#anyway before this gets too spoilery

[bookinit02]

in honor of my s5 announcement this week, here’s one of the scenes from the first episode! hope you all like it🫶🏻

[sukugo]

i started watching jjk without knowing anything other than what i knew from your blog, and i never realized sukuna and gojo was a RAREPARE OF THE HIGHEST KIND. wym these dudes have only interacted like four time???

in conclusion: you conditioned me into shipping a rarepare i didn't know was rare.

GSJDGSJSGDJDHSJDHDJHD WE GOT ANOTHER ONE BOYS

and it's not even 4, they interact 1.5 times in literally the SECOND episode and then NEVER again. like literally never ever ever again GDJDHDKDHD im not even kidding

well. ok later they do have their promised Fight, but that's only happened in the manga, and for the anime.... it's a WHILE until we get there

(but also the fight and everything related to it was so fucking gay i don't even know what to tell u. just that it makes it all worth it)

but also, no worries my beloved claudia, u've come at a good time fandom wise hahah. u don't have to go through the drought i went through. sukugo has risen from the rarepair trenches and are doing pretty okay i feel (downside being obv with greater popularity comes more Shit) (and well, hella spoilers if u're watching the anime the fight is pretty much the only proper interaction they have fgsjdhfkf)

BUTTT GGSHRGRHE HELL YEAH LET'S GO SUKUGOOOOOOOOO THEY MAY NEVER INTERACT BUT THEY ARE VERY SEXY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

in conclusion: teehee :3 im sorry but also am i really? (no)

[houseofscribbles]

Some visual notes on the robotics of ISO! Also, an extra mess notes about them under the read more :]

[milkbreadtoast]

someone called me 1 of their fav twsb artists....🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹

[pocketramblr]

dndhat movie is fun but i'll admit a good 30% of my fun was pointing at the screen like "wait i have a character/party member who does that too! :0!!"

[impossible-rat-babies]

dt spoilers:

im sitting here like. eyrie uses lamaty’i so often to refer to wuk lamat, and it’s always said with a great deal of warmth, care and love. its one of those things where it took wuk lamat a while to realize how deep and genuinely they cared for her bc it was so quiet. it was never intentional, but their quietness was not unlike zoraal ja and early on it left a lot of questions about really eyrie wanting to help her. there was a fair bit of chafing early on; eyrie’s lack of reaction/their quietness taken for stoicism v. wuk lamat’s eager, and excitable nature. the more she chattered on, the quieter they became.

[themyscirah]

Did I seriously just finish an art piece??? I know I'm me but did I get abducted by aliens or something like who is this person

[sarahreesbrennan]

Another Interesting Spoilery Evil Question

To directly answer the question before I start rambling, the Cobra’s body’s physical age is 24.

(You can stop reading here if you like. This gets very long!)

When Marius meets the Cobra (chapter 18 epigraph from Time of Iron) he correctly identifies him as Marius’s own age at the time - 18.

At the time of the book all the physical bodies’ ages are as follows.

Marius - 24

The Cobra - 24

Rahela - 24

Octavian - 24

(Pio and Nemeth, Octavian’s advisers, are in their early 40s and late 50s respectively - they’re Octavian’s dad’s people and that is part of why they are so stressed. Their king died young, Octavian became king in his teens and it has been an uneasy court ever since.)

Emer - 23

Key - 20

Lia - 19

Rae and Eric in our world were both 4 years younger than their bodies in this world (so they would both be 20 if the story hadn’t happened to them). For the moment we’ll leave aside Key, who had another life too, in a different way. (He was a little kid, but old enough to walk after his father, in the epigraph from Time of Iron in chapter 15.)

I do age shenanigans for two reasons.

—One is that age in fiction and reality is weird, and I wanted to portray that. If I had a crush on Mr Darcy when I was 7, is that okay? If I had a crush on Mr Darcy when aged 41, is that okay? Mr Darcy’s always in his late twenties: Elizabeth Bennet will never be older than 21, but she seemed so glamorous and all-knowing to me when I was a kid.

And if you walk into a story, when in their character development do you find them? Would we like Darcy when he’s sneering at Elizabeth at a ball? Who is it that we love and when?

Plenty of adult women fancied Edward Cullen, perpetually a teen (or was he? Fantasy and horror also open up the possibility of immortality - but in a way, all fictional characters are immortal. Holden Caulfield isn’t growing up any more than Edward Cullen is. And like fictional characters and immortals, the dead aren’t getting any older either—I think often of Anne Rice, author of the Vampire Chronicles, who wrote the doomed child vampire Claudia after losing her own daughter Michele as a child. Death, immortality, fiction and the overlap!) When I read or watched stories in which characters were in different/changed bodies they usually seemed younger - often their younger selves, or a younger/cuter body (Peggy Sue Got Married, Scarlet Heart). (Exceptions exist of course, e.g. Howl’s Moving Castle.) And I like magic losing something, costing you something, plus I’m a contrarian. So I wanted them older.

—The other is that LONG LIVE EVIL is a story about trauma, which often arrests your age in your mind. The period in which you were enduring the horrors is a blank in which you couldn’t develop normally, or in which you had plenty of experiences but few of them match with your peers’.

Cancer did it to me, which wasn’t horrendous as I was in my early 30s and that’s still adult, just meant a bit of ‘oh no I’m not this child’s mother, I’m too young - actually I’m a bit old to be this child’s mother now I think about it, but anyway I don’t claim her’ and the like. But I’ve seen it do the same for people with cancer I befriended or whom I mentor, and it’s a very different proposition if the lost years are 17-21.

It’s not just cancer, I’ve seen bereavement work that way on people, and apparently celebrity works on the mind like trauma and arrests you at the age you became famous in a lot of ways. It’s being taken out of the run of ordinary life, walking through your portal into strangeness.

But in the end most of us wind up with years that feel lost, I think, and playing catch-up is the only way forward.

And allegory remains allegory: if I’m writing a werewolf I’m taking about rage and body horror, sure, but I’m also talking about werewolves.

I was actually confused by this ask at first as I’d written a whole section where Eric says he’s going to die of a heart attack at 20 and Marius is exasperated as Eric is a little young to start lying about his age! But it must have fallen victim to my many cuts - stories transform! - and I can see why, because I don’t think Eric exactly thinks of himself as 20 anymore.

I had some struggles with the age stuff, it’s another layer of complication in a complicated story and there were worries raised that it was unnecessary and might make some characters less appealing but in the end I decided it was necessary to me and let the characters be unappealing, then.

I also enjoy the twisting, fluid ages because they cause conflict, and conflict is story.

Rae uses her new age (and thus doesn’t need to think of her absolutely horrible self worth) to count herself out as a romantic option in Key’s eyes.

She also thinks of the Emperor as in his mid-20s, as he is - after a time skip that happens in the original Time of Iron, years in which Key and Emer were Lia’s servants. She knows about those years, but she doesn’t put it together.

At Eric and Marius’s first meeting 6 years before the events of LONG LIVE EVIL, Eric also hasn’t been in the book that long. He was in a horrifically traumatic survival situation for a large part of the time he was inside, when he approached Marius to blackmail him. That is objectively a deranged thing to do, but Eric is thinking like a terrified 14 year old and also like a Huge Fan of Marius. aka the quintessential white knight, the Last Hope who is reserved and dignified and crucially, 24-28.

That would be the Marius Eric at the time knows when he approaches Marius in the flesh, Marius at 18 and coming off family trauma, friend trauma and quasi-romantic trauma himself. Marius actually DOES go into dissociative states and kill people, Eric was taking a huge risk with his own life that not a single person in the country would have taken. Marius is a Valerius, and they are killers. (The whole court, Marius included, thought Lady Katalin ((Rahela’s mother)) was being very daring by like, touching Marius’s hand when he was 17.)

Eric is acting wild partly because a) he is wild, b) he’s desperate but also crucially c) he’s thinking of Marius as someone that Marius isn’t yet and d) he’s not thinking of things from Marius’s POV, and doesn’t until the events of LONG LIVE EVIL. Their quasi friendship/quasi hostage situation (that the hostage had firmly decided was happening) couldn’t have happened without a perfect storm of weirdness, risks and lack of understanding what the hell was going on.

Marius would not have seen a 14 year old Eric (not a child to him exactly, but squire age rather than knight age) as a criminal threat in the same way as he saw the Cobra, his own age (18, which was definitely very adult, Marius thought at the time). Eric wouldn’t have failed to consider consequences or failed to consider Marius as person rather than character, if he’d actually been 18. But by the time anyone knew better, a status quo was established, and habit is second nature and a stronger nature than the first.

Eric’s plight is horrific initially. But at the same time, Eric is extremely intelligent (both intellectually and emotionally) and able to both cover and play catch-up to this new life, and he can advise Rae with the benefit of his experience - but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t screw up massively when he first came into the book, or that he doesn’t still have many things to work through.

Similarly, Emer is used to Rahela who is quasi older sister and quasi mistress, while Rae is now acting younger. And all of them are dealing with a gross system in which men are seen as in their youthful prime when women the same age are getting long in the tooth and can be traded in for teenagers - so even two people who are the same age aren’t treated as if they’re the same age, if they’re different genders. Age stuff is crunchy!

Also, while Emer thinks of Lia as having all the power due to class, Lia looks on someone who was her glamorous older stepsister’s age mate and went off to the big city years ago rather differently. But then, are adulthood and childhood different worlds? Is being in different social classes being in different worlds?

Can we reach the different universes of other people is something I’m always asking, I think.

THIS IS SO LONG. I AM SO SORRY.

[yuri-is-online]

Episode 9 Thoughts

I actually really liked this episode TᴖT I wasn't expecting much lore or plot building? But this was surprisingly light on filler.

Not Super Spoilery Facts:

Zenji says Romeo comes from "the famous House of Lucci." I made a joke about it, but basing Romeo's family off of the Gucci family actually makes a lot of sense. The Gucci brand is no longer controlled by the Gucci family for a variety of reasons, including financial problems and that murder they recently (?) made a movie about. I think this is really neat and a fantastic idea for his character, there's so much drama you can work with in high fashion and it makes just that much more sense about why he would be mad that he's not in Frostheim. He should be, they're all wearing clothes with his family name on it, but he can't be because he doesn't own the company.

Zenji does watch over Jiro constantly. That's not a super confirmed thing but between his attitude in this Episode and the campus event it's safe to say he probably follows Jiro around as much as he does Haku.

I promise I paid attention to more people than just Zenji (even though the mission never would have succeeded without him, everyone praise best boy NOW). Here let me prove it:

SPOILERS

This is mostly just for me but Romeo's nicknames/his "personal network" he references when calling for help are: Kurossa (Leo), Harry (Haru, wonder if he picked that up from Taiga or Taiga picked it up from him), and Mickey (Rui). I think he probably also considered Kaito one of his "network" because of how much he stalks him but that's just me lol.

Speaking of which lets talk about Kaito for a second. He says he doesn't remember much about the clash "because he was doing his own thing" but the timeline between when Romeo started stalking him and the events of the clash line up perfectly. To me it looks like there are two elements to Romeo's obsession, the first is obviously the pendant but the second... probably still has something to do with the pendant if we are being honest but since everything in the story has to do with the Clash probably that too. There is a piece of blackmail Romeo shows him that Kaito screams about:

My initial thought was that it was a picture of him in his underwear trapped in one of Romi's cages, but we saw that in Episode 4 or something related to his debts and to be fair? That's probably the most likely scenario. Kaito has a gambling problem (call 180-GAMBLING please bby) so there's probably no end to the dirt Romeo has on him. I do wonder if it's a bit more sensitive though but that's just me. Anyway Kaito mentions he never saw Romeo in the Casino until he started chasing him around... which makes me think the likely timeline for Romeo and Taiga's falling out can be placed somewhere around the same time. If they were working together and projecting a united front there would be no need for Romeo to do so much damage control.

That pendant is clearly important, we get a closer look of the insignia on it because Romeo finds a bracelet with the same insignia after he digs up a grave in the cemetery:

To me, this is still not enough detail and I want more but I feel fairly confident in saying this is a Heraldic symbol of some sort. As outlined here the Frostheim ghouls appear to have a sort of chess theme to their names with Kaito being the pawn. In chess pawns can become Queens if it reaches the end of the chess board, which I bring up because the insignia itself, at this point to me, appears to depict an eagle with a crown above it's head. Eagles are symbols of power and the favorite of many real world royal families, as is combining them with crowns to form a royal insignia. I need to do more research before I make concrete claims? But my initial searches have suggested that crowns are only ever used to symbolize royalty or important religious figures, and that eagles are usually double headed. A single headed eagle with a crown has been the symbol of countries like Germany, Austria, and Poland, but this eagle lacks the shield at the center for the first two and the polish eagle actually wears it's crown. I could also be reading waaaaaaay too much into this? But I'd like to think I am being perfectly normal.

Speaking of which we are told in the chapter that the graveyard plays host to "long term foreign residents." The bodies there are not cremated and it is very likely that, assuming Kaito got his pendant from a relative, that Romeo literally dug up and stole from Fuji's great great great grandparent. What a girlboss:

This person has been dead for so long they are only bones, and the only other object in their coffin is the metal bracelet. That's an old ass body, and it doesn't belong to a native Japanese person if we take what Romeo said earlier seriously. This is someone who moved to Japan and maintained enough wealth to be buried with an expensive tombstone. So why no name on the stone and where did they move from?

In less detailed? News Jiro has an extreme reaction to the crying child ghost encountered near the start of the chapter. Specifically he has a reaction to him saying "it hurts." Zenji also reacts to this, he scoops up the boy and takes him away. Later he regrets not attempting to "soothe the boy with a fairy tale." Jiro's memory loss is a side effect "of a certain tragedy that befell him." The timeline of whatever happened to the Kirisaki siblings is vague... but I think it goes something like this:

The brothers make their deal with their demons. They might do this together? Personally I lean towards Zenji doing it first in an effort to do something that will get him and Jiro out of whatever bad situation they are in and Jiro, not wanting to be babied and prove he can take care of himself, does the same thing. The reverse is also possible where Jiro makes his deal and Zenji follows suit because he feels responsible for protecting him, but either way Zenji does or says something he later comes to regret. This causes a rift between the brothers that remains unresolved through the Clash, and makes ghost Zenji reluctant to reveal himself to his brother. I lean towards them being injured around the same time? Either in the same incident or Jiro being injured first and the reason why Zenji was able to stick around. He says he wants to be an illustrious author, but really I think he just wants to make sure Jiro doesn't die. And now he also wants to cure the MC's curse, what a swell fella.

While Jiro clearly doesn't remember Zenji in detail, I don't think his memory is less fried than it first appeared. When MC attempts to get Jiro to go back to the others this happens:

I don't know how this reads in Japanese, but in English it's a really odd sentence. It's a mix up of two common phrases referring to team work: two hearts beating as one + team work makes the dream work. It's a very unique mixed metaphor, and exactly the sort of silly thing Zenji is saying all of the time so if Jiro remembered his brother... he'd probably remember him saying something like that.

... this chapter really did make me scream I'm going to miss Zenji so much.

[jcollinswrites]

New update 23/11/24

I can finally announce that *drumroll* chapter 2 is like 99% finished. There are a lot of things to report, so here is the most important stuff first:

What's new:

Added the rest of the scenes to ch2 on every route

I, uh... made a decision that will probably be quite unpopular. Narmer can't be romanced by late teen MCs. I was trying to make it work, but the scene just felt... off. Until I realized I already wrote down the answer to the problem in this ask. So, yeah. Sorry about that. I adjusted the age warnings in the beginning of ch2 accordingly.

If you played the previous update, you'll notice that some of the previously greyed out choices disappeared. That's intentional because:

I felt like an extra scene in the tavern with Tabiry was unnecessary because you'll talk to her right after it anyway

I felt like it was unfair to the non-RO companions to appear together with the ROs where you have to choose between who you want to spend time with on the boat. Let's be honest here, everyone will choose the ROs anyway lmao. So I decided to put the non-RO scenes somewhere else in ch3 where you won't have to choose between them. If you are playing a no-romance route, then you'll just get the friend-only scenes anyway with the ROs.

Next week, I'm going to tidy up the code a bit, and put some more variations in the ch2 scenes because I noticed that some were lacking. I will also edit some scenes that I wasn't satisfied with.

After next week, the regular weekly updates will move to patreon (which isn't open yet but I'll work on that next week too). However, I will still update the public demo! 😌 I think maybe once a month, or when enough new content collects to make a nice hefty update.

The cogdemos website introduced local saves this week. That means that you don't have to be logged in to make saves anymore. In fact, you can make an infinite amount of saves like that because you can export them into your own device, and you can also restore them the same way!

I'm also starting to see the end of the move-in to the new apartment. I'm still elbow-deep in wall paint, but I think I can slowly return to my regular schedule.

Old saves in the game should work, as long as you saved before the new content (so around the time you step on the road to Abydos at the radish field).

Edit: NO I'M WRONG! Saves made in CH1 after 15th of Nov will work. CH2 saves will always tank. Sorry 💀💀💀

LINK

Happy reading and please send feedback! I am especially curious of what you guys think about the BIG MASSIVE SPOILERS 👀 (I won't answer spoilery asks for a little bit, but you can still discuss spoilers freely in the proper Discord channel. I'm much faster to answer there anyway)

JC

[fungus-no69]

School LIs x Pc/Reader (x Ivory Wraith)

You/your pronouns for pc, they/them pronouns for LIs, pc is mentioned to be uncanny and strange looking in general, pc is POSSESSED!!! by the IVORY WRAITH!!!!! attempted harassment by Whitney (it fails), burns in Sydney's, mentions of Kylar's parents (maybe spoilery???)

You're never really... here. Always a bit dazed with a faraway look in your eye, yet an alertness to you that means it can't just be disassociation or anything like that.

They see you talking to the mirror a lot, or if not, looking into alleys like you're supposed to be seeing something other than the knocked over bins and occasional stray. Even at the lake in the forest, you're crouched at the edge of it as water licks at your shoes. Sometimes, the shadows seem to warp around you or maybe, your eyes are just a bit too wide to be normal. Something about the way your knuckles jut out too far or even the way that your lip movements don't completely match up with what you're saying.

Sometimes they see you wandering around the street, like a puppet. Clumsy and artificial. If anyone did see your face in those times they'd comment on the vibrant, unnatural blue of your eyes. Or how your skin seems to lose any warmth in its undertones, or maybe the way that you hum to yourself- pressing a hand to your chest and holding onto your pyjama shirt.

Robin

They're incredibly concerned that they hadn't noticed before they woke up to seeing you climb out of your window???

Even when you disappear and only appear after a whole day- looking even more out of it than usual and covered in water and some... other sort of substance that Robin just doesn't want to think too hard about

They just assume that's another weird thing you do along with the... everything else.

Look they had reason to believe it's just normal 'you' behaviour okay!

They check on you each blood moon from then on, even offering for you to stay in their room at the end of each month.

If they see you trying to leave out of the window again they may panic and grab you- looking at your face and being chilled by your hollow expression, a smile that makes them uneasy crawling up your face as a voice that's not yours repeats their name

"Robin Robin Robin Robin"

'You' slip out of their grasp before they can react- disappearing behind the windowsill. They probably almost scream before seeing you're fine at the bottom.

They can't help you before you're gone, you'll probably return in the morning anyway.

Whitney

This bitch ass motherfucker was probably skulking around the alleyways when they saw you staggering towards Nightingale street

They popped up behind you and grabbed your shoulders- hoping to make you squeal.

You didn't.

Simply continued walking.

Whitney just shrugged it off after a second of sulking, adding it to their internal list of your oddities (No they don't think of you often shut up)

They keep following you, teasing, mocking, sexual innuendos- you name it.

They pause when they see you take a beeline into the forest because what the fuck? No one except for tourists and people with a death wish go there (especially on a blood moon)

They're not superstitious per se but everyone and their fucking grandmother knows that what you're doing is a bad idea.

They grab your elbow and finally get a good look at your face, blank expression with unfocused blue eyes that look out of place on you.

For a moment they think they've been following the wrong person around. But that's impossible because they know what their slut looks like!

They open their mouth, probably to insult you or make a comment but nothing comes out when you start repeating their name with a manic grin.

They stumble when you wrench away, breaking into a sprint into the underbrush.

They go to follow you but you're already gone.

Sydney

They instinctively know something's wrong when they wake up to you shambling out of the temple's pews

They know you're strange, that something's wrong with you on a good day! But this is a whole new level.

Even as goosebumps raise on the nape of their neck, something about you seems familiar. A lingering sense of deja vu keeping them from moving.

They manage to stand up after a minute, limbs feeling heavier with each step they make towards you. Even if they tried, they wouldn't be able to sleep now. The air is stifling and wrong.

You shriek when their necklace brushes your skin as they lean closer, it leaves a torrefied blue mark where it made contact.

Yeah no. That is not normal.

Even without their necklace scalding you, your scream leaves their ears ringing and their head pounding with agony. They can't hear themself over the sound of their heartbeat, bile rises in their throat and they can't process anything but the feeling of hands so cold they burn and the image of cobalt that sears itself into their mind no matter where they look or how hard they squeeze their eyes closed.

They must have been making some kind of noise though, because when they come to- they're kneeling on the floor in between pews with Jordan's hands on their shoulders and you're nowhere to be seen.

Kylar

They were already following you as soon as they realised that you seemed even more off than usual

Somewhat similar to their parents before they became... whatever they are now.

They don't want you to end up like that! So they fight their body's urge to flee and appear at your elbow- you don't flinch, as per usual.

They hope their presence soothes you, it doesn't. You don't look as bad as they were imagining but their skin is becoming clammy just by being around you. And not in the normal way either!

They start to blabber to you, hoping to get your attention but you don't even spare them a glance! Now you're starting to freak them out.

They try to look at you properly, closer. They don't like what they see.

Blue eyes fixed in front of you, pallid cheeks, blue lips. Your eyes flick down for less than a second before a grin curls onto your lips and you grab them, calling their name

They love it when you say their name but not like that! Not when your voice echoes in their ears and makes their mouth go dry.

As much as their nails dig into your arms and they grasp as hard as they can, you manage to slip away- like their hands just... phased through somehow.

As much as they want to- need to chase you, their feet are rooted to the floor like something's holding them there. They can't do anything but watch as you depart into the forest.

They know that something was wrong! You wouldn't run away from them right? Yeah! That must be it! Something's taken control of you somehow!

They're not sure which idea makes their stomach churn more.

[ladykailitha]

Well Met By Moonlight Part 13

Hey, guys do you all remember that period of time when I was working on this story but refused to show you snippets of it on WIP Wednesdays? Yeah, this is that chapter. (I'm pretty sure, anyway. Because this shit was super spoilery.)

We finally get what happened to Steve and why he didn't grow up as Pack. This chapter does get a little dark in its themes so be careful when you read and if you need specifics, DM me and I'll fill you in.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12

****

Eddie and Wayne landed in front of their trailer with a deft touch. Eddie still wasn’t over the joy of being able to fucking fly. Like sure when he was younger, Wayne would take him for flights occasionally, but nothing beat banking on a breeze as the wind lifted him higher and higher.

“Your boy’s got a mouth on him,” Wayne said gruffly as he walked up the stairs to their trailer.

Eddie chuckled. “Always had. Even in school.”

Wayne huffed out a laugh. “True enough.”

As soon as they were safe inside, Eddie asked, “Hey, do you remember that couple who took Stevie in when his parents died?”

Wayne frowned. “You mean the Franklins?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.

Eddie snapped his fingers. “Yeah, them. Why was Steve placed with them? And not, I don’t know, the pack?”

“Ah.”

Wayne went to the kitchen and pulled out a six pack of beers. “That’s a bit of story. Drink up, you’ll need it for this.”

Eddie opened up a can of beer and settled in for story time.

Wayne downed an entire beer and wiped his mouth off with his sleeve.

“Hopper had gotten bad,” Wayne began. “Like real bad.”

“You’ve mentioned that before. That was around the time I came to live with you, right?”

Wayne nodded. “It wasn’t just drinking. It was drugs, too. And not just weed, either. I’m talking the heavy stuff.”

Eddie nodded. He had sold said heavy stuff to Hopper just before he cleaned up with El coming into his life. When Wayne asked him why, Eddie told him that he had no idea what he was doing with it and honestly didn’t care.

Knowing what Eddie did now, he regretted it, but he was so close to being able to afford his Warlock that that was all he cared about at the time.

“Steve’s dad Clint Harrington was getting ready to challenge Hopper for the position of alpha,” Wayne continued. “He knew that he might kill Hopper, but at that point it probably would have been a mercy.”

Eddie nodded solemnly. Maybe if Clint Harrington had lived, lived to be the alpha, the town wouldn’t be experiencing the troubles it was now.

“So what happened?” he asked gravely.

“Allison’s father died out in New York,” Wayne said. “The timing of it was so suspect, Ed. Like, you know I hate conspiracies with every fiber of my being, because there rarely is one. But this smelled rank from the get go.”

“You think whoever had the Harringtons killed,” Eddie said, “you think also popped off Granpappy, too, don’t you?”

Wayne glared at him, but conceded the point. “Whatever happened to the Harringtons was bad, boy. Like their bodies were savaged–”

He stopped and his eyes went wide. “It was exactly like this morning. I couldn’t tell the scent then, just like I couldn’t now.”

Eddie nodded. “As near as I could tell, there wasn’t a scent to be had. Whatever it was who killed the Harringtons and attacked Patrick, didn’t leave behind a scent.”

“There are very few things in this world that leave a scent so minuscule I could barely detect it,” Wayne said.

Eddie nodded. “So what happened with Steve after they died?” He was interested in the other thing, but he was really worried about his boyfriend.

“The old mayor, Larry Kline and I,” Wayne said amused, “made the decision that the pack wasn’t safe for Steve. But despite what Steve thinks the Franklins weren’t human.”

Eddie frowned. “They weren’t?”

“They were Were too,” he said with wary tilt of his head. “Were-bat. We figured that with them being at least Weres would be able to teach him how to shift and how to shift back comfortably.”

“So what went wrong?” Eddie asked, moving closer to Wayne on the sofa. “Because holy hell, pops, if Steve had been human CPS would have been called and fast.”

Wayne drank more of his beer and then rubbed one eye with the other hand. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t. There were no indications that Steve was anything other than a kid who’s parents died and was adjusting to it. Yeah, he wasn’t exactly happy, but we didn’t expect him to be, you know?”

“So what changed?”

Wayne drank the last of his beer and set it on the coffee table. “They were away on a trip and I don’t know if they forgot, didn’t care, or planned it... but Steve wolfed out for the first in his entire life when he was eighteen.”

“What?!”

Weres were supposed to shift for the first time when they hit puberty. Early teens for most of them. But to not shift until you were eighteen was just begging for the Were to go insane.

“Fucking hell, Uncle Wayne,” Eddie groaned. “Whoever this is is playing a long ass game. Jesus Christ. They were hoping he would go crazy, ending the Harrington line for good. So what happened?”

Wayne licked his lips. “Steve ran to me. He was frightened. Terrified out of his mind. Old Mack nearly shot the poor bastard as he came tearing through the trailer park.”

“Jesus H. Christ...” Eddie whispered.

Wayne chuckled. “It wouldn’ve done shit, it was just a regular bullet, it wouldn’ve even slowed him down.”

Eddie breathed a sigh of relief. “So what stayed Mack’s hand then?”

“You’ve seen your boy in wolf form,” Wayne said, “can you imagine how beautiful he looked then? The cream of his under belly blending with the warm brown of his back and face as he tore down the gravel pavement?”

Eddie could imagine it in fact. Steve was gorgeous as a human, but as a werewolf? He was exquisite. It came from his mixed breeding of being born from another born werewolf and his turned wife. Born werewolves tended to be more timber wolf in their appearance. Almost dire wolf-esque. Big, with course fur and fierce. Bitten werewolves tended toward the smaller red wolves. Quick, slender, and cunning as hell.

Steve was a mix of these two breeds and it made him the most beautiful thing on four legs Eddie have ever scene.

“To fire at something so majestic would have been a travesty,” Wayne was saying when Eddie came back from his revery. “So Mack just stood there, rifle in hand as Steve made straight for my door.”

Eddie frowned. “Where was I? I don’t remember this.”

“You and your friends had gone to Indy for some concert or another,” Wayne said. “I don’t rightly recall.”

Eddie’s frown got deeper, he’d only gone to one concert with his friends in Indy because one of the ‘85 Hellfire Club members had gotten tickets for graduation and had taken all of them.

“Is that why you weren’t home when I got back into Hawkins?” he asked. “You were dealing with Steve?”

Wayne nodded and popped open another bottle of beer. He held one up to Eddie, but he shook his head. Eddie held up his still mostly full can. Wayne licked his lips.

“You’ll want to drink more of that,” he muttered.

Eddie did as he was told and it took the edge off of his anxiety but settled sour in his stomach.

“After I got Steve sedated,” Wayne said, “and yes it was fucked up I even had to in the first place, I went a paid the Franklins a visit.”

“That sounds ominous,” Eddie said flatly.

Wayne grinned. “They tried to tell me that they were frightened of Steve. That as a wolf he was much bigger than they were as bats. That all it would take was one snap of his giant jaw and they would be but a morsel to the boy.”

Eddie blinked at his uncle in confusion. “What now? His first change would have been a literal puppy. He wouldn’t have even been able toddle after them, let alone get within biting distance.”

Wayne huffed. “Right in one, boy. And if they had been teaching him from his first change on, he wouldn’t have thought of them as prey at all. Not even on moon nights.”

Eddie rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“And then they tried to attack me,” Wayne continued.

“They did what?” Eddie squawked.

“They probably would have succeeded, too,” he said, “but apparently Steve is a hard wolf to keep down and followed me like a lost puppy. When he saw Dick Franklin raise a fucking yew stake to stab me in the back, Steve leapt on him.”

“Where the fuck did they get a yew stake?”

Wayne just shook his head. “The hell if I know, kid. But in comes this wolf and just snatches the damn thing out of Dick’s hand. He runs off with it Ella Franklin hot on his heels in bat form. Bats are fast and she catches up quickly. The problem is that in or out of bat form she knows she no match for Steve, so she tries to blind him by going for his eyes.”

Eddie’s hand covered his mouth as he listened to him go on about this horrible night.

“But despite what a lot of people think,” Wayne continued, “your boy ain’t dumb. He keeps his head down and makes right for the Creel House. He tosses the thrall on duty the stake and suddenly a werebat is face to face with Tammy Thompson, now holding a yew stake as Steve just continues running past the Coven.”

Eddie blinked. “I didn’t realize that Tammy’s family were thralls.”

“Just like the Perkins, Buckleys, and Hagans are hereditary keepers,” Wayne said with a nod, “the Thompsons, Carmichaels, and Bensons have always been hereditary thralls.”

Eddie was starting to think that he really should have paid closer attention to the hierarchies in school, they were a lot more important than he knew.

“Anywho,” Wayne said with a shake of his head. “Ella flies back to their house to find me beating the hell out of Dick. She manages to distract me long enough for Dick to get on his feet, but now it’s two against one and they’re still strong in their human forms, but wicked fast. I was able to take out Dick, the coward that he was, but Ella was proving to be too fast. She was going to get away.”

Eddie drank the rest of his beer and popped open another one. He leaned forward so that he was on the edge of the sofa, and his knee began to shake.

Wayne put his hand his knee to settle it, but Eddie stared at him wild eyed.

“I don’t have to finish if this bothering, Ed,” he said warmly. “I can give you the Cliffnotes.”

Eddie shook his head. “What happened next?”

“Just as she took flight, the thing they had always feared happened,” he said softly. “Steve’s jaws came down on her with a sickening crunch. Dick started spewing all sorts of curse words and things I didn’t understand. Something about how werewolves were a plague among the Weres and that they had to be exterminated and how if Steve hadn’t had my protection they would have drowned the bastard in the bathtub.”

“What. The. Fuck?” Eddie asked, can crumpling in his fist as it tightened on it.

“It didn���t mean anything until the events going on now,” Wayne said with a heavy sigh. He crumpled his can one handed and stared at the twisted mass. “But I think whoever it is who is trying to tear this community apart is getting desperate. They’re starting to make mistakes. And I think one day soon, this is all going to blow up in our faces.”

Eddie gulped, but nodded.

****

Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20

Tag List:

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@spectrum-spectre @estrellami-1 @zerokrox-blog @gregre369 ​@a-little-unsteddie

@chaosgremlinmunson @messrs-weasley @chaoticlovingdreamer @maya-custodios-dionach @danili666

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@birbsauce @acingthecounts @cryptid-system @counting-dollars-counting-stars @kultiras

[max--phillips]

Okay here goes

First, the spoiler free stuff:

Ridley Scott knows how to make a fucking film.

If I don’t see fics of Acacius x reader x Lucilla I will begin biting

If you are going in it for Pedro, I will warn you his character is very important but kind of… idk, shallow is too strong of a word, but not very fleshed out. I don’t think that’s an issue in the greater scheme of the movie though, it makes sense in the plot and doesn’t feel out of place or bad in the universe.

If you are going in it for Paul Mescal, you will not be disappointed.

Please watch the first movie first. The story will not make any fucking sense if you don’t.

Just the right amount of flashbacks and footage from the first movie . Chefs kiss

Ridley Scott really said “all emperors and tyrants are nasty little freaks with terrible vibes”

Oh also if you’re squeamish about gore and stuff like. It’s a movie about gladiators so set your expectations accordingly. There is an instance of a disembodied head used as a prop. So y’know

Okay, spoilery stuff below the cut

Arishat was hot :( rip

Monkeys at the beginning? Terrible. 0/10 did not enjoy that. Also did not enjoy seeing and hearing Mr. Mescal BITING ONE

I love Ravi I would watch a whole movie just about him tending to gladiators’ wounds quite frankly. Give me that story

We love to see bisexuality on screen (even though that wasn’t a social identity at the time but we’re not here to talk about that) what with the concubines and drunk as fuck Macrinus

Speaking of drunk as fuck Macrinus: that whole scene was so fucking funny. They’re like that meme about people getting high. You know the one

Speaking of Macrinus—Denzel Washington stole the show. When TIME magazine pushed a story to me today headlined “Gladiator II Belongs to Denzel Washington,” I was like, pshhhh, nah. But it really does. It’s not about him? But it’s his fucking show.

The politics . THE POLITICS

It feels a little heavy handed right now but that wasn’t probably how it was intended, given it was made before. Y’know. The election. But the whole dream of Rome being a place where everyone is equal and cared for but you can only whisper it or it’ll shatter? Yeah.

Oh, right, Acacius: that dude is so tired he does NOT want to be there. Let him go home to his hot wife. Alas, his hot wife is the way she is and like… no good deed goes unpunished.

And I fucking called it with my text post a few months ago. Two (2) movies now where Denzel Washington (either directly or indirectly) kills Pedro Pascal. Brilliant

Admittedly selfishly I would’ve liked to see more of him. But it felt like the correct thing in the context of the story. If he didn’t die then, if he wasn’t the inciting event for the uprising of the people of Rome, it wouldn’t have made sense and it would’ve just been fan service and “look, we got Pedro Pascal!” at that point.

I would’ve liked to see a more in-depth exploration of the change in relationship between Lucius and Lucilla—it seems like they went from Lucius screaming at her to get out to them hugging it out without any real development between the two of them specifically. Obviously a lot had happened in the world of the movie at that point but nonetheless

Macrinus shooting Lucilla was his Icarus moment. There was no coming back from that. “But what about Geta” “but what about Caracalla” no. It was Lucilla. If she’d gotten got by the praetorian guards or something else, it would’ve been fine. But because it was Macrinus there was nowhere he could go from there other than [checks notes] getting his hand chopped off and then gutted in a dirty irrigation ditch.

Remember kids, the people in power who are causing all of the things going wrong in the world have names and addresses and are mortal <3

Also another takeaway from the movie: imperialism, religious extremism, ableism, and authoritarianism will be the end of us all <3

Anyway. Good movie. Can’t wait to watch it again in my own home with subtitles so I can actually like… process everything everyone was saying LMAO and take better reaction notes.

I’m still sitting in the theater parking lot it’s been like 30 minutes LMAO okay thanks for coming to my tedtalk or whatever

[heyclickadee]

Okay, a few thoughts on the trailer now that I’ve collected my thoughts a bit:

1. Between the shots of the crashed ship and Omega in the cockpit, it’s looking like a self-rescue on Omega’s part. At this point I’m thinking she gets herself and Crosshair out, and then, based on the shots of Cross with the batch, gets separated from him at some point. He rejoins the batch, and she is…somewhere else. Though I don’t know if that means she goes back to Tantiss.

2. It’s entirely possible that she gets got by one of the bounty Hunters in the trailer, and that’s what separates her from Crosshair.

3. I do think that it is Crosshair in the armor, but other possibilities include: one, Tech, who may not have his own armor anymore and needed to wear something protective on short notice, and; two, Hunter’s having a real bad time and is actually hallucinating Crosshair being with them. I don’t think that’s the case though—I think it really is Crosshair.

4. It’s also possible that those shots with Crosshair are from a little later on in the season.

5. Poor Omega’s going to be in Tantiss for months.

6. I swear Hunter looks like he’s lost weight. Like. I know a lot of the fandom is deep in the Crosshair and Tech are twins sauce (and honestly, I am too, I adore that head-canon and basically think if it as canon), but darn it if Hunter isn’t getting so drawn he’s starting to look a little like Crosshair.

7. I find it weirdly amusing that the half the trailer in which the bad batch actually features is mostly taken up by Hunter and Wrecker doing Adventure Man things. I get the sense they were scrounging to find shots of the batchers that weren’t massively spoilery (and they still put those shots of Crosshair in. Which, admittedly, is one of the things that makes me slightly suspicious of that being Crosshair at all, because that could be a misdirect, but only slightly).

8. I’m going to laugh if it turns out that Cid hired all of the bounty hunters we see to find Omega. Like, if that’s what she uses the money she got from Hemlock for, and she’s basically trying to get Omega out of the situation she got Omega into and goes a little overboard on the means.

9. Ventress! I’ll be honest, Ventress has never been at the top of my favorite character list, though I’ve warmed up to her quite a bit (I used to like the idea of her more than the execution), but I always love Nika Futterman’s performance, and I’m intrigued to see Ventress here at the very least. Because. How. She was very dead. Very, very dead. Not “fell into The Mists” dead—she had a funeral after being dead for months. My only thoughts are that were either seeing her in a flashback sequence that takes place before Dark Disciple, or it turns out that nightsisters can use their force magic to do some weird shit after getting hit by lightning. Either way, I don’t think she’s fighting Wrecker and Hunter here—that’s just some misleading editing.

10. Man, I hope Hemlock dies a lot.

11. Anyway, speaking of the dead and those back from it, Tech is so alive and I’m trying to not be the Smuggest of Gremlins until we for sure see him, but jeez are they making that difficult. (I checked the trailer release blurb on the Star Wars dot com page—it doesn’t mention Tech being dead. It just says the team is “scattered” after the events of season two. Like. Guys, you’re not even trying anymore.)

12. And more on Tech, I do think it’s possible—possible, mind you—that Tech is the guy we see in the clone X armor in front of what looks like the Archium. There are some small differences between that armor and both the armor we see on Clone X in season two, and the Clone X we see speaking later in the trailer—namely, the shoulder straps, what looks like a glass visor covering the two eyeholes, and *sigh* the pouches. And it’s the straps and the pouches that are giving him a bit more of a Tech-ish silhouette—especially the pouches, and especially from behind. If it is Tech, though, I don’t think it’s a brainwashed Tech at all (and honestly, it’s the pouches that make me lean towards not brainwashed if it is Tech in there, because a shin pouch is just a very Tech-and-not-blank-slate thing to wear).

I actually think it’s more likely that it’s Tech in disguise and having taken the armor from the Clone X we see later in the trailer (with some adjustments of his own), and that that’s what’s being referred to by the titles “Infiltration” and “Extraction;” Tech infiltrating imperial forces, and then the others having to get him (and probably the people of Pabu) out. And, if that’s the case, I’m banking on these shots being from the midseason. (I know I said I wasn’t going to speculate on the episode titles. That was aspirational.)

Basically, I could be persuaded that it’s Tech in there or that it’s not. I’m less likely to be persuaded that it’s a brainwashed Tech in there—I still don’t think that’s happening.

12. Whether that is Tech in that armor or not, I do think that the clone X we see speaking in the trailer isn’t the same guy in the armor in the Archium shot.

13. I am SO HAPPY to see Phee back THANK GOODNESS. I was a little worried they’d drop her like a rock, but nope! She’s here! She’s got her cool jacket! We see her ship!

14. There is a criminally small amount of Echo in the trailer, but I’m not giving up on seeing more of him. It’s possible that he’s either a walking spoiler, or that he features a little more heavily in the back half of the season.

15. “The Cavalry Has Arrived” is the most optimistic episode title in the whole damn show and, yes, I will die on this hill.

16. Crosshair. Oh, Crosshair. Someone please save him immediately.

17. There’s a lot of early doom panic around, well, everyone and everyone (especially Hunter) dying that I’m honestly going to ignore going forward. For reasons.

[seeminglydark]

Hi your OCs are cute and you should be very proud of them! I would love to know more about them, feel free to gush about them in my general direction

HELLO and thank you! I really appreciate that! I will gush about them just a little bit cuz of course I'm always happy to get the opportunity too. First off, they are both from my webcomics, Seemingly Dark (side characters) and Mil-liminal (main protags) for those who may want to actual story! both comics are supernatural/horror with a healthy dose of dysfunctional romance, and both are free on webtoon or tapas!

They are childhood nextdoor neighbors (and of course sweet on eachother!) The blond cheerleader character is Caroline Greensboro aka Angel, pre-transition, and the punk is Jonathan 'Sully' O'Sullivan aka Hurricane Sully or Ponyboy, my ocs have a million names just like me. Carrie is the one who is ACTUALLY trouble, a little menace, and Sully spends a lot of his time trying to fix whatever messes they get into. Sully is gay, but Carrie comes out as transmasc to him at prom after they take on a giant blob monster, and after that he does his best to support them even though they can't actually be out. And of course, they start to date just before tragedy strikes, and they get separated for quite a few years.

Carrie gets a job at the local gasstation as the overnight attendant, and transitions once they can, now using the name Caro Greene and they/them pronouns. They create a podcast called Mil-Liminal about all the weird things that happen on the midnight shift, monsters and spookies galore (you can listen to it! Just search for Mil-Liminal where ever you listen to podcasts.) They become world famous after their podcast goes viral. They are still an absolute menace.

Sully goes to prison for a crime he didn't commit, gets out, is homeless for a bit until he catches a break and a job at a tiny coffee shop in a small middle of nowhere town. He starts going by John, and is grumpy and disconnected from most, except for his beloved cat he rescued from a dumpster.

One fateful day Caro bursts into the coffee shop on their way to solve a mystery, and the rest is history. I'd tell you but it would be too spoilery if you choose to read the stories haha! They do smooch a lot though.

info on the characters in the current timeline in Mil-Liminal : Caro Greene is 25 years old, 4'9 (147) nonbinary transmasc, (they/them pronouns)

johnny O'Sullivan is 24 years old, 5'11 (181cm) GNC masc he/him pronouns, asexual, blind in one eye from a childhood accident

anyway thank you for letting me, i love them with my whole heart and i hope other people do to!

heres a little round up of all the mini comics ive posted of them here on tumblr!

[dangermousie]

Honestly I think you're one of my favourite kdrama bloggers on here and I'm curious: what are the kdramas you consider to be perfect? Like top to bottom not a single flaw seen. What's the best of dramaland for you?

Awww thank you! I love this type of ask too!

Any list of mine is gonna be of course vvv subjective (I am not a romcom lover for example) and I can guarantee you that the moment I hit post, I am gonna lose my mind because I will remember I forgot something.

Also, no flaw by definition excludes some of my faves where there are a few minor flaws but the rest is so amazing it doesn't matter (The Legend First King's Four Gods comes to mind - the first ep ie prologue set 1k years before the main story - is a lil cheesy. But the rest is so good I don't even care and same for My Dearest where I'd perhaps remove the final amnesia bit but it's a perfect drama otherwise with the rest so good I don't even care. So perhaps they should be listed.)

But anyway here are are some dramas where I have not seen a single flaw, perfect dramas.

Mawang (also known as The Devil or Lucifer) - probably the best kdrama dealing with revenge ever made - the damage, the driving need, the destruction of self and yet destruction of self without it. To really explain anything about it would be spoilery so all I am going to say is it revolves around an icy lawyer with a secret, a hot headed cop chasing a string of murders, and a librarian who can read past events by touching objects or people. The way I cried. The way I stared in shock as it ended. The sheer perfection of it all - the acting, the relationships, the writing. I get emotional just thinking of it.

IRIS - yup, an action drama. I am not much of a fan of various sequels/spin-offs (involving different characters, you do not need to watch anything else if you watched IRIS or to watch IRIS to watch the others) but the original is amazing. Sure, it's an actioner. It's also an amazing character study of a person taken apart and trying to put himself together, of past tangling, of people passing or failing tests set by life. It's just - AAAAAAAAA also yet another drama I bawled for hours over.

Train - Yoon Si Yoon is a cop slipping between alternate universes in search of a killer seems like a procedural with a side of scifi but it's more of a meditation on love and loss and what drives us to keep living (or not.)

Someday - hands down the most obscure kdrama on this list, this is a tale of four people whose lives intersect - a mangaka seeking inspiration, a sort of private detective hiding unimaginable trauma under his sunny demeanor, a manipulative yet childlike psychologist and a business minded friend of the last one, the sanest of them all. When people discuss healing dramas, this is the one that comes to mind. My favorite is the detective's arc because it's one of those trauma sunshine things where he's coping, coping, coping and then...stops.

Empress Ki and 6 Flying Dragons - if you watch only two long sageuks, make it these ones. They are smart (esp 6FD), and they are such amazing complex character studies of people being hollowed out by power. The OTPs are amazing and what I love but the character study is even better. And both are epic in all senses of the world.

Speaking of sageuks, Slave Hunters (also known as Chuno) about a former nobleman who's a slave hunter now, an escape slave who used to be a general, and a slave woman masquerading as an aristocrat is my favorite sageuk of all time - a love story, a character story, and a story of the dispossessed, this is smart and grim and hopeful and just - if there was ever a perfect sageuk, this is it.

The Princess' Man and Flower of Evil - ie Moon Chae Won loves a feral mess and goes MINE! TPM is a smart emotional sageuk, one of the best out there and FoE is a study of love and trauma.

Something Happened in Bali, Padam Padam, A Love to Kill, Spring Waltz, Thank You, Snow Queen, That Winter the Wind Blows - old school melodramas (perhaps not TY so much, it's more complicated in genre) that push people to the limits to expose their deepest selves.

My Country the New Age, Hong Gil Dong, Rebel the Thief Who Stole the People, The Crowned Clown, Return of Iljimae - they focus on class in period setting (just as Chuno did) and make me care and think.

Worlds Within - seemingly about lives of studio workers, this is a rare drama where you feel you are peeking at real people.

Gloria and Family Honor - 50 ep drama where I'd remove nothing and that feels so intimate.

W Two Worlds, Extraordinary You, The Moon in the Day, Live Up to Your Name, Queen In Hyun's Man - high concepts that improbably work and make you think and feel.

Secret Garden, City Hunter, Healer, Sungkyunkwan Scandal, Faith, Tale of the Nine Tailed, I Hear Your Voice - just a wonderful good time.

Gaksital - take a bad guy, make him your protag, slowly redeem him and put him through hell.

Bad Guys - a bleak take on revenge and truth but also a damn good time at the same time somehow.

Beyond Evil and Cruel City - about cops but not really. About forgiveness, love and limits.

Come and Hug Me - brought me back to kdramas. A love story and trauma story and a bit of a thriller. It's everything.

Beauty Inside, Last Scandal, City Hall, My Girl, Delightful Girl Chunhyang and Hometown Cha Cha Cha - it is very rare for me to love romcoms. These few make the list. They also made me cry so make of it what you will.

Shut Up Flower Boy Band - the only time I liked a teen drama.

Capital Scandal and Chicago Typewriter - masterpieces dealing with the 1930s revolutionaries.

Que Sera Sera - if you love dysfunction and intense shipping, oh boy!

I am sure the moment I hit post, I will remember something else, but this will do for now.

ETA: aaaaaa Damo!!! My very first sageuk and what a way to start!!! Perfection.

ETA2: Arang and the Magistrate! OK Shin Min Ah is in an awful lot of these...