#plotwitch

My BEAUTIFUL new friend, I do indeed like Animorphs!  I have a whole tag about how everyone should take advantage of these FREE EBOOKS OF THE ENTIRE SERIES, PRESENTED WITH THE AUTHOR’S BLESSING, so let me just remind everyone that they should do that.

And re: the ending...okay.  So.  I have two answers.

My first answer is, I’m a writer, and I love a story that does its job.  The Animorphs does its fucking job.  It’s a story about the horrors of war.  It’s a story about how war chews people up and spits them out changed and broken.  It’s a story about how six kids who shouldn’t have had to fight managed to pull off the impossible, at the low low price of everything they used to be.  It would have felt desperately disingenuous to have everything be...okay at the end of it.  I have no idea where else you could have gone with it, except to have their warrior dead and their leader broken and their two wayward travelers isolated and their tactician faking it and their crusader turning her face away.  The ending?  The uncertain fate of the Rachel, of Ax, the new and terrible unknown threat?  I don’t know where else it could have ended.  It couldn’t have ended at Visser One’s trial, it couldn’t have ended on the White House lawn, it couldn’t have ended with the destruction of the Pool ship.  There were too many loose ends.  The Animorphs ruined themselves for a purpose, and without a purpose, every single one of them was just a loose end.  They broke their ability to stop, and I don’t know how else the story could have dealt with that.

The Animorphs is about how giving your whole self over to winning a war, even a just war, even the most just war in the universe, takes a horrible cost from everyone involved, and by god all six of them paid it, one way or another.  I think it would have felt false, if it had ended anywhere else.

Rachel says it all the way back in book 17, doesn’t she?  “I’m ruthless at times.  But even I have enough sense to know that the words we have to win are the first four steps on the road to hell.”  Rachel, bloody Rachel who scared even herself at the end, who was terrified of the end of the war, who was always ready to die if it meant victory, knew from the beginning how this was going to go.  

They did have to win.  They won.  It would have felt like a lie, if winning hadn’t ended them in a slightly different version of hell.

ON THE OTHER HAND

God, can’t they be okay?  Can’t they go to therapists and sob their hearts out about how it felt to commit to free or dead, every single day?  Can’t they learn how to enjoy morphing again?  Can’t they go to school and remember that, that’s right, Rachel used to like math, Jake used to like history, Marco used to like bullshitting his English papers, Tobias used to draw?  Can’t they mourn the dead true and proper, cry at headstones and honor the sacrifices that the war demanded?  Can’t they spend time with the free Hork-Bajir and know that this is the impact they had, this free society growing every day?  Can’t they find themselves laughing one afternoon, real laughter, at some stupid joke of Marco’s, and all be taken aback at what it feels like to be happy, for once?

The request was: Hartwin, "Fuck, I don't have any condoms or lube and we're trapped in this cottage for the next week."

Thank you for the request, love!! <3

——

“Oh no, no, no, NO!” Eggsy pawed through the three suitcases they’d packed. He hadn’t lost his mind, he was sure of it, and even surer that his mate of four years would be less than pleased if he came up empty.

Harry wandered in a plush, white towel hung around his hip and fuck! Look at those damp curls, water dripped from a few strands; Eggsy moaned pitifully.

“What’s the matter darling?” His alpha approached him, wrapping his arms around Eggsy’s waist, and scented his bond mark. “You smell dreadful,” Harry murmured against his skin.

He was pissed!

“I misplaced some...important items,” Eggsy admitted. He continued his search, because there was no damn way he’d forgotten two VERY important staples for their trip.

“Oh, come now, darling. It can’t be that bad,” Harry soothed with a sound kiss. “I’m sure we can go without.” He made it sound so simple. No fucking way they could survive without these.

“No, we can’t, Harry.” Eggsy tried to rein in his aroma, at least calm it the fuck down. Though he wasn’t very successful, Harry’s rising scent confirmed this.

“Well, I can think of a way we can...forget of the situation.” Harry bucked his knot suggestively against Eggsy’s backside, making his anxiety skyrocket. “Come, let's make use of this nice, goose feather down king sized bed, hm?” His hands wandered down Eggsy’s chest to his jeans, where long, skilled fingers freed the button and lowered the zipper.

Eggsy whimpered, relishing Harry’s gentle touches and kisses, with more than arousal.

“No, babe, stop!” Eggsy begged, reluctantly separating himself from Harry, and all but lunged onto the bed, face first into the pillows. “Fuck, I don’t have any condoms or lube, and we’re trapped in this cottage for the week!” His voice was muffled by a pillow.

“I wouldn't call it STUCK,” Harry huffed, his scent tainted with offense.

Eggsy waved a hand aimlessly behind his back. “That’s not the point,” he groaned. “I thought I packed it!! How did I forget that?!” He slammed his feet against the mattress, throwing a proper strop about it.

All Harry did was sigh. Eggsy heard his footsteps echo down the hall and putter back. The mattress dipped as Harry climbed in beside Eggsy and coaxed him to face his alpha.

“This can work.” Harry dangled a bottle of sweet almond oil in front of his face. “Olive oil would have worked, too, but I found this. And it is far superior to other oils for natural lubricants.”

Eggsy’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “The fuck?” He took the glass bottle and examined it. “You sure?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Have a bit of faith, eh?” When Eggsy didn’t answer, he added, “I googled it and double checked with Merlin.” Eggsy groaned. “It was either that or spit lube for the week.”

“Why did we pick a cottage in the middle of nowhere?” Literally, no stores or civilization of any kind around them. It was both peaceful, and bloody irritating at this point.

“Let’s not worry about that.” Harry leaned in for a sweet kiss. “Shall we get back to fun?”

Eggsy narrowed his eyes. “Condoms?” He watched Harry smile slowly, a gleam in his eyes that he didn’t fully trust.

“We don’t need them,” he answered simply.

“You gonna pullout? Because I’m a product of that.” His alpha poured delight as he came forward and slowly began to undress Eggsy. “Harry?” Eggsy squeaked.

“I believe we have discussed starting a family, hm?” Harry murmured against Eggsy’s neck. “What better time than now?”

Eggsy stopped him, pulling back to get a better look at his face, as tears filled his eyes.

“You mean that?” Eggsy wanted a family, wanted to carry Harry’s pups.

“With my entire soul, my omega,” Harry growled happily.

“I fucking love you.” Eggsy lunged at him. Little discussion was had the rest of the night, and needless to say the rest of the week was spent in bed…or any surface they could fuck on.

And nine months later, Eggsy stared down at their brown, curly haired newborn son. Who they named Alfred Hilton, Alfie for short, after the cottage they made their little boy in. Call it cheesy, but Eggsy was quite happy with the decision.

“He’s perfect.” Eggsy nuzzled his neck, soothing the little whimpers that left his tiny, pink bow lips.

Oh, witchy, there are so many to flail about and I am SO HERE FOR IT! 

I’m very heavily in the Good Omens fandom right now 

And of course Sherlock is still close to my heart

And I do love me some Hannibal 

What do /you/ wanna flail about today? 

i saw this last week and almost burst into tears, because this is such AMAZING news.

Yeah, the best thing I can say about the Russos is that their films give us plenty of scope for fic writing, whether it’s fix-it to fix their mess or just plain canon divergence because we refuse to accept any of their mess at all. I’ve already got one post-Endgame fix-it on the go (because sorry, Tony does not die and stay dead on my watch) and another one that harks back to Thanos’ line (and his original reason for killing half the universe) from the first Avengers movie and is also my refusal to waste the glorious Cate Blanchett’s performance in Ragnarok.

As soon as I saw there was a time travel plot in Endgame, I knew it was going to be a mess. The Russos and Markus and Mcfeeley are not good enough to handle that coherently. And the movie overall was... patchy. The tone and mood were so uneven most of the time.