#and house doesn't understand why

[holdmymetaphor]

okay heres some things about houses childhood i think about

theres clearly a few dynamics here

-he hates his father, resents the abuse, recognizes that bad things were done to him

-probably when he was very young, he didnt understand why bad things happened to him, was not intentionally A Bad Kid

-because he surmised his dad was not his dad at 12 i assume the abuse started from a young age.

-house mentions ice baths and sleeping outside, but he also mentions his father not speaking to him for months at a time, which is interesting to me. when house tries to qualify the severity of abuse to eve he says "not as bad as your [trauma] if how your acting about it shows how bad it is." which to me is pretty noncommittal. was he doing that bc he was still kind of lying, trying to get info out of her? if not, it seems like house is actually unsure of how to qualify his own abuse, which would lead me to believe it was largely emotional and verbal. although i suspect that his father did physically abuse him at times, to me this exchange implies that house thinks the ice baths and sleeping outside were the worse of it (interestingly both acting on his whole body and ability to regulate temperature)

-at some point he acts out intentionally, instead of unintentionally, bc his father is Wrong and shouldnt be abusing house in these ways(the fact that the thing he wanted to hear from his father was "you were right, you did the right thing" 😭😭)

-this leads to worse and more cruel punishments, which house both detests and wants to avoid repeating. furthering his resentment, but reinforcing his fathers authority

- despite his knowledge that his father is wrong, his dad claims to do these acts out of love, to teach dicipline, to toughen him up. (in this way his struggle with god is really an allegory of his father: is it better he hates me (i deserve pain) or loves me (i dont deserve pain) when he does awful things to me? or is it better for him to not exist at all (things just happen, there is no deserving)?

-in my perspective, especially as house got older, into his teens, he was actually probably really "well behaved" finally smart enough to fake social cues and swallow his pride so that his father wouldnt hit him or what have you (which is why he regresses to a child often as an adult, because he was not allowed those things)

its interesting to me, to see how all of houses character is shaped around the shadow of his father. the parts where he is similar: rigid, principled, yell-y, and where he is intentionally different: encourages independent thinking, respects challenges to his authority (only when he has authority lmao that all falls apart when people take his power(read:agency) away, his biggest trigger)

and none of this even gets into his mother, blythe (a word which means both happiness and bland disintrest) which is a whole nother can of worms. the fact that at the funeral she said that "the war was over" (which implied that no matter how much house actually listened to his father, there was still a part of him that couldnt help but to point out the logical issues, and therefore continued abuse)

lastlly, she had said that john loved him. which i think house believes to be true. especially when he tries to talk to his dead father in season 6, he says "i think i focus on the wrong things," implying that he did want to find some peace with that relationship, and that he wanted his fathers love, despite it being illogical, painful and confusing.

that he was willing to look past the abuse was shocking to me, because house is right his father shouldnt of abused him. but it was coming from a place of love, however ill concieved.

this is as close as we get to house praying to god. to admit that the suffering of life cannot be defied or denied, and grasp for the love nestled in between all the pain, however flawed, wrong, or illogical.

in a lot of ways, his story is so much about houses struggle with the body, its agency, its disability, its doom. he literally becomes a doctor to grasp with this ideologically (at times paradoxically) instead of physics because his question isnt really about existance in general

its about why he exists in the broken, painful way he does. and at the end of it, he sets down his need for an answer, righteousness, and admits that despite it all, his body cant help but love. and that love is the death of him. the end of his suffering.

[dr-robert-chase-apologist]

[heich0e]

au in which touya ends up having to watch natsuo put his hands all over you because you took something offered to you at a sketchy warehouse party that has you panting and whimpering and burning up and his own hot hands can't provide you any comfort but his little brother's cool-quirked touch can

[mamawasatesttube]

thinking abt kon getting hurt/upset about something big and clark bundling him up in his cape... ouuhhhhh souperfam save me...

[trensu]

ETA: now on ao3 as Hawkins Halfway House for Homeless Horrors

ETA2: now with an additional snippet

okay, how's this for an AU

We know that Steve wants to be a dad. Like, his literal life dream is to have a minimum of six children. SIX. who wants that?? crazy people, that's who. but we forgive him his insanity because he's sweet and will actually probably be a really good dad and there's not enough of those in the world.

the downer is that it's the late 90s, he's a (still) single guy in his thirties, and every adoption agency on the planet would rather give their children to a heteronormative couple who don't even want kids than to a single dude who would dedicate his heart and soul to giving his kids a happy healthy home.

He's bemoaning his fate to Robin at a bar they recently discovered. It's a weird little joint, kinda tucked away on the outskirts where Steve could've sworn didn't exist just last week. The patrons were kinda weird too but neither he or Robin could put their finger on why or how. If Steve had been a little less miserable, and Robin a little less caught up in comforting him, they might've noticed how everyone else in the bar kept sneaking curious glances at them or how they somehow always kept most of their features hidden.

They didn't though. Even when they were interrupted by a handsome black gentleman who called himself Jeff. Jeff said that he couldn't help but overhear their dilemma and that he's actually part of an agency that is more open minded about potential foster or adoptive parents. Steve's a little deeper in his cups than he intended, and doesn't question that some random guy in a bar is offering him a chance of having children. Robin is not as far in her cups and finds it a bit suspicious.

She was going to say something about it but Jeff looked her in the eye and said, "Everything is fine. There's no reason to worry. I'm only trying to help."

"You're only trying to help," Robin murmured back blearily. "Everything is fine. Yeah. Yeah, 'm not worried."

Jeff gives Steve his card and tells him he can stop by the very next day if he'd like, since his schedule is open.

The next day, Steve is regretting having gotten so drunk. Not really because of the hangover (though holy shit, he is NOT twenty anymore he needs to stop drinking like one). No. It's because Jeff had just finished giving him a tour of the facility full of rambunctious children in need of a home.

Actually, that had been pretty okay even if the other adults in the facility startled at the sight of him and the children kept ducking into other rooms to hide from him.

No. It's because Jeff had just introduced him to a child named Dustin who sneezed unexpectedly and somehow turned into a kitten.

"Um," Steve said. Jeff sighed.

"Dustin hasn't gotten back control over his shapeshifting since his mother's passing, but I assure you he's been improving."

"...shapeshifting," Steve said, numbly.

"Yes. Dustin tends to go for cat shapes, like his mother did." Jeff bends down to pick up the loudly mewing tabby kitten. "We've managed to get him to shift mostly into a domestic shorthair, rather than a cougar cub."

"That's great," Steve squeaked as he tried to tamp down the growing hysteria in him. "Really, really great. Y'know what, Jeff, this whole thing's been great but I think I'm still kind of drunk so I'm just gonna go--"

"No, wait," Jeff says, quickly placing the Dustin kitten on his shoulder before reaching out to grab Steve by the elbow. "Please. Look, you seem like a good guy. I did a quick scan of you and everything, and I really think if you'd take a moment to sit down and--"

"JEFFORD BILLANY JONES."

Jeff's shoulders hunched, nearly dislodging Dustin from his shoulder. He sighed again and turned to face the man storming towards him and Steve.

"Eddy, you know none of that is my name."

"I'll call you whatever I want since for some unfathomable reason, you've brought a human into my sanctuary. Why is there a human in my home, Jeffamy."

"Eddy, let me explain."

"It's Eddie in front of the human," Eddie said.

Steve's brain was experiencing some sort of malfunction because Jeff had been calling this man Eddie, except if he concentrated, the way Jeff said Eddie and the way Eddie had said Eddie sounded very very different except it hadn't because they both sounded like Eddie except for how Jeff's Eddie sounded different from, the same as, different, just like--

A pair of ringed fingers snapped aggressively in front of his face, startling Steve from an impending aneurysm.

"You. Who are you, who sent you, what do you want."

Steve stuttered something incoherent. He's pretty sure he's had a mental break from reality. There was some sort of sentient black sludge creeping across the tiled floor, wrapping a tendril around Jeff's leg.

"What is that?" Steve squawked. Jeff beamed at him.

"Oh, this is El! She's a Monster Under the Bed. She hasn't decided on a form yet, but that's okay, we love her just as she is."

"Jeff," Eddie snapped. Jeff looked at Eddie stubbornly.

"You told me we needed all hands on deck."

"How dare you, I'd never stoop to using boat metaphors."

"Don't distract me with blatant lies. Eddy, you said we needed help. You said you'd take anyone at this point."

Steve has not been able to stop staring at the sludge creature (El?). He's beginning to realize that he can't quite remember what Jeff looked like, or any of the adults they had seen. He's noticing that some of the children that have been scampering about had looked off. Like the boy with the bowl-cut they had passed by earlier who had looked...frosty around the edges. Or the girl he thought had had red feathers in her hair but is now suspecting the feathers were something more than decorative.

Ringed fingers snap in front of his face again. Steve finally focused on the man named Eddie who was actually named Eddie which was different from Eddie somehow. Now that he's able to shove away the confusion that is this man's name, he's struck by the fact that Eddie was quite possibly the most gorgeous man Steve's ever seen. He had wide, dark eyes that made Steve think of seabeds in the deepest of waters. His hair was a riot of dark brown curls that for some reason brought to mind swirling schools of fish.

"Answer my questions," Eddie demanded. Steve blinked and, with some difficulty, remembered the previous interrogation.

"Uh, I'm Steve. Jeff invited me because I want to be a dad."

Eddie barked out a laugh.

"Oh, is that right? In that case, welcome to Hawkins' Halfway House for Homeless Horrors! I'm sure Jeff would love to finish introducing you to the rest of our children. Have you met Mike? He's a ghoul! Or Lucas! He's a werewolf and his dream is to become a basketball star. They both have very sharp teeth so watch out for their tantrums."

Jeff scowls at Eddie before turning back to Steve. Steve was starting to feel faint and he was no longer sure if he regretted drinking the night before or regretted not drinking more.

"Steve, it's okay. Eddy is making it sound scarier than it actually is. You said you wanted to be a dad, and we need foster parents that can help these kids learn how to blend in with humans. That's what the halfway house is for, but there's only so much they can learn while living in sanctuary. We need a way to have them experience the human world more directly while still keeping them safe, and I think you're the solution we've been looking for. What do you think?"

"I think I need to sit down," Steve said thinly. Eddie snorted derisively. Steve was slightly offended but honestly everything was a bit too much right now and he really would like to sit down for a moment just to process. Because monsters are real, apparently, and some of them need parents. Which was terrifying to think about but also not so much? Because all kids were little monsters some of the time right? If Steve could have a moment to get his bearings...

"This was a terrible idea, Jeffathan."

"I think it was a great idea, actually. I really think this could work."

"No. I forbid it. Don't do this again."

Then there was a sweet and beautiful humming. It made the edges of Steve's mind go fuzzy and soft. He blinked slowly and looked for the source of the sound. Eddie stared at him intently and when he spoke, his voice was like music.

"Steve," Eddie said. "Steve, do you want to make me happy?"

Steve nodded dumbly. He wanted that more than anything in the whole world. He wanted to make Eddie smile. He wanted Eddie to never stop singing.

"It would make me very happy if you went home and forgot everything you saw here today," Eddie continued.

Steve made a sad sound. He didn't want to forget. He didn't want to forget beautiful, gorgeous Eddie and this place that could make his dream come true.

"Please, Steve," Eddie's lyrical voice took on an aching mournful tone. "If you don't, you'll break my heart. I'll never be happy again."

The sadness in the song made Steve feel like the world was ending. Eddie couldn't be sad! Steve would rather die than make Eddie sad!

"I forget," Steve mumbled through the fog in his mind. "And you'll be happy?"

"So happy. I'd be the happiest man alive if you do that one little thing for me, my sweet Steve."

Steve nods again. "Okay."

"Good boy," Eddie croons. Steve felt like he swallowed the sun at those words. He followed Eddie as Eddie guided him through the halfway house. Eddie hummed his lovely song the entire way.

"Go home and forget," Eddie sang one last time as he helped Steve get behind the wheel of his car.

"Yeah," Steve replied dreamily and drove away.

--

The telephone rang shrilly through his apartment. Steve stumbled out of bed and picked up, only fumbling it a little bit.

"H'llo?"

"Steve, what the hell, I've been trying to get a hold of you all day! Where have you been?" Robin's voice rang out, making Steve flinch. He scrubbed his free hand over his face tiredly.

"Home? I just woke up," Steve said. It was weird that he was fully dressed, he thought dazedly, but it wouldn't be the first time he's passed out drunk in his street clothes. Was he wearing this shirt yesterday? He could've sworn he'd worn the navy one.

"What? Just now? It's like five in the evening!"

"Huh. That'd explain the weird dream," Steve mumbled.

"Was it the one where you get seduced by a giant squid? Because I don't need to know more about your weird tentacle fetish."

"I don't have a tentacle fetish! I had the dream ONE time, and I wasn't being seduced, I was getting drowned and it was terrifying!"

"To-may-to, to-mah-to."

"Whatever, this one was weirder anyway."

"I find that hard to believe but now I'm morbidly curious. Hit me with it."

"...I don't remember."

"There goes my entertainment for the evening."

"Was there a reason you called, Robin?"

"Yes! I met this girl named Chrissy and I swear Steve, she's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen..."

Beautiful. Steve had the faint impression of dark eyes and silver rings, but it was quickly washed away like a child's sandcastle in the tide under the onslaught of Robin's ramblings. As he listened to his best friend, he couldn't help but feel there was something he'd forgotten. There was something he'd been planning on doing today, wasn't there...?

...oh, well. If it was really important, he'd remember eventually.

[wilsonsmcgillsweatshirt]

Okay I've been meaning to respond to a post but Tumblr won't let me reblog it for whatever reason, but I feel like my response has enough context on its own that I can make it it's own post.

So this is in response to multiple posts I've seen people make about Wilson telling House that he wishes he had been an asshole like him, House responds that he would still have cancer, and Wilson says, "Yeah but at least I'd feel like I deserved it!"

There are so many people saying that Wilson had absolutely no reason for saying that, that they can't understand why he would say it, that it didn't need to be in there, and how dare he say that to House after House helped him so much after his cancer diagnosis.

There was a reason behind it, just because it's not a happy reason, doesn't mean it's not an understandable one. I think the way Wilson sees it at first is that House has spent his entire life pushing people away and hurting them so that he doesn't get hurt in return. House has abused and ruined every relationship he's had. House constantly hurts people, and yet, he gets to live. Wilson, on the other hand, has practically dedicated his life to helping and taking care of others. He's maintained this nice guy mask his entire life, and yet Wilson, who has lived what others would call a good life, who has been what others would consider a good man, is the one that gets cancer and is going to die.

Wilson feels like he wasted his life being a "good man" instead of just doing and saying whatever the fuck he wanted like House. Wilson is jealous of House. Wilson is laying there on the couch in insufferable pain with death looming over him, and here's Gregory House, asshole extraordinaire, who's alive and well (as well as he usually is). That has to really fucking hurt.

This idea that "omg how could Wilson do that?? He said that for no reason!!" Is just not true. Wilson said it because he's was in excruciating pain and terrified and just found out he was going to die in a couple of months. Wilson was scared, and he was lashing out, which is a very human reaction. House does it all the time, Wilson is not special in the way he reacts to pain. The entire series is full of House berating people and hurting them and saying awful things, and pushing them away. He does that to Wilson multiple times. And Wilson forgave him every single time. And so when Wilson is in pain and lashing out, House knows not to take his personally, and that's why he basically immediately forgave him.

House and Wilson know each other well enough that they can see behind the harsh words, and understand each others intent. Ideally, Wilson would not have said that, and he should have apologized, but that was not a crazy horrific reaction. It's true, House has done a lot for Wilson during their relationship, especially after his cancer diagnosis, but Wilson has also sacrificed for House. After the infarction, House lashed out and pushed away and abused everybody until they all cracked under it and left. Everybody except Wilson. Wilson put up with the constant humiliation, degradation, pain, and abuse from House.

Wilson put House before everything in his life, including his marriage. Later, Wilson refuses to vote to get rid of House, and therefore loses his spot on the board, and the job that he loved and put so much of his life into. All to protect House. Wilson lies multiple times to the police to protect House, risking his freedom if they found out. Wilson and House constantly sacrifice for each other, it's just what they do. Neither one of them is "better" or "worse", they just are.

If they switched roles, and House was the one with cancer, House would definitely lash out as Wilson, no doubt about it. And Wilson would forgive him. Wilson has such a realistic reaction. It doesn't matter how many times you see people diagnosed with cancer and think that it's not personal, that cancer doesn't have an agenda, nothing can prepare you for when it happens to you or somebody you love, and a lot of the time, it feels incredibly personal.

How we react to dying and sickness is not always rational, and anger is a stage of grief. This is Wilson trying to grapple with his death, and that doesn't always look pretty. Sure, it was a fucked up thing to say and House didn't deserve it, but Wilson wasn't just insulting him for the fun of it. He had a very realistic, understandable reason behind it.

Not going to lie, I see people all the time talking about this scene in particular, with such a surface level approach to it. They act mad or confused, and talk about how they have no idea how someone could possibly hurt their favourite characters. So yeah, Wilson saying it was a shitty thing to do, but there is no way it was the worst thing anybody said, and he had very obvious, complex reasons for it.

I honestly love this scene, and I think it gives so much insight into Wilson's character. Wilson finally lashes out and exposes his grief in such a raw, mean way is lowkey a pivotal moment for him because he's finally letting himself be the "bad guy." And yeah, they weren't forced to put this in the show. It's literally fiction. They don't have to put anything in. But it fits so well. So yeah, just because he has complex reasoning for why he said what he said, that doesn't mean the reasoning doesn't exist.

[cometnoodle]

thought itd be fun to put edelgard in (vaguely) historical outfits from 1180s-ish, byzantine-ish and the holy roman emperors' coronation regalia lol

[jakes3resin]

Modern Reincarnation AU Part 4 ✨️

Part 3

"John?"

Bucky storms past Jack into the townhouse. It's rude, but he'll apologize later. He doesn't know why he came here instead of his apartment. Old habits dying a hard drawn out death, maybe? He hadn't been thinking clearly. Hadn't been thinking at all really until he found himself waved through by his father's security detail.

"Oh, is that John?" He hears his father call out, dress shoes clicking against hardwood as he walks closer, but Bucky stomps up the stairs towards his room before he sees the man. His breaths come out in rushes as tears keep burning his eyes.

Shit, he thought he'd gotten those under control on the train.

Slamming his door, he slides down until he rests against the floor. He tosses his bag to the side wincing at the sound it makes. Hopefully his laptop survives. At some point he does actually have to do the work he went to the library to finish.

The library.

Buck and Curt.

They wouldn't, Bucky tells himself. They wouldn't. Curt was one of his best friends, and Buck loved him. They...

Fuck they were roommates! Why the hell were they talking about that shit in public? In the place Bucky considered his? Why even pretend? Why drag Bucky into this? Why?!

Bucky buries his face into his hands. His chest hitches as he tries not to sob. He doesn't want his father or Jack to worry about him. He doesn't want to talk this through.

He wants...

He wants Buck. He wants the other to pull him into his arms. To kiss him again as if today had never happened. There was something else about being with Buck, something he'd never felt with anyone else be they friend or lover. He made Bucky feel safe and wanted. Wanted not because of his family and connections but because he was himself.

Buck would know how to make him feel better.

He laughs quietly through his tears. Distantly, he can hear Jack briefing his father downstairs, the words faint but he hears his name and tears used together. His laughter is more sob than anything else. Of course, the one good thing he'd found would end up belonging to someone else. Story of his life.

✨️

There's too much work to do. At least that's the excuse Bucky gave himself for not confronting Buck and Curt immediately. There wasn't time for a confrontation and subsequent blowup of his life.

At least that's the lie he tells himself.

Bucky chews on the straw of his iced coffee as he skims yet another chapter. There's a pumpkin muffin in front of him that he swore would be his reward for getting through this fourty page reading. Midterms have come and gone, but Bucky still has deadlines to meet and research to complete. He can't sit in his room forever, as much as his father and Jack would sometimes prefer that. Better protection from whatever sent Bucky crying to his room as his father would argue. Better protection for his father's political career Jack would quip.

Speaking of protection, Bucky glanced to the side of the cafe towards his security detail. At least these guys attempted to blend in. His father must have briefed them on his track record with previous details. Bucky smirked around his straw. They'd be easy to lose come rush hour. A bit of fun even.

Bucky turned back to his reading, squinting down at the words.

"American airmen during World War II had a dismal life expectancy. It was not a matter of if an airman was going to be shot down but when. Once downed, airmen faced an uncertain 'reception committee,' as Second Lieutenant Kenneth C. Reimer noted in a drawing he made as a POW in Stalag Luft I in Barth, Germany... 'for every [ground combat] soldier killed in action, three or four others would be wounded; air combat was completely the opposite. For every man wounded, three were killed.'"

"Bucky?" A hand settles on his shoulder jolting him out of his reading.

Bucky kept his shoulders loose as he turns around. Buck stares down at him, a bright smile on his face that Bucky can't help but match despite his grief. It wasn't even something he could control. Buck smiled at him, so he smiled back. Bucky felt pitiful.

Buck's sky blue eyes are clear and happy as they dart across Bucky's face. There's no sign that he realizes Bucky overheard him yesterday.

Bucky lifts a hand to calm his detail, all alert now after Buck's friendly greeting. He sees the nearest agent settle back into their chair but knows none of them are relaxed. He darts a look up at Buck, peering at the other through his glasses to see if he'd noticed the disturbance.

Buck's gaze, as it always does, doesn't leave Bucky's face. Even when he rounds the table to sit down, his eyes are pinned on Bucky and nothing else.

"Sorry I couldn't meet up yesterday," Buck dumps his bag onto the chair next to him. Bucky's smile twitches. Buck sits down across from him. His legs tangle with Buck's own under the table, Buck's foot gently bumping his ankle.

"It's fine," Bucky chomps down on his straw. "How was your advisor meeting anyway?"

"It was good," Buck smiles at him, not even a hint of guilt on his face. "Real good."

Buck had told Bucky he was called to fill in a shift yesterday and that was why he supposedly hadn't been able to meet up. A lie Buck hadn't even bothered to remember. His advisor meetings were also always in the morning on Thursdays. Today was Tuesday.

Buck was still lying to him, and he wasn't even guilty about it.

✨️

"I went by your place yesterday. You weren't home." Buck swings their clasped hands through the air.

"Hmm?" Bucky glanced away from the traffic around them. His detail were staying a conspicuous ten feet back, but they were annoyingly keen when Buck offered to walk him back to his apartment.

Bucky would lose them another day.

Buck laughed, deep and airy. Bucky struggled not to lose himself in it. That was what made this so hard. Bucky still loved Buck, and Buck still acted like Bucky was his whole world and then some.

"Oh," Bucky finally processed what Buck had said. "No, I went to my dad's for the night."

"Really?" Buck squeezes his hand. Bucky hates how much comfort Buck's touch gives him.

Does Curt receive the same...? No Bucky doesn't let himself finish the thought.

"How was it?" Concern bleeds into Buck's voice. Bucky hates how genuine it sounds. He's starting to use that word more than any other. The longer he looks at Buck, the more he has to hate to save his heart.

"Fine," Bucky shrugged stepping further away as they came to a stoplight. "The usual."

"The Bucky I know wouldn't give such a short answer," Buck stepped closer eating up the space Bucky had put between them. "Not unless something happened yesterday. Come on, you okay?"

Bucky felt the words bubbling up his throat.

I saw you. I saw him. Why are you here staring at me like I'm the most important thing in the world when you have him? Why are you doing this to me? I love you. I love you so much it feels like my soul hurts. I hate you.

"Spent most of the night avoiding his staffers." Bucky lied. "Barely saw him, Jack either, yet he still asked me to move home at breakfast."

Buck nods, accepting his lies. Was that what they were now? Not a relationship, simply a lie? Bucky wasn't sure anymore. His heart thumped against his rib cage, anger and love in every other beat, but he wasn't sure which would win.

Buck had become his whole world in such a short amount of time. He thought the feeling was mutual, but yesterday showed just how stupid Bucky really was.

"How about this," Buck nudged his hip. "Why don't I stay over tonight? We'll binge a few movies, order something, and have night in. Then,"

Buck paused with a stupid grin that, despite himself, Bucky still found charming. Fuck, he was truly pathetic for this.

"I'll sweep you off your feet and take you to bed. How does that sound?"

"Won't Curt be expecting you?" The question pops out of him without meaning to. Gale furrows his brow, confusion growing in his eyes.

"Curt won't miss me tonight."

Sure, he won't, Bucky thinks bitterly.

✨️

"John," Jack's voice was a surprise. Especially considering it was his father's number calling him.

"You've gotten much better at your Jack impression," Bucky answers just to be annoying. "Does he know you impersonate him on official numbers?"

"You're not as funny as you believe."

"Ooh, you even have his disapproving tone down. I feel like he's in the room with us!" Bucky laughs. He peers around the corner. Buck's still where he left him, buried in his phone texting someone.

Bucky doesn't let himself think about who that person is.

"Your father wants to invite you to a dinner tomorrow. You can even bring that boy that walked you home. The one that hasn't left." Pages flip in the background as Jack talks. Probably governmental reports his father was supposed to read.

"You know you're not his chief of staff anymore?" Bucky leaned his hip against the counter. "You don't have to read reports or wrangle his kid to government dinners to help his image as a family man. You're his husband now, you're the family."

"You're my kid too by that logic, so wrangling you gets to stay on my resume." Bucky snorts out a laugh. "Besides, it's not a state dinner or anything. He just wants to see you."

Guilt gnaws at his heart. Buck pokes his head into the kitchen, phone no longer holding all of his attention.

"Fine," Bucky groans. "But if he brings up the apartment again, I'm walking out with my food on my plate even if it's the good plates."

"See you tomorrow at 7 then. Bring your boy." Jack hangs up without a goodbye.

✨️

It'll be me, and it'll be you, Buck.

Don't count on it.

Bucky jerks awake. His dream flashes through his head too fast for him to remember anything. Scenes superimpose over each other, words jumble together. At least this one wasn't a nightmare. Those always left him shakey and off balance all day.

His dreams have always been vivid, ever since he was a kid. The child psychologists he'd gone to had said it was normal and simply a sign of a well developed imagination.

Bucky runs a hand through his hair groaning when he glances towards his bedside clock. It's nearly an hour until he has to get up, but he knows that he won't be getting back to sleep before then.

Buck lays curled up next to him on the bed. Bucky reaches out to brush a hand through the other's hair. Buck twitches leaning into the feeling for half a second but doesn't stir beyond that.

Bucky sighs. Extricating himself from Buck's long limbs takes time. Somehow in the night, Buck had nearly fused them together as if even asleep the man refused to let him go. Arms layered over arms. Legs tangled together. It's an excellent distraction from his dreams but not from the problems of the waking world. If only he could forget those once he woke up like he did his dreams.

It's only when he's pouring water for his coffee that he realizes he recognizes the voice from his dream. A first for him.

It'd been Buck's.

✨️

(Not a confrontation I know, but it builds my AU lol)

[lilithofpenandbook]

au where when a Death Eater is killed, they can actually not die, on one condition:

Their heart must be pure.

This doesn't mean they never ever did anything wrong. That's impossible if you're human. No, this means that whatever they've done, it's for a selfless reason. That whatever bad they've done for selfish reasons, they've fully regretted, repented, and set out for redemption. That in their heart of hearts, they are no true Death Eater, because true Death Eater have no compassion, or selfless love. Selfless Love is a pure thing, and if that exists in the heart, then they may survive being killed.

And there's another thing: they return to the physical state they were in before taking the Dark Mark. It's all effectively "wiped clean", as it were. Of course, the actions remain, as do the mental scars, but the physical body is now back to when it was still pure of this evil as a little nod to the purity of their heart.

During the second war, then, there are a few Death Eaters who do not die. But only the fewest:

The most famous example? Severus Snape, who is all but a mere child, barely touching adulthood. Who's small and underweight, whose body is still riddled with scars from the Good Guys. Who's so young it's frightening to think he became a death eater at this age because there's something so broken and fragile about him. How did he manage to survive through that?

And then... And then there's Bellatrix. Bellatrix Black.

Who... Who's a literal child.

[kakusu-shipping]

Thoughts on/during Mochi Mayhem? I'm curious. Especially towards the... memetic dance scene(s).

I LOVED IT!!!!

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet really put me in the "I wanna be a kid doing stupid dumb goofy things with my friends" vibes and Mochi Mayhem really delivered! everyone coming over to the player's house and hanging out at the start and the whole finding the remote mini quest at the community center really got to me. We're just a couple of kids doing kid things!!

Also the fact that Arven says Clicker like an old man means so much to me. We really are siblings.

SPEAKING OF ARVEN

He knocked it out of the PARK during Mochi Mayhem being just??? So funny??? Like, he's so pushy about being the player's one and only Best Friend

And he's so agro at Kieran over it to the point of ending the epilogue apologizing for it... But Kieran didn't even notice because he's so use to his sister being agro at him like that???

Also the fact that he has just enough control while mind controlled by Pecharunt to be embarrassed by the stupid dance dskgjdfjgjdfh Hysterical

There's a lot of other really silly moments that got to me very personally, like how much everyone calls out Nemona for being entirely too much, or just the implication that the three of them were hanging out without me, implying they've all become friends as well really gets to me

I don't like the paid DLC direction Nintendo is going in, but this is the best Pokemon Game post DS Era in my opinion, even if with the DLC it's more than double the price of a DS era Pokemon game with about the same amount of content...

But yeah! I really liked the Epilogue! I had a great time, I loved seeing everyone getting to have a fun time and being silly, I ADORE Pecharunt to no end, and am super happy to have Kieran back in the club room finally!

[allyriadayne]

been pondering the blacks too. just like the greens don't know how to connect to the other even if the understanding IS there, to me the black suffer almost from the opposite of this. their dynamic is seemingly more healthy and balanced than the greens that is true but this episode showed a lot of misunderstandings between them, how they can't see past the surface.

of course the biggest one is daemon and rhaenyra. neither of them can see the other too clearly. too wrapped up in both the war and in their new roles as queen and king consort. viserys hanging over them like a guillotine waiting for any to point out an insecurity in the other. rhaenyra resents daemon for putting her in viserys' place and daemon resents rhaenyra for believing what viserys did about him. i thought you were different!

which in turn makes daemon too angry to acknowledge his own daughter who is as eager as him to participate in the war effort, but he can't see her! he's too angry about past deeds, the same as rhaenyra. "i think i hate him", says baela because daemon has ignored her and her anger comes from mostly the same place as rhaenyra, they can't see that daemon's loyalty, his love, is about his actions. he's going to harrenhal to win the war for ALL of them. to daemon that is more important than hugging his daughter.

then later, when baela is with jace they engage in a conversation about fathers. jace's "he loved us. I think" is very telling on his insecurities about his place in the family and how, again, past deeds, cloud his understanding in the present. and it's so interesting that baela says something along the lines of her understanding, but she doesn't really! she doesn't know what it is to have such a dark shadow like jace. and he realizes because he immediately says that he misses luke. the only one who he *think* could understand him.

and forgive me for following this jace thread but he can't trust that rhaenyra will understand either. they don't see face to face at all. when he comes to report his travels in the past ep, he can't go beyond the queenly face she has put up, so he follows her lead and acts like just a prince and not his son. until it's too much and he breaks down. he's just a boy!

[lilacerull0]

the initial appeal of lila to me was how in her childhood days, she was the brightest student, but managed to do it in the most unconventional way possible, a way that so closely mirrored my academic experience and that i was never able to find a description of until now. the prototype of the good at school kid is always somehow related to wanting to prove one's self to someone or living up to the expectations, be it your own or somebody else's, there is a level of obedience involved and a desire to be liked (sometimes hidden, sometimes quite outwardly) and it almost always ends in gifted kid burnout and being surrounded by this sort of portrayal has always felt kind of isolating to me who did and continues to get top marks, but fails to bow their head. as a child, lila is the best student in her school, but not because she has to be. it is simply the consequence of who she is, but her particular brand of intelligent fails to meet the parameters of how students are supposed to behave. and okay yeah, this is portrayed in fiction, but that kind of student usually doesn't get top marks in spite of being the smartest person in the room. lila does. because she is able to translate the awfully restricted, written according to some unwritten step by step guidebook, material (that is supposed to offer information, but unable free thinking or thinking at all) and give it her own spin that results in teachers being obligated to grade her accordingly because she understands what's being taught, but also resent her because her understanding of it is too out there to be acceptable. she takes the material out of context (the context being school) and tries to understand it for what it is simply because it interests her. it's the sentences that have been following me for as long as i can remember "you're incredible bright, but you wander off" or "your knowledge lacks structure" or "you're incredibly bright, but your way of thinking is incompatible with the world's mechanisms". (something that has been said about me in kindergarten because that's an okay thing to do to a child apparently) and i have mentioned this in relation to lila before, but i think she is able to keep this attitude alive because it isn't an attitude at all, it's a way of being. she isn't a rebel by choice, she's a rebel almost biologically. (which is an advantage, but the world isn't too into people who think, no restrictions attached) it's almost like her main trait is having too much individuality which was always how i felt about myself and what causes people to characterize you as unfeeling. i love her forever <3

[bellatrixdulac]

Like I'm sorry I was under the impression that all the Velaryon kids had dragons because they were either Rhaenys' children or Rhaenyra's children? And of course, the girls even have the surname, and their mom Laena was half Targ herself. All at least partly Targaryen. Didn't they make a point to say the Velaryons were confined to the seas while the Targaryens were Dragon riders? I feel like we're losing the plot a bit with this family.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

Can you expand on what you mean by Baron being "too cool" to really fit a horror monster? It's a very interesting concept and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is it that they're too active/involved/tangible and it detracts from their scariness?

I feel like I should preface this with a wall of disclaimers lmao 1/I am a hardcore, down-to-the-marrow, avid, deeply sincere horror enthusiast, esp. horror creatures. this usually means my mileage is vastly different from the average populace's, and my scaredy bone has been disintegrated by longterm exposure. most things in a piece of horror media won't scare me! so I practically never use that on its own as the scale to talk abt horror experiences, but when something does scare me it's always a special occasion to be treasured. 2/canon d20 is never really meant to be horror horror, and for good reasons: it doesn't fit the company's output, it takes a kind of carelessness in production estimation that is always a huge risk, it's often vulnerable in a way that kinda goes against how TTRPGs usually facilitates vulnerability, and for most people it's just! stressful! d20, even with the "horror-themed" seasons, generally just plays with horror tropes and stays focused in its goal of being a comedy improv tabletop theater show. 3/fantasy high's chosen system is DnD, which as I've mentioned before is before all a combat-based game system, which means the magic circle of play is drawn based on stats that facilitate and prioritize combat. want or not this affects every interaction you have in the game, and given fantasy high's concept from the ground up (everyone's going to school of DnD stuff to get better at DnD) it's doubly relevant. 4/This Is Fine I have no quarrel with this. my meters are internal, I do not ask this show to be anything it doesn't advertise itself to be, and what it is is fucking great! I like it! when I expand on this ask's question it will be like a physicist going insane in a lab. that's the mindset we're going in with.

disclaimers done. my stance on horror as a genre is that it's a utility genre rather than a content genre or a demographic genre; it is the discard of narratives. it's the trash pile. horror, above being scary, is about being ugly and messy, it's the cracks on the ground any story inevitably steps over to stay a genre that isn't horror. the genre's been around long enough to develop a codex and a general language that medias and makers and enthusiasts of the genre can use to talk about and build onto, but if you go into individual pieces there's really no unifying Horror Story. one person's beautiful life can be another's horror story, it's just how it is.

this makes The Monster a deeply intriguing piece of the genre. thing is a monster is in a decent percentage of any story - it's just when the antagonist force steps into something past a certain line traced out in the story's world. monstrousness is in pretty much every western fantasy story, it's in any story with a hero and something to vanquish or win; more than anything it's a proxy of that thing up there. the line in a narrative's world. the monster is the guard of the unknown lands, where heroic, civilized people don't tread.

what does this mean in the context of horror? the genre is about that perceived lawlessness, that "unknown land" so to say. we're in the monster's home. that's the literary context that we often walk into a horror piece with; the monster knows more than you about where you are. it may not understand you, but it holds more information than you, and with that it moves swifter than you, has more covered than you, and is more assured in its existence in this context than you. it's a struggle to catch up to it, it's nigh impossible to get one over it, and you're never sure it'll 100% work, because you just don't have the information necessary to.

with that framing you can kinda see where I'm coming from here: horror's often about the breaking of rules. I always think a monster's most effective when it breaks well-established rules of both existence and visual storytelling. think Possum (2018) or Undertale's Omega Flowey or the Xenomorph Queen - unique change in medium, unique change in graphic, unique change in design language, etc. in that sense I actually really like how canon baron plays out: they don't really function like anything else in the fantasy high universe, the bad kids have not managed to kill them when they've felled literal gods, their domain in fhjy literally introduces new mechanics to encompass their existence! from an experience design standpoint they slap mad shit. BUT! I can't help finding their character, like as a character riz (and the other bad kids, eventually) interact with, to be very... coherent? in design. this is kinda hard for me to articulate in words, it's more often a sense you get once you've looked at enough of these scrumptious fuckers, their general design and the way they show up is just kinda too clean, so to say. always kinda newly made? fresh unboxed. it, once again, makes sense for their lore - they are looking for more about themself from riz - and their function - they're an antagonist in a game experience, they're meant to be interacted with in a way that produces results and meshes with the existing magic circle - but that shininess takes away from the implied history they should have dominion over and the person they're haunting doesn't.

from another angle there is kinda something there about how put-together canon baron is as a concept; the domain they call home is riz's deep-seeded fears, extremely vulnerable things he's drawn borders around to quarantine and refused to walk into. things that from his perspective would irreversibly shatter certain pleasant fictions his world is built on top of. canon baron, While Extremely Cool, I feel is kinda too neat to connect with and signify the apocalyticized mess that'd result from this paradigm shift. the part where they're in riz's briefcase and looking through every mirror is Very Cool And Fucked Up! but ultimately the show draws a line around them as well, by making game-physical, tangible spaces they're in (the mirrors and the haunted mordred manor) and put riz and the bad kids there only when they need to confront stuff. riz is meaningfully narratively away from baron's unknown land for most of fantasy high.

with that and all of my disclaimers in mind my conclusion here is if canon baron wants to be a Horror Monster they'd have to cross way more lines. be a Lot more invasive. hence (holds up my class swap baron like a long cat)

[hapigairu]

Some Cyril appreciation featuring his mom:

[ladyalicentshightower]

I think people overestimate how feminist team black is. If someone brings up how Baela should be the heir to Driftmark, it's always "she would've been Queen if not for the Greens!", ignoring that 1, she would be Queen consort, not a Queen in her own right, and 2 she has a legitimate claim in her own right to Driftmark. Team Black's goal is to crown Rhaenyra, but Rhaenyra becoming Queen isn't a win for feminism because it does nothing to dismantle the rest of the patriarchal system that exists in Westeros. From what we've gotten so far, it reads that Rhaenyra wants to be the exception and not the rule. Rhaenyra has made a lot of bad political decisions, which means she can't acknowledge Baela's claim because it would weaken her own claim (blatantly admitting her eldest sons are illegitimate would not end well for her to say the least). So she betrothes Jace and Luke to Baela and Rhaena to kind of atone for that, like as a consolation prize Baela will be Queen and Rhaena will be lady of Driftmark, neither of them would hold either title in their own right. It's good matches because the kids like each other and will treat each other well, but it's not a feminist win or a feministic liberation. It's usurpation, usurpation that takes place because Rhaenyra has to do damage control after having illegitimate children and after a serious of bad political decisions (both hers and her fathers, Viserys is the arbiter of this entire mess). To me, Rhaenyra is very reminiscent of Mary Queen of Scots, I can see a lot of elements drawn from Mary's history in Rhaenyra's story and character, down to their sons eventually taking the crown they failed to claim/keep.