#can you also connect dots?

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

can you see the stars in your dreams (and do they have a lot to say about me) - Part 9

Or: a secret Admirer AU

PART 1 || PART 2 || PART 3 || PART 4 || PART 5 || PART 6 || PART 7 || PART 8

Jeff calls her. It’s the first time they’ve spoken on the phone, and something flutters in her chest.

“How did you get this number?” she asks, finger twirling the coiled wire of the phone as she smiles down at her socked feet.

“There’s only one Cunningham in the phone book, Chrissy,” he replies, all dry wit—she can almost see the smirk on his face. “It’s not exactly rocket science.”

She laughs, shuffling around her kitchen, suddenly desperate to move, but she’s leashed to the wall by her phone’s cord, so it’s only about four steps each way until she’s bungee-corded back to the starting point.

“Smartass.”

Jeff laughs this time, quiet the way he always is, but her chest feels like a supernova’s exploding in it. “But that’s not why I called.”

Chrissy’s smile fixes to her face before drooping down into her shoes with her gut. “What’s wrong?” she asks, now standing statuesque in her kitchen, cold tiles leaching all the warmth from her feet even through her thick socks.

“Nothing,” Jeff sighs, and there’s a crackling sound, like he’s rubbing his face in exhaustion. “Just—Steve drove me home.”

“Is he okay?” she asks, clenching the phone hard enough in her hand that the cheap plastic creaks.

“I think so?” Jeff replies, sounding unsure. “He just seems sad, man.”

Steve and Jeff don’t spend a lot of time together, but he’s been around enough that she trusts his judgment.

Steve is sad.

Chrissy wants to sink down to the cold tile beneath her and never get up. Instead, she shuffles back over to the phone and swings herself up onto the countertop—what her mother doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Her heels clack against the cupboards noisily, broadcasting her restlessness even as the worry sinks straight through her.

“What about?” she asks, already knowing the answer.

“He thinks Eddie hates him.”

Chrissy sucks in a breath and lets it shudder out before biting her lip against the next logical question. “Does he?”

“He thinks he does,” Jeff replies promptly. “But he definitely doesn’t.”

Chrissy hums, too lost in her own head to think of a reply. It doesn’t matter what Eddie feels if the effect is the same: a sad Steve Harrington.

“I don’t think you guys should do this anymore,” Jeff says, snapping her out of her spiral.

“I know,” she groans, shoulders slumping. “But Steve’s hellbent on keeping it up.”

He sighs again, muttering, “boys,” with such a defeated air that she can’t help but laugh again.

“You just keep an eye on yours, and I’ll do the same for mine,” she says, smile audible in her voice. “Deal?”

“I feel like yours is a bit easier to wrangle than mine,” Jeff scoffs, a twinge of bitterness leaking into his tone.

And he’s right; Eddie still hasn’t even told Jeff about the letters he’s been getting, much less asked his opinion on them. Steve, at least, keeps her appraised of his next moves, shares his feelings, and asks for her help even if he won’t always take her advice.

So, when Steve’s acting weird when she sees him the next morning—all shifty-eyed and nervous—she doesn’t ask. He’ll tell her when he’s ready. Besides, the hallway’s too crowded, and she’s got a sneaking suspicion that it has something to do with her and Jeff’s conversation last night.

She’s proved right when they hit the library at lunch instead of the cafeteria, and Steve barely waits until they’re settled in their usual table, feet interlaced.

“He hates me,” Steve whispers.

“He doesn’t hate you.”

Steve pouts across at her, bottom lip stuck out like a puppy dog as he accuses, “you’ve been talking to Jeff.”

Chrissy bites her lip. “I always talk to Jeff.”

He rolls his eyes, but it seems to lift his spirits. “Did you ask him out yet?”

“Shut up.” She kicks him beneath the table until he laughs.

Without further preamble, he pulls a piece of paper from his bag and pushes it across to her. She expects the latest note from Eddie, having yet to read the last one, but it’s not—it’s a letter from Steve, clearly responding to something she’s yet to see.

“Did you pick up the letter yourself?” she asks, panic sinking through her. He could get caught, and then all their subterfuge will be for nothing. She might lose her best friend. 

“Yeah,” Steve mutters, so shyly that she can’t bear to chastise him further. “What do you think?”

She reads it again, trying to look past the panic to the words in front of her. “It’s good,” she says, and it is. “Do you want to send it like this?”

His handwriting is barely legible, even to her with her weeks of practice, and there’s a few misspellings, but she’ll do whatever he wants, forever and always. But he shakes his head, and asks, “Will you edit it?”

“Can I see the one you’re responding to?” she asks.

He pulls it out of his bag and pushes it across the table without a complaint. She picks it up and begins to read.

         Secret Admirer,

         There was a little hiccup with my guitar and plugging her in, but otherwise it went great! All four of the drunks at the Hideout clapped politely when we were done, and not even one of them booed us off stage!

         The riff is still getting on my last nerve, darling, you have no idea. I wish I could hear you play, I bet you’d inspire me so much, a stroke of genius would strike me and I’d know exactly what I’m missing.

         (I don’t know how to ride a bike. My dad was never around to teach me, and by the time I moved in with Uncle Wayne, I was too old to learn.)

         Darling, did you dream of me? Was it a naughty dream?

         Yours,

         Eddie

P.S. The Lord of the Rings is the name of the whole trilogy, so I hope you find it in The Fellowship. Can’t believe you don’t even know Tolkein. It’s okay, baby, I like you anyway. 

She smiles when she’s done, kicking him beneath the table as she asks, “Does this sound like someone who hates you?”

If anything, Steve just gets droopier. “It’s for you,” he mumbles, and she doesn’t have anything to say.

Chrissy squeezes his foot tighter between her own in a pantomime of a hug.

Even with his newfound pessimism, he carefully rereads her edited words once she’s done. He smiles down at it, clearly cheered by the act of writing to Eddie.

“It looks great, Chris,” he says genuinely, as if she’d done more than correct his spelling and rewrite his letter word for word.

“Thanks,” she replies, smiling across at him, relieved his spirits have risen. “Now, let’s drop this in his locker so he doesn’t have to wait too long to read your lovely letter.”

Steve’s ears turn red with embarrassment, but he dutifully wraps his arm around her waist and leads her out of the library.

Jason’s loitering outside of it, leaning against the wall like it’s a coincidence he’s here at all, but the way his eyes glare at the point where they’re in contact makes a liar out of him.

Steve seems to agree because he pulls her closer and asks, “problem, Carver?” in his snootiest King Steve voice.

Jason holds his hands up, smiling like this is all a coincidence, but he seems to have forgotten that Chrissy knows him, maybe better than anyone. She sees the way his arms are flexing, the way he’s baring his canines more than smiling, and it makes her feel on edge.

“No problem, man,” he replies, untold violence behind every word.

“Let’s just go,” she whispers to Steve.

She’s relieved when he nods, not sparing Jason another look as they take the most direct route to Eddie’s locker. He doesn’t respond until they’re well out of Jason’s hearing range. “That guy’s starting to really freak me out,” he says, talking quietly still, even after putting all this distance between them.

Chrissy sighs. The thing is, she still misses Jason, but the Jason she misses is at least a year dead and gone. Now, all that’s left of him is someone who wants to own her.

“Me, too.”

*** 

There’s something different about the letter he finds in his locker this time.

  Eddie —

  You were the best damn thing those drunks have ever seen, hands down. No, before you ask, I wasn’t there. But when I had that letter under my pillow, I dreamed a little dream (not naughty, I know you’re disappointed, sorry). I don’t remember the songs, but I remember the way you looked for me in the crowd and smiled. All the dream people gave you a standing ovation, me loudest of all.

  You’re never too old to learn to ride a bike. My dad didn’t teach me either, but a friend did. Maybe someday, I could be that friend for you, and when I tell you I won’t let go, you can rest easy knowing I’m not lying.

  Sincerely,

  Your Secret Admirer

  P.S. I know it’s still winter, but I’ll meet you in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The handwriting is just the same, and it’s as sweet as always, but still. There’s—something Eddie can’t quite put his finger on no matter how many times he rereads the letter. Maybe he should have paid more attention in English class instead of always working on his next campaign.

He watches Chrissy when she’s not paying attention, trying to figure out what’s changed, but Harrington always catches him and stares him down like a dog marking his territory.

It leaves him flushed, desperately trying to focus on whatever he’s supposed to be doing. By the time he looks up, Harrington’s always moved onto something else.

Maybe it’s just because they know each other now, spend time with each other, are even becoming friends? Eddie doesn’t mind, as long as the letters keep coming. He might even like this letter best of all. It feels more honest, real somehow, like he’s peeling back the layers of bullshit obfuscation to get to the truth of who she is.

He hopes it lasts.

It’s hard to write his own letter back, to meet that same level of transparency to someone who, despite now having a name and face, still feels like a nebulous being. A nebulous being whose favorite color he knows, who’s insecurities feel like they’re his own, whose words he’s stroked on the page late at night while unable to sleep.

He tries to pour that same energy back into his letter.

  Secret Admirer,

  I wish I could dream about you, too. I want to know your face well enough to hold it in my mind, even unconscious. I want to lay my head on my pillow tonight and know that you’ll be waiting for me in dreamland, ready to be the best groupie a guy could ask for.

  The truth is, no one’s loved me before. No one’s liked me, or kissed me, or held my hand during a scary movie. And, that’s scarier than any movie could ever be. Because, you’re it, baby. The one and only, and all that shit.

  I’ve got friends, and that’s enough for me! It really is! But a part of me just wants to hold someone’s hand—your hand. Maybe we can someday. Maybe we can do all the things we’ve talked about: go to a drive-in, play music together, learn to ride a bike. But even if we never do, I’m grateful for every one of these letters. Being wanted is new to me, and I’m not ready to give it up.

  Yours, always,

  Eddie

He steps into the Shakespeare section once more and slips the note into A Midsummer Night’s Dream and promptly tries his best to forget about it. It doesn’t work.

He wants a response immediately, dreads waiting the typical days it takes for a letter to appear in his locker, so no one can blame him for panicking.

“Do you want to come to a Corroded Coffin practice?” Eddie blurts after the latest Hellfire session.

Chrissy’s brow’s all furrowed up as she asks, “Corroded Coffin?”

Eddie’s surprised she doesn’t already know. He’s mentioned it at least once in one of his letters; does she not spend her nights pouring over the words like he does? Does she not have every dotted i and crossed t seared into her retinas?

His intestines wriggle around in his body, fingers itching to tear his letter into tiny little pieces before she reads his desperate, yearning words.

“My band,” Eddie replies, his response overlapping eerily with Harrington’s, “his band.”

Chrissy smirks between them but Eddie barely notices, too caught up in staring at Harrington. “How do you know that?” he demands.

Harrington’s shoulders curl, like Eddie’s the threat here as he mutters his response barely loud enough to hear over the sounds of the other Hellfire members packing up, “uh, the middle school talent show?”

Eddie’s lip quirks up as Harrington looks up from his own shoes and meets Eddie’s eyes. “You remember that?”

Harrington snorts. “Hard to forget, dude.”

Harrington’s smiling—he’s never noticed before but it’s a little off center, just enough to be endearing. Eddie smiles back helplessly, taking a step forward as he asks, “the king remembers little old me?”

He gets a laugh this time, Harrington’s eyes almost crinkling shut with his amusement. He’s got a nice laugh. Eddie’s never noticed before, hasn’t heard anything from him that wasn’t at least a little snide.

Eddie opens his mouth, desperate to elicit that noise again, when Chrissy pointedly clears her throat and reality comes rushing back in—what was that? He snaps his gaze back to her, shuffling his feet, feeling absurdly guilty. For what? Being nice to her boyfriend?

“When is it?” she asks.

It takes him a minute to remember what they were talking about. “Oh!” he exclaims, taking a step back when he realizes how close he’s gotten. “Uh, tomorrow night in Gareth’s garage.”

Chrissy’s smiling, but there’s something sly about it, Eddie knows, watching the flashing of her eyes, that Chrissy Cunningham knows what evil is and has the capacity to perform it. So much for his pet theory that she’s actually a golden retriever stuffed into a human girl’s body.

“Can Steve come?” When Eddie frowns, shifting his eyes to a red-eared Harrington standing stock-still beside her, she continues, “it’s just, Jason’s been a little intense lately?”

Carver’s name seems to bring Harrington back to life. He damn-near growls as he wraps his arm around Chrissy’s waist. “The word you’re looking for is stalkery.”

She snorts, “not a word, but yeah.”

Now that they mention it, Carver has seemed to be within arm’s reach of Chrissy for a while now, loitering on her fringes with his arms crossed like he’s staking his claim, even all these months after they broke up.

“Sure,” Eddie replies, and he means it. Harrington can come if it keeps Eddie from ending up on the wrong side of Carver’s fists. “Harrington can come.”

Harrington’s ears flush again, and he mutters an awkward, “thank you,” before leading Chrissy out of the drama room.

Once they’ve cleared out, Gareth sighs, long and loud as he says, “band practice is going to be so awkward.”

Eddie glares at him, having forgotten entirely about his audience while talking to Harrington and Chrissy. “Oh, it won’t be so bad.”

“Yeah, right,” Doug snorts, shouldering his bag and heading toward the door.

“Oh, ye of little faith!” he replies as all three of them head out the door, Jeff having inexplicably already left despite Eddie being his usual ride home on Hellfire days. “It’ll be fine!”

Before he drives the guys home, he doubles back to the library to try and steal back his note, but it’s too late: the doors are locked and by the morning, the note’s sure to be gone.

They’re right; band practice is awkward, and it’s not even Eddie’s fault. It’s not even Harrington’s fault. It’s Jeff’s.

“You look nice today,” Jeff says, looking directly at Chrissy, who blushes.

He’s right, she does look nice in a cute pink cardigan and some light-wash jeans that fit her well. It’s not Eddie’s style, but it suits her. But Jeff doesn’t have to say it while her boyfriend is standing right there.

“Thanks,” she says, smiling at Jeff.

Harrington just keeps standing there while Jeff does what can only be described as flirting, with his girlfriend. Everyone else carries on like this is normal, but Gareth’s sending him crazy-eyed looks proving that Eddie’s not the only sane one.

Doug’s too busy practicing his riffs, sure, and Jeff’s clearly gone off the deep end, but Harrington? What’s his excuse?

When he’d been dating Wheeler, he’d been all over her at all times, monopolizing her time whenever possible. And sure, Chrissy and Harrington are always together, but there’s never more than an arm around her waist or sitting close together. He’s never even seen them kiss.

And now here he is, letting Jeff flirt with his girlfriend right in front of him.

Eddie just doesn’t get it.

Corroded Coffin’s a fucking mess, Gareth keeping a beat only he can hear, Eddie missing every other note, and Jeff too busy looking at Chrissy to keep tempo. Only Doug is on his game, clearly getting more and more fed up with each new fuck-up.

Chrissy stays by Jeff’s side, whispering with him between songs while Harrington flops down on the couch and watches them play like it’s his own, personal concert.

Eddie can’t take his eyes off Steve. He wants to peel the guy like an onion, figure out what makes him tick, what makes him smile, why the hell he’s here in Gareth’s smelly garage watching his girlfriend make eyes at Jeff while she writes love letters to Eddie in her free time.

He wants to know.

He just—

Wants.

*** 

Steve’s words have been echoing around her brain for days—have you asked him out yet? It’s ridiculous, but before he’d said those words, she’d never even considered it as an option. Boys ask girls out, that’s how it works. But if Steve can like a boy, she can ask out Jeff.

That doesn’t make it any less scary though. She sits on the revelation for a few days more, watching Jeff out of the corner of her eye, flirting back after he instigates. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? It’s still him instigating.

“I’m going to ask him out,” she tells Steve, not looking at him as they walk into the school together, too afraid of what she’ll see.

“Yeah?” he asks, bumping their shoulders together. “When?”

When she glances his way, he’s grinning ear to ear. She huffs, “I don’t know, soon?” Looking away so she doesn’t have to see that sly look on his face. “It’s just so scary.”

“I know, Chris,” he says, bumping into her again and again just to annoy her. “But you’re the strongest person I know.”

She doesn’t feel strong—she feels like a breeze might swipe her feet out from under her, but Steve believes in her. Steve thinks she’s strong, and she told him she’d ask Jeff out, so she will.

So, when Jeff next slides into her passenger seat, she starts the car and drives away without saying a word.

This has become something of a habit lately—if there’s no Hellfire, she drives Jeff home. Usually they talk, or turn on music they both like and sing along. The quiet has his feet tapping and fingers picking at the seam of his jeans. He grows more restless with each minute that passes.

“Chrissy?” he asks finally, a shyness to his voice that she’s not used to hearing. From the first time they’d spoken, he’s been confident—quiet, yeah, but assured. “Are you okay?”

Unable to take the waver of his voice sitting down, Chrissy veers off the side of the road, holding her arm out to keep Jeff from smacking into the dash at the abrupt change in momentum. She puts the thing in park, takes off her seatbelt, and turns in her seat to face Jeff head-on.

His eyes are wide, clearly freaked out by her erratic behavior, but he still unlatches his own seatbelt and mimics her position, awkwardly pulling his feet beneath him when it becomes clear his legs are too long to fit.

She’s helplessly charmed; it may just be Steve and Eddie’s letters rubbing off on her, but she wants to reach out and take his hand. So she does.

His fingers jerk in hers, pulling back a little like it’s instinct before he drops his hand on the console separating them and lets her link their fingers together. Even with the heater on, the interior of her car’s cold enough that his skin scalds against hers, sending a shudder through her.

“Is this the part where you murder me?” he asks, squeezing her hand. “Because if so, let me know.”

“So you can run away?” she asks, grateful for the moment of levity.

“No, because I’m a gentleman,” he replies, winking at her, “and I can help dig the grave, save you some work.”

Chrissy laughs, once again captivated by him. He’s a nerd, how is he so gosh darn charming? Her cheeks hurt, her heart hurts, her whole body is tingling with the anticipation of what she’s about to do.

“Chrissy—“

“Will you go out with me?” she asks, slapping her hand over her mouth when she realizes she interrupted him. She closes her eyes, entirely mortified. “Shoot, sorry!”

His hand spasms in hers before he tightens his hold. “You’re…” he starts, hand shaking in hers. She opens her eyes, horrible visions of him crying dancing behind her lids, but he’s laughing, whole body moving with the effort of suppressing it. “You’re apologizing for the best moment of my life?”

She laughs, too, helpless not to. “Is that a yes, or are you just laughing at me?”

He hums, tilting his head closer to hers, chuckles finally fading away as he replies, “can it be both?”

“Always.”

Chrissy bounces a little in her seat, vibrating with pent-up excitement. Maybe sometimes the girl can get the guy instead of the other way around.

He hums again, low down in his throat, and their gazes lock. The energy in her car is so electric her skin is buzzing with it. She wants to reach across the distance between them and steal a kiss. But girls don’t do that sort of thing. Girls aren’t supposed to—

She leans across the console separating them and kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him. Jeff gasps into it, like he’s the one being electrocuted now, and suddenly his hand is out of hers, but that’s okay because it’s on her face now, drawing her closer, closer, closer, as he sucks on her bottom lip until she gasps.

She might have stayed in that position forever, craning her body uncomfortably forward like a sunflower toward the light, if she hadn’t shifted a little too far to the left into her car’s horn with a bony hip.

As it blares, they both jump apart, eyes wide, cheeks flushed, looking around for a threat that will never come.

“Oops,” she whispers, settling back into her seat, back protesting at the change of angle.

Jeff laughs, head thrown back, long throat on full display. She wants to bite it, but the moment’s long since broken, so she puts her seatbelt on and shifts back onto the road, cheeks flaming, heart warm.

“Does this mean you’re going to give me your letterman jacket?” he asks once he’s finally stopped laughing. “I’m not familiar with jocks courting rituals.”

Chrissy’s responding laugh isn’t her usual cultivated giggle—it’s a bark that makes Jeff grin at her. “Oh my goodness, can you even imagine the looks we’d get?”

“Or that Steve would.” Jeff replies. “But you’ve gotta admit, I’d look good in his jacket.”

She almost wants to do it for the drama, Eddie’s presence rubbing off on her surely, but it’s not quite worth doubling the lynch mobs that will already be after all of them.

“You realize this is only making this whole situation even messier, don’t you?” she asks, eyes on the road.

“Yeah,” Jeff sighs, but his fingers reach across the car and settle atop her hand where it’s clasping the stick shift. “But worth it, right?”

She’s been smiling so much that her cheeks hurt, but at that, she damn-near beams ear to ear. “Yeah, baby,” she says, heat pooling low in her stomach when Jeff lets out a soft little gasp. “You’re worth it.”

PART 10

[asleep-kat]

Mentor & his successor

[epiphainie]

i've just finished my s7 rewatch and it's kinda so funny to me how much discourse people created over every bucktommy interaction when their whole arc boils down to tommy being patient and vulnerable with buck and showing up for him. like when you are not wearing shipper goggles under the name of "analysis" and don't try to reverse-engineer every word and look and shot with utmost bad faith, that's what it is. a simple and sweet story of a new exciting relationship with a guy who's understanding and willing to show up. literally the two things buck needs from a relationship but never had with his previous love interests. they are kinda sickeningly sweet and well-communicating actually lol

[bitchthefuck1]

It's kind of funny that Kendall and Shiv are both equally delusional about their ability to charm people for business and somehow think they can do it even though they choke almost every single time, whereas it's like the one thing Roman is consistently good at despite being the "least legitimate" option.

I think part of this comes down to the fact that Shiv and Kendall both have very clear ideas of the versions of themselves they're trying to be and the images they're trying to project, and they're trying so hard to be seen that way that they end up coming off as a little desperate and off-putting. Meanwhile Roman "knows" that there's something wrong with him and he's worthless, so he doesn't get sucked into the trap of trying to force people to see his idea of himself and instead molds himself into whatever he thinks the other person wants from him because that's the only way he can compensate for "being him," which works very well in the short term but also means he's the least capable of maintaining any relationship for very long because he has no sense of self.

[alchemical-rhapsodaire]

OK, see, here's the thing:

I'm fine with Rei and Kazuki being friends only. That's absolutely fine! A family doesn't need to have two parents that have romantic feelings for each other! And also, we need more queerplatonic relationships and platonic life partner representation in media anyways! So, screw romance!

But then. The mf show pulls this sh*t on me:

LIKE, KAZUKI, MY DUDE WHY YOU HAVE THAT LOOK IN YOUR EYES HUH?

That scene is the definition of "and his gaze softened" YOU CAN'T TELL ME OTHERWISE

P.A. WORKS WHY YOU GOTTA DO THIS TO MEEEEE

[hayaku14]

pushing daisies kaishin au #2

pushing daisies au where shinichi has been able to revive dead animals, plants, even people since he was a child.

kudou "i can literally talk to the dead" shinichi

shinichi's parents didn’t exactly encouraged him to use this power. especially not in public. they’ve seen him revive and re-kill dead plants and animals in the same breath, it doesn’t take a detective to figure out what could happen near a human corpse.

but a young shinichi is curious, a young shinichi admired his father, and a young shinichi wanted to prove himself a detective. but most of all, a young shinichi wanted to help.

so when he saw his father struggle in solving a particular case, a young shinichi figured that maybe asking straight from the source would help give them a hint.

the complete horror in yusaku's eyes shinichi saw that day made him promise himself to never do it again.

shinichi realizes later on that reviving someone just for a clue on the whos, hows, and whys of their death only to touch them again, to basically kill them again, is sick and twisted and the realization leaves him feeling raw and dirty.

he then decides that if he’s gonna find out the truth, if he’s gonna bring justice, it’s not by making the victims suffer a second death. he will unravel the mystery not by magic but by logic.

the curious case of kuroba kaito

hakuba immediately contacts shinichi.

“he was...a friend. if i have to gather all the best detectives to catch his murderer then so be it.”

hakuba goes on to explain.

it was a kid heist. shots were fired. snipers. kaitou kid was caught on camera falling, as if he’d been shot, but he appears a minute later flying away on his glider with not a speck of blood on his suit. all should be well however, a few buildings away in an alleyway, the body of kuroba kaito is found dead. gunshots through the heart and chest.

a simple explanation would’ve been that the glider was a fake activated by kid’s assistant as a last ditch effort to save his legacy and this kuroba kaito was kaitou kid himself. he would’ve said it out loud but by the look on hakuba’s face, he can tell that he already connected those dots long before shinichi even stepped foot in the morgue. that wasn’t what hakuba called him for.

“can i...take a look at the body alone?”

hakuba raises an eye at him but moves to leave without questioning. "alright then. i have to check on another friend anyway. she's been...distraught ever since she heard the news and..." hakuba's words trail away as his eyes unconsciously drifted towards kuroba kaito's covered body. shinichi patiently waits through the quiet pain that he sees on hakuba. the pinch in his brows, the tenseness of his body. he must've been a really good friend.

hakuba shakes his head and turns his attention back to shinichi. "sorry, i...its been a long day. i'll leave you here then. call me if you find anything."

left alone, shinichi carefully zips open the body bag covering kaitou kid's upper body. he looked eerily similar to himself and imagining his own body cold and dead in the morgue sent a shiver down his spine. shaking his head, he pulls a chair close and reads through the file hakuba brought him.

"no witnesses. no camera. not a trace nor lead to anything. just some reports on mysterious gunshots in previous heists that lead to nowhere." they were professionals, whoever did this, shinichi thought. it was not going to be an easy case.

he takes another peek at the body. so this was kaitou kid, huh. too young to be the same as the one before his hiatus. perhaps a successor? motive could be related to his predecessor. his mother hasn't said anything of interest. does she really not know or is she protecting him? he runs his hand through his hair. there's too little information to go on...unless...

temptation rears its head. the source of information is right there in front of him. one touch and it could open up new leads to the case. an immediate disgust twists deep into his gut. he promised himself to never use it on people. to never kill. his father's haunted eyes embedded in his mind. he shouldn't. he really shouldn't. but he remembers the anguished look on hakuba's face. if he was going to do it, this might be the only good time. any longer and his touch would not revive kid. and gone along with him would be vital information to catch his murderer.

shinichi heaves a deep sigh. he has never used his abilities on dead people since that one incident as a child but he couldn't shake off the look on hakuba's face. it was now or never. shinichi reaches for kid's hand.

---

pushing daisies au #1

[curtain-caller]

If I had a nickel for every time I got into a kinda goofy first person horror game with an alliterative title where you play as someone at rock bottom trying to acquire something that'll change their life, forced to run away from their enemies through many levels littered with booby traps in the vague style of an already existing iconic video game while surrounded by the bodies of those who had tried to reach the goal before with a tablet item in hand and a few different abilities at their disposal, with one such enemy after them being a cussing rabbit mascot who considers the player to be lucky for making it this far, and at one point the man antagonist tries to strike a deal with the protag for a better/more interesting offer than their original goal, I'd have two nickels.

Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice

[deiaiko]

#21 - Wall

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[wyrdle]

shuji ikutsuki doodle

bonus:

[revvethasmythh]

it's been weeks and i'm still so compelled by the background storyline of hawke going to weisshaupt after here lies the abyss. like. it makes no damn sense. maybe if hawke has a living sibling who is a grey warden, you can twist the logic of it, but i did not have that and also hawke said she wanted to make sure corypheus died and neither staying in the fade NOR going to weisshaupt really accomplishes this goal. like there is NO reason for hawke to be up at weisshaupt, this is not in her lane, this is not her business, her skin is NOT clear, her crops are NOT watered. the wardens are not the responsibility of your Just Some Guy from Kirkwall who has potentially zero connections to the wardens at all except for that one time they super causally tried to use her as a blood sacrifice (maybe she and the first warden can laugh about it some day, but somehow i doubt it!).

BUT. but. the mental imagine of hawke going there and then her sibling (if alive) and her love interest ALSO going there, just to meet up with her, makes it so bonkers funny i don't even care if it doesn't make sense. wtf do you mean hawke family reunion relationship drama in the austere home of the wardens where they all show up and then the entire leadership of the wardens suddenly implodes as civil war breaks out and then their asses get STUCK there. wtf do you mean hawke inadvertently sticks her ass in the middle of yet another civil war while simultaneously having to patch things up with her LI and deal with a sibling dynamic at the same time. hawke can't catch a fucking break istg. it's just her, her sibling, and her LI as their own little three person party while some truly WILD shit goes down and the epilogues are all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about what happens other than like two lines that put the most insane images into my head. there's a sped-up video of this going down in my mind with the benny hill theme playing in the background. why does varric talk like hawke is still at weisshaupt during trespasser, which takes place two entire years after hawke was meant to go there to give a basic report and then dip. how is this THE most hawke thing to ever happen and we're just. told nothing more about it except that varric got One™️ message from her via an entire smuggling syndicate that essentially says "damn, shits crazy here" and that he assumes hawke will walk away from the building while it's exploding sometime in the near future because apparently the conflict there is not yet resolved. again, this is TWO YEARS LATER. like trespasser is fun and all but truly can we revisit wtf this was all about because WHAT

[spacedustmantis]

i am so fucking convinced that charlie and sneeg are gonna come back. like. there's obviously something going on with them, people have pointed out that both of them seem to have blemishes where a mask like ranboo's would sit, charlie breaking the fourth wall, sneeg seemingly not being able to move while ranboo was asleep and his amnesia. they're all puppets in this play put on by showfall media, ranboo is just the most aware. i would be really surprised if both sneeg and charlie were just one off characters. i think they come back in ep 3 (wishful thinking)

[blondeaxolotl]

YOU.

Also bonus, since I drew the grim reapers as bats, I decided that the angels can turn into doves

[oneroomjestershow]

wait he's innocent it was the rats

[blood-orange-juice]

I'm not a fan of bridging Genshin and Honkai, but the authors seem to be doing it anyway, so... blame Hoyo for this post.

tl;dr of Honkai lore

At the core of Honkai's cosmogony are two concepts. The Imaginary Tree — a tree of branching parallel universes, each twig of which is a timeline and each leaf a world. And The Sea of Quanta — a boundless place of entropy and chaos from which the Imaginary tree spawned.

Order and chaos, basically. They exist in constant conflict, the tree tries to consume the sea of quanta and the sea tries to flood and dissolve the tree.

When a world fails to persist it can "fall" from the tree into the sea of quanta, becoming an unstable fragmented version of itself called a bubble universe. A shadow of a proper world. Such a universe is eventually dissolved in the sea.

Bubbles universes can also be artificially created or spawned from someone's memories. Either way they are unstable. If I recall correctly, Genshin was confirmed to be a bubble universe in a Honkai 3rd easter egg.

Ether Anchors

There's a technology allowing to extend a bubble universe's lifespan, is called an Ether Anchor. An Ether Anchor holds together fragments of a bubble universe that follow a fixed set of laws.

It seems to be more of a place/space anomaly than an object (“a topological formation that exists between the dimensional manifolds”), if I understood Durandal's and Roland's lore correctly, but also can take the form of an object, if honkai wiki is to be believed.

(I think space anomalies are anchor points, not the anchor itself? the places where it sews fragments of reality together. I'm still figuring this part out)

Quotes from Durandal VN summary:

At the core of the Ether Anchor, space from different dimensions were cluttered together like vines

"There, he witnessed the endless possibilities of another ancient world. "

Tartaglia's character story 4

Readjusted her body composition with the Ether Anchor to turn herself into a weapon.

I think there was a guy in Genshin who constantly talks about turning himself into a weapon. I can't quite remember his name though...

 Synchronized themselves with the Ether Anchor, becoming the “Son of God” itself.

"The purpose of this line in the ritual scripture is to forsake the self and sink into the abyss, and in the abyss, to welcome rebirth as a holy infant."

Narcissenkreuz Ordo note

Another property of the Ether Anchor is that it allows bubble universes to interact with one another. 

Or maybe not exactly different bubble universes but rather fragments of the same bubble universe (or, since we are in a multiverse, these could be the same thing)?

"Unborn life, unfulfilled wishes, Tragic dreams at the edge of the universal darkness that could never come true."

Festering Desire description

Ok, this is getting too long and no one reads long posts. Maybe I'll continue in a separate post later. There are still the topics of the Abyss (and why it's not The Sea of Quanta), Descenders, whether the anchors need to be sustained in some way, Tsaritsa's goals, why does everyone who has seen the Abyss speaks of ultimate injustice, Alice and Hexenzirkel in general, what is Irminsul exactly, and, of course, Childe, why Childe's promise of a battle at the edge of the universe is more important than it might seem, what are world cycles, and why Childe's part of 4.2 story sucked so much (I now have a Lore Explanation. or maybe a copium overdose. probably both).

For now I'm calling it though. Whatever Khaenri'ahns messed up, it had to do something with Teyvat's Aether Anchor.

[imogearne]

maddening...............

[brilliantfantasticgeronimo]

in-universe pov