#And end up actually hurt

[they-call-me-hippie]

Guess who almost died in a car crash

[threadbareturnbacks]

You know what? Happy Disability Month to those who were disabled by accident. Cars, skis, ice, sand, rocks, horses, just plain bad luck. Broken bones and backs that never heal. Shoulders that can't lift or move right. Wrists that don't turn. Hands that can't grasp. Brains that don't work right anymore. Legs that don't move anymore and eyes that won't recover.

The shame, the blame, the frustration, the wishful thinking that tears you apart. The beauty of small victories and simple kindness. The community you build. Reshaping a life with no warning. Mourning for the person you once were. Joyfully embracing the person you now are. Happy Disability Month to you too (even if you aren't ready to use that word yet)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Remember: The burning sensation is part of the process.

[hitlikehammers]

PART 2/2: in which lock-picking⛓️‍💥 is 100% a valid love language, and waking up with ✨Steve Harrington✨ was NOT the future (exactly. maybe. ish.)

...but waking up in a hospital bed just might be ♥️

<<< last time: And Eddie thinks that’s highly fucking debatable—he’s not sure where it comes from, because it’s a little out of place, Eddie didn’t say anything but maybe he’s just that transparent, the heart of him so quickly, so completely, and if that’s the case then it’s entirely fucking debatable because Eddie thinks he’s going to burst, splinter like a starburst, glorious in the unmaking for how big this thing that’s building in him feels, how certain he is that it’s about to break his ribs and he fucking looks forward to it, so no: Steve doesn’t love most because he can’t, because Eddie is overcome with this feeling and he, he— He’s drifting, because Steve’s heat is a heady fucking drug, and his heartbeat’s a metronome, a lullaby against Eddie’s back and it’s instinct, it’s unquestionable when he shimmies tighter into Steve’s hold and sighs the weight of the world out between his lips because… Because goddamnit, this feels right.

OR: y'know. Eddie thought he was dying in the Upside Down but then he's waking up in the future, in bed with Steve Harrington like what the fuck

Eddie comes to—again: un-fucking-expected—with the same sensation of his ribs snapping, the pain of it a dull thing he thinks he can just float through because his heart’s so gone on the impossible possibility of some future imaginary day where he, where Steve, where they—

“Eddie?”

Wait.

Wait, that’s…okay.

Back up.

He tries to take in what his senses are willing to offer him: something starchy, itchy against his skin, both sides—definitely not the sheets from the bed he’d just felt visceral underneath him. Pressure and aching at his chest: but less sweet the longer he focuses on it. Stinging and the pull of maybe-bandages, maybe-sutures, maybe both and something deeper, like…oh, wow, fuck, it’s entirely possible his ribs are already broken. His heart still feels full, but also scared, unsure, wrong-footed as more and more little clues seep into his consciousness, before maybe the clearest of them all: a shrill little beep that’s fast, like embarrassingly fast—

A monitor.

He draws a shaky breath—iodine, like, burning levels as he inhales and holy fucking shit, he’s in a goddamn hospital.

He’s, did he…

Is this what Steve meant, when he said ‘wake up’? Did Eddie…

Did Eddie fucking survive?

It’s in the spiral of that thought that Eddie clocks the same voice that jarred him out of his own head…in his own head, before. With the fancy sheets and the warmth and the home and—

What…what if it wasn’t in his head at all—

But his body, his pulse recognizes that voice as safety. As…rightness incarnate.

“Oh fuck,” and that’s the Steve Eddie knows best, right there, a little breathy and a little pitchy for frayed nerves and constant worry and the weight of the fucking world to make sure everyone—everyone else—makes it out as okay as possible.

And it’s in thinking that, that Eddie recognizes what Steve-in-his-headin-the-future-in-his-dream-in-his-maybe-not-quite-death-hallucination meant, when he’d said Eddie’s eyes softened. Because Steve’s heart on his sleeve, in his eyes, had looked peaceful, then. Content, even.

Not so frantic. Not so��scrambling.

Still just as blinding, though.

“Thank fuck, you’re awake,” Steve half gasps, a tiny clattering against the tile floor vying to draw Eddie’s gaze away but there was genuinely nothing in the whole goddamn universe that could take Eddie’s eyes off of Steve just now, those lips parted ever so slightly, cheeks that tiny bit rosy, pulse maybe-maybe-not visible just below the bandages on his neck.

He’s beautiful.

“What do you need?” Steve’s leaning closer, hands reaching but then kinda fluttering, kinda hovering, not sure where to touch and even if they knew the answer, kinda like they’re not sure if they can touch in the first place, yet all Eddie can do when he sees them, when he feels the shift in the air for how close they are; all Eddie can do is remember what it’s like to be pressed close to Steve’s body, to feel Steve’s arms around his chest, like they’re keeping him.

“What can I do,” Steve asks, so earnest and Eddie’s pulse does a little skip for it, how good it feels; “I—”

And Steve’s eyes are already big, just short of pleading, darting to the corners of the room maybe for water, maybe for a button to call someone to help more than he can—as if anyone can help more than Steve can, just now, because Eddie’s waking up from what it feels like to have Steve, and the most pressing possible thing in the world just now is SteveSteveSteve, near enough to feel, to breathe in—

Steve’s eyes are already big, though, is the thing, even before the full-on fucking crash of something to the floor makes him freeze. Eddie tries to peer down, winces as it pulls to much at…everything, kind of, Jesus H., but he hurts everywhere, and…

“The hell were you doing?” he asks in the absence of being able to see because…metal. Metal had hit the floor, from the height of probably-the-bed, after Steve had pressed into the mattress, shifted the weight, and then he’d blinked all owlish and adorable: culpability for whatever he’d been up to written all over his gorgeous fucking face.

“Umm,” Steve chews at his lip a little, eyes peeking up through his lashes, that look that makes Eddie weak and wobbly at basically every juncture it’s possible to tremble at like that, but he doesn’t duck away; he doesn’t even blush. He’s not…whatever he was doing—and Eddie’s range of motion is fucked, he’s already super well aware of that shit when he even tries to move to see the floor, to follow the sound—but whatever Steve was doing, he’s unrepentant. But in a way where he maybe recognizes that other people would have been less brazen.

Eddie’s wrist tingles out of nowhere—weird, when all of him is already kinda in a sort of dull, narcotic-shrouded pain—and he frowns, glances down at least that far and notices the slightest ring of red that’s less angry, not attached to bite marks and broken skin, and he has the wildest thought cross his mind just then, and he steels himself to crane his neck as far as he can, to limit the strain he’ll put on his middle because now he needs to see, because he kinda knew before he cut the sheets and ran into the fray that coming out on the other side meant life behind bars if there was any life at all, yet here he is, increasingly seeming like this is real, and this is his ‘other side’, and…

He’s just in a fucking hospital. He’s…he’s here, and he’s, he’s not…he’s not in fucking chains.

And it stings like a bitch, and Steve’s a second away from stopping him, reaching for him and pressing him safely back onto the the bed, but Eddie gets the glimpse he needs. Recognizes the shape on the floor, shiny steel against the scratched-up linoleum.

“Were you,” Eddie traces the ridges of his teeth with his tongue, because there are layers to what he’s about to ask; “were, umm, were you picking the,” and the first little clatter from before makes more sense if he’s right, and if he’s right, well, fuck.

It’ll be hot as hell, if he’s right.

“That?” Eddie tilts his head toward the floor because: cuffs. What he’d seen, what had fallen: handcuffs. On the floor. And they’d have had to have been not on the floor, and probably on him before, and so, he—

“Possibly,” Steve answers with a straight face, as unapologetic as ever, maybe more; maybe even defiant, and oh, wow. Steve Harrington picking his fucking handcuffs, setting his stupidly-quickly-lovesick ass free.

Hot as fuck; seriously.

“How positively criminal of you, Harrington,” Eddie grins half-maniacal, feels the stretch of it burn against a cut that’s gotta run half the span of his cheek but fuck it, the warmth flooding him is undeniable, is incredible—he’s giddy all of a sudden, straight to his bones.

“S’nothing on hot-wiring,” Steve shrugs, like it’s not fucking everything; “but I wasn’t,” and Steve takes a deep breath before he squares his shoulders, looks at Eddie straight-on and shit, if he thought the warmth in him up to now was something?

It’s kinda got nothing on what consumes him under those eyes.

“I wasn’t going to let you wake up fucking…shackled.”

And goddamn if the fire in that voice, those words, doesn’t light Eddie up like burning, doesn’t shake him to the core and then blanket him in sureness and the kind of protection he didn’t think really existed.

Save that he does kinda think it’s exactly what this man’s made of; made for.

And Eddie can’t escape the certainty rising in his veins and pumping, fierce and unshakable, that he wants—more than maybe anything—to be the one to give that same safety, that same promise of something unwavering and permanent and beyond question, right back to Steve.

“You’re an innocent man,” Steve leans in then, emphatic with it; “you’re a goddamn hero,” and he means it, holy shit, he believes that:

“Like hell I was just gonna,” and he shakes his head, like the idea is just that preposterous; like he cannot even consider anything but Eddie being free, and okay, and here, and…

Eddie’s struck with the sudden slap of realization across the fucking face that he couldn’t have gotten topside by himself. That someone had to get him from the hellscape to here. And of the able bodies in the Upside Down, no matter how strong the girls were, only one could have wrestled him through that gate. Only one could have…whatever he maybe needed, between this bed and that bat-strewn ground, it was, Steve would have been, he’d have—

The force his heart trips, then leaps with, is fucking cataclysmic. Eddie’s honestly surprised it doesn’t just tear out from his throat then and there.

“Plus they’re in the process of finishing the paperwork to make it all official, dropping the charges and all that, clearing your name,” Steve gestures vaguely in the air, like it’s all routine, the feds and the cops sweeping shit under the rug but then he remembers all the side comments he’d collected in the back of his mind these last few days about the ‘last time’ and then ‘the time before that’ and fuck all also the first time—

Maybe it is, just…sick and twisted and harrowing and heartbreaking routine.

“They’re just really fucking slow,” Steve smiles at him, all small and devastating and…

And okay, so that overwhelming urge to be a constant in Steve Harrington’s life, safe next to his heart kinda for always, zero to forever in half-a-blink?

Eddie knew he wanted, when he threw his vest at Steve’s bare chest more for Eddie’s own fucking sanity than anyone’s modesty, but it was all washed in the hopeless-helpless colors of desperation, of why not when I won’t see tomorrow; and now.

Now, all Eddie wants is tomorrow. Every tomorrow. No tomorrows without this man. Without what he saw, how it felt: what he knows in his marrow loving him would be.

It’s probably that conviction etching into his cells that makes makes him softer, a little weepy around the edges; drives him to need through the next words that escape:

“Steve,” Eddie breathes, wishes Steve were just that little bit closer so that the distance he can reach could reach him:

“Thank you.”

“Of course,” Steve waves him off almost, like he doesn’t think everything he is, everything he’s done is monumental. Not just the cuffs but with the cuffs like the cherry on top of how Eddie would—will, if he’s given the chance—devote all that he has and all that he is to making Steve happy. To making him as calm and warm and loved as Eddie could feel in that bedroom, in his head or in the future or on death’s fucking door.

“I mean,” Steve starts, and Eddie can already feel how he’s angling to downplay the thing that’s only swelling, building, growing under Eddie’s own ribs and, well: no.

No, Eddie won’t be standing for that.

“Stevie,” and Steve’s gravitated wordless just close enough for Eddie to be able to brush his fingertips against Steve’s wrist, to curl and pull his hand into Eddie’s grasp, palm splayed above Steve’s knuckles, holding. Keeping.

“Thank you.”

And Steve stills a little, stares at him like he can see what’s tucked up tight and dear in Eddie’s chest and maybe he can, because his voice is feather-light and a little bowled-over. A little…a little awed.

“You’re welcome.”

So yeah, maybe he can see what’s in Eddie’s chest, less tucked in this moment now than fucking, like…

Blooming.

“Do you believe there’s anything waiting when we die?”

Eddie’s gonna blame the frantic blossoming warmth coursing through him for the way he blurts that shit out with no preamble, like maybe the flowering wonder of it all pushes it out without permission, sweet on the back of his tongue but heavy because it matters so much; because it’s all just nostalgia.

For now.

“What?” Steve gapes a little, sounds dumbfounded; maybe a little wary. Fearful.

His hand’s still held under Eddie’s, though, so it’s only natural the way Eddie lifts his fingers and presses them palm-to-palm like it means something.

“Do you?”

“I…don’t know,” Steve swallows hard enough the follow down the taut line of his throat, fucking mesmerizing.

So maybe the way Eddie licks his lips before he says anything more isn’t…isn’t just for the sake of the topic and its weight, is all he’s saying.

“I,��� and Eddie doesn’t really know where he’s going, here, or else: he knows exactly where he’s going.

He’s just not totally sure the path he’s planning to chart along the way for getting there.

“When we were down there, and I was telling you to go after Wheeler,” which yeah, okay, surprise direction there, weird little detour, but…it doesn’t feel wrong.

Which means, if it’s right instead: then that’s everything that is Steve in Eddie’s lungs for breathing, in the chambers of his heart. So he leans into it.

Squeezes Steve’s fingers laced together with his.

“Eddie,” Steve starts, sounds tired, spent, and Eddie was never going to let that happen; no matter where he’s going, or leading them down the path of his revelations, the truth etched new but also deep in his bones like it was only waiting to be found and known.

“It was because that’s what I wanted. For me. I wanted to,” and his breath catches on a little chuckle, so light and choked and a little hysterical as he adds, giddy and a little bashful all together at once:

“Unambiguously, umm,” and he trails a little, wants to hide behind his hair just a touch but to do that would require a broader capacity to move in the first place and more, so much more: it would mean letting go of Steve’s hand.

So: absolutely not.

Especially not when Steve’s gone full dropped-jaw gaping at him, his fingers in Eddie’s grasp twitching like he’s confused, like maybe there’s part of him short-circuiting, and Eddie feels his exhales tremble when he finally blinks, finally tilts his head and takes Eddie in at a new angle before he asks, genuine and not just a little lost:

“Seriously?”

And Eddie…Eddie’s actually never been more serious in his life, so.

“Like,” and he circles Steve’s knuckles delicate-like with his thumb: “I wanted the chance, to try, I guess, yeah.”

And he doesn’t know if he’s risking everything to own it, even if he’s owning just a sliver of the breadth and depth that he feels, but he does know unequivocally that he wouldn’t hold it back if given the choice, the opportunity to do it over and not show his bloody-beating heart on display.

A bloody-beating heart that’s moving quicker, slamming harder against his chest but…that actually feels like the only correct thing it could do. Because this merits it.

This kinda is his whole fucking heart.

“Do you still?”

It takes Eddie a longer string of seconds than he’d prefer to own to, to process the words as having meaning, no matter that he doesn’t fucking understand what they’re aiming at.

“What?”

“Want,” and Steve’s the one squeezing Eddie’s hand now, turning a little to graze at the line of his veins at the wrist; “the chance.”

And he says it deceptively casual, despite how he’s staring at their hands, determinedly not meeting Eddie gaze as Eddie gets his chance at the gaping.

“Fuck yes,” Eddie finally huffs on something not unlike unabashed fucking joy, save that this thing he’s feeling is so much bigger, and when Steve looks up, meets his eyes and his own glimmer, shine so bright and brim with such disbelief, but so much stronger and with such hope, Jesus.

Eddie can’t help the giggle that bubbles out of him. Like his whole fucking soul gets shaped into a single breath of exultant delight.

And they both hold to one another, trace across skin and map the lines and dots and scars, and Eddie’s not stupid, he knows this isn’t how it works but…

But he’d still bet money on the fact that the way he’s touching Steve, so innocent and so quietly intimate, is healing his wounds, shoring up his weaknesses and stitching him up fuller, better, breath by shared-sacred breath.

It’s heady as fuck. It’s exquisite.

“Why’d you ask me about when we die?”

Steve’s the one to break the still, and even that’s not breaking anything, really; he speaks so soft. He’s stroking down from Eddie’s thumb back and forth.

It’s not breaking anything.

“I saw something,” Eddie whispers, not sure what reaction that’ll get, and Steve’s staring at their hands again, marveling really, so Eddie can’t read any hint save for the crinkled furrow in his brow.

“But you didn’t die.”

Which isn’t the reaction he thinks he expected, even if Eddie couldn’t name what he did expect. And it’s also not a revelation he thought he’d receive.

“Not at all?”

Because he’s genuinely surprised. He at least figured he’d flatlined like…long enough to have visions of absolute and total domestic bliss and shit.

But Steve’s shaking his head decisively, holding on to Eddie just a little bit tighter.

“You had a pulse, whole way to he hospital,” he tells Eddie, voice gone a little hoarse; “it wasn’t strong but,” and Steve looks up at him, and fuck, those eyes are too shiny now and Eddie doesn’t want that, he doesn’t want his Steve to hurt, he—

“I fucking held you,” Steve croaks and oh, oh he’s shaking, Jesus—

“I kinda,” and he swallows with a click Eddie can hear, around a throbbing pulse Eddie can see, wants nothing more than to soothe with his lips against that tender skin; “I kinda had to make sure, so,” and the hand that’s not holding Eddie’s comes up, trembling as he reaches toward Eddie’s chest:

“Kept my hand pressed, just,” and his voice gives, and he looks up at Eddie with something like devastation, begging something like permission because he doesn’t know that everything that Eddie is, is his.

But he will.

He will know.

“Yeah?” Eddie breathes out, holds Steve gaze as he nods, as he tries to make it clear that anything Steve needs is his, and then some.

It takes a second, but the shine in those eyes finally shifts, finally brightens and then Steve’s breathing’s made of tremors, but his hand finds Eddie’s chest and sends something sparking like lighting through him just as the whole of Eddie feels immediately like he’s home.

And Steve’s hand on his chest feels exactly like it did in their future bed, in their future room, in their future life.

Their always love.

“Yeah,” Steve whispers, then takes a moment, palm splayed wide just above Eddie’s bandages, before he’s gripping Eddie’s wrist with the other hand a little harder:

“It’s so fast,” he exhales like it holds the whole world and then some; he wonders at just Eddie’s heartbeat under his touch and god.

God, but Eddie…Eddie couldn’t have imagined he’d ever feel like this. Let alone feel like maybe it’s mutual, maybe it’s real, maybe he can keep it and stay in this feeling for forever.

“Fuck yeah it is,” Eddie murmurs, then he chuckles, inhales deep maybe just to better feel the weight of Steve’s hand; “making up for the lost opportunity, y’know,” and fuck, all he wants is to be able to lean, to kiss the pout of those lips, to taste what it means to love somebody like he’s never done before.

“Making up for what it missed the last time your hand was there to feel it.”

And Steve’s hand above his thrumming heart twitches just a little, but never flags or makes to move, to leave, and Eddie thinks that he’d be fine if he lived the rest on his days with Steve like that, near enough that he could press a hand to Eddie’s heart at all times and just…just know that it’s his.

Because maybe it’s sudden—it’s definitely quick—but Eddie’s never known anything like he knows this.

“Eddie,” Steve finally whispers, a question and a claim and a means of cradling Eddie to his heart, somehow, for how swathed in light and affection Eddie feels in that moment, in just the shape of his name like it’s never been spoken before.

“I saw the future,” Eddie blurts out in a rush, breath coming a little quicker and heart-under-Steve’s-hand pounding harder. “Maybe. I don’t know, I mean, it sounds so stupid when I say it out loud but it felt so,” but then he looks into Steve’s eyes again and Steve is listening, Steve’s maybe doesn’t think he’s crazy, so he feels safe enough to say with his whole fucking chest:

“It felt real, Stevie.”

“What was it?” Steve asks, so quiet, so gentle like he doesn’t want to disturb this thing either, like he doesn’t need to hear it spelled out yet to know it’s delicate, the most important thing in the world, which fuck yeah it is, even as it cracks and chokes for the flood of feeling around it when it presses up from Eddie’s chest:

“Us,” Eddie breathes it out like the precious truth it genuinely fucking is:

“It was us.”

And Steve doesn’t say anything, but his eyes glimmer all the more, swimming with a riot of emotion to a degree than Eddie feels drowned in awe just to see it, and his hands on Eddie hold tighter, more fervent, devoted like a pledge for the way it runs through Eddie’s blood and sings in his veins:

“Even if it wasn’t real,” but Eddie’s doesn’t believe that, not really, not in his heart of hearts where it all pounds into the crevices that map Steve’s touch; “even if I wasn’t seeing the actual future,” and maybe he wasn’t, maybe that wasn’t their future, and maybe he’ll never know, but what he does know, is—

“It felt right, Steve.”

He knows that clearer than he knows the sky is blue.

“It was just a few minutes,” Eddie flounders a little, mostly because he remembers how good it was, written indelible into how much he wants, here and now:

“But I have never felt anything so right.”

He breathes, shaky and shallow and too fucking fast, but then Steve starts stroking his palm along the unmarked spaces of his chest, back and forth over the gallop of his heart like he means to stay there. Like he could ever want to keep.

“Well,” Steve whispers, his eyes on the path of his hand to make sure he doesn’t draw any pain—as if he ever could—until he knows the safe route over and back, again and again, and then he looks up, catches Eddie’s eyes and locks there, doesn’t pin so much as holds, holds, holds.

And good fucking god, Eddie feels it glisten through him like starlight; Eddie feels remade before Steve’s leaning in, lower than to meet Eddie’s mouth but then he’s pressing his lips to the dip between Eddie’s collarbones, holding there, breathing like he means to savor, like he means to cherish, like he means to, to…

To stay.

And Eddie’s heart’s under that hand and those lips all at once, wholly Steve’s while it quivers like a riot, while it leaps as Steve changes the world, writes their fucking future where his mouth drags wet and warm and ardent and there’s nothing in it at all that can be anything other than at least on the way to love as he breathes, fucking vows:

“We gotta try, then, don’t we?”

♥️

>>>also on ao3✨

for @penny00dreadful 🖤 still very fucking sorry it's this late

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divider credit here and here

[fatuismooches]

A compilation of a few notes in no particular order written by two odd scholars found by the Traveler on their journey throughout Sumeru. Some of the words have been crossed out or lost to time, making them illegible.

Forgotten Note (found in the desert inside a huge Ruin Golem)

[A page torn from someone's notebook that seems to be hastily written and forgotten.]

... I can't believe what I've just witnessed. We spent DAYS traveling out here to the desert because Zandik wanted to tinker with that huge robot for ages. Me too of course, but that's not the point. Here he was just a few moments ago, brimming with excitement at being able to pilot it. It was cute...

... And then not even a minute later, he was hunched over, clutching his stomach and mouth. I was initially concerned, but he merely waved me off and began writing at the speed of light, still holding back the urge to throw up. And that's when I realized this fool was ███-███...

... Zandik was going to give it one more go but I quickly stopped him. I wasn't about to have him getting sicker than he already was. Tried to fight me on it but he was dizzy enough to take himself out. He's currently grumbling at me in the corner, but he'll get over it...

... Silly man, he let me put his head on my lap while he rested. Good thing I packed some light snacks... but note to self: for the foreseeable future, don't let Zandik into any kind of transportation. Hopefully, he'll outgrow it one day though...

—

Zandik's Note (found on the edge of Sumeru near Fontaine)

[A short note containing idle thoughts - the lack of importance may have caused it to be discarded.]

... There is an area in the desert that provides a clear and close view of the neighboring nation, Fontaine. [Name] insisted on showing me it as we happened to be close by...

... I'm not particularly interested in that land, but there are some things that may be worth looking into. [Name], however, wants to get academic leave to do some research there - more truthfully, they want to try out the macarons. How typical of them...

I suppose it's not the worst idea. They are an excellent partner, plus the extra ███ would be useful for my ███ research, and I'd make sure those people would never know...

... Regardless, there's no rush. Perhaps one day we can go...

—

[Name]'s Observation Log - Page 34-35 (found in the rainforest inside a tree hollow)

[A page torn from an observation log wedged deep inside a tree, preserving a little bit of its contents - it seems the writer wanted to hide it.]

... Day 1 of my first expedition with Zandik. Of course, every course comes with a dreaded group project but I am happy to be paired with him. Zandik, however, not so much. He's barely spoken to me the whole time. Well, he barely speaks to anyone in general, guess that's part of the reason other students refer to him as ███ ███. But I literally live with him, don't I deserve some special privilege?...

... Day 2 of my first expedition with Zandik. I looked a bit at his notes last night so I could start drafting the research report, but then he snatched them away when he noticed. He's extra grumpy at me now. I wonder what kind of things he writes about...

... Day 3 of my first expedition with Zandik. We've gotten a lot of stuff done but he seems far more interested in ███ than looking at plants. There's this one ruin in the distance he keeps eyeing. I bet if I wasn't here, he'd be there. If I present him with a ███ ███ of each type, would he finally talk to me? Hmm, that'd be hard to hide from the sages though...

... Day 4 of my first expedition with Zandik. I lied and said there was a better spot to get samples and brought him to that ruin. Long story short and after a lot of annoyed Zandik later, we made it in. When the killing machines awakened, it seemed he had a bright idea and had begun instructing me to hit them in a very precise way. Well, he certainly knows how to use someone efficiently... After all of that, all of a sudden he had found his voice and began shooting off orders to fetch this tool or that textbook and so on. Never got a thank you but he compensated with some loud, excited mumbles...

... Day 5 of my first expedition with Zandik. Thanks to Zandik actually doing his share of the work, we finished the fieldwork quickly. I showed him what I had so far and he seemed pleasantly surprised, although his expression was still flat. As we worked, he wasn't as talkative as he was yesterday, but the silence wasn't awkward like before. Well, as long as I get paired with Zandik, I think I'll survive this semester, and it'll be a bonus if he warms up to me. Speaking of warming up to me, Zandik wants to come back to the ruin we went to yesterday - with me too!!!!! It'll be our little secret that no one will find out. I think I got on his good side a bit, he looks cute when he's smiling. His teeth are even sharper up close.....

—

Nearly Torn Note (found inside an ancient book in the House of Daena)

[A small paper that has nearly been ripped in half, but some of the words are still cohesive.]

... I ███ them. Why are they here? I told them I did not need help, nor was I interested in assisting them. But they're here anyway. Of course they are. When are they not? Is there ever a moment when they're not constantly chirping in my ear? No, of course not. I'm ███ to live with them after all...

... With their ███ smell wafting through the dorm after a shower, or the scent of their cooking that they specially make ███ ███...

... Their stupid voice is prattling away right now, and I ███ how I do ███ find it irritating. My mind seems to automatically ███ ███ anything their ███ mouth says...

... I found their touch repulsive, but now I ███ for them to...

... There is something wrong with ███...

[At the bottom lays a tiny doodle of someone, presumably the person who occupied Zandik's mind, and has been intensely scratched off.]

—

Collaborative Note (found in an old camp near the woods)

[An abandoned note that appears to be written by two people. The top half is messily written and smudged thanks to the large amount of ink spills and blots. The second half is neater but the writer seems to have given up.]

... My ███ is a ███. Thanks to ███ help, we were able to acquire numerous ███ to help with the ███ ███. Were it not for them, there could have been a great ███ in my ███...

--------------------------

...Alright, that's it. Zandik is banned from writing notes now. I'm drawing the line. I bought five pens with us, and he has broken four of them so far. It's barely been a few hours! I still don't know how he does it- okay well now he's tapping me impatiently to write down his thoughts. Best get on it before he breaks this one and starts using ███ as ink...

...After a series of ███ were conducted, it has been concluded that it may be ███ for a ███ ███ to be ███-███. Wait... all the ink is on my hand now! And it smudged more!! Ugh!!!...

... I'm going to start forcing him to wear gloves... he's getting his inked hands all over me... at least we can shower ███!...

—

Paimon and the Traveler reviewed the notes they found contemplatingly - it was definitely not all of them, considering how hidden many of them were - but they found themselves oddly intrigued by the multitude of notes left by these two characters. Paimon was more interested in the love story part.

"You know, Paimon's not too sure... she's getting some mixed vibes from Zandik here... he seems kind of a big meanie to [Name] to be honest!" The Traveler watched in amusement as Paimon got grumpy on your behalf.

"... But he does seem to lighten up sometimes. Maybe he's not as bad as we think. Guess we can't piece together their relationships just from some notes, eh?"

"Well, Paimon thinks they seemed like a cute couple, well, minus for some things. Mostly, um... Zandik's oddness which you can't really excuse but I guess it's okay because they're long dead! Still, [Name] sure had strange taste in men..."

[gin-juice-tonic]

Also also. If you always come out of therapy sessions feeling worse than when you went in, over and over, you may want to consider trying a different therapist or at least ask the one you have to try a different method of whatever you're doing in there.

[tizeline]

1-I've fallen in love with your Tiz Sep AU, especially how you made Mikey the problem child with the hardest redemption arc out of the 4, because normally it's not Mikey who gets that role (Cause he'll always be a sweet kid no matter what dimension or universe or faction he's in<3), so I'm really interested to see how Sep Mikey and Sep Donnie finally reconcile and become closer<3<3<3<3

I'm glad you're enjoying the AU :D! And I'm still trying to figure out how the events of the movie is gonna go down in the AU, but so far this is what I've come up with (though keep in mind this is subject to change)

So it's during season 2 that all that drama between Mikey and... basically everyone else in his family gets really intense, but he does end up mostly reconciling with Leo, Raph and Draxum during the season 2 finale (don't know the details yet, just that it's gonna happen). With that character development, Mikey also grows more accepting towards humans, he still doesn't like them but he's also not trying to destroy them all so that's something!

But Mikey and Donnie just can't seem to get along, in the time leading up to the invasion they're just stuck in this constant state of animosity. Raph and Leo certainly try to mediate, but it's almost like Mikey and Donnie don't want to get along. It's kinda one of those situations where it doesn't really matter why two people started fighting, cuz now they're been fighting for so long and about so many things that it feels impossible to even try to make peace.

So then The Foot get the Key, which in the AU happens because Donnie and Mikey can't stop fighting for two fricking seconds and they screw up the mission. And then each of them blame the other for the mission going wrong, which just gets worse when Casey Jr shows up and warns them about the Krang and goddam these two are being annoying. STILL! Despite their less than ideal relationship, they have started genuinely care about each other, and they both feel guilty about losing the Key, so when Mikey sees an opportunity of getting the Key back he goes for it (like canon!Leo did). And when Donnie sees that Mikey is about to get fucking skewered by the Krang, he jumps in front of his little brother and shield him with his own body (like canon!Raph did).

The story from here on out is not as thought out, but needless to say Donnie gets captured and "krangified". I'm kinda thinking that instead of the Krang just making him a soldier like Raph was, they instead hook Donnie up to the Technodrome or something? And after being freed from the Krang's control, maybe Donnie can still take control of the Technodrome himself to pilot it back through the portal. Cuz ya know, they still need a way to send it back into the prison dimension and the other turtles can't connect to the TD because of their hard shells. I did have an idea of potentially making April pilot the thing lmao, but I also have a headcanon that the only reason Donnie could pilot the TD at all was because he has some Krang DNA in him (empyrean), which April obviously doesn't. So Donnie will still probably be the one to send the TD back into the prison dimension.

In the AU, I imagine that Leo and Raph are still kinda dealing with the whole leadership-issue throughout the invasion haha. It's not nearly as dramatic and hostile this time around, don't worry! But I love the idea of Leo and Raph becoming co-leaders, only problem is that they're still trying to figure out what exactly that looks like for them. It not a huge issue when they're doing small-scale missions, but with how intense and stressful the invasion is, they're kinda struggling figuring out how exactly their dynamic should look like.

But back to Mikey, he obviously feels guilty as fuck over Donnie sacrificing himself for him and he's not handling very well. Mikey having lost access to his mystic powers is also really getting to him considering how heavily he relies on them. Leo's drama with Casey Jr in the movie is in the AU replaced with Mikey's drama with Casey Jr. Mikey is initially pretty cold towards CJ just because he's human, when Donnie gets taken Mikey decides to direct his hurt and anger at CJ because... well... he's human! And he didn't properly warn them about the Krang! So obviously it's somehow his fault that Donnie got taken! Somehow! It's very weird for CJ to interact with pre-character-development-Mikey acting like a petty brat about the whole situation, he's hurt by it but also quickly just grows very annoyed at Mikey's hostility towards him. And then we get That One Scene where CJ yells at Leo to get his shit together, except of course this time it's him yelling at Mikey haha.

Anyway, then Mikey DOES get his shit together, and he manages to help Donnie break free of the Krang's control by giving this big heartfelt speech about how he's sorry about how he has been acting and he wants to befriend Donnie and become real brother, you get it. But Mikey still feels guilty about everything that has happened, and to add on to that he still kinda has main character syndrome lol. Point is when Raph, Leo and Donnie all get knocked out of the fight and it's only Mikey against Krang One, he pretty quickly decides to sacrifice himself if it means defeating the Krang. It goes down pretty similarly to how Leo did it in canon, Mikey can fly so he lures Krang One into the prison dimension and is able to restrain him there long enough with his chains to convince CJ to close the portal.

So then the question is - how the HELL does he get out of there??? Mikey opened up the portal in canon, which is gonna be hard for him to do in the AU if he's being beaten within an inch of his life by Krang One haha. But I do think I've figured it out, so Leo and Raph at this point in the story have unlocked their Hamato Ninpo but Mikey hasn't, because their Ninpo is fueled by like... the connection to their family, and Mikey doesn't feel very connected to his Hamato ancestry before this obviously. But what if this is the moment where he doesn finally unlock his Ninpo! After both Donnie and Mikey proved their dedication to each other through their sacrifices, Mikey finally feels connected to the Hamato family. The way I imagine this scene is that it's not just Mikey creating the portal, his brothers are reaching out to him with their Ninpo and Mikey is able to reach back, even while in different dimensions. They're able to establish a familiar connection and because of that a litteral connection is formed through the portal, and Mikey is brought home.

Lastly I wanna talk about Donnie, specifically the uh. Injury he gets from the Krang when he shields Mikey. I actually drew this really quick sketch of that moment a while back but I never posted it here so I might as well do it now! It's not super gory or anything, but Donnie's shoulder got a little but fucking impaled and also there's blood so I'm putting it underneath the read more thing

Haha remember when I said this this AU was gonna stay mostly silly goofy? Teehee!

Anyway, I can't really decide if I wanna make Donnie just lose his enitre arm after this because lol. Lmao. But the reason Donnie doesn't like die from blood loss right after this moment is because the Krang goop is sealing up the injury, both when he first gets captured and interrogated, as well as during the time when he's under Krang control. After he's freed, he's mostly only able to help in the fight by piloting the Technodrome up partway through the portal, maybe he's able to like act as support in the fight against Krang One by using his Ninpo? But yeah no he basically gets benched as soon as his brothers get him back because he's still quite injured.

But look on the bright side, Mikey and Donnie both being on bedrest after the invasion gives them PLENTY of time to bond! :D Like sure, they showed how far they're both willing to go for each other during the invasion, but they've still got a lot of bad blood to sort out afterwards and them both being stuck in medbay kinda forces them to deal with their problems haha. So yeah, while the invasion is the catalyst for them making peace, it's mostly during their recovery that they properly bond with each other. (Prepare for B-Team cuddles, it WILL happen!)

And you asked about specifially when Donnie loses his immunity towards Mikey's puppy dog eyes, and I'd imagine it's during their recovery. Not only because they're growing closer, but also because his baby brother is INJURED and SUFFERING and to Donnie's horror he quickly realizes that he is unable to say no to Mikey now haha XD

HOOBOY that's basically everything, I still have to figure out a lot of the details, but writing this all down made me realize that I've figured out way more of the plot than I initially thought, so that's nice!

[thesmokinpossum]

If My Body Could Speak, Blythe Baird | The Godfather, Mario Puzo | My Father's House, Sylvia Fraser | To The Daughter Who Secretly Longs For Her Mother’s Affection, Lynne Shako | Storms from Jupiter, Wanda Deglane | DO NOT REPLY, @filmnoirsbian

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: death mention / strangulation mention / stabbing mention / blood mention / self-sacrifice / codependency mention in tags / ]

I think a lot about how common it is for Raph to be the one to have direct focus put on him when Leo gets into all his near death experiences.

Like, when Leo is thrown off a building, it’s Raph who’s right there jumping after him, not even thinking about the consequences to himself when he does. When Leo almost gets skewered by the Krang, Raph’s right there to take the blow and send Leo to safety without a second thought. When Leo��s being strangled to near death, it’s a Krangified Raph doing the job, doing exactly what Raph would never, ever want to do. When Leo is telling Casey Jr to close the portal, it’s Raph who tries desperately to convince Leo otherwise.

Likewise, Leo is consistently very single minded when Raph gets forcibly separated from them. Both when in the sewers and by the Krang, Leo is dead set on finding Raph first and foremost.

I also think it’s interesting that during each of Leo’s near death experiences, the lightheartedness of his words during them goes directly hand in hand with both how close Raph is to him physically and how much danger Raph is also in in that moment. From a literal “I told you so” as Leo’s falling away from Raph to a soft joke about how “hero moves” are Raph’s style - both of these are on the more morbidly carefree side and both of these notably take Leo farther away from Raph and, in turn, have Raph not in immediate danger.

On the other side of things is the apology from Leo, heedless of the danger he himself is in as he seriously and genuinely speaks to a Krangified Raph face to face. Then there’s Leo’s freezing and desperation as Raph takes a hit meant for him and sends just Leo to safety, leaving Raph himself behind. Both of these involve much closer proximity and Raph being directly harmed - these together make Leo much more vulnerable in his words and actions, something not even the threat of death can make him.

These two care about each other so much, and they’re way too much alike for their own good.

[yume-fanfare]

lots of monsters ☆ sweet halloween (x)

[secriden]

You know what makes me soooo excited for the next phase of Fadel and Style's relationship? It's that they will finally slot into the CORRECT relationship dynamics because this whole time, it's been flipped.

From the beginning, something felt off, and I think it's because Style's true desire is to be pursued. We are shown this pretty much in Style's introduction when he blatantly puts his body on display with the Crop Top Stretch. Style wants to be approached, wants to be propositioned, wants to be desired. Also, remember how he initially flirts with Fadel when his only motivation was his own attraction? He pinned the Heart Burger badge onto his chest to create an opportunity for Fadel to put his hands on Style's body.

Of course Fadel wasn't pursuing Style; was in fact, actively trying to get away (for reasons OTHER than a lack of physical attraction to Style), so it is the plot that has to drive our lovebirds together using Kant's request and partly Style's own desire to get some revenge.

But throughout their interactions, we constantly see glimpses of Style's desire to be pursued: every single time Fadel even shows a HINT of wanting Style, he immediately falls pliant, like he can't wait to let Fadel take the reins. And nothing shows this more clearly than the absolutely blissed out look on Style's face in Ep 4 when he thinks Fadel has finally admitted that he wants Style.

(Fucking hell, just look at how dazed and almost euphoric Style looks here? It's like Style has been starving for the barest hint that Fadel truly wants him.)

Which is also why we've gotten so many fake outs. Because although Fadel IS attracted to Style (Ep 2 made that...abundantly clear), he isn’t remotely ready to pursue anyone. Not only is Fadel nursing a broken heart, barely beating, he also has very justified suspicions about Style’s connection to Kant and Style's unnatural persistence.

So it's Style that has to pursue - he dodges Fadel's footsteps, and bullies his way into Fadel's life; but in between the frustration and annoyance, Fadel's walls begin to crack. And I think it's SO COOL that the first significant evidence we have of Fadel's walls crumbling is because Style puts his body on display for Fadel. Because Fadel responded to something that was naturally part of the way Style operates before he even met Fadel. And there are other, more compelling reasons why I think Fadel begins to fall for Style, but that's not really the point I'm trying to make here.

When Fadel said "If I like you, I'll do the pursuing", it wasn't just to get Style to back off. Because now that Fadel has finally chosen to explore something real with Style, we are seeing Fadel's words in action. I know some people have said Fadel's switch to flirting so blatantly with Style in Ep 4's gym scene came out of left field, but I think it may well be confirmation that this was always the dynamic they were meant to be in. Fadel likes pursuing and Style likes being pursued. They fit, they match, they're perfectly compatible.

(Fadel looks almost faintly amused by how "flustered" Style is. Because he doesn't know that Style is actually afraid of him - why would he, when Style has evidenced zero fear so far? So this comes across like Style is getting shy in response to Fadel's unexpected and more overt approach. And possibly this is Fadel starting to remember how much he enjoys the chasing.)

Unfortunately, Kant's revelation is going to screw allll of this up. But, we are finally going to see glimpses of how they work when they're aligned correctly in their dynamics! And while it will take a journey (and oh, it will be gloriously painful, won't it?), our boys are finally on the road to something lasting and I am sooo glad we get to come along for the ride. <3

[deliriousblue]

THE HEART KILLERS (2024) episode nine

[elsecrytt]

masochist gojo. gojo who's in love with pain, so much that it feels like pleasure, he can barely distinguish between the two anymore.

gojo who's so starved for touch. who's had an infinite space between himself and the whole world for so long, for so many years, every day in and day out.

gojo who's survived off glancing presses when a barista hands him a coffee, the rare hug from his students (who are mostly orphans) that he can't bring himself to decline.

gojo who craves more but can't bring himself to accept it except in fleeting moments with strangers or students.

his hands that long to be held. he wants it so bad that he teases a cursed spirit, laces his fingers with its own, right before he utterly crushes the being in battle, untouchable all over again.

gojo whose skin is hungry for someone else's. he hasn't felt the warmth of a hand in his own in so long. not since - since his youth.

gojo who sometimes wishes he could get hit. who sees the impact of curse techniques on his infinity and feels a wild, strange desire for them to go straight through and strike him.

he imagines it, vividly, being impaled by a long spear (inverted spear) that goes straight through him. how it would lance his flesh so cleanly.

being struck so hard, across the face, in the stomach, enough to knock the wind out of him.

enough to feel it with his whole body.

gojo who wants to be touched so bad he doesn't even care if it hurts anymore. infinity couldn't protect him from geto's betrayal.

gojo who keeps infinity up not because he doesn't want to get hit, but because he's terrified of what he might do when it happens.

gojo who got hard whenever geto sparred with him. he still doesn't know if it was because of geto, or because he had no infinity back then, no way to block the strikes.

he dreams of his youth. bruises littering his pale, pretty form like kisses, proof that he was human, there, that there was someone who could reach him.

dark purple things that turned pretty colors as they healed. he remembers pressing into them, relishing the hurt, feeling like he was getting hit (touched, reached, connected) all over again.

nothing ever touches him again. not like that. not like anything.

he never feels it. he never feels anything.

satoru gojo who wants, so very very badly, to feel something.

pain is a choice for him, always a choice. he alone has the privilege of deciding whether or not anything can touch him.

he could try to let more strangers touch him. one night stands, discreet arrangements. he had a pretty face and a body to match. there was no shortage of willing partners.

he lets them touch him, lets them hurt him. lets them drool over his body and use it at their leisure. they tell him he's beautiful, and he believes them.

white hair, blue eyes, sprawled out with a lean, unmarred body full of bare flesh for them to bite and scratch and bruise. he finds people who will do it, do it hard, fuck him up until he's lost entirely in the feeling of being touched, having someone against him, with him, above him.

it makes him feel like a piece of meat. it makes him feel good.

or he thinks it does, anyways.

sometimes, when he's gone particularly long without sleep, when his partner has gone particularly hard, he gets a real rush.

heart racing out of his chest. a cold sweat that overwhelms him. breaths coming in labored gasps. he can heal himself, he's physically fine, so this must all be in his head.

he acknowledges that information, distantly, like it's not happening to him. it doesn't help.

it feels like part of his body has been ripped away from him, something vital and important, and it's about to get up and run away.

always, always, it happens when his partner is no longer touching him. when he lays alone in the sheets, by his own volition, because of course these partners are not meant to be attachments.

love is not a privilege, though, not for the strongest sorcerer. it's a curse.

it's the only curse which infinity cannot protect him from.

so gojo stays untouchable. distant.

but the hunger doesn't go away. never.

he likes to imagine that suguru swallowed this one last curse before he died. something sweet and bitter, like losses at the arcade, sunny days at the beach, walking together with shoko, nanami, haibara.

but even suguru couldn't have absorbed this curse. it's in his bones, deep, longing and wanting even after he's dead and gone.

gojo is hungry. he is so, so hungry. and he has nothing to eat that will not leave him just as empty as before.

touch-starved. love-starved. pain-craving.

if someone could hurt him then it wouldn't matter that he was terrified of attachment. they could latch onto him, into his heart, under his skin. bury themselves in his chest like they belonged.

they could kill a hundred and twelve people and it wouldn't matter, because he wouldn't be able to kill them.

gojo is hungry, so hungry.

please feed him.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

best BEAST!!

[nenoname]

Gravity Falls DVD Commentary Highlights

(just a huge, and I mean huge, dump of random quotes that stuck out to me, which I sorta separated into characters+their relationships and it's probably gonna be obvious that Stan is my fave lmao

I dunno how to make this legible for anyone but whatever, just take all these rando character tidbits. Stan Twin pranks! Sonployee essays! The concept for a post-Weirdmageddon episode that Alex insists is just too miserable but I want it anyway! The Pines family making me cry!)

Stan

"We love the idea of Stan [in Boss Mabel] having a minute to uh, having a context where we want to see him be his worst self and seeing his big brash personality in like a setting that everyone can understand, because the Mystery Shack is a little bit ungrounded because he's in his world of his characters, but seeing him out in the outside world is funny weird."

We really enjoyed the fact that he's as awful as ever and he's rewarded for it. We like those anti-morals where Stan uses his terribleness to succeed incredibly well.

I think it was a little hard for people to understand in the writer's room at the beginning of the series was that, even though Stan is following a lot of these tropes of being a miser, he's not grumpy. Like he actually loves being himself. He really revels in it like even though he's got some kind of sorrow inside, his kind of day-to-day like he's more about just the uncle who loves to hear himself and make dumb jokes than he is somebody who's mean or cruel or cynical per se.

The [NWHS] storyboards managed to make Stan this awesome action hero while still keeping him Stan. Like I like the fact that he steals a wallet in the middle of it. He steals a wallet, he smashes somebody against the wall, he sasses him but he also has this just great Inception moment. And it's because we're building to a big question about “who is Stan?”, I felt a moment of seeing him be kind of awesome further increases your “who is this guy?” He keeps going back and forth between like “oh geez my back” and you're like “all right that's the Stan I know” and then like “whoa, he just did an awesome jailbreak! Is he some kind of super villain? Who is he really?

There's more of Ford in Stan than I think Stan realizes that I think only comes out in certain moments.”

Why did Stan keep a clipping of himself titled “grifter at large”? I think he thought he looked cool in that picture. “You know I kind of have a Clint Eastwood look in this grifter at large photo. I think maybe I'll use this as an About the Author one day. I gotta hold on to this one. You know what, I'm a criminal but I'm a nostalgic criminal! Loving the past is my greatest crime now!”

I know how Stan feels in this [Principal talking to his family] scene, when somebody comes in and says like “You know what? There was a race you didn't know you were running and you're already behind, way behind.” 

And you know even though Stan is a guy who looks like he's having a fun time, I always, in my gut, thought of him as somebody who is a huge well of sadness, a loss of human connection. And that need to please, that trying to get laughs from the crowd and constantly telling dumb jokes and you know putting on a big show in the Mystery Shack, he's trying to get from them the affection that he never got from his family and lost with his brother.

Stan has been waiting for years to have a reunion with his brother. He's always felt like a screw-up. Stan once again had an idea of how he thought things were going to go. He thought that his brother was saying “I need your help” for the first time. He's going to go up there, they're gonna have some drinks, they're gonna catch up and instead he ended up shoving his brother into another dimension and running out of food and money. It's sort of his worst nightmare. But this was Stan's entire character, from the very beginning of the series, was built around this idea that he's living with this tragedy. He's a guy who outwardly seems like he doesn't appreciate family but in fact wants it more than anything in the world and feels like maybe he's not worthy of it and would do anything to prove that he is.

Seeing Stan figure out what he's good at felt important to me. Like he's never been good at anything in his life and he makes a stupid hokey joke and it suddenly turns into a profit. I felt like without [showing how the Mystery Shack was created], I was missing something and understanding why he would do this, how this would be the solution to his problem.

We would like the idea that Stan appears to win through dumb luck, that it's sort of Intelligence versus Guts but Stan wouldn't actually bet everyone's life on a dice roll. He's a cheater! At the end of the day, I believe Stan has been thrown out of Vegas for counting cards and for weighing dies and I believe he could con his way out of any game, particularly for an obnoxious wizard like this. The idea that Stan would gamble everyone on pure chance is like no. No, he's got a plan. This is the guy who escaped prison using gravity leaps, he's got a way out.

The one big thing [The Stanchurian Candidate] does is really highlights Stan's inferiority complex compared to his brother. Part of what he's doing is he's trying to be an important man here and this episode is actually a pretty good setup in many ways for Weirdmageddon Part 3. When we see Ford they're all going on this rescue mission to rescue Ford and this episode shows you just how much Stan wants to be the hero like the reason that he can't shake Ford's hand when they're in that circle.  The cold open of this where he sees everyone loves Ford and now that Ford's back, he's the best. Stan's like “well, how about I run for mayor!” It's just to boost his ego and make him feel better about himself.

Dipper and Mabel

“Straight man protagonists are really hard to write because every other character had a comedic hook. We understand that Soos is kind of this weirdo, his brain is in another place. Mabel has this exuberance and sees the best in every situation and is very creative. Stan is a crooked conman. Dipper is… the normal guy and a character like that can often feel like they don’t have agency, start to feel just reactive.

Waddles is Mabel's only love that lasts the summer. Mabel is very prone to love at first sight and Waddles is able to love back with Mabel's degree of love.

[In Sock Opera] Mabel's in love with Gabe, Dipper's in love with the Author and they're both willing to do something crazy to get get closer to that thing

There kept being layers of adjustment to make it, “okay what would it take to get Dipper to make a deal with Bill?”  1: He would have to not understand the rules of the deal. He's been tricked, he thinks he's just giving a puppet, he didn't know was himself. Classic genie rules, you get what you wish for in a way you didn't expect.  2: There's a little ticking clock that just started, which if he doesn't do it by now, he's gonna lose all this.  3: Bill rightfully points out that Mabel has been kind of not sacrificing for him and he maybe needs another ally right now  4: He was sleep deprived and actually you'll notice that Dipper blinks right before Bill arrives and that's our way of suggesting that that countdown might not have even existed

I think Dipper and Mabel are of equal exact intelligence but Dipper's insecure. He sees his accomplishments as a way to make himself better and thus is motivated to focus on things that are accomplishment type things. And Mabel is very confident and likes having fun and when she's having a good time, she has a little tunnel vision for the people and the things around her. That's one of her biggest flaws. She's actually really, really sweet when she notices and understands your pain but not when she's doing a bit, when she's doing a scene, when she's doing a gag.

Ford

Originally [the fake Author] looked a little bit more like an oddball wacky inventor and I felt he had to be pretty idiosyncratic. There's certain color things about him you'll notice. He's more or less got the color scheme of the Journal, you know maroons and golds, so that you kind of feel instinctively like maybe that's him. A lot of these motifs though we would end up using in Ford's design, as well the gloves and the coat and all that but much cooler later on but preparing you, it's Ford Lite. 

Now this is there's no logical reason that Ford would break [the warnings about the portal] up into all these books this way but up until this point he's been shown as this sort of all-knowing mysterious Puzzle Master that it felt appropriate, even though it's not logical.

It works for the storytelling so when Ford wrote that, that's when he was super sleep deprived. He realized that Bill had betrayed him, he was starting to have a hard time differentiating between fantasy and reality, he was losing sleep and scribbling all sorts of lunatic serial killer looking stuff about the end of the world.

In Time Traveler’s Pig, we see what should be a young Stanford Pines even though again, the design's a little off but we knew big sideburns, bushy hair. Although that Stanford looked a little bit more swole than this guy and that's one of the what we thought were very subtle clues in season one that helped a lot of fans figure figure everything out way too soon.

[Using the memory gun on the agents scene] needs to show that Ford's really awesome and so we could get rid of the agents and show that Ford can pretty much handle anything that Stan can't and also call back to our memory ray all in one.

There was a lot of fan speculation when we first met Ford. Generally when television shows introduce a new mysterious character late in the game, they turn out to be a villain like 9 out of 10 times. They turn out to be a villain or they're there to get killed off to show the stakes of something and like we could have made Ford evil but I always felt that that would be less interesting. The point that I was trying to get to is that Stan and Ford had this relationship that fell apart and it was both of their faults and I thought that if I'm Stan, I'd be more frustrated if Ford is actually a good guy. It would drive me insane if he's pretty reasonable, pretty rational, better at me than everything.

So we've flirted with this brief moment where it seems like he's a villain and we worked really hard to make it so that like his eyes are being covered by the reflection of the light. His dialogue is ambiguous enough here that for a moment you believe what Dipper believes, which is “maybe he's possessed by Bill.” You just saw him shaking Bill's hand, what is he supposed to believe?

I like that Ford has this photo with him, he had for a really really long time all the way through multiple dimensions. And he's probably told himself- I almost imagined if McGucket found that photo in his coat while they were working on the portal or something, like “What's this here?” and Ford would say “oh yes, that's a photo of a very important moment! That's when I…  that's when I first decided I want to be an inventor!” There would be no reference to the real reason he's keeping it. “This is me and my brother.” It would be like, “oh yes I was thinking about science as a horizon, a frontier to reach towards– you know like a boat, like a ship, like science! It's about science!”

Soos

You choose family. That you create over the course of your life and if that somebody earns being your family, like the Mystery Shack. These kids and Stan, they’re Soos' family and he's happy about that.

I feel like Soos gained something out of [Blendin’s Game]. He gains the knowledge that like “I'm tired of thinking about this man who I'm missing, who doesn't care about me. I'm going to concentrate on the people in front of me, the people that are my true family.”

Soos is a fan of the show even though he's in it. He's a big fan of Gravity Falls and [NWHS] killed him.

I always knew what I wanted Soos’ end to be Soos running the Mystery Shack. I imagine that Soos is actually way better at giving tours than Stan is because he loves all that stuff truly and he believes it. That's part of the difference. Stan’s like “um, all right suckers, this stagnant puddle is the befuddle puddle!” while Soos is like “yeah, one time I looked in there, I think i saw like a cyclops dude. Like, I really think I saw one! Like it might have been a reflection combining my pupils, but like?” and people are like “Whoa, really??”

McGucket

They hired a bunch of people and then they erased their memory. That’s my explanation for why there's like such amazing inventions that would take whole teams of people. McGucket secretly hired a number of contractors and erased their minds. Like I think of McGucket as being like a really sweet nice guy completely in over his head who just like “oh well, once I've erased one guy's mind, I gotta erase ten more guys’ minds to cover it up” and it just sort of builds into like “I guess I'm kind of this kingpin of crime and I'm starting a cult I didn't mean to. Whoopsy daisy!”

When we get to Ford and see their backstory and see their relationship, it just makes all the stuff that happens with the portal and what happens with Ford and all that more poignant that he had someone there who was not only his friend but also a voice of reason and telling him to stop and that he wouldn't listen to him, as opposed to Ford being down there on his own with nobody to bounce off, anybody to say “hey wait a minute, is this a good idea?”

“McGucket was the assistant and he was maybe this assistant who was sort of put upon and Ford kind of brought a college buddy together with him. You know Ford as somebody who lost Stan, and even though he rejected his brother, he kind of needs that other person and he tried to find that in this kind of sweet prodigy and he just pushed him too far.

[The test scene] is meant to show sort of what it was that McGucket needed to erase, what it was that drove him to madness. It was partially seeing the Nightmare Verse and the way it messed with his head and also partly just realizing that this thing has apocalyptic consequences and he doesn't want to be a part of it. And if he can't destroy it or talk Ford out of something, he can forget about it.

Because If Ford's weakness is pride, McGucket's weakness is weakness. He's got a kind heart and he can't stop people, he can't destroy things. I mean he should have basically knocked Ford out with a wrench and take this thing apart piece by piece. He's the one who understood how to build it but I think he's kind of a follower and I think he's the kind of person who could get suckered in by a cult leader. He’s the kind of person looking for instruction and he really respects Stanford and can't bring himself to uh, he's like “I just got out of a bunker! I don't want to go work for another guy down in another bunker! This is my third doomsday cult this year!”

Stan and the kids

Stan and Mabel have such a different life perspective it seemed natural that at some point they would get to a major conflict

Seeing Grunkle Stan and Dipper bond like, I sort of believe that both of them are bad with women and both of them would rather believe there's a giant conspiracy than that they have they just can't get ladies 

Can this idea about Mabel's relationship with Waddles actually reveal a rift between Mabel and Stan where Mabel and Stan actually get along pretty well in the series you know? When they they're both such strong stubborn personalities that when they conflict, they conflict hard like in Boss Mabel. But this idea that Waddles is sort of a metaphor for what Mabel loves and Stan loves Mabel but he doesn't really think that anything she thinks is necessarily smart or right. He loves her like “guys she's my sweet niece but she doesn't know anything you know? She doesn't know anything about a pig” She forgives a lot with Stan but like Waddles sort of represents like the purity of her deepest love and the idea that Stan would threaten that is genuinely a shock

In the previous season it ends with Dipper giving up his journal and there was a lot of argument about “oh is it lame if he just gets his journal back?” Another thing we struggled with, we knew that Stan knows the importance of this journal he wouldn't give the journal back to Dipper so it was a bit of a convolution we'd written ourselves into a corner. We wrote ourselves out, we said “okay he's photocopied it. he's giving it to Dipper because he knows that Dipper's really precocious and he'll never stop asking.”

“We knew that we wanted everything to come to a head when the kids are going to discover Stan's secret and they're going to discover it in such a way that they only get little bits and pieces and they have to decide for themselves based on the limited information. Is Stan's a good guy or if he's a bad guy? Ultimately that decision will be a decision of heart versus mind. And Dipper's mind, Mabel is heart and they're fighting with the scraps of information they have.  Should we trust our heart about how we feel about this guy over the course of the summer and everything we've been through or should we trust the clues? That seemed like a believable way to get Dipper and Mabel to begin a rift between them that is resolved by the end of the series.”

The way Stan acts in [NWHS] is like, to me part of what feels so grounded about it is like I'm a child of divorce and like I know that when parents or parent figures know that hard times are coming for the kids. They kind of lay it on thick they're like who wants ice cream you know what I mean? Like Stan being extra nice to them at the beginning is like it's kind of a realistic thing that that adults do when they know like big changes are coming.

I felt it was really important that we added the scene where they're at maximum bonding. They're up on the roof, they're shooting firecrackers. Stan knows in his heart that when his brother arrives everything is going to change in ways he can't predict and he's really savoring this moment because he knows, even if things goes completely smoothly, which they don't. the kids are still going to be mad at him, especially Dipper for basically lying.  They had this big meeting after the end of Scaryoke where of course Dipper also crossed his finger but Stan crosses his fingers and says “oh I'm telling you everything” and he knows that the kids are not going to be happy about the fact that he's been keeping this all from them because they've done amazing things together already and he should have trusted them before now. 

This act break is them saying, “wait, Stan might be a random grifter who maybe killed our real uncle!” That's pretty heavy for any show let alone a cartoon show.

What that would mean for them if all this stuff is true is so much further than just like, “oh he lied to us about a couple things.” It's just like, “no he's straight up just some random dude that we don't even know uh and the guy that I've been pining for this whole time is dead!”  We really try to stack the deck so it's like Mabel's perspective and Dipper's perspective are both kind of racing to see who gets in front and there'll be a moment where it's like yeah you kind of buy with Mabel she feels good about about Stan and then this scene is the most you’re ever with Dipper where we discover this huge crazy curveball and this feeling that you have looking at this newspaper and looking through these fake IDs this is how Dipper feels all the time.  If you want a window about what it's like to be Dipper, this moment where a giant conspiracy reveals itself out of little pieces and seems to suggest that no one is trustworthy like that's that's where Dipper lives and this to him confirms every bit of suspicion and every bit of paranoia he's ever had and he's willing to run with it. 

I love these characters so much that, for me I was like “I need to see Stan saying goodbye to the kids at that bus. And I don't want him to be some guy who isn't Stan, who doesn't even remember the kids.” That would be really dramatic. It might make you cry more but to me it doesn't actually mean anything. Their relationship which they've built, he was willing to sacrifice his memories to save them. That's how much they meant to him but because he was willing to do that, I think he deserves to get him back.

Stan and Ford

But I think Stan's hope is, that in Stan's mind this is going to play out one way which is that; he's going to free his brother, his brother's gonna come out of that portal after 30 years. Stan's probably imagining that Ford is weak, emaciated, wrapped in a blanket, that he'll stumble forward, through a beard. through blurry eyes, he'll be “my brother, is that you?” He'll embrace Stan, he'll hug him, he'll say, “all these years I thought I was goner but you saved me! I was wrong to mock you, I was wrong to call you the stupid twin! Dad was wrong about you! You're the greatest man and let's be friends again and who are these niece and nephew?” Like that was what Stan was kind of hoping. He knows it's there's a million things that could go wrong, including potentially the destruction of this dimension, but he so desperately needs to believe that he can make up for the problems of the past. He's hoping for this but he knows that things are going to change

When I started the series, I always knew Stan had a twin but all I knew about Ford from the jump was that he's everything Stan Isn't. So Stan is a guy with a huge chip on his shoulder, he's kind of a loser at life. There's somebody who is a winner at life or at least was a winner in all these ways that Stan wasn't.

We realized that in order to bring out the maximum amount of frustration in Stan, [Ford] needed to have a bit of a heart. Like here we see him being kind to the kids, he's not he's not all bad which is what's so infuriating to Stan. The idea that he would quickly get along with the kids when he can't get any respect from them. Ford is designed for what would bring out the most amount of conflict in the family. What would be Dipper's hero, what would be Stan's rival and who's somebody that we could empathize with. I mean, it’s  hard to empathize with a character that comes out and punches one of your characters in the face, basically before he almost says anything.

You see that at this age, that all the stuff [in their room] that would cross over, that would appeal to both of them. It's not just like “there's science stuff here” and then there's “what Stan would be into.” but no, they both like all this.

There was also a version [of ToTS] where early on, they'd rigged the school water fountain. They did sort of like a caper, it was science and a scam together when they were in elementary school but we decided to save the science for the science fair stuff.

We played around with the idea that you would see them working together doing little science games or pulling little pranks. There was actually a scene that some of it was even storyboarded where they're in a treehouse together and Crampelter and his friends have tracked them down and are begging for their lunch money and Stan and Ford have used their jerkiness and geniusness to rig up like a water balloon throwing machine that knocks Crampelter in the head. I remember him saying, “oh no, my old-timey paper crown!” We were really hanging a lampshade on all these sort of Little Rascal cliches.

Ford's not a villain. You know he's getting in Stan's face and saying “I want my life back” but hopefully by the end of the episode even though you don't root for his perspective, you understand his perspective where it's like Stan ruined his science project, Stan shoved him into the portal, Stan took over his house. He’s not completely unreasonable to want it back and he's not completely unreasonable about his request. He says “okay you've got till the end of the summer” and Stan's little look there tells you everything you need to know about how he feels about the situation.

We needed pressure to be at the point where Stan and Ford recognize their lifelong rivalry and Ford does a sincere apology to Stan and almost more importantly, he acknowledges Stan's intelligence. He says “you wouldn't have fallen for Bill's nonsense.” He recognizes that his brother has a kind of intelligence he doesn't.

I always imagined that as kids, Stan and Ford were like this dynamic duo. They were getting into scrapes and like planning pranks and with Stan's creativity and Ford's genius that they were an unstoppable awesome team, before life turned them against each other. I imagine that as kids they were always swapping glasses and tricking their parents so that they could get double presents. And this is a move they did back in New Jersey constantly. We had to figure out who's gonna make a sacrifice and how and even though it's Stan who agrees to be “I'll be the one erase my mind, it's fine, it's worth it”, it's a sacrifice for both. Ford at this point is willing to get his brother back and he has to lose him again. 

Stan and Ford, when they can finally work together, do bring out the best in each other. They just have been missing it for so long.

Post-mind return, Stan and Ford get along and that scene where they both threaten the bus driver gives a hint of what would happen if their powers were combined. We've never seen them working together as adults, they would be a really formidable duo.

Pines Family

[The Blind Eye has] such a great scene between Mabel and Wendy. We don't have a lot of scenes that are just them hanging out and she can kind of be like the cool older sister. Mabel's so obsessed with boys and Wendy's just like "yeah, whatever. They're a dime a dozen."

“in the storyboard, the postcard that Soos is holding up from New Orleans actually said Vegas and at the last minute we got really worried that people were gonna see that and think that that was a clue that Stan was Soos's deadbeat father. And because like our audience, we've trained them to look for clues and to connect dots, they start connecting dots that are not connected. And I called a late retake because, and I see people be like, “wouldn't that be cool if Stan was actually Soos's father” and I hate that headcanon. Whoever's listening and you think “that's a great idea!”-- that's a terrible idea!! Because it means that Stan ran out on his kid and then came back in his life. And weirdly pretends to not be his dad. It flies against the moral of this entire episode which is like, you know this guy who is Soos’ blood relative like cast him out and didn't come back and didn't make time for him and all these people did. These people are Soos’ real family and to say “Stan would be Soos' real father more if he was genetically–”, I'm like “no, no forget that!” Like relationships are about what you do. To me friendship is thicker than water and family is something you can create so I really didn't want anyone to think that we were suggesting that because to me, it actually wasn't just the wrong idea, it was like thematically against what the show's about.” "

"[In NWHS] Every character faces their worst possible choice, which is “Mabel must choose between Dipper and Stan” and “Soos must choose between Stan and the kids,” like “guard that thing with your life. I'm not going to explain to you why.” I believe that Soos would do anything to guard Mr Pines's secrets and these are the only two characters that could possibly make him doubt Stan, these two kids that he loves so much."

"For [DD&MD], you want to set it up as being like [Ford]'s like the coolest toy that's down in the basement that Dipper really wants to play with and he is not allowed to play with him."

"The first three quarters of the series are sort of about Dipper's crush on Wendy and this final quarter is sort of about his crush on the Author. He's such a fan of this guy and he's so used to being denied that which he's a fan of and he's never found anybody who cares about his nerdy stuff. Mabel doesn't care, Stan doesn't care, Soos cares but on a different level. He's so hungry for the approval of somebody like Ford This idea that they would bond over a nerdy board game felt like sort of the way to do this big idea in a sort of grounded way that I like better than like Ford presented Dipper with the Five Trials of the Genius Boy. “I passed these when I was your age! Can you do it too?” and it's like nope he just likes the same dork game that he does."

"The arrival of Ford is creating the two sets of twins starting to pair off between the Brainiacs and the Maniacs"

"Actually I enjoyed that [Ford putting the die in a cheap plastic case] got a little bit of a reckless side because it shows you the Stan part of him. The Stan part of Ford, the little bit that likes a little bit of danger, he likes a little bit of risk. If he would show that side, it would be in when he feels at ease, with a kindred spirit. Around Dipper he’d be like “isn't this pretty cool?” He'd never be that irresponsible around Stan.  I like that Dipper is sort of a little bit of a Achilles heel for Ford as well. Ford has certain blind spots and Dipper exacerbates some of those just because he's willing to encourage, he's willing to “yes and” Ford towards whatever dumb idea he might have."

"Dipper, Mabel, Stan and Ford, they're all characters who need each other. Without Dipper, Mabel's just in a fantasy land. Without Mabel, Dipper is just sort of just spiraling into misery, spiraling into his own neurosis and not being pulled into those social situations, not growing as a person."

"You want [Stan] to be true to our various awful grandfathers, so I feel like for the most part you know that [being shitty to women] a plausible thing for Stan to do, that you only forgive because you know he's not a role model. Nobody wants to be like Stan. The kids never look up to him. The only person who looks up to Stan is Soos and Soos is enough of a comedy character that you understand the joke is “oh this guy thinks the worst way to live is good.” And then at one point you realize why. We made it clear why Soos looks up to Stan is because he gave him his job. He gave him a father basically, he’s essentially Soos’ father. And of course Stan who's had a life of just chaos and disappointment, the only person who would be a surrogate son is [Soos] but also Soos has the biggest heart in the world. So only the biggest heart in the world could forgive all of Stan's many flaws and also if Soos can love Stan, then maybe there's something in there worth loving, then maybe we can too."

"Stan, even when he's sweet, he still has to threaten to murder his niece and nephew."

"I do think the value of [Stanchurian Candidate] is that we're learning just how important it is that [Stan]’s seen. At this point, the kids have become a surrogate family. At the beginning of the show, they were just kind of a little nuisance and then he kind of tried out getting the family from them that he never got from his brother and the idea that he would lose them to his brother is his greatest nightmare and the only way he can really express that is by trying to be impressive to them and trying to be his brother's rival."

"Ford offers Dipper this apprenticeship because Ford sees Dipper as somebody who's special like himself. That Ford's great flaw is arrogance. He believes that there's special people and everyone else and that you can be held back by your siblings. That human attachments are actually weaknesses. The song and dance that he's giving Dipper right now is the exact song of dance that he gave McGucket back when they were younger which is like “sure you could continue working on your job and computers but you and me are different. We're better than everyone else, we have a path that no one else can understand. Only us can do this.” And it’s a very seductive idea for Dipper but he starts to be a little insecure here. He’s kind of “I can't believe it” and he's sort of right to be suspicious because Dipper is a smart kid but Ford's projecting. Ford loves Dipper because he sees someone who tell him yes to everything. He'll never challenge him and if Dipper had taken Ford's apprenticeship,Dipper probably would have gone the way of McGucket, turned into a kind of insane paranoid hermit with no friends, just kind of losing his mind. Like it's a seductive offer but also ultimately Dipper needs to learn not to try to grow up too fast."

"This entire time Dipper's been having this journey of self-discovery and seeing his future as this wonderful thing that he can't wait for. Mabel has been, piece by piece, seeing her idea of the summer fall apart."

"As Ford and Dipper's relationship grow stronger, Stan and Mabel also find much more sort of connection. They both feel like the sibling that's getting kind of sidelined."

"I think [amnesiac!Stan] would be hardest on Soos, second hardest on Ford but Soos would show it. Probably third hardest on Mabel, fourth hardest on Dipper just because where their hearts are. Dipper's not heartless, that's a testament to just how heartbroken those other characters are."

Series goal+ The Finale

"So our idea was; the memory gun can erase a concept as designated by the dial. It stores it. It records you and it keeps that recording and that if you watch that recording things start to come back a little bit, that it hasn't actually completely erased it from your mind. It's more sublimated somewhere where it's really really hard to reach and in the series finale, my concept of Bill is that; if he hadn't gotten in all those forms and fought Stan, Stan is the one that destroyed Bill. Were it just the mind eraser itself that he would be sublimated somewhere but he was weakened in the mindscape and destroyed in the mindscape. But Stan's memories were being sublimated and by looking at the scrapbook in the same way that McGucket's memories come back, they start to come back to the surface."

"I think part of what makes [NWHS] work also is that it has the strongest ticking clock. Yeah, I mean. it has a literal ticking clock. Also the sun is going down it's also, the town is starting to drift apart as the characters are starting to drift apart. There's just such a sense of Doomsday and even though we have like a three-part apocalypse, to me nothing feels as apocalyptic as this episode now."

"The entire purpose of [ToTS] is that Stan and his brother have had this huge rivalry that remains to this day and threatens to tear apart Dipper and Mabel and briefly does, and then Dipper and Mabel are able to find their way together, which is meant to repair Stan and his brother's past."

"Here we're teeing up the rest of the conclusion of the series which is just “whoa this is different. The status quo is shifted and is it going to shift us?” and that was the mission of this entire story was shift. Shift things such that it pits Dipper and Mabel against each other so that they can ultimately make things right and fix their uncles’ trauma in the process."

"“Let's try to set things into motion such that all of these characters who we love, who love each other are placed at maximum odds”. So Ford's entire existence in the series is basically a wrench in the relationships between Stan, Dipper and Mabel, that Stan has had a sibling who he didn't get along with and they've grown up having this horrible rift. Dipper and Mabel are these two twins who love each other but are very very different and are at this sort of volatile growing up moment where if something goes wrong could they turn out like Stan and Ford."

"[The convincing Gideon] scene works for me because it sort of represents the full completion of Dipper's Wendy Arc. Even though he's talking about Gideon and Mabel, he's really talking about himself. That idea that you can't force someone to love you but you can strive to be someone worthy of loving. It really does come down to like be the best you, you can be and the right person will see and feel that."

"It was gonna be W1, W2, W3 and then some kind of goodbye story. I remember it being something vaguely about some sort of other time travel. Bringing Blendin back because he just kind of vamoosed in the middle of this big story. There was that discussed like time traveling back to the first day when the kids arrived. The challenge was thinking of a valuable arc. So like each episode needs to have like a new problem and a new resolution and I was trying to brainstorm what's something that could feel valuable for like a final episode after the apocalypse, after Stan's mind has been erased and he's in the process of getting it back. "

"The thing I remember I wrote one out it was it's the last day of summer. Dipper and Mabel are packing uh they're planning to go home, they're feeling like nostalgic, they kind of don't want to leave. Blendin shows up and he explains that there's all these time bubbles left over, these weird anomalies because of all the time business and what Bill has done and just to watch out and be careful. Then Dipper and Mabel actually accidentally trip into one of these bubbles that are sent back to the very first episode or actually beyond the first episode, their first day in Gravity Falls um and somehow this was meant their character arc was to go from being like a little sad that they're going to leave Gravity Falls to seeing what it was like on the first day. When they were scared to be in Gravity Falls. The idea is like their first day they're like “oh Grunkle Stan, he's this weird old man and we hate living in this house and like we missed our place of comfort back home! And this is a kind of scary new adventure that we don't like.”  The kids see their own growth and realize like “the way we felt about going to Gravity Falls like we don't think we can handle it, is how we feel about leaving.” That feeling of going into a new experience means that something new and exciting is going to happen you're going to grow. There was some thought that maybe over the course of that episode, Stan would get his memory back and something that the kids had done in the past would help him in the present, get his memory back.

"What's supposed to be happening here isn't that Stan's entire memory reappears in an instant. It's supposed to be a couple days of work and we see the beginning of that process when he looks at the scrapbook and then we're kind of jumping ahead a few days. maybe a week of just intensive memory therapy with Stan before he gets there."

"When we were trying to crack the half hour episode after Weirdmageddon, it felt like we were just kind of wallowing and Stan not having his memories. It was a very depressing thing. And we didn’t get to have Stan for the last episode, which was like “it's a great it's great i think you get the emotion like in this episode. It tears you apart when you see it. You could last a little bit longer on it. But going much longer, then you just feels like well what are we doing? Why are we just kind of wallowing in our own sorrows for no good reason.”

"When we had discussed the idea of an episode beyond this episode, a fourth episode, it was basically 20 minutes of [amnesiac!Stan]. This is so intense, you might think you want it but good lord, this is enough."

"Bill singing “We’ll meet again” was something that just felt like the perfect reference because this is kind of an ending about endings in a lot of ways and we know we know Bill's going to be defeated. We know that people like Vill and have grown attached to him and for him to sing “We’ll meet again” is sort of the perfect mysterious way to say like “I might be going, I might not be going.” It’s a reference to Dr Strangelove, a movie that famously ends with nuclear apocalypse and the song “We’ll meet again” so it's for those pop culture savvy. It's already tinged with a kind of a fear and an irony and the apocalypse built in, so it's perfect on a number of levels."

"The concept of the Zodiac as existing in our current canon is this idea that the prophecy was that friends and enemies would need to come together, seemingly impossible alliances would need to be made to stand up to Bill for this prophetic moment. You know that characters like Gideon who was who used to be an enemy, characters like Pacifica, like Robbie, that we've reached the point where thanks to the kids’ kindness and growth, they are now friends with Pacifica, they've resolved Robbie's jerkiness, they've helped McGucket with his memory. They've even overcome this issue with Gideon in W1 and so it seems like friends and enemies have all been restored, leaving only one thing which is Stan and Ford have to shake hands. And their pride once again is what dooms the entire world but they get so close."

"It's clear Stan, even though he's being stubborn here and holds things up, he's ready to do it.  He clasps Ford's hand and then Ford can't help but correct his ignorant brother with something that doesn't matter at all after professing how important all this is and how important it is to put pettiness aside, he's the one who ends up being petty in the end."

"I like that Stan [during the deal] is just thinking “all right, think white, think white, think white.” He's like “think about nothing but sitting on your lazy boy.” "

"Stan and Bill had never interacted in the series up until this moment  because he had just been taken over when he was asleep. We'd seen a lot of Ford and Bill, but Stan and Bill has never happened. And Bill sort of represents all the mystery and weirdness, and Stan is the guy who just wants to have a good life and protect his family. He's the one who never invited Bill in but he's willing to take Bill out."

"If Mabel's going home with a pig, Dipper's going home with this symbol of his friendship with Wendy. And even Stan he's wearing that Mabel sweater. That's a visual symbol of; he's softened up, he's embraced family, he doesn't need to be the tough guy all the time."

[essektheylyss]

One thing that I feel is really interesting and often forgotten about Essek is that fundamentally, his characterization has been from the start based upon his desperation for external perspectives and connection, which, along with much of his narrative and mechanical positioning, means that he actually has an extraordinary and almost (but not actually, as I'll show) counterintuitive capacity for both growth and trust.

(Buckle in. This is a long one.)

In particular, I would argue, knowing now that many places where the plot touches Ludinus have long been marked for connecting back into the current plot, that he was quite possibly built as a prime candidate for radicalization by the Ruby Vanguard. He felt isolated from his culture, he was desperate for other connection, and he was certainly of the type to believe he was too smart to be drawn into such a thing, given his initial belief that he could control the situation and the fallout. If things had gone any other way, he easily could've been on the other side by now.

As such, he has been hallmarked by being fairly open to suggestion, perhaps for this reason, but the thing about that kind of trait is that it is both how people are radicalized and deradicalized. This is certainly true of Essek, who experienced genuine kindness and quite frankly strangeness from the Nein and was able to move from the isolation the Assembly had engendered to meaningful and genuine connection, largely propelled by his own internal reflection. By the time Nein are aware of his crimes, he's already begun to express regret to an extent and, furthermore, doubt in the Assembly, including explicitly drawing a line against Ludinus, even in a position where he was on his own and probably quite vulnerable.

Similarly, when the Nein reach the Vurmas Outpost some weeks later, he has moved from regret for the position he's ended up carrying a heavy remorse. This makes sense! He's fairly introspective, seems used to spending a lot of time in his own head, and was left with plenty to mull over. It's not some kind of retcon for him to have progressed well past where the Nein left him; it just means he's an active participant in the world who has done his own work in the meantime.

This is another interesting aspect to him. I've talked about this a bit before but I cannot find the post so I'll recap here: antagonists in D&D have significantly more agency than allied NPCs. Antagonists are active forces, against which the party is meant to struggle; allies are meant to support the PCs, which means they tend to be more passive in both their actions and their character growth. Essek was both built as an antagonist, in a position that gives him significant agency, and also was then given significant opportunity to grow specifically to act as a narrative mirror for Caleb's arc. Even when he becomes a more traditional D&D ally, he still retains much of that, though he occupies a supporting role.

I believe that this is especially true because of the nature of Caleb's arc, which I've already written on; the tl;dr of this post is that Caleb is both convinced that he is permanently ruined and also desperate to prove that change is possible. Essek is that proof, because he is simply the character in a position to do so. But this also means that his propensity for introspection and openness is accentuated! He has to do the legwork on his own, for the most part, because that's where he is in the meantime.

But he still ends the campaign necessarily constricted; he is under significant scrutiny, he's at risk from the Assembly, and he goes on the run fairly soon after the story ends. He spends most of the final arc anxious and paranoid, which is valid given the crushing reality of his situation. It would be very easy to extrapolate that seven years into this reality, he would be insular, closed off, and suspicious of strangers, even in spite of the lessons he's learned from the Nein and their long term exposure.

So seeing his openness and lightness now is surprising, but at the same time, given this combination of factors in his position in the narrative over time and his defining traits, it's not by any means unreasonable.

But one thing that I found so delightful is how much trust he exhibits, which is obviously a wild thing to say about Essek in particular, given much of what he learns is both earning and offering trust, which was something he says explicitly in 2x124 that he's never really experienced: "I've never really been trusted and so I did not trust." It makes up much of the progression of his relationship with Caleb, and the trust that he is offered by the Nein in walking off the ship is the impetus he needs to grow.

But I think it's easy to talk about trust when it comes to people who have proven themselves to you or to whom you've ingratiated yourself, and that's really the most we can say about Essek by the time he leaves the Blooming Grove. There is this sense in a lot of discussion of trust (not solely in this fandom) that it is only related to either naivete or love, but there's far more to it. Trust at its best is deliberate—cultivating an openness to the world at large is a great way to combat cynicism and beget connection instead. It allows a person to maintain curiosity and be open to experience, but it can be incredibly difficult to hold onto.

It is clear that the Essek we meet now is a very pointedly and intentionally trusting individual. He trusts Caleb and by extension Caleb's trust in Keyleth, as he shows up and picks up a group of strangers from a foreign military encampment and walks in without issue. He trusts the Hells to follow his lead moving through Zadash and to exhibit enough discretion so as to avoid bringing suspicion upon all of them. He trusts that Astrid will respond well to his entrance, but he also trusts himself and the Hells enough to execute a back-up plan in the case that she doesn't. In the end, he even trusts them enough to give them his name and identity.

He doesn't scan as someone who has spent half a dozen years living like a prey animal, afraid of any shadow he runs across in an alley, withdrawn into himself and an insular family, which would've been an easy route for him to take. He scans as someone who has learned the kind of trust borne of learned confidence and a trained eye for good will and kindness, which are crucial weapons one would need for staving off cynicism in his circumstances—as if he has survived thanks more to connection and kindness than paranoia and isolation. (If we want to be saccharine about it, he scans quite poignantly as a member of the Mighty Nein.)

So it is easy to imagine this trust and openness as a natural progression of his initial search for perspectives external to his own cultural knowledge. Though he makes those first connections with the Assembly to try to vindicate his personal hypotheses, he finds in them exposure to the deepest corruption among Exandrian mortals, which could've—and did, for a time—turned him further down that same dark path.

But it's also this same openness to exposure from the wider world that allows the Nein to influence him for the better, and in spite of the challenges he's certainly faced simply surviving over the past seven years, he seems to have held onto this openness enough to move through the world with self-assurance and a willingness to extend the kinds of trust and good will that he has been shown.

(I would be remiss not to mention that I was reminded about my thoughts on this by this lovely post from sky-scribbles and their use in the tags of 'light' to describe Essek's demeanor this episode, which is really such an apt word for it.)