#can’t really blame them like it’s sorta inevitable

[ohno-the-sun]

The sun and moon show is such a fascinating little case study of like the ups and downs of role playing entertainment

Like it’s pretty obvious they don’t have a script but do generically plan things out

Like sometimes I’m like there’s such good ideas here if they just had one or two more rewrites it would be perfect-

But there is no script they’re doing it in one take so all the little mistakes and inconsistencies are left in

[badgirlcovenrep]

omg chenrich prompts? hell yeah!! Okay so how about immediately after the council meeting? Steph taking Alex to the hospital because u KNOW its steph who takes her to get treated

As is expected I got a little carried away 😁

So this is a bit of a mix between chenrich in the hospital and medical grade painkillers Alex lol

Hope you enjoy!

No one could have prepared them for that community meeting. Steph shook all over just to think of Jed luring Alex into the woods. Of him leaving her for dead in some awful mining hole.

It made her so furious. Even hearing him cry, blabbering like a sad shadow of the man she'd known (the man that was all a charismatic lie, showmanship, to hide the disgusting truth) her anger, her hurt was too fresh for the girl to gather any sort of sadness for him.

"I'm sorry, Ryan," Alex repeats, standing at the bar with them.

Ryan is staring, speechless, at his father's crying shadow.

"I'm so sorry-" she tries to take a step forward, but her feet falter, and Alex nearly topples over to the ground, grunting in pain as Steph jumps to hold her elbow and help steady her into the floor once again.

"Fuck, Alex, you need a doctor." Steph insists. But Alex is looking at Ryan with so much concern that she can't get her to move.

"It's not your fault, okay?" Ryan finally speaks, breaking out of whatever haze he'd been in to look back at her, "It's not your fault. I just- need a moment to process all this. Go with Steph, you're hurt."

Alex finally looks at her then, and Steph can feel herself plead with her eyes - because she might not know a lot about these sorts of injuries but she's smart enough to know - just by the way she's swaying back and forth on unsteady feet - they probably have another minute, at most, before Alex collapses.

"You did it." Steph mumbles, voice filling with unbridled pride as well as urgency, touching down Alex's arm to hold her cold hand, "You did it, ok? You can settle down now."

Her brown eyes are hazy, blinking back to Steph with rapidly heavying eyelids.

"Good. That's- That's good." Alex slurs back, the last reminiscent of adrenaline leaking out of her body in a heavy huff, "very, very good-"

Steph barely has a second to process what is happening before Alex's body gives out. By some miracle, she's able to flip her arms around her shoulders just fast enough to stop her from falling to the ground.

****

Pike helps her take Alex to the local hospital before going back to deal with Jed's arrest.

It's a small hospital and probably has about ten rooms, but given that these sorts of things (bad things) rarely ever happen in Haven Springs, they're quickly given a private room, and Alex is just conscient enough (before she passes out from the painkillers) to tell the staff she could stay.

Steph doesn't think she would have left either way. Not without knowing Alex was alright, but it's good to have permission to sit by her as she fluttered in and out of drug-induced, heavy sleep.

The doctor had given her the run-down of the other girl's injuries. Five broken ribs, stage two trauma to the head - probable concussion to be assessed once she was more awake - a punctured lung, internal bleeding all around the ribcage, and a bullet wound to the shoulder.

She was an absolute mess of scars. A walking, breathing miracle.

Steph had heard the doctor talking to the police when she stepped out to get some snacks at the vending machines. "She should be dead." He said, with such conviction and surprise, it made her stomach turn.

Steph felt that she could do nothing but sit by Alex's sleeping form, slowly realizing that she was absolutely screwed. Because she already liked this girl way too much - and God, what a roller-coaster of emotion she'd been put on the last month - but how could she not? When Alex just waltzed into everyone's lives like this determined, selfless little light? When she was so obviously a rare soul, made of so much sweetness, and softness, and strength, Steph doubted she'd ever come across someone like her again?

Looking at the circumstances from the other side now, it seemed as inevitable as any of it.

"I can feel you thinking." Alex's voice startles her out of her thoughts. Steph looks up to meet her tired brown eyes, looking so soft and vulnerable without her glasses and surrounded by clean hospital sheets, "You've been broody lately."

Steph giggles, choking on her own emotion, "Guess I'm still mad about Jed." It's not a lie. She is upset. But there was a lot more than that, more about how her insides swelled with emotion when Alex looked at her - but she leaves it the way it is.

"I forgave him." She shrugs. And Steph knows she did, she was there after all, but that didn't mean the drummer was quite as ready herself.

"Well, I didn't." And maybe that makes her childish - resentful - but she can't take the image of him pointing a gun at Alex out of her head. The image of him pulling the trigger, sending her off to what could very well have been death - "at least you made him cry like a baby."

"Jerk." Alex smiles, eyes squinting back at her in humorous indignation before they slowly turn more vulnerable as she adjusts herself on the mattress, patting the empty space beside her body, "Can you- come lie down with me?"

There's nothing, truly, that Steph would have liked more. She would take any chance of being closer to Alex (and of getting off the uncomfortable hospital chair) but she was also still afraid - still scared something might go wrong and they'd lose her. "Are you sure? You're hurt."

"Please?" Alex pleads, blinking back at her with honest-to-God puppy eyes, even if still a little glassed-over from the amount of Vicodin they were pumping into her veins. For the umpteenth time in the past few days, Steph has even more confirmation that she is screwed.

Because, honestly, there's nothing Alex couldn't get her to do with just a slow blink of her brown eyes.

So she gets up and climbs into bed with her. It's incredibly tight for two people, and they are instantly pressed together as Alex scoots over the pillow so they can look at each other, alone in this hospital room that smelled like industrial-grade detergent.

Alex reaches forward and takes her cheeks between her palms, so very close Steph can't help but catalog all the cuts and bruises covering her face.

"You're so pretty." The girl says, finally, and Steph can hear the tiny slur in her voice. She's probably still drunk on a shit ton of medicine, but it does nothing to stop the drummer from blushing profusely, "you're, really, really pretty. Have I told you that?"

"Hm- yeah you sorta- do that when you're on painkillers." Steph comments, and her eyes can't help but fall to Alex's mouth.

She has a tiny cut on her lower lip, and Steph's fingers itch to touch it. To feel her skin again, like that night on the roof, when she felt so warm and tingly, like a live wire of electricity that could swallow Steph whole. For now, she holds her distance.

"But it's true." Alex pouts, "and you're really hot when you're protective too."

Now that- that was different from anything she'd said before. And when she looks up, the girl realizes Alex's eyes have turned to stare at Steph's lips too.

"Yeah?" She asks, a little too cocky given the situation, but oh well, you can't blame her for the swell of pride that takes over her chest.

"Yeah." Alex teases back, "Thank you. For taking care of me. For being mad at Jed for me- even if you can't do anything about it." Her tone turns sincere, and her eyes flutter everywhere but Steph's face, Alex's dead giveaway that she was trying to hold something back.

"Oh please, I'll rip his mustache off." Steph jokes, because it's her default strategy when she doesn't quite know what to do, "You have lost your right to upstanding citizen facial hair, sir!"

"Fuck, Steph, don't make me laugh." Alex says as a few stolen giggles escape her lips, creating ripples across her shattered chest that made her hiss with pain.

"Shit, I'm sorry." Steph apologizes, and on instinct, she leans closer to run her hands over Alex's arm in reassurance, holding the weight of her body above Alex with her elbow.

From this angle, they were even closer, and Steph was staring at her from above, watching Alex smile at her, head on the pillow and a half-lidded, humorous expression on her face.

"Oh, this is nothing. Just a few cuts compared to my fighting days." She jokes, and Steph's heart is filled with so much concern, so much love for this girl she can't help but fluster with anger.

"Shut up. You're gonna hurt yourself if you don't take it seriously." Steph says, "you're like, seriously hurt, Alex, you could have died."

Steph wants to ask, but Alex's free hand reaches forward and pulls her closer, fist tightening around the collar of her button-up shirt, and suddenly they are so close her hand shakes with the itch to touch her, "See? Protective Steph is so hot."

"I know. I'm sorry." Alex has the decency to look reprimanded, smoothing one hand over Steph's shoulder in a simple act that sends calming waves over Steph's flushed skin, "I'm okay. I promise" she's being sincere, Steph knows she is by the way she frowns slightly in concern. However, there's a quiet, teasing smile spreading across her face.

And Steph honestly used to think she was smooth.

She made girls blush by the minute. Awoke the bisexuality in at least a few of her drunk makeouts on the way from California to here. She used to be a real flirt, ready for anything a pretty girl could throw her way. But sitting here, with her torso half hovering over Alex Chen's body, her tongue feels heavy, and her brain can't conjure a single thing to offer in response.

It's at least a relief that she doesn't say anything, because a second later, Alex is smiling at her with her coy, knowing little smirk, and pulling her in for a kiss.

Steph is far too focused on not crushing her further, very deliberately placing her hands on both sides of her head to better hold her weight, but she still feels the strong, dizzying zap of electricity as Alex's lips touch hers, her lungs filling with liquid, warm waves of emotion.

And maybe, Steph thinks, it'd be fine if she never breathed air again.

[bigskydreaming]

And one more bit from the “Kings of the Sky” AU albeit several installments in, because I just......don’t know when or why I stumbled into an obsession with the dynamics between Dick and Jason and Cass as the eldest three Wayne siblings, but its there, its real, and its happening. I’ve stopped fighting it. I just....enjoy writing those three being dumb siblings who are dumb like so, so much.

Anyway, in this AU series, Jason doesn’t go to Ethiopia and die, but rather eventually joins Dick at Titans Tower more regularly and is Flamebird. Both are closer with Bruce here than in canon because Dick helped Bruce and Jason get through the Garzonas stuff and Jason helped kick Bruce in the direction of Dick and adoption papers right after the Brother Blood storyline. Then Cass is actually the third to join the family, by way of Babs, and she’s Batgirl and then Black Bat, but there’s a period of time when its just Dick, Jason and Cass as the Wayne kids. 

(PS - this is the same series as where Jason ends up with his own age group of Titans, and accidentally falls into a love quadrangle of doom that is absolutely NOT a polycule dammit, with Tom Bronson (Tomcat), Ray Terrill (The Ray) and Todd Rice (Obsidian). Which amuses his brother and sister to no end).

Tim and Duke are both next, but sorta at the same time? Like Tim’s story takes a sharp turn when Robin II never dies and obviously is Flamebird now like Robin I is Nightwing, and Tim winds up in foster care after his parents die differently than in canon. Duke is also in foster care at this time, though a different placement, and while no Robin has died here, its been awhile since there’s been one in Gotham, and to kids who grew up with the idea of there always being a Robin, that feels weird and wrong ultimately. 

So Tim and Duke both hit on the idea of being Robin like, at around the same time and totally disconnected from one another, and that leads to them both joining the Batfam around the same time, and co-sharing Robin until Damian arrives much later and they both move on to new identities. But there’s no real confusion between Robins because Duke is the daytime Robin with more yellow coloring in his costume and Tim is the nighttime Robin with more red, and people say Red or Yellow if they ever need to differentiate which Robin they’re talking about. Anyway.

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

So [Tim and Duke] run into trouble eventually and then when running from trouble they run into each other and they’re like….huh. Awkward. And then they decide well, might as well both run from trouble in the same direction, I guess. So they do.

“Did you have a plan for dealing with these guys?” Tim yelled at Duke. The other boy looked back over his shoulder briefly and gave what would probably have been a half-shrug if he didn’t awkwardly try to barrel-roll over a car two seconds later.

“Umm, sorta?”

“How sorta are we talking about? Maybe the two of us together could fill in the gaps in the plan and come up with one full plan?”

“Uh yeah, no, its not that kinda sorta. I meant sorta in the sense that I thought I had a plan but it didn’t work and that’s why these guys are after me. Sooooo…”

“Not helpful, basically.”

“Yeah. Pretty much. And hey, I don’t hear you offering up a plan! Did you even have one at all?”

“Uh….I mean I kinda didn’t think I was going to need one because I figured some kid running around in a mask making a nuisance of himself was the sorta thing that was bound to attract Batman. And so I was just pretty much running around until that happened, and then I’d make a case for how I obviously need training and Gotham needs Robin and if its not me its likely to be someone else trying eventually anyway so why not be me?”

Duke paused just long enough to squint at him. “That’s a terrible plan.”

Tim rolled his eyes. The effort didn’t pair well with his huffing and over-all exertions from running for his life and all that, but necessity demanded. “Yeah I know, that’s why I never said it was a plan! It was mostly….more…idea-ish.”

“I’m just saying, I thought I was doing this wrong, but at least I had a plan! I mean yeah, it might have ended up with me accidentally busting in on what I thought was a bunch of Riddler’s henchmen setting up some kind of clue thing, only it was actually a bunch of Intergang type guys with alien space guns or some shit all dressed up as Riddler henchmen for some reason? I dunno what they were trying to do honestly, but so yeah I might have ended up running away on foot from like twenty of them and some kind of hovercycle -”

“I’m going to cut you off there and say wherever this is going its probably not the superior vantage point I think you think you have.”

Meanwhile, Batman was not going to be coming because he’s off on a JLA mission. However, in his absence Dick and Jason are in town filling in, and they finished taking out the bad guys several blocks back and caught up to whomever was running from them, figured out the situation and are currently sitting on the edge of a rooftop watching them realize they’re totally lost and trying to figure out where to go from here. Mostly because Dick and Jason are incredibly amused listening to their back and forth and also just…this whole situation.

Dick justifies not piping up to let them know they’re safe now by saying this is good intel gathering so we can offer Bruce our assessment as to whether they’re gonna try and keep doing this whether we train them or not, and also how they handle this whole being lost situation. Not knowing they don’t have to run anymore isn’t going to hurt them and really, this is a good field exercise almost.

Jason justifies not piping up by saying this is fucking hilarious and I will hurt you if you end this any sooner than we have to, I deserve this, I had a rough week.

Which is right around the time that Cass pipes up from where she’s been lurking unnoticed behind them this whole time: “Oh no. Was it Tom? Or Ray? Or was it Todd?”

And she does it right in Jason’s ear so he kinda aborted-shrieks and almost falls off the roof except Cass is ready for that and grabs his arm to steady him.

“I hate when you do that!” Jason growls in an attempt to cover up how badly she got him and also because he hates when she does it which is why she does it a lot. Again, they don’t hate each other at all, but they do seem to act like it a lot, and neither of them is entirely sure why. They kinda just started doing it and have each been trying to get the other back ever since and ended up locked in an unending spiral of gotcha-gotchaback, except, y’know, Batfam style.

Dick occasionally picks sides just to muddy the waters. And then he randomly switches sides without warning, so neither of them ever wants to risk getting too peeved at him even when he’s helping the other, because that might push him fully over to the other side and leave them permanently outnumbered, so they’re kinda stuck, which is exactly as he likes it, lol.

“Why are you Satan,” Jason hisses dramatically as he gets up and stomps over to the other side of the roof to sulk, lest she almost knock him off again. Its not the almost falling part that bothers him, its that she’s the one that snatches him to safety each time. She’s like a freaking cat toying with a - yeah not going there, just blaming Selina. Knew them hanging out was going to be bad news for me somehow, he gripes.

Cass just shrugs and smoothly sits down cross-legged right where she is, grinning Cheshire-cat style at him from there. “Childhood trauma,” is her answer.

“Great, and now you’re stealing my comeback on top of it?! Is nothing sacred to you?”

She offers another shrug. He would like to return those for store credit please. Maybe get something useful instead. “Haven’t decided yet. Babs is still helping me explore my options. We’re going alphabetically and we’re only on  the E-religions.”

“God, you’re the worst. I can’t believe you ruined sisters for me.”

“You already used that same line last week when you came out of your room still half-asleep and she was just sitting directly across from your door waiting and staring unblinking and you yelped and dropped your laptop on your toe, and then cursed so loud that B came running around the hall thinking we were being invaded,” Dick reported idly, still perched in the same position he’d been in all along and watching the boys below them. “Just in case you thought no one noticed when you recycle.”

“I noticed too,” Cass added solemnly.

“I have no siblings,” Jason intoned. He threw up his hands dramatically and then loudly jumped down to the street below with a little help from the fire escape. It drew both Duke and Tim’s attention and they startled before realizing it was Flamebird. And that he’d landed on the street and was stalking past them while barely acknowledging them. And that that was Nightwing standing on the roof now with his hands on his hips yelling after him.

“Oh, reeeeeeal subtle. You’re not having fun anymore so you gotta make sure nobody else does either. Wow, the Brat-like behavior, just jumped out of the shadows with that one!”

And that was Flamebird not even turning around and just yelling back. “I HAVE NO SIBLINGS!”

And also they were both pretty sure that was Batgirl crouched on the roof next to Nightwing now, and she was…..sticking her tongue out at Flamebird’s back? No, Batgirl very much definitely was sticking out her tongue, that wasn’t in doubt, it was more just….very unexpected to see.

What was happening right now?

********

Eventually Tim and Duke have inevitably worn down [Bruce’s] resistance to training them by insisting they’re gonna keep doing this and if its not them its gonna be someone sooner or later anyway. Because, as they put it, you guys may not know this but Gotham’s gotten used to Robins by now and it freaks people out not to see one and Robin’s as important as Batman really and there needs to be a Robin and its not just us that will think that, like look at the fact that already two of us had the exact same idea, huh? And also, we’re gonna keep doing it anyway, sooooo….there’s that.

And then Cass vouches that they’re both 100% serious about that.

And then Dick vouches that as a former determined daredevil kid that was absolutely going to keep doing the same thing no matter whether you’d helped me or not, B, I also am of the assessment that these two mean it all the way.

And not to be left out and just to have something to contribute but also grumpy because his brother and sister are picking on him and he’s eighteen going on ten, Jason throws in: “And my assessment is that they both definitely seem dumb enough to keep doing this without help anyway and they definitely need help or they definitely will die, I’d give it a month, month and a half tops.”

And then Bruce dryly thanks his children for their contributions, their keen insights in this matter have been absolutely invaluable, he has no idea how he would make a decision here without it.

“Oooh, a rare sighting of Bat-snark in the wild. Someone call Nat-Geo quick, maybe he’ll do it again,” Dick says.

Bruce sighs. Duke and Tim look like they’re trying to decide if they’re allowed to be amused or if that’s also part of some weird Bat-test that they’re probably taking without even knowing it.

So Tim and Duke move in, start training together, and then also get sent to school together and it takes a month or so of settling in before they decide whether or not they actually are happy about this. There’s a period of deciding they’re supposed to be bitter rivals who snipe at each other back and forth across the dining table at every available opportunity, but that changes the first night Dick and Jason come back from the Tower since Tim and Duke have moved in and where Cass is also home instead of at the Clocktower with Babs.

Since all three of the older Batkids, upon seeing Tim and Duke squabble at dinner, decide to obnoxiously coo about how adorable it is watching the kids play. Which pretty instantly cements Duke and Tim as realizing their best chance of surviving the sudden acquisition of three older superhero ninja foster siblings who all can be as obnoxious as they are dangerous but also as much as they are - Duke and Tim are convinced - all quite insane.

A belief further cemented the next morning, with all three of them having spent the night at the Manor as well. Treating Duke and Tim to their first Saturday morning episode of the Cass and Jason show.

In this episode, Jason emerged from his bedroom in his pajamas still but warily peeking his head out first to look both ways down the hall before deciding it was clear…..and then makes it just almost to the end of the hallway leading to the stairs, when Cass drops down from where she’d been waiting perched above the other side of the door, in such a way as to suddenly fill the doorway just in front of him, hanging upside down suspending herself just with her feet wedged above the doorway, all while keeping her hands crossed her chest, a dead-eyed expression on her face, and with her tongue hanging out like she’s some kind of vampire hanging upside down in mid-slumber.

Jason shrieked and stumbled back a foot before catching himself and shoving two fingers in a cross shape in her direction.

“Demon! DEMON! Goddammit, I abjure thee, that’s supposed to fucking do something about having a demon sister, now what the fuck does it take to banish you!?”

“Can’t be banished,” Cass informed him, still upside down. “Can be bought though.”

Jason halted. “What?”

“I’m really surprised you never figured it out,” Dick said from his room further down the hallway. He was leaning against the doorjamb, arms casually crossed.

“Why did you think she never goes after me?”

Jason swiveled back and forth between his siblings suspiciously, trying to scry both their inscrutable (and in Cass’ case, still upside down) faces for signs they were telling the truth. “You’re telling me that Little Miss Monstrous has been a pain in my ass from day one and the reason she’s never so much as eked a single boo in your direction is you’ve been bribing her all this time?”

Dick shrugged. “Its all about getting in on the ground floor.”

Jason squinted, still unconvinced. “Nuh-uh. No way. You’re just fucking with me. Like if this is for real, what have you been buying her off with?”

Dick smiled beatifically. “Cuddles and hugs.”

“NO! NO! Bullshit! I am NOT falling for this crap again, you are not gonna get me this way this time. I call BS, fuck you, nuh uh, you’re lying out your ass and your ass-face both.”

“Wait, what is this ‘this’ that I did before? What ever are you talking about?”

“You know damn well what I’m talking about.”

“Is this about the Care Bear you had when you were fifteen?”

“Shut upppppppppppppppp, I didn’t have a Care Bear then, you’re such a - “

“Oh, I dunno, I’m preeeeetty sure there’s some holiday photos from that year that would say otherwise, pretty definitively in the form of you and your Care Bear….”

“That I only had because you literally just gave it to me as a present solely so that you could claim that I had a Care Bear when I was fifteen, you douchebag!”

“Just because I gave you the Care Bear didn’t mean you had to keep the Care Bear and hold the Care Bear and love the Care Bear, Jay. You chose to do all that.”

“I only kept the damn thing because you’re an asshole who lied about it being a family heirloom so I felt like I had to or I’d be a total jerk. Is nothing sacred to you?”

“I didn’t lie! It is a treasured family heirloom! Its the first Care Bear I gave to my little brother to teach him the important and valuable lesson that Care Bears - say it with me now - “

“Finish that sentence and they will never find your body.”

“CARE!” Cass shrieked from behind him before jumping on Jason’s back and bearing him down to the floor in an undignified tangle as she splayed atop him like a starfish and he stared up at the ceiling in a kind of strangled frozen fury, like there was so much emotion he wanted to process he’d overheated and now was stuck like that until he cooled down.

That was when Dick leaned over him and solemnly added one final thought, as though it was a crucial addition of the gravest importance:: “A lot.”

Jason’s eye twitched.

Dick’s eyes went wide in response. “Uh oh. He went to the Danger Zone. Run Cass. We’ve unleashed the dogs of war!”

Cass was off and on her feet in a second, taking off down the hall like a rocket. “Not the dogs of war!” She yelled.

Dick was only seconds behind her when behind him, Jason rose like an eruption, growling wordlessly and sparks practically flashing from his suddenly flinty eyes. He charged after them like an enraged bull.

“Kenny Loggins wouldn’t want this!” Dick yelled over his shoulder as he rounded the doorway and vanished. Jason rounded it in hot pursuit.

“Poison Ivy won’t even be able to make compost from what’s left of you when I’m through!”

The yelling and running vanished into the distance. Duke and Tim finally looked at each other blankly.

“What?” Tim asked. Duke shrugged helplessly.

A door opened at the end of the hallway. Bruce stuck his head out. “Is it safe?”

Tim just stared at him.

“What?” Duke asked.

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

LOL mostly I just want to get to the tail end of the series, when Dick and Jason go undercover as supervillains in the Society of well, Supervillains....Dick as War Shrike and Jason as Gray Jay. (A kind of bird usually known for or referenced as being thieving and unpredictable and unexpectedly dangerous despite its size. Jason never went into the Lazarus Pit here and so isn’t as huge as he is in canon, he’s on the smaller side due to his early life’s malnutrition. Living with Bruce helped him catch up enough that he’s not TINY tiny, but he’s still smaller enough that this particular mantle fits him a little better than it would his massive canon depiction).

Cass also partakes in the undercover storyline, just showing up uninvited in a persona she’s crafted for the mission and calls Black Swan. And War Shrike and Gray Jay are both so startled and obviously a little freaked by her unexpected arrival, that combined with her being ticked at her brothers for leaving her behind, RUDE, and them sufficiently cowed and guilted by her wrath, that it all adds up to the other villains as being clear evidence that she is the boss and they are her advance minions. 

Which mollifies and satisfies Cass immensely, and leaves Jason grumpy that their mission was hijacked and also his sister is The Worst, and leaves Dick temporarily disgruntled because This Whole Thing Was His Idea DAMMIT but then five seconds later finding it hilarious because Dick is a chaos connoisseur and he has an appreciation for whimsy and the unexpected.

“I can’t believe you not only gate-crashed our extremely sensitive and delicate undercover operation, but you completely hijacked it as well! This is so typical,” Jason grouched.

Cass simply swept ahead of him and strode down the hallway with lethal grace. “Silence minion.”

Jason spluttered behind her and she grinned to herself. He really made it too easy sometimes.

[heckin-music-dork]

Okay, so. Having recently rewatched Steps Into Shadow: Parts One and Two, I am Emotional and I need to talk about my feelings

One of my favorite things things about these two episodes, especially part two, is that it depicts Kanan as not just a father figure to Ezra, but a Christ figure, a savior, and I’ll explain how.

So. We got Angsty Teenage Ezra secretly using the sith holocron, learning how to wield the dark side, but he justifies it to himself by saying that he’s using what he learns from it for good, which he was, at the time. For months he’s been carrying around so much grief and guilt over what happened on Malachor; Kanan’s blindness and Ahsoka’s presumed death. He fully blamed himself, and he understandably wants to do whatever it takes to protect his little family from that point on. But as Kanan tells him when he finds out he’s been using the holocron, it’s a slippery slope, a dangerous path that he doesn’t want Ezra going another step down. Kanan confiscates the holocron, and Ezra reacts out of anger, resentment, and hurt by saying “I don’t need it, just like I don’t need you.”

That line wrecked me the first time I watched it (and it still does every time) and surely it must have cut Kanan to the core to hear that from the boy whom he had taken in, cared for, guided, and loved like his own son.

Later on, when a mission that Ezra lead went completely south due to his own carelessness and recklessness- which was likely a result of the dark side’s increasing hold on him- Ezra was stranded in a desperate situation that he had no chance of surviving on his own. Meanwhile, Kanan senses the danger he’s in and immediately, despite the rift that has grown between them, hurries to go rescue his boy.

(And this is the part where I start to get Really Emotional so here we go. There is so much deeper meaning behind Kanan’s rescue and I just can’t handle it.)

By this time, Ezra’s starting to fully realize that He Done Messed Up;. this mission had been one unforeseen disaster after another, and although everyone else had managed to get to relative safety, he had no way out, and despite the fact that the last thing he told Kanan before this point was a cold “I don’t need you,” he’s now asking in plaintive desperation, “Kanan, where are you?” By the time Kanan and Hera arrive in the Ghost, the imperial station that Ezra was trapped on was free falling into nothingness and he was clinging to it for dear life, possibly having already accepted that he would probably die there. Kanan calls out, "Ezra! I'm right here!" and reaches out to him. But even though Hera had the Ghost as close to the falling station as she could get it, Kanan was still to far away for Ezra to grab onto.

"I can't reach you! It's too far!"

"It's okay, I've got you! Go ahead. Let go."

The distance was too great for Ezra to take Kanan's outstretched arm, so all he could do was to let go of the ledge that he was clinging to and fully trust Kanan to reach him and pull him to safety, which, of course, he did. And keep in mind that although Kanan has learned to "see" through the force, Ezra didn't really know that at the time, and yet despite Kanan's blindness, he still had complete faith that he would catch him. The emotional gap between them wasn't suddenly healed though, they still had some things they needed to work through, but all that mattered at that point was that Ezra was safe, and he was home.

Okay, now to be Christian on Main, so often we are like Ezra, rejecting Christ and His commandments despite everything that He's already done for us in the past. We may have good intentions, but even the smallest sins will, if left unchanged, grow into something much more deadly. And then, after rejecting Him, we will try to do things our way, and naturally, because we are imperfect by nature, things will inevitably go wrong without the Savior's guiding hand in our lives. When we are humbled by these circumstances and call out to be rescued, He will never hesitate, He won't hold back, because He loves us and He wants us back into the safety of His arms. But He can't save us while we are still holding on to everything that is falling all around us, we need to let it all go and trust in Him and that He is able to pull us back into His arms. And again, everything isn't fixed all at once, it's a lifelong process, but as long as you keep trusting the Savior, one day, He will heal all those rifts and He will bring us home.

Also, a little bit of a tangent but it's sorta relevant, this scene reminds me of the song "Love Moved First" by Casting Crowns:

You didn't wait for me

to find my way to You

I couldn't cross that distance

even if I wanted to.

You came running after me

when anybody else would have turned and left me at my worst;

Love moved first

[lacktastrophe]

(1/2) @your Sandy MP askversion: now we know why she wasn't using her ribbon and ponytail. Her hairstyle on Model Girlfriend probably was Francis' work and her heart was already towards him. So far, I can't blame Sandy nor Mike, they are so young and long-distance relationships are difficult, it was sorta inevitable. Some might think that she strung both guys, but she tried to stay faithful to Mike, and since Francis is part of her team, it would be diffictul to keep distance.

That seems like the case! Though, maybe ribbons were just out of style these days for them. But sadly, Mike’s discovering the dream really is over and it’s completely out of his control. He’s known for a good while things had been headed in this direction, his nightmares seem to allude to this. He’s just been far too passive and submissive in letting Sandy off the hook with excuses like how she’s constantly busy in a relationship that really demands tight communication to keep their fire going, and Mike’s absence in her relationships just means their bonds weakened further for other people to take his place. Mike isolated himself so his bonds to her wouldn't weaken in her absence, but Sandy had just been meeting with so many people on a day to day basis to the point where Mike was either out of the picture entirely or an afterthought entirely.

That’s a good point given Daisy too and I can’t help but wonder if it’s another thing to add to this idea that Daisy has this incredible ability to perceive the other people around her for deeper intentions. Or whether these things are coincidental. As much as it seems Daisy has this rather innate ability to see people for who they are (it would be the second time she’s done this), Daisy also tried to convince Mike on a number of separate occasions that Sandy would likely forget about him in time, but it’s hard to tell if that is an honest assessment from her about Sandy in particular or something more aligned to resentment at her own experience, or because she really just wanted to tide Mike over to her and she really didn’t know. I guess we’ll find out in time maybe?

I’ll make a follow up post after the chapter concludes and see how close my own predictions are, because yeah, looking back over the ask -- God, that ‘She doesn’t like to lose’ observation certainly hasn’t aged well.

But the mistake was already there and never amended after I made the post because my follow up post suggested that the relationship was genuine, so the earlier observation didn’t make a lot of sense because I was implying the opposite. The error was looking at those moments looking for something more to tell about Sandy when those moments were really just they have little in common.

I do wonder if people still think she’ll turn into this super cartoon villain. Augustus had been that character and you can only really get away with that once.

[torunarigha]

doing my rambling to process my feelings about the game yesterday! be warned, its long.

i did not expect the game to upset me as much as it did!! i mean, i should have known i would be sad, even if i expected the loss, but the degree to which i felt like utter shit came as a surprise. we really played that bad... it reminded me of the first derby and of all the other games this year, where there seemed to be no heart and we played with nothing (minus the last two games tbh)

the only good thing about the game was the atmosphere and fans and that too tinged with unfortunate things. apparently some of the ultras demanded the players take off their jerseys? and were like ripping them off because they don’t deserve to wear them or something? [internet not always reliable on stuff so this is my reaction to what i first saw] haha yeah like that’s gonna give the team great morale :) great idea guys! on one hand i sorta get it, we’re angry. but mostly? fuck offffff!!! like you were gone for two years, not supporting the team, and now you come back and this is what you do?? sucks ass that on top of a shit game we have to deal with people that think humiliating our players is a-okay. there’s so much damn discussion on twitter about it too and most everyone is angry and frustrated with them. i do also agree that blaming all the ultras and saying this takes away the amazing things they did during the game is going too far. but yeah we’re all just so angry and tired and sad so saying dumb things on twitter and yelling at the players is just par for the course.

what pisses me right off is a union guy saying “our fans would NEVER do this” (Idk who it was and maybe it was out of context but i want to yell about it anyway bc its an attitude i’ve seen a lot so): OI FUCK OFF! EVERY FOOTBALL CLUB HAS FANS THAT WOULD DO THIS I DONT CARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! god union gets to take the fucking high road because they’ve had such good seasons recently :))))) the only scandals their first team/fans have is when they get too happy and break corona restrictions :))))))))) like yeah i know union have had some pretty hard times in the past and maybe they think we’re throwing a little fit right now... ya know after three years of everyone EVERYONE stoking up expectations and of us constantly not meeting them and its the same old shit again and again :)))) i’m not defending those few ultras’ actions but to say that every fan at union is a fucking angel and would never do something stupid like that... pssshawwww you’re a deluded man.

(uh that being said i am aware that hertha fans have a certain reputation so please don’t school me on that, now is not a great time thank youuu)

anyway. that was a lot about that one ultra incident but i think that was just sitting badly with me so i had to write that out. already yelled a lot about the game being shit. so now onto: relegation!! it feels almost inevitable with the games we’ve played and w/o pál and arne to take us into the last stretch positively (mayyyybe fortheringham could help but idk bobic just doesn’t have the charisma about him at all...and magath ofc not as well LOL) how do you recover from a 1-4 derby loss in front of all the fans? and then the jersey thing... i feel like it would take a fucking miracle to bounce back from all this and we’ve used those all up.

the only way i can see us maybe coming out of this, is if fans really come together to support them. some really big fan action like we did last season. we’re the only common denominator that actually has a noticeable positive effect on this club. i bet there will be some effort, i’m curious to see what it will be. i hate being so far away but i’ll definitely do whatever i can via online means. but i can’t really see that happening. and even me... i’m finding it hard to believe we can do it again. another Cinderella story after THAT game. its rock bottom and i don’t believe we can come back up. there’s always a little part of me that believes but its not enough to make me have conviction about this team.

so i’ve come to accept our place in the 2. bundesliga lol. going to be bitter and seething about union being the one to represent berlin in the top flight but hey at least one team there can do it. ahhh its going to be so sweet when we beat them next holyyyy shit i can’t WAIT. rivalries are funny huh? because i still after all this kinda have a soft spot for them and i’m really glad to see them doing well in the bundesliga! but the desire i have to beat them and us to be better than them is so fucking strong. i want to see them SAD AND ANGRY LIKE US!!! its a funny thing! outside of our rivalry i wish them well but when we’re playing them... 🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪

the thing that really bums me out is i wanted my first bundesliga game that i watched live to be hertha at olympiastadion. next year i might might might actually live in germany!! and that could have been a possibility!! i really might decide to refuse to watch live bundesliga games until hertha is back in. is that stupid? yeah...... i think the only thing that would stop me is if i’m living in hamburg and st.pauli was in the bundesliga lol. so maybe that decision will be void. but i’m just so bummed! i’ve never seen a buli game!!! and the first one i see might not be my team? just fucking sucks man :(

anyway going to end my rambling there. idk who’s going to read this but if you do, congrats hope it was worth your time or interesting or something. drop a like, subscribe... ya know (i’ve been watching too many youtubers LOL) no but really thanks for being here and listening to me ramble about a team you likely don’t care about :)

[wonda-cat]

You mentioned rewriting that one analysis post on Tommy’s revival stream and I’d really look forward to it! I never got to read the full og post and that’s the only place I saw these takes. Especially the one about the afterlife being too depressing. It’s not even just about Tommy, the implication that even if every character is safe and happy by the end, this is their inevitable fate is messed up. It’s not “a neat subversion” it’s just depressing and doesn’t add anything.

Hey, anon!

I sorta decided to not rewrite it? I feel a bit differently about the essay in the end, although I still believe in most of my points. I’m also just not nearly as passionate about it as I was when I wrote it (I finished it in a single sitting, which was... interesting.) However, yes, the afterlife stuff still bothers me just the same, as well as the odd changes to Wilbur’s characterization... post mortem.

But—just for you, anon—here’s the entire meta-analysis essay anyway, with some minor edits to the stuff I don’t agree with anymore!

My Many Narrative Issues with Tommyinnit’s Revival Stream

I want to preface this by saying that I dearly love the Dream SMP and understand it isn’t exactly comparable to other mediums like TV and film. With this being the case, most criticism against it is generally in bad faith or strange in foundation. Complaining about streamers for bad acting is the best example that comes to mind. 

These aren’t professional actors. Most have never acted in this sort of setting, or even at all. Quite a few have admitted to never roleplaying before. Which is why it’s warranted to praise Tommy, Dream, Wilbur, Ranboo, and others when they deliver stellar performances. The same applies to criticism of music choice, dialogue delivery, focus, tone, etc. 

However, one such category I cannot overlook is in regards to its writing. The writing of a story is its entire foundation. It encompasses many things—conflict choice, character development, themes, and morals. The author creates the blueprints for the architect, who then expresses the story with light, sound, color, pacing, and music. It is in its execution that we see if this connection is made or broken. 

The reason I find poor writing mostly inexcusable is because it is one of the most available skills to practice and perfect. I don’t mean to say that it’s easy, I mean to say it is something anyone can attempt to cultivate. Whether they do it well or not depends on their methods and experience. If anyone can self-publish a novel and be criticized online for its quality—and even compared to the works of Mark Twain—then I find critiquing the writing of the Dream SMP to be perfectly reasonable. 

However, since the Dream SMP script is a set of loose bullet points, tearing apart dialogue and scene continuity—which is nearly all improv—is rather useless. It doesn’t exactly have a clear focus as the plot plays out. The characters talk in circles until they hit the story beat required, and then they move onto the next. Thus, when criticizing it, one should generally critique grand events and narrative-specific shifts, more so than small-scale character interactions. 

Which brings me to my main point: The broad narrative choices taken in Tommyinnit’s most recent livestream, ‘Am I dead?’ may lead to disastrous writing pitfalls in the future. 

I’ll be outlining each of my issues below, in hopes of creating a better understanding as to why I feel this way. 

This might become quite lengthy, so please bear with me for a bit.

Tommy’s relationship to Wilbur has flipped. This change is jarring and seems out of character.

Tommy and Wilbur’s friendship is rather complicated. While Wilbur does care for Tommy immensely, especially during the L’Manburg Revolution and the Election Arc, his mental spiral during exile put a massive strain on their relationship as a whole. Wilbur brushed off Tommy’s feelings and wants, while clinging to him and pushing everyone else away. He was simultaneously distant and suffocating. 

Tommy, on the other hand, has an unclear view of his mentor. Since the beginning, and even long after Wilbur’s death, Tommy held him in especially high regard. He saw him as a brother-figure and a wise leader. He followed what he said and did everything he could to impress him. Yet, Wilbur still hurt him while the two were together in exile. 

When speaking of him, Tommy tends to flip infrequently between remembering Wilbur the way he was before his mental decline and thinking of him as a monster. Both of these images conflict with each other, but they weren’t nearly as extreme as what Tommy described Wilbur as when he was revived from death. The fear Tommy displays to Wilbur is beyond intense—it feels as if the audience may have missed a month’s worth of character development. 

This can make sense, especially since it was stated that he’d spent what felt like two months in the void. However, this shift is still deeply at odds with Tommy’s previous impressions of Wilbur, which is both disheartening and confusing. The fact that Tommy would agree to stay with Dream—his abuser and murderer—over his past mentor is simply head-reeling. It paints a very different picture of Wilbur’s character, somewhat conforming to the fandom’s ableist impression of him—the idea that Wilbur is insane and irredeemable, and always will be. 

It also ignores Dream being the driving factor in Wilbur’s downfall, as well as the double-bind deal with Dream which required him to push the button, no matter the outcome. Others have pointed out that Tommy may be lying to get Dream to bring Wilbur back, and there’s compelling evidence for that. For one, Tommy and Wilbur’s conversation seemed uncomfortable, but it was certainly nothing like Tommy implied. (Unless this fear comes from something Wilbur said off-screen.) 

Tommy also begged Dream to not bring him back multiple times over, which he should know would make Dream even more tempted to, simply because he likes seeing Tommy in pain. Tommy is also a known unreliable narrator. He may be making Wilbur out to be worse than he is by accident (even still, I’d argue this is a bit of a stretch.) 

However, there are some issues with this theory. Tommy offered himself as payment to Dream if he chose to let Wilbur rest. This is a deal Tommy knows Dream is extremely unlikely to refuse. Tommy is what Dream has coveted all this time. If Tommy genuinely wanted Wilbur back, he would not offer this. This sort of compromise is Tommy’s greatest nightmare—something he would only do in response to his friends being threatened or his home being destroyed. 

To add, Tommy is not great at lying. Unless he was taught by Wilbur for those two months* in the afterlife, there’s no chance Tommy would be this good at it. Thirdly, Tommy is terrible under pressure. He uses humor to cope. When he can’t, he cries and shouts and spills his heart out. While cornered, Tommy will tell the truth about anything, especially if Dream casually debates killing him again, just for fun. 

For now, it’s too early to tell how the relationship shift will play out. In the grand scheme of things, this issue is rather minor.

Season three’s writing is needlessly bleak. The portrayal of the afterlife is a nightmare. There is no rest, not even in death.

I adore the Dream SMP storyline in its entirety. I believe the first season is fantastic, and while the second season has some narrative clarity issues, I enjoyed it just as much. Although, I would argue season one had a more concrete understanding of its Hope-Conflict balance. 

To briefly explain, the Hope in stories are its ‘highs’ and good moments. These appear when a character the audience is rooting for is narratively rewarded. They happen during character building in the text—it’s the downtime and peace that allows for connection and relatability. It’s a moment for the viewer to breathe easy. 

The other half is Conflict, an obstacle in the story that gets in the way of the main characters’ goals, beliefs, and motives. These are the ‘lows.’ They give the narrative focus and weight. They make the highs feel even higher. They establish consequences and force the characters in the story to change in order to adapt and overcome them. 

I bring up the Hope-Conflict balance because a traditional hero’s journey would have an appropriate amount of both. Their highs and lows are generally equalized, as the name suggests. However, this balance has been awkwardly skewed in the latter half of season two and in the current plot of season three. To clarify, it is perfectly reasonable, and even common, for some stories to tip the scale more to one side. 

But a common mistake for amateur writers is to create their stories as either hopelessly dark to cause the audience continuous distress for the sake of distress, or to keep everything entirely conflict-free for most of the plot. What do these both have in common? They each make the story boring and predictable. 

Season three has taken this concept and thrown a monstrously heavy weight onto the Conflict side and flipped the scale so hard it has crashed through the ceiling. The viewers are hardly given time to find any joy in Tommy’s character, as he’s thrown into yet another abusive situation, just barely after his first narrative reward. The world is painted as relentlessly violent and traumatic. 

Every person Tommy meets is morally grey, unhinged, or out to hurt him. Everything most of the characters love is taken from them by those in positions of power. Ranboo cannot even grieve properly because it scars his face. Puffy, Sam, Ranboo, and Tubbo all blame themselves for what happened to Tommy. 

The audience watches lore stream after lore stream with the same depressing tone (with the exception of Tubbo’s, but I assume that’s unintentional.) Tommy is revived after being brutally beaten to death by his abuser, surrounded by all of his greatest fears. The afterlife is revealed to be akin to inescapable torture. It’s a colorless void that wraps the individual like fabric. 

Time moves thirty times slower within. There’s nothing—nothing but the voices of others who’ve passed on before him. Dying in a world already devoid of happiness takes the characters to a place worse than hell. When a narrative delivers unfair suffering to the entire cast without a moment of joy to speak of, the story will feel simultaneously overwhelming and pointless. 

Why watch characters suffer when there’s no light at the end of the tunnel? What happiness could they strive for when we know they’ll never get to keep it? How can I be satisfied with a good ending, if I know that an afterlife too terrible to name is what awaits them, truly, at the end of their story? Death isn’t even a white void that offers rest—it is eternal torment. 

Obviously, it isn’t a good message to send by making the afterlife seem like a quiet, perfect place or an escape from pain. But making it an unspeakable anguish which awaits, assumedly, every character who will die in the future? I deeply hope Tommy was only being an extremely unreliable narrator. 

More likely, I hope the place Tommy was taken to was a Limbo of sorts, not an end-all-be-all destination for everyone.

The degree of Tommy’s narrative punishment continues to escalate, to an almost absurd degree.

Tommy is one of the most tragic characters to exist in the storyline. He was sent into war at a young age and experienced two traumatic events during it. He was exiled by the newly elected leader and witnessed his mentor Wilbur spiral and break down with paranoia. Tubbo is executed publicly in front of him. When expressing rightful anger at the person who murdered him, he’s beaten nearly to death and never receives an apology. 

Schlatt dies right in front of Tommy, after his initial refusal to hurt the ex-president. His brother-figure and mentor is killed in assisted suicide on the same day his nation is blown up. His best friend exiles him from his home for the second time. He routinely self-sacrifices to protect his country and those who live there. His most treasured possessions were taken from him and he was called selfish for trying to retrieve them (although his methods were self-destructive and volatile.) 

He was pushed to the brink of suicide after being relentlessly abused and isolated in his exile. He was horrified when he thought he was responsible for drowning Fundy. After making an objectively good decision to stand by his old friends and change for the better, his country was obliterated by the man he once idolized, his father-figure, and his abuser. 

He was left scattered and without purpose for many days. Then he fights against Dream and loses, while also reliving his trauma. He watches Tubbo almost die at the hands of someone he once thought was his friend. He doesn’t tell a single person about what happened to him in exile. The day he tries to sever his connection to Dream and heal, he’s trapped with him for a week, surrounded by everything that terrifies him. 

He threatens to kill himself, speaking about his own life as if it were an object—something to hold over Dream’s head. He blames himself for everything bad that’s ever happened to L’Manburg and his friends—internalizing a mentality as a scapegoat for everyone around him. He is forced into the role of ‘hero’ despite the title being unfair and distressing to him.

As if that weren’t enough, he’s then beaten to death by his abuser and spends what feels like two months in an afterlife that is worse than hell. When he returns, his senses are excessively heightened. Dream can cause him excruciating pain, just by pinching him. He can send Tommy into an instant panic attack, just by raising his voice. 

The punishment Tommy’s character receives is a thousand times worse than everyone he has ever met, or ever will meet. And it shows no signs of stopping, as Dream now has control over Tommy’s very mortality. Tommy now fears the slightest damage and feels as if he’s losing his best friend all over again. He is also forced into a position where he has to kill Dream out of necessity, to protect everyone he cares about.

Characters need fitting punishments in relation to their actions. Not always, but in order to be satisfying? Yes, they do. It is preferred that a main character deal with unfair situations and difficult conflicts, but this is borderline torture p*rn. Putting Tommy in these distressing and abusive situations on repeat and punishing him for doing objectively moral or healthy things is exhausting to watch. 

To quickly add, I find the general insinuation of Tommy going to hell distasteful, especially considering the contents of his storyline. I know this may be hard to believe, but Tommy is one of the most moral characters in the plot, besides Puffy and Ghostbur. He’s also the only character, followed by Ranboo, to recognize that they can be wrong and make mistakes. He changed himself in order to heal and be a better person. He was in the process of paying people back for the things he’d stolen. 

He’s learned to be hard-working and less violent through the guidance of Sam. He has apologized to everyone he’s ever hurt (with the exception of Jack Manifold, because that man is allergic to communication.) He puts himself in harm's way to protect others. He doesn’t set out to purposely hurt anyone. He goes out of his way to make connections with people and maintain them, even if others don’t reciprocate. 

He’s hopelessly optimistic, despite his outwardly bitter façade. He loved so much and put meaning into the smallest things. The thought that a person like him—a suicide and abuse survivor—would go to hell after being beaten to death by the man who took everything from him; it makes me sick to my stomach. 

The only thing more morbid than Tommy’s afterlife being different than everyone else’s, is the concept that everyone will end up in this same eternal torture, no matter what they do. Take your pick: Tommy is sentenced to anguish until the end of time for no reason, or everyone will receive the same disturbing ending, regardless of their actions.

The narrative weight of Ranboo’s character is potentially out the window.

For the past few months, I’ve watched all of Ranboo’s lore streams faithfully, curious to see what role he would play in the future. His ‘hallucinations’ of Dream seemed to be sowing the seeds for a plot that has Ranboo taking the fall for every single insidious thing Dream has done. It would also be a tragic parallel to Tommy’s trial. 

Ranboo being convinced he was the one who blew up the community house, when Dream himself admitted to doing it, was one of the bigger indicators for me. This is just one of many other unexplained occurrences. Dream seemed to be making an effort to trigger and control Ranboo, especially after Sapnap’s prison visit. It appeared, from the way he went about this, that Dream had some grand use for Ranboo as part of his plan to be freed from Pandora’s Vault. 

However, after Tommy’s stream, the way Dream explains himself makes it seem like there was no plan besides seeing if the book worked on people. And if he didn’t after all, then what was Ranboo for? Was Ranboo unimportant? Was Ranboo just some weirdo who happened to phase out when seeing smiley faces and imagined conversations that may or may not have happened? 

I bring this up more as a worry, and much less so as an active problem in the narrative. They haven’t actually thrown Ranboo to the way-side or written themselves into a corner yet. In future streams, this could very easily be explained away or developed as more information is revealed. 

Only time will tell.

The potential for Wilbur’s future development and importance to the plot is unfeasible.

I feel as if I am the only person on earth who doesn’t want Wilbur Soot or Schlatt revived. There are many reasons for this, but one of them is not a dislike for these characters. I especially adore Wilbur, as he’s one of my all-time favorites. I don’t want either of them resurrected because their stories have already been told. They each had a fitting conclusion that ended their involvement perfectly. 

Bringing Wilbur back would especially cheapen the impact of the War of the 16th. It’s the end of a man who was brought to the absolute edge and out of desperation, shame, and self-hatred, he destroyed himself alongside his creation. Bringing him back would leave the climax of the previous story hollow. My biggest issue, however, is that a lack of story importance would likely follow his return. 

The only real impact I’d like to see is through a healing arc with Tommy, an apology to Fundy, or a confrontation with Phil/Niki. But that’s really all the potential I can realistically see. While I don’t doubt Wilbur as an agent of chaos, able to create plot out of thin air; what is he going to do now? His country is gone, his friends and family are scattered about, and his mission from the 16th is already accomplished. 

What is a well-educated, charismatic politician supposed to do in a world already broken and without nations? Read poetry to himself and cry evilly? However, this is working off the assumption that Wilbur would be returning as his old self. 

If Wilbur is resurrected as a ‘villain’ of sorts, then what? He’s not good at fighting in the slightest. He would have no materials. There are no real allies he can make, other than the arctic group. On top of that, there are already more than enough villains to last a lifetime. 

We don’t need any more, I promise. Quackity seems to already be shaping up as another antagonist, alongside Sam’s slip into darker and darker shades of moral ambiguity. We also have Philza and Techno, which are already overkill. But then we have Dream who, despite being in a prison, has the ability of selective revival. This is mercilessly overpowered, especially if he makes many allies. The dude could just bring his dead friends back so they can keep fighting forever. 

Then there’s Jack Manifold and the Crimson followers; Antfrost, Bad, and Punz. That’s not even including characters who are refusing to get involved. How are Tommy, Tubbo, and Puffy expected to do literally anything to fight back?

Dream’s experiment on Tommy implies he had no backup plan to begin with. This makes his character seem both short-sighted and foolish.

When Tommy woke up after being brought back to life, Dream sounded surprised that the revival worked at all. This instantly shatters the perception that Dream was highly intelligent and thought ahead. With just a few lines of dialogue, it’s implied that Dream killed Tommy, unsure of if the resurrection would even be possible on humans. 

Which, to risk something that important, seems unbelievably stupid. Dream needs Tommy, from his perspective. Tommy is his ‘toy,’ the one who makes everything fun. If he lost him and couldn’t get him back, what then? Oh well, everything Dream was doing was all for nothing, I guess. 

Why not attempt this experiment on literally anyone else first? Like Sapnap or Bad or, hell, even Ranboo. I suppose it could be that, as soon as Dream got the book, he experimented with it after the 16th. This appears to be insinuated with Friend and Hendry’s revival, although this is uncertain. But even then, he was still unsure of the book’s effect on a human being.

Also, this means, hypothetically, Dream’s entire plan of escape hinged on the experiment working, to begin with, and also on bringing back Wilbur if it somehow did. I find this even more ridiculous. Why Wilbur? That man couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag, let alone get through the traps in Pandora’s Vault. Even if he is intelligent after years* in the afterlife, that’s also a strange assumption. 

How do people learn things in the void? Where do they even get this knowledge? I’d honestly argue Techno is a far more competent choice than Wilbur. And even if Dream did bring him back and tell him he owed him his life, what’s to stop Wilbur from just killing him permanently? Or killing himself, continuously? 

No way would Wilbur want to be controlled by anyone, ever. The dude would sooner fuck off into the mountains and become a nomad than help a neon green bodysuit cosplay as Light Yagami.

Dream’s discussion about Sam implies that he wasn't playing any part in Dream’s plan, making Sam appear entirely incompetent and neglectful of Tommy.

Dream talked about Sam in a way that seems detached and unaffiliated. He also mentioned him being broken up about Tommy’s fate and not being aware he’s still alive. Dream not being partnered with, or not using Sam in his plan leaves many plot holes. I’ll go through each one. The initial incident was an explosion, coming from the roof of Pandora’s Vault. This did not affect the Redstone mechanism for the doors or dispensers. 

Meaning, Sam could’ve had Tommy leave the way that was expected for visitors after he investigated and found no issues. This likely couldn’t have been done in less than a day, but it would be better than an entire week. If Tommy was required to stay for longer, due to protocol, he could’ve gotten Tommy out and then placed him in one of the minor cells for the remainder of the time. 

Also, no one else lost a canon life for leaving via the splash potion of harming and returning outside the maximum-security cell; why would Tommy? To add, Sam being uninvolved means that the explosion could have only been caused by Ranboo or Foolish. That, or it was placed long before and timed for the moment Tommy entered the main cell. (I’m going to ignore how ludicrous it is that someone would know the exact time Tommy would’ve entered the room with Dream.) 

If Ranboo was the person behind the detonation, this implies he was necessary for Dream to kill Tommy to test the book. But that makes it even stranger. If this was Dream’s goal all along, why not kill Tommy the instant he was trapped with him? It makes no sense for him to wait so long. 

Sam is also directly at fault for not letting Tommy out, even after the week was up. There was no reason not to. He already knew there were no issues with the prison at that point. Although, to be fair to Sam, his character may have been paranoid and checking everything more than necessary, just in case. But this still isn’t a good excuse for him ignoring protocol in this one instance, and yet, not in any of the others. 

All of these plot holes or inconsistencies would be removed if it was revealed that Dream was blackmailing Sam in some way, or Sam had been working with him since the get-go. That Sam was the person who set off the explosion in the first place to trap Tommy inside. It would also explain Sam’s refusal to let Tommy out and by keeping him in there for longer than necessary. 

This can also coexist with Sam’s attachment and care for Tommy. He probably wasn’t told about Dream’s plan to test the book and genuinely believed Dream wouldn’t hurt him. On top of that, Dream is known to be a pathological liar, so his statements about Ranboo and Sam could be entire fabrications. 

Who knows?

The Book of Revival invalidates death entirely. The narrative now lacks both tension and consequence.

Another way the Dream SMP differs from other storytelling media is in the way it goes about its character deaths. In a TV show, for example, there will be characters who die just because, or when it’s important to the plot. However, it seems as if the Dream SMP is hesitant to commit to killing its characters. And there are many reasons for that. 

The most important one being, killing someone’s character excludes them from the story and some of their livelihoods depend on them regularly streaming on the server. There is also the issue of the cast becoming extremely sparse if characters keep dying. Typically, in stories, when you kill a character, you should introduce another. 

This keeps the cast from dwindling as the storyline goes on. This means the writers would have to find new streamers to join, who will develop their own characters and relationships with the plot’s continued momentum. This can be stressful and daunting to those who may be newly added in the future. 

Keeping this in mind, the Book of Revival is annoying from a writer’s perspective. When death is no longer an issue for a story hinged on its characters’ mortality, then what do you have as a consequence anymore? We’ve explored every kind under the sun; from abuse, to betrayal, to loss, to destruction. 

In stories, traditionally, death is a finality. It’s a conclusion. Whether it’s good or not depends on the character’s actions, its build-up, and the event’s execution. Without this lingering sense of danger, tension evaporates from the story. 

Why should I care if Tommy loses in a fight to someone, if he’ll just come back a day later? Why should I care about what happened to Wilbur, if he just returns as if nothing happened? The answer is simple: I won’t. I will no longer care if Tubbo or Ranboo or Sam die in the story, because the idea of revival even being a possible outcome leaves me unenthused and uncaring. 

The Dream SMP likes to flirt with death. It teases the demise of its main characters many, many times. More so Tommy’s than anyone else’s. Wilbur’s failed resurrection, which had unforeseen and unfortunate outcomes, is now strange in comparison to Tommy’s, which happened without a hitch. 

To be fair, we actually don’t see how many attempts it took. But here’s the problem; Dream could do it without the book being physically present. He’s trapped in a prison with nothing on him, meaning he doesn’t need any materials either. It’s also implied he could do this as many times as he feels, for anyone he wants. This would be exceedingly overpowered, if not for one thing—Dream himself is mortal (at least, I fucking hope he’s mortal.) 

If someone kills him one last time, that knowledge is gone forever. And I’m glad they’ve established at least some way for Tommy to win. Because at this point, I was losing faith. 

There is also the bare minimum establishment that Dream can refuse to bring back those he doesn’t care for. He can also use it as a shield, holding this power over other people. If Dream is gone, death is permanent. But isn’t that how death is supposed to be, anyway? 

What a bleak premise—the afterlife is pure eternal torture while life is cheapened by a lack of consequences.

Conclusion

All this to say, I am cautiously optimistic for the future. I hope dearly that every single one of these can be disproven or developed in the coming livestreams. Obviously, there’s not enough information to really determine what the end result will be, or how everything will fall into place. 

Every time I have theorized about the story, it has done something completely different and pleasantly surprised me. I want this trend to continue. 

Surprise me again—I’ll be here to see where it goes.

[shimmershae]

Just watched the episode and I’m going to have a lot of thoughts for you, most of them probably bordering on incoherence (LOL) so this is your last chance to nope on out of this post because I’m going to go ahead and put everything else behind a cut to save the eyes that do not want to see any  spoilers at all.  Unlike mine, that very much wanted to see but in a lot of cases?  Could not see shit, but I digress.

Shae’s stream of consciousness coming at you in 3-2-1.  

First of all, can I saw how good it is to have my show back again?  Like, no.  I don’t quite have Season 5 levels of excitement about the new/last season, but it is definitely nice to have all these characters back.  

So all these thoughts of mine.  Okay.  Bear with me because there be a whole lot of them, lol.  

My immediate impression as the episode opened was WHOA.  Such a cool shot of Daryl with one light wing, one dark wing (representing the two sides to Daryl maybe--the man of honor versus the man he was raised to be, hmm?) looking out over some dark vista of something.  Seriously.  It’s dark.  My room is also dark at the moment and still I was squinting to see.  To make out what I’m “looking” at.  I really, really hope the rest of this season isn’t this hard to make out.  

Is that a tank?  Kinda sorta a callback to Rick’s first episode?  If so, cool.  If not, well.  Us fans have always put way more thought into things.  For real.  Change my mind.  

Holy intense eye contact, Batman!  Daryl Dixon has literally never looked at anyone--not BethusConLeah--in quite the same smoldering way as he looks at Carol.  It’s next level.  I don’t know why people be fooling themselves into thinking different.  

Let’s see.  I can make out--besides Daryl, Maggie, and that face mask dude I already forgot the name of--Kelly, Magna, Jerry (who’s that with him?), and Carol.  Sorry.  My world, like Daryl’s, inevitably narrows to Carol.  She’s loking fierce and fine AF per usual.  

Was that Rosita I noticed rewinding to relive Daryl eye-fucking Carol?  

I’m guessing this is the army base they talked about in 10C.  

That Walker perking up like “I smell food--pancakes and bacon and oohhhh” has me giggling inappropriately right off the bat.  WTF.  

Look at all my fabulous ladies tiptoeing through that Walker minefield.  And Carol spotting that gun that might be useful right away.  Listen, if you don’t think her mind ain’t always ten steps ahead of everybody else’s, you’d be wrong.  

So.  Are these Walkers just so old and feeble not even the call of fresh meat attracts them?  Because just tiptoeing through their midst without the knockoff Lady Gaga meatsuits or skin masks has never really worked before that I can remember.  

I just want to see most of this season.  Is that really too much to ask?  Don’t X-Files and Game of Thrones us, Angela.  Please and thank you very fucking much.  

Okay.  Is the one drop of blood thing making anybody else have 28 Days Later vibes?  Kinda?  Sorta?  No?  Just me?  Okay then.  Carry on.  

Wait a minute, though.  How they be explaining how Daryl keeeps acquiring all these new tats all the time?  Hmm?  It’s like they just quit giving a shit about continuity in these latter seasons.  

I mean.  Do Walkers sleep now?  LMAO.  What is this?  I guess they’re constantly evolving?  

There’s my baby Lydia.  Love my smol bean.  

Alright though.  I love to see the ladies of TWD kick some ass.  It’s very gratifying.  Gimps would never.  Thank you, Angela.  

Clever, resourceful, calm and collected, quick thinking Carol to the rescue!  Seriously.  Her haters must be withering away inside with absolute envy.  

Hey, ya’ll.  Remember when Carol was still mastering her sharpshooting skills at the Prison yard and shot at Rick’s feet?  Her little “sorry, sorry”?  LOL.  If Rick could only see her now.  Wait.  He already knew what so many of his stans refuse to acknowledge--Carol=ultimate survivor and true savior to the group many times over.  

Maggie’s got herself a gun, too.  Go my badass girls.  

Of course, Carol’s got everybody’s back.  Of fucking course, Daryl’s got hers even when everybody else seem frozen in some kind of awe or stupification or something.  Microcosm of the whole damn show right there.  

Carol’s like “here’s your knives, love of my life.”   

Eh.  Maybe that’s just me.  

Nah.  She’s totally thinking it, too.  

YAS!  YAS!  Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride with the top billing.  How very far my babies have come.  

Listen.  I miss all the characters we’ve lost.  Absolutely.  But I love the ones that are still with us, that have been with us for so very long so hard.  Whether I love their stories or decisions or not.  

Is that THE Alexandria sign?  That sign’s been through some shit.  

DOG!  Daryl kneeling to embrace our Grimes babies has me all up in my feels.  And how cute is Dog getting all excited and making sure he’s the first one there to welcome back, Daddy?  

Hershel is literally just as puppy dog cute as Glenn ever was.  Really some Grade A casting.  

What did Maggie call Mr. T?  Ducky?  Dougie?  Sometimes with Maggie?  I really cannot tell.  Anyway.  He’s Mr. T. for me until I find out differently, probably through rewatching with close captioning, lol.  

Maggie’s got more people.  So.  Some new redshirts to sacrifice for plot purposes.  I don’t know if I should bother learning their names or not. 

I seem to remember Meridian being mentioned in one of the episode synopses.  

Sophia’s hair tie around Carol’s neck will never fail to be an emotional throat punch.  My heart.  

“They come at night and by the time you see them, you’re already dead.”  Welp.  Guess that means we ain’t seeing shit for at least this first third of the season, lol.  Very horror-eque though.  

“You’re leaving to fight ghosts.”  Aaron, to Maggie.  So I see Aaron’s the type to get the hell outta Dodge when the Boogeyman comes calling, hahaha.  Least he was.  In the old world.  

Rosita’s pissed off expression at Gabe’s decision to volunteer for the so-called suicide mission gives me life.  

My baby Carol is tired AF of suicide missions.  You can tell.  Also?  Methinks she has something to prove to Daryl here.  Or at least feels like she does.  

Dog with his little tactical vest.  I love it.  

I guess I get why they had Carol and Rosita stay behind.  They had to more evenly split up the badassery to make things more fair and balanced, lol.  

Okay.  So Negan’s definitely earned everybody’s disdain.  But they’re being woefully short-sighted by not at least hearing the dude out.  Isn’t he at least native to the area?  

“That is God telling us to turn around.”  I’m actually on Negan’s side with this one, but Gabe answering him with “I’m pretty sure he would have run that past me first” has me howling with laughter.  Father Gabe has gone straight up savage in these last couple of seasons.  Rosita’s influence, perhaps?  

I see what Angela is doing.  Trying to make Negan the voice of reason.  In this particular case?  It’s kind of working.  I’m still ultimately on Maggie’s side with this though BECAUSE GLENN.  

Imagine showing up to work and unironically dressing like a storm trooper every day.  Excuse me while I LOL.  

Even in the ZA, there’s bullshit paperwork.  

“Pumpkin colored spacesuit.”  Good one, Ezekiel.  

LOL forever.  I love Princess.  

“Michonne.  Our Michonne shut people out of Alexandria for years.”  Timely reminder that choices aren’t always perfect.  Neither are people.  

WTF is reprocessing?  Sounds ominous.  LMAO at Eugene’s “Okay.  We gotta go.”  

What in the actual hell with all those bagged, squirming undead?  Creepy AF in that subway tunnel.  

Should I just go ahead and call that the Easter bunny?  We’ve had some version of it pop up since Season 1.  

Is it stubborn pride with Maggie or what?  Why go through with something when all signs point toward the wisdom of stopping?  You can argue that she’s acting similarly to Carol last season, but there’s a huge difference here folks.  Carol did her damndest to Lone Wolf that shit and minimize the danger to those she loved.  Maggie’s straight up enlisting those she “cares about” to carry out her mission of revenge or vengeance, what have you. Let’s see if she gets near the amount of hate for it.  Personally, I don’t blame her for her feelings one bit.  They are valid.  But her knowingly drawing the others into the game?  That’s my sticking point.  That’s how she and Carol differ, even if some people refuse to see or accept it.  Anyway.  Hopping right on off my soapbox.  

“Why don’t you get up on your little tippy toes and try?”  Omigosh, I’d dying.  When I tell you I about passed out with laughter, I do not exaggerate.  I should hate Negan forever and I do.  Really.  But I adore JDM and he frequently makes me LOL.  He’s made Negan entertaining if not completely redeemable since Angela took over and more layered so I say kudos.  

He has a point about Maggie playing dictator.  Damn you, show, for slanting the writing just that smidgen that makes Negan make sense over his victim.  I guess, though, it’s better this way.  Gives both characters more shades of gray.  

“He’s a dick but he makes sense.”  I feel like this is Angela calling us all out when we dare to harbor any lasting resentment toward Negan for what he did to Glenn.  

Speaking of--Negan.  You deserved Daryl’s punch to the mouth.  You just went a bridge too damn far.  

“Keep pushing me, Negan.  Please.”  Warning shots fired, Asshole.  You better watch yourself around the Widow Rhee.  

Have I mentioned how much I love Princess?  Her shipping the Commonwealth guards is killing me, lol.  I can’t wait ‘til she meets Carol and Daryl.  She’s going to have their number in two seconds flat.  

I like Ezekiel and Princess as a duo.  I’m not saying romantically necessarily.  I just like them in scenes together because they’re fun.  There’s sort of a protective indulgence Ezekiel seems to telegraph whenever they’re in scenes together.  Like he’s like don’t hurt this one.  I don’t know.  For all these words I’ve written, I can’t quite find the ones to adequately describe what I mean.  

The wall of the lost gives me such Battlestar Galactica feels.  What sad thoughts it inspires.  

Eugene in that Commonwealth gear.  Omigosh, lol.  So did they just sneak up and take Princess’s little Commonwealth ship’s gear when they were sneaking off on their own to have a quickie?  

Princess finding that note for Yumiko on the wall actually gave me chills.  Yeah.  I’m easy.  Just the suggestion of someone getting reunited with lost family gets me all up in my feels.  Yumiko saying “I have to stay”?  I felt that.  

Oh no.  Dog ran off!  Somebody protect my favorite fictional puppy.  Of course, Daryl goes after him.  He’s always been the sweet one.  Merle said it.  

Eh.  Negan taking Maggie’s hand at the end there would have smacked too much of Negan Sue and Maggie’s biggest plot of the season would have been prematurely dealt with so I get why they did what they did.  But c’mon.  It’s not really that big of a cliffhanger, is it?  

Okay, so Angela calls those sleeping beauty Walkers “Lurkers” and I get it.  Apparently they’re a bigger deal in the comics, but I really don’t remember seeing them all that much on the actual show.  Somebody jog my memory.  

Of fucking course, you can actually see what’s happening in the inside the episode clips.  I wish we could choose to view the episode with that lighting because some of us be blind.  And this time I mean in the more literal sense.  Not the figurative one.  

Anyway.  I’m going to stop trying to write a novel for ya’ll and move on to better things.  Like maybe a nap.  Maybe some early dinner.  I don’t know.  I’m tired AF and need a little recharge.    

Before I go, though?  Overall impression of the episode?  I liked it.  There were parts that I loved (all the ladies being badass, every second of Carol, Daryl reuniting with the Grimes babies and Dog, all things Princess, some of Negan’s one-liners about had me busting a gut, Rosita serving looks, Kelly and Lydia getting to be badass too) and parts I didn’t love (not being able to see a damn thing, Angela trying to tip the scales in Negan’s favor, not enough Carol or Aaron or Rosita, no reunion between Aunt Carol and the Grimes babies even though that picture floating around suggests it was at least shot, not being able to see a damn thing, all the Alexandria people playing follow the leader for Maggie when she’s been gone 6 years and Daryl’s right there--hell, even Father G deserves the honor over her because it’s obvious they’re not exactly on the same wavelength anymore).  

I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m just glad to have our show back.    

Later, lovelies.  

[addictofanimation]

Hey! I’ve got some prompts for you! (Idk if you’re taking prompts but hjsjsgdh) Okay first one,Kayea turns into a dragon and all hell breaks loose.During the Dvalin fight an abyss mage shocks one of Dvalin’s blood clots,causing him to loose all his energy,the abyss mages concentrate it and use it on Kayea after trapping him,and then boom,Kayea’s a dragon,Venti yells at him to run so he flys off in a panic trying to find safety,after Diluc blames himself for not protecting Kayea and sorta breaks

So, let me get this straight. You mean to say that the Abyss Mage that corrupted Dvalin took some of his tainted blood clots and used it on Kaeya to turn him into a dragon? 

Well, it is a fantasy world and anything could be possible! 

I can see Venti being the only one who really knows where Kaeya would be and would visit him frequently. I can see Dvalin probably eventually warming up to him too and teaching Kaeya How to Be a Dragon 101. Teaching him how to fly, hunt, etc. Kaeya also learns that his Vision has fused with his body, allowing him to still use it for things like breathing ice, creating icy pillars, and more that I probably can’t think of right now. 

Diluc’s guilt for not being able to protect Kaeya would be soul-crushing, to be honest. He would beat himself up every day and would search everywhere he could think of to find a way to save Kaeya. His little brother was targeted because he failed to take out the Abyss Mage and let it get away (at least in his mind). 

Jean and Lisa would try to keep him from beating himself up, but it would be an uphill battle. They try to make sure that he at least rests every now and then, but getting this man to actually take care of himself was just as hard as it had been with Kaeya, if not more. 

Eventually, Venti caves and takes Diluc to see Kaeya before he ran himself into an early grave. He couldn’t stand to see the brothers so depressed about not being able to see each other. He almost cries when the two rush towards each other - with Kaeya curling his new body around Diluc. They stay like that for what seems like hours before they both fall asleep in that same position. 

Dvalin and Venti watch over them until the next sunrise when Diluc would inevitably have to go back to Mondstadt. But they both knew that this was just the first of many visits and that Diluc would at least calm down now that he knew Kaeya was safe. 

[miraculouscontent]

Ask Explosion #9:

Asks answering previous posts:

Sabrina, I have one word of advice for you...

R U N

“Chat, please stop talking.”

“But that’s my thing!”

“YOU JINX EVERYTHING!!”

Ayyyyyy~

Well, it’s something, I suppose?

Answered this here.

It absolutely did. Bless you, kind and hilarious citizien. ;P

I’m torn because... on one hand, I want to give proper mythology and such for like--anything that’d be put into the show, but on the other, I liked the idea that Alix’s brother was just sort of a conspiracy who thought of stupid stuff (which is why I kept the concept for MC Jalil Kubdel).

Zoe did it really well in Scarlet Lady where Alix knew the actual mythology and started blurting it out whenever Jalil got it wrong.

New Asks:

Considering “Ikari Gozen,” I imagine Alya and Kagami don’t get along as well. I agree with basically everyone that Marinette and Kagami not getting along is bad, but Alya and Kagami not really getting along makes more sense and is more tolerable.

Since Alya is Marinette’s “““BFF”““ (supposedly), I could see her kind of being like, “You’re competing with my girl over the same guy,” and keeping Kagami at arm’s length, worried that keeping Kagami close will allow Kagami to be closer to Adrien since Adrien is an extension of their friend group (kinda, sorta, not really, but Marinette calling him a friend so technically--)

You know, Alya trying to be a good friend and help Marinette with Adrien in more subtle ways. It’s the wrong way to go about it but she’s trying.

LUKANETTE IS AMAZING IN TERMS OF PROGRESSION KDJNGJDFG, I ADORE IT. Every episode they share together, we either learn something new about them or see more details on their relationship.

I think I was already all-in before “Silencer,” but man, that episode just sealed it even more. I was like well dang, why does the love square even EXIST???

jfdngjkfdjgfdg

Incredible. Only problem is that the creator doesn’t know how to use it properly.

You mean fourteen year olds aren’t perfect human beings???? :o

(no, but really, that’s me all the time; like, she’s barely a teen!)

He’ll believe it if it’s Chat Noir who’s doing it. If Marinette ever does it though, he’ll be sure to shut it down. ;P

Ugggggh, the worst part is that I have the same exact fear that they really are going to be like yeah Ladybug you silly fool Chat Noir has been with you since the beginning!

I mean, we’re already basically getting that with the New York special; Chat was supposed to protect Paris and then didn’t tell Ladybug that he “had to” leave for New York (and the New York thing is inadvertently Marinette’s fault and parts of the fandom actually did blame her for it even though it was Chat’s choice not to say anything), then Ladybug gets upset with him when she discovers it mid-battle, which leads to Chat being distracted and Cataclysming someone (another thing that Ladybug can be “inadvertently” blamed for), then Chat gives up his miraculous so Ladybug isn’t even allowed to be angry and cue the later line of “I can’t imagine being Ladybug without... him.”

So clearly that’s saying something. Adrien doesn’t get anything close to that level and Marinette is chewed out for not asking him to stay when Nino had already asked him too.

It’s like--Marinette chooses to go after Adrien and then gets either nothing in return, or humiliated by the narrative, and then in the New York special, she decides to do nothing and everything still goes wrong while Alya yells at her for it. The “damned if she does, damned if she don’t,” on display is stunning. The girl tries to confess and it’s like, “no, not allowed, but Chat is allowed to confess.”

I still don’t understand this logic of his overarching plot but also “there’s not much of a timeline.” I think the only solid thing we’ve ever gotten was something about all the episodes in one season coming after all the episodes in a previous one, but there are still things that don’t add up? The only thing the season 3 production order will give is making sure the hero debuts work out (so no Viperion or Pegase before “Party Crasher,” for example).

It’s not really reliable. I mean, like--I’ve been experimenting with timelines for a while, and stuff like “Miraculer” baffles me. It’s basically non-canon with no value whatsoever. All it does is make “Heart Hunter” look even more confusing and treats Marinette even more horribly for not picking Chloe when she explicitly told Chloe that she wasn’t getting it back.

I’m not familiar with that one! Is it any good?

(Okay, I actually was too curious and ended up looking it up; fancy! I couldn’t have guessed that it was a webtoon! I started reading the 1st issue and before I knew it, I was on the 6th! Oops~)

Lila is totally Rashta, 100% agree. The fact that the comments have a nickname of “Trashta” for her, equivalent to Liar Rossi, says as much ;P

Because lessons that involve telling someone that they’re valid and allowed to feel a certain way don’t apply to Marinette. Isn’t it nice? :3

Not that I know of? Though I also don’t look for that kind of thing, so it’s possible that it exists and I just don’t know about it.

Even if it did exist thought, I don’t see a problem with you doing your own regardless. Good luck if you do!

No. No I do not. ;P

GREETINGS FELLOW INTJ!

And yeah, I’m not really capable of not analyzing shows. There are some small exceptions, but they’re usually not full shows in the normal sense. If there’s an ongoing plot, my mind tends to be working at all times.

In terms of Miraculous, Season 1 was harmless enough where I was bothered but pretty quiet about it, but then it just got progressively worse. It really feels like one of those things you can’t unsee when it finally hits you, y’know?

I’m glad I was able to help you get that satisfaction you need (and appreciate Lukanette, of course ;3)!

Non-Miraculous Asks:

(some heavy Puella Magi Madoka Magica salt below)

Wow, this is a really dedicated ask! Nice!

Gonna go point by point here:

1 - Yeah, the whole thing with Homura not “being able” to save everyone... kinda questionable, and I didn’t really buy the arguments they used to explain it away. I think there was this one PSP game or something with Madoka Magica where you could kind of choose what happened (like, there were bad ends where Sayaka didn’t get her soul gem back in time and her body was partially decayed; ick) and I think there’s a good end where Homura saves everyone but--yeah, not canon.

I just don’t care for twisted stories like that unless there is actually a good end on the horizon (and I mean like “Everyone Lives and is Happy” good end). Angst is just so exhausting so the second I saw Mami’s head being bitten I was just like, “Ah, okay, so we’re doing this then.”

2 - Eugh, the sexism thing. It’s so... yeah, and especially this because the whole “girls are emotional” thing, I don’t really care whether or not the show is trying to “subvert” or “explain” anything, it just feels like poor taste and I don’t like it. (I also didn’t know about that Death Note thing because I didn’t watch it, but geez.)

3 - Wow, I’ve been away from the show for so long that I forgot what Mami’s wish was; I thought it was to “not be alone” or something (or maybe not die alone?? I really don’t remember), but either way, the fact that it follows some sort of genie wish logic is just--*sigh*--they’re teenage girls, come on (plus, the “genie wish logic” is really overdone to me anyway).

4 - The other thing about Sayaka is that it’s really predictable that she’d “die so quickly.” Basically everything was pointing to her just being annihilated at some point, and being Madoka’s best friend, it was pretty inevitable that she’d go.

((semi-unrelated, but someone also asked me which character’s name was lied about before episode 3 hit and they wondered if it was Sayaka’s; it was Kyubey’s))

Yikes. Sorry you had to experience that.

Anyway, I guess I’m not experienced enough in multiple fandoms to say for sure? If I was ever in a fandom, I would just blacklist the people/stuff I didn’t like, so I didn’t get to see a tong of “bad things” going on.

+ I try really hard not to generalize fandoms into one thing.

𝓖𝓮𝓷𝓭𝓮𝓻 𝓝𝓸𝓻𝓶𝓼 𝓐𝓻𝓮 𝓢𝓽𝓾𝓹𝓲𝓭 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓑𝓸𝔂𝓼 𝓐𝓻𝓮 𝓐𝓵𝓵𝓸𝔀𝓮𝓭 𝓽𝓸 𝓛𝓲𝓴𝓮 “𝓖𝓲𝓻𝓵𝔂” 𝓣𝓱𝓲𝓷𝓰𝓼

Oof, uhhh, shows, huh? That’s tough.

I think the main ship from Given (Mafuyu and Ritsuka) is really adorable (you might’ve seen the amusing video of their love being mutual before), and while I would’ve said the same thing for the kinda-sorta side ship, it gets--uh... really bad during the movie/rest of the manga, I’ll just say that much.

Mafuyu and Ritsuka though, totally adorable.

Inuyasha kinda? Though Inuyasha and Kagome are definitely not the kind of romantic chemistry that I lean towards (I find “the bickering couple” to be rather exhausting). Plus, Cardcaptor Sakura did the “male tsundere” better than Inuyasha did (though the Clear Card Arc was terrible, at least it’s not canon kinda-sorta? idk it seems like a mix of the anime and manga so...).

After that there’s...

uh

...

hm.

I mean, there’s probably a couple more examples somewhere, but--yeah, I’ve got nothing. Maybe if I thought back to all the generic children shows I watched when I was little (like those old Disney live-action shows; I had no taste when I was younger), there might’ve been something that satisfied kid me but idk.

I don’t remember what post inspired this, but I have no problem answering regardless, ahaha~

My main issue is Aang’s attitude about the whole thing. I’m not saying it was right of Katara to go out and get “revenge via murder” exactly, but I also think that Zuko had the right idea with allowing her to go and face the man who killed her mother so she could get some form of closure (also note that Zuko doesn’t express any sort of opinion when Katara decides not to kill him; he just wanted her to have whatever she thought she needed to heal).

It’s also the episode where Zuko directly confronts Aang on his “violence isn’t the answer” rhetoric which then goes completely ignored as Aang lionturtles his way out of the conflict. Aang is also not confronted on his point of “forgiveness is the first step to healing” (when Katara has a right not to forgive and Aang isn’t challenged outside of Katara commenting on it) and was permitted to ride his high horse when Katara “steals” Appa like, “It's okay, because I forgive you... that give you any ideas?” which is just--

reaaaaaally "holier than thou”-esque when Aang is like, ten, and Katara is a sort of motherly figure to him. The episode even has Sokka praise Aang for how “wise” he is and I groaned through the entire thing.

Another smaller thing is that it sort of makes the air kingdom look way too “perfect” by having Aang be the “source of wisedom,” especially when it’s like “violence isn’t the answer” while all the other airbenders are dead.

[lunar-jimin]

i don’t want to fall in love, if he won’t be here next year

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Genre: best friends to lovers, fluff, wee bit of angst

Word Count: 3.9k

Rating: pg-13

Warnings: feelings, soft kookie, swearing, kissing

Summary: The universe was evil to make you spend Christmas Eve alone with your best friend who you definitely are not in love with. 

A/N: This is for the lovely @namluve​ through @btswriterscollective​ Secret Santa project! Happy holidays, love! Sorry that it’s at the later end of the posting period, but I hope you enjoy!

“For fuck’s sake Jungkook, can’t you unzip your own damn pants?”

“It’s not my fault they got stuck,” he whined, back arched awkwardly as he attempted to see what he was doing, “and I can’t see it because the zipper is in the fucking back.”

You sigh. The mall had started using Santa suits with the zipper in the back after some curious kid showed off Jimin’s candy cane boxers to the entirety of the shopping center last year. Now, your unfortunate best friend had managed to get the damn thing stuck.

“Move,” you frown, taking the zipper from him. You wiggled it back and forth a couple times before it finally moved down the rest of its track.

“Oh, thank god, I thought I was gonna be stuck in these forever.”

“God, you’re so overdramatic. It’s a wonder you make it through the day without me babying you every step of the way.”

“Hey, that’s not fair. You were the one who almost burnt down the kitchen making ramen.”

You roll your eyes.

“Whatever.”

You continue to strip yourself of your itchy elf dress and the god awful red and white striped tights to match. It takes everything in you not to glance over at Jungkook who is now inevitably just in a muscle tee and tight black underwear.

So what, your best friend was one of the prettier humans to ever grace this planet? You were a grown woman. You had self-control. And you definitely didn’t want him to bend you over this sticky locker room bench and fuck you into the next century. You don’t even need to think about the fact that you were maybe, kinda, sorta, totally, irreversibly in love with him.

“So it’s just you and me tonight, huh?” his voice is less agitated, now that he’s free of his confines.

You snuck a glance and were happy to find him in matching grey sweatpants and sweatshirt. Still deadly hot, but your panties would stay dry. For now.

“Yeah, I suppose. I’m gonna miss our holiday ragers.”

Normally, you would spend Christmas Eve getting black-out drunk with your friends. This year, however, most of them were going home to their families or had started families of their own. Which left you and Jungkook alone with each other for the first time in years.

You were nervous. And you hated that. There was no reason why you should feel like throwing up at the prospect of spending an evening with your best friend. You had done this a million times, why was this time so special? Maybe it’s because you can’t remember the last time you spent more than two hours alone with him.

Ever since Jungkook started dating some girl from his animation class last year, the time the two of you spent together had decreased drastically. You couldn’t blame him, everyone around you was finding themselves in long-term relationships, excited to build a future now that college was almost over. He was just doing the same, and for a while, you thought she would be the one (a thought that left you crying in your bed for a week). You’re embarrassed to admit how pleased you were when Jungkook arrived at your doorstep four months ago, piss drunk at three in the morning to tell you she had cheated on him.

That was the last time you had spent a decent chunk of time and he was either crying or asleep for most of it. But now, here you were, following Jungkook to his beat-up Toyota Corolla, with the intent to spend the night with him. And while he hadn’t shown so much as the slightest hint that he may share your feelings, you couldn’t help but hope.

Three hours later, your nerves have been calmed by the half-a-bottle of wine you’ve downed. Your face is warm, but the spot on your thigh where his hand rests is warmer. Jungkook had convinced you to watch the Holidate despite your better judgment, and now you wanted to bleach your eyes.

“I can’t believe we watched that,” you groan into his shoulder, “I should be able to sue the production company for the two hours of my life that just got wasted.”

Jungkook lets out a buzzed giggle at your complaint, body shaking lightly next to yours.

“It was terrible,” he agreed, “but Seokjin said it was good.”

“Jin has a terrible taste in movies, and you know it.”

“True.”

He turned to look at you, little sparkles in his doe eyes as he gave you the sweetest smile. Your stomach flips.

“So, what do you want to watch?”

“I think you know the answer to that.”

“Do we really have to?”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t love Die Hard just as much as me,” you slap him playfully, “besides, you know you’re going to make me watch Love Actually after this.”

“Whatever.”

“You know it’s true, Kookie. We all know you’re a hoe for Bruce.”

“Am not.”

“If you want to live in denial, who am I to stop you.”

Despite his vehement denial of loving the movie, Jungkook quoted nearly the whole damn thing. If it weren’t for his adorable ‘yippee-ki-yay motherfucker’, you probably would’ve smacked him.

“You didn’t have to quote the entire thing,” you grumble.

“Sorry.”

He looks up at you with his doe eyes and you melt.

“It’s fine, just don’t do it with Love Actually. It’s confusing enough as it is without you talking over it.”

“I won’t, I won’t. Just admit to me you actually love the movie though.”

“I really don’t see the appeal.”

“How can you not see the appeal? It’s a cinematic masterpiece.”

“Yeah, but it’s confusing with all the different stories and I don’t understand British people at all. Also, as a single person, it’s incredibly painful.”

“How is it painful?”

“Because I want someone to fall in love with and cuddle me throughout the holidays.”

“You have me, you know?”

“You know that’s not what I mean, Kookie.”

“What do you mean?”

He’s grinning cheekily, completely aware of how uncomfortable his question makes you. You may be in love with him, but that does not stop you from thinking he’s a little shit sometimes.

“I want, you know, a partner, someone who’ll take me on dates, and kiss me, and do other things.”

“What other things?”

“Jeon Jungkook, you know what I’m talking about.”

Despite being best friends with Jungkook since the pair of you were in pull-ups, you had never felt comfortable talking about sex with him, even before you realized your feelings. You just hadn’t had a lot of experience, limited to a few boyfriends, and the subject wasn’t one you were comfortable with. Luckily, it was a topic Jungkook hadn’t brought up. Until now.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, you just want a holiday fuck buddy.”

You smack his bicep, but don’t respond. Neither does he, simply turning to the screen before him and pressing play.

You’ll never admit it to Jungkook, but you do quite enjoy the movie. Sure it was a little painful to watch a ten-year-old have a more successful love life than yourself, but the storytelling was good. By the time the credits were rolling, you were only a little embarrassed to admit there were a few tears in your eyes.

When you looked over at Jungkook, you were surprised to find a downcast face.

“Is everything alright, Kookie?”

He looks back at you and you were surprised to find tears running down his cheek.

“Oh gosh, Kook, what happened?”

He remains silent, only taking your hand in his, thumb gently rubbing over your skin. His eyes stare down at where your palms meet, and despite your best friend’s apparent distress, you can’t help but notice the warm tingles radiating from his touch. With your free hand, you reach up to brush the tears from his cheek, a pout forming on your lips.

“It’s just,” he sighs, pulling away from you and wiping his eyes, “it’s just, I want it to, you know.”

You tilt your head to the side confused.

“What are you talking about Kook?”

“What you were saying earlier, about the cuddling and dates and shit. I want it too.”

“Oh, Kookie.”

You pull him into, clasping his neck as he buries his nose in your shoulders. You want so badly to tell him that he can have it. He can have all of it and more. With you. But you know now is not the time for confessions.

He pulls his head back to look at you, a twinkle in his eyes that you can’t quite place.

“What is it Kookie?”

He looks down at this lap and then back up at you.

“I don’t want it with just anyone.”

“Well of course not, you’d want it with someone who can love and cherish you just as much as you love and cherish them.”

A dull ache in your heart was beginning to grow. He was so close to being yours, lips only inches away. But yet it seemed a mile still remained between the two of you.

“That’s not what I mean.”

You are once again sent hurling back into confusion.

“Well then what do you mean?”

“I want,” he falters, breathing unsteady like a fish out of water. He grabs your hands again, holding them tightly as if he was afraid you’d slip away. Your heart was pounding in your chest, your mind only just beginning to grasp onto what was happening. Part of you refused to believe, refused to hope, less you were wrong.

“I want you.”

His voice was soft, almost too quiet to hear, but the words were there. You felt your body tense up, shocks running up and down your spine, sirens wailing in your head. You had hoped for this moment for months, no, years, and here you were, and you were totally unsure what to do with yourself.

When you don’t respond, he pulls away and turns to face the TV.

“I’m sorry,” you see him wince in an attempt to stop the tears that are forming in his eyes, “I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget that I ever opened my mouth.”

“Kookie I…”

He turns to look at you and you can’t help yourself. His lips are just as soft as you’d dreamed about during lonely nights. He responds immediately to your kiss, mouth forming against yours as his hands come to cup your jaw softly. Soft glowing warmth radiates throughout you and you are no longer sure whether the tears you feel on your cheeks are his or yours.

You pull away and look into his eyes and at once you recognize the twinkle dancing in them.

Love. Adoration.

He didn’t need to say the words. They were already there. Unspoken. Filling the small space between his body and yours. Radiating throughout the room.

He grabs your waist and swings your body over his so that he is slotted between his thighs. Your hair falls down around you as he stares up at you, his eyes telling you everything you’d ever need to know.

“Will you be mine?”

You nod before leaning down and pecking his lips. You want more than anything in this world to be his.

“I love you, Kookie.”

His eyes go wide, body stiff beneath yours. He slowly lifts a hand up to brush the hair out of your face.

“I love you too.”

A year later, you walk back into the living room with two glasses of wine in your hands to find him down on one knee.

[good-rwbyaus]

Destiny - [ Epilogue : Oscar ] - mod lilac:

[ Part 1: Pyrrha ] [ Part 2: Jaune ]

Oscar visits the final resting place of Pyrrha and Jaune.

// An epilogue for Destiny. It’s more or less a monologue from Oscar, but it’s been demanding to be written for weeks now before I move onto another project. I hope you enjoy the final piece.

=============================================

Dark stormy clouds hovered over the Emerald Forest, a torrent of rain spilling into the trees. A green-clad figure slogged slowly though the grounds, heading for a specific destination. Guilt shone on his face. 

----

Shielded from the storm outside, a pair of angel statues carved in marble stood in the small shrine. On the altar was a small picture frame where a young knightly blond and a young amazon-like redhead grinned into the camera.

“Sorry I’m late, Jaune,” Oscar said quietly as he wiped the droplets from his hair. 

“Ahh, sorry. Forgot to introduce myself,” Oscar chuckled apologetically, “I’m Oscar Pine, Miss Nikos. And there might still be a little bit of Ozpin left in here, but...” He grinned before sighing, “it’s probably just me now.”

“I sorta know you because I have Ozpin’s memories, but I wish I could’ve met you,” Oscar said with a smile, “I wanted to see the person who my best friend admired so much.”

“As for you, Jaune, we need no introductions,” he smiled, a hint of pain in the gesture. His gaze locked onto the grave with Jaune’s name on it before turning his head to stare at the forest around him.

“Nora really chose a nice place,” Oscar admired, “I guess it’s true what they say, a quest ends at its beginning - suppose that must be doubly true for a knight.” He brushed off some dirt from the grass before he sat down cross-legged. Giving the scenery one last lookover, he smiled mischievously, “From what I recall from Ozpin’s memories though, you probably didn’t enjoy your experience here at the time.”

“Whooosh.” He swung his hand dramatically towards the ceiling. 

“Haha,” he smiled, “I guess you’re tired of me embarrassing you in front of your significant other, even though she probably knows all this given she nailed you to the tree that your grave’s leaning on.” 

“You probably already heard it from everybody else, so I’ll just go over the highpoints,” Oscar continued as he grinned. “We won. We beat Salem.”

“All of us lived for the most part,” Oscar paused before shaking his head, “Not to say any of us died. It’s just - well it’s complicated. Lemme give you the good news first.”

“Nora and Ren got married. They’re expecting a child anytime soon,” Oscar clapped in excitement, “And asked the doctors not to tell them the gender. They want it to be a surprise.”

“Yang and Blake are going to get married too. At least after their dads get the testosterone out of their system. I think they secretly enjoy arguing about how “your daughter isn’t good enough for mine” and boisterously telling embarrassing stories in front of their kids. Yang’s threatening to elope, and Blake’s mom is encouraging her.”

“Unc- I mean, Qr-. You know what I’m going to call him Uncle Qrow, “ Oscar said, “He’s family to everyone. He probably kept us from falling apart after you died. Told us not to blame ourselves. You brought Cinder down with you because you loved us all. You did what you did, just as we would’ve done for you.”

He sniffled.

“Ah, sorry. I...Let’s just wait. I’ll tell you the reason why I came here later. Let’s just enjoy this moment.” A pained smile lingered on his lips, “Anyway...”

“Qrow gave us the choice to leave the group with no questions asked- he felt it was the right thing to do after what happened. You fought to keep us safe; it’s only right that we were given that choice.”

“No one took him up on his offer,” he smiled with a bit of pride.

“A bit of unpleasantness did happen after we used the Relic of Knowledge,” Oscar rubbed his cheek, “But it’s all water under the bridge now.”

“Glynda is now the Headmistress of Beacon. Well, will be once all the rubble is cleaned up. She and James are an item now. Haha. That’s one unlikely couple right there. They’ll argue until their voices become hoarse and their faces turn red, but if someone insults one of them within earshot of the other... Well, some soldier made the mistake of trying to kiss up to James by insulting Glynda. And now he’s probably still running laps around Mantle.”

The smile on his face slowly turned into a grimace, the guilt that’d been weighing him down returning once more.

“I....I admit that I came here not just to catch you up on things,” Oscar hesitatingly said. His hand waved, and four items, glowing ethereally with power, flickered into existence in front of him.

Lamp, Crown, Staff, Sword.

Knowledge, Choice, Creation, Destruction.

“It’s funny. Everyone thought they disappeared after Ruby came back to life,” he whispered as he watched the Relics revolve around him, “She sacrificed herself to save the people of Mantle and Atlas - when our fight between Salem and her forces dropped Atlas out of the sky.” 

“Even with the knowledge that she would die using the combined power of the Relics, she still chose her own destruction so that others may live. Thus, the most mysterious of the relics - Creation - returned her to us.”

“Not many people realized that a goddess descended that day. Only Salem and I knew, for we were the only ones who’ve ever been in the presence of a god. 

“When Ruby spoke after becoming a goddess, her words became edict. And with a single utterance, she vanquished Salem. Begone,” he said, eyes glazed in remembrance of that moment, “One word, nothing else. Time stopped for everyone but a goddess, myself, and a disintegrating Salem trying to resist her fate.”

“...Salem really hated Ozma. It’s what kept her alive all this time,” Oscar sighed, “Magic and spells fade, even those cast by a god.”

“The immortality given to Salem was never meant to last,” he said softly, “But when the God of Light gave Ozma his orders, I don’t think the God realized how much it would make Salem hate the man to the point where she would literally defy death to ruin everything Ozma wanted to protect.”

“I don’t quite know what Ruby did to separate Ozpin from me, but the last thing I remember was Ozpin’s shade walking over to Salem. I remember bits of yelling and crying, but after the man left my head, I think I was frozen in time like the rest. No longer god-touched, I guess. By the time we all came to, both Ozpin and Salem were turning into motes of light.”

“Despite how much misery Salem gave us, I hope she found peace. Ozma too,” he sighed.

“As for Ruby, she’s been off since that day. Though she no longer has that divine power, she seems more ethereal, more disconnected from the world,” Oscar sighed, “As if she’d leave us at any time. Disappear and vanish.”

Oscar then chuckled, “luckily, we have two dorks Weiss and Penny, originally at odds with each other for taking up too much of Ruby’s attention, now working together to keep Ruby grounded...so I think Ruby will be okay.”

“Oh yeah, Penny never actually died, Pyrrha. They were able to put her core - the essence of her soul - into a new body, so I hope you rest more peacefully knowing that.” 

“In any case, everyone’s doing okay... but you two.”

He slouched over, palming his face. “Ugh, sorry. I guess I keep on delaying the inevitable. I’ll tell you why I’m here right now.”

“After the Relics found their way over to me, I wondered... if the Relics could produce a God, could it turn back time to save you? So I asked the Relic of Knowledge...”

“And Jinn said yes. That the Relics could send back a single soul without their future memories or skills - only a faint impression without any details, just a whisper of destiny - back to a very specific point in time, a couple hours before the Fall of Beacon.”

“After getting over my shock, I naturally asked about a future where you lived,” Oscar looked away from Jaune’s grave, “and that future was bleak. In the past I saw through Jinn, we went after the Relic of Creation after Knowledge. And as a result, Atlas fell upon Mantle and destroyed the entire Kingdom. Out of hundreds of thousands of people, only we and the rest of the team survived, and it was only because of Raven’s aid.”

“It was completely different from what actually happened to us. After you sacrificed yourself to kill Cinder, you caused Emerald to become the Fall Maiden. And somehow that caused me to get kidnapped by Mercury, allowing me to convince them both that staying with Salem will only lead to more pain for both of them - and they left her for us. Learning Salem’s future plans through Emerald, we went after the Relic of Destruction in Vacuo instead and then returned to the Emerald Forest with all the chess pieces to obtain the Relic of Choice - And then we had our showdown at Atlas.”

Oscar uneasily shifted his foot on the ground, now completely unable to look at the grave in front of him, “I’m not sure how it dawned on me to ask my last question. Maybe it’s because Jinn only showed me a future instead of the numerous possibilities it should’ve been, but...”

“I asked if I turned back the clock before.”

“And Jinn said I did.”

“I think,” Oscar hesitated before continuing, “I must’ve sent you back after almost everyone died beating Salem in the past Jinn showed. I don’t think it could’ve been anyone else because only you acted differently compared to how events should’ve turned out - so...”

“I'm the one responsible for your death, Jaune,” he choked out, “Even if it wasn’t actually me; I still can’t help but feel that way, so I’m trying to figure out if you would want me to right my wrong or be content with the future you’ve sacrificed yourself for.”

“Would you resent me if I tried? To undo everything you’ve strived to do. Or would you resent me if I left you for dead - to not even try?”

“I admit I don’t think I could do any better - I know I probably should be content, but not knowing hurts. You are literally my best friend - a brother. So please..."

“Just give me a sign.”

He bowed his head down, tears falling - conflicted between his sense of duty to the world he lived and his deepest bond of friendship.

Oscar paused as he heard something - or rather the absent of something. The torrent of rain that’s been present had slowed to a stop. Gazing outside, Oscar gasped quietly as he watched the shadows from the overhead clouds quickly giving way to rays of sunlight. 

Running outside, the green-clad boy got to witness the dark clouds visibly fade into the blues of the sky, leaving only sunlight and the beauty of the Emerald Forest behind. 

Feeling the warmth of the sun on his face, Oscar whispered quietly, “Is this... your answer?”

He heard no response, but something in his heart settled in that moment. A sense of peace. Like he’d been forgiven. That he need not carry his burden any longer.

Oscar turned back to the shrine and smiled gratefully.

“...Thank you. I’ll make sure to make the most of the future you’ve let us have. 

“Both of you can rest easy. I’ll be the one to protect everyone now.”

“We’ll see you when our time comes.”

[ranvwoop]

TALK ABOUT AMERICAN HEALTHCARE I HAVE AN IDEA OF WHY IT'S THERE BUT I WANNA HEAR THE EXPLANATION ALSO THE ONLY HOUSE THAT"S NOT ON FIRE (YET) FOR THE SAME REASON I JUST WANNA SEE THE ANALYSIS:TM: IF U WANT I WANNA SEE IF I GOT IT RIGHT :D

Hi :DDD. Thank u for asking,,,, I have many thoughts. I am sorry in advance. This is one of those things I will put under a readmore because I am into rambling. IT GOT A LOT LONGER THAN ANTICIPATED IM SORRY. Like. a lot. It was 4 pages in google docs because i dont trust tumblr to save my drafts

Okay a lot of my Ranboo thoughts are about the syndicate / boreal trio / peerpressure duo. But you’re probably aware I am a Them enthusiast first and both a dsmp enjoyer and person second. Because. I really like the syndicate. I also don’t have too too many thoughts on the more recent lore past the experiments. Once the in character monologues stopped, so did my brain. I communicate through monologue to monologue communication.

American Healthcare is actually gonna be the main reason why this is so long bc it works Very Much for like three different reasons. One sorta niche and abstracter reason is a stream that was basically never elaborated on back in March, either the day after or very close to the peerpressure Egg confrontation stream. The egg called him a coward (for some reason my brain can Only come up with the “stop saying i look like chicken little. he’s dumb, and a coward, and i am NOT a coward” vine), and he is not a coward, so he decided to make an action plan to bring the server together by acting as a mediator for all parties and try to make sure that everyone is happy, because he’s the only one that can see all sides, or something. This was where he said the big happy family™ line but other than Ranboo Become Dream?? analysis nothing else really happened and everything went along as normal.

(I also always held a little bit of suspicion on this stream actually and thought it might be the influence of the egg, because it says it can give one whatever they want, and ranboo wants to make everyone happy and this was a totally foolproof way of doing that. Sort of in a similar way that BBH is convinced that his plan will totally make Skeppy happy. But also Ranboo is just like that, but this felt a little more on the nose than usual and he did fall into the egg and made his decisions after being egged on by it, buT WE’LL NEVER KNOW, WILL WE?

… also I really wanted to see more egg conflict at the time. Peerpressure rlly got involved in the egg plot for cameos at the banquet and nothing else. I do not blame anyone and respect the ccs for all of their attempts to weave plots together but also. also…. we.. we coulda had so much…)

That was a little off topic from the point, but… he really just thinks he can save the sick… he can see that everyone on the server is unwell and is wrong but, y’know, look inwardly, the unwell is coming from inside the house. And an inherent problem of the way that the server runs. And if this is still lowkey in effect or not (idk man a) ranboo has monologued a lot I simply chose a one off from march to grow emotionally attached to and b) i think that my brain has shut off once ranboo stopped solo lore streams), it would probably go the way that most choosing to change the system from the inside goes. Which is the point of the song and stuff! He will inevitably decide what’s too far, whether he will either admit it’s a choice or just feel that it’s what he has to do. The, uh, dealing with the devil, to be polite.

in conclusion (but we are not close to done here i’m holding you for a bit longer), i think a lot about that stream and i think that shows what he wants to be, at the very least, and continuing down that path would definitely go into being far more trouble than just a noble goal of wanting to help people, from negotiating with corruption (The lobbyists, the Congressmen and lies bit) and that the server can’t really be brought together and saved like that (When things are more and more this way / Sometimes it's like they'd rather die)

THE LESS. vwoop why have you written an unnecessarily long post about one stream in your playlist character analysis reason is both more literal and piece by piece and also Syndicate, My Beloved, you know the drill. We are going line by line because I have a lot of feelings about American Healthcare, apparently.

This also comes back to that everyone on the server is doing Really Badly, all of the time, but mostly his time in L’Manburg. For one, he is pretty complacent in everything and doesn’t really accomplish much in terms of actual change, so like Well people die every day / I wouldn't have it any other way / I just think they should feel good while they are alive. An example of this is Exiled Tommy — who I’d also metaphorically put as the dead man just for funsies, since Tommy’s whole exile thing was one of the first things Ranboo experienced on the server—as he did try to be friends with Tommy and keep him company with his letters, but he still has no power over the actual issue at hand. Just trying to make it a bit more bearable. Similarly is Techno, while Ranboo still participated in the butcher army that was trying to kill him, he helped in the meantime until he “died”.

And then it’s the Realization that participating in the system doesn’t really help much, and the subsequent Everything. It could be getting mad at the whole government system and that he didn’t mean to contribute to the harm, or how he fought with Fundy using hs ideology but not in the way that Ranboo thought. It could also be standing up to his hallucination Dream, in that he doesn’t try this hard to be a good person just to be accused of helping with all of the things that he may or may not have helped with. (That is… a discussion for not right now, I don’t know.) And I think this sort of area is also where it’s like they’d rather die is also relevant, cause Doomsday. Nobody could just set aside their governments and just get along, though Ranboo had his own solution to fighting and things.

And then he joins the Syndicate! And the lyrics of the song are directly Government Bad, because government bad. Canon anarchist, has done things that he’s not proud of as a part of the government. The lines it was the government / … It got louder over the years / Until all that I could hear was flies and all.

But honestly I think in the Syndicate he’s still trying to “save the sick”! Because the Syndicate don’t All fit eye to eye either. He’s the token pacifist, and a vote against violence whenever it comes down to it. Not all anarchists are violent but Techno and Phil will probably react strongly when provoked, due to All the past events, and I live in a world where their trauma and issues get talked about as much as everyone else’s. Since everything is decided by vote it’d probably be split between them and Ranboo + Niki, who is in her healing/no longer resorting to murder arc. He’ll help them negotiate and then everything will Be Okay, ideally.

(Also I just like the idea of Ranboo believing that he is helping the people he’s living with because canonically cc!Ranboo has said he just really cares about his family and the syndicate are included in his family shut up but they also just believe they’re helping him and yes it’s self indulgent. I care them. Particularly Endduo, actually, or whatever they're called, I am not bold enough to think Ranboo looks at Techno and thinks I Can Fix Him, but. Philza Minecraft will one day talk about his feelings. One day.)

There’s also radioduo and beeduo as of recent— really I’m just saying I think that Ranboo constantly has a Need To Help People, believes he can do it, and it will come back to hurt him in the end (except for the Syndicate because I’m in denial. The Syndicate can’t fall out if they never stream together :) ).

THIS CONCLUDES THE AMERICAN HEALTHCARE PORTION OF OUR SHOW.

The Only House That’s Not on Fire Yet !! I like this one. This is also blatantly there cause Syndicate. They are the only faction that is not actively falling apart, and this could absolutely be because they never stream together. But I do not care. However we are also going to go through this one piece by piece because we’re nearing 1500 words here and I might as well embarrass myself more. I am writing an incredibly informal essay about Ranboo My _Beloved (i assume his middle name is My, and he’s just one of those people who write his full full name) and this is the third page. If you’re still reading this, I’m sorry. Here we go.

There are lines that just seem like an unwell but recovering person, and I like to sort of think that way about Ranboo in the arctic during the down time. “I feel knotted up today / But in a most exquisite way” and “I feel strangely regular / But honestly I prefer it to / The usual bizarre” are just! He’s just hanging out. He’s doing good. There is the acknowledgement that he’s usually not doing well, and all of the episodes that he’s had in the past, and it’s probably strange to be doing well in the midst of everything, and there’s probably something impending, but now? He’s doing good!

The verses directly after both of those ones are about uncertainty and trust and such, and I feel like that’s not necessarily about just One relationship but all of them. Will cause problems as long as he has an accomplice. He is not confident but he trusts and loves people.

“This suit doesn’t fit me / I made it conterfeitly” I just like to think about Ranboo in his fancy suit, but it’s just a little wrong because he actually has no idea what he’s doing. I also like to think about Ranboo in a cape to fit in with boreal trio and later the syndicate, and emerald duo had matchy blue outfits from the Antarctic Empire… and trying to fit in with them…. or maybe They make him something.. You know. Much to think about.

“Killing me with déjà vu” I think is like. A little less fun, because despite how well things are going, the enderwalk is still not resolved and he had even less answers when I started thinking “this is a ranboo song”. Just as it relates to having a strange sense of reality and stuff, which goes into specifics of enderwalk headcanons, which would make this far longer. Even though I’ve framed it as a negative, there is also the more positive note of “Oh! I just thought of how to change all the hate / Into love with the old switcheroo / Dancing in my déjà vu / You'll be dancing too” which I’d rather explain broken up but I feel like as it’s a full verse it should be together. The first part is connected to my general thoughts of him explained earlier tbh, he’s trying Very Hard to make everyone happy and fix things. And adding the second part to it is just like! He is trying to make sense of everything, and it’s not so scary as time goes by. Since the experiments where he’s been (questionably) trying to be more comfortable and get more answers.

This was very long. I am sorry. I am ending it here and probably not going to do much formatting to make it readable because it is very late o’clock and also this is four pages and 2000 words I am so sorry. But if you read this far then. Uhhh thank. ^v^.

[crystalirises]

The Final Answer (36 Questions AU 7/13)

Seventh part.

OUR WORD

Fundy coughed, scraping the chair against the wooden floor as he put a bit of space between him and Dream, their moment gone as soon as he had realized what Dream was trying to do. He couldn't himself give in that easily. He just couldn't. He tried not to laugh as Dream nearly fell to the floor at the sudden movement. He looked down at their forgotten meal, shaking his head as he knew neither of them would bite into what was clearly rotten meat. 

He picked at the edge of his white shirt, cutting a piece of it off. He hid his scowl, preferring not to send the wrong message to Dream. He needed to stop tearing off pieces of his clothes. This was the fifth one this week. Niki and Ranboo had berated him so many times that he couldn't even count the instances anymore. He shook his head, he didn't need to think about that. 

“Sorry, I thought I had a decent food supply. Should have checked this afternoon. I think Niki told me to check but I've been so busy that I mighta sorta forgot? I don't think I have anything else and I'm sure the storm's ruined the farm. Would you look at that, I guess we’ll both starve, huh?”

“I could teleport us to our cabin. It wouldn't be too difficult. No one would have to see you and no one would have to see me. It would be the two of us... I could teleport us... j-just so we don’t starve!” Dream quickly added as those slitted, gold-flecked brown eyes snapped towards him. Fundy's mouth was pressed into a grim line, his fingers gripping his shirt. 

Dream sat up on the chair, averting his gaze from his husband’s scrutiny. He didn't want Fundy to think he was trying to lure him back... although maybe he should've thought about that option. He needed Fundy to trust him. Besides, it'll be one night... in their cabin... the cabin where they used to live together. He swallowed down his nervousness, hoping Fundy couldn't hear it in his tone, “I’ve been maintaining the food supply in case you… I assumed you might... I hoped you... I... or you know we could starve, that’s a good idea too.”

“…Have you been staying in our cabin?”

“You still think of it as ours?”

“Dre― You know what I mean.”

Dream forced down his amused laughter, pushing himself out of his chair as he began to take their unfinished meal from the table. 

“Sapnap and George are currently mad at me, so I’ve been staying at our cabin. I also thought you might come back if I waited long enough…” He whispered, mostly to himself.

“I can hear you, there’s nothing you can say that I wouldn’t know about.” Fundy’s ear twitched at the top of his head, watching as Dream disappeared shortly into the kitchen. Did he want to go back to their cabin? He sighed, his ears pressing against his head. Was it a trap? It definitely felt like one. 

“And… I can’t blame George and Sapnap, they have every right to be mad after that little stunt you pulled.” Fundy tilted his head to the side, sighing as he thought of how George and Sapnap might have reacted.

“I said that in the heat of the moment.”

“Did you also tell them or am I the first person you’re apologizing to?” Fundy nodded to himself, Dream’s silence was answer enough. “You fucked up.”

“…I know.”

“I’ll go back to the cabin with you, if you promise me one thing.” Fundy leaned back, balancing himself on the back legs of the chair. 

“We’re only going there to eat. Nothing else, ya? It doesn’t mean anything.” Fundy pointed an accusatory finger at where he thought Dream, his eyes narrowing in suspicion, albeit half-heartedly.

“We’re only going back to the cabin so we don’t starve, okay.” Dream emerged from the kitchen, glancing at the chair that Fundy sat on. He pursed his lips together. 

The cabin was… a bit of a mess, though not as horrible as the one they were currently in. He hasn’t had the time to clean. He began to pull at the air, a small holographic panel appearing at his fingertips. Admin magic. It did come in handy at times. As he searched for the coordinates, he spared a glance towards the fox hybrid, “Are we taking the bat with us?”

“Wha― Yes, we’re taking Batry with us! I’m not going to leave them here in the dark… alone… abandoned… unwanted…” Fundy kept his voice low at the last two words, knowing that Dream wouldn’t hear him. He wrapped his around his chest, leaning further against the chair. 

One night. At their cabin. Oh, Niki and Ranboo would kill him if they knew. He hoped everyone was asleep or busy doing whatever it is they did in New L’Manburg these days. 

“Wait, hold on. I have to grab something before we―”

Fundy let out a small yelp, the echo of wood splintering as one of the back legs of the chair collapsed into itself. He closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable crash. It didn’t come. He slowly opened his eyes, and nearly fainted out of embarrassment. 

Dream had caught him, one arm wrapped behind his back as a hand held on tightly to the collar of his shirt. An awkward silence ensued, both of them floundering for words. Fundy was flustered, his words tangling into an incoherent mess. 

“Eh… Uh… Wha… Shit… EHHHH??!!”

“You really fell for me there, huh?”

“Shut up, Dream.” Dream helped him to his feet, letting go as soon as Fundy had his feet firmly on the ground. Fundy looked up, seeing the smirk on his ex-husband’s face. 

“That was the chair’s fault, Dream.” Fundy hid his face behind his hands, heat pooling into his cheeks at the thought of… why the fuck did that chair have to break?!!

“Or it could be fate.”

“No. No. No. No. No.” Fundy held up a hand, backing away from Dream. He didn’t believe in fate. That would be stupid of him. 

“That was an accident. It’s not my fault you have fast reflexes.” Fundy internally groaned. It just had to happen right when Dream was with him, huh? It couldn’t have happened on any other day, could it?!

“Would you rather I let you fall to the ground?” Dream quirked a brow, watching as the fox hybrid fumbled for a response. Dream didn’t quite know what had happened, one moment he was looking up from the control panel, suddenly he was leaping across the room as he heard the sound of wood cracking through the air. Pure instinct. 

“You could just thank me…” Dream knew it was a mistake the moment the words came out of his mouth. He looked down at the fox hybrid, an internal panic circling through his mind. He was going to get kicked out for that.

Fundy gave him a pointed look before leaving the dining room.

“Or not…” Dream sighed, watching the tip of Fundy’s tail disappear down the hallway. Too soon. Shouldn’t have made that joke. He nodded to himself, as if taking note of that. 

“Should not have said that, Dream.” Dream ran a hand through his hair, a few bits of sand falling past his fingertips. He didn’t get most of them out… oops. Fundy wouldn’t kill him for spreading sand in his dining room, right?

Batry squeaked, flapping their wings as they settled on the crook of Dream’s shoulder, nuzzling his neck.

“He would, huh?” He petted the bat’s head, booping their little nose as they both waited for Fundy to come back. 

“What do you think, Batry? Think I still got a chance here?”

Batry didn’t say anything, merely nuzzling further into the crook of Dream’s neck. So much for support. Dream sighed, guess he’d just have to see where this night would lead to. He reached to comb a hand through his hair, jolting as he realized he’d left his mask in Fundy’s room. Batry squeaked in indignation as Dream bolted out of the dining room, his hurried footsteps loud against the creaky steps of the stairs.

Fundy looked up from the enderchest, his ears pricking up as he heard the thump of footsteps in the hall. For some reason, he waited for the slam of the front door… the all-consuming silence of an empty house… it didn’t come. He could hear the muffled steps from above as, he assumed, Dream walked around. He shook his head, turning his attention back to scouring through his mess of stuff. His fingers grazed the familiar cool handle of a trident… the trident Dream had given him for their anniversary…

He placed the item into his inventory, just in case. He headed back into the hall just as Dream came back down the stairs, mask in hand. They stared at each other, as if they had both caught the other doing a heinous crime. Fundy scratched the back of his arm, wondering if Dream could see his thoughts through his eyes. Batry flew into the hall, setting themselves on Fundy’s shoulder as they gazed at the two of them with curious black eyes. Dream broke the silence first, “I just went to get my mask.”

“I didn’t ask for an explanation.” Dream winced at the quick reply. Of course, there was nothing weird about what he’d done. Why would he think otherwise? Dream leapt off the last step of the stairs, his boots thudding against the wooden floor. 

He willed the holographic panel into existence, typing in the coordinates as fast as he could. And if his fingers were trembling, well, Fundy didn’t say anything about it. 

“Did you get what you were looking for? What was it?”

“Ya, I did. Don’t worry about it.” Fundy stepped closer to the man, his eyes narrowing as a familiar code of numbers appeared on the command box. 

“Back… to the cabin we go.”

“Yeah… it’s been lonely since you left.”

“Well, I am the life of the party so I can see why.” The joke came out dryly, an attempt at humor. Fundy tried not to wince as Dream flinched. 

“Ya, just bring us to the cabin. It better not be a mess in there.”

“I make no promises.” Dream entered the code, the air shifting around them as the walls began to melt. Fundy shuddered, pressing closer to Dream as the world around them disintegrated and rearranged itself. Reality fell away, morphing into a familiar room of a house Fundy never thought he’d ever come back to.

“Oh… nothing’s changed.”

Their living room looked just as he had left. The pictures that Dream insisted to place on the walls were the same, those creepy eyes staring down at them in judgment. The flowers he had placed in a vase on the middle of the coffee table were wilted, but that was to be expected. The house still smelled the same, a hint of lime and orange entangled into the air. It felt as if he had never even left.

“I tried not to… change anything. I couldn’t really bring myself to…” Dream walked towards the switch, a flood of iridescent blue light illuminating the room. Dream remembered the day Fundy had installed the redstone for the place, shushing Dream away from the cabin as if he didn’t trust him with something as complex as redstone. He felt a small smile tug at the edges of his lips as he watched his husband look through the space they once shared, “Did… anything change? What’s your verdict?”

“Aside from the flowers, nothing’s changed.” Fundy settled onto the couch, nearly letting out a contented sigh as he felt the soft cushions. The coach he had back in Drywaters was rough and smelt of spilt coffee. He really should steal someone else’s couch at some point. He curled up into the couch, hearing Dream walk away as the sound of a cutlery filled the air. Good. He didn’t really want to cook anything. He placed his head on the couch’s arm, his eyes closing as he let himself reminisce.

Dream wandered into the kitchen, clutching the mask to his chest as he thought of what he could make. What could make this night go a little bit right? He froze, their first date. He rushed to the food supply, hoping that he had the ingredients for filet mignon steak and roasted duck. Though… whether he knew how to cook them was the question here. He just hoped that he didn’t accidentally burn the kitchen down… because that would just be his luck, wouldn’t it? Well. Here’s to hoping he does a good job.

A moment later, Fundy felt a hand on his shoulder. He screeched, bolting out of the couch as he fumbled through his inventory for a sword.

“Woah! Woah! Woah! It’s just me, Fundy!”

 Fundy groaned, throwing his hands in the air. “For fuck’s sake, Dream. Don’t do that. That’s how Wilbur used to wake me up during―”

He didn’t continue that. Dream nodded stiffly, placing their meal on the table as he settled on the single chair instead. Fundy hesitantly walked over to the couch, his eyes narrowing at the choice of food Dream had chosen to cook. He was beginning to think this was an elaborate trap. “You fell asleep on the couch. I wasn’t going to wake you but you might stab in my sleep if you woke up here in the morning.”

“You would be correct.” Fundy looked up at Batry who had settled on the ceiling above them, squeaking happily at the change of scenery. Fundy looked down at the roasted duck, wondering how many hours he had been asleep for. Roasted duck does not cook itself in a minute. He spots the black edges of the duck, hiding his amusement at the way Dream somehow managed to ruin roasted duck. “Back to what we were actually doing. Ask me the next question.”

“Right. The question.” Dream wracked through his brain. They were on question nine. He took a bite of filet mignon, the edges tougher than the inner parts of the steak. “Question 9. ‘For what in your life do you feel most grateful?’” He took another bite, wincing as he felt the crunch of a part of the steak he had burnt. After a moment, he glanced back up. Fundy’s silence was… disturbing. Fundy was looking down at his dinner, his mouth pressed into a thin line. Why wasn’t he answering?

“I don’t know, Dream. Maybe… founding Drywaters? I really don’t know what to answer.” Fundy cut a piece of the roasted duck, the knife clinking against the plate. Dream didn’t press him, nodding his head as if he understood. Well maybe he did because he was there as everything Fundy cared about either died or exploded into a million pieces. “What’s your answer?” Fundy wouldn’t be surprised if Dream said something along the lines of power or his plans going right. That seemed like a reasonable answer, right?

“I’m grateful for this chance.” Dream averted his gaze as Fundy looked up from his meal, an incredulous look dancing in his eyes. Did Fundy really expect he’d answer anything else other than that? He cleared his throat. He needed this to be said, “I’m grateful that you’re giving me another chance to prove that I’m the same Dream you fell in love with.”

“The same Dream I fell in love with… okay.” Fundy stopped eating. His appetite gone. It was definitely not because Dream was shit at cooking. “If you say so.”

“Ask me the next one.”

“Question 10. ‘If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?’” It was Dream’s turn to be silent. “Dream? This should be easy for you… y-you said you didn’t have parents.”

“About that…” Dream could feel the putrid taste of his old lie on his tongue. Fundy’s eyes narrowed, his mouth opening in shock and realization. It didn’t matter then. It still didn’t matter now. “I might have lied about my previous answer―”

“YOU LIED ABOUT HAVING NO PARENTS?!” Fundy wasn’t mad, not really, no. He knew a thing or two about shitty parents, he couldn’t exactly blame the blonde if he wanted to forget that part of his life. He was… surprised, is all. “Why? Are they that horrible that you wrote yourself as an orphan? Were you trying to get sympathy points from me? No, that wouldn’t make sense you knew Techno was my uncle―”

“I lied because they didn’t really matter.”

“You lied to me about your parents… because they didn’t matter?” Fundy raised a brow, confusion clouding his mind. He disowned Wil once, sure, but he did to get Schlatt’s trust. He wasn’t sure he could ever bring himself to completely disown the man, no matter how terrible of a father he was. He couldn’t do that to Wil. Dream didn’t share the same sentiment for his parents, “…you hated them that badly?”

“My mother was busy, didn’t quite have the time to raise a child. She would be at the house for one second before bolting out the door the next.” Dream sighed, pulling his chair closer to the table. He wasn’t close to his mother, but he certainly had a better relationship with her than… “My father was… well, people would call him a demon. He even had the horns for it and everything. Hm… He was an alcoholic. A smoker. A scammer. He even had a lot of weird titles he used to name himself… Senile old man…”

Fundy blinked, surprise in his face as he realized how familiar those terms were. He looked at Dream, but saw nothing that could confirm his suspicions. There was… No way… Dream wasn’t… He let out a small croak at the back of his throat. There was no fucking way! Dream stared at him, nodding his head as if he knew what Fundy was thinking. “You’re…” Fundy leaned further into the coach. His limbs growing cold at this sudden revelation. “Oh… wow… that… must suck… I’m so sorry… Oh, fuck―”

“Yeah.” Dream placed his hands on the table, attention fixed on the edge of the wooden surface.

“I am so sorry, Dream.” Fundy pursed his lips together. “You’d probably like to change everything, huh?”

“That would be nice…” Dream sighed.

“What was it like?” Fundy paused, “Your childhood, that is.”

“When I was a little kid, like really little, like 8 or so…” Dream let himself reminisce, the hurried words stumbling past his lips, “I was playing in my father's study. A place in the house I wasn't supposed to go.”

He scoffed, moving on to Mr. Shitty Parental Unit, “My father fancied himself a merchant.” Go dad, woo…

“His study was filled with mystical products. He kept an alcohol bottle on the top of a shelf…” He winced, shivering. “…and it shattered on the ground when I slammed the door. I told my mother everything.”

Dream remembered the cold look on her face, “I told her I was so, so sorry. She told me, ‘Don't cry.’” She didn’t care about the bottle. “’When he comes home tonight, we can make everything okay.’”

He remembers the first taste of a lie on his tongue, “’This is all we have to say…’”

He remembers his father, “’We don't remember an alcohol bottle. It must've fallen off its shelf alone.’” He trembled. “’We know you loved that, we're so sad it's broken, but neither one of us was even home.’"

His father’s face was contorted in unbridled fury… “And it's our word.”

He swallowed down the taste of fear in the back of his throat, “Yes, our word against his.” His father had been disappointed, but that didn’t erase their love for him, if it could be called that. A problem child. His mother wasn’t any better, “So I hid screw-ups from my father. Made up fake awards to please my mom.”

He shook his head, his mind abuzz with memories he had forced down. “Whatever made the steak taste better. Whatever kept the waters calm.” His father was a man who lived by the coin, a stingy businessman who hungered for more than what he already had. More. More. His mother was a busy woman, absent that he could barely recall her face. From a young age, he was raised with the idea that if you wanted something, you would do anything to get it. “I was told to keep their secrets, and in turn they'd keep mine.”

The accumulation of lies he had made hung over his head, a heavy weight that threatened to fall and crush him if he wasn’t careful. “As I got older, I got dumber. I couldn't help but cross the line.” The shit he had gotten himself into, the mistakes that left scars upon his skin. He acted without thinking, assured by his own self-confidence that he never thought of the consequences. Not that his parents ever taught him any different. They praised him for it. “Three times I nearly wrecked my life. Three times I nearly came to ruin.”

It was his own fault for being weak to chase after the advice of a man and woman who knew nothing but lies, “Three times went crying to my parents, who said they'd make it go away.” His father didn’t like anything that disrupted their “perfect” life. His mother didn’t like anything that disrupted their “peaceful” life. It made him sick, knowing he played along with their schemes. He had danced to their little waltz, upon a crimson-stained floor. “Yes, this is all we had to say… ‘We never created a house in Essempy.’”

He could still see the red that stained his fingertips, “’We didn't see that boy the day he died.’”

His father had merely glanced at him as he told him what he’d done. The man gave him a sharp smile, a smile that told him not to worry… “’We haven't been on our boat in some years now, so we don't care what you found inside’.” How was he to know what his parents had done? How was he to know that they would change the whole narrative? Frame someone else for his sins? “And it's our word. Yes, our word.”

The echo of a bag of coins clinking together rang through his ears. “It's our word. Yes, our word…” His father settled matters in the way he knew best, “…against theirs. Somebody was paid to make it go away.”

Dream turned his gaze to the floor, hiding his eyes. “Everyone was paid to make the problems go away.”

It was easier that way. “Doesn't matter who gets screwed, or who is blamed, or what you need to do to clear your name.” Easier to lie. “An inconvenient truth can be easily erased. When I was like, eighteen…”

The immense joy he felt when he ran from home, the freedom he gained as he found a new place to settle. A place where no one knew who he was, a place where he could be himself. “I was living somewhere else. I developed some fun habits…” He met George and Sapnap, the first real friends he’s ever had in life. They taught him a myriad of tricks, dangerous and risky… he enjoyed every one of them. It was the thrill of irresponsibility, the adrenaline in his veins, “…put my many brain cells to work. I remember it so clearly.”

George and Sapnap had gone to look for iron, leaving him alone in the house they shared. “I was parkouring on a Tuesday night. To increase speed, I'd drink some potions…” He recalled the taste of nether wart and sugar on his tongue, the sickly-sweet stench that emitted from the bottle. It wasn’t his first, having drunk a few other potions within the day. He didn’t know why he did it. He knew it was a bad idea. He knew what might happen, “…but couldn't seem to get my mind right. I set a goal and tried to do it.”

He bit the side of his cheek, metallic iron coating the inside of his mouth. His fingers trembled against the edge of the table he didn’t know he had been gripping, “And suddenly became aware, I couldn't bring myself to stop running.” He remembers the chilling wind on his cheek, the panic that blossomed in his chest as he had kept jumping and running. He remembers reaching the top, the world slowing down as his gaze flicked up towards the starry sky, “I screamed as I fell off the edge, and as I laid there helplessly…”

He barely felt the soothing hand on his shoulder, those warm eyes – Fundy’s – that peered up into his own. “A million different thoughts came to me. I saw my parents hearing the news…” Would his parents have cared… if they did knew? “’Your beloved son died today.’ I thought about what they might say.”

He held back his pitiful tears. They probably would have said, “’Our own son, our Dream?’”

His father would laugh, incredulous and lost in a fog of alcohol, “’No, he ran far away. He's very happy now, or so we guess.’” His mother would scowl, insulted at the insinuation that own their son would…, “’He's always been so goddamned independent. Years have gone by and we still haven’t see him.’"

Or maybe… just maybe… "’Our own son, our Dream?’”

He pressed his lips together, his hands clenching into tight fists. “’You must be mistaken. You mean the boy we raised as if our own?’” Would they have denied their relations? Why admit that their own son ran away from them? That would tarnish their reputation, tarnish their perfect little stance on the world. They couldn’t have that. “’We loved him so much he felt like our child, but eventually we had to send him home’.”

He felt hot tears run down his cheek, his hands rising to block out his face, “It'd be their word. Only their word.” He felt warm and gentle arms wrap around his shaking figure, “It'd be their word. Only their word.”

He let himself be consoled for what felt like forever, “On its own.”

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

prev / next

[turnaboutimagines]

Now I want to Apollo's reaction a reader with Hanahaki disease. Maybe add the "tell me a lie" "love you" prompt? I'm going start signing off as the angst gremlin. XD

Well, a very happy Friday the 13th to you, Angst Gremlin Anon!!!  I couldn’t quite make the prompt fit, but I incorporated something kinda sorta similar that I felt fit better.  I don’t personally use the surgery route for Angst pieces like this, so there’s no cure aside from requited love in this universe.  This is set between DD and SoJ.Content Warning (please read before you read!): This is ANGST™️ without a happy ending and blatant Apollo bullying given everything he goes through; features unrequited love and reader death.  This is a Hanahaki disease fic which means imagery of reader coughing up blood and flowers.  However, this gets a little more grotesque than usual for me with language through the imagery of vomiting flowers and blood, rather than just petals.

You knew you should’ve guarded your heart more around Apollo—for the both of you.  But it was hard to resist the pull of his sarcastic banter and deep-rooted, earnest loyalty.  And then it was the way his eyes light up when he grins or the cute (yes, cute!) rasp of his voice from his Cords of Steel Training.

Friendly blows gradually taking on a flirtatious edge as the first blushes of romantic love set in.  

You should’ve taken precautions when you felt your blood rush to your face more and more around him.  Too bashful to ever say anything, you were fine with your relationship being strictly platonic as it had always been.

But you didn’t and you only fell harder.

The crimson peony, starkly contrasting with the white of the toilet bowl, is proof enough of that.  You feel light-headed as you stared at the taunting blossom, hot blood prickling uncomfortably under your skin and the taste of copper on your tongue.  Your chest heaved with the effort that it took to simply breathe, lungs filled with stems, leaves, and budding flowers taking up too much space.  

When you weren’t choking on petals or, as you were, flowers you were suffocating.  Slowly and agonizingly suffocating in silence.  Your life had almost wilted away in its entirety by now, overshadowed by the uncontrollable bloom of your unrequited affections.

You’d hidden yourself away from Apollo’s perceptive eye: ghosting him and avoiding him without any attempt at an explanation.  You couldn’t bring yourself to lie to him and you couldn’t tell him the truth, silence was always easier.  And like how the sun rises each morning, he still tried to connect with you each day, probably worried sick about you how you’d seemingly dropped off the face of the planet.  Because you were his friend and he’d already lost one.  Because he—

There was a series of knocks at the door.  Loud, desperate, and unmistakable even from where you were in the bathroom.  You screwed your eyes shut, rasping for air as you hoped that they would stop.  That he’d go away.

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t.  You’re surprised it’d taken him this long to show up at your door like this, but he was likely trying to respect your boundaries.  Just as you had when he needed to pull away and needed time to grieve.  But enough time had passed that the concern was becoming overpowering.  And… it certainly wasn’t misplaced.

The knocking continued and you let out a groan, forcing yourself onto your feet before flushing the flower away, knowing full well that another would take its place within the next few hours.  The urge to see Apollo one last time was overwhelming and… he deserved a goodbye.

A short exchange.  That was all it would be, that was all you had the mental fortitude for.  Get him to leave while also giving him the only kindness you could think of—to grant him some of the closure he didn’t get with Clay.

That’s all.

The sound of his fist connecting with your door reverberated through your skull as you placed.  You put on the best attempt at a smile you could muster before opening it, you knew full well that he’d see through it but you couldn’t bring yourself to face him otherwise.

He stepped back, fist falling to his side as his eyes met yours, blinking at you in a way that suggested you’d taken him by surprise.  Yet his shock was quick to die down as a spark of hope.  Something that used to make the blood rush to your cheeks… and it still does.

You were focusing so hard on breathing and smiling normally that you simply waited for him to speak.  He said your name and you had to avert your eyes, the sound of it simultaneously too sweet and too painful all at once as you tried to let him continue.

“I’m glad y—”

He choked over his words and you forced yourself to look back at him, only to see him staring down at your chest.  Confused, you looked down… only to see that large speckles of crimson and a damming red petal had managed to make their way onto your shirt during your most recent fit without you realizing.

There was only one thing it could mean:

Hanahaki Disease.

You saw that precious light die in his eyes at that realization and all the terrible things it meant.  It was too painful to look at, so you looked away yet again.  The silence was stifling, it felt almost too thick to inhale with your cramped lungs, yet you forced yourself to do so anyways.

“…You’re not…really…are you…?”

“I am…”

Dying.  There was no avoiding its imminence, yet neither of you could bring yourself to say it aloud.  To make it real.

“Who?!”  The word came out louder than he intended as he grabbed your shoulders, his grip still surprisingly gentle. “I mean, if there’s a chance that we could get, you shouldn’t give up.  A-Anyone would be lucky to have you…!”

It hurt.  And you felt a familiar tickling at the back of your throat, you swallowed thickly and took a deep breath immediately after, buying you some more time.

“That’s not possible,” you said, still not meeting his eyes.

“Who is it?”

“…”

You suspected that despite his apparent obliviousness that he was very aware of your flirtatious intent with him; however, you doubted that he grasped the depth of your feelings for him.  It wasn’t something that his abilities could easily reveal and you took great pains to hide them—as much from him as yourself.

Your suspicions were confirmed as he suddenly seems to connect the dots and he recoiled away from you, as if you were red hot to the touch.

“No.”

A single word whispered, cracked and sharpened around its broken edges.  You knew from the guilt and disbelief in his voice what he’d decided upon.  That it was his hand, now, that had stabbed a knife into your heart, twisting it as you slowly bled out.  Blood that was on his hands.

But it wasn’t.

You tried to find the words to tell him that this was your own hubristic doing, but your mind was a maze and the world was getting fuzzier.  You needed to focus on breathing more.  It was only growing more difficult…  A breath in.  A breath out.  

That’s all.

The words still weren’t there, but you needed to say something.  The silence was too much.  So you forced yourself to look at him.  Tears were streaming down his face, but it wasn’t the desperate way he grabbed your shoulders again and looked at you that stole away the words you didn’t even have.  It was what came after.

“I-I love you.”

You knew that he meant it, but not in the way that he was trying to force it in that moment.  He loved you as a friend.  And there was nothing wrong with that.  You needed him to see that.

“You do.  But it isn’t… that isn’t what I feel toward you.”  You offered him an apologetic smile as you brought your hands up to rest over his in an attempt at comfort to the inconsolable.  “And that’s fine.  You haven’t done anything wrong, Apollo.  And I’m… so sorry.  About this.  All of this.  I didn’t mean for this—for any of this to happen.”

He slid his arms around you and pulled you close with trembling arms and shook his head.  “It’s not fine…!  I…I can still save you!  If I fall in love with you soon, then—!”

“—But that’s… not fair to you!  Y-You can’t just force love like that…!  But I’m grateful… to have b-been loved by you as I was.  I don’t regret that,” you sniffled, holding him back as best you could.

The itch at the back of your throat was becoming overwhelming once again, you needed to get to the bathroom.  Your time was up.

Tears streamed down your face as you pushed him away.  There were so many things you wanted to say to him, but not nearly enough time to say it.

“Thank you, Apollo.  Please don’t blame yourself…  I-It’s my fault that I loved you too much.”  You gave him a final smile through the tears streaming down your face, all while you twisted the knife deep into his gut.  “That’s all.”

A lie.

He called your name in a panic, hand instinctively reaching out to follow you as you quickly stepped back into your home and closed the door behind you, locking it with a final click.

You didn’t look back as you rushed to the bathroom once again, the bangs on the door and shouts of your name falling on deaf ears.  The world spun underneath you as you tried to stumble your way as the flowers mercilessly tear through your throat.

You crashed to the floor, crumpling to a heap on the floor as you helplessly clawed at your throat as your face became engorged with blood, feeling as if it was on fire.  Perhaps it was the agitation of what had just unfolded that had sped up the bleeding, quickening the inevitable along with it.  You’d thought you’d have longer…

However, you didn’t think much of anything, your mind was a jumble of thoughts as it fought to survive.  Hyper aware of the feeling of the flowers pushing their way through you and the sounds around you; the frantic knocking on the door, the hoarse calling of your name…

There is only one clear thought—one person—in your jumbled mind as everything seems to come undone:

Apollo.  That’s all.

[spiltscribbles]

211 please! Any ship!

Notes: Thank you bubby! This actually helped me get out a slump lol, i really really hope you enjoy this fluffy mess and I would love to hear your thoughts!

A Reblog saves a life!  |  Send Me A Prompt

.-

Annabeth is a fully fledged adult now, honest.

She subscribes to the New Yorker, listens to podcasts in the morning while getting ready for her crummy, right out of college internship in one of the most prestigious architecture firms in the city. She votes even in the primaries  and remembers to reload her metro card before it’s out and has even got a God forsaken schedule that she relies on like a lifeline.

All this to say, Annabeth had really once thunk that becoming an adult meant your life turns stale and your days become monotonous. But that was before she began boarding with three literal definitions of spitfires in a Bushwick apartment way too small for four girls, and way to run down for the countless prank wars waged between them and the boys across the way. 

Annabeth tries telling Piper this one Thursday afternoon while she’s loading her Nerf gun with the water balloons that Rachel’s preparing with such precision that it kinda terrifies Annabeth shitless, if she’s being frank.

“’s too late to surrender now Chase!” Piper bellows, cocking and then setting down the toy gun in a neat row  for the next to be prepared. “It’s about honor now.”

“Honor?” Annabeth repeats in a voice that’s flat enough to cut.

“They’ve won the last two rounds Annabeth,” Rachel tells her, point blank as she ties the next water balloon to be passed off, alabaster skin freckled with paint like always when she comes back from one of her classes. “They’re getting too big headed over this.”

“Yesterday Leo offered to buy me a latte! The little fuck.”

Annabeth’s fair brows knit  together, totally confused to Piper’s sudden flash of anger, but reckons that it would be impossible to understand the perceived slight even if she asked Piper to explain.

“You guys are off your rockers,” Annabeth informs them instead, flickers her gaze over to Hazel for some support from someone who is actually sane. She in turn only shrugs, endeared looking as she returns to her sketches. 

“Et tu Brute?”

“it’s fun,” Hazel says in her southern drawl, which Annabeth once thought was sweet because it reminded her of venturing outdoors in the Virginia foothills when she was a tot. Though now Annabeth has decided  that the accent is actually a ploy  to make her sound welcoming for her pray  before she killed them off. Knows it for a fact that she’s done it with that friend who visits enough that he’s practically living with the guys too, which obviously means he was roped into all this ridiculousness.

“You’re either with us or against us baby doll,” Piper winks Annabeth’s way, starts a new round of ammunition with Rachel. “This one’s for Mama Fisher in the stars!”

“Insane! Fucking insane! Annabeth repeats emphatically before storming out there apartment to grab the mail, suddenly feels accosted with unwelcome nerves when she steps into the elevator only to be met face to face with one of the aforementioned boys across the hall, the objectively good looking, but impossibly kind one.  All ebony locks and crooked grins and eyes the color of sea glass.

Oh fuck.

“Annabeth,” he crows, positively gleeful sounding, which only makes it so her cheeks begin to redden, and her chest contracts.

“Percy, hey how’s it been.”

“Fine,” he says with a one armed shrug, begins scratching the back of his head sheepishly. And God fucking damn it, he doesn’t also get to be cute! That’s not fair! “You headed to work?”

“oh, ah yeah, I mean just for some overtime. We got commissioned for this new thing in Germany of all places, and they kinda need all hands on deck.”

He whistles, low and impressed. 

“Why do I get the sense that they’d crumble without you?” He asks with a quirked brow.

“Because flattery is a great way to make friends,” Annabeth smirks, strolls out towards the back row of mail slots  to get the inevitable pack of bills and adverts that’s waiting for them.

“Oy, I take offense to that Annabeth,” he sniffs, leans against the wall besides her, one leg crossed over the other, effortless in the whole CW pretty boy with a mysterious past shtick he’s got working for him. An even more hilarious thought on account to Annabeth knowing how his ma sends him a basket of homemade, blue cookies every Sunday afternoon, and that he spends most of his free time protesting for action against  climate change with his best friend from literal childhood, a scruffy, adorable dork named Grover.

“Is that right?” She snorts as she shuffles through the letters, tosses away the offer for a free garden gnome from some Lady named Aunty Em, crams a  coupon for a free panty from Victoria’s Secret into her bra, and texts the group chat for Rachel to pick up a letter from her dad and Hazel one from her older brother. 

“Course,” Percy sulks, big eyes glittering a thousand shades of green that it kinda takes Annabeth’s breath away. “I thought we’ve been friends, at least for a while now.”

“You know what they say about assuming Perseus,” Annabeth snorts, hip checking him as she makes the track down to the nearest subway stop, at least a five minute walk. She totally is not utterly elated over the fact that he’s still walking besides her, dimpling down like there were no where else he’d rather be.

“You know I didn’t even think you could allude to curse words,” Percy guffaws, impossibly bright and impossibly real. “I thought you were too prim and proper for that sorta behavior.”

“Shut up seaweed brains,” Annabeth laughs, can’t help the smile that breaks her face in half whenever he’s around.

“No deadass Chase!” he defends, emphatic. “I even bet Jason that you were related to like Grace Kelly or some shit, that it’s like illegal in your familial bylines to present yourself as anything other than perfect in public.”

“You are such a pain in the ass.”

“Oh my God! You did it again! It’s like it’s  Christmas!”

Faux aggrieved, Annabeth rolls back her head in exasperation, eyes alone definitely not enough to emote the proper level of feeling.

“Hey don’t blame me,” Percy raises his hands in concession. “You’re the one who refuses to have fun, like you were a forty year old lawyer.”

Annabeth hikes up her brows, affronted. 

“i have fun!”

“Right,” Percy snorts. “I’m sorry babe but Friday night board games don’t count.”

“Those are fun Percy!” Annabeth argues.

“You wouldn’t know fun if it hit you in the face!” Percy insists, stopping outside the stairwell. 

“And what? Pelleting one another with water balloons like we were Freshman’s in college again, that’s fun to you I suppose?” Annabeth charges, glare firmly set and weight slung to her left hip.

“Why yes Grandma, it is,” Percy tells her, words hugged in a playful cadence that really could entice anyone to commit a felony with him. The bastard.

“You are a prick,” Annabeth informs him waspishly.

“And you don’t always gotta be so stressed. I mean I respect the hustle Chase, but you’re allowed to just chill once in a while, let down your hair and all.” 

“You couldn’t handle that,” she sniffs, pulls out her card to swipe. “If I actually tried me and the girls would ruin you fools.”

“Is that right?”

“Wipe the floor with you,” Annabeth assures.

“Well then, looking forwards to the challenge Chase,” Percy beams, softly tugs on her high pony before walking back to the apartments. It feels like a legion of butterflies are swarming down deep in Annabeth’s stomach over the small contact alone.

“Damn you Percy Jackson.”

.-

“Remind me again why you’re helping? Hazel asks for the third time that Saturday morning as the four sum are crowded around the makeshift map Annabeth had sketched out for them to follow, fully determined now.

“Shh,” Piper swats at her arm, as if physically trying to shoo the question away. “Annabeth we don’t care as long as you explain the plan just one more time.”

“Slower,” Rachel tacks on, gnawing on her thumb nail nervously. 

“Right, well just listen closer ladies, this is a one and done deal, okay?” She’s met by a chorus of nods before she repeats her game strategy, one where each girl takes one of the four main hotspots around the building, skulking in the shadows until the predicted guy ends up there, surprised and defenseless when met by the water balloons of doom.

“I’ve already casually told both Jason and Leo that my parents were throwing us a brunch up state, so they don’t even know that we’re here.”

“God Annabeth if I didn’t think it would ruin our friendship I’d kiss you right now,” Piper sighs dreamily.

“Focus that pretty little head McLean,” Annabeth instructs, elbowing her side caustically. “You’re position is by the gym, Jason always goes there Saturday afternoons cause he thinks it makes it alright for him to get plastered that night.”

“You’re fucking a nerd,” Rachel tells Piper and both Annabeth and Hazel can’t help but nod along.

“No judgment zone!” Piper demands petulantly.

“Whatever,” Annabeth waves her off.  “Hazel you’ll be in the front, waiting for Frank to  come visit, and Rachel you’ll be waiting in the garden area where Leo comes to build one of his freaky gadgets.”

“Totally, you can count on me babe.”

“And what about you Annabeth?” Hazel asks.

“I’ve got Jackson,” Annabeth tells her, tone mock grave as she cocks her own toy weapon determinedly.

“So sexy,” Piper marvels.

.-

Their building rents out a corner on the bottom level to a small bistro with friendly smiles and tasty enough brew that it keeps them coming back. It’s where Annabeth and Percy had first met when he had moved in with the others nearly six months ago. It’s also the first place Annabeth heard his laughter, and where Percy listened when she went on a tirade about her crazy parents and their crazy expectations and how sometimes she just needed space away from all of it. It’s where Percy told her that his mother is the most important person in his world and how he thought he never cared what his father thought of him until he had to make a decision on what he’d major in, and of course he followed in Poseidon’s footsteps. It’s where they stayed up late trading stories about their complicated childhoods and dreams for their futures and the place that Annabeth knew for sure that if she let herself, she really could fall for Percy. For the candor in his brilliant  eyes. For the pretty smile he sports for the sake of his loved ones over himself, and for  the conviction in his beliefs.

Annabeth tries not thinking of any of that when she crouches down deeper in the dark nook behind one of the decorative plants as Percy gets up from his table, tossing out his latte and shouldering his work bag.

It’s now or never.

The moment Percy steps through the threshold Annabeth pounces up and aims. What she doesn’t expect is for him to keel over to block her, and instead of hitting his insanely chiseled pecks, the water balloon hits straight in his face. Close enough and hard enough that the water suddenly darkens to red, mixing with the blood pouring out his nose.

“Holy shit!” Percy cries, pinching his nostrils shut.

“Oh my God!” Annabeth yells, frantically grabs for a pile of napkins from the counter besides her— toppling over a mess of straws and sugar packets in her wake— and then dashes over to press them into his grasp. “I’m so so sorry! I didn’t in my wildest dreams imagine that would happen! I swear!”

Annabeth expects at least for Percy to bemoan the injury, but instead she’s answered by a frankly terrifying boom of cackles.

“Percy? Have you cracked? Did I knock your brains out permanently?”

“When you said you’d ruin us, I didn’t think you’d literally cause physical harm Chase,” Percy retorts, still fighting down bubbles of laughter.

“You’re manic,” she pouts, long suffering.

“And you’re terrifying.”

“Bet it works for you though,” she preens, can’t help but be boastful over the way a blush touches  the tops of his cheeks.

“Talk about adding harm to humiliation,” Percy grouces. 

“Poor baby,” Annabeth mock croons, thinks that today actually might turn out pretty amazing.

.-

She brings him upstairs to properly clean off the blood from his face and to come up with the conditions with at least a temporary truce, definitely not so she can finally trade a totally thrilling snog with him in privacy.

“You drive a hard bargain Chase,” Percy tells her, settling into the sofa as Annabeth unfolds her game of monopoly for them, having proclaimed that it’s a perfect time for her to prove how much fun board games can be.

“Oh hush,” she cuffs him on the back of the head playfully. “You’re just mad I won.”

“More like you committed battery,” Percy contends, pouting moodily, is only consoled when Annabeth leans forwards to kiss him again.

“You looked pretty bleeding— Oh God! Did I just say that out loud?”

Percy dissolves into a peals of laughter once more, and Annabeth tries her damndest to melt into a puddle right on spot.

“I can’t believe I’m so into such a maniac,” Percy tells her, eyes and smile glittering.

“SO rude,” Annabeth sniffs, arms crossed against her chest. 

“But accurate Chase.”

Annabeth doesn’t bother to argue anymore because Percy’s already slanted their lips against one another again, and he’s doing this insane thing with his tongue that it makes her toes curl.

Yeah, today turned out amazing indeed.