#damn I'll be honest I didn't even know their ship name was that .

[sallieraptor]

horrible quality gifs cuz I'm not a gif artist, Idk how to make them. I just needed to put them here because this gotta be one of the most adorable and fun celebrations I've ever seen and I want to save it <3

[maluustrawberry]

"My biggest treasure"

(Tulio X Fem!Reader X Miguel)

(The road to El Dorado fanfiction)

{Part. 2}

{Part. 1}

A/N: I'm really happy with the support you're giving me and that you're enjoying my fanfiction. I promise that I will soon post what you asked me to write, I didn't forget, don't worry, lol.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

~ Moments before...~

I drew my sword and pointed it at them, the first man was a blond with medium hair and wearing a red shirt, the second man... my eyes went wide, I immediately recognized him, he was the man who robbed me!...

~

~ {Pov} Y/n:

“You?!...” I said angrily and pointed my sword at him, who looked at me in confusion.

“Me?” he asked.

“Sir, is your voice too girlish or is it just me?” The blond asked confusedly as he put his hands up.

Damn it, I spoke in my real voice... I regained my "manly" posture and got back to the point:

“You two!” I forced my voice to maintain my disguise and carried on as if nothing had happened. “Thieves... The captain will be thrilled to know there are stowaways on that ship!”

“Hey mister, calm down, it was a misunderstanding.” The blond tried to explain himself, still holding his hands up.

“I told you this plan wouldn't work!” The thief muttered to the other.

“And it definitely didn't.” I said, still pointing my sword at them. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn't hand you over to the general.”

“Listen, me and my friend here were on the run and ended up hiding in these barrels, only we didn't know that these barrels were going to...” The blond began to explain until he looked around thoughtfully. “What ship are we on?”

“General Cortés' ship, heading for El Dorado....” I replied and they looked surprised and scared at the same time.

“Oh... Right...” The blond cleared his throat. “Anyway, we were on the run and ended up hiding in these loads. Please, we swear it was an accident.”

“Running away? Running away from the guards, right?” They kept quiet as if they had nothing to argue about. “You, blondie, I can forgive. But you...” I pointed my sword at the brunette. “You'll see me before you go to the general, you bastard!”

“Hey, wait a minute, do I know you? What have I done to you?” He asked confused.

“You know very well.” I ended up letting my real voice take over, I couldn't control myself any longer, I was angry after all. “Give back the diary and the money you stole from me!” I pointed my sword at his face.

“Wait, wait i shaved this morning...” He mocked, but looked scared at the sword.

“Oh yeah? There's a bit missing... Come on! Give back what you stole from me.”

“Wait a minute, little woman! I didn't steal anything from you!”

“What did you call me, Thief?!”

“Calm down, Tulio...” The blond meddled, if he hadn't meddled I'd have put that sword through that bastard's neck. “Control yourself.”

“That idiot has to control himself! He's even pitching his voice like an angry little girl!” The thief, whose name was Tulio, mocked me.

I quickly took off my hat, let my hair down and took off my fake moustache, revealing who I really was:

“And I really am an angry little girl, you scoundrel...”

They were surprised by this, especially Tulio:

“You?!” Tulio asked, surprised and looking down at me.

“Wait, for God's sake what's going on? I'm very confused right now.” The blond said as he tried to get out of the barrel. “Let's take it easy.”

“And you, stay there! Stay where you are, both of you!” I pointed the sword at them and the blond immediately went back into the barrel without question.

“What is it, Princess? It's not enough that you know how to read and you've had that dead fish bath, and you're humiliating yourself by pretending to be a man?” Tulio spoke mockingly and looking at me up and down.

“Humiliating myself? No dear, I'm trying to survive, earning honest money unlike you!”

“You should be looking after the house instead of doing this!”

“Shut up or I'll cut out your tongue, you bastard!” I said, pointing the sword at him.

“Do you know each other?” The blond man asked.

“He stole my money and my diary when I was at the market and made me fall into a puddle on the ground full of dead fish!”

“It's not my fault you're so clumsy!” Tulio said.

“That wouldn't have happened if you hadn't robbed me!”

“You shouldn't have followed me!”

“You should know what woman you're messing with!” I said, approaching him and pointing the sword right at his face.

“Calm down! Calm down.” The blond interjected again, looking like he was trying not to laugh. “If this was all about the diary and the money, we can return it and pretend nothing happened.”

“How are we going to give it back if we bet...” I heard Tulio whisper to blondie, but he interrupted him by elbowing the brunette.

“You'll definitely give me back what you stole. Now the part about pretending nothing happened I won't do...”

“Wait! Trust me!” The blond insisted.

“How? You're his friend.” I couldn't take my eyes off Tulio. “And it's like the Bible says: 'Tell me who you're with and I'll tell you who you are'.”

“You're looking for El Dorado, aren't you?” As soon as he touched on this subject, my attention went to him... how did he know?

“How you...”

“I read your diary.” He interrupted, picking up the notebook in his pocket and handing it to me. I immediately took my father's diary from his hands. “We can make a deal.”

“I don't make deals with thieves.”

“Please listen to me.” The blond man spoke calmly and looked into my eyes, somehow I was moved by this, he really seemed to want to say something important, I sighed and looked at him, waiting for him to say it. He's very persistent. “We want to find this city just as much as you do, we can form a partnership, get off this ship together and go after the city.”

“Miguel!” Tulio scolded him.

“Me? Making a deal with thieves? no way!” I couldn't trust them straight away, especially this brunette, but I was curious, they're really confident of finding this city. “After all, do you have any more clues or was it just my diary? I'll warn you in advance that we don't know for sure if these notes are real.”

“Look at this...”

“No! You're not going to show...” Tulio held Miguel's hand, preventing him from showing me anything. This made me even more curious.

“Show me, now...” I said firmly, pointing the sword at Tulio, who slowly let go of Miguel's hand. It was easy to intimidate them both...

Miguel took out a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to me, I unfolded the paper and it was a map, the map that led to El Dorado, I looked for any signs of forgery, but there weren't any, it was real, it even had some of the things my father had mentioned in his diary:

“How did you get this?...” I asked.

“We'll explain later.” Miguel continued. “You seem to be a very intelligent and strong woman to have disguised yourself as a man for all this time, and you know a lot about the city. Look, with the map and your research, we'll find this city easily and you'll get all the gold you want. Help us get off this ship and come with us.”

I was silent for a few seconds, I don't know if I should go with them, my dream and my father's has always been to find this city, it's a good opportunity, they have the map. But they're thieves, they could ambush me or betray me...

“Miguel, do you know that little voice in your head that tells you to stop?” Tulio asked. “You don't have one?!”

“All right, I'll go.” I said and put my sword away. Miguel looked at me with excitement and a gleam of joy in his eyes, while Tulio was disbelieving and shocked.

“Oh, that's great!” Miguel said and I immediately interrupted.

“But... if you plan or even think about cheating on me, you'll see me.”

“Relax, I promise I won't.” Miguel said sincerely. “You can trust me.”

“I'll give you a chance... Beware that I take promises seriously.”

“And if you ever think of telling on us, telling anyone that there are two intruders on this ship...” Tulio said as he climbed out of the barrel with Miguel and came closer to me. “... I don't think they're going to like knowing that they're bringing a woman undercover for this trip on the ship all this time...” He gave a mischievous smile. “After all, women on a ship are a bad omen.”

“Are you threatening me?” I asked a little angrily.

“An eye for an eye, my dear. You've blown our cover and we've blown yours, so we're even.” Actually, I showed it myself in my anger. “If you do anything stupid, You know what will happen. You have no choice but to help us get off this ship without being discovered.”

“You really are a bastard...”

“And you're quite the liar, you managed to fool even the general with your disguises, princess.” Tulio grabbed my chin and lifted my face to look at him, I hated that bastard.

“Call me princess one more time and I'll drive this sword right through your a-...”

“Hey! Hey! Hey!” Miguel stepped in and stood between the two of us, putting his arms around our shoulders and pulling Tulio and I closer together. “There's no reason for us to fight anymore, guys. Look, the three of us, the first to find El Dorado and the men...” He interrupted himself and looked at me. “And you... We will be the richest in Spain.”

Miguel was really excited, it would certainly be a good adventure, even with the annoying Tulio around, the blond finally let us go and spoke:

“I don't think we've introduced ourselves before. My name is Miguel, this is Túlio.” He pointed to his friend next to him. “And you? I don't know your name yet, señorita.”

“Y/n. My name is Y/n.”

“Good, Y/n. Now... do you have a plan for us to get out of here?”

Miguel asked and I thought for a few seconds, then the idea popped into my head, but Tulio spoke before me:

“First we get as much food as possible...”

“I thought the question was for me.” I interrupted him, before he could go on about the plan.

“My dear, I'm the idea man here, I make the plans. What's a woman going to plan? That we dress up as women for the men on the ship and seduce them?”

“Not a bad idea.” I gave him a mischievous smile, teasing him. “After all, you wearing a dress would scare the men off the ship and it would be much easier.” Tulio frowned, getting annoyed.

“Guys, the plan...” Miguel reminded us and tried to ignore this argument between me and Tulio, letting out a sigh.

“Well, we grab as much food as possible, get a rowboat and head back to Spain with everything we can give...”

“Spain? I thought we were going to El Dorado.” I interrupted Tulio, who was looking at me disapprovingly. “Are you really going to row to Spain? Do you have any idea where we are?”

“And by the way, how did we get off the deck without being discovered?” Miguel asked Túlio, with a little smile on his face. The brunette kept quiet for a few seconds and then continued.

“Okay. First, we disguise ourselves as these men who work here on this ship and...”

“The general and all the men will recognize you on the spot.” I interrupted once more.

“All right, what's your idea, smart girl?!” Tulio snapped.

“Well, you're lucky I'm the 'Man'.” I made quotation marks with my fingers. “In charge of the ship's cargo. I'll keep up my disguise until nightfall and in the meantime you two stay here, hiding in the barrels and I'll get our rowboat ready with the food so we can leave at night when everyone's asleep.”

“Yeah, that's a good plan.” Miguel said, winking at Tulio, who rolled his eyes. “Okay, good luck, Y/n.”

“Are you really going to trust her?” Tulio asked Miguel in disbelief.

“We made a promise.” I said as I tied up my hair and put on the hat that had been lying on the floor, starting to return to my disguise. “And you can bet I take promises seriously.”

“I don't trust you.” Tulio said in an attempt to offend me.

“Let alone me you, do you think I'm going to easily trust someone who stole from me?” I put on my fake mustache. “I'm not asking you to trust me, after all you have no choice, I know this ship and I know the way to escape better than you two.”

I put up the ladder to leave the ship's deck, before I left, I looked back and they were hiding, Good. I left the deck and closed the door carefully, I hope it works...

~{Pov} Miguel:

I watched the woman leave the deck, Tulio and I immediately went into the barrels where we were, while we hid, I decided to talk to him, I wanted to know his opinion of Y/n:

“Are you really going to trust her? What about our scheme?” Túlio asked, as if he had already guessed that I was going to talk about it. “It was just 'Miguel and Túlio' and no one else!”

“It's good to have new people in the group from time to time.” I said as I picked up the barrel lid. “Think about it, the three of us have the same goals!” I said with a smile on my face.

“No, we don't. It's just you and that crazy woman who want to find a city that doesn't even exist.”

“El Dorado does exist, Tulio. If you took a look at that girl's diary... there was plenty of proof that El Dorado was real, and what's more, we have a map!”

“I'm still not going to take her with us.”

“Come on. Give her a chance, I liked the girl.”

“Give her a chance? That crazy woman wants to kill me at the first opportunity!”

I started making that face of mine when I ask Tulio for something, it always works. He got angry:

“Aaah! Okay... let's go to El Dorado.”

“Yeah!”

To be continued...

[bronx-bomber87]

Happy Wednesday wonderful readers. It's hard to believe we’re on 6x08 already. Thanks for hanging in there with me. 6x05-6x07 are not easy episodes emotionally. So appreciate you all reading these. 6x08 is an emotional ride all its own. This entire season is really. We get a beautiful moment at the end for our ship though. One that still makes me weepy. With the perfect song to go with it. So let's begin shall see?

6x08 Punch Card.

The ep name is punch card when it starts out with a punch to the heart. We see a reminder come up on Tim's phone. It’s about Lucy’s birthday *sad sigh* Not only a reminder but he has 'Birthday' in all caps. Wanted to make sure he didn’t forget. Also and this is just shippy conjecture... Was he did so he could do something special for her. That’s what that reminder represents to me. He quickly swipes it away and tries to swipe the feelings along with it. His sigh and tongue click has me emotional. It’s all through this episode we start to see the regret really begin to sink in for Tim .

I know people were upset he didn't seem as upset as Lucy in 6x07. Trust me that man is WRECKED. He showed signs last ep. But this episode marks the beginning of him truly showcasing all of that. Tim is starting to feel the immense loss he’s inflicted on himself. *phew* I wanna cry. Which has been a theme since 6x05. He is broken out of his emotional revere by the elevator opening. It’s Mad Dog and Blair. The tension is palpable in there but you’re not sure why. Only that something feels very off and wrong about the whole thing.

Tim is so caught up in his Lucy loss he doesn’t pick up on it. Had that reminder not come up he would’ve been sharper. His cop gut screaming out a bit more. But as of right now it's subdued with sadness. Kills me how he wants to rectify things with M.D. Breaks my heart really. He hurt more than just Lucy with his actions. Mad Dog is short with him and not in a place to receive these amends. Tim breaks my heart a little more when he watches him depart. Oh Timothy. He finally acknowledges Dr. London asking if she's getting off here? When she says she took the wrong elevator my red flag was going OFF.

Now comes the scene I know made everyone uncomfortable. I don't love it I'll be honest. But here’s my take on it. Last episode we talked about defense mechanisms a lot. What Tim and Lucy’s were. Why they use them. To me this scene right here is displaying Dr. London’s. I believe she uses flirting as her defense mechanism. They showed her flirting with Aaron at the bar in the recap for a reason. Side tangent about the recap. This will be a small detour to my point lol. They also showed the breakup again in the recap too. Hate that. I'll have PTSD from that scene for life. Like damn recap I don't need the reminder. Don't worry we haven't forgotten I promise you. It's seared in my memory for life thank you very much....

Anyways I think that scene at the bar with Aaron in the recap was to set up this scene. Very intentional of her manipulative flirting. Tim asks about Mad Dog which sets that in motion. So in order not to blow her cover she flirts with Tim. Under the guise of ‘Checking in on him.’ Turning it back around on him by asking how he felt seeing him? She’s doing this to shield herself and deflect further questions about what just happened. Tim is clearly upset and she takes advantage of it. It’s a mixture of the Lucy reminder and now seeing Mad Dog. The manifestation of two relationships he destroyed with his actions in 6x05-6x06.

So even though I don’t love this scene. I get the why and mechanics behind it if that makes sense. I know some people thought him replying back was flirty. I think he was just doing his own investigating. His gut kicking on in this moment. He’s clearly not comfortable with her trying to do therapy outside their sessions. Also his face when he exits the elevator tells me everything. It’s not of a man who flirted. It's one who’s is still deeply hurting. Also conflicted because his cop gut IS going off and he doesn’t know why…. He is feeling as off as we were about her.

We hop over to our girl in Grey’s office. Asking her how her new roommate is working out? That being Celina of course from the previous ep. Reason he’s asking is he needs her to ride with her today. Lucy is so adorable saying she’s not a T.O. though… This is where the scene gets real cute. Grey all but anoints her LOL Lucy’s face when he does is hilarious. Couldn't fit in but was very Lion King vibes up in here haha

Lucy continuing the adorableness asks if he can do that? Wade replying he is all powerful lmao I think this scene is great for a couple reasons. First off thank you Wade Grey for giving her a position of power and authority like this. If anyone has earned it it’s our girl. I also think this is really good for her self esteem. For him to trust her enough to give her a leadership opportunity is huge. Shouldn’t have taken this damn long honestly. But she has been very UC driven since S3.

Regardless I love this so much for her. To prove her leadership skills. To rebuild herself a bit post breakup. Lastly I think this moment is a wee bit of foreshadowing. With the time elapse, I’m sure is to come with the s7 premiere, she could be one by then. This is straight speculation. Since we don't know a damn thing bout s7. But I think it would be real good for her. She would be a superior teacher to new rookies. Far better than numb nuts Nolan…. Grey is MVP two eps in a row I will say.

Tim enters the chat immediately after. He’s so lost in trying to delete his reminder he doesn’t realize Lucy is there. That Lucy smile of his ever present. He literally can’t help it. Man is so damn gone for her. It oozes out of him whenever she is present. Ugh. My heart. Lucy almost returns it because she has for so many years prior. She stops herself midway and reminds her body she’s still mad at him. Tim tries to break the ice a little with his joke. Lucy doesn’t engage as much as he would like of course.

Still picking up the pieces of her broken heart my love. Also the awkwardness that still exists between them is ever present in this short scene. Couldn’t get away fast enough and Grey notices this of course. His reply of 'Wow.' saying it all. The way Tim watches her until she is out of sight *heart clutch* Just watching his entire heart walk out the station….Ain’t no thing…Doesn’t affect me at all. *sniffle* *phew* I’m fine.

This hurts no matter the time that has passed. Hate seeing them like this. I know with s7 in the works we are on the road to recovery. But until said recovery happens, these post breakup eps are gonna hurt like a SOB. There's no two ways about it. Even after they get back together these will still sting. Cause Eric and Melissa did an incredible job with these episodes. This short scene wrecking us shows us their skills. Elevating the material in a way only they can.

Grey notes how awkward that was. Tim telling him it’s better than it has been.... That’s not enough for Wade though. Honestly it shouldn’t be. That he need again to fix this ASAP. This will only continue to breed dysfunction. Which in turn will be a disaster for team cohesion. That he isn't going out that way as Watch Commander. Wade reminding him he NEEDS to work it out with Lucy.

Otherwise it’s going to force him to choose between them. Now you know I love my Tim. Love this man to death. Would fight anyone who knocks on him. But I friggin adore Grey choosing Lucy in this scenario. Tim caused this mess he either needs to clean it up. Or it’s time for him to go. Hurts my heart to write that but it's true. Even though he is senior officer, worked there longer, been under Wade longer it doesn’t matter. He will be the one shipped off. Taking her side is the right thing to do.

Makes me wanna cry the thought of him being sent away. I remember first time watched this it started a deep ache in my gut. One of massive anxiety. Of course it would be friggin North Hollywood. That damn station been haunting them since s2. Just looming overhead ready to take one of them. Almost happened in 5x12 too. Anyways does my heart good he sides with Lucy in this matter. This is Tim’s mess to fix and no one else’s.

Lucy meets up with Celina and asks if she’s ok with this? Ever the amazing empath our girl. Celina looks psyched as hell to have Lucy. How could she not be? Wealth of knowledge to give her in a kind but commanding way. Getting to see Lucy show off her leadership skills is making me giddy. On a solo character level was my fav part of the ep. (Clearly not counting the Chenford stuff)

Her leadership style is right there with mine. Where I am 90 percent Tim her being a T.O. Is all me. Her style is pretty damn identical to mine. Telling her she wants to ‘Invest in her success.’ Is me all damn day. Thats all I ever wanted for my team. For them to see I was investing in them and there to make them better. It’s cute how excited Celina is for this. Hell of an upgrade from the bumbling bone head she usually has.

The Aaron and Tim show begins and I’m here for it. I’ve always enjoyed their dynamic. Aaron pushing Tim a little more than most would. We know Lucy has softened him to the point where he doesn’t kill Aaron. ha Asking why he has to be the one to be in uniform and not Tim? Lmao Because you are the rookie dearest haha These two are goobers together and I love it sfm. You can tell he is dying to ask Tim if he is struggling right now. Because he went from QB to water-boy for Metro.

Like I said earlier it’s really starting to hit Tim the relationships he fractured. The regret is coming at him from all sides in this one. First Lucy and now this. Aaron can’t help it and asks anyway even though he shouldn’t. Tim gives him the company line of course. Pulling some S1 Tim out in this van. Telling him he does what he’s told without complaint. Ok babe yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s not upsetting you….

He went from running this entire team. Making calls on the fly to this. Boring grunt work. Tim bounces back with his sassy comment about his deodorant. I’m cackling because Aaron’s reaction is so damn funny. He gets so distracted by this he doesn’t write anything down. Tim’s face when he asks why isn’t documenting this is so funny. The most Aaron thing he could do. Be derailed by Tim's comment and not pay attention. Oh I will miss you Aaron Thorsen.

I am enjoying Lucy’s teaching so much. Partly because it reflects how I teach. She corrects without crushing her confidence. She also does it afterwards as not to ding her confidence in the moment. Exact reflection of what I used to do for my work kids. Lucy is kind but confident in her correction. Doing it in the moment so it sticks, but waiting till after they’re done for her to properly receive it. Celina receives it well because even though it’s one she is told in a kind manner. I just love it sfm.

The other reason I love it is because Lucy is out here crushing it. Zero T.O. Training but picking it up like she’s been doing it for years. She is going off instinct and what she would’ve wanted as a rookie. I had zero training when I was told to train new hires as a manager. So I went based off my experience and what I would’ve loved to know when I was new. So her tactics are very similar to me and makes me happy to see it.

Already light years ahead of Nolan it’s insane. Tim would be so proud of her if he could see it. We all know how seriously he takes training new officers. The sacred duty that it is and needs to be treated as such. Lucy is doing all that and more. Feels like more foreshadowing for her to become one in s7. Would crack me up if she got one of the new ones and Tim got the other. They could compare and contrast their leaderships styles. See who does better. But I’m daydreaming with that ha

Tim’s phone goes off again. Reminding him once again Lucy’s birthday is tomorrow. Tim is hit with a double gut punch in this moment. First grunt work for Metro then Lucy loss as the second one. Aaron noting he must’ve set it quite a few times... Which is heart breaking to think of in this moment. It is sweet he set it up so many times so he wouldn’t forget it. I think pre-breakup Tim didn’t want to lose track of this important day.

Also my guess is he wanted to make a big deal of it too. Their days are unpredictable so makes sense he would set so many. That’s pure conjecture on my part. But watching him through out their relationship this lines up. Seeing how he doted on her and brought her thoughtful gifts. He was most definitely going to do that. Like I said earlier this ep is starting to reflect the cracks in his foundation.

His facade of pretending to be okay after their breakup is starting to fade. The fact that he says ‘Girl you broke up with.’ Not his ex is speaking volumes to me. It’s starting to dawn on him truly what he’s lost and done. Because you would say ex if it was something to move on from. The regret is starting to seep in and breaks my heart to watch it. But also it’s good to see him feeling it. Now that’s he’s regulated and going to therapy, his clarity on what he’s done is coming up for air. It’s weighing on him, and we can see that clearly in this scene.

This next part really gets me in the feels. Tim asks if he got her anything? Being vulnerable for the first time in their convo. Look at that puppy in the first couple gifs. Aaron tells him yes. A spa day at the Four Seasons. It’s the smile here that gets me. Even thinking about Lucy brings about that smile of his. The one that only comes up around her or about her. He knows exactly how much his girl is gonna love that. Enjoy it. Also thinking how much she deserves such a gift.

The smile has me reeling. He just loves her so much. He can’t help but do that in love smile when he thinks about her. *screams into a pillow* Then his smile ends with sadness. Eric be killing me for a 4th ep in a row. We watch the smile tail off with a tinge of sadness. Because he’s not going to see how happy that gift makes her. How she would’ve dragged him along with her most likely. It’s really hitting him he’s lost her. Lost access to that part of her life now.

The happiness to heartbreak in that smile is masterful on Eric’s part. Just look at him in that last gif. I was feeling all that from his smile. It’s subtle but impactful as hell. Eric and Melissa’s speciality at breaking our hearts. Especially this season. His reaction is screaming how much he still loves her. Carrying the burden of what he’s done is becoming more and more evident. Mourning the loss of what he hastily threw away. Hurts so good. Maybe they’ll be together by her next bday and he can make up for it. A girl can dream right?

The boys share a nice moment and I love it. Aaron pushes it with his final question though. You can see him drawing up the courage to ask Tim. Wanting to know what everyone wants to know. Why they split up? Tim’s reply cracking me up. He is as sharp and curt as can be. No more emotion left in his tone. ‘No’ LMAO Vulnerable Tim is gone now. Took it too far Aaron...

The balls on you sir to ask that my god. Lucy doesn’t even know why. You sure as hell aren’t going to get that answer…Honestly you’re lucky you got Tim as vulnerable as you did good sir. But gotta love him trying and failing super hard. Makes a bittersweet scene end on a funny note that made me chuckle.

This scene with Mad Dog hurts my heart. Tim is facing the repercussions of his actions so hard in this episode. From both barrels of Metro and Lucy. It’s good for him to feel and see what he’s done. That doesn’t mean it does hurt me to watch it. I’m still protective of him even though it’s what he needs to see and experience...

My worry was something like this happening. Working with Metro was going to reopen a wound that’s hasn't even begun to heal. We know what happens with M.D. later. So, a part of this is projection is because he knows he’s walking his guys into a trap somewhat. Worried Tim is going to find him out through his OP plan. That being said doesn’t make it easier to watch him dismantle Tim.

I will say it is yummy to see him in street clothes and jeans. That badge prominently on his hip. Mmmm gimme. Wouldn’t be me if I didn’t gawk at him a little would it? Also haven’t done it in a minute due to the non stop heartbreak since 6x05.

The OP goes sideways in the worst way. They’re ambushed and his guys end up in the hospital. Nash is in surgery due to the explosion. Tim comes to see Mad Dog and it feels all kinds of off. He’s expecting Tim to flog him for what he’s done. That his OP lead his men into danger. Almost as if he wants Tim to reprimand me for what he’s done. But he’s in the dark to what’s going on so Tim can’t possibly do as such.

Tim’s cop gut is kicking into high gear during this scene though. Between M.D. acting completely different post OP and his reaction to Blair appearing. Tim questioning how in the hell she even knew about this? She comes up with a pretty slick answer that pacifies Tim for now. But it’s seeing Mad Dogs reaction that has his red flag going up.

He can barely look at Blair in the eye. Tim noticing and bringing it up. M.D. plays it off as being tired. That he doesn’t want to talk about his feelings right now. Tells Tim they shot him full of painkillers. He’s gonna shut down for awhile. Tim understands and doesn’t linger. I remember knowing at this point she was dirty. But could also see the internal struggle going on inside her. Which intrigued me to why she was dirty in the first place? All things to come in later eps...

Now comes the best part of the entire episode. One that we all still think about. How could we not? Eric and Melissa were once again surprised how much we loved this scene. What’s not love? What's not lose our minds over? Return of Kojo, the song that is utter perfection, and the fact that Tim reached out through him to say Happy Birthday. Makes me teary just thinking about it. I'll never be over this scene. How it felt like a true start to healing our shipper hearts. Because they've been in ROUGH shape for awhile.

We all needed this moment. After such utter heartbreak and turmoil the last 3 episodes. This was like coming up for air for the first time to truly breathe. Melissa killing us right off the bat. Her face was all of us in this moment. The way she lights up when she sees Kojo. Their cute fur-baby just sitting in the hallway with a card in his mouth. I’m not crying you are... Also makes me giggle a little thinking how Tim had to run from the door after he knocked. To make sure only Kojo was there. It's the sweetest thing. *happy sigh*

Killing me softly with how she pets him. Asking how he is. Telling him she misses him. Just like Tim in the van her smile morphs. It goes from happiness to sadness. Because Kojo is an extension of Tim. Her saying she misses him is having a double meaning here. Despite all the hurt Tim caused her she misses him so much.

It’s reflected in how she is loving on Kojo. Her words have an extra meaning to them. Of course she misses her fur-baby. But she also misses her person. A piece of her heart is missing with him gone. This scene has me teary from beginning to end. We missed this good boy so much. Such a tearjerker of a moment when she reunites with him.

When Kojo takes off back to Tim it’s like watching a part of her heart go along with it. Knowing where he is running back to. The ache in her heart that is still there. She knows he’s in that hallway. It's bittersweet because even broken up she brings the best out in Tim. This wonderful gesture is due to how he’s grown because of her. If you weren't crying in this moment you're dead inside lol I'm sorry.

Tim wrecks me with how he’s looking toward that same hallway. He can only imagine what her reaction is. Hoping it's a good one. That what he's done here is having a positive effect on her. It is. What a way to bring this sweet boy back in. They really killed it with this scene. I love Tim keeping his distance. Respecting her space in this moment. But knowing he couldn’t let her b-day go without acknowledging it. This was the best way to do it.

Also the fact that this is happening in that hallway. One that represents so many seminal moments for them. I just wanna sob at the beautiful symbolism of this. You can see the regret building on Tim’s face once again. The distance he can feel between them. It's like he’s finally grasping what he’s done. The regrets he feels starting to truly mount in this moment.

Melissa’s reactions after Kojo leaves are absolutely killing me. The tears in her eyes as she picks up the card. Evoking so much emotion out of me just watching her. This is where the lyrics had me bawling. Because it so perfectly represents Lucy in this moment.

"When the sun won't shine and the words don't rhyme And there's mountains you can't move.

Something's on your mind And it's been some time since you felt like you were you.

When it all caves in, feeling paper thin And the pain might cut right through. "

This has been Lucy since the end of 6x06. Hell it was the fandom. The sun has not shined since that day for her. She hasn’t felt like herself in what feels like eons. Her pain feeling so very paper thin. The smallest thing cutting right though her. What happened between them rocked Lucy to her very core. She’s still sitting in the pain of it all. Him giving up on them so easily is haunting her. Probably wondering if he loved her as much as she loved him? Those intrusive thoughts running on an endless loop in her brain since it happened.

“When you feeling like you ain't got a friend, And you wondering' if you ever gonna' smile again. Every little things gonna be okay.” This one getting me in the feels as well. Another perfect reflection of how Lucy is feeling. I know what it’s like to feel this way. Alone in your pain. Wondering if you’re ever gonna smile again. Be happy. It seems so far off. These lyrics were so perfectly poignant. They were very intentional in using this song. As much as these lyrics made me cry they also filled me with hope and comfort. Particularly the line in that last lyric. That everything is going to be ok. If you haven’t downloaded this song. I highly it recommend it. 'Lift Up Your Head. by Esabalu'

What makes the rest of this moment so beautiful are the following gifs. Lucy opening that card and seeing what Tim has done for her. This is also the first time we’ve seen Lucy cry about them. And it hurts like hell to watch. Like I said she’s been sitting in this pain. Wondering if this relationship meant more to her than it did Tim. Then he does this. Acknowledges her birthday in the perfect way. It does a couple things. One it shows he wanted to make sure this day didn’t pass without him acknowledging it. That’s he’s thinking about her.

Two it shows Lucy he stills cares about her. The gift in itself shows the level of care. He’s reaching out to her without physically doing so. I mean the effort he put into this is immense. He was so creative and thoughtful. Having it come from Kojo and not himself. Executing the perfect delivery on-top of it as well. The way she touches the paw print has me bawling. Just mopping up my tears at this point. Knowing what this card meant. What it represented. Lucy no doubt has been torturing herself still about why it ended.

How he didn’t care for her the way she did for him. She really needed this. Because it shows it has nothing to do with Tim's feelings for her. You don’t put this kind of effort in if you don’t still love someone. Her reaction is the second gif screams that. Lucy still doesn’t understand why. But she can rest little easier knowing it wasn’t about his feelings for her. This shows her he still cares deeply for her. Man owes her a conversation still but this was a beautiful start towards that. Towards healing.

Tim’s face KILLS me. I think the writers intentionally wrote him to come off as if he wasn’t as affected. That this breakup wasn’t killing Tim. When it absolutely was. He needed time to regulate and some therapy to get here. Also it makes this scene hit a little harder doesn’t it? That man’s face above is one of absolute regret. It’s truly hitting him what he’s done to her. Eric once again murdering my feels. They both are.

You can see the myriad of emotions splayed across his beautiful face. It’s here he’s finally grasping what he’s thrown away. Knowing he should be there right now. Celebrating her birthday along side her. That bath bomb she mentions earlier in the scene should be been shared together. This hurts so good. I commend them for the buildup to this moment. We needed that episode previous to get to this point.

For Tim to finally feel the regrets raining down on him right now. That is the face of a man who knows he ruined everything. Fucked up a perfectly wonderful relationship. Destroyed his happiness and hers. Hurt his favorite person in the process of his spiral. It's killing him he can’t be there for her like he used to be. Shut that door when he tossed them away. As much as this moment hurts it's huge step towards reconciliation. Tim coming to the realization of how he’s hurt her and the regret he feels due to it.

Also only Eric and Melissa could have SO MUCH chemistry and not even been in the same room. These final two gifs say it all in that regard my god. You can feel the anguish and emotion between them. Just emanating from them and to each other. I love our ship. I love the actors we are blessed to have portray them. Look at our beautiful babies above. Their on screen chemistry leaves me in awe of them. They aren't even sharing the same space and are exuding chemistry. These final lyrics of this song left me with so much hope.

“All these troubles only gonna last for a while

Yeah, we're gonna be alright, oh, child, lift up your head (yeah, the light, yeah, the light's gonna find you)

And the light's gonna find you”

These troubles are only gonna last for awhile fandom. This season felt like an eternity of pain after 6x05 but we’re gonna be alright. S7 is gonna be that light I just know it. Gonna be worth all this pain and heartache. When we're on the other side of it gonna be so much better. We are so lucky are babies get to be front and center and get these growth SL's. Have depth like they do. I'll take that over blah puddle deep Balian any day. S6 hurt so much. But this too shall pass it'll pass like a kidney stone but it'll pass for us.

Our beautiful moment is interrupted by a text from Mad Dog. He’s asking Tim to come find him to talk. They’re on a roof and that immediately made me nervous. Mad Dog tells Tim one of their guys Nash is paralyzed… I mean this adds to M.D's guilt. To why he ends up killing himself later in this scene. Tim tries to comfort him and let him know it could be temporary. This is where his confession starts. Saying it wasn’t supposed to go down like it did. It never does when you dirty like that…Tim asks him if he compromised the OP?

Tim is in absolute shock as he asks this of his former brother in arms. This is a hard scene to watch. Tim is seeing a man he used to trust his life with be revealed as dirty. That he was compromised. What a gut punch for him. I know Tim struggles with his mistakes still. But the difference being is his were always with the best intentions. He may not see that yet but his honor was always intact with them. His good intentions still present. Tim asked who he told? We all know at this point even Tim does but he needs confirmation. M.D. replies he can’t tell him. She knows all his secrets….Ugh.

Then he kills himself. Last thing this poor man needed was to see this. I do think it’s an interesting parallel to Tim. Why you ask? This could’ve been Tim if had ZERO honor. Zero integrity and moral compass. Had no one there to help support him. What he sees with his mistakes as being un-honorable was never this. M.D. is a person without the fortitude Tim has. It’s why he was turned and can’t live with himself after. I hate it being Dr. London I really do. But if not for her sessions how he reacts after this could’ve been so much worse than it was. His face when he looks over the edge is a knife to my heart...

Thank you once again to you all for reading, liking, commenting (Keep em coming I love them.) and reblogging these reviews. They mean the world to me. I shall see you all in 6x09 :)

Side notes-Non Chenford

Blair being crooked SUCKS. No two ways about it. I fought the idea so hard when the season was happening. Not because I liked her but because of Tim and Aaron too of course. But at this point it was for Tim. He had been vulnerable with her. Started therapy because of her and I was really worried that would be tainted.

Nothing really other than that just Nolan and he doesn't matter lol

[cod-dump]

Hope your head has stopped trying to commit a crime, so pardon my bothering.

This is the Simon Riley has a grave anon here with more concerning it! (because for some reason it randomly popped back into my head and I must share)

There's a new recruit about to be sent to train on the 141's base, but is delayed due to personal hardship. His grandfather had just passed, and he needed some time. This recruit never had a father, and his grandpa just filled that role so easily, so losing him was hard. Turns out, this recruit is also from Manchester and his grandpa is buried next to one "Lieutenant Simon Riley"

Recruit gives a brief salute to the "deceased" lieutenant as he asks him to be a good neighbor to Pop.

Once he's back on base, he's heard stories about "Ghost" already, even before being on base, when he first joined and was told where he would be sent to. He's nervous about meeting him, especially given he's a week late and doesn't know anything else. And it's during his first training session with his new lieutenant that really freaks him out. Ghost is in a sour mood, and snaps at this recruit after not recognizing him.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"Private Tyler Maverick, sir." Ghost eyes him suspiciously.

"You're a week late. Better be for a damn good reason." Ghost clearly was not present at the base to be informed of why Maverick was late.

"Had to bury someone, sir." There's an awkward pause as Ghost stares at him. Ghost just grunts in response before turning away and pretty much ignoring Maverick the rest of the day. Later that day, around dinner, Maverick is told to meet the lieutenant in his office. When he enters, Ghost is leaning against the desk, arms crossed and given no hint of what he wanted Maverick for.

"You asked for me, sir?"

"Wanted to apologize for my comment earlier. I had only just rolled in the night before and didn't get briefed on the new recruits very long." Maverick shakes his head.

"Nothing I can't handle, sir. If I can't handle a comment about burying a family member, then I shouldn't be here." Ghost narrows his eyes in questioning.

"Doesn't make it right, though. Burying family is a nasty business." Maverick shrugs, not really wanting to go into the whole thing, but it seems Ghost has other plans.

"How you holding up? I hear you only had a couple days before being shipped out."

"Fine, honest. Been kept busy the whole time so I guess it hasn't really hit yet." Maverick nervously rubs at his neck, starting to see where Ghost was going with this.

"Some of us move on faster than others, especially depending on who they lost." Ghost comments, and Maverick wants to curl in on himself. He'd heard stories about Ghost's uncanny ability to read someone with pinpoint accuracy, but he never thought he'd be the subject of it.

"Lost my grandpa. He was more like my dad, never got to meet the real deal, ya know? Died when I was young. For a really long time, Pop was all I had. Mom worked all the time and I was an only child. Now I'm here, and he's buried and it all just feels so surreal but in a bad way. I don't know, but I'm okay, sir, honest." Maverick rambles, tripping over his words as he tries to rush up in case his little rant had upset Ghost.

"Yeah and I'm the bloody Queen of England. But, fine, I'll go with it for now. Tell me when it gets to be a problem, though. Can't have my soldiers compromised." Maverick nods.

"Yessir. And, if you don't mind, I never got to properly meet you, sir, so I never caught your name."

"Simon Riley." Maverick pales almost immediately as recognition of the name dawns on him.

"You all right?"

"It's got to be a coincidence." He whispers and Ghost cocks his head at him.

"What is?"

"There's a lieutenant buried next to Pop with the same name as you."

"Manchester?"

"Yessir. Hell, I even asked him to be a good neighbor." Maverick mutters the second sentence, hoping Ghost wouldn't hear it.

"S'alright, I'm a pretty quiet neighbor." If it weren't for the deadpan way Ghost had said it, or the absurdity of the situation, Maverick would have passed out right there.

"I-I'm sorry?" He asks between nervous laughs.

"Name Ghost comes from somewhere, ya know. Dismissed." Maverick has never left a room so fast in his life.

He does eventually get an answer, and loads more questions, about the grave from Gaz.

"Oh yeah, it's a long story. Don't worry, Private Bones is also a good neighbor, even if he is an alcoholic."

Maverick has officially decided to never question his superior officers ever again, and he ends up being the one recruit they can fuck around in front of because he'll just blink at them before going back to whatever he was doing and never mention anything again.

He definitely makes sure to tell Pop how interesting his neighbor is every chance he gets.

(this turned into an actual something, I'm sorry, didn't mean that to happen but it is what it is)

Adding Tyler Maverick to the list of recruits that Ghost has adopted unintentionally.

I love this!!

And I'm feeling much better than what I was this morning, thank you <3

[ril-sillyart1st]

BATMM FF AU: "Understand my ship in 5 mintunes" meme!

My own version of this meme! Full credits to gibbarts for the template and inspired by @dead-cat-batmm, @ask-the-blasher-fam, @meliskindachildishlol and more. (Sorry for the tags, just let me know if you don't want to be tagged so I could remove"@")

Drawings itself:

And yeah I didn't fully render instead because I thought it would look too much for an god-damned little work lol.

Chibi Blaze Flarelyn and Crusher Flarelyn:

Going to make their reference sheet and exes version next! :3

Just a heads-up: this will have both SFW and NSFW parts!

Their bar thingy information:

"who's the big spoon and little spoon?"

They're both a big and little spoon (they switch), though Crusher was at first the big spoon when their relationship started and Blaze was still kinda short but after Blaze's 26 birthday she grown older and taller than his boyfriend making them also the big spoon.

Crusher was the clingy one when it comes to waking up.

SLIGHT SUGGESTIVE/NSFW PART AHEAD!

Blaze just loves to use Crusher's chest as his pillow sometimes (same goes to Crusher) but this mostly happened when they were boyfriends at that time.

And Crusher likes to use Blaze's belly and sometimes his ass as his pillow.

SLIGHT SUGGESTIVE/NSFW PART ENDS!

"Who borrows and lends their clothes?"

Pretty much they kinda also both lend each other's clothes swap because both are plus size though Crusher is way bigger than Blaze so it's more rare for Crusher to borrow their partner's shirt because it's too fitted on them. That one cat shirt ended being Crusher's shirt instead because it was bigger than his size (the one that has a cat with pizza everywhere on space), they really, really loved that shirt so much that they never gotten to give it back to Blaze every again lol but Blaze wasn't mad at all because she actually didn't like that shirt that much if they're being quite honest.

After their third date, Crusher has once again stole another cat shirt from his boyfriend that also fits perfectly on them. (It was two shirts this time!)

"who doesn't and does use pet names?"

Blaze and Crusher actually kind of rarely use pet names (ex: love, smarty-pants, etc) when mostly flirting! When they're having a normal conversation or fighting they'll use their real names.

Though this stops when they got married as it got more fewer for them to call each other pet names. This is where they start calling each other "daddy" and supposedly "dad" (parental role names).

SLIGHT NSFW PART AHEAD!

When it was their first time making love, they started to call each other pet names again (ex: sexy, love, etc).

Though Crusher was kind of shy to call Blaze "sexy" while getting all the fun he gets from his husband.

NSFW PART ENDS HERE!

Does this part even still about pet names? Prob not but I'll add this little lore anyways.

After Crusher was tested as "positive" in his pregnancy test he was in full joy to have his own child after being a former child psychologist, child therapist and taking care of children in his younger adulthood (aka babysitting).

Crusher was hoping for the best for his future daughter (Fiar) to say "daddy" as her first word. 👀

But it was "dada"!? Fiar's first word was "dada" instead of "dad" which Blaze wasn't expecting her to say the least. Blaze tried so many types to get his daughter to say "dad" instead but "dada" was his official parental name.

"who's introverted and extroverted?"

Both are socialized trucks (aka extroverts).

"who's affectionate through words and who's affectionate through actions?"

Blaze's way of flirt is being affectionate through her words more than his actions. Even few words would make Crusher's engine explodes from overheating due to easily get fluttered.

Crusher's flirting is through actions instead. Though Blaze isn't the type of truck who would easily be so giggly and fluttered like them but that doesn't mean Blaze can't get fluttered at times sometimes.

"who confesses first?"

Crusher always wanted to confess first but his weak ass was too shy to say it to Blaze so they waited for him instead which didn't last too long for Blaze to say what his confidence ass want to say to his love.

Blaze was having butterflies in his stomach when he confesses to them, which Crusher felt the same as well.

"who's a scary cat and who isn't for a bug?" (TW: mentioned about bugs and k🫧lling a r🌊ach!)

Crusher happens to have a love-hate relationship towards non-pest bugs, they do still find some bugs cool! Their favorite bug would be a dragonfly! And speaking of dragonfly, Crusher have a little dragonfly friend named "hasty", they met them when they where in the garden watering their plants.

Blaze in the other hand loves non-pest bugs as they find them delightful.

Though the only bug both would obviously kill will be a roach and any pest bugs that are harmful to anyone.

"who can and cannot cook and bake?"

Both can cook and bake but Blaze only knows a few recipes from other sweets but isn't a afraid to get out of her comfort zone when it comes to new stuff which same goes to Crusher themselves.

When it comes to Blaze making pancakes, it always tasted weird because some parts of the pancake are still dough and uncooked and this is why Blaze can only make waffles and other breakfast food instead.

"Who likes and dislikes PDA?"

Both Blaze and Crusher likes PDA, Blaze does it more confident and Crusher gets a little bashful. (though that could reverse)

"who's overprotective and who's chill?"

Both are quite overprotective to one another especially Blaze. But it got a little chiller when they got married.

When they have Fiar (their daughter), the two were protective but not overprotective towards her and one another.

"who has more relationship experience?"

Crusher used to date someone in senior collage life who just used them for live streaming and videos but good thing Pickle helped them try to break up with thier ex girlfriend, Maritime aka Gas Guzzler.

Blaze didn't dated anyone in her life not until Crusher themselves. Blaze has been asking advises from his parents when he was 15 years old.

when Blaze finally dated Crusher, his parents were worried and was having second opinions on dating someone who's his frenemies but she told them that Crusher was slowly turning good that they don't need to be worried about, Blaze could handle this one his own. (which he was right, Crusher was now a good truck and he handle it properly in his own).

NSFW PART AHEAD!

"Their horny level"

Like I mentioned earlier about their first time making love, both where really ready to not just have a baby but also wanted to get the fun started in their marriage.

Blaze was patiently waiting for this to happen for some time now. This man was ready to have a blast with his spouse, Crusher.

Both are getting to enjoy the fun, as both are equally giving each other the love. (They're basically doing the "ho-ho-ha-ha" funny number position 👀)

Blaze was mostly the top when she was 😻 her husband so goodly, Crusher was way louder than Blaze though good thing that the neighborhood didn't heard them (somehow lol 👀).

Both Blaze and Crusher gave each other 💕 marks which Crusher looks more obvious than Blaze.

END OF NSFW PART!

"Awkwardness level"

Crusher is way more to get the awkwardness level than Blaze despite being extrovert.

"Jealousy level"

Crusher pretty much can still get easily jealous at his own boyfriend and future husband at time especially on race though he's trying to not get insecure about it and enjoy the race instead.

And I didn't put their relationship lore here because it would take me forever to think and I want it to separate the lore somewhere else.

[seventhdoctor]

For the yugioh character ask meme: Supreme King Judai!

Oh boy is this an interesting one.

Why I like them/why I don’t I'll be honest, at first I didn't like him. Back in 2007 when I was experiencing GX through Photobucket screencaps and forum discussion, I was like "Wait. Why is Judai evil now. What's going on. I don't like this. Also the Evil Heroes look ugly."

[Haunted voice] I understand now.

Supreme King Judai says a lot about Judai Yuki, how he deals with his guilt and his fear and his trauma, and what he'll do to try and...feel safe? Regain control? I bet he'd like to know the end to that sentence, too. And I came back to GX after one of the worst periods of my life so uh, that part really got me when I was rewatching GX last year!

I love love love his little monologue about how "I won, and I kept winning, but still [all of this happened, I lost everything, etc.]" and how it parallels early S1 Manjoume. We heard that lesson and learned nothing! It says a lot about both Judai (who failed to internalize it) and the way he's treated (because yeah that feels emptier when everyone and their mother and even the bad guy is depending on you to beat the bad guy, SAIOU I SEE YOU WITH THAT SATELLITE KEY). I even appreciate the symbolism of the Evil Heroes: to defeat evil he did indeed become evil, and yet defeating evil makes you the hero doesn't it?

He also raises questions about Judai and his past life. Like...how did this guy:

...become this guy?

He came like this. Judai lost himself in the darkness of his heart and out came a side of himself buried underneath a life he doesn't remember, and this is how he came out. The little boy who made a tearful promise in response to another's self-sacrifice turned into a tyrant who believes power is the only way to achieve anything, and how did that happen?

Obviously this is a question that's driving me to write a 40k word prequel fanfic. Help.

What I like about their appearance

Hey, do you think those shoulder spikes were originally meant to match Yubel's? :'D But also, the cape. Of course in that black and gold armor, he's got a red cape.

If I can give voice acting a shout for appearance, KENN's work was amazing too. I recorded his debut monologue to show a friend who watched the dub and sometimes it's nice to revisit that clip because damn.

Do I prefer their dub names or original names? There really isn't much that isn't carried over from the original Judai -> Jaden change; Haou is just Supreme King. (I use Supreme King as a title and Haou to refer to the character but that is extremely a personal thing for my brain only.) As with Asuka I'm neutral on the name change here aside from being ehhhhh on localizing names to Western ones as a broad trend but that's for another kind of post entirely.

OTP What Haou are we talking about here. Probably with Yubel or Johan but it EXTREMELY depends on time point and circumstances.

NOTP IDK man. Any ship with him is probably a little fucked up but we enjoy that here.

OT3 See above.

Favourite card they use

CHOU YUUGOU

Favourite moment they were in

Definitely his debut in episode 136. That monologue about "In order to defeat evil, one must become evil" and "In this world with the rule of the jungle, one must rule with power" is iconic.

Least favourite moment

Is there a moment that qualifies? His scenes are bangers.

[stocious]

tag games time! look who isnt late! thank you @energievie for tagging me! 🖤

name: kakakak

age: 32 for a few more months

star sign: aries bby

your first language: swedish

second language: english bby

favourite lip product: my brother in christ, i barely use lip balm even.

the best food dish you can make without a recipe: i don't cook, really. i'll boil you some pasta and throw something on top?

If you drink tea, what kind? nope.

If you drink coffee, what roast do you usually get? nope.

favourite thing to watch on youtube right now: i haven't been on youtube in a hot minutes, i'll be honest.

favourite thing to watch on youtube in 2012: my youtube era didn't start until like, 2016 maybe? no i don't know what i did with my time either.

favourite item of clothing right now: my killstar tarot card sweatpants.

favourite item of clothing in 2012: probably my 'when you die i'm gonna breakdance on your casket' hoodie. i still have it.

fandom

three movies you recommend: i'm so bad at movies, i never watch them. lotr series is three movies, watch that. right now.

your favourite concert: the only big band tm concert i've gone to is die antwoord in germany and that was damn mess.

have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion? yeah, the infantilization of debbie drove me up the damn wall.

have you ever left a fandom because of the fans? nope!

the best tv show you watched last year: i'm so boring, i watch the same shows over and over and over. have you heard of this show called shameless? it's pretty good.

do you have a fancasting you just can’t let go of? nope.

a ship you’ve abandoned: ceffy.

on a scale of 1-10 how willing are you to share your ao3 history? probably a 9-10. i'm in the #weirdshit channel in fic club, nothing scares me. and you if you get scared in there, i mean, tough titties?

do you have a fandom tattoo? (do you want one?) no but i'd want a sneaky one. if you know you know type thing? flip phone with miss me?

what fandom do you wish was bigger? idk fam im just here.

has a finale ever ruined a show for you? how i met your mother! what on EARTH

have you…

swam in an ocean? yeah!

ever been vegan/vegetarian? nope.

gone skinny dipping? i don't think so.

gone skiing? yeah!

been to a convention? nope.

---

Tagging (if you wanna do it): @skylerwinchester @creepkinginc @jrooc @transmickey @juliakayyy @vintagelacerosette @crossmydna @mmmichyyy aaand anyone else! 🖤

[mirror-to-the-past]

More (Apparently) KH3:Remind and Melody of Memory Stuff

Spiritually pounding on the windows of the Square Enix building- what do you MEAN I find out via YouTube that there's story cutscenes locked behind those egregious Data fights?? (That I'll personally beat... someday...)

(I also just went ahead and watched all the cutscenes for Melody of Memory, because I didn't want to play through a $60 rhythm game, sorryyy)

But first, Re:Mind and its sneaky, sneaky cutscenes...

Everything with Yozora has me Bonkers. I can't believe they've done this. Echoing Sora's first line in the series "I've been having these weird thoughts lately" through his own side of the story, him saying that he doesn't look like how he appears, the 'why do you know that name,' the "save Sora" while immediately drawing a gun on the man in question?? I'm just... *screaming noises* They're bringing everything together with the fiction versus reality stuff they have going on, and guys, I get SO excited when some games go meta. I'm squealing like a little girl; I'm ecstatic. Despite Sora being in (what I now know as Quadratum) and the background of the Yozora fight reflecting that, I can't help but wonder if it was another internal fight due to the arena switching to Sora's Heart Station for a second, akin to Roxas' fight in KH2.

And the music was so pretty... Yozora has a gorgeous theme. The prettier the battle theme, the more insane the KH fight, I say.

Also Riku was dreaming of Sora for a year. Lmao. He just... didn't say anything about it, while everyone was busting their asses. I'll be honest, literally the only way I could take that is that he dismissed his dreams as irrelevant- ah yes, dreaming of Sora? Nothing crazy to see here. Oh, Riku.

Also more importantly than Riku's angst deal- KAIRI WAS LAUNCHED INTO SPACE WHEN SHE WAS A PRESCHOOLER TO ACT AS A KEYBLADE WIELDER HOMING DEVICE, JESUS CHRIST. Kairi 🤝 Megamind 🤝 potentially Superman (I'm not a comics guy):

Getting launched out of their home planets into space in order to escape the destruction of their worlds, given vague and confusing scenarios and instructions to adapt to once they find a new planet, but they really just wanna chill and be loved and keep people safe.

And she's gonna train with Aqua! :D Another professional at getting launched into other worlds (realms). I hope she bonds with Ventus, as I've recently been made aware of their similarities in disposition, and how they are treated by others (hearts of pure light, designated by their groups as "the one who should stay home/be protected", wavering self confidence in their own abilities and self worth). Additionally, the hilarious potential scenarios of Kairi being like "yeah, and my favorite color's actually-" and Ventus interrupts with "Purple. I know," because the man essentially vicariously lived Sora's childhood. I'm super stoked for future Kairi screentime! Loved when she saw Xehanort in her memories and was like 'I don't care if you're a memory, data, manifestation of my heart or any other thing- I hate you, get out of my life forever. Hugs and kisses, die.' Like, 10/10, girl. Fair. Kairi's a volcano wrapped in a sweet package ready to snap at someone.

Riku's like "Y'know Ansem, I'm gonna miss you... 🥺"

And Sora's like "Xemnas, stooop all the violence. How can you take advantage of people with hearts? You should feel your feelings. You're valid, bestie. ☺️"

Kairi's no bleeding heart for baddies, she just wants everyone to get off her damn case, lol!

Also LOL at the fairy godmother of all people being the one to ship Riku off to Quadratum after Sora. My Cinderiku jokes (as well as my previous KH3 post's blurb about Riku determinedly walking into the ocean to find Sora) may not be completely unwarranted, now. Like, Miss 'specialty in dreams?' Miss "If you'd lost all your faith, I couldn't be here. And here I am." Not even to mention "a dream is a wish your heart makes," a very relevant lyric for this set of circumstances, if I do say so myself. I guess that's just gonna be another song I love and sing to myself that now makes me think of KH. 🤷 There's worse things I suppose, for example, like Buddy Holly being stuck in my head for three days straight and making me feel like I'm trapped listening to my uncle's records (thanks, Good Omens).

I ended up re-watching "Cinderella" for the first time in a while because of that part of Re:Mind and MoM. The KH association of the part with Fairy Godmother's appearance is now semi-heartwrenching, given the context of her appearance in "Cinderella," as well:

You have the vocalizing chorus throughout the opening of the scene acting as a callback to Cinderella's "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" song as well as reflecting her inner thoughts, and she has a dialogue with it while she sobs alone in the garden:

Chorus: Whatever you wish for, you keep...

Cinderella: "Oh, no... no, it isn't true."

Chorus: Have faith in your dreams and someday... your rainbow will come smiling through!

Cinderella: "It's just no use. No use at all."

Chorus: No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing...

Cinderella: "I can't believe! Not anymore..."

Chorus: The dream that you wish... *lyric trails off, unfinished*

Cinderella: "There's nothing left to believe in... nothing..."

[Fairy Godmother materializes next to her]

FG: "Nothing my dear? Oh, now you don't really mean that."

Cinderella: "Oh, but I do-"

FG: "Nonsense, child! If you lost all your faith, I couldn't be here, and here I am!"

[the violin and cello come in to finish the last part of the lyric] "...will come true."

Beautiful scene, really. The chorus assisting the animation is delightful... I watched Bambi and Lady and the Tramp (Bella Notte <3) a lot growing up because I loved that old-timey choral work. So dreamy...

Additional funny/sweet bit: I like how Mickey was freaking out to the point of being pinned down over Riku being unceremoniously dropped into Quadratum via Fairy Godmother's spontaneity and enabling.

'You sent my son to the big city ALONE?! He could get mugged, he could get lost, he could get hate-crimed, he could-'

*jump cut to Riku, and he's trying to gauge the value of Earth Money by spying on hot dog stands. He sheds his first known tear of the series by trying to figure out public transit routes*

Anyway, in the words of Cid:

"But what happens next?!"

[slvt4em1lyprenti2s]

There’s only one bed

Originally posted on my Wattpad @MayaBishop_is_myWife

Natasha Romanoff x reader

Fluff

Word count: 1709 (Omg I didn't mean for it to be that long I'm so sorry!!)

Natasha's POV: Fury Just called me into his office to have a mission debriefing. Normally we'd have the brief with all the Avengers but, this is an undercover mission and let's just say majority of the team aren't very good at that. They blow their cover all the time and can't persuade people to save their lives. Ironic because that's exactly what it does on missions, save their life. 

I've been told I'm going with someone but a name hasn't been given yet. I hope it's not an Agent from the academy. They're all newbies so I'll have to hold their hand the whole mission because they're clueless. As I'm walking I bump into Wanda.

Wanda - "Oh hey, good luck on your mission!" Nat - "Thanks also, do you know who I'm going with? I mean like any details about them?" Wanda - "All I know is apparently she's very popular among her fellow students, and by that I mean, she's hot."  Nat - "Students?! Great, so she's from the academy?" Wanda - "Yeah but, Fury wouldn't send her with you if she couldn't handle it." Nat - "I guess your right but they can be really annoying needing to be walked through every single step of the mission." Wanda - "I guess you're right but, rumour has it, she's the best of the best. Your level even." Nat - "Ha, I've heard that one a hundred times before, no one's better than me c'mon Wands you know that."  Wanda - "Haha, yeaah I know Nat but just give her a chance?" Nat - "Fine, I will but, I got to get to Fury now, I'll see you around." Wanda - "Bye, good luck!"

We parted ways and I gave her a smile. I walked into Fury's office and was welcomed by the sight of a beautiful woman with wavy y/h/c and shining y/e/c eyes. I going to be honest Wanda wasn't lying, she's perfect. Oh my god, I can't be thinking about these things she's my mission partner! She was already sat down in a chair opposite Fury when I came in so I took the chair beside her.

Fury - "Thank you for both making the time to be here, as you know this is an undercover mission so, pack a bag that'll last at least 2 day and 2 nights. We can never predict what'll happen at these kind of events." Nat - "Speaking of, what event is it and why exactly are we going?" Fury - "Well I'm glad you asked. It's part organised by Darren McHugh, not a big name in any industry but filthy rich. Attending the party is Lauren Emerson, your target. All you need is information from her about a weapon Hydra is developing. Her father has every Hydra scientist and engineer in his pocket so, she'll know a lot. Now, she's interested in women which is why there is no men on this case with you. I need you y/n to seduce her and get intel while Natasha watches your 6 and looks for another possible target who, isn't confirmed to be there, but there's a good chance he will be. Y/N - "What's the other guys name?" Fury - "James Scott." Nat - "Is that all?" Fury - "Yes that's all. Here's your personal copies of the file and be ready at the quinjet in 30 minutes."

With that we both left but I couldn't help feel a pang of disappointment shoot through me at the thought of her flirting with other people. Damn I really need to snap out of this.

I got up to my room and pack my things. I also put in my red dress and black heels for the party and go to the quinjet. As I'm walking I see her already standing there. She catches me staring as I walk towards her and she extends her hand.

Y/N POV: 

I look over and see Agent Romanoff coming towards me, eyes trained directly at me. I offer my hand for her to shake and she does. Y/n - "Agent y/l/n, y/n y/l/n." Nat - "Natasha Romanoff."

With that we both boarded the ship, settled down and engaged in conversation. It was a long flight and we were going to have to spend the next 24-48 hours together so, may as well get to know each other. This conversation however turned into shamelessly flirting with each other constantly.

Time skip to when the ship lands and they get to the hotel (still reader pov):

We get the the hotel and Natasha asks for our reservation at the front desk. While she's doing that I take a minute to really take in this place because it's massive. There's a chandelier on the ceiling and art all over the walls. The architecture is beautiful and it has gold accents along every wall. It also smelt like vanilla, don't know why that's relevant but it smells nice. 

I hear a 'thank you' and 'enjoy your stay' so I assume that Nat has got the key so I begin walking to the lift (elevator). I step in and so does Natasha just a bit behind me. She presses the button to the 5th floor and we stand in a comfortable silence for the short 10 second ride. The doors open with a ding and we step out and go look for our room. Natasha takes the lead and goes straight to our door and opens it with the key card. 

Y/n - "Wow Shield really outdid themselves with this one ay?" Nat - "Yeah, they really did."

(This is already getting really long so instead of writing a description imma just put in a picture.)

As we were walking around the both of us were quick to realise something. Nat - "There's only one bed." Y/n - "I was just thinking the same thing. I'll take the sofa (couch) I don't mind at all." Nat - "No, it's okay I can." Y/n - "Honestly I'll sleep there it's fine." Nat - "Look uhm, you don't have to but to save ourselves a very polite argument do you wanna just share it. I mean it's a double so..?" Y/n - "Yeah sure I mean, if your up for it?" Nat - "I'm the one who suggested it dummy of course i'm up for it."

I chuckle at her response and put down my bags by the bed. If I was being honest with myself I couldn't help the butterflies that formed when thinking about sharing a bed with her. Goddamnit, she's my superior I can't be thinking like this.

Natasha POV: I brush my teeth and get changed in the bathroom whilst y/n orders room service. When I walk out she was getting changed so she only had a bra and pyjama trousers on. 

Nat - "Oh.., oh! I'm so sorry!" Y/n - "No sorry it's my fault I should've told you I was changing." Nat - "It's fine, I mean we're both girls right? i thing we haven't seen before." Y/n - "Yeah, yeah you're right, both girls." Nat - "Never seen a girl with abs like that though."

The blush spread on her face faster than a forrest fire. She was flustered and I took great pride in knowing I did that. I made my way to the kitchen so I'd be ready for room service when it came.

Three knocks at the door alerted me that the food was here. I thanked the staff and put the food on the counter.  Nat - "Hey y/n tea's here!" (It depends where your from but tea is just how we say evening meal, like dinner) Y/n - "Thank god, i'm starving."

We sit on the sofa with our food and watch whatever trashy TV shows are on. We laugh at parts of it and it gives me butterflies, her laugh has quickly become my favourite sound. It's just so beautiful and care free, it also means she's happy which makes me happy. I'm snapped out of my thoughts when I hear her softly say.

Y/n - "Hey you okay? Lost you for a second there." Nat - "Yeah, oh um, yeah I'm fine just thinking." Y/n - "About what? You were very focused." Nat - "Nothing don't worry about it. Anyway, it's late we should go to bed."  Y/n - "Your right I'll take the plates into the kitchen."

While she was doing that I went to the bedroom and set up the bed. I was laying down when she came in, she tentatively lowered herself o to the bed and layer down facing me.

Y/n - "You sure it was nothing?" Nat - "It wasn't really nothing and I'm about to talk a lot and I don't want you to talk till I'm done okay?" Y/n - "Go for it." Nat - "I like you, like really like you. I know it's wrong because I'm your superior and your not even out the academy yet but I'm 25 and your what like, 20, 21 give or take so it's not like it's weird. Also can you blame me? You're perfect. Everything about you is perfect. Even though we only just met I can't help falling for you y/n. I'm sorry if I've just ruined the friendship we built today but I really needed to get that off my chest."

I look her deep in the eyes for any kind of reaction to what I just said. After a couple seconds of processing she smiled at me. Probably the biggest smile i've ever seen her have. She still hasn't said anything so I speak up.

Nat - "Well?"

She doesn't answer me, instead she gently grabs my face and kisses me softly. Our lips dance against one another as second nature. Once air becomes a problem we release from each other's grasp.

Y/n - "I like you too, if that wasn't already clear."

She giggled like a school girl when I grabbed her waist and started peppering kisses all over her face. She stopped and snuggled closer to me and buried her head in my chest.

"This woman is the one for me" I thought to myself as I held her safe in my arms. Although I really wasn't looking forward to this mission now.

[the-damnable-fool]

Dracula (2020), the most disappointing piece of media I've ever seen

This fury has been rotting into my brain for at least two years now, so now I'm going to subject you to it. This is going to be a very long rant/critique/violent catharsis.

Netflix's Dracula miniseries is a three episode series starring Claes Bang, Dolly Wells, and John Hefferman. The show ran for three episodes and was written by Stephen Moffat. You may recognize him as the longtime writer for a relatively insignificant little program known as "Doctor Who".

Episode one presents us with an interesting and well executed premise. Jonathan Harker, scarred and deformed from his encounter with the eponymous Dracula, recounts his experience to Sister Agatha Van Helsing. Much of what transpires is based heavily on the events of the original novel, though you may have already gleaned from the name "Agatha Van Helsing" that some creative liberties have been taken. I won't spoil much, since I believe this episode to be worth watching. Suffice to say that the whole of the main cast is great, Harker and Agatha Van Helsing doubly so, and there's some excellent special effects work being done.

Episode two is, by and large, my favorite episode of the lot. Because of that, I'll speak even less of it. The entire episode is framed as a murder mystery aboard a boat which Dracula himself recounts to Agatha Van Helsing, which is an interesting parallel to draw with the first episode. Dracula is, obviously, the murderer, but the actual twist is truly unexpected. Agatha Van Helsing is one of those rare and delightful characters that comes across as genuinely witty, intelligent, and dangerous in all the best ways. There's very few times a character has done something and I've thought to myself "wow, that makes perfect sense, but I never would've thought to do it". She's a treat, and that wonderful character writing makes every interaction between her and Dracula come across as a devilish battle of wits. What's more, there's some genuinely heartfelt and emotional moments between the background characters that stick with me to this day.

Then you hit the cutoff point.

If you've liked the series so far, and have become attached to its tone, characters, and general quality of writing, you should stop watching five minutes before the ending of the second episode. Unless you want to be disappointed in the worst sort of way I would encourage you to cut your losses, switch off your TV, say to yourself "Damn, that was a really good two-part movie", and move on. It is not worth it. You have been warned.

Beyond this point there be spoilers.

So Episode Fucking Three

Up until now, the series had been doing a great job of constructing some very compelling, well written, and likeable characters. Agatha Van Helsing in particular was genuinely intelligent, witty, bitingly cynical, and had a character dynamic with Dracula that could only be described as "If we weren't diametrically morally opposed to one another, we'd be fucking". The crewmen of the ship they came in on were, while not heavily characterized, very human and easy to sympathize with. Johnathan Harker was both tragic and heroic while he lasted and, while I don't remember much of Mina, I remember liking her well enough. So, what do you do with a slam dunk roster of characters like that?

Well, you kill them all off in an offscreen time jump of course!

Episode three takes place in modern London and I immediately hate it. Agatha, my favorite character, is gone, as are all of the characters we've come to know and love. In their place is Agatha's indirect descendant, played by the same actress and so woefully boring that I don't remember her name at time of writing, and a couple of other generic stooges. There's a junior researcher at the facility, a couple of wildly shallow club-girl side characters that he pines after, and a few others that I forget.

If I'm completely honest with you, I didn't watch the entirety of episode three, and you'll see why in a second.

So the episode starts. We open up on Dracula, soaking wet and crawling out of the ocean on the shore of modern day London. He's immediately surrounded by a group of mercenaries armed with cameras, a helicopter, and conventional firearms, along with our new Agatha Van Helsing wannabe. Long story short, he kills a mercenary and escapes into the city as day breaks, has his cliche little "woah I'm immortal and experiencing the modern world for the first time" bit, and then gets captured in the sloppiest way imaginable.

Turns out, Mina spent the vast majority of her inherited money on creating a foundation in memory of John Harker with the specific purpose of locating and containing Dracula. It's sort of like the Foundation from the SCP universe except they only contain one mildly boring, vaguely bisexual anomaly. They've got money, professional mercenaries, trained scientists, a secret Dracula holding chamber specifically for holding Dracula, the works.

So Dracula gets dragged into the Dracula containment chamber, and this thing is the real deal. Constructed of bulletproof plexiglass and steel, able to be remotely exposed to sunlight at any time, surrounded by open floor and armed mercenaries, it's pretty safe to say that this Dracula containment chamber is easily the finest chamber ever constructed with the sole intention of containing Dracula. All he's got is a table, a chemical toilet, and an ipad loaded with digital books. He gets fed blood through a tube at regular intervals and occasionally gets poked at by researchers trying to figure out just what the fuck he is.

Now, by this point, we the audience were doing our best to get back onboard. Sure, our favorite characters were gone, save for the villain, and sure, the tone had taken a weird lurch with the time jump, but that was all fine. Just have Agatha's great great grand-niece be just as charming as she was and we can all have a grand time watching Dracula masterfully manipulate his way out of the Dracula time-out box. We've seen his guile before, so we're all primed and ready for another fantastic battle of wits, just like on the boat.

But that doesn't happen.

What follows is a brief summary of events that happen in the episode in vaguely chronological order. By reading it you may be made privy to the sudden and utter incompetence of the new lead character and to the wildly stupid turn that the writing took in episode three.

The Harker Foundation finds Draculas coffin at the bottom of the sea in the wreckage of the ship from episode two. For no good reason, Agatha's descendant (the director of this foundation) personally goes to scuba dive into the ocean to take a look at the unconscious Drac.

Also for no good goddamn reason, she sticks her whole ass thumb in his mouth to feel his fangs. He bites her thumb off instinctively, giving him the small amount of blood he needs to reawaken. That's one instance of complete incompetence before the ten minute mark.

Instead of recovering the coffin immediately, the Foundation pulls back and waits on shore with armed mercenaries until night falls hours later. Why they don't just nab him immediately while hes sleeping, I don't know, but I'll count that as a second instance of complete incompetence.

Drac escapes and kills some people, including a few mercenaries. It is established that the Foundation has the power and influence to make these deaths disappear.

Drac is transported to the Dracula holding chamber.

In the course of less than 24 hours, Dracula FIGURES OUT HOW A TABLET WORKS, GUESSES THE FUCKING WIFI PASSWORD BECAUSE ITS HIS FUCKING NAME, AND SKYPE CALLS THE LAW FIRM THAT USED TO REPRESENT HIM TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

Do you see why I was furious? Do you see why my friends and I stood up and yelled at the TV screen? Do you see why we turned it off immediately? Do you see why I want to hit Stephen Moffat with a chair?

Needless to say, the lawyer takes a call from someone claiming to be a man that employed his firm two centuries prior completely seriously. He walks directly into the facility with no explanation as to how he found out where it was or why the guards let him past, and threatens to sue the Foundation if they continue to hold his client against his will.

The inferior Agatha throws up her hands and says "welp, guess we gotta let him go" and just. Let's Dracula leave. No consideration for the consequences of doing so beforehand. No thought given to the possibility that they might simply inform the relevant authorities that he'd killed people that very night and therefore should be contained and studied. They just fuckin' let him leave.

So lets recount all the insane leaps of logic that need to have transpired in order for this to happen.

One, Dracula would need to have figured out how the internet works within the span of 24 hours despite having only just learned that electricity existed. I'll give that a pass since its implied he can absorb knowledge by drinking blood.

Two, Dracula would have to guess the wifi password for this top secret, high security facility... Which is literally just DRACULA. Why the fuck was it set to his name? Why was he given a tablet that's physically capable of connecting to wifi? Why didn't the mercenaries that guard him at all times not see him using Skype and say "Hmm, maybe we should stop him from doing that"? Moreover, why the fuck does the room he's contained in even have wifi? Isn't everything I just said a massive security oversight for an organization that's poured millions into this containment facility?

Three, Dracula's lawyer would have to believe that an unknown, unsolicited caller, who has neither modern means of identifying himself nor any records verifying his existence for over two hundred years, is genuinely a client of his from two hundred years ago in need of legal counsel. Furthermore, Dracula would need to have some way of communicating his exact location to this man.

Four, the security teams responsible for keeping the facility safe and free of intruders would have to not only let this lawyer into a top secret facility based solely on his own claim that his client was inside, but let him directly into the main holding chamber that is under constant guard all without so much as warning the fucking director of the Facility.

Five, the director of this facility would have had to completely thrown out any alternative to letting a known mass murdering superbeing out of confinement despite full knowledge of what that would entail. They could've just fought the battle in court. It's easy to prove that he needs to be locked up when you can show the judge the bodies of the people he killed that day. Even if that's too much trouble, why not pop the lawyer in the back of the skull and make him disappear like the mercenary? Or Dracula's victims? It can't be that hard if you've done it three times this episode.

It's the kind of twist you would expect out of a piece of satire, not an actual, serious work written by an accredited writer. To this day I have not seen any other work of fiction take such a sudden and sharp decline in quality, and I doubt that I ever will again. It's as though the writers intentionally made every character at least thirty percent stupider just for the sake of giving Dracula his "gotcha".

So what went wrong?

Honestly, I think that the writers mistook their villain for the main character of the series, which ultimately just doesn't work. Sure, we love Dracula. We didn't come to watch the Dracula show out of our rabid love for Johnathan Harker, we came for the big scary villain. The problem is that a villain still has to be a villain. While we do love him, we don't root for him, we root for the people that oppose him despite the odds. They killed off every recurring character except for Dracula and changed the setting and tone so massively that it was completely unrecognizable from the first two episodes, and they did this because they thought the audience be invested enough in this villain for it not to matter. Not only did it backfire, but the ridiculous amount of plot mandated stupidity and Deus Ex Machina that it took to get Dracula out of his first jam in that new setting completely killed any further drive that I had to continue watching.

This lazy twist not only made the main characters look incompetent, it made Dracula look lame. He's the Prince of Darkness. The fucking Nightwalker. The King of Vampires does not call his fucking lawyer.

Anyway, I'm finished with my rant now. Congrats on sticking it out this long. There's no prize or anything.

[burntheworldtwice]

Live Thoughts on The Last Voyage of Demeter (Spoilers)

So I know very little of this movie outside the plot. I know it is much anticipated. Reviews are decent. But I didn't want some critic tainting my opinion you know? So I smoked a bowl, made a broke girls charcuterie, and am diving in.

-First of all who doesn't love a good Dracula tale?

-This is moody. Love that. Definitely recommend being in the dark by a fire if possible. its giving Victorian child and I personally am a victorian child so this is just swell

-I wish we still rode horses. Its a power move. Cop pulls up in a car ugh boring cop GALLOPS up on a horse. Mad respect.

-OMG its the guy who went after Oppenheimer for that shit senator. What's his name......David Dastmalchian. Im sorry hold the phone. DASTMALCHIAN is his dad Machiavelli. I'll be honest y'all im not a fan of his face. He looks weasly and honestly a bit threatening but that may just be the roles I've seen.

-Corey Hawkins out here showing LOOKS. Saving LIVES. CHILD LIVES. What. A. Gem.

-Whats in the box? WHATS in the box? WHATS IN THE BOOOOOX?!

-Why must children be so enthusiastic? So young and full of hope. Even on a fucking Russian ship in the 19th century.

-This cheese is really fucking good.

-Awe isn't this cute. "Crew in high spirits". Dancing around and shit. Did you know that many sailors were gay and that's why everyone thinks the Navy is a bunch of pussies. The more you know :)

-Is that Aaron Paul? LOL

-This really is pretty I must say. And the use of sound is just **Chefs kiss** I love when a movie employs sound as a means of expression.

-She needs a transfusion who's fucking blood is heh using is that his blood? The count is awake! yipeeee.

-I really need to watch some BTS for this. A lot of CGI and sets. Like did they do it Life of Pie style. I'll have to goole that..

-Ruh row. Bats outta the cage. NOT THE FUCKING DOG WHYYYYY KILL THE KID. Ugh why is it always the dog :((((

-HUUUCCKKKK

-Rabies? Men are so simple minded.

-Damn Drac is not looking good. Like worse than Voldy pre cauldron sesh.

-This kid is really taking on some emotional trauma. And little Woody Newman is just a cutie. He reminds of Gavauche (idk if that's spelled right) in Les Mis.

-"A boat without rats such is a thing against nature." That's a tattoo right thurr

-I am LOOOOVING the horror. The gore is so well done. Beautiful like Saving Private Ryan... If youre into blood..

-I could listen to Liam Cunningham read a Ikea instructions manual.

-I don't know if its intentional or not but I can't figure out the timeline of this movie. They mention a cove and it being over two weeks to England. But I can't tell how the time is passing. Could also be high but hey who knows.

-I know Rotten Tomatoes poopood this but I'm having fun and Draculas a dick lmao mimicking his victims. Damn bitch. Oh good strings. I love a good horror

-Why do we find it so hard to believe in things we can't understand? I realize the human brain seeks answers and solutions rather than more questions, but what if the answers and solutions are right there we just refuse to believe it?

-LMAO "I have a very important job for. you Toby. It's a lot to take on, can you handle it?" Hands over a spyglass. "Will you shine my shit for me dude?" I was talking to my wife about this but like I don't remember ever being this curious as a kid. Like demons on board? Nah Im staying in my room. Meanwhile this kid just wandering around the belly of ship.

-RUN TOBY RUN

-He got a knife. Tough kid here.

-Wow he's going full Jack Torrance with the door here. But who needs an axe when you have your face???

-NOT TOBY. Like I know everyone dies and all but damn. Also can Dracula apparate. Or is it like AS IF YOU COULD OUT RUN ME. Im a little behind on my Dracula lore. Oh he might live with these backwoods infusions.

-Okay I just haven't paid attention on the captains log. My B.

-Olgarin was bit... and infected? But Anne and Toby were fed on... and aren't? I'm going to have to think about that. Going up in flames was a fun drama though!

-I feel like maybe don't open the spooky box. And this man just rowing out to sea blindly believing in his faith. Did the Prince of Darkness fly out there? or. Yep. He a winged mother fucker.

-I like Dracula just whispering sweet nothings before he feeds.

-Are his burns not fucking horrifically painful? Im in pain looking at him. I know burns and that shit sucks for forever.

-Can Dracula manipulate the weather? I feel like I really need to brush up on my Dracula now. Foggy as hell. Dracula knew yawls plan come on.

-Women always out here making the greatest sacrifices.

-Why is Dracula synonymous with the devil? I like to think of Dracula like Jason Segal in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

-THe smothering with the wings was like kinda dope. Won't lie.

-I'm so glad they're trauma bonded now.

-I think I would of made a great light house keeper. Chill up in the rain by a fire. Watch the ships. Ambient lighting. My kinda gig to be frank.

-That ending sunrise. Wow. Almost poetic.

-NONONONONOOOO please tell me there's not going to be a sequel. Please dear god just let it end.

-Fuck.

[000life-is-meaningless000]

on top of the fact.

men and women are both humans.

That, that came out completely wrong.

Male human and female humans are both humans.

. . . . .

yet neither know what each other is like ?

it's amazing you can have one white male one white female or a million white man of million white females a million black men and a million black females

you have a million Asian males and a million asian females and a million, and you have a million Southern ♂️ and a million Southern females as well.

and not a single one of those words like to be each other, both of their life other thoughts other feelings and other fucking gender.

even though men can get fat and get man boobs they're not really boobs.

a man that will never really know what it's like to have a vagina and a woman will never know what it's like to have a penis.

women know that penises feel good inside their pussy and Men know that sticking their cock in a pussy feels really fucking good but neither of them know what each other feel's. empathy and the grandiose and the greatest form of it all is truly impossible.

for only those that have truly experienced something will truly know and if you can't experience with like to be female you have no idea what it's like to be female.

No one knows what empathy really feels like they're just guilting this shit out of themselves.

life is Meaningless and We all just Die.

. . . . .

sex changes are bullshit, all you're doing is me laying yourself in the way that looks like the opposite sex cutting off your dick doesn't make you any more of a woman.

Shoving a cactus up a woman's pussy doesn't make her own Man. you're just abusing the woman.

the only way you'll know what it's like to be the opposite is a suffer another fucking life and curiosity ain't worth it

life is too awful & God's too much of a piece of shit to continue this on.

.God is bad all the time and all the time Bad is God.

I Really Don't Want to do this Shit ever again, if I end up in hell, at least I won't be on earth. right now I'll be Given a Divine middle Finger Before to be Male all Over again.

the world of Italia doesn't believe me when I tell them I was forced incarnated here by 👽 times be part of stupid agenda, they haven't started a war yet, they haven't did any made any progress of taking back to Planet despite they couldn't shut the fuck about it for multiple months when I was being incubated on the ship.

and they even had multiple War chants. I can't wait till the day I die I fucked the only thing I would pray for is my death. there's nothing I don't pray for when it comes to my death that's all I ever pray for is my death.

if I get a Ouija board I just scream kill me, the horror of my life never ends, and the fucking piece of shit worldwide I just think I'm mentally ill what the fuck you think a person is going to act like at the trapped In Hell happy and cheering cooperative. have you seen the sights of hell ? have you seen true suffering ?

have you seen someone being literally cursed ?

my fate my life is so God damn bad my spirit isn't a place so God damn bad in a world I deeply do not belong in trapped on an alien agenda then the world just thinks I'm schizophrenic despite I'm 100% honest.

I can't wait for my dad and I curse God for letting me lend my fate before here and I curse everything in existence in the name of all things in existence for not just taking my spirit out of this goddamn place

🌎 <-

I didn't deserve this life, I never wanted to be here. I fought Faith so hard and I know that my fate was going this way so I fought fate I ran from fate I even as it goes try to get away from the 👽 but why is it that we're not able to fight fate ?

why is it we are NOT ! Able To Fight Fate ?

and you wonder why I'm so mad at God, they say the three fates of the ones that do this to you they say a lot of things are the source of Fate but who better understand fate better than a God I actually was with and spoke to and have been the presence of and who proved his omnipotence and omnipresence and all his shit to me he proved he was the Apex of all that was divinity.

and yet he gave me the middle finger. I never did a fucking thing to him he knows, I'm not human He knows I don't have the responsibility to be human he knows we have our own Deity, We bow down to and it's a female.

and she's the one that curse me to forever be a Male.

😭

innocence is the worst Karma.

[jesi-jess]

OKAY THINK I CAN POST SOME THOUGHTS NOW, I've screamed out loud enough.

BELOW THE LINE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR CHAP 7, namely my thoughts over it all. If you don't wanna be spoiled read the chapter above before continuing this post.

So first off the entire begin with Soldier and seeing buff Merasmus just made me feral and laugh so fucking hard. The old man wizard also having a tattoo of Jones was so sweet but also being the overlord of the prison like god damn.

But like man then SEEING THE WHOLE FAMILY COME IN, I was not ready for that, they were all as goofy as expected but it was so cute and they all just made the perfect chaotic family imagined.

Then GOD DAMN HEAVY THO, HOLY SHIT. That beard just suits him so well. Sir.... SIR. I am lost in the sauce, I'm smooching, in my head Medic smooching, hell anyone wanna be smooching. Help.

THEN SEEING SCOUT BE SO CUTE AND HONEST ABOUT DECIDING HE IS GONNA MOVE ON FROM PAULING THO???? Idk kinda left me like okay that is so far then her being supportive like "Yes there is defs way more hotter ladies than me, go get some hot ladies Scout." JUST HONESTLY? Like I do like Scout x Pauling but I also don't mind it not becoming canon, cause them being the best pals for one another just feels so nice like help.

Ngl though following the ENTIRE part about the Admin, just left me like....

On one hand I enjoyed it but on the other hand was so out of no where I didn't know what to even think once that arc of it was done. Like straight up she is the mama of the brothers and crazy, never told why she is truly doing it (or I missed it while reading, I'll reread trust me). Wild as fuck. I don't know, like not disappointing but also not sure how to feel. Best way to put it I don't hate it LOL.

And then we get the entire end and seeing EVERYONE AND MOST IMPORTANTLY EVERYONE WAS THERE! Scout becoming like his ma and keeping with all his kids was the sweetest thing, then Spy... SPY! I could go on and on how happy I am with that face reveal. It's funny how I pm pushed my drawing way of him towards that too, I still always look at my commission and the sfm model I loved after that pm is the reveal too. Salt and Pepper older gentleman. Then the others all coming in and seeing the bits of them. PYRO, DEMO, SNIPER, ALL OF THEM.

SNIPER HAVING THE GRAYING IN HIS HAIR SHOWING TOO MADE ME MORE FERAL THAN I REALIZED IT WOULD.

I teared up seeing Spy looking at the photo with that gentle smile, just knowing the mama passed away. Broke my god damn heart. :CCCC

I seriously loved it all though. I think it all is well that ends well, never expected the comic so quick, also was worried how it would come. How it would end? But I think the open end in a way of it all is perfect. It solidified some things, left other things in questions to let us boil off of and enjoy. I didn't feel any thing was pushed in a way that would be damning or upsetting (at least to me). I didn't need confirmed ships or saying the story will continue. I just wanted them alive in the end and happy.

And was it given.

WE FINALLY GOT IT BOIS

IT'S HERE, THE COMIC IS HERE, I AM GOING FERAL

BYE

[decepti-thots]

Hello! Do you, by any chance, know a good way for someone from mainland Europe/EU to find mtmte/ll physical releases? Like volumes/issues books. Where it's not a part of those huge idw compilation books that include rid/taao/mtmte/other stuff as well. I know it is a pretty late time to try to find myself that stuff, but well, when you are younger you have less money and opportunity to ship things to your little post-ussr nowhere, so... it iiiiz what it iiiiz. I wish you a lovely time in holiday season even if you don't celebrate any of winter holidays, and a good end of the year and a happy new year!

Hi anon!

As someone who is Europe but not mainland, I don't have anything super specific to recommend, I'm afraid.... from the context in your ask, it sounds like you may be living somewhere there was likely only ever import stock avaliable, and if that's the case it's unlikely one of the first things that's likely to be recommend that you check will bear fruit- namely, find smaller, independent local comic stores that might have some of their original orders of them left if they didn't sell out. This is often a surprisingly good way to get ahold of out-of-print comic trades that didn't sell hugely well, but is less likely in markets where retailers are buying import stock, as those orders tend to be based on pre-order numbers, or done on-demand.

So I'll do my best to offer what advice I can that seems like it would be more likely to bear fruit from my very limited knowledge- but if any of my followers from your neck of the wood have any corrections/better recommendations/etc to my guesses below, I would welcome them! All of this is me trying to use my two braincells to guess, haha. But I hope it might be a little helpful to you!

The obvious next step would be to look for an aftermarket in or close to your country- but again, if the distribution was very small (or if most fans from your country, to avoid paying out the nose, bought digitally and/or pirated), this may not be applicable advice in your case. However, before writing it off completely it may be worth seeing if your country has any Facebook groups (bear with me) dedicated to Transformers collecting. I know this may sound weird to those of us under 40 but a lot of collectors buy and sell this shit on FB groups still- there's a couple big UK groups (mostly closed, so you request to join) where people advertise to buy and sell TONS of stuff. If there is one dedicated to collectors in or near your country, that may be the place to post a 'looking for' ad, with the obvious caveat that there is a degree of inherent risk in doing direct peer-to-peer sales of this kind, so keep your common sense at hand and all that. Hell, try on any European-based one, even. Put up that you live in [country] and are looking for reasonable prices on IDW trades, see if anyone wants to do business and can offer decent shipping and prices. Worst that can happen is noone can help.

(Sidenote: I can't speak to, say, any secondhand online stores that may be specific to your part of the world; I assume you'll already know to check those and come up short, haha.)

So now we have those other options out of the way... if there just isn't an aftermarket in your country, how can you get ahold of the damn things? Well, this bit's sort of tricky to give specifics on without knowing your exact country, but making a list of places that do have an aftermarket and working out which ones are the cheapest to ship to you from is about as good as you're probably gonna get. It may not be any of the European ones, actually. I'm gonna be honest: if you're Eastern or Central Europe from what you suggested here, I... think it may be best to go to the Japanese aftermarkets? After a quick glance at shipping options etc?

My thinking being, even with international shipping prices, the JP aftermarket for MTMTE is very active right now. The cheapness of second hand comics in Japan and the fact that a lot of English volumes have come onto the market specifically because the JP translation is in print now and noone is scrambling to get them over there as a result... there's a decent number floating around and they're being sold for around RRP or less per volume. As long as you buy several volumes at once, the shipping doesn't increase exponentially, so it would be a good place to look. JP proxy sites for buying disparate items from various shops and getting them all shipped out from a single warehouse as one order makes importing from JP sellers quite a lot easier than many countries for this reason. (If you missed it, I wrote about this here and here; I recommend trying Mandrake first.) And I don't know much about shipping to mainland Europe, admittedly, but some brief research suggests that while it's not cheap, it's cheaper for those parts of Europe than those of us out here in Western and Northern Europe, so... (I have shipped from the UK to Eastern Europe before and uh, Yikes TM tbh.)

It is still so funny to me the easiest way to buy Western TF comics is through JP proxy sites rn. ANYWAY.

A few other things to be aware of if you are buying MTMTE/LL stuff:

Some volumes are just inexplicably 10x as expensive as others rn, namely some of the later MTMTE volumes. Noone... knows why this is.............. also, some are not super expensive, they just hardly ever show up, making them a PITA to just get. (Lost Light Vol. 2 is one example; it isn't super pricey usually it just. Doesn't get listed much.)

Despite this, prices have fallen from the genuinely ludicrous three-figures-per-volume panic that happened not long after IDW was announced to have lost the license. Things go for more like £20-60 depending on the volume right now. So hopefully this trend will continue.

There's currently no collection for some of the stuff (the TR issues, the Dark Cybertron stuff, etc) that isn't bundled in with the RiD stuff etc. So.

Anyway, I dunno how useful all this is anon. But good luck! I hope you can get what you're looking for :)

[open-at-the-close]

Okay okay, I'm gonna do it.

Keeping mind that I just finished this book last night and it has probably not been long enough for me to fully process, and definitely hasn't been long enough for my brain to come back together from being truly blown, but here are my initial thoughts after finishing House of Sky and Breath.

Let me start by saying I absolutely, 100000%, hands down fucking loved it. If you didn't enjoy it, then this is not the post for you because I'm about to go on and on about how epic this book was.

Now on to the spoilers

Let's start with my one true love, Ruhn. I'll be honest I went into this book fully believing in Ruhpaxia and this book fuckedddd up my ship 😂, but you know what? I'm not even mad. Ruhn continued to be utter perfection in this book. This selfless male literally made his entrance by giving.... Head to a random female whose name he doesn't know 😂. He continues to back Bryce 100% and being the absolute best brother. And I'm obsessed with his self reflection and cannot wait to see more of his journey. ALSO as if I couldn't love him anymore, SJM goes ahead and makes it cannon that Ruh is basically just an alternate reality Rhysand and I almost had a fucking stroke.

Bryce and hunt are of course also perfect. I love that Hunt supported Bryce all the way even knowing where this damn rebellion would lead. My man has serious trust issues (come on, Baxian was clearly a good guy as soon as he walked on the page. I love that giant dog), but he trusts Bryce no matter what and while then being mates was not at all a surprise I screamed anyway. I cried when he said 'light it up, Bryce', I cried when Bryce said 'light it up, Hunt'. And I fucking sobbed when Bryce sent that poor human boy to live with her parents because it was perfect, and selfless and I love her. Only downside to this perfect couple this book? Hunts damn comparisons to Shahar. Stop it. Shahar sucks, you were dumb, Bryce is a fucking goddess. The end.

Side note on our little human boy, Emile. I knew he didn't have powers from the beginning. Sofie was very specific when she talked about 'the power she told them he had'

Ithan! My man took me by surprise this book. I could live without the Loving Bryce thing, but as my favorite Mer said, she's fucking Bryce, everyone has a thing for her. I am HERE for him claiming the boys as his pack. Mystic wolf is for sure going to be his true mate and they're going to destroy Sabine. I refuse any other outcome.

Ari and Flynn are going to end up together. I don't care if they're mates or not they'll be together. the end.

Hypaxia and Celestina I'll be honest I sort of saw that coming. Celestina was clearly uncomfortable having sex with a man, and Hypaxia had that whole conversation about wanting to continue a relationship even though it was doomed. Did I expect them to get caught the way they did? Hell no. That was pure gold.

Day. Oof, okay this one did catch me off guard and after they revealed it I realized how obvious it was and I really shouldn't have caught me off guard. In the beginning I was positive that day was hypaxia. That was probably my bias still wanting ruhpaxia to be a thing, but then we found out she was consenting to sex with someone she didn't want to be with and I switched to thinking it was Celestina. Literally even after we catch Hypaxia and Celestina together I thought it was here because she said love is a trap she can't stop falling into, and I thought yes, she loves Hypaxia and Ruhn, we get the threesome we've been waiting for, everyone wins. Mannnn was I wrong 😂. When the Harpy came out and they made us think it was her for a hot second my cousin literally said man I thought it was going to be the Hind and I was like no way is it her. Again, boy was I wrong 😂. At the end of the day I don't hate this ship. I truly do feel bad for her. She was sent to live with her dad and twisted into something she didn't want to be, now Ruhn is shutting her out and she is tryingggg. I'm tentatively good with them ending up together.

Tharion. I'm not going to lie my mer let me down a little in this book. Don't get me wrong I still love him, and I hope he gets his happily ever after, but wanting to trick Ari into being trapped under? Not cool. This viper queen deal? Shadyyyy. I get that he was out of options I just truly don't understand why he didn't take the offer on the ocean Queens ship when he had it.

Cormac. Ugh I don't know that I've ever gone from hate to love a character so quickly. He walked in there like the scum of the earth and 5 minutes later I was like oh I love him. But, let's be honest we all knew he wasn't going to make it after they revealed Sofie was dead, and for sure after he had that heart to heart with Ruhn.

I already made an entirely separate post about the perfection that was that last chapter, but let me just reiterate that I AM OBSESSED with Bryce being in Velaris. I cannot believe she gave us a crossover and I'm genuinely concerned that I may never appreciate a book ending as much as I appreciated this one.

[tempestaslokni]

Rather than being put off, Lokni was intrigued. "I didn't know that about axolotyls, that's really interesting. Do you study wildlife?" he asked before addressing her inquiry about the bracelet, "to answer your question though, it feels kinda' like that. Like an extension of me. I don't need it to survive, but I feel that I'll need it eventually." He hoped that his explanation made sense, because to be honest, he wasn't sure that he quite understood it himself. Even though Lindi was driving a hard bargain with the bungalows and their usefulness, Lokni still felt that being off the grid was better for everyone. Lokni had met quite a lot of people, but that didn't mean that he trusted all of them. Most people had a bad side to them, even Lokni, maybe even this kind, energetic woman that he was conversing with. "I appreciate your offer, really, but I think it's best for everyone if I'm on my own. I want to help out, but I don't need to live in a bungalow to do that." The image of him making one of those bungalows his home was... strange. Reminded him of the rez dogs curled up in some ramshackle doghouse. They were all tethered to this island, but that didn't mean that Lokni had to accept it. There was a defiant seed rooted deeply within his heart. He wasn't going to roll over that easy.

Lokni's interest was piqued at her mention of Darcy. "Oh, you mean Miss Palmer? She's really nice, helped me get off of the ship. Are her theories about the island really that strange?" Lokni asked, holding aside a curtain of vines for Lindi to pass through. He was a little surprised at the tone that Lindi took on when discussing Miss Palmer. Had things gone sideways with the two of them? Her probing about his work made him a little curious. Did she really wanna' hear about all of that? "Well, I mainly herd cattle and dig holes for fence posts. Rodeos were for when I was a younger buck. At this age, if I took a tumble off a bull it could cost thousands in medical bills. I did some bull riding back in my day. Did a little bulldogging, reining, roping, but I don't think anything will top the races I did in Calgary. There's this event held in Alberta called 'Indigenous Relay Races.' I was gonna' go this year as well, I had gotten more confident in my horsemanship and wanted to give it another go." Lokni realized that his voice had taken on a lilt, his excitement at recalling the adrenaline he had felt at that time causing him to talk a lot more animatedly. "Enough about me though, what is the horseback riding scene like where you're from?" he asked, taking a moment to stretch, the phantom pains of old injuries ghosting around his ribcage. "Sounds like you really know how to give back to your community. That's really great, you know. I wish that we had had more people like you around on the rez. With the lack of infrastructure and all, we could use more help." He said, his strides in no hurry to get anywhere. It was true, a lot of reservations didn't even have paved roads. Memories of Lokni's poor attendance in school flashed through his mind. Teachers should've been better informed about how hard it was for Indigenous kids to get to school, but a lot of them were too preoccupied with paperwork to study up on reservation issues. When she mentioned her daughter, Lokni gave pause, he hadn't pictured her to be a mother, all smiles and energy. Compared to his own mother, she radiated health and exuberance. What made them so different? He wondered. Regardless, he was curious, "what's your daughter's name? Secondary school... so she's finishing high school, right? I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with systems outside of The States." He didn't know how to respond to hearing how she was divorced, but knowing what his mother and father's situation had been, he just assumed that it was for the best and that he shouldn't pry.

"Zaid's a damn good cook. You gotta' hand it to someone who can make a dish when there's hardly any ingredients available. The crab he cooked for us was great. I don't think I'll ever be able to turn down an invitation in the future. Dangerous man, that Zaid is." Lokni joked, waggling his eyebrows at Lindi in a playful manner. "Do you cook a lot at home? How do you prefer to do things?" At this point, he was bantering, but maybe that was an American trait. Awkward silences made him feel like things weren't right between them, and that he needed to fill it with something. "The fact that there are no cameras out here is why I want to stay away from the bungalows. I don't like it. I prefer my privacy where I'm able to get it." Lokni reiterated. Though, he couldn't expect everyone to understand that sentiment. After all, he had grown up in a place that couldn't afford cameras. Maybe it was just something that he had grown accustomed to. Regardless, he didn't want to just brush off what Lindi was saying, and he appreciated her seeing things from his perspective. It really meant a lot to him. More than he could iterate in his own words. "In all honesty Miss, I think that being "perceived" as a new age hippie here is the least of your worries. If resources start to run dry, it may turn into something much more than just a mission to get home. People can turn on each other in the blink of an eye in times of need." He said cautiously. It wasn't his intention to make the conversation so solemn, but he didn't want Lindi to fall into a false sense of security either. Despite this, Lokni knew that he needed to keep a close eye on the plants around and experiment with how long it took them to replenish their fruit and nutrient-packed roots. "What if we tried to make a community garden? I've collected some seeds from the fruits and vegetables I've been eating. We could probably help a lot of people out that way." Lokni said, looking up with his hands in his pockets. Shooting ideas out wasn't really his forte, but Miss Lindi did have experience with working in communal settings. Judging from the weather here, her wouldn't be surprised if the growing period was year-round, unlike America. They should use that to their advantage. If he did the muscle work, maybe they could make something really nice, for everyone. If they could get the other islanders in on it, they might be able to make a renewable source of food. It would also stave off potential conflict. "Speaking of strange things that have happened, so far aside from what happened with Maria, the strangest thing is me waking up here. I keep having people tell me of strange happenings, but I've not experienced anything too out of the ordinary aside from coming to on the ship." Lokni explained as honestly as he could. Was there something that everyone else was seeing that he wasn't? Lokni almost felt like there was some sort of barrier between him and everyone else. Again. The feeling ate away at him like an infection. Lokni didn't like that one bit.

Lindi did her best to listen as Lokni explained how his own bracelet felt strange, like an extra limb. "Like having a tail? The kind that can detach, like a lizard?" Or a newt. "Do you know axolotls can regrow their limbs and organs?" she piped up, and then sheepishly grimaced. She was dangerously close to descending into amphibian adjacent nerdery. It was a topic that often made her conversation partners' eyes glaze over with pure indifference, she wouldn't subject Lokni to that.

Somehow, Lindi had made a good go of convincing Lokni about the bungalows. Maybe Janice was right, maybe dipping her toes into real estate would have been the way to go. She could see Lokni turning over her points in favour of the bungalows over in his head, his aura a pleasing, steady glow with a slight shimmer. "There are plenty of bungalows available if you change your mind," she said, sounding like she was right out of the catalogue. God, she was wasting her talents on the PTA.

"I get along with most people," Lindi said, which was true enough. She should be the bigger person, refuse to engage in all of the nasty lowbrow rumour mongering. It was easier when she had Steve by her side, he would take every chance to stoop low and gossip and Lindi could stay within earshot and have the high ground. But he wasn't here (which was good, she didn't want him here, didn't want to subject anyone more to this even if she missed him). "Have you met Darcy?" she asked, aware she was being catty, bitchy… Whatever, sometimes it was nice to get it out. "I strongly disagree with her harebrained theories."

A much more pleasant turn in conversation was Lokni calling himself a ranchhand, which sounded like the non-chalant way of calling yourself a cowboy. A cowboy without the connotations and all of that. Did he still wear the hat? "I used to love horses, as a kid. Wanted a pony, the whole deal," Lindi said, trying not to gush about actually meeting a real life cowboy. "What sort of work do you do as a ranchhand?" she asked. "Like… rodeo sort of work?" she ventured, fishing but not fishing to see if he was more cowboy than not.

Lokni was so charming as he asked her how she filled her day, that she forgot to have her own internal angst and disappointment with herself over her answer. "I do a lot of volunteering, community boards, PTA, council meetings, that sort of thing," Lindi said, sidestepping the way of how she made money in a way that insinuated that money was not a problem for her. Well, now with her divorce, it was steadily becoming an issue. "I was on my way home from a job interview when all of this happened. I had a career break after my daughter," she explained, as if it was a short period without work, as opposed to nearly two decades.

Home, her job interview, her mortgage. All of that was up in the air, more and more uncertain with each day that passed. Lindi worried her bottom lip, humming emphatically as Lokni spoke about getting home as soon as possible, family worrying about him. It was almost too painful to think about, like his words had come and speared her through the chest. Even his aura had changed, wavering and dull with the weight of… his thoughts? Sadness?

His abrupt change to flirtation pleasantly shocked Lindi out of her malaise. Lindi blushed, and waved her hand at Lokni's prompting, giving an airy chuckle. It was easier to lean into the ease of flattery than to linger in her own sadness. "Well I'm divorced. Two months official and everything," she said, with a brave, bossbabe smile. "My daughter is just finishing secondary school…" Lindi trailed off, all of her ease and flippancy disappearing for a moment as she lingered on Paige. She needed to get back for her.

Lindi swallowed, blinking as she took a second to push thoughts of Paige out of the way. She smiled tightly, switching instead to discussion of crabs and cooking. "No, no, he had an utterly fantastic place in Soho," Lindi said, which made her sound like a rich prick, which she was, so that was fair.

"A lot about this whole situation doesn't sit right with me," Lindi said, parroting Lokni's words back to him. He had a wonderful way of putting things. "Normally I'm not too bothered by CCTV, but that's when I'm in London. Here it's almost… nefarious. Why keep tabs on us?" she asked. "At least out here there aren't many cameras. I can see why you want to stay in the forest."

Lindi knew that as soon as she started speaking about outlines and sparkles that she was going to sound insane. This whole place was insane. Selin changing sizes, teleportation, all tied back to the horrible noise on the speakers and Maria's explosion. "No, it's… refreshing to know I'll be believed," she admitted. "I don't know quite what to make of everything, really. I don't want everyone to think I'm some new age hippie. Not that there's anything wrong with that." The smell of incense gave her migraines. "Can I ask what strange things have happened to you?"