#'why does he not just escape?' (he needs to take care of an old dying man and also he's completely given up)

[milfbro]

oh my god my writing is flowing this thing has a plot now

[silverskyeline]

ੈ♡˳ 'that funny feeling' - logan x gn!reader

summary: no matter how hard he tries, logan can't escape one simple fact. he's falling in love with you. (900 words) tags: fluffy, cutesy, short but sweet, feelings realisation, a lil angsty for logan thoughts, for the 'love' prompt for logan promptober.

logan finds you on his mind more than he'd like to admit. you've taken root inside his brain, infuriatingly made your home there, nestled between every thought and daydream. but he doesn't have the heart to evict you.

a heart, the dangerous thing, something logan thought he'd lost a long time ago. withered away, dying, fulfilling nothing more than its designed purpose - to keep him alive, without really having anything to live for.

until you. and he finds it's always you. you're the reason for so many things these days, he realises. how you've so sneakily, cheekily and annoyingly invaded every part of his life, slipped right under his finely tuned nose.

he doesn't mind cream in his coffee anymore, not since you introduced him, and he finds himself. . . humming? softly. tunes you listen to on your phone while in the shower or while driving. and for a moment you'd believe he's stopped surviving, and almost, just almost, started living.

yes, you're the reason for so many things these days.

logan didn't have a favourite colour before you. it wasn't something that concerned him. why would a two-hundred-year-old man need a favourite colour? it wasn't until the third time he met you, dressed all in yellow, that he realised he may have a favourite colour after all. and in yellow, every sunflower, every marigold, in the sun, he'd see you. and he'd smile.

in bed late at night, separated by distance, he thinks of you. he scolds himself for craving your touch, for growing accustomed to your presence in his life, knowing how easy it would be to lose you. . . but he can't help himself. you're too special, too important, no matter how much it frustrates him to think so.

what's happening to him? perhaps he's sick, maybe this is finally it. it's long overdue. that would explain the fevers, the sweaty palms, the aching in his chest. right? totally. he's just. . . sick.

but sickness doesn't explain his thoughts of you, the way he behaves with you versus all others. his rough, calloused hands trace tenderly across your skin. his eyes, sharp and focused, now soft and vulnerable as they commit every one of your features to memory.

sickness doesn't explain it, so what does?

it's frustrating, you're frustrating. and annoying. and persistent. and gentle. and kind. and sweet. and beautiful. and-

fuck.

this doesn't have to be more than it is, he thinks to himself. logan can keep it simple, as if he's ever had the capacity to keep anything simple in his long, long life. if he just distances himself. . .

no.

he can't. the thought fills him with fear. he couldn't.

what is it about you that has him on his knees, worshipping you, craving you? he wishes he knew, almost wishes he could forget you so he can be free from the worry that he'll have to watch you walk away one day. you'd walk away and he'd never get to tell you that-

he loves you.

what?

fuck.

no!

wait, he loves you? logan sits up in bed, heart racing. no, he can't possibly love you. he'd sworn off that disgusting feeling decades ago. it wasn't worth it, he'd said. no, you're irritating, the way you smile in the face of adversity. you're frustrating, in how you insist he takes care of himself. you're aggravating, because you're everything he's not.

so, why does he feel this way?

it's love. it always has been love. no matter how hard logan has tried and dodged and weaved to avoid that sickly sweet feeling, you're there with a bullet aimed straight at his heart - struck him, dead aim, no mercy.

he's in love.

of course he loves you, how could he not? visions of you flash in his mind and he finds himself smiling, on his bike, in the grocery store picking up that one wine you like, watching your name light up on his phone. you're. . . suddenly everything, everything he wants, everything he didn't know he needed.

it's you, it's always been you. no matter how hard he's tried to suppress it, to push it away, to kill it, strangle those feelings with his bare, tired hands, it always emerges stronger than ever.

he loves you.

god he loves you, so much so that it's overwhelming. it's pouring out of his chest, making a mess of his life, of everything he thought he knew. logan had sworn it off, everything he touches turns to shit. he's a poison, and you're. . . you're the sun.

and yet, you hold him like he's fragile, like he's not the monster he believes himself to be. you know the violence that lies beneath his calloused knuckles, but instead of running, you tenderly place a kiss to his weathered skin. you pull him closer. you welcome the monster into your life with open arms and a smile that brings the monster to his knees.

he really loves you.

logan is tired, tired of running from the feeling, of running from you. with every bone in his body, he loves you, all of you. and you him, monster and all.

yes, logan loves you. and he'll die before someone takes that feeling from him. the fire in his heart beats steady, steadfast, for you. he's alive, for the first time in a long time, he feels alive.

because of the love he feels for you.

[smallestapplin]

Alucard in dbd idea

Hi, castlevania dropped in dbd and I've been feral, please excuse my rambling.

Reader is a Belmont.

-

-

You and Trevor in the fog first and a month or so before Alucard shows up, and when he does he's glad to see his old friend and questions who the other Belmont is(you)

You're delighted to get to know him and Trevor more, as you have read so many books and texts about him from previous Belmonts, it's so nice to finally meet him! However, much like Trevor, there is a bit of a learning curve he has to go through.

Other survivors try to help him, but most aren't really easy on him, which is fair and you don't blame them! After all, in trials it's nerve wrecking, you can't exactly teach him with all the time in the world. But he picks up gens with ease.

It's everything else that trips him up.

Huntress landed one hell of a shot on him, he shouted surprised and pained by the hatchet that came out of nowhere across the map.

His shoulder now slashed, slowly dripping blood and soaking into his shirt and cloak. but ten minutes later as he was helping you on a gen, you noticed he looked to be in far more agony than anyone you've ever met, his skin sweaty, taking shallow breathes, he looked scared.

"Alucard?"

"I'm not healing, why am I not healing? Gods it hurts...what is this?"

You are swift to whip out your med kit and start patching him up, gently shushing his pained whimpers as you focus on healing him.

"There, good as new!"

He still looks so confused, and it makes sense, his own regenerative abilities always came in handy, he's never really need a med kit, and most of his human companions had a mage on hand for healing.

A match against Trapper was much the same.

Alucard didn't even notice the trap, that or he did didn't care, he just walked right into it and his scream was heard across the map, his second scream as he placed on hook sounded like he was right next to you he was so loud.

When you got him off hook and to a safer place, he collapsed on you, his forehead on your shoulder, which was growing wet, either from his sweat or tears you arent sure, but he held onto you as you patched him up, shaking like a leaf in a storm.

"Why...why does it hurt so much? I...I shouldn't have gotten hurt from such a weak trap."

He sounds so tired, his voice is weak, small even.

"The entity's abilities it seems, in this realm you're nothing but a human."

"This is what you feel?" He moves, his watery glowing eyes looking up at your focused expression.

"Every match."

He's horrifed, all these matches where you've gritted your teeth and bared through, all these matches where you sacrificed yourself just to make sure everyone else lived, hell even the missions he knew you took as a Belmont- speaking of!

Your family goes on such dangerous missions, gets injured or even killed, and yet you still bare your family crest? His respect for you and your family grew, knowing first hand the pain of your injuries and yet you still choose to be so selfless.

Cue Alucard falling for you, the poor thing didn't even mean to.

It's just you pulled him off the hook, the bell rings louder, warning there isn't much time left, yet you still came back for him.

The second he was touching the ground, he looked at you, despite the pain he looked at you confused.

Your face was stern, filled with sheer determination as you grab his hand and lead him to the door.

"Why did you come back? You could have escaped instead of dying here with me."

You patched him at at the gate, just to be safe.

"Either neither of us die or we both die."

Your eyes locked

"I'm not leaving you here. Come on."

His own eyes widen.

Oh.

Oh.

........so this is how those dames in novels feel being saved.

Oh, Trevor is going to have his head.

He grows more skilled and knowledgeable the longer he's here, and is determined to help you (by proxy the others) he's noticeably closer to you, practically shoulder to shoudler with you by the fire, the first to help you off hook or to heal you.

Even his familar, which followed him here likes to hang off you and get scritches.

He can feel Trevor's side eye, knowing the older Belmont isn't fond of him cozying up to hos descendent.

But he at least knows Alucard would treat you right.

[gryffintheparrotcat]

Rant about Varrics role in Veilguard

[Spoilers for the Ending/point of no return]

Varric serves absolutely no purpose in the story (this is a hyperbole, bear with me here).

Why should Rook care about his death? Let alone enough to hallucinate him not dying for what? Months??

The game tells me Rook and Varric were close and travelled together for half a year, but they never actually show me them being close. They show me fake Varric giving Rook the same advice "to just listen to the team and it'll be fine" like 4 times. That's it. Emmrich says Rook speaks very positively about Varric... but I never see Rook speaking positively about Varric. The quest summary says that by accepting the loss of a great mentor Rook could escape the Fade prison. But was he actually a mentor?? He wasn't a mentor to Rook while alive and he wasn't exactly helpful as a hallucination either.

At no point does this game actually show me that Rook and Varric were as close as it claims they are. The entire time I kept thinking, these interactions would've been far more meaningful if it was Hawke or the Inquisitor not Rook. Or if it was the Inquisitor or Hawke taking on the role of mentor (though it wouldn't have been in character for many of mine tbf).

Varrics death and Varrics narration are utterly meaningless to Rook, they only matter to players. To old players. But this game is clearly a not-so-soft reboot and they keep talking about wanting to attract new fans. And everything else the game is doing is very clearly not for the old players either. So what was the point? Besides nostalgia bait.

Or did they just need a reason why their franchise mascott/dev insert won't be in the next game?

[crsssie]

oops... i got married || TO THE CUTE DUDE IN CLASS?!

word count: 1.2k || Fic 4 of oops... i got married

summary: ... you do not understand how a man made god wants to marry you but frankly you don't care as long as you aren't dying to his hands

You get married as a joke.

Yes, there are limits to how much you can drink. Yes, there are limits to how insane you can get while drunk— but apparently getting married is not within that limit. You get married to some random guy— NOT SOME RANDOM GUY. SOMEONE YOU KNOW. WELL. KIND OF. You wake up to a legally signed marriage document and him in your kitchen, and you blink at the red booklet in your hands and then at your new lover at the door.

"You're going to be late for class."

"Oh. My. God."

"Yes, I am aware that is an expression of shock." Kamukura catches the mug that you've just hurled at his face.

"HOW ARE YOU IN MY HOUSE?"

"We are married."

You blink at Kamukura. "WHY DID YOU EVEN AGREE TO MARRY ME?!"

"Perhaps you will bring a semblance of amusement to my day-to-day life." He pauses. "Also because you would have asked someone else had it not been me, and I would not have trusted you to not ask one of the old men in the bar."

You sigh, throwing your head back into the pillow. He has a point. 

"Shall I let the professor know that you are skipping class?"

"No." You snort. "Tell him my head feels like it's been cracked open from drinking too much yesterday."

"Anything else?"

"Will you divorce me if you get bored?" You turn your head to face him. "I mean, I got drunk, no?"

Kamukura nods, door clicking behind him as you bury your head into the pillow, screaming. You married the class genius. How the hell did he even agree to marrying you? What does it even mean that he married you for some semblance of amusement? What does it even mean that you got him to agree to marrying you? In what world does this happen? You scream back into the pillow, deciding that this would be a problem for you to face after your nap. What a great day to NOT have anything to do.

Except Kamukura comes home and you find that there's an assignment due by the end of the day— which makes you seriously contemplate your existence right then and there. Your new husband refuses to help you, and he watches you struggle in silence, lips pulled into a fraction of a smile, almost as if he were enjoying the way you were fighting for your life. Maybe you will beat him up next time (you would not win). So, you stare at Kamukura from the couch as he stares back, unblinking, unbothered.

"Help me."

"You are simply being lazy."

"Okay and?" You huff. "Is a husband's duty not to help his spouse?"

"Oftentimes, it is used as an excuse to not do something. If I were to do it for you, there will be a second, and then a third, and eventually, I will be the one doing all of it for you. Then, you would—"

"It's an elective." You deadpan.

"Perhaps this is, but who am I to say that you will not abuse your new husband and make him complete your major for you?"

"Izuru fucking Kamukura." You deadpan, voice even. "Will you cosplay as me to take my classes? Will you put on makeup so you can look like your beloved and take my tests for me? Will you take on the task of double life so I don't need to do anything?" 

Kamukura blinks at you, unbothered. "No."

"There you go." You sigh. "Will you at least teach me?"

"That, I will do."

You go through the homework with your husband, brain fried by the end of it, eyes spinning, annoyed as he explains everything with eerie precision catered to you. 

"Next thing you tell me is going to be something like "I attended Hope's Peak High School" or something of equal insane value."

"I shall do you one better." He tilts his head. "I was created by Hope's Peak Academy."

You pause. What.

"They took a talentless kid," Kamukura coughs lightly, "and transformed him into me."

"So they— They basically rewired your past in order to create you? I knew you were suspicious for taking 24 units." You deadpan. "You're an escaped government spy, aren't you."

"Government spy, no. Escaped, yes." His eyes dig past your soul until you are bare before him, but you do not look away. "Hope's Peak can not own a person under the law."

You raise a brow. "So why then did you marry me?"

"That is something for you to find out."

You find that the answer is that people tend to steer clear of you when you are with Kamukura. Perhaps it is some sort of primal urge to mark their territory, or the primal instinct to stay away from predators bigger than you, but Kamukura next to you equates to individualism. You find that even his unofficial fanclub that used to bother you stays away. Kamukura might have just thought of you as some strange trophy... or just someone he would not mind spending the rest of his life with. 

The answer comes at home, perhaps.

You stare at the man at your door, Kamukura not home, and you tilt your head as you start taking your shoes off.

The man speaks up when you start opening the door. "Does a man by the name of Kamukura live here?"

You blink twice. "No? I live alone."

"You have men's shoes at your door."

"They are there for safety."

"What about the two bowls of rice on the table?"

"Rather rude to look inside my place, isn't it?" You start to shut the door. "You can not search my house without a warrant. Besides, you aren't in Japan, you know? Welcome to the land of guns and eagles."

"Duck."

Kamukura holds your head down as the sound of a gun rings out on your floor. You've never been so glad you actually threw your whole life savings into a penthouse. Yet, you try turning around, his hand covering your eyes naturally.

"Is he dead?"

"Leave it to me." He ignores your question.

You listen to him as he has you step into the apartment, door shutting behind you as you start eating, biting the chopstick and blinking at the door absentmindedly.

Kamukura comes home, clean of any sign of what could have been a murder.

You don't know if you want to ask what he was up to. 

He stares at you, almost as if waiting for something to come out of your mouth before he moves to do anything.

You rack your brain for what you could even say to him.

"Good job." You raise a brow, staring at him and then the seat. "Now hurry up and eat. What were they even here for? Was it enough to warrant a gun to their head?"

"Yes." He blinks. "They were here to find me."

"Isn't it more suspicious that they're dead now?"

"I have disguised it as a slip on the stairs."

"With a gun wound?"

"The probability of a bullet bouncing off a wall into your own brain is small but never zero."

Ah.

Well, you suppose at least your husband won't be killing... you.

[sharper-than-a-serpents-tooth]

The Imperial Palace is filled with incompetent people. It has a serious security problem because why do the knights who are supposed to guard the palace let unauthorized people in, flirt with the maids and sleep on duty? The only competent knight is constantly overworked and never sees vocation days.

The maids neglect children, they bully guests, they disrespect their master's privacy, they steal. Why do the guards do no bag inspections before the staff enters and after the staff leaves the palace? Especially when Lilian noticed that things went missing. Athy could just go to the pantry and steal chocolates (imagine how easily an assassin could get in and poison the food). Claude only switches Athy's old maids with new ones, he never kicks them out. Even when Athy became a person of importance to the Emperor no one investigated who stole the jewelry from the Ruby Palace and cared enough to punish the culprit and retrieve the treasures.

Athy as a toddler managed to sneak out of the Ruby Palace unnoticed and stumbled into Claude, no knight in sight. During one of Athy's tea parties the same happened to Jennette and she got the blame for it. Lucas reprimanted some guards when they let Ijekiel in Athy's private library but it still keeps happening constantly. No one checked the identity of Roger's attendant. There are no knights positioned in front of Roger and Anastacius's rooms when they were under house arrest, the prison guards only noticed Anastacius' was almost dying when Jennette was visiting them. Lord Redford made it to the place where the Emperor was resting and almost attacked the princess. The knights have no idea what's going on most of the time and are either absent where they should have been, arrive too late or do the wrong things.

The servants' incompetency reflects Claude's incompetency as a ruler. The extras who are servants fall generally in two categories. 1. Those who are neglectful of Athy and harm/endanger her indirectly until she acts cute and they start spoiling her 2. those who are unfit for their position because they were badly instructed (the guards, Athy's nannies who have no experience in child raising).

Claude trusts no one, he does everything himself and relies only on Felix as his right hand man. As a result of this both of them are overworked and the others possibly feel underchallenged and this is why they have the time to seek distraction from their pointless jobs.

The number of guards is evidently too small to cover the whole area of the palace ground. They don't hear or see it when something happens and when they do, they need too much time to arrive on time. Sometimes they even ignore it when they see something suspicious and don't make an effort to find out the cause. A strange blue light appears in the window of the princess but no one is worried that her life might be in danger and checks if she is okay.

The examples of child Athy and Jennette slipping easily through the gaps in security show that they are badly positioned too. It's no wonder Claude faced constantly the threat of assassination in his youth if those people are the ones he picked to guard his life. I suspect they received little to no magical training either (they could not detect an intruder who used magic to turn herself invisible), which is strange considering they live in a world where magic exists. Have they never thought about taking wizard children as knight apprentices? Is Felix an outlier? Were those knights who were also trained wizards wiped out during the dynastic revolution and this is why Claude's knights are not as capable?

Another point of criticism is for me that they receive no information about the situation inside the palace and aren't prepared for who they are against. It doesn't seem like they have tightened the security ever since Anastacius has appeared, which allowed him to escape and even dine with Jennette on Claude's table when he was supposed to be in captivity. But the worst thing is that they are never punished for a mistake that could endanger the lives of multiple people. It's as if Claude doesn't even expect them to do their job. As if they are just decoration. His knights are just another status symbol of the position of the Emperor of Obelia that he inhabits. For someone who loves torturing and murdering people for the crime of getting on his nerves, he seems to turn a blind eye to those who actually break the law and neglect their duty.

Except for the guards who decided to chatter with maids while on duty, nearly everything mentioned has nothing to do with their own personal failure as knights but the failure of their superiors who decided their numbers, groupings, positioning, training and work schedule. Claude does the things he does well, but only if he's alone. Claude is an usurper. He is no ruler. He is no leader. He cannot organize a huge group of people. If he cannot even control the palace, which is basically a miniature version of the outside world, then he can't be expected to lead a nation. Claude makes rules but then he breaks them and lets others break them without facing consequences and yet he punishes others sadistically for breaking rules that were never written.

[dalekofchaos]

Fixing Nolanverse Two-Face

I view Aaron Eckhart's Two-Face as wasted potential.

Harvey has a great character, the problem is that Bruce and Harvey have no friendship and a reason to care. Harvey Dent does not have a split personality and what started out with promise as Two-Face, he is killed off too quick.

I think the easiest solution is for Harvey to have been apart of the trilogy from the beginning and the trilogy should have been based around Bruce and Harvey's friendship.

Harvey Dent essentially takes the place of Rachel as the childhood best friend.

and Batman's ally as the young but determined DA. No need for Rachel as just have Gilda. Showcase Harvey's struggles with his abusive father to contrast that with Bruce's loving father. Show his struggles with his split personality and show he isn't afraid to get his hands dirty to get a conviction and also willing to work with Batman and Gordon to help clean up this city.

You could have Bruce's love interest of the trilogy be Talia. She helps him realize the LOS was wrong in the first place and they help each other. And she helps stop her father in BB. Her role is mostly about stopping the need for Batman, where she works to end the causes of crime and such.

Or Selina. Like Bruce, Selina has a double life. A charitable socialite who gives to the animals and a thief who robs the rich and gives to the downtrodden and sex workers and Selina finally becomes Catwoman in TDKR.

Then the events of the Dark Knight happens where Dent is cleaning up the city, but Joker is there to show Harvey's "true face" and gives Batman the choice to save Harvey or Gilda. Bruce knowing Harvey would want him to save Gilda, the twist happens, Gilda dies and Harvey's face is burnt.

The rest of the movie is about stopping Joker and it ends with Two-Face confronting Wuertz in the bar. "Dent? Jesus, I thought you was dead" "Half" cut to black.

In TDKR, all hell breaks loose. Two-Face reveals himself and everyone he locked up gets overturned and released and Two-Face becomes the undisputed "law" of Gotham. He uses his past as DA to lead his own crime syndicate, dressing in black and white, pure and scarred. Initially saying it’s to be the one in control so he can mitigate damage, but it’s clear as the movie goes on that he’s really just using that as an excuse.

Explore his split personality more. If landing on clean heads, Harvey assumes control and goes after the escaped criminals on the loose. If scarred heads, then Two-Face resumes his war on Gotham.

I’d also basically have Harvey be judge, jury and executioner in Gotham. Holding kangaroo courts and dispensing his twisted sense of justice. He’s basically holding all of Gotham responsible for Gilda’s death and his disfigurement. He wants to bring out the ugliness we all hide out of Gotham.

He holds Gotham responsible for setting Joker loose, the GCPD for selling him and Gilda out, Maroni for Gilda’s death and Batman and Gordon for failing to save Gilda.

Maybe end it in similar fashion to the Telltale game. Bruce comes out to confront Two-Face. Two-Face has a whole host of hostages and plans on executing them, unless Batman and Gordon give themselves up.

Bruce refusing to give up on Harvey and talks him down. Reminds them of their childhood, the promise they made to fix Gotham since they were in college and that Gilda would not want this. Harvey seems like he's about to let everyone go, but then he has to flip for it. One hostage dies and when Harvey flips for it, Bruce grabs it and puts it in his pocket and Harvey can't function without his coin.

The Two-Face within him asks "What's the verdict, counselor?" and Harvey simply says "Guilty".

And Bruce pledges to never stop and promise to get Harvey the help he needs with the newly funded and rebuilt Arkham Asylum.

"Good old Bruce, you'll never give up on me."

"Like my father always told me. Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up again."

And we have a fully developed Two-Face, Bruce not "dying" or pointlessly giving up Batman for almost a decade and a promise for this universe to continue.

[therealdv]

During their third year Hermione keeps disappearing and reappearing at random times, acting like nothing's happened. Harry and Ron are starting to get kind of annoyed, Hermione is obviously keeping a secret and while Harry wants to let it go and respect her privacy, Ron has grown up with 5 brothers and has no intention of letting her get away with it. Everytime Hermione reappears Ron asks "Blimey! Where did you come from?" with the same exact tone. Everytime he does it Harry rolls his eyes.

After the first month Harry is honestly surprised Hermione hasn't caught on, either she's being oblivious on porpouse (Wich she isn't, she couldn't lie for her life) or she's so distracted that she actually hasn't noticed anything.

After the second month, and a week of Hermione's hair being even more impossible than usual and the bags under her eyes begin to show Harry and Ron start to actually worry. Ron starts adding food to Hermione's plate every chance he has (it's lots of chances, Hermione is always eating with her head in a book lately). Harry starts to send her to bed after ten o'clock every day, forcefully taking her away from her books to stop her from falling asleep in the common room. She gets a bit better for a while.

And then they fight over a broom.

Harry can understand where Hermione comes from, but he seriously doubts an escaped convict would have the means to buy a top of the line broom (Harry checked, he'd have to spend over half the money in his trust vault for it). Also he can't help but remember every time the Dursley show him new toys only to take them away and give them all to Dudley. He knows Hermione isn't like them, but those kind of scars are even more pronounced than the one on his forehead.

Ron just feels so angry. He doesn't know why exactly but it's been building up for a while now. Scabbers might not be the best pet ever, but he's still his pet, he's loved by the whole family in that kind of jokey but really strong way the Weasleys love each other. He knows Scabbers is old and his parents have already been open with him about the possibility of him dying. The last thing the poor thing needs is a cat trying to eat him every other day. And Hermione just doesn't care. The fight over the broom feels more like a spark igniting something that was already there. Ron is all too used to the idea of everything he owns belonging to everyone, but he's also fed up of feeling like every single thing could be take away from him by Ginny or the Twins and never seen again.

Hermione gets worse again after that.

Harry goes up to his dormitory every night wanting to first send Hermione to bed, but he's just so angry and hurt, and he deserves a "sorry" at least, doesn't he?

Ron sees her cheeks hollowing in the next few weeks and his hand itch to put some more toast on her plate, he wants to take away her books and tell her to eat, but he takes one look at Scabbers and Harry and he gets angry again.

Once the broom is given back to Harry the tension seems to abate a bit. They tether on the edge for a while: Hermione looks at them sometimes and starts to cry everytime; Harry feels awful about the whole thing but he's still hurt; Ron mostly tries to ignore the whole thing, he's still so angry.

Neville (bless his heart) is the first to take a step. He walks up to Harry one evening and stumbles his way trough what is obviously a reharsed speech about how Hermione is obviously more important than a broom. It misses the point entirely, Harry finds himself incredibly angry about it for a split second. Then her reminds himself that no one but him could know about the Dursleys. He hasn't really told anyone about them. Maybe he could try and explain it to Hermione. The idea of coming clan about the things he suffered sends his heart in a frenzy, but Neville is right about one thing at least: Hermione is important to him, her and Ron are like two pieces of his heart he never knew he was missing.

So Harry takes Hermione and Ron and finds them a secluded place in the castle. Somewhere no teachers or prefect are following him around in that suffocating way. He talks to them about the Dursleys then. He focuses on the way they never give him anything, on the way they taunt him everytime a gift is given.

Hermione and Ron are horrified. Hermione starts crying and sobs her way through an apology, she tells him she loves him and she's sorry about the broom, she just wants him safe. They hug it out and Harry feels a huge weight lift from his shoulders.

Ron is silent at first but Harry and Hermione would never just let him get out of this, so they coax his anger out. He shouts at them and kicks a chair away while he stalks the room. He lays it all out, about Scabbers and how scared he is that his pet might die at any moment. Hermione is crying again by the end of it. She heals the bruise on his shin from the chair and then hugs him too. She promises to keep Crookshanks at bay and apologizes for her callousness.

Then she takes a breath and comes clean too. She takes the Time Turner our of her shirt to show it ti them, explains what she's doing with it, how stressful it all is. How she feels like her head is underwater half the time now. She never gets enough sleep and never has enough time to study no matter how many hours she turn back. She's always so tired.

They work toghether from then on, they watch out for Scabbers, who gets lost over and over. They watch out for Hermione so she studies a bit less and sleeps a but more. They watch out for Harry so that he knows they love him and that he's never a burden.

They become so close that people start to whisper around them, but they don't care. There are more important things in the world.

Like friendship, and bravery, and love.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s4 episode 9 thoughts

this day had aspects which i did not care for, which is why i am hoping that the thrilling tale of mulder escaping a gulag will bring light and warmth to my heart.

author’s note, post episode: i need answers i need answers i need those slugs destroyed. this episode vastly improved my day and i remembered the simple joys of being alive, such as watching silly TV shows where the characters have an indescribable bond. truly a pleasure to be alive despite it all. scully and mulder, you have shown me such wisdom.

excellent moments for both scully and mulder in this one, which i treasure deeply, and also their together moments made my heart soar. genuinely a good ep!

let us gather to watch this tale!

we begin with a “previously on the x files”. i really hate that shot of mulder squished under that wire cage; it’s deeply unpleasant and i imagine so was the filming experience.

after that, we journey to a convalescent home in florida. now. the last time we went to a convalescent home, i have tried very purposefully for forget what went down. so my expectations here are low.

someone just waltzed in at night and is looking at the old people sleeping with a flashlight.... is this allowed? it probably shouldn't be. is she looking for someone in particular? 

she finds auntie janet and says it is time, he is waiting. now what does that mean?!?!

so she takes auntie janet out and there is some man that she’s in the car with?? he’s hooking auntie janet up to various chemicals. she says she’s tired of the pain and the doctor-y figure puts the green stuff into her. ah, i see what is going on here, as auntie janet hugs this woman and says she is her angel of mercy. 

so it looks like she died, but instead of just dying and that being it, there are oily slugs coming from her nose and mouth. which…. i mean, it’s better for them to come out in a controlled environment and after her passing, right? that seems ideal, all things considered. except for the fact that the oily slugs will now crawl into these people, so that’s a bummer.

HEY! the changed the text after the intro. “E PUR SI MUOVE” <- is that latin? hold on

i didn’t want to figure out what the whole phrase meant because that was part of the fun!! but in trying to figure out if “muove” was latin or italian or portuguese or something, i learned what the whole phrase meant and that it is significant for being uttered by galileo. darn! well, if i had to learn it before i wanted to, you shall too, i suppose. although i imagine if you read this blog, you’ve seen all this before. hmm.

we are in st. petersburg. FORMERLY LENINGRAD! but no longer at this point. someone is knocking at an old russian guy’s door. a young gentleman tells this old guy that “the cold war isn’t over” 

damn. still rings true in 2024. 

and also he gives the old guy an envelope. 

mulder is sleeping in a jail cell. he’s very tucked into that corner. it's adorable, in a certain way. someone is whispering to him. mystery other prisoner guy who can speak english said that he has been lying there for hours, and that the first time (referring to his alien injection) is “bad, very bad”

he calls this alien injection the “black cancer” that lives in the rock. this mystery man used to be a geologist! he was there when they found the fragments! woah... a rock guy... and look what they have done to him :(

okay, so this black cancer comes from the tunguska rock. got it. i am tracking the lore.

so at least hundreds of people have died here, and they seem to be searching for a cure to the black cancer after they inject it into their test subjects.

well! it is almost comforting that maybe both scully and mulder will die horrific early deaths, but at least together, right? because. the actual cancer that she probably has. and the weird creature in his veins now. they’ll have each other, i guess?

sighs. this is not providing me much comfort.

“i’m not gonna die. i have to live long enough to kill that man krycek” <- YAAAAAS i cheered!!!! his dogged determination has now been set to bloodlust mode!! hey, whatever keeps you alive!!!

mystery man sneaks mulder a shank he made over two weeks. that is a very dedicated thing to do, and even more profound to spend all that time and then give it to someone else. “it is wonderful- the persistence of life” damn…. bro has me thinking…. life really IS a gift, huh

back to the USA, where scully is tending to the mysteriously ill dr. sachs, who if you need a refresher, was the guy who was cutting into the mystery rock before he was mysteriously paralyzed. his blood looks a bit thickened (gag) and also there is something in there. EW!!! EW 

EW NASTY WORMS ATTACHED TO A GLAND IN HIM?!?!?!?!

no no no don’t care for that thank you!!!

in virginia, some people get on a bus, including an old man who is eating an apple. they are going to charlottesville. 

also there are some horses. the apple man snuck onto a farm with horses. IS IT GONNA BE THE WELL-GROOMED MAN’S FARM???

is it the russian guy??? well, he introduces himself as “vassily peskow” which seems to answer that question. 

(in googling this to make sure i spelled his name right, i saw that he has something to do with "the syndicate"- is that the official name of the group i have been referring to as the UN alien people for 3 seasons now?!)

he is speaking to the woman who we earlier saw give that stuff to auntie janet, but he has come to see her! her name is dr. charne-sayre, and while i know nothing about her besides her willingness to euthanize her aunt, she seems to have handled a strange old man showing up and touching her horses quite well, because personally i would be throwing hands.

OH!!! HE STARTS CHOKING HER?? the horses are neighing with fury. 

what… did i just see…

scully! at home!!! so pretty….

skinner is behind her!!! he is MAD! he has been trying to get ahold of her all day! well, she was busy??? cut a girl some slack???

he says she owes him some answers about this mystery pouch. he is maaaad! he has to testify tomorrow!! he harbored a known felon!!! ooo he’s gonna get in troubleeeee

she very calmly explains that the pouch has a rock with some sort of creature in it that she has been trying to figure out all day. she handled his anger quite, well all things considered. never forgetting to say “sir”.

but she doesn’t know where it was supposed to be going. HOWEVER…. skinner does! it was going to dr. charne-sayre!!! 

scully knows who this is!! because she is a nerd. said with heart eyes. dr. charne-sayre is a virologist, who has looked in on presidents and also is an authority on “variola viruses” which means something i’m sure, but it’s a mystery to me

OH! it means smallpox! she has been trying to get people to destroy the last remaining smallpox vials. 

(WAIT IS THAT A THING?? is humanity really keeping some smallpox in some bottles somewhere???? i need to look something up after this and the adjust my levels of panic for biowarfare accordingly.

GOOD NEWS! wikipedia says the last vials were finally destroyed in 2015! that feels like it took too long...

wait. just kidding. it highlighted an irrelevant part of the article. another page says they are still out there, the ones in atlanta and russia that scully refers to in the episode. i feel no relief after all.

the ones that WERE destroyed were 350+ vials of smallpox that had just been lost????? HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN???

damn. i need to go down a rabbit hole later that is going to teach me some unsettling things)

anyway, skinner breaks the news that dr. charne-sayre was killed, but blames it on a horse. and i saw what went down and it did not look like any hooves were involved, so idk how tf they came to that conclusion. a choking and hoof marks are not at all comparable??

back to da gulag. a guy kicks mulder and leads him out with a bunch of other men. i find myself wondering about all of the extras there that day, how the filming went. 

UH OH! krycek is up smoking with one of the bigwigs of the gulag!!!! what is he DOING??? the geologist prisoner who gave him the shank says mulder has one chance to kill him, and he pulls out his weapon. OMG HE’S RUNNING FOR IT!!! does he stand a chance?!?

that dude is absurdly fast bro. he gets two solid punches into krycek and steals a truck!!! where is he going!!!

horse vs truck race!!!! who will win??? i hope it’s the truck!!!

so he knocked krycek tf out and took him on the bed of the truck... that is hilarious

i hope all the other prisoners break out too :)

okay, the men on horses are shooting at mulder. krycek wakes up and is slamming the back of the truck. what i want to know is where mulder, who has a famously terrible sense of direction, is driving!!!

he’s trying to hit the brakes but it’s not really working!!! and krycek jumped off!!!! where does he think he’s gonna go 😭😭

no!!! mulder crashes the truck!!! ouch ouch ouch!!

well, instead of resolving that plot line, we jump to the well-groomed man (am i using his name right?) chatting with cancer man in the dark. cancer man bullies him for smoking, as if we don’t only know him as cigarette smoking man or cancer man, but well-groomed man is pissed at cancer man’s various failures!! and wouldn’t you be??

oh!! that person riding the horses- dr. charne-sayre- was well-groomed man’s personal physician! there’s some weird tension between these old men now that he needs the help of cancer man to figure out what went down

“were you sleeping with her?” csm asks, making us all uncomfortable. and well-groomed man doesn’t answer!!!!!!!! EW!!! nasty!!!! he put the mission at risk for his personal pleasure!

damn. hate when cancer man is right about things.

well, i guess they’re both flops at their job. that should unite them rather than pull them apart. 

cancer man asks well-groomed man (and that is definitely going to get confusing quick) to call off "the investigation", which he says he cannot do. but senator sorenson is an honorable man. do we believe him?

i do not. 

somehow, cancer man knows mulder was captured in tunguska and has escaped. i don’t know how this plays into their plan, but cancer man is smirking. suspicious... i hate his creepy smirk.

okay, back to russia. we see the truck that mulder crashed and a bunch of blood on the window, which are not auspicious signs. but no one is in there!!!! the men on horses are baffled!!!

krycek is in the woods, being surrounded by a bunch of people and speaking in russian, claiming to have escaped from the prison camp. they realize from his clothes he is lying about being a prisoner, but they believe that he was accused of spying and take him in?? i guess??

OMG!!! mulder was hiding under a ton of leaves while the men on horses looked for him!!! it was giving a real peeta in the 74th hunger games moment.

so, now we are where we started last episode, with scully swearing to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help her god. and she is reading her prepared statement. people are passing notes as she does so. and then they are rude as hell and cut her off. 

skinner is watching all of this go down, and as she tears into the culture of lawlessness, he does look like he kinda wants to die. but i think she’s serving. 

OMG!!!! they’re taking her to jail!!!! she said idgaf i am NOT giving up mulder’s secrets and that is a REAL ASF FRIEND!!! she’s in jail in her kickass outfit and omggggg what a queen… crossing her arms as she stares out the window…. i love her so deeply 

back to russia, where some guy finds mulder under a ton of leaves, and yells at him for breaking his truck. sorry!! it was an accident. he didn’t mean it :(

the woman he is with is gonna tend to him though, because mulder has that sad puppy dog thing going on. 

she knows some english!!! woah!!! this is convenient for plot reasons and also fuels my determination to keep learning another language so i can be the cool side character that saves the day at least once.

she says that they kill everybody for “the test”, and that her husband makes deliveries, so they spare their lives. but now, no truck…

mulder says we need to get tf out of here, the smallpox scar is tracking you. she says there is an alternative, and gestures to her son with no arms. i do not think this is a good alternative. and the husband comes back in with a knife!!! are we gonna have some hand to hand combat…….

krycek is sleeping by a fire, but then a bunch of people come and get him. one of them has a heated knife!!! are we in amputation mode…

oh. he sure is screaming as that knife is going in… yes, it appears we are in amputation mode

scully is in jail, reading the works of dr. charne-sayre, because she is studious even behind bars!!!! i love that about her. highlighter in hand as she ponders. 

skinner comes to see her! “you holding up?” “i’ve got plenty to read” awwww :( skinner cares about her :( big old softie :( and she is gonna read her way through jail :( she’s just so :(

she clarifies that this is NOT just about mulder!!!! this idiotic commission is wasting time asking about mulder and not about the pouch, the murder, the rock, or anything ACTUALLY RELEVANT at all!!! 

“it is my experience that lawyers ask the wrong questions only when they don’t want the right answer” DAMN what kind of lawyers has she dealt with…? probably plenty in her FBI time. but still. she has seen things.

“it is my natural inclination to believe they are acting in the best interest of the truth” aww… she wants to assume the best of these obviously very shady men

“but i am not inclined to follow my own judgement in this case” <- she said y’all are so god awful not even my natural optimism can salvage this (and i love her for knowing her limits)

skinner makes a remark about following mulder’s judgement instead and i can’t tell if he was trying to be hurtful or not…

back to dr. sachs, dealing with his rock induced injury. NO! the russian guy vassily is here! with a needle!!! what does he need that for??? go away!! i like that rock scientist!!

he’s getting this orange fluid in a syringe and he sticks it into dr. sachs and BLEH i cannot look…………. but the slugs!!! the oil slugs!!!!! 

NO!!! he takes the rock and unplugs the machines dr. sachs was on!!! HE CAN’T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH THIS 💔

cancer man is explaining that vassily was in the KGB… “how could this be? how could the russians know we were working on our own inoculation?” asks well-groomed man, “six of us knew!” 

an anti-alien vaccine! this could be useful,,, maybe? idk.

cancer man is tasked with finding vassily… but he says someone might save him the trouble

cut to scully back in front of the fancy congress slash senator slash corrupt government people…. she has had time to think about the question she was asked.

and she says she cannot answer! she keeps listing off things she can answer instead, but not about this!

OH! MULDER APPEARS!!! “answer the question miss scully!” (mulder voice) “what is the question?”

YEAHHHHH THAT’S MY GUY!!!

HER REACTION TO HIS VOICE… the little orchestral flourish… his beat up face… his stupid smirk. wait i have to rewatch this. LOOK AT HER FACE WHEN SHE SEES HIM!!!

she says that the death of the doctor was connected to the death of the man in skinner’s apartment, and dr. charne-sayre FOR SURE knew information about the virus. and while i am happy for her triumphant moment, skinner walks in and whispers something to her….

dr. sachs has died under suspicious circumstances!!

this is obviously very important, but in the background you can see mulder say something to skinner, and he reacts as if deeply annoyed. lmaoooo we are soooooo back!!

the bigwigs on the council go to recess, and the absolute MILLISECOND that gavel is slammed, these two nerds JUMP UP to see each other, it’s so cute oh my goshhhh it is for sure making my list of favorite moments this season

AWWW AND THEY HUG AND HE SAYS “good to put my arms around you” OHHHHH MY GODDDD OH MY GOOOOD THE WAY HE’S LOOKING AT HER (and the remark about still having both arms she obviously doesn’t understand yet!!!!)

(screaming into my pillow for a solid 30 seconds before composing myself)

skinner jumps in and says “some other time” when she asks how he got back LMAOOO he has had ENOUGH

scully says please skinner let us go to florida for 15 hours please 🙏 it should be quick but if it isn’t please stall for us please sir…. and he’s all “girl just go and be fast about it” (sternly)

okay! so why florida? because that is where one of dr. charne-sayre’s patients at a convalescent home died of a mysterious virus! yes, as we saw in the very beginning!!!!

NO!! vassily is here!!! can he just wander in?? is that allowed? why are people coming and going from this convalescent home…? is there not a sign in process…?

he’s going for the meds. he pockets some meds and replaces them with a decoy. 

“may we come in ma’am?” mulder asks, shoving his way in <- LMAOOOO god that gag gets me every single time 

so they need to look at the elderly, and scully reports that this dude she just walked up to is dead. and he sees another one with the slugs!!!

these people are test subjects, he says!!! and they have to deal this building right now!!

no!!! vassily was laying in a bed and heard all of this!!! what is this mischievous fellow up to???

mulder says all of this can be traced to one man. and scully…. oh my gosh, the side profile, my heart…… 

IS KRYCEK WORKING WITH VASSILY?

scully and mulder go to visit the leader of the militia they busted krycek with at the beginning of last episode. scully looks so good i’m actually going to gnaw my own arm off holy fuck. that blue trench coat and grey suit combo is lethal.

so this criminal is denying finding krycek in a missile silo, and said krycek came to him. looking for help to make “devices”, and talking about this black cancer developed by the soviets, and used in the gulf war. so how did he get out of the silo....

OH! mulder asks where the other “device” (bomb) ended up, and when the militia leader says “i ate it”, he punches this guy in the stomach and puts him in a headlock. and then he says some very out of pocket things i am not going to repeat, but the point is: krycek took the bomb and put it in a storage garage somewhere in terma, north dakota. ah! the name of this episode is finally understandable!

“scully, get on the phone and get the license numbers for any two-ton trucks stolen in north dakota in the last six months, then call canadian border authorities and have them stop any vehicle fitting that description” (said while gazing into her eyes)

(this line killed me for some reason and i can’t even explain it… just such an odd series of commands out of context!)

“someone used krycek, then krycek used us; someone who didn’t want that rock in american hands” ah. so this whole thing has been a set up. you see, i was too busy thinking thoughts like “i hope he gets out of the gulag” and also “man, i hope scully doesn’t go to jail” and “look at how they hugged!” to put that together. sometimes i am a simple viewer making no conclusions about the grander plot at hand! sometimes i am surface level! i am multi-faceted!

vassily is gonna put the rock back in the ground under the guise of fertilizer for his tomatoes 

WOAH!!! agents in a helicopter :0 they look so good….

mulder is trying to scream over the loud noise of the helicopter doing its thing, which i imagine had to be an awful time to film. scully wisely just nods her head instead of attempting to communicate with words.

haha his hair is all messed up from the helicopter… hehehehe…

so he’s looking in the truck for any sort of rocks or bombs or whatnot. he sees some pipes… he is forming conclusions…

scully disembarks from the helicopter, and her hair is all messed up too (my heart!) as she climbs over a fence to get into this refinery. one thing about these two is they are gonna climb some fences!

vassily sees this going down and hides…… mulder is reaching into the pipe…. trying to grab the hidden rock… he is covered in oil!!!!

and it blowed up!!!!!!! 

no!!!! scully sees the explosion,,, and vassily sneaks up behind her and puts her in a chokehold!!! he grabs her gun!!! he says he will kill her but he doesn’t want to? and that his work is done. 

damn, now she’s gotta get a new gun……

she’s RUNNING to mulder who is soaked in oil and has barely escaped the explosion. she is picking him up and then… cutscene to more testimony stuff.

GIRL IS HE OKAY???

i love when they save each other <3 i love when they have to pick each other up and drag each other to safety <3 i love the panicked screaming of the other’s name <3 i love the fast and furious assessment to see if the other is okay <3 i just love these things <3

scully has evidence to present: linking a number of deaths to a biotoxin brought onto US soil! and the man who delivered it also died! and that guy was the man who krycek pushed off skinner’s balcony!

“alex krycek, who is missing and possibly deceased” oh i know better than to believe his ass is dead

the council is whispering… 

they laugh at the idea of extraterrestrials, and mulder also comes to the stand… what is he gonna do…

“why is this so hard to believe?” he asks. hey i know you’ve had a rough go of it man, and there is literally an alien slug in your body, but she was doing so well…

oh! he’s going on and on about how obvious it is that extraterrestrial life forms exist!! and you need to understand this or else you are denying crucial evidence!!!

ah, i see now why the opening text. just as galileo spoke of the earth rotating around the sun but was scorned, so mulder speaks of aliens and is met with disdain. and yet, the earth continues to spin, and the aliens continue to be in his bloodstream.

“this is not why we are here today” “then why ARE we here today?” okay parallels i see you!!!

they recess… and cancer man stands up in the back……..

back to russia, where vassily is returning home, insisting he is retired to someone in his room.

OH! IT’S KRYCEK! WHO IS ADDRESSED AS “COMRAD KRYCEK” bro… he is congratulating vassily on a great job 

and omg… he’s got a prosthetic arm… they really sawed his arm off…

back at DC (home) the senator is reading files and passing them to cancer man, who is tossing them in a bin??? presumably to burn??

HUH! so much for an honorable man.

okay, so much happened here. let me go in order of which thoughts are loudest.

first of all… did they know this was gonna be what they did with krycek from the start? just asking because i want to know if “needs to be fluent in russian” was on the casting call for that role or if they sprung it on him later. because that would be wild.

krycek, working with the soviets… huh. interesting implications.

second. the alien!! there is alien oil slug in krycek AND mulder now!!!! what is that going to do to them? are they gonna turn into living flash bangs like that one lady did in that one episode?? is it gonna slowly kill him? will be and scully slowly die together? i can’t imagine such a horrible thing….

third. their reunion…. damn it, it was so sweet. the way they INSTANTLY got to their feet when the recess was declared… the way he wrapped his arms around her…. oh man. oh man. and the smiles… the smiles……..

so far, s4 has not really been my jam. but this episode was really good and has given me hope that soon we shall be cooking with gas, in terms of both very juicy plot advancement and special agent bonding moments. i mean, come on, lifting him out of that explosion while he was covered in oil??! i cannot get enough of that!!!

is he going to hide that he has an alien slug in him?? is he going to be that guy in the zombie movie who acts like he didn’t get bit?? or is he going to be honest and tell her?? will she try to find a cure? wait, does he even know what happened?? because he was knocked out when all of that went down…

and what about scully’s mystery illness!!!! is she going to be okay?? are they going to be terrified for each other??

okay, okay, one thing at a time.

so, there’s an alien virus in a rock that landed on earth during the tunguska event, and the americans were working on a vaccine to protect against it. but somehow the russians knew about it, and that is likely due to krycek, who was a double agent on like three counts. they killed the leading expert on the virus in order to prevent a vaccine from being developed, and have previously used the virus in biowarfare (so i guess gulf war syndrome is alien slugs in this universe?). the guy that krycek threw off of skinner’s apartment was the one who was meant to receive the rock containing aliens, but was killed, and said virus rock was intercepted by the russians, who are having a sort of cold war 2.0 moment. over alien slug virus. which, if exposed to, will eventually kill you; why it killed dr. sachs and not all of the other men who were at the gulag is a mystery. and to try and protect the americans against this virus, the leading expert, dr. charne-sayre was testing on the elderly. and cancer man wants to cover up all of the evidence which scully and mulder have presented linking all of the deaths to the rock. 

okay. i think i got most of the lore down.

i want to know what happens next!!! but i am no fool!! i know we will be given random monster of the week episodes which are also excellent but tell me nothing about the plot!!! and now that we’re dealing with alien slugs, i’m wondering, what about the actual little green men? where do they come in? is this a third type of alien? because we have the little green men we’ve seen glimpses of, sometimes mixed with human DNA; we’ve got the aliens that were clones from that species with the poison blood and can only be killed with the needle to the neck; and then these alien slugs. and also a few other random non-central to the plot alien life forms, like the ones in firewalker and ice.

where is the common thread?? how can they tie all of these up?? would tying all of these mysteries up even be satisfying?? or is it better to let some things be a mystery?? did chris carter have plans for all of this overarching stuff, or was he making it up as he went?

so many questions! but for me, basking in the warmth of their hug is my highlight 

[fangaminghell]

Uhhh. ok how about this. Gameswap ur protags Right Now, what route would they take? Say Reborn —> Desolation, Desolation —> rejuvenation, Rejuvenation —> reborn. who would they click with most and least with, if anyone at all? - JJ

Hiiiiiiiii I was asleep so sorry if you sent this earlier. I'm just gonna do my main protags so. Deso! Leo, Rejuv! Asra and Reborn! Imani coming right up!

Oooooooooo. Hm. Hmhmhmhmhmhmmmm.

Reborn -> Desolation: VERY interesting for Leo. Bc this is a Leo that has no memory of his past, and his past is VERY important in how he acted in Reborn. He got scorned by his old friend group which made him actually rethink how he acted. But without that, without any knowledge prior to how he was, what is Leo at his essentials? I still think he has an ego. I still think that he desires to have people like him. I can kinda see him coming off as obnoxious to others bc of it. But meeting Ava and Scarlett definitely made him turn up for the better. Ava would humble him when needed and Scarlett honestly made him more considerate for others.

I think Deso! Leo would probably be his purest self? Both good and bad really highlighted about him. His hair isn't dyed, it's in all its glory, even a bit longer than usual. I would always joke that Leo being in denial about his homosexuality would always be a thing in every universe but I think in this case, I don't think it matters here. He's out, he's a bit of a flirt but don't flirt back he'll get flustered, he's still kinda a jerk but he cares. Ava and Scarlett are obviously the ones he's closest with. Possibly closer to Scarlett. I feel like they would actually understand each other a lot, from interests in fashion, to this ideal of escapism, etc etc. Unlike Fern, who has a bunch of parallels between him and Leo, Connor is just an asshole and for that reason Leo hates him. He questions Scarlett's taste immensely. Much like Fern, he cringes on how Connor and his sister interact. He doesn't know why,but it makes him uncomfortable and....sad. He doesn't know why. Garrett and Leo are so different but I don't think that's stopping them from being buddies. I would not be surprised if Leo has a crush on that man ( it would be unrequited I think). But Tristan? Dear god, that man would just up and sweep Leo off his feet. Also we need the dead bf quota for Leo lol ( JOKING JOKING). I do think Leo fell fast and hard with Tristan, and that obviously burned given how Tristan. Ya know.

This is getting looooooong and I haven't even gotten to the other two so.

Of the two, Leo would align more with Nova and probably initially fall for the dream scam. Admittedly this is moreso me thinking of Reborn Leo, so I might have to ponder more, but a world with no worries? No issues just peace? Leo is arguably more comfortable with himself in the beginning of Deso than Reborn. Sure he doesn't remember who he was before or what he left behind but. It's fine! It's all fine. Who cares! Why does he keep thinking about it. I think he would want an escape from the possibility of who he used to be- hey just like Reborn! Leo! The old him is dead he's gone, he's terrible, but the new him is someone sooo much better, say he's better please, please please. And it's worse bc Deso! Leo doesn't even know who he used to be. So the fear that he used to be someone terrible, someone not worth what he has now....he doesn't want to think about that. So Nova's proposition seems interesting, though. Very stupid. He's kinda making fun of her in his head. But as the game goes on, and with Leo facing his own mortality, I think it's hard to even escape at all, hm?

...would Leo be able to save Scarlet? I...think so. I would prefer so, but. Wouldn't be surprised if he failed.

Okay now onto the others! Hopefully shorter!!!

Desolation -> Rejuvenation: I feel like Deso! Asra is the same as how they are in Rejuv. Obviously, there's plot differences but overall they're still good ol reliable Asra. I feel like it's kinda pumped up to 11 here bc I still see them as 20 here. Still young, of course, but older than some of the main cast. I think their knack for being considered " the calm reliable one" is bolstered by this: gotta look after those younger than them, right? Which I can see being annoying or even insulting to some characters ( Ren first comes to mind personally, but I can also see Venam not exactly vibing with their more calmer approach to things). Though I do think of everyone, Melia appreciates Asra's calm and collected nature and thus,leans on them a lot. Everyone does, of course. But I think Melia needs a calming force amongst the chaos and thus,leans on them. I think her growing up helps Asra you know. Not see everyone as people younger than them and thus needs to be watched over, but more like their actual friends. The role of being the responsible one kinda just. Slips away as time goes on and Asra allows themself to have fun - NOT THAT THEY WEREN'T IN DESO. I just think Rejuv has a bigger feel of " kids going against the world" compared to Deso , which feels like a bunch of young adults heckling at each other lmao. ( I really hope that didn't sound like an insult,or like I'm saying Rejuv is very kiddy ITS NOT). Plus, Asra is young too lol. No matter how mature they are, they're no older than the rest of them really. They should be allowed to have fun.

As for relationships: As I said before, Asra and Melia are very close in this au, though I think that's a given, haha. I think they're on the same wavelength most of the time, and Asra appreciates her optimism. She worries them sometimes, and I think they worry about her, too. They worry together. Ren and Asts respect each other a great deal. I can't understand that Asra is really really really passionate about battling and is competitive as fuck. The perfect rival lol. I do think Asra kinda. Sees some of themself in Ren ( sorry, it's so funny to talk about Asra as if they're so much older than everyone, they're not, they're just 20 and it's very funny and also kinda the point)- though they don't really know why. I feel like there's a push and pull with these two. Their rivalry is the middle ground, the constant, but Ren wants to go off on his own and prove himself vs Asra resignation to being the person that people lean on....I dunno. I think Ren would really think Asra is looking down at him when they're not. Things get much better as time goes on- i like to think they are actively pushing each other when it comes to battling. They also get snarky together. ALSO BIRDS. Bird friends :) Asra has to take Ren clothes shopping sometime. Goth Ren tonite. Venam and Asra have the opposite arc ( Venam getting serious, Asra learning to enjoy themself over being the reliable one). I don't think they fully vibed with each other at first, but despite everything I said about Asra till now - they do in fact have a mischievous streak. They can be a bit silly. And I think it's that that helps the two get along as well as they do. Also, like Ren,kinda sees themself in Venam. Do not know why though.Aelita and Asra are working out buddies :)

As for someone they click with the least? Uuuuummmmm. Not sure, atm. Dylan, in some ways, reminds me of Garrett, but given how things are presented....hmm. I think this is one of those times where Asra feels. Young. If that makes sense. To have a cool big bro only for him to disappoint you. And that hurts. Everyone has their demons , they understand that but the shattering of the glass....oof. I don't know if that counts as clicking with the least.

...They wouldn't like Damien all that much. Think he's an ass. M2 is lucky they haven't stabbed her yet, though I'm still gonna have to ponder on that. I think Asra is mostly a Paragon person, but renegade could happen if I make them fucked up enough.

Rejuvenation -> Reborn: I'm so sorry y'all, Imani is losing her joy and whimsy. I feel that's a thing with Reborn. The thing about Imani is that she's such a force of optimism and hope,and such a thing is polarizing in Reborn. As a result,some characters really like her, and others really don't. All of this is just accompanied by Imani getting bogged down mentally. Maybe she even loses her smile for a bit? Or at least a genuine one. I think Adrienn, Vicky, Shelly and Cain... honestly, characters who aren't so deep in their own misery/ angst/ show some semblance of hope and optimism for the future are gonna be the ones she has a better time with. Not saying she doesn't with everyone else! Unless you're Titania. And Amaria. And Fern. Those three she kind ends up clicking with the least for the main game. Post game things get better with Fern, I think, but not to the level of whatever the fuck is going on with Leo and Fern. Imani by that point is just tired, and probably living off coffee. Still nice! Still looking out for others! It's literally in her nature to help others! But I don't think the light reaches her eyes anymore. Not for a while.

Before I continue, here's a silly joke: Cain and Imani are best friends. Cain is pan. Imani is ace. I guess you can say. They're All or Nothing - ( gets hit with a bus). ( Really though, after the initial awkwardness of their first meeting - I think Imani was a little put off by Cain's flirting and forwardness, they do end up being each other's rock. You could think a fairy and a poison expert would dislike each other but nah. They're besties. Primarina buddies too. I also like the fact that Imani is taller than him lmao. Free chin rest)

As for specific routes she would do......hm. There's lots of factors here, I think, but overall I think it boils down to how she sees Taka. I think it can go either way? Reshiram( and Reshiram Determination) happens bc Imani is just tired and sees that Taka is tired too. So she doesn't battle him. She just leaves. Zekrom can happen bc who is she to deny someone she cares about, even just a little. Reshiram is honestly the more angstier of the two for me, bc then I get both Taka death and Imani almost dying ( vaguely similar to Rejuv), so if I was to do a hypothetical run of Reborn, I think that's the one I'd do. Though that could be my bias speaking lol.

....it's very sad imagining Imani without her natural light. Imagining her just getting drained by the being that is Reborn. In the end things do get better, like she believed till the very end but. She's not the same as how she used to be. Maybe a bit more jaded. A bit more bitter. But overall still sweet. A slight aftertaste, if you will.

And yeah! Thank you for the ask JJ, this was fun!!!!

[nero-vanderwolf]

Mitsuru stands on the rooftop, cold wind whipping her hair away from her face. It’s always peaceful up here- whenever she has free time outside of studying or fencing, she comes up here. Just for a few moments. Up here, she can let go of her responsibilities. Just for a moment. 

For just a moment, she isn’t a member of S.E.E.S. For a moment, she isn’t the heiress to the Kirijo Group. For a moment, she isn’t Kirijo-senpai. 

For a moment, she’s just Mitsuru, an eighteen year old who had lost track of time and her thoughts. For a moment, she’s just another face in a sea of strangers, simply going about her daily life in the face of all her anxieties. For a moment, she’s content to simply be... someone. No one important. Just another face. 

But then Yuki comes up to the rooftop, his footsteps hurried, and all the weight of the world comes crashing back onto her shoulders. She starts towards him, intending to ask him why he’s up so late and fully expecting him to return the question. 

She doesn’t expect the fall. 

It feels as though her soul has been yanked out of her body. Someone is screaming with her voice, someone’s pulling her away from the edge, someone else is puppeteering her legs for her as she flies down the many flights of stairs two at a time to the ground, punching numbers into her phone with trembling hands as she bolts out of the door to the back. 

Akihiko ended up at her side at some point in the run, taking his phone from her to talk to the emergency services while she skids on her knees beside Yuki- never mind the blood that blossoms to the surface of her skin as she does. 

He’s sprawled on his side in the grass, quivering like a wounded animal. His hair looks damp and matted, and she barely bites back a retch at the idea of what it could be. Still, she gently runs her fingers through his hair as she shifts his head into her lap. He’s bleeding all over her uniform. She doesn’t care. 

He curls up into himself, his eyelids fluttering. “Mitsuru-senpai...” He whispers. His voice is weak, tremulous. He turns his head to look up at her- his cold eyes shiny with tears. This is the first time she’s seen him scared, seen him crying. Mitsuru knows he’s just two years younger than her, but he looks so much like a terrified child, hands stained with the blood of an innocent woman he didn’t mean to kill- 

A scared child. That’s what they all are, in the end, isn’t it? They’re all just scared children. 

“Mitsuru-senpai,” Makoto Yuki whispers again, “am I going to die?” 

Mitsuru lifts his body so she’s hugging him close, and presses a kiss to his blood-damp hair. Like she used to do when Akihiko woke up from a nightmare about his sister, or when Shinjiro was having a particular rough day. She hugs him close and kisses his hair, and a single sob escapes her lips. 

Makoto takes her lack of response with all the solemnity of a man at the gallows. He is. 

“I didn’t want you to see... I’m sorry,” he mumbles, and she grips the cloth of his pyjamas as though it could keep him anchored to this life. As though that alone could save him. He’s dying, and his last words are an apology. 

“You don’t need to apologise. You have nothing to be sorry for,” she whispers. She has reason to apologise, to beg forgiveness. She should have tried to be there more, should have asked if he wanted to share the responsibility of being leader, if he even wanted to join S.E.E.S in the first place- 

“I’m tired, Misturu-senpai...” Makoto mumbles, and she cups his cheek with her hand. He looks peaceful, despite everything. She wipes the earth and blood from his face as best she can. He smiles at the effort, and she knows she would do anything to have seen that smile in a different light, in a better situation. 

“Go to sleep, then. We’ll be here when you wake up,” she chokes out, as though she’s speaking to a sleepy child who doesn’t want to miss something with the adults. He nods, resting against her shoulder. 

Mitsuru spends an hour sobbing over his body. 

She jolts awake in the middle of the night, hands grasping for a boy that isn’t there. Her pillow and face are wet with tears, and she covers her mouth with her hands to stifle a sob. She would swear she could still smell the dirt and blood, still feel the tackiness of his hair as she combed her fingers through it. She could still hear laboured breathing, still feel the weight of a head against her shoulder. 

She spends the rest of the night grieving a still-living boy. 

PUNCHING THE WALLS OF MY ENCLOSURE??? this might be my favorite one yet holy moly. love the disorientation, like mitsuru couldnt even control herself, it was just instinct after he jumped. just pure adrenaline. fear. and ohgghh the way she comforts him... like how she would comfort akihiko. THE KISS?? THE HUG?? COMFORTING HIM LIKE A TIRED KID?? GUHHH... and they're just kids. they're kids and they have to go through this shit.

and of course the loop at the end. fuuuckkk...

[thisdreamplace]

I don’t know if this is the right place to ask this, but I need advice if that’s okay😭 I’ve been keeping up with your account since I think autumn of 2021 ? Since one of my old tumblr accounts.

So a few months ago in Late July/early August was when everything within me crashed in regard to manifesting/spirituality. I’ve been on this journey since July 2018, so I’m not new but I’ve never really had any success. In Late July I started to research the history behind many popular figures in the community. (Like the fraud behind Abraham Hicks & her husband who was a distributor for the MLM Amway) It all just made me feel so defeated.

A lot of people say manifesting is rooted in Hinduism, but Hindus don’t practice any of this. If they do practice it, it’s because they practice the whole new age movement as a whole which at that point they’re just doing a hodgepodge nonsense mix of everything.

There really is no place for any of this anywhere…

I did research on Helena Blavatsky and how she basically gave birth to the new age movement, and how she is where the “Hindus practice LOA” comes from, as well as the modern day concept of Karma. She did it by misinterpreting texts from religions and plagiarizing from her favorite fiction books. Just learning that alone crushed EVERYTHING in me. Like I felt so emptied out in such a bad way.

But this is where truly everything crashed for me: I know a lot of people say Neville Goddard isn’t new age and I agree, but his work (and the new age movement) is branching off of the New Thought movement , and The New Thought Movement was a progression of the religion Christian Science. There’s this woman called Mary Baker Eddy, and she founded the religion “Christian Science”, and in that religion they believed that the body is an illusion as well as the senses (basically non-dual teachings), and that they are all made of perfect love. But they called sickness, disease, etc. an “error”. Instead of calling something lack, they said it was error. They did mental diets and refused medication, obviously their faith didn’t heal them and there are so many deaths. it was the fastest growing religion at some point and now its almost completely dead.

here are some quotes from Mary Baker Eddy:

- “Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionately to their occupcany of your thoughts.”

- “There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind, and its infinite manifestation, for God is All in All. Spirit is immortal Truth; Matter is mortal error.”

so like.. it sounds right doesn’t it? it sounds like what we would hear in the manifestation community and that scares me because why didn’t we learn from the massive flop that her religion was? She was secretly physically ill herself and even ran away to another state to escape all the troubles that the teachings were causing. I feel so upset.

People have died from extreme living in the end and there are still some people dying. And so it’s like: where do I go from here now??

oOooOoo this is a fun one uwu

tbh with you, its a VERY interesting take that you have here! like wow you really did your research but for what exactly? to prove to yourself why you never succeed? in (almost) every major religion, there has been evil, blood, death, etc. throughout history but all because theyre highly recognized across societies you would call them successful? i cant agree with that personally by the looks of it lol

i think that the thing is that i dont really care, personally, about any of these people you mentioned. even neville, god bless his heart, did a lot for my understanding of this journey but hes not my god. you put so much into these people and yet, it seems youve left nothing for yourself.

why does it matter what mary baker eddy said and did? do you want to live her lifestyle? follow her path? or would you rather create your own? i dont feel impacted by any of these stories youve shared, because ive already created my own path and been my own proof. i dont need them to validate my way of my life. ive made it myself.

actually, if you found something that relates to you, you could use it but drop the rest if you so see fit. this journey is much more personal than any religion and its followers ever make us seem to feel. because its not a religion we’re dealing with, its an outlook. and while its sad so many people were affected negatively (and actually continue to be affected in this community) doesnt mean the teachings have no basis. unfortunately, there will always be those who prey on the desperate, which is why ive tried hard to be very honest and real in my blog to help those who feel lost.

i guess because you didnt find success you wanted proof that these ideologies are ridden with failure and theres some dark, spooky past but for me it doesnt matter because you find that anywhere. even the “great” religions of today are riddled with gruesome pasts.

so at the end of it all, what are you left with? the same exact thing you began with. yourself, and how you want to show up in the world and what you want to believe about it, and about yourself. thats truly all it comes down to. not what anyone else said. but what you say.

so what do you say? do you ever listen to yourself enough, sit in the silence of meditation enough to hear exactly what your heart is telling you is the truth?

if not, thats where you go from here now :) go back to self, and stop looking for reasons why you cant and why not and etc etc and just start with, and end with yourself. because you were the only one who ever mattered in the achievement of your dreams 🫧

[bvlladonnas]

is that OSCAR ISAAC ? oh, no, that’s OLIVER AYALA, a FORTY-THREE year old OWNER OF INHERITED ESCAPES who uses HE/HIM pronouns. they currently live in CASABLANCA and the character they identify with most is OBI-WAN KENOBI FROM STAR WARS. hopefully they find their own little paradise here in el país de los poetas!

BASICS:

full name: oliver ricardo ayala  nickname(s): oli, ricky (by his mother)  age: forty-three gender: cis man  pronouns: he/him sexuality: very fluid, doesn't particularly enjoy labels  date & place of birth: june 30 in guatemala city, guatemala occupation: owner of inherited escapes faceclaim: oscar isaac piercings: one lobe piercing on each ear he got just to feel something at age 20 traits: kind, welcoming, wise, snarky, closed-off, pessimistic similar to: obi-wan kenobi (star wars), george bailey (it's a wonderful life), tony stark (iron man), dean winchester (supernatural), han solo if he had swag and calmed down a little, jim halpert (the office)  aesthetics: late night coffee, tea with milk, books with worn edges, round reading glasses, gold jewelry, merlot, baseball caps, & vintage cars

* warning for alcoholism, parentification, & parent death

BULLET POINTS:

– born in guatemala city, guatemala; had a lot of siblings and had to grow up pretty quickly to help take care of them, especially since they weren't the wealthiest and his parents had to work. – his main model of a relationship growing up was his mom & dad, which ... not great. his father was a mean, mean man, and drowned himself in a bottle most days. he left when oliver was twelve years old, and from then on oliver was considered the man of the house (this action will have consequences)  – had to sacrifice a lot of his own personal growth and happiness for his family. while his siblings, especially his younger brother, got to go to school dances, out with their friends, and even to college, oliver was stuck, stagnant – eventually (sometime around oliver's 25th birthday) his father contacted him and asked him to come visit him in chile, where he resided and had opened up a small bookstore (what would become inherited escapes as it is today) – oliver denies him immediately, but after mulling it over, he decides to go. it strains him and his mother's relationship, but it's fixable – his dad is dying, and the new family he created in chile is of no help. having fallen into the same patterns, he's created children who resent him, and a wife who no longer speaks to him unless necessary. he asks oliver to come live there, to take over the bookstore when he dies – again, oliver denies him, but it eats at him. the more he thinks the more he wants to go, to finally do something for himself. by the time his dad dies, the last of his siblings is nearing eighteen and he could, feasibly, make the move. – a blowout fight with his mom is what triggers him to leave; she says he doesn't do anything for them, that he'll leave them when they need him most. he realizes that with his siblings now adults or nearing adulthood, he doesn't need to play parent anymore (and realizes he never should have had to play parent in the first place). – up and moves to chile at 26, becomes the owner of his father's bookstore; his other family puts up no contest. – renames it to inherited escapes and fashions it into a booming business that people actually come to see when they hear about it. – now runs the business full time and lives in the pretty spacious apartment above. it's weird for him, to continue the legacy of a man he hated so much, but that's why he changed the name, right?

HEADCANONS:

— does not believe in love. how can he when his parents' relationship sucked so bad ? – as a child and young adult drowned himself in books and escaped to new worlds to forget his situation at home. could often be found under a sheet with a flashlight reading at 2 am – as a result thinks no love will ever be able to compare to what's written in stories – hosts the bookclub at inherited escapes ! – accidentally adopts little nerds all the time ... sorry about it – secret hopeless romantic – loves trash tv. could tell you everything about the selling sunset universe and why alex hall needs to be jailed – kind of sassy like ... calm down old man??? – dry sense of humor

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

— i'm plotting. i'm scheming. i'm masterminding (i don't fucking know i'll be back here soon) – actually i lied. here the fuck i am. who is going to verify his belief love SUCKS. could be sad and also a bit unserious – who is he adopting like a stray kitten outside of his store. who is the child he is giving free drinks and going "you'd like this book here take it" – WHO IS IN HIS BOOK CLUB.  – who is going to make him believe maybe love does exist .... ooooh drama .... – whose face is he playing in lmao. "i don't want anything serious" is his favorite sentence like ...

[weirdthoughtsandideas]

Shenanigans at the pride parade

This oneshot I wrote for today is based on a little comic that I drew a year ago. Those of you who remember the comic might be familiar of the events in this story.

Read on ao3 or under the cut.

“Do we have everything with us?” Francesca asked.

“We got everything in my bag!” Violetta assured her. “Except for a change of clothes, cause it wouldn’t fit.”

“Aw, but if we don’t pack extra clothes it might be this specific time that we’re gonna need it.”

“Ok, but… it’s just a 10 minute walk, isn’t it? Worst case scenario, we have to go home and change.”

“True…” Francesca then turned to the kids. “Are you ready to go?”

“Weady, mama!” Carolina exclaimed. “Wook, I wew a wainbow!”

The three year old happily showed her little crooked rainbow she drew with markers on her arm. 

“That is very nice, dear.”

“Do we need a stroller?” Violetta asked.

“Hmm… it takes up a lot of space,” Francesca said.

“It does. Wait, I got a better idea!”

She picked up their son Oliver, who recently had turned 1, and put him on her shoulders. Oliver giggled at being so high up. 

“I wanna be up too, mami!” Carolina exclaimed.

“I can put you on my shoulders!” Francesca said, picking her up. 

“Now we’re just waiting for the four year old,” Violetta said.

“I’m almost five!” Elina shouted, running up to them. 

“Yes, you’re a big girl. We’re going now.”

“And I’m saying this now to you, girls,” Francesca said. “There’s gonna be a lot of people there, so I want you to stay close to us, ok?” She looked especially at her oldest daughter.

“Pwomise!” Carolina exclaimed.

“I promise,” Elina said, “But aren’t you gonna say that to Oliver, too?”

“Oliver is just a baby, and I will hold him all the time,” Violetta explained. “He can’t escape even if he wants to!”

“We need to go, chop chop!” Ludmila said, clapping her hands. 

“We want our child back, Cami!” Naty called.

Camila came out, smiling. “I have a surprise!”

She moved aside, to show Ludmila and Naty’s daughter Stella toddle up in a rainbow dress and flowers in her hair. Along with Stella was Camila’s kid Kim, who wore rainbow overalls, but also had flowers in their hair.

“I’m dying!” Ludmila exclaimed, almost forming tears. “Naty, get the camera!”

“Mama, what’s a pride parade anyway?” Kim asked.

“It’s a parade where we walk around with rainbows. We’re showing that people, and families can look different and that we have a right to exist!”

“Yes, did you know, a lot of years ago, two moms were not allowed?” Naty asked. “We’re celebrating that we can now, and showing people that it’s okay!”

“I weaw a wainbow!” Stella exclaimed, jumping.

“Yes, you’re so cute, darling.”

Maxi and Andres were nervous. This was the first time they were gonna go out on an event with their twins.

Their twin boys, Tommy and Daniel, were just six months old and their dads had dressed them up for the occasion. They had now put them in baby carriers as they finished their own outfits.

“Is this rainbow tie too much?” Andres asked. 

“Of course not! You look so classy!”

“I hope the boys won’t think I’m embarrassing…”

Maxi chuckled. “Andres… if they still poop their pants on the regular without a care, they don’t have the ability to feel embarrassment for you over anything.”

“You’re right. Also, speaking of that, I think I forgot the diaper bag!”

“Andres, we’re home, and I’m holding it. It’s gonna be fine.”

“They’re gonna be the fanciest babies there!”

“Yep!”

“She’s gonna be the fanciest baby there!” Yam exclaimed, holding up Charlie. She had sewn a special suit for her. 

“I don’t know if she’s much of a baby now when she’s 2,” Jim said. 

“Both she and Lola are babies!”

“I’m not a baby!” Lola yelled. “I’m four!” To prove her point, she held up four fingers. 

“By the way, Loli, I need to write on your arm,” Jim said, grabbing a marker.

“Are you gonna write something fun?”

“I’m gonna write our phone number.”

“Why?”

“In case you disappear from us. There’s a big crowd.”

“If you get away from us, please find an adult,” Yam chimed in, “Preferably someone with kids. They can see the number on your arm, and call us.”

“Okay…”

As Violetta and Francesca arrived with their kids, they tried to immediately find their friends.

“Cami said she’d be here somewhere…” Francesca said, checking her phone.

“Mami, I don’t want you holding my hand,” Elina said.

“I have to hold your hand so that you don’t disappear,” Violetta said.

“But I won’t! Mamiiiiiiii!”

“Wait a little bit, Elina. We need to find Camila first.”

“Girls!” someone exclaimed. Francesca and Violetta looked up. Camila was waving from afar. 

They went up to her. 

“Hi!” Violetta said, “Oh, you look great!”

“And me?” Kim asked, holding their mom’s hand.

“Yes, you look really good too!”

“Does your mom force you to hold her hand, too?” Elina asked Kim.

“I want to hold mama’s hand!” Kim answered with a grin. 

“Look at Oliver!” Camila said, “Oh, he’s so cute!” She tickled his chin. “Are you cute? Are you up on your mommy’s shoulders?”

Oliver giggled and cooed at her. 

“Hey, if anyone’s kid is the cutest, it’s ours!” Ludmila yelled, announcing her presence by saying that.

Everyone turned to her and Naty. Ludmila was proudly holding up three year old Stella. 

“Aww, look at her dress!” Francesca said.

“I made it,” Camila said with a wink.

“I WEW A WAINBOW ON MY AWM!” Carolina screamed, proudly holding up her arm.

“Yes, she drew a rainbow on her arm,” Francesca translated, if anyone couldn’t hear the toddler-speak. 

“That’s a nice rainbow!” Naty said, “You’re an artist, Carolina!”

“Hello!” Maxi called. Him and Andres walked up to them, their twins in baby carriers. 

“OH MY GOD!” Camila gasped. “Noo! Ok, you two won the baby pride outfits!”

“No, I won!” Kim pouted, stomping their foot on the ground.

“You’re not a baby, dear.”

“They look so peaceful in their baby carriers!” Violetta said. 

In the middle of the adults talking, Elina took this as an opportunity to let go of her mother’s hand. She then slowly walked backwards, hoping no one would see her.

“Woah, so many people here!” Lola exclaimed excitedly.

“That’s why you need to be close to us at all times,” Jim reminded her. 

“Tell Charlie that!”

Yam, who was carrying Charlie, put her down on the ground. Immediately, Charlie started whimpering and put her hands up, wanting to be held again. Yam picked her up again. “See, I don’t think we need to worry about your sister.”

“I wanna walk around!” Lola pouted.

“We are,” Jim assured her. “Just hold my hand, and we’re gonna go around.”

“I don’t wanna hold your hand!”

“Okay… but stand next to me.”

They walked around for a bit, looking at the other people there. There was a lot of cheering, a lot of rainbows and a lot of fun outfits. Lola was mesmerized by all of the outfits she saw people wear.

“Mama, can you make me that? And that too?”

“Of course, dear.”

Lola jumped up and down in excitement.

“She’s gonna fall asleep on the way home from all the energy she released today,” Jim told Yam discreetly. Yam nodded. 

“Hey, is that Luna?” Yam asked, pointing at someone further away.

“I think it is!”

As her moms were busy looking for their friend, Lola saw this as a perfect opportunity to run off.

“Wait, no…” Jim said. “That’s not Luna. But it really did look like her from behind!”

“It really did!”

“Now…” Jim looked around. “Lola?”

Yam turned to her. “Jimena, where’s our child?”

“She was… right here!”

They looked at each other worryingly.

Lola felt like she was as fast as Rainbow Dash - she had been seeing an old show called Friendship is Magic and there was a pegasus there named Rainbow Dash. Maybe if she ran fast enough she’d become her.

But she didn’t feel like a pony. She felt like a lion. A lion running fast.

Suddenly, and without warning, she crashed into someone. Another girl, around her age.

The two looked at each other for a moment. Lola was lying on top of her. They catched their breaths for a moment, before Lola came back to reality.

“I’m a lion!” she roared.

“Oh!” the girl replied. “I’m a cheetah!”

The two stood up and started to make animal sounds at each other. 

“I’m gonna get you!” Lola growled, while grinning.

“No, because I’m a cheetah and so I’m really fast!” 

“Rawr! We’ll see about that!”

Lola was about to jump on her, when someone grabbed her by her armpits.

“No running away!” Jim scolded her. “I’m gonna carry you for the rest of the day if you keep this up!”

At the same time, the other girl’s mother grabbed her hand.

“I told you to hold my hand!” Violetta muttered. 

“But-” the girl said.

“No buts, Elina. You’re coming with me.”

Elina. What a nice name, thought Lola.

Jim carried Lola away, as Violetta dragged away Elina.

But the two girls, like Kovu and Kiara in The Lion King 2, looked at each other as their parents got them further away from each other. Only that, instead of scaredly saying “goodbye”, they just smirked and stuck their tongue out at each other.

Lola hoped she’d meet Elina again.

Elina hoped the same. 

Their separate mothers considered putting leashes on them.

[vancilocs]

i think i have enough ideas for another lore dump (details subject to change obvi)

so. third kingdom. kinda turmoilic

about 30 years or so ago there was this violent thronestealing plot that happened. there was king, and queen, and the heir to the throne and probably some younger siblings, but in one night some usurper cousin or a more distant relative snuck in and slayed pretty much everyone; except the heir managed to escape with like a handful of servants (and her own porcelain bodyguard). she was like 13-14 at this point. also trans, but not out yet, except to her bodyguard. this is relevant.

(she had a bit of a teenage crush on him, not in any real way, more like youre really cool and nice and oh no puberty got my brain scrambled)

but the escape was really narrow and while trying to get out the servants got picked off and the bodyguard held his own final stand and stayed behind to let the heir escape. so she had to run off all by her lonesome.......

she wandered the countryside for a bit to get as far away as she could and through some avenues she ended up in contact with Skullface whos?? a general nogooder??? has a skull for a face??? (and she/he pronouns. whats her agab? its a secret) who promised that hed help her take the throne back and take revenge on her relatives, if shed in turn make him an advisor/give her another high rank in her court. she agreed bc why not, she was a tormented teenager who wanted revenge in any way

thus began the training. it was p easy to hide away bc the new monarchs goons were looking for a prince, the eejits, so she just went by the name she had already picked for herself (also skullface shaved off the horn over her eye/covered the mark and her dragon eye with bandages to further hide her identity. shes a poor injured girl leave her alone. dyed her red hair probably too, it was quite distinctive) and began training sword and magic both

maybe a decade passes and skullface has molded her into a right meanie, while also working on his own to collect willing people to help her overtake the castle. the new monarch wasnt very liked overall.

(now skullfaces original plan was to basically use her and groom her into being his puppet on the throne BUT he grew to genuinely care for her and now truly wishes the best for her and only wants to be by her side to help. not quite a surrogate parent, more like your parents cool sibling? theyre partners in crime)

so they storm the castle one night. princess stabs people and skullface blasts them with magic (first_4_notes_of_megalovania.mp3) and the peasants and knights theyve rallied help also. princess stabs her cousin/whatever to death and retakes the throne. yahoo

and in the basement they find her porcelain bodyguard. hes basically been there for 10 years (since he was 14 or so) for the castles new occupants to torment - basically chained him down there and gave him a sword and people would go fight him for fun. mans turned semiferal atp. but when princess shows up he recognizes her, knows her real name bc she told him all those years ago, and he does an argos from the odyssey and dies in her arms immediately after.

shes inconsolable obviously, that was the Only Thing remaining of her past happy life, her family is gone, her friends are gone, the usurpers destroyed all the stuff that reminded her of home, paintings burned furniture destroyed history books torn etc. also that was her FRIEND

so she delves a bit into necromancy with skullfaces reluctant help, and drags him back to the land of the living (not super well, but somewhat). hes mangled, needs some prostheses probably or at least joint braces, has nightmares and short-term memory issues. tends to cut off at his death and after that everythings a bit hazy. but he remembers his liege and loves her, appreciates her coming back like he knew she would, is her bodyguard again like the old times.

sometimes she kinda regrets it tho, was it fair to bring him back like that? she didnt ask him, hes been through so much, didnt he deserve to rest? but he seems happy so she guesses its ok. he says its ok. also wonders how long the magic will hold up, will he stick around forever now?

(hes doing ok. most people dont really like him bc hes a zombie but some dont mind. im p sure he even has a kid, but for some reason isnt together with the mom anymore. probably bc her family wont let her marry an undead. but im not entirely sure bc why would her familys opinion matter when she could just live at the castle since he has a very prestigious position anyways)

anyway shes slightly tormented. but she has friends. shes got bodyguard, and skullface as her trusty advisor and support, but also shes got a wife and kids, And shes fairly close with fenrir. him and konoe did offer support for her taking her old home back. konoe is a good help when it comes to political knowledge and aid, but shes had good talks with fenrir abt grief and how daunting it feels to suddenly be a ruler. when fenrir lost his kid she even came to visit to offer her condolences.

other ppl in the castle include a giant snake tail woman. mothman probably also.

[oh-surprise-its-me]

MAC don't throw h/c at me and leave!!

I need more!

I need more of rin thinking he never escaped his father, he's still a young boy and his father will get angry because he's sick. Ron will never find the strength to leave, he will probably be dead in a couple of years if he's lucky, never meet Chris, the man he obviously dreamed because he's too good for him. He will never be that close to his tommy, he wants to, but he'll never get old enough for that.

But it was a good dream, a nice one, he would like to stay in that dream a little longer if he could. It would mean not waking up in the not dream life, and Tommy would be sad, but he likes the dream, and Tommy's there. tom and Chris are so terrified they don't know how to make him see that it's not a dream, they saw him feverish, but never like that. Never to the point he can't separate dream and reality

You know I’m always happy to write…

Tw! implied abuse/ some darker thoughts coming from Ron.

It’s only time until his dad forces him up. He guesses he might as well just stay in this dream. He’s warm in a way he never normally is.

Ron looks grown up when he looks around. There’s cowboy hats on the posts of the bed. Huh. Cool. He always did think cowboys were hot.

He keeps looking until he catches sight of a man. He flings himself backwards to escape. He assumes it’s his dad just waiting for him.

“Woah! Ronnie it’s okay baby! Tom will be back in a second.”

Ron starts to cry. Why does this angel sound so worried about him. Did he finally escape? Is he free?

There’s a bang from farther in the house. It makes him jump. Not free. Never free.

A taller blond man walks in with a mug. “Hey hon.”

Ron blinks at him. He knows that accent. “Tommy?”

The man grins at him. “Hey! You back with us?”

Ron stares at the man- no. Tommy. Looks at fake Tommy.

“I’m dreaming huh. Guess this is good as any. But please don’t make me go back I’m sorry.”

The sitting man smacks Tom’s shoulder. “What is he talking about.” Tom shrugs. “Back where Ron?” “Why are you sorry?”

Ron can feel the tears go down his face. “Home. Back to him. I can’t. I won’t. I’ll run. Try to come back here even if it kills me.” Fake Tom slides onto the bed to touch his head. It feels so close to being real.

“I’m sorry because I got sick. Not supposed to be sick. Weak. Can’t be weak. Wasting good time. Miserable disappointing kid.”

He gets a kiss brushed across his head. Ron grabs Tom before he can leave. Figures it might be his only chance to tell Tommy he loves him. “I love you. Always have. If staying here means I won’t see you again though I want to go back. I need my Tommy.”

“Baby you don’t ever have to be sorry.”

Ron turns his head to look at the other man. “You’re an Angel right? Sent to watch me?” The man laughs. “My name is Chris but sure okay.”

Ron nods. Good name. Cute guy for him to imagine up. “You’ll take care of this Tommy right? I’ve gotta go take care of mine. Even if dad might kill me.”

Chris smiles. It’s such a forced smile. The tears are streaming down his face. “Course I’ll take care of him. You’ll be back to help take care of him. Don’t you worry about it. Go to sleep yeah?”

Ron makes a grabby hand at him. “Wanna Go back with you two holding me. Sounds safer.”

Chris slides on the other side of the bed and presses a kiss to Ron’s head. “It’ll be okay. You end up living through it.”

Ron drifts off again. He fears the wake up he’ll get next but knows he’ll treasure this one forever.

—

Once Ron falls back asleep Tom sits up. He scrubs his hands across his eyes to get rid of the tears. He feels a hand brush over his shoulders. “Is he gonna be okay?”

Tom laughs. He can’t help it. “I don’t know. He’s not dreamed of his dad in years. The last time was probably when we were 20.”

Chris nods. He brushes a hand through Ron’s hair. “He’ll be okay. He’s got us.” Tom can only nod. He can’t shake the image of 13 year old Ron covered in bruises.

14 year old Ron almost dying.

17 year old Ron falling into the lake and crying because he wanted his grandmother.

20 year old Ron begging Tom to not take him back to his father.

Tom shudders. Chris pulls him over Ron’s lap. Tom puts his face into Chris’s neck.

“It’ll be fine. If the fever doesn’t drop by tomorrow night we’ll go to the hospital.”

Tom kisses the side of Chris’s neck. “Thank you for taking care of this.” Chris shrugs. “I don’t have the memories y’all are both having during this. It’s easier.”

-

They drift off like that. Ron’s fever breaks in the morning and he’s very excited to find that it wasn’t a dream. He actually doesn’t really remember thinking it was a dream. Knows they talked the night before but can’t remember what about.

Tom and Chris decide to not bring it up. They’ll protect him from his memory.