#and that ambiguity is weirdly terrifying to me

[gameboyhamazing]

one of the most horrifyingly existential things about kingdom hearts to me is the fact that nobody leaves anything behind when they die

[morgenstern16]

Fuck it, insane Fumiko theory time

You ever had an insane theory that when you first have it you're like "oh man this is actually crazy if it's true! it explains so much!" but then later you're like "no this is actually just stupid". Well today instead of focusing on my homework my brain decided to come up with a theory that everyone's favorite Public Safety Agent is actually Freckles-chan from all the way of the start of Part 2, disguising herself via the Skin Devil. This has been haunting me all day so I'm exorcising this thought right now so I can forget it.

Freckles-chan, as I'm calling her, has a weirdly minor but notable role in Part 2. She's introduced as one of Asa's bullies and as a target of Yuko's vengeance. (Speaking of Yuko, I miss her). Yuko kills the other bullies, but Freckles-chan survives her initial rampage.

However, she isn't so lucky with the resurrected Yuko, and it looks like Yuko will finish her off...

... except for an unlikely hero to step onto the scene.

Denji makes mincemeat of Yuko and attempts to dramatically reveal his secret identity to Freckles, only for Yoshida to warp him away (just before Yoru brains him with a Yuko Leg Sword).

That's about it for Freckles-chan, except for one weird thing. After Yuko and Asa's last meeting, there's a set of panels showing Asa, Yuko, and Denji lying down. Well, there's one other person shown: Freckles-chan.

Given that Fujimoto loves his foreshadowing, there's been a few theories as to why he decided to show an unnamed minor character in a line-up of very important characters. It could be that this is a plot thread he dropped later on or that Freckles is actually the host of Fami, like Asa is to Yoru, but my brain decided to connect her with a unresolved plot thread from Part 1: what happened to the last Aldo brother?

As a refresher, this guy was the last of a trio of American brothers who had made a contract with the Skin Devil, allowing them to take the appearance of other people. Unlike his brothers, however, this guy wasn't the worst human being in the world and was last seen trying to blend in with Santa Claus's minions (either that or they actually infected him, it's pretty ambiguous).

A lot of characters from the second half of part 1 are now showing up in Part 2, so how would that plot line show up again? Well, my brain said, clearly at some point Public Safety got a hold of him or a contract with the Skin Devil and had Freckles-chan make one with it. See, it's quite possible that Freckles is one of the few people around who've seen Denji's human form (yes Yoshida warped Denji before he could transform back, but it's possible she did see him and Public Safety, through their insane surveillance or w/e, found this out and conscripted her instead of just locking her up, having her impersonate Fumiko (either dead or on a covert mission) to keep an eye on Denji, perhaps in hopes that Denji would easy to collar around if an attractive woman keeps an eye on him, without sacrificing an actual agent. This, my brain said, would explain a number of weird things about her, like why she's so immature and calls Denji "Senpai" (she's actually a bit younger than him)

Or her weird and inconsistent behavior towards him (she's being fed lines to tell him but also confused as to how she feels)

And most infamously, her complete incompetence in a fight (she's a conscripted civilian teenager).

And with her running off, there would great potential to run into her former victim, Asa, who's now the host of the powered-up Yoru. I could easily imagine a terrified Freckles begging for her life in front of Yoru, and an amused Yoru letting her go in exchange for some kind of deal. It'd also be a way for Asayoru to find out that Denji is in fact Chainsaw Man. A neat little bow to wrap up a number of puzzling elements in Part 2 so far.

However, if you're obsessed with Part 2 as much as I am, you've probably spotted a few holes in this, particularly that this is rather convoluted for a CSM plot line. Also, she has to be a pretty good actress to pull off some of her lines and make them sound convincing, and she WAS competent enough to dodge Nayuta's chains at short range, which is a bit much for a random civilian teenager to pull off. It's also quite possible that Freckles will have a role to play, but not this one. I probably forgot some parts and flaws of the theory here and there but whatever I can just fill them in later.

[lazyneonrabbitt]

My roomie @celtic-crossbow was reading me your March Weres prompt list trying to pick my brain for ideas and I came up with a banger but they told me you’re trying to make it ambiguous fandom-wise so anyone participate (which is fine!!) Anyways, I figured you may find it interesting to hear my concept whether you used it or not! I thought about werewalkers—like, Were!Daryl not properly killing walkers, just scratches and bites and then on a full moon the group is stuck dealing with a bunch of rotted werewolves hunting near Alexandria or whatever in a huge herd.. or pack.

This is absolutely terrifying.

And would weirdly enough fit perfectly with the spinoff and the French's walker fuckery because not even the whisperers could be able to lure and steer these things.

I'm gonna keep this idea in the back of my mind because that's some good horror fic stuff.

[ygg-yiggles]

Old Art: Inktober 2022, part 2

Continuing on from last time, here's days 16-31. Sorry it took longer to get to than I expected.

Day 16: Fowl More issues with the scanner! Why didn't I just find something to weigh down that edge? Anyway, this one was fun to draw, with a mix of various mircon pens, including brush tip ones for those big, chunky lines. The wings are... less than ideal, but I think the twisting neck of the swan turned out well. The swan is one of those animals that looks beautiful, until it's angry, and then suddenly it's terrifying, with innumerable pseudo-teeth like a mouth full of needles. As October is the month of spooky things, I leaned into that.

Day 17: Salty ...Oh come on, you were doing so well with the scanner, almost perfect in fact, but you went back to the phone camera again? Come on. The look is kind of iffy as well, just like the Crabby one featuring these same two characters. I think the weird face on the mom was intentional, though, in order to match the unintentionally weird look of her previously.

Day 18: Scrape Now there we go, there's a nice, clean scan, and an image I'm proud of. Girl in maid outfit, sharpening her cleaver thing. I think it's a girl, at least. If I recall, some degree of ambiguity was the goal. I did still screw up the hands kind of and made that arm chunkier than I wanted, but making heavy use of grey ink let me actually draw something that would read as black without being pitch black and indiscernible. The hair was drawn with an unknown blue-purple fountain pen ink. Really wish I could remember which one that was.

Day 19: Ponytail More adventures in brush-tip micron pens. This is a redraw/other angle of a character I drew just before Inktober 2022 began, but I don't think I quite captured him in the same way. His legs also ended up weirdly stubby here.

Day 20: Bluff Ahhhghhhhh, bad scan again, and it made key parts of the art blurry. Damn. I should really re-scan this one. At least the image is alright, even if one shadow is distractingly dark. I chose to shade this largely with horizontal lines mostly as an experiment, which I think worked out decently and would have worked better if I had committed even more to it. The subject here is the man from the previous day, standing on the topographic feature called a bluff. The best part of the image, I think, is the way I worked the number and prompt into the river.

Day 21: Bad Dog A grotesque, monstrous creature, vaguely canid, with no skin and spikey bits all over. Bit of hair here and there. Overall, I like it. Don't really have much else to say.

Day 22: Heist This anatomy sucks but I drew it quickly, more quickly than something that took up this much of the page normally would. Evidently, I even managed to get it to scan properly! This is not meant to be any character in particular, by the way.

Day 23: Booger You ever just sneeze out an entire slimegirl? I like several things about this, from the way I was able to give the look of transparency to how swollen the sick man's face looks. I'm sure I've drawn plenty better, but I do quite like this one, gross as it is.

Day 24: Fairy Call me old fashioned, but personally I believe fairies should be nude. Well, okay, Touhou Project fairies do really well with big poofy dresses or even american flag pattern spandex, but other than that, keep 'em naked.

Day 25: Tempting All across the Halloween-observing world (i.e. the United States and not much of anywhere else), children are asked to simply not touch a bowl full of candy, sitting out for anywhere from the day leading up to trick-or-treating to all month long. Imagine! Here, we see a child eyeing up a brass bowl full of all sorts of treats. The temptation is palpable.

Day 26: Ego Max Stirner, father of Individualist Egoism, wields an AK, wearing a shirt with torn-off sleeves, with a waifish girl clutching his chest. Need I say more?

Day 27: Snack Another kind of goofy one from a perspective sense and I could have afforded to put more pink on that pig in the front. However, I'm overall happy with the chonky dragon design. Hog after hog has gone down his gullet, and now he looks a little like one himself.

Day 28: Camp I enjoy making recurring characters that exist only for each Inktober. As it turns out the girl(?) from Scrape and the guy from Ponytail and Bluff are either an item or good friends. And hey, look, that cleaver works as an axe to gather and split firewood! I did better with the treeline here than I normally do when I try to draw such a thing. Plenty of room for improvement still. At least this one has a decent amount of color.

Day 29: Uh-Oh Due to the ancient subject matter, I chose to use entirely brown tones to give this one a sepia look. The ancients had cats, and by all accounts I've ever read, their behavior has not changed a bit throughout the entire course of the history of feline domestication. Here, we see a cat which has located a bucket of something, left carelessly on a ledge. Below, a just minding his own business is about to have a bad day. Is this scene Roman? Greek? Something else? I don't know, but it's ancient something somewhere somewhen, or maybe even pure fantasy. No matter the circumstance, no matter the time or place or plane of existence, cats will cause problems on purpose.

Day 30: Gear An amorphous creature with a gear incorporated into its body and other gear around its gaping maw. It is an uneven, asymmetric, shambling beast. One of its hands is even beginning to turn gear-like, with gear teeth on the back side of each digit. I think the best part of this piece is the mouth. Gear piece here were colored with Diamine Ancient Copper ink.

Day 30 31: Farm Oops. This one was rough because I was busy all day and couldn't think of the perfect thing to draw for the entire day up until the evening, when I suddenly chose to embark on a pumpkin field... Or a jack-o-lantern field, rather. They're naturally like that, at least on Halloween. For something I rushed at the end of the day, I honestly don't think it looks half bad, and I'm glad I actually made it full color, even if the coloring is sloppy. Not that any other days were much less sloppy. And yes, I did write 30 there instead of 31. I didn't notice until the next morning. Here, I've put a transparent white square and a yellow numeral "1" on top of it, to correct the day while retaining a legacy of my error

...And that's all. I'll be participating in Inktober again this year, but that's not for a few more months. Stay tuned until then, as I'll be posting newer art as well as more compilations and commentary on my older work, including previous years of Inktober. And, thanks for reading.

[theinhumanpsyche]

So I'm sorry for dropping off the face of the earth for like forever, go figure not posting more than once every couple months hasn't been helpful for getting me out there, so I doubt anyone noticed, but hey, if people do end up picking me up, that's less posts for them to go through and figure me out.

Idrk why I suddenly came back, but I did just recently finish Symptoms Of Being Human, great book btw, definitely give it a read if you haven't, so maybe that gave me a subconsious pull to come back here or something.

Anyway, on to the actually important part of the post, for some reason I've been weirdly amped and like, actually confident for once for the last week or two, and I was thinking about finally telling my mom I'm not cis, but damn the thought of actually going through with it is terrifying.

Like not because I'm worried about the reaction or anything, she's very chill, and honestly probably knows already by how quickly she figured out one of my friends was nonbinary (Demiboy specifically) because I refered to him with neutral pronouns like four times to attempt to keep it ambiguous, plus I haven't really done a particularly good job at hiding it.

But yeah, the reason I'm anxious to actually come out isn't because I'm afraid she wouldn't accept me luckily, but instead because it almost feels like saying it out loud, to someone, makes it uncomfortably real. Up till now the most real I've actually made it has been the like 3 times I've been on here and telling my friends I'd rather go by she/they.

I know I want this, but commitments have never been my strong suit, thanks anxiety, and like, what bigger commitment is there than telling your mom you don't want to be seen as her son anymore?

God this is getting long and rambley, I think I'm gonna cut it here before I start getting into proper rant territory, plus it's already like midnight, and I really need to get better at sleeping lol. Wish me luck I guess? Really hoping my confidence doesn't fade early here.

[nitrateglow]

Favorite films discovered in 2020

Well, this year sucked. I did see some good movies though. Some even made after I was born!

Perfect Blue (dir. Satoshi Kon, 1997)

I watch a lot of thrillers and horror movies, but precious few actually unsettle me in any lasting way. This cannot be said of Perfect Blue, which gave me one of the most visceral cinematic experiences of my life. Beyond the brief flashes of bloodletting (you will never look at a screwdriver the same way again), the scariest thing about Perfect Blue might be how the protagonist has both her life and her sense of self threatened by the villains. The movie’s prescience regarding public persona is also incredibly eerie, especially in our age of social media. While anime is seen as a very niche interest (albeit one that has become more mainstream in recent years), I would highly recommend this movie to thriller fans, whether they typically watch anime or not. It’s right up there with the best of Hitchcock or De Palma.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (dir. Sergio Leone, 1966)

Nothing is better than when an iconic movie lives up to the hype. Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and Lee Van Cleef play off of one another perfectly. I was impressed by Wallach as Tuco in particular: his character initially seems like a one-dimensional greedy criminal, but the performance is packed with wonderful moments of humanity. Do I really need to say anything about the direction? Or about the wonderful storyline, which takes on an almost mythic feel in its grandeur? Or that soundtrack?

Die Niebelungen (both movies) (dir. Fritz Lang, 1924)

I did NOT expect to love these movies as much as I did. That they would be dazzlingly gorgeous I never doubted: the medieval world of the story is brought to vivid life through the geometrical mise en scene and detailed costuming. However, the plot itself is so, so riveting, never losing steam over the course of the four hours it takes to watch both movies. The first half is heroic fantasy; the second half involves a revenge plot of almost Shakespearean proportions. This might actually be my favorite silent Fritz Lang movie now.

Muppet Treasure Island (dir. Brian Henson, 1996)

I understand that people have different tastes and all, but how does this movie have such a mixed reception? It’s absolutely hilarious. How could anybody get through the scene with “THA BLACK SPOT AGGHHHHHHH” and not declare this a masterpiece of comedy? And I risk being excommunicated from the Muppet fandom for saying it, but I like this one more than The Great Muppet Caper. It’s probably now my second favorite Muppet movie.

Belle de Jour (dir. Luis Bunuel, 1967)

I confess I’m not terribly fond of “but was it real???” movies. They tend to feel gimmicky more often than not. Belle de Jour is an exception. This is about more than a repressed housewife getting her kicks working as a daytime prostitute. The film delves into victim blaming, trauma, class, and identity-- sure, this sounds academic and dry when I put it that way, but what I’m trying to say is that these are very complicated characters and the blurring of fantasy and reality becomes thought-provoking rather than trite due to that complexity.

Secondhand Lions (dir. Tim McCanlies, 2003)

The term “family movie” is often used as a synonym for “children’s movie.” However, there is an important distinction: children’s movies only appeal to kids, while family movies retain their appeal as one grows up. Secondhand Lions is perhaps a perfect family movie, with a great deal more nuance than one might expect regarding the need for storytelling and its purpose in creating meaning for one’s life. It’s also amazingly cast: Haley Joel Osment is excellent as the juvenile lead, and Michael Caine and Robert Duvall steal the show as Osment’s eccentric uncles.

The Pawnbroker (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1964)

Controversial in its day for depicting frontal nudity, The Pawnbroker shocks today for different reasons. As the top review of the film on IMDB says, we’re used to victims of great atrocities being presented as sympathetic, good people in fiction. Here, Rod Steiger’s Sol Nazerman subverts such a trope: his suffering at the hands of the Nazis has made him a hard, closed-off person, dismissive of his second wife (herself also a survivor of the Holocaust), cold to his friendly assistant, and bitter towards himself. The movie follows Nazerman’s postwar life, vividly presenting his inner pain in a way that is almost too much to bear. Gotta say, Steiger gives one of the best performances I have ever seen in a movie here: he’s so three-dimensional and complex. The emotions on his face are registered with Falconetti-level brilliance.

The Apartment (dir. Billy Wilder, 1960)

While not the most depressing Christmas movie ever, The Apartment certainly puts a good injection of cynicism into the season. I have rarely seen a movie so adept at blending comedy, romance, and satire without feeling tone-deaf. There are a lot of things to praise about The Apartment, but I want to give a special shoutout to the dialogue. “Witty” dialogue that sounds natural is hard to come by-- so often, it just feels smart-assy and strained. Not here.

Anatomy of a Murder (dir. Otto Preminger, 1959)

I’m not big into courtroom dramas, but Anatomy of a Murder is a big exception. Its morally ambiguous characters elevate it from being a mere “whodunit” (or I guess in the case of this movie, “whydunit”), because if there’s something you’re not going to get with this movie, it’s a clear answer as to what happened on the night of the crime. Jimmy Stewart gives one of his least characteristic performances as the cynical lawyer, and is absolutely brilliant. 

Oldboy (dir. Park Chan-Wook, 2003)

Oldboy reminded me a great deal of John Webster’s 17th century tragedy The Duchess of Malfi. Both are gruesome, frightening, and heartbreaking works of art, straddling the line between sensationalism and intelligence, proving the two are not mutually exclusive. It’s both entertaining and difficult to watch. The thought of revisiting it terrifies me but I feel there is so much more to appreciate about the sheer craft on display.

Family Plot (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1976)

Family Plot is an enjoyable comedy; you guys are just mean. I know in an ideal world, Hitchcock’s swan song would be a great thriller masterpiece in the vein of Vertigo or Psycho. Family Plot is instead a silly send-up of Hitchcock’s favorite tropes, lampooning everything from the dangerous blonde archetype (with not one but two characters) to complicated MacGuffin plots. You’ll probably demand my film buff card be revoked for my opinion, but to hell with it-- this is my favorite of Hitchcock’s post-Psycho movies.

My Best Girl (dir. Sam Taylor, 1927)

Mary Pickford’s farewell to silent film also happens to be among her best movies. It’s a simple, charming romantic comedy starring her future husband, Charles “Buddy” Rogers. Pickford also gets to play an adult character here, rather than the little girl parts her public demanded she essay even well into her thirties. She and Rogers are sweet together without being diabetes-inducing, and the comedy is often laugh out loud funny. It even mocks a few tropes that anyone who watches enough old movies will recognize and probably dislike-- such as “break his heart to save him!!” (my personal most loathed 1920s/1930s trope).

Parasite (dir. Bong Joon-ho, 2019)

This feels like such a zeitgeist movie. It’s about the gap between the rich and the poor, it’s ironic,  it’s depressing, it’s unpredictable as hell. I don’t like terms like “modern classic,” because by its very definition, a classic can only be deemed as such after a long passage of time, but I have a good feeling Parasite will be considered one of the definitive films of the 2010s in the years to come.

Indiscreet (dir. Stanley Donen, 1958)

Indiscreet often gets criticized for not being Notorious more or less, which is a shame. It’s not SUPPOSED to be-- it’s cinematic souffle and both Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant elevate that light material with their perfect chemistry and comedic timing. It’s also refreshing to see a rom-com with characters over 40 as the leads-- and the movie does not try to make them seem younger or less mature, making the zany moments all the more hilarious. It’s worth seeing for Cary Grant’s jig (picture above) alone.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (dir. Joseph Sargent, 1974)

This movie embodies so much of what I love about 70s cinema: it’s gritty, irreverent, and hard-hitting. It’s both hilarious and suspenseful-- I was tense all throughout the run time. I heard there was a remake and it just seems... so, so pointless when you already have this gem perfect as it is.

They All Laughed (dir. Peter Bogdonavich, 1981)

Bogdonavich’s lesser known homage to 1930s screwball comedy is also a weirdly autumnal movie. Among the last gasps of the New Hollywood movement, it is also marks the final time Audrey Hepburn would star in a theatrical release. The gentle comedy, excellent ensemble cast (John Ritter is the standout), and the mature but short-lived romance between Hepburn and Ben Gazarra’s characters make this a memorably bittersweet gem.

The Palm Beach Story (dir. Preston Sturges, 1942)

Absolutely hilarious. I was watching this with my parents in the room. My mom tends to like old movies while my dad doesn’t, but both of them were laughing aloud at this one. Not much else to say about it, other than I love Joel McCrea the more movies I see him in-- though it’s weird seeing him in comedies since I’m so used to him as a back-breaking man on the edge in The Most Dangerous Game!

Nothing Sacred (dir. William Wellman, 1937)

I tend to associate William Wellman with the pre-code era, so I’ve tried delving more into his post-code work. Nothing Sacred is easily my favorite of those films thus far, mainly for Carole Lombard but also because the story still feels pretty fresh due to the jabs it takes at celebrity worship and moral hypocrisy. For a satire, it’s still very warm towards its characters, even when they’re misbehaving or deluding themselves, so it’s oddly a feel-good film too.

Applause (dir. Rouben Mamoulian, 1929)

I love watching early sound movies, but my inner history nerd tends to enjoy them more than the part of me that, well, craves good, well-made movies. Most early sound films are pure awkward, but there’s always an exception and Applause is one of them. While the plot’s backstage melodrama is nothing special, the way the story is told is super sophisticated and expressive for this period of cinema history, and Helen Morgan makes the figure of the discarded burlesque queen seem truly human and tragic rather than merely sentimental.

Topaz (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1969)

Another late Hitchcock everyone but me seems to hate. After suffering through Torn Curtain, I expected Hitchcock’s other cold war thriller was going to be dull as dishwater, but instead I found an understated espionage movie standing in stark contrast to the more popular spy movies of the period. It’ll never be top Hitchcock, of course-- still it was stylish and enjoyable, with some truly haunting moments. I think it deserves more appreciation than it’s been given.

What were your favorite cinematic discoveries in 2020?

[o-w-quinlan]

Digimon Ghost Game: Thoughts and Speculation

These last few days we’ve gotten enough information about the new Digimon anime that I feel comfortable going in-depth about my thoughts on it. Of course, since we’re still missing a description, or a trailer, or really anything beyond the name, the poster and the character design, all of this may end up wrong, but hey, the hype is its own enjoyment.

Thoughts

First thing noticeable about the trailer is that there’s only 3 main characters (plus their Digimon) this time around. Considering the ongoing problems of the Digimon Adventure 2020 writer team to give more than crumbs to their gigantic cast, going back to the trio teams of Tamers or Savers sounds like the right choice.

We also… don’t really see anything in the background. From most Digimon posters we can more or less guess if it’ll happen primarily on the Digital World or the Human one, but here it could be anything. The poses of the main characters are also different from what’s typical for a Digimon series. Often the posters have the characters ready to leap into action, or otherwise in awe of their fantastical surroundings. These three children… aren’t doing either. If anything, the main character (Hiro, apparently) looks slightly confused. The other two, Ruri and Seijiro, do look like they know what they’re doing (a return to Tamers and Savers with the protagonist being less experienced than his companions?), with Ruri sort of ignoring her surroundings to look at her phone and Seijiro in a very confident pose. The three Digimon behind them, on the other hand, are leaping into action. The way they are shadowed (when other promotional material has already revealed their appearances), as well as the “Ghosts? Holograms?” text in the poster, adds to their mysterious nature, which goes along well with the confusion on Hiro’s face.

Design-wise… I’m not a big fan. The Digimon themselves look a bit better in the promotional material than they did in the anime art we had of them, but Angoramon still looks bland, Gammamon looks sort of like V-mon in body shape and Hackmon in color scheme, and I understand both of those Digimon have a lot of fans but I’m not one of them. I really only like Jellymon, though she’s weirdly detailed for a Child Digimon. That said, I do like the diversity in designs these trio of Digimon have going for them. Gammamon is confirmed to be a Virus Digimon, so that’s the first protagonist Digimon to be a virus since Guilmon (further adding to the Tamers comparison).

The children though… I don’t think I’ve ever seen a group of Digimon protagonists that look this bland? Hiro is the worst of the three, with almost absolutely nothing memorable going for him except of course red and blue clothes mean he’s the protagonist. The sole unique feature he has is the small scar on his left ear, which hopefully means there’s some backstory behind it. The other two, while better, still don’t make much of an impression. Ruri is fine, but she looks more like a Juri than a Ruki, if you catch my drift. Side character design rather than main character design. I do like that she seems to be taking the “smart one” role in the cast, if her focusing on her phone (looking up information?) is any indication. As for Seijiro… I’ll always like characters that are confident in themselves, but he looks like a mix between Kiriha from Xros Wars and Knight from Appli Monsters with a lot less personality than either of those two.

I do like that we’re breaking tradition by having a male tamer be paired with a female-looking Digimon. The opposite has happened quite a few times before (and it’s happening again in this show with Ruri and Angoramon), but Seijiro and Jellymon are the first time this has happened in a Digimon anime, I think (at least outside of Xros Wars having its protagonists be partnered to literal armies of Digimon).

So, overall, I like the mystery vibe this poster has, but don’t really like most of the designs. From a wider perspective of the franchise, though, I do love that we’re getting non-Adventure animated material (seems like the commercial success of Adventure 2020 was used for Good), and that the new digivice toy, the Digivice V, is just a new edition of the Vital Bracelet, bodes very well for the increased synergy between products the franchise currently has.

Speculation

The whole mystery vibe here leads me to believe that at least the beginning parts of the series will have Hiro constantly question the nature of Digimon. I suspect we’ll see some light horror tropes used for his first few interactions with Digimon, like in Tamers where Takato’s first meeting with Guilmon had the young boy terrified. Ruri and Seijiro do look like they know what they’re doing, though, and given that the mystery would be over pretty soon if they explained things to Hiro, perhaps we’ll see a more delayed introduction to them, like in Appli Monsters.

As for the plot of the series, the name “Ghost Game” as well as how the G’s in the title vaguely look like pins on a map make me believe the series will have something like a treasure hunt, or perhaps that the children will be investigating “mysterious” events in search of something. I mean, Cyber Sleuth is one of the most popular Digimon games, and it wouldn’t be strange for the anime to take some inspiration from it (Appli Monsters already referenced it in its Agumon episode). With that said, I believe this series will spend at least its first arc (if not most of the series) in the human world.

The emphasis on ghosts here makes me believe it will lean into that “Digimon may or may not be the same as mythological creatures from the past” idea that Digimon Adventure 02 introduced, and that Digimon Survive will use (if it ever actually releases). The various links between mythology and Digimon that Cyber Sleuth used and the ambiguity of how related they actually were (or if it was all one giant coincidence) was one of my favorite parts of it, so here’s hoping something similar is done here.

The fact that the main Digivice of the series is a Vital Bracelet and that each protagonist Digimon has a DIM card dedicated to them makes me think we’ll see this series lean into branched evolutions. Adventure 2020 was already emphasizing this to a further extent than anything before it, so perhaps Ghost Games will take this even further beyond.

Conclusion

Despite having some problems with the designs of the characters, I’m very excited for this series. It’s literally the first time since the 1999-2002 heyday that we’re getting anime series back-to-back, and if that isn’t proof of how much success Digimon has gotten in the past few years, I don’t know what is. The increased synergy here with the virtual pets department, as well as the updates and changes in the Reference Book website that there’s been in the past year which only hardcore fans of the lore could possibly care about but for which all of us hardcore fans are very grateful, make me hope they’ve learnt from their mistake back in the early 2000’s where it seemed nothing in the franchise had anything to do with anything else. Here’s hoping the series has more emphasis on characterization than the current Adventure 2020, too, considering they can no longer rely on their audience knowing these characters from previous works.

Eagerly waiting for a trailer or an update of its website for further news.

[hematomes]

ohhh yeah…the territorial morals thing is terrifying i never know how i’d counter that skfk

i don’t really remember the details, i just figured they’d be like chill to follow for news and builds in like early AR times. bc i was kind already aware of the like weird amount of discourse, but it was like “well these guys are huge YouTubers they have to be professional if they want followers right” but no it was just like a lot of weirdly personal ongoing drama for like 3 months like fights with friends that shouldn’t have been public on twitter personal. it was really confusing. idk if it calmed down or got deleted by now tho I didn’t stick around skfkskd🦈

well my own opinion is that bad character = badly written character, and an antagonist or a morally ambiguous character can be really well written. it's the case with genshin, we're at a point where we don't know who the "good guys" are because on the one end there's the archons, and on the other there's the cataclysms, the wars etc, and personally that's kind of what makes me keep playing bc it's more interesting than a linear thing with the heros vs the antagonists. even the traveler could reasonably be considered morally ambiguous, as they follow their own path to find their sibling and clearly show animosity towards certain "good" characters (like their unwillingness to help ayaka at first, and the whole quest with dainsleif)

LMAO seems messy

[the-last-kenobi]

angst bingo prompt idea for "came back wrong": rex tries to rescue one of his brothers post order 66 but something goes wrong after the surgery to remove the chip

I love this. Let’s see what I’ve got in me today, shall we?

Tw for mental manipulation, non-consensual drugging, trauma, abuse, conscription/enslavement, murder, and VERY MORALLY AMBIGUOUS BEHAVIOR that I will not spoil here. Just be careful. It’s fairly sad.

What struck Rex most was how familiar his face was.

Of course, he was one of the brothers - the Clones - and all their faces were familiar.

But somehow he had expected him to look different, changed somehow, damaged, from his life under the iron grip of the control chip.

Instead he looked the same as he always had.

The twisted scar down the left side of his face, the jaw that was slightly blunter than Rex’s own, the extra stress line between his eyebrows that had somehow been there since birth.

Sleeping as he was right now, he looked more relaxed than he had ever seemed while conscious.

Rex rubbed his face in exhaustion as he finally stopped stumping about the recovery room and took the chair beside the bed, groaning a little as his knees protested at the movement.

“We’re getting old, Cody,” he said aloud, staring at the sleeping face. “We were always gonna get old before normal humans, but this... all this... I feel old before my time, that’s for damn sure.”

Cody, of course, did not reply.

Still, Rex felt better. He settled as comfortably as possible in the chair and closed his eyes, content to wait until his vod finally woke up — a free man for the first time in ten years.

][][][][][

Rex woke suddenly, inhaling sharply and jolting in his seat, feeling weirdly as if his consciousness had just been dropped unceremoniously back into his body. He’d really been sleeping.

Then he saw Cody, and his breath caught in his throat.

Cody was looking right at him, sitting up in bed — just sitting there, staring, no cold glare in his eyes, no clipped Imperial arrest declaration coming from his lips. His hair had gone more salt than pepper these days, but he was Cody, through and through.

“Hey—Cody!” Rex said, gasping. He leaned forward in his seat and grabbed Cody’s hand, squeezing it reassuringly.

Cody just blinked at him.

“It’s gonna be okay, vod,” Rex assured him, feeling a stupid grin spreading over his face. “I know it’s overwhelming right now. It happens to all the guys. But I promise this is real.”

The familiar scarred face tilted slightly to the side as Cody studied him intently with those mirror-image dark eyes. His hand remained limp in Rex’s.

“Some... memories will start coming back soon,” Rex continued. “But I’ll help you. It’s not your fault. Anything you can remember, I swear, it’s not your—”

“My fault,” Cody said hoarsely.

His grip suddenly turned to steel; he squeezed Rex’s hand so tightly that it hurt.

“No,” Rex said hastily. “No it’s not. Cody, it was a—”

“It’s my fault,” the former Marshal Commander of the 212th said firmly, his eyes roving around the room, taking it all in. “I need to get out of here. I need to fix this.”

Cody was not panicking as all the other dechipped brothers had, but he was still gripping Rex so hard that it was bringing tears to the other man’s eyes. “Cody...”

“I need to fix this. I failed,” Cody repeated. “Let me out.”

“I can’t do that, Cody, you’re not well...”

“Let me out. Now.”

“Cody—”

“Let me out. That’s an order.”

“No, Cody—”

“Let me out. I have to go.”

Feeling like he had no choice, Rex used his free hand to reach across and trigger a switch next to the bed. They always had to do this for newbies, although normally they were crying and screaming instead of just issuing orders.

In less than ten seconds Cody was unconscious again.

Rex peeled his hand away, wincing.

The door opened cautiously and a figure stepped inside, a cloak raised high to help conceal the magnificent montrals she was now sporting.

“I wonder how much he remembered,” Ahsoka said thoughtfully. “I feel like he would have been more distressed if he fully recalled... well, Utupau.”

“And everything after,” Rex sighed, rubbing his sore hand.”

Ahsoka nodded, still studying the man on the bed.

Rex looked at him too.

“He’ll pull through,” the former Captain of the 501st muttered. “Fine.”

][][][][][

The next day Cody woke for only minutes at a time, sleeping off sedatives and enduring scans.

Rex was away most of the day, but his friend was on his mind all the time, distracting him.

Cody’s solemn confusion hadn’t been as jarring as the screaming and anguished guilt he was used to seeing in his freed brothers, but there was still something so...

Unbearably sad about it.

Rex decided to spend the night on a cot in Cody’s room.

So he wouldn’t be alone.

He fell to sleep quickly, as he had been trained to do a thousand years ago in a world where everything had seemed simpler — even war.

Sometime in the night he woke to see Cody blinking blearily at him, saying: “...I... I failed... Do you know that Rex? I did.”

Before Rex could reply, Cody was asleep again.

][][][][][

The next morning before dawn, Rex was woken by the sound of Cody attempting to climb out of bed. He was unbalanced and clearly in some form of pain, his forehead deeply lined, but he persisted.

“Woah!” Rex stepped up and tried to take his old friend by the wrist. Cody batted his hand away without even looking at him. “Cody, hey, you can’t go yet. You’re not fully healed.”

“I have a duty,” Cody said. “I have to fix my failure.”

Rex bit the inside of his mouth, a sudden fear crossing his mind. “Cody... this can’t be... fixed. He’s... they’re all...” he swallowed hard, his throat so tight that it hurt. “He’s dead. You can’t—”

Cody’s head jerked up sharply.

Rex blinked in the fixed stare those dark eyes were giving him, a penetrating and cold look.

“Dead?” Cody questioned. “...Did someone kill General Kenobi?”

Rex’s heart plummeted.

He doesn’t remember...

“I... yeah, vod. Someone did. But...”

If Rex had thought his heart had stopped before, it was nothing, nothing to what it did when Cody shook his head and said, so very calmly, “I shot him off the cliffside, but I’m sure he survived. It was a controlled fall. The Jedi survived. I failed in my duty. I have to fix it.”

“No,” Rex croaked out. “No... that’s not...”

The door opened again, and Ahsoka stood framed there. She must have overheard, because she was looking at Cody with pity.

Cody locked his gaze on her, drawing himself up to his full height. “Jedi,” he addressed her. “Duty. Have to fulfill.”

“He’s dechipped!” Rex shouted desperately. “I don’t understand!”

“I have to go,” Cody said placidly. “Excuse me. Don’t worry vod. I’ll come home when I’m done.”

“You can’t!” Rex shouldered his way between his brother and his only remaining Jedi, terrified of the serenity of both of them; Ahsoka’s quiet sympathy, Cody’s placid desire to murder a man that was already dead, a man he had loved— “You have to snap out of it, Cody!” Rex bellowed, and shook the man by the shoulders. “Please!”

“But I’m fine, Rex,” Cody said, sounding surprised. “I just have one more thing to do. You saved me from the Empire. But Kenobi must die. It’s my job.”

“It’s not!” Rex screamed. “He’s dead, Cody! Dead! You already killed him, he’s dead, he’s been dead for over a decade! You already killed him!”

He was crying now.

For Cody.

For Obi-Wan.

For himself.

For Ahsoka.

For everyone.

Everyone.

“Excuse me,” Cody said politely, addressing Ahsoka over Rex’s shoulder. “I need to go kill Kenobi. Do you know where he is?”

“You have to fix him,” Rex begged her, struggling to keep Cody in the room. “Please. The Force. Something!”

Ahsoka glanced at him. Then she stepped forward and carefully pressed two fingertips to Cody’s forehead. She closed her eyes.

Cody closed his too, and for a moment there was silence.

Then he slumped in Rex’s arms.

“What - what happened?” Rex demanded, clutching his unconscious friend and looking around at Ahsoka in panic. “Wha—did you fix him?”

She shook her head. “No, Rex. There’s nothing to be done.”

“That’s not true,” argued Rex. “That can’t — don’t be — Ahsoka, we just have to help him!”

“Cody wasn’t ever fully under the chip’s sway,” she whispered. There was an apology in her blue eyes that he did not want, did not want to see. “Like you were - but he - he wasn’t able to resist it like you did. But he was... conscious... beneath the surface.”

No.

“Always beneath the surface.”

An Imperial trooper. Treated like garbage, like something disposable, barely worth keeping. Barely even worth using.

“He knew what was going on. He didn’t know why, but he learned over time. Overheard things.”

Forced to follow orders. Wage war on innocents. Execute innocents.

Cody felt so heavy. Like Rex was holding the weight of all his friend’s trauma instead of just his physical form.

Forced to issue despicable orders. Forced to be a cog in a machine that served the people and ideals he had so hated.

“He was constantly at war with himself. When we removed the chip from Cody’s head...” Ahsoka’s eyes were grieved. One slim hand came to rest against Rex’s shoulder. “His mind wasn’t prepared to cease battle so quickly. It... it broke him, Rex. The two sides of his mind clashed so violently out of nowhere with nothing to control which one was winning, and...”

“No,” Rex repeated. “No.”

“I’m so, so sorry Rex,” whispered Ahsoka. “We tried to bring him back, but he just... came back wrong. There’s nothing that can be done to fix him.”

Rex’s shoulders shook; he stumbled and slipped to the floor, Cody unconscious in his arms and Ahsoka kneeling beside him, her face painted with pain and concern.

Cody. Cody, and his scar, and his stress lines, and his familiar face.

“What... what do I... what...” Rex heaved for air, finding it suddenly so hard to breathe. His chest felt heavy, his throat so tight he almost thought he was being throttled by invisible hands. “What am I supposed... to do? J-just... put him out of his misery?”

Ahsoka took a deep breath.

Held it.

“...I don’t know. He’ll never be right again. He’ll never be...”

“Free,” Rex finished. “He’ll never be free.”

][][][][][

They had tried to heal him. They had tried to recondition him. They had tried erasing his memories of Order 66. They had even tried erasing his memories altogether.

But the broken mind of Commander Cody did not respond to time or treatment.

Most of the time he was calm. Sweet, reasonable, capable of cracking sly jokes.

But the slightest thing that triggered memories of Utupau would set him off.

Asking oh so politely for permission to go seek and kill a man long-dead, a man that he would once have never considered raising so much as a finger against.

He never harmed anyone in his attempts to leave.

But he harmed himself, skipping meals and sleep, banging slowly and repeatedly on closed doors, and demanding over and over and over to be let go.

And it took too much manpower to keep a constant watch on him. Manpower they didn’t have.

...So Rex, eleven years to the day after Order 66, settled his brother in a bed in the medical wing and set everything in order.

Waited for Cody to drift into a natural sleep.

And then, tears sliding silently down his weathered face, Rex pressed the button that would flood Cody’s veins with a drug that would ensure he would never wake again.

Cody slept.

][][][][][

[starry-seongmin]

Something Wicked This Way Comes

a/n: While I was on a break, I felt bad for not updating especially the requests which have been sitting in my drafts and inbox since September so I have started working on them. While I’m finishing your requests, have this fantasy au Enhypen I wrote inspired by their debut trailers. Since there are many theories circling their roles and their supernatural forms, I decided to be ambiguous here in the case it is later revealed. I hope you enjoy as I have ventured into an area which I have never touched and is outside my comfort zone. I would be very grateful if you guys give feedback and responses. As much as I appreciate likes, as a writer I do get discouraged if I don’t get responses :(       - Mia

themes: fantasy, angst?

warnings: disappearance of family

word count: 1.7k +

The woods were silent. Uncomfortably silent. Not even a leaf shifted let alone an animal or bird. An uneasy feeling had long ago settled in your brain. The sound of leaves crunching and twigs snapping underneath your footsteps had your heart beating erratically within you.

You were not supposed to be here. You knew of the stories, the legends, the rumours and myths of the woods that stood uninviting right outside your village. You never believed them, after all they were just that. Stories and tales to keep children away from the woods. Folklore and plays to entertain tourists and make money off them by selling talismans and souvenirs and what not to ward off the creatures that seemingly roamed there.

The village shaman had foreseen the disappearance of your family and had forewarned you but obviously you brushed it off, believing the shaman to be a quack. You never believed this stuff and neither did your family but right now, it was completely different.

Here you were, well deep into the woods after the promised disappearance of your family. The shaman who was weirdly content at your frantic state while standing at his doorsteps had directed you towards the woods.

"The one to whom the woods kneel before is the one who rules the darkness. He has the answer you're searching for."

Well that was very helpful and considerate of the creepy shaman. Now here you were, in the middle of the woods that were forbidden, starting to believe that the stories you had heard since childhood were not just stories. Scolding yourself for being wavered even for a minute, you continued your journey to search for whoever the woods kneeled before. If the words of the shaman were true then you'll hopefully be with your family soon.

Continuing to trek onward and deeper among the trees that stood tall and brooding, submerging the covered forest ground underneath a canopy of darkness with the sunlight barely fighting it's way through.

What seemed like an eternity later, you found your path blocked by a large body of dark and still water. Not even the slightest of ripples was seen on the surface. Like every other part of the woods it too seemed dead.

You wanted to stop. To turn back. To scream and shout. But you were not in control of your body. You were helpless. You felt detached and dissociated from your body.

Crack

The sound of a twig snapping made you jump. A shiver ran across your body and a sudden gasp left your numb lips. You looked down at your trembling hands. The state of not being in control over your body vanished and you heaved a sigh of relief.

Realizing you stood on the shore of the lake, on rocks and pebbles made you realize that it couldn't have been you who had stepped on a dried piece of wood. Heart hammering at the unwanting and daunting realization of a presence near you, you slowly turned a 180° slowly, preparing to see a horrific sight or possibly to be met with an attack of some sorts.

No one.

Nothing.

You didn't know if you were relieved at the prospect of not seeing anything or anyone or sent in a cold sweat for not seeing the source of the noise you clearly heard.

Still struck with horror although you refused to acknowledge it, you turned back to face the lake once again only to jump and let out a scream as you were now face to face with a human or so he seemed. Your eyes widened and you stumbled backwards to fall on the ground, crawling backwards while your eyes were fixated on the person standing before you.

He looked to be in his youth. Blonde hair framing the top half of his face, brown eyes that stared at you with hardened gaze which sent goosebumps up your skin. His skin pale yet unusually smooth. He stood tall, dressed like how a normal boy would.

"You shouldn't be here"

His voice was soft unlike his stare. He seemed normal and harmless but you knew better. Maybe all the tales were true about creatures that lurked within the darkness of the trees in the form of humans like you and me. Was he one of them? Of course he was.

"You must leave this place at once"

His expression never changed. He stood still and never once blinked, maintaining eye contact since the beginning. "What...what are you?" Before you could put a filter to your words, the question escaped your lips and you winced at your own words. The last thing you wanted was to anger or offend a creature or entity of the woods and end up dead or cursed.

"Run away while you still can"

For the first time you could see his expression falter and sense some franticness behind his warnings. "You're not safe here", he took a step forwards and warily looked around his surroundings. "Heed my warning. Escape while you still can." With every word he spoke, anxiousness radiated off him. Before you could ask what he meant, a chilling whistle ran throughout the trees and echoing, surrounding you. Making you feel trapped. Even though the blood curdling note had disappeared into thin air, it still kept echoing in your mind and had no intention of subduing.

Your hands instinctively covered your ears and you curled up in a fetal position, desperate for the whistle that haunted you to vanish. When it seemed like it had gone, a much terrifying noise rang through the trees. A nefarious laugh with pure evil dripping from it.

The boy's eyes widened, worry and fear etched upon his handsome features. "He knows", he whispered. "It's too late... he knows you're here." Before you could question him about the noises that haunted the woods and the words he spoke, the boy made his way towards you and grabbed your arm. It was too late to fight him off or escape from his clutch as you felt sucked in, wind in your ears and all noise and vision distorted until you found yourself standing inside a cabin of sorts.

Regaining balance and composure, you turned to the boy who was now peeking out of the only window from inside. "Why have you brought me here? Who are you? What are you? Who knows I'm here? Will you tell me anyth-"

Your voice became muffled and ultimately stopped bombarding him with questions when you felt his hand clamped on your mouth and his fixated on you in a steel like stare.

"You talk to much... I'll only let you talk if you answer my questions first" he growled, clearly annoyed at your questions and inability to listen to him. Vigorously, you shook your head. Anything to get his freezing hand off you and of course... to stay alive.

Slowly, he retracted his hand and took a few steps backwards, studying you and making you feel small and intimidated in his presence. "Why are you here, mortal?" His eyes narrowed and he leaned against the grimy wall of the cabin, arms folded. "And I want the truth. I have my ways of detecting lies... so think carefully before spouting nonsense."

Wow, he really had attitude even for a supernatural creature. "I was told that I would find the answers behind my family's disappearance", you replied and stared right back at the boy. After a few seconds of silence he nodded his head which meant your answer passed the truth check. "And who told you you'd find the answers to your family's disappearance?"

How long is this interrogation going to last?

"As long as you answer all of my questions honestly", he said.

Your eyes widen. Did he just... he can...

"Yes, I can read minds", he was sporting a devilish smirk which only enhanced his good looks. "Now answer my question...who told you that you'll find your answers here?"

"It was the old man... the shaman of our village. He was the one who told me that my family will disappear and he was the one who told me that I'll find all that I need to know here", you replied not wanting to test his patience.

"What did he exactly say?" the boy asked, once again peering out of the window before leaning back against the wall and staring at you. "He said something about someone who rules the darkness and before whom the woods kneel", you recall.

He seemed to be in deep thoughts after hearing your answer. Something between a dry chuckle and a scoff left him as he raised his head to look at you. "You weren't sent here to find about your family... the shaman fooled you and you listened to him without thinking. You unknowingly went after your death, foolish mortal"

"What are you talking about?", your heart was hammering against your chest and the words you spoke were barely heard but he managed to catch on to you. After all, he did have supernatural abilities.

"The shaman sent you as an offering...in other words, a sacrifice".

"How do you know that?", you narrowed your eyes at the grinning boy in front of you, hoping and praying he was just messing around but that seemed unlikely given the circumstance you were in right now.

"Let's play a fun game. Recall all the stories and legends you have heard and read about.Then match my powers to one of the entities you were told of."

Playing a game with a creature of the woods was probably the last thing on your list when you just found out that you were sent as a sacrifice for whatever reason which was unknown to you.

You rattled your brain, trying to recall anything and everything about the creatures that dwelled within the woods. One creature flashed before your eyes. The ability to read minds... the power of teleportation... the blonde hair... ice cold body temperature... giving warnings to anyone who ventured into the forbidden land... As sudden realization hits you thanks to all those books and tales you knew like the back of your hand, a gasp leaves your mouth and you scramble away from him util your back hits the wall, eyes widening in horror.

"It can’t be... you're..." The name fails to fall from your tongue. One of the names which was forbidden to even whisper out loud.

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled tantalizingly and amusingly at your reaction.

"Jongseong... the Guardian of the Forbidden Land..."

[youngbloodbuzz]

For a moment she simply gazed up at the house, hands gripping the steering wheel.

Lil Hill house callback! I love it. But also hate it.

A battered and familiar old cover, pages torn out and dog-eared, and a cover bearing the image of a scantily clad woman whose dress was at risk of falling down to her waist

I’m screaming.

Just the wild fantasy in her head where she was brave enough to reach out and touch her, brave enough to act, brave enough to speak.

But Dani you are so brave 🥺 and you will get there!!

“And she’ll have the Caesar salad,” Eddie said, already handing both his menu and his mother’s over to Owen, who took them.

😐 you are skating on thin ice Eddie. I’ve had it with you.

She couldn’t think of which was more terrifying: that they would finally see her for what she was, or that they never would.

Heartbreaking. You both have a talent for saying so much with so little.

“Actually Carson invited me to see another one of his shows, so I thought I’d take Jamie.”

Oh yes you will!!!

Then the moment Jamie was in her line of sight, the coiling heat at the base of her spine returned in full force.  

I literally cannot stop thinking about when all this tension is going to blow over. I’m so excited.

“Knew he wouldn’t let me down,” Jamie said, fingers tapping to the beat on the steering wheel

Another dynamic I really love! Carson and Jamie!!

Dani watched her with a fond grin, taking in the line of her jaw and the curve of her mouth.

Dani is down baaaad 😭

Jamie paused and shot Dani a weak grin. “Not since - ” her voice trailed off, gesturing haphazardly towards the city as though it held all the answers she couldn’t say. “After,” she finished with a murmur.

🥲🤧 p a i n

Dani exhaled slowly and followed behind, trying desperately to not let her eyes stray lower than the center of Jamie’s back

I cannot get enough of thirsty Dani 🤣 when she gets her hands on Jamie…. Oh man.

“Girls must be all over you.”

Jamie coughed into her glass. 

“Um — “ Carson started, mid-laugh, his cheeks pink and not meeting Dani’s eyes “ — something like that.”

Sweet little bean 🥺 so oblivious

“All right, all right, look,” Carson said, waving off their teasing, “They’re practically my sisters. What do you expect me to do?”

Love this lil found family ❤️

Jamie’s expression gave nothing away, an ambiguous and warm smile on her face, but she was as still as stone.

Jamie not having it at Dani being called her sister 🤣

Dani and Carson snickered. Jamie huffed and kicked at Dani’s boot with her own under the table. Dani laughed, but it trailed off when Jamie’s foot remained nudged against Dani’s, the length of their calves pressed together. She nearly choked on a sip of her beer. 

I hope she has her asthma pump on hand when Jamie’s around.

“Quite the opposite, I’d say” Robin replied, smirking over the lip of her glass, eyes intent on Jamie. 

👀👀👀👀

Dani could hear a rhythmic rush in her ears and she swallowed another heady sip of her beer to the sound, draining the glass. 

Dani’s response to Robin is so fascinating and very true to character… it’s not pure jealousy it’s more like dawning realization. But we’ll dive into that later.

(part 2 of re-read)

i do so enjoy these so much, it's like a written version of that genre of yt reaction videos and i'm weirdly obsessed with those

@romanimp

[aquaticalay]

Centurion .Chapter Six.

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Sequel to For Something Greater

Summary: (Y/n) is an active duty Navy SEAL Commander, the first and only woman to ever become a SEAL. After successfully stopping a genocide with the help of the Avengers, she becomes a bridge between the military and the earth's mightiest heroes. But even as her relationship with Bucky grows, she decides not to tell him about the nightmares and trauma that haunt her. Both their secrets begin to unravel when Bucky accidentally stumbles upon a piece of dangerous information about (Y/n) that she doesn't know about herself— something she must never find out about.

Genre: Action, Drama, Romance

Warning/s for the series: cursing, violence, death, eventual smut, PTSD

Warning/s for the chapter: cursing, graphic-ish violence, blood, death, description of a panic attack

Word count: 2.5k

Note: The plot is heavily inspired by the song 'in the dark' by Bring Me The Horizon, and 'Mercy' by Muse. So yeah, go listen to it if you want to :)))  I'll post a new chapter every two days.

Let me know if you want to be in the taglist!

(Taglist will be reblogged)

THIS IS A SEQUEL TO 'FOR SOMETHING GREATER.' IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THAT, THE MASTERLIST IS IN MY BIO.

TRIGGER WARNING! THIS SERIES REVOLVES AROUND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER. (Including, but not limited to: anxiety/panic attacks, extreme mood swings , nightmares, intrusive thoughts, insomnia, irritability, hypervigilance, and hyperarousal)

That evening, when Bucky and Sam embarked on their small mission to New Jersey, you went through the files on the USB in the privacy of Bucky’s room. You locked the door and deactivated Friday in his quarters just to make sure no one finds out. At this point, you couldn’t risk being exposed, not a crime of this level. Not even to the Avengers, no matter how close they were to you.

You took a deep breath, hands shaking as you plugged the USB in. You managed to open the files you took from Fury’s computer. You skimmed the overall files, then went straight to his personal background.

His photo was blurry, a brown scan of an old worn out photo. It was recognizable, but it wouldn’t work for facial recognition. What you realized was then he had big eyes, and it was weirdly familiar. Where have you seen that before?

You read his short biodata, and one thing caught your eye. He was born in 1926, but the papers say he is alive as of 2017. 

How is that possible? Did Hydra give him an anti-aging serum? 

Michail Petrov’s files show that he didn’t seem like he was anything out of the ordinary, or at least not that different from other Hydra scientists. He went to renowned college and came out on top of his class, graduating with flying colors. A brilliant student, but something, or someone, lead him astray.

One of the few things intriguing about his profile is that he seemed morally grey, at least by your standards. According to the papers, his genetic engineering research had good intentions, a good heart with ruthless determination. Unforgiving pride. He wouldn’t let anyone stop his mission, whatever it maybe. To a degree, you saw yourself in him. 

If it was true, if he was still alive and you had to face him yourself, you knew you could fight pride with pride.

Like fighting fire with fire. An anger that rages within you knows that your deadliest sin is pride, and you cannot change it. It may be dormant now, but when the time comes, nothing can hold you back.

You were dangerous that way.

Your eyes glued to the screen, you read his goals.  He wanted to make a perfect world where people aged slower and lived longer, as well as leading countless research to make the human immune system better than it already is, making the human species ultimately resistant to diseases and delaying natural decay. It was almost unfathomable, impossible and ethically ambiguous science, but he found something that could theoretically work. It was brilliant, and to an extent, it had an equally noble purpose.

The way he did it, however, was bloody and murderous. He had, at the very least, a hundred people killed to try to achieve his goal, and in his papers, he had described them as ‘sacrifices for the greater good of mankind.’ 

He had most of his victims killed to study them, turn them inside out and reverse engineer them as if they were lifeless machines turning with cold gears instead of living cells. He did this in order to study everything that is unknown about humans, and from what your read, he did not care how he did it as long as he succeeded.

His ultimate goal was to create a new breed of supersoldiers that could integrate with the existing society, but he had failed. You did not blame him. It was too high a goal. However, from the same experiment, he managed to make fully-functional human beings using synthetic cells, grown in womb-like tubes. That remained his greatest achievement. 

And that was called Project Mercy.

As you delved further into the details of Project Mercy, you learned more. 

There were 21 living human beings that was the outcome of Project Mercy, which meant the floating, marble-white skinned girl that you found lifeless in Ukraine was the last of them.

Bucky was right. According to the files, almost all of them were dead. Most of them were euthanised when they developed some type of terminal illness, like cancer. Most of them were caused by their uncontrollably rapid mutation on a cellular level. Others were forcibly killed when they weren’t mentally sound, and you quote, 'impossible to control.'

Curiosity came over you, and before you knew it, you unknowingly came across a black and white security camera footage you wished you hadn’t clicked on.

It was a video of a young child strapped to a bed, a boy not much older that fourteen, in a cement-plastered room. If you were in there, you would have been claustrophobic. 

The boy was thrashing around, trying to escape his constricting leather confines. You noticed a scientist tinkering with surgical items in a stainless steel table. He had syringe in his hand. It was small, but the boy seemed to be was terrified of it. 

“Stay still, Mercy,” said the scientist calmly, only a slight russian accent on his otherwise american sounding voice. Stoic and emotionless. The boy did not answer. He let out a growl, primal and terrified. 

“Stay still, Mercy,” he repeated once again, this time in a sing-song voice, perhaps to comfort the boy, to lull him. The scientist smiled, and to your surprise, it seemed sincere.

The boy did not calm down. If anything, he only became more desperate to escape.

The scientist sighed sadly, “Just know that I did not want to do it the hard way.”

He hesitantly grabbed a surgical hammer, swinging it two times, three times, four times, to the boy’s skull until you swore you heard a deep crack in his skull, a drop of blood rolling down his forehead.The screams were fucking unbearable. You could hear the fear in his voice, laced with helplessness and horrific screeching. 

You wanted to look away, your body flinching and your eyes closing in instinct, but you can’t. If you wanted more information you had to see every waking second of it. You had to endure this to fully understand what Project Mercy was, or is.

So you forced your eyes open. 

Suddenly, his screaming stopped, and the boy limped.

He was unconscious, but still alive. His life support was still running. His heartbeat on the monitor was slowing, but not gone. 

The scientist dipped the needle of the syringe in his neck, pushing the white fluid in. “Goodbye, Mercy Three,” he said, a deep taint of regret in his voice, "You have served well, and I will make sure the world is thankful of your sacrifice," he stopped talking for a while, then leaned closer to the limp body. He whispered,  "I love you, my child."

 The boy flatlined, the pitch of the monitor ringing in your ears.

You gasped, hands in front of your mouth in shock. You let out a string of curses, hands buried in both your hands.

A wet tear streamed down your face. You could feel the boy's silence haunting you. You let out a sob, the cries you were unable to let outripping your heart apart, piece by piece.

What did you just watch?

In a twisted sense, you felt like you were watching a childhood story ruined. Like Geppeto putting an end to Pinochio's life because he had done too much damage.

The damage, however, was disturbingly unclear.

You whole body started shaking, and your esophagus felt like it was starting a gag reflex.

Focus, you thought to your time, breathing to calm yourself down. 

With quivering hands, you managed to paused the video, zooming into the scientist’s coat, at his name tag.

Michail Petrov.

You studied his facial features, which was clearer here than it was in the profile photo. He had fair skin, and a long, sharp nose. He had a symmetrical eyes, thin lips pressed into a line and a buzz trimmed hair. 

You didn’t know what you expected, but he looked normal. 

If you passed him in the streets of New York, you wouldn’t have looked twice or even bat an eyelash. 

That terrified you.

Your observation was disturbed by a sudden knock on the door. 

Surprised, you quickly changed the screen into a new tab. 

“(Y/n), I’m making soup. Would you like some?” Wanda called to you from the other side of the door.

“Sure,” you replied hastily, heart thumping. Your fingers were tense and trembling, still in shock.

“Okay,” Wanda replied, and from the sound of it, she did not suspect a thing. Thank god.

“I’ll let Friday know when I’m done,” she informed.

“Thank you,” You breathed, relief dripping out of your voice when you hear her walk away.

You reopened the tabs and braced yourself for more unexpected information. You started reading more.

Like Bucky said, you read that Mercy 1 and 2 were alive and last seen in 2014, but their profiles has been deleted. No photo or files or anything. You were in the dark, not a clue, at least for now. Knowing what you do now, you know the chances are Mercy 1 and 2 are alive and well are pretty good.

You looked into his lab in Kaunas, Lithuania, tracking down the exact location of his private laboratory. If there was any physical clue to where or who Mercy 1 and 2 two might be, it would be here, which means you had to go there.

You saved the coordinates, writing it down on a piece of paper just in case, so you won't lose it.

This was it. Your last chance at tracking down every last drop of Hydra.

You would let nothing get in your way. 

And you would make sure Petrov doesn't make it out alive.

From the other side of the room, your phone rang. You yelped in your seat just a little, before quickly grabbing the ringing device.

It was Diego Miller.

Shit, you thought to yourself. He had called you in Fury's apartment, why didn't you call him back? You could only hope he did not suspect a thing.

"Hello," you said through nervously gritted teeth.

"Commander," he said, "You're okay! I was worried when I saw the news— I, you did not answer your phone this morning."

"Yeah I… had things to do," you explained yourself, "what's going on? What happened this morning?"

"I was just checking if you got to New York safe," he told you, "you usually tell the team where you are. And you did not, so we were worried. Especially with what's on the breaking news"

"Oh," you let out a breath that you did not realize you were holding. Your breath hitched again when you processed what else he was saying. "Wait. What's in the news?"

"You haven't heard? It's breaking on all channels right now. It has been for the past one or two minutes." He sounded disturbingly surprised you didn't know.

Sensing the worry in his voice, you turned the TV on.

The screen greeted you with big bold letters on the foreground of an eerily familiar apartment block that was completely engulfed in flames— Nick Fury's.

"SAM WILSON REPORTED MISSING IN CIVILIAN MISSILE STRIKE, 24 REPORTED DEAD." The headline read.

"Shit," you cursed, "I— I gotta go."

Miller did not say anything, understanding how you must've felt.

Hands shaking  you hung up and tried to call Bucky. 

A million of negative scenarios ran through your head. Sam was missing, but Bucky's name was nowhere in the headline.

Suddenly, a series of loud knocks were heard on your door. "(Y/n)!" you recognized Clint's distressed voice, "You need to see this!"

You wanted to shout to Clint that you know what was going on, but the words were held back by an invisible force in your throat.

When you didn't respond, Clint started banging the door, "Are you in there?" He asked urgently, "Are you okay?"

You wanted to answer, you really did. But you can't.

Your focus was on your phone, trying to get hold of his number, but your hands were trembling so much that your phone fell to the ground.

You choked on your tears, trying to hold back your increasingly loud beating heart.

You kneeled down, trying to reach for your phone.

You felt the panic begin like a cluster of fireworks in your stomach. Tension began growing in your face and limbs.

The loud banging of the door and the chaotic bustle of the breaking news on the TV suddenly became deafening, too much for you to handle. 

Your legs failed you, and you fell to the ground, curling your body. "No," you whispered, "No, please."

You thoughts were speeding in your head, unrecognizable nightmarish memories clouding your head. Oliver Jones' and Ian Lawson's untimely deaths  the violence that you faced in King-Carver's ship. The hurt, the pain.

The thought of losing Bucky.

It was too much.

You breath came in gasps, feeling that you will black out. The room spun like a hurricane.

"I'm coming in, alright?" Clint asked, and you heard him at the back of your mind.

He easily bypassed the door, overriding Friday's security protocols via the emergency setting.

He came closer to you, worried when he saw you writhing on the floor, holding to a bedpost for dear life.

"It's me," Clint tried to calm you down, "It's Clint. Calm down."

Your voice slowed, but not by much. You managed to sit up.

"W-what— Sam and— and Bucky! They—" You gasped out.

"Yeah—" Clint started to say, but he was cut off by the ring of your phone.

You glanced at it, trying to read it and it was— Bucky!

Breathing an overwhelming sigh of relief, you scrambled for the phone.

"(Y/n)?" You hear him call from the other end of the line. Hearing the slight voice of the former winter soldier, Clint's shoulder released all his tension.

"Oh, god," you choked out, "You're okay!"

"A few bruises only," he reported to you, coughing microscopic degree out of his lungs. "I'm with firefighters right now."

"Sam? What about Sam?" Clint asked, and Bucky heard his voice in the background.

You set your phone on loudspeaker.

"He was taken," Bucky announced, frustration in his voice, "After the missile attack, I saw someone take him through the smoke. They were gone before I could get there."

He blamed himself for his best friend's disappearance, you could tell.

"Do you have any idea who did this? Who took Sam? Who ordered the missile attack?" Clint demanded.

After a heartbeat, Bucky answered, "no." 

He was lying. You know by his voice. Whenever he was lying, the edge of his voice drops a few notes lower. Barely noticeable, but you know. Clint, however, believed the lie. He sighed, shutting his eyes for some relief.

Bucky knows that it must be Michail Petrov, and you did too. Who else would it be?

Maybe he had a software to track where his profile was opened. 

But then why did it take so long for the missile to arrive?

A million questions swirled inside your head.

You had to find out why. You had to find Sam.

You convinced yourself that this mess was all because of you.

~

[only-by-the-stars]

For the fanfic title questions! Tome of the Wild: 1, 5, 11?

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way? 

I’ve always wanted to write an AU based on Over the Garden Wall, it’s a miniseries I’ve adored since it first aired back in 2014. The art style, music, characters, Halloween-y mood, and story it told just enchanted me from the get-go and I thought it would be a neat setting for telling an AU story with, using characters from some other source. I at one time was going to use a different show to pull from and co-write it with someone else, but that, ah, didn’t work out for multiple reasons, one of which being that they ghosted me on here when I didn’t like a plot twist in Steven Universe. =P It’s really for the best, though, as I don’t think that that other show was the best fit in hindsight anyway, and I hadn’t leveled up my skill enough yet to where I am today. Legend of Zelda turned out to be a much better fit, as it has many more characters and locations to draw on, being as its older and has much more content. Weaving together all the characters, elements, and themes from various games was a lot of fun to do, as I’ve expressed before: I have SO MUCH love for them and they mapped really well onto the characters and setting from OTGW.

(Plus, ever since I saw that Creating a Champion page that was weirdly left out of the translated edition, of Link with a father and sister that looks suspiciously similar to Aryll, I’ve loved the idea of giving BOTW Link a younger sister. So that was really fun to write about.)

5: What part was hardest to write? 

Honestly? The first chapter. It’s always tough for me to get things going, and I was having to establish so much and get a feel for how I was writing this different version of Link. It feels a little rough to me, in a few ways, and I think I got a better grasp of everything and everyone in later installments. It does fine for setting up the arcs I wanted, though, so I don’t hate it by any means. It was still the hardest to write for those reasons, though. Later stuff, more climactic stuff, flowed a lot better for me. People talk about how ending things is hard, and it certainly is, but beginnings can be equally tough IMO.

11: What do you like best about this fic? 

Oh, a few things!

- the dynamics I established between Link and Aryll, and Link and Midna

- that entire sixth chapter was such a blast

- stuff in the current chapter I can’t talk about yet because SPOILERS

- all the references, big and small, that I put in from various LOZ games

- the Nayru sequence in chapter five. I really enjoyed both getting to play with expectations by using her and the Kotake from Majora’s Mask right after we saw evil Koume, and the creepy bit where Link and Aryll almost get eaten. Not as many people have played the Oracle games, and so wouldn’t know that she does indeed get possessed at the start of Ages, and would probably also assume that Kotake would be her Ocarina evil self after the encounter with Koume, so I had fun building up that ambiguity and choosing words carefully to describe Nayru’s attitude towards Link during the cleaning scene that would hint to her true intentions. and of course I loved writing the reveal/chase. It’s not quite that dark in OTGW, though it does have some horror to it, and I wanted to lean more into just how terrifying that actually would be.

thank you so much for the ask!

[muse-oleum]

Fucknemies (fuckbuddies but with angst)

Yes, I’m aware I have an appalling sense of humor. 

Kingsman - Harry Hart x fem!OC

Based on this lovely anon’s request: Hi! Can ya write Harry with a Kingsman agent, enemies to lovers?

Summary: the mission agents Kay and Galahad were on goes to hell, where they finally stop bickering and start appreciating what the other has to give (*cough cough*)

This is going to be two parts, because I got carried away, so stay tuned for the smut! I toned down the ‘enemies’ to more ‘frenemies’ but I hope it’s still what the nonnie wanted. 

Word count: 2k85

Warnings: violence, swearing, prostitution, heavy themes, mentions of human trafficking

Also, my inspiration for this was this song, it’s badass, sexy and fits the theme of the underworld agencies pretty well. 

Agent Kay landed at Kingsman in the most uncharacteristic manner. She was, first of all, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy tradesman based here in England; and her mother was an upper-end prostitute. 

Now, that shut up all these snobbish Kingsman boys alright. They didn’t know where to look ever since she had dropped the “w bomb,” as Merlin liked to call it. Her attitude, that of one raised between Soho and the up-end, was so ambiguous that most men were terrified by her. 

Most didn’t include agent Galahad. But then again he was rarely terrified by anything. Kay suspected he didn’t know what fear was. 

Little did Kay know that Galahad, or Harry, as she refused to call him, thought the exact same of her. Such lovely pet names as “hothead,” “idiot” or the more colorful and incontestably heartfelt “fucking imbecile,” were some of Harry’s favorite ways of nicknaming his feisty partner. 

For some reason, Merlin and Arthur absolutely delighted putting these two together for dangerous missions. It was almost as if their constant fighting in-between near-death and near-misses were their Sunday evening football gig. 

They loved it; and Merlin really couldn’t wait for his two friends to get their heads out of their own arses, and end that intolerable sexual tension once and for all. It was hanging over every curtain and curled up in every teapot, sizzling and unmistakably there. 

On that particular evening, Kay and Galahad were on an undercover “recognition” mission - the word had been stoically stressed by Merlin, the painful hitch in his voice the only indication that he already knew that shit was about to go down. Bad. 

So, an undercover mission. At some oil titan’s mansion somewhere in Italy. About two hundred guests and three different pools in which to drown Galahad if he became too irritating. Perfect. 

As Kay was exploring various creative ways to make him shut up if needed, Harry was troubled. 

He was troubled by the fact that he had a hard time focusing on anything else than the way her shoulders shone in the light of the chandeliers, or how her breath caused her chest to rise up, or how the thigh-high split in that godforsaken dress caused his mind to blank. 

It was all really infuriating. She was infuriating. 

Hot-blooded, compassionate, high-strung but cool under pressure, stunning, with the mouth of a sailor. She was delightful and sinful, all at the same time. And the older agent simply didn’t know what to do with himself every time he was near her. 

No doubt she thought him arrogant, snobbish and probably too old-fashioned. 

Little did she know all he longed for was to do very un-old-fashioned things with her. 

So, everything he said came out wrong, and with her quick wit, she absolutely murdered him with every comeback. He wasn’t sure what made her so enticing, apart from all the above, but he knew that virtually everyone was either terrified or drooling after her. Or both. 

Most of the time, both. 

A movement on her left caught Kay’s eye. Galahad was beckoning to her. They were posing as a couple, a little hint amongst the billions Merlin had already worked very hard to give them. 

Eggsy said he never face palmed as much as when his two favorite agents were out in the field together. 

“Do you see him?” Galahad whispered, his eyes unfocused but trained on the far corner of the room. 

Kay followed his gaze, immediately spotting the armed goon, one arm under his vest, no doubt cradling a gun, scanning the room in a would-be subtle manner. 

“They know someone’s there.” 

“On a scale of one to ten, how fucked are we?” Kay asked, her tone all that was innocent. 

Harry shot her a look. Her neck was craned towards the bar, avoiding looking in the direction of the armed man, although he knew she was following his every movement. 

He couldn’t help but notice how the slope of her neck met with her right shoulder in a sensuous curve. Her breaths were coming more rapidly now, and, as ungentlemanly as it was, Harry simply could not take his eyes off of her. 

She caught him staring, arching her eyebrow, and he realized he hadn’t answered her question.

“If they find us out, a solid seven.”

She scoffed, “we got out of a nine before, seven’s a joke.” 

Harry glared at her. 

“Last time, the nine was because of all issues locked, here the seven is because we’re clearly outnumbered. We weren’t outnumbered last time. So let me rephrase that: it’s a nine and a bit and we’re fucked.”

It was her turn to glare, sending him a look that plainly stated that she didn’t see the need for making such a fuss. 

“So what’s the plan now?” Kay asked, eyes going around the room. 

Three more armed agents had shown up, but nobody else here seemed to have noticed them. Wearing dark suits and all-too visible earpieces, Kay wondered how people could be so unobserving. 

“Get the fuck out ‘s the plan,” came a strong Scottish voice, a little too strained for her liking. 

“But we’ve achieved nothing,” she whispered, angry that the mission would be fruitless. 

She knew that oil trader had another, much more unpleasant, and definitely illegal trading business. Involving humans. 

As the daughter of a prostitute, she knew too well what exploitation was like. Her mother had not coddled her, but had shown her the ugly truth of her world. She could not stand by as others suffered a similar, sometimes worse, fate. 

“I agree,” Galahad said, causing Kay to look up sharply, surprised to hear her oh so careful partner agreeing with her. “Kay’s right, there are lives at stake here that we can’t ignore.” 

Kay blinked once, properly stunned. 

It’s not that Harry was unfeeling - he was doing this job to save lives too, after all - but he was sometimes too cerebral and restrained for her liking. 

Although, weirdly, she had to admit she liked that too. They were complementary; one was always there to catch the other. Perhaps that was Merlin’s scheming all along? The annoying Scot had something of a knack for psychoanalysis. 

Galahad’s brow was set, lips pursued and eyes hard. The traits of a man hellbent on seeing at least part of this through. She noticed how handsome he was, and how his charisma came not from his appearance so much as his demeanor. 

“So what do we do?” she asked, a little breathless, “do we keep snooping around and pray to all the gods and goddesses above to make it out in one piece?” 

“Pretty much.”

“You know what, Harry, for once, I won’t call you an arrogant upper-class jerk.” 

Kay left him standing there, a small smile on her face. She could hear Merlin grumbling something about murdering the two of them once he got them back at HQ. 

Nobody really cared about Merlin’s grumbling, as a rule; it was his default communication method. 

“Kay, take the upper floor and search for a door locked with a code. I’ll hack it. Galahad, take the gallery, you two keep an eye out. They know you’re here.” 

“I’m the soul of discretion, Merlin.” 

Kay heard Harry guffaw through her earpiece, earning him a smirk. 

“Ye, I’ll believe you if you come back without a hole through your head. Get to it.”

Always the picture of optimism and positivity, Kay thought, amused. Oh, let’s see what you’re hiding there...

She’d come to a locked door requiring a code. Patiently, Kay waited for Merlin to send her the code through her glasses. She waited a few seconds, before asking:

“Merlin? I need the code now, not in three hundred years.” 

“Afraid you won’t get it, princess,” came a voice that was decidedly not Merlin’s. 

Kay whirled around, face to face with a rather grumpy looking armed guard and his equally grumpy companion. 

Shit. So much for discretion. 

Without leaving her much time to deliberate, he attacked, slashing her arm with a knife she hadn’t noticed. It was painful, but bearable. His friend looked on, a small smile pasted on his face. 

Don’t you worry, sweetheart, I’m going to wipe that smile off your face in no time. 

Her retaliation came swiftly. 

If people had been praising Black Widow on screen - and she had to admit Scarlet Jo had the moves down - she was a Black Widow. That man never knew how his neck broke, or indeed how her legs were suddenly wrapped around his throat at all. 

His friend had stopped smiling, a moderate improvement to his otherwise average features. He looked much better grumpy. 

Your turn, sweetie. 

Too bad Kay had failed to notice another armed agent - not her armed agent, unfortunately - because it really could have ended here and there if she had. 

Instead, she felt the bullet slice through her thigh even before she registered the sound of the trigger. It tore through muscle and lodged itself in the bone, causing her to scream out in pain. Blood was gushing out; all she could hope for now was that Harry was near and that the bullet had missed the artery. 

Somehow, she wasn’t too hopeful. 

“Nice little trick you got there. With those legs, it’s hardly surprising. Too bad I had to aim for them, eh?” 

That was the last thing he ever said. 

A disheveled, very angry and murderous looking Harry ended his life here and there, sparing him the pain he had inflicted on Kay only because his conscience told him so. 

A very flimsy, very tiny part of his conscience. 

“Too bad, indeed,” he said, before rushing to Kay’s side. 

Her vision was blurred and even though she tried to stem the blood flow, she knew the bullet had at least scraped the artery. 

“Merlin, what the fuck were you doing?” 

That caused her to chuckle slightly. Hearing Harry swear was one of the most entertaining things in her life. It was so out of place, so opposite his brushed-up, gentleman front. 

“Those bastards cut the connection!” came the angry voice of the Scotsman. “Get her out of here, I’ll send the car. It’ll be a bumpy ride, so you better hold on to her, and whatever you do, don’t let her lose consciousness ye hear me?” 

The car ride was one of Kay’s worst experiences ever. 

She wanted to throw up, almost did, refrained herself from emptying her stomach right on Harry’s impeccable waistcoat. The shivers arrived just before they reached HQ, where a literal battalion of nurses took over. 

Harry, covered in blood, made a move to go after her, when a hand on his shoulder stopped him. 

“Wasn’t your fault. They got us clean.”

He turned towards Merlin, jaw set. 

“She’ll be furious, she really wanted to take him and his human trafficking gang down.” 

“And someone else will, I promise. For now, ye need a drink, and a strong one. You also need to finally get it off your chest because I swear, if having her nearly die is what’s gonna take to make the two of you fucking focus again, I’ll do it again.”

Harry turned a disbelieving look towards his friend. With narrowed eyes, he took a step towards him. Merlin held up his hands.

“This one wasn’t my doing, but I hope it’s helped you realize how much of an idiot you’ve been. She’s a keeper, but you keep pushing her away with you high-almighty attitude. Stop being a goddamn idiot.” 

This time, Harry was quite simply speechless. 

“Ex-excuse me?”

Merlin ran a hand over his eyes, sighing deeply. 

“You’re mad about her, she’s mad about you, so you fight because none of you can see how much you mean to each other. Honestly, it’s exhausting. Get it over with.”

Merlin walked away, leaving his friend ruminating the reproaches over in his head. 

That he loved her, he had no doubt. The feeling of utter helplessness and fear that had gripped him when he heard her scream was sickening. 

Yes, she drove him mad. He wanted her desperately; wanted her to like him and want him, need him. Until tonight, when she had snuggled against him, whimpering in pain, he had not thought a woman like her would ever need anyone. 

And she had called him Harry. 

Perhaps Merlin was right and it was time he put the record straight. 

If you guys didn’t notice the subtle hint of Darcy/Elizabeth in there idk what to say to you. Stay tuned for part II!

[armageddon-generation]

Improving Crimes of Grindlewald

Just watched this movie again, and I’m not touching the representational/ethical issues, but here are some ways to streamline the movie.

(some small changes to the first movie, since this is already fantasy)

Newt comes to New York because he suspects Obscurus activity, and wants to make up for not saving the one he keeps in his case as a reminder. This connects Newt emotionally to Credence and his B plot

Make the locations more magical - Central Park Zoo is cool but give it a Wizarding dimension: A museum with magic exhibits about how 'dangerous' Magical Beasts are, and MACUSA hunting many to extinction. Newt and his beasts 'accidentally' destroy this misinformation. There's a War Memorial hidden in the Park like the one for the Potters in Godric's Hollow. Newt and Jacob bond over their experiences.

Instead of the beast in that random building, have one go to Coney Island. A magical old-timey Fairground is the perfect setting for a Beast chase.

The shit ‘Graves was Grindlewald’ twist didn’t happen, he’s just a follower. Use him to build up Grindlewald's appearance in this movie

Establish Credence could be a Lestrange (MACUSA found adoption records when covering up the death of Mrs Barebone - President Piquery mentions to Newt "I believe you're familiar with the Lestrange family") to set up the twist in this movie

Newt helps set Queenie and Jacob back up at the end, including restoring his memory - it's consistent with Newt’s disregard for both authority and segregation

Opening and Prison sequence

Start with a montage (newspaper headlines and moving photos, like in the first movie) of MACUSA cracking down on Wizard/muggle segregation and escalating tensions as they grow more paranoid about Grindlewald - establishing the theme of the Ministry being their own worst enemy

We see Queenie and Jacob - trying to live happily in secret - get busted, arrested and separated. This is scary, aggressive.

Queenie tries to protect Jacob (a frightening Jean Grey - style attack with her Legilimensy, to establish how far she'll go for him) but she’s outnumbered, and the fan-favourite character from the last movie is knocked out and wrestled away.

A terrified Queenie is transported to the American wizard prison for processing as a criminal, where Percival Graves is awaiting transfer to trial. He and Queenie make eye-contact as he passes

Highlight MACUSA treating Queenie as a dangerous freak because of her Legilimensy

Grindlewald breaks into the prison and frees Graves. This is our first time meeting him and he subverts expectations; charming and benevolent  to his follower where Voldemort was abusive.

Grindlewald and Graves save Queenie and set the other wizards being processed for No-Maj fraternisation free

This sets up Queenie’s conflict of wanting marriage equality without turning her into an unstable psychopath - she has no home, no job, and can’t turn to Tina because as an auror, technically Tina should arrest Queenie

Grindlewald’s Followers

Graves replaces that random woman as Grindlewald’s right-hand. There is one corrupt auror 

This auror leads the attack and arrest of Queenie in the opening sequence, but it isn’t revealed he’s working for Grindlewald until later

 Then he is one of the aurors the Ministry sends to hunt down Credence, with Theseus Scamander.

Gindlewald’s agent kills the House-elf when the aurors confront Credence. Then, at the end when the agent betrays the aurors and tries to join Grindlewald, Grindlewald kills him to show both Queenie and Credence he’s on their side. Thus Grindlewald gets to be rutheless like in the original, but he’s also a master manipulator

This way we roll 3 characters into 1 (the American who helps Grindlewald escape, the English guy who kills the House-elf, and the follower Grindlewald kills)

Ministry scenes (+ Dumbledore)

Same scene with the Ministry trying to recruit Newt to kill Credence, only this time they turn to Theseus after he refuses - putting Theseus in direct conflict with Newt

Dumbledore scene without the safehouse, have him recite the poem that he only namedrops in the original, to give the audience more context clues for later.

Include the conversation cut from the original where he explains why he sent Newt to New York - to help Credence - and establish Newt and Credence as Dumbledore and Grindlewald’s respective champions. Kindness vs Raw Power

Cut the sequence at Newt’s house and save the creature stuff for the circus

Theseus

Include the deleted scene of he and Leta at the party to establish their relationship - except instead of the floating baby (already in the Boggart scene) the pure bloods try to persuade Leta to join Grindlewald, creating ambiguity in her morality that will be resolved in the finale

Expand Theseus' character by touching on his PTSD. The Ministry pick him because he's a "war hero", but Theseus is clearly uncomfortable with that title - "I was just a soldier, Sir. And this is meant to be peace time."

When Theseus confronts Newt about choosing a side, have him draw on their respective experiences in WW1 - "While you were down the line playing with your dragons some of us had to stand and fight."

This is why Theseus doesn't want to provoke Grindlewald's followers - he can't face another war, or the peace he fought for breaking down

Much as I hate the idea of Grindlewald stopping WW2, framing Theseus' character this way means the rally and prospect of another War has a big emotional impact on him

Credence attacking the aurors after the House-Elf's death triggers a PTSD flashback - as he heads back to the Ministry we see a flash of wizarding WW1, dragons etc

Centre the Plot Around the Circus - Getting the Characters Together

Tina has tracked Credence down to the Magical Circus moving through France. She wants to protect him (like she did in the last movie) from the aurors trying to kill him

She contacts Newt; he’d be perfect for this situation because

the circus is full of magical beasts

Credence has befriended a Maledictus, whom Newt would know about because of their close connection to beasts

Newt knows  and cares for Credence

This allows us to naturally incorporate more fantastic beasts into our Fantastic Beasts movie; Newt gets hired as the circus’ beast master (the ring master thinks his name will draw in a crowd) 

It also gives Newt a concrete reason to be there without being the ‘chosen one’ of the story - he just wants to make up for letting Credence down last time

It also cuts the stupid ‘Tina read gossip in a magazine and now she won’t talk to Newt’ subplot, and all the time wasted looking for her

Use this portion of the movie - travelling across France to Paris in the circus - to build the dynamic between Newt, Tina, Credence and Nagini, so we care about them.

Nagini (recast as a different ethnicity) uses her experience living with a curse to teach Credence how to control his Obscurus, creating a sense of responsibility for him

Newt talks to Nagini about her condition: Explore the emotional toll of being a Maledictus - Newt is initially weirdly jealous of the idea of turning into a beast, which Nagini finds funny

Insert the ‘creature caring’ sequence from Newt’s house here - the characters bond through the creatures.

Parallel the burgeoning romance between Credence and Nagini with the awkwardness of Newtina

Credence explains he survived because Grindlewald saved a part of his Obscurus while MACUSA was attacking, and released it just before he was captured. Credence then spent months stuck in that form, rebuilding himself, which also helped him control his Obscurus

This immediately puts Credence in Grindlewald's debt: he was able to save him when Newt couldn't

Insert the Hogwarts scenes and flashback here. Leta mentions her father in the present and past - e.g. when she and Newt talk about going home (CUT MCGONAGALL!) to better set up her story at the end

Paris

We arrive in Paris. Leta’s brother Yusuf attacks the performance and Credence stages his escape against Newt and Tina’s wishes.

The beast escapes as in the movie

The group gets split up - Credence and Nagini, Newt and Tina

Newt, and Tina chase Yusuf into Paris’ sewers, where they get pinned in a firefight. Newt attracts an urban water demon (the kappa from the circus?) that incapacitates Yusuf.

Tina interrogates Yusuf. He explains his version of events - Credence is Corvus Lestrange. Now we don’t get two twists straight after each other at the end

The escaped circus beast causing chaos outside distracts them enough for Yusuf to disapparate. They catch the beast as in the movie

Cut Nicholas Flamel - he’s gratuitous fan-service adding little to the plot

Grindlewald

Present Grindlewald to the audience as the characters see him - charming, personable, the exact opposite of Voldemort

This means no baby-killing 

Make him look normal but attractive (Depp looks inhuman and off-putting, a poor-man’s Voldemort)

Forget the albino hedgehog, we need to believe this man could charm the pants off Albus Dumbledore

Queenie uses her Legilimency to probe his mind.

He uses Oclumency, and we see a battle of the minds wage in the background as they talk. 

Grindlewald lets her in to selective thoughts - namely his beliefs about marriage equality and his wholehearted ‘belief’ in them

He also reveals to her his relationship with Dumbledore, as a way to convince her he’s doing the right thing - “Dumbledore wasn’t willing to fight for what was right, but he still agrees with me” and that he can relate to her struggle with Jacob

Grindlewald is the first person to praise Queenie’s mental powers and encourage her to embrace her Legilimensy - her whole life she's been Othered and objectified, in the first movie even Tina hid Queenie away

Queenie’s persuasion takes at least a few scenes - every time we see Grindlewald, check in on Queenie’s fall

Especially given the setting between the World Wars, use this as a way to explore how fascism works - the dangerous seductiveness of that mentality manifested through our villain

Cut the scenes with Queenie in the French Ministry/wandering Paris

Finding Credence

Credence and Nagini run free together through Paris (include the scenes cut from the original, including the one where the pheonix chick arrives)

They find the House Elf, but Theseus and the aurors arrive and the attack plays out as previously described

Theseus leading the aurors drives a wedge between Credence and Newt by association in the finale

After Credence escapes the aurors go immediately to the Mnistry to report

A scene of Theseus and Leta supporting each other in the Ministry, while he’s making his report (after his PTSD attack)

Leta: I don't trust them. You've already sacrificed so much for these people and their wars. Just... Let the others die first, alright?

Theseus [laughing]: you're such a Slytherin.

Leta: And you're far too much of a Gryffindor for my liking. It's going to get you killed.

This sets up Leta's sacrafice in the finale.

Newt and Tina now have to find Credence

They know about the House-elf because Credence told them in the circus, so they go to that address to find it destroyed

This is when they travel to the Ministry, to look at the Lestrange records

The corrupt auror with Theseus gets there first and runs with the information both Leta and Newt want

The demon cats attack Tina even though she is Ministry personel because Queenie is considered an associate of Grindlewald - Tina finds out her siater was arrested midway through this action sequence and Leta saves her while she’s distracted

Tina and Leta working together to protect Newt from the demon-cats

Theseus realises what is going on and tries to stop the corrupt auror but he escapes. Theseus then helps Newt, Tina and Leta escape

They release the circus beast as in the movie

Credence and Nagini meet Grindlewald, with Queenie. Grindlewald tells them about the informaton in the Lestrange crypt and lets them be.

Finale

Only Leta has to explain her story, then the rally plays out much the same (which is f*cking problematic but that’s not why I’m here)

No blood pact because it fucks with canon - Dumbledore is just reluctant to fight Grindlewald directly because of their relationship and the Elder Wand. This way Newt has the same frustration as the audience - why didn't you go?

Queenie tries to persuade the others to come with her, and reveals Dumbledore’s relationship with Grindlewald as justification, shaking Newt, but they refuse.

The corrupt auror who killed the house-elf and arrested Jacob is killed for Credence and Queenie’s benefit

Queenie and Credence are disapparated away

Then Grindlewald attacks Theseus’ aurors, but without the fire dragons; his speech was about not hurting anybody, so trying to destroy Paris straight after is stupid. Show Grindlewald's power with a 20:1 duel

Personally I wouldn’t kill Leta because she’s so interesting, but if she does die have it be here, holding Grindlewald off while the others escape (Tina, understanding, pulls Newt away and Newt pulls Theseus).

Leta's sacrafice is what directly inspires Newt choosing his side

When they meet Dumbledore in the last scene Newt is angry and upset about what Queenie told him, and tells Dumbledore his lovers’ quarrel got Leta killed

[maatryoshkaa]

tagged by @bhubblemilk (weaver of emotions and beautiful words, her blog literally overflows with aesthetics go check it out!! love you bub ^^) and also the lovely @kim-seungmine (cute and insanely talented bub who is also wholly whipped for seungmin, the whole package tbh)

1. are you named after someone?

not that i know of! ryu is my chinese nickname heh :p

2. last time you cried?

...yesterday? 💀💀i think it was just general stress about life and uncertainty about the future. i’m a very emotional person and cry wayy too much LOLL

3. any kids?

pretty sure my parents would disown me if i had kids right now BAHAH but i want kids really bad in the future! i love kids but i’m not too great with them, which is pretty tragic. my friends say i scare them LOL

4. do you use sarcasm?

i use it a lot! i tend to deadpan it, too, which leads to people taking me seriously and it becomes a mess oops

5. first thing you notice about a person?

appearances + how they carry themselves? (i.e. with confidence, nervously, standoffish, etc.) i think that makes a big impact on how i interact with them.

6. eye colour?

probably the most boring shade of brown in the universe 😔

7. scary movies or happy endings?

both! isn’t it super satisfying when the characters go through hell, you’re brought onto the terrifying rollercoaster of a ride, and in the end it’s all worth it? (i’m a sucker for soft, happy endings). Ambiguous or angsty endings are definitely enrapturing in a whole different way, though! TL:DR, depends on the mood 🤠

8. special talent?

if i want to, i can memorize a lot of things -- strings of numbers, weird word spellings, the order of something. it works weirdly though -- i can read you my 3-page essay from the top of my head, but i can’t remember what i ate for breakfast yesterday for the life of me 🤡

9. birthplace?

canada! 🇨🇦 

10. hobbies?

i love writing (of course); i just find stories (reading them, writing them, etc.) so much fun. i also love drawing, listening to music, and dancing.

11. do you/have you ever played any sports?

i did karate and swimming when i was younger, but i only dance now (don’t know if that counts🤸🏻‍♂️)

12. pets?

three turtles (used to be four...one died, rip), and a bunny hehe 🐢🐢🐢🐰

13. height?

i definitely tower over my peers at the enormous height of 159cm. 🙃

14. favourite subject in school?

english!

15. dream job?

author? i used to want to be an actress too, haha. anyways, writing stories, travelling and learning sounds like quite a dream.

tagging: @svnflowery @violethhj @okayau @fairyskz (only if you want hehe <3 have a nice day y’all~)