#''don't tell me what to do!'' directed nowhere in particular

[sysig]

Experimentation (Patreon)

[reidmoony-toast]

could you maybe do like a one shot of Spencer x Supermodel!fem reader? Like she does runways for super popular brands like Versace and Victoria’s Secret?

Radiant. ౨ৎ5

Spencer reid x fem supermodel!reader

content: established relationship, no use of y/n, spencer being down bad tbh, fluff

cw: Victoria's Secret show, so underwear yk (but no sexualising or anything)

wc: 2.3k

an: This is so exciting, hi first anon req!! I love you so much! Anyways this idea is amazing and I hope this is what you envisioned <3 This isn't my best work, but I tried 😭 Also I based the outfit off Karolina Kurkova's in a 2003 show, but its set in early season 7 soo forget that!

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“Is that her?” Penelope whispers for the hundredth time.

“No.” He huffs, tired of answering the same question for the past ten minutes.

“Patience, babygirl.” Derek chuckles from Spencer's other side. “He'll tell us when she's here. Maybe not with his words, but definitely with his eyes.” Derek flutters his lashes in Spencer's direction, clearly making fun of him.

“Both of you leave me alone, please?” He pleads, sick of their antics. They haven't stopped talking, and it's putting him on edge. He wants to appreciate today. Appreciate you. 

You had been desperately hoping to get this job with Victoria's Secret for months, and you were ecstatic when news of your hire reached you through your manager. You'd been raving excitedly about it ever since, and had begged him to finally come to a show.

He obliged, of course. Partly, because he can't say no to you, and mostly because he has been eager to see you in your element ever since you two had started dating.

Now, he is buzzing in anticipation, which is definitely not helped by Morgan and Garcia's constant remarks.

It wouldn't have been his personal preference to invite them, but you'd insisted, saying it was about time you met Spencer's friends, anyways. 

The show continues, scantily clad girls strutting down the catwalk, angel wings attached to their backs and sequins blinding, but still, you were nowhere to be seen. Spencer fidgets, waiting with baited breath. 

A figure emerges from the side of the stage, turning to strut down the walkway. He freezes, shooting up in his chair from where he was previously slumped. It was you. Undeniably. He could pick you in a sea of people from a mile off, if it came to it. 

His breath hitches. He takes you in. 

There you stand, in all of your glory. He can't quite believe what he’s seeing. Sure, you're self-assured in your everyday life, but this is on a whole new level.

You radiate confidence, striding down the catwalk like you own it. Spencer is utterly captivated by this different side of you that he has never seen in person before.

Sure, he's seen endless pictures���and even some videos—of your modelling, as well as the shows that take place in the comfort of your home; when you put on outfits and strut down the long hallway of your apartment, to loud enthusiasm from Spencer.

These particular one-on-one shows usually end in you dressing in progressively more atrocious outfits, until you’re both prone from uncontrollable laughter.

But this. This was real. It all hits him then—that you are a supermodel, that you do this for a living. That this is your life. 

His chest swells with immense pride at all you have accomplished. You've worked so hard, built your career from the ground up, and it has paid off. Your dreams have finally come true, and now, you're modelling in a Victoria's Secret show, which he is told (by you, of course) is world-renowned. 

“That's her.” Derek concludes smugly, no uncertainty in his tone. Spencer shushes him loudly, eyes fixed solely on you.

You don't falter for a single step as you glide down the stage. You're clad in a sparkly silver bra that glints off the bright lights, sequined mesh sitting below the bra's edge. 

A small pair of matching silver underwear sit below your hips, a glittering garter to match. And, of course, the wings. They protrude from your back, spanning above your head, magnificent and ethereal. Spencer thinks you ought to have a halo to match. 

The feathered angel wings trail down your back, sweeping across the floor behind you as you make your way to the end of the catwalk. 

Garcia and Morgan are saying something across him—most likely about you—but he pays them no mind, not caring for anything else but you, in front of him.

As you near the end of the perilously long stage, Spencer's smile only grows, until he is beaming uncontrollably when you slow to strike your pose. 

Spencer and his company have VIP tickets, courtesy of you, so he has an unobstructed view of you, directly in front of where he is sitting. 

Your hands rest on your hips as you lock eyes with the sea of cameras frantically snapping pictures. 

You look fierce, fiery, and Spencer somehow grins harder. 

As your eyes scan the room, they easily lock on Spencer's, not even ten feet away. His eyes are wide, smile larger than life. 

His lips move, mouthing words to you that you instantly understand, and you light up, a warm glow from within. 

‘I love you’

The luminous smile remains, even when you remember your surroundings. You pose again, grinning all the while and the crowd claps while shutters click incessantly. You pivot, sashaying off, but not before looking back over your shoulder to blow a cheeky kiss in Spencer's direction, winking.

It might just be Spencer's perception, but you seem to shimmer with incandescent light, like your very soul was set aflame with a soft fire. You are radiantly gorgeous—utterly perfect in the eyes of Spencer Reid.

The wink you sent over your shoulder makes him duck his head, face and ears bright red. He is the luckiest man in the world. To have you, all to himself. 

He is still grinning, even as you disappear around the corner. Maybe he is biassed (most certainly), but you were by far the most captivating model up there. Your every move seemed effortless—practised and perfected. 

You drew the attention of everyone, and you kept it. It felt as if the whole room had held its breath as you passed, too busy watching to remember how to breathe. 

Maybe that was just his singular experience. He wouldn't know, and he doesn't particularly care. 

As the show wraps up, Garcia and Morgan are raving—about you. 

“Spencer, I can't believe she is your girlfriend! She is absolutely stunning!” Penny gushes.

The first statement hurts him a little, like everyone thinks he can't possibly be dating a pretty model—but it's definitely true. The second statement, however, is the truest thing he's ever heard in his 29 years of life. 

Spencer chooses not to respond to Penelope, instead heading for the exit. They follow, and Morgan claps him on the back. “You're one lucky man, pretty boy.” He whistles suggestively, and Spencer brushes off his hand, mumbling something under his breath as he is suddenly interested in the craftsmanship of the venue floor. 

He found this hard. Blending his work and home life, introducing you to his family. It's not that he's worried they won't like you—that’s impossible, when it comes to you—it's more that he has trouble combining the two sides of his life in his head, given the fact that he is almost two different people in each. 

He doesn't bring his work home, and he doesn't bring his home to work—mostly. He does, sometimes (too often), ramble on about you and how downright amazing you are. He's only human, after all. 

Mostly, he's scared that it will be a mistake, that the two sides will end up being better off separate, that mixing the two now will have irreparable consequences. 

But, you wanted to, so he’s taking the plunge. For you. Always for you. 

~☆~

Spencer feels like he shouldn't be here. They're in the very depths of the building; models, designers and beauticians alike flit past them, paying them no mind as they go about their business.

He glances over his shoulder at the ajar door that leads to the dressing rooms every couple of seconds, in case you come through and save him from this place—which is the polar opposite to everything that makes him comfortable.

He's here for you, though, and he would endure this for you. Only for you. 

Morgan and Penelope stand a few feet away, at ease and chatting like this is the most normal situation in the world, like they've been backstage at thousands of Victoria's Secret shows.

Just as he's about to go into a nervous breakdown, he sees a flash of movement appear from behind the door. 

“Spence!” A shriek sounds as he turns to see you, bounding towards him. You throw your arms around his neck, nuzzling his cheek.

His hands come up to steady you, curling under the hem of your sweater. He feels instantly less overwhelmed, breathing you in like you're the oxygen he needs to live—like he can’t breathe properly when you’re not near.

You're draped in an oversized knit and comfortable track pants that engulf your frame. The irony wasn't lost on him—you were wearing nothing but showy undergarments not even half an hour ago. 

He loves that about you. That you aren't entirely defined by your job, that you have a part of your life and sense of self cordoned off; a part that isn't affected by the insane world of modelling. He loves that you can be yourself in so many different ways, that you have all these different facets. Just like a diamond, whose sides are all different, but every single one shines just as brightly all the same.

It inspires him to do the same for himself, to have a true self outside of his chaotic job that takes over most of his life. You’ve helped him see that life can be varied, diverse; that there are so many different things—other than one's job—that can make you feel fulfilled. Content. Happy. 

He's happy; truely and vibrantly happy with you. And that is the way he wishes it to stay. 

He chuckles amusedly at your strong display of affection. “Hello to you too, lovely.” 

You pull back to grin at him, albeit a little sheepishly. “Sorry. I'm just so happy you're actually here.” 

His gaze softens impossibly more. “It was long overdue.” He cups your cheeks and leans down to press a lingering kiss to the top of your head. “You were phenomenal.” 

You beam, and draw him closer.

The clearing of a throat brings you out of your reverie, out of the world where there is only the two of you. 

You pull away, detaching yourself from Spencer, eyes flashing with delight. “Hi!” You wave at a shocked-yet-amused Derek Morgan, and an exuberant Penelope Garcia. 

Derek raises his eyebrow at Spencer, probably surprised by how little he cared about your public display of affection. He usually doesn’t even let Garcia hug him unless it’s important. But, like with everything else, you’re different—special. He simply shrugs back. 

“You must be the friends Spence has told me so much about.” She reaches out a hand to shake Morgan's hand. “Derek, right?” 

Derek smirks, “In the flesh.” He grasps your hand, grip firm. “The show was amazing, by the way.” 

“Thank you!” You chirp, brightening further, and Morgan huffs out a laugh.

You pull away, turning to the eclectic women next to him. “And you, must be the famous Penelope.” 

You reach out your hand once more, but Garcia has other ideas. She dives in for a hug, bypassing the formalities immediately.

She pulls away abruptly as you squeak in surprise. “Oh- sorry! I'm sorry.” She blurts out. “I'm just so happy to meet you, finally! Reid has told us so much about you, I just couldn't wait any longer!” She grins broadly. “And you're even prettier than he described, which I don't understand how that's humanly possible, because boy genius over there won't stop talking about how gorgeous you-”

“Woah there, baby girl, slow your roll.” Derek interrupts, patting Garcia gently on the shoulder. You stifle a laugh, glancing at Spencer. He ducks his head, avoiding your eye and shuffling from one foot to another as his face turns pink.

“Sorry!” Penelope flushes scarlet red. “Uhm… what I meant was ‘nice to meet you’.” She cringes at her outburst. 

“No need to say sorry. It's an absolute pleasure to meet the both of you, Spence speaks so highly of you two.” You beam, and Garcia deflates in relief. Spencer’s arm snakes around your waist and under the hem of your sweater once again, smoothing patterns on your bare skin. You lean into his side, a contented sigh escaping your lips. 

“You know, when boy genius here told me he was dating a supermodel, I didn't believe him.” He raises eyebrows, smirking. “But, here you are.” 

“In the flesh.” You flash him a grin, parroting back his own words. He lets out a chuckle. 

“Why is it so unbelievable?” Spencer complains incredulously.

They all laugh at his words, and he hangs his head, sighing dejectedly. You pat him on the chest in consolation.

All of Spencer’s fears are quickly doused as a lively conversation starts up between you and his friends. He doesn’t know why he worried, like if they met everyone would self-combust. No, this was going fine. More than fine, even. 

His breathing slows, sure and steady, and he just watches. Watches you speak animatedly, with a delighted glint in your eye, clearly enjoying Penelope and Derek’s presence. And his friends, his family, seemed to be enjoying her just as much, which he obviously isn’t surprised about, but still fills him with relief. It was okay. It was all going to be perfectly okay.

“How does some dinner sound?” You ask the group, just as Spencer tunes back in.

Penelope claps her hands together, “Yes! I have the perfect place.” 

“Sounds good to me.” Derek replies. “If lover boy is coming, of course. I can't wait to tell lover girl, here, all the embarrassing stories at his expense.” 

Spencer groans, but follows Garcia as she heads towards the door. You just laugh. 

Spencer pinches your side from where you're still tucked under his arm and you yelp. This time, he's the one letting out a quiet chuckle, and you roll your eyes. 

“Come on genius, lead the way.” You look up expectedly from under his arm.

“Anything for you.” He simply replies, wrapping himself around you tighter, before guiding the both of you towards the door.

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Thank you for reading, feedback is appriciated x

Tags: @reidology13 @reidmania <3 - Comment to be added!

Masterlist ౨ৎ

[24hlevi]

Can you do a fluff promt #24 on the second list with chishiya? I love that man sm so it would be nice!

thank you so much for requesting! 🫶

also it's literally 5 in the morning i just woke up im sorry if this is terrible

— SAFE WITH YOU

chishiya shuntaro (alice in borderland) x gn!reader

genre: fluff

summary: fluff prompt ("you're safe here with me. nobody's going to harm you ever again.") from my 2.5k event

warnings: language

after waiting for chishiya outside of the king of diamonds, he appeared to be different. you couldn't pinpoint how exactly, but you were sure that something happened in that game that resulted in him being different towards you, as if he out of nowhere started caring about your opinions and life. the two of you walked in silence as you held the umbrella above both of you due to the rain that was progressively getting worse as time went on.

until he finally spoke.

"what do you think about the value of a human life?"

"what?" you question, turning your head to look over at him.

"i didn't realize it before but, i think of it differently now," he says, looking forward at the buildings.

"what do you mean?" you said, a confused look on your face.

"i mean-"

he was interrupted by a gunshot echoing throughout the city, and when he turned to look at you, you were suddenly on the ground, grasping your side. chishiya's eyes widened ever so slightly as he quickly looked around to see who had fired that shot, and his gaze turned dark when he spotted niragi down the road.

"shit," he cursed under his breath, crouching down beside you. "y/n, y/n, can you hear me?"

"yeah," you nodded, wincing in pain as you held the wound, your eyes closed with your head on the cement.

"i'm going to get you out of here, okay?" he says, a bit of nervousness in his voice you'd never heard before. "c'mon, i'm going to pick you up and we're going to run, alright?"

"okay," you answer, nodding your head again.

chishiya carefully scooped you into his arms, carrying you bridal style and hearing another shot fire. he quickly started running in no particular direction, knowing niragi would follow him, occasionally glancing down at you to make sure you were still alive.

he turned and went into a building, shutting the door behind him and glancing around to see what was in there. an office building. he went down the hall and opened the door to one of the offices, going to the corner and laying you down on the ground.

you had passed out by now, and the blood was seeping through your clothes onto the floor beneath you, and he knew he had to do something fast or else you wouldn't make it. he went through the whole building grabbing items and first aid supplies that would help, and when he returned, he sat in front of you and stared for a moment.

"this is going to sting," he says, putting some rubbing alcohol on a paper towel he found and pressing it onto your wound.

you awoke with a sharp gasp, sitting up and letting out a yelp before chishiya pushed you back down onto your back.

"lay down," he tells you. "i'm trying to make sure you don't die on me."

you laid back down without a response, trying not to think about the words he said to you. this was definitely different. in the whole year you had known this man, he comes out different because of a damned killing game. you don't know what happened in that venue, but you don't really want to know either. you sat in silence as he carefully fixed you up with the limited materials he had gathered in the building, occasionally looking over at him to see how he looked. his eyebrows were furrowed together slightly in focus of stitching the wound closed, and his eyes had a new look in them, one you couldn't quite figure out.

"there, all done," he suddenly speaks, knocking you out of your thoughts.

"thank you," you mutter, slowly sitting up to lean against the wall.

"don't thank me," chishiya shook his head.

leaning your head against the wall, you let out a long sigh. "how much longer do we have to be here?"

"supposedly there's only two more games left," he answered, sitting down next to you. "one is the king of spades, which i've heard is simply a man running around killing all of us."

"great," you mumble. "let's hope he doesn't find us here, then. otherwise i'm done for," you speak quietly.

"don't worry," chishiya shakes his head. "you're safe here with me. nobody's going to harm you ever again."

you look over at him in subtle shock at his words, and judging by his expression, he was shocked by his own words. "thank you," you say quietly.

"don't thank me," he repeats what he said earlier. "i've just come to realize the value of a human life, and you're the most important person in my life."

you almost couldn't believe the words coming from his mouth. was this really happening? did he mean what he was saying, or was he just talking to make you feel better? surely, it couldn't be that. he wouldn't say anything like that in that kind of way. "what are you trying to say?" you ask.

"i love you," he answered.

there it was. the words you had been hoping to hear from him since the day you found yourself in love with him. part of you didn't believe it was possible, knowing the way he was. but, you finally got something good out of this world.

"i love you too."

[frangipani-wanderlust]

How To Call 911

So most of my followers know now that I started working last May as a 911 dispatcher. Super proud of myself. And now that I am starting (very much still starting) to settle in a bit, I want to offer some tips on how to call 911. So, hold on to your hats.

(no-color version if the yellow text isn't rendering on your screen correctly)

When in doubt, call 911. Don't take this as me encouraging you to jump at shadows. Your neighbors' loud party is not an emergency, google the local non-emergency line and call that. Neither is the dry cleaning not giving you your clothes (I actually got this call on our 911 line). Nor is the fact that you saw a fox inside city limits (also something a real human called 911 about). But if you see a situation unfolding and you think "this seems dangerous, maybe this is 911-worthy" then it's 911-worthy. Don't hesitate. Call.

If you call 911 and you are freaking out, that's okay. If you're in a crisis, you may not remember a single tip I'm about to give you. We are trained for that, we can handle it, just do the best you can. It's not the end of the world to have a hysterical or frightened caller, and these are tips, not rules.

Location, location, location. We can't send you help if we have nowhere to send it to. Ideally, know the address. Failing that, know the name of a business or a church or an intersection. It is not cheating if you read this off a sign. There isn't a set of invisible rules that says you have to have your exact GPS coordinates memorized. Be prepared to describe the location somehow. That way, if our connection drops and that's all you can tell me, I can still send some police out to come find out what's going on and they can ask for medics or firefighters or whatever if needed. But we absolutely must know where to send assistance, it is the first thing we're going to ask.

Location again, but with a twist. The first thing our office says for emergencies is, "911, what is the address of the emergency?" If a building is on fire, tell us where the fire is. If your neighbors are being robbed at gunpoint across the street, give us their address. If you witnessed a car accident, tell us where the accident happened. The location of the emergency isn't necessarily the location where you are. Don't send police and fire to your office building if the wreck is on the freeway.

Answer the questions that you are asked. If the calltaker asks "Is the patient breathing?" don't start in about the seizure they just had (if they aren't breathing, the seizure they just had is not the biggest problem). If the calltaker asks, "Which way did the man you saw go when they ran?" don't tell them about how they broke down your door (if they are running away, knowing they broke your door down does not help the police know which direction to start looking). The particular question you are asked is being asked for a reason, and that reason is not frivolous but in an emergency, we aren't going to stop and explain everything.

Do not launch into a speech. If you're asked a yes/no question, yes or no is all the answer you should give. Your impulse will be to explain the yes or the no because more information is better than not enough, but overexplaining is its own problem. Now, we are hired for good typist skills, and are encouraged to get better and faster, but infodumping means things can get missed. The calltaker is going to have some information they're going to ask for by protocol and probably the option to drill down on some of it if clarification is needed. If you spend five paragraphs explaining your last answer, it delays getting other pertinent information.

Do not launch into a speech, part the second. You don't call 911 for things that happened last week, or even yesterday. Tell me the emergency that is happening right now. Ideally in one sentence. If someone is having a medical issue, and you call 911 about it, when the calltaker asks exactly what happened, do not tell them about how the patient had a surgery 5-and-a-half weeks ago. You called 911. What is the emergency that is happening right now. Don't be telling me about their surgery when the problem you called about is a broken leg. Yes, the surgery may have led to generalized loss of balance that has yet to return which caused the patient to fall which caused them to break their leg. Understood. But you didn't call because of all of that. You called because of the broken leg. Apply this principle to all emergencies.

Don't launch into a speech, part the third. When asked a specific and direct question, do not give an explanation instead of an answer. If the calltaker asks you "Is the weird person on the side of the road actually in the lanes of traffic?" do not explain to them how it's a very narrow roadway (see parenthesis for the story here). Aside from the fact that we're not asking these questions to be funny (see part the second), there's also the fact that now you are coming over as suspicious as hell. If I asked "how did that person on Facebook know what this supposedly missing kid is wearing and where he's going to be at 3:00 today?" and you say "well Facebook is a good way to spread information" I am now extremely suspicious of you.

(Also an actual call I have taken. The man was a totally ordinary guy out for a walk to the store, but this blue collar man walked through a Rich Person Neighborhood™ and according to Lady Catherine De Bourgh on the phone with me, that merited a call to the police. When I asked her if he was actually in the lanes of traffic [traffic hazard call type] versus not [suspicious person call type, on a technicality but technically...], she tried explaining three times that the road was narrow before she finally got the message that I was not going to stop asking until she told me the actual answer and answered "Well, I suppose so, yes." At this point, because she'd been so reluctant to answer me, I no longer believed the man actually was in the lanes of traffic and to this day believe that she lied to try and manipulate the police into a stronger-level response than was actually warranted. Because determining whether she was lying for sure is beyond the scope of my job, I put down what she said, but I didn't believe then and still don't believe now, that she told the truth. The totally ordinary and probably very nice guy was not arrested or hassled at all and was instead given a courtesy ride to the store.)

Be prepared to describe relevant people, maybe including yourself, and that includes race. If you have an asthma attack at a football game, the medics need to know how to find you in a crowd. If you are a black woman, that's gonna rule out everyone who isn't that. If you are a black woman wearing a yellow shirt, blue jeans, and a blue bandana over your hair, that excludes nearly everybody and when the medics arrive, they'll know exactly who to look for. Most of the time, someone's race isn't relevant information. When describing someone to emergency services, it absolutely is and it is not racist to accurately describe the relevant person or people.

There are more tips in the world, and I may come back to this post and add them as they occur to me. In the meantime, please enjoy this short treatise on how to call 911.

[skruttet]

What are your thoughts on Moominvalley's comet special?

I talked a little about it in this other ask response, but overall I was disappointed. I think it's quite telling that the part of it that made me the most emotional was the opening credits 😅

Someone else said it was "underwhelming" and I think that's a good descriptor for it. The rest of the season as a whole already didn't really feel final enough to me, and you'd expect the finale to make up for that and give you that big feeling of wrapping up the whole series in a satisfying way, but it just didn't hit that mark for me.

The actual journey in the first half just wasn't as epic and exciting as I was hoping it'd be, and I think that's partially due to them using elements from Comet in previous episodes so they didn't wanna reuse them again, like the stilts (though surely they could've brought them back...). The cave Moomintroll and Snufkin end up in also feels like a missed opportunity - it's such a beautiful setting, but all they do there is panic, then see the Hemulen, then he leads them out. Idk what exactly they could've done instead, but surely there was something interesting the writers could've come up with to utilise that space more.

The way Snufkin brought up the sun oil was so awkward and forced; I know it was to establish it so that Sniff could have his whole stinky salesman arc in the latter half, but it's really weird how he explains its origin to his friends again even though all of them apart from Snork were there in Fire Spirit! Speaking of, that was a real step down for Sniff, and I would've preferred him to have an arc surrounding the kitten instead. Maybe he spends the time trying to gain its trust or something, and then at the end, finally manages to do so and rescues it to bring it back to the cave.

And speaking of the cave, I didn't like that change, either (honestly I just think I disliked most of the changes they made from the novel tbh lol. like I get they don't just wanna rehash it and want this to be new and original to an extent, but sometimes that can go too far, or just in the wrong direction). It's just really stupid for them to be like "we need to face our fear and face the comet!" it's a COMET! It's not a mysterious noise you hear in the middle of the night that you can investigate, it's a big hot rock that'll kill you all!! And then Groke moves towards it, and ~something~ happens, but this is a family show so they have her moan again at the end to show she's still alive and I love Jack but his delivery of "I'm so relieved" is so weirdly flat that it doesn't help how awkward and unnatural this ending is lmao.

Now this is more of a personal gripe, but I don't like how Snufkin is positioned at the end. When they're facing the Groke, he's right next to Moomintroll, which I like (and also brings to mind Night of the Groke when they faced her together), but then after the white flash, he's not only nowhere near Moomintroll, but not even near their friends? And he walks away WITH THE POLICE INSPECTOR?! Like thank god Joxter doesn't know he's his dad he'd have a heart attack if he found out his son was so chummy with the cops smh. You could maybe argue this isn't even just a personal complaint, and that Snufkin has objectively been one of Moomintroll's most important relationships in this series, so for them to not have some kind of moment or interaction at the end feels wrong.

Something I was going to discuss in that other ask reply but I ultimately deleted because I couldn't find the words at the time was Little My's characterisation. This season in particular made me feel as though she's so, like, mad all the time. And I understand that anger is her thing, but it's usually a cheery kind of angry, you know? But in this series she sometimes just seems so frustrated and upset and although I like that it explores the more emotionally dramatic side of her, I was hoping that by this final season at least she'd be in a more comfortable and happy place. But in this Comet special she's so exasperated and moody with Moominpappa and I wish they just made it feel more like daughter-light-heartedly-poking-fun-at-her-dad, I guess?

Snork is interesting in this special because he plays quite a big role in it, but I also feel so sorry for him cause he's always getting cut off or used by Pappa and Sniff who don't properly listen to him and I just want to give him a big (figurative bc he hates hugs) hug my poor smart boy let him infodump. There's also a moment where he says "I can explain-" and his sister says "Thanks, Snork, but we really need to carry on!" which is so obviously the writers trying to squeeze in Snorkmaiden's characterisation from the book where she's practical in the face of her brother's long-winded meetings, and is a great example of the feminism of her character there, but it just doesn't quite work the same here. Once again just not as natural as it should feel.

On a positive note, I LOVED the look of the comet itself - every shot of it looked so cool and it changed the lighting of the valley in a fun and interesting way. I also liked how Jarmo and Samuli gave the score of the episode a funky sci-fi sound, which helped set it apart as something special for the series. And despite all my negatives, it's still entertaining! It's enjoyable to watch! Just, for someone who had expectations based on the whole series and the novel, underwhelming.

[gerryrigged]

dicktim - La Beau Au Bois Dormant

idea gripping my tired brain by the throat about Tim being struck by some kind of sleeping beauty poison or spell and falling comatose.

Except the solution is not True Love's Kiss but sending someone inside his soul to battle the dragon that will manifest from his inner demons to keep him imprisoned, forever.

The highest chance for success necessitates sending in the one person that the sleeper trusts most - often their love, hence the poison/spell's reputation, but not always.

And almost everyone immediately turns to Dick, like in you go, Nightwing, what are you waiting for.

Which Dick. Doesn't know how to react to, because. God he would give anything to be that person for Tim again. But he knows that he broke something between them when he stripped away Robin.

They've moved past it, they're...fine. But Dick knows. It's not the same. They aren't the same.

He can't help Tim with this. Tim probably wouldn't even want him to try. And that kills him, but he won't sabotage Tim's only shot to wake up because of his own desperate wish to still be the one Tim turns to first. His north star.

There's a ticking-clock time limit before Tim won't be able to wake up at all. They don't have any time to lose.

He looks away from everyone's expectant, demanding stares.

"Call Superboy," he says, voice scraped raw from his throat. "Or Kid Flash. They'll get here in time."

He can't stand the disappointment on Bruce's face. It makes helpless anger boil hot and toxic in his belly. Bruce wasn't here for everything that happened. He doesn't know.

(Dick's never told him. How badly he fucked up.)

"Wait, not his boyfriend?'" Steph says, raised eyebrows and gesticulating at nowhere in particular and Dick's churning thoughts sputter and die into frozen blankness. Boyfriend?

Babs shakes her head on the Batcomputer's view screen.

"They're not at that level of trust yet. They haven't even been dating that long, Tim definitely hasn't told him about - " she twirls a finger, indicating all of them. Red Robin on the medical bed, cowl pushed down and cape pooled around him. The Cave, vaulting overhead. " - all of this. And he won't thank us for doing it for him."

Tim...has a boyfriend?

Wow. His little brother used to always want his advice on love. Life. Everything. If he doesn't trust Dick enough anymore to tell him even that much... Well. It just proves definitively that Dick isn't the right person for this job.

(It hurts like Dick's vital organs are being crushed in a massive fist.)

"Time is ticking," Jason Blood says quietly, looking down at the open face of his pocket watch. At his feet, a circle of lit candles awaits someone to sit down inside and sink into an enchanted meditation.

"Father, clearly it should be you," Damian says, tapping his foot rapidly. His arms are crossed tightly under his cape in a way that he probably means to come across as scornful, rather than apprehensive. "Or Pennyworth, even."

Bruce shakes his head, troubled. "No. I don't think so. Cassie...?"

"No," Cass responds calmly. "Not me." She seems untroubled by her own denial, even though she and Tim have been thick as thieves ever since she returned to Gotham.

She's looking at Dick. She hasn't looked away from Dick this whole time, or let go of Tim's hand, folded in hers protectively, over his heart.

"It's still you, big brother," she says. Gentle and direct and devastating. "Go. Bring him back."

Not so long ago, Tim trusted Dick to catch him when he fell.

Or, he was depressed and passively suicidal and telling Dick what he wanted to hear. Maybe he even believed it, after the fact.

In the end, it doesn't matter. He's Dick's brother. Dick will always, always be there to catch him, whether Tim trusts him to or not.

Dick goes.

He faces Tim, sinks into lotus inside the ring of flickering little flames, and closes his eyes, heart in his throat.

He opens his eyes. A vast, jagged bramble forest looms dark above him. Far in the distance, he can just make out a spindly tower piercing the sky, a flickering little light shining at the top.

He hacks his way through the biting brambles of Tim's resentments, leaving blood and sorrows dripping from the thorns in his wake.

He fights the sly, sinuous dragon of Tim's despair, singing with every breath that he can spare, so that Tim might hear him and know he's not alone.

He wishes he could remember happy songs, bright and lively songs - wishes he could be the light in the darkness that Tim deserves, that he looked up to and chased after and for some reason tried to model himself upon, even when he was already so very bright himself.

But any song is better than none to pierce the lonely vault of silence, so he sings of pain, of loss, of faith and faithlessness. Of holding on past the point of breaking. He sings of two hands open and outstretched, waiting to be clasped and held.

When his voice falters, when adamant scales break his sword and claws shatter his shield, he throws himself at the winged serpent, letting it coil about him and grappling it in turn. Fangs strike at him again and again, piercing flesh and armor both, before he winds his arms around its jaws and holds them shut.

It hisses through clenched teeth about failures, his and Tim's both. He holds its jaws shut, and sings of two ships tossed in a maelstrom, anchored to each other, weathering the storm.

It hisses, venom dripping from its furious curled lips, about abandonment and betrayal. He holds its jaws shut, and sings about two robins, flying with an olive branch held aloft between them.

It hisses to him of ice unending, frozen hearts, shattered trust. He holds its jaws shut, and sings about the steady radiating warmth of a hearth, of a hug, of a new dawn. Of new beginnings.

He rests his forehead on the dragon's growling snout, and sings, "Come home with me. Come home to me. Tim, I love you. Tim, Tim, Tim."

The beast shudders and shivers. And starts to break apart.

The crumbling wings buffet and beat at Dick even as they begin to crack and collapse. Dick lowers his head and holds on tighter.

The massive coiled tail squeezes around Dick convulsively, thrashing and withering. Dick's ribs crack, but he holds on tighter.

Scales etched with Tim's regrets flake off and fall away, like a tree shedding razor edged leaves in autumn. Dick closes his eyes as they kiss and cut his already tattered skin, but just holds on tighter.

Eventually, the violent disintegration comes to an end, and all goes still and quiet.

Save for a familiar shape shaking and weeping in Dick's arms.

Dick opens his eyes, blinking away sweat and blood just to be sure. But yes. It's him. Blue eyes reddened with tears, staring in horror at the ragged torn-up mess of his older brother, come to rescue him.

"Tim," Dick sighs, bones papier-mâché from relief. And exhaustion. "Timmy. Thank god."

"Dick," Tim cries out, gripping him tightly in distress. He lets go immediately at Dick's wince, and tries to pull away. "I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry, I'm - your wounds, we have to - "

Dick doesn't let him move an inch. "Shhhhhh," he breathes. "It's a dream, don't worry about it." Tim wriggles in protest at first, determinedly attempting to staunch some of the heavier bleeding, but Dick just holds him tighter. "Please, Timmy," he begs. "Please. Just let me."

Tim's breath hitches, then he wraps his arms around Dick just as hard as Dick is squeezing him, strong and anchoring. Dick's own breath shudders on the edge of a whine, and he buries his nose in Tim's hair.

-----

"Missed you," he whispers hoarsely, several minutes later.

Tim lifts his face from where he's been leaking a silent wet spot into Dick's collarbone.

"Missed you, too," he whispers back, as if they're sharing secrets and might be overheard.

Then Tim hesitates, before setting his mouth firmly. He meets Dick's gaze, and there's a fierce light in his still reddened eyes that transfixes Dick. He almost lost this. He almost lost Tim - so many times, more than he probably even knows about. He never wants to look away.

"And I love you, too, you know. That's never changed. It never will change." His brow is furrowed intently, gaze searching Dick's, like he can find and burn away any hint of doubt or disbelief.

"I know," Dick murmurs, warm down to his battered toes. Tim's alive. Tim's going to wake up, and keep living. Tim loves him, and forgives him, and still trusts him more than anyone else. "I do know. I - "

He releases one arm from its death grip, because he can no longer resist the urge to cup Tim's face, stroke a thumb across his cheek. Tim closes his eyes briefly as he covers Dick's hand with his, leaning into it, brows still drawn together. Like he's in pain, even though all the dings and scratches are on Dick, not him.

Dick's heart seizes.

He dips down, to the impossibly inviting bow of Tim's mouth, and kisses him. At Tim's small, quiet gasp, he gentles further, catching Tim's lips, pulling the full lower curve between his own in a soft tug. To his delight, Tim follows him, chasing his mouth, and they share the sweet cling and press, back and forth.

-----

Dick's wounds are somehow all still present upon waking. Magic, ugh, such a pain. The resulting frenzy of medical attention and getting bundled into another bed - too far away from Tim - like he's one foot through death's door isn't exactly fun, either.

(But still. Well worth it, for that first moment Tim's eyes flutter open and hazily lock on his. The world can keep spinning, now that Dick knows Tim is safe.)

As it turns out, Tim's recollection of what happened inside his own soul is equally hazy.

He remembers enough to melt bonelessly into Dick's chest when Dick sneaks over to share his bed, which dissolves the hard knot of worried tension in Dick's chest that he wouldn't remember anything, that he'd be back to subtle distance and awkward texts and not even feeling comfortable enough to share that he likes men, and Dick. Isn't sure he could have handled that.

So he ignores his aching ribs and multiple lacerations and puncture wounds and curls around Tim with his whole body, warmth and gratitude suffusing every aching muscle.

Tim...doesn't seem to remember the kiss. Which. Is a shame.

But Dick remembers it. Every moment is burned into him like the most intimate pyrography. That will have to be enough, until he can make it happen again.

(Tim's boyfriend doesn't stand a chance.)

[reginalusus]

I feel like people trying to justifying 'hating' Spamton usually come up with the one of the two excuses: "he's so popular, I'm just sick of him," - which I think is a very silly (albeit innocent) reason, sorry - or "he's not interesting or significant enough in the game to warrant the popularity."

I disagree.

For the record, before I continue, I couldn't give less of a fuck if you don't like him, lmao, you do you, BBG (why are you looking at my blog in the first place? You'll die of vex! I'm a big ol' simp). There are popular characters in other media I also don't like but I don't have the time or energy to go around boasting why I dislike them. Reality is depressing enough, I'd much rather focus on stuff I actually like.

Anyway.

While I do agree that Spamton probably isn't major in terms of the entire canon of Deltarune, I feel like there's so much nuance to him that it's kind of incredible. People seem to forget about the sweepstakes.

I don't need to go into his backstory. We all know about that and it's one of the main draws of him. He's a tragic, relatable, timeless character, and while his popularity will wane while we enjoy the other chapters, I still feel like this fandom will still love and talk about him, much like how the Undertale fandom still loves and fixates on Sans, Papyrus and Mettaton in particular. At least, I will, lol. And this is coming from someone who doesn't get attached to characters easily, at all. Not to this extent.

Anyway, continuing on with the 'nuance, interesting' point:

I've spoken about this before, time and time again, but the fact that Spamton is a direct foil to Kris, knows about souls, knows about how this world works (and is horrified by it) just seems pretty major to me, IDK. That's not even delving into the sweepstakes.

I know the whole interaction between Spamton and Noelle is kind of speculation, so I'm just going off what I've seen and read what other people have discussed in regards to these two here:

The idea that Noelle and Spamton have spoken to one another and have (maybe) discussed Dess (speculatively), is just mind-blowing to me. Dess still has a huge question mark over their head. We don't know anything about them except that they're missing, but the fact that Spamton knows some stuff (speculatively) because of Noelle just... I don't have any words. The fact that Spamton thinks Noelle is the Angel (something we know is important in the lore) is fascinating to me.

Perhaps Spamton is just a stepping stone to what other secret bosses may elaborate on in future chapters. Realistically, that's probably the case.

But Spamton himself and the dynamic between he and Kris will ALWAYS stick with me, no matter how good the other secret bosses are. The Snowgrave Spamton fight has a permanent burn mark in my brain. I will never get the image of Kris being canonically traumatised by this man out of my head.

The fact that Spamton was sort of the first character to reveal the existential horrors that the world of Deltarune entails is remarkable to me. Yes, Jevil sort of did it first, but nowhere near to the extent and depth Spamton did.

Anyway, self-indulgent discussion over. I hope we do see our beloved salesman again (we probably won't, and if we do, it most likely won't be until the end). I know he's just chilling in Kris's pocket right now with Jevil. But I have an image that in Chapter 7, we'll see all the secret bosses again. Maybe.

Maybe we'll get a cutscene sort of like the True Pacifist cutscene at the very end of Undertale, where we see all the monsters enjoying their new lives above ground. Maybe we'll see the secret bosses be happy. Maybe we'll see Jevil reunite with Seam. Maybe we'll see Spamton finally making it as a salesman again, and reconnecting with the Addisons. IDK.

Anyway, can you tell I fucking love Spamton.

[violentvaleska]

𝑨𝒃𝒚𝒔𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝑴𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔

ғᴏᴜʀᴛᴇᴇɴ ᵈᵉᵃᵗʰ ᵐᵃʳᶜʰ

ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: ʟᴇᴠɪ ᴀᴄᴋᴇʀᴍᴀɴ x ғᴇᴍᴀʟᴇ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

sᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴛᴀᴋᴇ ᴡᴀʟʟ ᴍᴀʀɪᴀ ᴛʜᴇ sᴄᴏᴜᴛs ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴛᴏ ʙʀɪɴɢ ᴠɪᴄᴛɪᴍs. ʏᴇᴛ ʟᴇᴠɪ ᴀɴᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴛᴏ ɢɪᴠᴇ sᴏ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ᴍᴏʀᴇ; ᴀ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ ᴀɴᴅ ᴀ ʟɪғᴇ.

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢ: ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ, ʙʟᴏᴏᴅ ᴀɴᴅ ɢᴏʀᴇ, ᴀɴɢsᴛ

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs: ↫ ᴘʀᴇᴠɪᴏᴜs ɴᴇxᴛ ↬

ғᴀɴғɪᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ᴍᴀsᴛᴇʀʟɪsᴛ

ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴏɴ ᴀᴏ3

ᴀ/ɴ: ʜᴇʏ ɢᴜʏs, ɪᴛ's ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴀ ᴡʜɪʟᴇ! ɪ ʜᴏᴘᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴍɪɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴏɴɢ ᴡᴀɪᴛ, ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴡɪʟʟ ʙᴇ ғᴜʟʟ ᴏғ ᴀɴɢsᴛ, ʙᴜᴛ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴡᴏʀʀʏ, ᴛʜɪs ᴡᴏɴ'ᴛ ʙᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴇɴᴅ ;)

ᴛᴀɢɢɪɴɢ: @ajmiila02 @xiernia @sunniisyde @raginginferno267

Shiganshina could be so beautiful. There are wide lands, rivers and plenty of space for all the homeless refugees that currently either live in Rose, Sina or the underground city. You know it will spring back to life in just a year, you know that humanity will win today, but to what cost? Shiganshina is a forsaken hell, the souls of hundreds of soldiers will hound this district by the end of the day and yours might be part of it.

So far, everything has gone according to plan. Eren has successfully closed the outer gate and Armin has discovered something even you didn't see in your visions: Reiner and Bertolt are hiding inside the walls. A clever skit, you won't deny that. While most of the scouts check the surface of the wall, you stand at Levi's side and observe the situation.

"Tell me they will succeed." He speaks almost wearily, looking at you for the first time since last night. Your mood towards him is still sour, so you look at him sideways.

"I don't know. Though I've seen glimpses of this particular scenario. They'll attack soon." You explain, drawing the attention of Erwin, who exchanges a knowing look with Captain Levi. The smaller man nods his head curtly, watching the situation unfold before him as a smoke grenade fires into the air near him.

"Right here! This part of the wall is hollow!" The soldier closest to you shouts, catching Levi's attention as he draws his blade, ready to attack.

In a matter of seconds, everything collapses. Reiner appears out of nowhere and kills the soldier instantly. Next to you, the Captain jumps into action, using his ODM to fly down the wall. You gasp as his blade cuts into Reiner's neck and chest, causing his body to fall to the ground. But he's not dead, you don't know how, but it must be some kind of Titan ability. Levi notices too, cursing under his breath as he backs away from the spamming body on the ground. The strange situation comes to mind as you remember what's going to happen next.

"Behind us!" You scream at the same time as Commander Erwin tells his soldiers to keep their eyes open. Confused, Hange looks at you and opens her mouth to ask what you mean when golden lights blind you. Everyone turns their attention from the freshly-armoured titan in the direction of the source of the light, panic written on their faces.

You turn to face the Beast Titan and his army of what they call Abnormal Titans. There is nothing you can do but watch as the monkey grabs a large, round stone and swings it at the still-open inner gate.

"Incoming boulder! Get down!" The commander warns as his soldiers all drop to the ground except you. You know there's no need, as the beast wasn't aiming to kill, but to block the supply chains and eliminate the horses. Erwin seems to have read the idea of the intelligent titan as well, explaining to his soldiers the true purpose of his move.

"They have another intelligent titan. It's the quarterback type." Armin and Levi let out a sound of surprise at their commander's remark and looked at him with wide eyes.

"Though there may be others." He suspects as you step to his side and shake your head.

“Stop being a brat and get a grip of yourself.” Levi growls and takes your hand into his, surprising you and his Commander who is quietly watching the strange scenario unfold in front of him.

“Levi.” You say his name like it might be the last time you see him and right now you truly think it might be. Tightening your own grip on his hand you give him a small smile before you part away from him.

“I promise to bring as many of them back as possible.” You answer his first question saluting to him as sadness fills your eyes. You take a moment to observe him a last time, butterflies grazing your insides at the way he returns your longing look.

“I wish we had more time.” Is the last thing you say, as you strike into battle, using your gear to follow after your comrades.

You leave Levi feeling empty and perhaps he deserves it for doing the same thing yesterday. His eyes linger on the spot you just stood at, as he feels something strange pull on his heart. It feels like you just took a part of himself with you and he doesn't like that at all.

“I didn't know you two were involved. Honestly, I am surprised.” Erwin comments smiling at his friend warm heartedly.

“Tch. We weren't.” Is all Levi has to say before he leaves as well, into a different direction than you and he deeply hopes that you are wrong about your visions, because he won't be able to deal with another death otherwise.

Heavy breaths escape your lungs as you land on the ground, your eyes on the seemingly dead Reiner Braun. His nape is blown off and his body not moving as the thunder spears have done the trick to defeat him. You gape at the body you once thought to be a friend of yours until you predicted his betrayal to humanity. You wonder if he knew you before all of this, as he works closely with the beast titan. He might have, otherwise he would have killed you the moment he found out about your special gift. You appreciate the fact that he didn't though, which makes you now feel a little uneasy at the sight of his still armored titan. The others cheer, happy about the accomplishment of having defeated the traitor and enemy. But you know that it's not over yet, soon Bertolt will make his presence clear and as long as your visions hold truth it will take too many lives. Could you save them? Could you prevent it?

You look up into the sky, white clouds covering the endless blues as wind blows through your hair. But something breaks the picture; a round object cutting through the air at high speed, it's oddly shaped form spinning and swirly.

“What's that?” You hear a member of Hanges squad ask, perplexed as to why a barrel is thrown over Shiganshina.

“Not good.” You whisper as you notice something or rather someone crawl out of said wooden barrel, making you instantly look up to your squad which has taken its position on the rooftops.

"Hey! Go to Eren and stay with him. I don't want to see any of you running around freely.” You demand, sounding almost as harsh as Levi, but it has the desired effect as your friends quickly use their ODM to manoeuvre towards the attack titan. You, on the other hand, stay on the ground and walk towards the collapsed armoured titan. You need to make sure that Reiner is dead, because if he's not, you'll be in big trouble later on.

Hange leads her squad into the air, telling them to follow Bertolt's lead. Ignoring her, you take each step as you approach Reiner, your heart pounding. If he weren't already dead, you'd have to kill him now, and while you feel conflicted at the thought of having to face him and kill him, deep down you know it's the only way to save at least a few lives today. The moment you reach the titan's body, a yellow light colours your surroundings as your eyes widen in shock. Loud, electric thunders and explosions fill your eardrums and you twist your body at the same moment as the radius of the colossal Titan's transformation hits you, its wave whipping you back with such force that it takes your breath away.

Your body is a limb, ripped from the ground as the surrounding buildings shatter from the shockwave, its pieces colliding with your body, ripping your skin and breaking your leg as an ugly scream escapes your lips. There's barely time to register what's happening to you, yet it feels like time has been slowed down as you're hurled through the air in slow motion. Nothing is there, yet all at once your head is filled with memories of the past three years. But this time it's not a vision, no, this time it's your life passing by, showing you the last moments of your life. A few seconds later, you crash into a wall of rocks, stopping your body from spinning any further.

Your head hits the rock, and your shoulder blade and rib cage take most of the fall, fracturing them as well. It feels like the air is being forcefully squeezed out of your lungs as your body slowly slides down the wall, leaving a red trail of blood behind it. Your eyes slowly close as your head lolls forward, your limbs buckling as the right elbow of your arm sinks into a subluxation. "Is this it?" You wonder, coughing for air as the darkness swallows you into a deep hole.

"Is this the end?"

Levi is exhausted. He's covered in titan blood and he's damn tired. The hood's inhuman liquid slowly turns to smoke as he finishes off the last stupid humanoid creature that used to be human.

"Fuck." He curses as he realises that he doesn't even have time to take a break as the blonde lunatic who owns the Beast Titan has fled the scene with the help of the cart titan. With the last of his strength, he uses his equipment to climb the wall that stands between him and the last of the soldiers. He hopes at least some of them survived, after all he didn't quite have time to follow the events inside the walls.

He lands on the wall not as gracefully as he usually does, breathing heavily as he looks down at the roofs of the district, quickly noticing the strange image in front of him. There, not far from him, on one of the rooftops, are Eren Yeager and the traitor Bertolt Hoover, their bodies facing another building on which the enemy titan is hovering, carrying the bastard who killed his comrades. Exhausted, Levi lets himself slide over the edge, falling freely down the wall before activating the grapple and securing his fall on the nearest wall. His gas is low and his blades are basically useless at this point, while his body is severely weakened. He crashes to the roof where Eren is holding Bertolt, a heavy breath escaping his lungs as he turns to the boy, stressed. He could still make it.

"I've used the last of my gas. Quick, give me your equipment so I can go after him." He holds out his hand and at the same time notices another body behind Yeager. He can't make out who it is, it's badly burned and unrecognisable. But Levi doesn't have time to speculate now, his first priority is to finish off the ape like titan.

"Hurry!" He urges at the same time as a choked cough rings through the air and to his surprise the burnt body moves slightly, its chest heaving into the air as blood flies from its open mouth. Eren's eyes widen in sheer shock as he slowly turns to face the horrifying sight. The boy immediately jumps to his friend, screaming at him to keep going, to survive. The image is heartbreaking and sickening, it stinks in Levi's heart as he watches the scene, barely noticing that Mikasa has arrived at his side.

"Captain! Get the syringe!" Eren cries in panic, tears running down his cheeks in utter despair. Levi looks down, averting his eyes from his subordinate with a dark expression on his face. "Turn Armin into a titan, then we can let him eat Bertolt." He pleads with Captain Levi, clutching desperately at Hoover's unconscious body.

"Hurry up and inject him!" Ere's voice is high and full of sorrow as he can't understand why his role model isn't responding to his pleas. It takes Levi a moment to realise that the boy is right, and that Erwin would have wanted it this way, before he slips his hand under his coat and pulls out a small metal box from his inner pockets.

"Right." is all he dares to say as he offers it to Eren. He has to face the fact that there is no way he will be able to follow the wagon and the beast titan now, and it would at least be a victory if they got the colossal one in the process.

Another gasp makes the Captain pause and look to the side of the roof, where he notices a pair of hands appearing on the edge. This time, it's his turn to gulp down the body secured to Floch Forster's back.

"Levi, Captain," the new scout whispers, happiness colouring his features as he climbs up the roof with the last of his strength, the barely alive body of none other than Captain Erwin Smith slung over his shoulders.

“I finally found you. It's the Commander. He's hurt! His stomach is gouged and his insides are all torn to shreds. The blood just won't stop."

Erwin is terribly pale and there is hardly any sign of life in him. Still, Levi feels a knot in his stomach as he realises what this would mean for his dear friend and the scouts. He would be able to save the Commander, the man who has led the Scouts to greatness in recent years. It would mean that his dream would come true and that he would finally see the world out there, something he has been fighting for all these decades. He glances at Floch and the others for a moment, realising that his decision would determine their future. He needs your opinion now, otherwise this wont work out to humanities benefit.

"Where is Faye?" He asks aloud, glaring at Mikasa with a troubled look in his cold eyes.

"I need her to tell me the outcome of this." Levi immediately recognises the expression on his possible cousin's face, the way it trains from colour as she opens and closes her mouth. His heart ages at the realisation of what her silence means, and his body stiffens as another wave of sadness rises in his chest. Swallowing his inner torment and pain, Levi pulls back his still outstretched hand as he presses the box against the heavy pressure he feels on his chest. Trying to clear his mind of the outrageous images of the many ways your life could have ended, he turns his full attention to Private Forster, helping him lay Erwin down on the hard bricks of the roof.

"He's weak, but he's breathing." He announces, feeling a faint breath of air against his hand as he checks his status.

"Erwin, you are alive." Speaking the truth into the silence makes him feel the urge to seek you out, to see for himself if you're still alive. Maybe Mikasa was wrong and he could save you instead. But deep down, Levi knows that it would take too much time, and in the end, it would take away their chance to fully transform someone into the colossal titan.

"You know it has to happen. Erwin gets the shot." Levi finally says out loud what's been on everyone's mind as Eren growls in pure aggression and stands up to tower over Levi. Sadness consumes him, while Levi is filled with numbness. He lets Eren speak his mind, but doesn't break under the betrayal he's just slapped in the titan shifter's face.

"I will revive the person who can save humanity." His words cut deep, pushing Mikasa over the edge as she pulls her blade free and stares at her Captain with an emotion he's never seen before: fear.

He knew the two brats wouldn't be compliant, but he hadn't expected them to attack him in another argument about his decision. He is able to fend off Eren, hitting him on the cheek with the box as force and gravity play their part in knocking him down hard, but he isn't so lucky with Mikasa, as she throws his already strained body off and hovers over him with her blade at his blow. She cries in agony, fighting Levi with tears in her eyes that remind him far too much of the same pain he endured when he saw his friends die all those years ago. He feels their pain, but he can't help them and plays into their hands. Even now, when Eren begins to remind him of Armin Arlert's great spirit, he still can't give in, not when there is a chance to save his leader, his own friend.

But there is something Floch says that catches his attention. "If we're going to stand a chance against the Titans, we need a devil! I realised that's what Erwin is." Levi's eyes widen again at the realisation. Yes, Erwin is the devil and you were his pawn, his little ace to play when things didn't go as planned. You saw him die, Erwin knew he was going to die and yet he decided to go ahead with his plan to retake Wall Maria. Levi must accept the fact that Erwin came here to fight one last time, to bring victory to humanity at the cost of his own life. His death was written in faith, and who was Levi to question what was decided for Erwin in the first place?

With the appearance of Hange and the rest of his team, Levi is freed from the hysterical girl, now held back by his only other living friend. He prepares the syringe, looking between Armin and Erwin, teeth gnashing and a frown on his bloodied face. He blocks out Mikasa's sobs and Hange's loud, arguing voice to concentrate on his decision. His eyes dart from one to the other as he closes them for a second, trying to imagine what would happen if he used it on the wrong one. In the end, Levi makes up his mind, and much to everyone's surprise, it's not Erwin who gets the shot. It was a close call, but Levi remembered: Erwin has become the devil and led hundreds to their deaths to reach the cellar. He has chosen his own death, and Levi won't be the one to follow him back to hell.

Having discovered and secured the interior of Dr Yeager's cellar, they have decided to collect the bodies of the fallen in the hope of burying as many as possible. Hange's entire squad, including Moblit, have been decimated by the colossal titan's transformation, their bodies reduced to ashes. The majority of the dead are within Wall Maria, and they would certainly need help to bring them all back to their families.

"Mikasa. Where is her body?" Levi asks the black-haired soldier, his voice raspy and his body aching from the war. Mikasa and Jean exchange a look, as the taller one sights and gestures to the Captain to follow after him.

"She was about to kill Reiner when Bertolt transformed. The blast was too strong and she crashed into a wall. Before that she told us to stay with Eren to be safe." He informs Captain Levi, clear sadness breaking through his usually cocky voice.

After walking around the block, Levi stops and stares straight ahead, his eyes locked with a hunched figure lying in an unnatural crouch under a blood-spattered wall.

"I'll leave you alone." Jean offers in a hushed voice and slowly backs away, giving his captain the space he needs. None of his subordinates knows the nature of their relationship, although there have been quiet rumours since Eren's trial. The fact that Mikasa Ackerman saw them in the woods all those nights ago certainly didn't help their case. Levi slowly makes his way to your body, his heart pounding against his chest as he reaches you, the silence slowly becoming suffocating.

The first thing he notices is your dislocated leg and shoulder, then the many cuts and scratches all over your body. Your head and face are covered in your own blood from a severe head wound. Your skin underneath is pale and drained of all colour. He remembers how you blushed at him, making him feel even sicker. Levi slowly breaks down, falling to his knees as he closes his eyes, trying to keep the tears from breaking through his lids, but it's no use. When he opens them again, a few drops find their way out and roll down his cheeks as he finds it impossible to breathe.

Captain Levi leans down, devastated by the sight of your motionless body. You told him your visions would end today, and that you always suspected your end was near. He didn't believe you, or rather, he didn't want to. How could he?

"I'm sorry." He whispers as he leans down to hold you to him one last time. The first thing he notices is that your skin is warm, not cold like his dead mother's hand. The second thing he finds to be strange is that your fragile form has had the rigor mortis to set in just yet and it must have already been three hours since your passing.

But then he feels it, the faint breath leaving your lips, tingling his cheek and the barely perceptible rise and fall of your chest. At first Levi thought his mind was playing a morbid trick on him, but after checking again Evi is sure that's not the case.

"Faye!" He shouts, gripping your shoulder as if to shake you awake. But it's no use, because Levi is already thinking about his next move. He simply scoops you up in his arms and quickly makes his way to his comrades, a mixture of relief and a furry twist in his stomach.

Whoever confirmed your 'death' will have to face the consequences as the Captain sees fit.

[medicinal-doll]

Wolf's Lair

Title: Wolf's Lair

Daddy!Vampire!Geralt rivia x little!reader

Word count 1.6K

Summary: being the stupidly curious baby you are you sneak into daddy geralts lab which you are strictly forbidden from entering

Warnings: Oral sex Male receiving,Daddy kink,Ddlg themes,deepthroating,dom/sub dynamic,intimidation, punishment,Graphic depictions of sexual acts, teasing

A/N: First post so bear with me

*Please don't repost without permission If you use my writing as inspiration please ask first and credit me

*read at your own discretion

........

You silently creep down into the dark brooding lair lit only by a few dim candles. it reeks of herbs,spices,and the faintest tinge of metallic blood. you swing your head around in all directions scanning for your tall and brooding master but he's nowhere to be seen.

with the coast clear you explore the lab touching everything in sight until your gaze focuses on a particularly colorful beaker with a mysterious liquid. you pick it up and twirl it back and forth in your hands watching the colors change the beautiful glow of it puts you in a trance like state. first violet then blue now green and yellow then it turns to-

"looking for something in particular dear?"

you immediately jolt up and the beaker comes crashing down from your hands onto the cold obsidian tile shattering into a million pieces. you quickly turn to geralt apologies spilling from your quivering mouth.

A light smirk tugs at geralts lip and he raises a polite palm up to silence you. "please my dear save your tears" he calmly says as he slowly circles your form like a shark surveiling it's prey. " what i'm more interested in is what's a meek little thing like you is doing wandering about my lab"

you look down at your feet mind racing to try and think of an excuse but geralts far too smart to buy into any of your poorly thought out lies. he lifts your chin with a black polished finger to meet his scrutinizing amber gaze. " that was a question hun" your voice quivers under his watch "i- was looking for you cause-". "ah ah ah i'm not interested in your lies little one" "why don't you tell me what you were really doing hm"

you're at a loss for words you had no good reason for breaking the rule except your curiosity. your turn your head away from geralt in shame. He let's out a dark chuckle. "well if you don't tell me then i'm left to make my own assumptions" geralts turns walking away before turning back to face you arms crossed and leaning on a stone pillar.

"what i'm gathering from all this is that my little girl needs a harsh punishment to remind her of the rules" "daddy no!" you run to him and fling yourself in his arms geralts punishments are the worst. he always gets you worked up and flustered, and then he leaves. ignoring you for the rest of the day denying you of his affections.

"please daddy i didn't mean to do it I just missed you lots" geralt wipes your tears and brushes a stray hair away from your face as he coos at your trembling form. "aww baby you know there's better ways of getting my attention than that" you sniffle up at him doll eyes and doe eyed "m'sorry daddy won't do it again promise" and you see him falter at your cuteness "hmm...fine" he rolls his eyes then glares back down at you.

"you're too adorable for your own good honey" you giggle up at him as he pinches your cheek "But...I can't just let you get off scott free baby that'd make me a bad daddy" he says as he gently strokes your hair "you don't want to make me a bad daddy do you doll?" geralt says tilting his head at you. You shake your head no profusely at him still softly sniffling "i'll tell you what, how about you and me play a little game" you tilt your head in confusion "what kind of game daddy?"

He smiles at your innocence and then he stands straight up to tower over you. him completely dwarfing your frame."get on your knees and i'll gladly show you bunny" your hesitancy falters at the use of the pet name and you slowly lower to the ground till the cool tile meets your knees.

you look back up at geralt awaiting his guidance he smiles the kindest smile to you with encouraging eyes and leans a veiny hand down softly stroking your chin "good girl now get daddy's cock out" a light glaze of lust clouds your eyes and geralt internally celebrates with glee as he sees your innocence slipping right infront of him. and the fact that he's the cause and one responsible for it makes it all the better.

you place a gentle hand on geralts muscular thigh claud in tight leather and undo his belt and zipper with the other. Geralt watches your every move in silence the slight shake of your hand the trembling of your torso as you tug his pants and boxers down.

His erection springs up practically hitting you in the face. the swollen pink blushed lilac tip oozes precum and an angry red vein with a rhythmic pulse challenges you "are you ready for the game honey?" geralt snaps you from your daydreams and you suck back in the drool that threatened to spill from your mouth. and slowly nod up at him eyes more glazed than ever.

geralt smirks and reaches for an old hourglass that was on his desk. "the game works like this sweetie" "if you can make me cum before the sand runs out you win and daddy won't punish you" then geralts amber eyes go dark and you gulp in fear "but... if you lose i'm going to hang you like a fucking chandelier in my lab with a vibe strapped to your little cunt on high and clothespins on your little baby nipples until I get done remaking the potion that you so generously dropped"

Fear fills your eyes and suddenly this game doesn't sound so fun anymore. but before you can protest geralt flips the hourglass and the tiny beads of sand start to fall "better get started baby or would you rather be my little fucking decoration hm?" he darkly chuckles at your panicked face you quickly grapple onto geralts meaty shaft and start pumping. he lets out a little groan in response "hmm...as nice as that is baby that won't make me cum anytime soon you better try harder if you don't want to lose"

tears well up in your eyes and you frantically wrap your lips around his cock head and suck hungrily at it. then reach your hand down to massage his heavy balls. you flick your tongue on his tip over and over and you see his stomach clench as he tries to hold in a moan. "mm...that's better baby keep sucking at daddys big dick make me lose it all honey" you open your mouth wide and take in as much of his length as you can before you feel him hit the back of your throat.

You lightly choke on his big cock and that earns a few softs sighs from him. but then your eyes flicker to the hourglass "shit.." you mentally curse it's halfway gone and he's not even close to cumming. you attempt to pray your gag reflex away and take him all the way in till his balls meet your puffy lips.

You grab at his hands to pull at your hair and are surprised when he indulges you. geralt fucks your slutty mouth and you glare at him with even sluttier eyes that are enough alone to make him come undone. "fuck baby mmm.. Your getting daddy so fucking close" he grunts as he fucks into your drooling orfice "yeah doll just like that" he encourages "swallow your daddy nice and good mhm just like daddy taught you"

You check the hourglass out of your peripheral vision and it's almost gone. it's now or never geralts stamina is limitless and he once edged you for 3 hours with nothing but his cock. There's only one way your gonna make him cum. you pop him out of your mouth and furiously start stroking him with both hands "please cum for me daddy" you say as you look up at him with those doe eyes you know are his weakness.

Geralts jaw clenches and he avoids your gaze you pump harder paying special attention to his dripping cock head and balls "look at me daddy" "look at your little girl" you use one hand to free your tits from your silk slip dress. And geralt folds and his fiery gaze lands on your supple chest. between that, your pleasing words, and that delicious gaze. you have him right were you want him you win.

Thick white milk spews from his twitching cock coating your hands and staining your dress. you smile up at him wringing the last few drops of pleasure from his hard shaft. you lick the liquid morsels from your fingers and his cock. not wanting to miss a single drop. then you smile up at geralt to find he's already smiling back at you....yeah he's really smiling why is he grinning so hard...

.........

whimpers and moans fill the room along with the occasional clinking of glass and metal "how's it going baby!" geralt shouts behind him saliva pools from your gagged mouth too stuffed and mind to clouded with so many orgasms you can't count. words don't even form in your head geralt knows this and laughs lighty to himself .

"don't worry dear i'm almost finished here" he says as he pours the liquid of one beaker into the other "when i'm done how about have ourselves a little rematch" "maybe daddy will be nice and give you a headstart"

his callous words fall on deaf ears as you lose yourself to the intense buzz between your legs and the ever growing puddle of cum dripping onto the black tile.

[androgynousblackbox]

How To Lose A Lucifer In 10 Days. 4 [Appleradio, Radioapple]

Step 4: Have disagreements

On the next morning, Alastor found that the new bed had dissapeared alongside with the tiny king. Everything on his room was completely exactly the same as it was yesterday. However, any lingering hope he had that the tiny king could have either solved his own problem already or everything was too realistic dream quickly vanished when he came inside the kitchen on the morning.

The smell of cooked meat was what attracted him. Raw meat was usually his predilection, mostly out of convenience, but not even the most stubborn cannibal in all of hell could deny that what his nose was catching was positively alluring. But it was less so when he realized the one doing the cooking was the king himself, casually managing multiple pans with bacon, eggs and french toasts and, of course, one of them making pancakes that kept turning them on new plates that magically flew to the table.

At the same time, as if to show off none of that was costing him much effort, he was also talking with Charlie standing at her side.

"Yeah, you have a sister in my side" was saying the little monarch, dashing finally the possibility that he was their original one waking up with a particular good mood to serve everyone. "She fell for questioning Heaven too much, so me and my Alastor took her in. We adopted her officially and she stays at the hotel with us."

"And how is she?" Charlie's smile was big and genuine over her tea, fascinated with this alternative version of her life.

"I think you know her already" sang Lucifer with a cheeky smirk. "She used to be a powerful seraphim that, I believe, supported your ideas when you went up to Heaven? A very cute girl not afraid to stand up for her beliefs?"

Charlie gasped, her mouth making a perfect oh.

"No! Are you telling me that Emily is my sister?!"

"Like I said, she questioned Heaven too much and she had nowhere to go. Besides, my Alastor liked her already for uh… you know, being the only angel that listened to you. It wasn't a hard decision at all. She is adapting really well to hell, all things considered. You and Vaggie help her a lot."

Alastor would have caught that little moment of hesitation and archived it on his mind later as something that he could use. But all his attention was caught instead by the deer head that was still laying on the counter. The deer head without a body from the kill he brought just yesterday and he was planning to eat later on.

"What the hell are you doing?" asked, materializing next to the king in an instant.

Charlie jumped in place at the sudden aparition, a little of tea spilling out from the side of her mug, but the king just looked up to him with an easy smile.

"Oh, hey! It's going to be a ready in a about minute now. Why don't you sit down until is down?"

Alastor stood there, perplexed.

"What."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. You like it raw" said the king, pointingly ignoring the short laugh that came out of Angel waiting for his breakfast at the table or the loud ssh Husk directed at him. "But trust me, cooked is not that bad either. Cooking can be pretty relaxing and considering I am, you know, stuck away from everything and everyone I know and love, I thought hey, why don't I make myself useful around here. This is not the whole deer, there is still some meat left on the fridge, so if you really hate this one you can grab it. Hell, I will even get you some more myself if you are still hungry."

A moment of silence passed through. Silence from Alastor at least, while the king seemed to be content enough with humming to himself as he worked.

"That is very nice of you, papa" said Charlie, frowning at Alastor as she patted the back of the tiny king. "It smells delicious."

Alastor really considered just going to the fridge and grab his meat to enjoy himself in the privacy of his own room. But that damn smell was turning his mouth into a fountain and well, it was going to be a waste of meat if someone didn't enjoyed it. Lucifer had put enough meat there to feed all residents at once and he knew they weren't going to eat it all, so there was clearly no other choice but to do it himself. He moved over to the table, still keeping watch over the cooking process just in case the king decided to slip some poison or mess with it on some other way.

"Years of practice, duckling" said Lucifer, casually flipping the pancakes on another pan with his own hand.

When the bacon and eggs were ready, he quickly served them on a plate and send it to the table, to the expecting hands of a hungry Angel who moaned loudly in delight. Husk rubbed his head, but when Lucifer's magic gave him his own plate, Angel looked at him as if saying "see what I mean?" None of them seemed to notice the full trash can on a side to the kitchen. Alastor saw a bunch of disregarded cooked meals there and wondered how many that tiny king had made in actuality. Since he could actually just duplicate anything he wanted, he could have gone at it for hours without any intention of feeding it to anyone, like a compulsion.

Charlie chuckled.

"Is that how you call your own Charlie? It's so cute!"

"Your Lucifer doesn't?" The king looked surprised at that. "How does he call you?"

Charlie scratched her neck, looking to the side.

"Well… when I was a kid, he used to call me apple pie a lot. And Charchar, I guess."

If he noticed the evasive tone of Charlie, Lucifer didn't showed it.

"Aww, apple pie is adorable too!" Lucifer smiled bright. "Maybe I should use that with Emily. I still haven't thought of a nickname cute enough for her. Do you mind?"

"No, of course not" Charlie smiled back and accepted the plates with a bunch of pancakes and more bacome Lucifer gave her. One for her and another for Vaggie, she understood. "Thanks, papa!"

"You are welcome, sweetie!" Lucifer continued working.

"Do you all hear that?" commented Angel, throwing a glance towards Alastor. "It's that the lack of a fight early on the morning? Peace and quiet for once? Who knew that was even possible?"

Alastor narrowed his eyes at him in such a way that Husk put a hand on Angel, warning him to keep quiet.

"Geez, is usually that bad around here?" asked Lucifer, carrying easily a big plate that contained the cooked meat for Alastor and his own plate of chocolate pancakes. His own mug with tea floated at his side as he sat down. Alastor took care to not lick his lips as he sniffed the meat, snearing when he only find it to be absolutely appetizing. Lucifer didn't seem to take any offense to it. "My Alastor and I have disagreements here and there, but it's never to the point we can't share a meal."

"Bad is putting it lightly" commented Vaggie, glaring briefly to Alastor as he finally dared to take a single bite. "I think this must be only the second time that a Alastor and Lucifer ever shared the same table. The first was bad too."

Ignoring her completely, Alastor digged his claws on the table when realizing it was, in fact, absolutely delicious. He cursed this tiny king as Lucifer didn't even looked on his direction to gloat about it. Instead he was looking at Vaggie.

"Huh" Lucifer took a sip of his mug, as if not sure if he should make his next question. "Would that… have anything to do with the big hole on the lobby?"

The entire table fell into silence for a moment. Even Alastor flinched a little, prefering to concentrate on his own meal than on anything else happening around him.

"Oh" said Lucifer, taking that as his response. "Sorry for bringing it up then."

"No, no, it's okay" said Charlie, her smile thinner than usual, but still sincere. "You had no way of knowing that, so of course you would be curious. Especially if you and your Alastor have another dynamic entirely."

"I mean, he is my husband, so one would expect we would know how to be around each other by now" Lucifer shrugged slightly.

On the other side of the table, Angel almost choked drinking his own coffee and he hit his chest a couple of times before speaking.

"Your what?" asked, his face fighting between incredulous and just laughing, his eyes going from Lucifer to Alastor, who was fully refusing to engage on any of this. "Charlie told us that you were friendly with each other and you had your own Charlie together, not that! Not that any of that isn't alredy weird as fuck."

"Uhm, yeah" said Lucifer, thinking that not even his own Angel had reacted that badly when he appeared on the hotel for the first time. "85 years and counting" added with a little smile, knocking the wood of the table.

Alastor stopped for a second, but renewed his eating as he ignored the twist on his stomach. 85 years was almost his entire life in hell. It was more years than he ever spend alive.

"Oh, shit" Angel smirked, supporting his chin on his hand. "I have to hear the story behind that already! No offense, Smiles, but I always thought you were the type to prefer to tap yourself before anyone else."

Alastor narrowed his eyes at the pornstar. Not that he was entirely wrong either, the only mistake being that he did not want to tap anything at all, but he still didn't appreciate the especulation around that specific topic. There were so many infinitely more interesting things to talk about him than something as vulgar and trivial as that.

"Hey, come on, that is not nice" said Lucifer before he or Angel could say anything else. "My Alastor is just different, can we just leave it at that?"

Alastor refused to look at the king, even when he knew that Lucifer threw a glance at him, and opened up his mouth further to grab bigger chunks, swallowing bones in the process and breaking it appart with his teeth. Husk made a face at him, but wisely kept quiet. Niffty tried to imitate him, chunks of her food spilling out of her.

"Whatever you say, king" Angel shrugged, leaving the subject for now. "My curiosity still needs to be fed, though."

"Yeah, figured" Lucifer sighed, putting his mug down. "Listen, normally I would love to tell you guys all about it. That is what we did for my Charlie all the time too, tell her stories about us and our lives together. But I would much prefer to find a way home first as fast as possible. We were already separated once before and we got just everything back to normal. I don't want to miss that. Please?" added, looking up to Charlie, whose tender heart could never miss the pained look on this version of her father.

"Yes, absolutely" Charlie looked the time on her phone and finished her tea with a final gulp. The pancakes had already dissapeared from her table. "I think Stolas should already be awake now. Let's go."

She stand up from the table, telling Vaggie to stay in charge of the hotel and kissing her forehead. Lucifer finished up his breakfast as well. He looked over at Alastor and for a moment Alastor stared back, as if daring him to ask if he wanted to come and give him the chance to just say no. Lucifer turned his eyes away first. Apparently realizing it was a waste of time, Lucifer sighed and followed Charlie. Alastor felt something brush against his ankle, but when he moved his shadows to catch it wasn't there anymore.

"Hopefully you will be seeing your own Lucifer soon" said the king instead of seeing you later, obviously hoping he wouldn't have to. "Nice to meet you all again."

With that, he took the hand of Charlie and they both dissapeared through a portal.

--

Alastor woke up and sat, not looking at the other side of the bed. A portion of his shadow came back to him with the memories of following the other Lucifer around the hotel, looking for whatever room happened to be free, which was still most of them. In the dark his shadow contemplated this other Lucifer changing with magic and plopping into his bed with a groan, falling asleep without any major concern or worry too big to keep him awake with anxiety.

Alastor rubbed his temple, realizing the same thing he had already thought the moment that Lucifer was revealed to not be his. He could look like him. He could talk like him. He could even move like him. But it wasn't him and his presence did not bring at all the same kind of comfort at all. Keeping an eye out for him was more out of a need of just seeing a Lucifer than because he wanted to check on that one, like a bad habit for whome now he had to rely on a less desirable alternative.

He was so used to keep Lucifer near him, that seeing his face but waking up alone just made him feel sick with a need and anger he could barely conceptualize to himself.

A knock on the door took him out of his thoughts and he changed quickly. The knocking didn't sound urgent, but he still rushed in to open. It could be Charlie announcing that Stolas had found the solution, that now they knew how to bring her papa home.

"Alastor" said Emily, going up to hug him as soon she was able to. She buried her head against his chest and squeezed tight. "Charlie told me about what happened to Lucifer. Are you okay?"

Alastor's shoulders relaxed a little. He resigned himself to hug her back and pet her short, grey hair. She had seen him at his lowest in Heaven, of course she would want to check on him as fast she could.

"Did you came all the way here for that?" asked, as if it was a silly thing to do and Emily lifted her head, pouting. "I am fine, dear. If you wanted me to be even better than that, you can tell me if Charlie got any news from our friend Goetia."

"She and the other Lucifer are eating something before going. If you want I can bring you something here" offered Emily, finally letting him go but her yellow eyes looking just as concerned as ever.

She probably thought that seeing the other Lucifer could be too hard. Or that they could get into another confrontation like the one last night, the one Charlie or Vaggie surely must have told her about. It wasn't an entirely unreasonable thought. Alastor had to see the place in front of his chimney with one less chair to know that. But he would be dammned again if he let a fucking imitation of his husband turn him into a coward.

"Don't bother, my dear" said, showing off his best smile. "I have handled Lucifer very well on my own and today is not going to be the exception" assured, putting an arm around her shoulders towards the door.

Away from the empty space on his bed that his tentacles had already fixed again.

"But this is another Lucifer" said Emily, looking up. "And I don't think him and his Alastor were friends where he came from."

Alastor had gathered as much already.

"We don't need to be friends" commented easily, taking her with him to the elevator. He could wrap her into his shadows downstairs, but taking a little bit to face that other face wasn't going to hurt anyone. "We just need to manage to not kill each other enough for my husband to return, that is all. If he cares about Charlie half as much as he claims, he will know to control himself."

"He had no idea who I was" said Emily, pressing the button in the elevator and stepping inside. Alastor saw her looking down, looking her blackened fingers. "Apparently the Emily of his side didn't fell, despite being on the side of Charlie."

"That is unfortunate. For her" said Alastor, squeezing her shoulder. "That Emily doesn't have a family like ours then. You should pity her."

Emily sighed, leaning against him as they descended. Probably mulling over everything that she could have done different and everything that turn out wrong. Everything that separated her from another version of herself.

"I prefer this version of us" said Alastor, sincerely, and brushed some portion of her bangs out of her forehead. "Charlie is amazing, of course, but I don't get to speak about books with her as much as I get to do with you. Why, if talking with you I finally learned what is the appropriate name for those ugly flowers that eat bones in the garden. How could I have such knowledge if you weren't here, dear? I would have to investigate it myself and who has the time for that?"

Emily giggled, looking up. Alastor patted her between her shoulder blades.

"Stop worrying your head with possibilities that never were, dear. We all have to learn to live with the decisions we made. Yours gave Charlie a sister and my husband another child to embarrass with his antics. They gave me another daughter. How can they ever be wrong?"

Emily smiled fully, giving him a sideway hug until the doors of the elevator opened up.

"Come on" she said, taking his hand. "Let's hope we can bring my papa back."

Alastor let her take him, already imagining the teary eyes in Lucifer if he heard that. On the kitchen, the other Lucifer was having some cereal in a bowl as Charlie was eating cookies at her side. In the center of the table there was a bunch of pastries the other residents were taking, absolutely delighted with them. She was being throughfully entertained with some anecdote of his and Alastor could not care less about what it was, but he did not like the way this other imposter was so casual about touching his daughter's shoulder for emphasis.

When Emily passed at her side to go make her tea, Charlie looked up and smiled big.

"Dad!" said, lifting herself to greet him with a hug.

An extra hard one, similar to the one Emily had given her. Alastor knew that he had to appreciate she had also being concerned about him, but all he could do was glare at the other Lucifer as he hugged her back, as if marking his territory. The other Lucifer just smirked at him as if sharing a personal in joke.

"Grab something to eat and then we can go, dad" said Charlie, squeezing his sides some more for the last time.

Alastor looked at the table, full with sugary things covered in more sugar and probably filled with sugar too. The other Lucifer had lost interest on him and grabbing another piece of pastry.

"I will prepare something for myself, dear" assured, petting his hair as he went to prepare it.

On the fridge there was only a chunk of meat with his name on because he still haven't gone for more. Containing a groan, Alastor brought it up with him to the table after burning it for a bit on his hand. It wasn't the best cooking method, but didn't feel like anything else. He sat next to Emily and Vaggie, in front of Charlie as he returned to her seat.

"Oh, so you still like things like that here too" commented the other Lucifer. "At least it's not a full carcass like the other guy would have."

Alastor would have much prefered him to stay quiet. To stop using that voice and those lips that were almost right, but were entirely wrong instead.

"Oh, I love those too" said with a grin. "I just forgot to go pick up more. Maybe later I can go grab some sinner's torso to enjoy with my husband for dinner."

Lucifer made a face like he smelled something rancid, but it didn't last long.

"Is that all you do together? Eat other beings that were talking your same language before being killed?"

"No, just one of the ones we enjoy the most" said, showing more teeth. "We do other things as well. Like not ruining the birthday of our daughter with a full blown fight, for example."

Lucifer narrowed his eyes without losing his smirk.

"Oh, yeah, I imagine that must be easier when you aren't dealing with a raging asshole who loves to push people around" Lucifer regarded him a moment. "Or maybe there is no difference at all and that Lucifer just lets you get away with it more."

"Or maybe my Lucifer is better at carrying himself in the first place."

"As if you knew anything about that in the first place."

Lucifer gripped the mug he was using on his hands and Alastor sneared at realizing it was the yellow one with duckies that his husband used on the regular.

"Don't you dare to break that, you brute" warned, his antlers growing up as Lucifer blinked, surprised, only after a second realizing what was he even talking about.

"I wasn't going to, you ass" said, leaving the mug there and lifting his hands.

"Dad" called Charlie, slapping both her hands on the table to get the attention of Alastor. "Dad, I gave him that. That is enough."

Alastor observed her with his eyes turned black. He closed them for a moment, returning to normal, even though his jaws was so tense squeezed together that he felt was going to bite through his own teeth.

"I lost my apettite" announced after a while, for the first time in his life, standing up. "I will wait on the lobby so we can go."

Alastor moved on to the closest couch and sat down, taking a deep breath. Why was he letting that tiny prick to affect him at all? He was nothing. Less than nothing even. Just a mere inconvenience that had no more fault to being there than a stain on the carpet had. When he lifted up his eyes again, he saw Emily standing with his cup of coffee in hand.

"We are all stressed out" commented with a little smile, rubbing his arm.

Alastor nodded silently, taking a sip. It wasn't as hot, so he heated up until he finished it all, but the burn did little else to comfort him. Emily sat at his side and didn't ask anything, didn't say anything, so Alastor spoke first.

"My Lucifer is not like that" he said.

Emily nodded, putting her hand on his shoulder.

"I know" said gently. "I miss him too."

Alastor frowned slightly. Miss felt too small of a phrase. He didn't miss Lucifer like how one misses that their favorite band wasn't playing anymore. That didn't even come close to describe the betrayal of a universe that ever let his Lucifer slip between his fingers again, and this time for no reason at all that any of them could discern. But he didn't had any better words for that, so he let Emily to assume they were correct anyway.

"Alright!" Charlie clasped her hands, coming over, the other Lucifer walking up behind her like he had just gotten an earful. "I send a text to Stolas and he is ready to receive us. Papa can take us there. Emily, are you coming?"

Emily nodded and stand up. Alastor let his empty mug be consumed by his shadows to get return to the kitchen and followed through, standing next to Charlie.

"Well, I know where his palace is already on my world, so I will step up first to make sure is the right place" commented Lucifer, opening it up the portal and traspassing it.

A second later his hand came out, encouraging them to step in. Alastor was the last one, seeing the tall palace erect in front of them. Charlie walked first over the stairs to the entrance and knocked. They didn't had to wait much for the door to open, a little imp servant looking over them and his eyes landing on Lucifer.

"Your Majesty" greeted the imp, moving to a side to let them in. "My lord is waiting for you up head. Follow me."

"Thank you" said Charlie.

Emily had barely known about another palace than the Morningstar one, as it was clear by how fascinated she was with the place. Alastor haven't visited it himself more than one time, for one of Via's birthday since Lucifer insisted they had to come, and only to see the party room. When they reached a room far back on the hallway, the little imp opened up the door to announce them properly before any of them could stop him.

"The king, his consort and the two princesses have arrived, my lord."

"He is not my anything" said Lucifer, taking a step away from Alastor as if necessary.

Alastor was considering grabbing the little imp and turn him into meatballs right there. How dare he to confuse his king for a lesser imitation like that one? Even as he knew how entirely irrational that was. For all intends and purposes, this Lucifer was the only king they had. Just not his king.

"The king, the two princesses and a neutral companion, my lord" corrected the imp. "Please, come in."

Once his job was done, the servant gave them a quick reverence and walked down the hallway again to continue his duties. Charlie had to grab Alastor's arm and drag him away from reaching out for him to enact revenge. When they came inside, they realized it was the library of the Goetia.

Stolas stood in front of a pile of book in his desk, reading all of them at once. At seeing them, he went over and kneeled as down as he could in honor of the king. It would be funny for Alastor coming from such a tall bird if it wasn't enfuriating how much time it was being wasted in these formalities.

"Your Majesty, it's an honor to receive you in my humble home. I hope that my knowledge can serve you today. Emily, Charlie, Alastor. Please, all of you, take a seat" offered, making a gesture with his hand for four chair in the air to move in front of his desk.

Lucifer was the first to sat down and Stolas flipped through another book.

"We have confirmation that you are most definitely not the king that belongs in this realm? That none of this is product of a mental spell or illusion of any kind?"

"We are sure" said Alastor, not needing to add more details even as Stolas seemed to want to ask. Charlie nodded just to confirm his words.

"Very well. Then the first thing to do is to confirm the exact origin of this kind of magic" said the bird demon, going to another table where he mixed some herbs and powders into a bowl, where he poured another liquid on top. When he came back to them, he grabbed a pinch of the concoction he made and draw a sigil on the air above the head of Lucifer. The sigil stayed floating there, going from purple to a dark blue, it's form changing into another symbol and then another. "Huh. That is interesting."

"What?" said Lucifer, absolutely lost. His magic expertise was energy propelled by imagination. Potions and whatot were completely out of it.

"Mmm" Stolas made a book float in front of him to double check. "Well, good news is, this did not came from an enemy. It wasn't done with the intention of hurting anyone in the royal family. This was never supposed to be malicious."

"But?" insisted Lucifer. "I am kinda still away from my daughter and these people are missing their Lucifer. I don't take that as benign either."

Alastor was tending to agree with him.

"Indeed, your Majesty. But the lack of negative intentions means that this is reversible. The bad news is that this won't be reversible until a certain condition is met."

"What condition?" asked Charlie now. "We will do anything to get papa back."

Stolas looked over at her and sighed.

"I believe you, dear. But it doesn't want to tell me" Stolas pointed at the changing symbols as if they were speaking to him. "All it's telling me is that it is related to both the king and his consort. Apologies. The king and Alastor" added, shaking his head.

"A condition of what nature?" asked Alastor while Stolas brushed away the sigil, as if anything useful from it had been told already. "Something we must do?"

"I believe so. Although do what, I can't tell" Stolas sighed again, going back to his table. "Your Majesty, you didn't had any compromise with the Alastor back at your place? A promise of some kind?"

"Fuck no" said Lucifer. "If anything I would like him to promise to stop bothering my daughter, but besides that we don't have much of a relationship or anything. I would remember something like that."

"Likewise, besides getting married again soon, Lucifer wasn't in debt for any promise with me. I don't know how this could be affected by our engagement either."

"It's not" said Stolas mixing up some more ingredients, following another recipe on his book. "If there was any romantic undertones I would have detected it already. The intention behind this magic was fully platonic."

"Does it really need to be met that condition then?" asked Alastor, who did not feel any more relieved because someone somewhere decided to screw with his life platonically. "Can't we just undue the spell?"

"I am looking into it, but my first instinct is no, your Majesty" Stolas was so concentrated in his work he didn't realize that, technically speaking, Alastor didn't have that title anymore. Nobody bothered to correct him anyway. "A spell that can travel across multiple dimensions is already a extremely powerful one. Travel from hell to Earth or from Hell to Heaven would seem like child's play in comparison, and most spells wouldn't allow that either. Here we go."

Stolas finished to make his potion and walked to Lucifer, reaching out his hand to ask that of the king. Kneeling in front of him, he spread a bit of the liquid on the palm of Lucifer, spreading it with his thumb. The bird demon observed the palm as the liquid draw lines over his hand, shinning a bright golden.

"So?" encouraged when Stolas kept silent, Alastor starting to get impatient.

"Mmm? Oh, dear, sorry" Stolas stood, clearing his throat. "This spell has not rewriting your entire fate, your Majesty. Meaning that we might be able to circunvent it somehow. By maybe finding a spell that is stronger or nullifying it. Oh, and on top of that, since you are both connected through this spell, I just confirmed that our Lucifer is safe and well on the dimension where you came from, your Majesty. I know that was a reason of concern for you" added, looking over at the rest of the royal family. "He is not in any immediate danger just like you are you not, your Highness."

Alastor squeezed one fist over his staff. In one hand, genuinely relieved that was the case and didn't had to think about Lucifer landing on some unknown land where people ate beautiful blonde angels for lunch. But on the other hand, he still wasn't there and a pretentious dick was instead.

"I am guessing you don't have any spells to just open a portal and let them exchange places" said Emily. "Me and Lucifer can open portals to Heaven or Earth. Can't we do something with that? Maybe combined them so they are stronger and reach them?"

Stolas put both his hands in front of his face, as if praying as he rummaged through his memory.

"My dear, interdimensional magic is an extremely weird subject that most people don't even bother with" said slowly, shaking his head. "I know about every secret of this galaxy and the universes beyond that, but even then this is different. I am afraid that even if you did managed to traspase to another dimension, there is no garantee it would be the one this Lucifer comes from."

"Can't he be summoned?" tried Charlie after throwing a glance to Alastor. "He is the still the devil."

"The devil is a unique title, darling, and he is already here" Stolas flipped through another book and groaned, frustrated.

Alastor looked over at Lucifer.

"Does that mean that if there isn't a devil, we can summon him?" asked in a tone that made Lucifer to frown at him.

"If you take me out, you mean."

"Perhaps. To me sounds like a reasonable exchange."

"That wouldn't help, your Majesty" said Stolas before Lucifer could respond in any way. "If anything happens to this version of Lucifer, ours will just get stuck where he is and we will have no way to know about his state" Stolas blinked. "Not to mention the crumbling of all of hell because it's head is gone. I would encourage not take that course of action."

Alastor shrugged, more convinced for the possibility that his husband could stay away than because of the state of hell.

"Then… what? We just keep waiting until a condition we don't know anything about is met?" asked Charlie, the desolation on her voice too obvious for Stolas to ignore.

"For now, I am afraid that is the best I can tell you. I am so sorry, princess."

[esther-dot]

i've been thinking about all the rhaegar/lyanna theories (did she go willingly or was she kidnapped, etc.) and one thing i don't think gets discussed often enough is the time lag between when lyanna disappeared and when jon was conceived.

jon was born more than a year and a half after lyanna disappeared (she disappeared at the beginning of 282 AC, and he was born mid-to-late 283 AC). that means that he was conceived roughly a year after lyanna's disappearance. that year included the deaths of her father and brother at rhaegar's father's hand, rhaegar's father calling for the head of her second brother, a continent-wide war that rhaegar was taking no part in, rhaegar apparently having no contact with elia and taking no measures to protect her and her children, and lyanna being stuck in a random tower in the middle of nowhere.

whatever lyanna felt at the time of her disappearance, i simply can't conceive that she felt positively toward rhaegar one year later, at the time that jon was conceived. i just don't see her being a wholehearted participant in jon's conception. i think "lyanna left willingly" and "lyanna was raped" could both be true.

Ah, now that is an important detail. It certainly is hard to believe Lyanna was willing at that point. But that reminds me of the entire Knight of the Laughing Tree side of this convo, that I neglected to mention.

It was a good story, Bran decided after thinking about it a moment or two. "Then what happened? Did the Knight of the Laughing Tree win the tourney and marry a princess?"

"No," said Meera. "That night at the great castle, the storm lord and the knight of skulls and kisses each swore they would unmask him, and the king himself urged men to challenge him, declaring that the face behind that helm was no friend of his. But the next morning, when the heralds blew their trumpets and the king took his seat, only two champions appeared. The Knight of the Laughing Tree had vanished. The king was wroth, and even sent his son the dragon prince to seek the man, but all they ever found was his painted shield, hanging abandoned in a tree. It was the dragon prince who won that tourney in the end." (ASOS, Bran II)

So someone who deactivated once told me that their supposition was that Rhaegar sided with Lyanna over his father here. He found out it was her, promised not to tell, gave her the roses to honor her. To everyone else it was offensive / signaled romantic intent, to Lyanna, it could have been taken as an acknowledgment of her skills/what she'd done. That would have allowed Rhaegar to earn her trust, ingratiate himself, but also, signaled a break with his father.

We don't know how he framed things to her later, if he hyped up his plan to get rid of his dad, if he led her to believe he'd actually truly broken with his father and wouldn't side with him/fight against her family, if he convinced her he was as much a hapless victim as she had felt she was. Taking her all the way to Dorne could have been part of convincing her he was helping her escape her marriage, and that he was escaping his father. Depending, he could have created a lot of space between him and his dad. And then of course, in canon, when Robb believes he's lost Rickon and Bran, he seeks comfort in someone's arms.

Now, I'm not saying that is what happened, but there are ways to write this story without forcible rape, and based on how Rhaegar is characterized, I think that's where Martin would try to land. I do think she was a prisoner at some point, I think this is a Rhaegar-critical story, but I'm not sure that Martin is going in that particular direction.

There is also that first convo about Lyanna:

"She should be on a hill somewhere, under a fruit tree, with the sun and clouds above her and the rain to wash her clean." "I was with her when she died," Ned reminded the king. "She wanted to come home, to rest beside Brandon and Father." He could hear her still at times. Promise me, she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses. Promise me, Ned. The fever had taken her strength and her voice had been faint as a whisper, but when he gave her his word, the fear had gone out of his sister's eyes. Ned remembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black. After that he remembered nothing. They had found him still holding her body, silent with grief. The little crannogman, Howland Reed, had taken her hand from his. Ned could recall none of it. "I bring her flowers when I can," he said. "Lyanna was … fond of flowers." The king touched her cheek, his fingers brushing across the rough stone as gently as if it were living flesh. "I vowed to kill Rhaegar for what he did to her." (AGOT, Eddard I)

This is couched in the idea that Robert loved her, Rhaegar kidnapped and raped her, they're talking about where to bury her, so the first time we read it, we're guided to believe Lyanna is begging to come home, but now we know, Lyanna was begging for Jon's life.

(That is not to say she didn’t want to come home, of course she did, I’m just pointing out the misdirection about what her pleas were about).

So, when I reread that passage with the idea that Lyanna left willingly (which I think is the implication of the revelations that Bran receives) and she was begging for her son's life out of fear of what Robert might do, we realize that while Rhaegar is the villain in Robert's story, Robert is the villain in Lyanna's. Robert stands there speaking of his love for a woman who died terrified of what he might do to her child. And rather than being able to hate the man who demanded that fear, Ned loves him, has to serve him, and rather than hating Rhaegar or thinking ill of him, he has a weirdly neutral opinion (link).

In that little scene, we know have the conflict of POVs, the way these characters are torn by loves and loyalties, the fact that Lyanna's enemy is Ned's best friend/"brother"/king, the fact that he takes the son of his enemy and calls him his own. The layers of pain here, the conflicts of his loves, that is one of the beautiful aspects of the series imo, and I believe the mystery Martin has been writing about throughout each book, in most POVs will have that same complexity.

At the same time, I hate Rhaegar and if he is a kidnapper/rapist, it would be very Targy of him. Can't eliminate the possibility!

While writing this I remembered a post I thought tried to give a balanced view of things, worked to reconcile the characterization and the events of R/L which you might like to read (link). I also really appreciate this breakdown of whether or not Lyanna could give meaningful consent (link).

[irbcallmefynn]

So, I thought about it like. two days ago in the shower,

This is Images. My headmate. I hate it, it's quite rude to me.

I don't know all the terminology super well (I had spent an hour or so poking around pluralpedia) so if there's a better way for me to define the way I feel please feel free to point me in the right direction. I'm going to ramble about my feelings now.

The tl;dr is Images is a Bluffgenic insider brainmate who serves as a persecutor and possibly eraser, and there is a partial communication barrier between us.

Images can speak to me somewhat directly, though it doesn't have a voice of its own, instead taking the voice of other people in my life, or my own voice. I can "hear" Images and Images can "hear" me, but will never directly respond to me, simply shutting up when I tell it to. It feels like sometimes whatever I say to Images gets stretched out to fill the void its lack of response makes. (Example: "I don't need to be thinking about that Imageeeesssssssss")

Images has "conversations" with me, where it takes on the identity of someone I know/knew (though sometimes it's meant to represent nobody in particular) and makes up a fake situation to talk about. Sometimes it's someone reaching out to make up with me, or imagined outcomes of me trying to defend myself. It can also be people turning on me and deciding I've wronged them, emergencies or disasters, or fights. Sometimes they're repetitions of past events, other times they're imagined scenarios that may or may not be possible to happen. They are never helpful, and only serve to make me stressed. In the past these conversations have encouraged me to make impulsive decisions to attempt to make the "positive outcomes" a reality or prevent the "negative outcomes" from occurring.

Images is the personification of the disconnect I feel between me and my brain and/or my tendency to overthink things and/or my depression. Sometimes it cooperates and we can act mostly as normal, with me learning skills and being able to better myself. Other times I'm not able to properly recall information, take steps to improve myself, learn new things, or even do the things I already know how to do. Images does take in information from the outside world, though showing is more effective than telling.

Images isn't capable of fronting, so nobody but me will ever hear it. Though it may urge me to ask about the status of relationships or my own behavior, and I may become difficult to work with at times because of Images blocking proper access to my brain.

I've had conversations with Images for as long as I can recall. Its always acted like this. That lack of communication meant I had to give Images a name and a face myself, so I could properly address it, which is why I believe Bluffgenic is the best way to describe its origin.

Some time after particularly stressful situations, such as arguments, Images may cause me to forget most or all of what happened. If someone has decided to leave my life, I will likely forget many details of them besides their name and how they left me feeling in the end. This can lead to problems down the line, especially if the other is hurt by my actions, since anything they do in response to that feels like it came out of nowhere to me. This coupled with my unrelated memory issues leads me to forgetting large swaths of time in as little as a few hours.

Images does not Block me, and I do not Block Images. We can hear each other just fine, it's just that Images will never "verbaly" respond to me unless I'm acting in the conversation (which I am getting better at avoiding, since they just make me feel bad)

Images might be a result of my ADHD or Autism or Anxiety, or some combination of them, though since Images didn't really exist in this way until I gave it a name, I think it's Bluffgenic as opposed to ADHDgenic, Autigenic, or "Anxiegenic" (not a real term afaik)

[notmoreflippingelves]

Hi! I just read your post about Mateo recently. If I may, can you give me any specific instances in the narrative of the show where Mateo isn’t called out as heavily as they should have? I’m just curious?

During the Shuriki returns arc in particular, Mateo makes some pretty glaring mistakes that I feel like he should've gotten much more flack for (and based on what we see elsewhere in canon, I feel pretty confident that if Gabe, Naomi, Isa, or Esteban at least --and possibly even Elena-- had made these mistakes, they wouldn't have been swept under the rug nearly as quickly as they were for Mateo).

While it's unfair to completely blame Mateo for Carla's manipulating him during the "Rita" arc, I feel like it's reasonable to hold him a *bit* accountable. He did after all blab highly confidential information (on more than one occasion) to try and impress a pretty girl with how clever and important he was. (Something tells me that if any of the others had done likewise, they would've been called out for it. But because it's "beloved" Mateo, we don't even get "wait, you told Rita how to get into your workshop? And you've known her for only a few weeks? What were you thinking, Mateo?") Moreover, he never even apologizes for this or promises to do better/be more careful with such important, sensitive information in the future.

Even more aggravating is his behavior in "The Scepter of Night." Mateo is so eager to play the hero and claim all the glory for himself that he twice (!) disobeys a direct order/abandons the plan and goes looking for the scepter piece on his own. This directly leads to Fiero and Victor finding the scepter piece and (temporarily) stealing it. And it's really only due to luck and very conveniently-timed infighting amongst Shuriki's allies that Elena and co. are able to get the scepter piece back. While Mateo does receive some (brief) criticism, it's nowhere near the level that it should be.

Also noteworthy Elena doesn't really get particularly "mad" at him (especially considering how angry we see her get at other characters even for more minor things) . She's not truly, actually angry at Mateo (and Gabe and Naomi are only a bit angrier); she's just a little frustrated and disappointed at him in the moment. And apart from a (very short) little "do better next time" speech, Mateo doesn't face any real consequences or lingering resentment unlike other characters who do.

When Isa obeys direct orders in "Sister of Invention," she has to face consequences (Elena grounding her). Similarly, Elena holds a grudge against Esteban for days (if not weeks) after he interfered with the Feast of Friendship (a much lower stakes mistake than Mateo's imo). Moreover, it's possible to interpret Esteban's staying behind in Avalor when the others go to see the Norberg Lights as a punishment (either self-inflicted or imposed by Elena) for his actions in the previous episode.

In contrast, Mateo just gets a brief "I expected better from you" speech from Elena and Gabe jokingly assigning him push-ups as punishment (which he immediately takes back when Mateo tries to do them). I'll give Mateo a little bit of credit for actually apologizing this time (which he doesn't always do). But it's still frustrating that everyone is so ready to forgive and forget Mateo's missteps immediately while this same courtesy is seldom shown to others.

I think it's worth directly comparing a few Mateo-centric episodes with a few more similar ones that focus on other characters so that we can see how there does seem to be a noted narrative bias in his favor compared to the others.

Let's start with two "feeling kind of insecure" episodes: "Spellbound" for Mateo vs. "Naomi Knows Best" for Naomi. In the former, Mateo expresses doubt that he's capable of rising to the occasion as royal wizard. No one (except Gabe and he gets over it by the end of the episode) blames him for not having reached his full level of confidence and potential right away and not being able to immediately solve the problem. And Elena in particular (and by extension the narrative) gives him so much validation and support. Whereas in "Naomi Knows Best" (and to a lesser extent "Finders Leapers" and the "Carla-as-Rita" arc as well) the narrative "punishes" Naomi for her feelings of self-doubt. We're told that *if only* Naomi had trusted her gut instincts and stood her ground right away, Elena and co would not fallen right into the trap and that Naomi needs to screw her head back on straight and embrace confidence ASAP to fix her mistake.

When Mateo feels insecure, the narrative gives him every reassurance about how capable and special he is, that he can learn at his own pace, and his insecurity isn't really such a problem after all. When Naomi feels insecure, the narrative encourages her to get over her doubts as quickly as possible because unlike with Mateo, there's "no time" for her to wallow in self-doubt and actually the fact that she even had said doubt in the first place is what "caused" the disaster.

On a slightly different note, Naomi is also called out for taking a little free, fun time for herself in "The Last Laugh" when the group needs her, and yet somehow I have a feeling that Mateo would've been allowed to take a day off if he wanted without any protest. He complains about long hours in "Movin' on Up" and Elena gives him the big royal wizard's chambers for him to relax and unwind in. Naomi asks for one (1) day off to spend with her childhood friend for her birthday , and suddenly it's big drama. (And at the time, Naomi asked for said day off, all Elena needed from her was help doing paperwork. The Team Ash stuff came up unexpectedly.)

Similarly whenever Gabe and Mateo get their little rivalry on ("Spellbound," "Party of a Lifetime," "Captain Mateo" and a few other examples) , the narrative either presents them as equally at fault or Mateo as the only one in the right.

When Gabe brings in Bronzino to train the Royal Guards in magic, it's specifically because Mateo failed to explain how and why he was training the guards in the way he was. If he'd just explained how they were going apply the seemingly basic exercise they were doing to real magic, Gabe likely would've allowed Mateo to continue the training at his own pace.

(Also like. it's super hypocritical imo for Mateo to get annoyed at Gabe feeling impatient/impulsive about their apparent-lack-of progress when Mateo himself is easily the second most impulsive character in the show after Elena.) Mateo feels entitled to keep important information to himself (or blab it to a cute girl he barely knows) even when its no one else's best interest. He's only okay with being "cautious and patient" when he specifically is the one setting the pace. And yet, Gabe is the only one who is called out for his behavior in this episode--even though he might not have acted as he did if only Mateo had trusted him and the guards with an explanation in the first place.

And then there's just a few other "dude not cool" little moments that never really get acknowledged/Mateo never apologizes for. For instance, there a two low-key terrifying Mateo moments in "Captain Mateo" that are not only not acknowledged but are also framed in context as Mateo being just "so funny and quirky". Near the end of "Should be in Charge," Mateo magically gags Gabe so he can't protest anymore about Mateo taking over as leader of the mission. And this is after having already enchanted one of the stationary suits of armor to come to life and fight Gabe. (Gabe admittedly does lightly shove Mateo out of the way during his parts of the song, but that's still a far cry from literally drawing a sword on Mateo as Mateo does via magic to Gabe.)

It's played for laughs (The Grand Council is just smiling happily in the background throughout the scene which is so yikes), so it's easy to overlook what's actually happening. Frankly, it's pretty horrifying that Mateo's natural instinct upon his experience/authority being questioned is to literally attack and then silence. (And attack and silence someone who is supposed to be one of his best friends and closest allies at that!)

Rather than the narrative acknowledging that maybe it's a bad idea to immediately grant power to someone to someone who is so retaliatory against fairly minor criticism, the Grand Council just gives Mateo exactly what he wants and doesn't even offer a "maybe next time, let's not gag or attack our friends, okay?" alongside it. I mean sure Mateo does step down as captain at the end of the episode, but it's very specifically presented as his and Gabe's voluntary choice and not an order from Elena/the Council.

[frangipani-wanderlust]

How To Call 911

So most of my followers know now that I started working last May as a 911 dispatcher. Super proud of myself. And now that I am starting (very much still starting) to settle in a bit, I want to offer some tips on how to call 911. So, hold on to your hats.

(original version with colored text here)

When in doubt, call 911. Don't take this as me encouraging you to jump at shadows. Your neighbors' loud party is not an emergency, google the local non-emergency line and call that. Neither is the dry cleaning not giving you your clothes (I actually got this call on our 911 line). Nor is the fact that you saw a fox inside city limits (also something a real human called 911 about). But if you see a situation unfolding and you think "this seems dangerous, maybe this is 911-worthy" then it's 911-worthy. Don't hesitate. Call.

If you call 911 and you are freaking out, that's okay. If you're in a crisis, you may not remember a single tip I'm about to give you. We are trained for that, we can handle it, just do the best you can. It's not the end of the world to have a hysterical or frightened caller, and these are tips, not rules.

Location, location, location. We can't send you help if we have nowhere to send it to. Ideally, know the address. Failing that, know the name of a business or a church or an intersection. It is not cheating if you read this off a sign. There isn't a set of invisible rules that says you have to have your exact GPS coordinates memorized. Be prepared to describe the location somehow. That way, if our connection drops and that's all you can tell me, I can still send some police out to come find out what's going on and they can ask for medics or firefighters or whatever if needed. But we absolutely must know where to send assistance, it is the first thing we're going to ask.

Location again, but with a twist. The first thing our office says for emergencies is, "911, what is the address of the emergency?" If a building is on fire, tell us where the fire is. If your neighbors are being robbed at gunpoint across the street, give us their address. If you witnessed a car accident, tell us where the accident happened. The location of the emergency isn't necessarily the location where you are. Don't send police and fire to your office building if the wreck is on the freeway.

Answer the questions that you are asked. If the calltaker asks "Is the patient breathing?" don't start in about the seizure they just had (if they aren't breathing, the seizure they just had is not the biggest problem). If the calltaker asks, "Which way did the man you saw go when they ran?" don't tell them about how they broke down your door (if they are running away, knowing they broke your door down does not help the police know which direction to start looking). The particular question you are asked is being asked for a reason, and that reason is not frivolous but in an emergency, we aren't going to stop and explain everything.

Do not launch into a speech. If you're asked a yes/no question, yes or no is all the answer you should give. Your impulse will be to explain the yes or the no because more information is better than not enough, but overexplaining is its own problem. Now, we are hired for good typist skills, and are encouraged to get better and faster, but infodumping means things can get missed. The calltaker is going to have some information they're going to ask for by protocol and probably the option to drill down on some of it if clarification is needed. If you spend five paragraphs explaining your last answer, it delays getting other pertinent information.

Do not launch into a speech, part the second. You don't call 911 for things that happened last week, or even yesterday. Tell me the emergency that is happening right now. Ideally in one sentence. If someone is having a medical issue, and you call 911 about it, when the calltaker asks exactly what happened, do not tell them about how the patient had a surgery 5-and-a-half weeks ago. You called 911. What is the emergency that is happening right now. Don't be telling me about their surgery when the problem you called about is a broken leg. Yes, the surgery may have led to generalized loss of balance that has yet to return which caused the patient to fall which caused them to break their leg. Understood. But you didn't call because of all of that. You called because of the broken leg. Apply this principle to all emergencies.

Don't launch into a speech, part the third. When asked a specific and direct question, do not give an explanation instead of an answer. If the calltaker asks you "Is the weird person on the side of the road actually in the lanes of traffic?" do not explain to them how it's a very narrow roadway (see parenthesis for the story here). Aside from the fact that we're not asking these questions to be funny (see part the second), there's also the fact that now you are coming over as suspicious as hell. If I asked "how did that person on Facebook know what this supposedly missing kid is wearing and where he's going to be at 3:00 today?" and you say "well Facebook is a good way to spread information" I am now extremely suspicious of you.

(Also an actual call I have taken. The man was a totally ordinary guy out for a walk to the store, but this blue collar man walked through a Rich Person Neighborhood™ and according to Lady Catherine De Bourgh on the phone with me, that merited a call to the police. When I asked her if he was actually in the lanes of traffic [traffic hazard call type] versus not [suspicious person call type, on a technicality but technically...], she tried explaining three times that the road was narrow before she finally got the message that I was not going to stop asking until she told me the actual answer and answered "Well, I suppose so, yes." At this point, because she'd been so reluctant to answer me, I no longer believed the man actually was in the lanes of traffic and to this day believe that she lied to try and manipulate the police into a stronger-level response than was actually warranted. Because determining whether she was lying for sure is beyond the scope of my job, I put down what she said, but I didn't believe then and still don't believe now, that she told the truth. The totally ordinary and probably very nice guy was not arrested or hassled at all and was instead given a courtesy ride to the store.)

Be prepared to describe relevant people, maybe including yourself, and that includes race. If you have an asthma attack at a football game, the medics need to know how to find you in a crowd. If you are a black woman, that's gonna rule out everyone who isn't that. If you are a black woman wearing a yellow shirt, blue jeans, and a blue bandana over your hair, that excludes nearly everybody and when the medics arrive, they'll know exactly who to look for. Most of the time, someone's race isn't relevant information. When describing someone to emergency services, it absolutely is and it is not racist to accurately describe the relevant person or people.

There are more tips in the world, and I may come back to this post and add them as they occur to me. In the meantime, please enjoy this short treatise on how to call 911.

[quackle]

So what’s your final opinion of Disventure Camp All-Star now that it comes to a end?

Also regarding winner, you are right! They didn’t go with “Who deserved to win” and tons of fans are piss off.

and so we have made it to the end. dcas is officially over... sobbing a lil at that fact. now. finale rambles under the cut (tldr: 7/10 season):

i think dcas was pretty nice for what it gave. i know a lot of people think it's shit, and i do nod my head at most concerns i've seen through posts on here and elsewhere. but idk. i had a relatively good time these past couple of months while watching!

let's start with...

Things I Liked:

The Main Premise (and in extension, Riya's Story) — this season showed that it truly wasn't about who deserved to win, it was about who wanted it most. and riya wanted it badly, to the point where it changed her for the worst whenever a camera was around. it took me until ally's elimination to see the direction this season was going (so... basically near the end LOL), but once it clicked, i was like. wowie. this is a bold choice of a winner. and interesting as fuckkkk, despite it not being hinted at as much as i hoped it would near the beginning. i don't think i've ever seen someone who is deemed as a villain be the only winner of a show like this. no alt endings or anything, just a villain win that sort of translates into a loss when you really think about how nobody is in riya's corner anymore. i know people (mostly riya fans) were disappointed with how sad and slightly open ended riya's conclusion arc was, but i personally can't be that upset at it. rosa maria's message during her elimination in season 2 really hit here. riya let the game change her, and though she won three million dollars, she has absolutely nobody (except potentially her sister eesha, but even still, that's not the best way for things to end for her). tis the way the cookie crumbles. i'm glad the writing team decided to go with this instead of the jake ending like thank GOODNESS for the proofreaders omg this is what proofreaders are for!!! (also. i'm clearly biased to the 'faking in front of cameras/others just to become a realer version of oneself once that's tested' characters in particular. look at my icon rn. i think you can understand why i'm such a big fan of this)

Allyson Amber— obligatory ally mention LOL. i think i already rambled enough on why i love ally so so so much as a character, so i will avoid. today. just know that opinion still stands.

Voice Acting— i am not a voice actor, just a voice actor enthusiast, so idk how much my words truly mean here. but i absolutely loveeeee the vocal direction this season went. best vocal performance in the whole series thus far. i can tell each actor + anybody on the voicing team worked hard to deliver! each character's voice really fit and everyone is so talented. hashtag i love connecting voices to characters. i'm excited for s4 voices ahhhh <3

The Grett + Gabby Friendship— we had her for like a good two eps and it still solo'd. going from what had happened in season 1 to what happened in season 3 was chef's kiss. it showed that both grett and gabby grew as characters throughout their whole journey on dc. idk i just love their bond so much, hashtag thank you for adding that.

and now...

Things I have Mixed Feelings About:

Gabby and Ally's Elimination— am i that mad that they ultimately left? eh not really, especially after i learned what type of story onc was aiming to tell this season. but am i mad about how they left? absolutely. because it was bullshitttttt omg. last minute, out of nowhere changes that cause eliminations of characters will never fail to piss me off. personally. even if real life is unfair like this too. (i'm only human LOL let me live)

TomJake Plot-Line— the good news (?) is that i don't find it absolutely mind-numbingly awful anymore. jake's cool. tom's okay. so overall, now i just think the plot is thee definition of mid. improvement! but still mid! i think certain ships in media are not for me, and this is one of em. sorry tomjakers, they should have had a meaningful conversation a long ass time ago. (also why tf they the finale thumbnail like MOVEEEEE with yall yaoi moment /lh)

Connor's Marriage— not that big of a deal, props to connor for finallyyyyyyy retiring from his savior complex (like i genuinely clapped for him cause that was a LONGGGGGG time coming), but a record scratch DID go off in my head when i saw that lol wedding pic. like OH... okay! congrats? i guess? (idek why i had this reaction or why i'm even writing about it lol, connor is Just Okay to me so)

Certain Lack of Character Interactions— i know this is a parody of reality TV and the show can only do so much, especially for characters that got eliminated early on. and i know i can quite literally go on something like ao3 and either find some fic that caters to my tastes or create it myself. but i frowned a lil when i realized certain characters wouldn't talk that much canonically. the curse of an all stars season is that they're bringing back some of the best characters this series has to offer. so when i don't get to see them interact, i go "aww. fair. but aww." (biggest examples here would be grett and hunter during the returnee challenge (because they can serve as interesting parallels (why would they finally make me gaf about hunter just to make him have like 30 seconds of lines ugh onc i am GLARING)), and jake and tess in general (the slightly healed meets the destructive work in progress. the difference in mental health journeys and how they can reflect within gameplay + outside convos. we coulda squeezed a lil somethin here. for me.))

Ellie's Plot-Line— one of the main reasons why i found ellie so compelling as a character is because the choices she made, both good and bad, all connected with her need for money due to being a college student who's not that well off. so to see that written off at the end was... well. eh? like cool, she's got gabby and grett, and they do matter the most, and i loveeeee their bond, but like. girly is a student in nyc and losing all that money is fucking huge. (i think it's mostly the bad pacing here, so i'm not giving it too much critique)

Grett's Plot-Line— onc introduced that whole tree scene (one of my fav scenes btw), and i thought that was so inspiring. "oh my gosh, i can't wait to see grett shine after she was constantly disrespected by some fucker that should have gotten his ass beat a long ass time ago!" i exclaimed. and then, she was eliminated. look. i get the whole premise of this season. i like it, too. so even though i think grett deserved to win the most, i can understand why the writers didn't have her win. BUT i think they should have written her arc with way more care and attention. if anything, i remember more harmful moments than good. grett deserved better than that. to me.

Huntally Plot-Line— i like huntally. and i wish it was written a bit better. it felt... rushed in comparison to other things we've seen here. granted, they couldn't do as much as others when hunter was eliminated so quickly, but still. meh overall.

and finally...

Things I Didn't Like:

The Staffs' Plot-Line— yall. the way i grew to not give a singular fuck about this plot... i saw people complain about tomjake screen time or jake screentime or ally vs jake screentime or connor vs riya screentime or riya screentime. which, okay whatever i guess. but LOOK AT THE REAL CULPRITS HERE... they're already getting a spinoff, idgaf about some staff when i won't be able to see some of the contestants ever again after this season!!! trevek irritated the absolute hell outta me, kristal made me side eye, marcus, nina and oliver were there i guess, and emily? man. i think that alone needs another bullet point hold on-

Emily's Plot-line (if you can even call it that)— yes, yes, i already know, emily was terrible, this was shown in the very first ep, she was never supposed to be rooted for, blahblahblah. but why. why did she decide to help yul. why did she decide to help trevor. why is she helping men so much. why did she turn so cartoonishly evil in the end. why is she like that. it's so uncanny to me. it just feels like she's more of a plot device that she is a character, which makes her fall so fucking flat. it blows. to me.

The Therapist Characters— ashley and tess are the biggest examples of this. not to say that friends irl don't ask this question, but fuck, did i get tired of hearing "are you ok?" or "what's wrong?" or "here let me give you some advive." it feels like such a reduction of their characters, which really sucks considering they didn't get much characterization in comparison to other characters in the first place.

"Be the Bigger Person, Ally"— okay. the more i think about this the more it pisses me off. this is a quote from episode 18, where connor tells ally to be the bigger person in her whole situation with jake. now riddle me this, chat. why is it that connor only tells ally to be the bigger person, then a few minutes later when talking to jake, he goes "oh there's only so much i can accomplish with jake" in the confessional? you didn't even reiterate the same words old man. that makes it seem like ally should do more and adjust what she deems as okay and not okay, just so her tension with jake can dwindle, while jake gets a sigh and a slap on the wrist and a "welp i tried." despite her more immature reactions later on during this plot, ally had every right to be bitter toward someone who kept snapping at her and giving her attitude because no good communication was being used to explain why he kept doing that. instead, i wish the message could have been something like "communicate, then try to insert yourself in their shoes so you can understand each other better because you're more alike than you think" to BOTH ally and jake, because this conflict involves BOTH of them, and needs to be worked on by BOTH of them, not just by one damn party. (i could dive into shit like the sexism connotations of the message "be the bigger person" only being directed to the female character here, but ehhhh, not today + people would think i'm overreacting when i know i'm not)

Yul— look, even if i put the whole slur slinging slanger incident that occurred to the side, i still was not a fan of how yul was portrayed here for that long. idgaf if he's sometimes funny. it just made me feel uncomfy seeing such a disrespectful piece of shit get this far with a burn to the face that didn't even stay permanently. like oh so emily can be in bandages for "a year or two," but bigot mcgee here gets off burn free? okay. don't piss me off. and yes, i understand his sponsorship ending where he's still acting fake because "it doesn't matter to him whether he's liked or not," and i know he serves as an okay parallel to james at best. but personallyyyyy if we were going with the whole "yul is the worst type of famous person imaginable" angle, you could have at least made the consequences of his actions stick to his face forevermore. (that's like the only thing they got right with endeavor from my hero like come on)

and that's about it. i think. overall, i'd give this season a solid 7. i know it looks like there's more stuff i didn't like or felt indifferent about,but i just feel like i have to explain my distastes a little more so people can understand me pfft. but yeah, it's not too bad of a season, even if i side eye some things.

and i'm looking forward to season four! from what i've seen, from the short character dialogues in the voice acting tryouts (ruby save me), to the potential storyboarded scene of the setting (abandoned carnival vibes???), i am most certainly sat. i really hope onc improves from here on out :)

[machiroads]

Machi's 2023 Year In Review

'23 was a bit of a wild one. A toast to the last twelve months (both in fandom and IRL) under the cut.

Fic

Here's what went out the door in '23:

Naruhata Noir

I started posting NN in December '22, about a month after finishing 9L. At one point last year I joked about finishing the entire thing in the week between Christmas and New years. Evidently, this did not happen for a variety of reasons:

A) A series of events occurring in my personal life that do not merit further detail that I will herein refer to as "the conga line of nonsense". That kicked off during last year's holiday season and bled into like...May. Which leads directly into:

B) Tears of the Kingdom came out. And;

C) A general loss of motivation in the project.

During the aforementioned Conga Line of Nonsense, I had a goal of finishing before TotK came out, but I only managed to cobble together another 4 chapters between January and May. After somehow managing weekly to biweekly chapters for 9L, NN was much more sporadic, and at one point I had people asking me if I was still alive. Which. sucked, since I generally strive to be a somewhat reliable person.

Once the TotK hyperfixation hit, I managed maaaaaaybe another 2 chapters before I finally got bored of grinding monsters to upgrade outfits. I did manage to meet the third self-imposed deadline of finishing before going to Japan for 2 weeks, so at least that's one W.

In addition to the distractions of Life, NN was more challenging to write for a few main reasons:

Aizawa is not the narrator. Look, I'm mature enough to acknowledge that he is Blorbo From My Shows, and everything I write wants to revolve around him. Taking a step back from that and trying to get into another character's head after spending 8 solid months on 9L was an adjustment. It took me a bit of time to find Shinsou's voice.

Most of the relationship dynamics in this fic are non-canonical, and pulled directly out of my ass. Shinsou's relationships with the Hottas are central to the back half of the fic, and his relationship with Mirko also becomes prominent at times. NONE OF THESE CHARACTERS HAVE EVER INTERACTED IN REAL LIFE I'M JUST SMASHING DOLLS TOGETHER LIKE I DID AS A 7 YEAR OLD.

Trying to parallel something I already wrote several months ago is hard. I wanted NN to make sense on its own, but also follow the relevant bits from 9L. This was next to impossible to accomplish without sounding clunky. Almost from the very beginning of the fic, the outsider's perspective of Aizawa's first steps, I felt the urge to change the dialogue because the story that I wanted to tell from Shinsou's perspective was different from the one I wanted to tell from Aizawa's perspective. I locked myself into that rigidity for a while, until I finally decided just to say fuck it at the end and modify the 9L dialogue slightly because the story had taken on a life of its own.

Erasermic took a major backseat in this one, but I still needed to scratch the itch, and I think that's why I ended up writing 2 emic one shots in between chapters.

I don't think a direct parallel spin-off is something I would try writing again, and the fic was probably a lot longer than it needed to be, but at the end of the day, I'm satisfied with the way it turned out, and I'm happy I was actually able to finish it this year.

Here's a collage of my inspo for Aizawa's apartment cobbled together from google maps and japanese real estate websites.

Being No One, Going Nowhere

The first of the 3 one shots that I put out this year, and a proof of concept that I can slap together 3k in a day and a half fever dream and call it a fic.

This one in particular was instigated by one of @o0fyuu0o's tweets that refused to leave me alone. And maybe also the two broken arms story from reddit, but you know, like, less incesty.

Mic was extremely pathetic in this one, which is immensely fun to write. Just a pathetic little meow meow. Sopping wet cat of a man.

College AU was fun to write, emboldened in part by @kyurilin's fic Stray. After being married to canon-verse for both 9L and NN, this was an exercise in just making shit up, and also living vicariously through the memories of the house I lived in for the better part of 2 years as an undergrad. I graduated 7 years ago and it is still crystallized in my memory.

A Tumultuous Sea, You and Me

I've been nursing a healthy crush on Pirate!Aizawa (or Paizawa, as the kids on JP Twit call him) since the Volume 35 character page came out in June '22. Paizawa even killed a 2 year long art block, that's how powerful he is. (Look!)

I do not remember what exactly spurned this one on, but it also got written in the span of about 2 days. I think I reread The Art of Drowning at some point this year, but I do not remember if it was during the writing frenzy, or sometime before it.

Aizawa gets to hold the meow meow card again in this one. His 2 sentence rivalry with Vlad is one of the best things I've ever written.

Of the 2 days I spent writing this, I probably spent 75% of that researching pirate ships. I used almost none of it, and have forgotten almost all of it by this point.

I feel like everyone that dips their toes into the realm of merpeople has a different interpretation on it, but I wanted to spend approximately 0 minutes on worldbuilding, so it's just kind of a chill coexistence between the pirates and the mermaids in this one lol. People were intrigued by said "worldbuilding" however and wanted more, but I think I've scratched the mer-pirate itch for now haha.

1966 Ford Nutstang GT350 Shelby

@kyurilin made a tumblr post that misspelled "mustang" as "nustang" and I skim-read it and saw "nutstang" and was like "you know what would be a terribad nickname for the car? Nutstang." At which point I immediately informed her, which led down the rabbit hole of a very loose RP (as it often does) and I decided YOU KNOW WHAT? I SHOULD JUST TURN THIS INTO A CRACK FIC.

At which point I had to sort of construct a loose plot around the entire bonkers concept. Nemuri held a key role in the pseudo-RP, but I ended up wanting to keep the fic tight and her role was mostly cut. But rest assured she is there in spirit, though, judging.

The plush nutsack is just a bastardization of a kangaroo ballsack coinpurse I saw in a Crap Souvenirs From Around The World calendar I had many years back that has imprinted on my memory. At no point did I seek out visual reference for it, and neither should you. It is up to the reader's imagination.

On the topic of bastardizations, the reappearing nutsack plotline is borrowed from the drawfee gnome saga.

Mic yelling GOOD MORNING and Aizawa banging his head on the underside of his desk is S tier slapstick.

PEOPLE MADE ART????

Some wonderful listeners readers are still making art for 9L, and we have been blessed with two beautiful new pieces this year:

Mic and Eri's selfie, from @kaleidoscopedrawsjpg

The Only One Bed scene, from @guiltyfixations

@obsessed-dragon also drew the photo of Shinsou holding Miso from Naruhata Noir, and Black Spider Eyes drew Aizawa dangling out the window from Tumultuous Sea.

Every time a piece of art drops on my dash, or I see my fic being recommended to other people, my brain does a lil short circuit and I have to go get up and walk around for a bit. I'm not sure words can express how much it means to me that people have enjoyed my writing enough to recommend it to other people, or sit down and create something of their own based off of it. It's humbling, and I'm truly grateful for every kind word or "sketch I should have maybe spent a little longer on" hahaha

Stats!

Look, I'm an engineer. I can't resist the thrall of Microsoft Excel. So here's A Chart.

I value Bookmarks the highest of all the stats that AO3 spits out. Views are pointless (skewed higher in the context of multi-chap fics). Kudos are an indicator of how many people read and liked enough to leave a kudos, but bookmarks are my indicator of how many people liked it enough to keep it around to read again, or recommend to others.

The bookmark-to-kudos ratio is (in my unscientific opinion) a measure of how many people loved the work vs how many people just liked it.

From the chart above, we can propose the following conclusions:

9L is still, far and away, the most popular, and most well-loved thing I've ever written. I'm fine with that.

The Nutstang fic was a certified cult classic, with a bookmark-to-kudos ratio of almost 0.3, second to only 9L.

NN is at a respectable ratio of 0.24 (middle of the pack), but in terms of number of kudos, is not that far ahead the mer-pirate fic. NN was not tagged as erasermic, so I do think this checks out in terms of sheer exposure.

Still Cooking:

FFXII AU

I started this one in March during the conga line of personal life nonsense. I somehow lured in Robbirdthe8th and @o0fyuu0o and @obsessed-dragon and got a solid month of drafting done before I was like "maybe I should work on NN again" and then it sat dormant until like. October.

It's up to almost 30k across 3 partially written chapters already, and I outlined 9 chapters. It is almost certainly overambitious, and I will almost certainly run into the same motivation issue I had with NN because it's a rooftop 4 fic and not just erasermic, and it has a demographic of approximately four people as an AU of a game that came out in uh........2006.

I thought I'd get at least some of it out in '23 but I'm taking it easy and just writing when inspiration strikes at the moment.

Fortuneteller AU

I started this one maybe a week-ish ago, in my quest for a pitch for the erasermic zine (surprise! they haven't made official announcements yet, but I'll be in it. this is an easter egg for those of you who made it this far). It's going to end up far too long for the 3k word limit for that, so I'm just co-opting it for another one-shot. Taisho era urban fantasy dabbling in some Violet Evergarden/FMA-esque post-war themes. Mic with pince nez. Aizawa in hakama. Gratuitous amateur tarot. It has gripped me by the throat.

More from the Nine Lives Extended Universe (canon-willing)

I've got 3 more spin-offs to 9L simmering, just waiting for canon to figure out its business. These are:

When The Battle's Lost and Won

A final battle post-mortem in 4 parts (if 3baka all make it out alive that is). Every few chapters of canon that come out, something gets added or tossed. Extremely fluid at this point, but there are some good quality blurbs and bullet points in there.

Kintsugi

The erasermic epilogue to 9L, from Mic's perspective. An exploration of their relationship beyond the final battle, with an overarching theme that I've borrowed from a Dorktown documentary on former Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Dave Stieb: Not at all, and then all at once.

This one's just pure body worship, punctuated by an extremely casual marriage proposal. A lot of people still comment on 9L like "THIS CAN'T BE IT, WHERE'S THE REST OF IT?", so I hope this will satisfy those looking for some closure from a relatively open ending.

The Way of the Househero

With the impending graduation of the hell class, and a body that doesn't quite move the way it used to, Aizawa has a bit of an existential crisis and semi-retires so he can be a full-time parent to Eri while figuring out what's next for him. Mostly slice of life. No real plot to this one yet, mostly just vignettes. Aizawa finally gets cats of his own, makes mom friends, and becomes more of a knife slut (only its in the kitchen now instead of on the streets).

IRL

Painting

Every room in my home is painted some sort of bland pastel, and this year we managed to purge pastels from four rooms: my home office, our living room / dining room, and our bedroom. I am enormously pleased with how each of these have turned out.

Gardening

We moved to this house in January '22, and last year was mostly seeing what came up in the garden. This year we cleared out a lot of the decorative shrubs in our backyard (turns out you can hock shrubs on facebook marketplace), and planted a veggie garden. The extent of my gardening experience prior to this year was mowing the lawn as a teenager, so this year was a continuous learning experience, and likely will be for many more years to come.

We had some big wins (potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, cherries, squash, dear god the squash), and some losses (apples that were infested with tent caterpillars, arugula that bolted, and lettuce that got eaten by bunnies to name a few).

In addition to veggies, we also did a lot of general cleanup around the rest of the yard, including clearing out some invasive species and thinning out some partially dead shrubs. We mostly let the yard do its own thing last year, and the previous owner of our home died about 6 months before we moved in, so it was probably neglected for a while. I cut out a blackberry cane that was as long as our driveway. I bought a wood chipper and a compost aerator and am learning the art and science of turning yard trash into yard treasure. (I have not peed on my compost pile yet, as recommended by /r/composting. Maybe some day.)

I also adopted a clipping from my sister-in-law's monstera, which has done quite well (except for the parts my cat has taken a mild interest in nibbling on from time to time)

Travel

Probably too much travel this year ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

3 Weddings (4 if you count the one in December '22 that's included in the Conga Line of Nonsense). Got covid at 2 of them. Invited to a fifth next year. Wishing everyone of marriageable age I know IRL a very elope

Trips for work to Winnipeg and Calgary (to which I have never been before, but are both underwhelming). Also got to fly on a floatplane for the first time, which is noisy, but the views are unbeatable

I turned 30 this year, and after the Conga Line of Nonsense, I said fuck it, we're going back to Japan for my birthday. 2 weeks, 8 cities. L: Shimanami Kaido cycle (still somehow 30 degrees in September x full sun x forgot sunscreen x 80km = pain) (my husband has proofread this and insists that this is not an L but agree to disagree) W: Hokkaido (beautiful scenery, incredible food, not 30 degrees in September lmao)

Anyways

If you made it this far, thanks for reading, and thanks for your love in '23. I hope to provide you with more of the same nonsense in '24. Let me know if you want a spinoff cats + gardening + DIY blog, since that's just my life now. Happy new year 🍾