#because SOME of y'all have never let that go and it's been an entire decade

[non-binharry]

Hoping for the day when chavy Louis (which he is so it shouldn't even be debated) discourse stops mentioning Harry and how he's "not even that gay and Louis is actually gayer". Like leave my girl and her man alone!!!!!

yeah!!!

[intrepidacious]

❤️ a good time!

tat!bucky’s favorite (or least favorite) thing about twelve

… why not both?

cause and effect

chapter summary: How Bucky fell in love with Twelve: Slowly, and then all at once.

pairing: bucky barnes x time witch!reader

word count: 1.8k

warnings: light angst and negative self talk (this is bucky y'all); some light pining 🤭please note that my blog is rated 18+. minors dni. ageless/empty blogs will be blocked without warning.

a/n: i've literally had this one in my drafts for about two years and i hadn't actually planned on posting it for a while yet but i did promise distractions. and i missed him. i always do.

this is part of the time after time universe but can be read as a teaser and/or a standalone 💚

Bucky’s relationship with time has been fractured ever since a cold day in January that stole away the life he was headed towards and turned him into the monster underneath a child’s bed.

It’s hard to feel good about the concept of time travel once a lot of your own time has been taken away from you. Even now, there’s only so many things in his life he has control over; like the fact that he’s actively choosing to go back to therapy now, or that he’s able to keep a pet for the first time since he was thirteen years old. Stupid little things, like what kind of food he wants for lunch or whether he should take the stairs or the elevator.

Every single one of these things he’s fought for tooth and nail, clawing his way out of the past and carving out his own space in reality again, struggling, trying, hanging on like he wasn’t able to all those decades ago.

He’s probably still failing.

Some days, clinging to the present is tense and brings him nothing but grief. Sometimes, it feels like he’s going to have to mourn the past forever, whatever might have been; and maybe that’s his sentence.

He wouldn’t have wished it on anyone. He deserves worse.

And then there’s you.

Flickering in and out of time, constantly moving, changing in the time it takes him to blink.

It’s infuriating to him, the way you get to use your powers. The way you don’t need to think about consequences, because they don’t have to be permanent, don’t have to be something you need to live with for the rest of your life. To you, time has always been something that can be changed with a single snap of your fingers. Whatever you do can just as easily be undone.

Once you decide you’ve seen enough, you can just take the scene from the top.

And you’re so stubborn.

You’ve already seen how this goes on if you let it, and so you’re always right, end of story. There’s an ease to your steps because of it, a nonchalance in every movement, and it makes Bucky’s blood boil to see it so plainly.

With all the good that you could do, you choose to do nothing instead; to stay out of the picture entirely and burn through your powers just because you can, wasting them all on things that don’t mean anything.

How many lives could you potentially save?

Instead, you consume disturbing amounts of caffeine and then continue to provide running commentary to the world around you based on things that, to him, never happen at all. "Do this", "don’t do that", "take the other one", or, his absolute favorite, "don’t make me fix that".

Why not? he wants to ask, say, demand. Why not fix all of it?

It takes a while for him to realize that all of your fire means you’re burning from both ends. In fact, it takes Becca.

"You should bring her by sometime," she tells him on a rainy afternoon. "While I’m still alive and kicking."

His little sister just turned ninety-eight. Her kitchen sideboard is filled with black-and-white pictures reminding him of all the things in her life that he missed, arranged in perfect little wooden frames.

"And why would I do that?" Bucky asks, scowling at his cards.

"Because you keep mentioning her," Rebecca says dryly and whisks the cards onto her pile with quick fingers.

"You gotta be kidding me," he groans, noting down her points. "And I don’t."

"Do, too. I don’t remember you being this terrible at this game."

"Because I haven’t caught you when you’re cheating."

"Exactly. It’s embarrassing." She wins the next trick, too. "How’s Tuesday?"

"Am I clairvoyant now?"

"I was thinking lunch."

"No." Finally, he gets a couple of points down. When he glances up at his sister again, she’s looking at him expectantly and he sighs. "What?"

"You can’t fault me for being curious," she says. She has just as many opinions as she did when she was sixteen. Her eyes are still the same, too, the same shade of blue as his and the same glimmer of archness as their mother.

"Don’t you think it’s weird?" Bucky says, finally giving in. "The whole … time thing?"

"I think it’s very weird, but so’s you returning from the dead and kvetching about it." Her eyes narrow when he starts to protest. His mouth closes again. "Besides," she continues, shuffling her hand around, "it doesn’t sound all that fun."

"To have the power to never make mistakes?"

"To have to live through every mistake twice without anyone knowing."

Something about her words strikes him like a match, and so he tilts his head and squints at her and thinks that maybe, just maybe, he’s got it wrong.

That you carry not only your past, but all the futures you’ve seen that never came to be; all the what ifs having turned into answers.

And he thinks, how nice. And then he thinks, how horrifying.

It’s a thought that follows him over the next couple of weeks, and it starts reframing your interactions for him, in a way.

"Will you stop staring at me," you say without looking up from your book.

Honestly, he can’t. He’s still trying to pick up on it, the split second between before and after, that little change of your posture, your hair, your face, that tells him more time has passed for you than it has for him.

It’s more of a feeling than anything else, something right at the back of his mind telling him that something is different if he concentrates on it enough, but he’s never sure what it is. And he doesn’t like that; not one bit.

So Bucky crosses his arms and leans back. "Why?"

A flash of irritation makes your nose twitch, even though you still refuse to meet his eye.

"It’s rude, for one."

"Noted." He waits for the two that never comes. "Anything else?"

And there it is. A blink-and-you-miss-it kind of moment, like the air shifting around you ever so slightly, a certain knowing glint in your eyes when you roll them and get up.

"Annoying!"

He can’t help it. He wonders what your original answer was.

***

Bucky’s relationship with time changes slowly, the deepest cuts carefully mending themselves until looking back doesn’t feel like getting his bones ripped apart anymore, until he looks at you on a cold day in January and realizes he’s fucked.

At first, he hopes that it might be a fluke. A trick of the light, maybe, or seasonal allergies. That’s the reason why his eyes are drawn to your face as soon as he enters a room; the closest source of discomfort always the thing he seeks out first. That’s the reason why his chest constricts like that.

But the truth is, he knows this feeling has been building slowly; he’s just been unwilling to admit it.

Something soft and delicate has started to nestle in that gaping hole inside his chest, unbothered by the walls he’s so carefully built up.

He’d never planned on you.

Fuck, if he’d known in the beginning, he might’ve …

No, he thinks. He wouldn’t have changed anything.

Because you’re too good for him, anyway, and he knows it. Smart and strong and funny and gorgeous and capable of things he’s not sure he’ll ever fully comprehend; and it’s worse than that, because he knows you now.

You’re grouchy in the mornings and you make terrible jokes when you’re nervous and you have a strange feud with his cat and your smile makes him want to put his fist through the wall because what is he supposed to do with any of this?

He’s not made for this dance anymore. That part was taken from him so long ago, and he’s delusional to think that anything or anyone could return it to him after all the bridges he’d been made to cross and burn. Why would someone like him deserve to be given tenderness anymore in this life? Why would anyone want to try?

But that foolish thing blooming inside him feels a lot like hope, despite of what he keeps telling himself.

There’s just something about you that keeps pulling him in, and honestly, he’s tired of fighting it. Then again, the thought of you feeling the same is nothing short of ridiculous.

He’s not the same guy as he used to be. Hell, sometimes he’ll look at old photographs and barely recognize himself.

He remembers life before, and maybe that’s what makes this so hard. He remembers talking to pretty girls, their bright smiles, their soft skin underneath his hands. Good times were easy to come by, even though life was hard in a different way, then. But he was good at it; acting on his feelings alone used to be simple, fun, second-nature almost.

It’s different now.

It used to be different only once before, and look where that’s gotten him.

No, he can’t say anything. Not ever; or not yet, at any rate.

Sometimes, though, Bucky lies awake at night and listens to the rain knocking against his window, and he remembers how much easier falling asleep used to be when he had someone next to him and his mattress didn’t swallow him alive.

He’ll remember the dark circles under your eyes and wish it could be as easy as asking, too. He wonders if there’s a universe you remember where he tries, but he doubts it.

These days, he knows his mind again. And it’s not a burden he wants to share.

You have enough to carry on your own.

Maybe, he thinks as he stares up at the ceiling at three in the morning, maybe there’s still a certain comfort in your powers, in knowing all the possibilities, but it also means constantly losing something that’s real; always mourning the life that isn’t.

He can relate to that.

And maybe that means you can relate to him, too, at least a little bit.

It’s odd, how comforting that last little thought is to him.

When he does eventually fall asleep, you make your way into his dreams, too, sometimes. Those times are the worst.

You’re you, and he’s him, and there’s a sort of "us" in the both of you that doesn’t exist in real life. So when you let him lace his fingers with yours and press your lips to his forehead and it feels easy, that’s usually the point when he wakes up, heart tumbling over itself, right hand tracing the ghost of your touch, always too much, never enough.

He knows it’s not real.

He knows it’s just an indulgence; selfish, really.

The problem is that whatever small hope has decided to settle in his very core is impossible to kill, no matter how much he pushes it down; and he’s not sure he wants to lose it again.

Secretly, silently, serendipitously, you make him have faith in the future again.

But it’s not time for it yet.

if you want to read more about these two (plus a lot of time related shenanigans), read the main series here. or check out the rest of my bucky fics, that's also an option 💚 i don't do tag lists but you can follow @intrepidacious-fics for update notifications

[eisforeidolon]

Question: So Jared you've been in so many amazing things, I loved you in, obviously, Supernatural, but Gilmore Girls -

[Jensen frantically claps with the audience while Jared tries to stop him, then Jensen makes an exaggerated face of excitement and heart hands]

Question: Jensen, you've been amazing in everything as well, The Boys, I cannot wait for the next season -

[Jared makes a face of exaggerated excitement and also does heart hands]

Question: I've been wanting to let you know that, because I've never been called up before. So I wanted to ask in all of your different roles and all your different experiences, how do you pick your next project? Like is there a specific line or a new challenge you want, like how do you say yes or no I'm not doing this. What sparks your interest in that next project?

Jared: That's a great question. I'll start. Usually it starts with an email from my accountant. [laughs]

Jensen: I was gonna say, we get an email from our agent that says, uh, they have a budget and they wanna hire you. Alright, where do I start?

Jared: It's like what did we spend on the credit cards last month? Okay, I'm taking jobs. Just kidding. That's a great question and I think - I'll say this flat out, just having been on Supernatural - or Gilmore, then Super, then Walker? And not having really signed on to anything officially until Fire Country? That was - and I spoke for many years, and I think people thought I was kidding? But I think the way I would love the [finger quotes] structure of my career if I can - you know, man plans, god laughs? But like working with people I enjoy? Max has been a buddy, Max Thieriot, has been a buddy of ours for damn near a decade, he's awesome. Great [?] guy, great actor. And he was down in Austin, he and his family were down in Austin for the Country Music Awards and they were gonna leave the night of and they were like, wait, you're in town? And I was like yeah, so they stayed an extra day to come hang out. And we talked about, like, working together. At the time, Walker had not yet not been picked up? So it was still kinda like, uh, I mean we've had those conversations with Max for years? Like dude, it would be fun to work together! It would be fun to work together! And so when Walker did not get picked up, Max reached out, he was like, dude I'm so sorry, you wanna come play in Vancouver? And I was like, hell yes, I'd love to come play in Vancouver. Or like Kripke with me and the - with Ackles, obviously, Soldier Boy is a giant role. Yeah, bravo. For me, I'm not gonna play a Soldier Boy style character where I have that much to do, but Kripke was like, hey dude, sorry about Walker, like you wanna come play in Toronto? Like I'd love to get you and Ackles and Jeffrey Dean together on screen again. And I was like - so [crosses his fingers] I don't know what he's writing yet, or if it's gonna work out, but I was like -

Jensen: [makes face of exaggerated apprehension]

Jared: [laughs]

Jensen: Careful what you wish for!

Jared: Yeah, he goes, you know that scene with, uh, Rob? I was like ... yes? He's like, okay, I'll go write. And I was like, don't write that, don't write that! Yeah, so I think right now I'm currently in a place where I'd love to work with - I think through to Monk's point, who we met earlier, well, who y'all met earlier? For the last twenty years of my life, I've worked with people that I enjoy and love. That I would gladly hang out with in the mornings or in the nights or during the day at work or at play and I think it'd be a really tough pill to swallow to just go be on some show with somebody that's not the best person or the happiest person on set or off and so I hope I get to work with people that I really enjoy telling fun and new stories. Yeah.

Jensen: Yeah, not entirely dissimilar from what Jared said, that we've been very fortunate enough in our careers to get to a point now where we do kind of get to - not pick and choose, and certainly not dictate - but just have a little bit more kind of say in maybe what comes next. And we are fortunately enough getting options to do, you know, maybe a couple of things or - so, you know for me now it is really about finding projects that sound like they can be successful? You know, like you don't wanna put a whole bunch of energy and time and away from your family into something that just is gonna go [makes dismissive noise and thumbs down gesture]. And so that's kind of the first thing is just making sure that the story and the writing of the characters and stuff all like really line up to be, to have a shot at doing something great? And then, the people. It really for me, it is so much about the people and the personalities and the tone on a set? Because I've been on toxic sets and it's - I don't wanna go to work. I don't wanna do that. And I feel like I've gotten to a point now in my career where I don't have to do that. And now I get to find these projects or go work on projects with people that I know and I trust and I have a really good rapport with or a great relationship with or [gestures at Jared] a great friendship with? And that's even more satisfying than just going and doing a job. And so very, very blessed to be in that position, he and I both are, and I think that it is now kinda starting to come to fruition, what all of that work has been for, and getting us to that point. Because now we're getting to work with people like getting to go up and work with our friends. I just got back from doing an episode of Tracker with my buddy Justin Hartley. You know that came about by me just texting him during the Superbowl and saying hey, get your ugly face off the tv, I'm tryin to watch the show, or I'm trying to watch the game. And he was like, hey, you wanna come up and play my brother? And I was like, let's go! Let's do it, that sounds awesome! And it was. And I happened to know the showrunner of the show, because he was the showrunner on Big Sky. Which was another reason why I went and did Big Sky, that was one of the reasons I did Big Sky. Because I met with Elwood and he and I just hit it off immediately and he was a fan of my work and I quickly became a fan of his, and he pitched me his ideas and I was like, yes. And it just sounded like a really fun environment to be a part of and so I went and did that, had a great experience, Elwood is now running Tracker. He was like, come on up. I was like, you know, when and where, pal? This new show Countdown? I got to spend some time and we've had a lot of phone calls, a lot of interactions back and forth with Derek who is running the show, created the show, Derek Haas. And a fantastic guy, a Dallas native, another Texas boy up there, so a lot of connections and just is just a really good person. He's a father, and he's - he just - we vibed really, really quickly and so again, like, had that not happened and had those relationships not been built and had, I think, the reputation of us not have been established over the period of time that it has? We might be in a different position. But I'm proud of where we are, I'm proud of what we get to do, and I'm proud of the opportunities that are coming our way now because of it.

[warmmilk-n-honey]

So I've been seeing a lot of dadbastian hate lately in the confessions-which is fine you are completely in your right to not like something I do. As a dadbastian scholar I just wanted to write out some of the reasons I and others love it because I will take any opportunity to talk about dadbastian lmao.

I think dadbastian is interesting because of the inherent angst of having a parent/child relationship that is inherently incompatible due to the difference in species between father and son, (this can also lead to funny/cute hijinks) more about that down below 👇

Let's talk about Coattails, the dadbastian fic. Part of the appeal of Coattails is seeing Sebastian transform from how he is characterized in the manga, to a loving parent, and having him grapple with the guilt of contributing to Ciel's trauma. There's catharsis in Sebastian beginning to feel the way we feel for Ciel when reading the manga. I can only speak for myself here but reading the manga feels like a thousand knives being stabbed into my heart knowing that Ciel will never get the help he desperately needs, thus Coattails provides a sort of remedy to this with Ciel's trauma being properly addressed. It's not that I don't like the dark story of the manga, but it can be nice to have a more comforting alternative with the characters I love. And while it is comforting, there is also a lot of angst that goes with that comfort. They say the worst thing a parent can go through is outliving their child, and that is inherent in Ciel and Sebastian's relationship because their species aren't compatible with one another. Sebastian also may not be the best person to parent Ciel, but he's all that Ciel has, he's doing his best but worries about failing the child. Manga Seb is a very static character, so giving him more human emotions and feelings uwu can make him more dynamic and interesting to write/read about. There are just endless things you can explore with the monster parent/human child dynamic, it is simply chef's kiss.

I also want to dispel that myth that dadbastian is inherently "wholesome," because it certainly doesn't have to be. You can explore abusive dynamics with dadbastian and explore Sebastian's demonic personality. My biggest issue with the way Yana characterizes Ciel and Sebastian's relationship is the psychosexual aspect to it that is not properly explored nor addressed. It is just there for gross fanservice reasons-I could write an entire essay on that in of itself. Dadbastian can provide a way to explore this abusive dynamic without the sexual undertones that can be quite triggering for some people. Also to say Yana doesn't purposely make their relationship parental on any level would just be false, it's just that she combines "the filial with the erotic" to quote that academic Black Butler essay written like a decade ago lol. Dadbastian simply takes out the erotic side that is not thoughtfully addressed within the manga to make it a more straight forward abusive parent type relationship.

TLDR; I think many of us are attracted to dadbastian because it makes Seb into a more interesting and dynamic character than he gets to be in the manga, cuts out some of the uncomfortable "undertones" in there relationship that are not properly explored/addressed in the manga, there is a lot of angst to their monster parent human child relationship, and having Sebastian be a loving parent can be cathartic for many because Ciel's whole personality is that he needs a mom. idk my brain is just filled with serotonin when Seb tucks his kid in or something-I can't explain it!!

Dadbastain is the best thing this fandom ever invented y'all are just mean

[hislittleraincloud]

Old Man Rambling

Yanno, I kinda miss the days of Tumblr where you kids were identifying as inanimate objects. There were kids IDing as kiwis and biscuits. Biscuitkin, kiwikin, shit like that. It kept this place relatively quiet because, well. Inanimate objects don't make much noise. And it was amusing as shit because there was always a teeny tiny part of y'all who knew it was all goddamn bullshit, but you never let the razzing force your masks off. You wanted attention and ya got it. You still kept to yourselves, even though you were thoroughly obsessed with your otherkinship.

But now. Holy Hell.

The current "kids'" personal lives are so hollow and so horrible that they've resorted to policing the lives of people they don't even personally know (celebrities, particularly young Hollywood). The identification is so strong that what they love so obsessively* couldn't possibly be anything else but what and how the heavily biased observer wants to see them as.

It is for that reason why I do sympathize with Ortega, if only a little (she did choose this life, her parents could've stopped it at any time knowing how strange celebrityhood has changed throughout our decades alive). Social media is evil. We did not have this when I was young, when the young Winona Ryder who is being splashed all over my fyp was posing for those photos, we only got to see them on paper, in magazines, bro. We didn't have all of this creepy connectivity where there was a very good chance that a celebrity would see our comments. It just was not like that at all.

So I get it, I get that it's changed and it can be really hard just to be a regular person because everyone has a goddamn video camera in the palm of their hands with videos ready to go online within seconds. It's shitty, and probably one of the things that's killing pro paparazzi (though in some cases it's made them worse); anyone and everyone can get a scoop now.

And if that's the case, why are kids behaving like paparazzi, knowing what the paparazzi did to Princess Diana (and Britney, offering up those umbrella photos out of their context of her situation that hardly anyone really knew about). The Chappell Roan concert footage is the best current example of that (I've removed the one part that I briefly posted as promised), and I've seen the biggest Wenclair accounts pass that shit around here like it's normal to invade a girl's private moments. And in some instances, using Photoshop/AI to gaslight people into believing crap that never happened. It's RPF to the worst degree, and it isn't cool.

*ETA: I started writing this last night before I passed out from the heat, but now I want to go back to the obsessive fan thing (partially bc of my recent experience here). User name redacted because I don't want to give her any more attention:

This ain't cute and not to be normalized. Had a male done this, it would've been seen as creepy.

It's this level of obsession — and the false sense of closeness that social media connectivity brings — that gives the Ortega stans a sense of entitlement over her (personal and professional) life that they do not have a right to influence.

And as someone who has studied and observed adolescent psych for decades, it amazes me to see young ♀️ adolescents behave like stalkers and get a pass for the behavior just because of their gender. Some of the most dangerous stalkers can be female, since they're not always taken as seriously as the males (male stalkers aren't always taken seriously either, so think about how much less female ones are). Jodi Arias, Victoria Rickman, Shayna Hubers, Liz Golyar, Vegas Bray...the list goes on and on.

It's obviously not a direct comparison; I'm not saying that what the kids are doing is necessarily dangerous for the object of obsession (since there is no direct relationship and physical access) or that it even has the potential to get violent (doesn't seem so), but it's not always entirely harmless.

Now, I understand that obsession is a thing with adolescents. I've seen it first hand. One of my favorite films is about the very type of 🏳️‍🌈 obsession that forms between two girls sometimes**, and features Kate Winslet's first screen kiss with a ♀️.

Most of us old farts grew up in an era where acting was acting: Even with the lack of connectivity, we knew Kate Winslet and Lyndskey weren't gay, but we still adored and appreciated the performances. Same goes for Hillary Swank in her Oscar winning role as 'Brandon Teena'; we knew she wasn't a 🏳️‍⚧️man. It was acting. More than half the cast of the original L Word was straight, and there wasn't anything close to this kind of creepy stalker crap back then.

Sadly I think that the more connectivity there is, the less real connectivity happens, and that presents obsessively attached fans with a false sense of security that would crumble if the people they worship turn out to be something contrary to the image in their minds that they've cobbled together from their celebrity's public behavior and works.

I don't think this type of delusion was present with Biscuitkin and Kiwikin. The foodkin did nothin' to anyone but exist, and food is food. The Ortega stans are fucking scary and need to cut it out. It's made fandom a scarier place for celebrities, because the Internet is forever and you're out there showing just how twisted up/potentially obsessive towards people you can be. It may not be embarrassing to you now since you have this false sense of 'community', but out there where y'all actually have to talk to real people and get on with real life crap, this type of behavior wouldn't fly. In 15 years when you're not a pimply, awkward high schooler/early college-aged person, someone might ask you how you spent your teen/high school years when a good chunk of it was scrolling through social media for pics and y/n stories about your favorite actress (and sometimes her co-stars).

[mi-rae07]

HI I SAW THIS ON TIKTOK CAN I REQUEST A YUNHO VERSION OF THIS WITH THE SAME PLOT PRETTY PLEASE ! + a happy ending perhaps? if you could thank you!❤️

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSLN9cvaB/

Jeong Yunho : For You

Pairing : Jeong Yunho (Ateez) and named character (Han Ye-rin)

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Synopsis : Yunho forced yerin to abort their child back when they were in college, and yerin left. Almost a decade later they meet again, except yunho is now facing the hardest chapter of life and yerin is hoping to start a new happy one.

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A/n : This took a long time to process because of the other WIP's that I had but it's finally here so enjoy! Also I might have changed the plot slightly. And I left sort of an open ending, so lmk if y'all want more (although it might take some time to process it completely).

_______________________

Yunho : what did you want to tell me, love?

Yerin looked at yunho who was standing in front of her with confused eyes, her hands fiddling with the fabric of her dress as she finally said

Yerin : I'm…yunho, I think I'm pregnant.

The look on yunho's face after she uttered those words broke yerin apart. It had been a month since she had contemplated on telling yunho about this news, and now that she was seeing his facial expression, yerin knew how this was going to end.

Yunho : yerin, what are you saying-

Yerin : I'm saying that I'm pregnant with your child, yunho.

Yunho let out a shaky breath, stepping back as he shook his head in part fear

Yunho : no. no tell me this isn't true.

Yerin : yunho-ya.

Yunho : we're only in college yerin! We cannot…I cannot have a child right now.

Yerin's eyes filled with tears, her hand instinctively going over to her stomach. Yunho's eyes landed right on it, his eyes showing only denial and fear.

Yunho : you didn’t take your pills properly.

Yerin : yunho, you cannot say this is entirely my fault. This is our child-

Yunho : this is not my child. I do not want a child, yerin.

Yerin : well I don't want one either! But we-we don't have a choice, yunho.

Yunho : yes we do. We can abort it.

Yerin's eyes widened, her hand clenching against her stomach as she took a step back.

Yerin : no. no you wouldn't.

Yunho : yerin, yerin please. You cannot let my parents know about this, we cannot have a child at this age, yerin. We're barely only adults-

Yerin : yunho, what are you talking about. This…this is life inside me. This is our child, how can you talk about killing it-

Yunho : BECAUSE I DO NOT WANT THIS CHILD! I DON'T WANT IT SO FUCKING KILL IT HAN YERIN!

Yerin flinched at his scream, tears falling down her eyes as her lips trembled in fear and pain. Yunho had never been like this to her, he had always been soft and understanding. But this, this was different.

Yerin : pl-please-

Yunho : this child cannot be born. It has to die.

Yerin rushed up to yunho as he turned around and walked towards the door, her hand quickly holding onto his as she said

Yerin : please. Please yunho, please listen to me. Please don't do this, I don't want to kill my child-

Yunho : let go of me.

Yerin shook her head, small sobs leaving her lips as she pleaded further

Yerin : I know we're young but we can manage through this yunho! Please just can't we try-

Yunho : I SAID LET GO OF ME!

Yunho snatched his hand away from yerin's harshly as she fell on the ground with a thud, her hand going over to her stomach protectively as yunho turned around and said

Yunho : no, yerin. we cannot try, we will not. Because this child is unwanted. And unwanted things deserve to be thrown away, and so does this child. Whether you like it or not, we're getting it aborted. Or things will not be pretty for either of us.

___________________________________________

10 years later :

That was 10 years ago, because now yerin was an Anesthesiologist who lived alone in her own house. And she hadn't seen yunho for a whole decade. She had let him abort the child surgically, she had let him do whatever was required because she had no choice. It broke yerin apart, to lose her child like that. But she had also lost the love of her life after it. Because after the abortion, yerin had left that college. She hadn't spoken a word to yunho before and after the procedure and almost a week after it, she had left the place without a word.

Yerin moved to Japan and finished her studies there before returning back to Korea 2 years ago. And throughout the 2 years yerin had seen yunho a lot of times on the TV, his parents were rich owners of a technological company after all. Except yunho still hadn't become CEO of the company, despite all these years. Being a CEO was the one thing yunho wanted most back in college, what had changed for him?

Yerin was now walking back home from work, deciding not to take her car to work since she wanted to feel the fresh air tonight. And it was all calm and beautiful, until she noticed someone standing on top of the railing of the bridge she was currently walking on, his back faced towards her as small sniffles could be heard.

Yerin's eyes widened in shock as she rushed towards the figure before saying

Yerin : oh no, please don't jump!

The figure in front of her flinched at her sound, turning his head around as yerin stepped back in shock.

Yerin : yun-yunho.

Yunho : yerin.

Yerin stared at yunho, his messed up face staring right back at her. This wasn't the yunho she had known. She had known him as a bright fluffball of sunshine who always prioritized others' happiness over his own, until he had aborted her child. But this yunho was different, because this one had a pale red face, tears all over his cheeks and his lips cut on the side probably from excessive biting.

Yerin was a doctor, she knew how sick and tired a person was when she saw them. But this one was different, this one was a monster who probably deserved all of this.

Yunho : what-you…you came back?

Yerin looked away, her eyes lowered and her hands clenched behind her back as she said

Yerin : I shouldn't have.

Yunho : yerin, I've wanted to see you for so long-

Yerin : what, so you can kill me too, jeong yunho?

Yunho blinked his teary eyes at her, hurt visible on his face. But yerin could care less.

Yerin : get off that railing and go back to your golden mansion, yunho. Or don't. you can jump and die for all I care.

Yerin turned around, walking away from yunho. She heard footsteps behind her as yunho said

Yunho : no wait, don't leave. I want to apologize, yerin.

Yerin : your apology will not bring my child back.

Yunho : I-I know, I know it won't but the least I can do after all that is apologize, yerin. So please let me.

Yerin rolled her eyes.

Yunho : I was scared, yerin. I was scared of what my parents would do to you and the child if they found out.

Yerin scoffed at the terrible excuse

Yerin : so you killed it instead?

Yunho : yerin, do you not understand? I was scared of what my parents would do to you, more than the child. A child can be made again, but you cannot. If something happened to you I would not be able to bear it-

Yerin : YOU ALMOST KILLED ME YUNHO!

Yunho flinched, pausing on his tracks as yerin turned around to face him with furious eyes

Yerin : you killed my child, and that almost killed me. Do you know the amount of times I had thought of ending myself when I was in Japan? The amount of times I stood on top of a railing like you were doing a few minutes ago?

Yunho let out a shaky gasp, his eyes wide as a drop of tear fell down.

Yunho : no.

Yerin walked closer to yunho before pointing at his chest and whispered

Yerin : you were a monster to me, jeong yunho. And if anything, I'd rather you just jumped down this bridge and drowned. At least in that way you would know what both my child and I felt after what you did to us.

Yerin turned around and left, leaving a crying yunho behind.

____________________________

Yunho entered his house at 4am in the night, his steps slow and tears still streaming down his eyes. The emotions he felt after seeing yerin and hearing all those words she had told him were unbearable. But it was his burden to bear, and he was going to do it.

Yunho flinched as he stepped inside the house, a glass crashing suddenly heard from upstairs. Yunho's eyes widened in fear as he rushed towards his father's study, throwing the door open as his wide eyes ran along the room that was in a complete mess, again.

His father was having one of his mad episodes again, and his mother was trying to stop him, only getting hurt instead. It had been going on for a year now, and the doctors said that mr jeong was only turning into more of a madman as days passed. The doctors had told them that mr jeong needed to get permanently admitted to a hospital, but yunho's mother was more worried about their public image than her husband's health and her own pain. She never paid any attention to yunho to begin with.

Yunho : appa!

Sehun looked up at his son with mad eyes, a small smirk falling on his lips as he said

Sehun : ah! There comes my precious little son!

Yunho : appa, let go of eomma, please.

Sehun gripped sunyoung's hair harder in his grip, causing her to let out a small whimper as she looked at yunho with desperate eyes.

Yunho : appa please, you're hurting her. You're only going to regret this after you wake up-

Sehun : my only regret is having lived this life your mother created for me! And having you, you are our biggest regret, son.

Yunho pressed his lips together, slowly stepping forward as he whispered

Yunho : appa, please come back.

Sehun : get away from me or I'll hurt your mother.

Yunho stepped closer towards his father, tears streaming down his cheek as he said

Yunho : I'm just yunho, I won't do anything to you, appa.

And yunho took that moment of his father's weakness to quickly hold him away from his mother, allowing sunyoung to step far away from her husband in part fear as yunho held his father down by the neck. As he always had, for the past year.

It was constant torture for him, having to face his proper-headed father and the harsh words he would tell yunho about not being able to become CEO of their company and then this side of his father, hurting both yunho and his mother, physically and mentally. And with all this, sunyoung's pressure and the weight of yunho having murdered his own child kept dragging him down.

It all went to a point where yunho was almost going to kill himself, if it wasn't for seeing yerin again.

And as yunho held his struggling father down on the floor with small sobs leaving his own lips, yunho closed his eyes hoping this would all end someday.

_______________________

Yerin was now sitting in the cafeteria of the hospital she was currently working in, having lunch with two of her co-workers as she giggled at something someone had said.

??? : so what, he asked you out by asking a literal puppy to hand over a card to you?

??? : I'm telling you he did! It was hilarious!

??? : please tell me you accepted it.

??? : of course I did. I would've done it even without the dog involved.

Yerin smiled at that, having a spoon of her rice as one of her friends asked

??? : aren't you going to get yourself a boyfriend, yerin-shi?

Yerin was traumatized enough from her last one, she didn't know whether she could handle yet another one.

Yerin : I haven't found a good one yet.

??? : really. Want me to set you up with someone nice, then?

Yerin smiled, shaking her head before saying

Yerin : I'd rather you not.

Her friend was about to say something when she paused, her widened eyes staring at something behind yerin. Yerin frowned.

??? : is that…jeong yunho?

Yerin's eyes widened as she quickly turned around, the sight of yunho looking around the cafeteria coming to her view. What the hell.

Yerin : excuse me.

Yerin quickly stood up from her seat and walked towards yunho as he finally noticed her. He was about to say something when yerin cut him off quickly

Yerin : do not utter a word and just follow me.

Yerin walked past yunho as if she had told him nothing, walking towards her office room as yunho followed her in part confusion. As soon as they were both inside yerin shut the door, locking it before turning around to face yunho.

Yerin : what the fuck are you doing in my hospital?

Yunho : I wanted to tell you something.

Yerin : and so you had to come up until here?

Yunho : I don't have your number and you weren't there in your house-

Yerin : how the fuck do you know where my house is?

Yunho : It-it doesn't matter, okay-

Yerin : yes it does? Yunho, we're nothing anymore. How the hell do you know my address.

Yunho : my family has connections everywhere, yerin. Finding your address isn't hard.

Yerin : so-

Yunho : please, listen to me.

Yerin : about what?

Yunho : about your mother.

Yerin paused. Her mother had abandoned her the year she turned 7, and yerin barely remembered her mother's face anymore. But back when she was in college yerin had always told yunho about how she wished to find her mother once again, despite all the odds and ask her why she had left yerin, face-to-face. Yerin didn't realize yunho would bring that up anymore.

Yerin : what?

Yunho : your mother, I've figured her out.

Yerin : yunho-

Yunho cut her off as he pulled out a card from his pocket, holding it out for yerin to hold before saying

Yunho : this is her address, both house and office. She works as a tailor right now and her shop is open up until 11pm. This is your ticket to visiting her.

Yerin eyed the car before asking

Yerin : why are you giving me this?

Yunho : it was a wish of yours, to meet your mother again. And I've always wanted to fulfill that for you but it was a really hard task. When you left, I felt like I still owed you something, for the time you spent on someone like me. This is repaying it, at least in a small bit.

Yerin looked back at yunho and was about to say something when she paused. Yunho's shirt cuffs had just rode up his wrist because of the way he was stretching out the card for yerin to hold. And under the fabric, were cut marks. As if…as if someone had deliberately put them there.

Yerin : yunho.

Yunho frowned, not understanding what was going on. But once he did, yunho's eyes widened, quickly placing the card on yerin's table before turning around in panic

Yunho : thank you for your time.

Yerin : yunho, were those cuts-

Yunho cut yerin off as he unlocked the door before rushing outside, leaving a horrified yerin behind.

Was yunho self-harming himself?

_________________________

A week later :

Yerin hadn't seen yunho after that. Every night she thought about it, the scars, the way his eyes were always red with under bags, his cheeks always damp and that beautiful smile of his, gone from him completely. It was as if he hadn't smiled for years, and his eyes reflected it.

Yerin couldn't say she had been the happiest back in Japan, but she was never in the state that yunho seemed to be in right now. And she felt a sudden pang in her heart as she realized something must be going on with him, something terrible.

Yerin was now leaning against the couch in her house, looking at the address of her mother that yunho had given her a week ago. She still hadn't visited the place, she just didn't have the guts yet. Yerin flinched as she heard the rain starting to patter outside, a small smile forming on her lips. She loved the rain.

Yerin got up from her seat, walking over to the window as she slid the curtains aside and stared out of her house. She was enjoying the way the rain fell harshly outside when she noticed a figure crouched down outside her gate, his head buried into his knees as his shoulders shook. Yunho.

Yerin's eyes widened as she quickly rushed towards her door, grabbing the nearby umbrella as she ran out of her house. The wind blew against her, that causing the cold water droplets to fall on her as the umbrella came to much less use. But she didn't care, not when yunho was sitting outside her house like that at 2am in the night.

Yerin : yunho!

Yunho flinched as yerin put her umbrella over him, shielding yunho from the rain. Although he was already drenched and shivering. Yunho looked up at yerin, his red eyes staring into her worried ones as she asked

Yerin : what the hell are you doing here!

Yunho : I…I didn't know where else to go.

Yerin : what?

Yunho : ye-yerin.

Yerin's eyes softened as yunho's lips trembled, his hands trying to grasp onto something. Yerin quickly bent down and held yunho's hand firmly in hers, asking softly

Yerin : what's wrong?

Yunho bit his lips, looking away as small sobs escaped his lips. Yerin had never seen him so broken, and that tore her heart. Yerin gripped yunho's hand harder before saying

Yerin : yunho, tell me. What's happened?

Yunho let out a sob before saying in a broken tone

Yunho : my mom's dead, yerin. My mother, she's gone.

Yunho cried harder as yerin's eyes widened, her grip on the umbrella loosening as it fell to the floor. Yunho shook his head desperately as he said

Yunho : it's all my fault. I couldn't protect her, it's my fau-

Yerin cut yunho off as she hugged him, yunho's head resting on her chest as he wailed against it. Yerin closed her eyes as tears slipped down her cheeks as well, the rain camouflaging it. Yunho gripped her hard, sobbing as his entire body trembled in pain and cold.

Yerin : I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, yunho-ya.

Yunho : why did she leave me! How could she…all I've done and suffered…

Yunho trailed off as he whimpered, burying his head deeper into yerin's chest as she tangled her fingers in his damp hair.

He was broken, and yerin had no idea how to fix him anymore.

________________________

Yerin opened the door to her house with a trembling yunho leaned against her, small whimpers leaving his lips every now and then. Yerin brought yunho to her couch before laying him down on it, quickly walking to the kitchen and grabbing a towel before going back to yunho who now had his eyes closed. But as soon as yerin brought the towel to his hair, yunho flinched, looking up at yerin.

Yerin : shh, I'm just going to-

Yunho : not me first. You have to go and take a hot shower, I'll take care of myself later.

Yerin : yunho-

Yunho : you're in this position because of me, so please, go dry yourself first.

Yerin : and? And then what, you can slip out of this house while I'm in the shower and never return?

Yunho looked away, his eyes glossy. She had just caught him. Yerin sighed, keeping the towel away as she asked

Yerin : yunho, do you self-harm?

Yunho flinched at her words, quickly sitting up as he said

Yunho : I must leave.

Yerin : yunho. I'm asking you something, do you self-harm?

Yunho stared into the floor before saying

Yunho : and if I do?

Yerin : why? Why would you do something like that to yourself yunho.

Yunho : why do you care? You said you wouldn't have minded me even dying so why the hell do you care, han yerin.

Yerin stared at yunho, droplets of water sliding down his hair and wetting her couch. Yerin leaned forward, holding yunho's wrist as he flinched. He was about to take it away when yerin said

Yerin : let me see it, yunho.

Yunho : no-

Yerin : I'm the cause of those scars, I want to see them.

Yunho froze as yerin lifted his damp sleeves, rolling it up as her eyes ran along the 10 or so cuts that were littered all around his inner arm. Yerin felt her heart drop at it, muttering under her breath

Yerin : did this distract you, yunho? Was this worth it?

Yunho : it wasn't enough. Nothing is ever enough, yerin. And now that my mother is gone, I have no purpose in this life of mine anymore.

Yerin : is that why you came here today?

Yunho let out a shaky breath, pulling his arm away from yerin as he said

Yunho : I came here today because…because I was a terrible person to you. Half of my sins, I have committed against you and our unborn child. I killed it, yerin. As a father I…I killed my own child. You think that was easy for me?

Yerin scoffed, looking away as she said

Yerin : is that why you ignored my pleads and went ahead with the procedure anyway?

Yunho : I went ahead with the procedure because I was scared, yerin. I was scared of what my parents might do to you, I couldn't bear it.

Yerin : I would've rather died than killed my child-

Yunho : except you matter to me more than the child! Yerin, please. Just…I need to leave.

Yunho got up and was about to leave when yerin held his wrist and said

Yerin : what guarantee do I have that you won't do this again? Harm yourself again?

Yunho : you shouldn't care-

Yerin : but I do!

Yunho stared at yerin in shock as she stood up, staring right into yunho's eyes as she said

Yerin : yes, I'm not supposed to care, yes I'm supposed to be angry at you, yes I'm supposed to hate you but…but your mother has just died, yunho. Whatever it is that has happened between us, it doesn't matter right now.

Yunho looked away, his eyes tearing up once again as yerin held both his hands in hers before saying

Yerin : I won't let you face this alone. Your mother, your father, the company, we're going to face all that together from now.

Yunho : you don't have to-

Yerin : except I want to. You killed my child, yunho. I won't let you kill the man I once loved too.

Yunho felt tears slip down his eyes as yerin leaned forward and kissed his cheek before whispering

Yerin : this time, I'm going to be there for you.

_____________________

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Little Moments with Massive Impacts

I absolutely adored Daughter of the Moon Goddess and Heart of the Sun God, and there is something lush and comfortable and quietly gripping about Sue Lynn Tan's writing. When Tan's original duology ended, I was satisfied, but honestly this is one of those worlds where I would happily take anything more the author was willing to give us. And she has given us some new small moments and an epilogue that just wrapped my heart in a warm blanket and squish hugged it. Let's talk Tales of the Celestial Kingdom.

SPOILER WARNING!!! I am going to spoil not only TotCK, but DotMG and HotSG. BE WARNED.

This little short story collection is divided into three main sections: "Dusk," "Twilight," and "Dawn." Each section covers moments before, during, or after the main duology. The only story from Xingying's perspective is the last one; the other stories are from the perspective of other characters.

"Dusk" focuses on Chang'e and Houyi and expands their relationship before Xingying's birth. It also explores the toll killing the sunbirds took on Houyi and the choices that led to Chang'e taking the immortality elixir to save her own and Xingying's life. Seeing their relationship and their clear love for each other before decades of grief and change have colored and complicated it was a delight. Chang'e and Houyi in this version of their tale are fiercely in love, and that is ultimately what makes their story so tragic.

I also loved that, despite the brevity of the stories, the emotions were clear, complex, and communicated effectively. That can be hard to do in short form (I have always been terrible at it; I like to have a little more space to really wallow in feelings when I write) and I've never been a major short story girl; I like novel-length stuff. But I was entirely here for this reimagining of the Chang'e myth.

"Twilight" fills in spaces that were implied but not explored during the DotMG and HotSG timelines. We get a little more Liwei and Xingying as students, with a quick little adventure just as Liwei realizes he is beginning to fall in love. We also get a little more Wenzhi and Xingying in the Celestial army, also as Wenzhi realizes he is falling in love. I absolutely adore seeing Xingying through their eyes, and it was very instructive to see how they perceive their relationship with Xingying. I was ALWAYS a Wenying (Xingzhi? I dunno, reblog with your preferred ship name) girl, because quite frankly Liwei had too many Prince Jonathan of Conte vibes for me to think he was a good idea. Getting into Liwei's head just strengthened that perception, and while I can understand that he and Wenzhi were both inherently flawed characters...frankly I could support Wenzhi's flaws a lot more smoothly than Liwei's. (Honestly y'all, I might actually need to slap Liwei, especially when he's out here being an UTTER DICKHEAD).

Our boys aren't the only perspectives in "Twilight." We also get Shuxiao and Mengqi's mission to free the Celestial Emperor from Wugang. We are always here for BFF Shuxiao, and honestly if we were ever to get another short story collection in the Celestial Kingdom, I want a slice-of-life first date for these lovely ladies, because they have SUCH A SPARK. Like, we get one short story for them. It is 19 pages. And yet I am HERE for them to have a long, happy life snarking off at each other. The chemistry was just beautifully done. Give our girls their own book.

Finally, "Dawn" gives us a little more from Wenzhi in his mortal life, and Yingxing inserting herself into it. It's darling, and I appreciate the subtle nuances and differences that highlight that yes, this is definitely Wenzhi, but it's not Wenzhi the Prince of the Demon Realm. And yet he and Xingying are still perfect for each other, still love each other. And they have their first mortal date at Wenzhi's favorite tea house. It's DARLING.

What the final story does, however, is give me the ending that I desperately hoped for--but notably did not get--at the end of HotSG. The end of that book gives us the hope that Wenzhi and Xingying will have an immortal life together with Wenzhi's memories and experiences as an immortal restored to him. It was a wonderful, uplifting end to a book that had a lot to do with grief, but the thing it didn't do was make it too easy. Which I think is so important for good storytelling.

That said, actually getting Xingying and Wenzhi reuniting as immortals, and--for Wenzhi--picking up after he had just sacrificed himself for Xingying was SO. SATISFYING. We had the hope, we knew it was a possibility, and that's often what we have to sit with and exist with in real life. That's fine. But every once in a while--a very great while, it seems--we get the fruition of that hope and promise. We actually get the unambiguously happy ending and we, along with Xingying, remember that happiness is crucial.

Y'all, the end of this collection is so soft and happy, and I'm so deeply grateful that it's in the world with me.

[sailorspica]

HI KAT !! completely appro po of nothing,,, can i hear about 📝🏷️❤️👀 ?

we did it we hit every single question in this self-ship game!! ty for feeding the yap y'all. the others are one ; two ; three ; four ; five

oh CAT

📝: How would your story in canon go? How would you influence the events of the original story?

i got 0 influence. this is the canon compliant, nothing changes AU baybee. going off of scant worldbuilding where

there are stray arab and japanese names in the survey corps (rashad and keiji);

city boy jean has "never seen anyone who looks like" mikasa before;

the military police and wallists keep the walls scientifically/socially late medieval/early modern;

mikasa's maternal line was shunted to the mountains near shiganshina;

the AU imagines some mixed-race eldians like mr leonhart work in resource extraction and in the "industrial towns" that produce ODM gear mentioned in one Currently Available Public Information bit. a la the west virginia coal wars, the military police have been violently strikebreaking and unionbusting in these communities for decades. basically, kenny, other people have serious beef with the military police who aren't disgraced aristocrats (ackermans) or blond (erwin + armin + historia), e.g. racial minorities. so we meet because i hatched a sloppy plan to assassinate some MP instrumental in these conflicts that probably involved like. seduction but i'm a 20-year-old idiot virgin and i basically "get in kenny's way" and i don't think i'm sanitizing him in reading that he ONLY KILLED COPS, so he probably tells me to scamper off but instead i'm like "fuck YOU i had a plan" and he's like "a plan to get gutted maybe" et cetera. i lead him to the next guy on my arya stark-style kill list and we dispose of the bodies and he lives with me on-and-off for a couple years before disappearing, so i assume he either got arrested or killed, but in the interim i definitely managed some solo kills of my own of MPs who came dangerously close to tracking him down, and maybe my association with kenny the ripper has my neighbors run me out of town so i eventually settle in wall rose as a pathetic little blacksmith who only makes like, cookware at first. by 847 i'm in some position for the royal government to contract me with making some of the weirdly huge anti-personnel control squad's new ODM gear. come to find out kenny is not dead but a sellout, but i am, too, as an armorer. we probably hook up a few times before the uprising arc and then he is dead

🏷️: What is you and your f/o’s ship name?

well katken but if we're going with the four-syllable katakana tradition i think my (our) name can be chopped up to kya su ri n... so something's there. kenrin is kind of cute. rinken looks like a skate rink or abe lincoln

❤️: How popular is you x your f/o? Are you a rarepair?

kenuri is a rarepair in terms of like, ao3 totals but it's unequivocally both of their most popular ships. so yes

👀: How does your ship with your f/o influence both of your characterisations and the world? Would there be any interesting metas written about your dynamic?

i believe, not to suck my own dick here, the entire AU premise hinges on class and racial politics in the walls and basically invents the wall equivalent of appalachia, and doesn't let us forget the ackermans were a noble house. so yes. but specifically about katken's one-on-one dynamic, i think it's the ghoulcy thing of "i'm you, sweetie" which HONESTLY >>>> is a little sannes "break a leg, hange." whoa

[iwatchedyougoinghomeeveryday]

So... over the summer I finally watched Lost.

I can't believe I waited over a decade to watch this show. I used to read all of the recaps in my Entertainment Weekly magazines and was closely following the fan reactions throughout the final season. I remember everyone hating the final episode and I was shocked at that. I actually started the pilot twice within the decade, but it stressed me out so much that I switched to watching something more lighthearted lol. Well, this past summer, my mom and I watched the entire show. And we freakin loved it. (Duh.) (Also EVERYONE IS WRONG AND THE FINALE IS GREAT.)

Here are my thoughts because talking about 2000s television shows is my favorite thing:

(spoilers)

I loved all of the characters and can't stand any of the hate I've seen online. THESE PEOPLE WERE GOING THROUGH SOME DEEP TRAUMA, OKAY?! My favorites: 1) Jack 2) Locke 3) Sayid 4) Sun 5) Sawyer

Jack was my favorite from the first episode. People who take on all this excess emotional responsibility are always my favorites (Matt Saracen! Randall Pearson!), but I found it so interesting to watch a character with a savior complex being thrown into a huge crisis. Did he make mistakes? Yes. Was he sometimes toxic and super messy? Obviously. But that made him an even stronger lead character and he, ultimately, was a layered and great deconstruction of the typical "hero" character. Y'ALL JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND JACK SHEPARD.

John Locke. "Walkabout". I don't even need to say more. Okay, yeah I do. He won me over in the previous episode, with him helping find Vincent and letting Michael take the credit. But this episode... I had chills. I was sobbing throughout the final five minutes. The episode got me completely obsessed with the show. John Locke was also a messy character, and he had his good and bad moments, but my God, was his story just so sad. I can't think about his ending because I'll start sobbing all over again.

Also the Jack/John dynamic was one of my favorite parts of the show. Every single one of their scenes was golden. The fact that their final conversation is what pushed John over the edge and made him want to commit suicide, AND THEN John's death and Jack's guilt over everything is what led JACK to want to commit suicide. THE HEARTBREAKING PARALLELS IN THIS SHOW MY GOD.

Okay but in the limited time I've been checking fan reactions, why does Sayid seem to be underrated?! WHY?! He was also one of my favorites from the very beginning and he's pretty much the only one to not let me down. (Okay, season 6 weirdness aside.) WHAT A MAN. If I was on that dang island, I would just be doing whatever Sayid did. Sayid says we should stay? We should stay. Sayid's going with Jack? I'm going with Jack. He was intelligent, thoughtful, strong, had finesse, could do weird things with his legs (not sexual). Yeah, he had the most yiiiikes backstory of being a torturer, but... I'D FOLLOW HIM ANYWHERE.

SUN WAS A QUEEN. She had the most iconic lines. Her takedowns... incredible. I love how at the start she was seen as the most "pure" one on the island, but she also had all these secrets and was lowkey manipulative. (I love how her arc is also the reverse of Jin's, who starts out as the worst, but becomes so sweet and everyone's fave later on. Not saying Sun became a bad person, but her character got darker while Jin's got lighter.) No one talk to me about the sub. NO ONE TALK TO ME ABOUT THE SUB.

Sawyer... first, I loved that he was a reader. Him with his little glasses... some of my favorite moments. I loved that his awfulness didn't go away in an episode. You'd have moments of him showing a deeper, more caring side, then he'd immediately remind you why you couldn't stand him. He was a jerk and didn't really shed that in until, what, season 3? He didn't really make the transition to "hero" until he jumped out of that helicopter though. Anyway, never met a character that hated himself more!!!

I was into the Jack/Kate/Sawyer love triangle for the first season and a half because they all seemed to have respect for each other. Okay, "respect" might not be the right word, but Jack and Sawyer's beef went way deeper than Kate. They never really fought each other over Kate, which was refreshing. The writers definitely dragged the triangle on for way too long, though, and at the detriment of Kate's character. Girl deserved better!!! The show should've focused on how Kate tried to redeem herself by always being there for everyone, but they kept her in love triangle limbo. I thought Kate/Sawyer made sense on the island, but they were ultimately indulging each other's worst traits. Like they bonded because they could relate to their shady pasts, so that was the strength of their relationship. Jack/Kate definitely won me over and I wish we got more happy moments of them off the island. This show could never let these characters have nice things!!!

Sawyer and Juliet... I like in theory. Buttttt I'm not as crazy about them as most fans. I think it's because I live for the build-up in a relationship and we skipped all that with them. I wanted to understand better why they were "it" for each other. But the Incident scenes, OH MY GOD WHY IS THIS SHOW MY NEW COMFORT SHOW WHEN IT IS SO PAINFUL?!

Sun/Jin, Jack/Kate, Desmond/Penny. Those are the ships.

(Okay and crackship is definitely Jack/Sawyer. Those two had CHEMISTRY.)

I love that all I've talked about are the characters. I need to rapid fire add my thoughts: I wish Danielle and Alex had more time. We deserved more scenes of them together. Danielle was a badass and Alex was, too, and their reunion took SOOO long to happen, then it was over. Also Alex lowkey had the saddest story on this show, thinking about her entire life but especially her last hour alive... I can't.

MICHAEL DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER!!! Michael and Walt had one of the most interesting dynamics, but I also loved his interactions with so many other characters, like Jin. I get why they had to write Walt off the show, with the child actor growing so fast, but to do Michael so dirty... WHY?! What he did was the worst (I can't recall anyone else senselessly killing someone in cold blood... no self-defense, just two innocent people), BUT I also felt bad because he was driven to that point by his child being taken from him. I wish the writers didn't have him tell Walt what happened because the way Michael's story ended was heartbreaking. And they should've brought Walt back once they did a time-jump!!! At the very least, they deserved to be in that church at the end.

I love that Ben has done so many awful things, literally committed genocide, and I'm just like, "Ahhhh, I love that funny little man".

Season 1 was definitely my favorite season. I didn't expect so much of it to be focused on the survival aspect... I expected more of the overt mystery elements to be the focus in the first season? But surprisingly, the survival story of the first season was my favorite. I felt like it gave everyone time to bond and they really became a little family. Later they get split up a lot, and the survival elements aren't the same, so I was nostalgic for the first season.

I've written so much and I haven't even talked about the individual seasons. I don't even think I can rank them. Season 1... easy favorite. Season 6... last. But the others all had parts I really liked and didn't like. Like season 2's first half, season 3's back half, and the concepts of seasons 4 and 5 were great (even though I think they could've been executed better in parts). One thing I wish we had was more of the Oceanic 6's time off-island. That was such a huge reveal and change in the story... I wish we saw how they were coping, not just with their lies and leaving everyone behind, but adjusting to "normal" life after being in intense survival mode for 100 days.

[shyguycity]

It's been a while since I made a formal game of the year list on this page; in 2020, my now wife and I decided to make an entire fanzine about my favorite games of the year, which ballooned in size and scope from there. If you're interested, you can find the link to the (free!) magazine, Critical Diversions, as well as see what else I've been up to in the gaming space, over at https://twitter.com/crit_diversions. It was written by five people, myself included, layoutted into a magazine format by me, and with some lovingly done illustrations made by my wife. We've also started a discord, games club, and podcast, all under the Critical Diversions banner, if any of that sounds appealing to you.

Since that magazine project, I haven't really had the creative energy to write a full game of the year list the way that I used to. Until now! 2023 has been the most incredible year for game releases that I've been alive to see, and there's so much to be excited for and talk about, I just couldn't resist anymore, despite the fact that we're gearing up to do a community game of the year podcast. But before we get to the top 10 list proper....

Honorable Mentions:

We Love Katamari ReRoll + Royal Reverie

The original We Love Katamari, released on the Playstation 2 in 2005, was already one of my favorite games ever made, so it's borderline unfair of Namco to release an absolutely perfect HD remaster of it in 2023. Namco must've thought so, too, because this was one of my most anticipated games of the year, and I didn't even realize it had released until I happened to see it on the eShop. To the uninitiated, Katamari games task you with rolling up real world objects with your sticky katamari ball, growing bigger and bigger as you go, all with the intent of making your katamari big enough to make stars in the sky. It's a simple yet delightful enough concept on its own to be enjoyed by anyone, but add in an unmeasurable amount of charm and one of the greatest soundtracks ever made, and it's easy to see why this goofy little series has persisted for over two decades now.

For my money, this is the best entry in the series, practically spilling over with creative and fun new ways and reasons to roll over innocent bystanders and animals with a space ball given to you by your negligent, abusive father, who is also basically god. Oh did I forget to mention that there's an actual well told narrative with a genuinely emotional-but-not-saccharine message at its core? Buy this fucking game y'all, I've already seen it for as low as 15 dollars.

Final Fantasy V Pixel Remaster

Final Fantasy as a series misses way more often than it hits, for me. Yeah I love 7, its remake, 10, and 10-2, but by and large, every other entry I've tried to spend time with has left me incredibly cold (looking at you in particular, 6). Between craving a turn-based RPG and having the flu earlier this year, I decided to take a chance on the pixel remaster version of 5, released on consoles for the first time in 2023. Imagine my surprise when it became hands down my favorite entry in the series, as well as one of my favorite RPGs I've ever played.

Not to say that what's presented here hasn't been improved upon in the past 30 years; Octopath Traveler 2, a game we'll be talking about in my actual top 10, seemed to base its entire design around "Hey remember Final Fantasy 5? Let's make a way more open and less restricted version of that". Still, though, what FF5 was doing as an early Super Famicom game is pretty impressive; boasting a fairly open-ended job and multiclass system that's absolutely begging you to make as many fun combinations as you can imagine with your party members, it's a game that's infinitely more replayable than your average Final Fantasy fare, despite its lacking (but not horrible!) story. I ran through the game with a samurai that could also shoot hoardes of squirrels and bees out of my pockets, so you know it's a great game.

Super Mario RPG

Look, you'll never convince me that Mario RPG and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door aren't both wildly inferior to the original Paper Mario on the Nintendo 64. I've held this belief (and grudge against these other Mario spinoff fandoms) for most of my life, and I will continue to do so. And I say this as someone whose first exposure to RPGs was renting the original version of this game as a seven-year-old!

"It's too simple!" I would always bleat feebly in the general direction of the nearest hardcore Geno fan whenever this game was brought up. "It's a solid blueprint for what was to come later, but largely feels like a rough draft, a 16-bit Final Fantasy with a Mario coat of paint!" And, yeah, I am right about all of those things, and I'll continue to never let any of you forget it. But in 2023, playing this remake of one of Nintendo's most annoyingly favorited fan favorites, I couldn't help but let myself get washed away in its charms. There's no build variety or real "role-playing" to speak of, you can 100% the game in like 12 hours, and you just generally never have to turn your brain on while playing the game at all. Call it softness, call it old age, call it just really being in the mood for a cute and charming little adventure, but I fell in love with this game and its world in a way I never was able to previously. Bring on that Thousand-Year Door remaster next, Nintendo; I'm in a forgiving mood.

Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania

Speaking of being in a forgiving mood, did y'all know that I thought the original 1.0 release of Dead Cells was incredibly boring? Released in 2018, this sidescrolling roguelite was getting a ton of accolades at the time that had me extremely excited. That's not to say that it was bad, of course; I could see the markings of a well made game, and obviously the game was appealing to someone out there, with all the praise it received. But after 10 hours with it I deleted it off my Switch, thinking I'd never.........return.

It only took five years and a paid Castlevania expansion to make me give this game another look, but I'm glad I did, because I would put this pretty high up there on my all-time roguelite list now. To be clear, most of my issues with this game still remain, mostly that it gets repetitive much sooner than you'd expect of a game with as much content as this does. But instead of cooling on it 10 hours in like I did back in 2018, I got over 60 hours and dozens upon dozens of runs in before calling it quits on Dead Cells this time.

And if you're a Castlevania dork, honestly, just pick this up. There's more than enough love and fanservice here to keep even the most ardent of Castlevania freaks crying bloody tears, including the ability to replace the entire soundtrack with Castlevania songs, most of them the original version but with some new compositions included. Roguelite shredding in a video game hasn't been this good since Hades.

Now...the actual list.

10. Marvel's Spider-Man 2

No one is more down on open world checklist collectathons than I am; the idea of spending over 100 hours playing a modern Assassin's Creed game honestly makes my tummy hurt. And by and large, Spider-Man 2 doesn't stray far from this design template. You run, jump, swing, and glide all over New York City, stopping burglaries and car chases on your way to the next story objective or side mission, leveling up and spending points on various skill trees to level your Spider-Men up to gain new/upgrade old abilities, rinse and repeat. Structurally, this game isn't really doing anything different from the previous two Spider-Man games from developer Insomniac, and yet this entry was an absolute joy to play to me in way those weren't.

Largely, I think it's the pacing of the game. And not just on a macro scale, though I do think that's improved here as well. No, for me it was most noticeable in the combat; no longer are you holding down a button to freeze time and pull up a gadget wheel and having Spider-Man select one of his little science tools to shoot out before doing a few melee attacks and web shots. Instead, all of your gadgets and super moves are activated in real time with different button combinations. It might sound breathlessly dorky, but that simple change really sold the illusion of playing a Spider-Man simulator to me, and not just a Ratchet and Clank game with a Spider-Man skin.

The story I also found to be a wholesale improvement over the last two games, albeit with the caveat that the symbiote and Venom storyline almost never come across as anything beyond tryhard 90s edgelord shit in any form of media. Truly, I think Venom is just a straight up awful character, and is even worse here than usual, and I was exceptionally tired of Peter's gruff mean guy voice by the end of his time wearing the symbiote. Miles more than made up for any issues I had with the Peter side of the story, and with the way the game's story leaves off, I hope to see that character again sooner than Spider-Man 3 in another half decade.

9. Pikmin 4

This feels like Pikmin's big breakout moment as a series. And honestly, maybe my biggest surprise of the year isn't how great this game was, but how many other people were (finally) raving about Pikmin. The fact that it's this relatively low on my own list when most people I know that played it have it near the top of theirs shocks, while also making me feel pretty damn great about Pikmin's future.

From a casual perspective it's pretty easy to see why this has been such a hit for the series. It retains all the charm and cuteness and great gameplay loop of previous games in the series, while making a ton of smart changes along the way. New to 4: a fully adjustable camera that makes you feel way more involved in the action (and see all of the impossibly cute death happening around and to you); a whole host of quality of life changes, like being able to move your spaceship around each stage at will to have a more accessible base of operations; bonafide multifloor dungeons where you're able to soak in some of the best aspects of Pikmin's gameplay without worrying about time passing; "dandori battles", both against the CPU or local rivals where you aim to manage your armies as efficiently as possible; and partner space dog Oatchi, who can help you and your little army of dudes in whatever way you see fit, from battling to carrying to scouting, thanks to an honest to god skill tree. In a Pikmin game! Who woulda thought.

Honestly though, as great as this game was, I can't help but pine for the more complex level and puzzle design of Pikmin 3, as well as the local splitscreen cooperative play of Pikmin 3 Deluxe. That second feature in particular was sorely, sorely missed in our household, as Pikmin 3 Deluxe's sublime coop is some of the most fun I've ever had playing a video game with my wife. Here's hoping the now inevitable Pikmin 5 manages to bring these missing elements home, much like my group of 100 Pikmin carrying an entire watermelon the size of a small mountain back to our spaceship for the day.

8. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

Besides just being a great year in game releases, 2023 was also the year where my expectations were subverted many times over. I'd seen plenty of overhyped indie spiritual successors to fan favorite games from the late 90s and early 2000s come and go, so my interest level for BRCF as someone that's never played a Jet Set Radio game couldn't have been much lower. But that's all on me, because if I'd known that this game and its inspirations were essentially just 3D platformers dressed up as a 2002 cyberpunk anime that'd air at 2am on Toonami, I'd have been all over it much sooner.

This game effortlessly pulls off everything I value in 3D platformers. The level designs are masterful and well thought out while still feeling organic instead of just abstract obstacle courses (the game does dabble into the latter at times, and they're some of the most standout moments as well). Being set in a city, it's naturally got a large emphasis on verticality that I think not enough games in this space bother with; I want to feel my stomach drop when I miss landing on a grind rail half a mile in the sky, even if falling from that far has no consequences beyond needing to pull off the platforming section again. And unlike the earlier Tony Hawk games, I'm free to explore each environment to my heart's content, looking for new songs to add to my playlist or spots just begging to be tagged with graffiti. Wrap all of this up in a style and soundtrack that are both just fucking cool, and what else could I really ask for? Well, besides just more of this, please.

7. Resident Evil 4

In a year full to the brim with remakes, remasters, and revisits, Resident Evil 4 is the one with the most expectations put on it, due to not only the pedigree of the original RE4 (often cited as one of the best games of all time, and surely the catalyst for the modern over the shoulder third-person shooter), but the obscenely high quality of Capcom's other recent remakes from the series; 2019's Resident Evil 2 remake, in particular, being one of the best big budget games of the last half decade, by my estimation. A lot of fans cited RE4 as both "impossible" and "pointless" to remake, though I imagine those same fans were the ones most anxiously waiting for this remake to drop with bated breath.

The end result? RE4 as a remake can't live up to the lofty expectations a lot of people probably hoped it could, not really, but I think it's also one of the most successful video game remakes I've ever had the pleasure of playing, in terms of the fun factor. The gaming landscape has changed a lot since 2005, a lot of that change because of RE4, so what do you even do to make a revisit under a modern lens worthwhile? I think Capcom didn't fully know the answer to that question, as the biggest mechanical additions to this game are the ability to parry the vast majority of attacks with your knife, and erm....craftable ammo? You'll of course find a handful of new enemies and remixed encounters, an even fewer amount of new weapons, and a couple welcome completely redone areas, like a mini open sandbox where you're free to explore the shores of a lake, and a much more clever and interesting version of the brief time spent playing as Ashley.

This might all sound like damning with faint praise, but truly, Capcom's ability to thread the needle here and deliver an honest to god, full on remake of RE4 with modern production values and budget, all without compromising the vision of the original, AND managing to make the remake tonally fit with the current vision of the extended Resident Evil universe? There's some black magic at work here, surely. Or at the very least some ancient parasite bugs at large.

6. Kirby's Return to Dreamland Deluxe

Kirby is the best Nintendo series, and this is an excellent remaster of one of the best Kirby games. What more is there to say? The only reason this isn't top three of the year material is because, well, I played it when it originally released on the Wii. But what's your excuse, coward?

I often hear the refrain of "Kirby games just aren't for me", and I used to humor that line of thinking, largely to avoid prolonged contact with dumb babies. But that dies today, and so will you if you don't stop being a dweeb. High quality sidescrolling brawlers with lite platforming elements and puzzle solving, set to some of the best music ever made for the medium, sporting an adorable aesthetic that's used as set dressing to cover up some of the best backstory and lore this side of Dark Souls? That's not for you? What is for you then, besides being a sad weirdo that still waxes nostalgic about the girl you held hands with once in middle school? Her mom dropped you two off at the theater once to see White Chicks and she never thought about you again. Grow up. Change something about your life. Kirby's got more charm and delight in whatever his puffy mass equivalent to a pinky is than Super Mario Bros. Wonder managed to wearily attempt to slump over its shoulder for an entire game. Y'all should be ashamed.

...

I dunno what this bit is anymore, so let's pivot back to normalcy. Yes, I know, I know, I'm the Kirby guy. It's my favorite gaming series, hell, maybe my favorite franchise in any medium period. But I'm also not blind to its faults and missteps, such as 2018's Star Allies. When I tell you that Return to Dreamland Deluxe, a remaster of a game I played over a decade ago, now with additional content, is one of my favorite games of 2023, I really mean it. The base game was already excellent, and the first entry of the modern era of Kirby, under the helm of Shinya Kumazaki. A new cel shading-adjacent rendering, coupled with completely new abilities Sand and Mech on top of perhaps the overall best set of copy abilities in a Kirby game, really help make the game feel fresh; Sand's combo and damage per second capability in particular is through the roof, while not feeling imbalanced.

The meat of the new content, however, is the new epilogue, in which you play as fan favorite character Magolor. Magolor plays very differently from Kirby, eschewing copy abilities and quicker movement for magic, and the game also introduces an honest to god skill tree into the series. This mini adventure culminates in not only what is probably my favorite boss fight of the year, but an in-universe lore explanation for why Magolor shows up in spinoff Kirby games adorned in green instead of blue and trading in crystal apples.

That may sound goofy and extremely in the weeds, and it is, but for a man in my mid-30s that's been beyond bored of Nintendo's refusal to do any significant kind of world building or storytelling in almost any of their mainline games, Kirby manages to continuously surprise and delight me with both its gameplay and universe in a way no other Nintendo game is even interested in trying. The Super Mario games should take heed.

5. Octopath Traveler 2

I played both demos for the original Octopath Traveler back before that game came out, and to say I didn't like it would be an understatement! The writing was at best flat, and at worst, overtly sexist (and that was just from a demo!), I found the battle system to be clunky, and the thing most people praised it for, its "HD2D" approach to graphics, I found quite ugly; it seemed to be throwing away any attempt at an actual artstyle in favor of cranking a bunch of photoshop filters up to max and letting people ooh and aah over some particle effects and oversaturated lighting. Great soundtrack, at least.

I couldn't tell you what drove me to check out the demo for 2, but I did, and instantly, something clicked for me that didn't in my limited experience with the original. Full disclosure, I haven't finished this game yet, and in fact I don't think I'm even halfway through. And that's a shame, because I think it could honestly rise even higher up this list, based on what I've already played. The battle system is fast and snappy, as long as I'm paying close enough attention to all the information on screen, like enemies weaknesses and my current BP situation. The overworld feels far more inspired by popup books than I remember 1's world feeling like, while still retaining the gorgeous battle sprites that the original excelled in. The soundtrack is an all-timer, to put it lightly. Even the writing for the characters, while still nowhere approaching the rest of the game's strong points, feels less like it works exclusively in lazy caricatures and broad stereotypes. Yeah there's a merchant character named Partitio from an old west-styled silver mining town, and yes I was just as worried about that fact as you probably are reading that sentence. And yet, Partitio has honestly become one of my favorite characters of the year, his desire to use his mercantile skills to ease the burdens of the working class only being outshone by the electric guitars and saxophone in his theme song.

What truly impresses with Octopath Traveler 2, though, is its sheer openness. The world is, while not quite your oyster right from the start, pretty dang free form for the most part, allowing you to go recruit your party members and explore towns and monster-filled wildlands in whatever order you see fit. This extends to the job system, which affords you the most freedom to truly make whatever kind of team you see fit I've ever seen in a game of this kind. I'm currently multiclassing my cleric, Temenos, into a scholar, and I've rarely felt cooler/dorkier at the same time, wielding nearly every magic type offered in the game at once with one world-weary church inquisitor. Just typing up this entry has got me itching to get back to the game, hoping to discover even more jobs to multiclass the rest of my crew into.

Take it from me, someone who as little as a few years ago felt pretty much over turn based RPGs, especially those coming out of Square-Enix: this game is very worth your time, regardless of your feelings towards the series, or even genre as a whole.

4. 30XX

In a year chockful of exceedingly excellent roguelites (Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania, Risk of Rain Returns, Cobalt Core, Vampire Survivors, just to name a few), 30XX stands tall above the rest for me, not just in terms of quality, but also in its ability to completely take over my gaming time for a couple months. This has all the trappings you expect from a game with the structure of a roguelite; permadeath resulting in having to start your entire run over, unlockable items and stat upgrades purchasable with currency carried over from the run you just died in, powerups that you collect during a run to give yourself a fighting chance (and which force you to make on-the-fly decision making about how best to synergize your build), and a white knuckle intensity that makes the runs when you really start to shred feel all the more rewarding, albeit no less anixety inducing.

What ends up separating 30XX from any other game in this admittedly crowded space is that it's essentially a roguelite take on Mega Man X4, the beloved Playstation 1 entry in an even more beloved series. X4 was the first game that really fleshed out lightsaber wielding cool guy Zero as a fully playable character, for the first time letting you play through the entire game as both him and series protagonist X. 30XX makes no bones about its inspiration; Nina, the blue one, is the X equivalent, meaning you'll be primarily shooting enemies with your arm cannon, while Ace, the red one, slices and dices with an energy sword, just like Zero. Likewise, the (absolutely gorgeous) spritework and extremely catchy soundtrack are doing their best to evoke the oft overlooked aesthetic and sounds of 2-D games from the Playstation 1. Rounding out the package are full-featured coop, both local and online, community made levels, daily and weekly seeded runs with leaderboards, and the promise of even more updates, including new characters(!!).

Even Mega Man series staples you might not expect to show up in a roguelite take on the formula end up being major focuses of the game, like gaining new abilities from defeating bosses. The game even takes that mechanic a step further, letting you mix and match two abilities to form completely new ones, like combining your black hole and homing lightning abilities to create a barrage of homing lightning strikes emanating from a swirling void. Or, in true roguelite fashion, you can even forego an ability from a boss altogether, if a different reward suits you. And that's just if you're playing as Nina! Ace gets an entirely different set of abilities and mechanics, all built around melee capabilities and close quarters combat.

If any of this sounds appealing to you, you're probably now asking yourself "why have I never heard of this game?" And I truly can't answer that, as this feels like it should already be a revered indie darling on the level of Shovel Knight or Super Meat Boy. If you're a Mega Man fan, please do yourself a favor and check this out. There's even a separate mode that minimizes the roguelite elements, including a removal of permadeath, if that suits you! This is a better Mega Man X revival than you'll likely ever see out of Capcom, if a day even ever comes for that at all. It also happens to be better than just about any official Mega Man game Capcom has ever put out, as well.

3. Sephonie

My personal gaming identity feels inexorably linked to Analgesic Productions, the two person development team that's putting out the best indie games most people have never even heard of. The only thread on Resetera I've ever made was solely for the purpose of evangelizing Anodyne 2: Return to Dust, a game that resonated so hard with me the effects are still reverberating outwards, as my habit of recommending that game anywhere I go has helped me forge genuine friendships (and probably gotten me on to a few government watch lists). Even the Ocean was the third game my friends and I covered in our games club, and was by far and away the best talk I've ever had about video games, sparking a creative spirit in me for months afterward. Marina Kittaka and Melos han-tani make some real affecting fucking games, is what I'm saying, and the idea of trying to sum up what makes Sephonie so special (and maybe even my favorite of their impressive work) is a bit daunting.

At its most base level, Sephonie is a 3-D platformer not dissimilar from the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series, or even the above Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, albeit without any wheels; instead of tilting the analog stick to move at whatever angle you want, you hold a button to run forward, the stick's sole purpose being to make adjustments to direction. Your mobility on its own isn't very versatile, and getting around requires careful and clever use of the environment to do wall runs and jumps, grabbing giant dandelions to float, landing on mushrooms to bounce, etc.

Even for a self-proclaimed platformer guru (maybe even especially for one!), the movement feels unwieldy or even downright intimidating at first. But in Analgesic we trust, and by the end of my initial 8 hour or so playthrough of the game, I felt like a parkour god, able to pull off complex maneuvers that I would have never been able to dream of in the opening sections of the game. Coming to grips with the controls and eventually mastering them was one of the biggest joys I experienced in video games this year; don't go into this expecting s Super Mario Odyssey-level of 1:1 control that lets you immediately start flowing through the environment like a hot knife through butter, because that's decidedly not the point here. Despite what the past few console generations have taught us, we don't need standardized controls across every game, as all that would serve to do here is sand down the distinct personality and learning opportunities presented in Sephonie.

Rounding out the gameplay are linking puzzles. The three playable characters are researchers who have come to the remote island of Sephonie to study its unique animal and plant life. Linking with each new lifeform you discover presents you with tile-based block puzzles, which end up being a nice change of pace from the platforming. As a testament to just how much love and care was put into Sephonie, the vast majority of these linking puzzles each have unique mechanics, be it teleporting tiles, tiles that are blocked and need busted open by matching blocks on adjacent tiles, tiles that multiply your point total, creatures that travel the puzzle and alter when and where you're even able to place your tiles, etc. With some tweaks, the link puzzles could be a whole game unto itself, and it's really impressive!

That's all well and good, but the main reasons I come to Analgesic games are the unbelievably good writing and even unbelievably-er soundtracks, and both are where Sephonie truly shines for me. Unfortunately, to talk too much about the story here would be bordering on a cardinal sin, and you're better off listening to some of the music on your own. Why not try the entire playlist here?

The previously mentioned Anodyne 2 opens by telling you it's a game about life. That's a bit of an understatement for me with Analgesic's games in general, but Sephonie might be the best example of "a game about life" that I can think of. As someone that grew up in a midwestern town full of basically nothing but nothingness and corn, the Bloomington, Illinois section of the game is without a doubt the most beautiful segment of any game I've ever played, and the main thing I keep coming back to with this game even six months later. I've never been so simultaneously full of nostalgia, regret, disdain, self-loathing, and fond memories as I was while platforming around an abstract dreamscape version of a midwestern town right off the highway. And I don't think I've ever related to a character in any fictional work as much as I did when Amy was talking about feeling lucky she was born in a small town, because it made learning how to drive much less intimidating.

If there's one game on this list I would beg someone to give a shot, it would be Sephonie. Hell, if there was one game I could force anyone to play, Sephonie might be taking that spot as well. As a thorough contemplation of what it means to be alive, and what connecting with one another can truly mean and feel like, there's no better work of art out there today, and certainly not one anywhere near as fun, either.

2. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

What can I say about TotK that hasn't already been expressed in a million think pieces, essays, and podcasts across the entire internet by now? As a direct followup to 2017's stellar Breath of the Wild, I had concerns going in - would the magic still be there? Is exploring the same incarnation of Hyrule going to be fun when I know all of the broad strokes already? Are the bosses not going to suck this time? The answer to all of these is a resounding "absolutely", but there's so much more on offer here.

Everything in this game makes BotW feel like a rough draft, a sentence I never in a million years thought I'd be typing prior to getting my hands on the game. Any mechanic you can think of that you loved in the prior Zelda entry is either improved upon here or excised for something infinitely more interesting. The Sheikah slate abilities from BotW feel not only basic, but downright boring compared to the powers on offer in this sequel. Who cares about being able to spawn bombs at will when I can fuse batwings to arrows to make them fly further? Or just swim through through the damn ceiling!? To say nothing of the fact that you can build basically anything your imagination can spring into existence, from cars to rocket ships to pilotable mechs to lawn mowers. And it all....just....works, somehow, not only tonally with the game's world, but also from a game perspective. The game even lets you have five CPU controlled companion characters out at the same time, every one acting independently to take down enemies near you! It feels like your Switch is going to collapse under the weight of this game's ambition at any moment, and yet I put over 300 hours into the game with not a single crash in sight.

If there's one thing I can complain about, it's that the story feels like an actual afterthought, to the degree that it actually bummed me out, even as someone with rock bottom expectations when it comes to story in a Zelda game. The marketing REALLY hyped up the return of longtime series antagonist Ganondorf, and he just....kind of has no motivation for anything he's doing here. I'm not asking for much, and there are genuinely great character moments lightly sprinkled throughout the game's runtime, mostly with princess Zelda herself. But I couldn't help but imagine how much harder some story beats could have hit if Nintendo, again, actually even attempted to give people the tiniest but of anything to chew on when it comes to the stories they're telling.

But whatever, I've got a catapult to build to launch me and a korok buddy up a damn mountain.

Baldur's Gate 3

Like most people who cut their gaming teeth on more straightforward action fare on consoles, the term "CRPG" (computer RPG) seemed beyond out of reach for me. Dice rolls? Skill checks? Playing as a charisma based character to persuade bosses to kill themselves instead of having to fight them? READING!? Uh, I'm an American, thank you very much; I like my video games game-y and my gravy portion extra, ma'am, and I don't have the patience to think about probability and stats.

So imagine my surprise when, after my wife started playing the game on her own, I found myself itching to get into the character creator myself. Not the moment to moment gameplay, mind you, but the character creator, a step I'm notorious for getting through as fast as possible so I can start "actually playing", even if I'm stuck with a boring default character named Goober. Something about watching my wife agonize over which horn style and subrace to go with on her tiefling bard, which hairstyle and color looked cutest and would match her vision of how she was going to roleplay in the world, stirred something in me I didn't know existed. While she was perusing all the customization options, I spied the class "monk" and a race called "dragonborn", some anthropomorphic dragon people with a lot of pretty color options for their scales that also affect your elemental resistances. "Yes," I thought to myself. "I'd like to make a humanoid lizard dude that punches shit to death. I'd like that very much". And before my wife was barely out of the tutorial section on her first character, we were already backing out to make a second save file where we would play the entire thing cooperatively, fretting over the decisions and romance options each step of the way together. I got to make my silverscale (that means he's got ice powers, baby) dragonborn monk, Shikai, and the following 300+ hours (and counting!) with Baldur's Gate 3 have been the most fun I've ever had playing a video game.

Would I be as gobsmacked with the game if I was intimately familiar with the genre? Maybe not, but I guess that's my point. Living with my wife and playing games together has completely changed how I engage with a lot of them; Animal Crossing was basically a cute chores and debt repayment simulator with a dash of fishing on the side until watching my wife play the game for thousands of hours taught me the joy of decorating.

Elden Ring was her first foray into the Souls-like genre; she had a similar reaction watching me play the opening hour of Elden Ring as I had watching her in the BG3 character creator, growing increasingly frustrated as she watched me putz around making a boring dexterity based samurai character when what she wanted to see was some faith-based holy magic in action. Despite my love of Souls-likes, I had always just made standard melee based characters in them, usually katana wielding doofuses; I'm an American, I don't know a lick about incantations, I HATE thinking, and please keep your Wes Anderson movies to yourself, ma'am.

But as I saw how much fun my wife was having shooting fireballs and throwing lightning bolts at enemies, I eventually started speccing my dexterity character into intelligence as well, making a samurai sorcerer, undeniably the only thing cooler than a normal samurai. That's not to say that playing Elden Ring with a melee exclusive character is wrong, but just that with a touch of curiosity and willingness to take the tiniest step outside of my comfort zone, a comfort zone I didn't even realize was as tiny as it was, I opened up a whole new way of enjoying a game I already loved playing. Learning to enjoy Baldur's Gate 3 feels like I've opened the door to an entire new avenue in my mind, waiting for me to fill it with opinions about games I've been avoiding my whole life. I'm gonna actually make a concerted effort to finally play stuff like Mass Effect and Disco Elysium sometime soon, two games I had preemptively decided years ago were just "not for me", and I'm genuinely excited about it.

This entry is so long already, and I didn't even mention anything about how the game actually plays (it's the best turn-based battle system I've ever experienced, to say nothing of the freedom you're afforded to solve every single scenario presented to you in the game.

Or anything about the characters (this is the best cast of characters I've seen in any medium, and they feel like genuine friends of mine in a way that no other game has ever come close to feeling).

Hell, to save time and my poor fingers: Baldur's Gate 3 is without a doubt the best video game I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. And as little as a few months ago, my only thought towards it was "that game probably isn't for me".

Don't make my all too human mistake; check out shit that looks interesting, take the chance to expand your mind and your taste. They're not all gonna be Baldur's Gate 3-level bangers (what is though, really), but you truly never know what you're going to discover. And you might even find yourself open to a whole new avenue of life to enjoy that you had previously assumed was just for mega dorks.

[weirdmissoula]

I've been gone forever, I'm back now, and don't know if that's going to be consistent or not. I don't entirely know what I wanna say: I put Shahs on hiatus about a year before the pandemic started and now I don't know if I ever want to play live music again. That's not really related to being afraid of anything, I got COVID at least a couple times in the last three years. I was already retreating from the world about a year before that even happened…

I'm sure some folks that know me close already know this but friends…I am not a well person. Never really have been. I'd been wrapping myself up in that warm motherly blanket of alcohol for hours, days, and sometimes years at a time. I still frequently relapse. I often oscillate between thinking I can find a way to enjoy the nice things (wine at dinner, a well-made craft beer) and still keep it in check but I dunno, I wonder if all that worry and attention just means it needs to be something that joins Logjam Presents into the dustbin of history.

Oh cliches! I love you all, please know I do. Life has been hard in the last (checks notes) foly huck six years (!?!?!) since I last posted anything on here. I went back to school, got my first Associates of Science degree and now work IT for a reputable firm. The ball is rolling up. I've embraced the nerd I'd been hiding for decades during the pandemic, embracing my role as a Game Master for a sprawling group of weirdos playing Dungeons & Dragons, Cyberpunk Red, and some other tabletop-roleplaying-games during this time. I'm a budding DnD miniatures painter now too, go figure. I won't lie, I am not on the pulse of anything, Missoula's music scene or otherwise, and haven't been for quite some time. I'm fucking 40 now, dude. I'm the dude I used to think was weird explaining psychedelics at the house show to a bunch of children. I don't actually think you're children, btw. I let hyperbole get the better of me more often than not. That said, I've been listening to loads of Alice Coltrane, wishing well upon my fellow humans, but still the world seems to be getting constantly worse!

I'll play with y'all though. At the very least I need to keep going with the records A-Z project because that's fun for me. We. Shall. See. Lemme know A) if you even read this and B) how that makes you feel.

Kisses.

-WM

[clexa-bones]

yes, virginia. there is a season five. however...

...perhaps unfortunately to some of you, it will be the final season, unless some sort of incredibly specific miracle happens. when i was about halfway through writing "the head in the game", i began envisioning this entire world, the whole story of all the characters start to finish, and the finish is what has functionally worked out to be season five.

i think a lot of wonderful stories have been ruined by the addition of extra seasons because the creators got greedy; either for money or fame or just validation. and as much as i love this world and the dopamine y'all give me in it, that's ultimately why i intend to stick to my plan regarding the, if you'll forgive me, 'bones' of the story.

this universe makes me very happy; i am honestly quite proud of my work, so grateful for the community, and i've truly grown to love the characters so much that it near physically pains me to say goodbye to them. i wish i never ever had to. but because i love them i want to do what is best for them, and for me, that means letting them go with grace & dignity.

telling a story after it should have ended is why walking dead aired so long. that's not a compliment.💀 and so i don't want to break something beautiful by holding it too tightly, and trying to force it to give more than it has to give; that isn't love.

also, i think we have all had enough of that pain from canon universes. i am only writing fanfic here, though i like to think i'd make the same choice even with a giant check in front of me... but regardless i, at least currently, cannot be swayed by fame, money, or marriage proposals. (unless you're tasya; then let's talk. i'll write whatever you want.)

i think this is a good thing, and i look forward to celebrating the final season with all of you. i'll leak y'all some preview content on here soon.

thank you so incredibly much for all your support & love you've so selflessly given the past.. jesus; 15 months??? seriously???

lol. it feels like a decade; i really am an absolute monster. thanks for sticking with me anyway.

- @irresponsibear (tasya's version)

[maruke2003]

I posted 1,154 times in 2022

That's 1,153 more posts than 2021!

173 posts created (15%)

981 posts reblogged (85%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@moonlightdancer26

@halfblood-princes-crown

@somesnapefan2

@zephahhhh

I tagged 329 of my posts in 2022

#severus snape - 121 posts

#pro snape - 88 posts

#harry potter - 55 posts

#elloona - 39 posts

#anti james potter - 38 posts

#anon ask - 33 posts

#anti marauders - 30 posts

#snape - 30 posts

#severitus - 28 posts

#the elloona fam - 25 posts

Longest Tag: 125 characters

#smh you're probably some old ass man in his mothers basement telling teen girls to kill themselves because you can't get laid

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Ugh something that infuriates me about the marauder stans is when they say Harry should have named his second son 'Remus Regulus' or 'Rubeus Remus' or 'Regulus Remus'.

Do they not realize that Harry named his children after the people who have impacted his life in some way or another.

James Sirius- James, whom he's been compared to his entire life. Both the good and the bad. Harry's patronus takes his father's animagus form. And Sirius his Godfather who tried his hardest to be there for Harry despite his own shortcomings and short time together. He did everything for Harry (except when he ran after Peter instead of dealing with Harry but that's a different story).

Albus Severus- Albus after Dumbledore. Dumbledore (despite all the headcanons out there) who care for Harry and was sort of like a father/grandfather figure in his life. Severus after Snape. Snape who literally saved Harry's life more then we all probably realize, who used his last dying breath to give Harry the last piece of information to finish the war. (He quiet literally stopped trying to stop the blood flow once he saw Harry). On top of that remained in a spying position for 17 years. Snape also was childhood friends with his mother.

Lily Luna- Lily after Harry's mother of course. Luna isn't actually in her name to be named after Luna Lovegood. Luna means moon (in some language I don't remember and am too lazy currently to google) so Luna is essentially named for Remus.

147 notes - Posted August 11, 2022

#4

I've been itching for awhile to argue with a Tik Tok Snater 👀. I've finally got one so let's goooo.

First of all, James didn't slay, he never did. He was canonically a bully, no matter who they're bullying it's still wrong. Second of all the whole "what sa" or "it wasn't sa" is so wrong. Because it is, it is sa. Saying it wasn't or blaming it on Snape is horrible. I'm not even going to go down the road of the victim blaming that goes on here.

"walking on a corpse to hug a dead girl he was obsessed with"

Girl- calm down. First of all that's movie canon not book canon. Even if it was book canon do you really think Snape would have stepped on James's body, stepped on him?! Like do y'all hear yourself. The man would probably slip and fall on the stairs if he had stepped on him 😂.

See the full post

155 notes - Posted August 25, 2022

#3

What are your thoughts on the fact that marauders stans are essentially taking all of Snape’s character traits and shoving them into Regulus

I love this question 👀.

Honestly it's not even the only character they've done it for.

They've taken Snape's spy position and given it to Regulus

They've taken his abuse and neglect story and given it to Sirius. (Not saying Sirius wasn't abused, he was, they just like to take Snape's story and give it to Sirius as if it's his when he himself already has an abusive childhood)

They've taken The Half Blood Prince's book and claimed it was James'

It's stupid. It's delusional. Like you claim you don't like a character and list all their faults and then give it to other characters.

They claim Snape was still a Death Eater/blood supremacist despite defecting because of Lily. He remained in a position to spy on the dark side for almost two decades of his life. And in the process he started believing in her cause. They claim it's bullshit and call him a Neo Nazi or a Wizard Nazi.

But then.

Then they turn around and say Regulus who defected for his house elf, who was a known blood supremacist, who was obsessed with Voldemort, is not a Nazi. "Regulus black was an abused boy who joined the death eaters to take him down from the inside. He was never a blood supremacist. He was in love with James Potter and was friends with all the marauders"... Like girl no.

They also claim that if Regulus was the spy and not Snape and that Regulus taught potions and was head of house he would have been nice to the students, including Harry and Neville and Hermione. No. Snape wasn't nice because the remaining death eaters wouldn't like to hear Snape playing daddy figure to the boy who lived. Or the child to both a known light family and the boy who could have been the chosen one. As well Hermione a muggleborn, need I say more? He couldn't have been nice because of his position. He would have lost it.

Don't even get me started on the whole "James is the Halfblood Prince thing" anyways I've gotten off topic.

Marauder fans/stans know Snape is amazing and badass but because he doesn't fit into their "hot/attractive" ideology he isn't worth it. So they take his entire life, his personality, his accomplishments and give it to his tormentors (not Regulus).

My final opinion is that it's far fetched and ridiculous. Regulus Black decided to defect in a single moment and when he did he died. If Voldemort hadn't used his house elf to plant his horcrux he wouldn't have known any better and nothing would have changed for him.

162 notes - Posted August 9, 2022

#2

I'm on Pinterest doing a thing with Seph (@halfblood-princes-crown) and found this and I'm wheezing 😭😭😂😂

Apparently this art belongs to @waterlouper so credit to them (if I'm wrong let me know)

314 notes - Posted August 16, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

James Potter didn't "change" he didn't stop bullying Severus Snape. He just graduated and supposedly never saw him again.

617 notes - Posted October 26, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[hallowed-nebulae]

future is past is present

[ @beastenraged ignore the fact that it's 12:43 when i post this. i finished this so y'all are gonna see it. have some references to friend's OCs as well.]

[nyx tenebris belongs to @voidgearr. aria fiore and linaria "ves" fiore belong to @void-feather. Seren Lleucu belongs to @ephemxras. technically these are all alucinari au versions of these ocs, but credit is due where credit is due.]

He's watching again. Watching, because one can never know what will go wrong when you've got two versions of Ruse fighting. (Especially because. . . it's Ruse. Who knows what kinds of things she can break without knowing.)

There are others here. As always. It's a new fight, a new face against one nearly identical (though -- this other Ruse, the Daymare's Fluorescence, seems a bit less healthy. Older, for one. Does she have the same chronic illness as the Mirage Arena's Radiant Nightmare? Has it been flaring up more? Has she been letting herself rest?). Faces that Riku knows, faces he's seen once or twice or faces that he's long-since memorized. Roxas announces the matches, a play-by-play commentary as he always does.

There's Queenie in the crowd, Riku notes, with Seren standing beside him, and Ves and Aria (in her Darkling form, rather than Pink Possessor -- understandable given the crowds) a small bit further back.

(And, of course, there's Nyx making his way through the crowds, but Riku is going to ignore Nyx for now and focus on more immediate things. Like the Xion -- black hair, similar to the Xion he knew but of course not the same -- sitting nearby.)

Riku turns to look at her -- and something in him tightens. There are tears in her eyes -- unshed, but still tears. It aches to see her upset like that (it aches to see any replica upset, any Riku or Replica but especially Replicas or Riku), and Riku folds his wings back, moving a bit closer. "Are you alright?"

She swallows, dabs at her face to get rid of any tears. "Yeah, I just. . ." She looks. . . so sad. And lonely. "It's fine. I miss people back home."

Riku knows that feeling -- a soft, understanding noise leaves him. "I understand. It can be difficult to leave what you've known behind." He's not aware of the story behind this Xion, Xehanort, this Ruse. But. . . they've ended up in the Mirage Arena some way or other, and he knows that feeling. That confusion, uncertainty of suddenly being in a new place. (Whether they're permanantly here or not is irrelevant, really.)

She looks at him, that Xion. Then asks. "Why are you so different from the Riku we know? You feel. . . like a different person entirely."

Riku freezes.

Of all the questions, it's that one to be asked, hmm?

"That is. . . a long story." He settles on. "It's not one many ask."

Still. Even with that vague answer, she looks at him expectantly. And perhaps it's the air of the evening -- perhaps it's the fact that it's Xion, or a version of her, a version of that sister of his. And perhaps it's that -- it's been long enough. Decades. Centuries. Millennia, even. Those who knew him as that broken, confused, tired boy are gone now, all except for Roxas and Genesis (the latter of which isn't here yet -- won't be, for some time, but his future is Riku's past, and like many things in the Mirage Arena time is nothing more than a vague guideline).

Riku sighs. Settles, more, lets his wings loosen and relax. Tail-tip flicking against the ground, like a cat's might. "To be entirely honest," he begins, "my name is Riku, but I'm more like your Rook than your Riku." And then, to be sure she doesn't misinterpret, he adds, "I'm a Replica. I. . . switched places with my worldline's Riku, and thought I was him, and eventually ended up here. Everyone assumes I'm a variation of him -- which, isn't technically untrue, though it isn't the way that they think."

There. That's a palatable-enough summary. Cut out the bloodshed and face of a dying boy realized just-too-late that he was the real one and not an illusion. Cut out the confusion and twisted tangled memories and question of identity. Cut out the way that Riku had fallen apart and broken entirely when Genesis found him, and later Roxas, and carefully fitted the broken pieces together until Riku was a functioning being again. (Being a happy person took a lot longer. But still. Genesis put a lot of effort into it. There is a reason why Riku and Roxas mourned when Ultimeccia slayed him and overthrew him. There is a reason why Riku and Roxas are so quick to look at Ven and his twin, these two children that Genesis adopts, these two children that Genesis had talked so fondly of back when he'd still been alive. Back before his large, feathered wing turned from glossy iridescent raven black to pale ashy gray, before he had died. Past and future all tangled and twisted around.)

Riku offers this other Xion a small shrug. "It doesn't really get talked about much, and I'd appreciate if you don't go shouting about it to everyone. We're all allowed our secrets, mundane as they are, yes?" He gives her a fanged smile. She sees no danger in it. (Good.)

The fight ends. Roxas' voice calls over the cheering of the crowd, announcing the winner. Oh, it's the other Ruse. The older one, more scarred one. (She won't stick around to stay for more fights, won't stay to cement her place in the Mirage Arena. This Ruse -- and Xion, and Xehanort -- is only a visitor. Riku's learned to feel for these things, in the many years he has lived here.) "That's your friend who's won." He comments, to the black-haired girl beside him. Mirror of his once-sister. "Shall we go congratulate her?"

He stands. Begins making his way through the crowds. Eventually meets Nyx.

"Hey Riku!" Says the man (young only by relativity), slinging an arm over Riku's shoulder. "Guess what?"

Riku hums in response. Lets Nyx sweep him up in idle chatter about what this person did or what that person said, about what the Starseers were up to that week, and so on. Mundane things. Things that keep Riku just a bit too connected to the Mirage Arena to ever fade away or die, just as Roxas is too connected to the Mirage Arena, the way that so many others who had been alive in their time had done.

(That is how the Mirage Arena works, after all. If you connect yourself to it -- if you are tied to it deeply enough -- then you will live for as long as it exists, unless someone is to kill you. Unless you are disconnected enough that you fade. And that is why Riku lets himself be tied to his desk and his manager job, why Roxas ties himself to his announcer job, why Axel keeps himself busy with maintaining the little details. Tied to the Mirage Arena like this, they live forever. And it's only slightly lonely.)

Riku spares half a thought for that Ruse and her Xion and Xehanort -- but Ven and Vanitas will find them, and the three will be guided around to wherever they are led. Ven and Vanitas will find Genesis, Riku is sure. Either by Sephiroth's guiding or by Genesis' own first visit to the Mirage Arena.

(And if Genesis does appear in the Mirage Arena for the first time in his present, well -- Riku and Roxas will be there to greet him. Like Genesis had greeted them all those millennia ago, when he'd still been alive.

As much as it'll hurt to see Genesis again, younger and not knowing Riku at all yet. . . Riku finds himself looking forward to it. It'll be good to see the man who'd become almost like a father to him. To share kindness and a good introduction to the Mirage Arena, if nothing else. Riku can hope.)

[ nyx tenebris belongs to @voidgearr . aria fiore and linaria "ves" fiore belong to @void-feather . Seren Lleucu belongs to @ephemxras . technically these are all alucinari au versions of these ocs, but credit is due where credit is due.]

[angelsandarsenic]

Necromancer! sbi au

Angel's Brain Dump part ??? (I've been really bad at keeping track of these)

I wrote a bit based off this post that I made a while ago but I'm never going to turn it into a story so here it is!

Necromancers are highly illegal and Tommy is definitely not a necromancer (maybe he isn't entirely sure he is/denial or maybe he's just trying to start a new life) who moved to this city to start fresh from the trainwreck event where he grew up (what that was is up to y'all). However, when a gang of necromancer/supernatural hunters come sniffing around and Tommy keeps running into this weird, suspicious blond guy who may or may not be who the hunters are looking for, his new life plan proceeds to crumble to dust. (Also Tommy may or may not be Phil's legitimate child and he may or may not have accidentally made friends with a bunch of ghosts and end up getting caught for (accidental) necromancy as well)

I thought it could be either in three parts or three stories where Tommy 1. realizes/accepts he's a necromancer, runs from the police and becomes phil's apprentice, 2. sbi bonding and adoption, necromancy-ing and more of tommy running from his past while Phil eventually figures out "hey this might be that kid I left behind", then 3.tommy's past comes back to haunt him, drama, the hunters are back, sbi band together fluff

Anyway, here's what I've written! (As always feel free to use it just let me know if you write this! I'd love to read it)

Tommy Meets Some Definitely Not Ghosts

There are three steadfast rules for working the closing shift at McPuffy’s:

1. The doors and windows must be closed and locked strictly by 10 and not a minute later

2. Absolutely do not forget to lay salt lines by the front and back doors and on the window sills before you leave

3. Make sure all the food is put away securely

Unfortunately, by some grievous oversight, Tommy was not informed of these rules. 

But it would probably be fine. Niki made sure to keep powerful protection charms and wards all around the cafe, just in case. Only a powerful necromancer could let ghouls in with those around, and L’manberg hasn’t seen a necromancer in decades.

        Niki had to leave work at the last minute, so when Puffy asked him to close, she forgot he was quite new, not just to McPuffy’s—her and Niki’s joint cafe and bakery, the local favorite—but also to the town itself. Tommy didn’t see this as an issue; he was not thinking about it because he wasn’t aware that it was important to be thought about at the time. He had also never had to leave late enough or come in early enough to notice the salt lines and the scattered grains on the tables before they were swept away so the customers wouldn’t have to see them either.

        So Tommy broke that rule. Not on purpose, of course, but he didn’t lay the salt lines. Niki had already started closing before she left, so there wasn’t much for him to do, thankfully, but as he was new to this and only got some vague instructions from Puffy before she also had to leave, was going considerably slower than she or Niki would have, trying to make sure he did it right. He didn’t really know the proper procedure for closing up, but that was fine. Tommy figured that if no one was here to tell him he did it wrong, then by default, he was correct. Of course he was—he was Big Man Tommyinnit, he was always correct in everything he did. He made sure to close down the espresso machine and restock milk for the next day, made sure all refrigerated items went back in the big fridge in the back and that the freezer for Niki’s ingredients was set to the right temperature and running and he wiped all the counters and pitchers. Somewhere along the way, he had put down the keys Puffy had given him and forgotten where, so that took several minutes of scouring all the counters and food storage areas to find again (they were right by the cash register, slightly hidden underneath). He locked the back doors and checked that the windows were closed—not that this was a dangerous area, but he didn’t know. It was better to be safe than sorry.

By the time he was walking around the back counter and heading for the door, the clock read 10:03.

Tommy thought he was doing great.

        As he was walking to the front doors, something caught his eyes. One of the tables simply looked off. The salt, pepper and sugar were filled, thanks to Niki, but- 

        Oh, well that was strange. Salt grains were spilled all over the top of the table and in no small amount. Tommy frowned and wiped all of it into a small white mountain in his palm. Niki was usually such a perfectionist, why would she leave all this? Actually, there were some on that table too. And that one!

        Completely bewildered, Tommy went around the entire cafe/bakery, swiping salt into a small trash bag (because two tables worth was more than he could fit in his hand), hardly even knowing what else to question about this. It was so out of the ordinary! Maybe she was feeling really sick and that’s why she had to leave? I should ask her if she’s ok. He shook his head and wandered into the back to throw the bag in the trash.

        When Tommy came out again, fiddling with the keys and ready to leave, he almost screamed. There, sitting at table 3 were two boys who most certainly were not there before and he didn’t hear them come in. Oh fucking hell, now I gotta tell these guys to go away. It would have been easier if they were adults, but they were kids, probably his age with no adult supervision either. Everything was harder with people his age.

        One was rather short, with fluffy, curly brown hair, in a green army jacket-ish thing with lots of pockets, turned away from him at the table and facing his friend. The other had split dyed hair, bright eyes and a sweater with sleeves rolled up over a white shirt. Tommy had never had issues with his vision, but he couldn't see them very well from over here. 

        Getting closer, he realized that both boys were pretty thin, the tall one especially (he must have been the tallest person Tommy had ever seen), with dark bags under their eyes and pale skin. That...was starting to paint a picture he didn't like. The tall one especially, again, was paler than death, but had darkness crawling up his wrists and in part of his hair, particularly encompassing the left half of his body. He turned his head to look at Tommy and before he immediately looked away again, Tommy caught the flash of green and red eyes.

What the fuck?

        Tommy stared. They must be fucking cosplayers or something, he decided. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, scolding himself for what he knew he was probably about to do. He stopped the the side of their table. "You guys know we're closed, right?"

        "The door was open," the short one replied innocently. Was it? I thought I closed it? Tommy could see the familiar gleam of cheek in his eyes--well, eye. The right one was grayish and dead looking. Tommy didn't comment on it, it wasn't his place.

        "The food is already packed away," Tommy told them, hoping they would get the hint and leave.

        "I'm sorry, we're just so hungry, please could you give us something?"

        "The food here is amazing," the tall one added. 

        Just as he predicted, Tommy caved. "Fuckin- fine. What do you want? Make it easy or you're not getting shit."

        "Ooh! Ooh! A honey bun!"

        "Just a tall iced chai and an egg sandwich for me please. Unless you guys finally put spaghetti on the menu. Did you?"

        "Does this look like Olive Garden to you? No we don't have spaghetti." The blonde rolled his eyes. "Alright, gimme a sec."

        Not that he was glad for it now, but at least he succeeded in putting the food away securely. It was a pain in the ass to get anything out again, but he grabbed an egg sandwich and a honey bun and popped them in the microwave together and started making the chai. Now, if anyone else comes in, you gotta tell them to fuck off, or you'll be here all night, he scolded himself. 

        The two boys were waiting patiently and chatting, both bursting into laughter every few minutes. Tommy almost wanted to go be apart of their conversation. Almost. One did not simply insert themselves into customers conversations, even if he wasn't going to make them pay. He turned back around and watched the microwave intently. A creeping chill started up his back that he couldn't ignore. It was sickeningly familiar, but no one else was here to call him strange or whisper about him in secret, so it didn't matter; he let it be even if it's very presence pissed him off. The microwave dinged. 

        When he turned around again the shadows in the corners seemed larger than ever before, but he was used to that, especially at night. Actually, it was surprising how little it had happened since moving here--Tommy almost dared to think-

        "Here you go." Both boys' eyes lit up when he placed the food in front of them. Almost literally. 

        "Thanks bossman!"

        "Yes, thank you!" It must have been Tommy's imagination, but they both scarfed down the food impossibly fast, mouths opening wider than they should be able too. In moments, everything (not that there was much) was gone. Tommy blinked in surprise, but once again decided not to think about it. Thank the gods for small mercies, he thought instead. Now he could go home. He swept his gaze once more around the cafe to make sure no one else had snuck in when he wasn't looking and cleared their table. 

        Turning around, he called out, "Alright, now it's time for you to leave-" but they were already gone.

        Tommy only stared for a moment before forcing a shrug and a sigh and walking out the doors, being careful to lock them behind him.

------------------

        The worst thing about working a closing shift was opening the next morning. Also his first time doing, but he again didn't think that mattered, especially when he was the one who closed the night before so even if he did it wrong, he knew where everything was and the boss would never know. Besides, first thing monday morning, the cafe and bakery were both pretty dead, so he had some time to himself. 

        After whipping up a quick macchiato for one of their regulars, Tommy let himself grab a pastry from the bakery stores and fucked around on his phone until someone else demanded his attention. His mind was idle enough that flappy bird was plenty to keep him busy, but his brain was also rude and decided to wake up and start thinking about everything else. Everything he shouldn't be. 

        The boy's mouth opened wide, the edges almost seeming jagged, but it must be a trick of the light, right? His lips are too thin, split with several spidery lines of dried blood. The shadows flicker around him like friends-

        Stop. He wasn't thinking about that. Y'know what? He wasn't even sure it really happened. Must have been some weird fever dream. He was tired, they were just some late night assholes who don't know the meaning of the word "closed".

        The short boy's canines were sharp. Sharp enough that he noticed. Playful dark, dark blue eyes sat in a face so pale he looked like a gho-

        Tommy's flappy bird crashed and died, little cowboy hat falling off when it hit the ground. 0/10. Not pogchamp.

        The blonde huffed and restarted the game, keeping careful eye on the number in the corner steadily ticking up, up, up-

        Their mouths were stretching, insides dark and empty, their limbs moved stiff and deadly still, not even the slightest quiver in the cafe's chill. When the tall one's hand moved in front of the purple mug on the shelf behind him, Tommy thought he could still see it, just faintly, the outline of it's delicate handle. They were see through they were see through not human not alive gho-

        "Hey!"

        Tommy's head shot up and he had to hold in a spooked gasp, fumbling not to drop his phone. His eyes flickered around the front counter, for a moment not seeing the tall brunette until he dinged the little bell again. The tinny sound bounced around loudly in his skull, obnoxiously impossible to ignore.

---------

        "Hey, are you alright?"

Foolish was muttering something frantically to Puffy with a horror stricken look. When Tommy got closer he could only hear her reply, “call the Exterminators”

It was later at the end of the shift when he overheard their conversation again. “They’re busy dealing with a necromancy job.” Tommy could feel the blood drain from his face and the exact moment Foolish noticed him. “Hey, Tommy, you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” Foolish's chuckle at his own joke cut off abruptly when Puffy punched him.

--------

       @wilbur "Um- I'm sorry sir, I'm not sure I'm legally allowed to give you that many shots."

===

someone: are you a criminal?

Tommy: not here

------

"They're saying that the traveling necromancer has showed up in our city!" His heart rate was racing and blood static buzzed in his ears, blocking out some of Puffy and Foolish's conversation. "...all over the...Supposedly he's from Logstedshire-"

Tommy choked. Bile rose in his throat and he couldn't breathe from the way nausea was creeping higher and higher until he wanted to puke. Logstedshire?!

------ 

“Don’t worry,” the Hunter—Dream—said, putting a not-so-reassuring hand on Tommy’s shoulder, “I know a necromancer when I see one.”

———-

Tommy Innit is the name on all of his legal documents, the name on his library card and the name that'll be on his driver's licence if he ever gets a car, but considering that he's an 18 year old, living on minimum wage and on the run, that wasn't likely to happen soon.  Maybe he should have picked a name further away from Thomas-

-----

"What's you name, kid?"

"Tommy Innit."

The man frowned at him. "No, what's your real name."

"That is my real name," Tommy answered through gritted teeth. "Do you want me to prove it to you?"

--------------------

Tommy Becomes a Necromancer

--“Now hurry the fuck up before I necromancy you to death 

That seems a bit counter intuitive, don’t you think?

Not the way I do it

And how’s that?

Stab and necromance. “

It’s Tommy and Wilbur 100%

(chapter name?) Being Dead is No Excuse

——

Someone: it’s too late, he’s already dead

phil: *cracks knuckles* I didn’t get my medical licence revoked for nothing

——-

"Just kill me already," Wil groaned.

-----

Technoblade hated being brought back from the dead.

The worst part was the cold. He has been fucking freezing since the moment he woke up and it’s barely gotten better. Oh, and not to mention the manner in which he woke up in the first place. He was screaming—not outwardly, his vocal cords hadn’t been used in decades, possibly centuries and they weren’t ready for that yet—everything was so loud and so painful and the voices came back almost immediately, giving him a splitting headache as if the burn in his lungs and the scratching of his throat and the mind numbing ache of his bones wasn’t bad enough. Technoblade had dealt with pain, but his nerves were fresh and he had never dealt with it well anyway. 

He couldn’t get up right away. At first he didn’t even know what had happened or that he was laying face up in a necromancer’s lair, much less that he was alive again, really. It was disorienting and confusingly numb and after the panic set in and then faded again once he could force himself to move again, he decided that his current state of Not-Quite-Alive-Not-Quite-Dead wasn’t really worth the experience. He had had a moment—only a moment really, to come to peace with the fact that he was dying when he did, and now he couldn’t even have that.

That was another thing. It was more uncomfortable than anything else, but he realized that he didn’t remember how he died. When he met the necromancer, he didn’t ask.

-----------------

Thomas Watson Doesn't Exist

"We can go with you, Phil, we love you, we don't mind!"

"It's not safe," he insisted.

"He's going to grow up without a father Phil!"

"He's going to grow up a normal fucking kid!"

That was the first time he had ever yelled at his wife. She accepted his rather tearful apology, but it was easier to leave after that.

---------

"Thomas Watson, you are under arrest for charges of blood manipulation, disrespect of burial grounds, summoning, and necromancy! Come out with your hands up!"

[gggoldfinch]

the first time I wrote this my laptop crashed halfway through and deleted everything and I started sobbing. here we go again, part 2, I'll try not to have a fucking stroke:

(Also not to be weird or unkind but pls don’t read/like/reply to this if you’re not a follower or mutual of mine. I trust my regulars and mutuals, some y’all that blow in on the wind scare me …)

here’s a little personal ramble about me discovering(?) my neurodivergency (with a sprinkle of childhood trauma) (I lied it’s not a sprinkle it’s a backhoe full) because I just had a fucking MASSIVE epiphany while sitting here doing nothing. Feel free to read idc, I just need somewhere to put this since I don’t have a shrink, and maybe some y'all will relate, considering we’re all a bit touched in the head here. This is a blog and I’m finally treating it like one lmao

a little context: I had somewhat severe epilepsy from age 4-5 that seemingly had no cause, and went away on its own. yay. 

so, on to the topic at hand. My family had numerous stories about how I used to get seriously SERIOUSLY overwhelmed/ overstimulated as a child— so much so that on one particular occasion I hid in a basket of toys in my bedroom during my own birthday party until my mom had to make everyone leave early. Needless to say I was labelled “a handful.” My parents always blamed these outbursts of overstimulation in social settings on my epilepsy (even though this behavior continued after my epilepsy cured itself), saying that it made me tired, irritable, easily overwhelmed, etc. But now as an adult, knowing there is a fairly decent likelihood that I have not only adhd but autism too, this makes much more sense. Side note: my parents refuse to believe their child could be neurodivergent (among many other bigoted things their child could not be)—they shoot me down whenever I propose the idea, calling me silly—so it’s likely that bringing me to a specialist never crossed their minds, considering they didn’t want to consider it and I didn’t portray the “traditional symptoms” of neurodivergency that were known about in the early 2000s. 

all this being said, yes, I just had that epiphany while sitting here on my couch and was like. oh. damn, that kinda makes sense now, looking back through a different lens. It’s always been here, apart of me. It’s always been with me. And realizing this kinda makes me a little sad. I have all the resources at my fingertips now as an adult to learn about all the ways my behavior has been misinterpreted throughout my life. All the times when I refused to let my mom brush/touch/style my hair, when I'd only eat the same favorite foods, why I was SO obsessed with pacifiers, why I would lash out and get overwhelmed and torment everyone around me. I understand why now, and it strangely makes me feel so sad and alone.

I feel like I’m always mourning my childhood and the loss of it (crying rn lol, a tear fell in my mouth). I was friendless and bullied for 9 whole years of my life, throughout my entire elementary and middle education. My grandparents, who were my best friends, died 15 months apart and I never got proper closure, and am still in mourning over a decade later. I was diagnosed with several life changing diseases when I was just a poor dumb kid and it virtually stripped my teenage years to their bare bones. I had good times, I did, but you don’t often remember the good times, do you. I remember feeling alone, overwhelmed, and so so so different for so many years of my life, and not understanding why. I really do think my childhood ended when my grandparents died when I was 10, because after that ushered in the mental and physical health problems, and still, no comfort in peers until my late teens. Even when I finally had friends in high school (not the same friends from high school that I've talked about here, mind you), they would tease me; laugh when I’d slip up verbally, or when I was slow on the uptake, even if I asked them to stop. I’d feel overwhelmed and isolated, but I'd suck it up because this is what friends do, despite this being exactly what my merciless “friend” bullies did in middle school. 

Now I realize that I always had the right to be overwhelmed and angry that no one understood why— my symptoms of neurodivergy came in a “gifted kid” box, with hyperfixations and poor social skills abound. Now Ive got gifted kid burnout and explanations for my younger self. I understand why I sometimes felt like I needed to peel off my skin if I felt overwhelmed (still do lol), why kids didn’t want to be friends with me and thought I was weird, why I was so susceptible to teasing and why I couldn't stand up for myself, why I always pretended to fit in even though I and everyone else knew I didn’t. 

I think I deserve to grow more now, knowing all this. I know I’ve done and said a lot of stupid shit I'm not proud of, and I know it may be a copout to blame it on not being entirely sure how to navigate social situations or on kids being mean little bastards, but I sincerely think I've grown as a human just by realizing it hasn’t all been my fault like I've told myself for so long. I didn’t drive people away as a kid, I couldn’t help it if I acted out when I was overwhelmed or overstimulated or humiliated— I didn’t want to put my mom through hell when she too was young and overwhelmed with having her first kid. But that’s all behind me, and I think that knowing now where it likely all stems from, I should these experiences to get to know myself a bit more, and take care of myself. Forgive myself. 

okay now that I've cleared my sinuses with that hearty sob sesh... 🤷🏻‍♀️