THE MUMMY (1999) + letterboxd reviews part two ↳ part one | insp.
I think the funniest dynamic for arranged-marriage royalty would be a queen who came here 100% prepared to murder her future husband and rule as a widow queen in her own right, only to discover that the king is autistic as hell and responds to her wish to rule with "oh thank god please do, I don't want to be bothered by these people. I can just tell them to go bother you instead, if you really want that. I've got beetles I wanted to study."
"I'm really not good at it," the king admits with horrible, aching grief. The country is in disarray. Peasants go hungry. Nobles trade power amongst themselves with impunity.
So the queen takes over and ruthlessly sets things to rights. Fires several generals, hangs nobles, redirects wealth to the peasantry. It isn't long before the first assassination attempt, which she expected.
She did not expect her docile, beetle-obsessed husband to go absolutely feral and fling himself at the assassins wielding a pair of sharp knives.
Also, the beetles are intended to attack and kill a certain type of invasive worm that has been killing off the gourd and potato crops for decades. He’s been trying since he was a child to crossbreed several native species to be hardier and better diggers. When he finally gets it right it’s all over for you bitches (“you bitches” being mass starvation of subsistence farmers).
Mad Scientist and the Head of HR ass dynamic
Home is a Fire | Part 6 & 7 - The End
They left Stiles out because they knew the nogitsune would tear him apart, but now the nogitsune is gone and Stiles can feel the nemeton telling him it isn’t over — not for him. And maybe not for Derek either.
Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis Rating: Not Rated Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Darcy Lewis, John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Chuck (Stargate), Atlantis (Stargate), Jack O'Neill, Daniel Jackson (Stargate), Ronon Dex, Teyla Emmagan, Jane Foster (Marvel), Tony Stark, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) Additional Tags: Crack Treated Seriously, Crack, Fluff and Crack, BAMF Darcy Lewis, Awesome Darcy Lewis, Jane Foster & Darcy Lewis Friendship, Darcy Lewis saves the world by being Darcy, Feel-good, Happy Ending, Happy Summary:
Atlantis has missed all her children.
a little comic about kisses and curses. happy halloween!
(all my comics are here!)
this is the most beautiful thingever
next transformers continuity i want the autobots to accidentally out themselves to earth when they realize the probe they just shook the dust off of has cameras and one day NASA wakes up to find that opportunity rover's back online and the first thing it recorded was a giant robot saying "well, fuck"
I want this to be Ironhide. But alternatively
Optimus
Gentle Dad Bot just wanted to wipe off that poor abandoned rover. The first thing humanity sees of Optimus is this bigass robot lightly patting Opportunity and saying "There you go, all clean. Oh, it started working? Ratchet look, he's alive! :D"
this is so cute ówò
Optimus becomes a meme long before he ever reaches earth.
The leaked video becomes widely known as Metal Jesus welcomes Oppy to robot heaven or something similar.
If there is a Decepticon attack and Oppy is damaged, Megatron will be globally known as Metal Satan, and the millennials and gen Z's will be mobilized against him before he ever sets foot on the planet.
ALTERNATELY
The Autobots bring Oppy onto their ship to help take care of him. He's a curious little guy! Always rolling around and picking up random objects to examine.
He quickly captures everyone's sparks.
Meanwhile the techs back at NASA are freaking out because they get to virtually explore an alien spaceship and EVERYTHING IS AMAZING!
I'm love this
"Metal Jesus" - there has never been a better description of Optimus ever
@theotherguysride
The little rover is so fragile, to a being who is used to the cold void of space, to the hostile radiations and dust clouds and ice storms between worlds. What’s curious about this little machine is that it’s *built*. A civilization prodding gently at the secrets of their own solar system. Optimus is *charmed and delighted* by the little thing, sending all it’s data back. Curious and gentle and it’s not really a *pet* so much as a companion. He speaks to it in its language all the time, as if it *is* a pet yes, but also. Optimus Prime is a politician and a master of diplomacy. He’s absolutely gleefully monitoring all the internet data traffic that he can get his servos on, about this little robot and the joy of the people who built it. This is his chance to be soft, and gentle with a fledgling species. To learn about them and their great history, no more than a single blink of Primus’ eye. The Autobots tend to think that Optimus is kind of strange sometimes, but they do indulge him because more often than not, he’s *correct* in his strange actions. And when they do make contact with Earth. It’s via that little robot and its friends, the ones they’ve plucked out of the dirt and ice, to be gently restored to functionality, their power sources rebuilt and their instruments retuned and their data transmission clearer than ever. And they sing the little robot happy birthday, because it’s tradition and because this little ambassador deserves to be honored. Hello, Earth, Optimus says, his voice deep and gentle as he kneels before the little thing. “We’re the Autobots, and it’s a pleasure to meet you.” (It’s not gentle, there’s plenty of bullshit in politics, but Optimus understands the politics and the people and how the two are not the same. The politicians are offered cool professionalism. The public is offered their honesty and personality and joy.) Nasa, collectively, loses its shit. And Opportunity sings itself Happy Birthday to a deep chorus of voices raised in the same kind of giddy exploratory love as the people who built the little drone. (Someday, Opportunity and Curiosity will wobble their shaky way to their feet, beeping and squeaking and figuring out their voices, to say “I love you” to the people who have loved them first.)
Excuse me while I quietly implode from the wholesome
Home is a Fire | Part 5
They left Stiles out because they knew the nogitsune would tear him apart, but now the nogitsune is gone and Stiles can feel the nemeton telling him it isn’t over — not for him. And maybe not for Derek either.
—————————————————————
Scott’s house wasn’t as full as it had been the last time Stiles had visited. When Melissa let him inside, there was no one downstairs. Inside of Scott’s childhood bedroom, only Lydia, Allison, and Scott remained.
“So, Jackson didn’t feel like sticking around any longer?” It was Lydia who recognized Stiles’s voice first and turned to answer him where he stood in the doorway.
“It was something to do with work. I’m honestly not very sure what he does for a living so I didn’t ask.”
“I’m glad you came back. We’re leaving tomorrow and I was worried I wouldn’t get to see you before then,” Scott said, standing from where he sat on the corner of the bed. Stiles could tell he meant what he was saying but he was like a puppy. He was too concerned with what was right in front of him to be interested in anything else that was going on.
“Listen guys, there’s more going on than what you think. Peter and I,” and he was cut off.
“What, you’re hanging out with Peter now? You hate Peter,” Lydia said, rising to her feet as well.
“Would you just listen to me? I know everyone has their own things going on but this isn’t over.” Stiles was getting frustrated. His old friends had a habit of thinking they always knew better than him. Maybe it was because of his humanity. Maybe it was because of how obvious his PTSD became in the years before he left Beacon Hills for good. They were treating him like he wasn’t the only one of them still risking his life regularly running into burning fires.
“Of course, Stiles,” Allison said, “Talk.”
So Stiles talked. He told them about his dreams, his conversation with Cora, the library that he found with Peter, and the books. He told them again about Derek’s traumatic past and his own experiences with the nemeton when he was possessed.
“Those tendrils of light.. We saw those when we brought Allison back. It wasn’t the nemeton that sent me the instructions on how to do it though, it was the nogitsune,” Lydia said.
“I don’t think the nogitsune has anything to do with this. He was in the nemeton long enough to have figured out how to trap Allison in it but he died. I can’t feel him. When I reach out to the nemeton, I know he’s gone. Derek, I can feel.” Stiles was trying to put the pieces together but he still couldn’t answer the biggest question. “I keep seeing this phrase, ‘What’s taken is returned.’ It was in my dream last night and it was in one of my books this morning. I brought it with me.” Stiles shrugged off his jacket in the warm bedroom and took the book out of one of the large pockets. He gave it to Allison. “You were inside. Maybe you know what it means.”
Allison took the book from Stiles’s hands and looked through it. He had folded down the corner of the page he found that morning.
“It doesn’t mean anything to me, Stiles. I don’t remember being inside. I closed my eyes when the Ony stabbed me and opened them here.”
Lydia reached out towards Allison, beckoning for the book. Allison gave it to her. Stiles felt like time slowed as Lydia touched the book and something happened to her. The look on her face became worried as she wrapped her hand around the spine of the book and once she firmly gripped it, she slid down to her knees and looked straight at Stiles. She screamed. Suddenly, Allison, Scott, and Stiles were on the ground around her, calling her name. Stiles was in front of her, holding both of his hands to her cheeks. He pressed his forehead against hers like he’d done every time she had needed him in Portland. After a few moments, her scream stopped, but she was still fixed by something.
“She needs to draw,” Stiles said, looking down to the hand which wasn’t grabbing the book as it moved in some kind of pattern. “Paper, Scott, paper!” Scott scrambled to the desk and found a used notebook from highschool. He really needs to clean out this room, Stiles thought as Scott opened the notebook to a blank page and put it under Lydia’s hand. He must have grabbed a pen from the same desk because Stiles saw him grab Lydia’s hand and firmly place a pen in it, wrapping her fingers around it.
Lydia dropped the book and stilled. Stiles and Allison moved away from her, giving her just enough space to move. She hunched over the notebook on the floor and began to write. Stiles could make out the words easily. He’d just said them. What’s taken is returned. The nemeton requires a sacrifice. We give unto thee to receive tenfold. What’s taken is returned. What’s given is rewarded. She wrote them all over the page, flipped it, and continued on a new page. She went back over some of the letters. Others, she spaced out too far to be a coincidence. It went on for what felt like an hour as Stiles, Scott, and Allison stood together, in the doorway, and watched.
Xx
Lydia gasped when she finally stopped writing and looked up at Stiles and their friends. She looked back down at the notebook and dropped the pen. Stiles was the first to move, kneeling down in front of her. “Are you okay?”
“I think so. Something happened when I touched that book. I think it remembers all of us.”
“The books?” Scott asked.
“No, the nemeton. I saw you go under the ice water. I saw Derek and Paige on the nemeton. I saw five people in hoods standing around the nemeton. I think they were us.”
“But there are only four of us,” Scott added, again, helpfully.
“The fifth person,” Stiles started, “it has to be a Hale, I think. Lydia is connected to the nemeton by her abilities. We are connected to it by our sacrifice. Someone has to be connected to Derek.”
Allison, while listening to the rest of them talk, had taken the notebook and begun to rip out the pages. She was placing them around on the floor. Stiles noticed and stepped back to give her more room. She laid all twenty pages out on the floor, 4 pages tall and 5 pages wide, in just the order that Lydia had drawn them. The white spaces between words showed a picture. “What is it?” Lydia asked, noticing Allison had finished laying out the pages.
“It’s the nemeton,” she said. And it was. The white spaces between words painted a very simple outline of the nemeton from above. The bolded letters that Lydia had drawn were only outside of the image. Stiles looked closer at the letters, looking for a pattern.
Sacrifice, unto, tenfold, tenfold, nemeton, unto, tenfold, and so on. The bolded letters left a message.
FULL MOON. HALE. SACRIFICE. REWARD. RETURN.
The message repeated around the shape of the nemeton.
“It looks like you won’t be leaving so soon, Scott,” Lydia said.
Xx
Stiles, Scott, Allison, and Lydia sat on the floor of his own childhood bedroom, looking up at his map. He’d added Lydia’s message and the words from the book. So far, they knew that they would have to go to the nemeton on the full moon, potentially wear cloaks, choose a Hale to go with them, and possibly spill someone’s blood.
“I don’t understand. Why would Derek be trapped in the nemeton?” Scott asked.
“It has to be something to do with Paige. Both Stiles and I have seen her now,” Lydia said.
“Paige’s death activated the nemeton. At least, her virgin blood touching it did. It brought it back to life, like life support, until the three of us sacrificed ourselves to it,” Stiles added.
It was Allison who spoke next. “The nemeton requires a sacrifice. We give unto thee to receive tenfold. What’s taken is returned. If the nemeton requires a sacrifice, then it was Paige. She was what was taken. Shouldn’t she be the one returned?”
“A life is what was taken. A life is what’s returned.” This new voice came from outside of Stiles’s now opened window, but no face accompanied it. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see who had spoken. Stiles recognized the woman’s voice. More importantly, the only people that ever came in through his bedroom window always seemed to be Hales.
“Cora,” Stiles whispered, “you got here fast.”
Scott, Allison, and Lydia’s eyes widened in surprise as they looked to Stiles’s window just in time to see Cora Hale, wearing all black leather that matched her glossy dark brown hair, step in gracefully, yellow eyes flashing.
Home is a Fire | Part 4
They left Stiles out because they knew the nogitsune would tear him apart, but now the nogitsune is gone and Stiles can feel the nemeton telling him it isn’t over — not for him. And maybe not for Derek either.
—————————————————————
It was dark when Stiles made it to a patch of land that he thought looked like it might be Hale land. At some point, Derek must’ve taken the rest of the house down but he wasn’t letting it grow over either. All that was left was a large clearing in the trees and a garden. He thought about Derek tending to a garden of poison, leaning over it to pick out weeds, carefully tending to the 20 or so plants growing in a circular patch.
How was he supposed to find a secret underground library when all he saw was a garden and a few weeds that must’ve popped up since Derek had been gone?
“You’re going to need this.” Stiles turned around to see Peter Hale leaning against a tree with a shovel in each hand.
“So you decided to help out after all?”
“Only because I think you might just be determined enough to go through with this.”
Stiles walked over and grabbed a shovel. “I don’t know where to start. Do we dig up every single one?”
“Look at them more closely, Stiles. They’re not all the same kind of wolfsbane.” Peter said, his eyes glowing.
“I don’t have your eyesight. Besides the yellow plant at the far end, they all look the same to me.”
The pair walked closer to Derek’s wolfsbane garden. Up close, Stiles could see the flowers looked different on some plants while others seemed to have been clipped cleanly with shears.
“He was dosing himself,” Peter whispered.
“Dosing himself with wolfsbane?”
“In theory, one could dose themselves with a small amount of poison in order to minimize the effects of it over time. This is, of course, incredibly dangerous, but it’s also the best explanation for a vast garden containing many varieties of it. Stiles,” Peter hesitated, “Wolfsbane has a lot of mysterious magical properties.”
“When we found Laura, it was the wolfsbane that kept her in her wolf form, right?” He asked.
“Exactly. If Derek had this many varieties of it in his system when he was burned on the nemeton, well I don’t know what that would do. Sometimes, it is used to hold a wolf in their current form, in a sort of stasis. Maybe you’re not wrong. Maybe a part of Derek is being held back.”
“I’m not wrong.”
Peter turned around and pointed to a variety of wolfsbane on the outermost part of the garden. This variety seemed to be a bright purple in the moonlight and the flowers cut back more than the others. “Nordic Blue Monkshood.”
“Kate laced her bullets with that.”
“She also burned this house down. That’s the one we need to dig up.”
So Stiles and Peter got to work. Stiles carefully dug out the plant so that he could replace it when they left. Peter dug out a deep hole until he hit something. Together, they dug the shape of a metal square, about 2 feet below the ground, until the entire door was visible and the dirt around it was packed in tightly enough that they could open it. “You first,” Peter said, leaning on his shovel and looking down.
Stiles laid his shovel down and crouched to open the door. He thought he might need to ask for Peter’s help until the door quickly swung open. Stiles could only see the top of a ladder leading down into the dark. With no phone to light the way, he took a deep breath and climbed straight into the dark.
Xx
When Stiles reached the bottom of the ladder, he reached around for a wall or something to hold onto. To his left, he felt a rail. Slowly, he took a step forward and stumbled. His foot seemed to go right down through the air. He tried again, slowly, and found a step beneath him. At the tip of his foot, he could feel where that step ended, too. He was on some kind of staircase. Suddenly, it shook with a crash.
“It’s just me,” came Peter’s voice behind him. He had decided to forego the ladder and just jumped straight down. “It’s a spiral staircase. Hold onto the railing and stick to the wider steps beside it. I’m going to find the light. Moonlight alone is not enough light even for me.” There was another crash from Peter jumping off the side and hitting a floor below them.
Stiles followed Peter’s instructions and went down the staircase. When he reached the bottom, he only made it two steps before colliding with the wall. As soon as he hit it, light flooded the rest of the room. There were a few bulbs hanging loosely from the ceiling. Peter was across the room, at the other wall, his hand still lingering on a panel of switches. Stiles studied the room between them. The staircase was immediately in front of him, an intricate, metal fixture. To his left there were 5 tall shelves with thick end pieces that concealed the books on the shelves from his view at this angle. As he approached them, he saw rows and rows of books, old and new, that seemed to be organized by subject rather than any kind of alphabetical order. The shelf farthest left contained only information with titles relating to werewolf history. The next shelf had “Beacon Hills” written on almost every item, not just books but maps and picture frames and a trunk near the bottom.
“I don’t see anything about the nemeton specifically, but there are books on Druids over here,” Peter said from another row. Stiles left his shelves and found Peter on the far right, against the wall. There were a few books with “Druid” in the title at the bottom of the shelf. Peter was crouched down in front of it, holding one of the books.
“I’ll take them all,” Stiles said. There were only four books counting the one in Peter’s hand. He could return them some other time.
Together, Peter and Stiles turned off the light, climbed to the small door, and covered the library with dirt. Stiles dug out a small circle over the library door and replanted the wolfsbane plant. You could still see their disturbance in the garden when they left. Peter had a car along the side of the road just a short walk away and drove Stiles back to Derek’s house, where his car was. They didn’t speak to each other again after they left the library. Peter didn’t seem like he wanted to chat and Stiles was trying his best not to fall asleep on the drive over.
Xx
When Stiles made it back to his old bedroom, his dad was already fast asleep. A clock in the kitchen read a quarter after midnight when stiles passed it for the stairs.
After a quick shower and a change into plaid pants, he sat cross legged on his bed with the four books in front of him. He read through them until his eyes wouldn’t focus anymore.
Xx
Stiles was freezing cold. He could feel the hair on his skin raised in the cold. It wasn’t a breeze, just a solid feeling covering him. He opened his eyes, with effort, and found himself laying on top of a large piece of wood. He was on the nemeton. He couldn’t make himself sit up so he rolled to his side. A young Derek was leaning against the stump, crying and covered in blood. Suddenly, Derek looked up at him, eyes glowing blue. When Stiles broke eye contact, he could see a girl. He remembered hearing about Paige. He looked away from her body and caught his own arms in the corner of his vision. He, too, was covered in blood. He looked closer and started to count his fingers. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… 6.
When he looked back to find Derek, it was no longer the teenage version of him but Derek as he remembered him. He had more gray in his hair but otherwise he looked exactly like he had 15 years ago.
“You have to come get me, Stiles,” Derek whispered. Hearing his voice, Stiles jumped, he sat straight up.
He felt the warm air before his eyes opened. He was sitting up in a tub of water and half-melted ice. Everything around him was white except for the nemeton, 20 feet directly in front of him. Derek wasn’t there anymore. There was no more blood. On top of the nemeton grew sprouts of wolfsbane. All different varieties and different colors that Stiles could clearly see in the light. The image jarred and suddenly young Derek and Paige were sitting at the roots again.
Stiles stumbled out of the tub of water, the warm air soothing his numb limbs. He tried to get his balance and make his way towards the teenagers in front of him. Suddenly, Paige moved her head to look at Stiles. Her eyes glowed silvery blue. Tendrils of the same silver blue light spread out from the nemeton, curling around Stiles’s ankles. “What’s taken is returned,” Paige whispered.
“What was taken?” Stiles shouted across the 15 foot distance remaining between them.
“What’s taken is returned,” she repeated again, faster. She repeated it again and again until the silver blue light was everywhere, surrounding him.
Then everything erupted into flames.
Stiles woke up screaming.
Xx
“Stiles!” When Stiles opened his eyes, he was on the floor instead of his bed. His father was running towards him, shouting his name. He rolled over with a ground to lay on his back. “What happened?” Noah grabbed his arms to help lift him up.
“Nightmare,” Stiles said. “Derek, the nemeton, blood, fire – the usual.”
“Stiles, you have to let this go,” the Sheriff said, looking away from his son and over to the growing wall of post-its, pictures, and yarn.
“I’m too close,” Stiles said. He shook his dad off and went back to the bed. He flipped through the books in front of him. “What’s taken is returned,” he whispered to himself.
“I have to go to work. Please, don’t do this to yourself, Stiles. You couldn’t have saved him.”
Xx
“What’s taken is returned!” Stiles shouted to the empty house. In one of the books he found the phrase. He didn’t understand exactly what the context was but he knew those words. He couldn’t stop repeating them. He found the phrase in a section about ancient druids and nemeton rituals. The book seemed more to gather history than to explain the rituals.
What’s taken is returned. The nemeton requires a sacrifice. We give unto thee to receive tenfold. What’s taken is returned. What’s given is rewarded.
Stiles took a deep breath. He was feeling relieved, if only slightly. He was right. There was something bigger going on with Derek, with the nemeton. He didn’t know what but he knew that it was real. It wasn’t just his grief. The nemeton, or Derek, or maybe both were trying to reach him. He knew someone who’d been in the nemeton. He knew someone who could hear its voice. He just hoped they hadn’t left town yet.
Okay but running with the Nemeton-created-Eli theory is just. Scary as hell but also really funny. Like imagine Stiles and Derek both feeling drawn out to the tree stump, confused as hell as to why they feel like they HAVE to get there, only to find baby Eli full on baby-in-a-basket-style.
So they take him to the station because duh they need to figure out who his parents are, so they run his dna but since his eyes flared they keep it quiet since they don’t think a social worker can handle a werewolf baby
And just who’s dna gets pinged?? None other than the (exonerated) murder suspect Derek Hale AND the delinquent sheriffs son Stiles Stilinski (who’s dad once booked him to try and scare him after he first stole the Jeep when he was like 14 (which definitely did not work))
Noah just reads the results, sighs so hard he nearly breaks something, and then goes to Derek’s loft where he and Stiles are babysitting the kid, and he can hear the bickering and sarcasm before he’s even through the front door
*then Stiles and Derek go on to raise Eli, Stiles decides he doesn’t want to be in the FBI and instead opens up a private investigation business specialising in supernatural shit, they buy a house together, they fall in love, Noah has flashbacks to raising Stiles whenever he babysits Eli and Derek has a family that loves him*
Home is a Fire | Part 3
They left Stiles out because they knew the nogitsune would tear him apart, but now the nogitsune is gone and Stiles can feel the nemeton telling him it isn’t over — not for him. And maybe not for Derek either.
————————————————————————
It was just after noon when Stiles pulled up to a small gas station a few blocks from the address his dad texted him for Derek’s house. He needed gas, a sandwich, and a plan. Would Peter have any idea how to contact Cora? It’s not like they were close. Had Derek ever gotten back into a semi-consistent contact with her? After a few minutes, his tank was full and he’d grabbed a cold sandwich from the store.
The new Hale house was very similar to his fathers’. A simple, two story home likely built in the early 90’s. He noticed multiple locks on the door when he knocked.
“No one’s home,” he heard Peter call, though the locks clicked open one-by-one just a moment later. “Ah, my favorite.” Stiles stared at him. In the back of his mind, he wondered what had changed him so deeply that he didn’t have a sarcastic remark even for Peter Hale.
“We have to find Cora.” Stiles walked past Peter until he found a small living room and sat down. “When’s the last time you heard from her?” Looking around the room, he noticed Eli was sitting on the couch scrolling through his phone. His attention was pulled up, curious about the new guest in their home.
“I know that Derek had gotten back into contact with her but I’m not the biggest family man these days. He did say she had given him a phone, in case of emergencies only, but I don’t know where he would’ve kept it.”
“What do you want to know about Cora?” Eli’s full attention had shifted to Stiles and Peter now.
“I need to talk to her. It’s important,” Stiles said. He didn’t want to give up too much information to Eli. Getting his own hopes up was one thing but he wouldn’t let Eli think there was a chance until he was sure. Eli seemed to be thinking, deciding whether to trust Stiles with some information he knew, and Stiles took the time to really look at him. He saw so much of himself in Derek’s son. There was an expression on his face that he couldn’t hide – one that Stiles knew well. That was the face of someone who liked getting himself into trouble. “You’re the kid with my Jeep right?” Eli met his eyes then.
“I’m just taking care of it. I get it if you want it back.”
“That Jeep is the last thing my mother left me. She meant everything to me. I know a little about what you’re going through and when I was lost most, when I couldn’t find a reason to keep going, fixing her was something I could focus on. In a way, she gave me a purpose every time that I wasn’t sure if I could live without my mom. As long as you keep her running, she can be your purpose too.” After he spoke, Stiles broke Eli’s eye contact. He could feel tears in his eyes and see them reflected in the kid’s. It was silent for a moment.
Eli spoke more enthusiastically this time. “Dad and I had a plan if anything ever happened to us. We were supposed to meet up in the garage and then we’d leave town and go to Cora’s. He kept a duffle bag there – he called it our ‘go bag.’” He got up and took a few steps towards Stiles. “I can show you where it is. I should’ve called her anyway.”
Stiles considered Eli’s offer. He didn’t want to get the kid involved in whatever he was doing but it didn’t seem like there was another option. Peter wasn’t fighting to take him there instead. Peter, well Peter seemed to have completely disappeared from the room. Stiles spun around but there was no sign of him. He sighed. “Okay, my car’s out front.”
“Are you kidding? We’re taking the Jeep.”
Xx
It was so unusual for Stiles to sit in the passenger side of the Jeep. He had forgotten how rough it was on even the smoothest of roads and being in the passenger seat, not being able to feel the engine from the pedal, emphasized every bump. Still, he enjoyed the breeze on their short ride over to the garage. When they parked, he studied the kid again. ‘He’s so much like me,’ he thought. ‘I bet he gave Derek Hell.’
“What?” Eli asked, when Stiles didn’t make any move to get out of the car.
“What happened to your mother? You don’t have to answer –”
“She was killed.” Stiles nodded, not wanting to push him, but he kept going. “I was a baby so I don’t remember any of it. Apparently, Dad had gone to live with Cora and her pack. He met my mom in Cora’s pack – said she reminded him of an old friend. I got a lot of her features, that’s why I only really have Dad’s hair. One morning, him and Cora had taken me so that my mom could catch up on some sleep. A few rogue hunters attacked. When Dad and Cora got back, the pack had killed the hunters, but not before one of them killed her. That’s the way he told the story to me, at least. I never really knew her.”
All Stiles could think was how hard that must’ve been on Derek. All of his life, he had been through so many shitty things. If there was a god, they really had it out for Derek Hale. “He was lucky to have you,” Stiles said.
“I don’t know. Sometimes I pushed him too far, I think.”
“When my mom died, I pushed my dad. I snuck out every night. Once, I overheard him talking about a body in the woods and I made Scott come out, in the middle of the night, and try to find it with me. That’s how Scott got turned. Anyway, I gave him so much shit. Still, he always said I reminded him of my mom. He said it hurt less to lose her because he got to have me. I know Derek would’ve thought the same.”
It was silent again, until Stiles opened his door. He heard Eli’s door open too and followed him into the garage. “He talked about you,” Eli said.
“I talked about him, too. I should’ve talked to him, instead.”
Xx
Eli left Stiles standing in the middle of the garage. He’d gone into an office where he said Derek hid important things. He came back with a duffle bag that was almost half his size. “This is the bag. I’ve never looked inside of it – always thought it was probably boring stuff like my birth certificate.”
Stiles laughed. It was a small, short laugh, but still something he didn’t do a lot these days. With a smile still on his face, he kneeled down as Eli dropped the bag. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Eli was smiling too.
The bag did have a lot of boring stuff. Eli was right about the birth certificate – it was in a big file folder which had the deed to the land of the Hale House, a few old car titles, and more papers. There were also a few pairs of pants and approximately 20 black shirts. There was a smaller black bag at the bottom which Stiles pulled out and unzipped. Inside were 3 burner phones, all turned off. He switched each of them on and looked through the contacts. One had names he knew – Malia, Peter, his Dad, and Scott. One had Deaton and a bunch of names he didn’t know. Family friends, maybe. Maybe other packs Derek had come across. The last one that he turned on had only a single number in it. There wasn’t a name on this contact but he knew it had to be Cora. He pocketed this one, turned the rest back off, zipped the bag, and put Derek’s ‘go bag’ back together. “Got it,” he said.
Eli took the bag back to where he’d gotten it from before returning. On the way out, Stiles noticed that Eli was putting a code into the office door. He hadn’t been paying enough attention before. “You keep it locked?”
“Yeah, no particular reason. Dad’s big on security. The code’s 7687-9653 if you need to get back in. The numbers spell ‘sour wolf.’ Some kind of joke he always set his passwords to.” Eli passed Stiles on the way to the Jeep because Stiles had stopped walking. He’d made the wrong choice when he left. Lydia had been everything he told himself he wanted ever since he could remember and she’d become smarter, stronger, and even more beautiful with every passing day back then. And yet, it was so obvious now that he’d made the wrong choice. “You coming?”
“I need to take a walk.” Stiles said, making his voice loud enough for the feet between them now. “Thanks for your help, Eli. Cora should hear what happened from me so I’ll call her. I’ll drop the phone off to you later in case you want to talk to her, too.”
He could feel Eli’s eyes on him as he walked away. Still, he needed to be alone and he didn’t want Eli to hear what he had to say to Cora.
Xx
Cora picked up before the first ring finished.
“Derek? What happened?” She said, immediately.
“Hey Cora, it’s Stiles,” He said so softly he worried she didn’t hear him. She didn’t respond. “I’m sorry, Cora.”
“What happened to him?” She whispered back
“He sacrificed himself to save everyone else. He did save everyone else.”
“Of course he did.”
“Cora, I know this isn’t the right time to be asking you for a favor, but I was hoping you might be able to help me. Deaton said Talia kept information on your family, Beacon Hills, and the nemeton. If any of it survived the fire, I need to know where it is now.”
“You don’t think he’s dead, do you?”
“I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up,” Stiles said, avoiding answering the question. The answer was simple though – no, he didn’t think Derek was dead. Not for good, anyway.
“We re-built the library. Before Derek came to live with me, we re-built it underneath our house. The door is under the wolfsbane. Everything that was left and everything that we’ve found since – it’s all there… Don’t tell Eli about this. It wouldn’t be fair to him,” She finished. Of course they’d built a secret bunker underneath the Hale house. Of course they would.
“I told him I’d give him this phone after we spoke. No matter what I find, he’s going to need you. Scott is a good leader when he needs to be, but he doesn’t believe in the pack like Derek did.”
“Give me a week,” Cora said and hung up.
Stiles looked up at the afternoon sky. It was going to start getting dark soon. If he headed towards the Hale House now, he could reach it before the sun went down, but he’d have to go home in the dark. He pocketed the phone and started walking. Walking through the woods, the sky darkening, headed to find a secret buried under wolfsbane on Hale land, he felt like he was 16 again.
Home is a Fire | P. 2
They left Stiles out because they knew the nogitsune would tear him apart, but now the nogitsune is gone and Stiles can feel the nemeton telling him it isn’t over — not for him. And maybe not for Derek either.
————————————————————
“I need you to tell me what happened – exactly what happened,” Stiles said calmly. When he’d made his way back from the forest, there were fewer cars in front of his dad’s house. Inside, only Noah, Chris Argent, Melissa McCall, and Peter Hale remained. His dad told him that Lydia, Jackson, Allison, Mason, Liam, and his girlfriend had gone to Melissa’s house. They were enjoying their time with Allison and telling her about their lives since she had last seen them almost two decades previously. He assumed Malia and Parrish went with them, but he didn’t ask.
Scott had gone into the woods after Stiles and, when he knew he was safe, had left him and gone back with the others as well. Stiles didn’t know how many of them he would see so soon again but they were alive. In theory, he could see all of them again.
“It has been a long few days, son.”
Stiles looked up at his dad. Noah Stilinski looked completely worn out, like he hadn’t slept in days. All of them looked like that really. It reminded Stiles of the time before he’d finally left Beacon Hills – when everyone seemed to be constantly in danger.
“I need to know what happened.” So they told him. Chris began the story, talking about his and Scott’s shared dreams. Noah explained the fires and Melissa told him of seeing Scott show up with an unconscious Allison at the hospital. Peter was quiet. Chris offered an explanation of how they’d apparently brought Allison back but it seemed over-simplified. You couldn’t just put dirt and a weapon on the nemeton and receive a person in return. It seemed the adult he most needed to hear from, the vet, had gone. He asked where and they all agreed he was likely on his way back to L.A. So Stiles would be doing this alone.
After a little while longer, Stiles excused himself. He’d grabbed the duffle bag from his car when he came back from the woods and it now sat beside his feet. He picked it up and rounded the stairs to his old bedroom.
Xx
Stiles had a shirt halfway over his head when he heard a knock at his window. He thought about Derek, climbing into his window uninvited when they were younger. When he went to open it, he was not surprised to find a different Hale outside – Peter.
“What is it, Peter?”
“You saw something. I could see it on your face.”
“Something isn’t as it seems. I had dreams before I came here, too. But they weren’t about Allison – they were about Derek. I saw fire. I saw the eyes of an alpha. I saw the nemeton. I felt so much pain. When I left earlier, I went to the nemeton and I felt something. It was quick, like it wasn’t there at all. I have to follow it,” Stiles recounted. He didn’t know why he was telling Peter this. Peter wasn’t an ally. But maybe he was. Had he not seen enough of his family burned alive? Had he not felt the pain of it himself? Maybe Peter was taking this the hardest of them all.
Peter had climbed inside the room while Stiles talked. He was leaning against a wall in Stiles’ room now, looking back out of the window he’d come in through. “I don’t know a lot about the nemeton, Stiles. But I do know a little about coming back from death. If you have the will and the luck, it’s possible. We’ve all seen that now. But the nemeton is a complex spirit. It could be tricking you, leading you on, or telling you a truth in order to distract you. Whatever you’re going to do, I have a feeling it’s going to be very dangerous. You’re going to need them.”
“First I need to be sure.” Stiles opened the top drawer of his bedside table and pulled out an item that he had left there for years. His dad hadn’t gotten rid of it. A shoebox full of colorful yarn.
“You may not have enough time to be sure.” With that last whispered thought, he felt silence settle over the room. Peter was gone.
Xx
“Stiles?” Noah asked from the doorway to Stiles’ room. Stiles was laying half on the bed with his lanky legs almost fully hanging over the edge. When he jumped, he came tumbling right off of it and onto the floor. Noah gave him a small smile. “I’m going to work. I love you, son. I don’t say it enough.”
“I love you too, dad.”
He rolled over onto his stomach flattening against the ground as he heard his dad shut the door and go down the stairs. He turned his head to the side and looked at the wall over his bed. In the middle, he’d made a rough drawing of the nemeton on a post-it note with the word ‘Source?’ scribbled on top. Another post-in note had the locations of the fires with ‘Mountain Ash’ which he didn’t think had much to do with it but it might be useful to collect any leftover ash when he needed something to do. The nogitsune had his own post-in note, connected with a blue yarn to the left, below the list of fires. A photo of Allison from an old yearbook, now laying open on the floor with a pair of scissors on top, was connected to both the nemeton and the nogitsune via a thread of red yarn. On the right, a ‘Derek’ post-it was connected to the nemeton in the same red. Photos of his friends and their creepy chemistry teacher had also been taken from that yearbook and connected via blue threads (for the nogitsune), red threads (for the nemeton), yellow (for dreams), and a special purple thread just for Hale’s (which connected to more post-it notes with names than it did yearbook pictures). Stiles stayed up for hours working on putting his thoughts onto his walls but they told him nothing. He needed to know more.
Specifically, he needed to know more about the nemeton. He needed to find Deaton.
Xx
Stiles was parked outside of the Sheriff’s office with a half-used notebook from highschool. When he entered, people shouted at him, happy to see him. Parrish sent him a wave. Mason walked up beside him, asking if he’d put out any really wild fires. “I told your dad that we should’ve called you about the arson,” he said, defensively.
Stiles excused himself with a hint of a smile and ducked into Noah’s office. “Dad, could you call Deacon for me? I need to speak with him.” Noah looked up. There was a worried expression on his face but he picked up the phone next to him and dialed from a small address book beside it. He spoke for a few minutes before hanging up.
“Deaton’s still at the McCall’s. He’s leaving tonight but if you leave now, you’ll have plenty of time to speak with him.” Stiles nodded and turned to leave. “Stiles, whatever it is you’re looking for, I hope you find it. We all miss him.” Another nod and he was gone, walking back the same way he came.
Xx
Inside the McCall’s house, it was like a highschool reunion. Everyone had indeed gone over there and they hadn’t left yet. There was a veil of sadness hanging over the room but still everyone was telling stories, laughing, and leaning on each other. They were mourning – but Stiles couldn’t. He wasn’t going to give up just yet. If Scott could follow a dream almost two decades later, Stiles could follow one after just a few days.
“Deaton, could I speak with you?” He asked. Only then did everyone seem to notice he had come in. Part of Stiles felt bad for not going to catch up with his friends, but a bigger part of him felt something he hadn’t felt in so long – left out. He looked around the room of his supernaturally strong and powerful friends, and he felt the magnitude of his own humanity. Maybe so many years apart had widened the gap between them larger than he was able to cross.
He heard Scott say his name, ask him to join them, but he only shook his head and looked back at Deaton. “Outside, please?”
Deaton followed him back through the door and they sat on the steps together.
“I know that you’re going through a lot right now, Stiles. I’m not sure I’m the best person to help you.”
“You said once that I had a spark,” Stiles said carefully.
“I said that because you’re human– so completely and entirely human. You can use our magic because of that humanity and the others can’t. When I said that to you, it was to help you understand how important you are to the pack even without the abilities some of the others have. Why are you asking about this?”
“What if it’s more than that? What if there’s something else? The nemeton is calling out to me, Deaton, I know it is. I just don’t know why.”
“It’s a complicated source of magic. The dreams it sends you could mean anything or they could mean nothing. It wasn’t the nemeton that sent Scott and Chris dreams of Allison, it was the nogitsune.”
“What if it wasn’t? The nogitsune never sent us dreams on a broadcast signal before – not all of us at least. Maybe he kept Allison alive, between life and death, through his ancient power, but it was the nemeton who brought her back.”
“What is it that you want to know, Stiles?” Deaton had the fatherly and concerned look he often wore when he consulted with Scott’s pack. They weren’t teenagers anymore but still, the look hadn’t changed.
“What if the nemeton is calling out to me to save Derek?”
“I don’t know if it can. There are stories of ancient nemeton magic – that which goes beyond being a beacon or a subject for rituals. They could store souls, imprison demons, even make their own decisions. The information on them has been lost to time, at least it has in California.”
“Hang on, you said they could store souls? I need to know more, Deaton.” Stiles was desperate. He needed to know more. He needed to know if it was possible.
“There’s a book. Talia had a book. But, Stiles, Derek is the only one who’d know where that book is if it wasn’t lost to the fire.”
“Not the only one,” Stiles said, and stood up. A new plan was forming quickly in his mind. A plan that only went two ways. Either Stiles was about to take a last minute vacation to South America, or Peter was going to have to get a message there. They needed to speak with Cora Hale.
Jeff Davis, make it make sense.
The first timeline related thing we’re given is that Allison died “15 years ago”, making season 3 “15 years ago.”
Then we learn that Eli is 15 years old. Meaning he was theoretically alive during seasons 4, 5, and 6?? Where was this infant, cause I sure didn’t see him.
If he’s biologically Derek’s son then we have to assume Braeden’s his mum? But I really don’t think so. And yes, I know it’s entirely possible for Derek to have hypothetically adopted him when Eli was a kid but Scott said that the last time he saw Eli, he was three. So three years after Allison’s death, VERY soon after the end of the show.
Now, Eli Hale’s character might be the only thing I actually enjoyed about the teen wolf movie but if you’re going to make a badly hidden attempt at a Stiles stand-in as Derek Hale’s son… PLEASE give us some kind of explanation. We were literally given NONE. Nothing about how Derek and Eli came to be father and son. Timeline wise, Eli honey I’m sorry, you don’t really make much sense.
Anyway, I know the movie definitely was not made for this much analysis and pedantics (yes that is a dig), but if you’re giving a key character a child, you want it to make sense at least a little.
Home is a Fire | TW fix-it | P. 1
They left Stiles out because they knew the nogitsune would tear him apart, but now the nogitsune is gone and Stiles can feel the nemeton telling him it isn’t over — not for him. And maybe not for Derek either.
—————————————————————————
There was fire, so much fire. It was hot and blinding, blurring everything else from his view. Suddenly, out of the dark he saw glowing red eyes. He felt pain. Then everything went dark. Gradually, a faint blue light spread from the waning moon above until he could see his surroundings. He was in the forest and he was alone. He turned around once, twice, looking for the source of the fire but he only found himself standing in the one place he never thought he would again. In front of him was the nemeton.
xx
With a start, Stiles Stilinski jolted awake in his small twin bed, almost falling out of it. He reached for his phone for a few moments until he remembered how he had broken it. While on shift they’d gotten a call about a fire, which turned out to be a small kitchen fire with little harm done, and in the haste to load up the truck he’d left his phone on the ground where he had been sitting – only a few feet in front of one of the truck’s wheels. It wasn’t until they got back that he realized what happened to his phone and he planned to fix it but days just kept passing.
He couldn’t sleep, his mind was racing. He got up and left his bedroom. His small apartment was an open room with a kitchen and a balcony and only two doors for his bedroom and his bathroom. The oven clock read 6:05. He went back into the room to change into a pair of jeans and a ratty, too big T-shirt – probably one of Scott’s he’d been accidentally carrying with him for the past 15 years. Once dressed, he could run down to a corner store just a few miles away, one he knew had a pay phone.
xx
It was still dark when Stiles reached the pay phone and fumbled around his center console for enough quarters to make a call. Sheriff Noah Stilinski picked up on the second ring. “Stiles?”
Stiles paused for a moment. The area code. Of course his dad would know it had to be him.
“What happened in Beacon Hills?” Stiles asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I had a dream. All I could see were red eyes. I think something happened to Scott and I think it happened there.”
“Oh, Stiles. Scott’s fine. It was Derek. There was a fire.”
Stiles hung up the phone. He couldn’t breathe. He’d seen a fire. He’d seen the eyes of a wolf, of an alpha. Not Scott’s eyes, but Derek’s. Stiles had been running from what happened to him in Beacon Hills, from what happened to him after, from the heartbreak of Lydia leaving him without a word.
He’d tried to find her for weeks. Whenever he wasn’t working or sleeping, he was searching their favorite cafes, diners, shops, even the park they’d gone to when they first moved to Portland. Instead, he found Jackson. At the diner he’d told Lydia that he would spend the rest of his life with her, Jackson was sitting in the front booth looking directly at him. “Stop looking for her, Stiles. She’s not coming back,” Jackson had said. There wasn’t a drop of sympathy in his voice.
“Why?” Stiles had asked. He was too out of it to play the game with Jackson. He didn’t want to trade insults over a cup of burnt coffee. He just wanted to know why she’d left.
“She had a premonition. Being with you wasn’t what she was supposed to be doing. She knew for weeks but she knew you wouldn’t accept that. She needs you to let her go.”
And he had. It had been 6 years since Lydia had left. It had been longer since he’d been back to Beacon Hills. 5 years still since he’d even seen Scott. He’d seen his dad a few times, when Noah came to visit him in Portland. His therapist said he had PTSD, though she couldn’t say from what – because Stiles didn’t tell her. He didn’t tell her about the friends he had seen die, the people whose deaths he’d been responsible for. He didn’t tell her about what happened in Beacon Hills. Still, he was doing better. He’d learned how to deal with his panic attacks, how to sleep without seeing faces of the people they’d lost, and he’d cut off as much contact with that life as possible after Lydia had left. Occasionally he’d get a text from Malia, an update from his dad on Derek’s son stealing his Jeep again, or a picture of a dog at Scott’s shelter usually accompanied by a message about how Stiles needed a companion and this dog would be the perfect choice.
xx
The sun was finally coming up when Stiles left his apartment again, this time with a duffle bag. He had to stop by the station first, let the chief know he needed a few days off for a family emergency. He said it was his dad, something was wrong with his dad. If his chief didn’t believe him, he didn’t say. He nodded, turned to make it down on the calendar, and gave Stiles 12 days to come back.
The drive ahead of him was going to take hours and his thoughts were still racing. What had happened to Derek? Had Kate come back for him? Had another Argent? Why had his eyes been red? What did the nemeton have to do with any of this?
xx
Outside of Noah Stilinski’s house, there were so many cars. More than he had seen in a long time. The sun was starting to fall from the later afternoon sky. The usually comforting smell of damp woods was missing. A faint smell of smoke remained. He left his duffle bag in the car, a black compact car that got him around well enough, and headed inside.
The house immediately went quiet when Stiles opened the door. He saw his dad talking to a kid – Derek’s son. He saw Scott’s Mom and Allison’s Dad and even Deacon, who he hadn’t seen in at least a decade. Peter was there, in a corner, and Malia glared at him from a few feet away. Liam, Mason, Parrish, and a girl he didn’t know were scattered around the room, too. Lydia and Jackson stood together and Stiles fought the urge to turn and walk straight back to his car. “Stiles?” He turned his attention to Scott. Scott who was standing with someone he didn’t recognize. Did he? She looked so much like someone they’d lost.
“Allison?” He whispered.
“Hey Stiles. It’s me.” Stiles let out a sob. “It’s really me,” she said, taking a step towards him. Scott moved with her and he let out another noise. Suddenly Allison was in his arms. Allison who had been dead. Allison whose death he had been responsible for. Who he had let die.
“How?” He could feel Scott’s arms go around them both. He felt Malia’s next and then Lydia’s hand on his shoulder. This was real. Allison had come back from the dead and in return, they’d lost someone else. It wasn’t fair.
“Derek,” he whispered. He could feel them tense as they let him go, retreating to where they’d been before.
The boy, Eli, he'd remembered his Dad calling him, made eye contact with him then. “My Dad held him back. He saved us. He sent that monster straight to Hell.”
“Parrish sent him to Hell, Derek held him in place,” Malia whispered.
“You were at the nemeton,” Stiles said, trying to put together how his dream had played into this. “No one called. No one came to get me. Derek is gone and I didn’t even know something was happening.”
“I tried to call you but it didn’t go through,” Lydia whispered. Shit, his phone had been broken for 5 days. Had it really all happened so suddenly?
“You couldn’t have been here, kid,” his Dad said, firmly. “That thing, I’m not sure we could’ve stopped it if it had gotten to you this time. He wasn’t playing by the rules anymore. He would never have let you go.”
“Who?” Stiles asked but he did so quietly. In his mind, the nemeton flashed again, this time it was bright – white. There was a chess board on top. “The nogitsune.”
“Yes.” Stiles couldn’t tell whether it was his dad, Scott, or Chris Argent who had responded. Maybe it had been all of them. Maybe none. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t get air. He was going to die and it was going to be because of the nogitsune, again. “He’s dead, Stiles. Gone. Burned by a hellhound. He can’t hurt you or any of us again.” That was Scott’s voice, it was definitely Scott’s.
“But he got Derek,” Stiles said, looking at Scott.
“Derek held him in place on the nemeton while Parrish lit him up. Someone had to hold him there. No one could’ve survived that kind of fire. He made a sacrifice to save all of us.” Stiles couldn’t listen to Scott anymore. He still couldn’t breath but he didn’t feel so much like he was dying. Somewhere, deep inside of him, he felt a pull. He needed to follow it. Out the door, into the woods, and he was running.
xx
Stiles ran until his legs wouldn’t cooperate any more. He collapsed in a clearing of trees. When he looked up, he knew what had been pulling him. It was right in front of him. The nemeton. And it was glowing. Silvery blue strands of light flowed out from the center. He blinked. In that second, the light was gone, and he was just a man on his knees in front of a tree stump with the sun setting and the air turning cold.
But he’d seen it – that light. The nemeton wasn’t done with him yet, and maybe, just maybe, that meant it wasn’t done with Derek either.
It’s a long read but worth it @every-n-anything @cazador-red @medic981 @the-armed-utahn
Holy crap that is good
Screenshot taken at 6:16 p.m. while the phone user was at 29% battery and using 4G internet. It is a Reddit page, bookmarked by the user, on r/HFY.
Posted by u/BossScribbler five months prior to the screenshot.
We Knew Them
We knew them. The humans were a part of the United Planetary Coalition for hundreds of years by the time we were confronted by the brosc. Humans were scavengers, hagglers, pirates, and all-around an affront to intergalactic sentience. Even their official diplomats, military bodies, and leading minds where little better than the apes they’d evolved from. They were the only race known whose people would go to war amongst themselves. And when UPC peacekeepers stepped in to dispel the fighting, some human faction would always complain any Council of the UPC picking sides even when all anyone did was disarm both sides and introduced neutral Arbiters to aid negotiations.
Their ships were garbage. Their medical knowledge was rudimentary. Their physical prowess was… Lacking, they being hairless Apes with little more than an impressive bite force to show for any natural weaponry. Their societies were bickering, inefficient messes of poorly placed priorities and wildly of use appropriations of funding. Their languages - yes, more than one - were improvised messes, seemingly designed with the express purpose of terminating translation AIs.
In short, the humans were a nuisance most members of the UPC felt had gotten into the Coalition riding the coattails of their barely qualifying civilization status, as well as their admittedly impressive feat of attaining FTL alone prior to First Contact.
We knew them, and we thought very lowly of them.
So when the brosc showed up and sterilized 3 UPC worlds, one of which was the only inhabited world of one fledgling member race, and the call for military conscription was sent out seeking a first string of voluntary precipitants, we were surprised when the first three responses were from humans. When the rare conscription call went out among the upc, you expected a response from Member governments, and each member would provide its standing army, and give civilians the opportunity to enlist for surface. But that’s not what they humans did, or not exclusively anyway. It was not human Worlds or leaders who replied so swiftly. This response is came from two pirate ships and a scrap station. A damned stationary scrap station volunteered to the UPC Council for service. Of the 56 responses that came in the first day, fully 47 of them were from Human Crews, stations, Outpost, and one from the actual human leadership. It was an embarrassing show of ineptitude, and reinforceed in many member races Minds that humans were good for little more than spur-of-the-moment, chest thumping acts of enthusiastic violence.
The number of replies should not have filled us with hope for their turnout. Nevertheless, expecting nothing, we were still disappointed with the number of ships that were mustered. 193 ships turned up, 75 of which were officially military. Even the grell, a Monoplanetary species who are generally regarded basically as pacifist managed to bring 360 proper ships to bear. It was such a lackluster showing, UPC command didn’t bother to incorporate them into any of the main Squadrons. Humanity was offered a role we thought they’d like better anyway - bounty hunters and privateers - take down brosc ships, turn in the bounty for pay. We were surprised by the almost childish response. Human command sulked, but didn’t argue.
What followed for Humanity was… Truly embarrassing. UPC repair docks and Med days reported constant visits from Human ships, sometimes having to issue repairs on the same ship just days apart. The damage was always disastrous and obviously one-sided, no one ever wanted to point out the most shameful evidence in the repairs - the bulk of Hull damage seems to be on the tails of their ships. They were incompetent, yes, but more than that they were cowards. Contrary to this, however, was the human disregard for personal well-being. Humans brought in for medical attention would ignore the advice of medical professionals and would be hobbling back on to their ships on crutches or with heavy bandages or splints still wrapping the injury in mere days or weeks after treatment. It was a joke at repair and medbays that the three things you could count on finding in a UPC Port was food, quarter, and a human wreck.
The War lasted 2 years. Paltry. The Brosc turned out to be inferior opponents, never able to hold strategic positions for long and never able to reclaim them when lost. The average duration of UPC Wars was 30 years, thanks to the challenge of holding and fortifying a Battlefront that spanned Interstellar distances. These sorts of things tended to spend some time in deadlocked stalemates until some carefully calculated play finally broke the line somewhere. Usually you expected some major losses PlanetSide along the front but there were no civilian casualties here apart from instigating destruction of three UPC worlds. Of course, the Brosc hadn’t gone down without a fight. In fact, they managed to average 3 UPC ship destructions for every one of their own. Nevertheless, their planetary defense systems, ship construction, and distribution of Firepower across the front were weak and amateur.
The human Force had lost 50% of their ships and suffered heavy casualties in the end. In addition, they never managed to turn in a single Bounty. If not for the human loss, they would have been reprimanded and possibly taxed to recoup the drain on repair and medical resources they’d caused so fruitlessly.
The brosc and its allies signed their surrender grudgingly. A human Diplomat was in attendance per Council protocol. As the brosc was escourted away, he passed the human and spat at her feet. We thought it was a random act of bad sportsmanship. The human smirked at the passing brosc. This too was viewed in poor taste.
It took another year to disarm the brosc and collect reparations. In the Years following, we pored over confiscated brosc Intel. Deciphering so much encrypted data from so many battlefields was a process. The coded radio and audio Transmissions were the first data we could reliably listen to. We were surprised to find constant reference in broken unication to “the Bloodletter”. It appeared in brosc communications from every major battle, every minor skirmish, and in relation to acts of sabotage and Espionage throughout the war. By brosc accounts, this bloodletter was a boogie man. It showed up so often, it was taken as brosc code for any UPC Force which was to be considered a top threat.
Word of the blood Letter spread through the UPC military ranks, despite the information’s confidential nature. Any leaked bloodletter feat was shared around, and hundreds of soldiers probably laid claim to each one. “The bloodletter crippled the brosc defensive platforms at Ericor 9? It could only have been our Gorlo Squadron! We rained plasma down on them in the third battle and finally punched through!” Could be heard at one atrak base while lightyears away a Nonolin Soldier boasted “sounds like we were bloodletters to those brosc filth. Did you hear about how we took out their defensive platforms at ericore 9?” And so it went. By the time we Cracked Bross video comms, it seemed half of the UPC was crew by Blood letters. It was painted on hulls by proud and Rowdy soldiers, it was a title given to retiring Heroes, and it was the assumed name of not a few newly-founded Special Forces teams.
We knew them, the humans. They were our embarrassing cousins, our incapable undesirables.
That’s what we thought.
No Doubt human Pirates and soldiers alike were being mocked and spat on, even these years after the war, in a hundred ports in a hundred star systems in the very same moment we saw our first decrypted brosc video relay. It was the feed from one of the biggest theaters of the war. Our first clue that not all would be as it appeared was at the time stamp was too early, by 10 days. The video came on, and the UPC intelligence and command watched through brosc eyes for the first time.
It wasn’t much. It was a security cam at a brosc hanger. A dozen bro destroyers were nearing completion. Suddenly, there was a flurry of panicked activity as construction teams fled the ships. A ship blitzed by and torched every Destroyer, raining hell from a passing lightning bolt. The feed died. It had been 15 seconds of video, and it definitely wasn’t possible to make out the ship that had done the bombing raid. It matched no UPC combat reports.
The second video was when the truth began to come to light. This was a destroyer surveillance array. It was facing a ship, visible only as a spot of white light as its thrusters dominated the footprint of the ship on the screen. The Destroyer was unleashing a withering fire as it chased the smaller ship at non-compliant speeds for an in-atmo dogfight. The ship comm chatter was a garbled, layered mess. But one word was being called out occasionally by every party to the commlink:
“Bloodletter.”
The Destroyer managed to land a square hit that broke shielding on the small vessel, and brosc comm officers repeated the triumphant status report. Target Fusion core: ruptured. Shields: offline. Energy Weapons Systems: low-capacity. FTL Drive: offline. This bloodletter, it seemed, was one the Brosc had managed to terminate.
In the brief moment where the ship had spun around, one clear profile shot came into view.
The ship was human.
As video was decrypted, parsed out, and chronolized over the coming months, humans humiliated us one last time. But this time, it was not because we were ashamed. Nor because we were sweeping the Primitive race under the rug in embarrassment. No, this time, it was because 193 ships - now known to have been about 90% of humanities combat capable Interstellar ships - were there spread out through the theater of war, making Salvage, daring strikes on strategic targets at every major brosc stronghold with no backup since we’d denied them Squadron support. In many cases, they struck alone before the UPC Fleet even showed up, picking off production centers, Supply chains and caches, communication relays, and sometimes even performing impossible strikes against brosc flagships in ships pieced together from junk and held together with twine and prayer. Then the UPC would sweep in and play at war, never realizing how much easier their jobs had been made.
Bloodletter wasn’t code for priority targets.
Bloodletter was the name given to an unknown race of wartime Geniuses. To suicidal Daredevils. To the species who could shake off the Fatal wounds of war with only brief recovery periods.
The blood letters were the soldiers silently picking up off brosc cruisers so the UPC ships could Escape unfavorable engagements. The bloodletters were the ones putting boots on the ground and unpowering planetary defenses. The bloodletters were the Pirates Who boarded enemy flagships and jettisoned brosc commanders before jamming comms, setting cores to blow, and fleeing the scene before the UPC warped in for war. The bloodletters were the ones gift-wrapping Supply ships full of fuel and medical supplies for the UPC boarding parties.
The bloodletters were the ones liberating brosc slave ships, decimating the Brosc fighting numbers. The bloodletters were the ones who took the Brosc Capital. the bloodletters were the ones who forced brosc command to issue their surrender, holding a gun to the back of the brosc Tyrant as he broadcast the Declaration.
The blood letters are singularly human.
The UPC had spent years patting itself on the back for a war well fought. We were slapping metals on the chests of soldiers who scraped up the humans’ leftovers. We venerated commanders who punched through defensive lines that humans had a crippled days prior. We celebrated a job well done and didn’t even invite Humanity to the table. Humans turned a stone cheek to the mocking and abused and a division of soldiers, Traders, politicians, and civilians across the sector. They never collected one bounty. They never demanded one particle of gratitude. They never retaliated. Not one pirate stepped forward to take credit.
When the truth was out, UPC Representatives visited the human capital world to offer a public Declaration of recognition and a substantial gift in gratitude. A monuments had been erected there in the capital by human artist. It was the three sterilized world’s that suffered before anyone could respond to the threat, each carried and cradled By “Angels”, human Myths, Guardians of The Souls of the Dead. A message was written there; an Epitaph for three worlds to whom Humanity owed nothing: “grant them rest; we will erect a sword of fire to guard the resting place.”
They politely but firmly turned away the representatives and the gift.
We knew them, now, finally. They were pirates. They were cunning. They were thieves. They were a bickering, inefficient, violent people.
And they honorably, selflessly spared countless people on both sides of the war in the fire.
@delimeful wibar vibes? 👀
oh this is such a cool take on humans in space, what an interesting read! a very honorable underdog type of vibe on this one… tysm for the tag! :D
every day i am percieved™️
There is a reason for this though!
The original tweet summarizes it pretty well. Fanfic tends to be popular among certain types of neurodivergent people (aka people most likely to read excessively as a child, and have burnout as an adult) for the same reasons that we tend to hyperfixate–neurochemical signaling (I hope I’m using that phrase correctly). What I mean is, for people who are really dependent on changes in dopamine/serotonin/neurotransmitter levels, who have low levels or wonky neural reward systems (perhaps the most common types of neurodivergence)…people like us rely on dependable external sources of those neurochemicals. In order to function, we spend a lot of our free time trying to level out our brain chemistry using things that can reliably bring us a steady stream of joyful moments (rewards) without costing too much of the mental effort that is already in short supply.
significantly: the investment of reading has to be balanced with a steady “return on investment”–and this return has to start fairly quickly. because again, we don’t have a lot of attention/energy to invest on tiring things. we have perpetual “low batteries” in that regard.
that doesn’t mean these stories are “simple,” or that they lack complexity or value–only that the reward has to come in short regular intervals, and it has to have a low “upfront cost.” these stories are only “easy” to read in the sense that the effort we put into them is rewarded in a timely manner. which is why fanfic stories are so perfectly formulated for neurodivergent readers–they are often beautifully written, but skip a lot of the upfront costs (of introducing new characters, of world-building, of getting the audience emotionally connected to the story elements).
the nature of fanfiction is that the reader has a pre-existing relationship with this world and these characters. that–combined with the shorter average length of fics–means that fan fics very quickly start rewarding the reader in a way that traditional fiction struggles to. that’s not a bad thing! and maybe it’s something more traditionally published writers should be paying attention to.
Fanfic, as a genre, has been uniquely helpful and accessible to many neurodivergent readers who would otherwise struggle to immerse themselves in stories. I’m glad so many of you have found a way to love and enjoy reading again! The important thing is that you are spending time inside stories you love–the way those stories are published or presented to the world is just one detail. The fact that you find joy in the process of reading (or listening!) to stories–that is what matters.
I feel understood 🥰
a bunch of people have reblogged this with the default “i feel called out” reaction….and i know when we say that we mean it tongue-in-cheek….but this comment sorta blew my mind & shifted my perspective up and to the left a little thank you♥
The Serotonin is stored in the Ao3
Okay, I never add commentary on my reblogs these days, but I feel so fucking understood right now that I had to this time. I haven’t read a book in over a decade, but I read at least 200k words of fic a day at this point in my life. This makes so much fucking sense.