years, but she can’t exactly go testing this on random Hyuugas and possible cause them to go accidentally braindead or something like that.
One, she’s like, extremely positive that’s illegal here in Konoha. Two, it will definitely attract a ton of attention and the Hyuuga head will find out what they’re doing and put a massive stop to it, probably by rendering Neji braindead. Three, it’ll make Hinata sad as all hell and that’s something definitely to be avoided.
So Karin reverse engineers the Caged Bird Seal until she can apply it on her own and key it into her own chakra signature and promptly tests it on animals.
Wild ones, of course – Konoha has a plethora of nin animals and summons so she always has to be careful whenever she catches one, but fortunately her chakra sensing comes into super huge handy. Nin animals and summons always feel different to her, so she makes sure she’s only getting wild ones. Squirrels and birds and other things, where she can apply the Caged Bird Seal and then apply her own work-in-progress seal as well as a diagnosis one, to test and check and see how everything’s going.
That’s where Hinata finds her, one day.
Or night, actually – it fell into darkness at some point, and Karin had been so absorbed in her notes and testing that she hadn’t even noticed. She’s muttering to herself, jotting down notes in her notebook, dead bird by her foot, when Hinata walks up.
“Karin?” she asks softly, and Karin’s so absorbed in her work she almost jumps. “Have you been here all day?”
It’s when Karin has to squint slightly at her to see her in the dying light that she realizes what time it is. “Oh,” she says. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Hinata’s brow creases in concern. “You shouldn’t work yourself this hard,” she says softly. “When is the last time you had… had a good night’s sleep?”
Karin is fully aware she doesn’t look the best. She will admit it! It’s been awhile since she’s had a good night’s sleep, but how can she rest when there’s a massive group of people who could literally have their brains destroyed at any moment? God, that scream…
She has morals! Maybe not a lot, but she still has some!
“I need to get this done,” Karin tells Hinata frankly, because surely the other girl is on the same page and understands why this is so important to get done as soon as possible.
Hinata doesn’t waver. “Come on,” she says, and she holds out a hand. Karin stares at it blankly, and Hinata repeats herself. “Come on,” she says again. “We’re going to the bathhouse, and then you’re going home and sleeping.”
“But-“ Karin protests, even as she takes the hand and lets Hinata pull her up.
“No,” she says, firm. “My father won’t do anything different in a single day that he hasn’t done so many times over. If… If you don’t rest, you’ll make mistakes.”
The dead bird can attest to that. Karin grimaces, and caves. “Fine,” she says, and Hinata doesn’t let go of her hand.
---
“Do you trust me?” Karin asks.
Hinata doesn’t hesitate. “Yes,” she says.
When his cousin has replied, Neji gives a nod as well. “Yes,” he says. “If you are positive this will work, let us try.”
“Right,” Karin says, very carefully not letting her voice shake at all.
She paints her seal over Neji’s forehead – definitely doesn’t tattoo it, not yet and not when she’s not super accomplished in something like that. It’ll work, or it won’t, painted or not. If it does work, then she’s got it. She’s finished, she’s done, and they can figure out what to do from there. If it doesn’t work, then Neji’s going to be in pain very soon and it’s back to the drawing board and god, Karin does not want to hear him scream again.
His forehead looks strange – Karin’s black paint over the lines of his permanent seal, marking it and messing it, but Neji meets her eyes steadily. “If it works,” he says, “Then… we will be forever in your debt.”
He’s very serious. Karin snorts. “I don’t do debts,” she says. “Treat me to lunch or something.” With that, she glances at Hinata. “Ready,” she says. “Do it.”
Hinata breathes in and breathes out. Meets her cousin’s eyes, and she speaks.
Nothing happens.
There’s no screaming. No pain, no screaming, just the slightest chakra fluctuation at his forehead that Neji doesn’t even appear to feel. When nothing happens, Hinata speaks again.
“Nothing,” says Neji. “I don’t… feel anything,” he says, and his eyes are damp.
Hinata stares at him, and then her gaze drags over. Karin is fully aware she’s grinning like a lunatic (or like her cousin – actually, that’s basically the same thing, let’s be honest here), but can’t bring herself to care because holy shit she did it, she actually fucking did it-
And all of a sudden Hinata is kissing her.
It’s open-mouthed and desperate and overwhelming and it’s done way too quickly before Hinata is pulling back, cheeks dark and not meeting her gaze. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have- I-“
Karin is gaping, she realizes, her mouth hanging open as she stares at the other girl. “Don’t you dare fucking apologize for that,” Karin says, and she grabs her for another kiss.
It’s so much and what she’s been craving for far longer than she’d ever admit to herself, and quite honestly Karin could suck her face for literally forever but Neji coughs after a little bit. “I’m still here,” he says, but he sounds amused, and Hinata pulls back with an embarrassed squeak.
Karin laughs a little. “Right,” she says, but she doesn’t apologize because that would be a big fat lie. “Rain check, Hinata? We’ve got a hell of a lot of Hyuuga to mark up.”
Hinata takes a deep breath, cherry pink, but manages a nod. “Rain check,” she says, soft but smiling, and yeah, okay, all three of them are grinning like lunatic cousins. “Let’s… do this.”
Hell yeah.
#hinata hyuuga#karin uzumaki#neji hyuuga#hinakarin#karinhina#naruto#mexicancat-girl#not sure this is QUITE what you were asking for but???
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I'd like love headcanons about the new champions. Specifically like how they would interact with their Divine Beasts, how they would socialize with the Champions' spirits, and how they interact with Zelda. I love your blog by the way, it's so creative and I love your stories!
Thanks a bunch! Sorry this took a bit, I had a ton of ideas for the Divine Beasts…
Anyway, let’s get into some
New Gen Champion Headcanons!
So Hyrule is saved and now we just got a bunch of giant mechanical beasts laying around
What to do, what to do…
No one can seem to really control the Divine Beasts as it requires a telekinetic connection, and the beasts have to recognize someone’s soul and spirit as worthy…yada-yada
Even Link was cheating a bit, as he only controlled the terminals of the Beasts with his Sheikah Slate. He didn’t have the power to actually tame them, he could only just tilt them around a bit. Hylia knows Link doesn’t need four giant machines capable of causing mass destruction anyway
Zelda, as usual, takes the initiative to find a solution. Who better to tame these Divine Beasts than the ones who helped defeat them!
Enter, the New Champions
Sidon was excited when Ruta responded to him. I mean, such a creature had judged his sister Mipha worthy of commanding it. So the fact that he could also control Vah Ruta resonated with him, as it meant that maybe he could live up to his sister…
Of course, some of the older Zora, including his father, were wary, considering the Divine Beasts were so closely linked with Mipha’s death
But Sidon is determined, he wants to be useful and help Link (aw) and all of Hyrule. He’ll convince everyone that it’s his duty as a noble to help everyone with the Divine Beast.
“Besides, my sister will be watching over me!”
Sidon and Ruta very helpful whenever there’s droughts or a bad harvest. People don’t even need to report anything. Sidon and Ruta just instinctively know if people need rain.
And Ruta does have a mind of her own. She (yeah we’re using she for all the beasts, like boats, ya know?) is sort of playful and just randomly splashes water on Sidon every now and then.
I also like to think the trunk doubles as a speaker, and Sidon just blasts music whenever he feels like it
It seem Yunobo was the only one bewildered that Rudania responded to him’
“W-what?! Why me? All I did was tag along with Link and headbut it a few times…”
It would take some convincing from the elders that he was up for the job
“Nonsense kid. You did what none of us could do. You’re the one who tackled that old lizard head on! Plus, you’re graced with Daruk’s protection. You helped save Goron City, You got this, brother!”
So Yunobo became a Champion, able to tame Divine Beast Vah Rudania. He’s a bit flustered with this new found fame, but he gets through it. After all, the whole ordeal with Link has made him a bit braver
I like to think Rudania’s personality is serious, an all work no play kind of guy. Purely because it clashes with the personality of both Daruk and Yunobo so much. (Hc that’s why Daruk was struggling with his Divine Beast originally)
Rudania moves on their own, without Yunobo’s input sometimes, so they can move out of the way of falling rocks and stuff. The lizard acts like a big old grump
Anyway, the Goron mining business is BOOMING, literally. Those turrets and drones that Rudania has? Super helpful when scanning dangerous areas by Death Mountain, and for identifying valuable ore.
Also Rudania’s fireproof-ness is great on checking on how active the volcano is, a super helpful asset under a slightly anxious Goron youth. Fun!
Teba takes up the job, no questions asked. No one’s that surprise that the best warrior is the successor for the Divine Beast, but he cares a lot about living up to Revali’s legacy. He gets Medoh to respond immediately, and he’s probably the most skilled out of the four new champions with his beast.
However, it takes time for him to warm up, to Medoh. The thing almost killed his best friend, and shot a laser at him after all. Teba does what’s necessary to maintain Medoh, and nothing more.
Vah Medoh basically is a mama bird. It uses its Sheikah tech to keep the inside toasty for whenever Teba comes, she glows warmly in the night, even the propellers are used to blow fast gusts of wind to help Rito get places fast.
Eventually, Teba gets along with Medoh when he practices archery with Tulin on Medoh’s back. The updrafts of the grates there are even better and faster than the natural ones at the flight range.
Vah Medoh’s cannons/turrets are helpful when dealing with the numerous monsters near the Hebra Range. Talus? Gone. Ice Lizalfo camp? Obliterated. Hinox? Dead. This part is probably something Teba enjoys too, he’s a warrior first and foremost anyway, so dealing with monsters so easily boosts his ego, just a bit.
Everyone was ecstatic for Riju. Everyone, especially Bularia, is so proud. Look at all those achievements under her belt! Youngest Chief, has a sand seal prophet, defeated Vah Naboris, oversaw the reclamation of the Thunderhelm and the Yiga Clan Hideout (although that last one was mostly Link, but no one knows that because, he’s a guy, scandalous)
Riju works well enough with her Divine Beast, the Thunder Helm pairs well, and she feels like she’s growing into it anyway.
Naboris is a show off. Stomping for no reason, hanging out in thunderstorms and sandstorms just to look cool? Yes. And Riju plays along with this because what kids doesn’t wanna look cool with a giant mecha beast? With Naboris, Chief Riju is starting to outgrow her fears of being seen as a bad leader, cause a Divine Beast is a pretty good testament to how hard you work for your people. (Aw, her mom would be proud)
Let’s talk about those Electric Generators. This Divine Beast can harness energy from the earth? And has natural electrical systems? So, so, helpful not just for the desert, but for everyone in general. Naboris’ electrical power is used to power other machines and technology, allowing for heating, water systems, lights, the whole sha-bang. And the fact that there’s a lightning rod to attract the lightning, which not only keeps people safe, but harnesses the natural elements of the land? *chef’s kiss*
You bet your ass Zelda hangs out with Naboris a lot too, reverse engineering portable electricity could help all of Hyrule get back on their feet. I’m talking Industrial Revolution baby, (but without the exploitation of the working class and poverty, ya know, only the good stuff)
But besides that, Riju uses Naboris to navigate the desert. You don’t need to worry about sandstorms and such when you’ve basically got a walking house. It’s lights also serve as good waypoints for travelers, or beacons for those that are lost.
Now as for the original Champions…. Well the ending of botw was pretty clear that they had passed on. They sorta disappear…cause they found peace…and all that. I know the point of fanfic is to ignore canon and create your own endings and ideas, but if I got into how I think the Champions would be revived this would be a much longer post, lol.
So we’ll just leave it at, everyone happy. Hyrule is prospering, Zelda and Link are leading a new generation of Champions and helping the people of the land. Everyone gets together and has a sleepover and Link’s house every now and again. And Teba adopts everyone because he is basically the only adult. Yay!
#botw#breath of the wild#legend of zelda botw#loz botw#sidon botw#yunobo#yunobo botw#teba#teba botw#botw riju#riju botw#zelda#zelda botw#link#link botw#botw champions#divine beast#botw headcanons
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please. PLEASE give us more abt the hlvrai bioshock au i am begging you
I’ll give a basic rundown of the character’s parts in this au for now since I’m still thinking about how exactly it would play out narratively
Note: I changed it to where any gender can be a Little “Kid” now
GET READY FOR A FUCKING INFO DUMP
Gordon: He found Rapture while on a research expedition out at sea. A lot of his crew died in the accident leading to the discovery, he doesn’t know what happened to the rest of them.
Unfortunately, he showed up just a short while before Rapture’s collapse. But he did get to see it before devastation for a short while. He asked a ton of questions about the place like any reasonable person would, but it started to make some people nervous.
Like Johnny Topside from Bioshock 2, the Andrew Ryan of this AU, Gman, which is called Mr. G by the people and Gman by Benrey to make fun of him, finds Gordon to be a threat and it leads to him going through the procedure of becoming a Big Daddy. He ends up as Joshua’s guardian of course.
He has no memory of who he was beforehand until the group meets Darnold, which I’ll get to in a bit.
Again, like Johnny, Gordon gets hit with the hypnosis plasmid and is forced to watch Joshua get taken away and fucking dies but oh ho ho, don’t worry boys, we got VITA CHAMBERS. Thus spins off the misadventures of Gordon trying to get him and his now daughter Alyx out of Rapture. Maybe collect more family along the way, it’s a good trope.
Alyx: Pretty straightforward. She was a Little Brother guarded by Gordon for a bit, but Rapture fell apart and she was taken away (by whom is yet to be determined). She’s obviously much like Eleanor to Gordon, getting other kids to bring him back with the Vita Chambers.
When Gordon finds her she is much older and goes by a different name now, but he’s just happy to see her. When he gets to her she’s pretty weak from her circumstances so she gets her own Big Sister suit (which is still going through some design phases).
Tommy: Still “Mr. G’s” son, and was one of the first-ever kids to go through the whole Little Kid process. Because of how experimental he is, he’s a little funky. Though while he has the ability to use plasmids, he doesn’t use them very often.
Before meeting Gordon he only really trusted Benrey, and would either be following them or hanging out mainly in Arcadia. He likes the plants a lot.
Oddly enough there doesn’t seem to be any hint of some sort of illusion on him like the kids usually do, seeing Rapture as a castle and such. No conditioning either, he just seems to play his own game.
He’s friendly but can still kick your ass to the fucking moon and back if he needs to. And he’s good at it.
He’s a “Big Brother” here instead of a Big Sister since they aren’t all girls now. Gordon comes across him casually just chilling out in the area outside of the Farmer’s Market, which I’ve drawn a bit of already. Tommy really has seen Gordon before, before he was taken away to be turned into a Big Daddy.
Tommy has a strange habit of attracting the kids to him, like baby chickens. It’s really cute but also a little strange. Tommy actually wants to see Rapture restored, not really considering that he could also just take the kids and leave instead, so he’s constantly steering Gordon into trying to fix Rapture.
Coomer: Once an engineer before Rapture fell. He was quite happy with where he was, he liked the routine. But things went to shit and Jesus christ everyone is attacking each other.
At first, he would use the electric bolt plasmid just because it was pretty handy for his job, but when things went downhill he turned to other plasmids to you know, not fucking die. But those who’ve played Bioshock know that too much of that stuff can fuck you up. He now uses the decoy plasmid to an unholy degree to fuck with those who might be a threat to him.
He actually tries to fuck up Gordon’s shit at first before confusing the shit out of him by suddenly just, being okay. It’s because he realizes Gordon isn’t really a threat but Gordon doesn’t know that. He just sees this guy pull a 180 on him.
Coomer and Gordon actually have a chat that leads to Coomer helping him out and eventually just casually following along with his group.
Bubby: So Bubby literally forgot his real name and no I do not plan on ever giving him one why do I need to.
Bubby was a chemist before the fall of Rapture. Unlike Coomer, he was fucking BORED. Of course, when everything fell apart he was kind of shaken at first but adapted pretty quick.
He’s obviously a spider splicer given the art I drew. I figure he would be prone to popping in and out of vents pretty easily.
He meets Gordon trying to steal shit from him and is totally intrigued by how weird it is that there’s a Big Daddy, Big Sister, Big Brother, AND some random ass splicer just traveling in a group together that he invites himself. He’s just a watcher at first but grows to actually become attached to the weirdos.
Benrey: Saved this fucker (out of the main crew) for last. You can’t see it but I’m rubbing my hands together like an evil little gremlin.
Benrey was also one of the first Little Kids. Though there are three very important differences between them and Tommy, despite also having the strange habit of attracting the kids to them.
Benrey actually started the fall of Rapture. The motives are vague, but part of it has to do with pettiness toward Gman. They’re constantly making fun of them and trying to provoke him. It wasn’t hard to tear things apart. Everyone was already paranoid, people were smuggling in shit they shouldn’t. Just had to drop some smuggled bibles here, some secret recordings there. Start a fight. God, it was just so easy.
Benrey also abuses the FUCK out of plasmids. Bioshock 2 established that Little Sisters are not affected by the harsh effects of plasmids, so they can just get away with this power trip. Which is not good. Invisibility, teleportation, and decoys are their favorites. Don’t forget the bees!
But there’s also a plasmid that never left testing, and will be a secret that dies with Benrey. Sweet Voice. While it can’t completely manipulate its target, the frequencies can influence one’s emotions, and cranked up enough can even stop their heart entirely.
Since Benrey and Tommy basically grew up together, they know each other really well and Tommy has learned to decipher the different colors of Sweet Voice.
Gordon meets Benrey almost right after he wakes up from being reanimated, though, like Tommy, Benrey has seen him before. And because of his backstory, Benrey has taken interest in him. Though they still really like to fuck with him, and Gordon really wants to through them out to sea.
Benrey doesn’t follow the others linearly, they watch on the sidelines a bit, and from time to time will get involved in the shenanigans if they seem interesting enough. They even provide the group with a radio to keep in touch, which Alyx carries around because she just knows Gordon would tear the thing in two.
Darnold: Him time! Darnold is basically the Tenenbaum of this au, watching over the kids and helping Gordon out from the sidelines. Darnold has never even touched a plasmid and doesn’t plan on ever doing so, and stays in Olympus Heights attempting to find a way to reverse Gordon’s condition.
He talks to Gordon quite often over the radio.
Stay tuned for more info on him.
Mr. G/Gman: THIS BITCH. If you have the headcanon that Gman is a great dad to Tommy, that is adorable and you are hella valid. But I have daddy issues so he’s kind of a bitch in this au.
Pretty much Andrew Ryan with the manipulative wise of Fontaine, Mr. G is the Big Bad of this au. I mean, you’re automatically a shithead when you experiment on kids. Especially your own kid.
I’m still figuring shit out with this guy so stay tuned for that.
Forzen: Jesus fucking christ I have no idea what to do with you, god damn.
Believe it or not, I have left things out but I’m still developing them so I’ll talk about them later. For now, it’s just basic rundowns of the characters’ parts in this au, like I said before. There are some things that probably don’t even exist yet COUGHSforzen’scharacterCOUGHS so again, stay tuned for that.
Unfortunately, a lot of the things I’m ironing out involves Darnold so I couldn’t say a lot about him but once it’s all sorted I’ll get back to him. He plays a much more important part in this au than he did in hlvrai.
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Jingle Bell Rock
Luke has the perfect idea for a Christmas gift for Ashton.
This is part of the Lingerie 5sos verse. I've wanted to write this part for a while because I thought it would be cute if Luke proposed to Ashton and well. Here it finally is. A little Christmas treat. Thanks to @lifewasradical for letting me yell at her about this. Love you babe!
On ao3 at: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28330056
“Michael, I’ve had an idea,” Luke says into the phone when Michael picks up. He’s met with dead air, staticky on the other line. Luke pulls the phone back from his ear, checking to see if they’re still connected.
“Michael, are you there? This is important.”
“Sorry I just can’t believe you’ve had an idea,” Michael says, snickering on the other side while Luke pouts.
“Oh fuck you Mikey, I have tons of ideas,” Luke says, pouting further as Michael’s laughter grows from a snicker to full blown cackling.
“I know, I know. You’re just so fun to fuck with,” Michael says. His laughter dies down as he gets a hold of himself. Luke waits until Michael finally calms down, rolling his eyes.
“Are you finished?”
“Yeah, yeah. You said you had an idea?”
“I’m going to get Ashton an engagement ring.”
Michael pauses, “Luke, you know you’re engaged already right?”
“I know, but after the whole foursome thing I want to show Ashton that I love him just as much as he loves me. That he’s the only one for me. So, I want to get him a ring of his own. And I need your help shopping.”
“God that’s so...horribly sappy. You two are the most vanilla people I know.”
“Michael, will you help me or not?”
“I’ll help. Give me like 30 minutes and I’ll come pick you up, okay?” Michael says. Luke hums out a confirmation and hangs up the phone.
Luke has a rare day alone, something that never happens. Ashton’s gone off shopping somewhere, leaving Luke alone for the day. Luke’s been thinking about doing this for awhile, getting a ring for Ashton. He’s looking online at a few things and decided that he doesn’t want to get Ashton a diamond ring. It seems too ordinary and plain for someone as amazing and wonderful as Ashton. Luke’s decided on a gemstone, he’s just not sure what stone. Luke’s hoping that seeing them in person will help him make a choice.
It’s easy for Luke to get ready, already wearing his plaid pants and black crew neck shirt. He feels cozy in them, soft and warm. He feels less like Stage Luke and closer to the Luke he is at home, Ashton’s fiancé, happy and content. He grabs a pair of his black boots and his wallet, running his fingers through his curls in the hallway mirror before patting Petunia on her head.
“Be good while I’m gone okay Tuney,” Luke coos at her, rubbing her ears and pressing a kiss to her head. He gets a lick on his cheek in return, laughing in delight at her. Luke’s phone buzzes, signalling to him that Michael’s outside. Luke grabs his keys from the key hooks at the front door, locking the door behind him.
Michael’s idling in the driveway, flipping through his phone while All Time Low plays in the background. He glances up at Luke when he opens the passenger door, climbing in and slamming it behind him.
“You’re dressed down today,” Michael comments, putting the car in reverse and backing out.
“Just felt like wearing this today,” Luke says, shrugging. Michael hums in response, taking them out on the road and on their way to where they know the stores are
“Do you actually know where we’re headed or are you hoping to drive around in circles looking for a jewelry store?” Michael asks after a few moments. Luke pulls his phone out of his pocket, clicking through his recent search history on Google Maps.
“I know a place we can go. I’ve been looking at this for a few days.”
“Oh shit, you’re serious about this,” Michael says, glancing at the Google Maps directions when Luke gives him his phone.
“Yeah I’ve been thinking about it for a couple weeks. Ashton was really uncertain of our relationship after the foursome and we talked it out, but I’m worried he’s still unsure of us. I mean, we’re getting married, Michael. I don’t want Ashton to ever be unsure of us.”
“I can’t believe he would be. You two have been gross and sappy and in love since practically the minute we met Ashton.”
“He thinks he’s not enough. Or he thought he wasn’t enough? Either way, I want to show Ashton that he is and I love him in the same way that he loves me. So, a ring,” Luke says.
“You actually thought about this.”
“I’m a good gift giver when it’s not for you,” Luke says, laughing when Michael pouts dramatically. It’s fun, driving in the car with Michael, swapping stories about Ashton and Calum, the Christmas gifts they’ve planned for each of their partners, trying to take festive photos for their families (Michael complaining about how hard it is to dress three dogs up for Christmas photos, Luke talking about how much Petunia enjoyed the reindeer antlers as a chew toy instead). Luke feels like as much as he gets to see Michael, he doesn’t really get to sit down and talk to Michael. Even if it’s just a car ride to go shopping, Luke enjoys spending time with Michael, even if it involves some light ribbing.
They pull into the parking lot of the jewelry store soon enough. Luke feels like he might throw up, bouncing his leg from how nervous he is, tapping his fingers on his thigh. Michael leans over, squeezing Luke’s hand.
“Deep breathes Luke. Ashton loves you, you already know that. Getting this ring is just simply another symbol in a long list of symbols of your love.”
“What if I pick the wrong ring?”
“I think that would be literally impossible, but even if you did, Ashton would love it anyway because it would be a gift from you. He would never hate anything that you could give him,” Michael says, smiling at Luke. Luke smiles back, edges of it tense, and squeezes Michael’s hand back, breathing in and out to try and ground himself. Michael’s right of course. No matter what Luke picks, he already knows Ashton loves him and that they’re forever. The ring isn’t as important as any of that.
“You ready?” Michael asks. Luke takes a breath, lets it out, and nods. They leave the car, Luke entering the store first. There’s a woman at the corner, who glances up when they walk in.
“Welcome. What can I help you with today?”
“I’m looking for a ring?” Luke says hesitantly, cringing at himself when he hears the words. Michael snorts behind him. The woman smiles gently, clearly taking pity on how awkward Luke must be.
“Are you looking for a diamond or something else?” She asks. Luke cautiously approaches the corner.
“Something else. Maybe something red,” Luke says. He’s thought about it, the red of a gemstone complimenting the red in Ashton’s moon tattoos, the heart on his wrist.
The woman smiles, heading in the direction of where those rings must be. Luke follows after her, leaving Michael to poke around the earrings.
She reaches into the display area, pulling out a bright red stone, set in a simple gold band.
“It’s a ruby. Symbolizes love, passion, and energy. It’s perfect for what you’re looking for. This one is a size 9, but we can resize it if you need it,” She says, holding the ring out to Luke. He takes it gently, turning it over in his hands and smiling gently. It glitters in the light, bright and sparkly. Luke knows it’ll look good on Ashton, standing out against his skin.
“That’s the perfect size. It’s perfect. I’ll take it,” Luke says, smiling. The woman smiles, telling Luke the price of it. It seems reasonable enough, Luke nodding when she asks if the price is acceptable. She takes the ring back from him, moving around behind the counter to place it in a box and ring him up. Luke knows he’s probably being a little hasty, picking a ring so quickly, but he knows it feels right. Something about the ring feels like it’s meant for Ashton. The woman smiles as she hands the bag to Luke.
“Good luck. I hope they enjoy it. Happy holidays,” She says, smiling. Luke gives her a soft smile back.
“Thank you. I hope so too. Happy holidays,” Luke says. Michael’s already at the door, holding it open for him as they leave and head back to the car.
“It looks nice Luke. I’m sure Ashton will like it.”
“You think so?”
“The color works well for him. He’ll love it and what it means,” Michael says, reassuringly. Luke smiles, opening the car door and settling into the passenger seat.
“You know what else Ashton might like?” Michael says as he slides in, starting the engine.
“What?”
“You in some festive lingerie. Really adds to the whole ambience of the affair,” Michael says. Luke can tell he’s teasing, but it might not be such a bad idea. Might even be fun for Luke to do.
“Think so?”
“You’re not actually thinking about it, are you?”
“Why not? I’m sure Sierra and KayKay have something in stock that might be fun to wear. A little red and white number.”
“Are you gonna do a dance with it? Oh, wait! You could do the Mean Girls dance. Full Jingle Rock number. Ashton would really get a kick out of that,” Michael says, laughing as he drives them in the direction of the store. Luke blushes.
“I’m too clumsy for that.”
“You are not. It’s an easy enough dance just...stay out of the way of stereos so you don’t kick one in Ashton’s face,” Michael says. Luke rolls his eyes, but Michael has a point. It might be fun to put on a show. Luke knows Ashton likes him in lingerie, so why not incorporate it into their gift giving.
Luke’s still trying to talk Michael into doing something similar for Calum when they enter the shop. The bell jingles over the door and Sierra and KayKay both look up from the counter, grinning widely when they see it’s Luke and Michael.
“Luke, sweetheart! What brings you in today?” Sierra calls, rounding the counter to pull Luke into a hug. She’s nice today, wearing a black bodysuit and black jeans. Kaykay is clearly checking out her ass, blushing when Michael elbows her, grinning.
“Looking for something seasonally appropriate to surprise Ashton with.”
“You know, like Mean Girls,” Michael says. Luke throws him a glare, but Sierra and KayKay are both nodding along.
“You’re in luck! We have a whole section for festive looks. It’s more classy than what you’ll find online, but we do pride ourselves on being better,” Sierra says, taking Luke’s hand and tugging Luke in that direction.
As expected, there’s a lot of reds with white trim, bows and ribbons over everything. There’s a handful of green pieces too, Michael drawn towards those to look through the pieces. Sierra holds one out to Luke, a simple bralette in red satin, white trim around the edges and a simple satin panty, little red skirt with matching trim on it.
“If you’re going for the Regina George aesthetic, I think this is perfect. Simple and understated, but elegant. Would make your legs look great with a nice pair of stockings and a heel,” Sierra teases. Luke hums, taking the set in his hands and admiring it.
“Your ass would look great in it,” Michael says, glancing over at Luke while he looks at his own green set. Luke hums, turning it over in his hands. It would look good on Luke and he has the perfect red heels for it.
“Wouldn’t look too trashy?”
“I don’t think you could ever be capable of looking trashy,” Sierra reassures him.
“What about the dance though?”
“Oh that’s easy,” KayKay pipes up, drawing all their attention to her.
“It is?”
“I memorized that dance in middle school cause I thought I was so cool. Just tell me when it’s good for you and I can show you both how to do it.”
“You sure?”
KayKay waves it away, “It’s certainly easy enough to learn.”
“You haven’t seen Luke and his coordination,” Michael snips. Luke rolls his eyes, flipping Michael off while bringing the pieces up to the counter.
“I have some coordination, Michael.”
“Are you sure? I’ve watched you trip over air before.”
“As opposed to you just falling off a stage.”
“How dare you mock my traumatic moment Luke. Worst friend ever,” Michael complains dramatically. Luke rolls his eyes.
“Yes, I’m the worst friend in the world Michael. As you like to tell me all the time.”
“Good, you need to know it,” Michael says. He’s grinning though, leaning over to press a kiss to Luke’s cheek. Luke grins back, bumping shoulders with Michael. It’s fun, getting to spend the time with Michael, having someone who accepts him, rolls with all of the things that Luke asks.
Luke and Michael leave the shop with the promise to text KayKay when they’re free to set up a time to learn the dance. They leave the shop, making their way back to the car.
“I can’t believe you’re going to learn the Mean Girls dance for your Christmas gift to Ashton you’re literally insane,” Michael says, unlocking the car and getting in.
“I think you mean that we’re going to learn the dance together,” Luke says.
“If you make me break an ankle, I will sue you.”
“Scouts honor you won’t.”
“You’re lucky I love you,” Michael mumbles. Luke smiles. It’s going to be a perfect gift for Ashton, he just knows it.
***
Luke’s ready for Christmas. He’s been up since 7:00am, woken up by Ashton pressing kisses to his skin. Luke hates being up early, but he’ll willingly do it for Christmas and morning kisses with Ashton. Eventually, Ashton had left their bed for his morning run and to take Petunia out, while Luke had agreed to set up for gift exchange and coffee. Luke waits till Ashton’s out the front door before shimming out of his pajamas and grabbing the lingerie set from its hiding spot. He puts the bra on first, sliding on the panties. He pulls a pair of white thigh high stockings up his legs, adjusting them till they feel right and sit perfectly on his legs. He pulls his pajamas back on over the set, deciding that he’ll put the skirt and heels on right before he does the dance.
Luke heads downstairs, leaving the skirt and heels in their downstairs bathroom, the one place he knows Ashton won’t go into before exchanging gifts. Ashton’s already left his half of the gifts downstairs, gift bags and wrapped boxes and a small basket filled with small wrapped gifts. Luke smiles, re-adjusting everything until there’s enough space for him to put out his gifts for Ashton. Luke’s gone for getting gifts that are more food based this year, cookbooks and boxes of tea and coffee, things that he knows mean the two of them can spend time together. Luke’s been basking in their quasi-break, getting to spend all of his time with Ashton. He wants to continue that, dedicated nights to quality time and the cookbooks had seemed like the perfect idea for it. Ashton’s always talking about exploring different foods and this has seemed like the perfect chance. He’d also bought a mini waffle maker that makes the waffles heart shaped because it was sappy and cute and he knows Ashton will laugh at it but use it every morning. He’d gotten Ashton some new shirts and ties, soft material and deep, rich colors, for when they tour again or go out for press. They’re perfect simple gifts that Luke’s happy about. He puts the ring box in his pocket once he’s set up all the other gifts and goes into the kitchen to make coffee.
Luke’s heating the water up, scooping out some of the Winter Blend ground coffee they have into their french press when Ashton comes back from his walk, Petunia panting at his heels. Luke turns around, bending down to coo at her as she takes a drink of water from her bowl.
“Aw, did Ashton make you run too much?” Luke asks her, giggling as she splashes water onto the floor trying to lap up as much water as she can.
“She could use it,” Ashton grumbles, coming into the kitchen. Luke leans over, waiting till Ashton’s close enough, pressing a kiss to his lips.
“You’re all sweaty,” Luke says, wrinkling his nose.
“I did just go for a run. Not my fault you can’t wait for a kiss,” Ashton snorts, pressing another kiss to Luke’s lips, despite his half-hearted protests.
“Shower first, then presents,” Luke says, allowing himself to steal one more kiss from Ashton before pushing him in the direction of their bedroom. Ashton laughs, but goes willingly, leaving Luke to finish up with making their coffee. Luke carries it out to the living room, Petunia close at his heels, knowing that there’ll be treats for her under the tree too. Luke sets the mugs down, picking Petunia up and placing her on the couch next to him. He scratches behind her ears, scrolling through his phone and texting his family, wishing them a merry christmas and promising to call them after opening gifts.
Ashton comes back down the stairs, humming quietly under his breath, smiling when he sees Luke. He takes a seat on the couch, curling up next to Luke and taking his coffee mug.
Ashton makes Luke open his things first, insisting that he wants to see what Luke thinks of them. Luke’s charmed by it, excited for the makeup and the earrings, the spa basket of things Ashton’s given him. He adores the little jewelry box, laughing when he realizes that it’s Petunia. Ashton’s bashful when he hands Luke the last two boxes, taking Luke’s breath away when he pulls the dress out of one, beautiful pink tulle, with little beaded pearls and flowers. It’s the lingerie set that gets Luke though, royal blue with the black lace. It’s not something Luke would pick for himself, prefers lighter colors, but it’s a beautiful set and he’s glad Ashton picked it out, can’t wait to try it on. Ashton’s thrilled about the cookbooks, laughing at the waffle maker and promising to try it this morning. He keeps leaning over between gifts, pressing kisses to Luke’s lips and thanking him over and over again, in between Luke’s giggles and smile.
Eventually they open everything, including the toys and dog treats for Petunia. Ashton stands, clearly ready to make food.
“I have one more surprise,” Luke says, blushing when Ashton looks down at him.
“Oh?”
“Yes, but you have to sit back down and close your eyes.”
“I do?”
“It’s a surprise,” Luke insists, setting his mug down on the table and getting up. Ashton rolls his eyes, but sits back down.
“You’re lucky I love you.”
“I love you very much. Now, close your eyes and wait for me,” Luke says. He waits till Ashton’s closed his eyes before leaving the room, heading to the bathroom and changing into the lingerie skirt and sliding his heels on. He takes the ring from his pants pocket, sliding it into his bra for lack of a better place to put it.
Luke takes a breath, leaving the bathroom and trying to be as quiet as possible, making sure his heels don’t click on the floor. He wants it to be a surprise for as long as possible. He finds Ashton still sitting on the couch, eyes closed, tapping his fingers against his thighs.
Luke strikes a pose and clears his throat, “You can open your eyes now.”
Ashton does, cracking up a smile and laughing brightly when he sees Luke. Luke blushes.
“Very nice Luke,” Ashton says, once his laughter has died down, still smiling.
“Well, now you’re just saying that.”
“Am not. You look very lovely. Seasonal and all.”
“I learned a whole dance.”
“You did?”
“KayKay taught us the dance from Mean Girls.”
“Do I get to see it?”
“You can’t laugh,” Luke insists. Ashton crosses his heart.
“Promise I won’t,” Ashton says, giggling anyway. Luke rolls his eyes, grabbing his phone off the table to queue up the song.
The opening notes of Jingle Bell Rock play through the speakers on Luke’s phone. Luke starts to dance, trying to remember the steps KayKay taught him. He forgets the dance part way through, opting to just twirl at one point, knowing the spinning of the skirt will distract Ashton from his forgotten steps if Luke can draw attention to his ass and legs. It works, Ashton’s gaze fixed on Luke the whole time as he does his best to impersonate Regina George. Luke ends on a spin, angling himself in front of Ashton on the final note.
Luke lands in Ashton’s lap, knees bracketing Ashton’s hips. Ashton hums, hands on Luke’s hips, tilting his head back to request a kiss. Luke obliges, leaning down and pressing his lips to Ashton’s fingers tangled in his hair.
“Best gift yet,” Ashton whispers onto Luke’s lips.
“I have one more for you.”
“Really?”
Luke nods, leaning down on his heels. He reaches into his bra, pulling the ring box out, opening it up. He glances up at Ashton, sees his wide-eyed expression of shock.
“Lu…”
“Ashton, I know you gave me my ring and I know you proposed to me all those months ago, but with everything that’s happened recently, I realized that I haven’t told you how I feel. I know you always say you know and that it’s oblivious, but you deserve to have me say it over and over again. I love you. It’s just part of who I am, all my love for you making me who I am. You’re passionate and strong and supportive. You’re my other half and sometimes it feels like you know me better than I know who I am. I wouldn’t be here today without you and your love and guidance and support. You deserve to have a symbol of my love, to have a constant reminder of how much I love you, how much you’re a part of who I am. I love you and I want to marry you. So, Ashton Irwin, will you marry me?” Luke asks. Ashton’s smiling, eyes wet with tears, as he takes Luke’s face in his hands and kisses him.
“Of course I’ll marry you, Luke Hemmings. But you already knew that,” Ashton says. Luke laughs, thinks he might be crying his own tears of joy, as he takes the ring out of the box and slides it onto Ashton’s finger.
“Oh, it’s a perfect fit,” Ashton says, holding his hand out to admire the ruby stone.
“It was meant to be,” Luke says, leaning back in to kiss Ashton. They kiss for a few more minutes, enjoying the warmth and love from each other.
“Best Christmas ever?” Luke asks.
“I got you in lingerie and an engagement. I’d say it’s the best Christmas ever,” Ashton says, grinning.
“I love you Ash,” Luke says, pressing one final kiss to Ashton’s neck.
“I love you Lu. Now let’s get up and make some waffles in the shape of our love and call our families,” Ashton says, kissing Luke’s cheek. Luke laughs, detangling himself from Ashton’s lap and standing up. Ashton follows suit, tugging Luke towards the kitchen for breakfast. Luke thinks Ashton is right. It’s the best Christmas Luke could have asked for.
#5 seconds of summer#lashton#luke hemmings#ashton irwin#lingerie sos#lingerie luke series#a nice little dash of christmas lingerie for the holiday#please enjoy this#my writing
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10x18: Find Me - Bethyl Template, Part 1
All right! Analysis time! *rubs hands together* Now, I’m gonna warn you that this is long. And I know there are plenty of people who don’t like to read the long metas. So let me just ask you a quick question before I start. How bad do you want to understand what’s REALLY happening in this episode? If you want to understand why those of us in the know have more hope than ever for Beth’s return, you have to understand what I’m about to lay out for you. And yes, it’s a little wordy, but there’s just no getting around that if you want to really internalize it.
If you don’t understand this stuff, you’re going to think that everything we say moving forward is wishful thinking and that we’re grasping at straws. So, how badly do you want to understand? Which group do you want to be in? If it’s the first, keep reading, my friend.
***As always, spoilers abound below for 10x18. Don’t read until you’ve watched! You’ve been warned!***
As I mentioned in an Ask, there are two major premises you have to get your head around to understand this template. The first is that Dog = Beth. And yes, we already knew that. But especially in this episode, Dog = Beth. Dog totally, completely, 100% = Beth.
I noticed especially at the beginning when Daryl and Carol were talking, it keeps focusing on dog. So, it's literally like Daryl says something, focus on dog. Carol says something, focus on dog. Hop on the motorcycle together, focus on dog. Just before opening credits roll, focus on dog.
And I think it’s the writer's way of telling us what this is really about: Beth. I mean Dog. Yeah, they’re one and the same.
The second overarching principle you need to understand is that this episode is a template—yes, a template; I’ll give you 0.68 seconds to recover from the shock—of Daryl’s entire journey. I think it could be from beginning to end, but you could also see it from S4 up until he finds Beth. It’s a template for his journey, for the idea of him always looking for people, and it will lead to Beth eventually.
I will say that symbolism gets complicated at times. For the most part, what we see with Daryl and Leah is a replay of Daryl and Beth. I'll illustrate that for you. But for the most part, Leah = Daryl in the scenario and Daryl = Beth.
I’ll talk about this more later on, but on TTD, Denise Huth says that because Daryl is more lighthearted with Leah, we get to see the lighter side of him that we generally don't see when he's around the other characters. And that's true. There are times when he smiles and looks happier with her.
And I know that's going to make people think that he's in love with Leah. It really represents him finding some companionship and happiness. And because this is all replay of a template for Beth, I'm telling you it's really all about Beth. About Daryl being happy with Beth. Leah is just a stand-in.
Okay, so it starts by showing Dog. Then we see Daryl getting on his bike. Carol comes up to stand beside him. We start out almost immediately with tons of symbolism. He explains that there is a fallen tree 100 yards out that he thinks they could use to shore up the hole in Alexandria's wall. So, we have the fallen tree in the number 100.
But he also has a really hard time getting his bike started. He tries it many times and it won’t work. I'm reasonably sure that that is the same symbolism as when he was driving the truck with Denise and couldn't figure out the clutch. Both times it’s a vehicle he's having a hard time operating. And in that case, we had a fallen tree as well, which forced Daryl, Rosita and Denise to get out of the car and walk. So obviously because of Denise, we relate this to Beth. But also, in both case cases, Daryl had a friend (referring to Leah that way because that's what they said in the trailer) that he really cared about and lost. And both times, there's major Beth symbolism involved.
In the scene, we also get the first instance of the "strong right foot” symbolism. They say this a lot during the episode. It's obvious that Carol wants to help him start the bike but she also knows if she just offers, he’ll say no. She tells him a story about how her grandmother (as I'm writing this just now realizing that second mention of someone’s grandmother in the past two episodes) used to have a sewing machine with a peddle. She used to make all of Carol's clothes. Carol says that when her grandmother's foot got tired, she had Carol run the peddle for her because Carol has a "strong right foot."
Daryl just glares at her and says he can do it. After a few more tries, he does. Then she gets on the bike and they have more playful banter where he says he didn't say she could come. Eventually they take off together, and we see lots more emphasis on Dog.
Another important piece of symbolism is the map. The same one Daryl used to track where he had already searched for Rick. It falls out of his bag and Carol picks it up. He doesn't realize he dropped it, or that she picked it up. And when she gets in the back of his bike, she just stuffs it back into his backpack. This may just be a foreshadow of this episode. Carol sort of leads him back to his remembrance of Leah, but I think it’s more than that, too. I’ll come back to it when I talk about the storm scene.
I’m gonna skip a lot of the Carol/Daryl details for now. I think they’re important, but I want to focus on the Bethyl stuff. In short, I think this opening scene is exactly the same symbolism that we saw in 10x01 when they got on the bike together and had very similar banter. So, it points to the spinoff. I think it points to what will happen only actually take off on the bike together. It could be that they’re still fighting. Daryl doesn't really want her to come. Even though he says that playfully here, it might be real the next time. But she insists on coming. Carol says she wants to hunt whatever is left out there to hunt, which is a lot like her saying they should get on the bike to see what else or who else is left out there.
They do eventually see a dead deer. So, deer symbolism. But it’s more than that. This took me a few days and the help of my talented fellow theorists, combined with what we already know of ep 21, to put together. And this is going a big beyond this episode, but they’re basically reverse-engineering the episode Them for us. That’s where Daryl first saw the dead deer. And Carol wasn’t with him, but they were both out in the woods together, looking for water. In 5x10, they didn’t find any. Here, they’re out together, looking for food, and they go down to the river. So they find water. Carol even spears fish. So it’s more opposites going on. In 5x10, they didn’t find water. Here, they did. They found the river. And went fishing. Before, Daryl saw the deer alone. Here, Carol was with him. In Them, she gave him Beth’s knife. When their story continues, he’ll give her Leah’s knife.
I think what they’re doing is reverse-engineering events leading back to Beth. So, if we were working backward toward Coda, we would see Daryl give Carol a knife back, and the episode before that, Beth was in. Well, he’s going to give her Leah’s knife in ep 21. So, ep 22 anyone?
Along the way, Carol all of a sudden starts limping on her right foot. She says, “ow,” and when he asks what's wrong, she said she just has a foot cramp and needs a minute to stretch it out. He razzes her saying, "it's not your strong right foot, is it?" And she glares at him. So the “strong right foot” symbolism is repeated several times.
And how about the river and the fish? Well, we know Beth = water, right? So it’s a symbol for her, but more specifically, I think the river represents Daryl’s path. In between every scene and every flashback, we see a sweeping shot of the river, and we often see Daryl trudging along it, searching for Rick. So it represents his entire character path, and the people he’s searched for. Sophia, Beth, Rick, Connie, and perhaps even Leah. We’re not entirely sure how of if the fish symbol is different. But since fish are in the river, the two symbols may be one and the same.
Want more visual proof that the river = Daryl’s path to Beth? Lookee here:
Between them is a painting of a river. And Beth says, “But Daryl, you said there was a dog.”
Then Dog starts barking and running and they follow him. He leads them to Leah's cabin. There are two different sets of 3 metal spikes on the cabin.
Daryl notices a single one sticking out of a tree. My first thought was rule of threes. But the one on the tree could be a crucifixion symbol. Spike pounded into a tree.
But here’s the first big clue we get that this is a callback and retelling of Beth’s story. One of the first things Daryl looks at when he gets to the cabin is the cross marker Leah’s son’s grave, right? Guess what?
The cross is white. It’s a Grady symbol. So, Daryl is looking at this cross, and thinking about his past and what he lost at this place, It’s completely a replay of Beth and Grady. It would be the same as him going back to the hospital and feeling sad about losing her there.
Side note: I also feel like this is probably a death omen for Leah. I truly didn’t think about it until they discussed it on TTD, but when I saw the cross, I automatically knew it was for Leah’s son, because I’d read spoilers. But Chris Hardwick said that, for anyone who didn’t, it kind of seemed like the cross was for Leah’s death. So without spoilers, it might be surprising to learn at the end that she disappeared, rather than dying. It just reminds me of how they kind of tried to trick people into thinking Tyreese’s funeral in 5x09 was Beth’s. And I think it shows that Leah will die eventually. There’s just no way to know when.
This is where we get the first flashback. It says five years ago, and we see the river and Daryl sitting at by the river in his camp. He's obviously very sad.
Okay, here we go. Each of the flashbacks represent some part of what happened in his past, mostly revolving around Beth. Some of them also do indicate Rick. In this case, I think this represents his sadness after the prison went down. It might represent his sadness in general. Like, from S1 to S4. But given that Gimple took over in S4, I think that's really what the flashing back to.
You'll notice in the scene that he has a fire going. He's not facing the fire. It's burning away in a little pit behind him. He's actually facing the river. I think that’s to draw attention to the river as a symbol and show that this is his journey.
In this scene, he has his knees drawn up into his chest. So, his stance is almost identical to when he was sitting by the fire with Beth in Inmates. Which is right after the prison went down.
The next day, he meets Dog as a puppy.
Now this was the revelation that made me realize what this entire thing was. This makes me so happy. Literally, it's the next day and he is still in his camp. Again, the one that represents either Bethyl’s little camp in Inmates, or it could also represent their little camp in Still when they were eating snake.
Dog just comes running up to him out of nowhere. This scene is super cute. He picks Dog up and Dog starts licking his face and Daryl actually smiles. Almost laughs. And he says, "where'd you come from?" Then Dog jumps down and runs away.
But think about this. This is Daryl meeting Dog, as a baby. Dog = Beth. So, this is him meeting her, or noticing her when she was younger iteration of herself in 4B.
Remember what Emily posted on her instastories the other day? The pic of herself in the yellow polo that AMC posted for the Stilliversary and said, "I'm a baby?" That was not an observation. It was a hint.
We've always said that she would come back as an older, stronger character. So, what we saw of her before represents her being young. Almost a baby.
Dog leaps on Daryl and licks his face and makes him smile. A lot like Daryl did in Still when they walk away from the fire. And even His line, saying, "where'd you come from?" I feel like he could have thought about Beth. Like, “where did you come from all the sudden, into my life, making me all happy and shit?"
Looking slightly happier, he goes back to his little hut and his map.
Then comes the scene where Daryl and Carol meet and talk from across the river. Carol is really quite upset in this scene. She tells him that Maggie left, that Michonne is not really talking to anybody, and she's upset that he is staying out there and not coming back.
Daryl, however, is pretty unapologetic about it. He says she knows why he has to do this and he's not going to stop. He also says that there's a spot up the river he hasn't checked yet and he wants to check on that. She throws him some supplies and they go their separate ways.
Now, the next part is super important. The first time I saw it, I was sure it was about Rick. Now, I'm certain it's about Beth. Daryl goes to that spot on the river he hasn't checked yet. He finds an overturned boat with a walker stuck underneath. Most of the walker’s top half is under the overturned boat and we can't see it. But we see hips and legs sticking out. Reminds me of the “bottom half” Bob sees before entering the Big Spot.
Now, because Daryl hasn't checked this area before, and the walker is hidden under there, you can see the Daryl is preparing himself for the idea that this might be Rick. He really thinks it could be him. He kills a bunch of walkers that are around the boat and then flips the boat over to look down at the walker. And obviously, it isn't Rick.
Before I go on, a couple of things to notice. Obviously, there's the boat symbolism. It actually looks a whole lot like the boat that Aaron and Rick take to get to the houseboat in 7x08. That's what I originally thought it was a Rick thing. And of course Daryl is literally looking for Rick. So, in the show, it is.
We see Daryl kill several walkers, and then we get a wide shot of him standing next to the boat and there's a blonde female walker laying on the ground next to it. I'm assuming this is one of walkers he killed, but again, I rewatched it, and we don’t actually see him kill this walker. But it's lying there, and we can’t miss it. I think maybe this walker is a symbol that this is actually about Beth, not Rick.
Daryl simply sees that it's not Rick, looks a little disappointed, and then the walker animates and reaches for him. He kills it, but he gets REALLY angry. He uses his heel to stomp on it like 5x, much like Beth did to the walker in the parking lot of the hospital. But the anger is important.
Then we see him sitting in his hut in the middle of the storm. The one that destroys the map. And here's the thing. He's very obviously in shock. He sits there with this rain pouring down around him and it's like he doesn't even notice it. He’s completely despondent. Kind of like he was in S5 after losing Beth.
Not to sound judgy, but it’s kind of his fault that the map gets lost. Again, rain pouring down, and he's left the map sitting where it's going to get wet and it's made of paper. You could argue that of course he's going to lose it in that situation. But I think what they're going for is that he’s so numb that he just doesn't think about it. He looks up and realizes the maps about to wash away and jumps up to save it, but by then it's too late.
So when the map gets torn and part of it washes away, he screams as we saw the trailer. It just a lot of anger and pent-up grief coming out.
And then there’s a loud crash that literally knocks him onto his butt. (I think it’s supposed to be that the hut it hit by lightning or something.) And we hear a high-pitched ringing, as though his ears are ringing from the sound. After that, he grabs his bow and goes out into the storm. He points his face skyward and let’s the water wash over him.
Remind you of anything:
So, obviously this storm can equate to the one in Them, 5x10. It’s a replay of Daryl losing Beth, becoming depressed over it, and the storm soon afterward. But details! The emotion is in the details.
My fellow theorists pointed out that the loud crash could easily equate to the sound of the gun when Beth is shot. That’s what knocks Daryl on his butt and causes his shock. I was even thinking maybe we heard the ringing tone after the gun went off in Coda. We actually didn’t. I was wrong about that. But we DID hear it in Slabtown when she and Noah almost escape. Remember, there’s no sound but the weird ringing? So coupled with the storm and the representation of him losing Beth, we also have the sound of escape represented.
Finally, Map = Beth. That map is covered in red Xs, and he loses it here. But if you watch his behavior (yes, go watch this scene 20 times) he’s not paying attention to it. He doesn’t realize he’s in danger of losing it. Then he looks up, realizes it’s about to wash away, and jumps to grab it. But it’s too late. It’s already gone. Sound like what happened at Grady to you? So, Map = Beth. This is him losing Beth.
And that means that when he screams here, it really is a representation of his inner self screaming over Beth’s loss.
So we had the anger over the boat walker (his anger over Beth and shooting Dawn), him stomping on the walkers face (as Beth did in the Grady parking lot, while the ringing-ears tone was playing, and then actual loss, the devastated emotional reaction, and finally the storm in Them.
Everyone still with me? Let’s keep going.
Then we get, "one year later." And we see Dog fully grown. Originally, I thought maybe Daryl had seen dog a lot by this point. I'm actually kind of rethinking that now. I think this is only the second time he's seen Dog. The important parallel here is that he saw Dog as a puppy (Beth from 4b), and then a period of time passed where we saw a representation of him losing Beth, and then he sees Dog again, fully grown. So, Dog has matured and comes to Daryl again while he's out on the road.
Now, originally I assumed that this represented Beth and Daryl’s reunion that we haven’t seen yet. When she comes back and they reunite. But after some thought, I realized that this part actually represents Grady. Beth’s growth really isn’t physical. It’s in her coming to understand the world and how to survive in it, such that she doesn’t need other peoples’ protection anymore. That happened at Grady. Hence the “I get it, now.”
Other reasons I’m sure this flashback represents Grady? Dog takes Daryl to Leah, where she holds him hostage (Grady). We see her knife. (Beth had her knife at Grady.) He sees a spike pounded into a tree, which I think is a crucifixion symbol. And when he leaves, he leaves without Dog (Beth).
This is where Daryl meets Leah, and she throws the arm at him and holds him at gunpoint. Leah’s knife comes into play because she ties Daryl up in her cabin, but when he's very nonthreatening, she seems to realize that he's not going to hurt her, and she lets him go. She takes out the knife and they did focus on it with the camera for like 30 seconds. So, they very much want us to notice it. She uses it to cut his bonds and tells him to get out of her cabin.
Let’s take an aside. The way Daryl acts during this scene when she has him as a prisoner reminded me a lot of how he acted in 6x06 when Dwight had him as a prisoner. He’s quiet, docile, and even exhibits some fear, as if he’s truly intimidated.
We don’t see much of his normal, Daryl defiance, and that’s a bit out of character for him. And I truly don’t mean to say that this points to Dwight or the Saviors in any way. It’s the opposite. Dwight and 6x06 foreshadowed something specific, and I think this foreshadows the exact same thing. It hasn’t come to pass yet.
I’ll just tell you what I think it is. I don’t know whether Leah will literally be involved in the spinoff, or if she just symbolically represents something in that storyline. But I think it’s possible that she represents the CRM. Because of the black-helmeted walker in 6x06, everything in that episode did, too. So, I think the CRM will take Daryl captive at some point and the way he acts in both these episodes points to what’s happening in that arc. But I don’t think this will happen until S11, if not the spinoff.
We see a shot of Leah’s knife, which will be important later because it equates with Beth’s knife. I’m not going to say much about it here. Just keep it in mind.
Then we get (another) shot of the river. Daryl’s journey continues. Quick aside. What this reminded me of is the shot of the train tracks in 5x09. There, the camera looked as though it were moving along the tracks. Here, the camera looks as though it's moving along the river. I’m thinking that the tracks represent the Beth’s path, and the river represents Daryl's.
Six months later. Okay, I did pay attention to Daryl’s eye scar. And all of a sudden, I realized that the missing wing on his vest is also represented here. So, the first flashback five years ago, which I think represents Inmates, he still had the wing on his vest and no eye scar.
CONTINUE TO PART 2
#beth greene#beth greene lives#beth is alive#beth is coming#td theory#td theories#team delusional#team defiance#beth is almost here#bethyl
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“The Rise of Kylo Ren” + TROS theory (with TROKR pics)
I’ll probably look like a clown in 16-17 days when “The Rise of Kylo Ren” #2 releases but whatever lol—after TROS I believe even more that the former leader of the Knights of Ren (Ren) is Ben from another timeline or a future gone (more) wrong
Anyways, my thoughts on this:
1) remember the outrageous “Ben sets the temple ablaze and runs away” from the Visual Guide? I’m sure it’s probably just even more retconning (like a ton of stuff from the VD), but what if it’s literal—except it’s just that the Ben who does it isn’t the Ben we know, therefore making it true while retaining “our” Ben’s innocence. Another option (painful but, I think, absolutely plausible) is that Ben himself accidentally set on fire the temple with his rage and sorrow unleashing a Force storm. However, the way the “prologue” of TROKR #1 ends (I’ll talk about later on in this post) seems kind of like a foreshadowing that Ben (well, “our” Ben) didn’t do it...? Kind of interesting, and hopefully we won’t have to wait until issues #3 and #4 (february and march) to know about that important detail
2) this interview with Charles Soule (the writer) and Will Sliney (the artist) dedicates, curiously, the first 3-4 paragraphs solely to talking about Ren—and the article, which is from the official SW webpage (an article called “Introducing ‘Ren’ in Marvel’s The Rise of Kylo Ren”), starts like this: “they call him Ren, but that wasn’t always his name”. Which is also how the comic starts:
... Tell me this doesn’t sound suspicious as kriff and like foreshadowing
And the interview keeps going like this: “Born out of the flames,” as artist Will Sliney puts it, the leader of the Knights of Ren in the opening pages of the new comic Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren #1, arrives battle-scarred and wearing a fearsome, featureless mask — a blank expression save for a smattering of claw-like gouges. Concealed within is a charismatic leader, the exact type of person who would be able to seduce young Ben Solo away from the path of the Jedi.” Then they basically proceed to spend the first 4 paragraphs talking a lot about Ren besides talking about Ben (and then, lastly, about Snoke—and, fun fact: they knew about the Snoke twist of TROS beforehand), although I think they talk less about Ben even
3) Ben being compared to Anakin while Ren is compared to Darth Vader, except Charles Soule wanted Ren to read “like a more charming Darth Vader. “A Vader who is charismatic and who is appealing. That’s why [Ren’s] skin is burned and he sort of looks the way that he does. He’s embracing the seductiveness and the damage that the dark side does. Darth Vader, as impressive and imposing and terrifying as he is, is remote and cold and distant because he has the suit surrounding him. Whereas Ren isn’t hiding behind it. He’s someone you could have a beer with, in theory.”
4) more interesting interview stuff. “Designed purposefully for the new comic series, with issue #1 out now, Ren feeds the evolution of Kylo Ren. “The entire seductiveness of the dark side poured into one character engineered for Ben Solo is Ren,” Soule says. “He’s sort of a charming evil rascal that can be really fun to write and I really like where he goes in the series. But if Kylo Ren is going to take over the Knights of Ren, which we know that’s what happens, there should be some transition.”
Also: “I think the key to writing Ben Solo is to write him as a lost teenager who is deeply in touch with emotions that teenagers often feel,” Soule says. “He feels like no one understands him, no one sees him the way he actually is, he’s utterly alone and there’s no one else out there in the universe. So when he sees Ren, he’s like, ‘Wait a minute — maybe there is somebody like me in the universe. Maybe there is a path for a guy like me. Look at the choices he’s made. I could make those choices, too, and I could be cool.’”
So... This is interesting. We have Snoke manipulating Ben to go to him, at first making himself appear friendly, while on some measure Palpatine’s pulling the strings from Snoke (I don’t think he would be like a puppet with Palps’ voice, though, given that chapter of the TLJ non-junior novelization that has a lot of stuff from Snoke’s perspective, but who knows). But then, Ben Solo’s basically obsessed with Vader... and, apparently, this Ren’s a walking dark side temptation for Ben. Well... We’ll see what happens, I guess
Also, crying inside at reading that “wait a minute—maybe there is somebody like me in the universe. Maybe there is a path for a guy like me. Look at the choices he’s made. I could make those choices, too, and I could be cool”. If Ren really was Ben from another time seeking to change things (probably something related to Rey): the implications that this has, the emotions that this has, the power that this has
Interesting, too, that it hasn’t been said if it’s Snoke who’s “the master” of the KoR (yes, they do have a master on top of their own leader), but that only gets weirder because the KoR were revealed time ago to be only loyal to their leader and to the “Ren philosophy” (which also makes possible ties with Snoke alone impossible)—so, if Snoke and the First Order aren’t, then who is it? Palpatine? Still, again, there’s the philosophy thing of following only their group leader...
Oh and: the Ren philosophy sounds very intriguing and I’m liking it a lot
(For context of the next pics: there are two brothers, being one of them Force-sensitive, and both the KoR and someone called SecSec are trying to recruit them—but the non-Force-sensitive one kills the other, which means the KoR doesn’t accept him, and Ren kills him)
5) just after that panel, in this pic below they talk a bit about “the master” here, being Ren who says it. Also it’s interesting that, after that happens, the KoR part ends with Ren saying "let’s go find something to burn”:
After that there’s a page as if this kind of prologue has finished, showing a page with the logo of the comic and all that... and then, next page it’s Ben standing in front of the fire and ruins of the temple all shocked (a note here: on that page it reads “now” and the name of the location, and the “prologue” happened “long ago”). I’d say that really looks like foreshadowing...
Now the thing is... If the KoR are not affiliated in any way with the First Order nor Snoke, and the KoR is only interested in recruiting Force-sensitives for their ranks, then how come they could’ve arrived in Luke’s Jedi temple... just at that right time to burn it down? I mean, right, there can be coincidences, but— uh, that might be a bit too much of a coincidence, perhaps? Who knows...
6) interview intensifies. “Born out of the flames”, is how Sliney describes Ren—well, thought it was worth mentioning this because guess what mythological being is born out of the flames too. Also, funny the parallel between that and the publisher’s summary of “The Rise of Kylo Ren” #3 (scheduled for February 12th): “Soon, BEN SOLO'S path will end in a place of fire and blood, and a shadow will rise to take his place. He is with the KNIGHTS OF REN now, and they will welcome him, if he can pay their price.” Well, given that “our” Ben starts becoming Kylo Ren after what happens at the temple, and that they describe Ren (referring to the former leader of the KoR) like being “born out of the flames”... this does nothing to deterr me from believing this theory, to be honest
7) more from the interview. “ The creative team engineered some surprises for this charming dark sider, a foil in many ways to Darth Vader hiding beneath his protective covering. “You expect the dude hiding his face under a mask like that to be all messed up, particularly with his body looking the way it does,” Soule says. But in issue #2 we’ll see what he’s truly concealing, a reveal that speaks to Ben on a whole other level” … This whole paragraph, I swear. Sounds like when they talked in the times between TFA and TLJ about Ben’s face behind his mask, and about his unmasking. Also, the talk about the face reveal…
What kind of “reveal that speaks to Ben on a whole other level” could it be? I don’t think they’d be referring to that with something more going on in his face, as in, scars or charred skin. In fact, it wouldn’t make sense for Ren to cover that up given that he shows with pride his scarred body
And faces of men he might know? The probabilities just lower and narrow soooo much here. We have yet to see, however, if Ben gets the reveal as a kid or an adult, which could make a difference. Still, back to “what man could this guy be”, I just can’t think of someone that he’d recognize and have this impact on him... ... And now it’s when it’s a Ben clone from another timeline, lol
8) that big panel on “The Rise of Kylo Ren” #2 where the KoR and Ren are facing Luke, Ben and Lor San Tekka, and Ben and Ren seem to mirror poses:
9) this is jut something that came to my mind, but… It still bugs me to this day the phrase “it is you” that Ben says regarding Rey on the TFA novelization (when she calls forth the Legacy lightsaber), because Ben didn’t know back then about them being a dyad, nor have we seen any mentions to him having dreamt of Rey before or anything—so maybe Ben’s encounter (encounters? Still not sure about it) with Ren involved Ren telling him something that will happen in the future? Something which could also tackle that random “which girl?”
The sad thing, if Ren was really Ben from the future? Like I said in my previous post about this teory (pre-TROS): ... that Ben would’ve literally killed himself, and therefore made true what he told Han that his son is dead and that he’d killed him (which then is reversed in TROS with that “Kylo Ren is dead, my son is alive”). That would be such a kriffing trauma for Ben that I don’t know if I could stomach it, after seeing Ben’s death in TROS... I mean, we would literally be seeing another Ben die... even if somehow his actions meant a worse future would have been avoided
Anyways my brain seems to find fuel in angst (why), because now reading “Ren” only makes me think of Ben’s name but taking on the “R” from Rey if in that future something happened to her... (Or that the Knights would be called “of Ren” in reference to Ben and Rey)
... And now it’s when we’ve been played like a fiddle all along and the novels, with their differences/expanded material as hints (like the “it is you” in the TFA novelizations), are but one of the timelines. Can you imagine? To cite the TLJ non-junior novelization: “time is a circle. The end is the beginning”. At this point I believe anything could happen, specially after seeing TROS and how wtf it’s all that surrounds it...
10) to finish the post, the thing that made me start thinking Ren could be Ben: the hair that peeks from below the helmet looks apparently like Ben’s both in shape and color (an interesting detail is how the color of their hair seems to match in tone: in issue #1 it’s brownish for the both of them even though one’s surrounded by fire and the other by ice, and on the preview pages of issue #2 their hair is shown black). And in a universe so diverse as SW, and given that Ren and Ben are characters so connected, that’s a pretty... interesting choice. Here are some more images for comparison between Ben and Ren:
#Reylo#Baby boy Ben Solo#Rey#Baby boy Ben#Ben Solo#TROKR#TROS#TROKR speculation#TROS speculation#TROKR theorizing#TROS theorizing#TROKR theory#TROS theory#TROKR theories#TROS theories#The Rise of Kylo Ren#The Rise of Skywalker#TROKR spoiler#TROS spoiler#TROKR spoilers#TROS spoilers#The Rise of Kylo Ren spoiler#The Rise of Skywalker spoiler#The Rise of Kylo Ren spoilers#The Rise of Skywalker spoilers#Star Wars#SW#Star Wars spoiler#SW spoiler#Star Wars spoilers
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