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getoutofmyjaneway · 3 years

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Since Star Trek Voyager is Leaving Netflix, Here are 10 Episodes that you Should Watch Before the End of September

1. The Cloud

The Cloud is a great example of the early dynamic between the main cast. This bottle episode shows a very Star Trek episode dealing with some space creature they accidently harm, and being oh so very Starfleet, they assist. That, of course, is not why you watch this episode. It has some pretty great comedic moments, the iconic “There’s coffee in that nebula,” moment, and (if you can over look the cringy and incorrect portrayal of Native American culture) great moments that will let you better get to know the character we love.

2. Tuvix

Tuvix is was created when there was a transporter accident fused Neelix, Tuvok, and some plants together to create a new single sentient being. Tuvix loves being himself but ultimately it was decided by Captain Janeway that they would be separated back into there original beings. This episode is not only thought provoking, but has been the basis for many discussions of morality on a broader level. It is an interesting thought experiment that is so very Star Trek in nature - it is a don’t miss in my book.

3. Before and After

You remember Kes yes? She was definitely not given the most to do throughout the run of Voyager, but this is her best story by far. This story sees Kes aging backwards through death to birth, giving us a full picture of her life. This also brings us some of the very seldomly seen foreshadowing in the series, eluding to the Year of Hell (we’ll talk about that soon) and Tom and B’Elanna’s relationship. This is how I choose to remember Kes (we don’t talk about Furry).

4. Year of Hell Part 1 and 2

Yeah you knew this was going to be on here. There is a reason this is on most peoples lists of top Voyager episodes. And yes, I know I am cheating by putting both episodes on the same spot on my list, but like Janeway, I make my own rules. This is the most action packed two-parter in the series, serving as a kind of what-if scenario if the Voyager crew went down a more dangerous path. It ultimately ends with the ever present “Voyager-Rest-Button” but this is the best use of it. This is the most bad-ass episode by a long shot, also giving great character interactions, as well as commentary of grief and family.

5. Living Witness

This one is for all of my TNG lovers out there, you will love this one. Living Witness sees the Doctor’s program ending up in an alien museum in the distant future where an exhibit shows the species interactions with the crew of the Voyager. It is up to the Doctor to clear the name of his crew, and himself. This is amazing commentary of how history can be warped by those that recount it. Of course I also enjoy the absolutely savage portrayal of the Voyager crew - you can tell they had a good time with this one. Overall, this is a story you could only see on Voyager and is excellently done.

6. Timeless

This episode is iconic. If you have seen media referencing Voyager, you have most likely seen the image of the Voyager crashing into an ice planet in some amazing for its time CGI (that holds put pretty dang well even today). This is a strong episode for both Chakotay and Kim, two of Voyagers other most under used characters, seeing them try and create a slipstream with the Delta Flyer to get home. While the Delta Flyer is ultimately successful in this, the Voyager and the rest of the crew ends up dead. Chakotay and Kim take it upon themselves to change the events of the accident.

7. Counterpoint

There is a reason that this is Kate Mulgrew’s favorite episode (other then the fact that she gets to kiss an alien). This is Janeway at her absolute best - intelligent, cunning, and a master of her craft. This sees Janeway help a group of telepaths cross a region of space where a xenophobic ruling body does not allow them. After frequent inspections, Janeway takes in a defector from the xenophobic race, who tries to get her to divulge her secrets. She, however, was always one step ahead of him in a brilliant power play that I can only describe as spicy.

8. Someone to Watch Over Me

Someone to Watch Over Me is a story about what it means to be human, a theme often discussed in Star Trek. This sees the Doctor, a hologram, show Seven, a woman rebuilding her sense of self after spending most of her life in the borg collective, teach her what he has learned about relationships. It’s like the blind leading the blind, or in a more Star Trek example, the blind teaching an Andriod how to paint. Throughout their time together, they both seem to teach each other a lot - Seven gains many incites into how to be more human and the Doctor learns what it is like to be in love. A heartwarming episode.

9. Collective

Members of Voyager’s senior staff are abducted by the borg... children. Five who have been separated and awoken from there maturation chamber struggle between being borg and being individuals. This is, however, not a borg story, it is a story about being human. As Seven was saved from the collected, she went through a transformation under the guidance of her friends family and now it is time for her to help these children in the same way.

10. The Void

After becoming trapped in a Void with no way of escape, they soon find that ever ship is out for their own in this region, everyone stealing what they need to survive. It becomes a battle of morals - do you take back from those who have stolen from you and then some? Do you use what has been stolen from others for your personal gain? Where do you draw the line for the sake of survive. The Voyager spearheads a mini federation type alliance of sorts, finding strength in unity and numbers, and, in the end, it is the understanding of others that allows for the Voyager and the members of the alliance to escape

These are not necessarily the best episodes of Voyager, but I think these are episodes that you can watch on their own with no other knowledge of Voyager to really get a feel for the series and the characters. Of course, I would love to know what other episodes you would include. Personally, I would have loved to include episodes like Course: Oblivion, Author Author, and Dark Frontier, but out of context, these episodes will give that Voyager flavor we all know an love.

#Star trek #star trek voyager #long post #netflix

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miffyiffy · 2 years

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Bubblegum Kiss

Luffy x reader

Content warning ⚠️: unspecified gender, kissing

Word count: 0.6k

I actually thought of this when I bought a bubblegum and I was disappointed cause I thought it was candy and I'm not that good at blowing bubble gums.

⚠️This is not proofread⚠️

"Try this strawberry flavored gum!"

" texture is weird but at the same time it's... good!" You complimented the old fishman who was giving you one of his free taste candies and sweets.

"It's one of a kind! It's actually a recipe from my home island— Fishman island, I'm sure you've been there considering that this is the new world after all, haha!" The old fishman joked as he continued to tell you stories and memories from the past when he was still living there, unfortunately, he was forced to live on dry land because business under the sea wasn't doing so good for him.

The crew was currently docked on an island and went to the town near by to restock some necessities before continuing on the voyage— Luffy (being the first one to dash off as always) went ahead the others to explore the rest of the town, Sanji and Chopper went to buy some ingredients in the wet market of the town, Robin and Nami went shopping, Brook and Franky stayed on the ship, Usopp went to check if the town has an antique shop while Zoro... well he was just beside you when he suddenly disappeared when you were looking around for some berries.

You missed the taste of sweetness from them and been craving ever since it ran out. Your island was known for their fruits especially berries, no islands grows berries as delicious as your hometown's.. although you would rather believe that the moon is made out of cheese than to accept the fact that strawberries aren't berries.

"How much is a set of these?" You asked

"It's originally 300 berries but I'll give you 145 berries instead! People rarely tastes my candies nowadays so hearing you like it makes my day." He continued to pack the strawberry flavored bubblems and gave away 2 packs for free, what a lucky day to receive free food, you thought.

You payed the old pops the amount needed and for the looks of it, the crew is ready to leave. You must've stayed with the man for hours, you thought considering it's already sunset. You continued to walk by the harbor, opening a piece of gum and tossed it into your mouth, savoring the taste and enjoying the sunset. While you were busy enjoying yourself, Luffy noticed that you were holding a plastic bag and chewing something in your mouth while looking at the sunset,

"OI! [Y/N], WHAT ARE YOU EATING?" he waved his hands signaling to you but you were too far away to notice his screaming so, he started stretching his arms on the deck like a slingshot, the other members on the deck wondering what Luffy's gonna do,

"Oi, oi Luffy! What are you doing?" Usopp asks trying to see Luffy's intention but before Luffy answered, he already latched himself towards you.

You were just about to succeed on blowing the gum bigger than you did before, but before you know it a man was flying towards you, it startled you, closing your eyes getting ready for the impact on your bum but, instead, you felt hands on your back to prevent you from falling and before you know it, you're kissing the man before you, sharing the same flavor from the same gum. Luffy separated from the kiss and flashes his iconic smile,

" Mmm, You tastes sweet! " He laughed.

A little taken back from what he said, this boy really doesn't know what he's saying, does he? A little mad that he destroyed your achievement on blowing your bubble gum,

" It was actually the gum that I was chewing, I have more here if you want some. " You showed him the three sets of strawberry flavored bubblegum, his eyes sparkled and mouth drooling, he can't wait to challenge usopp on a blowing bubble gum contest. He grabbed your hand and starts rushing to the sunny where everyone was waiting.

#luffy x reader #one piece luffy #one piece x reader #one piece scenario #luffy x y/n #one piece x y/n #one piece x you #luffy x you #one piece imagine

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reginaldqueribundus · 4 years

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what is a Star Trek?

Star Trek is about people being sexy and overly dramatic in space. It takes place in a future where humans have solved all their problems and flown out into the stars to find more problems and have ethical conundrums about them while tricking the audience into thinking about real-world issues.

Earth doesn’t have war, famine or Jeff Bezos anymore since humans became best friends with a bunch of space elves with bowl cuts who pretend they don’t feel emotions and they formed a club with their alien friends where everybody can just chill and be cool. Sometimes they get into fights with space orcs or cyborg zombies trying to strip everyone of their individuality but it’s usually resolved pretty quickly so they can go back to chilling and exploring space.

Every time they Boldly Go into space they find Weird Shit™ and People Who Are Very Different but this is resolved by doing technology stuff or making dramatic speeches. The elves also have imperialist cousins (dark elves) who sneak around in invisible ships and every once in a while try to trick us into getting in a fight with them, but this never works and they end up taking their football and going home.

Star Trek comes in 10 flavours:

The Original Series (Original Flavour) 1966 – 1969: a feminist captain with a weird speech pattern, a charming redneck doctor and a space elf drama queen (who is half human but very much in denial about it) go to space and run into all sorts of crazy things like sentient rocks, Cold War allegories, pouty gods and evil doppelgangers. The captain is gay for the elf who argues with the doctor all the time and a Scottish guy fixes the ship which is flown by Lieutenant Cheekbones while a Singing Queen keeps the phones working. Later they get a boy who insists everything was inwented in Russia. There are lots of miniskirts, fistfights and ripped shirts. The show was also adapted into a trippy animated series (Cartoon Flavour, 1973-1974: basically the same show but with a catgirl and even weirder shit going on) and six movies:

The Motion Picture (1979): putting the band back together to stop a giant space cloud who is just misunderstood. Everyone gets even gayer.

The Wrath of Khan (1982): this guy with his tits out hates the captain! He quotes Moby Dick a lot and steals a SPACE BOMB OH NO. The elf reaches peak drama queen.

The Search for Spock (1984): gotta go steal our ship so we can go find the elf on the Minecraft Planet, wish this orc would stop killing people

The Voyage Home (1986): gotta go to the 1980s to find some WHALES

The Final Frontier (1989): the elf has a secret brother who is EVEN GAYER and wants to find god

The Undiscovered Country (1991): time to stop being orc racist

The Next Generation (Sequel Flavour) 1987 – 1994: Same concept as TOS but there’s more of it. The captain is a bald guy who talks like he’s in a Shakespeare play all the time. There’s a bearded guy who’s always DTF, Doctor Mom, and a trained psychologist (who mostly gets used as a lie detector). The engineer is a dork who loves to cosplay Sherlock Holmes with his robot boyfriend, and since the orcs are our friends now one of them works on the ship and his job is to get beat up every episode. They spend a lot of time getting stuck in their cosplay machine, dealing with dark elves being sneaky, and getting kidnapped by a trickster god who wants to peg the captain. Also has four movies that are mostly about the captain and the robot:

Generations (1994): bald captain falls into a time hole and meets the original captain and they stop a mad scientist from exploding the sun

First Contact (1996): bald captain came here to do 2 things: stop the cyberzombies from altering history, and quote Moby Dick. AND HE’S ALL OUTTA MOBY DICK QUOTES. Robot bones the zombie queen.

Insurrection (1998): gotta save these hippies from…us?

Nemesis (2002): gotta stop this bald guy in leather from killing everyone

Deep Space Nine (Story Arc Flavour) 1993 – 1999: Instead of flying a ship around they’re on a space station guarding a wormhole to the other end of space (but sometimes they still fly around). The captain is a single dad who meets gods in the wormhole and accidentally becomes Moses to a race of aliens who defeated the fascist space lizards. His 2nd in command is a terrorist who fought the lizards, his best friend has an immortal worm in her stomach that carries memories of her past lives, and their grumpy Irish mechanic accidentally becomes best friends with a very annoying doctor. Head of security is a blob of Jello who can turn into anything he wants except a nice person. He’s always trying to arrest the bartender, a space goblin who worships capitalism. One of the fascist lizards keeps coming back to annoy them because he is Horny. There is also a gay assassin lizard who makes dresses, plus Pope Karen and literal demons. Later they have to fight an army of drug-addicted clones who came out of the wormhole. This one is my favourite!

Voyager (Action Adventure Flavour): Captain Mom Friend is chasing some rebels and her whole ship gets thrown to the opposite end of space (not the one with the convenient wormhole). She tries to get them home while dealing with cabin fever, aliens who try to kill them for trespassing, and a tragic lack of coffee. Her best friend is an elf but is not so Dramatic about it, their Doctor is a hologram who wants to be an opera singer, their pilot is obsessed with Flash Gordon, the engineer is half orc and the commander is a cheesy Native American stereotype who wants to bone the captain but they NEVER DO. They pick up this weird furry guy who cooks for them and almost kills the ship with cheese. Later she adopts one of the cyberzombies, and they spend a lot of time deliberately pissing off the cyborg zombie queen and it’s great. RIP to the psychic elf girl, she deserved better.

Enterprise (Prequel Flavour) 2001 – 2005: Humans are flying around in space for the first time, trying to make new friends (like the blue antenna people) so they can form their club, which doesn’t exist yet. The elves are kind of dicks about it, but they start to come around. The captain is a big lovable dork who gets beat up a lot and brings his dog everywhere. His best friend is a redneck and their doctor is a polyamorous puffer fish with a zillion weird pets and they fly around with an uptight British guy and their elf babysitter and a pilot who was born in space and a translator lady who just wants to go home. After being pestered by the time police for awhile, they have to stop some zoo people who want to make Earth go boom. Sadly gets cancelled just as they get down to business.

Kelvin Timeline (Reboot Flavour) 2009, 2013, 2016: three movies with new actors playing younger versions of the Original Series characters. An angry miner does a space elf genocide and makes a new timeline where the captain is a horny frat boy and his elf boyfriend is Straight™ and has temper tantrums all the time. They throw the angry miner in a black hole and then they fight Benedict Cumberbatch and a freaky vampire lizard man and his bees. Lots of big spaceships and explosions and the Beastie Boys.

Discovery (Modern Flavour) 2017 – now: now with Canon Gays! The elf from the beginning has a secret human sister who goes to jail for being right and ends up on a new ship with a grumpy fungus man who figured out how to fly around the universe with mushrooms, an adorable redhead nerd who talks a lot, a space gazelle man with Anxiety, Sadman the Spoiler, and mushroom guy’s doctor boyfriend. They & their rotating series of captains try to stop the space orcs from being such huge assholes, chase an angel around the galaxy, fight an evil computer and then time travel into the future where they have to fight Crimelord Elphaba and figure out why all the spaceships exploded, joined by Disney Princess Man, Nonbinary Squid Child and “Don’t Threaten Me With A Good Time” Lady who is the best character even though she is Evil™.

Picard (Edgy Flavour) 2020 – now: Bald captain is back! And he comes out of retirement to help his friends Drug-Smoking Conspiracy Lady and Space Elf Samurai find out why the dark elves hate robots so damn much. Cyborg lady is back and she gets to wear real clothes this time. Sexy soccer man gives them a ride in his spaceship which is infested with a million holograms of himself so they can save the robots from Dark Elf Boytoy and Commodore Sunglasses before the robots make a terrible phone call. Lots of swearing and murder and homemade pizza.

Lower Decks (Joke Flavour) 2020 – now: Cartoon Flavour is back, but this time it’s funny on purpose! This time we aren’t focusing on the people in charge; this show is about the grunts! Specifically a girl with massive mommy issues who is 2cool4school, a dork who sucks and loves rules, and a green girl and a cyborg who are adorable nerds together. Along with Captain Mom, Commander Benchpress, Doctor Grumpycat and the angriest man in the universe they will boldly make fun of all the other Star Treks.

There are lots of people on the internet who will try to tell you which of these flavours is the Good Star Trek and which ones are Bad. Some of them will even say this or that flavour is Not Star Trek. Those people are wrong and you should enjoy whatever flavour you think is the most fun! Some of the flavours start out kind of bland at first but they grow on you, others are too spicy for some people and that’s ok. You might enjoy all the flavours or just one (or even none at all) but the important thing is you get to decide! Because the best thing about Star Trek is there’s a lot of it.

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see more “Sam Explains Pop Culture” here

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astradrifting · 3 years

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GRRM really created so many parallels and foreshadow using the DoD characters that honestly we could just figure the asoiaf ending by analyzing it. My favorite is the Aegon III-D@ny parallels, the fact that one of his closest allies was a face-scarred Master of coin Lannister who ended as Hand to Bran' parallel character just make it so obvious its funny.

Oh my god I didn’t even realise Tyland Lannister was initially on the greens’ side! I’m not super fond of Tyrion ending up as Hand, but you’re right that it’s so obviously meant to reference him. There’s so many parallels that it’s a little crazy. I don’t want to say that the second Dance will end exactly as the first did, it’d be a little too neat if history repeated entirely, but you can see so many echoes of it even in the show’s bastardised ending.

“The broken, shattered realm suffered for a while yet, but the Dance of the Dragons was done. Now what awaited the realm was the False Dawn, the Hour of the Wolf, the rule of the regents, and the Broken King.”

(TWOIAF, Aegon II)

I’m not sure what the False Dawn is going to parallel to, it refers to the period of time after Aegon II’s death but before Lord Stark got to King’s Landing, when people thought that peace had finally come. It kind of brings to mind the War for the Dawn, though personally I think that the threat of the Others will be resolved before the Dance is over. The Hour of the Wolf is obviously about House Stark’s rise back to power, and the Broken King is Bran - though if he actually becomes known as Bran the Broken I might end up committing violence ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

The parts about Lord Corlys Velaryon are why I’m so hopeful that Jon’s book ending will be completely different from the show’s. He’s arrested for Aegon II’s death by Cregan Stark, even though Cregan had previously declared for Rhaenyra, because as TWOIAF puts it, “to kill a cruel and unjust king in lawful battle was one thing. But foul murder, and the use of poison, was a betrayal against the very gods who had anointed him.”

Corlys didn’t deny his guilt, and expressed no regret. “What I did, I did for the good of the realm. I would do the same again. The madness had to end.”

Cregan Stark declared him to be guilty of murder, regicide, and high treason, and he was sentenced to execution. But many spoke in his defence, even people who had fought against him in the Dance. Baela and Rhaena Targaryen, Corlys’ granddaughters and Aegon III’s half-sisters, convinced Aegon to issue an edict pardoning Lord Velaryon, which Alysanne Blackwood then convinced Cregan to let stand. Lord Velaryon was pardoned and even restored to his offices and honours, made one of the king’s regents and given a place on the small council.

Corlys’ words definitely could be Jon’s as well, a much more in-character declaration post-D@ny’s death than the drivel GoT tried to feed us. I was worried for a bit that this would be how Tyrion is let off scot-free, but Baela and Rhaena, who were vital to his release, are such obvious Arya and Sansa stand-ins, and they’re certainly not going to expend any effort in helping Tyrion. So Corlys’ circumstances more likely lays the groundwork for how Jon will be freed and remain in political power, while Tyland frankly inexplicably becoming Aegon III’s Hand after he was in favour of brutally killing him parallels Tyrion managing to fail up, as a way of reconciling the old regime with the new one.

This makes Tyrion becoming Hand more palatable IMO. Either Jon and Tyrion both should have been punished or neither should have been punished, not the travesty where Tyrion gets everything he’s ever wanted while Jon is exiled to a Watch with no purpose and a Wall that’s already half-collapsed, so what exactly can it protect against? I suppose they were afraid of seemingly rewarding Jon for killing d@ny, especially if pol!Jon had been revealed, but most people noticed how nonsensical his ending was, and it just led to ‘Bloodraven/Bran is the real villain’ takes anyway.

(Side note: Asha/Yara basically still being loyal to D at the end annoys me so much, and made no sense. Jon did more to help save her by giving Theon that pep talk than D@ny did. Maybe it was a leftover from her taking Victarion’s role in the story, but in no reasonable world is anyone going to listen to the Ironborn who brought the Fire threat over in the first place.)

Of course Tyland Lannister isn’t actually Hand for long, given that he dies barely two years later from Winter Fever, feared and hated, alone except for a maester and King Aegon. It might be an indication that Tyrion will face a similar fate, that he’ll die after he’s seemingly won, exactly what he threatened Cersei with:

“A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid."

(ACOK, Tyrion XII)

So that I can stop talking about Tyrion, here’s some facts about Rhaena and Baela that are obviously meant to reference Sansa and Arya, so much so that it feels a little bit like GRRM is winking and going “See what I did there? Huh? Huh? Did you see??”:

- their descriptions: “Rhaena was slender and graceful; Baela was lean and quick; Rhaena loved to dance; Baela lived to ride...” + “Baela was wild and willful”, “more boyish than ladylike”, and kept her hair cropped short as a boy’s

- Rhaena spent most of the Dance in the Vale, where she lived in relative comfort as the ward of Lady Jeyne Arryn. Baela was a dragonrider and so moved between Dragonstone and Driftmark, but was captured on Dragonstone when Aegon II descended upon it

- Rhaena was favoured to be queen after her brother, considered more qualified than her wild sister

- Baela liked to spend time with “unsuitable companions” she would bring to the Red Keep - including a comely juggler, a blacksmith’s apprentice whose muscles she admired (!!!), a legless beggar, a pair of twin girls from a brothel, an entire troupe of mummers once

- After her brother’s regents tried to marry her to a lord 40 years older than her, Baela escaped the Red Keep by climbing out of a window, trading clothes with a washerwoman, then walking right out of the front gate. She ran away to Driftmark and married her supposed cousin (though more likely he was her half-uncle), the legitimised bastard Alyn Velaryon, which might have had me worried about j0nrya if Alyn weren’t best known for being a daring sailor who went on many voyages, including sailing the Sunset Sea, until he was finally lost at sea during Aegon IV’s reign. Alyn’s mother was also called Mouse, for being “small, quick, and always underfoot.”

- another fun fact about Alyn: he’s a bad haggler, and had to agree to a high ransom and many concessions in order to get Prince Viserys returned to Westeros. This automatically disqualifies him as a Jon stand-in, because as we all know, Jon Snow can haggle like the best of fishwives.

- My absolutely favourite detail that has my jonsa heart singing - Rhaena was more dutiful than her sister and would have married a man that the king and council chose, saying that as long as he was “kind and gentle and noble, I know that I shall love him.” She was able to marry her first choice, whom the regents didn’t immediately approve of but that they ultimately accepted - Ser Corwyn Corbray, the brother of the Lord Protector of the Realm, a second son (!) whose late father had gifted him the Valyrian steel sword Lady Forlorn (!!!)

And as a treat for @istumpysk, some similarities between Rickon and Viserys II!

- the youngest child of their family

- separated from their older brother after they were forced to flee their home, trying to get to safety while their other brothers and mother were at war

- worshipped their oldest (half-)brothers, but were closer to the brother nearest their age

- spends the war stuck on an island, populated by people closely linked to their family’s origins - Skagosi are descended mostly from the First Men, while Viserys was on Lys, where the blood of Old Valyria still runs strong

- sought by/held hostage by a powerful and wealthy family, who will treat them well but whose intentions are dubious

- will be brought back from exile by an upjumped bastard/commoner from a port town who was raised to lordship and became their monarch’s chief admiral

- after they are returned, long after the wars and crises, is happily welcomed as the heir to their older brother’s throne (shhhhh just let me have this, let the baby live)

Thanks for the ask!

#astra rambles #asks #its not quite 5000 words but i got it in under the deadline stumpy :P #half speculation half 'my wildest dreams and hopes'#anti tyrion lannister #kind of #rickon stark #jon snow #sansa stark #arya stark #anti got #speculation #meta #dod 2.0 #dod parallels

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chibisidesm8 · 3 years

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I think the only pirates AU's I have seen are centered around the twins, but I just imagine how nice would it be if Janus' scales were because being half merman! Or some other sea creature! A sea sneak?

True. Still interesting pirate AU ideas tho

I've been thinking about one too and idk if I should ramble about it here but I will anyway just cause I can.

Here's a ramble about a roceit+analogical Pirate AU:

So imagine a pirate AU with Janus being raised in a fishing town

He doesn't know anything about his origin other than his "aunt/uncle" adopted him and treated him like a son alongside their child Logan, so the two are like siblings to each other

Logan tells Janus all sorts of stories and legends of creatures of the sea

So they decide to study those together

Janus is always curious about where he's from and why he's half-reptile. His relatives don't know the answer

So fast forward, Logan and Janus are all grown up and are able to operate their family fishing ship

Janus is captain as he seems to have an affinity for the sea. Logan is his first mate

During a sail, Janus spots something on a rock, and secretly took a rowboat to get a closer look

He gets close and realizes it's another sailor who seems to have been lost at sea and was clinging to the rock

Janus rescues the sailor and takes him back on to their ship

Logan is all "Where have you been?! Who is this???"

They take the sailor back to their home to recover

Upon waking up, the sailor introduces himself as Roman. He doesn't recall much of where he came from but he knows he needs to go somewhere far across the horizon

Janus is theorizes that the place Roman is thinking about is a place where he may also find answers about himself as well

So that night, he asks Logan to go with him. Logan says if they do, they may as well be pirates

Janus is willing to take the risk. Their relatives don't stop them but instead wish them a safe journey in finding what they're looking for

So with their loyal crew, Logan, Janus, and Roman set sail

Roman is their navigator

During their voyage, Janus and Roman take a particular liking to one another as they're both trying to find answers about themselves

They have a few misadventures on other islands to resupply and all that

A crewmember is like "so are the Captain and Navigator dating?"

To which Logan responds with "the only people who don't know they're dating are Janus and Roman themselves"

Back to the action:

They suddenly encounter another ship containing more experienced pirates

They try to navigate to avoid each other

They manage to escape the first time but they take notice the ship now seems to be hunting them down

So soon, they're caught during one of their resupply stops:

Roman and a few crewmembers were out while Logan and Janus were thinking about what they've accomplished in their journey so far as they still haven't found any answers

The two get into an argument as Logan is getting frustrated by how they don't know where Roman is bringing them

"So what now? Are you going to make me choose between you two," asks Janus. Logan is silent but responds "No, I won't. But I just want you to rethink this voyage. Ask the question of where we're going and what are we really looking for? What are these answers you want?"

Janus enters deep thought but is interrupted when a crewmember bursts into the room, saying the ship was being overtaken by the pirates

Before the crewmember could return, they are interrupted by a pirate entering

This one had a purple motif, telling the siblings to surrender as their captain is waiting for them on the deck

Janus and Logan knew they were surrounded so they do

They're brought to the deck and a greenclad pirate greets them. They're shocked at his resemblance to Roman

He introduces himself as Captain Remus, and Bosun Virgil

Remus explains how frustrating it was the first time they got away that he just had to catch them for fun

Logan murmurs to Janus about how much Remus looked like Roman

Virgil, hearing the name, repeats the name. This catches Remus's attention, and his demeanor seemingly shifts from chill to hostile

With that reaction, Janus infers that Remus knows something about Roman and so in a voice of faux confidence goes "So you know Roman, too?"

"I did, once" Remus says as his glance briefly turns sullen, like he had a sort of regret, before going back to being serious. "I was going to let you live but...."

Janus starts panicking but that's when Roman and their remaining crew made themselves noticed that they were back

Remus is shocked, but moves to embrace Roman. He is apologizing a lot, holding him tight

Everyone else is stood around them. Virgil has a soft smile on his face

"What's going on? Who are you? Why are my friends tied up????" Roman asks.

Remus allows Janus, Logan, and their crew to be released and then explains to them that Roman and Remus are twins

Remus was Roman's first mate but during a battle against some mythical creature, Roman was thrown overboard and they couldn't find him, so Remus became captain

Remus explains they were heading to an island told in legends to be home to a sort of mystical siren who had answers to the deepest mysteries their heart wishes to know or could even grant a wish if one desperately wanted it

So they come to an agreement to journey together. Remus hopes the siren could restore Roman's memories, while Janus wanted answers to his origin

Janus convinces Logan that it would be worth it so now the ships set sail

Virgil and Logan come to find each other's thoughts to be relatable to their own (worries about their captains, the long aimless journeys, other pirate encounters, etc.), and some feelings may be developing between them

So through a long tough journey across the sea, they finally find the mystical island

So Janus, Logan, Roman, and Remus enter the caves while Virgil stands guard

They meet the siren named Patton, who seems to be very warm in welcoming them

He invites them to have a seat in his chamber. Logan is hesitant but Janus and Remus seem adamant about being friendly to keep the siren appeased, so they all do

When Patton asks what they came seeking for, Remus goes first and explains his regrets after Roman fell overboard and how happy he was when he found his brother again, and he wanted his brother back. Roman adds on with his side of feeling lost, not knowing where he was, and wanting to know who he once was again

Patton senses the truth in their wish and so he grants Roman his memories back

Next, Janus explains how he's been trying to find himself all his life: how much he wanted to know who he was and why he was the way he was

Patton is silent but explains they already used their wish and would have to find him again if they wanted another wish. Patton parts with the final question "Is that what your heart truly wants?"

The cave glow vanishes, leaving the group in the cave with their torchlight

Janus is angry but they don't have much time for that as they sense the island shaking

They all rush back to their ships. They make it back on time and the island vanishes

The group are left to discuss everything that happened

Janus is understandably upset. Roman apologizes to him like "I'm sorry, the wish should have been yours"

Janus looks at him, softly caressing Roman's face. He brings their heads closer, foreheads pressing. He couldn't bring himself to be mad at Roman

"I know I've been searching for it my whole life, but I can live with it. I know who I am now, I'm captain Janus [surname]. I braved the seas with you, my brother, and our crew by my side. And I am yours. I wouldn't want to change that." Janus declares, pressing his lips on Roman's

Bonus dialogue (marked with **):

**"Wait, they were dating????" Remus interrupts.

**"Well now there's three oblivious idiots," Logan replies, getting a chuckle from Virgil

**”I didn’t get to give him the ‘dont hurt my brother’ talk,” Remus pouted

So anyways, they set sail again. They already found answers, now they search for a new adventure

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gardenofkore · 3 years

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The Theory of the Sicilian Origin of the Odyssey refers to a particular trend (particularly fashionable during the 19th century) according to which the true author of the Odyssey was a young woman from Trapani, who took inspiration from people and places familiar to her to write this famous epic poem. The postulation was made especially renowned after Victorian novelist Samuel Butler published his work The Authoress of the Odyssey in 1897 and is still debated nowadays. The main reasonings who could support the theory of a female writer are the fact that, in the Odyssey, women are depicted as more reasonable and positive than men, who act almost mechanically and aren’t as exalted as their female counterparts. While Iliad’s women are creatures who need to be protected, Odyssey’s women rule, counsel and protect. When Ulysses reaches Scheria, Nausicaa advises him to plead for help from Queen Arete rather than King Alcinous. No woman in the Odyssey is made fun of, and almost everyone of them is treated with respect, except if they committed a serious crime (like Penelope’s unfaithful handmaidens, who are showed no mercy) while men aren’t considered trustworthy and able. Also, the text is peppered with small errors (about navigation, the structure of a ship, the shape of a weapon etc) which no male author could have made.

Who, then, was she?

I cannot answer this question with the confidence that I have felt hitherto. So far I have been able to demonstrate the main points of my argument; on this, the most interesting question of all, I can offer nothing stronger than presumption.

We have to find a woman of Trapani, young, fearless, self-willed, and exceedingly jealous of the honour of her sex. She seems to have moved in the best society of her age and country, for we can imagine none more polished on the West coast of Sicily in Odyssean times than the one with which the writer shews herself familiar. She must have had leisure, or she could not have carried through so great a work. She puts up with men when they are necessary or illustrious, but she is never enthusiastic about them, and likes them best when she is laughing at them; but she is cordially interested in fair and famous women.

I think she should be looked for in the household of the person whom she is travestying under the name of King Alcinous. The care with which his pedigree and that of his wife Arēte is explained (vii. 54-77), and the warmth of affectionate admiration with which Arēte is always treated, have the same genuine flavour that has led scholars to see true history and personal interest in the pedigree of Æneas given in "Il." XX. 200-241. Moreover, she must be a sufficiently intimate member of the household to be able to laugh at its head as much as she chose. [...]

Lastly, she must be looked for in one to whom the girl described as Nausicaa was all in all. No one else is drawn with like livingness and enthusiasm, and no other episode is written with the same, or nearly the same, buoyancy of spirits and resiliency of pulse and movement, or brings the scene before us with anything approaching the same freshness, as that in which Nausicaa takes the family linen to, the washing cisterns. The whole of Book vi. can only have been written by one who was throwing herself into it heart and soul.

All the three last paragraphs are based on the supposition that the writer was drawing real people. That she was drawing a real place, lived at that place, and knew no other, does not admit of further question; we can pin the writer down here by reason of the closeness with which she has kept to natural features that remain much as they were when she portrayed them; but no traces of Alcinous’s house and garden, nor of the inmates of his household will be even looked for by any sane person; it is open, therefore, to an objector to contend that though the writer does indeed appear to have drawn permanent features from life, we have no evidence that she drew houses and gardens and men and women from anything but her own imagination.

[...]

Richly endowed with that highest kind of imagination which consists in wise selection and judicious application of materials derived from life, she fails, as she was sure to do, when cut off from a base of operation in her own surroundings. This appears most plainly in the three books which tell of the adventures of Ulysses after he has left Mt. Eryx and the Cyclopes. There is no local detail in the places described; nothing, in fact, but a general itinerary such as she could easily get from the mariners of her native town. With this she manages to rub along, helping herself out with fragments taken from nearer home, but there is no approach to such plausible invention as we find in Gulliver's Travels, Robinson Crusoe, or Pilgrim's Progress; and when she puts a description of the land of Hades into the mouth of Circe (x. 508–515)—which she is aware must be something unlike anything she had ever witnessed—she breaks down and gives as a scene which carries no conviction. Fortunately not much detail is necessary here; in Ithaca, however, a great deal is wanted, and feeling invention beyond her strength she does not even attempt it, but has recourse with the utmost frankness to places with which she is familiar.

Not only does she shirk invention as much as possible in respect of natural features, but she does so also as regards incident. She can vilipend her neighbours on Mt. Eryx as the people at Trapani continue doing to this day, for there is no love lost between the men of Trapani and those of Mte. S. Giuliano, as Eryx is now called. She knows Ustica: the wind comes thence, and she can make something out of that; then there is the other great Sican city of Cefalù—a point can be made here; but with the Lipari islands her material is running short. She has ten years to kill, for which, however, eight or eight-and-a-half may be made to pass. She cannot have killed more than three months before she lands her hero on Circe's island; here, then, in pity's name let him stay for at any rate twelve months—which he accordingly does.

She soon runs through her resources for the Sirens’ island, and Scylla and Charybdis; she knows that there is nothing to interest her on the East coast of Sicily below Taormina—for Syracuse (to which I will return) was still a small pre-Corinthian settlement, while on the South coast we have no reason to believe that there was any pre-Hellenic city. What, she asked herself, could she do but shut Ulysses up in the most lonely island she could think of—the one from which he would have the least chance of escaping—for the remainder of his term? She chose, therefore, the island which the modern Italian Government has chosen, for exactly the same reasons, as the one in which to confine those who cannot be left at large—the island of Pantellaria; but she was not going to burden Calypso for seven long years with all Ulysses’ men, so his ship had better be wrecked.

This way out of the difficulty does not indicate a writer of fecund or mature invention. She knew the existence of Sardinia, for Ulysses smiles a grim Sardinian smile (xx. 302). Why not send him there, and describe it with details taken not from the North side of Trapani but from the South? Or she need not have given details at all—she might have sent him very long journeys extending over ever so many years in half a page. If she had been of an inventive turn there were abundant means of keeping him occupied without having recourse to the cheap and undignified expedient of shutting him up first for a year in one island, and then for seven in another. Having made herself so noble a peg on which to hang more travel and adventure, she would have hung more upon it, had either strength or inclination pointed in that direction. It is one of the commonplaces of Homeric scholars to speak of the voyages of Ulysses as "a story of adventurous travel." So in a way they are, but one can see all through that the writer is trying to reduce the adventurous travel to a minimum.

See how hard put to it she is when she is away from her own actual surroundings. She does not repeat her incidents so long as she is at home, for she has plenty of material to draw from; when she is away from home, do what she may, she cannot realise things so easily, and has a tendency to fall back on something she has already done. Thus, at Pylos, she repeats the miraculous flight of Minerva (iii. 372) which she had used i. 320. On reaching the land of the Læstrygonians Ulysses climbs a high rock to reconnoitre, and sees no sign of inhabitants save only smoke rising from the ground—at the very next place he comes to he again climbs a high rock to reconnoitre, and apparently sees no sign of inhabitants but only the smoke of Circe's house rising from the middle of a wood. He is conducted to the house of Alcinous by a girl who had come out of the town to fetch a pitcher of water (vii. 20); this is repeated (x. 105) when Ulysses’ men are conducted to the house of the Læstrygonian Antiphates, by a girl who had come out of the town to fetch a pitcher of water. The writer has invented a sleep to ruin Ulysses just as he was well in sight of Ithaca (x. 31, &c.). This is not good invention, for such a moment is the very last in which Ulysses would be likely to feel sleepy—but the effort of inventing something else to ruin him when his men are hankering after the cattle of the Sun is quite too much for her, and she repeats (xii. 338) the sleep which had proved so effectual already. So, as I have said above, she repeats the darkness on each occasion when Ulysses seems likely to stumble upon Trapani. Calypso, having been invented once, must do duty again as Circe—or vice versâ, for Book x. was probably written before Book v.

Such frequent examples of what I can only call consecutive octaves indicate a writer to whom invention does not come easily, and who is not likely to have recourse to it more than she can help. Having shown this as regards both places and incidents, it only remains to point out that the writer's dislike of invention extends to the invention of people as well as places. The principal characters in the "Odyssey" are all of them Scherian. Nestor, Ulysses, Menelaus and Alcinous are every one of them the same person playing other parts, and the greater zest with which Alcinous is drawn suggests, as I have said in an earlier Chapter, that the original from whom they are all taken was better known to the writer in the part of Alcinous than in that of any of the other three. Penelope, Helen, and Arēte are only one person, and I always suspect Penelope to be truer to the original than either of the other two. Idothea and Ino are both of them Nausicaa; so also are Circe and Calypso, only made up a little older, and doing as the writer thinks Nausicaa would do if she were a goddess and had an establishment of her own. I am more doubtful about these last two, for they both seem somewhat more free from that man-hatred which Nausicaa hardly attempts to conceal. Still, Nausicaa contemplates marrying as soon as she can find the right person, and, as we have seen, neither Circe nor Calypso had a single man-servant of their own, while Circe was in the habit of turning all men who came near her into pigs or wild beasts. Calypso, moreover, is only made a little angry by being compelled to send Ulysses away. She does not seem to have been broken-hearted about it. Neither of them, therefore, must be held to be more fond of men than the convenience of the poem dictated. Even the common people of Ithaca are Scherians, and make exactly the same fault-finding ill-natured remarks about Penelope (xxiii. 149-151) as the Phæacians did about Nausicaa in Book vi. 273-288.

If, then, we observe that where the writer's invention is more laboured she is describing places foreign to her own neighbourhood, while when she carries conviction she is at or near her own home, the presumption becomes very strong that the more spontaneous scenes are not so much invention as a rendering of the writer's environment, to which it is plain that she is passionately attached, however much she may sometimes gird at it. I, therefore, dismiss the supposition of my supposed objector that the writer was not drawing Alcinous’ household and garden from life, and am confirmed in this opinion by remembering that the house of Ulysses corresponds perfectly with that of Alcinous—even to the number of the women servants kept in each establishment.

Being limited to a young woman who was an intimate member of Alcinous’ household, we have only to choose between some dependant who idolised Nausicaa and wished to celebrate her with all her surroundings, or Nausicaa (whatever her real name may have been) herself.

[...]

The fact that in the washing day episode, so far as possible, we find Nausicaa, all Nausicaa, and nothing but Nausicaa, among the female dramatis person, indicates that she was herself the young woman of Trapani, a member of the household of King Alcinous, whom we have got to find, and that she was giving herself the little niche in her work which a girl who was writing such a work was sure to give herself.

[...]

At the same time I think it highly probable that the writer of the "Odyssey" was both short and plain, and was laughing at herself, and intending to make her audience laugh also, by describing herself as tall and beautiful. She may have been either plain or beautiful without its affecting the argument.

I wish I could find some one who would give me any serious reason why Nausicaa should not have written the "Odyssey." For the last five years I have pestered every scholar with whom I have been able to scrape acquaintance, by asking him to explain why the "Odyssey" should not have been written by a young woman.

Samuel Butler, The Authoress of the Odyssey

#historical women #women #history #historicwomendaily #women in history #the authoress of the odyssey #samuel butler #Greek Sicily #trapani #Province of Trapani #people of sicily #women of sicily #historyedit #myedit

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fergusandmarsali · 3 years

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Outlander Bingo Masterlist

Biding Time -- Abduction/Kidnapping

A canon-divergent one-shot set during Voyager/Season 3 (Episode 7: Crème de Menthe) where Fergus and Young Ian find themselves kidnapped after a sale gone wrong.

The Finer Points -- Insomnia

While Jamie and Claire are off trying to convince Old Fox to join the war effort, Fergus is left in the care of one Murtagh Fitzgibbons Fraser. Luckily, Murtagh doesn't need to be a genius to see that Fergus isn't sleeping… or to set things to rights.

Cloudless Skies -- De-Aging

Fergus goes through the stones but comes straight back to his current time... as his one-year-old self, giving Jamie and Claire the chance to provide him with the loving care he so desperately needs. Set during Book 6: A Breath of Snow And Ashes.

Battlefield Discoveries -- Presumed Dead

When Fergus fails to return from the Battle of Prestonpans it falls upon Murtagh to locate his body and bring him home to Jamie and Claire. A canon-divergent one shot set during Season 2 / Dragonfly in Amber.

Wreck My Plans -- Fake Dating/Marriage

Faced with the prospect of her mother setting her up on a date with yet another man she doesn’t know (and certainly isn't going to like), Marsali announces she’s handfasted to Fergus Fraser of Lallybroch. Now all she needs to do is convince said Scotch Thistle Inn co-worker to play along and then, together, convince those around them it’s more than a passing folly long enough for her to escape this small town once and for all. Modern Day AU.

Coins & Conversations -- Mistaken Identity

When Murtagh is mistaken for the kind of man who would pay to spend time in Fergus’s company, he reacts accordingly – with creative insults, much violence and an overdue conversation with the boy himself. A canon-compliant one-shot set during early Season 2.

Lingering Wounds -- Stitches

A canon-compliant one-shot set during Voyager / Season 3 where Jamie suffers a flashback, Fergus temporarily finds himself with zero functioning hands and Young Ian gains a whole new understanding as to their father-son relationship.

New Names & Old Habits -- Fix-It Fic

A canon-divergent one-shot where Fergus's newfound delight in using the Fraser name leads to a chance meeting with Milord and Milady's daughter, him warning her to stay away from Stephen Bonnet and receiving all the motivation he needs to utilise his pickpocketing skills once more. Set during 4x08 Wilmington.

Shadows Aligning -- Huddling For Warmth

When Jamie turns up at the docks unannounced, Fergus is caught off guard by the men he’s fighting and ends up in the freezing cold basin leading to a moderate case of hypothermia, huddling for warmth and a conversation that he had been hoping to avoid. A canon-divergent one-shot set during Voyager / Season 3 featuring Vigilante!Fergus (because if his story isn’t a vigilante origin story then I don’t know what is).

Surprise Proposal -- Injury

Fergus's plan to inform Jamie and Claire of his relationship with Marsali includes good food, even better wine and two little sisters as his witness. What he gets instead is a motorcycle accident, painkillers and a tongue so loose it catches everyone by surprise – including himself. Modern Day AU.

As always, prompts and/or more specific requests are very welcome!

#outlander #outlanderbingo #masterlist #fersali #fergus fraser #marsali fraser

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suwya · 3 years

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Till the Stars Had Run Away - Chapter 7

Summary: Killian Jones was a voyager. Actually, he was many things, or at least he had been - a lieutenant, a brother, a loving boyfriend - until everything had turned upside down and his life had hit an all time low. So, he gave up. Aboard his spaceship he abandoned Arcadia, his planet, navigating the stars and other solar systems in search of... well, he still didn't know what he was searching for, but his rule was "never remain in the same place longer than necessary."

Rating: M

Prologue; Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6

AO3

A/N: Thank you @thisonesatellite for being the best beta reader I could ever ask for. And thank to all of you who are reading this.

Chapter 7

Everything exists,

everything is true

and the earth is just

a bit of dust beneath our feet.

(W. B. Yeats)

“Help yourself.” David had accompanied Killian to some sort of warehouse with various spare parts of spaceships piled up here and there on shelves. “Sorry, I don't understand much about mechanics.” He apologized.

Killian looked around him, some pieces appeared to be useful, others looked like half-broken remains from which perhaps a couple of bolts could be extracted but nothing more. “It seems more boneyard than storage.”

“Yeah, well, not everybody who landed here was lucky enough to tell the tale..” David sighed.

A look of understanding passed between them. Killian nodded and started to rummage through the pieces. They had just checked the Jolly Roger to assess the damages, passing through a hidden corridor that led directly to the hangar without having to go out into the open. If I had known this passage existed, I would have probably been spared my hospital stay, Killian had thought.

“What is like to grow up on this planet?” He asked nonchalantly, still trying to decipher the man next to him.

“Nobody is from Vernal-Den.”

Killian looked at him suspiciously “Then, how did you land here?”

“Probably, same as you did. We had entered the gravitational field without even realizing it. Sadly, we were less fortunate than you, our spaceship was destroyed. It’s a miracle we survived. And in no time we were trapped here.”

“And you built an underground city.” There was astonishment in his voice.

“It’s not that big, and the tunnels were already part of this planet, we just repurposed them for our convenience.”

“How many of you live here?”

David appeared lost in a faraway thought. “There were more than twenty of us in the original group. Some had already gone away, joining a fleeing ship. Some… well, let’s just say they had tried an escape route that did not turn out to be the best choice. There’s just a few of us left now.”

“Why didn’t you leave?” Killian was curious to know what kept the other man tied to this lost land.

“I contemplated the possibility a couple of times. But at the beginning it was chaos, people needed a leader. Someone who took responsibility for organizing things down here.”

“You?”

“I was their leader on our home planet.” David answered, and Killian studied the man in front of him, his stance, the way he always looked straight into the eyes of his interlocutor. He exuded confidence and Killian had no trouble imagining him as a charismatic manager or even a king. But when he was about to ask, the other man went on. “When things started to run by themselves, I considered going somewhere else, but well, you can imagine, we don’t receive many visitors.”

“So if the opportunity arises to leave now, you will take it on the fly?”

“I don't know,” David shook his head, “but I would certainly think about it.”

Killian spent some time choosing pieces from the shelves. When he felt satisfied with his choices, he said “I think I have everything I need.”

David nodded and they made their way back to the ship. Killian was eager to get started on the repairs, the other man said he had some tasks to do and would be back to pick him up in a few hours, so Killian found himself alone in the hangar. But that was no problem, he loved devoting sweat and tears to his ship, and fixing it was for him like healing the wounds of a close friend.

Time flew by when he was with his lady, and when David returned, Killian was covered in grease and oil stains. “I’ve just talked to Mary Margaret”, the blonde man stated, “dinner should be ready soon, we better go home.”

A few corridors and passages down, David stopped in front of a double door. He seemed to ponder something, but in the end, he said “Let me show you something.”

Behind that door there was one of the most amazing things Killian had ever seen. A greenhouse. The man remembered when Henry mentioned it. Now he understood why the boy was so enthusiastic about it.

The place was enormous. Plants and trees of all kinds and species grew in full bloom under an artificial source of bright light and the temperature in the room was slightly wet but pleasant. Scents of different flowers filled the air and Killian recognized some fruits that he had only seen in pictures. He was staring with awe. “Well, this is…”

“Outstanding? Extraordinary?” David finished his sentence. “Yeah. Exactly my thoughts when I found it.”

“What do you mean, found it? Was it already here when you arrived?”

David nodded.

“But how could it be? You said that nobody was living here when you landed. Who is in charge of this place?”

“The place runs all by itself.” Under the astonished look of the other man, David added “Many things are strange on this planet, and I don’t have all the answers.” He shook his head. “I wish I had.”

~·~·~·~

Back home Killian took a quick shower to get rid of all the grease of the engine and when he was redressing with clean clothes, Emma approached him and started to help him with the ointment and fresh bandages for his bruises. They were alone in the upper part of the loft. She was chewing her bottom lip, maybe because she was concentrating on the task, or so he thought, and that’s why he was surprised when she abruptly said “We need to talk.”

He arched a brow. “I’ve found that when a woman says that, I'm rarely in for a pleasant conversation.”

She rolled her eyes. “I want you to know what Sidney Glass told me about New-Tolemac.”

Emma had just finished fixing the last of the gauze, and Killian put a hand on hers stopping her movements. She lifted her gaze, staring into his eyes perplexedly. He nodded, trying to silently tell her that she could trust him with whatever she wanted to reveal.

But the closeness, her hand on his chest, the way she was looking at him, it was too much to bear for Killian. Intense and maybe inappropriate thoughts were forming in his head, and he needed to pay attention to what she was about to say. He took a step back and started to put on a shirt.

Emma sat down at the end of the bed. She was fidgeting, clearly uncomfortable and worried. “The King and Queen of New-Tolemac have joined forces with the Industry.” She blurted.

“Well, that’s a powerful partnership, indeed.” Killian conceded.

“But why? For years they have built and perfected a plan to defeat the Industry, they have been preparing for war. Now they want to be their ally. I don’t understand.” Emma shook her head.

“People often change sides according to their benefits.”

“Yeah. Mr. Glass said they have a common goal. But he didn’t know what that was. Or he didn’t want to reveal it to me.” Emma had been staring at her feet so far. But she frowned and raised her gaze to find his. “I don’t know what to think.”

Killian sat down next to her and covered her hand with his. “What is exactly troubling you?”

“If New-Tolemac doesn’t fear a possible attack of the Industry, maybe they won’t be needing Henry as their heir anymore. So I should be relieved. But if they still need Henry for their future business, they are more powerful now, and finding my son wouldn’t be much of a problem for them.” She shivered. “I’m terrified.” She admitted.

Killian looked sympathetically at her, then he opened his arms and she leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. “We will protect Henry. Nothing bad will happen to the boy.” He tried to reassure her, and she mentally thanked him for his choice to use the word we.

~·~·~·~

When Emma and Killian went downstairs Henry was immersed in a story. Mary Margaret was putting some things in place on her shelves, which in Killian’s opinion was not at all necessary, as they already seemed in order; he noticed that the boy glanced confused towards the brunette woman but didn't give it too much weight.

David was in the kitchen, browning some vegetables. "You absolutely have to try these," he told his audience, "they don't have all the intense flavor they had on our planet, but, given that they are from a greenhouse, they are not bad at all."

“What was your home planet?” Killian inquired.

“One of the NTH-Confederates.” It was Mary Margaret who answered.

“No way!” Henry had stopped giving attention to his tablet.

“Yes, why? Do you know them?” Was David’s question, while his wife simultaneously asked: "Have you been there?"

“Everybody in the multiverse knows them.” Killian stated. “I traveled a lot, but I never went that far away. Those planets are surrounded by legends and myths.”

“Well, it’s a very tangible and existing myth.” The brunette said with a nostalgic look in her eyes.

“It’s so cool! It has to be a wondrous place.” Henry was as enthusiastic as usual.

“Yeah. Well… I’d like it to be as cool as it used to be.” There was a hint of sadness in David’s voice. Then he shook his head as if he didn't want to indulge in melancholic thoughts. “But, they still have the best fillglow team of the multiverse!”

“What are you talking about?” Killian rhetorically asked.

“Why, The Buttercups, of course!”

“No, no, no.” Killian accentuated it by swinging one finger. “I mean, they are some fine fellows, I won’t argue with that. But The Black Clippers? That’s a team as it ought to be!”

“Oh, come on! The Buttercups have won four major leagues. What did your team win?”

“It’s easy to have the most requested players on the market when you are loaded. My boys, they cut their teeth on the field, they fought to reach where they are. They were not a guaranteed winning team, and look at them now, top end of the MFC table this year. Plus, they play fair.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” David was staring back at the other man, chin raised, one hand on his hip. He might even have looked threatening, were it not for the fact that in his other hand he was brandishing a wooden spoon and wearing an apron that read "the most charming chef in the world".

“Easy guys.” His wife tried to make peace. “Dinner is almost ready, would you like to help set the table?”

They all ate quietly, the boys still talking about sports, but with Mary Margaret's gentle interjection now and then, and some glances at her husband, they didn’t argue much. Emma, instead, was delighted, looking at Killian talking about his favorite team as if he was defending his honor.

When they finished eating, the brunette stood up and said to her husband “David, you should go and do your patrol, while I check at the hospital if they need anything.” Something that Killian had already listened to the previous day, as well just after dinner.

Henry looked at the woman frowning. “Why do you always repeat the same actions, day after day?” He was perplexed.

Killian hummed as if he had the clues to the boy’s puzzle “This is a stuck-track planet, my lad.” he explained to a confused Henry. “I’ve been on some of them when I was young.”

“You say it as if you were an old fellow.” Emma snorted. “What are you, a million years old?”

“It’s more like two hundred.” Was his reply.

And to her surprise, she didn’t detect any hint of a lie. “Are you kidding me?”

Killian was about to reply, but Henry interrupted their banter “What’s a stuck-track planet?”

“It means that time runs differently here.” The man explained. “The days or even weeks we spend on this planet are probably just a couple of minutes back home.”

The boy seemed fascinated by the idea. “Wow! Now I understand why my watch gives almost the same hour, it's not broken, it just moves really slow!”

“Exactly. And it affects people, too.” Killian went on. “They don’t age, or at least not in the way you do on Althea-Seals.” Then he drew near Emma, whispering so that only she could hear him “Stuck-track planets may have given me experience, but as you can see I’ve retained my youthful glow.” He winked at her, who just rolled her eyes but couldn’t suppress a smile.

“This is why the days all look the same here.” Henry deduced, who was giving further thought to the subject.

“This is why we follow routines so strictly.” Mary Margaret chimed in. “It helps count the passing of time.”

“Does that mean that you and David aren’t the age you appear, either?” Emma questioned.

The other woman thought about it. “Add twenty years, give or take. But it’s hard to say exactly.”

The married couple excused themselves while heading out of the loft to carry out their duties. Killian and Emma started to put away the remains of the dinner. Henry was probably still eager to know as much as possible about this strange planet and its slow time, but when he stood up with his dirt plate in his hands he couldn’t suppress a yawn. His mother insisted on him going to bed.

~·~·~·~

“Where do those flying rocks around the planet come from?” Killian asked David after he had come back from his patrol.

Henry was already sleeping upstairs, and the three of them were sitting around the table.

“Ahm, it’s not so easy to explain.” The blond man answered.

“Give it a try.” Killian wanted to understand how Vernal-Den worked.

David shook his head. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, more than I don’t actually know about it.” He made a pause trying to find better words to explain his point of view. “I would say it’s remotely directed.”

“From where?” Emma asked curiously.

“We don’t know.” This time was Mary Margaret’s turn to answer, who had just entered the loft, back from the hospital, and joined the other adults at the table.

“But I assure you, there’s none else on this planet, apart from the people we know about. And I trust all of them.” David had the urge to defend his friends.

“A couple of people we knew had tried to go outside to search for other forms of life, enemies, whatever... to understand who or what supervises this planet’s activities.” Mary Margaret sighed. “Let’s just say it didn’t end well.”

“But there should be someone else on this planet, defending it.” Killian didn’t comprehend.

“There’s nobody else living here, apart from the people we already know.”

“How can you be so sure?” Emma asked.

“Nobody else uses the greenhouse and its products.” David explained. “Nobody else wastes the energy generated by the planet. It’s just us.”

“But it’s clear that someone really wants to protect this planet from intruders, therefore the rocks. For what purpose?” Killian’s attempt to solve this puzzle only created more questions and doubts.

“Well, the greenhouse could supply oxygen and food for an entire population. I think that someone is interested in keeping this planet as a possible lifeline.”

“A lifeline.” The dark man wondered about it. “Who’s behind this?”

“My theory is just as good as yours.” The blond man shook his head again.

“But you do have a theory.”

“Who’s playing with planets as pawns for his own benefits?” David grimaced.

“You think the Industry is behind this?” Emma almost whispered, as if she was worried that the Industry itself could hear her. She shivered, and Killian put his hand on hers resting on her knee under the table. He was willing to tell her that everything was going to be ok, but he didn’t want to generate indiscreet questions from his hosts.

David shrugged. “Any other ideas?”

“I don’t know. We haven't lived here for a long time. You tell me.” Killian teased.

David looked straight at his guests. “We did some research, with the limited resources we have here, but I assure you it’s nothing we had seen before. What generates all the power needed to maintain the greenhouse and the system that propels the rocks outside the atmosphere … it’s not material, if you understand what I mean.”

Killian passed his bionic hand over his stubble thoughtfully. “Not material.” He repeated. “Antiparticles? But that’s preposterous! A fantasy! You can’t create energy from nothing.”

“Yeah. You would say so. But there’s no other explanation. It’s a power so strong that can create an entirely new world…” David made a pause, and then: “or destroy one.”

“Antiparticles,” Killian repeated, while all his theories were starting to fit in. “So that’s how that vile crocodile annihilates the planets he doesn't need anymore.”

The blond man nodded. “After looting everything the planet has to offer, the Industry injects some of those antiparticles underground. And they disintegrate every last molecular bond and electric impulse until the planet itself implodes.”

“Is that what happened to your planet?” Emma asked Killian even if she didn’t need an actual answer, and then she turned to the couple “Yours as well?”

“We’re not sure about that,” David answered. “From the sources we have, it appears that the NTH-Confederates planets are still alive and kicking, all of them. I think Mr. Gold has other intentions, some obscure interest in them. But I don’t know what it is.”

“Do you miss it? Your home.” Emma inquired. She didn’t miss hers. Life on New-Tolemac when she was a child had not been that bad, she couldn’t complain. But the lack of freedom and the memories of the last events there had left a sour taste and no desire of going back ever.

“Yes. We do.” There was sadness in David’s voice. “Most of the time. But we know that returning there doesn’t necessarily mean that we could go back to our lives. Many things have changed. And I’m not sure I’d like to see how our planet has become.”

“We had to make some difficult decisions before leaving our home. But it was for the best of all.” Mary Margaret sobbed. “It was a long time ago, but it still hurts like the first day.” David put his hand on hers, smiling faintly, trying to give her courage.

“What happened? If it’s not too much to ask.” Killian softly asked.

“We were under attack,” David explained. “We tried to defend ourselves, but the Industry’s power is difficult to overcome. We realized that the only way for us to survive was to abandon our land…”

Mary Margaret stepped in, “We believed that it was the end, that we wouldn’t be able to escape alive.” She sighed loudly “I had just had a baby, and we knew that taking her with us was too risky, it would have been her death sentence.”

“So we contacted a woman who promised us that our daughter would be taken care of, she knew that the King and Queen of a faraway planet were searching for an heir.” David went on telling the story, but his voice wasn’t as steady as he tried to make it. He was still affected by the sad memory as well as his wife. “We wrapped her in a white blanket with a purple ribbon and we gave her the best chance to be the princess she could have never been with us.”

“So you decided to sell her!” Emma shouted.

“What?” - “No!” David and Mary Margaret reacted simultaneously, shaking their heads in bewilderment.

“We never said anything about money.” David pointed out.

“We could have never done anything like that to our child.” Mary Margaret seemed shocked by her guest’s assumption and even a bit outraged.

Emma looked at them with an open mouth, but no sound came out. Then she abruptly stood up and rushed out of the house.

The married couple exchanged a questioning look. “Did I say something wrong?” Mary Margaret asked worriedly.

Killian shook his head. “I should apologize for her behavior. This is a sensitive matter for her. If you would excuse me.” He said standing up and heading to the door.

~·~·~·~

“Are you alright, love?” Killian found Emma sitting on the corridor floor, with her arms around her legs and her face buried in her knees.

He waited for a reply, but it didn’t come. So he sat down next to her. She was crying, her back shuddering.

“Swan…” he tried, but then... “Emma, talk to me.”

She raised her face to look straight at him. Tears rolling down her cheeks. “I have a white blanket with a purple ribbon from when I was a baby! I always had it!” And there was pain in her eyes, but also anger.

It was his time to keep silent. He didn’t know how to react to this new piece of information.

“It’s them!” She exclaimed between sobs. “Those people inside the house are my parents! How am I supposed to look at their faces?”

An immeasurable feeling of protection spread within Killian, but he had to swallow his urge to hug her as if their lives depended on it, because it wasn’t the right time. She was struggling against enough demons, he could not burden her with further emotional matters. “Well, love, if it were me finally finding my parents, I would be very pleased to spend as much time as possible with them, to get the chance to know them and understand who they really are.”

“They sold me! They didn’t want me!” Emma looked at him as if he were an alien. How he could not understand her point of view was beyond her comprehension.

But Killian did understand her, given that he had been sold as a child as well, he knew the feeling, he just didn’t think this was the same case he had lived through. “That’s not what they said in there. They were trying to protect their baby, to give her her best chance to live a life they couldn’t afford for her. And they didn’t seem happy about that decision. I saw regret and what-ifs in their eyes.”

He knew she too noticed the pain in David and Mary Margaret's strangled voices, but he also knew she wasn't ready to admit it. “They are lying.” She hissed.

“Are you sure about that? Henry once told me you have this superpower, that you can detect a lie when you hear it. I had the impression they were being honest while telling their story.”

“But I saw the contract!” She was grasping at straws.

Killian had to take her to a more practical level, something tangible that she could hold on to if she wanted to. “Aye, you saw it. And who exactly signed it?”

“I…” Emma tried to recall a ten-year-old memory, but it wasn’t easy. After all, she had been in shock when she had discovered she wasn't the real daughter of the King and Queen of New-Tolemac. “I don’t know… I mean, I’m pretty sure there were my adoptive parents’ names in the paper, but…”

And that was when Killian realized that he had bought her some time, at least. “So you are not completely sure that they are your parents.”

He saw how her shoulders hunched as she was looking at him with watering pleading eyes and he understood that part of her was yelling to run away from pain and old scars, but another part was whispering that maybe she could finally find that love that only parents can give and that she had never felt in her life.

“You know what? We’re going to go back, and we’re going to spend a few more days with those people. We could even ask them if they would like to come with us on our journey back.”

“But..” She started.

Killian stopped her with the raise of one finger. “If it turns out that they really are your parents, well, you’ll have more time to understand why they decided to abandon you when you were just a baby. And only after that, we’ll choose if we hate them or not. Sounds fair?”

She didn’t move for a few minutes, dwelling on his words, but then she put a hand on his bionic one, and even if she knew he couldn’t feel it, she squeezed it with gratitude. Thank you for bearing this weight with me. She would have liked to say the words, but they didn’t come. She didn’t have the strength to analyze why he was doing this for her. Too many feelings for one night, to face new and unfamiliar ones. “Okay.” was what she finally said.

#cs ff #cs au #Till the Stars Had Run Away #alternative universe - science fiction #space au #my writing

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morgana-ren · 4 years

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Come Down to the Black Sea

Summary: The sea seems to call to you, but it’s not the tumultuous clash of the waves you should fear. Something lurks deep beneath the black waters, something sinister with a piqued interest and ill intent.

Rating: Teen, unless I chose to post the later chapters. Then things get all dirty and stuff.

Warnings: Siren!Shigaraki. So, there’s that. Foul language, as always. Slight struggle.

Hello, please take my garbage. This was originally a discord exclusive ficlet that ended up too fucking long. I meant to post it a while back but got distracted. I’ve read over it and I hate it a lot more than I did originally, more than I can really convey, but I feel bad for not posting anything story related for a while and maybe some folks will enjoy this. I promise I edited, I swear. Never thought I’d write something like this. Ever. and by ‘like this’, I mean no filth less than 500 words in. Either way, here it is.

“What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.”

The sea is as much a constant to you as the gentle breeze that blankets your little port town. Every action you take daily in some small way reminds you that not so far away, the unforgiving tides are lapping hungrily at the shore and the restless ocean waters stir miles from the coast. Every breath you take is somewhat tinged with the briny smell of sea salt and slight sulfur. Seafood stalls and restaurants dot the coastal region, making up a large portion of the diets and employ of the folks who make their homes here.

Yet, for as big of a part of their lives as it is, there is so little known about it.

The ocean’s mysteries are as vast as her expanse and as deep as the trenches that lurk within her depths.

Children are raised on cautionary tales, made acutely aware of the ever-present dangers of life near the open water. Rip currents and drowning, sailors lost at sea and boats that never make it to harbor. Hostile creatures that make their nests within the darkened deep beyond the pale of human experience. These things are often as mysterious as they are tragic and leave behind loved ones mourning not only the loss of lives, but the answers they’ll never have.

Sometimes, you can’t help but wonder if your kind has gotten just a bit too comfortable near the seaside.

You’re not the only one that thinks so.

It’s not by any stretch of the imagination to consider humans a loud and overwhelming presence. They dominate any space they come across, often having little to no regard for any other living creature and imposing their will on anything unfortunate enough to cross their path. Once tranquil steads are trampled, native creatures baited and hunted, and soon there’s no semblance of the beauty that once existed. Humanity leaves behind an impossibly large footprint that destroys whatever is caught beneath its crushing boot.

The ocean is no exception.

Sailors, whalers, and fishermen blot the waters, disrupting the natural cycles of the creatures that make their homes beneath them. Garbage, rot, and other various forms of filth are callously dumped and left to drift. Human hubris has seen the death of the coral reefs, the extinction of entire species, and even radiation left to leak and poison everything in its path.

The only place safe from the fecund shadow of destruction that looms wherever humans may roam are places far too treacherous to facilitate their survival.

You’ve come to believe that maybe beings that are forced to breed in that darkness grow to harbor a grudge against that which pushed them there.

Your little seaport city has always been relatively calm. It attracts enough tourists to keep it economically stable, but not so many as to make it a cultural hub. The signature beaches are only mildly clogged with tourist trap giftshops, and while the sands are busy, there’s not so much foot traffic as to make it unpleasant to visit.

Things have run relatively smoothly for your hometown, at least for the majority of your life. There’s the one-off oddity every now and again, but for the most part, it’s a fine place to live. The native folk are kind enough, and there’s decent opportunity for growth. Still, life always left something to be desired; some greater need that tugs at you and calls you toward the ocean.

Watching the fishing vessels come to and from the bay can be calming. What started as a time wasting hobby as a child has turned into a nightly practice. The marine layer makes it difficult to see early mornings, and the incessant chatter of tourists and their screeching younglings make it difficult to think during the daylight hours. It didn’t take long before the boats mattered little, and it was the time alone you valued. You’d curl up in the still-warm sand, gazing out into the horizon and watching the moon rise high above the waves, listening to the sound of the ocean and losing yourself in its subtle song.

Even as adulthood inevitably sought you out, you found time for your solitary moments that existed between no one but you and the horizon.

It brought you a sense of peace. No matter how much time passed, a part of you stayed anchored to the beach.

Yet, nothing stays peaceful forever, especially near the rocky shoreline.

It started with a missing boat.

It was the talk of the town. A small schooner had gone missing just off the coast and never returned. A band of brothers had set out for a weekend voyage and by Tuesday, no word of them had returned to shore. It had made the local news, pictures of the men aboard flashed across the screen, all smiling faces and sunburned skin. They were experienced sailors, raised on the waves and having spent more time in a boat than they did on land.

Surely, they were fine. Everyone hoped for the best.

At least until pieces of the boat washed ashore a week later, no sign of brothers anywhere.

That incident was the first of many.

Early morning swimmers began to disappear without a trace, divers vanishing without warning. More and more boats failed to make it to harbor despite calm conditions, and soon some people rejected the water all together. The missing persons board was filled with more macabre grinning faces that served as reminders than ever before, and inevitably, people became paranoid.

Superstition gained favor over logic, and tales spread of a malevolent being plaguing the coast began to spread. Children were warned against playing in the tides and tourists begin to shy away from the port. Locals and witnesses talk amongst each other, claiming to see a pair of vicious, glowing red eyes from deep within the water after dark.

Those who denied the possibility shunned those who fell into the myth, claiming that it was clearly boat lights and that folks were too finicky. There was no mysterious sea monster, only misfortune and the loose lips of idle handed fools.

Still, that didn’t account for the sudden surge in disappearances nor did it explain why no remains were ever found.

The mysteries intrigued you, but you worry little for the danger. While you weren’t entirely sure what to think, you never stepped far into the ocean on your nightly visits, mostly only skirting around the water’s edges and observing. Superstition be damned, this was the one place you felt a sense of utter calm and peace. You’re not disturbing the sea or her inhabitants; only sitting by her and admiring her beauty.

You mind your business along the beach and you think that keeps you safe, but that doesn’t spare you his wrath.

A lonely night walker, you loiter along the sands and drag your feet through the wetness. You never let the water flood past your ankles, opting to squish the damp muck beneath your toes instead. He watches you, just out of his reach and still so close. Rage simmers in his chest and his fingers twitch, longing to rip you apart, feel your heartbeat as it slows and ceases beneath his fingertips. He doesn’t dare try his luck against the surface, but you infuriate him.

Time and time again, he’s tried to lure you out.

You never fall for it, though he can tell by the way your eyes linger on the ocean a tad too long that you're curious. If he cared enough to place it, he'd say you look sad, maybe a little forlorn. After all, who comes to a deserted beach alone at night that isn't?

Always the same section of sand, always the same look on your face. You kick at the particles stuck to your grimy feet like it'll sooth whatever repressed emotion you're stewing in, and he can't help but scoff.

Humans are completely ridiculous.

Still, he watches, determined to see you inhale deep the waters around you while what little light you have left in your eyes leaves, same as the rest of your kind that has fallen prey to his deadly actions.

Night after night he waits, and night after night you resist. You don't fall for his tricks, even the ones that beguile the seasoned sailors. It's curious, he'll admit. No matter how longingly you look at the ocean like it could offer you something you need desperately, you never give into the temptation to wade just a little deeper, just take a few fucking steps forward. Perhaps you come from a sea fairing family who had elders that warned against the seduction of the low night tides, or maybe your primal human brain still holds an inkling as to what dwells deep beneath your world, but either way, it agitates him more than he'd like.

He's always had a wanderlust and never sticks around the same sections for long, but the fact that you've been evading the watery grave he dug just for you grates at him. He finds himself waiting moonrise after moonrise to see your form emerge, wracking his brain for ways to trick your feeble human mind into his waters. He's better than you, in every sense of the word. This shouldn't be this difficult.

If he didn't know better, he would say that you know. You never quite look directly at him, but your head is always turned in his direction, as if you have some sixth sense of his location. He doesn't like it. Even though you're the one in the sights of a predator, it makes him feel like a goldfish trapped in a tank. You piss him off.

But eventually, one night, his patience finally pays off.

Warily, you perch yourself on some rocks that stray into the ocean. You don't even dip your feet in, which, while not ideal, would have been enough for him to work with. Instead, you sit with your arms crossed over your knees, same distant grimace on your face that you sport every night. You seem hypnotized by the reflection of the moon on his waters, hardly blinking or even really breathing except for the occasional despondent sigh.

The thing that stirs you from your daze is a flash of silver just under the water beneath where you're sitting. At first you think it's a fish, since it's not uncommon to see them around when all the beachgoers retreat for the day, but the eerie luminescent glow is unlike any fish you've ever seen before in a life almost wholly occupied by the sea. You watch intently for a moment, hoping to see it again, but give up when all that greets you is the deep, murky blue of sunsetted waters.

Still, once you pull your eyes from the gently splashing waves, it catches your attention once more. You're curious if you're just seeing strange broken reflections of the moon, but that wouldn't explain why once you offer it your attention, it disappears.

You keep your eyes down and stare long into the water, and eventually it appears again. Long and stringy, it’s definitely unlike any fish fin you've ever seen. It's incandescent almost, reflecting the silvery light of the moon with an oddly hypnotizing pearlescent glow. You’ll admit, it’s strange, but what alarms you the most are the two crimson eyes staring up at you from beneath the tangle of silvered webbing.

You almost recoil, but you're anchored in place by some hybrid mix of fear and curiosity. The urge to scream becomes paralyzed somewhere deep in your throat when a thin, gangly arm reaches up and grasps at the craggy surface of the rock before your feet. It looks… human... or at least it would, if it wasn't for the slight iridescent sheen of the skin- if you look closely, you can almost make out what appears to be scales and a thin fin that runs the expanse of the forearm. Thick, slimy webbing coats the inside of each finger, becoming more apparent as long claws stretch and crawl toward your retracted legs.

Those maliciously alluring eyes draw closer and closer to the surface and soon enough, you can make out what appears to be a face somewhere just under the waves staring right back up you.

Another hand joins the one currently clinging to the rock and the figure hoists itself up partway from the water, and soon you're face to face with...

Well, you can't really say what.

You were right, it's human. He's human. At least… half human?

Drenched white hair slicks back just below his shoulders and clings to the sides of his face, beadlets of water sliding down from the wintery strands down to what appears to be a pair of gills that encircle the rounds of his neck. There's something akin to black fins parting the slicked hair where his ears should be, but even that's not enough to pull your attention from the perverse scarlet eyes burning into yours from behind the severely salt-chapped flesh of his face.

Unnatural hue aside, they’re utterly petrifying, and while something deep in your body tells you that you should run, you can't bring yourself to move from the spot.

He pulls himself up a bit, lithe torso exposed as he lazily rests his head on his finned forearms by your feet. His body language is completely contradicted by the obvious hate in his expression, which only makes it even more difficult for your brain to try and decide what in the fuck you're supposed to do in this situation.

What the hell is he?

You try to ask, but the shock of seemingly stumbling upon a possibly malevolent supernatural creature in the dead of night has caused a severe regression in your speech capabilities. The only thing your mouth is capable of producing is a series of incoherent babbles and sounds, hands shaking as your resist the urge to touch him to see if he's real or if you've been slipped some form of extremely powerful hallucinogen.

He studies you briefly through pale lashes and you could swear you see him roll his eyes before a prolonged blink.

I'm sorry, is this not the expected result? He's looking at you like you're the weird one in this scenario?

Regardless, he lets you stare at him and allows your feeble human brain to come to terms with what you're seeing. Amazing, how quickly your kind forgets you don't exist alone. He draws the line, however, when you finally find the ability to go to poke his fins. He swats you away with an unnaturally quick movement from his slippery, wet hand and you stare at the water spots he leaves behind like it's the strangest shit you've ever seen.

"Are you often so rude as to touch strangers, human?"

You skitter back on your ass, eyes wide and disbelieving even as the truth stares you back with a mocking expression. His voice is raspy and graveled, cracking from what you assume is disuse. It takes you a moment to process his words, despite being absolutely certain that you’ve heard them.

"Holy fuck, you're real!"

"Just grasping that, are we?"

"What the fuck are you?"

His face contorts and his lips lift in a snarl, revealing the extremely sharp looking fangs on either side of his mouth. Okay, so that might've been extremely rude. He's obviously sentient, so maybe saying something so brash and offensive wasn't really the way to go.

"Sorry, I mean -fuck - I've just never, uh-" You clear your throat awkwardly, still trying to decide whether or not to bolt. He watches you through tautly narrowed lids, and you get the feeling you should tread very carefully. Whatever emotion it is you see in his face, it certainly isn't patience.

"Are you a..." What would you call him? A mermaid? A fish-man? A sea spirit? It doesn't quite matter, since he doesn't give you time to finish your line of thought.

"Your people have no word for what I am." He speaks the words almost bitterly. "But just because your kind doesn’t acknowledge me doesn't mean I don't exist."

You're not entirely sure if you should apologize on behalf of the human race or admit yourself into a psych ward.

"What, uh, what should I call you... Um, sir?" Smooth. But you're not really sure what to say here. What exactly are proper honorifics when it comes to situations like this?

"My name," He sighs again, as if it's some great chore to introduce himself. "Is Shigaraki."

"Okay, Shigaraki," You say his name, trying to get the hang of it as it rolls off your tongue. "It's nice to meet you- I think?"

He pays your attempt at polite conversation no mind at all.

"What are you doing here, human?"

Okay, he's curt and to the point. Good to know. He seems to have very little consideration for your bewilderment, despite being the one that demanded your attention in the first place, which isn’t necessarily a good thing when you don’t really know how to answer his question between the confusion and the sheer oddity. To be frank, you can’t muster much of a response.

"Just... sitting here?"

"No, I mean what are you doing? Every single night, you come here, you look at the sea for hours. Why?"

His pointed tone demands an answer, seeming irate or even provoked by your harmless nightly activity.

"I don't know." For some reason, the question frustrates you as well, mainly because you really don't know. The ocean soothes you, even if you're just spectating it. It's too busy during the day, packed with tourists and teenagers yelling and bounding around in the sand, and while you're happy they're having a good time and all, the voices are impossible to drown out. Even the sea seems to protest their presence, the tide becoming higher and higher and more rambunctious until it almost forces the invaders out. More than once, folks have almost drowned for being too stubborn and refusing to cut their beach day short despite the obvious danger.

It seems to calm itself at night, waves gently washing ashore instead of slapping angrily at the feet of anyone treading the sand as if it's trying to coax them deeper only to pull them under.

"You don't know?" It seems more like a statement than a question, and it's an unimpressed statement at that.

"Yeah. I don't really know. I just like being here, I suppose." You shrug, letting your arms fall limp at your sides. It could be the shock, but somehow, you’re actually managing to carry on the conversation with him. "Is there something wrong with that?"

Something flashes in his eyes, and it sends a shiver down your spine. Once again his body language drastically contradicts the vibe you're getting from him. He leans back casually in the water, and just beneath the edge, you see something slick and shiny flutter where you're certain his legs should be. "I guess not. But if you like it here so much, why don't you ever come in?"

"I-I don't know... The water is dangerous at night..."

“Is ‘I don’t know’ all you know how to say?” He gives you a derisive smile, mocking your tone while swimming graceful circles back and forth in front of the rock with an inhuman grace that sets you on edge. "Don't tell me you're scared, little human."

"I'm not scared, I'm just not stupid."

He runs his tongue over his fangs and something akin to a smile crosses his features. "Sure you're not. A little girl like you could never be afraid of a little water."

He's taunting you and you know it, but the way his eyes stay locked with yours as he swims around and around and around is making you feel a little dizzy...

"I'm not afraid-"

"Come in then."

He dips into the water and disappears, and despite knowing better, you find yourself leaning over the rock to see where he's gone. He's waiting for you just under the waves. You can see the fluid flap of an ebony tail glimmering in the moonlight, silver hair haloed around his head. One clawed finger beckons you toward him, and you can feel yourself leaning further and further.

You're willing yourself to draw back, but the closest you can come is ceasing your forward movements. Even as you try, you can't pull your eyes away from his, staring unblinkingly up at you and glowing that foreboding sanguine shade that cuts even through the darkness of the waves.

'Come in, little girl. Show me you're not scared.’

His webbed hand threads up through the rippling surface, ready and waiting for yours.

You can't help it.

You reach.

You feel the slippery surface of his scaley skin interlocking with yours before something in his expression morphs into something wholly ominous and knocks you from your stupor. His magnetic eyes darken, sinister snarl hinting through the smile he’s straining to keep. This isn’t a serene sea creature playfully helping you face your fears; the ill intent is written on his face too prevalently as his mesmeric movements lure you toward the water.

This is a predator, one determined to sink his teeth deep into your neck and steal the life from your still beating heart. You can feel it as his grip begins to tighten on your own palm.

Whatever spell he might have been casting has been broken if only just enough for you to shake yourself free. He's almost fully closed his fingers around yours before you jerk sharply, yanking your hand away. In anticipation of your movements, he thrusts up and out of the water, sharp claws digging hold into the skin of your forearm. You cry out from surprise more so than the pain even though the tips of his pointed talons slice open your skin with little to no resistance.

Fangs bared and enraged, he’s clearly livid now. All facade of relaxation falls away as his tail flaps furiously trying to pull you into the water with him. He's strong, but your will to live is stronger. The layered skin of your knees breaks as it scrapes against the jagged rock, body thrashing and desperately try to release yourself from his unyielding grip

"Let go of me!"

"Get in, you little brat!"

"No!"

Falling backwards and trying to use your weight as leverage, you do your best to kick the creature off. You land a few good hits on his lean chest, but it's not enough to fully dislodge his grip. It takes a well-placed, hard slap to the side of one of his headfins to finally stun him. It was a last-ditch effort, but oddly enough, it works.

He instinctively releases you in favor of cradling his tender, damaged fin. It isn’t long before he realizes his error and comes to his senses, but it gives you just enough time to pull away. He snaps forward several more times in pure, seething rage, fingers clamping around nothing but air in his failed attempt to seize you once more.

Sputtering and hissing, he even crawls partway onto the rock as you're furiously backpedaling away from the water to save yourself, giving you good look at where his hips meet the sleek scales of his pitch-black tail. It’s fascinating, beautiful even, but your body knows better than to slow to give yourself a better look. The split-second flash in your memory will have to suffice, coupled with the sheer and utter terror that will no doubt be permanently ingrained in your memory from this encounter.

His inflamed face and vividly gleaming red eyes that watch you with palpable hate written in his expression are the last thing you see before pushing yourself up on your haunches and sprinting away from the sea as quickly as your little human legs can carry you.

He watches you run, slamming a fist down on the rock in frustration and spitting out curses. He almost had you. He was so fucking close!

Once he manages to calm himself, he allows himself to coax the sore fin on the side of his head. Its thrumming in pain, overly sensitive to the touch. It was like you had known just where to hit him to make it hurt. Yet, as angry as he is, he can't deny that you're interesting.

"You can't escape me, girl. You'll be back."

The sea calls to you, and you can’t resist that call forever. You can’t resist him forever.

#Shigaraki x reader #Tomura Shigaraki #Shigaraki #Hey Ho What the fuck is wrong with me #Siren Boy just wantsta love you I swear #It aint my best but I really love the sea right now

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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Voyager. Now that’s a kettle of fish. Obviously watch/enjoy whatever you wish, but I do recommend also checking out SFDebris’ reviews of the episodes (he’s the rwde of Voyager). He is a lot smarter and more eloquent than me.

Putting these two asks together since my thoughts on both are all jumbled!

Now, I want to emphasize that I’ve only watched the first 16 episodes (Season One + Season 2 premiere), so idk if Voyager is going to go seriously downhill later on, but right now I do really like it. And not in a, “Lol yeah compared to the other crap on it’s good, I guess” way, but in a completely honest, “It has its flaws, but is overall a solid, compelling show with lovable characters” way. Out of curiosity I watched SFDebris’ review of “Phage,” though I’m afraid I didn’t agree with it. The only part were I was like, “Yeah okay” was pointing out that they had the Doctor using a keypad when he supposedly wasn’t solid, but that’s precisely the sort of continuity error that, in an otherwise strong show, I’m willing to shrug off. For all the major points, it sounds like SFDebris is concerned primarily with the show he wants Voyager to be, rather than the show Voyager actually is. Which I know sounds familiar--I’ve heard that criticism leveled at my own work: “You just want RWBY to be a totally different show”--but the difference is that Voyager is a part of an established franchise, following three other TV shows, an animated series, and a collection of films. It’s not an original show (like RWBY) that can take itself in any direction the story may need/claim to want (again, RWBY). It has a brand and those established characteristics seem to be bumping up against SFDebris’ critiques:

Hating Neelix as a character - You’re supposed to hate him. Or at least find him frustrating (I don’t personally hate him) because that’s what all the characters are grappling with too. From Tuvok forced to have an awkward conversation while Neelix is in the bath to Janeway dealing with him taking over her dining room, Neelix’s conflict revolves around how others learn to accept him. Star Trek as a franchise is about “Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.” Voyager begins with the problem of how the trained Federation officers are supposed to work with the more violent Maquis. Difference doesn’t just create “Wow, you’re so amazing!” reactions, it also includes frustration, disagreement, and outright hostility. Creating an outsider character with a kind heart but incredibly overbearing personality is a great way to test the other characters’ convictions. Do they actually care about all life in the universe? Or do they only care about life when they personally find it palatable? Having Neelix around is a great reminder for them--and the viewer--that just because someone annoys you at times doesn’t mean they’re any less worthy of love, respect, and companionship. It also doesn’t mean they don’t have something to offer: he keeps the crew fed even if his cooking is horrible, he provides information about this area of space even if he sometimes gets it wrong, we roll our eyes at the “Morale Officer” stuff, but Neelix does provide much needed perspective for characters like Tuvok. If Neelix made fewer mistakes, stopped bugging the crew, became a “cooler” character for the audience to root for rather than be frustrated by... a lot of the point of his character would be lost.

Frustration about discoveries not carrying over to the next episode - AKA, the crew finds inanely powerful, alien tech and then (presumably) never uses it again. This would indeed be a big problem in a serialized story (like RWBY) but Voyager maintains much of Star Trek’s original, episodic nature. Though we have continuity in the form of them inching towards home and evolving as characters, the world still resets to a certain point at the end of each episode. This is what allows Star Trek to explore so many different questions and have so many different adventures. If you demand that serialized continuity--this character needs to have an arc to deal with this traumatic experience, the crew has to follow the thread they just discovered, our Doctor needs to do something with the new tech they just found--then you lose the variety that Star Trek is known for. Instead of a new story each week (or, occasionally, across two weeks) you’ve got a single story spanning months. Neither form is better or worse than the other, it’s absolutely a preference, but there’s a very specific, structural, intentional reason why the characters “forget” about the things they’ve discovered and, at times, experienced. Unlike Ozpin forgetting that he has a nuke in his cane for seven volumes, or Ruby forgetting to use her eyes at crucial points, Star Trek deliberately sets things aside to ensure there’s room for new ideas and questions next episode.

Janeway doesn’t kill the Vidiians to get Neelix his lungs back - No Starfleet captain would. At least, not during this period of Star Trek. Sisko has development in that regard (making morally gray choices), but that’s built into the heart of the show from the start: he’s on a station, not a starship, that is jointly run by the Federation and the Bajorans, and built by the Cardassians. The rules of the Federation always had a tenuous hold there and Sisko as a character always pushed the boundary of the Federations expectations (Q: “Picard never hit me!”) Janeway, in contrast, is 100% a Federation captain and, more importantly, has explicitly told her crew that they will be operating as a Federation vessel, despite being so far from home. That’s the conflict between the officers and the Maquis. That’s why Tuvok accepts the alien tech in “Prime Factors,” recognizing that Janeway can’t. That’s why Seska is a compelling antagonist, pressuring the crew to abandon their ideals for survival. The series (or at least that first season) revolves around questions about identity and whether they’re willing to give that identity up now that they’re out from under the Federation’s thumb. Overwhelmingly, they choose not to... which would make murdering the Vidiian a complete 180 for her character. We’re not necessarily supposed to agree with Janeway’s choice, we’re supposed to acknowledge that murdering another sentient being is not some simple choice to make, especially when you’re a leader devoted to a certain set of ideals. We’re supposed to recognize the challenges here (many of which SFDebris doesn’t acknowledge) like how you’re supposed to keep a prisoner for the next 75 years when you’re already struggling to feed and take care of the crew you have, or the fact that they claim to take organs from dead bodies and this was a rare time when they couldn’t. (It’s only in “Faces” that we learn this is complete BS and they actively kidnap people to work as slaves and then be harvested.) The frustration that Janeway doesn’t act here stems from wanting her to be a character who is, fundamentally, not a Star Trek captain.

Granted, I only watched one review, but that’s what the whole thing felt like: wanting a series that’s not Star Trek. Something without a token, challenging character, without hand-wavy science, that’s more serialized, and doesn’t adhere to a “do no harm” code. (I just started “Initiations” and Chakotay asks a vessel to stand down three times, while actively being attacked, before finally retaliating and then he tries to reestablish communications and then he warns them about their engine and then he beams them aboard his shuttle. That’s what Star Trek (usually) is: that idealized love of life, even when that life is actively hostile). And like, that’s obviously fine! As you say, Flawartist, “watch/enjoy whatever you wish,” but just based on this one review I wonder if SFDebris just wants something other than Star Trek.

I think one of the reasons why I feel passionately about this (beyond my love of context and recognizing when shows are actively trying to accomplish something specific) is that I went through this with DS9. For years I heard about how horrible the show was. It’s trash. It’s a mess. It’s not TNG, so don’t even bother. Or, if you do, be prepared for disappointment. There was this whole, strong rhetoric about how silly it all is--Star Trek is, by default, silly, so supposedly only the Shakespeare loving, archeology obsessed captain is sophisticated enough to save it--and then... I found nothing of the sort. I mean yeah, obviously Star Trek is silly as hell (that’s part of its charm), but DS9 was also a complex, nuanced look into everything from personal agency to the threat of genocide. There’s so much wonderful storytelling there... little of which made it into my cultural understanding of DS9. And now I’m seeing the same thing with Voyager. When I did some quick googling I was bombarded by articles saying how bad it is and now I have an ask comparing it to a show I don’t think has even a quarter of the heart the Star Trek franchise does. Which is is not AT ALL meant as a knock against you, anon. I’m just fascinated by this cultural summary of Star Trek: TOS is ridiculous but fun if you’re willing to ignore large swaths of it, TNG is a masterpiece and that’s that, DS9 is bad, Voyager is bad, and to be frank I haven’t heard much of anything about Enterprise. It’s weird! Because I watch these shows and I’m like, “Holy shit there’s so much good storytelling here.” Is it perfect? Not on your life, but it’s trying in a way that I can really appreciate. It’s Star Trek and Star Trek (at least at the time) meant something pretty specific. Criticisms about divisive characters or idealized forgiveness feel like walking out of a Fast and Furious film and going, “There was too much driving and silly combat. Why didn’t they just fix the situation in this easy way?” Because then we wouldn’t have a film about lots of driving and silly combat! If you make all the characters palatable, make Janeway harder, extend the impact of all the discoveries, remove the ridiculous science that doesn’t make any sense... then you don’t have Star Trek anymore.

#star trek #ST #mymeats #flawartist

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looneyllama-archive · 3 years

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Fixing Raggedy Ann and Andy: a Musical Adventure

I recently discovered this gem of a film, and I’ve fallen in love with these funky little rag dollies! Raggedy Ann and Andy: a Musical Adventure has stunning animation, incredible music, and charming characters. That said, I can certainly see the flaws in the story, characters, and musical structure of the film, so I’ve written up what I would change to make it stronger.

Under the cut, because this got looooong.

• Theme: this film is actually not far off from having a solid story, if you think of the film being about love and happiness, rather than about the literal adventure. Every character’s goal is to find happiness. The captain thinks that claiming Babette as his bride, as if she’s a pretty trophy to show off, will make him happy. The Greedy follows a similar line of thinking, as he believes finding a sweetheart to add to his collection of sweets will make him happy. Even though both are desiring people, they demonstrate the idea of finding joy in ownership, rather than in interaction. Babette and the Camel are both trying to get home, with the former wanting to go to Paris and the latter wanting to join a camel caravan. They place all of their hopes for happiness on finding a certain place, instead of trying to make the best of where they are. Sir Leonard Looney thinks that joy comes from playing pranks on others and laughing at them. Finally, Raggedy Ann and Andy know that happiness comes from being with your loved ones.

• Characters: to start, notice that I left King Koo Koo off the list of characters discussed in the theme section. This decision is due to the fact that his goal is confusing; he also tries to find joy in the misery of others, but that’s to serve another goal, making himself bigger (which just ends up being disturbing in the film). I say that this character should be scrapped entirely. In terms of theme, Sir Leonard makes him redundant, and in terms of plot, it’s not difficult to write him out (more on that later). The other major character that needs an overhaul is the Captain. I get what they were going for; he’s supposed to be desperately lonely inside his snowglobe—even though he seems to have an entire pirate crew—which is why he kidnaps Babette. At the end of the film, he’s supposed to be redeemed, but he still comes across as acting creepy toward Babette, and he never even apologizes! I would tweak this character. First of all, he should be entirely alone in the snowglobe save for Queasy; this doesn’t justify his actions, mind you, but it at least makes him a little more sympathetic. Most importantly, he needs to come to the realization on his own that what he did was wrong. Instead of having him complain to Queasy in the brig about losing his “prize,” have him admit that he messed up; he can’t cure his loneliness if he treats other people like trophies, rather than showing them respect. The Captain also needs actually apologize for his actions—it’s hardly fair to have Babette apologize for causing trouble, but then for the person who started the whole mess to get off scot-free! Additionally, to lessen the creep factor, I would also have him no longer be “in love” with Babette at the end of the film, but instead show him respecting her as a friend.

• Songs: I love most of the songs in this film, but there certainly are too many—there’s 19 songs on the soundtrack! The first fix is to eliminate all of the Twin Penny jingles. These mini-songs are unnecessary, always bringing the story to a screeching halt and interrupting the flow of dialogue. Also, the Twin Pennies get the first song of the film, which hardly makes sense! That brings us down to 16 songs. The second obvious fix is to get rid of any background songs, or any songs that aren’t actual musical numbers in the film. That scratches “A Miracle” and “the Abduction & Yo-Ho,” which are both played behind dialogue during the kidnapping scene; the latter song doesn’t even end properly! I would also include “Camel’s Mirage” among these songs, and change that to an instrumental version, since the lyrics don’t contribute much impact anyway. 13 songs now. If we apply the change I made under the characters section, the elimination of King Koo Koo, we can get rid of "Hail to Our Glorious King” and "It's Not Easy Being King,” bringing us down to 11 songs. The final fix would be to combine songs whenever there’s two back-to-back. The film already does this anyway, having the final song “Home” transition into a reprise of “Candy Hearts and Paper Flowers,” so it wouldn’t be difficult to do it for a few other songs. The first instance of this is “Rag Dolly” and “Poor Babette.” Since “Poor Babette” is a pretty weak tune anyway, let’s just make Babette’s lament into another verse of “Rag Dolly!” Just switch it to a more dismal sound and change the lyrics—I’m thinking something along these lines: “Oh, I’m just a poor dolly, stranded so far from Paris / such a miserable dolly, trapped in this strange nursery / I feel melancholy, knowing I can’t get away / so this French dolly, scared and alone, has no choice but to stay.” The other two songs I would combine would be “Hooray for Me” and “You’re My Friend.” This one is even easier, since both songs are already call-and-response; just rearrange “Hooray for Me” as follows: “Hooray for me! Hooray for she! / Babette of Paris! She’s captain, see! / What joy, what glee! What joy, what glee! / When our voyage ends / once we’ve crossed the deep blue sea / we’ll reach Paris! We’ll reach Paris!” That makes our final count 9 songs: “I Look, And What Do I See,” “I’m No Girl’s Toy,” “Rag Dolly,” "Candy Hearts and Paper Flowers,” “Blue,” “I Never Get Enough,” “I Love You,” “You’re My Friend,” and “Home/Candy Hearts and Paper Flowers reprise.”

• Setting: now, I love how surreal the settings are, but I’ll readily admit that it doesn’t make much sense. The film says that Ann and Andy just go into the woods, and yet they run into a Taffy Pit and a Looney Kingdom out there! To help with suspension of disbelief, I say that instead of going out the window to chase the Captain, they go into Marcella’s drawings.

• Plot: with all of these changes in place, let’s play out the story! The beginning goes the same until we get to the Captain’s escape. Ann still helps him get out, but instead of him already having a ship and a crew inside the snowglobe, he goes up to one of Marcella’s drawings, a pirate ship on the sea, and orders the crew to jump out and help him kidnap Babette. The pirates then escape into a drawing of a starry sky over a desert sticking out of Marcella’s backpack. Ann and Andy follow them in, and the meet the Camel. He was abandoned in the lost-and-found at the school and ended up climbing into the drawing to look for his caravan. He agrees to help Ann and Andy, but gets distracted by the camels in the sky; the three ride right off the edge of the page and into a different drawing, this one showing candies and sweets galore. The encounter with the Greedy plays out as in the original film, and the trio escapes into another drawing, this one showing a castle. They run into Sir Leonard Looney, who intends to keep them in Looneyland for his own entertainment, but they get him and the other Loonies distracted by throwing pies and escape into the sea drawing. Sir Leonard is the one who calls up Gazooks to pursue them, hoping to get the last laugh. The three use the H.M.S. Koo Koo to get onto the ship and find Babette has become Captain. Crucially, we see the Captain showing remorse for his actions while he’s in the brig. While Babette is tying up Ann, Andy, and the Camel, the Captain spots Gazooks sneaking up on the ship through a porthole; he breaks out of the brig and gets on deck to warn Babette. Babette realizes she’ll have to give up on reaching Paris to keep her new friends safe. She commands her crew to turn the ship around. Gazooks attacks, tickling all of the crew as well as Andy and the Camel. While they’re being shaken around, Andy and the Camel drop joy buzzers and gum balls that got caught up in their clothes/wrinkled knees in the Taffy Pit and the Looney Kingdom. Ann, Babette, and the Captain pick up these items, and use them to load up a cannon and fire at Gazooks. The explosion knocks the toys out of the drawing. The Captain lands on a shelf by his snowglobe, but the Camel goes out the window and lands on the ground. Ann, Andy, and Babette nearly fall as well, but manage to hang onto the curtain. Ann is terrified for Babette, who will shatter if she falls. Just as the three think Babette is going to drop, Marcella comes in. She grabs her silly dolls, scolds them for playing near an open window, and puts them back in their proper places before leaving again. (I’m writing this scene with the original stories in mind; the original Marcella always seemed fairly aware that her dolls were getting into trouble behind her back, and would just scold them and save them as necessary.) The dolls are relieved to be home, and we get the Captain’s apology, and show him respecting Babette as a friend, as well as quite an impressive pirate Captain herself! Meanwhile, the Camel is left outside. He sees the caravan once again, but unlike in the original film, it leads in the opposite direction of the house. He stares at them longingly, but forces himself to turn away, and goes for the playroom window instead. Of course, he’s welcomed into the family, and we get our happy ending at last.

If you made it this far, please let me know what you think of my fixes, and what you would change about the film!

#review #raggedy ann and andy #raggedy Ann and Andy a musical adventure #fix it

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ladynightmare913 · 3 years

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Secrets of the Darkened Seas

Welcome to Chapter 4! I would like to say a special thank you to my best friend and co-author Olivia ( @asunshinepuff ) for inviting me to work on this story with her. As you may have notice, we have decided to change on how we release the chapters of our story. We will be alternating from my blog to @asunshinepuff‘s blog.

These chapters contain many original characters created by Olivia and myself. All credit for our creations goes to each other for our respective characters because we have both work so hard to bring these characters to live and I would never dare to take credit for any of Olivia’s characters.

Small warning, there is a funeral in this chapter. If you have any questions, feel free to send an ask!

As always there is mermaid lore hidden within the storyline. The included lore on different types of merfolk will be taken from the book “The Secret World of Mermaids” by Francine Rose. We are taking no credit for her work. The different types of mermaids will be explained later so don’t worry. We have also taken the liberty of creating some of our own original types of merfolk.

Now without further adieu!

Chapter 4: Honoring The Fallen

The voyage back to Swansea in West Wales was somber. The Captain hardly said anything more than a sentence. Remus would sit on a barrel next to the railing of the ship, watching the sea for hours. Quinn and Opal took over caring for the young Black Heir in the midst of taking over some of the Captain’s duties whilst Min-Jun was focused on preparations and work.

Newt and Tina took it upon themselves to care for the two mers, to try to calm them down. There was some progress, but the older mermaid refused to part with the younger mer child.

It took all of two days, the Dragon’s Pearl made port, and Min-Jun ordered the crew to finish the preparations before he left the ship in First Mate Scamander’s command. Normally the trip back home would bring Remus a strange sense of nostalgia, but now he felt only dread.

He watched Min-Jun, dressed in a white coat with black pants and boots, walk down the loading dock. A heavily pregnant woman wearing a brown dress with her hair tied into a bun walked towards him with a smile.

“I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes… ” Opal stood beside Remus. She was dressed in a royal blue button up shirt which was tucked into her black slacks and brown boots. In addition, she wore a moonstone pendant necklace and a wide sword with a blue sheath was at her side.

Remus said nothing as he watched. The woman’s face began to pale, her head began to shake, her hand covered the pained gasp that escaped her lips. Min-Jun stood perfectly still.

The woman began to sob hysterically, she began to fall from despair, Min-Jun gently caught her before she could read the ground. Min-Jun spoke to the weeping woman. Quinn joined Opal and Remus.

“She’s so young to be a widow…” Remus spoke softly.

“He died too young…” Was the only answer Quinn could give.

The Captain sat with the pregnant widow on the ground for a few more minutes before he spoke once more, the woman nodded her head in response. Slowly, Min-Jun lifted the woman to stand, gently taking her arm as he guided her aboard the ship. Opal stepped forward.

“We have a gown if you would like to change.” Opal took the hand Min-Jun held, giving a small smile. Opal walked in step with the young mother-to-be who only nodded her head as Opal led her to the cabins.

“Are the preparations complete?” The Captain asked his First Mate.

“Yes, we are weighing anchor now.” Quinn replied with a curt nod.

Min-Jun only nods his head in acknowledgement before he leaves to his chambers. Quinn exhales slowly, turning to carry on with the remaining tasks. Remus joined the rest of the crew in setting up the banquet.

The ship sailed out to sea, and just when the sun was beginning to set, they lowered the anchor, they stopped. Lanterns were lit all around the ship, gold and white streamers made of cloth hung on the masts and staircases. A life boat was placed at the center of the ship, Ethan’s body rested inside. He was cleaned, and dressed in simple white garments. He looked peaceful. Like he was only asleep.

Mirissa, Ethan’s widow, sat silently by her still husband’s side. Her hair had been let loose from her bun, flowing gently on the warm summer breeze. Her grey eyes staring lovingly at his face, her fingers gently brush against his cheek. She was dressed in a white gown that matched her husband’s. It was not a usual funeral, but she was thankful for different colors instead of the grim black.

Remus stood beside Opal on the left side with the crew, dressed in a black shirt, dark grey pants and dark brown boots. Replacing his treasured blue scarf around his waist was a white sash in honor of tradition. He couldn’t bring himself to look away from the peaceful face of his fallen friend.

Opal had changed, for she was now dressed in a simple black attire consisting of a long sleeved blouse, slacks and boots. Her light brown hair was tied up in a french braid, a white ribbon interlacing the folds. In addition, she wore a moonstone pendant necklace which brought the only contrast to her outfit.

Newt and Tina stood beside each other, close to Remus and Opal. Tina was dressed in a black blouse with a black long flared skirt and black flats, her black hair was pulled up into a high bun. Newt was dressed in a dark grey coat, with a black shirt and slacks with dark brown boots as he silently watched the crew gather to begin the funeral.

The First Mate was dressed in a dark blue coat with gold embellishments, a black shirt, slacks and boots as he stood beside the Captain. His sword was sheathed at his side as usual, the only hint of his signature red in sight.

The Captain stood beside Mirissa and Quinn, in a white coat with black pants and boots. A gold sash across his waist, his sword at his side. He only looked at Ethan's pale face. A pastor walks next to the lifeboat, opposite of where the three stood, and invites everyone to gather to the funeral. Min-Jun gently prodded the pregnant woman to stand, hold her steady as she rose to her feet.

No one really paid attention, at least Remus didn’t. He only listened when the pastor mentioned Ethan’s life. How he had been an orphan, and taken in by Min-Jun and Quinn. Raised on the Dragon’s Pearl, and helped save many people who were attacked by pirates. How Ethan was a vibrant and kind soul who died too soon. Leaving behind a wife and child he will never know. Remus silently cursed the Blacks.

After mass, the eulogy done by Captain Hua and First Mate Scamander, and a few stories shared by Quinn, Opal, and some of the crew. The funeral mass concluded to an end, yet the funeral was still not over. Without a command, four crewmen lifted the lifeboat with a pulley, ropes were tied to the hooks. Another crew member gently pushed the boat over the railing of the ship, the life boat slowly lowered to the water.

Captain Hua looks down to Mirissa, grabbing the bow offered to him by the pastor.

“It’s time.”

Mirissa nods her head, wiping the tears from her cheeks quickly. Min-Jun gently guides her to the side of the ship where the lifeboat began to float away. The captain doesn’t rush the young widow. No one dares. Everyone stays silent, swaying gently as the waves rocked the ship. For a moment, Mirissa’s posture changes, she takes the bow and sets her feet into position. She was ready now.

Quinn lights the tip of the arrow, igniting it aflame, then gives the arrow to Mirissa. She drew the arrow back, and in that moment, memories of Ethan flood her mind. His gentle words, his boisterous laugh, the way his hair could not stay neat. How his face broke into a smile when she told him she was with child. Her arms begin to waver as tears begin to fall. Her body trembles.

Min-Jun moves to stand behind her, gently steadying her aims. His presence calms her immensely. With a weak sob she looks back to the boat that was floating farther away. She wants to send him off with one of her brightest smiles. He loved her smile. As she pulls the string to her chest, Min-Jun helps steady her hands. She releases her breath. She releases.

The arrow flies gracefully across the sky. Landing on its mark. A few moments pass before the whole boat is lit aflame. Min-Jun takes the bow from her hands, stepping back to give her space. She continues to watch the boat burn. The crew lower their heads to their fallen brother.

Remus watches the bright flames from the boat that reflect on the surface of the dark sea. It was not fair.

“Remus.”

Snapping out of his thoughts, Remus turned to look to the voice who called him. Newt stood beside him, watching the setting sun leave its final rays of sunlight before it sank into the horizon. He simply hands Remus a book.

Remus takes the book into his hands, his thumb gently brushing against the letters of Fantastic Nautical Creatures, by Newt Scamander.

“I want you to look after it.”

Remus’ head snapped up to meet the older Scamander’s gentle gaze. “What?”

Newt takes a deep breath, this wasn’t easy for him to do. “That book is my life’s work, and people won’t stop coming after it. It does not belong to people who wish to exploit the knowledge I collected over the years. And they found me, it’s no longer safe with me anymore.”

“I understand that. But why me? Why not with Quinn?” Remus frowns.

“Quinn is a target simply because he is my son. He knows some of the contents. But no one would know who you are, or that you have the book.” Newt smiled softly. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but I know that you will do what's right to ensure that no one gets their hands on this book. Burn it if you must.”

“But- it’s your life’s work?! I can’t just burn it should the need call for it!”

“Yes you can. I have faith in you. Even if all that’s left is ash, all its content is in our minds. It will never truly be lost.” Newt turns his head to look at his wife. “You can update it, I’m sure there are many things I still haven’t learned.” He looks to Quinn. His eyes become filled with sorrow. “Tina and I are going into hiding. Quinn knows.”

Remus didn’t know what to say, he understood why they were going into hiding, but he still couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that Newt Scamander had asked him to guard the book. How can someone be this trusting? He has hardly known him for long….

Wait. That sounded familiar. It was exactly what he had thought when Quinn offered him the chance to join The Dragon’s Pearl. So Quinn gets it from Newt. This was all so sudden and too much, how could he become the book’s guardian? Add his own updates? What had he done to gain the Scamander’s trust this easily?

“I can’t promise you anything, but I’ll do my best.” Remus gave the older Scamander a small smile.

The reception was full of merry music, there was nothing left of the banquet by the time dawn arrived. Some of the crew were passed out drunk, while others began to clean up the deck. Captain Hua had informed the crew that he would be accompanying Ethan’s wife back to the mainland, where she would return to live with her parents, and deliver the Scamanders to a temporary safe house, He would return in a few days. Quinn was left in command.

And so they waited by the mainland. Opal continued to care for the mers, Remus would join her whenever she would go to check on them. They learned that the older mermaid’s name was Brielle, after she had calmed down.

She was just barely beginning to trust them. The younger mer child was her brother, who Greyback mercilessly threatened to cut the child’s tail with his cutlass. The child was a boy, Tadase. And Remus could honestly say that being around the little mer child made the ache in his heart ease for a few hours at least.

Quinn looked after Regulus, the Black’s second heir. Remus also went to check on the young boy who was awfully skinny, and barely responsive.

“Why don’t we introduce Tadase to him?” Opal suggested. “He might perk up around someone close to his age.”

“Would Brielle let us is the real question. She barely trusts us.” Quinn responded with a shake of his head. And for good reason.

In the end, Brielle consented to allow her tiny brother to play with Regulus who was only a few years older than Tadase. Regulus was cautious, his soft black hair and storm grey eyes contrasted strongly from his pale skin. He would always search for traps in everything. Whether or not he could eat, sleep, or play without getting into trouble.

Remus’ heart ached for the small boy. Regulus was slow to accept Tadase’s easy friendship. Tadase was a soft spoken child, gentle with everything he did. It was adorable to watch Tadase shift uncomfortably in the clothes provided to him, and learning how to walk. Tadase would simply smile and try again.

Only on the third morning did the two boys become friends. Brielle was always watching them close by. Tadase had given Regulus his tears, blue pearls as a sign of friendship. Regulus only stared in amazement at the beautiful pearls. He wailed.

Tadase had been panicked at the sudden tears of the older boy, gently pulling him into an embrace. Remus wrote into Newt’s book about the blue pearls. He would ask about the color later.

The ship stayed motionless on the water as The Dragon’s Pearl waited for her captain’s return for three days. It was the fourth night now, since the funeral. Quinn stood in as Captain, sailing around the Bristol Channel.

Remus leaned on the railing as he stared at the docks on the mainland. He looked back to the deck to see the two boys sleeping on deck on top of a blanket. Regulus curled on his side while Tadase tucked to his side. Remus’ gaze softened at the sight of them. He looked back to the mainland.

The muffled sound of footsteps caught Remus’ attention. There was no one on deck besides a few of the crew who were eating silently, and the soft breaths of the sleeping children. Remus’ eyes narrowed. He turned around and nearly jumped back when a man landed on top of the very railing Remus had been leaning against, a rope in his hand, probably from his ship that Remus had failed to spot in the dark night.

A tall young man was dressed in a loose dark blue shirt, black trousers, and black boots. He would have thought him truly a handsome man, who had most likely left many women swooning for him. If he did not have that smirk upon his face that clearly meant trouble. Remus glared. The man had raven black hair that fell just on his neck, fair skin, and stormy blue eyes that twinkled in mirth as he smirked directly at Remus. Remus knew those eyes. He had seen them on Regulus.

“Sirius Black!”

#wolfstar #remus lupin #sirius black #remus x sirius #quinn scamander #min-jun hua #opal teresi #newt scamander #tina goldstein #brielle #tadase #regulus black #asunshinepuff ocs #our ocs #cw funeral #pirate captian #pirate and mermaid au #ladynightmare ocs

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