#Sorry if you suffered through reading all that

[verstappenf1lecccc]

Hey! P here!! How are you? Been busy a lot 😔 Can I request fic about James Vowles x wife reader? Since last season, James has been pursuing Carlos to join Williams but to no avail. To extend spending time with his family (I read somewhere about it, which is good I think 🤔) Anyways, she's been saying (jokingly) that he loves Carlos more than her with the amount of attention he's given to him even especially after Carlos joins the team. Compliment his hair, making it look like James had fallen in love with Carlos and now his wife. I can imagine how shocked and baffled James is about her jokes🤣🤣🤣 All these things lead to the F175 event at O2 and chaos happend. You decide how it goes. Add anything you want. Ask me anything. Thanks!! :))

Smooth Operator

James Vowles x Wife!Reader

feat. Carlos Sainz as the Unexpected Third in Your Marriage

hi I’m back after ages I have so many requests im working through I’m sorry it’s taking years but life is horrible rn anyways this one made me laugh hope yalls like it.

You were this close to adding Carlos Sainz to your Christmas card list and not because you liked him. Oh no,because at this point, it felt rude not to.

“Just admit it,” you said one morning, arms crossed, eyes narrowing as your husband stared lovingly oh so lovingly at an image of Carlos on the Williams simulator. “You’re in love with him.” James blinked. “Excuse me?” “With Carlos. Your hair idol. Your strategic soulmate. Your beautiful Spanish muse.”

He turned slowly, expression pained. “We’re not doing this again.”

You leaned on the kitchen island with a smile that spelled chaos. “He’s got thick curls, James. You said he’s a data genius. Yesterday I caught you complimenting his turn-in technique. What’s next? Love poems?”

James pinched the bridge of his nose like a man suffering. “I am the Team Principal of Williams Racing. This is business.”

“This is a crush. You’re emotionally cheating. I’ve seen the way you look at him.”

He sighed. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“And you, my dear husband, are flirting with danger. And Carlos.”

It had all started last season, when James became laser-focused on “Project Carlos.” He claimed it was about rebuilding Williams, strengthening the team, reshaping the future.

But all you heard was:

“Carlos is incredibly adaptable.”

“Carlos has unbelievable race awareness.”

“Carlos doesn’t just drive the car. He becomes one with the car.”

At one point, you genuinely wondered if James was going to name your future child Carlos.

When Carlos actually signed with Williams, you half-expected James to cry.

Instead, he opened a bottle of champagne and said, “This is the beginning of a new era.”

“For you and Carlos?” you asked.

“For the team,” he said. But you weren’t convinced.

The true chaos began at the F175 Launch Event at the O2.

You’d promised to be chill. Polished. Supportive.

You even wore your Nice Wife at PR Events dress. The red one. Very “I’m fine, my husband’s not cheating on me with a race car driver.”

But then someone on the panel asked James what it was like to sign Carlos.

And your darling husband turned to the mic with the serenity of a monk and said,

“Carlos brings something really rare. He’s sharp, strategic. He reads the car like a language only he understands. Honestly, watching him drive is like art. It’s… elegant.”

You turned your head slowly. “Elegant?” you mouthed. Elegant?

Then, like a woman possessed, you strode onto the stage.

“Hi, yes, sorry to interrupt,” you said sweetly, grabbing a mic. “I just wanted to confirm that I’m still married to James Vowles, even though he appears to be in a deeply committed emotional relationship with Carlos Sainz.”

Carlos, sipping water off-stage, choked.

The crowd erupted.

James looked like he’d aged fifteen years in fifteen seconds.

“Darling,” he said, his voice that calm, brittle tone you only hear when someone is internally screaming, “this is not the time.”

“No, James,” you said, planting your hand dramatically on your hip. “This is exactly the time. I just want to know if I’m going to be replaced by someone who has better curls and a smoother overtake.”

“I can explain-”

“Oh, no need. We’ll work out a custody schedule with Toto and Fred. Maybe alternating grands prix?”

“YOU’RE BEING RIDICULOUS,” James hissed.

Someone in the audience shouted, “LET HER COOK!”

Carlos was now hiding behind a curtain.

The next morning, your phone exploded.

Sky Sports: “Carlos Sainz Caught in Love Triangle?”

F1 Twitter: #VowlesVibes

CarlosFan69: “Why is this woman funnier than every man on the grid?”

James stood in the kitchen, scrolling grimly through the headlines.

“I’m a Team Principal, not a Bachelor contestant,” he muttered.

You, in your robe, sipping tea: “Maybe you shouldn’t flirt with Spaniards on live TV.”

“It wasn’t flirting,” he snapped. “I said his driving was elegant.”

You raised a brow. “You’ve never called me elegant.”

“Because you walked on stage and accused me of strategic adultery!”

“I was brave,” you said. “A woman in love. Defending her man from another man.”

His face dropped into his hands. “I’m married to a gremlin.”

You leaned in, grinning. “But I’m your gremlin.”

Later that day, Carlos sent James a text:

Carlos: Hey… everything okay? Do I need to issue a public apology? I didn’t mean to come between you two.

James: It’s fine. My wife just thinks I’m in love with your hair.

Carlos: …Are you?

James: I’m blocking you.

That night, James curled up beside you on the sofa, resting his head against your shoulder.

“You know I love you, right?” he mumbled into your shirt.

You smiled, stroking his hair. “Of course. But if Carlos ever invites you to a shampoo commercial…”

He groaned. “I knew you were going to say that.”

“I’ll understand,” you said sweetly. “I’ll pack your conditioner myself.”

After The Incident at the F175 launch the one where you jokingly accused your husband of being emotionally married to Carlos Sainz in front of God and every Sky Sports mic things had settled.

Barely.

The memes were still circulating. Your phone was still getting tagged in Twitter/X posts captioned “Me third-wheeling my parents’ divorce like #VowlesVibes.” And people were still calling James “a loyal yet emotionally confused king.”

But James? He was trying to carry on like everything was normal.

Which is why, when Carlos invited both of you to dinner, James said yes without hesitation.

You, however, stared at him like he’d grown a second head.

“Dinner?” you repeated. “With the man you abandoned me for?”

James groaned. “I did not abandon you. You stormed the stage like a Real Housewife of Monaco.”

“You called his driving elegant, James. That’s practically foreplay.”

“You’re lucky I love you.” “You’re lucky I didn’t bring a slideshow.”

The dinner was at some trendy, overpriced Italian place in London that clearly catered to rich people who wanted to pretend they were casual. You sat down at a three-person table tucked in a corner, candlelight flickering between bread baskets and sparkling water.

Carlos arrived ten minutes late, curls bouncing, smile too charming for someone who’d accidentally become the center of your marriage drama.

He hugged James. He hugged you.

You tried not to squint suspiciously at the way your husband’s hand lingered on Carlos’s shoulder.

“This place is nice,” Carlos said, settling in. “I’m glad we’re doing this. I was worried I caused some tension?”

You sipped your wine. “Carlos, you did nothing wrong. You just exist. With your hair. And your tactical driving style. And your surgeon hands.”

James choked on his water.

Carlos blinked. “Sorry??my what?”

James cleared his throat. “She thinks I talk about you too much.”

“You do,” you and Carlos said at the same time.

James raised a hand. “Okay, betrayal.”

The waiter came by, and just as you were ordering pasta, someone at the table next to you gasped—loudly.

“Oh my GOD,” a girl whispered, clutching her friend’s arm. “It’s them.”

You raised a brow.

“The… Williams love triangle!”

Carlos blinked. “What?”

“They went viral,” the friend whispered back. “The guy, the wife, and the other guy with the perfect hair this is them!”

You stared at James. “You see what you’ve done?”

“I didn’t ask to be in a tabloid throuple,” he hissed.

Suddenly, the girl leaned over, clutching her phone. “Can I get a picture of all three of you? You’re like, iconic. Like PolyF1Goals.”

You blinked. “I’m sorry?? what?”

She beamed. “You know, like a throuple! You, your husband, and Carlos!”

Carlos blinked. James looked like he’d swallowed a fork.

You?

You smiled sweetly and said, “Of course.”

So yes, there is now a photo floating online of James in the middle, looking like he’s questioning every life decision, you smiling like the chaos demon wife you are, and Carlos doing a confused peace sign like he’d just stumbled into a cult.

The caption?

“Williams going for podiums and polyamory in 2026. #ThroupleTrouble #VowlesSainzWife”

Later that night, back at home, you flopped onto the bed and checked your phone.

Another headline.

“Carlos Sainz Caught in Unexpected Romantic Dynamic With Williams Boss and Wife”

Experts weigh in: Is this the future of F1?

James walked into the room and faceplanted on the bed beside you.

“I’m going to be buried with this story on my tombstone, aren’t I?”

You stroked his back lovingly. “Right next to a bouquet of Carlos’s curls.”

James groaned into the pillow. “I hate you.”

You kissed his temple. “No you don’t. You love me more than Carlos.”

He hesitated. “…Yes. But only slightly.”

That caused another wave of the endless storm of “ you love Carlos more” rant from you.

[goodlucktai]

Sorry to bother you but it’s been killing me. I was reading “raised on a little light” again and I’m so freaking curious. Who told Gio in the neutral timeline that Leo was a bad patient and all the little schemes he would do to get out of the medbay? Was it Mikey? Or April or Casey? How did it even come up?

I’m totally obsessed with this au if that isn’t obvious yet lol

@morrigan-cotk95 this ask inspired me to write a little something, so thank you for that ! also i was listening to this on loop the entire time and suffered immensely 🥲

the archer au

x

Something makes April stop on the way home. Her walk slows until she’s standing motionless and Casey turns back when he realizes she’s not in step with him anymore. 

“What’s up?” he says. 

“Not sure,” she replies. “Kinda want to check on the guys.”

It’s a credit to those people who raised him after the end of the world, she thinks, that his knee-jerk reaction is still one of concern, even now, after everything. 

“Did something happen?” he asks. 

“Just a funny feeling,” April tells him. 

But she’s learned to trust those funny feelings ever since a night several years ago when she tossed and turned in bed for an hour before giving into the unexplainable urge to march herself down to the lair to check on her boys. 

April had found Raphael near catatonic, tears dripping down his face and familiar baby blue stuffie in his hands. It had tumbled out of a box that fell in the storage closet he’d been rummaging through. Sometimes the grief jumped out at them like that, in places they least expected to find it, like it was brand-new. Sometimes the sight of a stuffed unicorn, worn and misshapen from being loved so much, was enough to sucker punch the air clean out of your lungs and make it hurt to breathe in again. 

And if April hadn’t come by, no one would have known. Raph wouldn’t have said anything. He would have sat alone through that pain like he was paying penance.   

That’s why April only lingers for a moment before making her decision. It’s late, she has work in the morning, but she knows she won’t be able to sleep until she makes sure everyone’s okay. 

There’s a hidden access hatch a few city blocks away, tucked into an easily-overlooked sidestreet. The old tunnel it opens into is one lined with Genius Built motion sensor lights all the way home. Casey follows April underground and walks the track with her until it forks off in two directions, and then he hangs back to wait there. He’s not willing to test his welcome tonight, equally as unwilling to start a fight. It’s the end of a very long week. 

Maybe it’s nothing, April tells herself. Then she rounds the corner and comes face to face with her littlest sibling, sitting on the edge of the platform, just outside what amounts to the lair’s front door. 

Gio blinks at her, eyes deep and dark, no hint of brown in the low light. His resting expression is as inscrutable as Donnie used to wish his was—as Donnie’s is now that all things sweet and curious and eager have been threshed from him, now that the whole of him is half what it used to be—but his face is turned towards her. He’s watchful, waiting to see what she needs, eager to be needed by any of them in any way that he can. 

And he’s bleeding right through an old dish towel. The blood is dripping from the meat of his thigh, plopping soundlessly into a small puddle on the ground. 

“Hi, April,” he says when she only stands there gaping at him. 

“Hi yourself,” she replies tersely. It’s about one-tenth of the reaction she’d like to have, but she knows better than to raise her voice at a traumatized teenager. She has an unfortunate amount of experience with those, having been one herself once upon a time. “I’m gonna need an explanation for this one, babe.”

Gio looks down at where she’s looking, the red smeared across his fingers and the sodden terry cloth stained well past repair. 

“It’s not that bad,” he has the audacity to say to her face. 

April steps on her first, second and third impulse to rattle Gio like a snowglobe. Instead, she texts Casey, a quick ‘your EMT services are needed ASAP’. 

Then she hikes up her shirt and unbuckles her belt, sliding it out of her jeans and kneeling next to Gio to wrap it around his leg instead. She waits for his permission to touch, and he moves his hand out of the way when he realizes what she’s doing. April cinches the belt tight, keeping the towel in place and consistent pressure on the wound. 

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she says, elevating his leg carefully with both hands. She knows this much, at least. “Let’s start with what happened. Specifics. Details. Exposition.”

Eye contact is off the table, Gio’s shoulders straightening to attention instead of hunching up by his ears the way he’d probably like them to. 

His stress responses are so backwards. When he looks the most like he’s ready for a fight is when April knows he wants to turn and run.

But he didn’t flinch when April approached him, and he didn’t go statue-still beneath her hands. Progress, best measured in baby steps, but she’s proud of every deliberate, hard-won inch. 

In a quiet, measured voice, Gio tells her that he had been on his way home through the Hidden City—and of course it was that fucking place, April thinks—when he walked into the middle of a robbery. 

“Not really the middle,” he corrects himself. “It was mostly over. The shopkeeper’s daughter stabbed me by accident.”

“She stabbed you,” April says, fury and disbelief fist-fighting for first place in her tone. “By accident.”

“The police brought the real thief over and the shopkeeper started yelling at her and she started crying. She kept apologizing to me.”

Left unsaid is the obvious and it made me uncomfortable so I left.

“And the reason you didn’t wake anyone up when you got home and continued to bleed?” April presses. She can hear pounding footfalls behind her, echoing dully through the tunnel, as Casey eats up the distance between them at a steady run.  

“I didn’t want to bother anyone,” Giorgio says. April could set the clocks by this kid’s anxiety about taking up space anywhere. 

Sometimes, she thinks, it seems impossible that Gio hasn’t been here all along—growing up with his big brothers, learning all of their bad habits firsthand, following in their crooked footsteps. 

Since that obviously isn’t what happened, the only other possible explanation is that all five of them inherited that same ridiculous stubborn streak directly from their dad. It makes April want to march up to Splinter and give him a good shake. Knock the fog and cobwebs from his head and make him look. 

Look at your baby, she’d say, before you lose him, too. 

“Aw, Georgie,” Casey says when he gets there, all sympathy. He’s not even winded as he boosts himself onto the platform and takes a knee on Gio’s other side. He peels back a corner of the towel for a brief look at what he’s working with. “Gimme a number on a pain scale of one to ten.”

“Four,” Gio says.

“So an eight,” Casey replies, sounding so much like Leo it makes April want to laugh and cry at the same time. Gio’s brow twitches, as if he’d like to scowl but he’s too polite to. She’s seen him mean-mug total strangers, so it must only be his family that he tiptoes around. “Up you go, kid. The infirmary should have what we need.”

Between the two of them, April and Casey get the spotted turtle on his feet. He’s so small, it makes April want to march into the Hidden City and pick a fight with whoever so much as looked at him wrong, let alone stabbed him in a fit of mistaken vigilante justice. 

He doesn’t sway or even seem lightheaded as they make their way through the quiet lair toward the medbay. But Gio would straight face his way through just about anything, so April keeps holding his elbow. If he passes out or tries to pull a fast one on them and make a break for it she’ll be ready either way.

But he walks obediently where he’s led, with one nervous sideways look in the direction of his brothers’ bedrooms. Probably hoping that they can keep from waking his self-appointed guardian if they’re quiet enough. 

There’s no way in hell that Mikey isn’t waiting up for him to come home, April thinks, but she’ll let Gio figure that out for himself. 

April thinks, for the one millionth time, that Leo would have adored Gio. He would have gotten this kid out of his shell faster than any of them. They’d be thick as thieves, Gio the straight man to Leo’s wise guy, and Leo would finally have to cope with a sibling who could outstubborn him any day of the week. 

“Over to the sink,” Casey says, flipping the lights on with his free hand. “We need to flush it out first. April, could you—”

“On it,” she says. “This isn’t my first rodeo,” she adds for Gio’s benefit, sparing a second to pinch his cheek because it’s her god-given right as his big sister. He looks like he has no idea how to feel about that and she quits while she’s ahead. 

Casey scrubs up and gets to work. He hasn’t driven an ambulance around Brooklyn for the last five years for nothing. April moves around the room and gathers everything her roommate will need for some DIY sutures and Casey irrigates the puncture wound in Gio’s thigh with saline solution and a plastic syringe until he’s satisfied that it’s clean. 

Gio doesn’t know what to do with this amount of attention, eyes moving from Casey to April to Casey’s hands and back up to Casey again. Like no one has ever done this for him before, despite the dozens of pale, faded scars littering his arms and legs. If it were up to him, he’d still be back in that tunnel, bleeding through a towel, as unobtrusive and unlikely to make a sound as an unwanted dog. 

He’s been here nearly half a year and he still doesn’t understand that home is where you’re allowed to get blood on the floor and wake people up in the middle of the night. You’re allowed to make a mess and be a bit of a burden. Some burdens are a privilege, and life would be entirely empty without those things in it that were hard to carry, those things you clung to and carried anyway. 

But how is he supposed to know that? Only half of his family is even trying to teach him. 

“Alright,” Casey says, catching Gio’s eye, “this will hurt. I want you to tell me if I need to stop.”

“And absolutely no Leo-isms,” April says without thinking. “Or I’m liable to scream.”

As soon as she says it, she wishes she could take it back. She’s waiting for that knee-jerk reaction that Leo’s name always causes, the immediate flinch from it like touching the hot elements of a stove, his memory burning to the touch. 

But Casey’s mouth only quirks in a half-smile, fondness beating sadness by a mile. And Gio’s expression is openly curious. 

April is a Hamato by adoption, by choice, and so she lacks the self-hatred that runs rampant in all the others. She knows that she loved Leo with every inch of her, and she knows that he knows he was loved by her. She told him all the time, she hugged him every day. If she could go back and relive the whole thing, there’s nothing she would do differently. Maybe she would cling for an extra minute or two there at the end and ultimately have to be wrestled away, but who wouldn’t?

She’ll never stop missing him, but the love is so much bigger. April hates that she can’t talk about her obnoxious, smart-mouthed, surprisingly sweet little brother as much as he deserves to be talked about with the only other people who knew him. 

Mikey is trying, April has seen it for herself. He lights up a little more every day, the way April didn’t know he could anymore, ever since Gio moved in. He plays music in the kitchen and bakes cookies and coffee cake. He burst out laughing at April’s stupid impression of her coworker last week, sunny and lively and perfect, and it felt like a miracle. It felt like being fifteen again.

If Gio asked him, Mikey would tell him anything he wanted to know. But Gio is as careful with Mikey as Mikey is with him. Neither of them is willing to do anything that might hurt the other. And Gio would sooner eat his bow than ask Raph or Donnie. 

But none of them are in the room. And Casey is smiling, and April has never given Gio any reason to flinch away from her. So he dares to venture, overly-careful, “Leo-isms?”

Casey starts the first stitch and Gio goes stock-still, face tightening with pain. April leans in until he’s looking at her, ready to play distraction for as many stitches as it takes to make him whole again. 

“Have you ever heard that saying about medics making the absolute worst patients?” April says. “Because Leo proved that true every time he so much as sprained his ankle.”

“He never grew out of it,” Casey adds. “It was impossible keeping him in the medbay for longer than five minutes, especially after—especially when the best people at bossing him around couldn’t do it anymore.”

Gio doesn’t say anything, hands gripping the edge of the counter he’s sitting on as the suture needle goes back in. But he’s listening, absorbing every word. 

“He started teaching himself medicine when he was a kid,” April says. “Donnie hates blood and bodily fluids and would sooner peel his own skin off than handle any of that stuff. Mikey and Raph—they’re the toughest guys you’ll ever meet, but also the squishiest, and they’re sympathetic criers. It’s a whole thing. So Leo figured it had to be him.”

“He was smarter than he let most people think,” Casey says, eyes flicking up to check Gio’s expression as he worked, hands steady. “But it got him in trouble a lot.”

“That boy could talk circles around everybody. He’d get you arguing about something completely unrelated to the original point you were trying to make, or agreeing with him just to shut him up. Smug little asshole,” April says with whole-hearted affection. “And when all of that didn’t work, he’d pout. It was unbearable and he made himself everyone else’s problem until we gave in.”

“Plus, he could literally teleport.” 

“He could literally teleport!” April reiterates, widening her eyes to impress upon Gio the absurdity of attempting to wrangle a teleporting turtle. “We lost every fight to keep him in this goddamn infirmary before it even started. I don’t know if we’re painting a clear enough picture for you. He was the worst.”

“The worst,” Casey agrees, taking his hands away and sitting back. “And you’re done.”

Gio blinks and looks down at the row of neat stitches in his leg. He seems surprised to find them finished already. 

Casey packs a bandage there carefully and wraps it with gauze to keep it in place. He unthinkingly brushes his thumb over Gio’s knee while he works—it’s an act of comfort he learned directly from the man he learned everything else from, and it causes Gio’s expression to do something tender and flinching. It hurts April to watch. 

“Keep it bandaged for the next couple days, and change it if it gets wet,” Casey says. “And—actually, I’ll text you some instructions.”

“And you’ll follow them, or else,” April says, and follows the command with a kiss to the top of Gio’s head that he sits completely still for. “Now scoot. You’ll have to face the music in the morning when Mike sees that leg.”

Gio slips off the counter and lands solidly on his feet. He reminds April of a little terminator turtle, steady and relentless, because he was never taught the fine art of making his trouble someone else’s problem. Of making a mess, making his needs heard. 

It’s not too late to teach him. All they need is time. 

“Hey,” she says to Casey, when Gio has slipped out of the room and the two of them are left to clean up and return the infirmary to dormancy. “Thank you.”

It’s not easy for him to be here in the halfway home he was soundly rejected from. Donnie’s grief was vicious and toothed in its infancy, and dug into Casey as the one to blame, and neither of them ever really came back from it. 

But Casey gives April a rueful look, shrugging one shoulder, as if to say what else could I do?

Casey didn’t question her last-second detour, because he gets it. That sixth-sense.

He used to get lost in the city, he told her once. There were a few instances when he got so mixed up he didn’t even recognize the street he was on. But every time that happened, every time the panic started to crest inside him like a living, gnawing thing, he’d find himself turning, almost automatically, almost as if someone had called his name. And there was never anyone there—and almost everyone who knew his name in this timeline wouldn’t be willing to call it anyway—but if Casey walked in that direction his heart had turned him in, he would always get home sooner or later. 

April thinks of a reckless, lionhearted boy who loved his family to death. Mischievous and sarcastic and charming and always looking farther ahead than the rest of them. Always looking out. 

For better or worse, April has picked up that mantle. She doesn’t know how well she’s doing half the time. She’s pretty sure she failed Donatello completely, but if he thinks for one second that she’s going to let him slip through her fingers, he’s not as smart as all his PhDs would suggest.

She doesn’t think Raph still trusts her the way he used to, but he still folds himself down into her arms when she hugs him like it’s the one place he’s allowed to be small. And Mikey, the miracle himself, the one she secretly worries about the most, is making friendship bracelets again. 

It gives April hope. Bruised, knocked-down, never-knowing-when-to-give-up hope. 

Leo, she says inside her head, just in case he’s listening somewhere, I meant what I said. You were the worst. Figuring this shit out without you is hell on earth. I wish you were here, baby. Love you forever. 

She remembers the sound of his laughter so clearly that she almost actually hears it. He would have thrown his arm around her, smushing himself against her side, all bratty and little brother and certain of the space he was allowed to take up. He would have said something like, April O’Neil herself. Just what the doctor ordered. We’d be lost without you.

The irony would be lost on him.

April walks with Casey back through the lair—dark and sleeping and only half-lived-in anymore—and thinks it’s clearly the other way around.

[centaur-dreaming]

yours is the only voice I would wake to

625 words // hurt/comfort // Jerejean

Jean didn't know what to do.

Never before had he seen Jeremy so listless. So devoid of life. Brown eyes that used to sparkle like melted chocolate now the colour of old mud.

He didn't know what had happened, just that shit had gone down at the Wilshire's and Laila had received a call from William telling her that Jeremy had gone off without his car, dangerously absent. They'd split off into three to cover more ground and after about half an hour of searching Laila had found him wandering aimlessly down some street, ages away from his house.

Naturally they'd brought him back to The Lofts with them.

So now here he sat, Jabberwocky on his lap, one of Jean's freshly laundered hoodies over his crumpled shirt and staring out of the window with such emptiness that it made Jean's heart hurt.

He never wanted to see this sort of look on Jeremy; his face wasn't made for it.

He sat with him though, as the minuets turned into hours. They could turn into days at this point and Jean knew he would still be found beside him.

Cat and Laila had tried several times to rouse him from his stupor. Sometimes they'd come with various food bits and snacks, sometimes a passage from a book they were reading and sometimes just themselves, but it never seemed to be enough.

Jean hadn't said a thing, though. Content to simply exist alongside the blond as his brain undoubtedly processed whatever it was he had suffered through at home.

The sky outside the apartment was dark and Jabberwocky had long since called it a night on Jeremy's lap when Jean decided it had been long enough.

Slowly, so so slowly, Jean shifted closer to Jeremy, allowing the dip in the sofa cushions to announce his presence. When the man didn't respond (as expected), Jean reached out and brushed his fingers over the top of Jeremy's hand where it lay on the sleeping animal's back.

Jeremy didn't stir.

He didn't give any sign of awareness when Jean began to trace shapes across his skin, either, but Jean found something calming about the action anyway, his fingers moving from freckle to freckle to tiny knick and imperfection methodically, entranced by it.

He was not unaware of the opportunity to stare unabashedly at the man he'd so obviously fallen for--denying it now only felt stupid and childish.

Eventually, Jean tore his gaze away from his hand and stared at the man's shadowed profile. He decided to test the waters. "Jeremy?" he whispered.

Nothing.

A little louder, then. "Jeremy?"

Still the man stared, dead-eyed into the night.

The third time is a charm, Jean had heard Cat say once. "Jeremy?"

This time something happened. The briefest, most fleeting sign of recognition flashed across Jeremy's eyes. Jean had to try again. "Jeremy, it's Jean. I am here."

...

"...J-ean?"

"Oui, it is me. You are here, at The Lofts. We are alone." he replied and slowly, so slowly, Jeremy returned.

It was like watching Cat going around the apartment and turning on their ridiculous amount of side lamps and candles whenever they arrived home.

Jeremy remained silent as he turned his attention on the backliner.

Despite the lateness of the hour and the darkness of the room, the pain shimmering in those dark eyes was unmistakable and Jean found himself moving before the could stop himself. Jeremy came easily, collapsing into Jean's embrace as his face crumpled.

"I'm so tired." he said into the fabric of Jean's sweater.

"I know." Jean replied.

"...I don't wanna......."

"....I know." Jean replied.

It was another few minutes before the tears began to soak through the thick fabric, but Jean held him through all of it. Every second, every minute, every hour until dawn broke and the birds began to sing and Jeremy was a slumbering weight, heavy against Jean's chest.

-----

Based on my post which was inspired by this post by @lazy-to-an-l

frens who I think might like dis (I am sorry if I missed you please tell me if I did):

@jordiipordii @youdontknowhowtodiequietly @zombiecowboy65 @beedragony @anxiouslyandmessily

[galaxymagitech]

The Man on Death Row

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64762144

For @batfamily-week Day 3: Corpse | "I forgive you." | Fear Toxin

Summary

Jason doesn’t forgive easily. Dick's forgiveness is granted far too freely. Tim doesn't even seem to realize when there's something to forgive. And when Damian wakes up, Bruce knows his tally of sins will only grow.

Or: Bruce, his sons, and forgiveness.

Featuring Bruce Wayne's C- Parenting. But...he is trying.

Characters: Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Damian Wayne, Duke Thomas

You can read it here or on AO3!

Jason doesn’t forgive easily. He holds his grudges with a tight grip, terrified of letting his last vestiges of control slip through his grasp. It’s Jason’s right, Bruce knows, not to ever quite forgive his father for leaving—or his second father for making him leave.

When Jason is twelve, he runs right into danger and Bruce screams at him so long that he starts to cry. Bruce apologizes the next day, excuses pouring from his lips. He was terrified for Jason. He just needed Jason to understand. It won’t happen again. He’s sorry.

Jason looks at him, spooked, and whispers, “I don’t wanna forgive you.”

And Bruce says, “That’s okay.”

Six years later, part of him regrets it, but it’s too late to take those words back.

It’s not that Jason never forgives. Eventually, he does forgive Bruce for the screaming. Somehow, he forgives Bruce for the mistimed Batarang throw. And he forgives Bruce for not saving him.

But he doesn’t forgive Bruce for not killing the Joker, for saying he wasn’t Bruce’s son in a moment of anger, for taking him to Ethiopia without his knowledge instead of asking.

“He’s not going to forgive you for this, you know,” Duke says from Jason’s bedside. His voice is matter-of-fact, not accusatory, not meant to actually convince Bruce to stop. Neither of them are willing to allow Jason to spend the rest of his life suffering from a combination of Joker and Fear Toxin that don’t quite cancel each other out.

“It’s for his own good,” Bruce says. He looks down at Jason’s recently-dressed gunshot wound. Would Jason have gotten that if he was acting at full capacity?

“He won’t want another person messing around in his head.” Duke shakes his head. “I mean it, Bruce. He won’t forgive you.”

Bruce swallows. “I know.” He’ll add it to the tally of his sins.

---

Dick’s forgiveness, on the other hand, is a steady thing. Constant and ever-present. And Bruce has grown to rely on it.

He hates that about Dick. Not just how the young man is willing to work with all manner of people who have hurt him, but also how he makes it so easy for Bruce to never change. Bruce knows that, no matter how badly he hurts him, he won’t lose Dick. Even though he’s briefly doubted, thought that surely this misstep is too far, this wound will be the last straw, Dick always returns and forgives. And Bruce tries not to take advantage of that. He does.

He just never tries hard enough.

After Spyral, Bruce thought that was it. Dick had said that things between them could never be the same again. Bruce hadn’t quite believed it at the time. But it hit him, one day, after a radio check-in. Dick had meant it. He had really meant it.

Ultimately, it didn’t make a difference. Dick returned. He forgave. They moved on. Because that’s what Dick does.

Bruce wonders if this is his fault. If somehow, their years as Batman and Robin ruined Dick, taught him that he has to forgive Bruce. If Bruce, without meaning to, manipulated Dick into seeing no other choice but to let everything go. If Bruce is the reason that Dick never gives up on people who hurt him.

He concludes that it is. It is his fault. But every time he tries to fix it, tries to distance himself from Dick so he can’t hurt him anymore, Dick clings on even tighter. And they fight. The words cut deeper and deeper and deeper, until one of them snaps and says something he will always regret.

It would be worth it, if this is what it takes to save Dick. But every time, Dick comes back. And every time, Dick forgives.

“I think,” Bruce says quietly as they stare out at the city from a window in Pennyworth Manor’s foyer, “that I owe you an apology.”

He sees Dick frown out of the corner of his eye. “You don’t need to apologize. I’ve already—”

“I do,” Bruce says. He knows what will happen next, but it’s worse for the apology to go unsaid. For Dick not to know that Bruce regrets his decisions with Zur, regrets not being honest about the situation sooner, regrets attempting to abandon the family and dump the responsibility for the others onto Dick and Barbara. “I’m sorry, Dick, I—” 

“Then I forgive you,” Dick says simply.

And that, too, Bruce adds to his tally.

---

Tim, Bruce thinks, might be the worst one of them all.

Tim has never forgiven Bruce. He has never not forgiven Bruce, either. He just…never seems to realize that he even has something to forgive.

There are a million things Tim should blame Bruce for, but he only ever blames himself. He doesn’t ask for an apology—not after his sixteenth birthday, not ever. And he doesn’t forgive, just decides that he was actually wrong to feel upset.

Bruce sits Tim down for a conversation, after Jason storms out of the Batcave and Dick leaves for Blüdhaven. The boy fidgets nervously, like he’s been called to the principal’s office.

“I want to start off by saying I’m grateful for your help, Tim.”

Tim lights up at that. “Of course! I knew that wasn’t you, and when I realized that you would have made a strategic retreat off-the grid, it was easy to guess where you went. And I knew how to hide from Zur—he was distracted, and he wasn’t all-seeing, not like he thought he was. So…” Bruce lets Tim ramble about his process until he cuts himself off and looks up sheepishly. “Wait.” Tim narrows his eyes. “This feels like a good-news bad-news type of thing.”

Bruce sighs. It’s not like Tim is wrong. “While I appreciate what you did, and you were invaluable in the fight against Zur, you need to—I need you to promise me that you won’t do something like this again.”

“What, bring you a baguette? It was kinda stupid. I should’ve packed protein bars, or at least something in Tupperware.”

“Tim, I kicked you across a room.”

“Zur did.”

“You didn’t know that.” Even Bruce didn’t know that, at the time. “And I had already threatened to arrest you when you tried to stop me.”

“You wouldn’t,” Tim claims. Bruce wishes he believed that.

“And then, you kept trying to talk.”

“It’s not like I was really hurt,” Tim says. “If you wanted to put me out of commission for months, you could.” He shrugs. “I knew something was wrong with you.”

“And if something is wrong with me, you need to stay away from me.”

“I’m not going to do that.” 

Bruce massages his temples. He doesn’t know how to get through to his son. “Tim, I hurt you.”

“Zur hurt me, not you.” Tim smiles. “It’s fine.”

“I’m sorry,” Bruce says.

“I don’t get it.” Tim gestures helplessly. “You shouldn’t apologize. Everything’s fine.”

And Bruce adds yet another mark to his tally.

---

“Don’t be too hard on him,” Duke says. He’s hanging around in the Cave, dressed in sweatpants, a T-shirt, and slippers. After being up for most of the night handling the day one aftermath of the Arkham breakout with Damian, he figured he might as well not try to sleep.

“He was sloppy,” Bruce says, looking down at where Damian is sleeping peacefully, his dislocated shoulder set and sprained ankle wrapped. “Both of you were. And he got hurt.”

Duke rolls his eyes. “He’s not a robot. You gave him an hour-long lecture last night about how he was too violent.”

Bruce blinks. “What does that—”

“He was distracted!” Duke interrupts. He shakes his head and smooths out his sweatpants with his palms. “I knew he was focused on pulling his punches. I didn’t watch his back. It was my fault, not his.”

Oh. Bruce closes his eyes. “I understand.” Opens them, staring Duke straight in the eyes. He has to fix this. “This is on me, Duke. Not him, and not you.”

Duke nods jerkily. Stands. “I’ll…uh…leave you here. I think I’ve got—homework.” He leaves the cave.

It takes a moment of confusion for Bruce to realize the tension in his body, the way his hands are clenched tight enough to turn his knuckles white. He wonders how deeply the anger seeped into his voice. He wonders if, for a moment, Duke was scared.

He wonders if Duke will forgive him.

He wonders if Damian will forgive him.

Bruce will apologize when Damian wakes up, he decides. And he will learn what type of tally mark he will add against himself today.

He knows that, eventually, the tally against him will grow too heavy to bear. The cuts on his soul will bleed him out. He will lose Dick, lose Jason, lose Tim, lose Damian. Will it happen all at once? Or together, in one sweeping blow of retribution?

Dick has threatened to take Damian away before, eyes burning with a fury that Bruce so rarely sees anymore. Tim and Jason are growing closer—Bruce noticed that Jason asked Tim for confirmation that Bruce was Zur-less and trustworthy. Jason hung around at the outskirts of the family partially for Alfred, and now, Alfred is gone. The inevitable is growing closer.

Bruce is not a man awaiting trial. There is no doubt, reasonable or otherwise, that he is guilty. He has hurt his sons, time and time again. Sent them away and pulled them back to his side against his better judgment. Seen a spark in each of them and smothered it. To deny what he has done is pointless, not to mention impossible.

Neither is he waiting for his sentencing. His sons—all of them—will leave. And Bruce will lose them. That is his punishment. That is their escape.

No. Bruce is sitting on death row. And sooner or later, the end will come.

[sophieswundergarten]

In the very, very crack AU that's been swirling around my brain for a while, I've been wondering who would be a Time Lord in a Doctor Who/MBS crossover

Now, obviously, it could be Nicholas & Nathaniel for the Doctor & Master conflict.

However, I think once you get past the easy options it gets a lot funnier

Milligan. Just, Milligan as a Time Lord. Wandering around. Maybe he uses the Chameleon Arch thing and gets amnesia while pretending to be human, maybe he's just messing around and pretending to have amnesia because he panicked and couldn't think of a proper cover. The thing is, then, is Kate his biological daughter? I mean, she still could be, but I'm not touching the disaster that is DW genetic familial relationships with a ten foot pole so that's not my problem

Rhonda would actually be really, really good at disguises and blending in. I think she'd actually be great at just popping into random situations and helping but not freaking people out. She still does a lot of vandalism stuff because honestly sometimes people deserve it, but now she's got a psychic paper that just lets her get out of whatever trouble she might have been in

Number Two. That's all I've got to say

Miss Perumal, similar to Rhonda, I think would be absolutely great at the helpful part. She just settles down and pours herself into helping a few people or a certain community. Everyone loves her, and she occasionally lets very special people she trusts go traveling with her, but for the most part everyone just thinks she's a really sweet, eccentric lady who's a bit mysterious

Garrison... is still having her breakdown, but this time it's not just about Curtain. He's the final straw after years of human stupidity and misuse of her technology that she's been trying to help them with. She's Not Doing Alright. She loses her faith in humanity for a little bit, and Curtain was kind of her last-ditch attempt to see if people could be better but then he went off the rails and she's not sure what to do now but she just can't leave because he's actually got some powerful alien tech

After you rule out most of the adults, it gets even weirder in my book, but I don't think anyone wants to hear me ramble about which of the kids it most likely to secretly be an immortal time traveling alien with the current state of my mind

[add1ctedt0you]

Sucker for pain

That's for all the writers who look at jiang cheng and decide to put him through other unimaginable woes. <3 As if his life wasn't rough enough lol.

[welcometogrouchland]

Batman #149 by chip zdarsky is mostly unremarkable, but I'm really fascinated by how it makes a great case for 'good' endings not saving 'bad' stories*. Because there's a lot of interesting concepts in this issue (bruce having to deal with his rapidly aging and decaying clone making him think about his own life, re-establishing a 'nest' so to speak for his family after pushing them away, etc) but bc of the OOC slog that came before it, almost every moment w/ the batfamily comes off as unearned and disingenuous imo.

Like, everything with Damian is the perfect example in this. Because in isolation it's...fine. admittedly it's a missed opportunity to not go deeper into how Damian would feel about a clone of his dad who tried to kill considering Damian's relationships with clones of himself (the heretic rejects and respawn) or with former enemies who wanted him dead but who were manipulated and/or brainwashed (like suren and maya).

Zdarsky doesn't go into any of this but you could maybe excuse it as the issue not being about Damian. However, coupled with the previous bizarre characterizations of Damian in 147 and 148, it ends up not being fine- instead it starts to feel...icky how Damian (who, despite often being drawn and written as white, will never have his connection to the non-white al ghuls forgotten and will always be effected by racism even when not portrayed as a poc) is constantly written as overly violent, uncaring and narrow minded in this run. Coupled w/ trying to recanonize the morrison origin for Damian it's like. OH this is badly written and laden with subtle bigotry, sick**

That's me going into detail on it with Damian but it's applicable to other things in this issue- the way Cass, Steph and Duke have all been ignored or turned into jobbers makes their inclusion in the 'family' here feel hollow instead of satisfying. Bruce proclaiming that Zur was still a part of him and he needs to accept responsibility for his actions (when it means taking in clone son) wrings hollow when just last issue zdarsky was bending over backwards to separate Bruce and Zur bc otherwise the Jason thing would get really awkward. Ends are achieved through means that feel hollow or strange. I'm at my destination but damn why'd the bus have to do all that???

I only really have opinions on this latest arc of zdarskys Batman bc it's the one I've read the closest (bc I'm a hater, masochist and avid follower of even the bad damian storylines) but it's not saying great things.

Bc zdarsky can do one thing good in this book, and it's write Bruce and Tim. And yet this entire story, whether of his own volition or editorial mandate, includes other characters who aren't Bruce and Tim, the fabric starts to unravel in very telling ways.

(p.s, I think pennyworth manor is an interesting idea but I feel like in execution it's just gonna be 'bruce living in a house haunted by the memory of the people he couldn't save' but with a different dead guy this time. Illusion of change and whatnot)

*whether or not the ending is good is up to you ofc, as is your opinion on the proceeding arc! I saw some ppl complain that the ending was too "WFA" for them, which I get even if I dont think it'll literally be the same premise. If anything it's probably a lead into the new tec run. Likewise many ppl who aren't in the weeds of Damian and Jason characterization liked the previous arc! But I have my opinions and rest my case before the bench

**disclaimer, I'm white and portrayals of bigotry in comics are complicated and subjective, but I am basing my point here off what other poc comic fans on socmed have been saying about 149. Also the "sick" is sarcasm incase that wasn't obvious

[mostmagical]

reading year in review

posting this at the behest of @bittersweetresilience... 1-2 of my favorite fics that I read for each month of the year

I’m not tagging anyone in this other than mutuals who happen to be on the list because I DON’T KNOW. this is SCARY. I’m just a girl. what do I know about anything.

01 JANUARY

Graine de toi by MireilleTanaka (Miraculous Ladybug)

Ladybug and Chat Noir think they’re close, until they begin waking up in one another’s skin. AU: Adrien is homeschooled, and he and Marinette have never met

Body swap AND Never Met AU fic based loosely on Kimi na wa that lived in my head for ages. @blur0se sent this to me when we were just little baby new friends because she thought I would like it and she was exactly right because I loved it.

In Pursuit of the Uneatable by @nemaliwrites (Miraculous Ladybug

In a Paris where Lila weaves tales that blind the city, Marinette stands accused, isolated. Her parents' trust is shattered, her friends distant, and in battle, illusions blur the line between ally and enemy. As the shadows and uncertainty threaten to close in, Marinette finds herself turning to the last person who claims to be on her side: a boy in a white mask who calls himself a fox hunter.

This fic is so good and we are all blessed to have a chance to read Nemali writing… I feel awful because I still need to finish this fic but I think about it all the time. Nemali’s prose and Lila characterization, and just the general concept– AGH. Top tier.

02 FEBRUARY

never been in love by bittersweetResilience (Miraculous Ladybug)

Félix wonders if he has a heart. If he does, it doesn’t beat like that.

I love ace spectrum characters I love Sunny writing I love Sunny ace spectrum fic… Made me cry.

03 MARCH

watership down by bittersweetResilience (Miraculous Ladybug)

“Of course we get along.” Emilie’s hand reaches over to slip into Amélie’s. As always, her fingers loosen as soon as Amélie has reciprocated the hold. She swings their hands in a carefree arc between them, looking into the woods ahead, relying on Amélie’s grip to keep them linked. “We’re soulmates. No secrets between us.” Amélie and Emilie, through the years. A non-linear narrative.

This fic is sooo good you guys. So good. GAH. Sunny writing + Sunny Amelie and Félix, and complicated family relationships, and pretty prose and WATERSHIP DOWN. It feels like a coming of age film in your head.

Season of Giving by The_Rabbit42 (Miraculous Ladybug)

As Christmas draws near, Adrien and Marinette want to find special presents to give their partner and… other partner. Combined with Adrien rediscovering what Christmas is without his parents, Marinette getting sick, and Alya and Adrien becoming closer friends, it's sure to be a memorable holiday.

Honestly, this year, March was one of my lowest months for a lot of personal reasons, and I happened to stumble upon this Christmas fic and it just made me feel better.

04 APRIL

Maybe This Life by @coffeebanana (Miraculous Ladybug)

"Adrien's in the hospital." Woken in the dead of night by a series of frantic phone calls, Marinette finds herself boarding a bus from New York to Montreal instead of flying home for winter break. Not that she has a clue how she'll navigate living with Adrien—who definitely wants nothing to do with her since the break up—for the indefinite future. Adrien just wants to find the energy to convince Marinette he's fine—that she can leave. Because having her here hurts too much, and he's better off alone. At least, that's what he tells himself. They're an ocean away from home, stuck together in a one-bedroom apartment, in a city suffocated by snow. The distance between them has never felt so insurmountable. But maybe there's hope after all.

MTL fic… Sad, awkward exes fic. And CoffeeBanana writing. What more could you ask for in life…? So excited to see more of this unfold when Kayla is finally free from deadlines…

05 MAY

again. I didn’t do anything in May because I was 100%-ing ME3. and it ruined my life. (/pos) anyway. Mass Effect fic dump now

06 JUNE

picture perfect (get your head out of the sky) by luffia (Mass Effect Trilogy)

The logic of attraction is awful, and realising you have a thing for your undead human best friend who technically outranks you makes it all ten times worse.

This is just so funny. Jack torturing Garrus by pointing out his attraction lives in my head forever. Perfectly executed feeling of Oh. and then Oh no.

Beating Like A Hammer by skybound2 (Mass Effect Trilogy)

Garrus doesn't know if she is real, or a hallucination, but when Shepard storms back into his life on Omega, he finds that he doesn't much care. He just knows that he's not letting her go again, not if he can help it.

Shepard staying with Garrus and sending the other two squadmates to close the vents during his recruitment mission. Who would I be if I didn’t have at least one Omega fic on here. Be real.

07 JULY

it makes sense that it should hurt in this way (that my heart should break – and my hands should shake – ) by calypsid (Mass Effect Trilogy)

When Garrus gets home to Palaven, he finds something in his luggage he doesn't remember putting there himself.

I cannot explain to you how often I think about this fic. It’s short and sweet— Shepard isn’t even really there, but it’s just a fic that sticks with me so entirely. I actually need to go back to it because I think I was still lurking in the fandom and I probably didn’t comment, which is an absolute crime.

the view between by @bbutterflies (Miraculous Ladybug)

Adrien is standing at the front doors of the mansion. It’s abandoned now, though it doesn’t look much different. It feels safer somehow. He hates himself for thinking it. Father was a hero. His eyes burn and he fights away the guilt. Father was a hero and it doesn’t matter what else happened before because he’s gone. All Adrien has of his parents is the twin rings on his hand.

I've only read a handful of Post-S5 fics, but I read this one and it hit sooo well. It’s so sad and haunting and such a lovely peek into Adrien’s brain.

08 AUGUST

大鱼 by bittersweetResilience (Honkai: Star Rail)

It feels like lightning, the thrust of the spear through him. The same lightning that crackles at his fingertips, that arcs up his spine, that dances over his skin like fireflies in those winedrunk memories. Bandaged hands and bleeding ink and a hundred thousand fragments of abundance and destruction. or, Jing Yuan lets go of these seven hundred years of dreams.

Well of course. I gotta. The Renjing character study of all character studies (I’m unqualified to say this). I love this fic because first of all, Sunny prose is always beautiful, and second of all, Sunny loves this fic. I love what Renjing did to your writing. I love that you started writing more fluff and AUs and reading Chinese fic, and I know this fic is a big part of the journey. I loved reading it.

Well. Fuck. by quondam (Mass Effect Trilogy)

When he least expects it, Garrus finds Shepard at the door of his apartment on the Citadel, looking for a place to spend the night. Set between ME1 & ME2. Prompt called for a fill on humor & sex.

This is my favorite Shakarian smut. I don’t read a TON of smut. But I love this one. SO much. Amazing humor. Post-ME1, pre-ME2, with a very in-character Garrus. And I love that awkward ME1 Garrus.

09 SEPTEMBER

Marked Introductions by Feynite (Mass Effect Trilogy)

The words on Shepard’s forearm are… not in English.

I love the world-building in this fic and specifically the thought put into the turian language aspect. They even used phonetics… I cheered in my bed with my Bachelor’s degree. It’s actually bookmarked with a note that just says “LINGUISTICS” because I got so excited.

the light that throws itself on everything by @asukiess (Miraculous Ladybug)

the light that throws itself on everything, stretching twice, at dusk and again at dawn, agrees to stay, but only for a while.

This is it. The fic that revived my love of poetry. The reason I write fandom poems now. It’s everything… It’s the light… The light throwing itself on everything… Tragic. Gay. Poetry.

10 OCTOBER

Observations Upon Waking by interventionsandlullabies (Mass Effect Trilogy)

A collection of moments in which Garrus wakes up and takes in his surroundings. Some better, some worse. Some best.

I adore this author’s internal monologue for Garrus so so much. Cathartic post-ME3 fic. A little sad, but then a lot happy.

11 NOVEMBER

Edge of Yesterday by @that-wildwolf (Mass Effect Trilogy)

The war is over and Shepard's still alive. Except she doesn't really understand what war everyone is talking about, or who half of these people are... The last thing she does remember is the Normandy blowing up over Alchera. Which apparently was a few years ago, and things had changed a lot during that time. She doesn't even know which bothers her more: that everyone wants her to be someone she's not, or that Garrus has been strangely distant ever since she woke up... TL;DR: Shepard survives but loses all her memories since her death in ME2. Shakarian angst and regular angst, all mixed up together into a nice hurt/comfort cocktail. Despite the scary tags this has a happy ending.

I think I’ve been pretty loud about how much I love this fic, but why not be a little louder. This is probably my favorite fic I’ve read this year. I cried so many times, stayed up so late reading some nights, and I still think about it all the time. Some of my absolute favorite tropes done exceedingly well, and just all-around wonderful character moments. And I even made a friend out of reading it, so I doubly win.

Change Starts With Today by ThatWildWolf (Mass Effect Trilogy)

From the records of Doctor Marta Domańska, professional psychiatrist specialising in trauma: 2188, one year since the conclusion of the Reaper War. Patient admitted to psychotherapy: turian male, 25 to 30 years old, shows signs of deep-rooted psychological trauma. Admitted to therapy after losing a loved one; patient classified as high-risk. Advised course of action: continue psychotherapy and monitoring patient's state. Prescribe mood stabilisers if needed.

I would be remiss not to include this. A lovely little companion piece to EoY with an amazing Garrus character study and a very lovable OC. Makes my heart ache all over again. Reliving the magic, really.

12 DECEMBER

dreamt a cipher by @milkywayes (Mass Effect Trilogy)

Her own personal Noverian peak. That’s what it was supposed to be. Nothing but the discovery: no distractions, no comfort, no windows looking out—no familiar faces. But it's starting to look like her winning streak might have ended in that pile of Citadel rubble, if it ever extended that far to begin with.

Another fic that has been on my radar forever but I didn’t read until the end of the year. So sad, but also such great humor and such a compelling mystery that it all balances out perfectly. Wonderful world-building, incredible characterization, and honestly? Jealousy-inducing prose, it’s so good— so much so that I’m almost embarrassed to tag milky but I have to… milky deserves to know…

Tomorrow's Light by ThatWildWolf (Mass Effect Trilogy)

Garrus asked Shepard to move to Palaven with him. Things are looking up and rebuilding after the Reaper War is well underway, but loneliness and pain take their toll nonetheless. An examination of life and love in the wake of incredible trauma, of a galaxy torn apart and put back together, through the lens of two people. [Post-canon, Shakarian, equal parts fluff and angst.]

Am I the luckiest girl in the world that an EoY follow-up fic was published the month after I read EoY? I think so… This fic was lovely and cathartic and I love the way Wild gets into their brains…

[shreddeddescent]

hhhhh yeah ok just for funsies.....

here's a snippet (its way longer than a snippet its 4000 words) of the worst case scenario story i wrote.

idk how much of the specifics will be canon. but i do think this is such a good blow up that it would be mean to keep it to myself.

maybe im posting it just to be like YEAH OK HERES THE TONE. IF YOURE NOT COMFORTABLE THEN YOU CANT BE HERE...

Warnings for mentions of: CSA rape forced incest uhhhh more probably. nothing shown but much mentioned. possibly warnings for more im not even thinking of. Im sorry just be careful.

Don’t be fucking weird about it to me ok we are in the raw place

so context. shredder kidnapped the boys for days to get what he wanted out of them. implications are clear enough through context i think. lot of drugging. they escaped and killed him (like for real this time) shit is weird and they're handling it as best they can. everyone is aware of this. they've had one therapy session w a weirdly inhuman therapist april found (from her connections in cryptid world) and nobody wants to look their mom in the eye. least of all raph. cuz god does it ever feel bad to know she knows.

the boys seem ok to the naked eye though. hence. this.

--

When they woke up the next morning Mikey had decided to make everyone pancakes. A true feast of flavours after their days of slop.

Donnie and Leo had set the table and let Raph rest at the head of it, he was still wearing Donnie’s old ratty black hoodie, it fit him perfectly. He’d also found some sweatpants, but those only rode up to his mid thigh. It still helped though.

Mikey was making two batches of pancakes, half with chocolate chips and half without, the pickier eaters with the cool mask colours refusing to try something sweet.

The air smelled strongly of bacon, and it was making Raph’s tummy growl loudly.

“Mikey you better hurry up, Raph’s gonna eat his plate!” Leo joked as he pat Raph on the back.

“You can’t hurry perfection!” Mikey whined as he plated some bacon.

“Uuuughhhh Mikey…! I can see the light!” Raph gasped out and reached his arm out above his head, miming his own death.

Mikey huffed and chucked a piece of bacon on his plate.

“To tide you over you big baby.”

Raph gasped and picked it up between his fingers gobbling it down with a loud moan.

“So fucking good Mikey…”

“Oh you’re all up!”

Raph froze, swallowing hard.

His mom was behind him and he was wearing Donnie’s hoodie. He had just moaned Mikey’s name. And his mom was behind him.

He felt Leo hovering over him but he didn’t move.

“Hi mom.” Leo said gently.

“Decided to make a big breakfast?” She wandered over to look at what Mikey was doing at the stove.

Leo put a hand on Raph’s shoulder when she turned and leaned down to enter his eyeline.

Raph stared at him with a panicked expression. Leo looked sympathetic.

“Yeah, we’re all pretty hungry.” Mikey responded.

“You want some help?”

“I got it, it’s almost done anyway.”

Raph was trying like hell not to have a panic attack. Leo put both arms around his shoulders in a loose hug, leaning down to speak in his ear.

“Deep breaths, Raph, it’s just mom. You’re okay.”

He tried to breathe, placing a hand on Leo’s arm. He saw his mom turn and quickly threw Leo’s arms off him.

She stared at him sadly, but tried to smile anyway.

“How are you feeling today Raphael?”

“Hungry.” He answered quickly. “Just really hungry.”

Her smile faltered for a moment, but she tried to keep it up anyway.

“Well, good thing your brother is such a good cook.” She turned to the fridge to grab some juice.

Raph clasped his chest, he didn’t know why it hurt.

Donnie was staring at him with some concern, he looked like he was about to ask him something so Raph just glared at him and held his finger to his lips.

Donnie rolled his eyes and rest his folded arms on the table.

Raph just stared at his empty plate, trying to calm his nerves.

Leo pat him on the back and shook him gently.

“Raphael do you want me to put on some coffee? Or would you like to take a nap later?”

He stared at his empty plate. Caffeine would make his chest worse than it already was.

“No, I'm very awake right now, super okay.” He super fucking wasn’t okay and he didn’t know why.

She turned around to pour a glass of orange juice for herself.

“Enough food for me to join you boys?”

Mikey turned his head to look back at Raph in question.

Raph stared back at him with an anxious look in his eye. He then looked back at his mom.

“Of course you can eat breakfast with us we’re not avoiding you or anything that would be mean!” He tried to make his words sound as playful as he could but he was pretty sure he sounded crazy.

She gave him a puzzled look but smiled anyway, and sat at the other end of the table.

Donnie gave him the most dumbfounded look, shaking his head slightly.

Leo nonchalantly scooted his chair closer to Raph and leaned over the counter.

“So. What did our doctor tell you?”

Raph kicked him under the table but he didn’t react.

She frowned and clasped her hands around her cup, looking down at it.

“She… said a few things. She told me to give you space, but not be too far in case you needed to talk. I’m trying not to worry, but I’m a little surprised that none of you have seeked me out for anything.”

Raph frowned and rubbed his arm, looking away.

“I.. I’m sorry, feels too raw right now..”

“I think anything we need to talk about can be said to the therapist.” Donnie said.

Raph looked up to glare at Donnie for his rudeness, but he’d stood up to help Mikey bring plates of food to the table.

“Which I understand, but I feel out of the loop. You’ve spoken to April. And this doctor. But no one even looked to me for a hug…”

Raph chewed his lip and closed his eyes. He felt horrible.

“Mom, I’m so sorry I just—“

“Because trying to be physically close with anyone right now is hard, mom.” Leo interrupted. Raph thought his tone was too harsh. “We’ve been through hell and we’re just trying to be normal. It’s awkward and it sucks. But it’s hard to add other people to it.”

Raph groaned and shoved him lightly with his shoulder.

“We’re fine, mom. We’re coping.”

She eyed the two of them carefully with her hands clasped in front of her face as Donnie and Mikey placed the plates of pancakes and meats in front of everyone.

She was looking at Raph’s hoodie, she was looking at how close Leo was to him.

He looked away from her so he could pile as many chocolate chip pancakes onto his plate as he could. Leo leaned over him to add some bacon and hash browns to it, knowing he would forget to diversify his plate.

It was not helping.

Raph grumbled and took a big bite of pancakes. He couldn’t help but moan again. “These are so fucking good, Mikey…”

Mikey grinned from his seat near splinter at the corner. He and Donnie had very different plates, his full of all the variety, Donnie sticking to his plain pancakes with nothing on them.

“Thank you! Worth the wait right?” He asked with his mouth full.

“Yes, I’m sorry.” Raph whined dramatically and stuffed his face more. Eating real delicious food after all that gross paste felt so good. He’d never felt so hungry, he was going to overindulge.

“How are you coping?” Splinter asked suddenly between her bites of food.

Raph tensed and looked up at her, gulping back hard.

“Sorry?”

“You said you were fine and coping. So how are you coping?” She looked up at him with a weird look and he needed to look back down. It was making him queasy.

“I.. I don’t know, we’re just hanging out I guess.” He mumbled and picked at his food.

“Is that a new hoodie?”

He tensed and tried to make himself small.

“No, it’s Donnie’s…”

“Hm.” She washed back her food with a chug of juice.

His brothers weren’t as tense as he was, but they did look uneasy by her presence. It wasn’t unusual, he was usually the only one trying to hold conversation, and he had been the one to inadvertently invite her to join them. They all kind of wanted to be alone.

“Mikey? You should have let me help, you seemed to have forgotten the eggs.”

‘She knows she knows she knows she knows!’

Raph slammed his head down on the counter to shut the voice in his head up.

There was a pause. Leo pressed a hand to his back.

“You good..?”

He picked his head up sharply and grunted.

“Never better.” He started scarfing down the pancakes in as big of bites as he could. Maybe he could finish fast and get out of here.

“I… didn’t make eggs cuz our stomachs are a little too empty for eggs…” Mikey mumbled between bites.

‘She knows he’s lying she knows he’s trying to protect you she knows!’

He clenched his fist around his fork and swallowed hard, staring intensely at his plate. He put his free hand under the table to dig his nails into his thigh instead of hurting his head where she could see it.

Unfortunately Leo noticed and grabbed his hand under the counter to stop him. Which she also noticed.

He slapped his hand away and glared at him.

“Leo what are you doing to your brother?!”

Leo snapped his head up to look at her and he looked like a deer caught in headlights.

“Nothing!”

Raph wished he had hair so he could pull it all out.

“Oh for fucks sake, SPLINTER, we are NOT. FUCKING each other!” Donnie shouted as he suddenly stood up and leaned over the counter.

Raph looked at him in absolute horror.

Splinters eyes went wide and she looked at him angrily.

“What?!”

Donnie growled.

“I can see what you’re doing! You keep eyeing Raph up for being too close to us! You’re assuming the worst!” Donnie gestures to him with one hand without turning his gaze away from splinter. “You’re going to give him ANOTHER panic attack!”

Raph clutched his head in his hands, staring wildly at nothing as he curled his upper body over the counter, facing down at the table.

“Donnie!” He heard Mikey yell as another stool scooted back.

“I-I am not assuming anything!” His mother sounded offended and angry.

“Guys.” Leo said sternly.

“You literally asked him about my hoodie! As if it was the weirdest thing in the world for my traumatized rape victim of a brother to request items of clothing!”

“He’s just never worn anything like that before!”

“Gee Splinter I wonder why!”

“Donnie this isn’t your fight!” Mikey yelled and Raph heard a small smack.

“Someone has to fucking fight for that idiot! Everyone’s fucking dancing around it as if we don’t all know what’s wrong!”

Raph was staring at his plate so hard the colours were burning into his brain.

“No one wants to tell me what’s wrong! Everyone comes home from hell and avoids their mother like the plague! And I am just supposed to not fear the worst?! You have no idea all the things I can smell on you boys!”

“Where was that nose THE FIRST TIME?!” Donnie shouted as it sounded like he slammed both fists on the counter.

“What?!”

He was growling.

“You didn’t smell DAD all over Raph?!”

Raph stood suddenly, hands still clasped over his ears and he didn’t look at anyone, just kept his head facing the ground as he ran out of the room.

He bolted into the bathroom and proceeded to throw up all of the delicious pancakes he’d enjoyed so much. He couldn’t even have one nice thing.

He heard a gentle knock at the open door and didn’t turn away from the bowl.

“I have some water…” Leo said quietly. He made no effort to step inside.

Raph reached his arm back to take the cup without looking.

Leo passed it to him and stayed in the doorway.

Raph kept staring at the bowl, waiting to see if he has anything left before he chugged water and rinsed his mouth out a few times.

“Thanks…” he mumbled as he grabbed toilet paper to wipe his face with.

“Do you want me to sit with you..?”

Raph kept staring at the bowl.

“Yeah…”

Leo walked inside and sat beside him propping up an elbow on his knee.

“Can I rub your back?”

“Why are you asking permission?” Raph looked up at him frustratedly. He was just giving him a sympathetic frown.

“Cuz I think no one is asking how you feel before they decide they know what’s best for you.”

Raph turned back to the bowl, taking in what he meant.

“I… thank you…” he sighed, straightening his back out to look at the back of the toilet. He was pretty sure there was nothing left in him, but he just kind of wanted to sit in this quiet moment away from everyone else. Puke or not.

Leo took it upon himself to flush the toilet for him.

“If it helps, I’m pretty sure Mikey’s gonna chew Donnie’s ear off for that.”

“What does it matter, he’s not wrong.” Raph sighed.

“It was not his place to shout your bullshit at mom.”

Raph turned to look up at him frustrated.

“He’s right though. That’s what hurts.”

Leo frowned and nodded.

“He is, but it’s still not his place to talk over you about you. It’s not moms place to make you feel like shit about yourself when you’re barely holding on. And it’s not Donnie’s place to decide how you tell mom about your own shit.”

Raph looked away, feeling tears coming.

“I was never gonna tell mom. I was… I was literally never ever gonna tell her that…”

Leo scooted closer and leaned his head down to be at eye level with him.

“I get that. We all kinda knew that. I’m sorry Donnie did that to you.”

Raph closed his eyes.

“You can hug me if you want to…”

He felt Leo pull him in to a loose hug from his side, letting him lean his body against his.

“I… I know what Donnie did is fucked but… but I also mean that I was never going to be ABLE to tell mom that…”

Leo hummed and rubbed his shoulder.

“You’re half grateful. Half angry.”

He laughed a little. “Yeah… I know it’s.. it’s my fault for saying it was ok for her to join us but… but god Leo I feel so bad all the time, she seems lonely and sad and I just.. I can’t look at her and think about what she thinks of me…”

“I mean—“

“And don’t just tell me not to worry about what she thinks.”

There was a pause.

“That’s all you were gonna say.” Raph grumbled and pat Leo’s arm. “I hate that nobody ever gets along, and I hate that I’m stuck in the middle of it…”

“Sounds exhausting.”

“It is! I’m tired and I just want people to fucking… I don’t know.. I’m trying to be okay…”

Leo tugged him closer. “You don’t have to be okay, no one expects you to be okay.”

He sighed and pat Leo’s arm. “I wanna go back in there…”

Leo gently let go of him and stood up, holding his hand out to help him up. He then pointed at the sink.

“Maybe one last rinse and spit.”

Raph sighed and leaned over to gargle tap water for a moment before turning and staring up at Leo who gave him a thumbs up.

Leo let him lead the way out of the room.

He was still hearing arguing as he walked towards the kitchen.

“—have any idea how hard this was?!”

“Yes! Because you never shut up about it!”

“Oh that’s kind of you to say!”

“Does it EVER cross your mind how hard WE had it as BABIES?!”

He hovered in the doorway for a moment.

He saw his mother standing on a stool to shout at eye level, Donnie just glaring daggers still in the same spot.

Mikey had his arms folded, the expression on his face looked far older and exhausted than it should have on his sweet face.

“Of course I do! That’s why I needed to get you out of there!”

Raph walked in the kitchen and they all stared at him.

Mikey’s expression softened instantly, he looked worried.

Raph parsed the last thing his mother had said and he turned to look at her, feeling angry for some reason.

“But… you didn’t get us out… I got us out.” He said quietly.

He sensed Leo standing behind him leaning against the door frame.

His mother made a face.

“That’s not fair.” She said as she climbed down of the stool to sit normally. “I found us all a way out, I got us a home.”

“Six years later.” He almost whispered. He wasn’t sure where this was coming from.

Mikey and Donnie were staring at him in awe. Splinter looked offended.

“You know where I—“

“I know where you were. I know why you were gone.” He clenched his fists and took a breath, standing up straight. “I don’t blame you for leaving. Or being gone. I’m sorry. But…” he looked at Mikey, his sweet eyes growing larger. He eyed Donnie, whose guilty look was turning warmer. He looked back at his mother. “But when you were gone bad things happened to us, and no one came to save us.”

Her eyes were watering. It made his water too, so he turned his head to look away.

He sensed Leo step in beside him and felt him grab his hand gently.

Raph looked up at him, he was giving him a gentle smile and nodded at him to continue.

Leo had him.

He looked back at his mom’s tearful eyes.

“I-I know that! And I feel terrible about it every day!”

He gave her a dark glare.

“Did you know dad raped me?”

Her eyes went wide and she didn’t say anything.

He frowned.

“You either didn’t think about how bad we had it, or you knew and didn’t do anything about it. I don’t know which makes me more miserable to think about.”

“Raphael—“

“Stop!” He shouted. She tensed up and he felt guilty instantly, none of them liked a booming voice.

He rubbed his temple with his free hand.

“Stop. We know the therapist was April’s idea. And we know you didn’t let her get one for us before. I understand….” He sighed, “I understand that we were in hiding. That you were scared for us, scared we’d get caught, shipped back there and have the worst thing happen, but… but we could have gotten help years ago! I could have gotten help! I-I shut down mom! I forgot all about it! And you might think that’s good! That makes it all okay cuz I shut it all out but it came back to haunt me!

Tears were falling down his cheeks, he felt so angry and so miserable and so so justified.

“You said… you told me. When you found me you told me you had been watching us! Trying to watch over us right? What… what did you see dad do that finally pushed you over the edge and made you admit you were there?”

She looked so pained, so guilty. He didn’t want to break his stare no matter how much it hurt. He didn’t want to give her a way out.

“Your… the things he wanted to do to you… to your brothers because of you…”

“BECAUSE of me?!” He snatched his hand away from Leo’s to clench both of his fists.

Her tears were free roaming, she balled her fists on the counter.

“Because of how you were born! H-he got opportunity as soon as he found that out! He was going to use them on you! Because of how you were born!”

Raph shook his head dumbfounded, staring at the ground.

“Because of how I was born…” he repeated. “So it’s.. so it’s my fault guys! Because I was born like this!”

“Raphael that’s not what I meant!”

He snapped his head up to glare at her. “Isn’t it?! You just said what caused you to finally warn me was learning about that! How did you even learn that!”

She stared at him for a long while. Crying silently as she tried to find her words.

His muscles were trembling from how tightly wound he felt.

“I… saw you get examined in the lab… I was in the vent, y-you were on the table with your little legs…” she sobbed. “I-I saw what he did… i s-saw you lie there l-like you were asleep…”

Raph felt an icy chill run through his body.

He stood back, staring at her in shock and shaking his head a little.

“You… you saw him do it…”

It wasn’t a question.

Her face answered it anyway. Anguished, guilty, miserable. Sobbing away at the table.

He couldn’t move and she didn’t say anything.

“Mom…” Leo softly whispered beside him.

Donnie kicked his stool over with violent force and marched out of the room.

Mikey was staring at Raph with big wet eyes.

Raph was frozen.

“How… how could you..?” Leo asked her.

She hid her face in her hands, sobbing loudly.

“Y-you couldn’t go back! H-help would have brought attention! You couldn’t go back!” She wailed. “A-and you blocked it all out! What was I supposed to do!!!”

“SOMETHING!!!” Mikey screamed suddenly.

They all turned to look at him. He looked more furious than anyone had ever seen him, pure rage in his eyes, sitting up on the counter with his body hunched over.

He shook his head in utter disbelief and got down off the stool, marching over to Raph and taking his hand.

“We should leave.” He said seriously and tugged on it.

Raph didn’t want to move.

“H-he tried to do the deed himself Raphael! H-he tried to use himself as the donor first! H-how could I tell you that!” She slammed her fists down.

Leo’s hands were on Raph’s shoulders now.

“You… saw dad rape me…”

She kept sobbing.

“I-I couldn’t d-do anything to s-stop him!!”

He shook his head slowly and turned his body to face Leo behind him.

“I… I don’t want to talk to you…” he said softly.

Leo stepped around him to hold him from behind and Mikey tugged him once more.

This time he followed.

And just left her crying alone.

They both walked him into the bedroom and sat him down on their pile of beds, Donnie was already here curled up in the corner crying by himself.

Raph just sat very still, his feet still on the ground. He stared into space as someone put a blanket over him, someone else shut the door.

He couldn’t even cry, he felt emotionally comatose and just stared blankly into the wall.

He felt his brothers grab his hands and squeeze them.

“Raph…?” He thinks it was Leo, he couldn’t see.

A soft chirp came from his other side.

He blinked but didn’t look over.

“I… Don’t wake me up…” he mumbled. “I don’t want to feel this…”

They both went quiet, he sensed movement behind him, and then felt all three brothers hugging him on all sides.

He just kept staring at the wall.

“She watched him rape me…” he said quietly again.

The grips got tighter. Someone was sobbing. It could have been all of them. They just held on to him, and it was the only thing he was going to let himself feel.

“If mom watched him rape me, then that means she let him rape me…”

He kept staring. The grooves between the bricks started to glow from how little he’d moved his eyes.

“And if she let him do that, and then… then all these years she should have known what was wrong with me, right..?”

“Raphie…”

He closed his eyes.

He took a deep breath.

And then he just screamed as loud and long as he could. Until his lungs were fully empty and then some.

Then he finally let himself break down.

[korrasamibottles]

Yeah Venom of the Red Lotus showed us how crazy powerful Korra is but The Last Stand had Korra transform the destructive power of a massive bomb blast into something regenerative in the culmination of one of the best character arcs I've ever seen. In my OPINION!!

[finisnihil]

Analysis with Penacony spoilers ahead, read at your own behest

I love Acheron so so much and one of the main reasons is how human she tries to be. She‘s trying so hard to stay human, to be human.

She’s killed people the blood debt is a burden she carries. She only sees the world in black, white, and red, but she gets lost easily and guides strangers home and she thanks you for trusting her even though you don’t have to and she protects a little boy from the mafia and she mourns your friend with you even though she didn’t know her because she knows you’re hurting and she helps you calm down after you watched your friend die horribly and she stays with you and looks after you and tells you to stay level headed and she apologies for being held back from protecting those you love because she isn’t human anymore and then she does one of the most human thing of all and blesses the soul and mourns her with you, guides her home like she did with you. Acheron is gentle like a psychopomp, like Death. She cries blood but it’s still crying.

Onto the allusion, the name Acheron comes from the river Acheron, one of the five rivers of the Underworld in Greek mythology. The Acheron is the River of Woe/Pain/Lost Souls. The River Cocytus (River of Wailing/Lamentation) and River Phlegethon (River of Magma) both flow into the River Acheron and the River Styx (River of Oaths/Border to the Underworld/Makes one invulnerable if they bathe in it) stems from the Acheron. The final river is the River Lethe which causes forgetfulness when bathed in or drunk from and usually used by the souls of the dead to be reborn. These allusions fit Acheron well, as she cries blood which is fitting for one named after the River of Woe. Her difficulty to hold onto memories is also reminiscent of the Lethe, especially now that we know she’s an Emanator. She was technically “reborn” as when she became one.

Building off this, she fulfills the role of a psychopomp. In folklore and mythology psychopomp are entities that guide souls of the dead, such a Thanatos in Greek mythology who is the personification of peaceful death (Who Seele has allusions to but that’s another analysis). Aventurine associates Acheron with the Finality a few times and we see her act like a psychopomp when she does things like “take us home” when we first meet her and she mentions guiding again when she sends Firefly off. She gets lost in the waking world but never seems to in the Dreamscape.

Building even more off this allusion, in Greek mythology the twin brother of Thanatos is Hypnos, the personification of sleep. Sleep and death are often tied together even outside of Greek mythology, like the Epic of Gilgamesh where Gilgamesh is literally told he can’t think about conquering death when he can’t even conquer sleep.

This all leads me to a theory about why Acheron said she had no choice in whether to draw her blade. She wanted to but she had no choice in the matter. We’ve seen her draw her blade twice so far in the story and it was to wake the Trailblazer and to fight Sam. If Acheron is an agent of the Finality maybe her blade can’t be drawn because it can only be used against those dying or dead or not living? We know Firefly was dying and we know she has a weird connection with Sam. The weird “Death” monster also seemed to target Firefly. I think Acheron couldn’t draw her sword against the “Death” because she is also an agent of Death and cannot attack one of her own, but she can use it against Firefly because Firefly is dying and it would be seen as a final severing of the soul from life or as “harvesting” the soul. Of course I could be completely and utterly wrong I’m literally just making an analysis based on allusions and motifs but still I think it’s interesting. Plus Aventurine calls Acheron and Sam enemies and Sam uses fire, an element typically seen as representing life.

Pulling a little bit away, Acheron sees the world in black, white, and red. The red is fleeting according to her and it reappears when a choice is made. If Acheron is a psychopomp this makes sense, she would mostly see the world as the living and the dead and the red could be a tie to the idea of the red string of fate, as we know destiny is a major theme of HSR’s story. When we make choices that change the direction of fate, we interact with the red strings of fate. This could be another reason she’s at odds with the Stellaron Hunters, they adhere strongly to the idea of destiny but to death destiny would have a different meaning. Her sword has an eye and is adorned with red which is where the majority of the color in her design is centered, going back to my theory around her sword it could represent how it cuts strings of fate and the eye matches the one on the “Death” nightmare.

We also know she apparently hijacked the Ever-Flame Mansion party to come here, maybe because she sensed there would be a lot of death here and came to collect the souls?

Finally, I would like to reiterate I do not play HI3 this is just something I’ve noticed, so correct me if I’m wrong:

She seems to be a Raiden Mei Expy and I know nothing of that character but I did notice when she says “Do you remember me?” there’s the answer of no and yes, and she akins us to a dear friend she had. We, the protagonist, fulfill the same role in this game Kiana (I think that’s the HI3 protag) does in HI3 and I’m vaguely aware Raiden Mei and Kiana have some sort of relationship in HI3. This asking if we remember her could be two things to me: Either she’s asking if we remember her as we have faced death before or she’s asking if we the player remember her from HI3, which she may have an awareness of if she is a personification of death and that may link her to knowledge of the Imaginary Tree as trees seem to be associated with death in HSR when you remember Yaoshi is associated with trees as well and the fruit of their tree on the Xianzhou gives immortality, where if Luocha is an Emanator he would have that tree motif too and we know he has tree motifs because he’s an Expy of Otto who did interact with what I think was the Imaginary Tree and that carried over when Luocha was given the element of Imaginary (Of course I had to talk about Luocha who do you think I am)

Anyways there’s so so much more but this post is already really really long and probably incomprehensible so if I think of any more I’ll make like a part II post anyways thanks for reading this far if you did and feel free to add discussion, mwah!

[midesastremanifiesto]

.

[puppppppppy]

ive made myself more wet and pathetic

[soaps-mohawk]

Is it bad that I don’t want to give birth? Like, I told some of my friends and family that I don’t want to give birth and they told me that I’d change my mind and I told them I wouldn’t and they get mad at me. I told them that I’d adopt kids instead to give them a home and living family but they say that doesn’t matter and count because they won’t be biological.

That's not bad at all!! I know a lot of people that feel the same way. Hell, I feel the same way. I don't want to give birth and I'm very against having children. I've known that pretty much my whole life since I was old enough to conceptualize children and parenthood (very young as a woman growing up in America), and I was always told I'd change my mind someday.

Well, it's been about 20 years and I haven't changed my mind at all. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. The constant societal pressure that every generation has gone through of "you have to have children otherwise your life is meaningless" has very much been challenged as of late with plenty of people realizing your life doesn't end as soon as you're old enough to have children. A lot of those people pushing that narrative shouldn't have had kids in the first place. The world would probably be a lot better off if people that didn't want kids but were pressured into it by society just hadn't given into that pressure.

There's plenty of neglected, abandoned children, and children in foster care that deserve love and support. So yeah, if you don't want to give birth, then there's nothing to feel bad about. You've made that decision and anyone that tries to tell you otherwise is only recycling the same societal pressures that probably made them have children they didn't want.

And if anyone says adopted or fostered children don't count, then kindly say fuck them and don't speak to them again. Same with people that say IVF or children born of surrogates. Just because you didn't give birth to your child no matter the reason, that doesn't make them "not your child." Hell I know there's people out there that say C-sections aren't "giving birth" because it wasn't natural.

Yeah, fuck those people and do what you want. It's your body, it's your life and they can either get over it or get out of your life 🤷

[shorthaltsjester]

i am a big fan of using real world philosophies to analyse fictional worlds on the watsonian level, they’re a particularly good way to make abstract theories more concrete, but if you look at things like actual literal deities that do have inherent power compared to other beings and uncritically say how they’re just like the one percent or some shit, i beg you to crack open a book and review what the hell reification is or move on to other hobbies.

[solalunar-eclipse]

Sonic Boom - S3E10

Episode title: The Obligatory Band Episode

Summary: When a boy band competition comes into town, Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles immediately decide that they have to enter as Dudeitude. The only problem: their other two teammates who aren't allowed to join...

AO3 Link

First | Previous | Next

[Episode opens on a shot of a poster.]

BATTLE OF THE (BOY) BANDS!!!! the poster proclaimed, using far more exclamation points than were necessary. All boy bands (and ONLY boy bands) welcomed to join and compete for the prize of 10,000 rings and a record deal!! 

A crowd of villagers had quickly gathered around the sign—which of course soon drew the attention of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, who had been wandering around the village chatting happily about nothing in particular. (No, literally, they were discussing what the word ‘nothing’ meant to each of them.)

“Hey! What’s going on here?” Tails asked, taking to the air in an effort to better see what was making everyone else so interested. 

He studied the poster, growing more and more excited by the second. “Sonic! Knuckles! Check it out!”

“Whoa!” Knuckles cried. “Are you guys thinking what I’m thinking?”

Sonic’s smile widened. “I think I am thinking what you’re thinking….”

“It’s Dudeitude time!” all three shouted at once.

[They snatch up the poster so that it fills the camera frame, leading to a transition where the camera zooms back out on all three of them smiling hopefully.]

[Camera cuts to Amy, sitting on her couch with a distinctly unimpressed look on her face.]

[Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles’s smiles take on a rather panicked quality, before the opening sequence begins.]

…

[The same intro sequence plays as last time, complete with a reluctant Shadow.]

[Eggman’s villain reveal starts off similarly to that of the second episode, but the malfunction is caused by most of the minor villains turning the lights on and photobombing him. The green screen glitches out, leading to green and choppy outlines around each villain, before Eggman chases them out while shaking a wrench at them angrily.]

[The sequence then continues on, before ending with the title of this week’s episode.]

…

“What is it, Ames?” Sonic asked, the smile slipping off his face. 

“Seriously?” She sighed. “Why aren’t they letting any girls participate at all?”

“Oooh, yeah.” Tails winced. “That’s kinda rude, I guess.”

“I don’t know about rude—it’s mostly just downright juvenile.” Amy sniffed disapprovingly.

The fox and Sonic both turned to stare at Knuckles. “Man, I thought you knew about this kind of thing!”

The echidna cringed. “I mean…I dunno, guys, I can’t know everything all the time! Gimme a break, okay?”

Amy nodded approvingly. “That’s very true. There’s always more to learn!”

In the background, Sonic winced, more at the concept of learning from Amy Rose than learning, full stop.

“We don’t have to compete, then.” Tails said decisively.

Sonic and Knuckles were fully prepared to agree, but then they saw Amy’s determined expression.

“I have an even better idea.” she explained. “You guys are going to compete—and win—with a girl as your manager.”

“Uh…hang on, who would be our manager?” Sonic asked, frowning in confusion.

Amy facepalmed. “Me. I’d be the manager.”

Sonic grinned sheepishly. “Ohhhhh.”

“What’s a manager?” Knuckles added.

“They’re a person who helps organize all of your paperwork and performance dates.” she explained.

At that exact moment, Sticks kicked the door open and rushed inside, a pair of binoculars dangling from her hand. “You guys are hanging out? Without me?!?” (This of course ignored the fact that she was implied to have been watching them ‘hang out’ in Amy’s house for an indeterminate amount of time.)

“Oh, Sticks!” Amy’s expression brightened up considerably. “Do you want to work on the lighting for the show? There aren’t any government agents, aliens, or ghosts involved, I’m afraid, but it’ll still be worth your time!”

The badger frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but that sounds boring.”

It took two minutes of explaining (and convincing) to get the idea across to her, but the moment the words ‘fight the patriarchy’ came into the conversation, she was onboard instantly. As a matter of fact, the word ‘fight’ probably would’ve been enough all on its own.

After that, the entire team ended up so excited that they spent the rest of the day planning out a dance and lights routine to some of their music. By the time they were worn out and crashed in various places around Amy’s house, there was paper strewn everywhere, but the general concept for the show was complete.

Just before Sonic fell asleep, using the couch armrest as a makeshift pillow, an idea came to him.

I wonder if Shadow would want to join Dudeitude….

…

Of course, the next day, they ran into a (not at all plot-convenient) problem almost immediately. When Amy sent Tails over to get the forms necessary to enter the competition, he found that there was one minor issue with their entire plan.

All competing bands were required to have at least four members.

Amy rubbed her eyes in frustration. “I can’t believe we’re going to have to rework our entire performance routine!”

Tails sighed. “That’s the least of our worries. We can’t even compete right now!”

Suddenly, Sonic dashed into the room, his arms laden with to-go chili dogs from Meh Burger. “Hey guys, how’d it g—oh. What happened?”

Amy looked up at him sadly. “We need four members in the band to compete. And right now we only have three!” she cried.

“Oh! Well, if that’s all, then,” Sonic said, putting down his food and dusting his hands off at sonic speed, “I know what to do!”

And with that, he vanished in a blur of blue.

…

A black ear twitched as the telltale zooming sound of Sonic’s running reached its owner. Shadow straightened up from what he’d been doing—adjusting a new bed frame in his room—and walked out to the front of his cave, wondering what could bring Sonic here in such a hurry. Knowing him, it could be anything from just wanting to race to the world actively ending.

“Shadow! Great, you’re here. Listen, we have an emergency.” Sonic said quickly.

“An emergency?” he asked, concerned. “What kind? Is it the doctor?”

Sonic shook his head. “No, worse! Listen, we need you to join our band, like, now, or else we won’t be able to compete in the battle of the bands competition.”

Shadow stared at him blankly. “I…I think your definition of ‘emergency’ is somewhat different than mine.”

“But will you do it?”

“Let me see what you have planned first.” Shadow sighed.

Sonic did a rapid fist-pump. “Yes!”

Shadow rolled his eyes. “I didn’t actually agree to join yet.”

“But you did agree to look at the plans, which means you’re considering joining.” Sonic said smugly.

Shadow muttered “You’d better not make me regret this.”, but with that, they took off, leaving twin trails of blue and red behind them.

…

“So let me get this ludicrous plan straight. You want me to join your rock band, which involves playing on absurdly designed instruments and wearing insanely sparkly suit jackets, in order to win a competition exclusively for boy bands. That way, we can rub it in the organizers’ faces when they discover that we have multiple girls—or rather, one girl and one demigirl—working with us.” Shadow said slowly.

“Yes!” Amy exclaimed. “We’ll come out onstage after the others have claimed their prizes, and then we’ll take the most smug bow in the history of bows.”

“I still think that a speech calling out the secret underground alien-cryptid alliance would’ve been better.” Sticks muttered, rolling their eyes.

Shadow frowned. “And why can’t either of you—” he gestured to Amy and Sticks— “just be part of the band anyway? It isn’t as if they’d know whether or not the band was made up of all boys until the concert.”

“Actually, they would.” Tails explained. “There’s a rehearsal the day before that all band members have to be there for.”

“Ugh…” the hedgehog groaned. “Whose idea was it to join this stupid competition?”

“Well, first it was me and Sonic and Tails.” Knuckles said. “And then we were ready to quit when we realized they didn’t let girls in, but Amy said we should do it with her plan, so we did.”

Shadow leaned back against the couch for a moment and closed his eyes. “….fine. I’ll do it. But this is a one time thing, understand?”

“Alright!” Sonic cheered. “Now we just need to find you one of those suit jackets!”

Soon enough, the team had scrounged up Sonic’s spare outfit and handed it over to Shadow, at which point he began to regret every single one of his life choices.

“No. No way. This is utterly disgusting.” he snapped, holding the offending garment as far away from himself as possible. “I will never, ever—”

[Cut to a shot of Shadow standing stiffly while wearing the jacket.]

“This is humiliating.” he grumbled.

Amy winced. “Is this seriously what you guys wore while saving the town from Justin Beaver?”

“It was the best we could come up with on short notice, okay?!” Sonic cried defensively.

“You know what?” Shadow said. “Fine. Fine. I’ll wear it. But don’t you think that we should each customize our own outfit instead of all looking the same? After all—wait. You’re not doing this as…that tacky pop group, are you?”

“Nonono, don’t worry, we’re doing this as Dudeitude, not Dreamboat Express.” Sonic explained hurriedly, trying to stave off Shadow’s growing expression of horror.

“Actually, that sounds like a really good idea!” Tails said excitedly, pulling out his own jacket. “I wanna put, like, cool gear cufflinks on mine—let me go get the Build-It Box!”

[A montage ensues, complete with lots of tacky fashion choices and comical mistakes, including (but not limited to) a patch that was supposed to say ‘Knuckles’ but instead came out as a strangely detailed fabric replica of the echidna himself.]

[The team’s brief experiment with differently-colored jackets was also strongly vetoed by Shadow after they all came out of the box in different varieties of neon.]

Eventually, the three original members of Dudeitude had their new outfits all set and ready to go.

Sonic’s white jacket now had red and gold stars around the cuffs and hem, while Tails’s had—as he had mentioned—gear-shaped cufflinks and buttons with a crossed wrench and screwdriver stamped into them. He had also added golden sequins along the back spelling out ‘Prower’, akin to a sports jersey.

Knuckles’s jacket, on the other hand, had all sorts of patches sewn onto it, including a barbell, a circular one labeled ‘Weightlifting Champion’, and multiple stylized green emeralds. He seemed awfully proud of it, enough so that Sonic and Tails had to keep preventing him from flexing in front of the mirror so that he wouldn’t rip a seam.

When Shadow walked out, though, his jacket didn’t appear to have changed at all. Sonic frowned. “I thought you were the one who wanted us to change our outfits up!”

Shadow smirked. “I did.” he said proudly. “Tails, do you happen to have an ultraviolet light handy?”

The fox’s mouth dropped open. “You didn’t.”

Shadow’s smirk widened.

Tails scrambled to get his biggest UV light, shining it on Shadow’s jacket…and then everyone gasped at what they saw. Blue and purple threads wove throughout the entire garment, creating a variety of geometric patterns that almost seemed to shift as Shadow moved. 

Amy looked over at Sticks, smiling excitedly. “Hey Sticks?”

“Yeah?”

“How do you feel about adding some black light to the show?”

…

It had been decided that Shadow would play the bass guitar, since Knuckles was already handling the drums and Tails had taken on the keyboard/synthesizer role. Sonic, of course, was more than excited to use his two-necked guitar, tearing through riffs and fills with ease.

They’d had a week to practice before the rehearsal, and it became clear that Shadow had taken the time to learn every single song, as he played chord after chord perfectly. Despite his skill, his backup vocals were barely audible, and he outright refused to sing alone at any point in the show.

This only encouraged the entire team to try even harder to get him to change his mind, of course.

In the end, it was Amy who got lucky enough to hear him first—they’d all stayed behind to watch the other bands play so they could get an idea of the competition, but she and Shadow had been the only ones with enough patience to suffer through three poor performances in a row. 

Their only real competition was a new band made of some boys whose personalities had seemed almost custom-built to sell well with fans, run by Justin Beaver himself as part of his new reality show. They had decent vocals and a generic backing track, but the test audience ate it up. The team had nearly suspected them of using mind-control technology again, but a quick reconnaissance mission on Tails’s part showed that the audience’s reactions were legitimate.

Somehow.

After the rehearsal had finished, the organizers left most of the microphones set up so that they’d still be in place for the concert tomorrow night. Amy had been getting ready to leave (and maybe snag a couple of the complimentary refreshments to take home when nobody was watching), when she noticed some movement out of the corner of her eye.

Quickly, she crouched behind a conveniently placed bush just as Shadow stepped forward on the stage.

He cleared his throat, looked around nervously, and then began to practice his backing vocals in a small, awkward voice. At first, his voice was too weak to carry very far, but when he saw nobody around, he began to relax.

His speaking voice was raspy and clipped. But when he sang, all of that fell away, and his vocals became smooth and deep, nearly making Amy gasp.

Quickly, she texted her friends and told them to come over discreetly, but also right now.

The moment they showed up, crawling into the bushes next to her, their faces immediately transformed into nearly identical shocked expressions.

“Is that Shadow?!” Sonic hissed under his breath.

Amy rolled her eyes. “Who else would it be?”

They watched in silence after that, still stunned. Shadow’s singing voice…well, it really couldn’t be described as anything other than beautiful.

The moment he finished, Knuckles shot upwards and began to clap excitedly. All of the others whispered at him furiously and yanked him down behind the bush, while a decidedly uncomposed shriek came from the general direction of the stage.

After a moment, Shadow barked, “Who’s there?”

The entire team stood up awkwardly, wincing. Sonic smiled nervously. “That was really good!”

The other hedgehog’s hands tightened on the microphone stand until his fingers nearly left imprints in the metal. “Sure.” he sneered sarcastically.

“No, seriously, it was amazing!” Tails cried.

“Yeah, it really was.” Sticks added.

“I loved it!” Amy exclaimed.

Shadow’s grip loosened slightly. “You mean it?”

The team rushed onto the stage, gathering around him. “Yes!” Knuckles exclaimed. “It was so cool!”

“Ah. Well then.” Shadow said tightly.

But as the team watched, his mouth curled into the tiniest of smiles.

…

On the night of the performance, all four members of Dudeitude had the jitters. Tails was making sure all of their equipment was accounted for the tenth time in a row, Knuckles was doing his best to curl up into a ball, Sonic was literally shaking in place, and Shadow was grinding his teeth and hissing at anyone who came near him.

“Alright!” Amy declared, clapping her hands together. The boys all promptly hit the roof, before turning to stare at her with various degrees of fear and frustration.

“Listen,” she continued, lowering her voice, “I’m so proud of all of you. You guys did a great job in the practice sessions, and you’re sticking it to all of these stupid organizers, too.”

Knuckles sighed. “Yeah, but not as much as the people out by the front fence.”

What he meant, specifically, was the all-girl band protesting the entire competition out front by playing their own songs loud enough to be heard from the rehearsal tent. They had camped out long before the concert had begun and were showing no signs of flagging, no matter how many people tried to drive them off. 

(They also had a sign in front of them that read If you can be petty, so can we.)

Amy shook her head. “Everybody has different ways of dealing with these kinds of people. Just because ours isn’t as loud as theirs doesn’t make it any worse.”

“Right, but what happens if we’ve put in all this effort and don’t win?” Tails asked nervously, holding open one flap of the tent and gesturing to the band run by Justin Beaver. They were doing, quite frankly, a really good job, and the judges seemed almost won over already.

Amy frowned. “Well, I’m still glad I got to do this with all of you anyway. The only way we could’ve done this wrong is by giving up or by not having me and Sticks participate at all.

“And,” she added, “I’m also glad we now know that Shadow is an amazing singer!”

The hedgehog in question looked away briefly, embarrassed.

Sticks darted into the tent suddenly. “It’s time.” she whispered dramatically. 

(Shadow and Sonic had to do their absolute best not to impale the walls of the tent with their quills at that.)

…

“And now, the final band of the night…it’s…Dudeitude!!”

The announcer’s voice rang in the ears of all four band members as they took to the stage. Sonic grinned at Knuckles. “You ready, dude?”

“Yeah, dude!” he whispered back, practically bouncing in his seat.

Tails leaned over to tell Shadow, “They’re always nervous until they hit the stage. It’s the waiting that’s the worst for them.”

“Oh. Good for them.” he muttered tersely, obviously not experiencing the same relief.

“You’re gonna do great!” Sonic cheered under his breath, smiling at Shadow in the darkness.

He didn’t even have time to react before the lights flashed on and the drumbeat began.

Shadow played his music almost entirely on autopilot, his hands moving more on memory than knowledge. He performed without thinking, doing the choreography (or the stripped-down version of it that he’d demanded they give him, because he didn’t dance) while staring blankly out at the audience. He’d never been more grateful that he was joining the band in its rock incarnation instead of when it was a full-on pop band.

As they entered the breakdown of the final song, where Sonic vocalized solo over chords from Shadow’s guitar, that autopilot ended up betraying him. Shadow had, on his own time, tried out singing along to this part in the test track an octave lower, because he’d found it enjoyable. It hadn’t been made part of the performance plan, and if he’d been in his right mind he never would’ve done it, but as it was…

…well, the audience ate it up.

They finished their song, accepted the audience’s applause (with much whooping and bouncing up and down from the original trio), and filed offstage, all while Shadow was still processing the performance.

The moment they entered their tent, Shadow’s knees gave out and he collapsed abruptly onto a chair.

“Whoa, Shadow, are you okay?” Sonic asked, hurrying over to stand next to him, his hands hovering nervously over his former rival’s shoulders.

“I sang.” Shadow wheezed. “I wasn’t even supposed to sing then, and…”

“It was incredible!” Amy gasped, stars in her eyes. “That was such a good idea!”

“So…I didn’t ruin the show?” he asked, looking up with a carefully blank expression.

“Honestly, I think you just won it.” Sticks said, poking their head into the tent. “I mean, the crowd is still shrieking.”

Shadow’s limbs went obviously loose with relief. “So you’re not upset.”

[The entire team suddenly locks eyes, remembering Shadow mentioning that his last brush with friendship ended badly.]

“No, no, no!” Amy cried. “No, not at all! Honestly, I’m glad you decided to sing.”

Sonic smiled at him. “It sounded amazing.”

Shadow shook his head, stunned. “I was so out of it up there. I barely even realized what had happened until I was done.”

Tails’s eyes widened. “Wait, does that mean you were practicing the song like that this whole time?”

“…maybe?”

“You should’ve told us!” he exclaimed. “I would’ve done all the sound prep so the audience could hear you better!”

Shadow looked cautiously down at his skates. “Thank you, but I’m alright.”

“You at least have to do karaoke sometime with us then!” Knuckles insisted cheerfully.

The entire team looked so excited that Shadow found himself smiling wryly against his will. “Well, I guess, if you insist…”

“The awards are starting!” Sticks called from the entrance to the tent. Then they frowned. “Wait, when did I become the responsible one here?”

All four members of Dudeitude took to the stage, along with the other bands. They were forced to jostle with their rivals for room, leading to many dirty looks and a minor shoving war. However, they all stood up straight when the announcer called, “Now, the winner of the competition is…”

“…Dudeitude!!”

Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles all screamed at top volume, making Shadow flinch before watching his bandmates with a smirk. As soon as they had received a check for the money and a guaranteed record deal, however, two things happened.

First, Amy and Sticks raced out onto the stage to celebrate too, completely forgetting their plan in the process. The audience went absolutely silent upon seeing them—and then burst out into cheers that were even louder than before. Sticks and Amy stared at the crowd for a moment, before smiling, putting their arms around each other, and taking their well-earned bow.

Then, the entire team all gathered together in a group huddle for a minute. Sonic whispered something to them that made their eyes widen and the hero bounce in place excitedly.

He snatched up a microphone and ran to the edge of the stage. “Hey guys, listen. All of us loved playing for you, and we had so much fun tonight. But, uh, being a hero is kind of a full-time job, and most of us already have enough on our plates. So…I wanna give this to a band who’s really gonna use it. A band who actually performed tonight, but never got judged, and a band who we all think was probably both one of the best ones here and who deserves this more than anything.”

“Yo! Ladies out front!” he yelled, getting the attention of the band who had been protesting the event all night.

“Yeah?!” their leader, a chipmunk dressed in a blue vest and white leggings, yelled. 

“Can you guys come up here for a sec?”

The crowd parted to let the band through as they came to the stage. It was composed of the aforementioned chipmunk, a lynx in a pink dress, a lemur wearing all yellow, and a wolf who looked like she’d stepped off the pages of a goth/punk magazine.

“What is it?” the chipmunk asked.

“Hey, uh, do you want this?” Sonic said, offering her the prizes.

The crowd was completely silent.

“Why are you giving this to us?” the lynx asked softly.

“‘Cause we think you guys sounded great, and you really deserved to be included in this competition. And now that it’s ours, we get to do what we want with it. So we thought you should have this.” he explained.

Tails gave a thumbs-up from behind him, and Knuckles smiled encouragingly. Cautiously, the chipmunk stepped closer and took the prizes. “What’s the catch?” she asked.

“No catch. Seriously.” Sonic told her.

She watched him skeptically for a moment, before holding out a hand to shake. “Thank you.” she said quietly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you—my name’s Sally, by the way.”

“Nice to meet ya!” he said cheerfully. “Name’s Sonic.”

“These three behind me are Nicole, Tangle, and Whisper.” she added, pointing at the lynx, lemur, and wolf in succession.

“Hey! Thank you, like, so much!” Tangle cheered, appearing directly next to Sally. “Man, we’ve been dying for a chance to do something like this for ages!”

Whisper smiled in agreement.

“Uh….” Soar the Eagle (the reporter covering this event) stammered, trying to regain his bearings, “Well then, how about a picture with the…two winners of this competition?”

[The camera flash obscures the screen for a moment, before revealing a picture of Dudeitude (plus Amy and Sticks) and the other band. Most of them are smiling, and Shadow has mustered up a moderately friendly neutral expression for the camera.]

[roll credits]