#Wow the first thing I’ve actually posted and it’s doing numbers

[starcrossed-nebula]

I’ve been listening to The Magnus Archives for the first time recently.

I really enjoy this series.

(Side note: I am going fucking feral over this series)

[blupengu]

Y’all is Hollow Knight hard or do I just suck because oh my god??

[munsonsmixtapes]

Heelllooooooo!!!

It's been a while since I've requested.. life got busy, and I am glad to be bavk on here..

Catching up on my favorite writers stories!!!

I seen your post about wanting steddie requestsssss

So I had a steddiexreader request...

So I'm a bigger girl, and my bestie just showed me that I CAN wear fish nets.. (we did a spooky ghost photo shoot)

And I instantly thought of reader showing Steddie or surprising them with a COMPLETE wardrobe change, going from sweat pants/baggy shirts to short dresses, fish nets, heels, or rocker themed outfits, leather skirts, cropped(?) band tees (because I love seeing it on other bigger girls but I can't get myself to wear it)

Just a complete change in attitude and self love even though she is still slightly self conscious on how she looks.. and they both lose their mindssss

Smut welcomed because obviously

🫡

First off, I just wanna say fuck yes!! As a chubby girl myself, I also love seeing women who look like me wearing whatever the fuck they want! I love writing about women who look more like me and the characters I love loving on them because they deserve it! I’ve been so excited to write this request so thank you so much for sending it in!

cw: MDNI (18+) oral (f receiving) nipple play, body worship, body insecurity

You sit on the bed in your robe, hoping that it covers your outfit well. You’re planning on surprising your boyfriends when they come home from work. It was as if a switch had flipped and you had taken a few days while they were at work to completely change your wardrobe. And you hadn’t done it for them, it was purely for you as you had suddenly gotten a boost of confidence. Gone were the baggy clothes as they were replaced with cropped band tees, leather skirts, and tight dresses like the one you’re wearing that was accompanied by a pair of fishnet tights that Robin had convinced you to buy. 

And while you weren’t doing it for the boys, you were still intending on surprising them with the intention of getting them to show you just how hot they thought you were. Even if they did that all the time. They are both very aware of your insecurity and try their best to make it known just how much they love you for who you are.

You hear the front door unlock and put yourself in what you think is a sexy position, waiting for them to come into the room. The door opens and both Eddie and Steve stare at you as you lay on your side, your hand slowly trailing to where the robe was tied. 

“What is going on here?” Steve asks as steps closer, taking your hands in his hand, helping you to your feet. 

“Yeah, sweetheart, what are you hiding under that robe?” Eddie asks, moving to the other side of you. You open the robe quickly and both men gasp as they take in the skin tight black number you’ve got on. It’s lacy, so much so that they can see through every inch. The bra that you’re wearing and that little black thong that’s doing things to them. 

“Jesus,” is all Steve is able to say as a gasp leaves his lips. 

“Fuck,” Eddie adds. “Sweetheart, you look-” he cuts himself off and you’re quick to close the robe back as you throw yourself onto the bed, wanting it to swallow you up. You can’t believe you actually thought it would work. 

“I feel so fucking stupid,” you say into the pillow loud enough for both of the to hear and they’re quick to sit on either side of you, Eddie rubbing your back while Steve strokes your hair, moving it away from your face. 

“Honey, you’re not stupid,” he says softly and you turn your head to his side so he can see you. 

“So you don’t think I look ridiculous?” You ask, your voice small. 

“Not at all,” he shakes his head. “You look fucking hot. I mean, you always do, but this little thing? Wow.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “Fuck, doll,” he groans and you turn onto your back as Eddie leans over, his lips right by your ear. “The thing we’d do to you.” 

Your cheeks flush at his comment and you lie flat, deciding to take him up off his offer. You look up at both of them as they stare down at you, wondering how you’ve gotten so lucky as to have both of them as your boyfriends. They love you for who you are and you don’t know why you get so insecure around them sometimes. They have proved their love to you time and time again and you don’t know why it’s so hard to believe them when it’s clear that they’re telling the truth.

Steve is the first to lean in, pressing a kiss to your lips and you’re quick to respond, your hand moving to the back of his head. It slips into his hair and you’re pulling at it as his tongue slides into your mouth, causing you to moan. Eddie is on your left, his mouth pressing to your neck, giving it a rough suck that causes you to gasp and he just chuckles. And once you’re moaning, the two of them move lower to your chest, trying to remove your dress and you have to talk them through it because of how complicated it is. 

Steve and Eddie manage to get the dress off of you and Eddie tosses it to the side before the two of them bring their mouths to your tits, one for each of them. Their tongues are swirling around your nipples and you swear you’re going to have an orgasm right there. 

“So pretty, baby,” Steve murmurs against your skin. He’s always so complimentary and it never fails to make you feel better about yourself. His tone is gentle and you know he means what he’s saying every time. You can see it in his honey eyes.

“Prettiest fucking tits I’ve ever seen,” Eddie adds. His compliments are more forward, more dirty than Steve’s, but you love how different they are from each other. They’re your boys and they never back down from an opportunity to tell you or show you just how much they love you. 

They each take one of your hands as they work, licking and sucking roughly as kind words fall  from their lips every so often. They’ve gotten so good at giving you exactly what you need when you need it and it always surprises you how they always seem to be able to read your mind. 

They’ve done this exact thing more times than you can count, but you can’t help but notice how different this one is. How you’ve managed to let your thoughts float out of your brain and just focus on what’s happening. In the past, you would just think about how exposed you feel, but right now, all you can think about is how good it all feels.

You’re about to respond when Steve sucks on your nipple he’s got in his mouth and Eddie brings the other one between his teeth, biting down gently. Steve eventually catches on and does the same thing, biting down on your nipple and you’re holding onto the sheets underneath for dear life as a loud moan falls from your lips, an orgasm already rolling through you. 

Your back arches as you reach completion and suddenly, you feel the insecurity lessen, especially when they’re coaching you through the orgasm, using every nickname they have for you with the most gentle tones. 

“That’s it, hon,” Steve encourages as the two of them pull away just in time to watch you. 

“Just like that, sweetheart,” Eddie nods. They think you’re satisfied with what they’ve just done, but you’re still begging for more, needing something else. And they’re more than happy to oblige. Anything to keep their girl happy. 

They’re kissing down your body, murmured compliments falling from their lips and you feel nothing but love radiating from the two of them. This is honestly the best you’ve ever felt, especially during sex with your boyfriends. You feel like a new woman, no longer shy about responding positively to their touches. 

“I love these,” Eddie says as he lets his fingers run along your hip bone where you’ve got a cluster of stretch marks. 

“You do?” You ask in shock. That seemed to be the one thing that always turned people off so you had gotten into the habit of covering them up. 

“Mhm,” he nods. “So pretty,” he compliments before bringing his lips to the skin, pressing soft kisses to it. And Steve follows, doing the same thing on your other hip, his lips ghosting over your skin, being so gentle with you. 

Steve and Eddie then get on the floor in front of you, each pulling on a leg to pull you closer to them and before you can ask what they’re doing, they’re grabbing hold of your legs and lowering their heads down to your inner thighs, pulling at the fishnets with their teeth and all you can hear is a loud ripping sound as holes are being torn in your tights. 

And you don’t even mind. In fact, you think it’s really hot, how they’re both so desperate to get to your cunt. After a few minutes, they manage to rip from your thighs to your crotch and together, they pull your thong down before each of them rest a hand on your knees as they spread your legs to see what they’re working with. 

“Is all of this for us?” Eddie asks as he stares down at your sopping wet cunt. “Shit, sweetheart, you shouldn’t have. Good thing we brought our appetite, huh, Stevie?” He nudges his boyfriend and they then each drape one of your legs over one of their shoulders. 

And in the blink of an eye, they dive straight into your cunt, Eddie going for your cunt while Steve goes for your slit, they’re both working their magic with their mouths and you’re embarrassed at how you feel like you’re already going to orgasm again. 

“You taste even better than the other night,” Eddie says. “God, could eat you for hours, doll.”

“I agree. You taste absolutely divine,” Steve agrees and then they’re at it again, licking and sucking on your cunt roughly and you’re grasping onto the sheets so hard that you’re practically white-knuckling it. What they’re doing feels so good that you feel your eyes rolling back into your head, your hands moving to their hair, giving it a rough tug in response to the pleasure that’s rolling through you. And just when you think they’re close, Steve’s tongue enters you and your thighs push their heads together as his tongue hits just the right spot, causing you to reach your climax yet again. And since he doesn’t want to take all the fun, Eddie takes over soon after, taking turns making you orgasm until you’re going absolutely stupid, almost seeming drunk. 

And then together, they clean you up, making sure to tell you just how good you did while they got you dressed. And once you’re in one of Eddie’s t-shirt, they climb into the bed with you on either side as the three of you cuddle, the two of them stroking your hair and rubbing your back until you’ve fallen asleep in their arms, waking up in the morning fully ready for round two.

[thedvilsinthedetails]

Rosekiller band au microfic!!!

hey guys, I wrote the first microfic in the lil series I’m doing, you can find the original idea for it here

ik I’d said I’d wait but I’m impatient hahaha

(some of the ppl that asked to be tagged if i ever wrote it: @always-reading @blu3stars @chaoticgaywitch @1284646imjusthere @depressedtheatrekiddo @idk-what-to-put-here-123)

anyway just wrote this pretty quickly so it might have some mistakes n stuff sorry abt that I don’t do grammar or punctuation anyway here you go, enjoy:

(EDIT: link to part 2)

••• Pink lipstick stains, cigarette butts

I lie in bed, I hate my guts

A day in the dark 

A muddled afternoon, yeah

Barty pressed his cheek close to Evan as they sang into the same microphone. He could feel the buzz of the music through the vibration of the stage below him. 

Oh baby darling how I long 

To become your suicide blonde

He ran a hand through Evan’s platinum curls as he sung the line. Evan leaned into it, eyes meeting Barty’s, grinning as he sung. 

To lie beside my Romeo

Oh what a wicked way to go

Evan’s fingers moved deftly on the guitar, he lifted a hand, twirled the pick in his hand before resuming immediately, he didn’t take his eyes off Barty the entire song. 

•••

“Ah fucking hell look at the comments Bee.”

Evan was sat at the base of the sofa, scrolling through the comments on a video of their performance last night. He held the phone up to Barty on the sofa, who squinted before taking it and reading it out to the room.

“Skittlefiend57 says ‘omg Blarty and Evan! I’m so gone 4 them u guys’”

“Blarty?”

Regulus raised an eyebrow.

“We’ve been getting my name wrong all these years guys. Wow that’s a crazy thing to discover at 23.”

“Bad spelling aside, there’s way more. And it’s not all good stuff.”

Evan said and Barty looked back down at the comments. 

“Barty and Evan are queerbaiting, they act so gay but they’re not dating. It’s all clearly faked to get attention. Fucking pathetic. Why thank you peenisonapizza. Glad to see you know us personally and can therefore speak on our behalf.”

“Don’t know why they’re obsessed with accusing a band with two trans guys of queer baiting.”

Evan pinched his furrowed brow and shook his head in disbelief.

“They don’t even care about the fucking music, just us and whether we’re dating or not.”

Barty laid down on the sofa, dropping one arm around Evan and resting his chin on Evan’s shoulder.

“Hey cheer up Rosie. They care about the music. There’s a few assholes but that’s a given. If they weren’t talking about us acting gay they’d be talking about whether my tattoos are real or fake.”

“Or some conspiracy theory that Reggie’s not actually lactose intolerant.” 

Pandora chipped in.

“I’m not lactose intolerant!”

Regulus replied indignantly.

“Is that you talking or your obsession with chocolate?”

Dorcas rolled her eyes as she spoke. Regulus avoided her gaze as he mumbled out a half hearted response.

“Remus got me hooked on Tony’s chocolonely.”

While the rest of the group squabbled Evan leaned his head back against Barty’s shoulder, he pulled out his phone.

***

Evan.Rosier✔️

Hey everyone, I’ve noticed there’s a lot of speculation about me and @Barty.Grouch.JR and I wanted to say that it’s none of your business, you can think what you like but please don’t ask us or spam comment sections with theories. As always thank u so much for listening to our music, the skittles luv u x

***

Evan breathed in and passed the phone to Barty.

“You think this is good?”

Barty read it over and nodded.

“You’ve been really nice about it too.”

Evan huffed out a laugh.

“I was normal about, not my fault you would have said something like-“

“Roses are red, violets are blue, you are a cunt and I hate you @peenisonapizza.”

Barty took a small bow, flourishing his hand dramatically. Evan turned around and flicked him in the leg, which only succeeded in making him laugh. 

 “Ok I’ve posted it.”

Evan clicked post and watched as the ‘likes’ number quickly began to climb.

“Now I’m just not gonna read the comments on that post.”

Evan huffed out a laugh and Barty patted his shoulder.

“Good on you Rosie. Now who wants to watch a movie?”

Evan clambered onto the sofa next to Barty who leaned against him immediately, head resting on his shoulder.

“Rosie.”

Barty whispered.

“Yeah Bee?”

“Give me your phone. Look we both know it will bother you all evening not reading those comments if you have your phone on you. Just- out of sight out of mind, I’ll give it back to you once the movie is over but you deserve to have an evening off.”

Barty’s eyes were wide, expression genuine as he spoke. Evan hesitated then reached in his pocket for his phone.

“Don’t spam it with photos alright?”

A smirk spread on Barty’s face quickly, eyes sparkling.

“I make no promises Ev.”

Evan rolled his eyes but handed the phone over. 

The movie was something Pandora had picked, something from the late 80s, a strange mix of fantasy, reality and meta theatre that Evan actually didn’t hate.

Still he drifted to sleep at some point watching it, the stress of the day had clearly gotten to him and something about the way the top of Barty’s head made for a great pillow probably didn’t help.

Either way he woke up to the feeling of Barty shaking him.

“Come on sleeping beauty, let’s get you to a real bed. Here’s your phone back.”

Evan rubbed his eyes and got up, stumbling to his room as thanked Barty in a half asleep murmur.

He got to his room and turned on his phone, wincing at the glaring brightness, turning it down quickly. He opened his photos app, just as he’d suspected his camera roll was filled with new photos.

He began to scroll through them. There was one of his friends, all waving at the camera. A zoomed in shot of Inigo Montoya‘s face on the TV screen from a funny angle. Himself, looking dumb, sleeping with his mouth slightly open. He scrolled to the next picture and stopped. Barty with that cheeky grin of his, curled up against Evan, flipping off the camera. Eyes twinkling in that way that always made Evan feel a little warmer, a little brighter. He fell asleep again dreaming of a body pressed against his in a hug, the hum of a movie no longer playing, soft hair tickling his face and mischief painted in big brown eyes. 

For info about the position they’re sat in (it’s clear in my mind but I’m not sure how clear it is in the description), the song that they are playing and the movie they watch, look below the read more:

Position they are in before Evan gets on the sofa, red is Evan, green is Barty - yes Barty is uncomfortable, yes he would sit like that anyway bc Barty will do fucking contortion to be able to hug Evan argue with a wall

Don’t question the drawing skills, I can’t draw and did it in a moving vehicle

the song is EVOL by MARINA

the movie is the princess bride suggested by the lovely @lulublack90 who u shld defo check out bc she’s rlly amazing at writing

(Oh also Evan and Reggie are both trans in this)

[that-rad-jewish-girl]

What do you make of the whole “videos being live streamed of children burning alive from Israel’s attack on the Shuhadaa al-Aqsa hospital?” Friends are sharing pictures of kids and adults burning alive and honestly… it’s too much. I know a hospital is a war zone when Hamas hides in and under it, but like.. I don’t know. Idek if any of this is propaganda or fake or something either. It’s just so horrific beyond words. What are your thoughts on it? Thank you. I hope you had a blessed Yom Kippur.

Thank you for this ask. I hope you had a blessed Yom Kippur as well.

First, I want to address the “horrific beyond words” statement. I completely understand where you’re coming from. This war is disgusting. All wars are disgusting, but this one hits closer to home. I’m tired of waking up to headlines of people dead on either side.

We are humans, not robots. “It’s too much” is a completely valid feeling in this situation. We are also not the people in charge of ensuring the safety of an entire country. So what would we do in their situation right now? - I’ve no idea. If you look at historical wars, Israel is doing an amazing job by comparison. But again, we’re not robots. We can step back, look at the numbers, and say “wow, this is actually impressive in a way - urban warfare has always been significantly deadlier”. But, as humans, we see the deaths of Palestinians - especially their children - and feel sick.

Second: this particular incident you mentioned. This news is still very recent, so not all the facts have been released. As of right now, here’s what we know: the hospital itself was not bombed. The courtyard in front of the hospital was bombed. It appears a single missile struck the courtyard, and a fire spread afterward. Multiple munitions experts have weighed in saying the videos appear to indicate the presence of ammunition and other munition explosives, which is why the fire occurred. A precise missile strike, followed by multiple small explosions from bullets, rockets, etc.

According to the Israeli military, this strike was targeting a Hamas encampment. The munitions experts’ testimonies backs up this statement from the IDF.

There are no videos of children burning alive. There was one video of what appeared to be a man burning alive. Whether that was a militant or civilian, we’ll likely never know.

Considering I’ve seen a number of stages set up in the middle of “refugee camps”, this incident doesn’t surprise me. I saw a pro-Palestine tumblr account post a video from Jenin refugee camp of a military ceremony to “honor the martyrs” on a big stage. The people who, I assume, live in the surrounding tents were cheering for this ceremony. When Israel (inevitably) struck the camp, the same account posted about how awful Israel is.

To be clear, they know Hamas and the PLO are using refugee camps as military staging areas. But they think that’s a good thing…until the Israeli strike comes in. Then it’s all Israel’s fault and Jews everywhere should die.

Finally: for anyone to claim “Israel burned people alive” would be seriously disingenuous and/or very uninformed. I would ignore those people, because they’re clearly suffering from Bisan brain rot and are looking for any reason to hate Israel.

This source pretty clearly shows the videos of smaller explosions happening following the strike:

https://abualiexpress.com/en/en36937/

[godsiero]

promises

spencer reid x oc (that you can pretend is bau!fem!reader)

warnings: general cm details, not canon compliant at all (but is written with post-season 14 reid in mind, like, all of his trauma has happened (and also everybody who has worked at the bau, has worked at the bau, and hotch and morgan are back ur welcome)), not a warning but slowest slow burn ever

wc 5073

this is my spencer reid fanfiction debut, please be nice. it is also a self-insert because this is what i daydream about when real life sucks however comma i hate y/n and/or saying my own name when it says y/n so i come up with a fake name, in this case that is "claudia jessup," and you can replace her name with yours for your reading pleasure idc.

chapter 1 of ??? i actually really enjoyed just spewing my stream of consciousness, so sorry if the ramblings seem unnecessary, but they're there for DETAIL!! i have sooooo many ideas for this, so i sure hope i stick with it.

plz provide feedback i love attention (any title rec would be appreciated)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Is Hotch talking to the new agent?” JJ had just got in and asked Emily, who was staring intently into Hotch’s closed blinds.

She turned to face JJ, “Has to be. They’ve been in there since before I arrived.”

“Any idea who they could be?” Derek entered the conversation after wrapping up his phone call.

“No clue, but if they’ve been in there for over an hour and a half, there’s no telling how vital they could be. Hotch rarely spends that much time with one candidate if they don’t mean something.”

“Could also mean they didn’t get the position and have been begging him to reconsider,” Derek chuckled, knowing that’s absolutely a possibility, after all of the candidates they’ve seen since Kate left. 

“Funny, but they’d probably be shouting, by now,” JJ countered.

“No shouting detected. In fact, I’ve heard some laughter,” Rossi emerged from his office, wanting to know what everybody was gossiping about, drama queen that he is.

“Really? Wow, if they can manage a lighthearted conversation with Hotch, they’ve gotta be a keeper,” said JJ.

“Keeper they must be, look,” Rossi lifted his chin in the direction of Hotch’s office, where he was opening the door for the new agent to come out.

They all turned to watch as Hotch shook her hand, thanking her for her time, and welcoming her to the team before noticing the audience that had accumulated.

Garcia had caught the very end of this congregation and was the first to congratulate her from afar, “Oh! Is she the new team member, please tell me this is the new team member, I am dying to end this manhunt for a new best friend to go to O’Keefe’s with, and if she’s into Doctor Who and aliens and unicorns, I call dibs on bestest friend number one.” 

Hotch had come down the stairs to formally introduce the team to their newest addition, “Everyone, I would like you to meet Dr. Claudia Jessup, who just finished her time at the academy and was instantly recommended by the director to join the BAU. Welcome to the team.”

Emily beamed at her, shaking her hand, “Let me be the first to say congratulations on such a high honor and praise, I’m Emily Prentiss.

JJ was next, “We’re happy to have you here, I’m JJ.”

Penelope was too eager to wait any longer, “Welcome to the BAU, we will be your friends, your family, and your confidants. I would also like to note that the estrogen finally adds up to the testosterone on this team, which is filling me with an enormous amount of serotonin and dopamine that I don’t think will ever be replicated.” She hugged Claudia, who smiled and accepted it. She knew the BAU was a prestigious, close-knit team and already felt the love radiating through the air while meeting everybody.

After being released, Rossi picked up where Penelope left off, “She’s Penelope, by the way, and she doesn’t know a thing about manners, but I do. David Rossi, pasta and wine afficionado, at your service.”

Finally, Derek took his turn to shake her hand, “Doctor, huh? Looks like pretty boy has got some competition, when he gets back. Nice to meet you, name’s Derek, but you can call me whenever you like.”

He shot a wink with his last statement, which forced Emily to chime in, “He does that to everyone, ignore him,” she rolled her eyes and playfully hit his arm while Claudia let out a breathy chuckle.

After she realized everyone was done with their introductions, she took that moment to look at all of them and thank them for welcoming her so ardently. She had an air of professionalism about her that was balanced out with a girlish charm that everybody was instantly drawn to. The entire group was enamored with how young, spritely, and energetic she seemed. Penelope especially liked her style; how it was colorful, yet suitable to be out in the field, but there was something else about her that wasn’t so obviously worn on her sleeve that Penelope couldn’t quite place at the moment. 

Hotch had walked away during the meet and greet and came back to interrupt the niceties with the news of a new case, which forced everybody to make their way into the roundtable room.

Since Hotch got the call straight from the director, everybody instantly knew it was high-priority and trumped any and all other cases that could’ve potentially taken their time. Burnt bodies were turning up in random places all over Las Vegas. All of victims had been drowned prior to being burnt. There had been three bodies in the span of three weeks, but what had made it such a dire case in the directors eyes, was that it seemed there were messages being left for a new member of BAU with each new body that was discovered. The M.E. had found pieces of paper in the slit throats of each body, which had been put there after they had been burnt. Seemingly, the unsub had dumped the bodies and then did this last step. The first had said “E.P.” which had been nondescript enough to not garner any worry (besides the fact that a person was dead), but the next had said “J.J.” Yet again, not enough cause to explicitly state this was a targeted message, but it turned some heads. It was when the third body had said “A.H.” the director decided to bite the bullet and come straight to the BAU with the case. 

With only that information to go on, they’d all made their way to the jet.

“Should we tell Spence, he could be in trouble,” JJ seemed worked up about that in a way nobody else particularly was.

“No. He has enough to worry about right now with his mother. If the case escalates, we’ll inform him, but everybody should avoid communicating with Reid about this, for now,” Hotch was dead set in this deduction, which nobody argued with, but JJ still seemed anxious about it.

Hotch seemed to sense it, too, because he followed up with, “I’m serious, JJ. If anybody informs Reid about this before I give the okay, I will not be happy about it.”

With that, JJ shook off her anxiety and focused back in on the case, though Claudia could still see something behind her eyes.

The journey on the jet was full of silence. There was no possible way to trace prints or any DNA linked to the unsub, so Garcia had no way of coming up with any new information for the team. 

However, it was clear to everyone that this seemed religiously charged.

Genesis 6:17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens.

2 Peter 3:10 The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid here.

Enforcing Occam’s razor, the team concluded that there seemed to be no other explanation, especially when it came to something so particular as this unsub’s MO. Until they landed, nothing else was to be discussed.

Claudia had had her headphones in for a while. She’d looked through the file an immeasurable amount of times, trying to memorize it all as best as she could before the jet landed. She was brought out of her trance when she was tapped on the shoulder by Derek.

She looked up at him and saw his mouth move, but didn’t hear what he had said. She took out one headphone while responding with a smile and, “Hey.”

“What are you listening to?”

“Just a podcast,” she lied.

“Are those noise canceling? Because last time I checked, podcasts aren’t loud enough to drown out people talking to me.”

Claudia had picked up on Morgan’s sarcastic way of speaking to people before he even opened his mouth for the first time. She found it reassuring that not everything had to be so serious, even though it was. Two can play at this game.

“They’re not. Sometimes I just don’t feel like talking.”

“Oh! She’s feisty, I like that. Hate to break it to you, but you’re gonna have to talk to some people when you don’t want to.”

She realized he’d taken her statement the wrong way and felt the need to overexplain herself. She couldn’t determine if that was a good or bad idea in the short amount of time she needed to respond to him in, so she settled with a respectfully and equally sarcastic comeback.

“I only have to talk to people when I find it absolutely necessary. Requirement or not,” she quirked her mouth in to a sly, half-smile when Morgan opened his mouth and raised his eyebrows in shock at how quickly she slipped into the energy and nature of this conversation. 

“You’re gonna fit right in,” he chuckled and put his own headphones back on his head and went to scroll on his phone.

Claudia went back to rereading the file and placed the headphone she’d taken out back into her ear. She’d never turned the music off.

______________________________________________________________

The case was nearly impossible to solve without reacting to the unsub in real time. Everyone was upset by the very real truth that they wouldn’t be able to act until another body had been found. This unsub truly left no stone unturned when covering their tracks. No paper trail, no electronic footprint, no evidence of where they were coming from or where they were going. Worst of all nobody could think of why they were targeting the BAU, besides the obvious, of course. 

The one clue that the team had been given was the fact that the victim’s dental records helped uncover their identities, which gave you one single answer to the unsubs victimology.

Each victim that had been found with an agent's initials in their throat may as well have been that agent’s dopplegänger.

While this obviously helped you figure out who to protect, it did not make it any easier, seeing as the unsub wasn’t going in any obvious order. 

It was Friday. The bodies had consistently turned up Saturday morning at six in the morning, but the location changed every time. There was no way of knowing where they would go next. The entire team was at a loss.

For her first case, Claudia felt a little discouraged, but she could sense that everybody else felt the same. This wasn’t normal for them, being so dumbfounded and sitting so idly. 

Nobody slept that night, just waiting for the call that a body had been found somewhere in the middle of nowhere, in an alleyway, in a dumpster, quite literally anywhere. 

Then, it came. Everybody hopped in the SUV’s and went straight to the scene. Everything was exactly the same here as it was with the last three. They wouldn’t know whose initials were in the throat until the M.E. report came back, which wouldn’t be for hours.

Since they were all here for this body to be examined, and knowing Claudia’s background, Hotch instructed her to come with him to oversee the body pre and post examination. Having an agent with a BS in forensic science and extensive (albeit, sometimes, unapproved) time in the field with the CSI in Philadelphia, was new, useful, and vital and he would like her to be at most if not all of these in the future. 

Taking the lead, she asked, “What were the initials found in this body?”

The M.E. pulled out the evidence bag and handed it over. What Claudia saw made no sense to her.

“E.G.? None of our agent’s initials are E.G., does this mean anything to you?” she handed the  bag to Hotch and saw how the realization hit him like a truck.

“Greenaway,” he handed the bag back to the examiner, “Elle Greenaway. She was an agent back in 2005. If this unsub is sending a message including past agents, our job just got a lot harder.” 

After that discovery, it felt like everything picked up for a few days. There was a media junket, led by Hotch, informing people if they looked like anybody on the screen to be hyper-vigilant, including images of past agents that had since left the team. It felt surreal to warn people that looked like the team to be aware of their surroundings because it was such a subjective judgment to make, but it was the best bet they had of keeping people safe.

Taking it to the news, inevitably, meant Reid found out about it and blew up everybody’s phone. Nobody had answered him, too afraid to unless Hotch did it first. 

When he finally gave in and called Hotch, he answered instantly and stepped away from the group.

“Before you say anything, you were on requested leave, in which I am not permitted nor required to inform you of a case,” Hotch began.

“You are absolutely permitted to inform me of a case, if you see fit, which you should’ve, considering this is taking place in the same town where my mother lives and I am visiting,” Reid countered. He was fuming, Hotch could practically feel his phone lighting on fire.

“Reid, it was my call for nobody to contact you, unless the case picked up, which it hasn’t-” he was cut off by Reid.

“What do you mean it hasn’t? If it hasn’t advanced, why are you still here, and why are you holding press conferences about it? Is my mother at risk? Am I at risk?” 

“Reid, if your mother was at risk, you would’ve been notified immediately, you know that.”

“Do I? Since you’re not permitted or required to tell me while on requested leave, how do I know when and what you will tell me, if at all?”

“You’re being irrational and you need to calm down.”

“I’ll calm down by the time I get there.”

“Reid, no,” but before he could finish what he was going to say, Reid had hung up the phone. Hotch walked back into the room where the team had been set up for the past week.

“Reid is on his way.”

“Is he okay?” JJ asked.

“He’s upset. Not with any of you. If he shows any hostility, don’t take it personally, it’s all meant for me. I’ll deal with him later.”

Claudia had done copious amounts of research on the team before she officially considered joining the BAU. She’d known for a long time she wanted to pursue something like this, but was never certain how big she wanted to go. Once she got her PhD in forensic psychology, she had made up her mind that the FBI was where she needed to be and set to work on figuring out what department to shoot for. After stumbling upon the BAU and reading all she possibly could about the current team, she knew this was the answer to her lifelong question of where she was going to end up. She read any article she could find about any cases they had solved. She read up on Prentiss’ time at INTERPOL, Garcia’s history as a hacker, Morgan’s time in the military with the bomb diffusion unit, all of Rossi’s books, all of Hotch’s closed cases he’d won in court, JJ’s government reviews from the Pentagon, and all of Reid’s clinical essays ranging from god-knows-what to god-knows-what. She’d taken a particular interest in Dr. Spencer Reid. She didn’t know what she had seen in all of his essays, all of his reports that were accessible (via a database Claudia would never admit to having access to, thanks Roy), all of the TedTalks and seminars he’d given that she’d watched, but there was something about him that begged her to pick his brain as soon as she possibly could, doctor to doctor. 

With that, she worked her ass off to be the top performer in her time at the academy and, luckily, her academic credentials preceded her when she met with the director by special request. She needed to be a part of this team. She needed to know all of them on a personal level. Knowing they were profilers, she knew they would see right through her with a glance, so leading up to her time at the academy, she learned to mask her sincerity in a way she’d never been able to. She was used to disguising her real personality for the sake of the people she was around, but she wasn’t used to straight up hiding her genuine emotions from her peers, let alone profilers. She assumed she was doing a good job, considering nobody had given her sideways glances or confused looks, and she was especially proud of the lie she got past Morgan. She wasn’t particularly proud that she was lying to them about how much she knew or what she was really like, but she knew she would let them know, one day. First, she needed them to like her, then she would let them in, once she could trust they wouldn’t judge her. 

She was more than disappointed to see that Spencer was not in the bullpen when Hotch introduced her to everyone, but she knew she’d meet him eventually. Unfortunately, the circumstances in which they were meeting under were not what she had been expecting, she was excited to meet him regardless. 

She was, truthfully, disgusted with what little restraint she felt inside of her when she first saw him storming through the door. She was riddled with excitement that she hoped nobody caught onto. She calmed herself down because she knew he wouldn’t even glance in her direction, much less introduce himself, right now. She just pretended like she had always been on the team, like they’d met a million times before, like she was just seeing her friend who’s been gone for a few weeks. 

Before Spencer even made it into the meeting room, Hotch stopped him in his tracks. 

“You need to take a breath before you go in there and take your anger at me out on somebody else.”

“Hotch, I am calm. You know that isn’t how I behave,” he pushed past Hotch and into the room where only you and Morgan were, “Brief me.”

Morgan hesitated because of Spencer’s hostile behavior, but Claudia jumped right into briefing him on the entire case thus far with that same confidence and ease she showed back in the bullpen, leaving Morgan with his eyebrows raised at how naturally and casually she fit right into the missing piece of the BAU’s puzzle. Hotch just crossed his arms because he knew this is exactly what was going to happen once everybody got to see her in action the same way he had in the academy and in his office that morning. 

Once she had finished getting Spencer up to speed, he nodded his head and said, “Okay. We need to head back to the coroner’s office, I think I know of something we might’ve missed.”

Instead of taking this as an insult, Claudia took it as an ignorance of her education, since he didn’t know who she was. In reality, he did know about her background, but he also knew if anybody had sent the handwriting to be analyzed, she would’ve said that in her brief.

Not missing a beat, she started heading out of the building and to the SUV, following closely behind Spencer, who was handing his theory over to her, and she was still pretending like they had done this for years. Silently thinking to herself she should’ve been an actor. 

As they got into the SUV, with Claudia behind the wheel, Spencer began to ramble, “I think we could find something based on the handwriting. We’ll need to take the evidence and make an analysis. It seems this person is comfortable here in Vegas, so they either have to be a local or somebody who moved here a long time ago. Judging by how random the places they’ve been dumping the bodies are and how much foot traffic those locations get both during the day and at night, this person has to have a keen awareness of when, if ever, these locations are barren and lacking people. Point is, this person could’ve attended school or certainly worked in the city, which would mean there could be handwriting samples anywhere in the city, if we know where to look, which we do, thanks to Garcia.” During his last sentence, he had taken out his phone and called Garcia.

“Garcia, I’m heading back to the coroner’s office with Claudia. I think we may be able to run a handwriting analysis that I’ll need you to run through the entire city of Las Vegas as far back as you possibly can.”

Hearing him say her name and know who she was was a shock she certainly wasn’t expecting. Had somebody told him about her already? That wasn’t farfetched at all. Did he know anything else about her? If he did, he didn’t show it, hell, she didn’t even know he had known who she was. Maybe she wasn’t as good at this as she thought. Granted the game he was possibly playing with her was the same game she was definitely playing with everybody else. She pretended it was completely normal that he knew her name without introducing herself.

“I know it’s a high ask, but you can do it. I’ll send it over the second I get it,” he hung up the phone and continued to ramble, “If that ends up being a dead end, we may just have to follow a paper trail, which won’t be impossible, but I’d have to do it alone while everybody else waits around for me, but I guess that’s all that’s been happening anyway, considering this unsub is not making our jobs any easier, but I suppose that’s part of whatever this insane plan is that they’ve got going on. Has anybody thought about going to the churches? That would also be a dead end, but it’s something we could try. We can’t even come up with a profile to give to these people so it would seem unfair and useless to tell every person in the city to watch their back.”

She sat there in silence, not wanting to interrupt in case he started again. When she said nothing, he looked over at her, confused.

“You didn’t interrupt me. Or tell me to stop.”

Trying to control herself, without looking over at him, she said “Why would I do that?”

“That’s the general reaction people have when I don’t stop talking,” he seemed shy and bashful, now that he was explaining this to her.

“Well, I don’t particularly enjoy when people interrupt me, so I’m not too keen on doing it to others.”

He continued to look at her. Trying to figure out where she was coming from. He noticed she hadn’t reacted when he knew her name, despite having not formally introduced each other, which he found intriguing, to say the least. Truthfully, Morgan had texted him the second after she was introduced to the team, teasing Spencer, saying he had some young, brainiac competition now. Spencer ignored that and had Garcia send over her file. He may or may not have done some of his own research as well. He’d found her dissertation, her four theses, and her handwritten files she made for cases she’d participated on during her time as a CSI agent (thank you, Garcia), and he was certainly very close to admitting that Morgan might have been correct. He had read everything he could possibly find about her right after Morgan told him who she was. He had only meant to read her dissertation, but then he knew she must’ve had a thesis, and upon looking for one, he had stumbled upon four. Each one was even better than the last, but none so eloquent and intuitive as her dissertation. “The effectiveness of integrating forensic psychology to enhance criminal therapy rehabilitation success rates.” He had already committed it to memory and had a laundry list of questions to ask her about it, as well as her theses, which, if you looked close enough, foreshadowed her dissertation beautifully, like they were all apart of a book series, as if she had been planning them from the beginning of her academic career, like she hadn’t needed the degrees, and she just got them for the sole purpose of knowing that getting them would get her ideas published in a dignified way. 

He chuckled at the thought, which prompted her to ask, “What? Is that funny?”

He realized he had never responded to her initial statement, so he responded now, “No, no, not funny at all. Respectable, actually. No, I was just thinking that we haven’t formally met. I’m Dr. Spencer Reid.”

It was her turn to chuckle, “Thank you for the formality, but I already knew that, and it seems you already know who I am as well, but…Dr. Claudia Jessup.” This time, she did glance over at him and gave a tight-lipped smile. 

He smiled and looked down at his hands that he was fidgeting with, “You would be right. Morgan told me about you the morning you were added to the team…and I…might’ve asked Garcia for your file.”

“Oh, really? Got a head start on me, then,” she lied to her teammate for the second time since joining the team, and it didn’t feel any better this time. 

There was a long, comfortable silence after she spoke. Neither of them knew what to say, but both of them desperately wanted to ask the other about the papers they’d written, the research they’d done to write those papers, how they came up with the ideas for those papers, what led them to choose those degrees that required them to write those papers, obsessively wanting to ask every single question they had under the sun about their academic influence and passion, but just as they both got the courage to finally ask a single question they were thinking of, they’d arrived back at the hospital.

_____________________________________________________________

The handwriting analysis turned out to be a dead end, as each note had a different type of handwriting that seemed intentional. Garcia found no trace of the handwriting used in any of the fonts in any Las Vegas directory and Spencer found nothing when it came to a paper trail, even considering every style. Fast as he was, it took him a whole two weeks to get through everything that was sent to him, and in that time one more body had been found after E.G. This one had said K.C. Kate Callahan. The agent who had just left the team. A week after that no body had been discovered. SWAT, CSI, bloodhounds, and local police searched everywhere, but found no trace of any victims matching this unsubs MO on Saturday or the week following. Just like that, the case went cold, and they headed home. Not reassured in the slightest. The fact that two bodies showed up while the team was there and no unsub was found was not going to bode well with the director, but there was nothing that could’ve been done.

Spencer said goodbye to his mom and got on the plane home with everybody. It was secretly an opportunity to pick a certain doctor’s brain, but he’d never let anybody know that was the real reason he didn’t stay a little longer. His requested leave was over anyway. 

Everyone had settled in on the jet except for Claudia. Hotch stopped her on her way to the couch.

“Hey, have a seat.”

Having got to know Hotch a little before all of this started, she felt truly comfortable speaking with him. No anxiety, no fear of lying to him, she felt like for the first time in three and a half weeks she could just be herself.

“Oh no, do you want me to hand in my resignation letter now?” she joked, earning a small breath out of Hotch, acknowledging that he did find that funny.

“No. I want to talk to you about your performance your first time out in the field.”

The aforementioned nervousness was back, and not hidden at all.

“You don’t need to be worried. You did a great job. I need you to know that wasn’t how our cases usually go. There’s never so much waiting around, and we’re normally led in a certain direction rather than stuck at a standstill for so long. Cases don’t usually go cold for us. I don’t want you to think it’ll be like this every time.”

She nodded her head, knowing already that that was not how their cases went (she’d read every case file this team had ever submitted to the database, again, thanks Roy), “Don’t worry, I know. The director wouldn’t have directly sent the team there if he had known it was so…hopeless. Forgive my pessimism, but there’s not another word I could think of.” 

“You’re right. Some cases end poorly, but at least they end. We may or may not have to come back to this later on. I know that you can accept that this might stay open for a while and it might never be solved. I just wanted to reassure you that most of our other cases won’t be like this.”

“Thank you. Not to say I look forward to it, but…”

“I understand. Now go get some rest, you’ve earned it.”

Claudia got up and continued walking toward the couch, putting her headphones in and starting her music before she even sat down. As she got up, Spencer saw that Hotch was finished speaking to her, and got up from his own spot to follow her to the couch, but Hotch had stopped him in his pursuit.

“Reid.”

He halted his forward motion and Hotch gestured for him to sit down.

“I’m not mad at you and I would like to apologize for not telling you sooner. The case seemed like it could’ve been solved sooner and without your input. My intention was to not bother you while you were spending time with your mother, since I know this time is especially important for you to spend with her.”

Spencer wasn’t shocked that Hotch was apologizing, persay, but he was expecting to be given a stern talking-to. His eyebrows rose at the admission, but he thanked Hotch for the apology, anyway. He would know a thing or two about loss. Spencer knew that.

Hotch let him go and he set back to his initial mission: speaking to Claudia.

Had he seen that she had headphones in, he would’ve left her alone, but they were so discreet that he couldn’t tell she had any in underneath her hair. He’d never admit this, but he did, in fact, want to tuck it behind her ears. For no reason besides the ability to know if she had headphones in or not. Obviously.

She’d pulled out a book in the time it took Hotch to speak to him, but he sat down next to her anyway. She noticed this and looked up from the book and took out one headphone, not stopping the music the same way she’d done with Derek. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were listening to something,” he’d started to get up.

“No, it’s fine. Do you need something?” this time, she did pause what she was listening to.

“Not exactly…” he had no idea how to go about telling her she’d written the most glorious dissertation he’d ever seen and needed to know everything about it starting with how she thought of it and ending with her research. 

Meanwhile, Claudia had been thinking, relatively, the same thing. She’d had no intention of asking Spencer about his writings on the way home, but since he approached her, now seemed like the perfect time. Enough time had passed that it would seem reasonable for her to have done research on the team now that she’d been on it for three weeks. It wouldn’t seem weird that she had read his journals, now. 

At the exact same time, they both said:

“I want to talk to you about your dissertation.”

The two just looked at each other, shocked at what had just happened. Both had grins slowly growing on their faces before they both just started laughing. 

With that, they both knew they were going to like “the other doctor.”

chapter two

[fromwhenceucame]

Today was Not Great so it’s time to make my first ever real post on here I guess !!

Shoutout to @thehardestwater for giving me that one post about turning your favorite characters into warriors, I did that and thought about them way too much

First we have Chaeya, let’s go !!

I very, very loosely used real warrior cat design concepts in the fact Kaeya doesn’t have an eyepatch but instead a big ol’ scar (in star-shaped format). A lot of their designs are inspired by aspects of their outfits, like how Childe has the darker ginger around his chest/neck like his scarf, and Kaeya’s white fluff is his actual fluffy thing (but this time on his body, wow). I had to make Childe’s stripes swirly like water and Kaeya’s spots like stars (also the moon-shaped ear fluff, that idea came to me from a warriors MAP (edit: I found it!!! It’s Crookedgoose and the design for Moonflower (of course it was a Crookedstar map (my favorite little freak who I associate with Childe for no reason)) and also the fur on Kaeya’s back was inspired by another cat design of him I saw and I really wanted to include it)

In their warrior cats land, there’s 7 clans for each nation — so Childe’s in Snezhnaya clan (Snowclan) and Kaeya’s in Mondstadt clan (Windclan (very original)).

Childe is a highly respected cat in his clan, and they do things a little differently out there! There is no leader/deputy structure; instead, there’s the 11 Harbingers (“omens” instead, since “harbinger” isn’t a word I’ve seen in warriors as far as I know) who support their leader, the Tsaritsa… I don’t know off the top of my head if we know how many cryo archons there were before the Tsaritsa, but the original was definitely “Snowstar” and currently her name is “Icestar.” Childe is basically number 11 of Snowclan’s deputies…

As for Kaeya, he’s essentially Windclan’s acting deputy while the actual deputy (Jean) is the acting leader while the REAL leader (Varka) is away doing whatever he does. There’s a horseplace very close to Windclan (ironically similar to the real Windclan) that Kaeya knows everything about, the horseleader if you will, and he strongly enjoys watching them graze and gallop around when he’s not busy with clanlife. Pretty much everyone in the close-knit Windclan respects Kaeya because he is very cool (Kaeya does not agree with this, but okay). Also! The original “Windstar” (Venti) basically stepped down the moment Windclan was made, he’s not interested in that life.

And as for names !! They make me scream :]

Snowclan’s 11 Omens all have a new name based on what omen brought them to that position, that are formatted like the older clan names/tribe names, too. Originally, Childe was “Floodpaw” before he disappeared for a few days and came back a lil silly. After that, he was re-apprenticed to an Omen and given the full name “Floodripple” with his Omen name “Dark Waters of the Abyss” … sometimes I break my own rules (I don’t think “abyss” is a word warrior cats know) and that’s okay. Floodpaw probably still found a whale out there wherever he went to get trained by Skirk.

Kaeya would be “Frostwind” — the leader having honored him for his loyalty to the clan despite his loner roots (having been abandoned as a kit and taken in as usual, maybe Diluc is “Flametalon” for his fierceness because they definitely become warriors before The Incident) (Frostwind definitely doesn’t think he deserves that name, but okay).

Additional thoughts, Jean is “Dandelionroar” and has been acting leader for too many dang moons now. Barbara is most likely a medicine cat, but Albedo and Sucrose are also in that vein so maybe this Windclan does things a bit differently in regard to medicine cats. Dottore may be the medicine cat in Snowclan but he’s not. A very good medicine cat. Arlecchino’s Omen name could be “Flames of the Crimson Moon”

And yeah that’s all I got \o/ stay tuned for parts 2 and 3 when I post my other favorites from fe3h (Dimtiri + Sylvain + Claude) and hsr (Dr Ratio + Aventurine) my goal is to have a whole lot of them done before artfight next year — I hope they were neat, thanks for reading !!

[startrekprodigyfan]

Okay yeah… I binged the whole season in one day.

It was actually surprisingly easy to do so. And while that means my planned slower recaps and speculation are basically out the window, I also now just don’t have to worry about spoilers for weeks on end.

I’m still going to keep spoilers under a cut though. Even if you block key hashtags, stuff can get through, and just making the spoilers further down a text post you have to scroll past to continue browsing tumblr doesn’t help either. Hide that content behind a cut, please!

Non-spoiler thoughts:

It was so good. It was honestly more Trek than I could’ve possibly expected. And to all those early naysayers who were confused by the Protostar and where it was supposed to be in the timeline after the first episode of season 1, all of that gets answered and put into context by the end of season 2. Thank GOD! Every single plot point people brought up and thought was a “plot hole” gets filled and explained.

It’s not as emotional as the first season, but the situations and events definitely still have a lot of weight and the stakes are so high for so long too! There’s a surprising number of dark events that happen throughout the series. Way darker than even I’m used to watching the animated shows that I do. Kudos for not skimping on the peril and stakes of the mission for the sake of kids being traumatized lol

And while there is the potential for more, if we never get a season 3 this would still be an extremely satisfying ending all the same. I am very happy there aren’t any loose ends here.

Prodigy is without a doubt the most reliably consistent Star Trek show that’s ever existed. Not a single episode feels like filler. Not a single episode wastes time or characters. Even the goofy episodes have character development and callbacks later, and I genuinely don’t think there’s a single episode that I would skip or not watch again. That’s an amazing feat in and of itself, but as a Trek fan that’s just unheard of! Kudos all around!

Now for my longer spoiler thoughts under the cut:

Okay…

How the HELL did you guys make Wesley Crusher’s time traveling arc sooo good? As a TNG fan I was always annoyed with the “traveler” storylines and with Wesley’s character in general. Even as a kid I never really liked him. But this storyline makes him interesting and gives a lot of weight to his powers. He’s almost like The Doctor from Doctor Who, someone who has so much going on in his head that he’s sort of lost it.

That honestly was the biggest surprise to me. I was convinced that Hologram Janeway (and the construct) were somehow manipulating time and events because of the wormhole. Janeway would be trying to help them, while the construct was trying to stop them. That was my working theory for the start of the series. Imagine my surprise when it turns out it’s Wesley Crusher! wtf!?

I do like that he gets to reunite with his mom finally. And that he learns he has a brother.

Incidentally that’s something else I was not expecting. How MUCH of this series was going to be timeline connected to the events of Picard and Lower Decks respectively. Like, wow… they connected the Mars Shipyard explosion and the Romulan evacuation plot points that made sense for the story. Like holy crap, then FINALLY getting into Starfleet only for the shipyards to explode and Starfleet is severely crippled. I did not expect that to happen, and it’s sadly realistic too.

I still hate the Romulan evacuation storyline from Picard, but as a matter of keeping things consistent it makes sense for it here. And while I don’t like it being a canon event, it’s overall good for the consistency of “prime” trek.

I do like that Dal became a second in command. I’ve always felt like Dal was never really destined to be the captain and that he’s always been better at helping others be their best selves. So it makes sense for his character arc that he learns he doesn’t need to be in charge to make a difference and that there’s no shame in being second.

Overall I am still reeling from how much Trek happened in this season. There’s never a dull moment. Unfortunately I am not optimistic about a 3rd season. Netflix picking up a mostly completed series to broadcast on their streaming service is far FAR cheaper than paying for an entire season to be created outright. And sadly, as much as I want more Prodigy, I have a feeling it’s just not on people’s radars enough for it to do gangbuster numbers enough to convince Netflix to pick them up for a 3rd season. I hope I am proven wrong, but I will not get my desire for more season unrealistically hyped up.

I do want to rewatch the entire show now, because there were clues left in the first season that only get answered at the end of season 2. And I love closed loop time travel storylines like that! I can’t wait to go back and connect the dots knowing what I know now.

An excellent series. Probably one of Trek’s best in decades. A true love for the material and the characters and the legacy of Trek lore all rolled into an amazingly animated package.

[t4tozier]

Hi are we still doing fuck nasty asks. Bc. I have two scenarios in my brain that I’ve been dying to talk about but haven’t had the courage.

1) sex pollen. Or aphrodisiac. No I don’t know how. WAIT THAT’S A LIE DEVIL HONEY IS A THING C’MON THERE’S SOMETHING THERE RIGHT???? RIGHT?????

2) Knife kink. Listen. If Porter so visibly marked Jace with his symbol I think Jace should have the right to do the same to Porter.

WOOOO love both of these. so i'm actually gonna start with number 2 because we have talked about this a little bit. if you want me to expand i can but i'll link those posts here: blood play, carving his name into porter, and the first time jace tries knife play

but sex pollen. oh boy. ohhhhh boy. jokes on you you've unlocked a new skill in ur skill tree it's getting t4tozier to talk about sex pollen. we've talked about ambrosia-laced blood getting jace high in the past, but none of those were my original posts and also not what this is about. so. sex pollen. this isn't canon compliant but idc. sorry.

jace and porter go on an adventure together. don't ask me why. maybe it's a faculty adventure to clear out a dungeon of most of the creatures so they can take students on a practical field trip and they split into pairs/groups and starbreaker just happens to be trapped in a lair with a creature that defends itself by spraying aphrodisiacs at its enemies, making them much more distracted with fucking each other than fighting it. and they're arguing the whole time about martial vs caster classes and the pros and cons and then they're confronted with the creature and porter whips out his maul and jace starts casting a spell but before they can act it expels some gross pink dust all over them. and jace goes to prestidigitate it off as like a bonus action--but then...why would he do that? it feels nice, warm and tingly as it settles into his skin, and suddenly he feels a lot hotter than he did before. he unwinds his scarf, casting it carelessly to the side, and blinks up at porter. has he always been this tall?

and porter sets down his maul, actually needing to lean on it for stability as he catches his bearings, because he's pretty sure he was supposed to fight, he was in a rage, but now all he can focus on is how fucking hard he is and the pretty half-elf standing right in front of him, and all of the energy from his rage immediately shifts to making sure he gives jace stardiamond the best godsdamn fuck of his life.

they both look at each other and, as if they have the same idea at the same time, practically launch themselves at each other and start tearing each other's clothes off. porter's rough and pays little attention to when jace's head knocks against a particularly sharp rock on the way down, but jace doesn't really care because then porter is tugging his pants down and fuck, his cock feels so much better when it's not trapped and he's really fucking wet, why is he dripping so much? and then porter's pulling off his shirt and jace's thoughts just kind of fuzz out because wow, this man has an impressive physique, and his cock looks really big even though he hasn't even taken his pants off yet and jace needs it in his mouth fucking yesterday.

they're still fucking when the others find them. they have to actually kill the creature that starbreaker failed their initial saves against before they can even think about stopping porter from fucking jace up against the nearest surface for the third time in twenty minutes because both of their refractory periods have been reduced to practically nothing. thankfully, none of the other faculty mention it--it's just one of those goofy adventuring effects--but if they exchange numbers after they return from the lair clear-out, that's nobody's business but theirs.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s2 episode 21 thoughts

spooky episode. child death. garage strangulation. not much to laugh about today!

(i looked up the episode title- calusari- to see what the actual practices mentioned looked like, and the first result was a wikipedia page on the episode. i was like woah, wonder what made this special enough to get a wikipedia page... but it looks like EVERY SINGLE EPISODE has its own page??? that is absolutely wild... between this and having a wikipedia page for almost every number, no wonder they are always asking for money)

((i jest. mostly. wikipedia is a wonderful resource and deserves your financial support, but i wanted to make sure there really was a wikipedia page for random numbers and now i'm on the page for 353... wonder why some numbers get full articles and others don't...)

i digress. let us begin.

plot summary: “a young boy’s family is plagued by several tragic accidents” <- that’s just an average day for mulder, the boy with the saddest childhood around

i stand corrected post-episode. turns out it can get worse than what he went through. this is shocking to all.

here we begin, in an amusement park with kids on a train, much like one i allegedly went to as a child but have no memory of!

love that it clarifies the mom's accent is Romanian in the subtitles. also we have an older boy and a younger boy and a dad.

NOOO little man lost his balloon… they tell him it's going to balloon land, this is a good way to handle such a loss… and nooo the baby dropped his ice cream and fell into the dirt :( L after L is being taken!

the older boy is angry because his balloon was taken and given to the younger brother… i sympathize, but also every balloon is the same, and little man just fell into the dirt so he needs a win!!

sad baby must go to the bathroom with mom... she ties the baby to the sink and the balloon soars away :(

THE BABY IS GONE! he freed himself in search of balloon! and the other little boy seems to be psychically piloting baby towards the train by moving the balloon.

NOOOOO BABY HIT BY TRAIN…. and this young gentleman is somehow responsible…. he has his balloon back now…

this is soooo cold. children can be mean but that is like really next level. we need to deal with this universe’s epidemic of evil children

back to our agents, investigating the case

mulder: “see this is a helium balloon, and the one thing i did learn in kindergarten is that when you let them go they float up, up, and away” <- wow, an educated man... an oxford graduate

(side note do we know where scully went to school? did i just miss that mention or has it never been said...)

((he studied psychology... so that would make him a psychologist, right... which means he CANNOT prescribe you meds so don't even think about it))

“did you learn about wind in kindergarten?” is scully's response, and LMAOOOOOO she’s funny

but the wind was blowing in the other direction that day!!!

leading us to bring the photo to chuck, who is is the king of digital imaging… thank you for ur service, chuck, i say as he applies some filters to the image of a baby walking toward a train

so there is some sort of Thing on the tracks, which allegedly looks like electromagnetic energy. but scully is NOT convinced: "this information is the the same reason why you’ll see a newspaper photo with Jesus’ face appearing in the foliage of an elm tree" ... because people want to see it!

(wow, i thought at this moment, we used to get stories of people seeing jesus in the trees of leaves. how beautiful. now we just get facebook ads of jesus made of shrimp for some reason)

mulder points out that baby was on a very tight leash, and scully says "i’ve seen some pretty slippery two year olds”... she has stories to tell. let's hear them.

off to the house of the family... and there is a swastika in the window and an old lady watching them. typical welcoming house features! /s

so they're talking to mom and dad, when the child enters the room and the fire roars, which is not at all suspicious! we also see the old lady draw a swastika on his hand

(at this point, the child's powers somehow make the smoke detector go off, and i almost ran out of bed to flee what i thought was my OWN smoke detector going off because my house might be on fire... what a fool i was!) 

when the power gets knocked out as well, the old woman says that the mother married a devil and that the child is a devil. which is tea, honestly.

back at the office, mulder is staring at a swastika “do you recognize this”, he says holding it up to scully. “yeah, it’s a swastika” she says. wow.

(i get that they are making a point about it being a symbol of protection in this context rather than a symbol of hatred, but that exchange was still so funny to me. he is always asking her random questions. it is 24/7 quiz time with this dude)

he proposes that the old woman was trying to protect her grandson, and scully hands over a file to him so he. pops his pen in his mouth. which is so silly. that is a silly man. he is hard at work.

ohh, she says the situation here could be munchausen by proxy. the dead little boy was admitted every 3 months into a new hospital, and no one thought it was weird because they moved around a lot, so how would anyone know? a compelling theory, in my opinion!

the older boy had the same problems, which began around the time the mother moved in!! and scully explains that in these cases, the perpetrators often see the child as evil! well, we saw him be called evil!!! it's beginning to add up. maybe.

they go to talk to the dad at the state department. scully has the chair and he sits in the couch. i'm not sure why this is so funny to me but it is.

so, dad explains that the old woman/grandma/golda does a lot of superstitious stuff and when she moved in the kids started getting sick!!!! interesting... they wish to talk to the boy with a social worker present

cut to the agents standing in the kitchen while the parents fight. such is life on the job for them. the old woman is putting spice in their food. 

the dad is going to take the boy off to speak with the social worker, but the garage won’t open. dad gets on a ladder to fix the garage door opener. and it turns on and he is being choked by his tie!!! kid is screaming... implying he doesn’t want this to happen? so is he evil or not...?

also, the car window burst open during all of this. interesting… at first i believed the child was evil, but at this point i was wondering…. rip to this kid's dad :(

time to investigate the home. what is found? a room full of candles. dead chicken. potions and liquids. it feels like the halloween section of a joann fabrics. and i'm rocking with it, minus the poor chicken.

mulder is up in the garage thingy looking for clues. he finds something that is like ash, and says it's everywhere. perhaps the same stuff put into the meal, i wonder?

(we get no answer on that. golda probs just was seasoning with herbs the american mind is too dull to comprehend idk)

scully still thinks her hypothesis is correct, and as they discuss, the old woman says stay away from our house! it is not looking good for miss golda

(mulder enters a dark room) hey you wanna see something weird? <- always. literally always.

turns out the ash isn’t organic or inorganic so it doesn’t technically exist? going to get a second opinion…… is it FROHIKE TIME??

no, it's not... it’s one of the many faculty members of local universities mulder keeps on speed dial for cases such as this. he keeps them busy. i hope he pays them. goodness knows academia doesn't cover the bills.

"it spontaneously exists", says this guy about this substance. okay.

scully says the whole loaves and fishes thing was a parable and not fact…. ohh we are getting an insight into her beliefs!! yeah baby I’m writing that down!!

at this point she makes some sassy remark and he laughs at it and ohhhh my goodness. it just made me giggle. she tries to fight back a smile seeing how amused he is. ohhhh man. he thinks she's funny. and she is, of course, but him laughing at her little quip has me weak in the knees.

so, this guy says the substance is holy ash. created when energy moves. need to look into this. and maybe that is what caused the garage door to open. OR a remote control, she says.

the little boy is now listening in on some occult ceremonies occurring in his home and OHHHH rooster is being bled. no ma’am, for this i do not care! ceremonies are chill, but chicken blood makes me gag. so whatever pot they are making a potion in is now smoking?? and a child is appearing in the smoke? yelling something? what.

(enter social worker)

the kid is outside of the door while the rites are going about, and is Sick as smoke billows near him. mom opens the door to reveal the people doing chanting and demands them to leave!!!!! but golda grabs the boy and shuts them out!!!

while holding the boy, golda is waving a big knife!!! and i'm scared we're about to get to see a little fellow stabbed to death!! she's waving it about in the air while the agents try to get in

wait i'm leaving this next part verbatim it's funnier that way:

"NANA ON THE FLOOR. BOY HOLDING DEAD ROOSTERS. HAVE THE TABLES TURNED? He is chanting and he throws them down and they PECK HER??? To death. And now the chickens are dead again. Boy is crying. So like is he evil or was evil thrust upon him is what I’m asking"

um anyway. few answers are provided. mulder thinks the people in there were doing some sort of protective ritual.

The chanting people are the “Calusari, responsible for the correct observance of sacred rites", which i made note of needing to look into, but after a brief search, learned it is a secret society so i'm probs not gonna find much on the subject. many such cases. sighs in eleusinian mysteries.

mulder gets one of the calusari men to talk!! he says the evil in that house has gone by many names: Cain, Lucifer, Hitler... an interesting line up that clarifies very little 

the mom says she thought her mom, golda, newly dead due to chicken pecking plus heart attack combo, was putting a curse on her for abandoning the old ways… and she was trying to cleanse the house of evil but blamed the little boy! how could a little boy be evil? <- woman asking this has clearly not seen some of the earlier episodes!

the boy says he wasn’t in the room and he didn’t hurt his grandma… and it was HIM…. It was Michael…… dramatic gasp!

“we never told him” OHHH BIG REVEAL! THERE WAS A STILLBORN TWIN SHE NEVER TOLD THEM ABOUT…. and golda warned that if they didn’t perform the separation ritual the world of the dead would follow him. damn that's a harsh curse to bear.

now boy is having seizure (scully shifting into doctor mode!)

the boy is resisting a shot. and evil ghost twin Michael shows up with a BIG METAL THING to knock the nurse out???

(girl we might need to perform the ritual that you conveniently just mentioned because he is on the loose)

after beating his nurse, the boy walks from his bed and says the doctors said he could leave. and he wants to leave NOW <- words said by a boy who is lying.

THE GAG IS… Charlie is still in bed… SO THE MOM TOOK THE EVIL GHOST TWIN HOME!!

(mulder walks scully down the hall with a hand on her back) <- i have to get it off my chest. something that has haunted me from episode 1. him walking her places with his hand on her back is an endearing habit in mister protective mulder, but if a real man ever tried that on me i think i would start biting. god bless fictional men.

back at their home, mother is very scared. and the child is asking about the balloon and riding the train. man, it would be rough to have an evil ghost child. you just never know what you're gonna get.

mom is doing some rituals to confirm that this is the evil boy and the test is positive

mulder is calling the calusari men back into the hospital!! i wonder how they all got in there.

scully at da home. all the power is off. just a flashlight and a pantsuit against the world.

back at the hospital, it's ritual time! the boy is hissing and screaming and yelling in Romanian, and i'm thinking, someone is gonna come get him if he doesn’t shut the hell up. poor mulder gets wrapped into the whole thing, being told to hold him down as he writhes and yells. BUT DON'T LOOK AT HIM! or the evil will know you.

at this point, stuff was leaking from the walls of the hospital. classic demon tricks!

back at the family home, scully enters the room and the windows blow open…. AND MOM IS FLOATING ON THE CEILING! something throws her around the damn room. yowch!

at the exorcism scene, they told mulder to look away from the boy but he is not doing that… that kid is squirming about. look away mulder you do NOT need the devil in your life! but i wonder if a part of him feels terrible for the kid. he's always so sensitive with kids. all that childhood trauma.

NOOO EVIL TWIN IS ABOUT TO STAB SCULLY when they finish painting the swastika on Real Boy Twin's belly and evil boy disappears. into ash that looks like the kind we saw earlier. whew that was a close one!

(how the hell did no one come and interrupt the exorcism in the middle of the hospital... it was a noisy event)

on his way out after exorcism time, one of the dudes involved says “it knows you” to Mulder, who wraps up the case with the terrifying observation that “neither innocence nor vigilance may be protection against the howling heart of evil” <- filed under lines that go hard

GIRL WHAT IN THE HELL. THE DEVIL KNOWS MULDER?????? not enjoying those implications!!! 

this was very much a spooky episode!!! very different from the last one. I mean fiji mermaid was just kinda silly. drastic tone shift. but now that i think about it, i do see the plot holes that the wikipedia page for the episode mentioned. like, if it was an evil stillborn ghost twin, why did the symptoms set in when golda arrived on the scene? and why did they effect the younger brother by making him sick?

well, to be honest, i'm not gonna worry about it. this episode still gave me some good things: scully one-liners, mulder laughing at these one-liners, reveal that she is NOT a biblical literalist which i find fascinating, some light doctor mode action.

but between you and me, i prefer the last style of episode- it was funny and not too serious even if it was a lil spooky. so this tone shift was a bit jarring! interesting to see what it'll look like moving forward. maybe it was the last episode that should have been the jarring tone shift, but it felt so natural that going back to Killer Ghost Time felt a bit disappointing. and i won't hold out hope for every episode to be silly time- there has to be balance, of course- but this ep was quite dark even for their standards, which i have become used to in our nearly 2 full seasons together (!!!)

[echotoyou]

pizza and packing

pairing: yoongi x reader (no pronouns/gendered language are used for the reader)

summary: you’re moving to a new city and packing up everything you own. It’s a little overwhelming to do by yourself, so thank goodness yoongi knocks on your door to remind you that you’re not alone (plus he brought a smoothie!).

wordcount: 2.4k

what’s inside: fluff, angsty reader quickly followed by comfort, yoongi’s hugs could solve the climate crisis, crying, some overthinking with a dash of spiraling

posted: august 2023 (also on ao3!)

beta read by @theharrowing!!! thank you for SO much i love you an incredible amount 🪿

note: wow this started off as me needing to process some things and then turned into an entire story lol. enjoy!! ALSO this is my first time writing fanfic so please please let me know what you think!!!!!

Moving sucks.

You knew this, theoretically. People always complain that moving is too expensive, too much work, simply too hard. 

But no one warned you about the loneliness. How your home begins to echo as you pull mugs from cabinets and sweaters from drawers, stuffing it all unceremoniously into boxes. The uncomfortable chill that seeps into the newly empty spaces no longer taken up by your rug or TV. Not to forget the bare spots left by taking down the fairy lights circling the ceiling, your wall of photos and art prints, and the whiteboard calendar that still counts down the days to last month’s big celebration. 

Just this morning you cried over a crumpled note found in the back corner of your desk. Rereading your best friend’s well wishes about your new home!, a new start!, a fun adventure! made you realize you couldn’t remember the last time you had deliberately picked up the phone to dial their number.

The doorbell startles you from your thoughts as a rogue tear slips down your cheek. You swipe at it and a quick glance at your phone tells you your fourth take out order of the week isn’t supposed to be here yet. You relax back onto your couch and settle beneath your multicolored crocheted blanket, willing the cheese on your future pizza to melt just a little faster. 

Your stomach grumbles in protest at the thought and you join it, groaning when the doorbell rings a second time. Today’s packing-up-your-apartment uniform consisted of a set of well-loved pjs, with a few holes you are definitely ignoring, and tossing your unshowered hair into a top knot. In other words, you were not in the mood to chat up a solicitor. 

“I’ve already found God! Thank you!” you yell at the door from your fortress of comfort.

A familiar low chuckle paired with a rhythmic knock greets you this time, and recognition makes you roll your eyes and grin. You untangle yourself from your cozy nest of blankets before sprinting over to the door. Flinging it open, you see a familiar sight: Min Yoongi, phone in one hand, thermos in the other, and gummy smirk plastered across his features.

“I thought you were the delivery guy,” you mumble. “Why didn’t you just knock first?”

Yoongi shrugs and holds out the thermos for you to take, “This one is banana peanut butter with kale and…” he stops for a moment, shakes his head and continues, “something else, too, I don’t know. I promise it tastes good though.”

With suspicion only just hiding the smile in your eyes, you open the thermos and take a long gulp, sighing after you swallow. Oof. Had you actually eaten anything today? Yoongi, still in the doorway, laughs out loud, his expression circling between amusement and chagrin as he catches your eye.

“Cherries. It’s got cherries in it. And now your lips are very red.” He chuckles again with a sparkle in his eye and gaze lingering on your mouth for maybe a moment too long.

“Mhm” you wink at him and take an extra swig from the thermos for good measure, turning around to walk into your apartment. You freeze, suddenly seeing the disembodiment of your living room through his eyes and feel him run into your back with a soft ‘oof.’ 

“Um okay so um this doesn’t normally look like this, I–”

“Y/N, you’re moving”

“Yes, I know, but um there’s nowhere to sit and I can’t make you tea or anything, because the pot is packed, and I don’t have any food or snacks to offer, and–” 

Your word vomit dies down as you feel a gentle tap on your shoulder, the slight pressure turning you around to face him. You’re sure he can see the panic in your eyes as he hums a short positive note.

“Do you want me to leave? I wanted to make sure you ate something with greens today and I think I’ve got that checked off the box,” he gestures toward your hands where you’re still clutching his thermos with a death grip. 

With your brain still catapulting headfirst into all of the ways you are currently failing at your people-are-over-must-be-a-perfect-host duties, you purse your lips and sigh, “Yeah, maybe.”

You see something unfamiliar pass across his features, but it morphs so quickly into a sweet smile you can’t decipher it fast enough. 

“Alrighty then.” He nods, “best of luck with the rest of your packing. Let me know if you need anything else, and I’ll see you later.” He turns and walks out the door, down your front steps and disappears around the corner. 

You push the door shut and rest your forehead on the cool wood for a moment, the slight chill relieving you of your hosting concerns when the next set of concerns sidle in. 

Wait, did he want to stay? Better question, did you want company? Being alone for the past three days had been making you feel stir-crazy, but there was still so much to do, and it was exhausting directing other people. But he’s not your normal ‘other people.’ Did he drive away yet? Maybe you can still catch him. Ah shit, did you even thank him for the smoothie? 

Your thoughts tumble and jumble with the force of a second spin cycle – UGH you also still have laundry to do. Pulling yourself from the door, you give up on trying to catch him and head back to the safety of your couch. You sip from his thermos and pull out your phone to text a quick thank you. 

A few minutes later, your phone pings with the notification that your pizza has been delivered. You open the app to double check the photo the driver sent as your doorbell rings. 

You break out into laughter as you pull open the door for a second time and show the grinning man on the other side the photo on your phone: Min fucking Yoongi outside your door holding two pizza boxes with a shit eating grin on his face and giving the camera a thumbs up. 

“Someone order pizza?” 

—

An hour later, you’re not sure who convinced who to stay, but you’ve both been fed and watered with cheesy nonsense and warm conversation. 

Remarkably, he wasn’t bothered by the stacks of boxes and piles of items yet to be packed. The other half of your brain reminds you that he’s seen your apartment – and you – through all levels of disarray, some messes 100% yours, like when laundry day lasts a week and takes over your bedroom, the living room, and somehow the bathroom. Other messes were more of a group effort, when you would join forces to make the biggest mess in your kitchen possible while learning a new cooking technique from your subscription meal kit boxes.

Paper plates thrown into a garbage bag and half a pizza wrapped up for tomorrow’s breakfast later, you plop yourself on your carpet, back leaning against your couch, and sigh. You had been trying your darndest to separate the mountain of boxes in front of you into “give away” and “keep” before Yoongi had knocked on your door the first time, and they had now snuck from the ignorable periphery back into your sight. 

All at once, the previously easy chatter catches in your throat and you feel yourself trail off, whatever you had just been laughing about suddenly dying on your lips. 

“Hey,” a soft voice pierces through the bubble of your thoughts.

“Where did you go, just now?”

You turn to see Yoongi sitting cross legged next to you. He cocks his head at you, his voiced question clear in his soft eyes and slight frown. You avoid his eyes by looking down at your hands in your lap, and realize you are clutching your nearly empty water glass as if it was a life preserver. Raising the cup to your lips, you shrug and gesture loosely at the boxes, the white walls, the furniture marked for people who had messaged you on Facebook Marketplace. 

This room would no longer be yours in less than a week, the items in it in even less time. It was more full than it had ever been and yet you felt the emptiness of each drawer and closet echoing with something akin to grief. 

“Can I touch you?”

You nod, and immediately feel a warm hand touching yours, gently prying the cup from your clutches and setting it aside. He stands and ignores your protests as he tugs you to your feet. He wraps your arms around his waist and encircles your shoulders with his, pulling you into his chest and squeezing gently. You turn your head to the side so your cheek presses against the soft fabric of his shirt. The pressure of his chin sitting on top of your head feels overwhelming and wholly correct at the same time. Tears prick your eyes for the umpteenth time, and the comforting weight of Yoongi’s hug can’t keep them at bay.

“I just…” the words fade as you sniffle. “I just don’t know how to do this and I feel like I’m doing it all kinds of wrong.”

He hums, and his arms squeeze you a little tighter. Melting into the hug, you allow yourself to bury yourself face first in his soft tee and inhale deeply. His gentle scent of freshly laundered clothing with a hint of citrus is all it takes for your breath to turn into shorter, shuddering sobs, wracking your body.

You feel him gently rub the small of your back. Wave after wave of emotion floods your system, ping ponging between frustration and sadness and anger and fear. Each time you let yourself recognize and validate one thought, another sneaks in, bringing a new wave of tears.

One thought in particular stands as a concrete tower above the rest: you had been its architect for the past few months, placing stone after stone higher than the last until it was magnificent in its largess and painful in its stability. Ignoring it had become normal practice until now, when you looked up and realized you had built the tower around yourself.

You were choosing to leave. You chose to move thousands of miles from your family, and now you were choosing again to move hundreds of miles away from the family you had found here. There was no one to blame, no mystical forces of nature to shift the attention to. It was all just you.

A small noise breaks the paralyzing stillness of your thoughts, and you release a breath you didn’t know you were holding. The sound blankets your spiral in a layer of sweet, comforting darkness. You grab at the tuneless melody like a rope and as the rumbling within his chest begins to center you back in your living room, safe in his arms again, you realize he was humming. You squeeze his waist a little tighter and as you release, his humming trickles off.

“If it’s any consolation, no one knows what they’re doing.” He whispers into your hair. “Especially when packing up a home they’ve lived in for a while. This place is stocked with things, yes, but also memories. You’ve grown and changed a whole lot since you moved in.”

“So then why am I leaving?” your voice cracks on the last word as you hiccup it into the void.

He shrugs, “We both know I can’t answer that for you. I do hope that whatever answer you decided on when you started this process is still true, and if it’s not, then this is just one choice. And you can make a new one in the future.”

You ‘hrumph’ back at him and take another deep breath.

Your breathing soon begins to match his small, rhythmic motions, inhaling and exhaling as your brain clears. You pull back from where you had smushed your face on his shirt, grimacing at the snot left on his shirt, and wiggling to escape his embrace in search of a tissue. He seems to have a different idea as his grip strengthens and you look up to see his concerned eyes searching for yours. Suddenly, a cat-like grin breaks out across his features and out of nowhere, the man laughs.

“How could someone look so beautiful after sobbing like the Titanic was sinking?”

You groan, for likely the fiftieth time today, and swat at his chest. With another smirk, he releases you from the hug. You shiver from the immediate loss of body heat and quickly look around the room for something resembling a tissue that had not been packed yet. You hear him clear his throat, and you look back to be met with a tissue dangling right in front of your face. 

“Thank you” your voice sounds small and gravely and you blot your eyes and nose before making eye contact with the spots on his shirt again. “Oh gosh, I’m so sorry… your shirt…” your voice fades as you unconsciously reach out toward the stains, your only focus to assess the damage. He gently catches your wrist before your hand hits his chest, and places a butterfly light kiss on your knuckles.

“Don’t worry about it. This is my designated moving t-shirt, eligible for dust, stains, and tears – bonus points if you get all three in one go,” he winks, fluidly moving his hand from your wrist to your fingers, and spins you around in circles until you can’t help but give him a watery grin. Pulling you in for another hug, he gently squeezes you once more before letting go and heading toward the kitchen. You hear the squeak of the faucet before he reappears proudly brandishing your glasses now full of water. 

You accept the glass he holds out and let your eyes scan the pile of things in front of you. The boxes in the corner pull your attention again and you start to feel the overwhelm teeter you back over the edge. Taking a deep breath, you sip at the water and move to sit on the couch, seeking the comfort of your blanket once again.

“Let’s do something easy tonight, okay? No thoughts, just blankets.” 

You nod, and he plugs in the TV that you had moved into a corner for ‘safe keeping’ while you sold the table it stood on. He settles next to you on the couch and you spy a slight knowing smile on his face as he navigates to your favorite show, the one you started over to watch with him, and the one that makes you happy cry every time.

He slides his hand into yours and it doesn’t leave for the entirety of the first, second, or third episode you watch. Neither does he when you fall asleep on his shoulder.

[agentpenis]

OOC Post!

Incorrect Quotes from Agency and co.

Lemme know if you guys would want more!

Roxy: *seductively takes off glasses*

Roxy: Wow...

Anna: *blushes* Haha... what?

Roxy: You're really fucking blurry.

Reggie: So… I’ve seen you’ve been spending a lot of time with Anna recently.

Phoenix: No, Reggie, it's not what it looks like, I swear.

Reggie: Oh really? So no reason for me to be jealous?

Phoenix: No! You’re the only one for me.

Reggie: Is that so?

Phoenix: I promise! Anna and I are just dating, okay? They’re my partner.

Reggie: So there are no best-friends-feelings involved?

Phoenix: You are still my one and only best friend! They’re just the love of my life, nothing more!

Reggie: But I’m still the platonic love of your life, right?

Phoenix: Of course bro!

Reggie: Bro...

Anna: What the-

Roxy, trying to flirt: So, you come around here often?

Anna, confused: I mean, this is my house, so yeah.

Phoenix: I never said I was gonna get back together with them. But I was thinking, they're in town, would it be the worst thing in the world if I gave them a call?

Roxy: No. No, Phoenix, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. It would be the fourth worst thing. Number one: a super volcano. Number two: an asteroid hits the Earth. Number three: All the Evel Knievel movies are lost. Number four: Phoenix calls Juniper. Number five: Anna gets eaten by a shark.

Anna: I’m Anna, and I approve the order of that list.

Anna: The first time I saw you, you stole my heart.

Phoenix: But I'm a kleptomaniac, so that doesn't mean anything.

Phoenix: You need a hobby.

Roxy: I have a hobby!

Phoenix: Fawning over Anna isn’t a hobby.

Phoenix: Hey, Anna, are you free on Friday? Like around eight?

Anna: Yeah.

Phoenix: And you, Roxy?

Roxy: Umm... yes?

Phoenix: Great! Because I'm not. You two go out without me. Enjoy your date!

Roxy: Did they just-

Phoenix: Hey, babe, remember how I had to go to the pharmacy to pick up my ADHD meds?

Roxy: Yes?

Phoenix: Well, it turns out they're all out for the next five days.

Roxy: Fuck.

Phoenix: It's gonna be a fun week!

Roxy: I'm going to Reggie's house.

Phoenix: Nuh-uh. Through sickness and health, motherfucker.

Roxy: Talk dirty to me~

Phoenix: Inflation is a serious problem and lumber prices are at a high.

Roxy: Wha-

Phoenix: The economy is in shambles.

Anna: I’ve been dropping them the most insanely obvious hints for like a year now. No response.

Roxy: Wow. They sound stupid.

Anna: But they’re not. They’re really smart actually. Just dense.

Roxy: Maybe you need to be more obvious? Like, I don’t know… “Hey! I love you!”

Anna: I guess you’re right. Hey Roxy, I love you.

Roxy: See! Just say that!

Anna: Holy fucking shit.

Roxy: If that flies over their head then, sorry Anna, but they're too dumb for you.

Anna: Roxy.

Reggie: Why would you give a knife to Phoenix?!

Anna, shrugging: Phoenix felt unsafe.

Reggie: Now I feel unsafe!

Anna: I’m sorry…

Anna: Would you like a knife?

Anna, Entering Roxy's room: Phoenix did it again.

Roxy: Peace disturbance?

Anna: What no-

Roxy: Arson..?

Anna: NO, JESUS CHRIST, HOW MANY-

Roxy: uh....Attempted murder?

Anna: NO, THEY ATE ALL THE FOOD IN THE FRIDGE, BUT WHAT THE FU-

Reggie: And what did we learn, Phoenix?

Phoenix: Tackling someone isn’t the correct response to being asked a simple question.

Roxy, near tears: I have the sex appeal of a math book!

Phoenix: I don’t know, dude, I’ve never met anyone that opened a math book and didn’t say “fuck me”.

Phoenix: Sorry I'm late, I was doing stuff.

Reggie: YOU PUSHED ME DOWN THE FUCKING STAIRS!

Roxy, pointing at Phoenix: Are they a Freak (derogatory)?

Roxy, pointing at Anna: Or a Freak (affectionate)?

Reggie: Why not both?

Roxy, to Reggie: You’re so right, Freak (double-edged sword)!

Phoenix: The scariest president had to be Rushmore because he had four heads.

Reggie: Yeah, it’s a good thing we captured him in that mountain, even if we have to live in fear of the spell wearing off.

Anna: Do you two still believe in that legend? Come on, Rushmore was killed a hundred years ago! We’re safe now.

Roxy: You people have clearly never taken a history lesson. His body was never found.

Phoenix: I hope no one lowkey hates me.

Phoenix: Highkey hate me. Hate me with every fiber of your being.

Phoenix: Go big or go home.

Roxy: WHOEVER CAUSED THIS MESS IS GOING TO-

Anna: It was me...

Roxy: ...Is going to be forgiven because everyone deserves a second chance.

Phoenix: Be careful, I thrive on negative attention.

Roxy: I need you to come meet me, and I need you to come alone.

Reggie: And I need you to be less vague and weird.

Roxy: The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was changing their name to Phoenix.

Anna: Ah, Hello again. We really need to stop meeting like this.

Roxy: Maybe we would, if you would sTOP BREAKING INTO MY FUCKING HOUSE!!!

Reggie: When I was your age-

Roxy, mocking Reggie: When I was your height.

Reggie:

Reggie: Listen here you little shit-

Anna: Sometimes I drink milk straight from the container.

Phoenix: The cow??

Anna: What?

Reggie: Phoenix, W H Y?

Roxy: How did you even get in here?

Phoenix: Anna's window! Or, as I like to call it, "Phoenix's door"!

Anna: I’m closing the window.

Reggie: I made tea.

Roxy: I don't want tea.

Reggie: I didn't make you tea. This is my tea.

Roxy: Then why did you tell me?

Reggie: It's a conversation starter.

Roxy: It's a horrible conversation starter.

Reggie: Oh, is it? We're conversing. Checkmate.

Roxy: Did you just refer to a knife as a “people-opener”?

Phoenix:

Phoenix: …Should I not have?

Phoenix: Don't joke about murder. I was murdered once and it offends me.

Phoenix: You’ve got to learn to love yourself.

Roxy: But don't you hate yourself.

Phoenix: Yeah, but this is about you. Stay focused.

Phoenix: And I’d love to be sorry for that, but we all know I’ve done much, much worse.

Phoenix: *casually taking four stairs at a time*

Reggie, falling behind, taking two stairs at a time: Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fu-

Reggie: Just took a personality test and got an A+.

Reggie, to Phoenix: You're starting to forget your Spanish. You don't practice.

Phoenix: Lo siento. Estoy embarazada.

Reggie: You just told me you're pregnant.

Roxy: Congratulations Phoenix, you're glowing!

Anna: I've never encountered a problem that can't be solved by an spontaneous musical number.

Roxy: So, what’s Anna's type?

Phoenix: Brown eyes, kind, oblivious, good sense of humor, turtle lover.

Roxy: Sounds kind of like me. Too bad we’re just friends.

Phoenix: Did I mention oblivious?

Roxy: Yeah, why?

Phoenix: Okay, just making sure.

Anna: Say no to drugs.

Anna: Say yes to drugs.

Anna: It doesn't matter if you say yes or no to drugs, cause if you're talking to drugs... then you're on drugs.

Anna: Do you think I’m ugly?

Roxy: It’s not about looks, Anna. What’s valuable is on the inside...

Anna: Roxy...

Roxy: For example, someone's heart.

Anna: Aw... Stop it-

Roxy: It could be purchased for more than a million dollars, you know.

Anna: Seriously, stop.

Roxy: Let’s watch Sharkboy and Lavagirl.

Anna: Okay.

Roxy: And make out during the scary parts.

Anna: Th-

Anna: The scary parts.

Anna: Of Sharkboy and Lavagirl.

Roxy, in a high voice, holding Barbie: Hey, Ken! I was thinking about going back to school and starting a career!

Anna, in a deep voice, holding Ken: Nonsense, Barbie. You’re staying home and having my kids.

Reggie: What the fuck are you guys doing?

Roxy: Playing systemic oppression.

Roxy: If I'm extra sarcastic with you it probably means I'm flirting with you or you really annoy me and I can't handle your crap... have fun figuring out which one.

[stillness-in-green]

Chapter Thoughts — Chapter 387: Congealing

Howdy, everyone, guess who had an unusually high amount of research to do for this post? Next chapter's should be up faster, between being extra short and largely Todo-centric.

Content Note: I will be talking quite a lot about the Himura inter-family marriages below. An enormous chunk of this post is going to be dedicated to dispelling some of the most frequent misconceptions in the fandom response to the Himura situation, which I don't think is anywhere near as drastic as a lot of people are making it out to be. That's not the same as saying there's nothing wrong with it at all! However, I want to be very clear on what I believe Geten is describing before I talk about what we can gather from it.

(Spoilers: A lot of people don't have the first clue what the phrase "branch family" indicates and good lord, does it ever show.)

Hit the jump.

On Geten and the Himura

O Wow, you guys.  Wow.  Okay, so, obviously, lots to cover here, and I know I’ve said before that I try to make these posts with minimal reference to Bad Takes I’m seeing out there in the wilds of the fandom, but holy shit, people, the takes are SO INCREDIBLY BAD.  I should have known better, I guess, than to expect the fandom to be remotely reasonable about a reveal that intersects with both the MLA and the Todoroki.  So, first things first:

Please, please, please, knock it off with the inbreeding jokes and the screeching panic about Rei’s only choices being an abusive arranged marriage or a cousin-marriage.  Geten specifies in nearly every translation we have that the intermarriages within the Himura clan were between distant relatives.  And I strongly, strongly suspect that the majority of people who are making banjo jokes or fretting about the deleterious effects of inbreeding on their faves have not the faintest idea what Geten is talking about when he says “branch families” and “main family.”

As an illustrative example, let’s talk in brief about the Fujiwara clan.

The most dominant clan throughout virtually all of Japan's Heian Era (794 – 1195) was the Fujiwara clan, whose whole shtick was marrying their daughters to Emperors and then relying on the practice of raising the future Emperor in his mother’s household to take advantage of filial piety traditions—which applied even to in-laws!—to secure the loyalty of the Emperor/future Emperor to his Fujiwara father/grandfather.  Even after they fell from the heights of their influence, they still monopolized powerful positions as imperial advisors and regents all the way up to the Meiji Restoration in 1868!

That’s over a thousand years of first marrying into the imperial line and then being the only family who were even eligible to be chosen as regents for child Emperors or Empresses Regnant.  They certainly didn’t achieve that by being a single family for a thousand years!  Rather, there were branch families under the clan umbrella, four of note—

—Well, actually, it was four during the Heian Era.  Once the Kamakura period rolled around the most powerful of those four further subdivided into five.  So eight families total—

—Well, wait, those were really just the most important and chief of the families.  Actually there were five more cadet branches, too.  So thirteen families total—

—But actually, those five cadet branches were subdivided even further as well.  According to Wikipedia, the total number of subfamilies in the Fujiwara clan, families that were specifically aristocrats in the Imperial court (the kuge class) or higher—is…

Uh.  Ninety-seven.

Now, I don’t know how many of those families existed concurrently, but with numbers like that, I hardly think it matters.  All those families—and they are families, not individuals—fell under the broad umbrella of the Fujiwara clan.  So, you know, if some of them intermarry, it’s not exactly on the same level as you marrying your first cousin!  Or your second.  Or your third or fourth or fifth.

Obviously I don’t think the Himura were anywhere near that big or influential, but I hope it illustrates my point: Japanese clans that have had a few hundred years to develop can be fucking enormous.  Please banish from your mind the idea that the Himura have been marrying their direct cousins this whole time.  When Geten says they created multiple branch families, and started marrying distant relatives, the plural on "branch families" and the adjective "distant" are giving us crucial, meaningful information, not just superfluous clutter.

Truthfully, I think a lot of this panic is due to the fact that most people aren’t very into genealogy and thus have no idea how quickly you can become very distant indeed from people with whom you share a common ancestor.  I mean, how many of your third cousins can you name?  For me, that answer is zero.  Heck, I can’t even name any second cousins.  The best I could do would be to tell you of their existence in broad strokes—the son of one of my mother’s cousins, whose name I don’t remember but who I know exists; the hypothetical children one of my father’s cousins might have had at some point after the last time I heard anything about him, well over twenty years ago, at which time he was still single.

Now, it’s a little easier to look down the family tree rather than across, in this case.  To wit, you almost certainly know your cousins much better than your parents’ cousins—your children and your cousins’ children will be second cousins.  That’s probably much closer feeling, right?  But put yourself in the shoes of those kids—unless you live in the same town as your cousins, and see each other pretty frequently, your children and theirs will probably meet only a handful of times before they grow up and head off to live their own lives.  After all, look back up—how well do you remember your parents’ cousins’ children?

And, again—that’s second cousins, the outer periphery of what people who study this stuff class as “close relatives.” [1]  Geten specifying distant relatives means we’re talking farther removed even than that.  Your second cousins once removed, for example, would be either your second cousins’ children (that is, your parents’ cousins’ grandchildren) or your grandparents’ cousins’ children.  Your third cousins, meanwhile, would be your grandparents’ cousins’ grandchildren.

Have you ever met family that far removed?  Have you seen pictures?  Do you even know if they exist?  How many members of your extended family do you know of, generally, perhaps because your parents brought you along on visits a few times as a child, but you’ve long since forgotten their names or their specific relation to you?

Now, in a situation like Geten is talking about, you probably would be able to positively answer some of my questions above, because you’d be mid-level ruling class; your parents would be talking about marriage to someone (hopefully) your age in a branch family.  But that doesn’t mean you would have met them.  They’d probably live in a different part of the country entirely, your common ancestor married to some outside group before the Advent of the Exceptional.  The branch families of, for example, the Tokugawa shogunate lived in four strongholds, each a hundred or more miles distant from the next.[2]  You can track descendants of Queen Victoria through royals from England, Spain, and all three of Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

What all this boils down to is that, no, it really is not that strange for a widely spread clan to do a bit of intermarriage now and then to consolidate power.  People in power want power to stay in the family.  Duh.

However.

That all said, I am not saying the situation Geten describes is 100% fine and cool.  Obviously if it were totally normal and unremarkable, there’d be no point to even bringing it up, much less having Mr. Compress disparagingly comment on it!  But look at the timetable here.  The Himura began as village leaders a long, long time ago, and even after the land reforms, they still went on creating branch families, enabling them to maintain their wealth and pride.

It’s after the Advent that the marrying between the families starts.  And even this, done a handful of times and then abandoned, would not be a damning thing—as I said, those big families in power do have marriages across branches sometimes.  The real trouble is carrying out such marriages repeatedly, across many generations, within a small group.  Some research on the Habsburgs, for example, surely the most famous inbred royals in the Western hemisphere, turned this up:

From 1516 to 1700, it has been estimated that over 80% of marriages within the Spanish branch of the Habsburg dynasty were consanguineous. In other words, they were marriages between close blood relatives. Most often, these unions took the form of marriages between first cousins, double-first cousins, and uncles/nieces.

Nowhere does Geten suggest that things with the Himura got this bad.  In fact, I would argue that the text is quite clear that the family slowly stopped intermarrying, and this is what led to their demise!  Consider the following points:

The Advent happened in modern times.  The glowing baby is delivered in what is very clearly a modern hospital; the very next panel shows a geeky dude levitating a volume of manga, which didn’t even exist in the form we know today until after WWII.  Technology stalled in the wake of the Advent, but the characters now still have cellphones and laptop computers—the Advent was modern.  My rough estimate for how long it’s been since then is a bit over 150 years.    

Because the Advent happened in modern times, the Himura family would have known about the dangers of excessive intermarriage.  This isn’t something they’ve been doing since the Stone Age and refused to change their minds about until the last twenty-five years!    

Because the Himura family would have known about the dangers of inbreeding, look at what happens: they do inter-branch marriages to “distant relatives” for about 125 years and then they stop.  Over the course of that time, the clan shrinks and wanes, for one reason that is immediately self-apparent and a few others that we can guess were probable.     The self-apparent reason is that, even though the families started out as distant relatives, the divide would get shorter with every wedding that produced children.  Thus, the pool of marriageable candidates for those children gets smaller and smaller as the families become more closely entwined.  Avenues close off, marriages become unavailable that would be illegal under Japanese law (which allows marriage between first cousins, but not between uncle and niece/aunt and nephew), or which would have too high a concern of congenital defects—which, remember, a modern family would be aware of.     We can hypothesize plenty of other reasons for the clan’s diminishment.  Once it became clear that quirks were there to stay, entire families might have broken away rather than go along with an inherently doomed endeavor.  Some marriageable candidates likely ran away or otherwise abandoned the family rather than continuing along the path the family had laid out for them.  There would probably have been otherwise acceptable candidates who became unacceptable due to developing quirks that were undesirable to the bloodline.[3]  And so on and so forth.    

Eventually, Geten says, the head family—presumably the one Rei’s from—started selling off their children to outsiders, and that was the end.  If the head family threw in the towel on preserving the bloodline, the branch families certainly weren’t going to be bound to do it anymore!  And so the remnants of the clan shattered.

So, no.  Rei’s choices were not, “Marry Enji or marry a cousin.”  Rei’s parents were looking for someone who could bring money to the family; by that point in time, I don’t think they would have let her marry within the family even if she’d wanted to!

By the same token, Dabi and Geten are not cousins—not in the way people have been using the word, at least, to mean “someone I am imagining to be as close to me as, like, my first cousin, ew.”  While the repeated intermarriage would indeed have reduced the distance quickly as the generations passed, if the common ancestor (that is, the family founder) was from, say, eight generations ago, two and a half centuries prior to the point at which the intermarriage began, and there were at least five or six branches of family at the start,[4] it would have taken more than just one or two generations before the only options available to wed were close relatives!

And, to reiterate, that’s exactly what we saw happen—the Himura kept it up for a few generations, shrinking all the while, but fragmenting for good four or five generations after the Advent.  I would guess that, while Geten would have been more closely related to any children Rei had borne via intermarriage, Dabi and Geten are third or fourth cousins at best.  The Himura were in denial about the new state of the world; they weren’t idiots that managed to forget everything history has ever demonstrated about what happens when you keep marrying off first cousins in a closed environment.

That all said, what else have we got this chapter??  Because make no mistake, the fact that I’m pushing back against reductive cousin-marriage takes in no way means that I wish to shy away from examining the darker implications here!

O I love how ambivalent about all this Geten is.  Given that Rei was married to an outsider over twenty years ago, if the branch families scattered around that time, Geten must have been very young, so he’d have been profoundly impacted by it.  This is especially apparent given the harshness of the language he uses to describe the event: the families don’t merely admit defeat and grudgingly set to integrating; they “scatter.”  The main line doesn’t just start marrying outsiders; they start “selling their children.”

This suggests incredibly bitter feelings in the family, and no wonder!  I imagine there were a lot of people, especially in the branch families or among younger members, who’d hated the clan’s insularity, and they would have left the moment they had an excuse to!  Conversely, though, there would also have been people who’d been indoctrinated into the clan’s worldview all their lives, people who’d quashed their doubts or discomfort down long ago, who would be clinging to sunk cost fallacies with all their strength because change would be terrifying to them.  Those people, I think, would be particularly likely to have complete breakdowns (or meltdowns) when the main family surrendered.

Whatever happened, it must have been quite dramatic, given the way Geten talks about Re-Destro having found him.  Counter to a couple of, just, woefully awful takes I’ve seen around, Re-Destro did not buy Geten; it doesn’t even sound like he found him via any official channel.  It was the main family members who were being “sold off,” remember; the branch families, which Geten explicitly associates himself with, were “scattered.”  It sounds, then, like Geten was basically an orphan, and not one living in any kind of facility or home.  He clearly had family, but whether he bolted on his own, was abandoned,[5] or whatever, that family’s no longer in the picture.  This despite the fact that, again, he would have been a very, very young child at the time.

On a similar note, because of that youth, it’s also probable that his view on the family tragedy is colored at least in part by whatever Re-Destro’s reaction to it was when he got Geten’s story upon taking him in.

Re-Destro, of course, is all for radical quirk acceptance, but he’s deeply entangled with issues of bloodline himself.  Although he uses some pretty flowery language to talk about his inherited blood from Destro, he also views that duty as a huge burdensome responsibility from which he is deliriously happy to be freed by Shigaraki.  So we might suppose that he himself is pretty cold on chaining children to bloodline purity politics, especially in absence of a Worthy Cause.  And rejecting the glorious future of everyone using their quirks to become who they were meant to be is the very opposite of a worthy cause!

O  Gee, I wonder what Spinner would have thought about this.  What a shame we didn’t have a three-month period where the League and the MLA were living together to explore oh wait.

O  Congratulations to everyone who ever ventured to suggest that the Todoroki microaggressions against heteromorphs might stem from Rei, with her old money, traditionalist family, rather than New Money Endeavor, who went whole scenes being mad at Hawks and never called him anything dehumanizing even in his own mind.  Guess there was something to Natsuo not bringing up his mouse-eared girlfriend in the hospital scene after all!

I’m mostly being facetious about this, but you can check here if you want my thoughts on who in the Todofam uses animal insults, who doesn’t, and some analysis as to why. I'd add two observations in light of new information:

First, Natsuo's girlfriend isn't at the shelter with him and the others, despite having a far better justification for being with him than the Masegaki kids have to be hanging around Fuyumi. It's a small absence, but noticeable in the context of the Himura being specifically described as heteromorphobic by Compress.

Second, while a lot of people say that heteromorph discrimination is a recent retcon, it's got a lot of early evidence. In that same vein, it's notable that Rei brings up bloodlines and obligation to them all the way back in Chapter 39—Shouto's Sports Festival flashback—where she reassures baby Shouto that he isn't a slave to his blood as the two of them watch All Might on TV talking about quirks being passed on from parent to child.

It's a little obscured by both Shouto's fears of coming to resemble his father and All Might's (frankly pretty contradictory) claims about what his, "I am here!" catchphrase is meant to indicate, but even back then, Rei's comfort is phrased in terms of being free from obligation to one's blood. If Horikoshi already knew what the Himuras' deal was even back then, one can easily imagine that he already knew the sorts of people the Himura were rejecting.

   

On the Todofam Reunion:

I love all the information packed into Geten and Compress scene, but I do wish it felt less arbitrary.  Indeed, it’s the second scene we’ve gotten of the incredibly specific “captured villains sit in their cells and randomly, with no apparent prompting, talk about something relevant to the Todoroki situation” scenario. But then, this whole confrontation in the Todofam is wildly arbitrary.  Which is frustrating!  The family had that great scene in the hospital where they all talked about stopping Touya together and then did absolutely nothing to actually make that happen, and it really does not reflect well on either them or this whole scene.

Consider:

Dabi is only in this location, confronting Endeavor, because of spill-over effect from other villain actions (Spinner, Kurogiri).  This was not planned in advance because the villains didn’t plan for being split up.  Likewise, Endeavor confirms this chapter that he was trying to lure Touya away from the fighting at the Villa, and I’m sure he wouldn’t have intentionally led Touya towards one of the evacuation routes if he’d known there was a stalled box in the danger zone.  (Why exactly didn't one of the people at police HQ tip him off about that?)    

There are many, many other transports Rei and the kids could have gotten onto; they’re on this specific one rather than any others by total freak coincidence, not active choice.    

The transport only stops where it does because of outside villain interference (Skeptic, and, as of next chapter, AFO’s spies).  This interference was obviously not intended to stop the transport in the specific location it did because Skeptic was already interfering with them long before Dabi was warped in, and the AFO spies ought to value their own lives too much to willingly try to get themselves killed in a blue flame inferno.  (More on them next week, because my god, does their scene in 388 annoy the hell out of me.)

So, taken all together, the Todofam’s vow in the hospital has amounted to absolutely nothing, and the fact that they’re being reunited now is a result of villain actions at best, random chance at worst.  At no point have any of them been seen to make an effort at facilitating a full family action.  While, yes, it is the case that the rest of the family are civilians, why even talk about “dealing with Touya as a family” if they’re going to do nothing of the sort?  When did “deal with Touya as a family” become “allow the planners of this combat to move us all to different locations, leaving only Shouto—who knows the least about Touya of anyone in the family!—to try and talk down the brother who resents him more than anyone?”

It's just another point where Team Hero talks big but takes no action to back that talk up.    

On Enji and Touya:

O  The, “Watch me!”/”I don’t want to watch you die!” exchange is good stuff—all that telling people to watch him, and now Enji’s on the other side of that.  Even better is that ludicrously delightful panel of the two of them with hands and flame-hands entwined, Enji’s arms wide open as Touya comes in[6] for a landing.  As ever, Dabi’s dancing imagery is on-fucking-point.  Good work getting your dad to dance with you in hell, Dabs.

O  As to Enji’s actions here, I’m torn.  On the one hand, it’s extremely telling that Endeavor leaps straight to, “Guess we’ll die together, then,” when he fails to talk Dabi down, and that’s emblematic of the flaws of the hero mentality, which is so drastically bad at dealing with nuanced situations in which they or their society have failed.

On the other hand, Enji does try to talk to Touya here and gets nowhere, not necessarily because he’s saying the wrong things (though you could argue that he is) but because Dabi’s frying his own brain.  This is uncomfortably reminiscent of Spinner’s mental decay, and, as others have said, I’m Very Not Here for the villains being so damaged mentally that they can’t even articulate their own grievances, allowing heroes to get the last word by default even though their “solutions” are wildly insufficient and ultimately in support of the demonstrably failing status quo.

Anyway, Enji is obviously taking the wrong tack here, but I can’t help but feel like the writing has put him in a no-win situation by stripping Touya’s ability to reason from him, rendering him unable to even attempt to respond to Enji’s attempts at engagement. Enji’s still ultimately to blame for this, of course, thanks to all his many, many failures to engage with Touya at literally any point prior to this, but it’s just an ongoing disappointment to me that we continue to be deprived of a proper intellectual back-and-forth about this society’s ultimate worth because, at all times, either the heroes are unwilling to engage or the villains have been rendered unable to.

O  Travel times in this series continue to be unbelievably whack.  Endeavor has gotten 800 meters from the Villa ruins? 800 meters? That's less than half a mile! AFO is most of the way to U.A. by now! All Might has driven even farther, going all the way from the police HQ, which is probably in Tokyo near Central Hospital, past Kamino and every other active battlefront, to far enough out from U.A. to intercept AFO's flight path. That's well over a hundred miles, traveled in a matter of minutes![7] But Endeavor, even on injured legs, couldn't make it one single mile?? And Dabi couldn't have caught up to him if he was moving that slow?

God save me from these arbitrary fucking travel times!    

Stray Notes:

O  The “land reforms,” not “the agricultural revolution,” jfc C.Cook. There's a pretty huge difference between a family sustaining their power through an agricultural upheaval in 1947 vs. 10,000 BC!

O  Why is it so cold in there??  Get Mr. Compress a jacket!!! Also, like, Geten doesn’t seem terribly bothered, as one might expect from an ice quirk user, but it’s a bit inconsistent with his wearing a full-length parka during his fights, seeing as the parka would suggest he is, in fact, not totally immune to sustained chills!

That being the case, why is it so cold in there?  I wouldn’t think it’s actually just that cold in the prison, since there’s obviously a cold mist drifting into Mr. C’s cell, rather than being ambient in both of them.  Does Geten just generate it?  His whole thing up to now has been that he controls ice but can’t create it from nothing, so if it is coming from him, that would be—well, not quite a retcon, but certainly a swerve.

Does he naturally generate it but do so very slowly, not in sufficient amounts to use for his preferred Ballistic Iceberg fighting style?  If it’s coming from him automatically, can he turn it off?  Presumably not, since if he could and isn’t, that would suggest he’s doing this with a goal in mind, something you have to think his jailers would have Opinions about.

So if he can’t turn it off, and this just happens in anyplace he sits long enough, is the parka to protect other people from his chill, rather than to protect him from the cold of the ice he uses?  Recall that there wasn’t ice caked on his chair during e.g. the MLA dinner scene.  What a fascinating idea, and one that speaks to the need for support items like Detnerat makes!

Well, whatever the case, I certainly hope he’s about to use his ice to decisively break them out of there!  Because haha, why wouldn’t he be able to do that if he ambiently creates cold just by sitting there and the prison can’t even be arsed to crank the temperature up??  Surely no one thinks that those restraints on his hands are sufficient to stop him from using his ice?  I haven’t forgotten that he definitively does not need to touch ice in order to control it, and it can’t be that hard to find a fire suppression sprinkler system line or the plumbing connected to whatever the toilet situation is for prisoners or something!!

(Sigh.)

O  Unexpectedly good of the heroes to let Mr. Compress keep his prosthetic.  And a bed, no less!  I wonder where Geten’s bed is.  (My god, these jail conditions are so inhuman.  Get them a damn futon, at least.)

O  That hint that Mr. C has been talking to the cops and heroes—Geten asking about the conversation—I wonder if anything will come of that?  Because it would be incredibly lame for Horikoshi to promise us we’d see Mr. C again only for this to be his final appearance, doing nothing but weighing in with disgruntled expressions on Geten’s out-of-nowhere backstory drop.  It’s a pretty shit final scene for Geten, too, dropping backstory exposition for no reason save to layer in some justification for the ice powers Dabi is about to exhibit.

--------------------- FOOTNOTES ---------------------

[1] The cut-off between close and distant relatives is made here because, once you get further out than second cousins, there’s little to no difference in the impact of shared blood on the child of two such distant relatives and that experienced by any random person in the general population.

[2] I eyeballed this on a map, so it’s not exact, but it’ll do as a ballpark.  Two of them looked a little closer together than a hundred miles, but that’s also a straight overland route from Point A to Point B, which the roads probably wouldn’t have been.  Incidentally, traveling a hundred miles in a time before cars would have taken at least five days if you weren’t a military messenger in a hurry and trading out horses at multiple stops.

[3] Given that the characters in-universe still don’t know the origin of quirks, there’s no way to completely guarantee desirable quirks, or even to perfectly guard against the dreaded heteromorphic quirks.  Eventually, the Himura would get a kid whose ice quirk is tied to the fact that they were born looking like a snowman, or they'd crop up a polar bear heteromorph or something.  And whoops, there goes another viable bloodline.

[4] A very reasonable and indeed conservative estimate. Remember that Geten says “the few remaining families” scattered after the main family gave up; the plural indicates that there were still at least two branch family holdouts even after all the waning and shrinking.  In turn, those being the remainder means there must have been more previously.  Losing only two over the course of over a century of mandated intermarriage throughout the chaos of the Advent is possibly undershooting quite a bit!          I talked about the Fujiwara earlier, but for an anime example of how ridiculous the branch family situation can get, look at Kakegurui: we’re at ten and counting branch families under the control of the main line, and if we read the kanji of that main line's name literally, there could be ninety more in the wings.

[5] I lean towards some form of abandonment because it makes the Dabi foiling tastier if Touya left his family by choice when he became Dabi, whereas Geten was left alone through no choice of his own. Abandonment also provides more meaningful context on Geten’s attachment to RD and his determination to be useful and strong for him.

[6] Crotch-first.

[7] Maybe he gave Lady Nagant a ride and that’s how she got in range to start taking potshots at Shigaraki at U.A.? It'd be nice to have any kind of explanation for that particular feat, though it would mean All Might didn't leave Tokyo until after Kurogiri was freed, cutting into his travel time even more. But heck, what's a few minutes matter when your car can drive eight hundred miles an hour, right? Christ.

[girldragongizzard]

Chapter 12: Nightmare

I remember that Wentin doesn’t feed on fear. It feeds on agreement. Specifically, agreement with it.

And the cheapest, easiest way it can get a bone deep agreement with someone is by terrifying and chasing them in a dream. They agree it’s scary and agree to run from it, and it agrees to chase them.

But other agreements work.

So, it’s not just going to be in the place I fear most, as it told me it would be. It’s going to be there when I agree that I need to see it.

But I don’t want to see Wentin for more training. Though I could probably use that. I don’t particularly like its form of training, and I’m not looking to get better at doing things myself. I’ve got plenty of time to learn new things.

I want to find Ptarmigan.

And I suspect that the local pre-eminent primordial nightmare can maybe help me get a line on the whereabouts of the Artist of Nightmares.

So what I need to figure out is where the place that I fear the most is, so I can go there and call it out.

And do I actually need to go there? Or just induce a dream about it?

And then, do I need to agree to more training for it to show up? Or can it agree with me about something else?

The fact that it feeds on agreement is really unnerving to me, by the way. There’s something extra predatory about that.

I sit alone on my roof in the middle of the day just thinking about this. Puzzling over it.

I wonder.

Is there a fear that I’ve been avoiding thinking about all this time?

Every time I’ve faced a challenge and tackled it like the dragon I think I am, without taking the time to really think about it, have I been just following my instincts? Or have I been avoiding something?

I think I’m asking myself this question because I know there’s an answer to it.

What have I been avoiding?

—

In my memories, I only have my true name now, Meghan Estragon Draconis. In my memories, it’s what my parents, my teachers, my friends, and my assailants have always called me.

The only time my deadname enters my life anymore is when some bureaucratic hiccup or a person who hasn’t been updated brings it up. And then it’s gone from my memory moments later.

Wow, my family reunions are going to be really interesting now.

—

“Hey, Meghan, you fucking queer,” Jessie spits at me, leaning into my face.

I reach up to wipe his spittle from my cheek and chin, but he grabs my hand and throws it away from me and down, my arm swinging to hit my own thigh.

“When are you gonna learn to stop existing?” he sneers. “How am I gonna teach that to you, huh? When you’re so fucking dense?”

The others laugh and cackle.

I don’t remember their names. I barely even recognize their faces. I just know I see them with Jessie wherever he goes. And I know Jessie because he’s the one who comes at me first. He’s always the one to lead the attacks. He makes sure he’s known.

In my head, I’m tearing them all apart right now. Blood everywhere. Entrails hanging from the lamps that dot the awning posts all around the school campus. Dragging bits of bodies up to the roof to be consumed so that they can bother nobody else again. An example to others. Food.

It’s such an idle daydream. Soothing because it can never be real, and the consequences will never happen. So I can visualize it with impunity.

If I was actually a dragon and did that, I’d be hunted down so fast. In order to avoid death by gunshot, trap, or any number of other things the authorities of the humans would have in store for a man-eating animal like me, I have to play a game of escalation, imagining tougher armor, a larger and larger size, sharper claws, hotter fire. And it gets ridiculous fast.

It’s best to acknowledge this is fantasy and just roll with it, and let it happen in my head so I can relax and take whatever blows are coming my way.

In the end, with every encounter like this, I become a martyr for a cause that nobody else knows or cares about. Me. And I endure it.

I squint.

It’s kind of weird and nasty that a group of boys is picking on a girl like this in broad daylight, right before school.

Isn’t there some kind of code about that? Where the girls pick on the girls, and the boys pick on the boys?

And then my gut explodes with the bruised ache of being impacted with a fist, and I double over.

—

I know now that girls sometimes do get ganged up on by boys, and the worst can happen, and the consequences of that are often infuriatingly light, if existent at all. But back then we had our illusions. Our ignorance.

But my memories are changing, too. Not just my name, but what I am.

Is that, like my headlong dive into fighting back as a dragon, part of avoiding my greatest fear?

I find myself asking, am I afraid that I’m fake? That I’m not really what I say I am? Or am I more afraid that it doesn’t actually matter what I am, they’re still going to come after me anyway?

And if it doesn’t matter what I actually am, if they treat me like I’m something I’m not and never have been, then am I effectively that thing anyway?

I’m not a man. I know I’m not. I have physiological and metaphysical proof of that now.

But I am, definitely, I think, acting like I’m afraid I’ll still be seen as one.

Because, if I’m not a man, but I’m treated like one, what’s the difference?

I don’t have the offending anatomy anymore. Despite the bullying, the presence of that part of my body actually always hurt me more.

But thinking about all this gives me memories of it, and I feel sick to my pelvis and my stomach, as if I’ve been kicked in both places.

I feel human, and weak.

Just from the memories.

And I’m rumbling in defiance of it.

I think.

I want to be seen as a person so that I have the rights and joys of a person. But I don’t want to be seen as a person, because then I can be hurt as a person by other people who don’t respect those rights.

And on this planet, person is also synonymous with human. And I was never human. I was just mistaken for one.

I’m afraid of being seen as human, of maybe really actually being human, because it means I have the responsibilities of being human. And so I follow my draconic instincts.

I think I’ve done a pretty good job of pulling back on that reflex most of the time.

But there it is.

I can try to pull that fear apart later, address it when I have the time, safety, and energy to address it, and unpack all the bullshit that’s wrapped up in it. Maybe in a counseling session or two.

Right now, though, I need to pinpoint the location, the place where that fear resides the most.

What place represents it?

What place triggers it?

What place contains all the tells and signals and feedback that informs me of how I’m seen and how I’m going to be treated?

The human face.

When I realize that, I feel like my gizzard ties itself into a knot, and I know I’m right.

—

I’m four again.

My mom has been showing me pictures of her family, including baby pictures of her and her siblings. And she’s been pointing out how their features all look so similar, and where they look different. She’s been trying to teach me something about heredity and just how to recognize people we know.

“What do I look like?” I ask.

“Why don’t you go into the bathroom and look in the mirror?” she suggests.

“The mirror?” I ask.

“Yeah. You know, the mirror. It shows your reflection, so you can see yourself. You’ve used it before, silly,” she says.

I don’t remember it, actually. But it sounds pretty fun! If I can see myself in the mirror, that would be really neat.

So, I get up and run to the bathroom, and Mom follows and helps me with the stool so I can get up on it and see more clearly over the counter.

But what I see in the mirror is the monster that chases me in my dreams, and I scream.

—

“It is just so droll, Meghan,” Wentin screeches. “It’s delightful how you got here anyway, despite being so off.”

���What do you mean?” I ask.

Remember that dream I had where I could talk to the world’s dragons without words? I'm doing that now with Wentin.

We’re in my parents’ old bathroom, just the two of us, with its big wall sized mirror, guacamole green porcelain fixtures, and strange tiny floral print wallpaper. And I’m not a small child. I’m my grown self, as I am today. And Wentin is still in the mirror, instead of my own reflection.

I think I must have fallen asleep and in the midst of the nightmare I’ve taken control and made it lucid. Or Wentin did.

In any case, I’m calm and collected now. I feel determined. Probably because this is what I set out to do.

“It’s not the face or the mirror you fear the most, Darling,” it says. “It’s your own memories. Where we are right now. You came here to test your mirror theory and it worked anyway. I love it!”

“Oh, OK,” I say, genuinely not really caring at this point. I think Wentin is splitting hairs needlessly. But I’m here on my own business. “I need your help.”

“You're not going to question this?” it looks hurt and incredulous.

“I don't actually care about what I fear right now,” I tell it, puffing myself up. “That’s just the hoop you required for me to meet with you. And now I'm here, and paying attention to you, I don't need to think about that anymore. I need you to help me.”

“In what way?” it asks.

“Can you locate Ptarmigan? Or get her to come to us somehow?”

“Oh, I don’t think I can do that,” it replies.

“Could you try? I’m at a loss.”

“I cooouuulddd…” it says. “But I think I would need something in return, such as another training session with you.”

I sigh,”Don’t you feed on agreement? Couldn’t you just agree to help me?”

“You have it backward,” it groans. “Me agreeing with you would be like reversing the polarity. Energy would flow from me to you. You have to agree with me, in order for me to feed.”

“So, you really are predatory,” I exclaim.

“Of course I am! How could I be anything else? My dear Meghan, what do I even look like to you?” Wentin croons. “And you’ve known me for how long? How many hunts have we had? I feel disappointed.”

“I don’t think I’m OK with you,” I find myself stating.

“I’ve never asked you to be.”

“That’s… not reassuring.”

“Oh, come now. Have I not taught you well? Do you not have the reflexes you’ve needed to survive? Are you not currently free of Säure’s stomach acids? Or have I become mistaken as we speak?”

“Don’t do that.” I feel almost like I’m a different person when my thoughts are unimpeded by the need to try to remember English, and then to type it. I feel like I’m in more control, and it’s easier for my impatience with Wentin to express itself. “What are you trying to do by saying that?”

“I’d like to make you run, to flee,” it answers. “Agree to flee and we may yet find your Ptarmigan.”

I huff and sit down on my haunches. And then I lift my left foreclaw and nibble at it, pretending to remove remaining flecks of my last shed.

“You are no fun.”

“Wentin,” I say, looking back up at it. “Can we make a different agreement this time? Please?”

“I’ve just told you that I cannot work that way,” it says. “It is a matter of my own survival.”

The more that I listen to it, the less sympathy I have for this thing, even if it did drive me to realize some important things about myself. Even if it did attack Säure. And when I think back on the roles it’s played in my life, from my childhood nightmares to the early shenanigans and doubts about my Discord server and the network I was building there, I am seeing it as nothing but a force of chaos driven by its own hunger.

What’s the difference between feeding on coerced agreement and feeding on fear? In practicality, it’s the same thing.

Should I even bargain with Wentin, as I was prepared to do? To aim it at Säure again? 

Because that is really what I was intending here. I was going to tell Wentin that it could afford a small loss by agreeing with me in order to set up Säure for a long string of recurring nightmares it could milk for ages.

And even though Säure personally hasn’t done me all that much harm, I could write an entire book about why he still deserves it. Why it would be just a tiny portion of the coercion his weight as a billionaire has imposed on the world. Heck, even just locally. And I’m not even the most well equipped person to write that. I’m pretty sure there’s an independent library full of books covering that theory and history on the corner of Maple and Terrace, right here in Fairport.

But do I really want to be the one that wields this weapon?

I feel like in my journaling, I really haven’t made the case for it. Or even for fighting the enemy I’m facing. I feel like I’ve been leaning on the case of self defense, preventative measures, icky feelings, slim evidence that he’s a white supremacist, and just the fact that he’s a billionaire.

And, when I originally set out to find Ptarmigan to get her help, I really wasn’t anticipating that I’d be mulling the ethics of doing business with Wentin. But here I am.

I’m tempted, but repulsed while sitting in the clarity of just having turned a nightmare into something lucid.

Then I have a weird thought. An impulse turned into an idea. And it’s so compelling to me that I can’t help but lean well into it.

“Wentin,” I say.

“Yes?” it squeals with eager anticipation.

“Run,” I tell it.

“What?”

I rise up and put my claws on the bathroom countertop and then sink them into the formica and wood, letting the materials creak with the slow increase in pressure I apply. And I lean forward and open my mouth, breathing into my fire sacks as I lean toward the mirror, both eyes locked on Wentin’s.

“You’re a kind of bullshit,” say. “And as Rhoda’s queen I have been imbued with the power to be done with bullshit. Run.”

It backs up a couple of short steps, head turned slightly sideways, “You can’t do this.”

“Yes I can. You’ve scared me into lucidity, and now I’m in control,” I tell it.

“You are.”

“Run.”

“Run?”

“Flee.”

“I can’t.”

“Then I will roast you and eat you in pieces.”

And it bolts.

And that’s when the hunt begins, with the shattering of glass and the creaking of the sudden dark woods of my old nightmares that begin to surround us.

Wentin’s tufted tail dances just before my nose as I huff and gallop through the snow and mud, jaw cracked open to catch the air as I run through it.

—

Maybe I ultimately failed at my goal to avoid using coercion in my quest to quell Säure.

By instilling terror into Wentin and chasing it, I’ve only turned things around, and done what it’s been doing to me.

But it feels right.

And I’m pretty sure it’s going to get the attention of Ptarmigan, with a nightmare experiencing a nightmare.

Not that there’ve never been other people to do this with nightmares turned lucid. I’m sure it’s an ancient tradition, older than civilization. Wentin’s probably experienced this before, itself. It sure does know how to flee.

But for a while I was the center of Ptarmigan’s attention, being the original focal point of Rhoda’s storm. And I’m wagering that maybe I still have at least some of it.

—

Wentin knows what I’m doing, and it’s been through this before on both sides. It knows how to turn this around. It even cheered me when I turned it around the last time.

But it keeps running. Effortless running through the black trunks of the winter forest, its tail always just out of reach.

It told me that I need to agree with it, but it keeps running.

The chase goes on, and it’s not working.

Ptarmigan is nowhere to be seen.

I’m beginning to question myself and what I’m doing, and I guess I slow down to do it.

Wentin gets further and further away.

And when I notice this, I stop. I actually feel kind of tired, despite the fact that it’s a dream under my control.

I’m not really sure what I should do, and I’m considering waking up, when Wentin stops itself and turns to look at me.

It’s panting.

Its open mouth and showing of teeth is a threat and a challenge, but its relaxed posture and moderately sized pupils tell me it is comfortable where it is and with our relationship. The panting is for its breath, mostly. Heat regulation and oxygen intake, if that even matters in this dream world.

And then, when it sees me watching, its eyes dilate and its mouth closes for a moment. And then it’s bowing. Shoulders down, haunches high, forelegs out front, it yips and bounces. First to its left, then to its right, like a dog excited to catch a ball.

“Chase me!” it calls without sound, and then bounces a few steps further away.

Then it scampers forward and repeats the dance.

The yip becomes a bark and a whine.

I get it.

Now if I chase it, I’m agreeing with it, and it gets what it needs. And then, whatever it does, whether it keeps running, or drops to the ground in resignation and exhaustion, or turns to fight me, if I react accordingly, I am still agreeing with it.

And I could ignore it. I could refuse. I could turn it around again somehow, do the opposite of what it’s asking of me. But I’ve already done that.

This could go on forever, back and forth.

I could just wake up and be done with this dream. But then, later, when I fall asleep or delve into my memories to look at my old face again, Wentin could be waiting for me to start this all over. It also knows how to find me in the waking world. A lot of people do.

There’s no real end to it. There never was. We’ve always been chasing each other.

But this time, it has offered me a bargain.

If I agree with it today, it will try to lead me to Ptarmigan.

I imitate its bow, like a playful wolf reciprocating, and it jerks and twitches and jumps away.

And we’re off again, flying through the woods, propelled by claws in the snow.

And Wentin’s spooky whistling fills the air with glee.

[wcbweblog]

WELCOME!

WHAT IS ‘WHAT COULD BE WORTH ETERNITY,?

What Could Be Worth Eternity?, or wcbwe for short, is an art/storytelling project of mine! I currently have a comic (very early stage) in-the-works, as well as some writing and other art pieces. In short, wcbwe is what I call the original universe that holds a number of stories and characters I want to share!

OH, SO THIS BLOG IS FOR THAT COMIC?

………not exactly, unfortunately. The comic is still very early in its production, and as the only person working on it, progress is slow going. I think taking the extra time will be worth it in the end, but I’m biased lol. As it stands, this blog is not specifically for the comic in the works, but when I am ready to start posting pages, this is where it’ll happen!

…ALRIGHT. THEN WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS BLOG? WHY THE COUNTDOWN, IF THE BIG PROJECT ISN’T GOING TO BE READY FOR A WHILE?

Wait, countdown? For anyone who doesn’t know, for about two months, I was doing a… daily, countdown on my main blog, and it ended today, 2023.08.28, the day this blog goes up.

To be honest – the countdown wasn’t for this. In fact I’m writing out this lil intro post the day it’s supposed to go up while at work haha! I am incredibly unprepared. The countdown was to something at work (that never ended up happening, to my knowledge), I think we were supposed to do some sort of… media blackout? Like I said, it didn’t happen, so it doesn’t really matter. But, well, a couple of my moots saw the countdown and got curious, and I thought ‘well I should do something on tumblr, too!’. So here we are. Art blog! Yup, this is an art (and sometimes writing) blog centered around the wcbwe universe. Right now the plan is to update every Monday, but that’s subject to change because I have no clue what my uni schedule is yet XD

YEAH YEAH COOL. GO BACK TO THAT COMIC FOR A MINUTE?

Ah yes. The comic. My pride and joy, should I actually manage to stick with the project. Like I said, it’s still very early in its production; only the prologue and first chapter have been scripted, and only half the prologue has been storyboarded. And it’s going to be a very long comic, so that’s not a lot. I’d prefer to have the whole thing, or almost the whole thing, storyboarded before I start making pages. If you want an estimate? I’d say it’ll be about a year or more before I can start posting pages.

OKAY, SO IF YOU WEREN’T PREPARED TO START THIS BLOG, WHY DO IT?

Well, there’s no time like the present! I need somewhere to organize my thoughts and concepts for the universe, story, and characters, and I’m hoping having a dedicated blog might motivate me to sort out my ideas haha.

*INSERT FANCY LIL PROGRESS BAR HERE*

Wow! What was the progress again? Not to worry! I’ll keep the progress updated here :]

scripted up to chapter 4

21/? pages storyboarded

0/? pages completed

IF THIS IS AN ART BLOG, WHAT KIND OF ART WILL YOU BE POSTING?

In short, anything wcbwe related! Digital art, traditional art, short writing things, animations, concept art, storyboard sketches, etc. etc. Anything I make that has to do with the wcbwe universe will end up on here eventually! Not all of it will be Quality Art TM lol

ALRIGHT, BUT WHAT’S THE STORY ABOUT?

I don’t want to get too into spoilers, especially since I don’t have most of the plot ironed out yet. Up until the comic’s production is further along, the main focus here will be on worldbuilding and designs. With that said – you might be able to put together pieces of the plot with the art provided! I’ve got a couple big pieces coming up that have some kinda major spoilers. I just don’t want to actually talk about the plot things until I know what I’m doing. With that in mind, some art might end up getting retconned in the final production. Though, there’ll be a liiiiiiiitle plot sneak peak at the end of this post. Very small :p (it comes with art!)

ASKS ARE WELCOME!

Idk haha, if you’ve got anything to say, or any questions, drop an ask! It might take me some time to answer or I might want to save it for whatever reason, but I’ll answer eventually! Oh – asks are exempt from the Monday Updates btw! I’ll answer them whenever I answer them :3

…oh yeah I should probably mention. C a t s. (also tags are in the. tags-)

Without further ado – welcome to What Could Be Worth Eternity? Let’s dive in.

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Arceli dies.

And then she doesn’t.

[rangerstark25]

Here’s the full set, as promised :)

I drew these for a school project, for which I won’t explain the parameters because I’m not sure I understood them correctly myself! I chose to draw 5 canonically (with 1 exception) autistic characters, each representing a trait associated with ASD :D

First up is Quinni Gallagher-Jones, from Heartbreak High (the 2023 reboot)! I love her so much, and the actor who plays her (Chloe Hayden!) is autistic herself too! Quinni is the only one of these characters to actively state she is autistic. She’s also shown wearing noise-cancelling headphones to help with audio-related sensory issues, as in my drawing of her :)

Number two is Huey Duck from the Ducktales reboot! This is the character that isn’t exactly canonically autistic, but he is shown stimming several times, which we affectionately refer to as his Happy Flappies! I think Astro-Boyd was discussed as being autistic, but just because he might be doesn’t mean Huey can’t be (it feels canon to me so much that I was about halfway through this before I realised Huey wasn’t canonically autistic actually). Also Dewey and Louie definitely have both different presentations of ADHD (this isn’t canon either but come up, hyperactive Dewey and inattentive Louie are right there)

Next up is Entrapta from the She-Ra reboot (wow that’s 3 for 3 on reboots!) I love Entrapta, although I do wish her character was treated a little better. One of my favourite things about her is the detail that she will only eat food if it’s tiny (and seems to only like fizzy drinks), which is what I depicted here!

For number four we have my current hyperfixation, Donatello from Rise of the TMNT! It took me too long to start watching this show, I was already hyperfixated after just seeing a few clips. I haven’t seen any other TMNT series (sorry) (I did watch bayverse after seeing ROTTMNT) but I already know I like the Rise artstyle most (in addition to my favourite character being canonically autistic). I kinda failed to show what I wanted to with this drawing (Donnie’s special interest in tech, I had SHELLDON with him in the sketch) but I’m still happy with how it turned out overall. Please dismiss the fact that I drew the spider-shell arms while he’s wearing the hover-shell. My favourite thing about this one has got to be how well I feel like I managed to mimic the Rise artstyle!

And finally we have Abed Nadir from Community! He’s the oldest character of the bunch (in the sense that Community is from 2008) and yet he’s one of the best autistic characters in media to date! In the drawing I tried to show the way he communicates through use of movie and TV references.

I spent way too long on all of these, but I do think they turned out well. Unsurprisingly to most, each of these characters are my favourites from their respective shows (some are tied with other characters, but I still think it counts)! I do think it’s funny that two of these characters are played by Dani Pudi. It was also surprisingly difficult to choose what outfits to draw the live action characters in. The temptation to add headcanoned pride-flag stickers or pins next to the neurodiversity symbols on these was high, but I resisted for the sake of canon! The headcanons will live on in my head rent-free anyways.

Anywhizzle, I’ve been rambling on for long enough, so enjoy the post, I’mma head out (feel free to ask any questions you may have in the notes or my ask box or whatever, I’ll probably answer :))

~ Madelyn