#but that’s a long and convoluted story and we don’t like to talk about it.

[regallibellbright]

I didn’t think of myself as a huge Sonic the Hedgehog fan growing up - we had the Advance games and played some of the Gamecube and DS ones, though Bro and I weren’t particularly good at any of them, and we watched Sonic X when it was on, but Sonic wasn’t a franchise I’d say I was particularly invested in until I got into the IDW comics (and to a lesser extent the Archie ones, since I haven’t actively read them yet but HAVE seen recaps) through Thanks Ken Penders back in 2020.

However, since I grew up in that post-Adventure era, even if I wasn’t ACTIVELY invested in Sonic and the lore, I did KNOW it. And so I’m always surprised to realize people DON’T know that the edgy black and red rival hedgehog who once had his own game where he had a gun has a canonical backstory in which he was the best friend/adoptive sibling to a terminally ill young girl (her age is never specified in the games but at oldest she’s in her midteens), the granddaughter of the scientist who created him (with the hope of somehow curing her We’re Not Calling It AIDS But It’s AIDS,) and also Dr. Eggman’s cousin. This ends when a thinly-veiled analog to the US military invades the space station he grew up on and murders everyone on it, including said terminally ill young girl, and Shadow only survives because Maria managed to put him in an escape pod where he’d stay in suspended animation for 50 years… after he sees her gunned down in front of him. Eggman and Maria’s grandfather/Shadow’s creator survives the initial massacre so the military unit can use his research, but he tampers with Shadow’s memory and builds a doomsday device in an attempt for revenge, and is ultimately executed. There’s a cutscene in SA2 where we see him just before this occurs. It’s EXACTLY as fucked up as you think. And yes, of course there are cutscenes where we see Maria’s death. Across multiple games, even. I have never played Sonic Adventure 2 but I have seen Maria gunned down plural times.

Which I admit, sounds wild when I put it that way. But because Shadow was a major recurring character and the games I played were in the “we brought him back now let’s give him a purpose” era, his backstory was always brought up and so I always just… consider this common knowledge. Like, yeah, of course one of the most popular characters in the franchise has a backstory involving the military executing all his family. This is in fact why he’s so popular. Everyone likes his edginess and also the genuine tragedy there, and his ultimate choice to be a hero so he can fulfill Maria’s dying wish that he protect the planet she always wanted to see.

So when the Sonic fanbase all LOST OUR COLLECTIVE SHIT at Shadow’s post-credits teaser in the second movie and realized all the pieces are in play for them to accurately adapt his backstory and Adventure 2, it was a genuine shocker to realize that tons of people just… aren’t familiar with the fact that what we’re pushing for, and why a lot of people thought they WOULDN’T go there, is Paramount signing off on a movie that is VEHEMENTLY anti-military and features a terminally ill child gunned down by them before our eyes. They’d better! Like, sorry Maria, I love AUs where you live and get to be more than the Sweet Saintly Dead Girl, but narratively you 1000% have to die. They’ve set things up for this. The Olive Garden guy shares a name and role with a character in the games who’s canonically a survivor of the same event. They have to go here.

Oh, and Sonic gets arrested in the opening sequence to cover for Shadow waking up and escaping their containment, because they can’t find Shadow so let’s blame a hedgehog we CAN find. This doesn’t work and results in one of the most beloved and iconic sequences in the franchise, to the point where I will genuinely think less of everyone involved’s competence if they DON’T in some way bring City Escape into the early marketing for Sonic 3. Like, it is that obvious a choice. Open your first trailer with the shot of him jumping off the helicopter with his makeshift snowboard and the guitar riff and you have guaranteed ticket sales. (Actually USE the song in the trailer and you’ve guaranteed more, the lack of Sonic music in the first two has been a glaring thing and Adventure 2 has two of the most iconic vocal numbers in the series.) I’ve never even played Adventure 2 and I know this. But the flip side of this is that if you DON’T allow this movie to actively criticize the military, you are therefore going to miss several of the most iconic moments of the game you are in some way adapting… and said game is one of the most beloved of the franchise, particularly on the story front. It’s great. I love that we’re here. I love that this apparently WASN’T common enough knowledge that Paramount could be lured into Shadow being staged in to the point that if they go back now, it’s CLEAR the writers and director wanted to go there and weren’t allowed to. And I am LOVING that people are finding this out NOW and then joining us in our “Do it Paramount, don’t be cowards” urging. Welcome to Sonic the Hedgehog! Our lore is weird but delightful.

[spider-droid]

I saw that you posted about Duke Thomas and I was just wondering if you could just?? Explain?? how the frick his powers work pls???

I read the comic he got them and everything and I still don’t know how they work other than it has to do with light and I think it helps him find stuff

pls help

Hey there! Yes!!! I love Duke so much, he has such fun powers. Batman lets one (1) meta operate in Gotham. I will do my best to explain, but disclaimer: I have not read a Batman comic in like, two years. My knowledge could definitely be out of date. I'm gonna put everything under a cut, this may get long.

Okay, first off Duke is a meta-human, meaning that his powers are innate and don't come from an outside source. However, he's special because his bio dad is this immortal guy named Gnomon who has had a grand total of two (2) total appearances. I cannot emphasize enough how unimportant this guy is, except for the fact that he implied that Duke might also be immortal. And then they dropped the storyline. Arghhh.

Duke's powers occupy two main spheres: controlling light, and controlling shadows. I'll tackle them in order.

His light control lets him do the classic "shine a light in your face" approach, but it's the other stuff that's really interesting, that you hinted at in your ask. Duke can use his powers to turn invisible (I think his suit may help with that too? idk), and he can do all the Superman-style supervision stuff. However, he can also use light manipulation to see into the recent past (seeing where light was), and he uses this for detective investigations and stuff. He can also see a few seconds into the future (where light will be), and this comes in handy during fights.

This was the extent of his powers for a while, but he recently(ish)(okay I just looked it up it wasn't recent) acquired control of shadows as well because of some convoluted League of Assassins plotline. This gives him complete control over shadows (moving them around, summoning them, shaping them into physical objects). It also gave him the ability to teleport between shadows. Because why not.

That's basically it, but Duke also has accelerated healing and can (supposedly, we've never seen it in action) amplify the powers of other metas in his vicinity. He's also a genius, and pretty good poet.

So, long story short, Duke is a fantastic character, and would be incredibly overpowered if the writers at DC ever actually let him do anything meaningful. Which they should. Duke deserves to be overpowered.

Okay, I hoped this helped! Duke is a really cool character, and I like talking about him. I don't know what you've read, but Batman and the Signal (2018) and Batman and the Outsiders vol. 3 (2019) both go into a bit of detail about his powers. If you want stuff from before he had powers, We Are Robin (2015) and Robin War (2016) are both fun.

[beauty-and-passion]

I think I perfectly know what you’re talking about, so let me tell you some trivia.

When someone acts very defensive about something, in Italy we say that they have “la coda di paglia” (which can be translated as “they have a straw tail”). This saying comes from an old tale of a fox, whose tail was cut off by a trap. The animal was so ashamed, that its friends decided to give it a straw tail, so beautiful that anyone could never have suspected it was fake.

But one day a rooster let this secret slip away and once the peasants knew about the straw tail of the fox, they lit fires near the chicken coops, so that the fox could no longer steal their chickens anymore: straw catches fire very easily and so the fox was forced to stay away.

From this story comes the expression “having a straw tail”, which means fearing any kind of criticism for a behavior they are well aware of. If you have a straw tail, if you have bad behavior or did something wrong, you know it. And so, you act defensive to hide it.

Thomas is doing exactly that. He’s getting very defensive over simple questions, he’s making childish excuses in a desperate attempt to show how good he is, but all he’s doing is showing us he knows he’s in the wrong.

So here are the tweets you (probably) wanted me to talk about and yes, I will talk about them both (special thanks to @transfemlogan​​ who posted them on Tumblr first).

Those are both very recent tweets, but let’s start with the first one dated October 2022:

Okay, let’s recap everything Thomas did wrong here.

1) That person was not pressuring nor threatening him. They asked a simple, genuine question and they did it very politely and very calmly. This wasn’t an angry fan. And yet, Thomas went in full passive-aggressive mode, as if that person was insulting him. This is the best example of what “having a straw tail” means.

2) “Keeping people posted” means giving real updates, not a vague “working on the script” written months ago. It means telling people how much has been written, if he’s close to the end or not, how long he thinks it will take to reach the end, what his plans are, even if he’s just working on the actual script or not because he’s doing other stuff. Those are updates.

3) “Updating to the extent that I feel comfortable doing” is just a more convoluted way to say “I do not have any real update, so I am giving you crumbs, because this is all I have”. But he’s hiding it behind the excuse of “I’m taking care of myself”, which could’ve worked years ago, but after three years it’s not so convincing anymore.

4)  Pressuring someone to deliver content is not healthy nor productive, but if someone is clearly doing nothing, some pressure makes the work done. As a writer, I learned long ago that, if I want things to get done, I have to do them. I won’t enjoy the whole process and there will be times I don’t really want to do it, but it’s the only way to do stuff. You can’t wait forever for the inspiration to come because, flash news, it won’t magically fall from the sky.

And sure, taking care of yourself is important too, but using your well being as an excuse to always postpone is just laziness.

5) Since Mr. Sanders is thirty-three years old and not five, I think he is old enough to accept someone asking him what is going on with the season finale and not overreact like he did. I could understand if he was a teen, but when you’re 33 you’re old enough to deal with something as simple as a question.

Oh and since I’m here talking about this post and since Mr. Sanders didn’t do it, I would like to formally apologize to the person who wrote that question. You did nothing wrong, dear. Your question was valid and polite and I am sure that another, more mature person would’ve given you the proper reply you deserved.

And if any of you is curious, would you like to know what the real answer to that question was? “The season finale is not here at all, because I am barely working on the script. And I am barely working on the script, because I don’t know how to handle it. And I don’t know how to handle it, because I am not a writer - but I want to write it anyway”. Here’s your answer, you’re welcome.

Believe me, I hope to be proven wrong, but this is what I got from Thomas’ over-the-top reaction. And if any of you think I am too hard on him, then sorry again, but it pisses me off to see a grown-ass man whining like a child because someone just asked him something he doesn’t want to talk about.

And here is the second tweet, dated December 2022:

Not only this is another textbook example of what “having a guilty conscience” means, but Mr. Sanders’ reply is - if possible - even more childish: I work very very hard! See how hard I work? I am right and you are wrong! And If you keep saying these bad things, I will tell mom.

In addition to that, he wasn’t even clever enough to turn the topic away from him. That person said that his supporters got nothing in turn and are more excited than him? He could’ve said that this was offensive towards his supporters, because if they are trusting him it’s not because he’s forcing them to do it, but because they like what he’s doing and want him to create these things he’s passionate about. But nope, he was too butthurt and he clearly knew that person was right, so he overreacted like a child.

This also proves that, sadly, he doesn’t believe his supporters are following him out of trust or because they like everything he’s doing. He’s probably very aware that the reason most people are following him is Sanders Sides - and that puts him in a difficult situation.

Why? Because he’s not able to handle the series. And he's aware of it: he knows he’s taking too long with the script, he knows there are no real updates, he knows he has nothing to give. And yet, this series is his main income: there are people, merch, contracts. He can’t just drop or cancel it.

And so he keeps everything as vague as possible. If everything is vague, people will still trust him, they will think he’s working on the series and patiently wait for the next episode.

This can work with kids. But when kids grow up or teens grow tired, they start to rightfully ask questions. And if you don’t have answers, you end up replying like this - thus involuntarily showing how aware you are of your situation.

And now, let’s take Sanders Sides out for a moment, because this isn’t about the series, but about him.

This behavior is very, very disrespectful. Adults should be an example for younger people, they should be someone the next generation will look at and take inspiration from, to grow into even better adults. We can’t pretend kids are better than us, if we are not the first to show them how to be better.

Thomas isn’t just an adult, but a public figure, so he’s not just an example for his friends or relatives: he’s an example for a lot of people. He should show them what a proper, mature, adult reply is. What he did instead was attacking with a lot of passive-aggressiveness an innocent fan who just asked a question and a more sarcastic one, who just poked him.

Do you know what he could’ve done instead? Not reply at all. Or just grow a pair and reply like an adult. He could’ve thanked the first fan and said that, unfortunately, there are no real updates on Sanders Sides for now, because he’s working on other stuff - and added that he hopes they will like this stuff too. While to the second person, he could’ve said that people are following him for more than just Sanders Sides and that he’s sorry that person thinks he did nothing, because he worked on different things. Was it so hard to do?

This is not a good way to handle criticism. And I hope he will grow up a little: all he did now was showing us how long his straw tail is and how easily it catches fire.

[beevean]

Rewriting Castlevania

To be more specific, Castlevania post-Season 2. The first few seasons shall serve as the launchpads from which to build upon and iron out the kinks for later stories.

I don’t have an exact vision of how rewritten versions of Season 3 and 4 (or Nocturne, but that isn’t the focus here), but I know, for starters, they could’ve used a more compact cast.

First: remove Trevor and Sypha. They may have been major protagonists in Seasons 1 and 2, but their story was over. Alucard, as well. His story was also done… for now (because he’s too iconic in the franchise as a whole not to bring back in a sequel series).

Next: they could’ve easily cut out Morana and Striga (whose names escaped my memory until I just looked them up) without substantially affecting anything in Carmilla’s whole story. Lenore can stay (maybe as the show’s equivalent to Laura), but she should not get a “redemption”. Instead, develop the idea of how weak others see her and how her devious intellect helps her overcome her perceived weakness. Write the woman a Starscream arc, even (“I am Lenore of Styria, and fuq you, Carmilla! I win!”), with mistress Carmilla as her Megatron! Give her lots of ambition!

For Isaac, I would love for his chat with that Captain to be preserved (I rewatched it recently and loved the vibe of it), but a couple other events in his journey need adjustments so that he doesn’t go through the “I had an nice talk with a human, so my mind about humanity is changing, but these guys are blocking me and I can’t reason with them, therefore I’m stupid for trying to be civil and hate humans again, now they die!” bit twice. With a little streamlining, his screentime in Season 3 could be devoted to building him up as a threat, and then set up Season 4 with his role as a co-antagonist (with Carmilla) to Hector fully set up when they reunite. No sanitizing “I’m going to live!” revelations here.

Then there’s Hector. I still think we didn’t need to see the immediate aftermath of his imprisonment. In this hypothetical rewritten story, I would suggest having a 1 or 2 year timeskip, so he’s been slaving away in Carmilla’s dungeon for quite a while, forced to build her an army with his Devil Forgemaster powers, and Lenore’s been keeping watch and giving him plenty of incentives not to betray the sisters. Maybe for his first appearance in this version of Season 3, he could have this intimidating reveal where it dramatically shows the scrawny boy from Season 2 has become a buff, scarred son of a gun, clearly having worked out a lot during his year(s)-long stay.

The story following the Castlevania 3 adaptation would not have to be a Curse of Darkness adaptation, but the pieces were in place to pass the main protagonist torch over to Hector anyway. By making Season 3 all about his eventual escape, and having Season 4 follow him on the run, eventually overcoming his oppressor (Carmilla) and former partner (Isaac), we have ourselves a cohesive story that blends everything it establishes into one, airtight package, rather than feeling like a convoluted animation anthology.

Also, maybe Saint Germain’s Infinite Corridor quest can be worked into Hector’s adventure to freedom in some kind of creative way, without Saint Germain having to sacrifice his morals or gain info from a shady 3rd (or 4th) party.

Reply: I like your ideas!

Hard agree on removing Trevor and Sypha because they are effectively done, and Morana and Striga because they add absolutely nothing of importance. Ellis said that he created the council to explain who ran the kingdom while Carmilla was in Wallachia, but Lenore could do the job herself.  I’m not sure about Alucard because his story is also over, but I do see the potential of him grappling with his grief, and fearing he might become like Dracula. It’s just, the way it was done was skull-crushingly boring, and for now I have no better ideas.

(btw yes, Carmilla and Lenore could be wives at this point lmao, their personalities are strong enough that it wouldn’t come off as The Lesbians For Brownie Points. Maybe Carmilla turned Lenore so she’s her dame and superior, and this would cause frustration in Lenore who feels like Carmilla sees her more as her pet than a lover... frustration that she channels on Hector, in some sort of cycle of abuse way :) I still like the idea of her falling in love with Hector, but it’s an unhealthy, possessive love typical of a vampire, that Hector doesn’t reciprocate or grows out of.)

For Isaac, I mentioned the other day that he could use as a springboard the realization that Dracula cast him away like a broken tool, and from there, his affirmation that he’s worth more than what Dracula told him. ... yes, this is still Hector’s arc, but whatever at this point. Absolutely, S3 should avoid that stupid pattern of “oh maybe humans aren’t so bad-- nvm y’all rude, die”. Maybe he avoids people instead of barging through cities, and makes his army from the corpses he finds in abandoned towns? But he still can’t avoid everyone, hence, the scene with the captain.

Mhh. Hector’s story spanning so long would also influence Isaac’s, and it feels like too much? If Isaac had one year of time to build an army, dude would lead a small country basically. He’s already OP af, even if we nerf him by making him weak in physical combat. Same with Carmilla, she would definitely do some damage in one year.

I’m torn. Hector’s story in S3 could be tweaked a bit by making it less fetishistic and still treating Hector like a person: as in, someone with goals and principles and was not hired as General only because he’s pretty, that Lenore has to whittle down to convince him to work for him (the idea that Hector cannot be physically forced to work and his master needs to earn his trust is actually really good for a conflict). The two should butt heads and have more intriguing conversations, make the job harder for Lenore, let’s see if she keeps with the diplomacy or gets frustrated and needs to resort to the ring (which only makes sense in the scenario where Hector is deemed too dangerous to be allowed to work freely, since its only shown function is to bequeath control of the Creatures). I actually jotted some ideas down, if you’re interested :P

(oh, and no rape. obviously. she really didn’t need to do that.)

And S4 can kind of stay the same, but with the difference that Hector trapping Lenore is a form of cruel mercy, he does not crawl back to her because he too realized he does not need to cling to people to earn love, and he actually leaves the castle, ready to explore the world (with the implication that he might meet the equivalent of Rosaly, but it’s not necessary)

To clarify, what is your idea of Hector’s story in S4? Does he flee from Isaac on the chase? Will he eventually fight him and Carmilla? Will he meet Rosaly in the finale, and in this timeline they stay together without Isaac interfering? (please say yes 🥺)

But yeah. I still think the prequels could have been adapted, but if we need Carmilla as a spanner in the works tweaking the timeline, this feels much better. Trevor and Sypha alone not bogging down screentime would solve so many issues with the rushed pace.

[daisychainsandbowties]

thoughts on autistic beatrice 

i got a couple asks about this, so here we go.

speaking. despite her talent for linguistics, and her fascination with language, Beatrice does sometimes have periods where she is non-verbal. alternates with days where she needs to talk a lot. Lilith usually gets subjected to her talkativeness on these occasions - or rather, she subjects herself to it, willingly. knows how to respond and manage and help when things are a lot. she is quite content to sit and listen and poke fun while Beatrice lets all of the thoughts out of her head. 

Bea has areas of specific focus, and likes to tell convoluted stories to reach her point bc it’s how her brain likes to do things, and Lilith is one of the rare people who will simply listen, who is not impatient. Bea has been trained to think in straight lines, but there is a natural obliqueness to her thought processes. & especially when she is tired and/or hurt it unravels out of her. 

it takes a long time for her to trust anyone enough to actually relax and do that kind of stimming, but once things are easier it’s at least once a week, and Lilith pretty much drops everything to go sit with her in the library or down by the cliff or in the sun by one of the outer walls. this is astonishing to Bea, because nobody in her life has been willing to listen to her talk before, for hours. 

for Lilith it’s like watching the sun rise, & Bea transforms when she’s able to let all of the many myriad & often beautiful thoughts she has find their way out. to have them held and appreciated.

special interests. i think for sure Bea is really interested in math & physics & linguistics & probably a bit of architecture (my girl knew how to convert dirra to feet = math nerd AND architecture nerd, for sure). 

re: physics - Bea is just really interested in the mechanics of the universe, & it’s kind of an adjacent interest when you throw knives, because there is math involved & a bit of physics knowledge, especially for her throws which are from unpredictable distances (usually knife-throwing is done at standard distances with more or less consistent trajectories. whereas Bea throws in consistently unpredictable circumstances, often at moving targets).

she likes spiders and pretty much all fields of biology - anatomy, entomology, biophysics (she was a bit obsessed with gravitational tropism & how they grew plants in space), biochem, physiology of all kinds. definitely used to do architectural sketches for fun. knows all about how buildings have been constructed over the centuries. likes spiders because misunderstood, solitary, & just rlly rlly interesting as creatures. linguistics for obvious reasons. aka ‘if i learn ten languages i will be able to talk to people’ = cue not knowing what to say to people in ten languages. i’m gonna say she likes prime numbers. the mystery of them, the way they are so strange and self-contained.

routine! Bea is big into routine. it helps her to deal with the parts of her life that will always be chaotic - OCS activities are pretty much chaotic by default, because possession and demons don’t keep people-hours. 

she NEEDS to go running every day & Lilith is usually the only one who can keep pace with her, so they get up in the predawn dark most mornings and run until the sun rises. they don’t talk while they run, but they have a sort of silent conversation going on. gentle competition and mutual egging-on. performing stupid little parkour tricks where no one can see them. once or twice they go down by the beach and end up trying to toss each other into the ocean. 

when they get back Beatrice has muesli (she always has muesli, when she can) & she has this specific blue bowl and this specific spoon. everyone knows not to touch it (and Lilith knows too but still does dickhead things like hide it, but she gives it back almost immediately. just likes to see Bea’s face scrunch up like an emoji. she calls it ‘your haughty little stare’. 

Lilith peels an orange while Beatrice makes up her breakfast (picking the banana chips out. ‘why don’t you just get the brand without banana chips.’ ‘you wouldn’t understand.’) Lilith scatters orange peel everywhere on purpose and Beatrice goes around after sweeping them into her palm, which makes her hands smell like citrus (and, incidentally, exactly like Lilith’s, all day long).

time-blindness/interoception. Beatrice loses time. has a habit of going into a trance or just hyper-focussing on things. in those instances Mary or Lilith or Cam will find her just Staring and they always go to fetch Shannon, because she has a knack; she’s a gentle stirring presence, and she goes and puts her palms on Bea’s face and gets her eyes to focus on her. narrows the world down to simple touch. leads with a couple of innocent questions about math or sometimes jellyfish, or any of the topics Bea likes. 

this is what she needs. Mary is the steady voice that pulls everyone together in a fight, but Shannon has the measure of Beatrice. she knows to ask questions, to lure her out of her stupor with positive things. gentle, stirring. usually there’s nothing bad about losing the time, except that she can end up with throbbing headaches from dehydration.

but it’s time her brain needs, to be away from other people, because Beatrice has observed and catalogued and she is pretty good at the social side of things. yet it is exhausting. & sometimes she needs a hour or two to just exist in her own orbit.

eye-contact. when she’s comfy she tends to stray away from eye-contact, just because other body language is better and not so overwhelming as eyes, but martial arts taught her how important the eyes are for betraying intent, so she looks. but if she trust ppl there’s less eye contact. what there is, then, means more. 

she and Lilith are almost entirely absent of eye-contact when alone with each other. they are parallel play pros, and they save eye-contact for fighting, though Lilith is extraordinarily good at NOT giving away anything with her eyes. she can be beating the crap out of two people at once and look like she’s grocery shopping, but when she’s in the swing of things there’s often a manic glee to her eyes. & Bea likes that because it’s uncomplicated and wild and honest. but yeah, Mary occasionally goes to Shannon - ‘hey, do you think Beatrice would know the answer if i asked her what colour Lilith’s eyes are?’

speaking (contd.) Bea does have a tendency to forget about inflection in speech. has a monotone a lot of the time, which other people mistake for condescension. she can be very persuasive, but when she’s comfortable her voice keeps this unerringly constant pitch.

doesn’t tend to have the wild wavers you expect when ppl are with their friends; actually gets flatter & more even the more enthused she is. so she’ll be telling Lilith about how spiders can walk upside down on glass & the pitch, if you measured it, would be a straight line, but this speaks to Lilith’s brain too, because it isn’t jumping on distinctions in sound & getting anxious over it. 

if you pay attention to the rest of Bea’s body language it’s easy to see how excited she is, but that doesn’t manifest in her voice so much. oh she can emote vocally with the best of them (cut to the museum heist scene where Vincent kidnaps Ava) but calm relaxed Bea is going to be rocking that monotone.

food. for the first while in cat’s cradle Beatrice has trouble with mealtimes. it was never her forte - always the first down to breakfast in boarding school, so eventually the ppl setting up just left a bowl out for her & the tureen of muesli, and a milk bottle still slick with dew from sitting on the stoop with all the others. 

it’s the social aspect, mostly, and the change of routine, that get to her. plus Beatrice just isn’t motivated by food at all - for her it’s like, due to interoception, and some sensory preferences, though Bea’s a good soldier and can just ignore texture and taste if she has to. 

she doesn’t like the tables in the vaulted hall or the weird dim lighting, and all the other nuns talking in hushed voices so they become this susurration of sound. so she just skips lunch, or dinner. 

Lilith insists that she could care less, & she only tells Mary because otherwise she’ll get a lecture about responsibility and the new recruits, and also Bea is the best fighter besides her, and she doesn’t want to win just because the little twit forgets to eat. 

initially Mary just insists that Bea goes to meals with her. that doesn’t really help too much; Bea goes where she’s told, but yk you can lead a horse to water, can’t make them drink.

one day Mary goes and sits down next to Bea while she’s reading one day out in the courtyard, & hands her a cup of pudding from a bunch of surplus (and almost expired) MREs that the OCS bulk-bought ages ago. & Bea, skeptical but obedient, open it up & tries it & Mary, privately, thinks it’s chalky and overly sweet, but Bea adores it. she reads the nutritional info and is weirdly psyched by how ‘full of food groups’ it is. (Mary shrugs, but Lilith gets it; she also grew up craving salt and protein and portions larger than a palm). 

Mary bulk buys even more of them, & soon the Trio™ start carrying them around. Shannon has a bunch in her backpack, and Mary keeps them in the glove box of the van. Lilith sometimes just has one in the pocket of her hoodie, so that when it’s a Hard Day they can all reliably take Bea out into the sun with a bit of breeze coming up over the cliffside, & pass her a horrible calorie-dense protein pudding monstrosity.

it works, though. once Bea has Lilith to cling to she doesn’t mind going to the official means, & also Mother Superion takes her in her office & tells her she can go to the kitchen or eat in MS’s office if she’s not feeling it any evening. it works, and Beatrice manages to win against Lilith two out of five times in training, and she looks better and more than she has in her whole life, because the ppl around her FINALLY care about what she needs.

touch. Bea actually really likes it. flinches, at first, when Mary throws an arm around her, or when Shannon goes to her after a hard fight and presses their foreheads together, and leaves her sooty thumb-prints on Bea’s cheeks from holding her face. 

Lilith is another touch-starved bitch so they are like two polarised magnets initially, but after a while it changes. Beatrice falling asleep against Lilith in the back of the OCS fan. Bea having a panic attack and Mary climbing clear over the handbrake from the front seat (shotgun) to go and hold her very tightly, and rock her, and just say meaningless nice things.

Lilith like a deer in the headlights watching it, but eventually letting Beatrice braid her hair when her hands won’t stop shaking from the adrenaline. at once point they are hiding from possessed ppl & Lilith wraps her whole body around Bea, pressing them together into the shadows, and Beatrice is just… stunned by the closeness of it all. the lemon and sweat smell of Lilith (Bea starts stealing her shampoo after that). 

eventually she knows how to seek touch, how to ask for it & Bea and Lilith become kind of ridiculous about it (just watch the infirmary scene). they sit propping each other up, side-by-side or back-to-back. Bea with her legs flung over Lilith’s lap, reading out of a book in the library. in church playing ‘one-two-three-four, i declare a thumb war’ while Mary loses her shit in the row behind them. 

Beatrice likes braiding hair, and when she’s upset she just clings to ppl (Lilith starts calling her barnacle and also limpet) but both of them need that from each other, & most of the other sisters are just not Bea’s people; she has her three people (four, almost, when Cam arrives). 

with Mary it’s a lot of rough shoving and headlocks and kicking each other’s calves and ‘hey, think fast!’ followed by Mary chucking something at Bea. 

with Shannon it’s the face-touching, and her arms folding Bea into a hug to end all hugs. & obviously with Ava we have Beatrice the little spoon, & her quiet amazement at how much Ava likes touching her arms or pecking her on the cheek - i don’t think she was raised to believe that people might long to touch her, and where Lilith hid her longing pretty deftly, Ava is much more open about it; it’s part of what shocks her when Ava hugs her very suddenly that first time in Cat’s Cradle after the wall incident - not the touch, but the recognition of Ava’s hunger for it. i think it occurred to Beatrice that maybe Ava could not even remember the last time someone hugged her like that. i think she understands& once they’re together it’s stupid how often they are in contact with each other, but it’s Bea’s love language, i think.

sensory issues. texture is obviously a thing for Beatrice. specifically with food, but also with clothes. you’ll see (in the show) that she tends to favour clothes that are loose around the arms (part of her reasoning being that it’s easier and better to fight in loose-fitting clothes) but yeah she’s not a fan of tight clothing. likes pressure on her own terms. she likes sweaters and tank tops, men’s-section t-shirts because the weird v-shape of women’s sleeves is foul and heinous. she does like to button shirts all the way up to the top because for unknown reasons it feels safe and precise.

sound is not too bad for Bea. she’s used to a lot of shouting in martial arts training (the use of a kiai in kendo is well-established & often super loud. she kind of likes that, shrieking at the top of her lungs with permission) and also gunshots with the OCS. none of it bothers her more than gunshots are just super unpleasant to hear for anyone. 

she does enjoy asmr though. ocean sounds especially (thunder is bad unless there’s a really predictable interval between bouts of thunder) hates those deep-space ones because the bass makes her feel dizzy.

she just also really likes the sound of the people she loves talking. sometimes she can get Lilith to say more than four sentences together & it’s heaven. Ava obviously has her doe-eyed with her ability to talk about anything, to fill silences with good sound. 

Bea HATES to be shouted at, berated etc. but mostly for trauma reasons, b/c of the whole endless night her parents yelled at her before they sent her away. this is part of the reason that silence makes her a bit uneasy, unless she knows what it means. 

silence with Lilith has a few flavours; she has a happy silence, which is like a cat coming to sit in a room with you. she also has a broody silence, which Bea likes too, actually, because Lilith isn’t angry, she’s just filling the room with the noisiness of her thoughts. her angry silence makes Beatrice want to say around too, but only in the hope of mending things. Mary’s silences are usually good, or else they’re about Shannon. & Shannon has her gentle silences and her hidden silences. the fact is that silence for Bea is rarely actual silence, because she is too attentive to the meanings of silence. 

she likes Ava’s version of silence, which is talking. 

is also very very perceptive of sound - Lilith insists you can’t hear electricity OR spiders moving around, but Bea is adamant that you can, actually. she always knows when there’s a big house spider in her room bc they are NOT stealthy. it’s why she likes asmr - esp. in cat’s cradle - because it drowns out the small noises of the convent which don’t get tuned out by her brain.

light can be annoying for Bea. headcanon is that the museum heist sunglasses were not a brand new acquisition - Ava got them for Bea in Switzerland (‘you shouldn’t read in the sun if you’re gonna squint, bea’) because Beatrice got headaches from too much light, & they looked dorky so two birds with one stone. she does appreciate light, though, and loves sitting in the sun. anything that is not like England. she gets weird and sad when it rains too much. also HATES being rained on. fully sulks about it.

finally, stimming! i think when she’s upset Bea would, ideally, self-soothe by rocking. it’s why Mary does it, because Bea’s parents berated her for it so many times that her body freezes up at the thought. 

she likes to braid hair, as i said. likes tapping things, fiddling with things in her hands - reason why she’s so ‘puts hands behind back’ ‘puts hands in pockets’ ‘makes hands hold each other so they can’t do their own thing’. but yeah, in Switzerland it happens a lot more. playing with pens, tapping thumb & forefinger, tapping surfaces (very lightly), AHEM skipping stones. just keeping those guys busy. 

asmr is also stimming, btw. & so is eating the right food for the purpose of enjoying the textures. all of the touching. 

she also has mental stims! that r like… doing equations, or running through facts. counting primes. reciting as much of pi as she can in one minute, imagining a clock face and watching it move. i think so much of her stimming is probably mental, actually. rlly fun stims are finding linguistic patterns in things, or translating things back and forth - so like, from english to french to german to latin & then going back without cheating to see if any changes get imposed by counter-translating directly - also spatial reasoning in general is good stimming. thinking, how exactly would that fall? or imagining things swinging or shattering or anything like that, where you have to extrapolate a bit based on instinct and also knowledge. having to be so internal her whole life would have furnished her with a bunch of them, but i think her OCS family bring so many good visible stims to the surface too!

anyway, those are some of my thoughts on autistic bea. i love her very.

[annie0183]

Hating on books and other fiction

This rant came out as some friends were talking about people’s reaction and hate towards some books and authors and how the words shitty and trashy are so used towards some genres. This is going to be long….

I think calling a genre trash is absolutely stupid. BL books are equally loved and reviled by people. Simply because the main target of these stories are women, or more exactly straight women that supposedly fetishize gay relationships. It’s similar to how the books written in the past were hated because they weren’t more than written porn for women. The reason those books were called trash was because they were written by women for women. Which I see as an insult towards women, the same way calling Mame's book's trash is an insult towards those that enjoy her books.

No, I don’t deny that there are straight women fetishizing gay relationships, and let’s be honest, that’s how BL series have appeared. And I don’t deny that some books are nothing more than porn, including those past books. I read those, they were cringy, over the top but I enjoyed them. Easy to read, something to pass time. Sometimes I need that, and there are a lot of people that sometimes need an easy read.

I hate the so-called intellectuals that pretend they are better than the rest because they hate these books. You don't need epic adventures or convoluted storylines for a book to be good. What makes a book good is the people that enjoy it. As long as you take it with a grain of salt and keep in mind that it’s fiction, therefore not real, you can read whatever you enjoy. You’re not superior for hating a book the same way you’re not superior for loving that book. Different tastes people, why do we tend to forget those exist?  

I've seen people saying a book is trash because one character annoys them or is one dimensional. And I'm like... have you met people? Do you ever go out of your room and meet people? Because let me tell you, people are one dimensional, boring, and annoying. Your expectation of epic characters is absolutely unrealistic, and if authors keep their books anchored to the real world is normal to see these types of characters. Every boring person out there is the main character of their own story. You can not like a book, which is normal and, in your right, but labeling a book trash because you find annoying a character, or the plot is not doing it for you it's trashier than the book.

The hate Mame receives in the BL world reminds me a bit of Twilight and how it became a trend to hate the books and the movies, forgetting they were targeted towards teenagers and it wasn’t supposed to be a deep story.  People have criticized Bella to hell and back: she’s a boring character, why is she so obsessed with Edward, why is everyone so attracted to her and so on.

Bella is an awkward teen girl, they are boring overall, half of the girls my year in highschool were carbon copy of Bella, so what a surprise, boring teens exist… Why is she so obsessed with Edward? Hmm, awkward teen with self-confidence issues, parents divorced, a mostly absent dad, absentminded mom and the feeling of being set aside by her mom moving maybe, and look at this, the hottest guy in school is paying attention to her and she discovers that he’s actually a vampire a supernatural being so damn amazing. Of course, she’s obsessed. I mean… have you ever had a crush in your teenage years?

Oh, but why is everyone attracted to her... Small boring town, city girl moving there, she’s not described as being an ugly alien with tentacles coming out of her eyes, so she’s cute at least if not out of this world gorgeous, of course people were curious and attracted. She was the shiny new toy on the playground.

It’s easy to see that if you actually stop and think about it, a lot of those things that were seen as flaws actually had a reason to be the way they were. An adult most probably won’t enjoy these stories, which is ok, because they weren’t written for them. Why do we have to shame kids and teens for what they like?

There is a very dangerous trend of holding fiction work on a pedestal and wanting fiction to be sanitized and even puritanical, with perfect characters and perfect plot and healthy environments. If we keep doing this, we’ll end up with the same book/series/movie under a different title. Let’s not censor fiction and let artists create their art the way they want and need.

I understand not wanting to read about an abusive character or, a scummy villain, but some people enjoy the stories, and NO it's not because they romanticize toxic relationships or SA or DV, it’s because these stories bring out things that happen in the real world and aren’t talked about as they should. Sometimes these issues aren’t dealt with as they should be in the books, but it’s maybe because a lot of these issues aren’t dealt with the right way in real life either.

There are books/series out there for everyone. With boring ass characters that lead boring lives like all of us do in real life, because let’s face it, we’re not out there slaying dragons and discovering new worlds, and epic stories with three-dimensional characters going on the adventure of their life. Go, read and watch the stories that appeal to you, whichever those may be.

You’re entitled to your opinion; you’re entitled to not like a story, but there is a difference between constructive criticism and straight up hating because the books are not your style. The line is fine, but it’s there. Before you go around calling a book shit, stop and think about it. Is it really shit, or you’re just nitpicking and straight up hating simply because the plot and characters don’t appeal to you?

Dedicated to @lutawolf

[ppushable]

of course we'll be okay

jean kirschtein x fem reader / longfic / chapter wc: 10 167

1 - resigned delusion

masterlist

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I can't remember my name. Civilization is wiped and the future is bleak. The zombies are here.

But it's not all that bad. It's a little selfish to think like this, I know, but I can't seem to have it any other way.

My name isn't a big deal. As for the memories, well, I've made better ones, with people I really care about, and who I really hope care about me, too. And how can you expect me to care about a society I don't even remember, or a future I've never imagined? Okay, now that was selfish.

---

No matter how terrible things may seem, I always end up reminiscing. Nostalgic for the days when I lived so freely, when my only care was if I would come home alive. When I was swarmed by people who really, really cared about me.

When the two of us were stuck to each other, inseparable, through hell and back.

If I could make one wish, it wouldn't be to change the past, but to have never experienced it at all.

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ao3 tags:

Zombie Apocalypse / Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse / Slow Burn / Slow To Update / mc is awkward as hell / at first / no y/n / POV First Person / im sorry if this is a mess / somewhat canon compliant / Sad Ending / if we ever get there / Reader-Insert / Angst / no beta author is friendless and hesitant / Fluff / Coming of Age / Blood and Gore / Zombies / Modern Era / Nonbinary Hange Zoë / Amnesia / Amnesiac Reader / Character Development / Cross-Posted on Wattpad / Enemies to Lovers / Enemies to Friends to Lovers / Jean Kirstein Being An Asshole / morally grey zeke yeager / Other Additional Tags to Be Added / side marco bott/reader / only in the beginning rlly / Forced Pregnancy

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i've been thinking about writing this for a really, really long time. so i began. and then i started thinking about posting it. there's not much more to say without full-on rambling, but i hope you enjoy reading it as much as i enjoy writing it. at least, i hope i didn't waste your fanfiction time. there are so many amazing stories out there that i took inspiration from. (the last of us is not one of them)

some things to note;

there will be violence/gore/injuries

and angst

and fluff

and dumbass shenanigans

the story might be long and convoluted because i'm not too sure what i'm doing

warnings will be added before the gnarly chapters

things are subject to change! mostly the tags, but nothing too major.

without further ado ♥

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Above hangs an unfamiliar ceiling, corporate drop tiles, harsh light cutting hard shadows on its rigid surface.

“Hello, Ostrich!” That sharp voice cuts a line straight through my ears. “How are you?”

The words that come out of me are slurred, half-baked. “Good, how about you?”

“You’ve slept in. The school bus left twenty minutes ago.”

“What?” The heels of my palms sink into the foamy mattress as I push myself up and a nasty static builds in my head. 

“That sure got you up, eh?”

Green and white checkers line the laminate floor below, blinding white sunshine bouncing off its waxed and perfect surface into my fresh eye. Even as I try to blink away the ensuing dark blue blotch, the squares persist in the corners of my vision. 

That horrendous thing was there yesterday, too. 

Yesterday? What was I doing yesterday? I was here, wasn’t I, in the same room with the same pockmarked ceiling and the same sun and the same green and white. In that little instance in time in this room, in this body, under these blankets, my entire life happened. Before yesterday, there was nothing. 

Nothing? What am I talking about?

The person at my side raises a mushroom into a light beam. Motes of dust dance around the fungus, giving it a heavenly quality despite its globby and wrinkled appearance. “Look at this. You don’t think it’s poisonous, do you?”

“Professor Hange.” 

“Maybe I should feed it to, uh.” Their grip on the spout loosens and it falls with a pitter-patter. The face behind comes into focus: squarish goggles, hawkish nose, elastic mouth. “What did you just say?”

I rest a hand against my face at the sacrifice of stability. “Professor—”

Hange shoots up with a hard clatter as the milk crates they sat on are knocked over. “Shut up! Did you just— you— I thought—” They give up on words. “No!” And out comes a deep laugh. “No way!” 

They scramble to the other side of the room — it only takes a few steps — to a folding table pressed against the wall, plucking out a pen and paper with a crisp flourish. 

A knock comes from the open doorway at the foot of my bed, catching both of our attentions — it’s a middle-aged woman holding a stack of blankets. We lock eyes and she smiles, a movement that squishes the corner of her eyes into pleasantly deep wrinkles. Something compels me to return the gesture — and I will, probably, when the room stops tilting. She speaks. “Everything okay here? I heard something fall.” 

Hange doesn’t allow a huff of breathing room. “She remembered! Me!”

Her brows shoot up. “Really?” And the smile deepens. “See, I knew it was only a matter of time—” her gaze wanders to the paper— “what is that?”

Hange drums the notes with their fingertips, the sound strangely calming, like rain against a car window or grease simmering on a quiet night. “Paper.”

“For what?”

“Scientific observation.”

“No.”

The professor’s body deflates like a wilting flower and makes a sound like one, too, if wilting flowers could speak. “But I need to observe.”

Instead of thoughts, there lives a school of deep-sea fish in my head — too slippery to snag, pin down, and comprehend, but pretty to skim over and lose concentration. Every once in a while there’s a flash as one fleetingly separates from the herd, only to merge once more into the flickering storm, into itself. Pretty. The air swirls with nature’s sparkles. 

Where am I? Who am I? Why am I sitting on a bed, watching these two bicker? Why am I even on a bed at all? Where’s my mother? 

“Professor, from what I’ve heard, she just woke up. Couldn’t it wait a bit? At least make a decent first impression!”

“But it’s already—”

“Professor Hange Zoe! As a functional, responsible adult you should know—”

“Who said I was responsible? Yesterday I—”

“Um!”

The yammering terminates as both sources turn toward the origin of the disruption, me. What the hell am I thinking? “Sorry.” Sitting up is hard, especially when you’re sweating bullets in front of a crowd. I lean against the headboard. “Where am I?”

They share a glance, the new arrival’s notably pointed. “I’m trusting you with this.”

Hange beams. “Alright. Let’s get started with introductions, then.” With fierce velocity, their hand smacks their hollow chest (crumpling the paper within). “As you know, my name is Hange Zoe! I used to be a professor, but now I’m head of research. I believe we met yesterday, though I’m not sure how much of it you remember.” It whips to the side. “This lovely lady is Mirabel. She’s… she helps clean up sometimes.”

Said person carefully purses her lips. 

“To answer your question, we’re in a bathroom. Not just any bathroom! A bathroom of Shiganshina mall, or what we like to call, Shiganshina branch. Well, it’s more of an outpost than anything else, but it’s perfectly safe! You’re always welcome to leave, of course, but I personally don’t recommend it.” The last few words are muttered as an aside. 

“What?”

They continue. “By the way, there’s been a new virus going around.”

Covid?

Hange pulls their goggles into forehead territory. I’ve never seen their eyes before. “It’s probably not what you’re thinking — this virus I speak of is more contagious and much more deadly than anything we’re seen before. In fact, the whole world was shut down because of it, and nobody knows how! Rather, nobody’s able to think that hard anymore.” With a whirl, they sift through a pile of paper on the table. “This new virus… is so cool!” And they plop a blinding-white sheet on my lap. “So exciting!”

It’s a human diagram, complete with label lines and scribbled descriptions. If I focus, I can make out the words…

“It’s not something you wanna contract. A lot of us, firsthand, have seen the effects of it.”

When I try to flip the paper, it splits into two. There’s two pages. This one has the same person, but looks as if he was put through a meat grinder. 

“The effect of zombification.”

The single eye of the diagram stare at me. “Did you draw this?”

“No, it was my associate. Quite talented, isn’t— wait, that’s not the important part. Did you hear the part when I said ‘zombification?’ Like, as in zombies?” 

“Zombies?” Disappointingly, there’s no more pages. “I didn’t know they were real.” The zombie’s torn-up skin is beautifully shaded, hair clotted, teeth stained, eyes glassy, backbone knotted and humped and jutting into different directions. It’s handsome, even, in the same way an antique end table or fantastical map might.

From the background, Mirabel: “Maybe you shouldn’t have started with the virus thing.”

“You’re right… I reckon I have something that’ll jog the memory. Wait here.”

She clucks like a hen and then turns to me. “Are you all right, dear?”

The corner of the page is crimped, and the world comes back to me: heat under the blanket, tartness in my mouth, a tang of pain where my spine meets wood. “Ye– yes, ma’am.”

“You’re not cold, are you? Or hungry?”

“No.”

“Thirsty?”

“No, thank you.”

“Are you hurt?”

Slow. “I feel slow. Sorry, I’m not really sure if I’m saying anything that makes sense.”

“You’re only just waking up.” Warmth lands on my arm — her hand snuck up on me while I focussed on her face. “You— you’ve been in a bit of a coma of sorts for a while. Give it time, dear.”

“What are those blankets for?”

Mirabel looks taken aback and shifts the pile of blankets in her opposite arm around her body. “These ones?” As if there’s another stack of linens laying around that I’m referring to. “They’re for the children. Well, I suppose they wouldn’t be children to you.” A small, rolling chuckle. “They’re all around your age, including my son.”

“Aren’t you a bit young to be a mother?” 

“Ha!” she chortles, landing a side eye. “Charming little one, aren’t you? Ha!”

I half-shrug, awkward. I don’t know why I said that. “What’s he like? Your son.”

She puffs out her nose and shakes her head. “He can test my patience sometimes, that brat. You wouldn’t know it when you see him, but he used to be the sweetest thing.” She places the blankets on the bed, burrows into her back pocket — she’s wearing skinny jeans — and pulls out a sticky-looking wallet. She fiddles with it until a tongue of photo sleeves waterfall out like something out of a cartoon and points to the top one.

It’s Mirabel — younger Mirabel — seated with a hay-haired toddler with a jelly bean face and a beam stretching ear to ear. “His favourite food is veggie omelet.” She eases into a smile as well, as if the mere sight of the image sucks her back to that day a decade or so ago. 

I wonder who took the photo. “Cute.” Because what else am I supposed to say?

Her eyes flick from the wallet to my face. “I’m glad you think so, but there’s a reason he’s never had a girlfriend.”

“What?”

“What?”

Down the column of photos is another rendition of her son, evidently a more recent one, taken in his adolescence: middle-parted hair affixed with an illegal amount of gel, a petulant leer, smug lips a hair-length away from curling into a bonafide shit-eating smirk. “I meant his, uh, kid picture.”

“Of course, dear.” 

For the first time, I feel awake. 

Mirabel lets free a dainty laugh and makes herself at home on my bed. “Oh, I’m just teasing you. Don’t look so frightened! You’re like a fish.”

I blink away the stinging in my eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Hm.” The giggle subsides into a curve of the lips. “You’re sweet. I never really got the chance to properly speak to you in the past, but now I can see why Hange takes such a liking to you.”

“That’s nice.”

“Yes,” she responds, but her head tilts to the side a bit like she’s confused, or about to drop a bomb. “I… do believe you’ll see a great deal of things today, things you might not understand at first, but I want you to remember. Be kind to yourself, and be kind to others. Especially the children. Please be kind to them.”

Where did that come from? Against my better judgment, I want to ask.

“Hange debuts!”

Mirabel kind of falls into herself and the androgynous terror returns, fist clenched and waving like a weapon. “Catch!” And it splays open.

A small something glimmers in midair before manifesting as a sharp pain on my collarbone. “Ow!”

“I told you to catch.”

The thing is hard, and made a thunk when it hit. One hand reaches to rub the surely future bruise as the other rummages through the folds, searching. The professor plops on the other side of the bed as my finger finally catches and raises the object: a small metal plate swinging off a beaded chain. “A dog tag?”

Sinking onto their elbow, Hange beams. “You like it?” Yeah, just make yourself at home.

“It’s pretty cool.”

“I was expecting a bigger reaction.”

The plate slowly rotates on its string, revealing engraved letters. 

0009

MARLEY

– – – 

The bottom line’s missing.

“Do you remember this?” Hange leans forward, teetering dangerously on their arm. 

“Am I supposed to?”

“Interesting.” They pull out a pad and pen from nowhere, letting their chin hit the mattress, and jots down the word “Interesting.”

“Interesting?” I echo.

“It was on your neck when we found you.” They draw an imaginary line around their neck.

I look at the silver-grey pendant again, this time through a film of scrutiny as if focussing harder can unlock some ancient hidden memory. It doesn’t.

“Can I ask questions now?” Hange whines. 

Mirabel’s eyes roll, then rest on mine. “What do you think?”

“Me?” She nods. “I don’t see a problem w—”

“Great!” They heave ramrod straight and flip to a new page in the notepad. “For starters, tell us your name.”

My jaw unhinges. Hange looks on, wide-eyed, awaiting an answer that will never come. My name, my name. Just answer this simple question. Tell them your name.

“I can’t.”

The floodgates are open now. I’m scrambling for even an iota of memory that belongs to myself, that defines me, that makes me my own person, but there’s nothing there. It’s like trying to see something that’s just too far away to see, or too small to focus on, something that I can touch but never, never feel. It’s not fair, because those memories belong to me. I can feel them. They’re right there! But the more I reach, the closer I’ll get. Isn’t that right?

What’s the last thing I can remember? The sad-looking mushroom? No, before that. Hange, shoving pebbles in their mouth? No, that happened yesterday. Mirabel with worry on her mouth and shaking my shoulder? No, that’s now. 

“Yo! Little amnesiac?”

“Hello? Are you okay?”

And just like that, I’m back. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t do it.”

She smiles, but the concern is still there. “It’s okay, dear, don’t force it. Nobody is angry. It will come in time.”

Hange is right beside her. “Okay, but can you force it a teeny bit? Umph.” Mirabel elbows them hard. “Okay, fine, next question.” They tap their temple, crimping strands of shaggy, brown hair. “Now, what’s the last thing you remember?”

Yesterday — again, yesterday! — I was awakened as Hange barged in with a small velvet sack and spilled its little circular contents onto the green and white. Before that, I was looking at the ceiling, and before that, my eyes were closed. Before that… 

“I don’t know. Yesterday, my eyes were closed, and then I was looking at the ceiling, and then you came in, Professor, and spilled some rocks on the ground, and put them in your mouth. Before that, though, I can’t—” My hand runs up my cheek, onto my forehead, fingers weaving through strands of hair as if trying to scoop the brain encased within. “There’s nothing.” My other hand comes up too, and they squeeze. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

They fall silent. “Do you want to hear a story, Ostrich?”

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

“Good question,” they smirk, pulling their goggles back on. Rising to their feet (and making that side of the bed spring up), they clasp their hands in the crook of their back, straightening with newfound importance.

“Long ago—” Mirabel cringes and stands up as well— “there existed a hotel named the Ostrich owned by one John Jarman and his wife, Mary. This hotel was very, very special, as it was the site of over sixty murders — notably, murders of very rich people. These killings were conducted by none other than the Jarmans themselves. 

“When they got a rich visitor, Sir Jarman would call out to his lady.” Their voice reaches a comical low. “‘Honey, there’s a fat pig here if ya want one.’ To which his wife would reply—” now their voice turns up several octaves— “‘Okay, honey, just put it in the sty till morrow!’ 

“So they’d butter the guest up and put him in a special room right above the kitchen. And when all was quiet in the night… Bam! The floor opened up, the bed tilted backwards, and he’d be dropped in a vat of boiling oil. Have you ever had chicharrones? After that, the corpse was stripped of anything valuable and thrown into a river. And by the morning, it was like he was never even there. 

“But one day the Jarmans made a fatal mistake — their eyes grew bigger than their brains. For they tried to go after a particularly popular and wealthy man and got caught when people noticed his horse wandering around.” Curling their lip in… scorn? They continue. “Do you know why I named you after this hotel?”

I’m full of dead, fried rich people? “Why?”

They lightly tap one of their lenses. “Because John and Mary are such boring names.”

“You would have named me John?”

Their hands fly to their hips. “Well, with that attitude, little missy, I just might!”

⊹˚₊‧ ───────── ☾ ────────── ‧₊˚⊹

The two of them deemed my condition — both mental and physical — up to par to go out into the big, wide world. 

Shiganshina is a hollowed-out shopping mall. Brightness radiates in from the paned ceiling and bounces off the white walls, keeping the palace bright and warm — a nice contrast to the cooler temperatures of dying winter. 

The mystery hallway leads into a walkway that wraps around the internal perimeter of the building’s second story, the occasional bridge connecting opposite pathways above the first floor way below. Green and white still dominate the catwalk here with only the pattern switching from checkerboard to big white squares with tiny green diamonds at every corner. Anything else would be asking too much, I guess.

Hange’s gait is easy. Mirabel’s steps are more forward and practiced. A few people pass by, but for the most part, this place is barren. Not one individual is spared from Hange’s greetings. 

“Abel!” Our procession halts as Hange locates their next victim. “You’re looking nice and groomed today. What is it, a new oil or something? How are you?” They hold out a hand in greeting.

Abel wears thick, strapped glasses over his short, blond hair. He rubs the side of his index finger along the nice and groomed scruff on his jaw. “Very well, thanks.”

“It’s a beautiful afternoon, isn’t it? The sun’s—”

“Very nice.”

“Ah.”

Abel gets right down to business. “So did you get the field notes from—”

Someone across the abyss falls with a yelp, dropping what sounds to be several dozen metal pipes. The tings echo and take too long to dissipate, but the two keep talking.

If I don’t find out what my name is, I’ll be Ostrich forever. I let my gaze wander. If anything, this place is well taken care of — it doesn’t smell terrible, the floor and walls are spotless, and the people seem alright. The person in charge of cleaning here is doing a great job — even the glass-paneled railings are crystal clear. 

Most of the stores here are occupied by random pieces of junk, but a few have their large display windows blocked out in some way or another. The one closest to me is covered by a blanket depicting some sort of house. 

Wait, not a blanket. Someone actually took the time to paint this window from the inside. 

A cabin in a field backed by a rocky cliff, chopped logs littering the area before it. The chipped (and in some places, peeling) planks holding the structure together are of the same material as a wide picnic table near the scattered logs, adorned with the various foods of the forest. There isn’t anything particularly special about the subject — the grass rolls, the apples shine, and the windows hint at nothing. But it’s empty, as if the residents just left or disappeared or vanished. As if something very, very wrong is happening. There is a stranger looking out from the window. It moves. 

Me. Me? It’s me. Oh, who is that?

“Ostrich?”

Hange bears a look of mild concern which is quickly wiped out by their usual grin. “I’ve got some business here with Abel, so you guys’ll have to continue on without me. Right, Abel?” He grunts. He’s probably the type to hide in a dark, moist corner in perpetual squat. “Try not to miss dear old Hange too much.”

Mirabel beckons me with her head. “We’ll do our best. Right?”

“Yeah.” You’re overthinking this, Ostrich. It’s just a nice glass painting. We say our goodbyes.

Constant motion and colour keep my concentration hostage on our trek. It’s fun to peek into the open windows to see piles of empty water jugs or folding chairs or construction equipment, or to read the vivid signs above them to see what could have been. A few people still litter the area, to whom Mirabel nods or says a small greeting to. It’s quiet. 

“Almost there.” 

I step a little longer to catch up to the woman as she points with her chin. She loves using her head.

“You see it?”

In a darker corner lives a store with Spencer’s graffitied on the half-drawn garage door that serves as its entrance. Brick makes up the walls. Its single, large display window hints at nothing, obscured by… clothes?

“We’re not going in there, are we?”

The place is silent. Mirabel raps her knuckles on the door before forcing it up with a metallic squeal. “Hello?” She continues inside. I trail behind.

Like the surrounding area, the interior is dim, with the far reaches of the narrow room fading to black. Though the store seems to have been emptied of its original merchandise (thankfully), it’s far from empty: soft contours of cloth line the floor, trinkets lay askew and scattered, and food wrappers glisten in small clumps. A wet dog smell permeates through every pore and crevice of my body — it’s either poorly ventilated or contains something that gives off enough scent to cancel out any fresh air.

A large platform against the back and right walls spans nearly the entire area, hanging a few feet below the ceiling. Blankets spew out from beneath makeshift curtains tied to the exposed pipes above, effectively screening it. 

Lining the walls below the platform are wired bakers’ racks, piled with clothing and miscellanea. 

It’s lived in.

“Amazing, hmm?” Aluminum screeches as Mirabel pushes and knocks over a few cans with her foot to make space for the blankets. “How quickly a dozen or so adolescents can tear through a clean room! We haven’t sent any cleaners lately in hopes they’ll do it themselves — ha! — but you can see how well that’s going. Even the dorms back in Trost are cleaner.”

Cleaners? Trost? “Adolescents?” Fearing attack, I don’t turn away from the shadowed jungle. “This is where they all live?”

“For now, yes. And it’s where you’ll be staying, as well.” Her footsteps grow a bit louder as she nears. “It seems everyone’s out right now.”

My breaths grow shorter on their own. Maybe because of the smell. “I’m staying here?” 

“Are you coming along, Ostrich?” Looks like she didn’t hear. 

“Actually, can I stay here?”

“Really?” She’s shocked. “Okay, well if you ever need help, ask anyone down in the kitchens. They’re all very nice, I assure you. I’ll be making my rounds, so I won’t be staying down there for long.”

I risk a glance and little wave at Mirabel’s silhouette, prompting her to join the black mass that is the wall. I’m not sure what to feel.

Luckily, I manage to find some sort of electric lamp. Click. A rough circle of light surrounds me, exemplifying the absolute filth of this place.

I’m staying here? As much as I try, I can’t squeeze an ounce of emotion out. It’s not that I don’t care, right? It’s just that I don’t know anything better than this. I don’t remember a better time. Why am I even here? I should have gone with Mirabel. 

Of all the people I can be, I have to be a stupid one.

Maybe I should start cleaning. 

A few ungainly steps later and I’m in the hallway. I try not to stare down the next person walking down the hall as they pass. “Excuse— excuse me.” I wave.

It’s a woman with choppy copper hair. She seems weirdly happy as she points toward the requested cleaning supplies before making her way off to wherever. I don’t step on a single green diamond on my way there.

JANITORIAL ROOM

Authorized Personnel Only

It has a square, wired window too high up for me to peek inside and a door handle — not knob — which needs to be messed with a little before opening. I step in and let the door whoosh and click shut behind me.

“Nobody taught you to knock, brat? What the hell do you want?”

Every organ in my body purges as the strange little man looks up from whatever he was doing. Somehow, my voice finds me. “Clean.”

He rests his elbows on the mini table before him, the resulting wobble nearly knocking over the spray bottle and various chemicals on top. Light from the door’s window frames his face perfectly, sliced up by the cable crisscrossing its inner surface. “Speak up, or don’t bother wasting my time.”

What’s with this guy? Inching my hand to the knob — not handle — behind me, I clear my thought process and focus on the space between his steel-sharp eyes. “I would like to clean, sir. The dorms, that is. I’m here for cleaning supplies. That’s all. Sir.” Please don’t bash my head in with a spray bottle. 

“Hm.” He narrows his eyes. “New?”

New? Oh, he’s talking about me! “Yes. Sir.”

“Come here.”

What choice do I have?

He rises to his full, impressive height as I approach. I don’t need to see him to feel the force of his demands, just watch my toes. “I don’t want to see a single speck. All beds should be made, blankets should be tucked, no mop streaks, and so help me if there are any wall stains. Understood?” 

“Yessir.” Please, somebody let me out of here. 

His arm flourishes to the impressive collection of cleaning supplies on the wall. “Take what you need.”

“Thank you, sir.” If that arm even clipped me… I slink around his throne, somehow still feeling his stare when he’s turned the other way. Broom and dustpan, disposable gloves, a few garbage bags, cleaning spray—

“That won’t do.” Frozen in a squat, I listen helplessly as his startlingly heavy footsteps stop inches behind me. Plastic crinkles in the dark as the man snatches something near my ear. “You need thick gloves, that thin shit won’t do. And here.” Somewhere near the end of the room is a clatter and a thump. “Nobody worth their weight forgets the bucket. And—” another thump— “Scrub Daddy. Unless you want to scrub the grime with your teeth?”

Scrub Daddy? Nothing comes out when I open my mouth, so I force-clear my throat. “No, sir.” The bucket is shoved into my arms — I barely catch it in time — as he breezes past, taking up his throne once more. “Thank you, sir,” I say to the air.

“One last thing,” he juts as I clear his desk, making my cells disintegrate for a moment. A mystery object lands in the bucket.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Out.”

⊹˚₊‧ ───────── ☾ ────────── ‧₊˚⊹

I start by picking up every non-garbage item (as far as I can tell) and tossing them on the big shelf by the window, then bagging the actual garbage with the gloves. The broom takes care of the dust and dirt between the hardwood and under the collection of bakers’ racks — it puffs up thick, so I’m eternally grateful to the janitor for the last-minute bandana mask. At least, it’s what I think the white cloth is for. If it’s a loincloth or something I just might hurl myself to floor one. But why would he give me a loincloth?

Then comes the task of cleaning the platform. This entails lobbing up the lantern and praying it won’t break, the incredibly perilous trip up on a wobbly ladder which will probably tip or break or be the catalyst to the end of my short life, pushing out an absolute jungle of futons, sleeping bags, quilts, pillows, and other horrifying objects, and actually falling off but landing safely but shaken onto the teeming pile. I push it all out, onto a pre-cleaned portion of the hall. 

Finding no water anywhere, I manage to flag down another passerby who directs me to some sort of pulley system that brings up tubfuls of water. It also seems to mutter and sing. Strange. I lug one in, fill the bucket, scrub the walls until I run out, and repeat. I do this again with the mop on the floor, making sure to get rid of any streaks. 

My whole body burns but still comes the reassembly process. Using the mop handle, I beat the devils out of the pile in the hallway before lugging everything back up on a borrowed stepladder. Everything’s out of order — that’s someone else’s problem.

⊹˚₊‧ ───────── ☾ ────────── ‧₊˚⊹

At some point Hange checks in and drags me out to the now-dark mall. I didn’t even notice the room darkening as I worked. It was strangely therapeutic. 

It’s different at night. The whole place would be in black if not for the periodic solar lights stuck to the walls, ceilings, and support beams, basking us in yellow and white. 

“I don’t know how, but you did it!” Their glee is evident as we snake through the now-empty platform, hands clasped, feet pounding polished concrete. “Levi’ll love it. The cadets’ll love it! Hell, maybe we can even squeeze a  ‘good job’ outta the Comm– never mind, that’s pushing it. Whatever! We’re almost there.”

“Professor, I left the supplies—” 

“Shut! We’re here.”

“But—”  

My arm wrenches to the side, followed by my body, as the leader shoulders through an emergency exit. My back burns. A film of darkness lays over my eyes, the plopping of our steps more prominent than ever. Another second and my legs will give out.

Hange pushes through another door, this one requiring a little more strength. Moonlight. The earth, sparse and grassy, far below. Something sharp biting through my slipper socks and cold breezing in through the leg holes of my dusty pyjama bottoms. Reflexively, I suck in a stabbing, frosty lungful of air that billows out in a big puff, steam engine style. The smoke clears to reveal two silhouettes against the cloudy sky.

“Surprise, you two!” The professor claps the painful divet between my shoulder blades. “Meet our newest installment. You might know this one already.” They drive me forward, my lazy steps doing little to deter the action.

The two are easy to tell apart — one is a smiling, freckled unit and the other is glum and fluorescent-eyed. I would go blind if I stared too long (he’d pluck my eyes out). Both have dark hair and grow more menacing with each reluctant step.

Bright-eyes speaks first. “Professor Hange!”

“Woah, Professor!” the tall one exclaims almost simultaneously. “Isn’t it a bit cold for just pyjamas?”

“She’s fine.” Their head pops into view. “You’re fine, right? Levi will kill me if someone gets sick.”

Pushing my cold legs together, I nod. “It’s a beautiful day.”

“No way,” Tall chuckles, already undoing his coat. “It’s too cold.” The zips of his waterproof cloth don’t drown out his voice as he shrugs it off. “You’ll be needing this more than me.” He finally sheds the garment, handing it over. 

For me? “Thank you.” 

“No problem. I’m actually very weather resistant. You might be surprised.” He beams with the heat of a weighted quilt on a winter morning. Maybe I don’t really need this coat.

But a sudden chill sobers me and it’s on in an instant.

“What’s up with this?” the smaller one asks, waving in my general direction. 

Hange shrugs. “Started to remember. All good. Okay, I’m done here.” Hange half-stumbles back to their other foot that wedges the door open. “I’ll get back to business, then. See you, Ostrich.”

“See you,” I mutter. 

And with a screech, they’re gone.

Tall doesn’t waste a moment. “So, it’s Ostrich! It’s nice to finally see you walking around.”

Starry-eyes lowers himself to sit criss-cross, opting to stare into space through the metal grate railing. 

“Thanks, it’s… nice. Walking around and all.” What am I doing here.

With an amused breath, he tilts his head. “You don’t remember us, do you?”

Not meeting his eyes, I shake my head. 

He brings forth his big hand. “I’m Marco. My friend over here is Eren.”

He’s smiling again. Our hands meet — his is rough around the edges and warm, even the dark band around his finger, and I release it a bit too quickly. “Hi, Marco. Eren.” Something about this meeting kills me. 

“Alright, well, hey, sit down, Ostrich. You’re one of us, you know.” Marco plops down and taps a nearby cushion. “How are you feeling?”

I sit. It’s cold. “That’s a good question.”

“Yeah… I realize now it’s pretty dumb.” His freckles are all messed up as he scrunches up his nose. 

My focus switches between the far-away ground and the plaid cushion I’m on. “Yeah.” Then snaps back to Marco’s face. “Wait, no. I’m not saying your question was dumb, I’m just— it’s—”

His short laugh cuts me off. “Relax. You don't need to be nervous.”

“Okay.” This mouth of mine. It’s a death trap. 

Marco’s fingers pick at the spaces between the metal. “So, how are you liking Shiganshina so far?”

I rub the sleeves of the coat together. Zip, zip, zip. Why did he give this to me? “It’s nice. Hange is nice, the people are… nice. The view is nice from here.”

“You’re allowed to say bad stuff, too,” he pries half-jokingly. 

“I don’t like the dorms.”

“Ah, there we go.” He stretches backwards. “Yeah. Nobody does, really, but it’s the only room with heat. It’s liveable.”

Eren snorts, his first real contribution to the conversation. “Stop lying to yourself. Everyone hates it.”

“Okay, yeah, everyone hates it.”

Is now a good time to say that I cleaned them? I don’t know how to do it without sounding arrogant. Is it arrogant? It’s quiet now, but for how much longer? I should just step up and say it. It would make them happy. No, it wouldn’t. Yes, it would.

“Anyways,” Marco breezes, “how many of the others have you met?” 

“Others?” I respond dumbly.

“The other cadets. The other teenagers, if you will.”

Oh, the children. “I haven’t.”

“Then you’ll be meeting them all. Tonight!” He drums his fingertips on the metal. “Everyone’ll be back tonight, bar one guy. But I can introduce you to him myself.”

What. “How many people? I mean, if you don’t mind.” As if knowing can make tonight sound even less appealing. 

“Uh, ten? There’s me, Jean, Connie, Sasha, Eren-Mika-Armin…” With every entry, he puts up a finger. “Reiner and Bert, Ymir, Christa, and Annie. That’s, what…” He looks at his fingers, lost. 

Every name drags me down an inch or two. “Thirteen, including me.”

“Right. Wow, there’s a lot of people!” Marco puts his hands away and pauses, brownish eyes drilling into mine. “Hey, don’t be nervous. Everyone’s really nice, I promise. And we’ve all met you in the past.”

Again with that. It’s like everyone’s in on a secret inside joke that only I don’t know, except that inside joke is me. 

But he’s so very easy to trust, even though we’re strangers. As long as he’s there with me, it can’t be too bad… I squish into his coat and try a smile. “Okay.” You cheesy fucking bastard. Woah, potty mouth. 

He smiles too, and I don’t have to try anymore. “But I have to warn you, it can get a bit loud sometimes.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

Hands springing to life, he straightens to the point of tipping back. “You have no idea!”

Sensing Marco’s incoming story, my smile becomes toothy.

“Shut up!”

Like an anvil, Eren’s hushed yell pulverizes our talk. He points at something he’s looking at, prompting Marco to stand. I follow suit.

The balcony overlooks some sort of large garden with alternating lit and shadowed rows of ridged dirt, garden tools, and the rare green smudge that indicates growth. All is surrounded by a tall ring of trash composed of cars, construction fences, broken skids, metal railings, rocks, or anything, really, that can stand on its own and keep anyone or anything out. The pale dirt ends in grass and trees some way beyond the barrier. 

“Another one.” Marco squats to jot some ink onto paper.

“Another what?” An invisible chill runs through the area, making the leaves rustle and shift the dappled pattern of light and shade they cast. Nothing’s there. 

And then my shoulder and cheek are encased in warmth as Marco gets real close and aligns his line of vision with my own. “Right there.” I feel the voice more than I hear it. His pointing finger ends at a spot where dirt and grass meet. “See?”

Where’s he pointing? Marco’s close. Wait, where is he pointing? I’m about to ask again when a sudden movement ends my straying — a pale branch, creeping, wobbling forward from beneath the silvery blades. 

Hand.

Twiglike fingers drag and push into the dirt, joints bending backwards. The attached arm contracts, presumably dragging forward a body. Despite its horrendously bony characteristic — even from this second- or third-floor view, I can easily make out the double-beamed support of the forearm — it keeps scraping forward. Closer. Every inch pulls the blood down to my feet. 

“Third crawler tonight. Wonder what’s up with that.”

The person wears nothing. Something about the distance or lighting gives whatever skin isn’t torn up or filthied a washed-out hue.

“Maybe there’s a bear.”

The hand jerks forward again, disregarding rocks or twigs, shakily pulling the body into view. That is, the head and one side of the torso.

Where’s the rest? Why is nobody doing anything? Why can’t I? Doesn’t that thing need help? What does its skin feel like? How long? How long until it touches me?

“You wanna get the pager this time, Eren?”

“Yeah.” 

Foliage and deep red blood decorate the loops and sacs that bulge and trail out of the chest cavity, the surrounding ribs prominent and hanging by whatever holds ribs together. The creature shudders, loosing a few organs with a sickening swell. It persists.

Click-click. Click. “Drunk bastard’s asleep!” The statement is followed by a series of loud bangs that rattle our cage and resonate in my teeth. “God-fucking-damn it. Hannes. Wake up. Hannes!”

“Don’t, Eren. He’s pretty much out of commission anyways.” 

“No shit! Should I go down?”

“No rush.” With a final rattle, a clothed arm obscures my view. 

“Hey.” A pale blur which turns out to be a waving hand belonging to Eren catches my focus. “Your ears. Plug them, or something.”

Marco’s elbow clears the railing. He holds a lengthy rifle with its butt against his shoulder and his cheek along its length, a single saucer-wide eye trained on the target. 

I didn’t even notice he left my side. 

He hisses — in or out, I couldn’t tell — before the air blasts into pure noise. 

Sometime in the aftermath, my legs decide to sit me down. Marco (and, after a final glance into the forest, Eren) turns his attention towards me, his words completely lost to the high-pitched din but his actions clear as ever — reaching out as if to cuff my ears, shrinking back, looking sheepish. “Sorry,” he mouths. Once again, he points at the figure with something like pride. From this angle it’s apparent that its head is imploded; I prefer to stare at the shockingly good marksman with the sanest grin I can muster.

“Did you hear the part when I said ‘zombification?’ Like, as in zombies?”

No, this isn’t happening. I’m dreaming, that’s what. Of course. 

Granted, this feels all to real. The human brain is a marvel of nature, isn’t it? Can’t wait to wake up.

The two engage in strained conversation of flurrying hand movements and exaggerated pronunciation, resulting in Marco waving goodbye and going inside. The remaining pair of us sit together in the high-pitched eee until it dissipates into the non-silence of nighttime. 

“So.” Eren shuffles his feet closer to him, knees in his arms. “Can you hear now?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess it’s your first time seeing one.”

Seeing what? Say the word. “Yep.”

Skimming over the corpse, he wrings his hands. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

Eren worries his mouth as if sucking off some goo on his teeth, and suddenly blurts, “I hate it.”

Zombie. You’re imagining it, Ossie, tomorrow you’ll wake up in that room again and forget everything. “Hate what?”

“What do you think?” He waves at the mall. “This. And everything else. Those things. They ruined everything.” A telltale waver slips into his speech. “Everything we do is dictated by them. I hate it. I mean. Have we ever really had anything?” 

Like a long-winded siren, the boy’s volume gradually increases. Sirens mean danger. 

“Is it that bad?” 

Something snaps quietly. “We’re living like fucking livestock here, don’t you realize that? I thought your head’s better now, so why can’t you see that it’s not supposed to be okay? Our life is confined to these walls—” here he whips out his hand at the aforementioned wall, the motion rippling through his torso— “and the whole world outside is lost! Lost! Everything! They took everything from me! From us! And you’re just gonna accept that?”

Is he always like this? A walking time bomb? My body weight shifts forward as if to spring on my feet. “Eren—”

“No.” 

With the piling pressure his eyes grew from a smolder to a bonfire, ravenous in a forest of decay. 

But in the same way, it’s almost childlike. Was it the same sense of anger? Frustration? Invisibility? Innocence? It’s probably not that deep. “Yes?”

“You don’t remember it, so you wouldn’t understand.” He doesn’t try to hide his distaste. “But they’re not… supposed to be here. It’s— we are. It’s our world. You get it? They took it from us. Took our plans, our dreams. Our families.” Stiff-fisted and tight-jawed, he continued. “I hate them. They need to be eliminated. You get it? I’m…”

He gathers himself. 

“I’m gonna do it, Ostrich, myself or otherwise.” I slip into his eyes. “Every last one of them. I’m going to kill them all. Not sparing a single one… I’m gonna kill them all.” 

And I fall. “What's stopping you?” 

Those creatures with broken ribs and beautiful hair. Let him do as he pleases with them. It doesn't concern me. Soon I’ll wake up. I’ll wake up. 

He oozes into a more comfortable expression as the door bursts open behind me. “Alright, so the Hannes problem is taken care of,” Marco announces. “You should come inside, Ostrich, there’s someone I want you to meet. Actually, Eren, you should go, too. I’ll keep watch for a while.”

Someone to meet? 

Eren’s expression lapses into annoyance. “What happened to the two-person protocol?”

“It’ll be brief.”

“What’s it about again? Think you forgot to mention that part.” 

“You’ll see when you get there, he’s waiting just outside the inner door.”

Back to Eren. “Whatever.” He leans to one side as he gets up. “Let’s go.”

The returnee holds open the door, flashing a small smile as I cross. Cheeky bastard. 

I’m joking.

Eren holds open the second door behind him, flashing a small glance to make sure it doesn’t close on me. I mutter a quick thanks as we stand, seeing… 

Nothing. 

“There’s nobody here.” The boy sifts through his hair. “What the hell, Marco?”

The wall behind us booms thrice — I flinch — and yells, “Eren, is that you?”

At this, he brings up his other hand and drags them both down his face with a drawn-out groan. “What the hell, Marco?”

I nearly touch his shoulder. “What’s going on?”

“Wait, who’s that?” the wall — rather, the person inside — hollers. “Eren, you’re sounding pretty feminent today.”

“Connie, what the hell are you doing in there?”

“Woah! He’s back!” The wall cackles. “So, uh, I need help.”

Marco, you cheeky bastard. 

With a sigh, Eren’s hands drop. “Ostrich, this is Connie. Consider yourself lucky you don’t remember his face.” His next words are forced through his teeth. “Connie. Introduce yourself.”

“Wait, it’s you, Ossie?” Something hard hits another hard thing. “Ow! Ossie, it’s me, Connie! Remember me? Handsome face, Greek physique? Connie?”

I smile at the flat surface. “Hi, Connie. Sorry, I don't remember you.”

“Aww.”

“Come out to introduce yourself,” Eren grunts, leaning against the wall. 

“Well, that’s the problem, señor. I can’t.”

“What?”

“I’m stuck.” 

“Just get out.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Cuz I’m stuck.” 

If looks could kill, the plaster would have a smoking hole with the wall inhabitant’s crisp body in the middle; intervening at this point just might save Connie’s life. 

“Uh, Er— uh. Let’s just get him out?” 

With a deep breath, he nods.

What am I supposed to do now? Eren looks on expectantly. “Connie.” It’s so weird, saying that name out loud. I hold up my fist as if to knock, but decide against it. “Can you move?”

“Yeah, if I go sideways. There’s more space down this way though.” Footsteps and random bumps move in the opposite direction of the exit door.

Eren holds his impressive eyebrows derisively high. 

“You just need to get out, right?” As long as we find his point of entry, he should be fine. Right? “Where did you come in?”

“I dunno. I got lost.” Without warning, he squawks and enters some sort of hyperventilated frenzy. “Sorry, spider web. But I think there’s wind coming from over here. Wind equals good, right?” His voice fades. “Wait, you guys are following me, right?”

⊹˚₊‧ ───────── ☾ ────────── ‧₊˚⊹

We end up in front of the janitor’s office. My visible companion clicks his tongue. 

“Before you ask, no, I’m not going in there.” 

“Aw, come on!” Connie whines. “I can’t get out myself and it’s dark and smelly in here! There’s spiders and ghosts!”

Waving the air as if brushing Connie off, Eren leans in close. He smells like plywood. “Let’s just go. Nobody’ll miss him. We can tell Marco he got out on his own.”

It’s hard to tell if he’s joking.

“I can hear you!” Bang bang bang. “I can heaar you…” Bang bang bang bang bang. “Gemme out!” 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I venture with a sprinkling of irony. Just in case he actually is joking. 

“Let me out!”

“I mean.” He glances at the spot where the noise emanates. “It’s not like he’s gonna die.”

Is he serious?

He scans my face and scratches his jaw. “Fine, we’ll get him.”

That’s better. “But we can’t really do anything if the janitor’s still inside. Can you check if he’s in there?”

“Why me?” He shoots a dour look down his nose. “Never mind.” Pushing his back flush to the door, he inches sideways until the window is nearly in line with his ear, snatches a peek, and gives a thumbs-up.

“So we just have to go in there and pull Connie out… right?”

“Actually, it’ll be better if one of us stays out here to keep watch. Take this.” Pulling up the bottom of his sweatshirt, he digs into his pants pocket and pulls out a square solar-powered light. “I’ll knock if he appears. Good luck.”

“Thanks?”

And then the door to the janitor’s closet shuts behind me once more, darkness pressing and eating up the edges of my vision. 

Thanks, Eren. After all I’ve done for you. 

I need light — how did I turn this thing on? My fumbling fingers eventually reach a soft button and push, directing light straight through my head. Great. I point the light somewhere useful. 

Rows of columns of cleaning gear, some still in their original packaging, hang from hooks extending from the white pegboard or rest on one of the numerous shelves. I didn’t see all this before — it’s like a torture chamber for dirt. A few feet from the entrance of the rectangular room is the folding table in which the janitor made his first appearance, now cleared of all equipment. “Hey, Connie? Where are you?”

“Right here.” Pointing the light upwards, I’m able to catch my first glimpse of the guy, in the gap between the top of the pegboard and the ceiling. “Hey, I can see my hand! I’m not a ghost!” He waves excitedly, hysterically even.

Until someone bashes their knuckles on the door. Not a second later the light clicks out. 

“Ostrich! C’mere!”

“Where?” I trudge dumbly toward his voice, bumping into what feels and sounds like a mop bucket and breathing a curse. No way they didn’t hear that. 

“Here!” Fingers patter on the particleboard. “Come on!”

Snippets of voice come from the entrance. No more stealth. I rush toward the opposite side of the room, tossing the light over before fumbling and grabbing Connie’s hand. It’s smooth.

“Hold on…” With astonishing force, he pulls me back.

“Woah—” I push my feet against the wall — please don’t break — hooking my other hand over. Connie grabs that too. 

The door swings open as I make it over, flip for a churning fraction of a second, and land heavily on Connie’s body. He grunts on impact just as a flashlight flicks on. 

“Hm,” says the janitor. Brightness sweeps over us on the concrete in small pegboard-sized circles. I can’t breathe; Connie scarcely takes a breath himself. Through a pinhole, his slow and crisp footsteps matches the image of his boots. He kicks the mop bucket to the side with a loud plastic grinding sound. We flinch. 

“Mop bucket fell over. Damned thing.” He drops the light somewhere and settles the mop against the wall. “You can leave now.”

“Er. Yes, Captain.” Eren. The door eases shut. 

“Captain” adjusts the light once more, straightens his throne, and sits down with a sigh. 

Slowly, almost painfully so, I roll onto the cool, grainy ground. 

Something taps my hand. Highlighted by a pockmark is Connie’s eye, hazel to the point of yellow, which swivels back away from the janitor’s room. We need to get out. As sparingly as possible, I nod, though I’m not sure if he sees it. 

We stand in silent — but shared — agony, the kind that shakes your limbs and makes the floor seem hundreds of metres down. Connie takes my hand, forming a clammy layer in between, and leads us back the way he came. We slow and separate. 

“I think we’re okay here,” he mutters, turning on the light in his other hand to reveal his massive grin and bald head. Thank god he remembered that. “Heh heh, that was a close one, huh?”

“Yeah, we nearly escaped death by bludgeoning.” I tremblingly slump against a wood support as he giggles. “That’s hilarious.”

His mood isn’t quelled. “Ohh, come on, have some humour.”

“We’re trapped, aren’t we?”

“You know.” His scalp glistens with a thousand tiny hairs as he lifts the light over himself. “Some ladies would kill for a moment alone with this handsome fellow.”

This guy serious? I’m not seeing that ‘Greek physique.’ “I’m sure.”

Gently, he lays down the torch, springs up, and digs into the pocket of his neon green and black zippered hoodie with a crinkle. “So grumpy, huh? Here.” A wrapped good is tossed into my lap as Connie falls on his ass. Inside is something squishy and dense. “It’s a Twinkie,” he explains at my probing. “I was looking for a place to hide them so Sasha can’t eat them. Don’t tell her I’m giving this to you, she’ll crucify me.” Having successfully pulled apart the top of the package, he bites the whole thing in half, pulling back to extract the sugary flesh.

“Are you sure?” The edge of the clear plastic is smooth and flimsy.

Crumbs spray from his mouth. “Just promise me you’ll stop being grumpy.”

Grumpy? I blink a few times. “Okay, I promise.” I slide to the ground too, smiling. “I’ll be nice.”

“Better be.”

My face drops. “Connie.”

He sniffs. “Relax, Ossie. Just enjoy your… freshly crushed Twinkie.” He tilts his head in fake arrogance. 

“You know, Connie, if somebody didn’t get stuck in a wall, he wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.”

“I could have left you in the janitor’s office.”

The words come out before I can stop them. “I could have left you with Eren.”

He sticks out his tongue. 

The crinkling dominates before I manage to tear open a corner of my package, opting to squeeze out the cake which oozes and cracks like a sad horse. I take the crumbly glop on my tongue. 

“Pretty good, huh?” Connie sprays. “You wouldn’t even know it expired six months ago.”

The sweet in my mouth turns bitter. “Six months,” I utter without swallowing, a line of drool threatening to spill. Bacteria and fungi spread their tiny poisonous seeds, creating rot. “That’s… fine.”

“Hey, if you got a problem with it, I’ll gladly take it off you.” He holds out a hand expectantly. 

Before he can react I squeeze the package some more. In a movement similar to his own, I scrape out the remaining pulp with my teeth and swallow.

Connie’s jaw goes slack as I chew, then shoots upward with a clack. “Okay, girlypop, okay! It’s all yours!” The statement is finished with a cackle.

“I said it’s fine, Connie,” I state, definitely spilling some this time. “A little mould won’t kill me now.”

“Yeah, if—” his eyes wander my face— “if the embarrassment doesn’t get you first!” His hysteria surges as he points. “You look so stupid right now! A lifetime’s worth of Twinkie!” He exhales more than he breathes in and soon resorts to gasping for air.

“Me?” I dart a sleeve over my mouth, though it’s already too late. “Look who’s talking!”

The filling in his mouth decorates his chin, legs, and floor. “I don’t take shade from a person named Ostrich. Gotta be the dumbest bird to be named after.”

“Well, I don’t take shade from a person named Connie.”

“Yeah? What’s wrong with my name?”

I pretend to see something interesting on the ceiling, pretend I’m not about to explode into a stupid grin. “I just think Connor is better.” 

“Okay—” he conjures the most serious face he can muster— “you’ve officially made it to my enemies list. Prepare for living hell.”

“What’re you gonna do, shine the sun off your head like a flash bomb?” Now I cackle. 

Okay, maybe that was a little bit mean. 

“Hey! This—” he jerks his hands round his head, the motion affecting his entire hunched form— “is a choice! I shave my own head ‘cuz I want it that way!”

“Okay,” I choke. “Okay, you’re bald by choice.” 

“Stop laughing!” 

“Okay. I can’t. Okay.” Pinching my nose, I draw in a breath. Then sputter into laughter. 

It wasn’t that funny, but I couldn’t help myself. Maybe I really am going mental. 

“I’ll just wait till you’re done,” Connie grumbles, but even in the dark the ghost of a smile can be seen. 

⊹˚₊‧ ───────── ☾ ────────── ‧₊˚⊹

We start walking again a bit after — Connie’s afraid my laughing attracted ghosts.

“So, Ostrich. You’re starting to remember?”

“Mhm.”

“Do you remember me?”

“No.”

We walk for a bit more before he speaks again. “Tell me something about yourself.”

“You’re asking me, Shiganshina’s resident amnesiac?”

“Funny. You don’t need memories to have a personality, you know? You’re not a ghost.”

The air smells familiar. “You think so?”

“How about you caress my handsome face and we can both find out?”

I flick his forehead and go cold. 

Did I just do that? 

But he just claps his hand over the point of impact. “Ow! Always the head!”

“Just such a big target,” I nearly sputter. “You’re lucky I don’t call human resources on you or something.”

“Yeah, whatever. Come on, tell me. There’s gotta be something.”

“I really have nothing, Connie,” I say. “But aren’t you the one who knows me so well? Why don’t you tell me something about myself?”

His thinking cap is on. “Well, for starters, you can’t walk straight with a damn.” 

“Strike four, Connie.” 

“Four? You’re already counting the number of times I pissed you off.” He sniffs. “I knew you cared. I can’t wait till we’re all together again…” He giggles like a little girl. 

“That laugh. I don’t like that sound.”

“Relax, Ossie. I’m gonna make it happen.” He thumps his chest. “From now on, I’m gonna focus on getting you out of here. Before bedtime.” 

“Weren’t you the one begging for help earlier?”

“I’m a changed man, I’ve grown.”

It’s a little scary to get so chummy with him so quickly, even if we do supposedly know each other. Always is the small nagging organ in my body releasing its small nagging liquids, telling me to stop, that he hates me, that I’m completely embarrassing myself because this guy is fake or a ghost or clinically insane. Maybe he is. Maybe I’m embarrassing myself. Maybe I’m embarrassing him. 

⊹˚₊‧ ───────── ☾ ────────── ‧₊˚⊹

Has it been ten minutes? An hour? It’s like the inside of this wall bends space and time. Einstein would cry.

Light in hand, Connie slows to walk beside me. “Do you remember Covid?”

“Of course! I’d always keep the tracker tab open because of how paranoid I was. I…”

All I see is white. “Holy crap, did you just remember something?”

My hand can’t block out the light. “Put that down.” 

“Think, Ostrich! Think!”

The memory is fleeting, only a wisp of the past unlucky enough to be snuffed up by me. “I’m trying!”

“Harder!”

“Please, Connie, put that away.”

“Oh.”

And with a snap, it vanishes. 

“Did you remember it?”

Blinking doesn’t get rid of the dark blotches. “No.”

“Aw, man.” He hurries to catch up to me. “But you did just remember something, right?”

“I think so.”

“Oh.”

Shuff. Shuf. Shuff…  If I’m not careful, I might blow a hole in these slipper socks. 

“Sorry.” 

“Don’t worry about it.”

No response.

“Connie? It’s alright.”

He mumbles.

Seeing him dejected like this feels wrong. “Um, you haven’t told me something about yourself, Connie.”

“I’m just a guy, Ossie, and I made you lose your only memory.”

This boy. “Connie, it’s fine. Really. I have lots of time to remember things.” 

He kicks the ground. “I know, but…”

“It’s just like you said.” Desperately, I try to remember. “It doesn’t matter if I can’t remember anything, because I’m still my own person. Right?”

“Yeah, I guess.” 

“Tell me something about yourself,” I repeat.

He rubs his hands against each other— “Well…” —and begins to pick up steam. “So, last week we raided this beauty shop, right? And J-boy said I was stupid for doing that, and I called him a horse face, so he threw a cream tube at me. I caught it like this, right—” his arms twist in a weird way as he reenacts the scene— “and it turned out to be a hand cream. I’ve been using it ever since, and frankly, I think he’s jealous.” 

“Hand cream? Is that why your hands are so soft?”

“So you’ve noticed? Ha! I can’t wait to tell him. We gotta get back!” His pace picks up. “I’ll even let you try some, Ossie, because you’re such a good friend.” 

I just met you, but I’m glad you’re happy again. “That means a lot to me.”

“Hold this.” He suddenly stops and shoves the light. “Back up, I’m gonna do something.”

“Something…?” I step away.

Connie squats, swings forth his hands, and leaps backwards. 

I watch as he smashes his feet through the wall, slapping the cold, hard ground with his skull. 

Blap.

“Connie?”

The light reflects innumerable dust motes and the eerily still victim of fatuity. Suddenly, the dark seems a little more alive. “Connie!” His head lolls when I cuff his shoulders. “Are you okay?” Blood trickles from his nostril. “Okay, dumb question.” 

He still has a pulse — but for how long is a mystery. 

Oh shit. This is real. 

I haul him around so his head is near the hole and try shoving him out by pushing up on his ribcage. Warm and squishy… just like that zombie. My arms go a little numb as I take a quick look — first forward, then back. Dust. 

I need to focus. 

Scarce light pours in through the hole as I push — now his shoulders are out. Tiny shards of the wall crumble over his chest. Tiny, dark red shards. 

Plaster bricks. 

“Oh my god! Connie?” The ground vibrates — someone is running over from the other side. 

By some miracle of god (or Connie’s hidden genius), we’re right where we’re supposed to be.

⊹˚₊‧ ───────── ☾ ────────── ‧₊˚⊹

gosh this chapter was clunky. (it gets worse.) for the record it was rewritten at least 5 times in every pov and tense and i've since grown tired of it. do you trust your author when they tell you that the next chapters will be better? do you? (don't)

i hope you liked it and all. i know you cant expect shakespeare on ao3tumblr but i keep thinking 'gotta be perfect gotta be perfect!' please lmk if i did anything wrong or something can be improved on. i try to get better.

please take care of yourselves

final notes: mc gets better

⊹˚₊‧ ───────── ☾ ────────── ‧₊˚⊹

masterlist 2 - little sproutling

[briebysabs]

PH ~Complaints~

This is the first of several pieces I will be making about this series. Reading Pandora hearts was an experience to say the least and I wanted to organize my thoughts into separate categories, because it’s too much to post out normally. Also I’m insane and I think it’ll be fun for me at least. These posts will contain spoilers but maybe it’ll spark people’s love for the series. Maybe it’ll get people to buy the manga volumes. Maybe the stars will align and it manifests an anime reboot (delusional).

With that out of the way, we will start with my complaints and nitpicks of the series. Which isn't a lot but there will be explaining to do here. As a disclaimer, these are things that I found worth mentioning and may not be any issues you had reading. I am going off my initial reading of ph too so if I miss anything, don’t come at me lol.

-> The most notable complaint I need to talk about first is early ph. But I bring it up because this is the main thing that can turn people away from the series. “The early chapters are slow” is a complaint I heard before starting ph. Upon looking back, it wasn’t necessarily slow for me and I enjoyed those parts. But when reading, it was chaotic and felt like nothing was moving. It felt like we were rushing to nowhere. I took several breaks because it was so overwhelming. And I wasn’t reading them physically but off of sites, I know a lot of you remember Bezarius, Liam, Shalon lol. The wonky translations in the early chapters aren’t mochijun’s fault of course, but it didn’t help matters for me.

So much information was jam-packed with an already intricate story. And granted, later on in the 50s-60s chaps, the world makes more sense. But when you haven’t gotten to that point, it’s a lot to take in. You can compare early parts of ph and vnc to see exactly what I mean. VnC’s introductory chapters are much more polished. And some stories work better that way but in ph’s case for me, the direction wasn’t clear. I mean you know the objective, finding Alice’s memories but after that it was just a bunch of “huh???” It wasn't until we met Elliot and Leo, eventually Rufus that everything became more coherent. And you can argue, “yeah you’re supposed to be confused” which is valid but it was a bit messy for me, and I know it's inspired by Alice in Wonderland.

But not only was it confusing and can be perceived as slow (though again not for me), these chapters are long. Certainly not a complaint, I loved having long chapters. But if you’re confused af, you feel as though the plot isn’t moving, and you have these long chapters to add. I see why people may drop the series because “it’s too convoluted and the author doesn’t know what they’re trying to say.” I don’t agree with that but I understand if they weren’t able to go past chapter 35 or something. But we all must remember this was mochijun's first real series. So I understand as well why its beginnings aren't that grounded and can forgive that.

->The second complaint is that there wasn't enough characterization of the Baskervilles squad (as in Lottie and her gang I'm excluding Zwei here) as individuals. What do I mean by this? You can say “well they weren’t that important” which I kinda disagree with because they were the antagonists we were worrying about for half of the story as they searched for their leader Glen.

We got depth given to them as a group, we see that there is a genuine, familial bond. I wanted to know their past or backstories and the most we got from was Lily. You can say we got Lottie too but I don't know I was left wanting more. We know Doug and Fang got Lily’s tattoo in solidarity which is my favorite moment from the squad. But who are they y’know? Fang had such a cool design, how did he join the Baskervilles? Doug is a nothing character. I haven’t read the light novels so these questions could be answered there but having read the manga, we should’ve gotten more.

-> Going from that, the whole Glen thing. Again, might be explained more in the light novels but from manga content, I wish we got more explanations and lore. Who was the first Glen? Who is Levi? He’s someone who we deserved more insight into and what made him so detached.

-> I wish we had more chain on chain fights. I read somewhere that mochijun had struggles mapping out action scenes so they were kept to a minimum. But I think due to that, we don't get to see the true extent of these chains' powers. And yes, Break's condition prevented him from using his chain much. But Break and Vincent's dynamic was great, a final showdown between them with their chains would've been so cool. Mad Hatter vs. Demios we were robbed...

-> Isla Yura in general. Not gonna lie, I forgot he existed. I can respect the role he played, especially knowing now mochijun based Dr. Moreau off him. He was a worthy threat and his obsession with Jack makes sense. But his personality just wasn’t it and rubbed me the wrong way. Stereotypical queer antagonist from the 2000s, we did not need this.

->This might be a biased one but Cheshire should've been a prominent character. We see he’s important to Alice but we got a whole mini-arc with him in the beginning, him appearing in the Break backstory and then he's gone until the final 8 chapters. I also wish he behaved like the cat he’s inspired by. Sassy, mischievous with a dash of dark humor. (though now I say that, Oz does have some of that). There was just so much potential that we simply didn’t explore with him.

-> Speaking of such, Sharon and Ada were so underused. I was expected more from Sharon’s arc and her Eques chain is so cool but that didn’t happen. Every moment with Ada was fantastic but she’s mostly put to the side which sucks. Her relationship with Oz was lacking for me, he comes back from the Abyss and we do not see him think of Ada until 15 chapters later? Her overall reactions to Oz dying essentially after the finale, learning her father’s death, none of this is there. These two had potential, Sharon even being part of the main five, that wasn’t delved into.

-> Vincent and Ada. Okay, lemme break it down. I kinda love them, they didn’t get together which was sad but was the best choice to make. But I do question why this relationship exists. To be honest, until the last 14 chapters I thought she dropped them completely. I was wondering what was the point of making them a whole thing and having read to the end, I still kind of think that. We got two or three main interactions with them and then we just never got back to Vince/Ada until the finale. It was as though the plot simply couldn’t make time for them, it was tightly knit at this point and everything was heading for utter insanity. But then, we get the emotional climax of Vincent’s character. We get Ada telling Vincent “I forgive you”. It hits hard because Vince is a top 5 character for me. But in terms of their relationship, it didn’t feel earned. I don’t think it was developed enough to get such a heavy moment like this.

Their last encounter from what I remember was in the headhunter arc, Ada telling Vince she’ll always be by his side. And while we see he cares about her safety then, I don’t think that means what they have is strong enough to break the self-hatred Vincent has built up for years. Why did it have to be Ada? I know Gil wasn’t getting through to him but if he told Gil what’d he had done. That he indirectly caused the tragedy of Sablier, and Gil really said fuck it, held him down and screamed “I forgive you! The outcome might’ve been the same. Vincent respected Elliot. Vincent looked up to Jack. Vincent grew to care about Ada. But to me, the only person he loved in this world was Gil. And in his last moments, that is all he had. So this whole Vince/Ada thing, while I enjoy them and definitely needed more, at the end I doubt how necessary it was for either of their characters.

->At last, the ending. I love the ending, let’s get that out of the way. Two things I need to say though. One, it did conclude faster than it should’ve. It’s not to a degree where it significantly brings it down but we could have used 5, 6 more chapters. Chapter 104 should’ve been cut in half, 104 ends with “see you later Gilbert” and 105 is total epilogue. That way, the events of 104 get to sink in with the reader. Second, and I know you saw this coming, Reim marrying Sharon. This is the one thing I see most fans have an issue with for the ending and I completely agree, this did not make any sense. It felt like the biggest last minute decision. I think mochijun and the magazine had reached the end of their rope because no one got together in the end. Oz and Alice didn’t become canon really, Gil is too gay, Elliot’s dead so we couldn’t even get elleo implied canon.

(Though you can make a whole other thread arguing how their entire relationship already was from how intimate they were) We all knew Rufus wasn’t gonna marry Sheryl, Vince and Ada went their separate ways. So it was just “alright, um….someone’s gotta get with someone.” And from what I know, there’s no artwork or moment in the series that hints in the slightest that this would happen. We never get a teasing moment from Break about them, Reim and Sharon are friends but the main connection between them is Break. I don't buy the whole "Break's death affecting Sharon deeply and she found comfort in Reim who shared her pain" because you don't have to marry someone who understands your grief. They can just be there for you as a friend. And there was no signs of romantic attraction AT ALL.

Which makes me doubt mochijun planned or even wanted to do this. Her hands might’ve been tied by higher-ups and she had no choice but to include this to deliver the finale she had in mind. This is pure speculation so I could be wrong but with that, this essay I guess, wraps up. There’s other stuff I may not have mentioned, like the jury thing is so absurd but I want to reserve that for my mochiverse theory. When it's all said and done, Pandora hearts is still an amazing series, mochijun has definitely improved as an author. My vnc-ph comparison post which may be after this one will elaborate on that in more detail. Thank you for listening to my rant. What are some complaints or nitpicks you had with ph?

[coredrill]

perhaps my most insane collection of brvn thots yet

do we think lulu is from the moon. i think this for three reasons. one: when she told superbia she was going to ride him the moon was quite large and prominent in the shot. symbolism. two: when she got her fancy hairdo, she had two little buns that looked like moons. three: “lulu” could come from “luna” the same way it could come from the first syllable of smith’s name. why would she become spanish? don’t worry abt it. also if she’s from there then maybe the “final battle” which obari allegedly said would take place in an unexpected location will indeed be on the moon (pls dont ask for a source on this bc i don’t think i could find it again but it was one of the like. EARLY early interviews iirc. or it was just a rumor. this part of the post is a joke anyways LMAO). however this IS a super robot show so i feel like the moon in general is actually a more expected location for me than like. idk. cleveland

everyone pointing out the animation differences maybe indicating different timelines is so funny to me cause like. if it’s NOT intentional, the fans are putting together a list of fixes to make for the bluray on a silver platter LMAO. also god i hope we get a western bluray release, i honestly am considering getting the jp one if it somehow winds up w eng subs though just cause i know it’s such a long shot for CRUNCHYROLL of all motherfuckers to put one together 🥲 discotek ur our only hope………………

i keep thinking abt the like. pacing of the previous fight scenes being reused in ep9 in such a smart way…………like with smith/lulu v superbia - isami/bravern v cupiridas AND with smith/lulu v knuth - isami/bravern v pessimism/vanitas they kept doing the quick jumps between each of the two fights in a way that made it clear that isami and smith were in conversation even if they were doing completely different shit, and then bringing that completely to the forefront this ep while isami is asking smith why he died and at the same time smith is refusing to die bc of his promise with isami. BLEW MY FUCKIN MIND to see the pattern reused like that, i swear to GOD everyone talks about how fun and hype this show is but it’s so damn GOOD too 😭😭 and then after that the fuckin. symmetrical docking ass cut and then later the gattai which has been held off for SO long bc they are no longer separate conversations. JESUS

called my shots too early tho w smith not melting ppl’s minds in a kaworu manner where they convolute the story x1000 to try to make him seem straight 😭 congrats white boy, your days are numbered until ppl start saying you love isami like he’s your pet dog……….also in a related fashion the giant naked smith fanarts are taking me out LMAO

you can tell idk shit abt fuck when it comes to time travel fuckery cause i rly am just here like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ atp LMAO, the serious theorizing is GONE. i trust the show to finish out in a satisfying manner and also in a way that my pea brain can understand and i’m rly looking forward to savouring these last 3 episodes :] and then rewatching the whole thing from the beginning once the remaining twists have been revealed and i Know :3 like not to get way too sentimental w 3 whole episodes left but we are so lucky to be following this story in real time you guys 😭 like i’m just gonna put the same post i made back after episode ONE here cause it’s true but times a million with what we’ve seen so far, truly this is such a special experience to have and i’m so glad this show waited until i got into mecha to get made so that i could like. Understand it yknow. anyways good for january 14 2024 version of me, you are so excited andyet still have NO idea the kind of treat you are in for 😭

“lewis” jumpscare tho omg. i forgot it took me like a week to figure out what the hell was goin on with all the characters first and last names LMAO. anyways everybody go look at sumiisa sekiha love love tenkyouken right now i am no longer asking

[malimangle]

Pilgrim Aiden + Sentient Volatile Crane

AKA: I have a VERY long and convoluted explanation for how Kyle Crane could be a father-figure to Aiden that I shared with my two buddies, and I am now deeply entrenched in + committed to the bit. So I made father-son content, naturally. It’s mostly senseless gjfkdg

For this story, imagine that we open with Crane’s backstory. His perspective—this whole deal traces his life from Harran and upwards, his various fights and how terribly lonely he is as he travels through the slowly deteriorating world, searching half-heartedly for some half-baked cure for what he’s been reduced to. Like every other man on earth, buddy.

All the while, yes, he’s a Volatile that goes into a fit of what can only be described as insistent monkey brain at nighttime, but he’s still a man, dammit. He craves human connection, and as he always has, he wants to protect + help people. Unfortunately, he can only achieve the latter half. It’s a half-rate substitute for the foremost desire, but that doesn’t change that it’s better than nothing. 

As we go over his backstory, we view as he tries―and fails― to save a settlement. They didn’t listen to his warning about approaching Volatiles, and as a consequence, they get slaughtered, with many dying entirely and a solid third becoming infected. The lot of the survivors become Virals. He sorta leaves them alone after that, counseling the Virals as they, over time, begin to lose their human minds to the virus (there’s some INTERESTING world building where human facilities don’t fully shut down til at least a couple weeks into the virus, and Crane gets to talk people through the transition and watch them OFFICIALLY die.) 

Well. Some days later a kid comes LITERALLY falling into the settlement, provoking all 21 Virals, and Crane has to put them all down prematurely as they wail at him to just kill them so they don’t hurt this kid.

Aiden initially tries to run from Crane and actually gives him a run for his money, but Jesus, this kid can’t be older than 14, so when Aiden finally thinks he’s lost this ‘weird infected motherfucker’, that’s when Crane springs at him, lifts him by the scruff of his shirt, and--immediately uses his weird telepathy to essentially strip Aiden the fuck down for being completely fucking unattended in the wastes at ‘his age’ and demand that he goes back to his Settlement IMMEDIATELY.

(” Listen, kid--stop screaming, dammit, I get it, I know--LISTEN. Jesus Christ. I know I’m some monster to you but the real problem is the reason why your sorry ass is out here ALONE! What the hell are you doing, kid!?”

“...What the fuck are you????”)

Just imagine Aiden hanging there, mid-air, goggling at this fucking Volatile-adjacent man who is standing in broad daylight and chastising him after chasing him several hundred meters.

“I don’t know what fucking girl you were sweet on here, but I guarantee she’s dead now, and I guarantee that going to have a fucking booty call with her in this day and age is NOT worth your goddamn death. Go HOME.”

Eventually Aiden scrambles together some brain cells thru the shock and he ends up squawking, the picture of baffled indignance, “What the hell are you--I don’t fucking BELONG ANYWHERE, let GO of me, asshole!”

Yeah. Crane initially finds that very hard to believe, but eventually as their conversation continues, he’s forced to accept that, no, Aiden’s fucking serious. He sorta…bluescreens over it. What the hell, he thinks. This 13 year old kid only comes up to my fucking elbow, and he’s out here alone??? Trying to ‘find his sister??’ You must be joking. No way in hell am I leaving this little guy to his own devices.

So, obviously, Crane wants to take Aiden to a settlement to settle in and not be in the wastes anymore, because he knows trying to find anyone in this day and age is a Fool’s Errand, especially someone you haven’t seen in a solid decade. 

He feels a bit bad about it, but mostly has zero qualms about telling Aiden so, to which Aiden is like “fuck you no” but either way, Crane eventually “succeeds” in cajoling Aiden into talking to a Settlement. Problem is--Crane didn’t actually succeed. Aiden KNOWS this Settlement is Hostile to Pilgrims. Crane didn’t accept Aiden’s claim that they’d be mean to him because he’s not REALLY a pilgrim (yes he is—Crane doesn’t believe it! The fucking nerve!) and like…”wHoS gOiNg To Be CrUeL tO a KiD, AiDeN??”

Yeah, I’m sure we can guess Aiden’s plan, here. Crane, however, is blissfully unaware of the can of bullshit Aiden’s about to open. This is not going to be softened at all by the fact that, during the travel to the settlement, Aiden and Crane kinda become grudging pals (grudging in that Aiden is softening to Crane over time and VERY angry about it, and Crane is endlessly exasperated by Aiden’s teenagism but also unwillingly(!!) amused by it.)

Soon enough, we’ve got our day of Reckoning. They reach the bigger Settlement. As we and Aiden both expect, they are immediately hostile to Aiden when he reveals he’s a pilgrim—and our poor, previously unaware Crane, in turn, immediately realizes Aiden wasn’t being dramatic, actually, and tries very hard to get Aiden to get the hell out of there and come back over to him without revealing himself to the settlers, because showing himself would cause a panic. Guess who isn’t aware of that because he’s a dumb thirteen year old and the novelty of Crane wore off, like, a week ago? Ding ding ding. It’s Aiden. 

Yeah, so, with rising hysteria Crane is trying to get Aiden to bail. Alas, the teenager in Aiden is coming out HARD and, wanting to REALLY prove his point to Crane, who has NOT been listening to his judgment at ALL, Aiden is very showy about calling out to the settlement guards and basically begs for a crossbow bolt between the eyes while Crane literally screams at him mentally. 

Right, so. Consequences, here we come. Aiden is so busy being a jerkoff thirteen year old that he’s completely blindsided when one of the Settlers does, indeed ACTUALLY shoot Aiden, right in the front of the shoulder.

A stunned silence. The Settlers look amongst each other, wide-eyed and quiet, but then--as one--almost immediately they decide to commit to the bit. Ohhhh FUCK.

Crane doesn’t even hesitate once that group-decision becomes clear— with some unholy shriek, he leaps into action, and not only swipes the guards off the wall, but flings himself off the wall and seizes Aiden by the middle, loping both of them off into the distance while Aiden screams and shouts for multiple reasons, kicking his dumb little feet. 

They have an argument as Crane runs from the Infected he’s accidentally sent into a frenzy between his sudden energy and the smell of Aiden’s blood, and Crane doubles down—he’s like, kid, some people are just assholes, not everyone is like that and no one’ll turn away a KID--especially not one who’s bleeding profusely from the shoulder, now, Jesus Christ, we got to sit down and take care of that soon--and Aiden tells him once more, this time with incredulous insistence, that no, he hadn’t been kidding before and wasn’t kidding now, EVERY fucking settlement this way is hostile as hell to Pilgrims, and after the scene HE made, they were probably going to be on the lookout!

Crane doesn’t want to believe it, but now that truth is starting to actually dawn on him, and he’s just not ready for it. Instead, they eventually lose the Chase and Crane props up Aiden on a car to help him clumsily patch up as best as he can with the materials he’s got on hand from previous finds in hospitals and clinics along the road.

Obviously, it’s a pretty hackneyed job―especially since Aiden botches the fuck out of pulling out the arrow and he can’t give himself stitches. Unnoticed, while Aiden thrashed in pain over the arrow removal, he scrapes the fuck out of his shoulders on the rusty ass car door and gets some minor abrasions—IMPORTANT LATER. 

Story marches on. Crane tries to prove Aiden wrong about people being jerks to teenage pilgrims, but it’s pretty obviously a doomed venture when they reach settlement after settlement, and one by one, all of them box Aiden out. Crane gets increasingly frustrated, which comes to a head when he comes raring out and YELLING at the guards who won’t take Aiden in despite his injuries after the twelfth turn-away, which results in a BIG conflict that ends with Crane breaking in, wrecking some shit, and carting Aiden away over his shoulder. 

Well, Crane’s meltdown is just the precursor to Aiden blowing up on him, because Crane has only JUST understood what Aiden’s been telling him the whole fucking time! Listen--Aiden’s not sure WHY Crane has been so obstinate about getting him into a settlement, but what he DOES know is that he’s in pain, he’s thirsty, his shoulder and head are killing him, he hasn’t eaten in days, and he’s VERY pissed at Crane. So. While Crane tries to find them a place to hole up for the night and check in on Aiden’s shoulder, they get INTO IT.

This is The Fight. Where Aiden hammers home his goals, and how Crane can’t change his mind. This is the broad strokes of how it goes—this is NOT the dialogue, but essentially what is said:

“It’s not my fault you think it’s stupid, and it’s not my fault you don’t have a Fucking goal.”

“You don't think I have a goal? What do you think I’ve been doing this whole time!? Fuck, kid—I’ve been traveling with you for over a month, you think I’ve just been doing that for the hell of it? I want you to be SAFE!” 

“and I’m TELLING you that I REFUSE to be safe until I see this through, and there’s JACK SHIT you can do about it! Either you’re with me, or against me, and there is zero fucking in between. So save yourself the trouble and just LEAVE already! I know you’ve been dying to get rid of me anyway! (stroke of abandonment issue—Crane trying to foist Aiden upon settlements has come across, to him, as an adult he grudgingly trusts trying to abandon him. He thinks Crane is eager to get rid of him)” 

“I’m not—what?! Aiden, I’m NOT fucking leaving you, you’re injured and I happen to give a shit about you! You think I want to up and fucking dump you somewhere, that I’d just leave you for dead like this?! Are you joking?! (Crane has misunderstood, a little, but he sounds so earnest here that it throws Aiden off)”

“Well—! If you really gave a shit the way I NEED you to, you’d know just how fucking important Mia is to me, and you wouldn’t tell me over and over again that my one goal in life, my one reason for LIVING, is STUPID. You’ve been nothing but an asshole about this the entire Fucking time and I’m sick of it!” 

“… (Crane, being the adult, realizes Aiden is right and accepts ownership of his relentless, though inadvertent assholery) …You’re right, kid. I HAVE been an asshole about this. But fuck, man, look around you. EVERYONE is dead. I have lost so many people, people that meant the world to me, and if that’s pain I can get you to avoid—especially when pursuing it might KILL YOU, I just…I wanted to try.” 

“And I want to know what happened.” 

“(Crane realizes getting Aiden to give up on this is going to take a lot more time than a single month, and uneasily settles into ‘agreeing’ to help him, because this is stupid but he cares enough about this punk ass kid to want to stick around.) Okay. Alright. Fine. Then I’ll help you find her. For real, this time.”

With that cleared, they finally chill the fuck out. Crane awkwardly leaves Aiden to mope it out while he goes and gets them dinner, because Aiden hasn’t eaten in awhile and he needs sustenance. He goes and manages to take down a couple rabbits, raids a nearby settlement for veggies bcus they pissed him off, and Crane goes back to Aiden to find the kid miserably dozing in the big master’s bed, smelling like he’s in pain. He clumsily makes a rabbit stew and brings it to Aiden, who says in a surly tone, “I’m not hungry.”

Initially Crane assumes Aiden’s doing that classic teenager thing and—since he’s still feeling like an asshole about earlier—he’s gentle with it. He’s like, “Aiden, listen, dude. I know you’re probably pissed off. I would be pissed, hell, I’d be fucking livid if I were you. But even if that’s true, in this day and age, it’s never a good idea to refuse hot food. You can glare daggers at me the whole time, but please just eat something.”

To which Aiden says, with appropriate shame and a much softer face, “Yeah, you got me, I’ve done that before, but I’m not being a hardass for funsies right now.” He sounds a little troubled as he admits, “I’m actually not hungry.”

“Aiden, you’ve barely eaten these last couple days. I want to believe you, kid, but you’re a teenager--there’s no way in hell you’re not hungry, unless somethings wrong.” The rising anxiousness in Crane’s tone prevents Aiden’s hackles from going up entirely, so he just snips, 

“Didn’t we just argue about you not fucking listening to me? I’m serious, I really don’t want to eat right now.” 

Crane’s heart hammers a bit, “…Do you think something might be wrong?”

“My head just hurts, and my stomach’s in knots, probably over the argument.” Crane feels a distinctly hard twinge of guilt. “I just don’t like fighting. This is  probably nothing special. I’m sure I’ll be fine in the morning.”

Crane eventually cajoles Aiden into eating—he pushes the stew around and manages to get down like half of it, which just worries Crane more. He puts it up in the miraculously still-working fridge and goes to settle for the night. Well. Some hours later—when it’s 2am and Crane’s still in stupid-mode (remember: that’s how he is as a Sentient Volatile—he doesn’t get bloodlust. Stupid Insistent Monkey Brain because I can’t handle violent Crane), he’s woken by the sound of his kid hurling over the side of the bed. 

He lopes into the room in a hurry like “!!! What ! The fuck ! hurt?!” and Aiden tries to wave him off like “I just don’t think the rabbit sat well with me.” But he’s trembling, sweating, listing a little bit, and pale as fuck. Crane immediately feels his face—he’s sodden with sweat, and boiling. Oh fuck, he’s feverish. He goes to manhandle Aiden out of the blankets and curls his hand carefully around Aiden’s injured shoulder, avoiding the front—but when he grabs the back of Aiden’s shoulder, the kid nearly Fucking convulses. 

Oh fuck.

Remember that scrape he got on his back from the rusty car door when he pulled the arrow out of the front of the shoulder? 

Yeah. Turns out one of the scrapes was a proper cut, and it got infected with bacteria. Aiden missed it because he doesn’t have eyes back there and, yknow, the front of his shoulder was in such overwhelming pain, and Crane missed it because he was so fixated on the front too. But now there’s visible pus in it and even though Crane is still in stupid-mode, he’s still got the faculties to think to himself a very emphatic, “Fuck.”

He’s like “we need! Pills! Medicine!” and Aiden’s like “so long as it’s not penicillin it’s fine” and Cranes like “?!?!? WHAT.” to which Aiden explains that, for some godforsaken reason, he’s allergic as hell to the one (1) antibiotic that is still around in abundance—penicillin. Cranes like “where! The fuck!! Am I gonna find an antibiotic that’s NOT ! Penicillin! Fuck!”

They start with the first Crane finds—Doxycycline hyclate. It was manufactured in 2022 — it’s 2032. Unfortunately, they don’t really do shit. They went over the expiry for them, and though SOME might still be effective, ultimately they just barely make a dent in the infection. Things are starting to look dire, and the area is starting to clog up with migrating infected and bandits, so they gotta move. 

Crane ends up rigging together, basically, a baby carrier for his back to keep Aiden hoisted securely on him using bungee cords and other materials he raids from a hiking store in a Volatile Hive mall. By this point, Aiden is so feverish he can barely speak, much less travel. So he gets Aiden secured, grabs their shit, and in a last ditch effort makes it to a Very large hospital-turned-hive, and basically sets Aiden up in a room, secures it, and fucking destroys all of the Infected in there while staying in tune with Aiden’s struggling heartbeats and deteriorating mind. 

Eventually the hospital is secure, Crane reboots the UV lights to keep the nasties out, and rifles through what remains. Blessedly, he finds not only proper I.V needles and fluid, but ALSO Ciprofloxacin, which can last 142 months after expiry before it really is dangerous. It was made in June 2024– it’s February 2032. Only 92 months, well within the limit. 

He sets Aiden up with the IV, and with the antibiotics―which he very carefully coaxes the boy into swallowing. By the time Aiden takes these, he’s dangerously close to death’s door, and not altogether there. So at some point he wakes in a hospital room, with shit shoved in his arm, very disoriented, woozy, and hot.

So. Very understandably he loses his absolute fucking shit. Which gives me the opportunity for some VERY heart-wrenching whumpy bullshit wherein Crane gets to cradle a very-nearly wailing Aiden and calm him down from, essentially, a post-traumatic meltdown. Just like I wish my parents woulda done with me, hahaha. 

Jesus Christ.

Well. Anyway. Between the IV keeping him hydrated, the antibiotics finally working to fight the infection and compounding on the mild effect the previous ones had, and the comfortable bed, Aiden’s condition does rapidly improve. By the time two days go by, the fever finally diminishes enough for Aiden to be fully coherent. He’s still absolutely miserable, but at least he’s back with it, right? Mmn. It would be nice if he didn’t have to contend with Crane’s deep and almost frantic doting concern, which was exponentially worsened by his flip-out over simply being in a hospital bed. 

Eventually: “So you, uh…I didn’t want to bring it up too fast, but I don’t know if you remember―you had a pretty strong reaction to being in a hospital bed, buddy. What uh. What’s going on there?”

Aiden puts down his comic book and squeezes his eyes shut. Fuuuck. 

So they’re having this conversation. Awesome. Well. Crane just saved his absolute dick and ass, and went above and beyond to care for him. And like…the guy’s alright. He’s clearly in this for the long haul, so Aiden guesses he sorta owes the dude the full explanation. So he gets into it. Talking about the experiments Waltz was running on the GRE’s dime for some fucking reason, and all the awful shit he was put through. 

Crane is.

AGHAST. 

 ...I’m not even going to comment on,, all of THAT, because there’s jack shit I can say to--well. Y’know. Just, holy fuck. Holy fuck. But uh. Make no mistake kid―not your fault, I don’t judge you for that―I mean, look at me, how am I gonna judge someone?--and--and those people fucking suck. I hope you know you’re getting babied forever now though. Fuck, dude.”

“...”

“ᴺᵃᶦˡᵉᵈ ᶦᵗ”

“Ur not my fucking dad, Crane.”

“Yeah, I’m glad! I got a bone to pick with that dude.”

“Jesus. Whatever, look―is babying me going to involve that weird baby carrier thing you were doing the other day?”

“...Holy shit, you remember that?”

It does, indeed, entail the baby carrier thing, though admittedly it’s more for the hell of it. They both come to realize that Crane can travel a helluva lot faster than Aiden can, and if they can trade off on who’s leading, they can travel way farther and waste less time. So they develop a routine―during the day, Crane helps Aiden scavenge―goes where Aiden cannot―while Aiden works on gathering info on his sister and Waltz, does errands, and basically does life maintenance. 

By the time sunset rolls around, Aiden and Crane pack up, strap Aiden to his back, pad him a lil bit, and essentially just let Stupid Brain Crane jettison through the night and get his zoomies out with Aiden secured to him. Aiden comes to sleep exceptionally well whilst having the Fuck shook out of him, and only really sleep good when Crane’s there. 

Aiden pretends to hate the baby carrier--he tries real hard. Crane figures out pretty quick that he's full of shit. He lets it alone tho lol

Wintering is kinda cute―they make, essentially, a gigantic soft nest to appeal to Crane, and they essentially hibernate together. Just like that, Crane acquires the human connection he craves and like, a weird quirked-up whiteboy of a son. And Aiden gets an adult who protects him and loves him like their own, giving him a parent. So cute. Wow. Love it. 

So obviously this gets a little fucked up once they get to Villedor almost nine years later. Aiden’s 21 now, going on 22. 

Crane has to make a very tough call―he’s not…going into the city with Aiden. At first, Aiden’s really betrayed―he came this far, just to leave him behind here? What the fuck? Crane quickly explains that he’d love to stay with Aiden, but this is a city full of people. There’s no way in hell Crane can fly under the radar here, and…Aiden has finally found where Mia is. But he won’t find her without acceptance from the locals. And the thought that Crane could fuck that up for him without even trying? Hell no. Crane couldn’t bear it.

And, well…Aiden can’t really argue with that. He wants to, desperately, because Crane’s been by his side for like, a third of his life! The thought of being apart from him after all this time feels weird, wrong, and anxiety-inducing. For BOTH of them. So Crane’s quick to assure― 

“Don’t worry, kid. I’m not going to up and lope off into the fucking sunset. You know this radio station we’re in, right now? I’ll just roost here. Make a nice nest and everything. And when you find her, and when you’re ready to either leave or stay, you can just come visit whenever. I’ll work on clearing the metro and putting in UV lights if you leave me any, just so your path out stays open, alright?”

“...And you’ll stay on the radio?” Aiden asks in this small voice. 

“Kid… you know I can’t actually talk, right? All I’ve got is this weird mind-link shit, and once you’re out of range, well…”

“But I can talk to YOU. And you―you can do clicks and stuff, yeah? I’ll just ask yes or no questions―two clicks for yes, one for no.”

And hey, that works. They get Crane set up, and while Aiden sets up the bed and gets ready to sleep for the night, Crane scopes out the metro at sunset and goes apeshit on the Volatiles in there. Sets up some UV lights and secures the area, if only so his boy doesn’t get his ass handed to him. Heads back. Now they usually share the bed―Crane’ll be a warm wall of flesh behind Aiden, cover his back and all. They usually reserve the Whole Ticket for winter when it's too damn cold.

For this last night, they indulge in the winter cuddle. Aiden curls up straight in Crane’s lap, head tucked into his neck, and basically sleeps sprawled across the guy’s chest.

As Aiden sleeps, Crane actually cries a little. Softly, with tear ducts that don’t work anyway. He’s really going to miss this kid, and the reality of not seeing him for awhile―possibly not ever again, if Aiden’s unlucky enough―is really starting to hit the dude. 

It’s hard to let him go the next day, but he knows this means the world to Aiden, so he doesn’t say a word to stop him. He watches Aiden head towards Villedor the next morning after one last hug. His slowly heaving heart fills with dread.

---

I'm not quite sure how I want to approach Villedor in this one: I DO want Aiden to go thru the story and all that, but I'm not sure how or when I want him to get Infected, nor how often I want Crane to come into play.

I DO want there to be a consistent subplot of Crane befriending a shitload of feral cats and becoming the ultimate catdad whilst he mopes about missing his kid. 

I do also really want Aiden to employ diplomacy and get the PK to retreat from Old Villedor without extensive bloodshed since being around Crane has given him the (in Dodger’s words, coconut-sized) balls to defy authority (especially because not being able to try diplomacy in the canon game makes me very sad--so many human lives wasted!)

And I DO want Crane to swoop in and save Aiden from Waltz at the electric car factory and basically scream something to the effect of, "GET THE FUCK OFF MY SON YOU FUCKING ANIMAL." @ Waltz before bailing and forcibly seizing Lawan in one arm, Aiden in the other, as Crane jettisons them to the Central Loop. 

(Lawan flips the fuck out over this random Infected, and it is utterly, comically side-burnered by Aiden reuniting with his 'dad', Crane, despite the objective insanity of the happenstance)

Aiden, sobbing: so much terrible shit has happened, a random man broke my heart, I fucking hate this city, I missed you so much, this sucks 

Crane, soothingly: If you want to bail for now, it's okay, you can come home with me and the cats for awhile and try again later. We have time. 

Aiden: Wait, cats? Cats, plural? 

Lawan:

Last but not least I ALSO know that I want Crane to eventually give up on totally behaving himself and instead venture into Villedor regularly--initially 'just to find cat food' but eventually just to sweep the Infected off the streets, throw useful shit into strongholds, and save as many people as possible. 

An urban legend starts to thrum thru all of the city--there is a talking Volatile man who eats other Infected, throws antibiotics at people, and gives absolutely fuckall 0 shits about UV light. Apparently he is usually toting around cat products--toys, litter, kibble, nip, etc--and is very friendly. People are terrified out of their wits at first, but the more he talks about his alleged four cats and doesn't rip people into ribbons, the more the fear fades. 

Aiden hears about this and, with a very amused nose-exhale, thinks to himself, 'oh man, wonder who that could be. what a mystery. so intriguing. Ah, good on you, old man.'

[alaffy]

Only Murders in the Building, Ep. 4x04 - The Stuntman (Spoilers)

Well, the blurb was right about the unexpected face.  Also, that ending.

Oliver’s afraid he’s being cheated on because of an arm in a few photographs.  So, Oliver created a fake online profile to find out if he’s right.  This is creepy bs, and I won’t be focusing on this.  Although we do find out the Sazz was following Loretta on Instagram. 

There’s really two stories going on here.  One has to do with Mabel squatting in the apartment.  Well, she’s busy solving crime; so Howard steps in.  He’s doing it because he wants Mabel to help with his podcast.  But then a poster for tryouts to be in the movie is slipped under the door and so he leaves. Long story short, Mabel comes back to the apartment and sees the other tenants from the tower trying to move her bed. 

They finally decide to tell Mebel their secret.  Given her living situation, they figure they can cut her into their deal.  Mabel says she has to tell Charles and Oliver, but this won’t go into the podcast.  So, supposedly Dudenoff is a retired Professor who does live out of the country.  He acquired, well, essentially a floor (or most of one) in the West Tower ages ago and now rents portions of that floor to the families of the West Tower at an extremely low price as what he pays is Rent Controlled.  The woman on the radio is, supposedly, Christmas Guy’s ex and they say she’s not mentally sound.  In other words, she didn’t know anything about Sazz’s death.  I feel as though they are telling the truth about the rent, but not about the woman on the radio.

The main story, though, revolved around a bar where Stunt people used to hang out.  Also, around the dreams Charles keeps having about Sazz and how she kept telling him she was going to Paradise.  At first, no one in the bar wants to talk with them.  Especially Ben’s stunt double (that’s right, Paul Rudd is back).   

Except that’s not strictly true.  He’s hoping to get hired onto the movie being made about the podcast.  And, while the episode is quite funny, I’m just going to skip to the parts that are important about Sazz’s murder.  Charles discovers two things.  One, Sazz was in a lot of pain and was planning on retiring.  Two, Sazz mentioned a relationship she had with someone that the person was getting more out of than Sazz was; almost in the sense they were using Sazz.  Charles, as he’s learning things about Sazz that he didn’t realize, thinks that the relationship Sazz was talking about was with him (I have my doubts).

The reason why I question this is because we find out later, after Charles get knocked unconscious standing in as Sazz during her Wake (long story), that Sazz confided things to Charles that she normally wouldn’t tell others.  Specifically, Charles remembers a day where they were filming Brozos and that Sazz said that, when she retires, she planned to open up a place to train the next generation of stunt people.  Charles suggested that she buy the land that they were filming on because, once the government cleaned up the toxins from the environment (!), they were planning to sell the land. 

Sure enough, at the end of the episode, the trio go to the land and discover that Sazz was planning to build.  The trio start to snoop around, when they hear a noise coming from a shed.  Inside, they find (of all people) the Producer from the movie.  However, the Producer immediately pulls out a gun and threatens them. 

At the moment, I don’t have to much in the way of theories simply because right now we have all these parts, but nothing to connect them together.  We don’t even know who the intended victim is yet.  In fact, the whole thing has become so convoluted that they actually have two murder boards.  I’m still leaning towards the idea that Sazz was the intended victim because she got close to something that somebody didn’t want revealed; but I also feel like this plot of land…too much was made of it to not be important. 

[trashogram]

Wish CharlieDust was at least same popular as Spidermoth. Which Spidermoth is only popular because it was original cannon but CharliexAlastor shippers. iF you see Spidermoth 8 out 10 it CharliexAlastor story. Which I wonder how the exorcist plot would play out if Vaggie was with Angel Dust. Exorcist plot was something to give Vaggie something but her backstory is just 1 minute and is resolve quick.

I’ve noticed that. At one point I think it was somewhat similar to “pair the spares” because Radiodust was so popular after the pilot, as was Charlastor. People are too afraid to pair Charliedust bc some feel it’s disrespectful to Angel Dust’s sexuality (which I respect, but I don’t feel the same way on and I’m fine with having a different perspective than others as long as we can be civil about it). I think people rely on Spidermoth being an okay choice because it somewhat circumvents this issue as Angel/Vaggie was once canon, so it has some legs to stand on in this convoluted and arbitrary discourse.

I hope to god it didn’t take them 5 years to workshop Vaggie’s exorcist backstory bc anyone with working eyes could see the similarities between her and them in the pilot. Even when Viv’s designs clash like a motherfucker, Vaggie stood out for that. You’re right that it added nothing. Her regaining her wings was like “… okay” to me, it was so blah. It might actually have gone better if Vaggie and Angel were a couple, because Angel has gone through so much shit that the reveal might’ve made him spiral because he felt like he could trust her intimately only to find out her primary objective was to hunt sinners like him down — he might’ve compared it to Valentino, whose implied to have sweet-talked and manipulated Angel Dust into his soul-binding contract, then did a 180 and revealed how awful he truly was.

That could’ve been really interesting to see, but 🤷‍♀️ I’m not involved in the making of this show.

[mathmusic8]

20 Questions for Writers

Thanks for the tag @musewrangler!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 17

2. What's your total AO3 word count?  395,117

3. What fandoms do you write for? 

Aside from random one-shots, mostly Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Star Wars, but I have some Lego Monkie Kid things coming up :D

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Lost and Found – Fives and Kix (Star Wars)

Only Partially Applied (Star Wars)

Wow, What a Coincidence (TMNT)

WWAC Extras (TMNT)

Ice Cream Makes Everything Better (TMNT)

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try to! I have a small pile I’m meaning to get to tho haha

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

At the moment, probably Only Partially Applied, mostly because it’s an angsty fic and I don’t know if I’ll come back to finish it

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably a tie between Lost and Found and WWAC. If I had to choose I’d say Lost and Found, being a Star Wars fix-it/happiness AU and all. WWAC had more of a build-up to the happy ending, though, while Lost and Found it was kind of fun last-second twist

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not really

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nope.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I have a few crossover once-shots, plus WWAC if you count multiple iterations of tmnt as crossovers.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Don’t think so

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not really? Not a fan fic, at least—I collaborated with friends for some original fics when we were kids. Lately I’ll talk through ideas and have a couple of shared AUs with a few select people, but those haven’t been fully written or shared yet.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I’m not a super shippy person. Some ships are done well, but it’s not generally what I look for when I’m reading or writing. The last shippy stuff I read and liked was Zelda and Link (Twilight Princess, Breath of the Wild, and Tears of the Kingdom), but I’m not a die-hard on any of them.

For example, probably my favorite romcom fic I’ve ever read was TP Link and Zelda, but I’d love to see TP Link with Ilia in a healthy relationship that doesn’t end in tragedy (not sure why the fandom keeps doing that to them). I haven’t found a fic like that yet, though, and I don’t care enough to write my own.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Ahhh Only Partially Applied my poor child. You deserved better. Also the Lost and Found sequel. There wasn’t a ton of plot, but I had a few concepts I’d hoped to put out there (like a little Omega/Cal Kestis action).

16. What are your writing strengths?

Convoluted plots. Also maintaining a character’s individual voice and motivations. I want to say dialog, but it really depends on the day for me.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Exposition. Filler scenes and stuff that helps a fic feel more like a full and complete story when it’s done right. Some of my favorite fics to read are slowburns that do this extremely well, but I tend to get impatient and rush things when I write.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I used to be all over it when I was a kid, but after seeing it from others, I realized it’s not my favorite thing to read unless it’s handled a certain way, like including certain words for multi-lingual characters to add to realism, or entire sentences to show that the main character (and audience) aren’t expected to recognize what a certain character is saying. Things like that. As a writer I personally avoid it now.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

On AO3? Undertale. First ever? My Little Pony, I guess? I hadn’t even seen the show, just played with the toys and started writing stories about them, if that counts.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Ooo probably Lost and Found. It was my first long fic, and written in a frenzy of inspiration without a super firm plan beforehand. I was super burned out by the end, but it was a ton of fun and I gained a lot of friends along the way.

Have to give WWAC a shoutout, though. It was longer, actually planned out, and had a Dracula-Daily style posting schedule that made last-minute chapters super rushed, but it was an absolute joy to write, and I hope to continue the story a bit further.

If you read this far, consider yourself tagged!

[respectthepetty]

Hi! While watching the new episode of 609 Bedtime Story on Friday, I noticed something cinematographic in the background that I’m not sure how to interpret, so I was wondering if you might be able to explain to me what it could mean? (I’m still fairly new to this whole ‘The colors and lines and angles all have a meaning!’ thing, so I often do notice things but don’t know what to do with them.)

I’m talking about the dividing line in the background that appears in the scene at the café, where Mum meets Dew while returning Mint’s phone. It’s not super distinct, but it’s there. And Mum is clearly on his side of the divide, almost maintaining too much distance—maybe because he’s feeling estranged from Dew because he’s not his Dew? Or because he’s consciously trying to stay away from him to avoid making things awkward or to prevent himself from reaching out to him?

Meanwhile, Dew is standing much closer to the dividing line and kind of ... shifting around right at the border, sometimes just barely crossing it. I guess it’s like he’s trying to cross it, but doesn’t know how or can’t? I don’t know, that’s just my interpretation. The question to me is why, if he doesn’t remember who Mum is.

And then, when Dew crashes into the waiter behind him and falls right into Mum’s arms (I was feeling so sorry for Mum, because he gets to hold his boy but said boy doesn’t even remember him), they briefly meet in the middle, thereby crossing the divide for the duration of their hug. Although, really it’s just Dew who has crossed it, Mum remains on his side the entire time, with the exception of his hands that are around Dew.

But as soon as their hug ends, they’re both back on their respective sides, with Mum as far away from the line as he was before, and with Dew closer to it, once again, but still firmly on his side and not quite as close to it as he was before the hug.

I guess my question from all of this is: why? What’s happening here? I understand that their hug brought them together for a moment and that’s how they were able to cross the divide, because they were no longer separated in that moment and they were having a connection, but why does it seem to be Dew who’s always trying to cross over to Mum’s side? Especially if he doesn’t remember him?

(As a side note: do you think the horizontal line spanning the glass wall behind them is doing anything? Is there any meaning to it?)

I don’t know, maybe I’m misinterpreting or over-interpreting some stuff or overlooking something, but I thought maybe you’d have an idea, since you always seem to be able to pick up on these things and actually understand how they work (for which I greatly admire you, and I’m working on getting there too). Also, I’m sorry this got so long and convoluted. I hope you don’t mind me basically using you as a way to rant and vent my spinning thoughts and asking you about this. I’m really trying to learn how this stuff works because it’s a joy to notice and understand, so I’m using every chance I get to learn.

I hope you have an amazing day (and a great time watching the last episode of Between Us later today, fingers crossed it’ll be as good as it gets)!

@annamusic125-blog - I'm so happy you invited me to this conversation, but don't EVER apologize for big brain energy like this! You did amazing with your analysis and provided great visuals to support your claims. I am thrilled that you saw the lines too and that you noticed who crossed them! It's tough for people to acknowledge the background noise, so your observation skills are exceptional!

*This GIF comes from Parasite which did a fantastic job of using lines to show class divides and demonstrate people "crossing the lines" as well as utilizing stairs and building floors to show class status and wealth. AKA the movie helps people see the lines they may miss in other media.

Lines can be so subtle that we may not even realize they are there, like the line that divides Nueng and Palm in the beginning of Never Let Me Go.

Or the subtle lines that Wang always crosses with Inthawut in 180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us (lines and barriers are significant in this show and integrated into the narrative extremely well).

But this is something that Golf and Suthipong, the director and cinematographer of both 609 Bedtime Story and The Eclipse, love to use - the subtle divides

But it's not just the divides they enjoy; it's the crossing of those divides

And it's the connection that runs through the divides. A strong line that is not vertical tends to be used for connecting characters.

When Akk started this argument with Ayan, Ayan was below the horizontal line and on his side of the wall.

But when the argument ends, Ayan is equal with Akk and the horizontal line that runs through Akk ends at Ayan. The line that once divided them is now used to connect them. Note: Ayan is always the one to cross the line in the beginning.

The lines don't have to be horizontal either. They can be diagonal, but normally, a diagonal line also builds balance.

All of this is to support exactly what you are thinking - the horizontal line is connecting Mum and Dew.

As you noted, Dew is so close to crossing the vertical line, but you asked why if he doesn't know this Mum? Because the show is proving that any version of Dew wants to be with any version of Mum regardless of the universe. This is reinforced by the vertical lines that divide Dew and Mint.

No matter the universe, there is always a line or object that divides Mint and Dew. It even appears in Mum's original universe between them.

But you might be thinking, they have the horizontal line too. Yes, because an each universe they are connected (at the head, not the body or the heart), but the barrier exists here too with much more space than what Dew gives Mum. With Mint, Dew always leaves plenty of space.

But he crosses the line or barrier with Mum each time

Which is why fate has him cross the line here

Mum is maintaining so much space between them because he doesn't want to ruin his sister's happiness. He knows if he gets too close to Dew, he will give in, so fate pushes them together and does what Mum can't. Dew is so close to the line because he doesn't know the information that Mum does. He is physically reacting to Mum's presence, unaware of what draws him to Mum, but willing to cross the line to see.

Don't forget the colors!

P'Golf established the colors in an introduction video to the series: Mum's original world is green, yellow, and red. Dew's world is blue. Their 609 fantasy world is purple. Mum, as much as he is distancing himself from his world's Dew, he is still very much connected to his 609 fantasy world Dew -

He makes this Dew a purple drink, with a purple lily (fantasy world Dew's favorite), in his purple shirt, a color he hasn't worn before. The Dew he gives it to is not the 609 fantasy world Dew, but the transference of the color is another link between any version of Mum and any version of Dew because later on, this Dew enters the fantasy world and sleeps with Mum.

Golf and Suthipong are visually showing us that Mum and Dew are connected no matter what and will continue to cross the lines because regardless of the universe, they are drawn to each other.

Good eye! I hope you are proud of yourself for your remarkable attention to detail and thanks for the ask.

[inexplicablymine]

Soon to be YOUR WIP Wednesday

Instead of sharing my own work this week, I’m sharing the 10 prompts I just submitted to the @halloweenhuh Fanworks Fest.

YOU YES YOU can go claim one of these prompts and write to your hearts content, I highly encourage it ;)

Styled as actual summaries instead of outlines because I think it’s fun and a more creative way to make the story match… BEHOLD

1. The one with sugary treats

“I swear to god if you have just dyed everybody’s buttercream black with your stupid charcoal paste I will end you.”

“You can try sweetheart but we all know I’ll come out on top.”

Cupcakes, cakes, and all things sweet, welcome to the Halloween episode of “Can You Bake It” featuring our favorite contestants in their most challenging week yet.

2. The one where they are cowboys

All Alex can really think about is the way Henry’s ass looks in those jeans, how his cowboy boots fit, and the way the Stetson he is wearing sits just right on his head.

Cowboys for Halloween was a great idea.

3. The one where they grow up together

5 Times they went in a group costume for Halloween growing up and 1 time Henry and Alex went in a couples costume

4. The one with the masquerade

Maybe there is something in the Hallow’s Eve punch, maybe there is something in the way that dapper stranger moves across the ballroom, maybe it is the fact that everyone is masked, maybe it is the fact that there hasn’t been a ball this grand in decades, regardless someone has caught his attention and Alexander, well, he never said he had the patience of a saint.

5. The one where it’s not all fun and games… or maybe it is

Come in costume they said. It would be a fun party they said. Tell that to the fact that he is stranded with his arch nemesis, blindfolded, on the side of the road, shirtless, soaked in something he isn’t even sure what to name.

Alex would think that would be enough for one evening, but Henry kissed him only moments ago and he isn’t sure if he is more mad at Henry, or himself for liking it.

Halloween is about to be one wild night.

6. The one where I insert the ghostbusters theme here

Alex did NOT want to be living with a ghost, but he wasn’t all too upset about the hot ghostbuster that he kept getting to call over to the house.

7. The one with Arthur’s world famous Halloween party

Meeting the parents wasn’t supposed to be nerve wracking, but Arthur Fox was literally James Bond, and Alex might throw a New Years Bash in Texas for his mother’s Governor’s ball every year, but Arthur’s Halloween parties are legendary.

8. The one where it’s shipping season and the suitors get competitive

“Fall Ball, there is no earthly antiquated reason why this kingdom still does something so ghastly”

“You want to ask Alexander don’t you?” Pez asks with a raised eyebrow

“Just me and everyone else,” Henry sighs out.

In an event rivaling the Spring Fling, the Fall Ball was one of the most prime positions during suitors season to make a move. Everyone wants Alexander’s hand, so Henry must work extra hard to capture his heart.

9. The one where Alex is a ghost courier

Alex looks down at his note again and shakes his head. Trying out the Ouija board with Nora had been a mistake. Now he was on some convoluted journey to tell a bunch of people a ghosts last wishes. The laundry list of names is long, but near the bottom there is one that makes his heart flip over in his chest, why in the world would a disembodied voice want to talk with Henry?.

10. The one where they are making spooky outfits for the Met Gala

“I think you might have bitten off more than you can chew.”

“I’ll bite you.”

“I mean I wouldn’t be opposed.”

The Met Gala Costuming Institute has named this years theme as “The Haunting.” It might only be tipping into fall but the design houses are already in full swing. Too bad fashion’s best and brightest don’t get along… or do they?

You can claim one of my prompts (or one of the other amazing 61 prompts) here and go follow along @halloweenhuh for some fandom fun!

[beasiannow]

K-pop music, Korean dramas, Korean barbecue, you know you love it!

Now you can really get to know all that far better!

Know what all the lyrics of the songs mean, AND be able to sing along.

Never have to depend on English closed captions again. Don't read the stories; dive into them and get all the true deeper meaning.

Finally, understand kimchi for the wonder it is.

How?

Forget about those amateurs out there with their salons and their tiny, tiny little robots and long convoluted processes.

Come to 한국 그래! (Korea Yes!) and we will turn your appreciation and understanding of all things Korean up 10, 25, 75 percent more, and all in less than an hour. (So fast that two-thirds of the 54 minutes it takes is recovery time from the shock to the system of how quick it all is.)

You'll talk in Korean, You'll think Korean, You'll understand Korean.

How about an example?

Here we have Miriam Hilda O'Rourke, a senior at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, totally hating her look for the 2022 homecoming festivities.

“I just can’t get things together like I want them.” she said, “and my hair seems to have a mind of its own and won’t cooperate!”

And Here’s Ms. O’Rourke in the 한국 그래! (Hangug Geulae! - Korea Yes!) Subatomic Quantum Differential Para-Aether Recombinator (it would take a scientist to explain it.) Having her innate “Koreanese” brought from. .0034% to 23.55%

And here she is, what an improvement and not a hair out of place! And quite the impression she made too. (and only the very slightest and charming Korean accent.)

Mind you she also made a more than slight impression when she got home and her mother reacted to her new look.

A very dominating woman is the elder Mrs. O’Rourke.

Would she brow beat Miriam into undoing all the changes we had gifted her with? (no refunds!)

We had a better idea, put Miriam back in the SquDPAR and upped her to 55% Korean while at the same time making her a no-nonsense 56-year-old Korean domineering boss lady.

She ended her mother’s demands and complaints (while doing nothing for Mrs. O’Rourke’s, or for that matter, Miriam’s confusion, as officially she was now four years older than her mother.)

Coming back to Hangug Geulae, we fixed that in quick order.

Mind you, as there is no going back from a raised percentage, we sit her in the booth, dialed her back to 22 years old and then up to 105% Korean, and everything was good.

The new Ms. Ryuk Mi-Hie could not have been more surprised.

This naturally made Mi-Hie worried owing to the fact that she now found speaking Korean far more comfortable than her now, second language of English. “What will my mother say now?” she worried. “Don’t worry.” we told her “Hangug Geulae thinks of everything.”

When the former Miriam O'Rourke got home, she found this to be true as we had sent one of our Mobile Pods there before she arrived, and her mother, Diane O'Rourke, was now Ryuk Da-Eun. (the change was so successful When we took her from Diane to Da-Eun we even got her to stop asking "Where in China is Korea?")

Hug your Umma like a proper Korean girl Mi-Hie!

As for what would happen when Mister O’Rourke, who we were told was off in the middle of a two month long business trip in Europe we don’t know, and as our contract with the Ryuk’s is over, don’t care.

We hope he likes bibimbap, kimchi, and red rice cakes.