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wlw-lovestruck-fiction · 3 years

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Ngl, the Nadia anons and fic have me in a Nadia mood. Can we get a fic where MC and Vivienne aren't dating, but Nadia thought they were and finds out they aren't, so she tries winning over MC, and MC is both wary and slightly charmed, despite the entire Poppy being exasperated, and finally agrees to a date? It could be a follow on from the other fic or it's own thing. (If you receive this ask twice please ignore the 2nd one, tumblr gave a bad request message for the first so idk if you got it)

Pairing with: “Can we have a Nadia stalking mc instead of Vivienne? Getting intrigued by the mc and then wanting her to join her instead“

...

Written by @an-awkward-ghost

“I’m a bit confused.”

The voice is firm, perhaps even a bit harsh, and it has Nadia instantly on edge. Were it not for the small, almost imperceptible hint of playfulness, the blond thief would have already brandished her knife. Instead, she just freezes there, wide eyed, letting the voice wash over her and awaken a torrent of feelings she had buried deep within her. Emotions only brought problems, only made her pick all the wrong options. She couldn’t trust something as fickle as that. She knew that. Well. At least she thought she knew that.

Yet here she is, eagerly spinning around after a moment’s hesitation, seeking the owner of that sweet, sweet, harsh voice.

It had only been a month, but Karina seemed to have changed drastically. Gone was the insecure little girl she had been, wrapped in Vivienne’s shadow. Now she stood strong and unflinching just a few meters away, shoulders thrown back in attempt to look taller, brown eyes calculating Nadia’s every movement like a predator. One wrong move, and it was over.

Nadia didn’t want to underestimate a woman like Karina ever again.

“You said you weren’t after Vivienne anymore… but here you are anyway.” Her eyes flickered up and down, her expression softening with a small, unconcerned smile. It didn’t look cocky, nor did it look happy. It was teasing, meant to irritate Nadia to her very core, but she found she couldn’t quite look at it without feeling butterflies rise. It was unfair. Nadia pursed her lips and looked away, and Karina continued. “What am I supposed to think?”

She felt like she had been put under a microscope, left there to be picked apart by the artist.

“It… was a coincidence?” She finally said, voice surprisingly steady despite the turmoil of emotions she was experiencing.

Karina hummed. “Yeah, I don’t really believe in coincidences and that only leaves me with plenty of creepy alternatives. You might want to explain yourself.”

“I didn’t know you would come here next.” Nadia forced herself to meet her gaze, half-wishing she could just burn the butterflies in her stomach so she could actually concentrate, half-berating herself for not realizing where her true affections laid sooner. “I had planned to stay away from you – that’s why I decided to come here in the first place.”

“Sure. Awfully close to our next target, too. How convenient.”

Frustration could not begin to convey what Nadia was feeling right now. Hot-headed indignation, barely held at bay by the cold, murky feeling of rejection. Her hands closed into fists, then opened, then closed again in quick motions, as if she were trying to grasp her conflicting feelings and bury them even deeper.

“I didn’t even know you had a target here.” She spat at last, scowling. “Look, I won’t get in between your relationship with Vivienne anymore. I won’t even stay here, if it bothers you so much. I could probably pick the next flight to–”

“My relationship?”

“Yes, your– why are you looking at me like that?” It takes a few seconds. Nadia has never had so many conflicting feelings in her entire life. There’s the bubbly, blissful hope that lifts her spirits and spreads over her whole body like a blanket of pure joy, warm and fuzzy, but there’s also the sinking, bitter sensation of a misunderstanding. Of not reading the room correctly, despite that being Nadia’s forte. “You aren’t dating Vivienne.”

Karina’s smile seems a little less detached, bordering on genuine. “It’s true I had some interest in her at the beginning, but I quickly realized a relationship wasn’t the best choice. Hey, maybe we should start a club or something! God knows there’s enough people interested in Vivienne to get plenty of members.”

“Then… but she didn’t– you were jealous!”

“Yeah, I can’t deny that.” A sheepish shrug. “But in my defense, who wouldn’t be?”

Nadia takes a deep breath. “You were jealous.” She repeats, more to herself than to Karina. She’s trying to make this whole situation make sense. “Of Vivienne…? Because I was giving attention to her.”

A light blush that might be Nadia’s imagination appears on Karina’s face. “I think we might be getting off topic here. You, uh, you said you were going to leave?”

“I was, but there’s no way I’m doing that after this revelation.” After a month of aimlessly swimming through the situation, Nadia finally thinks she might have found her footing. She smirks. “You are interested in me.”

Karina looks her up and down again, wary. “Was. You know, before I found out you are an obsessive asshole.”

“Believe me, I’ve learnt my lesson. I’ll respect your boundaries.” She takes a few steps closer. Karina seems rooted in place, body angling towards the end of the alleyway they are in, but making no move to leave. “But I can’t let this chance slip me by.”

“Chance? So because you couldn’t get Vivienne, now you are after me?”

“Ah…” Nadia hesitates, all confidence wavering. The other woman narrows her eyes. “No. No, I…” The words were right there. Somehow, they wouldn’t come out.

“You…?

“It’s just. I didn’t– I…” She lets out a small grunt of frustration. “I wasn’t interested in her. I thought I was. Turns out she wasn’t the one that interested me at all.”

“But then… why did you…” A beat, and Karina’s eyes widen. “You were projecting your feelings onto her.”

“Yes. And now that it’s come out into the open that you are also interested-”

“Was. I was interested. Past tense. Nadia, I’m saying no. Can you respect that, please?”

Nadia pursed her lips, feeling her good mood dissipate. This was what had ruined her chances in the past, her near violent approach. She backed the subject of her interest to a corner where they would have no other choice but to pick her, because the alternative was even worse.

That’s not something she wanted for Karina. Whatever this affection was, it felt far more fragile and precious than any of her other obsessions. Far more real. Worth treasuring. Nadia wasn’t sure she could even call this feeling ‘an obsession’.

She couldn’t force something like this. She didn’t want to.

“I understand.” She said. “And you have every right to say no, but I want you to give me a chance to prove that I’ve changed.” That had been mostly thanks to the sheer number of sleepless nights she had had, just thinking about everything. Her ideology and how it clashed with the Poppy’s, mainly. That was why she had scrapped the video her crew was working on, why she had put on hold the heists they had planned.

She knew she still had a long way to go, but she was willing and raging to go. A change was long overdue.

“Just one chance. I won’t let it go to waste.”

…

“It was creepy enough when it was Vivienne, but I didn’t expect to endure this type of thing again.” Zoe holds up a gift for everyone to see with a small grimace. Jett takes one look at it and whistles in appreciation.

“Those are some quality paints, alright. You’re going to have a field day with those, Kar.”

“Who said I was going to use them?”

“So I can throw them out or-”

“What? No! Zoe, don’t!”

Vivienne smirks from where she is curled up on the couch, amusement crinkling in her eyes. “Now this is a development, thought I can’t say it was unexpected.” The mirth dies down soon enough. To anyone else she’d look composed, detached, but the members of the Poppy know her well enough to detect the hint of worry clouding her expression. “How do you feel about this, Karina? Would you like us to handle it?”

“I can think of a few ways that might be effective.” Leon adds, from the other side of the room, a frown firmly in place.

“She just can’t give up, can she?” Remy huffs. “First Vivienne, now Karina… When do you think you’ll have your turn, Zoe?”

Zoe gives him a dry look. “Never. Not if I can help it. But seriously Kar, what do we do? If I have to see another gift from that woman, I swear-”

“No, no, it’s okay.”

The living room is always alive with noise when the Poppy gathers in it, sharing laughs, the atmosphere light and welcoming. All of that skids to an abrupt stop as soon as Karina has finished talking. Silence reigns so perfectly it becomes deafening, all eyes on her, searching, prodding, as if they were trying to find out when Karina had been replaced by some kind of impostor.

The artist laughs. “Seriously. Just give me at least a week with her. I want to see something.”

“Something?” Nikolai repeats, one of his eyebrows so far up into his hairline Karina is almost expecting it to fall off. “Not that I don’t trust your judgement, but you must remember who we are talking about. One week is plenty of time for her to kill you.”

“One week.” Karina says again, resolute. “That is all I ask.”

The rest of the Poppy sputters in a chaos of half-shouted reasons why this won’t work, and half-muttered inquiries regarding Karina’s sanity. She takes it all in stride, mostly because they aren’t telling her anything new, something she hadn’t considered before making the decision. Curiosity kills the cat, some say, and Karina is definitely curious to see how much Nadia has allegedly changed.

…

“I’m definitely surprised this time.”

Nadia gives her a curious look, her smirk firmly in place. The confidence she exudes is something that had interested Karina from the moment she had first seen the blonde woman, an unhinged storm worth admiring from a distance.

She had certainly mellowed out. There was still a dangerous undertone to her every action, but it was more controlled. Karina wasn’t naive, she knew Nadia could still kill people if she wanted to, probably with no remorse whatsoever, but she had the impression she would at least consider other alternatives before rushing in for the kill. Nadia hadn’t been lying – she had changed.

Or she was a really good actress, but Karina was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

“I didn’t think you’d have such a drastic change in just one month.”

Blue eyes shimmer with delight. Nadia practically preens.

“I’m full of surprises. You’d better get used to that.”

“Good! That just means I won’t get bored anytime soon.”

“I’ll ensure you don’t.”

The chill of the night makes for an excellent excuse to get closer, not that Nadia really needs it. She moves closer to her in one smooth movement, but Karina catches the look the blonde woman sends her way, making sure she’s not overstepping any boundaries. It’s a sweet gesture, something she wouldn’t have expected from Nadia in the past.

They’re on top of the Eiffel Tower. Leon is somewhere near, out of sight, and Karina can just imagine him staring at them from wherever he is with a concerned frown, ready to intervene at any sign of trouble. But nothing of the sort happens. Instead, Karina stands there, transfixed by the anecdotes Nadia is telling her, eyes tracking her every movement with a shocked wonder she hadn’t felt before. There had been a spark with Vivienne, all those months ago, when the Poppy had recruited her, but nothing like the emotion she feels now. There’s a raging fire somewhere in her soul she had ignored until now, emboldened by Nadia’s smile, by her touch, by her mere presence.

And when the date comes to an end, and she stands inches away, blue eyes searching hers for permission?

Karina can only nod, eyes fluttering shut as Nadia slips one finger under her chin, directing her face up, expression softening as she leans in.

She feels like she is on cloud nine.

#Anonymous #answered #contination #lovestruck #lovestruck qot #lovestruck mc #lovestruck nadia #nadia x mc #qot mc #qot nadia #fluff #touching thursday

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mingkii · 3 years

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—get to know me!

Tagged by @skrtbabe <3

When is your birthday?

18th of January 🙇🏽‍♀️

what is your favorite color?

It changes a lot so idk anymore hhh😭

what's your lucky number?

I don't really know? I don't think i have one

do you have any pets?

I am a cat parent of 3 😼 i also have a dog, and another cat and like a dozen of cats that lives outdoors, they are family pets.

how tall are you?

I honestly forgot, i think 164cm? Around 5'4-5'5

how many pairs of shoes do you own?

Five.....i need new shoes but im broke💔

favorite song?

I can't pick a fave but rn it's ride home by ben&ben

favorite movie?

This sometimes changes but i always have the greatest showman and all 3 movies of httyd at the very top of the list.

what would be your ideal partner?

I would say someone similar to me. Someone i could relate to. Also someone with a sense of humor, ion wanna tell a joke and having to explain the joke if they don't get it😭💀

do you want children?

Absolutely not— it the far far future maybe, i would want to adopt instead.

have you gotten in trouble with the law?

what color socks are you wearing?

Transparent/j i ain't wearing any rn skjdjdkd

bath or shower?

Shower 🚿

favorite type of music?

Pop, rmb, bands, my music taste is pretty diverse i gotta say

how many pillows do you sleep with?

3, but sometimes i wake up with 4 😃

which position do you sleep in?

My left side (with my back facing the wall), sometimes on my right if i'm feeling risky😩

what you don't like when you're sleeping?

Loud noises, i really despise being woken up by irritating and loud noises

what do you have for breakfast?

Sometimes if my sleep schedule gets fucked i sleep through breakfast but i normally eat rice and some side dishes in the morning

have you ever tried archery?

No but i want to

favorite fruit?

Grapes, pears, and dragon fruits

favorite swear word?

Bitch— LOL my friends used to tease me cause i use bitch in almost every sentence.

do you have any scars?

I have really sensitive skin so a lot on my arms and legs

are you a good liar?

Yeah💞

what's your personality type?

Infp-t

what's your favorite type of girl?

Uh? Someone that is not a pick me girl

innie or outie?

🤔

left or right handed?

Ambidextrous

favorite food?

Korean corndogs, i love it sm i am craving it rn. Also, sushi, pasta, potatoes, and bread.

are you clean or messy?

A little bit of both, i am pretty organized but i still manage to mess it up afterwards

favorite foreign food?

All of it, i really like food lol

how long does it take for you to get ready?

I take ages in the shower but after that i get dressed pretty quickly

most used phrase?

"LMFAOOO" & Random keyboard smashes

are you a good singer?

Idk, i've been told i sound alright but my parents say i sound like a dying goat

do you sing to yourself?

I mean, don't we all?

biggest fear?

Losing my friends😩🤞

do you like long or short hair?

S h o r t

are you into gossips?

👀🖐️

extrovert or introvert?

I could say i am a bit of an ambivert but i am more of an introvert

favorite school subject?

History

what makes you nervous?

School presentations, reciting infront of the class, and public speaking.

who was your first real crush?

In 3rd grade???? I think. He was a classmate of mine and i thought he was really cute

how many piercings do you have?

2, one in each ear

how fast can you run?

A little above average, but i am not very athletic ksjdjkd

what color is your hair?

Black

what color are your eyes?

Dark brown

what makes you angry?

It's very specific but I don't get angry often.

do you like your name?

Kinda? It's alright, i still prefer my nickname cause people often misspell and mispronounce my name

do you want a boy or a girl as a child?

Either

what are your weaknesses?

Sitting still (is that a weakness? Idk) and my insecurities

what are your strengths?

That i work well under pressure

what is the color of your bedspread?

Dark brown

color of your room?

Off white? Like a super super light beige

Tagging; @moonieric, @fluttering-tbz, and anyone that wants to do this—

#🦊 tag games

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ladybugsfanfics · 4 years

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a different kind of torment | Peter Parker

Pairing: Peter Parker x read

Style: One Shot

WC: 1.8k

Warnings: Angst, idk

Summary: After Green Goblin discovers Spider-Man's real identity, he threatenes the people Peter Parker loves. That includes you, and that includes a safe house where you can't see each other. inspired by the song Remember Me from the Coco movie as a part of @valkyriesride writing challenge

A/N: i made it within midnight (at least for me). I’ve been procrastinating this for so long, have no idea how good it is, but here it is and I hope you all enjoy. Peter and the reader are in college in this (not aged up for any other reason than the fact that the comics have Peter’s identity found out by Green Goblin in college so i got it from there)

Despite the propped open textbook and the two notebooks in front of Peter, he can’t concentrate on the words in front of him. The letters swirl around the pages like alphabet soup. And though the sauna like air around him is making him sweat profusely, that’s not the main reason he can’t focus.

There are two reasons. One of them being the fact that you’re lying on the couch, shedding one piece of clothing after another. Peter finds that weird, seeing as you were the one insisting on turning up the heater. But he also finds it highly annoying as you’re taking away his focus and he has an upcoming test in two days. There’s already enough keeping his mind occupied, his pants tightening isn’t helping.

“Hey, Pete,” you tilt your head up from your phone. Peter raises his gaze from your bare legs to your face. “You done with studying yet?”

He chuckles as he shakes his head. “Why would you think that?”

You shrug. “Just that you weren’t exactly looking at the textbook.” The smirk that colors your face is unmistakable. Peter does his best not to indulge, diverting his gaze back to the pages before him.

He doesn’t see you stand up and make your way to where he sits, doesn’t notice it until one of your arms trail down his chest and your warm breath brushes by his ear. “You sure you’re not done, yet?”

Peter leans back to your touch, enough to see the smirk and lust in your eyes. You place a kiss along his jaw, and move the way to his lips. Peter’s hand instantly comes up to cup your face as he presses his lips against yours. He scoots his chair back, giving you room to swing your leg over his lap. Even with the change in position, your lips are locked together.

It also makes for easier access up Peter’s shirt. Your hands move around the hem of it, fingers teasing the bare skin until your hands glide under his sweater and over his chest. Peter’s own hands move across your thighs, sliding up and down, and he can feel his pants tightening by every little movement.

A stifled moan escapes when you press your tongue into his mouth and your hands slide lower and lower, teasing the lining of his pants. Only, the dread of a conversation Peter’s delayed for far too long―it’s been delayed two hours, but that is far too long considering the importance of the conversation―keeps him from indulging further.

“Y/N,” he says, pulling away you.

You cock your head. “Something wrong, baby?” you ask, frown plastered on your face in concern.

Peter swallows, because god he wishes something wasn’t wrong. But something is, and you need to know. “Uhh, yeah.” He presses his lips together and avoids your gaze.

“Tell me.” Your voice is firm, and the finger that comes under his chin and moves his head back to you, is scorching.

“Umm, okay, so… There’s this thing, that happened.” Peter bites his lower lip, but no matter how much he wants to, he can’t stop looking into your eyes. They sparkle as usual, but the power in your eyes holds his gaze. He takes a deep breath. “Something happened. It involves you.”

You frown. “Spider-man happened?”

Peter nods. “You remember Green Goblin, right?”

“That big green idiot you fought a while back?” Peter nods. “Yeah, why?”

“He found out my identity and he’s threatened everyone I love and that includes you and now you have to move to a safe house.” His mouth moves so fast he’s unsure you actually heard what he said. But when he sees the look in your eyes and the expression on your face, he knows you did.

“I’m sorry.” Peter takes your hands in his, thumb running circles at the back of both. “Tony has a safe house ready. He’s already made the calls needed so that you can keep up with your classes and not get any absence during the time it takes until we catch him.”

You bite your lip, the frown back on your face. “How long?”

“I don’t know.” Peter’s hand comes up to cup your face. “I’m sorry, babe. Does it make it better that MJ and Ned will be there, too?”

“Isn’t it suspicious that we all disappear around the same time?”

A small smile forms on Peter’s face. “MJ’s already there, and Ned’s going up there two days after you.”

You press your lips together. “Can you visit?”

Even before Peter starts to shake his head, he knows you didn’t expect anything else. “I’m not allowed to know where it is.”

---

Probably for the first time in your life, you completely lose yourself in school. Peter said there wouldn’t be a problem to help you keep up with your classes, but you’re not just keeping up, you’re ahead by almost a chapter.

Time runs by so slowly, and if you’re not studying, you’re still with your nose buried in a book. You barely sleep. Just toss and turn, constantly waking up in a cold sweat. Your heart keeps hammering and your thoughts fly out to every place they shouldn’t go.

MJ and Ned are only helpful when they drag you out of your room and force you to eat with them, force you to watch movies you don’t pay attention to, force you to interact and stop worrying so much because…

...Peter will be fine, right?

“He knows what he’s doing.” Ned tries for a reassuring smile, but you’re not sure he’s even convinced himself of that. “Or, not always, but he’s got Mr. Stark.”

You swallow the remnants of your wine glass. “Not helping,” you say as you place the glass back down on its coaster on the coffee table. “Really, guys, all I wish to get was some kind of message that he was alright, or… I don’t know…”

The bottle of wine rests on the rim of your glass as the red liquid flows out like a waterfall. Only the sounds of the drink sloshing against the sides of the glass and liquid hitting liquid, interrupts the silence that lies over the three of you like a blanket. Your eyes fall to MJ, the reasonable one, albeit at times pessimistic.

She shrugs. “The threat was for us, though?”

You nod, but squint at her with eyes full of skepticism. The wine glass is back in your hand, the wine’s cool touch on your lips.

“Then he’s probably not in that much danger. Green Goblin threatened to hurt Spider-man’s loved ones, not Spider-man. Because he knew that would hurt Spider-man psychologically. Now he doesn’t have anyone to hurt, because we’re not there and Peter’s already hurt. In a way, he managed to do the harm he wanted to without doing anything but issue the threat.”

“I don’t think that makes this any better,” you say. “That means Peter’s hurting, I don’t want Peter to be hurting. He’s the one I’m worried about.”

“What? You’re not worried that some green monster’s gonna come here and eat us alive?” Ned shakes his head. “Shocking. But that would’ve been kinda cool, don’t you think?”

You try to suppress a smile as you lightly hit Ned in the back of his head. His hand instantly goes up to touch the spot and a small ‘ow’ follows. “Thanks, though,” you eventually say. “I know I’m not that easy to be with currently, but you’re… thank you for being such good friends.”

MJ smiles. “I’m just thankful I’m not alone. If I had to get stuck with someone, at least I tolerate you guys.”

“Thank. I tolerate you, too.” You roll your eyes, but at least the smile’s actually forming on your face now. The worry is still a feeling at the bottom of your gut, and the nerves are still running at high speed, but there’s an ease to it that wasn’t there earlier.

---

Three months, one week, four days, eight hours and twenty-three minutes.

That’s how long it is since you last saw Peter. That’s the exact amount of time that has passed since he said goodbye the day after he told you what was happening.

And now, as the car pulls into the garage of the compound (the secret compound that you, as a civilian, aren’t supposed to know about), your heart pounds louder and faster than it has all that time you’ve been worrying about Peter.

The thing is, you don’t actually know what pulled you out of the safe house. MJ and Ned only knocked on your door and told you Tony Stark was there, and that you were getting to go home.

But you didn't get know anything else, something that is killing you as the door to the car opens. Ned, MJ, and you are led by Tony to a set of elevators. Inside, Tony presses a button with letters on it instead of numbers. The silence is deafening and everything inside of you is buzzing. Energy that surges through your body, adrenaline flowing through your veins, and both there for positive and negative assumptions alike.

Finally, the elevator doors chime open. (And a relieved sigh relaxes you a little seeing that you’re not entering a medical wing). The doors open into an open space with a comfort area to one side and a table with chairs surrounding it to the other. And that may be the first thing you see, but a moment later you see who you’ve been waiting to see for so long.

Peter rises to his feet, and if you didn’t know him so well you’d miss the look of pain that crosses his face, but you see it. Your feet run on their own accord, your arms flinging around him and hugging him tightly, whatever hurt him be damned because you haven’t seen him in so long.

“I’ve missed you so much,” you say and pull your head away to look at him, grip still tight in a fear of letting him go.

“I’ve missed you, too.” He smiles, one hand coming up to cup your face, and you lean into the touch. “But right now, you’re holding onto me a little too tightly and uhm… can you loosen the grip?”

Your eyes widen and you smile as you loosen your grip. “I’m sorry.”

Peter smiles. “It’s okay.”

And you nod. “You’re okay, that’s what matters.” With another smile, you lightly press your lips to his. When you pull away, you hug him to you and leaning your head on his chest. You can hear his heartbeat; a steady rhythm that soothes tension in your body after all the worrying.

After being away for so long, you don’t want to ever let go of him again.

permanent tags: @devilbat @adefectivedetective @gamillian @he-is-chaotic-she-is-psychotic @heartislubbingdubbing @wiczer @chillcan @geeksareunique @fandom-imagines1

#vals400writingchallenge #peter parker #peter parker x reader #spider-man #spiderman #spider man #spiderman x reader #marvel x reader #avengers x reader #green goblin #mj #ned #michelle jones #reader insert #marvel #avengers

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karliesbuzzcut · 4 years

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When art really speaks to you, pt. 2: probably just a coincidence but idk

Disclaimer: all these theories are rabbit holes on their own, so trying to explain them in a couple of paragraphs is, automatically, doing them a disservice. Especially since I’m only going to be primarily addressing the part of the theory that focuses on the artist communicating with their public through their work.

Since I’ve already dedicated paragraphs to the introduction in part 1, let’s just jump into it.

Leonardo Da Vinci’s fuckton of theories.

Let’s start with the daddy of all conspiracies. After all, not many can gloat about their reachings becoming a movie starring Tom Hanks.

The thing with Da Vinci’s conspiracies is that there are so many of them, and they range from “maybe this is also a painting made by Da Vinci but he wasn’t credited because of reasons” to ALIENS. Which, I think, shows how different our interpretations of art can be, and how much it depends on an already established worldview.

But the most interesting part isn’t the conclusions, but how people look for clues. For example, just like people say Taylor Swift is obsessed with numbers or oranges (depending who you ask, I guess), Da Vinci was supposedly a big fan of reflections. So, if you want to decode his paintings you must mirror them... and then move then a little bit... there you go, you’ve just found yourself an alien...! Or a daemon...! Or someone wearing a funny hat! And that’s totally what he wanted us to find, right? Why else would he had shown any sort of interest in reflections if he didn’t want us to reflect everything!!

Shakespeare is an illusion... kinda, but yeah.

Personally, I think Kaylors would love to dig into this one. Sure, it doesn’t have many lesbians playing political spies. But it does involve a lot of literature analysis. Just like Kaylors don’t think a heterosexual woman could’ve written Taylor’s songs; some people (referred as anti-Stratfordians, thank you very much) don’t think someone from a lower class could’ve written Shakespeare’s plays.

Here’s the tea... the very cold tea: because Shakespeare was the son of a glover, anti-Stratfordians say he couldn’t have had the knowledge to write his plays. They, instead, come up with a list of “more suitable” writers that could’ve worked together. But they decided to keep their identities a secret because being a play writer, at that time, wasn’t respectable. Here, we will start noticing a trend with Conspiracy Theories: society, as a whole, can’t handle the truth, only a selected few. That’s where Francis Bacon comes in.

Francis Bacon was a very smart dude. He, also, worked for the state - giving him the credentials to be worthy of writing Shakespeare calibre plays. And also, also, he developed a method to conceal messages in the presentation of a text. To be able to do this, you would need to use two typefaces. Guess what has more than one typeface? Shakespeare’s plays.

I have to say - while I don’t believe either theory we have seen, they are somewhat understandable. We barely know anything about Shakespeare and Da Vinci beyond their work, so it’s normal that people are trying to figure out who they were; what did they believed in; where did they get all of their knowledge. We like theorising about the answers to these questions, knowing we’ll never get a confirmed truth. Not so the case with our next conspiracy...

Lewis Carroll was Jack the Ripper - someone had to be, right?

Now, allow me to fangirl all over this one. It combines my interests for conspiracy theories, true crime and pop-culture.

I’m assuming everyone here knows about Jack the Ripper: a serial killer who murdered at least 5 people (mainly prostitutes) in London, between the years 1888 and 1891. Well, someone looked at this and thought “you know what this murder-mystery is missing? Famous people”. Well, this theory says that the author of Alice in Wonderland did it He was the only celebrity living nearby at the time of the killings, so... 🤷‍♀️

This becomes a case of “I have already made up my mind about this issue, so I’m going to go ahead and search for proof that confirms it”. Authors and, now, internet sleuths went through his books, selected this random-ass excerpt from the nursery version of Alice and decided it was an anagram. And a crappy one at that. Supposedly, if you arrange the letters you get a detailed and gruesome confession. You, however, have to take away some letter and add others. Listen, I’m not an English major, but I’ve heard that’s cheating.

This theory also has that characteristic we mentioned: the “I don’t want to admit it out loud, so I’m going to come up with convoluted ways for my audience to figure it out” - which almost borders on psychotic behaviour. But at least it, somewhat, works with the serial killer narrative, you know? Not very much with Taylor, a woman who simply wants to chill with her girlfriend.

The moon landing was fake and directed by Stanley Kubrick.

I’m not going to dig into the moon landing conspiracy, this post is going to be long enough already. Just know that, when the USA government was planning to fake the whole thing, they had just watched ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ and they were all like “that’s so cool! That’s how we want our fake moon landing to look!” So they contacted its director, Kubrick.

According to the theory, Kubrick felt really guilty afterwards but he couldn’t say anything about it because he signed an NDA? it would be dangerous, I guess. So he did the same thing Taylor would do decades later: he “spelled it out” for us on his work, under the excuse of “I didn’t explicitly said it, did I? My most intelligent and attractive fans just happened to figure it out for themselves”.

The movie ‘The Shinning’ has been analysed to shreds. Think ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ music video, but 2 hours and 26 minutes instead. There are many theories about its underlying theme, but we’re only focusing on the moon landing one. The biggest piece of evidence, according to believers, comes from that famous scene in the hallway. Basically, the kid, Danny, is on the floor playing and wearing an Apollo 11 sweater. He stands up = the rocket launches. He walks to Room N.237. Which is almost an anagram for MOON - but actually, a perfect anagram for MORON - I didn’t come up with that joke, I’m just sharing it. Anyway. In the book, the room number is 217 but Kubrick changed it to 237 because there are 237,000 miles between the Earth and the Moon... except that’s not exactly true, but this is their Kissgate, you see?

“Paul is Dead” aka “the granddaddy of Kaylor is Real”

Now, this is THE conspiracy theory. Kaylors would love to have the amount of evidence this theory has. Give them 50 years, they’ll get there.

Our story starts in 1966, Paul McCartney dies in a car accident. The British Government panics, “this will drive our teenagers into a massive suicide!” So they cover it up. They find this guy who looks like Paul and hire him to replace the original.

You might’ve only heard about those stores where pop-stars get their beards. But there’s also a branch that focuses on celebrity look-a-likes.

The rest of The Beatles went along with it (because that’s how these artists seem to operate, they’re always the victims of their circumstances) but they did not like it. So - you guessed it - they used their music, artwork, photo-shoots, etc. to communicate the truth. Faux-Paul might’ve felt a bit awkward about it, but he’s a nice chap and let the other guys work through their grief.

Kaylors might have agreed on blue being the colour of breaks up and yellow is for Karlie-Sunshine; but the Paul-truthers concluded white is the colour of heaven, jeans are for gravediggers and black for morticians... oh! And not wearing shoes means you’re dead. Taylor being near a door symbolises her leaving the closet; Paul being near an open trunk symbolises him being in a coffin. Is the letter K, for Karlie, surrounding Taylor? Well, there’s a 28IF in the plaques of a car, for Paul being 28 IF he hadn’t died. People hear a phantasmagorical “she” in ‘Call It What You Want’; just like people heard “I buried Paul” in ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’.

If you have never looked up this theory, I seriously recommend it. There are so many parallels with Kaylor. Here’s a 30 minute video, if you’re interested. It summarises the theory neatly while discussing the effects that these, seemingly innocent, conspiracies have on the way we absorb information.

Paul might be dead but 2pac is very much alive.

If I haven’t made it clear by now, I think it’s very deceptive to use a musician’s lyrics to back up your alternate version of events. As confessional as these verses can be, they’re still a form of art. Which, in terms of music lyrics, they need to follow certain parameters, as well as a desired sound. And, as many other forms of art, they might focus a bit more on transmitting a feeling, rather than an accurate portrayal of reality.

Why am I stopping to say all of this now? Well, because this specific theory relies a lot on Tupac’s lyrics.

A bit of context: In 1996, Tupac Shakur was shot 4 times while at a stoplight. He died from his injuries days later. While there are theories, to this day, no one knows who killed him. Unless you believe one of those theories, which claims no one did.

The believers of this theory cite Tupac’s lyrics to argue that he was explicitly telling his fans that he was going to fake his own death. Here are two examples:

I’ve been shot and murdered, can’t tell you how it happened word for word but best believe that n*****’ gonna get what they deserve. - Richie Rich’s N***** Done Change

I heard rumours that I died murdered in cold blood, traumatised pictures of me in my final states — you know mama cried. But that was fiction, some coward got the story twisted - Aint’ Hard 2 Find

Just like anti-Kaylors don’t necessarily oppose the idea of Taylor being gay; I bet the “antis” of this theory aren’t happy Tupac died and weren’t against his existence on the first place. It’s more of an argument about confusing your feelings with facts, just because they can be more comforting or exciting.

“Avril Lavigne is dead”... or “every artist you think is alive is, actually, dead and, the ones you think are dead, aren’t” I guess.

After everything we have seen, this one isn’t that interesting. The real Avril died in 2003, right after her first album. Her record label bought a new one. Proof? She says ‘dead’ in ‘My Happy Ending’, blah, blah. A poor man’s “Paul is Dead”.

I added it, mainly for the lulz, after the last entry, I needed them. But also because it all started with a blog. What’s hilarious is that the guy who created it admitted he only did it to show how gullible people are but, at that point, he had already convinced people about. The conspirators didn’t need him anymore. So they discarded him but not the Theory... which just reminds me a little too much of how TCG, HBH, Jennyboom &co. have been excommunicated from the Church of Kaylor.

Beyonce and Jay Z are members of the sexy sexy Illuminati.

I did not save the best for last. But maybe I’m just biased because the Illuminati theory bores me to death. However, if you allow me a bit of social criticism... remember how the Shakespeare Conspiracy started because a bunch of classicist people didn’t believe a lower class citizen could write such good plays? I think this one has a bit of that. I’d bet my life that this one started when a bunch of white dudes got super uncomfortable by black people being so talented and earning their successful.

What this Conspiracy shows, too, is the amplifying effect the internet has had on the proliferation of such theories. Most of the conspiracies I’ve mentioned were huge... but how were you supposed to communicate your ideas and add to the old ones, before the internet? You could publish a book. Talk about it at parties. And, at some point, there were internet forums but, still, you can’t compare that to how widespread Social Media is nowadays.

Today, we can watch someone ramble for 2 hours on YouTube about how Beyonce looks like a robot if you watch Single Ladies in reverse; read someone’s dissertation of ‘Apeshit’; or spend all night looking at those pictures where someone has drawn a red circle around anything that resembles a triangle.

It might look like a lot of evidence but that’s only because there are a lot of people very attached to this theory. Wanting - for whatever reason - for it to be true (perhaps because it would confirm that their fears about the world were well founded). And all those dozens or hundredths of people were working together to form as many patterns as possible.

Unfortunately we are going to keep talking about the Illuminati in Part 3 but also about Taylor, so that should be nice. Because - to the surprise of absolutely no one - there’s a bunch of people who also think they understand Taylor better than the rest. That they have figured out her secret codes and her ultimate message. Only, not all of those theories involve lesbian supermodels, so they aren’t as popular on Tumblr.

#Kaylor #conspiracy theory

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bigskydreaming · 5 years

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Hoo boy. Actually using a cut on this one because it got long even by my standards, so....yikes. LOL. Umm, it started out salty but then it got angsty and then it got salty again and then maybe salt-angsty? Idk, whatever, its about Tim and also Damian and also BFTC and also Ric and its a freaking mess but also probably more coherent than I’m advertising it as here? I don’t fucking know, man, my baseline for this stuff is so fucked, never take my word for it. Okay, anyway!

So I’m probably always gonna be more salty about Tim and the reactions to the Robin/Red Robin thing and to Dick not believing him about Bruce, than I am even about people giving Dick shit for being a bad brother to Jason.

Because with the latter, even though I shout a lot about how there’s no real canon basis for the “Dick was an asshole to Jason before his death” stuff, it is true that most of their interactions had to happen offpanel, where we didn’t see them....so even though I’ll always be like umm, guys, why do you insist on headcanoning Dick as Douche of the Year when you could just as easily headcanon him and Jason getting along....I mean, I do still understand that we didn’t see either of those things really, so its dealer’s choice.

But its different with Tim, because we DID see Dick build a relationship with him, practically every step of the way. For years and YEARS, both in real time and comic book time, Dick made Tim a huge fucking priority in his life. Called him his brother long before Bruce adopted him. Took him places to train, and tried to make training fun too at times. Checked in on him, came running when he needed help. Dick DID THE WORK of building their bond. We saw it happen, in canon. It didn’t just magically appear fully formed, no more than Dick’s bond with Damian did....yeah Tim wasn’t as resistant as Damian was, but that doesn’t change the fact that Dick made an effort to show up in this kid’s life as often as he realistically could. Dick was a rock solid presence for Tim that he could count on, knew he could count on, he’d witnessed with his own eyes how damn much Dick cared about him and worried about him. Dick DOTED on this guy.

And then pretty much the first time Dick does something that Tim and his stans didn’t like - not even because he WANTED to, but because he literally felt like it was the choice he HAD to make, to extend some kind of meaningful gesture that this ten year old assassin who pretty much ONLY saw value in things like symbols and legacies and mantles at that particular point in his life would actually see as a reason to stay - the second Dick prioritized someone else over Tim, not because he didn’t want to be there for Tim, but because he had to make an actual CHOICE, he was just one person, he literally could not be all things to all people all at the same time....

Like, Tim and a lot of his fandom act like this was Dick abandoning Tim as a brother. Rejecting him. What????

And for the record, if we’re gonna talk about how dare Dick choose this kid he barely knows over Tim, his brother of years, not even mentioning what Damian did to Tim already.....like, let’s not forget that its not like Damian was some random stranger who held no possible emotional significance to Dick whatsoever. Like, Tim was fixated on his conviction that Bruce was alive, but Dick didn’t disbelieve him just to be an asshole, he just genuinely believed that he’d buried his father....and here was this prickly little ten year old who was the LAST possible piece of Bruce left in the world. Like, screw the idea that Dick was more drawn to Damian from the start because Damian was ‘the blood son’ and Bruce’s heir more than Tim was, that makes zero sense without Dick devaluing his own equally adoptive connection to Bruce himself.

Nah, instead try the take that for Dick, Bruce wasn’t just the source of his family in the sense that Bruce was a second father to him....it was also because time and time again, Bruce added to Dick’s family, grew it by yet one more sibling, gave him more family than he’d ever have had without Bruce....and here comes Damian. One last addition to Dick’s family, via Bruce....and he’s not especially significant for the reason that he’s Bruce’s biological son unlike the rest of them, and this somehow elevates him over Dick’s other brothers from the start.....nope, its just as likely a read that Damian’s significant for Dick, he’s someone Dick HAS to take a chance on, HAS to bring into their family one way or another, has to get to ACCEPT them as family, to BE family, no matter what it takes.....because Damian is the last new sibling they’ll ever have, as far as Dick knows at that point.

Bruce is dead, he thinks. There will be no more new brothers and sisters from that point on, whether biological or adopted....because Bruce isn’t there to be the one to widen their family again, one more time. No, Dick thinks, that falls to him now, he’s the only one who can do that.....he’s the only one who can make this one last gift from their dad, this prickly assassin child who so clearly is desperate for love and affection and approval and the very same things so many of them struggled with, its up to Dick to make sure he doesn’t LEAVE, that he doesn’t reject THEM, that he stays, stays family even without Bruce to be the connection...because anything less than that, anything other than making this one last potential brother, because he’s already connected to Bruce, the actual basis of that connection being shared biology not really that relevant, just that this connection EXISTS even without Bruce’s presence....failing to make him their brother in REALITY, in FULLNESS, rather than just a tangential association that benefits none of them, adds nothing to their family...to Dick, the very idea of that must be like it’d be failing Bruce one last time, squandering his last gift to their family, when his greatest gifts have always been the siblings he added to their number.

So Dick had to get Damian to stay, to see that he had family here, by any means necessary, and so of course Dick did the only thing he knew would work, the only thing that has EVER worked except for in the case of Cass who is an outlier and should not be cited in reference to any of her brothers’ emotional obstinancy ever...he gave Robin to Damian....the only thing that has ever bonded him and his brothers, the only thing Dick has that didn’t come straight from Bruce and that he could offer on his own, the only thing that all his brothers value so highly, and thus in that they’re all connected.

And its like, so the first time Dick does something that Tim actually doesn’t like, that’s proof that Dick doesn’t really care about him, like all those years of bending himself into a pretzel to try and show up for his little brother every chance he could, no matter what else was going on in his life....like suddenly they mean nothing. Like Dick was only ever actually a good brother...so long as he was doing what Tim wanted. So long as he was prioritizing Tim properly.

And people compare it to Bruce and what happened between he and Dick years earlier, when Bruce fired Dick as Robin, when first off, there’s the fact that Robin is and was Dick’s and never Bruce’s, but I’ve gone over that to death, but secondly, there was no FIRING Tim as Robin, like there was no scene ever where Dick took Robin AWAY from Tim. I realize that might be parsing semantics to a degree, as by making Damian Robin, there was the implicit assumption that Tim now would no longer be Robin, but my point is that....there was NO scene where Dick did or said anything that can reasonably be construed as him thinking Tim wasn’t good enough to be Robin, wasn’t cutting it, was a liability, or that he wasn’t his brother. Could it have been written better, the exact how and when of making Damian Robin, that took Tim’s feelings more into account? Sure.

But I maintain there is no version of that scenario that was ever going to satisfy fans who simply wanted Tim and only Tim to be Robin and weren’t interested in this newest one....which is ENTIRELY different from what happened between Bruce and Dick, no matter WHICH version of that story you go with....because there WAS no one else to be Robin at that particular time. It wasn’t happening because Bruce felt someone else needed it more than Dick. The ONLY conclusions there, were always going to be that....Bruce’s motivations or thoughts there were about Dick, in some way or another.

With Tim and Damian.....it wasn’t that at all, because it wasn’t like Dick just out of the blue said hey, Bruce dying has made me decide its too dangerous out there, I’m going to be Batman but I’m going to do it alone, I don’t want you being Robin anymore. No, he only did it to GIVE Damian something, to bring in MORE family, make that circle WIDER and try and build a connection that at the time was non existent. That’s an entirely different motivation than just wanting to TAKE AWAY Robin from Tim, purely because of something to do or not to do with Tim and nobody else.

And Dick literally told Tim it was because he felt Tim was too GOOD to be Robin anymore? Because he viewed Tim as an equal and wouldn’t be comfortable ordering him around in the field, the way Batman and Robin’s dynamic has always worked? And that just....didn’t mean anything to either Tim or most of his fans, because it wasn’t what they WANTED to hear, it wasn’t ‘oh I realized I made a mistake, Tim please be Robin again’ so it might as well have never been said, I guess.

But another huge component of Dick’s angst when he was fired as Robin was because no matter how close he and Bruce had been before that, Bruce had never actually taken the initiative and clarified what their relationship was without Batman and Robin in the picture, what Dick was to him, if and when Dick was no longer Robin. And even after he fired Dick, its not like he stepped up then either to offer an alternative view of how he saw Dick....he was perfectly willing to let Dick just go off and become Nightwing and at no point take the initiative to reach out to Dick and clarify hey, just because I thought it was too dangerous for you to be Robin, that doesn’t mean I stopped viewing you as my family, as my son. No, he waited for Dick to come back to HIM before he could even manage to utter that he’d missed Dick at all.

And that is not Dick and Tim’s dynamic and never was??? Because Dick CONSTANTLY told Tim he was family, he was his brother, long before all of that went down in RR #1. Dick expresses affection openly and often, so much so that the joke has long been that he can be smothering with that. And at the time, Tim was very much legally a Wayne, as was Dick, so....where on earth in any of that was the implication that Dick was in any way trying to reject Tim as a brother? That whatever Dick did with the mantle of Robin could at that point have anything to do with their status as brothers....which had for a long time by that point existed entirely independent of what they both did or didn’t do as vigilantes?

Not to mention the fact that unlike with Bruce and him, where Bruce had shown no effort to reach out to Dick in the literally-according-to-canon EIGHTEEN MONTHS between firing Dick after the Joker shot him and Dick coming back to the cave to confront Bruce about adopting Jason and making him Robin....

Again, not remotely accurate in comparison to Dick and Tim, because even when Tim left, pissed off and hurt....Dick still tried to check up on him constantly, worried about him? Asked others to look after him when Tim kept rejecting his attempts to reach out? Where the fuck does all this stuff about Dick making no effort to hang on to Tim and keep him in his life come from, I would def love to know.

Because if its just about the fact that Dick didn’t believe him about Bruce being alive at first.....I’m just gonna say it. That’s a really fucking shitty thing to hold against someone. LOLOL, yeah, he sucks because he ‘refused’ to believe Tim that the father he’d just buried and whose life he essentially now was living - raising his son, running his company, wearing his mantle, protecting his city, all of which is despite the fact that Dick’s ONLY wish for himself for years, as Tim well knew, had simply been to be his own man, live his own life, not just a pale imitation of Bruce’s....

Like basically, that whole thing there is Tim and/or his fandom resenting Dick for.....being too emotionally fragile at that point in time to deal with the possibility Bruce might actually be alive, might be able to be brought back, brought home....since what goes hand in fucking hand with that is the CRUSHING EMOTIONAL DEATHBLOW that’s the inevitable fallout of THAT if Tim turned out not to be right.

We of course know that Tim was right in the end, and we knew it even then too, those of us reading back at the time....because its comics, and its Bruce, and of course he wasn’t going to stay dead forever, which meant yeah duh, Tim is probably right, even without any evidence yet we can say that.

But without that awareness, without any kind of GUARANTEE....can you imagine being told hey, I know it literally sounds too good to be true, too good to be believed, but that thing you’re probably wishing like hell could happen, your dad could come back, maybe he’s not even really dead at all....guess what, it can! And like....you wouldn’t at all be hesitant about that, afraid to trust it, afraid to believe....because that means finding out later that he really was dead and not coming back would be like losing him all over again? Even though you never actually even got him back, just the idea, the hope of it, but that’s still enough to make you start to dream of how much better things could be, if and when you find him and bring it home....except nope, now you have to wake up again, dream’s over, time to face reality....your dad is still dead and he’s always going to be.

And then can you imagine being RESENTED for that, for not believing that because you’re literally just trying to protect yourself from losing anything else when you feel like you’ve already lost everything you can possibly bear to lose and anything else could break you.....to have this thrown in your face and cited as further proof you don’t really love your little brother, you’re rejecting him....when it has absolutely nothing to do with his credibility and everything to do with the freaking emotional toll that’s demanded of asking a twice orphaned guy to just take it on faith because its you that hey, our dad isn’t really dead, we can get him back?!

Not to mention the fact that Tim had almost gone some VERY fucking dark roads in the not too distant past because he had trouble dealing with Kon’s death, and those of his other friends, not to mention his other dad, Jack....all things that fandom cite for why Dick was so brutal to basically pile on to all of Tim’s other losses by taking Robin away too....but Dick KNEW all this and that’s literally a huge part of WHY he was so worried about Tim, because being aware that your little brother canonically has trouble dealing with major losses and was still reeling from a shit ton of major losses when he lost Bruce too and oh god, I know I made it worse by making Damian Robin instead but I didn’t know what else to do there and its not like I can take it back or change things when I didn’t see an alternative in the first place.....like...are these not legitimate freaking reasons for thinking that said little brother insisting that Bruce wasn’t dead and they could get him back the same way he refused to accept there was no way to bring Kon back....miiiight be more to do with explantions other than...oh yeah our Dad is actually totes alive and just time traveling because that’s what happens when magic god energy kills you, duh, everyone knows that?

Like, its not really that much of a stretch even to take practically everything Dick says to Tim about Tim’s possible mental state as just Dick projecting like hell about his OWN mental state and how much he’d fucking love to take a break and take some time to get his head sorted out before diving right back into the chaotic mess that is their day to day lives.

But like, both Tim and many of his fandom STILL really just don’t even hold back about not caring about any of the time Dick put into building and nurturing the fuck out of a happy, healthy, wholesome relationship with his little brother, not when he then turned around and ruined it by hurting Tim by.....reluctantly prioritizing someone else at a time that Tim really could have used him in the specific way and dynamic they were used to....and not being willing to believe him about Bruce, and in doing so open himself up to the possibility of losing Bruce all over again.

Like???? So many of the mistakes Dick is most vilified for in Batfandom as a whole are in reality actually just....times when he did something people don’t like, because it didn’t center or prioritize their personal favorite SPECIFICALLY, as in above all others. Even though in almost all of these specifics, Dick is actually asked to CHOOSE between two different loved ones or siblings, both equally demanding his attention and focus and efforts....and he’s only allowed to prioritize one, because that innately creates conflict with the other.

Like I know when we stan, its pretty natural for us to get blinded by our biases and not look at the whole picture, like of course we all inevitably tend to think our personal faves were most right or most valid or most hurt, but like just look at that for a second....

Look at how many of the occasions when Dick is considered to have made a mistake and really done wrong by one of his family as a result....how many of those situations are literally a catch-22, where the ONLY way for Dick to have made the ‘right choice’ in the eyes of one particular character’s fans....is for him to have chosen to prioritize that character over the one he actually prioritized in canon....which simply means that even if Dick had taken the road not taken there in canon, he STILL would be just as resented....just by the other’s fans now instead.

Or when its not about fans at all, but characters, like in the Forever Evil aftermath....the ONLY way for Dick to have made the ‘right choice’ in the eyes of all the characters who give him crap for it later....would have been for him to look his father in the eye, while he himself is at absolute rock bottom, an emotional wreck, and in response to Bruce’s blatant manipulation of Dick’s guilt complex there, say “no, I’m not going to do what you’re asking me to do, even if it costs me your trust and affection?” Like can you imagine being pissed at a guy for NOT being able to say that to their dad when their dad is currently trying to pull the mother of all guilt trips...as if that’s an easy thing to do even when someone’s calm and at their peak emotional health....and not like, recovering from having been tortured and killed and revived just the day before?

Like ahflshglashfa. Srsly? C’MON!

And my question is okay, so when have ANY of the others ever been DEMANDED to make a choice, to pick either Dick or someone else to make their priority...and they chose Dick over that someone else? The CLOSEST I can actually come up with is the end of Under the Red Hood, when Jason taunts Bruce by telling him he better go check on Dick.....BECAUSE THEY BOTH SAW THE SKY TURN GREEN FROM GOTHAM CUZ SOMEONE JUST DROPPED A NUKE ON DICK’S CITY.

(And for the record, I ABSOLUTELY have read stories that bring that up as a point of resentment for Jason, that Bruce was willing to leave their confrontation....because he was worried about Dick....who was in the city that was just leveled by a nuke. Like...that’s not him running to kiss Dick’s boo boo all better because he skinned his knee maybe, lmfao.)

But srsly, its easy not to get blamed for making the ‘wrong’ choice in an impossible ask that doesn’t ALLOW for you to ever make an actually ‘right’ choice...when YOU’RE not the character who is constantly put in that lose/lose situation, specifically in regards to your family. Which is not really a situation that Jason, Tim, Cass, Damian, Duke, are really ever often in, you gotta admit?

AND DICK CONSTANTLY IS.

But yeah, I’m especially cranky about this today, hence the epic rant even by my standards lol, because I’ve been stewing about the Ric storyline still, and what I was saying there about how nobody’s ever really asked to put forth effort that actually COSTS them something, for Dick’s sake specifically...

Because that’s what made me think of the Red Robin stuff, after BOTC. Because just like the Batfamily apparently has no big issues with leaving Ric alone, per his wishes....it would have been SO much easier for Dick to just take the hint when Tim basically was like I’m mad at you, looking to stay that way, so leave me alone unless you’re ready to help me do what I think needs to be done. But Dick DIDN’T stop trying, even though Tim was PISSED at him, and making no effort to hide it, Dick was still like....fuck it, I’ll send Steph to try and look out for you if you won’t let me do it, and yeah maybe that’s less than fucking ideal too but I’m not making good decisions here for a reason like OH YEAH MY LIFE WENT DOWN THE CRAPPER WHEN DAD DIED TOO, and just because you’re mad at me doesn’t mean I can stop worrying about you.

So Ric was mean to the Batfamily, and because of that, I should give a shit what this has to do with them and whether or not they owe it to DICK, their brother, friend, son, to still show up and keep TRYING anyway, no matter what Ric says, because they’re not here for him anyway, they’re here for Dick Grayson, who they all know and believe is still in there somewhere, and they’re not going to let him get hurt anymore than he has been just because the guy in the driver’s seat right now insists he’s not him and doesn’t want to be?

Nope, I’m more like, WELCOME TO THE CLUB, BATFAMILY, FOUNDING PRESIDENT: DICK GRAYSON. Now you too get to for once share in the joys and delights of having to ask more than once for your brother to let you so much as freaking HUG him, without him insulting you or throwing that in your face or bringing up all the times you did stuff he didn’t like and that’s why he doesn’t want you around.

Except.....*searches high and low* no Batfam currently demonstrating levels of give a shit and/or remorse in regards to Dick, shock, woe, how can this be, what a mystery, much befuddlement.

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stansbooty · 5 years

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it chapter 2 review

listen up people i just got back from seeing the movie and i have a lot of feelings (spoilers under the cut of course)

-so first of all i don’t understand people saying it was underwhelming??? i loved it. obviously it has some flaws, as all movies do, but like....underwhelming? no. i thought it was real fucking good. but i will start with the positives first before i give me few negatives

-THE ACTING. like omg i know the kid actors are good and all but these guys being experienced adult actors like you can really tell with the emotions they give. bill hader obviously was purely amazing but no one talked about how great jay ryan was. his little things and his tones and facial expressions like wowie that boy can act. i truly felt all the fear and the heartbreak and everything that all the losers felt.

-also ISAIAH i really felt like he was chosen grown up ngl

-i personally loved how they all went off to get their artifacts by themselves, having to face their fears alone before they all came together. it’s like a little bit of them having to see themselves be brave before they can truly believe they can defeat it.

-their soft post battle friendship as kids??? just so soft and pure and lovely

-tbh i thought this was a lot scarier than the first one. like it plays out very much as an action movie but you can most definitely define it as a horror movie bc i was jumping and very much scared

-EDUARDO.

-back to it being scary like pennywise? so terrifying in this one and the monsters? THE FUCKING STAN HEAD WITH SPIDER LEGS. i was terrified just saying

-the most beautiful part in the movie is honestly the part with ben being buried alive and bev with the blood like them calling out to each other and bev helping him out? like idk it was so well done and pretty

-but also stan’s letter? a++ material

-it was so FUNNY but i didn’t feel like it took away from anything (except for in certain parts but not as a whole)

-things i didn’t like number 1 and basically the biggest thing: didn’t actually show eddie die? like why the fuck wouldn’t they show him actually die? ik it was nearly 3 hours long and they had to cut things out but they didn’t think the death of a main character should actually have a death scene?

-kid richie and eddie’s cgi was weird i can’t lie

-the losers not seeming that sad about eddie? i loved the bit once they finally got to the quarry and were talking about him that was good. but like...at first they were just like “oh well he got stabbed lol too bad” but i guess it could be shock? idk

-feels a bit rushed at the end but it makes sense bc this is a long ass book put into a movie. i’m hoping for the director’s cut to make it seem smoother.

-and things that are neither really good or bad but just things i wanna mention

-the adrian and his boyfriend (can’t remember his name) scene was brutal like i was visibly cringing and my theater was gasping it was bad just an fyi

-very gory. very scary. very long.

-ending this with the reddie. truly. the reddie. it was there and it was present and it was great. (but also the hanbrough??? the definitely got married afterwards it’s true)

-anyways that all i can think of i’m gonna see it again soon though and overall a solid like 9/10

#it chapter 2 #it 2019 #it #it chapter 2 spoilers

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eldritchsurveys · 4 years

Text

685.

what was going through your mind during the presidential campaign? were you relieved when it was over? >> This survey is from early 2009 and let me tell you, I don’t even remember the 2008 election anymore. I’ll be fucking relieved when this year’s is over, though (although depending on who wins, the noise might keep going right through the end of the year, so I may get no relief).

what do you think of the Duggar family ( 17+ kids )? could you handle taking care of that many children? >> I have my share of uncharitable thoughts about families with that many children, but I’d rather not give voice to that kind of rudeness. It’s nothing to do with me, anyway. I couldn’t handle taking care of one child, so that’s that on that.

in your opinion, do you think that you act your age? what do other people think? >> I don’t know what it is to act a certain number of years old. I don’t know what other people think regarding this and I really don’t care.

what is the nicest thing you have ever done for a stranger? >> Nothing comes to mind.

so far, what is the number one, best decision you have ever made? how has it effected your life? >> I find it difficult to think of my life in terms of decisions I’ve made, and direct results of those decisions. That’s just not how things work -- I’ve made choices, but the things that happened after those choices are not necessarily direct results of the choices I made. The element of other people and the element of randomness play equal parts, too.

have you reunited with any old friends recently? was it awkward, or just like old times? >> No.

when was the last time you talked to your first ex? >> ---

how different is your online personality from your offline personality? >> It’s the same personality, dude. It might manifest somewhat differently because of the difference in communication style (typed dialogue vs face-to-face dialogue), and that’s all.

have you made any headway on any new year's resolutions? >> I don’t make resolutions.

what are your favorite holiday-themed movies? >> It’s a Wonderful Life, Rise of the Guardians, Klaus, Love Actually.

do you listen to christmas-/winter-themed music when the season comes around? >> I sure do.

if you could create a law, what would it be, and why? what if you could take one away? which, and why? >> I have zero interest in the law.

is there anything that you do that's potentially controversial? >> Well, sure, depending on one’s worldview. I’m sure some special people out there don’t think I should even be alive, in which case my very existence is controversial.

would you ever sign up for a reality television show? if yes: which one, why, and how would you act while on tv? >> No. Absolutely fucking not. NO.

what is your most recent obsession? >> Hmm... Heartman from Death Stranding, maybe. Low-grade obsession, but it counts.

do you say "merry christmas" or "happy holidays"? to you, does it really matter which one is said / you say? do you do your best to remain politically correct? >> I repeat whatever is said to me first, because that’s usually how such interactions go -- I rarely initiate any sort of seasonal greeting like this.

if you could relive one week of your life, which would it be, and why? would you do anything differently, or keep it all the same? >> I would really rather not.

is there a part of your life you wish you could remember, but can't? >> Sometimes I get frustrated with the patchiness and distance, so to speak, of my memory, but I’ve come to expect it. Most of these memories aren’t specifically mine, after all.

what was the last thing / event to trigger a painful memory? >> A lot of my memories are painful because they make me feel alien and disjointed, or like I’ve “lost” something important, or whatever. So, like, I don’t know if anything triggers that, sometimes I just randomly remember shit.

if you had to give up one of your 5 senses, which would it be? >> No thanks.

what do you think of people that choose not to vote? >> I don’t think anything of them. That’s their right. The fuck do I care? Also, I was one of those people until very recently, and I still don’t feel any better or like a better citizen or whatever for having begrudgingly registered.

are you keeping anything from the people you love? >> I mean, not intentionally, I guess.

have you ever written a suicide note, whether joking or not? >> No.

what is the worst physical pain you have endured? >> Cramps.

what is one thing that you want other people to know about you? why is it so important that someone knows this? >> Meh.

what is something you wish people DIDN'T know about you? what would be different if they didn't? >> I have Trauma Brain so I irrationally wish no one knew anything about me because vulnerability bad.

what is the worst question that someone could possibly ask you? what about the worst thing that someone could say to you? >> *shrug*?

would you consider yourself a sensitive person? why, or why not? >> I don’t know. Maybe there is a sensitive person in here somewhere, but it’s buried in all the noise from Trauma Brain. Or maybe Trauma Brain is the sensitive person turned in on itself. I don’t fucking know, next.

you can spend the day with anyone, living or dead; who do you choose? what do you do / where do you go? >> ---

when was the last time you let something 'go to your head'? >> I don’t really know.

when are you most likely to show off? >> I don’t show off. I have nothing to show off, lol.

which would you prefer: spectacular view of the ocean, or of the mountains? >> I like both views. I don’t see why I should have to choose. I live on a landmass where you can easily make trips to see both. (Well, considering travel expenses, “easily” might not be the right word. But.)

do you follow any dating rules / play any dating games? >> No.

when was the last time you felt extremely confident about something? >> Good question.

how do you, personally, know when you are falling in love? >> ---

when was the last time you blew the seeds off of a dandelion? >> Maybe last spring? I don’t know. I do enjoy doing that very much, though.

in your opinion, which holiday is the least important? >> All of the United States-specific ones are just. Trash.

what was the last thing that happened that you couldn't explain? >> I can think of an explanation for anything. Whether the explanation makes any sense to anyone else but me is the question.

what do you do with all of your spare change? >> ---

where did you hear about your all-time favorite band? >> ---

how many cans of soda do you drink in a day? >> Zero.

what is your idea of paradise? >> I never bothered thinking of one. Maybe Inworld is the closest thing.

what do you think goes on in the minds of the opposite sex? >> You know. Thoughts.

what is the oldest thing that you own? and the newest? >> I have no idea what the oldest thing I own is, but I guarantee you it’s not more than 4 years old. The newest thing is an eyeshadow palette and a lipstick that Sparrow got me.

is there anything you wish you had never found out about? >> Probably.

describe your handwriting? >> I don’t know how to describe it. It’d probably be pretty difficult to forge.

have you ever had to choose between friends and family? if yes, what happened? >> No.

in what ways has music affected your life? >> Many ways. It’s a very integral part of my life and has been since childhood. It’s the one constant (aside from Inworld).

what is something that you refuse to believe in? >> I don’t refuse to believe in anything. Some systems just don’t work for me so I don’t use them. They might exist for someone, but they don’t for me.

what is something you wish more people believed in? >> ---

what food is your ultimate comfort food? >> I don’t think I have one.

have you ever put anything inside a time capsule? what? >> When I was pretty young, I tried to make one. But I opened it within like, a year. I couldn’t imagine waiting for like... ten years or whatever because I couldn’t even fathom that kind of time, lmao.

how did you come up with your bzoink screen name? what would you change it to, if you could? >> It’s just one of my standard usernames. I really only registered to avoid seeing that “this is a rated R survey” screen and having to click through it every time.

when was the last time you experienced deja vu? >> I don’t remember. Maybe never.

what do you do when someone snarkily corrects your grammar? >> Ignore them.

what was the last thing that you put quotations around? >> Part of my answer three questions ago.

in the time it took you to fill this out, what else could you have done? >> Well, it’s taken me a half-hour, so I could have done a lot of things in that time. Watched a show episode, eaten, done a dance, idk.

is there too much violence on tv, or are people to sensitive? >> There is a lot of violence on television. People should be sensitive to violence, because desensitisation to violence has led to a lot of bad shit. Personally, I’m mostly desensitised to fictional violence and that probably is becuase I’ve seen a fuckton of it, but fictional violence isn’t the same as real-life violence, and I would probably still react more acutely to violence that’s literally happening in front of me.

what is one "junk food" you enjoy? >> I refuse to label foods like this. It’s reductive and unhelpful.

what is one "health food" you enjoy? >> ^

what is something you used to fear, but no longer do? >> Thunderstorms.

who was your first hero? >> ---

is there anything your friends won't let you forget? >> No?

is there something you have trouble putting into words? >> There are many things I have trouble verbalising.

when was the last time you were at a loss for words? >> I don’t remember.

what bothers you most about getting older? >> The increased likelihood of disease and infirmity.

have you ever flown all by yourself? how was it? >> Many times. It’s lovely.

if you have one hour left to live, how do you spend it? >> ---

do you think it's important to know a 2nd language? >> Sure, but it might not be important to someone else, and that’s fine.

do you know anyone that's just naturally good at almost everything? >> No.

do you know anyone that's just bad at everything? >> No.

what is one emoticon you use often? >> xD

what is one emoticon you almost never use? >> Hmm.... I can’t think of one.

do you use emoticons to express yourself? >> Sure. That’s what they’re there for.

#surveys #survey #random survey

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my-love-peterp · 5 years

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Mistaken Chapter Five

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE ADDED TO THE TAGLIST DROP ME AN ASK

please like and rb/comment <3

Word Count: 2721 (this actually comprises chapters 7 and 8 on Ao3)

THERE ARE NO ENDGAME SPOILERS, THIS IS A DELAYED UPLOAD FROM AO3

Fic Summary: Peter Parker has been given the responsibility of bringing in a new recruit. Now, as an adult, he realizes that none of the trashy YA novels he read in high school could have prepared him for this. There was a storm on the horizon, and all they could do from the Tower is watch.

Chapter Summary: Lol updating within a few hours after weeks of not updating at all? It’s more likely than you think. HOnestly, not my finest work but I’m so tired and I feel so bad about not getting anything out there sooner. I want to change bits and pieces of this story but my goodness, yeah. So if you’d like to Beta read shit for me, y’all would be much appreciated.

Warnings: honestly idk, if I missed something besides language hmu friends

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four

I ran. There was no stopping me. I stole a cowl from a closet and drifted into the shadows, just long enough to leap from the window.

I materialized and flitted down back alleys until I hit Park Ave. I didn’t know much about this area of New York, but every borough has their drinking holes, right?

Minutes later, I was staggering into a quaint little bar that wasn’t quite the dive that I was looking for, but it would do. This was probably better in any case, fewer leering eyes and a hefty, red-haired, Irish woman who kept my drink full and men away.

Hydra was just one of the many skeletons rattling around in my closet, but they were the Rosetta Stone to my trauma in a lot of ways. Not the foundation, but the guide.

Two more glasses of Lagavulin and those pressing thoughts were kicked to the wayside.

Behind me, the grandfather clock chimed five o’clock. Just call me Jimmy Buffet and saddle me up with a margarita.

What no amount of alcohol could do, unfortunately, was erase the people I’d… met with Hydra. Or lost with them. Most of all, I could never forget my sister.

Brave and stupid drunk, I left my drinking post and headed down Park Avenue rather aimlessly. It felt like I was being drawn in a certain direction, meant to be there, which is absolutely absurd, but I was just drunk enough to believe it.

My feet halted half an hour later outside of a quaint little tattoo parlor. I’d always wanted a tattoo but I’d never had the time nor the money to get one. Fortunately, as a runaway Avenger-in-Training, I had both of those in spades now.

And, as fate would have it, the shop was advertising that they were available for walk-ins today.

Whipping out my new cell phone, I pulled up a picture of what exactly I wanted. My sister and I had always fancied we'd get matching ones someday.

The overly muscled and extremely tattooed man just nodded his ascent and began freehanding a design for the Phoenix on my right side. I was decently numbed from the booze, but as time passed, the more my sides protested in pain. Occasionally, I would feel a quick rush of air push cold wind over my aching skin and nearly groan in pleasure.

Finally, three hours later, I was gingerly easing my shirt back on, sides to be kept wrapped for the next hour or so, in case they started bleeding or weeping plasma and ink.

I stood, signed my name along the dotted line for the payment and stepped out on the street to find none other than Pietro standing, back resting against the side of the building with his arms crossed, obviously waiting for me.

Rather than acknowledge his presence, I moved to hail a taxi. He took that moment to wrap his arms around my middle, sending bolts of pain shooting from my fresh tattoos, and bolted down the street.

Fate, should it exist, obviously had a sense of humor. Minutes later, we were standing in the lobby of Avengers Tower.

Hesitantly, I moved for the elevator doors, wincing with every step as it pulled along my aching muscles, both from the walking and the movement of inked flesh. Pietro followed loosely behind me, as I anticipated. Once he had retrieved me, he certainly wasn’t going to let me escape. He was perhaps the one Avenger I couldn’t simply evade or trick, his eyes caught things as though they were moving half the speed they actually were.

An uncomfortable silence ensued as Pietro pressed the button to take us up to the Penthouse, the de facto floor for team meetings.

Despite receiving an equal number of concerned and suspicious glances, most of the team paid me little to no mind.

Peter gestured to Pietro, eyes questioning, and nods were exchanged. What I wouldn’t give to be able to hear what they were thinking. And maybe it was vain of me to assume that they’d been communicating about me, but I was almost positive.

Lost in my reverie, I almost missed the command Cap gave to Wanda to put me under. I hadn’t even taken a step by the time I was falling to the ground, unconscious, caught in lean arms.

It would be the best rest I’d get for weeks to come.

________________________________________________________________

I woke up in my own rooms, restrained to the bed. What had happened was fairly obvious, considering the only person who was in my rooms besides me was Tony. And he had an Iron Gauntlet trained on me as I came to. I hacked to clear my throat before speaking. “Seems like a bit of overkill Grandpa.”

Tony just glared down at me, not moving a single inch or softening in any way.

I tried again. “So I take it Witchy rummaged around in my head and found some… Not so savory things. Perhaps my stint as a Hydra assassin. Maybe the length of my kill list even. Let me guess, you’re currently prepping a room for me at whatever new and improved raft you built to keep Thanos locked up and never coming back. Fair warning, I’ll never go willingly and I can put up one hell of a fight.”

“Fortunately for you, that decision’s not up to me and would require the input of the feds, which, knowing what we do now, I can fairly certainly say, you’d prefer if they stayed out of it. 12 US government officials assassinated in less than three months by yours truly. Wow. Talk about a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Were I not a better man, I’d shoot you right now.”

“So why are you here Tony, if not to kill me?” I snarled back at him. “What good does me being alive do? To anyone.” That startled him a little bit, shell shocked enough to look up and into my eyes, where I saw my own feral irises reflected.

But he steeled himself again within moments. And then, out of the breast pocket of his blue blazer, he grabbed a sheet of paper.

Not a sheet of paper I realized as he folded it out for me. A picture of a skinny redheaded woman. One I recognized intimately. “Target 17. What do you need to know?” I questioned coldly, unfeeling. That made him jerk backward in his seat and hastily stand, panting and heaving, murderous intent glinting in his brown eyes.

“Her name was Pepper. And she was killed three days before our wedding, carrying my child. So I’d like to know. Was it-,“ he spat out like the words were physically fighting to escape from his body.

“Was it me? No. I was in the wind with my sister for a few months after our covers were almost blown taking out a diplomat in Indonesia. For what it’s worth, I truly am sorry Tony. Especially,” I said, voice dropping to a whisper, “about your son.”

“Excuse me, my what?” Fists clenched, he strode up to the side of my bed, closer to my head. I shied away from him as he bent down and got into my face. “What did you just say to me?”

Fuck. He didn’t know and I just made it ten times worse. The sound of his repulsor charging broke the most pregnant silence I’d ever heard. Before he could fire, though, Thor and Steve burst through the door and caught him as he collapsed in anguish, taking him away, leaving me alone. They knew everything about my time with Hydra. The evil I’d done and the evil I’d allowed to happen. I was the enemy. And I had no backup.

So back to normal.

Hours later, I gave in to my bone-deep weariness and collapsed into sleep. Dream after fever dream encased my drained mind, ephemeral and diaphanous. Most images were forgotten immediately, flighty and fragile as a butterfly’s wing. Others though, others stuck like mosquitos stuck in amber. Flashes.

Light, blood, destruction. Tattooed stars and deep, harrowing scars on ragged faces. Sobbing little boys with green eyes and silky hair.

Despite the intense lunacy and deep feeling of realness, I felt while dreaming, I was aware of a deep, striking pain within myself. It settled in my chest, buried deep, as though I’d replaced my stomach with Mjolnir. The ache was both sharp and dull, full and waning. It signaled that a harsh reality awaited me in the waking world. When I was dreaming it was like the pain had no anchor, no reason for tormenting me, as hapless and defenseless as a newly hatched bird.

When I’m half-awake, like I am now, I know why the pain is here, understand the presence of gut-wrenching guilt and searing hot shame and thus can accept them. I’m not sure which is worse to experience.

Sometimes I’m fully awake, being handed crackers or grapes or bottles of water by a person whose name I don’t know because I’m never cognizant long enough to catalog their face. Seconds later, I’m again drowning, pulled into the depths of my dreamscape.

My reality blurs and the cycle continues, vicious unto the end. And every time I wake, my cheeks are embarrassingly wet. It feels like weeks before I’m awake long enough to realize I’m not alone. That every time I wake, a new face is staring back at me from a different chair in my room.

I come to recognize them again in time. Wanda, Pietro, Bucky, Steve, Vision, even Peter. But never Tony.

I sit up for the first time after what feels like a month, though the limited aching emanating from my bones tells me, logically, that it’s only been a fraction of that time. One either side of my bed is a Maximoff. Wanda looks more concerned than wary. Pietro looks like a lion who caught the scent of an enemy pride.

“Go slowly Kaida,” Wanda urges, “you must be weak. It’s been a few days since you rejoined the land of the living. Her continued inquiries and entreaties fall on deaf ears. As vulgar as it now sounds in retrospect, I knew I had to move or else an accident would occur. I stumbled into my en suite, knowing even without needing to look that they would have removed anything that would have made a suitable weapon.

I also know that, should my biology betray any sign of shifting to make use of my abilities, F.R.I.D.A.Y. would alert the others and the full might of the Avengers would fall upon my head. And Wanda would have me back out in seconds. What couldn’t be stopped of measured for, of course, were things such as my superhuman hearing, that was currently picking up on the muffled conversation the twins were having in my bedroom on the other side of the bedroom door.

“Why are you blocking FRIDAY, we should be alerting the others that the prisoner is awake and ready for their attention.”

“Pietro! She’s not our prisoner,” Wanda reprimanded. “Besides, I wish to have a moment alone with the girl. Even if she is not a child of Strucker, she is what Hydra made her to be, somehow. I just… I’d like for her to have a sympathetic listener at first. We never got the benefit of the doubt. If you remember we weren’t exactly unwilling in our crusade against the Avengers.”

Pietro just grunted in agreement but remained tense at his sister's side. I quickly twisted off the faucet and reentered the bedroom. Rather than speak, Wanda simply patted the seat of the chair across from hers, indicating that I should take a seat. It was the gentlest command ever issued. I slid back until my shoulders brushed the high back of the chair.

Wanda opened her mouth to speak, but I cut her off with a gesture of my hands. I leaned forward, extending my head towards her.

“Just look, let my mind answer your questions. I don’t know that I’d have the strength to or that we’d have the time before the others come charging in. If I’m going to die, I need at least one person to know and believe the truth. Maybe help persuade Captain Rogers to end my life swiftly. It’s more than I deserve.”

With that Wanda, eyes shining, placed her hands on my temples and breathed deeply as we were both transported to an infinitely darker place, many years ago.

Sinking through my memories was like drifting uncontrollably through a minefield. Tiny bursts of anguish shot through my mind as Wanda relived my upbringing with my sister, the house of horrors that was our home, being tapped to join Hydra and agreeing without ‘persuasion'. The missions, targets and our downfall. My sister's son. And finally, the mission that sent us both running for the hills...

The time since then. One dead-end job to another, sisters working to support each other, all while looking for the last remaining piece of our family. And, then that day had come. The snap and dust. Guilt flooding me and overwhelming a sense of horror as time passed.

Homeless until my… boyfriend. The horror that home turned into, one that I do still feel as though I deserved. Until one night he went too far and I left. The night Peter found me. Of course in the midst of all this, you had my ‘heroics' that mostly consisted of helping women out of situations I understood all too well. And that damned school. So Peter was looking for me at the behest of the Avengers after the most recent event had even landed on the front page of the New York Times.

My deeply buried need to have somewhere to call home, to have not just someone on my six but to have a family. All the emotions that Hydra and I, through my conditioning at their hands, thought of as compromising and weak.

I had agreed, understanding that I could play the role of Asset for the good guys for once, maybe correct some of the horrific circumstances I had had a hand in creating. My mission would be protecting others for the first time. Only in my wildest dreams had I imagined I'd ever have a family again, but they had begun to feel like home, in spite of the secrets I kept. Now that was ruined. That was inevitable, I reminded myself. Because of who I am, I could never have a family. I didn't deserve one.

“No,” Wanda said, interrupting our shared stream of thoughts, "not ruined, just a little, broken. They accepted us in time." Pietro nodded, eyes alighting on his sister and then on me. Curiosity burned in his soul-deep gaze. He leaned forward and used his abnormally large hand and rough fingers to cover his sister's hand, which I just realized was now twined in mine.

Connected like this, I felt the smallest flicker of hope come to life in me, setting my heart aflutter. Understanding and acceptance filled their eyes and I did tear up a little. I never expected this.

“You are not the monster your parents created. Nor the asset that Hydra trained. You are more than that Kaida. Let us help you find it. Find yourself.”

I nodded, leaning into her embrace as she gripped me by the shoulders and kissed my cheek.

At Wanda’s urging, I stepped into the shower, running my hand through my hair as nearly a week’s worth of grime was stripped off my body. I think it was safe to say that I’d never felt more confused and well, vulnerable in my life.

For the time being, I didn’t have a mission or a purpose. My handler, or the surrogate my mind had appointed was questionable at best now that all had been revealed. I didn’t like being left to my own mind and devices. Too many thoughts would rattle around inside my head. After a few hours, the twins left again, gentle eyes and kind reassurances.

Later and not seconds after my stomach rumbled with a fierceness I had forgotten it had, my door opened and a tray of food entered, held by Bucky, the Winter Soldier.

A/N: I’m uploading another chapter tonight that I am formatting and scheduling right flipping now so I don’t flake again. Really pumped for the new fic I’m starting though!

taglist: @peeterparkr @laurfangirl424 @private-bucky-barnes

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blatherkatt · 6 years

Text

Title: The Calm Is Terrifying When The Storm Is All You Know [Homestuck]

Chapter 33: Declarations

Summary: 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.

Rating: M

Chapter Warnings: Implied/Mentioned abuse, mentions of terrorism, death mention, injury mention, depiction of an emotional breakdown, trauma aftermath; Illustrated; Pesterlog

FIRST | PREVIOUS | NEXT

— carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling tipsyGnostalgic [TG] —

CG: WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?

— tipsyGnostalgic [TG] is an idle chum! —

CG: FUCK YOU, I CAN SEE THAT FOR MYSELF, YOU PIECE OF SHIT PROGRAM. I’M GONNA FUCKING YELL ANYWAY.

CG: I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO PICK ME UP AT NOON. IT’S LIKE, 1:30 AND YOU STILL AREN’T HERE, WHAT GIVES?

CG: IF YOU GOT KIDNAPPED, TOO, I SWEAR TO FUCK I’M PERSONALLY PUTTING THIS ENTIRE GODDAMN FAMILY UNDER PERMANENT WATCH.

CG: I’M NOT ABOVE SITTING ON YOU ASSHOLES IF THATS WHAT IT TAKES.

TG: okay first off i know youre like a literal alien but heres a protip for ya:

TG: general human earth etiquette is to not text people who you know are probably driving?

TG: its like a whole thing

CG: WHY

TG: idk probs because texting while driving’s a great way to fucking crash lol

TG: anyway!!

TG: yeah im real sorry about that mom fucking rang me up like

TG: hi im at the airport come get me!

TG: out of fucking nowhere because everything has to be a fucking hassle with this woman

TG: so i had to go get her

CG: WHY THE FUCK WAS SHE AT THE AIRPORT?

TG: because fuck me is why

TG: and THEN shes like

TG: ooooh i gotta do some mysterious whatthefuckever errand at some mall out in the middle of nowhere

TG: so now im sitting in the parking lot waiting for her to get back which might be a while because her bad leg’s been acting up lately

TG: and thats why im not there yet >:(

CG: WAIT. WAIT, HOLD ON, I’M CONFUSED.

CG: BY “MOM” ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT RACHEL? I DIDN’T EVEN THINK SHE HAD A BAD LEG.

TG: nonono

TG: ray is like. dirk and dave and rose’s mom

TG: i dont call her mom i just call her aunt ray cuz shes not my mom yknow

TG: my mom is aunt ray’s sister

TG: aunt ramona? they talk about her?

CG: OOOOOOH. YEAH.

CG: THE WOMAN WHO WRITES THOSE SHITTY SUPERNATURAL ROMANCE BOOKS KANAYA LOVES.

TG: hahaha yeah her trashy shit is great

CG: SHE’S HERE?

TG: apparently!!!!!!!!

CG: I’M SENSING SOME BITTERNESS.

TG: ugh its fine she just always does shit like this

TG: womans always gotta make a fuckin entrance even if that means not telling anyone shes coming

TG: and its goddamn annoying as shit!!

TG: but its fine i get it shes here to help out and we are kinda all hands on deck

TG: speaking of tho i heard something about kanaya not coming along after all?

CG: NOT YET, NO.

CG: SHE’S BEEN TALKING TO ROSE, AND APPARENTLY DAVE’S BEEN PRETTY UNEASY WITH THE NUMBER OF NEW FACES AT THE HIVE.

CG: HOUSE. WHATEVER.

CG: TEREZI’S PROTECTION DETAIL HAS HIM KIND OF ON EDGE, I GUESS?

CG: SHE’S GONNA COME AROUND LATER PROBABLY. AND MIGHT END UP STAYING WITH PORRIM AND KEEP IT TO VISITS, AT LEAST UNTIL THINGS SETTLE DOWN A BIT.

CG: SO IT’S JUST ME FOR NOW.

TG: ooooh yeah geez i bet

TG: poor dave :( :( :(

TG: i gotta tell you and mom some uh. serious shit about him when i pick you both up

TG: id pass it on here but its probs better if i just tell you face to face?

CG: OH, WONDERFUL!

CG: MORE NO DOUBT HORRIFIC NEWS REGARDING DAVE.

CG: I CAN’T WAIT. THIS PANIC ATTACK’S GONNA BE ONE FOR THE RECORD BOOKS, I CAN JUST FEEL IT!!!

TG: :(

TG: tl;dr hes not in great shape but hes getting better but theres some stuff we gotta go over

TG: jfc mom what the fuck are you doing its been ages

CG: SO WAIT. SHE JUST HAD YOU DRIVE HER OUT SOMEWHERE AND WALKED OFF ALONE?

TG: yeah

TG: woman can take care of herself just fine so like im not worried??

TG: but still, like. cmon woman!!! whatever it is hurry up a little

TG: it cant be that important we got places to be

In terms of location, it was almost an outlet mall; somewhat detached from the nearest city and surrounded by forest. It was mostly all one building, positioned in a dip in the ground next to a clear stream, and these features had helped make it a serviceable fortress during the invasion, although Derek had regularly complained that he’d have preferred a site that held the high ground. Still, they’d made do; the roof was high enough that one could see for quite some distance, the stream offered fresh water, the trees provided decent enough cover during skirmishes, and the walls were thick enough to turn away most weather and weapons. It hadn’t been much, but it had served well enough as home for six years for around threescore ragtag survivors-turned-fighters.

Out in the surrounding forest, those who hadn’t survived that conflict still lay buried in pitiful graves marked only with a stone or a chunk of wood. There hadn’t been time to properly put anyone to rest; it had been risky enough for two or three people to slip out during a stretch of quiet with a shovel and a body. They simply hadn’t been able to afford to have any sort of formal burial, not with the threat of an attack constantly looming.

Even so, even so…

Derek had picked a spot he would remember.

In life, the oak tree would have been the kind people would have thought of as a monarch, with branches spread wide and gnarled wood ancient and strong, holding children in its branches as easily as if they were made of nothing; but the tree had already been dead by the time the invasion started, a great, ancient, dried-out husk. Even so, decades later, it still stood, its branches reaching toward the sky, the other trees forming a circle around it as though too respectful to come too close. Mushrooms and trails of greenery crept about a quarter of the way up the ancient trunk.

At its roots, a rotting wooden spar stuck up out of the ground. This, too, had been reclaimed by flowers, grasses and mushrooms, decorating the splintered and decayed timber with dark summer greens and pale white-and-lavender blooms.

Derek Strider, down on one knee with his sheathed sword held in his right hand, sighed. Of course, the trouble with having to bury the dead so hastily meant that there’d been no one to look over the graves, so it was to be expected that it be in such disrepair, but even so, seeing this one choked out by the invading flora was…

It wasn’t right.

Overhead, the ancient branches rustled slightly, and the raucous calling of a bird broke the silence. Derek narrowed his eyes and ignored it, tried to write the disrespectful noise out of the scene.

The crow seemed to have other ideas. The bird lighted down on the wooden grave marker, red eyes fixed on Derek’s face. It flapped its wings a few times, cawing incessantly. Derek scowled, unsheathed his sword, and struck —

The blade passed through the bird with no resistance whatsoever. The creature’s body split in two, bloodlessly, as though Derek had cut through smoke — it even looked like smoke, like a cloud cut in two by a passing jet. As Derek looked on, uncomprehending and with a growing sense of dread, the bird’s body seemed to pull itself back together, a video played in reverse, and the bird’s accusatory squawks started up again as though nothing had happened.

Derek was on his feet in an instance, stepping away from the beast, and as he did, he happened to look up…

Perched on nearly every branch of the old tree were ravens. Unlike the crow, they were all silent, and aside from the occasional shifting of a foot or tilting of a head, motionless. Scores of staring animal eyes bored into him.

Derek had never been a superstitious man, but nor was he the sort of fool to ignore the truth his own eyes showed him. He’d spent six years fighting alongside a witch, and seen enough to learn that some things really couldn’t be explained away as coincidence.

Had it been anyone else, he would have responded to the sound of footsteps approaching this site with a furious attack; even Ben knew better than to disturb him here. But when he whirled to face the intruder, he froze.

She’d aged more since he’d last seen her than he would have expected. Hints of silver streaked her hair, and she leaned heavily on her gnarled black cane. A faint breeze stirred the black fabric of her dress, playing with the light shawl laying across her shoulders. The crow had fallen silent.

“Put that thing away before you take someone’s eye out,” said Ramona, nodding nonchalantly at Derek’s sword.

Derek narrowed his eyes, and did not respond aloud, instead choosing to slowly and deliberately slide the sword back into its sheathe. Only after his left hand had returned to his side did Ramona nod and continue.

“That’s better,” she said. “Now we can talk things over like reasonable adults. Mind you, I ought to do the world a favor and wipe you out right now,” and Derek took a slow, deep breath at that, as she continued, “But I’d prefer not to desecrate your brother’s grave by staining it with your blood. I respect him far too much for that. You, however, have somehow managed to exceed all of my worst expectations to a nearly unfathomable degree, as of late. I’ve held off on this confrontation out of respect for the past, but I can see now that this was a mistake.”

Derek shifted. “Everything I’ve done has been to protect our damn planet, Ramona,” he started, but was cut off.

“Really?” she said, “Well, then. I’m not about to attempt to ask you to cease killing trolls, as we both know that would be pointless, but I would very much like to know how exactly burning your own son alive plays into your grand battle strategy?”

“He…he turned on us,” Derek said, through gritted teeth, “He forced my hand, left me no choice!”

“He is a child!” Ramona snapped. “And you, of all people, should know better! If you really must follow this path of self-destruction to its end, fine, but he should never have been involved!”

“I—”

“And in any case, you had a perfectly good sword on hand, I’m sure. If young Dave really did need to die, you could have executed him with minimal pain, but no, you wanted him to hurt, to know he was dying and to fear you and suffer as he passed. How do you justify that, Derek? How does anyone, especially a child, deserve anything of the sort?”

The eyes of the ravens and that damned crow still drilled into him. He could feel the stares on his back, but kept his eyes locked on Ramona’s, refusing to back down.

He wasn’t going to take back what he’d done. There’d be no guilt, he’d done nothing wrong except overreact a bit. It was justified. That…that boy wasn’t Dave. Ramona was using the name like a blade, but she’d not win that way. He didn’t deserve the fucking name, didn’t deserve to have anything to do with Dave, he never would have let Rachel name the kid that if he’d known he was going to grow up to be such a pathetic, useless little coward.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” he said.

“No, I suppose you don’t,” said Ramona, folding her hands over the top of her cane. “I’ve a fairly good idea, in any case.” She sighed. “The war is over, Derek. The time to put aside this violence and misery is long since behind us. Our children do not deserve to grow up as we did.”

“The trolls are still here,” Derek spat.

There was a long silence. Ramona sighed again.

“Fine, then,” she said, “So be it. Do as you will. Chase violence as long as you like. But if you come near my family again, I will consider it an act of war.”

She turned, and he was tempted to take the bait, to try attacking her while her back was turned, but he held still. It was infuriating, knowing what a pointed insult turning her back on him was, knowing that she knew he would not risk attacking her—but she was right. She was much too dangerous.

“Come along, little one,” she said, abruptly. The crow rose off the grave and flew to land on top of Ramona’s cane. If Derek had cared to pay any attention, he might have noticed the crow look back at him with something like regret in its eyes, but Derek was already far too lost in his own thoughts.

As one bird, the ravens took wing, dispersing in all directions, leaving him alone again.

The trouble with trying to go from Alternian to English was a multifaceted one, to be sure, but so far the most obnoxious piece of it that Karkat could see was the tendency of guides on how to speak English to simply use the closest Alternian equivalent as an English word’s translation. More and more, the two languages were notably extremely different, and while he could speak English well enough that he’d never had any serious problems, there were any number of words that he kept tripping over as a result of a translation being extremely unclear and culturally misleading.

Witches, for instance, were clearly something very different on Earth. The Alternian word that was translated to English as “witch” was, like most Alternian words, a series of noises in the ‘click and growl’ family that most humans lacked the anatomy to create, and generally refered to certain lowblood prophets and healers in Alternian folklore. They were those who lived away from society and who, through some lucky genetics and convenient psychic powers, were able to fend of drones and effectively disappear from the world at large’s knowledge. They kept to themselves, sought to harm no one who didn’t attack them first, offered shelter to the weak and the hunted, and as such were always portrayed as utterly despicable beings in fiction, as no writer with any sense of self-preservation had dared to portray such reckless treachery under the rule of the last Condesce. There might have been some changes to the lore under the new one’s rule, but things like that changed slow.

In any case, they certainly weren’t anything like the old woman in a shawl who was sitting next to Roxy in the front of her car.

She was dressed all in black, for one thing. Alternian witches didn’t tend to wear much black. Some Alternian witches didn’t tend to wear all that much clothing at all, really. Most seemed to belong to ancient religions that weren’t particularly fond of shirts.

Ramona was definitely magic as shit, though, Rachel’d been right about that much. Was that all a witch was on Earth, just someone with magic? Fuck, if that were the case, then probably like at least a third of all trolls were witches by Earth’s standards. Then again, maybe magic was another poorly translated word? English didn’t seem to have a word to separate “things that we (read: trolls) know exist, like psychic powers and psiionics and ghosts and chucklevoodoos,” and “things that are super fake and don’t actually happen ever and make no sense.”

Whatever. In any case, Ramona didn’t look at all like Karkat had expected, and when he climbed into the back of the car, she didn’t react to his presence with anything stronger than an amiable nod. She seemed to have her mind on other things, and was largely silent at first.

Roxy wasn’t; she immediately piped up happily as Karkat swung open the door with a “Hey, man! Sorry about taking so long! Can you, uh, do me a favor and check on Jaspers? He’s in the carrier behind Mom, Rose asked me to pick him up while she and Aunt Ray were gone. He’s been missing them a lot, all staring out the window and kneading his blanket and shit, and he’s not a huge fan of car rides.”

“He’s asleep,” Karkat said after glancing into the little crate.

“Awesome. Alright, buckle up and we’ll get this damn show on the road.”

“On the road again, just can’t wait to get on—”

Karkat tilted his head as the car’s radio abruptly changed from quietly playing some human pop song over to something much louder and completely different. Ramona stifled a snort as Roxy stabbed a button, switching the radio back to the previous channel.

“No, thank you,” she said, glaring. “Christ, the fuck is with this thing today, I swear to god.”

“I suppose it may simply be getting into the spirit of things,” said Ramona with a smile. As the car pulled away from the curb, she turned back a bit to face Karkat. “It’s Karkat, isn’t it? Rachel’s been sending me any number of emails with updates, and from the sound of things, you’ve been rather instrumental in bringing young Dave back into the fold, so to speak.”

“…Into the what?”

“It’s a figure of speech, meaning in this case that you’ve helped us return him home as well as helping him to adjust to being there,” she said. “For which you have all of our heartfelt thanks. Ours is perhaps not the most functional of families, but it is ours, and as I’m sure you’ve seen firsthand, ripping away a piece of it the way Derek did has had some very painful consequences for all involved. We owe you a great deal.”

“Yeah, man!” Roxy said. “And from what Rose has been telling me, you were kind of a big part of why he finally spilled what he knows. Which, he did bee-tee-dubs, which means he’s off house arrest finally, so that’s good—”

“—And a partridge in a pear tree,” the radio crackled.

“What the fuck? It’s August,” Roxy scowled. She turned the radio off altogether as Ramona glanced hurriedly out the window.

“Speaking of Dave,” Karkat said, hopefully before anyone got distracted again, “Roxy, you mentioned that there was something that you needed to say face to face?”

“Right, shoot, yeah,” said Roxy. The car turned onto the long road that led eventually to the Lalonde hive. “Okay, so, like. There’s definitely some shit you should know before we get there, but I wanna preface it all real clearly by saying that Dave’s okay, y’know? He’s got a lot of healing to do, but the doctors said that as long as he’s looked after and we change bandages and shit and he gets plenty of rest, he’s definitely not in any danger anymore. He’s…weak, but he’s not like gonna keel over at any moment, okay?”

“Not actually making me feel any better, Roxy!” said Karkat. Oh, boy, with a preface like that…

“Well, fuck, I tried, I guess. Uh. So, Dave did get hurt…pretty bad, and there were some other complications—oh, for fuck’s sake!!”

“Watch me, watch me, hey, watch me, watch me!” The radio was louder than ever. Ramona’s hand flew up, poorly hiding a grin.

Karkat leaned around Roxy’s seat to glare at her.

“What the fuck, Roxy,” said Karkat.

“I’m not doing this!” Roxy said, waving her hand wildly. “I swear to fuck, I wouldn’t! I really do need to pass on some shit about poor Dave, and the radio’s never done this before? It’s been acting up since a little before we picked you up, keeps changing on its own and shit, augh!”

She fought with the controls, but the song stopped only for a moment before getting even louder.

“Why the fuck do you humans even have this obnoxious song?! Who listens to this?? It’s literally just some squawking wiggler screeching for its lusus’s attention!”

“I mean, I kinda love it for that honestly, it’s terrible and stupid and wonderful, but like, come the fuck on??? What’s with this thing?! Now is not the time!”

“Ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass—“

“GOD, that’s even worse!!” Roxy yelled, slamming her fist down on the dashboard. “Fucking stop!!”

“That’s enough for now,” Ramona said, almost murmuring it.

The radio turned off. Karkat and Roxy both turned a suspicious eye on Ramona, and with equal simultaneity, decided to drop it for now.

“Anyway,” Roxy said slowly, “What I was trying to say is, um…Karkat, do you know what it means for someone to ‘flatline?’ Because, um. Dave kinda did, for like, a minute and a half.”

Karkat shook his head, realized Roxy probably couldn’t see him with her eyes on the road, and said, “Uh, I have no idea what that word means, no.”

“Well, um…”

“It refers to a heart monitor indicating that the heart has ceased beating,” Ramona said. “The machine indicates activity with a line which shows peaks and valleys, and it goes flat when that activity has stopped, thus, ‘flatline’. The organ we call a heart serves an equivalent function to what trolls call a ‘blood pusher’ or a ‘pump biscuit.’”

Karkat felt for a moment like his own pump biscuit had stopped.

“Shit, Mom, when did you get so good at translating to trolls?” Roxy murmured.

Ramona shrugged. “I’ve made efforts to reach out,” she said. “The war ended, after all, and since we’re allies now, it doesn’t hurt to learn about each others’ cultures.”

“His fucking—What?!” Karkat screeched, unable to keep the harsh buzzing whine out of his voice. God, that was such a moirail noise, and any other time he’d have yelled at himself for not keeping it under control, but not now, not when… “His fucking blood pusher stopped and I’m supposed to be calm!?!”

“They got it moving again!” Roxy said. “He’s okay now, the doctors said it was going strong! It was, um, mostly just exhaustion, they think? Like, the burn wounds could’ve killed him on their own, sure, but they got on those quick enough that if he’d been healthy to begin with he probably wouldn’t have been so bad off? But between ten years of, you know…and just, apparently he hasn’t been eating enough even while he’s been back with us? And Ray’s gonna get on his ass about that, but, just—look, the thing is, Dirk doesn’t know about this yet, and Aunt Ray’s asked that we try to keep it that way, and I don’t really get why but I think she has her reasons?”

Karkat was definitely hyperventilating, oh fuck, oh fuck—Ramona’s hand reached back to touch his own, snapping him out of it.

“It’s fine to be worried,” she said, gentle. “I promise you, though, it is as Roxy says: he’ll be fine given time to recover and the safety with which to do so. He’ll be alive when we get there.” She sat back in her chair, turning towards the road again. “As for Dirk, I suspect Rachel is waiting for things to settle down before breaking it to him gently. He is, for better or worse, very like his father, and Derek handled his brother’s death poorly, in large part because at the time we could not afford to mourn. Rachel probably wants to make sure that Dirk does not feel he has to force himself to be strong when she tells him.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” Roxy muttered. “Anyway, the main thing about that is that he’s not got a lot of energy right now, so don’t…take it personally if he just falls asleep on you sometimes? Especially with the painkillers he’s on, apparently that’s a side effect, too. He can walk short distances, but he gets wobbly quick and needs help sometimes, so there’s that too.”

“Fuck,” said Karkat, softly.

The next ten minutes of the ride were carried out in tense silence. This was broken by the radio once again bursting back on and blasting the ass song again, at which point Roxy threatened to pull over and smash the fucking thing to smithereens.

By the time they actually got to the fucking house, Karkat felt like his soul was going to vibrate right out of his fucking body with impatience. They had yet another delay in the form of Terezi’s protection detail—Terezi herself wasn’t there, but some officers were, and they insisted on knowing about any weapons the three of them had as well as names, and went in to check with the family while making them all wait outside by the car. Karkat already had his fucking bag in hand, he was ready to go, but no, they had to go through this tedious procedure! Sure, it was probably a smart move, and when he was feeling a little more sensible he’d be more okay with it as it was the sort of thing that probably would make them all feel a bit safer (especially poor fucking Dave), but right now the were a pain in the ass and he was going to fucking explode!!! If they didn’t!!! Let him get in the fucking hive!!!!!

Rose stepped out as they were still talking to the police, and for the first time in his life Karkat was unspeakably happy to see her. She quickly confirmed to the police that all three of them were in fact expected and trusted by this household, and then gently let Jaspers out of his carrier. The cat immediately yowled and threw himself into her arms, kneading at her shoulders and rubbing his face against hers, and it all would have been super cute if Karkat didn’t have his mind on other fucking things.

“Come on in,” Rose said, nodding towards the door. “Dirk’s on the couch and Dave’s in Mom’s room, as neither of them can handle stairs right now and Dave needs his bandages changed at least twice a day. Karkat, do you—”

She was talking to air. He was already in the fucking door.

And then had to face the fact that he’d never actually been to Rachel’s room. Fuck. Rachel was coming up the hall, though, and a slightly bewildered young human (wait, fuck, that was Dirk, what happened to his hair? It looked so weird hanging down like that instead of spiked up) was sitting on the couch with an Earth husktop on his lap. Roxy pushed in the door with Ramona right behind her, dropped a heavy wheeled bag right next to the door, and immediately launched herself at Dirk, who gave a startled yelp as she did so.

Rachel rested a hand on Karkat’s shoulder as she passed him, rushing up toward Ramona throwing her arms around her shoulders. The two shared a long hug, and Rachel kissed Ramona’s cheek.

“God, I’m so glad you’re here,” Karkat heard Rachel murmur, before Rose tapped his shoulder.

“I was asking if you knew where Mom’s room is,” Rose said.

“Uh.”

“It’s down the hall to the observatory, but you take a left before you get to it. Make sure to make plenty of noise on the way over, Dave gets really jumpy when he’s the only person in that room. He can’t block the door since we need to be able to come in and out, and it’s got him a bit on edge.”

Karkat nodded, unable to get any words out past the lump in his throat. He more or less just dropped his bag on the ground and pushed past, zooming around toward the room indicated. Dave looked half-asleep when Karkat pushed the door open, and waved as he sat up with some effort.

God, the photo Rose had taken didn’t do justice to how fucking bad he looked. There were bruises across his face and neck turned a weird greenish-gray but still dark against his skin, and bandages everywhere, his hair was a mess (although that might have just been from sleeping). He was in some oversized shirt with an Earth hoofbeast on the front that was probably Dirk’s judging by the size, and Karkat had no idea why Dave had it on but right now he didn’t care.

“Hey, man, uh. Shit’s been crazy, huh?” Dave said with an awkward grin. He didn’t have his shades on either, which made sense if he’d been sleeping, except they weren’t on the bedside table (which did instead contain a nearly empty glass of water, several bottles of pills and salves, and a first aid kit from which clean cloth bandages overflowed).

Two weeks of emotion boiled over all at once. Wordless, Karkat stomped across the room and grabbed Dave’s stupid fucking shirt in both hands and tugged him close.

“It was three days, Dave,” Karkat hissed.

“Wha—?”

“Three days! And you got yourself fucking kidnapped by a terrorist on day goddamn two!! What the fuck, Dave?!” His voice was threatening to abandon him, but Karkat forced it right back into place by sheer willpower. This tangent would not be fucking stopped, hell no. “I take my eyes off of you for two days, and you get yourself into shit again! What the fuck!!! Do you have any idea how-how fucking agonizing it’s been waiting for news?! And you’re just sitting there like ‘Oh, hey! What’s up?’ What’s up is my foot up your waste chute, you hopeless fucking—!” Okay, nope, his voice was leaving after all, actually. He felt tears roll down his face, and he should’ve been more worried about that, but Dave already knew about his blood color and he was the only troll in the house right now, so, fuck it, fuck it all! Helpless, he tugged Dave closer again, letting his face press against that stupid shirt, claws still twisted into the fabric as he sobbed.

“Holy shit,” Dave muttered.

“I was so fucking scared,” Karkat gasped. This was pathetic, they weren’t remotely a couple, Karkat had no right to be this worked up and he knew it, but…Dave wasn’t exactly pushing him away, either, was he?

“I’m sorry, man, I didn’t even…It wasn’t planned this time, it just sorta happened, and Dirk got hurt, and I…”

“I’m not actually angry at you, despite having so much right to be that legislacerators everywhere have preemptively declared me innocent. I’m just fucking screaming for the sake of it, dumbass.”

“Oh.”

The awkward pause that followed was filled with only the sound of Karkat’s weeping, which, fuck, he was probably too fucking embarrassed to tell him off. Except…Dave’s hand lifted up to rest gently against Karkat’s back, so, maybe he didn’t mind that much? Was that wishful thinking?

“Sorry for this,” he said, just in case, as he pulled away a bit. “It’s really fucking embarrassing, I know, I just…”

“It’s cool, man,” said Dave. Then, with a wink, he said, “I know you got your massive Strider homocrush, it’s only natural—”

“Dave, I swear to fuck, injured or not, I will pummel you into dust with a fucking pillow, don’t test me!” Karkat snapped.

Dave snorted. “Hey, man, it’s fine, everyone’s allowed to be a lil gay sometimes with their friends, it’s only natural.”

“I’ll ‘natural’ you!! Motherfucker, I spent the two weeks worrying about your wellbeing and you come at me with more of this bullshit!!”

Dave cackled with laughter. Karkat rolled his eyes and sniffled. He feigned annoyance as best he could, but, God, it was such a relief to hear Dave laugh. Rubbing a sweater sleeve furiously across his eyes, Karkat pulled back, sitting awkwardly on the edge of the bed. “Okay, but seriously, what’s with the shirt?” he asked, gesturing at the floating head of the hoofbeast. It wasn’t even a joke or a drawing. It was just…a straight photo of a hoofbeast’s face, with no text or explanation of any sort. What the fuck??

Dave glanced down, and snickered. “Oh, shit. Uh, yeah, we needed something that’s easy to get me in and out of, since the bandages on this fuckin’ burn need to be changed like, a lot, not to mention the gross-ass cream they have us slathering all over it on the regular. We tried a button down, but the buttons were kinda chafing, and like…who the fuck wants to ruin a fancy shirt with gross burn juices, right? And Dirk’s shit is more comfortable, and this one’s big enough that it’s real easy to take off even if I’m high on the damn painkillers.”

Karkat winced slightly, but decided not to comment. The scream from the video echoed somewhere in his think pan. “Where’re your shades?”

“Bro fuckin’ stepped on them or something, man, I dunno. They fell off at some point, and they were already cracked before all that, and Terezi just found pieces. Which fucking sucks, I mean God dammit, those were a gift from John. Shit sucks.”

“John?” Karkat tipped his head.

“Yeah, he’s like, an old friend of mine. Have I not mentioned him to you? Whatever, he, uh.” Dave scratched at the side of his head. “He was an online friend from before Bro started doing the, uh, raid shit, and I kept talking to him and another friend, Jade, for a while afterwards even though I wasn’t supposed to?”

“Jade’s name I remember,” Karkat said.

“Haha, yeah, yeah cuz I told you about…anyway.” He cleared his throat. “I guess since Dirk’s college is starting up again soon, not that he’s going for the first couple weeks with his leg and a fucking concussion, but, it’s starting up, and John’s sister goes there too, and he’s gonna come with so we’ll be able to hang out for a bit? Which is fuckin’ rad, I haven’t even talked to the guy in three years and we’re finally meeting in person.”

“You want him to be here? While you’re this badly injured?” Karkat yelped.

Dave blinked at him like he’d just grown a secondary head.

“I mean, yeah?” Dave said. “Like, yeah, I’m not in great shape and I guess it’ll be a lil weird for him to see me like this, but I’ve missed him.” Before Karkat could press the question further, though, Dave yawned. “Ugh, fuck, I wanna keep talking, but I’m…halfway to falling asleep, shit.”

“Oh,” said Karkat. He got up, ready to leave. He wanted to stay, wanted to curl himself around Dave’s obnoxiously lanky frame as best he could and protect this fragile idiot human from the entire universe, but…it wasn’t his place, was it? No.

“You leaving?” said Dave, rubbing at his unbruised eye.

“You said you wanna sleep,” Karkat said.

“Right. Uh. Could you, like…fill this back up for me, then, I guess?” Dave said.

“…Sure,” said Karkat.

He was…still confused, but Dave was tired, so he didn’t press. But he couldn’t wrap his head around wanting a friend around while he was so injured—well, he’d wanted Karkat around, hadn’t he? He’d seemed happy to see him, aside from the, uh, yelling. Still, it didn’t make sense! Every troll knew as a small child that the only people you could trust when you were injured were your lusus, your moirail, and maybe your matesprit! Anyone else might take advantage of the weakness and kill you, that was just basic logic! But Dave didn’t even seem to be thinking about it.

And…and yet, come to think of it, Roxy’d been awfully forthright about how bad Dave’s condition was. Hell, she’d heard it from Rose, who seemed like the one most likely to know not to spread that weakness, but the humans were all sharing it and passing it around. It wasn’t just that they didn’t seem to care who knew that Dave and Dirk were injured, it was like they wanted people to know.

And as he filled up the glass of water in the kitchen, he watched as Roxy and Dirk talked on the couch, as Dirk told her that he’d passed on the news of their condition to Jane already, that Rose had told her and Dave’s friends, and it just kept going. Everyone had to be up to date on the fact that both brothers were injured and vulnerable, and yet…

“I hope the flight wasn’t too long,” Rachel was saying to Ramona.

“Nothing would be too long right now,” she said in turn, blowing gently on a cup of tea that Rachel had just poured her. “Times like these, we all need to do our part. I know I might not be able to do much, mind you. My leg’s been acting up something fierce, as of late, but I’ll do whatever I can.”

Something clicked. All at once, the curtains pulled back and Karkat saw the whole picture—saw maybe not what it always was, and certainly not what the Lalondes achieved on any sort of regular basis, but what it was supposed to be, how it was meant to work.

On Alternia, everyone lived in constant competition. Trolls had to be strong as close to all the time as they possibly could, or at the very least find a moirail who could, because otherwise their society wouldn’t particularly care much if they died. That just meant they didn’t deserve to be a part of the gene pool or to contribute to society. If they were injured badly and left vulnerable, it was seen as normal for others to take advantage of that weakness and exert power or outright kill a rival. It was how they survived so long, or so the cultural narrative had so long stated: by this competition, the strongest survive. Nevermind that this survival was built on the corpses of uncountable trolls who didn’t make the cut, it Worked.

As a result, trolls had been bewildered just as Karkat had by how humans as a species managed to be so frail and yet so reckless and to still survive, especially when they didn’t exactly have the kind of numbers that trolls did. Humans lacked the numbers to be expendable, lacked the strength and toughness that kept Trolls alive, and yet they looked Death in the eye and pointed and laughed, and pushed themselves to extremes for no purpose other than to have some warped idea of fun. It was a question that had lingered around his consciousness for ages; how the fuck do humans even work as a species? How had such a seemingly doomed race not died off yet?

The answer that hit him now, as he watched Roxy help Dirk stand up and balance himself on a pair of crutches, was that humans didn’t have to be strong all the time, and that was the magic of their little social units, their families—they took care of each other. No one person had to be good at everything, or so good at one thing that it could keep them safe in any situation. It didn’t matter that their skin was thin or that they weren’t particularly strong or fast, they always, always had others around who would pick up the slack, others who would come even across oceans to offer what aid they could in times of strife; they weaved together all their strengths and weaknesses into a fabric able to withstand just about anything. Fuck, no wonder they’d wanted Dave back so badly. The Lalondes may have been less a tapestry and more a patchwork quilt, but it was still their quilt, and Dave was a part of it….

He felt a near-agonizing pang of envy that he didn’t have a quilt of his own. Humans might have been stupid about a lot of things, but this…this they’d gotten right.

“Fucking water? Is that really the best you could think of? Fucking dumbass,” Dave muttered to himself. God. This was stupid. This was all really fucking stupid. He couldn’t even deal with being alone while he was asleep, for Chrissakes! Too scared of nightmares of a big mean dog, like some fuckin’ little kid.

Yeah, he was tired, but he really, really didn’t wanna be alone right now, was the thing. Not with that fucking troll-drug-induced nightmare lingering around the edges, waiting to chase him down again at its first chance. But. Like. Karkat was kind of right? Bros don’t watch each other sleep, that’s fuckin’ creepy. Like. Okay, so maybe they’d done a bit of that way back when Karkat had been kidnapped, but they didn’t have a choice back then, and anyways they mostly slept at the same time during that experience, which was super different from just asking his best alien friend to fuckin’ hold his hand so the bad dreams wouldn’t get him. Fuck.

So he’d asked Karkat to refill his glass, even though he wasn’t thirsty right now, because it was an excuse to make Karkat come back, at least for a few more minutes, and they could talk for a bit, and maybe Dave’d stop being tired, wouldn’t that be rad.

Karkat came back in looking really thoughtful. He handed the glass over, and Dave took a sip to try and look like he hadn’t been 100% bullshitting there, and mumbled a thanks as he set it down. Then, just as a thought, he jerked his head toward the rest of the bed—it was a big king-sized one, probably left over from before the divorce and Mom had just never downsized or whatever, so there was a lot of space to Dave’s right—and told Karkat he could sit down if he wanted, Dave wasn’t gonna, like, pass out right this minute or anything, haha.

Karkat stayed quiet, which was fuckin’ weird, but he did sit down. He stared at the sheets for a minute, and then spoke up suddenly, saying, “I think I get it.”

“Get what?” said Dave.

“Why they wanted you back so bad,” said Karkat. “I mean, way back when you were first arrested. I kind of fought with Dirk over it at one point, because my only experience with the word Dirk used for why you should be with him was fucking Strider. And also I think I get why this shit all works, for humans in general. I mean, I’m probably just saying obvious shit, but it’s not how trolls work, we don’t take care of each other, not like this.”

Dave tipped his head.

“I mean with the whole fucking family thing,” Karkat said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve been trying to get it this whole time, but this shit’s used to justify so much bullshit with you humans, and I think I get it now, and why it’s so fucking important to you as a species.”

Dave snorted. “Dude, it’s not that big a thing—”

“It is, though! It just seems normal to humans because it’s how you always work, but, Dave, I’m serious, back on Alternia it’s every troll for themself. Maybe you have one person who has your back if you’ve got a moirail, maybe some are lucky like me and have friends who are actually consistently on your side and won’t take the first chance they get to kill you or fuck you up some other way, but we definitely don’t have a whole cluster of others we can just fall back on any time we’re met with something we can’t handle alone.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” Dave started, but Karkat just kept going. Apparently he’d had some sort of fuckin’ epiphany in the past two minutes.

“It took me so fucking long to get this, but I get it now! You know what I don’t get, though, is why the fuck you ever tried to convince me that Strider is part of your fucking family.”

Something in Dave dropped like a stone.

He’d…had a similar thought, really. Repeatedly. Multiple times, over the past week or so. He’d been kind of trying to avoid it, because every time it popped up, he got really stressed out.

“And don’t give me any of the bullshit about being ‘related’ or what the fuck ever, I don’t wanna hear it,” Karkat kept right on going. “I still don’t get why you humans care so much about that. The whole point of this family thing is that you all take care of each other, not that you’re related or whatever! Your aunt’s here, did you know that? She flew across an entire fucking ocean just to make sure she could help out you and Dirk! What the fuck did Strider ever do for you?”

It was a good question. And the answer, of course, was: aside from trying to kill him, do you mean? Hahaha.

Karkat was still talking, but Dave wasn’t really hearing him. Fuck, this had been a mistake, he should’ve taken his chances with the fucking nightmare dog. That was better than this old song and dance with his own thoughts.

The facts were pretty simple. He’d operated under pretty clear logic when he went up against Bro: We’re family, so he loves me, so therefore if I ask him to let me leave and explain that I really can’t deal with this, he’ll let me go. Except, Bro had tried to kill him, which meant that…

That was as far as Dave ever got. He couldn’t think any farther than that.

He felt like…like the next thought should be obvious, but he couldn’t make himself think it. It was too big—not so much a square peg in a round hole as it was trying to cram a grain silo into a pinhole, and the thought threatened to overwhelm and destroy him, so instead of thinking it, his brain kept rejecting it, the effect being like a broken record skip-skip-skipping, over and over, repeating the last thought he could get to before the Big One, because he couldn’t not think the Big One, either…

It was so fucking stupid, it was just a thought, why couldn’t he…

“Hah, yeah, now that you mention it, I guess I was always kinda wrong about this shit, wasn’t I?” Dave said, unable to stop the sardonic laughter bubbling up in his throat. “I mean, fuck, no wonder it took you so long to get, I probably gave you the wrong idea. My dumb ass was convinced he’d never try to kill me, cuz we’re family, and, well, here we fuckin’ are!”

Skip, skip, skip—

Karkat was still talking in stuttered phrases in the gaps of Dave’s own flood of words, looking almost scared, but Dave didn’t comprehned any of them, and anyway, the ranting had started, there was no stopping this shit now. “Like, what the fuck was I even thinking, right? I really thought that was gonna work, that somehow he’d just let me go if I asked, like a fucking idiot! Haha, what a fuckin’ dipshit, right?! And here I was thinking he—” Frantic laughter bubbled up, overtaking the words, not that more would’ve come, that next thought was just too big. Was he crying? Fuck, Karkat didn’t need to see any of this shit, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t think

Skip, skip, skip, skip, skipskipskipskipskipskip—

It wasn’t Karkat’s fault. It really wasn’t. He might’ve set it off, but the storm had been building up for days, now, and it broke hard, sweeping Dave up in a torrent of just wordless mental screaming. He couldn’t think the next thought. He couldn’t. But the thing was damming him up, and he couldn’t ignore it anymore, and he was stuck in the middle and left to just completely melt down and dissipate into the flood.

A sound like a cicada crossed with the creakiest horror movie door ever to creak ripped through the tides, and suddenly Dave found himself tugged into a full body hug, wrapped up in four limbs with his face pressed into a thick sweater. The touch dragged him out of the flood and onto dry land, brought him back into now before he even knew what was happening. Karkat’s whole chest was vibrating with some intense cricket-cat hybrid purr, and this should’ve been so embarrassing but he was so tired and so lost and it was fucking comforting, so who the fuck cared. Who cared anymore. It was all bullshit. He could be embarrassed later.

Too soon, Karkat seemed to have the same thought, and tried to pull away. “Shit, sorry, I shouldn’t—fuck, I’m so sorry, this is really presumptive and I know you aren’t even into boys,” he babbled.

Dave groaned, wrapping his arms around Karkat’s chest and pulling him close. “Dude, if you try to make this about alien romance right now, I swear to fuck,” he gasped out between harsh sobs. Christ, he was going harder than Karkat did like twenty minutes earlier, what the fuck.

Karkat paused. Good. It meant his warm arms were still there. “Dave, I…I mean, this is troll romance, this is textbook moiraillegience, and I shouldn’t just be throwing myself at you because you had a moment of weakness, no matter how bad I, uh.”

Dave sniffled, wracked his brain for a moment…Karkat had explained this stuff about a million times, which one was…”That’s like…the bros quadrant, right?”

“The what.”

“The one that’s, like, platonic and shit.”

“…Yeah?” The cricket-purr started up again, cautiously.

“We fuckin’ kinda do most of that shit already, don’t we?” Like. Yeah. He wasn’t gay. That was still a thing. But Karkat was warm and solid and real and Dave was fucking exhausted and didn’t want to be alone, especially not when he felt right now like he was wrapped in safety. “Please, Karkat,” he added, because why not beg. He was already at maximum pathetic, there was no digging this hole lower, fuck it. “I really don’t wanna be alone right now, just, please don’t go.”

Karkat was quiet for a long moment, but finally, the cricket-purr went back to full volume and Karkat’s arms tightened around him.

“Okay,” Karkat said quietly. Dave let out a breath he’d barely known he’d been holding and went back to crying.

“We’re going to have to talk about this later,” Karkat murmured, which put him at about normal volume for anyone else.

“Later, then,” said Dave, and let himself finally fall the fuck asleep.

#dave strider #karkat vantas #davekat #roxy lalonde #longpost//#u BET UR BUTT THIS OENS GOIN IN THE DAVEKAT TAG #ITS ABOUT TIME #fanfic #fanfiction #calmvsstormfic #calmvsstormchapter #katt does a writing #jkdfsgfjhsfjshf not the best start to a relationship but like its something #lord this got long.#why tf did i think 32 and 33 would ever fit into one chapter.

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bethgreeneishopeunseen · 7 years

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Beth's small green diary/journal

Do you remember Beth’s green colored small diary/journal she had with her from season 3 (Though, it was never really shown but her narration from 4x10 does indicate that she had it in her possession during season 3) to season 4B? I remember from her narration of 4x10, she used her voice to recap the events from the end of season 2 and throughout season 3. She mentioned Lori and her pregnancy with Judith. I don’t know about you but for me, I feel like that specific diary/journal entry she wrote and narrated about in 4x10 is a key and plays a vital role for her to finding Rick, Maggie, Daryl and everyone else from TF (excluding Tyreese, Sasha, Bob, Abraham, and Glenn because they passed away. R.I.P btw), I mean I think she must’ve written other diary/journal entries that isn’t just the one she narrated. If you remember from the first episode of season 4A, Daryl walked to her and see her writing down something on her journal. Idk Taylor but knowing Scott Gimple and the evil tricks and weird tactics he has on his sleeves, the good question to always ask yourself: “Why would Gimple make Beth narrate the events from the end of season 2B and throughout season 3 when it’s not necessary and no other character has done that except her?” And of course, being TD like you, the answer is none other than the fact that Beth’s alive, like duh!

One last thing I want to include in this post so that you, BethGreeneWarriorPrincess, and the rest of TD members and your followers as well can see. Knowing that Tyreese died somewhere in a woodsy area that isn’t too far from Grady but I know for sure it’s in Virginia where Noah’s community was. Rick and TF dug a grave for Tyreese and put his beanie on the cross in some grassfield around the woods area. I feel like we’ll go back to where he was buried as Beth. I think that she’ll see that as the sign that her family had been there before and will probably see that as the first sign leading up to them. Of course, I think she’ll be able to tell that it’s Tyreese’s grave because of his beanie hanging from the wooden cross but I’m not sure. What do you think? What are your thoughts and opinions?

——————————————————————————————————–

“Hey, I know it’s been awhile, and I’m going to be honest. I forgot about you. After the farm, we were always moving. But something happened…something good, finally. We found a prison. Daddy thinks that we can make it into a home. He says we can grow crops in a field, find pigs and chickens, stop running, stop scavenging. Lori’s baby is just about due. She’ll need a safe place when it comes. The rest of us, we just need a safe place to be. I woke up in my own bed yesterday…my own bed in my own room. I’ve been keeping my backpack, keeping my gun close. I’ve been afraid to get my hopes up, thinking we can actually stay here. The thing is I’ve been starting to get afraid that it’s easier just to be afraid. But this morning Daddy said something. If you don’t have hope, what’s the point of living. So I unpacked my bag, and I found you. So I’m gonna start writing in you again. And I’m gonna write this down now because you should write down wishes to make them come true. We can live here. We can live here for the rest of our lives.

[…] We’re not going to die…none of us. I believe now. I believe for Daddy. If this doesn’t work, I don’t know how I could keep going.”

Beth’s diary means so much to me because it reveals so much about her character and how human she is. It’s important.

With that in mind, I think Gimple included the entry for several reasons. He considered the diary important. In the 4x01 commentary, he revealed that when Daryl came to see her, Beth was writing about a trip she had taken to Atlanta (X). Not only does that show how much Gimple values her character, but it also foreshadowed Grady, her next “trip to Atlanta”. (There was also a birdcage in her bedroom with a number “4” inside of it, referring to Slabtown: X.)

By using a voiceover, which is rare in the show, TPTB called attention to this entry. A “look, this is important!” moment. The entry foreshadowed Alexandria and the other communities in Virginia, where the group is finally able to put down roots so to speak, as well as Maggie’s pregnancy. Because with Glenn gone, it’s just Maggie’s baby. (Notice that Beth only wrote “Lori’s baby” as the group knew of the affair and uncertain paternity.) And Lauren even said that Maggie is trying to build a safe hold for the baby (X), so there’s another thread. Maggie’s sonogram picture also included numbers that referenced issues #35 and #44, both of which allude to Beth through her associations with the comic characters of Alice and Andrea (X).

Beth will be taking Alice’s escape arc, as she was a nurse-in-training who escaped from Woodbury, and I think Beth will also be her sister’s midwife, assisting Dr. Edwards. Alice helped Lori through birthing Judith, so it’s not unreasonable that Beth would be there for her sister. Gimple was recently on a Talking Dead special this summer and brought up Maggie’s pregnancy (X):

“Hardwick used a question from fans to ask the showrunner if Maggie’s baby would arrive before Season 8 comes to an end. Surprisingly, Gimple completely answered the question. “Maggie’s baby will not be born is Season 8,” Gimple said. “But anything’s possible.””

In the comics, we never see the baby be born due to the time jump after the All Out War arc. The baby, Hershel Jr., is about a year old when readers first see him on page. But I’m not sure if the show writers would waste an emotional moment of Glenn and Maggie’s being born, who is living proof of Glenn’s legacy. Gimple is a nerd and very involved with his work, in interviews he tends to give detailed explanations. I can understand being tight-lipped about the upcoming season, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he lied in order to preserve a secret. If Beth is connected to Maggie’s pregnancy, I can understand him finding any reason to avoid the topic then. Better to not talk about it at all than risk giving something away.

Furthermore, the diary entry stung for the audience because it reminded them of how much the characters had lost and showed them how much Beth had lost. Because Beth was still relatively unknown to viewers. It introduced us to her internal world and narrative. She’s so astute and she always has been. At seventeen she recognized that what the group needed was some psychological shelter, a place where they could stop running and just process what had happened to them in the past year. From seasons 2 to 3, most people wrote her off as a red shirt, and by pulling back to that time, Gimple is showing them that they’re wrong. Beth was always a complex character, a strong young woman. She just hadn’t had the chance to speak yet.

Reread the end of the entry again: “We can live here./We’re not going to die.” Those lines reflect Beth’s deepest wishes. This summer my brother and a family friend were watching this episode, and after the voiceover played, they dismissed the entry and Beth as “naïve”. Which, is just a totally wrong reading of her character and the text. Beth knew that they were all on borrowed time, even then. She wasn’t writing out her actual thoughts about their survival, she was writing down her wishes. She just wanted all of them to live and to have some goddamn peace. The diary entry is a rehearsal for Beth’s confession on the porch, where she reveals to Daryl that she just wanted her father to live the rest of his life in peace, to see her sister and brother-in-law start a family, to have some holidays like real people. The last paragraph in the diary further serves to undercut viewers’ perception of Beth’s “naïvety” by having her acknowledge it herself! Even then Beth knew that it probably wasn’t going to happen! She believed but she believed for her father, not for herself. She needed something, she needed a will to keep going. Beth made it through her depression and suicide attempt, but speaking from personal experience, you don’t just walk away from that kind of shit without ghosts, without a shadow over you. Beth made it through her depression, but she had to make the choice to do so every single fucking day.

“I’ve been keeping my backpack, keeping my gun close. I’ve been afraid to get my hopes up, thinking we can actually stay here. The thing is I’ve been starting to get afraid that it’s easier just to be afraid.”

And honestly. I have C-P.T.S.D., which is slightly different and more complicated than general P.T.S.D., but Beth just described my life at the moment. I was abused and betrayed by my entire immediate family, betrayed my close friends. It often feels like my entire world has ended. And I get scared of what would happen if I let people in, and I often have fantasies of living in a big houseboat one day with my cats and sailing off, alone for my whole life. Because that’s safer than people. Beth has P.T.S.D., and she knows that to an extent. She realizes what the apocalypse and what all its traumas have done to her, how she’s changed from the innocent girl she was. But she doesn’t let that girl go. She holds onto this part of herself, but she builds an armor around her to keep her alive. That “just another dead girl” part of Beth will fucking outlive everything.

… Anyway, in regards to the second part of your ask, I do think it’s possible that Beth could come across Tyreese’s grave and recognize the beanie. He would be buried relatively close to Richmond, and from there she would infer that her family probably moved onward. Though I’m not sure if TPTB would do that because Beth doesn’t have much of an emotional connection to Tyreese, onscreen anyway. Tyreese was mostly affected by her death because he felt responsible for it, as he suggested the peaceful hostage exchange. We’ll just have to wait and see.

#team delusional #scott gimple #beth greene #maggie greene #beth greene meta #dialogue #asks #submission #personal #sorry this turned into a ramble but honestly don't ask me about beth's diary #that's the key to my feels vault

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turnaboutancestor · 7 years

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DGS2 Case 3: Review and Thoughts

sooooo much happened in this case, this was such a long case 3, who said this much was allowed in c ase 3

i am obscenely emotionally compromised by what happens in the last 10 minutes of the case so please forgive me if any of my explanations seem weird or lacking.

Review

Background

10 years ago, a serial killer by the name of Professor was running lose around England. His targets were always those of nobility or higher, and it took until his last target--Klimt van Zieks, older brother to Barok--until he was finally caught.

The Professor’s trial was held in secret for one very important reason: he was a Japanese man in England as part of a study abroad program, and his identity getting out to the public would cause outrage and may even spark a war between Japan and England.

He was sentenced to hanging, and given a metal mask to wear. Courtney Sithe--then known by her maiden name, Courtney Simon--declared him dead, but he was actually still alive.

Nevertheless, he was buried...and that’s when a young, promising university student appeared. Enoch Drebber was part of a small group of grave robbers that would go to the prison cemetery to dig up the bodies of freshly-buried prisoners. That night he headed for the Professor’s grave, but as luck would have it he arrived just as Professor dug himself out of his own grave and “revived”. He was spooked--understandably--just as someone behind him fatally wounded Professor with a gunshot, killing him for good.

Enoch told this story to a number of outlets, but only one, the Daily Circus, actually published his name. This article, written by journalist Elyder Meningen, sparked Enoch’s downfall. His “side job” as a grave robber exposed, he was forced to leave school and give up his promising career as a scientist.

Sometime just after this, Madame Rozaic showed up in the graveyard to take a “mold” of Professor’s face for her wax museum. She later heard about the “revival” story from the Daily Circus and approached Enoch to take a wax mold of him as well for her “Hall of Terror” display.

Finally, for an undisclosed length of time, Elyder had been blackmailing Courtney, threatening to reveal that she misjudged Professor’s death if she didn’t pay a certain sum of money every month.

The Crime

One year ago, Elyder showed up to Enoch’s workshop. Known as an investor to the general public, Elyder had transformed into the center of a criminal organization via the many connections he made as a journalist over the years. He himself didn’t actually remember Enoch as a subject of his article, and instead came to him as a creator and “swindler”. He had just approached a young scientist by the name of Benjamin Dobinbough about his theory on teleportation, and wanted Enoch to build a machine for him with the goal of getting money from the government.

During this visit, Enoch noticed an interesting article in the newspaper Elyder was holding--the creation of a new forensic investigation unit, with coroner Courtney Sithe at the head. Upon seeing this, he decided to get revenge on all the people that ruined his life a decade ago. He would kill Elyder, and force members of Scotland Yard to be his accomplice.

The machine used for the teleportation machine was designed like a magic trick. There was a trick floor that connected to a shaft in the platform through which the experimentee would fall. Then, from a balloon hanging above the test site, a second cage would fall to the Crystal Tower, setting up the illusion that a teleportation actually happened. In this first cage would be the real Elyder Meningen; in the second would be the wax figure of the Professor, stolen by Enoch a few days previously.

Enoch chose this particular wax model to coerce Courtney into going along with his plan. She would find the wax model in the cage that fell through the Crystal Tower, along with a letter from someone who “knows the truth about 10 years ago.” Using the instructions in the letter, she set up the crime scene so that it appeared that teleportation actually occurred, and that Benjamin was the culprit.

Though because Courtney was being blackmailed by Elyder, she didn’t need much coercion; she worked with the forensics unit to set up the crime scene as detailed by the letter, but on her own head to the underside of the machine and into the shaft. Just as Elyder was getting out of the cage, she stabbed him with a screwdriver, setting up Benjamin as planned, but also getting her own revenge.

Other pertinent info

Where do I ever start. I think I start with a bullet list.

Professor is Asougi’s father, and came to Japan with Yuujin and Jigoku to study abroad 16 years ago

Professor’s method of killing was with a large hound that would rip into the victim’s neck.

Klimt was chief prosecutor at the time of his death, and it was he who helped set up the exchange programs

Asougi is very much alive, and it’s implied Sherlock was in on it, though we don’t yet know what “it” is.

Vortex introduced Barok to an amnesiac Asougi about three months ago. On Vortex’s orders, Asougi had to wear a mask, and he could not talk to anyone else.

After the trial, Barok called Ryuu and Susato into the empty court. He revealed to them who the Professor was (and also why he has such a strong hatred of Japanese people); this reveal also sparked Asougi’s memories returning.

Ryuu returned karuma to Asougi, and after cutting down the wax figure of Professor, left.

When Susato was very young and had finally gotten used to living with her father, she overheard him talking about a friend that had “died of illness” while in England, and that he left a son--Asougi. Asougi, to fulfill a promise with his father, became an attorney. Susato decided to become a legal cleric to help him.

For the International Forensics Symposium, Yuujin and Jigoku will be visiting England.

Susato knows about the “Hound of the Baskervilles” manuscript because Yuujin actually has it, and Susato spotted it in his office shortly before leaving for England.

For reasons yet unknown, Gregson is going to be transferred to Paris soon, and he plans to take Gina with him.

Thoughts

Holy hell I never expected this much out of a case that tends to be more filler than not.

Also the parallels between Jezail and Professor, what with international relations being at stake, are not lost on me. idk if the game will ever address them, thouh.

Honestly I was already surprised when Professor was revealed to be a Japanese man, and was curious when Susato mentioned she recognized him, but I FUCKING NEVER WOULD HAVE CALLED HIM BEING ASOUGI’S FATHER.

I don’t yet know how to feel re: the GUILT of the professor, however. As in: will the game go the route of proving he was framed? It seems like a very ACE ATTORNEY thing to do, to be honest, but I’m honestly not sure. Either way, Asougi’s “true motive” likely involves the Professor’s case.

Otherwise, my head is just SWIMMING with all this new info...I can’t even begin to imagine how the game will go from here, when this case was already FINAL CASE CALIBER in terms of reveals and emotional gut punches.

#sarah plays dgs2 #case 2.3 #case summaries

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winterscribe · 7 years

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That Vampire Hunter D thing I’ll eventually write coherently

So now that I’ve FINALLY found the Vampire Hunter D Fandom I’m working up the courage to share some of my headcanons (my stupid anxiety makes it irrationally hard) The problem is a lot of my headcanons require at least basic knowledge of the fantasy world that I started when I was 14?Ish? And the Ocs I created. Like I decided to yank D out of his post-apocalyptic hell world and put him into this peaceful world populated by non-assholes, or in some cases, slightly less homicidal assholes… ok the number of assholes is much less than on the frontier, and even the homicidal ones usually need a good reason to be homicidal. None of this “I’m gonna experiment on thousands of individuals and put my son through a living hell for shits and giggles” - LOOKING AT YOU DRAC, LOOKING AT YOU!

Anyway it’s really long and rambly so READ MORE-

Anyway I’m gonna make a series of posts explaining the basics, who’s who, How D got there, basic worldbuilding, that kinda thing. I’ll go through and link ‘em as I finish them. And I’ll make a masterpost because there are a few tags on my blog about the world and D’s family.

Now, since this world was started when I was 14 there are some things that are a little...odd. Names that Stuck and I can’t change because I’ve been calling it that for over 5 years, plot lines that involve characters from a different franchise but i haven’t figured out how to replace. Seriously I have GOT to figure out how to replace Fucking LOKI. FFS I haven’t liked that character for 2 years WHY is he STUCK THERE

I’m currently worldbuilding and planning a few novel’s based on Avaleara’s life, but the first 2 would be before she met D so I don’t think anyone would be interested. I’m gonna write certain scenes though, like Avaleara and D’s first kiss, the emotionally overwrought scenes that bring them together, stuff like that. But hey, if you like really overthought worldbuilding and sprawling sci fi/fantasy worlds, lord knows i could talk about Rev’haros for hours, so feel free to hit me up.

Story

D’s Part of the story line starts when Avaleara was punted through the barrier between universes by her uncle’s failed experiment and ended up on the frontier. By sheer happenstance, she landed right in front of D, who pretty much ignored her because she wasn’t trying to kill him and he needed to get to a job. Avaleara decided “Hey, there’s a fifty fifty shot he’s heading towards civilization, Im’ma follow at a respectful distance” Now, while Avaleara is decidedly Alien in appearance (aprx 6 ft tall, really dark purple skin, has horns, bio-luminescent markings, ALIEN) she has interacted with humans before, has even been to an Earth before, (Multiverse ftw) she has a pretty solid glamour already prepared, so while D knows what she looks like cuz he saw her, she can blend in on the frontier.

Except yah’ know, she doesn’t speak the language cuz the only Earth languages she knows are Japanese or English from circa 2000. Her trying to figure out the frontier dialect is like someone who speaks old English plopped down in the middle of modern day- She can sorta kinda figure out the gist but dear god is it difficult and makes her headache. On top of that since she comes into town a few hours after a Dhampir, well people don’t want shit to do with her, so she keeps vaguely wandering after D. I haven’t figured out the turning point yet, but eventually D interacts with this strange woman trailing aimlessly after him even as he cuts through an incredibly deadly forest and other such frontier horror ‘scapes that should have gotten her killed but didn’t. Because it’s D, he has a better grasp on “ancient” Japanese (Also I headcanon that his mother was of Japanese descent because Tony Thornburg) So they can communicate better.

Eventually they sorta travel together (Again I need to flesh this out) for a few years. About a decade of sorta traveling together (though niether of them will admit it, and certainly won’t admit that they enjoy eachother’s company) Dracula decides to be an asshole. For Hand Wavy reasons he comes up with a test for D and Left hand, that involves poisoning D. (IDK i’m kinda toying with the idea that Dracula had another success that was better than D, and decided to get rid of him, buuuut that would mean another character and i think it really goes against canon so idk if i’m gonna go that route)

The thing about Avaleara is that she is really possessive (part dragon) and fiercely protective of those she’s attached to. So Drac didn’t count on being hit with 900 pounds of sheer protective RAGE. Seriously Avaleara is the kind of person who, if she has something to protect, she will get back up no matter what she gets hit with. Spear through the heart? Bitch please she has two and you just handed her a weapon. Cut off an Arm? Regenerative powers and a history of being tortured so she doesn’t even flinch at the pain? Fire? She’s been burned alive before and it awakened her latent dragon genes. Water? She was born with an innate gift for controlling it. (so i kinda gave her every power I ever thought was cool, oops. HI MARY SUE)

She doesn’t kick Drac’s ass, but she does seriously wound him which is enough to startle him and, since he’s already accomplished poisoning D, he retreats, firing off a psychological attack as he goes. At that point Avaleara has one of two options. Use the last of her strength to fight off the attack, or draw the poison from D into herself (I had a reason for this but it's in a notebook buried in a box somewhere. God I hate moving) Another thing about Avaleara- if it's a choice between saving her life and saving someone else's, she will save someone else's. Every. Time.

So She saves D’s life, but falls into a coma fighting both the poison and Drac’s attack. At this point, her father, Maruketsukai (there’s one of those names I can’t change) appears, because her family had been keeping an eye on her but hadn’t pulled her back home cuz reasons. D does not trust the guy that appeared in midair. D owes Avaleara a debt because she saved his life. D also wants to know how the fuck she managed to wound the Sacred Ancestor. D is a stubborn bastard who will recklessly enter a portal to another universe because he owes someone a debt. He will also stand guard at their bedside for 5 years while they are in a coma because they saved his life.

(I think this is still in character- I mean he wouldn’t do it for just anyone, but shit this person fought Dracula and lived. For Him. yeah he’s gonna stick around and make sure they’re safe before he fucks off.)

His protectiveness earns him the undying loyalty of Avaleara’s family. Like, he’s obviously straight up ready to cut his way out of the room if they so much as breathe wrong in her direction. Ordinarily death threats aren’t the way to endear yourself to your in laws but Maruketsukai and Nikara are… not ordinary.

During the 5 years that Avaleara is in a coma, D learns a lot about her world, her family, and her past. Like the fact that she’s second in line for the throne, and that a previous lover had betrayed, kidnapped, and tortured her and that she had extreme PTSD and massive trust issues because of it. That’s why they had left her on the frontier, because for the first time in two thousand years, Avaleara had sorta trusted someone, or at least, didn’t seem overly paranoid about them, and they wanted to see what would happen.

D spends a lot of time with Takashi and Mizuki, because they speak Japanese. Takashi is the son of Sesshoumaru and Kagome. (Yes from the anime Inuyasha. I did mention this started when I was 14 right?) That’s why he speaks Japanese. Also He drags Avaleara and Mizuki to Earth occasionally which is why Avaleara has a human glamor. Its interesting for D to meet another half breed who is so blase about it, but Takashi grew up in La’ Shevare, where genetic modification for the express purpose of interspecies breeding has been a thing for several million years. Pretty much no one is a pure blood. But since he’s also the nephew of Inuyasha and has listened to his father express his regret over how he treated his brother, he at least partially understands where D is coming from. Sorta. Academically. Ok not really but he tries. And totally has a talk shit get hit policy when it comes to D. Like call Takashi a half breed, make fun of his heritage, whatever, so long as you don’t make fun of his parents, he don’t give a fuck. Call D a half breed, make fun of D’s heritage, prepare for at least 3 broken bones. Probably more. Seriously. He’s 45 years older than Avaleara, held her in his arms as a baby, grew up with her and fell in love with her sister. She’s Family. He was helpless when the man she loved broke her and twisted her into someone else, was helpless during her recovery because she wouldn’t let anyone in to help her. The moment D popped up, planting himself between Avaleara and any perceived threat, was the moment he became Pack. And you Do Not Fuck With a Dog Demon’s Pack.

Eventually Avaleara wakes up, except thanks to the psycological attack, and her previous ptsd related issues, Avaleara first thinks D is a hallucination. It takes awhile for it to set in and stick that he’s not. D sticks around, convincing her that he’s real and she’s not going insane, and just being really patient when she freaks out and thinks she’s seeing things, because hey, it was his asshole dad who did this to her so he kinda feels responsible. Plus he’d still really like to know how she wounded him.

It boils down to - Avaleara has spent the last 2 thousand years studying a variety of fighting techniques from all over the Rev’ Haros System, a system whose recent history spans back a few million years. D may know all the fancy vampire tricks, but 10,000 years is a drop in the bucket, a single lifespan of a person from Rev’ Haros. The whole system is so much more advanced than even the vampires at their peak, just because they’ve had the time to develop so far. The average person could go toe to toe with greater nobility if they had to, nevermind the people who are actually trained. Not to mention their fighting styles are so different, so alien to anything on Earth, that Dracula was at a significant disadvantage from that alone.

Avaleara happily agrees to train D in some of these styles. He doesn’t plan on sticking around long enough to learn them all. But he does, and she happily teaches him everything she knows until he is literally the only person who has a prayer of killing her. Shes very proud. Their sparring matches are epic and terrifying.

#vampire hunter d #god i'm so nervous putting this out there #like this has been my brain child for YEARS but i was never gonna share it #I love these characters ok #i poured my heart and soul into #Avaleara #please be gentle

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