#and if you've made it this far

[jackyjango]

What are some of your angsty Charles Xaiver headcanons? I love your writing so much!

Hello, Anon! You like my writing you say!!? EEKS! Thank you so so much. 

And as for my angsty Charles Xavier headcanons, oh boy, where do I start? I’m not sure if these are headcanons, or just canons, or something else entirely, but here goes some of them, nonetheless (And this doesn’t stick to much of canon… It doesn’t stick to much of anything really) So, bear with me, for I got carried away.

The doctors and nurses at the hospital are annoyingly kind. Charles hates it. Because behind all their smiles and assurances, and ‘You’re healing exceptionally well from the surgery Mr.Xavier’s, is sheer pity. Days pass in a hospital bed, and so do more faces behind tags. ‘There’s still hope, Dr.Xavier,’ some one says, ‘The feeling in your legs can return over time. Things will get better, you’ll see.’ Hope? Charles laughs bitterly. And how can things get better? Erik isn’t there.

Out of everything, it’s probably the loneliness that drives him insane, the absence of Erik’s bright mind beside his. So Charles drinks. He drinks to make the rest of his body as numb as his legs. Especially his aching heart.

Anger and violence doesn’t come easily to Charles, but he’s angry now. Angry at Erik. He could have, and for the most part has, forgiven Erik for everything - for his legs, for hurting the children. But he cannot forgive Erik for leaving him alone.

The school is thriving. The Children and Raven are there, yes. But it’s not the same. It never has been.

A man named Logan breezes into the school one summer morning biting on the end of a cigar. They call him the ‘Wolverine’. He’s burly as a beast and has the claws like one. And when he asks Charles, ‘Wanna fuck bub?’ from the end of a kitchen table, Charles agrees readily. Whether to prove something to himself, or something else to Erik, or just to feel like his younger self once again, Charles doesn’t know.

Logan doesn’t tease Charles with his clever words, doesn’t gather Charles against his chest like he’s something precious, doesn’t kiss Charles like a man possessed. He doesn’t make love to Charles like Erik. He just fucks like a beast, and Charles is extremely thankful for it. 

Logan leaves as quickly as he’d arrived, promising to bring a few mutants who could benefit from the school. 

There’s only so much Charles can hide in his study drowning himself in expensive scotch. His children need him. Slowly, he eases back into his role of a Professor, and with it, some of the anger and bitterness abates. 

Logan returns a few months later with a girl with healing abilities. With the help of her powers, Charles gets back most of the feelings in his legs. He still has to use his wheelchair for the most part, and his entire body hurts, but Raven cries in delight and says, ‘This is great, isn’t it?’ Is it? Charles can’t say. Even with the feeling in legs, Charles feels just as numb as before.

When Logan asks Charles a few nights later if he’d like a repeat of last time, Charles smiles woefully and says, ‘Good night, Logan.’

Probably the only good thing to come out of this entire ordeal is Charles’ new found understanding of his mother. She drank herself to a stupor in denial of his father’s demise, ignoring Charles in the process. How was Charles any better than her?

Charles wakes one night to the sight of Erik floating into his room through the window. For a few seconds, he thinks it’s a dream. But when Erik starts accusing him of naivety on an article Charles had published about Mutant Education a few days ago, it becomes all too real. He punches Erik in the face like he’d wanted to all those days ago. He stumbles from bed, and his legs ache, but he doesn’t care. They argue, spew insults at each other, and almost tear each other out for two hours straight before falling into bed.

‘Wait,’ Charles says, stopping Erik’s frantic hands. ‘I slept with Logan.’ He feels stupid now that he has said it. He and Erik haven’t defined their relationship in any way. Still, keeping it from Erik feels wrong. ‘And I slept with Emma.’ Erik says. And that’s that, Charles supposes. Erik leaves the next day before the sun or Charles is up.

He doesn’t hear from Erik for 4 months after that. Erik comes in one night sans accusations and assertions, and sans that damned helmet, and whispers fiercely into Charles’ mind, I’m sorry, for … everything. It’s all too easy to fall into bed with Erik then. After all, It’s one of the only things they agree upon whole heartedly.

In the winter, they hire a new teacher for the school. Abigaile has a PhD in Mathematics and Physics, and comes highly recommended. She has lovely eyes and a bright smile, and bats her eyelashes coyly at Charles. The intent in her mind is unmistakable. Charles smiles at her kindly, and calls in for Hank. ‘Please show Ms. Brand to the classes. ’There really can’t be anything between them. How can there be? She doesn’t have large and callused hands like Erik’s. She doesn’t have a sculpted jaw or broad shoulders like Erik. She doesn’t possess a baritone voice that wreaks havocs on Charles’ body. Hell, Charles wouldn’t even fit perfectly against her like he does with Erik. Charles curses under his breath and closes his eyes. ‘You’ve ruined me for women, you Bastard.’

Charles gets a call on the phone in his study at 2 in the morning. The person on the other end is silent, but he knows without a shred of doubt in his mind that it’s Erik. Charles takes in an unsteady breath and says, ‘Please tell me you’re okay, Erik. Please…’ Erik grunts in response and the line goes dead.

To say that Charles misses Erik is an understatement. He misses arguing with Erik. He misses training the children with Erik. He misses their late night chess games, Erik’s teasing smiles and knowing looks. He misses the fire of passion smoldering in Erik’s eyes when he look at Chearles. Hell, he even misses Erik’s smoking. Sometimes, he misses Erik so much that it manifests into a physical pain somewhere between Charles’ heart and stomach. It doesn’t lessen over years, only dwindles into absence for a few hours he’s with Erik, and flares stronger than before once Erik leaves.

When Charles is feeling maudlin beyond reason, which he is for most of the week, he writes to Erik, knowing full well that it’s a moot cause. 

Dearest Erik, I feel like a Regency heroine writing to you….  ……. ……. Bobby froze the pond on the grounds today. Can you believe it? I’m so proud of him, Erik. The poor lad hes been struggling with his control…. ……. ……. I wish you could see it too. Yours Faithfully, Charles

My dear Erik, Ororo threw a fuss today. So much so that it started to rain over the mansion for a few minutes….. ……. ……. Wish you were here with me. Yours truly, Charles

Old Friend, The children threw a small party for my birthday today. Raven baked a caked. And no, it wasn’t as awful as the one she had baked for Alex’s birthday, but it was threateningly close….. ……. ……. Not a day goes by without me wishing you were beside me. Love Aways, Charles

My Love, There was an post in the paper today that a Mutant Experiment lab was destroyed in the East Coast. It reports that the damage was extensive and that the authorities are searching for the cultrip. You know that I don’t agree with your methods, Erik. But I admire your intent. So would all the mutants you saved from that lab. While I know fully well that you can take care of yourself, and your own, I can’t help but worry for your safety, my love. I worry about you constantly. There are more and more scars on your body each time I see you, and how I wish I could kiss it away. Are you eating on time? Do you sleep at all? Please take care, Erik. Yours Forever, Charles

The letters sit tucked chronologically in a box under Charles’ bed, and some of them are still wet at the corners.

Once night, Erik floats into his window with cuts on his face and blood on his uniform. Charles cleans his wounds with blurry eyes, and vows to tear the next person person who accuses Erik of being selfish.

Despite his promises of not looking into Erik’s head, Charles traces Erik’s activities through Cerebro, and refuses to feel one bit guilty about it. It's the only way he'll know Erik is safe. Sure, Erik’s damned helmet makes it all the more difficult, but through the years, Charles has gotten creative. He can pinpoint Erik in a crowd of people even across two states.

‘You should date someone,’ Erik says one night as he sits on the edge of Charles' bed dressed to leave. 

‘Really?’ Charles asks, ‘And why should I do that?’ ‘Because I want you to be happy,’ Erik says, and Charles wants to punch him. How dare he!? How dare Erik tell him to date someone else when he holds Charles’ beating heart in his fist. It’s cruel.  ‘And what makes you the authority on my happiness?’ Charles asks with no less cruelty. Erik doesn’t deign his question with an answer and leaves.

Gone, too, is the box under Charle’s bed that hold the map of his heart.

Erik goes missing for eight months this time, and Charles all but leaps out of bed when the phone in his study rings at 3 in the morning.

‘Erik, please don’t hang up,’ he pleads, and when Erik stays silent, ‘Please say something.’ ‘There’s nothing to say. I just wanted to hear your voice,’ says Erik. Charles knees give away and hot tears fall out of his eyes. But he can do this, he can keep talking. Anything to keep Erik with him. He wipes at his eyes and smiles into the receiver. ‘Do you remember Jubile? The tiny girl with two braids? You won’t believe what she can do, Erik…’ Charles talks into the night and doesn’t stop even when his voice turns horse. And even after that they simply listen to each other’s breaths.

Charles keeps a set of Erik’s clothes in his wardrobe. Over the years, the turtlenecks smell less and less like Erik, but when Charles drapes it over his pillow, and imagines that it’s Erik chest under his ear, he can still smell the sharp scent of Erik’s musk, spicy and clean and fresh.

He also keeps Erik’s favourite bottle of scotch and his preferred brand of cigarettes in a cabinet in his office, and guards it like a dragon guards its gold.

For all that Charles loathes smoking, and has banned it on the grounds, Erik seemed to be the exception to that rule. Hell, Erik has been the exception to all of Charles’ rules.

They hire Jonthan in the fall to teach Mutant History. He’s a tall man with blue eyes and auburn hair. He looks at Charles with a knowing smile and intent in his mind. He would be good for Charles, wouldn’t he? He’s smart, well read and kind. He even holds the same integrationist ideals that Charles does. But... Jonathan doesn’t have Erik’s razor sharp smile, the kind of smile that lights up Charles’ insides and heart. He doesn’t possess the wicked wit that comes so easily to Erik. He doesn’t bear the piercing focus, which when focussed on Charles makes him feel invincible. Jonathan doesn’t even smoke. Charles laughs in exasperation. ‘Good God, Erik! Must you torment me so?’

It’s almost a year later that Charles sees Erik. They fall into each other’s arms way too easily. 

‘Don’t tease me, Erik,’ Charles commands when Erik’s mouth meets the lobe of his ear, ‘I won’t last long.’ ‘Me, too,’ says Erik. ‘That means we’ll just have to go again.’ ‘And whose fault is that? You were gone for more than a year.’ At that, Erik stops, ‘Does that mean that you haven’t…’ he gestures between the two of them. Charles laughs woefully. ‘There hasn’t been anyone other than you ever since you came floating into my room all those years ago.’ ‘Oh,’ Erik says, surprised, ‘There hasn’t been anyone for me beside you, either.’ Charles laughs wetly for a long time. ‘I thought I was alone,’ he says softly. Erik kisses him, and whispers to his lips, ‘You’re not alone, Charles. Not when you I have something to say about it.’

And it sounds equal parts like a promise and a challenge. It sounds just like Erik.

Charles remembers reading somewhere, Like because, and love despite. However impossible, maybe the author had Charles and Erik in mind when they wrote it.

[vangh17a]

so @somerandomdudelmao's last update made me feel things

[beautifulstorms]

Alysa Liu, Promise • NHK Trophy 2024

[deadpoets]

How much of him is there in me?

[memorys-skyscraper]

since folks seemed interested, here are some unused and uncommon mid-duty voice lines for the ancients + meteion from shadowbringers & endwalker (most are uncommon/hard to trigger but some are entirely unused)

transcription & notes below

Hades/Emet-Selch (The Dying Gasp): "By His grace will darkness reign over all." "Death comes for Her servants." "I shall rebuild our kingdom upon your bones!" "Abomination! You seek to shatter my soul?"

Warrior of Light/Elidibus (Seat of Sacrifice): "Hah, it matters not who comes to your aid."(1) "Clad in prayer, I am invincible!"(2)

Hydaelyn (The Mothercrystal): "By force unrelenting!" "A change of arms- mark well my movements." "Flee. You have been found wanting."(3)

Venat (Trust): "Quite..."(4) "Ugh, this is nothing..."(4) "A poor showing..."(4) "Confound it all..."(5) "I was unprepared..."(5) "No... I can't afford to..."(5) "I will do better."(6) "It isn't over yet."(6) "I'm in your debt."(6) "Open your eyes, now."(7) "I will tend your wounds."(7) "Your journey isn't over yet."(7) "Stand firm."(8) "Stay the course."(8) "Mayhap this will help."(8) "Let death's judgement be stayed!"(9) "Let life flow ever abundant!"(10)

Emet-Selch (Trust): "Another fine mess..."(4) "This is going swimmingly..."(4) "Would someone hurry up and heal me?"(4) "Pre...posterous..."(5) "Couldn't... get any worse...?"(5) "If only I could... transform...!"(5) "I do have an image to uphold."(6) "Time to repay the debt."(6) "Slow. A sound choice, but slow."(6) "Steady now."(7) "What a bother."(7) "Look alive."(7) "Oh, very well."(8) "Pay attention, now."(8) "Don't waste this."(8) "On my seat's honor, I shall protect all!"(9)

Hythlodaeus (Trust): "Not quite as planned..."(4) "I've had better days..."(4) "Some healing, if you would."(4) "End of my tether..."(5) "I knew this wasn't my forte..."(5) "Take care of the rest, will you?"(5) "Oh, you shouldn't have! ...No, really."(6) "What, already?"(6) "Well... back to it, I suppose."(6) "As you were."(7) "Are you alright?"(8) "Pain, pain, go away."(8) "Ooh, interesting." "I have a proposal." "Let's make a little something." "Hope this works."(11) "Who, me? You can't be serious."(11)

Meteion (The Dead Ends): "The more its people fought to live, the further the plague spread..." "...for altruism and selfishness both were its carriers." "...for naught could be done to stop the spread."(12)

Endsinger (The Final Day): "'Tis so lonely between the stars... battered by the husks of the dead and dying."(13)

Themis/Elidibus (Pandaemonium 11): "I learned this technique from a dear friend!" "Long have I dreamed of the day that we match wits... but every dream must come to an end!"(3) "My deepest desire..."

1. based on file order, this was likely meant to play as an initial reaction to the mid-fight summoning, to be followed by "You...! It cannot be...!" upon recognizing Emet

2. if you attempt to DPS LB while he's not casting/in the middle of something else, he'll say this and use Hallowed Ground to invuln through the LB

3. enrage quote for extreme/savage

4. low health

5. death

6. just raised

7. raising someone else

8. healing someone else or invulning (for tanks)

9. tank LB (unused)

10. healer LB (unused)

11. DPS LB (used but Hythlodaeus REALLY doesn't like to LB so including LB1 and LB2 here)

12. all are alternate/unused lines for the first area of The Dead Ends

13. "'Tis so lonely between the stars..." is used, but "battered by the husks of the dead and dying" is not

[byemambo]

LEE SEON AS JUYEONG

Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo (2024) | 1.01

The way he moved so quickly, my face was just like Dohoe's: oh, he's a protector... Nothing compares to a guy that keeps you safe and out of harm's reach :)

[whollyjoly]

you know i dreamed about you / for twenty-nine years before i saw you - slow show. the national

4x05 Buck Begins II 7x05 You Don't Know Me

[canisalbus]

@ the person who said Machete wouldn't have a cutie mark, I definitely see where you're coming from, but I disagree! Machete, against all the odds of his birth and existence, survived and excelled. His determination to continue would have earned him his mark.

In g4, at least, they're more than just a representation of a task you're good at. It's a reminder of who you are as a person, of a truth you hold.

I think Machete might have a fang or claw, a representation of the phrases 'with gritted teeth' or 'clawing your way up' or maybe a hoof reaching toward the sun

I also think a mark like that would seem strange and off-putting, and may have been a source of strife for him while in school. In MLP, it's not terribly uncommon for ponies with no cutie mark or a cutie mark they're ashamed of to cover it up with clothing, in the way canon Machete wears his outfit.

Idk just my two cents

[kastillia]

[accidentally-in-fictional-love]

🎉 SURPRISE 🎉

CASS

iTunes fought me for hours and then it was nearly impossible to find a way to strip the DRM but I did it! I downloaded like 10 different programs to try it but I did it! It's only 720p and kinda fuzzy (thanks iTunes!) and the file size is huge despite that, but here it is, just for you guys 💗💗💗

EDIT: Turns out I had my settings set to 720p, so Cass is now in 1080p for anyone seeing this original post, and is in the movie folder along with the 720p version~

UNDER THE PYRAMID

This one was so hard to find oh my god, in the end I had to buy it off a swedish site and record my screen to get it, so there's a flash of my mouse at the very start and no subs for all the nonenglish parts, but his scenes are in english and he looks damn good in them ngl 😏👌

Synopsizes are in the notes, both movies have been added to my collection, but I wanted to make this post just for them so everyone could watch 🥰 and if mediafire betrays me and blocks them I'll just find another place to upload them, no lost media allowed in my house.

[can-of-slorgs]

Completed the Shenkuu Stamp collection some time ago, so it was only fair to draw my girl Mirsha

[strong-with-the-sarcasm]

Part 1: what's lost can be found

"She won't make a sound, alone in this fight with herself and the fears whispering if she stands she'll fall down. She wants to be found, the only way out is through everything she's running from wants to give up and lie down. So stand in the rain, stand your ground. Stand up when it's all crashing down. You stand through the pain, you won't drown. And one day, what's lost can be found."  -Stand in the Rain by Superchick

Regent Masterlist Part 2

The decayed ghost siren echoed through the abandoned streets of Amity Park's Witching Hours. Its residents were well acquainted with what that sound meant, fear and exasperation a potent (strange) mix to keep them tucked in their homes, their beds, as the Fentonworks building seemed to come alive.  

Of course, figuratively speaking. 

(Nothing was truly alive there anymore.)

Jasmine Fenton had just arrived back from the Infinite Realms, muscles pleasantly sore from training with Pandora and very much looking forward to hugging her little brother before he begun his nightly patrol. The siren caught her attention before she’d stepped fully out of her portal, dread filling her gut like a rock dropped into a lake. 

Oh no. 

Team Phantom were young, no one could ever argue that, with some scars to show for all their battles to protect Amity from those that would claim their haunt- but no one outside the team understood just how paranoid they’d become since Pariah Dark and Dark Dan

The contingencies had begun when Jazz started to remember bits and pieces of a timeline that Danny himself had erased using the reality gauntlet. He’d never told anyone of what had happened, with Freakshow’s plan to make himself ‘ringmaster of all reality’ and all, but Jazz had somehow recalled flashes of sheer panic at watching her little brother accidentally reveal himself as Phantom on live tv, in the Fentonworks kitchen on that little box set. The white rings of light that emerged from his core to switch from half-alive to half-dead and vice versa damned him. 

The elder fentons had gone on the offense immediately, Jack’s screech of ghost! Echoing in the house and they raced down to the lab to get whatever latest weapon they’d built to capture Phantom. 

It didn’t matter that their son was dead, that he had died, that their ‘greatest work’ was Danny’s grave. That Jasmine was…well, she wasn’t entirely human anymore, not when she turned on her heel to follow her progenitors down down down into the darkness, sword tightly grasped in hand as her teal eyes glowed a sickly green.  

She hadn’t hesitated then, to protect her little brother. One slash, two, three

Danny hadn’t known she killed their parents in that timeline. She would never tell him. 

She would never tell him how they hadn’t even noticed her presence, her ever loyal weapon Faithkeeper about to take their lives, how she hadn’t even needed to summon her armor. She would never tell him how they begged for their lives, not to protect their children, but to kill the ghostly menace. 

Danny never knew she’d dumped their corpses in the landfill.

(Right where they belonged.) 

WIth the rewrite of the timeline, reset to the same day of the ill-fated Humpty Dumpty concert, Jack and Maddy Fenton’s deaths were undone, but not the blood on Jasmine’s hands. 

With Danny’s defeat of Pariah Dark, came another revelation. 

Jasmine was still mostly alive. Somehow she’d survived her childhood, but Danny hadn’t. She’d looked away for five minutes, forgotten to lock the lab after their parents left and he’d died for it. 

With the weight of being schrodinger’s hero, could her little brother withstand becoming king of the infinite realms? 

Perhaps not while he was still learning, still gaining his own grip on his strange existence. In time, he would become a great king- one of mercy and benevolence, but he still had a long ways to go. 

Jasmine had borrowed ancient ghost law books from Ghostwriter and locked herself away for three days, cycling between crying for her and Danny, reading through the complicated laws of ye olden times, and writing down her findings- just in case another reality rewrite was due. 

Jasmine had accepted Regency on Danny’s behalf with a grace she didn’t know she possessed. 

It had been a small ceremony, with Danny and his friends present and Pandora, Jasmine’s mentor, acting as sentry as she accepted the Crown of Fire. She knew it was a long road till she could pass it down to its rightful owner, but Jasmine was prepared to shoulder the burden for her little brother. 

Pandora had simply laid one of her many hands on Jasmine’s shoulder with a solemn air, in understanding. There was work to be done before any of them could have peace. (Not even the afterlife was safe from paperwork.)

Her favorite journal contained the scraps of her hope and dreams bound in maroon leather, soft with age and imprinted with every emotion Jazz had unwittingly (and later knowingly) poured into every word. 

Its pages were a kaleidoscope of her life. 

Sure, it began with the soft tinge of curiosity-exasperation-fondness, some sentiment of better times before her progenitors began working on that damned portal, constructing the future grave of their son without the slightest clue. 

The emotions began turning a darker turn when the work turned into an obsession. Jazz had plunged into her schoolwork and part-time jobs to afford whatever was needed for the siblings to survive, fondness becoming slowly poisoned by anger. Anger for the portal. Anger for the food other kids had, that they didn’t have to work so hard for. Anger that she knew what starving felt like. 

Anger that she was so weak. 

Then the day of Danny’s death. 

The darkest part of her history, the last embers of her hopes and dreams, of the siblings escaping smothered. Danny’s death scream forever etched into her brain. 

(It should’ve been her.) 

She hated those pages of her journal, the emotions of grief-anger on her tongue, but she couldn’t bring herself to rip them out. No more than she could destroy the confessions of protect-rage-grief, the confessions of the darker timeline she shouldn’t remember. 

On very last page was the contingency plan Jazz herself had created.

Code Graverobber.

That siren wasn’t any ordinary ghost siren, no, it was the one Tucker had programmed himself- it was the quickest way to alert every member of Team Phantom and Tucker had made sure that none of them could mistake it for a Fenton ghost alarm. No, Code Graverobber was in effect. 

Phantom had been captured by the elder Fentons. 

(Fate has a way of setting itself right.) (Death wants its due.) With a bleeding, sobbing and vivisected Danny cradled in her arms, Jazz left Amity Park behind for what she prayed to the Ancients was forever. The Fentons died that night, though the official records would claim they were killed in a explosion due to the highly unstable inventions they created, taking the lives of their children as well. No one really dug around in the wreckage of Fentonworks, not for the bodies of the family within, with the chance of another explosion happening should rubble be shifted the wrong way. 

Jack and Maddie Fenton died.. 

But Jasmine and Danny Nightingale lived on, in Gotham City.

The last of those three days she spent locked in her room, Jasmine wrote a letter to a future version of herself, tucked inside one of her favorite books now lost in the destruction of Fentonworks. To my future self, Forget me in your happiness.    Love, your past

A/N: BEHOLD!

Ahem. This is the original chapter 1 that I never finished or published. It's not my favorite or my best, but I unburied it for the 300 milestones. Thanks for reading!

[twstddream]

I'm gonna spoil an idea I have for a fic, because it may never actually be written.

This idea works from the theory that Skully is actually from the past and might even be a spirit (or ghost) himself that somehow was sucked into the book either when he was alive and 16, and the contents and world as well as time of the book are anamolous. Or that Skully had died years prior, his soul tied itself to the book, and his conciousness was "awakened" with new visitors being sucked into the book that his soul is presumably trapped in.

I re-watched Anohana recently and have recieved visions of Skully acting in the place of Menma. Skully himself is unaware of how much time as actually passed since his arrival in the world ov TNBC, and upon meeting the others assumes they're all from the same time, namely, his time. It would explain why he uses "wagahai" as a self-refferential pronoun (it is unused in modern day and is considered an archaic way of speaking), why he doesn't recognize Malleus' name or who he is, why he doesn't know of the magic stones that mages use now (since it's been said that magic stones weren't always around and had been introduced fairly late into Twisted Wonderland's history) and why his ideas of Halloween are very survival-based, and less leisurely like it is in modern times. Jack Skellington could very well have existed in Twisted Wonderland, but has been forgotten and lost to time. (Probably because his story and very existence deals with alternate worlds)

Anyway. Yuu and co. eventually realize that Skully is not from the same time that they are. This is where my direection for the fic gets a little wonky:

When completing the story of TNBC and the event is over, Skully still lingers. So now it's up to Yuu to grant his wish so he can go to the afterlife and reincarnate.

It is still during the event that Yuu tries to grant Skully's wish, hoping to placate him out of his plans in the process. So now Yuu, Grim, and Jack (essentially the kidnapped trio) attempt to get him to move on from his plans, celebrate Halloween, and get his soul to leave the book.

[clowndensation]

it's like. louis attempted to tell this story to daniel the first time, broke down, and attacked him before he could finish it.

and then decades later he's convinced himself that it was leaving the story unresolved that's holding him back from living his life fully now. so he invites daniel back again. and louis is sitting poised and put together, confident in his ability to recite his history in a pretty, poignant, neat little narrative that will resolve all the guilt and yearning and emptiness inside of him. that if he can just tell a compelling, satisfying story, maybe it will actually be that, and not the life he lived through, with all the pitfalls of his own failures lurking inside.

and then season 1 ends with him once again being forced to confront that the story he wants to imagine and the life he actually lived aren't the same thing. the boundaries around his narrative are shredded and he's left exposed, and subsequently able to face his past for the first time since that original interview. and you think, you think, "well this is it. they've crossed the event horizon. there's no use hiding the truth anymore, not after it's come flooding out into the open like this"

and then season 2 opens. not only is it back to the original, practiced distance, we now have armand literally enforcing that distance. a man sitting at the table who's interjections must be disregarded, an intentional interruption to the flow of the story. he doesn't exist to aid or add detail, he exists to distract louis when he gets too deep in the story. the only time we do get louis allowing any deep truth to come out is when armand leaves the room.

it's like. louis wants a story that's true, and the truth is what he's convinced will leave him satisfied. armand wants a story that will satisfy louis, to the extent louis will accept it's true.

[mythological-mayhem]

Hermes: I wanna be a reverse tooth fairy. Where I rob people then scatter human teeth on their bed.

Dionysus: So, a dentist.

Apollo: I don't know what your dentist is doing to you, but I think you need to call the police.

[twofacedharveydent]

Fides Cordis | @darknightfrombeyond  → Delilah 'Del' Shepard