“Never has my father ever…” Steph pauses, tries to think of something her father did to her that even Rose’s dad wouldn’t do. “…left me alone with a creepy middle-aged friend.”
Rose chuckles dryly. “Does it count if he’s the creepy middle-aged friend?”
Dammit, she didn’t think of that. “…sure?”
Wordlessly, Rose raises the bottle—vodka, the second tonight, Steph notes distantly—to her lips and takes a long swig.
Steph doesn’t press.
“My turn,” Rose says, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She sits up, a strange kind of eagerness on her face. “Never has my father ever… tried to make me choose between him and one of my siblings.”
“That doesn’t count,” Steph protests immediately, as if this is a game, as if… whatever this is has rules. “I don’t have siblings.”
“What about the other Bats?”
“Not my siblings. Ew.”
“Fair enough,” Rose concedes, and up goes the bottle again for no reason at all. Steph is starting to think she doesn’t get the game. “Then how about… hold on, do versions from alternate universes count?”
Steph’s reply is immediate. “No.” Whatever this is, it’s confusing enough without bringing multiversal variants into it—not that her father is important or complex enough to have substantially different multiversal variants, but still. “Let’s stick to our universe only, please.”
Rose shrugs, discarding what she was about to say as easily as she discarded her first bottle—which Steph is going to have to look for later, now that she’s thought about it. With her luck, it probably rolled under the bed. “Fine. Then how about… never has my father ever—ooh, this is a good one—payed a bunch of complete strangers to pretend to be my long-lost maternal family as a present.”
Steph blinks, cause what. “Huh?”
“I know, right?” Bottle, again. Steph’s getting annoyed… and maybe a little worried. “Talk about mixed signals.”
“You can’t just say something like that and not expect me to want a follow-up.”
Rose just shrugs. And then she takes—what a surprise!—another swig from the bottle, just for good measure. As if she hadn’t already made it throughly clear she doesn’t care about Steph’s opinion.
It’s like she’s trying to piss Steph off.
Steph opens her mouth, a scathing, alcohol-induced retort that will probably ruin the whole night already on her lips, before she is thankfully interrupted by a figure swinging into the room through the shadowy window near the back. Rose startles, but Steph grabs her arm, stopping her from tackling the new arrival before she can reveal herself. She really should’ve warned Rose that there was another person joining them.
“Hey, Cass,” Steph calls out to the shadowy figure, a smile in her voice. Steph had told her to at least knock on the window before entering on account of Rose’s presence, but she neglects to bring it up in favor of greeting her friend. “Back early?”
—
A few quick hand signs that Rose can’t make out—she’s getting better at ASL for Joey’s sake, but she’s not even close to fluent yet—and Cassandra is sitting on the floor with them, a red plastic cup filled with something that is probably not alcoholic clutched tightly in her hands. Usually, she’d complain that non-alcoholic drinks ruined the whole point of ‘drinking games’, but the words die in her throat when Cassandra turns to her and raises a pointed eyebrow. Fine. If she feels that strongly about it, Bat Bitch can drink orange juice from a sippy cup for all Rose cares. It’s not like it matters.
—
“Never has my father ever…” Cass starts slowly, deliberately trying to imitate Steph’s inflection in order to get the words out easier, “… shot me. As… practice.”
Rose drinks. Steph hesitates.
“Shot at me?” she asks, remembering the times she tried to apprehend her father before he knew she was Spoiler—and after, now that she thinks about it. “Or shot me?”
Cass frowns. “Shot me.”
Steph racks her brain, trying to think of a time when any of the bullets connected. She doesn’t think there is one.
(Huntress had taken one of those bullets for her, hadn’t she? Damn. She doesn’t think she ever thanked her for that. She should say something next time she bumps into the Birds)
After a pause, she decides not to drink. Which means it her turn again. Joy.
“Never has my father ever…” she hesitates, but only briefly. “… kidnapped me.”
All three of them drink. It should be funny. It’s not.
“Let’s drink once for every time it’s happened,” Rose says as an afterthought, tilting the bottle in Steph’s and Cass’ direction and smirking. “I bet mine’s bigger than yours.”
Steph doubts that. “You’re on.”
Cass drinks twice. Rose drinks three times. Steph drinks four times.
Then, after a pause, five.
Then, after another pause—this time to get another cup—six.
And then seven.
And then eight.
And then nine.
(Rose looks impressed. Cass just looks concerned)
“Don’t ask.” Steph grunts and slaps her chest in an effort to hold back a burp. She isn’t sure who she’s talking to, only that she means the words. “It’s none of your business.”
They nod. After all, asking is not part of the game. They established that at some point.
She thinks.
Truth be told, everything’s kinda fuzzy at the moment. Maybe she should slow down.
(She doesn’t)
“Never has my father ever,” Rose drawls some time later, after both she and Steph are more drunk than recommended, “slept with one of his childrens’ partners.”
Steph blinks. Cass stares.
Rose huffs drunkenly. “Don’t look at me like that. He did it to Joey, not to me.”
Like that made it better.
“That doesn’t count,” Cass says, surprisingly.
Rose scowls. “Yes it does.”
Cass scowls back. “It doesn’t,” she insists.
“Says who?”
“Says we,” Steph slurs, backing her friend up. “It has to be something he did to you. You’d have an unfair advantage otherwise.”
Rose mutters something under her breath that makes Cass frown, but moves on without much fuss. “Fine. Never has my father ever… watched me sleep.”
Steph tilts her head carefully, feeling dread pool in her stomach. “What do you mean?”
“You heard me,” Rose sneers. There’s an edge to her voice, and Steph sits up when she realizes it’s barely-hidden desperation. “Don’t tell me I’m the only one.”
The back of Steph’s throat starts itching. “Just… watches you?”
Rose crosses her arms. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
Cass doesn’t drink. Steph doesn’t either. A shadow passes over Rose’s face.
“Don’t tell me I’m the only one,” she repeats, and yep, that’s definitely desperation in her voice. “Seriously?”
Steph’s hands are tingling. After Terra, there have always been rumors about Deathstroke, but… “Rose…”
“Seriously?” Rose asks again, laughing, and it’s the ugliest sound Steph’s ever heard. “Score one for dad, I guess.”
It’s Cass who tries to speak next. “Wh-”
Rose’s arms snaps like a whip as she suddenly throws the bottle on the ground. Instinct alone prompts Cass and Steph to throw themselves back, shocked, even as Rose stands up and grabs her jacket from the couch. A single rivulet of blood runs down her face from a shard of glass the width of Steph’s middle finger embedded into her jaw just below the cheekbone, but she barely seems to notice as she shoulders her jacket and turns towards the exit. “Forget it,” she sneers over her shoulder, and Steph only now understands why people call Rose volatile. “This was stupid anyway.”
Steph finds herself stumbling after Rose and grabbing ahold of her sleeve, even as Cass signs to let her go. “Rose, wait.”
Rose shoves her away, harder than necessary. “Get off me.”
Steph stumbles back, but catches herself on the edge of the couch. “What the hell’s your problem?”
The daughter of Deathstroke whirls around, her white hair wraithlike in the light of the moon. Her one blue eye pins Steph in place with such intensity, with such vitriol, that Steph’s breath hitches, and she finds she’s not entirely sure who the person in front of her is.
“My problem?” Her voice is raw, and something not at all like a laugh bubbles up from her throat. It’s the sound of someone who has ripped their soul bare under a misassumption; it’s the sound of a girl who tore the darkest, most well-kept secret she had from her chest only to find out that the people around her were not peers at all. It’s the kind of laugh an addict might make after finding out that their AA meetings were staffed by undercover cops, the kind of incredulous, numb chuckle that might come out of a person finding out their long-lost family were paid actors the entire time. It’s an ugly sound, and Steph decides she never wants to hear it again. “God, I was so stupid. I thought—neither of you…” she trails off with a frustrated groan, then turns, slamming the door behind her as she leaves.
The two of them are left standing there, staring at the door uncomprehendingly, for more seconds than Steph is willingly to admit.
“We need to go after her,” Steph says eventually, her voice distant even to her own ears.
“Yes,” Cass agrees.
Neither of them moves.
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Thinking about the Hero's Spirit
Okay, so, when Time left the Adult Timeline... he took the hero's spirit with him. There was no hero's spirit to reincarnate when Ganondorf re-emerged and (as of the goddesses flooding the world) no other spirit born that could become the bearer of the Triforce of Courage.
Until Wind. Wind, whose spirit is its own spirit, came and becomes the embodiment of courage unlike any other hero. He forges his own spirit into one unbreakable, restores the Triforce, and defeats Ganondorf at the age of twelve.
But his hero's spirit is stubborn in a way everyone else's is not. He doesn't need the goddess to bless him with reincarnation, he wasn't even born with the Triforce of Courage (due to the fragmentation) he restored it and out of sheer will became the one to bear it and he knows it. So out of sheer will and stubbornness, he reincarnates.
Enter Spirit. Spirit, who is a hero in every right, but he doesn't follow the beaten path because Wind's hero spirit doesn't do that. He chooses to be an engineer instead of a hero or a knight.
But then the timelines merge, and suddenly, there's two hero's spirits? What? Well, obviously First's goes to Warriors, but where does Wind's go?
Linkle. Linkle, because their spirit doesn't follow the beaten path, it makes its own path, it sails through the waves rather than with it, it forces the winds to yield to its call and its power, the limits of death does not bind it, the expectations of ghosts of the past does not force its hand.
First's, Sky's, and every other hero's, their spirit is one of tenacity, one of pain and suffering, one that can take every hit and still stand and fight. They share a spirit of determination, one of courage, one that is unbreakable because it will stand in the way and be the immovable object that will always be there to hold back the darkness.
But Wind's spirit? Wind's, Spirit's, Linkle's, their spirit is also one of determination, but theirs is one born of choice, theirs is a spirit of free will, of stubbornness and a need to stand their ground. They were not forged by pain like the others, but by love (for Aryll, for Phantom/ST!Zelda). They take every hit, but they don’t stand because they can and they must, they don’t get back up because they have this undying need to endure and to persevere, they get back up because of their loved ones and the people they protect. They are the unstoppable force that drives darkness back.
Don’t get me wrong, the original Hero's Spirit is still stubborn, those heroes are still an unstoppable force, they are still seeking to protect the people they love, but if you have a hero hated by all, a hero who has nobody they should logically be trying to protect? They would still fight because that's what's right, that's what their heart is like, the whole world could hate them and they'd still protect it because 'the people in that world deserve to be saved'. The Adult Timeline's spirit is much of the same, they are similar in spirit, but there are differences.
The original spirit is a forest, one that will never truly be destroyed because something will always survive and that something will regrow and restore the forest that once stood.
The second spirit is a river, carving its path through mountains and valleys, overcoming insurmountable odds and creating great canyons. Nothing can stop them for good.
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Ahem. This is not a drill! Buddie is on it's way!
Why do I say this? Well, because we've been given a very generous tip...
They're waiting for pizza to arrive 🍕,
and they're smelling smoke 🔥!!
And since the sea monkeys the show just mentioned... are obviously buddie...
And as we all know, the thing which wakes up sea monkeys 🕺🕺from their dormancy 🏡😴...
is ... WATER 💧...?
The end result is buddie.
Yes I know I am unhinged but c'mon guys,
we know this scene!!!
🍕+🔥+💧...?
Pizza and smoke and water...?
It's the Worst timeline (and in my opinion, also the Best) from the Community, and it's happening!
Which also means that Buddie will wake up! Because they just compared buddie to sea monkeys... and the worst timeline ALSO has that water💧 that sea monkeys 🕺🕺 need, to wake up from their hibernation!
Yes! Our thirst will be quenched!!!
The pizza is coming, there's smoke in the air...
And it'll rain!!
It's happening buddies,
Our sea monkeys are in the process of waking up from their dormancy!!! 🕺🕺🥳
Btw more fun sea monkey facts!
I'm too lazy to dig up the exact quotes so I'll just describe two more scenes from other fandoms which mention sea monkeys...
In Supernatural, 5x6, I Believe the Children Are Our Future... A family of sea monkeys is mentioned... it's an example of something very unrealistic-sounding, something that sounds like a lie, a thing only kids believe in... But is actually coming true; becoming the new, reshaped reality.
And also in Juno, in which the sea monkey is the baby whom Juno (a teen mom giving her baby up for adoption) is expecting. Juno says she would give the baby right away to the couple she has decided should be the baby's parents... But they'll have to be patient because the fetus probably looks like a sea monkey at the moment... So she'll keep it in the oven for a while longer, to make it cuter! So a sea monkey is a work-in-progress in the realm of Juno. (Yes, I'm using the pronoun 'she' here, it's because I'm referring to his role, a young woman called Juno, I'm not talking about the actor.)
Where was I?
Yes. Sea monkeys! They're real, they're something that will arrive with a little patience, they're dormant...
And water is what wakes them up!!!
So let's hope it'll rain soon...? Oh.. This is perfect! Katie Melua's Flood is one of my favorite songs and it fits this theory perfectly!! Let's go, Katie! 🎤
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