#does any of this make sense or am I being insane? or maybe it doesn’t even matter

[vaguely-concerned]

Eight Little Talons Reread Thoughts

Which, I’ll level with you folks, is mostly just me gushing about Teia and Viago and how much they should kiss because of who I am as a person, but maybe also some actual observations sprinkled in. This is still my favourite story in Tevinter Nights, I think, there’s so much Character Stuff in it. Let’s go!

Viago hated carriages—no amount of plush seating could make up for the inevitable ache of being knocked around like weighted dice. But decorum insisted, and he would not be outclassed by his fellow Talons.

Vs.

“You didn’t take a carriage.” 

“My luggage did. But I couldn’t resist the opportunity for a country jaunt.” She nodded toward the thoroughbred Taslin strider grazing on the top of the hill. “Andoral so rarely gets a chance to let loose in Rialto.” 

“You named your horse after an archdemon?” 

“Don’t worry, Vi. I won’t let him nip you.

You know… Andarateia might gain some illusion of normalcy by standing next to the most paranoid wound-up-tight repressed man around to provide contrast, but I think it’s crucial we keep in mind that she is also nuts. Naming your horse after an archdemon IS an insane thing to do in the world of Thedas huh. I suppose she genuinely seems to think of Caterina Dellamorte as a warm maternal figure and is in love with a tetchy snake of a guy too, it does all start to add up when you look at it like that.

— Beneath the smooth samite, he felt like a sinewy ball of tension. Teia suspected contact of any kind made Viago uncomfortable. It would explain why he swathed himself in indigo from chin to toe and refused to remove his gloves during dinner.

He offers his arm to her and doesn’t pull away when they meet Caterina — only when Dante shows up. Interesting (and possibly part of why Caterina seems to consider the two of them a cleverly stabilizing package deal when they get along lol). I love the mix of playful seduction and genuine fond, intimate knowledge and interest Teia has for him all the way through too — speculating about his childhood, trying to divine his thoughts and intentions, testing to see how he reacts to different things. And it’s so sweet that she seems to regard him with this affectionate amusement and fascination (which he seems to be afraid means that she’s mocking him but is, I think, just another level of appreciation she has for him. Correctly. Because he’s one of the funniest people in Thedas both in concept and in practice. Accountant brained-ass noodle arm Vetinari homage poison specialist. Teia’s neurotic purse dog of a man. Sole royal bastard who willingly chose to have a boring Antivan day job (killing people) and makes spreadsheets about it.) 

— “Not exactly welcoming, are they?” Teia whispered, her breath warm against his ear. 

Viago’s grip tightened on the head of his walking stick.

I swear to god courtney woods is so fucking good at writing romantic and sexual tension. One sentence!!! She drops in a one-sentence detail and it says everything!!!! She has such a knack for consistently adding these details without getting overindulgent or spelling it out too much that I really admire, I tend a bit more towards indulging too much as a writer that way myself so her sense of where to show restraint has me in awe 

— “Don’t ‘Nonna’ me, Andarateia Cantori,” Caterina snapped, although the heat in her voice had lowered to a simmer. “Not even my actual grandchildren call me that.” 

“Well, considering who your grandchildren are,” Teia responded, “I’m not surprised.” 

“How is Master Lucanis?” Viago asked.

Hell yeah Lucanis mention! Can’t wait to see how their dynamics will turn out in-game, we could be in for some truly spectacular and absurd workplace comedy nonsense if we’re lucky

— As always, Viago had with him his leather case of poisons and antidotes for toxins typically hidden in ingredients such as olives, truffles, pasta, lamb, cheese, cream, and alcohol. But he had not expected eggplant.

This is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read, I love Viago so much he’s such a perfect weirdo. Reader, he had not expected eggplant. 

— Taking a deep breath, Viago focused on tying his cravat—an ordinarily simple task except now Teia was running her hands across every surface in his room, and his fingers kept slipping on the final knot. “It would help if you removed the gloves,” Teia remarked. “Surely your own cravats haven’t been tampered with.”

Viago being just… seethingly horrifically despairingly horny every time Teia shows up is so amazing, and Teia clearly paying A Lot of attention to his hands and his reactions at all times… again, courtney woods s tier sexual tension provider. 

— “No,” she said, crossing her arms. “Not until we boil some water.” 

Viago raised a brow. “Eight people were poisoned in this room.” 

“Then run your little tests to make sure it’s safe, but I refuse to look at another dead body until I’ve had my coffee.”

I must take care to repeat: teia is also fucking nuts (affectionate). It’s SO FUNNY that her slightly lighter and softer moral take on being a Crow means she does feel bad about the servants ending up in the crossfire, but she will also demand that viago make her coffee with their horrifically bloated corpses still strewn about the room fhdsjka. 

— Teia had often imagined what it would be like to kiss Viago. She told herself it was only natural. He was handsome, in his own way, and wound up so tight that she likened him to a giant knot. He was a challenge to untie—to twist and pull and loosen until the tension gave way and he unraveled, laying bare all his secrets. But knots were a delicate business. Tug the wrong way and you could end up with a noose.

I know I KNOW they have sex so weird and intimate and no one even takes their clothes off during it I know it in my heart

— “Do you not think you’re attractive?” Viago turned on her, his ears pink. “Ten people are dead.” 

She didn’t back down. “And whoever’s responsible will pay, but that has no bearing on this conversation.” 

“It could be me.” 

Covering her mouth with both hands, Teia doubled over, laughter spilling from her lips. “It’s not you.” 

He looked as if she’d slapped him. “I’m more than capable of killing everyone here.” 

“Don’t tell me you’re offended!” 

“It is offensive,” Viago protested. “Professionally.”

Teia please tell me you love me not only for my body and fashion sense and numerous and fascinating neuroses but also my extensive knowledge of poisons and capacity to cause death

— Again, Viago felt like a lute string. With every challenge, Teia twisted the pegs, tuning him, until she found what she wanted. Which is what, exactly? he asked himself, not daring to listen to the number of answers that bubbled to the surface of his mind.

You know Viago I think we should let her try some scales here at least. See what happens. (There’s no explicit sex in this story but everything that’s going on is nevertheless so kinky fdsjak. I think Teia could convince Viago to show a flash of his naked wrist and have a reaction like a sheltered young Victorian gentleman seeing an exposed ankle and a playful wink for the first time)

— As if she could feel the sudden rush of shame within him, Teia brought her hands up to rest on Viago’s hips, holding him in place. His thumb stilled as he realized her breath was short. Her pupils dilated. Before he could stop himself, Viago nuzzled his forehead against hers, his nose brushing her cheek. Teia’s hands snaked up his chest to run through his hair. She tugged him forward. He braced himself on one arm, while the other curled around the small of her back. 

This whole scene is unspeakably good of course but it’s always the detail of ‘his nose brushing her cheek’ that does me in the most. The longing!!! The yearning, the intimacy, the awkward perfect clumsy physical reality of it!!!! If he kissed her here the magical potion thing on her lips would have been immaterial, the results would have been the same without it!!!!!! The tug of war between longing and fear!

— oblique Zevran mention! <3 as the ultimate failson of house arainai, granted, but as I believe he might argue here: ‘ah, but you have heard of me, no? :>’. Babe I support you so much go out there and raise hell/kill whoever you want to I got your flower

— Big shoutout to the author for managing to pull off an entirely workable ‘And Then There Were None’ plot in the background here, even though the real meat and potatoes going on is the character and relationship development (and what meat and potatoes they are too)! It’s not an easy thing to do even in an abbreviated, more of a homage sort of form and balancing it with everything else going on is a feat

— Caterina 100% knows Teia is in Viago’s room when he’s supposed to be isolated and just doesn’t care lmao. (They act like such teenagers in that scene where she knocks on the door and they haven’t even kissed yet I’m dying). Caterina seems like a terrible person but it’s impossible to not feel for her a little, trying to keep Talons in line seems a lot like herding (very horny very carrying sharp objects) cats 

— Standing outside her ex-lover’s room, Teia tried to quell the violent drumming within her. Normally, she didn’t need to come down from a physical encounter. Seduction—like any form of manipulation—was about control. She could enjoy herself, but Teia always made sure to hold the upper hand. Viago had shattered that control without so much as a kiss.

I feel like this is a sneaky common trait that actually is part of what makes them so compatible (and the playful negotiation of which must feature prominently in their sex life eventually lmao): they are both HUGE control freaks. (Indeed it might be hard to be a successful Talon without this trait.) Teia and Viago both strive for control of themselves and their surroundings so deeply, she’s just much more extroverted, psychologically minded and soft power focused going about it (not unlike Caterina, whose power is built more on fear than charm but works along the same lines), while he’s more coldly intellectual and uh materialist? I want to call it? about it. Which makes perfect sense considering their backstories! Teia came from nothing in a monetary sense but has found she excels at moving people, hearts and minds style — and she’s very good at it, she is everyone’s favorite — so that’s the source of power for her, and Viago is not very charismatic or interested in people naturally but grew up seeing how status, wealth and power have their own clinical gravity that can be used, and also that people can never be trusted to watch out for you in that system.  

If Thedas has a Machiavelli-equivalent to ask whether it’s better for a ruler to be feared or loved they would both instantly give their answer with their whole chest and then squint at each other like ‘babe how do you live like this’ lol

(Also this line of thought has me wondering what the hell Caterina’s partner/spouse(s) would have been like — she must have at least two children to account for Illario and Lucanis, I wonder if she was ever married and what that looked like.)

— I really like the oppressiveness and claustrophobia you get from the descriptions Teia uses in Dante’s room — it feels so icky and sticky with history and sad and confining, and the way she keeps pushing herself through it anyway is weirdly melancholy to me. 

— I also like how their flaws/traits that drive them apart at the crisis point have follow-up consequences outside of their relationship before they reconcile. Teia’s penchant for manipulation and pushing on people indirectly causes the death of someone she once cared about (I mean, fuck that guy, not crying any tears for Dante or his broken bottle, but like in the overarching principle of the thing lol). When she goes too far with it or gets careless, she renders other people vulnerable and helpless in ways she doesn’t anticipate. (Rightfully or not this seems to be part of what scares Viago so much about it, he has this fear of being dissected for whatever she finds interesting and then abandoned when she’s tired of it, the whole underlying being a footnote in her life when she could clearly be something uh a lot more in his anxiety.) Meanwhile Viago’s insistence on self-reliance and reluctance to engage in human contact leaves him easily isolated and nearly results in his death. (And even when Teia saves him he has a hard time giving her full credit in favour of his many neurotic coping mechanisms lmao disaster man.) But when the two of them work it out to understand each other better and come together as a partnership, they’re such a force to be reckoned with that it brute forces the resolution and return to stability near the end. (Well. A significantly reduced version of stability to be fair but y’know better late than never.)

— Also: delicious detail that she is actually the closest you might get to a self-made woman/Talon, and he is definitely at least not in a position to fully dodge the nepo baby allegations — he wants so bitterly to be entirely independent and self-sufficient and not reliant on anyone, and yet it’s his connections inherent to his birth that have helped him get here, while she wants so desperately to have people to rely on because she comes from nothing and has known what it is to be that alone and unprotected. He knows protection and gifts — and love — can easily be taken away and used to control you/render you helpless in your vulnerability from how his father treated his mother, and she knows you have to try to hold on to something in other people or it’s just you and the dirt and you die. Which is what they’re really talking about in that scene where they argue, and it’s why they’re both right and wrong at the same time and it’s so tasty. It’s really Teia asking ‘Will you ever trust anyone? (will you ever trust me, or will you put up this wall every time no matter what I say or do?)’ and Viago going ‘Will you never take precautions to protect yourself against this hurt? (will I have to be the bearer of bad news about how the world really is every time?)’ and neither of them realize that’s what they’re taling about and it’s why it all explodes so badly. (I mean. Factually both came to the wrong conclusion about who the murderer was for fairly good reasons, so there’s also that haha.) 

— I wonder if we’ll see Bolivar or the heirs to the houses left Talon-less in the game itself. I’m guessing they probably won’t have big roles, at least, but you know just as background flavour, especially since Crow!Rook is already within the de Riva uh household as it were. I think Viago is still sensibly mid-table at Fifth Talon in Veilguard and Teia remains Seventh? So at least they’re not messing around with that rank order during the occupation 

— In semi-not teia and viago news (I am a character first writer and reader I canot change this), it’s neat to see it outlined just how much the Talons really are just merchant princes with some more added knives and cultural weight behind them. They are at the end of the day running businesses, no matter the mystique ™ you wrap it in. (Which I think Viago would be the first to tell you and Teia might try to argue against at least a little haha. Being a Talon is what you make of it you live your truth girl kill awful men you’ll never run out of contracts!!)

— Can’t believe the Crows have self-congratulatory ‘top 10 murders in history!’ classes as part of the training. Do you think Zev sat through those. Probably, if Teia did, right. Now there were some entertaining hours around the campfire during the Blight I’m sure

— Viago understanding but not accepting Teia’s offer to help him with an alibi and at first angling it as being out of hesitancy to accept help/rely on someone, and then later unveiling the added element that he knows Teia respects and loves Caterina and doesn’t want her to have to lie to her for him… Viago is nothing so simple as secretly nice deep down but he IS horrifically in love with and desperate to be kind to specifically Teia and it gets to me okay  

— I’d forgotten that DA’s passionate love affair with toxic yuri and some recreational bury your gays extended to Guili and Lera in this fdskjah. Would it really be Thedas without it I suppose (considering the genre of the short story it’s fine with me in this case, though, everyone’s dropping like flies in this even the straight people that’s just equality) 

— Viago was not a typical Antivan. He liked facts—checklists, numbers, precise measurements. Heart palpitations, clammy hands, tight pants—Viago did not like these things. In fact, he would go so far as to say he hated them. Mild curiosity was his favorite mood. What Teia had elicited in him was akin to an internal natural disaster.

I simply love him so so much. Mild curiosity was his favorite mood. He failed to account for the eggplant. He’s so annoyed at being poisoned and dying horribly and it literally never occurs to him that anyone would help him until he wakes up in Teia’s lap. He organizes all his poisons by puns. He uses his potentially last breath to argue with Teia about his precise state of dress or undress. Have we finally found him, the perfect man? 

(Also between Reyes and Viago Courtney Woods does such a good line in guys who’d really rather be emotionless machines of practical violence and monetary gain but find themselves down so horrifically catastrophically bad that it cracks them open to reveal a soul they aren’t all that happy to discover they have lol) 

— When Viago woke, it felt like someone had drained the blood from his body and replaced it with sludge. But it wasn’t all bad—someone who smelled like coffee and cinnamon was playing with his hair. . . . Her fingers resumed stroking his hair. It felt better than the water. It felt better than anything.

Unspeakable. Don’t look at me. 

— Viago reaching out and touching Teia’s cheek with his bare hands without a thought and all his tenderness and reverence for her laid bare in turn is something that can actually be so personal and it only took very nearly dying to get there (also… he’s presumably still half-naked through all of this while cradled in her lap. Amazing.). Can’t believe bare hands to cheek feels like third base with these two. And his fucking THOUGHTS through all of this… Don’t cry, he doesn’t deserve your tears, no one does (I don’t, I don’t want to be something that causes you pain) AOUGH

— Vaguely related: the implication in how that part is built is that he’s reaching out specifically to gently dry away her tears, right. Double AOUGHHHHHH not only does he manage to not be selfish or unfair in asking her not to cry he does that instead… there’s hope for you yet messere de riva  

— Teia with the red-hot poker standing guard over Viago while he ‘looks like a king in judgement’ and does the Poirot in the library exposition is everything and so hot what the fuck. She a snacc she attacc but most importantly… she protecc, she’s so fucking cool lol. they’re both really smart, but she’s clearly the brawn as well as the social skills (hey manipulation is such an ugly word!) and he’s the logistics and realpolitik on two long thin nerdy legs, absolute power couple. She’s the gaslight he’s the girlboss together may they gatekeep this invading army out of antiva  

— You guys… this might come as a surprise I have tried to keep it on the down low but. I really do love the world of Thedas so very much. I love the people and the places and the history and the stupidness and the brilliance so much. We must save the world because everyone I love lives here. Let this be a secret between just you and me we can’t let people know we sit/have emotions etc.  

— A servant approached to take the cage in Viago’s hand. 

“Careful,” Viago warned. “He bites.” 

“I can’t believe you’re keeping that snake,” Teia said, shaking her head. “It almost killed you.” 

“Which is more than any man can say. He deserves my respect. And a good home—with all the mice he can eat.” 

“But did you have to name it Emil?” Teia asked, making a face. 

“An homage. You’re always telling me to recognize my fellow Talons.”

Andarateia ‘names her horse after an archdemon’ Cantori x Viago ‘keeps the deadly adder that nearly killed him as a pet and names it after the last guy who failed to murder him’ de Riva. Freak well and truly matched. Soulmates, no notes, I’ll do borderline anything for these two to make it, goodnight. 

[lucystark12]

milevens are insane

warning now - i get extremely heated in this so if you're going to tell me to calm down leave. before any of you weird bitches tell me to go do something more productive or to touch grass- no. i'm fifteen, it's summer, and i'm a highly involved high school student. i'm not here because i have nothing better to do, i'm here because i understand good writing and am able to have hobbies ❤️

anyways

was on the mileven endgame hashtag just now and because i don't choose violence i wont be addressing any of them directly, but i will be addressing some of the ridiculous bullshit on there. term bullshit used intentionally

the love confession came as a result of mike "gaining the confidence" to tell el how much he loves her because he was afraid that he loved her more than she loved him.

are you listening to the words that are coming out of your mouth right now? i want to sit down and get a coffee with you and dissect what the fuck you meant by that. sure, right, yeah, he gained so much PRODUCTIVE confidence from his conversation he had with will where will was using eleven to mask his own feelings for mike. it makes so much sense narratively that this end all be all mileven event is sparked from will's feelings and not mikes! sure! right! this is such an idiotic piece of reasoning. you are literally saying that you are okay with your endgame ship only being endgame based on faulty communication and lies. are you joking? "you just gotta improve your motivation" ass piece of evidence

also, mike being insecure about loving her more than she loves him is complete, total, utter bullshit. el frequently expresses her love to mike via letters and youre here to say that mike would have any problem with doing the same thing if he were insecure about her love for him? that literally makes no sense. i wouldn't be afraid of loving somebody more than they love me if they are actively putting more effort into insuring me that they love me than i am to them. like, what does that even mean?

“Will Byers is a pathetic loser annoying character and contributed little to the plot of ST. "

yes that is a direct quote. no i'm not kidding.

what kind of fucking neanderthal watches stranger fucking things- a show about a kid who disappears- and thinks the kid who disappears isn't a central part of the narrative? the first episode of the goddamn show is called "the vanishing of will byers"! maybe this is hard for you and your confused brain to get your head around, but el and mike met when mike was out looking FOR WILL. mike and el are still together because mike gained courage from WILL'S LOVE FOR HIM. what a fucking idiot you must be. i would try to explain to you the myriad of other reasons why will is absolutely central to the plot of the show, but since the show itself has clearly gone in one ear and out the other, i probably wont be able to get through to you either.

“what if we learned to cope with world that doesn’t accept us as individuals by embracing each other completely?” said about mileven

um.. what. that's literally byler. closeted gay guys in the 80s. but sure, the ones that aren't being accepted are the two white and allegedly heterosexual individuals. the "world that doesn't accept us" in question is a few high school bullies in comparison with the stigmatization, violence, and ostracization that has longstanding been a part of what it means to be queer. be so serious right now. mileven is not important for being non conformist, the GAY SHIP IN THE 80S IS!!

“The only people who queerbaited, was byler fans themselves lmao.”

even if we're ignoring the horrible grammar there are still SO many things wrong with everything that was just said. what they're saying above for anybody who can't decipher the weird medieval english code this person is using is that bylers actively queerbaited themselves which inherently makes no sense at all.

below i have included the oxford dictionary definition of queerbaiting: "the incorporation of apparently gay characters or same-sex relationships into a film, television show, etc. as a means of appealing to gay and bisexual audiences while maintaining ambiguity about the characters' sexuality."

how is it possible that byler shippers themselves are the ones doing the queerbaiting? are we running the show? nope! before you come on and post something as offensive as this- which i will get into- at least make sure you know what you're saying. xoxo

to insinuate for even a second that mike wheeler not being gay would be anything other than deliberate queerbaiting is insane. there is something wrong with you. aside from the parts of the show where his queerness is deliberately alluded to like music, costuming, analogies, allegories, and set design, netflix has been, weather you like it or not, actively marketing in favor of byler and mike not being straight. all below come from official netflix accounts-

how is this not queerbaiting? genuinely what are you on about. this is literally textbook.

“will is fruity but mike didn't like the fruit on his pizza”

you seriously are basing your argument about mike not being gay on him not liking fruit on pizza? you seriously think that some of the most commended and celebrated writers of the last decade would use symbolism involving a word that can literally be interpreted as a slur when their show has two characters who are canonically a part of the group affected said slur? are you fucking stupid? that was harmless banter used to communicate the differences in habitual action across the country. it wasn't the duffers trying to do for you what they do for us in deliberate, straightforward NON-OFFENSIVE symbolism.

i saw somebody claim that mike's character arc in season four was inherently about not believing in his self worth nor in his competency to be in a relationship with el

while i do for the most part agree with you, i'm going to ask you a question- mike was never anxious about his identity and self worth involving el before season four. why do you think that just came up now if not for the fact that he's been having insecurities involving his sexuality and romantic attraction to women as a whole? in my opinion, mike realized that he might not like girls in that way circa the end of season three- a realization that only festered and grew through the absence of not only the boy he loves that is causing this insecurity but the girl whom he is using as a way to say hey, i can't be gay, i have a girlfriend! mike was clearly going through some serious emotional struggles as we can immediately see in this scene with how suddenly awkward he is with will and the immediate emphasis that's put on the "from mike" on the flowers.

i agree that his season four and part of his season five arc are about his feelings of insecurity about being in a relationship with el, however, i don't think he's insecure because he thinks she's better than him in the sense that she's some superhero, i think he thinks she's better than him because he knows that he'll never be able to love her the way she deserves to be loved. he's not going to outright come and say to will that he doesn't think that he can love her in the way she deserves to be loved. he's closeted. what he says in the van scene is the only way he knows to express his feelings. it's very similar to what will does in the same scene. it makes no sense for this insecurity to randomly manifest in him if it wasn't for an external factor that doesn't involve el, because nothing has really changed with the dynamic of their relationship other than the move. one could argue that mike is feeling insecure over el's supposed popularity she claims to have in her letters, but mike's arc has never been about caring about popularity in school. that's not something on his mind so much as the grand scheme of the world is. lets not forget that he joins hellfire in season four.

“When Mike didn’t say “I love you”, By*ers twisted it to their narrative. When Mike did say “I love you”, By*ers twisted it to their narrative.”

you literally sound like trump going on about the democrats. listen to what your saying right now. also, it's a ship name. there's no need to censor it you fucking weirdo.

wasted time building up mileven

i'm sorry, what build up? i'm confused. there's no "build up". THIS is build up:

above is will, possessed by a monster who feeds off of those lacking love in their lives, only being able to be broken out of possession by a heartfelt monologue by the PERSON HE LOVES detailing how the best decision he ever made was to befriend him.

above is will claiming he will never fall in love, then his love for one of the other main characters becomes a central plot point of the two seasons to come. joyce and i see through will and all of you weird milevens

mike telling will how it's not his fault will doesn't like girls only after he loses the person he's been using to cover up his own insecurity about the same thing- not liking girls. suspicious.

will's LOVE FOR MIKE being the thing to give him the confidence to help el SAVE THE WORLD, only episodes after we establish that mike is bound to be pissed that he was lied to. and theres no buildup? THERE'S REALLY NO BUILDUP?

if you don't see buildup i fear you are literally just a lost cause because it is so painfully obvious to anybody who made it past seventh grade english class that there is something deeper and more intimate than friendship going on between will byers and mike wheeler.

“Women can be independent while being in a relationship guys😭!!”

OBVIOUSLY! i am literally the biggest feminist on the entire western seaboard. i couldn't agree more with this, which is why we have arcs like nancy's where she actively becomes more independent while still maintaining a relationship with jonathan. the difference is that mike and el have been together since they were like thirteen. when el was immersed into the real world for the first time in season two she immediately leaned on mike for support in that. it's not that she can only be independent on her own, it's that mike is directly symbolic to her of a time when she was stumbling around the world with naivete and not quite knowing how to navigate that. by spreading her wings away from that relationship, it will not only give her independence, but also a way to see beyond the barriers of hawkins and a life where she was valued mostly for the qualities she brings to the supernatural equation. el's arc is one of my favorites. i would never claim such a thing and discredit the essence of what makes the emotions behind her character so interesting. she's somebody who was literally raised in a lab. she shouldn't be held back by somebody she is quite literally dependent on.

last but not least, i saw a post that said milevens always win.

"are you sure about that?" i ask, noah schnapp's most recent instagram post open on my phone, finn wolfhard's spotify playlist in my headphones, my mike holding will's painting funko on the desk in front of me, wearing a yellow shirt with a blue sweater over it.

thank u for listening to my ted talk 💙💛

[opiopal]

My physical head canons for the brothers that no one asked for but I’m sharing anyways because I can’t contain myself cause im a beast of headcanons that need to be released RARARARAR(don’t mind the cringe I’m sleep deprived,)

Lucifer

I like to imagine Lucifer with a slim face and bold cheekbones, he has side burns that look more like small black feathers and ofc he has eyebags, and he’s not as pale, having more of an olive skin tone. I’ve always imagined him with a hooked nose as well, along with more gray hairs. His ears are pointed upwards and are decently long. He still has a slim waist in my brain but also a bolder chest and shoulders. He’s not very muscular but still looks strong for his age(got those baby holdin arms). He has Insanely good posture and I imagine him in his regular outfit as is(though I like to imagine his stupid fuckin shoes are at least a darker brown). He is the third tallest in the household.

Mammon

His face shape is relatively the same in my brain, minus the addition of his ears being pointed, though I always tend to imagine his skin a few shades darker then what it is. his hair has little gold tips like in his demon form. And some of his body hair, like on the back of his hands, arms, and his legs, look like little white feathers. He’s fit like a runner and has very vague abs, like, you wouldn’t process they were there unless he pointed them out. I like to imagine him with a few piercings as well(body piercings not face piercings iykyk;3). His clothes are relatively the same in my brain but he doesnt have feathers in his boots(just keep the feathers as a keychain babe we all know you have a bird thing going on it’s ok). He’s the fourth tallest in the house.

Levi

Levi has as round face in my mind, along with blue freckles that appear like blue scales and visible gills on his neck. His ears are long and thin and constantly drooped(cause bbg is always pathetic no matter what and that’s why I love him💕) His hands and feet have webbing. since he is canonically tall(compared to mammon at least) I like to imagine him being the second tallest and because he is decently tall his body fat does even out, though he has a gut and multiple parts of his body is a lot squishier. I can imagine his clothes give him the appearance of being thinner, but obviously he’s not. And i imagine his clothes to be pretty much the same, maybe looking a little more like he just rolled out of bed though if that makes sense. And like I said he’s the second tallest in the HOL, but sometimes it’s hard to tell cause he slouches.(I can imagine one day he’s getting scolded by Lucifer and he’s told to sit up straight, and after he does so it baffles Lucifer a bit that he has look up at him)

Satan

First things first he does NOT have that jacket, immediately he looks a lot better with only that sweater and his regular pants. Though I can imagine his clothing looking a lot darker, black pants, darker shirt underneath his sweater. His face is pretty similar to Lucifer’s, though his nose is a little smaller and his ears are a little shorter. He’s fit, mostly because I’m sure he burns calories out of pure spite/j. But in all seriousness I feel like he would be a little scrawny from not eating a whole lot by mistake, probably because he was sucked into a book, so he doesn’t mean to forget to grab a snack here and there, he’s just to much of a nerd </3. He’s relatively tall, and him and mammon are the same height.

Asmo

Skin so smooth it would make a modeling agency weep. I like to imagine any makeup he wears is a lot more obvious? Like, you can actually tell he’s wearing makeup, and it’s always flawless, the type of flawless were you can’t help but wonder if he gets up at 4 am to do his makeup. And I could totally see him either using those eyelash oil things to make his lashes grow longer as a part of his 3457 step skincare routine. And I imagine his ears are more elegantly elf like. His hair is still that very soft pink in my mind but the tips fade into a slightly brighter pink, and is also longer. I will never imagine him in his Og outfit because his human realm outfit just fits him so so SO much better both personality wise and just fashion wise period. He definitely works out but just enough to stay healthy and to not develop any muscles. I imagine he is also the same height as mammon, but maybe shorter by half an inch? I also like to imagine he flip flops from looking super fem to being more in between.

Beel

First things first he has a rounder face, period. I also like to imagine him with freckles and his hair is a little scruffier and longer. Not to long but touching his shoulders. He also has shorter chunkier ears that droop downwards. He is the tallest in the household no doubt about it, being taller than Levi by nearly a foot. I imagine his clothes as relatively the same, the fluff on his coat just doesn’t look as matted(I can’t be the only one who thinks that it looks like it needs to be brushed😭). As for his body, he has a gut. And just overall is so much more hunky. I can imagine his body is constantly changing from being more fit to being chunkier, so he has a good handful of stretch marks from his body constantly changing. I like to imagine that demons can burn fat a lot easier than humans, so he finds little to no issue with working away some of the fat that accumulates. But overall he’s mostly rocking a gut and strong arms. Also he’s not as pale in my mind, like he definitely has some melanin.

Belphie

Belphie also has a rounder face, with cow print looking freckles. His ears are droopy like beels and has the same cow print freckles. His hair is longer and he is in a constant state of bedhead. I also don’t think he’s SUPER scrawny, his stomach is pudgy and you can kind of see his ribs. I can also imagine the tips of his fingers have a black gradient and his nails are long and pointy like talons, I like to imagine that it takes some effort to be in their neutral forms, so he doesn’t care a whole lot to fully commit to it. First things first with his clothes: mf does NOT have those pants, nor those knee high laced brown boots. In my head he probably has a pair of sweatpants that have a star pattern, along with some slippers(maybe little cow head slippers cause that’s adorable in my head, and even though I don’t like him a whole lot he still deserves SOME bbg vibes </3). The rest of his clothes are fine to me I guess. But overall he does not care about his looks whatsoever and is always ready for his next nap.

[thelaurenshippen]

question about my favourite tbs character: did you intend to write damien to seem borderline or did that just come about unintentionally? i have BPD and holy shit damien reads as SO borderline to me it’s kind of insane. there’s that entire final letter in SFP, but the line “i think maybe i’m supposed to hate all of me” hits so, so close to home for me. maybe i’m not as self destructive as damien, but i do understand him. he makes me feel so seen and maybe that’s a grim thing to say given his behaviour, but… damien absolutely reads as borderline to me. his unstable relationships he manages to sabotage intentionally or unintentionally, his barely-there sense of self that balances on the fact that he thinks he’s this horrible monster, his impulsive decisions that somehow never work and always bite him in the ass, his intense mood swings, his genuine terror of being abandoned to the point where he will beg someone for even a scrap of love as soon as he’s not immediately hated, and the part about not knowing what wants are his or what wants deserve space — maybe he’s a villain and historically, BPD is used as a villainous trait, but damien doesn’t feel like a moustache twirling, witch cackling, murderous and irredeemable villain to me. he just seems like someone who’s made of bad decisions and ruined relationships. he seems like someone who’s in a lot of pain and doesn’t know how to live with himself so he constantly searches for someone to fill this massive, emptiness inside him that won’t ever be filled because no one taught him what it felt like to be whole — not until he kidnapped met mark and predictably enough, that relationship crumbled to dust. damien hasn’t had much, so he holds onto things and people so tight that they end up getting crushed between his fingers and somehow he loses everything he gets even though he could have anything he’d ever wanted. maybe i’m completely misinterpreting damien but i do absolutely love him and he’s SUCH a well written character. i could easily talk about him for hours to anyone who will listen.

sorry for waxing poetic about damien in your ask box but i love him so much and who better to vomit my thoughts about him to than the person who wrote damien, right?

I love that you love Damien!!! I really love him too, and it means a lot when people relate to him or see him as more than just a mustache-twirling villain because he is more than that. he's someone who makes the same terrible decisions over and over again, someone who has been corrupted by his power, and who wants connection but doesn't know how to get it. that doesn't excuse any of his actions, of course, and he's not irredeemable, because no one is, but he would need to be way more active in his own redemption to really get there. he's a very complicated person and it means a lot to me when people appreciate all those complex, human dimensions.

all that said, I'm always glad to hear that people headcanon any characters with anything they feel like they share, but I've written very few characters with specific conditions. even though she's never actually technically diagnosed (Dr. Bright does not do traditional diagnosis), Sam has anxiety and a panic disorder. I have those diagnoses myself, so I feel confident in saying that's what she struggles with. the other major one would be Frank's PTSD - I knew he had PTSD from the get-go and always wrote him with that in mind. but, of course, that's not to say other characters don't have diagnosable PTSD, just that I haven't necessarily thought in those terms with a lot of characters.

in general, I don't find it particularly useful for my writing purposes to get formal with how I'm thinking about my characters and their mental health. I focus instead on how they feel, how they behave, their relationships, etc. and because of who I am and who I have in my life (which includes people with BPD as well as bipolar, anxiety, depression, PTSD, autism, adhd, etc.), a lot of traits of various conditions pop up here and there. a professional psychiatrist might be able to look at my characters and the DSM and match things up, but that's not my expertise nor particularly useful to me personally!!

but again, I love headcanons! I have my own relationship to the bright sessions and its characters, but from the moment I released the first episode, they ceased being mine. they're yours to do with what you choose!

[kami-no-ko]

AGE UP killugon! I have this whole thing in my head: an AU where Killua never left home to attend the Hunter Exam and he is everything his family envisioned him to be. Except he’s burnt out and feels purposeless. So eventually he becomes self-destructive and takes on the most dangerous jobs without breaks or any sense of self preservation. One day, he takes on a job to assassinate Gon Freecss, the youngest 3 star Hunter in history.

Gon is rumored to be insanely powerful and surrounded by influential and faithful allies. It’s the most dangerous job yet even for Killua, and on top of that he’s still recovering from a serious injury from a previous assassination. So when he tracks down Gon at a bar in a fancy hotel, he decides to seduce Gon to get him to lower his guard first and hopefully he would go back his suite with Killua alone. He’s appearance has always been a reliable weapon and from his research, Gon likes men as well as women. But as soon as he starts talking to Gon, it’s like the sun finally shines on him and the dark hole in his heart is magically filled with that sunshine. They talk and talk and flirt and hours go by and the bar closes when the sun is about to rise. So Gon takes Killua back to his room. They start to make out as the door swings shut but Killua forgets his injuries and hisses as Gon reaches under killua’s shirt and disrupted his bandages. He tries to act like it’s nothing and tells Gon to ignore it and keep going but of course Gon would not. They end up just talking all night and make out gently. When the bright morning light shines on Gon’s face, Killua decides that he’s not going to kill Gon- and if Gon finds out about his true motives and kills him or if his family tracks him down and punish him, so be it. But he worries that the person who hired him will hire someone else to finish the job, so he stays with Gon to protect him. It was supposed to be for just a while, but the more time he spends with Gon, the harder it becomes for him to leave. Killua eventually gets his Hunter license. They go on adventures and jobs together. After they risked their lives for each other over and over again, Killua finally tells Gon that he was initially hired to kill him.

But the truth is, Gon is the one who hired Killua. Killua is notorious for his killing spree yet no one even knows what he looks like. Gon decides that he likes a challenge and comes up with this insanely reckless plan without even telling anyone. He wants to draw Killua out; he wants Killua to try to kill him, because it has been a while since he’s met a worthy opponent and he would be taking care of a headache for the Hunter Association as well. But the moment he meets Killua, it’s like a missing piece from a puzzle that is his life has been slid back to where it belongs and a hole that he did not even realize existed in his heart has been filled just like that.

More stuff happens - Gon is kind of an asshole for keeping it a secret and Killua feels so embarrassed and even hurt but Gon being Gon does extravagant stunts to woo Killua so all is good in the end.

Or if we are in a darker universe with a darker Gon, maybe he was initially toying with Killua, making love with Killua, watching Killua falling for him while holding himself back. Killua can sense it but he’s ok with it- he doesn’t think he deserves love anyway. But when a job goes wrong and Killua almost dies protecting Gon, something in Gon cracks. He accepts the fact that he has fallen hopelessly in love with his target just like Killua did. He nurses Killua back to health annnnnnd they lived happily ever after.

Holy crap it’s 3 AM- how did a quick doodle turned into this half ass fiction.

[beefscrap]

Hello. Real talk, pretty sensitive, and political. I need help I’ve been keeping it to myself but it doesn’t do anything. I am scared that Sheephead is a Jewish stereotype and I don’t really know what to do about it

I’ve been keeping it to myself partially because idk if it sounds crazy. I get super paranoid about stuff like that - or at least, I have in the past. Maybe TMI but I also experience psychosis which heightens this paranoia at times. Big cycle of being terrified and not sharing. Anyways, please be honest and tell me if I’m being paranoid. But also be honest and PLEASE tell me if my fears are ACCURATE. Mostly asking Jewish followers and people / educated people. I will block any antisemites instantly.

I know he’s a dragon. We are in wings of fire and Judaism does not exist here. My reasoning is 1. His appearance. Like, his design is meant to be an overbite. I just give him the nose when I draw him becuz that’s how I’ve been styling it. But even look at like. Mort from family guy. He has those exact teeth (terrible Jewish stereotype character. Yk family guy). Second reasoning is his personality. There is that “anxious Jewish person” stereotype and as we know, Sheephead is meant to be pathetic and anxious because of the role he plays in the story. I’m pretty sure Mort is actually again a perfect example of that.

Please, please be honest. And I won’t force the responsibility upon anyone else, but if you’re willing I’d GREATLY appreciate it if anyone has advice on how to fix it at this point. Especially if you’ve read my story and have that added context. Again, mainly looking for Jewish people’s voices here.

I don’t know if it was subconscious or something, but I had no intention of making Sheephead a nasty stereotype. That’s never my intention. My intention was to literally make him a nerd, but ofc add depth to that. No matter what though, intention doesn’t matter in the end. The impact matters

So yeah hello everyone lmk if I’m being insane or if I make sense. You won’t hurt my feelings and all that yeah

[vespidclan]

Idk why but Sparkbreak ( 500 ) from the Roleswap seems like the type of " player " that resets a bunch of times for the " best outcome " or will reset if their favorite character/cat dies in a patrol or moon skip.

That probably sounds insane so let me explain. Moth ( 404 ) seems to have the type of playstyle of someone who's trying to tell a story/stick to a certain rule list like for challenges. Ik it's all to make cat's suffer but she's very methodical ( like cm only players interested in story lore would headcannon their rng kitty to have psychology broken at the sight of their God and then moon reset until they get the Kill Yourself prompt (( now that I say that that sounds like shade at you I promise it's not )) )

But Spark ( 500 ) would have the playstyle of getting to attached to every cat within the small clan and not wanting anything to happen to them, so I see him resetting moons that have death in them, resetting when a patrol outcome results in injury/death, and other odd things ( like if the clans prey stores are low just coding in more or even turning it completely off ).

But tbh thinking about it this way, I'd hate ro like in a 500 world. Could you imagine watching a friend/sibling/parent/partner die right in front of you? Then in an instant your back in your nest at the start of the day and they come in the den bringing you food like always. You never starve because the pile is always full, but you take note that it's always full, and that even if every cat was hunting at all times, they still couldn't catch that much. You feel like you should've been dead a long time ago. You're an elder that's surpassed life expectancy, you're suffering but something won't let you die. You're his daughter, he'd never hurt you, but in helping you he is.

Sorry for the ramble I'm mentally ill

I liked reading this! And this is an interesting idea for reverse Spark/500 in the sense that he’s the opposite of 404. Maybe instead of becoming hateful of everyone and himself he sees it as an opportunity to protect everyone he loves from what horrors he’s witnessed, and not 404’s differing mindset of wanting to break others down because of the mentioned horrors.

This has its drawbacks of course—the cats in the clan, the favored ones at least, will basically be invincible to any obstacle. They’re healthy and well fed. They will have no memory of dying or being in pain because 500 made sure they could never die. Imagine if they saw someone they loved die, and in the next moon, they’re suddenly conversing with you like it never happened. Everything is perfect, but too perfect, in an uncanny and fake way. Maybe your inferior mind can’t pinpoint exactly what’s wrong with your life, but something is definitely not right.

What if 500 picks favorites like the ‘favoriting’ system the actual game has? What does he do with the cats he doesn’t like? Would Out Of Bounds be turned into a prison for those cats if they end up dead? Would he cause their deaths to stay out of their ‘perfect clan’? How would 500 deem which cat is more favorable? He’s extremely protective to who he loves… and that’s his biggest flaw. Everyone else will languish, because to him, that’s the way it should be for them.

Or think of this! If he really wants to… he could alter a cat completely. New personality, appearance, quirks, a completely different cat, and everything would change to fit his view so that you’re the ‘ideal version’. One moment, you’re yourself. Next moment, you’re unrecognizable to yourself. Good for him, probably good for others, but for you? You would never know.

So what we’re getting at is; 404 and 500’s way of managing the game is just another example of dystopias and utopias… Neither are favorable but that’s what’s fun! Two sides of the same coin, meddling with something that they shouldn’t in order to benefit themselves… I think they’d fit this song really well actually.

I did base his design off of AM! Since it’s something I didn’t really do for 404 and I still want him to be based off of the same things that inspired 404, but just enough so that he’s his own thing. His original sketch had him look way more similar to him, but I went for a more cat-like look instead

[slippinmickeys]

The Unseelie Court (8/16)

“So here’s what I’m thinking,” Mulder said, double parked in front of Scully’s building with the flashers thrown on. “We try to get in with Skinner, maybe. See what he does and doesn’t remember. But first I’m going to have Danny pull up phone records. Prove that the Sheriff called me yesterday morning, and that I called Skinner. Then we plead our case and explain that this is absolutely an X-File. If we’re lucky, we’re back in Adrian County by this time tomorrow.”

Scully roved her eyes over Mulder’s earnest expression, lingering on his eyes, almond-shaped and dusky in the dashboard light. The cap of his hair was only inches from the felt of the car’s ceiling. Sometimes she forgot how tall he was. 

“I agree that it’s an X-File, Mulder,” she said. “But what would we even do if we got back to Adrian County? How do you intend to explain all of this to Skinner? To the Sheriff? We don’t have a suspect. We barely have a crime. What are we going to do, get down there and ask them to put out an APB on redcaps and a powrie?” 

“For one thing, I don’t think the fae we’re dealing with here are nymphs and sprites. I think they’re people-shaped.”

Scully sighed. “I’m not sure that’ll sound any better to Skinner. Even assuming we can prove to him all the things that have happened, that will—if you’ll pardon the expression—sound completely insane.”

A car on the corner turned and headlights panned across Mulder’s face, tracing a shadow of his jaw. He was beautiful. And tragic. And she loved him in a way that shook her to her marrow. 

“At this point, I don’t really think he expects anything less,” he said with no small amount of diffidence. 

“I just don’t want you getting hurt,” she said. She wasn’t even sure what kind of hurt she meant; humiliation, rejection, or god forbid, something worse. She would do, she had to admit to herself, a ridiculous number of things to help him avoid that. “Mulder, I know I can be…the way I am.” She struggled to put words to the raw emotion he conjured in her, both good and bad. “But I would do almost anything to protect you,” she admitted in a rush. 

Her pulse picked up a little while the hazard lights ticked a steady rhythm. 

“Feels like a root beer moment,” Mulder said, giving her a half-hopeful, half-sad smile. 

An understatement, she thought, picturing a younger them sitting in the dark in front of Tooms’ apartment. God, would they ever figure out how to get out of their own way?

“I meant what I said then,” she said seriously. “And I mean it now.”

For him she wielded a scalpel and sliced herself deep. For him she bled. Would bleed. He made her desperate, and in her desperation she had stood up to bosses, to brothers, to Congress. He made her weak, but her weakness made her strong. Love by any other name was his. 

“Scully—” he started, but she whipped off her seatbelt and was half across the console, his cheek in her hand, her lips pressing desperately into his. He melted into her touch, his own hands tangling in her hair, straining against the seatbelt he was wearing to get closer to her. She kissed him soundly. She kissed him hard. She kissed him until the roar of blood in her ears was louder than the voices of fear and apprehension in her head.

When she pulled back, he looked dazed, spellbound, his lower lip glistening with the ichorous slip of her kiss. 

“I’ll see you in the office,” she said, and she was out of the car and into the cool damp of the night before he could muster a response.

***

Mulder thrashed to awakening, his sheets wrapped around his lower legs, pulling him, pinning him down. He drew in a gasping breath, trying to make sense of being in his own room, in his own bed. His dream had been terrible and dark, the only thing he could remember about it was that Scully had been taken away from him, and he’d been held down by a searing hot pain pressing into his chest. He brought his hand to the skin there, and it was hot to the touch. 

He leaned over and switched on his bedside lamp, blinking against the sudden light for a peek at his alarm clock. 3:33am. 

Far too early to head into the office, even for him. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep, though he was tired. He flopped back down onto the bed and reached for the pillow on the other side, hugging it to himself and huffing the scent of Scully’s hair that still lingered on the pillowcase. 

If he was going to be awake, he may as well put the time to use. Mentally, he put each piece of evidence, occurrence and person onto an inner-mind index card and shuffled the deck. When he laid out the cards, it put forth a confusing picture. Daly Carmichael had disappeared 26 years ago and returned, not altogether too far from where he’d gone missing, in almost the same state in which he’d left. Until Scully had pulled the leaf with the seven-pointed star etched into it out of his mouth, which Mulder had to consider might be coincidental. 

The star represented the Seelie Court of the Fae, if Mulder’s instincts were correct. The most perplexing parts of the case so far were the fact that Daly Carmichael hadn’t aged (and then had, rapidly), and the fact that no one seemed to remember it other than Mulder, Scully and the diener in the Adrian County morgue. The strange coins spoke to him, as did the now-missing ingot of iron. The fairy hollows or groves he and Scully had found, the missing time. If the leaf had been imbued with magic of some kind, that could explain either the lack of aging or the later aging itself, and perhaps why the only people to have come into contact with the leaf were the ones that seemed to remember it. Maybe it explained the other things that had happened as well—the missing evidence, appearance and disappearance of the groves.

And then Mulder remembered that the diener, Aeon, hadn’t actually seen the leaf. Scully had pulled it out of Carmichael’s mouth, and Mulder had bagged it and was still in possession of it. Other than pointing them in the direction of the lab, the grumpy little man hadn’t had anything to do with it. Unless he’d encountered it when prepping the body.

Mulder would have to ask tomorrow. In the meantime, he continued to shuffle and reshuffle the mental cards in his head over and over, each time coming up with an incomplete picture and no real concrete investigative path forward.

He sighed, hugging the pillow closer to his chest and taking another look at the clock. 

3:41am. 

***

Mulder was at his desk by 7:00, and Scully was sitting in front of her laptop in the annex by 8:00. She had bags under her eyes and had mentioned not sleeping terribly well. 

“Do you know,” Mulder said, after she’d taken the last sip of her coffee, “if by chance your diener came into contact with the leaf that was in Daly Carmichael’s mouth?” 

Scully looked pensive for a moment. “I suppose there’s a chance,” she said. “He just emailed me a digital copy of the dental records. I could ask him.”

“Would you?” Mulder said.

Only a few minutes passed before Scully looked up once again from her computer. “He says no.”

Mulder leaned back in his office chair, the base of it giving a complaintive creak. 

“What’s his last name?” 

“Whose?”

“Your diener.”

“Greene,” Scully answered after a quick glance at her screen. “Aeon Greene.”

“What do you know about him?”

Scully looked at Mulder blankly for a moment. “That his name is Aeon Greene and he’s an autopsy technician in the Adrian County morgue. Why?”

Mulder absorbed the tiny amount of incredulity he detected in her tone. “Because other than you and me, he’s the only person that doesn’t seem to be affected by the memory magic or whatever the hell it is that seems to be impacting literally every other single person involved with this investigation.”

“Memory magic?” 

“Mass amnesia. I don’t know. Whatever you want to call it.”

Scully rubbed her hands over her eyes. “You want to have Danny look into him?”

“Danny’s busy tracking down phone logs. I’ll do it.”

“Good,” Scully said, standing up wearily. “Do that. I told Violent Crimes I’d look at something for them. I’ve got to go up to the third floor. You want to meet in the lobby later and go out to lunch?”

Mulder’s mood, momentarily lowered by Scully’s announcement that she wouldn’t be around the rest of the morning, instantly lifted. He smiled. 

“It’s a date.”

She returned his smile and turned back to him when she was in the doorway. 

“Mulder?”

He looked up. 

“You still carrying that leaf around?” she asked. 

Mulder reached into his pocket and held it up in two fingers. “Not really sure what else to do with it. Chain of custody and all that.”

“Well, leave it here when we go out to lunch. Lock it in your desk drawer or something.” 

“Why?”

“Because if that thing is the mechanism of this amnesia ‘magic,’” she used finger quotes, “I’m kind of hoping that by the time we get back, we’ll have forgotten everything, too.”

***

With no hit on the NCIC, Mulder logged into the Virginia state database and ran a quick search on Aeon Greene. And came up with nothing. No driver’s license, no address, no voter registration or tax information. He tried various spellings of both first and last name and put them through the systems for Maryland and the District of Columbia, then threw in West Virginia as well. Nothing. 

By the time noon rolled around, he was frustrated, hungry, and had a splitting headache. 

Scully met him in the lobby looking equally worse for wear.

“You okay?” Mulder asked, holding open the door on the other side of Security, and momentarily forgetting all about his wasted morning. 

“The ViCAP case,” Scully said, ducking out under his arm. “It was a case with kids. They could have warned me.”

“They didn’t?” he asked, incredulous. 

“No. And the next time they want me for something, they can go through Skinner first.”

Mulder made it his mission to improve her mood and actually had her laughing by the time they walked back into their basement office. Scully hung up her coat with a smile and settled into the chair she’d vacated earlier. 

“How’d your morning go?” she asked. 

Mulder could feel his headache returning. 

“A total bust,” he said. 

“Danny didn’t have anything?” 

“I haven’t heard back yet,” Mulder explained. “What I meant was, there’s no record of Aeon Greene. Not in NCIC, not in the state systems of Virginia, Maryland or West Virginia, nor for DC.”

Scully looked at her computer screen. Right there in her inbox sat this morning’s two messages from the Adrian County morgue assistant. 

“How?” she said. “He’s a county employee.” 

“Well, he’s not in the system.” 

“Did you spell it right? ‘Aeon’ is a weird name.” 

“I spelled it right. I spelled it wrong. I spelled it every which way but loose.” 

Scully brought up her own screen, curious. Her own NCIC search came up negative, but that would only list if Aeon had ever been arrested for or part of some kind of crime. Then she pulled up the database for the State of Virginia. 

Aeon came up right away. 

“Here he is,” she said. 

Mulder looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“I ran a search,” she said. “He’s right here.” 

Mulder popped up out of his chair like he’d sat on something sharp and marched over to where she sat, peering intently over her shoulder. 

She pointed to the entry for Aeon Greene on the screen. 

“That wasn’t there,” he said, staring at it intently. 

“Are you sure you didn’t—” 

“Scully.” The way he said her name was low, almost dangerous, and made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She felt suddenly discomposed. 

“Well,” she said, swallowing. “It’s here, now.” She clicked on it and scrolled through what data had been collected on the man. “Nothing jumps out.” 

Mulder sighed, the warm fug of his breath playing over the activated skin on her neck. She could feel a blush of something creep up her cheeks. 

Mulder straightened and made his way back over to this desk. “Good to know I wasted my morning.” 

Scully turned to him with an eye to making him feel better. The light on his desk phone was blinking. She pointed to it. 

“Looks like you have a message,” she said. “Danny, maybe?” 

“Let’s see,” he said, and dialed in, letting it play on speaker. 

“You have two new messages,” said the tinny recorded voice. Then, “Hey Mulder, it’s Danny. Listen, I got the phone records you were looking for from two days ago. No incoming or outgoing calls from your cell phone that morning. Nothing to or from the Assistant Director’s phone. Nothing from Adrian County to your line, Agent Scully’s line, or through the switchboard. About all I could find was five calls from Agent Scully’s cell phone to your cell phone yesterday afternoon. I know that’s not the information you were looking to get. Sorry, pal. Let me know if you need anything else.” 

Mulder connected eyes with his partner over the desk. The second message started autoplaying: a voice he didn’t recognize. 

“Hello? This is Candy Winnecott calling from the Jordan Lake Motor Lodge? I got this number from our registration, and I wanted to let you know that y’all left some kind of wire or cable here sitting on top of the bed you didn’t use in unit 6. If it’s government property I don’t want to get in trouble. You can call us right here at the front desk and we’ll arrange to get it to you. 540-555-0218.”

Mulder was just remembering Scully throwing her phone’s charging cord onto her bed when there was a light knock on their office door. 

They looked up to find Arlene standing there with a sheepish look on her face, holding a short stack of file folders. 

“Agents?” she said, her cheeks pinkening. “Sorry to interrupt. The Assistant Director needs your signatures on these reports. I would have interofficed them, but it needs to be done today.” 

Mulder watched as a look of barely controlled panic crossed his partner’s face. Had Arlene heard the part about “the bed you didn’t use?” 

Making a conscious effort not to share any kind of look with Scully that Arlene might pick up on, he turned breezily towards the assistant. 

“Sure,” he said, waving her in and pressing the button to hang up the phone’s speaker function. “We can do that right now.”

[velvetvexations]

incredible, i just saw a reblog of that "transfem headcanons are always better and sometimes transmasc headcanons actively make the text worse and more hateful" by someone i followed. funny to see discussions arguing against the post before seeing the post itself, otherwise i would have unthinkingly internalized it and felt like shit without knowing why. anyway, i unfollowed that person now. to make it worse, op tore into someone for claiming that chihiro from danganronpa is an exception and better read as transmasc... the irony is insane. yet another example besides miquella that would make the story more boring and maybe worse if transfem.

it's so disgustingly petty lmao

a lot of transfem headcanons are reaches, often "this is literally a man magically trapped in the body of a woman and he hates it and desperately keeps trying to go back to being a man" and it's FINE to headcanon characters however you want but since some people can't conceptualize being a woman as anything other than something they wish would happen to them they take characters like that and hiss if you go near them

i get the sense that there's a very specific, narrow demographic of transfems who used to buy into that reddit guy "being a hot 22-year-old girl must be like having 10 billion dollars" attitude and never really let it go. thus the fixation on "AFAB privilege". isee a similar mix of resentment and attraction from lesbian TERFs, though it comes from a different origin. and it's an attitude that can slide easily into TERFism even for cis men--just look at tatsuya ishida!

If anything the idealization of femininity a small minority of transfems exhibit when they complain endlessly about how good trans people AFAB have it would come more from dysphoria and the grass being greener on the other side. "An AFAB trans person will immediately revert to being an innocent little girl to hurl sexual assault accusations at trans women," however, is really concerning!

Regarding whether "binary privilege" exists, i am once again on my hands and knees begging people to actually look at the statistics. The US Transgender Survey and Cohnting Ourselves (from Aotearoa) are right there. And they both show that all trans people are about as badly off as each other regardless of their specific gender. Yes, there are some ways in which being nonbinary is particularly hard, such as not having a social role to fit into, I'm not denying any of that, but if you're going to call being binary a "privilege" then there needs to be a visible whole-group effect for binary people compared to nonbinary people. And there isn't one when you look at the numbers.

It's not really about non-binary people having it flat worse, more just situational complexities.

The thing about even discussing privilege (binary privilege in this case) is that so many people talk as if to have privilege means to inherently have privilege Over someone else. Like is it an advantage for me to be vaguely binary alligned enough sometimes to have a legal gender marker that is moderately less dysphoria inducing when some people are equally harmed by either? (Tbf I live in a state where x is an option, I simply do not feel safe with that 😵‍💫 (tho that does not help when nothing else other than state id accepts it)) like yeah it's a privilege but it's not privilege Over someone. It does not make me an oppressor or mean I am causing harm, which is a thing many people seem to believe, about various forms of privilege

That's a very good point, anon.

I suppose this isn’t how others I’ve seen think about it but. I’ve always just understood that you can be oppressed for being trans without your gender being affirmed. Like. The bigots understand you’re trans but that doesn’t make them think of you as your gender it makes them think of you as trans. Misgendering is such a huge part of what transphobes do and I’ve never once assumed they were like. Lying about seeing trans people that way. I don’t get acting like transphobes can see our, as you put it, soul gender.

It makes people feel better.

[iridescentmirrorsgenshin]

Hello again! I was the anon that asked what interactions you would like to see with Alhaitham and Kaveh (and I am the reader that made the two listed comments). Thank you for the thoughtful response. It's so interesting to hear your perspective of these two. I hope you had a nice vacation. My one takeaway from Cyno story quest act II is that Cyrus was acquainted with the Sumeru crew's parents. He was shown in the photo from Kaveh's handout standing behind Alhaitham's father. I don't imagine they were close or anything, but it does make me intrigued. I wonder if they would explore more of that group in the future, given how they relate (literally and in parallels) with the Sumeru crew.

Hiya! I’ve finally managed to find time to dedicate to this ask, it’s scratched the itch in my brain! I, apparently, have quite a few thoughts about this topic so thank you for asking! Also !!! Thank you for previous asks AND the listed comments on my fic??? I truly appreciate the time you must have spent :,D <3333

This!! The specific detail of Cyrus canonically being mentioned to personally have met, not only Kaveh’s father and mother and tighnari’s parents, but ALSO alhaitham’s parents drives me insane because of how it is directly unmentioned.

It’s uncertain as to the extent of Cyno’s actual relationship with kaveh’s or alhaitham’s parents, but based on what Kaveh’s mother wrote, she, personally, didn’t seem to be close with cyrus, as she records their meeting to be the first instance in which she has met all the attendees. She records that her and her husband were invited to a gathering, but she knew none of those in attendance, only that her husband seemed to be friends with “the man with long ears” - being tighnari’s father. nothing is said about kaveh’s father knowing the other people in attendance, but as it isn’t specified, it also isn’t impossible? faranak does write that it’s unlikely they’ll see any of the people in attendance again after the gathering - but i imagine that tighnari’s father here is an exception, given that he and kaveh’s father are recorded to be friends (also, the only inkling i have for the 'talkative woman' is potentially madam faruzan? but as this is so vague i'm not too sure about speculating)

kaveh’s mother having canonically met alhaitham’s parents drives me a little bit !??!!?? because kaveh notes that the figures in the drawing seem familiar, which, of course, doesn’t mean he has identified alhaitham’s parents, especially after he disregards any potential connection with “maybe we were thinking too much.” but given tighnari’s father being a fennec it is rather odd(?) that he doesn’t make a more personal connection, at least to tighnari's father being the "friend" to his father that his mother writes about

however, in terms of what the narrative is trying to achieve in kaveh's hangout, it does make sense that these dots aren’t connected. the point here isn’t that kaveh recognises these figures, but rather that he relates the companionship in the drawing to those around him. kaveh’s hangout is very much symbolic, being that each figure in faranak’s drawing is meant to represent kaveh’s friendship group, meaning he should rely on his friends, tighnari, cyno, and alhaitham - as the quest is entitled “companionship, the sole antidote”

the fact kaveh DOESN’T identify cyrus in the picture leaves room for development, or future mention of this. Cyrus canonically talks to zaha hadi, kaveh’s mother’s lecturer, about kaveh, and zaha hadi is the person whom kaveh turns to in order to learn about his mother when she was younger.

There’s definitely potential to draw upon here - if cyrus knows he has met kaveh’s parents in the past, and he and kaveh have a personal rapport due to kaveh’s friendships with cyno and tighnari, it seems strange that he omits this detail? Especially, if it’s considered canon that kaveh’s hangout has taken place in-game, then cyrus, given that zaha hadi mentions kaveh to him, might be aware that kaveh has been asking about his mother?

(A counter to this would be that due to cyrus’s potential limited encounter with both kaveh’s father and mother, and that it took place over thirty years ago, he has no basis to open this dialogue with kaveh, as it may be a sore spot (This could also apply with cyrus having met alhaitham’s parents - perhaps he simply only met them once, but still, i crave alhaitham parent crumbs) - however, in an ideal world, this could be some sort of catalyst or feed into the idea of kaveh potentially reaching out to his mother in future events, perhaps with cyrus referencing this past gathering(?)

Now, moving onto tighnari’s parents, who are very much alive and well, and also have canonically met kaveh’s parents - with tighnari’s father being directly stated to be close with kaveh’s father, in terms of the gathering at least. with tighnari and kaveh being friends due to exchanging letters during the construction of the palace of alcazarzaray, rather than tighnari’s parents’ influence, could indicate that kaveh’s mother dropped all contact with any friends or acquaintances, which i think likely. however, i am !??!!?? very confused about this implication

tighnari’s parents would, of course, know that kaveh is tighnari’s close friend, and i presume that kaveh has met tighnari’s parents at some point, so from this, i would imagine that tighnari’s parents having known/met kaveh’s parents may have come up at some point? Especially with tighnari’s father being recorded as being friends with kaveh’s father, at least from faranak’s perspective?

in terms of the canon, however, this appears to not be the case, so i would LOVE for this to be mentioned at some point!! Especially as sumeru cast heavily revolves around family, found and biological (i’m looking at you cyno’s second story quest)

In terms of alhaitham’s parents, the only mentions of them are in alhaitham’s character stories and here in kaveh’s hangout. there’s no indicator as to whether alhaitham’s parents were close or just acquaintances with cyrus, kaveh’s father, or tighnari’s parents, but in my mind i think it’s interesting that his character stories record his grandmother teaching him of his parents, and his retaining part of his parents’ book collection when his grandmother passes. basically i think alhaitham treasures what he does know of his parents, and i think a lil mention of them by people we KNOW met them, if only for one gathering, would be appreciated

So this links directly to kaveh’s mother - if she is ever mentioned in the future, it would be INSANE wish fulfilment if her drawing was returned to, and the figures were identified, and memories from those present and alive could be shared

(I also think it’s so funny that her son is roommates/innately bound by mirror symbolism/married to the son of the people she thought were uncomfortable and awkward. basically i am in DIRE need of a kaveh and faranak reunion and for them to sort their issues, obviously for kaveh’s development and reconciliation within himself, but also for a faranak-alhaitham interaction…. Can you imagine. Now i have thoughts about that, but this has gotten off topic!!!)

Of course, i’m aware that i’m overthinking a lot of this, and this could be one of the many plot discrepancies within genshin, and that as a result of creating symbolism, in-game implications were created that weren’t supposed to be touched upon, but i think a lot of fun comes with discussing and hypothesising (manifesting) these things!!

Thank you so much for your ask!! Delving back into this part of kaveh’s hangout is always a treat, so i hope you enjoy reading my brainrot :,)

[dollywheeler]

October 24th, 1996

Mike is such a DOUCHEBAG! What? Just because he’s back in town he thinks he can dictate how I live my fucking life?! I knew this would happen! Knew he would just go back to looking at me like the goddamn 5 year old he couldn't give a damn about! That was nothing but a nuisance!

As if I can’t take care of myself! God, if he thinks I give a shit about his opinion he’s going to be sorely disappointed! Sure, not jumping four feet in the air and possibly breaking my neck at seven in the morning where no one will find me for at least another hour, made sense. That I can place and admit to being dangerous! But just running? What? I’m so fragile I might twist my ankle?

Fuck, and the way he yelled at me? Like I’m some dumb child that should know better?? I do know better! Which is why I always leave a note with my exact route and expected time of return - not even because I think anything might happen, but because I have common human decency and don’t want mom to worry when she wakes up to find me gone! Something he could’t give a rat’s ass about!!

Seriously, it’s so fucking rich that he thinks he has the right to scold me about running around Hawkins - Hawkins of all places, as if there are more boring towns than this! - in the dark without adult supervision! I’m so mad it’s insane. I don’t think I’ve ever been this pissed off before, it’s genuinely quite impressive.

To think that an hour ago I was so content to wake up early and go for a run before school. I was in such a good mood too - he ruined it.

He just doesn’t understand! I already can’t practice my routine - not the full, difficult parts of it - so the least I can do is work on my cardio and stamina! But when I tell him that he’s all like “just ask a friend to come along next time!” And I try to tell him that’s not an option but he just - ugh. He doesn’t get it. There’s no point in practicing extra when everyone knows you’re doing it. It will just make everyone think I’m being a try-hard or a suck-up or whatever! Or just think I’m being weird for needing the extra practice!

Great, now I’m crying again because I'm pathetic! Fucking Mike. Fuck this shit.

Okay, so I didn’t actually finish this entry, for many reasons. I didn’t even start it properly - not that the “dear diary” really matters, I guess, but it’s the principle of the thing.

Anyway, even though it’s been hours, I’m still pissed off, don’t worry, but at least now I have the time and state of mind to finish. I’m skipping English as I’m writing this down - I know it’s terrible for a lot of reasons.

1, my school record, but what is Mike going to do? Report me? Fuck that. And fuck him.

2, It’s letting him win. I recognise that. But I guess I’m weak because I really can’t deal with seeing him right now. God I hate him.

3, Danny is probably wondering where I am, which means I’ll have to tell him what happened.

Damn - maybe I didn’t think this through. I can probably spin it - say I wasn’t feeling well or something. Except I don’t want to lie to him either… Well, it’s not technically a lie. Still, I’ll probably just tell him some part of the truth - he can know I was pissed at Mike. He doesn’t have any siblings but he’ll probably understand anyway.

To think that for a while I considered myself an only child… tragic. I was so fucking close to just having a cool older sister that was too far away to meddle in my life. I was in control of my life - I still am!

Mike just thinks he has a say all of a sudden - which he doesn’t. Two weeks of being civil does not a brother make!

Seriously, it was so disorientating to just be running one minute, thinking nice thoughts, wondering about the english assignment, only for Mr. Wheeler himself to actually see me and come storming out freaking out about me running in the dark! It's Hawkins in October! It's dark all the time!

I was so shocked, I could barely defend myself. God, the neighbours will probably have wondered what the fuck was going on - If our shouting match didn’t wake them I’m sure they’re dead.

The worst part was that I still had to go to school after… I'm sure everyone could tell I was off. Or at least Dylan would have, if she hadn't been a thousand miles away today herself. I'm kind of glad for it. Danny sending me worried glances was more than enough, and just getting to listen to Whitney rattle on about yearbook and today's lunch and whatever else was not living up to her standard was nice. Distracting.

Still, I wish I could just go home already - I want to lie down and mope and pretend like it's still three months ago when Mike was far far away! Then I wouldn't have to deal with his judgement and his meddling and his passive-aggressiveness towards mom and dad. And I could just kiss my boyfriend in school without fearing he might see.

Sadly, I still have cheer practice and I can't skip it. It's already bad enough that Dylan has a brace around her wrist again.

This just reminded me I'm still wearing Mike's bracelet - it really shouldn't make me feel better but it does. It's petty as hell, and he probably doesn't even remember it exists, but whatever.

He should just go back to not remembering me.

- Holly

[hannahssimblr]

“Come on!” Jen giggles, “Just one! One little eeny-weeny teeny puff!”

“No! Get it away!” 

With one hand locked behind my neck, she tries to slot a joint into my mouth. I gently but firmly peel her hands off me. “This is the textbook definition of peer pressure.”

“Oh, you should tell your parents what’s happening to you. They’ll think I’m evil.”

“They already half think that.”

“Come on!”

“I’ll vomit.”

“You might not this time. It might be different.”

“There’s something deeply insane about that statement.”

“Here!” Shane interjects, holding his hand out for the joint. “Give it to me, sure it’s only wasted on him.” He pops it between his lips, and when he smokes it, the end crackles, a dot of smouldering light in the dark. 

Standing around watching my friends get stoned has been a regular fixture of the summer. We spend most of these long, lazy evenings hanging out in some unkempt corner of the caravan park, where the sun’s warmth lingers on the fractured tarmac and damp beach towels are drying over the wire fence around the tennis court. 

Last night, some man in his thirties complained that our chatting was disturbing his kids’ bedtime and that he could smell the weed smoke inside his caravan. Except he didn’t call it weed. He called in ganja, and when he went back inside, we snickered about it until he hissed out of the window that he was going to phone the police.

So tonight I am standing around watching my friends get stoned in town instead. It took me forty-five minutes to cycle in to meet them, and my reward for that is the ends of the Chinese takeaway that they didn’t finish and a wonky joint being forced into my mouth.

“Fuck, that’s shite,” Shane hacks out a bone-dry cough, and he pushes the joint towards Joe, who has the temerity to look offended. “Hey! My brother sold me that.”

“Did your brother fish it out of that bin at the back of the chipper?”

Joe smokes it to prove a point. “It’s lovely,” he insists, eyes watering, “I think that’s… that’s actually the nicest weed I ever had.”

“It tastes of stale crackers.”

“My brother wouldn’t sell me bad stuff! Don’t say that about-” his eyes bulge and he breaks off into wheezing coughs, doubling over with a hand clutching at his throat, “Okay, right enough,” he manages as we passively watch him struggle, “it’s a bit dry.” 

Kasper is waving in the distance, doing a little half-run across the pedestrian crossing. He’s coming back from the off licence with a school bag packed so full of cans that he hasn’t been able to zip it up all the way. 

“I saw Liam,” He says, eyes dancing as though he has spotted a cryptid in the woods, “And girlfriend eating at restaurant.”

“Just now?” Jen says. 

“Yes, five minutes.”

They must be on a date. I wonder did he ask her to his debs. I wonder if she said yes. I wonder why I am invested. 

“Oh! Cute! Maybe they’ll come and hang out.” She produces her flip phone and begins texting. 

“No,” Shane protests with a waving hand, “Don’t. Don’t invite them.”

“Too late. I’ve asked her.”

“No. It’s weird! I don’t want her to see me stoned.”

“She knows you smoke weed.”

“She doesn’t.”

“Well, she’s about to find out.”

My stomach does strange things at the thought of seeing Evie again. It’s ridiculous and makes little sense because she’s just some random girl who hangs out with Kelly Healy. It would be easier to dismiss this sensation as weird hunger pangs if I hadn’t eaten less than half an hour ago, so instead, I conclude I am experiencing a sudden onset anxiety disorder and concentrate on ignoring it.

When she arrives about fifteen minutes later, I ignore the feeling even harder. She is smiling, but Liam is not. He drags his feet behind her, pointedly miserable, while Evie drifts over and hugs Jen, oblivious to him. 

I’m there too, somehow, holding out my arms to hug her. I make sure it’s brief, because I am still somewhat attempting to be nice to Liam, and suspect he considers my touching or looking at Evie in any way to be bullying. I give him that awkward, closed-lip smile afterwards, and he does the same in return. 

The smell of Evie’s jasmine shampoo lingers in my nose even after she is gone. 

“What happened to your face?” Shane asks her. She goes pink and wipes a knuckle under her eye. “Nothing happened. Kelly did my makeup.”

A laugh bubbles from his lips. “Well, you look mad.”

All I noticed was the dark makeup on her eyes and some lipstick. It’s not exactly shocking stuff.

Jen rolls her eyes as she takes the joint from Joe. “Don’t mind him. You look lovely as usual.” She takes a long, luxurious drag. “You want?” 

“Ah, no. She can’t have any,” Shane pushes Jen’s arm away. “I wouldn’t let Evie do any of this stuff. She’s only a baby.”

Jen doesn’t rest, she just swings her arm to Liam instead. “How about you?” And I wonder if the quality is really so bad that she’s offering it to him. I feel it’s just as good in the rubbish bin. Smirking, I catch eyes with Evie, who is trying her hardest to look serious, and wonder if she is thinking about the story I told her about him at the gallery yesterday. The memory of her guilty laughter makes me feel like I might lose my cool completely.

Liam brushes some curls across his forehead and straightens up haughtily. “No thanks. I’m probably not going to stay for long, anyway. I have to get up at six for work.” He takes his phone out of his jeans. “Actually, I think I’m going to text my dad to come and get me now, so if you want a lift, Evie, you can come.”

“No,” she says, a little too quickly. “I think I’m going to stay.”

His brow furrows. “Will you just get a taxi then or what?”

“We’ll get her home safely,” I say, and a rigidity comes over Liam. He won’t look at me, and a muscle pops in his cheek. 

“Will you? But sure, you’re all stoned.”

“I’m not. She’ll be fine with us.”

“Okay,” he says, though it’s clear it’s not at all, but what does he expect? You can’t exactly force a girl who is so clearly repelled by your presence to hang out with you. In fact, Evie spends the next half hour chit-chatting with Jen and ignoring him while he sulks in the background, waiting for his dad to collect him. When he leaves they exchange awkward goodbyes, and she continues as she was, as though she’s already forgotten he was with her. I should probably feel bad for him, but I am oddly triumphant. 

Beginning // Prev // Next

Corresponding LG Chapter

[goblinontour]

im actually curious. The way you write is soo amazing and deep and too deep even. what’s on your mind when you write those things i mean your insanely talented and it’s getting to the point where my whole day in school is thinking about every single word you wrote. I think about the words what it means and honestly the things you write makes my heart beat faster idk why. What’s on your mind and how do you actually think 😭 i know it’s weird but im genuinely too curious to know how do you see life things and everything like how do you feel and such yk. I like you a lot pls keep going im so amazed by your work

thank you. this went on pretty long and probably doesn’t make any sense so i’ll just leave it under read more.

i don’t really know how to answer this and at the same time i think that’s the answer to it. i’m a very closed off person, it’s been getting worse as the years went on, i feel. i think it started from just being self conscious about like normal stuff but then it turned into this constant feeling that’s there all the time, no matter who i talk to for the exception of maybe a couple people, i can’t help but feel that i’m not taken seriously and they’re either making fun of me for being who i am or making fun of me for actually being boring/embarrassing/etc and me just being oblivious to it. and that then turns into me being even more closed off. i was told once that i’m not “stimulating” in conversation. it’s really stuck with me and i’ve sort of just been avoiding getting into situations like that again by shutting up all together. so when i write i feel more free to express myself however i want knowing that no one’s forced to read it, and if someone does it’s because they actually wanted to. as for the writing itself i just…think of stuff. a lot. i’m not actually very experienced myself when it comes to the subject of my writing, so i think i invent an idealised version of things (when though some of the things i write wouldn’t be classed as ideal, i hope you understand what i tried to say). i’m also very scared of people and interacting with people, like i said above. and that fear made me awfully aware of every move i make and every word i say, and i mean with anyone. from a greeting to a hug goodbye, it’s all overthought in my head, i just try to avoid taking the lead so i don’t end up looking like the fool…so i resort to writing interactions and conversations and such. that’s like the basis of it. and then i often have notes for each individual fic before i write it. i have the main idea of what i want to happen in my head but sometimes it’s difficult to just go from that. so once i have the idea i start writing down random stuff i see/hear. mostly out of context stuff but when i’m already thinking of something it just automatically links to that and when i sit down to properly write it becomes what it becomes.

i’m also pretty obsessive when it comes to things i like and if i find something i really really like then that’s the only thing i can think about. not like actually the only thing but the only one i think about in that way. alex for example, it’s just him. i like other bands/artists but i literally don’t give a fuck when it comes to stuff outside of the music itself. i’m a fan of the 1975 and i find matty healy hot and i traveled to another country alone for the first time to see them live but i’m not affected by anything he does, i just don’t care enough. but for alex it’s…it’s alex! i think of him a lot and i think his absence is what makes me think of him so much actually. so it’s impossible for me to not have something to say when it comes to him. hence why i write so much about him, i have all these different versions of him in my head all the time.

and i don’t consider myself a writer in any way to be honest. it’s not what i’m in school for, it doesn’t have much to do with it, it’s (like my bio says) just fantasies, put down into words. i guess.

no idea if what i said makes any sense with what you were actually asking. i think i’m starting to say too much on here.

this is what i mean, lyrics, posts, just images sometimes, sentences i hear and like:

[blankcest]

MACKEREL AU HOWS THE DYNAMIC AFTER THEY'RE TOGEHTER? LIKE ONCE THE TORTURE IS OVER AND THEY'VE RELATIVELY CALMED DOWN? I NEED DOMESTIC OLD MAN STANS AND THEIR PSYCHADELIC GOD FROM ANOTHER DIMENSION

ANON I AM SO SORRY TO BREAK IT TO YOU BUT THIS TOXIC YAOI THRUPLE NEVER OFFICIALLY GET TOGETHER 💔 (AT LEAST, in this AU)

Stancest does become real (because of course im not a monster) but Billfordstan does not 💔

Mainly for the same reason it’s hard to write Ford going back to Bill after the events in cannon, and especially after knowing what happens in TBOB. After all the shit Bill put Him and Stanley through in this AU, it would be INCREDIBLY hard for them to ever trust Bill to properly care for them as equals. Either through friendship or a romantic pairing.

As well as my interpretation of Bill has him having a hard time conceptualizing Romance in a general sense. Like he knows its real, and he plays along with it, knows the words to say and the emotions they’re suppose to convey. But to say he himself actually understands those feelings is extremely up in the air for me.

Bill is really interesting. He was interesting and fun before TBOB, but TBOB really breathes a depth into his character that we never really saw before.

He’s someone who is extremely well… delusional is the best word I can think of. He’s convinced himself that he “liberated” his dimension, and that he wants to “liberate” more. He’s convinced himself that he knows more then he actually does, and that he enjoys being the Bad guy. That isnt to say he DOESNT enjoy it, just little moments. Small moments when he lets himself break, lead me to believe hes more aware of his purposeful insanity then he really allows himself to acknowledge.

I think about calling himself a monster, I think about him keeping the spec of his dimension under his hat. I think about the fact he was, in his own twisted way, deeply attached to Ford as a person. His offer to ford being genuine and then giddiness of Ford supposedly accepting distracting him.

To me, Bill uses his twisted perception of reality and morality to deal with his Sadism as well as cope with the extreme lost and guilt of his home. Not to mention being alive for literal trillions of years can also make you a bit coocoo. As well as allow you to see how relative a lot of concepts SUCH AS morality, taboo, pain, etc actually are.

THE POINT, of this little rant is that Bill would need to go through EXTREME recovery before he would even be ready to even look at the Stan twins as equals. And the Stan twins would need to be EXTREMELY FORGIVING, which lets be real they are both stubborn old men who love holding grudges, before any type of relationship (platonic or otherwise) could form or develop between the three.

This isnt to say it’s impossible? Bill is in the theraprism. As well as I think AUs such as Handyman Bill AU + more tackle the idea of Bill’s recovery well and keep him in character.

Forcing him to confront his actual feelings, grow attachments to actual people as equals, and even the internal conflict that would create cause of his attachment to his pervious persona are all good and interesting things that feel well, right for his character!

So like! It could be possible that somehow during the Sea Grunks era they find bill and all 3 are forced to unpack their complicated feelings about one another, but I will tentatively say that this AU doesn’t really have that as end game. It’s a major maybe though cause rotating it in my brain is getting the juices flowing…

[fleet-off]

Headcanons regarding Pete and macau's relationship? Like their dynamics?

Ooohh, thank you for this question, anon! As it happens I have a whole essay of thoughts on Pete and Macau’s relationship, and I am currently going insane about it in an in-progress chapter of Menagerie. Have a free mini-snippet?

Pete hums. “Yeah, I figured your hia picked it up somewhere. He’s not half the original he thinks he is.” With a sideways glance, he adds, “You used to throw rocks at Khun Noo’s koi, too.” Macau’s ears heat up like he’s been caught with the pebbles in his hand. He whirls to face Pete. “I wasn’t mad, I was just,” he starts to protest, scrambling for the edges of the sneering mask that’ll let him pretend it doesn’t matter— Pete raises his eyebrows. He knows. “It’s easy to get vindictive when you’re angry about things you can’t control,” he offers. Pete is like that sometimes, under the feigned clumsiness and foolish-eyed smiles. He knows exactly what to say to make Macau feel uncomfortably understood. It’s fucking ruthless. Macau doesn’t know if he’ll ever quite be used to it.

Whoops, kiddo got perceived.

See, Macau has a lot of Vegas in him, and Macau is the reason Vegas has any capacity for tenderness. And Pete is very aware of this—Pete is the one who twice lists Macau as reason for Vegas to live. (side thought but. the parallel between Vegas and Porsche there, with Porsche having this directive from his mother to survive until Chay gets through college? and that not ultimately being enough to live for? simply fillet me okay I’m—)

Anyway. Pete knows he’s signing up for some Macau too, and that means signing up for the brat who likes to throw rocks and jumpscare poor unsuspecting spies. And Pete knows well that said brat is a teen with the family inferiority complex, that he is widely disregarded and ignored (in need of love), and that his world revolves around the only person in this world who has loved him and made him feel a part of things. And that person is—for the first month—lying comatose between them in a hospital bed.

Pete’s world revolves around the same broken-aching-tender point. And this is the part Macau knows even if he doesn’t know why, so for the first month? That’s where their dynamic lives.

And then Vegas is awake, and there’s a potential for happiness in him that simply was not there before, and it’s Pete. Pete can make Vegas better. That means it’s Macau’s job to help make sure Pete stays. And isn’t it fascinating that Macau goes straight for “in-law”? Straight for “family,” because in Macau and Vegas’s world family is the ultimate binding. Macau says in-law and means you’re part of us now. For better or for worse. For good.

(There is—not jealousy, but a niggling sense of personal insufficiency underneath. Macau’s world does revolve around Vegas. However miserable life gets, Macau has his big brother and that is enough to keep him living and pushing forward.

Macau isn’t enough to keep Vegas on this earth.

Which is. Fine. Nothing new. Macau’s never been enough, why would the most important person in his world be any different? He can help keep Vegas’s world here, and maybe that’ll count for something.)

I think it takes Macau several months to realize that Pete isn’t a silver bullet for his brother’s mental health and happiness.

Pete’s just a dude. He likes video games where he gets to play a secret agent. He and Vegas argue loud and make up louder. Dropping dishes makes him jumpy. He sweats and laughs a lot when he’s drunk, and swallows disgusting herbal concoctions the next morning to deal with the hangover. When he notices Macau’s expectations for him and Vegas, he either smiles too wide or goes very quiet and still and Macau’s not sure which is worse. Sometimes he forgets to lock the bathroom door. Sometimes Macau dozes off on his shoulder during movie night and he doesn’t move until Macau stirs awake.

Sometimes he fucks up, the way people do.

And Macau realizes: maybe the only person who can keep someone on this earth is the person themselves. And maybe Vegas sometimes needs his brother, the one who made his crooked arms a cradle. And maybe Pete and Macau sometimes need each other too, because their world is hard and there are struggles only the two of them know—as if by dull fluorescent light, as if by the steady-prayer beat of a heart monitor. And definitely, always, the three of them need each other.

[ryuichirou]

Replies

Some replies, mostly related to previously posted stuff + a couple of random ones.

Anonymous asked:

THOUGHTS ON THE NEW IDIA CARD🎤

Anon…. It’s so good that I feel overwhelmed and tired and want to take a nap after just thinking about it. It’s so good that one of the first thing I said to Katsu about it was that I want to break his limbs. It’s perfect. Grey tshirt WITH FUCKING PREMO ON IT, deep-blue tracksuit with beautiful orange accents, the i-fell-asleep-in-front-of-my-pc-and-salivated-all-over-my-face thing in contrast to his regular card having a babygirl pillow hugging pose… And ORTHO IS FUCKING THERE AS WELL AHHHHHH of course OF COURSE ORTHO WOULD BE THERE, apparently the best birthday tribute Idia Shroud could get is him being a brocon. Shroudcest nation, did we win? Again?

This is peak. It’s very good. I can talk about it for ages but I’d rather express my frustration with his perfect Idia-ness with drawings…

😭😭😭 insanity.

Anonymous asked:

WOOO, BACHIRA!!! Are you guys reading blue lock? Bachira is ridiculously adorable and weirdly sexy too, haha, I hope he gets worse (I read somewhere that the main character, Isagi, his best friend, has already gotten used to Bachira's weirdness, which ACTUALLY freaks Bachira out, LOL)

It was just one of the portraits from our 6 fanarts thingie! Bachira was one of the requested characters; so nope, we aren’t reading Blue Lock. Which doesn’t mean that I won’t wish for Bachira to become worse… he absolutely should! Especially if the other guy is already used to his weirdness; better raise the stakes lol

Anonymous asked:

Opinions on sebek x Epel ? (Also called GreenApple :3)

Awww, GreenApple!

They’re cute, we loved them in the Harveston event. The fact that Epel, being a silly boy that he is, is still cunning enough to make Sebek do what he wants (i.e. go to the Harveston with him) is honestly impressive, I think it’s a wonderful dynamic. Epel going “oh if only there was a strong man around 🥺” and Sebek immediately going “WELL I AM STRONG 😤”… Is Epel getting better at cute seduction or is Sebek just that gullible?

Anyways, while I wouldn’t say that we actively ship them or have any ideas for them, but when they get to interact, it’s pretty delightful.

Anonymous asked:

I tried the thing with slapping my boobs. The sound is there, but it feels like you are running sideways w/o a sports bra. I am mostly asleep so lmk if this doesn't make sense to u and I write it when my blood pressure isn't forcing me to pass out. DW, though that is supposed to happen w/ these meds. Gn!

- 🍈🗡 Anon

Anon! I am pretty late with my reply to this one, but still: I hope you’re feeling well! :( Take care of yourself.

As for the boob slapping, yeah, I guess this isn’t the most pleasant sensation lol Maybe it depends on a person though…

Anonymous asked:

Does anyone else ever think about how funny it would've been if Crewel was a Dalmatian Beastman,  or is it just me?

I mean, that would’ve been pretty cute if you ask me! I don’t even think he would mind that, it would look pretty stylish!