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sexysapphicshopowner · 4 months

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🤎 Context/AU (Alternate Universe): What would usually be just an intimate night turned into a horrific tragedy

🤎 Lady Dimitrescu x wife!reader

🤎 CW/TW: slight smut?, suggestive language, angst, lesbians, pet names, grief, accidental death/murder, blood drinking, reader is an artist and photographer, Alci is a depraved baby with many issues, bloodlust, mental health issues, no use of y/n, barely proofread

🤎 A/N: I cried whilst writing this- you're welcome

🤎 Notes: No description of reader, this version of Alcina isn't exactly my personal headcanon of her, but more an idea I had for her that I decided to write, I did research for the death scene on a timeline of what it's like to bleed to death and tried my best to apply the different things that happen to the body to this particular fic. I'm in no way a doctor or anything, the best thing I've got is a certification in Forensic Science so I also used my knowledge from that to give what you're about to read

🤎 Word count: 5.2k

The lady of the castle sat at her vanity, scrutinizing every little detail of her face. She studied the wrinkles, lines, and cracks of her features before covering them with makeup, perfectly slipping behind the mask that everyone knew as Lady Dimitrescu.

She glanced behind her in the mirror at the sound of her bedroom door opening, eyes meeting yours as she applied her lipstick, “Ah, my love, you’re home early.”

You wasted no time in making your way across the room, slinking your arms over her shoulders as you planted a kiss to her cheek, holding out a photo in front of her, “I had to, look at how my latest pictures of you came out.”

Alcina's expression remained unchanged, even as you kissed her cheek. Her eyes focused squarely on the photograph. Her gaze swept over the image once, then twice.

"Hm," she murmured, her eyes wandering back to your face. "You like these?" She asked. The question was innocent enough, but her demeanor suggested something altogether different.

You deflated just slightly at her dry response, nodding as you studied the photo for yourself, “Of course, I do, love. You look amazing.”

“You think I look amazing,” she repeated slowly, her voice flat. “And did you think of me when looking at these pictures? Or simply my appearance?” The question was followed up by a long, drawn-out pause.

“Well?” She leaned forward on the vanity, asking point blank as she met your eyes in the reflection again.

“I-I....”

"What? Speak up, don't be modest. I want to hear your thoughts." She purred, her eyes trained on yours. Golden irises gleamed in the candlelight, as she held your gaze steadily.

You fixed your gaze onto hers, voice sincere as you answered, “I thought of you quite fondly when developing the photos... It’s why I came back home. I wished to be in your presence after seeing your face for so long.”

Alcina's gaze softened at this. The corners of her lips curled into a smirk as she glanced down at the picture, and then back up to you. "And do you believe me to be a beautiful woman?" She asked. The question was an obvious one, but the vampire wanted to hear the words fall from your own lips.

You ducked your head, eyes remaining on hers in the mirror as you pressed a kiss to her shoulder, "More beautiful than any man or woman to ever walk this Earth."

Alcina dimpled sweetly, her lips curling into a pleased grin. She knew she was beautiful. It was a fact- one that you reminded her of regularly. But to hear you describe her as such... The sound of her own ego being stroked tickled a deep, dark place within her.

"I am glad that you think so, my love," she purred. "You know, there is something I want from you tonight."

You set the photo down, practically instantly forgetting about it as you brought your hands to her arms, “Yes? Anything.”

"I want... " Her voice quivered with anticipation, as her gaze swept over your form. "You." Alcina reached up, pressing her delicate fingers against your cheek. "I want you tonight. All to myself."

A chuckle escaped your lips as you pressed a few open-mouthed kisses to her throat, “Yeah? You want me?”

"I want to savor every inch of your body." Alcina purred, her voice dropping to a low, husky rumble. She traced a single fingernail down the line of your jaw, trailing towards your chin. "I want you. With every fiber of my being. I want to worship you."

You let out a hum, nipping at her skin, “Come to bed, Alci... then you can have me.”

"But I want to have you... right here," she cooed, almost trying to coax you into staying there with her. "I want everyone to know that you are mine. Only mine." The countess grabbed your wrist and hauled you close, trapping you between her and the vanity in one swift motion as her mouth trailed from your neck down to your collarbone, biting down gently on your skin. "Mine."

You sucked in a breath, clutching her arms for purchase as you adjusted yourself atop the vanity, “Fuck... y-yeah...”

"Such a good girl," she purred, her other hand snaking its way past your hair to grip onto the nape of your neck. She bit the soft skin of your neck as she nuzzled closer to your ear, her lips brushing against the sensitive spot just behind your lobe as she spoke, "No one will have you. Ever. You belong only to me. Do you understand?"

Your lady lover had used such possessive and outright aggressive language with you before, but you didn’t notice the cloudy look misting her golden irises as she spoke, your lip nestling between your teeth before you released it to let out a breathy answer, “Yes... only yours...”

Alcina's lips curved into a pleased grin as her fangs sparkled in the low light. She could do whatever she pleased with you... And you would enjoy every moment of it. She pulled back slightly to gaze down at your flushed face, tilting her head slightly.

"Good girl," she praised. For a moment, it seemed as if she might kiss you. But her lips instead met your neck in a lingering, passionate kiss punctuated by sharp canines.

You let out a hiss the second you felt the slight sting of her canines pricking into your skin, “Shit...”

"You like that, do you," Alcina purred, her grip on your neck tightening slightly as her fangs sank deeper into your skin. Golden eyes glowed in the dim light, pupils dilated before they narrowed in on their prey. "How does it feel to be at my mercy?"

"A-Alci.... please...."

Her answer was a slow, drawn-out purr as she withdrew a single fang before she bit down again, her mouth a suction that fed from the sweet blood as she pulled you deeper and deeper into her hungry embrace. She moaned, eyes growing half lidded as the taste of you on her tongue sent waves of pleasure through her veins.

Your brows knit together, hands gripping her arms tighter as you felt a lot more pain than you usually did when you would allow her to drink from you, “Alci.... hurts....”

She simply let out a hum as she tilted her head slightly, your back now resting against the vanity as she was hunched over you like a true predator. You were pinned under her as she continued to drink from your neck.

“Does my little blood bag feel woozy,” Alcina asked, voice taunting and holding a sort of just slightly playful mockery. She hummed with her every suckle, as if savoring the taste of you. Her nails trace against the back of your neck, her touch as sharp as a razor.

You struggled against her hold, tapping her shoulder repeatedly as your vision began to go a bit hazy, “B-baby... please... don’t...”

“Please what, my love,” she purred her lips curling into a playful smile, attaching right back to your neck as she continued to drain you of your life force.

You were always so much sweeter than her other maidens... The taste of your blood... It was enough to bring an ache to the core of her very being. She couldn’t get enough of it.

Even as you tapped her shoulder, her lips remained pressed against your skin. She was in heaven, and this was her idea of making love.

You on the other hand were beginning to panic. You didn’t find your wife when you looked down into her eyes.

No, you didn’t know who or what you were looking at.

Her eyes were almost venomous, pupils narrowed to slits.

Her usual gentle, reverent touch was nowhere to be found, nails and fangs stinging against your skin.

You felt powerless struggling against your 9-foot lover.

Your voice gurgled in your throat, her teeth having torn the skin of your neck open in search of getting better access to your vein that she was currently drinking heavily from.

Your heart rate is beginning to accelerate, something that doesn’t help you, but makes it much easier for your bloodthirsty wife to bleed you dry as blood is now pumping directly to the area where her mouth is accompanied by the wound from her tearing into you.

A lightheaded, truly woozy feeling begins to set in along with a sudden wave of fatigue.

You can’t focus outside of the blaring worries in your mind that if you don’t bleed to death from the gaping hole in your neck, your wife will certainly take care of drinking the rest of it. Your skin has gone pale, sweat beading every inch of it as your body is trying to fight back against the losses, as well as you with your pushing against her, trying to get her off of you.

All the while, Alcina is continuing to feed. Pulling more and more of your vitality as she drank, her body was practically shaking with ecstasy, eyes rolling back as she drew deeper and deeper from the vein.

Primal growls rumbled out of her throat, her breathing heavy and hot against you.

She was far too sucked in to realize what she was doing. She was killing you. Her love, her life, her light.

Alcina would never.

And yet... she was.

With every beat of your heart and pull of her mouth suctioned to your neck... she was pushing you closer and closer to the cliff that was death.

There’s too many feelings, too many thoughts.

You feel spaced out, unaware of what’s even happening anymore, yet hyperaware as your anxiety is spiking to astronomical levels. Your breathing is shallow, your pushing growing weaker and weaker as your hands and feet begin to tingle.

You’re dying.

You know it.

You can’t help but think about your life.

How you came to the castle in the first place.

You were commissioned for your work. You were a wonderful portraitist, a very skilled painter who was very adept and well-known for your art- especially your portraits.

Originally, it was Bela who’d begged her mother to have you called into the castle to do her portrait.

Then Daniela just had to have hers done as well because ‘look how good she painted Bels’.

Cassandra begrudgingly asked if you’d paint her as well, only after being teased by Dani for being the only one of the three sisters to not get herself painted.

It was after finishing the three works that you finally met the ever elusive and lady of the castle- Alcina Dimitrescu.

Alcina took a liking to you.

Being a patron and lover of the arts herself, she found herself drawn to your talents as a painter, sketch artist, and photographer. You also both had a shared love of jazz and blues music- a fact that led her to realizing her feelings for you.

Your first date was in her old music room. The two of you played a few pieces on the piano together before you sat back to let her sing for you, taking pictures to use as reference for later sketches that you would gift to her after five months of courting between the two of you.

It was a whirlwind romance, the two of you swept up in never having had a love like this before. She was the darkness to your light, the moon and stars to your sun.

She was your muse. You were her beloved, her most devoted.

Your marriage was a surprisingly small occasion, just a little ceremony held between the two of you, the other three Lords, and Mother Miranda as the officiant. Bela was the maid of honor, Cassandra carried the rings, and Daniela was the flower girl. It was sweet.

Alcina herself was sweet.

So how did things progress to here?

There’s a pounding ripping through your skull, a headache- or perhaps migraine would be a better word- like none you’ve ever experienced before.

How long had this been going on?

It felt like hours.

In truth it wasn’t more than about 4 minutes.

Next came the ringing. A terrible and tinny noise in your ears, blocking you from hearing anything else.

It was coupled with the terrible spinning you seemed to feel. It was disgusting.

And once again- to make matters infinitely worse for you- you couldn’t even speak or fight back anymore. You were essentially limp within her hold at this point, almost resigning yourself to your fate now.

Within another few seconds, your sight grows hazy, darkness seeping into the edges of your vision as your eyes turn up to the ceiling, no longer able to watch your wife.

Then comes the sweet release of being unconscious.

Like the world’s sickest fade to black, you passed out in her arms, not realizing how close you now were to death.

You suffer a heart attack, the organ unable to handle the strain your wife’s drinking has now put on your body.

Just like that... it’s over.

In a little under 5 minutes Alcina had killed the love of her life.

She didn’t stop when your body went limp underneath her, heart no longer pounding in your chest against her.

No, she pulled away once the flow of blood into her mouth stopped.

In her feeding frenzy, Alcina hadn’t truly known what she was doing to you. As the taste of your blood faded from her lips, she slowly opened her eyes, blinking away the haze of the drunken feeling that came along with drinking blood.

What she found before her left her horrified.

Cradling your still body, the countess couldn’t come to terms with the idea of you having died at her hands.

She pressed a few kisses to your forehead in an attempt to wake you. Tears welled in her eyes as she tried, trying to will you back to life.

She held your body close, tears continuing to brew despite her attempts to fight them back. For the first time in a while, she felt a surge in emotion.... Grief.

This wasn’t what she had wanted. She had no intention of hurting you.... And yet, the damage had already been done.

She brought her other hand up to your cheek, fingers brushing against your smooth skin in a last attempt to try and wake you.

"You can't leave me..." she whispered, sobbing now at the realization. But your heart beat against her chest no longer. And your eyes were now shut, forever.

After a few minutes of letting her tears fall, she wiped away her tears and straightened up, her red eyes staring straight ahead in silent mourning. The countess closed her eyes tightly and inhaled slowly and deeply, trying to process the loss. She also couldn’t take the sight of her face in the mirror. Your blood and her smeared lipstick staining her stark white skin. It wasn't long before her face returned to its cold and emotionless facade.

She stared through her reflection rather than at it as she murmured, “How disappointing.”

Her demeanor became one of stark detachment, just like that of the stone-cold killer that the soft side of her now believed herself to be. It was almost as if she hadn’t been in love with the now dead woman in her arms in the first place.

Her hands tightened around your body as she lifted your limp form in her grasp with ease. Without much ceremony, she began to walk towards the window at the back of the chamber.

“Now, dear one,” she began, “You shall be as one with the night.”

As she reached the open window and stared down at the dark landscape below her, the vampiress seemed to contemplate.

In her arms lay the woman she once called her safe space.

Her eyes narrowed as she considered her next move. Without a second thought, she tossed your body out of the window.

The wind howled as the form tumbled down to Earth. You plummeted through the air in a graceful spiral, the fall over so quickly that if there were even still a shred of life within you, you did not suffer for long. Your body impacted the ground with a soft thud, crumpling in a broken heap.

In a swift moment, the countess closed the window and drew the curtains with finality. The body was nowhere to be seen, and the chamber wa just the way it was before you ever arrived.

With a heavy sigh, Alcina finally allowed herself to sink onto her stool. For a while, she remained still in her seat, staring at the mirror in empty contemplation.

As she sat alone in the room, she wondered to herself.

Why had she done such a thing?

A soft hand rose to her mouth as she wept for a moment, once again wishing to take back the events. But she knew deep down, there was no turning back.

Eventually, Alcina rose from her chair and crossed over to the bed. She lay down on the soft mattress, staring up at the moonlight which spilled in through the curtains of the other windows in the bedchamber.

For some time, she stared up at the ceiling, her expression blank. But slowly, the grief she felt earlier started to grow within her again.

Unable to hold back her tears any longer, the vampire broke down into heavy sobs. She’d never loved anyone as she did you. But that love had been her exact downfall.

She’d been blinded by her love for you and your trust for her, thinking she had the self-control not to hurt you. Yet and still, she did.

“Why?” She whispered into the moonlight. “Why did you have to love me so much?”

The countess released a loud, mournful wail as she cried into the night. A part of her wish so badly that she could take it all back. But she knew it was already too late for regrets.

“It’s done,” she mumbled, her eyes squeezed shut as she tried to calm herself. But her heart would not follow suit. It continued to ache for you.

Eventually, she fell into a fitful sleep, but the night only brought nightmares which haunted her rest.

The countess awoke the next day with a start. For a moment, she almost didn’t recognize where she was. Almost didn’t remember what had happened. Then the memories from the previous night returned.

“No....” Alcina whispered. She turned over in her bed to face the empty side of the mattress. In your place, there was only a memory. “No....”

Once again, the tears started to flow. “Why?” She asked herself.

Alcina sat up in her bed, staring ahead in silence. Though your absence gnawed at her heaviy, the memories she shared with you only made the grief worse. Your loss was more than any one heart could bear, but for a vampire... Your loss would be eternal.

“It’s not fair,” she told herself, her voice hoarse and quiet.

“I don’t want to forget you. I want you back... so that I can feel your lips against mine... hear your soft whispers in my ear... know that you were real....”

Before she could fall too deep into the guilt that laced itself through her grief, the phone rang.

She answered the phone with a heavy heart, not expecting anyone but Mother Miranda to be brazen enough to call at this time. I couldn’t be but maybe an hour after sunrise.

It was Karl.

Instead of being greeted by his usual infuriating and condescending tone that usual was also paired with his crass words that were typically used to hurl insults at the countess- his voice was solemn as he spoke.

The sound sent a chill down her spine, cheeks still damp with tears as she listened to him, “Hey, Alcina... A couple of my Lycans brought in a body last night.... It’s... It’s your wife...” There was a pain in his voice that Alcina had never heard from him before.

“Do you want me to bring her over for a proper burial, or...?”

Alcina was thrown back by the question. Before she could reply, grief and guilt simultaneously struck her like lightning, her legs turning to jelly beneath her. A hand shot to her mouth, as if to shield herself from hearing any more words.

"No..."

It was the only reply that escaped her lips. In her eyes, she could see it all again...

Your body plummeting through the window, your face pale, your limbs broken. That look on your face as you died...

She bit her palm, trying to distract herself from the horror.

Heisenberg called out when the vampiress didn’t say anything, “Are you alright? What happened to her?”

"Karl, please," Alcina pleaded, her voice coming out hoarse as if she had just wept for hours. The countess wanted nothing more than to fall back into bed and drown in a sea of grief, unable to face the truth of your death once more.

"I... I cannot talk about it. Please, just... bring her body to me so I can bury her. There is no need for any of us to speak of what happened... it's better that way," she pleaded, her voice filled with misery.

“I’ll be there in an hour.... I’m really sorry, Alcina...”

The countess was silent for a moment. For the first time, she felt truly powerless. She didn't wish to remember the way you died at her hands, and yet as she awaited your body... The pain and guilt was suffocating.

"Thank you" she replied quietly, a single tear rolling down her cheek.

What would your family think? Your friends, your loved ones... Would they ever know the truth? They were going to have to. In some way, this was her fault.

No, she wanted a funeral. And you would have it.

One hour.

That was all that separated Alcina from her greatest mistake. But in this time, she did what she could to prepare for your arrival.

A casket- made of elegant wood and lined with elvet of a deep garnet hue- was prepared. It wasn’t new. You had made it saying she’d need somewhere to put you when your time in her life finally expired.

She couldn’t help but cry as she remembered how happy you two had been together. How much you had loved her.

Your hair and body was washed, a crown of roses placed in your hair- Alcina's handiwork.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered as she stared at your beautiful face in the casket. She could almost hear you whispering in her ear... Telling her that you loved her and just how much as you often did. She wanted nothing more than to hold you one last time and kiss you deeply. But as she reached out to do so, a dark feeling came over her.

The truth was hidden in that darkness.

“Please.... forgive me,” she whispered, tears rolling down her cheek.

She had to excuse herself from the little ceremony to what used to be your shared room.

She ended up at her vanity, gripping the edge of it before her eyes fell on the last picture you had ever taken of her. The one you had brought with you from the night before.

It was a portrait of Alcina in her most vulnerable state. Her hair disheveld, her eyes hazy as she had just awakened from sleep when the photo was taken.

Still, the photo was one of the best memories you’d held of her.

She was beautiful, regardless of how much sorrow and grief had taken hold.

Holding onto the photo for a moment, Alcina turned it over repeatedly, a faint smile crossing her red lips.

“I’ll see you again one day, my love,” she whispered, her voice choked with tears.

“We haven’t said goodbye yet.”

After a long few long moments of staring at your portrait of her, the countess dried her tears and returned to the casket room that held you rcasket to stare down at your still face.

The tears came again, but she was too far down the rabbit hole to turn back.

With her hands, Alcina closed your eyes with all of the love she held for you. She couldn’t bare your gaze any longer. But she couldn’t bear your silence either...

As Alcina kissed your cheeks with gentle tenderness, memories of your first kiss came rushing back to her. It was nothing but a distant shadow now.

In all the centuries that she had walked the Earth, Alcina had never felt love like this. She had shared her flesh with countless lovers, but it meant nothing... Not now.

Because this- you... you were different.

“Sleep, my love. Dream of our nights spent together.... our passion...”

Alcina burshed a stray lock of hair behind your ear- chest tightening when your eyes didn’t open at the motion- before she took a step back.

“We’ll be together again soon,” she promised, a pained smile on her lips.

The countess stayed with you for a while, the weight of her grief slowly becoming much mor eoverwhelming. But eventually, she had to bring herself together to say her final goodbye before Karl buried your casket.

She rose from her seat for the final time, looking down on you for a moment.

“I’ll find you in my next dream.”

Her voice was barely even audible before she turned on her heel, turning over her shoulder to take one last look at your peaceful face before she withdrew from the room.

“I love you, dearest. Always."

Alcina shut her bedroom door and closed every curtain.

It was the first time in a long time that she had been left alone inside her chamber- neither you nor any of the girls there to come bother her. For so long you had been there.... your soft voice to comfort her... your warm body to hold at night in bed.

But now- for the first time- this place felt empty, colder, lifeless without you.

Alcina took a deep, shaky breath as she fought back her tears.

She approached the window where she ahd so coldly tossed your body out, the chill of the wind stiniging and reminding her of that very moment.

Perhaps you wished to speak to her. Bid her your own last farewell.

With this thought in mind, she took a deep breath as she stared out into the night, “If you can hear me, my love, I want you to know...”

The wind howled loudly as if to answer her words.

“I will always love you,” she finished, her eyes gazing up at the sky.

Though the chill of the wind bit at her heart she didn’t bother with closing the curtains back again. She wanted to be as close as possible to where you lay, so that her words could travel further with the hopes of reaching you somehow.

“I’ll see you some day soon, darling... I’ll see you soon....”

A few tears found their way from her eyes. At the salty sting, she shut her window, head bowed.

The wind’s howling died down as she shut the window behind her. She stood in front of it for a moment, as if you were just beyond the curtains.

A small smile spread across her lips at the thought.

"Farewell, you magnificent creature," she whispered, as a final tear tumbled down her cheek.

"My beautiful darling."

For a second, Alcina's heart stilled. The silence seemed deafening.

She waited a moment, hoping to hear you speak one last time.

She only heard the silence of nighttime, and her own soft breath in her chest.

"If you can hear me," the countess began after a long while. "I hope it's not painful beyond death," she whispered, her voice choked with regret. "I hope that I haven't failed you somehow."

She was silent for a moment, before speaking again.

"I'll never forget you."

A moment passed, and a sigh escaped the countess. She turned around, stepping back into the darkness of her bedchamber. For a moment, the shadows seemed to dance and shimmer, as if your spirit was right there with her.

The wind whistled outside. No.

She was going insane.

"I'm sorry," Alcina whispered, her voice filled with sorrow and guilt. "I should have been more careful. Maybe if I had been a better woman, you'd still be here with me."

Her voice was thick with grief.

After a few more moments of silence, Alcina sat down on her bed.

"I'll tell you about myself," she spoke quietly, her voice almost breaking into tears more than once.

"My favorite color is dark green. My favorite food is… was… well. You." She chuckled, "I like to read and listen to music. My favorite genre is jazz. My favorite band is… was.. uh. Never mind."

She fell silent again, taking a second to compose herself. She took a deep breath and continued.

"My favorite season is fall. I love looking at the orange leaves as they fall to the ground. I love the way the trees change color in the autumn. I remember how when it was still warm enough you would bring the girls and I outside to rake and play in the leaves..."

Another pause.

"My favorite time is night. When the birds and animals fall quiet, and the darkness closes in. My father used to say it's beautiful, but I think it's sad. A sort of beautiful kind of sadness... This melancholic time when all is quiet but yet, it isn’t. Wind still blows... trees still rustle... chirps of the daytime become the hooting sounds of owls..."

She laughed, the sound of her voice breaking her heart a tiny bit.

"Your favorite time was dawn, wasn't it?" She was speaking to herself now.

"We shared two things in common, did we not?"

She continued quietly, "We were passionate about art, and music." Her voice shook a little, tears now rolling down her cheeks.

"You would have loved to read my poetry, I just know. I remember how you used to ask about it and then I would always tell you that you had to let me see inside your sketchbook first."

She fell silent again, thinking about her words before speaking again.

"We were both lonely, and that's why we found each other. I mean, of course, it was thanks to Bela and the girls’ portraits, but in essence our attraction was built out of a sort seeking of solace in one another, no?"

Alcina's words became softer and softer as she spoke as if she was speaking to you.

"I know how much you wanted to paint me… how we spoke about it almost every day. Every night before bed you would come in, hands tracing the lines and features of my face... You’d say ‘Oh, Alci... my darling how I wish you’d model for me’..." She chuckled softly. Her chest ached with a thousand needles and pins as she remembered your words.

"I was always too tired. I wished I could've been a better muse for you, a better woman, a better lover."

Alcina's voice was breaking, but she still wanted to tell you one last thing.

"If you hear this," She murmured into the darkness, "I have to tell you..."

"I love you."

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leiflitter · 4 months

Text

I've figured out the You’re Almost Home Timeline so for the gang who care about the passage of time it's under the cut.

Firstly, I have chosen to totally ignore the gravestone dates because of Reasons, including "okay look I started writing this when it wasn't on streaming and this is mostly so it makes sense to me" and "time is an illusion I just need to know this so I can say what year it'll be on NYE". Felix has a January birthday in my little canon and nobody can stop me.

So let's go!

2007

Felix is in Expensive Rehab Facility until Christmas. Sir James and Lady Elspeth have pulled a lot of strings to make sure that Felix's accident won't impact him in any way, shape or form. This mostly means getting him an expensive tutor and essentially permission to submit all of his work online. No need for tutorials because he's had a hard time and is a very special boy. Felix takes this chance to essentially do as much work while he's stuck in the facility as he can because there's fuck all else to do, and he's being made to quit smoking so he's mad about that. Farleigh's back as if he never left, and Venetia is being an absolute rock.

Oliver returns to Oxford, makes contact with the Student Counselling Services, and throws himself into studying so hard it hurts. He needs to distract himself. They allow him to switch tutors and move to a different dorm where he turns into a studying hermit. If he sees any of the Alpha Hotties, he hides. He becomes invisible again, even more than before. His new tutor helps him switch to an accelerated degree program.

2008

Felix turns 21 and does the Spring and Summer terms. His parents decide to go on a tour of Europe to celebrate Felix getting back on the horse. They also know he's going to graduate, because the Special Little Boy measures are in place for him so all he has to really do is log on to Moodle and submit one of his pre-written essays every so often. He's burned a few bridges because he's being very twattish. Felix decides to sack off Christmas term and heads to Bali in late July/early August. Sir James has made sure he has internet access, so what's the point of even being in Oxford? He meets Lucia, who is 18 and on her Gap Year. Because it's the end of the summer, there aren't many options, so Felix sticks with her. Harry is part of the group from maybe like... week three? Luckily, Lucia is on a cleanse, so although they're partying, she isn't drinking or indulging in anything else. In November, Lu gets food poisoning- or so they think, until the doctor Felix hauls her to gives them the news. Felix contacts his parents in a hurry, and they are flown back to the UK and subjected to a major parental conference. Felix proposes to Lu at a Catton Christmas party.

Oliver graduates early. He doesn't go home for the holidays, saying he needs to keep studying. He decides on teaching because it won't be sustainable to be a student forever. His tutor is a major help; he's from Newcastle, although you wouldn't know it because his accent has long since faded and has taken Oliver under his wing. He remains Oliver's main advisor throughout his studies and is probably the reason he gets the job- he's keeping an eye on him so he knows there'll be a Northern Lad Professor once he eventually retires. They're not exactly friends, but there's a lot of mutual respect there.

2009

Felix turns 22 and marries Lu shortly after. He briefly returns to Oxford, but mostly to make sure he graduates. Harry is born in on the 10th of April and he gets his degree in absentia. Lu gets pregnant with Ru maybe a little too soon afterwards, and Rufus is born prematurely on the 27th of November. Oopsie.

2010

Oliver gets his Masters degree in english literature.

2011

Sir James dies of a heart attack in May.

2013

Ellie is born on the 1st of August. Felix gets a vasectomy.

2014

Oliver gets his PhD. His thesis was titled "Narrative Accessibility and Diversity within Academia".

2015

Lady Elspeth passes away in her sleep.

Then a bit of a time jump until

2020

Oliver is finally an associate professor after being in postdoc for 6 years.

Farleigh finally hits on a startup that works- a designer resale app that offers item verification for an add-on fee. It's wildly successful, mostly because he's been hobnobbing in America hardcore and is getting a ton of celebrity endorsements.

2025

Venetia is diagnosed with lung cancer.

2026

Venetia passes away. Felix is bereft.

Harry gets her A level results and Oxford place, despite being 17- Lucia, having not got a degree herself, is adamant that her children be highly educated as fast as possible... and Harry will turn 18 in her first year anyway. Harry doesn't mind this, as she has a fake ID and cannot wait to be away from boring boarding schools.

Oliver Quick receives an email notifying him that, amongst others, he will be tutoring Harriet Catton.

And then Felix Catton walks into his office, and they proceed to go bonkers.

#you're almost home #leiflitter writes #if you see something that doesn't line up... i'm editing ok #you're almost home meta #YAH!posting

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metacrisisdoctor · 10 months

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there is so much misunderstanding about ten's "does it need saying?" that it makes me wanna rip my hair out. he isn't "too much of a coward to say it", he doesn't want to say it any less than tentoo does. the entire point of that moment is that rose knows the doctor loves her, she knows what the end of that sentence was. he doesn't say it because he is not human and he can never give rose the life and love she deserves - he cannot give her what he wants to give her and what his other self can. and in that moment we see her finally realizing that.

he can never devote his life to her the way she can hers, so even if tentoo never had existed and if she had come back to the tardis with him, their relationship would not be the same because they've said the quiet thing out loud and rose is older, more mature and more independent. she wants things she could have pushed away at age 20, but now she wants the words said out loud, she wants to be with him forever but she is also realizing that he will never let her all the way in because their forevers do not align and losing her would kill him.

you have to understand that at the core of ten's character is a love for rose. that is what he is made of- literally. he was born from love for her and love for the human race and this is his downfall ultimately. ten doesn't keep rose at a distance because he doesn't love her, it's because he loves her SO MUCH that he feels as if he has found what he has searched for and his journey is essentially finished with her. ten doesn't want to regenerate because his story wants to end with hers because he wants to grow old, to be with his new family and then just die. that's the plain truth of it. but he cannot do that. he knows he can't so he holds her at a distance because if he lets her in he would've done that anyway, and then he wouldn't have been the doctor anymore because his life has become about her instead of keeping his promise of helping to the best of his ability.

ten holds rose afar because if he hadn't there would be no doctors after him, because she had the power to unravel him entirely- and because of how badly he wants that. this is what's crushing about timelord ten: he would've gone mad if he had let her in and lost her, and he goes mad when he doesn't and loses her.

but when you keep this all in mind and remember tentoo is also ten, as in, the last thing he remembers is running to her on that deserted street- his quick acceptance of being "banished" and offer to grow old with her makes complete sense. he's the same man who has felt all of these things in the past three seasons, but he can now TAKE them because everything that stopped him before doesn't exist anymore.

it's really just the same man with two timelines, a kind one and a cruel one. but they're both real and true!

and so ten doesn't say it because he knows that tentoo is the best option for her and her happiness but ALSO because they were never going to be happy and together for the rest of her life anyway because if they were it would've meant distraction- think of how twelve becomes for clara but worse! and even clara who DOES become immortal can't stay with him forever because the narrrative needs for the doctor to be in pain in order to keep being fulfilling his duty to the universe.

the doctor is simply not allowed to be happy because then the story ends, (journey's end in lovers meeting) but this story doesn't end. he is doomed by the narrative and he knows it, which people can't grasp.

but what tentoo serves is to show us that ten was so tied to rose and to humanity that in one timeline, one life, his story ends with her like he wanted it to. and this is why ten feels like regeneration is dying. and it's why he doesn't want to go and why he has to. it's why eleven is so alien and so different and why he's so shocked he survived regeneration. because ten had to "die" in order for the doctor to keep going.

of course every doctor after ten is still the doctor, but the tenth doctor died in a way in a way other doctors did not. because he belongs in pete's world with rose and that's his real ending. there cannot be two versions of ten, but one had to be human in the end and he is.

that's why he can't say it!!!!

because he knows he will regenerate and tentoorose is not only the best thing for rose, but a literal gift to himself as well.

and i'm him. and i'm him.

#rambles #who even knows what i'm saying

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meta-squash · 2 months

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I reject Owen Harper's absolutely nonsense canonical timeline and substitute my own.

According to canon, Owen was born in 1980 and died (power plant) in 2008, making him barely 28 when he died. But also according to canon, he did 7 years at medical school, then was junior houseman for a year where he met Katie (but then a different canon book says he met her when he was 21). Then he was engaged to Katie and she died, and he was with Torchwood for 2 years before Gwen joined, and a Torchwood employee for a total of 4 years.

It literally cannot work. If Owen did 7 years of medical school and one year as a junior doctor, he'd be 26 (maybe 25 if he gotten into med school as early as possible at 17) by the end of his first year of being a junior doctor. But he died at 28, and was at Torchwood for 4 years before that death. Again, I know I'm being nitpicky about a show that's had some type of media around since 2006 and a billion different writers and clearly no one looks back at old canon details. But still. Would it hurt to at least make things vaguely plausible?

So. My version of Owen's timeline:

Owen is born in 1976 or 1977. He does 7 years of medical school starting at age 18, during which time he meets Katie when he's 21. He's 26 when he becomes a junior doctor, and has about 2 or 3 years actually working as a doctor (I've always imagined it was in A&E or something equally varied and "interesting" which fits with his sort of jack of all trades vibes in Torchwood). He proposes to Katie in 2003, and a few months later she starts getting sick, but they continue to plan their wedding. She dies. He works for Torchwood for 4 years and dies at age 32 or 33 in Exit Wounds.

First of all, it now makes sense time-wise in terms of actual linear time.

But also, Fragments gives a glimpse of just how much losing Katie fucked Owen up entirely. I think the loss of not only his fiancee but also his actual career (since everyone seems to think he's gone mad with grief or whatever) would fuck him up far more intensely if he'd been dedicated to both for quite some time. The Owen we see in Fragments is nice, is loving, clearly cares, and is good at his job in a way that means he's respected by his peers in general and not just for his skills. Compare that to Torchwood Owen who is sarcastic and spiky and a bastard and good at his job but doesn't want to let on that he cares. That's the kind of drastic change you make after a loss of something you've had for a long time and you cannot emotionally or psychologically afford to try and form those kinds of connections again (case in point: Diane).

Like, Owen and Ianto have such incredibly similar backstories, but one of the reasons I think Ianto bounces back from his loss of Lisa and the trauma of Canary Wharf is because he's young and because his job/relationship was not a very long one and therefore had not settled into this comfortable thing where you deep down expect this same thing in the future forever. Ianto hadn't made a life for himself yet when he lost Lisa at 24. So there was room for him to change, to move on, to find someone new in Jack. Owen had already made a life with Katie and his job as a proper doctor, and losing it totally ruined him.

#torchwood #torchwood meta #owen harper #i just love owen so much #anyway this ramble comes from me writing a post cyberwoman fic and doing timeline research

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timelordinefficiency · 7 months

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The Doctor had to forget Clara, because it completes the loop. Before meeting different versions of her, he had lived his entire life without her. He didn’t remember all the times she saved him. He went about his life that way. But when she jumped through his timeline, it intertwined her life with his. His entire life became due to her. Thousands of times that he should have died, she saved him. But before he met her as 11, he didn’t know her. He became obsessed with the versions that he saw who died which there were only a couple. For the 11th Doctor to met those Clara’s and not remember them from his entire life, he has to forget at some point. The Doctor was always the one who had to forget

#doctor who #11th doctor #12th doctor #clara oswald #clara oswin #jenna coleman #matt smith

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inevitably-johnlocked · 11 months

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I was wandering if you knew a fic where John finds himself back in time, on the day of our favourite dinamic duo's first meeting/// A Second Chance by kipli has a similar premise, but it was Sherlock who went back in time. It's on AO3.

Hey Nonny!

First the fic you suggested:

A Second Chance by kipli(E, 13,160 w., 1 Ch. || Alternate Timelines, Bisexual John, First Time, Fluff and Light Angst, Anal / Oral, Ambiguous Ending) – Sherlock Holmes opens the matchbox from The Sign of Three and finds himself years in the past, back to that first dinner at Angelo's with a much younger John Watson. Is he dreaming?

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Secondly, I do have a list of Time Travel, Altered Time, or Time Manipulation (Updated Apr 2022) fics you can check out, so there might be a couple on there you will like. Hmm, I think most of the fics I've also come across that have time travel back to ASiP is usually Sherlock...

Checking the linked list and reading the descriptions of the fics on there has me thinking these ones might meet your criteria:

To the Nines by suitesamba (M, 2,724 w., 1 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Magical Realism, Pining, Angst, John Whump, Time Travel, Fortunes, Time Jumps) – John skips forward in time, and Sherlock reads the signs that point to nine. John knows he’ll eventually be with Sherlock, but the waiting is nearly impossible, and his body is a lot more than transport. A foray into magical realism where all the canon events occur, and a hell of a lot more.

Turn Left by Mycroftpedia (T, 9,057 w., 1 Ch. || Time Travel AU || Platonics, Angst With a Happy Ending, Soulmates, Loneliness, John-centric, Emotional Hurt) – “If you could go back in time, would you'll make it all differently? Would you'll avoid the road that took you to Sherlock?” John stared at him, trying to study him in the same way he had seen Sherlock doing so many times. He was trying to figure out where Mycroft wanted to go with that question. To an inner reflection? Simple and mere curiosity? Or was there something more? John wondered when it was the last time he had seen him so serious. Mycroft Holmes was perennially serious, but that time there was something different, something that frightened him. “Right now?” He demanded at the end, challenging him, hoping to throw out some other word or some suspicious behavior. Nothing came up. “Yes.” Inspired by Doctor Who, Turn Left.

It's About Time, Don't You Think by WaywardSpark (M, 17,113 w., 4 Ch. || About Time Fusion || Time Traveller John, Romantic Comedy, Magical Realism, Bars and Pubs, Pining John, Background Case) – If you were to ask Sherlock Holmes where he and John Watson met for the first time, he would confidently be able to tell you Lab room 2, St Bart's Hospital, London, 29th of January 2010 at 11:47 in the morning. For John Watson, it's an entirely different story.

Eight Minutes by holmesian_love (NR, 38,557 w., 17 Ch. || Time Travel AU || BAMF John, Angst, Holmes Brothers, Mystrade) – When John Watson is recruited by a mysterious stranger, he has no idea that his life is about to be altered for all time.

The Case of the Moebius Trip by Bitenomnom (NR, 129,218 w., 21 Ch. || Time Travel, BAMF!John, Angst, Death, Post-TRF) – When John finally gives in and accepts a case for the first time since Sherlock fell eight months ago, he finds himself in a unique position: in possession of what his client calls a time machine, and desperate enough to give it a go. If it works, he could travel back in time. If it works, he could save Sherlock.

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If anyone has some they can suggest for Nonny that is SPECIFICALLY John going back in Time to ASiP, I would also love to know!!

#steph replies #johnlock fic reqs #help steph find fics #time travel fics #time traveller au

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pixelchills · 1 year

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If you do make an au where Solar and Sunrise are siblings, would Sunrise be made the way he is now, or more like Solar?

If he was made the way he is now then their personalities would probably work very well together, both from a social point of view and a work point of view. Solar is analytical and seems to have at least a decent idea of the big picture, given his early understanding of how their world works. Sun is sympathetic and sensitive to changes in both temperature and other people. Between Solar and Sun, they've got logical and emotional intelligence pretty well covered.

As for their social relationship it'd be kind of odd to see Sun's dependence split between a romantic partner and a sibling. I could see both having a similar protective impulse toward Sun, with Moon behaving as he already does and Solar seeking to protect a more naive younger sibling from people he already knows don't have their best interests in mind. I suppose if the outbreak still happens, also a relationship where Solar isn't sure of their situation either, but knows he can provide emotional stability simply because he knows Sun thinks highly of nearly everyone in his life.

In short I think Solar and Sun as siblings could be rather sweet, and definitely interesting

Yeah, this sort of "AU of my AU" is actually like... constantly in the back of my mind, and I might make some content for it too, because I like the domestic slice-of-life style idea with a little bit of drama and fluff sprinkled in hahaha

You're 100% correct of how their relationship (or siblingship) would work out. Sunrise would be quite heavily codependant on Solar especially given his anxiety and nature to be quite innocent in general, and Solar would most likely be a bit... overprotective almost similarily to Moondrop, but in more like, brotherly way, as you suggested.

I'll give a little list of some ideas (and possible differences) I've had for this Alternative Timeline :>

- Solar is not suspected to kill Lilian, but he becomes a bit unstable after her death. Instead of deciding to replace him , Fazbear corp orders another Daycare Attendant to their main location to help him (since the Daycare was originally a success. Yes, when Solar was working, he was very succesful. They even added another one in El Chip's location a bit later...)

- Sunrise is designed purposefully the way he is in the original story. The higher-ups were aware of Solar and Lilian's relationship and Solar's stubborn nature. So they attempt to make Sunrise his opposite, (probably also counting on to the fact Solar will feel bad for making Sun anxious for both of their case, since Solar seems to feel more empathy towards other mutants than humans.)

- Sun and Moon meet at the labs and things go like the did originally (except meeting Solar in the labs of course.) Sun is probably more anxious about the fact Moon is going to be "replaced" when he gets shipped to the location. Sun thinks no one can replace Moon as his play-buddy and best friend. Later he'd understand that Solar isn't gonna "replace" Moon, but become his own person in Sun's tiny world :>

- At first sun is very intimitated by Solar, who is probably a bit stinky and weird and depressed at this point anyway. I think solar asks Sunrise things like which lab he was created and who was his doctor etc, resulting to the fact that Dr Weston was their doctor, thus Solar starts calling Sunrise his little brother. Sun is like, reaaally weirded out by it at first, but warms up to ot eventually 😅

- They'd still be locked in the Daycare, maybe because Solar would just... wander off and it was just easier to keep the same rule for both Daycare Attendants. I'm not completely sure how their relationships with he others would go at this point, but I'll think about it.

- When the locations merge and Moon joins the gang, Solar is soooo suspicious of him. I think he is gonna cause a lot of bumps by trying to keep the sweet innocent Sunrise out of Moondrop's reach. Add the extra confusing romantic feelings Sun wants to let out, and the whole misunderstanding with Vanessa and we got a season full of just... drama 🤣

- Sun probably talked about his feelings for Moon with Solar at some point and that might be the reason why Solar would be so... overprotective. Maybe he doesn't wanna let Sun go through a similar heartbreak as he did.

- No apocalypse happen, let them just stay domestic and happy (eventually) 🤭

#asks #a not so sunny world #animutants #solar #sunrise #moondrop

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rabbitholesitrippedon · 8 months

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Time travel as a narrative device

Some writers tend to avoid time travel for being played out, or too complicated but i find that time travel fits neatly into the “useful plot device” section of writing, alongside quests and end of the world scenarios, for its ability to be a macguffin and a force to compel characters to act.

There are typically 3 types of time travel:

“Whatever feels right is right” “What ever will happen has happened” “Branching timelines”

There are some hybrid and spectrum types of time travel that mix these as needed but you can typically write a story keeping only one of them for consistency's sake.

”Whatever feels right is right”

This is the easiest type of time travel to write, it’s the kind that lots of writers use because it gives no defined rules, you just do what you think might happen and ignore the potential world altering consequences of those decisions.

A prime example is back to the future, Marty travels back and prevents his father from meeting his mother. In theory this instantly creates a paradox. Instead of considering the consequences of the paradox, back to the future instead gives Marty some coyote time to “fix” his mistake.

Another example would be Doctor Who, which regularly messes with the nature of time, maintaining the theory that certain fixed points pin time together, and everything else can be messed with to a certain degree. A prime example is the episode the waters of mars.

If you want to add some spice and conflict to your story without thinking too hard, add this kind of time travel. I find it rather boring, but my preference shouldn’t interrupt other people having fun.

”Whatever has happened will happen”

This is possibly the most difficult to write. It follows the theory that if you travel into the past, then you have already been in the past, any action you could possibly take is already accounted for and as such it’s impossible to cause a paradox.

The first example that comes to mind is ‘stealing time’ a short film by Alex Calleros and Michael Tucker. In the film the protagonist makes multiple attempts to prevent his mistake and in doing so only creates it.

youtube

Surprisingly Adventure Time has elements of this kind of time travel in the form of Betty. she goes missing back before the mushroom war, and when simon makes contact with her from the future, she jumps through the portal, showing that betty’s disappearance had always been due to the time travel.

This form of time travel is difficult due to editing passes, if you make a small change in the middle of the story, it must be consistent across the whole story. However this is my favourite kind of story to write because of the excitement of foreshadowing the truth while keeping the reader in the dark is such a fine line that’s a thrill to walk.

”Branching timelines”

This is easily the most complicated story for readers to understand. It heavily relies on the readers understanding the characters and their motives, so that the reader can have some idea of why something changed when the timeline branches the next time.

Terminator is perhaps the quintessential version of this type of time travel. The two opposing sides send back their agents, and together they create a slightly different version of history that plays out. We understand the dynamics because the motivations of each character is typically quite clear, so with each branch we can still understand the story.

A very poor rendition of this type of time travel is that of Bioshock infinite. plot wise it all makes sense, and it’s a thrilling ride from start to end. But players came away confused, and frustrated, this is because the characters would constantly change allegiances and motives throughout the story because of the changes brought about by the hopping of timelines. It’s all technically corherent, but it’s presentation didn’t help it’s cause.

Branching timelines is a wonderful way to avoid paradoxes and mechanics while allowing for more consistent and complex storytelling. It’s a very difficult system to master, but if you can do something good with it, then you’ll have my mark of approval.

Conclusion

If you think time travel is overused, or tacky, then you’re not paying attention. Time travel is never, and should never, be the core of the story. Time travel is just the vehicle that you tell stories through, like period, setting, and medium, time travel stories are and always have been about the characters and whichever version of time travel best highlights those characters is the kind of time travel you should use in your story.

#doctor who #10th doctor #back to the future #adventure time #terminator #time travel #writing advice #Youtube #bioshock infinite

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muninnhuginn · 8 months

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Post s2e9 confirmations and speculations as of this ep, starting with confirmations and moving on to thoughts/speculations.

Before I start, just going to link my speculations as of a couple of episodes ago here because they're surprisingly either still relevant or have been confirmed either way. Of these, the main pieces still outstanding are Liu Min's phone and the serial murders.

Fountain boy low-key confirmed to be Liu Min's younger brother (Liu Xiao, apparently?). He knew Tianchen would soon be given the opportunity to "hunt" and lo, there is Liu Min (who even vaguely recognised Tianchen which makes sense if he's an acquaintance of his brother's). His own surname is Liu and obviously that's a pretty common name, but the fact he had someone driving him around means he's pretty rich and, well, son of a games company CEO seems pretty rich indeed. Apply law of conservation of detail and this one is now locked in at 95%. Fountain boy = Liu Xiao = "hunter" = hat guy (the last I'm a bit less certain of, but again, conservation of detail and there aren't many episodes left).

I'd been wondering about the weird focus the neighbour got in terms of his gaming so him being someone Liu Min wanted taken care of made that entire side of things click for me. Liu Min was terminally online and so was the neighbour. Tianchen must've thought it karma that he had this opportunity.

Third story: Tianchen as red eyes, going further and further as Tianxi is forced to watch until he goes too far even for her - at which point she broke free and tried to appeal to Lu Guang (but why him?). (All that said, Tianchen claims he killed both their parents, but we didn't actually see it properly in any of the flashbacks which could just be because they're being careful with the censors but I'm still side-eyeing it until we see exactly what happened. After all, there was no knife in the picture when we left the scene.) Tianxi's story I'm presuming is simply an animated version of what Tianxi is showing Qiao Ling to tell her story.

Speaking of, Tianxi "broke free" in her school uniform and that was also how she was found. Does that place the hoodie scenes in the hospital as before she fled? Because rewatching a bit of ep 4 and it seemed that QJ was talking to Tianchen-as-Tianxi then (could be wrong, 'Tianxi' never spoke that we heard in this scene but it being actual Tianxi rather than Tianchen raises so many more questions) which would imply she was missing after the hospital and that's when they implemented the disguising plan. Thinking about the "sorry" scenes in the third story and wondering if Chen Bin was the final straw for Tianxi.

First/second story: The Romeo and Juliet backstage they're at was indeed as I saw a few people speculating a production featuring Qian Jin's wife and her co-star. Tianchen "I killed them both" @ Qian Jin: wow he just like me fr. (But nah this definitely raises more questions about the murder of his wife). (Also, just to note that I'm putting the different perspective of QJ meeting LTX and LTC down to the unreliable nature of Xiao Li relaying info initially rather than alternate timelines. Can't rule it out, of course (and the blood on Tianxi in only one of the tellings has me even more hesitant), but unreliable narrator seems an easier fit at this stage. We also know QJ doctored the case files and if LTC outright told him "I killed them both" then that sure didn't make it to the files.)

Qian Jin's motives now back up in the air. Initially it seemed as though he wanted the powers so he could bring his wife back, but with the revelation that he had reason to believe she was cheating (and pregnant with the person she was cheating on him with) the idea he would want her back seems... a lot less likely. Also, his break from morals is placed a lot earlier than it seemed from the outside. Those in the police thought he was outstanding etc etc until his wife died, but he was gone long before that. Ultimately, in both cases with alleged cheating it doesn't matter if the person themselves was cheating because they didn't deserve to be killed for it, but it is fascinating that we're presented with these two similar scenarios from two entirely different perspectives. Li Tianchen and Tianxi as victims of domestic abuse by the person who believes they're being cheated on whilst Qian Jin is the role of the husband who believes he's being cheated on. (The way the pregnancy reveal is played - QJ not seeing his wife often because he was always at work, her startling when caught on the phone - it does seem like he takes the pregnancy as confirmation that she was cheating as the pregnancy couldn't have been with him. She's already dead at that point though.)

With the current timeline we have, I don't know whether QJ engineered the initial killing of his wife (and the fact the culprit escaped legal justice actually kinda makes me think that he didn't), but I do think he used Tianchen after the fact to set up the suicide and suicide note of the killer

The serial killings. We originally believed there were eight in total, starting with Emma. However, this episode shifts the timeline somewhat. Liu Min says thank you for dealing with "that woman", but he still seems to have use of his legs so presumably "that woman" isn't Emma and this is taking place beforehand. Which would imply there are a number of extra victims the police haven't uncovered. (The alternative is that this flashback was in a timeline before the Emma stuff went so wrong and Liu Min still had use of his legs? I'm really hoping it's not this because it'd break my brain a bit) This also somewhat explains how the police were unable to tie motives together for the serial killings if it was a killing-for-hire type scenario, though I do still somewhat believe there's some underlying logic that QJ either bought into himself or was able to make Tianchen buy into in order to believe the victims weren't "innocent"

#link click #link click spoilers #shiguang daili ren spoilers #this is less down the speculation end but I loved the intertwining metaphors in the entire 'hunter' thing throughout #as well as the parallels about the cheating and the lack of total confirmation around that #because it makes you compare the two scenarios and wonder #as well as qian jin and what he saw in li tianchen because I think he saw himself honestly #he didn't know at this stage about his powers so that's not why he took to him #(also. unrelatedly. I really don't think we're done with chen bin. he's a loose end (not) walking)#oh and I don't want to edit my older spec post but I do now think tianxi is the one with the phone double crossing the other two #which should be clear enough from what we now know but the whole hospital timeline is funky so thought I'd say

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lucascecil · 1 year

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Something I read - Alien Bodies

Just as the War of the Daleks post, this is not a real time reaction anymore but rather something closer to a review. And I think I'll do every post from here on like that, so it's more about my thoughts and less a bunch of highlights.

There are a lot of great ideas here and it was a delightful read. Probably one of the books I read quickest, not only DW related ones but in my life at all. Also, SPOILERS warning. I'll talk about anything I must. So, let's start.

The obvious highlight are the characters. A lot of the great ideas this book portails are told through the characters and they all very different and unique. I can tell you about all of them, while in previous books I would have one or two side characters only that would stay with me.

The basic plot is great. We have this auction were all the biders obviously have their own agenda and over time there is this building tension that you know that's due to explode at some point. It got even better, and I laughed out loud when I read that, when it was revealed that what was being auctioned was the Doctor's body, from when he died in the far, far future.

Notably, Alien Bodies introduces the War in Heaven arc, which as far as I know is kind the books' Time War. But better! Because my main issue with New Who's Great Time War have been for quite some time how unimaginative it is. For starters it's too simples, a Time War should involve more than only two nations and honestly the Time Lords and the Daleks don't have that much of a great dynamic so I can say that they can hold up such a concept like a war through time by themselves. A time war for me should be hard to imagine because it's something that happens in an existencial plane that we can only imagine. The horrors of a time war should be almost impossible to picture, and they should be imaginative. Which New Who's Time War rarely is.

In Alien Bodies we start already with four factions. We have the time lords, of course, but there is some mystery surrounding them also as we see their future version and wonder how they got there. We meet the Celestis, which are time lords that saw the War in Heaven coming and decided to extract themselves from the timeline before other forces could, and now exists in a different reality more akin to ideas than physical beings. And of course they originate from the Celestial Intervetion Agency, I have no problem believing these assholes would do something like this. Then, of course, we have Faction Paradox, which are a cult of people of various races that worships the spirits of time, paradox, disruptions in the timeline - the kind of things that timelords would by rule try or act as they are fighting against. An finally we have the enemy, which is a nameless mysterious force that the timelords are fighting in their heaven, and at times it feels we know so much yet so little of them. Which is marvellous. They are in a literary sense the embodiement of the Other, of how we rationalise ways to make an enemy out of anything as long as we find in our differences a reason for conflict. They may be a physical force, they may be real, but by being faceless we are told that they are also more than that, they are war themselves.

Each one of these forces have a representative in the auction, alongside some freelancers. What makes the Doctor's body so interesting is that supposedly he went through so many changes until the end of his life, biodata changes, that there is a lot of information that can be gathered from his remains. And, of course, the Eighth Doctor sees in there a problem and a conflict. He wants to protect his body, but every second he spends in the City is a moment longer when he may be exposed to something from his future he really, REALLY, shouldn't know. And I also love that, because isn't timeline disruption the basics of a time war?

Biodata is a ever present concept throughout this book. There is a super dope vigilance system in the City that Qixotl - who is holding the auction - build around biodata that basically manipulates animals and plant life "DNA" and use their resources to protect the auction. Sam and Eight are pursued by leopards when they first arrive. There are tucans that scream horribly if they identify an intruder. There are areas of the ziggurat you can only access if they system allows you entry through your biodata. The product being sold is the Doctor's biodata. And there is this cool as fuck scene in the middle of the book when Sam and Kathleen - a human representative - are attacked by the zyggurat through a system that creates something that should incapacitate them using their biodata. Something engineered from your genes to be the perfect anti-you.

"[…] As a result, the leopards he’d introduced to the ecosystem had rapidly evolved neural systems capable of translating sensory information into pix-pulses and encoding the data as hormonal traces. Or, to put it another way, everything the animals witnessed got turned into TV pictures and stored in their urine."

But let's talk some specifics. I will divide the rest of the review by characters so I can say eveything I have to about them.

Our regulars! - Eighth and Sam

Eighth is great in this book. He has amazing scenes with everyone, he interacts well with all of them. He and the Colonel have this on and off relationship - they don't really hate each other, but they are playing chess with their own lives. Trying to get each other. It's nothing personal, it's not out of spite. It's their duty. There is this scene when Sam sees him going out of the TARDIS to meet the Colonel one more time and the way he looks embaressed tells me that yep, he was enjoying their mind games too.

He tries to give Sam his intimidating look at one point but, Sam thinks as his face changed recently from his last regeneration, he didn't get the hang of it yet. As he tries it later, though, Qixotl is scared in which is perhaps the first time Eight pulled it off. Eight is terrified when he sees the Faction agents and goes into panic wondering if they could have manipulated his timeline. Which is a justified question that I already know the answer of as I got some info about Sam's arc through the EDAs. And it's super interesting.

"Did he have the same history he woke up with, he wondered? Had he ever met the General, before today, or had the man been slotted into his life while he’d been asleep? Had Sam been here, yesterday? Had he been here?"

There is this bit that put a smile on my face when Eight says that Smith is his nom de guerre and has been lifetime after lifetime. He changed so much up to his death that his dead corpse is still psychic active. I thought that bit about his biodata aged interestingly when you think of the Timeless Child (even though it's not a concept I like much, I thought of it immediatly). The scenes when Eight allucinates in the end of the book are great, as is his confrontation of the Celestis.

There is this paragraph which I love:

"The Doctor was concerned. For someone who had, on many occasions, fooled himself into thinking the universe was his responsibility and his responsibility alone, concern was nothing new."

There is also an explanation thrown around about how Eight gets what he needs out his pockets that's also so cool:

"He reached into his jacket pocket. Over the years, people had often commented on his ability to produce exactly the right item from his pockets at exactly the right time. Some had speculated that his pockets were extensions of the TARDIS, others had guessed he was just lucky. But then, they’d never read Yeltstrom’s Karma and Flares: The Importance of Fashion Sense to the Modern Zen Master. They didn’t appreciate the things a sentient life-form could achieve, if he was totally at one with the lining of his jacket."

There is a scene where Eight almost kills Qixotl and while it does make sense that he was being manipulated, I wish we see this violent Eight for real at least one time.

As a rule, Eight seems to be against the idea of destiny. Which gave me this quote:

"‘His imagination’s getting the better of him. There’s no room for destiny in a universe this small.’"

There was one time the Doctor begruged Sam because she said a simulation from the TARDIS was a holographic - damned humans trying to simplify eveything - but she thinks that's rich coming from the guy who uses maser-modulated artron energy to make toast.

Sam doesn't think of Eight as a person anymore, not exactly. For her, he is more of an equation of the universe, a constant through it all even, and that thought is as cruel as it is accurate. Sam make an obscure pop culture joke - Ace would be proud.

Sam has a long talk about getting used to otherworldly experiences with Bregman which is not an standout scene but it's decent. Also, the is this bit: "A side-effect of the TARDIS, or something in her genes?". That's a (because I already knew about it) foreshadowing of what already happened and is yet to happen to Sam.

So let's talk about it. Sam is perhaps the only unnecessary character in this book, which is a pity because she is the companion at the time and otherwise this is great. It's a huge step up from her characterisation in War of the Daleks but there is much less character work done with her when you compare it, for example, to Vampire Science.

While there isn't much character development, there are a lot of cool ideas thrown about Sam. Namely, she has two biodatas which means her timeline was manipulated and - this book already strongly sugests - so that she would be a perfect companion for the Doctor. In a evil, cruel, way. The bits when Sam is terrified that all her life was engineered around Eight and when Eight is terrified for the same reason because of what it means for both of them - they are perfect. There is a moment Sam thinks of Eight as a virus. The world he never met her, another life. The real one. It's violent and it's not at all like the Sam we have seen so far. It hits you hard.

BUT, as much as I like that plot, it's not really about Sam. It's a commentary on expectation and cliches of the companion trope that laughs at her character without doing much to bring out of her something different from previous companions. The plot is unique, sure, but what does make Sam, herself, the person, not the circunstamces around her, interesting to read? I have some answers because as often frustrated I am with her, there is also some things I like in her. But the books should have made a stronger statement. We still have time - this is book six and she stays until book twenty six - but I don't know if I am optmistic.

Mr Qixotl

The holder of the auction and the responsible for bringing so many cool ideas together for us. Besides the auction itself and the vigilance system which I have already talked about, there is also this time when Qixotl thinks the City is being attacked by anarchitects and this is such a fucking wonderful concept:

"One problem at a time, he decided. Anarchitects. Think anarchitects. Disembodied intelligences, created by the enemy during the early years of their assault on Gallifrey. According to the information the Celestis had slipped to the High Council, the average anarchitect was like a primitive computer virus, a cluster of pre-programmed instructions designed to corrupt and re-order data. But anarchitects could exist outside the confines of a computer system. They could infiltrate architecture, inhabit buildings, manipulate corners and angles. They could disrupt the information that held structures together, rebuild whole cities at will."

From the start there are some clues to Qixotl being a time lord or related since there are some aspects of the zyggurat there are similar to a TARDIS. There is this (again) cool as fuck description, for example:

"Nevertheless, a new doorway spontaneously appeared in the wall of one of the side-passages, materialising with an ugly grating sound which – according to one popular mythology, at least – was the sound of Time itself groaning in agony. In defiance of the normal laws of spatial dimension, a new set of rooms appeared on the other side of the doorway."

Eight makes a perfect description of him:

"Next to her was a rumpled little man who looked like he wanted to be somewhere else. The Doctor got the impression he’d wanted to be somewhere else ever since he’d been born."

Qixotl also gave me some laughs. There is that moment when Eight finally understand who this stupid man invited and then asks "what's next, the Daleks?" and Qixotl is like "well…" and I laughed out loud.

Also:

"Just my luck, thought Qixotl, he’s in one of his self-righteous regenerations."

Also also:

"‘Because “Qixotl” is what they call the god of ludicrous profit margins on Golobus. Quite ego-centric of you, I’d have thought.’"

Also also also:

"The Doctor dragged Mr Qixotl along the corridor, his fingers twisted around the man’s ear lobe."

There is also this bit when Qixotl thinks about Dalek sex and I would be grateful if I never thought about that ever again.

He has the perfect ending doing a bargain to stay alive but leaving with empty hands. It just fits his character. However, I have one question. Was he supposed to be Drax? Because they sound a bit similar to me.

Colonel Kortez and Kathleen

The humans representatives, but UNYSINC's is more accurate. The colonel asks the Doctor about the Green Knight tale as a way to demonstrate the perpetual "hate" of their relationship as cyclical, eternal, their duty. Because so is the nature of a soldier. He says Earth only puts up with the Doctor because they think he is immortal, but the Colonel will prove he is not. The Doctor is as much of a menace for Earth as any other alien, and he is a menace he has to destroy. He being a bit of a lunatic is used for humor for some of the book and honestly it gave me some laughs. His proposal at the auction is so ridiculous it was hilarious, and then later he gets a bomb out of his pockets to hand it off to Eight.

Kathleen thinks - and is probably right - that the Colonel is suffering from Displacer Syndrome which by what I could catch from the text is paranoia fulled by aliens contact which 1. another fucking cool concept and 2. it's fair, actually, that some people would get a little bit crazy. UNYSINC personnel is fifteen times more likely to commit suicide. She has this mini weird character arc that she barely had any alien contact before going to the auction and throughout the experience starts to feel out of place herself - which is also fair, she meets some weird aliens, is attacked by a AI designed to build upon her worst fears and weaknesses, is attacked and controled by a cultist, almost dies, and then goes to a conceptual plane populated by beings much more powerful than her. She deserves a raise. At the end of the day she thinks the Colonel is not crazy at all for the Displacer Syndrome but also don't see herself as small anymore. She may be the most important person ever, actually. Just like all of us little beings.

"[…] She'd told herself she was just a stupid human, part of the universe no one really gave a toss about. She understood, now, that Kortez had reached the same conclusion, when he’d come face-to-face with the Selachians all those years ago. He was like one of the zombies in Mictlan, a hollowed-out soul, a slave to anything that looked bigger and smarter than him. So here he was, completely out of control of his life, giving in to whatever “destiny” seemed to make sense to him at the time. Displacer Syndrome at its worst.

But the Doctor had shown her the truth. He hadn’t meant to, but he’d given the game away. He’d needed her in Mictlan, because without her, he would have been a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it. Not making a sound, not making a difference. However big and smart the other things in the universe thought they were – the Time Lords, the Celestis, Faction Paradox, whatever – they needed Bregman, and all the others like her. Without her, all the games they played across the universe, all the auctions and the wars and the power struggles, were utterly meaningless. They were ideas without heads to live in. Gods without followers.

Kathleen Bregman, a.k.a. Lieutenant Kathleen Bregman, a.k.a. Miss Chicken-Legs, was a real-life, honest-to-goodness stupid human. Ergo, she was one of the most powerful beings in existence.

Yeah. She could live with that."

That's one of the book stronger themes, actually. How there is little sense to this, or any war really, without the little people because power holds no meaning without someone, something lesser than. And that's the cruellest detail of it all. It's not always said in a negative tone. No story holds any meaning without a witness.

Earth is now in shards, it fell apart. There's a brazilian urban tribes in Canada, UNIT doesn't exist anymore and its substitute UNYSINC is already decadent. UN is useless nowadays. USA became this warring states like devasted land. And it's only the 50s or 60s of the XXI century, and the most shocking thing about it all is that I fully believe Earth can fall apart until them.

Faction Paradox

JUST. SO. COOL. I know this is not their first story as they are in Christmas in a Rational Planet, but as I haven't read that yet so this is the first time I am reading a story with them. SO COOL.

So, two questions. Supposedly they recruit from all races, but does that include Time Lords? Because supposedly they hate them and yada yada.

I need to give you their actual description from the book because it's great:

"Even in primitive cultures, where temporal physics is considered to be little more than science fiction,people are aware of the problems time travel can cause. Perhaps the most famous of all the fourdimensional conundrums is the so-called “Grandfather Paradox”. Suppose, goes the argument, I wereto travel into the past and murder my own grandfather, as a young man. If I did this, my father wouldnever exist, and so – logically – neither would I. However, if I never existed, I could never have travelled back in time and murdered my grandfather. Hence, my father did exist, and so I did travel back intime and murder my grandfather… and so on and so forth. But in time-active cultures such as that of the Time Lords, these paradoxes are more than merefantasy. To them, the perils of time travel are harsh realities, and Time Lord folk stories are full of cautionary tales about characters who inadvertently murder their own ancestors, or disobedient childrenwho break the First Law of Time (though there is some disagreement in Time Lord society as to whatthe First Law actually is). For Gallifreyans, the word “Paradox” has the same connotations that theword “Sethite” did for the ancient Osirans, or that the word “Satan” still does for many human tribes. “Paradox” is the greatest imaginable evil, the dark side of the time-travelling lifestyle, a horror neverto be mentioned in polite society… […] Inevitably, there are those who have a morbid fascination with such evils. Just as the human race hasspawned “Satan-worshippers”, at least one group exists which has dedicated itself to the study ofParadox, turning its back on traditional Time Lord values and instead embracing a form of dark sha-manic spiritualism. Indeed, this group is not unlike one of the voodoo cults of Mutter’s Spiral, with itsown pantheon of spirits and demons, and its own occult rituals. The group is known as FactionParadox, and it’s hard to describe the dread this name conjures up in the minds of the Time Lordarchons…"

I love that they are the satanists equivalent and that time lords see paradoxes as Satan analogs. It's a great idea for incoporating in a time active culture. And it makes perfect sense to exist a counter culture. I do not like how they compare the Faction to voodoo throughout the book tho as I think it's a bit offensive and insensitive. It's to be expected out of a 90's novel, perhaps, but it was a detail that bugged me and maybe the only things I actually disliked in the book.

The Spirits of the Faction are supposedly as older as Rassilon's time and I love it because I do think elements from that era should be incorporated in time lord culture as myths. Of course, time lords don't believe in them exactly, but there are people that do and that's enough for me. The Faction's Story chapter was great and terrifying. I felt so bad, it's so horrible to picture this eight year old kid being killed by his older self as punishment for eternity. In a way it's an analog for me of the Christian's God punishments when insulted, but aplied to a time active culture. It works greatly.

"This was his punishment, then. Cousin Sanjira, aged fifty, stabbed the boy clean through the heart. Young Sanjira, aged eight, cried out once and died. But if Young Sanjira died, then Cousin Sanjira had never existed. Which meant he Couldn’t have killed the boy. Which meant he did exist. Which meant he could have killed the boy. Which meant he’d never existed. Which meant he couldn’t have killed the boy. Which meant he did exist. Which meant… Cousin Sanjira murdered the child, and was himself murdered, again and again and again. He felt his life being disassembled and reassembled, disassembled and reassembled, disassembled and reassembled, until his timeline swallowed its own tail, and there was nothing left of him but divine and perfect Paradox."

But it opens room to my second question. Does he disappears from the timeline or is time-locked in a kind-of realm only he exists in? Cousin Justine later thinks about what happened to him and prays the spirits are kinder to her. So she knows of it. But is that because she is a time traveller and more sensitive to these kind of disruptions SPECIALLY as part of the Faction or did she actually see what was left of the Cousin after the punishment? Like, does he die and his punishment happens only in a different "dimension", a pocket kinda, that the other character can't access, or is it actually a physical thing in the "normal" timeline?

I don't need answers for that questions (the time lord one I do), but it was interesting to wonder about what the punishment meant for the people left behind.

Oh, oh… the Faction mask's are Time Lords skrulls from an aborted timeline and that's cool, that's badass, that's horrible and even a bit funny and I didn't know about it.

There is a cool description of Grandfather Paradox:

"Sanjira tried to draw another breath, but the air turned to smoke in his lungs. The Grandfather had one arm, the family legends claimed. He’d cut off the other one himself, to remove the tattoo the Time Lords had branded him with. Could it really be…?"

Justine is a badass. There is this scene she fights Homunculette and she knows exactly where to hit. From out of the three Faction character we have a point of view, she is the one that truthfully believes in the Spirits. Because of that, she is the only one that at some level makes sense out of Colonel Kortez. She is also the only character that reacts positively to Trask as while the others see an aberration of nature, she sees something that is true to all she believes in.

The Faction can control the body of others given the right ritual. Coolest than that, they can be exorcised while doing that which Eight does with Little Brother. Ouch, that hurt. When the Doctor tries to use the Spirits to his favor later in the story, though, they don't answer kindly. They are a force to be dealt with carefully.

The Doctor wonders if Grandfather Paradox is anything akin to the Celestis and what they would do to the Faction if they thought about it.

The Krotons

I already knew they were in this book and still was surprised when they showed up - because they are much more interesting here. I really don't like The Dominators neither The Return of the Krotons, so imagine my surprise when I liked them in this book.

For a start, they have a great introduction by being found after killing two Daleks, which stablishes them as a genuine danger from the let go. And then the text tells you it's a Kroton and - they could have been this great before?

I love that they are not a carbon-based lifeform and that influences at lot both their perceptions of the world and how different they are from the alien lifeforms we usually see in Doctor Who - and they should be more common, damn. I like the explanation of why they aren't that Zagreus gave us, but I need more of this anyway.

They can shatter their body into little crystals and rebuild themselves in any form they like. They have a kind of hive mind and every Kroton unit biologically is obligated to respond to the Kroton Absolute. No matter how non seriously they are taken during the auction, apart from the Shift they are the ones that make the most damage through the story.

Homunculette and Marie, the humanoid TARDIS

Yep. They are amazing. I love how little of a fuck Homunculette gives and how faw he would go because that's what I expect from a desperate man from a terrible war. He is agressive, he treats most of the characters badly, justified or not, but the book still takes some time to make us symphatize with him as he mourns Marie when she is thought dead. It's sad and it's believable as a man cries over what he thought of as the last good thing in his miserable life.

"Marie – the dead heart of Marie – lay at the centre of the junction, her spine pressed against the floor, her head tilted at an angle that made her look as though she’d broken her neck. The entire left side of her body was missing. It was as if someone had drawn a line, a smooth contour, from her cheek to her ankle, and torn away everything on one side of it. Her left arm was gone. So was a lot of her face. She was a person his companion she was his dead"

Marie is gorgeous. A gorgeous concept. She is an advanced TARDIS type from the far future and so she is completely different from anything we knew of as a TARDIS before.

She being able to pass as living being of the time period she lands on is amazing. It opens a lot of opportunities - like what could go wrong if the chameleon circuit ever broke which is hinted at some point - and there is a lot of body horror just because of the visuals. The descriptions of Marie opening up or people entering in her are kinda gross, I love it.

"Homunculette gave her his best scowl. ‘Open up,’ he said. Marie sighed, then drew a line across her face with her finger, from the centre of her forehead to the tip of her chin. Her head opened up obligingly, the crack unfolding into a doorway big enough to accommodate a decent-sized humanoid."

When she broke down and imploded, it was terrifying. The descriptions of losing control of your body as your "cells" are driven mad by paranoia are horrible. I love them.

She has developed a personality of a kind, which is not something we hadn't seem in the Doctor's TARDIS but is much more defined here.

"‘If you give an intelligent entity a chameleon circuit, you can hardly expect her not to develop a sense of vanity."

She, like the Krotons and the Shift and Trask, experience life very differently which give us a lot of great descriptions.

Homunculette hates the Faction which is justified. I laughed a bit at his attempts to kill them. The man just wanted blood. He also took escapology classes in Gallifrey and I have to ask what the hell is the Gallifreyan curriculum. To be fair, I am 100% sure the reason this is even a class is the Doctor.

The Time Lords are not as strong as they were as the Capitol was attacked and they lost info. They need all they can get, even though Homunculette never admits it, which is just a spot on characterisation for the middle man time lord.

At this point the TARDIS are not manufactured anymore but rather organic, more classicaly alive. The Time Lords wanted to try out making them reproduce, seeing what they could do out of natural evolution, genetic exchange, what good it would do for them. It also is related to some terrifying scenes of Marie imprisonated as a infant TARDIS as she wasn't ready to the world, according to the time lords, yet. It's even more heartbreaking when she remembers one time she did reproduce, and how her child was taken from her.

I love this idea. It does something completely different with the TARDISes and… wow. It's great.

Trask and the Celestis

Trask is barely a character, but that was the intention and it works. I know early I said the same about Sam but in a bad light, but mind you that's completely different for a side character than a companion. They have distinct roles to play.

What terrifies about Trask is not his appearance, or him being a walking dead, no matter if that's what the characters focus on. What terrifies me is how little agency he has. How little control of his body, of his life, of his memories. He has no feelings anymore. The closest he gets to it is being "angry" at Eight because he blames his death on him.

There is this horrible description of how he smiles the first time Bregman sees him because that's the programmed attitude someone should have in a social interaction, but he continues smiling after she leaves as there is no need to do anything for himself. His body only works in fuction of what he can get out of others.

"[…] Beyond that, there was nothing of importance to consider. No need for any new thoughts inside his head. Ideas are for the living."

There is this description of his death that stuck with me:

"Knowing that when he died, it would be his fault. There was no peace in a death like that."

The Dead Man's Story chapter is my favorite of the book. It's a masterpiece about will and fear, about freedom, death and, more important, memory. It breaks my heart how it ends as it started, with the narrator telling his story forever as that is the only way he can keep some of himself.

But as time goes and goes, his story gets muddier and the details are harder to recall and he knows that eventually there will be nothing left to remember.

"I have to tell my story. I have to give myself more time. I’m trying to stay in one piece… I mean, I’m trying to keep everything together, but… Wait. Let me start again. I have to tell my story. Not because I think anybody’s going to be interested, not because I think anybody’s listening. I have to tell my story, because if I don’t, then I’ll forget it, and if I forget it, there won’t be anything of me left."

It's all because of the Celestis. They can make these faustian pacts with people so they are saved from death - but when time is due their body then belongs to the Celesti for their liking, and there is nothing you can do. Which is just the kind of fucked up thing the CIA would do so yep, fuck them.

They live in Mictlan, the city of the dead, out of reality, superior. They are now wondering if they should aid the enemy against Gallifrey, not because of a cause but because they are bored. Which again is something I can actually picture the CIA doing and fuck them.

Still, they are afraid of the Doctor, as he enters there, near the end of his life. They are also one of my favorite things of this book, which is filled with things for me to favor.

The Shift and the Enemy

I love both of them. I already discussed why I think the Enemy is such a great idea in the beginning, so let me focus in the Shift a little bit. I like how he changes the reading experience and makes something different out of it being a book. It reminds me a little bit of Danny the Street from Doom Patrol and I love it for it.

It's always great when we get concepts in Doctor Who that are completely outside of what we usually see - non humanoids, for a start - and while I get why that may be harder to work with on TV… c'mon, both audio and text are perfect medias to experiment.

The Shift is not that different from the Celestis - it was created out of their technology. It makes me wonder how non special the Celestis are, between this and Grandfather Paradox.

All over the book, the Shift is manipulating the characters, whispering thoughts in their head, making them more violent, more susceptible to fight. And there are a lot of hints to that when you backtrack the narrative. It's well thought out.

The Shift is one more victory for inovation in a book that is fighting a war for imagination and winning.

Final thoughts

Now, all that is left is for me to say farewell to what is now one of my favorites books ever.

But I left the best for last.

Alien Bodies opens with Third and Sarah making a funeral for Laika. It ends with Eight, alone, burying his own body besides Laika. The only witness to his own final farewell.

Then he explodes the planet and their bodies are now part of a new star.

"‘You buried Laika,’ Sarah had said. ‘But who’ll bury you?’ The Doctor trudged across the surface of Quiescia, the casket following in his wake. Wake; an apt word, he told himself, because that was exactly what this was. A one-man wake, a funeral with him as gravedigger, pallbearer, mourner, priest, and corpse. He could have asked Sam to help, but he knew she would have asked too many questions. Somehow, she’d managed to get through this whole affair without finding out whose body was in the box, and he didn’t want to have to break the news to her now the worst of it was over. […] He stood by the hole for a few minutes more, his eyes closed, his lips moving. He couldn’t think of a decent prayer, so he settled for a piece of prose he thought his future self would have approved of. He didn’t bother marking the gravestone with another name. […] He hadn’t expected it to be like this. He’d thought about his funeral, more than once, and he’d always imagined his grave-side being surrounded by people. Old friends come to pay their last respects, old enemies come to gloat, only to find that there was something missing from their lives all of a sudden. But he hadn’t expected this. No, nothing like this. […] The Doctor imagined all the things that had ceased to be, up on the hilltop. The casket, the tombstone, the remains of a small Russian dog. And more, of course. But he didn’t turn around. He stepped into the TARDIS, closed the doors behind him, and pressed the dematerialisation switch before he’d even bothered to lay in a new course. The ship slid away from the planet, leaving behind nothing but silence and a few loose pebbles. Another hundred million nights passed on Quiescia. Nothing changed, and no one else came."

This is a ★★★★★ for me.

#bookshelf #Eighth Doctor #Sam Jones #Doctor Who #EDAs

17 notes · View notes

rmoonstoner · 2 years

Text

Opalescent Dreamer

***

Notes:

Not Canon timeline. I'm pulling things from here and there. I've been dying to write a fic with Dr. Strange in it after watching the Multiverse of Madness. Reader is a natural Dream Walker with a slight psychic ability. This results in the reader becoming proficient in magic.

***

Story will be 18+

MK system x Reader

Warnings:

Eventual smut, angst, fluff, death, gore, blood, foul language traumatic experiences

Summary:

You're a traveller, always have been, always will be. On one fateful trip to Egypt, you find a small shiny greenish opal, and things start to get intensely weird from that moment on. You start having way too real dreams about other people's lives. They are always about the same two people. A peculiar man with three faces, and a strange doctor learning about magic. As you dream about them, learning about their lives, you feel like something is pushing you towards them. While time passes, you teach yourself magic as the doctor learns it, while also yearning to meet with the man with three faces.

***

Chapter 1 - Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This

***

You have been having peculiar dreams, and you've tried everything to understand them. You did extensive research on dreams. All your information was just theories. Many of them were different, like they were telling you the future in subtle ways, or about your past, while others claimed they were you subconsciously trying to tell yourself what you truly wanted, but the most common theory you found was that dreams showed you lives that you could have been living.

Yet those types of dreams never seemed to be about your life. No, they were always about other people. Their lives, and what they were doing. You saw things as if they were from your point of view, but you knew it was disconnected somehow, like you were a fly on the wall, or looking through a stranger's eyes. A stranger that could never have really been you, or any version of you. Dreams are a window to other realities, and you have been dreaming of strange things for quite some time, at least for the past five years.

It happened only after you had found a strange rock buried in the sands on a trip to Egypt. One that you swear whispers these dreams to you at night. You also think this rock does other things to you, like keeping you safe from harm and somehow heals you when you're sick, or injured. You believe this, because you haven't had any health problems since, and somehow you've managed to avoid all sorts of major injuries from any accidents you've been in. You've also found you get thirsty and hungry a lot less. Ever since then, you've worn the rock around your neck, and the dreams kept coming, the wounds always healing. A buzzing of something bittersweet running through your veins.

Most of the recurring dreams that you keep having are about a man with many faces and talents. In some of these dreams, you're nothing more than a background character, serving coffee or tea to him in a diner. In other dreams, you're friends with him, exchanging friendly banter, and doing things that friends do.

But again, it was never you. Should you ever glance at a mirror, or a reflective surface, you would see someone else. An old woman, a young boy, a pregnant teenager, a grumpy middle aged man, a beautiful woman with golden skin…

None of them were you, but you still saw what they did, how they lived.

The only variance to these odd point of view dreams, were the times when it was clear that you were looking through a mirror at this man, when he wasn't aware of you, when he wasn't looking at you.

But no matter the dream, this man always talks to himself, like he's talking to someone who isn't there. He'll talk for the unseen person, his voice changing to suit whoever these people are supposed to be. Sometimes, he changes into those people, and when he does, it's like he's become an entirely different person. Sometimes you swear the other reflections of him make different faces, like they aren't reflections at all. It leads you to think there are three different men, but you knew better.

Sometimes he would look at the mirror, and he would see you, really see you. It was during those quiet moments that a silent understanding would run through you, that he knew you existed, but he never saw you unless he was looking deeply into the mirror, in a world where everything felt off, like being stuck in a room full of mirrors.

Those were the times you quickly figured out this man was dreaming, stuck in the same confusing mirror world as you.

This man, despite his seemingly random personality changes, always changes into one of three distinct personalities in both types of dreams. It is so consistent, that you know this man probably cannot help the way his brain short circuits and forces him to change to suit whatever situation arises. The switch always looks painful and disorienting, with a brief look of complete terror, followed by confusion, and understanding, and finally acceptance.

One is super grumpy and off-putting, and he comes off as brash and rude, but he always smiles at you when he sees you in the mirror. The second is very humble and gentle, and he is usually kind and polite to you, more so when he stands behind the reflective glass, grinning sheepishly at you, like you're something precious. The last one is always close to you, quiet and calm. He is usually the one in the mirror, because the other two are awake most of the time. This one sings to you in Spanish, even when he seems to be nothing more than a faded image in a dream.

But he is real, so very real. Sometimes you see this man, but he's different, like it's yet another version of this specific persona. It happens with the other two personalities, but not nearly as often as the one with a dangerous smile, that flat cap, and that blood red eye. It takes you a while to figure out that your dreams are forcibly picking this specific man with three identities, and linking you to him, especially the one that speaks fluent Spanish.

But in the other types of dreams this odd Spanish personality is dangerous and fearless, quick and cunning. Those are the dreams he doesn't see you at all, and those show you just how deadly the man with three faces truly is.

And after those dreams, the mirror-like ones got even more real. That dangerous man would whisper to you that he longed for something more. A connection to someone that wasn't the two other people in his head. Whenever he gazes at you, his eyes go soft, and he never fails to regard you with a toothy grin and wink.

But some of these dreams don't appear to be just you peering into an odd, endless room of mirrors, some sort of dimension that makes your stomach curl, and your mind dizzy…

Some of these dreams seem to force you to watch from the reflections that surround this man, wherever he is. In these kinds of dreams, you can't communicate with him. You feel like this man, and any of his alters, never see you, even when you've tried to speak. This happens for three years, and then one day, you're in one of these types of weird out of body experiences. Everything is so real, but it feels like an acid trip on overdrive. The way the world shifts and moves like liquid crystals, melting, and reforming into sharp points, makes you feel like it's an in-between world. A realm where you cannot be seen, heard, or perceived…

The current scene in front of you is alarming. It's that man again, but he is alone, and he's hurt. He's dragging himself through sand at night, and he gasps for breath as he leaves a thick gouge in the dusty Earth under him. You see blood in the trail he leaves. You're jolted forwards for a closer look as your heart beats wildly in your chest.

You don't understand how it's happening, because there's nothing reflective around you, that is until you look again and see you're much closer, and then in the blink of an eye he is far away again. It happens again and again as he crawls, and you realize he's getting wet, as are the sands around him as it turns dark and soaked with water.

Rain.

It's raining you figure out, so you try to hover in a certain spot, and try not be dragged with the droplets of water.

It worked, and now you are looking around, desperately, trying to see if there's a building he can use as a shelter. Even a small oasis with water. Anything at all.

You see a weird temple, made of smooth white marble. Marble that doesn't belong out in the desert. But it is something, so you go back to the man, and try to convey that he should turn just a little to the right, or he will miss it. He doesn't budge in the direction he is going, and you know he's getting to the point of missing the shelter. You go to his side, the side that's towards the temple, and you try to think on how to get him to turn towards you. Towards safety and cover.

You scream at him. You wail and shout, using everything in you. He pauses and coughs. You shout again, louder this time. He turns his head, face bloodied, sand sticking to his brow. His black hair is a mess, matted with dirt and more blood. He stares directly at you, shock on his face like he's seen you-

But what he actually sees is the top of the temple that pokes up from behind the ridge of the dune behind you. He sighs, feeling a little energy has been given to him because of the rain. He tries to stand, managing to steady himself as he trudges towards the stone structure. You cheer him on, gliding through the rain after him. He makes it inside, and you follow, only to see an odd statue, and not much else, the building crumbling everywhere except around the massive figure in this room.

Then you watched as time seemed to shift, the air around you feeling like soup. A booming voice echoed loudly, deep and commanding as it offered the man salvation in exchange for becoming his knight. As it spoke, a fine mist appeared, and a tall figure materialized above the man, seemingly as if he were sprayed from the statue's mouth.

From what you could tell, this being was Egyptian, and he looked similar to the statue. His voice was thick and raspy, like an ancient being from the distant past. He looked ancient, and it didn't help that he looked quite dead. He was a mummy, with a skull of a bird for a head. You gasped, and made some sort of noise, and the skull seemed to turn all the way around to face you while the body stayed facing the injured man.

"You don't belong here." The being rumbled into your mind.

"Yet." You shivered in fear, not knowing what that meant.

Then the being turned his head back around and he asked the man again to be his knight, and he would save him. The man agreed, and you watched as his body rode into the air and glowed. He went rigid, a silent scream on his lips. His eyes were white, shooting rays as pure as moon light up to the moon that hung in the sky. Cracking of bone and cartilage could be heard, the man grunting and huffing in discomfort as his bones healed and reset themselves. His wounds healed themselves, cuts closing, bruises fading. Even the dirt and grime melted away as the being directed the rain to wash his new knight clean with moon blessed water.

A white suit of armour made of wrappings formed all around him. Thick white bands covered every inch of his body, forming a perfect suit of armor. He was lowered to the ground where he crouched on his knees, kneeling before the skull headed man. The knight looks up, his gleaming white eyes piercing right into your very soul, causing your heart to wrench in your chest…

The deity turns to you and bellows again.

"Be gone, until we meet again."

In an instant, the image shatters like glass, the pieces falling away like they were being gone, sucked into a vortex vacuum. You scream as the world whirls around you, the images being dragged away, leaving you in dark and cold water.

***

You wake up, gasping for breath as you drag yourself out of the sheets. Everything feels so real now, but it felt real there, too, but in a different way. You steal yourself a breath, then you get out of bed to go to work. You tried for days not to think about that dream.

Weeks go by, and the dreams suddenly switch from this olive skinned man, to a completely different one. They start out as mundane days of life for him, getting ready for work, or shopping. Some days are ones where this man is at dinner parties, or important functions, but you can tell that he hates them. You see glimpses into his job, all graphic and bloody. He isn't killing anyone, but saving them in a sterile hospital full of bright lights. He appears to be a surgeon of some sorts.

Another few dreams, and you've figured out he is a brain doctor, a neurosurgeon. You haven't seen his face yet, but you know for sure this man isn't the one that has three people inside of him, because his hands are different, and so is his voice. This man sounds cocky, like he is self important somehow.

Finally one night you catch a glimpse of him looking in the mirror, and he's doing up his tie. He is a pale skinned man, with a black goatee, and short hair with streaks of white above his ears. He is thin and healthy looking, but you can't quite tell his body type with the clothes he is wearing. He is wearing a nice three piece suit, and he turns to a beautiful woman, taking her by the hand. You hear her name, Christine, and she calls back, saying his.

Stephen. Dr. Stephen Strange.

You have one of them in this timeline. You have met him before. He's not very nice, and he's pushy and a bit arrogant. You met him when you needed someone to help you with your mother, but he had turned you down, saying her condition was fatal, and inoperable.

You never held it against him, because your mother died shortly after, about a week after meeting him. That was a year ago now. He did have the decency to send a card with his condolences when she died, so there was that.

The dream flashes ahead to a car driving down the winding roads of the countryside, and then something eventful happens.

A car crash.

The woman that's with him dies, but the doctor lives. He screams when he holds her corpse, and the dream cuts out.

More weeks go by, with you watching this man descend in madness. He's upset because his hands are ruined, which is weird, because they were perfectly fine in the dream where the woman had died. It takes a few more dreams to realize this is a different man, because he talks about the woman as if she is alive.

The dreams seem to speed through montages of this Stephen going through the healing process. Physical therapy, retraining his useless pitiful hands. He manages to heal all the cuts, scrapes, bruises, but there is soft tissue damage that leaves his hands barely able to write with a pen, or to open a bottle of water.

He gets frustrated and throws himself into research. He scours the internet, libraries, and anything he can get his broken hands on. At first he's looking to cure himself, learning about experimental procedures and wishing to try anything in the hopes it might work.

He gets turned down by many people, his people. Fellow doctors and surgeons alike all tell him they can do nothing to help him. Stephen begs and pleads. He tries to offer his wealth, but even then, he still gets told he is a lost cause.

He decides to seek answers elsewhere. He searches far and wide, ending up in an odd looking temple halfway across the world. He trains in the Mystic arts, and learns magic in an effort to ease his grieving heart. You catch small details of what he was doing, how he manages to conjure the magic, and in time, you discover you can do the same when awake.

***

Again, the dreams focus on this man, but it's the one whose lady had died in the accident, and his hands are perfectly fine. He too descends into madness, lost in the memories of his dearly departed love. He becomes depressed, and he blames himself, no matter what anyone tells him.

Again he goes through the journey to learn magic, but now he has a new goal. This goal is to learn how to manipulate magic to bring his dead love back. He's voiced it once before, and he was threatened not to try to reverse time, or the sorcerers won't train him. He agrees, staying quiet about his true intentions, just so he can learn the magic.

These dreams go over the spells he's been learning, but he's now channeling his power from darker dimensions. The result is learning different spells and different techniques. A lot of them are dangerous, like perhaps this one is trying to learn higher level spells than the other version did. This one is learning at double the speed, like he is fueled by gaining enough knowledge to turn back the clock.

***

You were bored one day, fully awake and you thought about the hand gestures you saw, and what he was told, or what he learned by himself. How to summon the power from deep within, and pull it from the world around you, or from the realms that existed parallel to it. The magic you produced was a different colour than he had. His was a reddish orange, glowing like the radiant sun, while yours were a brilliant blinding white like the moon.

You became so absorbed in the dreams, focusing on these magic lessons this man and his other self were showing you, with them being completely unaware of it. You ended up quitting your job in order to practice these techniques and spells daily, and you worked hard to make sure you perfected whatever you saw. Each dream showed you exactly what you needed to know, like you were sharing this journey with the two different doctors, gaining new knowledge when they did.

Both versions of the doctor started collecting magical artifacts, one in particular they were heavily invested in, The Eye of Agamotto. They both lost themselves in research, which annoyed you. You wanted to learn more magic, but all they were doing was reading books and scrolls all the time.

So, you watched. You took in his surroundings, studied the open books he had, and tried to remember the things you had read. If this little green amulet was so important, then you should know everything about it, not that it would do you any good. You'd probably never see the real thing.

Life took an unexpected turn about two years after. By then, you had mastered everything both Dr. Stranges had mastered. You knew everything there was to know about them and their lives, which was now starting to get boring. You knew everything about their personal items, like the Cloak of Levitation, the Eye, and the books they held.

***

A couple of months later, you were on a trip to New York, hoping to find the Sanctum, the place that was used as a link to the Kamar Taj. You wanted to meet Dr. Strange, and see which version from your dreams was the one that resided in this world. You honestly were hoping for the one with broken hands, because that had an air of purity to him, whereas the other felt like the darkness was reeling him in, tainting him with dark magic.

You hopped into the back of a cab, hoping the cabbie knew the street you wanted by just describing the building. You managed to get about half way through your description, when you looked up at the driver. He was patiently sitting there, facing the road, both leather clad hands gripping the steering wheel loosely.

"Sí. I know where that is. People tend to stay away from there, because weird magic shit keeps happening." The man's rough voice said as he reached over to flick his ticker on, and pulled the car out into the road. You knew that voice.

You squinted at him, studying the side of his face for a long while. He had a sharp jaw, thick lips, dark olive skin, and dark curly hair under a flat cap. He looked so familiar, but you had a hard time trying to see his face from the middle seat in the back. You slowly looked into the mirror, and you could see his eyes focused on the road. He had dark circles under his brown eyes, eyes that looked like honey and chocolate. From what you could see of his nose, it was long, but rounded perfectly, seemingly the perfect size for his face. He grew aware that you were staring, and he stopped the car at a red light.

"Something on your mind, señorita?" He asked, his voice crisp with a Spanish twang to the Chicago accent.

"Oh, uh… Nothing. I like your hat. It suits your handsome face." You sheepishly said, and his face faltered for a brief moment, before a smug grin melted onto his face.

"Gracias." He replied, and the light turned green.

Now at your destination, you took notice of his face when he turned fully to you for payment.

It was that man you had been dreaming about before Dr. Strange. The one with the multiple people living inside of him.

"Thank you, sir. May I have your card? For when I need a ride after?" You asked him as you brought out more than double the fare price. His eyes went wide at the wad of bills in your hand, and he glanced up at your face.

"That's too much."

"Nonsense. You must work hard all day, driving people in such a big city. I bet you get a lot of weirdos. You deserve it." You cheerfully said. He reluctantly took the money, then he scribbled down his number on the back of a pack of matches and handed it to you.

"Name's Jake Lockley. I'll be around all day." He said softly, and you left him to go to the front door. He watched you leave and withdrew his pack of cigarettes, lighting one as you knocked on the door.

"Keep an eye out on that one." A raspy voice said in the back seat. Jake nodded and he watched as the door opened for you, a man greeting you with a confused look.

***

"Hello? Are you Wong?" You greeted the man who answered the door, and he blinked a few times at you as you bowed to him in the same manner you witnessed everyone else do this man.

"Ah. Hello. Yes, may I help you?" He asked while he worriedly looked around the street, like he was looking for any possible thing that could be wrong in the vicinity.

"Yes. I've… Uh… I've come to ask about the Mystic Arts… I understand that Dr. Strange is a sorcerer, yes?" You sounded timid and scared, as you should be. There was really no reason to be there, and his face mirrored that as his brows furrowed.

"Well, yeah. Everyone knows who Dr. Strange is. I'm sorry, but he is not here at the moment. He's… He has been busy recently." He sounded a bit nervous when talking about the man, and you knew why. Whenever you dreamed of him, he was always reading and researching about magic.

"Ah, well… I just wanted to see if he was here. Thank you for your time. I'm sorry I bothered you and-"

"Wait a second. I can sense great magic flowing in and out of you. Are you a witch?"

"Ahaha… I don't think I am."

"Please, come in for a moment."

So you went inside, completely unaware that Jake and his companion were still sitting there, watching as you disappeared with Wong.

***

Wong had asked you to show him what you knew, and he was flabbergasted that you were able to show him everything he had personally taught to his students, including a few things he had only ever seen Dr. Strange do. He was even more shocked to find that you learned this all on your own, without the aid of a teacher. When he asked how you knew, a small gravelly voice suddenly told you not to reveal every little detail on how, and you listened.

Instead, you managed to tell Wong a somewhat half truth. That you dreamed of how to do these things, and when you woke up, you tried them. He seemed to accept that answer, but the look on his face told you that he knew you were holding back the whole truth.

By dinner time, you had shown him most of the things you were capable of doing, and he seemed rather impressed. He deemed your level of knowledge to be on par with Dr. Strange, and that bothered him a great deal that some random woman was able to teach themselves to this degree without a teacher. He asked if you could come back the next day, and you nodded and left the building.

When you came outside, a good six hours later, Jake's cab was still sitting out front. You were worried he might have misunderstood what you asked of him, and maybe he thought you wished him to stay there until you were done. You tried to apologize, but he threw a hand up and muttered about the fact he owned his own cab, and he didn't have any place to be.

He took you to your hotel. The entire ride there he was silent. You thanked him, paid the fare, and got ready for the next day.

***

The next morning you texted Jake to see if he was on duty again, mostly because he said he would be available, and you got a quick reply in return. By the time you left the hotel, he was parked out front, ready to take you to your destination, which was right back to the Sanctum. You explicitly told him you weren't expecting him to wait for you, but he rolled his eyes and told you that you could call him if he wasn't outside.

Again you went through your spells with Wong, and he seemed fairly confident that he could get Dr. Strange to show up, but the day went by, and the man didn't come. Wong apologized to you, saying that the doctor was a busy man. You told him it was okay, because you knew the doctor was an Avenger. Wong sighed, and he ushered you out the door again.

To your surprise, Jake was again sitting outside in his cab. He was smoking and listening to Latino rock. Again, you went back to your hotel, and prepared for the next day.

This went on for two weeks, and not a single one of those days did the doctor show his face. During those two weeks, your dreams got worse. They were still centered on Dr. Strange, which was a bit annoying, because you wanted to see what Jake was doing. It was selfish, but you thought Jake was very attractive, more so after actually meeting him in person.

But these dreams seemed to be painting a picture that the good doctor wasn't so good after all. He was meddling in the dark arts, the most forbidden ones at that. Necromancy and time manipulation. You studied everything he was doing, wishing you had a way to show Wong, and perhaps warn him of the dark path that Stephen was on, but you had no idea how you could do that.

On the last day of being at the Sanctum, you were shown a new spell. Wong wanted to show you how to convey memories to others in a psychic way, in case people refused to believe you about something important. What a coincidence that was, and when you tried to cast the spell, you focused on the memories of what Stephen was doing.

Wong was floored after seeing the memories. He stared at you long and hard, his brows furrowed and his lower lip sat snugly between his teeth. He looked almost angry despite his calm exterior.

"That's 'Dream Walking'. That's a dark and forbidden spell. Not only that, but it's very hard to do." He sounded almost horrified, but mostly irritated.

"It's not a spell! It just happens when I go to sleep. It's been happening for years to me." You replied quickly. You were about to mention the rock around your neck, when you heard an echo of a voice.

Don't mention the necklace.

"You mean to tell me that you're not casting a spell? It just naturally happens?" Wong put his hands on his hips as he gave you a scrutinizing look. He was trying to see if you were lying.

"Yes! That's how I learned to use magic in the first place. I figured if I keep dreaming about it, I should at least try it out." You explained to him, and you were honest as you went to cast the spell again to show him another memory of the other doctor just in the early stages of learning, when his hands were ruined.

Wong rubbed his chin. He was obviously very perturbed that you could do such things, but then again, the doctor had learned so much in such a short span of time. He took a deep breath as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Well, I must say that's ludicrously insane, but not unheard of. I believe you. You definitely have a natural affinity for magic." He admitted with a small smile.

***

You went back to your hotel, again sitting in the back of Jake's cab. When you got there, he parked in the guest parking, and he also got out. You watched him walk to the other end of the strip of rooms, and he bid you a good night as he entered his own rented place.

Had he always been staying there? Or had he decided to just rent a room, because you kept calling or texting him everyday for rides?

You had a strong suspicion that he was watching you, and it both thrilled and scared you to know that one of the men from your dreams was ever present, while the other kept eluding you with his self indulgent quest.

***

It was quite late at night when you left your room to go outside to the gazebo area. You sat back with your phone and smoked a joint, enjoying the night air, the full moon in the sky, and the weird lanky figure sitting on the roof above where Jake was staying…

Ah fuck.

You had nearly forgotten about that guy, so you made a point to keep your eyes scanning the horizon so it wasn't obvious that you were looking at him. You felt like it didn't work, because the figure seemed to be staring right at you, even though you were now scrolling idly on your phone. You felt a bit scared, because that very same being from your dreams had spoken to you. Well, one version of him anyway, because this one looked slightly different. This one had chains and a robe, whereas the other one only wore wrappings and a shendyt.

After a moment of pretending to look at Jake's door, and not the weird bird man on the roof, the door opened. Jake stepped out, and he was dressed in his full cabbie outfit, which was odd, because it was midnight, and you were just in short shorts and tee-shirt. He lit a cigarette, and shook his hand as he flung the match into the ashtray, then he looked up at the roof.

The figure motioned towards you, and Jake peered over, looking surprised you were still up. He started walking towards you, figuring he would talk to you while he could. You felt nervous, knowing he was a servant of that dark being, but you knew this man wouldn't hurt you.

"¡Hola, señorita! Why are you up so late?" Jake said as he came to stand next to you. He quickly noticed you were smoking weed, and his eyes lit up.

"Did you want some?" You offered him the joint, and he gladly took it. He seemed quite excited for it. You spent a good hour just sitting there and smoking with him, and eventually he asked you why you kept going to the Sanctum.

"Why do you keep going there? Isn't that place for magic users only?"

"Oh, uh… Yeah. I can use magic." You admitted between hoots. Jake nodded and lit another smoke.

"Are you allowed to show me any cool tricks?"

"Actually, yes. I'm not a member of the Sanctum, but Wong has been letting me come by to test me on my knowledge. I am self taught."

"Self taught? I don't believe you." He laughed a bit, and you huffed at him.

"I can show you. Here…" You replied with a grin while moving your hands and fingers around. White circles filled with runes appeared, and you produced a small ball of light. You moved your hands again, and the ball turned into a rose, then water in the shape of a rose, before you flicked the water at him. Jake snorted, not minding that his face was now wet.

"That's badass."

You showed him A wide range of harmless spells, and by the time you ran out of weed, you were both toasted. Jake was amazed you could still flawlessly cast the magic while high, and you assured him you could, even while drunk.

"Prove it…"

"Jake. We don't have fucking time for that tonight. Wrap up your little visit, and we must go." That same voice you kept hearing suddenly bellowed around you. You pretended not to hear it, and Jake huffed as he fished his phone out, obviously trying to pretend the voice was coming from his phone.

"Yeah. Uh huh. Right, boss. See ya soon" He said, and put his phone back into his pocket. You know you didn't see him even swipe his screen, but you said nothing.

"I gotta go, doll. I'm going to be busy until daylight. Maybe if you're around in the morning, I can take you out for breakfast?" Jake asked, and you blushed.

"Yes. Of course." You quickly agreed, and he grinned wildly.

"See ya later." And with that, he left in his cab.

***

Finally you got what you had been desperately wishing for.

Tonight's dream featured a masked man. He was in the same clothing as Jake's, and he plagued your dreams tonight. He dashed along the rooftops, hud in dark corners, and he beat up a couple of thugs. Half way through, his clothing switched to a brilliant white suit, and he started whacking people with two truncheons. Near the end of the night, his suit changed yet again, and it was the cloak and wrapping look.

More thugs are taken down, then some are tied up and carted away, only to be thrown into the trunk of the cab. Some are outright killed, left behind to rot. You peer closely at the man in your dreams, noting that when he changes back, he's Jake again, but this one is different. This one has different gloves, and a slightly different jacket to one you have been hiring to drive you around.

Then the view pans to the bird man, this one with the shendyt, and no chains. He peers at you, filling your body with a cold feeling.

"You're in the wrong place, little one. Wake up."

***

You wake with a start to a heavy pounding on your door. You roll out of bed and answer it. There Jake is, looking bagged and tired. He looks freshly showered, and he's in black sweatpants and a hoodie. He's got his hat on, otherwise you would have figured one of his alters had come out.

Speaking of which, he hasn't told you about that yet, and you would wait until he did.

He took you out for breakfast at some local diner. It was very greasy, but it was delicious. He insisted on paying, and then he took you for a drive around the city, free of charge. He had you up in front with him as he told you how shitty his night was, without actually telling you what he did. You happily listened to him talk, and then by lunch time, he was looking worse for wear. You suggested he go back to the hotel and go to sleep, and he agreed.

When you got back, he did something strange. He parked the car directly in front of your door, he stripped off his jacket, his hat and he handed you his keys, and said you could borrow his car if you needed to. After, he went into his little hotel room, and you figured you wouldn't be seeing him for at least eight hours. You left to grab your weed and a beer, and you sat on the bumper of his car as you drank and smoked a joint while scrolling through your phone.

About twenty minutes later, Jake's door opened, banging off its hinges as a disoriented man came stumbling out and looking very confused. Your face fell, knowing he must have been tired enough to allow one of his alters to come out, and you waited to see if this man was the timid one, or the one that was a bit grumpy like the eagle from Sesame Street.

This man was wearing a large baby blue sweater, and Jake's sweat pants and shoes. He was frantically looking all around while patting himself down, like he was desperately looking for his wallet. You remembered from your dreams that Jake would hide his alters belongings in the trunk of his cab. You quickly opened it, finding a dark khaki jacket, and a wallet inside. You quickly checked it, seeing two identification cards inside, one that said Marc Spector, the other that said Steven Grant.

Oh. So this version of the man you had seen in your dreams was at least aware of one of his alters, and judging by the fact Jake had their stuff in his car, and not in the hotel room, said quite a lot about their situation. You grinned, thinking up a quick plan to help the guy out, and you shut Jake's trunk as you sauntered on over with the jacket.

"Excuse me, sir!" You called out to him while waving the jacket around. The man's eyes lit up, and a look of pure relief formed on his face. He trotted on up to you with a sheepish smile while he wrung his hands together in his sleeves.

"Uh, hello. Is that my jacket?"

"I was going to ask you if it was your jacket. I… I found it outside in the parking lot." You quickly lied, hoping this man wasn't aware of Jake, otherwise he'd know right quick that you were lying.

But he just smiled, and nodded then reached out for his jacket.

"Thanks, love. I'd lose my head if it wasn't screwed on. Though it is somewhat loose if you ask me." He chuckled as he threw the jacket on and checked his pockets. More relief washed over his face when he found his wallet.

"Oh man. I'm so happy you found this. All my money and cards are in it. Marc would be furious with me if I lost it." He muttered as he tried to reward you with a hundred dollar bill. You shoved his hand away and shook your head.

"No thanks. I'm happy to see the rightful owner get it back. That's good enough for me. I saw two IDs in that wallet. Ya got a twin, or are you one of those suave spies?" You said in a teasing manner. The man blushed and looked away.

"Oh, uh… I am Steven. The other ID is… Uh… You wouldn't understand…" He muttered softly as he ran a hand through his unruly hair. You saw some movement on the roof, and it was that weird bird man again. You switched to looking at the cab, then you lit another joint. Steven scrunched up his nose at the smell of the weed burning and wafting towards him.

"Sorry, but I betcha I would." You replied with a sly smile as you moved a bit away from him so the smoke would not go to him. You leaned on the car, and waited for him to reply.

"Oh, well, if you're a cabbie, you've probably seen much crazier people than myself… Haha… Well, I have Dissociative Identity Disorder. It means-"

"Gotcha. I know what that means. No need to explain to me. Are you confused as to where you are, then?" You asked, and he nodded.

You told him that you had seen him hanging around and drinking by the pool a lot. He seemed skeptical, but he accepted your answer. He asked if he talked to you during that time, because he and Marc couldn't remember shit.

You said he was drunk off his ass, but he wasn't a bother. That he sat back and just stayed quiet, then would go to sleep most of the day on one of the loungers in the shade. He huffed at that information, but he seemed happy that he didn't do anything dangerous while he was out. You told him to check with the front desk to see how long his reservation was for. You told him you'd be around for another week, before heading back home, so if he needed any help, or a ride anywhere, you'd help him out. You figured Jake wouldn't be mad that you used his own car to chauffeur his alters around. Well, you hoped he wouldn't be.

You spent a week with Steven and Marc, with no sign of Jake anywhere. He obviously trusted you enough with his cab to stay in the background of his alters. The last day you planned to be there, you panicked a little, because Jake still hadn't come out, and you still had his keys.

You had a decision to make. Stay and keep holding onto this man's keys in the hopes he would come back, or leave his keys someplace where he would find them. You decided to stay, and you booked yet another week in the hotel.

It was a good thing you did, because Steven had shown up two days later, asking if you could drive him to a place to buy a new phone. Apparently Marc had smashed theirs the previous night when he was out for a jog, and Steven was furious about it. You got him to a store, and he bought a new phone. After, you took him back to the hotel. It felt weird driving a cab that didn't belong to you, but by now it was comforting, because everytime you climbed into the car, it smelled like them.

***

The dreams you had this week had switched back to the doctor. Your world's Stephen Strange. He looked like he'd been through hell and back, and soon, you would find out that he was actually going to hell. You caught glimpses of him in a dark room, candles lit everywhere, summoning creature after creature, and then he would weaken them with attacks. When the final blow was to be dealt, he would absorb it, the creature screaming in agony as he ripped their souls and powers from their bodies.

They were disturbing, and you knew enough from your visions and what Wong had told you, that this was not good. Whatever this Strange was planning, it was a danger to this world. You went back to the Sanctum to show Wong your memories of your dreams, and he looked scared. He explained to you that he had been lying about Stephen, and that he knew the doctor was planning on doing something forbidden.

That's when Wong told you about Christine. You had nearly forgotten all about that dream where she died. Wong told you what had happened, and it matched the dream perfectly. She died, he lived, and he blamed himself for it. He planned to go back in time and try to save her, even though he knew damn well that could possibly tear this reality into pieces.

That was not good.

It was bad. So very, very bad. If the doctor was successful, this universe could go right to shit.

But lucky for you, that wouldn't happen for a while, not that you would know it.

You moved to New York, not really giving a shit about your things at home. You had no family left, not pets, or plants to care for. Just an empty farm house with old furniture.

Steven had vanished for a day or so. You figured Marc was on the prowl, probably doing only their God knows what. You desperately wanted to talk to someone about the possibility of the world crumbling apart, but Wong had asked you not to tell any mortal soul-

Wait.

The bird man. Maybe he could help? You knew he referred to himself as a God, so maybe he could do something, but you hadn't seen him for two days either.

Luck was on your side that night when Marc came back to the hotel looking like someone had beat the snot out of him. You saw him yell at the tall being, then he went into his room, slamming the door shut. You wasted no time in leaping from your spot at the gazebo. No one else was around, and you wanted to catch the deity before he faded away into the night.

"Hey, hey! Excuse me. Uh, hello? Big bird guy." You shouted just loud enough to get his attention, but not enough to alert Marc. The bird man tilted his head at you, surprised you had the balls to approach him.

"Are you addressing me, a God? The almighty Khonshu-!"

"Yes. You. I'm talking to you!"

"What the fuck do you want?" This version glared as his chains rattled in an effort to scare you. You laughed at him, which earned you a loud growl of disapproval.

"What do you know about mortals manipulating time to try and save a loved one?" You inquired, and he huffed, like you were dampening his day. But he had nothing better to do, so he moved to sit and stare at you.

"It's been done before. It's no big deal… Unless it is a fixed point of time, or an absolute event." He explained and he rested his skull in his hand.

"What happens if it is a fixed point in time?"

"Then trying to undo the event could destroy this reality. Everything and everyone who is not capable of moving over to a different reality, would perish." He said so casually, like it wasn't something he was worried about in the slightest.

"I know of someone trying to do this. I'm not sure if it's a fixed point in time, but the sorcerer supreme, Wong, mentioned he thinks a woman’s death is one of those absolute time events. If she didn't die, Dr. Strange would never have become a sorcerer." You explained to him, carefully leaving out all of the other realities where it was his hands that were damaged, and not Christine. Khonshu went deathly silent as he pondered your words.

"After a quick glance into the matter, I see now that there is a very high possibility of this sorcerer destroying this world. I cannot allow that to happen."

"I sure hope you can do something about it. I'm scared that he has already amassed enough power to start trying. He's been summoning demons and spirits, and absorbing their powers through their souls." You explained either a heavy sigh.

"I shall do some research and get back to you. I'll make my knight stay in the area…"

"Thank you-"

"No. Thank you, little one. You've kept Jake's cab safe while he's been away, and you've kept his existence a secret. I appreciate that." And with that, he vanished into the void, just as the curtain to Marc's hotel room opened. You froze, realizing you were standing right in front of it, and you sheepishly waved.

The man that came out grinned at you, and he held himself differently than Marc. He looked you over, then he held out his hand.

"Hola, señorita. May I have my keys, please? I'd like to grab my cigarettes." He asked. He spent about a half an hour with you, before he excused himself to go back to bed.

***

The next day the cab was gone, and you sighed. You wished he was there to drive you to the Sanctum, but alas, he was not. You decided to try the ring you had, hoping it worked the way Wong had shown you. It did work, but you ended up being shot from the roof to the floor in the main lobby, right in front of Wong, and some bald person.

"Ah, there is our self taught sorceress. This is the Ancient One." Wong introduced you to the person standing before you. From what you could tell, this was a woman, but you could be wrong.

"Hello. It's good to meet you." You said with the customary bow, and the Ancient One bowed back with a smile.

"I have been told of your dreams. They are an alarming warning about our dear friend. I'm afraid to admit that Dr. Stephen Strange has become a danger to himself and to this world. We might need your help to stop him, since he has never met you before."

"I wish to help in any way that I can."

From that day forward, you were asked to train at the Sanctum. Both Wong and the Ancient One taught you so much more than you could have learned by yourself. Physical defence was a key part of their discipline, and that was an aspect your dreams didn't exactly show you. You would go to train everyday, then at night time, you would get driven back to the hotel by Jake. You'd have more dreams about the doctor, and they became more terrifying as time went by.

He summoned bigger and more powerful creatures, almost never stopping to sleep or eat. Every day you would report back to your teachers, showing them your dreams. Every day they would teach you how to use your own body to attack or defend yourself, using the magic you learned to enhance their teachings.

One night was different from the rest. The doctor was confronted by the Ancient One. It ended up in the doctor being split into two, and the darker, more evil of them, fled into the night.

Weeks went by, with the better side of the doctor joining the Sanctum. He spent his days searching the library, trying to figure out how to defeat his other self, while the evil version got stronger and stronger.

You barely got to directly speak to him, as he would be sitting and reading. Stacks of books from all over littered his desk. You would quietly help him, by trying to look into the books he had already read, to see if you could catch something his eagle eyes missed. During these times, his cape would become agitated that its master was ignoring him, and Stephen would sometimes demand you entertain the sentient cloak so he could continue his research unbothered.

You reluctantly did it, because you hoped to earn some brownie points with him. You soon found out the cloak was a delightful little creature. It acted much like an animal, a cross between a dog and cat. It enjoyed playing fetch, and it went bat shit crazy over a laser pointer. It enjoyed being touched, and sometimes it would follow you to the bathroom, shoving a corner of itself under the door like a cat trying to get in.

Only a few times did Stephen take the time to talk to you. Once when he thanked you for taking the cloak out for a walk, again when you brought him a stack of books he hadn't read yet, and the last time was to ask you to take care of the cloak, should he ever perish.

You learned nothing from him, except that he regretted ever becoming a sorcerer in the first place.

***

Every so often, the odd being would show up, informing you that he had been trying to locate the dark doctor, but because he was split into two, the old bird kept being directed towards the good one. Wherever the bad one was, he wasn't in this plane of existence, but he was still in this universe.

Eventually you had a dream where the dark sorcerer was summoning more beasts, only for it to backfire. A small and not very powerful bug creature appeared, wearing a cape. The doctor took the cape, and incinerated the insect, then he just kept going into the night.

Just the fact that he was doing this was weakening the structural integrity of the universe. You shuddered to think how much worse he could make it, if he started trying to reverse his lost love's death.

***

It got worse about a month later. The good Dr. Strange had left to find his bad side, and to try and fight him to save the universe. The dream you were having right now, proved that the evil side was more powerful, and he absorbed his other half after he defeated him. His cape had managed to flee the scene with the ring it had slipped from its master's fingers.

Now that he was whole, he paused, and his head turned to look directly at you, his dark soulless eyes staring right into yours. You panicked, because that meant he could see you in the dreams.

"Don't try to stop me. I'll kill your precious little cabbie, and his alters, if you try. Not even that useless bird god can stop me."

And then you woke up.

You were sweating, shaking, and trembling. It wasn't just the fact that the doctor had seen you, then outright threatened you. It was the fact you knew you were going to die. Everyone, everywhere, from the farthest corners of the universe, all would be perishing soon. There would be no afterlife for anyone, just nothingness as they ceased to exist.

You panicked more and more, and you left your hotel room, going outside for a joint. It could be very well the last one that you ever had.

Jake was standing outside, smoking as he sat in his car. He saw you come out and snap your fingers to light your joint, then he watched you pace back and forth as you power puffed the doobie. He got out of his car to see what was wrong, and you told him all about the problems that were plaguing you. He quietly listened, and at some point, he glanced up to the rooftops, and you looked, too. There Khonshu was and his shoulders were slumped.

"I'm afraid to inform you that he has begun. He's tried three times already, and now the edges of this universe are starting to crumble. This plane of existence is cracking at an alarming rate, and my guess is that it will be a matter of days, perhaps weeks, until this universe crumbles to dust." Khonshu muttered as he gripped his staff tightly. He looked up at the moon, and then down at his Avatar.

"Is there anything we can do?" You asked, but the way he hummed and looked away, told you what the answer would be.

"No. This world is dying. The Ancient One and Wong are both dead. Most of the Avengers have tried to best him, and they have all failed. Even the mighty God of thunder has perished. Unless this Supreme Strange is killed, or stops trying, there will be no way to save this world. Even I cannot turn back the clock to do it. The only thing I can do is jump ship, and abandon this universe altogether, fusing with one of my alternate versions of myself." Khonshu explained that he couldn't do anything. Your heart beat rapidly in your chest, and you felt tears prickling at the corners of your eyes.

You were scared to die, but for some reason, you were more concerned about his Avatar.

"What about… What about everyone else? What about Jake, Marc, and Steven?" You asked as you fiddled with the ring Wong had given you.

"I can protect him from succumbing to the dark voids that break reality, at least until this world is gone. I can bring him with me, but only him. No one else." Khonshu said the words carefully. You could tell he wasn't trying to be mean or calloused towards you. He probably didn't have the power to take you with them. You didn't try to argue. You didn't try to beg for your own life to be spared. You merely hung your head, happy to know the man with many faces would be safe.

"Wait a minute, boss. What about her?" Jake suddenly spoke up in a panicked tone. He wasn't happy to hear that you would be left here to die.

"She will be fine like you will be, at least until everything fails again. I cannot take her with me to the next universe. You know this already. It's not that I don't want to, I just can't. I could, if I had my true form back, but the other Gods won't give me back my soul that was sealed away in a desert opal. They threw it into the sands of the Duat, and I haven't seen it in a few thousand years." Khonshu muttered with a huff and a heavy sigh.

"Then we must go find this pearl. If we cannot save this world, we can at least try to save her. Please boss…" As Jake pleaded with Khonshu, you heard the whispers again. It sounded like Khonshu was speaking to you, but in your mind, yet the god appeared to be oblivious.

"Your necklace… Show him the necklace…"

You looked around and reached into your shirt, pulling out the greenish glowing opal. Khonshu tilted his head and stepped forward.

"My opal! Where did you get that?!" He snapped as he tried to snatch it from you, but Jake blocked him and snarled.

"Easy, boss. Perhaps be a little nicer. She just found out she's going to die soon."

"Fine. Where did you get that? Please tell me." He sounded only slightly nicer, but you told how you acquired it. He was confused as to how you found it in the desert on Earth, when he was told it was tossed into the Duat. It didn't matter to him that you had it, all that mattered was that it was there, and it wasn't a trick.

Eventually you gave it to him, and Khonshu stuck the opal into the gaping hole where his neck should have been. Slowly he reformed to what the old depictions of him looked like. He had skin and feathers again, his body not nearly as thin as it used to be. The gold he was adorned with was shiny and new as the day they were created. Even his shendyt was perfectly clean and brand new, like he hadn't been stuck in a tomb for thousands of years. He seemed quite pleased.

He stood taller and now you could see the expressions in his eyes, instead of the dark holes they once were. The thick ghostly chains that had surrounded him had changed into thin silver and gold jewelry.

He agreed to try to try and save this world, now that he was whole again, and at the very least, take you with him if all else failed. He demanded you and Jake get some rest, because tomorrow would truly be a test of strength and will.

***

Thank you

Beta/proof readers: @Moonmoonboys

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