#i never used to believe it but it does get better

[khorneschosen]

You're asking to have an argument about Trump's previous term to this one.

When it's quite clear the issue is about which side has the most empathy, common sense, and tolerance.

And when it comes to common sense y'all have none common sense belongs to a philosophy that you no longer practice or believe in.

It's a bumpkin version of rationalism, which Marxist outright deny the existence of. So you guys don't have common sense because you guys aren't rationalist or for that matter rational. Hence why existentialism formed as a reaction to the fact that the prophecy of Marx never came to fruition.

The masses and the proletarian never revolted on mass capitalism didn't become one giant monopoly nor is it really in danger of ever becoming a monopoly where the state is not involved.

What's more the standard living and wealth of the people living under capitalism or even quasi or broken capitalism are still doing better than all the people states of the world Even when those people states have access to a great deal of resources from the rest of the world.

This is by the way why market socialism is the big new hot push, what they really should call it however is modern Chinese socialism.

And however has the exact same problems of a socialist government with fewer tools to be able to deal with it. It's basically the state controls you and you control the factories but we control you so we control the factories anyway. Which is remarkably how national socialism works, you know it as fascism.

And then when it comes to empathy you guys have what can only really be described as transactional collective empathy. If a person or a group does what you say you have a great deal of empathy for them so much so that you'll let them get away with anything however if any member of that group goes against you or is even really just neutral and a way that you can't abide, even a small way you have no empathy for them.

And we've seen that when it comes to cishet white men for a while, and Asians and Jews recently, and even more recently Arabs and Hispanics who do not vote Democrat.

What I'm really describing here is just an in-group preference based on political or philosophical lines, But even then it's more based around whether or not that particular group is useful to you. Because despite everything destiny is one of your guys and y'all treat him like shit, because at times he dares to challenge you guys on some of your worst excesses and on your own terms. In a way that you simply cannot ignore. You can't rightly call him a conservative because the evidence of your own eyes and mind do not allow you to.

This too by the way goes for tolerance, The one axiom that you seem to have in group and outgroup preferences for being your politics and how useful someone is to the cause, you have no tolerance for it.

Meanwhile conservatives come from various different areas of influence. The Protestant and Catholics have long had their doctrine changed to better meet and work with reality. The capitalists are hard realists to the point of irrational pragmatism at times. And the nationalists are operating on a very old form of your system but they do it just for the people within their own nation. Which is just demanding that the benefactors be within their national boundaries.

Oh and liberals have a strong philosophical tradition that goes back to the enlightenment. Of course I mean classical liberals rather than communist calling themselves liberal because it's a lot easier than calling themselves a communist.

So as far as logic goes they're nowhere near as bad.

And as for empathy they are by definition conservatives they are being challenged and at every point of the challenge they have allowed you to challenge them in ways that they frankly shouldn't have. That their own code would have allowed them to crush you at any point and yet refuse to out of empathy intolerance for your kind.

And we're talking collectively right we're not talking about individual examples because if that's the case we'll be here all night but in the broadest strokes conservatives do have empathy tolerance and they're far more logical. I mean even scientific studies have shown that they have more risk assessment which you define is fear for the sake of your propaganda but really it's just risk assessment. Which one we're dealing with the country that is the leader of the free world and if its economy goes tits up, will destroy the free world and an economic collapse from which it will never recover from I don't say that fear or risk assessment is misplaced.

Like baseline conservative is infinitely more rational. Baseline libertarian is infinitely more rational because they at least acknowledge the reality of economics or culture. Y'all routinely ignore the risks or even cost of your actions and policies and ideologically do not believe in rationality.

So yeah leftist and I do mean leftist are less rational, less empathetic and less tolerant.

Also if you want me to get to your second question reword it a little bit, it's confusing how it's currently written.

[alchemistc]

He's drunk when he sends it. Pissed because Buck won't just let this die. Tired of seeing his name flash across his screen, texts full of anger and sadness and hurt.

I suspect you've already met your last and it's not me he sends, and then turns off his phone and reaches for the bottle of whiskey on his top shelf.

---

If he'd been sober he would have known better. It's not even like it's been a pervasive thought - just an inkling at the start of things that seemed to be completely off base once he got to know everyone better, but looking back... He can see it. The built in life. The steadfast support. The knowledge that they'd always, always have each other's back. The kid who hero worshipped him.

The thing is he's fielding texts from Eddie, too, checking in and then circling around to being so goddamn judgmental that it's like they've coordinated their attacks to give Tommy no room to breathe.

He ended it to save himself from slipping so far under the surface he wouldn't make it back.

The fact that he's lost them both to his own fear is icing on the cake for the demon on his shoulder that keeps trying to remind him that once upon a time he'd fully thought Eddie and Buck were amicable exes.

---

He has to blink to figure out who's standing on his doorstep. The mustache is gone.

"If you meant who I think you mean, you're dumber than you look," Eddie says, and shoulders past Tommy before Tommy can even muster an affronted expression.

Tommy wanders after Eddie into his own kitchen, immediately annoyed that he looks more at home there than Tommy has felt in weeks. He'd gotten used to the loft - the space, the echoes, the lights of the city. The smell of his own aftershave on Buck's pillow.

They never spent much time here. The loft was closer - to Harbor, to the 118, to all the things in the city that tempted them out for a night. And staying at the loft meant he wouldn't have the echoes of Buck in every room, around every corner. (The echoes are in him, instead, and he still feels the absence like a lanced wound.) Tommy has always been good at making other people think he's good at putting distance between himself and them.

Eddie digs in a drawer, pulls out the bottle opener shaped like a cow and pops two tops. Holds one out for Tommy and scowls when Tommy wrinkles his nose at the Corona.

"Absolutely screw you if you think I'm driving halfway across town for you just to get the ones you like, right now."

Tommy can't argue that. He takes a drag and swallows. Stares. Is everyone else experiencing whiplash seeing him without the mustache? It looks fine but it'd taken so much fucking work to get used to it and now it's just gone. Clean shaven, an acre of skin he hasn't seen in months.

Tommy blinked and the entire world was different. Tommy freaked and the world changed.

"What are you doing here?"

Eddie's eyebrows both lift, a frank Are You Fucking Serious look on his face that makes Tommy want to take him to the mats and have it out in the garage instead of over beers.

"Buck may be spinning his wheels trying to figure out what the fuck you meant but I know damn well what you were implying."

That seems unlikely. Eddie always seems to be the last person to have a single clue what was going on, with Buck scraping in just before him. It's a tight race.

He used to find it charming.

(He absolutely does not still find it charming, he tells his heart, and wonders if he could hire some tiny asshole gnome to go stomp around in an atrium or two and get it to stop doing what it's doing. Fucking traitor.)

"Do you actually believe that, or is it some dumb excuse because you're terrified of being happy?"

Oh, that's fucking rich.

Tommy opens his mouth to tell him exactly that but Eddie just steamrolls right by him. "You don't have to point out the hypocrisy, jackass. I'm well aware of my own issues. Thing is - you're like, almost right. Buck does make me happy. Next to Chris there's no one else in the world I'd rather have by my side, rain or shine, good or bad. I love him. He's my person."

Tommy rolls his jaw. It's not a vindication to hear it.

"Except I'm not gay, Tommy. And I don't want that. I never have. And neither does Buck, just in case that argument was about to hit the airwaves."

"How do you know?"

Something sparks in the back of Eddie's eyes. Understanding. Triumph.

"You want an itemized list or a demonstration?"

Which is when Tommy knows he's stepped into an absolute minefield. No markers. Just free balling his way through a conversation that could explode with even the slightest pressure.

Eddie's got his phone out.

None of this is ideal.

When he looks up, his eyes land squarely on Tommy, who would like in this moment to be able to curl so far in on himself he gets sucked clean through the other side. "First of all, Buck may have just been improvising his entire journey of sexuality but for once I was trying to get ahead of the curve so that whole starry-eyed newly not straight vision you have of Buck is bullshit. You let him pull you along by the shirt strings for months without pressing pause and then you freak out when he thinks his speed and your speed are the same speed?"

This is feeling a whole lot like an ambush, now.

"Did you ever even try to slow him down?"

Tommy has some choice words that aren't remotely appropriate to say to someone who is at least tangentially still his friend, so he takes another swig of shitty beer. God, this shit is awful.

"You wanna know how I know I'm not his one? How I know he's not mine?"

Tommy really, really doesn't. Honestly he'd like to kick him out.

"Because he went at our friendship at the same warp speed pace he took your relationship and it never fucking scared me."

Proof in the pudding, for Tommy. He's not the sort of jackass who actually thinks he can make a different judgement call on someone else's sexuality than the one they've made themselves, but come on.

"Shannon's been dead for half a decade," Eddie says, voice dropping so suddenly Tommy feels it like an icy draft. "And maybe one day I'll make my peace with that. Maybe one day I'll get out from under it. The point is I've lost them both and the loss wasn't the goddamn same."

"Buck came back," Tommy argues.

Eddie scoffs. Wrinkles his nose. "Jeez, he wasn't kidding about how weird that sounds." His phone buzzes on the countertop, and Tommy wonders what the hell that look on his face means. "Don't change the subject. I'm not here to talk you into anything. I'm just here to drink a beer with you and tell you how goddamn stupid it is to think that an uncertain future with Evan Buckley isn't worth every second of terror it causes you."

"You don't know me as well as you think you do."

Eddie tips the bottle against his lips. Swallows. God, why hadn't Tommy just pursued the self-proclaimed straight guy for a couple weeks before he scratched the itch somewhere else and kept a friend, instead?

"Maybe." Eddie tips his head. "Maybe I do, though. Maybe in the months and months you were invited to all my mopey nights in with Buck and all the crazy crap we end up involved in at the station and all the times you couldn't shut up about him when he wasn't around and all the times I got to see you falling ass over teakettle for my best friend, I learned a fucking thing or two about Tommy Kinard." He wags his head back and forth. "Maybe."

"Is there a point to this?"

Eddie tips his eyes to his phone, and it's probably too late at this point for the suspicion to begin to creep in.

"I mostly just came to confront you about your completely off base bullshit excuses, but there's actually a pretty simple solution to at least one of your multitude of issues, so. Now we're waiting."

Tommy doesn't like the sound of that at all.

"Chris is mad at you, by the way."

It's a distraction. It's fully a - "Why is he mad at me?"

"I should actually thank you, because it's the first time he's actively talked to me in months," Eddie continues, like Tommy hadn't asked a question. "He's pissed because Buck is sad and there's literally nothing in the world that gets a rise out of the Diaz boys like sad Buck."

"You can just say you're pissed at me and go, Eddie."

"Oh I'm angry. Don't think I'm not. Mostly I'm just sad for you. You had six months to get to know Buck and never thought to yourself 'hes going to love me and it's going to hurt' until he skipped too far ahead in the program."

And that's - kind of the final straw. He's let Eddie get his licks in. He deserves it, he knows he does. Honestly it's a little cathartic to hear - to know exactly what Buck has spent his time dissecting post-Tommy. "That's all I ever thought about. Do you think I didn't know going in? I tried to put a stop to it before it even started and he just doubled down! Do you think for a second I wasn't viscously aware that I was setting myself up for -."

No. He's not gonna say it. He's not giving that to Eddie when he couldn't even give it to Ev-Buck. When he couldn't give it to Buck.

Eddie looks victorious anyway.

"And for six months you thought it was worth it."

"For six months I was too much of a coward to stop thinking about it."

Eddie drains the rest of his beer. "I'm not gonna lie. You screwed up pretty bad. Like. Astronomically bad. Giving up your location in a firefight bad."

Tommy does everything he can not to wince.

"It's salvageable, though. If you want it to be. If there's anything I know about Buck it's that second chances are his bread and butter." He's been dancing around saying anything of substance about Buck's feelings, in all of this, but the hints are there. As if the bouts of angry-depressive texts from Buck weren't clue enough.

"And what if it's not what I want?"

Eddie's eyes dart to his phone one more time. "Then you can make it a clean break in about ... three and a half minutes."

Tommy nearly tosses his beer across the room.

[dreamertf]

Follow the Instructions

/hello! Hope you enjoy this one, im gonna start tagging ai as #ai tf so if you dont want to see any ai images in your tfs you can block that tag. Ill also be putting a disclaimer at the top of each post that has ai.

/contains ai images & video

/includes; muscle growth, suggestion tf, straight to gay tf

"Yeah, Im feeling fine!"

Jason was tired of how weak and scrawny his best friend Max stayed throughout their time in high school and now, college. So he had given Max a new black market roid that promised to "make him a bro." He crushed up a few of the pills without looking at the instructions and baked it into a cookie he gave Max.

Jason wasn't so bad himself, 6'4" and muscular, with a charming face. Little did he know that his height that he had since he was a sophmore in highschool would be changing.

Jason stared at Max as his skin started to ripple and shift.

"Are you sure?"

"Never better, bro."

Max ripped his shirt off as his muscles swelled. A deep canyon of rippling abs leading up to two giant slabs of muscle. He flexed and stretched as his biceps filled out.

"Sorry, im feeling a little hot." Max said non chalantly. His muscles continued to grow as he flexed them.

"Oh my god it worked"

"What worked?"

"Oh nothing, dont worry about it."

"Ok brah"

Their surrounds changed from school as it turned into a living room, a living room Jason had been in so many times before, Max's living room. All of a sudden, Jason felt a pull towards Max. He couldn't stop looking at him, like literally. He traced Max's outline as each muscle became more prominent. He stared at the giant as he grew taller and taller, but something wasn't right. It was like everything around Jason was getting taller too.

Unfortunately, Jason hadn't looked into how the roid actually worked. On the back of the small blue box, it read ;

Are you tired of being weak and nerdy? We got you covered. We believe the human mind is a powerful tool, and our Bro Pill helps you to use it to your full potential! Not only does it shift your mindset to be more focused on sports and the bros, but it also changes various other aspects of your life in order to fit your new you! We recommend taking one pill weekly until desired affects.

WARNING: taking more than one pill a week may intensify the effect you have on other people

Jason panicked as he felt himself losing muscle and height. His features softened as he turned from a rugged man into a young 20 something twink. It looks like the god of Jason's creation has type cast him as his twinky boyfriend. Making Max a jock apparently didn't override his sexuality.

"What are you doing to me?"

His voice was still deep, too deep for someone like him.

"Make that voice a little higher, and can you please quit being so worried brah? Be like me, stop thinkin as much little guy huhuhu."

A wave of relief came over Jason as he collapsed onto the couch. His body continued to shrink as he lost his height, becoming about 5'6" compared to Max's new 6'8". His musculature toned down more, not as defined anymore.

"Whatever you say babe" Jason giggled, his voice much higher and more flamboyant.

"Thats my pretty boy." Conversely, Max's voice became much deeper and demanding. Jason felt himself starting to get hornier.

"I'm so happy i couldfind you. Your ass was like made for my dick huhuhu" Max said as he spread his legs wide as his pouch grew bigger. He had one more explosive growth as his shoulder broadened and his pecs filled out more. Jason shifted in his seat as his ass grew more plump and muscular.

"What do you mean?" Jason feigned innocence, turning the ditziness all the way up.

"Come here and I'll show you, slut."

[lemotmo]

hey so this has been rotting in my brain since yesterday and I'm going crazy so I need some outside perspective

im a buddie shipper and 100% believe they are perfect for each other, but sometimes it feels like buck is a better to friend to eddie than vice versa? like buck is there for eddie all the time and often goes above and beyond for him, buck gave eddie carla, was there for him during eddie/shannon troubles (s2 christmas ep), showed up to his probie ceremony in his cast, took care of him and chris during shooting, built chris a skateboard, literally saved him in the shooting, always gives him advice on relationships (told him to prioritise his happiness over chris during ana), showed him charlie at horse therapy, was there for him with his panic attacks, and then his eventual breakdown (repairing his wall), he was there at the diaz household when eddie went to texas, helped chris when eddie was at therpay, always babysists, was with eddie when the kim fiasco went down, never judged but gave good advice, he was there when chris left and even after (eg s8 chris bday zoom party)

if we compare this with the times eddie supports buck its not nearly as extensive, or oftentime his help/time comes with strings attached, eg tsunami (gave buck chris to cheer him up, but also got free childcare (twice)), with the poker (used his maths powers, but also helped cheer him up), he was just missing mostly from buck sperm donor storyline, he did help buck with donor baby trauma and all his relationship traumas, the thing is that whenever hes there for buck its often buck instigating it, he always akss for advice/help, its very rare that eddie does something completetly selfless for buck unprompted, whereas we have so many examples of buck doing that for eddie,

it rly funny when eddie complains of buck always thinking of himself/being selfish when hes consitently THE character who cares for others more than himself, im not saying buck is a perfect uwu little baby (the lawsuit for example, but even in this case the way it panned out buck took 100% of the blame, and no one even tried to understand where he was coming from except maybe Hen), or that eddie is the devil, i just want to acknowledge that buck similar to his childhood is always giving but never getting that same energy back, and that does make him a tragic character, because even in adulthood when he does have a found family he still sometimes faces the problems he did as a child, the show should actually acknowledge that buck is so used to being treated like shit he kinda takes it from everyone, and when they do get together maybe they have a conversation about this idk, sorry for the long ass rant and feel free to maybe add some counterpoints of eddie helping buck unconditionally, but this is all i could think of

Oh no no NO no NOOOO no NO no no no NO No NOOOOOOO no NO Nonny, just NO. 🤦‍♀️😬🤦‍♀️😬🤦‍♀️

Don’t drop this in my ask box Nonny. You need to back waaaaaaay up with this. You need to get rid of this bad take, because it’s absolute garbage. 😖

It seems to me that you fundamentally do not understand Eddie Diaz and how much he KNOWS and GETS Evan Buckley.

So buckle up Nonny, I’m about to take you on a walk down Eddie Diaz-lane:

Buck doesn’t need someone to feel sorry for him or to indulge him. Buck needs someone to tell him that enough is enough. That’s where Eddie comes in. He is the one who steps in and tells Buck to stop spiralling, because that’s canonically what he does. Remember how Maddie had Buck’s friends and family check up on him in shifts after the lightning strike? Eddie was the only one who said no. Why? Not because he didn’t want to, but because he knew exactly what Buck needed and it wasn’t to be pampered, but to be understood. And lo an behold, who shows up on Eddie’s doorstep at the end of the day? Buck. Ready to commit murder because he is tired of everyone walking on eggshells around him. And Eddie is the only one who knew Buck enough to know this wouldn’t end well. He knows exactly what makes Buck tick.

He knows what Buck needs or doesn’t need. He knows that Buck sometimes gets into his own head a little too much and that is when he acts and does something small and inconspicuous that will resolve the situation.

Often times Buck only sees the worst sides of a problem and he becomes blind to the good things in life. That’s when Eddie steps in and puts him firmly back on the ground again, reminding him that he is loved by his friends and family and he’ll be okay.

Do you remember whose voice Buck heard when he disassociated in the scene with Gerrard? Eddie’s was most prominent. Why? Because he knows he can always count on Eddie to get him out of his spirals. Eddie understands him on a fundamental level. Throughout the whole time that Gerrard was the Captain of the 118, Buck was struggling while Eddie kept his cool. We saw him hovering near Buck a lot of the time, trying to give him some advice, but mostly he offered him silent support.

It’s at these difficult times when Eddie comes in and NO Nonny, this does not come with any strings attached. Yes, Eddie barged in and told Buck to take care of Chris before the tsunami, but not to get free child care. That was just an excuse, a little white lie. No, this was because he knew that Buck was wallowing in self-pity and he wanted to get him out of that pit. He told him that Chris never ever feels sorry for himself and that Buck should take that as an example. And it's exactly what Buck needed as well. Bringing Chris was a very clever diversion to get Buck out of the house and start living again. (Of course then they got caught in a tsunami, but that’s not the point here.)

The poker date had NOTHING to do with Eddie wanting to USE Buck’s math powers. I assure you, Buck is a grown man. If he hadn’t wanted to go on that poker date he wouldn’t have gone and if he hadn’t wanted to stay there, he could have just gotten up and left. Eddie wouldn’t have held it against him either, because that’s the kind of friend he is… selfless. In that episode we see that Eddie was bang on again. Buck thrived during that poker game. He had fun being the best and Eddie indulged him, keeping a close eye on him at all times. He knew exactly how to get Buck out of his funk and his spiral of self-pity.

When has Eddie ever been selfish in all of these scenarios? I’ll tell you… NEVER.

Another example: After Eddie got shot, Buck sat in that hospital chair, telling Eddie it should have been him that was shot. Eddie immediately said: OH HELL NO! He then revealed he had put in his will that Chris would go to Buck if anything ever happened to Eddie. And not just to the benefit of Chris, because we all know that boy would thrive with a caretaker like Buck, but also for Buck himself. Eddie knows that if anything were to happen to him, there wouldn’t be anyone there who understands him enough to get him out of that slump and that spiral of blaming himself. So he gave Buck a task and a goal, something to do to keep him focused and sharp. Buck would never give into self-blame if he had to take care of Chris.

Eddie has consistently been shown to be willing to step in to Buck’s messes, sitting down next to him and listening to his plight. The hospital talk after Chimney got stabbed and Buck decided it was a great idea to illegally get into Chim’s phone? Eddie sat next to him and really listened, told him that he understood, but that he was still in the wrong. Buck needed to hear that, as he was increasingly getting more and more anxious about Maddie. He needed the voice of reason.

The balcony talk, after Chim had given Buck the black eye, where Eddie reassured him that Chimney would forgive him. Sure, he did it with a joke, but again that was what was needed. That joke provided some levity to the situation. Something Buck absolutely appreciated in that moment.

Even that last scene in 8x06. Eddie had just danced in joy (and in his underwear), the bell rings and who's there? Buck, looking miserable. Eddie could have turned him away, unwilling to deal with his obvious bad mood. Instead he just welcomed him in and no words needed to be spoken. His quiet acceptance was enough to let Buck know that he would be there for him, no matter what.

Point is, Eddie Diaz KNOWS Evan Buckley to the core and there isn’t anything he isn’t willing to do for him. Nothing he has ever done for Buck came with strings attached.

And as for Buck helping Eddie out and doing all of the things you listed? That’s just the way Buck loves. He loves completely and wholly. Once you are a part of his family, he will go above and beyond for you, no questions asked. He goes to bat for Eddie again and again. Him and Chris are two of the most important people in his life and Buck loves to give selflessly to the people he loves.

So taking care of Chris, babysitting him? That’s not a hardship for him. He does it with love and joy. Showing up for Eddie with his leg in a cast? Eddie never asked him to do that. He decided to do this because of love. Helping Eddie out during and after the breakdown? He willingly stepped into Eddie’s mess because that is the way Buck loves.

I could go on and on about this, but I’ll end it here.

Bottom line is this Nonny…

NO! Eddie doesn’t wait until Buck comes to him to ask for help. He gives him some time, yes. But then, when he sees him struggling? That’s when he steps in to help him out, to care for him, to love him the way Buck deserves to be loved. The only selfishness Eddie indulges in is that he WANTS and NEEDS to see Buck happy again. Because seeing Buck happy? That is what makes Eddie happy.

So NO, he has never treated Buck like shit and he never will. Neither has anyone else on the 118 by the way. Buck was treated like shit by his parents, that’s true, but the moment he stepped into the 118 he found his family. And they always treat him with the respect and love he deserves.

I’m not going to get too deep into the lawsuit arc, because I think both Buck and the 118 made some mistakes there, but in the end they got through it, which is what a good family does. Eddie was a little prickly in the beginning sure, but he had good reason for that. Buck had hung out all of his dirty laundry to that stupid lawyer. But they got through it and their bond became even stronger. At the end of that arc I do feel like everyone in the 118 understood Buck a little better than before. So did Eddie.

So NO. They don’t need to have some kind of conversation about this ‘imaginary’ problem you think they have Nonny. They do however, need to sit down and have a conversation about what they want out of life and how to go on from there. Them having been friends for so long, the switch to become more than friends is huge. They definitely need to talk about that and about Chris’s part in that as well. Whatever decision they make and take in life, Chris will be a part of it.

*deep breath*

Okay, I feel like I got out of my system what I needed to get out.

Listen Nonny, I appreciate you taking the time to drop something in my ask box and asking for some outside perspective, but in the future? Maybe keep these very bad and wrong takes about Eddie Diaz out of my ask box and just post them on your own blog? I’m sure you’ll find people out there who will agree with you, but I am decidedly NOT that person.

Thank you kindly. 😌

[b-lossm]

•+*Forevers a long time*+•

Vi (arcane) x reader [angst-> comfort kinda..]

synopsis: Vi visits your new home before her big mission..

SEASON 2 SPOILERS KINDA!!!!

This is hard; fathoming the possibility that this may be the last time she sees you, its hard.

Vi tries her best to put up her brave walls again but when she hears your breath getting caught in your throat she realizes that its pointless "H-Hey this isn't goodbye" she says while haphazardly wiping your tears, trying to wipe her own as well, she knows that she might be lying, but for your sake she cant believe that too.

"B--But--" you start "No, I will come back, not in a box, okay?" she tries to reassure you through her shaky words wrapping her arms around you to bring you down "Vi d--don't even say that don't say that I wasn't trying to bring it up but--" hic "You cant leave, no, not right now, everything was going good before the explosion, you cant" you ramble on about how you two where finally gonna have a good life together, how her impatient self waited so long to get out of Stillwater to have a good life with you and now this? She quickly shuts you up with a soft kiss to bring you down.

"Hey--Hey Y/n breathe, breath Lovebug" she attempts to calm you down by tracing shapes into your side and kissing your cheeks, something that always works "I know, I don't like waiting for anything and we finally got here, but to make sure we keep everything we worked for I have to go, its only gonna be for a week ok and the---" you cut her off "Yeah a week where you might die!" she sighs, your right, your almost always right "Yeah, I know" she starts, pausing her motion for a split second, contemplating her life "Lovebug, you gotta understand that even if I do die, its for the greater cause, plus you know Cait, she doesn't miss, and you know me! I don't miss.. well most of the time" she chuckles while planting kisses all over your face and hairline.

When she finally gets you too stop crying she holds your hand "Tell you what.." she starts "When I come back, I'll get you that pretty promise ring you always wanted hm?" your mouth runs dry "Really Vi..?" you ask while your face flushes red "mhm' really, then I'll be yours forever, well until I really propose" she looks into your eyes, the color soothes her, it always does. You shake your head while smiling sadly "Well m' gonna hold it to you Vi, forever's a long time and I need you for that so you better come back" you say bittersweetly, still coping with the idea that your girlfriend might not come back.

"I want you to pinky promise that you'll come back Violet" 'Oh shit', she thinks you used her real name, She smiles and holds up her pinky “If I don't come back I want you too cut my pinky off for the funeral" she jokes as you interlock your fingers and lock it in with your thumbs "M' serious Vi, I need you here.. a lot of us do" you smile shyly "yeah I know" she says with a cocky smirk

Afterwards you two headed to bed and had hot and sad sesbian lex

———————————————————————————

The day after you where a mess.

You got dressed and got her ready to go "Go get her Vi, I'm sorry that its her that you have to get.." you say sadly, reminiscing on the times you and Vi hung out with powder, the times that you wanted the small girl to cherish. "She's gone Y/n, m' sorry but she is, I think I'll be ok." she takes a deep breath, realizing that in a way she's become something she never wanted to be "I know, just, be careful.." You say while admiring your tall girlfriend in the mirror thinking its weird how she's wearing the enforcer uniform, then you hear Caitlyn's knock at the door.

"I guess this is it then.." she starts but you quickly shut her down "No, we where sad yesterday, today your gonna go be the only cool ass enforcer and your gonna get her. Then your gonna come back to me like you promised" You say, determined to lighten the mood, She quickly pulls you into a deep kiss, its a goodbye kiss you know it is, but it doesn't matter to you anymore.

"Bye--Bye Vi, I'll hold up the fort while your gone"

"Bye Lovebug, I'll see you in a week"

you watch them as they leave, Vi looking back too see if you where still looking as many times as she can to make sure she can remember your face.

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

A/n

Season 2 brings me so much sorrow I made a playlist :(

This was supposed to be like Japanese Denim by Daniel Ceaser but it didnt really come through, I'll def make a fic based off of it more in the future though.

also why is there a Vi fanfic drought????, someone pls send me some, not alot of smut tho because there is so much.

[kkayyerr]

Mean! Rafe with pogue! Reader when she regresses like how is he? Is he gentle? Does he tease? Those kinds of things, thank you xx

I got you!

I loooove writing headcanons.🫶����

Warnings: Age regression, Dark!Rafe, controlling behavior, manipulation, slight abuse.

– He would probably first met you when you would visit his sister. He knew that you were one of the Pogues, but it wasn’t what he found interesting about you.

– Your behavior wasn’t usual for a Pogue. You were quiet, shy and somewhat childish. Somehow he didn’t found you as annoying as the rest of them, he enjoyed observing you quietly, analyzing your behavior.

– Rafe won’t admit his interest in you to anyone, especially not to his sister, always making snarky comments about you when talking to her.

– „What is she, a five year old?”

– He wouldn’t mind saying things like that to your face, laughing when you will give him a pouty face, that he would secretly find adorable.

– „What was that, little girl? Too sensitive to handle a small tease?"

– But when he would first saw you in the fight that his friends started with Pogues, he would push you to the side, holding you in his hands, so you won’t get hurt. He would find a lot of excuses about that later, when his friends would confront him about being soft to the Pogue.

– Rafe would probably give you a little smirks every time he would see you at his house or somewhere else.

– When he would find out that you are regressed, he would wait for the perfect opportunity to ask Sarah to babysit you for her, and when that opportunity will come, he would make sure that there’s only you and him in the house. He would also make sure that this would be the last time you were talking to Sarah.

– „You know, I’m not like your friends, kid. I actually care about your well-being.”

– He would play with your mind, making you actually believe everything he said.

– „Baby, you’re too precious to think about that Pogue’s shit. Just let me take care of you, alright?"

– Soon enough, the brave Pogue girl will become daddy’s little doll.

– „No one will take care of you better than I do, baby.”

– He would make sure that you are way too eager for his attention and affection to actually leave, or even think about going back to the Pogues.

– Rafe would teach you manners, watching as you slowly turn into the true Kook, because he would be damned if he would let his baby’s brain being stuffed with that Pogue’s bullshit.

– He would dress you himself, adoring your little pink outfits and small ribbons in your hair, that he would braid himself.

– Everytime you would ask to see your friends he would just change his manner to the cold one, and watching as you slowly forgetting about wanting to see them, now crying because of lack of affection.

– „I told you baby, I don’t want you around your friends no more, they are bad influence. Let’s just go to the Topper’s house, yeah?”

– You won’t say „no”, because you know that there will be consequences for you.

– He won’t be using physical punishments. He would just left you alone when you will need him the most, waiting for you to come begging for forgiveness, hoping for at least crumps of his love.

– His favorite words are „yes, Daddy”.

– Rafe wouldn’t hesitate beating the shit out of the Pogues right in front of your eyes, if they would try and talk to you.

– When you will start crying because of the shock he would just hold you close, being much gentler than he usually was.

– „Daddy just wanted to protect you, baby”.

– You would never question his actions, because „Daddy always knows better”.

– Always.

[rosenotactuallyquartz]

i can’t be the only one who thinks rose’s flings with humans were partially self destructive

rebecca sugar often describes rose as self destructive. people self destruct in many ways.

i say this as a girl who’s been in relationships where i knew i was treated poorly but subconsciously believed it was what i deserved. if a good person who knew me well showed interest, i’d feel confused. i think you’re so good and i’m nothing like you type of thing.

(if you couldn’t already tell, i also deal with self hatred, though i’m a lot more self aware than i used to be)

rose saw the good in everyone but herself. she was naive, impulsive, & had a tendency to “worship” those around her, believing they were better than her. she was fascinated by humans but didn’t know the norms or labels of human relationships. she didn’t know or understand much about humans, period. i.e., letting a human baby climb a ferris wheel in greg the babysitter.

rose was initially drawn to humans out of fascination. she saw so much beauty in the most simple parts of humanity.

but people don’t always have the best intentions

i can’t help but wonder if some people took advantage, knowing that rose didn’t understand everything about human relationships. for some humans, i’m in no doubt that they found her intriguing & her powers were obviously beneficial for them, but they didn’t respect her or care to try & get to know her. i’m sure some humans weren’t horrible, but clearly her connections with all of them until the 90s were unremarkable. they’d be attracted to her for surface level reasons.

rose thought this was just how human connections worked. even though it would feel…bad sometimes, rose believed she deserved to feel that way. after all, she said herself that it was “a good thing” if people didn’t know her well.

she didn’t think she deserved genuine love from someone who truly knew her, someone who knew her past self. when a relationship felt good, she’d feel guilty, despite deeply & genuinely loving that person who cared for her.

that’s why she’s so surprised when a human treats her with decency in we need to talk. why she laughs when he says the word respect. why she says, “is this not how this works?”

she’s never had a relationship with a human that was caring & respectful. having conversations about respect & wanting to get to know a person are very simple things. this doesn’t make him “better” than any of the crystal gems—he’s just better than the other humans she knew.

as the next three years go by, rose continues to be self destructive. they don’t know about each other’s pasts & they have a shared coping mechanism: escapism. this is why sugar has said that they enable each other, which is unfortunate yet unsurprising because they cope in similar ways. she never opens up to him about her feelings surrounding past trauma, and he doesn’t either—even when some serious decisions are made. rose couldn’t stand herself & she didn’t feel deserving of love. the more people know about her, the less deserving she feels, which makes her avoidant & confusing in relationships.

nevertheless, she genuinely loves those around her, which is partly why she passes her life on to someone she believes deserves to live & be loved more than she does

as she said in nora’s tape in lion 4, i’m so excited for everyone who’s going to know you. from the very start, she believed that the best thing she could do for the people she loved was leave behind someone who deserved to be around them. someone who was worth loving.

with all of that said i hate the way the fandom talks about her character sometimes

[capitalisticveins]

Seeing as how you're doing headcanons again i'd like to request hcs of Gavin,Milo,Sam,Vincent,and Guy( btw here's a thought for ya Guy as Hermes dangerous has stuck in my head for the past couple hours send help) also your previous hc were also great!(you could say they were ruthless ha ha ha im sorry that was bad lol)

~ Deviant anon （⊃◕ω◕(´ω｀*⊂)

idk if you can tell but I really like Guy

also I wrote headcanons for some character recently so characters like Gavin, Sam, and Milo have them a lil short than Vincent and Guy since it takes a while to think about possible in-character hcs for them. Sorry :(

Lots of Headcanons #3

Gavin

Believe it or not, Gavin’s social media accounts are usually blank. Save for Instagram. He just has them to comment under the group’s posts.

Despite never reading a book, Freelancer has told him he’d do best in the writing industry.

He does not know how to hold a baby. If you give him a baby for any reason he’d hold it with both of his hands under its shoulders.

The worst he’s been scared was when he played a horror VR game, but he didn’t scream or anything he really just jolted and went “shit” and moved on. Freelancer was not amused.

He likes being the big spoon when he and FL cuddle because he gets to breathe in their scent, hold them, and remind himself that this is real, and not just a dream he’ll wake up from.

Milo

You can’t beat him in cup pong. Digitally or physically. You just can’t.

The only reason David is considered a better cook than Milo is because Milo uses a lot of seasoning and the pack is full of babies who can’t handle oregano or sazón.

Whenever the pack goes somewhere tropical he has to wear a shirt or Sweetheart will constantly attempt to latch onto his torso.

Milo and cats have always gone together like peanut butter and jelly. He had a cat toy when he was a toddler, his first cell phone had a stray cat as his wallpaper, he’d feed the stray cats around his home, etc. So when he learned that he and the people around him could turn into “dogs” (wolves but still) he was DEVASTATED. Got over it after a day tho.

He likes juice boxes.

Avid Apple Juice “tastes like piss” hater, although he also says mint ice cream tastes like toothpaste so take that as you will.

Sam

Sam fucking hates cowboys.

Sam had braces from the ages of 19-21 and the only upside he had to being a vampire when he first turned was that he didn’t need his retainer anymore.

Sam always reads manga wrong and no matter how many times anyone explains it he’ll read it from left to right and never understands what’s going on.

The closest Sam has gotten to riding a horse is when he flopped on top of Darlin’s back while they were shifted and they walked around his house like that…he’s never been on a horse.

Sam has a lot of existential crisises, compared to like Vincent or Porter.

If something's flying and he can't figure out if it's a plane, helicopter, animal, or any identifiable flying object, he just believes it's an Alien UFO and moves on.

Darlin' gave him a wheat head for Christmas once. He was not amused.

Vincent

Wanted to be a youtuber for a brief period in time in 2010.

Had a weird obsession with those traced anime characters dancing tiktoks in 2020, a little after meeting Lovely.

He canonically has multiple cars he likes showing off to Lovely, but he also nearly never uses them and it’s Lovely who showboats them and takes them on joyrides.

He didn’t believe William at first when he was first told he’s a vampire now and was the only one who survived The Surge incident, until they both saw his funeral take place and see his grave, which took place a long time after the accident because his parents refused to believe he was dead.

He had 3 tomodachis at once and they all constantly died because he forgot feeding them was a thing.

He commonly "regrets" asking William to make him unable to lie to Lovely because they like to ask him embarrassing questions on purpose and he can’t help but answer them, even though he could just stay quiet.

His favorite memory as a kid was roller skating with his parents on his 7th birthday. Even though he fell on his face, sprained his ankle, and had a loose tooth fall out. Still his favorite day.

Guy

GUY IS SO HERMES CODED UR RIGHT

Turned a fanfic he wrote as his college essay and got in just because of it.

Was very afraid of Honey when they first met, they kept staring at him like he was the scum of the Earth. They just wanted to talk to him about the Animal Crossing pin on his backpack.

Whenever his friends order from Max’s, and he turns out to be their delivery guy, they make fun of him so much (playfully) and give him a 10 dollar tip

He borrowed his friend’s motorcycle to impress Honey

Cried over Gnomeo and Juliet

Dressed up as the Thomas Jefferson Miku Binder drawing in 2023.

He almost gave himself a buzzcut once when he was drunk, he had to be held down because everyone knew he’d regret it so hard later, not matter how funny it’d be.

[theresthesnitch]

As I have previously mentioned, I'm dedicating November to writing my Wolfstar Royal Arranged Marriage AU. It's making slow progress. Would you like a snippet? Of course you would.

Warning: this fic features Trans Remus, who is not out to anyone at the beginning. In this snippet, James and Sirius discuss Sirius's future spouse using feminine terms. Yes, this is Remus, but they don't know any better yet.

~*~

“So, wedding day jitters? What do you need? Warm socks for your feet? Have you met your lovely bride?”

“I’m not permitted to meet her,” Sirius says. “Apparently, it’s in case I run away first.” 

James walks back over, standing right next to Sirius and fixing him with knowing eyes. “Do you want to run away anyway?” 

“I can’t,” Sirius says. He looks toward James, a small, sad lift to his lips. “I have to have a queen to be the king, and my people need me.” 

James shakes his head. “You know I don’t get it, mate. Why does it have to be a woman? You would be much happier married to a man, and a happy king is a happy kingdom.” 

Sirius scoffs, clicking his tongue as he looks back in the mirror. “You think my happiness is part of the equation at all? Trust me, it’s not. No, most important is heirs, and a gay king married to a man can't make heirs, no matter how much the people may accept that I can love who I love.”

“It's shit,” James says. 

Sirius smiles at him. “It is. But no one ever said being king wasn't shit.” Sirius looks back at himself in the mirror. 

“Should come with some perks, though,” James says. “Like getting to decide who you love.” 

“There are perks! Not that one, of course. But there are definite perks.” Sirius turns around, facing James fully. “It’s fine, James. Royal marriages aren't about love. That was never really in the stars for me.”

James wrinkles his nose. “I guess you could always take after your father and have a consort or two to get you through your very heterosexual marriage.” 

Sirius grimaces. “I’d at least have the decency not to snuff it in his bed.” 

James cackles, clutching his chest. “That is never going to be not funny to me. Do you know if he died like while he was in him? It would be awful for what's his name but–” 

“Evan,” Sirius supplies. “And yes, I do know, and no, I do not want to talk about it.” 

James’s face lights up. “Oh, Circe’s hairy snatch, he was, wasn't he? Your dad was porking his little bed warmer when he kicked it. Please say yes; I need to know. My life will be incomplete otherwise. I mean, may his legacy last an eternity and all that, but I absolutely 

Sirius runs a hand over his face, trying to stifle his laughter. He shouldn't be laughing, but it is just so ridiculous. “No, no, he wasn’t.” Sirius snort-laughs again. “It’s worse. If Evan’s screams are anything to go by, Father was… being porked.” James immediately laughs, doubling over and holding his stomach, and Sirius can’t help but laugh with him. “I can’t believe you made me say that.” 

“I can’t believe it happened! Gods, imagine that. Old King Orion, being fucked by a twink.” That sets James off on another round of laughing. “I’m never going to get over this.” 

“I’m never going to get over the fact that I know this.” Sirius says. He groans. “Evan was wailing it in the hallway. Apparently it was… a while before he noticed.” 

James laughs again, this time falling on the ground. “This might be the best day of my life.” 

Sirius suddenly sobers. “Can’t say the same, honestly.”

[knight-a3]

Heavenbound AU Masterpost

Alastor Redesign

I've spent an absurd amount of time researching deer, microphones, and 1920s-30s fashion for this. I'm by no means an expert of any of it, but I'm decently confident enough for some fictional depictions.

I'll include some notes under the cut, which does get a little long. I doubt other characters will get this detailed, but Alastor has a lot of design themes and motifs that were a bit too ingrained to remove. Everyone else is either simple in comparison, or much easier to simplify.

Alastor also just catches my interest in ways the others don't.

Design notes (I'll add edits notes as they come, should it be necessary)

My goal was to design him in a way that still felt like the same character, just altering the aspects I thought could be better. So a radical change wasn't what I was going for. That said, I had a logical reason for most of the changes I made.

--Deer-- Quickly, there's some regional terminology to clear up. In Europe, elk often refers to what North Americans call moose. And the NA Elk is sometimes called by an alternate name, "wapiti". I had never heard the term wapiti before researching this. And since I live where NA Elk are native (Rocky Mountain region), I think my terminology takes priority. Alastor would call them elk too. Before anyone says Elk aren't deer; yes they are. The word 'elk' basically means "big deer." They look similar to the Red Deer (Similar looking antlers, but elk are bigger, second only to moose, which are also a species of deer). It used to be believed that elk was a subspecies of Red Deer, but that's apparently been proven false. In NA, there are five main species in the deer/cervid family(listed from smallest to largest): Whitetail, mule deer, caribou/reindeer, elk, and moose.

Deer Sounds If you haven't heard deer sounds, I promise they aren't what you'd expect. Fanfics authors like to describe him making deer noises, but I'm not sure they realize what the sounds are actually like. I'll describe some noises, but search for them on Youtube, for both males and females separately. Using these terms will help you find specific examples. I listened to so many just trying to figure out how to describe them. Snort-They make a huffy blowing sound when alerted or alarmed. Often sounds like a bark. It's basically sounding the alarm. Does often make it when they're being harassed by bucks. Grunts- sounds like a croaky or clicky groan. Sorta like a frog or a pig. Sometimes sounds like cattle's moo. There are casual grunts, curious grunts, frustrated grunts, submissive grunts, low-drawn-out dominance grunts. Bleat- sounds more whiny, sheep-like, and higher pitched than a grunt. But it doesn't sound like a goat or sheep. It's used more by does and fawns. The younger it is, the higher the pitch. Really young fawns will sound like a little meep or maa. Snort Wheeze- sounds like a sniffy huff, followed by extended "F" sound. "sniff sniff Fffffff" There's a lot of air to it. It's basically an insult or challenge. Elk Bugle- much higher pitched than you'd expect from such a large animal. More so than a deer. It's an eerie, high pitched screech. They're basically broadcasting their location, looking for cows. Bulls will bugle back and forth, competing for attention. Elk chuckles and grunts- shorter versions of the bugle. Sounds kinda like monkey hoots. Elk Bark- alarmed or irritated. Sounds like a small dog's bark. Elk Chirps and mews- It reminds me of the curious sounds the dilophosaurus from Jurassic Park made. Or seagulls. They're just chatting.

What deer is he? Based on what I've observed, I don't think he was designed with any specific species in mind. I've seen others say his antler growth is most like elk, but I've found it inconsistent at best. Elk noises are used in the show, but that's because they make a distinct and eerie sound. More impressive than a deer's grunt or snort and wheeze. Personally, I think whitetail makes the most sense for him, since that's the species that would be most prevalent in Louisiana. While I'm basing him primarily off whitetail deer, he is a fictional deer-looking demon man, and doesn't have to perfectly resemble any single species of deer. His bright red color is clearly not realistic, for example. So I will incorporate some aspects of whitetail, mule deer, and elk, since those are the prevalent species in North America. I've given him a whitetail deer tail, but with the white swapped to black. That doesn't make him a blacktail deer, because that is supposedly a subspecies of Mule deer, and the tail does not look like what I am going for. Mule deer have proportionately large ears, and so does Alastor. Fans like to think they're soft and fluffy, but they aren't. I have felt deer hide, and it is NOT soft. I doubt it would be significantly different on live deer. Especially if it's anything like goats or cows(not even sheep are as soft as you'd expect). Deer ears are not positioned as low on the head as domestic livestock, but they aren't directly on top either. I wanted to maintain the upright position, because he didn't quite look right otherwise. I think I managed to get a decent balance. When he's particularly relaxed, his ears aren't as upright, but he rarely lets himself put his guard down like that. So it's basically just when he sleeps that they relax. His antler growth will vary based on a few different factors. When he is feeling confident and composed, the growth will be more typical to either of the three species. Whitetail or mule deer antlers will be more elegant, while elk antlers will be more intimidating due to the sheer size. But the more emotionally/mentally unhinged he gets(anger, fear, desperation, etc), the more nontypical his antlers will become. Which means there will be extra points in abnormal patterns. It's basically an indicator that he's not quite in control. He hates how it basically announces that, but very few people know that detail.

Anyway, here are a few references

--Life and Death-- For simplicity and easy math, I'm putting his birthday around 1900, give or take a year. He died 1933, which means he was around 32-34. Not very old, but not super young either. Lots of fans headcanon that he's biracial. Usually with a black Creole mom and white dad. His dad is often portrayed as abusive. Alastor is often thought to be fluent in French(Creole French). I want to propose an alternative. His mom is half-black half-white, his dad is white, and Alastor is consequently a quarter black. He is distinctly white-passing. He knows some Creole French, but is not fluent. I just think this could make for some interesting dynamics. Just to shake things up, his parents cared about each other and his dad wasn't abusive. But his father died in WW1, when Alastor was a teen. Instead, his uncle(father's brother) was racist and abusive towards them. Without his dad around to fend off the abuse, Alastor ended up killing his uncle in self defense and dumped the body in the woods/swamp/bayou. He had no remorse, and was rather enamored by the experience. Alastor always struggled with empathy. He was the type of kid to kill animals out of curiosity, and was fascinated by it. He felt more alive when watching the life fade from their eyes. His dad taught him to hunt, and he enjoyed the thrill of catching prey. A big part of hunting is understanding the prey's behavior and manipulating them. His parents taught him not to hurt other people, but after killing his uncle that went out the window. He justified it by "hunting" people he decided deserved it, in some twisted sense of vigilante justice. Really, he was just looking for an excuse. He primarily used guns(rifles for a clean kill, shotgun for efficiency, pistols "just in case" an unexpected opportunity presents itself) and knives for a real hands on experience. But in the end, if it got the job done, it could be used. He dabbled in magic and demonic deals while he was alive. He has a pop-culture-voodoo aesthetic, such as dolls that are connected to people and such. But I won't refer to it as voodoo, because I don't want to misrepresent actual voodoo. I will just call it shadow magic and be making up my own rules. More on it later. Radio was a comparatively mundane part of his life. It was his more relaxing pastime. He'd broadcast anything he liked. News, gossip, music, jokes, whatever. He could talk for hours, and his charisma was captivating to listeners. He did live shows too. An open mic was free game. While not aiming to be a musician, he was a decent pianist. He liked saxophone too. He preferred to dance though, and not many could keep up with him, even after some whiskey or rye. He died after being attacked by a rabid dog. He survived the attack, but contracted rabies, which there is no cure for. It attacks the central nervous system and fries the brain. Once symptoms appear, it's a death sentence. He went mad, and a fellow hunter put him out of his misery by shooting him in the head. He thinks it's an embarrassing way to die, so he's told a few alternate stories, sometimes with a grain of truth. He's amused by the gossip and speculation. Nobody knows the true story. These stories include the usual headcanons floating around. Let me explain why I don't like the usual death headcanons Mauled by hunting dogs- Hunting dogs are not supposed to kill the prey, just help the hunter find and catch them. A hunting dog that bites the prey might spoil the meat. To have a whole pack do that means those are horribly trained dogs. I don't buy it. Mistaken for a deer and shot by a hunter- Hunters should not shoot anything if they aren't certain of what it is. Otherwise they risk shooting something they don't have a permit for. At minimum, they should be checking to be sure they are aiming at a buck or a doe. To mistakenly kill a person is absurd. Also, to hit perfectly in the center of the forehead?? That had to have been intentional.

He started killing overlords partly because he could, and partly because they meet his criteria for "deserving it". He remained anonymous about it at first for a few reasons: 1. it was how he worked as a serial killer in life. 2. He enjoyed the thrill of the hunt and getting away without getting caught. 3. Watching everyone panic about the mysterious overlord killer while totally unaware it was him(seemingly unassuming) was amusing. Eventually, the novelty of anonymity wore off(partly because there weren't many consequences to getting caught like there would be in life) and he revealed himself as the mystery killer. Then he enjoyed the reputation and Overlord status. Eventually, being feared bored him too. So now he has to find some new games to play, which is where the Hazbin Hotel comes in.

--Fashion:1920s-30s-- Clothes: Men's outfits typically consisted of a shirt, waistcoat/vest, jacket, trousers with belt or suspenders, and potentially an overcoat if weather permits. If it was cold, I think he'd wear a black overcoat, to reference his earlier designs. I had to shorten the jacket a smidge, because they usually wouldn't be as long as in canon. Unless that's supposed to be his overcoat(in which case it shouldn't be so form fitting) The jacket lapels would generally be pretty wide. The pant legs would also be wide. Some of the pant styles could get rather absurd by todays standards. The basic idea was loose and boxy. The jacket, vest, and pants would be the same color if it could be afforded. But for the sake of visual interest, I've decided to ignore that. Neckties were more common than bowties. But that's more just an excuse for me to reduce the ridiculous number of bowties the show has. Belts were starting to become prevalent, especially in America. Since my research indicated that hunting clothes would use belts, never suspenders, I figured Alastor would favor belts. While hunting, he'd were a buffalo plaid shirt, a hunting cap, and some silly looking pants that were wide at the thighs, reinforcement around the seat and knees, and tight from the knee down, with either boots, gaiters(a shoe/calf cover to help keep clothes clean, similar to spats), or puttees(leg wraps that do the same thing, as well as provide support).

Monocles were used as a portable option for reading glasses, and not worn constantly. They were used to correct farsightedness, not nearsightedness. But they were fading in popularity, in part due to the association with prominent German leaders during WW1. Basically, I don't think the monocle suited Alastor.

Hair: I headcanon that his hair is actually fur. And as I said earlier, deer fur is not soft. It's pretty coarse and wiry. He probably sheds a lot too. His canon haircut is atrocious, so I had to fix it. The look of the time was short sides, long top, and slicked with styling wax. I've styled his hair in what I think would be the closest approximation to 1920s-30s fashion he could manage. Since it's fur, I don't think the wax would do a whole lot for him. He makes do with an approximation of a tousle top, which is basically minimal wax and slightly disheveled. Facial hair was not really in style in the 20s, due to the availability of razors. Cleanshaven was the ideal, especially in America. If a man did sport a mustache, it would be something neatly trimmed, like a pencil mustache. (I'm not totally sold on how I've done his hair in the below image. I may add some wave to it later. Also, don't mind his gun, I just didn't feel like drawing it properly.)

--Microphones-- I think Alastor would actually stay pretty up to date with a lot of things. But most people don't really realize it because he commits to his aesthetic. In regards to technology, if it has improved functionality, and fits his vintage style, he'll go for it. For microphones, he can summon whatever kind he wants. There are a variety of styles and types to choose from. I don't have any practical experience, but I did try to figure it out to a degree. There are three basic types he'd use, and they can look vintage just fine. Dynamic/moving coil: these are durable and less sensitive to background noise. It's the only one you can trust to survive a mic drop. Good for stage. Probably what he'd take out and about, because of the durability. Condenser: sensitive to sounds and capturing detail. Good for recording. Requires some extra equipment to prevent self-noise. Ribbon: Produces natural, smooth, warm sounds. Common in vintage mics. Probably Alastor's favorite, but they're fragile. Pop filters and wind guards help protect it from pressure changes.

--Color-- I tweaked the colors so he wasn't so overwhelmingly bright red. Overall just darkened his palette. His hair is a warmer shade of red than his suit. I also didn't think the green magic suited him. So his magic is more in the red to yellow range, because it matches his eyes and teeth(which glow, btw). Green will be an indication of either something poisoning his magic, or it's a borrowed power. I haven't fully committed to just one, and it might depend on what direction canon takes with his soul owner.

--Magic-- His stitching is an indicator that he's not really as composed as he seems. He's always a few threads away from tearing apart, but when he does he can always pull himself together again. He's in constant pain, but has also become so accustomed to it that he hardly notices anymore. I think he stitched his smile on himself. He wants to be smiling, and sewing it in place is how he can assure it never slips. It's part of his pseudo-voodoo aesthetic. Alastor was known to make overlords disappear, which shouldn't be possible without angelic weapons. But few people knew about angelic weapons before the show(himself included, I'm pretty sure). So I was left to ponder what he could have done to make victims disappear. I'm thinking the little shadow puppet gremlin creatures are the tattered remains of souls he's torn apart. I don't want to refer to them as voodoo dolls, so they will either be called variations of shadow puppets or gremlins. He usually offers fair deals, with or without a soul contract. Souls he owns--like Husk and Niffty--are added to his collection of minions, each minion has a gremlin that represents their contracts with him. But there are some that Alastor feels don't deserve fair treatment, so he tears those souls apart to broadcast their screams of eternal torment, then claims the remains of the tattered souls(whether he had a contract with them or not) and stitches them up into the shadow puppets. That way, they don't regenerate. Husk was lucky Alastor liked him, and offered a deal instead of just tearing him apart. Again, I don't want to misrepresent actual voodoo. So at most, it would be a corrupt version mixed with various pagan witchcrafts. It will just be referred to as either generic magic or shadow magic. If I need spooky symbols, I'll just make up my own. It will probably involve X shapes, to match his death mark. He became a powerful demon so quickly because he's clever, ruthless, and dabbled in magic in life, and was making demonic deals in life. Already having deals and practicing shadow magic gave him a significant boost once he died.

Some examples of his shadow puppet gremlins, plus his personal shadow buddy, which may or may not be the gremlin that represents himself:

--Wendigo-- No, I don't think he'd a wendigo. I personally don't think he was a cannibal while he was alive. He was a hunter who enjoyed the thrill of the hunt and liked venison(deer meat). The people he killed would be those he found disgusting, so I doubt he would have wanted to eat them even if he was so inclined. After death, he became venison himself, which can be perceived as cannibalism, I guess. He was cursed with insatiable hunger, which prompted him to branch out to more cannibalism from desperation. He still favors venison, which gets the closest to satisfying his hunger. Being dead has made him less concerned about cleanliness and hygiene, except when it affects the image he wants to portray. Then he became acquainted with Rosie, who was a cannibal in life. None of this makes him a wendigo. The concept of a man-eating monster or cannibalism isn't exactly unique, and I don't see a reason to apply that specific term to him. The original mythology of the wendigo does not include an antlered creature. I'm pretty sure that was more of a pop-culture addition during the 1900s. They're also more common further north where there are colder winters. Most descriptions say they are essentially ashen-skinned, emaciated-looking people(look at the game Until Dawn for a good example of that). Coincidentally more similar to the people of Cannibal Town. I doubt that was intentional, but the resemblance is still there. If any character was a wendigo, it would be Rosie. But I don't intend to explicitly make her one either.

[kaleidoscopiodeluz]

Imagine you are in your lowest point ever in life, you live alone in a nice house, but you're extremely lonely and sad. One day, a cat appears in your backyard. He's clearly malnourished and hurt, and he's unconscious when you find him. You can see that he actually has a collar with a nametag, but no phone number. You know he has a family, a home somewhere, but you can't really take him there and you also kinda think you can take better care of him. You actually pour all your ability to love onto this little fur ball, and you do save his life, so who cares if sometimes he cries while looking out the window? You know he's safe inside, you are doing everything in your power to make him happy and safe because you love him, he gave your life meaning. You buy him the best food and toys and a comfy bed, everything. About a year goes by and then, out of the blue, someone comes to your house and tells you that you have to let the cat go because he wasn't yours to begin with, he misses his family and has to get back home. What's more, they tell you that you can't take him there, that he has to face all those dangers that first brought him to you in the first place all by himself. You cry, you are angry and frustrated, you don't understand why this little baby doesn't want to stay with you when all you ever did was love him. But you let him leave. And now everyone hates you because you kept him from his home, and yes, maybe it was a mistake, and maybe it was wrong, but it didn't feel wrong at the time, you had the power to give him a great life, so why would you think he would choose the risk?

This is about Calypso in Epic: The Musical btw. She was definitely wrong for keeping Ody in the island, but she is a fucking goddess, in her logic it was within her power so why wouldn't it be within her rights? Again, she's definitely in the wrong, but Odysseus himself has done worse in the name of love and yet he's just a mere victim? That's not fair. Calypso is as complex a character as he is, she is very lovable and naive, and deeply wishes for Ody to love her and be thankful that she saved him and gave him everything he could ever want or need. She could make him immortal, she would do anything for him. She believes him wanting to go home to his wife is just a human whim that will go away once he sees everything she's willing to give him. And seven years is nothing when you're immortal, so she can wait it out patiently.

Also, Ody knows how pure of heart Calypso really is. He knows she hasn't done anything worse than the lengths he would go for Penelope, and it's been seven fucking years. Of course he loves her, not romantically, but he does love her. For the last seven years of his life she has been his everyday, she's been comforting and sweet and offered him love and luxuries. He loves her and he still sees her as an antagonist and that hurts them both. Leaving definitely wasn't easy for him either, but he had one goal in mind. One.

Also if someone comments anything about Calypso SAing Odysseus, NO SHE FUCKING DIDN'T. Even if the song didn't make it to the final version, Apetite shows us that she never actually forced him!

Anyways if you actually made it this far, I hope you have an amazing day, and remember: if you hate a morally grey character when is a woman of color but love it when is a white dude maybe the problem is not in the morality of the character. Ok, love you! Thanks for reading, byeeee

[chaifootsteps]

I don't get this fandom's fixation with insisting Blitzo is the one who views relationships as transactional when there's so many examples of him obviously wanting to have more than that. IMP is basically his attempt to make himself a new family with Loona as his daughter and M&M first as the people he wants to threesome with but more realistically, his friends

Stolas meanwhile behaves in a much more transaction based mindset where he assumes if he gives X he can get Y

he views his cheating on Stella as not counting as cheating because 'cheating implies a betrayal and [Stella] never gave two shits about [him]'. Even though the marriage was arranged and he never loved Stella either (he somehow forgot he burst into tears when he first saw her and was miserable about the whole idea?) he expected Stella to make an effort to love him because that's how marriages work. He didn't seem to appreciate that it being arranged would make his partner's feelings more complex and things might have gone better if he hadn't tried to play happy families with her, despite the fact he also had reservations about the arrangement and is gay so he should be able to empathize with Stella on some level

he assumes giving Via a trip to Loo Loo Land in the hopes of getting back their close bond but it isn't until he actually listens to her that any progress is made (and while on the trip he actively upsets her by harassing Blitzo right in front of her)

but the bigger example of course is Blitzo. he uses the book to get sex out of him, literally describing what they have as 'favors for favors' and 'transactional'

then he lowkey kind of does it again when he uses the crystal in the hopes of getting a romantic relationship in return

Stolas is so fixated on the idea of Blitzo as an object who just fulfils his desires that he punishes him whenever he has a life of his own to attend to (taking Loona for the jab) or whenever Blitzo points out his fantasies are not reality (replying to 'that's a romcom' with 'fuck you'). He's so committed to this that despite knowing Blitzo's insecurities he dances with someone else because that person is giving him attention and that's all that matters.

And when Blitzo doesn't respond to the crystal with what Stolas wanted to get out of the interaction - a romantic partner - Stolas dips immediately. He doesn't explain himself and he doesn't make any attempt to keep Blitzo in his life. It's incel logic at its core - he doesn't want Blitzo in his life even as a friend, despite the fact he supposedly likes him, because ultimately he doesn't actually see Blitzo as a person. he's an object who is supposed to fulfil the transaction Stolas is still unconsciously setting up

worse than that is Stolas has fooled himself into believing he's the good guy who was doing good things for him out of the kindness of his heart. he reframes exchanging his book for sex as 'supporting him', reframes humiliating him in front of a crowd by sexualizing him as 'letting everyone see how much [he] likes [Blitzo]', talks about his passive aggressive texts trying to get Blitzo to still come over on the full moon as 'wanting to spend time with [Blitzo]' even though those nights were probably going to end with Blitzo feeling like he had to sleep with Stolas, again

tl:dr but so far Via is the only person who can break her end of whatever exchange Stolas views an interaction as being without him getting pissy about it, since he tries to empathize with her even when he repeats the exact same mistake 5 minutes later. he doesn't care Stella was forced into marriage too since he expected her to play house because that's what he was doing, and he cares so little about Blitzo despite saying he thinks highly of him that not only does he not want his friendship, he's happy to ghost him after their fight in full moon then for a full month going into ghostfuckers. Blitzo didn't give him what he wanted and Stolas doesn't actually care about his feelings, so Blitzo may as well not exist

This fandom, and increasingly Viv, don't seem to have the first clue what Blitzo is or what his problem is or what he wants. He just does things in whatever order, according to what makes Stolas look better.

[babybluebae-933]

I haven’t heard a word you’ve said, and… I’ll get you to Vulcan somehow.

One day I will write an entire essay about this moment but for now this is all I have in me.

This is the kindest thing Kirk could have said to Spock in this moment, and it shows how well Kirk knows him. He doesn’t try to convince him that he shouldn’t be embarrassed about it (well he does at first, Vulcans are not the birds and the bees captain) he doesn’t try to convince him to be logical about it. Being embarrassed is SO illogical and Spock fucking knows that and reminding him of that fact would only make it worse.

He literally begs to be locked away, he begs Kirk to basically take him out back and put him out of his misery old yeller style. SPARE him the indignity of explaining himself to anyone or being subjected to the will of his own deep dark desires and motives. Kirk orders him to explain and Spock says no that some things transcend even the discipline of the service (then Kirks like ok what if I pinky promise I won’t tell and Spocks like ok fine, which is also so cute but a whole other thing) either way it’s obvious he would literally rather die than tell anyone what’s going on, and he’s actively trying to run away from it.

I thought I would be spared the indignity… but the ancient drives are too strong, eventually it catches up.

This is why Kirk is so special, and this is why he understands Spock better than anyone else. Humans have pride, humans have ego. Spock decided to live the Vulcan way and swear off all that stuff but it’s still inside him. We can assume one of two things, either he truly never has any emotions, or he has them but won’t show them. And God damn if being that fucking stubborn isn’t the most human thing about him. I can’t remember which episode it is but some other time when a red shirt is laying into him for being so cold and insensitive Bones gets defensive, and Spock says it’s okay doctor-

Sometimes they forget I’m half human too.

You can be half human, but you can’t be half Vulcan, you can’t be “half” emotionless. He would be ashamed to let the mask slip, and he’s ashamed that he would feel shame for this. For showing his human nature, because that is the MOST un-Vulcan thing to do. What do they expect from him? To show his feelings would be humiliating, hiding them gets him ridiculed, they bully him for it, yet no one ever treats him as if he could have any feelings about the matter at hand, whatever it may be.

When Spock is insisting that he never feels such trivial emotions as anger or annoyance or fear he is convincing himself as much as anyone else, that is his comfort. It’s true as long as he and everyone else believes it. It’s his comfort and everyone else’s in some cases; if all else fails we can at least count on Spock being cold and logical.

It’s no use to convince him that he shouldn’t be embarrassed because it’s natural or because it happens to everyone or whatever the reason is; because

Spock knows that already. Biology and nature are factual and neutral

Spock knows that being embarrassed is totally illogical

He also knows that being embarrassed especially about something that IS so natural and normal is super-duper un-Vulcan like

The human side of him is what makes him defend his emotionality (non-emotionality?) with such fervor. Motherfucker is so stubborn and so prideful, so Vulcan, but distinctly human.

To assure Spock “aw it’s okay buddy don’t be embarrassed it happens to everyone!” would be a triple knife; acting like he doesn’t know that the facts of life are neutral, unavoidable, and imminent. Acknowledging that he is embarrassed which is so non-Vulcan. AND telling him how being embarrassed especially about this particular instance is extra illogical.

Kirk gets all that, he knows Spock gets all that, and he sees him for who he really is, not the human side or the Vulcan side, just Spock. So, he gives him a very specific brand of mercy, “None of this ever happened, I saw nothing. But now I at least know enough to help you.”

(If we want to take this further I could also remind you of the Edith Keeler conversation when Kirk basically tells her that “let me help” means more than “I love you”.)

I just love this moment so much and I love them.

[churino]

Design for autobot sisters roulette and silhouette

I think you can see where this is going, but i believe it's a natural direction to take

Roulette and silhouette are elite misdirection and hit and run specialists. As far as they believe, they were built by the autobots under optimus prime's command to bolster their numbers as a tactical decision,

their first memories being jazz giving them the context of the autobot decepticon conflict, then requesting their help, letting them decide whether or not to join the cause, and it just so happens they did. personally trained by jazz in the use of sonic weaponry, jazz also influences them to socialize and get into music and art, but they find that the other autobots get noticeably more depressed around them for seemingly no reason, they can see that even jazz is affected by this and just masks it better due to his usual disposition, this wall between them and their comrades has greatly affected their development

Roulette, counter to her name, doesn't like to leave things up to chance, especially her future, and she believes if she acts just like their big beloved leader optimus prime, she will gain enough favor to counteract this nonsensical miasma around her and her sister. Jazz and Silhouette shower her with love, but everyone else keeps her at arm's length. She has always been loved, but she's never been liked and tries to fill that hole by making more people love her, trying to make herself useful, grow her skills, and put the interests of others ahead of her own.

In the process, she's broken the autobot landspeed record set by hot rod and become a sharpshooter that can rival moonracer, but because the trottlebots are around the world all the time, she rarely gets to show off these skills to the bots she's trying to impress, and its not like she'll learn enough medicine to rival ratchet any time soon, but because of her dedication she's one of if not, the most effective autobot at everything she does.

Silhouette, on the other hand, is something of a slacker she sees Roulette's attempts to people please as a waste of time and has religated herself to being treated the way she is, but she loves her sister and joins her in her efforts to improve herself, just to hang out with her, in the process inadvertently gaining the same skills as her, she has something of a cold disposition but has taken to jazz's influence to get into art more than Roulette, and often adds some flare to her life whenever possible.

But, in her extra time spent inside her own head, she starts to think about their situation, and she gathers all the information she can on the autobot's history on earth to trying to figure out why it is that people are so uniformly unsettled by them. And all she finds.. are mising names.

In truth, roulette and silhouette were once lifeless vehicon robots that came to the autobots in hopes of becoming truly alive, but sadly, the process to make a transformer proved incompatible with their machine minds, the spark overwhelming and replacing data, rather than give the existing robots life, it put new life into their bodies, for roulette and silhouette to be born, they first had to die, and their original names were struck from the record, and erased from the minds of all autobots but ratchet who carried out the procedure. A procedure the other vehicons, the autobot brothers would not undergo.

[kurigohan0909]

Rewatching Link Click: Easter eggs in your noodle soup?

So I've just finished watching both seasons of Link Click/Shíguāng Dàilǐ-rén, which means that obviously I'm watching it all over again. What did you expect me to do, sit around waiting for Bridon arc while the Bilibili official account taunts us with replays??

Besides, Link Click is one of those dishes that is best served twice. The early episodes are packed with hints and foreshadowing that only become clear once you've gotten up to date, so I've made it my mission to catch 'em all.

You don't say.

It's well known that certain early mini-arcs (for instance Chen Xiao's basketball match, and Doudou's kidnapping) have implications for the larger plotline or at least contain important exposition/character insights that the story would not feel complete without. There are also several that get written off as filler, or are generally considered to not have any purpose beyond familiarising the audience with the characters and setup, and lulling you into a false sense of comfort before everything goes to shit. Episode 2: Secret Recipe, AKA the Noodle Lesbians episode, beloved as it is, tends to fall into the second category.

Or does it?

On a rewatch, I still don't think it does anything to advance the main plot. We don't even really know where it fits into the timeline, because we're never told what day it is and Lu Guang's watch is never shown on screen (I'll get around to a longer analysis of this another day). However, I'm instead inclined to believe that it's one of the most important episodes in the show - if not THE most important - because it's essentially an allegory for the story of Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang, and gives you a bird's eye view of how the relationship between them is going to develop - which, as you know, is what the show is all about. And the fact that it's not situated in a specific time, in a show that cares heavily about timeline construction, makes it better.

The episode starts with this quote from German photographer August Sander, who believed that, through photography, he could reveal the characteristic traits of people. "The portrait is your mirror. It's you." It's pretty explicit, when you think about it. This episode is a mirror of the entire series, specifically of its protagonists.

Moving on. The episode's storyline is quite simple: two college "roommates" start a noodle shop together, and as time passes, they drift apart and eventually fall out as their priorities change. Yu Xia, the business-oriented one between them, wants to get hold of the secret ingredient used by Lin Zhen, to whose cooking the shop attributes its success. Does Yu Xia really want to steal the secret recipe? Or is it just one of the many things that the quieter Lin Zhen keeps hidden from her that she desperately wants to know, along with everything that went wrong between them? Your guess is as good as mine. Either way, there are lots of indirect parallels between Xialin of the noodle shop and Shiguang of the photo studio, even if for now they're very distinct individuals with their own personalities and struggles. It does, however, give some indication of what's to come.

This question isn't purely rhetorical, as we find out in the very next arc, where Cheng Xiaoshi has a fight with Lu Guang over letting his client's loved ones perish in the Wenchuan earthquake. Even if they eventually come to a consensus, they have fundamentally different life philosophies and approach their missions in very different ways. Cheng Xiaoshi is a hyperempathetic idealist who keeps trying to use his forays back into the past to fix his clients' personal problems, while Lu Guang remains utterly indifferent and staunchly against interfering, even in life-or-death situations. Which turns out to be a facade, because we later learn that he's just as much of a meddler as Cheng Xiaoshi - except he's focused on a singular, selfish goal, which is to keep Cheng Xiaoshi alive at any cost.

Let's go back to the noodle shop. After ten years of running the business together, it becomes clear that the ladies' aspirations are no longer compatible. Yu Xia has big plans for the shop. She wants to broaden their customer base - for profit, of course, but also so that more people can be made happy by the chance to taste their noodles. Lin Zhen's dreams, however, are on a smaller scale - perhaps only on a personal scale. Throughout the episode, it seems that she only really cares about making noodles for one person.

Sound familiar?

At the risk of digressing, it needs to be said that Yu Xia and Lin Zhen are absolutely very much a WLW couple. This isn't bait, it's elegant and really quite unsubtle queercoding that says 'to hell with censorship' loud and clear. Honeymoon jokes, the taxi driver assuming Lin Zhen had fought with her husband, and Lin Zhen's very bold attempts at flirting... we see you.

More to the point of this post, I think it's important to point out that Lin Zhen does not actually care for too many people other than Yu Xia. She's all worn out from making noodles for customers, but she forgets all about that when it's time to make a bowl for Yu Xia. She also keeps her special ingredient - which is one of the secrets she shares with Yu Xia, as we find out - highly guarded. She's never going to let these pesky reporters in on something so intimate.

Why is this important? Because, as it turns out, the episode's storyline - and Lin Zhen's motives - are all about saving Yu Xia.

We learn that the secret ingredient is a local specialty from Yu Xia's hometown. Lin Zhen has been using it for years, keeping the taste of home alive while Yu Xia's drifted further and further from home to the point where she can no longer remember where the ingredient came from. At the end of it all, when Yu Xia returns home, she finds Lin Zhen there waiting for her. Lin Zhen, mind you, does not hail from the same town. The girls met in college. It's home to her simply because it's Yu Xia's home.

This comes directly after a pilot episode that establishes the contrast between urban isolation and rural/familial warmth, through Emma's eyes, and in a show that continually reinforces the concept of longing for home and loved ones. By forcing Yu Xia to reevaluate her priorities, Lin Zhen manages to bring her back home - which is a place that includes herself.

Perhaps it's too early to say. But to me, it's a pretty neat thematic parallel of Lu Guang's solo quest to save Cheng Xiaoshi from death; which is intertwined with a greater goal of giving Cheng Xiaoshi a home, one that is safe and secure and surrounds him with those that love him and are there to stay.

But in the process of achieving this, one of his biggest obstacles is Cheng Xiaoshi himself - his insistence on interfering with the timeline so that Lu Guang can't predict events with certainty, his objections to the way Lu Guang does things, and the definite resistance Lu Guang will come up against if Cheng Xiaoshi learns about his plan. Pretty much every minor mission they undertake is a rehash of the same argument; Cheng Xiaoshi wants to use their combined powers to make a difference to other people's lives, and Lu Guang just has one goal in mind which means that he's going to ignore absolutely everyone else.

Notice how Yu Xia's looking to the future, while Lin Zhen's dream is to go back to a point in the past? Neat.

And when they finally part ways because it's clear Yu Xia is not going to support Lin Zhen's goal? Yu Xia asks her where she's going to go after they part ways, and Lin Zhen says:

I wonder where we've heard that before.

And if you need any more proof that this episode is in fact intended to be a mirror, do consider:

Their seating positions are mirrored too. Yeeeeaaaaaahhhh.

In conclusion: if this allegory is to be believed, then trust that Lu Guang will eventually succeed in his mission and Cheng Xiaoshi will find his way home to him. It'll happen, guys. In the meantime, at least our beloved noodle ladies will be living a peaceful life out in the countryside.

Since I don't know how to shut up and this website seems to be giving me infinite space to yap, let me include some more details about this episode that I found cool. There are so many.

Lin Zhen and Lu Guang are both shown while this line is being said. What with all that the fragrant flowers represent, it makes you think about what these characters' best memories might be and how much they treasure them.

This is such a tiny detail that you'd almost definitely miss it on the first watch, and it seems insignificant - until it isn't. When Cheng Xiaoshi hops into the girls' picture taken during their college days, he screws up and suggests they'd be better off dabbling in tech stuff like apps or intelligent management than running a noodle shop. Lu Guang makes him quickly eat his words, but they seem to have still struck a chord with Yu Xia - because later we see that she works over years to integrate an intelligent supply chain management system into their business. In fact, one of the reasons for Lin Zhen to alienate herself from the business is because she feels like it's gotten too techy and lost its human touch. Not really fair considering it was her own idea, is it?

I mean. This is probably a stretch. Digitization is pretty inevitable for big businesses nowadays, so Yu Xia, being as enterprising as she is, might have gone for it whether Lin Zhen suggested it or not. But it's interesting to think that it might be Cheng Xiaoshi's tiny alteration of the past that unfurled outwards like a hurricane from the beating of a butterfly's wing and catalysed their falling out. Especially because these kinds of bootstrap phenomena very much occur in later episodes and are a core feature of Link Click's time travel model.

Some suspicious behaviour on Lu Guang's part. He's quite certain there are no useful clues in the last picture Yu Xia and Lin Zhen took in front of their shop, despite it being the only one taken by Lin Zhen (seriously! you could go to her house, look through her phone, the possibilities are endless!) and the fact that this is the photo Cheng Xiaoshi did end up solving the mystery in, thanks to the ticket stubs he found in her purse (see?) Secondly, they outright miss a picture in the envelope - the most important picture of all which would have given them the answer right away, since this was when the fragrant flowers were first used. Not your best work, Lu Guang.

...or is it? Lu Guang is pretty meticulous, and it's unlike him to slip up in such obvious ways. He's also skilled at slipping things back into envelopes when he doesn't want them to be seen, as we know. Could it be that he didn't want Cheng Xiaoshi to solve the mystery? But why? Maybe it's metaphorical, like so much else of this episode: he doesn't want Cheng Xiaoshi to uncover his true intentions. The fact that all this is ultimately for his sake.

Interestingly, Lu Guang was very dejected at the idea of them seemingly being out of luck - they'd tried so many times and failed to fulfill the mission. Was he, perhaps, thinking about another mission he'd hate to fail? Anyway, it falls to Cheng Xiaoshi to cheer him up and give him hope for another try, which he accepts, with a small but genuine smile. My heart.

If you've scrolled this far, I'm glad you enjoyed my ramblings! I must say I don't know much about how Tumblr works so apologies if I mess up on formatting or tags, but I'll probably get the hang of it soon enough. I'll also probably end up enjoying Tumblr more than Twitter since it allows me unfettered yap space and won't feed my writing to the machine (yet). It's late and I should probably stop stop thinking bout it around now... but look forward to more random ramblings and thank you for reading!

[suffering-asthmatic-tifosi]

I know this is basic asf but I kinda wanna get ur writing style, can u do a Lando one where she’s a McLaren driver and the just flirt?

Also do u write like papayatwinks or does she help u or something

(Ig you be the judge if i write like her or nah.. Its been a minute [4 years lmao] since I've written a fic but I got this soooo)

Anything for you, my prince

Warnings: none, maybe use of y/n. Is that a warning? idk lmao

W/c: 506

Pairing: Lando Norris x driver!reader

A/n: FIRST FIC BABYY. Enjoy ig :) don’t come at me for wrong names of people on the staff i tried my best thank you. I also used a random Gp and McLaren’s results are not accurate here.

Summary: The team has doubled down on Lando’s championship fight, so when Lando reaches Y/n, team orders are put in place but Y/n doesn’t let him go without a little fun.

AND ITS LIGHTS OUT AND AWAY WE GO

Y/n started on pole. She sped past max and kept the lead with Lando close behind in P5 after a bad quali.

“Perfect start y/n, now just keep the lead and this could be a good result for the team”, her race engineer said over the radio.

She knew she would probably have to give the position to Lando soon as operation “LN4THEWIN” was fully in swing at McLaren.

By lap 34 she was still in the lead. Lando however had gained many positions and was trailing close behind in P2 now.

“Lando is behind you y/n”, her race engineer reminded her of her teammate’s position.

“Has he asked for team orders yet”, she asked him jokingly.

“Erm… no I don’t believe so— no he hasn’t.. why?”

“Well, wouldn’t whiny little Lando want to pass me without a fight? That cute little baby would never hurt me”, she giggled into her radio.

“Will, what’s my gap to Y/n?” Lando asked his engineer.

“Erm, Lando you’re at 1.3 sec of Y/n you can attack at this pace in the next 2 laps.

“She also asked if you had requested team orders yet”, Will told Lando with mild confusion in his tone.

After hearing this, Lando chuckled and tried to increase his speed on his old tires. But, Y/n kept pressing.

“Tell her I don’t need Team orders to overtake her,” Lando told Will.

Two laps later and he was still behind Y/n

“Y/n were going to need to swap positions. Lando is clocking in better speeds right now and it’s for the good of the team.”

She wanted to scream and drive that eyesore orange car into a ditch. She wasn’t a quitter; she didn’t want this season to go like this, but it had to be done, unfortunately.

“Lemme guess, Lando put in a special request?”, she asked, mildly annoyed.

—

“HaVE YOu ToLD HEr yET??”, Lando yelled into his radio. Two laps till the last lap and he was stressed. His championship would be almost locked in with this win and he- sorry the team needed this desperately.

“Yes we have informed her of the team orders”

Three corners later and y/n opened the gap for Lando to pass.

“Can you open my radio for Lando to hear?”, y/n asked her engineer.

“Yeah, why?”

“I want to speak to Lan”...

“Your position your highness,” she said raising her hand in a little wave for Lando as he passed.

——

“So you think that’s funny?” Lando asked her

“Yes, you don’t?” She turned her head to him as he approached her at her computer.

“You made me look like a whiny baby, that’s a bit humiliating” Lando sat next to her in the swivel chair.

“I don’t think it’s humiliating.. Lord Norris” She bowed in mockery of his embarrassment.

Lando laughed, “Get outa here, and fetch me my hoodie over there”, he pointed to the chair next to her

“Anything for you my prince”