#To live is to suffer and to die is to be utterly erased

[amalg-em]

Caught in the cycle of returning again and again to my lowest point, confronting my utter disappointment with what life actually is versus what it theoretically could be, realizing that I am trapped on this earth and thus in pain out of obligation,

And realizing,

I have nothing to show for any of it. I am still, ultimately, alone.

[suksatoru]

HEAVEN AND BACK.

SUMMARY *ੈ✩‧₊˚ he's destroying a rivalry villain base when he finds you there, a prisoner. known to the world as a villain - Dabi becomes your hero.

Dabi could be very cruel sometimes.

It was instances like this where he knew he was born to cremate. To reduce the world to ashes and nothing more as he kills every low life he comes across. Each one more pathetic than the last, Dabi erases them all within seconds.

The Meta Liberation Army had given the League resources and access to facilities they could have only dreamed of before. The base they were on currently belonged to a rivalry villain group - one which the League despised. They were a pathetic group of people really, power hungry in all the wrong ways.

Dabi hears the sound of what seems like rattling chains from across the hall, and he pauses his movements in confusion, the man in front of him withering on the ground and pleading for mercy-

Dabi finishes him off before carefully making his way towards the source of the sound, his boots maneuvering through the bodies on the ground stealthily as he narrows his brows. Dabi thought he had cleared this floor.

He hears it again - it was unmistakable now, he had mistakingly left someone alive.

Dabi slams the door open with a single kick - it was reinforced with welded hinges, but it was no match for his flames - which melted the metal easily. He steps inside the dark room, hands raised and ready to end whatever unfortunate soul roamed inside.

He sees someone moving in the corner of his eye - the dim light concealing their figure. He moves his flames closer, attempting to shine some sort of a light on the stranger who so stupidly made no attempt to escape while Dabi was distracted with the other villains.

His flames glow in the dark, and he finally sees you, shackled to the ground with wide eyes trapped in a trance - like a deer caught in the headlights.

Your lip trembles as you tug on your restraints once again, a pitiful whimper leaving you as you glance at Dabi with a sheen of panic glossing your pretty eyes

Slowly, he lowers his hand. Trying to understand just what he'd stumbled upon.

A prisoner.

Dabi had a knack for figuring out what kind of people deserved to die. He liked to think that he's always been able to know who was worthy or living and who wasn't. But...

He makes no move to save or end you as he watches quietly, his hands lowered by his sides as gentle, blue sparks glowed from his large palms. His fingers curl into a fist as he remains utterly still, his gaze burning as hot as his flames as you tug again on the cuffs secured around your wrists. You're crying now - tears gliding down your soft cheeks as you peer up at him

You're so quiet, he notices. Even as you cry, not a sound leaves your throat as you keep tugging on those damned restraints. The sound of metal clinking against metal has Dabi snapping out of whatever trance he was in as he slowly takes a single step forward

Seeing him move closer has you kicking against the ground in a weak attempt to get away, backing yourself up against the wall as your eyes shake - hands fumbling as you tug harder and harder-

"Don't move."

You want to cry just at the sound of his voice. His tone sounded like if you did move, those flames you'd seen earlier would return as death finally takes you - it was so cruel. The whole world - that's all you can think as your squeeze your eyes shut and pray for him to not have some sort of an liking to watching his victims suffer as they burned.

You tuck your knees to your chest and lay your head down, your hands hanging limply as your breathing becomes erratic - you're scared. Absolutely terrified.

He uses one hand to hold both of your wrists in place as his fingers shove between your wrist and the metal around it. Slowly, he focuses his quirk to push through the thin space and melt the bounds around you. You don't look up - make no major movement as Dabi breaks them - the metal clangs noisily against the floor. Your breathing has calmed just the slightest bit by now, and you finally look up as you feel the dead weight lift off.

It's quiet as you wait for his next movements - anything that shows that he has intentions to hurt you, to kill you - but he's still kneeling beside you - palm flat against the wall beside your head as he watches your gaze flutter to his - you catch your lip in between your teeth once you realize what he'd done - an attempt to keep yourself from bursting into grateful tears.

"Can you stand?"

His hot breath tickles your ear, warm and the most soothing thing you've felt in so long. He tucks a single arm under yours when he's met with silence, easily bringing you to your feet as you quickly gain composure - breathing unevenly as you lean against the wall

Dabi's heart stutters in his chest when you turn and look at him like that.

Like he put the stars in the fucking sky.

You're sitting beside him in a very crowded get-away car, his coat draped over your head while you peer around at the cheerful number of people - villains - around you. The Liberation Army talked and bustled around you loudly as Dabi remained completely silent from where he sat beside you, a single, protective arm laying on the railing behind you.

He told anyone who asked about you that your quirk is useful - a healing one that pairs great with him for his burns. And while he's lying his ass off completely knowing no one could reverse the damage, he has an excuse for Re-Destro to get you a room right beside his.

You'll be knocking on his door just about every morning, holding a plate with a shy smile as you hand him the fresh food he missed - 'because you weren't at breakfast, Dabi'

He found out you had a habit for drawing when he saw you sketching him onto a fogged window - your finger dragging carefully through the thin layer of frost as you draw his signature scars and soft, puffy hair. All with a smile on your face as you gaze longingly at it. The sight is too much to bear - and he'll leave before you can catch him standing on the other side of the room.

He'd sneak into one of the offices of the building and steal a notebook and various pens for you - leaving them outside your door, in hopes you'll capture the blueness of his eyes and the soft crook of his rare smile amongst the pages.

He'd let you lay with him on nights you couldn't sleep, never once protesting to your soft pleas or questions. You asked him about all sorts of things - and he indulged in you, because what the fuck? Life had been a bitch to him the moment he entered this world. If there was a mistake in the cosmos that led him to his angel, he would take advantage of it and allow himself this one good thing to keep forever.

"Why do you even stick with me anyways, doll? You got the whole world - I bet they'd love you better than I ever could." He whispers, knowing nobody could hold a candle to his love for you. A love that was bigger than life itself.

"Because. You're my hero."

He stills at your words, before kissing your temple.

"I'll be a villain to the rest of the world, but not for you, baby. I'll be your hero - I'll be your everything."

[lookingforhappy]

TUA Inconsistencies, Plotholes and Goofs

before u read, pls know that i adore this show and wouldn't be critiquing it this harshly if i wasn't utterly obsessed with it.

I don't think that all of these need fixes or explanations since they function as fun little plot devices etc but I think it's important to note that they do break the story a little. although there are some that really do need fixes.

this comes from a place of interest, analysis, and frustration but not hate.

(also apologies to all the gifmakers who i have indirectly @'d in this post)

here's a list of all the problems i could remember in tua:

The Commission is too OP

(this one I saw posited by another blog but I can't remember who first brought it up? so credit to whoever said this first i think)

The Commission is shown to be capable of:

time travel

time freezing

body cloning & consciousness transplanting (essentially, their workers can live forever because they can build new bodies and transfer their minds as soon as they start to get old/ill)

paradox-proofing

timeline monitoring/spying (the Infinite Switchboard)

if the Commission has had the ISB all along + infinite time + unaging employees, then they have been able to watch every second of history, and every second of every alternate history ever (Lila watches the timeline Five rewound/erased).

If they can see every second of every possible history, then even if they're the most inefficiant organisation ever, they're able to know everything before it/they even exist.

which makes more or less every plot point impossible:

Five would not have been able to return to 2019 without being spotted and hunted down by people who know exactly what he looks like (13yro not 58 yro), exactly where he is (also making the tracker in his arm, and in the sweet wrapper, redundant), and exactly when he's vulnerable eg. when he sleeps, is injured or drunk.

The Handler would not have been able to hide in 1963 and plot against the Commission without being spotted by the Commission and killed/fired. Same thing goes for stealing and hiding multiple Briefcases.

The 1963 Apocalypse would not have been allowed to happen as the Commsission would have had Viktor killed long before it happened.

The Kugelblitz wouldn't have happened because the Commission would have seen it decades or centuries in advance and prevented it (this should be top priority because this is what kills them!).

Herb and Dot's Goals for the Commission

In s1 the Commission wants a very specific timeline to take place (aka the apocalypse) with no deviations, and are willing to do anything and everything to make it so.

Herb and Dot seem more than happy to go along with this, and even believe that the Commission is correct for doing this.

Dot in particular is the Case Manager for the apocalypse, meaning she is the one who spotted Five when he arrived as a 13yro and left him there to die/live a life of pain and isolation. She also was chiefly responsible for ensuring the deaths of 7 billion people including all the Hargreeves' for "the greater good".

Dot is actually seen snitching on Five to The Handler, was implied to be working with The Handler to prevent Five from stopping the apocalypse, and is the one to alert security/sound the alarm when Five starts fighting The Handler.

So it's pretty weird that in s2 and 3 Herb and Dot are suddenly fine with the apocalypse not happening. It's one thing to change management, and another to completely uproot the entire mission statement/ethos of the Commission. The Commission, from the moment Herb and Dot gain control, has no goal or purpose. because they gave up that purpose when they agreed to let the Hargreeves go to an apocalypse free 2019.

This is also weird as Five is completely fine and trusting of them at the end of s2, when all they've done so far to him is prove that they cannot be trusted and will do anything to cause the apocalypse, as well as having left him to suffer alone in an apocalypse for 45 years as well as force him to join the Commission and become a murderer (or else die alone).

The Two Fives + The Briefcase

old!Five doesn't take his Briefcase to 2019 in the original timeline.

So why don't Five and Luther wait until old!Five has left for 2019 to pick his Briefcase up off the ground, where it's entirely unguarded and completely abandoned, and avoid the Paradox Psychosis altogether.

old!Five wasn't in the timeline or remotely near enough to Five to cause Paradox Psychosis when Five originally came up with this plan.

The Grandfather Paradox + Similar Goofs

TUA Time Travel operates on branching/alternate timelines, like Loki, not on a loop/predestined, like HP, and not on one single malleable timeline, like Back to the Future. ergo The Grandfather Paradox cannot exist within the show.

As soon as Five averts the 2019 apocalypse, his existence would trigger a paradox as without the apocalypse he never got trapped and has no reason/knowledge to return to 2019 to prevent it.

Same thing for S2, the only reason the nukes aren't dropped in S2 is bc Five saw it happen and time travelled back to prevent it, but as soon as that apocalypse is prevented, the nukes are never dropped, and so he never sees the apocalypse happen and therefore cannot know to prevent it.

In fact, the very first episode of S2 as a whole should cause the Grandfather Paradox, by the shows own laws: as by causing a nuclear apocalypse, their mothers were never born/did not survive long enough to birth them -> so they cannot be alive -> they cannot time travel -> cannot cause an apocalypse in 1960s -> the mothers were born -> and around and around and around.

A similar goof happens in S2, as Five helps his older self return to 2019 without de-aging himself. Five is concerned that he will cease to exist if his other self doesn't travel to 2019, but his older self does travel back. But as a 58 year old man. However, Five himself doesn't turn into a 58 year old man as he should have if this was a singular malleable timeline. Hence, he needn't have worried as they created a separate branching timeline rather than edit their own timeline.

so essentially, they're creating entirely new alternate timelines and nothing they do changes their own experiences, lives, memories or bodies.

It doesn't matter that their mothers were killed before they were born in the sparrow timeline, because they're not from this branch and therefore still have mothers in their original timeline. which is proven to not affect their current selves.

Which... breaks the entire plot of S3.

(S3 may have also caused another paradox as the reset causes Five to regain his arm, and lose the tattoo, possibly meaning he doesn't found the Commission, meaning essentially none of the series can even start as Five cannot leave the apocalypse without the Commission).

Polk Salad Annie

Five travels to 1982, Wisconsin, to kill the Commission Board. yet he has no Briefcase, cannot time travel on his own, and is shown to meet The Handler separately rather than be picked up by her for transport.

(If Lila took him, then surely he would have attempted to steal the Briefcase from her rather than go through with the plan.)

furthermore, 1982 should be inaccessable. or at least, it should be a nuclear wasteland.

At this point, the events culminating in the prevention of the apocalypse haven't started: The Handler is not in control of the Commission, so Lila can't kidnap Diego to work for them, so he can't find the ISB and discover Viktor is the cause of the apocalypse, so Klaus doesn't know to take Ben to the FBI building, so the apocalypse can't be prevented. Five's action in 1982 is what sets that in motion (The Handler seizes control of the Commission), but 1982 doesn't exist in this timeline, so how does that work?

Five and the Commission don't seem to know how to Timeline hop, only how to create new timelines, and how to move backwards and forwards on their current timeline.

The only way to make 1982 accessable is to remove Viktor from the timeline or prevent the FBI from capturing him. Which they didn't. So how can Five get there.

The 7 Bells

Reginald's reasoning for adopting the superkids is to send them to Oblivion to use it to reset the Universe. He needs himself and a minimum of 7 superkids to do this, any less and Oblivion won't activate, and without him there to program it, nothing changes.

In the Original Timeline, his plan is foiled in 2002 when he looses Five, and he doesn't try to rectify it. Then again in 2006 when he looses Ben, and yet again doesn't rectify it.

He screws himself over even worse by killing himself in 2019, as now he cannot even go to Oblivion to program it. Klaus could theoretically summon or be possessed by Reginald, but once again, Reginald only has 5 out of 7, and with Klaus indisposed by summoning Reginald, he only has 4 available to power Oblivion.

Even stranger, he could have adopted spares for if situations like Five and Ben happen, in the form of the Sparrows, but he chose not to.

its also a strange choice to build the academy(s) as public superheroes, as he chose to send his only 7 children into life threatening situations repeatedly, which nearly killed Luther, probably nearly killed sparrow Ben, and did kill umbrella Ben.

He also admits that he purposefully stunted the Umbrella's powers, which contradicts his Oblivion plan, where they need to fight 3 near-immortal Guardians. it also contradicts his words to Klaus in s1 - that he's disappointed because Klaus never reached his true potential. Which, if he killed himself with the plan to have Klaus summon him to reprogram Oblivion, he would need Klaus at full power to be able to do that at all.

The Sparrows also don't seem to have this issue, they have great control of their powers, Ben especially. so why bother stunting one lot of kids, but not the other.

Smaller Goofs

-Luther being normal not monkey in 2015 (1x03) when he had his accident in 2012 (1x04) is a big goof up

-klaus not reanimating in the original apocalypse with five remains unexplained

-in s1 the commission is set in 1955 (1x06), in s3 it's set in 1953 (3x07) and this remains unexplained

-klaus was kidnapped in just a towel but Hazel and Cha-Cha have his jacket for some reason

-all of the Founder Five plotline bc there is no given reasoning for why Five would willingly go against all of his morals and create the organisation that caused him pain (both emotional and physical) and got his family killed.

-if Luther was on the moon for a purpose, why not have him running useful tests to make sure Abigail's pod remains functioning? or acting as a sentry to make sure no one sends an exploration mission to the moon/behind the moon? why just have him send samples, that reginald never even opens, every day for 4 years? and how could sparrow reginald know what umbrella reginald planned for Luther? they're different people.

-edit: 12/07/24 the newspaper Five finds in the apocalypse is dated as 1st April, but when he finds the same newspaper at the end of season 1, it's still March 31st and Diego says that newspaper was sold that morning.

[sculptorofcrimson]

The Perfect

Like. Imagine. Custodes don’t really feel pain, right? But what if they also can’t scar? What if their skin, their bodies, had been carved, erased of all identity, perfected till suffering itself was forgotten?

What if the Golden, the perfect, the Custodes, have forgotten even what it feels like to suffer?

The Perfect bear no scars.

No vengeful god would have allowed His beloved to be scarred. No deity would have allowed His golden, His creation to be tarnished beyond His perfection. No god would have allowed any other cruel hand to taint them, to mark them, to claim them where He had laid His scalpels and knives. 

They shall bear no scars, and feel no wound. A techno barbarian rips his muscle from bone and Valdor never even screams once as he plunges his spear through its throat and out its spine. Cold, gauntleted hands pull his flesh back together, pain and agony numbed beyond recognition, beyond even horror itself. The Custodians need no drugs, no analgesics, when their very own nervous system had betrayed them so utterly, so thoroughly so long ago.

Even when the Captain-General later tended to the accompanying Thunder Primarch’s fractured arm, listening to the Warrior’s ragged laughs and low chuckles, there was no recognition in those dead eyes, nothing behind that cold, impersonal touch of one that never knew fear, and never feared pain. 

They march for hours. They do not tire. They do not slow. The snow builds itself in their visors and gnaws at their bones, and they do not falter. They have been fighting for hours, golden armor paled by frost and snow. They may hunger, but they no longer fear. They thirst, but they no longer suffer. Exhaustion drags down their perfect bodies, living corpses of gilded undeath, and they do not kneel nor falter. They march on, resolute, unforgiving in their steel, pain and duty writ across impassive faces and heartless eyes. Even the Thunder Warriors watch them from afar, as their immaculate spears dance in endless, immortal flurries. Nothing hides behind that mask, no flame of sentience, no hope, no death. 

Month after gruelling month of snow. Of ice, frost, and defeats. They were not yet even planning for Maulland Sen, yet the techno barbarian raids had steadily become bolder as their forces grew more desperate. More willing to die on his blade to clutch and claw at his perfect skin, to drag rusted knives of forgotten technology against perfect flesh and sinew, gazing up at him with those haunted, maddened eyes. 

And yet his skin is still unscarred. He has the body of a Greek god, but it is the same way a statue was majestic. Unliving, unchanging, majesty stored in what could have never been, eternity seeking to imitate life. The first Custodian is as perfect as His master intended him to be, and without even enough consciousness to care. 

How much pain could an immortal withstand, when distress was no longer a fear he could recognize? What else could He take from him that He has not already? How could the Ten Thousand know to fear, when even their First couldn’t know what it felt like to care? 

What did it feel like as blades sliced through his tendons, as blows crushed against Emperor-made ribs and metal crunched underneath his bare hands, and he uttered not even a single scream? Watching their gazes first shift from arrogance to confusion, to deadly, horrible fear as they finally recognized the monster in front of them, the man without a heart, without even a soul to care.

How can you defeat one who has nothing to lose? Who has nothing to fear, and nothing left to care? How many times has he gazed into the maw of death and praised it in the name of his Emperor, and worse yet, how many times has he failed even that? How many times can he even seek to care?

Of course he never closes his eyes when he twists the knife, when he watches the light drain from helpless eyes, as the sculpture known as Valdor culls in the name of the Emperor. How many have fallen before those dead eyes, without even a flicker of shame, not a single illusion of a conscience, or second thought? 

What life could he have, in a world devoid of pain, devoid of fear, devoid of even loss itself? How many have spoken of the Golden, not in reverence or fear, but in pity, for one who had everything, yet didn’t even own their own lives? How many have whispered of the Captain-General himself, the man without fear, without pain itself, heartless for even a Custodian? 

How could they not know? How could they stand such cold, frosty madness? Watching that logically deranged stare as he shrugs off bullet rounds pelting off of his armor like rain, even those that find their mark in soft flesh and bone, watching Valdor himself vault over obstacles as if they were not there and crushing those who were beneath golden boots. He bleeds, they bleed, but he never screams throughout all of it. Some say he has forgotten how to.

How long does it take for them to forget he was human too? How long before he too forgets, and even for a mind as keen as his, with perfect recall, how long before he could no longer fathom the scars that should have been yet were not, ghostly phantoms haunting where bones should have been broken and left him screaming, yet nerves seared too dead to even care. Trying to remember a sensation he never possessed, not even afforded the luxury to dream of ancient agonies. 

How long before the Golden forget what it felt like to be human? 

How long was it? A few centuries? A millenia? Time is nothing for an immortal. Ushotan was dead now, and his question had gone unanswered. The first Custodian gazes at the mirror as serfs reverently swathe him in his killing-garb, each mural, each golden carving as pristine as it was and it forever will. The same face that had hunted men for his Emperor, the same face that had soldiered through storm and war, the same heartless gaze that had stared down the dying and the dead glares back at him. Flawless, unmarred even by centuries of war, without even the weight of exhaustion to pass as an excuse, without even the hint of a scar to mark him. The serfs’ ritual is finished by the time he drops his gaze, some unforeseen quiet that normally passed for melancholy descending as he dismissed the serfs and chose to snuff such contemplations in the dark, for another time, for another man that had a heart. 

He could not describe that one split instant between now and then, when he saw empires crumble and oceans rot, yet he was there throughout, eternal and unchanging, immortalized even in death.

Minister Zu was dead. Her son was perfect, or rather, he was perfect now, as Valdor himself had been perfected. He gazed upon the child that would become a ghost, a hollow shell of what could have been with his future stripped away, and did not choose to lie. Perhaps if he had more of himself left he might have felt a twinge, or even a flicker of melancholy, of regret for what he had condemned Ra to, but there was nothing. So be it. 

Ra was different. So different. He had a heart. He winced during their training sessions, even if they both knew the scars and broken bones would be healed by the end of the day, and the agonies forgotten. Pain never lasts, yet wasn’t the point it had been felt at all? Such a notion was incomprehensible. Trauma, despair, even fear itself were next to indifference within their ranks. 

The Webway was hell. Hell on Terra, hell on the stars, hell on the oceans. They fought, they lost, and they fell. They fought, and they lost. The golden held the line, their numbers slowly whittled away as they were skewed like guardsmen, as they were torn apart by daemonic talons, as they were flayed alive and boiled, yet never once did they scream. They only stitched displaced organs back in place and plastered torn flesh back into place, then grimly marched onwards into battle once more with blazing spears and blank eyes. They fought like fallen angels, every night might be their last, yet before they blink out they shall blaze the brightest His angels have ever seen. And they burned like dying sunrays caught in the moondance, they blazed as brightly as His dreams had blazed and died as silently as fallen kings, never uttering a sound. And yet they march on.  

They did not suffer. They no longer knew how.

A Bloodthirster drags its spiked mace across the Captain-General’s skull, and he feels neural ports stretch and rip as the daemon shreds through auramite like paper. He no longer bothered to gauge the trauma as he duels it down, blows falling against his armor like thin reeds whipped and lashed in a storm, clawing into his flesh without even a hint of recognition from its master. It grasps him tightly by the arm and wrenches, yet he refuses to let go of his weapon even as tendons twist and bones snap. Confused, it presses down harder, wrenching the joint from its socket. The Custodian coldly glares back and briefly calculates if he should call for aid, yet knowing full well his kind no longer knew how to scream. He refuses to grace it with even a gasp of pain as his bloodied hand steadily brings his knife closer to the daemon’s exposed throat, as he gazes death in the eye and snarls.  

Valdor earns a name when he finally brings it down, and nonchalantly looks at the blood seeping into beautiful patterns upon the auramite, tracing paintings of crimson against the gold as he snaps his armbones back in shape and raises his spear. He marches into battle, and it was onwards towards delaying an inevitable defeat once more, without pain, without trauma itself. His wounds were closed by the next week, and gone by the turn of the month. And yet they march on. 

Nine years. Just nine, short years. It was impressive how much things could have been ravaged so unspeakably drastically in nine years, when he had lived for centuries. Horus had run out of time, and the Emperor had ran out of realms to hide. There were only one thousand of them left, yet they fought valiantly, without pain, without despair itself. Perhaps the only thing keeping them from devolving into the horrific drugged-dazed berserkers of the old were those cold, soulless gaze barely hidden beneath a veneer of civility and logic. This was their lair, where heartless beasts roam. 

A traitor Marine’s lucky strike slashes open his wrist, and not even a second later his head was rolling on the ground, the greatest pain Valdor ever felt from the ordeal a single, brilliant flicker of sudden splitting as the Marine’s head detached from his body and the Apollonian Spear screamed his final moments into a mind too broken to fear. Blades broke against his armor, shards slashes against his skin and wounds flowed freely beneath the auramite before closing once more, as if they never were at all. And the Golden marched for their master, if only because they knew not what else would become of them should they fail.

It was the Vengeful Spirit, the heart of the heresy, the throne of the Archtraitor, and it would be their greatest shame and rage. Their most horrific of dreams, most excruciating of agonies, beyond imagine, beyond even compare.

They failed, and He fell.

For all of their glory, for all of their perfection, they failed. Even as his wounds close, his flesh stitches itself back together and cracked bones rejoin beneath tendons slowly re-knitting, they now leave strange traces on once flawless skin, marks scarring perfection like cracks in an ancient sculpture. They intertwine over Emperor-carved muscle and sculpted flesh, they strike like jagged bolts of lightning over where there should have been none. 

The serfs un-armor him in silence now, and when Valdor watches his reflection, for the first time in centuries, there was a hint of pain, of loss, of exhaustion painting that immortal visage, that tired, grim glare of a servant without his master, yet forever marching onwards into a destination He envisioned. 

When he drops his gaze, and his glare runs across the newfound scars now, scars running across what had once been eternal, as unchanging as Valdor himself. And yet, as he gazes upon the newborn scars, the immortal learnt of pain. 

The truth was, it was not so unpleasant as to warrant being removed by the Emperor entirely.

[the-haunted-office]

The Ruined Office - Episode 1

Thursday is no stranger to other Offices.

With the way hers is connected to and heavily influenced by the In-Between, she's been to dozens. Offices identical to her own, before all the renovations were done. Offices sporting different layouts. Offices flooded with water. Offices encased in fire. Offices literally turned upside down. Offices literally turned inside out. Offices with walls pulsating with what looked like real, living, actual veins. Offices that were... actual offices full of people who were just trying to do their jobs, leaving Thursday in the very awkward position of trying to see her way out the front door.

This one is the very first ruined Office she's ever been to.

Not that she's never heard of them. She's heard of plenty, and that's because she knows who ruined them. She knows their Story, as it is her own - or very nearly was before she derailed it.

There's something uncanny about being in one of them, though. It's distinctly different than having heard of them, or even being in her own when she was in the midst of ruining it alongside her ghostly alternate. That's who was doing all the ruining, you see. Doomsday. She didn't come by that name from nowhere, after all.

The inside of this Office is utterly gutted. The ugly orange carpet is ripped and torn more than it’s not, and where it isn’t ripped and torn it’s stained and pocked with what appear to be massive patches of burn marks. These burn marks are further accentuated by smoke damage that crawls up the walls and clots the ceiling in puffs of black and gray, at least where it’s still intact.

Where the ceiling isn’t intact, bundles of wires and cords dangle down like intestines ripped out of some great animal, left there to rot. Broken, uneven piece of ceiling tiles lay strewn about, and the floor is littered with shattered glass and filament from what used to be the overhead florescent lights.

Those are out too, and the entire Office is utterly dark. Every cubicle and desk and printer and wall and filing cabinet, everything, is lying in ruin. Not a single piece of the Office has been left untouched. Everything is… just broken and ruined and it’s kind of sad. It looks like a tornado came through and chewed up and spat out everything in its path.

Thursday can remember how her Office looked very much the same when Doomsday first appeared. How she had told her she was going to die in a month. How she, Thursday, had felt knowing that not only was she going to die, that everyone would abandon her, how she would die alone, suffering and in pain. Herself had told her so, that it had happened 999 times before, so how could she believe otherwise? Destroying the Office felt sensible and cathartic at the time.

Burn it all to the ground.

Everywhere glass and debris is crunching underfoot as Thursday walks around, trying her best to tread carefully lest she fall through the floor as that's rotting away too with the rest of everything else. She can't help but wonder which Thursday this Office belonged to, or if this actually is one of the Offices Doomsday visited. It's possible that it isn't.

That possibility is all but instantaneously erased when two pairs of black hole eyes suddenly loom out of the shadows at her, rearing up on what appear to be white blankets draped over two five-foot-pairs of stilts. They look like some kid’s idea of silly ghost costumes, except these two kids aren’t holding out Halloween buckets and asking for candy, and one of them is baring a ridiculously large mouth full of needle-sharp teeth at her.

At least until they all at once seem to recognize her, and then the teeth get folded away neatly.

Thursday had only taken a couple of steps back in very understandable surprise, although now she's pretty sure she recognizes these two creatures as well.

A trio of voices all go off at once, two in Thursday's head, Thursday's own spoken aloud:

"Cyrus? Aurora? Is that you?" Thursday says.

"Thursday?" one of the Nightcrawlers inquires, his voice unmistakably identical to the one Thursday knows as Cyrus.

"How can that be you?" asks the other, whom Thursday recognizes as Aurora.

All three voices are laced with utter surprise.

While Thursday understands that these two are alternates of the Cyrus and Aurora she knows, this Cyrus and Aurora aren't quite sure what they are seeing. They think they might be seeing a ghost.

They rush to meet this apparent ghost to embrace her.

Having known what likely happened to their Thursday here, Thursday allows it, for as long as they need.

[imsailorpluto]

Island finale + ... this one isn't for the weak

Pardon my french in advance. Of course there are spoilers in here. The blog is called "I love spoilers".

One last memory of Won Miho, a smart, intelligent woman, who went to Jeju island by her father's orders to teach ethics. I loved that awesome hair and fashion sense and self-confidence, determination, strength and cool temper. And drifting demon race in pt1. It's good they brought her back in those last few minutes, at least.

Shall we do this for the old times sake? Here goes.

Island Finale, what the hell did I watch?!

Ok, let's be graceful. The series got me exhausted. Being emotionally involved isn't the best option with this one... If you haven't watched it already and love the genre, expect mess, confusion and cognitive dissonance. Or not, it's fine.

My heart goes to two greatly significant characters. I can't stop thinking about them and I'm so grateful neither of them died by the other's hand . Putting aside both actors' charm, these two characters grew on me. One of them being a deeply misunderstood vengeful killer machine. And the other, adorable goofy exorcist.

Since this two parts story finally ended, it made me think about half-demon brothers and why is it that one of them is utterly evil and beyond redemption in the eyes of our little Island community while the other one is practically absolved of all of his "sins".

Both brothers are trained killers (to be correct, abused since early childhood by Jijangjong Temple’s clan) and that's exactly what they've been doing their entire lives - committing murders. The only difference is:

One of them was lucky enough to turn into what he was supposed to become, according to plan - emotionless killer. Knife accepted him easily.

The other brother's transformation didn't go according to the plan. His feelings somehow never disappeared, pain and suffering destroyed him - he cracked under the pressure just as anyone would

First one believed that Wonjeong can give them their human lives back, his bloodthirst was ulterior motive (and I'll get to that a bit later)

The other was hypersensitive one and could see through the clan's lies. Even as broken as he was. His humanity made him trust Yeomji later on, making them both susceptable to Baek's clan manipulation

Were those two brothers really that different to begin with? Pan brought wounded Wonjeong back to the temple. After hurting her. Because he believed she could save them. By doing so he turned his back on his brother. Gungtan followed him knowing he'd get punished for it, his loyalty unmatched. While Wonjeong was living her life being trained to fulfill her destiny yet having a sense of freedom, boys were chained and starved. She would bring them food, but she never gained Gungtan's trust again - and his hunch was right. She was the end of both brothers.

If there's God in this story, then the moment Pan stabbed Wonjeong and a piece of divine crystal entered him was that God's doing. Pan gained a piece of humanity, by ending a life of a living person, accidentally or not. It never suffocated his urge to kill, but it made him more aware of all the lives taken by the lust demon and then by his own half-demon hands. That didn't make him less of a killer, but it did clear his mind of fog (which made him realise both he and Gungtan have to die in order to set themselves free), he gained control over himself and his impulse to kill - even though his yearning for Miho still made him want to kill her, let's not forget that. He is a lust demon, afterall, which does sound awfully like a vampire, but I'll let it slide.

Vampires, however, often end up killing their loved ones, unless they learn how to control their bloodthirst. I can't help but consider both of them vampires, in a way.

Boy got therapy and it (partially) worked. And everybody fell for him as if he's an angel sent from heavens and his past has been erased. That's not how it works, but fine. Fine. I'm fine with people being there for him. But something is not adding up here, there's still no sympathy for Gungtan. Why?

Ah, Gungtan, the villain. Once a boy who loved his brother so much that he gave up his own freedom/life for him. Took the beatings for bringing Wonjeong back. And turned his back on the whole human race for good. His love was the purest love they showed us, but it's not in the focus, so it's easy to run it over like it never existed. He ended up chained in the dark for years. No therapy. No nothing. Left to rot. Oh but he can't die, because he's not human. Torture lasted and lasted. Then he was set free only to be used again. Was mercy ever given to him in any way? Was he ever given any chance to become something different from what he became? Is there anything this demon-slayer knows of, other than abuse, punishment, betrayal and smell of blood? He is as self-destructive as it gets, there's no turning back from his path of soul torture. Character development inconsistencies are out there on the surface, so let's not go into that any further.

He's a hyperviligant killing tool but he can't stay indifferent towards a little girl covering his feet with her jacket. That was it for me. I couldn't care less about any other character at that point. I fell for the deeply wounded devil that he is. Completely. Why? Because I'm Bob the builder, duh. Because in the real world, where real and often horrible things happen, anyone can become a target of abuse and turn into someone like Gungtan. Often completely unaware of it. Leave out the killing and you have a very realistic character. Psychologically, it's a hell of a ride to get back up on tracks afterwards. And people think it takes a lot to become a villain, they don't have the potential, something like that can never happen to them, so why not wish death upon a fictional character who suffered more than enough for a thousand lifetimes.

I'm not buying any of the moralist-on-duty shit. Leave. Him. Alone.

I wish he could have run away that instant, somewhere, anywhere, before the Baek clan put their magic manipulation skills to work. I wish he was safe and in peace. I can't put any blame on him for what he became. And what he did. Especially since it is strongly suggested he was used like a puppet after they woke him up. His anger was used for a "greater" evil purpose. I can't help but wanting to reach out and get him the hell out of there.

Despite general opinion of the Island community and Mr. Gungtan himself, he isn't that different from his brother Pan at all. He cracked under the pressure, yet he didn't need a magical crystal fragment to sober up and help another abused child, which he wouldn't do if he had no feelings left in him. Pan believed in Wonjeong, Gungtan believed in Yeomji, but neither of those girls could help the brothers. And no matter how much they wanted to live, death was the only escape from the constant hellfire brought upon them. Gungtan needed to escape his untameable urge for revenge which led him to madness, Pan needed to escape the burden of his heavy dirty bloodthirsty soul.

May I add, Miho never sold out Pan, like Yeomji, who switched sides like a spineless creature. Yes, she's a kid and could never measure up to Miho. Her influence, if there ever was any, ended once Baek clan took over Gungtan. The same clan known for their magical manipulation skills. Gungtan's misery just doesn't stop. Once again he's nothing but a killing tool.

The brothers escaped their personal hell by ending their own lives - which is why I'm not mad about the ending. Their suffering stopped, at last. Finally. Their inner demons were swallowed by the underworld. Gungtan's little smile at the end, that sigh of relief as lust demon left his body and he was finally free, that moment was e v e r y t h i n g

But you know what else was everything? Seeing my favourite Island manhwa character coming to life on screen. Finally! Well done, cgi team, well done!

In previous life or death battle, my boy Gio almost died. Ahh, how many times I yelled at the screen for him to just stay out of other people's business but thankfully he survived it all. He is my favourite goofy guy who makes people write witty texts about him. The only priest, real or fictional, I've ever liked and will ever like. Look at this fluffball. Must. Protect. Him. (⁠╥⁠﹏⁠╥⁠)

Thankfully, Johan survived all the battles, which weren't even his own to begin with and which lead me to believe he'd meet a tragic end sooner or later. Ah but that's the part of his charm - sticking his nose in other people's business so we never know if he'll live or not. There would be some ugly crying if something tragic actually happened to him. And just like in pt1, he was left on hold while bleeding to death. This time it was even more horrible than before.

Pan, seriously? Like "brb, let me just-". I swear, at some point this thing turned into such a grotesque show. Plot has twisted so hard it was unbearable to watch at times. But, Johan picked himself up from the brink of death, thanks to his badass powers. Amen!

Despite the fact that finale brought so much sadness to entire audience, either for the main villain's death or PanxMiho not happening in a million years (which I'll forever be grateful for), that final fight was amazing. Writers finally gave us a large portion of enjoyable action. Plus, Gungtan wasn't the end of Johan and vice versa. Honestly, that's more than generous from their part, since Gungtan's downfall was imminent and it all went downhill long time ago, anyways.

Hope they don't bring us pt3. Sorry. I'm done with the massacre of manhwa plotlines and characters. Starred actors were amazing. Talent and looks, you know, everything. Especially absolutely stunning Lee Da-hee. Craaaazy talented and amazing Sung Joon♡ But. Please. No. More. Island.

Well, with too pure for this world cutie, I conclude my thoughts. It's been fun.

Sailor Pluto wishes you a great day and more enjoyable kdrama,

Till next time, xx

P.S. If you've made it this far, wow, congratulations. It must not have been easy navigating that pile of chaos. Also, there are so many things I edited out of the "original" text, trying to keep my cool. Also, if for any reason you (dis)liked my interpretation of fictional characters of Island, my ask box is always open. (⁠◠⁠‿⁠◕⁠)

P.P.S. Dear gifmakers, if you want me to remove any of your GIFs from my posts, please feel free to contact me, it will be done immediately. Thank you for all your work for our little community (⁠✿⁠ ⁠♡⁠‿⁠♡⁠)

[bracketsoffear]

Obligatory dump of submissions that didn't make it:

The Wither (Minecraft): Made of soul sand—implied to be an amalgamation of trapped souls in basically Hell—and the skulls of Wither Skeletons who live in basically Hell and decay you with their touch. Seeks to destroy every living thing it sees; attacks with decaying blasts and leaves behind damaging Wither Roses. Canonically undead.

Dave Strider (Homestuck): As the Knight of Time, his role is to travel in time to make sure he and his friends stay in the Alpha timeline at the cost of creating a bunch of dead versions of himself. He is haunted by the Doomed timelines he must navigate, knowing that every one of them involves him and everyone else dying, but despite refusing to use time travel for a while he has to use it anyway to save himself and his friends. He’s also associated with crows—one of his doomed selves, Davesprite, is sort of a half-crow ghost.

The Nameless One (Planescape: Torment): He is undying and can regenerate from even the most grievous wounds, but his memory is usually erased with each death. He can deliberately kill himself several times throughout the game to accomplish his goals. Having apparently committed some crime so awful not even a thousands lifetimes of good deeds could make up for it, he sought to escape Hell by giving himself a really fucked up version of immortality: When the Nameless One is resurrected, he's a sudden, violent Life Drinker from someone elsewhere in The Multiverse. The shadows that are hunting the Nameless One are the tormented, undead vestiges of those whose lives were consumed to restore the Nameless One—having died in his place, their souls are trapped in the Fortress of Regrets and robbed of their afterlives. This is similar to Tova McHugh and Justin McGough, who both killed others to extend their lives.

Jane Doe (Ride the Cyclone): Ride the Cyclone is fundamentally a play about death, and her song is specifically about the fear of DYING unknown and unmourned. Lyrics include: "There's just one lingering fear / Oh my soul, is it here? / Or is it rotting somewhere with my head?", "Oh no soul, and no name / And no story, what a shame / Cruel existence was only a sham?", "And I'm asking "why, lord?" / If this is how I die, lord / Why be left with no family / And no friends?", and "I’ve got no celebration / Just this consolation / Time eats all his children / In the end". Also, part of the horror she generates is the constant reminder of her brutal death: while the other characters are bear no marks or wounds from their demises, Jane is constantly reminding everyone that she was a decapitated teenager and thus passively inflicting End.

SCP-2718 (SCP Foundation): It might just be the most horrific anomaly contained by the Foundation—its number is constantly changing to make the article borderline impossible to access, to the point of knowing of the article's existence is considered a security breach. Even the O5 Council is utterly scared shitless of it. It turns out to be the testimony from a deceased O5 named Roger Sheldon who was returned to life and revealed that a person's consciousness actually remains active after they die, only able to feel the eternal agony that comes with the body decaying and/or being destroyed. The dead suffer through every inch of their physical body's deterioration, slowly and agonizingly living through an eternal and endless torture as their body rots and decays and disintegrates into nothingness, and even then, the pain won't end. Roger was so unwilling to go back to the afterlife that he gave himself over to The Old Man, who pulls his victims into a pocket dimension to torture them eternally. Those who hear this news are rendered so traumatized that its mere notion is classified as a DAMMERUNG class cognitohazard. There’s also the possibility that Roger’s story isn’t true, but it’s a cognitohazard because anyone who hears it becomes irrationally fearful of it—or worse, that the eternal torture he describes is only true for those exposed to the story, which means the O5 who preserved it in an impossible to delete or edit article has potentially doomed many others to the same fate.

Szass Tam (D&D: Honor Among Thieves): The former Zulkir of Necromancy in Thay before becoming its Sorcerous Overlord as well as a Lich. In Forgotten Realms canon, attempted a ritual to turn himself into a greater god, but it failed and more or less destroyed his country in doing so, turning most everyone into zombies; he plans to try again in another country. In the movie, he's the one pulling Sofina's strings in her efforts to convert the people of Neverwinter into his undead slaves, just as he did to the people of Thay onscreen.

Gravelord Nito, who I may have accidentally submitted as Gravelord Nato thanks to Autocorrect (Dark Souls): The first of the dead, a literal mountain of corpses, and Leader of the Gravelord Servant Covenant. His Lord Soul granted him power over Death, and he functions as the Grim Reaper. Nito does not care if the Age of Fire continues or comes to an end, and instead is content with distancing himself and focusing on spreading death and misery throughout Lordran as part of his Lord Soul's nature. Screaming can be heard with no clear source through many of Nito's movements and attacks, some more numerous than others, implying that some of the corpses that make him up may at least be partially self-aware. He's a giant skeleton wearing a mountain of skeletons as armor, and both the sword he uses and the replicas he makes for his servants are also made of corpses. His covenant is dedicated to infecting unwitting Undeads' worlds with powerful monsters that only disappear when the Gravelord servant is defeated, and he contributed to the war with the dragons by "unleashing a miasma of death and disease."

The Necromancer (Darkest Dungeon): The Ancestor invited several scholars to study with him, only to murder them in their sleep. To show off his newfound powers, he had them brought back through necromancy, with their skills and knowledge intact to boot. This proved to be yet another of the Ancestor's grievous mistakes, as the undead sorcerers began raising the dead themselves of their own volition. The Necromancers now lurks within the ruins among their ever-growing army of corpses. As long as they live, the dead will never know peace.

SCP-4975 (SCP Foundation): A predatory being with the unusual property of being able to exist in two places at once and its physical form resembles a twisted parody of a bird. Its cervical vertebrae are not interconnected, allowing it to continuously rotate them one at a time to produce its trademark clicking sound, which it uses to unnerve its prey as it stalks them. SCP-4975 has been observed to stalk future victims for extended periods of time before finally deciding to attack, sometimes as long as 10 months or more. The SCP itself is visible and tangible to everyone alike, but its Astral Projection can only be seen, heard, and be interacted with by its chosen victim. Only its victim will hear the ticking noise that drives them paranoid and unnerved, and when it decides to feed it becomes nearly impossible to save its victim via external methods. It's said to be the inspiration of numerous German nursery rhymes, one of which includes the lines “As ticks the time, so ticks your heart. / May you live long as you hear its song.” And “Did you hear it? Did it stop? My child it meant your time was up.” If you look at its page for two minutes while wearing headphones, you'll start to hear a ticking noise.

.

[dawn-of-worlds]

(Velarië rolls 2d6 -> 9, for a total of 2 + 9 = 11 power.)

The forge-spirits that attended their mother ceased to weep long ago; the hearth at the heart of Velarië‘s land is cold; and a strange season, like a bitter winter, has lingered in the vale for countless years. She sits, on her throne, still and silent; and dark thoughts trouble her.

Why has she withdrawn from the world? Her servants do not know. At first she thought herself simply tired after the age of her great labors. It was the first bloom of spring in the world, beginning to fade, and the knowledge came to her that no matter how beloved, all things which she made would someday die, and the world along with them. Her own death does not trouble her; she remembers the world before she was in it, she feels she will be apart of it even when she is gone. But the living things, into which she has poured such joy and labor, being erased--their small hearts stilled, their fragile memories lost, their souls hidden beneath the silent mountain that awaits all things--that grieves her terribly.

And so what was once a malaise has grown into a bleak despair, a despair which has claimed her heart, and which has weighed down every limb with sorrow. Her servants speak to her, and she does not answer; her children pray to her, and she has no response. What can I give you, she thinks, that will not someday be poisoned by death?

When the Worm came to Tehwatzin, some of the ataila fought, and some fled; and some retreated to their holy places and wept. The cries of suffering of the people turned Velarië’s thoughts out of the darkness, and recalled her to herself; but by then it was too late. The city had fallen, and her people were the slaves of Ohm.

In the blackest grief any atai had then known, a prayer was uttered by Teotzila, the mighty warrior-priest of the city, who lay dying in the ruin. She called out to the goddess, whose face she had glimpsed only once in the first hours of her life, before her people had departed her Isle for the dark and dangerous lands beyond. O Mother of the Forge, she said, do not let this be the triumph of our enemies. Do not let our souls slip from the world, and be forever dissevered from thee. Let Tehwatzin be lost forever, ere it be a trophy of the Enemy.

In ages past, perhaps, Velarië would have raised an army and marched to war at their head, to free her people; or she would have secreted away the survivors, to build Tehwatzin again, even more beautiful than before, in some distant land. But time and pain wear on immortal hearts even as they do mortal ones; and Teotzila’s grief was her mother’s grief; and their rage was one.

In rebuke of Ohm’s victory, Velarië causes a blazing star to fall to the earth. Tehwatzin is utterly destroyed. The souls therein she claims for herself; they do not go to Laneth, and no tale tells of their fate. Yet some whisper that, before the Hatestar consumes the world, Velarië will make war on Death itself, and all its allied powers, and Teotzila will be reborn to lead her armies forth.

Those who fled Tehwatzin before its end carry with them the memory of its destruction, and the songs of its history. But they are few; and they are a wandering people, who for now have no permanent habitation in the world.

(Velarië uses Cataclysm, leaving her with 1 point.)

[charmspoint]

what did u think abt talentless nana chapter 78.

Thank you for reminding me to look for it 👀, since you sent a message I'll just do my impressions here!

I love Kyouya so much he's just out there enjoying life. It's just somehow really endearing to see he was like a productive member of society after we watched him mostly play sherlock and struggle to make friends. Knowing he's probably well over 20 in the current timeline puts a weird spin on him entering as a high schooler but also like...it's Kyouya of course he would just single mindedly use his immortality to infiltrate a high school and look for a sister he barely remembers.

Also I think we can summarize from this that Kyouya's invulnerability also protects him from alcohol lmaoooo

This is just a real nice shot of Kyouya lets appreciate it for a second.

The way my heart clenched.

They are too damn alike ;-; hiding their pain from each other because they want to protect the other ;-; I mean there's really no other solution here, Kyouya is doing his best because nobody else is able to do it, but also i understand how the knowledge that he might be suffering for her is weighing heavy on Rin along with her sickness.

Tiny shocked Rin for your tiny shocked Rin needs

KYOUYA IM GOING TO PUT YOU IN A BLENDER

The art of Rin in this chapter is heartbreaking.

FUCKING SCREAMING AND CRYING

I am on the fucking ground I didn't think we'd be dealing with the topic of suicide in these chapters but god, Rin wanting to die and knowing the only thing keeping her alive is the fact that Kyouya would grieve her and have to bury her and instead of trying to live for him, devising a plan to alter his journals so eventually the price for his talent would erase her from his memories completely. She feelsl this is a kindness, because Kyouya is struggling so hard, working so hard for her and she's in pain and she's sick and she feels like she's horribly burdening and torturing the only person who she cares about. She knows she's hurting and confusing him with her actions, taking things away from him, things he cherishes greatly, but still proceeds on anyway because she is convinced that is the best she can do.

IM GOING TO FUCKING LOSE IT

This is not fucking okay

THIS IS NOT FUCKING OKAY IM LITERALLY CRYING

RIN IS CATBOY JIN I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD I SWEAR TO MOTHERFUCKING GOD LOOK AT THIS LOOK AT THIS RIGHT HERE IVE BEEN SAYING SINCE THE FUCKING BEGINING KYOUYAS SISTER IS CATBOY JIN AND HERE YOU FUCKING HAVE IT (not canon yet) I WANT TO DISSAPEAR AND BECOME SOMEONE ELSE WHAT ELSE COULD THAT MEAN CMON CMON CMON

I have more thoughts on this but will make a separate post but GOD THIS CHAPTER WAS HEARTBREAKING WHAT THE FUCK, Talentless Nana really doesn't fuck around when it comes to angst and this was just so hard and emotional to read. Rin's feelings accompanied by Kyouya's expressions as he slowly lost all memory of his sister BY HER DESIGN, the pain and the struggle that brought him and her, even though she was doing it do make sure he could live without her acting as a burden, without slowing him down and preventing him from achieving her dreams. Her asking her 'who are you?' signifying she managed to do what she had intended that she could now disappear without her brother suffering just utterly broke me. This is some of the best and most interesting sibling dynamics that ive read in manga in a good while and its utterly breaking me.

Stay tuned for conspiracy theory bullshit in a sec

[squidproquoclarice]

If you'll answer AMA that's not about MTSBH, aside from Arthur dying what one thing would you change from the game?

Yeah, "Arthur doesn't need to die for the sake of the story" is my first call, of course. ;)

My next in line is the Chapter 3 mission "Blessed Are the Peacemakers". They either needed to cut it, IMO, or do far more with it than they did. Because as-is, what you have is a mission where Arthur undergoes a horrifying near-death experience where he's strongly implied to have been set up by Micah and abandoned by Dutch, only to have it fizzle out like a wet match...just so three chapters later we can hit the exact same notes with TB so he can have a slow-death experience and be abandoned by Dutch and finally expose Micah as a traitor. And as introspective and thoughtful and philosophical as he is, it's very, very weird that an ordeal where he's almost certainly set up, and then captured, severely injured to the point full recovery of that shoulder would be a while if ever, imprisoned, beaten, tortured, implied to have been sexually assaulted, and nearly dies of sepsis merits just "I guess I'll live, even if uglier than before" in his journal and is dismissed with only that. And aside from a few comments around camp immediately after and Sadie's angrily telling him in Chapter 6's "Goodbye Dear Friend" that at least he lived unlike Jake, it's really never brought up again by anyone. It's like this profound, prolonged trauma that should have shaken the foundation of everything he's believed for so long is just utterly forgotten, erased only so its beats and themes can be repeated almost exactly several months later. Arthur's mortality and how the life he's led has made him suffer. Dutch's complete narcissism and how he uses people. Micah's cold, cunning betrayal. It's almost like it's a relic of an earlier storyline that got abandoned so they could focus on the TB and making Arthur into a sacrifice. And it's peculiar, because it feels like that could so easily have been a springboard to the exact same thing: his growing realization exactly how little he or anyone else means to Dutch and his delusions of grandeur, things with Micah coming to more of a head, and dealing with his mortality and the legacy of his life. It also would tie in better with Sadie's own descent into ugly, messy PTSD courtesy of the O'Driscolls and give even more shading to their intimacy and friendship. As-is, the O'Driscolls don't seem to matter at all to Arthur in terms of either anger or fear or anything else, which is somewhat weird given how much they put him through. He's not allowed to have any PTSD reactions to them like Sadie is, which is frankly weird. Even for a man who thinks as little of himself as Arthur does, it seems unrealistic for him to have zero reaction, even privately, given we see how deeply he feels things. And so Peacemakers is this weird blank where a profound, alarming event that feels like it should very possibly have been the turning point along with Sean's sudden, shocking death in Rhodes and triggering that slow-creeping horror of no, we are not going to just wait it out and be OK, and it seems I cannot rely on Dutch to make it all OK because we're in deep shit and all he's doing is talking grandiose promises realization...apparently just doesn't matter at all? As-is, you could cut it from the game and it wouldn't change anything at all, and that really says something. I feel like if they gave Peacemakers a bigger prominence, the game's pacing would have worked better. Chapters 4 and 5 in Shady Belle and Guarma could have easily been more naturally working towards Arthur's growing awareness of Dutch and Micah rather than artificially prolonging it and suddenly having it all happen in Chapter 6 after like three dozen glaring neon signs already, and after many of Arthur's likely allies are conveniently dead and he's dying. It maybe gives him the chance to confront Micah and Dutch more actively. It gives him a chance to make choices and truly grow up from that scared, traumatized street kid who's made Dutch his father and god and become a man in his own right, rather than becoming a martyr.

[xxtha-blog]

Nightmare's Corruption

Hi! Hello! I'm here to talk about Nightmare's corruption. In canon. Because some people seem to think it 'protects him' and Dream trying to revert him back is Dream 'not acknowledging his trauma'.

So Nightmare! Dream's brother! Everyone seems to know the story! He got bullied. While Dream is away, he tried to take a positive apple to show the villagers he can be good, he corrupts the entire tree, making everyone become severely negative and Dream to come rushing back, and the villagers start going after him! Everyone knows it, right? Great.

'"Get stronger" he heard a voice that came from not the tree, but from the black apples. It was the voice of a man, very different to mother's.' - Page 28 of the Dreamtale comic.

This my friends is your corrupted Nightmare. A being so utterly corrupt, he’d rather watch the entire multiverse die than let it live with positivity. A culmination of the man that killed Nim, Night’s past memories, and potentially memories or fragments of Nim as well, all brought together by a being of pure negativity. This is who you know as corrupted Nightmare.

As Nightmare ate more and more apples, his body began to break as it couldn't withstand the energy of it. The power consumed him, his body snapped and cracked apart. He let this person take control as he promised to protected him from everything. This, of course, was a lie. And with it, the Nightmare Dream knew as his brother was gone.

Yeah, no, corrupted Nightmare is not actually protecting Nightmare. He's a horrible man, who wants every single person in the multiverse to be negative, and erase positive feelings from existence. He killed their entire AU. He uses Nightmare's fear, Nightmare's pain, Nightmare's suffering, manipulates him, and uses him to gain a body.

It is said there is an ever so slight chance to bring Night back, but it would likely get Dream killed. As of right now, the Nightmare Dream knew as a brother is essentially dead. He's not corrupted Nightmare, corrupted Nightmare is only using the body of Night to enact his horrors upon the multiverse.

So... Dream wanting to reverse that?

Checks smudged writing on hand.

Is actually a really selfless and dangerous thing that would not only, you know, stop a horrible, sadistic negative entity from terrorizing every single person he comes across, but also potentially save Nightmare and actually let him recover from his trauma.

So anyone who tells you canon Dream trying to revert Nightmare from his corrupted form is selfish, or 'not acknowledging his trauma'? Doesn't know what they're talking about. Oh! And are calling Dream the bad person for wanting to save the real Night and protect every other person in the multiverse! And you know what I say to that?

bruh, pick up the comic or smth.

[hen-of-letters]

Series 15 gives all of the characters you could ever care about their worst possible endings, but presents these endings as somehow good or satisfying or acceptable.  Here's a list.

The short version: they're Chuck's endings, and Chuck is a bad writer.  

None of the characters can escape the fate set out for them or break the cycle of trauma begun by Chuck.  The show itself doesn't even realise how truly awful these endings are - it dresses up a tragedy in pie gags and pretty colours and calls it a happy ending.  And in order to inflict these worst possible endings on its characters, the narrative has to be twisted and contorted in the most absurd of ways.

So, onto the list:

Adam: Forgotten and left to languish in the pit, he's finally freed, only to suffer an anticlimactic offscreen death and be forgotten again.  Michael, his only companion for so long, is also killed off.  In the finale, blood family seems to be all that matters - and yet he isn't mentioned.

Alternate Kaia: She helps rescue Kaia from the Bad Place, but chooses to remain there to face certain destruction rather than return to earth with Kaia, Dean and Sam.  This world is so hostile to her that death is preferable.  Her horrible, pointless death stands as a powerful statement about the real harm caused by exclusion, but the text doesn't seem to acknowledge the full horror of this.  Her death isn't remarked upon; it seems to suggest that both Kaia and her double are returned to their rightful places.  It's just one example of the show creating awful endings without seeming to understand how awful they truly are.  (I rant a lot more about Alternate Kaia here.)

Amara: After being betrayed and locked away for millennia, we see Amara's initial impulse for revenge and destruction transform into an admiration for creation.  She becomes an advocate for humanity and the world.  And yet she ends up being betrayed (by both the Winchesters and Chuck) and locked away again.  She's absorbed by Chuck in a way that doesn't fit within the logic of the show.  Chuck and Amara are equals - it doesn't make any sense that Chuck could overpower her.  Wouldn't they become a blend of the two of them?  And, since their separation caused the Big Bang, wouldn't their unity end the world?  Anyway, having the cosmic feminine be voiceless and invisible is the worst way for Amara's story to end.  Having Jack speak for her, saying that they are 'in harmony' tries to make this an acceptable fate for her, but only makes it worse.

Benny:  Another offscreen death, and this one feels particularly spiteful.  It really seems like he was killed just to be a conversation-starter for Cas and Dean.  However, if his fate can be sealed by a line of dialogue, then it only proves that confirmation of the fates of Eileen, AU Charlie and the other hunters could have been given in the same way.  Just one line could have done it - "I just spoke to Eileen, everyone's back."  Instead, at the end of 15.19 we're in the absurd position of having Sam and Dean toast the people they've lost without them even bothering to check who that may or not be.

Billie: The bizarre thing about Billie being revealed as a villain at the end of Season 15 was that she was supposed to be acting in self-interest - that she wanted to be the new God.  It made no sense.  What would make sense to me, though, would be if Chuck was controlling her (as Lucifer bound Death in Season 5).  Season 15 has strong echoes of Season 4 - and Billie took on both the role of Ruby (feeding Jack hearts rather than demon blood, but nevertheless making him into a weapon, with the price being the loss of his sense of self and ultimately his life) and Heaven (persuading Dean that it had to be this way, and telling him to go along with the plan).  We only have the Shadow's word for Billie's motivation, and we know she wasn't responsible for the deaths of the AU hunters, so in the end her status is ambiguous - she really seems to be a victim of Chuck's bad writing.  She's erased from the narrative along with Castiel, when really she should have been freed from Chuck's control and fighting on the side of nature and free will alongside the Winchesters.  Supernatural also concludes with nobody in the role of Death, which is a crazy loose thread left dangling.

Castiel: His confession was a thing of beauty, perfectly summing up the truth of both his and Dean's characters.  Both of them are made of and motivated by love.  And yet after speaking his truth, he is silenced.  He never gets to hear that he is loved in return (when the previous twelve seasons have made it abundantly clear to the audience that Dean loves Cas just as much as Cas loves Dean).  His capacity for love made him the only thing that Chuck could not control; as an agent of free will, he should have had a central role in Chuck's defeat.  

In 15x13, when Cas is in the Empty to see Ruby, the Shadow says: "funny thing about [Death's] plan, though... she didn't say anything about needing you. Baby, you can't just traipse in and out of here. It upsets the order of things."  To me, this sounded so much like 4x22's "you're not in this story" that I saw it as a pretty clear indication that Cas would play an important part in Chuck's defeat.  Because Team Free Will wouldn't follow the plan, would they?  They would find another way, wouldn't they?  Wouldn't they?

However, after the confession, he's never seen on screen again.  He's barely mentioned.  Eventually we're told he "helped" Jack, so he ends up where he started: as a servant of heaven.  He deserved to complete his fall, to become human, to live as well as speak his truth.  Making him a silent, unseen instrument of heaven undoes his entire arc.  Erasing him from the narrative requires the extraordinary warping of that narrative: nothing about his death suggests that it should be accepted as a permanent 'sacrifice', when we know that there is a spell that can return angels from the Empty (and, thanks to the handprint, we have his blood for it) and that Lucifer was brought back by Chuck in 15x19.  And the idea that Sam, Jack and Dean wouldn't try everything in their power to bring him back is utterly ludicrous.

Cas' confession scene to so closely mirrors 4x01's barn scene that the narrative is crying out for the parallel to be completed by Dean rescuing Cas from the Empty just as Cas rescued Dean from hell.  However, we're never given that narrative closure - just like we are never given the reunions demanded by the scenes of Sam losing Eileen and Charlie losing Stevie.

Chuck:  Okay, so he might not make your list of characters you could ever care about, but my point about his ending is that while it's fitting, for it to really work we also needed Cas to become human, too.  For Chuck, being human is a punishment, but for Cas it would be a reward.  We really needed this balance, otherwise all we have is humanity as the worst thing that could happen to you, which is not exactly a great parting message for the show.  (Also, how precisely is it possible to make him human?)  Not only is being human the worst fate possible, but, specifically, so is growing old and being forgotten.  Again, this is a punishment for Chuck, but it would have been a reward for Dean: growing old when the story (and his own self-loathing) constantly told him that he would die young; and being forgotten, not in a negative sense, but in terms of not being a character in a story any more: remembered fondly by his friends but no longer a legend, just a man living an insignificant little life exactly the way he chooses.  

Dean: Where do I even start.  Let's be clear: ending the story with his death (by any means and in any scenario) was always going to be the absolute worst possible ending for him and for the show.

In 15x19 we have the glorious moment when Chuck calls him the ultimate killer, and Dean (heeding Cas' words from 15x18) says "that's not who I am".  Now, I mean no disrespect to Dean here (because he is, canonically, a genius) but I don't think that he was in any way necessary to the Michael double-cross plot that eventually saw the defeat of Chuck.  Honestly, if he had died in 15x18, then 15x19 could still have played out in exactly the same way.  It's as if he wasn't saved so that he could save the world - he was saved so that he could have this moment of self-realisation.  He was saved so that he could stand up to Chuck (God, and the author, and parallelled with John) and tell him that he's not the person that he tried to force him to be.  

And yet by the next episode, this revelation is entirely forgotten.  He doesn't get to continue his self-actualisation by speaking his truth to Cas.  Instead, 15x20 presents Dean as almost a caricature of himself.  Dean loves pie.  Dean loves his brother.  Dean loves his car.  All of his complexity (present right from Season 1) is stripped away.

Finally free to write his own story, he ends up giving Chuck the ending he always wanted: one dead Winchester - killed, you could argue, by his brother (Sam fails to call for help and instead tells Dean to "go".)  Told by Cas that he's not "Daddy's blunt instrument" and accepting that he's not "the ultimate killer", Dean goes right back to killing (even threatening torture) and following his father's words (in the form of the journal).  

For Dean to die exactly as the story has always told him, and as he's always told himself in his worst moments of self loathing, is brutal and tragic.  What makes it truly appalling is the way in which both Dean and Sam accept his death and say it's "okay".  For Dean to say "always keep fighting" at the very moment when he gives up and when Sam gives up on him is bitterly ironic.  (Interestingly, when Cas said "you have to keep fighting" in his 12x12 death speech, exhorting Sam and Dean to save themselves and leave him behind, Sam replied with "we are fighting.  We're fighting for you, Cas" and Dean followed with "and like you said, you're family.  And we don't leave family behind".)   

Dean has always been the symbol of humanity in Supernatural: he stood for earth against the forces of heaven and hell.  He'd rather live with pain and guilt than exist as a "Stepford bitch in paradise", and yet that's exactly what he becomes, driving mindlessly through Jack's new heaven where everyone is "happy".  Dean previously dismissed heaven's happiness as "Memorex", and after Mary's death he was the only one not consoled by the confirmation that she was in heaven and happy.  Having Dean being content in heaven is utterly out of character.  He's always fought for free will, and in heaven - where there's no agency, where he's cut off from the world - this is the one thing that he does not have.

Eileen: An interesting, complex, kickass character, Eileen deserved so much better than being erased from the storyline.  A Men of Letters legacy, I imagine her working with Sam to share the knowledge contained within the bunker whilst also dismantling the patriarchy, elitism and colonialism of its past.  Her disappearance from the narrative makes absolutely no sense - 15x09, 15x17 and 15x18 confirm just how significant she is to Sam, and yet we never see them reunited or see Sam mourning her death.  The audience's love for Eileen is totally disregarded, too - she's ripped away from us with no further explanation.

Emma: Okay, so she wasn't actually in season 15, but that's sort of my point.  I have a lot to say about Emma, but here I'll just say that her significance has grown massively since Season 7.  The narrative has shifted from Team Free Will being sons to being fathers.  Even if she wasn't brought back, just a mention of her would have been significant.  (I can't stop thinking about the massive potential of a conversation about Emma between Dean and Jack.)  She didn't deserve to be forgotten.  

Season 15 was Supernatural's last opportunity to bring back characters from the past - such as Meg, original Charlie, Crowley, and Bela Talbot - and give them better endings.  Sadly this opportunity was wasted.

Garth: He actually seems to get his happy ending, on several levels.  He finds a family; he finds happiness; he's acknowledged as a hero by the Winchesters, who had previously mocked him.  Dean's words to him about embracing happiness are powerful.  Garth lives as his full, authentic self - monstrosity now included.  It's that monstrosity that's the issue here, though - as werewolves, Garth, Bess and little Sam and Castiel are doomed to go to purgatory when they die.  Mia Vallens said to Jack that "it doesn't matter what you are - it matters what you do", but in this case the opposite is true.  It's hideously unfair, but again the show never acknowledges this.  It would have been simple to change in a line or two - just a quick mention about how purgatory has been fixed, so that only truly monstrous beasts like the leviathan are kept trapped there - but the injustice remains.

Jack:  From his birth, his destiny was either to be the monstrous destroyer or the divine saviour of the world, which is precisely why he should have side-stepped it and found another way.  He deserved to live without the weight of the world on his shoulders.  Instead, he was forced to take on the power of God - and since when has someone suddenly taking on a huge amount of power ever ended well for Team Free Will?  Then, he repeats the exact same pattern set up by Chuck.  First, he abandons his creation by walking away and disappearing off to, in the words of Bobby, "wherever he went".  Like Chuck, he ignores earthly suffering: if he's now omniscient and omnipotent, is he in fact complicit in Dean's death?  Secondly, he's controlling: he remodels Heaven as he sees fit, making it a place where everyone's together and everyone's happy, with its inhabitants given absolutely no choice in the matter.  There's also no reason why Jack had to vanish from the story - Chuck was capable of spending time on Earth.

The mechanics of the bomb plot also irks me no end.  We're told by Death that the bomb will kill Jack.  However, their plan fails, and Jack survives the blast.  In 15x19, Dean tells Chuck that all the work done to turn Jack into a "cosmic bomb" has turned him instead into a "power vacuum."  It makes it seem like a side-effect, and also that "sucking up bits of power" has been charging him up to the point where he's "unstoppable".  He's able to both absorb and appropriate Chuck's power.  However, in 15x17 Adam and Serafina explain that the bomb will create a "metaphysical supernova" that will make Jack into "a living black hole for divine energy" - which suggests that, actually, the bomb worked as intended.  

But if the plan worked, why is Jack still alive?  Billie made it clear that Jack wouldn't survive.  And "nothing can escape" a black hole - so how is Jack able to use Chuck's powers to bring back Earth's population? Besides which, didn't 15x17 reveal that Chuck himself had "orchestrated" the entire thing?  Which makes the theory that Chuck possessed Jack really the only outcome that makes sense.  (Particularly as Serafina talks about Jack making his "vessel" strong.  Jack is a nephil, not an angel - he has a body, not a vessel.  Also, the bomb is made by fusing his soul with his grace - so, the two things that make up Jack, his humanity and his divinity, are annihilated.)  Deliberately making Chuck win, however (with no tease at the end that this might be the case), makes no sense either.  My head hurts.

Kevin: As if he hadn't been treated badly enough by the story already, we find that Kevin hasn't been in Heaven since we last saw him, but rather hell.  He ends up as an untethered ghost, presumably just wandering about for all eternity.  His fate comes courtesy of a bizarre new rule that souls from hell can't go to heaven - when previously both Bobby and John have done exactly that.  Again, just one line telling us that he's now in heaven could have changed his ending.

Michael: Bringing back Adam and Michael was a brilliant move, and this version of Michael was utterly compelling - struggling with his faith in his father after being abandoned, torn between his loyalty to Heaven and his relationship with Adam.  I thought that his handing over of the spell was very similar to Cas' "just so you understand … why I can't help" moment, and it seemed the precursor to Michael becoming an advocate for humanity, even a member of Team Free Will.  However, instead Michael was doomed to play out his father's narrative: killing his brother and repeating the cycle of sibling conflict and trauma that Chuck began when he betrayed Amara.  (And we'll credit Chuck's bad writing with the fact that the battle between Michael and Lucifer that was once predicted to wipe out millions and scorch the globe can now happen in the bunker without so much as a chair being knocked over - and without wires as well.)

Rowena: She seems to be relishing her reign as Queen of Hell, but the way she's so casually condemned is jarring.  Surely her previous good deeds and her final act of self sacrifice would be enough to tip the scales in a heavenly direction?  (It worked for Lily Sunder - another woman who vowed never to be powerless again.)  They could easily have said it was Chuck's fault that she had to remain in hell - but instead it just seems like a foregone conclusion.  She deserved better.

Sam: If we're supposed to believe that having a "normal" life is Sam's idea of writing his own story, why doesn't he do it as soon as Chuck is defeated?   Instead, his suburban "apple pie" life only happens after Dean dies, which makes it seem more of a grief arc than a happy ending.  (Just as he escaped into a self-professed "fantasy" life with Amelia after Dean's death, or when he succumbed to the comfort of a fake married life in Charming Acres after the trauma of losing all the AU hunters).  

The idea that he'd keep hunting for Dean doesn't ring true - Dean had been the one openly craving retirement and domesticity for several seasons.  After all, the idea of Dean as a hunter and Sam as the brother who wants to be normal is Chuck's story.  Dean wasn't the "ultimate killer" that Chuck wanted him to be, and Sam too had been forging his own identity as a leader, a Man of Letters, and a powerful witch.  He'd also found love - and with Eileen, he could be his full, authentic self.  The idea that he would leave her is absurd, as is the idea that he would abandon his entire extended found family, who seem to have no part in his new life.  When Dean returned from purgatory, he was furious that Sam had failed to help Kevin.  Would Sam really do the exact same thing again - walk away from Jody and the girls when they are mourning both Cas and Dean and need his support?  Would he just abandon Rowena's entire witchy collection and leave the huge store of knowledge in the Bunker locked up in the dark?

The Shadow: again, dubious on a list of characters you care about, but hey - all they ever really wanted was to go back to sleep, and can't we all relate to that?  Anyway, they made the list for being one of the most frustrating open endings of the show.  What did it mean for the Empty to be "loud"?  Who is the Shadow, anyway?  Just how did this cosmic entity fit in with the mythology of Chuck and Amara?  It's maddening that the Shadow and the Empty were made central to several seasons only to be suddenly dropped.

The Wayward Sisters: my beloveds. Such a brilliant cast of characters and such wasted potential.  They're an important part of the Winchesters' family and Team Free Will, but, in the end, they're forgotten.  Claire may have gotten her happy ending with the return of Kaia, but this happens off screen.  We never see her reaction to the deaths of Castiel or Dean.

The final few episodes seem to be about stripping away all of the characters except Sam and Dean, so they are completely alone by 15x20. Phrases such as "just us" and "just you and me" and "it's always been you and me" seem to suggest that this is a good thing, but previously the idea of them being isolated and alone has seemed like the worst case scenario (for example in Season 8, when Sam and Dean are forced to give up Amelia and Benny, respectively, or in Chuck's vision of a future in which the brothers lose Eileen and Cas along with Jody and the girls, give up hope, and end up as vampires, killed by their remaining friends). 

Anyway, the whole idea of just Sam and Dean going wherever the road takes them is Chuck's story.  It's on the cover of his books.  By making Chuck the villain, Season 15 itself makes it impossible for a return to this idea to be a satisfying conclusion to the story.

In fact, Supernatural was never about just Sam and Dean.  It was always about family.  Season 1 was about Sam, Dean and John.  Bobby introduced the phrase "family don't end with blood" in Season 3 and Dean coined the phrase "Team Free Will" in Season 4.  It's an ethos that has spread into the fandom, too.  Didn't the SPN Family deserve a finale that celebrated that idea, of banding together, of caring about the whole world, of love being the ultimate expression of free will?

You can't help but pick up on a theme: characters that were forgotten are forgotten again.  Characters who were locked away are locked away again.  The same narratives and the same traumas play out again and again.  No-one escapes their miserable, predestined fate.  It's Chuck's ending.  And it's Chuck's spiteful ending.

It's the ending that kills off its beloved characters, and also destroys their whole world.  The bunker is left in darkness.  Time has moved forward by so much in order to accommodate Sam's natural death that we can't even imagine the ongoing stories of other characters like Garth or the Sioux Falls family (ironic, given the episode's title).

It's the kind of ending you get when a show is cancelled and the writer decides to kill off their characters and wreck their world so that there's no possibility of another network or another writer taking over their story.  (And yet outside of the show, there's no evidence to suggest this - you would think that the ending had been designed to make a reboot impossible, but it has already been talked about.)

If we were not going to get a sense of the world continuing, then we could have been given a more radical and satisfying ending.  We could have had Death collect on their promise to one day reap God.  We could have had a world freed from the supernatural entirely: heaven, hell and purgatory obliterated, and Team Free Will finding peace in life on earth.

Because Chuck has been the author and the narrator the entire time, it makes no sense for the story to continue past the point of his defeat.  (It makes even less sense for that story to revert back to Chuck's ideal narrative.)  So, really we should have been given a more open ending: Team Free Will triumphant over Chuck and their future left open, the author dead and the characters' stories entrusted to the audience.

Instead, in the end, it's a bizarre mix of needlessly closed-down endings (killing off Cas, Sam and Dean, and vanishing Jack) and frustrating open ones (the loud Empty, there being no Death, Kevin wandering, the ambiguous fate of Eileen, Adam, Donna and the AU hunters).  

And the final two episodes are also objectively bad.  The double-cross plot in 15x19 is lame when the resolution of the Chuck storyline should have been profound. (It invites comparisons with the Season 11 finale, which was excellent.) 15x20 feels weirdly empty and flat.  Dean's death is unrealistic; it echoes Sam's death in Season 2 and Dean's in Season 9 (which, if you think about it, would only be possible if Chuck was still writing it), but lacks the emotional punch of either.  Dean's "I'm proud of us," in his Season 9 death scene is so much more powerful than his "I'm proud of you" in the finale.  And let's not even mention that wig.

In conclusion: every single character deserved better.  The actors deserved better.  The audience deserved better.  Because the ending we were given was not the ending that the season, or the entire series, had been building towards.

The ending tries to destroy every good thing that Supernatural has ever given us - vibrant characters, the fight for free will, the value of found family, the power of love - but it fails. Ultimately the characters and themes are too powerful to be contained by that terrible, flimsy ending. So now I've gotten all of that off my chest, I'm going right back to finale denialism.

[managedmischiefs]

north//chapter sixteen

genre: angst

warnings: prison, stabbing, solitary confinement, mention of deaths

word count: 3.2k

summary: spencer is spiraling. amelia is too. being apart is weighing on them and hope has run out.

pairing: season 12 spencer reid x oc

like, comment, and reblog :) enjoy!!

SPENCER

Guilt is a feeling I'm far too familiar with. Guilt is something I can't escape and guilt is something that has run my life. Guilt always seems to follow me wherever I go like a black cloud floating over my head.

I always thought that strong panic could easily outweigh guilt, but clearly, I've learned my lesson. As I hear the coughs and cries and screams of agony from the other prisoners on my cell block, the panic settles in my body.

Rossi told me I was a good person. He swore I wouldn't be changed by these people and this place and he was wrong. He was so utterly and horribly wrong and I know if he ever finds out about this, he would be so disappointed in me.

And Amelia. My beautiful, sweet, innocent girl. What if she found out about this? What if she finds out that I purposely poisoned a batch of drugs? What would she think? Would she hate me? Would she leave me? I'm barely surviving prison but I wouldn't survive her leaving me. I could never survive life without her.

But I'm doing what I can survive. But I had a million ways out of this situation. I had a million ways to get myself out of moving those drugs and instead any of those other simpler, cleaner, easier ways, I chose to poison them. I chose the way that would cause pain and suffering for those who have wronged me, and I unintentionally chose pain and suffering for the one person who has helped me out in here. And now that Shaw is gone and off to the infirmary, what's going to happen to me? Now that my protection is gone, am I at risk again?

But then the panic starts to dissipate. The panic dissipates and all I feel this guilt. Overwhelming, suffocating guilt. I feel horrible. I feel like the worst person to walk planet earth. I am the worst person to walk the planet. I watch all these men get rushed onto gurneys and run down hallways on the arms of correctional officers and it makes my heart sink.

I'm officially one of them. I didn't even want to move the drugs. I was so adamant about not allowing this contraband to be distributed to the inmates and I did everything I could to not have to move them, but I got pushed against the wall and held down, literally and figuratively. I had no choice.

And just when I don't need it, Tara shows up. She shows up, waving her doctorate degree in the air, telling me that we need to do another cognitive. Another cognitive. Another cognitive. She needs to dive into my mangled brain yet again to figure out what happened in Mexico just twenty-four hours after I poisoned half of my cell block. Another cognitive could help with Stephen's new way of finding Scratch. What is that new way? She didn't even say. I don't even want to know.

But it's something to do. It's something to distract from the guilt that's eating me alive. It's something to distract me from the things I think when I'm in my cell. It's something to distract me from the images of Malcolm shaking on the floor or Delgado bleeding out. It's something.

But even though it's something, the pain is there. The pain of Mexico resurfaces and hits me tenfold. The pain beats me against my chest and bolts me to my chair, stinging the scar on my hand. This isn't what I need. I didn't need to be reminded of my trauma as more trauma is unfolding before my eyes.

"You're helping Nadie and she's responding," Tara coaches me through the cognitive.

I rack my brain for answers and images and sounds and smells but it just comes up blank. "There's nothing I can do."

"And what about him? I mean, you must feel him in your peripheral vision, behind you somewhere."

"Yeah, he's behind me." It's almost like I can feel him standing behind me now, watching me to make sure I don't reveal his hidden identity to Tara. Why can't I just put Scratch's face there and this can all be over? I can use say it was him and I can collect my get-out-of-jail free card. "I can feel him watching me, and I'm--"

My eyelids fly open, desperate to erase an image that has materialized in my head. It's horrifying and bloody and there's no way it can be true. But it must be true if I'm seeing it. It's true. That's it. This is the big answer everyone has been waiting for and it's the answer nobody believed could be possible.

"What is it?" Tara's voice seems so far away and so distant.

"It was me. I killed her."

Tara's face softens and I don't know how she could possibly look at me like that. "Spencer," I rise from my chair and go rushing to the door, banging on it to alert a guard that this is over and I'm ready to return to my cell, "Spencer, that's not possible. Reid!"

I don't sleep a wink. I don't even lay in bed. I don't want to face the nightmares of me stabbing an innocent woman who just wanted to help my mother. An innocent woman who had a family and a husband or wife and children and a whole life to live. Selfishly, I don't want to see that. And maybe I deserve to. Maybe that should be my punishment for killing her, as if prison isn't punishment enough.

I sit on the floor. I work out until my muscles can't hold my weight. I stare at the wall. I gaze out the window. I do everything I can to stay awake and I'm successful. I contemplate celebrating when I see the sun starting to rise and I jump up to make my bed in the perfect way the correctional officers want it. If it's not perfect, I get in trouble. More trouble than I've already gotten in. I’ll get embarassed, humiliated, degraded, exposed. I don’t need that. I make the bed once, and then twice, and fix it a third time. 

And then Tara waves around her doctorate again. She swears she needs more time with her “patient” and I'm dragged away after breakfast. I'm put in cuffs that dig into the bruises and cuts around my wrists and cuffs that make me bleed and cuffs that I still feel on my skin even after they been taken off.

I cant see the images anymore. I can't do it. I can't continue to be haunted by what happened in Mexico and I can't keep seeing Nadie's face in my head, whether I'm sleeping or not. I don't want to do another cognitive and see, yet again, that I'm a killer. I don't need it to be confirmed to me time and time again that I'm a murderer and that I deserve to be in prison until the day I die.

"I cannot keep doing this anymore, okay? I told you, it was better if you all just stayed away. You're making it worse." It's a beg. It's a plead for Tara to leave and not come back.

But Tara insists. She insists that my mind is just playing tricks on me. She wonders why I don't realize that. She wants to know why I'm not thinking things out. The cognitive yesterday gave her an answer she would rather not have. She confirmed yesterday that I'm a murderer and now she's back to see if she can force my brain to play a trick.

"Spencer Reid is incapable of killing an innocent woman in cold blood."

I lean close to Tara, but not too close. I'm not telling a secret. It doesn't need to be whispered. "You have no idea what I'm capable of."

"Look," Tara sighs, "prison is a difficult place. You've probably had to do things in here to survive that you would never think of doing in the outside world, things that make you feel guilty. But the brain has to handle that guilt, has to process it. And sometimes it spreads that guilt around into places it doesn't belong."

Guilt always seems to follow me wherever I go like a black cloud floating over my head. No matter where I go, the guilt is there. The guilt of killing an innocent woman, the guilt of abandoning my mother with basically a stranger, the guilt of leaving my girlfriend behind, the guilt of poisoning other prisoners. It's all there, all the time.

I stare down at my hands, raw and bruised and calloused and rough. "I could see the knife in my hand."

"We know that Scratch uses drugs to change our perception of what's real and what's not," Tara tells me. "He could dose you and tell you that you, I don't know, your favorite color is black and you'd believe it wholeheartedly. He could dose you and make you believe anything he wants and you’d never remember. That's what he does. That's what his drugs do."

She convinces me. I don't know how she managed to do it so easily, but she did. She convinces me to go through with the cognitive and in no time, my eyes are shut and I land back in that dingy, dark motel room with Nadie beside me.

I tell her what seems obvious to me. Someone bursts in the room, I move the knife to get closer to a stabbed Nadie and that's how I cut my hand, there's a mist over my shoulder, I turn to look at who it is but I can't see who it is.

"Do you recognize him?"

"No," I shake my head, scrunching up my face in frustration. He's blurry, but he's spraying me and it's getting more blurry.

"Focus, Spencer. Concentrate on who it is."

I clench my hand, pain shooting up my arms when the cuffs dig into my skin. I squeeze my eyes tighter and focus in on the image, and it actually gets clearer. I can see better. "It's Scratch," I whisper. "It's Scratch. It's Scratch. It's him. And he's drugging me. And I hear him say something."

I can see Scratch's distorted hand swirling around as she sprays me in the face, dousing me with her disgusting drugs. "What does he say?" Tara prompts.

It's time. It's time to go.

I see her holding out a pair of car keys to me, nails painted perfectly black, as she speaks in a sickly sweet voice. My eyes pop open. "Time to go," I repeat, "she says, time to go and then she just walks right out of there like she didn't have a care in the world, like she wanted me to chase her!"

It wasn't Scratch. It was a woman and I'll be here forever. If it was just some woman, there's no way to get me out of here. I'll die in this prison.

"It wasn't Scratch who framed me. It was a woman."

///

AMELIA

///

I'm not sure why I keep going back to the BAU. Nothing good ever seems to happen there, not since Spencer got arrested. The only happy memory I have is getting the smuggled letter from Spencer, but that isn't enough to cancel out the tears and the panic attacks and the pain that I've gone through on the sixth floor of this building.

So I'm not sure why I gravitate back here. It's probably because of Penelope. It's probably because I like to stare at the knick-knacks on her desk or stare at my own artwork on her walls and wonder if I could produce anything even close to that. Penelope herself is a reason to spend almost every day in a federal building filled with guns and pictures of dead bodies. She's one of the few reasons I'm afloat right now. After I throw an appreciation party for Jenna, I'll need to throw one for Penelope.

When I step out of the elevator, the first person I see is Emily. She's hurrying past the elevator, but when she sees me, she halts. And with the smile she gives me, I know something is wrong. For a moment, I debate not even getting out of the elevator so I don't have to face whatever new bad news I'm about to hear, but I know that I'll have to hear it eventually.

I step out, staring down at my tennis shoe-clad feet. "What now? Spencer's trial already got pushed back."

Emily clutches the case files in her hand and waves me along. "Come on, I'll update you."

The walk through the bullpen seems to take a million times longer than it usually does. But Emily finally leads me to the round table room and the first thing I notice is the face of a brunette on the screen. Penelope smiles when I enter, giving me the weakest wave I've ever seen from her.

"Who's that?" I ask, gesturing to the screen.

"That's Lindsay Vaughn." Emily explains, sitting down at the table, gesturing for me to do the same. It's the first time I've ever sat here and I almost feel unworthy. And I can tell I’m taking Spencer’s usual seat. That just feels wrong. I shift unconmfortably, wondering if it would be better for me to stand or move to a different seat. "A long time ago, Spencer had an interaction with Lindsay and her father on a case. Her father was a hitman so at the end of the case, the two of them were put into Witness Protection. Well, apparently, Lindsay left and she teamed up with Scratch."

"So this Lindsay girl is the one who drugged Spencer in Mexico and killed Nadie?" Emily nods. "So does that mean he's coming home?" It's too sweet of a thought. It's too easy. Of course he's not coming home. It's too easy.

"No," Emily shakes her head now, and my chest deflates. I should have expected that. "He identified her voice but there's no evidence. The team is out searching for that now."

"Her voice? How did he do that?" I glance frantically between the two women and watch as they look between each other.

"Okay," Emily leans close to me, and places her hand atop mine, "I have to tell you two really hard things right now. Just take a breath and I know it's hard to stay calm but you need to try," my teeth dig into my cheeks as I nod, but I don't promise. I don't make promises I know I'll break. I don't make promises unless they're to Spencer. "This girl, Lindsay, she killed Cassie and abducted Diana."

My eyes widen and I rip my hand away from Emily's grasp. "She took Diana?"

"She did," Emily reaches for my hand again, but I don't let her touch me. She sighs but continues talking. "She was stalking Reid for a while. She had pictures of him on a few cases, she even rented an apartment right next to his."

"Oh my god," I breathe out, leaning my elbows against the table and putting my head in my hands. "I can't believe it. He's in prison! What the fuck does Scratch and this bitch want with Diana?"

"We don't know," Penelope finally speaks up, "but we're doing everything we can to help Diana and to find her."

I stare down at the wood on the table and take a long breath through my nose, filling my lungs with stale air that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. "You said there were two things. What's the second thing?" I look up now, and I make the mistake of looking at Penelope first. Her eyes immediately fill with tears. It's about Spencer. Well, this is all about Spencer, but this news is Spencer.

Emily gulps and this time, she doesn't try to reach out for me again. "This morning, Reid stabbed himself in order to get thrown into solitary confinement."

I almost don't have a reaction to this at all. My eyebrows just raise in the tiniest bit because I don't believe it. Spencer stabbed himself? My Spencer? My Spencer who wouldn't even kill the spider in my bathtub. He had to catch it in his hands and release it onto the balcony. Someone who won't kill a spider wouldn't stab themself. Why did he stab himself? Why?

"You're not serious," that's the only feasible response I can think to come up with. "That's not--"

"It is, and it's a good thing, I promise." Emily tries to give me a smile but it only enrages me.

Penelope's eyes widen. "Emily, don't pro-"

"No!" I lose my cool, and as my voice raises, tears streaming down my cheeks. I jump out of my chair, knocking it over, but I don't even care. "Solitary confinement is not a good thing! Solitary confinement is where people go crazy and start seeing things! So don't tell me that Spencer stabbing himself is a fucking good thing because it's not! I'm tired of everyone promising me things that fall through! That's not what promises are for! Spencer could go crazy in solitary confinement and that's horrible!"

I turn on my heel and run for the door, pushing past JJ and Stephen, who don't even bother to try and stop me. Surely, they heard me yelling. But I hear heels behind me and I know Penelope has followed me and she's the only person I'd be willing to talk to right now.

She follows me all the way to her lair, and she even opens the door for me, allowing me to enter first. "She didn't know about the whole promising thing, Amelia, I'll tell the team," Penelope says quickly, pulling me into a tight hug when the door closes. "I'm so sorry. I wish I could help with more than just a hug, but this is all I can do."

"I wanna help him," I cry, squeezing her waist. "I don't want him there anymore and I wanna bring him home and hold him and--"

"And we're gonna get him out. We've been working with all the energy we have to get him out and find every scrap of evidence there is to exonerate him. I know you don't agree with Emily, but Reid is safe in solitary. He won't be around the other inmates. He won't be around the people who beat him up, and that's a good thing."

"That might be the only good thing about that. And poor Diana. She must be so scared, and so confused, and so lost. I don't know how she's functioning right now."

"We're gonna find her," Penelope pulls away, rubbing up and down my arms. "We're gonna find Diana, exonerate Spencer, and put Lindsay and Scratch in prison."

I smile through my tears, wiping my cheeks. "I think I'm gonna call Jenna and go home. I don't wanna interrupt you guys but the last thing I want is to be alone."

"That's a good idea. I'll keep you updated if anything happens." Penelope starts to lead me towards the door, holding it open for me.

"Don't." I shake my head, walking to the elevators. "I don't want updates. I just-- just do your jobs. That's all I need. I'll see you soon, Penny. I love you."

TAGLIST

@babybloodstonebones @bxnnywriting @blameitonthenight21​ @feralreid​ @anepiphany​ @reidscardigan​ @itsmyblogandillreblogifiwantto​ @stxrrywildflower​ @penemily​ @whollytaciturn​ @thegingerfairchild​ @yasminwashere​ @shrimpyblog​ @anamelessfacelessnerd​ @wonderlandhatter​ @whxt-to-write​ @inkandexchange​ @just-call-me-non​ 

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: Re:Zero S2, Episodes 7-8

In which I dive deep into Subaru’s greatest terror: the terror of being truly, utterly alone.

Slipping Through His Fingers

Subaru goes through a lot of shit. He’s been stabbed, eviscerated, crushed, fallen onto jagged rocks, frozen to death on multiple occasions, forced to beg a friend to kill him while an evil spirit rips control of his body away from him, and more. Whatever you think of him as a person or character, it’s undeniable that this boy has not had a very good time. But as much punishment as his body’s gone through, the psychological torment he’s experienced is even worse. Not only has he been brutally slaughtered over and over again, he’s been forced to see the people he cares about suffer and die just as painfully. Worse still, looping through the same events so many times has forced him to see all the ways his bonds with those people could be shattered. He’s seen how Rem might view him as an enemy and kill him to save his sister. He’s seen how Ram would kill him without question if it meant avenging Rem’s death. He’s seen how Crusch would be perfectly fine refusing his call for help and leaving him alone. He’s seen how easily he can drive Emilia away and how difficult it is to restore that fractured friendship. More recently, he’s seen how quickly Garfiel can turn on him when he smells the Witch’s scent on him. Almost every single person he loves in this world comes with a big, glaring asterisk attached, an asterisk warning him just how easily they could slip through his fingers under bad enough circumstances.

That is the true horror of Return by Death. Sure, it means Subaru himself can never truly die, but what if his checkpoint updates and sticks him in a timeline where, say, Petra, Ram and Frederica have all been slaughtered mercilessly? Or a timeline where he’s betrayed Emilia’s trust and can’t take back the harmful words he said to her? Or a timeline where Rem’s presence has been erased from existence and no one but him remembers her? Either by death, abandonment or outright hostility, Subaru is at constant risk of losing his connections with everyone he cares about. And he can’t share this fear with any of them, because if he tries to, Satella’s just gonna reach through the fabric of spacetime and kill them anyway. All he can do is hunker down and pray that it’s not too late for him to restart and fix everything that’s been broken, and as we’ve seen, there’s no guarantee that’s always gonna work. Subaru himself can die as many times as he needs to; even the latest OP drives home that he doesn’t care how much he needs to die if it means saving the people he cares about. But what happens when it’s too late to save them? What happens when he loses everything and can’t get it back?

What happens when not being able to die... means being forced to live alone?

Friends and Enemies

Sure, it’s not all doom and gloom. Even in these dark moments, the people who care about Subaru are still trying their hardest to be there for him. Just look at Otto, who honest-to-god made me cry at the end of episode seven by proclaiming Subaru his friend. Subaru was so stuck up in his own head that he didn’t realize how much Otto actually cared about him. Hell, with all the insults he hurled at the merchant, he probably didn’t think he deserved his friendship (How to become best boy in a single line: ”Well, maybe that’s just how close we are as friends!”) But Otto stuck with him through all of that, because much like Rem before him, he’d seen too much of Subaru at his best to give up on Subaru at his worst. And Subaru’s stunned reaction to realizing how badly he took Otto for granted (“Who’s this Eugune guy?) was like throwing open a window to let the fresh air in for the first time in ages. It’s so easy for him to lose sight of the people around him, to forget that the people he loves might just love him back. So when that reality smacks him in the face, he can’t help but break down laughing at his own stupidity. And man, I was right there with him when his chuckles faded into grateful tears. It’s just fucking beautiful. After everything he’s been through, he deserved to be reminded how much his friends care about him in turn.

But even those moments of light come scattered in an increasingly thickening darkness. Subaru realizing he has Otto’s friendship only comes after a particularly heartbreaking moment where he realizes how distant he and Beatrice truly are. The little fairy’s reading from a goddamn Gospel! She follows her life according to a prewritten document, just like the Witch Cultists! Of course, we eventually find out that what the cultists call a Gospel is merely an imperfect copy of the real thing that Beatrice reads, which opens its own curious can of worms, but the implication is the same: Beatrice doesn’t care about him. Or at least, she didn’t at first, and is still desperately trying to pretend that’s the case to avoid shattering some fundamental part of her being. Her only initial reason for tolerating him and saving his life was following a script that was laid out for her, and even now, she can’t bring herself to accept him as anything more. But the despair in her voice as she rejects Subaru reveals just how deeply her heart’s breaking for him. And it sure as hell broke my heart in turn, because Jesus Christ, she is so clearly Not Okay with any of this. Why does she still push him away? What kind of contract has she made that she’s stuck following? The more Roswaal reveals about her, the more awful her situation becomes. And the mere thought she might be an enemy is enough to leave be as distressed as Subaru; it’s almost too awful to consider. Yes, Roswaal assures us she’s on his side, but considering how untrustworthy he seems, I’m not sure how much weight I’m willing to give that statement. Hell, the more the evidence piles up- Garlief saying that Subaru has Roswaal’s eyes, Roswaal making a pithy comment about how Subaru escaping jail after three days “doesn’t quite feel like a miraculous return”- the more I’m starting to suspect that Roswaal knows more about Return by Death than he’s letting on.  If I were Subaru, I wouldn’t trust this clown as far as I could throw him.

Bitter Cold

Unfortunately, the list of people that Subaru can trust is growing thinner by the day. Rem’s in a coma, Garfiel’s out for his blood, Emilia’s too tied up in facing her past to be of any real help to him, and there’s no telling what madness is on Roswaal’s mind. His support system is growing thinner by the moment. But even worse than having so few people to rely on is being forced to watch the few allies he does have suffer for his sake. THeir deaths may all be reversible, but watching Otto get torn in half by Garfiel here hours after proclaiming his friendship for Subaru fucking hurts. And the villagers of Arlam, the people who probably put the most faith in Subaru, aren’t far behind. Over and over again, Subaru’s forced to watch the people he loves die for his sake. They let themselves be slaughtered because they believe in him, even though Subaru’s the only one of them who truly needs to die to make things right. Even poor Patrasche is willing to throw herself in the line of fire to keep Subaru alive. But all that means is that when the slaughter finally ends, Subaru is all one. No one left to share his burden, nowhere left to run, and no choice left but to die alone, torn to pieces by the vicious teeth of cannibalistic snow rabbit as his screams fall upon a deaf world. And Jesus Christ, y’all were not kidding about the murder bunnies; these things are fucking terrifying. It’s the most brutal death scene in the entire show, and that’s saying a lot.

And it’s too much. It’s too much for one person to take. It’s too much pressure for one person to be under, knowing everything that’s being sacrificed for their sake. It’s too much for one person to keep inside, unable to tell anyone what they’re going through. Especially after such a horrifying death as the one he just experienced. Once again, Subaru is at the end of his rope. Once again, he’s on the verge of breaking and giving up. Once again, it feels like there’s nothing left for him to do but retreat into his shell and surrender to isolation.

But it’s right when things seem their most hopeless that his voice finally reaches someone.

Because at long last... there’s someone who knows what he’s going through.

I Can Hear You

In retrospect, it’s not surprising that Echidna’s been privy to Subaru’s time-loop suffering. She’s Satella’s sister, after all; it only makes sense she’d be able to match the Witch of Envy’s powers. But in the moment, there’s no denying the shock of that revelation. All this time, Echidna has seen Subaru live, die, and live again. She’s seen him suffer, try, fail, get ripped apart, time after time after time. She even prods him about it with a direct reference to that time he got Emilia killed: ”If I don’t, will you cry over my corpse?” Here, at long last, is someone who knows what Subaru’s gone through. Someone who’s borne witness to his pain. Someone he can actually talk to about it without Satella’s claws stopping his heart. Which means after all that pain, all that suffering, all the distance that’s sprouted up between him and his friends, all the impossible barriers he can’t cross, everything he’s been holding in all this time... Subaru can finally let it all out.

And that’s exactly what he does.

God. Just... god. The first time Subaru manages to scream out “I can Return by Death!”, it hits like a truck. The second time, it hits like a cement mixer. And the more he screams it, repeating it and rephrasing it as many ways as he can think of, the words gushing from his lips like a backed-up dam finally bursting, almost reveling in the relief of finally being able to say it, for someone to hear him, for his pain to no longer fall on deaf ears, the full weight of all the suffering he’s endured finally spilling forth and reducing him to a blubbering mess... god, what do I even say to that? How long has Subaru needed this outlet? How long has he been desperate for someone he can share what he’s been going through with? Yes, it’s probably not good that his lifeline turned out to be one of the Witches herself, but at this point, he can’t afford to be picky; the mere fact that he can share this pain with anyone is enough to keep him from falling apart. And it’s fucking devastating. I’d barely recovered from Otto’s show of friendship in time for this moment to destroy me all over again. After everything, everything he’s been through, Subaru finally doesn’t have to keep it all inside. He doesn’t have to take this burden all on himself. He can let his emotions out to someone eager to hear them, someone who genuinely seems to care about him in her own twisted way. He can let it out. He can process it. He can heal.

Natsuki Subaru no longer has to feel alone.

And after everything he’d endured, I can’t think of anything more hopeful.

Odds and Ends

-”Is it wrong to find your calmness concerning?” Yeah, if this was his first time, Subaru would be freaking out. This has to be unnerving.

-”You want info on Ram? She’s into tall guys with clown makeup-” “Cut it out, you’re depressing me!” alskalkjsdasd

-”I don’t want to force Emilia to go through with it. That’s my purely selfish reason.” Well, at least he’s honest about it, but woof.

-”I appreciate it, but I have no idea what you just said.” I really like their dynamic.

-So Frederica’s only a quarter mixed, huh? That’s probably gonna be important...

-”I’d give anything to hear your voice right now.” Oh, ow.

-”Before you showed up, I thought I was better off dead.” Yeah, I saw how hard you were hitting your head. Jesus.

-”Of course, even as an old granny, I’d still be cute.” YOU KNOW IT GIRL

-”That makes her our... my enemy.” That feels like a very important distinction.

-”Even if you both only amount to half a man, you take up enough space for a full man.” skjdfhskjdfhdsk I love her

-Woah. Why did the stone teleport him into the snow?

-”Really? Thanks a lot!” ffs Subaru stop seducing the ghost hos already

-”And you’re just drinking down my bodily fluids like that-” “I FORGOT!” Good fucking bye

I love this show. I really do. See you next time.

[sunshine-in-a-bottle]

I'm watching Beast Wars again for no reason and so you all have to hear me talk about it.

If I was personally given Rights I would first use them to erase Cheetors weird crush on Blackarachnia because it literally adds nothing to the plot or the characters. Instead I'd take full advantage of my personal headcanon and make Cheetor desperately want a big sister because I am always a slut for Found Family. Like, that scene with Una ?"Aw, she wants to be you!" Like c'mon viewing him reaching out to Blackarachnia because he desperately wants some semblance of a relationship is a lot more wholesome when it isn't romantically coded. Cheetor is Lonely, so horribly lonely, and so young seeming in comparison to the rest of the cast. He hasn't lost that love for the stars or spiraled into cynicism just yet, and I would much rather explore the ways he tries to reach out to his bitter, jaded teammates. And maybe he's left wanting, maybe he gets tired of being lonely, and maybe he fucks up trying to be like them because "he tried to prove himself." And maybe that scene where Optimus, Silverbolt, and Rattrap reach out to him has a little more weight because it isn’t just Cheetor trying to be an adult, but a Cheetor that tried to be them and post Feral Cheetor has real fucking consequences and isn't just a cool upgrade.

I want that episode where Rattrap finds out they spat on Dinobot’s memory by making him into a "dishonorable" clone and goes ballistic. I want him to find the memories Dinobot stowed away and be conflicted. Is it Dinobot without the spark? Could he live with only a shade? Would Dinobot even want that? I want him to try and fail and be utterly distraught over the whole damn thing. I want him to be angry every time he sees Dinobot 2. I want Rhinox to try and fail to comfort him. I want Cheetor to sit with him, neither speaking but both knowing they're in this fucked up mess together now. CONSEQUENCES. WHERE ARE THEY. GIVE THEM TO ME.

I also just really want Blackarachnia to have closer bonds with the team??? Idk, I'm vibin well enough with her and Silverbolt but tbh I'd really just like her to have an episode where she's hanging out with someone else and Isn’t A Complete Rude Person. I think that's something I actually really vibed with in Beast Machines (although my memory there is still pretty fuzzy, I'll probably have to rewatch that to say for sure) Blackarachnia could actually work with the team in a friendly and occasionally sweet way. She was capable of a blunt and angry sort of kindness. Should that happen right away? Nah of course not, she needs to get comfy with her shiny new Dumbfuck Teammates. But there’s no real Solid Connections there other than Silverbolt, which is purely romantic. (Once again I emphasize Cheetor and Found Family)

Rhinox just needs more in general. If I had to guess the reason he was made a villain in beast machines was because he is only Meh as a Developed character after Blackarachnia shows up and takes over tech wise, not to mention rattrap is also pretty damn techy when he wants to be.(it was also probably to increase tension since his whole deal is being diplomatic but that's a separate thing) Sort of an issue when you make them scientists but don't have them specialize in anything and, more importantly, have a weakness in anything. If your character is simply the backup scientist when the other one is out of commission u gotta problem. Rhinox is stagnant personality wise, I can’t honestly say anything about him changes in the whole series. He has functionally gained nothing from this perilous journey, no real trauma, no bonds he didn't already have with the team, not even an upgrade in form. Isn’t rattrap supposed to be his best friend???? SHOW ME MORE THEN. Seriously if this show had let me have Rights I’m not saying I wouldn’t have loved if we had actually Really Dug In to a character arc or something about Rattrap and the concept of Honor vs Loyalty but that’s exactly what I’m saying lets talk about that. Season One Rattrap they played with this a little (After the whole early on “I would not send someone to do something I would not do myself” and “double agent rattrap” WHICH NO ONE WOULD EVER BELIEVE IF THAT HAPPENED ANY LATER THAN IT DID SINCE RATTRAP IS SO ANTIPRED) and the whole Dinobot thing really wedged it in (”But at least you know where he stands”) AND THEN FROM MY SHODDY MEMORIES OF BEAST MACHINES ITS PLAYED WITH EVEN MORE WHEN HE FUCKING GOES TO MEGATRON BECAUSE EVERYONE WAS BEING A LITTLE BITCH TO HIM 

Where was I going with this? uhhhhhhhhhhhhh oh yeah LISTEN Rattrap and his morals are Very Fascinating and I really wished there was more about that. Like, he gives no shits about Doing What’s Right or Being A Good Person, but he rewards friendship and loyalty and not getting him killed by miles. And despite his Hatefest Dinobot he was actually really... shocked? Offended??? about Dinobot handing over the disc because you’re an asshole but you’re also our asshole what fuckery is this did all our arguments mean nothing to you. And then attempting to join Megatron in BM because he might be Evil and it might be Bad Moral Conduct but fuck morals his teammates were being shitty friends. Is that petty of him? Maybe, but if the maximals had been evil but still genuinely kind and caring towards Rattrap I don’t believe he would ever leave for a second, not for all the Morals or Its The Right Thing To Do in the world. And that’s why darkfics that still use Found Family are the best! The End.

All the characters would actually be the size of their animals because goddamit I want a tiny Rattrap that has to be carried around by the others while he screeches indignantly. Or at the very least make him just a little smaller. Just a bit. And maybe they all have a big Sleep Pile. I like physical affection and cuddling and things no I don't care if they're robots no I don’t take criticism. Dinobot would have feathers fight me.

Optimus has died, been tortured, and painfully grew to like 3 times his size why doesn’t he have ptsd someone give him a hug.

Could we have waited for Airrazor and Tigatron to get kidnapped???? We should have gotten more for them. Let me see them more often. LISTEN THEY’RE VERY CUTE I LOVE THEM SHUT UP. 

WHICH LMAO BRINGS ME RIGHT BACK TO CHEETOR BECAUSE HE CONSIDERED AIRRAZOR AND TIGATRON HIS BROTHER AND SISTER AND HE THINKS THEYRE GONE FOREVER AND THEN ITS NEVER REALLY BROUGHT UP AGAIN LIKE CHEETOR AND FOUND FAMILY REALLY SHOULD BE EXPLORED HERE

Silverbolt is fun, but suffers from the same problem as Blackarachnia where all you really remember about them Relationship wise is the one they have with each other. Who does Silverbolt like best among the maximals, who does he like the least? And if I'm erasing that weird Cheetor crush thing then their interactions probably have a lot less tension so... what else do they have.

Depth Charge is an unrepentant asshole and I love him. He is so hostile but it doesn’t stop him from begrudgingly helping out on occasion. He also gave Optimus some backstory??? Like not as much as my greedy Character Loving hands would have wanted but GIVE ME.

Other Stuff:

Nothing will ever be as funny as Optimus being like “Evacuate the base you’re all gonna die” and Rhinox grabbing his fucking plant

Blackarachnia Craves Power 

Cheetor suffer from Bad Bondage multiple times throughout the series, but specifically during the web I remember Tarantulas leaning over him and thinking “wow this is kind of... date gone wrong vibes??? What the fuck”

Rattrap and Dinobot: *Spot each other from any distance* Miracle Hatemance has entered the chat

Why is Megatron wearing roller skates. Who did this. Why.

“Spider/Bird dog is hetero nonsense” - everyone who has to bear witness to them ever, including me the viewer

Tarantulas is completely done with any attempts to seduce him. Ever.

Airrazor tries so hard to be cool and hip oh my god she is a complete dork i love her

“FOR THE ROYALTYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY”

please be nice to Waspinator he’s trying his best

Rhinox: exists

Me: hello yes sir I love u wise mentor sir

Holy shit Dinobot’s death scene is a gut punch. Rattrap honestly is what makes this scene perfect. I have never seen him so respectful or emotional is a way that wasn’t meant for comedic relief.

That scene, man

Tigatron’s speech about bringing beast mode and robot mode together is like foreshadowing to beast machines. Or it isn’t. Idk. Would have been really nice if they, yknow,

bothered to bring up literally anything from the previous series to beast machines

 (yes its been awhile since I’ve seen Beast Machines, but I do remember that being my primary complaint.)

This series is so cheesy but Thundercats is still cheesier so its fine

Rattrap was canonically a miner at some point apparently.

He’s also super prejudiced and honestly that’s interesting. HONESTLY SOMETHING I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO SEE DISCUSSED IN BEAST MACHINES IS THE SUPER MEGA DIVIDE IN PREDS AND MAXIMALS BUT I GUESS WE WEREN’T GETTING THAT OH WELL

The ‘Everyone is blind’ episode was always one of my favorites and it never gets old

Upon rewatching the series I have concluded Cheetor is Babey. Which is weird because I didn’t think much of him from what I remember. Shift in perspective I suppose. They really made Rhinox farting the thing that saves the day, huh. What even was season one.

BITCH THAT IS A TERRIBLE WAY TO TRANSPORT MEGATRON NO WONDER HE FUCKING CONQUERED CYBERTRON Y’ALL DESERVED THIS HONESTLY

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh in conclusion:

Rattrap is my new religion apparently

[notforanyone]

Joyas voladoras

Consider the hummingbird for a long moment. A hummingbird’s heart beats ten times a second. A hummingbird’s heart is the size of a pencil eraser. A hummingbird’s heart is a lot of the hummingbird. Joyas voladoras, flying jewels, the first white explorers in the Americas called them, and the white men had never seen such creatures, for hummingbirds came into the world only in the Americas, nowhere else in the universe, more than three hundred species of them whirring and zooming and nectaring in hummer time zones nine times removed from ours, their hearts hammering faster than we could clearly hear if we pressed our elephantine ears to their infinitesimal chests.

Each one visits a thousand flowers a day. They can dive at sixty miles an hour. They can fly backwards. They can fly more than five hundred miles without pausing to rest. But when they rest they come close to death: on frigid nights, or when they are starving, they retreat into torpor, their metabolic rate slowing to a fifteenth of their normal sleep rate, their hearts sludging nearly to a halt, barely beating, and if they are not soon warmed, if they do not soon find that which is sweet, their hearts grow cold, and they cease to be. Consider for a moment those hummingbirds who did not open their eyes again today, this very day, in the Americas: bearded helmet-crests and booted racket-tails, violet-tailed sylphs and violet-capped woodnymphs, crimson topazes and purple-crowned fairies, red-tailed comets and amethyst woodstars, rainbow-bearded thornbills and glittering-bellied emeralds, velvet-purple coronets and golden-bellied star-frontlets, fiery-tailed awlbills and Andean hillstars, spatuletails and pufflegs, each the most amazing thing you have never seen, each thunderous wild heart the size of an infant’s fingernail, each mad heart silent, a brilliant music stilled.

Hummingbirds, like all flying birds but more so, have incredible enormous immense ferocious metabolisms. To drive those metabolisms they have race-car hearts that eat oxygen at an eye-popping rate. Their hearts are built of thinner, leaner fibers than ours. Their arteries are stiffer and more taut. They have more mitochondria in their heart muscles—anything to gulp more oxygen. Their hearts are stripped to the skin for the war against gravity and inertia, the mad search for food, the insane idea of flight. The price of their ambition is a life closer to death; they suffer more heart attacks and aneurysms and ruptures than any other living creature. It’s expensive to fly. You burn out. You fry the machine. You melt the engine. Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. You can spend them slowly, like a tortoise and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast, like a hummingbird, and live to be two years old.

The biggest heart in the world is inside the blue whale. It weighs more than seven tons. It’s as big as a room. It is a room, with four chambers. A child could walk around it, head high, bending only to step through the valves. The valves are as big as the swinging doors in a saloon. This house of a heart drives a creature a hundred feet long. When this creature is born it is twenty feet long and weighs four tons. It is waaaaay bigger than your car. It drinks a hundred gallons of milk from its mama every day and gains two hundred pounds a day, and when it is seven or eight years old it endures an unimaginable puberty and then it essentially disappears from human ken, for next to nothing is known of the the mating habits, travel patterns, diet, social life, language, social structure, diseases, spirituality, wars, stories, despairs and arts of the blue whale. There are perhaps ten thousand blue whales in the world, living in every ocean on earth, and of the largest animal who ever lived we know nearly nothing. But we know this: the animals with the largest hearts in the world generally travel in pairs, and their penetrating moaning cries, their piercing yearning tongue, can be heard underwater for miles and miles.

Mammals and birds have hearts with four chambers. Reptiles and turtles have hearts with three chambers. Fish have hearts with two chambers. Insects and mollusks have hearts with one chamber. Worms have hearts with one chamber, although they may have as many as eleven single-chambered hearts. Unicellular bacteria have no hearts at all; but even they have fluid eternally in motion, washing from one side of the cell to the other, swirling and whirling. No living being is without interior liquid motion. We all churn inside.

So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment. We are utterly open with no one in the end—not mother and father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. Perhaps we must. Perhaps we could not bear to be so naked, for fear of a constantly harrowed heart. When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall. You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman’s second glance, a child’s apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother’s papery ancient hand in the thicket of your hair, the memory of your father’s voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children.

- Brian Doyle, The American Scholar