#OP is absolutely correct

[recurring-polynya]

Sorry if you have been asked this before but I was wondering is there some reason why Kubo never really showed too much regarding Rukia’s feelings towards Renji ? It’s not only her but even Gin & Ichigo with Rangiku & Orihime !! Like he gives enough so people can sense something but he doesn’t give a lot away. Is it about interpretation or he just simply doesn’t want to write romance too deeply ??

Kubo has said quite plainly that he doesn't want to put romance at the forefront. I think he's said this various times in various ways, but here's a pretty definitive quote from an interview he gave at the 2018 San Diego Comicon:

Q: Speaking of Ichigo's relationships with his friends, there seems to be a love triangle between Ichigo, Rukia, and Orihime. Do you delve more into this in later volumes? A. Tite Kubo: (laughs) I get asked about that a lot! I don't want to make Bleach into a love story because there are much more exciting things about their personalities and things that they can do instead of getting into the romance aspect of their relationships.

Kubo's answers are sometimes a little cheeky, but I don't see any reason to read this as anything other than face value. He may have had additional reasons to leave romance out of the story--it's a shounen and he didn't think that stuff would be of interest to the core of his readers, he didn't want to deal with angry ship opinions, etc, etc, but the long and short of it is the guy said "this is not a kissing story" and it's not.

Not to get too nitpicky--this was an interview, there's some degree of translation involved--but I actually find this kind of funny because while I agree that it's not a romance, I would *absolutely* classify Bleach as a love story. Bleach is about 600 love stories. It's about the love between a boy and his precious friends, the love between big brothers and little sisters, about the love between captains and lieutenants, about love that can only be expressed in battle, about love that turns poisonous and corrupts, about love that saves and purifies, about a love for the world you live in and want, with all your heart to make better. And while it's not a romance, I think it is about romantic love as well.

So, even though that's the real reason, I think it is also perfectly in-character for Rukia to act the way she does and I want to yap about it. I can tell right now this is gonna get long, so I am going to put it under a cut.

Just to get it out of the way up-front, I will briefly cover the other characters you mentioned. Both of this could easily merit their own essay, but I want to talk about Rukia, so I'm gonna keep it brief.

My interpretation on Gin and Rangiku is that they were not on romantic terms at any point of the canon timeline. My guess is that when she made it to the Academy and caught up with him again, it very quickly became obvious that he was no longer being genuine with her, and I think she cut him off. He is on a mission for revenge; she doesn't understand why he acts the way he does and distances herself from it. That being said, I (and I think many people?) find their parting scenes to be deeply, tragically romantic. I think this depends on your definition of "romantic." It never would have worked. He ruined it. If he had lived, it would change nothing. But Othello loved Desdemona, too. A story being a tragedy doesn't preclude it being a love story.

Ichigo is a teenage boy with a heart the size of three worlds. I think the amount of emotion he would like to leak out of his body is zero. I think the amount of emotion that does leak out of his body is so high that the signal-to-noise ratio makes it very difficult to discern anything meaningful. My reading of Bleach is that he does have special feelings for Orihime and that they are a slightly different flavor than he has for other people, but it's super hard to tell because he makes the same loving puppy eyes at Chad and Uryuu and Renji and Grimmjow. This guy is constantly torn between loving everyone he knows with the luminosity of a small star and trying to act too cool for school. Also, he's very young. He's still figuring this out, too.

Okay! Let's talk about Rukia!!!

The thing about Rukia is that she is really, really uncomfortable expressing affection. In the flashback scenes where she talks about how much she admired Kaien and Miyako, she's shown standing far away and looking at them from a great distance. When Byakuya compliments her bankai, she squeezes her eyes shut and has to look away.

Ukitake comments at how remarkably "open" he finds her to be with Orihime, even though what they are actually doing is training. You want to see a love confession? Here's Rukia's love confession to Orihime from We Do (Knot) Always Love You (Renji is here, too):

Feeling a little shy and fidgety, Rukia hesitated a few times as she replied to Orihime. "Th-that's because, Inoue I consider you……my……b-best girl-friend! So therefore……I thought…I should tell you first……" She spoke as her last few words became a little mumbled. "……your face is redder than the time I asked you to marry me ya know." "Sh-shut up!!"

A thing I really like about this though, is that while it is portrayed as something that sometimes holds Rukia back in her relationships, it's not portrayed as some sort of fatal flaw. She's a private person, and that's ok. This isn't a quality we often get to see female characters have. If this were a romance story, maybe we'd have to see her overcome this, but it's not! It's an action story and Rukia is a cool and stoic character, which is exactly how she wants to be!

I'm always pounding my shoe on the table over this, but I really, genuinely think that a significant chunk of Renji's character/personality design was specifically to be Rukia's love interest, which I think is based as Hell of him. He's good-looking, he's cool, he's devoted to her, he's powerful along the rules of the worldbuilding, but not in a way that overshadows her. And he meets her where she is.

The scene where Renji carries Rukia down the 8,000 flights of Soukyoku Hill stairs is, in my opinion, the most romantic scene in all of literature. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Rukia is so upset about being rescued, she is cannot stand the fact that anyone cares about her, or worse, that they would risk themselves for her. It's so clear that Renji understands this, and in the gentlest possible terms, asks her to accept his (and Ichigo's) help, as if she has any say in it at this point. He doesn't even make eye contact as he very obliquely says Let us care about you.

This causes Rukia, the most repressed woman in the universe, to hunch in on herself so that he can't see her cry and then he tells her to shut up. I am making little graspy hands at my computer as I write this. This is so good. Imagine. Imagine someone understanding you so well that they would spare you from your own emotions in this way. I am going insane.

This is not a Hallmark Christmas movie. This is a love story for those of us who struggle to connect with others.

I want to kind of hop out and say that I think there's a certain kind of person (me), who gets interested in romances almost exclusively from stories that have little-to-no romantic content. This is not an accident. For me, this is how I like it. I want to read about characters who save the world and I want them to be very business-up-front about it. I mean, yeah, I wouldn't mind if they kissed on screen once, but I don't need it. I have an imagination for that. I have fanfiction for that. I literally want them to do it on their own time. You know what's romantic to me? Meaningful looks. Backing each other up. Fighting in synch. Matching outfits. This is romance to me, and I think Rukia might actually agree with me.

This isn't to say that this is all of Rukia and Renji's relationship. I think they have talked about feelings, I think they've probably held hands and kissed or whatever, but where and when and how it happened is their own business. I think Renji probably wouldn't have minded getting one on-panel smooch, but this feels exactly how I think Rukia would want her relationship portrayed: We looked very cool and then, several years later, we were married.

Oh, and they also very much did get the horniest panels in all of Bleach, which, weirdly enough, I think Rukia would also approve of.

[carry-on-my-wayward-butt]

life is so fucking hilarious because i just found out the person who was an unbelievably cruel asshole to one of my closest friends in high school, to the point of gossiping and LAUGHING about the friend's childhood SA behind their back followed by stringing the friend along on and off romantically for like a YEAR because friend had a loose wallet is now a titty vtuber averaging 4 likes per tweet posting uwu positivity "stay hydrated you are worthy of love and your boundaries are valid!!1! <3 <3 <3" shit. lol. lmao, even.

[moongothic]

Quick point to re: is Croc openly trans or not

So Ivankov's ability to change someone's biological sex is kind of a "myth" in the OP world, right? The way Bon-chan talked about Ivankov was with an aura of legend, how they had heard all these incredible things about Ivankov but couldn't even be entirely sure the person truly even existed until they got to meet face-to-face, because the stories told about Ivankov were just so incredible

Of course, between Iva-chan's imprisonment 6-5 years ago and the actual difficulty people would have genuinely finding them to begin with (being a Rev and travelling around the world sometimes and othertimes just hanging around in the Calm Belt on Momoiro Island), the word about their deeds would turn into Stuff of Legend as few would be able to actually verify it, see it for themselves and tell others all about it, but those stories had to start somewhere, right?

And we do have an interesting note here, as this prince mentioned his mother visiting Kamabakka Queendom 15 years ago (pre-timeskip)

Now one could think that hey, maybe this is where The Legends about Ivankov's miraculous abilities began, but think really about it for a moment; Why would some ruler of a kingdom go out of their way to travel to Kamabakka Queendom, ruled by a member for the Revolutionary Army (=potentially dangerous for a monarch), if they hadn't heard about Ivankov's ability from somewhere else first?

And that's where the timeline mention gets interesting. Because guess who was born just two years before this prince's mother made her brave journey to see Iva-chan?

I'm just saying, if Crocodile went missing for like 4-9 months and then came back fully transitioned out of nowhere, and Morgans made a huge god damn deal about it on the news, letting the whole world know about the Warlord magically having become a man, yeah, that would start some rumors about who what where and how this even happened. And needless to say, this could easily send a lot of people out to the seas to try to find the Miracle Worker who transed Crocodile's gender, including some monarchs who have the resources to both verify the legends but also actually make the journey to find Ivankov (Also, if the inciting incident that started the legends about Ivankov happened due to Crocodile like 17-19 years ago, that would add to that aura of myth Ivankov has around them, as it would've been a long ass time ago when the first rumors about Emporio Ivankov would've gotten out there)

[naamahdarling]

I'm in the US, for context.

It's the retirement account comment that sends me over the edge, here. I agree with OP, but that one thing...that one thing says so much.

Here's the truth.

$7k is nothing. It would change my life, but it isn't protection against the future. At all. Absolutely not arguing that. My goodness, no.

Someone with a savings account with $7k in it isn't rich but they have a significant advantage over someone who is literally not allowed to have more than $2k in assets, like someone on SSI.

Past that, on the solidarity with the middle class thing, yes. Absolutely.

But the middle class as a whole is at best ignorant of the dynamics of poverty and at worst pretty fiercely terrible towards poor people. Many are lovely people, but as a group they demonstrate very little solidarity with us. They say nice things, but vote for policies that punish and oppress because they believe in the value of hard work and think that giving people like themselves the choice of showing the virtue of charity is better than supporting structural change that benefits everyone automatically. They want better things for us but in an abstract way. At my most wounded, it feels like they want better for me in the way I wish people would feed the ducks at the pond better food.

This doesn't mean I won't support them in their struggles to survive, which are so often just fucking awful, make no mistake, but it does mean they say and do and believe careless shit that make things worse for me and they do it all the time.

If I opened a retirement account and it had over $1k in it, my government would force me to spend it down (because my regular payment would put me over by about $1k every month). I'm not going to do that just because I should have a retirement account. And if someone can open one without constant surveillance, they ARE lucky. I don't hate them, they have what everyone should have and I don't resent that, but also, yeah, there is some bitterness I have to choke down when people complain that they needed to move some things around to afford a modest home repair. They make $110k and had to raid their $35k retirement account to get a couple thousand dollars' worth of emergency plumbing done? That genuinely sucks. But also, $35k is, like, 3 years of income for me. Them and I should be allies but we are not the same. They have a head and shoulders above the quicksand, even if they never go any higher. I am not ALLOWED to crawl to the surface unless someone else is willing and able to take complete financial responsibility for me. That is incredibly unlikely to happen to me given my current circumstances.

We both will wind up fucked in the end unless things change, I am VERY scared for them, I do not WANT them where I am, and also, they are human and good, so I stand with them, I know that their fortune could turn in an instant and they could be homeless within a few months if just one thing goes sideways. But I wish I had what they have but don't appreciate enough. I wish they knew how important their life is considered, relative to mine. It isn't enough, they deserve so much more than they have, but I'm considered a net drain on society and my government actively champions policies that will kill people like me first. It'll come for them too, but I probably won't have to see it and won't be there to help.

It isn't just the money, the not being able to save. It's the dehumanization. I can't afford to get married, unless my partner magically starts making about $30/hour. I figure I'll have a friend get ordained and do it in the hospice when one of us is literally expected not to live another month. Hopefully they can wheel the bed outside? Married people are lucky to be married.

The middle class is profoundly lucky in ways they do not appreciate when compared to the deliberately impoverished who have no chance ever of escaping it. I support them. Where are they, as a group, for people like me? Bitching about the homeless on Nextdoor, mostly. I will not eat them, but I think I can be forgiven for being really, really frustrated with how blithely they talk about life-changing sums of money as an inconvenience.

And compared to people less lucky than me? I'm just as bad. I try not to be. I fight even though I know I don't fully understand. I know I am lucky, from the point of view of someone worse off, to have utility bills. But I only have a home because three relatives died just rich enough for my inheritance to pay for a down payment, and my dad pays the mortgage. When he dies, which will be soon, I don't know for sure if I will be able to stay. $110k sounds like a fucking miracle to me.

trying to explain to tumblr that the Middle Class in not their enemy

[anghraine]

I know this isn't only an autistic thing or always an autistic thing, but over the least few years, I've realized that a lot of my difficulties with humor are not actually with humor itself. If anything, there are specific kinds of humor that really work for me and I end up laughing so much harder and longer than everyone else that it's uncomfortable or embarrassing.

But a lot of popular humor fundamentally relies on saying things that aren't true. Sometimes this is drastic exaggeration, sometimes it's OTT parody that is far more about Being Funny than about the actual thing being parodied, and often it's flatly false and that's what is supposed to be funny about it. And yes, that's a humorless and ungracious way to describe that kind of humor—I don't mean to say that this is objectively bad or something.

I even understand the jokes intellectually. But in the vast majority of cases, there is something deeply unfunny to me about jokes reliant on something that is either obviously untrue or which I firmly disagree with.

I've seen quite a few posts recently about how, in online fandom, mocking your faves or being amused at other people mocking your faves is an important part of fandom culture. But for me, jokes about my faves based on things they actually said or did, or qualities they clearly possess, can be very funny, while jokes that are based on misrepresentations—even obvious, it's-all-in-good-fun-and-we-all-know-the-truth misrepresentations—are tedious at best.

For an easy example: Anakin and Luke Skywalker are two of my main Star Wars faves. Jokes about sand or Anakin mass-murdering children in his good phase or Luke being far less concerned than Han over the revelation of who his twin is or "it's not faaaaair" can still be really funny to me when told right. Jokes about Anakin obviously mind-tricking Padmé or Luke being obviously an eternally optimistic loser twink are intensely annoying to me regardless of context or delivery, not because they're comparably objectionable or anything but because they're not true.

Functionally this does cut out a lot of humor—especially online humor—but it's not that I literally don't understand it. I get it. I just don't get it.

[neo-zone]

If Conrad is not sealed and broke free and died, I think he would be the perfect trump card against Lucius post connecting with the grimoire towers. I don't know how much the extent of his Key Magic, but I imagine it would be the most peak scene of history watching Lucius losing his absolute shit when all the spells of the dead he had gained (fruit of his years long carefully crafted mastermind plan) are stolen effortlessly by Conrad shortly after

[benjimarii]

THIS!! YES!! Blukic and Driba, Patelliday, Riney, Slix Vigma, Synaptak, they're all so good lmfao Honestly, any of the background plumbers and Galvans have amazing names

And also all of the Kinecelerans as well

Also also, about Zex-- Me and my friends were talking about our favorite like... nothing characters (not that they are bad characters, just like... our favorite background fellas that don't contribute much other than their presence and we love them for that) and @kurumeuruki brought up Zex Tannersnede. We love him so much but we noticed something on the Wiki

WHY IS HE UNDER FICTIONAL CHARACTERS????? IS ZEX NOT REAL IN-UNIVERSE??? Anywho yes, absolutely yes, I love this topic so much lmao

Y'all make fun of Star Wars names but they got nothing on Ben 10 side characters. We're talking Gluto. Skurd. Blonko. Fucking Blonko. Blonko From My Shows is an absolutely integral character in the last 80 episodes. Blonko is there at the series finale. And those are just the major side characters. There's a one-off character named Zex.

[rigels-nigels]

Something I don't get is when someone is talking about things being expensive and then some americans are like, it's not actually a scary $125 guys it's actually only $80 which is still a lot but it's actually kinda reasonable for the item

And it's like no!!! It doesn't work like that!!! Just because it costs less in usd doesn't mean the person didn't actually pay that much!!

If you buy a mug for $125aud, and you live in australia, you're paying that in $125aud, not $80aud!! Currency conversion doesn't matter in the slightest for understanding because in practice it is functionally the same as paying $125usd for a mug in america!!

If I earn $15cad/hr, and someone in Poland is earning 15zł/hr, and they bought an item that was like 150zł, me converting that price into Canadian and being like it's actually not that bad bc it's only like $50cad :), it doesn't change the fact that that for them!! It was a lot more!! Like functionally that's the same as $150cad

Functionally 1cad = 1zł = 1aud = 1usd = 100¥

Like the only time currency conversion is useful is for figuring out how far your coin goes when used in another economy, not for understanding if an item is or isn't expensive for a person living in said economy

[nitewrighter]

Snow White and the Fae Co-Op

Part One: I Didn't Vote For You

Okay so like--

I get why people thought we were all dwarves. Or made us all dwarves. Something between that. Collaborative storytelling what have you. It makes things significantly simpler, and it's a much punchier title than "Snow White and the Troll, the Redcap, the Púca, and four gnomes." (Of course I get top billing--I was her favorite.) And, okay, yeah, none of us came up past Snow's ribcage. Understandable.

But still it's like one of those things you don't want to start correcting people on it because you know you're going to spend the rest of your life correcting and concordantly explaining shit to people. But now it's like, you're pissed when we are dwarves, you're pissed when we're not dwarves, seriously! Pick a lane!

But okay, it seems everyone's pissed about this right now, so let's get pedantic.

We aren't sexy fairies.

Okay I didn't start that out right.

I guess it's easiest to explain this as... think of the ocean. So like, there are the scary sexy fairies who have the whole Succession/Bridgerton/White Lotus Fae Court thing going and they turn you into a deer and hunt you for sport, that's the Deep End. Then you have humans. Humans, in this metaphor, are land.

Me and my guys? We're tide pools.

A lot of stories are all like "Ougggh the magic is dying from this world ouggghhh the old ruined kingdoms" but in my opinion I think that's overall a case of Immortals Being Very Weird About Change In General. Like the tide, magic in this world rises and falls, and in the course of that you end up with this kind of hardy subgroup of fae who can survive in both High-Fae and High-Human environments. We're kind of our own ecosystem, but we're also kind of intermediaries between the Deep End Fae Court and the humans. We actually tend to broker a lot of more like, working class deals between the magical world and the human world. Maybe we get compared to the mob a lot. Whatever.

I'm getting into the weeds. This story isn't about me and the guys. This is about our girl, Snow. And trust me, I'm old as balls so before you get all 'Oh, one girl and seven guys? wHAt waS gOinG oN tHeRE?" (And you're absolutely disgusting for that, by the way). You need to understand that, on a species level, Snow was basically like keeping a very beautiful (albeit kind of bossy) sentient duck in the house. We loved our beautiful sentient duck and were impressed by the many talents of the beautiful sentient duck. No one desired the beautiful sentient duck on a romantic or physical level because, one, romantic and sexual desire for our subgroup of fae is very tedious, nuanced, and species-specific, and two, she was a duck. I mean she wasn't a duck, she was a human, but for us that's basically like being a sentient duck. All of those shitty "One girl seven guys" jokes I can definitely say are a result of human projection. Like again, you need to understand that my guys and me have basically gone through Magic Carcinization.

Again, I'm getting into the weeds.

All you need to know about Snow is that she broke into our house, she scares the shit out of us, and we would kill for her.

Okay you should probably know more than that.

Okay, so remember like 12 seconds ago when I said me and my guys are more of the working-class brokers between humans and Fae? And remember that Deep End I mentioned earlier? So like, the Deep End does deal with humans, but that tilts heavily into the 'Royalty and Miracles' side of things. Swords in stones. Swords in lakes. A fish that gives you all of the cosmic secrets of the universe when you eat it. That kind of stuff. That's kind of where Snow came from. She's a Fae weapon forged in a human womb. Hence why she scared the shit out of us.

How do I start this properly?

Once upon a time there were three human kingdoms. An icy kingdom in the north, a temperate kingdom in the west, and a, let's be real, damp kingdom in the east. Icy Kingdom had a queen, a beautiful queen, and the Deep End of the Fae love beautiful things. Beautiful Queen wanted more, and she made a deal with the Deep End of the Fae. She gave them her heart, and they give her a mirror that gives her sight beyond sight, and she used that to conquer Damp Kingdom in the East. They fought, but she could predict every one of their strategies with her mirror, all she needed to do was ask the mirror what this general is doing, or that Lord is doing, and bing-bang-boom, she took Damp Kingdom in a matter of months. And for good measure she took their baby boy prince, a pretty but frankly useless boy who, as the years went on and he grew, she largely kept for cup-bearing and harp-playing and decoration and also threatening to cut the head off of if Damp Kingdom ever stepped out of line. Because Damp Kingdom loved their pretty pretty baby boy prince as the last remnant of their royal bloodline, they were now thoroughly cowed.

So now the Queen turned her eyes to the Temperate Kingdom.

And this is when the Deep End Fae were like, "Hey okay you've conquered a neighboring kingdom, which we don't super-care-about for nebulous Fae Reasons, but for equally nebulous Fae Reasons, we don't want you to conquer Temperate Kingdom."

And the Queen was like, "Whatever."

And the Deep End Fae were like "Okay, then here's the part where we use that previous thing you gave us against you." And they tried to use her heart against her, but basically the Queen used the Mirror to circumvent the heart magic through a whole bunch of... jury-rigged alchemy shit? I don't know. This stuff was already way out of my pay grade. But what I do know is, the Deep End Fae realized they couldn't use the Evil Queen's previous deal as a failsafe against her, so they needed a new approach to stop her.

Temperate Kingdom was ruled by a kind king and queen. They also didn't want to be conquered, but things weren't looking good. Their capital city was under siege. The Kind Queen was pregnant and ready to pop--scratch that, currently popping. The king was mortally wounded while defending said Capital City. They dragged the mortally wounded king back to the bailey and he's all delirious ranting about his wife and the not-yet baby.

And then a figure in a mossy cloak appeared. They loomed over the mortally wounded king and they said very gently "Your blood will outlast you. Do you permit our assistance in this? Do you permit the cost?"

And the king was dying and he only understood like 40% of what was going on right now. He knew what was talking to him right now wasn't human. He knew you don't refuse a gift from the Fae. And he knew he was kind of safely in the 'fucked-up miracle' territory of Fae gifts though he didn't really understand the full extent of what that meant (and that's fair--no one does). He kind of assumed it would just be his own life as the cost of whatever the hell was happening here. So he's bleeding out and he nods. "If it will preserve the Kingdom," he says, "If it will save our child."

So we cut to the queen. The royal birthing is... okay it's going rough. Giving birth under siege will do that to you. In ideal circumstances you would have this hardcore butch midwife stick most of her forearm up the birth canal to reposition the baby and both the mother and child would live but... you didn't have that here. Instead, once more, the figure in the mossy cloak loomed over the Queen as she screamed through agonizing contraction after contraction. They touched two fingers to the queen's forehead and they gave her a flood of visions. Snow. Fire. Blood. Blackened earth. A little sapling growing from the body of a great and noble felled tree. And she looked to the figure in the mossy cloak. And she saw their face was kind.

The kind queen died in childbirth as the Evil Queen's forces overtook the capital city. The king was dead before he knew what deal he had made. The Evil Queen and her troops marched into the grand hall, only to see a figure in a mossy cloak seated on a little stool next to a wooden bassinet. The Evil Queen made that anime villain snort-scoff sound.

"So kind of you to offer your blessing in my victory," she said.

"This is not a blessing we offer," said the figure in a mossy cloak, "You have abused the gift given in our previous trade. The trust between us is breached. We now give you back that which you gave us. All you have won for yourself will rot. And as with all rot, new and rightful life will spring from it."

And the Evil Queen almost laughed at this at first, again, like "Whatever," but then after a few seconds she begins to do the math. In exchange for a mirror that gave her sight beyond sight, she gave the fae her heart, and then she jury-rigged a whole bunch of magical alchemical bullshit to protect herself from basically being shackled to the fae's will through her heart, because hey, if you can, that's what you do.

But what happens if your heart is no longer your heart?

What happens if the Fae bind your heart to someone else?

What happens if your heart is now wrapped in different royal blood from the kingdom the Fae told you specifically you're not supposed to conquer?

And that was Snow.

The most beautiful, weirdest, most uncanny-ass baby you've ever seen. AND she had that weird undercooked look all human babies have. A semi-formed little beast. Can you imagine looking at an infant and knowing it's going to burn down everything you've ever built? Can you imagine knowing that trying to smother this threat in its crib will burn everything down, too?

But you think, "It's okay. I can manage this. Plants can be molded in to bonsai and topiary. I can shape this to suit my needs, too. It just takes care. It just takes maintenance."

And that's when Evil Queen declares, "As a symbol of healing between our kingdoms, I will raise this child as my own." And she gives a sharp glance to the figure in the mossy cloak, and they give an assenting motion with their... probably head? Probably.

And she awkwardly takes up the baby in the crook of her arm. Wow awesome, she already has an amazing propaganda tool. There's no way this is going to backfire on her in like... 17 or 18 years.

Except you know it will. Because this is the "Fucked up miracles" side of shit we're talking about. And the Evil Queen is not on the side of miracles.

Fucking hell, that's all a mouthful, and Snow hasn't even met us yet! Look, I'm gonna take a smoke break and I'll get back to you in a minute, okay?

[butchstalinist]

—

[gay-david-tennant]

Things that can put the fear of god into a tumblr user:

- commenting 'this post feels like it has 10k notes'

- telling OP you're investing in their posts

- tagging it as a heritage post or even tagging @hellsite-hall-of-fame

- writing the absolute worst take known to man in the comment section so OP can prepare for a week long argument taking place in their notes

- making OP realize that they made a penis typo and it's too late to correct it

EDIT: i had now four of those happening to me on this post and someone started to KUNGPOW PENIS ME! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME??!!?

these tags are now a reminder of a much simpler time when i was sheltered from the horrors of the world ⬇️

[batsandbirdbrains]

Can you imagine the absolute psychotic break Dick would have if he found out Deathstroke was his biological dad? So anyway on that note

The one where Dick is actually Deathstroke’s son

Dick legitimately has no clue in this AU that he’s not actually the son of John and Mary Grayson. Let’s go ahead and make this one also right after the end of young justice season 2 where everyone is pissy bc nightwing was “secretive” and “too much like Batman” bc he did the absolute correct thing in not telling the whole goddamn team abt Kaldur’s deep cover op. I’m still mad they gave him shit for that if u can’t tell like im sorry u all got ur feelings hurt but dick and Kaldur’s plan literally saved the world like hello ur welcome. Anyway.

Dick is utterly Depressed and he’s isolating himself in a Blüdhaven safe house, basically falling apart at the seams bc he’s terrible at taking care of himself when he spirals like this. Everyone’s mad at him and he’s blaming himself. He’s throwing himself into the Nightwing shit and running himself ragged beating up baddies, but he’s also just exhausted and not eating right or sleeping well and he has a shitty job at dive bar or a strip club as a busboy. Should we age him down to 17? Let’s make him 17, for the added angst of not even being a legal adult but having to take care of himself and make a fake ID so he can even get a job. Not that his boss even really looked at it or legally employs him, but still. If he’s 18+ let’s make him a stripper/dancer for the extra tips and to add to the whole desperate for cash thing. Plus he’d prob get a lot of intel for his night job, actually. Idk idk

So also, instead of Artemis going undercover to help out with Kaldur, she refused. She and Wally had no interest in returning. So Dick had to maintain both his role as Nightwing and go undercover as Renegade, Deathstroke’s apprentice.

Slade was surprisingly on board for going along with Dick’s charade, because there’s no keeping secrets like that from Deathstroke of course he knew it was all a ruse. Dick just had to promise to actually follow orders while out as Renegade and to actually put effort in when Slade trained him. Dick couldn’t figure out why it was so easy to get Deathstroke to agree, he knew it would eventually come back to bite him in the ass, but he was desperate and running out of options so he took it.

So one night when Dick comes home after getting the shit kicked out of him by some run of the mill baddies, he finds Slade Wilson sitting on at his wobbly kitchen table, drinking coffee out of Dick’s favorite mug and looking like he’s judging the state of cleanliness (or lack thereof) of Dick’s apartment/safe house. Dick is too tired to even question it and just falls face first on the couch, pressing his face into the cushion until he sees stars.

A muffled “What do you want” brings a short laugh from Slade, and it just makes Dick feel even more exhausted.

Slade basically talks shit about the so called heroes who threw Dick away when they didn’t like the way his plan worked, Dick starts tuning him out because of course he’s going on a monologue when all Dick wants to do is go rot in bed for the next 18 hours. But then he says something in such a casual tone that it takes a moment for Dick to register what the words mean, and he snaps his head up so fast it feels like he snaps a muscle in his neck like a broken rubber band.

“Shut the fuck up,” he chokes out. “There’s no way I heard that right.”

“Denial’s not a good look on you,” Slade snorts.

Because Slade had just said moments ago that Dick is his long lost son, he ran a DNA test and everything.

“Long lost son,” Dick mocks, “that’s bullshit. What is this, a soap opera?”

“You were kidnapped when you were two years old,” Slade says, his voice calm but serious. Not wavering. “I’d been on a job. Your mother was called away by her father. You were left with a nanny we thought we could trust. That was a mistake. And I’ve regretted leaving that morning every day of my life since.”

Dick can’t stop staring at Slade. This has gotta be a joke. He’s so full of shit, there’s no way.

But Slade isn’t wavering at all. He’s not smirking. He’s not smiling. He’s just watching Dick so intensely, and Dick feels like he’s under a microscope.

He shows Dick the documents. The proof Slade even has a third son at all. Pictures that look an awful lot like the toddler he’s seen in pictures from the boxes of old stuff from his parents’ circus trailer. A toddler playing with Slade’s two older sons, Grant and Joey, who Dick may or may not have briefly met while Renegade.

And then he drops another bomb on him.

“Your mother is Talia al Ghul.”

Dick feels like his lungs just popped like a balloon.

He doesn’t know what happens, but next thing he knows, Slade is sitting next to him on the floor, counting out breaths and talking him down from what was probably the worst panic attack Dick has had in at least a solid week.

“I hate you and you’re full of shit,” Dick gasps, his chest aching. Definitely only because he’d been kicked in the ribs earlier by a thug, no other reason.

Slade just laughs. Not like an asshole smug laugh Dick is used to hearing from him, but like he’s actually genuinely amused by Dick and his antics.

It’s only a little bit of a mind fuck.

Slade convinced Dick to come with him, at the very least just so Dick can use the equipment Slade has to run the DNA test himself and confirm whether Slade is telling the truth or not. And maybe to have a meal that isn’t instant ramen or cereal or a rotisserie chicken.

And Dick hates how comfortable he is with Slade, because he slips right back into the role of Renegade like he never left. And Slade actually treats him like a son, like he’s proud of him, like Dick isn’t just a weapon or a pawn to be used. Slade isn’t throwing him away as soon as he’s gotten all he can get out of him.

And if Slade is maybe putting some biased thoughts about how the Justice League and their junior team treated him into his head, Dick steadfastly ignored that fact. Because it’s true, they treated him like shit. Like he was expendable. They needed his plan to save the world from the reach, and then tossed him out on his ass and called him manipulative for it without so much as a “Thank you, Nightwing, for coming up with a plan that saved us from the alien overlords.”

And then he meets Grant and Joey. As himself, as Dick, not as Renegade. And they’re his big brothers, and they’re so excited to see him, they missed him so much, he was so little last they saw him. And it’s such a stark contrast from how Tim was so mad at him last they spoke, because Tim thought he should’ve been in the loop about the deep cover op, but Tim is still a newbie who almost tore his eyebrows off taking his domino mask off wrong not even a month before the invasion ended, how the hell was Dick supposed to involve him in such a terrifying mission?

And if Dick is out as Renegade with Deathstroke one night and runs into members of his old team, runs into a confused Kaldur who doesn’t understand why Dick is still going out as Renegade, well then maybe they should’ve worried about what Dick was up to before Deathstroke sunk his claws into him.

Because now Dick isn’t sure if he even wants to go back to them.

[phantasm-ae]

I want my boy Gaz some recognition 😭😭😭😭

Maybe the team will get to meet her🤨🤨🤨🤨

(okay but like imagine... Gaz having a wife similar to Price's and Ghost's wife like she is all sweet, loving, and caring... And then boom! She's Carrying Gaz like it's nothing! Like she has that Texas Cottage core vibe (is that even a thing?) like girl is sunshine and strength)

omg omg omg... im so sorry it took so long anon RAAAA. But! I have an ideaa hehehhe. Soo yk Rick and Morty?? Hehehhe well…

cw: chaotic afab reader x kyle ‘gaz’ garrick, slightly mad scientist afab reader, fluff

HEADCANON: The team meets Gaz’s bird. And well…. She was probably more than they’d expected

PAIRING: Kyle ‘Gaz’ Garrick x afab reader

Kyle has been dating her for months.

Wildly intelligent and hilariously blunt. Slightly feral lass who wears chaos like perfume and can talk about planetary physics and frogs in the same breath.

The kind who corrects documentaries mid-sentence, and once told Kyle after snooping through his documents, about how his missile trajectory calculations were “embarrassingly phallic,” and sincerely meant it.

And Kyle? Well... He’s absolutely gone for her.

Has been since day one when she marched up to him after attending a childhood friend’s lecture, shoved a melting popsicle in his hand, and said:

"If you had to save the world with only one mathematical constant, which one would you choose? Don’t think — answer!"

Caught between her unblinking stare and a rapidly dripping sticky mango mixture near his cargos, Kyle had only blinked twice and mumbled, “...Pi?”

“Coward,” she said, then grinned like she’d just met her new favorite problem.

That was it. Done. Hooked. Doomed, even.

And well Kyle?

Kyle, awestruck, bemused, and surprised — fingers and wrist sticky with artificial sugar and syrup. The gossamer and sweet liquid staining his newly acquired cargos — could only smile back and nod almost knowingly.

The 141 meet her months later though, during one of those rare in-between missions when there's time for drinks and dinner and recharging before the next chaos hits. But here he was. Fucking sweating and itching through and through.

Well it wasn’t like he never expected all their paths to cross eventually. He always knew she’d meet them. Meet this.

Introduce herself to this part of his life soon enough and not as an accessory or a passing visitor. But as something inevitable. Like gravity. Like sunrise. Something meant to be embedded into every bit of narrative she could sew herself into.

Because if Kyle was ever honest, she knew she wasn’t the kind of person you could keep in a separate drawer. No, never. Would never even think of ever shucking her away on some pent up flat or four-cornered bedroom. Pretty little bird kept and fed well with jewels and soft perches? No. That wasn’t her.

That was never going to be her.

Never.

She was storm and thesis, claws and questions, and Kyle -- sweet, brilliant Kyle -- knew it from the moment she walked into his life like a living paradox, equal parts catastrophe and charm. She didn’t visit chapters. She rewrote them. Annotated margins. Circled themes. Demanded footnotes.

So yes, he always knew.

She overflows. Gushes. Deluged. Trickles sweetly and syrupy into the vestiges of the gloomy part of his existence. Will spill into everything and into him. And Kyle, hopelessly, stupidly gone for her, will never really try to stop it.

So if he was being honest, some part of him had always imagined this moment -- her walking into the same room as the lads, sharp-tongued and starlit, leaving a trail of sparks in her wake. Not if. But more on when.

And now it was when.

But Christ was he still bloody nervous, aye?

Collar too hot and cap a bit too tight on his forehead, palms vaguely clammy like he was back in basic waiting to be called for his first ever inspection all over again. Which was stupid, because this wasn’t a mission. Wasn’t even a bloody op.

It was just.... her -- meeting the rest of his team.

And yet, Kyle was still internally combusting like she was a ticking biochemical warhead that could either charm the lads or annihilate the entirety of Price's backyard.

He glanced sideways at the entrance. No sign of her yet. Okay. Okay. That was fine.

Soap, across from him, was already two pints in and mid-rant about the correct ranking of fast food crisps, while Ghost sat with his arms crossed and offered the occasional low grunt of disagreement. Slow blinking in boredom and lazying around near some of Mrs. Price's potted plants.

Price nursed a whiskey like it was an old grudge and pretended not to be listening, albeit trying to stifle the slight quirk of his lip every time Soap seemed to look even more chauved and disgruntled at Ghost's lack of interest at the importance of learning the difference between Cheese-flavored crisps and barbecued ones. The younger bloke almost fuming at the disinterested and blased remarks he received from his superior. Snobbish over Ghost not knowing the based characteristics on Vinegar vs Vinegar-coated.

“She’s gonna love you lot,” Kyle muttered, more to himself than anyone else.

“Still don’t get why you’re sweatin’ bullets, mate,” Price replies after sidling up next to Gaz after Soap started yelling at Ghost over the massive and weighty bastard choosing Walkers over Pringles, shaking his head with an amused grin. “You said she’s a wee genius, yeah? She'll be fine aye?"

“She's just.... odd” Kyle said after swallowing

Price’s eyebrows drooped a bit reassuringly. Boonie hat tilted, expression something between humoured and understanding -- the same look he gives rookies before a live op. “Odd’s never been a problem with us, son. You seen Soap’s sock drawer?”

“Ah sort them by how often I wear ‘em, obviously” Soap called out from the booth, clearly listening now after a huff. Stomping back to grab another pint. “It’s practical warfare.”

“Freak behaviour,” Ghost muttered behind his own drink.

Kyle exhaled a nervous laugh, glancing again at the door. “I just mean… she’s different. Proper brilliant, but she says things like ‘Diogenes walked so Newton could run,’ and she means it. Like, genuinely. She once argued with Siri and won.”

“She sounds like a bloody delight,” Price replied dryly, then gave him a nudge with his elbow. “C’mon. You think any of us are normal?”

Kyle looked down at his hands, a little calloused, a little sweaty. “She just means a lot. Don’t want her thinkin’ she’s gotta tone herself down for anyone. She deserves better than that”

Price’s voice lowered, sincere. “Then don’t let her. The team’ll love her for exactly who she is. Just like you already do.”

Kyle was about to respond -- probably with something sarcastic and choked-up -- when the door creaked open.

She walks through the gate carrying a box labeled “Absolutely Not Explosives (Maybe Snacks)”, wearing a bright-green button down with her usual tenured slacks and folded manila envelopes tucked in one pocket. Windblown, wide-eyed, her glasses sliding down her nose, and grinning like she just stepped out of a fever dream and into someone else’s backyard. Armed and saddled with that same barefoot-in-a-storm kind of confidence that had ruined him from day one.

“Hi!” she calls out.

And it’s not just a greeting -- it’s an announcement. A declaration of entry. Like Archimedes, entropy, and the snack box had all been waiting for this exact moment to collide.

Kyle’s heart stuttered once, then promptly gave up any hope of ever functioning normally again.

She beelined for him as usual like a woman on a mission, but halfway there.... she noticed the fire pit --

-- specifically, the way it was constructed.

Oh shit, not again.

She veered without hesitation, knelt next to it, squinting like she was analyzing a nuclear core, and muttered, “Someone built this using a Fibonacci spiral as emotional support.”

“Fuck's Fibonacci?”, Soap whispered loudly, nudging Ghost with his elbow. “This Gaz's lass then, aye?”

Ghost gave her a slow once-over. Head tilting a bit at her mismatched flats and patched pockets. “Bird looks like she drinks Red Bull and argues with God.”

Before Kyle could respond -- or run, depending on the emotional weather -- she reaches into the sleeve of her coat and yanks out a... suspicious-looking metal rod.

No one spoke.

Then -- click -- a blade folded out. But not like a normal blade. No, this looked like a half-melted Swiss Army knife made love to a soldering iron. Wires dangling at the bits of shorn metal. Clinking and sinewy it was. A button at the side of the make-shift handle blinking blue rapidly.

Yep. Something definitely hissed, Price concludes as he minutely flinches for the first time at the sight of something so foreign and obtuse near his wife's petunias.

Ghost tensed, gaze locked like he was trying to identify what kind of improvised weapon she’d just birthed into existence, while Soap -- daft numpty -- only leaned forward in fascination.

“What the fuck is that?” Price asked, calm but also not calm, the way a father might ask why there’s a raccoon in the dishwasher.

She didn’t look up. “Thermodynamic calibrator-slash-ultralight torch. Built it from scrap and spite. Give me a sec.”

Then she jammed it into the soil like she was performing surgery on the lawn. A sharp hum buzzed through the air. One of the lawn lights flickered. She squinted at the fire pit, adjusted a dial, then jammed the device again into the soil near the base. The fire pit roared to life, its flame suddenly tall and balanced, licking upward in a soft golden spiral. It was mesmerizing, a near-perfect bloom of heat and symmetry.

The men collectively leaned back.

“Hell's bells” Soap muttered.

She stood, smacked some dirt off her knees, and grinned with both pride and a worrying amount of glee. “There,” she said, adjusting a final dial before stepping back. “Now it distributes heat evenly -- low flicker rate, too, in case anyone here’s prone to headaches or, you know… prefers not to feel like they’re being interrogated by the sun.”

Her tone was light, but her eyes flicked briefly toward Ghost -- casual, gentle, like it was just an offhand observation. But Kyle caught it. The way she noticed things most didn’t. The way she chose to.

Soap leaned back slowly, a grin now stretching across his face like a man watching the birth of a new religion.

“I like her", Soap grinned.

Kyle was already up on his feet, rubbing the back of his neck. “Uh, love… you gonna say hi properly, or you planning to interrogate more of the landscaping?”

She stood up straighter now, poised and readied, like nothing was odd once more, turning with an inviting and warmy grin, holding the box up proudly with a small and enthusiastic wave. Almost like she didn't just reconstruct a fire pit with a weaponized calculator and a god complex. “Hi! Sorry, got distracted. The heat ratios were offensive. Also, I brought snacks!”

She shook the box once for emphasis. It jangled. The sound was deeply suspicious.

Ghost, once relaxed and a bit.... touched alarmed that someone picked up on his discomfort with flickering light without him saying a word, now sat a little straighter at that. Eyes sharp once again. Cautious and perched. Shoulders just barely tensed under his hoodie as something absolutely squeaked when she juggled the looming cardboard in her wry hands repeatedly.

Price side-eyed the box like it had a timer.

Soap was still smiling like he’d just found a new hobby. Gait shifting to approach her closer. Reading the “Absolutely Not Explosives" label aloud. “Tha's either a bloody threat or a right good promise.”

“Depends on who opens it,” she replied cheerfully, then smiled open and inviting, adjusting her grip to shake Soap's outstretched palm. Shoving the box right after to Kyle's chest. Price humming in amusement at the sight 'oof' Kyle breathes at the weight and mounty thing now in his grasp. A misguided care package from a mad scientist at that. He was sure of it.

Making him stagger a step back, having to catch it again with both hands as it tilted precariously to one side. Something clinked. Something else sloshed. Something definitely clicked.

Price hummed, one brow rising as he took another sip of whiskey. “She always gift-wrap danger?”

“Only on the holidays,” Kyle muttered, staring down at the box like it was about to start reciting code.

Meanwhile, she was already gripping Soap’s hand with a firm shake, her grin bright, chaotic energy radiating off her like a short-circuited sunbeam.

At his sergeant's words, Price shakes his head in hilarity and interest, a slight lift from his beard for a surprised smile before stepping forward himself and offering his own hand. “You must be the chaos professor.”

She blinked at his hand at that, his words making her pause but grin proudly, grasping his sinewy fingers firmly as well in return. “I’m not a professor. Yet. But I am a Doctor of Applied Theoretical Physics, with a minor in Quantum Physics”

“You’ll fit right in,” he replied, clearly entertained. “I’m John.”

“Captain John Price,” she said then, squinting. Almost like something just pieced itself together in her head. A corner of her glasses slightly blinking green and blue. However, light and subtle -- just a shimmer beneath the lens as if scanning data only she could see.

She tilted her head. “Ohhh. You’re the John Price. Task Force 141. SAS. Operation Kingfisher, the oil rig interception, three confirmed HVTs neutralized in twenty-one minutes. That John.”

Price raised a brow, his grip still firm in her handshake. “That’s a very specific résumé you’re rattling off.”

She grinned, shrugging. “I like to research my boyfriend’s coworkers. Helps me know what kind of cookies to bake and what kinds of extraction plans to draft in case things go horribly wrong. And can I just say for the record, that you truly have a ridiculously symmetrical face.”

Price chuckled low in his throat, that rare and gravelly sound of a man both flattered and bewildered. “Symmetrical, huh?”

She nodded, eyes narrowed with faux scrutiny. “Yep. It’s giving ‘military recruitment poster.’ Like someone made you in a lab to sell patriotism and protein powder.”

Soap let out a loud bark of laughter. “Och, she's clocked you dead-on, Cap"

Kyle was standing off to the side now, box still in his arms, looking like he was debating whether to set it down gently or hurl it into the bushes before something in it decided to hatch. “Please don’t feed her ego,” he called over. “It’s already got its own gravitational field.”

She shot him a wink at his response. “That’s rich coming from the man who cried at my thesis defense.”

“That’s -- I had a cold,” Kyle protested, cheeks already pinking.

“She presented using live fluid simulations and built a metaphor about dark energy and love,” he added for the others, like that would somehow make it less devastating.

Ghost muttered into his glass, “Startin' to think you didn’t pull her… bird drafted you.”

“She did,” Kyle said, deadpan. “I was conscripted.”

Price shook his head, that amused smile now tugging higher under his beard. “Well, Doc, welcome to the madness.”

She glanced at the squad -- all casually observing her like she was both a field report and an open flame -- and clapped her hands once, bright and fearless.

“Excellent,” she said. “Then I’ll make tea after this. Also, about that fire pit--”

Soap looked delighted. “Aye, that wee disaster? That wis me, cheers.”

She gave him a mock-somber nod. Almost cringing at Soap's enthusiasm as if it physically hurt her to try and school someone for something pointless and small at the end of the day. “I admire the conviction, Johnny. But the stones.... were holding a grudge.”

Ghost tilted his head. “Fuck do stones hold a grudge for?”

She looked at him over her glasses. “Vibrations. Like people. Only less dramatic.”

Soap leaned over to Price, muttering, “This one’s a unit. A proper mad scientist.”

Price snorted. “And you love it.”

“You know I do.”

Finally, Kyle placed the suspicious box on the table with the care of someone setting down a baby rattlesnake. “Alright, so are we opening this or performing a ritual?”

She lit up. “Both.”

Something beeped.

Ghost stiffened.

Soap leaned closer.

Price calmly took another sip of his whiskey like he was very used to seeing strange things unfold in his garden.

And Kyle?

He just grinned, wide and resigned, as she started peeling back the tape with the flair of someone revealing buried treasure. Because this was her. All of her.

Spilling and overflowing for sure. All light, wit, and kinetic mess. Sharp edges wrapped in cellophane, brilliance hidden beneath layers of glitter and chaos and a worrying understanding of black-market circuit boards. Solar flare in the shape of his other half is what it is.

But somehow. Bloody somehow.

Still. Will. And is --

-- utterly Kyle's.

“Alright,” she said brightly, flipping the box open now with a flourish, “Let’s play snack roulette!”

Revealing the inside of the malty cardboard now filled with neatly organized rows of tiny vacuum-sealed parcels, each labelled with suspicious enthusiasm:

Nutritionally Suspicious Brownies

Possibly Radioactive Jam -- Only Kyle's

Chili Lemon Cry-Biscuits

Emotionally Unstable Muffins

Entropy Taffy

Soap leaned in with glee. “Christ, ye name yer snacks like they’ve got emotional issues”

“They kind of are,” she replied, plucking out the Cry-Biscuits and casually tossing one to Ghost, who caught it one-handed with all the enthusiasm of a man expecting to be poisoned. He sniffed it once, then gave her a look.

“Why’s it humming.”

“Because it’s fresh,” she said simply, then added, “And also maybe reacting to trace particles in the air. The spice is… volatile.”

Ghost stared. “You trying to kill us bird?”

“If I was, you'd already be carbon scoring,” she chirped.

Soap popped one of the taffies into his mouth with a crunch. Immediately blinked. “Holy shite. I can taste colors!”

masterlist

[teaboot]

I swear, every time I see you reblog someone's art, it's always this super detailed, clearly a photograph. And then OP's comment is something like "oil on canvas, 3 years to make". Your reply is all caps, large bold text WAIT THIS IS A PAINTING?!?

No other art reblogs from you, just this specific genre. But this could also be confirmation bias on my end.

You are absolutely correct, and I can explain!

In an age so thoroughly used to photography and film, and as an artist who dabbles in realism myself, I find that we often take for granted the measure of skill one needs to hone in order to create an image which is so easily confused with reality, and the speed at which we scroll on by puts artists specializing in hyperrealistic work at an extreme disadvantage- by using my blog as a platform to highlight this genre, I hope to encourage others to slow down, read captions, and form a greater appreciation for what we so often scroll right past.

A solid 95% of the OTHER art I love on this site is specific to various fandoms that I don’t wanna flood yall with, which often ISN’T realistic, so it goes on my side blog. (If you are a fandom blog that posts your art, this may be why I follow you.)

You don’t see what you don’t notice, and yes, confirmation bias is strong.

[flock-of-cassowaries]

In my fanfic drafts, I gave him a spinal cord injury resulting in permanent weakness and nerve pain on one side, as well as a prescription for once-monthly injected risperidal and a modicum of insight into the horrific impact of the actions he can never undo.

Then I sentenced him to a lifetime in exile, in the captivity of a man whose love he desperately desires; knowing that that man will never trust him, and that said man will always, to some degree, hate him, and hate himself for not hating him more.

…..does that help at all? 🤷🏻‍♀️

He (Hannibal) is haunted by unaddressable guilt, and by the memories and feelings he can no longer compartmentalize inside the delusions of being super-human he nurtured for many years.

Instead, he is:

living in a half-finished cinder block house with poor insulation and a persistent rodent problem;

emotionally terrorized by his captor / beloved’s conflicted feelings and resultant mood swings; and

stalked, in the long hours spent alone, by the gnawing suspicion that it would have been better if Will had been able to bring himself to shoot him (as he had originally intended when they arrived here);

…or, if he (Hannibal), were not, ever and always, too much of a coward to kill himself.

(The way he should have as a young man all those decades ago, when his 17-year-old sister had rightly pointed out that they had run out of tinned beef weeks ago, and where tf was that guy Yuri?; only to become, herself, the miraculously-caught “seal” in the next batch of starvation stew.)

And even if Will doesn’t keep him in chains all the time (anymore), he remains locked out of the kitchen.

It is a measure he understands, but which, functionally, equates to a lifetime sentence of bachelor cuisine: grilled cheese and scrambled eggs and grilled cheese and scrambled eggs and grilled cheese and canned beans and fried eggs and grilled cheese (again).

All washed down with the cheap, too-strong tea that Will cheerfully insists “puts hair on your chest!”, despite ample evidence that it does not do anything of the sort, and equally ample evidence that, even if it did, that particular area is not one in which Hannibal requires assistance.

I did give him a cat, though.

The cat is a a big floppy orange longhair, and a complete failure as a mouser.

For cat-specific reasons known only to her, she absolutely hates everyone except Hannibal.

(Probably because he’s indoors all the time, and mostly sits fairly still in one place - because of the whole hemi-paralysis thing - making him a predictable presence and a safe target for biscuitsbiscuitsbiscuits; but the point is, she’s chosen her human, and it ain’t that dog-smelling dude who comes in every evening covered in diesel oil and mechanical grease. Even if that dude is the one who feeds her and cleans up her shit. Hisssssssss.)

Hannibal really didn't get beat up enough in the show, I think. He tormented Will so much but it feels like only half of it was what he did to Will and the other half was what OTHER people did to Will as a result of Hannibals actions.

Will feared walking into an institution and not being allowed to walk back out, and that came true thanks to Hannibal. He feared being psychologically dissected, noted, and studied - all of which happened in the BSHCI. He was put in a prime position to be poked and stared at, to have everyone ever who called him a freak be able to point at him behind bars and go "Look! I was right!". He questioned his own sanity because no one listened to him, and the one person that had was literally the one that put him there! His - dare I say first - friend who made him feel normal and not alone was literally the one to put him in the institute, to make people think they'd been right about Will Graham all along.

And he had to sit there through that, had to wonder if maybe everyone else was right, until he was sure it was Hannibal. But even that was little solace when he realised no one was coming to save him. It's why he turned to the manipulation so quickly and effectively, bc he realised no one else was going to get him out, he had to save himself and literally risk the death penalty while at it.

He had to sit for months through people gloating that they were right all along about how weird he is, at colleagues treating him like a stranger for crimes he didn't commit (and I will admit, it did not look good for him with all the evidence Hannibal planted & his altered mind state), through Alana saying she felt nothing romantically for him both privately and in front of a court. Beaten down already and then being made to feel like you're not even desirable, publicly, because it helps your case. To someone who already has trouble forming any sort of relationship - platonic or otherwise - and only has rapidly fraying connections while in the BSHCI.

And then when he gets out and no one even says the words 'I'm sorry' to him?? theres acknowledgements - I owe you an apology, I should've noticed - but no one actually says I am sorry. They just imply it. He had to sit through months of his worst fears coming true all while feeling like he's going crazy because no one else can see the truth (and it IS the truth!!) and then he doesn't even get real apologies and also now has his shit out there in the public being known as the guy that was arrested for being a serial killer.

So anyway. Hannibal deserves to get run over w a car is what I'm saying. And much more

[biasbuck]

BiAsBuck’s April ficrec Frenzy

Hi everyone, what a goldmine of fic potential these last few episodes have been!! Facetime! Lore drops! Fic gaps! DANGER! Are we not thriving? Well I'm back with another round of fic that I've read and loved over the last month, from these incredibly talented authors.

As always you can find previous rec lists here.

12 April 2025

children behave, that’s what they say when we’re together by Elgney Buck and Eddie are together at last, and they're super happy about it. One problem, Chris has JUST left for camp, and Eddie really wants to tell him before they share the news with anyone else. Buck can tell Maddie, of course, but they agree to try and keep it a secret from the rest of the firefam...how hard could it be? Super sweet and very funny, yet another fic from this author that had me smiling so much.

defined by its absence by @ghostlandtoo amnesia fic, amnesia fic! Eddie wakes in Texas missing eight years of his life...when Chris walks in, no longer a toddler, but a fourteen year old boy. His parents are cagey about his life, and Chris won't look at him properly. And then a stranger called Buck turns up, saying he's his best friend. Will Eddie remember? This one really aches, and weaves the tangled web of emotions so beautifully. No easy answers, just a lot of faith and feeling.

i love you, i'm sorry by @ithilien-writes Moving to Texas was never actually the plan; or at least, it was never actually Chris's plan. From his POV, this gorgeous fic explores what it means when you react and retreat in hurt and anger, and then have to deal with the consequences. Particularly when the adults in your life have their own issues. Such a strong Chris voice, this really made me feel for him and Eddie as they find their way back to each other.

i forget that you're not mine by @bexism five times eddie forgets that he and buck aren't a couple (and the one time they actually are). In which Eddie returns from El Paso having imagined all the ways he and Buck could make a life together...and in a accidentally kisses Buck about it. Funny and knotty and wonderful team dynamics, *Buck voice* Oh Eddie.

they won’t listen (they won’t look) by @polkadotk804 in which Ravi discovers Buck and Eddie’s relationship and is tasked with telling the 118, but he slowly goes crazy when no one believes him because Buck and Eddie are just ‘like that.’ Through it all, Ravi doesn’t realize just how much his 118 family loves him…until he does. < op's summary is perfect, so I'll just add that I LOVED this.

drive me, crazy by @markofalover a 8x12 & 8x13 coda, in which Raphael the cashier assumes Eddie is talking to his partner on the phone, and Eddie doesn't know how to correct him...and then it turns out everyone in El Paso thinks he and Buck are together. Brilliant use of the facetimes and communication hijinks to feelings acknowledgement.

loving life, a new degree by @sonofatoasterwaffle Buck has no shortage of fantasies about Eddie. Eddie doesn't mind indulging him. This time it involves something lacy, a whole lot of trust, and established relationship sexual exploration. Let's just say that when it comes to Annalee's incredibly hot smut fics, both Buck and I are seated.

8x14 codas (spoilers ahead!)

oh, lift up your head, boy. by @atlasblue85 Chris is at the diner with friends after school in El Paso when he sees the news. He calls Eddie about it. Love this teenage voice for Chris, and the dynamic with his friends and with Eddie. (I also really love the long distance ballroom dance reveal coda tainted love's too fast to dance to from last week!)

hurts so bad when you finally know by @clusterbuck Eddie's been trying to get in contact with Buck all day, hoping to catch him between rides, but he can't get through and it's making him tense. This one took me out at the knees. And the Chim coda too (linked within), exploring his thoughts about Maddie and his family as the sickness takes hold...absolutely devastating!

stay, stay by @try-set-me-on-fire 8x14 coda and 8x15/16 spec. At 8:36 AM, Maddie’s phone rings. Eddie is calling and Buck isn't doing well. Gut wrenching, looking at Buck beyond breaking point.

the losing touch, the waiting game (i promise to be there this time, alright?) by @chronicowboy a series of texts and answerphone messages from Eddie to no response. Little but mighty, this packs a punch!

And a bunch more codas from 8b to be found in my regularly updated ficrec tag (Anyone got any Ravi coda recs???)

See you next time!