#bro had literally one purpose in life and its being taken away by not even real demons😭

[lex-icon]

inhales… ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME SOLMARE

[wolfawaycamp]

To make up for the 🌯. Some cute Nick/Jacob shotgun and makeouts? Please 🙏

🌦️ hello everyone…. back to your regularly scheduled programming from me….. once again I took the prompt in A Direction. This Is Suggestive. Weed use also obviously

The cartoon they'd put on murmured on quietly in the background. Nick was tracing patterns into his thigh and Jacob was watching them form as he slowly took his hit. As he exhaled he just held the joint between his fingers for a moment. Nick got bored of waiting for him to hand it over and just took it from him, soft hand brushing Jacob’s. How did Nick get his hands so soft?

Jacob realised he had actually asked that out loud when Nick was smiling, soft brown eyes glinting with humour, and saying something about lotion. Nick’s lips parted, lovely and pink, and Jacob intently watched him inhale. Nick looked back at him, a certain intensity to him, then pulled him in by the collar and blew smoke in Jacob's face.

“Dick,” Jacob complained, as he fell back into position on the couch but this time closer to Nick, sitting with their legs pressed against each other.

Nick snorted and then there was that lazy smile again. Jacob took the joint back, not thinking about Nick’s soft hands, inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs. He held it, pulling Nick in by his own collar this time for payback, but then Jacob was looking at those eyes and all he could do was exhale with no real force.

Nick inched in of his own accord and stole the smoke from the air. They were so close— Jacob could feel the heat radiating from Nick’s skin onto his own. Nick moved back, but barely, and Jacob looked down at his lips again— Nick’s tongue was wetting the lower. Nick took the joint from Jacob again and with the brush of skin he was left wondering if Nick’s lips were as soft as his hands. Would it be weird if he found out? Just for research purposes.

Jacob ran his thumb along Nick’s bottom lip and they parted minisculely. They were soft. Nick was openly staring at him as Jacob pressed down on the centre of the lip, other fingers under his jaw and down his neck. He could feel Nick’s breath catch in his throat. The tip of Jacob’s thumb slipped into Nick’s mouth and then he pulled away, quickly, like it burnt.

There was a moment of charged silence, and then Nick laughed. Jacob's mouth was dry. “It was research. Scientists say your lips are as soft as your hands,” Jacob said, then realised that it still sounded pretty gay. “Tell me your secrets, bro.”

“Yeah, research,” Nick responded, and Jacob was left completely lost on what his tone was. He took his hit— the joint was definitely coming to its end— and cradled Jacob’s cheek. They were even closer, lips touching— just barely but man, they felt even softer like this. Nick exhaled smoke right into his mouth and Jacob took it shakily.

This was just more efficient, right? Barely any of the smoke was getting lost like this. It was just to save weed, he tried to tell himself.

Despite that, even though Jacob was the one taking from Nick's lungs, his breath was being fucking taken away by Nick. He couldn't lie to himself anymore.

Their lips met fully, and Jacob kissed the life out of him. Nick made a small, pleased sound and scrambled to throw the remnants of the joint in the ashtray, then both of his hands were on Jacob’s cheeks and Jacob was pushing his hand through Nick’s perfect curls. It was messy, and their mouths were both a bit dry from the smoke. Jacob crawled forwards until he was practically, then actually in Nick’s lap.

When they finally separated, Nick said, lips shiny, “The ‘secret’ is literally just lip balm.”

Jacob kissed him again, and again, and again.

[softer-ua]

i can't be the only one who wants izuku to get fucking pissed at his situation, at all might, start questioning what the fuck is going on with OFA.

because if you're going to trust a fifteen year old with something like OFA and bind them to the life of a symbol, you do not get to withhold information. deku was not told he'd be dealing with an enemy like AFO when he got the quirk, nor was he told that basically its whole point was not fighting some vague concept of evil, but fighting a very tangible very dangerous villain. he wasn't told that up until all might, inheriting this power was guaranteed suicide, and even after all might you only have a vague chance of survival. to be offered such a life altering "gift", Izuku should have been warned of everything. from the start. and if not then then from the very moment izuku started seeing vestiges, or at least when AFO resurfaced. WHY IN GOD'S NAME WOULD YOU HIDE ANY, ANY BIT OF INFORMATION ON A QUIRK THAT IMPORTANT?????

no because, if you look at it cynically, All Might took this kid who had nothing and who looked up to him as effective god. He took this kid who he knew had no sense of no self-care or self-preservation. This extremely reckless kid who he saw putting his life at risk three times (sludge v1, hanging on to AM as he jumped, sludge v Katsuki) within 24 hours. He picked this kid who he knew would give everything (because Izuku had "nothing", and therefore nothing to lose) and "gifted" him with a ticking time bomb. Of course Izuku is willing to break himself if it means using OFA to max potential. So much of his self-worth is based on OFA. He's said time and time again he isn't sure if he deserves it, that it's a borrowed power. If you've taken this kid and given him everything practically overnight, of course he'll go to self-destructive lengths to prove himself worthy of it. Who'd want to go back to being nothing after all?

And this is a logical conclusion. Someone like Izuku, someone like All Might probably used to be in his youth and still kind of is, they're perfect to be put on this kind suicide mission. They're a perfect vessel. Sure they're heroic and brave and selfless, but most importantly they're willing to die for the cause. OFA the quirk knows this. Literally two seconds after Katsuki sacrifices himself telling Deku not to do shit alone, Deku renders said sacrifice useless by doing exactly what Katsuki warned him not to😭 And the quirk and vestiges encourage him. They don't give a shit about repercussions and Deku's chronic pain or possible arm paralysis. They just want to beat AFO. You go son you break those arms 🤠

Doesn't it all feel a little bit exploitative?

Look at it like this. A kid is born with no power. This kid wants to be great, but the world says he can't. He meets his hero, and the hero says he can't either. Then the kid acts heroic, but reckless. The hero sees an opening. This kid is good and doesn't care one bit about his well-being? Jackpot! He offers the kid a deal. Great power, an extraordinary gift at surface layer. But one with so many more hidden strings attached that hurt and break and haunt the kid, that he was never warned about or taught how to deal with. But he can always give it to someone else! Can he, really? Can he go back to being nothing? With a personality like his, well nope. And that's why you pick the overly selfless reckless ones. The ones that will feel indebted to you to a ridiculous degree.

Isn't it like dare I say... like a deal with the devil?

As we progress more and more into the lore of AFO and OFA, I can really see why Katsuki's started to view it as a cursed power. And with how wildly different from expectations (at least mine) + far more nuanced the Todofam drama has revealed itself to be compared to what it seemed upon first intro, I'm inclined to believe there's more to the OFA story than clean cut, young bro good guy vs mean big bro oppression.

TL;DR - All Might is the metaphorical devil jr who gave Izuku a passed down deal, and neither he nor broccoli boy read the fine print.

Bakugo’s ghost sent me this ask 💀

Lol but seriously, these are all excellent points and I’ve been sitting on this ask until I had time to answer it because you’re absolutely goddamn right

This shit is explotive af, and I’ve got a suspicion as to why

I don’t think Deku was a random choice, there’s a layer of fate/mystic woven into the bnha world that gets over looked.

Sir had insane fortune telling abilities that were never once wrong about anything except when it came to the 2 OFA users fates. Deku even specifically says he’ll smash any fate in his way, and I think on some level he knows he can because he has a different destiny.

The vestiges break him from Shinsos hold, meaning the can have some level of control over Dekus body. You think AM noticed every time something like that happened? AM didn’t even notice Bakugo internalizing all the blame for his retirement even after watching his mom force him to apologize for it??

“I keep forgetting that your still a child” AM, sir, this is the third time you’ve admitted out loud that you were just gonna let Bakugo suffer his own fate 💀 please stop indicting yourself and at least pretend you care about Bakugo outside his relationship to Deku jfc

Also what are the chances you get nine random holders and none of them turn out to be corrupt or at least too self serving to die for the cause??? Slimmer than the pages bnha is printed on.

There’s something pulling some strings here, and I think it’s the true power of First users quirk.

What would be the point of transferring a quirk if that’s it’s only power?

What would be the point of this quirk being essentially password locked?

What would be the point of this quirk being able to forced on to someone?

There’ wouldn’t be any.

But what if that’s not what the quirk is?

What if the quirk is actually passing something along, and that’s why it’s dna based, it’s the transfer of an integral part of them.

Something that would change a person if forced on them but would possibly eradicate someone if stolen. Something like a souls desire? That could be a dangerous thing to give to someone else especially if it’s something they didn’t want, now they suddenly have to?

Then you give this quirk a strength enhancing quirk?

Now it’s got some juice, how much stronger did it get? Can it sense others with a similar goal, can it make its host gravitate towards those people?

Is the firsts quirk purposely finding exploitable heros, like Nana AM and Deku. All people who were/are willing to give up everything for the cause. How much of the first is in there, how much sentient power does this quirk have?

We know that Nana gave up her family, her child, for the cause. AM never bothered cultivating a family and pushed away Sir and anyone else who is anti him dying, and now we’re seeing Deku do the same.

Deku who had no friends to begin with, a dad who’s out of the picture, and an already slightly strained relationship with his mom?

Is this quirk capable of learning? Does it know that having people you care about slows you down from sacrificing yourself?

Does this quirk compound with the other users goals make the drive stronger each time?

Idk but there’s a glimmer of hope that Deku isn’t doomed to be a glorified meat puppet, and it exists in the form of Kacchan.

No one else had someone so deeply rooted to them, who could fight right along side them. Bakugo is an outlier in this story, almost the exact opposite kind of hero OFA wants, his connection to Deku breaks the cycle.

Deku would never give up on Katsuki, and even if he tried Endeavor will start coughing up ice cubes before Bakugo lets him. He couldn’t leave Deku alone when he was convinced he hated him, there’s no way he’d do it now.

Dekus story will be different from the other users that’s for sure.

[fandom-space-princess]

The Game of Us

Rating: T (gen, no warnings)

Chapter 2: Gabriel

A crevice splits the earth, clean through the center of the circular clearing. Beyond the crevice a woman is seated on a low stone. Her eyes are covered by a crimson blindfold, the only color he has yet seen in this realm. It stands in sharp contrast to her bone-white skin and hair, a slash of silken blood by which to obscure her vision.

Though he makes no sound, she smiles as he approaches. “Michael.” The sound of her voice fills him with a nameless relief. He has never heard that voice, and still, he knows her like a heartbeat.

Read below the cut, or on AO3

************************************

Upstream, the path breaks away from the river, and turns inland among low rolling foothills. Memory of a memory: for the living, these hills would have been warm and verdant, groves of olive trees. As it is, this murky reflection of life is still the closest Michael has come to the world since his descent into this desolate realm. Part of him, the part that stirs accusations like betrayal and failure in his mind like water circling a drain, yearns to lose himself in the embrace of it. To sink back beneath the surface and go no further.

He presses on.

As the path narrows and twists among the trees, air heavy with the scents of forest and the distant sea, Michael hears the low murmur of a crowd. The sounds grow more distinct as he climbs. This too is strange: human crowds have no place here, in an inhuman afterlife. When at last the tree line breaks and the path spills abruptly into a clearing, he stares uncomprehending for long moments, absorbing the sight before him.

This was a temple, once. Ages gone, this would have been a marvel of solemn grandeur. Now only ruins remain, although they are surrounded by the spectral aura of the structures they must once have been. Looked at straight on, Michael sees crumbling plinths, broken marble columns supporting the remnants of ornate entablature around a circle of grass and shattered stone. If he squints, however, the afterimages come into sharper relief. Haunted by the ghosts of architecture long fallen to ruin, this place yet remembers what it was.

It is haunted by more than that.

************************************

The rough amphitheater in which he finds himself is crowded. Shades mill nearby, shadowy and indistinct, seated or standing and whispering among themselves. Their numbers are beyond counting: thousands, perhaps? More? He takes them for human, at first, or the memory of human. But then one’s perambulations lead it toward him, and before he can think to move the shade passes straight through him. It continues on without acknowledgement, and he is overcome by a sense of deep unease.

The creature had felt... angelic. Mindless, unthinking, but unmistakable for anything but grace, rather than soul.

The focal point of the shades lies ahead, at the base of the crumbling colonnade. A crevice splits the earth, clean through the center of the circular clearing. Beyond the crevice a woman is seated on a low stone. Her eyes are covered by a crimson blindfold, the only color he has yet seen in this realm. It stands in sharp contrast to her bone-white skin and hair, a slash of silken blood by which to obscure her vision.

Though he makes no sound, she smiles as he approaches. “Michael.” The sound of her voice fills him with a nameless relief. He has never heard that voice, and still, he knows her like a heartbeat.

He steps across the crevice in one long stride. As he does, he can’t help but look down and into it: the same frigid black waters that had led him here rumble past beneath the crust of rock at its lip. Michael settles beside the stone, facing outward into the theatre, mimicking her. “Gabriel. You’re... what are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know. Taking in the scenery.”

One of the shades cuts free of the larger mass of figures. It drifts closer, apparently with purpose, and when it reaches the bare earth opposite Gabriel, it kneels. Michael regards it with wary curiosity.

“They’re here for prophecy,” Gabriel supplies, in response to his unspoken inquiry. “The humans used to come to this place to lay offerings before their fortunetellers. I visited, once or twice. Way back when.” She hums, head bowed slightly, hands folded motionless in her lap. “I liked it better then. Much more lively. This incarnation lacks a certain je ne sais quoi.”

She turns her attention to the shade before her, unseeing but knowing, somehow, that it waits there.

The shade bows low in deference. Tell me what tomorrow holds for me, it asks, voice fleeting as an autumn breeze.

“An interesting question,” she replies. Her words are warm and indulgent. “What did today hold for you? If you’re willing to tell me, I’d like to know.”

The shade appears puzzled by the request. Nevertheless, it responds. I saw a death, at the end of a silver blade. Light and pain before, only smoke and ash after. A falling, a sinking, into the darkness and the silence. And then a rising, awakening, only to see the death again. Over and over I saw the death, until I grew heavy with dread, and found myself here. It pauses its recitation, suddenly pensive. I think the death was mine.

She opens her hands before her, palms up, a sweeping gesture that invites the shade to continue. A texture along her wrist glimmers, unexpected. For the first time, Michael looks closely at Gabriel’s form. Minute scales swirl along patches of her skin. They are pearlescent and smooth, softly aglow under the ever-present half-light.

“Tell me more. What did you learn from it? How did it make you feel?”

The shade mutters on, its voice rising and falling in cadence with the rush of water at their feet. Eventually it tapers off, settling back on its heels. It seems less substantial than before, in a way Michael finds difficult to define, ethereal form wispy and unburdened. Gabriel inclines her head in acknowledgement, and the spirit fades away, melting back into the crowd.

“You aren’t a prophet, Gabriel,” Michael observes. She tilts her head toward him, grinning. In her mouth he sees the flash of fangs.

“No,” she agrees readily. “I’m not. But I am a messenger. Or I was. And this place has such interesting ways of making its points. Metaphorical, if not necessarily colorful.” She smiles again, chuckles at her own joke.

“But you offered no guidance. No message, prophetic or otherwise.”

“Oh, Mikey. Always so literal-minded. But you’re right. Being here has given me so much to think about. Maybe it’s time I stopped with the talking, and took up listening.”

She uncrosses her legs from the stone, and moves to kneel on the ground before it. Her knees push out over the cusp of the crevice. Her feet emerge from beneath the fraying edge of her skirt, clawed and scaled. Michael extends a hand tentatively. Brushes the tips of his fingers along the scales at the curve of her ankle, feeling the staticky-smooth keratinous edges. She reaches out, and takes his hand in her own. Squeezes once, then lets it fall away.

“Brother?” Michael asks, although he’s not entirely certain what it is he seeks to hear from her.

“I woke up in this form.” She shrugs. “I could change it, if I wanted, but I think it suits my current occupation. She lived here, once. A nuisance to pretty much everybody in the area, this creature was killed for the mischief and misfortunes she inflicted on the region’s inhabitants and their livestock. Her bones were laid into the foundations when it was built. Now she sleeps, and she listens.” She shivers. “That’s her judgement. That’s her penance.”

“Why is any of this here, Gabriel? Do you know? A being awoke me on the shore, told me to find you. It says it needs us—that we must move on from here. It wasn’t the Shadow. I don’t know what it was.”

She laughs aloud at that, a sound that rings out in echoes, vanishing among the shades. “You really don’t know? Bro, that’s unobservant even for you. You just have to listen harder. Knowledge is easy to come by here, if you pay attention. As for the river, this river—” She leans down to trail her fingers through the crest of a wave. Flicks the water playfully at Michael. “Old man always had a sense for theatrics. ‘Behold, for before you lies the river Styx.’ As good a way as any to make his point. River of judgement: either it makes you invulnerable, or poisons you, and the only way to find out which you get is to roll the dice.”

Michael is silent for several long seconds, something icy and desperate in his throat. Finally: “Will you go, then? Move on, to whatever awaits us next?”

Gabriel’s hands rise to the sides of her face. She draws the blindfold delicately up and off, silk trickling through her fingers like river water. She blinks back at Michael. Her pupils are slitted, snakelike.

Ignoring his question, she takes his chin in her hand. Appraises him, gently tilting his head this way and that as she studies the image he wears. “Still carrying that torch, huh? Well, I won’t deny that he was good for you. But maybe raise your gaze a little, ok?” Her thumb strokes over his cheek, once, and her lips quirk into an affectionate half-smile. Then her hand falls away, and she turns, studying the water. “You don’t have to keep defining yourself by what you were, or what you did. You can choose something else, you know?”

She inhales deeply, steadying herself. Michael can only watch as, trembling faintly, she dips her hands into the waters of the Styx. Drawing her cupped hands to her mouth, she glances back at him one final time.

“But then, what do I know? I’ve carried out enough judgement for one lifetime. See you on the other side, Mike.”

She lowers her mouth to the water, and drinks, and dissolves away into the mist.

************************************

(Chapter notes:

- The form Gabriel has taken in this chapter is the body of the Delphyne, the half-serpent maiden who is said to have inhabited the caves in the upper slopes of Mount Parnassus. Her death at the hands of Apollo is associated with the founding of Delphi, the location which serves as the primary inspiration for this scene.)

[merlinssaggyyfronts]

BBC Merlin Rewatch:

01x01: The Dragon’s Call

—

FIRSTLY THE FUCKING DESCRIPTION LMAO “Merlin, a young country boy” COUNTRY BOY AHAHDHSNDH IF ONLY YOU KNEW!!! ITS LIKE SETTING SOMEONE UP FOR DISASTER BUT THEN AGAIN THEY WERE SO LIKE I MEAN-

aw look at merlin all happy and smily, walking into camelot like he isnt going to witness the death of his best friend/king and basically everyone he loves

LOOK AT HIM HES SO HAPPY!!! HE DOESNT KNOW YET

“like everyone, he must live and learn” yo shut ur bitchass up lizard man u literally tried to murder everyone in camelot that one time

“his name: traumatised 😍😍”

AH YES THE OPENING!!1!1!-!-! AHHH THE AMOUNT OF HAPPINESS I FEEL HEARING THE OPENING

fuck ur bitchass uther no one likes u

“i pride myself as a fair and just king” sir didnt u like basically kill ur wife... and thousands of peo- OH MY GOD MORGANA BB ILY

oh jesus okay hes dead um chile-

“when i came to this land” wait i thought he was raised kn camelot brb i forgot im an idiot wait,,, does this mean before this it was the du bois family on the throne of camelot?? also, mired in chaos? u mean like.... before ur wife died and everyone was living peacefully? ....okay

“merlin, seeing a person who's been stated had been studying magic get beheaded: [a magical being himself] ah,, welcoming.” -my gf

“since the great dragon was captured” ....so did no one think about where they put a dragon?? a captured one at that. ud think he’d be more smart but nah he just left a random ass dragon under his castle like THAT is going to end well

YUHH MARY COLLJNS HATE HIM!!! YELL BABEY YELL!!! “you took my son!” YES MURDER HIM OMG I CAN FEEL HER PAIN

“a son for a son!” omg why couldnt u have killed uther bb ur the perfect villain i love u ur literally just a loving mother i-

OOOOO GAIUS

.....why is there a bunny mask in there

why is thERE A BUNNY MASK-

why didnt merlins eyes glow when he dragged the bed to gaius to save him

also whats this slomo magic why didnt he do this after this why did season one haveso much magic and like every other season was just everyone throwing it back

like i get instinctual magic but like.... if its instinctual wouldnt it happen more especially when his powers get stronger-

gaius: what did you just do?!

also gaius, five seconds later: i know what it was!! i just wanted to know where you learned it

merlin: 😐

merlin, about his magic: i was born like this

gaius, who knows full well warlocks exist: impossible!

(are warlocks naturally born knowing how to use magic without learning? i mean if u have to learn magic like a sorcerer then whats the difference between a warlock and a sorcerer cuz wouldnt sorcerers atleast have to have some magic in them to actually cast spells? am i dumb or do i just not get it)

wait so merlin arrived in camelot on a wednesday

merlin, walking into camelot: it is wednesday my dudes

merlin: [witnesses an execution] aaaAAAAAA-

“someone that might help him find a purpose of his gifts” oh honey he’ll get something mUCH LARGER THAN THAT-

—

oH MORGANA

SHUT UR BITCHASS UTHER SHE WILL KILL YOU-

“the more brutal you are, the more enemies you’ll create” oh the waY SHE PREDICTED THEIR FUTURE OO

ah bless u lady helen/mary collins we love them spicy villains

...why do you have a dressing table in a tent

[watches mary collins murder lady helen] i never snitch on dadd- ...someone pls delete me

merlin, about his instinctual magic: i just do it!

gaius: ...lord have mercy what did i just sign myself up to

what ever happened to sir olwen did he die from accidentally overdosing

—

oHHH THERE HE IS THERE HE IS THERES MY BOY!!! MY LIL PRAT MAN!!!!

merlin looks so offended, oh god i could watch this whole scene for HOURS

oooOOOO YES MERLIN FUCK HIM UP!!! SHOW HIM WHOS BOSS

“do i know you?” “im merlin” “so i dont know you” ugh theres already sexual tension

“i would never have a friend who could be such an ass” “or i one so stupid”

also them, ten years later: “i use my magic for you arthur, only you” “just hold me” “i cant lose him! hes my friend!” “thank you..”

“tell me merlin, do you know how to walk on your knees?” OOOOH THE BOYS ARE FLIRTING

NOT THE “would you like me to help you?” SIR YOU ARE FLIRTING SO INTENSELY AND DONT EVEN REALISE IT SIR DO YOU KNOW YOURE FALLING IN LOVE

im convinced atleast half the knights with arthur were like “ayo thas kinda sus bro 😳😳 ayo 😳😳”

arthur: tell me merlin, do you know how to walk on your knees? would you like me to help you?

merlin: ....i really dont know how to answer that

imagine being paid to throw fruits at colin morgan omg id be so thrilled

OOOH HERE COMES OUR QUEEN GWEN!!! MY LOVE MY EVERYTHING YES ILY

gwen: well, arthur looks like one of those, save the world kinda men... and you dont

merlin, 1500 years later, having failed his destiny: well i mean you’re not wrong

—

gaius: uther banned magic a long time ago

merlin, flabbergasted as if he wasnt raised on tales of the death of his kind every day in the kingdom right next to his: why?!?!?

gaius: the dragon is imprisoned where nobody can free him

merlin:

(that is the face of someone knowing full well hes going to free that dragon. look at him. he’s already made up his mind.)

—

[sees merlin and arthur in the marketplace] oh heres he is again heres the lil bitxh ooo theyre about to FIGHT

god hes flirting so hard without even realising it, oh my god

“i could take you apart with one blow” “i could take you apart with less” um sirs this is a mcdonalds drive thru 😃

arthur: ahah, you’re in trouble now~ 😏😏

i had to pause cuz wHAT THE HELL WHY DOES HE SOUND LIKE THAT-

—

....yall are yelling very loudly, um, arent there guards near yall? people passing by? please relax

“im just a nobody, and i always will be” OH IF ONLY YOU KNEWWW

“if i cant use magic, i might as well die” ....well, ive got a surprise for you-

“maybe theres someone with more magic than me?” like... a whole dragon? i mean if you say so 👀

merlin about why he was born like this: if you cant tell me, no one can!

a fucking dragon, basically every magical creature and the druids: WELL-

the camelot guards are so stupid how the hell is this kingdom still standing

how does kilgharrah know merlins name? in prophecy hes known as emrys (and we see basically every magical being call him emrys and not merlin,, i think). so how does he know? did he stretch his neck long enough that he could somehow hear merlin? is it cuz theyre kin? is it cuz merlin and gaius were yelling so loudly that kilgharrah could hear them all the way in his cave? ig we’ll never know 🖐

merlin: where are you?!

kilgharrah:

kilgharrah: without you, arthur will never succeed.

merlin: ....oh look, im already paranoid

the amount of sadness i feel hearing kilgharrah say “none of us can choose our destiny, merlin. and none of us can escape it” is INSANE cuz in season one you can SEE merlin trying to escape it. hes doing his damned best trying to have some control over his life. and then in later seasons you can see the light slowly drain from his eyes as he becomes just another toy for the gods to be entertained by. he realises he cant control a single thing about his life so he does the one thing he can: protect arthur. and he loses SO MUCH because of it! its not fair, he deserved so much, and when he finally got everything he could ever ask for, it was taken away from him by his own mistakes.

arthur, seeing morgana in a beautiful dress: god have mercy 😍

uther: .....um

the way they set arthur and morgana up as if they arent gonna make them siblings i- what the fawk 😄

person A, who knows arthurian lore: oh no! arthur is going to have an affair with morgan(a) and have mordred! oh no!!

person B, whos seen merlin: oh no in this show its worse

person B, knowing full well theyre siblings: much worse....

gwen: who’d wanna marry arthur? 🙄

-

gwen, getting crowned queen of camelot: well fuck

hhhnghnh yes queen sing them to sleep yes murder his bitchass (and fail but like its the thought that counts)

on a sidenote tho this is such a fun way to murder someone, id try this

the absolutely OFFENDED “FATHER!” and the horrified look in arthurs eyss when uther announced merlin would be his manservant is PRICELESS OMG

oh the way uther unintentionally plants the first seed of his sons love story omg 😍😍

Conclusion: this episode is a 10/10 greatest episode with so many iconic scenes omg. mary collins u will forever have my heart for unintentionally kickstarting merlin and arthurs relationship destiny. i loved the whole thing and oh GOD does it already hurt knowing full well how the show ends

[idjitlili]

Hey there, Mr blue sky

Thorin x reader

Summary:Imagine being apart of the company and accidently throwing a dagger only for it hit Thorin.

Word count: 2092

Warnings:swearing.

IT was no lie that you felt immediately attracted to Thorin Oakenshield,when Gandalf had brought you to the prancing pony ,to meet the Dwarven king. However due to your luck ,he was a total jerkface straight away.  You knew your chances finding love was too good to be true ,so you hid those feelings,got on with the quest.

The company seemed to like you,apart from Thorin and partly Dwalin,you didn't expect any of them to like you,due to being a woman. Until Balin had explained to you that darrowdam,were rare ,hence making them overly protective of their woman. Which led them to be over you,you did need it ,you weren't a very skilled fighter.  The only reason Gandalf had forced you into this comapny was because apparently you needed get out of the house ,go on an adventure learn some people skills,this was a once in a life time ooportunity. So you joined ,even if Thorin did not like it.

Anways ,you became friends with Thorin's nephews,Fili and Kili pretty quickly ,and they had even offered to train you,with archery and daggers. ili would train you with daggers one day,then archery with KIli another,as the next day would be hand combat in which they both would do that with you.Over just a week you had gotten considerable better ,apparent. However throwing the daggers was not going well,that leads you to today,Fili had been incouraging you to hit the knot on a piece of fabric ,which was wrapped around the tree.

Unknowningly to you at this point Thorin had went into the forest to go for a wee ,you and Fili were also in the forest training. Throw ,after throw ,you failed to throw the dagger into the tree and for it stick into the wood. Fili had stood next to you,showing you how to do it another time,not willing to let you or him give up in you. "y/n ,just imagine its some you really want to stab,they have really bugged you, like when kili pushed you into that lake fully clothed," you knew exactly who to think of.

Thorin hadn't stopped biting at you,telling you piss home,bloody burden,damsel in distress, useless the list goes on.He really got on your nerves and words hurt ,clearly he didn't care.

He really should have thought of the effect of his words.

With Fili's words of advice ,you had launched the knife ,only for it go straight passed the tree ,landing embedded into something else. YOu had sighed in defeat ,as Fili had patted your back ,only to be interrupted by.

"AHHHH aHHH" you and Fili had looked at each other ,with looks of horror on your faces,you had hit someone..not another tree. You knew that voice..."Thorin?" you had questioned,"Don't you come over here! MY cock is out!" You didn-t listen ,you and Fili had rushed to Thorin who was 20 feet away! ONce you had reached him his cock was away thank god,but he had the dagger embedded into his shoulder. Blood soaking his tunic you had gasped,making him turn to you both with unimpressed look. "DArn y/n ,you couldn't hit a tree,but you managed to hit uncle,woah." you had coughed awkwardly,as Thorin stared daggers into you.

"You told me to think about someone who has really pissed me off I swear the valar heard me ,uh because yeah." you had tried to make a joke ,but you were completely serious,you did not mean for Thorin to get harmed,if anything it was his fault ,don't be a dickhead ,don't get karma.You had looked at Fili ,motioning your head for him to leave ,as Thorin been focusing on the knife in his shoulder,Fili had sent you a smile before leaving back to camp,you had rushed over to THorin.

"I'm so sorry Thorin,I was just trying to learn to defend myself,so that I wouldn't be such a burden to the company! I can barely get the dagger to stick in the bark,but no I fucking fucking get it stick into your shoulder,I never meant for it to-" he had interrupted ,as he pulled the dagger from his arm with ease,before placing his hands on your shoulders,looking deep into your e/c eyes,with his ocean ones.

"Y/n ,I am not dead ,It was an accident,you have no need to worry. However you need to work on your aim." you had slightly smiled at the king,"you really need to get Oin,to check that out ,you are bleeding everywhere." he had chuckled ,leading you back to camp.

He had felt more gulity than you ,he had understood what you said ,about him pissing you off,he didn't realise how you had took it to heart,he just didn't want the death of a young woman on his hands ,knowing this quest will most definitely cause harm. Bruh it just happened,poor Thorin's arm.

Soon enough Thorin was patched up,but then the teasing started ,mostly from Kili.

"Too bad you missed."

Yeah thats what the company heard,but in secret the brothers would tease you ,about your crush for their uncle,not that you would admit its true. On the walk to Rivendell ,in which only Gandalf knew ,they would purposely trip you up,or push you into Thorin.  However it horrible ,as you you pull them down with you ,it was just a mess. But they did catch you eventually ,only to fall down a hill,you got stratched to pieces.

Thorin had been at the front ,so naturally he had helped you up, and since you were beyond annoyed you had told Thorin that his nephews had caused your fall. You knew they would get in trouble,due to having Bilbo along with many of the dwarves as a witness. Thankfully Thorin hadn't gone to harsh on the boys ,but they knew what was done was wrong ,the damsel in distress act wasn't going to work.

Anyways soon you all ended up in Rivendell,your hair was a state ,sticks and muds all through ,due to your fall. Not to mention the hill was at least 80 feet and rocky ,so you were covered in cuts and brusies. You were all fed dinner by Lord Elrond,which you must of scoffed down,you had liked the elves,come on thet fed you food. After that you had been led to your room ,on a tour with the rest of the dwarves ,by Lindir ,the elf that had greeted you all at your arrival. The dwarves had refused rooms ,but you had accepted the offer almost instantly.

Soon as you had went in your room ,you began running a bath,whilst you had tried to brush your hair,you must've been trying for at least half an hour ,because you had stopped the bath ,hair brush stuck in your hair ,as your door knocked loudly. You had pulled the navy silk robe over your slip,tying it before rushing over to the door ,opening it to reveal,the dwarvish king.

"Thorin?" you had whispered after standing in the door way,as he stared at you,well your hair. You were surprised that he had turned up at your room.

"oh..I just came to check on you,that fall was harsh " thats literally all you said,you had opened the door ,to allow him in before shutting it. You had scoffed,"thats an understatement, have you seen what it caused?" you had pointed up to your hair,he had chuckled lightly,making his hair move slightly,shinning in the orange light from the sunset from your window. His hair was god damn sexy.

"would you want to brush it for you?" he had asked ,gently ,as you both stood in the middle of the floor ,not far from the door. You had nodded eagerly ,moving to sit on the edge of the bed facing the wall,so that Thorin could stand behind you. Surprisingly it didn't take him long at all to remove the brush,sticks and leaves ,before brushing gently at your tangled hair. His thick fingers ,gliding down the strands every so often ,making chills travel down your spine.  Soon enough he was down ,you had jumped over the bed hugging him ,only for him to grunt slightly as you knocked his shoulder,yet he had still wrapped his arms around your waist.

You quickly pulled away,when you had realised. "How is your shoulder?" you had questioned gulitily,he had just looked at you with the same scowl."I don't know,I didn't show Oin." he had stated simply,your eyes went wide,mostly in annoyance. "Take your tunic off now!" you had demanded ,raising your voice ,louder than ever ,bro you knew how that sounded,but you didn't want his wound to get infected and he to die from the infection. He had taken the tunic that match the colour of your robe off,in one swift motion,blood gapping down his arm ,and large dagger wound on his shoulder.

You had shoved in down on the bed,before running to the bathroom to get a wet flannel,and to your bag to get your sewing kit. He didn't have a second to protest as you were already on the bed next to his shoulder wiping away the dry and running blood ,how was he even alive? Before Thorin knew it you were stitching him up,like a tear in a pair of trousers. "For a king you are a bloody idiot," you scowled at Thorin ,who just sent you a smirk "yet ,you didn't go to Oin either ,did you?" as you finished the last stitch before wiping away the last of the blood.

"you are not sleeping outside in the cold ,your majesty,even if you are dickhead,you are going to bath,then you are going to sleep in that bed, whilst I bath ,then I will sleep on the other side,okay?" you had sassed ,pulling the king up and pushing him to the bathroom door,before going to sit on the bed and reading.

Finally when you were able bathe,wait you need to know how good Thorin had looked with wet hair,and a towel. Damn the candle light glittered a yellow light on the water driplets on thorin bare muscular chest. His hair curly ,flowing down his back like a cloak. "I snuck passed the company,and brought your clothes." you had pointed to the bag at the end of the bed,hung on the frame. "Thank you,the bath is almost refilled ,you should bath quick ,so you can get a good nights sleep." you had just sent a smile to Thorin,who's eyes softended at the sight of you,before you rushed to get clean.

You had gotten into bed in your large sleeping tunic and short underwear , a far distance from Thorin,who only wore the same. Only to wake laying literally on top of Thorin,who had his arms wrapped tightly around you ,his chin resting on the top of your head. You decided pretending to be asleep would have to do ,in hopes Thorin would just shove you off him,or something ,but what you wasn't expecting was him to kiss the top of your  hair.

In which in response to that you had sat up quickly straddling him,cupping his cheeks ,therefore leaning down to press your lips to his ,before pulling away to see the king blushing and smiling slightly. ONly to be interrupted by multiple knocks,you had mouthed to Thorin 'Hide under the bed.' indeed he did ,before you rushed over to the door ,opening it to see Kili and fili.

"Hey y/n, have you seen-"" don't you hey me so godsake ,you pushed me down the hill,trying to get Thorin to caught me,but guess what? It only caused me to bruise not only my breast ,but my bloody moose ," and with that you shut the door on Thorin's nephews.

Turning back to see Thorin,smirking from the floor.

"Just you wait until they start calling you auntie."

"dont you even."

[atamascolily]

Unicorn Chronicles, Book 3: “Dark Whispers,” by Bruce Coville

Whenever people grumble about how long it's been since their favorite fanfic updated, I can't help but smile a little in sympathy. As someone who's read a lot of CLAMP manga, I've grown used to the stutter-stop of hiatuses and discontinued stories that will never be finished. To quote the Princess Bride, "Get used to disappointment". It's just an occupational hazard.

I know people who only read completed stories, but I would have missed out on a lot of great material and works that really matter to me if I followed their example. It also meant that I got really good at imagining what happens next.

So it was a delight to discover that Bruce Coville had actually finished the Unicorn Chronicles when I was busy with other stuff (i.e., life) and there were two more volumes. Coville specifically thanks readers for nagging him about finishing, which is simultaneously #hilarious and #relatable.

Song of the Wanderer came out in 1999, right on the cusp of the Harry Potter boom that shook up the juvenile fantasy genre. (Both series are published by Scholastic.) Dark Whispers came out in 2008, and you can see how much the genre has shifted in the cover art alone:

This is gorgeous art by Petar Mesedlzija, but it only tangentially fits the descriptions in the books: Cara doesn't really wear anything like this outfit, and the story emphasizes she keeps braiding her hair to keep it from tangling. She has a sword, but she doesn’t really ever use it?

Furthermore, the layout, design, and chapter headings of Dark Whispers are clearly meant to capitalize on Harry Potter: Grimmwold has a looping signature reminiscent of Dumbeldore's in the opening prologue, for instance. It's a very different feel from the way the first two volumes were presented, and tbh, I miss the old way that has gone the way of the dinosaurs now.

Inevitably, with such a long gap between volumes, Dark Whispers ended up with a very different style and tone than its predecessors. The most obvious difference is that it's REALLY LONG--464 pages in hardcover. Some of this increase in length is attributable to Harry Potter proving that giant fantasy tomes can sell like hotcakes, and some of it is the fact that the storyline is now really big, with a lot of different players moving in different directions.

Inevitably, this means that instead of following Cara's POV for the entire book, as we did in the first two volumes, we are constantly shifting narrators. It's completely understandable, but as a reader, I find it really annoying--like I am suddenly reading an entirely different series with overlapping plot and characters. It's not that this new series is bad, per se, it's just... not what I imagined when I was making up the ending in my head in the early 2000s. I do not know if this disjunct would be so obvious or unsettling to someone who was reading all four volumes together for the first time.

Anyway, so since it's been literally a decade, Coville makes the sensible decision to open with a recap from Grimmwold, in his role as the keeper of the Unicorn Chronicles: unicorns and human hunters are at war; the latter are lead by an immortal woman named Beloved with a personal grudge against the unicorns, and she just got an amulet so she can invade Luster.

In Cara's plotline, she is still coming to terms with the fact that her grandmother, Ivy Morris, was a unicorn in disguise, and is now Queen Amalia Flickerfoot. Her grandfather Jaques is super depressed (because literary references, yo) and also because this is super-weird for him, too. As they prepare for Beloved's assault on Luster, Grimmwold reveals that pages from the Unicorn Chronicles are missing, and that others reveal an unsettling prophecy about unicorns confronting their own darkness and a mysterious figure called the Whisperer.

Another human, Alma Leonetti, comes forth and suggests that the centaurs might know more details. The Queen sends Cara and her friends to investigate, while Jaques and Thomas the Tinker go on separate missions. Thomas does give her a watch that marks the days and also explodes, so you know right away she's gonna need both on her trip. M'Gama the geomancer is trying to determine where and when the Hunters will invade: the date is the forthcoming Blood Moon, but she's still working out the details on the place.  

Grimmwold tells the group a story about Alma Leonetti, and how she tracked down the wizard Bellenmore, who opened the gate to Luster for the unicorns. Bellenmore has a snarky talking lizard and great tastes in decorating:

On the mantel above the fireplace stood a row of earthenware mugs with hideous faces. One of them winked at me; another leered and rolled its eyes; a third stuck out its tongue and made a rude noise. Then they began to sing a bawdy song until Bellenmore waved a hand to silence them.

Alma bluffs her way to Luster and eventually persuades the unicorns to keep one of their kind on Earth so humans don't forget true beauty and goodness and the spark is kept alive. The hunters keep trying to kill the Guardian, but they always replace the fallen with a new one and the cycle repeats.

We also learn that Ivy summoned Moonheart to heal Cara as a child, which is what alerted Beloved to her presence, forcing her to kidnap Cara and flee because Beloved wanted the child, too. Ian Hunter was a first grade teacher who had no idea about any of this until Cara disappeared and he was radicalized by Beloved and went through an intensive training camp she's built up for her army.

Meanwhile, Ian is in India, tracking down the Rainbow Prison where Beloved has imprisoned his wife. He makes a deal with a mysterious entity, the Blind Man, trading occasional use of his sight for the knowledge he needs. Beloved's men attack Ian, but he is saved by a street urchin named Rajiv who is eager for adventure, and the mysterious Fallon, who is trying to find a doorway to Luster. The three of them team up and head for the Himalayas to find the doorway to the Rainbow Prison while Beloved's forces pursue them. We learn that Fallon is super-hot and also seeking his best bro Elihu, in a relationship that I'm pretty sure was sexual although it's never stated directly.

There's also a plotline involving the delvers - the evil dwarves we mostly forgot about in Book 2. The King keeps talking to the Whisperer, and sending his subjects to do Evil Things as the alliance with Beloved continues. (The delvers do not love humans, but they hate unicorns and so the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" at least temporarily).

The plotlines converge when the delvers attack M'Gama the earthmancer's house and steal a macguffin and kill Flensa, M'Gama's servant. Cara's party splits up, with Finder and Belle hunting the macguffin while Cara and Lightfoot continue on. Finder is killed (sob) and Belle regrets being a jerk to him. Cara's group is attacked by delvers and she is captured and taken underground. (The delvers either don't know Beloved has an amulet already/don't care/want one for their own purposes.) Cara tosses the amulet into an abyss when it fails to transport her to earth, and she is imprisoned in the dungeons with a delver dissident who has had his name ritually stripped from him for defiance.

Cara renames the delver "Rocky" and the Squijum shows up with the amulet and steals the key. They meet up with Grimmwold, and escape. They also encounter the gryphon Medafil, who is lost below ground, only to wake a monster known as the schwartz, a Terminator-like blind dragon that never gives up pursuit. Cara defeats it using the expanding light sphere from Medafil's nest, and they emerge in the centaur's valley, where Belle is waiting for them with the news of Finder's death.

The centaurs are standoffish, but eventually Cara persuades their leader Chiron to spill the beans: after the war with Beloved began, the unicorns decided to expunge all the darkness from their souls with the aid of a magician named Elihu (hi!), which gained sentience and has been egging Beloved on ever since. It's also corrupted the delvers,which is why they hate unicorns so much. In exchange for the info, Cara agrees to mercy-kill Chiron, which none of the centaurs can do for personal reasons. Cara reports this story to the unicorns, who are all :shrug emoji: about it.  

Meanwhile Ian and company are stuck in the Rainbow Prison, the Dimblethum is being tormented by the Whisperer, and ends up taking the macguffin the delvers stole and placing it at the Axis Mundi, the world-tree of Luster, so that Beloved and her forces can enter there. Lightfoot tries to stop the Dimblethum but isn't in time. And the book ends on the seriously metal note of Beloved opening the portal beneath the blood moon and invading Luster with her army. *cue 'Bad Moon Rising'*

[Which, I may note, is pretty much where the LAST BOOK also ended.]

SO. That was a lot.

Once again, the core group of characters from Book One gets broken up. Thomas the Tinker gets sidetracked pretty quickly and isn't seen again; the Dimblethum gets a few brief sequences, but doesn't do much until the end. Lightfoot and Cara are separated fairly early on and don't have much time together, though their musings about their sudden familial connections at the beginning are nice, even though Cara also keeps shipping Belle with Lightfoot. Lightfoot himself doesn't get to do much, Finder dies, and Belle is likewise sidelined by the narrative for a decent chunk of the story. Coville also keeps emphasizing that Lightfoot is a Prince, which just grates on me, too.

I would also like to see more of Cara? She has plenty of scenes, but after two books of focusing solely on her, it's so strange to suddenly be jerked in different directions and it makes me grumpy.

It's great to see Medafil again, but I found the whole delvers/underground plot to drag on too long for my tastes. I'm glad Coville brings back that one delver from the first book who let Cara go because he thinks (rightly) his king is batshit crazy.

I like Alma Leonetti's story, but it feels unrelated to the plot, so I'm not entirely sure why it's there. I think it was originally a stand-alone short story, and I think it's better suited as one, because I can't figure out what its narrative purpose is. Or is it just that Grimmwold is contractually obligated to tell at least one story per book?? Or maybe this is something that will pay off in Book 4.

Ian Hunter's story basically bores me, and I found that whole subplot extremely tedious. He's been more or less retconned to be sympathetic and a victim, and I just don't know how I feel about that.

I HAVE SUCH MIXED FEELINGS ABOUT THE BIG REVEAL. On the one hand, it's a great twist to see the psychological shadow as the literal villain; on the other hand, it takes away some of the delvers' and Beloved's agency as villains in their own right because they're now Pawns of a Bigger Bad. It also just seems like such a weird thing for the unicorns to do--and maybe that's a way of making them more alien, but I don't know.

Coville explicitly uses the word 'hubris,' so it also feels weirdly victim-blaming to me because the unicorns are doing it to themselves (and this isn't just a war, but genocide we're talking about here!). For better or worse, this twist muddies the black and white/good vs. evil paradigm into shades of gray: the unicorns are beautiful and good but also arrogant assholes; Beloved is homicidal but also in terrible pain; the delvers are misunderstood and need to be embraced rather than ignored.

Alma Leonetti consistently delivers the best lines - I guess she's taken over the role Ivy Morris used to play, since Ivy is now a unicorn:

"Perhaps the unicorns need to try to recover some of what they have lost?... You face a dedicated enemy who has shown no mercy, one who will stop at nothing to destroy you. And what have you done? Gathered together, which is good. Prepared to defend yourselves, which is good, too. But is it enough? How fiercely are you willing to fight to save your lives? How strong can unicorns be? ... Maybe you need to take in some of that darkness you once released."

I remember feeling oddly disappointed on my first reading, which unfortunately persists on re-read. This story has now moved in a very different direction from the one I expected, and while that's not necessarily bad, it is unsettling and strange. As I mentioned earlier, some of that might just be that the final result doesn't match the story I made up in my head; or it could just be the inevitable result of such a long gap between books and the changes in the fantasy market post-Harry Potter. I don't know.

(I wish I had written down my thoughts about an ending--aka fanfic--because while I could write one now, it’d be reacting to canon, rather than creating it.)

Either way, major kudos to Coville for writing this book, because I had assumed the series was dead and would never be completed, and he fucking did it. That’s such an inspiration, honestly.

[furyfought]

abernathy is a small town, surely you’ve met AGATHA KLEIN ; they can be a little IRREVERENT & OPPORTUNISTIC but have no fear , the TWENTY SEVEN year old definitely makes up for it by being IMPISH & SENSITIVE . most of the time anyway .  they’re usually seen around KLEIN & ASSOCIATES, LLC , as a CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY . you know, i hear they’re affiliated with the local mc, iron kings as an ATTORNEY . they’ve got this vibe of A HEART GROWN RAVENOUS, A CYANIDE CENTER ENCAPSULATED BY SACCHARINE FRUIT, AND A SOUL IN THE FORM OF A SCRIBBLE WITH FANGS going on , makes them easily recognizable.

loosely inspired by jennifer check (jennifer's body), wendy byrde (ozark), ginger fitzgerald (ginger snaps), elizabeth sloane (miss sloane), john silver (black sails), & BBHMM.

+ pinterest, stats.

hey, friends. i’m devin (or dev) & very tickled to be here. agatha’s a combination of two of my favorite muses, and i can only hope that you’ll love her as much as i do. 🤎

"𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄, 𝐈 𝐀𝐌 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒. 𝐍𝐎. 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐒𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓."

agatha’s story isn’t one that she likes to tell anymore. she feels it’s useless: to be defined by the actions of others, to attempt to battle the preconceived notions that run rampant regardless of what one says or does. she doesn’t want to beg for understanding anymore, or to claw her way from beneath the filth she’s made of her life. all that most know is all that she can bear to have known. the rest? it’s confetti; a meager concession in a game of chess. if you know her, is that a fact or a weapon to be used against her?

when it comes to the stories that can be told, however.. perhaps the most important is background. agatha’s an abernathy native: raised in grandiose park, flew the coop for college, only to settle back down in bordeaux apartments. klein & associates, llc. has been in her family for generations, each forefather serving increasingly questionable clients. agatha’s life, like that of many kleins before her, was already planned before she’d ever even been a thought in her parents’ minds. under her mother’s rule, there wasn’t any room for straying from that path. agatha would be smart; she would be clean; and she would be, without fail, someone. in other words, she would be her perfect replica. imagine the disappointment when agatha was anything but. 

agatha’s childhood can be summed up by three things: a door slammed shut in her face, an ear-piercing howl, and the chronic longing to go home — wherever that was. it’s another thing she doesn’t talk about, another thing she tries not to think about. those three things have followed her into adulthood, but they’ve taken different forms now. no longer is agatha a child screaming her throat raw — no; now, she cries out in other more productive ways. if you were to ask her, she’d tell you that she’s a woman grown; the past is behind her, buried in the sand where it belongs. the truth is trickier, less absolute. agatha is a child in the form of a woman; forever in the midst of a metamorphosis, unsure if for better or worse. she lacks foresight & lives largely in the now. she can’t imagine a future for herself and her choices in life reflect that.

agatha succeeds because she’s pretty, powerful, and convincing. wherever she falls short, her father is sure to more than make up for it. it’s amazing what people will do for the right price, and when they want to keep certain secrets from ever seeing the light. nepotism & immense privilege have done wonders for her, but she does.. actually work hard, too. she has an incredible memory & is really good at digging for more information & making her case. if she tells you that she’s going to do something, then she’s going to do it right no matter what. she’s dogged in that way, blinded to the outside world by her stubbornness. she works long hours & values her career above all else. she thinks it’s the only sure thing she has & views it as the one stable, secure thing in her life.

agatha is lonely to the point of defect. she lacks a sense of security in her life, which is why she’s so career-focused. she genuinely thinks that the only person ever looking out for her is her dad. she becomes very predictable once you realize that she will always pick the winning team; that she will forever follow the money; and that she is always going to make the decision that most benefits her. that isn’t to say that she doesn’t have any friends omg, but.. she doesn’t really trust easily. if she trusts you and considers you near and dear to her heart, then she’ll choose you. but until she has that reassurance? you’re on your own, bro. 

but like.. you literally would not know that unless you got burned by her. agatha is really good at listening and really good at playing parts for people. the thing with having no story is that she’s free to create her own. if you need a hero, she can be that. if you need a villain, she can definitely be that. she’s eerily good at getting chummy enough to make people think she’s close, only for them to realize.. they don’t actually know anything real about her? fun stuff. 

i think.. her entire life is a vie for power while also wanting to let go of that desire while also being afraid of what might happen if she were to let go of that desire. she’s not tht bad. she can play decent, be a guy’s guy. and she does come off tht way. it’s jus.. underneath there’s tht like .. tht rot tht she can’t scrub away. n it rears its ugly little head smtimes. but. :^) she can be cool n shoot the shit u kno.. heheh.

anyway.. lighter stuff<3 puts the gaslight and gatekeep in girlboss. talks just like her daddy, except for when she’s in the courtroom. egocentric without ever meaning to be. (spoiler: it’s a smoke screen.) she can, must, and will find a way to twist your words into something she can make sense of. believes in mixed drink supremacy. will absolutely smoke all of your weed + play dumb about hogging the blunt. plays dumb a lot actually, until it’s time to be smart. she’s touchy-feely, but freezes up whenever someone touches her. stares — a lot. can’t ever be the person to pick you up after a rough night out, because she’s likely there with you egging you on to do one more shot. every event is a tits out event / she has to be the most overdressed person in the convenience store at all times. can, must, and will be your unsolicited sugar momma. YOU SPIL-DBFDHFDJHBF LIPSTICK IN MY VALENTINO WHITE BAG? energy. thinks everything is a competition because it is. if she loved you once then she loves you forever. thinks going 20 over the speed limit isn’t speeding, actually. a bit of an emotional anarchist. can’t actually take what she’ll dish out. teases u if she likes u. teases u if she doesn’t like u. doesn’t care abt the feud as long as she’s gettin’ tht shmoney. big fan of an emotional sucker punch. 

"𝐌𝐘 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐒𝐄𝐄𝐌𝐒 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐈𝐓𝐒 𝐎𝐖𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐋, 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈 𝐀𝐌 𝐀𝐋𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐘 𝐀𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐋."  + below are some ideas open to any & all muses no matter the age, gender, affiliation, etc !

i’ve left how she got involved with the mc totally absent from this intro bc i was hoping to plot it out! i’d love it if someone wanted to be her “in”. could be they were a childhood friend in need of help, a client she got close to, jus smth tht happened by chance.. whtever we come up with works! <3

if anyone needs an evil ex gf .. She’s Here. she will lie, cheat, scam, trash yr car, empty yr bank account.. whtvr you need, baybee<3

conversely.. not-so-evil ex gf? agatha can be nice & caring without there being a catch sometimes. maybe they still talk. maybe they’re friends. u tell me.

fwb / ex fwb? she do be sending them ‘u up?’ texts. 

someone tht agatha only got close to bc she wanted them to testify/be a character witness in court oopz<3

omg actual friends pls.. ppl tht Know her. tht See her. ppl tht she cares abt n would actually do anything for. friends!!!!!!!!!!!!

agatha has “get off my lawn” energy so i think it would be very funnie if someone needed a place to crash n she let them stay at hers thinking it was temporary n then they jus.. did not leave. n she’s like 🤨 hello?

an almost smth? anything weird n awkward n unspoken tht maybe fizzled out or maybe still lingers under the surface?

agatha doesn’t have a budding drinking problem but if she does no she doesn’t but if she does then<3 drinking buddy? someone that she’s gotten into questionable shenanigans with? poor bartender tht has to deal w her trying to “help” them as she waits for her uber to come? the possibilities are endless.

agatha’s all bark n very little bite but i still think it’d be funnie if she had a hateship. jus putting tht out there<3

if yr muse wnts an ego boost via unrequited crush.. lmk. i’m willing to hulk smash all of agatha’s dignity jus for u.

omggg a dealer? >.> who said tht omg #hacked.. 

on n off again thingz? lorde wrote tht "i am my mother's child i'll love you til my breathing stops / i'll love you till you call the cops on me" line abt her</3

budding friendships!!!!!!! ppl tht she goes to pilates or yoga with; people she gets brunch with; ppl she keeps running into n its like heeey u :); little platonic crushes jus . all of the cute platonic thingz tht make her go wtf is this 🤨. 

i mean.. if anyone wants a sugar momma.. I MEANNN..

college friends!! law school friends!! ppl she met over the summer while interning somewhere!! i left tht purposely vague, hint-hint.

tinder dates gone wrong. ghosted tinder dates. tinder thingz.

agatha’s been attending galas / banquets / office partiez for ages now so if anyone wants to be her plus one or her lil fake date... :^) could be cute. cld be angsty. world is our oyster. 

speaking of which.. coworkers n maybe even a lil personal assistant would be so sexie.

[gunnerpalace]

hey there! so i used to be a huge fan of bleach, and loved ichiruki, and i was reminded of them today but i haven't been involved with the fandom since the series ended. however, i've heard of different variations of why the series ended/ships happened the way they did, and was wondering if you knew or could direct to me a post that explains that? i apologize if i'm bringing up bitter feelings, but i've always been curious if bleach's ending was a big FU from kubo or if he always intended rr/ih

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a post that really goes over it structurally in that kind of way (from a shipping perspective). I’ll get back to what you actually asked me after some asides, because it’s not so simple to just analyze the ships in a vacuum.

I’ve had my own post about why the ending was a fuck you moment, thematically, because it failed to resolve any of the themes and momentum of the series in a way that would be appropriate (either internally or in the context of the supposed genre of shounen.)

I would also say that the ending was a fuck you moment in terms of lore, backstory, and mystery, because all of the historical and political dimensions (i.e., things involving the Soul King and Great Houses) were unceremoniously shuffled off to Can’t Fear Your Own World. Not that any of those things were ever brought up properly in the manga to begin with; the proper and natural time for that would’ve been at the conclusion of the Soul Society arc, when Ichigo and co. spent a week there, which we saw none of. So I would say that everything in CFYOW is basically retconned bullshit hung off prior convenient plot hooks, and that the same was true of TYBW and LSS/TLA/Xcution as well. There may have been some notes and forethought, but it’s about as “valid” as Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert’s Dune works are compared to the original Frank Herbert ones; it’s second-hand, at best.

(This is setting aside that Bleach was clearly made up as it went along. For example: Noriaki literally admitted that he didn’t know who had killed Aizen in Soul Society until he realized that Aizen not being dead was the most shocking answer; the clear baiting and abandonment of Kisuke as the villain hinted at through various means such as his unclear and later retconned reasons for being exiled, and so on. Bleach was very much a J. J. Abrams-style mystery box work that was made as it went with, at best, rough notes, which is why its themes and focus change, for the worse. I also have a post about why it stopped being special, which is part of a running series I intend to write on how to rewrite it to fix and preserve that)

The best recent thing to compare it to is, really, HBO’s adaptation of Game of Thrones, wherein D. B. Weiss and David Benioff openly admitted to removing or deemphasizing story elements, and ignoring themes in adapting the work. The difference is that Bleach was not being adapted from anything; it degraded due to its own creator not understanding what he had created.

(To put it very simply, because this would be the point of Hyperchlorate Part II and would take a whole post to explain: the ending of the Soul Society arc did not properly establish and flesh out Soul Society as a place with a history, space, and purpose. Instead, the Arrancar and Hueco Mundo arcs decided to be a thematic inversion and deconstruction of the Karakura and Soul Society arcs. This again had an ending that did not establish or flesh anything out after Aizen’s defeat, with an even greater diffusion of focus onto ancillary characters. The Xcution arc tripled down on this by addressing something entirely new and retconned in, only to abandon it midway through in favor of going back to invoking Soul Society. And Thousand-Year Blood War took all of these problems to 11. tl;dr: Noriaki tried themes, people hated it, and so he just shoved in more and more dumb sword fights between people nobody cared about, half of whom hadn’t previously existed.)

So, let’s get back to your question. Let’s talk about ships. I’ve clicked a lot of keys and spilled a lot of ink on this subject over the years, but I no longer particularly feel like searching my own archives (really ought to go back through and organize them better) beyond this post and my own follow-up to it about the chronology of IR interactions, so I’m just going to repeat myself.

First, let’s say that Bleach was not ever a manga about ships.

I’m not disavowing that what Rukia and Ichigo had was special. That was called out multiple times through the focus of the art, the dialogue, and by the characters themselves. (Directly by, for example, Orihime’s outright statement to the effect in Soul Society, and her later jealousy regarding it. Indirectly by, say, Uryuu’s acknowledgement that him saving Rukia first would piss Ichigo off. In fact, the biggest indirect indicator doesn’t even involve Ichigo and Rukia; Shunsui asks Chad why he’s there and Chad says he wants to save Rukia, Shunsui calls bullshit that two months isn’t enough time to risk your life for that, and Chad agrees and says he’s there because Ichigo wants to do it. Shunsui moves on, but his argument is left hanging: why was two months enough for Ichigo? Because, as Orihime will later say out loud, Rukia is special.)

What I’m saying is that that was never the focus. It was explicitly constructed that way.

How do I know? The Grand Fisher fight. The Grand Fisher fight is emotionally charged, bringing up both Ichigo and Rukia’s greatest traumas, and is their one real moment of not understanding each other for a time. It was a triumphant moment that made them truly glad to know one another, and you can see it in their reactions afterward (Rukia thanking Ichigo for not dying, Ichigo asking Rukia if he can keep being a Shinigami). There was a lot to unpack there, and you can see it in the way they look at each other.

What happened immediately after the Grand Fisher fight? Noriaki skipped a whole month. We go from June 18th of 2001 to July 17th of 2001. He deliberately skipped all of the emotional impact of that event, and Rukia being around for Ichigo’s 16th birthday. Just never happened. We never hear about it. Wasn’t his focus as a writer.

Now, I’m convinced that was because he was scared of what he had on his hands. He wasn’t willing to commit to either a couple’s battle shoujo or a shounen with male and female seemingly-heterosexual co-equal deuteragonists who clearly had a strong emotional bond. More specifically, he wasn’t willing to make Rukia a centerpiece of the manga despite having designed her first, having made her the moral and philosophical core of his manga, and having based Ichigo entirely around completing and complementing her. But hey, that’s just my opinion, right? Except it kept happening.

From the Grand Fisher fight onward, the name of the game in the manga, structurally, became keeping Ichigo and Rukia apart.

The moment she was taken back to Soul Society, her prominence dropped. We got emotionally charged scenes of them regardless. Right at the conclusion, after yet another emotionally heavy set of Ichigo and Rukia interactions, we again skip almost a month, from the end of the first week in August of 2001 to September 1, 2001. (Due to some completely unnecessary timey-wimey bullshit with the Precipice World.)

In the Arrancar and Hueco Mundo arcs, they have roughly a day together over the course of three months. What happens after every meeting? They’re shuffled apart and split up, and we cut away. This time, for over a year!

Ichigo and Rukia again have a very emotionally charged meeting in the Xcution arc. And what happens at the end of that arc? We skip ahead another month to TYBW. (Xcution ended sometime in May of 2003, TYBW starts June 11, 2003.)

And in TYBW, Rukia and Ichigo barely meet up at all. Indeed, the focus is scarcely upon them.

In CFYOW, neither of them even appear, let alone have any relevance to the plot.

The implication, in my opinion, is pretty obvious: Noriaki was deathly afraid of dealing with the outcomes of their interactions, and that ultimately became him being deathly afraid of allowing them to interact at all to begin with. Why? Well, as I said in one of the last linked posts:

As an author, sometimes you will find your characters will do things you didn’t anticipate or plan for, and you’ve got two choices: you can go with the flow and do what’s natural and deal, or you can fight it and try and impose your vision anyway.

He refused to let his art take the direction it needed to go in.

Now, some people might say he got bored of them, or of having them together. I say that’s bullshit. And the reason I say is down to three things:

He didn’t ignore them, he did his best to keep them apart. I outlined this above.

He did not emphasize anything or anyone else instead. His focus was all over the place. While, admittedly, Ichigo’s prominence also declined, so did everyone else’s.

It would have served him well to focus on their interactions to expand his universe and explore its lore. The things that were detailed in the databooks and CFYOW could’ve been presented naturally and easily if they were together. But that came with a cost of shifting the focus. A cost he refused to pay.

Let’s talk more about (2) and (3) now.

Regarding (2), Chad and Orihime are inextricably linked in Bleach, because they essentially have the same relationship to Ichigo. “But Orihime loves Ichigo, and Chad is his no-homo bro!” someone proclaims. So what? They’re presented as equal and parallel at every step.

They both gain their powers at approximately the same time.

We are told they gained their powers due to the Hogyouku (in Rukia at the time) interpreting their wishes (and no one else’s, such as Tatsuki, Keigo, or Mizuiro), meaning they probably had the same strength of desire.

They both go to Soul Society “for Ichigo.”

They both utterly fail against Yammy and Ulquiorra.

They both spend most of the Hueco Mundo arc doing nothing.

They are both featured prominently in the Xcution arc, and both fail to see through Tsukishima’s powers despite their love for Ichigo. (Meanwhile, Byakuya coolly tries to murder someone who he thinks is his mentor, in Ichigo’s name.)

They both get sidelined in Hueco Mundo with Kisuke in TYBW, doing little to nothing.

They both are utterly ineffectual in the final fight in TYBW.

They are often portrayed together, they are often as effective as one another, and they are equally as developed in their relationship to Ichigo going forward, which is to say: not at all. The loss of focus on IR did not come with an attendant rise of focus on IH, any more than it did with the sudden rise of IchiChad. Nothing was built in IR’s place. There was no emotional or human content which filled its gap.

This is where the IH ending coming “out of nowhere” stems from: it indeed came out of nowhere, because Ichigo was never shown to have any interest in Orihime in all this time, nor an especially close relationship with her. He never hangs out with Chad or shows a bond with him either. He never hangs out with anyone, in fact. (Indeed, “friends” in Bleach do not do any of the things that friends actually do in real life. Nor do parents. You might say that interpersonal relationships and communication largely don’t exist in Bleach. But that’s its whole own topic.)

I would honestly say that more time and emphasis was given on Ichigo’s pseudo-surrogate mother relationship with Ikumi than was spent on him interacting with Orihime. (I would say Noriaki has serious hangups about relationships of any kind, be they romantic, familial, or friendly, and also has some severe hangups regarding mothers and fathers, but that is also its whole own topic.)

Regarding (3), Noriaki apparently wanted this big, Game of Thrones-style world with a long history and political machinations and so on. This is the whole point of TYBW and CFYOW. Trouble is, early Bleach was successful because of its small-scale intimacy. So how do you go from one to the other? You have to lay the foundations at every step. And Noriaki steadfastly refused to do so at every step. Having Ichigo and Rukia interact, and focusing on Rukia while Ichigo was sidelined without powers, would’ve permitted that organically. Indeed, if RR was the endgame, it would have given time to establish that, were it his desire. (Because Rukia never showed any interest in Renji, and frankly Renji always seemed way more preoccupied with Byakuya.) It didn’t serve his goals, but he did it anyway.

It’s much simpler to say he lost focus, and that he started to hate the manga as a whole. Why else would you have Mayuri fighting a giant hand when that achieved nothing, and Kenpachi fighting Thor when that achieved nothing? It became empty. Hollow, you might say.

But that takes us back to the question you posed: where did the ships come from? Nowhere. IH, RR, and fucking TatsuKeigo weren’t established anywhere. They just appeared. Why?

Well, why did every single character wind up doing the exact opposite of their intended and stated goals in the end?

Why did Soul Society revert to its previous attitude and rebuild the Sokyouku?

Why did nothing get resolved?

Why did nothing change?

Why was it all revealed to have been completely and utterly pointless?

In my view, it’s because that ending was a giant fuck you to the readership and Shueisha. There is no other way to interpret an author pulling a 180° and completely nullifying their characters’ arcs, and their work’s themes. Aizen’s little speech at the end is the cherry on top. I read it as Noriaki saying that he’s showing “courage” in telling us all to fuck off.

As to why? That’s an open question. His relationship with Shueisha was contentious, so maybe he was mad at them. (They gave him a deadline once he was dragging his feet, and reclassified Bleach as a joke manga.) His readership was on the decline after the Soul Society arc ended, so maybe he was mad at the audience. I don’t know. I also don’t really care. What I am convinced of is he decided to blow up his franchise and to not leave a single stone unturned when he did so.

That’s where that “ending” comes from, which is why despite it featuring IH and RR, both are thoroughly unsatisfying and without setup: it was the only way to piss absolutely everyone off, including people who wanted that outcome.

In a way, it was his greatest success since the early days of the manga.

Anyway, this was messy, but it’s not a simple topic to address. The tl;dr is that Bleach was a trainwreck from the very beginning that only succeeded on the merits of its characters, and that Noriaki deliberately avoided the promise it had to be something unique and grand. The ships are just a part of that, and cannot be understood in isolation from it.

[alilbihh]

spaced out — (prologue)

masterlist    previous chapter    next chapter

summary: "take me to your leader.“ you couldn’t believe it. this man was otherworldly in all sense of the word. "well I hope you’re hungry, my dude, we’re going to visit the king of burgers.”

or

Planet A3022 is on the brink of extinction. with little to no females there to repopulate and its king not interested in any one of them, he assigns one of his most trusted men to retrieve a female suited to his tastes willing enough to take his hand in marriage. things go haywire once the man in question crash lands into the considerably non technological Planet EA4728 with you there as witness.

genre: fluff, humor (??), angst, highkey crack, poly!au, alien!au

pairing: alien!taehyung x reader x alien king! ??

The man curses in his native tongue, careful not to raise his voice, his temper. He has to remain cool-headed if he is to survive. He grips the rotational controls tighter, palms sweaty as is his back and forehead and shit shit- he's just sweaty all over he's just gross and could really just use a shower.

He jerks the rotational joystick in his grasp to the side just in time, laser beams firing overhead. They hit the comets and/or asteroids instead, resulting in a rain of heavy masses of metals and rocky material drilling holes into the spacecraft made by hand by a group of his kind's top engineers, yet despite that the man is almost sure it's barely even dented its heavy walls. It was made to sustain large amounts of damage. It was made for war, not for speed.

He hadn't raced in a while. And when he had, it had been for fun, back in his training days. This time he couldn't afford to lose. Though with a spacecraft of this size, it didn't seem like he was going to win, either.

He curses again when a particularly massive chunk of rock hits the front of his ship, red warning signs blaring at him immediately from all sides, robotic voices warning him of danger, danger, danger. It's not a big problem, he reassures himself. He doesn't have time to fix it, anyway, not when he's being chased. Though the chase being partly his own fault to begin with. He was being careless, falling asleep when he wasn't supposed to. The ship had been set to auto-pilot, its destination already inputted into the system, but that doesn't mean he was free from danger.

Stupid, stupid. Now he will never gain his king's trust again. He won't have much need for it if he's dead, though.

His breath catches in his throat as he approaches a considerably no-name planet. He'd bought time by firing at his pursuer's viewfinder, but it would only be a matter of time until they find him again. Chewing at his lower lip, he releases a breath as he rapidly inputs a code, praying to whichever higher deity that might be listening for him not to die- for him to please, please not die or, even worse, be found by the civilization he’s literally about to crash into.

"Emergency landing set to planet EA4728."

"Any fives?"

"Go fish."

Jin grumbles mutely, passive aggressively snatching a card from the deck spread over the floor. You snicker, even as he kicks your shin, not discreet in the slightest. The man beside him snorts, so he kicks his shin, too.

Jungkook looks smug from where he sits beside you, raking a hand through his hair with his empty hands. Cardless hands, in fact. You were still stuck playing this mind numbing game with Jin. "Nines?"

"Go fish."

You grin when you end up picking up a nine, leaving Jin to whine at your cheeky expression. You were never good at the whole poker face thing. Jungkook likes to boast that he's won because of his mastering of it, despite this game being entirely based on luck. You curse him inwardly.

Jin clears his throat. "...got any fives now?”

"Still no."

A large intake of breath, followed by a yell of indignation— "This-" Jin starts, slamming his cards onto the pile on the floor, "-Is dumb." You watch in odd fascination as the older man goes to stand up, ending up hitting his head on the counter before letting out a yelp and then, only then do you remember where the three of you are. Shuffled, cramped, hidden under the check-out counter of Jin and his boyfriend’s shared flower shop, away from the customers' prying eyes.

Jungkook is straight up cackling beside you as the other male falls on his bottom, holding his head in his hands, and you're laughing even as your hand ends up brushing against the mustard-stained paper on the floor that once held Jin's sandwich. But you're happy and they're happy, so you wipe your hands on Jin's apron without hesitation.

You stand up, eyeing your surroundings, thankful for Jin's sake that there were no customers around to witness the unfortunate occurrence. You eye the poppies and roses and flowers you don't know the name of, the low hanging vines that grow along the ceiling, the smell of comfort and familiarity. You'd draw this if you could. Exactly this, an awash of greens and blues and oranges.

"Hyung how much longer until your shift ends?" Jungkook asks as he stands up beside you, placing a delicate finger over the bobby headed maneki neko on the counter. "I'm hungry and had to watch you eat your sandwich and it was, quite frankly, the worst experience of my life."

"You ate half of my fries." Jin says at the same time you say, "You ate half of his fries."

Jungkook's doe eyes that already scream innocence are now gleaming in betrayal. Why did his eyes have to be so big and open and honest. As if he doesn't already attract the attention and the protective instincts of anyone within a fifteen foot radius of him.

"I did not." Jungkook whines as you and Jin exchange looks. "I don't wanna hang out with you two anymore. I'll get a boyfriend, surely he'll appreciate me more."

"The whole gremlin vibe you have going on doesn't exactly give you much sex appeal." You say with a snort.

Jungkook makes a noise of indignation before, promptly, punching at Jin's stomach, the man letting out an unappealing oof before yelling—"What did I do?!"

The moment is (thankfully) interrupted by a tired Hoseok trudging out the backdoor, scratching at his chest. You step out to greet him, turning your back to the chaotic duo, immediately regretting it as you hear Jin mutter a "I dare you to put your hand in there."

The man, his arms already spread out in greeting, squeals out a "Y/nie!" the same time you squeal out a "Hoseokie!" before you promptly wrap your arms around his back, squeezing the life out of him, as he deserves. The man has it hard enough already.

When you two separate Jin and Jungkook are already behind him, Jin whining out a "Y/n, stop hogging my boyfriend" as he presses a kiss to the man's cheek. Jungkook is just hovering beside them with a look that screams ew, when will my dads get a room. Three seconds later he says "Gross, not in front of the baby."

"I thought you said you were an adult?" Hoseok mutters, amused.

"Not me, dumbass, I'm talking about Y/n!" 

You could barely even open your mouth to argue before Hoseok continues with a playful sort of warning to his voice, "That's dumbass-hyung to you, brat." Jin shakes his head, patting his boyfriend's chest reassuringly, or maybe he just wanted to feel up his pecs. Pilates has been treating Hoseok well. Jungkook moves to pat the other (platonically, as all bros do). Hoseok doesn't move at this point, unfazed.

Your voice is flat, eyes narrowed at the scene. "Are we gonna, like, go or something?"

It takes a while for all four of you to clamber into the car, Hoseok in the drivers seat and Jin beside him, you and Jungkook on the back seats like children being taken on a road trip by their two chaotic dads. Hoseok had to have closed up shop first and foremost, saying goodbye to the flowers and kissing the ones he likes the most, particularly the peonies. Jin had only stared, used to it after working and (almost, you’re still waiting for the talk), living with the man for so long, occasionally checking the time on his watch for comedic effect.

Now you're all in a comfortable silence, the radio sometimes going from soft and relaxing music to Fergie or something but you don't mind, only watching the world go by from your window. Hoseok's voice cut through the silence only twice, first to ask if you were all going to his and your shared place and the second to ask Jin if he was gonna cook or if he should order pizza or something. (The first ended up being a firm yes, the second with Jin saying something along the lines of "Jungkook has a semi-healthy lifestyle and Y/n asked me if i wanted to grab dinner at one in the morning. I'm making spaghetti.")

You don't know how that agreement led to you being sprawled face-down on their couch, no food in sight. Hoseok and Jin disappeared a while ago and Jungkook suspected it was for less than innocent purposes but that can't be right, Jin never makes out with an empty stomach; Hoseok has said it, Jin himself has said it, it's a well known and not very interesting fact. You should have left with Jungkook for kebabs. What were you thinking. Damn Jin and his really good spaghetti sauce.

You sit up so quick it gives you whiplash, opening the door to your and Hoseok’s comfy apartment resolutely. "I'm leaving!" You don't expect much of a response, but you hear a thump somewhere around the bathroom area, so you take that as answer enough.

The brisk air hits you all at once as you walk outside, and you shiver before aggressively rubbing your arms for some kind of warmth. You didn't really think this through. You decide to walk forward with no jacket and no destination, letting your feet take you to wherever your heart desires.

The man stays strapped to his seat as he goes through the planet's atmosphere, fingers digging into the armrests. He grits his teeth, watching as the blur of shapes and colors starts gaining form into trees and cities and life, and with the force of gravity pushing him back, he can't even lift his arms to steer the spacecraft into a space further away from the cities, for both their safety and his own.

He can only watch helplessly as he gets closer and closer, hoping and wishing and praying that he doesn't end up hurting someone, that he doesn't end up dying, himself. He's about to make a risky decision, he knows.

"My king-" he draws in a breath, squeezing his eyes shut, all too familiar faces coming into view, even from so so far away. "Forgive me."

"Hoseok- oh! ah!"

"Sit still, you moron." Hoseok rolls his eyes, a fond smile creeping upwards against his will. "The kids are waiting on us."

"But i'm in pain." the younger male's massages turn into pinches at that, and Jin sits up startled with a yelp.

Hoseok pats the older's back, "Feeling better?"

“Yeah, thank you.” Jin says with a sigh, relieved his muscles aren't aching anymore. “I wonder what else you can do with those hands, ey-”

Hoseok slaps him upside the head as he passes by, searching the hallway with furrowed brows. "Where'd they go?"

"Huh? they're gone?" the older hums, creeping up behind the other with wide eyes, rubbing behind his head with a barely contained pout. "Maybe they finally collapsed from hunger?"

Another slap upside the head. "They're fine."

You were not fine.

You were cold and hungry and, quite frankly, lost. Nothing around you looked familiar, and you could barely see anything with how dark it was. Not only were you cold and hungry and lost, but you were also stupid, not knowing from which direction you came from. You squint at the dimly lit streets, lampposts flickering as you walked past.

This was, like most things, probably Jungkook's fault. But he was with kebabs and you were in the middle of nowhere, so there was not much you could do except curse at the skies.

The Seoul skies are dark and cold and there are never any stars to be seen, just pitch black, airplane lights tiny and bright flickering across it deceiving enough for you to think it's a star, and you watch with dull eyes as the light flickers until it disappears from sight.

You reminisce on the days back at Busan, tiny Jungkook and tiny you climbing onto the tree in the backyard to get to the roof, arms spread and back pressed uncomfortably to the tiles, the stars and the moon so close, as if you could touch them if you were to reach out. You'd sit there and talk about nothing and everything and sometimes you'd laugh and sometimes you'd cry and there was this one time you straight up fell off roof (you were fine, but he'll never let you live past that), and sometimes Jungkook would sing even past the occasional puberty cracks in his voice.

You sigh at the empty sky, figuring it's late enough to be considered dangerous and that you should at least attempt to find your way back to Hoseok and Seokjin's until a Definitely Not an Airplane flickers in your peripheral vision.

You squint, eyeing the little light in the sky as it flies across your vision. A gasp catches itself in your throat, small smile twitching up your features, the thought of seeing a shooting star for the first time in so long enough to have your heart beat faster. As you're about to close your eyes and make a wish (despite your consciousness telling you how lame it is), your brows furrow as the shooting star continues flying through the sky. Or rather, straight down, getting continuously bigger and brighter as it approaches.

Your eyes widen as the light slowly growing closer gains shape, not one of an airplane or a meteor or anything explanatory that could have fallen from the sky, but something you couldn't possibly identify, even as it grows closer and closer as the seconds tick by. You're left to watch, dumbfounded, as the unidentified flying object is only seconds away from hitting you, and in a split second decision you’re shielding your arms in front of you in a meek attempt to protect yourself, eyes shutting tightly. Oh god. You’re going to die.

When you manage to peel your eyes open again, a few ways away is a pod of some sort, floating only inches off the ground. A metal container, taller than the average person, spacious enough to fit the average person. And there was indeed a person- a person- inside of it, sitting in a suspiciously comfortable looking armchair, hands gripping the armrests and his eyes closed.

Let's set the scene: you're in a deserted one-way street, the flickering of the lampposts above only serving to creep you out even more, an unknown yet oddly handsome man that just fell from the sky only a few ways away, in the middle of the street.

The pod's door slides open.

You jump, eyes and brows comically wide and you would have laughed in any other situation. Against your own volition, you eye the man, nearly forgetting to think beyond breathing at his appearance. He's very much the picture of otherworldly you're starting to suspect he is, jaw sharp and hair still well maintained despite what it looks like it's been through (going through the atmosphere, you remind yourself). His clothes look to belong to someone of importance, despite the torn and dirty shape it's currently in, all perfectly cut and fitted garments and expensive looking fabrics.

You don't have time to think about much beyond that before the man's eyes snap open, flickering towards you almost immediately. Your breath hitches.

With a large yet shaky step, the man steps out with his hands gripping at the pod's walls for balance, not breaking eye contact for even a second, staring with half lidded eyes. He steps out. One foot, then the other. You can do nothing but stare, blinking rapidly to ensure this is all real, that Jin didn't finally snap and poison your food to have you hallucinate. He's about three large steps away from you before he speaks.

"Earthling!" he starts, pointing an accusing finger at you, and you're more than aware of how deep his voice is. "State your gender and sexual preference!"

"what."

You feel like you've made some sort of terrible mistake.

a/n: hello lads!! this is the first installment of this series, feel free to tell me your thoughts! lmk if there are any mistakes lmao,, thanks for reading!!

[myinnerroomie]

              Today I want to write for pleasure instead of business. I want my mind to be productive, but I am sick of work.  I am sick of all the grad school papers and the stress of getting everything in on time, the stress of applying for this test, and studying for that test. The stress of pretending I care about the Air Force. And for what?  I feel as if I am not doing something to better myself, then I am failing.  In all aspects of life. And for what? What am I trying to accomplish?  What do I want out of life?  The answer is everything.  More than I’m getting.  So I fill the void with military and homework and physical activities.  All of which are healthy right?  What’s the problem?  I can do more.  I am so capable.  I see that. I know that I’m not meant for this.   However, I signed up for it, right?  I’ll finish what I signed up for and move on and appreciate what I learned.  In the meantime, I feel it necessary to point out that I may be jobless in 2 months, maybe not.  The stress of never knowing what is going to happen is real.  And I’m sick of it.  However, it pays the bills (quite nicely), I’m staying in a condo by the beach (where I’m sitting on the balcony typing), and it’s frankly beautiful weather and I’ll go for a run later. It’s really my fault that I haven’t found a job yet.  I should never have relied on reserve like this anyway.  I have no fear that I’ll figure something out when the time comes.  Actually, life is way better than it really has ever been.  

I’m so free (aside from the military which ironically is the thing that saved me). Oooh.  Let’s get into my early adulthood.  That should be fun.  So, embarrassingly enough, until this past year, I have always had a boyfriend.  We can get into my childhood later, but it probably stemmed from somewhere back then.  I have never thought much of myself.  Figured I’d go to community college like everybody else, then I went to a university like everybody else.  Majored in a stupid (fun) degree.  No real regrets about that though.  My self-worth was based on if people liked me, if I felt I looked good.  I do regret a lot of the actions of that sad, desperate girl.  Nobody understood, and I was good at faking it.  I did things that I have never admitted to anybody.  I literally could have been diagnosed with the same disorders as the other kids in the behavioral hospital where I worked.  Only mine weren’t for attention and I was deeply ashamed, so nobody knew.  I educated myself on the consequences of what would happen if I continued on that path, and slowly but surely, I got better.  And sadly, I can’t even celebrate that with anyone.  Shame, guilt, fear, worthlessness, pain – what I used to always feel.  Pride and confusion with all this freedom I have is what I feel now.

I used to think emotions were embarrassing.  I knew I hurt all the time, but I was never taught how to deal with it, so I would isolate myself and feel stupid.  Actually, that’s what I was taught.  Everybody has issues, and I’m not special. Get over it.  Why did it hurt so much?  Why can’t I get over it?  Why am I so miserable?  Why am I even alive?  Everybody dies anyway.  Oh, I know how I can deal with this: weed.  Ahh, there so much better.  Now all I’m thinking about is how I can’t remember what I’m thinking about. Yeah, I should probably go to class now.  Wonder if they’ll know I’m stoned. (turns out that they did).  But I was really enjoying class then. Very intrigued with Maslow’s hierarchy of need.  Hmm self-actualization.  Will I ever know my purpose and get to the point in life where I can fulfill that need??? Nah bro I’m starving…  You think everybody is staring at me eating these chips? -- Anyway, this is only the middle of the story.  I’m not even going to go back to my first boyfriend.  Let’s skip to the second one that cheated on me after 2 years.  Looking back now, he’s gross and bigoted. He was mean to me.  He lied to me.  He cheated.  Everything was an ordeal.  I just constantly lowered myself and made myself small for him.  He, of course, never reciprocated.  I wasn’t worth it.  Because I never showed any self-worth.  One good decision I made was to further my education and move to Hattiesburg for school which he actually made fun of me for doing. Anyway, I remember one time he had just come from the boat or whatever he was doing for work and invited his friend to our apartment.  I went to sit on his lap and he pushed me off and laughed.  I just went to my room and cried while he spent the night with his friend. That’s not me.  I hate I did that.  I hate that’s their memory of me.  Oh well.  I know they still talk shit about me back home.  That’s fine and that’s their problem.

Another reoccurring theme with boyfriends is my lack of any other friends and/or support. This takes me to my second boyfriend. I had been single for less than a year, and I met him.  It was so much nicer at first.  I felt like he cared about me.  He was so sweet.  Finally, everything was reciprocated to me, and I was happy.  I was happy to make him happy.  Again, with my screwed up priorities, man.  But I had grown up a little.  I just had this baseless fear that I would be alone forever.  But, I’m not necessarily the victim.  I did have this notion that I should be taken care of. I never expected to pay.  I expected some sort of money and to pay to go out and about.  That didn’t happen with this guy.  This honestly helped me become independent.  However, over time, he became more and more controlling. He threw me down and hit me in a NOLA hotel and the police were called.  He tore up my purse and a jacket. I remember feeling so much stress because he said he was going to leave me there, and I didn’t know how to get home.  Nor did I want to tell anybody why I was in that predicament anyway.  I thought it was all my fault and apologized and he stayed. How lucky am I? To stay with a guy that hits me and breaks my belongings (He also broke my tent.  If I ever went anywhere, he would be calling and obsessed. I couldn’t enjoy anything because I knew there would always be repercussions for having fun.   I literally broke out in hives at my friend’s house in Jackson one time because I told him no I wouldn’t come back to his place that night and it gave me so much grief.  He said he was going to break up with me if I did not drive back.  But I sure enough stayed my ass up there though. It was still embarrassing.  He threw a boot at me once because I was mad and didn’t want to sleep in the same room as him.  When I told him that hurt and showed him the bruise, he blamed me for acting that way. A few times, I tried to leave to go home, and he would grab me and not let me go.  I would be like if you don’t get your hands off me, I have every right to defend myself.  So I would straight up try to fist fight him to let go of me. He would laugh. Sounds healthy right?  Oh yeah, one time I did not do what he wanted and he threatened to get rid of my cat and locked all the doors to the house so I could not get to MY fucking cat.  So I waited until he got home and he just acted like he didn’t care at all about the strife he caused.  I think I may have even stayed that night at his house.  I hated him but I didn’t know what else to do.              

In the middle of all of this, I joined the military.  So yeah he came to visit me in Texas for graduation then said this was his vacation and that he was going to do what he wanted.  I’m like dude no.  I’ve been locked up for weeks.  It’s my vacation.  Another argument, more crying.  You’re a bitch if you stand up for yourself.  Okay months go on, we break up in tech school.  But I know he has my cat.  I also know he has a place to live.  Again, my fault.  I’m using him cause I don’t really know what else to do.  So I live at his house.  Then move to out of town.  He threatens to leave me again and tells me I’m shitty for moving away.  I move back to his place.  Back and forth, but he just stays and does whatever the fuck he wants with no consideration for me.  Eventually, I just started to dislike him.  I can take care of myself.  I got another place with a room mate.  His presence annoyed me.  I thought he was ugly.  I think that was mutual, and I was like dude:  Let’s end it. It’s miserable.  He agreed.  Easiest break-up ever.  Now did I do dumb things, and normal post-breakup things? Absolutely. Did I still text him a couple times afterwards? Yeahhh.  Also,  I made out with a 20 year old army kid at a bar. And I also slept with a married man.  That was a whole thing.  But most of last year, I have just grown.

I have nobody grabbing my arm now.  If I want to pack up and go hiking somewhere across the country, I’ll buy a plane ticket and go. If I want to hang out with friends, its fun again.  I do not rely on anybody for my self-worth.  2020 was extremely rough for me. I lost my house and all my belongings.  My car flooded in a hurricane (and of course I only had liability insurance).  It has all worked out anyway.  I didn’t even need any of that stuff.  Honestly, I never had the worst life.  That wasn’t the goal of this. You know, to complain.  It’s just that everything has gotten better. Losing everything helps put your life into perspective.  I’m so much more appreciative now.  I look at what I have accomplished and where I came from.  I used to think that everybody was more important than me, and that I needed them to like me and see me as worthy to be around.  Well, that has changed completely.  I don’t have to like you and you don’t have to like me.  That doesn’t make me less of a valuable person.  Everybody is not better than me and I have just as much a chance of being successful as everybody else.  I’m not a “bitch”.  Maybe some folks find me “annoying”, but you’re crazy if you think I will ever make myself small to fit inside anybody’s box that doesn’t like me.  I don’t “deserve it” to be living a miserable life. Life is hard.  Life is beautiful. It’s all about learning, and that’s what I have done. I win.  I’m free.  I can do anything.  While I do regret some of my past, all this has given me the drive to me who I am today and who I will be tomorrow.  Still gotta figure that one out.

[golgoterror]

Alright, this is ungodly long, but I just wanted to talk about something regarding Jake. 

A lot of this fandom -- at least, from what I’ve seen -- label Jake as stupid. Some may even say Jake and smart are antonyms. This could not be further from the truth. It almost irritates me how much the fandom places this mischaracterization on him. Also, I get to talk about The Lad™ for about ten pages worth of words on Google docs, which is always very, very fun for me.

Well, first things first, let’s talk about the child genius and multi-billionaire polymath that is Jake English.

Puzzle Modus.

Let’s begin with something small. Jake’s modus is of puzzlekind! This is described as:

It's quite a handy modus, allowing you to captchalogue objects of any size, as long as you can fit them all in a finite space by maneuvering the cards around like a big game of Tetris. You like it because it keeps you sharp for solving any puzzles you might find when you go out raiding hallowed tombs, which is never. (x)

He likes puzzles! This is a huge headcanon I absolutely adore that has a basis in the comic: He’s a puzzles guy! This is just sort of a neat little fact about him that I adore to the moon and back. Just the idea of Jake fiddling about with a Rubik’s Cube is kind of adorable.

This is how he goes about doing everything every day of his life. I think that’s just amazing! And incredibly smart of him, I might add.

Skaianet. 

Jake is shown in the credits to take over Skaianet after the game ended. For those unfamiliar, Skaianet made many things for the game, including but not limited to: the interstellar travel we see, transportalizers, the lab by Rose’s house, all Jake’s fancy-schmancy computers, and Sburb itself. In the beta timeline, Grandpa Harley founded Skaianet. In the alpha timeline, Grandma English did. I know Jake didn’t start it up and trying to pass off his alt-timeline self as him is a bit far-fetched at best, but he had the spoons to take it over. I think that speaks volumes for Jake’s intelligence -- this implies, at the very least, he can understand mathematics and physics at a high level. Remind you of someone we already know?

It is also important to note that Jake does, in fact, build the company back from the ground up, because it went to shit before his grandmother died:

GT: Pretty sure her company made a tidy fortune til it went belly up. At least i still have a few of her knickknacks for keepsakes. (x)

So he built an interstellar company back up -- using what his intelligent grandmother had once used -- to being very useful and practical once again. 

As someone with a degree in mathematics and about to finish a degree in physics, I can say this sort of work would for sure require at the very least a decent understanding of quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, electrodynamics, calculus (vector and differential forms), ordinary and partial differential equations, and perhaps other things like topology. I don’t know about you -- and I’m probably tooting my own horn a bit by saying this -- but I think that’s pretty nifty, if I do say so myself. 

Actor.

Once again, I’m reaching into the credits to show that Jake has become a movie star after the game ends. Memorizing all those lines, slipping into characters... Being an actor is no easy feat. 

( Side note: This leads into my headcanon that Jake can imitate accents and voices on a whim. No more arguing about whether he has a British, American, or Australian accent -- you’re all right! )

And I would like to add he has two jobs! Skaianet and being a movie star! This guy’s a fucking polymath for Christ’s sake.

Reading People.

Let’s start of simple: Brain Ghost Dirk. I can hear the outcries now of Dirk’s powers being the cause for this. And, yes, I can’t ignore Dirk’s influence in this, but Jake’s hope powers were also needed for the projection to come alive. And the fact he was able to make such a startlingly accurate projecting of Dirk in his own mind is astounding -- even BGD himself thinks so!

TT: You could view me as a projection of the real Dirk within your mind, as expressed through all of your thought patterns about him. TT: So I'm kind of a splinter of his corporeal self who happens to live in your awareness. TT: I'm a startlingly close approximation to the real thing, for all intents and purposes. GT: Just how startlingly close are we talking? TT: I'm not going to give you a bogus percentage like the glasses cause that's not my shtick. TT: But pretty damn close. (x)

A very deep understanding of the other is needed for Jake to do this. That is pretty fucking incredible. He can clearly read people really well -- he had a few times where he was cluing in on Jane and Dirk have feelings for him:

TG: its one of those things jane likes about u so much GT: It is? TG: which TG: errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr im not supposed to talk about 2 u evr so nm GT: Talk about what? TG: nope GT: You mean how um... GT: Well a way in which i suppose... TG: no nope GT: Jane is prone to looking upon me with what i fathom to be more than just friendly affection? (x)

TT: I guess call it an extra birthday present. But instead of a present that's awesome, consider it more like a weird confession that may change the way you feel about me. GT: Whoa uh... GT: Dirk are you... uh... GT: Saying what i think? (x)

He’s not completely clueless on people! In fact, he seems to have a really good understanding of his friends. That’s something a lot of people seem to forget because of the incident that I will be getting to later on.

Fending For Himself.

I’ve already written quite a bit on this, but I’ll sum it up here: Jake is exceptionally good at living in the wild and taking care of himself. Sort of like a wild garden; he doesn’t need to be taken care of. Survival skills, especially around fighting and fending off things, aren’t something everyone has. This, once again, counts in his favour, even if it doesn’t line-up with “book smarts”.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

That’s five things! It’s clear Jake is, in fact, a polymath and incredibly intelligent. So, what’s with the fandom painting him as being dumb? What’s with people actually thinking he’s stupid? I think we can all take several wild guesses as to why that’s the case.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Takes things literally.

This is something that plagues Jake quite a lot. Case in point:

GT: Wow like the epic kevin costner film? TT: Almost exactly. Especially by the same degree of shittiness. GT: Oh man does that mean you have to drink your own pee?????? TT: You get used to the taste. Welcome it, even. TT: That takes about 15 days in a row of hard piss drinking though. GT: Ewwwwwwwwwwww no dude. No ew. :( TT: Relax, I don't drink any goddamn piss, ok? GT: Oh ok. Whew. (x)

But, well, let’s address the elephant in the room. The chat I laughed so hard at when I read it the first time due to pure, unadulterated second-hand embarrassment: Jake asking Jane if she had feelings for him.

Let’s analyze this, shall we? Jake starts off by being vague as all Hell, and I’ll spare those details, until finally...

GT: Just come out and say it. Do you fancy me? GG: No! GT: I see. GT: Very well then. GT: Jeez i mustve really misread that one! I feel like kind of a bone head now. (x / x)

Okay, she says no, and he backs off. That’s fine and dand--

GG: No!!!!!! GG: Oh my God, what am I saying here? GG: Jake, I didn't mean it! I didn't want to make you feel that way! GT: Now jane lets not backpedal here. GT: Youve spoken the truth and i greatly appreciate and respect you for that. GT: But now that i think about it you know what? GG: ... GG: No? :( GT: Please dont take this the wrong way but your answer is actually kind of a relief! (x)

... Oh, right. Yeah. It keeps going. It just keeps--

GT: Actually since youve made your feelings apparent and only see me as a friend that makes it a lot easier! GG: Haha, yes! GG: Friends!!!! GT: Maybe you could help me sort out some stuff that has been weighing on me lately? GG: Well what are friends for Jake!!!!! (x)

Sweet Jesus, Jake.

GG: Me? GG: HOO HOO HOO! GG: I'm just GG: Terrific! GG: I'm feeling so... GG: Friendly!!! GG: I clearly just want to be a good friend and bring all my AMAZING FRIENDLINESS to bear on your problems. GG: Friendlystyle! Ahahahah? GG: Shit I mean GG: Ahahahah! GT: Thats aces. Jane youre a sweetheart. (x)

Alright, alright, enough! You all remember the fucking chat. 

Regardless, it’s very apparent Jake takes things at face value. I also will cite him talking to Jane before her birthday, but not list examples, because what happened above will just happen once again. 

Okay, so he takes things at face value. What’s wrong with that? He trusts people to not lie to his face -- to not sugarcoat things or beat around any bushes. Perhaps I’m projecting a bit, but I do the same damn thing. I think a lot of people do! I don’t think reading things as fact over text is a good measure of someone’s intellect. All it does is show he has issues with communication. Okay, so he struggles with one thing. Sue me.

Doesn’t catch things right away.

Yeah okay I’m just gonna dump a few examples of this.

GT: Haha wow. Must have been a hell of a guy. TT: So... TT: You're not making any connections there? GT: Where? Huh? TT: Famous comedian, about the age of your grandma, inheriting the family name of the Baroness... TT: Not ringing a bell? GT: What are you talking about! Dirk stop speaking in riddles and keep telling the story i am on tenterhooks here! TT: Ok, well it's not like it's that important. Just a super obvious thing that'll probably occur to you later when you're looking in the fridge you don't have, at which point you'll feel like an idiot. GT: Oh my god you can be one opaque motherfucker just clue me in bro! TT: Nah, it'll be funnier this way. GT: STRIIIIIIDEEEERRRRRRRR!!!!! TT: Moving on. (x)

GT: Whats going on? TT: Took you long enough to figure it out. TT: Pages really are a slow burning class. Damn. GT: Figure what out! TT: You're asleep. (x)

This leads into the point above. His mind doesn’t work that way -- but that doesn’t mean he’s not intelligent. He needs everything laid out in front of him so he can make the connections and understand what’s happening, but there’s no real harm in this, and it certainly doesn’t dictate whether the guy is “intelligent” or not.

There are many, many more examples in canon depicting Jake as having difficulties with communication and you all can open most of his pesterlogs and probably find one. I’m not going to list anymore. But, hold your horses, I swear I’m getting to a point!

Difficulty reading.

A lot of the media Jake consumes is picture-based. Movies, comics, even the puzzles are most likely spacial and probably not riddles. It’s not far to imagine Jake might not be a terribly good reader, considering nobody was really around to make him read. Of course, his grandmother was around when he was little, so he can read -- and he can read just fine. But he probably isn’t very good at it simply from lack of practice. He also has terrible grammar, something Jane picks on him for, so it’s entirely possible that’s a contributing factor. He may just have trouble reading and writing.

Speaking from experience, I have dyslexia. As such, reading and writing are incredibly hard for me. I never read the books in my literature classes -- both in English and French -- but I did get the gist of the books (enough to get a decent mark in the class at least) by watching a movie adaptation of the novel. I don’t think it’s that far-off to think Jake may, indeed, do the same thing.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

NOTE: This next part is a bit hard for me to write, because I don’t want to vilify any of you. It might not have clued in on anyone or maybe you just saw Jake as a sort of comic relief and meant no harm by it. And I hope shining a light on this will make you all think twice about the guy. However, I can’t really avoid this next part, and I may get a bit emotional in it. Just a bit of a warning.

All of the above points are just me trying to say Jake probably has undiagnosed learning disabilities and perhaps autism. I don’t think I need to go into detail about how those don’t make someone “stupid”. If you think that’s the case, fuck you. I can’t argue with ableists, much less do I actually want to. 

NOTE: I wrote a thing on his speech impediments. That may be of interest too. I don’t really know, but here it is nonetheless.

My take-away message here is: just because someone struggles with socialization or other things doesn’t mean fucking anything in terms of their intelligence. Jake is very clearly smart and has the ability to read people incredibly well -- to the point of making copies of them! Perhaps it’s just a bit easy to underestimate the guy compared to other characters, though.

There are other things that muddy this up a bit, unfortunately.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Trolling.

Jake is such a fucking troll. Jesus shitting Christ, does he get a kick out of acting stupid just to make the other person look silly. Or perhaps even to make himself laugh in the process. Case in point:

uu: I WILL JUST BE YOUR PATRON DUDE. uu: OR MAYBE. YOUR PATRON MANBRO. GT: Sounds pretty gay. uu: WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? GT: Whats what? uu: GAY. WHAT'S GAY YOU IDIOT FUCK. GT: Oh right. GT: Forgive me i forget you arent familiar with all of my earth lingo. GT: Its like... GT: How do i explain. GT: You know. Its a rather old fashioned term for being jolly and festive together. GT: Like "that rollicking time we had scrumming the other eve sure was gay." uu: I SEE. uu: THEN YES. YOU ARE CORRECT. uu: THIS IS GOING TO BE GAY AS HELL. (x)

Look at his goddamn face during this exchange:

That little bastard knows exactly what he’s doing. 

And these aren’t stand-alone events! Jake is very, very silly and will use the fact others see him as stupid to have a little fun. May as well, right? And, in the process, he makes others look pretty damn stupid. 

But sometimes it’s a bit hard to tell when he’s acting stupid against when he’s genuinely not getting something. I think he even fools himself sometimes! So you have to be a bit careful about fake-outs. I’m sure even the other alphas have trouble deducing when he’s doing this -- which only adds to the myth of him actually being “stupid” when viewed on first-glace.

He probably also does this with crushes, purposefully ignoring the signs because he doesn’t want to deal with it or may not believe anyone could like him that way. After all, if he’s wrong, he may think himself to be conceded and having a big head. So, he ignores the signs, thus convincing himself the feelings aren’t there. Then he gets absolutely fucking bamboozled beyond belief to find out they actually do like him. But that’s just a little side-note.

Thinks he’s stupid.

This one is just a bit... Sad. Very sad. Jake genuinely does think he’s stupid. Quite a lot, really. 

GT: I shoulda asked where he fit into the picture if you were raised alone. I can be dumb as a bag of penny candy sometimes. (x)

Just... Man, he’s been called and treated as stupid so many times, he’s at the point where he believes it. If you asked him, he’d say Dirk is a genius, Roxy is always smart and sassy, and Jane is brilliant. (I don’t have a source for that last one but... Come on. She lectures him about grammar. Don’t fuck with me.) But when it comes to himself? He can’t say the same. Of course he then acts that way. He sees himself as a burly adventurer who is also a gentleman and tries to live up to that. No where along those lines does he think he’s intelligent. And that’s just... a little heartbreaking, really, all things considered.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Can’t believe this blog is just me going, “Wanna see how fast I can talk about Jake?”, and a shit-ton of people all nodding before I talk for six hours straight. Anyway, take-home message is: Jake’s smart. Jake’s very, very smart. He’s also a himbo, but he’s incredibly smart. Just because he has learning disabilities doesn’t mean fuck-all. 

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. There are drinks and refreshments in the back. Have a safe trip home. Remember to tip your waiters and waitresses. Jesus fuck can I run this gag any harder into the ground? Giving me language was a mistake. No but, really, if you read this whole damn thing, thank you! I hope this was as fun to read as it was to write.

[dirtycreekwater]

Phantom - Sanders Sides au

heyo! i got an idea for a new au based on Nathan Sharp’s (nwtb) song/music video/character Phantom!

this is gonna be the character/world info post! im gonna do a songfic and maybe some other cool shit at some point!

but real quick before i get started just wanted to say please don’t add any hcs or ideas onto this post and don’t take any of these for your own stuff. this is my au that im going to flesh out and write more stuff for! thank you!

ok lets do this!

characters:

Phantom aka Deceit (his true name)

manipulative and deceitful demon that makes deals with aspiring young entertainers

you want talent and exposure? don’t worry it’ll only cost you your soul

the deal is too tempting to resist

the demon himself is enticing

Phatom tells his victims all pain will only be temporary, that they need him, and it will all be worth it

and at first everything works out amazingly

you become successful

everyone loves you

and then your part of the deal must be completed

your soul will be taken and turned into one of his little minions who help him lure and deceive others

meanwhile your soulless body continues to do everything you gave yourself up for

you’re just a puppet and Phantom-D̸̨̛̝͎̼̼̮̞͇̲̭̑̋͂̆͐͑̑͛͐e̴̡͚̟̥̗̖̮͇̊͋̈̏̀̉̄͘̕̕͜ͅç̶̛̥͙͎̳͖̞̱̋̂͌̎͛͑̊̾̀͜͜ḙ̸̛͍̜̤͎̩̤̲̼͓̄͗̈́̈̽͗̂̂̚į̷̲̮̥̬̫̩̰͎̊̇̈̒́̋̅̃͂͘ͅt̸̡̹͎̥͖̥̥͍͊͌̊̈̉̓̑͒̕̕͜͜-is in control

Roman King

college theatre kid aka aspiring jack of all trades

he wants to do it all; acting, singing, dancing, magic, you name it

but every gig and audition he does is a total flop

he forgets lines, sings off key, loses balance and throws the whole routine off, and cannot for the life of him figure out magic

until one day a mysterious looking man with a yellow eye, scarred face, dark cloak, bowler hat, and cane starts attending his shows

he can’t figure out why but he can’t stop looking at him or thinking about him

one morning he wakes up in his apartment feeling like he has a hangover and has no memory of the night before

but he knows he didn’t drink

that day he just so happens to find a journal titled “The Book of Phantom” while he’s out

it’s full of spells and tricks

so of course he uses it

he practices his tricks everyday and his new show is almost a success

feeling defeated and embarrassed he runs off stage and bumps into the mystery man

said man tells him to follow and he does without thinking, as if he’s under a trance

they enter an office and the man tells him people will never forget him or his shows if he signs a simple contract

so he signs

and becomes the next victim

Virgil Haaris

witch/spirit guardian/human (it’s complicated, don’t ask him about it)

knows who and what Phantom really is and hates him with every fiber of his being

has real dark history with him

does his very best to protect and save every one of his victims

hasn’t been very successful

guilt eats away at him all the time

then Roman comes along

and Virgil feels that this is the one he absolutely has to save no matter what

he’s not sure why

he’s just drawn to him

and he becomes very very protective of him and his friends

and decides that D̸̨̛̝͎̼̼̮̞͇̲̭̑̋͂̆͐͑̑͛͐e̴̡͚̟̥̗̖̮͇̊͋̈̏̀̉̄͘̕̕͜ͅç̶̛̥͙͎̳͖̞̱̋̂͌̎͛͑̊̾̀͜͜ḙ̸̛͍̜̤͎̩̤̲̼͓̄͗̈́̈̽͗̂̂̚į̷̲̮̥̬̫̩̰͎̊̇̈̒́̋̅̃͂͘ͅt̸̡̹͎̥͖̥̥͍͊͌̊̈̉̓̑͒̕̕͜͜ will never hurt anyone ever again if he has any say in it

Remy Haaris

witch/spirit guardian/human

Virgil’s older brother

totally chill dude. doesn’t care about much. just his brother really

constantly getting his bro out of trouble

will literally kill anyone that tries to hurt him

obsessed with starbucks. gets it literally every time he’s in the human world

wears his sunglasses literally all the time

mainly cos they match his aesthetic but also cos he’s hiding a scar one of Deceit’s little demon minions gave him (he thinks it’s badass but he still doesn’t really like people talking about it. Virgil gets real protective over him when it comes to that stuff.)

gets really confused and lost like all the time

tends to mix up the human world and spirit realm a lot

“wasn’t there a tree there? oh shit no that’s in the human world.”

also loses/misplaces shit a lot

“girl i know i left my sunglasses right here!”

“they’re on your head Rem.”

“oh right.”

“fuck did i leave my phone in the spirit realm again????”

basically he’s kind of an airhead sometimes but overall a pretty smart and caring dude

Patton Lee

Roman’s best friend/#1 supporter/Dad Friend™️

cute innocent boi that just wants everyone to be happy

but he’s no dummy he knows when something’s just not right

Roman’s journey to success is exciting!! but it goes Too Far and Patton gets concerned

begs Roman to talk to him and tell him what’s wrong

he refuses so Patton just does his absolute best to look out for his friend

Logan Conroy

Roman and Patton’s other best friend aka Protective And Logical Mom Friend™️

can smell bullshit from a mile away

tells Roman not to interact with the weird dude that keeps going to his shows or he’ll kill him

tells Roman not to pick up the weird book and take it home and actually follow its instructions or he’ll kill him again

eventually gives up but still silently watches him and tries to protect him

universe:

monster/human world with a spirit realm that sometimes crosses paths (kinda like Death Note)

some people are all human, some all monster or witch, some half human half monster (aka hybrids)

humans witches and monsters/hybrids get along for the most part

has a mix of regular colleges and magic/training colleges

some hybrids and witches have school counselors choose their path for them

Roman Logan and Patton are all humans so they go to the regular colleges (tho Roman desperately wants to go to one of the magic ones)

most spirits and even some demons are pretty chill and visit and watch over earth and all its inhabitants

every demon/spirit has a different purpose/assignment

some-like Phantom-are selfish and manipulative bastards

but they’re still not like,, a Huge Problem™️

there haven’t been any human/demon wars in decades and fewer and fewer people are falling for their tricks

and they’re actually trying to find ways to break the trances they put people under and protect themselves/their homes

basically this world is weird and complicated but it’s not as wild as you might think

most of the time the weird shit is just a minor inconvenience really

like oh i spilled my coffee and had to expel a demon from my house this morning nbd

so yeah most of the gullible people are v unfortunate but it’s probably fine

that’s all for now! feel free to ask me questions!! it’ll help me build the world up more 😌

-oliver

[tom-star-co]

Spinel & Mina Loveberry

it’s so funny how similar Spinel and Mina Loveberry’s backstories are yet Daron Nefcy decided to have Mina stay the one-dimensional allegory for racism while Rebecca Sugar actually understood that Spinel lived through hell to become the villain that we saw in the movie and that Spinel needed help and Steven (the protagonist) was mature enough to realize that and wanted to help Spinel get over her trauma

meanwhile we have the nutcase that is Mina Loveberry who literally nobody acknowledges that she needs help until the very end of the series (except when its played off as a joke) and it’s literally fucking Moon of all people, Moon who literally used her just like Solaria had in order to get what she wanted, who wanted to help Mina (why gee, I wonder why... probably because she feels guilty about taking advantage of a Mewman experiment!)

like just... ugh. BRO IF WE GAVE MINA LOVEBERRY THE SPINEL TREATMENT I BET YOU HEADS WOULD BE DOING A 180 FOR HER AND HER REDEMPTION

because essentially... the fact that mina loveberry hates monsters wasn’t a core aspect of her beliefs from the start. its literally solaria’s legacy that’s instilled in her; and that’s because solaria was the only one who pretended to ever give a shit about her as far as we’ve seen in the series. EVEN THOUGH SOLARIA WAS USING HER AS A FUCKING SOLDIER AGAINST MONSTERS

and UGH. im still mad about this. the fact that so many people have come out and started demonizing Pink Diamond while sympathizing with Spinel has opened old cuts. Because these characters’ actions aren’t motivated by their beliefs (Spinel wanting to destroy Earth; Mina wanting to slay monsters); these characters’ actions are motivated by RELATABLE problems like losing a sense of purpose in life (Spinel not needed anymore to ‘entertain’ Pink Diamond; Mina not needed anymore as a soldier) or being the leftovers of a mess that someone else caused (again, PINK DIAMOND AND SOLARIA)

AND YEAH CALL ME A MINA APOLOGIST BUT ITS HONESTLY INSULTING THAT DARON NEFCY DECIDED TO FRAME SOLARIA AS THE GOOD GUY WHILE PORTRAYING MINA LOVEBERRY AS THIS ONE DIMENSIONAL METAPHOR FOR RACISM WHEN YOU LITERALLY PROVIDED A BACKSTORY THAT DID NOT CORRELATE ACTUAL RACISM TO HER FUNDAMENTAL BELIEFS

look at it like this: can you say, for certain, that spinel wanted to destroy the earth because she hated humans as a race? ....no. she did it out of bitterness and anger for pink diamond abandoning her. can you apply the same logic to mina loveberry? yes. you can. Daron, you messed up. or more like, you missed a big opportunity.

for a show about forgiveness, we gonna forgive solaria despite never having actually seen her change... at all. on the show. and she’s already dead. she died having a legacy of carving monsters. like this is so bullshit. she’s DEAD. it doesn t matter if she smiles at eclipsa’s monster baby, how can that make you forgive all the terrible shit she did against a race? AND SHE NEVER CHANGED WHILE SHE WAS ALIVE

mina loveberry, very alive character even after the magic was being taken away, the redemption arc is right there for the taking!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and lets not even delve into her mental illness because oh boy everyone treats it like a joke because i guess mental illness is a joke mmmmmmmmmm :) (and yes it is a mental illness. she obviously wasnt born crazy.)

so yeah. i guess ill end this off with a little tangent based off the newest Cartoon Network miniseries Infinity train (do not read the rest of this post if you haven’t seen infinity train): you know that part where tulip goes into amelia’s memories and sees everything and then comes out and basically yells “what the fuck why did you show me her memories! i dont want to see my enemy as a human! now i just... feel bad for her.”

Well, in the series it did serve a point. It contributed to the main message. Same as Spinel’s backstory... it served a point! What did Mina Loveberry’s backstory contribute to STVFOE’s message? nothing. literally only brought up more questions.

like why did every queen just leave mina the way she is. howw come no queen ever tried to reach out to her? were they just okay with her being a solarian experiment for eternity??? how is nobody concerned for this individual’s mental health???????????????? and how is this supposed to make me hate racism more??? how does this make her more racist even??????

thanks and goodbye. your mina apologist out. aka im sick and tired of seeing comments glorifying solaria for being the parent you should forgive and comments demonizing mina for being a psychopath monster killer who ‘deserved what she got’. 

[the-skooma-den]

threw together a couple headshots of Syke cause i wanted to do a proper profile of her, so anyone curious about the character i spend so much time ranting about and drawing thats gonna be under the read more

Part 2 here 

directory to all posts about her and her siblings are here

Real Name: Ava Aurelia Cassia Camoran Tharn Latona. she has an untold amount fake names and identities for a wide variety of purposes, Nowadays she mainly goes by Syke Ivywood, and thats what most of the Dominion knows her as (and is also her in game name)

Age: turned 28 right around when the main plot started. I assume years pass through the DLC’s, including one year where she does the mages and fighters guild quest as well as a bunch of quests.

Race: Imperial. Her father was a bosmer and she takes heavily after him. Her grandpas a Khajiit, which is only relevant here because her dad took heavily after his dad. Hence syke’s weirdly golden eyes and slightly to sharp teeth. 

Class: Nightblade, focus on siphoning magic

Personality: One might look at her usual scowl and her serious demeanor and assume she's the typical lone wolf edgy assassin, and they’re only really half wrong. She’s not a loner by choice,she doesn’t hate people really, shes just not great at interacting with people. Anyone who knows who she actually is tend to be scared of her (even other members of the brotherhood) and that's not great for ones self confidence. In a few words, she’s just awkward and extremely introverted. That being said she is kinda grumpy, but if an evil god stole your soul you would be to.

As for the series Demeanor, that really just her face. She’s just not a smiley person ya know? She just as an incredibly flat affect and it either takes really strong emotions or a lot of effort on her part to break it. She’s actually pretty damn nice, even if she doesn’t really “get” a lot of social norms.Being raised in a assassin cult worshiping the void can do that to a girl.

What also does not help the usual perception of her, is her Bad temper and very very low bullshit tolerance. She’s not hard to piss off and it can be explosive. Usually not the yelling and screaming explosive but the getting right up in your face out of nowhere and quietly informing you that if you say one more word she’ll individually break every bone in your hand type way.

She’s what her mother would kindly call “strong willed” and what everyone else would call debilitatingly stubborn . Keeping in mind this is a woman who was wronged by what is essentially the demon god king of domination and then decided “I’m going to kick his ass” and then did. For good or ill she rarely if ever gives up.

Due to the fact she is technically a noblewoman, she tends to be extremely private as well. The other Cyrodilic nobles know of her and her family, but just know them as the family that for the most part gave up their titles and have no intention of trying to get them back, they have no idea that theyre a whole family of assassin in the Dark brotherhood. That does not mean that they ignore her or her family as even if her family doesn’t want the titles the fact they exist can mess up others claims to the throne.Especially Ava who suffice to say has a pretty decent claim to several very important titles. This has lead her to take on a variety of different fake names and wearing different masks to avoid being recognized both in her daily life and in jobs for the brotherhood...at least at first.

As it turned out she's a natural actor with one hell of a flair for the dramatic. She may have issues interacting with people as herself, but she finds it easier when pretending to be someone else. She got so into it that she has whole characters that she pretends to be for all kinds of purposes, like say if she needs access to mages or fighters guild resources or if a particular job for the brotherhood calls to act as a maid for a little bit.

as for how the Dominion crew know her, well they actually come closer to knowing her then most. When Raz dragged her out of the ocean at Khenarthis roost she was so out of it she was barely able to come up with a fake name let alone a whole character, so they all end up genuinely knowing her as she truly is. Turns out she doesn’t mind that as much as she thought she would.

Backstory (before the main plot): She’s a third generation member of the Dark brotherhood, and most of her direct family (siblings, parents, aunt and one set of grandparents) are apart of it. Her grandmother, A Bosmer noble named Cassa, married an Imperial nobleman when she was pretty young. Cassa wanted to get out of Valenwood and her husband was looking for a way to rebel against his family and found it in a hot bosmer lady. They ended up having one kid together, Lara

A few years later Cassa ends up falling in with and getting pregnant by a khajiiti baker her husband hired, and her husband is not to happy about that to say the least.  He fires and sends the Khajiit away and Cassa is less then happy about that as well. She kills her husband and so convincingly makes it look like an accident that if the brotherhood hadn't already had a contract out on him no one would have ever known it was murder. 

So Cassa ends up joining the brotherhood after her second kid by the khajiit man was born. She never really connected with the bosmeri pantheon or the Green pact, and she ends up taking to Sithis real well. She also as soon as she was able went to find her love and they were married as soon as possible. They all lived in Valenwood for a number of years and both her kids grew up in the brotherhood as well. 

 Eventually the younger one son, Tanis, marries an Imperial woman,Livillia. Also a runaway noblewoman,her mother was friends with Cassa and she was seeking sanctuary with her. Livillia is specifically one of Abnur Tharns kids, who no longer wanted to deal with the Tharn family drama. 

They have a kid together (That is of course Ava). Tanis’s older sister and Cassa’s first child, Lara, has a one night stand with an Altmer and has her own kid who she names Ceryneian (or Nia for short). And they all live pretty happily for a while, as far as anyone knew the family was just a bunch of nobodies, rich nobodies who kept all hours but still just nobodies. They had for the most part completely abandoned all noble titles, even if the nobles weren’t done with them.

When Ava was about 10 years old her great aunt Cilvia tharn found out that Livillia was still alive. She was well aware that if she tried to do anything to Elsweyr Livillia would likely act against her. Livillia may be a member of the brotherhood, but she wasnt completely evil. Cilcvia sent assassins after Ava’s parents, they missed her but her parents were taken by surprise and sadly killed. None of her family felt right staying in valenwood anymore, So Lara took Ava in and moved to the Gold coast where she had spent her early childhood and had inherited some estate.  Her grandparents Moved to Elsweyr and both Ava and Nia would spend summers there as kids. 

So Ava ends up “officially” a member of the brotherhood ,after toddling around the sanctuaries her whole life, at about 15 years old, and was never prouder. Normally they wouldn’t have let someone so young in but once again, she had literally been toddling in sanctuaries, they figured it was fine.

On one of her first genuinely dangerous missions, to kill a necromancer in Northern Elsweyr (chaperoned by her grandma of course), she came across one of said necromancers future sacrifices. This sacrifice happened to be a 13 year old khajiit boy named Thera (later going by Jo’Thera)  with some odd fur patterns, and fuck man he was just a kid (granted shes only a couple years older then him) and Ava couldn’t just leave him there alone. Ava saved him and took her back to Anvil with her after she killed the necromancer as according to the kid, he didn’t have a family or anywhere to go. Lara hears the kids story and is just like…. Welp… guess i got a 3rd kid now.  (as Thera grows up if there's one thing he gets from his adopted family its a love for drama and dramatic irony. He takes to necromancy pretty quickly)

That peace continued for a few years until she was about 19. At 19 years old she got the offer to join the Psijic order, Not because she was particularly powerful or even all that good at magic (at the time of course, she gets much better later), but due to her lack of formal teaching she had her own odd way of casting and working with it that caught their attention. Basically imagine that she did a really complicated math problem wrong, but ended up with the right answer and somehow accidentally discovered a new much easier formula to that particular problem, she did the magic version of that and showed a lot of potential even outside of that.

Then she said no, she was happy in the brotherhood and her current life and she saw no reason to leave

When Ava was about 20 years old, Nia ran away because, well she wasn't as fond of the brotherhood as her mother or cousin, and its not exactly something you can just quit and walk away from. It broke the whole families heart of course but Ava took it particularly hard. She had considered her and had been referring to her as her sister even before her parents death

What really set it all off though was when Nia popped up again alive and well in Valenwood using the last name of their grandmothers family. She didn’t send them a message or anything, it just got to them by word of mouth because Nia had disowned them and been talking shit about them. After she ran away she went back down to Valenwood to claim the title that was rightfully hers, it turns out that she had found proof of her birthright and between that and her uncanny resemblance to her grandmother she barely had to be questioned. 

So Nia is in Valenwood with her relatives and had completely disowned the entire rest of her family. Her grandmother, Her mother and her (now deceased) Aunt and Uncle, and Ava and their brother as well. she never made any concrete statement as to why per say outside of “Not wanting to go down the same path as the rest of her family” which most people assumed meant completely abandoning their noble heritage and titles, not to mention their bosmeri heritage as well (which was partially true, but it was mostly about the whole murder cult thing). So yeah, Lara was heartbroken and Ava was pissed off to oblivion and back and Jo’thera....he was just hurt, but all decided that if that was where Nia wanted to be they weren’t going to drag her back.

At about 23 Ava met her first real significant other, A Dunmeri noble. It didnt go well for either of them really, lots of drugs, lots of unhealthy coping mechanisms, lots of secrets. not a good time. 2 years later, The Dunmer actually proposes to Ava, and Ava not only says yes but Ava tells her everything about the brotherhood, her own noble status, all of it. The Dunmer seems okay with it at first, and admits she kinda suspected who Ava’s family was based on the little she spoke about it, The brotherhood was the real surprising part there. The knife in Ava’s stomach later that night Makes it clear what she thought about that. So it was a messier breakup then most.  

Ava doesnt like to speak much of the relationship, but it hurt her more then she lets on and makes her more nervous then ever to be in a real romantic relationship 

Well after that mess Ava threw herself back into the brotherhood hardcore and also into hardcore drugs and alcohol.for about 5 years. Over those 5 years between the Dunmer incident, a lot of self reflection, and all sorts of anxieties she’s an unstable mess. Like verge of a mental breakdown type of mess. 

When she was kidnapped and later sacrificed by the wormcult many who knew her assumed that she had offed herself for good. She was gone for long enough that even her own family started to assume the worst

[five-wow]

alriGHT so i watched 9x11! and i wasn’t blown away by any means but i kind of liked it? or maybe i just think so because i’d prepared myself for even worse things? so here’s my semi-liveblog:

steve and danny reunion!! it was good!!! that hug was oddly bro-ish in its constant backslapping (steve’s hurting, so just hold him, danny??? let yourself be held for a second, steve???), but the words were less no homo, at least

steve’s been there for a month, whoa

and then catherine comes out of the house and i was like, oh gosh, i’m a little scared of what they’re doing here

but... they were torturing a guy inside. they’re not even pretending that was a lovenest somehow they were just. straight up torturing a guy for information

then they’re at the airport getting ready for the plane and they meet up with junior and wade gutches, and look, i love catherine, okay? i’m not a huge fan of cath/steve at this point in the series (meaning i’d love for them to still be friends but i want the writers to please, please let all romantic connotations in that relationship finally die), but catherine, i love. but the way she’s acting all familiar with junior and wade suddenly? that was so awkward to me and i liked her “call me catherine” thing towards junior in principle but it was just... really awkward (and i’m not even completely sure why, but i think it just grates on me that this is a way that they’re making it look like she’s been involved in steve’s life when she seriously hasn’t for a long time. it’s unfair to almost all the characters)

then they’re ON the plane and steve has this flashback to his first night with greer and obviously she’s bad, we know she’s bad, but ??? they’re really cute here

except for the bit where she tried to get him to join the cia. that’s not steve. just let him eat his chinese and smile for once without trying to push him in some way pls.

and then the flashback ends and catherine asks him where he went mentally and he didn’t actually say “to that time i had sex with the woman i now hold responsible for the tragic and traumatic death of yet another parent figure in my life” but oh boy

(side note, at this point i’m very confused about if they’re trying to give us steve/cath vibes or not. on the one hand there’s the way she appeared in the episode and the things they made danny say about playing house, but on the other here’s steve, sitting literally right next to catherine, lost in thought about his sex-filled weekend with another woman, and they made cath the one to ask him about his thousand yard stare which... i don’t know how to interpret that)

adam: “i still remember getting love letters in high school.” tani: “oh, of course you do. look at you, that face, those dimples. i’d have been all over that in ninth grade.” fdjkfdjk i loved this. (and their case so far seems pretty interesting as a sideplot! it’s just that i can’t pay as much attention to that because i’m trying to keep this commentary away from war and peace lengths)

i love that harry’s first line in this entire episode (and the way he greets steve) is a warning about how terrible the cocktails at the bar are. that’s definitely harry

“oh and um, for the purposes of this operation, you two are married.” oh NO harry what are you doing

danny’s extremely unsmiling “mazzel tov” gives me life though

okAY harry is really giving me a rollercoaster ride here. now he’s saying steve looks “absolutely magnificent in that tux”, making cath say that steve’s spoken for and danny accuse harry of being a kiss ass. ??? SO much to unpack there omg

okay so in the end this undercover as married thing that steve and cath do lasted for two seconds and was really just slapped on. it served barely any purpose and i’m relieved they didn’t linger on it because i never wanted it in the first place, but it was also super weird, because if you’re going to put something like that in your canon episode, then at least do something with it. read some fic, h50 creators, and learn how it’s done

catherine asks steve how he’s doing! and that’s really good because people should ask him that more often, except, uh, why is she doing it now? i get that this might have been easiest to work in for the writers, but... she was already at the ranch when danny turned up, so i’m assuming she’d been with steve for a couple of days at least of that month that he’d been there? so... she decided to just wait until right in the middle of their mission to try to talk to him about his crippling feelings of guilt over joe’s death??? why, writers???

greer once said unfair things about steve to cath (out of pure manipulative jealousy, it seems) and all catherine has to say about it is that it was before she and steve started dating and that she didn’t believe anything greer said anyway and that’s good. let’s keep the unnecessary drama out of this (for once)

djfkd danny’s role in this episode (after that very first scene) seems to just be “sit/stand next to people who are competently hacking stuff, look serious, and say maybe two lines of quips”. first with harry, now with catherine in some van

um. this whole storming of the building and killing a bunch of people to avenge joe’s death is an unsanctioned mission they’re undertaking because it’s personal, right? that’s why it’s such a weird team with no backup? so... when the police turned up (even if it was as a favor to harry), shouldn’t they have arrested all of them, including cath and danny? haven’t they been doing a bunch of illegal stuff?

i did like the twist that harry’s random pretty woman in the city that he alluded to earlier is actually a super competent police woman, though. that’s nice.

this scene all the way at the end is where steve is wearing joe’s super soft looking warm jacket!!! i love him in that. it looks so comfortable.

aaaand wade is telling steve to find himself a good woman. why is everyone always so eager to meddle in his love life omg

wade also says that steve won’t follow wade’s advice to give retirement some thought? which is pretty hilarious after steve and danny spent a year and a half misguidedly trying to open a restaurant specifically as a retirement plan. but no, steve has never once thought about retirement, not ever

wait oh god “you still don’t know, do you? joe wasn’t just a father figure... my mentor. he brought you into my life, catherine.” ... are we doing this? we’re doing this. it was all going so well until now.

a flashback! that we’ve already seen once! of joe telling steve to ask cath out! oh god!

oh. but. there’s also this new bit of steve in the hospital after his mission with joe, calling cath to ask her out for the first time, and that’s kind of sweet. that’s okay. (as long as it stays in the past.)

WAIT. catherine: “what took you so long?” listen, this might be just me, but i associate those exact words heavily with that episode in s7 where danny and grace are taken hostage at grace’s school dance and steve rescues them and then, as they’re walking off into the sunset, danny goes “what took you so long, huh” just after he invited steve for a hug, a kiss, or to pick a base. hmmmmmm.

oh!! the flashback ends and we get catherine close to crying, saying she’s glad steve took joe’s advice back then, and steve agrees and they hug and then she just... leaves. there’s nothing that feels like “let’s start our thing back up” in what she does, she’s just glad that they had that time together and she says she’ll see him next time and that’s it? THAT’S ALL I WANT.

are they going to ruin it by making steve think about joe’s more recent advice to find himself a woman and making him associate that with catherine too? they probably are, aren’t they

THEY DID NOT. WHOA. not yet, anyway, but for the moment i’m 100% satisfied.

no, i’m not, there’s a lot of things about this episode that i missed (danny was just window dressing? wade and cath got a goodbye scene but harry didn’t? frank’s daugther appeared literally five seconds and i thought we’d see at least very slightly more of her than that but apparently that was all? the case back on hawaii got wrapped up really suddenly?) BUT i’m still very, very relieved on the whole by the way they handled the steve & cath thing. it could still be read as romantic, but it wasn’t explicitly so. for the most part they acted like exes who are friends and that’s just. that’s just exactly what it want for them??? i’m glad.