#Snow White Arc here we go

[completeoveranalysis]

[6]

Well that certainly was more dramatic than I thought it was going to be. 

At least we get the Apple Close Up though. 

The real Snow White metaphor was the Syaoran we found along the way!

[workingwhileidream]

Okay Burrow's End had me thinking some thoughts... So here are my favorite Dimension 20 moments that rotate like a rotisserie chicken in my brain (in no particular order other than the order I thought if them).

- Riz goes into the butthole of the Corn Ooze Monster (Fantasy High). The first absolutely insane shenanigans move anyone makes on D20, setting the tone the show will have forever.

- Raphaniel kills Queen Pamelia (Ravening War). I think I saw Brennan's soul leave his body briefly when he got that How Do You Want To Do This from Matt. Time was an absolute flat circle that day.

- Hank convinces Brennan to let him role savvy instead of sneak (Mentopolis). Hank is one of the most famous content creators, having him on the show was phenomenal to begin with. Then right out of the gate, he pulls this move in his first episode. And it just works. Hilarious, instantly iconic.

- Jet Dies (A Crown of Candy). When Lapin dies, it is shocking but I wasn't attached to him as a character. Lapin was a bit antagonistic and his death happens early in the season. On the other hand, Jet is instantly likeable. Emily and Siobhan are amazing as siblings, their performances this campaign are some of my favorites. I have siblings and I am very close to them, so this hit me like a ton of bricks.

- The entire epilogue of Burrow's End. "Are you pitching and Air Bud ending?" is one of the instant hall of fame quotes from this show. I started crying I was laughing so hard.

- Ylfa's bottleneck and the TPK (Neverafter). There are so many close calls for total party kills in Dimension 20 history, but this is where it finally happens and it's only 3 episodes in. I was on edge, expecting another TPK at any turn, for the rest of the campaign.

- 3 nat one initiative rolls for the battle that literally opens the season (A Starstruck Odyssey). The beginning of a new season is always full of excitement. This season was extra special, having everyone back in the dome after the pandemic and the season being based off Brennan's Mom's comics. The zoom energy is still in the air and I still think about this season opener a lot.

- Mother Timothy Goose breaks Snow White's concentration with a cantrip (Neverafter). Only Ally Beardsley could and we all damn well know it. Still didn't stop me from being so far in disbelief that all I could do is laugh.

- Hob's "You will never know another lonely day" speech to Rue (A Court of Fey and Flowers). I will still cry about this if I think about it for too long. Rue and Hob's romance is the heart of this season to me. I won't be over it ever.

- Gertrude convinces Nyruth to give the Questing Queens very powerful boons after the Queens tried to rob them only a few hours earlier (Dungeons and Drag Queens). The fact that this season exists drives a level of serotonin into my brain that is unimaginable. This is the definition of a big swing and when Bob rolls well, Brennan has no other choice than to honor it. This is one of the moments I have made a meme of. I cannot wait for season 2.

- Wuuvy shows up to the duel and she did not come to play (A Court of Fey and Flowers). Aabria has talked about how Wuuvy is one of her favorite NPCs and I feel the same. Wuuvy and Rue's relationship has such a great arc and this moment is so pivotal.

- Fabian's no good very bad day (Fantasy High Sophomore Year). An iconic moment in D20 history that was truly wild to watch live. For everything to go so fantastically bad for Fabian and Lou was unprecedented. There is a reason why people still talk about this moment to this day.

- Amathar survives being pushed off the castle (A Crown of Candy). Brennan tried to kill Lou so many times in this campaign. I really thought Brennan had gotten him with this one, my stomach sunk. But Lou pulls it out and Amathar lives once again.

- Pib plays "Smoke on the Water" (Neverafter). "I stepped out to play 'Smoke on the Water' " is also a hall of fame quote to me. This list could be all Pib moments if I'm being honest, he's my favorite Zac character. And the fact that Zac doesn't roll well makes this moment funnier to me.

- Buddy Bear gets planted with the All Blossom (Dungeons and Drag Queens). Jujubee and Brennan owe me a therapy session for this one. I sobbed. My cat is my baby and I will be ruined the day she leaves me, so I get it. I really do.

- "Eat your dice, Brennan" (Fantasy High Sophomore Year). A great bit made physically possible by Siobhan. I hope Siobhan gives him gummy dice or something like that so that Brennan can continue to eat his dice for Junior Year.

- Orange Top Hat Fairy (Neverafter). It's a horror season and the cast is doing bits about how hot a mini is the entire finale and the Adventuring Party that followed. I felt the stress and off the walls energy through the screen. The Smooth Criminal pin was the first piece of Dimension 20 merch I bought.

- Viola's epic takedown of Phoebe (Burrow's End). Watching Rashawn absolutely crush it her first time in the dome was amazing. I loved Viola from the jump, her arc was so satisfying and fun to watch. Also the idea of a tiny stoat kicking a gun just the right way to get it to fire is hilarious. No notes other than please have Rashawn come back on every season she possibly can.

- Evan Kelmp warns the Rosemont student not to duel him (Misfits and Magic). Brennan's deadpan warning matched with the reactions of the other players and Aabria really make this scene. An underrated Brennan moment for sure.

- Stacey Fakename turns out to be real (Mentopolis). This was such a good reoccurring bit, so to have Stacey be real at the end of the story was too funny. In a season of bits, tropes, and puns - this one has the most payoff to me and is definitely my favorite.

[backtothefanfiction]

Oh Baby | PART TWO: SETTLING IN SEATTLE

Manny Alvarez x Reader Insert

Summary: You and the gang settle into your new lives with the WLF

Warnings: MATURE!, pregnancy, angst, fluff, manny is a bit of a jerk, swearing, guns! We are playing fast and loose with both the timeline and general story canon, if that’s gonna bother you, don’t read.

Word Count: 5.2k

A/N: Hi, so here is part 2 of Oh baby. Thank you so much for the love and support on part 1, I can’t wait to share the full story arc I have planned for this. I’m sorry there isn’t a tag list, I’ve just come to realise I’m just really shit at keeping one. The series will be listed in the South Wing of my library (masterlist) from here on out so will be easy to find for future reference. If you really want to make sure you don’t miss an instalment when I post (I’ve not really thought out a schedule with this, just gonna post whenever) then maybe hit the follow button as an extra security. Anyway, Manny is a bit of a dick for a bit during this chapter, but his heart is in the right place, so we can’t be mad right? Right?

It took another day and a half of trekking through the snow to get there, the high snow drifts making it near impossible most of the time to move through the woods, but you made it- and you’d only thrown up twice in that time. You were considering that a win. Manny remained close to you for the whole journey, but never too close to draw too much attention to you both. But he kept a constant eye on you.

When he noticed you weren’t being sick again he tried to encourage you to eat some more, even sneakily offering you some of his own rations. You had tried to push them away, worried that this blessed nausea free break would be ruined by you suddenly adding food back to your stomach again. But he was pushy and wouldn’t take no for an answer- and you were glad he didn’t, thankful when your body remained settled and you were able to enjoy the first lot of food you had kept down in days.

You all mostly walked in silence, all of you conserving your energy as you moved through the howling cold as quickly as you possibly could. When you made it back towards the road things became a little bit easier again, however by that point the fatigue in your body was so great that no matter how much closer you were getting to the city, it still felt like it was miles towards your destination.

Once again you slowly began to fall behind. The cold air made your lungs burn. Your legs were starting to cramp from walking too much and you desperately just wanted to sleep.

“How much further?” you asked Manny as he doubled back to where you had finally come to a stop, your body hunched over, hands braced on your thighs as you desperately tried to get your breath back and muster enough energy to go on.

“I’d say maybe another hour and a half?” he said, turning his head to look for a marker against the city skyline to where the WLF were camped out.

You stood back up to look for the marker yourself, but your eyes were too tired from both your fatigue and the endless white that continued to surround you from all sides.

“Have I ever told you I hate the snow,” you panted, as you tried to instead focus on the man before you and find some solace and energy in him.

“No,” he muttered, his focus split on attending to you and keeping an eye on how far ahead the others were.

“I grew up in Arizona,” you muttered, “not all that much snow in the desert,” you complained and it made him chuckle.

You watched as he took one more look over his shoulder at the others, before his eyes softened. “Come here,” he said, reaching out for your backpack.

You reluctantly let him, once again, shift some of the items from your bag into his to lighten your load and take some of the strain off of your body.

“Thanks,” you said, as you moved to put it back on, the weight of it considerably less. You wondered how heavy his pack must be now, but you knew this was yet just another one of his ways to try and make amends with you.

“So you really think this is a good idea?” you said to him as you slowly began to walk again.

“I mean if you’d asked me yesterday before you told me-“ he hesitated as he struggled to say the words ‘you’re pregnant’ out loud, but you couldn’t blame him, nor did you actually need him to say it for you to understand. He blinked hard and swallowed down the unspoken words before he continued. “I would have said yes. And considering the current weather and the fact our supplies are running dangerously low, I won’t deny, I still think it’s the right move to make. Whether or not it’s a long term solution though?” he said, airing his thoughts, “I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.”

“I’ve heard Isaac can be quite the hard ass,” you confided as you looped your thumbs through the straps of your pack and hoisted it higher on your back as you walked.

“That may be, but if it means he keeps control of the city and we get to settle down in one place for a while…” he offered, his voice trailing off as he struggled to find a conclusion for his train of thought, but you got the gist of where it was headed.

—————————————————

“So how do we do this?” you asked as you approached the old media tower that the WLF had made their main base and finally caught up with the others. “Do we just knock on the door and show them our old fireflies necklaces or?”

You didn’t have time to receive an answer as the doors suddenly flew open and a surge of WLF members came out onto the front steps with their guns trained on the six of you. You immediately froze, your hands instinctively flying up into the air in a show of surrender, but to your surprise Manny stepped forward to block your body with his own. He had a hardened and protective look on his face, but it was a stance you knew was meant to protect everyone, not just you.

“Wait, don’t shoot!” Mel eagerly said, stepping forward, moving her backpack into view and showing off her old fireflies necklace. “We’re former fireflies. We were told by one of your scouting parties in the area we would be welcomed here,” she said optimistically, but your heart was still in your throat.

One of the leaders of the WLF pack lifted a finger and signalled for you to wait where you were. He gave a look to the woman beside him, silently telling her to be vigilant and keep the rest of the pack's eyes trained on you all, as he moved back inside the door to radio to his superior and give them an update.

It was an agonising wait that had your toes tapping with restlessness as you tried to focus on staying calm and optimistic. But on the inside you were mentally berating yourself for ever letting you all go through with this crazy plan.

“You got names?” The man came out again and asked and slowly each one of you introduced yourselves. He didn’t seem to react to any of them until he heard Manny’s and he seemed to grow a little starstruck. Once he had collated your names, he hovered back inside the doorway again to radio them to the superior once more and you were left frowning at the back of Manny’s head as you wondered why the man had reacted that way.

Another couple minutes went by of you all waiting out in the cold, before you were given the all clear to finally enter the building and you let out a low breath of relief as you followed everyone else inside. You stuck close to Manny’s back as you all climbed the stairs single file up to the 4th floor. He took one look back just to check where abouts you were, but you could see him relax when he realised you’d kept yourself close.

“You’ll wait in here,” the man who had led you in said, as he ushered you all into an old conference room that still housed an old wooden table and a mass of swivel chairs.

Although the group of you had been left in the room alone, it was clear from the shadows through the glass in the door, that a couple of WLF members had been placed there on guard to keep an eye on you all just in case.

Although you had been tired the whole way there, the adrenaline from having numerous guns pointed at you was still coursing through your body and you found yourself unable to sit still. You instead moved towards the windows that lined the back wall of the room and took a moment to look out at the snow covered city.

“What do you think they did with all the infected?” you asked, noticing the completely empty streets, but knowing from the fact you had all walked in here with no problem, there wasn’t any fence or defenses like they had in Jackson to keep them all out.

“Probably forced them underground,” Manny’s voice replied quietly, as he hovered looking out the window at your side.

—————————————————

You all waited in exhausted silence for what felt like nearly an hour before someone came to speak to you all. He was a black man of average build, but his presence in the room was immediately all encompassing and commanding.

He came to a halt at the end of the long conference room table before slapping a handful of paper files onto the table top with a heavy slap. Slowly you all came to hover around the table to accept your fate.

“Looks like you all check out,” he said firmly, yet his voice had a softness that told you you no longer needed to be on edge. His fingers slowly began to fan out the different files, his eyes dipping to scan the names on each of them.

“I will say though, many of your fellow fireflies who have sought refuge with me and my ranks thought you dead, as none of them have seen or heard anything about you in months.” He hesitated as he let his steady words permeate the air. “Anyone like to enlighten me as to what you’ve all been doing in that time?”

“We had a personal mission we were carrying out,” Abby spoke up confidently, before quickly adding a ‘Sir,’ as a formality.

“And what kind of personal mission would that be?” he asked, his attention focused on her.

“We were tracking down the man who attacked our base out in Salt Lake City,” she supplied.

“And was the mission successful?” the man asked.

“Yes, sir,” she said coldly and without feeling.

You didn’t know how she could be so closed off to what she had done. How she had acted. Even just thinking back to the way that man, Joel, had looked lying on the floor, his body bruised and bleeding, was enough to make your stomach turn again. The memory of the young woman’s screams echoed around your ears and you leant forward slightly to brace yourself against the table, your knuckles growing white as they wrapped around the edge.

You could feel Manny shooting you a subtle look of concern from your side, but you ignored it, not wanting to bring more attention to yourself than you already had.

“Which one of you is Manny Alvarez?” The man at the head of the table finally asked, his eyes flitting between Manny and Owen. But with a name like Alvarez, you thought it was easy to work out which two of the men it was he was looking for.

“Me,” Manny said, raising his hand slightly to get the man’s attention.

“The file we’ve got on you says you come highly recommended,” he said, singling out one of the files in front of him and flicking it open. “I’m told you’re good with a rifle and have a near perfect shot record.”

“Yes, sir,” Manny confirmed.

“Good, we could do with someone like you upstairs,” he said, before finally dragging his gaze back to the rest of you. “We’ll try and find you all accommodation. Training and drills will begin tomorrow at 08:00 hours. You’ll have 1 week to prove your worth, or you’ll be back out on the streets, you hear me.”

“Yes, sir,” you all affirmed

“Good,” he praised softly, picking back up the files and beginning to move towards the door again. “Oh,” he said, doubling back a step and turning back towards us. “My names Isaac by the way. And welcome to the WLF.”

—————————————————

TWO AND A HALF MONTHS LATER

The six of you had been split between two rooms. After a small debate it was decided that Abby, Owen and Mel would take one room, whilst you, Manny and Nora took the other. You were grateful too, because then neither you or Manny had to hide what was going on between you (not that Nora wanted many details, but you could speak freely even when she was around and it made things less stressful).

You had all completed the WLF initial trials, not that there had been any doubt that you would, being ex-fireflies and all, but it was a weight off knowing you could stay. You had regular food, a place to sleep, a steady routine that made the long winter days go by fairly quick.

You and Manny had managed to keep your little secret under wraps fairly well, the only issue being when you all had a physical. Although the nurse was supposed to report the result back to the doctor, you had managed to get her to take pity on you and have her sweep it under the carpet for the moment. After all, given everything else you had going on with the WLF, you still expected yourself to miscarry and this whole thing to resolve itself naturally. But that didn’t happen.

Your morning sickness had gotten better over the last few weeks, you were only throwing up once a day (if that). You were sleeping better at night allowing you to feel less fatigued in the day and you were finally starting to get some colour back into your cheeks now the weather was starting to turn.

The last of the snow had melted well over a week ago now, bringing with it fresh flowering buds on the trees and an influx of greenery to surround you. You had always loved Spring and that cycle of new life that began to emerge everywhere you looked. It always reminded you that things could so easily change and that even on the bleakest of days, something new was just around the corner. It gave you hope.

However the changing weather didn’t just bring new life to your surroundings. Just like the warmer weather had started to bring all of you out of hibernation, it did the same for the infected.

There had been many talks and meetings over the last week on how you were all going to combat it. More patrols. More groups marching through the streets to show the WLFs force.

You and Manny were often split up during the day, him relegated to camping out upstairs in the watchtower, whilst you were left to act as one of the many boots on the street. Luckily you usually had either Mel or Nora with you to watch your back and ease Manny’s mind, but it still didn’t stop him from worrying about you night and day.

“We’re going to have to say something at some point,” he said as he lay on his single bed across the room staring up at the ceiling, throwing and catching a small ball to keep his hands busy whilst he thought.

“And what if I’m still not ready for that,” you said as you rolled onto your side on your own bed to face him.

It was a small room with a set of bunk beds against the wall on one side and a single bed on the other. There were three lockers placed at the ends of each of the beds for storage and a single extra chair in a corner by the door. You had taken the bottom bunk so that Manny could better keep an eye on you, leaving the top bunk for Nora.

“Well when will you be ready?” Manny rebuffed gruffly, catching the ball and sitting up to look at you properly. “I mean, you’re not going to be able to keep it a secret much longer,” he berated, but his tone wasn’t unreasonable. “We’re three months into this thing now. Isn’t that when they say you’re usually out of the woods? It’ll only be another couple of weeks before you start actually showing.”

“I know!” You said, cutting off his rant.

You’d been having the same conversation for days now. Manny had been protective of you from the second he found out you were pregnant with his child, but lately he’d stepped it up a notch.

“Just, give me a few more days, okay?” you reasoned with him as you rolled back over onto your back to stair at the slats in the bed frame above you.

“Promise,” he said, his eyes staring at you, but you didn’t meet them.

“Promise,” you sighed noncommittally, but it seemed to ease his mind. For the moment anyway.

—————————————————

That was until another week later and you were all pulled into a meeting with Isaac and a few other higher ups in the WLF.

“I need a strong team to go out and survey the Eastern blocks of the city. We’ve been having an insurgence of infected in that area and we need to work out where they’re coming from so that we can push them back,” Isaac said from the head of the table. “Manny, I want you and Abby to head up that group.”

“We’ll take the rest of our crew from Salt Lake,” Abby quickly offered up. “Pad it out with a few of-“

“No,” Manny quickly interjected, cutting her off. All eyes fell on him as the room went quiet. When he turned and met your eyes, you knew what he was going to do and you silently begged him not to, but he ignored you.

“We’re not taking the whole Salt Lake Crew,” he told her.

“What do you mean? Why not?” Abby commanded, her brow furrowed, eyes laser focused on Manny.

“Yes, Manny,” Isaac chimed in, “why not?”

“Manny,” you warned him, your voice low.

“No,” he turned and said to you, “I’m not letting you come with us.”

“Manny, please don’t do this,” you asked him calmly, trying to keep things from escalating before they’d even begun, but he wasn’t having any of it.

“Why can’t Y/N come with us?” Mel asked from across the room.

Your eyes moved to Nora sat beside her and you silently pleaded with her to step up and say something. To counteract Manny before he could go any further. But she wouldn’t.

“Manny,” you turned back to him and nervously warned him again. You weren’t ready for this. You liked it just being the three of you that knew. The moment everybody else did they would look at you differently. And even if you were ready, this was definitely not how you wanted them to find out.

“She’s pregnant!” Manny blurted out before you could get out another word.

You glowered at him, a storm held in your eyes that told him how much you hated him right now. How betrayed you felt.

“Since when?” Owen asked, rising from his seat as he struggled to process the information.

When silence fell and it was clear Manny wasn’t going to say anything else, you finally bit the bullet and confessed. “I’m 3 months along,” you reluctantly told them.

“What?” They muttered between themselves, asking each other different questions and berating themselves for not realising. The only quiet one amongst your crew was Nora, who just stared at the two of you as the debris of the bombshell slowly settled.

“Well who’s the father?” Mel asked, still struggling to put all the pieces together.

“Well it’s fucking him isn’t it,” Owen snipped. “Why else would he know and the rest of us not.”

“I guess congratulations are in order,” Isaac said stoically, as you sat mortified in your seat. “After all, our repopulation efforts are just as important as all our other endeavours,” he continued, but somehow his words didn’t make you feel any better.

“This does change things a little, I guess,” he continued as the rest of the members of your crew in the room began to settle, “but Manny, I do believe the choice should be up to Y/N. We have had some pregnant recruits continue to partake in missions well into the late stages of their pregnancy-“

“I want to go!” You insisted, standing from your seat and leaning forward on the table with authority. You could feel Manny at your side shooting daggers back at you but you ignored him. “If everyone else is going, I want to go.”

“No!” Manny said forcefully. “Bringing you along will only compromise the mission.”

“How so?!” You interjected, rage beginning to rise in your voice. “I am still more than able bodied. I am keeping up with all the drills. I am still a highly skilled member of this team!”

“But I can’t guarantee your safety,” he stressed.

“Yes, I understand that and am prepared for any-“

“But I’m not!” he shouted back. “If you come with us, you will only be a distraction for the team. I don’t want anyone losing focus on the mission because they are too busy trying to protect you and watch out for you instead.”

“Then why the fuck did you tell everyone!” You spat back at him.

“BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO LOSE YOU!” he shouted and the room went deadly silent. “Either of you,” he clarified more softly. “Permission to deny Miss Y/L/N’s attendance on this and future missions,” Manny said, turning to Isaac for a final ruling.

Isaac hesitated a moment, looking between you and Manny, silently weighing up the situation. But you saw the way he looked at Manny and you knew there was no going back. “Permission granted,” he finally affirmed and you fell like led back into your seat as you felt your fate finally settle on your shoulders.

—————————————————

You didn’t talk to him for a week after they returned. Refused to even look at him. How dare he bench you like this. It was ridiculous. He knew how much of an asset you were to that team, baby or not, and yet he still sidelined you- for what?

“You know, you can’t ignore him forever,” Nora said one evening when it was just the two of you in the room.

“Watch me,” you bit, irritated, but you both knew your words were meaningless.

“If it makes you feel better, he was in a grumpy as fuck mood the whole time. Carried this look of guilt on his face and almost got himself killed because he was still too distracted thinking about how he’d hurt you.”

“What?” You said, sitting up and leaning your head out from the bottom bunk to look up at her.

“The fucker was too in his head and wasn’t looking where he was going. Fell through the fuckin floor didn’t he. Thank fuck he caught himself before he could fall through the next floor. There was a fuck ton of infected down there,” she said. “I mean he still disturbed them and they came swarming up the nearest staircase, but thankfully we had enough time to hop back out the window and climb down the same way we went in before Abby and Owen torched the place.”

“Shit, is that why he’s been limping?” you found yourself asking concerned.

“See you do care,” she smirked.

“Oh shut up,” you spat back, flopping back down onto your back out of sight again.

Two minutes later, Manny was returning to the room freshly showered, a towel tucked tightly in at his hips, his damp curls still dripping down his back. His sudden presence made the room tense and it wasn’t long before Nora was shifting herself off the top bunk and making a quick exit.

“I’m gonna go take a shower too and give you guys some time to talk,” she said, grabbing her things before lightly skipping out the door.

Although she had given you space to talk, neither one of you was chomping at the bit to break the silence between you. That was until he let out a low groan as he settled himself down on the edge of the bed. When you finally chanced a glance his way, he had lifted his leg slightly to observe the large scab that ran down the length of his shin.

When he lifted his head and was met with your eyes, you felt caught, like a deer in headlights. But you didn’t move.

“That looks painful,” you finally said.

“Yeah. Was,” he replied. “But it’ll heal in about a week or so, no big deal,” he added, putting his foot back on the floor before standing up.

You continued to watch him as he pottered around the room collecting the things he needed to get dressed, laying them out on the end of his bed. “You just gonna sit there and watch me get dressed?” he asked with his back to you, as he lifted his arms and applied deodorant.

“Maybe?” you said, but you didn’t turn your eyes away. After all, it wasn’t like you hadn’t seen him naked before.

“Fine,” he sighed, brashly turning around to give you a full eyeful of his junk as he finally dropped the towel.

Your eyes became glassy as they focused on his abs. You knew it was weird to just stare, but you couldn’t help yourself.

“You okay there?” he asked, as he rested his hands on his hips and waited for you to look away, but you weren’t fully there.

“Huh? What?” you finally said, blinking out of your daze and finally moving your eyes back up to his face. “Yeah- I’m fine,” you said, turning your body away from him fully and staring at the wall beside you.

You listened attentively to him as he continued to shuffle around and get dressed into his T-shirt and sweats, the usual items you all wore to bed. You heard the mattress springs groan as he finally sat himself back down on his bed and only then, did you turn around to look at him once more. He was sitting on top of the covers, his toes dangling over the edge of the bed. His arms were wrapped tightly around his knees and his fingers circled his wrist to hold them in place as he stared at you.

His face looked tormented and you wanted to ask him to unload his burdens on you, but you were also still pissed at him and liked that you were at least causing him some torture.

“You know I had to do it, right?” he said as an opener, but you didn’t respond. “You promised you’d say something and you didn’t,” he continued when all you gave him was silence. “What else was I supposed to do?” he said, his voice becoming irate when he couldn’t get a response from you.

Instead of answering, you rolled back to staring at the wall.

“Uhhhgg,” he groaned and you heard the sound of him running his open palm down his face in exasperation. “Look what do you want me to do? What do you want me to say?!” he finally barked, getting up and standing directly next to your bed.

“How about an actual fucking apology!” you turned and spat at him. “Did you think about that? You fucking out me to everyone and then sideline me from all further missions and you didn’t even apologise!” you barked back at him and his face fell.

You could feel your hormones coursing through your body. Feel your rage literally bubbling under your skin as it became flushed. All you could do was sit there and glower at him, words suddenly failing you. You were so mad- so angry- and you had no idea how to regulate that.

“Y/N-“ he said hesitantly.

“Don’t-“ you said, cutting him off. “Unless the next words out of your mouth are I’m sorry, just don’t,” you warned him and for once he actually looked frightened by you.

You both hesitated in silence for a moment, your eyes locked on one another as he waited for you to calm down. He listened to your breathing, counting the breaths out in his head as they gradually became deeper and longer.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said when your body began to soften and he knew you’d actually listen to him and accept it. “Please Y/N, I’m sorry,” he said, crouching down beside the bed so he was at eye level with you. “For all of this,” he added.

You sighed, closing your eyes and taking a deep breath.

“It’s not all your fault,” you reassured him. “It takes two people to make a baby and we were both reckless,” you said, your words chosen carefully to let him off of the hook he had placed himself on.

“Yeah, but I-“ he started, but you cut him off again.

“But nothing,” you said. “We are both grown adults and just sometimes…” you paused, taking in another calming breath, “sometimes these things happen.”

He gently reached out his hand for yours that was resting over your stomach and you let him, his thumb rubbing soothing lines across the back of it as he tried to work out what to say.

“How were you while we were away?” he finally asked.

“You mean apart from being cooped up here?” you asked him. “I’m fine- we’re fine,” you corrected and your words made the corner of his mouth quirk up.

You remembered back to what he said in that meeting, ‘Because I don’t want to lose you… Either of you.’ Although those words had gotten your back up at the time, your anger at being pushed aside clouding any other feelings those words might have made you feel, you sure were feeling them now.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he suddenly frowned, leaning closer to you and you realised you had begun to cry.

“Uhhh, shit,” you said, wiping at your cheeks. “Just stupid hormones,” you explained, letting out a small laugh at yourself as the tears continued to roll down your cheeks. “You know yesterday, I cried over a cucumber. A fucking cucumber,” you laughed, remembering the absurdity of it all.

“Why? What did the cucumber do to you?” he said with his own lightness, as he continued to hold your hand and help you ride out this wave of emotions.

“Didn’t taste right,” you told him.

He let out a breathy laugh before he lifted your hand to his lips and pressed a small tentative kiss there. “Kids not even four months yet and he’s already rejecting his vegetables,” he mused.

“Or she-“ you interjected, because there was really no way of knowing after all.

“Oh good, glad to see you two have made up,” Nora said as she stepped back into the room enrobed in a towel, her old clothes bunched up in her arms.

“Yeah,” you mused as you let your eyes roam over Manny’s side profile and you smiled. “We’ll see how long it lasts,” you joked and he turned back to you and smiled.

—————————————————

TO BE CONTINUED…

[thewebcomicsreview]

I know you've consigned sinfest to the dustbin of irrelevance but the latest arc is so mask off about his feelings regarding porn and woman. It's weird. It's so open and out there about his whole madonna/whore issues but he doesn't attempt to even address it. His whole ass is on display and i don't know if he's even aware.

I suppose I appreciate that he’s taking a break from the racist caricatures, even if the Wojak Popemen are tremendously lazy an-

Is that the Nostalgia Critic?

Anyway, while this story is stupid and offensive it’s at least Tats’ own bizarre hangups again and not warmed over /pol/ memes. I guess he needed his own brand of insanity to fill the gap of 4chan going down, but that makes this storyline useful in that it’s maybe the clearest window into what’s left of Tat’s mind.

So, Snow White is tricked into eating an apple. This makes her “love the stranger” and not be hateful, which is presented as a bad thing.

Specifically because she’s kind to “creepy” animals, which the name of the strip makes clear are a metaphor for nonwhite people. There was a long time where I thought “Tatsuya Ishida” was a pen name and he was a white dude IRL, like marvel contemporary “Akira Yoshida”. Some research revealed that he was using the name Tatsuya Ishida for his college strips so I figured that was his real name because no way was he that committed to the bit. But there are times when I wonder, man.

But anyway, Snow White is a Pure White Wahmen who’s been converted to being liberal/leftist by an evil queen. Who is a trans woman. Which you might go “Obviously” over except remember that Tats hates Jews now and considers them in charge of everyone else he doesn’t like. But here with Snow White trans women are back as the main Thing Tats Hates, which is certainly interesting.

Prince Charming sets out to rescue her and is constantly distracted by various racist things happening by. Also Tats hates Trump this week.

Or, sorry, Drumpf, which is a nickname resist libs gave Trump in 2017 that’s so tired that the guy who came up with it publicly apologized. I’ve seen /pol/ types refer to Trump as “Drumpf” when mocking liberals (as in “This’ll get Drumpf for sure guys” sarcasm) so it’s’ kind of bizarre that Tats is using it unironically as an insulting nickname here.

Charming finds that Snow White is a lib now and calls her a slut for it.

Which makes this Snake imagery very Eyes Emoji, but moving on

Prince Charming saves Snow White from being an eGirl, and a bunch of other women are like “Hey we are also being sexually oppressed help a bitch out?” and he heroically refuses because he can care about exactly his women and zero others. Given how Sinfest’s descent started with him become a Radical Feminist who hated porn (and that was his only feminist belief), this is kind of a wild shift.

But on the way home the Prince suddenly gets horny for a second. Religion shows up so that Tats can be mad about them for a bit.

Then the prince escapes through a vagina-shaped portal (symbolism protip: A man literally entering a vagina is possibly a metaphor for sex!), but when he gets back Snow White is still and eGirl and he’s still horny for her. He tries to stop being horny, but that is also bad apparently.

Not quite aligning the top and bottom text of your meme? Veeeery naughty!

Finally, they collapse into failure, surrounded by snakes which, remember, are penises here.

So, what can we divine from this? First off that Tat’s worldview is incredibly bleak. That’s not news, really, but I’m increasingly worried he’s going to shoot someone for real. This is such a dark place to be in, mentally.

It’s also, perhaps, as close as we’ll get to an origin story for Tat’s weird turns. It’s been speculated for years that Tats had a girlfriend who got him into the radfem stuff, and there’s been all sorts of wild speculation that she left him for a trans woman or something but I think this is the actual story, albeit through Tat’s warped and self-serving retelling. Here’s my theory:

Tatsuya Ishida had a girlfriend. She was very left-wing, and also didn’t like pornography. Tats glommed onto the porn connection since that was a long-standing bugaboo of his own, and made that his personality for a few years. Then Tats started getting really right-wing and the girlfriend didn’t like it and they broke up (this might be before the anti-trans turn in 2019) and he never got over it and then Covid happened and he was a conservative old dude in a bad mental place during Covid and went down the same facebook rabbit hole all our collective dads did. He tried to fill the hole in his heart with right-wing boomer 4chan memes and the spark of joy that gave him is burning out and the comic’s becoming more aimless (to the extent “hate” is an aim). Wouldn’t be shocked if he made another weird-ass political shift soon that seems left-field but in retrospect is obvious. Maybe he’ll be a “wellness” crank next and start tanning his balls.

[codenamesazanka]

rant. this was a vent in response to the final chapter, but the anime reaching the heteromorph riot arc got me all whiny again. embarrassingly personal.

On "Peaceful Resolutions" + general heteromorph riot arc stuff

When I was in elementary school - I forget what age - there was a snow day. Children love snow days. Me, my younger sibling, and my grandmother went outside to play. We wanted to use the neighborhood hill to sled. Unfortunately, it was already being used by some older kids. Middle schoolers only a few years older than me?

They didn't want to share the hill. So they pushed and shoved us. They threw snowballs at us. When I cried for them to stop, they laughed. When my grandmother, who didn't know English, who spoke only Chinese, yelled at them to stop, they laughed, and mocked her. "Ching chong ching chong." After that, no matter what me or my sibling said in English, they pretended not to understand and just kept chanting slurs. There is nothing more frustrating than screaming out your pain that you know people can hear and understand, and having it fall on deaf ears; more than that, your pain is enjoyment for them.

Was this discriminatory incident resolved peacefully? Well, me, my sibling, and my grandmother cut our snow day short and went home. Our retreat was 'peaceful', but I guess the incident wasn't exactly resolved.

Would attacking them back helped? No, of course not. (And not that we could. We were two elementary kids and an elderly woman. Understand that bullies nearly always purposefully target those weaker than them, ones who can't fight back without negative consequences.) Indeed, things would've just escalated. But we didn't want to retaliate. We didn't want revenge. We just wanted them to stop.

Did we do anything about it? No, it was just some kids being mean. A very minor thing (even as the incident, only one among others, continues to destroy our perception that this neighborhood was ever safe for us, truly our home. But my town had an active neo-nazi gang that liked to vandalize houses and slip posters into newspapers, so it was never going to be safe.) We didn't know our neighbors well because of language barriers, because we stood out as a Chinese family in a largely white neighborhood and people didn't talk to us much either. We wouldn't know how to alert the parents of these kids. And we thought, even if we did complain - a non-violent method of action - they might just find us annoying. They might hate us more. What if the language barrier leads to more confusion and conflict? We didn't want to risk it. We kept our heads down and let the incident go. My family became more reluctant to go out, to let me and my sibling outside to play. We maintained the peace.

Understand that it doesn't really matter what an discriminated minority does to resist discrimination - the perpetrator can find any act of resistance inappropriate. That is their prerogative by being in the position of power.

Shoji saved a girl, gave the community peace by preventing them from having to grieve her death. His village then bashed his face with a hoe for daring to resist and break the norms of the village, for daring to touch the girl to save her life.

A third party, of course, can come and resolve the incident by de-escalating everything. But for my incident, it was not me that this third party needed to stop. We did not engage in violence. It was the older kids. And had I retaliated - idk how, as a child; tackle them? - to protect my grandmother, my younger sibling - that would be self defense, likely because I wanted the bullying to stop and had to resort to violence when nothing else worked; because I feared the violence they were about to do to us more than my fear and reluctance to engage in violence in the first place. Maybe self-defense is too strong a word here for schoolyard bullying, but the principle is the same.

(It wasn't just schoolyard bullying, obviously. There were other incidents, from when I was younger, when I'm much older. This incident is one that I feel is less revealing/personal/vulnerable to tell.)

There was no peace in that incident that wasn't broken by the perpetrator to begin with. Not that the peace was peaceful for us in the first place. Bringing about true peace is solely on stopping the perpetrator, and ultimately on dealing with the root cause.

“Discriminatory incident” is so vague. An incident can be anything. “Peaceful Resolution” implies responsibility on all parties. What we're told isn't 'Shoji stops the bigots nonviolently'. (Also: The bigots are afforded this. Villains must be put down with violence, but not the people throwing rocks and spraying pesticides on children. I'm of course of the opinion that violence shouldn't be used to stop bigots or Villains except as a last resort, but the manga has demonstrated that no Hero ever stopped a bigot using the same methods they use on Villains. Why is that?) It isn't 'Shoji saves victims of hate crimes'. Judging by Shoji's own statements and how the heteromorph arc plays out, a peaceful resolution is stopping both the heteromorph victim (who may or may not be lashing out - in response to the hate crime) and perpetrator - If anything, more stopping the heteromorphs.

I’m going to suggest that rarely, heteromorphs ever actually retaliate with violence. True, the heteromorphs we see (Shoji, ordinary lady, Koda's mom) aren't part of the rioters but are we to believe all these rioters are people who react with violence every time, and it's their first solution? When they stopped the damn riot themselves because they didn't want to hurt the healthcare workers? (and even the riot wasn’t purposeless, indiscriminate violence - they were solely there to retrieve Kurogiri). Pig Nose guy says he's been beaten up for no reason, so he's already at the receiving end of violence that justifies self-defense, but we can assume he didn't actually lash out any of those times because he's the one who stops everyone, feeling so bad about just the idea of hurting someone.

I can’t say that’s 100% canon that none of the heteromorphs ever lashed out (and of course ‘statistically’ some of them must have), but overall, for most of them, it’s a legitimate assumption to be made. The heteromorphs from the Jeda or 6/6 incidents were fully massacred. Shoji and Spinner were children - Shoji was on the ground, getting bashed in the face with a farming hoe wielded by an adult. Spinner got sprayed with pesticides for walking outside and became a hikikomori, saying that he accepted being a ‘lizard freak’, he was ready to give up. (And he only took action when the extraordinary moment of Stain getting on TV made him realized he hated this suffocating world where Heroes failed him, never protected him.) Ordinary Lady never lashed back out at her attackers. Koda’s mom had to be protected by Koda’s dad.

Even the PLF agitator - his wound is a long deep scar on his head - a head injury that would’ve thoroughly incapacitated him, if not kill him. It is likely not the wound of someone hitting back with self-defense as if the PLF agitator was the one attacking someone and they were fighting back for their life.

These are the ‘Discriminatory Incidents’. What does a peaceful resolution look like, here?

The heteromorphs at the hospital aren’t there to get revenge. They’re there because they’ve been pushed into a corner and probably have become afraid for their lives, their future. During a national crisis where Heroes order civilians to go into hero-guarded shelters, these shelters had the audacity to refuse heteromorphs, leaving them out on the streets, vulnerable to the dangers of jailbreakers and lack of resources.

The peace was broken first by discrimination. The heteromorphs probably took Spinner’s call to action as a life preserver. Heroes had refused to protect them during the collapse of the state; and so they likely found truth in Spinner’s word that if Heroes win the day, nothing will change. They weren’t there to hurt anyone at the hospital - they were there to take back Kurogiri.

But Shoji framed the whole thing as revenge, as being avengers. He accused the heteromorphs of being violent and non-peaceful, without ever naming the first act of violence on the part of the non-heteromorphs. He didn’t want to risk the heteromorphs’ hard-won reputation and status (“You’ll set us back 30 years.* They’ll target your children.”) He wanted the heteromorphs to do what my family did - kept our heads down and let the incident go. Maintained the peace.

Shoji said that those who hurt the heteromorphs weren’t justified, but he then says “there has to be a better way”. We never find out what this was, beyond the vague ‘Shine bright’.

(I shined bright, too. I was a straight-A student. I did extracurriculars - piano, viola, art, softball. As did my sibling. My family were hard-working citizens. My mom worked two jobs. I hate telling these details, because they don't matter. My worth as someone who doesn’t deserve to face discrimination does not and should not depend on my grades or trained skills, how pleasant or cool I seem to someone. None of that matters to the people who wanted to hurt us because they simply saw being visibly Asian American as the offense.)

We don’t find out how Shoji’s better way works in the final chapter either. Just that he resolved the incidents ‘peacefully’. Because he wanted to solve discrimination peacefully. As do everyone, oppressors and the oppressed. But ‘peace’ often means something different to oppressors, and something different to the oppressed.

(Did Shoji resolve the heteromorph riot peacefully? Not really. He shouted a lot to the crowd, but he also fought Spinner (ah, you might say - well, Spinner was using violence! Shoji has to react to that with punching as well! Yeah. That's what I mean.) Koda had birds shoved someone off a building.)

Shoji’s better ways - I will assume it’s stopping the blood cleansings. That is a noble goal. It is a necessary and vital goal. And so, how? How does he cover the large areas of rural land, so that he’s there to stop these hate crimes? How does he know when something will happen? Is it a campaign and community-level action? Uraraka’s tackling of Quirk Counseling is a ‘project’, widespread and implemented on a macro level. Shoji’s efforts are on what’s implied to be individual incidents. But putting that aside for now, I will assume “resolving” is talking down the perpetrator. I will assume it’s protecting the victim while negotiating with the person holding the weapon.

Peaceful implies that he does so without violence (as he should! As a Hero Law Enforcement of the State!); but a blanket label of ‘peaceful’ also implies stopping the other party (the victim) asking them to stand down as well.

I just think - during my Discriminatory Incidents, how can anyone have me stand down, have stopped me, when I haven't done anything in the first place? And if I did have to be stopped from engaging in self-defense, that's not a resolution. That's a save. That's someone saving me from the violence, saving me from having to resort to violence.

Heroes save people. There's no question of 'peacefully' when they fight villains to save people. There’s no framing of ‘peacefully’ when they do so. But it seems heteromorphs are not allowed the same language of ‘peacefully’ and 'save'.

-

tl;dr. idk. the heteromorph mini-arc’s writing and message is awful.

-

*re: “set us back 30 years.” I know we don’t know exactly what happened 30 years ago, but we can guess - and so I don’t think guessing one of the named massacres is too wild. From my own experiences, the murder of Vincent Chin was about 40 years ago. I grew up with Vincent Chin as a horror story.

Being told that, due to whatever actions I was doing, would set back all that progress Asian Americans made since then is just cruel and wrong and illogical in all ways. Vincent Chin didn’t deserve to be murdered whatever he did 40 years ago, and he deserved to have his murderers be brought to real justice. The sheer injustice of that case is objective. There is no way someone can tell me that I’m setting time back to when the murder of Vincent Chin happened, that I would be causing injustice like that again, I’m responsible for any more murders that happen, and have that be in any way true.

Related— On Bnha's apparent ideal of "a hero is someone who is willing to suffer in silence" and "we'll get it right next generation!"

From Asian American Dreams, by Helen Zia:

The reaction within the Detroit area’s small, scattered Asian American population was immediate and visceral. Suddenly people who had endured a lifetime of degrading treatment were wondering if their capacity to suffer in silence might no longer be a virtue, when even in death, after such a brutal, uncontested killing, they could be so disrespected.

[...]

Vincent was part of an entire generation for whom the immigrant parents had suffered and sacrificed. Other Asian Americans also found a strong connection to the lives of Vincent, Lily, and David Chin. Theirs was the classic immigrant story of survival: work hard and sacrifice for the family, keep a low profile, don’t complain, and, perhaps in the next generation, attain the American dream. For Asian Americans, along with the dream came the hope of one day gaining acceptance in America. The injustice surrounding Vincent’s slaying shattered the dream.

[phoenixyfriend]

I was turning over @threebea's Snow White in my head and I got to the question of What's Up With Ahsoka, and started coming up with with an offshoot of the main fic and sent the whole ramble to Bea.

At least a few things match canon timeline, because the twins exist, so I'm thinking Ahsoka plausibly still had a Wrong Jedi arc and ran off to find herself, later getting picked up by Bo-Katan. (I assume Satine is dead, or she'd have been mentioned at some point.) And Bo's been fucking around at the edges of the various empires trying to decide what she wants to do with herself, Ahsoka on her ship (and occasionally in her bed because they're both about twenty and stressed and sometimes that means destress sex).

So they hear about the Cin'Ciri thing going on, and Ahsoka's freaking out, and that... makes Bo's decision for her.

Once she meets with Jaster & co, Bo makes the argument that Ahsoka left the Jedi half a year before shit went down, and has been a good friend to Bo-Katan (though we can't use the canon of 'a friend to Mandalore' but maybe Maul was fucking around on Kalevala in particular and Jaster was too busy to get involved there, so Bo still had some shit to do), so she shouldn't be memory-wiped like the others. Jaster is considering letting Ahsoka integrate more normally instead of forcing a mind-wipe, especially since Bo-Katan declares that she'd marry Ahsoka on the spot if it meant Ahsoka gets to make a real decision here.

Meanwhile, Ahsoka wants to meet the other Jedi, even though they don't consider themselves Jedi anymore, and none of them recognize her, and there's a moment where she just goes "Master Obi-Wan?" and he doesn't know her but there is a technically-still-a-teenager in tears that cares about him a lot so he offers a hug and she ends up sobbing on him because Duh.

And they talk a bit, about what the memory thing did to all the surviving Jedi that have made their way into Mando space, and Ahsoka says that if none of the other Jedi can keep their remembrances, and she may have the option of doing so, then she will keep those remembrances. Everyone's. She will do the mourning, build little shrines and say the names of the dead.

Something something that 'Ahsoka the White' look with the robe and shakujo is a Priestess look that develops as she makes a place for herself as the memory-keeper for the Jedi.

A new part of the Cin'Ciri cin'vhetin process could be that people give her the names they want to immortalize and she carves them into that shrine she keeps (though Jaster has banned anyone from entering to see those names, except her and certain non-Jedi guards) so that someone can do the mourning for them?

IDK I just have this bouncing around in my head because of Ahsoka's specific relationship to the Jedi and Mandalore in S7, and Bo-Katan in particular.

Bo is very Feline Protection Energy about her wife.

Obi-Wan doesn't know Ahsoka but given that he and Quinlan rebuilt a friendship I imagine he's more than willing to at least put some effort into trying to make something new?

I think Ahsoka avoids the details of how close they were at first, just says she was his grandpadawan, but Bo-Katan butts in and tells Obi-Wan that Ahsoka's the closest thing he's got to a daughter so he better at least make an attempt.

Jaster doesn't want to kill Bo-Katan because she's a great stabilizing force for certain elements due to her relation to Satine, but for fuck's sake is she annoying to him personally.

Idk if Jaster would allow it but maybe Bo-Katan lies and backdates her "marriage" and kicks up such a fuss about how he can't do the Cin'Vhetin to someone who married in before it was even protocol that he just gives up on dealing with the problem that is Bo-Katan Kryze.

Bea:

Oooo I love this. Yeah I left it ambiguous for Satine. Tor ruled (I think) up until the beginning of the clonewars (maybe a little earlier idk) so I think either he got her or Maul got her still sadly. I definitely think Bo's argument of she was already married to a Mandalorians would work. Jaster isn't pleased but by then the process is more in the Cin'ciri's hands anyway and Obi-Wan is very interested in another way to reassure people going through the process that their dead will be remembers and carried over. Oh boy Quinlan absolutely asks Ahsoka if she knew his padawan. And if they're dead. Ahsoka: I'll remember them for you Quinlan: You're like Kenobi, aren't you. Answering without answering. Jango is suspicious of Ahsoka at first (especially because of the connection to Obi-Wan) but he mellows a bit when he sees she's taking away some of Obi-Wan's guilt and stress for being the one taking the memories now. Jango maybe knew what happened to Satine, and Bo's opinion of Ahsoka does carry some weight there too (unless he knows she was connected to deathwatch at any point). I figure with the Jedi they don't recognise each other but there is some recognition in the force. I can imagine it's hard for Ahsoka and helps her in a strange way because Obi-Wan disappointed her, but she knows she also disappointed him and she has to let it go in favour of a relationship with this new Obi-Wan who is both the exact same and different. She sees Luke and thinks Anakin is dead. Didn't know Padme was pregnant but Luke is two and his eye colour matches and Obi-Wan tells her he was his last mission. Heh and maybe she has met Bail and that's where she heard about this because Bail is keeping tabs and feels so guilty about letting Fett take Obi-Wan. Maybe Bail actually told her a tiny bit about the twins since Obi-Wan and Yoda are dead. Well Yoda is and Obi-Wan doesn't remember. I completely forgot but the aesthetics for the new Order is totally lots of white 😂 More Mandalorians style though, and some wear armour. Light so they can move easily with their lightsabers. So Ahsoka in the Ahsoka the white garb totally works. Ahsoka absolutely adds Satine to the shrine for Bo and Obi-Wan. The clones too. There's something very sad that that relationship isn't something the Jedi think they might have lost. From their POV the clones just killed them so they couldn't have cared about them and if they had it must have been a trick. Only a few people know about the chips (Jango will have to change that Quinlan can't be the only one wanting to go after the perceived murderers of the Jedi)

Bo: This is my Jedi wife and I LOVE HER Jango: Shut up you're like twelve

Jaster views Bo as an unfortunately deadly kitten

What if you were forced to forget your Kryze partner what then Jaster? Checkmate.

[disclaimer: Bea and I both love the idea of Jaster and Duke Kryze having had a thing that may have been at or near marriage at some point]

Fighting with your stepdad about whether he approves of your hippy-dippy neopagan wife is just Thanksgiving dinner norms, right?

(In this case the neopagan is a joke about Ahsoka's demigod pet owl that kind of just shows up wherever)

Bo-Katan:

Jaster who was like: well Jango is not interested in people like that I'm not gonna have to deal with these kinds of issues Son: This is my Jedi I'm gonna marry Step daughter: We're already married and if anything happens to her I'll kill everyone in this room and then myself. Jaster: you're my favorite now Boba: ? Boba: wait I don't want another dad Boba: I already have two (Jaster is basically just another dad at this point) Boba comes around on it though. I feel like Boba is treated like a student/padawan at first which he is way more comfortable with Vader: want do you mean he has children!?!? Rwaaargh

Ahsoka: Wait we're married? Bo-Katan, lying: Uh, yes. Jaster: Did you not explain the marriage process before having her say vows? Did you TRICK her into marrying you? Bo-Katan, who is not married at all: No, I think we just have different definitions of marriage and had a translation issue. Ahsoka: But I thought I was doing well with my Mando'a lessons and-- Bo: Girl, shut up

Also Rex can be there. Third-wheeling for the lesbians.

Rex, not a Jedi: no issues Also looks like Jango and Jaster can't say no to that face literally Rex: I've heard there's been talk of helping my brothers. I want in. Bo: this is my wife Ahsoka and her boyfriend Rex.

Ahsoka, doing math lady face: Rex, are we dating? Rex, who only sort of understands dating: We… spend a lot of time together?

Obi-Wan's happy to call Ahsoka his daughter, but if Jango tries to adopt her for shared custody like he did with the boys, she WILL fight him.

Bo-Katan will also fight him don't make her wife into her step-niece, Jango, that's WEIRD

I imagine Bo and Jango developed the cat relationship where one will just attack the other to keep them on their toes and then they'll walk away as if nothing happened Obi-Wan: she tried to stab you Jango: but she didn't! Close though. Think she can dodge a flamethrower? Obi-Wan: Do not flame thrower people in my halls! Ahsoka: … So…? Bo: Cain instinct

Ahsoka wants to babysit Luke which is fine but Bo-Katan is very bad at children. There are so many fluids involved in Baby.

Bo: I got him a present. Ahsoka: what is it? Bo: a knife! Ahsoka: no! Ahsoka: holding a baby isn't hard I promise, here- no you need to support the head-and the rest of him! Not like that! Ahsoka: you can hold him in his car seat.

Boba is a lot easier to manage. Just bully him. Make him hang out with Rex for maximum awkward.

She can do teenager teenager is just gangly adult

She's only barely not a teenager herself

Bo: Well since Boba is older I think he should pick the holovid. Then takes a step back Rex also trying to dodge any sort of familification: I am a friend and associate no one is my dad! Jango: oh thank Manda Jaster: :/ (but we have a responsibility) Rex: You know what Obi-Wan is my dad. Actually probably the closest I ever came to having one Obi-Wan: why am I everyone's dad? Bo: has he met Korkie? Jkjk Rex: well Anakin wasn't my dad and Obi-Wan was Anakin's dad so…

Obi-Wan: Who's Anakin Ahsoka: [bursts into tears]

You're dad-shaped, Obi-Wan.

Just imagining Bo constantly draping herself over Ahsoka, or pulling her into Bo's lap and caging her like a constrictor, glaring at passing Mandos who disapprove of the memory-keeping Jedi.

Hiss 😂 Ahsoka: (can easily protect herself but… Pat pat?) Bo: ♥️

[jackoshadows]

Wait what?! There's a theory that Sansa said 'you know nothing Jon Snow' in their childhood? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

This is an example of how these shippers just don't care about the context of that phrase and it's narrative importance to Jon Snow as a character and his arc of leadership. There's an actual reason for why Ygritte says that to Jon Snow! Why would Sansa say that to Jon?! What is happening?

It's like when they see quotes like 'You should look behind you, Lord Snow. The moon has kissed you and etched your shadow upon the ice twenty feet tall." or 'The white wolf raced through a black wood, beneath a pale cliff as tall as the sky. The moon ran with him' and it connects to the Moon symbology for both Dany and Arya and they want something similar for Sansa and they do this:

Like they just cut the sentence and took the first word of that sentence and attach it to the preceding sentence 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Also sun and son?! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Like no need for meaning and sentence structure and all that - we will just take this word from here and put it together with that word from there and voila! Jonsa happens.

It's the same with 'You know Nothing'.

Let us read this paragraph both ways.

First, assuming this is the way it's meant to be read:

The Night's Watch takes no part. He closed his fist and opened it again. What you propose is nothing less than treason. He thought of Robb, with snowflakes melting in his hair. Kill the boy and let the man be born. He thought of Bran, clambering up a tower wall, agile as a monkey. Of Rickon's breathless laughter. Of Sansa, brushing out Lady's coat and singing to herself. You know nothing, Jon Snow. He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird's nest. I made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell … I want my bride back … I want my bride back … I want my bride back … "I think we had best change the plan," Jon Snow said. - Jon, ADwD

He nearly committed treason by running away to help for Robb, came back and decided that his place was at the Wall as a brother of the NW. Hence the first phrase.

Kill the boy and let the man be born - a man puts his duties above family and time and again Jon has chosen the Watch over his family - Bran, Rickon and Sansa.

You know nothing Jon Snow - If this phrase connects to any Stark it's Arya because Jon actually compares Ygritte to Arya several times, right from their tangled messy hair.

Secondly the phrase could play into his conflict of love or duty. It's a hard decision and one he cannot make easily. Is it right? Is it wrong? He doesn't know! What about his oaths and the threat from beyond the Wall? But then what about Arya being hunted by the likes of Ramsay Bolton? - 'You know nothing Jon Snow'

It's also the rule of three as he goes down the list - Jon chose NW over Robb, Jon chose the NW over family and now the third option - he chose Arya over the NW.

And Jonsa shippers know it makes no sense for their Jonsa nonsense when the whole paragraph is read hence why they selectively copy and paste only this sentence. Notice how it always starts at the end of Jon grouping Bran, Rickon and Sansa together:

Of Sansa, brushing out Lady's coat and singing to herself. You know nothing, Jon Snow.

And taken out of context it makes no sense - 'Of Sansa' - what does it mean 'Of Sansa'? Because there is preceding text there that they just omit because it doesn't go with their 'theories'.

If you are going to attach 'You know nothing Jon Snow' to Sansa, then you have to do it for Bran and Rickon as well. Like so:

He closed his fist and opened it again. What you propose is nothing less than treason. He thought of Robb, with snowflakes melting in his hair. Kill the boy and let the man be born. He thought of Bran, clambering up a tower wall, agile as a monkey. Of Rickon's breathless laughter. Of Sansa, brushing out Lady's coat and singing to herself. You know nothing, Jon Snow. He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird's nest. I made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell … I want my bride back … I want my bride back … I want my bride back … "I think we had best change the plan," Jon Snow said. - Jon, ADwD

So even reading it this way - 'You know nothing Jon Snow' is about family, about Bran, Rickon and Sansa.

In which case:

'kill the boy and let the man be born' - when he abandoned Robb.

'You know nothing Jon Snow' when he abandoned Ygritte and equating this to how he has always put the NW above family.

'I want my bride back...I want my bride back...I want my bride back' - the reference to Arya as Ramsay's bride, he snaps at this point and we get the amazing 'We had the best change the plan' line from Jon Snow.

Again rule of three: NW vs love - Jon chose NW, NW vs love - Jon chose NW, and finally NW vs love, Jon chose love. Because yes, he does decide differently between Ygritte and Arya.

So any which way one reads that paragraph, 'You know nothing' is either connected to Arya or it's connected to Bran, Rickon and Sansa. So no, it's not a 'Jonsa related quote' lol.

'You know nothing Jon Snow' is not some phrase just connected to Ygritte for shipping reasons. It has meaning and weight behind it, it's about Jon's decisions as a leader and it increasingly comes into play in ADwD because leadership is hard and Jon is always having to make choices, of making the unpopular but right decisions and is increasingly confronted by the knowledge that yes, he does have a lot to learn and needs the advice of wiser folks like Maester Aemon, Donal Noye, Qhorin Halfhand and Samwell Tarly.

[sometimes-i-write-good]

ok i might be in a minority here, but i have nowhere else to put my opinions (so obviously tumblr.com gets to hear it)

the live-action snow white wasn't bad. it was actually a pretty good live-action remake. they added new songs, created depth to characters, and fleshed out a story that probably wouldn't have translated well as a bar for bar remake. ((HTTYD is a good film to go scene by scene since it, on its own, is a strong story with developed characters and solid arcs.))

Snow White (2025) actually creates a love interest with a personality??? there's more to it than 'this guy sees her singing then shows up at the end' - like the guy in the original is in there for all of 5 minutes. that doesn't give a very realistic *true love* story

[we will all ignore how i am delusional and "fall in love" with any fictional character in media i've never seen bc of an edit i saw at 3am]

BUT my biggest thing I would like to address is how 'anti-woke' everyone is when it comes to Snow White being remade. Let female characters be soft and feminine. This is a movie about being fair and kind, why can't she yearn and be in love? Ya know, those kind of comments.

just know if someone says something like that, they haven't seen the movie. there's soft, yearning love in this film. they literally ADDED two songs between snow white and her love interest. she still very much finds love - and her kindness and fairness plays a huge part in that.

the ENTIRE message of the film is about being kind. rising above fear and anger and selfishness to create connections. snow white is still very much the gentle soul she is in the original. there's a growth of character there that the original doesn't have (and yes, it is very much because snow white is the first disney princess in the first full-length animated film so obviously they're not going to have the plot beats nailed down - i am well aware) and i'm glad that the little kids who see this film are going to have a good role model of a leading character. she's not 'ultra-feminist' the way everyone has been so dramatic about. she doesn't spit in the male love interest's face or have a single moment of 'you think i can't do this cause i'm a girl, huh?' it's literally written as if you gave the original snow white a backstory where she's a princess to a kingdom she loves and someone cruel and punishing took over. i dunno they just replaced the bits (again, these existed very much because for the first full-length animated film they were going off the knowledge of 'cram bits in there, the more bits the better') of the seven dwarves with lore that strengthened the new story aspects. she creates connections while she lifts and inspires people.

just please try to remember this is a movie teaching kids to be kind if you feel inclined to leave a hateful comment - critiques are different. by no means is the movie perfect. there's PLENTY of things i wish were handled differently (*cough* the evil queen. cgi dwarves. wardrobe/hair *cough*) what i do hope people take away is that this is the way live-actions should be handled. maleficent works bc it expands on a new character, creates something new while still bringing the old things we love to life. it doesn't feel like a pointless money grab. snow white, at the very least, tries to do the same thing. (that doesn't mean this wasn't a pointless money grab but they attempt to hide that fact better than some other films)

feel free to take everything i say with a grain of salt. i am a disney adulttm (derogatory). don't hate on rachel zegler though. she is, by far, the most redeeming part of the film and does not deserve catching shit for Disney being the overarching problem in all areas.

((also if you want to watch this, please pirate it!))

uhhh i mean, totally don't break the law to watch this film...

[brainrotcharacters]

First Snow Day

After a fantastic session last night, Gavin's favorite part of the following morning was spooning Freelancer once more into his body. Relishing in the gentle, warm way their body curled into his own took all of one minute before he felt them go rigid.

"Is that snow?" Freelancer was blinking at the window―at the flakes of white sticking to the glass pane and softly falling from the sky. Winter was in full swing.

So were Freelancer's legs, arcing up from the blankets before Gavin could brace himself for the sudden movement. His partner winced only once at the soreness that the motion caused, but quickly put on a robe and some slippers.

"What's the rush?" He chuckled, voice still hoarse from sleep.

"I wanna know what it's like!" Freelancer brushed their hair out of the robe's neckline. "This is my first winter!"

A number of memories tugged at his mind. They had conversations about the seasons here, and since Freelancer always got nightmares whenever they felt hot, the idea of winter made them adorably happy. Gavin only ever said it was nothing to write home about, but Freelancer had lived every day since in perpetual optimism for the first snow they'd experience.

They were down the stairs and out the door before Gavin managed to extract himself from bed, laughing to himself. It didn't take long for the sound of sneezing and sniffing to reach him as he strolled in the same direction.

"Having fun, deviant?" He opened the door. Freelancer had one hand over their nose and mouth, the other upraised to the fluttering snowflakes. They watch as it melts into their skin, and then failed to resist the urge to sneeze.

Gavin opened the door wider. "Darling, come back inside. Warm yourself up first."

"But this is so weird and pretty!" Freelancer poked a snowflake. They stared at the pad of their forefinger before lightly licking it.

"Your snot is gonna freeze onto your nose, and your tongue is going to stick to your finger. Change into warmer clothes. Please." Gavin said, smiling fondly as Freelancer rushed back inside, passing him. "Honestly, why am I the voice of reason between us?"

Fifteen minutes later, wearing a complete winter appropriate clothing, Freelancer waded through the rising span of snow and twisted their body. Diving backwards, they were all smiles and giggles as they made a snow angel.

Gavin stood at their periphery, tilting his head. "A prodigy of all things magic, and here you are, delighted by snow. You're a marvel."

"Magic! Right," Freelancer adjusted, and then put both gloved hands to the snow. A moment passed before the snow around their body flared red and instantaneously melted, causing Freelancer's entire body to sink to the grass below.

Taken by surprise, Gavin could only bark a laugh. "You alright there, deviant?"

A raised hand with a burnt mitten was Freelancer's response.

When Gavin spent another second giggling to himself, Freelancer said, "Help me, you stupid bitch! I can hear you laughing!"

"Oh, okay." He grabbed Freelancer's forearm, hoisting them back up to their feet. He wiped off the snow on their beanie and clothes. "What next, hmm? Your first snow day needs to be special. We can't stop now."

That beloved bright-eyed smile was enough to keep Gavin warmed against the winter morning breeze that tousled his hair. "I don't know! It's not a school day. Maybe a snowball fight? Or we could make snowmen?"

"Good choices, good choices." He grasped Freelancer's hand as they returned the way they came. "I hear that and I raise you: we could stay in. And cuddle. I'm yet to receive my affirmations for a night well spent, after all."

Freelancer mockingly made a face. "Oh, you clingy little fiend! You know you did a good job."

"I know, I know."

[levellyscorner]

Wings of Glass (Robert "Bob" Renolds" x Magical Girl! Reader) Part 1

Summary: A magical girl x Robert Reynolds fanfic where a starlight-powered heroine saves a mysterious, disoriented civilian—who just might be more than he seems. Magic, mystery, and slow-burn tension unfold as the shadows of the Void creep closer.

a/n: here’s another wild thought i’ve been having—magical girls, void creatures, and a very confused civilian version of robert reynolds in a sweater three sizes too big. i don’t know where this is going yet, but it showed up in my brain like a meteor and refused to leave. so here we are. enjoy the stardust.

"I’ve been the archer, I’ve been the prey.”

___________________________________

The sky split like silk a crack of light, jagged and unnatural, tore through the clouds above the city skyline silent at first, then screaming. Until it fizzled out just as quickly, leaving behind a smear of gold and a pulse that rippled through every shadow. From the rooftop, she saw it not the light itself but what it left behind. The shapes moved in the dark below. Wrong shapes spindly, twitching, half-formed things that looked like they’d been stitched together from nightmare smoke and broken stars. “Voidlings,” Jarvis muttered from her shoulder, his tail curling tight. “Four. No—five. They’re circling.” She squinted into the alley. For a moment, it was just shadow and brick, warping slightly at the edges where the creatures fed on ambient energy. And then someone moved nestled between two overflowing dumpsters, crouched low and frozen like a deer in headlights, was a boy. He wore an oversized grey sweater, the kind that hung off his frame like it belonged to someone else. The collar had slipped down one shoulder. His hair was mussed, sticking to his forehead. His eyes, wide and pale in the dim alley light, flicked from shadow to shadow unfocused, unsure. “What’s he doing down there?” she murmured. Jarvis tensed against her shoulder his fur jagged as his back arched. “Wrong place, very wrong time poor kid.”  

Her lips tugged into a frown as the shadows dragged their twisted limbs across pavement slick with light residue. One tilted its head, crooked and birdlike, as it took a step toward him. She launched from the rooftop without a word, cape flaring wide like wings made of comet tails and silk. Her white boots hitting the ground hard, light rippling out from her  like a dropped star. The impact shook the alley causing the shadows to whirl around with a hiss, recoiling at first from the burst of her arrival jerking back like marionettes with severed strings.The air warped with them, thick with the scent of ozone and something older, something sour and metallic, like scorched copper. 

Her cape rippled behind her, wings flaring wide as light peeled off her in shimmering pulses, feathers of magic lifted on invisible wind, trailing stardust in their wake. The glow from her landing still lingered, etched into the cracked pavement like a celestial brand, golden and humming faintly underfoot. The Voidlings hissed again, their limbs twitching like antennae sensing prey. One lunged fast, low, all claws and open maw—and she moved without hesitation. Her staff was in her hand before the creature reached her, light curling around her fingers like it had been waiting to be called. The strike came swift and soundless an arc of concentrated brilliance that carved through the air and met the Voidling mid-lunge. It shattered on impact, body unspooling into fragments of smoke and fractal light, dissipating before it ever hit the ground. 

Ash fell in slow spirals, catching in her cape, clinging to the trailing ends of starlight like flecks of black snow. Another Voidling twisted along the alley wall, limbs spidering outward in too many directions, its eyes burning cold and sharp through the haze. It crawled toward her like something boneless, claws skittering across brick, mouth splitting open wide enough to unhinge the night. She turned into motion, her staff raised in a practiced arc. The feathers of her cape flared outward, sharp with energy, light chasing the movement in ribbons. A pulse of heat burst from her core reflexive, and radiant, the creature didn't even have time to scream, simply ceasing dissolving into smoke and stardust. From the smoke, three of them emerged—silent and sudden. The Voidlings moved together now, not crawling but charging, limbs slicing through air in jagged sync. One veered left, scraping along the wall like a smear of shadow. Another slithered fast at her feet, low and fanged. The third launched from above, descending like a blade. 

She exhaled sharply, pivoted—but not fast enough to strike them all. Her magic surged, instinctive and sharp, and the cape answered before she could lift her staff. Feathers snapped outward with a sound like ice fracturing.  What had floated soft, weightless, fluid suddenly held mass. The transformation was instant light ran like molten gold through every seam, every edge. Each feather thickened, sharpened, crystallizing into  Glass. Luminous. Unbreakable. The cape surged around her, sweeping forward in a protective arc—no longer a trailing veil but a cocoon of radiant glass, catching the ambient light and splitting it into ribbons of fire. 

The first Voidling struck the shield mid-screech. Its limbs scrabbled against the feathered surface, claws shrieking as they dragged across glowing crystal. The second collided just behind it, smashing shoulder-first into the curved wall of hardened light. The third dropped down, hissing as it raked along the top of the cape, but it couldn’t pierce it. The blow reverberated through her like thunder underwater. Her boots scraped across the cracked pavement, heels digging in, magic coiling through her spine as the force slammed against the crystalline curve of her cape. The shield held. It sang—not with sound, but with pressure, with the quiver of something ancient and celestial being tested all at once. Her breath caught in her chest. The alley narrowed around her. Every heartbeat was light. 

The three Voidlings clawed and scraped and hissed in unison, their limbs skittering against the curved glass like knives across ice, desperate to break through. Their forms rippled, writhing with frustration, shadows turning to static with every failed attempt. And then—her magic answered back. The runes along her sleeves flared. The air thickened, took on weight. The cape glowed white-hot at the seams, every edge lit with divine fury. Veins of molten gold spread outward from her shoulders, each feather alive with energy, humming with it. 

The glass flexed once. Then detonated. 

A shockwave burst from her back, silent and blinding—light spiraling out in a dome of radiant force. It carved through the alley in a perfect ring, disintegrating everything in its radius. The Voidlings were gone before they could scream, torn apart mid-form, their twisted bodies unraveling into stardust and vapor. Her cape unfurled behind her again, soft once more—fluid silk trailing starlight in lazy, floating patterns as it settled around her shoulders. Her staff lowered to her side. Her hair clung to her temples, damp with sweat and static. The glow beneath her boots flickered, then dimmed. 

And the silence that followed felt final. She stood in the middle of it—framed in the afterglow, shoulders rising and falling with every breath. The magic receded from her skin like a tide, pulling back into the core of her chest, leaving behind only the faintest echo of starlight. Tucked between the dumpsters like a forgotten thought, eyes wide, mouth parted slightly as if the scream never quite made it past his throat. The oversized sweater had slipped lower, exposing the sharp line of his collarbone and the bruised hollow of his shoulder. His knees were drawn up, knuckles pale where he gripped the sleeves. Ash flecked his hair. Bits of gold dust shimmered faintly across his skin like he’d been caught in the tail of a shooting star. 

He didn’t look afraid. Not exactly. More like stunned. Like the world had tipped sideways, and she was the only thing in it still holding shape. A silence stretched between them, thick and ringing, like the world itself had forgotten how to breathe. And then, slowly—like his limbs were still remembering how to belong to him he shifted. One hand uncurled from his sleeve, reaching up to brush ash from his brow his fingers trembled faintly. 

“…Are you real?…Are you an angel?” he asked, voice raw with wonder and exhaustion, like he wasn’t sure if the words were real or just another trick of the smoke. She blinked. “Not even close.” He let out a breath—half a laugh, half a sigh. “Okay,” he mumbled, his gaze dipping to the glowing edges of her cape, still fanned behind her like glass feathers catching starlight. “Good. Because if this is heaven, it’s way too cold and smells like burnt metal.” 

Her shoulders dropped a fraction, just enough to release the tension in her arms. The staff still hummed softly in her hand, but her grip had loosened. Slowly, she turned to face him fully—still glowing faintly, the light curling off her like heat from a long-burning ember. Her cape, soft again, rustled faintly in the air behind her as it settled, each feather a piece of glass kissed by gold. He looked so out of place. A boy in a sweater two sizes too big, blinking up at her like he wasn’t sure if he was still on Earth. Ash smudged across his cheekbone, and there was a thin scrape across one knee—probably from when he’d stumbled trying to get away. His eyes, though, were the worst of it. Pale and distant, not with fear, but with the kind of hollow disorientation that came from not remembering how you got here at all. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said softly, voice low but steady. He flinched not from the words, but like the sound of another person had startled him. He blinked again, slower this time, his gaze dragging across the alley as if just now realizing the battle was over. The air still shimmered faintly, stardust drifting like embers through the space between them. 

“I don’t…” He shook his head. “I don’t know where here is.” She knelt the pavement was cold beneath her knee, rough and still faintly humming with residual magic. Up close, he looked even younger—late twenties, maybe, but with the kind of open, confused softness that made him seem like someone perpetually on the edge of waking up. He didn’t pull away when she reached out, just watched as her fingers brushed a smudge of ash from the side of his face. 

“You didn’t see the tear in the sky?” she asked. “I heard something,” he murmured, voice thin. “But I was just… walking.” His brow furrowed like he was trying to remember more. “Then it felt like the world bent sideways, and I was here. And they were here.” 

“You’re lucky I was close,” she said finally. Her voice wasn’t scolding, just steady. Measured. “They don’t usually stop once they’ve scented someone.” His eyes lifted slowly, uncertain. “They… wanted me?” She nodded with a frown. “They feed on fear. Confusion. Magic, too, when they can get it. But mostly—they go after anyone unguarded. They hunt.” The word landed heavy. His breath caught. “But I didn’t do anything. I didn’t have anything.” 

“That’s the point.” Her gaze softened, just a little. “You’re the kind they like most.” He looked down again, thumb brushing unconsciously across the bruise blooming purple under one wrist. “So what would’ve happened if you hadn’t shown up?” She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she reached up to adjust the edge of her cape, the fabric still whispering with starlight. A pause, then: “They would’ve hollowed you out. Left a husk behind. Sometimes people come back. Most don’t.” His throat bobbed. She could see it—the shift behind his eyes. The horror wasn’t loud. It was quiet, cold, creeping in like fog. He wasn’t just scared of what almost happened. He was scared of how close it had come. 

He pulled his knees in tighter. “Why me?” he asked again, smaller this time. She looked at him carefully, eyes narrowing just slightly. “That’s what I’d like to know.” Jarvis, still perched on her shoulder, let out a low, thoughtful hum. “Voidlings don’t cluster like that for no reason. Five in one place? That’s not random.” The words lodged somewhere deep, but they barely registered. Everything around him felt distant—like he was underwater, hearing conversation through a thick pane of glass. His heart was still racing, but the fear had flattened into something heavier. Numb. Cold. He stared down at his hands. There was a cut across one knuckle, smeared with ash and something darker. He didn’t remember falling. He didn’t remember running. Just light, then dark, then those… things. And then her. He looked up again. She didn’t shine anymore, not like before—not in the way that cracked the night open and burned through shadows. 

"That’s a full nest’s worth, drawn to one unmarked civilian? Doesn’t sit right." She didn’t respond right away. Her eyes stayed on the boy—no, the man. He was too tall, too broad in the shoulders to be a kid, but something in the way he curled in on himself made him seem younger than he was. Fragile, even. His breath came slow and shallow, like he didn’t quite trust it yet. Jarvis gave a small, thoughtful hum. “They’re getting bolder.” 

She nodded, slowly. “They never used to show this deep into the city. Not unless there was a tear… or a summoning.” 

“There was a tear,” he pointed out. 

“Yes,” she said. “But it fizzled out too fast. It didn’t behave like the others.” A pause. Her eyes narrowed slightly, scanning the alley walls, the rooftops, the edges of lingering stardust caught in the cracks. The residue was strange—too thick. Too sharp. Like whatever brought the Voidlings through hadn’t fully shut.“Something’s changed,” she murmured. “The Void’s pulsing more often. Closer. And they’re not scattering like they used to.” 

“They’re hunting in formation,” Jarvis said grimly. “Like they’re listening to something.” Her grip tightened on her staff.“They’re learning.” She scanned the alley again—eyes sweeping over soot-blurred brick, broken bottles, the faint shimmer of magic still clinging to the cracks like frost. “There wasn’t supposed to be a tear tonight. I checked the forecasts myself. The last known breach was two sectors over.” 

“Well,” Jarvis said, his voice dry, “someone forgot to tell the sky.” 

Her jaw tightened. This wasn’t just a bad patrol. Something was changing and the Void was getting hungrier. She glanced back down at the boy—watching the slow, confused rise and fall of his breath. The tremor in his hands had settled into something quieter. Resigned. “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” she said finally, more to herself than anyone else. “We’ll get him clear. Get him checked. Then figure out if tonight was coincidence…” 

“…or a warning,” Jarvis finished grimly. 

[just-tryina-live]

Lol I love how the BLM people can’t look past the fact that Brave New World was a terrible movie with a weak plot. I am someone who watches a movie that everyone else hates and loves it. I honestly didn’t have a problem with most MCU stuff that came out after Endgame. I fully expected to go into Brave New World loving it! I never take outside opinions to heart until I’ve watched the movie myself. Honestly it’s not about the fact that Sam is black. It’s about the fact that it was a bad movie. The BLM people should be upset! They took an integral black character, Isaiah Bradley, and literally gave him Bucky’s character arc. They didn’t respect this important black character enough to give him his own trajectory and path. They didn’t respect Sam enough to give him his own story. I thought BLM would be upset! It’s the same thing with The Little Mermaid and Snow White. Give 👏🏼 Black 👏🏼 People 👏🏼 Their 👏🏼 Own 👏🏼 Stories 👏🏼

stop taking old stories that white people have lived and written and giving them to black people and POC like scraps to someone you pity.

have black and POC writer write N E W stories for them!!!

Let Sam and Isaiah have their own unique stories, not copy pasted CATWS.

I LOVED Wakanda Forever because it was a unique story with a unique villain and we explored Shuri’s grief and I don’t think I’ve ever cried from a movie harder when Ramonda died. THATS how you do a black movie. Black Panther is how you do a black movie. Black Panther was so fun to watch and it totally reversed the ‘all white cast and one black guy here for diversity’ thing that most movies do. thats. How you do it.

[m4rs-ex3]

s7 spoilers ✨✨

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ok

"death alive" fucking snipe me the insane death motif that seems to be present here is killing me pun intended

GRAAAHAHAHHGROWLS IM SO EXCITED I CAN TEVEN

"i don't want to be separated again"

"i don't want to be separated again"

stop it right tf now bc this is literally what i have been wanting one of them to say so badly. also smooch. dear christ

the fact that terry wants so badly for him and claudia to be free that he is pleading with fucking archmage aaravos himself. like ik they're partners in crime atp but still my guy has balls. the dedication. poor thing 😭

aaravos fucking leading claudia on with even more hope of viren being saved - his own backstory making the way he's manipulating her grief 10x more twisted - and terry seeing right through his bullshit..... im foaming at the mouth

fuckin.g- FOR ME?!?!?!?!?!?

CALLUM SOBBING OVER EZRAN??? (dreamer's nightmare was prepping us for this huh)

SOREN APOLOGIZING TO CALLUM?? (for what i do not know) EMOTIONAL CALLUM/SOREN HUG DEAR GOD ALL IVE EVER WANTED

the making of a primal stone, more moon magic, a quest for an ingredient, insane biblical imagery... once again, FOR ME??!?!?!?!??!

"AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!!!!"

NECROMANCY!! just what this show needed omg

astrid my love. i was a little worried post-s6/pre-date announcement that we really wouldn't see that much, if any, of the celestial elves, but oh ho ho i can't believe i ever doubted you tdp. like you're telling me that astrid is tired of watching, of being the wise observers (especially now that her own brother has been so far removed from, well, being a non-all-seeing prophet), and that all she wants is to, for once, do something about all the tragedy she knows is coming and hasn't been able to do anything about? christmas fucking morning i tell you

goddamn the true extent and emphasized tragedy of katolis has been brought up enough that you just know they're not messing around

NO STOP SEEING SARAI AND HARROW NEXT TO GROWN AND CURRENTLY FCUKED UP EZRAN IS GOING TO FUCKING DEMOLISH ME

obviously ez being angry is just wow omg teehee but just. immediately being so vengeful and wanting to "destroy him" with zero hang-ups is.......... yeah wow omg teehee

"it's great!" i genuinely trust that with my life

ok hello this will most certainly be the most incredible visual to ever exist holy shit. also this is making me realize that we've never actual seen ez on the throne in arc 2 and i mean that's insane enough

this is incredible what can i say. i can see it now: rayla shoving worms in his face like "JUST EAT THE FUCKING WORMS ITS GOOD FOR YOU ASSHOLE" and runaan fighting her like a toddler refusing to eat his vegetables (except it's the opposite bc it's a vegetarian father refusing to eat his grubs)

i love how out of touch aaravos is (makes sense after centuries underneath inside of a rock) bc in what world is this normal. i highly doubt they have snow white or the bible but still it's just human nature to be weirded tf out by that. also yes @zuppizup ur so right his affinity for fruit being played on is amazing

also corvus: yeah yeah uh huh right and what exactly is your name, sir? aaravos: ah yes my name! it's uh uhh i mean it's uhhhhhhhhhhh. jofus

TWO IN THE FIRST EPISODE (which worries me but anyhow) IN THE FORM OF A GOODBYE AND A REUNION AND IN FRONT OF EVERYONE TOO???? AS A TREAT??????????

i'm all for ezran ripping runaan to shreds but i can't exactly say i see the correlation here. although that is kinda funny. it's like when i can't find my phone or smth so i just look at my dog and go "whiskey did you eat it" (she's been asleep this whole time and also she has never eaten/chewed on an object in her life)

also help inigo montoya ahh

ok 1) i, much like everyone else, kinda presumed that the tension would mostly be between ezran and callum and he wouldn't really hold anything against rayla, but the act of straight up arresting him really makes me wonder how rayla's gonna react 2) i really need to see callum's reaction (mainly out of defending rayla, but also because i can see him kinda being like "HEY i JUST freed him bro fuck you") and 3) the way that it is emphasized that soren is the one to arrest him..... idk i just figured that between his love for rayla, his own daddy issues (+the fact that viren was the one to imprison him so it would kinda be like righting his wrong), and that harrow was in fact not his father so compared to ezran he'd have a lot less resentment (he was of course still his king and soren had to actually watch it so still some but like. comparatively) i didn't think he'd be this combative but i'm certainly not complaining. the more angst the merrier

AW YEAH BOYS SHES COMING TO KATOLIS!!!!!

this has been your incoherent, feral mars commentary.* thank you

[bringbackmaes14]

So the live action Lilo and Stitch movie, right? I was already planning on not seeing it because the animated one did not need to be remade and I honestly don't need to give another reason.

But I'm going to because I have found out multiple changes they have made to the movie for the live action that are arguably gonna make this, without me having seen it (or having any intention for seeing it, especially after all this), the worst fucking live action remake Disney has ever made.

Major spoilers for the Live Action 2025 Lilo and Stitch movie ahead

In no particular order:

- They're completely changing Cobra Bubbles character. He's not a former-CIA operative turned social worker. He's a CIA operative who is going undercover (to keep an eye on the alien residents) as a social worker. Which is gonna mean he's probably gonna have next to nothing to do with actually keeping Lilo safe and making sure she has a stable household like in the animated film. That'll be the new social worker character, Mrs. Kekoa's job.

- They're not letting Pleakley crossdress. In fact Pleakley (and Jumbaa) aren't really gonna look like aliens at all. Apparently, in the live action film, it was too much work to make them look like their alien selves and then dress them up in human clothes, so they just wrote in some technological device that makes them look human. So... Jumbaa and Pleakley are gonna look like human men for a majority—if not the entirety—of the movie.

- The ice cream guy. We know him. We love him. Lilo loves taking pictures of him. She loves taking pictures of him because she loves taking pictures of tourists and seeing people she hasn't seen before, and here's this big white dude with really bad sunburn and tanlines and his mint chocolate chip ice cream. And what do we get in the live action film? A large native Hawaiian man with a cup of shaved ice. Okay maybe I'm being overly nitpicky about the shaved ice but like come on (except by reading on the Disney wiki I've also learned that apparently the memorable scene where Stitch smashes his face in a snow cone has been remade into him smashing his face into an ice cream cone and it's like, can y'all fucking pick one????). I understand that, as the movie takes place in Hawaii, it's important to cast Hawaiian actors. And I actually think it's really cool that they did that! For David and Nani and Lilo and y'know. Other characters that are actually supposed to be from Hawaii! But making the ice cream guy also a native Hawaiian completely changes the context of Lilo's hobby!!!!

- Captain Gantu is not going to be in the movie. At all. Y'know, the main antagonist that is trying to rip apart Stitch's new family? They apparently thought about including him and then they realized they didn't like how he looked CGI animated ("It's just one of those things that doesn't work in live action sadly")(I call bs, if the Minecraft movie could be successful, if Mickey 17 could make aesthetically cute aliens, if the httyd franchise can live action recreate TOOTHLESS? They can fucking CGI Captain Gantu. And Jumbaa and Pleakley for that matter.)

- So that leaves the question of who the villain is of course. And the answer is Jumbaa. They make Jumbaa the fucking villain. They basically send him down to Earth under Pleakley's supervision to recapture his experiment, the same way it happened in the animated film, but this time, Mad Scientist Jumbaa Jookiba does not get a redemption arc. I have no idea what this means for Pleakley. I honestly haven't looked that far into it.

- And I guess finally, the worst change of all that they're making, that snuffed out that final 0.02% desire I had to maybe pirate it when it was out. Nani gives Lilo up at the end of the movie. You read that right. They set Nani up the whole movie with like, she wants to go to college for Marine Biology and she's got a scholarship waiting for her, and she basically has to decide between going to college or taking care of Lilo. And I guess they decide Ohana means fuck all because Nani allows Mrs. Kekoa (the social services agent) to put Lilo into a foster home run by their neighbors, and then Nani leaves for college.

So yeah. Fuck that movie. Fuck all the decisions they're making. Fuck them for trying to ruin an honored childhood favorite. And fuck the director in particular for this statement:

[nami-moittli]

Transfem Ortho is canon. You think Ortho is transfem. You think this because it is true. Fairy Gala confirms it. You know that Ortho is a trans girl

Feeling thoughts and feelings about tfem Ortho again (who I also refer to as Adesius btw) so because of Fairy Gala coming to a close once again on EN I’m going on a rant as to why I think she should be canonically trans even though I know it will never happen (with a slight tangent on why she should be allowed to grow up as well)

So. The whole theme of the Fairy Gala in the IF/remix version is “Evolution”. This event and this theme ties in very heavily in Ortho’s character and her development post book 6. As a piece of technology, by her very nature it’s obvious why someone — namely Vil in this case as he’s the one who nominated her for the heist in universe — would think that she’s the obvious fit to be the center piece in this story. Technology is often seen as the “future” and thus “evolution”

But as we see in the story, “evolution” is actually a very foreign concept to Ortho. And it makes sense as to why. Sure, she gets upgrades and adapts and learns how to act more “human like” (see: when she was first made she didn’t have a good grasp on emotions and how to make them, looking to movies and the like as a way to learn) but she’s been stuck. She was made as a piece of denial. Ortho Shroud is not dead. He can’t be, when he’s right over there.

This is also why I think that Ortho should be allowed to be aged up, to look 16, to be 16. For far too long she’s been forced to stay stagnant. To be that child, that boy who died tragically. She can never move on from that, because Idia can never move on from that

There’s an arc here too, of Ortho becoming more independent. When she just does what she always does, what she knows how to do, and copies someone else’s movements, Vil tells her that it’s not enough. She doesn’t really understand it at first, but she wants to learn how, so she goes off to research in the library. There’s a point to be made here, too, that the technology she relies so heavily on, that she’s built upon, can only go so far and eventually fails her, so she goes back to a more “old fashioned” way to learn how to proceed instead

And when she does this, Ace suggests it, just go to Idia. Do what you know how to do. Lean back on old habits. But Adesius refuses. She says that she wants to figure it out herself, that she knows that Idia can probably help her find the answer, to give her the answer, but she doesn’t want to do that. She wants to figure out what “evolution” means, and what it means to her. And Ace of course, accepts this, saying that he knew she’d say that, since most kids at NRC are way too prideful to do anything less. Another mention of her growing up, since before she was always just one of Idia’s “things” and not a true member of the school, but now she’s digging her heels in and showing that she’s true Night Raven material now

She ends up coming up with the solution after hearing the others perspectives and forming her own opinion based on that. She’s no longer just copying what she’s meant to be or what she found online (something something her listed talent is looking things up, finding things out based on what other people have already found out and just sharing that information instead of adding on her own thoughts, something something)

And Idia acknowledges this newfound independence and signs of growing up, seeing her on the stage. He quietly but firmly encourages her, showing that both of them are moving on. That she’s truly growing up and becoming her own person.

Also, just the concept of this event? “Evolution”? Tying into themes of growth? Of transitioning from one stage of life to another (from one stage of grief to another)? The fact that she has two versions of her outfit, one being mainly blue and white transitioning into a pink and white version? Yeah, yeah, it’s about “the snow melting away into spring” or whatever, but that closet is made out of GLASS little missy

TL;DR, Ortho’s closet is made out of glass, I know that events technically aren’t canon (esp this one since it is not a sequel to the first version of Fairy Gala, but an alt. Version of it) but this one should be because of how well it ties back into the ongoing themes of going from denial to acceptance, and Adesius is/should be 110% 16 and tfem canonically and she’s like the second most trans character in this game right under Epel, I’m right. Also this game needs more girls in its main cast. Thank you

[sambuckylibrary]

All TFATWS Anniversary Event 2024 Fills

Thank you to all who participated in this event! here are all the fills you created!

Week 5: No Powers AU by @funsized-loser | SamBucky Fic Rec List | Rated: N/A-E | 13 Fics + 7 Fic Writers Generally Recced |

[podfic] I Could Never Hold Your Heart In My Hand (my darling you already do) by @funsized-loser with original fic by @abarbaricyalp | Rated: T | Length: 1.5-2 Hrs | Snow White Fusion, Fantasy AU, Curse Breaking | AO3 |

Week 5: Ghost/Zombie AU by @funsized-loser | SamBucky Fic Rec List | Rated: T-E | 7 Fics + 1 Fanart |

The Romanian by @six2vii | Rated: T | WC: 5.4K | No Powers AU, Western AU, Fluff and Humor | AO3 |

Upon Faith by @abarbaricyalp | Rated: E | WC: 26.8K | Skrulls, Divorce Arc, Better Thunderbolts Ideas, Better Captain America 4 Ideas | AO3 |

Week 6: Didn't Know They Were Dating/Friends With Benefits | SamBucky Fic Rec List | Rated: G-E | 10 Fics + 1 Podfic |

Off Mission by @thatmexisaurusrex | Rated: T | WC: 2K | Hurt/Comfort, Better Thunderbolts Ideas, Bucky Takes Care of Sam | Off Mission |

Cheesecakes at Kitchen Tables by @abarbaricyalp | Rated: G | WC: 2.9K | Didn't Know They Were Dating, Matchmaking, POV Original Character | AO3 |

Hanging In There by @abarbaricyalp | Rated: G | WC: 3.4K | No Powers AU, Meet-Ugly, Fluff | AO3 |

Untitled by @onesmolangel | Art | Hurt/Comfort, TFATWS Episode 6 "One World, One People", Hug |

sixteen carriages driving away by @thatmexisaurusrex | Rated: M | WC: 3.2K | Western AU, Technically Better Thunderbolts Ideas Inspired, Hurt/Comfort | AO3 |

Very Casual by @thatmexisaurusrex | Rated: E | WC: 2.4K | Didn't Know They Were Dating, Friends with Benefits, Post-CATWS | AO3 |

Let Me Just Walk You Through a Hypothetical by @thatmexisaurusrex | Rated: G | WC: 1.5K | “Let Me Just Walk You Through a Hypothetical”, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Getting Together | AO3 |

You’re Just Gonna Set Me Up Like That, Huh? by @funsized-loser | Rated: T | WC: 986 | “You’re Just Gonnaa Set Me Up Like That, Huh?”, TW: Blood/Injury, Cute |

You’re Just Gonna Set Me Up Like That, Huh? by @thatmexisaurusrex | Rated: E | WC: 1.8K | “You’re Just Gonna Set Me Up Like That, Huh?”, Gay Chicken (Sort of), Actions Do Indeed Have Consequences | AO3 |

A thousand times yes by noe3489 | Rated: G | WC: 591 | Meanwhile… On the Boat, First Kiss, Love Confessions | AO3 |

Untitled by @abarbaricyalp | Rated: N/A | WC: 511 | “Let Me Just Walk You Through a Hypothetical”, Fluff, Established Relationship |

What We Want by noe3489 | Rated: G | WC: 1.6K | Divorce Arc, Angst with a Happy Ending, Sharing a Bed | AO3 |

“Fixing the Boat” by @thatmexisaurusrex | Art | Meanwhile… On the Boat, Gif, Domestic Fluff |

“Sam Finds the Note” and “Bucky Has Regrets” by @thatmexisaurusrex | Art | Divorce Arc, Angst, Thunderbolts Era |

Untitled by @abarbaricyalp | Rated: N/A | WC: 2.9K | “You’re Just Gonna Set Me Up Like That, Huh?”, POV Annalise (Darlene’s Friend), Tooth-Rotting Fluff |

Another Natasha by @thatmexisaurusrex | Rated: T | WC: 2.8K | Skrulls, Fostering, Established Relationship | AO3 |

Third Time’s The Charm by @exbex | Rated: G | WC: 3.6K | Reunite in Wakanda, Speculation for Thunderbolts, Temporary Character Death | AO3 |

Want to Live in Your Personal Space by @thatmexisaurusrex | Rated: E | WC: 4.4K | Laying Low, Getting Together, Bucky Barnes Takes Care of Sam Wilson | AO3 |

Soul Stone Fic Recs by @funsized-loser | Rated: T-M | SamBucky Fic Reclist | Five Fics |

Victory Party by @funsized-loser | Rated: T | WC: 1.3K | Victory Party, Bittersweet, Let Sam Grieve His Lost Friend |

and if you go chasing rabbits by @thatmexisaurusrex | Rated: T | WC: 4.5K | Soul Stone, Getting Together (Sort of), Bittersweet | AO3 |

Acting Weird by noe3489 | Rated: N/A | WC: 1.4K | “Can you move your seat up?”, Preslash, Idiots in Love | AO3 |

Never Hit Send, Never Called Again by @abarbaricyalp | Rated: N/A | WC: 3.2K | 6 Months of Ghosting, Post-Endgame, Texting |

Sam Gets Ghosted for Six Months / Bucky Loses His Nerve for Six Months by @thatmexisaurusrex | SamBucky Fanart | 6 Months of Ghosting, Bittersweet, Gifs |

“I don’t think he’s the kind you save.” by @thatmexisaurusrex | art | SamBucky Edit, “I don’t think he’s the kind you save”, enemies to lovers.

The Exact Kind of Guy You Save (And Who Saves You) by noe3489 | Rated: G | WC: 523 | “I don’t think he’s the kind you save”, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pre-Relationship | AO3 |

Sam Searches for Bucky by @funsized-loser | Rated: M | WC: 1.1K | Sleeping Together, Sam Searches For Bucky, Fluff But a Little Bittersweet |

Right moment by noe3489 | Rated: T | WC: 1.3K | Sam Searches for Bucky, Past Sam Wilson/Riley, Hurt/Comfort | AO3 |

The Kind You Save by @abarbaricyalp | Rated: N/A | WC: 1.2K | “I don’t think he’s the kind you save”, this one’s angsty y'all, “You’re the one who gets saved.” hits you like a ton of bricks |

Distraction Tactics by @thatmexisaurusrex | Rated: T | WC: 1.1K | “Can you move your seat up?”, crack treated seriously, fluff with light angst | AO3 |

Acting Weird by noe3489 | Rated: N/A | WC: 803 | “Can you move your seat up?”, Pre-Slash, Idiots in Love | AO3 |

Won’t Let You Fall by @exbex | Rated: T | WC: 776 | Team Up at the Airport, Feelings Realization, Getting Together | AO3 |

At the airport by noe3489 | Rated: G | WC: 1K | Team up at the Airport, Pre-Slash, POV Steve Rogers | AO3 |

Post-WS/Sam-Finds-Bucky fics by @abarbaricyalp | SamBucky Fic Reclist | Rated: G-E | Seven Fics |

[rockyfellasfort]

Hi, sorry, I'm the one who asked about Thorn Rose in your other blog. If you can, I'd love to hear a bit more about Thorn Rose and her friends, her cast seemed really fun.

They were an old group of fan characters I made a long time ago so they don't have very deep lore that I can recall or as much ramblings I can really provide compared to my other OCs. And the only one I can REALLY ramble about is Thorn herself since she had the most to her.

BASICALLY Thorn Rose was born in an alternate universe where Maleficent followed a similar story route like the live action film (as well as many other Disney villains having some redemption arcs tied to them). Thorn was created by Maleficent concocting her in a caldron (as I just couldn't imagine her make a child the traditional way, she is too iconic and no one reaches her standards in my eyes)

Thorn Rose is raised in this timeline up to her young adult age and that's when she starts to dabble more with magic. She winds up casting a spell that sucked her up in a portal and tosses her into a universe similar to the one we are more familiar with where all the villains are still villains but the heroes winded up having next gens of their own.

Here, she is a fish out of water because everyone views her to be a monster and danger similar to Maleficent. The rest of her story was her traversing through Disney worlds on a sort of Kingdom Hearts beat and meeting some next gen along the way.

I didn't do much else with the story since I realized I'd have to make more next gen for like...all the Disney couples and I only cared about Hercules, Meg, Tiana, and Naveen...Apple was just made because I think Snow White has a really good and iconic Disney design.

BUT THAT'S ABOUT ALL THAT WAS TO HER

I think if I did touch on her story again, I'd probably scrap the other next gens and just have Thorn Rose going through Disney worlds by herself with maybe a COUPLE or newly made fan characters.

I've also learned between the years of me making Thorn Rose and now that the Disney Fandom tends to ship Hades and Maleficent together and it'd be fun to put him in a sort of wacky father figure situation.

ANYWAYS - not a whole lot of lore to share so have this Thorn Rose chibi I drew just now