#I mean he has more than two so it’s not the end of the world if it gets severed but I still think it’s romantic.

[klunkcat]

50 VAGUE ANGSTY + HURT/COMFORT DIALOGUE PROMPTS

42. "Tell me what I did wrong! What's wrong with me?!" + rise A Team 🥺

You keep requesting things that I know will hurt ur feelings!!!

TW: panic attack, derealization/dissociation

Waking up in the med bay had been less painful than this. He’d broken fourteen bones and fractured three more, been coughing up blood and some thick substance he was very sure was never supposed to be on the outside but he’d thought, ‘hey, we won’. 

This didn’t feel like winning. This felt like standing on the other side of a very long tunnel and seeing the world from a sideways tilt. 

He’d been allowed out of the med bay for a glorious two days– mostly to lay up on the couch instead of the stiff medical room— and missed somewhere that the world had actually ended. Because when Raph leaned over him to grab his glass of water on the table beside him, Leo flinched. 

It wasn’t him, he decided. Because Leo had never once in his life feared anything from his big brother, not even when Raph had gone through his snapping phase. Because Raph was Raph and that meant the biggest warmest hugs you could imagine, and big wet watering eyes and crying over commercials with kittens that sneezed too hard. It couldn’t be him that saw Raph moving forward and thought of pink, slimy tendrils, and felt his airways closing with a sharp thrum of oh god and I’m going to die, because that didn’t make sense. 

Raph froze, eyes wide. Leo fell further outside himself. 

The other him made his hand move, he didn’t feel it move. The other him spoke. 

“Oh, ha. Sorry, static must have shocked me.” From the blankets, yeah. That made sense. This other him that jumped at things at least had his wits, that was reassuring. 

“Leo,” Raph said very slowly. Some hindbrain red alert crawled all the way up from his heart and right out his mouth, and into that other version of him that was staying very still. 

“I didn’t— I didn’t mean to.” 

Raph put his arm down just as slowly, leaned back like he could telegraph every moment. His eyes stayed wide and locked on to him. “Okay, that’s okay.” 

“It wasn’t you,” the other him said, and Leo couldn’t feel his lips moving but he desperately wanted to be able to shut him up. “It wasn’t um— just. Jumpy. Pulled something funny, you know with the. The bandages.” 

Shit, Leo thought. Stick to the script, pal. 

“Right,” Raph said, without blinking. Like he was thinking something else. 

“Don’t do that,” other him said. “Okay, the big brother voice thing. I don’t need it, let’s just. Watch the movie, right?” 

He was suddenly aware of Donnie by his kneecaps, Mikey staring at him from the mound of pillows he’d made at Don’s legs. He needed this other him to shape up, acting classes were a must. He was flubbing big time, Leo did not flub. 

Raph shifted again, molasses slow, and gave Donnie a look. His twins face twitched with a nod, and he summarily picked up Mikey, blanket and all and shuffled into his lab. Traitor, Leo thought vaguely. Pincer attack, coordinated front. He hated that. That was his and Don’s thing.

Stepping on my turf, he meant to say. Other Leo’s mouth didn’t move, so he was useless. 

“Actually, Raph’s a little worried.” 

Oh, Leo thought, oh no. Fear lanced through him again, in some distant way. He could see his fingers twitching and couldn’t make them stop. “Worried? About what. Can I help, big guy?” 

Raph hummed. “Think you could, yeah. We haven’t talked about everything that happened, have we?” 

Well, Mikey had made him talk a little, about why he thought it would be okay to choose himself without telling anyone else first. Hugged him as tightly as he could with Leo’s broken ribs for three solid hours until Leo’d given in and promised he’d be kinder to himself. Donnie had been furious at him for three straight days somewhere after he’d blearily woken up from his coma, but they hadn’t talked directly about why yet. Suddenly, the look he’d caught clicks.

He was still too outside himself to react the right way. Other Leo looked away and twisted the blanket in his hands. 

Ever so slowly, he felt Raph’s warm hand land on his knee. He could see it, his big brother’s hand, green and normal. No spikes, no pink. He could breathe out— there was a rope somewhere there that guides him closer enough that he can flip his own hand around and squeeze. 

“Nothing to talk about, bro bro,” Leo managed, but it was croaky and lacking all the usual fizz. Fizzless, him. The horror was nearly too much to think about. 

The look Raph gave him was half a wince of apology, half tangled up exasperation. He didn’t like that there was guilt there. That didn’t fit. Raph hadn’t done a single thing wrong. 

“Leo.” 

He made himself swallow. “Raphala.” 

Raph sighed. Flipped Leo’s hand over so he could stare down at the bandages crossing his palm. He’d burnt the inside of his fingers somehow, he couldn’t even say when it happened. Silly, really. He’d laughed when Don had told him. Come to think of it, Dee hadn’t really looked like he’d agreed with the joke then either. 

He watched the way Raph traced his thumb across the white gauze, the way his face twisted and crashed down with mounting horror. 

“I’m so sorry, Leo. You know I love you, right?”

Other Leo made a second appearance, making his hands go numb. “I— of course? I love you too, what does that—?”

Raph’s non bandaged eye blazed when he looked up at him, swimming in the dim movie light. “I hurt you, Leo. I took your trust and I hurt you with it. Raphie’s so sorry.” 

That didn’t— Leo blinked rapidly. The world fell out of focus, clicked free of its puzzle piece board. Out into the ether. “Stop apologizing.” 

“Leo—”

“No!” Other him said it sharp, loud. Too electric behind the words, he winced at himself and didn’t feel his face move. “You don’t— you don’t get to apologize to me. That doesn’t— what are you talking about Raph?” 

Somehow his brother’s face only fell further, it made the panic in Leo’s chest sticky. “I said that wrong, I don’t—” It was so hard to think, why couldn’t he make himself think? “I’m not afraid of you! I’m not.” He wasn’t. Because it was Raph. 

“It’s okay if you are, buddy. Raph understands—” 

“I’m not!” Leo bit out, and blinked rapidly again as the world falls further out to sea. “I put you in danger, I jumped in and— I did something stupid, and you got brainwashed. Because I fucked up. Why aren’t you mad at me? Tell me what I did wrong!”

What’s wrong with me, he thought, vibrant and liquid like toxic sludge seeping down to his core. 

He couldn’t even see right anymore, everything had gone shapes and colors. It wasn’t even Raph in front of him, it was something. It was nothing and— 

“--breathe with me, okay? In. Out, that’s it. That’s perfect, Bug, keep doing that.” 

The Bug snapped him together, pulls all of his strings forward. Raph hadn’t called him that since they were toddlers, when he and Donnie had started insisting being twins and Raph tried to play along. Bug and Boo, he’d said all proud. Donnie had hated it instantly and rebuked any attempt at being called something so sweet by biting. Leo’d tried to make it fit a little better, since Raph seemed to like it so much.

‘S it b’cause I bug you?’ Leo’d said, sad and puddling up but hiding it with a teasing smile he knew would make the hurting less loud. 

Raph had smoothed his hand across his head and grinned. ‘It’s cause you’re my favorite bug.’ But it sounded like a good thing when Raph said it. 

Leo forced in a breath, feels his hands become his hands and his toes firmly plant as his toes. “Sorry,” he managed. “Sorry, went. Um. Somewhere. Back.” 

Raph’s big worried eye peered down at him, he let go of Leo’s hand with a firm squeeze. Leo shook his head, clearing out all the fuzz as much as he could. 

“I need you to hear me, just for a second. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Raph tried, worry making his voice small. “Can you believe me on that one thing? You were brave, and you got us through it, and most importantly you got Leo through it. I’m not mad.”

Leo scoffed, staring down at the blanket instead. Raph carefully scrubs a hand across the top of Leo’s head, warm and calloused the way he knows. 

“Raph wanted you safe. That’s all. And I hurt you, so it’s okay if you— if you need time.” 

Leo snapped his eyes up, grabbing at Raph’s hand again even before he pulled away. “I don’t! I don’t need you to go anywhere, or leave or. Please don’t leave.” 

Raph’s face gentled. 

“Can we just,” Leo couldn’t look at him, he couldn’t. “Can we just stay here for a minute? Maybe talking can be later.” When it wasn’t him and other him preferably, so he could say things the right way.

“Okay.” 

Raph settled back on the couch, slowly lifting his arm free and telegraphing the space underneath for Leo to decide. As if he needed to decide, the best place in the world was in Raph’s hugs. He’d always fit perfect there. 

Raph smoothed his hand across Leo’s head with his thumb, back and forth.The warmth pulled him all the way back into himself, almost with a shudder. Leo squeezed his eyes shut and buried his snout further into Raph’s side. It made him brave. “I’m not scared of you. I’ve never been scared of you, big guy.”

Raph’s thumb paused. Smoothed back again. “It’s okay if you are. That was… pretty scary.” 

Leo shook his head stubbornly. “Wasn’t you. I know my big brother anywhere. That wasn’t him.” 

He pretended kindly not to hear the hitch in Raph’s breathing. The warm chuckle after is like lottery gold. 

“Thanks, bug. I know you, too.” 

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

To address some further points that the notes have been kind enough to bring up, it would appear further debunking is needed. To be clear, I get that most people don't have my encyclopedic knowledge of a series that ended a quarter century ago and are getting their information filtered through fandom. However.

"She doesn't acknowledge the sacrifices her friends make for the war effort."

Counterpoint:

"I guess I'm not you, Tobias. I guess I'm not willing to make the sacrifices you've made... That can mean... I'm a coward. I'm selfish." (Cassie, #19)

"'Each day, each battle, each mission, I just feel less and less.' ...I turned to Jake. He made the ghost of a smile and nodded his head. He understood. He knew. It was happening to him, too." (Cassie, #19)

"Cassie put her arm around my shoulder. It is a human gesture of comfort. 'You okay?' she asked. [Ax just rejected the only 3 other andalites on the planet.]... Cassie held my hand, and in the darkness where no one could see, I cried." (Ax, #38)

"She [Rachel] had this way of seeming untouched by what went on around her. Unaffected. Above... But the war had touched her. She'd changed, and she'd known she was changing... My beautiful, brave best friend." (Cassie, #54)

"'So how is he [Jake], really?' /'I'm not exactly a psychiatrist, Cassie.' /I wasn't going to accept that. "Marco, you have a very subtle mind and you're a good observer. And he's your best friend." (Cassie, #54)

"Jake had done an almost superhuman job of protecting his parents. Both from death and a fate worse than death. Infestation. Until the last time." (Cassie, #50)

"He wants us to just quit the whole thing... But at the same time, it's Marco who is very aware of all the security problems. He's the one who makes sure we never discuss anything on the phone, where enemy ears might be listening in." (Cassie, #4)

In conclusion: I could go on, but she's IMHO more aware of the others' sacrifices than Ax or Marco is.

"Her saving Ax with brain surgery in #29 is a deus ex machina"

Counterpoint: First, trephination predates writing in parts of the world so, a) it can be done without modern tools, b) it can be done without written instruction (which Cassie has), c) it can be done without yeerk assistance (which Cassie has). Cassie doesn't literally trepan Ax, but her surgery isn't far off.

Second... I already brought up Tobias reshaping the history of the entire Earth, didn't I? Aight, how about:

Marco predicts Visser One's moves months in advance, using information gleaned from 3 interactions with her that each lasted less than 15 minutes (#30)

Ax, who weighs ~100lbs, kills a T. rex that weighs ~25,000lbs using only his tail (MM2)

Rachel fights three hork-bajir controllers, injuring two and killing one, with no morphing and only melee weapons (MM4)

Tobias catches an arrow in midair, intercepting an object traveling at over 200 MPH while himself traveling at up to 60 MPH and actively being shot at (MM3)

Marco and Ax hack the CIA database in an afternoon because they're bored (#48)

In conclusion: It's a superhero story, ffs.

"Her ability to morph well is rarely or never helpful"

Counterpoint: This one has got to be down to OP not having read the books in ~20 years.

In #37, she morphs her way out of shackles without revealing she's human by only demorphing parts of her polar bear legs.

In #44, she pulls a similar trick by breaking into an airplane with human fingers while still 90% gull.

The default "nuclear option" (MM1, #24, #34, #39) is for the kids to drop Moby Cassie on their problems, a strategy that never fails to get results — and that hinges on Cassie being able to turn into a whale ultra-fast while retaining some of her bird parts.

In #9, she saves everyone's lives by regaining control of her termite morph long enough to kill the queen, something none of her friends can do.

In #3, #21, and #26, she saves fellow morphers from being trapped by helping them demorph.

In conclusion: Cassie being a skilled morpher doesn't become useful quite as often as Tobias's flying skills or Ax's lightning calculation, but it's a close contest.

"She's the one who pushed the others to dump oatmeal in the yeerk pool and later to drop a nuclear bomb on it."

Counterpoint: This one has got to be down to OP not having read the books in ~20 years, but also it's extremely telling that this false rumor is making its way around the fandom. I'm sure someone's come up with a way to blame her for the JFK assassination and the Mount St. Helens eruption while they're at it.

"'Cassie?' I asked. 'What do you think?' /... When she turned around, I was shocked. She had a stricken look. 'I... I don't know anymore, okay?... All the rights and wrongs, and all the lines between good and evil...' Cassie hugged herself." (Rachel, #17)

"I kicked the rest of the barrels into the pool, just so Marco couldn't possibly miss. Then Cassie went off to free the others... «Marco has to shoot,» I said... /«He's not leaving us any choice,» Tobias said grimly. He hopped over to sit on Marco's shoulder. «You're aiming high,» he said. «A hair lower...»" (Rachel, #17)

[Jake and Eva discuss bombing the yeerk pool] "«You know, maybe we should rethink this,» Tobias said. /'Yeah, we should,' Cassie agreed. 'This mission is way too heavy with bad karma.' .../'I'm out,' Cassie said hotly. 'I thought that maybe... but I can't. And I can tell you my parents are out, too.' .../ Cassie turned to walk away, but Jake grabbed her sleeve. 'Cassie! Come on.'/ 'Come on what! ... You don't knowingly take innocent life. Not if you're a decent person. I thought you knew that, Jake.'" (Ax, #52)

"'Cassie's going [on the mission],' Jake said. 'If there are tough decisions to be made along the way, I want Cassie to make them.' .../'Cassie!' Marco sighed. 'We increase the risk...' /«Cassie is right,» I said abruptly. «We agreed to give a full five minutes to those who wish to escape. To give them less would be dishonorable and inhumane.»" (Ax, #52)

In conclusion: She's capable of tough calls when they need to be made. But she always opposes slaughtering unhosted yeerks.

"Cassie is preachy and moralizing"

Counterpoint: I could bring up all the times Jake outright scolds someone for going against the team, or the times Tobias decides the fate of the world based on a gut feeling, or the times Marco's a straight-up asshole about someone disagreeing with him. But instead I'd like to list Cassie's morals:

Don't kill prisoners of war if at all possible (#19, #52, #16)

Don't ask anyone else to do something you wouldn't be willing to do yourself (#9, #19)

We should maybe stop annihilating every other species on Earth at top speed, even if doing so is good for the economy (#4, #9, #24)

Sport hunting is wasteful (#29)

Hunting for food is not only acceptable, but often a person's only option (#25, #9)

Animals feel pain (#4, #28)

Animal experimentation, especially for cosmetics, is cruel (#28)

It's better to fuck up by saving a life than by taking one (#19, #29, #50)

An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind (sometimes you have to compromise) (#41, #52)

In conclusion: The environmentalism is the obvious place where Cassie's idealism has stood the test of time, far better than Marco's mockery about logging limits being the same as "let dogs vote!" (#9). But if we take a step back from the idea that the point of war is winning at all costs (again: if you want that, play Call of Duty) then most of what Cassie supports seems downright reasonable. You don't have to agree with her on everything — I'm in favor of culling animal overpopulations with sport hunting — but in a lot of ways she's less extreme in her views than Marco or Ax.

So I'm putting together an In Defence of Cassie PowerPoint for a PowerPoint night with friends. Do you have any arguments for or against her? I trust your opinion and am curious.

Let's see.

"She's too powerful, too unique, too far-seeing, and not good enough for Jake! What a Mary Sue!"

Counterpoint: May I introduce you to the reigning champion fan favorite, Sad White Boy Tobias?

Only nothlit ever to regain the ability to morph

Only known human-andalite hybrid ever to exist

Regarded as savior by entire hork-bajir species

Entire existence is a time paradox the war hinges upon

Pulls the canonically "most beautiful girl in our grade", who turns down 6 or 7 other offers in favor of Bird Boy

Correctly predicted planetary ecology 65 million years in advance

Believed to be immune to 2-hour limit

In conclusion: y'all wouldn't be crying "Mary Sue" if Cassie was a sad white boy, and I can prove it.

"She's too weak and hand-wringing, and she never helps the war effort!"

Counterpoint: First of all, the fact that the same people say this in the same breath as "she's too powerful" is... telling. Secondly:

She saved the entire team's lives in #24, in #29, in #44, and in MM1, among others.

Specifically calling out #44 — that ending shows she is willing and able to be ruthless when her friends are in need. She doesn't like slaughtering human-controllers, but if the alternative is everyone she loves dying, then she'll fucking well do it.

Much like Jake (see: Sad White Boy), she's more willing to risk herself than her friends, hence the end of MM1

Her medical knowledge saves Marco from rabies, Ax from brain!appendicitis, and Tobias from bird flu.

Her survivalist knowledge saves everyone in #25 (the Arctic), MM2 (Cretaceous Era), #11 (rainforest), and #14 (desert).

In conclusion: Cassie's only idealistic-looking by the standards of this extremely morally gray team.

"She's so unfair to Jake!"

Counterpoint: Jake? The Jake who refused to speak with her for weeks? Jake who proposes marriage while they're still broken up? Jake who announces he'll never trust Cassie again because she [checks notes] saved his brother's life? That Jake?

Also:

She gives him tons of emotional support in #16, #21, #47, and other times he's feeling low.

They have a healthy argument where they air differences and come to an understanding in #9.

Did I mention he doesn't just dump her but ghosts her in the middle of the war's endgame?

They're teenagers. Their relationship isn't perfect, but it is built on open communication and mutual respect which is more than Rachel and Tobias can say

She's fighting a war, and PTSD for that matter. No, she doesn't have infinite emotional bandwidth.

In conclusion: Their relationship is fine, their breakup is mutual, and her behavior only looks bad if, once again, you're holding Cassie to a different standard than you are Jake.

"She shouldn't have trusted Aftran!"

Counterpoint: friendly reminder that the alternative was killing a 6-year-old for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If that's what you think Cassie should've done, that tells us more about you than about her.

"She spends too much time moralizing!"

Counterpoint: this is a book series about war, not a friggin' video game. If you want moral pornography, go play Call of Duty. If you want sci fi realism, then you're going to have to accept that a majority of humans prefer not to kill their fellow humans if at all possible.

"She's a ripoff of [insert character here]!"

Counterpoint: literally every single one of these says more about the commenter than about the source work. "Every dystopia is set in the U.S." is the kind of thing only people who only read books by American authors would think. "All epic fantasy is Eurocentric" => tell me you only read books by white people without telling me. I'm glad you think Cassie is too similar to Willow Rosenberg, but there are at least 6 other stories in the known world, and I hear some of them even feature sweet/dorky/caring characters who are secretly ultra-powerful.

In conclusion: You don't have to like Cassie as a (fictional) person, but 85% of criticisms directed at her are bad-faith attacks on one of the 1990s' only fat Black female gnc ultra-powerful superheroes.

[luvrodite]

ok wait i need to say something about the dick grayson thought i've been turning over in my head for a bit.

i unfortunately do like readers that are a bit tragic and don't get a happy ending. it's like poking at a bruise idk it's cathartic in its own way. anyway. i know the age difference between dick and jason isn't really that big but i think it's big enough for this to work?

anyway i'm thinking about the relationship you have with dick when he moves out of the manor. you guys fuck, sure, and sometimes you go out, but you're not his girlfriend. not really. it's casual, except it isn't at the same time because dick comes with a plethora of his own issues and for some reason you can't quite fathom, he's decided you're the only one that gets to see that side of him.

you see him like nobody else does. you get the good, the bad and the ugly. you hold him through his nightmares. you brush his hair back from his forehead when he stares at his phone a little too long. you come by when it's been a few weeks and you haven't heard from him.

somehow you kind of end up playing intermediary between him and the kid brother his dad/guardian/mentor/older brother picked up along the way. jason is sweet. and you can tell he longs for a relationship with dick but he's got so much going on. it doesn't matter. jason takes what he can get.

you wonder when you started getting involved in your hookups' lives. but then it feels reductive to call it that. what the two of you have spans beyond that. it's so much more than that. dick touches the lives of all that he meets and you aren't special for it, but you feel it. maybe to the others he knows, in their weird, dysfunctional world, it's normal.

but you're a regular citizen. you go to work. you come home and do the dishes. you cook, you clean, you curse out your landlord when he puts off fixing the heating for the nth time. dysfunctional relationships are alien to you – the weight of all dick gives you, it has to mean something. fuck the forehead kisses, it stopped being casual when he held your hand through a doctor's visit and the fibers in your pillowcase swallowed his tears after a run in with bruce.

you play intermediary. jason sees more and more of you than you think he should, but he doesn't complain. you even grow used to the little bugger. you don't have much in the way of your own family, and he becomes something like the kid brother you never had. you grow used to the inappropriate humour that shocked you the first time it came out of his mouth, blue eyes shining up at you mischievously.

his height gives off the impression he's more youthful than he is and sometimes you end up babying him a little more for it. sometimes, he lets you. you brush a hand over his curls like you do his brother and keep a hand on his shoulder when you go to the corner store. you tell him to pick out whatever he wants, and that it's on you. he looks up at you like you got him the moon when you toss him a copy of his favourite book after a while of not seeing him – yours is all beat up, kid, pretty soon you won't be able to read it anymore.

you don't know how to deal with it when he dies, not long after you and dick break things off.

15. only a baby.

it's violent. you get the news from the papers and the picture of the blast zone makes you stop breathing. dick doesn't pick up the phone – why would he? and you're not even sure if you're allowed to reach out.

the last you'd heard, he'd been pretty cosied up with a new co-worker of some sort. red hair, pretty eyes. more than you'd ever gotten from him. sure, you'd known dick – you knew him. you were the closest he'd ever been to anyone, but it had simply been because there was nothing to lose with you.

you hold his grief, hold his heart in your hands, but you are nobody and you will not ask for more because he sleeps in your bed and sometimes, he holds your hand in public when you're walking through a crowded street. you guys have good days and it's something.

but he’ll is not yours – will never be yours, not fully, not like he belongs to bruce and gotham and the titans and his team. you’re a girl who he comes to because you’re safe.

but his brother dies and he's gone and you're left with not only the heartbreak of losing something never named, but the grief of a real tangible friendship, the death of a brother.

you are nobody and nothing – you're not the one that gets the guy and you are not the one that gets to mourn. you see him at his lowest and love him at his worst but he is not yours, and neither is the little boy that dies much too young, alone and scared.

you fall between the cracks. nobody stops to think about the girl who'd sometimes been mentioned in passing at the dinner table, on the rare occasion dick ventured back home to the manor. how can they? not when bruce is driven near mad with grief, not when dick is god knows where and it's all that alfred pennyworth can do to keep his charge and himself together.

i don't know. i just think about how it takes you months to muster up the energy and courage to visit your friend's grave – because jason was your friend, too. the baby brother you'd never had, a kid you'd felt responsible for, like he was your own. the visit leaves you exhausted and it's of course then, that on your way out, you bump into the second half of your troubles.

dick stares at you like he's seen a ghost and all that happened between you lingers in the air, the weight of it oppressive in the cold winter air. frost in the air, frost clinging to your lashes, heartbreak colouring you blue.

you look at him and think of it – how much you had put up with from him. how dearly you'd loved him. stupid, to catch feelings, but you'd gone ahead and done it. worst of all, he'd known it, too.

there'd been a time, not so long ago, when you would have let him do anything he pleased. lay me down, strike me, hurt me, i will bear it because it is at your hand. and he'd known.

he'd known it was wrong but he was hurting and it’d been easy with you because you didn't ask for more than he’d give but you did hope. and he could see it in your eyes that you hoped he’d give himself wholly over to you but he just wasn't there. perhaps he never would be. and you deserved better but he couldn't let you go. his regret, one amongst many, is that he had not done it sooner. shielded you from more pain at his hand.

once, dick had something of a god to you. now he stands before you and you see him as he is, a mere man. a tired, grief-stricken, man.

the only mercy he grants you now, is to let you walk away.

blank blogs dni. minors dni. have your age in your bio otherwise you will be blocked!

[astro-inky]

the aquamarine au

Info about au below (or at least what i have so far)

-based on the 2006 move Aquamarine, a teen romcom about two teenage girls meeting a mermaid and helping her find love to achieve their wish of one of them not moving away (its my childhood). this au takes basic plot ideas from the movie but with major changes

Jimmy and Joel are both 17. Jimmy's family owns a small, local beach resort where he also lives. Joel lives next door and they're basically attached at the hip and spend all their time at the resort. It's tense between them because Joel is moving far away by the end of the summer.

Scar is 19. He's been working at the beach as a lifeguard since he was in high school. Local sweetheart, everybody loves him. Seems like he sucks at his job, but nothing wrong ever really happens on his shift. Known flrt.

Grian is an unknown age but closer to Scar than Jimmy and Joel. I'm still working out his part. He's a mermaid who ran away from home. The Watchers are a group who protect mermaid pods but have very strict rules and archaic views; such as there is no such thing as love and have arranged a marriage for Grian he doesn't want (The Watchers in this au are less Mega Evil and more Parents Who Don't Understand and Kind Of Suck). He runs away to prove love exists. In doing so, getting into a major fight with his sister.

Grian gets caught in a storm and washes up into the pool of the beach resort, where Jimmy and Joel find him. They are SUPER cautious at first, but immediately offer to help him find true love when Grian tells them that helping a mermaid grants them a wish. They're hoping to use the wish to make it so Joel's family doesn't move away.

Grian is a bit oblivious to the human world, but even more so to the concept of love, because it is not common in the mer world. This leads Grian to believe anyone can love you with a bat of an eyelash, which leads him to try to woo the first interesting person who catches his eyes; aka Scar. When it doesn't immediately work, he's actually quite pissed off and thinks its Scar's fault for not falling in love with him. Jimmy and Joel proceed to make a plan to match the two together because Scar is so nice and probably the only person willing to give this weird and off putting mermaid a chance.

Unlike the movie, which takes place over a couple days, this au takes place over the course of a month or two, so there is even more chemistry between the cast. Hijinks and cringey romcom shenanigans ensue.

The ending is very different from the movie (im still thinking about it i dont have a lot for this au please go watch Aquamarine tho its my childhood and i love it)

uhhhhh IDK WHO IS GOOD FOR A CECILLIA CHARACTER. ok in the movie theres a character named cecillia shes the typical mean girl trying to stop the main characters from getting together. i wanna put someone in this role bc shes iconic and has funny moments im inspired by but im having a hard time thinking of someone who fits the role. any ideas for this or any thoughts at all are welcome, this au is for fun!!!

[lyricwritesprose]

Me versus a fanfic idea, trying to cohere

Having been watching some of "My Adventures With Superman" lately, and I have become kind of obsessed with a crack idea that came to me last night at fuck o'clock in the morning, that being: what if (in the MAWS continuity or any one in which the Kents are both alive) Jonathan and Martha got roped into briefly housing or fostering a teen after Clark was out on his own?

I mean. Like. Imagine you're this kid. You are staying with the most tragically uncool individuals on this planet, but they're honestly nice, they aren't bothered by all the stuff that got you labeled A Troubled Youth or the gender stuff you may have going on or any of that, they just seem fundamentally Able To Roll With It, and, okay, this is going to be fine. It's temporary anyway. Just keep out of trouble.

And they have an adult son who comes around sometimes? He's kind of nice too. Maybe twenty-one, twenty-two, he's built like a moose and you'd think he'd be imposing but he's kind of shy and awkward and somehow just fundamentally Not Like the people who beat you up before, so you're pretty chill with him. He knows all the good places on the farm to sit and think, or sit and draw. One time when he comes around he shows you the creek and you learn all about the frogs and the crawdads and the snakes. Tells you about the corn snake he rescued once. Stuff like that.

Only some things really don't add up.

Like, there's never a car in the driveway when he shows up. And it's not on weekends or anything like that, it's weird times.

And there's a note on the fridge that says, "If you drink all the milk please replace it THIS MEANS YOU," and before long you figure out it's gotta be meant for him, because he will take a gallon and finish it a glass at a time and who can even do that without throwing up? Wasn't there some kind of ghastly TikTok challenge about that?

And when you joked to his Dad and Mom that he seems to have a real superpower for figuring out whether there is going to be pie, you got such weird, almost nervous looks that you quickly dropped the subject.

And one time you swear he appeared out of absolutely nowhere to walk you back to the house because Mr. Peterson's bull broke the fence and is wandering this way. (He was the first one to realize this. How did he realize this? He's sort of guiltily evasive on the subject.)

And he reassures you one time that you don't actually need to fear the Kansas Mothman because he accidentally started that legend. How? He really doesn't want to talk about it.

What with one thing and another, you start wondering…

Maybe he's a ghost.

Maybe something awful happened and he can't move on. You don't want to suspect the Kents, they are honestly pretty top-notch for parental types (especially after some of the ones you've known) but other people in the town? You know personally how ghastly a small town can be to That Weird Kid. Maybe something really bad happened.

(Maybe it could happen to you too.)

So you've got to figure out what's going on so you can get justice for your friend. You start to investigate. Smallville does have rather more than its fair share of Weird Shit—like possibly a lot more—but you're not really getting anywhere. And it occurs to you that you don't really have the wherewithal to go and try to find—well, let's not put too fine a point on it, to find an unmarked grave—that could be anywhere.

Meanwhile the world has at this point in time started to see some Seriously Weird Shit, although at this point it's largely In Other Places because that's where everything in the world happens, there is absolutely Nothing Significant In Kansas and probably never will be, but it gives you an idea. Slightly insane and scary idea, but you've hit so many dead ends that it might be worth it.

You're going to try to contact Superman and see if he can use his rumored X-ray vision to figure out what happened to Clark.

…

Just to be clear, I have no idea what the ultimate punchline is for this piece of ridiculous meandering is, and it's the sort of thing that does require a pretty good punchline. So I don't know if it's ever actually going to get written. On the other hand, it is one of my favorite dishes, which is Canon Characters Helping Queer Kid, with a heavy helping of Following Logic-like Structures To Wrong Conclusions sauce.

So I thought I might post the idea, because I have this lovely optimistic belief that sometimes, I am in fact extremely funny, and tumblr is a place that often eggs me on.

[an0nwr1tes]

DP x DC idea, post AGIT

So, Bad ending Parent route for Danny when his foks find out he’s phantom which triggers the usual OH ANCIENTS YOU HAVE TO DIP NOW DANNY but, instead of it being Danny revealing it to his parents or his parents finding out by accident it’s Vlad who’s revealed it, completely by accident mind you, so now it’s Danny and Vlad who are on the run and have to jump dimensions because the Fentons definitely went to the GIW after finding out that not only is their SON a ghost but so is their oldest friend?

The GIW proceed to reclaim all of Vlad’s business’s and property’s meaning they find out about the clones and sure Vlad might have stuff set up to blow should someone who isn’t a halfa or already in the know find out about it but there’s no way Vlad just ignored Dani after AGIT and what about Dan? Those were his fail safe body’s but he can’t just kill the GIW because he’s not just recovered so suddenly the Government and fentons find out that there are TWO MORE HALFA’s or ghosts puppeting human corpses as far as their concerned which means all four halfa’s are on the run!

So one thing leads to another and they decide as a group to just jump ship, they get to the ghost zone but as nothing can ever go right for them they get attacked and after months/weeks? Of constantly fighting the GIW and having their names and faces plastered on very screen in the world they’re all too weak to properly fight back and so they run again.

Danny finds a portal and decides that anywhere is better than here and dives in the others following, now their are in the DCU.

So where do they end up in? Gotham of course, and no this isn’t just because I want the Bats to go; who are these skrunkaly children and feral raccoon man?? But because objectively Gotham is one of the best places for them to be when none of them have ID’s or social security numbers or like….anything at all.

So they arrive but nothings going right, Dan and Dani’s clone body’s haven’t stabilised, Danny’s powers are on the fitzs and Vlad just flat out can’t go ghost after he took some really bad hits form the GIW and Fentons to keep the younger less durable Halfa’s safe.

Now here’s where the fun starts, Vlad isn’t willing to live in poverty but he doesn’t have enough powers to properly build back his empire, Danny refuses on principle to overshadow people and do the other morally incorrect things Vlad does for fun, Dan would do it he’s destabilising so there’s no way he can survive overshadowing someone with this body melting and him being stuck out of time line again and Dani’s just too weak at the moment to really understand what’s happening.

For the Dani bit it’s because the other Halfa’s are all complete, Dan is a full ghost so even if his body melts they just need to get a storage device to keep him till they can make another, Danny and Vlad are weaker but their body’s are fine as true Halfa’s can be so Dani is the first priority.

Now I see this going two ways, Vlad uses persuasion(using the power of suggesting, literally he just went: you want to give us this apartment, the guy: I want to give you this apartment) and then Dani and Danny stay at home so Danny can try and start stabilising her while Dan and Vlad get to work on their criminal empire.

Eventually this gets back to the bats and they decide that Vlad and Dan are the main perpetrators and are keeping Danny and Dani prisoner and forcing Danny to make them weapons and machines by threatening her sister, which would make it hilarious if after they’ve stabilised Dani she takes one look at the bats and goes: I am SO going to mess with them! and goes full super villain.

The second way (AKA; the funnier way) is if Danny has to help stabiles Dani and Dan so Vlad is the one left to go about things but he’s weaker so they don’t get an apartment and Danny is stuck feeding their cores his own ectoplasm in whatever abandoned building they’ve squatted in for the night while Vlad grumbles and runs around attempting to steal things and not doing a very good job at it.

The reason I think this is the funnier option is because in my head, Dani and Dan make themselves look smaller, kinda de-age but their both still them, so that Danny doesn’t have to expend as much energy meaning that the Bats chance upon this group of what looks like a father and his trans-son (because Jazz SO gave that idiot enough thearapy that he isn’t as easily misunderstood as he used to be) and like two very young children and the whole family kinda goes; ….we have to help them

This is also funnier(and this is the main point) because the way that help would definitely be trying to convince Vlad to get a job at WE after Danny let’s it slip that Vlad’s an engineer, which he is case and point the GIANT LAB UNDER HIS CASTLE, and Vlad will be suffering because he DOES NOT want to work for some billionaire but they also need stuff to stabilise Dani and Dan and Danny can’t keep doing it because he’s so weak after expending this much energy that Vlad genuinely thinks he could die, ghost self and all and has to reluctantly agree.

Feel free to use this however, just tag me if you do ok?

[classic-blue]

Nature of the Arcane- Positive and Negative Energy

(For reference, Arcane = the series; arcane = the magic) Come help me figure out how the heck the magic system of Arcane works.

What is the anomaly? Why was it born? Why is it that other mages in the series don't seem to cause anomalies, but Hextech does?

I refuse to be content with a magic=good or magic=bad explanation, and Arcane loves to play with nuance. I was trying to sort out my thoughts on why some magic has bad side effects while others don't, and this is where I'm sitting now. My (spit-balled, half-baked, and probably leaking) thesis:

The arcane/using magic has 2 separate outputs: the order you placed (Hextech) and the resulting exhaust (wild runes; the anomaly). Hextech can use runes to control magic, but there's a second output of natural, wild magical energy, that Hextech doesn't account for. Both of these energies can build up, and when they're reunited, they have explosive reactions (see: Mage Viktor's world, the final blip that takes Jayce and Viktor, and possibly various smaller explosions throughout the series).

For example, when positive and negative charges meet, lightning strikes.

Justification below the cut.

Science break! Ever been shocked by static electricity? That's because of a buildup of one charge, say positive, on you, and a buildup of negative charge on another object. Nature loves balance, so when you two touch, the charges discharge in a shock that connects the positive and negative charges and allows them to balance out. Size this idea up big enough, and you get lightning- powerful, fast, and destructive.

More importantly though, you can't just charge positive energy, without also charging negative energy at the same time-  creating one by necessity creates the other, so that there's an overall balance of electricity types (hey look, a metaphor, creating one inevitably leads to the other…).

Let's carry this idea over to the arcane. What if there's a 'positive' magic and a 'negative' magic output?

(Note, I use the electricity words here intentionally- positive/negative do not mean in a cosmic/moral/ethical way, but in a scientific, 'hey we need 2 connected words to separate these concepts' sort of way.)

Positive: Hextech; runes; the intended output. Teleportation, levitation, everything we see it accomplish.

Negative: the wild rune, the anomaly; the unintended output.

And, when the two come together, lightning strikes.

Lightning 1- Viktor vs Ekko's Z-drive. Viktor spends S2 becoming a centralized conduit of 'positive' magic, via the Hexcore and top ups from the crystals under the Hexgates. As the Machine Herald, the claw is continually using runes and doing magic behind him. In short, he's been building up a lot of positive magical energy. When Ekko chucks the Z-drive at him, it's powered by an anomaly, or 'negative' magical energy. Put the two forces together, and let the fireworks happen; a part of the Machine Herald's mask gets struck off in the blast. (But the Z-drive has less negative energy than Viktor's positive, so it doesn't totally wipe him out.)

Lightning 2- Viktor and Jayce's rainbow time. Jayce's acceleration rune might be the negative magical energy in this case (since it travels with him via Mage Viktor's anomaly), paired with the anomaly that Viktor grabbed beneath the Hexgate. That works in opposition to Viktor's compiled positive magical energy via the Hexcore and similar products. With these together, the balance between positive and negative is reached, achieving net neutral magic dispersion, and of course, an implosion that sucks in (or teleports, we can be happy) Jayce and Viktor, ending the conflict.

Perhaps in Mage Viktor's timeline, a similar explosion occurs, resulting in the destruction that we see Jayce traverse in the alternate timeline. But in the main timeline, Jayce and Viktor were able to contain that explosive potential to just themselves, via Jayce's acceleration rune.

"Pass me a tome" Jayce's (quoting Viktor) explanation of the anomaly/wild rune (S2:E3)

Jayce says that Viktor theorized that wild runes are "patterns that would occur naturally where the border between our world and the Arcane is thin." By the theory, wild runes are expressions of magic not quantifiable by traditional runes- natural outputs of magic that are uncontrollable and untamable.

This still works with my positive vs negative theory- it's just that Hextech, and by extension the boys, are only viewing it from the perspective of positive energy (they accessed magic, but really only half of it). From that view, negative charge, which they can't interpret why it's building up or that it even is, might look pretty wild and untamable- however, we see mages control this negative magical energy. Mage Viktor uses the anomaly to send Jayce back to his timeline. The Machine Herald is able to transport it and start to destroy/convert the world.

Because it's still a useable product, so long as you understand what it actually is, I'm not fully content to say that the anomaly is an entirely wild thing, or an unpredictable force. It's possible that Mage Viktor intentionally manipulated it to send Jayce, Ekko, and Heimerdinger to their temporary alternate universes to set in motion events to save the main timeline. I think the anomaly definitely has somewhat volatile characteristics, a bit more chaotic perhaps, but it's still controllable.

(Additionally, Ekko breaks time using both hex shards (assuming they're still in the Z-drive, I'm not sure off the top of my head), and a tiny anomaly. The fact that he's able to control it to a degree also shows that the anomaly is not fully wild and untamable.)

I suppose my overarching feeling is that the anomaly is not necessarily better or worse, or more dangerous, than the 'positive' magic of Hextech- it's just a different, inevitable byproduct of magic use.

Then why don't mages cause anomalies and 'lightning strikes'?

Simple- they know how to account for both positive and negative energy in their spellwork. They know how to equate a balance, so nothing blows up in their faces.

Granted, the only mages we really see in Arcane are Mel, the Black Rose, and Mage Viktor, and the only real discussions we get about magic is from either the Hextech nerds or Heimerdinger, who may not be working with the full picture of how the arcane works. Our sources with regards to actual mage work in Arcane are pretty thin (and I probably need to rewatch Mel's S2 scenes).

But the Black Rose mentions as Mel leaves that (paraphrased) 'it's a dangerous world out there for a solitary mage.' This seems to imply that mages work best in collaboration- perhaps that allows for a balance between positive and negative energies, preventing 'lightning strikes.'

The real point- The Need for Collaboration

While the obvious theme to be drawn from this is the need for balance, another interesting one is the need for collaboration. If mages in Arcane indeed do work together to prevent destructive magical fallout, this again points back to a core element of Arcane's relationships:

Things (magic in particular) work best in collaboration.

That's how the boys crack Hextech

That's how Jinx and Vi start to bring Vander back and reconcile

That's how Viktor and Sky work in the commune

That's how Ekko, Powder, and Heimerdinger crack Hextech again

That's how Caitlyn and Ambessa start to work, and how the lack of honest collaboration exposes Ambessa's selfish gains and weakens Caitlyn emotionally and politically

That's how Mel literally does everything politically (and why her arc narratively suffers when she's on her own against the Black Rose for so long [I still love her tho])

That's how Piltover and Zaun fend off Ambessa's assault

That's how Viktor and Jayce end it- together.

More assorted thoughts on this topic:

This theory somewhat requires that the arcane is not conscious, not retaliating for Hextech using magic improperly, which is debatable. The Black Rose says "the arcane is waking up," which could imply a sentient force, or simply a natural force like how the world 'wakes up' to spring after winter. Ekko also claims that Jayce 'pissed off' the arcane, which Jayce is cutely embarrassed about, which is a possibility, but not one that I'm getting into here- it's entirely possible that Ekko is also wrong! Jayce and Viktor frequently are! (also, the hexcore being sentient does not necessarily mean that the arcane is sentient- Viktor describes it as a learning matrix, so it could very much be a Flubber situation. He done taught the rubix cube science before ethics.)

As Viktor brings Jayce up to the top of the Hexgate, Viktor winds the anomaly in his staff and talks about the balance between order and chaos- maybe positive magic is one and negative the other?

@avelera and @linddzz were throwing around some awesome thoughts similar to this strain, including how it looks like Mage Viktor 'cleans up' the smoke output of the spell in the snowstorm. Their theory is that what I call positive and negative energy is actually constructive vs destructive force in equal output from the Arcane, and that balance between those two types is needed (i.e. if you want magic to do what you want, you also need to let it blow up some stuff) which would also explain what I've called lightning here. Definitely worth a read!

There are so many holes in this theory, but I still wanted to organize my thoughts about the anomaly, Hextech, and how Arcane tells the audience to view magic. In S1, Hextech is all good and great, possibly dangerous, but in S2, Hextech and its byproducts are all infectious, destructive, and never productive. I found the switch a little jarring, and went searching for a deeper meaning.

Also… does this mean that Arcane is actually a big metaphor for the dangers and impacts of technological advancement on natural society and how Mother Nature will come back to bite us all in the butt? Has Arcane been a secret Ghibli film all along???

[evesedenramblings]

Damon and Diana: Design Comparison

Gear up everyone because this is a LONG post. The parallels between Damon and Diana are plentiful, so this post just sticks to just their design elements or else it would never end. Spoilers beneath the cut.

1. Names

The name Diana in Hebrew means “giving light”, “shining one” and “luminous”, but also is associated with leadership. While Diana already acts as a light for many of her classmates, Damon included, I think her leadership role will begin to bloom in Chapter 2.

Meanwhile, the name Damon means “to overpower”, “to conquer”, “one who subdues” and “to tame”, which associates him with power and control as he displayed in the courtroom. Additionally, these terms can be associated with leadership qualities. Damon can also be associated with “guardian spirit” and “loyal friend”.

When comparing the two names to each other, the parallels become clear. Each represent a different approach for how they want to lead the killing game. Diana represents a light/faith-filled and optimistic approach while Damon leads with a more cautious and pessimistic approach. Diana protects everyone while Damon protects those he needs to. Diana is unable to accuse anyone of being capable of murder, as she’s still to inwrapped in light while Damon has the swift execution of power capable to make the decisions to find the culprit, and even turn on those he trusted if needed. Both need each other- Diana’s strength lays in faith and charisma while Damon’s lays in doubt and decision making.

As of Chapter 1, the two embody each other’s weaknesses. If that will change, it could go either way! In an ideal world, the two could grow and learn from each other (a balance if you will), but I think due to Diana’s idolized version of Wolfgang, and Eva’s betrayal of Damon, the two are going to go further down their own paths, convinced that they’re right and the other is wrong.

2. Appearance

Diana’s main colour palette is primary colours, given the red is substituted with the diluted shade of pink. Additionally, the neutral colour she’s paired with is white, which again aligns her with that idea of light, or brightness.

Meanwhile, Damon’s main colour is green, a secondary colour! First and foremost, it’s outside the primary wheel entirely, creating contrast with Diana’s design. It’s also worth noting that the only yellow in Diana’s design is her bowtie above her blue shirt, right where Damon’s green tie goes. Additionally, whereas Damon’s eyes are green, Diana’s are a lighter magenta, which are opposing colours on the colour wheel. The same applies to their hair colours, as Damon is blond and Diana’s hair is a darker shade of magenta than her eyes, pushing it closer to purple, which are also opposite colours on the colour wheel. For those unfamiliar with the wheel, that means the colours, though opposite, compliment each other when paired together!

The same opposing pattern can be found with Damon’s neutral colour scheme, as a majority of his design is dark neutral colours like grey, black, or brown, which opposes Diana’s prominent neutral colour of white. However, they both do have a white undershirt which is a nice similarity between the two, and both are even wearing vests though of different styles

3. Ultimate Talents I would also argue their talents parallel each other! If Damon’s talent is to convince people of something via words (telling), I would say Diana’s talent is to convince people of something via appearance (showing), both two different ways of conveying information. Damon’s talent is pretty self explanatory. He is the Ultimate Debater, responsible for convincing action through words. Diana’s talent though, as the Ultimate Cosmologist, I don’t think has had enough spotlight. Diana’s talent is good enough to convince people she’d never been sliced with a knife- what is that if not convincing via appearance, showing rather than telling? Damon’s talent embodies telling, while Diana’s embodies showing.

Additionally, there's how the two perceive their talents and others. Where Damon is confident in his own talent but thinks everyone else's talent is useless, Diana has the opposite ideology where she downplays her own talent but uplifts everyone else's.

I think it’s really interesting how much their designs compliment each other and I absolutely cannot wait for Chapter 2 to see them interact as protagonist and antagonist.

[rotomartsblog]

I’ve been thinking about my version/rewrite whatever of Ever After High so I’m just gonna list a few lore tidbits about the world and some of the characters

So first things first I want to say that my version of the EAH school is more based on European secondary education than American (since I’ve decided that EAH should logically take place in Europe). Mostly N. Ireland’s secondary school system since that’s what I’m most familiar with. Anyway- EAH students go through seven years of school from around age 11 to age 18 (give or take a bit). EAH officially has two stages of education; the Freedom stage and the Legacy stage. The Freedom stage is the first three years of school and the Legacy stage is the remaining four years. The Legacy stage itself is split into two sub-stages, Pre-Signing and Post-Signing. The story begins in the second year of the Pre-Signing Legacy stage, where Legacy Day will take place at the end of the year. Students also can only room with people from their year.

I wanted to actually establish what the Curse on Wonderland actually is since that never actually gets explained in canon. Basically, the Curse takes the form of an erupting black fountain in the centre of Wonderland that leads up to the sky, “polluting” the atmosphere. It has both a physical and mental effect on the people of Wonderland, making them physically weaker while also “corrupting” their minds I guess? While the people of Wonderland have developed medicine and treatment for the curse, it’s more effective against the physical symptoms than the mental ones and it isn’t widely distributed.

Speaking of Wonderland, the Alice of the story is the only “character” that follows the Legacy system, because the rest of the characters are from Wonderland and don’t follow the same rules as Ever Afterlings. This doesn’t mean that the characters don’t have family legacies and traditions but they operate separately from Ever After’s.

Speaking of Alice, Alistair has been trapped in Wonderland since he was 10 years old. He isn’t as fond of Wonderland as his canon counterpart. Also his last name isn’t Wonderland it’s Adventures. I know that’s sounds equally stupid but it’s makes more sense to me based on the lore I’ve established.

Card people have the ability to go “flat” like a card. Also, they’re made of the same material of a playing card (specifically card stock), and they feel like such whether they’re flat or not.

Card people are limited to only two colours in their designs; white and the second colour depending on what suit they’re from (Clubs are green, Diamonds are blue, Hearts are red, and Spades are purple), except their eyes, which can be any colour. The exception to this is royal cards, which have three colours; white, black, and their suit colours (also their eye colours of course, which in Lizzie’s case is green). The outlier to this entirely is the Joker cards, which have no set rules for how they’re coloured.

There’s never a set number of Jokers for each generation of card people. In the previous generation, the parents generation, there were two: the red joker and the black joker, but in the current generation Courtly is the only Joker card.

Chess people are living chess pieces so they are made of wood.

Card and Chess people aren’t ‘born’, they’re literally made.

Lizzie, Kitty, and Maddie are the first Wonderlandians to attend Ever After High.

When the Evil Queen was imprisoned, all known entrances to Wonderland were closed off. However, new ones can be made either on purpose or accidentally. This is how Darling ends up in Wonderland.

When Ever Afterlings go to Wonderland their colour palette changes because idk I think it looks neat.

Also the Evil Queen cursing Wonderland and being imprisoned would’ve taken place like right before Raven started EAH.

Okay done talking about Wonderland onto something else. King Charming is a piece of shit human being. He’s a bad dad and an unfaithful husband who has a whole lot of illegitimate kids. Blondie is one of them.

Raven ended up rooming with Maddie in their first year at EAH because over half of the students in their year requested to specifically not be roomed with Raven.

Briar’s mum was asleep for 100 years because I don’t want to work out how it’d make sense if she was from the previous generation. Rosabella’s mum is Briar’s mum’s great-niece. Briar and Rosabella call each other cousin because it’s simpler.

Rosabella, despite what is believed, is actually the Beast in the story. The reason it’s believed she’s the Beauty is because the society of EAH is #sexist and #homophobic so the idea of the Beast in BATB being a girl or a boy being the Beauty is unbelievable. Rosabella suspects she’s the Beast because when she was younger she grew horns, though she’s forbidden from telling people this.

Briar and Rosabella’s parents are not on speaking terms because of a situation revolving around Rosabella’s horns. When they grew in, Briar’s parents had offered to babysit Rosabella while her parents were busy. Briar’s dad then dehorned Rosabella (and he wasn’t trained for it so it wasn’t a pleasant experience for Rosabella). Rosabella’s parents were obviously upset about this so they cut ties with Briar’s parents.

By the time the story begins Ashlynn’s mum is dead so she’s kind of going through it. Her dad hasn’t remarried yet.

I’ve messed around with the ages of some characters so while most of the main cast is the second year of the Pre-Signing Legacy stage, some are in different years. I haven’t worked out everyone but the important ones right now are that Dexter and Darling are in the first year of the Pre-Signing Legacy stage and Ramona is in the first year of the Post-Signing Legacy stage (and Justine I guess since they’re roommates).

Also most roommates will probably be the same as in canon since I can’t be bothered to change those.

Despite Legacy Day being when you pledge to follow your destiny, there are expectations on people whose stories typically happen when they’re young (case in point: Alistair being in Wonderland when he’s 10). Cedar often deals with people prodding and asking questions since she’s still a puppet as a teenager, though her dad also started his story late so it isn’t unique to her.

Raven doesn’t listen to Tailor Quick in my version. Sorry to swifties but sometimes you write a character and realise some things don’t work with their personality. Raven listens to goth music and dad rock. Dexter still listens to Tailor Quick though.

Speaking of music tastes, Poppy listens to Ska punk and Holly hates it so much.

Cupid was told to hide her monstrous features when going to EAH, so she’s masquerading as a Cherub. Also for a majority of her first year at EAH she’s faking her personality.

EAH’s school is specifically for European stories and there are different school in other regions for their stories.

Idk how yet but I’m planning on including references to other fairy tale authors and collectors like Andrew Lang.

I’ve planned a few arcs and mini stories for my version, some of them replace canon arcs. A few of these are a story based on A Wonderlandiful World, a rewrite of Way to Wonderland, a rewrite of Dragon Games that features two of the mention regional schools, a story I can only describe as “Cedar gets psychologically tormented by an arm puppet”, the Blood Knight story, and a story that replaces Epic Winter.

While EAH is typically only open for people with legacies to follow, there is a course available for people without legacies. However, it’s incredibly expensive and the course is kept entirely separated from the main course. Non-legacy students aren’t even allowed to be roommates with legacy students and there’s few opportunities for the two courses to interact. Poppy was originally in this course before Holly managed to get Headmaster Grimm to transfer her to the main course and the Charming family have a deal with the school so that none of their children go to the non-legacy course.

That’s all for now I think.

[mxabankzz5]

American Dream

paring: wolverine!logan howlett x f!mutant!reader

summary: Y/n, a high level mutant and vital member of the Avengers is left bewildered when another Wade Wilson, from outside her timeline, pleads for her help in his mission to save his dying world. Even more shocked when the merc reveals their other crucial ally to be a man she thought to have left in her past.

warnings: 16+, Fem!Reader, AFAB Reader, Use of Y/N, Her Avenger name is American Dream (Inspired by the comic hero), She/her pronouns, Swearing(lots), Angst, Heavy Violence, Deadpool (he's his own warning), Fluff, Possible Smut, Slow Burn, TVA

Masterlist

Logan is not fucking dead.

Sure his ‘death’ scene in Logan made for a perfect ending to a very very sad story. But that’s not how regenerative healing factors work.

You think I wanna be here in downtown North Dakota digging up the one and only Wolverine? No thank you. But the fate of my entire world is at stake.

He might not be living his best life right now but be sure as hell ain’t-

I gasped and squealed in excitement as my shovel hit something hard.

Dead.

Moving the rumble around I noticed something shiny like metal. Adamantium. It was his goddamn skeleton.

“Yes..yes of course…” I sighed before grabbing my shovel and yelling out in anger. Smashing the wooden makeshift X that marked his grave.

“FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!” Snapping the shovel in half over my knee.

“YOU SON OF A BITCH! MOTHERFUCKER UGHHH MY WORLD IS FUCKED!”

“Look, I’m not a man in science but you seem really passed away right now…but it’s good to see ya. I’ve gotta be honest, I’ve always wanted to ride with ya Log. Can you imagine the fun, the chaos?” I sighed once more, moving my hand from his metal kneecap to his jaw.

“Gday mate, nothing that’ll bring me back to life faster than a big bag of Marvel cash.” I impersonated, laying the Australian accent on thick.

“Hoo Hoo! Me too Hugh…hah but no no no no. You had be all noble and die forreal. GODAMMIT! I could really use your help right now.” I leaned forward rubbing my head in dismay before hearing the lovely sound of TVA soldiers behind me.

“Wade Wilson. You are under arrest by the Time Variance Authority for-”

“Ugh death by day player..”

“Drop you weapons and come out peacefully!”

“I’m not gonna give you my weapons..but I promise not to use them!” I groaned before repositioning myself to look up.

“There are 206 bones in the human body, 207 if I’m watching Gossip Girl. Ugh let’s go, maximum effort.” I high-fived Logan before grabbing him and leaping out from behind the snowy logs.

“Okay peanut, looks like we’re getting that team up after all.”

After unfortunately having to slaughter the army Paradox obviously sent after me, I decided to start my plan b mission.

Find Y/n Y/L/N. The reason why all of this started in the first place.

You see, Y/n and Logan are special, so special that apparently them dying means my whole timeline has to fucking end.

So Y/n decided that instead of letting a few hundred thousand people perish, she sacrificed her self by riding one of Iron Man’s nukes into space to save New York from some huge alien army trying to take over the word.

I know right? Stupidest fucking thing I ever heard.

Now this obviously took a toll on wolvy here, they were sort of..a thing?

By “thing” I mean married for 12 and a half years but who the hell is counting? It’s not like anyone knew anyway, the X-men and Avengers didn’t exactly get along publicly. Once the “cure” for the mutant gene got released, things got a little political between the two bands of heros.

But I digress! That’s another story for another chapter.

I pulled out the fancy remote I snagged from one of the soldiers and scrolled through.

Earth 10005- current timeline

Earth 58126

Earth 616- select timeline

“This one looks promising.” I clicked the button to select it and a large orange door appeared before me.

I stepped through it into a bar. I didn’t see Y/n anywhere but I did happen to recognize a familiar pair of hair tufts. Perfect!

“Logan! I’m gonna need you to come with me.”

He slowly turned to face me. “Who’s asking?” He slipped off the bar stool to reveal…a midget?

I gasped. “Well who’s this little ankle bitter. Did you stick the landing little guy? Yes you did, comic accurate short king!” I cooed, leaning down to his eye level.

He frowned, looking behind me. Suddenly a hand grabbed my shoulder and turned me around with a shocking about of strength.

There stood Y/n, surprisingly standing eye to eye with me.

“Holy fuck.. you are all legs!”

“Are we gonna have a problem?”

“Oh no ma’am! Wouldn’t dream of it. But we might if you and little Logan here don’t come with me back to my timeline.”

She frowned before crossing her arms over her chest.

“You were just leaving”

“Uh no..I don’t think so because-”

She suddenly sent a powerful jab to my stomach, sending me flying across the bar.

Goddamn that super serum does wonders doesn’t it?

“Que the fucking montage.”

And that’s how Wade got here, on earth 982.

After getting his ass beat by multiple variations of You and Logan he finally decided to enter this timeline.

Walking through the orange door he stepped into what looked like an office room. It was big and sleek but what really caught his eye was the large shield hanging on the wall like a painting.

It looked like Captain America’s shield but a bit smaller. It was in a glass display case which he assumed was bulletproof.

The gold plaque below it spelt out ‘American Dream’

But before Wade could fangirl any longer the cocking of a gun caught his attention and he quickly turned around.

You were standing behind him with a pistol to his head.

“Y/n! Wait.. oh my god are you Capt-“ Wade gawked at your outfit. It was almost Identical to Steve Rodger’s suit. From the star on your chest to the red boots that adorned your feet. Even your helmet was identical, except for an open area in the back to let your long soft curls run down your back.

“No wade, I’m not Captain America”

“Omg you know me?!” Every other Y/n didn’t bother to learn who he was before sending him flying into a wall.

“Yes wade, this is your 5th time trying to audition for the team of course I know you…”

“But wait.. if you’re not Cap then where is he? Is he alive here?? And you’re an Avenger?”

You gave him a confused look.

“What do you mean, of course he’s alive. He just talked to you yesterday he told me he rejected you...what the hell are you doing here wilson?” You reached to pick up the phone on what wade assumed was your desk, possibly calling security.

“Woah Woah calm down! I’m just shocked by the preppy, all-American sweetheart look, in every other timeline you’re always some kind of ‘anti-hero’. Ugh you and Logan really are perfect for each other.”

Wade almost didn’t catch the quick falter in your stance at the mention of the Wolverine but ignored it.

“Anyways sweetpea, I didn’t come here to audition, I came here for you.”

Your eyebrows raised in amusement.

“I’m flattered wilson but-“

“No! No! Not like that! My universe is dying, and in order to save it I need to replace at least one of the anchor beings that died in to buy it some time. If I replace both.. I can probably keep my timeline alive for good. Please, you’re the only one that can help!”

“Help how?”

Wade sighed in annoyance, gosh why all the inquiries!

“See this is where it gets a bit flakey- and please just hear me the fuck out before you flip out and punch me! *Deep inhale* You have to come back with me to my timeline, meet up with Paradox and beg him to reconsider, maybe chill out there a little bit while it slows the dying process, and then come with me to replace the other anchor being and permanently save my world.” He spews out quickly before Y/n could interfere.

He was expecting you to instantly lash out, telling him it was insane of him to ask you to abandon your timeline to go live in his with his soon to be new best friend.

But you just stood there, an almost blank look on your face. It honestly scared him, before you finally gave him a confused glare.

“Wait.. so you’re not from this timeline?”

“Uhm no.. but I would really appreciate it if-“

“And you want me to go with you to your timeline to find your other.. anchor being. What the hell is that?”

“Oh! Ugh It’s kinda this thing where if someone really really important dies then your timeline just goes to shit. Ya know I’m pretty sure if I were dead my timeline would probably be gone by now but since they needed me or whatever I decided to stick around for a bit longer.” He flipped his imaginary hair before turning back to Y/n with a hand on his hip.

“So I’m dead in your universe?”

“Bingo! And I really need you to be undead in my universe by… yesterday so chop chop!” He exclaimed, looking down at his imaginary watch before pulling out some kind of remote.

“Wait! Who’s the other anchor being?”

“Ughhhh God, all these damn questions! It’s someone you know, a very very dear friend to us. Jimmy.”

You frowned. “Who?”

“Jimmy? James? The man made of metal? Any of this ringing a bell?”

Y/n stared at him in bewilderment silently.

“Oh for christ sakes James! James Howlett! The Wolverine. Yikes Y/n you need to keep up with the lore, you’ve been around since Wolverine Orgins you should know what’s was going on girl!”

“Logan?!”

“Yes! Now let’s go find that little honey badger before he fucks around and nobly sacrifices himself again in this timeline. You do have one in this world, correct? Cause it would be soo sooo much easier if you could just call him right up for me honeybun.”

“I haven’t talked to Logan in years, I don’t even know where he is, let alone if he has a phone number I can call.”

Wade recoiled at the first sentence.

“You haven’t talked to him in years?! What do you mean, aren’t you guys married?”

Y/n’s eyes almost bulged at the question.

“Married!? Hell no! We barely even dated.”

Wade was shocked and a little dissapointed. “Oh! I just thought since in every other timeline you’re both- well nevermind. No time for stories let’s go!”

“Now hold on Wade, I don’t know if I can just leave my timeline-”

And there it was..gosh you were always so fucking responsible.

“Fine, guess I’ll have to just find Logan myself and go find another you that’ll help me.”

He tapped a button on the weirdly futuristic remote and turned away slowly, about to step through an orange door before you stopped him.

"Wait!"

The merc turned around giddy, hopeful that you would come to your senses and join him.

"What happens when I leave my timeline?

Wouldn't that fuck everything up here too?"

Wade froze, he hadn't really thought about that part. Shit!

"Uhhh well as far as I know, as long as you're not dead your world should be fine. So uhhh you should be good." He said, trying to sound as convincing as he could.

You could sense he was a bit unsure of himself but you also realized how much he needed you help.

"Y'know what, I'm in wilson."

[jenanigans1207]

1/8/25: Embrace

“Cas! Hey, hey, you okay?”

Cas blinks blearily, trying to make sense of what’s going on. He’s on the ground, his head is pounding, and there’s a strong stinging sensation along his cheek. It takes him a second to figure out what he’s looking at, some mixture of black and a beautiful, vibrant green swirling together until Cas makes out Dean’s concerned face just inches from his.

“Cas, c’mon,” Dean urges, a hand fitting to his shoulder. “Can you sit up?”

Cas thinks that he probably can, but as he moves to try and place an arm under him, he’s met with a pounding in his head so violent that he can only finch and press closer to the ground. Dean lets out a breath above him, his hand a steady and comforting weight on Cas’s shoulder. He’s quiet for a minute, but even with his eyes closed, Cas can feel the weight of his stare.

“He okay?” Sam’s voice calls from the other end of the room.

“Probably a concussion.” Dean answers, his hand moving gently up and down Cas’s arm in a soothing gesture. “And he’s got a nasty cut on his cheek. But he’s still breathing.”

“We can work with that.” Sam answers and Dean huffs out a soft laugh above Cas.

The pounding in his head has subsided, so Cas attempts to open his eyes again. Dean is still right there, and he’s still beautiful, staring at Cas with blatant concern.

“Dean,” Cas manages, and Dean shushes him immediately,

“Hey, you hit your head pretty hard. I’m going to help you sit up, okay?” Dean’s other hand gently begins to wedge itself under Cas’s side. “It’s gonna feel like shit for a second once you’re up, but I promise it’ll subside.”

Cas groans in response.

“Hey,” Dean says again, and the tone of his voice indicates that he expects Cas to look at him. Cas meets his gaze immediately. “You trust me, right?”

“Yes—” Cas says and before he can even finish the last part of the word, Dean is hoisting him up into a sitting position.

Dean was right, it is shit for the first few seconds. His head throbs and the world spins and Cas thinks he might find out what throwing up is like for the first time. He hunches forward immediately, his eyes closing in a desperate attempt to protect his head. He feels his forehead brush against the solid plane of Dean’s chest and if he were even a little more coherent right now, he would expect Dean to pull away and be surprised that he doesn’t. But he isn’t coherent, he isn’t thinking about anything other than how truly awful this feels, and so he presses into the comforting warmth that is Dean and doesn’t even notice until the throbbing subsides again.

Once Cas has been seated upright for a minute or two, the world starts to return to him slowly, He hears Sam dragging something around in the distance, hears him splintering wood to create a pyre. He hears the faint sounds of nature outside in the distance. And then he hears Dean breathing, and he realizes just how close he is. In a panic, he attempts to sit abruptly upright, only to find that there’s an arm around his shoulders holding him in place.

“Woah,” Dean murmurs quietly between them, “Careful. If you sit up that fast, you’re gonna go back to feeling like shit.”

“Dean,” Cas says again, like Dean’s name is a lifeline that he can hold onto in this disorienting situation. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so close.”

“It’s alright, Cas.” Dean speaks just as quietly as before and it dawns on Cas that he’s doing it on purpose to try and spare his head the discomfort. Cas feels both love and gratitude wash over him. “Just take it easy for a sec, yeah? Let yourself adjust and when you’re ready, I’ll get you patched up, But you’re gonna be out of commission for a few days with the knock you took to your head.”

Cas sighs, but allows himself to sink back into Dean. He tries not to think of the arm around his shoulder, of the way it feels more like an intimate embrace than anything else. He tries not to think about the way Dean is solid and steady, gently adjusting Cas until he’s able to fully relax into Dean.

“I’m sorry.” He says again, and he sounds miserable to his own ears.

Dean shakes his head a little, and Cas feels the motion ruffle some of his hair. “None of that.” Dean instructs. “You think Sammy and I haven’t had our fair share of concussions? It’s part of the job.”

“It’s a bad part of the job.” Cas remarks and is rewarded with a warm squeeze of the shoulder and the sound of Dean’s laugh.

They stay that way for another minute, Dean’s hand drawing soothing patterns through Cas’s trench coat. They don’t talk, just remain close while Sam continues to work in the background. Once Cas feels ready, he sits up slowly, and this time Dean lets him go, but he’s never more than a foot away, He inspects the injury on Cas’s cheek carefully, his fingers deft and gentle. Cas tries not to count the shades of green in Dean’s eyes, but then finds himself counting the number of freckles on his cheeks instead. He tries to turn his head away, but a gentle grip on his chin holds him steady.

Once Dean cleans Cas up to a level that will tide them over until the motel, he nods in approval and leans away.

“You’re set for now.” Dean says, and then he hesitates for a moment before adding, “Don’t scare me like that again though, okay?”

“I will try not to.” Cas answers, gaze finally downturned now that his face is free.

Dean shakes his head fondly, reaching to help Cas up. “We’ll work on it.”

[raineandsky]

This is for the lovely anon who requested the New Better Villain taking on the villain's hero and gettin a lil too violent with it :) hope you enjoy!!

tw: implied violence, blood

The hero, for lack of a better word, looks normal.

The villain isn’t sure what he was expecting. Most people look normal. But all those years under a mask, a charade… it kind of became all that the villain could see him as. The hero. Even now, looking him in the eye as the person he is—really is—it doesn’t seem real.

That and, well— the villain can’t deny that he’s pretty alright to look at. That was certainly an unexpected twist.

The other villain—the bastard he’s cursed to work with, the jackass taking his job, his nemesis, his city—has the hero in a death grip. It feels like it’s all moving in slow motion. The two of them are tousling, kind of, as much as they can tousle with the other villain raining hellfire on a hero that’s well out of his depth.

It’s strange, that the other villain seems to be the outlier here. The hero and the villain have danced around each other for years. It’s been some sort of unspoken rule that they never quite hit hard enough to truly maim. But the hero came here, probably expecting the villain, expecting their usual song and dance, and instead got met with an entirely different tune.

Does the villain want the hero dead? Does he want their game to end? He doesn’t have time to decide.

“[Other Villain],” he snaps, “stop it.”

The other villain leans back, his fist still balled in the hero’s shirt, his other pulled back for yet another strike. “Oh, sorry.” His chest is heaving, as if he’s the one losing here. “You want a go?”

The villain doesn’t know what his answer would be to that. “I think he’s got the idea. Leave off.”

The other villain doesn’t move. The hero wipes idly at the blood painting his mouth.

Like a child asking a genuine question, the other villain simply says, “Why?”

“Because you’re ruining my fun.” True. “You’re taking over on my nemesis.” True. “You’re on my watch.” Half-true, without the supervillain to take charge. “I know this life better than you. Let me do my job and stop butting in.”

“You’ve been fighting [Hero] for years without any progress.” The other villain’s brow knits, genuinely confused. “I’m doing you a favour.”

The villain glances down at the supposed favour he’s getting. Blood splatters the hero’s face, deep crimson painting his clothes. Something of a black eye is already appearing, and the villain hates that noticing that means he also notices that the hero is looking right at him.

He’s not sure why it’s so off-putting. Should he have caused that? Does he want it to have happened at all? His emotions are clashing together in a horrendous cacophony and deciphering any of them is impossible.

“Let go, [Other Villain].”

The slight frown turns into something more hateful. “No.”

“Your violence isn’t welcome in this so-called partnership. Pull it together, or go tell [Supervillain] you ruined his plan.”

“You’re generations out of date, [Villain].” It comes out of the other villain’s mouth as a spit. “Violence is the way forward. I’m helping in ways you’ll clearly never understand.”

The villain isn’t entirely sure why he lurches for the other villain, much like he hasn’t been sure of anything since the hero showed up here and ruined what was already a fairly shitty day.

The other villain has his work cut out for him with an opponent that’s not already half-dead, it seems. The two of them land in a heap on the ground, the other villain’s grappling for his partner’s throat and the villain’s grip tight on the other’s wrists and the air disappears from the villain’s lungs and the world seems so far away and everything is muffled—

The villain gasps his next breath, scrambling away unsteadily. The world slowly comes back into focus, the hum of the city below and his own haggard breathing tuning back in. He swallows nothing, the feeling a sharp burn in his throat, and whips around to look for the other villain.

The villain finds him on the ground, unmoving, the lightest trail of blood trickling from his nose. The hero is sitting next to him with a battered road sign lying at his feet, staring off into nothing.

“Did—” The word hurts. The villain tries to clear his throat and only makes it feel worse. “Did you hit him with a roadwork sign?”

The hero huffs a sort of laugh that melts quickly into a cough. He doesn’t look at the villain when he says, “Think it was about time I hit him back, wasn’t it?”

“I didn’t know you had it in you. You’ve never hit me quite that bad.”

The hero actually laughs this time, the sound choked. “You pull what he just did and I’ll consider it.”

The villain hums a sort of laugh as well, settling on the floor opposite, and the two of them fall into silence. They’re both too tired to say much anyway.

This is another strange experience. The hero and the villain usually fight and go their separate ways. This sort of… hanging out is new. Different—and thankfully not the type of different that got them here in the first place.

The hero smiles at him, and even through the bloody face paint and the blooming bruises, the villain hates that he still looks good. Looks normal. Looks like a nice civilian that the villain would end up curiously following for a couple blocks because his half-decent face caught his attention.

The hero is, the villain supposes, a person too. Another civilian that looked at the state of the world and took up a side, just like the villain did.

“Thank you,” the hero says through the daze of annoyance, “for saving me.”

“Eh.” The villain waves a nonchalant hand. “It’s not like you were going to do it.”

That earns another choked laugh. “Ah, you’re funnier than you like to admit, [Villain].”

The villain scoffs in offence and quiet falls over them again. “Thanks as well, I guess, for…” He gestures vaguely at the other villain lying next to them. “Hitting my colleague over the head with a road sign.”

The hero’s smile grows. “You’re welcome.”

The hero reaches for his mask, just as stained red and tattered as its owner. He turns it over in his hands for a moment, slow and thoughtful, before carefully putting it back over his face. “Back to the heroics, then,” he says lightly.

The villain nods, but he’s not really listening. He finds that, now he’s seeing the person he’s familiar with, he preferred the hero without his mask after all.

[like-rain-or-confetti]

Replenish (Alec Volturi x Reader)

It had all happened too fast. Had you not been in the throne room, you'd have assumed you were hut by a truck or train. You were on the ground before you knew. Your only warning was a snarl, and everything happened so quickly you didn't get the reaction time. You felt the pain of the slam to marble ground, back muscles seizing and locking from impact.

Second came an icy grip stronger than steel...some hair. It brushed your face. Two needles forced their way through the skin if your neck and then more little needles followed in a circle. It felt like a sting that turned into a burn, a draining burn. A crunch and more pain, a numbness deep in her bones. A cold slick tongue lap at the skin.

The concept of time fading the nervendings in your body snapping like tiny fireworks, brain cells sparking, sending out colours, lights, images of memories, and dreams. All as quickly beginning to fade when the show is halted, they fall away to show the ceiling once more. The light of the torches dancing along the ceiling. Someone moved into sight.

Alec looked down at you passively, almost like he was looking through you until he cupped your face. He straddled your body, and you felt his weight on your stomach. "You're alright. I'll fix this. You'll be alright." He said softly. He leaned closer, his face looming over your own.

Red eyes coming into focus brighter than before. Red staining around the perfect curve of his mouth. Staining pale, unblemished skin. Alec looked as perfect as always, yet nothing short of monstrous.

Suddenly, he twisted your neck with his hands, and you felt your neck crunch under the force. A gurgled groan ripped through your throat. It wasn't right. The sharp piercing pain of your bones.

"Ah ah ah, it's okay. I know. Listen to me. I know, but physical pain is temporary. Let me tell you a story, hm? My sister and I used to play in the woods outside our home. I suppose to you, it'd look like a little hut made of wood, sticks, and mud. Very little of us had something with such stability as concrete. One day, Jane fell. The woodland has so many dips and bulges in the ground. Humans didn't have an impact on the greenery back then. Humans were like fawns back then, trying to find their legs-"

He suddenly yanked again, and their was another crunch and more sticking sensations into the vulnerable flesh deep in your neck. You cried out again and he hushed you before continuing.

"Twisted her leg. It wasn't broken, but she couldn't put her weight on it. My heart would flutter and jump in horror at that sound. Just another time the world was out to get us. I had the ability to make it all go away, if I tried hard enough. It wasn't easy but it was as strong as I allowed my will to be. With the touch of my hand, the pain would leave her. Not forever. But in that moment, I gave her time. I was special, but the story didn't end yet, not with me getting her help." He smiled. "An angel came to us. A guardian angel that had been watching us for a long time. I could see he wasn't like us. Too perfect. To ethereal. Like we were all tiny ants that he analysed for years and decided to reveal himself. He spoke with us and soothed us. Told us that one day, he'd give us a gift, but we had to be patient. That all of our pain and suffering would be worthwhile because something greater was in the cards for us. We just had to keep each other safe, and it'd be set in stone as good as. That our pain was gruelling but temporary." He paused. "Our gift was given a little premature from planned...but he was right, (Y/N)."

He yanked again. A crunch, more pain and then immediate relief, the pain fading. Your neck back in place. You let out a breath."I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bite you." His apology didn't sound entirely genuine. "Control is...a little difficult for me sometimes. Even at my age." He playfully smirked. "Lucky for you, you're gifted with cell regeneration, hm? You don't have to worry about death. Or maybe not so much lucky... you're still human. You don't know what it is to be free of humanity." He said. "You ought to stay still for a few hours until you're back to normal. Blood loss is a longer fix than a broken neck."

[m4rv3l-girl]

Hellooo! I stumbled upon your writing on request & it was so good and you deliver it perfectly. So here am I requesting a ff from you. Its about reader/OC where she also an avenger. Bucky is in relationship with her. Most of their mission were almost together & for this one they were separated. It wasn’t unusual but this time Bucky seems more agitated. This cause them to have arguments. Before they could resolve it she was sent to the mission earlier than dated. Bucky regret what he said to her & try to find her to apologise but what he gets was an upsetting news. Her plane had been hijacked. I need angst but with happy ending please. Yearning is good to add too. Thank you so much and sorry if my request was too much. 🤍🩵🤍🩵💗

Hijacked

Warnings: mentions of violence.

Bucky leaned against the sleek counter in the Avengers Tower communal kitchen, nursing his fifth cup of coffee of the day.

The bitter liquid did nothing to ease the churn of unease in his stomach. Y/N had left the room hours ago after their latest argument, the tension still heavy in the air. He hated when they fought, hated the way her voice wavered when she’d told him he was overreacting, and especially hated the way she’d walked away before he could figure out how to apologize.

It wasn’t unusual for them to be sent on separate missions. As one of the most capable field agents on the team, Y/N often worked independently or alongside Natasha, while Bucky found himself paired with Steve or Sam. They always managed, always found their way back to each other. This time, though, something was different. He couldn’t shake the nagging worry gnawing at the edges of his mind, the sense that something was off.

"You're being ridiculous," Y/N had said earlier, her tone sharp but her eyes soft. "I can handle myself, Bucky. You know that."

"I know you can," he’d snapped back, running a hand through his hair. "But that doesn't mean I have to like the idea of you being out there alone. Especially now."

“Now?” she’d echoed, crossing her arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I—” He’d faltered, his frustration overriding his ability to articulate the fear gripping his chest. "I just think we should’ve had more time to prepare. It’s not like they couldn’t have waited a day or two."

She’d sighed then, exasperated. “This is what we do. It’s not always perfect timing.”

And then she’d walked out.

The sound of a nearby chair scraping against the floor jolted Bucky from his thoughts. Sam plopped down across from him, tossing a protein bar onto the counter.

“You look like you’ve been brooding for hours,” Sam remarked, unwrapping the bar. “What’s going on?”

“Y/N’s mission got moved up,” Bucky muttered, staring into his coffee. “We argued before she left.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“And she’s already gone,” Bucky admitted, his voice low. “I didn’t get to apologize.”

Sam chewed thoughtfully. “She’ll be fine, man. Y/N’s a badass. But you should probably work on this whole ‘bottle-up-your-emotions-until-they-explode’ thing. It’s not a great look.”

Bucky didn’t respond, his mind too tangled with guilt and worry. He couldn’t shake the image of Y/N walking onto the Quinjet, her back rigid and her expression unreadable. He should’ve stopped her. He should’ve said something—anything.

Hours turned into a restless night. Bucky paced his room, glancing at his phone every few minutes, waiting for some kind of update. When the call finally came, it wasn’t what he was expecting.

“Barnes,” Steve’s voice crackled through the line, urgent and grim. “Y/N’s plane has been hijacked.”

The world seemed to tilt on its axis. Bucky gripped the edge of the desk, his knuckles white.

“What do you mean, hijacked?” he demanded, his voice barely steady.

“En route to the mission,” Steve explained. “The plane went off course. We lost contact about an hour ago.”

Bucky’s chest tightened. An hour. Anything could have happened in that time. His mind raced with worst-case scenarios, each one more horrifying than the last.

“I’m going after her,” he said immediately, already moving to grab his gear.

“Bucky—” Steve started, but Bucky cut him off.

“Don’t try to talk me out of this,” he growled. “You’d do the same if it were me.”

Steve sighed. “Just… be careful.”

Bucky barely registered Steve’s next words as he ended the call, his mind already racing. His stomach churned with a potent mix of dread and determination as he grabbed his gear, slinging his tactical bag over his shoulder. He could feel the weight of Steve's gaze as he passed him in the hallway.

“She’ll be okay, Buck,” Steve said softly, his voice steady but his eyes betraying his own worry. “Y/N’s one of the best.”

Bucky nodded stiffly, but the knot in his chest didn’t loosen. She was the best—that’s what scared him. He knew exactly what kind of danger someone like her would attract. And now she was out there, in the hands of God-knows-who, and the last words he’d said to her were drenched in frustration instead of love.

“Don’t wait up,” Bucky muttered before walking out, leaving Steve in the hallway.

Down in the briefing room, Sam was already poring over satellite data, his brow furrowed in concentration. Natasha stood next to him, arms crossed, her sharp eyes scanning the map projected on the wall.

“Tell me you’ve got something,” Bucky said, his voice taut.

“We’re working on it,” Sam replied, glancing up. “Last known coordinates put her plane about here.” He pointed to a dense patch of forest on the map, far from any major cities or settlements. “But that’s where it went dark. No signals since.”

“What kind of hijackers force a plane down in the middle of nowhere?” Bucky muttered, more to himself than to them.

Natasha gave him a pointed look. “The kind who want privacy. Whoever they are, they knew what they were doing.”

Bucky’s jaw tightened. “Then we don’t have time to waste. How do we get there?”

“I’ve got a Quinjet ready,” Natasha said, already moving toward the hangar. “Sam’s coming with me to cover the air. You?”

“I’m going on the ground,” Bucky said without hesitation. “I need to find her.”

Natasha didn’t argue, though her gaze lingered on him for a moment. “Fine. But don’t do anything stupid. She’ll need you in one piece.”

Bucky followed them to the hangar, his movements automatic as he loaded up on weapons and gear. Every second felt like an eternity, his mind replaying images of Y/N’s face, the sound of her voice when they’d argued.

“I’ll take the north quadrant,” Sam said as they boarded the Quinjet. “You can have the east. We’ll scan for heat signatures and anything out of the ordinary. Natasha’s running point.”

Bucky nodded absently, his focus already miles ahead of them, in that forest where Y/N was waiting.

As the Quinjet took off, the hum of the engines did little to soothe his nerves. Natasha’s voice crackled through the comms, giving updates on their trajectory, but Bucky barely listened. His gaze was fixed out the window, the cityscape below giving way to sprawling green wilderness.

“Hey,” Sam’s voice broke through his thoughts. “You good?”

“No,” Bucky admitted, his voice low. “But I will be when I find her.”

Sam studied him for a moment, then nodded. “We’ll get her back. You know that, right?”

Bucky didn’t answer. He couldn’t let himself think about any other possibility.

The Quinjet began to descend, the dense forest rising up to meet them. Natasha’s voice came through the comms again.

“We’re close to the coordinates. There’s a clearing about half a mile east where we can set down. From there, it’s on foot.”

Bucky was already moving toward the hatch, his gear secured and his mind focused. As soon as the Quinjet touched down, he was out, the cool forest air hitting him like a slap.

Sam and Natasha followed, the three of them standing in the shadow of the towering trees.

“Keep in contact,” Natasha said, her voice brisk. “If you find anything, call it in.”

Bucky gave a curt nod before heading east, his steps quick and purposeful. The forest was dense, the underbrush tangling around his boots and the canopy overhead blocking out most of the light. His enhanced senses sharpened, every sound and movement setting him on edge.

“Come on, Y/N,” he muttered under his breath, his eyes scanning the trees. “Give me something.”

The faint smell of smoke caught his attention first, acrid and metallic. He moved toward it, his heart pounding. As he pushed through the underbrush, the wreckage came into view.

The plane was mangled, its nose buried in the dirt and its wings twisted at unnatural angles. Smoke still curled from the fuselage, the acrid scent stinging his nose. Bucky’s breath caught as he took in the scene, his eyes darting over the wreckage for any sign of movement.

“Nat, I’ve found the plane,” he said into his comm, his voice tight.

“Any sign of Y/N?” Natasha’s voice crackled in his ear.

“Not yet,” he said, moving closer. “But I’m not leaving until I do.”

Bucky’s heart pounded as he approached the site, the wreckage stark against the green backdrop. Smoke curled into the air, and the unmistakable scent of burnt metal lingered. He moved silently, his enhanced senses on high alert.

“Come on, Doll,” he murmured under his breath, scanning the area. “Where are you?”

The first sign of life came in the form of muffled voices. Bucky crept closer, his body tensed for a fight. He spotted a group of armed men near the wreckage, their attention focused on something—or someone.

Y/N.

She was on her knees, her hands bound but her gaze defiant. A trickle of blood ran down her temple, but she didn’t look broken. If anything, she looked furious.

Bucky’s chest swelled with both pride and anger. He took a deep breath, steadying himself. One wrong move could put her in more danger. He had to be smart about this.

The fight was over in minutes. Bucky moved like a shadow, taking out the guards one by one. By the time the last man hit the ground, Y/N was already working to free herself.

“Bucky,” she breathed, relief and frustration mingling in her voice.

He was at her side in an instant, his metal hand snapping her restraints like they were nothing. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said, though her voice wavered. “But what the hell are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t just sit around and do nothing,” he admitted, his hands hovering over her, unsure where to touch. “I had to make sure you were safe.”

Her expression softened, the anger melting away. “You idiot,” she murmured, throwing her arms around him.

Bucky held her tightly, burying his face in her hair. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “For what I said. For not stopping you. For everything.”

Y/N pulled back just enough to look at him, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “You don’t have to apologize. I know you were just worried.”

“I can’t lose you,” he said, his voice raw. “Not now. Not ever.”

“You won’t,” she promised, her hand cupping his cheek. “I’m right here.”

They made their way back to the Quinjet, leaning on each other for support. Bucky couldn’t stop stealing glances at her, as if reassuring himself that she was really there.

Back at the tower, the rest of the team welcomed them with relieved smiles and teasing remarks. But Bucky didn’t let Y/N out of his sight, his hand always brushing against hers, his presence a constant reminder that she wasn’t alone.

Later, as they lay tangled together on the couch, Bucky pressed a kiss to her temple. “I’m never letting you go on a mission alone again,” he murmured.

Y/N chuckled, the sound soft and warm. “We’ll see about that.”

For now, though, they were together, and that was all that mattered.

——————————————————————————————————

Hope you enjoyed it, hun! 🫶

[i9messi]

Hard to get — Oscar Piastri

You're a rookie, always determined to prove yourself on track, but Oscar is constantly underestimating you. He is annoying and has ben like this since you were fifteen.

word count — 2,6k

note: rivals to lovers. oscar is childish and annoying. warnings: misogynist comments made by a journalist. oh, and a car accident. i think i don't forget anything. feedback and reblogs are well appreciated.

MASTERLIST

“Why do you keep looking at him?”

Charles was standing beside you, your gaze didn't move away for a second from the certain driver who was a few meters away. Nothing but hatred in your eyes.

Charles loved to laugh at the fact you didn’t get along with Oscar. He thought it was a childish and stupid fight, where neither of you accepted you were being silly. The Ferrari driver was the one who tried to keep things cool, after all, Oscar was his adopted son and you were like his younger sister.

On the other hand, Lando just laughed and encouraged you to keep fighting.

“He’s looking at me!”

“And you’re looking at him, no need to complain.”

“I hate that stupid face and his stupid hair….”

Charles smiled even more.

“And his stupid voice… Oh, what more?” he added, jokingly.

“Charles, don't try to be on his side.”

“I'm not! This is a stupid fight and you should act like adults, not like kids.”

“Nevermind. Good luck in the race.”

You walked away and put on your helmet. The race was about to start. Starting behind Lando and alongside Carlos, you thought you were doing well in your first season as a rookie. But, bad things were, Oscar was behind you and you knew that could only mean something terrible.

Both were competitive since you had met, always fought for the lead and you didn't think this time would be different. Your relationship was reaching a point where you felt that at any moment everything would blow up.

And Oscar was the one to blame.

He must have noticed somehow that you were thinking of him, because he came to stand closer to you. To annoy you.

“Oh great, it’s you again.”

“I just wanted to wish you good luck.”

Your gaze kept on him, not believing for anything in the world that your greatest rival since you were fifteen really wished you good luck.

But Oscar didn't finish talking, because he smiled machiavelliously.

“...You’re obviously going to end up behind me. It must be a nice view from behind.”

“Me behind you? That’s funny. Last time I checked, you were two positions behind me.”

Oscar was mad, you could notice that for the way he was looking at you, with his teeth biting his lips. For a calm boy, he always showed all his emotions when he had a conversation with you.

“We’ll see how this race ends and if you really deserve your seat.”

“Go to hell, Oscar.”

Oscar smiled and touched your shoulder.

“See you later, princess.”

The race started moments later. Despite the pressure you had to give a good result for your team, you also enjoyed being able to drive the car at high speed. Nothing was like formula one, it was unique. You kept up a good pace and thought that if you fought hard enough, you could get to the podium. Oscar was behind you, but as Lewis was struggling for position and to overtake the aussie, he was busy with more important matters than bothering you. So for the moment, you were fine.

However, on lap nineteen, everything ended for you. You hit the wall on a curve.

“Damn! I’m sorry, guys.”

You were angry with yourself, with Oscar and everyone. You knew it was your fault, because that curve had been difficult for you in each lap and even though you practiced it dozens of times, a mistake had caused the car to move and you could not stop it before the impact.

“Are you all right?” they asked on the radio.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Mad as hell, but fine.”

You got out of the car and the medical staff took care of you to check that your injuries were minor. Once they finished, you locked yourself in your room to try to calm down. You were angry, sad that you failed the team and your ego was hurt.

You heard someone knocking the door, you opened to see the face of your PR manager.

“I know you don't want to talk with anyone, but you have some interviews to do.”

“Okay, I’m coming.”

Much more calm than moments ago, you went to the area where a lot of journalists were waiting to ask what had happened in the race. Oscar was there and you saw his evil smile. He was probably happy about your crash, and you hated him for it.

“Hi.” you said to the first person you saw, a man in his forties.

“So how do you feel about your own mistake in the race?”

Some journalists were like sharks, waiting for a drop of blood to attack. A sign of weakness.

“It wasn’t the result we wanted and... I talked with the team and they know how sorry I am. I hope the next race result will be different.”

However, the man insisted.

“We can see that women don’t know how to drive properly after all.”

“Excuse me?”

He didn’t give you time to fight back and tell what you really thought, just kept talking as if the only thing that mattered was his own voice.

“Do you think your team will replace you? You’re not having the result they expected you to have in this season, there are rumors that Perez is gonna take your seat. I doubt you’ll keep the car for the rest of the season.”

You swallowed, stopped looking at the journalist and just turned your head to the side. His words had been like daggers in an unhealed wound.

“I have nothing to say. That's my team's decision.”

You passed to the next person, this time it was a woman who was patient and kind with you. Yet the words of the man kept on repeating in your head. Keeping the seat all season was a hard job, you knew how fast a team could get tired of a driver and how the dream could end in a matter of hours. You wanted to stay there, you wanted to prove what you were capable of.

The interviews ended and you kept your head low, staring at the ground. You walked away and did the worst thing you could have done at that time, you opened twitter. There were a lot of aggressive tweets against you, saying that you were a disappointment to women who wanted to earn a place in sports. But you didn’t want to be anyone’s model or inspiration, you just wanted to be yourself, doing a sport you loved since you were a kid. Why was it so difficult?

Locked in your room, you heard a knock on the door. Someone calling your name.

“It’s Oscar, please open.”

Oscar? What the hell was he doing there? Surely your nemesis wanted to make you feel even worse than you already were. If the press were like sharks, Oscar was a crow.

“Go away.”

"I want to talk with you."

He did not stop knocking the door. Exhausted, you opened the door and saw him. Still wearing his race clothes, his hair was messy and he looked at you as if he had seen you for the first time in those years that you knew each other.

Did he look at you with concern?

“Your tears kill me, I don’t like to see you cry.”

There was still a trace of tears in your face and the only person you didn't want to see them, actually saw them.

“You are an amazing driver and you deserve the seat more than anyone else in the world. No one has the right to make a mean comment about you.”

You wanted to fight, you wanted to get angry with someone. That someone was standing there in front of you.

“So, you think you're the only one who has the right to underestimate me?”

“That's not…”

“Since we met you’ve made my life miserable. You say bullshit about me. What the press and people said about me is more of the same. You’re no different from them.”

“I’m sorry, I really am.”

He avoided your eyes, his gaze firmly fixed on the floor.

“Just go, Oscar. I don’t need your pity.”

For the first time, he didn’t insist. He just left. Later that day you started thinking about what it meant for Oscar to come to talk with you.

Lando texted you, saying that the guys were going to the club. Just a few minutes later, Charles sent you almost an identical message, telling you that it wouldn’t be the same without your presence. As much as you were not in the mood, you accepted the invitation. Tomorrow you had a meeting with the team and you knew that that same night you would not be able to sleep. At least you’d have a few drinks and then go back to your room.

Charles came to pick you up at your hotel and together you went to the club, there you met a lot of familiar faces and among them, it was Oscar. None of you said a thing, but there was a strange vibe. The other drivers ignored the situation, and if they felt the tension, they acted as if they had not.

“Let’s dance.” Lando grabbed your hand and led you to the dance floor.

You looked at Charles for help but he just smiled at you.

“Go!”

Lando danced with you, but you felt a glance on you. It was Oscar, who drank a glass of something and kept his eyes on you.

“I don’t know what happened between you two but you should talk.” Your friend said in your ear, as you kept your gaze on Oscar.

“I don’t want to talk to him, he’s despicable.”

“But he’s constantly in your head.”

“That’s not true,” you tried to argue, but you knew that was true. Oscar was always in your thoughts, living rent free in your mind. “Fine, I’ll go talk to him.”

“If you fight, remember to talk loudly so I can record you on my phone!”

“Stupid.”

Lando laughed.

After what happened today, you thought you would try to be the adult in the relationship (even though there was no real relationship) and try to at least have a mature conversation with Oscar. You approached him, who was sitting next to Charles and Carlos.

“Oscar, can I talk to you?”

“Sure.”

That was different. Oscar always said something annoying but not now.

You led him out of the club, until both ended up sitting in his car.

“Do you want to go talk to my hotel?” he suggested, not really knowing where to go. You didn’t want the cameras and people taking pictures of you together, because everything could be misunderstood.

“Uhm— sure.”

Oscar drove carefully until you ended up at the hotel where McLaren was staying. The way to his room was a bit awkward, where maybe you expected him to say something but he didn’t. Oscar stood silent.

Already in the room, you sat on the bed and he stood still two meters away.

“I know you hate me because I’m a woman in sports and you think women don’t deserve a place.”

“That’s bullshit. I don’t think that. Women deserve to be in sports as well as men.”

You raised an eyebrow, confusion showing in your face.

“And why do you hate me so much?”

It was a question you wanted to ask him since the first time you met, that day when he told you that you didn’t deserve to be there and that you would surely cry on the first lap.

“Because— are you sure you already don’t know? It’s pretty obvious.”

“What is obvious?”

Oscar finally spoke, his cute eyes kept looking anywhere but you.

“I’ve had a crush on you since I was fifteen. At first, I thought it was because you were beautiful and you were the coolest kid around but I know it’s deeper than that. I kept thinking you would never notice me and I was trying so hard to catch your attention, so I guess I did what I had to do.”

“So you tried to catch my attention, making me hate you?”

He looked at the floor, avoiding your gaze, ashamed to acknowledge that he had acted in that way.

“It sounds stupid but it was the only thing that came to me at fifteen. When time passed, I couldn't suddenly say that I didn't hate you anymore and no longer wanted to fight with you. It was funny to fight before a race, knowing that it would make you go crazy and say horrible things to me. I liked to think that I drove you crazy.”

You thought about it, until you just said what you thought.

“You’re an asshole, Oscar.”

“I never said I wasn’t.”

There was a rare silence, finally his eyes met yours. After so many fights, so many years in which the only things that came out of your mouths were negative aspects from each other, for the first time you were trying not to be bad with him.

“Oscar…”

“Yes?”

“I’ve had a crush on you since I was seventeen. No one knows.”

Oscar’s face looked surprised, a smile coming out of his lips.

“It took two years? See, I’m still faster than you in every aspect.”

He smiled and you smiled, a joke that was offensive and harmless at the same time. Now you understood everything, Oscar was never like a polite cat with you like was with others, he was aggressive and childish. And it was all because he had feelings for you.

“We’re two idiots.”

“We are.”

It was the first time he agreed with you, after all.

You stood and walked a few steps in his direction, Oscar kept in his place. There was a lot of tension in the room, but something had calmed down after both confessed your secrets.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said to you in an almost imperceptible murmur. “and so hard to get.”

“Do you still think I’m the coolest kid around?”

He smiled. “You are, you always were.”

His lips were really close to yours, hoping for a kiss you didn’t know what it could mean. Not when you had spent years hating each other. There was anticipation, there were lots of mixed feelings.

“Do you still hate me?” he asked, as he drew his hand to your cheek.

“I do, that never changes.”

Your lips barely touched when you heard someone knocking the door.

“GUYS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? PLEASE DON’T KILL EACH OTHER.”

It was Lando and with him was Charles, screaming as loud as they could. Both accents made the situation funny as hell and also the fact you weren't trying to harm yourselves, you were two seconds away from kissing.

“OSCAR, DON’T DO ANYTHING TO MY FRIEND!”

Before they did anything crazy, or called security, you and Oscar got away and opened the door. Lando looked at you suspiciously.

“What were you doing?”

“Nothing.”

Charles kept his gaze on Oscar, also with a suspicious face.

“Why are you blushing?*

“We were fighting.” He said, not admitting the truth.

“Yeah, and I was winning.”

Oscar stopped looking at Lando, to only focus on you.

“That’s not true, I was winning. You’re dumb, you can’t win.”

“Oh, Oscar shut the fuc…”

“Calm, calm, calm down.” Charles grabbed you by the arm and pushed you to his side as he pulled you out of Oscar’s room.

When you turned around, you saw that Oscar gave you a smile. A sincere smile, something you had rarely seen. Hell, you were crazy for him.

[aeolianblues]

Oh boy, your AI bro is mixing up therapists and one specific computer Rogerian psychotherapist from the 1960s. And it's an incredibly interesting mixup to have made, because if anything, they're proving your point.

Buckle up for this one, it has nothing to do with modern AI. Back in the '60s, things were moving at breakneck speed for computer science. The space race was on, computers were sending satellites into space, 50s sci-fi pulp fiction had everyone clamouring for the possibility of robots thinking, feeling, walking amongst us.

German computer scientist and ethicist Joseph Weizenbaum was not one of them. He called computers 'the child of the military' and sort of correctly predicted that the increased capacity of computers just meant that we'd try and squeeze extra efficiency out of things that would be harmed by being more 'efficient'. He was against blindly handing over control to a machine. In an era where people were excitedly envisioning a future where computers could perfectly communicate and live with humans, and take over important jobs just because they could do maths faster than us, Weizenbaum argued that any attempt at truly communicating with a computer was futile. And to prove it, in 1966, he wrote up a simple computer program called ELIZA.

ELIZA was a pattern-matching program fashioned to behave like a Rogerian psychotherapist. Carl Rogers' person-centred school of psychotherapy aimed to facilitate a patient in solving their own problems by just helping them talk themselves through it. Accordingly, ELIZA's script was meant to largely parrot back whatever problems a user threw at it, in the way a therapist would.

From a linguistics and computer science perspective, the script (called the DOCTOR script) was extremely elegant. ELIZA was not AI. ELIZA is so old, it pre-dates AI or chatbots. 'She' had no knowledge of the outside world, or of psychology or anything beyond the few lines of instructions she was given: replace 'I' with 'you', replace 'am' with 'are' and 'are' with 'am', parrot back the rest of the sentence with a question mark at the end. Remember a few of the user's last inputs, so in case none of the other patterns match in a sentence, you can ask the 'patient', “earlier you were saying that you... ”.

I've described just two lines of her instruction set, and you can probably already tell that she's not really a therapist, nor that this program would ever have true understanding of your life problems, right?

She's not perfect. And yet! The script was so elegant that people began believing that the computer program written to repeat their lines back at them felt emotion and sentiment! A visibly frustrated Weizenbaum actually wrote a book called Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation, repeatedly trying to explain that the computer had no anthropomorphic traits and any comparison would only cheapen the meaning of human life. His own secretary asked to have two minutes alone to chat heart to heart with this pseudo AI psychotherapist. They’ve named the tendency to ascribe human traits to computers the ELIZA effect.

Humans are very easy to trick. Put googly eyes and a sharpie smiley face on a balloon and people will try and empathise with it. They fell for ELIZA. They will continue to fall for chat-GPT, or whatever auto-completing word-guesser is created next in the name of 'AI'.

Still, as seen with ELIZA, it does fall apart quickly. That was the whole point of Joseph Weizenbaum's experiment. Computer programs, chatbots, AI, they have their limitations. His point was that you should not be trusting ELIZA to be your actual certified psychotherapist. All your AI bro has done is prove that he too would've fallen for ELIZA.

Whether it's an AI 'BetterHelp' chatbot or an online form that refuses to take an answer it's not programmed to take, it boils down to the same observation. There should be a real person there, who is able to understand context and has the required knowledge to be dealing with human life and circumstances. No matter how empathetic or sophisticated the psychotherapist behind the screen appears.

Gods almighty I hate AI bros.

I just had some fucker on Reddit attempt to splain to me, with a straight face, that AI is going to replace all therapists in a few years, because people don't need human connection as long as they feel like the computer is empathetic.

???? ????? ?????????

Setting aside that that's bullshit, fucking AI cannot do fucking culturally competent therapy, at all, on any fucking level, because it's fucking fancy autocorrect and is going to spit out what the mainstream culture tells it.

Fucking AI could not help my friend who fucking cannot with CBT at all because it triggers them, because it's going to spit out the most common answers to therpy question and that means fucking CBT.

Fucking AI cannot fucking handle things like DID headmate switching, or someone getting triggered and needing de-escalating mid session, or ANYTHING that's outside a very narrow window of "help, I need someone to make vaguely soothing noises at me".

If I wanted an AI therapist, I'd get out a Windows 98 emulator and vent to fucking Clippy. It'd be cheaper and better for the environment.