#anyway. this is something ive spent a lot of time reflecting on personally

[rollercoasterwords]

your fanfic doesn't need to be Content

ok so thanks to this lovely anonymous message i've been motivated to organize my thoughts on the increasingly common phenomenon of fanfic writers treating their own fics like Content for consumption, the way an influencer on social media might (all of this is in the context of the marauders fandom specifically -- no idea how or whether it might apply elsewhere)

what i mean by that is, essentially, instances of fanfic writers playing into the idea that fanfiction is a product created for the consumption of readers (and thereby the idea that fandom is a community that can be clearly divided between "producers"/writers and "consumers"/readers).

some examples i've seen: people "advertising" their fics on platforms like tiktok, sometimes even before they've started writing said fic ("hey guys i'm going to start writing a fic with x y z who's interested??"), or making posts asking outright "if i wrote a fic with x y z would people read it??" i've also seen people share concerns that if they write a certain thing they want to write (i.e, heavy smut, heavy angst, etc) then it will make their fic less "accessible" to a broader audience ("i want everyone to be able to enjoy my fics!")

another recent example that comes to mind is the "jegulus strike." while i'm sure it was largely well-intentioned, a strike is a form of protest tied inextricably to a consumer economy, and positioning writers as laborers who are standing in opposition to readers demanding that labor reinforces the framework of a consumer economy in which fanfiction is a product for consumption.

something i want to make clear here--i'm not saying that any of these behaviors are like....Moral Failings deserving of Ridicule. i think we are all very much conditioned by late-stage capitalism + algorithmic social media to view everything, even our hobbies, within the framework of a consumer economy. this is just me observing some of the ways i see that mindset creeping into fandom spaces.

like. i think there's this unspoken assumption that art is only worthwhile if it has an audience; that creative pursuits only matter if you can profit from them. if people are applying this mindset to fanfiction, then it makes sense to see this impulse to advertise fics the way authors advertise their books on tiktok, or twitter, or whatever. it makes sense for writers to become preoccupied with audience perception, perhaps changing their stories to make them more palatable for a certain audience or even going into the writing process with the audience already in mind--an overhanging and ever-present anxiety, asking yourself "how will this be received?"

the problem is that fanfiction doesn't fit into this model. it has always been meant for a niche audience, never the mainstream, and it has always existed outside the profit economy. trying to turn fanfiction into broadly consumable content is antithetical to the medium itself, and, in all likelihood, will fail. the vast majority of fanfiction is never going to be read by hundreds of thousands of people. if you go into writing it with an audience as your end goal, you will likely be disappointed.

what makes fanfiction so wonderful and unique is that it is meant to be written, first and foremost, for the writer. fanfiction as a medium grew out of personal joy in creation, out of individuals who thought "I want to see this story for myself" and then wrote it. because fanfiction is specific, catered to individual tastes and niche audiences, it lends itself to a unique sort of community in which your work attracts other people with that same niche taste, making it easier to strike up a conversation or start a friendship by saying, "hey, i love this story you wrote for yourself! it just so happens to be the exact sort of thing i wanted to read."

so i guess at the end of the day, my question for other fic writers is: if nobody was ever going to read this, would you still want to write it?

and if the answer is no...i think that's something that calls for reflection! where is your motivation rooted? is it rooted in a desire to create, in the joy of creation? or is it rooted in a desire to be seen, to be validated? wanting to be seen and validated is entirely natural, and it is by no means a bad thing. oftentimes, both these impulses--creation and validation--will be part of the decision to write + post a fic. but if validation is your primary motivation, and if you have internalized the idea that validation means getting as many people as possible to look at the thing you're making and click a heart button, then you will probably end up disappointed. you will probably end up feeling like your writing isn't good enough, no matter how many people end up reading it--because no audience will ever be big enough to validate you if you aren't able to take pride in your creation independent of any metrics of consumption.

i'm not saying that you should never share your fics on social media. like i mentioned above, community is one of the best parts of fanfiction--but are you posting in search of community? or are you posting in search of an audience? i know the line can get blurry sometimes, but i do think those two things look different, and i do think it is productive to look inwards and ask what you are truly seeking when you throw your writing into the void of social media posts. and i think as writers it's important not to fall into the trap of acting like our fics are a product intended for audience consumption, because to do so contributes to the deterioration of a fandom culture that is separate from the profit economy. plus, i just think all of us would be happier if we started trying to actively unlearn the idea that art is only worthwhile if it manages to amass a huge audience.

[calebwittebane]

i had a dream id gotten conned into becoming a god and proceeded to try and design a world without suffering or pain. i really really struggled with this one. no matter what i did, it seemed like bouncing between endless suffering and highly sheltered sensory deprivation state with all functions for every person reduced to a minimum. eventually the author--it turned out i was in a fictional work, and the author was a sneering cynical asshole who enjoyed seeing me suffer--started mocking me, saying that a real demiurge really in control of things through unlimited possibilities wouldve figured that out, but i'm just a loser who spent a long time being human and therefore my mind has very human limitations. i started arguing with the author, saying that theyd written me this way and have no right to mock me, that despite this attitude they have this clearly is some form of venting theyre doing through art, and they need to take something seriously for once. my limitations are simply a reflection of theirs, and their mockery is their pained wailing in disguise. they were like well i dont like your attitude so because youve decided to be a little bitch about it i will now punish you by making you experience every death that ever happened to anyone and WILL have happened to anyone. so i did. it was awful. the prophetic visions of what sort of carnage famine disease and freak accidents the future has in store for humanity, they were almost as bad as the historical part. reminder: i feel pain in my dreams. anyway once that was done, and it did in fact feel to me like actual centuries were passing, actual centuries of nothing but agony, i told the author they were a vindictive bitch, incapable of comprehending the suffering theyre inflicting. if they ever felt even a fraction of what they dish out without much thought, they would curl up and cry and never do anything again. they told me i just objected to the way i'd sculpted my own consciousness. that to be a human, advanced and philosophy oriented as we are with our proportionally large complex brains, is to reject all inevitability as barbaric. i said that was stupid--humans are still, despite our unique traits, simply part of the animal kingdom, and more broadly made of the same matter as the rest of the universe, a continuous lattice of reactions among many other, a sustained chain that hasn't stopped since the very first instance of reproduction occurred between two organisms. the author just favors the human perspective because theyre biased and write what they know.

then the author felt like doing something petty once more so they decided to put me in a situation where im trying to buy art supplies but my dad is also there undermining everything i say. i said: this wont get to me--author, it seems you dont know me all that well, for buying art supplies was indeed one of the only type of occasion where my dad Would just let me do what i needed to do and would more or less trust i knew what i was doing. the author laughed and said, and yet you were able to summon a version of events where he does act poorly in this context. how cruel and unfair of you, to imagine something so uncharitable. how can you be sure of anything you remember? and i was going to give a reply but things around me started glitching out. people got spaghettified and turned into like. ok imagine a coral reef but its people.

i think i mustve argued with the author about some technical accuracy in their depictions of trains? i got to experience some train crashes as punishment

so yeah im awake now and i dont feel like ive gotten a lot of rest considering i just escaped time prison

[wolfisland]

Sorry I keep asking you about aboriginal stuff but it's 4am and I love learning about other cultures so really I'm not sorry 😈

Anyway, this is cool because in America the term "black" is an alternative and encompassing term for those that the nword would apply to ie African Americans (As far as I understand the history of the word)! So the fact that you use blak as an alternative to a term that AAs prefer because it just has a completely different history in Australia is really cool!

i mean it kind of depends really, from my understanding a lot of people also use it to differentiate as opposed to a denial of being black people, like. we were and are classed as black. thats very important to keep in mind. when i talk about my familys experiences as blak australians thats not me saying we arent black.

its more saying that now especially as australia is so multicultural and we have other black people from all over the world, it makes sense to specify in certain circumstances. but i personally dont use it as resistance, i use it so that when people see me talking about my race specifically its clear that im discussing first nations australians as opposed to black people as a whole. when i do discuss blackness as a whole i am including my people (i.e aboriginal australians and torres strait islanders) because we are affected by antiblackness as much as we are indigenous targeted racism.

like i recognize thats a pretty controversial take even amongst fna (first nations australians) but based purely on moving through the world and the structures we live within, i dont see much of a point attempting to remove and redefine aboriginality and indigeneity for australians to exist outside of blackness - it doesnt make sense. its impractical and only divides the people who live in a world that punishes blackness universally as a class. i think the differentiation is important - i dont claim to be nor have i ever deliberately obscured my identity to pass as a person of african descent and heritage, and blak for me is utilized for that reason rather than me rejecting the term black.

anyways this is kind of long winded but i also realise ive probably never really explained my stance on this blog and i know for a fact ive talked about antiblackness and my experiences as a racially ambiguous mixed black (or, i will often specify when relevant, blak) person (especially as a mixed blasian woman, raised by a black mother) so its probably worth actually talking about.

im not too sure where your source is from but i wouldnt consider it something that applies to every fna or reflects our feelings on the term black, but i also wouldnt take my individual feelings on it as gospel either. im one person and ive spent a very long time ruminating on my identity and my heritage.

[katatonicimpression]

25, 26, 28, 30 for Monet

This got long

25. When do you think they acted the most ooc

There's quite a few moments and cameos that just feel like a completely different person, and a few more that feel bland and character-less. Shout out to that thankless appearance in uncanny x-men 410-12 comic shortly after gen-x finished where she slut-shames stacy x and the writer forgot she could fly.

But if I were to nominate a bigger thing, it's obviously uncanny xmen (2016), where she's ooc the entire time in my opinion. She's framed as morally dubious, excessively sexualised and just generally urgh. Consider the following:

i. Greg Land - specifically that same face greg land gives all women

ii. The white woman + paint bucket tool off it all*

iii. The plastic sculpted mannequin tits.. with nipples!

iv. The way she is talking to sabretooth. what is this dialogue? this commanding dominatrix thing? I could imagine something like this from, like, selene? or maybe emma but if she was talking to somebody else? This just doesn't feel like her it reads like bad porn dialogue

*incidently, there's this kinda weird thing about this series that because it was the first time monet was drawn with consistently darker skin since gen x, a lot of people use the art from it as indicative of how she should be drawn. And, like, i'm sorry but Land drew a white lady and coloured her skin darker. And the series itself has a weird relationship with both her race and her background. Let's not settle for this. Come on.

Anyway, it's my all time nomination for worst monet writing. But dishonourable mentions to the latter half of xfi, weapon x-force and whatever the fuck duggan was going for with the whole groping thing.

26. When do you think they were being "themselves" the most?

Ooh so writing wise, she's the most in character in Gen X, the first half of X-Factor Investigations, and in a few more cameo appearances (like that hellfire gala run of the infinity comic where she's a main, giant size storm). She's pretty much there in x-men 2013 and x-corp.

In universe though.. because she's literally not been herself a few times. Firstly, there's being literally two kids in a trenchcoat, and the time spent fused with Marius (M-Plate 2.0) and there's the (presumed) upcoming horseman thing. On top of this there's just a lot of her being miserable and off-kilter, not really living her life for herself as herself.

I think that even though she's not really happy at the massachusetts academy, or at xfi, she does seem to exist as herself here. This is how she is when navigates the world, whereas when she's living in the mansion or in the savage land it's very much her trying to escape her trauma and feels unstable in that way. I also feel like she never really felt comfortable with Krakoa - which is not text but entirely vibes. I just feel like she couldn't just be there.

But the point is that, if we follow the metaphor of penance as she appears in Gen X, being trapped in that form is not a external force pushing her into a role she doesn't belong to. Instead it eminates out of her. It is a reflection of something very true to herself. And that's interesting, right?

28. The most unnecessary thing they ever did?

She did not need to interrupt that whole massive fight thing with the death gods in XFI just to yell at Lorna but also I am so on her side in that. It was a massive liability and could have got everyone killed... BUT she had every right to be mad, and the whole thing is framed as like "why is she making such a fuss" despite also spelling out how right she is.. weird series.

Off topic, but there was a post the other day being like "wouldn't it be fun to see lorna react to pietro and monet dating? she'll be mad about it in a funny way." and, like, to me the most in character thing for Monet to do would be to never acknowledge Lorna's presence and never speak to her outside of necessary x-men stuff. Because, even though i don't think lorna is like evil or anything, mocking someone and talking down to them while they relieve the worst trauma of their life while laughing off the fact that they were literally just sexually assaulted is a pretty bad first meeting, even though she apologised. Monet was what like 20? at the time, I don't think she'd shake that negative first impression.

30. The funniest scene they had?

Sorry but that bit with her and 'star sitting on the roof talking about rictor is genuinely very funny to me

There's actually a lot of good little jokes in xfi, especially earlier on. And x-corp is very funny, hell even the opening "we're simply superior" got me good, and her ignoring the message from shaw is very funny.

But the funniest scene she's ever been involved in is this:

[library-ghoulette]

My Path Serpentine (Ministry librarian series) - Chapter 3/?

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2

Pairing: Copia (Papa Emeritus IV) x Original Female Character

Rating: This chapter is gen, later chapters will be mature to explicit

Tags: Third person POV, original female character, slowburn, workplace romance, professional frustrations, angst, Copia being grouchy

Words: 1494

Summary: Copia returns home from a long, exhausting trip, and learns of new developments at the Ministry.

A/N: Mostly a little character study to establish Copia's POV and give us an idea of the hangups and motivations he's bringing into the story and into his eventual relationship with Beatrice. Lots of updates this week because I've had far more time to write than usual. :)

Copia leans his head gingerly against the passenger side window, peering past his weary reflection in the glass. The rain-streaked neon of the city fades as the car heads toward the Ministry headquarters, cutting through the thickening darkness, and with every mile covered he feels more relieved that this long trip is finally over.

No matter how much traveling Copia does, he has always been a nervous flier, and he supposes that he always will be. On that last interminable flight, he had popped a sleeping pill and washed it down with a glass of red wine, and so had slept most of the way back. A deep, velvety abyss of slumber, black and utterly dreamless, that should have been healing. Unfortunately, when he woke up just before landing, he discovered that apparently he had been holding his neck at a new and downright inventive angle the entire time. Now it hurts to hold his head up too high or to look to his left too quickly.

He thinks longingly of the pleasures of home: Arnica gel. A hot shower. Ibuprofen. Cozy pajamas and clean bedsheets. And he thinks, not for the first time, that he's getting old.

He would love to let himself drift off again now, but Sister Imperator is making that impossible. It was kind of her to pick him up—waiting at arrivals in her signature staid gray suit, holding a thoroughly unnecessary posterboard sign with "Cardi" written in block letters—but he wishes that she had spent some of the Ghost Project travel budget on an Uber, instead.

Her driving has always made him anxious, even during the day, even when it's not raining, and if he weren't so exhausted, he would have insisted that he drive them back. And the longer they're in the car, the more it seems that her real motivation was not kindness, at all, but to have ample time to pepper him with work-related questions that could wait until the morning.

Or afternoon, he thinks. He likes afternoon a whole lot better.

Luckily, Sister Imperator seems to have exhausted her list of questions and is now settling into a more or less constant stream-of-consciousness list of updates for him about what he has missed while away. He's skilled at tuning her out when she gets like this, letting his mind wander while staying engaged only enough to provide an "uh-huh" or "ah" or "oh?" at more or less the correct moments.

He's floating along pretty comfortably when the car lurches to a sudden halt and Sister Imperator honks her horn at the driver she nearly rear-ended, coming up behind him too fast and not paying attention.

"Idiot! Can you believe this guy?" She glances over at Copia, who is now clutching the door handle, eyes wide. "What's wrong with you? You're so jumpy tonight. Anyway…"

And then she's off again. Copia tries to relax, settling back against the window and willing his racing heart to slow down. But before long, something she says snags his atttention.

"What—" He looks over at her sharply, and hisses at the painful twinge in his neck that immediately punishes his incautious movement. Massaging the back of his neck, he tries again: "What did you say?"

"I said that we're putting in new rosebushes next week. The old ones came down with that blight, and they're such an eyesore, it's horrible—"

"No, no, before that."

Sister Imperator purses her lips, thinking for a moment, trying to find the previous thread in her voluminous tapestry of words. "The new librarian started this week?"

Copia feels an angry flush spreading across his face. "What do you mean, the new librarian started this week?"

"What do you mean, what do I mean? Her first day was Monday." She shoots him a steely look that perfectly suits her name, and swerves slightly out of and then back into the lane in a way that has Copia clutching his door handle again. "And don't you dare raise your voice to me."

Copia takes a deep, centering breath and tries to master himself, to get his annoyance under control before he speaks again. It doesn't do to fly off the handle, not with Sister Imperator, anyway. Other people might be intimidated by his title, might scurry to appease him when he slips into that deep, angry register. But not her.

Here's the way these conversations go: she says or does something that seems expertly engineered to piss him off, and then he mouths off to her, and maybe he even gets a few scant seconds of satisfaction… right before she puts him back in his place. Every time, he's left feeling like a scolded child, and he swears to himself that the next time will be different. Next time, he won't take the bait. And every time is exactly the fucking same.

"What happened to me being on the, ah, the hiring committee?" he asks.

"Oh C, you've been so busy with the Ghost Project, and I didn't want to distract you from that, from what's really important! Besides, you were out of the country when we were doing the interviews, and we simply couldn't postpone them any longer."

Her tone is the calculatedly casual, overly sweet one that she uses when she's making an excuse for why something just never could have happened, no matter how obviously possible, even easy, it would have been to see to. Because she didn't want it to happen. Because it wasn't part of her plan.

"Could they only be in-person, these interviews?" he asks.

"Why does that matter?"

"Because I could have called in, on Doom," he points out, referring to the Ministry's preferred video calling platform. "I could still have helped out."

She doesn't bother countering this, which is evidence enough that it was a valid point. Instead, she scoffs, "Why is this so important to you, anyway? We had to get a warm body into that position, and we did!" Then, more softly, "It's just the library. You know how Brother Reginald ran the place."

Brother Reginald is one of those people who seem perennially old regardless of their actual age, and had seemed ancient even when Copia was a kid. Brother Reggie gave perfunctory reports during staff meetings, never asked for anything more than level funding for the library, and was a staunch proponent of doing things the same way as they had always been done, forever. He made no waves, ate the same thing for lunch every day for decades, and made it clear that he didn't really need the Head Librarian job at all. If anything, it was more like a paid hobby that he toyed with until his stunningly late retirement.

Copia says none of this. Instead, he mutters, "I should have a say in things."

"Well, of course you have a say in things!"

But Copia wonders about that. Sometimes he feels like he had more power back before Sister Imperator unceremoniously plucked him out of his day-to-day work and set him at the helm of the Ghost Project. But even those early days had felt different, somehow. Before he was promoted to the venerated position of Papa Emeritus IV.

There are benefits to being Papa; of course there are. But there are times when he misses his old life and smaller role, the one he was sure he fit into. He misses when his life was little more than a comforting cycle of clerical work, study, leading mass, hearing confession. When his duties were less flashy, to be sure, but somehow felt more significant. Like they'd had a greater impact on the only place he has ever known as home.

And no one had balked at calling him Cardinal. That's not the case with Papa.

Sister Imperator seems wholly oblivious to these concerns, has breezily moved on to telling him about the new librarian, whom she had seen no reason to consult him about before. "Her name is Sister Beatrice. Very qualified, seems very ambitious, which… well, we'll see. You'll get to meet her soon enough, at mass tomorrow, I'm sure."

But already the thought of meeting this Sister Beatrice makes his skin crawl. He imagines a female version of old Brother Reginald, wearing the same hideous green cardigan with its worn elbow patches, and eating from the same old lunchbox full of hardboiled eggs and saltine crackers.

By the time Copia lugs his suitcase up the stairs to his apartment, his relief at being home is gone, and his straightforward tiredness has metastasized into something uglier and more complex, a tangle of soul-deep exhaustion and anger and sadness that he has no idea what to do with.

Eventually he drops into a fitful sleep that is nothing at all like that lovely void that swallowed him on the plane.

The next day, he wakes, sweat-drenched and pulse racing, from disquieting dreams that he can't remember clearly.

He skips mass.

[tibby]

hi i know you like to talk about chainshipping and lawrence (saw), ive gained so much more appreciation for him and adam because of it. i think youre really smart and i love seeing you dig into this content. i wanted to know if you have anything to say about hoffman’s lore/development/etc? his relationship with john, his relationship with the other two apprentices, anything to say about hoffstrahm? id love to hear it all

sure! i’m glad you enjoy my lawrence/adam/chainshipping thoughts, and i will admit that i’m far more fond of them than i am of hoffman, so i’ve spent a lot more time thinking about them than him. so my thoughts i less coherent and this may reflect that, so apologies!

i think with hoffman, there are two very big things to take into account with his character (three if you count his tits): he’s a bad person. and the films did a bad job with him. my friend kief did a good job with exploring some of the narrative failures here, particularly in regards to hoffman in the final chapter. he cares way more about hoffman than i do, so i suggest checking that out.

anyway. i think saw v does a very good job of establishing hoffman's character, and it’s something that the later two films drop the ball on. i don’t think we get enough of him in iv to make much judgements there, outside of knowing that he….exists and is an apprentice. v is really the movie where we get to learn anything about him, and i think the movie does a good job of laying the groundwork for the narrative of this guy with a tragic backstory who initially performs iin justified ways, before going off the rails entirely.

there’s a lot to be said about hoffman later in his arc (most of it not good), we’re meant to believe that it’s his sister’s death that breaks him. and i’ve always thought that it makes sense that it breaks him. i can’t imagine how i’d respond if someone i loved was murdered and then their killer got away with a little more than a slap on the wrist. and this isn’t even taking into account that it’s quite possible he basically raised angelina - she’s 25 when she dies, and hoffman is in his early 40s when he gets recruited by john 5+ years later. there’s at least a decade between them, and john’s comment of “she was your only family” + the different surnames suggests a….complicated at best family situation. 

so hoffman’s sister is murdered, her killer walks free after five years, he develops a drinking problem, loses faith in the system he built his career upon (which. the justice system being a corrupt failure isn’t news to a lot of people, but that’s clearly not an intended part of the movie’s narrative, so.) the jigsaw case presents him with the opportunity to kill seth baxter, and he gets away with it. but his response to the act and his paranoia in the aftermath (made worse by john’s letter) suggests that it wasn’t something he *enjoyed.* killing seth doesn’t bring back angelina, and it just makes him a murderer.

and then he ends up under the control of john. john, who has a talent for preying on the apprentices for their perceived failures, punishing them for it, and then putting them in situations that exacerbate their faults. john views hoffman as a violent killer for what he did to seth, and his response? take hoffman under his wing as his murder and torture apprentice. and it’s this where hoffman’s love of violence, thrill of playing god, and distaste for the lives of others really begins, and it escalates very quickly.

hoffman starts to love violence and the ability to punish those that he views as “undeserving.” and while some of his victims deserve what they get (ivan, the nazis from 3d), he’s not just punishing bad people. he wants power, and he wants control, and he’ll take down anyone that is in his way. strahm, perez, john, jill, amanda - they’re either undeserving or they don’t learn, and they all threaten his position, so they have to go.

what’s interesting about hoffman to me is that there’s enough there to do varied interpretations of him had someone interfered before he went over the brink. by my own admittance, jigsquad hoffman is notably largely different to canon hoffman - and a majority of that is based in adam being there and pointing out that. well. hey. what john is doing to you is bad. don’t lose your humanity to this man. and therefore changing the narrative. adam (unknowingly) stops hoffman from losing his mind to blood and violence entirely, and also ends up shifting his perspective on certain people and things (namely amanda). i know a few au interpretations see amanda fulfilling the angelina role in hoffman’s life, and it’s something that i think can be done well for both characters in certain situations.

HOWEVER. that kind of stuff only works within an au. strictly operating within canon, if hoffman compares amanda to angie at all, it’s not in a positive light. he doesn’t think highly of amanda and views her as someone who doesn’t appreciate her life due to her struggles with drugs and mental illness, and decides she deserves to die in the most painful way possible for it. to him, amanda is a worthless junkie who is wasting her life when his own sister is dead. his grief does not excuse his misogyny and his ableism and his violence and his love of power.

so. when it comes to his relationship with the others involved in team jigsaw, they’re not good. he hates john for blackmailing and controling him. he thinks very poorly of amanda, to the point he decides she should die for it. he hates jill for playing the game better than him, and kills her for it (with a heaping of the misogyny that 3d is riddled with). it’s not really possible to view his relationship with lawrence in canon, mainly because there’s nothing really there. given his response to the lawrence reveal, i think it’s safe to assume hoffman never knew he was an apprentice at all. so that’s that.

as for hoffstrahm….never has there ever been a more fitting description of “this person is my mirror and i loathe them for it.” while strahm adamantly refuses to acknowledge their similarities because he won’t confront what that says about him, hoffman is fully aware and he sees strahm as either: his perfect ally, or his greatest enemy. hoffman gives strahm chances to join him, or at least *understand* him: he only gets water cubed because he doesn’t just stay in the fucking room, both he and perez follow the steps of rigg’s failed recruitment, and the glass coffin. unlike most of the other people hoffman kills, strahm dies because he refuses to *listen* and play by the rules. he didn’t want to understand hoffman and their two sides of the same coin dynamic, so he gets killed for it. @romanromulus once said something about saw v being a story about the death of hoffman’s humanity, and his relationship with strahm being his last attempt to hold onto it:

(screenshot courtesy of my beloved kiefer)

so. hoffman goes from someone grieving and struggling with addiction to a remorseless, brutal killer who loses touch with his humanity. it’s an interesting story, and one i think v sets up quite well. unfortunately  i don’t think vi or vii follow up on it very well, and it feels like they traded in a potentially compelling arc to having this Badass Character. which is a shame, because i think as awful as hoffman is, they could have done a lot more than him. we all joke about him being stupid and he absolutely has his moments, but he does occasionally play the game well. he’s deeply out of touch with his own emotions but able to understand others and anticipate their next moves, and he was able to construct the pendulum by himself. one of hoffman’s biggest problems (not including his personality) is the fact that even though he’s good at putting plans into motion, he doesn’t know what to do when things don’t go his way. vi is the perfect example of this: his plan to frame strahm quickly falls apart, and he responds by….setting fire to a police station and doing what he was told didn’t work earlier? stupidity, and just irrational, panicked behaviour.

anyway! all this to say is that hoffman objectively sucks, but there was a good story there, he’s someone with limitless au potential, and the films could have done his story a lot better.  and boy. are his tits fat.

[jiamiuxin]

daiya no ace anime reflection/review

**spoilers!!**

im at a point in my life where i have a lot of free time at the end of the day and i find myself filling that slot with anime.

for the past two weeks, ace of the diamond has taken up a big portion of my mind as i found myself falling in love with the team and its players.

about a month ago was when i started a roll on watching sports anime. i caught up on haikyuu, binged blue lock and ao ashi, and finally spent another good chunk of time on free!!. ace of the diamond was no new title to me, yet for some reason i kept it on the back burner. i dont know why; whether it was the art style, the then-seemingly long list of episodes, or the fact that it was baseball. maybe it was all of them. when i burned myself out trying to find another anime, i finally settled on giving DnA a chance.

today, as i have finished all 176 episodes (no OVAs yet!) i confidently say it's one of my top, if not the top, anime ive seen so far.

i noted a few things as i progressed through the series: strong points, cons, favorite characters, and a few personal thoughts.

i will start off with the cons head on. daiya's is, i guess i could say, notorious? for its "annoying, loud, benchwarmer" MC. one genuine complaint i do have is the lack of animation quality in the third season. there were many still shots with voice overs, though i felt a little more satisfied with the animation towards the end. also, to a smaller extent, the anime is not as complete as the manga.

anyway, i think the slow burn is actually a strong point, as many others point out. indeed, it is the very low lows that make the highs so high. don't get me wrong, i love a stupidly powerful MC, such as mob psycho 100 or OPM, but the realism gives DnA its charm and relatability. when others say "season 1 is bad, season 2 is good, season 3 is amazing," they are not lying.

DnA's charm not only lies in its realism, but also its character development and character interactions. brotherhood, leadership, and teamwork are all themes throughout the anime. the way the third years cared for their juniors and the way the juniors fought to elongate their seniors' summers was beautiful, heart-wrenching, and gut-punching to me, a recent college graduate. these types of moments are not uncommon in sports anime, but something about DnA's execution made it so much more..emotional? relatable? whether it was due to convenient timing or the fact that the sheer amount of episodes made me feel like they were actually my own friends, i just felt so much more compelled when watching daiya.

on the topic of my personal emotions, as i said, the themes of graduating/retiring really hit home for me. but that made daiya all the more special to me. both personal relatability and just watching everyone's hard work made it so easy to sympathize with their determination. maybe it was the countless scenes of them heaving and gasping for air; or the scenes where TJ made their frustrations so visible and vulnerable. as a watcher, i did not see myself rooting for some characters in a show; normally, i'd take a normal stance with the expectations that the "of course, the MC team will win." i saw myself rooting for my friends. in addition, knowing TJ, we can never be too sure on how seido's games will actually go. everything comes down to the realism. it's daiya's realism that made me feel their passion, made them so relatable, and made it feel like they were actually at high stakes. i truly, rarely never cry when watching an anime. besides assassination classroom, no other anime has made me so emotional. not only that, but daiya made me cry several times. the amount of immersion is insane.

to no surprise, my favorite character is miyuki. he was the know-it-all. he was essentially the rock of seido with his calls. i often found myself wondering how strong seido would be without miyuki. no disrespect to ono; as he proved, and as kataoka also believes, ono is also reliable. but miyuki was just built different bro. anyway, i appreciated his character for not only baseball iq, but his rapid maturity into the captain role, and his flexibility with his juniors. i found his personality very admirable and his logical approach to situations both relatable and reliable. other characters i particularly were fond of were chris and kuramochi. if okumura had more screen time, i could also see him climbing up my list. as someone who had no prior baseball knowledge, daiya/seido as a whole, but particularly chris and miyuki, gave me a newfound respect for and fundmental understanding of baseball.

i think one last thing i wanted to note was that i really don't read manga. but for daiya, im definitely gonna pick up the manga now. i have never done this before for an anime, even others i really liked--hxh, haikyuu, one punch man, etc. i just never felt compelled to read the story further beyond the anime. but for daiya, this is something im willing to do. i just love it that much.

if you are having second thoughts or are debating on watching DnA, def watch it if you do not mind slow burn and can take a realistic approach. on the other hand, i do not recommend if you want to see an OP MC.

~

i am truly a nobody, especially not a professional anime critic LMFAO but i just wanted to vent my thoughts of daiya somewhere :) these are just my personal opinions

[sizzlingpatrolfox]

Im not that same anon, but i will say the way you jokingly talk like a taekooker can sometimes be triggering and hurtful to people like me who really love jimin and thought they curated their spaces to jimin focused accounts. Ive even seen taekookers use your blog posts in their arguments bullying jimin.

I’ve followed you long enough to know you’re being sarcastic but i do get sometimes triggered by how you try to prove Taekook in the exact way Taekookers do, a joke or not. but that’s our problem and you’re allowed to say whatever you want, and we can obviously unfollow you. Just adding my perspective.

- Allow me to give a honest opinion. I won't say you're a tkkr or anything because i know you're a ex jkkr and you don't ship jm with anyone. But from the way you write it definitely seems like you have alot of pent up anger towards jk and tae individually as well as together and that definitely reflects more into your writing when it involves those two. I think it's because you're an ex jkkr so it might be because feels betrayed by both of them on jm's behalf, like their behaviour towards him etc. Yes i myself recent the two guys the most and don't think they're worthy of jm's friendship too. Idk how long you have been on this blog but since the time i have followed you if i didn't know better i would think you're a jkkrs' hater more than of Tkkrs. It's one thing to to recent shippers it's another thing to turn it more towards just one group of shippers that is jkkrs. I remember you saying something like you felt betrayed or something about ITS tk talk cause even tho they said they're awkward it didn't show in their actions or something along that so i think you hate them both alot.

personally idc who you're calling husband or what cause all pjms call them husbands but they also think both of them are straight, would have unfollowed you long ago. I only replied cause i saw anons calling you tkkr. Anyways tk husbands married in Vegas currently with 3 kids and 3rd or 5th anniversary according to tkkrs. If you don't know they also has a shared apartment in japan jk brought for taehyung and he was staying there while jm was in hotel. Such a bad friend jk didn't even invite jm to come to their tk house 😔

---

Well, that I understand because taekook as a ship used to bother me just as much. It was annoying and sometimes it still is, tho it's become more of a dislike towards them as people rather than the ship itself.

In late 2019, there was some random poll in some irrelevant online magazine (like soompi and stuff) about "which member is the closest to Jungkook?". Jin won. Army voted for Jin and not Jimin, who was without a doubt the closest to Jungkook that year. At that time, things like that also bothered me and made me sad. Now, I guess it's been so long since I got over it and it's a joke. Besides, I understood that most of the information army picked up on was coming from the members themselves, and I couldn't spend a lifetime getting angry about things Taehyung, Jungkook and even Jimin himself weren't going to change.

That vminkook live in November 2021? Watching some parts of it felt terrible. I got over it quick, but at the time I didn't like it. A lot of taekook stuff bothered me, but what is anyone going to do about it lol. And I learned that, and I accepted it. Jimin literally posted taekook with their faces smashed together on his Instagram some weeks ago and pjms were laughing and rejoicing about him giving something to taekookers.

"Ive even seen taekookers use your blog posts in their arguments bullying jimin." Sorry but I don't believe you, like you just made that up.

Yeah but the thing is, I'm not trying to prove taekook lmao. I'm just making fun of the way shippers in general talk. Like, it would've meant the world to jikookers if it was Jimin with bam, right? They actually spent a lot of time trying to prove that Jimin is with bam often, but because it's Taehyung that has actual proof of spending time with Bam at Jungkook's house, they get annoyed at it and talk about conspiracy theories. Or ignore it. Now, Bam it's irrelevant. But if it had been Jimin, they would've also said the same thing I said about Taehyung spending time at Jungkook's.

And that's the whole point... call it satire if you will.

Before this discussion started, I was going through my blog, right. I reblogged some old posts. Remember when Jimin went to NYC and he wore shorts and jikookers were making viral sex jokes about how he'd shaved for Jungkook (Jimin is clean shaven in every BTS content btw, and so are the other members). Well, while going through my posts I saw this one where I said Jimin shaved and moistuzed his legs for Eunwoo like...

That stuff sounds out of pocket to me, and I will make fun of it. if people are missing the joke it's really not me. Or maybe they haven't been in shipper spaces as much as I have been. I'm sorry if I come across as too convincing??

Mind you, there were people who got angry because I talked about minimoni, or even about Saeon and Eunwoo. Someone literally came up once and told me that liking minimoni was weird because Namjoon talked about Jimin in a creepy and predatory way. Some people are just deranged, and I know that.

I honestly have no respect left for jikookers after face, or rather after this year, the way I have no respect for taekookers. They've become an easy punching bag with how delusional they were since 2021, and most of my jokes are me just saying the same things they say about jikook, but using it for different ships because it's all so ridiculous. And the most delusional ones are always Jungkook biased jikookers who thought Jimin was undeserving of support and talk about the two of them like Jimin is the lesser one in talents, ambition, or achievements.

[trojanteapot]

i saw ur infinity train classpects & ive always thought of simon as a hope player (specifically prince of hope) & i was wondering why u classpected him as a mind player. idk if i had jst never considered tht possibility but he jst seems SO much like a hope player to me that it threw me off a bit

similarly, i read amelia as a prince of doom instead of a maid of doom (she destroys the rules of the train in an obsessive & need to try and destroy her aspect within the train and - as a result - create life [alrick] etc etc) & i was also interested on why u went w maid of doom when she seems to actively turn away from her doom & suffering to destroy it

ALL of that to say that i just wanna hear more of ur thoughts on infinity train classpects

Thank you for your question!

***First of all I want to say that classpects are designed to be like zodiacs or the Myers Briggs things are are meant to be very flexible and vague and open to interpretation.***

So I think that whatever you think fits the character, go for it!

I can of course expand on my own thoughts about what I decided. And obviously we can disagree. This is all just for fun.

So as I said in my post a lot of how I ultimately decided on the classpect was based on the characters' personal journey or character arc. And for me, the Maid of Doom felt the most in line for Amelia, and likewise Seer of Mind for Simon.

Both these characters are antagonists, one of them a reformed one, and the other one that died a villain, and that also makes them extremely complex and even harder to pin down with character arcs than say, Lake and their very clear arc that they have as a protagonist.

Amelia:

First off, I think you have a point! Perhaps we can read her actions as attempting to destroy doom, or create life! One of my friends were thinking Amelia could be a Sylph of Life, and that also makes sense for her. But what made me think that she is actually a Maid of Doom (or perhaps a Sylph, it's still up for debate) is because I think she needs to accept her own doom instead of reject it, and it was because of that that she started healing and moving away from her obsession with recreating her old life, which kept failing anyway.

It's possible that you could be more on point than me, we didn't see Amelia get her own season where she is the star of the show so we will never know.

Simon:

So I know 100% that I read Simon very differently from the rest of the fandom.

Everyone sees him as an egomaniac and a stubborn idiot who can't change his mind. And I agree that he was those things by the end. But he wasn't always those things! (Well okay he was always a stubborn idiot lol)

People tend to think that his Episode 10 personality was his "true self" but that wasn't how I saw it. I think that was more of him lashing out or having an explosive temper tantrum or meltdown, and not his real self. He was acting in a way that was almost a parody of Grace before her redemption, not as an exaggeration of himself.

Like I said before, because Amelia and Simon spent most of the time not understanding the Train properly and not learning from their mistakes, I believe that means their aspects need to reflect something about them that they wouldn't see in themselves or others might not see in them. And for Simon I feel that way more strongly than for Amelia.

Another reason why I sorta don't like classifying Simon as a prince is because it feels way too obvious. I blame Dirk Strider for this mostly, but the Prince class (and to a lesser extent the Thief class due to Vriska and Meenah) always gets assigned to villains. But I think any class can act in a villainous way. Seers can be just as much a villain as Princes can be. And Aranea showed that a Sylph can behave villainously too.

Besides I don't think Simon has a big ego, I think he has a fragile ego and is overprotective of it (like most cis men but that's a whole nother topic). And his actions in the last 4 episodes of season 3 really reflect that.

And I can also see why you saw Simon as having the Hope aspect because he was adamant in his belief in the ideology of the Apex and didn't want to change. But I would argue that wasn't due to his Aspect but due to his role as a Seer. His character arc isn't just about his stubborn beliefs but WHY he couldn't change his mind from his beliefs. And I think it's because he doesn't understand other people, and not only because he is super attached to his ideology. Grace was just as attached to the ideology of the Apex as Simon was at the beginning of season 3, but she was able to change her mind because she could understand others, specifically other denizens, whereas Simon failed because he couldn't. It was an empathy gap.

Another thing is that there are actually many parallels between Simon and the two canonical seers in Homestuck (let's not count Kankri he was a bit player). And I'm gonna get into more detail on that.

Simon and Terezi:

I actually made an entire PowerPoint presentation for my friends that had a whole section on inexplicable parallels between the two of them! And that was before I thought "hey wait a minute maybe Simon is also a seer of mind!" But basically these are the following parallels

Both of them have a rigid system for interacting with other people. For Terezi it's to LARP the role that her ancestor had as a legislacerator, and treating everything as some sort of crime scene investigation or court cross examination. For Simon, he wrote an entire manual on the best practices for the Apex when dealing with survival situations in the Train. As well as treating everything as a military engagement.

Both of them play with dolls. I think this is manifesting in how they try to gauge the movitations of other people. Terezi uses plushies to act out roles in an investigation to help her find out more about the motives of who she deems a "suspect". Simon also uses his figurines as units in a battle. He would have different figurines represent the Apex kids or denizens. Also in an attempt to understand the best way to deal with situations.

And this also means both of them can get carried away with their rules and games and miss the forest for the trees. As in, come to the wrong initial conclusion, and then stick to it until it's too late. People tend to forget that one of the pivotal moments of Homestuck was that Terezi didn't realize there were several murderers when the trolls were stuck on the asteroid and blamed it all on Vriska. That led to Terezi having to kill her, but it was the incorrect decision (which Terezi told John to fix with his retcon magic).

Both Simon and Terezi seem to really fixate on one image they have of someone they care about, and be unwilling to change how they see them. Even after a betrayal of trust both of them find it difficult to let go of their past idea of the person. (Simon and the Cat, Terezi and Vriska). Of course, it went a bit differently with Simon and his attachment to Grace, but that wasn't due to Grace having hidden motives (it was part of it though) but her changing her entire worldview.

Here's the thing, so Terezi was really really good at being a Seer so clearly that's why it's so hard to see Simon as having the same classpect as her. But lets examine a different seer, Rose.

Rose was terrible at being a seer at first, until she went god tier and was kinda forced to actually fulfill her seer role. She displayed a shocking amount of black and white thinking and stubbornness for somebody whose role was supposedly to gather knowledge and strategize. And here we understand why Simon can be read as a Seer of Mind, because he fucks up being that role just as much as Rose fucks up being a Seer of Light (initially).

Simon and Rose:

Like Simon, Rose had an entire idea about what the game Sburb was supposed to do, and what she and her friends roles must be by playing the game. But she was actually wrong about the game, since her session was never meant to be successful. But instead of accepting that and moving forward, even after prodding from Kanaya, Vriska, and the White Queen, she still refused to listen to them and kept doing whatever she felt was correct.

In fact, Rose's first death at the hands of Jack Noir kind of parallels Simon's own death. Rose was being very stubborn about the way she was doing things in Sburb, not making much progress as a seer, and refusing to listen to dissenting voices. She decided to look inside the white cue ball for answers even though she was told that it wouldn't be a good idea. She kind of got manipulated into doing so by Doc Scratch, and also to a lesser extent when Jade told her to try it not knowing what it would lead to. And that made Rose literally go grimdark when she saw her mom and John's dad were killed by Jack and then decided to go kill him as vengeance, despite being utterly outmatched.

This is similar to the situation when Simon couldn't understand why Grace was pulling away from him, and why she was so afraid of him after he killed Tuba (from his perspective, he and Grace have done this countless times before and she didn't react the way she did in those instances). And so he sought out a way to peer into her mind from the Cat. The Cat plays an equivalent role in Infinity Train as Doc Scratch does in Homestuck. They're both devious and conniving puppet masters with their own agendas. But the Cat is also familiar with Simon, and tried to help him but without full information, just like what Jade did for Rose. And that lead to Simon going "grimdark!"

Anyway those are just my dumb rambles. Honestly I'm sure that it has convinced nobody.

But hey, what we classpect characters as is less about the character themselves and more about ourselves really.

I don't think you would find this helpful but maybe you can just cringe at me instead!

Hopefully it was at least.... Entertaining?

[dustvoid]

05.07.24

thought I would not write in journal for a change. feeling so flat and defeated at the moment. so lost and frustrated and overwhelmed. underestimated how hard it would be here. still can't find a job and think I just chose a bad time with the election and it being summer and the market is slow. I just don't want to waste anymore time any money being here without a job but I don't want to go home and have it all be for nothing. I don't want to have come here for nothing. I'm really making a dent in my savings and it's starting to stress me out. I hate worrying about money but ive only been here 6 weeks and ive spent so much already. I know majority has been on rent which is astronomically expensive, but I had hope id maybe have some money coming in by now. I know I can't call it yet, but if I don't have a job by the time this sublease ends I will have to. I can't just spend all of my savings living here but sitting around and doing nothing. waiting. I hope it doesn't come to that because at this point id probably do anything. funny how a few weeks ago I was the opposite. but desperate times. its rainy and gloomy. a rainy summer. which I think is not really helping my mood, but at least I don't have to feel bad about staying in.

I thought that back home a lot of the gay community held themselves to high standards but over here it is something else. back home you can have an average to fit body but here I feel like you can't be gay if you aren't fit. I havent felt this low about myself in a long time. you never really notice it until you start looking back and reflecting. I know that bodies change and that's inevitable and the pandemic didn't help either. before it all happened I was stick. I was probably too skinny. a couple years in I was still quite slim, and then the last few years my body has changed a lot. I'm glad in some part because I do want to be stronger, and I have filled out a bit, but I only really noticed how bad body dysmorphia can be. I know I'm not big or overweight but I have too much body fat for my bmi. I know it probably happened in the pandemic because naturally we werent moving as much and lots of people were in the same boat. but I think my metabolism is shot. my diet has not helped either. I am a bored eater. I love to snack when I'm bored and it's a terrible habit. I don't really eat when I'm sad or for comfort, but I will eat anytime when I need something to do. and now I just feel like I'm paying for it and I feel even less comfortable in my skin. I have never been that confident but now it feels worse. I am trying to change it. I have signed up for personal training and I just had my first week but I have no idea how im going to afford it, especially if I don't get a job soon. realistically I shouldn't have done it because of my financial situation, but when I saw I was at risk because of my body fat I felt like it needed to be done. I want to look good and I'll admit that openly. I do want to feel good as well. I'm trying to change my diet and snack less. I think I have been walking at least 10k steps a day so it's a bit disappointing that I dont feel or look any different. which could be from my diet before I changed it. diet is so important and I wish I could have just changed that earlier. but I am starting now. its sad but I feel like ill have more of a chance meeting someone in better shape. its just how the world works. its not like I can't meet guys now, but you are treated better when you are fit and you attract more guys, its how it is. at the moment I feel like the guys that like me I'm not interested in and the guys I like are not interested in me. but who knows why really. its just that pretty much every gay guy here has a decently fit body and I feel like I need to change to at least have some chance. ive always wanted to improve my fitness anyway. if I can improve my diet and follow the training then I should be on track to lose a good percentage of body fat in 4-5 months. which at this rate is not long at all. time is moving so fast, soon it will be my birthday and June will be over. I will probably spend my birthday alone but it's only my 28th birthday. maybe I can take myself out to somewhere nice. if it was on the same day as my netball game I could've at least asked some of them out for a drink after, but sadly its the next night and I don't know if I will feel close enough to any of them by then to ask. I was hoping id at least have someone by now, a flatmate or friend to hang out with. it's just another day, kind of how ive always felt about them anyway. I think my plan is to return home before my and all my friends 30th birthdays in 2 years. which is wild to think about. of course this could change and I have no idea what will happen until then, but I think 2 years is a reasonable amount of time. a lot can happen in 2 years.

-H.

[morganaspendragonss]

together we sang (i’m ready now)

five times tk and carlos learned how to be around each other, and one time they already knew.

ao3

It’s not an easy start for them.

They had the initial road bumps, of course, but after that… After that, it takes a while to figure out how to fit themselves together, sharp edges and all. It isn’t as golden and perfect as they want it to be, but by the end of it, well - it’s them. TK and Carlos.

(and here’s the secret: neither of them would want it any other way)

i.

TK barely sleeps the first night he stays over at Carlos’s. It’s not so much the unfamiliarity (though that doesn’t exactly help) but it’s just… Being here, in Carlos’s bed, having spent the entire night. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to act.

And it’s ridiculous; TK knows this. Carlos is...well, they haven’t labelled it yet, but they’re in this now. Together. It makes sense that he’d stay over, and Carlos had asked him, for god’s sake. Still. When he wakes up after a brief, fitful rest, finding Carlos’s arm slung over his chest and his own head turned towards Carlos, TK’s entire body tenses, suddenly, minutely aware of his situation.

He breathes slowly as dawn starts to creep through the curtains, watching Carlos’s face for any sign of waking. He doesn’t dare move, for fear of disturbing him. 

Eventually, after what feels like an eternity, Carlos stirs, his eyes blinking lazily open. “Hey,” he rasps, the sound of his deep, sleep-heavy voice bringing a smile to TK’s face despite his anxieties.

“Hey yourself,” he returns. He bites his lip, gaze darting away. “Is this… Is this okay?”

Carlos frowns. “Is what okay?”

“This. Me. Being here.”

Carlos actually laughs, tightening his hold around TK and pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “Of course it is. I don’t let just anyone sleep in my bed, you know.”

TK looks up at him and sees the sincerity in Carlos’s eyes, that he really means it. That this is okay - or it’s going to be. 

And TK begins to let go.

ii.

It’s been six months since Alex, give or take. TK should have been happy when he realised he could no longer number the days since that night, but he’s just scared.

He’s fucking terrified, and he’s got no idea why.

He and Carlos have been doing this - properly, that is - for just over a month (and those days TK can number - 42 and counting) but they still haven’t named it. Not in so many words, anyway. Not in that one word.

It’s not a choice. TK wants, more than anything, to be able to call Carlos his boyfriend, and to have Carlos call him his boyfriend back. He just… He can’t force the word past his lips.

It’s been six months since Alex, give or take, and TK is terrified of the idea of having something concrete, only for it to dissolve in his hands. Not just that, though. He can’t be the one to say it first, because he’s not sure if he could stand it if Carlos isn’t ready for it either.

Arms slip around TK’s waist, lips pressing against his neck. He smiles and turns, pulling Carlos into a full hug. 

“What’s this in aid of?” Carlos asks, surprised, though he returns the hug just as tightly.

“Nothing,” TK mumbles. 

Carlos hums. “Well, much as I’m enjoying this, I do need to do stuff now.”

He begins to pull away and TK whines, mourning the loss of contact. Carlos laughs, keeping one arm wrapped around TK’s waist.

“Complain all you want, but, you see, my boyfriend is a pretty terrible cook and we do need to eat at some point.”

TK freezes. “You…” He swallows roughly and shakes his head, trying to clear the sudden static in his brain. “Boyfriend?”

Carlos’s smile falters. “Yeah… Is that not okay? If you’re not ready, I completely understand -”

TK cuts him off with a kiss. “It’s more than okay.”

iii.

“You know you don’t have to knock,” Carlos says, grinning at TK standing sheepishly on the front step. 

“I didn’t want to be rude,” TK protests, kissing Carlos as he walks in. “What if you had company?”

“I gave you a key for a reason, TK. The reason being for you to actually, you know, use it.”

“Oh, I thought it was just for decoration.”

Carlos rolls his eyes affectionately. “Idiota.”

TK grins. “You know it.”

He flops down on Carlos’s couch and drapes an arm across the back, quirking an eyebrow. Carlos huffs an exasperated laugh but heads over, settling comfortably into TK’s embrace. It’s nice, just existing together like this. Easier, too, TK’s finding. Apparently not easy enough for him to feel totally comfortable using the key just yet, but easier.

And that means a lot. 

iv.

Dating another first responder is great in many ways. Carlos gets the toll the job takes on him, both in body and mind, and they have a kind of understanding TK’s never had in any other relationship. There’s also the fact that Carlos is the best thing that’s ever happened to him, but that’s more because he’s, well, Carlos. 

Unfortunately, dating another first responder also means that they understand each other’s jobs a little too well, sometimes. It’s bad when they’re at the same scenes, one of them having to watch the other run into danger without knowing what’s going to happen; it’s worse when they have to just sit at home and wait, not even able to be there.

They deal with it, mostly. 

“Are you insane?” Carlos yells the second the door slams shut behind them. 

TK scowls, the arm not in a sling crossed defensively over his chest. “What the hell was I supposed to do? Leave her to die?”

“TK, the building was coming down! It is not your job to save everyone -”

“That is exactly what my job is!”

“- and you can’t save anyone if you’re dead!”

TK scoffs. “I knew what I was doing.”

“No, you didn’t,” Carlos insists, a finger stabbing forward. “You were just trying to play the hero, but you don’t seem to realise that your actions have real consequences, TK.”

“Of course I do!”

“Do you? You could have died today, did you think about that?”

“I was thinking about that woman who, I might add, is alive right now because of what I did. Anyway, you’re one to talk; what about that shoot-out downtown the other week?”

“I was doing my job.”

“So was I!” TK breathes through his nose, setting his jaw and looking away. “I’m going out.”

“Fine.”

“Don’t wait up.”

(the anger drains away within ten minutes of leaving Carlos’s house; it’s funny like that. pride stops him from going back that night, but when morning comes he’ll find himself there once more)

(they don’t fix things immediately. but they talk, and they learn, and they heal. and, slowly, together, they make themselves stronger)

v.

“I love you.”

The admission comes quietly, surprising both of them. TK hadn’t exactly meant to say it; the words had just slipped past his lips without a thought. He means them, feels the truth of them deep in his bones, but he’s not sure if he’d been prepared to face up to them so soon.

See, he hasn’t said them since the night Alex left him - not in that way, anyway. He’s just not sure if he’s judged this right.

TK doesn’t think all of this with Carlos could disappear, not anymore. He knows Carlos better than that, and he knows their relationship better than that. They’re good, and happy, and in this for the long haul. 

None of that stops the fear.

“Hey,” Carlos says, voice soft. TK looks at him, heart swelling as he sees his own love reflected right back at him.

“I love you, too.”

+1

TK can’t say when he knew that, oh, this is my person. The romantic in him wants to say the very first day they met, but that’s a lie. It happened sometime in the middle, when they were learning what it means to be them.

But it’s moments like this that solidify the feeling; moments like this that really matter.

He comes home after a long shift, moving through the house on silent feet so as not to wake Carlos, who he knows will already be dead to the world. He smiles when he walks into their bedroom, brushing a stray curl from Carlos’s forehead before climbing in beside him. Carlos stirs at the movement, but TK doesn’t feel guilty for it, not anymore.

He doesn’t sleep so well without Carlos, either.

Carlos’s arms come around him and TK nestles into the embrace, his entire body relaxing as sleep calls to him. He drifts off soon after, comforted by the fit of their bodies together.

And TK is home, in every sense of the word.

[if-you-built-yourself-a-myth]

Check Ignition: Part IV

A Sobbe fake-dating Hogwarts AU that one person asked for and I dove into headfirst

Part I // Part II // Part III // Part IV

Requests are open if you have any oneshot ideas or opinions on how this should continue!

In their bedroom that night, Jens had a whole roll of parchment full of ideas. Robbe fell asleep first on the common room couch after Hufflepuff’s party, and meandered to his room at three AM to find Jens awaiting him on the windowsill. Aaron, conked out, had pulled the curtains of his four-poster shut and cast a few silencing charms for privacy.

“Muffliato,” Robbe cast under his breath, just in case. Aaron wasn’t the greatest at Charms.

“I was supposed to patrol tonight,” Robbe told Jens. “Did Jana go alone?”

Jens nodded. “She said you would’ve lost her anyway, whatever that means.”

“You’re talking again?”

“Uh, yeah, of course. Okay, here, look at this…” Jens smacked down his parchment on the little floor space they had in their bedroom. Each little segment of dormitory housed four boys with their beds in a circle around the heater in the middle. While Jens, Robbe, and Aaron didn’t have a fourth shoved in with them, the fourth bed’s curtains were also closed. Robbe assumed it was Moyo staying over after the party. Their copious belongings covered most available surfaces: books piled up next to bedspreads, clothing strewn over trunks, candy wrappers overflowing from trash bins.

“I think you have to dial it up,” Jens explained. He flattened the parchment until Robbe could kind of read his sloping cursive. The title at the top of the page was scribbled out, replaced with the words Operation Ditch-Noor. “Noor seems more persistent.”

Robbe thought back on their conversation. It made his head hurt to think. “She’s done.”

“Didn’t seem it today. How much did you drink?”

“I can read it,” said Robbe. He, in fact, could not read it. Why did Jens have to write everything in cursive?

The party itself had gone by pretty smoothly, from what he could piece together at the moment. Sander turned on music from his player, an upbeat song called Rebel Rebel, and had everyone spinning in circles on the common room carpet. Robbe didn’t remember kissing Sander at all. He remembered taking a cupful of punch from Aaron and not asking about its alcohol content. The girls left early to go console Zoë on the loss, and he’d woken up with a blanket that he didn’t have when he fell asleep.

Actually, that was a pretty solid outline considering the circumstances. Good on Robbe.

Jens gave Robbe a minute to puzzle through the spirals on the parchment. If he looked at it sideways, it might be a picture of a big black dog.

“Thoughts?” said Jens. He bumped Robbe’s shoulder with his own. Robbe looked around. When did they sit on the floor?

“Good,” he said.

“Good. It was a major oversight on your part, not having a public date in the first week. You’re going to have to compensate now.”

“What?”

Jens sighed. “Like, you have to be twice as convincing. Why am I even friends with you?”

“You’re so smart,” Robbe agreed.

“Is that Robbe?” said the fourth bed. It didn’t sound like Moyo. Moyo’s drunk voice was always deeper than his normal one, full of false bravado, while this one was much lighter. Sure enough, Sander peeked his head out from the curtains. His hair stuck up in all different directions.

Jens got up from the ground and smacked Sander’s arm as Sander tried to reach for Robbe. “You don’t have to trick us. Jeez.” He addressed Robbe again. “He’s been like this all night.”

Sander ignored him. “Come over here,” he said to Robbe. “I haven’t seen you.”

“You saw me,” Robbe said.

“Not a lot.”

“Yeah, so this is the kind of material we need.” Jens pointed at the parchment roll. “Noor’s going to leave you alone.”

“Come here, Robbe.”

Robbe sobered—while Sander didn’t exactly sound serious, there was something more in the way he said those words. What, Robbe couldn’t be sure. He was probably projecting, making the whole thing up.

Sander’s clothing was rumpled, a stain on the collar of his shirt. There were circles around his eyes as if he’d been rubbing them. His perfect hand was just begging to be held—the vision began to blur a little bit on the edges, and Robbe had to blink a few times to make the picture clear again.

This wasn’t real. He was drunk and it wasn’t real. Robbe was hallucinating or something, that’s what it was.

And he didn’t want to sleep with Sander, at least, not yet.

“I am going to be physically ill,” said Jens. “Save this.”

They left the parchment on the floor. Jens climbed into his bed, Robbe into his. Sander left the curtains open on bed four, staring over at where Robbe lay, so Robbe left his own curtains open. Gotta have that line of sight. He knew Sander was drunk as a skunk, but goodness, it felt wonderful to have his attention.

“Goodnight, love,” he called over.

Jens covered his head with a his pillow. "Kill me."

***

Sander was gone when Robbe got up the next day, and just as well, because it was one PM. Robbe’s head hurt like a motherfucker. Good news, though: he could now read the parchment Jens had tacked to the door of their dormitory. Not without pain, but without much struggle. In the bottom left-hand corner, an artsy signature marked that Sander understood the objectives. Sander Driesen. He dotted the i in his last name with a little circle instead of a plain dot.

Robbe speed-read the document to the best of his ability. And panicked. If Sander was following this, they had plans at five today.

He gathered his things and dashed to the shower, careful not to wake up anyone else who might still be sleeping. Aaron seemed to have gone out; his bed was empty. Jens wasn’t visible, and Robbe didn’t think it right to open the bedcurtains to see if he was there. The shower water was freezing cold. Robbe did a little warming spell he thought he remembered and ended up evaporating it all.

He took a very cold shower.

When that was done, he changed into a collared shirt with a sweater overtop and a pair of khaki pants. Casual date outfit, check. Fake date. Couldn’t forget that. He appraised his reflection in the mirror for too long to be considered normal.

There was plenty to do in the span between now and five o’clock—exams were three weeks away and Robbe didn’t know the main ingredients of Amortentia. But he couldn’t bring himself to open the books. It made much more sense to pace around the room.

Of course they’d go on a date. Real relationships would have dates.

And Sander—last night—it was nothing.

Robbe spent a lot of his mental energy convincing himself that things didn’t matter. He spent a little more trying to forget this revelation.

Four forty-five arrived before he could list out all the possible ways a date could go wrong.

The castle was always louder on Saturday afternoons and evenings. With the morning’s hangover remedied, students were free to gossip as they pleased. As Robbe headed down the stairs to the dungeons, where Jens’ note detailed he would meet Sander, he heard no less than four separate conversations that should have been private. Two Gryffindors were having a Wrackspurt problem in their dormitory. Several Slytherins discussed a magical cure for gonorrhea that would not alert Madame Pomfrey to their situation. Yasmina and Zoë attended extra Potions sessions together, and Robbe heard them debating the proper way to skin a human arm for use. Most of interest: Britt and another girl in the final hallway.

“Sander doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Britt lamented. “I don’t think he’s been going to the hospital wing.”

“You don’t know that,” the girl replied, resting a comforting hand on Britt’s back.

Robbe tried to shrink back on himself as he walked by.

Britt wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “And I’m the one that’s gonna be there when it goes to shit.”

Give it up, thought Robbe. He booked it the rest of the way to the Slytherin common room’s entrance.

Sander was waiting beside the door, his back against the stonework. His look today was different than Robbe had ever seen it, a leather jacket and a t-shirt paired with tight black jeans. When he raised a hand to wave at Robbe, the shirt rode up enough to expose a line of pale skin. Robbe felt overdressed in his sweater. Sander shouldn’t think he was taking this too seriously.

“Where are we headed?” Sander asked, as soon as Robbe was within asking range.

Robbe’s eyes went wide. “I thought you were planning it.”

“I've been hungover.” Sander pushed away from the wall. He slipped his hand into Robbe’s, and they headed for the staircase that led out of the dungeons. Usually, only Slytherins used it. “I'm good with whatever. For Britt, obviously. Somewhere she'll see."

The staircase spit them out into the upstairs hallway. Sander brought them outside through the front doors and down into the sprawling lawn. He stopped once his feet hit the grass, and turned to Robbe. “Dealer’s choice.”

“Did Jens give instructions?”

“Jens doesn’t dictate your dating life.”

Robbe frowned. “My fake dating life.”

He hated Sander’s pained expression. “Yeah, exactly.”

Only one way to make Sander smile again, and that was to go somewhere nice. Robbe surveyed the campus. They couldn’t go to Hogsmede today unless they snuck there, and Sander wasn’t in subtle attire. There was the forest, all of those beautiful, towering trees, but there was a fifty percent chance of death if they got too close. The Whomping Willow ruled out a good chunk of grassy lawn. He knew their only option would be to sit by the lake.

Lots of couples sat by the lake. Any fake relationship should feature a date there. It got foot traffic, it was public, it screamed to the world hey, we’re together.

Robbe didn’t bring a blanket. What if he got cold?

What if Sander got cold?

The thought alone of Sander cuddled into his side was enough to drive Robbe to action. He wondered what that said about him as a person.

“The lake,” said Robbe. “We can—um—we can be there.”

“You have something to sit on?”

“Uh…”

“Yeah, I counted on it.” Sander reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny square of fabric. With a wave of his wand, it grew into a full-sized picnic blanket in his arms. “Show me where you want to be.”

***

The early evening air, combined with the chill off the lake, had Robbe shivering in no time. He should have brought his coat out with him, but it wasn’t in the best shape, and he worried that mending spells could only keep it alive for so much longer. Best to save it for winter, when things got bad. Sander, on the other hand, had no problem removing his own jacket and sliding it around Robbe’s shoulders. He wrapped one bare arm around Robbe, sliding his hand into Robbe’s back pocket.

“This is nice,” he said.

“Cold,” said Robbe.

“I’ll tell Jens to plan the next one. He seems to like us as a couple.”

Something in Robbe’s stomach fluttered. The possibility of more intoxicated him. He caught himself before the desire became too strong; there had to be more. No convincing fake relationship was just one date.

Dusk crept in along the sky. Many of the other couples gathered their things to attend a Great Hall dinner, the likes of which Robbe had not consumed all week. He willed his stomach not to growl. Their blanket was close enough to the lake that casual waves poked at its edges.

“That’s your friend, isn’t it?” said Sander, pointing toward the castle’s open doors.

Robbe looked over. Zoë and Senne made their way across the lawn with their own picnic blanket and a lumpy knapsack. Behind them was Milan, Zoë’s best friend and Senne’s suitemate. Zoë smiled when she saw Robbe and jogged the remainder of the distance between them, dropping to the grass an inch away from Sander’s blanket.

“Look at you!” She pinched Robbe’s cheek. “Date night, I take it?”

Robbe tried not to look sheepish. “Jens said we should.”

“Mmhm,” said Zoë. She turned her attention to Sander. “Tell me the love story. I need to know.”

“Oh, it’s a great story. Settle in.” Sander adjusted his position. He scooted away from Robbe, then gently tipped backward until his head rested on Robbe’s lap. “Picture this. My ex brought her best friend on one of our dates because she was mad at me. We went to the Three Broomsticks.”

Robbe remembered the Three Broomsticks. Obviously. His cheeks heated. He began twisting sections of Sander’s hair around his fingers, if only to do something with his hands. He knew Zoë just wanted to hear what Sander could think up on the fly.

“Her best friend had a date, too. No problem. I was going to spend the time staring at the wall so I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. Except, the date walked in, and it was Robbe here, and I just lost it. I saw him sitting there and I thought, Sander, he is the one.”

Now Robbe was really blushing. He wanted to go vaporous and phase through the ground, if he could just remember the spell…

“I thought I was being dramatic, that I needed to give it some time. But I couldn’t get him off my mind. So I broke up with Britt. She used to complain that he spent all his time up in the astronomy tower instead of patrolling. You bet your ass I went there one night to see if he’d come up. And he did.” Sander shrugged. “The rest is history.” He propped himself up and caught Robbe in a chaste kiss.

“Yeah, you can cut the bullshit.” Zoë turned to check Senne’s progress toward them. He was still a decent distance away. “Robbe told me about this.”

Sander huffed. “I said nothing that wasn’t true.” He kissed Robbe again.

“Yeah, pretty sure none of that was true. But I like the backstory. It’s really good.”

“I think I could make it as a writer,” said Sander.

Robbe assumed the conversation would end there. Zoë and Sander did not seem like the types of people who would have much to say to one another. Unfortunately, Zoë’s prying conversation gave Milan time to catch up.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, upon seeing Sander and Robbe together. He got in close to Zoë for a stage whisper. “So this is Robbe's straight guy!” Zoë shot him a look. “What? is he not straight?”

Sander did not miss a beat, even though a statement like that implied Milan knew the truth of the arrangement. “Bisexual, actually. Or pansexual—I’m still trying to figure that part out.”

“Aren’t we all,” said Milan knowingly. “Don’t fall for Robbe, then.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Sander laughed. It sounded more resigned than joking. Something inside of Robbe combusted.

Milan and Senne went off and picked a spot a respectable distance away to study for their exams. Robbe noted in passing that Milan was reading pages much deeper in the Potions textbook than he had learned. He hadn’t been to a class since he started fake-dating Sander.

Zoë flashed an apologetic smile. “I didn’t tell him you were straight. Don’t know where he got that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Sander.

“And I didn’t mean to tell him the relationship was fake either, he was just so excited—”

“As long as it doesn’t get to Britt or Noor, we’re fine.”

“Robbe, are you okay?”

“Yes,” Robbe lied.

There were pleasantries afterward, although Robbe didn’t catch the specifics. He had other things to process. Sander talking about how they met—it all felt so real. Robbe found himself in a booth at the Three Broomsticks again, watching Sander take slow sips from his drink. He was in his four-poster bed while Sander slept, the curtains open so they could see each other in the dark.

He stepped on the emotion. Sander said he wouldn’t dream of falling in love with him.

Zoë went off to sit with her best friend and boyfriend, leaving space for Robbe and Sander’s date to begin. Where to begin? Number one: Sander would never fall in love with him because this was all fake. In tandem with Noor’s premonition last night, Robbe suddenly felt like he’d much rather be back inside the castle. In his bed. With the curtains pulled this time.

A headache could get him out of here. An urgent need to throw up? Maybe a mysterious summons from Jens. He needed to remember the charm that let him disappear.

Number two, back to Sander. He had wrapped his arms around his head, exposing that same patch of stomach. A line of black ink that might be a word traced the line of his hipbone down.

“Robbe?” Sander waved a hand in front of Robbe’s face.

Robbe blinked. “Huh?”

“Have you been hearing me?”

“Um,” said Robbe.

“You’re pulling my hair.”

Robbe moved his hands away. His mind was a mess of different thoughts—what would he tell the boys about this? It wasn’t fucking real. And Sander’s head was in his lap right now. He should have seen this coming before… no, he had seen this coming.

“Don’t stop,” said Sander softly. “Just… lighter.”

Robbe ran his hand through Sander’s hair. Lighter. A confession dangled on the tip of his tongue and he needed to push it back down.

“Some of what you said was true,” he said. He hoped Sander could draw the connection across conversations and realize he meant what Sander had said to Zoë, not Milan.

Sander understood. “Most of it was true.”

They waited a moment, listening to the soft waves on the lake and the bustle of other couples nearby.

“Right,” said Sander. “You’ve taken me on a date. The least you can do is tell me something nice.”

“What kind of thing?”

“Do you need Jens to write your speeches too?”

Robbe shied away from the vulnerability angle this time. Sander wouldn’t have any use for the information four weeks from now when exams were over. He marveled over how soft Sander’s hair was between his fingers, despite the fact that the ends were dry and dead from the bleach. “My father was the cook of the family,” he said. Something personal, but not intimate. “He had this recipe for blood sausage that had so many spices my mother could never stomach it. We would bring it to dinner parties when we didn’t like the people. It was funny to watch them try and compliment it during the meal when they clearly hated every last bite.” This was the story’s happier conclusion. Its actual conclusion was that his father took all the recipe cards when he walked out, and Robbe didn’t know the ingredients even though his father promised he’d get them when he turned sixteen.

“Tell me something nice.” He poked Sander.

“I don’t know if what you said constitutes nice,” said Sander. He reached up and ran a finger across Robbe’s chin. But he went on. “There’s this lady where I work over the summer that brings me David Bowie albums. She gets so excited every time she finds a new one in a garage sale somewhere, or at store, and I can’t tell her that I already own the albums already. I have five copies of Space Oddity.”

Robbe didn’t know who David Bowie was.

Another lapse into silence. Sander never seemed to mind a comfortable quiet. He guided Robbe’s head down to his for a simple kiss, but he left his eyes open, and Robbe could follow his sightline to Noor and Britt as they walked back to the castle from who-knows-where.

“Tell me something secret,” said Robbe. This much time without something on his mind could be seriously painful. “I went first last time.”

He kind of wanted Sander to refuse.

“I don’t have any secrets, Robbe.”

“You must have one.”

“Do you?”

Robbe shook his head quicker than he should have. He tried to sound as casual as possible when he said, “I’m an open book,” but he doubted it did any good.

The thing was, it was totally believable that Sander wouldn’t have any secrets. This was the boy who announced his sexuality to a friend of a friend that he didn’t even know. This was the boy who saw someone else in the astronomy tower, unloaded his relationship woes, and promptly kissed said someone else to get away from them. What did he have to hide, besides this relationship? What could someone like him possibly have to hide?

The dying day faded everything out into a stained-glass image that could take up the wall of a Hogwarts bathroom. Robbe let himself relax until his surroundings were no more than shapes and colors, pushing everything from his mind until he could barely process his hands running through Sander’s hair. The thoughts surfaced anyway. He was going to have to tell the boys about this, eventually, and maybe even Sander himself, if that was possible. Even now, his skin was electrified from contact.

So much for pushing back the sexuality crisis. It had to happen today.

“It is kind of nerve-wracking, all these people to convince,” Sander said, out of the blue. “I don’t even know who that guy is.” He pointed vaguely at Milan. “But right here, with us, this is okay. It’s just me. That’s my secret.”

That’s exactly the problem, thought Robbe. It’s just you. And I’m falling in love with you.

He said, “That’s a cop-out. Tell me something else.”

[ofclaires]

IV. CLAIRE WALSH

PAST SELF PARAS: april 2020 / september 2020 / march 2021. 

hi, before the read more i just wanted to say THANK YOU. getting to play claire has been absolutely a treat, a challenge, and genuinely, a huge part of my life for the past year and a half or so. it occurred to me when writing this and looking back at other things i’ve written for claire that i didn’t just feel like i was writing this for myself or for claire ; but i was writing it for you guys, too ! that has been one of the most special things about gallagher for me is the writing community that i feel like we built, taking such a huge investment in our characters and everyone else’s writing. i feel like i’m writing with and for some of my best friends. i also feel like i’ve grown so much ( ok, i actually don’t just feel like it, i can look back at those three paras and SEE how my writing has improved. ) i am so blessed to have gotten to write claire with all of you and to share her story, i feel like she has been so fucking beloved & it’s given her so much life. i am so proud of her and it’s really bittersweet that i’m finally saying goodbye to her as well. so, thank you all so, so much, gallagher has been a writing experience like no other for me & i love you all ! 

trigger warnings : domestic violence & abuse, death

PART ONE: CHILDHOOD.

The trailer that Claire spent the back half of her childhood in never felt like home. Maybe because trailers are made to be temporary, or the fact that if she accepted that this was where she belonged, she’d have to give up hope.

It’s normal Maggie Walsh to be out late, Claire’s usually cleaned up the kitchen and tucked herself into bed by the time her mother comes in the door – but she’s not sleeping. She’s always had trouble with that, brain bouncing around from one thought to the next until eventually she hears the creak of the door.

Her mom’s home.

She hears the usual stumbling, the clatter of dishes falling from where she’d neatly placed them on the drying rack. Maggie’s drunk, Claire’s sure of that. Ten years old and she knows what it means to be so drunk that you can hardly see straight, that the words you say under the influence are a different reflection from the person that you really are. She inhales deeply and crawls out from under the covers to check on her. Ten years old and she knows the steps: Help her take her makeup off, make sure she sleeps on her side, glass of water on the bedside table, trash can on the floor. Maggie is only twenty-six years old herself now, not done with her childhood by the time that Claire was born, not ready to be a mother. Claire’s had to figure it out most of it herself.

“Mom?” Claire knocks on the door lightly, plastic cup full of water already in hand.

“Don’t – don’t come in!” Maggie sputters, and Claire’s confused. She defies her request and opens the bedroom door the rest of the way. When she sees her mom, she drops the cup on the floor, small hands curling into fists.

“What happened? Who did that to you?”

“I told you not to come in here, Claire,” Maggie repeats, but Claire has always been on to disregard commands. She learns at a young age that authority only means older than you or some assigned title, not that they know best.

“Who did that? Why?” She repeats her questions. Despite being mature for her age, it’s hard for Claire to wrap her head around the black eye obscuring Maggie’s face, and the swelling on her cheek.

“It doesn’t matter,” Maggie sighs, dejected as she flops down on the bed. Even in her state, she knows that there’s not much use telling Claire to back off or go away once she’s decided that she’s not going to. Her little girl is a spitfire, strangely enough reminds Maggie a lot of her own mom, like living with a miniature version of her. Maybe that’s why Claire wins most arguments. “Come here.”

Claire walks closer to the bed, kicking the cup aside on her way for no reason other than to kick something. She crawls into bed next to her mom and looks up at her, waiting for more of an explanation or literally anything but silence. 

“I don’t know why I keep looking for a happy ending. I leave you home alone, I come home like this...not helping either of us,” Maggie presses a kiss to the top of Claire’s head, runs her fingers through her daughter’s hair. It’s so soft and Claire is so little, she can’t help but look at the spilled cup on the floor with a pang of guilt. “I’m sorry,” she adds, voice choked up and words a little slurred. Tears squeeze out of the corners of her eyes when she closes them, hugging her daughter closer, “I’ve blamed you for my fucked up life for so long...that’s not fair.”

Now, Claire is only ten, but those are the kind of words that you remember forever. Still, she smiles. “It doesn’t have to stay fucked up. It can get better,” a childish spark of optimism in her heart that hasn’t yet been put out. It makes Maggie smile back though, kissing her daughter on the top of her head yet again.

“I like that,” she says, and they fall asleep curled up beside each other. Claire sleeps soundly, thinking that it’s possible. Things really could get better, and for a while, it seems like there really is a sort of shift. Maggie starts cooking, cleaning again, and she doesn’t even stay out so late. That’s when she meets Martin.

He seems better than the rest. Until he isn’t.

But Claire does her job as her mother’s protector, just as she’s been doing all of her life, and it’s that event that jumpstarts the rest of everything that happens next.

PART TWO: GRADUATION.

Claire’s come to the formal conclusion that graduation ceremonies are a waste of time. There’s all this build up, everyone’s so excited, and then you have to sit around and wait for your name to be called so you can spend two seconds walking across a stage while everyone claps. She would have skipped it entirely if her mother hadn’t already come up, and if she knew that people were going to insist. The small talk afterward is even more agonizing than the ceremony itself. It is sort of painful saying goodbye to everyone, and it occurs to Claire that there’s more people that she’s going to miss than she ever expected.

“Callum and his mother are here,” Maggie points out.

“And?” Claire rolls her eyes. Seeing Callum again to begin with had brought up a lot of old feelings, and generally, even though they’d resolved things, she tries to avoid him whenever possible.

“Well, it’s probably weird if we don’t say hello, at least, right? I’m going to say hello,” Maggie interjects, “he’s such a sweet boy.”

Claire’s eyebrows rise on her forehead as she crosses her arms over her chest. “Go ahead then,” she sighs, “I’ll wait right here.”

“Claire,” Maggie draws out her name with a withering stare, but Maggie has never been able to establish that sort of authority with Claire that would prompt any inclination of obedience, so Claire just shrugs her shoulders, unimpressed. She’s not going to budge. “Fine, I’ll be right back.”

Claire’s done her best to put the chapter of their life that includes Martin out of her mind when rekindling things with her mother, and she certainly doesn’t want to stand around making small talk with his other ex-wife, trying not to look at Callum with his matching jawline, trying not to remember everything she hates. It all comes back in a flash. The horrible cracking sound that her mother’s head had made when it connected with the wall, the blood on the marble floor. They say you don’t remember trauma properly, that your memory doesn’t work quite right, but she will never forget the way her fist connected with Martin’s face : like a puzzle piece, like it BELONGED there, and she’d done it over and over again until she heard sirens.

And yet, Claire can’t deny that it’s a part of her life that got her here, where she is today. She thinks life is shitty and random, and that not everything has to happen ‘for a reason.’ Still, she’ll catch Kass’s eye across the room and see her smiling so brightly that it seems impossible not to believe in something. Claire can’t help herself anyway – she smiles back. No one has ever been able to produce Claire’s smile in its truest form the way Kass has, unashamed of being so happy to look at someone. She once thought the idea of looking at a person and seeing your whole future was ridiculous, that you’d have to be stupid to put that much of yourself into someone, but it isn’t like that at all. All of it was unintentional, like by the time she realized it, Kass was already everything. And she feels so safe with that thought that she doesn’t mind at all.

“Am I interrupting something?” A figure steps in front of her, cutting off her line of sight. She’s not really fond of being snuck up on, so she opens her mouth to say something snarky when she’s met with the gaze of Lisanna Harlin, one of last year’s mentors. Her daughter, Elisa, is there, but she’s not graduating, so Claire’s confused by Lisanna’s presence.

“No, Ms. Harlin,” Claire says, though there’s a spark of indignation in her words that practically goes hand in hand whenever an adult commands authority.

“Lisanna is fine,” she says with a light laugh, like she’s amused Claire’s greeted her this way.

“Can I...help you with something?” Claire asks, mostly curious about how long this interaction has gone on. While she’s friendly with Elisa, she was Kass’s roommate last year, they’re not exceedingly close, so she’s not sure what else Lisanna would have to say to her other than maybe a polite hello.

It’s more than a polite hello. Lisanna Harlin works for Lexon Corp in Durham, North Carolina, a private military company that provides armed guards, bodyguards, and guns for hire. They’re the sort of place that would be looking for the best of the best in combat, and they have a bit of a reputation for hiring Gallagher girls. Claire had given up on the job search months ago since the video went out, in fact, she’s had a job lined up for graduation already : at a boxing gym in D.C., where the scene isn’t too bad. It was suited to her, but not exactly the sort of thing that her Gallagher education had prepared her for. Lexon Corp? Everything her rigorous love of January boot camps were tailored to. And they want to interview her.

A month later, Claire’s sitting on the cusp of a completely fresh start. It wasn’t easy to backtrack on the plans that she and Kass had made together, knowing how much was changing for the both of them, it had been nice to have the stable idea of an apartment together on the horizon. Now, she’s a four hour drive away, and she goes home to her one-bedroom studio in Durham after rigorous training throughout the day. But she’s grateful for the chance to work her way back into the field, and she can remember what Lisanna said to her when they gave her the offer.

“We’re aware that with your history that we’re taking a chance on you, Claire,” Lisanna said. “But we think the reasons that made other agencies look past you are exactly what makes you an asset. You care about your jobs, the people that you’re involved in, and you’d have a partner’s back until the bitter end. You listen to your intuition, trust your gut...and above all else, you have follow-through. I’m excited to be able to offer this position. Don’t prove me wrong.”

Claire swears that she won’t.  

PART THREE: KIPTYN.

Kiptyn isn’t supposed to be in the left hall closet. 

In fact, he’s not supposed to be awake at all. But who can sleep the night before their birthday anyway? Sure, he’ll be thirteen, and that’s probably old enough to have gotten over the magic of it all, but...he’d still been lying awake with excitement, the anticipation keeping his eyes open for hours on end. Well, that and the video game he’d been playing under the covers, but he’d obviously only been playing it because he couldn’t sleep in the first place.

Then he started thinking about the left hall closet and the conversation that they had at dinner the other night. In Kiptyn’s defense, Dahvia – his younger sister – had totally started it and he was an innocent bystander. After all, Kiptyn’s old enough to know that they don’t bring up Claire to mom, because it just puts her in a mood and then you can forget about doing anything else for the rest of the evening. But Dahvia’s ten, practically a baby, and she doesn’t know any better.

“Hey, mom? What sort of accident did Claire die in? Nina asked me at recess and I didn’t know,” Dahvia pipes up, before she’s even properly sat down. Kip visibly cringes. He’s older, wiser, knows this won’t go well. Still, he dares to look at his mom’s face and he notes the faraway look in her eye, like she seems to experience a bunch of things at once. Kip notices how even though her eyes are glassy, she doesn’t cry. Though sometimes, their mom will just cry randomly, like two weeks ago when he asked for help with his Spanish homework and she couldn’t even help him finish the first worksheet.

“It was a car accident,” she says stiffly, “eat your dinner.”

Kiptyn kicks his sister under the table and flashes her a look that says : Great. Look what you did, ruined dinner. Dahvia sticks her tongue out at him.

So, he knows that he’s not supposed to be in the left hall closet because he could ruin many more dinners, but he’s here anyway. He’s been thinking about it ever since they sat in silence for the rest of that half hour, and he’s come to the conclusion – his mother was lying. Because all sorts of things make their mother cry, like a bowl of mac and cheese or Spanish class, or motorcycles, and she won’t let Kiptyn take boxing lessons though his friend Robert is and he thought it sounded really cool, but she doesn’t have any problem with cars or driving, and also, she’s never told them a single thing about Claire except that. They aren’t allowed to know anything about her, especially not anything true, so Kiptyn is pretty sure that’s a lie. There’s just something just weird about it.

So, in the middle of the night before his thirteenth birthday, he looks up a video on how you pick locks and then he figures it out on the door of the left hall closet. He’s there for at least forty-five minutes, practically ready to give it all up when he hears the clicking sound, and then it opens. His first thought is : Woah. This is a load of junk.

And he’s right. There’s boxes upon boxes of paperwork, old clothes. Some things start to click, like when he finds a pair of worn boxing gloves with Claire’s initials embroidered on them. His favorite thing that he finds is the fattest scrapbook he’s ever seen – his mom always makes them, there’s one for every year of his life. Dahvia’s too, they love looking at them. The cover of this one, though, says Italy 2021. It’s all pictures of his mom and Claire, probably in their early twenties. Kiptyn mostly notices his mother’s smile, how he’s only seen her look like that a couple times in his life and yet it looks so EASY here, like she wears it all the time. It’s so strange to him. He sets the scrapbook down and crawls toward the back of the closet. His eyes land on two leather folders with gold embroidery, and he opens up the first one. In big letters at the top : GALLAGHER ACADEMY.

It’s a diploma.

This certifies that Kassandra Sutton has satisfactorily completed the…

“What are you doing?”

Kiptyn yells out like a child, not having heard anyone creeping up on him. He claps his hand over his mouth as if to shush himself. “The door was open! I don’t know how, but I just...noticed it was open and wanted to make sure that...no one was stealing your stuff!” he grins sheepishly, hoping that he can ride on the high of his birthday week to get him out of this one.

“It was just...open?” his mother looks down at him with raised eyebrows before brandishing a twisted paper clip between two fingers. The one that had formerly been stuck in the door. His guilty expression widens, he can’t help it.

“Okay, I might know how it opened,” Kiptyn admits. He hesitates for a moment, before he realizes that he’s ALREADY in trouble, he might as well just come out with it and pray to the birthday gods. He holds up the diploma with her name on it : “What’s Gallagher Academy?”

Kass’s sigh is heavy and deep, accompanied by the amount of exhaustion that comes with raising two curious kids by herself. After Claire died, she moved her family to London to be closer to their aunt and away from everything that reminded her of Claire. She never told her children why. From hiding that world from them, the world that took so many people from her : her father, her ex-girlfriend, and the love of her life. She swore that she would never lose her children to it, too. But Kiptyn looks up at her with wide eyes, desperate to know about his mother and his past, and Kass also knows what it’s like to have part of yourself missing due to family secrets that are being kept from you. He is practically a teenager now. So, she relents.

Kass doesn’t go into all of the details, of course. Just that Gallagher Academy was a school for spies, and that’s where it all started. Kiptyn already knew that his moms met in college, so it’s the spy part that’s most interesting to him. She talks about Claire with a light in her eyes he’s unfamiliar with, how she was one of the best fighters in their year, that she grew up with such a talent in the ring that she probably could’ve gone pro if her life had gone in a different direction. She talks about how they had to part ways after graduation, because Claire got a job in North Carolina and she got a job in Washington, DC, but they made it work, and both got very accustomed to the four hour drive – though it was sometimes closer to three for Claire, because she always drove too fast, even on this big, black motorcycle which Kass swears that she hated. She tells Kiptyn about how they got married, the way she’d almost moved to England for a dream job and that long distance threatened to drive them apart again – until Claire chased her down in the airport with a ring and proposal.  

She also talks about how Claire really died : the abridged version. It was an overseas mission where they’d been cornered, and Claire risked her life to save the rest of their team. There were no other casualties, and the information they were able to bring back helped stop the terrorist organization they’d been chasing to end them for good. Kass tells the abridged version for her son, gives Claire a hero’s death. In some ways, it was. She doesn’t mention the ways that Claire was consumed by the case, it was an organization hellbent on killing spies and it likely reminded her of the brotherhood. Kass had been worried about the case the whole time, because it felt like Claire was taking it too personally. In the end, she may have been right : because Claire had let it take her life in order to close it. She also doesn’t mention that such a sacrificial death means that her wife died fighting alone, swinging her fists until her very last breath. But still, she was all alone.

She had no choice but to take her kids as far away from that life as possible.

Kiptyn tries, but he doesn’t really remember Claire. He’d only been three years old when she passed away, and before then, she’d been so consumed by her last case that she was barely present. Still, he thinks she sounds badass.

He falls asleep on his mother’s shoulder that night, looking through the scrapbook of pictures from their trip to Italy in 2021. He’s animated for the first part, pointing out buildings and asking questions, wonders if Claire was sweating in all that leather, but he slowly starts to drift off. He wakes up on the couch the next morning, no trace of the book or any of the other papers he’d hauled out of the closet the night before. He looks at the closet and there’s an extra padlock. Figures.

It comes up in little ways, like a private joke that he has with his mother, like she’ll say something and flash him a secretive smile. He likes that, and he understands that this is a big secret that he has to keep. It doesn’t come up again until his fourteenth birthday the next year, the summer before high school. It’s a strange letter in a manila envelope, sealed with some expensive red wax, his name written in fancy calligraphy. The most attention-grabbing part, however, is not Kiptyn Sutton-Walsh in big cursive letters. It’s the return address :

GALLAGHER ACADEMY.

learn her skills, honor her sword. keep her secrets.

[red-elric]

ive been thinking a lot about kureno lately............

disclaimer: these are thoughts on him as a character, because that’s what he is. he’s not a real person, and my thoughts on him reflect that, before y’all try to get on my case about how you hate kureno and will never forgive him for dating a teenager and blah blah blah get a hobby he’s an interesting character

i’ll be honest, kureno’s arc has only recently become fascinating to me. i used to get excited by his appearances, but only because i knew that whenever he showed up, something important and plot relevant was about to happen. akito’s gender reveal, a glimpse of ren, proof that the curse can be broken, an insight into the pure mess and drama that is akigure and those around them. and then, on the side, there was the cute little relationship he had with uo, which, to me at the time, was just an opportunity to learn more about her. as a middle schooler reading fruits basket for the first couple times, i really liked uo. i admired her boldness, and i related to her very simple desire to see the boy she liked again, as well as her insecurities that her meetings with him meant more to her than they did to him. i also was endlessly fascinated by akito and shigure--still two of my favorite characters today, for all the mess that they cause--and even by ren, the deranged but beautiful lunatic, driving the plot by a love gone way too far.

but, kureno is his own character, and i think we, the furuba fandom, tend to forget that. honestly, in the story it almost seems like he’s set up to be forgettable. he’s introduced as the rooster as an afterthought to the reveal that akito is god. we don’t get a chapter or two devoted to finding out that he’s the final zodiac, complete with a heart to heart with tohru and a gimmicky transformation, we get a terrifying confrontation between akito and tohru, followed by an aggressive ‘you want the last zodiac? here! it’s kureno, who cares, this story isn’t about finding the zodiacs anymore.’ we never see him transform, even in flashbacks. he has important stories to tell, sure, but they aren’t really about him, they’re about akito, shigure, and uo. we remember him for what he told us about the sohma’s, and for the throwaway line that he’s ‘like tohru’ that we cling to in a desperate attempt to characterize him. but kureno ISN’T like tohru. tohru may be overly polite and afraid to step on anyone’s toes, but when it counts, she’s bold and brash about her feelings and constantly looking to protect the people she cares about. she’s easy to read and hard to forget, and that doesn’t sound like kureno at all, does it? so we classify him as ‘like tohru, but not really; important to the plot, but not very interesting on his own; ultimately, forgettable (other than the fact that we hate him for ending up with a high school girl, but that’s sort of okay, because she’s more emotionally mature than he is, but we definitely aren’t going to talk about it ever anyway so who cares).’

but kureno DOES have a personality and character, one that i’ve been more and more interested in lately, especially because of who he reminds me of more and more: machi and kazuma, for different reasons. kazuma and kureno strike me as similar mostly due to their similar relationship to the sohma family after kureno’s curse breaks. as soon as it breaks, kureno isn’t afraid of akito anymore. he pities her, yes, and he stays with her, but it’s out of love and a sense of duty, not out of fear. kazuma and kureno are the only two characters within the sohma family that we see have no regard towards the curse, one way or another. kazuma shows this by reiterating time and again that, despite what akito and kyo’s biological father and even kyo himself think, he will make sure that kyo isn’t locked up and that he has a future beyond high school. kureno shows this through the way he clearly pities akito, rather than fears her or loves her to the point of his own destruction; and through the way he casually helps tohru by revealing secrets and covering for her when she’s almost caught near the main house.

but i also see a lot of machi in kureno. kureno and machi, for different reasons, are both people who have gotten through life by quietly doing whatever was asked of them. machi did everything her mother asked of her to avoid being scolded (not that it really worked); kureno spent his early adult years doing whatever akito asked him to do because he couldn’t stand to see her cry. it’s also worth mentioning that some of his behavior might have stemmed from the days when he followed around and adored shigure, who tends to think only of himself and expects others to play along with his whims; kureno might have adopted obedient behaviors in an attempt to get shigure to like him more (not realizing that shigure is much more drawn to people with independent thought, who actively argue against him and serve their own motivations, not his. shigure is a complicated character). much like how machi, when freed from living with her parents, doesn’t know how to act or think for herself (which yuki slowly helps her with over the series), kureno, when akito tells him she doesn’t need him anymore (or even when she offers him the small favors of leaving the main house for a day off!), is left at a loss for what he wants, and how he wants to behave, what he wants to do. machi can’t come up with her favorite color when asked; kureno can’t come up with something to do on his day off. both of them eventually learn to interact with the world again by someone a little bolder but just as insecure as themselves: yuki and uo.

i don’t really have a point for all of this, but i guess i just wanted to see if i could understand kureno a little bit better <3

[keai]

in the off chance that you see this...

will you let me know if you do?

my little 12 year old heart fell for you stupid fast. it was literally love at first sight and it wasnt because you were cute (bc lets face it you are good looking). looking back, its crazy how much i loved you, or thought i loved you. we didnt really know each other at all, but i was SO obsessed. i still cant explain why, but as a 20 year old i think that was the time i was beginning to show signs of anxiety/depression and honestly, needed something else to focus on. you also know i just have an addictive/obsessive personality. 

i remember we talked about those stupid young times and you said you were sorry for how you treated me back then. but i have to say you never did anything explicitly wrong. i didnt know how to handle my emotions and thoughts, i mean i still dont and thats why this even exists right? 

i remember crying myself to sleep over you, i remember hiding in school toilets because of you, i remember SO MUCH. i was truly in so much pain!! 

it wasnt just you of course. i didnt get much sleep bc i was always talking to this other friend that i never really talked to you about. i was also really struggling with the whole popularity thing at that time, and just wanted to quit being a popular girl at school. i know that sounds dumb, but being popular really wasnt fun, at least for me. i could never say what i truly thought because i had to care for so many people. i would always accidentally exclude people if i got closer to one friend because everyone wanted to be that one close friend, and that made me feel like i had to keep a distance from everyone. i could never be sad because other people thought i had everything. and i know that sounds pathetic but those are the things 12 year old girls think about i guess. anyway back to us

i tried a lot of things to ‘get over you’. it was so fucking stupid. i wore rubber bands and snapped myself every time i thought of you. would you laugh if i said that my arms would be COMPLETELY red in an hour? i also tried to like other guys who were genuinely sweet to me, but for some reason just thought they didnt measure up to you, even though you were giving me absolutely nothing (no hate just stating facts)

but eventually i did. and i just didnt think anything of you anymore - not in a bad way, i just didnt have an opinion. we didnt interact in school, i think til h3, because of math class. 

i had no fucking clue that your ex girlfriend minded me. honestly if i knew i wouldnt have sat next to you!! i thought i would be the last person she minded - after all, you broke my fucking heart without even trying, you know? if i liked you so much and still couldnt get you to like me, why would i think she would mind me? i dont know, sometimes im bad at logic i guess

anyway, i still didnt think anything of you. we had nice chats, but that was it. i think you would agree. ive actually spent a lot of time reflecting - were we flirty? did we ever cross boundaries? i remember how you told me you wanted to break up with your girlfriend. i remember thinking it was cuz of christina - it had never crossed my mind that you would like me. but it turns out it was me!?

now. this is the part that has bothered me the entire fucking time we dated again. does this mean we betrayed eliza? was she right in being mad? was this emotional cheating? i really dont know but i know now to not get involved in a relationship with someone who has just gotten out of one, because my mind will not stop thinking.

i hope you would agree that we had a good relationship. i wasnt cutting much anymore and generally gave less fucks about other people - something i have REVERSED back into now. but theres this part of me who wants to suffer. sounds dramatic but its true. if im honest, i was always torn between being a cool, chilled girlfriend and picking random fights, and making you upset on purpose. because thats what i did with MY exes and i knew doing those things would make me better feel your love. i also knew i was fucking crazy for even thinking about doing those things, but having a good relationship just wasnt...i dont know. i dont know how to receive love without it being fucked up in some way.

i would say the final 8 months of us dating was us being so careful with one another. i dont know what happened actually. maybe we just grew and changed. maybe i fucked up. i dont know. but it was fucking weird. sometimes we were fine and sometimes we werent. i really didnt know if you still loved me

coming back to taipei for the 2nd time, i got hit by this big wave of anxiety and panic about the future. something i learnt recently in school is that depression and anxiety often come back in relapses. like 70& of patients experience episodes again. of course, i chose not to open up to you. i knew you wouldnt understand. i know this is just my mind thinking stupid things, but in my brain youre perfect and never upset. you never overthink and never look back with regret on things. i guess thats the impression youve made on me since year 8. but me? i think back way too often and hurt myself. i dwell on past things, and now suddenly im dwelling on future things as well.

this is getting too annoying. long story short, i went to therapy and they referred me to a psychiatrist. i got medication. and that was still in the time we were together. i didnt tell you and im sorry about that. i dont know if im feeling better now. but i do think about how things could have been different if i wasnt me. if i wasnt so anxious and DEPRESSED would we have worked? if i wasnt so depressed in year 8, would i be different?

im not kidding when i say i dont want to be me. do you like being you? of course you do because youre you. but im me

you know that cheesy line where it goes something like ‘maybe in another universe, we would have worked out’. its fucking cheesy. but i really hope that there is another universe where hannah is different and is someone who can truly accept love from you, knows how to handle it and not let it go to waste

[throwingideasatthewall]

Clone Wars          Escape from Kadavo

Well this is certainly a      scene change and one that doesn’t really make sense,

   I mean I thought it was a Camp of Holding for slaves

     Where they got transported to different places on the island to do     slave labor, per         hap        -s

   Now there’s apparently a lava pit under it,

            How?

  That

    -doesn’t make any sense

    Also wtf,

   Coal, metal

Since when was   refinery really this place’s MO      (Like this is really starting to feel like they got the        Mandalorian           And           This        Set         -ting        s       Switch           ed,)

      Not to say they can’t be a     coal/mining industry,  

      Just, that the setting should    reflect it,

     From we saw there was nothing to indicate this was anything but        an ar       chai          c      Soc-either

     With no flues        Or fu    -mes

     To indicate   that they were burn        Ing combustibles,

   Honestly some kind of stalactites   mine,

     Or someplace where they       dig for      “valuables,”            -like      prized st-          one for         Jew           elery-          Would          make         more        sense-       -        Anyway, I’m getting.      way too        focus        -ed          on          the        se-          tt         -        Ing-      - Again Rex is    just straight up chilling,     This is      n’t       his first rodeo with abusers,

  Ok, seriously what was up with the    Wil       -h         el          m,?

     (Like I don’t honestly see anything          steep enough to fall off)

   You could say      it was a whip but we haven’t seen any        Of       That,      Ye      t-

  I don’t get the    screaming-

  Also that   dude just attacked him out of nowhere,

  Like   could we have gone    establishment of that?

   Like,

  What was even his ber-zerk        butt-        on       there?

   Dude was doing his job

  Like if it was a faster thing you kind of have to establish that before hand      -        Also then the environment, the ma      jor      ity,       Would be working at a   breakneck speed,      With a sense of anxiety,       In the       air,

    Then,     the whip,

  He-     was?

  (Like that was just        plain - pointless

     Not even an emotional reaction

     Like that told us absolutely nothing about the setting      and character

    The mate didn’t even have a reaction

    It’s one random guy that just decided to hit      someone else-

   Like that’s not even calculated never mind       systematic,

    Also I like how Rex like yeah      I wouldn’t know anything about that,        feck’in             Jedi             -

      Also       “Effect?”

      Not really more like 

     “ Dave’s having a real rough day and I really don’t want to talk to              (In that               state)

          Like they didn’t wince.

         There was no antici             pation-

          No                  anxiety,

            Like no signs of this is had a           permanent          psychologically            damaging              affect

(Note all toxic behavior is           harmful,               The difference here is             Between                The intensity of the        in-dentation,

            It can get pretty       bad

            And enabling        tox can have serious effects                 (Pretty                   bad)

              (Requiring a lot more time   to undo)

               From;            Dave is really an    asshole,

                 To                           I am really an    asshole,

                  To                    The world is really an   asshole (And Dave is the       savior-)

   (Apologies to anyone who’s chosen name is          Dave or similar vernacular,               It’s not out of any Mala-    cian-              Just the first identi          fication I could think of,

          And tox-    ic logic is really not something you wanna enable,

         Again what the Frick?

(This is really not an   or-ganic way to      introduce        your       rules

Like, “oh yeah    speech is for-bidden,       Have a nice        day,”

 Like      you   think   dude-

Like you were pretty damn path     -etic     abu       ser-        (s)         -    (Sla       vers)       Wow,

   There was no emotions or anything     -be      cause the set up was so poor,

  W-        h      -a         t

    Again the emotion    is non existence,

  Also what the fuck     happened to Rex over there?     -      

When did he      go down?

 (Like don’t    get me wrong   I saw a flash in the corner?)

  But why       him?

   [also did the scenery just completely changed because he was on the far end of Ken-        Obi with something in between

      Some thing they were       shoveling the stuff on?

     That’s just       gone in this shot]

  [Also,           From a narra-         tive,     standpoint wouldn’t it have made more sense and been a more engaging concept,          If the guy had threat          -ene             d-            The clone          in Obi- wan’s              stead,             Seeing as of the     republic’s version of slavery,

      Rex pos          s-             ib          ly

     Reflec-         ting on the          (Other           Species?)

And    contrasted with them,

   On how much    Obi-Wan views him as a possession,

   (Or his reaction to the people under him getting hot          ,and why)

   Allo-      wing for more heart, 

     “I’m            sorry,”

        “No              Wors              e-               Than               The            Kamino               -ins,”

       Rex’s         Sub             Cat;

        Seeing the people he was trained (and order-ed) to protect              Harm                 -ed                   -                    Much like the people (under him) were harmed during the Kamooin.   s-

  Groom          -ing,                  ?]

      Any      -way,  

    Again,     and what was the emotion?       -         M-aster

  Rex must be like,         Kar-           ma

     If he’s   not,

    [Never mind      he isn’t asleep      just one frame     made it look weird?]

   Ai-       gh -t

  Oh yeah seriously check up on that one guy instead of you know the person under the command,

    Also;       

 What The fuck?

    IS THAT GOOGLY EYES?

    What the feck,

     What is with that       expression-

     What is with that              facial-

   (Seriously someone tell me what      emotions this is supposed to por-     tray!

    What?

    Also yeah 

  they completely waltz.       -ed     past the ab-        us         -er.        Be-         Ing        -         Con-          fron         ted-              by         the       Con-        Seq-        Uen        Ce        (s)          Of       their      actions,

  It’s not pointed out that Obi-Wan totally caused this by (not)-    listen-ing,        To dude’s        initiative      to stay out of it

(Or, what he did to Cody        Rex,       and basically         all the clones,)

(And what could’ve been a good moral about negative effects of “Pos-       itive  over-       invo        lv           e-       Ment-            )

   so I am slightly big mad

         Not com-   -pletely

          But I’m      get-ting          th-ere

   Drinking         my        slightly       bitter       ju-ice-

   Gett    -ing         pr-etty          salty

     Which is odd since I normally don’t criticize      aesthetic differences

              Like                    This-       -

   The problem is it isn’t the aesthetic       that I have a problem with,        (You want to have a Obi-Wan show more compassion to the slave of similar generation then to Rex?

    (That’s per-fect-ly fine and could even show how he values his job and  Mission over someone he is actually wound-        ed-)

     However that’s not it-

        (It doesn’t             even do that)

   My problem with it is that it shows no        emotion

   No emphasis

   No moral

   It’s - empty               -          Watching this scene,     there is absolutely nothing I get out of it,

       Also wow that was a        quick turnaround,

Like seriously     it generally takes longer      for that kind of behavior to be indented,

  This is literally the only Jedi       he’s seen be there

       One time

         This is barely scraping        logic,          And            even             then,                not              really            requiring-              pre-knowledge                  of the emotions               and general plot               (before                       hand)

   I know that I should feel bad for the        slave because         slav-ery is a bad thing           And any real person would be          pretty upset it/             Suffer for the toxic environment,

         Note; it’s not from the               medium

         I didn’t gain that                 knowledge             from the medium

(In which the chara-       cters      actions and emotions,         Make me        conclude,       “oh wow,         slavery is a real         bad thing!”

   No the characters are wooden puppets          with no emotion,

          Going from;                Point a to point B

      Nothing to connect them              (No preamble)

         No emotions

         No motive(s)

       ‘why is Obi-Wan doing what he’s doing?’

         ‘I don’t know’

                    (And I honestly don’t think the wr-     iters did either)

       And no damn interest

        Barely scraping        logic..

   ‘Why is Obi-wan      doing what he’s doing,’

     ‘Because he has the rescue the slaves,’

    ‘ why does he have to rescue the slaves,?’

      ‘ because you have to rescue slaves,’

        It’s literally circular

   Rely- ing completely on the cookie   cu-    tter,

    Resulting in it being as flat as a cookie when      rolled over by a rolling pin,

         Where                It             should;                Be;

    “ why does Obi-Wan want to rescue the slaves?”

        “Because of his dedication to his moral compass/ because of his dedication to his generation/ non-      clone- ena         blers,/      (Whatever        you want           to put            there)

           (Hey that was almost emotion from   ,Rex)

         (We’re      2:29      Min      Ut        es        In,        And I’m already        salty about the episode refusal to be         fun,

     -

   That’s nice        exposition      *Palpatine*.       Sidious,

     Tra-        dition           (S);

    Mill-

  That’s literally all I      -heard-

      -(I assume they’re saying             “millions,”)

         Which would actually be neat if we got to see some you know human soldiers on the Darkside to counterbalance the whole do you know clone troopers, contrasting the dark side’ s more ethical but none the less toxic practices,

    To the light side’s-          Gen Break-

      De-       fiance?

   (I think you mean that other Zygerian’s death because we have literally not seen the queen act even remotely rebellious,

   Yeah she      con-     templates possibly free-        ing them,

   But we haven’t seen her openly communicate with either of these 2 to inform them

   And she still wants to keep     Anakin,

  So she at least     has one Jedi,

   With the others possibly be blamed on a       -prison break-

      And literally nothing that we’ve seen       com-municating the concept of open - rebel-      lion

   Or any of the connection between      her    and the separatist,

   Again seriously        how am I     supposed to feel about that             (Also the one person that gives even the slightest bit of emotion and it’s the villain,)

    Like I’m surprise’d       Dooku’s surprised by that

   (Er-)

    O-k

   Whe-lp 

   (Also, now there         are flues).           (Don’t recall        seeing them                last time,)

        Or just sticks with gold          on them

 (I am very        con-        fused,)

This seems pretty different

And totally safe

  (Also wasn’t the castle       blue?)

  But I’m not against it because it could work with the       symbolism of wild,       Or just.          Wor      -k                 (I know I’m being way too hop-   - eful but I try,

      Re-        hash-

     Easy-

   So why is there no other emotion 

   And why do you look like a         caveman,

    (Eyebrows    constantly furr-        Ow-        ed)

    Also what was with the      pro-nunciation and        emotion?

    Bare,

   Also literally no     one else is paying attention to that guy?        ?

‘ he also doesn’t   cause me to have any emotions’

  Like seriously I know that it’s a cat person but you still have to show some sentient emotion here

   If there’s no emotion,        there’s no risk,

   (Part of   sent- ience)

   Att-        end,

   Again that’s not the cha-    llenge I think they were trying to make it out to be;              (Un-accountabili-          ty)    Aka         What it would work best as;

          Remix;

    “ I’ll would never turn away from a challenge,” Anakin said snarkily,

      The queen se-           duct              iv             el-              y

          Taking his light saber,                -                that works better;

           -                   Ser-iously                       -                       Um-                       No,  

(Last time someone fall from a height that      high, they died,)

   (You have to play by        your       own      rules,             )

    Wha-

    Also again wh        -at-

   Sky -walker

  When          ?-

   -

   Would be nice if you ever         feckin showed it,

       (Seriously the concept of Obi-Wan having to come to terms at least temporary that his Over-involvement has      hurt people is an interesting concept,”

     Also bullshit      that you know that

      (Pretty)

   (You’re all enabled and you haven’t spent any time around     Obi-Wan)

   (That’s a stupid plan            and the animation really doesn’t help,)

       Zy-ger

       Perm     -     R-       i-,

Oh yeah so no reserves,     about using the term,             “master”      After this     schism            ?            -         Y-eah           -         How?           -           W-at

 [The emotions are off the roof and I have no idea 

    with the scale of escalation

   W-at]

   Lesh          -       Li- fe

    You did-            n’t?             -              Emo            tion-

        ?

      Wh-at?

      Who        called-        the       guards?

   Seriously if this is such a constantly abusive (tox) relationship than how do they not know,

     (Unless the previous guards got killed and these          are the         newbies,)

    Because you don’t act like it all don’t have any of the characteristics generally associated with constantly rein-forc       -ed toxicity,         Show-       ed no emotion including     (anxiety and anticipation)         In that previous           fight,

 As well as no negative    con-    seq-    uen      ce          s for your behavior             -               Even now your voice is just     “ oh I’m     dyi-ng-            -,’.                 .        

Meep,

 [Something        happened 

   not a Tumblr refresh,

       Gist;

  There’s absolutely no emotion in the scene and the fact that she just dies after that being the threat is just kind of cheap,

  [and the fact that she had absolutely no expression            (Or emotion)     during that entire fight                  Not showing any of the general signs             -               Just no)

    And that expression is a weird way way to end

   The scene.       not the movie that still going,          (Un-fortunate-         ly)

   Uh, why             Off to you obviously evil factory,       land,”

    Kick,

   Hey     isn’t it that minor antagonist    that hasn’t showed up since the last episode?       . . .       Why?         . . .       And he included       the clone        why?

    (Oh yeah I want the      Jedi Knight         Obi-Wan          Kenobi,          And especially the to my knowledge           (default)             clone.

       -  

       And Rex who is honestly a lot more intimidating,

  K-i

  [Again this is supposed really be about.     Ken-obi but I’m really focusing on     Rex,]

    Wh-        at-        -

   How?!

    They were on a        bug?

    I-

   Ok-

  Sorry my memory     gave out for a moment at the whole     Anakin durp face thing         -       -

 W-h

  W-

Wood

   Again, how is he supposed to do that?

    -       Ter-         -        I-l

   Sl-av          es

   So Ahsoka goes to rescue the slaves while An-a      kin,    stays here and carves a hole,

   En-ough

   No emotion!

   Oh,     I thought he meant         Ah         -soka         -          Oh so yeah let’s bring a warship into what seems to have been         intended as a stealth mission,

      Screw                    Fitt              Ing                Re                Action-

And-

   W-

      .

How   did that change the fact that they have the button that can kill all the    slaves,

    (It didn’t)

Obi-won just apparently stopped giving a       fr-ick         -

  Ray-

   Well then they were impossible to   take out,

 F-a         -           S-l

   But only the         Tyger-ian        (Apologies for any misspelling          I mean Ahsoka’s            kind,)

      “He           -at,”

        “Cut,”

         Ge-n-

         Rex did more than Obi-wan,

          Also yeah     completely forgot about that,

        Also he said               kill,

         [Not further         im-prison,”         ]

       Rex had some      rage-

      Also you’d think that be Obi-Wan       considering how much he’s gotten       ,screwed with         This entire          ,time              -           Wh,at 

      Wh            -y              -

          -

Wh        -y          -     H-ere         -               How is Rex still fighting      guys?         -       Also thanks a lot Obi-Wan      you useless      piece of shit,

   [Again, would         n’t it make           sense?            .)

      W-ell

      -           You just came into a door        just hop them - over-                                -                             Lan      d-

                      Wait,                            How did you just get in, there                     though,

                     .                        Co-                    vert                          -                            ?

O-Kay,     new character,

 W-h

 -

(Also oh no they gave      plo another fleet  

      Great      )

     Ser-iously,   what     where are these guys coming from?        ,     You’ve literally been allowed this dude to heck around the entire time while Rex did all the hard work

La-me,

 Also seriously where was all that                    -  ,coming from-                     -                Wh    at-

Where   was the   emotion?       -      Hey that had no meaning, symbolism      or emotion behind it -       whatsoever,

    I

    ?

       A-i

         -            W-h              -             -           -            Whelp, was completely boring

    Covenants of a good,                  fun story;  

       - Set;  Excessive in instances that don’t directly affect the story’s           up,    cohesivity

       -Tone; Is appropriate

       -Emotions; And appropriate, and consistent and manage to keep a consistent tone,

             (Un-nessary,                        Typically switch-ed for a        more logical tone,                        In works of                      non-fiction,

                  Though may be in both,                        So long as note                        is given,)

        This            film            (Movie      -      Gets absolutely none of it right except the basics for a         good story

      It’s        co -         hesive-          But damn           boring         and empty,

Story         -      Re-write.          -            (I needed something fun after watching that       boring documentary,)

     So let’s       get into it,            -                   (May          feature            episode             -overlap)

   Obi-Wan emerges from the carrier,              With R           -ex,

    (Obi-Wan possibly sub- con-ciously           mov              -ing                  In              Fron                 -t                        Of                    Rex-)

         [Or              Cody]

             The                  minor              antagonist                welcome(s)                 them;                   Obi-wan trading some banter with him                      -                     It                being part of a plan to get captured,

              Unfortunately somethings went ar-ray and instead of              Cody being the back up plan; he got taken with him

               The minor antagonist                                   -               quickly cuts the chatter                                 -                                     By having the guard                               (S-                         bring Cody forward, introducing him as                                                           Obi-Wan’s                                                               Slave

           Giving a veiled threat of                “ would be a shame if something happened to such a                    ,pretty specimen,”

                  Obi-Wan getting   def-ensive,

                      The atag,      Com   menting,       “ Pretty protective,           Of your toy,            Aren’t              You,”

      Before         having           them thrown            somewhere,

         Next time,        we see them they’re getting e-           scor-            ted-             for gem            Min-            Ing,

         (Possibly some black humor from the vil               -ains-                about how people                 will pay,                     “An arm                  or leg

*Pos-sibly        yours,

                For                      the                      stuff,’           

            On the way there one of the guards notices Rex    (Cody)’s                                                                                     ey-ing the place.                                                                                          warning him                                                                                          That,                                                                                           ‘He’s                                                                                        not                                                                                 the only                                                                                     one                                                                                    under                                                                                 ob                                                                            -servation)

                                                                             Possibly                                                                               causing                                                                              a wincing                                                                            or anxious                                                                           reaction                                                                             from                                                                             them                                                                                  .   (I would generally  encourage flashbacks to be        able to - show the emotion          em-          ot            ion,)

      (Under-stand               what is going inside their            head,)

         But for now            I’ll stick           with           the example            given by the show         which is no flashbacks,     The      guard        making        it clear what will happen

Shock-     -Ing-

  The clone       (Eith          er)           Ha-ving       a bad reaction         to this,

     Knee       jerkingly      reaching            out,

     The guard       grabbing him         and         holding him    back -            -           Forced into a      distressing circumstance of         fa            il           -in            g-         The           Miss-         -ion             -

                                                                                             Those two are                                                                                     pretty much out of the action                                                                                for the rest of the episode being                                                                   stuck

                                                  Obi-Wan can’t do anything without hurting Cody                                                       Cody can’t do anything without hurting                                                                         the slaves                                                                               -                                                                              Most of their part is                                                                               contrasting                                                                            the condition,

Most of the     action is with      Ahsoka,        Who talks down that  dweeb         (Maybe someone near-er          to her age)                     And they go break      Obi-Wan out so he can back up, Anakin

    In the Dooku fight,

               The most consistent and                       clear char-                        -acter                          Being                              Q                             -ueen,                              Being a     slaver-

   If         it’s         Ana-       Kin,

          Anakin having to begrudgingly put up with this        slaver’s nonsense

         Be-grudgingly

      - Her talking about how life is slavery     and him just not...

          Then                  Dooku                 Shows                      Up,

   (The whole transition between the mine scene and the Anakin- slaver scene,        Being a cut from the sparks in a mine           To the jewel on her finger              With extra focus       being put on the jewels,

        Possibly all done with all of them              Zy-              gar-ian                (Or of all        the planets that         she’s taking people from-  

      Zygarian            Heir               loom)

          A black stone          (in the middle of her chest)               By a pendant                 (Generally                   implied to be by                 Count Dooku)

    Toxic        court-ing           implied,

              Count Dooku                   announces                a surprise visit,

               The Queen is pleased                    but nervous                       (Hands                         behind -back)

                  “I-”

              Putting        a wine glass down behind it,

                     Dooku is immediately aggressive

        The queen            offering                Anakin as a consolation prize

       As the youngest and newest to the-ir possible              rank,

        Dook-u snark                  Ing,

          Dooku threaten                -ing  to kill

          The queen having issue with that whole main characterization being the collector of rare things

          (Possibly a reflect-                Ion  about the no speaking rule)

             More likely Dooku dismissing her con-           cerns just saying that he can always get her a new one,

            “The Queen possibly wincing at a raised hand                  - if we want to go for indications of                  physical tox-’

          Poss-ibly a conversation about why she put up with           him

        “He treats me well”

        Focus on the necklace and pendent to             - contrast with the choking necklace-

          Possibly a poison               Sub-line

                -                     If you want                    to go there,                       -                    But focusing on Ahsoka,              they broke those guys out,

                 Ahsoka finding a heartbroken                         Jedi,                       Explaining that their res       -pect     ive  clone friend,        Has given up on them

   Ahsoka finding that person,

   Who manages to explain that he can’t        move either-

    To be cut off by the guards      who has really had enough of         every-      thing-

   Decided - screw it if pain isn’t going to make you stop and then might as well put them in a life or death situation,

    Add-ing time on the clock         (Or at least a new var-         iable-)

   Ahsoka possibly     does a whole speech thing          (Since seriously         we’ve seen none of her involvement or even care about         her own         spe-cies)          Via dem            on-          Strat           Ion-

      (Very likely leading to a            riot situation,)

     As they didn’t plan on the           Tagroatians (?)             Rebell              ing due to                crush                  -ed                 spirits,

     That happens                  -           Those two re-         unite and go to fi-ght                Dooku

        (I never.       really cared for the        Zy-            ger-             Ian           queen,)

         If she lives in then,    she’s grateful for them driving off Dooku,          Allows them to get off with the slaves,

      (Necklace might have information            might not,)

   *Honestly I felt it made more sense for        Anakin to be the one in the mine;             The Zy-          garian queen, and Obi         -Wan hav-          ing boomer ban             -ter,              With Obi-Wan a lot more           aware of that stuff,               (Show-ing               worldliness       by identifying the stones)             While Anakin compares       the circumstance to the one that he used to live in,              And the one he enabled Rex living in,           While Ahsoka,    could team up with a          Zy-ger-Ian round              her age,               Possibly some conversations about           enabling-           May-be Ahsoka talking about getting a clone         command of her own-            (If we want the clone commanders to be a constantly          featured theme                here)               Boomer                 Bait,               Busting Anakin out of the            mine,                Obi-Wan getting hidden behind a             cur-tain,                     And going to heck over Dooku,                   (Slaves recovered-)

           Both the Zy-                Gar-                  Ian-                    (And a flirtatious                promise to return                      By                       Obi-wan, )                       [contrast                        Mandalorian]                    Gets                         Free-                        Dom-                        -                         End-                         -