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scientific-tricorder · 3 years

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A while back, this post happened and I mentioned an excessively detailed response, and here it is, presenting a (more or less) physiologically reasonable process for the entire function and breakdown of Garak's implant in “The Wire”. This breaks down into three main parts: how the implant is supposed to function, what went wrong, and how it's fixed. I'll add a TLDR as well. There's a lot of assumptions made (namely that Cardassian physiology is more or less functioning like Earth mammalian physiology), determinations that characters don't necessarily know exactly what they're talking about, simplification of exceedingly complicated things, and terminology.

Before we get into headcanoning and speculating, let's cover what we know of the implant from the episode. The implant is situated in the “postcentral gyrus and has filaments that connect it to [the] entire central nervous system” and “was designed to stimulate the pleasure centres of [the] brain to trigger the production of vast amounts of natural endorphins” in case of torture. The first symptoms include clammy skin*, dyspnea (difficulty breathing), miosis (contracted pupils), high level of pain (specifically a headache, although potentially in other areas as well), and “some type of seizure”. Later on, there is mention of deterioration of the “cranial nerve cluster”, bradycardia (a slow heart rate, likely since treatment was a stimulant and cardiostimulator), and toxins accumulating in lymphatic tissues caused by an altered leukocyte molecular structure. After turning off the implant, synthetic leukocytes are required to cure lingering effects (the aforementioned toxins and altered leukocytes). (*Clammy skin refers to cool, pale, and sweaty skin, so if one is looking at a purely canon view, this does mean that Cardassians sweat. However, the idea of ectothermic Cardassians that thus don't sweat is pretty common, so it's possible that one could interpret this as thus referring solely to cool and pale skin, or, since Bashir is basing his assessment on solely visual examination, just paleness, likely in the mucous membranes of the conjunctiva and gum tissue)

Let's break this down a little, starting by getting some of the nonsense out of the way. Endorphins (which are by definition natural) aren't produced by any 'pleasure centers' of the brain, they come from the pituitary gland; 'cranial nerve cluster' is essentially meaningless (although I suppose that the brain could be considered a nerve cluster); and, unlike the episode suggests, leukocytes aren't molecules – they're cells and thus made out of countless molecules. Moving onto breaking down terminology that has actual meaning, the postcentral gyrus is a part of the brain (roughly the middle top) that contains the primary somatosensory cortex, which helps the brain know where sensory signals are coming from, including pain. So, good job writers, you did mention a brain region associated with pain sensing! The central nervous system (CNS) is the brain and spinal cord. Endorphins are a type of what are called endogenous opioids, opioids produced by the body itself. They have more or less the same effects as other opioids like morphine, so that's probably the best starting point for research on side-effects and withdrawal symptoms for anyone who wants to look into that. Most relevant is that they're an analgesic (pain killer) and increase the production and release of dopamine, the “happy chemical”. Lymphatic tissues are just the tissues of the lymphatic system, which is kind of like an extra liquid collection system and aids in immune responses by producing, processing, and storing immune cells (and fat transport, but that's extraneous here). Leukocyte is a generic umbrella term equivalent to 'white blood cell' and thus contains a lot of different types of cells doing different things. Dr. Bashir really should have been more specific there.

That's what we get from canon, so from here on out it's pure headcanoning based on science. Let's tackle the first part: how does the implant work in the first place?

If the implant's purpose is to make one immune to pain, it needs to accomplish two main things: first, detect when pain is happening, and second, do something to stop that pain from being sensed. We're going to need to cover some basic nociception (pain sensing) here. The first step in pain detection is that a neuron called a nociceptor detects something pain causing, namely temperature (fun fact: spicy foods feel hot because some chemicals in them activate heat pain nociceptors in the mouth), chemicals (particularly chemicals released by damaged cells), and getting damaged itself. The nociceptor then releases a neurotransmitter (chemical that neurons use to communicate with each other) called Substance P. Substance P is then picked up by a secondary neuron in the spinal cord that sends the message of pain up to various parts of the brain that spread the message around and eventually cause effects, include the actual sensing of the pain, telling the brain where the pain is (that's where the primary somatosensory cortex and postcentral gyrus come in), and inducing the fight-or-flight response. One part of the brain that gets the 'we're hurting!' signal and sends a message that eventually results in the release of endogenous opioids like endorphins, which in turn prevent Substance P from being released, thus cutting off the pain signal, as well as do the other opioid things.

To accomplish the first task of detecting pain, the implant most probably has sensors for Substance P. These would probably be those filaments connecting to the entire CNS – since the Substance P is released in the spinal cord, these sensing filaments kind of need to be covering it all to detect any incoming Substance P. The second task of cutting off that pain signal then functions simply by flooding the body with endorphins (and probably other endogenous opioids). These endorphins could be sourced in three ways: via some sort of storage within the implant, via the implant causing the body to produce more, or via the implant itself producing and releasing more. Having enough stored for constant release for multiple years seems unlikely, so we'll scratch off that possibility. Garak's dialogue does suggest that the implant causes the body itself to produce more endorphins, but I'm going to go with the third option because we're going to need truly excessive amounts of endorphins to fully kill off pain signals (and it'd likely be hard to get the body to produce that much) and because it makes it easier to explain what might go wrong.

And speaking of what might go wrong, let's now look at that. The first noticeable symptoms are pale/clammy skin, dyspnea, extreme pain, and miosis. Miosis is caused by opioids, and would thus be induced by the implant and extreme pain. The pale skin and dyspnea are consistent with the heart not pumping enough blood to all the tissues. Other related symptoms include fatigue and anxiety, which are consistent with Garak's behavior. This is also consistent with the later bradycardia. This sort of heart issue is generally associated with heart attacks and other failures of the heart muscles itself, but could be caused by anything interfering with the heart's function. Since heart rate is largely controlled by the CNS, disruptions to it (such as by, say, a malfunctioning cranial implant), could induce these symptoms. We later learn that there is also deterioration of neural tissue (or at least that's how I'm interpreting Garak's 'cranial nerve cluster' comment) and damage to the lymphatic system due to toxins caused by altered leukocytes. It seems logical that these toxins are also responsible for the neural tissue deterioration and the CNS effects on the heart.

The next obvious question then is what are these toxins? Here comes the most speculative bit: the toxins are an autoimmune response caused by the implant producing malformed endorphins that bind to and affect the receptors of mature cytotoxic T-cells and cause them to bind to Class I MHC molecules in the absence of foreign antigens and result in the destruction of healthy cells. That's a lot of terminology and concepts that I just threw out, so let's break all that down. Malformed endorphins would be just what they say on the tin – after working for so long, the implant starts making making mistakes when producing and releasing the endorphins. Cytotoxic T-cells are a subtype of a subtype of leukocytes that work by destroying any cells presenting the 'red flag' that they've been invaded: a bit of something foreign to the body held out by what are called Class I MHCs, which are found on all cells. They sometimes accidentally respond and bind to plain Class I MHCs, thus resulting in an autoimmune reaction wherein the immune system attacks the body it's supposed to be protecting. Normally, these malfunctioning cytotoxic T-cells are taken care of before they mature and actually go to work, but if mature T-cells are being modified (there's your 'altered molecular structure of leukocytes'), the main bulwark against this type of autoimmune attack is side-stepped. And thus we have a malfunctioning implant killing Garak, and being able to continue to do so even when deactivated – the modified cytotoxic T-cells are still there, doing damage, even if no more new ones are being created.

This brings us to the third and final part: aside form turning off the implant, how are all its ill effects stopped? The big issue here would be the modified cytotoxic T-cells still running around, killing cells. There is one other mechanism for stopping self-attacking T-cells: regulatory T-cells. In the proposed situation, the body just doesn't have enough circulating regulatory T-cells to take care of the modified cytotoxic T-cells. Thus, the synthesized Cardassian leukocytes are specifically Cardassian regulatory T-cells that then help get rid of all the dangerous cytotoxic T-cells, thus stopping the toxins they produce from continuing to damage and kill tissues and effectively curing Garak.

So that's a lot, covering the very complicated and not entirely understood areas of neurology and immunology, so there's an amount of oversimplification, and I wouldn't be surprised if I mixed up or missed something that completely topples this entire thing.

But the TLDR is: Garak's implant makes opioids, but then it malfunctions and starts to instead make toxins that cause Garak's body to attack itself. Turning off the implant stops the production of the toxins, but Garak's body is still attacking itself until the synthesized Cardassian leukocytes are administered and fix things.

#Star Trek #DS9 #The Wire #Star Trek doesn't understand biology #Elim Garak #Garak #Cardassians #Trek biotech #long post #addiction #opioids #I should probably proofread this first but eh #Also there's the blood-brain barrier that would probably be involved here but we'll just say it's passed by for some reason #Tricorder log

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subwalls · 3 years

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Tales from the SMP Presents: The Haunted Mansion

An ongoing exploration of how the Inbetween drives my Kingdom Hearts brain crazy with paranoia! Less of an analysis this time, because we got confirmation (VALIDATION!!), and more of speculation, but yeah!

First of all! I was right not to trust this fucker.

Just kidding, that’s not the first thing we’re gonna talk about here. First of all, a gentle recap!

As I’ve mentioned before, the Inbetween has some uncanny resemblance to the Kingdom Hearts world known as Castle Oblivion. Castle Oblivion is known for being the place where the main series protagonist lost all of his memories, and even had false memories implanted while he was getting deeper and deeper into it.

You might be curious as to how the Kingdom Hearts protagonist escapes.

He doesn’t.

He needs outside help, and a lot of it, to get him out of that situation. Even then, it takes a whole year. He drove his own heart into the bottom of the abyss in his desperation to save someone he was tricked into thinking he knew, and he didn’t even regret it, because he was saving someone.

... A lot of people on Dream SMP have different ideas on what it means to save people.

Also, the castle also had a very plot-twisty secret where it used to be the lush and wonderful home of these three friends before they fell apart; one was lost to the Evil Dark Side™ (not real name), the other was trapped in the Realm of Darkness (real name), and the last one fell into a coma for TEN (10) YEARS and his body was left to be protected in the heart of the land, which was then locked and turned into Castle Oblivion.

So, pretty fucked up place! Not inherently evil, but the place of great misfortune and just... not very good for everyone there.

Let’s start at the beginning!

Welcome back indeed. Take notice of the wither rose in the pot, by the way, I’ll come back to this in a bit.

The first thing that stands out to me on this page is the smiley face, of course. It’s not the ever-iconic, ever-evil “:)”, but it’s similar enough that I think the callback is intentional. The smiley is c!Dream’s icon, of course, which... honestly makes me think that “:]” might be DreamXD, but that might be because I’m very very biased for the server god who simps for a dangerously apathetic cottagecore once-king.

Of course, it does also look kind of like Quackity’s face, and cc!Quackity has said something about big lore coming for him, but until further evidence is presented I’m disinclined to draw a connection there.

The Inbetween, as we’ve come to know the author of some of these books to be, being happy that Karl is continuing—it reminds me of the KH protagonist being told yes, good job, keep going, as he stumbles deeper and deeper into the castle that strips away memory after memory from his heart. Why does the Inbetween think that Karl’s time travel is important, his careful documentation of every story? Is it because the more he does it, the more he becomes attached? The more he becomes reliant on the Inbetween to feed the missing pieces of his memory?

Is it because the Inbetween, in parallel to c!Dream and c!Wilbur, prioritize the concept of story over the characters?

Things to think about. 🤔

Also kind of interesting that the Inbetween thinks Karl will eventually uncover “all [he] needs to”, which continues to make me think that the more c!Karl comes to the Inbetween the more he becomes... either dependent or over-trusting of it. Not sure. But weird things happen when it’s magic that tampers with memories, rather than trauma.

Basically, I’m getting “there is no war in Ba Sing Se” vibes.

The book continues to say that Karl probably has a lot of questions and that it would love to answer :] but never actually does. It’s trying to come off as helpful without actually being helpful. All it does is tempt him with the prospect of answers, and then draws him in deeper. “Continue onward, Karl.” But why?

Another wither rose pot.

Sidestepping the very innocuous, very surface-level information offered here (because that’s it, it’s nothing about the workings about the Inbetween, it’s just a little sweet carrot to distract with), I cannot even begin to convey the absolute terror that consumed me at the word “sleepy.”

I mentioned earlier that one of the original characters who lived in the land that would become Castle Oblivion went into a coma, right? But it’s more commonly referred to as sleeping. The game is even called “Birth by Sleep”, and there’s a whole thing about trying to get him to “wake up”. So the idea that time travel can take something out of the traveller that makes them tired, the idea that there is one specific room for sleeping quarters within the Inbetween, paired with that not-quite-right smiley face—I am traumatized, I tell you.

Yes it could be a “haha look what I did with the sentence, because day is a form of time and they time travel so long day is a funny term” kind of smiley, but. Kingdom Hearts has trained me to be suspicious of any talk of sleep.

There’s something just mildly unsettling about the way it continues, with the references to the “many Karls” and the “many many great stories” that sounds borderline condescending.

And now we get the, uh, “other” author. Notice how this one actually did not have a corresponding wither rose in a pot. I’m starting to think that the flower might actually be an indicator of the not-this-author-pictured-above, the probably-Inbetween-itself, so the fact that this book was found separately from a wither rose pot and it was tucked away under a tree... A tree, under which c!Karl will later find a bit of a refuge... yeah, different author. Or at least an author from a different time.

I’ll elaborate in a moment, but I do think that there’s three (3) mindsets/authors happening here: the sickly sweet Inbetween pretending to be good, the person trying to get c!Karl to distrust the Inbetween, and... someone who desperately wants c!Karl to stay in line.

This is the third... I don’t want to say author, because it too has the wither rose pot and is trying to keep c!Karl playing along with the Inbetween, but it’s much less coherent and much more desperate.

No “:]”, either.

Some possibilities I’m considering:

the Inbetween, but it’s like, a security subroutine or a glitch in the system,

the Inbetween, but it’s from a future wherein c!Karl has fucked it up to the point of desperation,

Karl / the other author, but it’s from a future, where trying to stray from the Inbetween resulted in something traumatic happening and they don’t want it to happen anymore.

Some fun possibilities to keep in mind. Anyway!

Ooh, the return of the wither rose pot.

For this part, the only thing I really have to say is that the repetition of the Inbetween trying to present itself as “a place to feel at ease” is... Well, as the lovely Fear has said in this post linked here, a place that tries and makes itself seem safe probably isn’t, because a genuinely safe place wouldn’t need to announce it all the time.

Very much sounding like a Ba Sing Se thing.

More importantly, the book actually says that it’s “wild” how the Inbetween is “so beautiful that even time travellers who go anywhere at anytime ever and they still choose here” with a good old “:]” tacked on at the end. That’s... that’s not just me thinking like that sounds kind of threatening, right? Like, time travellers can see anything anywhere, and they keep coming back to the Inbetween. Why?

Is it because they forget the beauty of anything else? Is it because it’s not beauty, but rather attachment and emotion that keeps someone going back to a place? If someone forgets their loved ones and precious things, then why would they go anywhere but the place where they’ve put all their stories?

Why did KH’s protagonist keep going deeper into Castle Oblivion even though he knew that the castle was taking apart his memories? Because he had one thing left: the fake, implanted memory, which told him that in order to save someone, he needed to push on no matter the personal cost.

So the real question is: are the time travellers coming back to the Inbetween because they want to, or because they no longer have a choice?

It regards all the different Karls with such... distant affection, too. “How beautiful,” it calls them, for wandering the blank halls with blank stares and blank hearts, none of which react to each other. It says that they “choose” to walk the halls, uncover mysteries, and tell stories. But what was the other choice? Was it really a choice at all?

Hmm.

Karl goes on to explore, and finds another book that does not have a wither rose pot, which tells him he has to go Under The Tree.mp3 and informs him that he “can’t afford not to”. Cool. Not ominous at all.

He finds another, which says the same thing.

Definitely not ominous. /s

The phrasing here is interesting, because it’s also phrased like a threat. Usually, when someone tells you that you “can’t afford not to”, you’re either looking at a scam or at the business end of a weapon. But the empty pages tell you that the author is trying to keep it down low. That’s one of the ways Minecraft players have found to express tone in the very limited form of Minecraft books, and it works splendidly.

Not to push my DreamXD agenda, but like... the door was iron. Iron doors are a weakness for Dreams and dreamons and, mayhaps, Dream’s dreamon.

I know it’s probably just because the iron door keeps in line with the color palette of the build but let me dream, alright.

Anyway, book content! And an interesting point of order: there is a wither rose pot. I said earlier that it might be an indicator of the Inbetween as an author, but that doesn’t make much sense now, does it? This is meant to be a place hidden from the “it” that I assume to be either the Inbetween itself or the one/s controlling it.

So why the wither rose pot inconsistency?

Unless it doesn’t mean that. Unless it’s just a metaphor for, say, memories withering away or something. Or maybe it’s just a pretty plant, for funsies! Who knows. If I had to guess, I’d say that (after much reflection) it’s likely less a mark of author and more a theme of, mm, memory status. The withering away of memories. It fits in with the Inbetween, because that’s what might be responsible for it, but the author/s of the book aren’t immune, either. They get blinks of clarity, with the hidden, tucked-away tomes, but they might not be completely free.

The next book, however, again lacks the wither rose pot. It might not be a coincidence that the one without the potential mark of a withering memory is the one that actually divulges some more information.

This book goes into slightly more detail about the warning, though not about whatever actual threat it is that the castle (which... Castle Oblivion, you know) presents.

It says that 1) it’s not what it seems, 2) the "truth about the other forms of you”, 3) this place “is not okay”, and 4) get in that portal we saw that was blocked off before.

We know that the Inbetween isn’t what it seems, but the “truth” about the other forms... Hm. This is, in fact, another Kingdom Hearts Thing. There’s a running joke that everyone on the very large cast of characters in KH that in the end, every person is actually either secretly a version of the antagonist (through possession or body splitting or whatever), or a version of the protagonist (through similar concepts). Multiple bodies and other forms is definitely a Thing in KH, though it’s not as oh-god-not-again definitely-bad as the sleeping thing.

I think the other forms have either become reliant on the Inbetween or have forgotten everything but the Inbetween, or both. Maybe more of the prior, since the warning is against trusting the place.

And, uh, this? Fucking terrifying. I love it to pieces.

Every single one of these books has a wither rose pot, and this is kind of why I think that the Inbetween or its master/s is, in some way, possibly functioning via routines and like... an AI. Or a genius loci kind of thing.

But good news, there aren’t 13 books, there are 14! This is important for Kingdom Hearts reasons, because Kingdom Hearts has a big thing about the numbers 13 and 7 (13 is the number of pieces of darkness, and 7 is the number of pieces of light, and this is equal somehow, don’t question it).

Now, 14 is an important meme number in the MCYT fandom, of course, but I don’t think it has terribly too much to do with the lore beyond a fun easter egg.

The books themselves trying to tell c!Karl to, essentially, go with the flow and the path that the Inbetween has set up for him is... something. I like the idea that it’s some future version of something trying to stop something from happening, but we all know it’s probably not going to work. Fun times.

And finally, this.

The Inbetween is a bit of a narcissist, huh? It won’t shut up about how it’s so pretty and irresistible and the whole definition of, like, a honey trap. Oh my god it even describes it as ~mysterious~ as a good trait, that’s hilarious.

More pertinently, it also calls the Inbetween “a time traveller’s dream”.

A time traveller’s. Dream.

Again, not to push my DreamXD agenda, BUT—

But! Getting back on track, the book expresses its eagerness to see Karl again, says their relationship is gonna be great, reminds him that his stories are important, and then tells him that he needs the Inbetween/author just like the SMP needs him.

Uh. He’s going to need the Inbetween?

Hello?

Why? How? So far it’s presented itself as being pretty and perfect but it never said anything about necessity! What’s going on!

Very much reminded of how Castle Oblivion was presented as “you need to keep going in even though it takes your memories away because there’s someone you need to save [fake but you don’t know that because you don’t remember anything]”, and I am afright.

Talk about subtle strings being tugged at here. I’m really seeing the beginning seeds of a dependency thing being sown, and if it weren’t for the side books painting giant neon warning signs everywhere, I don’t know if it would’ve caught on. An artificially cultivated concept of how important and great the Inbetween is, and don’t you just want to take all those stories from that messy world elsewhere but come back here in the end to take a break and exist and explore and oh, isn’t the Inbetween great, isn’t it wonderful?

Man, c!Dream wishes he was this good at subtle manipulation.

tldr; there are multiple authors trying to tug c!Karl in different directions via those books. The Kingdom Hearts parallels predict that his memory will be at stake, and he might not be able to escape without help.

#tales from the smp #dream smp #general thoughts #the inbetween is a scary place im telling u #a Place that wants to be your friend but probably has ulterior motives? oof!!

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itsnothingofinterest · 3 years

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Have you heard? Apparently, Horikoshi said Hero Academia might be headed to a conclusion soon. This was surprising to say the least; not just because fans don’t want it to end but because it doesn’t really feel like it’s anywhere close to it’s end (plenty think it’s closer to halfway, with a select few like me thinking it’s closer to the 1/3 point). This has led some to speculate, partially in denial, if the conclusion Horikoshi is talking about is not actually the series’ “conclusion” concussion, but instead a Naruto Shippuden style “new name for the next part” type of deal. (Or if he’s just having the word “soon” put in some serious work.)

So I want to discuss that; go over as many reason I can think of for why the series could end within the next year or 2, or for why it could see another 5+ years to it’s life. It mean it sounds fun, right?

(Going into this though, I would like to state my bias. I don’t want the series to end soon; and if it kept at it’s current pace to conclude Deku’s academic life in chapters 800~1000, I would be a very happy camper. I’ll try not to let this affect my judgement, but I’ve got no oversight but myself here so...)

Anyway, here we go.

Reasons for the series to end soon.

I think a good point to start is that Horikoshi once stated he planned to end the series at around 30 volumes, roughly what’s already been covered, before finding he needed to expand the series further than that. That’s understandable, it’s easy to see how this arc could’ve been the end of the series had things played out differently enough in the last few chapters; but if he’s already said he’s expanded beyond that, what does that have to do with this discussion? Well for this side of the argument, it means 2 things: 1) all that’s left can be considered the ‘expansion’ on Horikoshi’s original idea, so how likely is it that there’s a lot of that, & 2) that Horikoshi likely didn’t intend for the series to last for Deku’s full school life, a major belief for those expecting the series to last a significant time.

And when we look at the actual content of the series, yeah there’s certainly things that could point to the series ending soon; namely all the arcs and plot threads that kinda just got resolved rapid fire. Dabi’s reveal, Mirio getting his quirk back, Hawks launching the attack he’s been orchestrating since his first appearance, Compress’s face, Bakugou letting go of his resentment for Deku; just to name a few. True, this is nowhere near all of the arcs & plot threads; but it’s a sizable enough portion if we’re assuming the rest have the next year or 2 to resolve themselves. A few more arcs like this last one and yeah, the series won’t have anything really tying it down from ending.

There’s also Deku’s rate of vestige quirk acquisition to consider. I mean in the 3 arcs featuring him since we learned about his extra quirks, he has acquired 3 quirks. At that rate, he’d have them all in 3 more student arcs and basically be at all but full power by then. Not that him keeping up this rate of quirk acquisition is guaranteed, but it sure seems like a sign of the series not lasting too long.

It’s also worth mentioning that there are ways for the series to end soon, easy paths to the finish line available to Horikoshi. It wouldn’t be that hard, for example, to get to confronting Dabi & Toga and resolving their arcs in some timely fashion. And AFO’s presence as a bigger bad over Tomura could allow for him to pull a Kaguya to his Madara, allowing for the plot to resolve with his defeat without really needing to address a lot of Tomura’s issues. And heck, that might’ve even become more likely after this latest chapter, wherein AFO acquired his very own army. That would likely involve finding too-easy solutions a lot of the more complicated issues, or worse, brushing them under the rug; but it can’t be denied that this is an option for how Horikoshi could resolve the series in just a few years.

Last piece of evidence worth mentioning is the simple nature of shorter series being the “path of least resistance.” You can argue all you like how the series lasting longer makes more sense or might result in a better story (and I’m basically about to); but in the end it can’t be denied that the less the series has left, the less work it is for Horikoshi. And that’s just gonna make it inherently more likely; a largely equivalent result for less effort is never not gonna be attractive for people.

Reasons for the series to last a long time.

Okay, I’ve done my best to be fair and included as many points as I could think of in favor of a shorter lifespan; but I won’t lie, this 2nd half is gonna be the fun part of this post for me.

Let’s start at the opposite end of the other side’s first point; Horikoshi planned to originally end the series at around 30 volumes. This past arc, ending in Volume 30, took place in the space between Deku’s 1st and 2nd school year, or you could say it took place during the end of his 1st year. This implies that while the original plan was not to go through Deku’s whole school life, he did intend it to end at a point of significance; the end of a school year. And what that implies is that he won’t end the series smack in the middle of the 2nd year, which would be where the series would end if it only lasted less than 3 more years. It implies he’d likely aim to end the series at the end of year 2 at the earliest, a significant ways away. (And before you ponder about a time skip; remember that year 1 had a time skip and still lasted ~30 volumes & ~6 years.)

Another reason to think the series is gonna last a while; it’s quite slow, in an overall sense at least. It’s hard to describe but; It doesn’t always feel that way because the moment-to-moment pacing is very good & it always feels like something is happening and stuff is getting tackled. But this is because it tends to tackle plots one at a time; so while plots make good development while in the focus, they can stay out of focus for a significant duration. For example; the ‘Shinsou becoming a hero’ plot was introduced in the Sports Festival, only saw real development during Joint Training, and has still yet to resolve with year 2 not starting yet. Or for another example, we learned over 150 chapters ago that All Might had his future predicted where he’ll die at the hands of a villain, setting up a plot where he’ll try to twist his future and survive this unknown threat to his life. His life has not once been in danger since. Not even in a broad sense like someone’s targeting him; no, this man has not has one risk to his life since the plot thread was introduced. There’s tons for plot threads like that, I’m barely scratching the surface here. And that’s actually fine...if the series has a long future ahead of it. This system of pacing actually works wonders for BNHA; because while people can occasionally miss their faves and their plots, crying out “where’s Shinsou” and all that, they generally like what’s being focused on when it’s handled and paced well (which it usually is). As long as the series itself has time to get to all of these plots and develop them to their resolution, this pacing system works like a well oiled machine.

Deku especially is a useful measuring tool for how slow this series can be. He’s not like the other plot points see, because he’s almost always around so he’s made to develop at a more even pace until the end. This is in contrast to characters like Shinou, Aoyama, Kirishima, Toga, or Shigaraki; who get bursts of development because they don’t spend consistent time in the spotlight and Horikoshi can’t be entirely sure when he’ll get the next chance to make use of them. So with that said, how slow is his development & how far along is it? Well, not very actually. Aside from in terms of powers, his development has been a bit lacking. Not to say he hasn’t had character moments, but they have been a bit scarce & minimal; and a lot of his major flaws (such as his self-destructive tendencies, his self-esteem issues, and his toxic hero worship) have barely been addressed, let alone resolved. In general, his character feels like it’s barely changed since he got into UA; in stark contrast to characters like Shigaraki, Todoroki, Shinsou, & even Bakugou. And that kind of implies a long road a head of him.

To bounce off another point from the “short future section” I mentioned how a lot of overarching plots just ended. The thing about that is, I actually made a post talking about that and how a lot of how they ended seems to set up more overarching plots then they seem to end. To not repeat myself too much, because this post is already really long; it’s like the series resolved the greater part of 6 years of content only to set-up up to 6 more years of content, and all in one arc. (Goodness that was a busy arc.)

And that’s just the advancement of already existing plot points. There’s a lot it can feel like he hasn’t even touched on yet. Mostly characters. There are just. So. Many. Characters in this series. That are in positions of seeming importance, but have done nothing. For example, Horikoshi’s been known to suddenly focus on class 1A students to make them feel important, and has gotten through maybe over half; but hasn’t really touched on Sero, Sato, Koda, Ojiro, Hagakure, & especially Shoji (who really, really feels like he has something planned, but nothing’s happened yet). And that’s just the guys below Mineta’s development level, which itself is pretty low. To say nothing of Class 1B, or Ms. Joke’s students, or most of the 30 faces known in the PLF, the main antagonistic group of the series! And yeah, this could all just be because Horikoshi likes introducing characters in larger groups than he’s actually equipped to handle; I’m not denying that. I’m just saying it’s also possible that he could be doing this because he feels like he has the time to explore them whenever he wants. (Heck, it could very well be both.)

Conclusion:

...I don’t know dude. I mean a longer series looks more likely to me; but I am very well aware that I’m not unbiased enough to make any real conclusive statement. Maybe I should consider that to mean it’s more even than that.

Perhaps we’re just too far away from the ending to really be able to tell either way. I mean low estimates still give the series at least a year. But even so, I do think this was all worth considering; because if nothing else, I did get a feel for all that’s likely to happen between now and the inevitable end. And I guess it turns out to be kind of a lot. So that’s neat.

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unproduciblesmackdown · 3 years

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stumbling across a billions mystery in a roundabout way and then also solving it in a roundabout way: an adventure

undertaken with @nothingunrealistic, whose posts i also use as sources / link to as references throughout here

so it’s at least been mentioned in tags before, but we’ve been wondering about this promo picture from 5x09

wherein rian is clearly in taylor’s office while someone else is at her desk, across from winston, who is partly visible, and we’ve been wondering if rian was going to move desks in 5x09 or 5x08, but 5x08 has aired and she was sitting at that usual desk adjacent to winston’s, at the row furthest from the entrance to the tmc niche, but on the side closer to taylor’s office, rather than closer to the office lauren (and previously sara) uses.

today i was looking at these first two promo pics ft. rian from 5x11 and i noticed that she seems to be sitting on a desk that is furthest from the entrance but closer to taylor’s office, and at first i was like oh hey, this means she’s still at her usual desk in 5x11, and still sits next to winston! but then i was looking closer at some details and quickly got confused about what part of her desk rian was sitting on, and where it was positioned relative to taylor’s office, and to the other desks in that space. you can see that rian is sitting on one corner of her desk, and that corner is adjacent to the corner which is actually a concave indentation for the chair / sitting area, as all the desks are L shaped with the chair in that inner angle. you can also see in the second picture in which she is talking to taylor that the side of the desk is visible, where it should’ve had another desk pushed up against it.

at this point i was telling soph @nothingunrealistic about the fact i’d seemingly confirmed rian was still at her usual desk next to winston’s but that i was confused about the tmc office layout, which is not in and of itself new or unusual lol, so we were consulting other shots & images of the desks and their position relative to each other and the two side offices. i made this handy diagram using a picture of rian’s desk from 5x07

she would have to be sitting on either of the spots the arrows are pointing to, and when you look at where her chair is in the shots from 5x11, she has to be sitting on the edge of the desk the arrow on the right is pointing to, but there should be a desk flush against that, preventing us from seeing the side of rian’s desk that’s exposed in the 5x11 pics. so, at this point, we could sort of forget about trying to reconcile precise angles in various shots, because it was pretty evident that rian’s desk has to be in a new position for the 5x11 shots to be possible, and we were wondering if her desk had been moved apart from the others. i mentioned that it could be a Social Distancing thing, which would then surely be applied to all desks, not just rian’s, but that i thought the desks were in a regular arrangement in 5x10, which is when rian’s hair seems suddenly & significantly longer and the episode summary mentions that axe cap returns to the office, so we’d theorized that if there was going to be a pandemic timeskip, it would happen between 5x09 and 5x10. soph then mentioned that the desks at axe cap in the 5x11 promo pics may in fact be spaced out more than usual, which sure supported that now all desks were positioned apart from each other, and they had also brought up this shot of taylor in 5x10 with the tmc desks behind them, which i did some Close Observational Analysis on.

there’s no way that with the usual desk grouping we’ve seen throughout season 5, where there’s a 4x2 rectangular group of desks, there should be desk edges that are not in line like that, or there should be any visible gap between desks, so this did seem like solid enough confirmation desks had been moved and spaced out. and while zooming in on the picture, i also noticed that there seems to be someone sitting at the desk to our right, i.e. the one attached to the Lime Green underline there. that desk ought to be rian’s, if you compare it to what we see in 5x11 and to the fact that the original placement of her desk would be closest to where that desk in question is now apparently located. even though we can’t really see much, it looks like the person is wearing a dark / black shirt and an open greyish layer, which matches what we see rian wearing in this shot of her from the other tmc 5x10 promo pics.

that picture of rian seems to be taken in the same scene as those daytime shots taylor and lauren, wherein they are wearing the same outfits as they are in the later nighttime shots, so rian would presumably also be wearing the same outfit; this could be her at that desk with her hair behind her shoulders. and in the course of having that picture of rian zoomed in, i then accidentally realized something further about the picture, which is that: prior we had speculated that, since the desk/table rian was leaning at didn’t look like any spot in the usual larger desk cluster, she might be in taylor’s office in that pic. but with the new knowledge that desks were in different locations / arranged differently, and simply taking a closer look, i realized that rian, like winston and lauren in those other promo shots, is actually again perched on her own desk.

doesn’t quite make sense with taylor’s office layout anymore but Does make sense with the picture forming here. her desk is moved closer to the window, with no desks immediately adjacent to it. the corner of the desk scene in the lower right corner of the shot, which would be the desk seen most directly behind taylor via those shots of them talking to lauren that night, is almost surely winston’s desk, again approximately closest to its original position.

these shots of winston and lauren are likely from the same scene as those daytime shots of rian and taylor; taylor may be addressing them, while these three are simultaneously Listening. there seems to be another desk a ways across from winston’s, which can’t be rian’s, so there’s at least one other desk that isn’t theirs in that general space. lauren might be standing on the other side of winston’s chair. comparing this shot of winston’s desk, and the apparent shot of it in 5x10 behind taylor, it seems like the way rian and winston’s desks are angled, being kind of on the same diagonal, means that when they’re sitting down, they’re facing each other.

then, last but not least, soph watched the s5 part 2 trailer again and caught this shot of axe cap behind wendy that could’ve given us this “wow, desks are spaced apart” clue a lot earlier, but oh well lol.

this is definitely the lower floor of axe cap, what with the front desk and the staircase in the background, and in addition to [people wearing masks in the background] there’s also those Distancing floor markers, what seem to be bottles of hand sanitizer on both those workstation desks there, and, of course, there’s confirmation the desks at axe cap are spaced out. so, a mystery that could’ve been solved before it began by looking really closely at that brief shot of wendy walking through the office, but instead was discovered through looking at pics of rian while having noted and been bothered by the fact someone else sits at rians desk in one 5x09 promo picture, because Do Not Separate Them (Winston And Rian) and, it seems like while they have been separated, only because everyone’s desks have been, and while they aren’t directly adjacent, they’re now facing each other, vs you know, being more at a right angle to each other originally. and once that mystery was discovered, we solved it with the power of friendship and teamwork and a tendency to get into this kind of stuff and determinedly figure it out via a bunch of references already collected. it was fun!

Bonus Mystery Via Promo Images:

in that 5x11 collection, there is also a picture of taylor sitting down in some office: we aren’t certain what office it is, or who they’re talking to. but they’re wearing shoes we’ve never seen before, with soles both noticeable higher than usual, and white, so we don’t miss it.

we’ve definitely never seen taylor with these shoes, and you gotta wonder what the fashion change is for...are the soles more supportive / comfortable? and re: the possibility they could be for comfort, i also noticed that taylor not only chose to put their ankle against their knee to make the shoes visible front and center, but also that they were even capable of doing so. asia, taylor’s actor, said in an interview that the clothes in taylor’s costumes can be physically constraining and inhibit their range of motion:

"Slipping into Taylor’s wardrobe, shoes, pants, belt, the tie that’s, you know, all the way up, the shirt that’s buttoned all the way up, it limits one’s movement, actually, in a way [...] I mean, Taylor, for instance, can’t cross their legs comfortably in the pants that they’re wearing. And that will inform the way that Taylor is sitting in a chair, or the way that Taylor is standing."

(helpfully transcribed by soph, of course) so presumably their usual habit of crossing their ankles is due to the fact they often can’t cross their legs comfortably, just as asia stated, but here they’re doing exactly that, and not only is it even possible for them to manage it, but they do not act like they’re uncomfortable or this is a challenge. so now i’m wondering if taylor’s chosen to wear both shoes and pants that are both unusually Comfortable for them, and sure further wondering if there’s a reason for this, especially after all that desk layout analysis sure confirmed that the pandemic has affected some norms on the show. interesting!!! we are out here noticing things, hence, this whole post. hope you enjoyed this journey, but that’s okay if not because we at least did!

#winston billions #billions #think the fact there's Links in this post means it won't show up in general tags like that but hey. i think it's a good one to throw out lol #riawin #in fact hope i didn't mess up very many of these links or drop the wrong episode number lol. tried to be coherent

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the-headbop-wraith · 3 years

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3_45 _ The Past is Gone

Nothing of Kingsman Mechanic’s appeared out of place. A few lights poured clarity across the work floor, but the other rooms and the storage chamber remained inactive. On the main floor, the white and black hound scurried this and that way, struggling to untangle the erratic path.

Arthur raised his legs as Mystery padded by. The dog took a sharp left and continued, first checking the flatbed the intruder skipped over, and then roving toward vehicles parked in stations. Mystery came upon a large and swollen duffle bag, laying beside a supply cart. He pawed at the clunky thing, nipping at the zipper on the side.

Lewis prodded at the sack, shifting it one way then the other cautiously. It was hard and chunky, likely some sort of equipment. The question though, did he bring this in or was he taking it?

A bark form Mystery assured that there was nothing hazardous. Lewis tugged the zipper and tilted his skull.

“You should’ve barbequed the guy,” Vivi grumbled. She moved in beside Lewis and peered over his shoulder. “Skinned and then barbequed.”

“A bit excessive.” Lewis angled his skull up and peered across the room, to Arthur. “Turned him inside out, and then barbequed.”

“Now you’re talking.” She leaned down and touched his hand. “It’ll be okay. Uncle cares a lot about you, but he needs some time to adjust.”

Lewis rasped. “He needs time to adjust.” He didn’t bother to zip up the bag, and stood. “First thing he does is put a hole right through me. Who does that?”

“A protective parent?” Vivi posed. She leaned around Lewis’ side, staring up at him. “Arthur’ll be fine, he’s sore but it’s all aches. He told me nothing in his shoulder was torn or cracked, which is a marvel.” She pushed him by the lower back, coaxing the tall spirit on his way.

Two hours following the intruder’s retreat, Uncle Lance was on his second pot of coffee. In that time, Vivi did her best to reconstruct the events of what transpired all that time in the past, wherein an ‘accident’ occurred. There remained crevices that she could not put description into, due to Lance’s inexperience to the actuals of the Mystery Skulls paranormal investigation. And also, that Lewis’ did not merely loose his footing on some slippery rocks. It wasn’t a good time to bring in the influencing force, or place the ideal that it’s compulsion was strong, if not impossible to fight away. Despite the skewed memory, Vivi was the only candidate to elaborate the details. Lewis was adamant about that.

For the most part, Lance seemed to take it all in as well as anticipated. He did need some time alone to think, and really grapple with what he was seeing. Beyond the revelation that Lewis wasn’t gone – not entirely there, either – the shock that supernatural creatures existed out there, entities that occurred not far from his home base.

As for the intruder in the mask, the trail led outside and down the road. Mystery lost it on the sidewalk, prompting Vivi’s speculation that he got into a vehicle and departed. She returned to Kingsman and checked on Arthur, while Lewis accompanied Mystery in the next search. The motivation and intent of the assault. The bag offered some insight.

“Good news, we figured out what the guy was here for,” Vivi proclaimed, in a strong dramatic whisper.

“And there. I didn’t drop you off someplace. High.” Lewis set the bag down at Arthur’s feet. A look of ‘what the fu—' crossed Vivi’s face when she directed her eyes to Lewis. “You… don’t seem as appreciative as you should be.”

“Lew!”

Arthur fixed the soggy bag of water against his neck. “Sorry. Not surprised, is all. This is the furthest anyone’s got with getting away. At least, that I know of.”

Vivi was aghast. “This has happened before?”

“Not like this.” He flecked his hand upward. “If someone breaks in, they jack shit that’s easy to access. Grab’n go. We store special components upstairs, things that get legs real easy. Whatever’s pricey and small, easy to miss, gets locked up. Only one other guys has the keys, aside from Uncle and me.” He sighed. “Not that this would do anyone any good.” With his hand, he rifled through the duffle. Some folders were crammed in, among the shell and arm shapes.

Lewis shifted and looked away, his thumb stroked the underside of his cheek bone. “Then, could it have been someone working here? One of the grease monkeys?”

Mystery yapped and gave his head a shake, ears flopping.

“Not… likely,” Arthur drawled out. “These models are shells, nothing useful has been incorporated into them. It’s possible the guy grabbed and jammed, if he was in a hurry. But you didn’t run into him upstairs, not in that tiny corridor. So, he was already on his way out.”

The four hung quiet a moment, debating on the assessment. Lewis broke the silence, “So, what does that mean?”

Arthur shrugged. “I’ll go upstairs and check, make sure nothing else is missing. You lost the trail?”

Mystery borked and spun in circles. Got in a car and zoomed.

“And what sort of car?”

Mystery tapped his front paws, raising one and flattening his ears down. “Mhh….”

Lewis and Vivi exchanged a look. Vivi said, “Hangs around a car garage?”

“Can’t distinguish between the different models?” Lewis finished.

Mystery snorted and left them, ears twisted back and muzzled crinkled. All this oil smells the same.

Lewis gestured to Vivi. “There’s not a lot to work with.”

“No.” She turned to Arthur. “Let’s get you upstairs so you can lie down.” Vivi leaned down and took Arthur’s upper arm. Lewis took the bag up and moved aside, while Vivi hefted Arthur off the box. “We can ask Uncle Lance about the cameras later.”

“I’m fine,” Arthur insisted, though he let Vivi aid him in getting upright. Lewis stood by, hand open as if he wanted to assist but wouldn’t move towards Arthur. “Think I was mostly stunned. Good thing these boxes were empty. Anyway, the cameras wouldn’t be much help. Aside from proving the guy was a jerk.”

“Always the optimist,” Lewis crackled. “I doubt they’ll come back around.”

“You sound real proud of yourself,” Vivi quipped, through a grin.

“I really wish you’d seen them. It was like they saw a ghost.” Lewis’ skull swiveled on his collar, and he wound his shoulders around to face the stout figure approaching them.

Lance gave his face a firm rub, before searching the group over. “Don’t mean tu break up teh powwow. Your gunna be okay, Art?”

Arthur grimaced and pulled on the edge of his vest. “I’ve been worse.”

A steely expression crossed Lance’s face, but he didn’t respond on that. “Yuh. Sure. Um, I want to head on over to my place, sleep this off. Might take the rest of the day off.” He pointed to Arthur. “And you’re not comin’ in either.”

“I already had the day off….”

“The whole week, then.”

“Uncle,” he groaned, stretching awkwardly around Vivi to facepalm.

“No. M’words final. You. Ghost Pepper.”

Lewis eye sockets surged with those fuchsia flames. “It’s Lewis, Uncle Lance. Lew-Is.”

Lance swept his arm. “C’mere. I want a word with you.”

A low rattle burned through Lewis. “Juro si este va a ser un tema recurrente….”

Lance led the way through the work floor, and into the dim corridor entrance. The shorter man stood with his arms crossed, glaring at Lewis and trying to look as imposing as he could muster without standing on his toes. Lewis met the stance, crossing his arms tightly over his chest.

“Vivi talked with you.”

“She talked with me,” Lance acknowledged, with a nod. “N’it was a good conversation. A lot tu take in. There’s a lot tu… tangle mah thoughts ‘round.” He glanced a little beyond Lewis’ shoulder. “I try not tu pry into your kids… Arthur and Viv-vi’s going on’s. I trusted… ‘em, despite whut happened to m’boy. Tu yu.”

Lewis creaked back and looked away.

Lance went on, “I thought stayin’ busy an’ doin’ their thing was right. But now, I dunno if that was what bein’ best for ‘em. She told me what ya’ll been preoccupied with, but there bein’ more she ain’t willing tu give over. All this time, I thought yu were out on the road, unmasking kooky loonies playin’ pretend. Fakes doin’ shenanigans for publicity, tryin’ to shirk a profit.”

For a minute the two stood, quiet and contemplative on the crossroads. It was not total silence, a steady thrum persisted from Lewis. Like a heartbeat, Lance was not eager to address.

“And what’s this about Arthur comin’ home, with his arm all beat tu heck?” Lance snarled. “First, he loses it. Now it’s cursed, and he can’t – he can’t furbish a replacement to make use. Keep it functional for more than… a couple months! Yu’re adults, and ya’ll got yur business tu work through, but do yu lot got yur priorities squared?”

Lewis frowned. “You’d have to take that up with the boss lady.”

Lance pressed his hands to his face and took a deep breath. “Yu and I are talkin’ it now.” He pried his hands from his face and held his palms together, against his nose.

For the first time, Lewis realized Lance’s hands were quaking. It was subtle, maybe he didn’t realize it. The stillness hung between them, while Lance struggled to get his bearings.

“Somethin’ happened between you an’ Art, I’ve seen enough tu conclude that.” Lance sighed. “Yu won’t e-Lab-or-ate on it, an’ that’s all right. It’s your business. But yu should know I am downright upset I wasn’t told about this.”

Lewis tilted his skull. “About… what?”

“About what?” he exploded. “About… everything! All of this! I deserved tu know something, any small scrap that wasn’t a lie! A bit of the truth, that’s all I ask. I can’t be there for Arthur,if he’s hidin’ away!” Lance threw his arms up gesturing nothing in particular, his breath came labored and his brow beaded with droplets. “About yu! I should’ve in the least, been told yu’d… resurfaced, or sumthin’! Whatever y’all call it. Do your parents kn—?”

“NO!” For the first time Lewis’ features snapped from gnawing fury, to wide eyed horror. “No-no! They can’t! And you can’t tell them!”

Perplexed and alarmed, Lance eased back. “Okay. I got it.” The light of the corridor fluttered, the embers in Lewis’ skull flashed.

“They can’t know about me, about what I— About what happened. Please, Uncle Lance,” Lewis rasped, the remnants of his speech drew on a rustling surge. The spirit clasped his hands together. “There’s only one thing I will ever-ever ask of you, and it’s that you never speak about what you saw here with anyone, save for Vii and Artie. Please! Don’t do that! I’m begging!”

There was something else that Lewis wasn’t saying, he could scarcely make it out in those gleaming eyes. But the utter desperation and remorse reverberating in that ‘voice’, he couldn’t bear to ask and witness the rush of agony. Lance didn’t understand, but the topic pained Lewis in some undefined way. Or, it could’ve been a trick of the light.

Lance took another step back, hitting the wall behind him. “I hear ya, they won’t… Yu have mah word.” The skull retained its defensive countenance, and he struggled to overlay what a living Lewis might’ve looked like right now.

“They uh… they’re likely waiting on yu. Art and Vii,,” Lance took a work rag from his belt and swept it across his face.. “Lewis, listen. I want to— You’ve always been a good kid.” How did he say this? “I worry abou’ ‘em, and I’m worrin’ more now thinking about… all this. You can’t, I mean – I know I can’t— I don’t want what happen….” There wasn’t a good way to deliver the request, so he gave up in a long-winded sigh.

“I’m headed off now.” Lance moved down the corridor, but only got three steps before he about-faced and marched back. “I did’t park out front.” He inched by Lewis and made it another five steps, then swung back. “It was good seein’ yu again. Yu gunna be around an’—” Before he finished, a flash of flames engulfed the figure and in the curling ash remained nothing but a faint outline. In short time, as Lance’s eyes readjusted, the murky impression faded.

“I’ll take that as a no….”

In the time that Lance took Lewis aside for a short exchange, Arthur had relocated upstairs to his work room where he currently perused through his personal gear and spare parts. When Vivi made certain Arthur would take it easy and not stress, she left to pick up some food for the evening. Given everything that went down, neither was inspired to head back to her apartment and try getting back on track. Work, even casual work stuff, could wait.

“None of the work gear got mucked with,” Arthur mentioned offhand, when Lewis materialized in a plume of heat in the doorway. He lay reclined on the sofa, his head resting on Mystery’s back while his legs sat propped by the arm rest. “Dunno how long the guy was working, since closing. Arms are easy to build, for the most part. But that paranormal stuff is kinda pricey.”

He leaned his head up to see Lewis better, when the spirit glided over behind the couch. The skull and death suit, any number of reasons why. Could’ve forgotten in all the chaos, or didn’t care. “How you holdin’ up?”

“Fantastic,” Lewis wheezed. “I have one fear now.”

That didn’t sound good. Arthur pondered if he should tease the subject further, but given the vibrant tension smoldering around Lewis he decided any other day might work better. He adjusted the new ice bag on his forehead and shut his eyes.

“Why didn’t you just, y’know, disappear? You’re good at that.” He opened his eyes and winced. Lewis was leaning on the couch, glaring down at him.

“Wasn’t really keen on leaving you in the care of your Uncle, regardless of good intentions.” Lewis lifted one arm from the couch and touched the locket thudding on his chest. “Did not expect him to go full Ash Williams with handling threats. Where’s Vivi?”

Mystery woofed.

“You should get some rest while you can,” Lewis offered. “It’d be safe now.”

Something in Lewis’ tone made Arthur leery. “You gunna keep an eye on me?”

“I won’t go anywhere without telling you.”

Mystery twisted his body around enough to nuzzle Arthur’s hair.

“I have a sneaky suspicion I should keep an eye on you.” The glare subsided, but Lewis still seemed peeved. Arthur edged a little away from the spirit, pulling his body more over onto the coffee table. “You’re not planning on going anywhere. Are you?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Damn it Lewis, I can’t tell if you think you’re being subtle or an ass. Knock it off.” Lewis expression shifted no miniscule way, aside from the faint waver of his burning eyes. Was it possible they looked much hotter than usual? “I’ll update security, put some better locks on the doors – not that it ever stopped thugs from breaking in before.” That’s why Lance had the shotgun. “We can’t go any further. We shouldn’t. And I’m ‘bout done with this.”

“How ‘bout I find this guy anyway?” Lewis stood away from the couch. “A little more inspiration, to assure they won’t even dream of setting foot here, ever again.”

Arthur got off the couch and went over to the boxes of gear, digging through the packing. “What is this fixation you have with revenge? What you’ll wind up doing is, draw too much attention to us. In our hometown no less. Get a grip!”

“My frien—” Lewis let his tone sputter out not too gracefully, and backtracked on the sentence. “You get creamed, I got shot up – I think I’m entitled to invoke a lil retribution.”

Arthur pulled out some equipment and set it carefully aside. Damn, it was tedious doing anything one handed. “You scared him off. That was enough!”

Mystery was glancing back and forth between the two. Where the hell was Vivi?

“It’s not enough,” Lewis hissed. “We’re in a fine fix on account of that-that… delincuente. And I will make certain he never comes back! What are you looking for?”

Arthur dumped one of the energy readers. “Where the heck is Vivi?”

Lewis crossed his arms. “She’d tots be on board with this scheme, and you know it.” Arthur deflated over the box.

“Shit, you’re right.” Lewis leaned over him.

“Tell me what you’re looking for, Arthur.”

Arthur cowered under the shadow. “I’ll tell you one thing, it has nothing to do with you.” Lewis’ eyes burned brighter.

“You’re lying to me, aren’t you?”

Arthur snapped his fingers. “Shoot! Damn. Can’t get one by you, can I?”

Mystery rolled his eyes and face palmed. He bled, for this?

It was not long later that Vivi was standing in the doorway with groceries, beholding as Lewis and Arthur went at each other. She had NO IDEA what was going on, it was the midpoint of some consecutive theme, bouncing around the argument that Arthur was being too passive. For Arthur’s credit, he looked like he was trying to haul Lewis up by the lapels of his death suit. It was quite the sight to walk in on. The scarce traces of embers bristled around the room, and Mystery was trying to keep them from alighting on anything flammable. Anything flammable seemed to be everything.

“—you let that thing into my home. Practically invited it!” Lewis screeched.

“What home?” Arthur snarled. “The mansion?”

“I don’t recall owning costal real estate!”

Vivi took a breath and raised her voice. “Hey, you guys gunna be okay?”

Lewis and Arthur simultaneous spat, “NO!”

She turned to Galahad, bundled in her scarf. “At least they agree on something.”

“You don’t own anything!” Arthur rebuked. “You just haunt some place and—” Lewis pointed down at Arthur.

“Don’t you dare go there, Kingsman.”

In a mad dash, Vivi left Galahad to Mystery and shoved herself between the two, breaking Arthur’s grip on Lewis. “Enough! The both of you can just take two big boy steps away.” Lewis reversed a step due to her full body shoving, but he held his glower on Arthur. “All right, listen! We all had an arguably fucked up evening, but we are not doing this tonight! Both of you! That’ll be enough!” She gave Lewis a harder shove, to dislodge him fully.

“You never had a temper like this!” Arthur snapped back, while Mystery tugged him away by the back of his vest. “The littlest things piss you off. How am I supposed to work around you when you got all these… these barriers, everywhere!” He stamped his foot.

“I’ve been somewhat overheated since my ultimately demise,” Lewis grated, “but I have been trying very-very hard to be very-very-VERRRY patient. All the same, you make that so difficult.”

At least he wasn’t resisting her asserted relocation. “And we are so proud of you,” Vivi snapped. “You’ve been working so hard, hasn’t he Arthur?” She glanced back

Arthur blinked. “Are YOU kidding me!”

“Oh my lor— Hasn’t! He! ARR! THUR!”

Arthur slapped his face. “FINE! The bare minimal, what’s the bare minimal? You didn’t roast Uncle, like you almost roasted me and Vii! I’m so ecstatic! Ya get a Gold Star!”

Lewis shifted against her palms, but seemed to calm down and eased out of leaning. The embers still lingering around the room snuffed out, leaving only the kindling scent. “Yeaah,” Lewis hummed.

There was no way to oppose that. He wouldn’t admit Arthur was right, but he did have a point. It was a lot to deal with, and not a lot of time allocated to process. Though, it wasn’t just getting shot a dozen times and dealing with Uncle Lance all in the same hour; then, the expectation of carrying on, like nothing happened – all of it scorched him. He was a little more than irritated, and he was… afraid. Afraid, when he didn’t reach Arthur in time, and frustrated he didn’t have the foresight to restrain the intruder; more than that, fretful and unsatisfied by what was left. None of this he could convey practically, yet he… he couldn’t hide it either. There was a lot he couldn’t really conceal, ignore, or repress. He could do better, but it was... hard. They didn’t know how hard this was.

The other three went quiet, as well. Arthur hadn’t dropped his hyper-lazer scowl, as if expecting some form of reckless objection – though Lewis was fresh out of those. One of Vivi’s arms remained braced across his chest, though her full-bodied leaning had regressed by multitudes. In the beats preluding his lockets dull thrum, the tension began to ebb.

At last, Lewis broke the silence, “That… would’ve been excessive, yes? He meant well, after all.” The fluorescent light flickered, like the flutter of a heartbeat. “Though not gonna lie,” he hissed, “I was on the fence about socking him.”

Vivi smacked her head against his chest and gave a muffled scream. You could have not said anything!

“It was getting a strong debate. I mean, he shot me like four times.”

“It was fifteen— Wait, I missed that.” Mystery released Arthur’s shirt, and he nearly toppled forward. “Okay. I’m…. I wanna understand, Lew. You and me, and Vivi, we have to talk about this. I don’t want you to do this.”

Vivi brought her gaze up to Lewis. “What? Wait… what is he talking about?” It dawned on her the next second, who could possibly be deserving of a nasty visit. “Artie,” she groaned, “C’mon….”

“Not helping,” he growled.

“Fine,” Lewis grated, ember eyes flashing. “Have it your way.”

Arthur glared, unconvinced. “Lew.”

“Give me the benefit of the doubt,” Lewis beseeched. Without jeopardizing his gaze, he brought a hand up and touched the locket. “I didn’t really believe further involvement on my part was necessary. I’m just… I need some time to think. To… get a grip.”

“Like literally,” Arthur huffed. He cleared his throat and tottered back, when Vivi delivered a scathing glare of her own. “Fine! Done. I’ll sleep better knowing I didn’t have a hand in someone else’s ultimately demise.” He gave Lewis a sharp look, before spinning away.

Lewis stood to the side, gazing off as if he didn’t know what to do now or where to relocate. Vivi pointed a finger, directly into his bleached skull face – warning. His glower did deepen, as she left him to collect the bags left at the threshold.

“Vivi,” his voice was distorted, echoey. “I’m heading back down to look around. When you get the chance, would you come meet me?”

A note of shock crossed Arthur’s features, but upon the direct request the alarm faded. Vivi handed over the bags.

“Sure,” she replied. She plucked Galahad up and set him on the couch, beside Arthur. To Arthur, she whispered, “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“You both are making me so nervous.”

“I won’t be gone long.” She kissed Arthur on the forehead, and set another bag of drinks beside him. “Try and relax, please?”

Arthur took a breath and sighed. “I’ll give you three, before I start losin’ my mind.” He snared Galahad, before he could begin chewing at the supplies.

Before leaving, she charged Mystery with looking after Arthur. She wasn’t confident Arthur was fully out of the woods yet, despite Lewis’ assurance.

The workspace of the garage seemed infinitely more barren and silent, once all the excitement had aired out completely. Uncle Lance would’ve under normal circumstance shut down the lights through the entire building, save for the upper floor. As she crossed the floor, she was almost afraid the place was utterly abandoned. Not that this would matter to her, but Arthur’s distress was cause for concern. The argument between he and Lewis was nearly lost on her, but given the day it didn’t take much to deduce her living friends hesitation.

When she rounded the sportscar, Vivi uttered a squeak of relief. “I thought maybe you’d already taken off.”

Lewis actually maintained his solidity and rotated his skull, then his shoulders, but only a margin. “No. I was thinking.” He was examining the space beside the toolcart, where they located the bag of Arthur’s crafts. A number of orbs bobbed around Lewis, while he contemplated.

“Personally, I would prefer you go after this guy,” she admitted. She stepped up alongside Lewis, and gave the area a brief but mortal search. “But what would that solve?” Vivi wasn’t certain if he was aware the living guise was not restored yet, or if his focus was out of whack.

“Not a lot, I suppose,” he uttered, voice rustling. “I might head over to your apartment, and rest there for a bit.”

She meant to say, ‘You don’t have to, unless you want’. But what came out was, “I don’t think you should.”

“I’ll be well enough. So will Art,” Lewis replied. His skull adjusted, lifting a little higher than anticipated above his crisp white collar. “He and I… well, you saw.” There was something else indistinct to that tone, but it was choppy and a trial to translate. “I’ve never seen him so mad before. Not even on a botched assignment.”

Arthur had many fears, both grand or miniscule threats to his personal being. There were methods to supersede the private terrors which confronted him.

“You gunna be all right?” she posed, while reaching out to his hand. But stopped herself.

“The concern is appreciated, though I don’t think… well, I wouldn’t be in any peril.” Lewis turned fully to Vivi and set his hands on either of her shoulders, he leaned down and set the upper edge of his jaw against her bangs. An endearing skeleton kiss.

Vivi couldn’t help but giggle. “We’ll come by and check on you in the morning.” As Lewis backed away, his shape and color drained out beneath the blazing illumination of the lamps above.

“By then, we should have cooled down.” With a surge of embers, Lewis vanished entirely. His words continued to ring out, however, “No dejes Arthur to worry. He can do with taking better care of himself, for a change.”

Uncertain if Lewis was still present or not, Vivi went ahead and left the area. She called, “I’ll remind him, like usual. It’s a task easier said than done.” The atmosphere was completely palpable, when Lewis abandoned the area completely. Likely due to the anticipation, the sensation of being observed from afar evaporated. She had her suspicions, but she wanted to take Lewis’ word on the matter.

The lights too emptied out of the open airspace of the work floor, when she snapped the switches off. Her course from the entry corridor and to the ascending steps was very lonely, her perception becoming constrained with each set of lamps clicked off. A penetrating silence moved through her, while an overbearing draft kneaded her muscles. Her hand traced the wall with her ascent, each step calculated, cautious should Galahad have made his way down the steps on the behest of his most favorite person.

When she reached the private workroom, she found Arthur already fast asleep. That was good, she reckoned. Both for his bruised body, and the emotional expulsion. Arthur was entirely out cold, his good arm curled beneath his cheek and the muscles in his face relaxed – she could scarcely make out his breathing, until she closed in further. Nestled against his neck, a small ball of puff and metal.

Across Arthur’s folded legs lay Mystery, his bright eyes observed Vivi as she approached. On the ground beside the couch, rested a few crumpled wrappers of junk food and an open can of coffee drink; the caffeine no match to physical or mental exhaustion.

“Tomorrow might not be better than today,” Vivi hummed. She took a rumpled blanket from the couches back and lay it around her friends. “But it’ll deliver us further away. The only constant is that days are relentless, whether we want them or not. Take us on a journey, and though we never can return to once ways.”

She climbed onto the couch, close beside Mystery so she could lean over and scratch his neck. “There’s a place awaiting us, ready to receive the person we became. Indifferent to the changes, next year only wants to see us arrive. Scars aside, hurt and disappointment, blessings all the same. When we arrive, there will be no resentment. Celebrate who we are, and mourn the loss of who we once were. There is no turning back, and no regret, if our steps are steadfast. Survival is an artform, and I’m a masterful composer. The colors I use on my canvas will never dull. No matter how far we travel down the road, at my core I am complete.

Mystery arched his head up and licked at her hand.

“If I wasn’t, my world would crumble. Without you, the bridges fail. And the peril will never end, without you. Without you, there’s no place like home. No where to go. Without you I’d lose my way, caught up in the shadows of long-lost days.”

In the stillness of the small workroom, Vivi drifted off into a deep slumber. Perhaps assisted, perhaps not. One aspect was for certain, as it became a certainty that Vivi was well and asleep, the light of the room doused completely. The door creaked on its hinges, as an imposing silhouette eased back trailing a rose tinged vapor of light.

#mystery skulls #ghost #mystery skulls animated #msa #fanfic #fanfiction #mystery skulls fanfic #mystery skulls fanfiction #msa lewis #msa vivi #msa arthur #msa mystery #msa lance #ghost pepper

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sleepycoffins-and-benhargreeves · 4 years

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Let’s talk about Ben becoming Sparrow!Ben / Number one

So, I just watched the end TUA s2 yesterday and it really made me think about Ben (but, then again he’s the only one I usually think about). It’s amazing that in this timeline, HE’S NUMBER ONE. He’s the one with the painting in the main room and he’s basically the leader of the team now.

But how did that happen? Of course the timeline now is different but, what were the reasons that led up to that?

Please bear with me, this will be one long ass meta under the readmore.

I think the main reasons are Klaus and Vanya.

Now let me explain first. Let’s start with Klaus.

Klaus is obviously the closest sibling to Ben. Even when they were young, it had been obvious and basically canon already that they were each other’s best friends within the group of siblings. We even have that one scene where Vanya was destroying the house in s1 and reminiscing horrible memories and her memories were of BEN AND KLAUS TOGETHER in one memory

Also, prob a bit of Horrance because this was taken from a Horrance post. But, please bear with me. I would like to point out, shippy or not shippy that it seems that they were also close enough to want to SHARE A ROOM TOGETHER.

I adjusted the brightness of the picture above and confirmed that yes. THAT IS ANOTHER BED. THERE IS ANOTHER BED IN THIS ROOM SO IT IS NOT A FAR REACH TO THINK THAT BEN AND KLAUS SHARED A ROOM.

And seriously? With how rich their father is you know he would be decent enough to give every child their own room.

But what I get from this is that not only are they close, but how Ben can also be protective and caring of Klaus. Let’s go back to episode 4 in s1 where Reginald locked him in a mausoleum. From that experience alone, Klaus would’ve been vulnerable, afraid, claustrophobic, and obviously traumatized. He’s Ben’s best friend and most closest sibling. Ben is a softy from what I can see, he cares very deeply and is a concerned person. I wouldn’t even be surprised if he was the one to suggest to Klaus that they start sleeping in one room together.

I think seeing his brother being afraid of the dark and unable to function properly brought out his primal instinct to protect and care. He allowed himself to be emotionally vulnerable in a way that he shows and acts that he cares. In their world, that would have been a big mistake. Showing weakness by letting people know that you care and would get hurt if this person were to be hurt is something that can get used against you. I would not put it past Reginald of slipping that kind of idea into them.

Yes, you protect your siblings because you can die from not defending one another. But why protect them from your own father? Why protect them and care for them? If they’re weak, then that’s good for you because you can climb up higher into Daddy’s ranking and get a better position. But no, Ben let himself care and damned it all for his best friend.

And going back to the pictures above, I know that Vanya sees Ben’s words as a stinging knife to the heart. Reminding her once again that she, out of all the siblings, is the un-special one. But you also have to take in the fact that there is such a thing as tough love. I can imagine young!Vanya looking up to her siblings and asking them about their missions and probably in more than one occasion begging for them to tag her along, just smuggle her out of the house. Let her see and experience what it’s like to be a hero like them.

She comes to Ben and Klaus for that. I think out of all the siblings, Vanya is actually closest to Ben in a way that Ben also sees her as someone to protect. Vanya is their *ehem* “most fragile” *ehem* sibling, the one with “no powers” so he has also been protective of her. I can imagine him trying to befriend and play with her as much as he can, including her in many things because he sees that she’s miserable and always alone.

We can even imagine Ben trying to either train with her and worrying about her at some nights. She lives in a house full of people with superpowers and she’s just ordinary. What if one day, someone attacks them and he wouldn’t be able to protect Vanya? What if one day there will come a time that they can’t defend someone evil and he’s gone? How will Vanya survive? How can he keep Vanya safe and protect her at the same time?

Ben sees Vanya and Klaus as people he has to take care of.

Let’s also not forget the fact that Vanya practically told all of us that Ben was the glue keeping them all together. s1 ep3

Here she tells her readers how distraught everyone was for Ben’s death. And that him dying was basically the last straw, nobody could get along anymore because I think, Ben was their peacemaker.

Yes, we have Luther who is by their vote and their father’s, the “eldest” sibling, but being the eldest doesn’t mean you can be the mediator. He is the stereotype definition of eldest sibling, golden boy with a lot of achievements, always follows their parents, prim and proper, and always initiates things to go into motion.

But, he is not a mediator. He is not someone who can get everyone in line to listen. Yes, he has leader qualities, but not all of them. He is missing the ability to empathizing and include others. I actually wish we saw some flashback interactions with him and Ben, or Luther talking about Ben because I wanna see how their relationship would’ve been.

The same goes with Five. He is leader material as well (given he’s 58 years old tbh), but he has a hard time with his emotions and empathizing with the others as well.

So all in all, who else has the power to empathize with the others? Who else has that? Allison and Ben.

Allison is someone who I think is very good with people even without her rumour power (as we can see with season two). She and Ben seem to have had a very good relationship too judging from her scene in s1 ep2

I think she and Ben were the mediators within the family. They are the ones who is most often on the neutral side of things, thinking about everything and everyone, the pros and cons, everyone’s feelings, and how they can make a solution that will make less sacrifices.

I think out of everyone, both Allison and Ben are the ones who take care of their sibling in a more emotional way. They allow themselves to show weakness or strength in a sense that, they let their guard down and allow themselves to just care. They also protect their siblings, but with Ben I think it’s deeper.

In regards to Ben protecting and even sacrificing himself on a deeper level than Allison, I will refer to this post that talked about their numbers. Some were saying that they were numbered backwards, from weakest to strongest, yet at the same time, it was also based on their usefulness for Reginald.

If we go with the usefulness and how well Reginald can manipulate them, then it is also very plausible. Luther is our golden boy who wants to please their father, Diego although denies it still tries hard to be a superhero that their father told them to be, Allison is also very much afraid of their father. Although she loves him even when he was abusive, she still followed him. Klaus being four is because of his fear, he’s very lenient and will somewhat do what their father wants. He wasn’t like Vanya who could blow up the place where he was being kept, so in a way he was easier to manipulate. Five obviously had a mind of his own as well.

So why, pray tell, is Ben number six? How was he immune to being manipulated and used whenever by Reginald?

My answer, Klaus and Vanya.

I think he saw how unfairly they were treated, saw how vulnerable his siblings are, and that was what made him rebel against Reginald. Klaus and Vanya are close to him, they are the siblings he is closest to, so having to see them go through all of those hardships, those trauma, and be so unloved by their father because they could not control their powers or have “no” powers in Vanya’s case.

I think in his own way, Ben stood up for his siblings that’s why his rank/number was demoted to six. He was punished to have a lower number.

I think the reason that the Umbrella siblings were so protective of each other was because Ben rebelled in a way that he saw injustice within their father and did something about it, even if it caused him a way to gain his father’s favor and love.

Now, after that explanation with how Ben became Ben with the Umbrella, let’s go to Number One in Sparrow. I will be calling him One now.

One did not have Klaus and Vanya growing up. I cannot assume yet what their upbringing was like, but with how I just described Ben’s relationships with the others, I think the Sparrows are more cut-throat and independent from one another.

One has become the “eldest” and supreme sibling here. He is the most useful and easily the most powerful as well. One did not die at a young age, so him being able to tap more into the secrets of his powers and being able to hone and improve it is deadly. The fact that Vanya is not here, we could also speculate that One is also the most powerful sibling here right now.

I would also like to reference my own post here on how powerful Ben could have been if he had not died. One has had years of training behind his back to polish his skills. The theory of One being a portal that could easily summon and manipulate monsters from another dimension is too good. He is the living embodiment of OP wherein he is calm, collected, and knows how to control himself and his emotions to not set an apocalypse in motion. That is, only if this theory even has a smidgen of a chance to become canon. Or has some aspects that can become canon.

But anyways, Ben with his stomach and Bentacles is OP enough already.

Going back to One, the idea of his siblings here being more independent and cut throat is a big possibility. I’m not saying that they don’t have a bond or that the Sparrow siblings hate each other. All I’m saying is that they might not have been as affectionate and emotionally open as the Umbrella siblings.

I mean like heck, even Diego, who is our most macho character has a soft side, especially for Ben.

Look how soft they both look here, how Diego hugs Ben and just the all around atmosphere of it. You can feel from this scene alone how important Ben is to Diego.

I don’t think the Sparrow siblings have this kind of connection, hence why One was able to become One. Yes, they probably work better as a unit/team and yes, they will probably be better at using their powers and combining it with their other siblings, they’ve been together for 30 years and did not separate like the Umbrella siblings... But the actual connection of being soft and loving one another? The urge to protect and be vulnerable? I don’t think they have that.

I think, the Sparrow Academy will have more emotions and frustrations bottled up inside of them, than the Umbrella Academy. They’re trained to be tougher. At least, that’s what I’m speculating for now. I could be wrong on this one.

My speculation will be that Sparrow kids will be more independent and have lesser feelings and emotions for the others. Unlike Umbrella who obviously care so much about each other.

All in all, I think Sparrow!Ben/One will be an asshole in season 3 lmao we’re probably going to hate him so much in the first few episodes until we see how fucked up Reginald has raised them.

I look forward seeing how everyone will react to One, I think in the end, he’ll become our Ben one way or another. The Umbrella sibling’s bond is too strong to be severed, even in alternate realities.

But also, it will be such a good bitter tragedy if One loves his Sparrow siblings more and they were raised better because fuckkkkk that would hurt so good lmao

#The Umbrella Academy #TUA #Ben Hargreeves #Ben Hargreeves Meta #klaus hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #Diego Hargreeves #luther hargreeves #allison hargreeves #five hargreeves #tua spoilers #the horror #number six #also tagging it as #Horrance #because why not #lmao

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princeasimdiya12 · 4 years

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Hello! I’m sorry this took very long :[[[[. It took long because I actually write it only when an inspo comes in so I stop writing the fic from time to time! But I hope you like it and I’m sorry if I won’t pass your expectation 💓💓

The Huntsman and the Green Maiden (ToshInko Snow White AU)

When Toshinori told his self that he needed to work to save enough money, he didn’t expect it to be an assasination mission.

“It’s not an assasination mission,” the Evil Queen clarifies as soon as she sees Toshi’s skeptical face, “I just want you to get rid of her, that’s all.”

“It is…” Toshi spoke at the back of his head but chose to kept his mouth shut anyway.

“Why do you want to get rid of this…maiden badly?” Toshi asks as his fingertips play with the rim of his glass the Evil Queen has offered earlier.

The queen stares at the nosy huntsman, her eyebrows flinching slightly as she shrugged, “Just because.”

Upon hearing the townsfolk talk about how the palace is in need of skilled huntsmen, Toshi did not hesitate on heading to the queen’s palace. She always had a bad reputation on her people but Toshi, giving her the benefit of the doubt, went anyway and the result? He has proven that she indeed is evil as her name suggests.

Toshi is not clean to begin with. He has killed before with his bare hands. Any form of living as long as it is crucial for his survival. He has long retired from hunting but now that he needs the gold, he’s back from the start and somehow, he despises it.

“Will you take it, huntsman?” The Evil Queen says in a modulated voice that implies intimidation and dominance.

Toshi’s sunken eyes blinked once before exhaling heavily, “Yes.��

An impressed grin creeps in to the Queen’s lips, satisfied by the huntsman’s response, “Excellent. I want the job done in three weeks. The Magic Mirror says she hides in the magical forest, struggling to survive as of. I want you to find her and finish her,” she instructs with her voice laced with amusement.

“But I don’t know her face…” Toshi mutters.

“Oh, you will know once you see her,” now the Evil Queen sounds sarcastic as she clicked her tongue, “She’s the fairest maiden of them all, after all. Also, it’s hard for her not to stand out with her green hair.”

Ar first, you didn’t want to believe the Evil Queen. A person with green hair? Ridiculous. A maiden who hides in the middle of a magic forest? More ridiculous.

----

Huntsmen and adventurers try to avoid the magic forest as much as possible. As its name suggests, unknown forces of magic lurk around its trees. Stories of people who never returned from the forest increase from time to time and this sends shivers all throughout Toshi’s spine.

He’s never tried on going inside the forest himself. He’s never been in a situation wherein he needs to go.

“It’s not as eerie as the rumors make it sound…” Toshi thoughts to his self as he passes through thick roots of an old tree.

“Not bad…” Toshi rests after walking for hours, deciding to settle for a while under the shade of an enormous tree, wiping the sweat off of his forehead.

The rumors about the magic must be a bluff. He’s been walking on its domain for a while and so far? So good. No weird creatures suddenly appearing before him or whatsoever.

That’s what he thought.

Before he knew it, a striking pain hits his nape. He failed on reaching for his neck as his vision suddenly spins, confusing him. He tries to stand up, attempting to escape the unknown force that has attacked him but he fails once again as he falls to the ground, with his head hitting first.

He groans, slowly fluttering his eyes as he hallucinates of hearing laughter of children. Toshi tries to crawl but goes in to a halt when the illusion of laughter he heard goes louder and louder.

“Hell yeah! Die, you scum!”

“Wait, Kacchan!”

He couldn’t even distinguish if it’s his mind playing tricks with him or he actually hear children’s voices near him. Toshi then figures out it was the latter when he groans as a fistful of his hair gets pulled up.

“I WIN!” A blonde child literally speaks in front of Toshi’s face, making him close his eyes as droplets of his…Toshi would rather not know what it is splattered in to his face.

“NO ONE SURVIVES MY BOMB KILLING DART!” The blond child screams in a very chaotic manner Toshi couldn’t understand what the grinning child was trying to say.

“K-Kacchan! You’re not supposed to hurt people!” Another child with a frightened boy goes near this ‘Kacchan’. His green hair exploding all over as his round eyes glistened with tears.

“Huh? Don’t boss me around, dumb Deku!” Kacchan spats angrily as he lets go of Toshi’s hair.

Groaning, Toshi-who has recovered from the dizziness and the pain from his nape at this point-sits as he looks at the children in front of him.

“Bu-But, Kacchan-”

“What?! You want to die, huh?!” The aggressive Kacchan retorted as he flicks this Deku’s forehead, making the latter wince and the tears stream on his face.

“Kacchan!” He attempts on growling only to sound like a whine. Ignoring his friend, Deku glances at bewildered Toshi.

“Hello, Sir, are you lost?” He asks Toshi amidst his tears and his blushing forehead.

“DEKU, DON’T IGNORE ME, YOU-”

“No, I’m actually looking for someone,” Toshi groaned after inhaling, “Are you two from this forest?”

“OY, DON’T YOU USELESS SCUMS IGNORE ME-”

“We live here,” Deku cheerfully replies as he offers his hand adorned with wornout gloves, “My name is Deku, Sir. And that guy is Kacchan-”

“DON’T CALL ME KACCHAN-”

“It’s your name!” Deku points out before ignoring his comrade once again, looking at Toshi who unexplainably grinning glancing at the children in front of him, “Who are you looking for, Sir?”

Toshi looks away, finding it hard to reveal that he’s looking for the fairest lady, “I’m looking for someone…with green hair…”

Toshi and Deku both fell silent, staring at each other. Toshi then realizes that this Deku literally has green hair.

Swaying his hands furiously in the air and head shooking, “No…No… it’s not what you think.”

“Are you…” Deku says as he takes a step back, going beside Kacchan once again, his brows furrowed and his eyes wide clearly because of fear, “Are you here to kidnap me?”

“That’s not it!”

“Kacchan! He’s here to kidnap me!”

“I told you, it’s not it-”

“DIE, YOU BASTARD!”

----

That pretty much explains how Toshinori is following the lead of these two forest children as they take him to their home.

He couldn’t help but question if it was a right thing to follow them deeper in to the woods whenever he sees Deku and Kacchan have contradicting directions.

“We turn right!”

“N-No, Kacchan. Turn left before right-”

“ARE YOU SAYING I’M WRONG?”

Toshinori, silent at the back, only stares at the children bickering as they guide him along the misleading trees, telling him stories of their everyday adventures and few of their 'friends’ left behind the cottage.

In all honesty…Toshi couldn’t care less. He’s not very interested with Deku and Kacchan’s adventures, or the rest of their friends. The only reason he’s following these kids is…

“Feeling tired, Sir Toshi?” Deku looks back at him with his eyes beaming, beads of sweat adorning the side of his forehead as he jumps from a huge root, “Don’t worry, we’re almost there! We’ll let Inko heal your wound.”

“Hmph! If he couldn’t handle walks like these, then he doesn’t deserve to see Inko!”

“Kacchan!”

Right. The only reason he is here is for this lady who goes by the name Inko. When Deku invited him to his cottage, he wanted to refuse, finding it an unnecessary detour for his quest. But what caught his interest was that Inko is, according to Kacchan, a badass woman with green hair but is way more beautiful than dumb Deku’s.

Toshi’s speculation could be wrong but he is willing to take the risk. The way Kacchan has described this Inko totally fits the maiden the Evil Queen wants him to find.

“We’re here!” Deku exclaims the moment they see a poorly-made fence out of sticks surrounding a small cottage.

“Oy, stupid idiots!” Kacchan exclaims as he nonchalantly follows the path towards the cottage, “Were here!”

Toshi looks at Kacchan and Deku brisk walking towards the cottage in glee. He looks at the surroundings after. Tall trees surrounded the cottage adorned with different plants that he knew where edible. On the right side is where a well errects surrounded by small wooden chairs and different gardening tools. They basically have everything they need here to survive…

“Deku, Kacchan, welcome back! How was it?”

“Heh! It was boring!”

“It was fun! And Inko, I’m sorry. We weren’t able to get the flowers you requested!”

“Oh, Deku, it’s alright. Don’t cry, please!”

Enchanted by the sweet voice, Toshi took his gaze off the mesmerizing well, looking back at the cottage and with one glance, he immediately knew this was the fair maiden the queen was looking for.

“Bu-But we brought a friend! Toshinori, Sir!”

Not minding Deku’s call, Toshi’s eyes lingers at the woman named Inko. Indeed, she had beautiful green hair now that he sees it exploding with the gentle wind. Her green eyes are wide as she stares at him as if he were a puzzle meant to be answered. Her head slightly wobbling to the side which made Toshi look at her chubby cheeks.

“Deku…” Ah, he hears it again. Her voice sounded quite dreamy as he unconsciously took a step forward.

She knelt to match the children’s height, which was not really necessary given that her height is close with theirs. Her hands dragging Kacchan and Deku slowly towards her back as her curious eyes become wary of his presence.

“Who…who are you?” She asks. It was clear how terrified she was and yet, she remained firm looking at him.

He didn’t really care of how she sees him, honestly. She could be doing anything and he’d stare at her all day, completely mesmerized by her adorable frame.

But Toshi knew it was rude to remain silent especially if a lady has asked you. He clears his throat, hoping his voice is in its best condition even after that long walk, “Uh…I am-”

“That dumb scum is Toshinori and he’s a loser,” Kacchan cuts him off with an annoyed face.

“Kacchan!” Deku exclaims, clearly unimpressed of Kacchan’s indifference, “Inko, don’t listen to Kacchan. That’s Sir Toshinori, a friend! Also, Kacchan hit him in the nape with his slingshot.”

“It’s not a slingshot. It’s Bomb Killing Dart.”

“Oh my!” Now gone was the wary face of Inko. She looks at Kacchan with a horrified look in her face. Her brows pulled together as her hands gently went to his shoulders, “Kacchan, didn’t I tell you we don’t hit friends?”

Kacchan pouts beneath his scowling face, “He’s not a friend. He’s dumb!”

Inko’s brows furrowed deeper with an obvious frown in her lips, “Kacchan…” She speaks in a modulated voice, showing how she’s unimpressed.

Kacchan’s cheeks turns in to red as he becomes flustered, somehow feeling humiliated he is being lectured, “Fine!”

Kacchan looks at Toshinori, back with the disgusted face, “I’m sorry for hitting you with my Bomb Killing Dart.”

Toshinori, not really paying attention to his half-assed apology, gave the child a nod, “It’s alright. I wasn’t hurt.” What a load of bull as he remembers at the back of his mind how distorted he felt for a couple of seconds.

Snapping back in to reality, he stares at Inko in awe as she walks her way towards him. The ends of her skirt rustling against the trimmed grass. Her hair flying all around as she now holds his calloused hands.

“Soft…” Toshi comments at the back of his mind.

“I’m really sorry for what Kacchan did to you, Sir Toshinori!” Inko bows and you noticed how her hair is made stylishly with a small bun.

Toshi, breaking free from getting petrified for a good three seconds, becomes flustered as he registers Inko is holding his hands, “I-its alright! I don’t mind!”

“Thank goodness!” Now Inko stands straight, her face looking relieved with his answer. Her brows are up and a sweet smile creeps in to her lips, her eyes turning in to crescent moons.

A little repetitive but Toshi is in awe again now that Inko is literally only a couple of centimeters away from him. Being this close, he sees how her skin is very fair and how pretty the sunlight reflected in to her beautiful green eyes. Not to mention, her thin lashes casted soft shadows underneath, which made her look so beautiful.

“But we still must treat your wound!” Inko says as she snaps, frowning at you but in a funny manner, “Kacchan’s slingshots can sometimes be too-”

“BOYS, READY!”

Surprised after hearing another voice, Toshi’s gaze passes through Inko, going to the cottage’s doorway. He turns pale as he sees four? No, five children with different hand-made weapons with them, all aimed towards him.

“ATTACK!”

“B-Boys!” Inko screams as Kacchan pulls her away from him, giving clear path for the children, “No!”

----

“Here, Sir Toshi….”

Toshinori looks up at the red haired child who is offering him a plate filled with food they’ve prepared. Toshi couldn’t help but glare at the red head, especially with that annoying smirk. This red head was the one leading the other children earlier.

“Thank you…” He says but his furrowed brows, glaring sunken eyes, and frowned lips says otherwise.

The red head sheepishly chuckles as he blushes while scratching his spiky hair, “We’re sorry for earlier…Kacchan was silently telling us that you were a threat; so we did that…”

Kacchan. He shouldn’t have underestimated that boy. He knew that child was a problem but he didn’t expect him to be this much of a problem.

“And you believed him?”

Toshi now looks at the purple head child with a blank stare in his face, bringing with him a cup filled with water.

“Shinsou…” Red head pouts, cheeks getting redder than it was, “Well, you guys believed in me as well!”

“Because you were persistent and we didn’t really have a choice,” the purple boy in which the red head called as 'Shinsou’ nonchalantly replies as he offers Toshi his cup.

“On behalf of my friends, I apologize for their stupidity,” he respectfully bows.

“Oy, Shinsou, who are you calling dumb?!”

“You and Kacchan.”

“M-Mean! I am not dumb. I am manly! Kacchan will hear of this!” Red head looks at Toshi again. He swears the red child looks like getting drowned with the red tint in his skin.

“M-My name is Kirishima, Sir!” The red head exclaims while bowing once more, “Please excuse me!”

Not waiting for Toshi’s reply, Kirishima vanishes from his sight.

“Please eat until your hearts content, Sir Toshinori…�� He looks back at Shinsou who is still standing in front of him.

“I’m…not that hungry,” Toshinori says while looking at his bruises.

With Kirishima on the lead, they mercilessly attacked him with all their might using their hand-made guns, swords, and catapults. Being a huntsmen, fighting would’ve been a piece of cake. BUT it’s a different thing when you fight in front of a beautiful maiden.

Beat from walking and from Kacchan’s…Bomb Killing Dart, plus the children’s ambush, covered with bruises all over his body, of course he’d lose his appetite to eat.

“I don’t really care if you’re full or not,” Shinsou says with an indifferent tone, his eyes wandering around, “But Inko keeps on asking us to check on you. I can’t sleep well if she does that.”

Completely surprised, Toshinori immediately looks for Inko, only to catch her watching him. Both Inko and Toshinori taken aback of how the other caught them staring, they both looked away in synch.

“Thank you…” Toshinori says to Shinsou in a low voice, looking down, trying to conceal the blush in his cheeks.

At that moment, the quest could’ve ended if he killed Inko at that cottage. But there were things he had to consider, like the children. He was certain despite of their small physique, they would not hesitate on protecting Inko as she had become their mother.

----

“We own the cottage,” Shoto, one of the seven children, says in with his eyes looking down, fingers running through the grass as his feet is submerged in to the river, “Then we found Inko.”

“Wounded! And exhausted!” Testutetsu, who is oddly very similar with Kirishima’s physique and appearance-wise, screams in order to catch his attention.

Keeping his hands steady while holding the rod, Toshi looks at Tetsutetsu, “You found her?”

Shoto nods, the reflection of the crystal blue river reflecting on his eyes, “We treated her wounds and she didn’t leave us ever since. We like it, though,” he says with a small smile, “She takes care of us.”

“But there’s one thing that we don’t know about Inko,” Kirishima butts in with Denki, the seventh child, leaning on his back.

“We don’t know where Inko is from or what her life was before being with us,” Denki says, playing with the tips of Kirishima red hair.

“Deku thinks she was a princess…” Denki whispers as if they shouldn’t be heard, “Kacchan doesn’t buy it. He says Inko is a badass lady who rules the drunkards.”

“I don’t think Inko is in to that lifestyle…” Kirishima says with a doubting smile, “I think she is a princess, too!”

“But if she is a princess, why would she wander in to the magic forest?” Shoto asks hypothetically which made Kirishima and Denki shut up.

“What do you think, Toshinori, Sir?” Tetsutetsu asks, looking to Toshinori.

Toshi keeps his eyes glued at his bait, floating in the river, as if trying to avoid their looks. The guilt he has been disregarding for days creeps up into his heart, making him grip his rod tighter, his teeth digging to his flesh.

“I don’t know…” He says with gritted teeth.

He knew he was lying. He could easily get rid of the children if he wishes to. He has killed men and animals that are hundred times stronger than he is. Killing children would’ve been a piece of cake for him.

He knew that he purposely made excuses just for him to disregard the main purpose of his presence at this magical forest: to kill the fairest maiden of them all.

----

Undeniably, Inko is enchanting. But Toshi knew it was not all with the looks or with her mysterious green hair. It was with how kind she was to anything she touches, how gentle her words could be and how she resembled home to anyone.

It is true. Because he himself felt it, especially now as he stares at Inko, patiently waiting for him and the children, Kacchan and Deku’s heads on her lap. Her smile, gleaming brightly as ever as her shoulders raise in joy, waving at them. Nostalgic memories of Toshinori’s younger years flashes before his eyes with the mere exposure under Inko’s warmth.

“It feels like…” Toshi whispers under his breath, slowly taking off the net filled with fishes from his shoulders.

“HOME!” Kirishima, Denki, and Tetsutetsu screams as they run towards their cottage, leaving behind them the bashful Shoto.

“Children!” Inko giggles as Kirishima, Denki, and Tetsutetsu shower her with pepper kisses.

Kacchan and Deku groans as they get disrupted on their sleep, “YOU DUMB IDIOTS!” Kacchan growls, standing with his death glare on.

“K-Kacchan!”

“Ah! We woke Kacchan up!” Kirishima screams.

“RUN!”

“DIE!”

Your eyes trail towards the children who are now running away from Kacchan. Their loud laughter echoing across the terrain as they dance around the grass, bathing under the sun.

“Shoto…”

He looks at Inko who is now caressing Shoto’s arms. Again with that familiar smile in her face. Of all the looks she gave, that was Toshi’s favorite expression.

“Go play with the rest…” She coos using her soft voice, tucking her green hair behind her ear.

Shoto gives a curt nod before running towards the direction of his brothers, leaving Inko and Toshinori alone at the cottage’s doorstep.

Suddenly realizing this fact, Toshi stiffened, heart beat slightly raising as he stops his lips from grinning.

“Toshinori, thank you…”

Baffled, he looks at Inko. Her lips in a smile in between her flushed cheeks.

“For…?” Toshi asks, his brows slightly furrowed.

“For catching fish for us…” She chuckles, slightly scratching her cheek with her small finger, “We don’t really eat fish that much. No one is that excellent in catching fishes, not even Kacchan…” She says in a joking manner.

Toshi couldn’t help it. He smiles as he looks at Inko’s face. Slowly, he sits beside Inko, disregarding the fact that he’s slightly bothered by how close he is to him and how ridiculously small he is next to her. She would definitely fit in to his frame even though he is skinny himself-

Toshinori shook his head, trying to shake away his thoughts. Focus…focus…

“It’s nothing…” Toshi says nonchalantly, his eyes on the children who seem to be playing tag, “I…liked it,” he admitted.

“That’s good…” She comments, her face resting at her palms as she pulls up her knees, “The kids like you…”

Toshi made a face as he remembered how Denki and Kirishami pulled a prank on him on their way home. Not to mention, the way they treated him when they first met.

“I doubt that…” He spatted bitterly.

Inko chuckles, her shoulders slightly shaking along, “That’s not true. They like you. The moment you were able to catch a wild boar, you immediately captivated their hearts. They love meat,” she pointed out with as-a-matter-of-fact-voice.

Giving Inko a side glance, Toshi says, “You really love them, do you?”

Inko nods, “Very. I owe them my life. If it weren’t for them, I might not be here…” She says, the smile in her eyes slowly disappearing.

Toshi couldn’t help but to look away. Somehow, he feels guilty, especially that he knows the reason why she is at this state.

“I…grew up from a…bad place. I was banished from where I lived, you know…” Inko talks despite of Toshi’s silence, “I spent all my life inside the walls of my home and when they asked me to leave, I didn’t know what to do and before I knew it, I found myself wandering the magic forest.”

Toshi glances at Inko again, catching her fingers interlacing playfully from one another. Her eyes clearly in pain as she talks about her past.

“Then I woke up with Kacchan snuggled under my arms,” she laughs, “These seven children brought me to their cottage and before I knew it, I became attached.”

“Understandable,” Toshi nods, “They leave an impression,” he agrees, slowly looking at Inko who looked at him as well.

His blond hair slightly being swayed by the wind, he stares in to her eyes. Hoping he’d find answers to his confusion, of how troubled he is of what he is supposed to do next.

“You leave an impression…” He muttered so softly, not breaking his stare at her. Which made him see how her cheeks flushed with red tint.

“You leave an impression, too…” She says, completely flustered with how her voice went high, “… Toshinori, Sir.”

----

Living with the seven children and the fairest maiden in the middle of the magic forest felt like a bliss. A daydream he always had in his mind whenever he was out to hunt. A place he always envisioned whenever he was sick or was feeling nostalgic in a hot afternoon.

“Inko is good at making pumpkin pie!” Deku exclaims as he dreamily thinks of it, “She makes them so good I always ask for more!”

“You just love eating, Dumb Deku,” Kacchan says in an upset tone as he walks along Shoto, “It’s not that great!”

“Not that great? Quit being a liar, Kacchan. Real men don’t lie!” Kirishima snickers as he brings the smaller net filled with fish, “Plus, you also ask for more with Inko’s food!”

“No, I don’t!”

“Yes, you do!”

“YOU STUPID TURD, I DON’T-”

“Inko?”

The wild bickering of Kacchan and Kirishima went in to a halt upon hearing Shinsou’s surprised voice. Before they all knew it, they have arrived in front of the cottage.

Trailing after Shinsou’s stare, Toshinori looks to the cottage, only to be taken aback to see Inko spilled on the doorstep, barely conscious.

“Inko!” The Kirishima, Kacchan, Deku, Tetsutetsu, and Denki screamed as they dropped the fish and meat they’ve hunted from the forest, running towards the woman who has become their mother figure.

“No…” Toshinori muttered under his breath. Knees wobbling, palms suddenly sweating, and a large amount of hair suddenly caught in his throat. Somehow, an idea flashes in to his head…

“Toshinori, Sir…”

Snapping out from his thoughts, he looked down when a small warmth touches his hands. He sees Shinsou and Shoto, looking up to him, fear evident in their eyes.

Without saying anything, he drags them along, running as fast as he can towards Inko.

He hears the children’s cries as they surrounded the beautiful woman. They loudly screamed her name in the hopes that it would wake her up but to no avail.

Shaking, Toshi lets go of Shoto and Shinsou’s hands as he pulls Inko’s frail body, making her lean towards his lap.

“No…” He muttered, lips shaking as his fingers trail on her unconscious face, “She found her…” He said as realization dawned on him.

The queen…she might have grow impatient and…looked for Inko herself.

“We lost her…” He said, slumped in despair as the world was drowned with the screams of the seven scared boys around him.

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solesurvivorpaigeargot · 3 years

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I wanna hearing about Paige's family with #5.

Super detailed questions about your OCs

5. Do they have any siblings? What’s their names? What is their relationship with them? Has their relationship changed since they were kids to adults?

HOO BOI my friend, you have volunteered for an infodump. I’m putting in a read-more cut to prevent dash clogging.

Paige was the second-to-last child out of five, with three brothers and one sister.

Isabelle [Bella, Belle] -- the eldest, Paige’s sister and seven years older than her. Basically ended up as built-in babysitter/second mom. Paige calls her Izzy and is the only one who is allowed to call her that [anyone else will get whacked, including Bella’s husband]. Their relationship when Paige was a kiddo was pretty strained; Paige grew up running wild with her brothers whilst Isabelle, the eldest daughter of a very conservative and publicly religious family, was constantly being watched and judged on how responsible she was and how well she was growing into a ‘lady’ as she was expected to do. Meanwhile Paige, as the younger daughter and surrounded by boys, was excused for more wild behavior and often given a flavor of the ‘boys will be boys’ pass when she got into trouble until she hit puberty and suddenly got whacked in the face with more feminine expectations.

Somewhere in Paige’s early teens, she and Izzy had it out in an honest to goodness, full-on fight, wherein Izzy accused Paige of being a spoiled brat who was incapable of understanding just how hard it was to hold up under everyone’s expectations, and Paige threw it right back by calling those expectations petty bullshit and questioning why Izzy didn’t just toss it all out if she hated being a lady. The two grew apart after that, maintaining some sisterly affection but mostly not getting in each other’s way. Izzy taught Paige how to look after her hair when she started growing it out, taught her how to do make-up, gave her advice on clothes and shoes for interviews, that sort of thing.

They both ultimately stayed at arm’s length until Shaun was born, at which point Izzy had reached out to try and reconnect. She and her husband had been living in Pennsylvania when the bombs fell. Izzy’s family was well off enough that they might have gotten a spot in a vault, but Paige hadn’t been keeping up with them enough to know whether or not they’d registered...

Ethan -- eldest brother, five years older than Paige, she always looked up to him as her cool older brother. He and his friends had a garage band when he was a teen, but he gave it up when their parents put pressure on him to start figuring out something ‘real’ to do with his life. Music became a beloved hobby, noodling about on his guitar when he could get away with it, but never when their father was home, as he’d threatened to smash it on more than one occasion.

Like Isabelle, Ethan was often leaned upon to be more adult than he actually was, looking after his younger siblings but with a touch more wiggle room. Where Isabelle was very much considered the one with full parental authority, and thus expected to enforce the rules to their fullest extent, Ethan allowed Paige, Daniel, and Zach to get away with the occasional mischief with a wink and a smile that assured them he didn’t see anything.

Besides music, Ethan also had a gift of gab that made him excellent at talking himself and his siblings out of any trouble-- something he and Paige shared, and the two would get into deep arguments over tiny things as a kind of sport. At school a teacher encouraged him towards debate club and theater, and he participated in multiple school productions before, again, their parents reminded him that artistic careers were more fantasy than anything to build your life around. Instead, they pushed him towards law, which he fucking hated but attempted to make them happy.

He dropped out after his first year of college, arriving at home with black dyed hair, two tattoos and three piercings he hadn’t had when he left for school, giving their parents the finger, and all but disappearing when Paige was fourteen. Nineteen years old, he was technically an adult, his their parents couldn’t drag him back. Dad doesn’t talk about Ethan, and mom would cry when he was mentioned. Paige worried he died chasing a dream for the longest time, until she left for law school and started getting postcards-- turned out Ethan was still in contact with Izzy, and had embraced his musical career [and all the hardship that came with it] with everything he had.

Last Paige heard, Ethan had been somewhere on the western seaboard when the bombs fell. She finds it unlikely that he, or any descendants of him, survived... though, if he went ghoul, she wouldn’t be surprised if he was still living the traveling musician life two centuries later.

Daniel [Danny] -- middle brother, two years older than Paige, and oldest of the trouble trio. Daniel, Paige, and Zach were always the three making messes together as young kids, running wild, exploring the backwoods on the family farm, finding fun and odd ways to get chores done, and generally being kids. Danny was the tough one out of the three of them; easily the biggest out of all of Paige’s siblings and the one who got in people’s faces if anyone was messing with anyone else in the family.

Danny and Paige frequently butted heads; they were both stubborn as hell and outspoken, and before Paige was expected to be more lady-like it very regularly came to blows. It’s thanks to Danny that Paige knew how to squirm out of most holds by the time she was an adult, even if the other person was larger than her, and exactly which soft spots to shove her elbows or heels into. This tendency towards brawling changed as they got older, however, as Danny realized that Paige was going to be a petite woman her entire life and went out of his way to teach her some honest-to-goodness self-defense tactics after hearing a few of his friends say a few... off color things about his sister.

Danny stayed in Minnesota to attend a trade school, finding work in the automation industry; installing and maintaining machines used for mass manufacture. He married almost immediately out of highschool, and the timing of his first kid suggests that his wife was pregnant before the wedding. Paige kept in contact with him, and Danny actually made the trip out to visit her when Shaun was born. While Paige suspects that he’s dead, unless of course he ended up ghoul, she has occasionally speculated that if Danny and his family survived the initial bombing? He had practical skills that might have seen him through long enough to have descendants that survived to the present day. Zachariah [Zach] -- the youngest, a year younger than Paige and her childhood partner in crime. Zach, like Paige, was kinda on the small side. Unlike Paige, Zach was also intensely shy in a family full of outspoken, opinionated, stubborn mules. It wasn’t that he didn’t have opinions, mind-- rather that he had a lot of trouble putting the words together to express them. Zach would often stick with Paige like her second shadow, because Paige was very good at picking up on what he meant to say to others and saying it for him, or re-iterating when he spoke too quietly and he got ignored.

That said, Zach was often the mastermind behind what he, Paige, and Danny got up to as little kids-- quiet, but quick witted, and a grade-A prankster.

As adolescents, Zach and Paige were occasionally confused for being twins despite there being a year difference between them. Their faces were strikingly similar, with Zach having deeply brown eyes rather than Paige’s hazel being the main difference. Sometimes their mischief would play into this, and Paige was allowed to get away with many things as a young teen simply by virtue of being mistaken for her brother.

When Ethan ran out on the family, Zach was probably the one most deeply effected by it, and Paige did everything she could to support him at the time. They both looked up to Ethan, but Zach even more so because he was also musically inclined and had been learning the drums from one of Ethan’s friends. Sometimes the band even let him do some kind of back-up percussion when they were practicing before their father shut it down, and it was during those practice sessions that Zach tended to really light up. When Ethan left? Zach fell deeply into depression for a long time, and Paige felt like it was her responsibility to hold him up lest she lose another brother.

Despite being the often-overlooked child in the family, Zach had damn near perfect grades... and yet, their parents appeared to lack specific expectation for him. Rather, the had a vague assurance that he’d simply do well at whatever he decided to do, and Zach confided in Paige that he had no idea what to do with his scholastic success-- that it didn’t feel real to him. That he wasn’t a person, but rather a mass of goo that could just be poured into whatever shape worked best for the people around him.

Paige still regrets not having any good advice for him. Last she heard, he’d gone to school to pursue an engineering degree, like their father; imitating a ready example. She suspects that he might have gone after something musical, if not for what happened with Ethan, and that his choice paralysis was a form of avoiding even thinking about that kind of rebellion. Like Danny, Zach’s schooling didn’t take him far from the family home, and he still lived in Minnesota at the time of the bombing. He was, at the time, unmarried. Given time to think further on it, Paige actually suspects that Zach might have been some form of closeted due to still being close to the family and their parents intense involvement with the church. Thinking about that always makes her wish she’d been there for him more, that she’d been smarter and figured out what he’d been dealing with and helped him handle it better.

Like everyone else, Paige is pretty sure Zach is dead... and he’s probably the one she’s mourns the most, because it feels like he never really got to live in the first place.

#Paige #Paige Argot #about Paige #Zach #Izzy #Danny #Ethan #nukaworld-nora #Ask The Author

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comickergirl · 5 years

Text

Alright. Let’s give this a shot.

SPOILER-Y DISCUSSION OF CAPTAIN MARVEL, INCOMING:

I figure the best way to do this is chronological; my prior attempts have not been chronological, which might account for their feeling a little...all over the place and unorganized.

This will also be a good test to see how much of the film I remember.

RIGHT THEN: First and foremost, (and we gleaned this from the trailers, obviously) MEMORY-LOSS PLOT. Which is Classic Carol™. She’s lost her memory like. Four times.

(her poor brain D:)

All of this to say: The premise of the movie, a kind of reverse origin story in which Carol figures out who she is, in a very literal but also figurative sense, was a great way to go, IMO.

Love all the moments from Carol’s past. I was admittedly surprised that we didn’t get more of that? But what was there was effective and given the amount of ground the movie had to cover, I think it was sufficient.

So after the dreams** we get the early morning fight with Yon-Rogg (who I was absolutely certain was Yon-Rogg, in spite of all the back and forth speculation and Marvel attempting to ‘hide’ his identity) and there’s exposition, obviously, and the set up of Carol’s struggle with Yon-Rogg’s forced Kree values clashing with Carol’s humanity but MORE importantly...

PHOTON BLASTS.

Love the way they render the energy pulsing just below the surface of her skin. Looks so cool.

Then: Chit Chat Time with The Great Intelligence!

I thought for sure it was gonna be Helen Cobb.

BOY WAS I MISTAKEN. (More on that in a sec.)

Favorite Visual #1: The slow pan of Starforce and the excellent shot of Carol’s helmet as they swim to shore on Torfa.

The whole rescue mission sequence/Carol’s kidnapping is...Truly a Highlight, in my opinion.

I mean!

She’s running around the enemy ship! Without her boots! Pummeling the Skrulls with unwieldy metal shackles! And growling in their faces!

#BOSSOFSPACE

Also, comic connection alert: Carol was kidnapped and experimented on by the Brood, which resulted in her stint as Binary.

So, back to the movie:

Talos man.

TALOS.

We’ll get to him later.

Okay what month of 1995 does Captain Marvel take place in? Because I was honestly offended that no one, and I mean NO ONE made a Buzz Lightyear joke re: Carol’s outfit and being a member of STARCOMMANDFORCE who checks her wrist communicator to try and make contact.

(Toy Story came out in November so if this takes place in the summer I GUESS I will let it slide.)

But otherwise dug all of the 90s references.

The little Gameboy sound when she calls Yon-Rogg!

(Also, train chase was great but I’m trying to save time though I do feel inclined to mention Kelly Sue DeConnick! Bringing some quality side eye! Very nice.)

Young Fury + Carol = excellent buddy cop combo, 14/10 would take an entire spinoff of their wacky 90s road trip adventures.

‘You look like someone’s disaffected niece’ might be favorite line in the film.

Let’s pause for a moment and appreciate the score, shall we? Pinar Toprak CRUSHES IT; the Captain Marvel theme feels like something out of The Rocketeer but with about 400% more sci-fi synth and I LOVE IT.

**Love the piece of score played when Carol wakes up. (Appropriately titled “Waking Up” I think, on the soundtrack.)

I also like the songs they picked for the movie? This is probably the complaint I’ve seen most often, that they feel obvious and easy, but. I dunno. I was never expecting something like Guardians of the Galaxy? So I wasn’t mad about it.

(In related news, I’ve been listening to “Connection” on repeat ever since the special look trailer dropped.)

Anyways.

GOOSE.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE.

MY GOOD FLERKEN GIRL.

(So, yes, breezing past the bar interrogation--though I do like the ghostly images of Carol’s past that crop up--as well as the trip to Pegasus, again in the interest of time.)

(WAIT. NO. THE TAPE JOKE.)

(Okay for real. Moving on.)

So then. THEN.

The Rambeaus. And the feelings.

Unpopular(?) opinion: I love that this big budget action movie focuses on female friendships and platonic relationships instead of romance THERE I SAID IT

ALSO LIEUTENANT TROUBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I spelled Lieutenant right on the first try. Just sayin’.

But in all seriousness, I love the time we spend in Louisiana. We get a lot of good stuff. Carol getting answers from Maria, Talos arriving with his soda (milkshake?) The standoff with Goose.

(Oh, and how could I forget Maria bidding farewell to the neighbor, shutting the front door as Carol continues to glower???)

‘What’s happening?’ ‘It’s loading.’ XD

Favorite Visual #2 (Chronologically, but actually the one I like best in the movie) The Pysche-Magnitron Light Speed Engine explosion.

(Thank you, Marvel, for changing it to ‘light speed engine,’ which is much easier to spell than Psyche-Magnitron)

But yeah, that was the visual that sold me, in the earliest trailer. I wish I had some profound reason for that, but the truth is I just love blue-glow-y stuff.

BUT ALSO

(And, okay, an additional spoiler- warning because this is a big one. Like. Big.)

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

Seriously, go away if you haven’t seen the movie yet.

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

MAR-VELL iS A WOMAN

LIKE THIS WHOLE TIME. EVERYONE WAS SO FOCUSED ON JUDE LAW. And then there was that blip, right before the release, when Annette Bening revealed she was the Great Intelligence, again after months of secrecy so we were all like, HA we know the TWIST.

BUT NO. NO WE DID NOT.

Well played, Marvel. Well played.

This was something I was thinking about before the film came out; I just kind of assumed, because of the lack of an apparent ‘Mar-Vell,’ that Carol would be the first and only Captain Marvel in the MCU. And she basically is, b/c we have no indication that Dr. Larson was moonlighting as a superhero, but regardless this is SO COOL. SUCH A GOOD TWIST.

(A quick Google search on how many ‘L’s are in Mar-Vell led to a serendipitous discovery: an article on the gender swap decision, and apparently it came very late in the game. Like. ‘Already looking at guys to play Mar-Vell’ late in the game. *insert themoreyouknow.gif here*)

Right, okay, back to Feelings:

When Carol’s like: You don’t know who I am! I don’t know who I am!

I was. Emotional.

(Brie Larson is perfectly cast and does a wonderful job.)

Maria’s pep talk? Also caused emotions.

And Maria got to come on the mission! I was pleasantly surprised, and really glad that the visit there wasn’t like. Just a pit stop, you know?

RIP Science Guy, we hardly knew ye.

Again, jumping ahead, but may I just say: It was truly an Experience, watching this movie with folks who had no idea what a ‘Flerken’ was.

Both my friends at the first screening I attended, and then like. Half the theater at the second one. XD

The whole row was like: WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT when the tentacles came out.

So yeah, Talos and the 180 on the REAL villains: Nice. The enduring complaint leveled at the MCU is a lack of compelling villains. (I guess Talos technically doesn’t count as a villain by the end of this, but. We’re going with it.) And Carol’s commitment to helping the Skrull refugees lifts plot elements from my favorite portion of the DeConnick run, so. YEP. LOVED IT.

(I was also trying to determine if Talos’ daughter was perhaps meant to be like. a Tic expy. Did it say ‘Tic’ on the pinball machine? Or ‘Tig’? Or something else entirely?)

Loved the...mind prison? sequence. All of it. “Come as You Are,” the Great Intelligence rockin’ out in the jacket, Carol’s Big Damn Hero moment. Brilliant. Spectacular. Amazing.

“My name is Carol.”

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSS

(Or does she say her full name? I can’t remember.)

And then the subsequent fight scene where Carol’s like. Simultaneously kicking butt but also enjoying all this newfound power/strength? A+++++

Favorite Visual #3: Carol sitting on the railing with the lunchbox.

Sad to see Minn-Erva go, but. Was so cool that Maria gets her own hero moment.

And then this big ol’ fight scene where Carol DESTROYS SPACESHIPS WITH HER BARE HANDS.

Favorite Visual #4: Carol going Binary in the red, blue, and yellow suit with the helmet FLYING THROUGH SPACE, LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

All of the visuals from this portion are so on point it’s like they’re pulled straight from the comics.

Favorite Visual #5: When Carol’s staring down Ronan and she like. Does that thing, where you hit your palm with your fist? (IDK the technical term there) And there’s this awesome energy burst and AGAIN, BLUE GLOW-Y THINGS. I love.

I’m pretty sure there’s an interview where Brie Larson talked about watching Indiana Jones? And wanting to be the female equivalent of that.

WELL, that’s the movie I immediately thought of when Carol blasted Yon-Rogg into a boulder, mid-goading.

(Y’know, like the scene in Raiders where Harrison Ford was too sick/tired to do the fight choreography, so he just. Shot the bad guy.)

ALSO, when she drags his sorry butt across the desert? I was IMMEDIATELY reminded of Kara dragging Astra into the DEO.

DANVERS GIIIIRRRRRRRRRRLLLLLS

*ahem*

THE FAMILY DINNER AT THE END?????

LITERAL FOUND FAMILY OF ALIENS AND SOLDIERS AND SUPERHEROES JUST. HAVING DINNER. PLAYING UNO. WASHING DISHES AND SINGING "PLEASE MR. POSTMAN”?

Thank you, Marvel, for this beautiful gen fic material.

WHOOPS I forgot the costume colors bit. (Admittedly confused it with the ending wherein Monica gives Carol her jacket back. Sans ketchup stain.)

So backtracking ever-so-slightly...

Let’s see if I remember this right: We get

Red and gold (Binary send-up, possibly? Or maybe the original Ms. Marvel costume?)

IDK what to call it....Lite-Brite? (♪ makin’ thi-ings with lii-iii-ight ♫)

Black and Gold (bathing suit costume?)

White and Green (original Mar-Vel/Kree colors)

That last one’s the only one that’s like. Obvious and deliberate. I’m just guessing with the others.

BUT CLEARLY I am ABSOLUTELY ONTO SOMETHING with the Lite-Brite.

BACK TO THE ENDING Lt. Trouble gives Carol her jacket and that’s my fav look, out of all the costume variations we see in the movie. I mean. I love the black and green, admittedly, and the helmet looks SO GOOD for being something that should be ridiculous, but my go-to answer for superhero costume design is: add a leather jacket.

Favorite Visual #6: Carol in the suit and flight jacket, floating above Earth, ready to go save the day.

AND THEN SHE’S OFF.

Ooooh, ooooooooh, but we can’t forget the scene. The scene that I’m certain ticked off The Continuity Police. (You know the types.)

See, remember when Marvel was like, ‘Carol’s the first Avenger!’ and haters were like, ‘UH HELLO IT’S STEVE????!????’

And then Marvel was like, oh ho ho ho, we meant LITERALLY the ENTIRE INITIATIVE IS NAMED AFTER HER CALL SIGN AND SHIELD STARTS LOOKING FOR SUPERHEROES BECAUSE OF HER ERGO SHE IS THE FIRST die mad about it.

That was so very, very satisfying to see.

(Also I guess she’s a literal Captain in the air force? If the rank on the jet is legit. Pretty sure she’s a Major in the comics, though. But I assume this change is to help sell the ‘Captain Marvel’ name.)

And then, friends. And then.

I was fully prepared to leave the theater, uncertain of when we’d next see Carol.

EVEN AS THE MID CREDITS SCENE PLAYED. I was like. ‘Well, they’re gonna cut it off before we can see anythINOHMaNTHERESHEIS!!!!!!’

‘Where’s Fury.’

*insert aesthetically pleasing keyboard smash here*

BRING ON ENDGAME.

And before we wrap up here, one final note:

The Space Stone, sought after by Trickster Gods and Mad Titans alike, was for a brief time, nothing more than a glorified furball.

FIN

(Nope, wait. One little anecdote before we go: of my core group of buddies, I am the Comics Nerd, and thus I am often consulted after we’ve watched a Marvel movie. So I had to explain that YES, Kara Danvers had the last name Danvers first, but she was adopted, and her GIVEN fake name was Linda Lee, so in all fairness, the same-name thing is a little less plagiarize-y, b/c ‘Linda Lee Danvers’ does not necessarily match up as well as ‘Kara Danvers’--which wasn’t even used until really recently--to ‘Carol Danvers’. ...Honestly, I was just really happy they called out the connection MY WORK HAS NOT BEEN IN VAIN XD )

Also, I sometimes get replies on posts like this which is totally fine BUT, I would ask that folks keep really spoiler-y stuff out of ‘em. At least for a little while.

#captain marvel #captain marvel spoilers #MAJOR SPOILERS #PLEASE BLACKLIST THIS AND SKIP IT IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE YET #long post #hark! a text post!

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bluephoenixdruidicprincess · 5 years

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wahou... i didn't know people could be so hateful toward Rachel. To be honest, Meg was more nicer with Castiel than Dean. A demon in a wheelchair can be possible... look in Buffy, before Spike, Drusilla was in wheelchair and she was a powerful vampire, same for Spike. So, I don't see the problem.

I know, right. I legitimately used to have nightmares about Drusilla and Spike when I was watching Buffy as a teenager. When they were in their wheelchairs, I think they were at their most badass and threatening. So yeah, it's totally possible to portray badass characters in wheelchairs and I would totally be down for Meg making a comeback, if that'll include the wheelchair, I'm even more down for it because we do need more disabled representation. While I didn't hate how Meg left the show, I don't really like it either so I would love to have her come back and give me some more closure on Meg. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, Meg's sacrifice was ultimately kind of "meh" considering what Crowley later became, it kind of takes away from the sacrifice she made. And Meg is such a fascinating character. She's definitely not a good person, she's definitely as bad as they come, but she really puts into perspective that even demons need to have a goal and how that change in goals can affect who you thought yourself to be. If your evil masterplan fails to such a degree as the apocalypse did, you gotta look for that new reason. And if while finding that new reason, you start question everything you are and you start falling for an angel that's just as much on the fringe as you are, hey, that's life. I'd love to see more closure on Meg as well as get me some more Megstiel action.

I could never imagine saying such hateful things about Rachel. I met her at the convention I went to last year and she's such a sweetheart.

And this kind of takes me back to another ask I answered a while back wherein I talked about the show's track record in how it deals with female characters. The show doesn't have a great track record in that regard and to a certain extent, it has to do with how the fandom initially reacts to female characters coming into the fold. The fandom is not very nice to the female characters who might threaten their favorite ships and are often the reasons why these characters are written out. Case and point, here. All that happened is expressed interest in Meg coming back and the haters were in full swing. And my "favorite" haters are the ones who are all, "Meg shouldn't come back because filming would be too hard on her, we shouldn't invite her back because that would be selfish of us"...please, leave that passive ableism at the door, okay?. Rachel participated in the "bad idea" run, she travels all over the country doing the Creation panels (I'm not sure how much of the other ones she does), she's extremely active in Random Acts. Does this seem like a woman who is in debilitating pain and would be causing injury to herself if she spent a couple of weeks back on set? She herself has even said she wanted to come back. Misha has mentioned he would like to see her come back. But it's that knee jerk reaction people had where upon hearing a speculation about Meg returning, suddenly they're picking up their pitch forks and torches ready to beat down the castle door to prevent that from happening. And they'll mask it with feigned interest in Rachel's well-being but what it really comes down to is what I said before about how the fandom views women in this show. We say we want more female representation but the darker side of the fandom only wants representation if it doesn't threaten the ships they worship so much. The show is really bad sometimes in how it deals with its female characters but ultimately fandom also plays a part in the bad treatment of these characters.

#meg masters #megstiel

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familyvisionis2020 · 4 years

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Day 6 - The Drive Home

Today was the last day of tour. I wake up in the morning feeling guilty because I have a groggy memory of waking up around 8 to go to the bathroom, Paul was waiting to go, but when the person came out I just fronted him (a word I just now remember from elementary school, cut in line, but southern), used the bathroom and went back to bed. Rude. I am wiping the cold from my eye, taking in the undecorated walls of the apartment, and Jeremy comes from down the hall and says ‘Did you get the memo? Louisville cancelled. Tour’s over.” I said ‘fuck’ and processed it. I feel sad for Jeremy and John and Kabir because I know they wanted to play this last show in Kentucky. It’s not that I didn’t, but also for the last three months and for especially the last month I have been feeling a tremendous amount of anxiety about this tour, about feeling out-of-control, about being away from loved ones at home, about being available to show up for people in my life, about completing regular routines of hygiene and spirituality and task completion that make me feel boring and comfortable, both. Touring stirs up dredges of the tea leaves that I had let settle into a fine filmy sediment at the bottom of me. I manufactured a jello mold two years ago and poured myself into it: regular 9-5 in the legal field as a means and precursor to law school, then diligent study for 3 years, then a professional career, abandoning the party life, abandoning trespassing in abandoned buildings, abondoning the luxury of resentment and unproductive time, trying to cool and firm into something reliable, serviceable, dependable, available, a resource people could draw from for once, rather than a leech or slug. And when I go on tour I take that jello mold out of the fridge and it holds its shape but also it warms and the longer I’m out the more liquidy it gets and sloshes over the sides and so forth. So I’m ambivalent because I like what I have to offer to this band, I like the physical process of drumming and expressing myself in the context of music and being a member of a band, but also I feel like I’ve kind of chilled enough and it’s time to settle down. And I’m at a way different point in my life than the other guys in the band it seems like, for the most part. So anyways all this to contextualize the fact that the news of tour ending even earlier than early honestly makes me feel relieved, if not happy, and so then I work to temper that boosted mood for the sake of grim decorum befitting a tour taken before its time.

All our stuff is locked in the venue from last night and we learn we won’t be able to pick it up until 1pm and so we have about 4 hours to kill in the apartment. Phillip puts on a pot of coffee that will turn out to be some of the wateriest on record, but still, a super kind gesture, and then he also puts on The Wire on HBO Go and we just settle in on the couch and watch for awhile. Some of the scenes are familiar, there’s something seductive about this show, and it brings me back to the precise moment of Summer of 2013 right before I moved to Philadelphia right after I got evicted from the squat/music venue I had been living in that winter and spring, I watched all episodes of The Wire on DVD on Matt Martin’s couch at 3 Pomroy and felt deeply depressed. It ranks up there with when I watched all released episodes of The Office in bed in the winter of 2009 after my girlfriend broke up with me, in terms of memorably devestating life phases offset by the amniotic fluid of full-series of TV. So we watch The Wire and I find myself not too inclined to sit and watch and I want to write so I sit at my laptop on the table nearby and write an email to a female (sorry) but I actually do and its purpose is to make her smile and bring some levity and play and purple prose to a moment in her life that, from how she tells it to me, is just so heavy, nightmares and waking horror and a future that feels like it hangs by a thread. so I’m glad to spend time showing up for her in this small way rather than watching The Wire, and also I write yesterday’s blog post, another activity that feels sort of like a pittance but also like: doing-writing is something I have been putting off, in phases and seasons, for my entire adult life, because to me nothing ever matters enough to write about, or if it does my perspective is deficient, or my research inadequate, or my skill incommensurate with the subject matter, or it won’t properly reflect my feelings, or any number of self-sabotaging excuses to not do this thing I so love doing, and love sharing. So for me, writing this blog is a very meaningful and special act of reclamation of a personal mode of expression that constitutes a break in my winter’s depression and what feels like a new phase of happiness, of believing-i-have-a-future, of feeling more authoratative and qualified to know and describe my own experience in a lifetime marred and dampened by dissociation, oblivion, amnesia, and fugue. So it feels like nourishment to get some paragraphs done and to move slow through my days, get them onto the page.

The Wire grows tiresome at some point and Jeremy fires up the PS4 and then the PS3 looking for games but none are multiplayer and so eventually he settles on Skyrim and starts from a new file. Me personally I love watching let’s plays and this is as good as TV. There was a moment last tour when we were in this strange small town in Connecticut called Torrington (the town all touring bands are required to go to, we also joked), in this town Jeremy was describing the sort of surrealness he experienced there and he said he felt like the townspeople in Torrington were like NPCs in a FPS RPG like Skyrim wherein you would go up to people and press A to talk, say ‘What news?” and that I thought was really funny then, I like his sense of humor. Really Kabir and Jeremy and Royal represent this sort of humor that is to me equal parts razor wit, cleverness, timing, accents, absurdity, and broad conceptual placticity, all for the most part very clean too, never or at least rarely blue (you’re gonna inevitably make a D’s nuts joke and that’s just that). And during happy times I am so grateful to be nearby this humor and during less happy times I get self conscious about how great their humor is and how I sometimes feel like I don’t measure up. But that feeling doesn’t weigh for long. Skyrim is fun to watch, it kills some time, we all take turns trying to kill wolves with swords before Jeremy finally does it, there’s a dragon, we loot corpses, discuss Bloodborne and Dark Souls and comparable games. A lot of the main media activity in this group is discussing how a given media relates to another media, Kabir and Jeremy and John know it seems like everything between the three of them when it comes to record labels, band narratives, artist’s hometowns, etc. So we play Skyrim for awhile, and then eventually it’s time to go to the venue and we drive back to The Salty Nut, load in all our gear, do a final sweep, and say our goodbyes and thankyous to Phillip. We return to the Bandido place one last time for one last round of free local Taco Bell which we absolutely scarf and are very vocally grateful to the people for giving it to us for free again, it’s clear they really put effort into being hospitable to touring bands here, at least through Phillip. His band, Thomas Function, was signed on Fat Possum Records, which also had bigger indie acts like Jay Reatard (who Phillip tells a story about him demanding $50,000 in cash for a show fee to feed his coke and heroin habit, Reatard died at age 29 from cocaine toxicity with alcohol also), The Black Keys, Andrew Bird, Wavves and Soccer Mommy, but which Kabir postulates has most of its success due to having signed octogenarian southern blues legends like R.L. Burnside and King Ernest and raking in royalties from what Kabir speculates is due to poor management of the estates of these dead leagends who each had more than a dozen children. It’s truly fascinating for me to hear how deep and complex the analysis of music these guys have is. When I feel insecure, which is often, I tend to veneer these sorts of expertises and shibboleths among music-heads as snobby, elitist, exclusionary, petty and asinine. But I think most of that comes from a fear that I lack the insight, cognitive absorbency, and passionate research skills to collate and catalog data about artists in the way these people do, the way my bandmates do. I feel inspired to take time to dig deeper into the musicans I love, to make them real to me, to get a sense of their story, their lived experience, for the sake of corroding the mediation between us somewhat, or at least polishing the media membrane.

I volunteer to drive for the first half of what will end up being about a 10-hour drive back from Huntsville to Chapel Hill. We go to a Whole Foods in Huntsville upon Kabir’s insistence where I purchase a nootropic snakeoil energy affair in beverage form, Kabir gets hot coffee and a La Colombe Draft can of latte, Jeremy gets a kombucha made from yerba mate (“best of both worlds” he says), John black coffee as per, and Kabir also buys a slice of Tres Leches cake in a clear plastic to-go clamshell: “they can take away my tour, but they can’t take away my tres leches.” Later he’s eating it in the van and he accidentally spills some on himself and he says “shit…spilled some on myself. oh good, it was only one leche” which to me is so funny and perfect humor and just like kind of a paragon of the kind of joke I so treasure from this friend group. Another is when Jeremy and Kabir are recalling a favorite running joke from two tours ago, wherein they were in Philly, home to the famous Schuykill River (pronounced skoo-kill, at least when i lived there, at least around the non-indigenous people i knew), and while there they would affect this blaring Brooklyn accent, deployed heavily on this trip as well for basically any purpose, but back then they would say “UGH MY SKOYKL IS KILLING ME” like Schuykill was lombago or sciatica and also would say “YEAH LET ME GET A KWATA POUND OF SKOYKL ON RYE” like it was a deli meat, and they laughed and laughed. Also they liked doing rhyming jokes like last night there was a chair nearby the combo amp Tired Frontier was going to use for their set and Kabir goes ‘amp on the chair, tone everywhere’ and then I say ‘amp on the ground, makes a bad sound’ and then I tell Jeremy later how Kabir would put me in good spirits whenever I was describing to someone how my LSAT score is very competitive but my checkered past makes the acceptance process a little less than straightforward, and Kabir would see I was getting kinda down and anxious, and he would say ‘You gotta break the law before you make the law,’ and we all laugh and I love that, the function of humor as balm, salve. I want to wield my humor like that.

The drive back is fine, some sprinkles, nothing major, clear traffic for the most part, I feel like I have a good command of the van, keep it around 75 for most of the trip, feel smoth and confident switching lanes, passing, etc. We do another two NYT Wednesday classic crosswords together, Kabir is getting probably 40% of the clues, me maybe 30% Jeremy and John the other 30%, Kabir will just to YEAHHHHHHHH after getting a clue and I start doing that too after Jeremy says “X down, ‘on the table’ 15 letters,” and I say UPFORDISCUSSION after only a couple seconds and it fits and is correct and I feel like a damn genius and we’re all laughing and kind of praising each other half-jokingly for being strong beautiful geniuses who also we know songs. This is a great passtime and the drive flies by and before I know it we’re in Western NC just outside of Asheville and we make a stop to refuel the tank and get dinner. We decide on a Waffle House across the street, not wanting to venture too deep into Asheville for something healthier and better because of the time and money it would likely eat up, Kabir says that FEMA uses the closing of Waffle Houses as a bellweather to indicate the severity of a given natural disaster. We go inside, the waitress says ‘ya’ll aren’t from around here are you?’ in a way that I take to be hostile and I suggest that to the guys and they seem like maybe slightly offput but not very much and we decide not to abort and I later feel foolish because I think I am doing this thing where I become excessively vigilant or sensitive to a perceived slight to a friend who is brown for the putative purpose of interceding on their behalf against racism but what’s actually happening is if someone was racist to them they could just stand up for themselves and make their own call regarding their own comfort or lack thereof and I would do better to act less motivated by white guilt when avoidable. That passes, it’s fine, we eat hash browns and waffles and eggs and grits and toast and cover everything in tobasco and tip well and get back on the road, John takes over for the final stretch.

I return a call from Marty and catch him up about tour being cancelled and we discuss our fears and hysteria and cancellations and reaction and so forth. Marty remarks that he is a gravedigger during the plague, which is the best possible job to have. It’s not a joke because he actually drives a backhoe working for a cemetary and digs actual graves, super weird and eminently punk/goth and kind of a curiosity but really perfect for the lead singer of one of the South’s premiere punk bands, especially after his being fired from the swish cafe he worked at in Richmond before that. I love Marty and catching up and it feels good to hear his voice. After I get off the phone it sort of becomes campfire spooky story time in the van with everyone proffering their take on the panic, market failure, the likelihood of Capitalism as a superstructure to require perpetual growth even at the peril or death of its working class, the superior response to covid that South Korea and Norway seem to have mounted, a lot of fear of financial insecurity. Eventually this digresses to talk of touring, and the guys discuss all manner of various routes throught the South, Midwest, Northeast, plains states, PNW, Mexico City, Jeremy says ‘I can get us a show in Colombia’ which he can, Argentina or Venezuela through a mutual friend, then Europe so long as the label foots the bill for the plane ticket, then Japan, setting up camp on Honshu would make it easy to hit TOkyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Nagoya no problem, except where exactly are people playing shows? there’s gotta be somewhere all these Japanese Noise and Hardcore bands are getting gigs, and then from there of course it’s not hard to get to Australia, John knows a band there, and they go all around the world and this is stressing me out a little bit, only because I wonder about how much they think I would be involved or want to go on such a theoretical tour, and the answer is I don’t 100% know. Part of me wants to say this is my last tour, lean all the way in to law school and leave behind this chapter. Part of me feels like it’s better not to make a hard and fast statement like that because what if the economy collapses and for some reason school is a no-go but being in the band becomes the most plausible source of income or something. I get anxious and psych myself out and quiet down and feel foolish and wish to be home. I fantasize about my future life of stability, but I second guess myself because I just don’t know for sure how my life will be, and want to be careful to work toward the goals I think will be the most fulfilling, self-actualizing, spiritually nourishing, healthy for me; I also want to not forsake the friendships and bonds I’ve forged in these weird intimate moments in the van with the guys. I have the wherewithal to know that nobody is requiring me to make a decision right this second, and that as time passes it’s likely that the best course of action will be revealed one way or another if I can keep from panicking. So I watch videos of the 2019 Classic Tetris World Championships on my phone, eat two candy bars, watch videos of a streamer named Wumbotize play the latest Tetris game, Tetris Effect (2018, PS4, PC), and am pleasantly awed by how crazily far the skill curve of that game has shot up. I have some time ahead of me that is completely free, which is so nice. Before I know it I’m back home in my clean apartment which is tidy like a tetris field at the beginning of a new game and I get into my bed and lay down flat and if my bed is the well than the line of me clears and the well is clean, smooth, primed, for whatever falls tomorrow.

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pendragonshoard · 6 years

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Riley’s Davekat Fic Rec Masterpost

Long post under the cut...

Davekat, Pre Retcon:

Paint the Roses Red - SFW - Multichapter - Complete - Humanstuck highschool AU

You can't love someone else, and you can't expect someone else to love you. Not when you can't love yourself. It takes a special kind of person to make you understand what that means, though, and an even more special person to help you embrace yourself. Sometimes, if you're very, very lucky, this person will find you all on their own, and they will never really know about the spell that they cast on you because you were too busy working your own accidental magic on them.

The Morning Dew Betwixt Thine Thighs - NSFW - Oneshot - Humanstuck

You had thought he’d been so adamant about you coming over after school today to ask you out. And instead he gives you a fucking dick in a box and you tell him to take off his pants. Fucking great. Wow you suck.

Two Characters Encounter Alternate Versions of Themselves Doing Things and Then Proceed to Build up Amounts of UST Before Getting Over Themselves and Getting Their Acts Together. - NSFW - Meteor Fic - Multichapter - Complete

Instead of taking the bait, you store your sickles in your specibus and punch him instead. He catches that too, and forces you back against the table, knocking your book clean off the top, and pressing you into it fiercely. His sword is away too. Fucking how is this your life?

The next thing you know, his knee is between your thighs, pressing against your sheathe and nook, and you have a mouthful of Strider, pulling your hair. Your bulge tries to wriggle out, but the pressure over the sheathe is too much, and it's nearly painful but a humiliating pain and it's so perfect you moan and chitter into Dave's mouth, and he bites your lip

Lousy Stupid Goddamn Pretty Troll Boy - NSFW - Oneshot

John introduces his best human friend to his best troll friend. Maybe the three of them sit down to watch romcoms, maybe they're just hanging around a lab in the veil, but whatever the circumstance, Dave has trouble paying attention to the conversation at hand. Karkat is good looking and distracting and it's just not fair. Naturally, he begins distracting Karkat while John's talking. Little touches, lip licks, etc. Karkat gets flustered, Dave is thrilled, John is oblivious. It turns into a competition to see who can flirt the most without alerting John to their UST-fueled game.

Improvidence - NSFW - Series - Complete - Meteor Fic - Post Game Speculation

Oh, I Miss the Kiss of Treachery - NSFW - Multichapter - Complete - Humanstuck

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you would be damned if you were going to miss the Grimdark concert because of a cold.

In which Dave is the lead singer of a band, and Karkat has front row tickets.

Gray and Red - SFW - Multichapter - Complete - Soulmates AU - Humanstuck

The flower—the flower, it's . . . it's delicacy and strength. There's an imperceptible fragility to the boldness of the color. It looks loud, out there and brave, it looks like passion and heat, but a cooler, more human kind of heat. It's striped with a paler version of itself that emanates an ethereal kind of refreshing springtime feeling. It is, to put it in a nutshell, fucking beautiful. In which you only see color once you meet your soulmate, and the first color you see is the same as your soulmate's eyes.

Finally Out - SFW - Oneshot - Post Game Speculation

The beta kids are released from the juju after a long time. Dave wants to see Karkat and is worried about him. After being gone so long.

Midnight on the Demon Patrol - NSFW - Multichapter - Updating - Demon Summoner AU

Fighting fire with fire is okay in theory but Detective-Summoner Dave L. Strider figures trying to summon corporeal demons to the mortal plane to fight other demons is likely to backfire spectacularly. Sadly for him his inner Knight gets the vapors at the thought of letting anyone else play guinea pig.

Yup, he is totally hogging the demon. What could go wrong? (Oh no, Dave, why did you have to think that.)

Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures - NSFW - Oneshot - Heatfic

Karkat starts his heat cycle and Dave becomes more culturally aware. Best bros or not, desperate times call for desperate measures. Screwing your best friend? That's definitely a desperate measure.

Wherein our resident ornery troll spends about a bilunar perigee doing almost nothing but examine the specifics of his relationship with our favorite coolkid (the krabby 2 dope remix) - NSFW - Oneshot - Sequel to “Lousy Stupid Goddamn Pretty Troll Boy” - Karkat POV

You are Karkat Vantas, and you’re pretty sure a certain human is burning up your lifetime supply of chill. Not that it was a substantial amount to begin with.

Not Friends - NSFW - Oneshot - Sequel to “Lousy Stupid Goddamn Pretty Troll Boy” - Dave POV

You're still Dave Strider, and you're pretty sure a certain troll is burning up your lifetime supply of chill.

Dave has convinced himself that the thing he has with Karkat is about lust and only lust -- yet when the curiosity of his his closest friends forces him to examine it in more detail, he's acutely uncomfortable with what he finds.

Closeted - NSFW - Oneshot - John POV - John sits in the closet while they fuck basically - Onesided johndave

PWP AU Where John Is A Prankster But His Prank Lands Him In VoyeurLand.

I Don't Know What I Want - NSFW - Oneshot - Humanstuck

It's two AM and you aren't sleeping.

Dave Strider's Stupid Fucking Jawline - SFW - Oneshot - Humanstuck

“So Karkat has a crush on Dave,” Jade says.

You and John both choke on your ice cream. “Where the fuck did you hear that load of garbage?” you demand.

---

Generic high school AU. Dave's jawline is really distracting and Karkat does NOT have a crush on him (shut up, Kanaya).

I Just Wanted You To Marry Me - SFW - Oneshot - Humanstuck

It's Dave and Karkat's 4th year anniversary of dating, and Dave knows he's ready to take the next step.

Curiosity Killed the Cat - NSFW (in the second part) - Series - Complete - No SBURB AU

Paper Hearts - SFW - Oneshot - Humanstuck

This Valentine's Day just might be worse than all of the previous ones, because someone had been leaving you a paper heart every day for two weeks, and you STILL had no idea who it might be.

Status is Green, Captain Vantas. All Thrusters Go. - NSFW - Oneshot - Meteorfic

The first time you'd ever tried to fool around with Karkat, you'd gotten your hands onto his hips and then stopped because he'd started doing that thing where he breathes too fast then feels sick and gets dizzy and has to hide in his room because suddenly being around people makes him feel trapped. The second time it was you who'd backed off, wondering if he'd think you were some disgusting scrawny alien with too many scars and not enough wits to avoid earning them. He'd just pulled you against his broad chest and fallen asleep curled almost protectively around you. You couldn't look at him for a week. This time, so far both of you are still a green for go.

Post Retcon:

Your Interpersonal, Intergalactic Relationship: A Beginner's Guide - SFW - Oneshot - Meteorfic

A beginner's guide to playing hopscotch, overcoming internalized homophobia, and falling in love with your alien best friend.

Disclaimer: results may take up to three (3) years to appear.

Albinos, Deaf Baristas, and Nosy Friends - SFW - Oneshot - Humanstuck

Your name is Karkat Vantas, you're deaf, and you work at a coffee shop with your best friend, Eridan. Also, some asshole named Dave is way too attractive for words and you can't seem to get your shit together enough to ask him out.

Ambigram - NSFW - Oneshot - Humanstuck

His lips are soft and sweet. They taste like mint and wax and you find it kind of funny that you can separate the taste of his chapstick from the taste of his mouth. With him hovering over you for a change, he’s quick to take charge, tongue dipping down between your lips. You have yet to figure out if he’s naturally a total top or if he’s trying to compensate, but either way it’s adorable; you love it.

You love him.

Damn.

(Sequel to The Morning Dew Betwix Thine Thighs)

To Defy Gods and Devils - SFW - Oneshot

You're a demon, and he's an angel, and you suppose it was always bound to end like this, ironic or not.

Sugar and Spice - NSFW - Multichapter - Complete - Humanstuck

You remember the first time you really realized you were fucked up.

You were five. First year of kindergarten, miserable as all fuck. The teacher told the boys to line up on one side of the room and the girls on the other. You don't even remember why. You just remember the result.

Within, Without - NSFW - Multichapter - Complete - Meteorfic

Dave just wants to be left alone. What's the point of anything when what's broken can never be completely fixed?

This is the story of Dave Strider and Karkat Vantas, on the longest journey of their lives.

Transstuck Davekats - NSFW - Oneshot - Humanstuck

[Davekat have a sleepover]

I'll Write On Your Cup (Until You Ask Him Out) - SFW - Oneshot - No SBURB AU

"Yeah, well, that means your bestie over here has been writing pick-up lines on my cups for a month, acting like it was you."

---

The one where Karkat and Dave are oblivious idiots and you have to be the one to set them up. Obviously.

Sxyvaan - NSFW - Series - Complete - No SBURB AU

Karkat is a singer with a gorgeous voice and an affinity for simplicity. He’s got a gift for words, a love of classic things (like his ancient VW Beetle), and a truly magnificent temper, and he’s fluent in eighteen foreign languages. Dave is an ace at literally any instrument under the sun, with a master's degree in classical composition. He’s got a stupid-ass poker face, an unbelievably tiny apartment (which he rarely lives in anyways), and a truly magnificent collection of stringed instruments, and he’s a ridiculous idiot. How the fuck they ended up starting a rock band is a mystery to all.

How they made it to number one, on the other hand, is a mystery to no one.

Don't Forget the Sun - SFW - Multichapter - Discontinued but honestly still a very good read

Karkat Vantas always accepted the fact that he was not going to live past nine sweeps. It was just a certainty of his sad, miserable life. At least, that was until his friends found out and decided to hatch a plan to get him out of the Alternian empire. A plan that actually worked.

Now, he was stranded on an alien planet, at the mercy of some strange creature that was either trying to help him or going about some freaky ritual of flirting with your food before you eat it.

Also, aliens have sunglasses.

He was better off dying on Alternia, wasn't he?

The Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater - SFW - Oneshot - Meteorfic

Knitting, it seems, is one of the most dangerous skills that one can acquire. You lose sleep, your fingers bleed, your relationships crumble, you have to fight every iteration of Sollux Captor for the right to--

Why are you laughing? What, you think I'm kidding?

Of Heaven and Earth - SFW - Multichapter - Discontinued but again still a very good read

Dave Strider is part of an organization that eradicates evil creatures that kill humans for food. No one knows where these spirits come from, only that the sooner they are destroyed the better. That is his mission right now, to hunt down a weak new spirit before it can kill anyone and grow stronger.

Karkat Vantas is fucking dead, and if that wasn't horrible enough, now he's being hunted by some sword wielding maniac. At least there seems to be others like him in this world to help him adjust to this mindfuckery.

I spy - NSFW - Multichapter - Complete - Part 1 of a series - No SBURB AU - Rosemary in the sequel

You're just trying to get home, have a peaceful trip, stay as calm as a troll like you can until you get back to your moirail. All that shit. You didn't expect to make any lasting connections on the train, especially ones that live in your area. You definitely didn't expect to meet anyone quite like Dave Strider. Apparently the universe likes to prove you wrong.

Somehow after that train ride, he fuses himself into your life. Another stubborn fucking barnacle with an uncanny ability to inconvenience you at every possible moment. Even while sleeping. But somehow, despite all the trouble, you still feel like he has the potential to make your life infuriatingly better. And you definitely can't act on it or let him know. Definitely.

Perspective - SFW - Multichapter - Complete - Meteorfic

ORIGINALLY TITLED: In which Dave Strider and Karkat Vantas are Bored as Hell and Eventually Grow Close to Each Other in Multiple Ways

Karkat wants nothing more then to be entertained, Dave can supply that entertainment.

A story of friendship turned crush between my favorite dorks.

Act one: complete Intermission one: complete Act two: complete Intermission two: complete Act three: complete

We Could Be Wonderful Together - NSFW - Multichapter - Updating - Humanstuck

There comes a point in every man's life when he must ponder the merits of marrying his best bro and roommate of ten years. Or maybe that's just you. Yeah, actually, it's probably just you.

Don't Tap On The Glass - NSFW - Multichapter - Complete - Meteorfic - bonus smutty sequel

When Dave makes two terrible mistakes in the space of 24 hours, he finds himself dealing with them in a body that's not his own.

Astronomy in Reverse - SFW - Multichapter - Updating - No SBURB AU

Dave and Karkat are intergalactic pen pals, originally paired together for an extra credit school outreach project. Now, three years of correspondence later, they're best friends... and Karkat is finally immigrating to Earth.

how...did you tell your friends - SFW - Multichapter - Complete - Earth C

Unfortunately, you don't fancy your brother's suggestion on how to break the news to John... There's no other way out of it, you're going to have to just tell him.

Thirteen And A Half Mixtapes - SFW - Multichapter - Complete - Humanstuck

"What is it? What is it?" Nepeta presses right up against his shoulder to get a better look. "It's a cassette." Karkat is dumbfounded, "Where the shit do you even get a cassette?"

"Is there a note?"

"No, nothing." He checks the packaging one last time. There's not even a return address.

"Any idea who would send you a cassette?"

"Fuck if I know." Karkat says, "Definitely not John or Jade, though I guess Jade might have access to one. But she would have covered it in stickers or something, not just left it blank. Sollux would have sent a disk, if anything. He'd probably have just emailed me a file instead of going to all this trouble anyway."

"Well, whoever it is, they really don't want you to know that it's from them." Nepeta is inspecting the tape, "This is crazy. This is like..." Suddenly, her big, brown eyes seem to light up, "This is just like a rom-com! A mysterious tape... From a lover!"

tank time - SFW - Multichapter - Complete - Humanstuck - Part 1 of a series

>User: Karkat Vantas Objective: Sabotage any and all customer attempts to purchase a live pet from the undermanaged retail hell you call a job.

>User: Dave Strider Objective: Obtain a cat before your sister's birthday next month.

Match: begin.

In Name and In Deed - NSFW - Multichapter - Complete - Dragon Rider AU - Part 1 of a series

“Two brothers face off for the year title in the relay division, against the infamous Scourge sisters all the way from ALTERNIAAAA! Watch these athletes defy the ODDS and the WIND as Ruby and Gold stand up to Turquoise and Aquamarine in a STUNNING show on the beach at mid-afternoon!” Or so the poster had advertised. Yeah right.

OR:

The story of the recovery of one Karkat Vantas, Colonel of Her Majesty's forces, after losing close to a fifth of himself in the war.

So It's Going - SFW - Series - Complete - Retconned No SBURB AU

The kids wake up on earth with a couple very... unique issues. Oh, and eventually there are trolls

Hard To Stay And Watch You Walk Away - SFW - Oneshot - Meteorfic

I thought too hard about scenes that happened in the GO timeline that we never saw the retcon version of and then this came out. The "will we still be able to be best bros" conversation re-imagined for post-retcon. Somehow Karkat is even more insecure. Also I always wanted Rose and Karkat to talk in canon so hey have a bunch of them too, thanks.

Dave Mutters to Self and is Gay - SFW - Multichapter - Complete - Meteorfic

"Alright, bite the bullet here Strider, admit it to yourself. The first step to healing is acceptance. Or at least the last step of grief. Maybe? Why does everything gotta be an AA program, handing out steps left and right. Except instead of all admitting that we're middle aged men with an addiction to getting sloshed and beating our wives it's more 'Step 1: have homolust thoughts. Step 2: freak out. Step 3: who the fuck knows. Step 4: acceptance."

What.

“Hey wait shit is someone here?”

Fuck you said that out loud.

Red Ties - SFW - Oneshot - Soulmate AU - Humanstuck

Dave Strider's eyes never turned the color of his soulmates. With his rare eye-color, there's next to no chance they simply share an eye color.

One day he meets Karkat Vantas.

The Eurydice Suite - NSFW - Multichapter - Complete - No SBURB AU

Dream-sharing. A highly illegal little industry in which agents delve into people's dreams and unearth their deepest secrets and memories. And the Strider-Lalondes are the best in the business.

Until Dirk Strider gets his fool ass trapped within the confines of his own subconscious, with his Auto-Responder playing malicious prison warden. To save him, it's going to take a team of the world's most talented dreamers to save him.

Backed by the token rich friend, lead by the surliest extractor ever bribed out of retirement, haunted by the shade of the l8est and gr8est agent in the biz, and on the run through a dangerous tiered dream in a hostile mind, it's going to take a miracle to pull this one off.

Oh Orpheus, sing to me all night...

You're So Fucked - NSFW - Series - Complete - Humanstuck - first part of series SFW

[Dave and Karkat reunite at a DnD campaign due to mutual friends. Shenanigains ensue]

For Who Could Ever Learn to Love a Beast? - SFW - Multichapter - Complete - Beauty and the Beast AU

Karkat is just having an awful birthday. It's raining, cold, and he has finals tomorrow. Literally the only thing that could make it worse would be if some witch from six hundred years ago decided to come cast a curse on him that would make him into some ugly horned monster until he could find true love. If true love is even a thing.

Helter Skelter - NSFW - Oneshot - Post Canon - 2 Daves 1 Karkat - exactly what you think

Dave gets a visit from Future Dave, and between the two of them, they give Karkat the night of his life. Over and over again.

A Bump in the Road - SFW - Oneshot - Humanstuck - this will give you a toothache

After earning his Master's degree in education, Karkat can't find a teaching job, so Kanaya gets him a job as a toddler teacher at a daycare, much to his chagrin. Dirk is his quietest and most behaved student; in fact, Karkat has never heard him speak, and he's curious. What kind of person could raise such a child? And just how long will Karkat's patience last in a room full of two year olds?

Here We Pokemon Go Again - NSFW - Multichapter - Complete - Humanstuck - Part 1 of series

Karkat and Dave meet at a Pokestop while playing Pokemon Go.

Karkat is a 25 year old teacher on summer break who really likes Scythers. Dave is a 23 year old (not so) secretly nerdy DJ who really likes Karkat.

OR Wherein Karkat and Dave meet, catch Pokemon, and maybe fall in love.

Coming To Terms - SFW - Multichapter - Complete - Meteorfic

Your name is Dave Strider, and you have skeletons in your closet. Literal skeletons and a metaphorical closet. There's a lot to come to terms with.

In Which Dave has Abs, Karkat has a Nice Ass, Jake Wears a Binder, Dirk Has to Socialize, and John Wields the Power of Balloons - SFW - Series - Updating - Humanstuck - Multiple Other Ships

Also known as "When the fuck does John Egbert find time to fill balloons with shaving cream?"

Also also known as "Despite the title there's going to be a fuck ton more characters."

All I Can Taste Is The Sugar In Your Hair - NSFW - Oneshot - Post Game

Trickster Dave is a god damn treasure and no one can tell me otherwise.

Some scenes from the Rosemary wedding, but really, this is about Dave being high on cherub candy and really, really, really wanting his boyfriend to fuck him. (Not intended to be dubcon, but if you have issues with altered mental states or pushy partners in the context of an established relationship it might be not great for you! Take care.)

In Contrast - SFW - Multichapter - Complete - No SBURB AU

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you are a mutant, a freak of nature with red blood, which is frowned upon. You have been safe for many sweeps, but now your eyes have betrayed your blood color and you have beem practically exiled onto an alien planet. It's a suicidal mission that only your superiors know about, and not one of your friends do.

You are captured and taken into captivity, where you are tortured for information and studied like a caged animal because your species is alien to these...To these humans. These awful humans with their needles and weapons of torture, trying to hear you scream and decipher a language out of it, to see how you react to blood of animals.

Eventually one of your friends hears of your capture and gathers a rescue team, but you have fallen for one of the humans there.

Now your friends don't trust you either. You have affiliated yourself with the humans who have tortured you, and they don't know if you are a friend or an enemy. Everything is so mixed up and screwed that you feel like vomiting your own blood.

Midnight's Son - SFW - Multichapter - Complete - No SBURB AU

Dave Strider's father, a prominent detective, is tasked with infiltrating the Midnight Crew. Dave, worried about his father's safety, decides to do a little undercover work of his own and tries to befriend the boss's son, Karkat Vantas.

If I Lose Everything In The Fire - SFW but its not finished yet so - Multichapter - Updating - Pacific Rim AU

The Kaiju - or Horrorterrors, as the trolls call them - first invaded Earth through a transdimensional rift at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Serving the Condesce in her quest to add Earth to the Alternian Empire, these monsters have terrorized humanity for twelve years. With the help of rebel troll factions and the adaptation of Alternian mind integration technology - The Drift - the Interspecies Defense Program has fought back as the last line of defense between the Kaiju and Earth.

Karkat Vantas was a Jaeger pilot, fought for freedom in the Assault on the Breach that brought trolls to Earth. The loss of his co-pilot left him bitter and full of rage, but desperate times have lead to him being recruited to join the fray once more.

Dave Strider is the best and brightest the Interspec program has to offer. Jaeger Restoration Project Head, highest simulation score on record, and younger brother of the Deputy Marshal - except he's not allowed in a Jaeger.

Nobody expects them to be Drift Compatible.

If I lose everything in the fire, I'm sending all my love to you...

Flight Recorder From Viking 7 - NSFW - Multichapter - Complete - No SBURB AU

Dave Strider is a way-too-lonely transport pilot assigned to a high-pay low-stakes mission over the Christmas holiday. He's got a blistering hangover, a conscience full of nightmares, and an angry copilot. All he needs now is a nice bout of feeling worthless and-- well would ya look at that, he's got that, too. Time for takeoff, Houston, the water's just fine.

Or: In which Dave Strider discovers a modicum of self worth while stuck on a trip through foreign space, with a short, irritable, and annoyingly attractive troll as his only conversational partner for the next two weeks.

i'm at the combination dunkin donuts & urgent care - SFW - Oneshot - Humanstuck

Karkat Vantas is convinced beyond a doubt that his neighbor is some variety of murderer, until they actually meet in person. Highlights include blood at the laundromat, Dave's weird obsession with candles, and a box of shitty swords.

I Love Cheap Thrills - SFW - Multichapter - Complete - Part 1 of series

You’ve been trading memes with an international pop sensation, and your drunk ass had no idea.

Classic.

Disengage - SFW - Multichapter - Complete - Meteorfic

In which Dave attempts to confess his feelings to Karkat through a mirror and ends up enlisting the aid of the Mayor upon realizing that mirrors do not, in fact, talk back

IN WHICH TWO SETS OF HUMAN BROTHERLY BONDS ARE ESTABLISHED, SEVERAL CORRUPT INSTITUTIONS OF MORALITY ARE IDEOLOGICALLY DEMOLISHED, A DOG WITCH USES GOD POWERS TO MESS WITH EXQUISITELY CAREFULLY PLANNED INFRASTRUCTURE PLANS FOR SOME TREES LIKE A JACKASS,-- SFW - Multichapter - Complete - Post Game - This one is just as much dirkjake as davekat

--APPROXIMATELY A BILLION FUCKING CONSORTS AND CHESS PEOPLE, ALONG WITH A LOT OF USELESS GOD MODED LAYABOUTS ARE LEAD TO SUCCESSFUL COLONIZATION AND ESTABLISHMENT BY A SUCCESSFUL AND COMPASSIONATE LEADER, AND LONG-SUNDERED SOULMATES TORN APART BY FEAR AND DEVASTATING, MIND-BOGGLING STUPIDITY ARE REUNITED AT LAST BY A WISE, COMPASSIONATE BOSS / GUIDANCE FIGURE AND HIS LOYAL, EFFICIENT RIGHT-HAND MAN. THERE ARE AT LEAST THREE CRYING SCENES, TWO KISSES, AND OVER TEN TOTAL MINUTES OF REAL-TIME DESCRIPTION OF LONGING GAZES AND TENDER HUGS. 2 RESOUNDING ENDORSEMENTS OF BELOVED MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS. PRIMERS ON HUMAN/TROLL INTERSPECIES ROMANCE.

THIS TEXT IS SUGGESTED SCHOOLFEEDING MATERIAL FOR ALL REASONABLY GROWN HATCHLINGS GAZING OUT ON THE BLIGHTED WASTELAND OF THEIR PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS, WISHING THEY WERE DEAD, AND DESPERATELY YEARNING SOMEONE WOULD CLUE THEM IN ON JUST WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON.

RATED 8(17)+ AND UP.

You Do Not Disappoint. - NSFW - Oneshot - Humanstuck

He's still staring at you, his milky red eyes are eerie, red in a different way to yours, yours are so brown they look a bit ruddy in some lights. They suit him, and there's so many ways you want to worship his body that he'll sneer at you for. This is just sex Vantas. Get your head in the game. And then when he's riding you he'll smirk down at you and say 'Wildcats' as you finish, and ruin it. You can't have nice things, because Dave isn't inherently nice. He's enough for you though.

It's not so bad. - SFW - Oneshot - Humanstuck - this one is just so sweet ok

A simple 'good morning' can turn into 'we'll get through this together'.

M.C. Escher that's my favourite MC - SFW - Multichapter - Updating - Part 1 of a series - Soulmate AU

Dirk has a plan, when he's 18 he's going to take Dave and get him the fuck out of their terrible lives and start over. Until then being the barrier between Dave and Bro is his only job, his soulmate is just going to have to wait goddamnit. Dave has a plan, it involves getting internet famous and not going gay, easy right? Karkat also has a plan, to repeatedly track down his dumb as rocks soulmate and get him to actually talk to him for fuck's sake.

Ever After - SFW - Multichapter - Complete - Mind the tags - Humanstuck - Royalty AU

The job will be nearly impossible. Karkat Vantas - as skilled an assassin as he may be - has never been assigned such a high risk target. But the pay drives him to accept. He will kill the heir to the Dersite throne, and live like a king for the rest of his life. It should have been straightforward and emotionless. When he meets a peasant on the street and gets attached, however, he begins to question whether or not the risk is worth it when all he needs is Dave.

Who Are These Douchebags? - SFW - Series - Updating - Meteorfic - Post Game

Linked stories about douchebags being douchebags.

Doc Scratch's School for Supernaturally Gifted Adolescents - SFW - Multichapter - Updating - Humanstuck

One minute you get a mysterious message from a man who types all in white like a jackass, and then the next thing you know you're being whisked away to a mystical school for kids with superpowers. If you weren't Dave fucking Strider, this sort of thing might bother you.

A Stunning Tour De Force - NSFW - Oneshot - Earth C

"A triumph." -Dave Strider, about getting his dick sucked for the first time

They're definitely dating - SFW - Oneshot - Meteorfic

She realizes that Dave and she had been holding hands during their entire conversation with the trolls, and idly wonders what they thought about that. Probably just that they were clingy siblings.

Time Displacement: Side A - SFW - Multichapter - Updating - Post Game - Part 1 of a series

After the events of the game, Dave wakes up in a universe that is familiarly unfamiliar. Sburb didn't happen, all their guardians are alive, and Bro is...different.

Knight of Blood (finally) - SFW - Oneshot - Post Game

Ascending? Post-game? It's more likely than you think.

The Calm Is Terrifying When The Storm Is All You've Known - SFW - Multichapter - Complete - Part 1 of a series

There were two kinds of trolls who went to Earth: rich shitheads with too much money and free time, and desperate assholes who couldn’t survive on Alternia, even with the best efforts of the young Condesce. Karkat hated the planet almost immediately, but with his home planet too dangerous for mutants, he really didn’t have any choice but to hide out on this weird little diurnal planet. At least he’d be safe. Or so he thought, right before blundering his way into an accidental friendship with the son of an anti-troll terrorist.

Slow burn, shifting perspectives; romance really isn't the focus here but it'll still play a significant part; extra content warnings will be posted with each relevant chapter.

two for mirth - NSFW - Multichapter - Updating - No SBURB AU - Part 1 of a series

“Now about that gift I got you, remember how you’ve been all wistful about your concupiscent quadrants? Well I got you something to fix that.”

“What,” Karkat said blankly. “Gamzee no, tell me you didn’t get me sex toys.”

The good news is that it's not sextoys

The bad news is that it's a person.

Off Court - SFW - Multichapter - Updating - No SBURB AU

Your name is Dave Strider, and a hospital wasn’t the setting you had imagined when you thought of seeing your twin again.

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and having Terezi drag you around her weird human legislacerator training probably wasn’t the worst way you could spend the rest of your sweeps.

And then you meet him.

A Ten Step Plan For Wooing Karkat Vantas, Featuring A Multitude Of Illustrations By Your Esteemed Authors, As Well As Tips For The Aforementioned Wooing - SFW - Multichapter - Complete - Meteorfic

Kanaya, because she's a saint, makes you a list.

The list is entitled "A Ten Step Plan For Wooing Karkat Vantas" and features a multitude of illustrations in purple pen.

"So we're doing this," you say. Your mouth threatens to twitch into something dangerously smile-shaped.

"Yes," says Kanaya. "We are making this happen."

"Hell yes."

Just A Thing We Do - NSFW - Oneshot - Post Game

“Apparently, you inspired him to try initiating amorous… activities… over these stupid devices!” Karkat waved his phone at him, punctuating the accusation. “Do you actually just casually proposition Dirk while he’s busy with other people?!”

Jake shot him a wide-eyed look, freezing halfway through shoveling a handful of popcorn in his mouth. He slowly lowered his hand, blinking rapidly, eyebrows furrowing behind his glasses. “I -- well, what’s that to any of you, exactly?”

(Or, as I have been calling it, The DaveKat Sexting Fic. ENJOY)

Turnt Heck Godhead - NSFW - Multichapter - Complete - Part 1 of a series - Post Game

Dave Strider is feeling different. Really, everyone is. Steps seem to carry more weight, voices seem to echo more, bodies seem thicker and more full of life and comfort. Something is changing here, on this new planet, in this new universe. The cans of the town seem more real than the buildings of society ever did. And sometimes if you close your eyes and listen there is something like a chorus, or an echo, from a place where things are different--but not by much.

All at once, the feeling becomes too much to ignore, and Dave needs to find out what's happening. But doing so means coming face to face with his old sprite, now become something totally unbearable and unfathomably graceful and self-assured. And now it seems Dave's curiosity may awaken in this new being a hunger...

A hunger for the illest beats ever dropped in the history of paradox space. Beats that could change Dave, and all of his friends, in ways they could never have expected.

Welcome to Davepeta and Jasprose's grand venue: Good drinks, dim halls, chill beats and comfy bean bags The Turnt Heck Godhead is open for business as long as you're open to the feelings it can cause.

Meditation - SFW - Oneshot - Teen Titans AU

"Order is good. It’s balanced. Don’t think on the fly. Don’t try anything funny. You’re not that thing anymore. Not that person you mean. Can’t afford to freestyle. This isn’t a spotlight solo on stage. Don’t start swinging when you can’t afford it. Don’t you dare start swinging.

Focus. Zone in. Zoom in. Focus."

In which Dave attempts to meditate and things end badly.

Book Covers - SFW - Multichapter - Complete - Humanstuck - Part 1 of a series

Karkat has had a shitty life and has had to bust his ass for everything he has. He has no patience for spoiled, delusional, lazy people and this is exactly what he thinks Dave Strider is. They get paired up together for a project in their college English class and when Karkat accidently learns that Dave is fighting to keep custody of his younger brother Dirk, he learns that he may have been completely wrong about Dave and shouldn't have judged a book by it's cover. A story of two damaged boys coming to each others rescue and growing as people. <3

#homestuck #davekat #davekat fic rec #fic rec #definitely not all of them but this post is long enough as is #long post #My posts

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tomakeitbeautifultolive · 5 years

Note

Ok two months to go lets hear it: Who lives and who dies?

My death list is actually kind of short, but (probably) controversial:

The Mountain

Beric Dondarrion

Melisandre

Varys

Viserion

Cersei Lannister

Jaime Lannister

Jorah Mormont

Euron Greyjoy

Theon Greyjoy

The Night King

Sansa Stark

Jon Snow*

(*but he will be resurrected)

You’ll notice one very big name - perhaps the biggest - happens to be absent from my list. I’m not so sure I believe the leaks. *shrug*

My explanations and reasoning under the cut.

The Mountain

Of course, The Mountain is already dead, so this feels little redundant. I don’t think Cleganebowl is happening. The Mountain isn’t the same person Sandor had beef with, and Sandor isn’t the same person he once was. *shrug* I’m personally rooting for the Arya-takes-down-the-Mountain theory.

Varys

There’s a good chance that Melisandre is wrong about Varys’ death (like she’s wrong about well, almost everything):

“I have to die in this strange country, just like you.”

But we pair that with the line from Daenerys:

“If you ever betray me, I’ll burn you alive”

…and it seems to seal his fate (I don’t buy for a second he’s got allegiance to anyone but himself). Of course, there’s a chance it could be a line foreshadowing someone else’s death that’s been ‘leaked’. We’ll see!

Viserion

I could argue that Viserion is already dead… but since “(The Night King)’s done the same thing to Viserion that he did with Craster’s sons,” I assume he’s a dragon version of an other. That’s probably not too important, anyway.

I think Viserion will be taken down by Drogon, mirroring Viserys and Drogo *shrug* I love my parallels, don’t I?

Cersei Lannister

When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. Eh, eh?

For as much as everyone cries “cliche!” about Jaime being the valonqar, imagine if all that foreshadowing was traded in for some shock value, and someone like Sansa does it. *shudders* Nah, man. I want Jaime to mirror himself - the Kingslayer/Queenslayer who took down both mad monarchs threatening to ignite King’s Landing in green flames - finally getting recognized for his act of heroism. That’s much more satisfying than a quick shock that has no buildup. But I suppose, there is a pretty good chance the valonqar is Euron.

(Though I do admit - I would actually love for Cersei Lannister to make it out of this alive, somehow)

Jaime Lannister

“I cannot die while Cersei lives. We will die together as we were born together.”

Both twins have weird lines like this. So, it’s fair to assume if one dies, they both die. And if one lives, they both live. So if Cersei is brought down, Jaime will be, too. How do I see it happening? Perhaps by one last (poisonous) kiss - wherein Brienne comes in to cradle him as the life drains from his body? I dunno. But after all, he wants to die in the arms of the woman he loves, and for better or worse - that’s Brienne.

Jorah Mormont

It’s been long speculated that in season 8, we’ll be seeing a ‘beloved’ character turn into a wight - and I think the best candidate is Jorah Mormont (keep in mind we’re talking show Jorah, who is leagues better than book Jorah).

Admittedly, I do notoriously give D&D more credit than like, anyone else around here. That said - I’m not sure the polar bear thing was entirely for “coolness” factor, like they claim. The moment I heard this line, followed by Jorah looming eerily over Beric…

I thought for sure we’d see this paid off in the very same episode. To me, it just seems wildly out of place and a waste of dialogue. I hope it’s some clever foreshadowing that we’re going to see a dead 'Bear’ of Bear Isle biting someone next season.

Of course, there is always a chance that the greyscale might play some sort of role in preventing Jorah from turning… I guess we’ll see!

Lastly, I’ve always been intrigued by Jon holding a Mormont shield during the BotB - I have a tendency to read too much into everything, I admit - but wouldn’t it be great if Jorah died saving Jon’s hide?

Euron Greyjoy & Theon Greyjoy

For as formidable as book Euron may be - I don’t see him living. This series just isn’t about evil prevailing. What I think he will do, however, is attack Jon and/or Daenerys at sea, perhaps as they try to flee the north. I’m one of those annoying people who thinks very few lines of dialogue are wasted in-show, and this one is a fucking thorn in my side:

I think Theon will succeed in taking down Euron (I think this scene is a great foreshadowing that he’s going to save house Greyjoy by saving Yara), but it will likely be at the cost of his own life. I suspect he’ll not only save Yara - but perhaps some members of his other house, too. After all, he’s a Greyjoy and he’s a Stark.

The Night King

Oh, this one is fun, isn’t it? I’m probably the only person who doesn’t want the Night King to die - but I’m pretty sure he will and that I know how it’ll happen. First, we’ll finally get to see Vladimír Furdík’s stuntwork paid off in the final season, which almost ensures there will be an epic showdown between Jon and the Night King.

But you shouldn’t want Jon to defeat him! (Or Daenerys, for that matter!) Why?

“The gods hate kinslayers, even when they kill unknowing.”

This quote is specifically told to Jon by Ygritte when she recounts the tale of Bael the Bard. Interestingly, Bael the Bard heavily mirrors Rhaegar x Lyanna. And what also happens to mirror Lyanna, is how Sam and Jon become friends. Jon comes to his rescue as he’s getting his ass whooped by his fellow black brothers - just like his momma coming to Howland Reed’s aid. Both Jon and Lyanna go out of their way to further humiliate the tormenters, too.

I predict the Night King will disarm Jon Snow and in this crucial moment, and that’s when Sam the Slayer will thrust Heartsbane through his back (perhaps melted down into more wieldable daggers by Gendry?), Howland Reed-style, saving Jon’s life and frankly, blowing everyone’s minds.

Because after all…

“Everything that happens will be something that you’ve seen before.”

Buuuut it’s going to be about as satisfying as Arthur Dayne’s demise - as we’re going to learn of the Night King’s history, and perhaps that his death marked not only the death of the wights and white walkers - but all of Craster’s sons, perhaps wiping out a whole misunderstood race.

‘A villain is the hero of the other side’, after all - and if you’re familiar with my theory that the Night King is the one using his greenseeing powers to manipulate the visions in the flames that the followers of R'hllor see… then this line by Beric might foreshadow his death:

And that our heroes, the 'enemy’, will win.

Sansa Stark

Before anyone comes for me, there’s a fair amount of eerie foreshadowing - at least in the books. If the season 7 script leaks are to be believed, Sansa might still be the 'lone wolf’ she warned against last season, distancing herself from her family out of jealousy or paranoia.

The way I see it going down, though, (if it does at all) the Stark girls will mirror their direwolves - and Sansa just might die in her sister’s place, saving her life.

Jon Snow

First, let’s look at the conversation between Jon and Melisandre prior to the Battle of the Bastards:

“Any advice?”

“Don’t lose.”

“If I do, if I fall don’t bring me back.”

“I’ll have to try.”

“I’m ordering you not to bring me back.”

“I am not your servant, Jon Snow.”

“You’re in my camp. I’m the commander.”

“I serve the Lord of Light. I do what he commands.”

“How do you know what he commands?”

“I interpret his signs as well as I can.”

“If the Lord didn’t want me to bring you back, how did I bring you back? I have no power. Only what he gives me and he gave me you. Why? I don’t know. Maybe you’re only needed for this small part of his plan and nothing else. Maybe he brought you here to die again.”

Other than that, we’ve got some fucked up lines from Sansa:

(Thanks, Sansa. Great job.)

As well as Beric:

Alternatively, there is some amazing book foreshadowing that Jon will live.

Why include in the story Beric has come back from the dead multiple times, at all? Why tell us that each time he comes back, he’s a bit less of himself? He’s not a major character. Is it all just for 'flavor’ - or are we being groomed to see it happen again to someone we love?

And how bittersweet would that be - seeing Jon come back a second time, but not quite the man he used to be - the one we all grew to love.

I love the theory that Jon Snow is Dany’s mount, treason, and fire for love - and that she’s the one who commits treason against him, by possibly demanding he be brought back 'against his will’ (though, considering he’s a father-to-be and potential newlywed, I don’t think he’ll gripe about it as much in season 8 as he would’ve in season 6.)

When Jon died the first time - I thought for sure he’d come back in some blaze of glory. That they’d try to burn his body, but he’d have this epic 'Unburnt’ moment, like Dany (lol). I’d like to see Dany wake a dragon a second time with some sort of similar funeral pyre that she walks into… except that two people walk out instead of one.

I know, I know. *adjusts tinfoil hat*

But Sam Tarly happens to agree with me:

Always.

Beric Dondarrion

Considering the man gave his life long ago for Catelyn to become Lady Stoneheart in the books, I think his entire purpose for still kickin’ around in Season 8 is to give someone the 'Last Kiss’. Not really a unique idea, no. Popular candidates tend to be Sandor (after all, he tells him 'We will meet again’), Daenerys, or one of the Stark kids. But my money’s on Jon.

Melisandre

I’m an atheist (like GRRM), and therefore, I more or less despise Melisandre for basically convincing what used to be a good man to burn his daughter alive. That’s some Abraham and Isaac shit right there (and that shit better happen in the books because it’s powerful AF commentary and I’m here for it).

All that said, what I’d love to happen with Melisandre is to see her realize her god isn’t real (assuming the Night King has been messing with her visions), and have a personality crisis/breakdown. Afterward, if my theory about Jon happens to be true, she’ll play a role in bringing him back, perhaps even lending her life in the process. Buuuut I wouldn’t mind Gendry’s future wife avenging his cousin’s death and closing her 'blue eyes’ forever.

As for the rest…

People I’m unsure will live or die:

Drogon 🤞

Ghost 🤞

Nymeria 🤞

Davos Seaworth 🤞

Tyrion Lannister 🤞

Sandor Clegane 🤞

Grey Worm 🤞

Bronn

Ned Umber

Alys Karstark

People I think will live:

Samwell Tarly

Gilly

Daenerys Targaryen

Arya Stark

Bran Stark

Little Sam

“Boatbaby”

Rhaegal

Gendry

Missandei

Jon Snow (resurrected)

#spoilers #got spoilers #not really #but just in case #got endgame #my best gueses

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iamanartichoke · 6 years

Text

I’m seeing the movie tomorrow night, and I’ve been spoiled on about 25% at this point, so there’s a ton I don’t know and am looking forward to seeing. That said, the spoilers I do know got me like

And I need to talk about it before I see the movie and my brain is mush from whatever else crazy happens. So, here be Loki spoilers. Also Loki spoilers. And did I mention Loki spoilers?

EDIT MY READ MORE CUT WORKS ON THE COMPUTER BUT IS NOT SHOWING UP ON MOBILE?? I’M SORRY.

____________________________________

So obviously I’ve seen the Loki spoilers. I went from peeking out from behind my fingers to full on reading the description of exactly how he dies and on the one hand, I am glad to be prepared emotionally before seeing that in the theater but on the other hand, I wish I didn’t know and more than anything, I wish Marvel hadn’t gone in that direction because it’s so f-ing predictable.

At this point I feel like he should have just stayed dead in The Dark World because, really, has anything he’s done since then been to his benefit – or the fans’, for that matter? In TDW, we got to see Loki acting selflessly, saving Jane and Thor’s lives, “redeeming” himself, as it were, and dying in a heroic blaze of self-sacrificial glory. Yeah. We saw all of that already. Now, since he was brought back, he:

* Pretended to be Odin, wherein Thor:Ragnarok implied he just sat on ass the entire time reveling in his own narcissistic diva-ness,

* Was blamed for Odin’s death, by Thor,

* Was blamed for releasing Hela, by Thor,

* Was thrown through a wormhole AGAIN and ended up on a trash planet where it’s implied that he has to sleep his way to the top, rather than using his brain, intelligence, and cunning to manipulate his way into the GM’s inner circle, which is supposed to be, like, his major skill set,

* Is made to “betray” Thor in the flimsiest way possible, just so Thor can outsmart him and leave him electrocuting and immobile,

* Still returns to Thor’s side to save him and Asgard,

* Only to be put in charge of triggering Ragnarok, after which he

* is called “not so bad” by Thor and doesn’t even get the alluded to thank-you hug, and then he

* gets five minutes of peaceful bro time before Thanos attacks,

* Only for him to be horrifically killed to perpetuate Thor’s revenge journey (I guess that’s the motivation?).

There is nothing in either Ragnarok or IW that doesn’t just shit all over the complex character Tom Hiddleston has so lovingly portrayed. And I’m not one to speculate on the actors’ private lives and emotions, I don’t care that much, but I have noticed that on this press tour, Tom has seemed kind of subdued in comparison to his previous interviews and press events. And it makes sense now because he has to be so fucking done with the way his character has been treated. And also, why is he having to promote this film all over the world, at every press event, when he’s barely in it for ten minutes? WTF kind of logic is that?

But I digress.

So back to Loki. What a waste. I think that’s what upsets me most, is that it’s such a waste of a brilliant character and a loss of so much potential. We could have seen Loki and Thor team up. We could have seen Loki manipulating Thanos. We could have seen the Avengers realizing and acknowledging that Loki was tortured/sent by Thanos. We could have seen such a brilliant, powerful performance. (Don’t get me wrong, I have no doubt Tom did the best he could with what he was given, but the point is, he was given so little.)

But what do we have instead? Ragnarok, for all its Loki flaws, might as well be completely irrelevant now for the fact that the entire plot of saving Asgard didn’t matter a single bit, since they were all slaughtered ten minutes later anyway. Thor has lost everything. Literally everything. At least before, he had Loki.

And Loki. What a travesty of a tragic life. Cast out, raised to be inferior, manipulated, lied to, and betrayed to the point of literally being driven to suicide, only to end up being tortured and then sent on a fool’s errand, and then locked up – by his family - for the rest of his life for crimes that amount to literally “a mere handful [of lives] compared to Odin.” Meeting tragic end after tragic end, appreciated only when he’s deemed useful for some purpose and belittled and ignored otherwise.

Loki is not an innocent character, but he didn’t deserve for his life and death to be so unnecessarily fucking tragic.

What did the Russos accomplish with this? They didn’t do anything remotely original with his character. They didn’t “surprise” or “shock” the fans, or anyone who watched the trailer for that matter. No. I believe that they didn’t know how to handle him, they didn’t want to overshadow their own villain (even though Loki’s not even a villain anymore, but whatever), so instead of bothering with him, they just killed him off.

Congratulations, Marvel, you’ve astounded us, truly. I can’t even comprehend the sheer imaginative scope of your writing skills. This is truly a plot that needed to be so shrouded in secrecy that even the actors didn’t know all the details. Like. I can’t hear myself think over how brilliant you are.

It occurred to me as I was thinking about this, driving to work today, that my personal headcanon might as well be that Loki did it on purpose. Because he so recklessly attacks Thanos and is killed for it. Loki knows Thanos wouldn’t be taken down like that. Loki knows exactly what Thanos is and what he’s capable of, and he was just fucking done. He saw the writing on the wall and nope’d out to be with Frigga in peace rather than get involved with the never-ending clusterfuck of tragedy that was about to befall him. I mean, we know he’s been actively suicidal before. Tom Hiddleston has said he’s not in control of his own mind.

Isn’t that sad, though? That the idea of Loki committing suicide-by-Thanos is actually the more comforting idea (to me, anyway) because at least it gives him a bit of autonomy over his own fate? I don’t know at this point. I’m just. I’m so disappointed. I wanted more. Loki deserved more. Tom Hiddleston deserved more. The fans deserved more.

I’m still seeing the movie. I already bought my tickets. I still have MCU characters I care about. But I’m not here for any of this maybe he faked it, (that’s a goddamn trope at this point), maybe things will be revealed in the next movie, maybe it’ll get fixed but probably not but buy tickets to Avengers 4 anyway on the snowball’s chance in hell that we do right by your faves. I will instead involve myself in what is now AU fic (although Sanctuary is on temporary hold because I don’t have the heart right now, I just don’t) and bask in the comfort of what could have been.

And let me just end this by giving a shoutout to the brilliant fan-fic writers out there whose work shows that you love, understand, and respect Loki far more than Marvel ever did.

In conclusion, I recognize that the Russos have made a decision regarding Loki, but given that it’s a stupid ass decision, I’ve elected to ignore it.

#loki pokey artichokey #loki laufeyson #tom hiddleston is my favorite unicorn #infinity war #infinity war spoilers #spoilers #iw #iw spoilers #marvel

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