#five-rivers

[icos-x]

@five-rivers Choose your own adventure index

Part 1

Should Danny leave his parents to continue working or try to bribe them?

Part 2

Should Danny go to his friends as Phantom or Fenton?

Should he stay home?

Or should he try and bypass the DNA lock?

Part 3

Should Danny go to bed?

Should he proceed with equipment or without?

Part 4

Too many options here, go look for yourself! It's worth it!

Part 5

Should Danny tell the truth about how tired he is?

Part 6

Should Danny remove the tools from his grandfather's belt?

Part 7

Who should Danny go to?

Part 8

To be continued

[kawaiijohn]

Happy birthday! 🎂

Hope it was a good one!

it was! ty rivers ilu :D

[the-haiku-bot]

“Bet I could do a

pretty good imitation

with drones,” said Tucker.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

“No fireworks? But you love fireworks. You said they're the only good part of the holiday.”

“Before I realized how bad they are for the environment and people with PTSD,” said Sam.

“Bet I could do a pretty good imitation with drones,” said Tucker.

“I am not financing your drone obsession.”

“I could do them,” said Danny, absently finishing the last of his ice cream.

“What?”

Danny put down his spoon and aimed two fingers at the sky over Fentonworks. Twin ectoblasts shot up before dissolving into gentle showers of sparks.

“I can't believe I forgot you could do that.”

[roses-and-revolutions]

DC x DP Idea

After several years, Danny and Damian meet each other again at a gala. But there was no heartfelt reunion since the moment they led eyes on each other it was all-out war. Damian takes out a sword from somewhere and Danny just starts throwing hands.

The fighting is intense, and blood is being spilled (what are those glowing green specks?). They are screaming at each other in Arabic as it's easier to slip back to your mother tongue when in rage right? This makes the fight more personal.

Most people don't understand what they're saying but those who do look at the boys then Bruce. Bruce then back to the boys again. Like B, we know you're stupid but you fucked this person twice.... did you NOT see the red flags the SECOND TIME!?!?

The fight ends with Damian on the ground with the sword grazing his neck. He looks up to Danyal with the fear of god in his eyes, knowing that with one swift movement, he'll be dead on the dance floor. But Danny's eyes were cold and tired, they were dead. No spark, no sense of life in those chilling blue depths.

Calmly, Danny spoke to Damian. His voice was crystal clear, cool like a mountain stream.

"Just because you jumped into the fire behind me doesn't mean you felt the pain I did.  Your hand was held above the flames while I was being burnt in the fucking fire."

Damian begins to cry because he knows that Danny is right. No matter what he went through, it would never compare to what happened to his big brother. Even more so, when he feels long lanky arms wrap around him, a cool hand rubbing his back soothingly, and whispers of sweet nothingness entering his ears.

He cries because no matter what he does he will never be like his big brother.

[glitchedrabbit]

just 4 happy friends being happy friends….they’re so happy…

alt ver: (it’s more saturated heheh)

[wild-shaped]

i could've been a little critter just scittering through the forest

[altschmerzes]

reflecting on seasons 3 and 4 of slow horses and i'd like to take a moment to appreciate how At Her Fucking Limit louisa guy is and for good reason. local woman who is isolated and very much alone and has just risked connecting with another person only to have that person brutally murdered now risks connecting with SECOND person only for that person to turn out to be god's least favourite court jester who keeps trying to also die on her. please give this poor lady two minutes of peace.

[sesamenom]

interesting how in the FA "beyond lay the wilderness of Dungortheb, where the sorcery of Sauron and the power of Melian came together, and horror and madness walked", then in the TA the Fangorn-Lorien-Mirkwood triangle of Weird Sorcery Forests exists between the domains of saruman, galadriel, necromancer-sauron, and radagast

[cdyssey]

the eldest river in "the impossible astronaut" is always so fucking distressing to me in hindsight. the way she knows what's going to happen at lake silencio, but she can't say anything to the people she loves most. she constantly has to lie, always has to play pretend. spoilers. the fate of the entire universe depends on it.

and the doctor, her doctor, doesn't trust her because of it.

because of all the lies. because of what she has to do to necessarily protect them both.

how she has to revisit her ugly childhood and fractured youth and watch it from afar, incapable of helping that scared little girl in a spacesuit, the young woman submerged in the water.

and she watches her husband and parents, too—watches them watching her own making—and they don't even know it.

There's this exchange between her and her mother that becomes all the more harrowing when you realizing that she's talking about herself.

River: I know what you're thinking. Amy: No, you don't. River: You're thinking, "If we can find the spaceman in 1969 and neutralize it, then it won't be around in 2011 to kill the Doctor." Amy: Okay, lucky guess. River: It's only because I was thinking it, too.

and then there's the moment where she catches a glimpse of the Silence in the tunnels and all that pain and trauma comes rushing back to her in an sickening instant, and even when they disappear from her memory, that horror still lingers in her body, but she pretends to keep it together anyway for other people's sake anyway.

in those dark tunnels, she only allows herself five minutes to fall apart away from prying eyes.

and she would have gotten away with it, too, had her father not shown up. he's concerned—even though he doesn't know her very well yet—and he's there, and he's asking all the right questions.

Is she okay? what did she mean when said there's a worse day coming for her?

And River opens up to him in a way that we've rarely seen her do.

River: The trouble is, it's all back-to-front. My past is his future. We're traveling in opposite directions. Every time we meet, I know him more, he knows me less. I live for the days when I see him, but I know that every time I do, he'll be one step further away. And the day is coming when I'll look into that man's eyes, my Doctor, and he won't have the faintest idea who I am. And I think it's going to kill me. 

fucking gutting.

[horrorcase]

i love making mockup panels for my comic its funnn

[cringecompanionapologist]

Seriously, the Doctor just has a Thing for people who threaten/try to kill them:

The Master. No elaboration needed.

Jamie held the Doctor at knifepoint when they first met.

Turlough was sent to kill the Doctor.

I haven't read the EDAs but apparently Fitz goes on this list.

River Song was sent to kill the Doctor.

Rogue nearly executed the Doctor after mistaking him for someone else.

Conclusion: All the best Doctor ships have a threat of violence at the beginning.

[magicwhiskers29]

“You don’t always have to be the Hero!”

“It doesn’t always need to be you!”

As I understand, this line has been thrown around a bit because, well, it’s just a really good line, for any situation it can fit for. It’s impactful, the voice work on the original is really good, and it summarises a lot of LMK season 5’s core themes really well! Heck, it probably summarises a lot of themes really well, but I think there’s something interesting to be found in the fact that it’s Macaque saying it, originally.

Let’s roll back a second to Shadow Play, s2e7, because I think that can really recontextualise it.

“The Hero and the Warrior were like the sun and moon, their light a protective glow, shining upon the world.”

“Together, there was nothing that could stop the two of them, in either the Celestial Realms, or on Earth.”

“As time went on, the Hero gained power beyond comprehension.”

“As his light grew, so too did his shadow, and soon, the Warrior was cast in that shadow.”

“In the darkness, the Warrior was forgotten by the Hero.”

…okay, so I’m pretty sure a good half of the fanbase already has this monologue memorised, but I digress. Because the loaded meaning behind the words “Hero” and “Warrior” are never forgotten by the show. If we cut ahead to Embrace Your Destiny, the s3 special, we get a direct reference to these titles in a practical setting.

“I’m not a Hero, bud.”

“Then be a Warrior!”

This is the moment which really kickstarts Macaque’s turn to start working with the Monkie Kids. He doesn’t work against them again, after this point! (As of season 5) MK tells him that to do good things, and save the world, he doesn’t have to be the Hero in limelight – he can be the Warrior, doing good from the shadows. And for as much as Macaque does take quite a prominent role in the fight after this, literally taking on Wukong 1v1, it’s still MK who ends up with the glory, in the end.

Macaque needed to hear this because he does these antagonistic things out of self-preservation, yes, but also out of a spite which he knows isn’t especially heroic. And because he doesn’t want to be the guy who leaves stuff behind. But after this, he doesn’t act as an antagonist again, and he does stuff which he really doesn’t want to do, like confronting his past with Wukong in the scroll, in the season 4 special! What MK says sticks with him.

And to get it out of the way, not every time the word “Hero” is used in the show is necessarily a reference to the Hero and Warrior. For instance, when Mei yells at a possessed Wukong and LBD in the season 3 special, she says “Because that’s the hard part of being a hero!”, but I don’t think she’s talking about the implications of limelight, or Wukong and Macaque’s story. I mean, she never even saw the play in Shadow Play, so she likely doesn’t even know the deeper meaning behind that word...

A lot of these other moments can carry interesting implications when examined through that lens (E.G. how Mei fits into the Hero-Warrior dynamic, or the nature of LBD’s “Save your hero speech, child” from the end of season 3) but I think those would better be left for a different analysis.

These two lines from season 5, at the beginning of this post, have a direct connection to the Hero-Warrior stuff though, because they're from the character who invented that metaphor, to the only other character who understands it. It’s like a coded message, I suppose.

Throughout a lot of Macaque’s screen time, especially in the earlier seasons, he preaches about self-preservation, specifically under the advice of “look out for number one”. He believes that people like him, and later MK, need to be the ones to look out for themselves, because otherwise, no one will. This is expanded upon to seem a little more heroic and noble in later seasons, to be similar to a sentiment that Wukong expresses about choosing your own destiny, and forging your own path. The core of the advice is still centred on trusting yourself, and prioritising your own beliefs, but it’s no longer about something that could be perceived as selfish, and more a tool to use for good.

Macaque is shown to want MK to look out for himself less selflessly. His advice in season 4 is this choosing your own destiny stuff, but it also mirrors the end of season 5 really well. He tells MK that the two choices of fighting Azure, or not fighting Azure don’t have to be the only choices. If MK goes to fight Azure as is, he will lose, and there is a good chance that he will die. Like, obviously Macaque doesn’t want the whole universe that he lives in to be destroyed, but he’s also not yet fighting for it, at this point. He does want MK to do what is most likely to save everyone, but the reason he pulled MK aside was to appeal to him to take care of himself.

Season 5 already mirrors and is a true continuation of season 4 in a lot of ways, with the main threat once again being the sky cracks that symbolise the end of the world due to the death of the Jade Emperor, but it’s thematically that we can really see that. Macaque even literally brings up that MK is misconstruing his advice from the previous season in the line right before the ones I’m supposed (haha, we're getting there) to be analysing.

Once again, MK has two choices, functionally: save the world at the cost of himself, or do nothing. Once again, Macaque is advocating for MK to make a third choice, one where the world can be saved without MK likely dying in the process, but MK had taken the whole “choose your own destiny thing” to be choosing the choice that only he can. Macaque’s biggest argument to this are these two lines. That MK doesn’t need to be the Hero, this time, or any time.

The Hero exists a public figure that people can rely on. He represents absolute power, as well as recklessness. In Macaque’s story, the Hero gains power, and then leaves his friend behind, so he’s strong, but doesn’t stop to think about consequences. Now, obviously Macaque is very biased in his story, because we know Wukong very clearly does still care about Macaque, but to what the story represents between MK and Macaque, that’s not necessarily important.

Macaque is just telling MK that he doesn’t need to be someone who’s the public picture of heroism. He has all of this power, but it’s his choice how to use it. Sometimes, it’s okay to take a backseat and be a Warrior, someone who can look out for themself, and who doesn’t always have to do everything themself. Once, the Hero and the Warrior were ultimate power together. The fact that the Hero became that by himself suggests that he still does the job he once did – he just doesn’t need to have anyone help him with it.

The Hero is supposed to be presented as a selfish figure, but that can also flip around to be someone who’s selfless, so selfless that they try to carry the weight of a good mission on their shoulders alone. The Hero’s sin was abandoning the Warrior, not unspeakable evil or something. And… Isn’t that sort of what MK is doing here? He’s trying to an act so selfless that it really could only be called heroic, but to the friends he’s leaving behind to make a sacrifice that’s really a not-so-subtly-disguised suicide allegory, it’s selfish. He abandons them all to fulfil his supposed destiny, but they don’t need him to sacrifice himself – they want to find another way with him.

If you want to look at it that way, MK is playing out the story again. Seems fitting, when later in the same episode, Wukong, the original Hero, tries to take his place and make the same sacrifice.

Macaque’s statement to MK is so loaded because of his history as the original Warrior, and what being a hero really means to him, and across the show with MK’s actions as a whole. He doesn’t need to always be the Hero – sometimes it’s okay to just be a Warrior. And it doesn’t always need to be him – just like the original Hero, there are people who would want to help him, if he just doesn’t leave them behind.

[kawaiijohn]

If you watched Secret Saturdays, I think you'd like Fisk and Beeman.

Oh swag idk who they are but you know me pretty well so I will take ur word for it!

[catastrophic-crow]

haha hey—quick question...

(spoilers for @five-rivers' incredible BNHA fic Long Night in the Valley on ao3)

what is this? what relationship is this???

is was? (do vestiges count?) is hibiki AfO's child?

(i just double-checked and it sure seems like it in the fic. how many kids has he had?? clearly he's not that close to all of them...)

that's wild, and i can't wait to learn more about the contest of that. (wait. izuku makes the second time AfO's kid has had OfA?? dear gods.)

also—shouldn't there be a link one of these places?

or did [Shigaraki Hibiki / Shimura Souma / Four / the Fourth OfA User] marry into (or at least reproduce with) someone from an existing family named Shimura, and just took that name while a different member of that family line had a descendant who later married into the "multiple generations" descended from [Three / the Third OfA User / Harmony Trey(?) / "Miura" / Thunderclap]? that [Shimira Nana / Seven / the Seventh OfA User / Skyrunner] came from? (dear gods they really all do have a bunch of names you weren't hanging a lantern for nothing when izuku said that)

that's—okay; let me rephrase that.

did [Four] create the name Shimura? or marry into it?

was Shimura [Seven]'s original family name, or did she marry into it?

did [Seven] get the Shimura name from [Four]? either by being a direct descendant or having married a direct descendant?

if not, did [Four]'s spouse have a relative of the same family name, whose descendant passed it along to [Seven] (again, either through marriage or having been born into it)?

or were [Four] and [Seven] just. separate Shimuras? because to be quite honest it would be hilarious if in this family wreath of a genealogy chart, there were two people who came by the same last name and didn't share an additional relation for it.

also! hey! Doctor Garaki is supposed to be on here somewhere! oh, nevermind—there he is. garaki's parent was the original user of stockpile? stockpile came from AfO and [One / first One for All user / Shigaraki Kazuki]'s nephew?? what, did it mutate to stockpile years for Garaki Kyūdai's longevity quirk or something?

just. dear gods. i am very impressed by this family tree (now that I've spent a while wrapping my head around it) but as many questions as it answers, it just raises more 😅

My current, noodle-like family tree for LNitV.

How much of this will be relevant? I don't know. But the parts that are...

>:)

[hold-him-down]

For the five-sentence fics:

"Do you think I don't know that?"

“It might help him if you’d visit him.”

River’s quick to drag his attention away from Felix’s door, but it’s too late. In the days leading up to this moment, River has never been far from Felix’s room. When he thinks no one is paying attention, he’s less discrete about it. Lincoln clocked it in a matter of hours, the first time River parked himself on this chair. He’s careful not to insert himself too far into places he doesn’t belong, but he thinks, maybe, it might help River, too. River, caught off guard, or maybe too tired to attack, studies his face instead. “He’s suffering, River,” Lincoln says gently.   

Almost instantly, River goes rigid. "Do you think I don't know that?" he asks with all the bite that Lincoln has come to expect from him. He won’t be able to talk him down from here, but he thinks, maybe, if he slowly chips away at the armour he’s surrounded himself with, River will surprise him one day.

He crouches in front of him. “River,” Lincoln says, his voice soft. He’s acutely aware of the other residents and volunteers watching. He takes a breath, searching for the words, and in his hesitation, River shuts down entirely.

“I know that he’s suffering,” River says. He searches Lincoln’s face. “And I know the role I played in that.”

From behind him, Ethan flinches. There’s a lesson here, somewhere, about the dynamics of this group that Lincoln hasn’t even scratched the surface of. Before he has a chance to compartmentalize it, River says,  “It is not your job to fix whatever is broken in me, even if someone has convinced you that it is. This has nothing to do with you.”

LIncoln stands, opens his mouth to find the retort he knows he needs to find, but River plows ahead. “If Felix wants to see me, he will ask. Until then, I don’t want to talk about this.”

His face, his body language, the whole of River London closes off. Lincoln takes one more stab at it, anyway.

“River,” he says. “He’s not going to ask.” 

River stands, too, wraps his arms around his stomach, and waits for Lincoln to finish. For all the posturing, he still waits. It’s worth something. “He can’t ask,” he says. “I think it’s important that you understand that.”

In a blink-and-you-miss-it moment, River’s face softens, and he passes one more glance at Felix’s door, before he retreats back to his room.

✥ ✥ ✥ 

It has taken River an almost embarrassing amount of time for him to get this far. He wasn’t prepared for how difficult this would be, for the sharp stabs of anxiety in which every step so far has resulted. His discomfort, though, is the cost of the debt that he carries; he was selfish to wait this long. He knows, he’s known, that this was the only possible outcome, and he’s delayed, day after day, because the idea of seeing Felix when he’s sick, when he’s really sick, when he can't speak or defend himself or... it makes his stomach churn. Whatever this feeling is, though, River knows that he has it coming. And that if the director is right, if the closure of seeing him might help Felix, then he owes it to him to see it through.

He lets his fingers rest against the door. The building is quiet now. It has been for hours. Prescott has left for the night, the other residents have all set up camp wherever they can find any traces of comfort. Three volunteers will be around somewhere, but they are careful not to patrol the halls. Or at least, not to be obvious about it. 

River takes a breath as deep as he can and holds it as long as he can, and tries to remind himself, again, that things are different. Even if they don’t feel different, they are. 

He raises his hand to knock and hesitates, letting the pads of his fingers once more rest on the door. He can’t ask, Prescott said. 

In a shockingly decisive moment, he makes up his mind, and he pushes the door open as quietly as he can. He slips inside; it’s pitch black in here, lit by nothing but a sliver of moonlight. River is instantly aware of Felix’s presence, a mere meter away from him, but walks to the window first to open the curtain. He can hear each of Felix’s breaths, each gasp. It doesn’t feel real. 

He delays it, as long as he can. It’s been months, maybe longer, since he’s been in this room. He turns from the window and orients toward the bed. He wars over a relentless urge to run away as his feet carry him way over to Felix’s bedside. He can’t be here, he thinks, again and again, but he has to be. He knows it as well as he knows anything. He has to be here. 

He lowers himself into the chair that’s been set up. Prescott comes in here sometimes, spends hours in here sometimes. The first two nights, he slept in here, probably on this chair. River feels a rush of anger at the fact that someone else has spent this time with Felix, and he was too scared to do anything about it. 

He wraps his arms around his stomach as hard as he can. He doesn’t touch Felix; as his eyes adjust, as Felix’s form comes into view, he watches him breathe. He takes in his body, frail from the constant abuse. He takes in the IV bag that hangs in the corner, his eyes follow the tube down to Felix’s body, to where it disappears under the blanket. 

God, he would give anything���

He sucks in a breath, locking his jaw, and lifts the blanket enough to slip his hand under it. He finds Felix’s fingers, cold and clammy and too skinny and too still, and he leans forward, squeezing them softly.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, two, three, four times. Felix takes a ragged breath then settles back into sleep.

River, for his part, can feel himself shaking. He doesn't know if it's fear or adrenaline or something else, but he knows he needs to be careful. He knows that Felix's hand in his, and that even though nothing is good, and nothing will ever be good again, this is the best he could possibly hope for. He draws in a long, steadying breath, and blinks back what he thinks might be the start of tears.

“I don’t know if you want me to be here,” he whispers. “But I’m here. And I’m so, so sorry.” 

Belleview Taglist:

@pigeonwhumps @peachy-panic @whump-cravings @pirefyrelight @i-eat-worlds

@taterswhump @squishablesunbeam @inpainandsuffering @distinctlywhumpthing @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi

@handsinmotion @whumps-and-bumps @pumpkin-spice-whump @alexmundaythrufriday @itsawhumpsideblog

@hellodecisionparalysis @scoundrelwithboba

[ghost-bison]

part 4 here