#I’ve been wanting to do a first official word comic for a while but

[quins-makeshift-menagerie]

When you want your baby to grow up but also Stop Growing So Fast

[nanenna]

Title: The Parent Trap Fandoms: Batman (DC Comics) and Danny Phantom Ships: None AUs: Demon Twins Warnings: Character injury, discussions of death.

Summary: It was just an ordinary night on patrol until...

“We need an evac,” Dick said, cutting the chatter off, “bird down.”

“Spoiler, you’re the closest to the cave. Nightwing, who’s with you?” Barb asked, “And how bad is the injury?”

“Robin,” Dick replied with some confusion before adding on with confidence, “a leg injury, we’re pretty sure it’s broken.”

“Robin?” Tim couldn’t help blurting out, looking over at Damian next to him, perched on his bike in full Robin costume. “But here’s right here, with me.”

---

Damian had been acting strange for the week or so. Rather, Robin had been acting strange for the last week. Not many people actually lived full time in the manor anymore, but everyone agreed that during the day he was his usual self. During patrols, however, he was simply a little… off. Like tonight for instance: Batman was away from Gotham on official Justice League business and Nightwing had agreed to cover his usual patrol route; normally Robin would tag along with Nightwing, giving the excuse that he needed to make sure Dick did the route correctly while everyone knew the demon brat really just wanted to spend more time with his favorite brother. But tonight…

“I will be joining you on your case, Drake.”

“You will?” Tim asked skeptically. Dick had already suited up and left, yet instead of scrambling to go catch up here Damian was, already all suited up, demanding to join Tim of all people.

“You are doing a stake out for street racers, correct? What will you do when they inevitably split to lose you?”

He sadly had a point, having someone else there would help. “Are you going to stab me?”

Robin didn't say anything, simply stood there and stared Tim down.

After standing there for a full minute, Tim sighed and headed for the vehicle bay, Robin hot on his heels. Without another word they donned helmets and slung legs over their bikes. Weird, but not unheard of, just another thing that was a little off. Not that Tim was entirely unhappy, he wanted a chance to observe Damian’s behavior. Even if he thought Dick was more likely to get Damian to open up.

…

And Tim was bored. The first half of patrol was quiet and uneventful, the street racers hadn’t shown up at their usual time/place yet, and Damian hadn’t said a damn thing the whole night. It’d just been the two of them riding around, not finding anything that needed their attention, and just being… normal. At least the usual chatter from the others was there to keep him company.

“We need an evac,” Dick said, cutting the chatter off, “bird down.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Spoiler, you’re the closest to the cave. Nightwing, who’s with you?” Barb asked, “And how bad is the injury?”

“Robin,” Dick replied with some confusion before adding on with confidence, “a leg injury, we’re pretty sure it’s broken.”

“Robin?” Tim couldn’t help blurting out, looking over at Damian next to him, perched on his bike in full Robin costume. “But here’s right here, with me.” The shadows around them grew deeper, seemed to sharpen.

“What? No, I’m looking right at him.”

“Well so am I!” 

“I’ve got your cams up and… well shit,” Barb murmured.

“Oracle,” Damian? Robin? Some imposter? said into the quiet comms, a hand up to his helmet, “send me Nightwing’s location.”

“Robin,” Oracle started, only to be interrupted.

“We’re in sector 36,” Damian? Robin? Some imposter? replied, going so far as to give longitude and latitude coordinates and a description of the building roof they’re on.

“Copy that,” Damian? Robin? Some imposter? said before revving his bike’s engine and taking off.

Tim would never admit to nearly losing him due to sheer shock. Too busy screaming “What the fuck” in his own head to remember he needed to follow, but follow he did. This… this might explain Damian’s strange behavior over the past couple weeks. If there was an imposter running around with them, but they would have surely noticed, right?

“We can’t have everyone abandoning their patrols!” Barb said in clear frustration. Heard clearly because the chatter was still gone, nothing but dead silence. You would think everyone would be demanding answers, peppering the Robins with non-stop questions. Hell, Tim wanted to, but he was too busy keeping his bike under him as he chased after his Robin.

“Red Robin and I are on motorcycles,” Damian? Robin? Some imposter? told Barb, “which means we have the small vehicle first aid kits, including analgesics, splints, and extra bandages.”

“We could use the splints,” Dick said faintly.

“And doing first aid before evac arrives means less time faffing about once Spoiler arrives.”

Tim nearly crashed, barely righting his bike. To hear Damian’s voice say “faffing about” was just… weird. Does that mean Tim’s Robin was the imposter?

“You all are faffing about right now,” Damian? Robin? Some imposter? grumbled before hissing.

“Stay still,” Dick chided.

Okay, so maybe “faffing” was a phrase Damian had recently learned from a classmate or something, Tim sure didn’t know. And oh thank god, they must have arrived. Damian? Robin? Some imposter? was parked on the sidewalk, helmet already off and just pulling the field kit from the bike’s storage. He didn’t even spare Tim a glance, simply looked up at the very tall building, looked down at his grapple, shrugged, put the grapple away, and then lifted off the ground and into the air.

“Shit,” Tim said softly but with feeling.

“What?” Barb asked, clearly very tense.

“I think my Robin was the imposter, he just flew up the building. Like Kryptonian flew.” Is this Jon? Were he and Damian pulling a Bruce and Clark? Except it couldn’t be, Jon had started packing on muscles while Damian was still in the lanky growing-taller-before-filling-out stage.

“Really, akhi?” Damian? Robin? Some imposter? asked in exasperation.

“Hey, the jig is well and truly up at this point,” Damian? Robin? Some imposter? replied.

Okay, that was really weird to hear in Damian’s voice. And oh wait, maybe Tim should get up there too.

“Oh shit, there really is two of them!” Dick said in shock. “Uh… hello there… other Robin?”

“Hello Nightwing, I brought the kit. I…” Damian paused, then sighed into the comm, “akhi, what did you do?”

Damian tsked, “Nothing for you to worry about.”

“Your leg is broken!” Damian yelled.

“Did you see that with your x-ray vision?” Damian asked.

“Contrary to popular belief, I’m not Kryptonian,” Damian replied. “I don’t have x-ray vision.”

“Sure sound Kryptonian,” Tim muttered under his breath. The Robin that flew had slipped into a faint Midwestern drawl that reminded him of Clark.

“Can you just give me the kit?” Dick asked both warily and wearily.

“Right, yes. Here.” 

Tim had made it onto the roof by that point, just in time to watch one of the Robins hand over the kit to Nightwing before kneeling next to the other Robin, who had his leg stretched out in front of him while he sat half propped up on his elbows. The laying down Robin (the real one? The one that hasn’t shown any meta powers yet, anyway. Is one of them the real Robin or were they both imposters?) let himself fall fully on his back and held a hand out. The meta(?) Robin kneeled next to him and took his hand. “You’re going to be okay.”

“I am more worried about you, you’re not used to this.”

“Yeah, normally I’m the only one getting hurt, and I usually don’t have bones when that happens.” Imposter Robin laughed at that.

“What the fuck?” Tim said under his breath, what does that mean?

“Focus,” Dick chided as Tim came to join him in tending to Damian’s(?) injury.

“Batcopter ETA five minutes,” Barb said. “Agent A has the medbay prepped.”

Imposter Robin flinched at that. Odd.

“Focus,” Dick hissed. “Save the mystery for after we get our downed bird home.”

Tim almost pointed out they couldn't be sure either Robin was even the real one, but a scathing look from Dick that burned even through the domino white outs had Tim snapping his mouth shut. Instead he nodded and set about helping Dick set and splint Robin's leg.

Steph arrived right on time, between Dick, imposter Robin, and Tim they got the real(?) Robin loaded onto the batcopter. Then the imposter pulled something from his costume and tossed it at Dick.

“Keys?” Dick asked.

“We gotta get Robin's bike back to the cave somehow.” He hopped into the batcopter and settled next to the injured Robin.

Dick held out the keys, “And as Robin shouldn’t-”

“No,” the imposter interrupted. “I’m not leaving him.”

Seems it was Tim’s turn to be the voice of reason. He put a hand on Dick’s shoulder, “Robin trusts him, we’ll meet them back at the cave in a minute.” If the injured Robin even was the real Damian, if the imposter didn’t use his unknown powers to escape, if any slew of unpredictable situations. Holy hell, Tim could see why Bruce was so paranoid about knowing everything about everyone. He’d be in the middle of three panic attacks and an existential crisis on top of a heart attack if he were here right now. But he wasn’t, thankfully. Instead Tim pulled Dick away from the batcopter so Steph could take back off and head to the cave.

Soon Dick and Tim were on their respective bikes, Nightwing looking ridiculous on Robin’s candy apple red paint job, and were zooming through the streets at a pace that was while fast still gave Tim time to actually think. He went back over everything the two Robins had said since Nightwing had called in for an evac. And then it hit him.

“Akhi.”

“What about it?” Dick asked.

“It’s what they called each other.”

“Brother,” Cass added in her soft voice.

“Right, in Arabic. They called each other brother. And recently Robin told us about his twin brother.”

“Are you telling us that Robin’s twin brother came back from the dead and decided to just… join us on patrol?” Dick asked in disbelief.

“He told us several weeks ago, and has been acting odd on patrol for nearly two weeks now. If when he told us was when he found out, or at least started planning this, then they had a few weeks for Robin to give his twin a crash course on us before pulling this stunt.”

There was muffled laughter in the comms, but Tim wasn’t sure who.

“But why?” Oracle asked.

“A prank?” Dick asked.

“A test of some kind,” Tim said in a monotone. There was a double tap on the comm, Cass’s form of nonverbal agreement.

“The batcopter has arrived back at the cave,” Oracle informed them. Everyone else grew quiet, waiting for whatever was about to happen to happen.

“... -nk went too far,” Damian (or his twin?) was saying into the comm.

“TT, it did not,” Damian replied.

“You couldn’t taste their emotions,” okay that was the twin, and what a weird way to phrase that, “they were really scared.”

“You like the taste of fear.”

Wow, Damian, really not helping with how creepy your long dead twin is being.

“Well yeah, obviously, it’s delicious. That doesn’t mean it’s okay to go around purposefully scaring your family.”

Fear is delicious?!

“What does it matter? As you said, ‘the jig is up’ and the prank is over. We will have to explain ourselves when the others arrive.”

“Others like me?” Steph asked cheerfully.

“Great, time for the great bat interrogation,” the twin said with exactly zero enthusiasm.

“Not until Master Damian has been seen to,” Alfred said. Tim could just see the raised eyebrow.

Tim tuned the rest out as those actually in the cave set about the logistics of getting Damian moved to the medbay.

“He can taste fear?” Tim asked incredulously.

“You know as much as the rest of us,” Dick said back.

“Does that make him an empath? He said he’s not Kryptonian, would that make his power suite closer to a Marian? Wait, neither Talia nor Bruce have the meta gene, how’d he even get powers?”

“Maybe he got them from the Lazarus Pits?”

There was a snort in the comms, “Then why didn’t I get powers?”

“Hood? What’re you doing on our comms?” Dick sounded far too delighted.

“I have an alert set up for whenever your chatter stops, it’s always a bad sign.”

“Fair enough, you heading to the cave to meet the demon brat’s long lost twin?”

There was a scoff from Jason, “Of course!”

“Everyone’s headed for the cave,” Oracle said with a tone of defeat.

“Stuck in ops?” Dick asked.

“Well someone has to keep an ear on things while the rest of you get to go have fun.”

“We’ll keep our comms on.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

Tim and Dick both laughed at that. Fortunately they arrived back at the cave at that point, quickly parking their bikes and all but running over to the medbay. Steph was standing just outside the door, clearly keeping an eye on things while Alfred and the twin fussed over Damian. Tim and Dick went to go join Steph at the door, none of them willing to risk Alfred’s wrath should they get in his way. Cass joined them shortly after, all four staring as Alfred finished up what he could do for Damian. The demon brat was laid out on a medical cot, his costume set to the side, down to just the thin layer worn under the armor, mask already removed.

“Leslie has been called, she’ll be here in the morning with the necessary supplies. I’m afraid you will have to remain here until then, Master Damian.”

Damian tsked, but otherwise said nothing.

“And now I do believe we are all owed an explanation.” Alfred turned ever so slightly as his attention turned to Damian’s twin.

Damian responded by struggling in his bed.

“What are you doing, akhi?” the twin asked, clearly exasperated.

“I will be sitting up for this,” Damian snarled.

Without a word Alfred handed Damian the bed’s controls, allowing him to slowly raise himself into a reclined sitting position. Alfred raised a brow as if to ask if that would do, Damian only glowered at the wall.

The twin started pulling his domino off. Damian tsked yet again and handed his twin a wipe to help pull the mask off. “Ancients,” the twin said, which Dick mouthed in confusion, “you lot sure do love your theming. And I thought the ghosts had it bad.”

“Ghosts?” Tim mouthed, exchanging quick, confused glances with Dick.

“So yeah, hi. I’m Danny, Damian’s long lost twin.” The twin, now known as Danny, said with a little wave after he got the domino off. And there was no denying that he was Damian’s twin, he had Damian’s face in every feature save his eyes. While Damian clearly had Talia’s eyes, Danny’s were all Bruce.

“Everyone, this is my brother, Danyal Al Ghul Wayne.”

“Legally not my name anymore.”

“Legally?” Tim asked.

“Yeah, I got adopted!” Danny grinned again, all sunshine and cheer that was so wrong when he had Damian’s face.

Tim snorted, Bruce’s kid had been adopted. Oh things just got complicated but the irony of Brucie being on the other end of a kid getting adopted was still a fun kind of irony. Or maybe Tim had gotten to the everything-is-hilarious stage of sleep depravation.

“So what is your legal name?” Dick asked.

“Um… I’m not sure I should tell you that.” Danny fidgeted nervously. “Not yet anyway. I mean, Bruce… uh… our father? Isn’t here and like… shouldn’t he be told? Too? Or first? Honestly I’d rather just be able to tell everyone at the same time rather than having to go over the whole thing every time someone new walks in the door.”

As if he had timed it to happen that way, Jason came roaring into the cave on his bike. There was a collective sigh as everyone crowding around the outside of the door knew they’d have to wait for Jason to get there before things could continue, even if he had been listening in along with Oracle on his way in.

Danny’s face lit up as Jason, still wearing his full Red Hood gear, came into view. He whooped and threw both hands in the air as he ran out the door, somehow not even touching any of the vigilantes crowded in the way.

Jason stopped dead, his own hands raised up halfway in front of him as if unsure what to do. Danny just slapped both of Jason’s with his own in a kind of low five, then bounced excitedly in place. “Undead solidarity, yeah!”

“Uh… what?” Jason’s modulated voice asked in its usual monotone.

“I’ve been dying to meet you!”

“Heh, have you? Were you dead set on meeting the best?”

Damian groaned, “Stop encouraging Danyal’s insipid sense of humor.”

“Yeah, you’re the best!” Danny continued as if Damian hadn’t said a thing, “My favorite new brother!”

Dick gasped and clutched his chest.

Jason pointed at him and laughed as he slung an arm over Danny’s shoulders. “I see you are a kid of taste. How do you feel about Jane Austen.”

Danny winced, “My dude, I’m a guy in high school.”

“And so was I once, but we can’t all have my impeccable taste.” He started walking Danny back over to the medbay. “Anyway, Bruce shouldn’t be back until tomorrow afternoon, we really going to wait that long for the whole story?”

Danny winced, then cursed quietly under his breath. “We’ll have to, something just came up.”

Everyone frowned at that, “What do you mean?” Damian asked.

“The real deal got into a fight and uh… they’re pretty strong. I think I’m gonna need to recombine.”

“What?” Jason said, it was hard to tell if the flatness was his own voice or the modulator.

“Oh uh… I’m a… what’s that word again… doppelganger! That’s it. The main body’s back home and,” he winced again, a bruise blooming across his cheek in real time. No, in double time, it was like watching a time lapse of a bruise blooming and slowly starting to heal. “Look, having my attention and powers split like this is normally fine, a good way to keep my powers in check for fighting normal humans actually. But uh… let’s see… I think I’m fighting Plasmius?”

“We don’t know who that is,” Damian said with a sigh. “He keeps saying names of people or things like I’ll know what it means.”

“It means I can’t afford to have my attention and powers split over two bodies, so I’m about to poof. Sorry. But I’ll be back tomorrow, summon me after school Dami?”

“Summon?” Everyone but the twins asked in confusion.

“Of course, Danyal. Good luck fighting your rogue.”

“I think the fruit loop counts as my arch nemesis, unfortunately. But I gotta sorta slide back, can’t have all of tonight’s memories and my half of the power hit me all at once. This might look a little freaky, but it’s normal and I’m fine I promise.”

Jason unslung his arm from Danny’s shoulder and took a step to the side. They all gawked as Danny closed his eyes and breathed out slowly, his breath frosting in what should be warm air. His face, the only part of him not covered by the Robin costume, started to go invisible at the same time his skin and hair started to gray. Then he was gone and the costume was left behind, slumping to the floor in a pile.

Everyone stood there for a moment, staring at the colorful pile of armor, then they all turned to look at Damian.

“TT, don’t ask me. I still don’t have a full list of everything he can do.”

---

Tim, along with everyone else, was at the manor the next afternoon. And he did mean everyone, even Kate, Harper, and Cullen were there. Hell, even Jason was there, on time no less. Damian had put “17:30 sharp” in the family (minus Bruce) chat and they knew he meant it. They were crowded into one of the larger sitting rooms, every chair filled save a chaise lounge that had been reserved for Damian. The boy of the hour arrived right on time, with five minutes leeway to set everything up.

“So tell me again who you want to introduce us to, chum?” Bruce asked as he followed behind Damian. Alfred brought up the rear, a plate of fresh cookies in hand.

“I haven't told you yet, Father. Have some patience, it will all make sense soon.” Damian settled on the lounge, setting his crutches to lean against it before pulling something out of his pocket. It was a small metal container, he popped it open and pulled out what appeared to be a bright green handkerchief. Very bright green, possible letting off light, neon toxic green. Duke made a soft surprised sound. Damian spread the cloth out on the coffee table in front of him and smoothed it out.

“Damian,” Bruce said carefully, “what is that?”

“A summoning circle, obviously.”

Wait, Danny was serious about being summoned?

“Can… can you even summon living people?” Dick leaned over from where he was perched on the couch’s arm to whisper to Cass, who was perched behind Tim on the couch’s back. Tim and Cass both shrugged.

“Damian, dealing with the occult is very dangerous.”

“It’s quite safe, Father.” Damian pointed down at the white markings on the handkerchief, “Since all the sigils are on here permanently there is no chance of making a mistake drawing them by hand. This group here is his name, this circle can summon one person and one person only. The rest of these are for protection. And this spot here,” Damian tapped on a small circle within the outer ring, “is to activate it. It does require a single drop of blood, it was the safest way to make the circle.”

“Blood?” Bruce asked flatly.

“It will make sense when I call him, do you trust me?”

“I’m not sure I trust whoever this “him” is,” Bruce grumbled.

“But do you trust me, Father?”

Bruce sighed, “You promise whoever this is means us no harm?”

“Of course, I promise.”

“I met the young man last night,” Alfred said as he placed the plate of cookies in the circle. “I found him to be polite and sincere.”

“So this is to do with whatever happened last night that I can’t get any of you to tell me about?”

“We want to explain it ourselves,” Damian said firmly. Then he pulled out a batarang and carefully poked a finger. “Blood of my blood, I call forth the spirit of my brother, Danyal.” He touched the drop of blood to the handkerchief, which lit up as the air around them shifted. 

A figure began floating up from the circle, glowing white hair that waved as if they were under water, ashen skin, glowing Lazarus green eyes, a wide smile filled with sharp fangs. This… this wasn’t Danny, was this? The figure seemed to be wearing some kind of black jumpsuit, white gloves picking up the plate of cookies as they passed through the plate. They had no legs, after the belt the body just continued in a long tapering tail that ended like whisps of smoke. They were glowing, they were slightly see through! What was going on?

This wasn’t the boy they’d met last night.

“Father, my brother. Danyal, our father.” Damian paused, then added on, “And the rest of our family.”

“Hi,” the figure chirped, then seemed to shrink into himself as he looked around. “I uh… prefer to be called Danny. The only people who full name me are usually trying to kill me. Or send me to detention.”

That was Damian’s, or rather Danny’s voice alright. Even still had the faint midwestern drawal.

“Why do you look so different?” Dick asked in shock.

“It’s… a long story. Which I’m supposed to tell everyone.” Danny shrunk further into himself, looking miserable. “Please stop being so scared.”

“They are simply adjusting to your unfamiliar form, they will get over it,” Damian said firmly, glaring at everyone in the room.

“It’s not just fear, Dami, they’re horrified.”

“Sit down, eat your cookies. Alfred worked hard on those.” Damian patted the empty space next to him on the chaise lounge. 

Danny turned and spun in place to sit down, looked down at where his tail was curled up under him, made a sour face, then the tail was suddenly replaced by a pair of legs tucked under him. He shoved a cookie into his mouth, now sporting normal teeth from what little Tim could see. “S’good,” Danny slurred, glancing over at Alfred who merely nodded his approval.

“Some time ago,” Damian started, as if that wasn’t the most vague way to start, “I summoned Danyal the first time. I am aware it was foolish, I will not hear about it.”

“I called him dumb already,” Danny added in. “I mean, I had to go find someone to explain how the circles work and what makes them safe or dangerous first, but yeah, I called him dumb. Then I had some friends help me make this,” Danny reached over and tapped the handkerchief, “then I went to three trusted uh… mentors? I guess I’d call them? And made sure with each of them this thing is legit before giving it to Dami.”

Bruce hadn’t moved, still standing in front of the coffee table, slack jawed, staring blankly down at Danny and Damian.

“Is he okay?” Danny stage whispered to Damian.

“Perhaps keeping it a surprise was not the optimal option.”

That seemed to snap Bruce out of it, “I think I need to sit down.”

Dick hopped up to guide Bruce to the nearest open seat, which happened to be the chaise lounge. Danny quickly flew up and moved to float cross legged in the air just on the other side of Damian, as if he were sitting in some invisible chair. He munched another cookie before offering the plate to Damian, who took a cookie for himself.

Once Bruce and Dick had settled back down, Damian decided to continue the story. “More recently I needed to do a covert investigation, but I couldn’t allow any of you know.”

“You what?” Bruce asked, clearly upset.

“I know, he still hasn’t even told me what it was. And I had to cover for him!” Danny sounded so offended.

“I had Danyal take my place in patrol while I was away.”

“When?” Bruce asked, voice dipping down as he leveled a steely glare at Damian.

“You never noticed, I think that speaks for itself. So as a test-”

Cass and Tim bumped fists.

“-Danyal has been joining us on patrols for the last twelve days.”

“Almost made it the full two weeks too,” Danny said airily. “That reminds me, you owe me fifty bucks.”

“What? No!” Damian shot back angrily. “They found out before the two weeks were up, clearly I won that bet and you owe me!”

“They didn’t figure it out, that part of the bet is a draw at best for you. No, the fifty is because you’re the reason they found out. It seems awfully suspicious you got into some kind of accident right before the deadline, how did you break your leg again?”

“I did not break my leg on purpose just to win a meaningless bet!”

“Okay, both of you need to calm down,” Bruce said, looking unsure if he needed to step between the two squabbling boys. “You… had a bet?”

“I bet fifty bucks I wouldn’t give myself away before the two weeks were up, Damian bet fifty bucks you’d figure me out before two weeks. And they didn’t figure it out.” Danny turned to glare at Damian as he said that last part.

“Fine,” Damian conceded with a pout. “I shall venmo you your winnings.”

The ghost floating in front of them has a venmo. The ghost floating in front of them has a use for US currency. What is going on? Is Tim hallucinating?

Damian’s pout deepened, “I am still disappointed in you all for not noticing a whole extra person joining our patrols.”

“In my defense, I don’t patrol with you guys,” Duke joked.

“In our defense, we were suspicious,” Tim added.

Bruce sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, “Damian, we had no way of even expecting you to switch places with your long lost dead twin.” Bruce paused, then looked over at Danny. “How did you pull that off? No offense Danny, but you are very easy to tell apart right now.”

“Oh, that’s because I can do this.” A bright flash of light washed over Danny, changing him back to the boy Tim had met the night before, only wearing baggy casual clothes instead of brightly colored armor.

Duke yelped and covered his eyes, “A little more warning next time? Damn, that was bright!”

“Oops, sorry.”

“Oh thank god, I was so worried,” Steph murmured from next to Tim.

“Well that was flashy,” Dick said.

Bruce seemed broken again, staring at the now living, black haired, blue eyed boy sitting cross legged in the air next to Damian.

“Okay, so what the fuck was all that?” Jason asked, motioning to Danny. “Are you dead or aren’t you? Because you don’t look dead right now.”

“Neither do you,” Danny snarked back.

“I’m not dead though.”

“You sure?”

“Not anymore,” Jason said stubbornly.

“No one ever comes all the way back, not anyone who was dead dead.”

“Please stop,” Bruce begged. Dick whimpered in agreement.

Danny ducked into his shoulders again, grinning sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“Since it would be inconvenient for Robin to be missing at the same time I have a broken leg,” Damian said as a clear subject change, “and we have a perfect stand in who’s already proven himself in the field, Danyal has kindly offered to cover for me for the next few nights.”

“I managed to soup Plasmius last night, so that gives me two, three days max of not having to worry about his schemes. My friends can cover for me during the night so long as I’m still back home during the day. Unless a rabid ancient show up, anyway.”

“What does any of that even mean?” Tim begged.

“We could use some context,” Dick added.

“Right, I guess this is when the life story portion starts,” Danny said with a sigh.

“Perhaps you would prefer to talk over dinner?” Alfred asked from the room’s doorway.

“Dinner sounds great!” Danny cheered as he hopped to his feet, now firmly on the floor. “I’m not sure talking about dying and coming back is the best dinner conversation though,” Danny said absently as he and Bruce helped Damian to his feet.

“Alfred usually has a strict no work talk at the dinner table rule,” Tim teased.

“I think he can make an exception for someone’s life story,” Duke laughed. There were several murmurs of agreement.

“Alright, well I guess we can start with the first time I died,” Danny said as the group slowly filed out of the sitting room and towards the dining room.

[crazylittlejester]

Opinion time

honestly, I like the hero of time as much as the next person- OOT is one of my favorite games in the whole entire series and I love the characterization Jo-Jo gave him, but that doesn’t mean I can’t admit he’s an extremely flawed character

and I mean this in a good way, Jo-Jo wrote a character you can know did bad things and still like him /pos

but I didn’t like how, in the timeline parts, wind does confront and ask him “why did you leave?” And times only response is, in my own words

”I left it behind cuz I felt like it LMAO”

..????? yes he took percussions to make sure ganon “didn’t come back” (which.. he did, time knew the seal would break eventually. ganon literally screams out about how much he hates him and is coming for his descendants)

leaving an entire world behind to rot is just written off as “shit happens” and you can’t say “well time didn’t know what he was doing” because, at some point, yes he FIGURES OUT his actions have consequences /nm

Imagine being rulie, your entire world is a wasteland and you ask the guy who CAUSED its downfall “why does my land suck so much” he just goes “oops my bad”

in the child timeline he just fucks off, in the downfall timeline he dies, comes back, and says forget everybody else, he only really started giving half-a-shit in the adult timeline with twilight. We can see this with his blatant favoritism over him.

anyways this was me screaming at the clouds about how time isnt a cookie cutter hero, he’s flawed and he’s made mistakes and honestly? It makes his character better and more enjoyable. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk (feel free to give ur opinion on the matter)

okay sorry for any spelling mistakes or oddly autocorrected words, this was kinda a lot longer than i thought it would be alkjslkjs 😭

Okay this is an incredibly interesting perspective and I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone else with this exact take on Time. I have a much different view of his character and his actions, though it was nice to read yours! /gen

First off, I completely agree that Time is a incredibly flawed person, and that’s part of why I love his character so much. He is not perfect, he is not the best leader, he makes mistakes. I genuinely think that the only reason he’s leader of this group and why the others tolerate him being the unofficial official leader is because even they can acknowledge that Time is just the best person for that role. He is not a perfect leader, he is not and I don’t know if he’ll ever truly reach that, but looking at the other options, he really was the best for the role. (Warriors would’ve been incapable of fully separating the others from the military in his mind, Twilight wouldn’t have been able to go off as Wolfie without causing mistrust or doubt towards him in the beginning, and Legend simply didn’t WANT that. The only other person who possibly could’ve lead the group would be Sky, and while I do think that could work, Time has way more experience)

Time has made a lot of mistakes, in his games, in the comic, he’s not flawless. I think in the comic (LU) we most commonly see this through how he’ll say things that come across as incredibly flat, snappy, or a bit harsher than what was really necessary for the situation. And this is just something it seems like he’s always been like, at least with how Jojo characterizes him, because in that one sketch with him and Malon when they were younger, he said something that did very much come off as snappy/rude, and he immediately realized how what he said sounded and tried to make an attempt to apologize. In the most recent update, we see how his stress and emotions made him much snappier and harsh towards the others than he really needed to be. I’d even argue in some moments, when he’s talking about his past and we see parts of his past, he’s a BIT arrogant. He certainly isn’t that way anymore, or at least he’s not as arrogant, but we see some moments where he comes off ass a little full of himself, the one I remember the clearest is the expression on his face when he got into Gerudo Town and a bit how he was talking about it. He’s also able to admit his flaws and that he was too distracted and let that get in the way of him helping the others while Twilight was hurt

Where I disagree with you (AND THIS IS ALL MY OPINION AND MY INTERPRETATION) is on Time’s thoughts surrounding the whole timeline thing. I do not think he had ANY idea that he was creating a whole other timeline, nor do I think he really even had a choice. He was sent back in time in an attempt to stop Ganon from destroying everything, and I believe he’s spent all the years since thinking all he did was go back in time. I don’t think he ever even considered the fact that Wind’s timeline continued on without him there (screenshots taken from Timeline Talk 1, art credit to @/linkeduniverse)

He DIDN’T know what he was doing. He was like, 9-10 in the body of (roughly) a 17 year old, he was doing whatever he was told by Zelda, Rauru and the sages, the goddesses, whoever. And I don’t think ANYONE realized the consequences of sending him back in time like that. I genuinely think that this right here is where he realizes not only that the timelines split, but the timelines split because of HIS adventure/journey. And when faced with the idea that every time he used his ocarina he abandoned hyrule (kingdom) he seems horrified (also from Timeline Talk 1):

I also don’t think the others have any idea at all that Hyrule and Legend are on a separate timeline from everyone else. I think everyone who comes after Time on ANY timeline has heard of him, but Legend and Hyrule haven’t had the chance really to talk about their timeline with Time, at least not really like how Wind did. And even if they had, again, Time DIED in their timeline, which could not possibly in any way have been his fault 😭

So yeah, he did leave Wind’s timeline (which is the adult timeline), but he genuinely had no idea that it got ABANDONED. I think the way he was looking at is was like erasing and starting anew and not just writing over what was already written and leaving that there (if that makes sense). And even if he had realized he completely abandoned that time, I’m not sure it would’ve even been possible for him to go back, and if he HAD, there’s only one Time. Twilight either wouldn’t have been born, or he’ve been born in Wind’s timeline. Which raises some INTERESTING theories because if Twilight had been there, would his game have happened? If it HAD, would Wind even be a hero? Given that whole theory that Wind doesn’t even have the hero’s spirit and he CHOSE the hero life instead of the other way around. That’d honestly be so interesting to explore!! I kinda wanna write a fic on it

Time did was he was told to do, he did was he was guided to do by people older than him or who had more ‘power’ than him. He was around ten years old, I don’t think he had a “Lmao fuck this shit” attitude when timeline hopping, I don’t think he understood he was timeline hopping at all. He didn’t understand what he was doing and he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, he was just trying to survive, and I’ll even bet he really thrived on what little acknowledgement and appreciation he got for saving hyrule (kingdom) because he seems (to me at least) like after losing the Great Deku Tree and the Kokiri he was REALLY lonely

And yes, he definitely for sure has a soft spot for Twi. But aside from Twi JUST being his descendant, I think Time feels bad that Twi followed after him in the hero business. He probably realized Twilight was descended from him and then really LOOKED at him and saw everything that young man went through and Time probably felt AWFUL. And after realizing that Wind’s entire timeline suffered because of something he did, I’m sure he feels the same way towards Wind. Because he may not be Time’s blood, but he’s a KID and he’s been through so much. Also there could be an argument made that Time is such a hoverer around Twi rn because he was hurt. I’m sure Four could’ve been the one who was hit and Time would be hovering over HIM instead

TL;DR: Yes Time is incredibly flawed. That’s what makes him interesting, that’s what makes him a good character, I wouldn’t like him very much if he were perfect alkjslksj. But I do not think he intentionally abandoned the other timelines, nor do i think that has anything to do with why he seemingly favors Twi. He was a kid, I don’t think anyone understood what was happening. I think if Wind had never spoken up, Time never would’ve known

(also Timeline Talk 1):

but thanks for sharing your perspective! It’s always interesting to see the different ways we see the same character :) /gen

[loomingcastle]

I officially announce..

1NTAL3!

(Sorry if this is underwhelming)

What is 1NTAL3?

1NTAL3 (pronounced in tale) is a utmv au created by me, loomingcastle!

It is in some development in terms of main story but basic information is written down! I have been working on this for a while and I’m genuinely invested in this au. Even if no one likes it at first, I will keep going until my goal is reached and even farther than that.

I won’t reveal much here but there are three parts to this au. The INN3R is a technology yet restrictive metropolis led by a group with mysterious intentions. The MIDD13 is a disease ridden abandoned part of the INN3R overgrown with nature, and finally the OUTSIDE is a dry land with scarce resources. Those unfit to be in the INN3R and not wanting to be in the MIDD13 reside there and get by stealing and attacking transport vehicles. Those who live in the OUTSIDE are called outsiders.

The main characters of this AU are Ochrè (oak-ray) and Vast!

Vast likes to work with technology but frustrates easily. He doesn’t deal well when faced directly with pressure and quickly loses his relaxed demeanor. He lives in the INN3R and is a part of an organization that plans to overthrow the leaders of the INN3R. Although besides their main goal, they also steal information and advanced medicine, sneak in outsiders, and help the ill in the MIDD13.

Ochrè is an outsider that decided to come to the INN3R. He isn’t the smartest with technology but is decent at fighting. He keeps to himself a lot. Ochrè met Vast and decided to help him in the organization while he tried to get his own goal that only the INN3R could have.

The main story?

In development however it will focus on Vast and Ochre’s relationship, backstory, and working towards their goals! There will be angst and they will definitely get themselves into trouble plenty of times! I’m not sure about the story being posted plenty, just from what I’ve written it can get a lot.

What are your plans/goals?

I want to continue posting about this au. I’ll be showing more lore and will be doing pages of parts in the story. I won’t be doing an entire comic as again what I have written will be too much for me to handle myself and I’m also horrible at finishing them. So instead I’ll be revealing everything as time goes on. I’ll also happily answer any asks!

It may not seem it but I’ve written thousands of words on this au. It’s not perfect but I tried my best. I’m really going to try and show it.

My goal in the end is to hopefully have people liking this au as much as I love it too. What I want the most is to become an account that gets engagement. I want people to be curious and not afraid to ask questions. Because right now? It’s hard to tell if this will even get any interest. So I want to keep posting and change that even if it takes a while. I’m sincerely hoping I’ll reach this goal <33

Asks?

Asks will always be open! I just ask you keep things related, sfw, and not ask too weird questions!

I absolutely love asks!

Fanart?

It’s absolutely allowed! Just nothing nsfw and I’d love a tag to see!!!

I’ll be making new reference sheets and linking them here and I’ll also be using #1NTAL3 for related posts from now on <33

[labselkie]

Day 10 | Warmth

WE R SO BACK! i almost didn’t do this one but i wanted to do smthn as i celebrate my survival in episode 5 lol

i’m concerned that i made annamarie act a bit too childish in this one, so apologies for that,, it’s a bit embarrassing tbh, i just did this in the quick span of an hour. it probably won’t go on the official strawpage either so sorry!

Agatha Harkness and the mere idea of warmth are two things that have never collided in all history. Maybe she’s felt the warmth of a fire at her feet, one slowly creeping up the stake she’s been tied to. Or maybe she feels the warmth of magic, of a spell being shot at her heart, with full intent to kill.

It should be impossible within the multiverse, within every timeline. If canon events harmed the Spiders, then they harmed her too. She was cursed to fight, to lose and to take and to kill.

This world was a fluke. Agatha suffered, like so many besides her, but one small speck in infinity had to screw it all up.

Agatha Harkness must die, she should not have anything at her side. Herons and storks are solitary, they simply live to stalk and eat. Storks been likened to greed, but herons have been more; they’re patient and wise, pure and calm. Something like that should not be linked to someone like Agatha.

“Agatha! The cookies are ready,” Annamarie’s voice echoed in the stairway down to the basement. She still wouldn’t dare to go in uninvited; so, she just stood at the top, waiting patiently in a sweet dress and cheesy apron.

Agatha spent much of her time down there, plotting spells, pampering her rabbit, all totally regular things a witch would do.

“Cookies? Is that what you’ve been doing all damn morning?” The witch’s voice is sharp, but nothing Marie isn’t used to.

“You asked Wanda to lend some sugar, didn’t you? Why wouldn’t I put it to good use?”

Agatha stepped up to the bottom of the stairs, and she looked up tiredly at the mutant bathed in light. They were complete opposites, one tired and miserable, the other excited and sweet. Marie gave a small smile before adding, “Do you want one? Or should I just go hand them out to the neighbors.”

“Of course I don’t want one,” Agatha mumbles, ascending to meet Marie, and only paying her another glance when she steps away and nods to the kitchen. “Where did you find the other ingredients anyways? I thought I used everything during the first day here.”

“The Hex restocked for you,” Marie snickers, turning with a flourish of her wings and nearly knocking Agatha in the face. “Since you didn’t seem to need me, I just wanted something to do.”

The sweet smell was all-encompassing, a gentle scent that would remind almost anyone of better times. Agatha was not one of those people, she just keeps a straight face, crossing her arms when Marie hands her a chocolate chip cookie.

“No, not falling for that,” The witch turns her head, stepping around the mutant to inspect the kitchen counters.

“Come on, why not? Do witches even eat? All I’ve seen from you is some tea.” Marie doesn’t follow behind Agatha, but she does turn, her shoulders shaking slightly as she holds back laughs.

“God you even cleaned up,” The witch leans her elbow on the cool countertop, scanning from some recently cleaned dishes to the almost comical plate of cookies. “Anna, that’s pathetic.” She has to hold back her own laugh, but even she couldn’t tell if it was with or at Marie. The mutant steps forward, leaning against the counter herself this time.

“I’d rather do anything than go spend a day in that town, you’ve seen those people!”

“Then why are you so insistent on giving those away? Why would you make so many in the first place? I mean, I’d let you hand them out if you poisoned them, but come on!” A hint of a laugh finally crept into her last words, and while Marie rolls her eyes, it doesn’t seem like Agatha’s sentiment harmed her too much.

“Just wanted to offer you something sweet,” The mutant says under her breath, putting the cookie she held back down before slowly sliding the entire plate closer. “You know, so you spare me later.”

Agatha scoffed, considering how pitiful Marie was most of the time, this was a strange change. It reminded the witch of someone else, a ghastly green figure of her past, but she’d pay that no mind. This was new, this was uncharted, and this was just another addition to her path for power. But with how long it’s been taking Wanda to snap, maybe Agatha would indulge.

“Then I’ll spare you,” The witch chuckles, “Only if you wipe that dumb smile off your face.”

Marie lights up, but flounders a bit when told the condition, “Oh! Yeah, sure, alright-“

Agatha just grinned. Marie was still just as nervous as ever, so why would she attempt to stand her ground with little quips? Nonetheless, the witch shrugged that off. She could have fun as she waited to rise to power, this surely wouldn’t go wrong. Like a hungry cat snuggling up to a mouse.

Marie, clearly trying not to laugh as she holds back a smile, bats the plate of cookies a bit closer.

“Please tell me you did poison them,” Agatha snickers as she finally plucks one up.

“That’s for you to find out!” The mutant adds, a smile finally cracking on her face. The cookie was still warm, it was soft and sweet, something that no Agatha Harkness in any universe should have the privilege of experiencing.

And yet here she was, with a bird brought to her by fate.

[badass-queer-couples-battle]

Gay wrongs tournament, major bracket quarterfinals

*Daisuke Jigen x Lupin III and Mystique x Irene Adler are now an alliance since they tied in the last round. Old Gays as in they've been around for decades at this point, gay and doing crime.

Propaganda:

For Arsene Lupin III and Jigen Daisuke :

The start of be gay do crime! Jigen literally buys Lupin flowers while Lupin calls him "Jigen-chan" but they also shoot and kill and steal!!!

Lupin and Jigen have been Partners in Crime (and more) for over 50 years of media history. From the very beginning, when Jigen thinks Lupin has died in Part 1 episode 13 he openly weeps, tears streaming down his face and everything. Earlier that same episode Lupin tells Jigen he looked sexy in the maid costume he wore for the heist. In Part 5, they pretend to be two old men living together in an apartment above a cafe. They bicker like an old married couple. People are tying to track Lupin in the first half of the season and this: ‘As Lupin’s Lover where ever he is Lupin must be too’ is said about Jigen. In Part 6, Lupin keeps giving Jigen flowers. (He’s buying the flowers to keep an eye on someone and doesn’t want to look suspicious but he gives them to Jigen, after telling the store owner their for his wife) he calls Jigen either a ‘Fuzzy Angel’ (sub) or Hairy Hunk (dub). Jigen also tries to break Lupin from mindcontrol by bringing up their partnership. Like Sub line is ‘I’ve always been your partner man’ and the Dub line is ‘is that any way to treat your partner?’. The biggest thing though is in Lupin Zero, where Lupin declares he’s going to make his first official heist as Lupin III. He walks up to Jigen, places his hand on his chest, closes his hand and draws it back to himself then asks Jigen ‘So Jigen…was I able to steal it?’ To which Jigen replies ‘I’d say so’ while pulling his hat down over his face. Lupin’s ‘first real heist’ was STEALING JIGEN’S HEART! Also in Lupin III vs Cats eye Lupin pats Jigen on the ass (sound effect and everything) and Jigen doesn’t even react. There’s way more stuff from various movies and specials, this is just some of what jumps to mind right now. They may not be CANON but they’re pretty close :)

They are in fact husbands and they do be murderin’ (since 1960)

For Irene Adler and Mystique:

They have a daughter they train to be evil. They've been gay for so long they're one of comics first be gay and do crime couples ever. They're wives.

They are married and in love and have been for decades! Mystique is totally down to kill anyone in her way and so is Destiny. Destiny died years and years ago and for all that time up until recently one of Mystique’s most common motivations was trying to find a way to bring her back to life, which succeeded a few years ago

For the Leverage trio:

No murder (except occasionally by Elliot) but the theifsom as they are sometimes called rob from every kind of evil rich asshole they can find. Three of the best criminals in the world. Be poly do crimes. 

A canonical (Word of God) triad who run cons with the ultimate goal of helping people. Hardison is a hacker, Eliot is a hitter, and Parker is a thief

[wits-writing]

“A Wonderful Experience”: Why Transformers: EarthSpark and Nightshade Matter

I’ve been a Transformers fan to one degree or another for as long as I can remember. Whether it’s early memories of watching Beast Wars, renting the G1 animated film on VHS from Blockbuster, or reading the numerous excellent comics that have come over the years, I’ve always found something to love about this franchise. So, I was probably going to find time to check out the 2022 CGI animated series Transformers: EarthSpark eventually no matter what. But one little bird changed that from an “I’ll get around to it eventually” to “I need to make watching this show a priority.”

A little bird by the name of Nightshade (voiced by Z Infante)!

I’d already heard from people I trust about EarthSpark’s quality as a series, but finding out about the franchise’s first prominent, explicitly nonbinary Transformer got me eager to dive in. I’ve discussed characters I relate to and read nonbinary themes into in the past, but getting a chance to see a show in a franchise I love feature that kind of representation with intent was exciting. Given the fact I’ve written 3000 words analyzing the character of Nightshade now, it’s easy to say I wasn’t disappointed!

The topic of gender and how it relates to the Transformers as characters has been one of many long, exhausting fandom debates over the franchise’s nearly four decade history. I’m not here to relitigate any of that, so take it as read from here on out that the Transformers as characters do have and express gendered identities throughout the history of all its incarnations. 

To give a quick primer on EarthSpark as a whole (and why it’s great) before digging into Nightshade’s character in specific:

The series is set fifteen years after the end of the Autobot/Decepticon War. The bots that managed to survive the fighting and remain on Earth are presumed to be the last of their species. All of them are stuck in a holding pattern where the only options currently viable are a life in hiding or working alongside the government-funded alien threat detection/response agency GHOST. Optimus Prime and Megatron head up the latter efforts, in the hope of finding some peaceful balance between humans and Transformers going into the future (though neither of them are fully at ease with the situation, as GHOST clearly has ulterior motives of their own.)

The grim outlook for the Cybertronians takes a turn for the better with the birth of two new Transformers. The Earth-sparks of the show’s title (called “Terrans” throughout the series), Twitch and Thrash, who are bonded to the human children Robby and Mo Malto. Helped by Optimus, Megatron, and the Malto kids’ parents, GHOST agent Dot and her husband Alex, the decision is made to keep the Terrans a secret until the extent of what their existence could mean for the Transformers future as a species is fully understood. The Terrans become an official part of the Malto Family (lovingly referred to as “Malto-bots” by the other characters.) At the halfway point of the first season, in the episode “Age of Evolution”, this unconventional family unit expands further with the birth of three more Terrans, including Nightshade.

Between puzzling out the Terrans’ existence, hiding from GHOST, and fighting threats like the human mad scientist Mandroid, there’s a lot of thematic meat on the bone of this series’ setup. The main one I’m interested in digging into through the lens of Nightshade’s characterization is how the Terrans are written to feel like kids figuring out who they want to be as they grow up. Transformers has a history of designating one or more bots in its series central casts as the rookie/kid character, not insignificantly the Terrans’ primary mentor, Bumblebee, has been traditionally positioned as that very rookie. EarthSpark adding the narrative weight of representing a potential for all Transformers, particularly in how they’ll relate to humans while living on Earth, onto these characters gives more meaning to them being under that role.

The Terrans learn lessons about who they want to be and who they can/can’t trust (not always determined by old alliances like Autobot/Decepticon) from the older Transformers and humans alike. Also proving through their actions everything new they’ll have to offer the world they call home through the gift of their existence. Each Terran has been given the appropriate space so far to have their characters develop, each in their own directions, through this theme. 

Nightshade is exemplary of this, best understood through looking at how they’re characterized before/after their first focus episode “Missed Connection”, about them forming a bond with Decepticon scientist Tarantulas.

[SPOILERS for EarthSpark beyond this point]

Before “Missed Connection”

Something that genuinely impressed me going back through EarthSpark for the sake of writing this piece is how immediately Nightshade is fully themself from their earliest bits of screentime in “Age of Evolution.” While the other two members of the second batch of Terran Transformers, Hashtag and Jawbreaker, have their names confirmed upon them by their connection to Robby and Mo, Nightshade actively introduces themself with a bow and a flourish (“It is a delight and a surprise to meet you all!”) This beat quickly establishes their self-assuredness in their identity and that, while they’re later shown to have occasional introverted tendencies, they are anything but shy. I’m also fond of how the scene establishing their pronouns as Optimus lays out their plan of attack also foreshadows their eventual alt-mode, since they ask to be represented by an owl-bobblehead during the planning. The one scene serving as a contrast to their outgoing demeanor, as they recoil at the sight of Mandroid’s cruelty, gives the first hint towards their eventual desire to protect those in need.

There’s only two episodes between Nightshade’s debut in “Age of Evolution” and their first focus episode; “Hashtag: Oops” and “Outtakes.” Since neither is their focus episode, there’s not much to say about how they’re portrayed in either one (in fact, Nightshade’s entirely absent from “Outtakes” as anything but a brief visual cameo.) “Hashtag: Oops” does still manage to establish some key parts of Nightshade’s personality. Firstly, their comfort in themselves as they proclaim they don’t need an alt-mode (“I like who I am as I am.”) Secondly, their inclination towards tech and engineering as they secretly build a new underground base to surprise their family and give everyone more room to operate within. The latter also indicates their “better to ask forgiveness than permission” approach to their tinkering and scientific work. Which comes back around in a big way during “Missed Connection.”

Which finally brings us to the episode that’s the primary reason I’m writing this piece at all!

“Missed Connection”

Being Nightshade’s first proper focus episode in the series, their current state as part of the ensemble cast gets reestablished in short order. Namely, how they feel out of place around their siblings. Their affinity for science and technology leads to them making their own fun separate from the rest of the family. A pattern that gets highlighted by Nightshade working to perfect a new training drone while the rest of their siblings are playing a game of tag outdoors in celebration of Robby and Mo having the day off school. When later questioned by Alex and Dot about why they don’t spend more time with the rest of the family, Nightshade says it feels like their siblings treat them like they’re “speaking another language.”

This sense of isolation informs why Nightshade is so eager later in the episode when they find a connection with Tarantulas’ own work with tech. Simultaneously providing an opportunity for Alex to offer them something they can connect with while trying to figure out how to connect with others. Like any good nerdy dad, he does it through the magic of reading. He offers Nightshade a copy of his favorite book from when he was growing up, “Winged Sentinel”, an in-universe fantasy/sci-fi series they immediately connect with and find new aspirations. Which we hear as they repeatedly call back to the books like about its hero “protecting those in need.” Their connection to this book quickly leads to the one they find working with Tarantulas, as they were in the local cemetery since it was the “last known address” of Winged Sentinel’s author.

(Quick aside: First time I watched this episode, that detail had me thinking the show was going to do a “Nightshade learns about mortality” type of story. I was relieved when not only did Nightshade grok what happened to the author pretty fast, but the episode in turn swiftly shifted to the dynamic between Tarantulas and them.)

“Missed Connection” finds its central theme in Nightshade and Tarantulas’ discussions on identity and finding one’s place within that world rife with conflict that can be directly hostile to those like them. There’s a recurrent motif in the dialogue of Tarantulas’ cynicism born from eons of experience and Nightshade’s youthful enthusiasm. Though cynicism is far from all the elder Transformer has to offer, as he also provides Nightshade with a new perspective on alt-modes they hadn’t considered and ultimately guides them to their choice.

Nightshade: Aren’t I sufficient as I am? Tarantulas: Alt-forms aren’t meant to complete you, as though you have a missing part, they further express who you already are.

Combining that with Tarantulas’ frustration at the “constrictive labels” of Autobot/Decepticon adds to the resonance this episode has with the nonbinary experience. The concept of “passing” gets explicitly evoked by him while discussing his plan to create a hard-light hologram projector so he can live freely as a human while evading GHOST’s forces. Which is the first proper disguise Tarantulas has taken in his life. While his giant spider alt-mode may provide plenty of utility, it’s anything but discreet.

His plan and attitude informing on it connects back to the broader central theme of EarthSpark as a series of the Transformers finding a new way to live on Earth among humanity with the Terrans representing the way forward. He can’t see a way forward besides hiding who he is and the only safety he can think to offer Nightshade is to join him in that life of discretion. His outlook’s best emphasized by his assuredness that the Autobot/Decepticon War resuming is inevitable, alongside that eventuality dragging him out of whatever peace he does find.

However, cracks in Tarantulas’ bleak worldview show as he begins to admire Nightshade’s exuberant demeanor and determination to be a protector. That admiration for a Transformer with the potential to live unburdened by all the hardships he’s seen leads to him delivering the best, most resonant line in the episode:

“It is a gift to know yourself so well, so young. Take pride in that.”

A beautiful sentiment aimed directly at members of EarthSpark’s target demographic on their own journeys to express their identities.

Unfortunately, the bond these characters have found can’t last. When Tarantulas recognizes Dot as an agent of GHOST, he acts rashly under the assumption that she’s holding Nightshade prisoner. He kidnaps Alex and her, planning to erase Nightshade from their memories so they can go into hiding with him. As a fight between the bots eventually breaks out, Nightshade commits to acting like the protector they aspire to be and chooses the alt-mode of a green armored owl, based on the hero of Winged Sentinel. (Alex’s proud declaration of “You read the book!” while witnessing this is great.) A form that isn’t a disguise but expresses themself as they are and what they want to be going forward.

Nightshade and Tarantulas’ conflict has grown intense enough by this point that the elder Transformer’s admiration for the young bot doesn’t come through in his reaction. Rather he flips it into an insult providing Nightshade their opportunity for a sharp, direct retort (and other best line in the episode):

Tarantulas: You’re still just the lost protoform I first met! Nightshade: You’ve just proven you don’t really know me, because I was never lost!

When the fight ends with Tarantulas’ hologram projector destroyed in the skirmish, Nightshade reflects on words Dot offered them earlier about how everyone deserves a second chance and convinces their family not to hurt Tarantulas any further. However, it seems to be a decision out of their hands as GHOST is drawn to their location by the fight. Tarantulas, finally understanding Nightshade’s situation as well as who they are, offers himself up as bait to lure GHOST away from the Maltos. Running off into the forest as Nightshade reflects on the broken hologram projector the two of them made.

Multiple rewatches of this episode, as well as the first season of EarthSpark as a whole, has reaffirmed it as my favorite episode of the show so far. The tight focus of the dynamic between Nightshade and Tarantulas, alongside the deeper meaning that can be taken from pretty much every exchange between the two, is exemplary of what makes this series standout wonderfully as part of the vast Transformers canon.

After “Missed Connection”

Since there’s not that much of the first season left after “Missed Connection”, Nightshade’s once again mostly off to the side doing their own thing. But there are small bits that show how their experiences in that episode have changed them. They actively spend more time around the rest of the Malto Family, like helping Bumblebee train for an upcoming race and showing that they’ve formed a bond built on mutual tech-obsession with their sister, Hashtag, as they work together to further upgrade the underground headquarters. 

We also get a fun minor bit of their “better to ask forgiveness…” way of operating when they add some high tech bells and whistles to Dot’s prosthetic leg as a Mother’s Day present in the episode “Bear Necessities.” A plot point that later gives the show an opportunity for Dot and Nightshade to have a nice mother-child bonding moment as she explains to them why she liked her leg the way it was in terms they can understand (“something like this is personal”) while not completely shutting them down over it (“I’m open to some small changes, but they’ll have to be ones we come up with together.”)

Though the biggest moment post “Missed Connection” moment for the character, as well as my personal favorite single scene in EarthSpark so far, comes from their subplot in the season 1 two-parter episode “Home.” As the Malto kids and the Terrans go into Philadelphia to see more of the wider world, we get to see Nightshade continue acting as a protector for those in need as they save a young person named Sam from getting mugged in an alley. Nightshade notices a pin that says “SHE/THEY” on Sam’s handbag and tells her their pronouns in return. The two end up having a conversation about how the things that make them who they are can also make them targets for intolerantly minded people. This interaction ends with Sam affirming they feel safe around Nightshade and giving the young Transformer a simple but effective explanation of what being nonbinary means.

This not only gives Nightshade further context to understand themself, but also has the important touch from a metaperspective of having a human character be the one to explain the concept. An effective dodge of what’s frequently cited as a pitfall of using aliens/robots to explore these facets of human identity, making it as clear as possible for anyone watching (especially the target demographic of kids) that Nightshade’s nonbinary identity is in no way just a product of their being an alien robot. Rather, it's an identity that simply feels right for some people living in the world. One that people who identify with it and explore their connections to it can find immensely fulfilling. 

Or, as Nightshade puts it at the end of this conversation:

“What a wonderful word, for a wonderful experience.”

(Before I dive into my conclusion, I want to say I deeply hope this isn’t the last we see of Sam in the series. Both for representation’s sake and because I like seeing the Terrans bond with humans outside of their immediate family circle.)

It would feel wrong to end this look at Nightshade’s character and how that reflects on the best qualities of EarthSpark as a series without giving proper credit to the creative voices involved in bringing them to life. Namely, writer Mae Catt (she/they) who wrote the episode “Missed Connection” and one of the three writers on “Home”, the other two being showrunners Nicole Dubuc and Dale Malinkowski. While fundamentally I believe anyone could write any kind of story, authenticity comes through stronger when writers from the same background are involved. Catt’s passion for writing this show comes through beautifully in these episodes and in how they’ve discussed the show on social media.

Her understanding for what these characters and stories can mean to the young people watching gets clearly reflected in recurrent elements of EarthSpark’s story. Aside from Nightshade’s admiration for the main character of the Winged Sentinel novels, we also see moments in other episodes of their siblings trying to figure out what being a Transformers means through in-universe Transformers comic books telling the story of the Autobot/Decepticon War. 

It’s also what drove me to write this piece. I see Nightshade in all their creative, expressive glory and it makes me happy for the kids watching Transformers: EarthSpark, seeing them, and relating to them. Every story has the potential to be a guide someone out there can use to move closer to their heart. Nightshade’s being that guide to nonbinary kids now in a way I never could’ve dreamed of growing up is, simply put, wonderful.

Happy Pride! 💛🤍💜🖤

If you like what you’ve read here, please like/reblog or share elsewhere online, follow me on Twitter (@WC_WIT), and consider throwing some support my way at either Ko-Fi.com or Patreon.com at the extension “/witswriting”

[paradiqms]

(8) to you, 2000 years from now.

hongjoong x fem!reader.

tags: angst, captain!hongjoong, royalty!reader, betrayals, misunderstandings, mentions of death, cruelty, fluff here n there, fantasy setting, strangers to lovers to enemies to..?

summary: after the death of your parents and near fall of your kingdom, you have no choice but to leave your first love in order to keep the kingdom in balance with you as the new ruler. years later, you see a familiar face - but instead of being in your arms, he's kneeling in front of the guillotine.

word count: 4.5k

currently, eight out of ?

previous.

“are you sure we’re going to the right place?”

“yes.” your answer to the tall navigator comes out rather irritated, a tired sigh escaping your lips. the navigator–yunho, you remember–spares you a quick glance from his spot by the ship’s steering wheel, the way that his hands grip onto the handles a little tighter than before going unnoticed by your eyes.

“if you say so,” yunho shrugs. “i just think it’s a bit odd that we have to stop at eridanus out of all places.”

“surely it can’t be that bad.” you frown, opting to move your gaze away from the horizon of endless blue sea in front of you to stare at yunho’s side profile. the early morning sunshine seems to compliment his features extremely well, and you can’t help but wonder how it seems like he doesn’t have any fatigue clinging onto his face even when he had stayed up the entire night to steer the ship along its new course.

“for a queen like you? surely.” the navigator mirrors your frown, prompting you to roll your eyes. “i’ve been to eridanus before, and it is that bad.”

from yunho’s words, you can’t help but turn your gaze downwards in realization. you’ve been cooped up in your palace for the past six years, never stepping a foot out of pyxis grounds even when your presence was requested by the rulers of other lands. you’ve only ever heard of eridanus from the official letters they’ve sent – ones that counted so little, the existence of the whole kingdom would slip out of mind sometimes.

however, you think that’s exactly what they would prefer. your knowledge of the kingdom may be limited, but you’re aware that the king and queen of eridanus enjoy keeping to themselves – a fact that’s still a mystery to you on exactly why.

oh well, you think. guess i’ll find out when we get there.

“… i see.” you mutter. “but the map wants us to go there, so all we can do is comply.”

yunho’s eyes drift from looking forward to stare at the aging map that you’re currently holding, and he has to bite his tongue to keep himself from questioning your sudden agreement to helping him decipher the piece of parchment. one could only imagine his bewilderment when you came up to him several hours earlier in the dead of night, asking for the map that was previously shoved into the pocket of his jacket. the navigator, although secretly thrilled that you finally came to your senses, was still quite doubtful as he handed to map to you.

would you really read it? are you truly about to help them? or are you going to rip the map into pieces again before tossing it into the sea? yunho’s mind raced with questions, ones that only multiplied when you unrolled the map and told him to set sail for eridanus a few moments later. he had stared at you as if you were out of your mind, but you simply stared back with not a single hint of hesitancy nor deceit in your eyes.

so he complied. yunho asked for you to stay by his side for the night and act as his guide while he steers the ship, since he obviously wasn’t able to read the map, and you agreed. he thinks it was rather comical to see you try and keep yourself awake to keep him on track, but he was grateful for your help nonetheless.

“we should be arriving before noon,” yunho provides before lifting his gaze from the map in your hands up to your face, the smallest glint of mischief twinkling in his eyes as he voices out the next sentence. “would you be so kind and help me inform the captain?”

now it’s your turn to stare at the navigator as if he’s out of his mind.

“you know i won’t be able to read the map anymore if i’m dead, right?” you scowl, receiving an entertained chortle from yunho.

“i’m sure captain is very aware of that too,” you notice how the ends of yunho’s lips twitch upwards as if he’s holding himself back from laughing, and your scowl only deepens. “he won’t kill you, your highness.”

“your captain pointed his gun to my head and threatened to cut my tongue off,” you explain. “i am not going anywhere near him.”

“if he wanted you dead, he would’ve killed you long ago.” yunho tilts his head over to look at you with an eyebrow raised. “unless you want to steer the ship while i go tell him myself?”

the thought of steering a huge pirate ship with not the smallest idea on how to even grip the handles properly makes you choke on your own saliva.

“are you mad?” you accuse. “i would sink this ship in mere minutes.”

“then go inform the captain that we’ll be arriving in eridanus soon.” yunho goes back to looking at the horizon in front of him, and through his peripheral vision, he can see how you basically wilt in defeat.

“fine,” you groan, begrudgingly kicking yourself off the side of the ship where you were previously leaning against. “but if i don’t return in ten minutes then it would be safest to assume that your captain placed a bullet in my head.”

“duly noted, your excellency.”

you scoff at the obvious sarcasm in yunho’s voice, making your way towards the captain’s quarters by the other end of the vessel. soon enough, you come to face the wooden door that led to the captain’s private room, and you hesitate for a moment before gently knocking.

the sound of your anxious heart beating loudly against your chest was akin to a clock ticking away as you continue to stand silently in front of the door, waiting for a proper invitation to come inside.

nothing happens.

you let out a heavy sigh. the thought of simply barging in without permission doesn’t seem very appealing to you, but you can feel your patience running thinner with each second you’re left waiting outside the door.

“oh, to hell with it.” you groan, deciding to knock thrice on the door but with more force this time. when nothing happens again, you suck in a deep breath, place your hand on the cold handle of the door before twisting it clockwise, and slowly pushing the door open.

the moment you open the wooden door and step into the dark, silent room, you’re hit with a flurry of emotions that you can’t seem to describe – but what’s certain is the sudden ache in your chest that you thought you wouldn’t feel anymore.

the room smells just like him. it obviously would, you think to yourself, since it is hisprivate room. you notice how it’s incredibly spacious, complete with two bookshelves situated by the walls on one end of the room and a wide table in between said bookshelves. there are windows placed on the wall behind the table, the only source of natural lighting within the otherwise dark and gloomy room. the table seems to be where the captain does most of his work, judging by the array of papers and other sorts of stationary.

despite the furnishings that simply scream captain of a pirate crew, you can’t help yourself but be reminded of the small, humble room that once belonged to a kind poet, whose decorations only consisted of handwritten letter and poems he would paste on the walls.

stark differences, but the scent has always been the same. you think it’s physically impossible for you to forget it.

you take in another deep breath before slowly exhaling in attempt to bring yourself out of your own mind and to ignore the ache in your chest. with light steps, you invite yourself into the spacious quarters before slowly closing the door, and you notice the human shaped lump under the sheets of the queen sized bed that’s neatly placed in the other end of the room.

oh, you muse with the smallest smile on your lips. he’s sleeping. now wonder he didn’t answer the door.

you try your best to keep your footsteps as quiet as possible as you make your way closer, stopping once you’re standing next to the bed. hongjoong has himself laying on his side and facing away from you – which is good, you think, because you probably won’t be able to stop yourself from thinking about the way his face looks like while he’s asleep.

as you silently stare at the captain, you make a mental reminder to curse yunho out for making you do this, even when it’s not going how you thought it would. you had expected to be greeted with the sight of a gun’s barrel to your head when you entered the room – yet here you are, gazing at hongjoong’s sleeping figure with a tight chest and a mind that’s wandering to six years ago.

you’re quickly dragged out of your thoughts and back into the present when a familiar gruffy voice reaches your eyes.

“are you just going to stand there all day?” hongjoong rasps out, his morning voice sending another wave of remembrance into your trembling heart.

“… you’re awake?” you murmur, and you can hear how the captain scoffs at your words.

“i heard your loud footsteps even before you decided to barge into my room.” the captain oh-so-kindly informs. you’re unable to stop the embarrassment crawl onto your face in the shades of deep red, and you clear your throat in attempt to keep your composure.

“right,” you say after a quick moment. “i apologize… for coming in without permission.”

hongjoong stays silent for a while, and your fingers play with the edge of your shirt nervously as you wait for him to answer.

“what do you want?” he asks soon enough. “it better be important.”

you’re reminded of the initial reason for your unannounced visit, and you can’t seem to construct the proper sentence. most, if not all, of your interactions with hongjoong ever since you reunited with him had been arguments and insults – this might be the first normal conversation you’ve had with him, and you really don’t know how to act.

“uh,” you stutter, pinching yourself afterwards for being so stiff. “yunho sent me to inform you that we will be arriving in eridanus soon.”

the way hongjoong’s figure seems to shift doesn’t go unnoticed by you. it’s as if he’s surprised by the information you had just conveyed, and he wanted to turn around to face you but quickly decided not to.

if your thoughts are correct, you’re glad he decided against it. you’re not confident in yourself enough to stay composed if you were to see his features when he just woke up – relaxed, without a hint of hatred or annoyance that you’ve gotten used to seeing on him whenever he sees you.

“tell yunho,” hongjoong begins. “that he’s an idiot that has gone crazy, and tell him to set sail somewhere else. we are not docking in eridanus.”

you frown at the captain’s words. is the kingdom of eridanus truly that bad?

“but the map specifically showed me that–”

“you read it?” the speed in which hongjoong turns around to face you catches you off guard, his eyes seemingly fully awake now as he stares at you with something similar to surprise.

“…yes.” you nod. there’s a strong urge to turn around and look away from the captain, but you can’t seem to listen to yourself as you’re frozen in place, as if hongjoong’s gaze had casted a spell on you.

the captain seems to have caught on to his mistake quickly. you notice the way his face falls in realization, and he clears his throat before shifting to sit up properly by the edge of the bed. his hair is a mess, you note, dark strands poking out in random directions – and you don’t stop yourself from smiling at the sight.

“sorry,” you cover your mouth to muffle the quite laughter when hongjoong raises a curious eyebrow at your sudden change in expression. “it’s just your morning hair. it’s kinda, uhm – everywhere.”

hongjoong feels the tip of his ears get hot when your words are finally registered in his slow morning brain, and he quickly runs a hand over his hair in attempt to straighten out any of the strands that aren’t where they’re supposed to be. the sound of your entertained giggles makes him groan in embarrassment before he tilts his head up to send you a glare from his spot on the edge of the bed.

“of course it’s everywhere,” the captain mutters as he tries to defend his dignity. “you were the one who rudely woke me up from my slumber, and now you’re laughing at me.”

“sorry, sorry.” you apologize, doing your best to stop yourself from laughing even more at the sight of an embarrassed hongjoong trying to fix his hair. “i yield.”

the captain simply scoffs at your response, but there’s an upwards quirk on the edge of his lips as he takes in the sight of your smile and the sound of your laughter. before this, it was all frowns and glares with a few tears slipped in between whenever he was around your presence, so to see you loosen up in this moment makes his heart squeeze.

“you’re ridiculous,” hongjoong shakes his head. “but if the map wants us in eridanus, then so be it. we will discuss further once we dock.”

“aye, captain.” you mock salute, earning yourself another lighthearted scoff from hongjoong. he shoos you away with a motion of his hand and you promptly comply, stepping away from your previous spot next to his bed and making your way towards the wooden door.

just as you’re halfway through the door, you decide to turn around and look back at hongjoong whose eyes you catch to be already staring at you. neither of you say anything for a few moments, but none is needed, because all you do is send a smile at the captain’s direction before stepping out of the room and closing the door behind you.

once you’re out of his sight, hongjoong is convinced that he never woke up in the first place and that everything that had just happened is a dream – or a nightmare? he can’t decide. it felt like a dream by the way you had smiled at him, an act that he thought he would never receive from you anymore since he has long deemed himself to be unworthy of such kindness from you, but you still did it.

and yet, it also felt like a nightmare, because he knows that whatever happened shouldn’t have happened at all. the laughter, your smile, the easiness that seeped into his chest and lifted all his worries away – they shouldn’t have happened, you and him shouldn’t have happened, none of it should have happened. but it did, and that’s what felt so nightmarish to him.

because he knows, like how he knows the sky is blue and the grass is green, that the saint and the sinner are not meant to be.

hongjoong frowns as he sits silently by the edge of his bed. the many thoughts he had about you somehow managed to drown out the fact that his crew have to dock at eridanus out of all places, and the reminder is enough to make him groan in frustration.

for the first time in a while, hongjoong feels like something bad is about to happen.

arriving in eridanus comes before noon, just as how yunho had predicted, and you’re quick to catch on to why the navigator and the captain had such negative views on the kingdom.

the moment you stepped off the vessel alongside the rest of the crew and begin your journey on foot towards the kingdom, the first thing you noticed was how beautiful the lands are. the landscape consists of more bodies of water than you’ve ever seen (or rather, heard) in other places, rivers and lakes accompanying the lush greenery that surrounded the outskirts of the kingdom. around half an hour into your journey, you had encountered a waterfall, and to say that you were amazed is an understatement – you were entranced.

the others? not so much. you were curious as to why they decided to take the longer path around the waterfall just to not cross it, but you took the opportunity to venture out for a quick minute to get closer.

unfortunately for you, seonghwa was quick to stop you by grabbing onto your wrist and dragging you back.

“rule number one while we’re in eridanus,” the blond pirates whispered. “we never, ever go near the water. especially waterfalls and lakes.”

“…why?” you whispered back, even when you had no idea on why the two of you were conversing in such a hushed manner.

“sirens.” seonghwa turned to look at you, urgency in his eyes that almost made your heart drop. “eridanus is basically infested with them. it’s best to stay away from any bodies of water here.”

“sirens?” you had questioned in disbelief. “i thought they only lived in the ocean.”

“… we did too.” seonghwa responded, and you noticed how his face fell as he stared forward. you wanted to pry some more, but quickly decided not to. the way seonghwa kept quiet afterwards with his face still solemn was enough to tell you that the crew definitely had some bad experiences.

if the fact that the kingdom is crawling with deadly sirens wasn’t enough for you to hate the kingdom as much as the rest of the crew does, then the absolute graveyard equivalent of the kingdom’s atmosphere definitely did it for you.

you were able to see the castle from miles away, but what caught your attention were the tall walls surrounding the kingdom that probably reached over 30 meters in height – and around the wall is a wide, deep moat.

“don’t look down.” hongjoong had warned as you and the rest of the crew stepped onto the wooden bridge that led towards the main gate. for the others, it was easy to comply with their captain’s warning, but you? it was hard for you to ignore the splashing that came from the waters in the moat, and you swear upon the stars that you could hear someone calling out for you in a hauntingly melodic voice.

the walk across the bridge left your knees shaking by the end of it, and seonghwa flashed you a quick smile as if to congratulate you for not looking down and getting yourself killed.

once you walked pass the main gate, you instantly noticed how… dead the people looked.

“gloomy as ever,” you hear yunho comment. “i hope we get out of here soon.”

“we will,” hongjoong turns around from his spot at the front of the group to face everyone. “as soon as we finish our work here, which will be discussed tonight after i find us a place to stay. in the meantime, feel free to walk around within safe distance. don’t go anywhere alone.”

hongjoong’s eyes seem to avert their attention to you as he said the last sentence, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who it’s meant for.

“we will gather in the town square during sunset.” the captain announces one more time, and the rest of the crew give their nods as a sign of apprehension. as the group disperses, seonghwa leaves your side to walk over to hongjoong, presumably to accompany him on finding somewhere for the crew to spend their nights at. once he leaves with his captain, a familiar red head approaches you.

“wanna go explore with us?” wooyoung offers with a hopeful smile. “san and i are going café hopping.”

“boring,” another voice interrupts, and you notice it’s the bright orange haired guy who you never got the chance to meet properly before. “yunho and i will be bar hopping. wanna join us, princess?”

“she’s a queen, mingi.” san promptly corrects, earning himself a hard glare from the other pirate – mingi, you note. “at least get your facts right before trying to steal her from us.”

“same thing!” mingi huffs, and you fight the urge to chuckle.

“actually,” you speak up, earning the attention of the others. “i do feel like having some pastries right now.”

“hah!” wooyoung claps once and reaches out to grab your hand, dragging you over to stand in between him and san. “knew you’d be faithful. yunho and mingi won’t treat you right.”

“you’re just glad someone else other than san actually likes you.” yunho bites back with a teasing smile. wooyoung places a hand over his chest, gasping dramatically before turning away from the tall duo.

“i can’t be around these drunkards anymore, let’s go.” the red headed pirate drags you away from yunho and mingi, san following closely from behind. you turn around to give the other two a quick wave goodbye before catching up with wooyoung’s speed walking.

you’re rather grateful for the enthusiasm that basically leaks out of the two pirates accompanying you, because you think you’d be so easily influenced by the other townsfolk within the kingdom. wooyoung lets go of your hand after a moment, although you don’t react to it since you’re too busy staring at the people around you. the sluggish manner in the way they walk pass you makes you frown, the lack of enjoyment in their faces even for the children making you feel uneasy.

you also feel like something is missing in the kingdom, but you can’t figure out exactly what. it feels important, you think, something that has been present within your own kingdom before and within cygnus, but not here.

you don’t notice the way that you’ve been spacing out until you feel yourself bump against someone, and you’re quick to get back your senses.

“oh, i’m sorry.” you apologize hurriedly. “i wasn’t paying attention to where i was going.”

the person you bumped into doesn’t say anything, and your heart pounds nervously within the confines of your chest. had you accidentally made them upset? you can’t afford getting in trouble now, the others would kill you for not being careful – especially the captain.

“don’t worry,” the person responds, and your ears perk up from how nice his voice sounds. “i do not mind.”

you tilt your head up to offer an appreciative smile at the stranger, but you’re immediately taken aback from his looks – not in the bad way, but in fact in the best way, if that even exists. the stranger has a cloak over his head, one that’s quite similar to yours, and his features seem so incredibly soft yet so sculptured, it makes him look like a living, breathing statue. you notice how there’s some kind of a birthmark that starts by the edge of his eye and spreads towards his temple.

“miss?” the stranger tilts his head at you. embarrassed over the fact that you were shameless staring at a stranger, you step back once with a nervous laugh.

“ah, i’m sorry again–” you mutter. “it’s just, uh, i like your birthmark. it’s pretty.”

complimenting strangers now, are we? you mentally ridicule yourself. you feel like running away somewhere to hide and never emerge.

“… is that so?” the stranger seems to be surprised by your words. “you’re not from around here, are you?”

“uhm,” you stutter, trying to figure out on how to respond properly. “no, i’m not. i’m just a, uh, travelling merchant!”

you plaster on a wide smile, one that you hope doesn’t look far too fake. the stranger nods once before deciding to question you again.

“i see. where do you come from?”

“py–” you cut yourself off just in time. “... cygnus. i’m from cygnus.”

you’re unsure why, but a part of yourself doesn’t think that introducing yourself to hail from pyxis would be a good idea – especially when eridanus probably already heard the news of the missing queen.

the stranger simply stares at you for a few quiet moments. you can feel the palm of your hands getting clammy, and you’re beginning to wonder where the hell wooyoung and san have gone to.

“i see,” the stranger finally speaks, a gentle smile forming on his face. “then i welcome you warmly to eridanus.”

“… thank you.” you mutter. “it’s been lovely so far.”

the lie goes straight through your teeth so easily that you almost feel like you’re telling the truth – which is far from being the case. before the stranger could say anything else, you feel someone grabbing onto the sleeve of your shirt before linking their arm with yours.

“honey, there you are!” san exclaims enthusiastically, and you jolt in surprise. “i’ve been looking everywhere for you. didn’t i tell you to not go alone anywhere?”

you feel a muscle on your face twitch after the dark haired pirate says the last sentence, but you decide to play along just for the sake of it.

“i’m sorry, i must have spaced out and accidentally went somewhere else.” you give san a tight-lipped smile, one that he responds by narrowing his eyes.

“that’s alright, i understand.” the pirate smiles back before turning his attention to the cloaked stranger.

“i’m sorry if she has caused any trouble, we’ll be on our way now.” san offers a quick bow towards the stranger, who responds well with a bow of his own. san doesn’t waste another minute before dragging you away with him, and you merely allow yourself to be dragged off.

“… your highness?” a familiar voice speaks up from behind the cloaked stranger, who merely sighs in response.

“jongho, have i not told you to drop the formalities when we’re alone?”

“right,” jongho clears his throat. “your– ah, i mean, yeosang.”

“there you go,” yeosang smiles gently at the other young man as he turns around to face him. “what is it?”

“those two outlanders earlier,” jongho furrows his eyebrows, as if disturbed by the mere mention. “they’re hiding something. i don’t trust them.”

yeosang hums. there’s definitely something amiss with the pair he had just encountered, there’s no doubt about it – but a side of him doesn’t want it to be true, if there’s truly something off about them, especially the woman.

suddenly, yeosang feels like his birthmark is burning into his skin.

pretty, huh? the dark haired man recalls your words with a heavy heart. his birthmark has been called all sorts of names before – ugly, repulsive, weird, unfitting for a prince, cursed.

but never pretty.

it’s probably the fact that you’re an outlander makes you oblivious to the fact that his birthmark is anything but pretty, yet yeosang still feels like he’s lightheaded from your words.

“… just keep an eye on them,” yeosang sighs, keeping his eyes casted downwards. “if they really are up to something, report to me first. understood?”

“yes, your highness.” jongho nods, deciding to ignore the way yeosang frowns at the way he went back to using formalities with him.

as the young prince lifts his head to gaze into the sea of people, his people, he can’t help the growing guilt in his chest. he hopes that no one else shall fall victim and have their blood spilt on eridanus grounds.

next.

taglist: @atinytinaa @crimson-mia @catwhisk @lelaleleb @realrya @layzfeelit @atinyreads @revehosh @fourthirtyone-am @jexizia @xxluckydreamsxx @sankatchu @mythicalamphitrite @isntw0nwoo

[number-one-castiel-apologist]

Why I think Sam Winchester is queer coded:

^specifically the psychic/demon blood storyline(s)

(my fuckass essay !!!) 

long + has spoilers for all of spn

So, lemme preface this by saying when it comes to this man, I reach levels of bein delusional that shouldn’t be possible. and, I don’t think every “tragic” character is or should be queercoded (that would probably be y’know, kinda problematic), I just relate to Sam a lot. I also think that he’s queer(bi*) but for different, separate reasons than being queer-CODED. (And Jared Padalecki supports that interpretation too sooo :) …) *I ship him and Eileen. 

Also, I’m probably missing some shit cause I didn’t start writing this til I was already on the later seasons. So, the early stuff is just from memory. And I have a shit memory. if you like, know me, please don’t read this. It’s very much tinhatting and it’s extremely embarrassing. -_-

So, first of all, all he wants is to be normal.. fuckkkk why the hell are you so relatable Sam?? Within the narrative he’s always called things like “weak and feminine”. + he’s shamed for his desires and actions. 

(This is why he’s my comfort character. That doesn’t directly tie into the queer coding, I’m just a guy with long hair, who was raised in the south, with a much cooler “typically masculine” brother figure, and a shitty dad. Also Sam dresses like me, has similar mannerisms, similar food shit, and tbh he made me not wanna die so much. Cause seeing him on screen helped me feel like I finally saw someone who reminded me of myself, who got a happy ending and could just live. So. Side note, I do relate more to Dean personality/social wise though.) Any character that gets called an abomination (by Cas in like s4 I think) is INSTANTLY my pookie. Sorry, I don’t make the rules. 

I wrote most of this while I was on weird ass allergy meds that did something to me. and yeah. none of it makes any sense. Enjoy!

First of all, the way his (presumably) first kiss(*) was with a person who was also a freak in every definition of the word… and she tells him that he’s a freak, but it’s okay because so is she. She makes him feel safe. For the first time, Sam finds comfort in who he is. In his differences from his “normal” dad and brother. That’s how I felt the first time I met another queer person (who I had a crush on). It’s like finally finding the missing piece of yourself. Community. And he can’t tell anyone about it or her because it would be seen as dirty and wrong. Now that I think about it, most of his love interests were other “freaks” or creatures like him— outcasts.**

(*from “the girl next door” season seven, episode three.)

** 1. Madison, werewolf

2. Ruby, demon

3. Amy, wraith

Then, there’s this scene:

(Sam), “You know, I’ve been remembering things, little things, so clearly—” (Sam), “You know, I’ve been remembering things, little things, so clearly—”

(Dean), “What, donkey rides?”

(Sam), “You used to read to me, um, when I was little, I— I mean, really little, from that old, uh… Classics Illustrated comic book. You remember that?”

(Dean), “No.”

(Sam), “Knights of the Round Table. Had all of King Arthur’s knights, and they were all on a quest for the Holy Grail. And I remember looking at this picture of Sir Galahad, and, and, and he was kneeling and— and light streaming over his face, and— I remember… thinking, uh, I could never go on a quest like that. Because I’m not clean. I mean, I w— I was just a little kid. You think… maybe I knew? I mean, deep down, that— I had… demon blood in me, and about the evil of it, and that I’m— wasn’t pure?”

(Dean), “Sam, it’s not your fault.”

(Sam), “It doesn’t matter anymore. Because these trials… they’re purifying me.”

(End scene)

(From “the great escapist” season eight, episode twenty one. All convos that are taken from official (I think?) transcripts.)

He feels like he can’t be righteous. This is exactly how I was when I was a kid. I thought I couldn’t be anything good because I was gay, even when I didn’t fully know/understand (the way he says it) that I was yet. I felt dirty and evil and wrong. I thought I couldn’t be close to god, to the point I was terrified of communion because I thought my uncleanliness would send me to hell. I was taught that was what would happen, so it was just a fact I accepted. Sam being the brother who had faith takes me out cause like, that was me. I was the person who prayed and believed and all it got me was rejection. I was labeled a freak. I’ve called myself one more times than I can count. Just like he did. 

But really, just watching this scene felt like it healed something in me. The first time I saw it I wanted to scream, THATS WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT! THATS WHAT IT MEANS! Amazing delivery. Amazing dialogue. Everything. Ten out of ten. This changed my brain chemistry forever. 

“I have a disease in me, pumping through my veins. I can’t rip it out or scrub it clean. I’m a whole new level of freak.” Sam, in season four, episode four. 

That pretty much sums up how I thought about myself in my childhood/teenage years. The way Sam thinks he’s wrong and “impure” from an early age has always connected with me. His character has always felt like a parallel to the (my) experience as a queer person. I just connect to him on an unexplainable level for equally hard to explain reasons. ig

Plus, there’s the way his love life either ends in death or tragedy(/almost(?) everyone he gets with dies). And that’s not rlly super queercoded (unless you think about AIDS or something) I just like that because I’m also traumatized and I’m a slut for characters’ pain. So I wanted to mention it.

Actually I take that back— it’s very HIV/AIDS. it’s a whole thing about blood and not being clean, and the way his “sin” is transmitted for the first time is through Ruby, his demon lover. 

Tieing into that, there’s something just so desire-repression-longing-shame-religious guilt-giving in to the pleasure about his sex scenes with Ruby. Dayummm. Also blood and sex as a metaphor (like with vampirism) has long been held as a sort of queercoded thing. (Bram Stoker’s Dracula-- my beloved. THE queercoded book.)

There’s also the little bit of subtext with male “supernatural creature” type characters that other people have mentioned/noticed. (ie, that one witch guy. Paul?) Don’t qoute me on that, cause that’s more relationship/character interaction based than subtext/metaphor based. 

———

(Season eleven, episode eight, “just my imagination”.)

Imaginary. Friend. Wearing. Rainbow. Suspenders. “You can be whatever you wanna be.” Aghhhhh. I. AM. FOAMING. AT. THE. MOUTH. I couldn’t make this up. 

(Note from my mom: “I think you’re reading too much into this.” Am I? Absolutely. But that’s why it’s called a hyperfixation. I’m putting a shit ton of sub into this text.)

In season two Sam goes on a brief journey of self discovery. This brings this quote: “I’m trying to find answers about who I am. And my brother means well but he can’t protect me from that.”* (I think he’s calling Ellen here?) I get this, though. When you’re trying to figure out who you are, and you’re different, everyone around you tries to “protect” you in a way. From the world. From yourself. 

*This was probably in season two, episode ten, and that whole episode takes me out. Cause John’s love was conditional when it came to Sam and the demon blood. 

His powers have to be hidden from the other hunters (society). Dean is afraid that Sam will be hurt because of who he is, and that’s what LGBT people have to go through every day. That’s exactly like my mother telling me she was terrified of what might happen to me if someone found out I was different. 

So, seeing Sam’s brother (who practically raised him) saying that really hit home for me. And the way Dean almost treats him like “one of the good ones” is how homophobic/unsupportive family members will act towards you. They’ll say that everyone else is awful and disgusting “but not you” because you’re their blood. (The layers, people. The layers.) Sam’s “one of the good ones” to Dean because he has to be— he’s his brother. And Dean can hate everyone like him but he can’t hate Sam. 

A good example of “society” was Gordon. Gordon hunting monsters was a strong parallel to other forms of blind bigotry, where someone is unwilling to see a person’s humanity no matter what*. The way he vicisouly hunts down Sam in (season two) after this when his psychicness is “outed” to him is gut wrenching. Shitttt. Exactly how former friends (re)acted when I wasn’t in the closet anymore. -Violent and angry cause I wasn’t like them. 

(*that faction of vampires didn’t hurt anyone and I’m still pissed about this. “But monster bad” - no. Nuance. Please. This makes me INSANE. a lot of the time, supernatural just basically forgot there were ever good “monsters”/creatures.. like??)

Sam is always portrayed as the open and accepting one when it comes to the possibility of monsters being good or human-like, as well. He’s empathetic towards others who are different, like him. This is in contrast to Dean, who basically is really the action hero type who wants to shoot, first ask questions later. 

He (Sam) takes Jack under his wing. The speech he gives him in season thirteen, episode three, “patience” that goes something like “I know what it’s like to feel different… and be afraid of who you are…”, (I’ll elaborate later) where Sam promises to help him— This reminds me of the “older queer mentor-mentee” type relationship that I’ve been on both sides of. 

———

I feel like Sam would’ve started trying to kill himself at a young age to drown away all the feelings that he didn’t (couldn’t) belong. This is just a personal self indulgent headcanon that’s a little too dark for some silly cw show about monsters. Giving himself up to Lucifer as a vessel is basically suicide. And this happens after he thinks (that Dean thinks) he is irredeemable. I honestly don’t know how to explain it well enough, but his experiences are everything I’ve been through if you put it through a different lense, (since I’m not a psychic and demons n shit don’t, yknow, exist.)

“You’re unclean in the biblical sense.” - Billie the reaper (in season eleven, episode two - “form and void.”) Kill me. Kill me. 

It’s a reoccurring theme that there’s something fundamentally wrong with Sam, expressed by multiple characters. There’s several different reasons this is said over the years, but it always comes back to “you’re not clean/right.”

His relationship to religion and himself is connected. He feels unclean. For me, my prayers and beliefs affected that. His longing for a normal life reminds me of mine. And he can never have that because of who he is and the life he lives. I actually love all of his conflict with religion (“of course I pray everyday Dean” + that short season 11 arc my beloved. And then it’s actually Lucifer all along who was speaking to him? DELICIOUS. I love his torment.)

I’m not ashamed to admit I enjoy supernatural completely unironically. The bad effects, the weird ass stories, etc. You have to love and hate it at the same time? Nah, I just love it. So much. 

He prays the same way I did/do. And I love that because I see so, so much of myself in him. (Sam. Sammy. Samuel. I love you. Never change.)

…I’ve genuinely put more effort into this than any assignment shit i ever did for school. Quit school and watch Supernatural instead. Trust me. 

———

When Sam meets Magda, the physic girl, you can see the moment in his eyes where he goes “oh god, she’s like me.” Magda’s hyper-religious family keeps her locked in the basement as a prisoner for who she is— a psychic. Some hardcore religious families will treat queer people this way. The way Sam reassures her that she’s not evil or wrong, and that he’s like her, reads like a coming out scene. “There’s nothing wrong with you because I’m the same way so I’d know,” type shit. Reassurance. 

The scene:

(Sam awakens to find himslef in the basement floor with his hands tied behind his back.)

(Magda, singing) “You may talk about your men of Gideon. You may talk about you men of…”

(Sam, NOT singing), “Magda?”

(Magda stops humming)

(Sam), “Magda Peterson.”

(Magda), “That’s not my name. I’m not Magda. I’m the devil.”

(Sam), “No. no, you’re really not.”

(Magda), “He’s inside me. I can hear him whispering. He lets me hear what people are thinking. He lets me do things.”

(Sam), “What kind of things? Magda, I’m here… I’m here to help you. Show me. Please.”

(Magda looks at the cross on the wall. With the power of her mind, she makes it come off away from the wall and hover.)

*Short scene cut out for irrelevance*

(Sam), “Magda… You’re not the devil. You’re just psychic. There are others out there like you, like — like me. I have powers, too. I’d get these visions sometimes and — and I could move things with my mind.”

(Magda), “You can do that?”

(Sam), “Well, no, not anymore, I don’t think. But that didn’t make me the Devil. It - it - it just made me who I am.”

(Magda), “then you are evil. Mother says I’m evil, cause I hurt people.”

(Sam), “Who did you hurt?”

(end (of the important part of the) scene)

In lots of different movies, tv shows, and books, being a supernatural type of creature has been used as an allegory for minorities and the bigotry they face. So, I don’t think it’s too big of a stretch to say that Supernatural, intentionally or not, made Sam’s psychic-ness a queer allegory. 

When Magda faces off against her mom, she tells her “I’m not the devil. You are,” taking back who she is, which isn’t anything wrong or evil. In the end Magda gets killed by a man of letters, because some people will never see past their hatred of something or someone that’s different from them. Someone they don’t understand (the metaphor).

All of the OG Azazel psychics’ abilities “activated” at twenty-two. Usually people will discover their queer identities and/or come out at or near that age. I just think that’s interesting/neat. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

—-

In season thirteen, episode three, “patience”, several things happen that I want to include in this essay. 

The episode starts off establishing that a wraith is going after psychics (similar to a hate crime).* Also while looking at the transcripts for different episodes, I’ve noticed that that Robert Berens (who I believe is gay? - idk don’t quote me) writes a lot of the episodes that I feel have queer themes. And, as a queer writer, a lot of times, intentional or not, we tend to write from experience and the thought process of someone who IS queer, which can make characters come off with a queer reading. 

*Missouri remarks that he’s “going after our kind”. (Also I’ll die on the hill that Sam should’ve stayed psychic/telekinetic at least a little longer. There would’ve been so much good conflict, like this.)

The scenes

Number one:

(Dean), “Alright, well that thing might come back, so…”

(Patience), “Why?”

(Jody), “Well, all we know is that he stalks psychics.”

(Patience), “Psychics? Then what does he want with me?”

(Dean), “What do you think?”

(Patience), “I... No, I'm not... I get déjà vu sometimes but that's normal.. I’m normal.”

(Scene end)

The “I’m normal” is very reminiscent of trying convince myself I could be something different, ie: “normal”, instead of gay. Patience desperately wants to be normal, because she’s afraid of being different, and thats just a universal queer experience, baby. If I had a nickel for everytime I thought “I just want to be normal” I’d be filthy fucking rich. 

Scene two:

(Sam), “Why is it so hard? I've seen you throw people across the room. I've been thrown across the room by you.I've seen you open a gate to hell and now nothing? It doesn't make any sense.”

(Jack), “It makes sense, if I'm evil.”*

(Sam), “What?”

(Jack), “Just, go. Please.”

(Sam), “No, Jack. Why do you think you're evil? Because when I look at you, that's not what I see.”

(Jack), “Yeah well, Dean sees it. That's why he says... he said he'd kill me.”

(Sam), “He what?”

(Jack), “And maybe he should. Mom said I could be good, that I had the choice to be good, that it was up to me. But she's dead, because of me. I've only been on earth for a few days and I've already hurt people. I've already done bad things, and no matter how hard I try I can't... I can't do the one good, stupid thing you want me to. So I must be evil, like Lucifer.”

(Scene paused)

[[*I personally headcanon that Jack couldn’t use his powers because he was repressing them. and boy do I know a lot about repression. (I like to project onto my favorite characters okay?) Like, he was afraid to be who he is, yknow what I mean?

(scene continuation/irrelevant part of scene was cut out)

(Jack), “Sam, why are you being so nice to me?”

(Sam), “Because I know what it feels like, to feel like you don't belong. To feel like there's this darkness inside of you, to be scared of who you are, what you can do. Dean, Cas, my family helped me through that. So now I want to help you, because you're not evil, Jack.”

(Scene end)

This is the “older queer mentor” thing I was talking about. Sam, here in this scene, is supporting him and showing him, “it’s okay, I’m like you, and I made it. I’m okay and there’s nothing wrong with me.” he’s basically going “i felt that way at your age, and it gets better”, and I don’t know how many times I’ve had to say that to my younger lgbt friends. WHICH MIGHT MEAN NOTHING. but it also might mean everything. (Can you tell i have no better shit to do?)

Scene three:

(Missouri), “James, you can't.”

(James), “I can. I have to. Patience, she's... she's all I've got.”

(Missouri), “You have me!”

(James), “I don't want you influencing her, poisoning her. You need to say goodbye.”

(Missouri), “James…”

(Scene end)

This (Painfully) reminds me of being cut out of friends or relatives (especially children or younger people’s lives) because who I am would “poison them” or influence them to become like me. Because that was “dangerous.”

Scene four:

(Dean), “Have you given any thought to what's next?”

(Patience), “I don't know. School is in an hour, so I guess calculus?”

(Jody), “And your gift?”

(Patience), “I talked to my dad. He thinks I should put it away. Dad says we should just get back to normal. Maybe he's right.“

(Dean), “He is. This life, hunting, monsters, there's no joy in it. There's nothing but pain, horror and death. So if you get a chance at normal, you take it.”

(Jody), “Patience, wait. I may be out of line here but you don't have to listen to him. To either of them, if it's not what you really want. I had a daughter, I guess, Claire*, and I asked her to stay in line, to fight who she really was because I thought it would keep her safe. It didn't work, it never does. Your gift... or maybe you're right, maybe it'll go away. But if it doesn't? You try to force it down to make someone else happy, you will only make yourself miserable. It's your choice. But if you ever need someone to talk to or someplace to go, my door is always open.”

(Scene ends) 

*it’s worth noting Claire is canonically queer. (My wlw queen.) Again, what Jody says fits with how in real life, even well-meaning people will tell us to hide who we are because of the dangers of being ourselves/being out. It’s unfortunate, but thats a lot of people’s lives. Also, again with the obsession with normal, which will never not mean more to be because of my own life experiences. You can’t hide who you are, even if it means getting along in normal society. Being queer and staying in the closet feels like a slow, painful death. It hurts. 

Scene five:

(Dean), “I told him the truth. See, you think you can use this freak but I know how this ends and it ends bad.”

(Sam), “I didn't.”

(Dean), “What?”

(Sam), “I didn't 'end bad'. When I was the “freak*,” when I was drinking demon blood.”

(Dean), “Come on man, that's totally different.”**

(Sam), “Was it? Because you could've put a bullet in me. Dad told you to put a bullet in me, but you didn't! You saved me! So help me save him!”

(Dean), “You deserved to be saved, he doesn't!”

(Sam), “Yes he does, Dean, of course he does!”

(Scene ends)

*everytime Sam angrily spits out that he’s a freak, you could replace that with the other f-word and it would read shockingly like someone struggling with internalized homophobia. I’d know. (When other characters say it, the way Sam recoils is like a punch to the gut. I know that feeling and I hate it so much. THANK YOU MISTER PADALECKI!! -People who say he can’t act watched a VERY different show than I did??) Sam’s self hatred/shame is so important to me. Also there are probably instances of him saying things like this that I missed, but I didn’t start writing this til I was about halfway through the show so some of it is just from memory. 

In this specific scene especially, when Sam says the word freak he sounds so, so angry and bitter. A+ delivery. Also, when he refers to himself this way in this scene, it doesn’t sound like he personally believes it anymore. And that makes me so undescribably happy. 

Additionally, Patience’s dad kicks her out when she refuses to hide herself. That’s what happens to a lot of gay or trans kids when their parents find out about them. 

**Dean, again, has a sort of complex when it comes to Sam that he CANT be “one of the bad ones.” He has blinders on when it comes to him cause he’s family. 

—

In conclusion, when it comes to Sam Winchester, no one is doing it like me (derogatory).

Additional notes:

Something something, male crossroads demon(s). (The evil manifestations of your desires.) Idk I’m tired. 

Just look up “queercoded Sam Winchester”. Someone else has probably explained this way more eloquently than me. Also lemme know if I missed anything. 

(When I was trying to explain all this to my friend, she made fun of me by saying “oh yeah he’s totally gay cause he sees visions and has nightmares of people like him dying.” Fuck off, bestie. <3 She’s also a Sam hater. So.)

He can never be happy + he’s “always felt different”. Also the way supernatural is always criticizing “that apple pie life” makes me lose it. Why? Why? (A little detail I like is that Sam is also very understanding to Cas, who also feels/is like an outcast in his own family.)

Sam himself was never approved of by his family. I know how crushing it feels to have someone tell you who you are is inherently wrong. When Dean called him a monster/freak early on, my heart broke for him (and my younger self.) None of this is Dean hate btw. I love him I’m just slightly more Insane(TM) about Sam. That’s why I wrote an over four thousand word essay (on a theory I have) about him. 

(I also think Dean is queer. But in the way that “I need you” is NOT something you say to your boy best friend, where Sam is queer cause his whole life is a reflection of The Experience.)

Just literally the whole blood freak thing is coding (which by itself can be an allegory for addiction, but the way he treats this different part of himself personally resonates with me. There’s also some tie in with mental health issues/possible neurodivergence there, and I’ve dealt with stuff like that a lot. I know Jared has too, and he portrayed Sam’s struggles really beautifully.) I’ve just always personally thought it was a metaphor. (I also have some of those other issues it could be paralleled with so maybe that’s why I relate to him so much? I don’t know man.)

(Take a shot everytime I say metaphor. You’ll die of alcohol poisoning. I’m just not good with words when it’s this kinda shit. So sorry to anyone who reads this lmao.)

Normally this is where I’d say im right, but since im aware this is a long winded rant, this is where I’m asking y’all to please be nice. If you disagree with me, I’m chill with civil discussions, but don’t send me hate. Please and thank you !!

[timeagainreviews]

The Eve-ish of Season One-ish

During the early ‘90s, the comic book industry went through a bit of a boom. Speculators were buying up stacks of comics that might one day put their kids through college. Eager to meet the frothing demand of buyers, the comics industry responded with bagged, foiled, embossed, holographic, and even glow-in-the-dark covers guaranteed to be collector’s items. Many long-running titles were reset to issue one, giving new readers a less intimidating jumping-on point. While the comic book bubble eventually popped, the practice of rebranding runs back to issue one continues to this day. With Doctor Who rebranding this new series as “season one,” it’s safe to say that, once again, the show is taking another page from the Marvel playbook.

If you wanted to be cynical, you could say the re-branding comes more from necessity than accessibility. HBO Max had the streaming rights to Doctor Who (2005). But this is Doctor Who (2023) of which Disney+ has exclusive rights. This goes hand in hand with Russell T Davies’ courting of the House of Mouse, along with the very controversial new release schedule which many have complained seems to favour an American audience. While Americans will be able to watch “tonight’s” premiere in a primetime time slot, British audiences will be forced to either stay up well past midnight or wait until tomorrow. Usually, when I write these articles ahead of premieres, it is the evening before but this new scheduling throws that all out of wack.

Longtime readers will remember me saying at one point that Doctor Who should go to Disney. While I plan to write a follow-up article rectifying and even arguing against some of my own points, the fact is, it still came true. I even suggested a musical episode, which has already come true and possibly again with “The Devil’s Chord.” I even called the plot of the Timeless Children as far back as my review of “The Ghost Monument.” It’s almost like I’ve got a TARDIS of my own, or my finger is so on the pulse of Doctor Who that I can feel the four beats of its rhythm as I type these prophetic words. Or maybe I just pay attention. Either way, you should definitely stick around to read my thoughts ahead of Doctor Who season one as they're bound to come true. (Joking, of course.)

Russell T Davies

What can be said about RTD that hasn’t been said already? The man has left his mark on the history of the show, what more could he possibly do? Well if you’re Chibnall stan, that’s exactly the question on which a lot of their arguments have hinged. Many people seem to think of his reinstatement as showrunner as a step back for the show. Some believe he was appointed as a filler after the contentious Chibnall era. Some say he’s too woke now. Others say he’s problematic. While I do agree that his handling of trans issues was clumsy, I also believe his heart is in the right place. However, I have a couple of concerns with RTD in his present form.

Firstly, I have to ask, was there no one else for the job? After Moffat left, the BBC have had difficulty finding someone willing and able to take over the show. Chris Chibnall always felt like he took the job almost as a favour to the BBC. I find it hard to believe that Russell T Davies was the only showrunner they could find. He feels like a safe bet, and in more ways than Chibnall ever did, a stopgap. It feels like the BBC doesn’t really understand what Doctor Who needs, and therefore has a hard time finding the people capable of delivering those things, outside of proven entities like RTD and Steven Moffat, both of whom are returning this year in some capacity. The BBC is pushing for diversity, but couldn’t think of a single woman or person of colour to showrun Doctor Who? 

Secondly, I wish he would chill the fuck out. I mentioned diversity, and while I do appreciate Doctor Who’s first official trans companion and what is looking like the queerest TARDIS crew yet, I wish the show would get back to basics- good writing. They keep going on about how controversial the new season is going to be, and I’m so damn tired. I’m tired of defending the show to conservative chuds who think a woman Doctor is going to make their dick fall off. I’m tired of watching showrunners pull a muscle from patting themselves on the backs for their progressive stance. I don’t want you to scare away those conservative chuds, I want you to prove them wrong. I want them to see these things can work when they’re written well. We just went through five years of people thinking bad writing was confirmation that a woman can’t be the Doctor. I’m glad you want to represent people like me on screen, now please do something with it.

Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor

It’s hard not to be excited for Ncuti Gatwa. He’s got a magnetism that draws your attention the moment he’s onscreen. It’s still far too early in his run to have a definite impression as to what kind of Doctor he’ll be. So far, his portrayal of the Doctor has a warmth and cheekiness about him. He’s mirthful if not a bit mercurial. Gatwa has even referred to his Doctor as “slutty,” which I definitely see and appreciate. I also love that he sees this as a trait he shares with the Third Doctor, which is both a strange and astute observation. Furthermore, he and Pertwee’s Doctors share a commonality by wearing less of a costume and more of a wardrobe. My only qualm in Gatwa’s case is that his wardrobe could use a little more consistency. However, you could argue that the Doctors only ever need to dress like themselves, as opposed to in a certain style. 

We’re in a good place with Nctui Gatwa moving forward. He’s had a stellar introduction and received quite a positive response from fans. Judging from his performance in Sex Education, we know he’s capable of a wide range of emotions. What little we’ve seen of his Doctor has shown us that he’s capable of being a bizarre yet dashing alien hero. He’s also managed to find a fresh approach to a character played by over a dozen people before him, which is impressive, to say the least. Whether he’ll become my new fave or not is yet to be seen, but that hardly matters. What matters most is that he’s the Doctor here and now. 

Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday

This is a weird one to write about. Had you caught me right after “The Church on Ruby Road,” I’d have told you how excited I was for Ruby’s character. Millie Gibson plays her with an adorable charm and she’s clearly a great partner for Gatwa’s brand of crazy sexy cool. But now we’ve seen rumours that she’ll be replaced by Varada Sethu halfway through season two. The BBC and RTD both responded (a bit late) to rumours that she’s being replaced and that they’ll both be companions at the same time, but it feels as though Ruby Sunday is coming to an end just as we’re getting to know her.

I would also like to circle back to how poorly the BBC handled the rumours surrounding Gibson’s departure. She’s a very young actress who may or may not have been fired from a high-profile role early in her career. Even if this is not true, the rumour mill was running amok and the BBC was mum on the subject for weeks. That kind of stigma could follow an up-and-coming actor’s career for years, labelling them as difficult. It’s like they learned nothing from their experiences with Christopher Eccleston.

While the Andor fan in me is very excited by the prospect of Varada Sethu’s tenure in the TARDIS, I’m still trying to remain enthusiastic for Ruby Sunday. Already they’ve shown her character to be compassionate and a bit adorkable. I’m not incredibly interested in the mystery surrounding her character’s birth mother as it feels very Moffaty. I’ve always felt like Davies’ strongest work with companions was his ability to ground them emotionally, and not in making their past a mystery to be solved by some man. I’m more interested in her relationship with her family than some hooded woman doing her best impression of the Jodie Whittaker reveal trailer. Like I said, a return to basics would be greatly appreciated.

Magic Maestros and Monsters

The introduction of mysticism and mystery has been a welcome addition to Doctor Who. When you watch classic stories such as “The Daemons,”  “Image of the Fendhal,” or “Pyramids of Mars,” it’s hard not to imagine there’s not some sort of mystical force at work. Even the stygian witches of “The Shakespeare Code,” seemed to tap into words with a degree of magic. Magic feels oddly at home for Doctor Who. However, you could also argue that the introduction of mysticism to Doctor Who oddly demystifies some of its greater mysteries. When the Doctor couldn’t explain something with science or alien interference, we were left to speculate. But now- a wizard did it.

As I said in my review of “The Church on Ruby Road,” the introduction of magic and superstition places the Doctor in a unique position where he’s a bit out of his depth. One qualm I’ve had with the Whittaker era was how her Doctor was rarely confused. It’s nice then that we’re entering a new era where the Doctor must learn to adapt. It’s now possible for an evil drag queen to force people into an all-singing, all-dancing, chorus line of death. Awesome. Maybe we’ll also see some monsters from the past revealed to be actual magic beings. Perhaps the Fendahl are more than creepy worms, but something far more mystical. Maybe Sutekh the Destroyer really is a god. The introduction of magic doesn’t just have to affect the future of the show, but the past as well. Just wait until the Daleks start pulling rabbits out of hats.

Dinsey+ Supremacy

I regret ever saying Doctor Who should go to Disney. At the time, I was making an argument that Disney is a good fit for Doctor Who because they would give it the budget and attention that it deserves. But Disney also introduces a troubling element into Doctor Who’s future- ownership rights. Historically, Doctor Who writers have maintained copyright over the characters they create. Because of this, any time someone at the BBC wants to use Sontarans, they have write a cheque to the Holmes estate. People like Lawrence Miles are free to develop the Faction Paradox outside of the Doctor Who novels where it began. And occasionally, we get a movie about Sil or a crappy K9 tv show nobody watched. The point is, Disney doesn’t do this. Should the mouse get his greedy mitts on the show, do you really see writers maintaining ownership over their creations? Say goodbye to fanmade charity books from Obverse Books or Mad Norwegian Press. Say hello to an even higher bar of restriction for new writers and artists to join the ranks of books and audios.

Is this the secret reason why they are pivoting toward a more magical rogues gallery of monsters? Are we being fed a new line of villains while Disney works on snatching up the rights to Sontarans and Daleks? Will they begin phasing out the characters that are holdouts from their original copyright owners? They say the BBC still owns the rights to Doctor Who. They say Disney only has streaming rights in exchange for budget funding. But RTD also said the BBC is in shambles. He also said the future of Doctor Who is in good hands. I fear that those hands are the gloved hands of Mickey Mouse. The show looks and feels better than it has in years, but its future feels dangerously close to becoming content. I want Doctor Who as written by this year’s winner of the Paul Spragg Memorial Contest, not Doctor Who as written by committee. 

[tamberlanecomic]

July Newsletter

Hey everyone! Here are some general updates for everything that’s been going on and what you can expect for this month and throughout the summer.

Health Update

As some of you may remember, right after the Kickstarter closed I was knocked out by a one-two punch of a fibro flare and Covid. While I’ve been put through the wringer, I’m FINALLY feeling like I’m crawling back out from under this extended period of sickness.

I’m still dealing with some pain and fatigue due to my fibro flare-up, but it’s more or less back to the “normal” levels of what I’m used to, so overall I’m doing pretty good. I took some extra time to recuperate from Covid in the hopes of avoiding any long Covid effects, and while I am still taking it easy, I take a lot of joy in drawing and being forced to not indulge in any of my creative pursuits have made me all the more eager to get back into the swing of things. So, I’m still being careful, but I’m also easing back into work. 

I got so many amazing comments from patrons, readers, and Kickstarter backers all encouraging me to take as long as I needed to get better, and I can’t thank you enough for the kind words and well wishes! It was measurably easier to take some time off to rest knowing I had so many people cheering me on and encouraging me to do so, so thank you so much for taking the time to say something and for sending me words of support. <3 You da best!

Comic Updates

We’re moving right along, with 12 pages currently in the pipeline at various production stages. In fact, I’ve just put three new finished pages into the buffer for $10+ patrons today! Our priority right now is to get a healthy buffer so that I can have ample time and space to catch up on other work without impending deadline pressures.

Patreon Rewards

Next, I plan to knock out a good chunk of Patreon commissions for my $50+ folks. I’ve already been doing that here and there, but I want to make sure that the oldest ones are finished first. 

Likewise, due to the chaos of a sudden move and a lot of life changes, Ari didn’t send the May postcards out until today, so I apologize for the delays there – we’re getting back on track! June’s postcards have already been sent.

Speaking of, I’ve included some of the patron reward art I just finished last week!

Kickstarter News

We still need to finish the internal book edits, draw up the Q&As, format the information in the book, and finish formatting annotations. These are all things I had intended to get done both during and after the campaign but I was simply unable to keep up with it due to health reasons. Curse you, chronic illness! 

I am also going to explore another option for getting the softcovers printed locally, which is something I will only go with if the quality is up to my standards. But we're less than $5k away from being able to reprint Chapters 1-3 so if we're able to get a cheaper local deal with a good printer, I'm willing to explore the option! 

By the way, we are now officially sold out of Chapters 1 and 2 books, but you can help us reprint them by preordering them and other stuff through our Backerkit shop!

Preorder Here

We’ll be streaming edits in the Foxglove discord server, so be sure to keep an eye out on there!

New Pride Merch

For Pride month I launched two new apparel designs as part of our Pride collection! Choose from Agender or Non-Binary Ainsley or Biromantic or Transgender Marie on comfy shirts available in a wide range of colors and sizes. 

This collection also features downloadable Tales from Treehollow comics dealing with LGBTQIA+ themes. Come check it out!

Shop Now

Artfight

I’ve never done Artfight before, but I’m gonna try this year! It’ll be fun to have little warmup drawings I can squeeze in here and there between larger projects. 

If you’ve never heard of Artfight, it’s an annual art trading game where you “attack” by drawing other people’s characters. It seems really fun! If you’re participating and want to add me, here’s my profile:

https://artfight.net/~Cvilbrandt

Thanks all for reading! May this month be ever better!

[kalpasio]

Every Month

A Kalpas x reader one shot (sort of, it's too long) where reader is on their period. Whole thing is below the cut!

Not to be over-dramatic, but you were dying.

Cramps were always the worst, but this round was particularly bad, and there was absolutely nothing in the apartment for you to eat. Well—there was nothing in the apartment you could eat. All the food you’d bought yesterday (while blissfully unaware of the torture to come) made you feel like throwing up, and that was if you could even get to the kitchen in the first place. The small breakfast you’d had this morning was all you’d gotten in terms of food so far and you couldn’t be sure if the nausea you felt was due to hunger or pain.

For a short time after you’d woken up, you thought maybe it won’t be so bad this time. One Aleve and some orange juice and you would be fine, right? An hour later you could be found lying in bed, flat on your back and feeling like you were being stabbed by an invisible knife. Three hours after that, you hadn’t really moved, but the painkillers had finally kicked in and you were able to get some rest, though you still didn’t feel up to walking the ten feet to your kitchen. You really should have taken that second Aleve.

It was almost comical thinking about the massive Honkai beast you’d taken down two days ago, yet here you are taken down by cramps you should have seen coming. “Honestly,” you grumbled and rolled over, trying to find the singular position that would convince the pain to die down a little. “I’ve been doing this, how many years? And I still get blindsided.” You turned again. “This is some bullshit.”

The words were heard by no one else, but letting the frustration out at least made you feel a little better. Maybe that’s why Kalpas was yelling all the time? You’d have to try this more often--.

At the thought of your boyfriend, you let out yet another groan. It was nearly 1 in the afternoon, meaning you had officially missed lunch and as soon as he finished eating you would be on the receiving end of the aforementioned yelling. Truth be told, you had grown accustomed to tuning out his theatrics, but right now you felt like you were exactly one harsh word away from crying and you really had no clue why. And if you cried, Kalpas would feel bad; and even though you were the one that should be upset, you’d end up comforting him for the next several minutes.

Another few minutes passed before you were forced to peel yourself off the bed in search of blankets. Sleeping with what was essentially a furnace meant you kept the covers on the bed very minimal. Now, without that warmth, and with your body deciding to completely cease any function that might produce body heat, you were certain you would simply freeze to death if you didn’t pile every blanket in the apartment on top of yourself within the next thirty seconds.

Shuffling around, you managed to collect a grand total of three additional blankets before the door to your apartment opened and you stopped to glare at the visitor. Though technically, this was his apartment and you were the one stealing it. What can you say? You were a firm believer in ‘what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is ours.’

“Kalpas!” you dropped the blankets in favor of something much warmer, not caring if your outstretched arms made you look like a child asking to be picked up.

“No,” he closed the door with a slam and headed straight for the kitchen, only making a detour to get around you.

“I haven’t even said anything, all I want is a hug!”

“No.” At this point he’d pulled an orange out of the fridge and was slamming that door closed too. It was a miracle all of the doorframes in this apartment were still intact.

“How come,” you huffed, “every time you want to cuddle with me, I have no say in the matter. But the one time I want to cuddle with you, I’m shot down?” Kalpas merely shrugged as if to say, ‘not my fault’ and continued peeling the orange, tossing the rind in the trash. “Fine!” The word sounded harsh, but it was clear you had very little malice behind the meaning. “Next time you’re on your own!” Now your boyfriend turned to face you, but it was only to send you a look that said ‘really?’ and you were starting to get fed up with his Kosma impression.

Letting out another huff, you hefted the blankets up from the floor and stomped back into your bedroom with the haul. It took a minute to lay them all flat, and you swore under your breath for every second spent out in the cold of your usually warm apartment. Once satisfied with the new layers that made your bed look like a stack of pancakes, you dove in and gave a happy hum. Kalpas on the other hand, had finished his snack and was now watching your antics from the doorway. His heavy footsteps forced you to look up from your phone that leaned against a pillow next to you in the bed. Unfortunately, the setup didn’t stay in place very long because he was tossing the pillow back to its original spot and pulling up the covers allowing the heat you’d scrounged up to escape.

“Hey!” you immediately grabbed the edge of the blankets and tried to force them back down, but they didn’t budge. “You said no cuddles! No takesies-backsies! Out! Out!” The shooing motions you made had very little effect, even when you began slapping Kalpas’ arms to keep him away. He slipped in, closing the gap he’d created (which was good) and instantly warming up the bed (also good), but you were still feeling a little petty about his initial refusal, so you gave him a scowl and turned away with an overdramatic sigh. A little irritation didn’t seem to bother him, however, as shortly after you’d settled in, arms were wrapped around you, and you ended up cuddling anyway.

For a few seconds, there wasn’t any noise in the apartment. Both of you had gotten comfortable, and any minute now you would fall asleep, Kalpas’ body heat keeping you toasty and his warm hand relieving some of the pain in your stomach. That relaxed silence was broken when your brain decided to grace you with the realization:

“You’re still in your battlesuit. Aren’t you.”

The sound you received barely even counted as a grunt.

“You brought Honkai guts into the bed. Didn’t you.”

Now you got a full grumble.

“Kalpas, I SWEAR—”

So much for your restful afternoon.

Sakura, you’re convinced, is an absolute angel. Without even asking, she knew exactly what you needed, even if you hadn’t come to realize you needed it yet. Granted, she had helped you through enough cycles that she probably had it all memorized, but you still appreciated the attention. What you did not appreciate was your boyfriend spilling the beans to half the MOTH base about why you hadn’t left your room.

This wasn’t the first time it had happened, and you highly doubted it would be the last, but it was still irritating—not to mention embarrassing—to have everyone ask if you were feeling better when you finally were able to crawl out of bed. He did this every time; and every time, you would demand cuddles as punishment. Either Kalpas wanted to be your personal hot water bottle, or he genuinely didn’t care enough to remember how much it bothered you. At this point you were fifty-fifty about which one it was.

Regardless of his reasoning, Kalpas told everyone you were dying and everyone included Sakura and Sakura—possibly your favorite flame chaser at the moment—was here to save you from the pain and your boredom. She brought snacks, more painkillers, food that was filling but not so heavy it would upset your stomach, and movies that were entertaining enough without being so emotional you started crying. How she knew exactly what to bring made no sense (if one ignores the months of practice like you are) but most importantly, she brought Kalpas along with her.

You felt a little bad, forcing Sakura to be a third wheel, but she didn’t seem to mind, and you were more than content with the way things are at this moment. Kalpas had you seated on his lap with your back pressed against his chest and his arms wrapped around you, ensuring every square inch of you was warm. For how bland it was, the movie was still enjoyable, mostly because the three of you found plenty of times you could poke fun at the characters, or the horribly obvious product placement.

When night rolled around, Sakura headed home while you and Kalpas headed to bed. Despite having done very little all day, being in constant pain—even if you couldn’t feel it—was rather draining, and you were ready to pass out. Between the movie and the heat coming from Kalpas, you had nearly fallen asleep four times already. Once under the covers, the position you were in only differed from how you had been sitting on the couch in one way, and that was because you were now lying down. There was still a firm grip around your waist, and an unmistakable heat surrounding you.

Kalpas had been surprisingly quiet today. Not so much because he hadn’t been speaking—he was by no means shy when it came to talking with you—but there had been a lot less shouting. Your boyfriend wasn’t exactly known for his volume control, and if he wanted to be loud, he would do so unashamedly. A small voice in your mind tried to argue he was annoyed you had forced him to stay inside all day, but the advantage to dating someone as blunt as Kalpas was that you knew he would have gotten up and left if he was that bored. No, there had to be some other reason.

“You haven’t been yelling,” your words broke the silence that had blanketed the room as soon as you’d gotten settled into bed. His response was a grunt that sounded almost like you’d woken him up from the verge of slumber. “Are you going to tell me why or…” Both of you knew the second option you’d trailed off on didn’t exist, and either Kalpas would tell you or he wouldn’t, there wasn’t much in between.

“Learned.”

Well maybe there was an in between. Him giving a response that didn’t help you in any way, shape, or form.

“Learned from?” you trailed off again, this time his grunt sounding more like a huff.

“Last time.” This was at least slightly more helpful, though you did still have to dig back quite a ways to the previous month to replay the events in your head.

He had in fact been a bit too loud a bit too often last time, and you remembered kicking him out of your room. You say you kicked him out, but really he had a mission he was supposed to be preparing for and you’d just sent him off to where he needed to be. Apparently, the exchange had stuck with him, and you felt a little bad now; especially considering the fact that the whole exchange had nearly slipped your mind.

“Last time I had a migraine,” you defended. “I’m sorry for being mean.” Kalpas let out a snort that told you he didn’t care, even if the hand squeezing your said he did.

“Mean?”

“Well how would you describe what happened?” Your comment sounded a bit accusatory, but you didn’t mean it that way, and when you rolled over and saw a hint of a smirk, you knew he didn’t take it to heart.

“Inconsiderate.”

“How was I incon—where did you even learn that word?” Kalpas gave you a blank look that showed just how amused he was with your joke but answered anyway.

“Emile put it on my report.” Figures. “You didn’t say goodbye.”

The room fell silent again, your eyes wide as any snarky comment died on your tongue. 

“I’m sorry.” You pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “I can’t believe I forgot.” And another to his nose. “Won’t happen again.” The last peck fell on his forehead, and even if Kalpas didn’t appear to appreciate it, the contact made you feel a bit better.

“I know,” he said it so matter-of-factly that you were a bit taken aback. “Because next time I’m not leaving until you say it.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Thinking of that picture where it's a note that says like "Hi! love you! please don't hug me tonight! I am bloated and I will fart so hard it tears a hole in the bedsheets :)" I'm sorry for dying, and I'm sorry this is definitely on the lower tier of my works lol. school is weird (how many times have fanfic writers said that) but this should be my worst week apart from finals, so hypothetically. I am back. I would really really like to be back to writing regularly, even if it's short ooc pieces that say "you" 50 times

[smoreboi]

Generally, I have a hard time reading. It’s not like I can’t read, I’m fully capable, but for the last 4~ish years, I haven’t read anything that isn’t a manga/comic/graphic novel or fanfic. I have a hard time reading full length novels. Even like,, the JJK light novels, I’m only forty pages into one of em and it’s only a bit more than 100 pages. And I just can’t. I want to read it. It’s interesting. It’s part of one of my largest interests. Can’t open it. All the words on the page have been put into a blender when I try.

So, I was in [local liberal artsy town] for a haircut a week ago, and when I’m there, I always go down the street to the comic/book shop, because I’m collecting The New Teen Titans comics (got No.10, aka the second instance of Deathstroke in comics), and while I was there, as I do, I look through literally everything, so I find the first Heaven Official’s Blessing novel. And, as I do, remembering that it was all over my tumblr at one point, that it keeps showing up in Netflix recommendations, and that my favorite reaction dude, Danny Motta, has recently started reacting to its second season, and knowing that I know literally nothing about it except gay and on my list, I buy it as well.

Now, you gotta understand me, this thing is almost 400 pages, I’ve been having trouble reading a little bit more than 100, I was sure I was gonna get a couple chapters in and get distracted and just keep it as a shelf warmer. I finish it in two days. It’s heavily enjoyable, I watch the first season of the dònghuà as well as Danny’s reactions to the first season after, to celebrate, but like. You don’t understand how incredibly proud of myself this made me. A bitch who hasn’t done any “real reading” (thanks mom) in more than 4 years, and I was able to read an almost 400 page book in two days. I literally cried just because of that. Because I can still do it.

The only thing that changed was the book I was trying to read.

[offl7ne]

MC: Josh Edition Update #4

Hello, everyone! I am here with another update for you. I know there has been a lot of activity on my end with different platforms and content. For those of you that may be curious on what this means for the project, I’ve got some updates for you.

Are you a streamer? A youtuber? A comic artist? My first priority is to be a comic artist for you all. Streaming and making youtube videos, shorts, tiktoks, are all a side project so you can be a part of the process while waiting for the comic pages. It also allows me some down time between working on Josh Edition to spend time with you and learn each other.

What is your stream schedule and what do you intend to show? As of this post, I have decided to try and aim for this kind of Twitch stream schedule in USA Central Time Zone: 1) Sundays - 8PM CST - Art content stream: This is for concept work, viewers suggestions, and comic pages. 2) Mondays - 8PM CST - Minecraft Game Stream: This is for playing casually with hardcore worlds, mods, SMPs, and spending time with each other. I may also discuss Josh Edition lore or give hints and clues to what to expect with the project! 3) Saturdays - 8PM CST YOUTUBE VIDEO drop (experimental): This is a new one, but I am working with an editor to try and get videos made to drop on Youtube the following Saturday after a Monday game stream so that for those of you that aren’t truly interested in the gameplay or miss it can have an abridged version for fun to enjoy in your feed.

When is the comic going to be released? That is a solid question and I wish I had a date for you all, but you have to keep in mind that I am holding down a job that takes priority over this content creation since this is done as a passionate hobby. That out of the way, I can say it will be very soon as I just need to finish up a few more reference sheets, concept art and already have opening scripts written and ready to become comics. I do apologise that it’s been so slow. Believe you, me, I want them coming out now!

You have mentioned a Discord server before. Will that ever be made public? I do have an official Minecraft: Josh Edition Discord server but it is not yet ready for public release. I am still unsure if I will make it public since I am so new to all this and still gathering a team to help me out. If and/or when it is ready, I will let you know!

Is there anything I can do support you as a content creator? Yes! You can spread the word by giving likes, reblogs, comments, favourites, coming to streams and/or chatting to make yourself known, and just being patient with me. All of those things will help me out dearly!

Thank you so much for sticking around and I hope to see you all again soon! - offl7ne

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Romance and Regrets - A Willow/Lake and Past Willow/Lake story

Summary: At first, Willow had so wanted to believe in her new job and this romance with Lake. But as Lake showed her true colors more and more, she realized what a mistake that had been. About the Willow and Lake pairing/past Willow/Lake. Set in Buffy season 10 and 11. Introspective.

Willow's PoV

Willow had really cared for Lake at first. Even though there had been some anxiety on her part, deep down, about going to work for the U.S. government, Lake had quickly assuaged her fears with open arms.

And, if Willow was being honest… Lake had spoke well of things that Willow herself had felt a couple of times, but had been afraid to put into words: like what if Willow moreso loved her memories of Buffy and the others than who they were now (and vice versa).

The witch had thought that with beauty and grace, Lake had really seen who Willow was now. And, well, Willow was moved more than she had been since Kennedy. Maybe even before Kennedy.

…But it wasn't meant to last.

Like it so often happened, it seemed that Buffy's instincts were strong and true and when it came to choosing between the government and what Willow believed in (her fellow Wiccans and the super-powered of the world in general), of course Lake would side with the government.

When Willow learned that she was going as far as wanting to put the supernatural in internment camps and for them to eventually give up their magic if they wanted to get out of there (even if Willow could maybe understand the government’s desire to handle vampires and other nasties this way, if she was being fair), the witch thought she had never felt more nauseous. It was the Initiative all over again.

Yes, Lake eventually came through for Willow while she was in the camp, but only because of their former relationship. It was clear where her heart really lied, and she was all too smug about it all as far as Willow was concerned.

And Willow wasn't even surprised when the whole “taking the supernatural beings’ powers” thing turned out to be a ploy by one government official to steal everyone's powers for her own—once again: this was seriously the Initiative, and how this rung strongly of Adam—and Lake was too much a fool to have ever sensed any of this.

Once upon a time, Willow had looked at Lake, thinking she met new chances and maybe something more beyond that.

She never would have thought she'd end up being one of the relationships she regretted the most. But unfortunately, that was just how the cookie crumbled.

Author's Note: A story that I wrote a while ago and forgot about, but just recently found again on my laptop. I think I mainly wrote this because I’ve been writing a lot of Bangel lately, but I don’t want to get in the habit of only writing them. So, this was to again prove that I care about other things in the Buffyverse besides just them, of course.

To be honest, I actually kind of liked Willow/Lake at first… but then Lake became The Worst TM, and alas. (Though I actually did write a fic once—that was after Buffy season twelve—where I had her redeem herself some and her and Willow make another go at it [largely because it’s kind of hard to find good romantic candidates for Willow at all in the comics]. This is the 50K Buffy fic I wrote for NaNoWriMo one year that I’ve mentioned a few times, that’ll probably never see the light of day unless I do some serious editing on it. It was one of my first Buffyverse fics [especially of that caliber] and I didn’t have a great grasp on Buffyverse yet. But it helped me to get that grasp, so there is that. Anyway…)

[ikatako38]

6. Launching TPWCH Patreon!

It’s always been my dream as a content creator to have a Patreon, and I’m so excited to launch it and bring you new content! You can find my waitlist page here! It’ll be up in the next few weeks!

First of all, don’t freak out!

I know this may sound scary for some of you, but rest assured that non-Patrons will not lose any content you’re used to getting! Chapters will come out on the same schedule, you’ll still be getting official art here on Tumblr every now and then, and the Discord server is safe! But I have some new fun content that I’m excited to share with some of you as a reward for beta-reading for me, winning the art competition, or donating as a Patron! More on what exactly that content is will be a bit later in the post!

Not only that, I’m doing a one-month trial period! Join at $1 and get most of the benefits from ALL tiers* for the first month after my Patreon launches! It just makes sense, since I’ll still be on hiatus and won’t be offering full benefits for each tier. After the first month, content will be divided into the tiers below.

*Excludes commissions, document access, and Badges of Coolness

What’s the Patreon for?

This is no typical Patreon! While I am a ramen-eating college student like most of us content creators, I never expected to make money off this. So, I’m planning to give all of the funds raised by Patreon back into the story! When TPWCH ends (that gives us about a year!), I’ll use whatever amount we’ve raised to commission artwork for a group pic of the TPWCH cast! The more money we raise, the more characters we’ll be able to include and the more experienced the artist I can commission! I don’t have any artists picked out at the moment since there’s no telling whether commissions open now will still be open in a year. If you’re interested in taking this commission, please let me know, although I can’t guarantee that you’ll be chosen.

If we reach a amount that exceeds any reasonable price I can find, which I doubt, then I’ll keep the extra. Conversely, if we’re just a bit short, I’m willing to chip in a little of my personal money.

Okay, okay, but what kind of “content”on Patreon are you talking about?

I’ve got a ton of ideas for extra content and benefits that you’ll definitely want to have but (hopefully) won’t cause me too much extra stress! The rewards you receive will depend on the tier you’re signed up for:

$1/month - Agent 1

Early Chapters (1 week early)

Extra Sneak Peeks (3-4 in addition to the 1 Sneak Peek always posted here.)

Polls I may occasional post to decide small parts of the story!

$2/month - Agent 2

The same as Agent 1

Marie’s Badge of Coolness (a headshot that can be used as an icon or Discord sticker)

A bit extra support to help me clear those Patreon fees

$3/per month - Agent 3

Everything in Agent 1

Extra-Early Chapters (uploaded every time I use a line break)

Access to bonus docs like the Full Octoling-English Dictionary and my Splatoon song transcriptions/translations

Early Official Art

Daily TPWCH Trivia polls

A free 1000-word fic or headshot commission after your third month

All TikToks as comic pages

$4/per month - Agent 4

The same as Agent 3

Agent 4’s Badge of Coolness (a headshot that can be used as an icon or Discord sticker)

A bit extra support

$8/month - Agent 8

Everything in Agent 3

Get that 1000-word fic or headshot every month, or save ‘em up for something bigger!

Access to the main fic document, where you can watch the fic develop in real time and leave comments directly in the document!

I’m also open to “live-streaming” every now and then through a Discord group call while working in the fic!

Exclusive art!*

Agent Eight’s Badge of Coolness (a headshot that can be used as an icon or Discord sticker)

*May move to Tier 3 depending on how things go

All tier prices and benefits may be subject to change in the future.

But remember, you can still get all this cool stuff without becoming a Patron!

Edited chapters every 3 weeks (1 week later than Patreon)

Participate in events

Occasional Official Art (1 week later than Patreon) — Tumblr

TPWCH Fun Facts — Tumblr

At least one sneak peek per chapter — Tumblr

Join the Discord and get a bunch of cool TPWCH emoji!

Join private battles, salmon run, and turf war sessions with me! — Discord

Accidental sneak peeks / hints — Discord