#ITS THE CABBAGES FAULT

[mr-magoriums-im-sorry-emporium]

ghost trick spoilerz (in the tags too)

there were two entries on tvtropes- both clearly written by the same guy- absolutely shitting all over yomiel and saying that it didnt make sense that the game tried to make you feel sympathy for him because He Is Inexcusable. and one of those entries was on the headscratchers page (the one page people can argue on) and nothing brought me more joy than seeing every mother fucker gang up on and murder this guy from every direction at once

anyway i love u yomiel i too got my life stolen from me and now desire revenge. they dont understand u like i do. their soft hands have never known strife . but we are built different

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

soup

a/n: this whole fic is 100% @chvoswxtch fault because one day when I was about to make dinner she planted this idea in my mind, after too long of winding each other up with thoughts about him, when I attempted to say goodbye so that I could cool down enough in order to not cut my fingers off or burn the food because I was too busy drooling, this menace just went, and I quote: "try not to think about him fucking you from behind while you cook." needless to say, I was a mess that night.... I was already a mess before, but then I just 401 error and I haven't recovered yet

warnings: frank castle x reader, smut, established relationship, cooking soup (good soup), kissing, clothed sex, kitchen sex, couch sex, dirty talk, size kink, oral, fingering, light anal, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, impact play, orgasm denial, multiple orgasms, creampie, cumplay, overstimulation, just them being cute and nasty and domestic together

word count: 3577

∼ gentle reminder that feedback, but especially reblogs are the way you support writers on here ∽

masterlist | join my taglist

The soft sound of Nat King Cole crooning was barely audible from the speakers in the living room, mixing and mingling with the soothing rhythm of raindrops pattering against the window in front of you, yet your hips still gently swayed to the tune as you grabbed the stripped oven mitt still laying on the counter beside the stove from the last time you’d checked on the broth bubbling away in the large pot. 

Lifting up the heavy lid, the heat from the metal slowly began to seep through to your touch as you checked on the progress, briefly watching the ivory beans dance around in the simmering liquid, wispy aromatics bubbling alongside them, before you covered it up once more. 

Standing beside the sink, you transferred the lightly dripping head of dark green cabbage onto the cutting board. After temporarily getting distracted by a thunderous roar that was heard from somewhere outside far in the distance, you then sliced the knife in your hand straight down the middle of the cruciferae, the crunchy vegetal sound reverberating off the kitchen walls. 

Hearing the floorboards suddenly creak, you whipped your head around to find Frank leisurely leaning against the doorframe, eyes glued to your form as an adoring smile warmed his stern features. 

“Frank!” you exclaimed, chuckling lightly at the fright he had managed to stir in you, “when did you get home?”

“About three songs ago,” he stated, the gentle music still buzzing from the room behind him. 

“And you’ve just been standing there this whole time?” you bit down on the smile that fact conjured. 

“Yep,” he drawled, readjusting his crossed arms. It didn’t take long after you’d turned back to the task at hand that you felt his warm touch wrap around your waist and felt his deep voice tickle your ear, “what are you making?” he rested his chin on your shoulder. 

“Soup,” you shared, cutting rhythmically through the hardy greens. 

“Mmm,” he hummed, craning to plant a tender peck upon your clavicle, his beard gently scratching your skin, “that sounds great…” his tender hands nearly burned through the material of your dress, causing your moments to slow down ever so slightly, “so, what do you have to do now?”

“Well, the base and the bean are already cosy in the pot, doing its thing,” your breath briefly hitched, interrupting your determined explanation, as his wandering touch triggered goosebumps to erupt across your skin, your form instinctively curving into him as his fingers lightly caressed your midsection, your still swaying hips and just shy down your thighs, “but I thought I’d get a head start with this before it’s time for them to go in so that I don’t go and get distracted by something else and then end up having to rush cutting it up.”

His slow breath clear in your ear, he sneakily brought your hips back flush against his, your soft bottom a stark contrast to the excited tightness in his dark jeans. Feathery kisses roamed your neck as your chopping gradually came to a stop, your eyelid growing heavy as you felt your pulse spike, especially making its presence known between your legs. 

Inhaling deeply, his hands slid up to capture your covered boobs in a teasing grasp, “Frank…” you warned softly, though your ass lazily melted back against his hardness.

“Yeah?” nose gracing the shell of your ear, his touch boldly drifted down your dress, effortlessly finding your centre through the fabric, your pulse thumping against his graze. 

“I am holding a knife,” you pointed out, trying to compose yourself, even though the way that he caressed you over your clothes successfully swayed your brain to fit something else into your evening’s schedule. 

Nipping gently at your flushed cheek, you heard the smirk on his lips as he acknowledged, “so?” burying his fingers in the fabric billowing around your legs and slowly hiking it up, “you really think that fact scares me?”

Bunching the skirt up around your waist, clenching it tight in one of his iron fists, the other one dipped down below it and only briefly tickled you over your panties before hooking a finger in them and pulling them to the side. Fluttering through your glistening folds for but a moment, as soon as your hips bucked in search of more, he took it away. 

Turning your cheek to complain, his lips grazed your skin as his grasp enveloped yours still clutched around the kitchen knife and set it down for you. Fluttering eyes locking on his form, you watched as he sank down, kneeling behind you on the cool tile. Holding your gaze for a moment as he hungrily nipped at your arched backside, he then determinedly dove in, burying his face in between your thighs. 

“Holy shit,” you gasped, gripping onto the edge of the countertop as his tongue lapped up your essence, “Frank!” desperately latching on like your pussy was his oxygen and he had just come up from a dive in the deepest of oceans. His muffled moan vibrated against your folds, making your legs quiver, “you’re-, you’re-…” sturdy nose bumping deliciously against you as he fluttered up to bury his tongue in your heat, “holy fuck!”

Growling ecstatically as he momentarily pulled back, each of his broad palms glued to your soft cheeks, fondling the flesh below your hips as he admired how your core dripped for him. After landing a swift tap across your ass, he began to slobber at your little rosebud, determinedly moving with you as the dizzying sensation made you rise up onto your tiptoes. Framing your bottom with his burly arms, he then shifted one of them, lowering it till found your cunt, promptly plugging up your clenching pussy as his mouth devoured your other hole. 

Briefly retracting once again, you felt a dollop of his spit harshly impact your core, withdrawing his finger and spreading it around your glossy petals before shoving two of his digits right back inside, leaning back as he pumped them in and out, admiring your mess as his free hand lowered to palm his tightness through his pants. Curling them softly, he found that spot that drove you wild. One of your rowdy legs nearly kicked his ribs as he began to harshly rock his fingers within you, his hand nearly vibrating as your pussy squelched at the pressure. Though just as you felt yourself near the edge, his touch faltered. 

That tease, he had to have known how close you were. Arms flailing to get him back, your whines were swiftly knocked out of you and traded in for a breathless moan as he suddenly straightened up behind you and filled you up in one fell swoop. 

Clenching around his girth as he gave you a second to accommodate around him, you caught sight of his reflection in the raindrop-adorned window before you, his brow furrowed as he stared down at where you had taken him so beautifully. 

“Fuck, you feel so good,” you saw his eyes roll in his skull at the pleasure of your warmth. Wrapping his strong arms around your form, one of them came up to seize your jaw, hungrily turning your head so that he could capture your lips in a heated kiss. 

Grinding back on him as you were still so close, your collective moans mingled as your head tilted back, breaking off the needy kiss. With webs of saliva still connecting your mouths, you hazily blinked back into his eyes as he let go of your chin, grasping your hip and aiding you back against him, egging your desperate bucks on. 

“I missed you today,” he shared his breath as you chased your high, “real bad,” his nose gently bumped against yours with every needy roll, “and then I came home and saw you just-…” he let out a low groan, grasp tightening around your moving hips, “you’re like a fucking angel…” 

With frantic moans gushing out of you, your legs trembled as you creamed all over his throbbing cock. Arm feverishly twisting, you snatched up the edge of his dark t-shirt like a lifeline and whimpered, “I love you,” completely enamoured by his dark coffee eyes staring back at you, “I love you so much,” he crashed his lips against your own once more, silencing your entranced cry. 

Slowly pressing your hips further back against his, burying himself that much deeper within your still trembling core, your grip on him tightened as he moved you, sliding you silkily upon his cock and gently fucking the sensitivity away.

“I love you too,” his deep timbre washed over you, like magic the sound aiding your trembling pussy to quickly bounce back, “so much,” he disappeared in your eyes, “god, you’re sexy…” before your head sluggishly lulled back and reunited your vision with the drizzly window.

Your entire body rocked against the counter as he bucked up into you, “Frank,” you uttered breathlessly as he stretched you out at a rhythm that was both so slow yet so hard at the same time, “oh my god, you feel so-, so-…” you crumbled down against the table, your head right beside the cutting board, “fuck!” 

“I feel so what, huh?” he teased your blissed-out babble, “so hard? So big? So good?” his thrusts began to grow more selfish, the lewd clapping of hastily exposed slivers of skin echoing and overpowering all the other soothing noises that vibrated throughout the apartment, “you like how this cock fills you up to the fucking brim, do you?”

“Y-yes!” you struggled to get out, feeling his warm, broad palm spread over your spine as a tender anchor while he fucked your brains out. 

“Yeah, you love this cock, don’t you?” his hips slammed into yours, “tell me,” he dared you with a sharp smack across your bottom, “tell me you love it.”

“I love it,” you blubbered, your face buried in the crook of your folded arms on the counter. 

“You love what, sweetheart?” you didn’t have to peek back at him to know how hard he was smirking. 

“I love your cock,” your toes curled as his broad thumb suddenly began to rub over your other hole, “I love it,” still slick from his kisses, he swiped over it, “I love you-, I love-,” tickling you gently before slowly sinking it in, plugging the opening up just to the first knuckle.

Like the rain pouring down outside, so did you as you came, your pussy gushing all over his girth. Swiftly yanking his dick out, he harshly rubbed it through your folds, “there you go,” flicking across your clit and urging more of your juices to squirt out, “there you fucking go,” showering down onto the cool tile floor.

Panting, he spun your jelly-like figure around and kissed your lips fiercely. Scrambling, he fervently plucked you up into his arms, wrapping your shaky legs around his hips as your tongue danced across his own. In a haze, you clung to him like a koala, fuzzily curling your arms around his neck, eternally thankful for his might as he held you secure against his boulder-like body. 

Eyes shut, soft hums escaped your lips and vibrated against his own as you felt his legs begin to move, swiftly exiting out of the kitchen. Fat length still like a rock nudged against you’re your trembling centre, you gently began to rock against it, a decision that caused Frank to suddenly change the destination to where he was carrying you. 

A sharp yelp erupted from your lunges as your back suddenly collided with the leather couch cushions. The shocked squeak swiftly melted into a warm giggle, one he fleetingly echoed as he dipped down to join you, knees resting below your dropped form, your legs folded up at your sides from both the fall, but also the delicious exhaustion that had kicked in. 

Reaching down between your bodies, your form jaggedly jumped as you briefly circled your sore pearl before seizing Frank’s third leg, his clothes still clung to his figure, as did yours, only zippered were undone and fabric desperately pushed aside to free what needed to be freed. Fingers barely meeting as they wrapped around him, you gave him a few generous tugs before guiding the tip back down to your entrance. Mouth agape, you nudged him against your sobbing hole, his brows furrowed in pleasure as he stared down at you intently. 

“There she is,” he smirked down at you, “there’s my fucking dirty girl,” noting the dreamy glint in your eye, “you want some more, huh?”

“Please,” you whined as he kept his hips locked, making your job impossible, “I do, I really, really do,” he then wafted away your grasp and held at the base of his heavy length, “I need it!” you squirmed beneath him as he tapped the weight against your overly sensitive core, your sodden panties still clinging on the sidelines.

“Yeah?” you expected him to tease you, to twist your arm until you said uncle, but no, that wasn’t what he did at all. “This what you need?” he mercilessly slammed back into you, a strangled moan rolling off your tongue to answer his taunting question, “then fucking take it like the good little slut I know you are.”

You were nearly crushed as he fucked you into the couch, though you didn’t care one bit about the odd position when he made you literally melt the way he did. 

Folded in half, face smooched into the cushions, your collective moans echoed throughout the apartment. Hands engulfing your waist, you felt like a ragdoll as he fucked you, balls slapping against you with every primal thrust. Tits nearly spilling out of the delicate neckline of your crumbled dress, Frank fleetingly caught the jiggle, palming it roughly before focusing in on the pebbly nipple poking through the fabric, pinching it harshly and causing your eyes to grow glassy. 

A low growl seeped out of him as he watched you squirm so deliciously. Swatting the soft skin lightly before refastening his hold around your form, he readjusted you and yanked your hips further up off the couch, curving your spine and hauling your hips against him like you were just a little fucktoy, a cocksleave for him to get off with. 

“Where are you going, huh?” you heard him chuckle as you practically dug your face into the sofa, your entire form just uncontrollably curling up from the overwhelming ecstasy, “don’t hide that beautiful face from me,” he uttered adoringly while pounding your puffy pussy into next week, “look me in the eye when I’m fucking ruining you,” and painstakingly, you forced your blissed out features to turn in his direction, your cheek smooshing against the cushions as you hazily blinked up at him, “that’s it,” he towered above you, a smirk blossoming on his lip, “look at you,” he couldn’t help but pick up his speed, slamming into you so hard that you saw the stars themselves, “that’s my good girl.”

His grip dug into you so hard that it left no doubt in your mind about the colourful marks you’d have as a souvenir for the following days. 

“You want me to cum inside you, huh?” he smiled at the way it made you whine, “send you back into the kitchen with it still running down your wobbly legs?” and even though you were positive you wouldn’t be able to stand after this, the vulgar image was still enough to push you over the edge once more, needily nodding for him to join you as you tumbled over. 

Gushing around his fat cock, rumbling groans escaped him as he pumped your trembling and tender cunt full of his hot cum, your own intense waterfall still trickling when he eventually pulled his spent length out. 

Flopping down on the couch beside your own exhausted figure, his head rotated, flashing you his hazy smile. Humming in contentment, your eyes too heavy to stay open too long, your fingers lazily grabbed for him to scoot closer.

Cupping your cheeks softly in his broad hands, one of them stayed as the other brushed down the length of your arm, caressing the goosebumps upon your tingly flesh. Nuzzling his nose against your own, he then pressed a soft kiss to your lips, thumb swiping across your cheekbone as your serene hum washed over him. 

The fingers on your arm slowly wandered over your skin, boldly making their way down your form once more. 

“F-fuck!” your eyes swiftly fluttered open, body jolting, your palm smacked his sturdy chest as his touch swept through the sore and sloppy disarray between your weary thighs.  

“Christ,” he craned his neck to admire your downright swollen cunt, “look at that pretty mess, baby,” he caught some of his own creamy essence slowly leaking out of you and rubbed it into your petals as you squirmed at the overstimulation. 

Dipping his lips down to latch onto the side of your neck, you panted, “Frank, please, it’s-” 

But he interrupted before you could finish the hazy sentence, “what?” purring in between the sloppy hickeys his mouth left in its wake, “is it too much for you? Too good, huh?” you simply let out a whine of confirmation as you felt your body begin to side with him, “you can take it, I know you can,” pornographic soppy sounds found your ears as his long fingers slid inside your sore core, “just listen to that, fuck…” your sensitive walls clung around him like a velvet vice as he stubbornly caressed you.

If someone at that moment asked you what day of the week it was, then your best attempt at an answer would probably be blue, as you didn’t even know what was up and what was down at this point. 

“You think you can squirt for me again, huh?” he kissed your cheek as the tell-tell soppy sound began to echo at his hithering motion, “give me some more sugar?” you suddenly felt his warmth disappear from your side, blinking your sluggish eyes open to see him slide down on the floorboards before you, his coiled fingers all the while rocking daringly within you as he granted himself a front row seat, “a little more dessert before dinner?” 

Pushing your tired legs further apart, the warm smile that bloomed upon his lips tickled your glistening centre, “look at that…” he watched as he fucked the rest of his cum out of you, “fucking beautiful…” 

Glancing up in your direction, he narrowly caught your eye and the intense look that he gave you made it impossible for you to simply let your own close once more. Piercing gaze glued on you, he too noticed your crumbled-up form begin to tremble even further just as he dipped down to kiss that swollen clit of yours.

“Atta girl,” he gently pressed his grin against your puffy pearl. 

Fingers rocketing, he only managed to flick his tongue against you a moment before the floodgates flung open one last time. 

First gripping onto your bucking hips with only one hand, he then departed the one buried deep within you to aid in the cause, holding you steady against his mouth as his tongue successfully slipped in to substitute for his digits. 

Sharp sobs melting into whiny pants, you watched as he finally released the latching hold he had withheld, eyes growing wide as he revealed to you the substance he had caught. 

“Holy shit,” you heard your guttural moan fill the room as he alluringly let your squirt trickle from his lips and back down upon your messy core, “that’s so much!”

“Yeah, it fucking is,” he beamed, pride dripping from his husky tone.

Beard damp and eyes the shape of hearts, you just barely through your overwhelming haze managed to see as he lowered his glossy hand down to enclose around himself. 

“Are you-,” you giggled, incapable of finishing your query. 

Cock, once again, hard and throbbing in his fist, he chuckled, “how could I not be?”  kissing your tender inner thigh as you continued to laugh.

“You are not going anywhere near there again,” you lightheartedly warned as your palm shot down to shield yourself. 

“Hm,” he raised himself up from his knees, “I can work with that,” blissed-out smile still plastered upon his gruff features, “what do you want, huh?” his strong legs then caused the couch to dip on either side of your form, “you want me to give you a show?” gazing at you longingly as he now hovered above you, “you sure gave me one.”

“Maybe you can repay the favour…” your nails dug into his meaty thighs, urging him to crawl up so far that his knees were fastened on either side of your shoulder, his girth blocking your eye line to his gorgeous face. 

“Yeah?” he slowly jerked himself mere millimetres from your features, “you want me to make your face as messy as your pussy? Give you a mouthful of cum?” his other hand dipping down to lovingly comb your matted hair as his offer triggered a warm giggle to flow from your chest obscured beneath his perched hips. 

“I love you,” your starry eyes gazing up at him crinkled from your bliss as you snuck your tongue out and swiped it across the prominent vein running along the underside of him. 

© 2023 thyme-in-a-bubble 

[dottydoesstuff]

The Killing Moon (steve harrington x reader)

based off the song The Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnymen

can be read as a part two to this fic or on its own

warnings: Unrequited (????) love, hurt no comfort, angst, kissing, alcohol, parties, swearing and a guy that smells like cabbage (lmk if i missed any) no use of Y/N, reader is described to be wearing a dress but no other description other then that

1.1K words <3

Steve Harrington is a stupid, stupid man. He knew that, really, he did. It was being proven to him time and time again, his own stupidity and poor decisions were being thrown back in his face. His poorest decision to date was not confessing his perennial love for you before you found someone else. It's not like he didn't have a chance to tell you, you're his best friend, you see each other everyday without fail. He'd had an infinite amount of chances but ultimately was too much of a wuss to do anything. 

Steve sighed as he grabbed another drink from the makeshift bar that had been set up on Tina's kitchen table and started shoving through the crowds of people to find somewhere quiet to wallow in self pity. The banging music and general cheerful mood of the party was getting too much for him. Unfortunately fate was not on his side, it rarely was. Karma for being such a dick in highschool he supposed as he heard a laugh. A laugh he has heard a thousand times before. A laugh that haunts him. Your laugh. 

You were here. With him. 

You hadn't seen Steve, not when He was distracting your every sense. You looked….. Ethereal. Too good for this world, far too good for Steve and definitely too good for that guy. Steve didn't even know what you saw in him, you had told Steve about him, raving about how great he was and how you were sure that they'd get along. His name was  James or Jake, maybe josh? Steve couldn't remember, it's Jeremy’s own fault really, he should get a better name. Steve watched as Jack-Josh-Jake’s half smirk bewitched you and his hands wandered to the hem of your dress. Steve stood staring, never occurring to him that he probably looked rather creepy, as he cursed whatever higher power there was for letting that smug bastard be born. He just couldn't understand, this guy was barely 6’, had god awful hair and vaguely smelt like cabbage. What was the attraction? 

After around two minutes of Steve trying to explode Jason (?) with his mind he spotted the door to the back garden and started to make his way over there whilst vowing to brush up on his telekinesis skills so he could throw that guy through a wall or something. 

He sat on a lonely bench on the porch facing the garden, watching the moon as it cast dancing shadows, holding his drink with white knuckles and trying not to let his thoughts linger where they shouldn't. 

“Hey stranger”

The sound of your voice made him jump which made you giggle slightly. He would make a fool of himself again and again if it meant that he could hear that noise every time. 

“What you doin’ sitting out here all by yourself hmm ?” 

you said as you sat down next to him, close enough that he could smell the liquor on your breath and the heat radiating off you. 

“Oh nothin’ just .. chillin’” 

Steve grimaced at his response 

“Well can I just chill with you? ” 

You chuckle while nudging his shoulder slightly.

Steve looked you in the eyes for the first time that night and gave a small nod. He didn't trust himself not to say something absolutely insane like how he was so in love with you that the smell of your perfume was more intoxicating than the beer he had been half heartedly sipping on or that the feeling of your arm against him was occupying so many of his thoughts that he probably couldn't even tell you where he was right now or how-

“Stevie, can I ask you something ?” 

Stevie, oh god you could ask him for his arm and he would saw it off and present it to you without hesitation. 

“Yeah whats- whats up ?” 

“I don't know, it's probably stupid, I'm just worried about you, y’know? you've been acting… different?”

“You're worried about me?”

“Steve, I’m always worried about you” 

Steve couldn't fight off the grin that erupted on his face. His entire body felt hot at your confession. He was pathetic. 

“Why are you smiling Steve, I'm serious, is something going on?”

It was his chance, probably his last one. He was going to do it, tell you he loved you and wanted to date you and have children and get married, well probably not all that, he might come off a bit intense. You sat looking at him expectantly as he turned to face you. The words died on his tongue as he realised how close together the two of you were. 

“I-” Steve started “ I just wanted to tell you-” he couldn't finish the sentence.

“Tell me what, steve ple-” 

He cut you off as he cupped your cheek and kissed you.

A surprised sound left your mouth before you slowly close your eyes and sunk into his lips.

Your kiss was cruel, cruel as he knew he would spend the rest of his life trying to find some semblance of it and would fail to. Cruel in the way your lips fit so perfectly with his, flawlessly moulding together and cruel in the way that he knew that there was no coming back from this. He was absolutely fucked. He was kissing his best friend, his best friend who was the one person he could not lose, his best friend who belonged to someone else. 

Maybe it was fate ,he thought, maybe he was meant to be sat out here and you were meant to find him and this was meant to happen, or maybe it was the sheer might of human will and his lack of self control or maybe it was cheap beer and hormones. Whatever it was he was glad of it. 

Slowly, you pull away, your forehead resting against his, eyes closed and expression unreadable. 

Steve had never felt so content, he was in such a state of bliss that it was a rather rude awakening then the patio door banged open shattering the delicate bubble that surrounded you both. 

You jumped up at the noise, whipping around toward the door. 

“babe, i've been lookin’ for you” 

His speech was slurred as he sauntered towards you. Steve thought Jackson’s face had never looked so punchable.

You walked towards the unwelcome intruder and grabbed his arm, giving him a small smile as you dragged him back inside, not sparing Steve a glance. 

Steve felt his heart crack and dread fill his stomach. This was it, you would never speak to him again, he would become a drunken mistake, a mere annotation in your story. His own thoughts devastated him as he looked back up at the sky, the blue moon looking back down at him. The only thing that comforted him now was the knowledge that he was yours, unabashedly and perpetually, his heart lay with you and it was yours to keep. Steve just hoped you would be a little more careful with it from now on.

[forgedroyalseal]

Life a bit to the left

Chapter Two

TW: child abuse and mentions of neglect

The stench of vomit had intensified tenfold by the time Will had returned home. His jaw clenched. He hadn’t expected his father to clean up after himself. He hadn’t. But, perhaps he had hoped. Hoped that maybe today would be good. Would be better. It wasn’t.

“Dad, I’m back.” He called out into the dim house. There was, unsurprisingly, no answer. He poked his head into his father’s room and found him spread out on the floor staring up at the ceiling.

“Hey Dad.”

Daniel blinked.

“Don’t you think the bed would be a bit more comfortable?” Will crouched down beside him.

Another blink.

“Alright, you can stay here. It’s fine.”

Blink.

Will sighed and sat down, resting his back against the wooden frame of the bed. “I’ve had a bad day. And I really want to talk to someone about it.”

Blink.

“I wish we could talk. I wish I could come to you for advice. I wish you could just be like any other dad.” Will’s voice broke as tears began to form. He wiped them away quickly.

Blink.

“I know it’s not fair to be upset with you. I know it’s not your fault. I’m sorry.”

Blink.

“I’m going to clean up the hall and try to wrangle up some stew or something. Ok?”

Blink.

“Ok.” Will stood and left his father with the ceiling. On nights like these, Will almost missed the days where his dad would scream and throw things at him. At least then he was capable of acknowledging Will’s existence. But when Daniel went totally nonverbal and unresponsive, Will was left feeling like a ghost in his own home.

The vomit had in fact stained the wooden floor planks. Regardless of how hard he scrubbed, Will was unable to remove the acidic smell that permeated into the tight space of the cabin.

“Well,” He muttered to himself, “I suppose that’s just what my house smells like now. He stood and moved into the main living space to light the fire. He never dared to leave it lit if he wasn’t home. He often had nightmares of coming home to his house burnt to the ground, his only family still inside. His father was unreliable, and it was too much of a risk to trust him with the fire. Which meant Will always came home to a cold, dark, damp house.

But at least he still had a house to come home to. He nearly didn’t today. The reality of how the meeting with the Baron could have, should have, gone was beginning to sink in, and it was terrifying. His father could have been arrested and their home and all of its contents could have been seized to pay off his father’s debt. Will would have been left without a job, home, or family. But Baron Arald had shown them compassion, the break they had needed for years. Will had never met someone willing to show such pity for strangers. Everyone Will interacted with on a semi-regular basis was only concerned with taking care of themselves. And Will didn’t blame them. As much as he’d like to be able to toss a coin or piece of bread to the old blind beggar that roamed the town square, he barely had enough to feed himself and his father. Now when Will sees the beggar, he knows he’ll see his own face in the man's scarred and milky eyes. He’ll see what almost was.

The heat from the steadily building fire pulled him back to the task at hand. Leaving the fire to grow, Will took stock of the kitchen. He hadn’t had an opportunity to try to trap or hunt game, so they were left with some old, hardened bread and a couple wilting cabbages. He made due the best he could and began chopping the cabbage, tossing it in a pot with water, salt, and a few sprigs of herbs he had found on the walk back from work the other day. After examining the bread he cut out the fuzzy green bits that had grown on it. Nausea rolled in as he remembered the times as a child he had been forced to eat moldy and rancid food. Before he was capable of hunting and foraging for his own food, he had been reliant on his father’s rare moments of lucidity. When the time between those moments began to stretch to weeks, Will had no other choice than to search through the neighbors' scraps, fighting their pigs for salvageable pieces.

The stew, if you could even call it that, took its time to boil. The sun was long past set when it was finally ready and Will carefully portioned it out into two even servings. He didn’t bother calling for his father, instead just bringing the bowl and the bread to Daniel’s room.

His father was sitting against the wall now, his knees drawing up to his chest. If it wasn’t for the wooly beard, he’d look closer to Will’s age than nearly 40. Will knelt in front of him and gently spoon fed him the broth and cabbage. Experience had taught him that if he gave his father the spoon and bowl to feed himself, it would more than likely end up on the floor, walls, or Will. And they simply could not waste food. So they adopted this spoon feeding habit. Will occasionally wondered if it was awkward or demeaning for his father, but knew that he probably was well past the ability to feel things such as that.

Once his father was fed, Will returned to the kitchen to now eat his own dinner. It had gone cold, as always, but he didn’t have the energy to put it back in the pot and wait for it to heat back up. A cold meal was miles better than no meal, so Will was grateful for what was in front of him.

////

Tonight when Will heard the floorboards creek towards the front door, he tossed his ragged blanket to the side and slipped out into the hall. His father’s hand was already on the knob when Will called out to him.

“You can’t go. Not tonight, not anymore. We can’t afford it.”

Daniel’s hand stilled for a moment, then he pulled the door open.

Will stepped closer to him, “No dad, you can’t go. I doubt Barrow will serve you anyway.”

His father moved to step out of the house and Will rushed forward, grabbing up at his shoulder and yanking him back. “Stop! Why can’t you just listen to me? You can’t keep getting drunk every night. We have no money to pay for it.”

Without warning his father’s arm reeled back then slammed into the side of Will’s face. Will staggered back, hand coming up to his temple. Before he could react, he was struck with two more blows, one to Will’s right eye, the other to his nose. Will stumbled backwards trying to get away, but he tripped on an uneven floorboard and crashed hard into the floor. He looked up with blurry vision at his father, towering above him, chest heaving and fists clenched, spots of blood dripping off his knuckles.

“Please just stay home dad. Please.” Will choked out.

His father’s dead eyes just blinked at him, then he turned and walked out into the cold night, leaving Will bruised and bleeding on the floor.

[evesaintyves]

@thethreebroomsticksficfest is having a microfic celebration for Harry Potter's birthday... but as usual my fic isn't very micro. here you go anyway.

The Underside

Harry's eyes keep meeting Uncle Vernon's in the rearview mirror.  It's two days before his tenth birthday. They've only been driving for forty-five minutes and Dudley's already been sick twice. Harry's pretty sure his aunt and uncle think it's his fault, somehow, but he's not the one who piled Dudley's plate with a half-dozen fried eggs this morning.

Weird things have been happening around him, though. That's the only reason they've brought him along instead of locking him up—he'd prepared himself to spend the day sipping underbrewed tea and letting his eyes glaze over at thirty years of snapshots of Mrs. Figg's dead cats, but when his aunt marched him over this morning, the old woman never answered her door. One of her cats was in the front window, switching its tail to and fro as she knocked and knocked, as if to say, time's ticking, Petunia, you're going to be late—

So, after a whispered argument in the kitchen—no, that boy's not to be trusted, we'll come home to the whole place in flames—his uncle dragged him by the arm to the backseat of the car. Dudley's brought along so many road-snacks and toy dumptrucks that Harry only has half a seat to squeeze himself into, but it's sort of nice. He doesn't get many long rides. Past the rows of houses and the repeating grids of car parks there are farms like he's seen in storybooks, rumpled over the hills, ribbed like green corduroy with cabbages in rows. Cows kneel in the shade of trees. What a life it would be, Harry thinks, to wander all day in the grass of a field, bothered only by the odd horsefly. Eating his fill. Surrounded by friends.

—

While Vernon's at the convention, Petunia takes them to the pleasure pier. Dudley tries for one of the big prizes, a stuffed gorilla that looks rather like his dad, but his strategy is to hurl the ball with as much destructive force as possible and he's swiftly banned from the Coconut Shy. He does the same at the pingpong ball and fishbowls, whipping the ball like he's trying to murder a fish, and while Petunia is arguing with the teenaged game-operator, Harry boredly tosses one of Dudley's unused pingpongs. It plops right into the centre of a fishbowl, where a longfinned red-and-gold fish circles it and issues a surprised silver bubble from its puckering mouth.

Petunia's convinced Harry cheated (and he's not entirely sure, actually, that he didn't. He's had a lot of weird luck and near-misses, lately. Last week, Dudley tried to hit him with a water balloon and it bounced off Harry's chest, hit Dudley square in the crotch, and made it look like he'd wet his trousers) so Dudley gets the fish, of course. It's in a few inches of water inside a plastic bag. He swings it around violently as they walk through the arcade.

I'm sorry, Harry thinks at the fish. I didn't mean to make things worse for you.

At the beach, while Petunia is buttering Dudley with suncream, Harry walks into the chilly water until it's up to his chest. The swells lift him off his feet, a bit, and the sand feels warm when he scrunches his toes. When he stretches out his arms and legs to float on his back, it's like the sea is cradling him, holding him up, and after a moment the sensation is uncomfortable for some reason so he curls into a ball and sinks under the surface, pinching his nose.

It burns a little when he opens his eyes, but he's instantly stricken by how peaceful it is under there and he doesn't want to close them. Above his head, there's the sparkling tumult of the waves. Below, the sand moves slow, like it's sleepy. There are the legs of other swimmers, kicking, oblivious. There's a spiky little crab with an orange pill-bottle for a shell. There's a grumpy-looking grey-green fish with rippling fins, flat and creeping along the bottom like it's trying not to be noticed. Harry wishes he could do that. He's always drawing attention to himself, blurting out a sarky thought when he ought to have just kept quiet, having some lucky thing happen that makes Dudley wail and Vernon haul him by the collar across the house and into his cupboard. If only he could stay here, in this secret world underneath the waves, where no-one on the shore even knew he was there...

A cloud of minnows, moving as one, drifts like a shadow in front of his face. They all turn sideways and seem to look at him with their iridescent eyes. He looks back, wondering if he's disturbing them, his chest starting to prickle as he runs out of air.

Before he can push off the sand and come up, all the little minnows rush at him, stroking their cool bodies along his cheeks, wriggling through his hair. He shuts his eyes, but just as quickly they're gone. He turns to see the grey ghost of them vanishing into the blue distance.

Then a hand is in his hair, yanking, and he's swallowing salt, breaking the surface and blind in the afternoon sun.

"You can't drown today, you knob, Dad's got a very exclusive dinner with a client," Dudley shouts in his face. Harry sputters, there's water stinging in his nose, and on the shore he can see Aunt Petunia waving her sunhat at the two of them, stepping along the lacy hem of the water like she's afraid to let it touch her feet.

—

"The double-augur—that's the crown jewel of the Heavy-Duty line," Vernon is telling Petunia, but in the rearview his eyes are on Harry like he thinks he's up to something. Harry's skin still smells faintly of salt. Dudley's plopped his goldfish onto the pile of plastic dumptrucks like it's just another toy. Harry picks it up and peers into the plastic bag; it's hard to tell because the car is moving, but it looks like it might already be dead.

"Cheap ruddy fish," Dudley sulks. "Didn't even last 'til dinner."

"All cheats, those game operators," Vernon huffs.

"We'll get you a better fish tomorrow, Popkin," cooes Petunia. "A couple of fighting fish, maybe, wouldn't that be fun?"

"I'd do myself in too if I had to share a room with you," Harry mutters. The back of Vernon's neck goes purple, and he nearly crashes the car shouting at Harry, and Dudley pinches his arm hard enough to leave a bruise, but Harry finds he's not bothered. He closes his eyes as the cabbage-fields are crowded out by houses. There's a world out there, huge and hidden, full of colours he's only seen in dreams, full of creatures and beautiful tricks of the light, and he'll get back to it someday—he'll take a breath, he'll dive down into deep water, and he'll open his eyes—

image: paul klee

[videogamelover99]

[Gravity Falls] Waking Days Ch. 6: A Message

Summary: Bill Cipher is reborn, but not in the way he would have wanted. Stuck as a mortal and relying on those who brought his downfall, he realizes that maybe he didn't lie as hard as he should have. [AO3 Link] Characters: Bill Cipher, Mabel Pines, Dipper Pines, Stanford Pines, Stanley Pines, Jheselbraum the Unswerving, The Axolotl Pairings: past BillFord Rating: T

A/N: The plot. Plot is happening. Also wacky sci-fi worldbuilding. Also, I might skip next week and go on a small hiatus to help prepare for the next arc. I will make a post if that's the case. Thank you to @megxolotl and @nexstage for beta-reading. Enjoy!

---

“Someone noticed it a day ago,” Miko said, his rock fingers clinking nervously together. “We didn’t know what it was until it got bigger, is it-?”

“A rift,” Nora breathed. “A rift to the Nightmare Realm.”

Baragerth shuddered. Miko whimpered and looked back at it in horror.

They found it in a small grove, a crack in the ground, just a short walk away from Miko's neighborhood. The blades of grass surrounding it shifted and warped as if on an old television screen, their shadows appearing multicolored. The oil-like surface of the Nightmare Realm rippled from inside the rift, threatening to spill out.

It was spreading too quickly.

“Seal the area,” Nora turned to Baragerth, who nodded, his gaze heavy with fear. “We don’t want anyone contaminated.”

“What happens if we touch it?” Miko asked.

Nora looked down at the rift. “The Nightmare Realm is made of Bill’s chaotic energy. If it infects anyone, the consequences could range from severe to fatal. You could grow a second head.”

“Oh.”

“Or your skin could peel off.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, ‘oh’. So don’t go poking it with a stick.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” said Baragerth. “So, what is the plan, aside from quarantining this?”

“I have a device that would slow down its spread.”

“That doesn’t sound like fixing it.”

“No,” Nora said. “It doesn’t.”

The squid-man turned a bit pale.

“What I ask of you is to keep your people calm. And to tell me as soon as you find any others like it,” she continued. 

“There could be others?” Miko asked, his tone verging on panicked.

“Yes.” The Oracle’s gaze did not betray any hint of the nervousness her companions were feeling. “I will return shortly with the device.” 

As she walked away, she was suddenly halted by a slimy arm on her shoulder. “Is there something you want to tell me? Away from the others?” Baragerth’s tone was measured like he was testing the waters.

She turned to him. “This is nothing to concern yourself with. Not yet, at least. I have a solution. It will just take time.”

He held her gaze for a moment longer, searching for something. She gave him no leeway. “You know,” he remarked. “It’s funny, looking into two eyes instead of seven.”

She smiled, measured, and in control. “You’ll have plenty of time to get used to it.”

That’s when a loud, thunderous explosion rocked them on their feet. Nora turned and saw smoke coming from the market district, just a few blocks from where they were.

Ah. So out of the ten thousand visions, it had to be this one. 

—

Once they made their way down to the valley, it was a lot easier to follow the path of destruction the Riddle Bot created for itself. 

“What was that?!”

“It blew a hole through my wall!”

“Your wall? I almost got pulverized!”

“My cabbages!”

Dipper and Mabel arrived at a market, the same one they’d seen on their first visit to this dimension. Except now everything was on fire. And alien people were screaming. And Dipper had just stepped into cabbage mush. 

“Hey, let's all calm down,” Dipper raised his voice over the crowd of people gathered in the middle of the road, some sporting bruises and singed clothing. “Everything is gonna be fine! Just tell us where that robot went and-”

“A hyooman!” One of the villagers, a being made entirely of crystals, pointed at him.

“Two of them!”

“Did they bring forth such a contraption?”

“It’s their fault!”

“Whaaat, don’t be silly!” Mabel stepped forward, and put on her best charming smile. “We’re here to fix it! We’re the, uh, robot police! Yeah! And if you cooperate, we’ll take that pesky robot to jail in no time! Where it won’t start any more fires. How does that sound?”

“You’ve been spending way too much time with Bill.”

“Silence, dear brother! I mean Agent Dipper!”

“You’re pretty short for police officers,” one of the creatures muttered, stroking its chin. Or at least, what was probably a chin. It was hard to tell, with its face embedded in its stomach. 

“That’s rude!” Mabel said. “Rude enough that maybe we won’t help you after all!”

“It went that way!” A tree-like creature with an adolescent voice pointed toward the rows of stalls down the road.

“Thank you for your cooperation!” said Mabel. 

“Sorry about your cabbages,” Dipper muttered to a pink-colored man, his one eye soaked in tears as he cradled what was left of his stock.

They managed to catch up with the robot. It was staring down a humanoid-looking alien with pink skin and three magenta eyes. In the alien’s arms was a smaller, baby-looking alien. The adult seemed mesmerized by the robot. The baby reached its bubblegum-pink hands toward it.

“I knew it. I should leave my husband,” they heard the alien say. “But will I ever find love?”

“PROPHECY #175-02 FOR TROMINIZ, JOHN, CONTENT: FINDERS KEEPERS, LOSERS-”

“Weepers,” John Trominiz finished, and burst into tears.

“Um,” said Dipper, who suddenly felt like they were intruding.

The robot turned toward them. Then, not breaking eye contact, it snatched the baby from John’s hands and flung it into the air.

“No!” John cried.

“Ahhh!” the twins screamed. The robot darted away.

“I got it, I got it,” Dipper flung himself to the ground and caught the giggling toddler. “Ow…”

“Not so fast!” Mabel dashed toward the robot as it took to the sky and made a running leap, grabbing its leg just as it left the ground. She wrapped her arms around its middle as it started sputtering, trying to shake her off. 

“Here you go,” Dipper gave the baby back to its stressed-out father and ran toward his sister. He grabbed one leg of the bot, keeping it from flying away. “We got it! Hit the switch, Mabel!”

Mabel reached with one hand toward the switch.

As if sensing what they were about to do, the robot suddenly made a sharp, panicked noise, and the thrusters on its hands let out an increasing, high-pitched whirr.

“Uh oh,” said Dipper. 

The robot’s thrusters burst into flame, and the force catapulted all three of them across the square.

—

Eegbock Borg had been present in this dimension for over 900 years. For his species, Eeg was still middle-aged, but even then, he couldn't help but think about retirement. His shop had been run for 3000 years, by his grandfather and his father and now him, and he had no children of his own, therefore no heir to entrust the shop to.

Ggrarky across the street had been eyeing it for some time now, that old crone. He couldn't risk it falling into her hands.

He'd gone to the Oracle to ask about the fate of the shop, once. His future wasn’t promising.

"I see many futures for your business, Mr. Borg…I would invest in insurance if I were you."

That day Borg got insurance. His family had survived Bill Cipher's absent-minded hunger for destruction, and if anything, it had instilled in him the risks of not having his bases thoroughly covered.

The insurance manager knocked on the wooden beams holding up the roof of the shop and scrutinized the dust that came raining down on Borg's stock. "Hmm, when have you last had these replaced, Mr. Borg?"

Ugh, renewal was a pain. All they did was look for excuses to raise his rates. He'd procrastinated on it, and his insurance had expired a few weeks ago. Luckily, nothing had happened that would require a payout. "Last week. Can I sign already?"

The inspector gave the wood one last sniff before shrugging in defeat. He pulled out a manila folder and from it, a stack of files. "Please sign here, here, here, and here and here. Aaaand here."

Borg grabbed the pen and signed the little boxes, only for the pen to run out of ink on the last page. "Damnit, do you have a spare?"

"Afraid not! I like to travel light."

Grumbling, Borg went to grab one from his office.

Maybe he should have expected the two strange, alien children and a person-sized mechanical robot to crash through the roof at that moment. And for the roof to catch on fire. And for his stock to be stomped on as the child with the long hair got up, looked down at the ruins, and sheepishly put the crushed items back on the shelf. The shelf, then, also caught fire. 

—

Back in Dimension 46’/, Bill Cipher had the distinct feeling that something wonderfully chaotic was happening without him.

—

Dipper slowed down, and leaned against the nearest tree, gulping in a lungful of air. Beside him, his sister appeared barely winded, though no less frustrated. 

They’d run through a crowd of panicked and confused aliens, past neighborhoods of small, quaint-looking buildings, only to end up on the other side of the town, nothing beyond them but dense forests and a sharp cliff that tumbled down into a deep ravine. 

“This is a nightmare,” Dipper sighed and hid his face in his hands.

“Hey, come on, don’t give up now!” Mabel said. “It can’t have gone far!”

Instead, Dipper sat down on the ground. “I really screwed up,” he said. His throat felt tight. “She had to have noticed the rampaging robot. I just made everything worse. She’s never gonna trust me again.”

“That’s not true. It was totally a mistake!” Mabel sat down next to him. “She’ll understand.”

“I really thought I was helping,” Dipper said. “If it were Grunkle Ford-”

“Look,” Mabel said, suddenly serious, “Grunkle Ford let an evil demon into his brain, he doesn’t always have the best judgment.”

“That’s…true,” said Dipper.

“And I’m pretty sure Nora’s the one who built the crazy robot. So…”

“That’s…okay, but we shouldn’t have touched it.”

“Then why wasn’t there a ‘DO NOT TOUCH, WILL START LEVELING BUILDINGS’ sign, huh?”

Dipper laughed. 

They sat in silence for a moment as Dipper caught his breath.

“You know what I’ve learned?” said Mabel.

“What?”

“Adults also don’t know what they’re doing. So quit putting them on pedestals. Unless they’re a super cute boyband in which case it’s a parasocial relationship and not real.”

“I…don’t know if I agree with that last part. But you have a point,” said Dipper. He got up and offered his sister a hand. “Come on, I have an idea.”

 —

“There is a hole in my ceiling, ma’am.”

“Yes, I can see that.” The Oracle looked up, where there was, in fact, a hole in the ceiling. Though calling it a hole was a stretch - it made up the majority of the roof. 

“Excuse me, coming through, careful there.” Baragerth’s voice rose over the agitated crowd gathered outside. 

Baragerth walked in and stopped dead in his tracks, taking in the state of the shop. Most of the wooden structure and furniture were soaked through, the villagers having put out a roaring blaze just an hour ago. The wares were either shattered or ruined completely by the mix of soot and water. In the middle of it all was the sullen shopkeeper.

“Borg?”

“That’s me,” the shopkeeper replied. “And that’s what’s left of my father’s legacy.”

Nora suppressed a wince. 

“And his father’s legacy.”

Baragerth looked to the side, at a loss of what to say. 

“And the father before him-”

Oh, come on.

“And the father-”

“Yes, I think you’ve made your point clear,” Nora held up a hand. “Let’s skip to the part where you tell me where they went.”

—

“Ready?” Dipper whispered.

“Ready,” Mabel lifted her grappling hook.

Dipper peeked around the bush. The Bot was hovering over the clearing, telling a little bug-like girl with a picnic basket a riddle that might have been about her parents’ times of death.

“FOR THE TWO THAT HAVE SPURRED YOU WILL COME TO THE SOIL WHEN THE SUN SETS ON THE AXIOM STAR-”

“Hey!” Dipper jumped out of the bush, waving his hands up and down. The girl and robot turned to him. “What’s my library backlog for the next year?!”

The girl frowned, unnerved by this sudden alien stranger. The robot, meanwhile, got to reciting every book author and title Dipper had written down, in alphabetical order. “IN THE LIGHT OF EVOLUTION, AVISE, JOHN. THE UNIVERSAL MYTHS, ELIOT, ALEXANDER. LOST CITIES, HAMILTON, SUE-”

“Oh wow,” Dipper suddenly pulled out his journal, overwhelmed by the new titles. “I haven’t thought of that one-”

Before he could write any down, Mabel leaped in front of him, grappling hook pointed at the robot. “That’s enough nerd stuff! GRAPPLING HOOK!” 

The little alien girl shrieked, dropped her basket, and ran. Mabel’s grappling hook made a clear shot toward the robot, catching it by the head and dragging it toward the twins at top speed. 

“Oh, man.” Dipper stuffed the journal in his jacket and got ready to press the switch. He could feel his palms sweating. 

The robot barreled into them. Thankfully, it was light enough for the two to catch it by its arms. The robot struggled in their hold, shrieking garbled titles of books and articles, before letting out a long, electronic wail.

Dipper held it with one arm and stretched out the other, reaching for the switch. “Come on, almost, come on…” His fingertips brushed the button.

Then it twisted around, thruster pointed at Dipper’s middle.

“No!” Mabel yanked Dipper out of the way just as a white-hot jet of flame erupted where he was standing. The robot propelled itself back, toward the canyon drop. Mabel and Dipper tumbled down into the grass, wet dirt staining Dipper’s knees.

“It’s getting away!” he cried.

A small amber rock flew over his head. He watched, panic forgotten, as it pinged off the robot’s hull. The area surrounding the rock erupted in an amber glow, encasing the ground and the robot within it. The robot froze like someone had hit the pause button on a remote. A startled butterfly froze too, encased in the amber. 

“Well, that was dramatic.”

Dipper craned his neck to look back, and saw Nora, standing with her hands on her hips. In her hands was a vial containing more amber rocks. Dipper had a feeling he’d seen something like it back at the temple. She corked the vial and deposited it into her pocket, before making her way over to them. 

Mabel was the first one up. “Whoa, that was some shiny stuff you got there.”

But Nora didn’t answer, her gaze on them steady, filled with an amusement Dipper could tell was only surface level. “I hope you two had fun with your little excursion,” she said calmly. “But I’m afraid it’s time to go.”

“Wait,” Dipper climbed onto his feet, wincing at the sting in his knees, “I can explain!”

“Oh, I’m sure you can, but you don’t have to,” Nora’s curt smile made him want to run. “You decided to experiment with a device you didn’t know anything about because you had gotten bored. It happens.” Her gaze fell on each of them in turn. “I know you two are quite capable, I’ve seen it myself. That’s why I’m just a little baffled by this display of childishness.”

“I-I just thought…” Something was squeezing the back of Dipper’s throat. He swallowed it down. “I just wanted to help. If I could find a way to fix it-”

“I’m sorry, fix it? Fix the robot?”

“Yeah, and if-”

She laughed, loud and cold, and it was so unlike her that Dipper didn’t know what to say. “Well, you fixed it alright!”

No one noticed the flicker in the amber, nor that the stone Nora had thrown had cracked upon landing. 

“That’s not fair,” Mabel suddenly spoke up, her fists clenched at her sides, “Dipper was just trying to help.”

“No,” said Nora. “Dipper just wanted to feel special.”

Every nerve in Dipper’s body froze at that statement. Because it was true.

Mabel tried to say something in protest, but Dipper put a hand on her shoulder. She looked startled when she saw his face.

There were tears in his eyes and the embarrassment never even came. “Whatever. This was stupid. I get it. I couldn’t do anything.” He trudged past them, toward the bot. “How do we shut this thing off, anyway? Press the switch, right?”

“Dipper-” Nora said.

Whatever she wanted to say next never came. The amber bubble flickered, once twice, until it went out. The momentum the robot had before its immobilization was fully restored. And Dipper was standing right in front of it. 

Dipper had little time to do anything when the robot barreled into him, lifting him off his feet and dropping both of them into the canyon below.

—

Nora and Mabel knelt before the edge of the canyon, staring down into its depths. It was misty, with a few treetops peeking out through the cloud of fog.

“Dipper!” Mabel yelled. Her voice echoed back to her. There was no reply. No explosions, no rampaging robots. 

She was suddenly filled with dread.

“He’ll be fine,” said Nora.

Mabel glared at her.

“What?”

“How would you know?!”

“I can see the future,” Nora deadpanned. 

“Then why haven’t you predicted this?”

“Because that’s not how it works.”

“Well, you don’t explain anything!” Mabel got to her feet and pointed an angry finger at Nora. “How was Dipper supposed to know the robot would go crazy, huh?”

“That’s not the point,” Nora frowned, “I trusted you to not touch anything you didn’t know about.”

“Meow meow meow.”

“Okay,” Nora’s eye twitched. She seemed to be holding something back. “Have fun with your tantrum. I’m going to find your brother.”

With that, she got up and walked away.

Mabel watched her climb down a tight, brambled path along the canyon wall. She stood there stubbornly for ten seconds before she reluctantly followed, keeping a few paces back and chewing on her hair. Nora cast her an unreadable glance but said nothing. 

It wasn’t long before the anger gave way to anxiety, and Mabel kept looking for glimpses of her brother in the dense fog.

—

Dipper opened his eyes and willed the treetops above him to stop spinning. There were small cuts and bruises along his arms and legs, but at least he could move them, so, good sign there. His head hurt, but his vision wasn’t blurry, so probably no concussion. 

He tried to sit up, groaned, and gripped his ankle. He had likely twisted it in the fall.

The robot! Dipper looked around, frantically searching the little mass of fallen trees for any sign of it. He spotted it a few dozen feet away, partially buried under branches and dirt. It sat on the ground, slumped against the stump of a fallen tree. 

It wasn’t moving.

Dipper tried to stand up, winced when his ankle flared up, then sat back down. He slowly crawled toward the robot, watching for any sign of movement. Its eyes and lights were completely out, the mechanical hum silent.

It looked dead. 

Dipper sighed and stopped, instead resting his head on the fallen tree. Even the trees here were alien, made of a substance that was not quite wood and not quite fungi, soft and dry despite its more greyish tone. Dipper had not noticed that. 

He reached for his journal, before realizing it wasn’t there.

“No…no, come on!”

He had lost it. He’d lost it tumbling down the ravine. How could he lose it?

He looked around the small clearing, frantically hoping to spot its blue leather cover hidden in a pile of leaves. 

He froze when the robot’s head suddenly shot up.

The robot turned its head to look straight at him, and Dipper scrambled back, letting out a yelp. But it didn’t do anything. Just watched.

Dipper tried to think through panicked breaths. No sister, no Oracle, no journal, and no working foot. 

The robot spoke: “Hello, Dipper.”

—

They were close to the bottom of the canyon now, and the mist settled around them in a thick, chilly blanket.

It took Mabel all of five minutes of silence to start going crazy.

“Meow.”

“...”

“Meow meow.”

“...”

“Me-oww meow meow.”

“Sigh.”

“Meow meow meeeoooo-”

“Will you please stop?”

Mabel stopped and bit her lip. 

“Thank you,” Nora snapped.

There were five more minutes of awkward silence. Mabel couldn’t take it anymore. “To be clear, I’m still mad.”

“I’m aware.”

“But…how does your future thingy work? Do you know what I’m gonna step on in three seconds? Or is it more of a ‘great prophecy’ sort of thing?”

“Neither,” said Nora. “I see a kaleidoscopic quantum phantasmagoria of infinite possible futures across a spectrum of probability. In 49% of them, you trip over a branch. I’d watch what’s under my feet if I were you.”

“Woah, so it’s like a- oof!” Mabel did, just then, trip over a branch. She jumped back up, not too hurt. “Like a guessing game, almost? Only you know what all the answers are. So it’s like cheating.”

“Something like that,” Nora’s mouth twitched in an almost smile.

“Can you predict when I’ll stop being mad?” Mabel asked.

“I can’t see into your head, so no. Besides, it’s much harder to get a clear vision when I’m part of it.”

“Oh,” Mabel said. “That’s dumb.”

“That’s how it works,” Nora shrugged.

They walked in silence for a few more paces, before Mabel couldn’t help herself. “Why’d you say all that stuff to Dipper? He just wanted to impress you.”

“And that’s the problem,” Nora’s face suddenly soured. “He let his ego get in the way and look what it led to.”

“But he knew that,” Mabel insisted. “And it’s not all his fault! Maybe don’t build crazy robots!”

“I didn’t build it. It was a gift. Well, a joke. Not a very funny one.”

Gifting an oracle a robot that sees the future, but badly. “You’ve got weird friends.”

“It wasn’t from a friend.”

“Oh, so like, from someone special.”

Nora made a face. “Definitely not.”

“Then-”

“They sent it to me knowing I was going to try to fix it. Engineering isn’t something I do often, and it was a pain. You know what I couldn’t figure out? Why it rhymed. But only sometimes. There was no pattern to it, no cause and effect. Why is it only sometimes?”

“You and Dipper would go crazy fixing this thing. Too bad you said all that stuff.”

“I may have…been a little harsh,” Nora admitted.

“Ya think?”

Nora looked uncomfortable. She didn’t meet Mabel’s gaze when she said: “I don’t think I quite remember how to be around others, but that’s no excuse. I was frustrated and took it out on Dipper. He didn’t deserve that.”

“...Why don’t you know how to be around others?” Mabel asked quietly.

“I-” Nora’s eyes caught something in the distance. A blue, leather-bound journal, with a silver pine tree on the cover, lying on the ground.

“That’s Dipper’s journal!” Mabel ran toward it and picked it up. She dusted off the dirt, holding it close. “He must be close!”

Suddenly, Mabel could see, superimposed like a bright, golden hologram, five more eyes, hovering right above Nora’s brow. They all stared at something intensely in the distance. “We need to move this way.” She gestured to a smaller, more overgrown path. 

Mabel clutched the journal to her chest. She just hoped they weren’t too late. 

—

“Hello, Dipper,” said the robot.

The voice had little similarity to the robotic tone it had used before. It was soft and kind, with a calm, almost lulling quality, and feminine in tone. Dipper didn’t know what to think.

“Um, hello?” he tried. “I didn’t know you could talk. Like…like a person.”

Dipper got the impression that the robot was smiling, despite it not having any lips. “I am not the robot, Dipper. This was the only way of speaking to you.”

“Oh.” Dipper leaned back against the tree behind him.

The robot laughed. It was soft and melodic, like wind chimes. It carefully made its way over to him. 

Dipper flinched. “Stay back!”

It didn’t listen, instead kneeling before him. “Does it hurt?”

“What?” Dipper felt a little lost.

“Your ankle,” the robot repeated patiently. “Does it hurt?”

“Oh, um,” Dipper blushed. He felt kind of like a little kid who’d fallen from the swing set, with the way it spoke to him. “Yeah, a little. I twisted it in the fall.”

It reached a hand toward his busted-up ankle. “May I?”

After a moment of hesitation, Dipper nodded. The robot took a nearby branch and a handful of grass and proceeded to tie it to his leg as a hand-made brace. “Don’t put too much weight on it.”

Dipper tested the brace, standing up slowly. “Thanks.”

Still hurt, but less. Dipper didn’t know what to think. “Who are you?” he asked, not without caution. “Are you what Bill’s riddle was about?”

The robot tilted its head. It looked amused, despite having no facial expression. “Afraid not. That string of numbers refers to someone else.”

“But then why-” Dipper realized something. “‘She is watching’. You’re who the robot was talking about.”

The robot looked surprised. “You’re very clever, aren’t you?”

“Well, I-” Dipper blushed again. “I don’t really feel like it at the moment.”

The being inhabiting the robot let out a sympathetic hum. 

“You still haven’t told me who you are.”

“And I’m sure you have many other questions. I would explain everything if I could. However your time is limited, and I came to warn you.”

“Warn me?” Only one question suddenly came to mind “Bill! What’s he planning? Do you know why he’s back?”

“Bill Cipher.” The being sounded amused like it was holding back laughter. “Silas Birchtree is a liar, blame the arson for the fire,” she said in a sing-song manner.

“Okay,” Dipper said, “I got enough junk from that robot.”

“Afraid that’s the best I can do for now,” the being said. “Besides, he’s not what I came to warn you about.” She lifted one busted-up arm, only for it to spark and fall. Black ooze, shiny like oil, dripped from the robot’s joints.

“Okay, I’m listening,” Dipper said.

“Do you trust the Oracle?” she suddenly asked.

“What? Of course, I-” Dipper’s eyes darted to the side. He felt a stab in his chest when he remembered what had happened just moments earlier. He’d disappointed her. But that wasn’t just it, was it?

The robot regarded him sadly. “I would be careful. She has many faces. She only shows you and your family the ones she wants you to see.”

Dipper gulped. “How can I trust you?”

“I do not blame you if you don’t. All I ask is that you listen.”

Dipper considered it for a moment. “Fine.”

“The fabric of reality is splitting at the seams,” it said. “And you must-”

A small, cube-like structure landed in front of them. The robot looked down, and suddenly it was engulfed in a beam of bright blue light. Dipper watched with horror as parts of it started breaking off, like small square puzzle pieces, dividing again and again until it completely disintegrated, and the only thing left of it was the blue cube.

“Dipper!” 

He turned and flinched stiffly when Mabel barreled into him, hugging him tight. 

Nora walked over and snatched the cube from the ground. “Well,” she said. “That’s over.”

Mabel pulled away when he didn’t hug back. “Hey, you okay?”

“I-” Dipper swallowed. “Y-yeah, yeah. I’m fine.” 

“Oh! And we found this!” Mabel pulled out his journal and handed it back to him.

In all other scenarios, Dipper would have been nothing but glad to get his journal back. Instead, Dipper watched Nora put away the cube. He stepped away from his sister, suddenly feeling sick. “You destroyed it.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The Oracle gave him a surprised look. “Because it was a malfunctioning, dangerous menace?”

“But-” Dipper clamped his mouth shut. He wanted to tell her what he heard, and yet.

Do you trust her?

He looked down at the blue cube and kept quiet.

—

It was dark when they finally got back to the temple. Exhausted from the day and the dozen apologies the twins had handed out to the locals, Mabel immediately collapsed into one of the hand-woven bean bags in the corner and fell asleep. 

They watched her snore for a minute or two before Nora offered tea.

They sat down at the table in silence. While Dipper was all too eager to get a taste of true interdimensional tea, Nora barely touched hers. She looked at the cup, her brow furrowed, before she sighed, and put it down. It was cold. “About what I said earlier-”

“It’s fine,” Dipper said quickly. “I mean, you were right. I was being stupid. Getting in my head, like I do all the time.” Suddenly the strange-tasting tea wasn’t all that appealing. Dipper gulped down the dregs without tasting any of it.

“I was right,” Nora said. “That doesn’t mean I was being very fair to you.”

“Oh.”

“And your sister will not let it go unless I apologize.”

“Ha ha, yeah.” Dipper scratched the back of his neck, embarrassed.

“You’re extremely capable, Dipper. Which is why I found it so frustrating when you chose your ego over my trust.”

Dipper winced. “Right.”

“But lashing out at you accomplished nothing. I guess- I mean- What I’m trying to say is…” The measured tone was all but gone. Nora flailed her hands as if looking for the right words. 

“I know,” Dipper said. “It’s okay, really.”

Nora looked frustrated but nodded. Dipper felt a wave of fondness wash over him. He wanted to tell her about the robot, about the being that spoke to him. He really should.

Do you trust her?

If there was anything Dipper learned, it was to not trust mysterious entities who claimed to want to help you. Still, he could take the time and think about it.

Couldn’t he?

“I know what you’re trying to say.” Dipper looked back to where Mabel was sleeping. “I’m the king of socially awkward, you know?”

“I’m not socially awkward,” Nora huffed, “I’m just…out of practice.” She frowned. “That sounds worse, doesn’t it.”

“Kinda, yeah.”

“And you are clever, Dipper,” Nora added. “I don’t know why you would ever think otherwise.”

“Wow, um,” he suddenly felt his cheeks heat up. “Thanks? You’re pretty good too, with all those cubes and the…tech wizard stuff.”

“‘Tech wizard stuff’?”

“You know, ugh, wow, forget I said that.”

But Nora was smiling. “I think I’ll have to remember that one.” She finally took a sip of her lukewarm tea. “I should show you how they work.”

“Really?” Dipper couldn’t help but light up at the thought.

Nora shrugged. “If I feel like it.” She lifted her cup. “Here’s to our inconvenient little adventure. And subsequent property damage.”

Dipper clinked his cup with hers and tried to school his expression to something a little less eager. “Cheers.”

—

Baragerth found her in front of the rift. He approached quietly, but he knew she’d seen him coming before he even stepped out of the house. “The human children are gone, then?”

“I sent them home,” Jheselbraum’s hand went up to play idly with her pendant. “There was…another development.”

“Oh? Don’t tell me anything. I’m too old for so many stressors.” He joked. She did not return his smile, her gaze set far away, to somewhere he could not see. “Has there been any contact with the ancient one?”

“No. It’s like he’s waiting for something.”

“I cannot assume what you know, old friend, but perhaps it’s time to talk to you know who?”

Jheselbraum scowled.

“Or…not.”

“No,” she shook her head. “No, you’re right. Asking anything of them is just…frustrating.”

“Oh, I know that much.” He leaned on his cane. “Heard the head of their organization is a particularly meddlesome one. From a certain source. You might know her. She lives on top of that mountain.”

“I will speak with them,” the Oracle said, in a tone Baragerth figured was supposed to be calming and not like she wanted to set something on fire.

Immortals. Peel back the layers and they were all eerily similar. He decided not to tell her that. Her mask was one she took pride in and it had a good track record. It would be a shame to shatter the illusion. 

He left her soon enough, his knees starting to ache from the nighttime chill. Jheselbraum was still rooted in the same spot, and the glow of the rift cast shadows onto her strange human features.

She did not notice him leaving. She didn’t seem to notice much of anything, except some distant vision. 

—

Back at the temple, Nora pulled away the dusty long curtain in the back of the room. In front of her was a big, dark chalkboard.

Nora reached down underneath the frame, and something clicked in place. The chalkboard flickered; its surface suddenly filled with an interconnected map.

Nodes flowed into each other, bent around each other, their shapes complex and yielding. A node labeled "42'/" was in a corner, circled in different holographic chalk. An angry, red line pierced through the node sharp and jagged.

In between all the nodes was a dark blackness, a space that seemed to pulse with uncontrollable power.

Nora took a piece of chalk, and ran another red line through the node "52".

It was spreading.

---

[next]

[prev]

[first]

[theerurishipper]

I remember people said the scene in Transmission, where Ladynoir renounce their Miraculous and "seemingly" not thinking about each other are mean to be a plot hole, not character inconsistency.

Bt for me, if the character NOT even make a slight uncomfort gesture/expression when they see Scarabella and Black Minette out there instead of their team mate, then it's not a plot hole, it's character inconsistency.

"Plot hole" excuse only work if Adrinette make any comment/looks surprised/make any reaction upon seeing the new duo but the aired time won't let the show do more than that. But the show doesn't let them react negatively which resulting people interpret it as "Yeah I don't care about my team mate, I already got my gf/bf anyway" which is not plot hole at all.

It's 100% character inconsistency. Plot holes are when the plot is wonky, and some logic doesn't logic. When a character acts OOC, it is character inconsistency. Adrien and Marinette have both become wildly OOC since the second Adrienette became canon on this show. They don't care about superheroing anymore, they don't care about each other as Ladybug and Chat Noir anymore. Outside of like, one line about "I hope Ladybug/Chat Noir are okay" (which is quickly overshadowed by some Adrienette, cause we sure do need more of that when we're talking about the late Ladynoir), they just don't give a fuck.

Actually, this isn't even character inconsistency anymore, this is a whole character overhaul a la whatever happened to Felix Fathom. Cause Adrienette only works if you change significant aspects of their characters. What about Chat Noir meaning freedom and a means of escape for Adrien, what about Ladybug being the narrative opposite of his abusive father who gives him unconditional love and acceptance? Fuck that, what he really needs is to start centering his identity around his classmate (with whom he isn't even that close because she thinks he's perfect) and defining himself based on her needs. And what of Chat Noir being the only one who can understand Marinette's struggles? Chat Noir being her special partner whom she can always lean on? Nah, fuck that shit lmao, here's Marinette trying to tell Adrien something he already knows and Marinette trying to hold Adrien's hand even though she's done that before without a problem!

Anyway, like I was saying, they had to change their characters up so that Adrienette could make sense, because it sure wouldn't make sense if it became canon in the show that devoted the bulk of its development to Ladynoir, now would it? So that's why we get episodes like Determination, where Adrien is suddenly head over heels for Marinette out of fucking nowhere, right after the Jubilation dream sequence where they had those cabbage patch kids, and Ladybug initiated a kiss even though they realized this was a dream, and they were clearly having some complicated feelings about the whole thing at the end of the episode. Cause fuck Ladynoir, amirite? Like, why would we waste time on the relationship we spent 5 seasons developing when we could focus on some cookie cutter high school romance with retcons galore and multiple, I tell you, multiple scenes featuring Marinette suddenly having the inability to do things she's done before with no problem, and apparently, it's all Chloe's fault, like what a fucking shocker, who could have seen that coming.

And lets not get into the actual plot holes in Transmission too, cause those also exist? How does Adrien Agreste know and proudly state Scarabella's name when no civilian knows she exists? How does this not make Marinette question why he knows? Why does Marinette expect that someone else becoming Ladybug means she's free when she's still the Guardian? Make it make sense, please.

Anyway, that's all I got. I'm sorry for using your ask as a venting post, anon. I just rewatched Gamer today, and god, Adrienette are so cute and adorable in Season 1. Like, they actually have chemistry and fun interactions and it's the lucky charm debut episode! I will never forgive this show for taking that Adrienette away from me and replacing it with... whatever Season 5 coughed up.

Thank you for your ask!

[basedkikuenjoyer]

Spiderwebs Part 748

Okay Toei, I forgot about this one being on y'all and it is a dope addition. Cavendish has cutouts of adoring fans if none are around. He needs them, he has a condition. A condition I find hilarious. This specific moment is where I want to end this series on and thankfully Cabbage gets a little more love as a key lead-in. Remember the idea is early Dressrosa & where it breaks down is the biggest example of what the Straw Hats lack going forward. Cavendish is a great example of who works well as a counter...but he's just too damn annoying to be more than the star of the Grand Fleet. Yes, the fact he has a foil dynamic with an adoring fanboy is certainly relevant when compared to a later renowned beauty with a demon alter ego.

This anime addition is bolstering an interesting scene in Dressrosa, 748 is kind of an internal story that serves as a transition for Luffy & Zoro but also reinforces this overall idea. Like, it comes in later but echoes some of those early ideas. That's what I wanna look at, from the perspective this chapter is where we really see the idea of a Grand Fleet start to form:

You probably remember this gag well. A bunch of the future GF captains badger Luffy about how they're all going to kick the shit out of Doflamingo. But looking back there are some more interesting scenes. The first is this. Because fame is an important context when we talk themes that come up later in Wano. It's telling Luffy doesn't really even get what Cavendish is on about here. Remember this is between Jinbei struggling to get Luffy to understand this concept and Wano showing him get it; you're a famous figure now and that will influence how you got about things. See Lucy in the Colosseum.

Cabbage is a great example of how fame can net you enemies through no fault of your own. But it isn't just him. This segment is interesting because its a lot of future Grand Fleet captains coming together. You could argue this is a key moment where the Fleet forms, and fittingly for my bullshit it's also a big place where you see how rowdy and prone to infighting the group can be. An early example that they don't always listen to Luffy well. Even Zoro tries and fails to craft a sensible plan. That plus what prompts this meeting already is a pretty damn cool coincidence to have 200 chapters before the big reveal for Kiku in Udon.

Luffy and Zoro get tossed down because of losing their shit at Pica's voice. Which is objectively hilarious. But actually stop and think beyond the gag. Losing their composure for a bit had big consequences, the scene pushes that angle. It delayed them and Pica's rampage contributes a lot to Dressrosa's destruction. This is an idea that'll come up in the fight too; Doflamingo tries to taunt Law about Corazon and remarks that he's matured when it doesn't work. Kaido tries another version that does work on Luffy by being silly and flirty in a dire moment.

Part of why I find the trans reveal for Kiku in Udon as interesting. Chopper's one thing but getting bogged down in a big conversation about that right at that moment wouldn't just piss off our beloved Crane Wife and made her (metaphorically) fly away, it could have jeopardized the whole capture of the prison. They needed to act fast to keep the report from getting out. You know, pulling a Doflamingo and giving a fake one.

Where this all comes together for me though isn't the coincidence with a chapter number...it's the title. Ore no Onagaeshi or "I'm Returning the Favor" like what the future captains are shouting as they all come together. Of course, that's interesting in light of the lil bookend we have around Bakura Town. 913's Tsuru no Onageshi and it's folklore allusion that casts a long shadow over Kiku's story followed by 918's Luffytaro Returns the Favor.

Of course, the story of Luffy, Zoro, and a strange new girl making everything in Wano more complicated because they had to save a little girl and dole out vigilante justice. It was still a much more orderly type of chicanery even if Law griped about it. Seriously though, this segment does use a lot of the same concepts and it's cool how it all comes together around someone who impresses Luffy at least would theoretically be good at keeping that group of ruffians in line.

[old-people-like-avatar]

Netflix Avatar the Last Airbender S1E5: Spirited Away Review [SPOILERS]

Overall, a strong and creepy episode. With its titular callback to Miyazaki, this one had a very different sensibility from the prior episodes, but I liked it. I wasn't so sure about bringing Katara and Sokka into the spirit world, but we got some really important scenes there.

THE GOOD

Katara and Sokka flashbacks in the Spirit World: I was initially skeptical when Katara and Sokka went along with the spirit world journey. But there was a strong emotional character-building payoff with seeing both of those painful flashbacks. The trauma of Katara witnessing her mother's death, and the emotional pain of Sokka's barely passed ice dodging trials -- a new memory of Hakoda that added something to Sokka's character.

Koh the Face Stealer/Fog of Lost Souls: Man, Koh was creepy. The Fog was creepy.

Better placed fan service: The callbacks to the cartoon in this episode were much more organically placed than "my cabbages" and the minstrels from earlier episodes. Sokka referencing Pippin Paddleopsicopolis. The men in the tavern talking about the canyon crawlers ("Great Divide") or battling the volcano ("Fortuneteller"). They were little easter eggs that didn't draw too much attention to themselves. Even the Knowledge Owl ("The Library") had a story-driven purpose, more or less.

THE I-APPRECIATED-WHAT-THEY-WERE-DOING-BUT-NOT-SURE-THEY-PULLED-IT-OFF

Gyatso in the Spirit World: I wanted to like the concept of Aang finding Gyatso in the Spirit World. I liked Gyatso "cheating" at Pai Sho and the warmth that showed. I even kind of liked Gyatso's slightly awful "we do it for the ones you love" exposition speech at the end of the episode, corny as it was. But I felt cheated out of that warmth in the Episode One, when that would have made a difference in emotional heft when Aang discovered his body. Now it just seems... cheap? Because he's back? And it undercuts the weight of the Aang's loss of his entire nation and people.

The thinness of the spirit world barrier: Ultimately, the show had to get these characters into the spirit world, so I don't fault the show for pulling a little "oh I can just feel it" Jedi Knight/Avatar once-over on the audience. On the one hand, this show keeps telling us (not showing us) that Aang 'doesn't know what he's doing.' And then on the other hand, it dumps spirit world mumbo jumbo exposition on us through Aang clearly kind of knowing what he's doing by referencing what "the monks told me." It's kind of jarring. It at once makes him seem wise while undercutting the message they're trying to convey about him not knowing what he's doing.

THE BAD

Clunky dialogue continues: "I also need to help these people..." "The avatar has to do the impossible..." Every time Aang talks about how he should have been there, should have protected the forest, needing to help people, it just feels so forced. Just show him helping people. You don't need to have him announce that he wants to help people.

Talking exposition fox: What the heck?

THE UNKNOWN

Narratively tying Aang, Zuko, and Azula together/Azula: The close of this episode, narrated by Gyatso in corny fashion, drew explicit parallels between the stories of Aang, Zuko, and, surprisingly, Azula. I am not sure whether this is going to pay off yet, as Azula's arc in this show has yet to be fully realized, but it does seem they are taking her in a different direction from the prodigal, "born lucky" daughter from the show. It shows her vulnerable, desperate for her father's approval. I am interested in this take -- and in how Ozai masterfully plays his children against one another -- and want to see more of where it goes.

[wellnesscard]

its not my fault cabbage is so alluring i cant stop eating a whole cabbage

[harleyacoincidence]

So, @creativepromptsforwriting came up with a May writing challenge, where you write 200 words each day during May. I've decided to take this opportunity to write some much-needed snippets for LCFL. I'm going to try to post them once they're finished.

This piece took me three days, and is 600 words. Considering how rushed (read: bad) it is, I'm quite proud of it. I'll probably rewrite it later, and maybe add a bit more, but it works the way it is.

Trigger warnings for gore, death, mild swearing, and general violent topics below:

“Throw her to the maiden!” a man yelled.

“Get rid of the traitor!” hollered an enraged woman.

I was hauled through a grimey marketplace by two large men, some sort of guards, I assumed. The vendors, all dressed in splendid robes, jeered. Compared to the majority of the people there, I looked like a peasant. My clothes were bland and torn, and my skin felt dirty.

“Not so brave now, are you, soldier?” the guard on my left huffed.

“You might have once been skilled on the battlefield, but your days of fighting for us were over the moment you laid down your blade for the enemy,” snarled the guard to my right.

I couldn’t bring myself to speak. My throat felt torn, and my arms were weak. Simply being forced to trudge through the streets to…wherever I was being taken…was exhausting. As if this situation I was thrown into with no context or warning (thanks, brain) couldn’t get any worse, one of the patrons threw a cabbage at the back of my head. Laughter erupted from behind me as the guards did everything in their power to keep me from falling forward.

We passed street after street, home after home, until we reached the village square. A crowd gathered as two more guards stepped towards a large platform. A strange object sat in the centre, about nine feet tall and covered in a large, black cloth. The guards pushed me forward, as the other two dramatically removed the cloth from the object.

A stunning iron maiden. The details on its head and body were incredibly intricate. It must have taken years to construct it. One of the guards that had removed its cloth opened it, revealing large spikes. They were as long as the casket was deep, and scarily sharp.

The two guards on either side of me shoved me forward once again. I tripped on my way to the platform. The crowd howled in laughter. I couldn’t feel my legs or my arms, and I was strangely lightheaded.

“MOVE!” shouted the guard on my right.

I couldn’t. I wanted to, I wanted to run as far away as I could. But I couldn’t even speak up to cry for help (but what good would that have done me anyway?).

“Move, you little wench,” growled one of the other guards. I had no idea which one. Everything was fuzzy.

“Just throw her in,” ordered the guard on my left.

The next thing I knew, my back slammed against cold metal. Another bang, and the scene of the snide faces in the square turned to black. Just as quickly, pain shot through my body. Time almost slowed down. I felt cold metal press against my flesh and bones in my arms, torso, legs, and neck. Then it all went through. I couldn’t breathe. I could barely think over the excruciating pain. I tried to scream, but all that came out was a faint wheeze.

I was pinned to the back of the maiden. Her tight embrace didn’t change, yet I could feel my misery growing by the moment. Blood gushed from my wounds and began to fill the chamber. I was going to drown in my own essence. And it was all my fault. I was the so-called traitor, after all. I had laid down my weapon for the enemy, hadn’t I? I had shown mercy. I was just as bad as them. I had a magnificent home, and had thrown it all away in one simple move. It was a shame I couldn’t seem to recall any of it.

[happi-meals]

Southern as Southern can get!!

My mom made this meal before we went to go see a movie. Aside from the cornbread being a lil dry, it was all quite delicious. As per usual (my mama can cook!).

She made boiled cabbage with turkey legs, beans (I'll have to ask which kind), also with turkey legs and peppers; candy yams, white rice, steamed okra, sweet corn, cornbread, and a fresh garden salad (which we forgot to eat that meal lol. I ate mines in a leftoever plate that night).

(The plate I had for later. Italian style dressing on the salad really completed it all!).

The amount of vegetables in this meal reminds me of how rich Southern food culture is (not just full of fried food and animal products), and how easily this whole meal can be veganized for days in the week I plan to eat only "green". I'll def have to learn more homecooking recipes to inherent from my mom and learn more about the history of Southern Black food culture to inform my feelings when I eat such "soul food".

The only downside to such a great meal like this is the gas it gave me later. Goodness gracious I felt like a fart-factory LMFAO. Putrid sulfur gas smelled like deviled eggs if they could possess a skunk. But it was partially my fault for not drinking enough water with such a fibrous meal, also I'm too sedentary for my own good fr lol.

But[t]... I beat the bloat blunder with a healthy bowel movement eventually as such a fiber-full, protein dense meal will keep anyone regular! Thats what I liked about this meal alongside the ethnic pride it gave me eating my geography! Its flavorful and healthy. Its Southern and its seasonal. Its so much of what I like about where and who I come from and being who I am.

Thanks, mama! ♥️

[notahorseindisguise]

ghost slug

oh well. at least it was a fast death.

crushed flat in an instant. he didnt even know he did it.

am i supposed to feel angry? its not his fault. how could he have known. it was dark. he wasnt looking down. its not his fault.

should i be feeling sad? i wasnt meant to be there anyway. i knew i wasnt allowed indoors. but there was a crack in the wall and i guess i just had to see the other side.

i guess what really sucks is i thought i was home free. i really thought i made it safely, just there on the tiles, looking for food.

my life was ended in an instant underneath his foot. he thinks its gross? hed look gross too if he was crushed flat. he wipes the half of me thats on his foot off with a wet paper towel and throws it in the bin. he wets another paper towel and returns to the other half of my corpse.

was my life meaningless? i did all that i was meant to do.

i was born in the garden, eating lettuce and cabbage and other types of leaves. thst was the plan from the start.

if i had a purpose, i would say it was to eat leaves, and id say i accomplished that. but would a creator so massive even instill a purpose into s creature so small?

its funny, the people wonder the same. they think they are tiny compared to the cosmos, which is true, but how do you think it makes us feel? you want to call yourself tiny? what are we then? compared to you, what am i?

most of my body was left on the tiles. picking it up with the paper towel, he looks uncomfortable as he gives it a squeeze. perhaps he wanted to make sure i was desd before throwing me into his garbage. is this more painful for me or for him?

it was so unceremonious. if he was putting his foot down with the intent to kill me, i think that wouldve been ok with me. at least i wouldve been, for at least a moment, a thought in his mind. in anyones mind.

but no, he brought down his foot without even realising i was there. if he knew, would he have still done the same? what i would give to have been the firing of a neuron. for one second, been the spark that ignites a thought; an electro-chemical glimmer in the mind of another being. but no, perhaps even that was too ambitious a goal, as my end was met by accident.

im officially cleaned up. no longer a stain on the tiles. just the ghost of a stain.

its not his fault i meant nothing. if he could tell me anything, hed tell me that i meant everything. that my existence is beautiful. im beautiful. but my life was still nothing to light a candle for.

ill be forgotten soon, but for now im the ghost of the memory of the residue of my own guts on the foot of a creature with a mind hundreds of times larger than my own body

i didnt ask to be born this way, he didnt ask to born that way. just maybe next time he'll turn on the light when hes walking around. look down everybmow and then.

[tiny-little-rabbit]

672 / 800

Lunch

Meatball w sauce - 113cal

Rice - 219cal

White cabbage salad - 93cal

Apple cake - 120cal

Dinner

Tomato soup 200g - 70cal

Pear 106g - 57 cal

Everything for lunch is estimated because I ate at my grandma. It was my grandpa's birthday so yea.

I wanna stump my aunt into the ground fr, one day she pressures me to eat something "do you want --?" "I have --- if you'd like" and then the next day she is like no stop asking him what he wants he has enough. The nerve of this woman is unreal . As if she's not the incredibly insecure one here. At least I dont put other people down, it's not my fault shes unhappy with her life and its definitely not fair to project onto me . I want to spit in her face .

Also the soup tasted like ass but it was filling lmao

[chesters-ocs]

Stone, who still has to find a way to tell Sylvester that Mārīte wants to move out: Well, Diane wanting to move to the tree house is not my fault.

Speaking of, I don't know how he's going to tell Sylvester what happened. (If her wanting to move out because Stone took away her alcohol and vape pens is even canon.)

Sarabi really would try his best to get Diane onto solid ground while still also trying to pay attention to what she's saying. Because he doesn't want to seem like he's not listening.

i feel like sylvester and mārīte had actually talked about her wanting to move out quite a few times in private. hes just worried if she'll be fine with being alone with katie (and her mom + half-brothers, ig), because of how used to the constant noise and action of the ranch she inevitably became

also girlie's an extrovert. she needs people to bother and talk to and mess around with, and sylvester is just worried her and katie wont end up being a good match to live together, but yk.

im debating on how canon i want it to be to the ranch. i mean, in canon canon, she does end up moving in with katie, so,,, maybe??

but also imagine the fun groovy isolation she can be put trough if she just moves somewhere alone. experiencing a silent house for the first time. no siblings or dads to keep her mind occupied with. just silence. it'd wear her down overtime, thats for sure. :) at least butcher taught her how to do shit around the house that are on the more technical side, like what to do when a pipes busted or whatever.

fun fact from the few months i lived alone: my apartment building has thin walls. it gets really quiet at night. i can hear *everything*. including from floors below me. so. imagine mārīte, sitting there, because its *too* quiet, unable to sleep in silence. but any sounds she *does* hear end up startling her. :)

---

sarabi: mhm, yeah, uh.. could you come a bit closer, i cant quite hear you :) wind and such

diane, eating a whole fucking cabbage and just chilling there: oh yeah sure *scoot scoot scoot* (<- still upside down)

sarabi, picking her up: gotcha. also save some of that for dinner, why dont you? anyways, you were saying?

i love diane. shes just a silly gal <3

[androgynous-agent69]

At my Grandma’s house (German immigrant), pigs in a blanket is ground beef and oats wrapped in cabbage and baked in tomato sauce. Not sure whose fault the sausage version is.

After some Wikipedia searches I've discovered that:

The UK and US versions are different. The UK has "pigs in blankets" which is the sausages wrapped in bacon, and the US have "Pigs in a blanket" (note the different way its presented) which are sausages wrapped in pastry.

And also, the ones that your grandma makes are also called pigs in a blanket, though more commonly they are simply referred to as "cabbage rolls"