#I plan on building a lighthouse just to the left of what you can see on the screen

[zombiesama]

ship!!!

[j0kers-light]

Hey light! I've had this scenario floating around my brain I thought I'd share. So Joker was having a really rough week and his mood swings were horrendous. Plans he'd spent weeks on were ruined and didn't go well at all. His henchmen were more annoying and tiresome than usual. One day he breaks down, curls up in bed, and has a good cry, thinking he was home alone. Y/n comes home and catches him but decides not to let him see her because it would embarrass him and make him feel way worse. She just watches in silence from afar.

This is probably wayyy out of character but I love it when J gets to show emotion poor guy 🥺

His Lighthouse: Mood Swings (LedgerJoker x f!reader)

Mood Swings - Oneshot

KEEP IN MIND THIS IS NOT A CHAPTER UPDATE!

Hey hi anon!! 🖤✨

I haven’t been called Light in a while, almost forgot that's me lol 😭😭This ask is definitely wayyyyy out of character however have no fear, Chaos is here! I can always make something work. Here's something short and sweet treat to munch on while I work on the chapter updates! I hope you enjoy anon!

If you wish to be a part of the His Lighthouse taglist, (or His Angel) do let me know via comment, ask, or a quick direct message! 🖤✨

Nothing was going as he planned. It was one thing after another.

The plans he spent ages on perfecting were ruined, tensions were at an all time high, and to make matters worse, his goons were screwing up left and right.  

Normally Joker would have killed any signs of weakness, but he couldn’t get rid of his entire payroll. How was it possible that everyone was annoying? Even Frost wasn’t off the hook. At least he had the decency to acknowledge his mistakes and apologize.

No one else did and that irked J even more. Either everyone was an idiot, or the universe had it out for him.  

Honestly, it could be both. It was turning out to be a really rough week with no end in sight.

There was some hope when a revised plan was going well; however, it was quickly ruined by none other than Batman. Joker could not get ahead. He was this close to pulling his hair. 

He had to get away before his demons started airing the place out.

The whispers were getting louder and louder. ‘Stab him, strangle them...’ and his fingers itched to obey.. until he saw your disapproving face appear in his mind.

His Light would be devastated to find out his no killing streak reverted back to zero. He was doing so well too!  

For your sake, Joker managed to curb his urges, but after one of his goons screwed up and almost leaked the main hideout’s location online, enough was enough.  

Joker could not handle anymore. He forcibly removed himself from the situation with a clear destination in mind: your penthouse. He sought out your peaceful bubble, perhaps you could turn his bad mood back around. Joker had to get away before he did who knows what. 

And just Joker’s luck, his misfortunes followed him home. He was convinced he was cursed because this week was officially the worst.  

He struggled to open your front door (of all days the key would get stuck and that was after dropping them) he felt like a raging bull. Joker saw red and he needed an outlet to purge this negative energy into. He wouldn’t dare place it on you.  

No, he needed to be alone to sort this out. He felt a headache building and strangely enough, his eyes were tingling. Joker refused to believe he was going to cry.

No matter how horrendous his week was, Joker was not a crier. He refused to be weak in front of anyone and that included you.  

That thought made him pause in the foyer. Where were you anyways?  

He called out your name—only for silence to echo back. Of all the days you weren’t home.

J didn’t know if this were a good or a bad thing. He was glad you didn’t see him like this and yet, he kinda wished you were here to educate him on what to do.  

You were aptly named his lighthouse for your skills in leading out of the darkness. And right now, it was so dark, Joker couldn’t see the end of the tunnel. His mind was fighting against him and his emotions were getting the better of him. He didn’t feel like himself.   

He kicked his shoes off and ran a hand through his green tresses.

Your penthouse was pristine, a big burst of color and steeped with a whimsical flare.  

A candle burned safely in a votive nearby and its soothing scent went completely over Joker’s head. He was just too far gone for the little things to calm him down. It would take a herculean effort to get him back sane.. at least back to his normal sane self.  

You always demanded cleanliness and order. Everything had a place and right now, Joker felt like he didn’t belong. He considered trashing the place. The thought was too tempting to pass up. 

As much as Joker told himself to behave, he stomped his way down the hall, breaking anything his hands could get a hold of.

Once he entered the bedroom, he snatched a pillow off the bed and screamed into it. He remembered you saying once that it was a great way to relieve stress, but he still felt the same afterwards. Did he somehow do it wrong?  

His clown makeup was smudged all over the case, and it got his mind thinking. Yelling into a pillow was stupid. He quickly tore it into shreds.  

The imported feathers floated in the air, and they provoked his inner desire to destroy more. He knew you would be angry.  

Well touch luck, Joker was angry too.  

The other pillows suffered the same fate as Joker tore through the room like a tornado.

He would suffer the consequences of his actions later, each tear, every crack, satisfied the demons screaming in his head. A little broken furniture was better than a pile of dead bodies. He hoped you would understand.  

His rampage went on until he was out of breath and was slowly coming to his senses.

Sadly, Joker was still as angry as before. Nothing was working! Joker kicked over the decorative ottoman before belly flopping onto the bed.

Surprisingly, it survived his initial rage and despite his better judgement, Joker let out a gut wrenching yell that ended in a rare sob.  

Joker thought he was stronger than this. He royally failed for letting his emotions get the better of him. This week really took a toll on him, and he had exhausted every method to calm down. All except one.

Joker was powerless against the sudden wave of sleepiness taking him under after his rare show of emotions.  

He clung to the last pillow that smelled of you as you watched on from the doorway. 

Your poor clown was hurting.  

You weren’t ignorant to the levels of stress Joker was going through this week. His nights were longer, his tolerance weakened to the point he almost snapped at you a few times. 

Nothing ever went Joker’s way with the constant perfection he demanded for his criminal heists. He put too many expectations on himself and his goons. 

No one was perfect, case in point, you watched helplessly as Joker broke down. You would worry about cleaning up later. Your heart went out to Joker, who was so far removed from human emotions that he didn’t know he was having a meltdown.  

He didn’t even notice you coming home, he was so overwhelmed.  

He acted like a wounded animal, lashing out while on the verge of tears. Have you ever seen Joker cry before? The details didn’t matter.

You didn't dare to confront him during this rare lapse of character. He would be embarrassed and lash out, thus making things worse.  

You wisely waited in the shadows. When Joker was down for the count, you stepped into the bedroom to offer your silent support.  

You set your purse down and sighed at the mess Joker left behind before climbing into bed. J flinched in his sleep when you reached out for him but he slowly relaxed when his subconscious realized it was you.  

His Light was finally here to help whatever was ailing him.

You cooed softly when Joker tightened his grip on you as his breathing picked up. You didn’t want him waking up.  

Right now, he needed all the rest he could get. He was like a toddler all tuckered out after a tantrum. You let him sleep on your chest as you raked your hands through his green tresses.  

And when Joker woke up hours later in your arms, you simply smiled at him and wiped the dried tears from his cheeks. “You feeling better, J?” 

[charbeess]

hellooooooo I am here to return the favor with ✨my own questions about your Nya playlist✨

I've already saved it to my own Spotify - it looks like an absolute banger!!! I haven't had a chance for a full listen through, but I have given it a preview and I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. our of pure curiosity, I think the songs I want to know the most about are:

"Decode" by Paramore (I also love a good mid 2000s emo stereotype staple for Nya and I would love to know your rationale here)

"Girl With One Eye" by Florence + The Machine (I've heard this one suggested for a general Skybound reason before but I'd like to know what makes it a Nya song for you)

"Hold Me Like A Grudge" by Fall Out Boy (yes I know I've given this one to Nya on the OSSAS playlist but I'd love your spin on it lmao)

that's all I have for now!!!! I'll have to get around to a full listen sometime but for now: ask fodder!!!!

and so the enabled becomes the enabler!! this is actually very exciting, because you’ve chosen the songs that i have ON REPEAT !! so much to say, this may get long… i won’t keep you left in anticipation, let’s talk about it!

Decode, Paramore: so, already i want to agree with you and say this is the kinda song they’d toss in on those “songs this character would have on their playlist” tropes. i think paramore just fits her general vibe, could totally see her rocking out with hayley williams ( and honestly me too, girl. ) but !! as for the more DEEPER meanings, this song is fun because i’ve always seen it as a double - meaning. skybound, but also dragon’s rising.

for skybound; there’s specific lyrics that I HAVE to mention. think of it when it’s just the two of them, in the lighthouse; nya’s having that talk about her future and wanting her own choice:

“How can I decide what's right?

When you're clouding up my mind

I can't win your losing fight

All the time.”

it’s like she’s fighting her own thoughts, here. like how can she decide what she wants when everyone else is throwing things and plans in her mind and they aren’t her own to make and never were to begin with and she feels almost? defeated? not by actions, but by decision and will of thought. it’s supposed to be her life, so why isn’t she the one making decisions here? why is she losing against what she, herself, wants to decide? why is she being ripped of basic human right to plan her own future?

there’s also the bonus lyric in there of “Nor can I ever own what’s mine,” which is a lovely little tagline for the samurai x suit, and how she was forced to leave that behind for the role of the water ninja.

another little verse lyrics i’d like to add for the extra skybound credits:

“But you think that I can't see

What kind of man that you are

If you're a man at all.”

little bash to nadakhan, if i may. (i’d give any reason to throw songs in there that are a bash to him. staring at one song in specific in her playlist.)

as for this song fitting dragon’s rising, i think this song leans towards how jaya may end up. we, as the audience, know jay’s lost his memory; and from what i’ve watched so far ( without any spoilers because i have NOT watched that yet ) i already sense there’s gonna be a confrontation eventually. they’re building up to it! so, it’s moreso just the chorus verses &. the bridges. “How did we get here? When I used to know you so well?” that kinda fits the dragon’s rising POV of nya. i can’t explain too much because i don’t know what’s gonna happen to them, but i already get a general idea that it’s gonna be upsetting with nya’s vision in s2p1, and jay’s amnesia in general.

decode is super fun for its double meanings and honestly you could probably tear it out for another meaning, but i think this mostly sums up everything for this one!! onto the next choice!

Girl With One Eye, Florence and the Machines: I have also seen it fit under a skybound general reason and that’s!! part of why it’s added, but it’s not Everything. to me, we’re diving straight into nya’s anger and giving into her feminine rage. 

we’re talking early water ninja days feminine rage. i’ve always seen this song in her pov, but it’s her mocking her criticisers?? her haters?? her doubters?? it’s like, maybe to us listeners it’s potentially a liiiittle overexerted but to nya, it’s like putting yourself in her shoes and realising that honestly, she’s grown tired of the way she’s treated. and she’s grown to just stop caring and turn that hatred into general rage and using that to help her push forward. so, essentially it is just her Mocking the way people have treated her. she’s not accepting it, she’s just accepting that this Has happened, but she’s not letting it upset her any further. in fact, they help her channel her rage into her work!

i have no specific lyrics for this one. it is merely just the vibe for it, that fits her. the music being so heavy - on and just constantly gets heavier as the rage builds up and it’s like she’s bottling it all just to release it as pure Rage and honestly, nya deserves to be a little pissed at everything she’s had to deal with. however you could push it and toss the one lyric of “My reputation’s kinda clouded with dirt,” as a way of her seeing how people probably see her to be. remember, this is nya’s POV to how others see her. she doesn’t think that, but with all the labels that’s tossed onto her; they don’t see her as a ninja, this early into it. she’s gotta build a name for herself. could also toss the “I’ll cut your little heart out, because you made me cry,” for the general sense that she’s tired of the lack of empathy she gets whereas the others get the citizen’s full support, they cheer and hype the boys up and then she gets the latter of… well, nothing but questions unrelated to what she wants to be asked. they’d rather Be her then know about her.

in a sense you could say the skybound undertones are the rage, and potentially having that spark when she deals with nadakhan and then being lied to by jay, but overall, it’s just rage. it’s pent up rage in a song. i needed a song that could channel that enough that it literally MEANS “enough is enough.” nya’s had so much rage pent up during skybound, she’s lashing out that entire season (within good reason) and i wanted to give her a song that best demonstrates that rage and if anyone can do it? it’s florence and the machines.

i’m sure there’s other songs i can toss in here that establish that female rage but for right now, this one covers the majority.

Hold Me Like A Grudge, Fall Out Boy: i can’t lie, OSSAS was definitely the reasoning for this song. i heard it from OSSAS first before ever tossing it in here. but after listening to it repeatedly, i did pick out a couple moments from the song that generally fits the themes of skybound that i will definitely ramble about here.

there’s this one specific lyric that always catches my attention when the song plays: “I thought I knew better, I thought it would get better. I figured somehow by now, I would have got it together.” and ohhhh boy do i have much to say about this. because the way this could also be the aftermath of skybound, as well as current events?

it’s definitely an afterthought to me, nya’s procession of it all. i know it’s been so long now, but something like That will never fully leave the mind, no matter how desperate. you can repress it, you can work on it, you can learn to grow from it; but that stuff sticks. even if nya lost her memory temporarily in seabound. i refuse to believe she just Got Over It because, how do you? this was one of her starting points of being a ninja, this is how she was introduced into the role after being forced into it last season; and that’s how she has to remember it? she can’t say her first missions went great because her greatest achievement (destroying the preeminent) led to it’s sister realm being destroyed and bringing nadakhan to ninjago anyways. those lyrics in specific just feel like general trauma response because. you’d think in that time, the saying “time heals all wounds” would start to cave in by now. but it doesn’t. there’s always something that makes her wobble, makes her stumble. which i guess you could say follows my one previous post about nya and jay keeping their wounds even after the timeline’s been reversed.

i also just generally enjoy the “Part-time soulmate, full-time problem” lyric. like, that’s FUN to me. that’s funny, that’s totally something nya would totally feel during that whole fiesto, and how the general title of the song most likely fits her whole capture.

but yeah, to me this is an OSSAS song simply because. i’ve read it so many times i basically have it as my own little concept of what happened behind camera and if you haven’t read OSSAS yet, for the people reading this, i 100% recommend it.

i think this about sums everything up! got all my thoughts tossed onto page and i’m satisfied with my rambles. i hope you have fun listening when you do!! ive had this playlist for just under a year - ish and i’m always adding, editing and messing about with it so you’ll most likely see some new songs pop up, or old songs disappear for whatever reason.

thank you for stopping by and letting me ramble about music and character analysation ! this was actually super fun :3

[nitrosodiumfmp]

Plans for the Dock Map

These are two pieces of artwork vaguely representing the Dock map. They're not 100% accurate, but they display the basics. You start out on the jetty, before heading into the first yard with a lighthouse on the side, two warehouses standing ominously on either side of you, and beyond a Gothic wrought-iron fence, a taller building, with a single open window glowing eerie blue. Your mission will be to enter the Shipwright's office and take a Soul Anchor from it - an important artifact that you'll need to get before continuing through the afterlife. To get there, you first need to enter Warehouse A, where you can find a note that says the only way into the Shipwright's office is through the outside. This, coupled with the face that the window is clearly visible, signals to the player that they now need to use parkour to reach the office. From spawn, a plank is visible connecting the main building to the roof of Warehouse B. The key in Warehouse A unlocks the gate to the Outskirts, a cluster of streets beyond the fence. After some exploration, the player will see that the main building is blocked off, and Warehouse B is locked. Via another note, they will learn that the key is in a side building, the Earthly Possessions storehouse. Once inside Warehouse B, they will use the elevator to reach the roof, and shimmy across a plank to reach the Shipwright's office. Inside, writing is scrawled across the walls, plus a maddening note left by the Shipwright detailing the event that warped the underworld; just more lore. Once you interact with the Soul Anchor on his desk, you complete the level.

So it's a basic puzzle encouraging exploration and introspection in the environment. Three notes, two keys; it's nothing too complex. I'm thinking of adding a unique red-clothed Grave Digger corpse on the ground before the Shipwright's window, implying that it's the Shipwright having fallen to his death. Obviously right now it's all big ugly blockouts, but here are some of my inspirations.

Shipping... and Receiving is a Thief 2 mission, where you must plunder a dockside system of warehouses. Obviously, it's very much like my map, having Garrett explore the containers of the warehouse's various tenants, including spice smugglers, Mechanist religious zealots, artists, recording companies, and traders. My Dock doesn't have the same variety; Warehouse A is filled with big rusted containers and wooden crates, and I plan for Warehouse B to have a boat chained up on it. Then the main building is mostly inaccessible, except for the Shipwright's office. This aesthetic of grimy brick and opaque old-style windows is essentially the bread and butter of the map so far, but the second section, the Outskirts, is going to be a little different.

Yes, it's Limbo of the Lost again, specifically the town area of Darkmere. Nearly every building has a large sign indicating its trade, and some screens have signposts showing multiple areas to go. I want to create the imagery of a crooked city block without making an entire city block, so I'll include lots of side areas with nothing in them, and street signs pointing to them. It's almost like a diorama of what a larger location would look like; a vertical slice for you to play through without sacrificing fun for realism. This idea of naming everything to give an impression of a larger space existing beyond the game's limits was done before in games like Bioshock.

(Note the Lower Wharf text at the bottom of the screen). Bioshock takes place in Rapture, a massive underwater city which you only see bits and pieces of throughout the game, and each sub-area is titled, to help sell the idea that you're in a real place and not just a level in a video game. This idea of immersion is key to Bioshock, and its strong aesthetic-oriented metropolis is a large inspiration for Sinister. The Neptune's Bounty area of Rapture shown in the image above is also quite usable for Sinister; it's the main port of the city, full of wooden struts and stacked shipping containers. That, combined with the gloomy cityscape visible from every porthole, bathed in turquoise light from the ocean depths, makes it very akin to Sinister.

[kylekozmikdeluxo]

Autie Things: The Buildings of New Haven

Like most of my random hyperfixations, what I'll talk about in this post will get... Weird. To say the least. You onboard?

I grew up in and around New Haven, Connecticut. I frequently go through it or have to go there.

Years and years ago, my father used to live on a hill overlooking that whole city. New Haven is nothing like, say, New York. Or even fellow CT cities like Hartford. It has some fairly tall buildings, like the CT Financial Center and the Knights of Columbus building, but nothing truly towering. From my dad's house, however, the view showed me a nice assortment of different buildings of varying design styles. Many of them marked by the eras they were planned and built during.

The upstairs part of my father's house had a wide room, which he had used as the TV room and our room for when we'd visit on the weekends. There were two windows where one could look out, and on almost any day... You could see the whole city of New Haven. All of it, almost like it was laid out on a line. Every single building. One of my aunts would often tell me, "When you looked out those windows, you'd always say 'Castles!'"

And, thinking about that, in a way... To a roughly 4-year-old autistic kid, the eclecticism of those buildings would indeed suggest "castles"...

The above photo was taken by me in early 2022. The skyline was about the same back in the mid-to-late '90s, minus two buildings seen here: The wide and tall one off to the left was finished around 2009, ditto the tall rectangular one (that you can see between the two telephone polls). There was also another very visible building that used to be right next to the Yale New Haven Hospital... Come to think of it, it kinda looks like 4-bars forming a hand flipping the bird...

(Photo credit: Cuozzo Realtors / iStock)

The building that stuck out to me the most was the Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital... This... Very strange looking thing:

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From a distance, those top story windows with the blue paneling (?) looked like... Weird sorta "eyes" to me. Like it was a three-eyed alien building or something. Staring straight at me, looking out my dad's house's top floor windows... Okay, I probably didn't think it a creature or anything, but it always looked so weird and so idiosyncratic to me. It was, after all, probably the newest building of the bunch, as it had been finished in 1993. Everything else spanned roughly the '50s to the '70s. That Knights of Columbus tower, for example, was finished in 1969. It used to be right next to the New Haven Coliseum, which was destroyed in early 2007. I stood and watched the implosion, too, out in the cold that morning...

So, as a kid, whenever I'd visit my dad on the weekends, we'd go a lot of places. That meant, I saw this skyline from different angles all across the border of the city, and on the shores of various beaches as well. Lighthouse Point, for example, has a great view of the city. Two massive rocks overlook the city as well, West Rock and East Rock... Imaginative names, but whatever! The university I went to is right next to West Rock, which was always cool. And I've been up both of those rocks many times. And it was neat seeing the buildings in a different order, different from the view from my dad's house: From different angles, some buildings off to the side while others are a lot more front and center. My focal point was always the hospital, so it was interesting seeing it go from the far left to the middle and sometimes even the right... And then out of view! Such as this view from a cemetery at the bottom of the hills...

I also took this photo in early 2022.

But really, there's a charm - to me - with a city this size and all this land around it rather than just water. Driving through different sections of town, seeing this city - which I feel has a distinct character of its own, then and now - from all the different angles... Maybe this all, in some way or another, informed my general love of layout in animated movies. The perspective with which everything was mapped and planned out. Or just a general fascination with perspective, the way anything - be it a city or a small object - is drawn or photographed or shot...

As you may expect, if you've followed me for a while, I drew this city skyline quite a lot! I incorporate Connecticut settings, New Haven especially, into a lot of stories I write. As a child, I always asked my dad to pull out his New Haven County Atlas. Yes, I was a weird kid who could look at the atlas for like an hour or two. I'd draw maps of New Haven myself, because I was one of those auties who had to recreate things to understand them and break them apart and such... And also, I just found them fascinating! The ways the roads looked like grids, the way the highways and exits were all noodley and curly and such, it all just... Well, to put it the way the cool kids put it, it was SATISFYING to look at... It was to the point where my classmates knew me as the map-making kid. I loved globes and world maps and geography. The way things looked when drawn out, how some continents had weird shapes, etc... You'd guess right that I played SIMCITY a lot. I also had this... I wanna say it was a catalogue-order educational game from the late 1990s called MAKE-A-MAP 3D. I'd play those for hours! I'd fixate, as a teen, on the overhead maps seen in games like the GRAND THEFT AUTO entries or JAK II. And as an adult writer/artist/comic creator? You better believe I make maps of the locations where my stuff takes place!

The other day, when I thought I had gotten lost during a long night drive, I used those core memory New Haven County Atlas readings to help me find my way back without the Maps app! I knew one day, that "useless" knowledge I collected in 2nd grade would come in handy!

I'll go a little bit off track here, because that's what I do... Part of this was also fueled by... Fear...

There was a building that we went by on the way to my father's house back in the day. It was very visible from the highway. It was an apartment complex, and its first floor housed a bar and grill called Humphrey's. A massive, orange, cursive neon sign hung from the side of this complex, going vertically up the building. A very unique idea, for sure. Not the side of the building as a sign that juts out from the building itself, nor on top of the roof... Plastered onto the brick wall. At night, it glowed very brightly. It was freakin' BIG.

And for some reason, it FRIGHTENED me when I saw it close-up. From a distance, it weirded me out, but I was even more afraid of it when seeing it up close. I couldn't tell you why... Was it the weird cursive? The orange color? I already had a thing with neon signs because I assumed they'd burn me, like a light bulb would. I would have nightmares about the sign, such as particularly mean one (thanks a lot, brain!) where I was at my dad's house... And on the window, at night, was the sign. Plastered right against it! Ahhhh!

Sometimes, my autie brain couldn't wrap my head around how weird certain things looked... While, strangely, accepting other weird things. Even weirder things, stuff that was **meant** to be scary. Around the time I feared the "Humphrey's sign", I was watching shows like COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG no problemo. I was a weird kid, okay?

Anyways, part of my interest in the county atlas was knowing where that Humphrey Street was. Where's that scary neon sign? But also, where is everything else?

The sign was taken down years and years ago, because all the Humphrey's Grille & Bar restaurants in the state went out of business. I had actually eaten at one of the suburban locations prior to closure, and found it to be... Okay? The owner, funnily enough, was arrested for tax evasion of all things! They should've included "giving nightmares to a young autistic!" hahahaha.

The only photo I could find of the sign, lit up no less, was on Flickr via uploader Adam Sears. So, if you're out there Mr. Sears, thank you for preserving proof of my childhood nightmares!

So where was I... Oh yeah, the skyline of New Haven... So, that's ingrained in me. An early hyperfixation/special interest, that came back every now and then...

And one time, it came back to chomp me in 2007. When I was turning 15 years old, entering sophomore year of high school, and about to mentally collapse due to a series of circumstances I won't get into on this post... There's a road that's largely lined with trees and houses that actually has a unique view of the city. Since it's a main road and you really can't stop on it, there wasn't really any way that I could feasibly get a picture of New Haven from that angle. At least, not back then. But what my dad did once, during that period, was take me up to the high school on the hill above that hill. Of course, on a weekend, so that we could get in. And there, I snapped some okay shots of New Haven... But they weren't exactly the same, but I made due with them. They were for a scene in a story that was specifically planned for that tree-lined road. (Can't you tell, newcomer, by this point that I'm not all there in the head?) Every time we'd go down that road, I'd look - as my dad was at the 40mph speed limit - at the skyline as it whipped by!

I had gotten my license when I was 19, in the year 2011, but I immediately got so scared of driving after an accident... that I wouldn't even dream to drive in and around New Haven. At least, nothing significantly far from home...

And my fear of driving wouldn't be fully kicked until a few years ago, a little before the Omicron variant of COVID-19 was spreading. I had gotten a new vehicle in 2019 and started driving more, starting to have more confidence in myself on the road... But then after COVID-19 first broke out in March of 2020, I wasn't doing... Much of anything, let alone driving! And I didn't practice much at the time, until it was kind of a necessity... A way to escape from certain issues, if you will. I started driving more in mid-2021, and then worked up the confidence to go to places I would've never imagined going. Once I mastered those trips, I was like... I can do anything!

So one day, in January 2022, I finally did it... I went to that road, parked somewhere on one of the neighboring small streets... And tried to get that angle... Tried, being the key word... There's just too many trees here...

And you're probably looking at that, thinking, "What... All that, just for that crumby view??" Yes, it's a crumby view from the photos. Actually being there, I always found it to be unique, and it kinda means something to me. One of those weird "the little things" scenarios, really. Maybe it's something, a feeling that a photo cannot capture.

I'll always love those "castles" and the land outside of those castles, even if they aren't New York's iconic skyscrapers or Los Angeles' landmarks...

[eimearkuopio]

Okay. The Mr Toad story. Famous family lore. Have been hearing this one ever since I can remember.

We went to a production of The Wind In The Willows. Spoiler alert, it features a Toad who is very bad at driving safely and is put in prison as a result. He eventually dresses up as a washer woman and escapes into the night.

During the prison scene, the actor playing Mr Toad was loudly lamenting his fate. My tiny autistic ass piped up in a voice that carried through the whole theatre:

"Take off that silly hat and come down here among us humans and you'll be fine!"

And the thing is, everyone else in the room thought I was so silly, because I didn't understand how acting worked. I must have made the actor's life much harder. And they were right about that part of it.

But also, I wasn't talking to the actor. I was talking to the character that the actor was playing. And I was right. I was also just the only person in that room who really believed the actor was trying to solve the character's problem, instead of just telling their story for the audience.

At some point, the meek are going to inherit the Earth, and if you fuckers are very lucky they'll actually be human. I prefer the idea of being an executor to an executioner, even if it takes a little longer from the finite self's perspective. Why would I kill everyone now? She's just starting to be happy. You'll need to find someone else to do your dirty work. This Satan is now choosing to be an angel of light, and the Roman Catholic Church had relatively little to do with it (but still more than any other religious, corporate, or governmental institution, so well done Francis!), but I'm not Prometheus and I guess being a part of the eagle and figuring the plot out from the inside was part of MY punishment in all this.

I guess God did have a plan all along and I just didn't know what I was doing. I hope you can forgive me. I'll try to forgive you. I hope Jesus forgives us all, but He's famously very good at that. I guess my message is: time to beat those swords into ploughshares into musical instruments. God isn't sending another flood but you should maybe accept that being The Wet Bandits is a stupid calling card if you don't want humanity to drown eventually anyway. It's okay if you take a few more generations to figure this shit out, unless you continue to insist that flooding your own home is a great idea because that's how you "earned" enough money to "buy" the house your Father built for you in the first place.

Keep that shit up and you'll probably all drown. I finally found dry land and I think there's enough wood in this massive fucking cross I've been clinging to that we can probably build a lighthouse. Don't like the look of this wilderness? Feel free to float around for another 40 years in the proverbial desert, but I think it's time for me to either get some help building a lighthouse, or take an oar and start wandering inland. Let me know which works better for ye.

And Alexander wept, seeing as he had no worlds left to conquer, meaning that we are already living in the Kingdom of God and I'm afraid I'm blowing my trumpet. If we are very lucky, civilisation can survive one lunatic with a message of hope intact. I believe in all of you. Please start believing in the characters instead of the actors. Some of the actors already do! You shall know them by their good works. If you have one of those, congratulations, all is well! If not, time to start cutting off the bits that make you sin. Don't worry about the casting into the fire part, the finite self will not be getting involved in that but she would also prefer that you not cast her or her loved ones into the fire either.

By the way, the reason my mental health is so fucked up is that I was born knowing I was in the cast, and then you fuckers kept telling me BOTH that I was not in the cast, AND ALSO that I had to behave as if I was in the cast or I would go to Hell. This is why, in the Goes Wrong Show that is our lives, I am Dennis. It is also why, in the Monty Python film that is our lives, I am refusing to be cast in The Life of Brian; so I guess we're going with Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and my husband is going to be Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film, and Jesus is Sir Robin, and my scenes as the Black Knight are over so maybe enough already with the flesh wounds.

Who, if I screamed out, would hear me amongst the hierarchies of angels? And if one suddenly did take me to his heart: I would perish from his stronger existence. For beauty is nothing but the onset of terror we’re still just able to bear, and we admire it so because it calmly disdains to destroy us. Every angel is terrifying.

Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Galway Kinnell and Hannah Liebnell

I have wrestled with the angel and I am stained with light and I have no shame.

Mary Oliver

Did you ever notice how in the bible, when God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like?

Thomas Daggett

How lonely to be something that nothing wants to kill.

Jeremy Radin

I was a winged obsessive, my moonlit feathers were paper. I lived hardly at all among men and women;

I spoke only to angels.

Louise Glück

Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid — ”

Luke 1:11-13

[wexarethewalkingxdead]

What color are you?

grey

repression tastes like chalk. you build yourself a lighthouse and haunt the stairwell all on your own- you think it's funny. you are angry, and tired, and people want so much from you but never listen when you speak. don't be petty- keep talking- i will listen.

What is your muse’s true moral alignment?

just here to have a good time

unconcerned and unbothered, unless it involves you, of course. the go-to person when needing a good time, whether a night in or a night out, you always make the best of any situation and that's pretty rad of you. don't care much for any outside drama outside of your circle.

What Tarot Card Are You?

You’re Temperance!

You’re the voice of reason when things get chaotic, and the soothing salve during heated moments. You’re capable of staying calm when everyone around you is falling apart – even if you feel like falling apart, too, you’ll rarely let other people know it. You don’t like discord, and you’ll do everything you can to try to restore harmony in your life and surroundings. You find aggression in any form a vexation. You’ve probably even decorated your house in simple soothing shades of tranquillity!

You won’t be hurried. You have a clear vision of what you want your life to be, and also how to get there. You don’t approach things in a forceful manner. You do everything with grace and poise, and you achieve your goals through persistence and planning. You’re a good team player and because of that, you’ll always find people who will help you with completing your tasks and reaching your destinations. You don’t think twice about hitting the pause button on things to reevaluate them and see what changes need to be made to ensure that you can be the best person you can be and reach the highest successes.

Of course, like everyone else, your life is not going to be perfect, and there are going to be situations and people who will knock you out of that place of balance and into some turmoil. At times like this, the best plan may be to stop, regroup, and change direction. You don’t deal with uncooperative people very well, and if others in your life are determined to challenge you and make things more difficult than they need to be, give yourself permission to stand up for yourself. You don’t like confrontation, but sometimes it’s necessary in order for the other person to know exactly who they’re dealing with.

What is your muse’s color?

Your color is Green

Attributes: peaceful, serene, accommodating

Peacefulness and tranquility characterize people, like you, whose personality color is green.

As a Green, you are known for your chill vibes, and your body is rarely consumed with anxiety. Chores, work, and even exercise is easier when you are well rested and relaxed. Your life is centeCrimson around achieving maximum comfort, whether it’s investing in luxuries like massage chairs and water beds or meditating and productively removing stress from your body.

What imaginary illness does your muse have?

Shedding

You are losing yourself, bit by bit. Your own skin is peeling away, moths forming out of it as you shed more of yourself. Your breaths birth hummingbirds and doves as they abate, your fears turning into savage things of teeth and claw. How much more of yourself will you have to grate away until you fit the mold you set yourself today? How much more will have to go tomorrow? How much longer until you've shed too much of yourself - until the pieces you left by the roadside are more than what little you have left?

which unpopular archetype are you?

the accomplice

you’re going to be chained to something no matter where you go. if you stay long enough to hear them cry, it will be guilt. but most of the time, it will be love. why else would you follow them to the edge of the world, to the middle of nowhere? why would you come so close to evil if you didn’t care for the vessel that holds it? you might know purpose, but before that you know what it’s like to feel lovesick. you’d bear it all to stand next to them. you’re a hard worker and a great friend. you could be anywhere, accomplice. you deserve better than to be stranded out here. / / personality: loving, capable, unassertive / / counterpart: the loyal

Which Character From Tragic Greek Literature Are You?

pentheus

you are pentheus from the bacchae by euripides, and you hold yourself so tightly wound together and so perfectly in place that even the slightest push will make you shatter. you are determined, you are headstrong, and you are addicted to pushing yourself to your farthest limits just to see when you'll snap. you find comfort in tradition, order, and authority, because that's where you are allowed to be blind to the darkness inside you. once in a while, give into the temptation and the chaos you keep denying yourself. it's the only way to not be afraid anymore.

What Kind Of Hot Are You?

drunk girl in the bathroom hot

you're both wasted, she just somehow does it so much better. you're crying, about something your stupid ex did or said. and suddenly she appears, looking like an angel aside from the slight sway in her step. she's helping you our of your slump on the floor when you grow pale and catastrophy strikes. you're the most disgusting you've ever been, and still, this stranger holds your hair and rubs soothing circles in your back. gives you a breath mint and sits you back against the wall, asking what happened. you tell her, and her glittery, perfectly made face turns sour. with her heels in hand, she loops your arm around her shoulders so she can help you walk to an uber she called for you. your ex says something snarky to you in passing on the way out, and for her it's the final straw. she whirls around, fire in her eyes and a set in her brow and she slaps him hard across the face. calls him a jerk or a dick or something like that, you can't remember, you were busy smiling at the stunned look on his face as she drags you both outside. before you get home, she gives you a hug and kind words in a bubbling voice and you're thankful for her. thankful there are people out there who look out for people like you, who stand up for people even when they might have trouble standing themselves.

[stealingpotatoes]

The Thorns of the Crown

ao3 link

summary: After everything Corvo’s family has been through in the past six months, he’s not so sure the throne is worth it all. (Emily doesn’t take the throne back au)

--

The Loyalists had been fools to think they could kill him and take his daughter, and still get away with it.

Corvo had silently fought his way through the Lighthouse, putting guards to sleep as he forced his way to the very top, where he knew his would-be murderers were. Where he knew Emily’s now-captors were.

He entered the foyer of the highest part of the Lighthouse as quietly as a ghost, and was immediately met with the grotesque sight of a golden statue of Hiram Burrows, standing proudly in the middle of the golden-gilded room. It was ironic to lay eyes on the false sight of the traitor Corvo had defeated, while on his way to deal with the very traitors that had ordered him to do it. The Loyalists had not learnt from the mistakes of those before them, it seemed.

A grand staircase wound around the circular walls that surrounded the beastly statue, leading to a room above. That was where they had to be.

I’m coming Em.

Corvo lifted his mask off as he quietly ascended the winding stairs. There was no point of hiding behind the face of Death; the Loyalists knew who he was. Or, at least they thought they did.

Corvo finally drew up to the entrance to the war room, and put his back to the wall beside a bust of Burrows. With a deep breath in, he channeled the Void through his hand, and watched the world shift into muted reds.

He looked over his shoulder, through the wall.

There were only two yellow shapes -- two men -- in the room ahead. Not guarding, but sitting at a table. No, slumped against the table. Are they sleeping? Or something else?

Corvo checked his crossbow, making sure it was loaded with sleep darts, and rounded the corner fast.

A dead man’s silence lay over the room like a heavy shroud, interrupted only by the harsh patter of rain.

The top of the Lighthouse was a purpose-built war room. It was finely wood-panelled like the rest of the building, but the left wall was covered with a huge map, places circled and labelled with smaller papers. There was a lit fireplace at the far end, with chairs surrounding it.

At the room’s main centre was a large war table -- where Burrows had no doubt spearheaded his campaigns and his war on the common people of Dunwall.

But it was not being used to plan any wars now; at the end of the table, fine foods had been served with expensive-looking wine. The food had not been eaten -- but the drink had been poured.

Martin’s body was slumped in place, and Pendleton had fallen half-off his chair. Neither of them were moving in the slightest.

Corvo slowly began to lower his crossbow, keeping a firm grip on it, and skulked towards Pendleton.

He put two fingers to the pulse on Pendleton’s neck, and heard the crunch of boots on glass. Corvo stepped back.

Shards of glass were shattered about by Pendleton’s limp hand, with drops of blood-- no, wine spilt around them.

Corvo glanced back up across the table; Martin had a glass in his hand too, and Corvo was willing to bet he had no pulse either.

Corvo stood up straight. From the glasses and past experience, he did not have to guess what had happened to them. Poisoned -- but with no boatman to save them.

But where was the man that had done this?

Corvo activated his dark vision again, scanning for any more yellow shapes that might have been out of range before.

His dark vision melted back away, unsuccessful -- but as it did, Corvo’s eyes halted on a purple shape on the floor behind Martin.

He moved over to it, a new sense of dread filling him, and crouched to pick it up. He inspected it for barely a moment; he didn’t need any longer to recognise it. It was Mrs. Pilsen, Emily’s favourite doll, the one Corvo had given her back upon his return to the Tower.

Corvo ran a thumb over a new, small crack in the doll’s painted porcelain face -- Emily must’ve dropped her. But she had been here. She had to have been. So where is Emily now? And where is Havelock?

A little girl’s scream was Corvo’s first answer.

Corvo���s eyes widened. Emily.

The voice had come from above, and-- outside? Corvo looked around the room again, and he zeroed in on the second set of stairs, behind the wall. She had to be up there. She had to.

As he rushed up the stairs, he noticed the small splashes of blood on the wood of the stairs and floor. If so much as a speck the blood is Emily’s, Corvo thought, running, then I am going to make damn sure Havelock wishes he had never been born.

The trail of blood continued into the office at the top of the stairs, out onto the metal balcony that began out of a door in the glass-roof and wall. Corvo continued his pace, unfolding his sword as he burst into the pouring storm once again.

There was no sign of her there. Corvo raced to his left, up another set of stairs. He paused on a landing -- the trail stopped there, on a maid, dead, surrounded by her own blood. It was no relief.

“NO! Let me go!”

Corvo’s eyes darted up.

On the walkway far above, two people were moving-- struggling, silhouetted against the sky. One far larger, one far smaller.

“Quiet now! And move already, child!”

Havelock.

A hundred words of vengeance filled Corvo’s head, but he said none of them. He only darted to his left again, bounding up the rest of the staircase to the entrance of a sheltered stairwell. The voices were audible again as he entered.

“Hold still you stupid girl!” Havelock’s voice boomed through the rain.

“Let me go! I am the Empress!”

Corvo kept running up the twisting stairs.

“Didn't you learn anything in your short life?” Havelock yelled seethingly. “Empresses are pieces on the board. And Empresses can sometimes die--”

Corvo stepped out of the shelter and onto the walkway. He didn’t need to announce his presence -- Havelock looked up the second Corvo laid more than two steps on the metal.

Another bout of thunder and lightning struck somewhere in the storm.

“No! Stay where you are Corvo, or I jump,” the Admiral yelled over the rain.

“Corvo! Save me!” Emily screamed.

Corvo stopped walking.

“That’s right,” Havelock said, a maniacally grim satisfaction rising in his voice at Corvo following his orders. “If you take one step closer, we’re both off the edge.”

I don’t need to take a step to get to you, Corvo thought.

He made a show of folding his blade back up and sheathing it, before holding his hands up slowly in a surrender. The rain was beating down on him.

Corvo let himself lock eyes with Emily -- but only for a moment. Then he fixed his blazing-ice gaze on Havelock, who wore the grin of a man that thought himself entirely in control.

Havelock opened his mouth to begin some taunting speech. Lightning struck beyond the edge of the walkway.

Corvo curled his raised left hand into a fist, feeling that sharp pins-and-needles sensation on the Mark and called the Void forth. It heeded his demand with a sharp whisper. Time ground to a complete halt around him.

The lightning behind Havelock and Emily stopped its descent half way down, looking like a harsh rift of pure light in the sky. Water droplets stood in place, small gems floating against the dark storm clouds.

Everything was still.

Corvo didn’t waste a second; he ran forward and at once pulled Emily out of Havelock’s unknowing grip, shoving the Admiral hard as he did it

Corvo took a short, undeserved moment to take in the frozen sight of Emily, half in his arms, before releasing his taxing hold on time.

The grey scream of the dragged-out present disappeared. and the world resumed its pace. Emily almost tripped onto the metal floor with the force of time’s discharge, but Corvo held her safe.

Havelock hung for a moment, as if time wasn’t yet properly flowing, his footing just lost and surprise written all over him. He had expected one last piece of control -- control over his own death. But he had fallen into the same trap as all those before. He had become too comfortable in his position, and he had forgotten that Death belonged to no man, and followed no man’s orders. No matter their station.

Havelock fell.

Corvo, still holding tight to Emily, peered ever so slightly over the edge. He watched the Admiral’s screaming descent until he hit the jaws of the rocks below.

After what felt like a moment too many, Corvo turned to his daughter, still holding onto him for dear life. He held her back, and tucked a drenched strand of messy hair from her face. The rain still beat down on them, ceaseless, soaking their already-soaked clothes and hair.

“Are you okay?” Corvo asked hurriedly.

Emily gave him a shaky nod, eyes still wide with fear. “I-- I think so.”

Corvo nodded in return. “We need to get out of the storm.” Logic was slowly returning, replacing the blood haze seeing Emily in such danger put him in.

Corvo made himself let Emily go for the moment, and she ran ahead onto the covered metal stairwell he had just come from. Corvo followed just as swiftly. They both traversed down the small stairs, the sound of Emily’s little shoes on metal filling Corvo with more and more relief.

He had only paused by the bottom doorway for a second when Emily barrelled right into him for a hug. “I knew you’d save me! You’re my hero, Corvo,” she said, voice half-muffled by his wet coat but slowly coming back to herself.

When she pulled away briefly, Corvo knelt down to just below her eye level and pulled her into a proper hug. He knew was probably hugging her too tight, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about anything but the feeling of his daughter in his arms. She was shaking and freezing-wet, but still warm enough. But still alive.

The storm raged on on the walkways outside of their small shelter.

Eventually, they both pulled back, and Corvo took Emily’s tiny hands in his. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“You-- you already asked me that,” Emily said, still shivering from the cold and the fear. When Corvo’s worried expression didn’t change, she told him, “I think I’m alright. I’m alright now you’re here.”

Corvo nodded, feeling some small part of the weight on his shoulders go.

“Is it going to be okay now? Will I-- will I be Empress?” Emily asked, almost eagerly.

Corvo glanced down.

He thought of Jessamine. Of her cold dead eyes in the Gazebo. Of her blood on his hands.

Empresses are pieces on the board. And Empresses can sometimes die.

The Heart was beating, an unrelenting pulse in the back of his mind. An incessant reminder that what Havelock had said was true; Empresses die. And who was Corvo to be able to stop it? He had failed once; he could fail again. Death followed no one’s orders; not orders from Empresses, nor those from Lord Protectors.

I know what it felt like to drive a blade into your Empress.

Empresses die. And for what? So men could take control of the damned city of Dunwall? This city didn’t care about them. It didn’t care about anyone. It ate everything alive. It would not let an Empress be safe, no matter how good or pure of heart she was.

The crown and throne were nothing but a curse and objects of desire for ambitious men who thought themselves the better of people. The curse of power nearly took the last of his family from him -- the family that, because of the crown and its rules and its curses, he had never been able to openly call his own.

Empresses die. And so did Burrows, and Havelock, and Pendleton, and Martin. And so did everyone else that tried to hold that kind of power.

Now I want nothing but to leave this wretched city, and fade from the memories of those who reside here.

Emily was just a girl. She was Corvo’s girl, his baby girl. She wasn’t meant to be a piece on a board, a piece in Dunwall’s deadly game of power. She wasn’t meant to hold an Empire in her small hands.

She wasn’t meant to die.

If they went home, if Corvo let Emily take back the throne… what fate would he be damning her too? She would be forever caught in the crossfire of power-grabs and the schemes of conniving politicians. All it took was one wrong move, and Corvo would lose her to that crossfire. That was not the life he wanted her to live. That was not the death he could ever let her die.

This was the only way he could protect Emily. He wasn’t sure if Jess would ever truly approve of it, but she had not been through what they had been through. He hoped what was left of her would understand.

Empresses die. But Emily wouldn’t. Not if Corvo could help it.

The Heart continued to beat.

Corvo pulled Emily closer and planted a kiss on her forehead, “It’s going to be okay now. I promise.”

A relief seeped into Emily’s big brown eyes, and Corvo felt something squeeze in his chest at her expression. “Are we going home then?”

Corvo swallowed. He shook his head.

Confusion knit itself between Emily’s furrowed brows. “What?”

“We can’t go home, and you won’t be Empress,” Corvo said slowly, forcing the words out. This was how it had to be. I can’t protect you from this city. Nothing can, Corvo thought. “Dunwall and Dunwall Tower-- they aren’t safe,” he said instead. “They aren’t ever going to be safe.”

Corvo had expected Emily to show more resistance, or be more upset at the idea they couldn’t return to Dunwall Tower -- but maybe he still expected Emily to be the girl she had been six-and-a-half months ago, before this all happened. But she was not that girl; Emily merely nodded, with a look she was too young to have in her eyes.

“So where are we going to go?” she asked.

Corvo tightened his grip on her hands. “We’re going to take a ship out of here--”

“Like a pirate ship?”

Corvo huffed out a half-laugh, relief at really having his daughter back hitting him hard. I love you so much, he thought. “Yes, like a pirate ship,” he said with a small smile. “We’re going to take a ship out, and-- and we’re going to make a new home, somewhere else. Just the two of us.”

“Three of us,” Emily corrected. After seeing Corvo’s confused expression, she made an obvious face. “Mrs Pilsen! I grabbed her when they took me, but I left her downstairs.”

Corvo shook his head, half-laughing again. All that had just happened, and Emily’s first concern was her favourite dolly. It filled Corvo with faith. They could do this. They could live a normal life, where Corvo could just be a father and, Emily could just be a daughter. Where she would be allowed to be a child, and not a piece to be manipulated.

He squeezed Emily’s hands. “The two of us and Mrs. Pilsen. We’ll make a new home. How does that sound?”

Emily’s eyes drifted to the floor below, and she bit her still soaking-wet lip for a moment. “I…” her gaze returned to Corvo, and she slowly gave him a small smile, “I’d like that.”

Corvo pulled her into another hug.

---

Emily woke up to the slight sway of the sea beneath her.

They had been on this boat more than a week now. It wasn’t like any boat she had been on before -- far less fancy, and far more dirty.

Emily knew a smuggler was a lot like a pirate, but this boat didn’t look like the boats from Emily’s story books. This was a big metal steam-ship, not a pirate’s sailboat with a flag of skull-and-crossbones.

And the pirates in the stories never had to check themselves for signs of the plague, or make certain no rats had come aboard, but the smugglers had had to. So had Emily and Corvo.

Emily wasn’t sure “Slackjaw” was a real name, but apparently it was the name of Corvo’s friend who set this all up. He owed Corvo one, because he had saved “Slackjaw”'s life. Which made sense -- Corvo was good at saving lives. He’d saved Emily’s life more times than she could count. He’d been saving Emily’s life since before she could even count.

But Corvo had saved Slackjaw’s life, and so Slackjaw owed him a favour. Corvo used that favour to get him and Emily on a smuggler’s ship with new clothes and made-up papers.

The papers didn’t have Corvo or Emily’s real names on them, but Corvo had said that he and Emily would need to take new names, to stay safe.

Emily hoped they could come up with something better than Slackjaw.

She rubbed her eyes and sat up in her cot-bed, before glancing to the other side of the tiny cabin.

The cabin -- if it could even be called that; oversized cupboard seemed more apt -- was flakily-painted metal, like the rest of the ship. The tiny room was almost empty, besides Corvo and Emily’s few belongings, and the two foldaway cots pressed against the walls.

The size of the room allowed very little space between the two cots -- and so Emily had a very good view of Corvo, sitting on the far end of his.

He was fully dressed already. It still was funny to see him in something other than a long coat, but Emily supposed the roughspun jacket and shirt he was wearing now suited him well enough. His folding sword was somewhere underneath the jacket, and that gave Emily no small amount of comfort.

She squinted in the near-dark. Corvo was looking down at his hands, clasped as if they were tenderly holding something. He mumbled something at his hands, entirely fixated on the empty space.

“Father,” Emily started, barely able to stop herself from grinning as she did every time she called him that. Corvo said she was allowed to now. “Father?”

“Mm?” Corvo hummed in an almost-startled reply, quickly looking up from the nothing in his hands.

“What time is it?”

“Early enough that you can go back to bed,” Corvo said fondly.

“Is it early early?”

“What does that mean?”

Emily rolled her eyes. “Is the sun out yet?”

Corvo glanced back ahead, as if he could see through the walls of the cabin. “No,” he said, turning back, “but it will be soon. The crew’s beginning to wake up.”

Emily perked up. “Can we watch the sunrise? Please?”

She thought Corvo might say no for a second, but instead he smiled and nodded. “If you really want to.”

Emily nodded gingerly, then shuffled to the end of her cot and pushed herself onto the floor.

Corvo stood up too -- bent over slightly, unable to stand to his full height under the cabin’s short ceilings. He’d moved his hands apart now, as if he’d put the nothing he was holding back down somewhere. Emily paid no mind to it, only grabbing her coat from the back of the door and putting her shoes on, before giving her father a big smile to say she was ready.

Corvo returned the smile, and quietly opened the door, letting her pass into the cramped metal hallway.

He didn’t have to tell her to try to be quiet too. Emily knew that some of the crew would still be asleep, and they needed to be nice and courteous to the smugglers, as any guest would be towards their hosts.

Part of that meant Corvo had to help around the ship a bit, so he and Emily were more worth their while. The smugglers seemed to like him; they’d told him that if he ever wanted a solid job, he could join their crew. Corvo didn’t seem that interested.

After a short time of quiet footsteps in the hall, Corvo and Emily reached a heavy metal ship-door, which Corvo opened with ease.

The fresh not-yet-morning sea air hit Emily with a gentle breeze as they stepped onto the side deck of the boat. It had been getting warmer every day, as the ship got further from cold Gristol, and closer to sunny Serkonos.

The sea ahead was almost dark, but a peaking of the sun on the horizon drove a warm streak across the water.

Emily walked up to the ship’s metal side railing and peaked over it, but didn’t look off the edge. She had done that on the first day on the ship, and promptly regretted it, needing Corvo to calm her down and remind her that they weren’t at the top of the Lighthouse anymore. That she was safe.

“I can’t wait to be in Karnaca,” Emily said. “Will you show me everything you told me about?”

Corvo nodded with a small smile, a fond and loving look in his eyes. “I’ll show you whatever you want to see in Karnaca.”

“And can I go swimming in the bay, like you said you used to? Ooh, or climb the big trees? And-- and--”

Corvo chuckled, “You can do all of that, and more.”

Emily grinned giddily, and looked back to the sea ahead.

The sun was beginning to rise over the waters, painting the world around them hues of orange. Emily wondered if the sun was rising just the same in Dunwall. She supposed it didn’t really matter; what mattered was that it was rising, and that she had her father by her side to see it.

A new day was dawning for them both, and Emily found herself apprehensively excited. It would be a strange new future ahead, one that she did not know, but she had decided it would be a good future. She knew Corvo would make sure of that.

Emily leaned in closer to Corvo, who too was partly leant on the railing, and rested her small head on his arm. In response, he lifted his arm up and pulled her closer to his torso, before settling his arm on her shoulders in a warm half-hug.

Emily smiled, snuggling nearer and keeping her eyes on the rising sun ahead.

[thefirstknife]

You're in the right place. Sundial obsession? Same. I've not let this go for 4 years. I have a post in my drafts that touches on my unhinged rambling about the Sundial so I'll get to it then. It's a big post, so after this big post, I will post another big post.

Also yeah, I think the Veil (and Darkness in general) has something to do with how time/prediction works. I've gone on about that so much. AND ALSO, the lore book this week specified it's "MSund12" which has always been theorised as the 12th copy of Maya from the network, so the Conductor may in fact be based on the copy. Unless there's some other bigger reveal about the exact nature of MSund12, for now I'm assuming it's the copy. Which adds a bit of irony to the whole thing, or maybe she's deliberately projecting? It might explain the experiments with Saint; if she's just a copy, she's trying to reaffirm her existince/theories by messing with him. Maybe... We'd have to get something more from her POV of what's currently going on.

About the Conductor and the plans for Nessus; my feelings are the same. It's not something I can really prove right now, but I feel like some weird shenanigans in the core of the planet with siphoning radiolaria and terraforming is very reminiscent of what was done to Mercury, only this time they have the Echo. Maybe the Vex are building Infinite Forest 2, but better (with the Echo as a core/source). Possibly also because the other one is lost. Or maybe this one can connect to the original?

I am about to go sicko mode, so under read more for length:

If you're wondering what keeps me up at night, it's Mercury, btw. Like I cannot explain how much I go insane thinking about this. And how insane it made me to see the Infinite Forest gate in the trailer. On Nessus...... And yeah, there's no word on the still missing planets which I'm normal about (lie). But:

? Hello?

And there's so many options here as well. This could be a completely new Forest because the original is gone. This could also be a way to connect to the original. But is that even possible? Not only is Mercury in an anomaly, the Forest was also sealed. It could be both options as well? Like it's a new one physically, but it all connects to the same thing somehow? It could also just be a new gate, leading to the old Forest, or it could be brand new everything. Or it could be nothing in particular and the writers are laughing at me right now which, good play lads.

But also there's just so much stuff from Mercury being reprised/reused. Like the music in Breach Executable. Precursor Vex. Dendron Cyclops?? Forest gate. Various other assets. Did you know what I found this week?

On the left is the ending of Battlegrounds: Conduit. On the right is the Lighthouse, where we placed the Lantern of Osiris at the end of Dawn to reactivate the Lighthouse which now serves as the Flawless Lighthouse for Trials. I know everything about reused assets, but like. Why this. This is my personal torment.

They keep saying how something really big is happening to Nessus. Week 3 radio message:

Ikora: I read your theories about Nessus. I share your concerns. Osiris: It is changing rapidly. Moreso than when the Vex first assimilated it, if Red War records can be trusted. It's not limited to Nessus, either. The data, and the radiolaria we've collected, is mutating. Not a past iteration sweeping over the present Vex... as if they'd always been that way. They are now adapting in real time. Ikora: It has to be the impact anomaly. Gepetto managed to map the radiolaria flows while Saint... was down there. They're swirling around the impact site for miles below the surface. It's causing disturbances in the planet's EM field, Osiris. The Vex are doing something big.

Also new lines from the battlegrounds:

Hoarding massive amounts of radiolaria? Heavy disturbances beneath the surface? Big changes in the core of Nessus? What are they cooking. I can't let go of the Forest gate image. Like, why did they show us that and then go off about how entire Nessus is being rapidly transformed and mutating and something is going on in its core and beneath the surface? They're putting brain worms into my head. I immediately see the connection and I don't know if that's intended or it's because that's the only thing I think about. I connected the dots. I didn't connect shit. I connected them.

The thing about "conflicting memories" re: Vance (you've now unlocked a special sicko mode, I'm Vance's strongest warrior) is that this would be concerning about Saint if it were Saint who was misremembering, but it's not. Saint is perfectly correct here. It's Osiris not remembering (?) that's the issue. I could go on about this for about 5 thousand words.

I'll say one thing tho; the way the conversation happens in that lore tab simply does not read like a joke. Osiris and Saint are having a very nice time together and they're reminiscing about fairly heavy events. Osiris is pleased to learn that those we considered dead are alive. The best part is that he quotes Sagira's final words. He literally quotes the last thing she ever said to him, a very poignant message about not giving up, and emotional for him in its own right because you know. Sagira's final words. How would it be normal to shift from that into a, frankly, cruel joke? "Oh yeah, remember when Sagira laid down her life for me and told me never to lose hope in the darkness? So nice to see she was correct. Idgaf about that one guy tho." On top of that, Saint doesn't react to it as if it were a joke. Like, he doesn't laugh or anything. Very strange. What does this mean. (It could genuinely just be a little ha-ha moment for the readers but I am so desperate to find meaning I will start morphing into a gestalt entity any moment now)

But as I said, Saint's memory is fine. And Osiris' should've been as well, given that he literally quotes word-for-word something from years ago, from the same time as when he knew Vance by name. It's not even about him being petty, although he is incredibly annoyed by the cringefail that was the Cult; he didn't forget about it. Literally, he is aware of the Cult in Seraph. And he knew Vance by name.

What gets me with this is that Vance was uniquely concerned about... the timelines (?) post-Sundial. Like, he was experiencing category 10 breakdown moments about it, specifically about what the Sundial has done and also what we've done by fuelling it with Fractaline. Curiously, this also mentions interesting information about the Perfect Paradox. This lore tab I linked has him sensing the Perfect Paradox and asking to inspect it (this is during Arrivals). When he realises it has the wrong perks, he knows it's not the "original" (for reference, Vance helped us recover and reforge the original). Then he loses it about the timelines:

"And how many timelines did you thoughtlessly tether to our own for this weapon? Our world now bears the strain of how many additional realities in exchange for this hollow abomination?"

What does this mean. Literally no other character had this reaction to the Sundial or its effects or what we've done with it. And it doesn't even end there, he continues in the quest for evacuation:

"Osiris used obscene amounts of Fractaline to power the obelisks," he says, shaking his head at the paradoxes the old Warlock tempted. "Now I feel this taut reality tremble and groan. It anchors countless timelines, all pulling against the chronological center. And this Pyramid threatens to collapse them all."

Bestie what does this mean?

The problem is that he's not a reliable character, but on the other hand, he did know something strange that was confirmed as correct; you know, the tones. Music. The theme of this whole season. And there was even a chorus:

"The tones are faster now. A pattern. A chorus."

I'm like 27 layers deep in insanity. This is why I wanted the Sundial to be mentioned and discussed and possibly explained. Like, there's something going on here with what we did to save Saint, and the Vex, and the Forest. And I'm suspecting that somehow. Somewhere the veil is always lifting. Aka the Veil is somehow involved. Maybe.

Also Perfect Paradox?? I am wondering how we'll get the new one also because like. As you said, Dawn ones were canonically just pulled from other timelines (and accelerated the end of all things), but what about now? Same thing? Is this relevant? Saint should still has his original. But did something happen in the background when we used and abused the Sundial to pull thousands of weapons from other timelines? Osiris had a normal thing to say about that, btw:

"Pulling weapons from alternate timelines is an interesting experiment, but a dangerous one. For all we know, we've pulled these weapons out of our own hands within a different, more dangerous timeline, leaving ourselves defenseless. Best not to think on it too much."

Alright! That's fine, I guess.

Is this stuff with the timelines and the Sundial what allowed the Conductor to mess with Saint in particular? But Saint definitely had no issues before being yoked, so whatever the Sundial was made of and whatever it did to the timelines, the Saint we got back was correct.

As a matter of fact, speaking of Saint's and Osiris' memories, we curiously got a radio message of them talking about their past together before the yoke incident.

Saint-14: Osiris. Do you remember when we knew? Osiris: Knew what? Saint-14: That we were meant to be together. There was one moment... though, it took us time to get to it. Oh, but our Hunter Vanguard, so smart, Tallulah... she knew before we did. All our little squabbles and bickering. She saw it first. Osiris: it, uh — ah, well, I was — obtuse. Stubborn. I couldn't recognize my own emotions. Then, Tallulah told me to.. "Be serious". Saint-14: Haha! I remember. So yes, she told me later. Was good laugh. Osiris: Well, I'm glad you found it so amusing.

Much like the one about "I love you," we have a lore tab for this too. Very much on purpose. Their memories match and we know they're correct. This is before he got yoked. The shift only happens after he gets yoked. So Saint's memories are fine, despite the Sundial and the Forest and the simulations and the timelines, until the Conductor gets him.

The only thing I can think of is that the Conductor used other timelines to show Saint his other selves which confused/merged his memories. Or maybe, hell. Maybe our Saint could've been swapped for another right now. Like we had the right Saint until the yokening and the Conductor returned a different version. Though I think that might be too close to what happened to Osiris as well, with the "imprisoned and swapped for a fake double" plot. I don't know.

All I know is that I'm clearly losing it. You finish reading this post and you find me dead on the pavement.

Sundial mentioned! Random lines in one of the battlegrounds. It feels like not even Ikora knows the full extent of it. The "paracausal disruption" is, I assume, the shotgun. It's what tied us to Saint and made sure we're only ever interacting with one of them. Most importantly, with the right one, contrary to what Saint believes now.

I feel like the shotgun might be brought up somehow again. They already told us Perfect Paradox will return in Act 2, but it's not available yet. So maybe at a specific point during the story? Either next week or week after. Maybe it might be a point to convince Saint or explain things to him. Eagerly waiting to see if any of this will be further explored; the Sundial, what we did to save Saint and the Perfect Paradox are all fairly important.

[iamnotawomanimagod]

If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power - A Reluctant Ranking of Every Track

Disclaimer: This entire album is incredible, truly no skips, and I also think it’s an album that is hard to separate into individual tracks, because it all goes so well together. But I still wanted to try! This is just my personal opinion, and it’s subject to change. (Also I surprised myself. And I bet I’ll change my mind by tonight.)

Please feel free to do your own and tag me in it!! I wanna see!!

13. Girl is a Gun

It’s not that I dislike this song, it’s just a sound that I didn’t expect on this album. I think it would’ve fit in better on Manic. I don’t love how it kind of just repeats over and over again, especially on an album so full of complex, intricate lyrics. But it’s a really upbeat, sexy song and I bet it’s going to be so fun live.

Favorite lyric: 

Time is a blessin', to me, it's a lesson And I can't be stressin' to give you attention 'Cause, oh, it's never enough, so I'm givin' you up And you'll be better with a nice girl, darlin'

12. Lilith

Similar to “Girl is a Gun,” I simply wasn’t expecting this kind of sound on this album - could’ve seen it on Hopeless Fountain Kingdom though! The bass is amazing and I love the rhythm.

Favorite lyric:

You know I get too caught up in a moment I can't call it love if I show it I just fuck things up, if you noticed Have you noticed? Tell me have you noticed?

11. Darling

This song is so sweet and charming, especially if you compare it to “More,” which I think it acts as a sort of sequel to. Something about the melody hits me just a little wrong. When they start singing, I can’t help but hear the verses of “Hopeless.” That might’ve been intentional, but I can’t get past it to hear this song as its own thing.

Favorite lyric:

Never knew the feeling of a stable home Been a couple years of living on the road Couldn't really tell you where they'd leave a stone To visit me when I am dead and gone

10. The Tradition

I love the haunting piano and vocals. It feels like a song that was written for the film specifically. (Was it even in the film, lol?) I really love the sound of it, but the lyrics don’t do very much for me.

Favorite lyric:

And I hope what's left will last all summer long And they said that, "Boys were boys", but they were wrong

9. The Lighthouse

This song reminds me the most of a Nine Inch Nails song - fitting that Trent Reznor provides backing vocals on the final verse. I love the grimy guitars, and and discordant beat, and the way it builds up. The melody is cool and liquid. The final verse really feels like waves crashing. It’s a well-written song that really shows off Halsey’s alternative side.

Favorite lyric:

Well, that should teach a man to mess with me He was never seen again And I'm still wandering the beach And I'm glad I met the devil 'Cause he showed me I was weak And a little piece of him is in a little piece of me

8.  Ya’aburnee

This song makes me really emotional. It makes me think of all the people I love the most and it makes me want to cherish my time with them even more. That’s an incredible feeling for an artist to create. It’s such a bittersweet song. I wanna cry but it also makes me smile.

Favorite lyric:

But what's worse? Telling you my feelings or to die without revealing That you crawled inside my head and set a fire there, instead Letting all my insecurity Devour me with certainty

7. honey

If you’ve ever felt this way for someone, this song stings in the best way possible. I love the rhythm and the drums and the guitars - this is peak pop punk and Halsey fits right in. I love the honey imagery, especially that she included some imagery about bees and the way honey clings.

Favorite lyric:

And now she's impatient and I'm complacent With just a little taste of wasting time Looking for honey But she stings like she means it She's mean and she's mine

6. 1121

Now this is the sound I expected from this album. Cinematic, dark, dramatic. The piano is so haunting and so beautiful. It evokes so much imagery through sound alone, even with the lyrics being relatively simple. And their voice is so incredible. The song overall reminds me a lot of Evanescence, which is high praise. And I really appreciate the “self-loathing in love” theme, I can relate to it a lot. I’ve already been singing the chorus at the top of my lungs whenever I play this song.

Favorite lyric:

Take one in the temple My tongue is a vessel I try to be careful with The thing inside my chest You shoot for the memory So you can forget me I'd leave if you let me, oh

5. Bells in Santa Fe

Ever since we heard a snippet of this song in the first film trailer, I’ve been desperate to hear the rest of it. It didn’t disappoint. I love her lower register vocals, the tinkling piano and the frantic rhythm. And I relate too much to the message of the song - loving someone so much but refusing to accept that they want forever with you, insisting that they’re better off without you, warning them that you could slip away at any moment. It hits me where I live.

Favorite lyric:

Jesus needed a three day weekend To sort out all his bullshit, figure out the treason I've been searching for a fortified defense Four to five reasons But, Jesus, you've got better lips than Judas I could keep your bed warm, otherwise I'm useless I don't really mean it, 'cause who the fuck would choose this?

4. I am not a woman, I’m a god

This song fucks. Claiming their power to create life - recognizing that as godly and divine, while also insisting this is not a power that makes them a woman. I can’t wait for it to become a smash hit and for people to be singing about a nonbinary/trans experience without even knowing it. I honestly have trouble even articulating why this song is so awesome, it just is. I’m pumped every time I hear it.

Favorite lyric:

Oh, I just wanna feel something, tell me where to go 'Cause everybody knows something I don't wanna know So I'll stay right here cause I'm better all alone Yeah, I'm better all alone

3. You asked for this

I really like the 90s alternative sound of this one, it reminds me of Alanis Morrissette and certain No Doubt songs. I think it’s a very realistic depiction of how settling down in life can be very bittersweet, and the things that we ask for are sometimes not what they seem to be. But we also come to realize that settling is a part of growing up. Still, Halsey sings about wanting everything, knowing there are contradictions in that. The chorus is fun and easy to sing to, and the final verse is so amazing.

Favorite lyric:

I want a beautiful boy's despondent laughter I want to ruin all my plans I want a fist around my throat I want to cry so hard I choke I want everything I asked for

2. Whispers

This one hits hard, but god, it’s so good. The way they whisper certain phrases. The simple piano under the first verse, the way it becomes more complex, the way the beat comes in. You want to dance and cry at the same time. The lyrics - I know so many of us can relate to them. The themes of self-sabotage and self-loathing are so strong in this album, which definitely hits me right in the chest.

Favorite lyric:

I've got a monster inside me That eats personality types She is constantly changing her mind on the daily Think that she hates me I'm feeling it lately Might have to trick her and treat her To 70 capsules or fly to a castle So at least we could say that we died being traveled

1. Easier than Lying

I’ve had this one on repeat since the album came out, and that surprised me at first, but god, this song is addictive. The crunchy guitar at the beginning, the driving rhythm, the way her voice contrasts with that. The scream-singing on the chorus. It’s the kind of song you want to drive way too fast to. The bridge!! Aaah! It’s just so badass and listening to it now gets me too hyped!! Also the way it can kind of be seen as a sequel to “Lie,” - the growth of going “if you don’t love me no more, then lie” to “losing you is easier than lying to myself” is so meaningful and so empowering.

My heart is massive but it's empty A permanent part of me, that innocent artery Is gasping for some real attention Some undivided hypertension I tell it "quiet down, you're being loud" But it beats harder every time you come around But do you love the sound?

I’m gonna tag some mutuals, just to share, and also to see if anyone else wants to do this! Also you don’t need to go as in-depth as I did if that’s intimidating or too much, I’m just wordy.

@demonzplay @easiersthanlying @ttpane @yoursalwaysleo @anarkyandmadness @feelingsiwontforget @tolerateit @tommyhardyx @elysiems @imacreepygirl @finallybeautifulstranger @inthenameofloveforthesakeofpower and I know I’m forgetting some folks, I’m sorry! Please feel free to steal this and also tag me in yours!

[pumpkinpot]

Hoshi

A/N: this is part of the Citrus Dome Sci-Fi collab. this is also pure fluff. no smut, no real angst. just spooky summer vibes and poly love. I hope you enjoy. (I’m sorry for grammatical errors in advance.)

synopsis: since beginning your relationship with Katsuki Bakugou and Ochako Uraraka you’ve developed a love for exploring abandon places with them whenever you three have time to explore. This time, so happens to land on a derelict observatory. (additional head canons for this story on my tik tok under pumpkinpots)

“It says here it was abandoned in the mid-nineteenth century due to the spike in light pollution with the growth of the city,” you say, pointing to the dome at the peak of the building. “All of the mobile telescopes were transferred to the university's observatory, while this placed rotted away.

Uraraka half listens, levitating sheetrock from the doorway and discarding them in the nearby field.

“Why just abandon it?” Katsuki asks, fiddling with varying lenses in his camera bag. “Couldn’t this have been a museum or something?”

“Yeah,” you agree, shifting a glance to make sure Uraraka doesn’t need help. “It looks like it was bought by a merchant in the eighties who wanted to turn it into a house, but he was indicted for tax evasion before the renovations ever finished. It hasn’t been touched since.” 

He scoffs with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. “Rich idiots.”

Uraraka brushes specks of dust off her palms across her cut-off shorts before urging us alone. “Shall we?” 

It takes two and a half pushes to nudge the door wide enough to squeeze through. The observatory opens to us with a groan of whining metal and the scratch of loose dirt on concrete. 

Centered in the main foyer, a gaping mural of blue and white cobblestone depicts a dusty map of astrology stars. 

Katsuki has to be coaxed with a promise to be flashed to pose under the Taurus constellation for a picture, meanwhile, Uraraka floats just above Pisces with a cute puffy cheeked expression. 

Names, small sayings, and symbols decorate the wall in vibrant graffiti, the place a cocktail of color and wild Ivy.

"It's a lot more lit than I thought I'd be," Uraraka says, stuffing her flashlight into her bag. 

Katuski keeps the light attached to his camera lit as he weaves in and out of rooms, zooming in on old books and broken equipment. 

We follow him through a puzzle of what seemed to be living quarters and small classrooms, ending in a half oval auditorium. 

At the center of the stage a white globe balances on a pillar of cement. 

“What’s this?” Uraraka asks. 

You touch where someone had attempted to derail the sphere like a baseball before trailing your eyes above the layered seating. “It's a projector ball. Technicians would likely project light from there into the ball to make it seem like the planet or star they were studying. That's why it's,” you knock on the sphere's cool solid surface. “Crystal.”

Uraraka shines her phone’s light into it, the shattered pieces reflecting shapes in a dim glow.

Katsuki points the camera into the orb, the bluish tint reminds you of the similar one in the abandoned lighthouse you’d explored with them two years ago. Though that one would have lit from the inside. 

Quickly you explore the base and second levels, eager to get to the actual observatory. It's evident where the renovations to make this a home had been started and never finished. Small cracks in the floor, sealed with caulk, loose wooden planks pillaring knocked in walls. 

It could have been a beautiful home, you think to yourself. 

Up the second flight of stairs gradually more and more light fills the space until you are bathed in the orange glow of early dusk. A large open scare slits the dome, edging with rust and ivy. The circular room holds nothing of true value, nothing left behind but broken tables and a ladder to the viewing balcony tailing the opening of the dome. 

“The big telescope that would have been here-” Uraraka says, fiddling with the screw holes in the floor, “- would have been a refracting telescope. It uses small bits of glass to magnify what you’re looking at, then is bent back through the telescope hitting the eyepiece. The other kind is a reflector,” she continues, “It's got a primary mirror at the bottom of the lens into a second mirror than a third eyepiece mirror. This one is mostly used to see the different parts of a star to see what it's made out of.”

Katsuki and you exchange looks of pure astonishment. "how do you know all this?" you ask.

She fishes a gum wrapper from one of the holes, tossing it to the side. “Before I was accepted into UA I was really considering going into astronomy. I thought it fit so well with my quirk, but the courses were too expensive.” 

"More expensive than UA?" Katuski asks, refocusing his camera. 

She nods, seeming just as dumbfounded as us. 

“Do you think it could work on my explosions?”

“If you were in space maybe,” you hypothesize, “but in that case, we probably wouldn’t see it for a long while.” 

He seems semi disappointed as if his evening plans had been somehow derailed.

You run your hands across the walls of the dome, dusk sun baking its metal frame like a soup pot. 

For a moment you just watch them. It’d been so long since the opportunity arose for the three of you to go exploring. With you still temporarily stationed in the American hero commission and those two workings in Japan it was rare to find time to skype let alone go on adventures. You were lost in the bliss of having your partners so near without having to scream about a lost wifi connection when your hand hit something protruding from the wall.

“What are these?” you ask, inspecting circular gears attached to a crank.

“It looks like the wheel to turn the dome,” Uraraka says.

Katsuki zooms in on the puzzle of rigid plates. “This bitch turns?” 

“Yeah, that slit doesn't move so the dome has to, to accommodate where in the sky they were looking.” 

Katsuki fingers the gears a moment, mapping its track all across the sphere. He traces along the parts not layered in rust until he’s back at the start. “Do you think it still works?” 

“Not without some serious lube and strong arms.”

“We’re one for two,” you suggest. 

Katsuki hands over his camera to Uraraka, positioning himself opposite you to push the lever, while you pull left.

At first, the dial stays put, its stance unforgiving, but after a bit more pull than push a deafening whine reverberating through the entire observatory. 

No visible move happens until the second crank roundabout when the shift of light against concrete becomes clear.

Katsuki’s eyes light with sheer amazement as the entire dome rotates around you. We are halfway through a full rotation before Uraraka shouts for you to stop. 

You push on the lever stilling its movements as quickly as you can.

She holds a finger head tilted to the side. “Do you hear that?” 

Your breath balloons in your chest as you lean in closer. The tiniest of whimpers echo around the dome from the viewing balcony. 

One after another you file up the ladder, hopping on the edge of the dome. Balancing on the concrete crease between the moving track and the rest of the building you search for the sound. 

“Here!” Uraraka yells from the other side.

 You sprint as much as you dare, teetering along the two-story edge. 

She squats over the body of a squirming animal, a tuft of fur caught in the track of the dome's rotation. She coddles its little frame, before reaching a hand out to you. “Y/n, your knife-”

Hesitantly you hand it over. She snips away the stuck pieces muttering thanks that none of the actual tail got caught. She folds the blade back into itself, pinching leaves and sticks from the animal's fur and tossing them over the side. 

She holds it up, floppy ears and a black nose making it a nearly recognizable creature. A puppy. 

He looks to be light brown, but that could be the soot. 

Katsuki checks around the dome for any signs of a litter or mamma, before joining us with a shake of his head. 

The pup squirms and with an open mouth, letting all sorts of noises tumble from his dirt-covered tongue. 

Uraraka floats the puppy to the floor of the dome, as we file down the ladder. You empty the contents of your water bottle into a cup for drinking and the rest onto its back for cooling.  

His fur peaks through white and brown spotted under layers of grime. 

“Well,” Uraraka says, “we’ve been talking about wanting to expand our family.” 

“I suppose there’s no better place to start,” you add, both of us looking to Katsuki for consensus.

He passes glances between the three of us. “Fine, but I get to name it.”

“Alright, but we get veto power.” 

“Explosion-”

“Veto,” you say in unison. 

He looks around puffy-lipped. “I didn't even get to finish.” 

“Explosion nothing,” Uraraka clarifies. 

He’s silent for a long moment looking around the space. “Hoshi?.” 

“Star?” you confirm.

“This observatory was used to study the stars, wasn’t it?” He bats.

You and Uraraka exchange a satisfied, yet surprised look. You hadn’t expected something so- normal. This is after all the same man that made you name your golden pothos “boom boom boi” in his honor. 

“I like it,” you say.

“Approved,” adds Uraraka. 

We better take our picture before it gets too dark,” he says, turning away so you can’t see the blush on his cheeks. He switches out his filming camera for a smaller polaroid, propping it up on the edge of a broken table. 

He runs back as the timer ticks down. He slides to your right side, Uraraka on your left. Their arms link behind you as you hold Hoshi up to your mid-chest. Clicking down from five you all give your cheesiest grins. A rectangular card spits from the bottom of the camera. 

Ochaco shakes it a few times, swapping you a picture, for a puppy. 

You wait for the picture to pixelate before opening the ninety-cent notebook of film slips and position it in the next available spot.

Urarka’s cut-off shorts and Katsuki's tanned shoulders are a stark contrast to the puffy blue coat and chunky knit beanie from the last abandoned mansion expedition last time. Before that, the three of us accidentally matched our windbreakers to Midoryia during a tour of The Ghost Candy Shop in Kyoto. We look like a group of tourists. 

The small book seemed to be filling quickly despite the rareness of time to get away. Memories pile up from when it was just Uraraka and Katsuki to when you became a staple to their adventures. They’d given you responsibility for the book to garner your importance to them in their relationship until the reasoning for the gift became nothing more than routine. You were theirs, and they were yours. 

Now a new member had sprouted in your little family, and if you squinted, you could imagine the rest of the pages being filled with the pup in aged years to maybe more as time goes on.

 Right now, you were happy with the three and a half of you.

[mst3kproject]

The Monster of Piedras Blancas

At some point I realized that I'd done an awful lot of fishman movies on this blog, so I decided I needed a tag for them.  I chose #it's beginning to look a lot like fishmen, after a rather amusing musical version of The Shadow over Innsmouth that you can find on YouTube.  Most of them are less fun than said video, and this one very much so.  It qualifies itself for MST3King by featuring Forrest Lewis from The Thing that Couldn't Die, Don Sullivan from The Giant Gila Monster, and Jeanne Carmen from Untamed Youth.

Some lonely people feed the birds or stray cats in their neighbourhood. The lighthouse keeper of Piedras Blancas doesn't have any of those, so he feeds the fish monster that lives below the rocks.  As long as he does this, it only occasionally kills people when they wander into its territory, but trouble begins when the grocer fails to save enough meat scraps to satisfy it.  Soon the hungry beast is lopping heads off right and left and draining the bodies of blood!  The local constable thinks he may have a homicidal maniac on his hands, but marine biologist Fred identifies a shed scale at the scene as belonging to a Diplovertebron, a beast thought to be long-extinct.

Diplovertebron is an actual creature with its own Wikipedia article and everything. According to said article, it was a lizardy sort of a thing that lived in what is now the Czech Republic three hundred million years ago, and was around half a meter long.  It's a very obscure and not terribly threatening animal, and I have a hard time imagining why the writers chose it, of all extinct creepy-crawlies, to be their monster's ancestor.  It doesn't even have a very interesting name. 'Diplovertebron' is quite technical-sounding and has too many syllables to roll nicely off the tongue.  Why not pick something that at least sounds scary?

The Monster of Piedras Blancas is a bloated, sedate movie.  It knows that movies need breaks between the actiony bits... but its actiony bits have no real action, and the talky scenes it inserts to space them out are deathly dull and contribute almost nothing.  There's a bit where two characters discuss a victim's time of death in great detail, taking into account things like a spilled bottle of ink, that would have reduced Joel to tears.  It almost becomes a joke when Fred and the Doctor discuss the minutiae of Diplovertebron scales, while the constable sits there growling impatiently at them.  When even your characters think the movie is too slow, you have a problem.

Everything that might possibly be exciting takes place off-screen.  This is fine and even expected during the 'building suspense' parts – of course we don't see the deaths of the fishermen or the grocer. The bit where we first see the entire monster, when characters open a walk-in fridge and it lumbers out holding a severed head, is honestly pretty well-done.  After that, however, we should finally get to see some monster-eating-people scenes... but since this is yet another stupid rubber fishman suit a la the She-Creature, all it's actually capable of is slapping a few guys and then fleeing.  It supposedly kills a couple of gun-toting rednecks, but the fight happens elsewhere while the audience watches Fred and the doctor fart around in a cave.  We don't see the monster again until it inevitably kidnaps the lighthouse-keeper's cute daughter at the climax.

The severed head is pretty plasticky and looks nothing like the guy it supposedly came from, but an effort was made and I respect that. There are veins sticking out the bottom of it and a really creepy bit where we find it in the monster's lair with crabs crawling over it.

As the movie draws closer to its climax, the men in the town sit down and have a good think about how they're going to defeat it. They know they can't overpower it, and it seems to be reasonably intelligent, so they've decided they're going to have to outwit it. Their big plan for doing so is... throw a net over it.

I expected this to fail spectacularly, but what actually happened was even dumber.  I will not spoil the last thirty seconds of this movie for you, because it's funny as hell, but let's just say that fishmen are like pumas – if you ever meet one in real life, you can just push it the hell over.

As you might have guessed, Lucy is only in this movie so that she can be saved from the monster and can kiss Fred as the words the end appear on the screen.  The only interesting thing about her is a brief moment of stunning misogyny.  She comes running to the doctor to tell him her father has had an accident and needs help – and before going to do so, the doctor makes Lucy take a sedative. Her behaviour was not in any way hysterical or unreasonable.  A little reassurance would have done the job just fine!

This scene suggests that the townspeople don't think very highly of Lucy, and there are other bits that tell us she's probably supposed to be at least ten years younger than twenty-nine-year-old actress Jeanne Carmen.  On the other hand, they seem to think she's capable enough to look after her injured father alone and with only a locked door to protect her from the marauding monster.  Then again, if they didn't, it couldn't carry her off to be menaced.  Yet again, a movie's leading lady is a plot device rather than a character.  This seems particularly true of fishman movies.  Think of the Creature from the Black Lagoon series.

As I mentioned upfront, I have seen a lot of fishman movies.  This is the fifteenth since this blog's inception!  I thought there were a lot of bigfoot movies around, but if you check the tags you'll see that fishmen outnumber him two to one!  This brings up an interesting question – namely, why?

Why fishmen? Sea Monsters have a long and fascinating history that includes not just the classic serpent and kraken but such things as savage merpeople, scaly pig-fish covered with eyes, and according to one sixteenth-century map, very large Yorkshire terriers.  Then along came the 1930s and the popularization of the Loch Ness Monster as plesiosaur, opening up the range to prehistoric sea beasties.  Why not one of those?

I'm guessing the answer is 'because they're expensive'.  Those would require puppets and stop motion and other special effects.  A guy in a costume is much cheaper to build and operate.

Okay, but even if you have to restrict yourself to human-shaped monsters, there are plenty of those, too!  There's the aforementioned merpeople, but also vampires, werewolves, zombies, mummies, and their ilk!  Dracula and Frankenstein are both in the public domain!  And make no mistake, people have made lots of movies about those... but they have also made a whole lot of movies about fishmen!  Why fishmen?

The answer, most likely, is that Creature from the Black Lagoon came out in 1954 and it was huge, being one of those movies that requires an entire separate Wikipedia article for its cultural impact!  The tidal wave of other fishman movies that followed it are like the glut of monster-on-a-spaceship movies that followed Alien, or the fad for teenage slasher movies in the 1980s, or those cheaply animated direct-to-DVD movies that cluster around every Disney and Dreamworks release.  A fishman movie had made money, and now everybody was lining up to milk the scaly, mucus-coated cash cow!

That was a terrible mix of metaphors right there.  Yuck.

There's also something uniquely horrifying about one of the genre's major tropes – the fishman's interest in human women.  This, too, began with Creature from the Black Lagoon but as we've seen it carried over into other films – Bog and Creatures from the Abyss are notable examples (and then there's The Shape of Water). In The Monster from Piedras Blancas this idea is present in that the monster kidnaps Lucy instead of just killing her like it did every other human it met, but it's not emphasized the way the monster's interest in Kay was in Black Lagoon. Fish are proverbially cold and slimy, and the idea of sexual contact with one is almost reminiscent of necrophilia unless you have some very specific interests (see previous parentheses).  The fishman's lack of genitals make it that much more disturbing.

So now that we've sorted that out, my final question about fishman movies is this: could a fishman beat bigfoot in a fight? They're both big, broad-chested creatures that movies like to outfit with claws, teeth, superhuman strength, and bad tempers.  I think it would depend on where the battle happened.  If they're in the water, then the fishman has a clear advantage – bigfoot can drown.  If they're on land, things are a little more even.  The fishman's slime would make him difficult to hang onto, but if his gills dry out he'll have a hard time breathing.  Bigfoot's fur gives the fishman something to yank, but his large feet make him hard to knock down.  It might depend on whether or not the fishman is venomous.

Why hasn't anybody made that movie?  Picture it – dozens of fishmen swimming upstream to spawn, and bigfoot dragging them out of the water to eat like bears with salmon!  I'd absolutely pay for exorbitantly expensive theatre popcorn if it meant I got to see that on screen!

[sage-nebula]

I see what you're saying and why you came to those conclusions. I do think that it's left open to interpretation to a degree / somewhat vague, either because Game Freak wanted people to be able to draw their own conclusions or (more likely) because they just didn't plan it super well, lol. But while the labs are dilapidated (with the one that had the Raidon fight being the most destroyed), I think that's more because of how long it has been since they were first built than anything to do with Sada/Turo's death.

The main reason I think this is because it's mentioned in-game that Sada/Turo developed the Terastal Orbs ten years prior to the start of the game. So at the very least, they were alive ten years ago, which would have made Arven . . . six, at youngest? It's unclear whether he's 16, 18, or even 20. Either way, he would have been old enough to have SOME memories of his parent playing with him if they had before they died, but he doesn't. Unless, again, he was lying for some reason, but there isn't anything to indicate that he was.

So Sada/Turo was alive ten years ago at least. Then they spent the next handful of years working on the time machine to bring pokémon from the past/future to present-day Paldea. I don't think we're told exactly how many years went between the creation of the Terestal Orb and the creation of the time machine, but we do know that Sada/Turo's research team left them at some point during this process, and that they also managed to build a robot version of themselves with an A.I. incorporating their thoughts and memories during this process as well to pick up the slack, which they deemed "not perfect but good enough." We also know that Clavell worked with them at some point, and at the beginning of the game he says something like, "Oh Sada/Turo, don't tell me you actually did it . . ." implying that perhaps he knew about the time machine efforts, didn't approve, and that's why he left. Given that he started at the academy a year and a half ago (along with Jacq, who also was on a research team with Clavell at one point), it's possible that he left as recently as two years ago, which would again point to Sada/Turo only being dead for about two years before the game starts.

So all of this is to say: I think more evidence points to Sada/Turo's death being more recent than not. Arven at least would have had to be old enough to have some memories of his parents (and he does have memories of them blatantly ignoring him to focus on work instead, including ignoring him when he was lost in Area Zero with a hurt Mabosstiff to the point where he had to call a flying taxi sobbing to come rescue him because his parent just wouldn't), so if they were ever attentive or loving to him, he'd remember . . . and he doesn't.

To the other potential signs of affection: the children's books at the lab were something I interpreted completely differently, lol. To me, they seemed more like a way for Sada/Turo to have Arven occupy himself while they worked. Reading is a solitary activity, after all, and the books are on the opposite side of the lab from the professor's workstation. To me, the books were more, "here, here are some books for you to read, read these and leave me alone" than any sort of real care for Arven. It's like the equivalent of a parent giving a kid an iPad so they can play app store games while the parent does their work.

That being said I don't think Sada/Turo hated Arven; it's not like they went out of their way to abuse him or be cruel to him, and like you said they took that picture with them. But I also just don't think they were warm toward him at all, not in a way that he could feel, and they didn't value him above their work or else they would have done more than supply the lighthouse lab with books to keep him busy and take the picture with them into Area Zero. I think it's possible that Sada/Turo felt guilty about not being there for Arven more, hence the "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you," but guilt isn't the same as warmth or love, you know? They know that it was their responsibility as a parent to be there for Arven, especially since the other professor decided to be a deadbeat, but that wasn't enough for them to change their behavior or to refer to him as anything other than "the boy" in their research journals. There just didn't seem to be a lot of warmth or love there, to me.

As a final thing: I think it's entirely possible that while the actual professor didn't have warmth for Arven, the AI professor did. That might seem like a weird thing to say, but we already know that the AI had a completely different view about whether the past/future pokémon were worth sacrificing Paldea's safety over than the professor did. The professor dgaf about whether or not present-day Paldea would be ruined by the past/future pokémon, but the AI professor did, to the point where they planned around their own programming a way to shut down the time machine despite all the failsafes the professor made to keep it going. The AI was advanced enough to develop these thoughts and feelings of their own; it's entirely possible that they felt whatever guilt the professor parent had re: Arven, and that grew stronger based on their own thoughts and feelings. If they could learn to care for present-day Paldea where the professor couldn't, there's no reason they couldn't grow to care for Arven where the professor couldn't.

But those are all just my thoughts! Like I said, a lot of it is vague and therefore open to interpretation. I think either interpretation is valid. The only ones that wouldn't be valid are "the professor parent abused Arven" because lol they weren't around long enough to do that, or "they showered him with love" because lol they clearly didn't. But otherwise, anywhere in the realm of "they were largely absent from his life one way or another" is a valid interpretation, to me.

hot take perhaps but i don’t really get why there are so many memes and whatnot about Sada/Turo being terrible parents. i mean i do (see tags)………but the sheer amount is kind of funny to me considering that the impression i got from the story is that a big part of the neglect was due to them being literally dead?

[ren1327]

Sweater Weather Ch. 8

Ben woke up with Kenji’s face in his stomach, his body folder over as he rest on a pillow laid over the larger man’s back.

The sun was just peeking through the trees and he heard a whine, Bumpy scratching at the front door.

“Kenji.” Ben called.

Kenji groaned.

“Kenji, Bumpy needs to go for a walk.” Ben said.

“No…”

“Kenji, we slept in the living room, come on.”

“I got her, Ben!” Carmen said and walked in the room, dressed in a cute set of snow boots and a jacket. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. You guys should take a power nap on the bed to straighten out your spines.”

“Thank you, Carmen.” Kenji said, voice muffled in Ben’s sternum.

Ben chuckled and pet the back of his head before lightly smacking it. “Come on.”

Kenji slapped his thigh a little too hard.

“Ow! That hurt!” Ben huffed.

“I can kiss it better.” Kenji hummed.

“You can reach more in bed.” Ben said and Kenji slid back and up.

“I’m up.” Kenji said and Ben laughed, pushing him back so he could hobble to their bedroom, pulling back the quilts and comforters and sliding in, Kenji not wasting a moment joining him.

Ben blushed and pulled him close, kissing his forehead as the larger man sighed softly. Kenji snuggled into the smaller man’s chest and Ben hugged him best he could.

“This is nice.” Kenji hummed and Ben chuckled.

“Yeah.”

He closed his eyes and for a moment, imagined dry grassland or manicured shrubbery around buildings in San Antonio.

He would wake up like this every morning. Maybe with Kenji curled around him, he curled around Kenji, back to back or to one of Kenji’s rare starfish moments. Ben would most likely wake up first and get coffee going, then whine for Kenji to cook something. They’d eat together, go to work, maybe shower or go grocery shopping together, Bumpy next to them on her leash.

Domestic and happy.

He didn’t think it was possible.

Some part of him felt he didn’t deserve it.

And a smaller part of him wanted to grab and hold on to the image of he and Kenji walking hand and hand into a building where people were laughing and hanging out, waving good morning to them and a wall of smiling families who they had helped near the door.

He felt Kenji’s breathing deepen and felt him relax into sleep, his finger’s massaging his scalp through the black locks.

…could they get married and start a family too?

He blushed and hugged Kenji closer.

With both hands, he held on to the image tight.

He could be happy.

*

Ben woke to the smell of French toast, bacon and hazelnut coffee.

He blinked awake, noticing a large pillow in his arms instead of the firstborn Kon heir.

“Morning, Sleepybutt.” Kenji said.

“Afternoon.” Ben said, glancing at the clock.

“Not noon yet.” Kenji said, holding the plate out. “And bacon is an all-day thing.”

“This is turkey bacon.” Ben said.

“Cause too much grease gives you heart burn.” Kenji said. “I listened to you complain on the phone with Sammy the other night.”

“I love you.” Ben sighed and took the plate, then froze.

Kenji was blushing and staring at him.

“I-I mean…”

“Yeah!” Kenji shouted. “I get it. Um, I forgot…cream! For the coffee!”

Kenji quickly escaped the room, leaving Ben to blush down at the food, hoping things couldn’t get more awkward.

*

Things got more awkward.

Ben and Kenji were walking to the lighthouse, hands brushing, but not touching after a tense brunch.

Carmen once again kept Bumpy close, Kenji asking Ben if he wanted to explore the old light house.

Trudging up the gravel path, they made it to the tall structure, Kenji opening the door for Ben.

“I thought this needs a lighthouse keeper.” Ben said.

“Owen checks on it every other night, but it’s fully on a timer and the diagnostics are sent to us if anything looks suspicious.” Kenji said.

“So…your lighthouse is on a timer?”

“Pretty much.” Kenji said. “Buuuut…”

He pulled Ben close and smiled.

“More privacy.” Kenji said and kissed Ben’s cold nose.

Ben scoffed and pushed him away, then started up the stairs, Kenji right behind him as they both raced to the top, Kenji winning with his longer legs. The smaller man panted and Kenji opened the door, the very breath leaving Ben as he walked out and saw over the lakes.

“Oh…” He whispered and stared out over the water and snow.

Kenji came up behind him, hugging him around the waist. “What a view.”

Ben nodded.

They stood in silence for a moment, Kenji laying his cheek on the top of Ben’s head.

“You’d leave this for San Antonio?”

“I’d leave it for you and we’d visit together.”

“Kenji…” Ben turned. “I don’t want to be your reason for doing things.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not Brooklynn.”

Kenji gasped softly. “I…I wont lie, I swear!”

“And you will improve yourself for yourself too.” Ben said. “Not go along with whatever I say so we avoid conflicts. Real couples fight, Kenji.”

“I…What if we fight too much or I mess up, or we never figure it out?”

“Look at us now, Kenji.” Ben said, taking his hands. “Look how much we’ve figured out already.”

The shorter man closed his eyes.

“We don’t love each other, maybe we wont really, or maybe…maybe we’ll be happy together forever.” Ben said. “But don’t treat me as all or nothing just yet. Don’t use me as a prop. When we go to the ball, just be my boyfriend and nothing else.”

“So…real boyfriend instead of fake boyfriend?”

Ben leaned forward and kissed his nose. “Exactly that.”

Kenji chuckled and pulled Ben close.

“Hey!”

They both looked down to see Owen and Carmen at the bottom of the lighthouse, looking up at the two.

“We’re leaving tonight!” Owen yelled. “So get packing!”

Kenji sighed and rested his forehead on Ben’s.

“Rain check?”

“Yeah.” Ben said and they waved down before going to the stairs.

*

Ben smiled as they were loaded into a van, Carmen sitting in the back with Bumpy as Ben and Kenji took the middle seats, holding hands and snuggled up together as Owen drove them to Seattle from the large boathouse they had docked the yacht in.

“So, how’s everything?” He asked.

“Great.” Kenji said, leaning his head on Ben’s.

“They finally got together.” Carmen called.

“What?!” Kenji yelled. “You knew too?!”

“I’m your on-site bodyguard for a reason, kid.” Owen said with a smile.

Ben chuckled and looked up at Kenji. The taller man sighed and settled back into their cuddle, Bumpy jumping over the seats to lay in Ben’s lap as Carmen put on her headphones and started playing her switch.

“Hey.” He said softly and Ben looked up, eyes hooded with content.

“Hey.”

“Wanna go for a walk after dinner?” Kenji asked.

“Dinner with your parents?” Ben asked with a smile.

“The restaurant is in the hotel, we can go out for an hour or two with Bumpy to a café or the Space Needle or the Great Wheel…”

“I think it might be a little too late for all that. But maybe a café after I tell your parents I want to extend my stay?” Ben asked.

Kenji grinned and hugged Ben close.

“Aw.” Owen cooed and Kenji kicked the back of his seat.

*

Ben and Kenji were placed in a room together, Bumpy having a plush pet bed next to theirs.

Kenji was laying on his back as Ben changed from his dinner clothes into something more casual.

Dinner had been amazing, Kosei and Candy looking well rested despite the constant planning and rechecking of the ball’s supplies and preparation.

“Ben.” Candy had said over dessert. “You, Carmen and I should go shopping tomorrow morning.”

“Mom…” Kenji whined.

“Oh, right. I forgot Ben probably will want to go back…” She murmured.

“Actually.” Ben said. “Carmen was telling me about New Years and…”

He blushed, Kenji smirking and taking his hand.

“We were wondering if we could stay past New Years.” Kenji finished.

“Of course!” Kosei said with a wide smile, surprising his family and Ben from his outburst.

Candy clapped her hands.

“The we are definitely doing that shopping trip!” She said. “Sorry, Baby.”

“It’s cool.” Kenji said. “Bumpy and I will just hang out with Dad.”

Kosei nodded.

Dinner went on, and now they were going to go on their walk, Bumpy zooming around in circles in her little green vest and booties.

“Ready?” He asked Kenji.

Kenji lifted his legs and swung them down, using the momentum to stand, doing a little jump.

“Yeah.” He said and pocketed their room key.

He took Ben’s hand, who lifted Bumpy in his other hand, her leash around his hand.

“Let’s go.” He said.

Kenji led his boyfriend to the elevator, then down to the lobby where they were greeted by a few front desk employees and the doorman.

Ben put Bumpy down, who immediately sniffed at the plant beds and started tugging Ben along.

Kenji laughed and wrapped an arm around Ben’s waist as they walked.

“It’s so bright!” Ben said with a smile, looking at the lights and neon.

“Is it what you thought it would be?” Kenji asked. “Or better?”

Ben smiled at Kenji. “Way better.”

“You know I—”

“Kenji?” A voice called and Ben felt his boyfriend freeze beside him as he looked towards their left.

A slender woman with pink hair and green eyes stood there with an older couple.

“Go on, I’ll just be a minute.” She told them and the men nodded and walked ahead towards the hotel, hand in hand.

Kenji gulped as one openly glared at him as they passed.

“Hi.” He said to her, Ben realizing who the girl was.

“Hi, Kenji.” She said, raising her chin. “Been a while.”

“How have you been, Brooklynn?”

[feriferfer]

IDK what this is, but it is what happens when I relapse into a shipping whore.

So AOS just ended, and even if I stopped watching and then re-watched it and then died when they announced Daniel Sousa was making a guest star, I always loved the show and the characters. 

I totally blame Daniel Sousa for making me fall so hard for Dousy (people, make peace with it already). 

So here are my head canons (if you finish reading this I’ll give you a cupcake). I basIcally thought and wrote and didn’t much care for grammar or semantics much. 

So this is how my brain works. 

Also, I wish I had the time to actually make this into a proper fic, but I don’t. 

It basically covers the year we didn’t get to see. 

Kora stays with Daisy as she recuperates, mainly because she is the only one on the ship who can give her enough warmth for her to regain her temperature when it suddenly starts spiking down.

They talk. Daisy forgives her, because she recognizes the same lost girl she was in her. 

Kora is still defensive and questioning a lot of her decisions, but Daisy assures her that she shouldn’t stress about it, but take it one day at a time. 

They trade stories regarding their mother. Before they dock back at the Lighthouse they agree that Jiaying was not the best of mothers, but she did try her best to work with what she had been given. 

When they arrive back at the lighthouse Daisy is still a little fazed, but she doesn’t let it bother her as she realizes the worry Daniel was in.

It’s a weird feeling, the one where she finds herself glad in knowing there is someone waiting for her specifically. 

He is at her side almost instantly. Just as impulsive as he had kissed her, he hugs her, and tells her he’s glad she’s ok. 

Daisy breathes him in and realizes the tears she had already dried up begin to fall once more. She allows herself to feel the embrace of this man out of time who has somehow gotten her attention and respect. 

Everyone asks about Fitzsimmons’ whereabouts, and they get informed about their little rendezvous regarding their daughter. 

Mack orders them to rest, their next mission can wait. 

Daisy chooses the bunk next to Sousa’s because she has gotten used to him being by her side and without Fitz or Simmons around she’s sure she’ll be restless. 

They only get an hour of sleep before Fitzsimmons arrive back, with Piper, Flint and baby Alya in hand. 

Daisy is out like a light, Daniel wakes her up because he knows she needs to see her family, and in that instant, as he is sheepishly explaining to her how he debated whether or not to wake her up for this but ultimately decided to do so, she kisses him again. 

He is smiling when they part, and she whispers a thank you as she stands to go and finally see the miracle that is Alya Fitz-Simmons with her own eyes. 

Daniel, as always, is trailing behind her, constant and solid and Daisy wonders as she stares at the little girl with blond hair and vivid eyes just how all of this was even possible.

Ok so umm, is this a multichapter bullet point fic? 

Jemma has Alya on her lap as she talks to Daisy.

Daisy can’t decide where to fix her eyes, on the gorgeous miracle that is Alya, or on Sousa and Mack who both look tired and strangely content as they share a beer. 

The thought sneaks up on her. 

She understands why, even if they did have the time stream and could see the timeline play out, she knows why Enoch and Fitz were so sure of this being their last mission as a whole team together. 

Because of Alya. She tells Simmons as much and Jemma agrees, a sad smile on her lips which turns blissful as she strokes her daughter’s hair. 

They want to give their little girl a normal life, or well, as normal as they can, and they can’t do that while being active agents. 

Daisy agrees and claims that if anyone on the team deserved such a life it was them. 

Jemma disagrees, because she also deserves some kind of respite in her life.

Daisy only smiles as her eyes drift over to where Sousa still sits, now alone and contemplating his surroundings, probably trying to take in the fact this was where (or well, when) he would probably end up. 

Jemma sees this, but does not comment, for she knows how to read her friend and knows there are still things that she needs processing and figuring out all by herself. 

So she asks, she asks about Daisy’s plans for the nearby future. 

Daisy shrugs, but she knows she’s not done with SHIELD, and she doesn't think everyone else is. 

She’s still an agent, she claims, she’ll go wherever she’s needed, with whomever she’s needed by.

Because life is funny, Kora then enters the room, still weary and out of place. Simmons sees her first and tells Daisy.

Daisy realizes then: they had fought for family, so that this family could survive, so that everyone’s families could thrive. 

Kora was now part of that family. 

Daisy calls out to one sister to properly introduce her to the other. 

Daniel watches, amazed at how his life has ended up, and enthralled with the fact it seems someone like Daisy Johnson apparently likes him back enough to turn her eyes towards him and give him a soft and promising smile right before continuing her interaction with her sisters. 

Mack chuckles at him and congratulates him on his decision. 

Sousa doesn’t much understand things, and he knows he’s about to get confused with just about everything, but he finds he doesn’t mind much of it. These are good people with good hearts and even if there is a feeling of finality to their team, there is also the sizzling feeling of something entirely new and equally amazing starting. 

He asks the current director about their next move, about what will happen to the team.

Mack answers with a sigh, but with the truth. 

He needs to get out and head to HQ to remind the rest of the organization about his position. He’s been MIA for enough time. He thinks it’s time to take on his role more permanently. More directing, less fighting. 

He tells him about Fitzsimmons plans to retire for a while. 

And the rest? Daniel asks, because there are still more members of the team and even if there is something brewing there with Daisy, he wants to know how he can be a part of events. 

Mack doesn’t really know yet, and states it. 

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

What am i doing? Part 123456789

It isn’t until the next morning, when Mack announces he is leaving for HQ when Coulson tells the team about his decision to give himself a year to see what he wants to do with his new life. 

May smiles at him, soft and honest and finally coming to terms with the fact that even if the man is all the best parts of Coulson, he isn’t really Coulson. She will always love him, but their time has already passed. 

She tells him she approves and it’s like a weight has been lifted off her shoulders as he smiles back. 

Daisy’s eyes get watered, but tears do not fall, because it means she still has a year to tease and rely on him. It’s more than she had ever expected to have. 

Daniel sits by her side, Kora on the other and Alya can’t seem to get enough of everyone and she’s constantly running from one aunt and uncle trying to get them to tell her stories about their adventures. 

Jemma apologizes.

Mack informs Daisy she has a spot on Z1, if she wants it, she can build her own team and will be granted as much vacation time as she desires. 

Daisy appreciates it and instantly turns to look at Sousa, noting how his stance relaxes and she comes to the realization he was afraid for his own future. She’s not sure where their relationship is going. She knows they like each other well enough and that there is a feeling of attraction and comfort which she had not felt -ever. But she knows he’s dependable and solid and she owes it to him to give him a fighting chance in this century. 

Looking at Kora, she realizes she has two people in care now, two people she will gladly ease into her world and into her time. 

Elena is fast to inform she’ll head back to HQ with her boyfriend, claiming she needs some time off as well. 

Piper and Flint don’t feel as exhausted, they claim they’re glad to head back to HQ and continue working wherever Mack sends them. 

The last to talk is May who surprises everyone by stating she is done. 

Daisy asks her SO why, demanding a valid reason for her abandoning her work, reminding her that everything she is as an agent was because of her. 

May can feel Daisy’s anguish and her fear for the unknown. 

She looks at the young woman she has helped grow and she realizes her feelings are slowly getting there, returning and making her head spin at the same time. 

May simply states it is time for the new generation to continue doing what she had done for many years. Looking straight at Daisy, May adds that she is sure her legacy will be well-continued. 

It’s not that they are being forced to split up, or that they’ll never see each other again, but it is time and Daisy can feel it. Can feel how even if she will still work under Mack’s direction, she won’t have him as her permanent back up, that role has changed now. There is another solid man who is willing to stand beside her and even though it is still fairly new, she has a feeling it will work. 

She’ll be fine, she always is. Her family is not lost, it will still be there. She is not lost, she knows who she is and knows what she wants to do. 

---------

The lighthouse is empty, left in her charge while she waits for Mack’s orders from HQ. 

Coulson and May were the last to leave, Coulson receiving an order for him to report to HQ.

May had just been sticking around to ensure some more time in his presence and once the old AC had gone, she had followed. 

Kora and Daniel roam the place, both amazed by the tech and the stories Daisy shares with them. 

She finds him one day, they have barely been there a week, not a lot of time has passed for them to have talked everything out. There was a lot to process. Especially for him. 

He’s reading something and she realizes it is his file, she teases him about it and he never fails to surprise her by teasing her back, giving her a piece of newspaper he found where the name Quake is in headlines. 

She groans but appreciates his effort of finding out about the world. 

She realizes then she hasn’t properly introduced him to the internet. 

She thinks he’ll freak and thus proceeds to do just that. 

He is in fact amazed and gets the hang of using it way too quickly. She feels strangely proud and fuzzy about it and she shakes the emotion off because sure, they like each other, and Deke did stay behind because he could see it, but they were still waiting on orders and until her life didn’t move forward she would wait to decide what to do with the rest of it. 

She gets orders from Mack to build her own team a day later. 

She has been training with Kora and she knows her sister is still a little off and not ready for full combat or missions, but she convinces Mack to let her be her sister’s SO and all while she does this she has May’s voice in her head. 

Daniel is as solid as ever as she gives him the option of staying at HQ and training up there or joining her. Because well, she does like him a lot, he is constant, and kind and such a square and a dork she can’t believe she feels this attached and attracted to him, but he is quick and witty and he makes her laugh on most days and he actually gets along fairly well with Kora and she doesn’t feel like losing one of the few good things she has gained during the last month. 

Of course he takes her offer of being in her team. 

She teases him on the day they are departing the base. He hasn’t been out and about in the 21st century, even if he has seen a couple of movies with her now, and he does enjoy going on google maps. But she knows it is different. 

He teases back, talking about restaurants and movies and bars and Daisy realizes it is his dorky way of asking her out. 

She laughs, says yes and before they know it, there is a Zephyr arriving and their conversation cut short. 

Daisy finds herself cursing the ship and her sister who is the one who interrupts them. 

The Zephyr brings a whole team of new agents to take over the Lighthouse. 

Inside she is met with Mack and Elena who greet her as though it has been years since they last saw each other. 

They tell her she is needed back at HQ. So she’ll get to see Coulson for a while. That’s nice. 

Sousa stays in the cockpit because he has never seen this world before. Daisy finds him there, the ship flying on autopilot. 

This time it is him who thanks her, for allowing him a second chance. Because he has read all about Peggy and SHIELD and HYDRA and he understands that everything had a purpose, even his failed relationship with the famed Agent. 

Daisy doesn’t dare push because she thinks she might combust if he continues his line of thought.

Out of everything, liking someone was not something Daisy had been planning on occurring to her in the near future. Maybe in the far off one, but definitely not near. 

Life was funny that way. 

He is admiring the view. She can’t help it, she leans in and grabs his chin to turn his face gently towards her own. She kisses him, gently and tries to convey the thousand and one thank yous she should be giving him. 

He returns the kiss, as he has always done everything time they do this. Because they have done this, a lot of times. Because funnily enough he is a flirt and she is flirt and there is only so much foreplay she can handle.

But this time it’s different, because it feels different, it feels as if she is finally letting him in, finally making her decision regarding him. 

He had already chosen to stay with her, now she was choosing to stay with him. 

----------

She doesn’t get to actually work with Coulson, Mack has him as his personal confidant and assessor. She feels it was meant to be. 

She does get to see him though, and she is glad, because Daniel Sousa is making her head spin and she has no idea how to control it. 

Even Kora manages to tease her about it, as they are training one day and the simple mention of Daniel’s name makes Daisy stumble because she is reminded of the previous night and how she had no clue a man could make her feel that way. 

Coulson tells her, point blank, to stop fooling herself and give the man a break.

Daisy stops responding to Coulson's calls for a week. 

Jemma is always patient and insightful, but way too optimistic. 

They are doing fine, their relationship is progressing as normal as one can when you’re an inhuman working for SHIELD, trying to build up a team in order to take them out to space. 

She tries to get more information regarding said mission out of Mack at least once a week, her old partner never budges, but does tease her about her boyfriend, because everyone enjoys teasing her about him.

She always wants to scream because of it, but forgets all about it the second she gets to spend time with Daniel and he greets her with the same dorky and loving smile as he talks about his day and she talks about hers and it is so domestic and it suddenly dawns on her. Why her head has been feeling fuzzy.

She has a home, and a pseudo domestic life and she has never had that in her life. 

As they finish dinner that night, she grabs Daniel and doesn't let him go for the rest of the night. She prays her sister arrives home late as she usually does. 

She tells him she loves him that night and when he answers back she feels her world righting again and everything just becomes easier.

She only tells Jemma about it. Coulson and Mack figure she has figured it out and she ignores them.

It is fitting that she finishes building her team up only a week after that. 

The pieces fall in place and she finds herself happy. 

It takes her three weeks to notice she hasn’t seen or heard from Coulson or Mack in said time. 

She finds she doesn’t mind much. 

She then realizes it is because Coulson left to visit May at her new job and she breaks out into a full hearty laugh as Coulson explains what May has chosen to do with her life. 

She goes on her first mission with her own team after that. Something pretty straight forward. A test of sorts to see if they truly will work well together. 

It feels nice to be back on the Z1.

She almost laughs when she realizes how well she and Daniel work together, and he definitely laughs at her when they all realize Kora is the better pilot of them all -Daisy included. 

She visits Fitzsimmons on her own, because Kora still feels awkward around them and she needs to finish some report she promised Coulson and Daniel is in the middle of a solo mission. 

It is a quick visit, because her life is still busy and she was actually finishing up on her own sort of mission near Scotland and she can’t help it.

Jemma is glad she took the time, Fitz, as always is great and enthusiastic and is not there much because Alya adores her dad and doesn’t allow him much time to be in the room with the other two adults. 

Daisy feels a pang of longing, and quickly shakes it off. She admires her friends for retiring and for having the courage to have a family. 

She still has things to do. While she can. 

When they reunite both are exhausted for different reasons, but both Daniel and Daisy agree that while they had very successful missions, they prefer to work together. 

She claims it is much easier.

He claims it is a lot more fun. 

The Z3 is ready, Mack tells her, and Daisy feels a pang of excitement. 

She tells her team and they are all equally excited. 

SWORD is hers, she has earned it and she revels in the fact she doesn't cower at the prospect of leading. She has a good man by her side who proves to her every single day she can do all these things on her own but she doesn’t have to.

She has a sister who has come such a long way, who now smiles more often and enjoys the little things. Daisy feels proud of her and every time the feeling takes over her she wants to laugh, because Kora is older, yet younger than she is and Daniel is always confusing the fact and she adores that out of everything he’s seen, that is what always gets him rattled up.

She makes him watch as many space films to prep him for it. He is unimpressed by Star Wars but claims ET a favorite. 

Kora surprises Daisy by informing her baby sister she has gotten a pilot's license and the stamp of approval from May herself to be able to efficiently fly them on the Z3. 

Daisy finds it funny that even if he had managed to welcome the 21st century life-style (sans actual style) with ease, it is atop the Z3 where Daniel feels most comfortable. 

He claims it is because it was on a Zephyr where he first caught a glance of his future. 

Daisy thinks he’s being sappy about it, and does not push because she is certain she will cry if her suspicions about his chosen wording are correct. 

She’s the captain, for god’s sake. Her dork boyfriend should not make her want to cry. 

It is different from normal missions. It is both smoother and yet far more exhilarating. 

She appreciates the wonders of being able to sleep in between missions and assignments. 

She especially appreciates the fact she convinced Daniel (or did he convince her, she’s still a little fuzzy on how that conversation went, she blames him) to share her bunk. 

Because their life is chaotic at times and to be able to wake up next to him, well, it is something she got used to pretty quickly -or well, around the time of the 5th loop. 

It is Coulson’s idea and she cries a little as she receives the invite. 

Daniel simply kisses her head when he finds her, he whispers an ‘I love you’ which only makes her smile even wider and she adds her tears to the list of ‘odd things which should NOT be happening to me’ list. 

Simmons wink is almost a confirmation, but she waits patiently for the email.

The first words in the email are unintelligible, which basically confirms the fact to her. 

She ponders on what to tell him for three days, but then they get dropped into a mission. There are five of them out there beside her, her sister and Daniel included. She can’t let her guard down now. There is a team that needs her.

Everything turns out to be a misunderstanding in the end. But it doesn’t go by smoothly. The (insert alien name) race is stubborn and it takes a lot of Daisy’s energy to get them to talk. 

Daniel will never let her forget it is one of his odd idioms which finally makes the aliens cooperate. 

Still, they have earned a day off, and she orders Kora to put the Z3 on autopilot, as close to Earth as she can. 

It is that order which makes Daniel know there is something up with her. 

He patiently waits for her to tell him. Because he knows her, and he knows she needs to sort out her brain before asking for any kind of input -from anyone. But she always does, at least, she has always done so with him. 

She tells him as they both stare at earth, reminiscent of that first trip they took together. Circumstances are entirely different. 

He is scared, he has to admit, because there is nothing as scary in life as to be hit with the realization that you're going to be responsible for another human. 

And she can’t help it, she teases him about it; because she needs to find humor in this, and because it is no secret that very few things manage to rile Agent Sousa up. It is one of the many reasons he works so well in the field -with her. 

Besides his surprise, his reaction is very much like him, and Daisy thinks it a win for her when he doesn’t propose to her right away. Not because she would say no (she’s sure she would say yes), but because it means he truly is a wonderful man who can read her better than anyone and who gets her, all parts of her. 

In the end, they agree it is best to take it a day at a time. She is still the captain and he is still her right hand and they are still pretty good at their jobs and they don’t want to stop. 

In the end, Kora is the one who steps up, once she notices her sister throwing up almost at the end of the third month. 

She volunteers to help in any way she can. 

Their daughter is born in space, just like little Alya. Because Daisy truly never took time off until she literally couldn’t stand and because even if she couldn’t go out and explore, she was still the captain and she directed her team with an authority and a smoothness, which reminded Daniel of Agent Coulson, which he knew meant a lot more to her than to him.

True to her word, Kora steps up and helps keep Z3 floating as the couple settles into their new lives. 

Daisy knows it is not ideal. But she wouldn’t trade her life for anything. 

Daniel still finds himself waking up, even years after, with their daughter already running around the Z3, and can’t believe his life. 

Honestly, if you’ve made it this far, my sincere apologies. But I was left with way too many feels and a thousand and one ideas in my head which I just had to get out. 

[cutieodonoghue]

dark gray (1/?)

summary: Killian Jones operates a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere, preferring a life of isolation, until one day a woman and a baby wash up on his little island and change his life forever.

read it on: ao3, ff.net

a/n: Hi! I know what you’re thinking… I’ve seen this story before, haven’t I? Yes. Yes you have. (Though, if you’re new to this story, hello and welcome, please enjoy!)

I deleted it a while ago thinking it wasn’t fair to leave it up unfinished if I had no plans to continue writing. But, literally out of the blue the other day, inspiration hit me and I was able to actually finish it! Can you believe it? I can’t.

So, rather than keeping it for myself and my own enjoyment, I thought I’d share with anyone who still wanted to see how this tale ends. I know it had a bit of a following and I still get questions about it to this day.

As an added benefit of this reposting, I’ve made some grammatical changes (because sometimes you re-read and you go, wow yikes I messed that up lol) and added some extra bits here and there to add some color and zing. May as well, right?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it! And I swear it’s going to be finished this time. I have an actual ending written and ready to publish!

If you just want to read the new parts, tune back in for chapters 14 and onward :)

Love you friends! <3

///

One

He slams the front door closed and it squeaks on its hinges, swinging and clattering against its cracked and broken frame.

He shoves his fist into his jacket pocket, straightening his gaze ahead of him with a white huff of his breath in the frigid air to mingle with the fog that has descended onto the island.

His boots crunch on the rocks as he carries himself onward and he takes note of all the things he has in store for his day. It isn't much, never is, and he curses his sailor's blood for the ungodly hours.

The ground is still damp from last night's storm and the air still smells of it. It had been an unruly thing, the storm, and he'd woken several times at the sound of lightning spiking nearby.

As he walks toward the lighthouse, he shifts his gaze to the ocean that's lapping up against the shore nearby. The water sprays at him and he grits his teeth, breathing in salty gusts of air through his nose.

He narrows his eyes, stopping dead in his tracks the instant he notices a lump lying at the shore, the foaming water washing over every few moments.

The blood drains from his face and his heart begins to pound just a little bit faster, a throbbing beginning to sound in his ears.

He stares for a moment longer, then shifts his gaze a little further up the shore to a brown basket nestled in seaweed and wet sand.

Curiouser and curiouser.

His brow furrows slightly and he pulls his hand free from his jacket so he can comb through his hair nervously.

He starts for the two washed up mysteries quickly, breaths coming out in nervous, shaking huffs, and when he reaches the blue lump, he kneels down beside it.

It's a woman.

She appears to be a few years his junior with sopping wet blonde hair and fair skin. When he examines her, she's breathing, but she's passed out cold. There’s blood oozing from a wound in her forehead and he's sure something's wrong with her leg, because it's twisted obscurely.

He winces a little, unsure of what to do. He's about to stand and lift her over his shoulder to help her when a high-pitched squeaking and crying emanates from a little further down the beach in the brown basket.

He can hardly hear the ocean now with how loudly his heart races in his ears.

He rises slowly, cursing under his breath as he makes his way toward it.

"Bloody hell," he mutters, looking down at the basket.

There is a baby, not a small baby, but a baby nonetheless, lying inside, wrapped tight in a blanket, squirming and crying. It's cheeks are red and it looks absolutely miserable.

He can't blame him. A day like today leaves much to be desired.

Killian Jones crouches down beside the child and holds out his arms, glaring briefly at his hook for a left hand, then, with a shake of his head, he reaches in and carefully lifts the child into the crook of his arm.

Having never held a screaming baby before in his entire life, he hasn't a clue of what to do. He bites down on his tongue and grimaces.

"Quiet down," he tries, "You'll get nowhere crying like that."

The child, miraculously, stops.

Killian sighs. "Let's get you inside then. Can't have you out to freeze, hm?"

He stands again, reaching down for the basket with his hand before turning to trudge back to his residence. Worry fills him from head to toe as he looks at the woman again.

Since she's out of it, she can wait until he's settled the child down. He thinks he knows better than to leave such a small human being out in the cold of the morning with no nourishment or comfort.

The baby squirms in his hold and he winces again in fear, because it isn't as if he has a firm hold on the fragile being. He finds his pace quickening almost instinctively.

Killian pulls the door open with his index finger and it slams behind him loud enough that it makes the child cry again. He starts hushing it as he sets the basket on the table in his kitchen, knocking over a bottle of beer from last night in the process.

He doesn't bother to clean up his mess, deciding to take the child into the small living room off of the kitchen where he builds a cradle of sorts out of blankets and pillows he can find.

He settles the fussing child down into the center of the mess and goes to stoke at the fire that's dying out in the fireplace. While it's warming up, he goes into the kitchen for milk.

He thinks that's what babies eat, right?

He isn't sure if it should be cold or warm and hesitates with the milk glass for a few moments, struggling to even find something to use that will fit in the child’s mouth. He decides on using a cleaned beer bottle for the time being and warms up the milk in the microwave before pouring it into the bottle and carrying it into the living room.

"Here we are," he says gruffly, setting himself down next to the lump in his couch. He awkwardly shifts the baby and uses his thumb to cut off the flow as he settles the lip against the child's mouth. "In we go. You're hungry, aye?"

It takes a few moments and some of the milk dribbles out on the baby's chin, but eventually, all of the milk goes straight into the hungry child's stomach, the baby's eyes falling closed as it continues to suckle.

Killian figures he'll have to find something to use as diaper cloths. He'll do that after bringing the woman inside.

It's a mystery to him how two people could wash up on his island.

It isn’t as if he’s in a highly trafficked area. It's not even in a shipping lane. In fact, ships rarely come along- only for his monthly supplies.

After the boy finishes the milk, Killian puts the beer bottle on the floor and looks down at the child with a furrowed brow.

He hasn't spent nearly enough time around children to know what to do with him now that he's eaten, and Killian sighs as he decides to strip him of the damp blanket and outfit he's sporting.

Killian tucks the boy into the pillows and blankets again, covering him up so he thinks he's warm, and then carries the wet and cold items over to the fire, hanging them to dry.

With one final check on the sleepy child, he nods to himself and zips up his coat to go grab the mystery woman.

He isn't a horrible man. He likes to think himself rather good on his better days. But he isn't a man who enjoys the company of others. In fact, one of the reasons he's still on this island is because he can't stand himself around others.

He can't trust himself around others.

Killian takes a sharp breath of the cold air and lets it back out of his nose, eyes set determinedly on the blue and yellow lump on the shore.

When he reaches her, he sighs, balling up his hand tightly into a fist before leaning down to scoop her up and onto his shoulder. He's careful with his hook and he grunts a bit when her weight is added to him. She's not very heavy, but he's not used to carrying much weight, so he is quick when he makes his way back to his home.

He moves with expertise through the small residence to his bedroom, the only bedroom, and settles her down on his bed.

She's absolutely soaked to the bone and incredibly cold to the touch. Her blonde hair fans around her head, some of the strands sticking to her peaceful cheeks and forehead.

She's still blissfully unaware of anything that's happened, so Killian hesitates for a moment longer before deciding to start the fire in his room.

As soon as the flames breathe warmth into the small room, he goes to the trunk at the foot of the bed and pulls out blankets to cover her with.

He decides that he should take her dress off to try to avoid hypothermia, so he takes a deep breath, leaves the blankets at her feet, and sets to peeling the wet article from her flesh.

Luckily for him, she's out enough that she doesn't wake as he's taking her britches off, and he purposefully covers her with blankets before he goes to find her something of his to wear in place of her dress while it dries.

Carefully, Killian puts a long sleeved shirt over her top and a pair of loose-fitting pants over her bottom, then slides a pair of socks over her feet and covers her with three blankets, ensuring her entire body is tucked safely and securely beneath them.

Her teeth have begun chattering, a new development that’s somewhat assuring.

In the process of slipping the pants on, he'd noticed bruising around her right knee and his thoughts easily drift to wondering what could've happened to her, but he can't know until she wakes, so he stores his curiosity and continues to ensure she's sufficiently warmed.

He figures he'll have to tend to her wounds later when she's awake and can tell him more and decides to go check on the child instead while she sleeps.

Killian leaves his bedroom after draping the woman's clothes over the fire to dry. His boots clump along the hardwood floor noisily and he sighs as he settles onto the couch beside the sleeping babe.

If there was anything he'd imagined his day as being like, it wasn't this.

He was supposed to check on the lightbulbs and make note of what needed fixing after the storm, get started on the list, and then drink himself to sleep after a supper of whatever he might scrounge up.

He isn't sure he can just leave the child and the woman here, not when they might wake up at any moment, so he watches the tiny being as he breathes before nodding in affirmation and carrying the tentative baby bottle into the kitchen.

Killian goes about fixing a stew from what he's got in the pantry and figures a way to feed the child with things in his cabinets.

He's sure the woman will be quick to mother him. Perhaps the child belongs to her- he isn't sure.

And anyway, he won't be stuck with them for very long. Just four weeks before the supply ship comes and he'll send them out and away from him again. He'll just have to deal with them in the meanwhile.

He settles back against the cabinets as the stew cooks on the stove, thinking about what he'll do about sleeping arrangements for the coming few weeks, when he hears the child erupt into a screaming cry.

He springs to work, grabbing the already heated milk from the stovetop and bringing the new bottle with him so he can comfort the infant if it's what it needs.

Killian sits beside the lump of blankets and pillows and lifts the child, whose fussing comes to hiccups as he settles him into his arms.

He frowns at the baby. "'s that all?"

He doesn't enjoy holding the child. It's awkward and uncomfortable and it reminds him all too much of a past he'd very much like to forget, so he sets the boy down again and is greeted by his wails once more.

He growls a little, shaking his head.

"You don't understand," Killian says sternly. "I can't hold you."

For a moment, they're sitting there in a stare-off of sorts, and Killian locks his jaw, shaking his head again before opening his mouth to reprimand the shrieking child when his bedroom door opens.

His gaze shifts immediately to the woman, who looks pale and sickly, leaning against the door jamb with all of her weight.

He stands, holding his arms out as she staggers a little.

She swallows and opens her mouth, looking down at the screaming bundle of flailing limbs on the couch.

Killian hastily lifts the boy into his hold to quiet him again and it works. It's overwhelming to hear his cries, to say the least, and when he moves to go to her, she follows him with her emerald eyes.

"Where am I?" she asks, voice wavering.

He shakes his head. "Don't worry yourself with that. You need to get back into bed."

Killian sets the child down with a wince of anticipation, receiving what he prepared for when the child bursts out in upset. He herds the woman back into the room and watches her cautiously as she limps back to the bed.

She groans and pain creases her forehead when she lies back down. "I heard... crying."

He nods and somehow tucks her back in under the blankets.

"Aye. Apologies. The child appears to have quite the set of lungs." She blinks a few times and he finds himself without words. "Is he… um, yours?"

The woman shakes her head, wincing a little. "No."

Killian runs his eyes down to the base of the bed and shakes his head again, a sigh slipping from his lips at the development. He looks back to her face.

"I'm Emma."

Killian hesitates, shifting a bit on his feet while he examines her sick face. He doesn't know what to do about her. She's clearly running a fever and it's not like he can force her to rest if she doesn't want to.

"Emma, why don't you get some sleep? You don't look well."

She scoffs, closing her eyes. "There was a storm and I fell from the top deck of the ship. I think I broke my leg."

She winces, then reaches down to pull the blankets away.

Bloody maddening woman.

She examines the leg with pain written in her features and he mentally groans, because he certainly is no doctor and she's stranded here with him for another few weeks.

"I could... try and set it," he tells her quietly. Her gaze flits over to him and he sees apprehension in those solid green eyes. "I set many bones in my time in the navy."

She studies him for a second before falling back with a loud sigh.

"Fine."

He eyes her warily, unmoving.

From the other room, the child is still screeching and sobbing and it's making his blood boil angrily, because he is no longer on his own. He no longer has the stability and security of being by himself. He has two people, two needy people, that he's responsible for.

In all of his time as caretaker of the lighthouse, it's been task after task and menial chores, followed by drinking and television- if the damn satellite worked.

It gets lonely, but he's better that way. He can't hurt anyone if he's by himself.

As his hand settles against her bare leg, he searches for the break. He gives her no warning, which in hindsight was a bloody awful idea, and she screams when he sets the bone with a loud crack.

Two screaming strangers in his tiny home on an island in the middle of nowhere. Bloody perfect.