#I don't think I've ever seen anyone talk about this

[apollabarnes]

part one // part two // part three // part four // part five // part six

"evan didn't do anything wrong," tommy protests, athena's words bouncing around in his head.

"did anyone cheat?"

tommy shakes his head.

"did anyone break the law?"

now it's tommy's turn to arch an eyebrow at her. "even if we did, i wouldn't narc to a cop about it before the statute of limitations ran out."

she laughs at him. it's better than athena getting her scalpel out again. "those are the two things that would mean this mess was only one person's fault."

"the only two things?" tommy asks dubiously.

"the only ones that pertain to the two of you," athena assures him. "so, it's on both of you that you're broken up."

"great pep talk." tommy's voice is dry as the desert, partly on purpose and partly because he's — well, dehydrated.

"drink your tea." athena taps her fingers against the counter until he takes a drink. it's sweet enough to make his teeth ache, and tommy wonders when he told athena how he took it.

"so the thing about buck," she starts.

tommy tenses. he can't blame athena for taking advantage of the perfect opportunity to push. he's already off kilter and he's been avoiding the subject for weeks. if she hammers at the right weak spot he's going to crack. hell, at this point maybe he should — it's not as if anything else has been working for him.

"a lot of people would call him reckless. he has a tendency to run headfirst into situations that don't look great."

tommy shrugs. he can see why people might think that. the hurricane, the bees, riding a motorcycle into oncoming traffic with two flares and nothing else — he called evan impulsive once, but if you ask tommy that's not the same as reckless.

"and he does do that. but buck…" she trails off, leaning forward to make sure that tommy is looking at her. he stares back, almost afraid to breathe. "he's the best at risk assessment i've ever seen. and he does it faster than the rest of us, which is why he'll run into something when we're still trying to figure out if it's safe for us."

oh fuck. forget breathing, tommy wants to throw up. he doesn't, because the last time he threw up he was worried about telling sal he was gay. (it was fine.) he catches athena edging away from the table and waves a hand. he's fine. "i'm pretty sure this is one of those things you aren't supposed to be telling me."

"tommy," athena says firmly, "you basically had a panic attack about sleeping with your ex. and it's not like buck's been walking on sunshine since…"

"last week."

athena frowns and taps her finger against the table. "hmm," she nods to herself. "he's been even worse about that long."

tommy gets hung up on the even. even worse. that means that he was… what? upset about the breakup? something else? evan had mentioned eddie leaving and maddie being kidnapped, and tommy knows that wouldn't have been easy to deal with, but he'd never mentioned missing tommy. true, they hadn't exactly done a lot of talking after they'd gotten to the house, but — "what do you mean, worse?"

"you didn't really think that he was all sunshine and roses about being dumped, did you?" athena rolls her eyes.

"we weren't—"

"—serious?" athena finishes for him. "bullshit. buck hasn't had a casual relationship in the eight years that i've known him." she pauses, considering tommy again. "did you think this was casual? because if you did, this conversation isn't going to be helpful."

"no! no, i thought—" tommy stares at the table. moves evan's book. puts it back. "one day he'll realize i'm not this great guy he thinks i am. he'll be embarrassed. i'll be…" left in the lurch.

"i was embarrassed to take bobby out in public at the beginning. here i was, freshly divorced, gay ex-husband, dating a white boy," she pauses for a moment, inviting tommy in on the joke, "i wasn't supposed to be having fun. i was supposed to be suffering, because that's what happens when you get divorced. i got over it, obviously. but i had to stop worrying what people who weren't in my relationship might think about it first."

[arsonsara]

[The phone rings four times, and just before it can ring for a fifth, the phone is answered.] "Hellosie posies, you've reached the home of one Arso-" "...ahem." "This is Vivian speaking, can I help you?" [Silence.] "...H-hello?…" [Silence.] "...O-oh...oh my stars. Is...is that you? Goodness gracious, it has to be! I mean I don't remember anyone else who wasn't as...talkative. And nobody ever really called me like this except…" "You..." "Hahah...oh god, how long has it been since we last talked? Years now? It feels like only yesterday I got that call from you and just...let my gourd pop open! Hehe! I had a lot on my mind back then. To be honest I uh...still do." "Things are...better than they were. At least in a lot of the places that count but, the world keeps spinnin' y'know! It's enough to make you dizzy sometimes, hehe! And sometimes I get...pretty dizzy." "...I'm really glad you called. I've been really dizzy lately, a lot of memories are coming back to me that are a bit...rough to organize. Like a jigsaw puzzle and the pieces just sorta...change shape every-time you try to place a piece. Heck I don't know what i'm even building at this point! I don't think any of us are! Hahaha! Ahahaha!…" "But...i'm worried. About...someone I care about. They're a friend of mine that means a lot to me and...from what I could gather she's not doing as great as I thought she was. I mean i've...never met her. Is it weird to consider someone a friend if you've never met? I mean one of her friends has been trying to talk to me lately...does that count?" [Silence.] "...Are you here to lend an ear, stranger? That friend of a friend i'm referring to he's...talking about stuff like that lately. Lending an ear. Are you trying to do the same for me again?…" "...Thank you…" "...I guess I should...just get started."

On July 3rd, 2023, posted exactly at 5:44 PM Eastern Standard time, I wrote my personal review of my thoughts regarding the Anti-Fiction ARG Story Project, Welcome Home. I don't quite remember specifically when I came across the Welcome Home Website, but it was during its earliest incarnation, and I've been around since its inception on the internet. And ever since, it has captivated me and only continues to grow and reach towards loftier, dreamier heights and crawl into darker, isolating caverns. I don't wear my fandom seniority as a badge of pride, but can't help but fawn over it the same way someone does a hand-made gift. That's what Welcome Home is to me, in a lot of ways: A gift. It's a beautiful and haunting story, a complex and enrapturing puzzle, and a stunning, awe-inspiring work of art and despite how small the present box it came in was it just keeps getting bigger. There is a lot I could say about Welcome Home now that we're further into its story. When I wrote my review of it back in 2023 it was practically just getting started, and there are a lot of discussions I could have regarding all we've seen from the two Halloween Updates and the absolutely insane knockout that was The Homewarming Update… But i'm not here to talk about that. At least not now, because I want to zoom in on not just a particular update, but a particular character within Welcome Home's cast. The one that caught my attention the most, stole my heart, and as of the recent update, spoke more to me than anyone else on the cast. And I can't think of a better way to start than here:

For context, I always love playing into a scene or story even if it's just in small ways. When I wrote this signature in the Guestbook I thought it'd be fun to play in the space of Welcome Home being a real piece of lost media, whilst also sharing my love for the character that made my heart flutter like a butterfly and couldn't help but make me giggle. At this point in time, when I wrote that message, we didn't know a lot about Julie Joyful. We didn't have as much media surrounding Welcome Home aside from the biography pages that gave us descriptions for everyone in the cast. We didn't even have proper voices for the characters yet! And somehow Julie Joyful was the one out of everyone in the cast where I picker her out from the crowd and said: She was my favorite. Not just that she was my favorite, but that I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, without even a smidgen of hesitation: If Welcome Home was in fact a real show that I grew up with as a child, that Julie Joyful would be the one I loved the most out of everyone. And as days turned to weeks, weeks to months, months to a year, year to years, and as Welcome Home has grown and flourished we've only come to learn more and more about this delightful as a daffodil Rainbow Monster. Can you tell that she's even rubbed off on me? This most recent update, April 12th's 2025 Springtime Salutations update, gave us a lot to learn about Julie Joyful. Not only did we see her at her brightest, her peppiest, her singingest, her skip-hop-and-jumpiest...but we also saw her at her darkest. Julie has quickly become one of my favorite characters in media ever. The more we saw of her the more my heart was captivated, and now that we've reached such a primal boiling point for her character, I felt like now was the time for me to give her the proper celebration she deserved. Like a hand-written letter in a pink envelope, covered with stickers, full to bursting with confetti and game pieces and little knick-knacks and doo-dads...and in the card i've written a deeply earnest and sympathetic thank you. Because out of a lot of the characters i've grown attached to, there are few like Julie who equally embody the person I want to be, remind me of the person I am, and make me feel truly seen. I think that's enough pre-amble ramblin'. Let's get started, shall we?

---

One of the big things that captivated me about Julie Joyful, once more updates began to roll on and we got to see more of the scamperingly sweet Rainbow Monster in action was just how utterly, reverently silly she was. She speaks in such a squeaky, chipper, bouncy lilting voice and is constantly talking a mile a minute, throwing out mounds for pounds of alliteration, spoonerisms, rhymes and a gargantuan greenhouse worth of flower names and funny games. Out of everyone in the cast, she's the one who is the most childlike in demeanor, and it seems no matter the reason or the season she finds some way to make a simple occasion into an all out affair! At least, when it comes to her appearance on screen. Within Welcome Home, there is something of a divide between the cast: How they appear in media made for the Welcome Home TV Show, through merchandise and other second-hand findings, and how they appear when the cameras are "off" so to speak. Throughout the website's history there have been hidden videos and audio logs where we seemingly see the neighbors of Home interacting with each-other on a far more casual, day to day basis. Almost as if the world of Welcome Home is real, that that little clearing in the forest with cutesy houses surrounded by a phantasmagorical cornucopia of brightly colored trees is somewhere out in our real world, and the merchandise surrounding the show is only a representation of the real thing. Almost like learning about someone through a game of telephone. Welcome Home has already played with a lot of themes regarding the restrictions of television for the time period of when Welcome Home supposedly aired, and art created for the sake of a corporate end-goal. Think about it, all of the things we learn about Welcome Home aren't from the show itself, we as an audience have never even seen an episode, let alone a clip or screenshot from the actual puppet show.

All of it is secondhand merchandise or advertisements, at least with regards to the physical remnants we have of the Welcome Home TV Show. And as the story continues, we keep seeing characters drift away from their television personas and show us more of who they really are, and the more that time passes things start to weigh on their minds more and more, become heavier and heavier, and the seams at the edges of their existences, their realities, start to fray… But it started out very subtle, and gives us a lot to think about regarding how the cast actually feels about eachother outside of the "show". One of the differences from her Show Persona and how she truly interacted with the rest of the cast, didn't have anything to do with her character herself, but rather how another person reacted to her. In "The Show", Frank Frankly is constantly seen as a grumpy grump and a sourpuss when it comes to dealing with Julie's constant shenanigans. Crossing his arms, rolling his eyes, saying thinks like "Not again" and "Julie, we've talked about this." This isn't to say Frank's Show Persona dislikes Julie, even in spite of his apparent frustration with her allyoop antics, where Julie is Frank is never far behind and there's always something of a begrudging fondness for her. A very "Yup, this is my circus, and that is most certainly my monkey." kind of attitude.

Yet when the cameras are off, it's almost the complete opposite. In one of the hidden-videos from the first big update, we hear Frank bringing Julie to his freshly grown tomatoes so he can get advice on how to deal with the beetles that have been eating them. It's odd to think about isn't it, Frankly coming to Julie for advice? By this point we knew a little bit about Julie regarding her affinity for plants and flowers, but it's still a bit odd isn't it? And before we know it, Julie breaks out into her usual serendipitous self, with her absitovely posituley silly observations and suggestions, but instead of the usual exasperation we're used to from Frank Frankly, he reacts far more warmly. Even joining in on Julie's little games and bursting with laughter when she says his nose looks like a Banana! It feels like it's almost a completely different dynamic, the two sharing in a very small, sweet, domestic moment of silliness, and both of them feeling like true best friends. Not only that but in another one of these secret videos, we see Julie trying to convince Barnaby that she's capable of telling a good joke, only for the big blue dog to heckle her to no end! And for the first time we see Julie actually get frustrated at being belittled, trying her best to be seen as funny only for Barnaby to keep pulling at her leg and steaming her. We get to see a little more regarding Julie's thoughts on Barnaby in this most recent update, so we'll put a pin in it for later. For now, let's dig into the fertile discussion regarding Julie's siblings, Franny, Jonsie and Bea. The Springtime Salutations update gave us a LOT regarding Julie's family, lore about Rainbow Monsters, and us actually getting to see The Joyful Family interacting with other members of the cast, and their sister! While we don't know the precise age of anyone in the cast, it's safe to say just based off of interactions that Julie is the youngest of the Joyful's, as there's a certain level of fraternal responsibility the three have over Julie, or at least they behave as such. Afterall, the story is functionally about Julie going to her siblings for help, only for everyone to eventually realize Julie's made a mistake and accidentally having made a mountain out of a molehill. And during the family talk amongst each other in "A Darling Broadcast", the Joyfuls ask why it is that Julie hasn't joined their band, and that they want their "Dynamite Drummer." But...Julie doesn't play the drums. At least we've never seen that! She sings, talks and kisses the flowers and that's what makes them bloom, as we learn in the storybooklet "What Makes The Flowers Bloom." Not only that but in Julie's biography and implied elsewhere on the site, she moved out of her home with her siblings in the cave so she could move to the neighborhood of home! But...why? From what we know about Rainbow Monsters and their culture, they seem to all be cohesive family units! And when Julie is asked about when she'll join the band, she avoids the question by pretending that the connection is breaking and hangs up. And even afterwards, we hear Bea talk about how she hopes that one day Julie will join the band. But for as much as she seems to love her siblings, she doesn't seem to want to be in the band with them. Maybe their constant insistence on her joining the band, of her being a drummer was what made her move away? A feeling of being constrained by the views of her peers? Not only that but we don't get to hear any interaction with Julie and her family when the cameras are "off". As time goes on the line between the show, the world of the show, and our world continue to blend, but we haven't seen any interactions from the Joyfuls that would explain what exactly happened between them…

This next part is going to get into heavy spoiler territory regarding a lot of the secrets in this most recent update, so if you don't want to be spoiled, I recommend finding them on your own and coming back afterwards. But later we learn something very important: Julie is terrified of the idea of being a "bad" rainbow monster, and being unable to live up to the example of her siblings. Over the course of the secret videos in this update, we see Julie; who is sometimes accompanied by Frank, attempting to get a black tulip made of felt, with an odd looking eye in the center of its bud that looks similar to the Marlo Logo, Marlo being a corporation tied with the creation of Welcome Home. It seems that out of all the flowers in the neighborhood, Julie can't get this single flower to blossom, and what once starts as apprehension soon grows into outright terror at the idea of failure. She starts to fear whether or not this is "just the start", that she'll loose her ability to make plants grow and blossom and that Home will be full of nothing but wilting flowers and dead fields. She agonizes over the idea of if her siblings found out, that she can't let them find out, that nobody can know.

Now, up to this point we've seen another Welcome Home resident behave in a similar manner: Eddie Dear. In the Homewarming Update, we see him start to grow stressed over not being able to do his job of delivering presents for Homewarming to everyone in the neighborhood, cooped up in his post-office and growing frustrated that he can't do anything, even saying "Who’s ever heard of folks gettin’ recognition for nothin'? No one, that’s who!" Eventually, he goes outside to learn that the Neighbors have already done all the delivering for him, and that he doesn't need to do his job, he can simply enjoy the festivities!… But when he tries, he starts seeing things nobody else can. Things that feel like aren't meant to be seen. Things he doesn't want to see.

It seems that the "Roles" of the characters within Welcome Home almost act as an anchoring point for them. That if they aren't able to be who they are, they start to slip, they start to see things, and the world around them begins to twist and shift. Julie herself, the more stressed she gets, starts to speak differently. Her voice is lower, her tone is more quiet, reserved, far more human and less cartoony. Almost like she's becoming a completely different person. But unlike Eddie, whose anxieties seem to stem from recognition or the knowledge that he's doing a public service for the people he cares about, Julie's seem to come from a deep seeded fear of failure. Earlier in the videos we hear her talk about how sometimes she worries about what Barnaby and Howdy think of her, that she thinks she isn't funny, and she tries brushing it off as friendly ribbing, but the tone in her voice clearly lets us know that ribbing or not that it still hurts her sometimes. Not only that but we already have the expectations she feels she has from her siblings. Were these fears she imparted unto herself for feeling like the odd one out of her family, or was there some form of long-form confrontation within the Joyful family from a young age that left her feeling like she not only lived in their shadow, but needed to live up to their example. There are a lot of things we can speculate about Julie's relationship and feelings towards her family and her friends, but one thing is certain: Julie believes that she can't let anyone see her slip. They can't see her when she's unhappy, and they most certainly can never, ever, ever know that she did something wrong. It almost puts her kind of playtime into perspective: You don't need to worry about loosing if the rules to a game are so loosey goosey, or even if loosing is the fun part, as we see in the video where Eddie and Julie play pretend as corporate business workers. Hell, maybe Julie's exaggerated break down of Everything Inc. going "Out of Business" was foreshadowing for Julie's actual fears of failure. But the point is, it doesn't matter if you loose if the rules are made up to be nonsense and a winner can simply be picked at random, or if the purpose of the game is simply to have fun and have no proper goal. But once there are rules? There are stakes. And there's a punishment if you loose.

Now here's a question that seems to be floating around the fan communities of Welcome Home: Is Julie's pollyanna attitude genuine, or a front? When we see her break down in front of the Black Tulip, is this us finally seeing her true colors, mask off? I think the answer is more nuanced than a simple yes or no, but what I do believe is that Julie's demeanor comes from a genuine place. We've seen her behave all serendipitous and silly when "the cameras are off" and I don't think she's secretly a constant bundle of anxiety on the inside. I think her being so joyful is what she does to quell her anxiety. It is what makes her happy, it's what makes life worth living, but it is a coping mechanism and up until this point, a pretty effective one! Not only that, but Welcome Home is always constantly playing with our perception of where the boundaries lie between our world and that of Welcome Home's.

I'm not the only one to have come to this conclusion, but I believe when we hear Julie's voice break we're hearing what her original voice-actress sounded like when she was out-of-character, and potentially Julie's fears are mirroring that of the original actress. So, are we seeing Julie, or her actress? I think it's both. I think we're getting both an in-depth read on Julie's character and starting to see behind the curtain of what the production crew was dealing with, to a certain extent. To what extent, we don't know, but with how often Welcome Home blends the lines of reality, I think we're witnessing a co-existing truth and not something that contradicts itself. There is another thing I am absolutely certain of regarding Julie's reaction to the Black Tulip not blooming: This is a trauma response. Julie isn't just being traumatized in the moment from the Black Tulip not blooming, something had to have happened to her in the past to make her react in such a way.

It gets to the point that, for the first time in the series, we hear one of the characters swear! JULIE SAYS "SHIT!" And by the end of it all we start to hear her threatening the Black Tulip, saying that by Homewarming when Winter comes that they'll never be seen again, that nobody will know it's there! She's threatening the Black Tulip, and in the same breadth convincing herself that this is something she can bury and that no one will know of her shame... ...Say… Remember when Julie was the one who played the main character in Sally's rendition of The Telltale Heart? Almost like it was foreshadowing this very moment, and that Julie feels the same amount of guilt and shame over not being able to bloom a flower as much as the main-character in The Telltale Heart feels about killing another person? Safe to say, these emotions can't be coming from nowhere. Something happened to Julie Joyful. And if that isn't enough, the last secret page we find for the update is Frank, seemingly exploring the Forests of the Outskirts of Home, the sun is starting to set, and he's looking with a thousand yard stare at something we can't see. And the image's name is called "uhoh."

Remember in the Halloween Update, when Sally told the story of why you don't leave your home after dark? Did Julie stay in that forest, berating the Black Tulip until the sun came down, and Frank has found the aftermath? Or is this before the sun goes down, and Frank is seeing something else… Either way, from what we can tell, it can't be good. And I am dreading the next update. I hope above anything else that Julie will be okay. But at this point, it's hard to say. --- Julie has always been an important character to me, ever since Welcome Home started. I was recently transitioning, voice training, and when I finally got to see Julie in action proper, the first thought I had is that I wanted to be just like her. Exuberant, goofy, caring, silly, reverent, colorful, joyful, she was the embodiment of everything I so deeply, deeply wanted to be. And in this update, I wasn't just thinking about how much I wanted to be like her. Julie reminded me of myself. Of fears i've had, of struggles i've gone through, of the terror that grips your heart when you think you are on the verge of a failure you can't come back from, a failure that will make you worthless. I don't say this to garner sympathy, and whilst we all go through our own struggles, i'm happy to say that i'm in a better place than I was when Welcome Home came out, and that the future looks even brighter. But i've never had a character both embody the sort of person I wanted to be, and the sort of struggles that gripped my heart. In a weird way, it made me feel more like Julie than I ever did before, over something I never thought the two of us would share. There's a lot more I could talk about regarding Julie, and as deep as I go I feel like I am only ever going to scratch the surface. There's the discussion of the queer theming in Welcome Home regarding the Show seemingly forcing Julie and Frank into a relationship, and the potential romance between Frank Frankly and Eddie Dear. I could talk about what is essentially the "Beta" of Welcome Home before all of its details were canonized, where Julie looked far more wonky and had the name Julie B and the seperate story that tells. (which I personally believe is referenced when Jonesy calls her by the affectionate nickname of Julie Bean.) I could talk about how before we even met The Joyful Family, I made a Self-Insert OC of a Rainbow Monster named Vivi Vacilate, how she'd interact with the rest of her cast, wrote up her own theoretical "It's-For-You Talking Telephone" script and even what-if scenarios of how she'd be incorporated into the ARG itself, playing with themes of fan-creations for works like this and the strange nature of how things manifest through Welcome Home as a show, with there being a question of whether or not Vivi was an actual character or a fan-creation that somehow manifested itself alongside the show. I can talk about what I think the future holds for her character, for the story as a whole, and what it'll mean. And I more than likely will, in the future, whether between friends or in errant posts or maybe even another analysis like this. Only time will tell what form it takes, but there's one thing I do know for certain: I love Julie Joyful. Never has there been a character that has brought me such happiness into my life and made me feel so known. Never has there been a character that represents everything I want to be in life, how far i've come, and the lengths i've yet to go. I don't know how Welcome Home will end, whether it'll be happy, sad, scary, or all if it at once. But no matter what happens, Julie Joyful will always have a very, very special place in my heart. I commend Clown for planting this little seed, all of the artists and writers for giving it some good soil and watering it with their love, and to Cyberscraps for letting its voice bloom into something beautiful and inspiring. And i'll always cherish it. ...Oh, no wait, there is one second thing I know for certain. ...I really want that Julie Plushie... ---

"Thank you again for listening to me again, Stranger. I needed that more than I thought I did. Sometimes you have thoughts that just keep bubbling up inside you until it POPS like an overstuffed grape and just gets messy and all over the place but...now I feel better...at least a little…" "...I guess all there is left to do is wait. I mean i'm used to that now and i'm a patient girl but...it's...really all I can do right now, isn't it?" [Silence] "At least I can say I did all I could! I had some help of course, I don't know if I could'a done it all by my lonesome! So here's hoping that when things happen again that maybe...they'll be better?…" [Silence] "...Is it silly of me to think that way?…" [Silence] "...I guess so. But...maybe that's not all that bad. Stranger, I feel like it's my time to go, and i'm sure you have places to be but...can you do me a favor? If you can?" [Slience.] "...If you..."

"Happen to come across her…" "Can you let me know if she's okay?" "That I hope she's okay?" [Silence.] "...Well...it's worth a shot." "...Goodbye and uh...g-goodness what is that thing he says…" "...Don't forget to wave up high." [Vivian hangs up the phone.]

[beef-brisket]

Lucifer sighed: I... I'm an angel... well, ex angel.

Angel: Huh... you? Mr Hardass? Makes sense.

Husk: Ha! I knew there was something up with you.

Lucifer: Look! I don't need judgement right now! I need a way to make it up to him! I've... I've fucking hurt him so badly...

Alastor stood in the background as the sinners- and now ex angel talk. It was fascinating how one little lie can send everything spirling.

Looking to the wall, Alastor smiled wider as his shadow came closer, pointing up.

Alastor: Yes... I think it's best we pay the prince a little visit~.

-

Seeing the price curled up under the covers almost made Alastor rethink his intentions for coming up here. Almost.

Alastor quickly ignored those feelings: Ooh, Adam~!

The prince peeked out from under his blanket: Al? I-I can't deal with hotel stuff today...you're in charge.

Alastor: Oh my deer, I do LOVE to hear that! But that's not why I'm here.

Adam: ...It's not?

Alastor: No~. You seen down. I'm here to leant you ny shoulder and my ear! Oh, what the hell! Both ears!

The prince sighed and sat up, the blanket still wrapped tightly around himself: Ever since sinners started to fall to Hell, they blamed me! Said I was the reason sin existed-! I... they hate me. STILL! The first person to treat me with any type of respect or... kindness was Lucifer... and now... I-I learn that he lied! He used me... for a place to live? I have no idea... d-do I really mean nothing to anyone? M-my own- mother... she's not even my real-.

The prince covered his mouth and buried his face in the blanket, refusing to let Alastor see him cry.

Adam: I- hide away under some... fake personality. I try to be sweet and caring towards everyone... even when they hate me... I just... I'm sick of pretending that any of this matters... that I matter... sure, mom came here, sung to me... made me feel good for a day or two... but she isn't answering my texts again... she hasn't asked about Heaven- I can't even go to her about relationship issues! I have no friends... everyone here is kind- but they don't like me. Not enough to... everyone here has such a great connection- and I'm so happy about that! But, their faking it with me... I can tell...

Alastor slowly sat next to Adam, listening to his rant.

Adam: And now Lucifer-! He... he doesn't even love me- he lied to me! Used me! How long would it have been until he up and left me because he doesn't need me?! I-I wanted to marry him! I was just- waiting for the hotel to pick up- when it didn't need to be so hands-on... I just... wish I was never made... then no one would have to dea with me... I ruin everything... the extermination has been pushed up because of me-! And I can't stop it... I'm lost... and for the first time... I'm regretting even starting this hotel...

Alastor: ...Those are some harsh words, Adam.

Adam looked away and pulled hisbknees to his chest: Yeah, I guess... sorry, Al. I know you don't like this kind of stuff. I just... I don't know what I need...

Alastor: How, now. I do hate to see one so down. I'm not one for relationships- never trusted them! But... I may be able to help you with another problem you're facing.

Adam: ...Really?

Alastor: Really! How about... a solution to your extermination problem~?

Love You More Than Anything

@beef-brisket

In the beginning there was the Garden of Eden that housed the first humans, Adam and Lilith. They were each other's equals and meant to be each other's spouses.

But they did love each other and Lilith wanted to control Adam. Upset he fled the garden to be alone and figure out what he really wanted.

That's when he met the Seraphim Angel, Sera. She was intrigued by the strong willed human and had come to care for him like a mother would a child. She cared for him and taught him things but there was only so much he could understand.

Wanting more for the man she considered a son, Sera plucked an apple from the tree of knowledge to give him the forbidden fruit.

But things went so wrong so fast, Lilith and her new husband Evan were also given the fruit and this brought sin to the earth.

For ruining humanity Sera and Adam were cast out of the garden into the darkest depths of the Earth, where they could only see the worst humanity had to offer and never seeing the good.

Knowing she made an unforgivable mistake, Sera became deeply depressed.

Adam became determined to find a way to help make things better, not just for Hell but for his mama too.

-

It was extermination day and Adam, the prince of Hell always went out afterwards to survey the damage. Most people never took his help, telling him to fuck off, but he still offered it.

Adam sighed: Might as well head back.

He decided to take a short cut through an alleyway and that was when he saw him.

A blonde haired man was leaning against the dumpster clearly hurt and even though he clearly needed help Adam couldn't help but notice how handsome he was.

Adam went over: Are you okay? Do you want some help?

Lucifer opened his eyes and if it hadn't of been for the black and gold horns coming from brunette locks, he would have sworn he saw an angel.

Lucifer: Please.... I'm hurt....

Adam wrapped a head wound and helped him up: My name's Adam.

Lucifer smiled: Lucifer, it's nice to meet you..... Thank you.

Adam: You're welcome, let's get you inside. You can stay at my hotel until you're better.

[on-this-side-of-the-curve]

Curve Theory

Would you believe me if I told you that Rick Sanchez isn't only the antagonist of his own series, but many more too?

The Central Finite Curve Connected Multiverse (or even Omniverse,) it's not just Rick and Morty living it up here! In my world Easter Eggs aren't just fun things to find in the background, but are actually treasures hiding a larger narrative.

References, Easter Eggs, Crossovers and Cameos, plus some storytelling to fill the holes, and you get a beautifully well pieced together puzzle.

Theories coming soon!

[quotes-and-recs]

There's a special kind of ecstasy I feel when I read an Andrew Joseph White book and his protag unapologetically talks about the horrors of being a woman (without pulling any punches), and talks about the horrors of being a woman when a woman is not what you are

[vorekody]

Am I the only one who thinks Breezeblocks is a vore coded song

[nenoname]

since i love same coin theory but get why folks dislike it, sometimes i muse on what makes a person and how souls and reincarnations are portrayed in media

sometimes souls are depicted as the entirety of what makes someone, sometimes its just an aspect that you can live without, and the amount of variation of how much a previous incarnation has an impact on the current self ranging from 'you're literally your past self' or the more horrifying 'your previous incarnation's memories can take over and sublimate the current self completely' to literally no impact

and then i think about how you see stan and ford change drastically over their single lifetime (eg just the sheer difference between their teen+adult+old man selves) and how amnesiac!stan is him at his core but everyone agreeing that it's not him at the same time

there's also the question of how reincarnation works in the gf universe in the first place, with the axolotl's domain being different from the 'reincarnation processing center', and how invoking + making a deal with the axolotl is described as a rare rule of the universe to 'live again', which just turned out to be reincarnation with conditions, but what exactly causes reincarnation/soulmates in a normal situation anyway.....

but in the end, the first thing my brain sprouts out when trying to explain my take on reincarnation is "kagome is not kikyo!!!!" despite only reading like 20 chapters of inuyasha and then stopping forever

[ersatz-introspective]

is there anyone on tumblr who genuinely hates abigail or are we talking about reddit or sumn. like we agree abigail is literally perfect right. what's everyone talking abou

[rabnerd28]

Listened to the latest WCD episode and I had to turn it off. Like, am I technically making myself upset, yeah. But it's like, actually making me think about how much I don't like that apparently a thing was happening, and there's less of an open interpretation now, among other things.

[johnslittlespoon]

hey, how do we feel about ken and brady? because:

thinking about brady getting up early to go spend time with his little mechanic before everyone else is awake, his version of courting ken being sitting on the tailgate of a truck to watch him do his routine checks, fond smile playing at his lips, a softness so evident that it'd be useless to deny it if anyone pointed it out, but he'd still try.

ken following him around base like a lovesick puppy after the morning's mission, hanging off his every word, looking at him like he's the coolest ever, and to ken he is. eagerly leaning forward in his seat, chin in hand when brady relents and tells him about his flight in the mess hall later, shooting question after question at him until brady quiets him with the suggestion that they go on a walk, "so we don't drive the others mad with your yapping."

ken grows more shy when it's just the two of them, hands in his pockets as they walk off base to stroll down a quiet country trail, fighting off a dopey grin every time brady purposefully bumps against him. the rush of developing feelings, every interaction feeling so fresh and exciting, pure young summer love.

a drawled out "enough about the mission– what'd my pretty handyman get up to while i was gone?" as brady slings an arm around his waist when they're far enough off the road to not worry. light pink blooming on ken's cheeks at his words, smiling bashfully as he tells him about the little things that happened throughout the morning.

the two of them end up in some open field as they often do, sweaty in the sun, cargo pants on but shirts discarded in the grass. brady's laid out on his back with sweet angel ken on top of him, hands cupping ken's face as his boy leans down to kiss him all smiley and giggly and flushed, curls messy from the summer heat and roaming hands.

all of their days off spent in that field, a summer full of lazy make–outs and secret glances and careful brushes of hands, growingly increasingly fonder of each other's company and navigating the feelings that come with that. evenings spent up on the wing of whatever plane ken's spent the day working on, laying his head in brady's lap as the sun goes down, resting his eyes while brady reads his book out loud to him, or while they both talk about their days.

innocent first–love surviving the summer, stretching into fall and then winter, romps in fields turning into cold evenings under blankets when they can sneak into unoccupied barracks. the light small talk and nervous kisses and hand holding of the sunny season morph into late night conversations over the howling wind outside about what will happen after the war, fantasizing about a cozy apartment and a bed for two and quiet mornings and a future together.

[maraariana01]

HEY CHAT UH

HEY UHH

UHH???

HEY CHAT WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT???????

[strunmah-mah]

Saw someone HC that post flashpoint Babs (especially Burnside era) isn't actually Babs but Charlie Gage-Radcliffe with memory issue from the reboot

I'm in love with the idea, make it canon DC. It's wouldn't be the first tome she's been mistaken for Babs girl. Do it!

[airenyah]

i don't think we as a fandom have ever talked about ohm's acting choices in this scene:

[seekingthestars]

hey besties how're y'all doing 🥺🫶

[charlies-crushes]

Going through Nagito's wiki gallery and I have so many things I wanna say... For now I'll just say that I absolutely love this image that was intended for a file holder

Not only because it's the luck boys being paired up which always makes me happy, not only because of Nagito looking incredibly handsome ugh, but also the symbolism!!! Nagito being on the Monokuma side and Makoto being on the Monomi side representing the luck that brings hope and the luck that brings despair but also that Makoto is a much more positive character and Nagito is a rather twisted character, also the line of lucky or unlucky referencing both how they're the ultimate lucky students of their respective games but also the luck cycles they both seem to have

[andthebubbles]

tfw you're deliberately making yourself so attached to your fictional characters to combat loneliness

anyway i miss them. i was just writing them yesterday lmao