#i really just live in this rabbithole permanently now

[approximateknowledge]

One of these days it's going to be confirmed canon and you're going to immediately combust and it's gonna be so so funny

volume 28 fingers crossed

there's a genuine real chance

which sounds insane but im dead serious; after ggo and the yujikiri wedding ceremony i genuinely think it's on the table

and yes, i will combust, and ill make it everyone's problem!

[linespider-blog]

Pictures of a Floating World, or Attempting a Definitive Map of the Clouds

So.

Let me tell you what I've been on about lately. For...ages now, I've been very involved in trying to better my understanding of comics, the design of them, the structures and formats, because I really want to make something of an ambitious design. I want to have a lot of the planning accomplished, so that what I create will readily work as a book, will have a consistent visual vocabulary, and will have a flexible enough framework that I can present certain ideas I have that I really want to convey that will probably be in defiance of what I appear to be doing a lot of the time. It's a big project. I've been going after all kinds of sources, and learning more, like the layout system demonstrated by Frank Santoro that can be rooted into fine art and renaissance painting, to dynamic symmetry, the inevitable Scott McCloud manuals, Paul Pope, Tony Millionaire, Brandon Graham, Moebius, Seth, and, of course, lots and lots of Mike Mignola. I've been lead up and down many hills. And then with lots of theory and dry erase board plotting under my belt and in my phone, I turn around into Fantagraphics Instagram demonstrating innumerable examples of people like Simon Hanselmann, working at an extremely high level with the humble squared grid, making each frame count and working the point of view moment to moment, and...I keep going.

Ultimately all of this boiled down into statements by Jim Woodring that absolutely rang my bell. It's hard to summarize Woodring, but he's a storyteller of immense talent who uses no dialogue. He primarily works with his character Frank, who lives in a surreal landscape of recurring characters and challenges that are very hard to put into words. Many of his ideas tower with significance, and he's the sort that is at once incredibly serious about his personal dedication to the craft of what he is making, but also incredibly averse to appearing any crazier than he has to while discussing what motivate him, while simultaneously being as matter-of-fact as he can about being informed by the concept of 'the Unifactor,' a term he uses to describe the world that Frank exists in.

Woodring is successful, largely independent, and, I would say, reasonably cantankerous. There are many cartoonists that over time seem to lose a proportional worldview, but Jim Woodring is not one of them. One of the things I listened to him opine recently on an older podcast, was the preponderance of, as he put it, 'prosthetic geniuses' in the field of comics, meaning those that rely on digital artwork to achieve their aims, such as Photoshop and the like. It should be noted that among his achievement Jim Woodring has crafted a quill pen with a fourteen-inch nib, that he dips into a flower vase filled with diluted black acrylic paint and leans against his shoulder to ink massive designs. He can apparently do it for hours, and cites this as being easier on the body than conventional drawing, although also much slower.

But to the point, he explained that, when a drawing is attempted on paper, no matter what, when you're doing, you have an object. The object is a drawing. It's there, it exists as an outcome of your efforts. Whereas with digital work, all you've created is an impermanent file. This really has gotten me thinking, as, for ages one my goals has been to be able to achieve drawing digitally with the same level of output as in physical media. And these words he said, made me forced to concede that these two would never achieve something approaching parity-my efforts in digital artwork were like mining for bitcoin, endlessly toiling on touchscreens to create something of value as real as the paper it could be printed on.

By this same marker, I've found that my...innumerable studies for my comic work had gotten extremely conceptual, so deeply around the bend to be nearly as visual algebra. And yet...simply taking a page, and working within the confines of that page, guided by the frictive information of my drafting pencil against the indifference of the paper's texture, was giving my fidelity levels of feedback that Wacom's 1024 levels of pressure or Procreate's rabbitholes of brush behavior customization could not hope to convey to me so rapidly or so effectively. I think of all the time I've spent battling drivers and system updates to just start to work on something that may not have even existed after I was done with it, artwork forgotten in a document folder that I would never even see unless I thought to look for it, that would remain non-existent and permanently out of sight short of me deciding to browse my hard drive instead of trying to make another thing scratchlessly from scratch.

Which is all to say that my focus has been finally pulled. There is no equaling the immediacy of physical art. I have spent nearly two decades in each realm now, but one is real, and the other only casts a shadow in pixels. Make no mistake, I will, still, be using Photoshop and other programs to complete the production of what I intend to do, but the work I want, is going to come from my hands and from finite materials. I've already made from very fine things, and I expect I'll have more soon. I've scarcely scratched the surface of what I want to do, and the stories I want to tell. Everything I have will help me along the way. I just have to let myself do the best work with the most appropriate tools in order to get there.

[ethicsbecomeaesthetics]

I just need to know how they survived that fucking fall

So I meant to just give an offhand reply to this and I’m sure this is all wayyyy more than you wanted to hear, but surprise, I don’t know how to shut up once I start talkingabout Hannibal, so I started writing some meta and I might as well post it. And it gets weird because that’s how I roll.

The easy answer is: they survivehowever the hell everyone else in this show survives things they reallyshouldn’t survive. Between sheer luck and Hannibal’s level of medicalskill I’m sure they’ll find a way.

To complicate things unnecessarily:I think, in the spirit of this series’ particular brand of strangeness, they survive because the fall and its consequences are as muchmetaphorical as they are literal, and because of this they’re able to bypassreality and survive through sheer power of symbolism. Which sounds weird ashell, but we’re dealing with a universe where a bird can be sealed intosomeone’s chest cavity and fly out alive and a priest can actually see thephantom of Abigail that Will carries with him. (For asimilar case of Hannibal transcending the laws of our reality, I highlyrecommend checking out bonearenaofmyskull’s theory in which Chiyoh stopped aging because she was at Lecter Manor, which isin Hannibal’s time palace. The piece of meta on temporality that’s linked in there is absolutely fantastic.)

Death/rebirth is the most obvious theme here, so they do “die” when they hit the water but are “reborn” whenthey emerge from it. This is obviously appropriate for Will, who has justreached a huge turning point thatwill redefine every aspect of his life, but I think it’s equally true forHannibal. Hannibal allows Will topull him off that cliff without even the slightest struggle and is now able toadmit that he cares about Will too much to kill him, even when Will endangershis life – basically, he’s reached the point where Will is more important tohim than self-preservation, and I think WotL is the first time he has actuallygiven in and accepted the depth of his feelings rather than desperatelyclinging onto the illusion of control. And making and accepting that kind ofemotional bond for the first time since childhood, at least? It will change who he is.

Then we have to remember that accordingto Bedelia the characters are all “Dante’s pilgrims” making their way throughthe Inferno, and the cliff where they jumped visually references that.So, two observations below the cut (keeping in mind I’m no expert on the Inferno, so anyonefeel free to jump in if I’m getting things wrong):

1. “Dante’s pilgrims” puts them inthe position of Dante the character (at least, Will is – don’t ask me to analyzeHannibal in this context, even though in some ways he fits Virgil’s role asguide. I’m just going to go with, more generally speaking, he’s Lucifer so hecan’t really die), and the thing about Dante as a pilgrim is that he has theunique opportunity to see Hell without actually dying. And there are parts inthe Inferno where people are actively freaking out because he should be dead but he isn’t actually. So when they visually jump headfirstinto the Inferno from the cliff, and Will has officially fallen down Hannibal’shellish rabbithole, as a “pilgrim” he has the privilege of reentering the worldof the living afterwards.

2. Dante places those guilty of violence against others,including murderers, immersed in a river of boiling blood, and the more guiltythey are, the more fully they are immersed. Now, of the two of them I’d say Hannibalis the only one whose crimes actually justify him being that deeply immersed, but Ithink, despite the fact that he’s only killed in self-defense, Will feels like a murderer at that point,rather than just a wrathful agent of good. If he didn’t feel guilt over that, Idon’t think he’d be trying to kill himself as well as Hannibal. The ocean isn’texactly a river of blood, but they’re certainly both bloody enough for us to have a nice visual of the water turning red around them and “boiling” withbubbles as they sink, yeah? (We already had a visual of Will sinking in an oceanof blood in s3, so I don’t know if it would be repetitive, but I stillhalf-expect this in theoretical s4.) If you want to take it even further, theinner circle of treachery has people trapped in a frozen lake, which you can compareto the freezing Atlantic and the running theme of betrayal between these two(particularly considering Will just turned their romantic hug into amurder-suicide). So when Will decides they are both too guilty to live and choosesto condemn them both to death, he’s judging the weight of their sins,and this means they are plunged into the Inferno (rather than the sea, if you like).

The thing with positioning them as the “sinners” is that thepeople being punished were dead,permanently. But there were repeated references in s3 to Will already havingdied and being dead. In this sense, Will cannot die when he falls from thecliff because he is already dead (and now damned). And if it seemscontradictory that he would be both temporarily-dead pilgrim and already-deadsinner, just remember how many times they switched around the Jesus/Judassymbolism between Will and Hannibal. There are a lot of contradictions inherent in this show.

Side note: If we’re going with Will=Dante andHannibal=immortal (or =Virgil, for that matter – Virgil leads Dante out of helland into purgatory, which is supposed to be an island in the southernhemisphere, so I think that counts as returning him to the world of the living?),it makes a good case for Will literally dying (crossing the boundary betweenthe world of the living and the dead) and Hannibal being the one to carry himout of the sea and bring him back to life. This could theoretically be helpedby the fact that the Atlantic is going to be cold af in winter and hypothermiaextends the time you can be successfully revived to an insane extent (hours insome cases). This depends on a lot of factors and is most successful if you dieof hypothermia, but I did find a casewhere a child drowned in near-freezing water, was submerged in it for ~30 min.,and was revived with no neurological damage two hours later. At any rate havefun with the nightmare of Will being dead for over an hour before Hannibal isfinally able to revive him.

[hazbinextgeneration]

Down The Rabbithole Ch16

(Disclaimer: The song Chesire sings is Wonderland by Sounds Like Harmony and in no way mine.)

The whole audience of the arena and the three standing there stared at the entrance to this place where foul smelling smoke poked out from the entrance and .....Music played? SERIOUSLY!! WHAT WAS WITH THESE PEOPLE AND SINGING?! Right now it reminded her of her cousin Robert's video games when a new boss appeared. But before now it just seemed like a giant musical like on Broadway, but it just seemed so menacing now as music magically came from no where. Allison shakingly stood up to her feet and just now realized she had no umbrella. It wasn't much but she'd rather have SOMETHING to defend her with, she felt vulnerable without it as they all watched the very tiny shadow approaching from the smoke and music. Allison blinked and shook her head before looking again. Marching towards them, out of the smoke, was Chesire. But this cat wasn't like the regular smiling cat she was used to seeing. As soon as the crowd could make out who it was, there was screams of fright and hundreds of people scrambling from their seats and heading for what she guessed what was the exit to the stands. Their footsteps sounded like thunder and their screams like a millions horror movies were playing at once but for some reason Allison could hear the mysterious boss music clearly. Was she going crazy or was this more of Chesire's magic? The queen immediately pressed back against the Fortune Teller and the moth wrapped his free arms around her bringing up one of his giant wings. He too seemed slightly worried despite his much calmer face. Velveteen looked down right terrorfied of this Chesire. This Chesire's smile wasn't that happy go lucky kind of smile, this one had sinister intentions behind it and that tail.....It was unlike anything Allison had seen before. Separated into floating parts with blue rings, a thread of beads keeping it all attached to his body, his head off his shoulder floating- Well he could always do that, but watching his head just bobbing along permanently above his shoulders as his body bounced along was a little unnerving. And that's another weird thing. He was walking instead of floating, his body bouncing to the beat of the mysterious music and his hand twirling his staff, those slanted eyes lazer focused right onto Velveteen like some owl to a mouse. He didn't even acknowledge the hundreds of people running from him or the Fortune Teller staring at him with narrowed eye calmly as the cat approached.

"I've met this cat and he said, 'Son. I've got nine lives and you've got one.~ So make the best of this you can.~ Cause nothing goes according to plan.~'", Chesire sang, never mind how someone could sing while there head was floating from their neck but the song had a calm, happy tone but there was clearly a menacing undertone to it. "This cat was wise so I took it's advice.~ And waited for a little sunlight.~ I got this feeling that it might work out alriiiiight.~"

In a moment of panic the Queen pulled her staff out and pointed it at Chesire. A familiar rumbling appeared as those eight dirt pillars appeared and went straight towards the small blue cat. Chesire didn't even flinch, stop moving, or blinked as they rumbled towards him.

"Cause life is a trip and it's full of misadventure!~ The cat in the hat has a panic attack.~ But it's laced with good intentions.~" He finally darted his eyes up to the pillars rumbling towards him and without even stopping he raised his staff and the first ring around his tail disappeared. A giant burst of wind tore through the arena destroying the pillars instantly and crumbling them into dust. Fortune brought his wing up more and made Velveteen duck under it to protect her from the dust cloud but Allison was again knock to her bottom and she cough and waved the dust away. "I guess you could say WE'RE ALL MAD HERE!!~ Life is a trip and it's been a bad year.~"

The dust began to slowly settle and when the three looked back up all the pillars were gone and turned into piles of harmless dirt. Allison's jaw dropped. It took her hard work and thinking just to get rid of ONE and Chesire blew then down like paper. He still calmly walked towards them as he kept singing.

"I met this dog and he said, 'Child.~ You'll outlive me seven times.~ So make the best of this you can cause nothing goes according to plan.~' This dog was wise so I took it's advice.~ And waited for a little sunlight.~ I got this feeling that it might turn out alriiiiight.~"

By now most of the arena had been cleared out and again in a moment of panick the Queen stomped down her foot and another familiar rumble was made. The stone walls from the close combat trial appeared and went towards him as he still smiled and calmly sang towards them.

"Cause life is a trip and it's full of misadventure.~ The cat in the hat has a panic attack.~ But it's laced with good intentions.~," he sang just as the walls completely surrounded him and made him disappear from view. They didn't see it, but a second blue ring disappeared from his tail as he again pointed his staff at the stone wall. There was an explosion from the other side and one of the walls immediately cracked and fell to a pile of small rocks on the ground. He didn't care he just started walking over then as he continued singing. "I guess you could say that WE'RE ALL MAD HERE!!~ Life is a trip and it's been a bad year.~" He suddenly stopped ontop of the small pile of ruble and stared intensly at the queen, "Nothing is real and that's a fact!~ When you make believe in Wonderland.~ Nothing is real and that's a fact!!~ When you make believe in Wonderland!~" Velveteen shrieked when some invisible force grabbed her leg and made her trip sending her to the ground and the Fortune Teller promptly threw his beloved pipe to the side and quickly grabbed her with all four has as she was dragged a few feet away from him. "I'M JUST A MAD MAN!!~"

Chesire continued watching her hang onto Fortune Teller for dear life as the usual calm moth scowled at Chesire and pulled her away from his invisible magical hold as Allison watched wide eyes with mixed emotions.

"Love is a locket I keep in my pocket.~....Cause life is a trip and full of misadventure!~" He continued his decent down the small pile of rocks and headed right for them. Eye narrowing at the Queen. "The cat in the hat has a panic attack!!~ But it's laced with good intentions!!~ I guess you can say that WE'RE ALL MAD HERE!! Life is a trip and it's BEEEEEEENN!!~ Life is a trip and it's full of misadventure!!~ The cat in the hat has a panic attack!!~ But it's laced with good intentions!!~ I GUESS YOU COULD SAY THAT WE'RE ALL MAD HERE!!!~ Life is a trip and it's bee-..." He stopped.....he absolutely stopped when red and whites stripes stood in front of him....He slowly blinked and slowly looked up, up, up and into the angry red face of Allison scowling down at him. "...a bad year....ALLISON!! OH THANK GOODNESS YOU'RE STANDING!!" He jumped up and floated in the air still smiling at her. "Are you alright?! You're not hurt are you?!" His eyes looked over her dirtied body and then to her scraped cheek and his eyes narrowed more, and ears pinned to the back of his head. "It seems to me I came a little LATE!!....Which I do apologize. I got here as fast as I could!"

Allison still scowled at him, the rest of the people in the arena piling out in a panic as she spoke. "Let her go, Chesire."

The cat blinked. "....Beg pardon?"

"I said let her go, Chesire. She's not a bad person, not really." Chesire looked as if she had just changed into a dog and threatened to chase him. Smile froze on his face as she stood there, scowl never leaving as the moth continued to play tug of war with the invisible force. "She told me everything and was honest. Which is more I can say for you." Her eyes narrowed more. "Why didn't you tell me you turned people into dust?"

That seemed to make him flinch, his smile disappeared until it turned into a frown and his eye became hurt. Behind them Velveteen was dropped to the ground finally and Fortune pulled her to her feet immediately. Holding her to him as they stared at the cat and Allison. A popping crackling sound was heard and Allison blinked as Cheshire's tail was forced back together like a regular cat tail and it sealed inself back to his body as he deflated in front of her.....His paws shakingly came up to grab his head, and pull it back down onto his small neck as he stared at her.

"I-....was hoping you'd never find out. I-...'' He tried smiling again. "I was only trying to protect you. I never even expected for you to come here. W-Why would it be important?"

"It's important because well, I DID fall down here. On accident but here none the less! And it would've been nice to have a heads up. But Im more hurt because my own best friend says he wants to protect me, but didn't trust me enough to tell me that." Her scowl melted into a hurtful frown as she stared at him. "We have a lot to talk about Chesh. But you need to tell me everything from now on." She smiled and held out her hands, promise?"

Chesire still floated there for a moment staring at her....before smiling again and throwing himself at her in a hug. "I promise! Im so sorry, Allison."

She hugged him tightly. "It's ok. I forgive you....But there's two other people you should also apologize too." She turned around and made him face the two still watching them in fright and scowls alike. Chesire paused looking at the Fortune Teller...then the queen...then at Allison who nodded towards them. "It would mean a lot to me."

Chesire still stared at her for a bit, before looking over to the strange couple and smiled nervously. "So sorry about the inpolite drop in. I was worried about Allison after she was so rudely called away.~"

"And you'll help fix everything, right?"

He looked behind him at the destroyed stone wall and the doors that was tossed off their hendges. "....Oh. OH, OF COURSE!!"

"And you won't do this ever again right?"

"Right, right! I promise." He looked back to the Queen, "Uh....How about it? Truce?"

Velveteen still looked at the small cat Allison held in her arms and jumped when Fortune put a hand on her shoulder. " It would be wise to take this opportunity, my love. Let a long hatred come to rest and make peace. After all, you're more than capable of letting forgiveness into your heart, aren't you?"

The queen didn't answer for a moment, but looked over to this human who beat her and this Cat who had butted heads with her for years. "......" She sighed and nodded. "Truce."

Allison ended up smiling and hugged Chesire more who giggled those funny giggles of his. And Fortune smiled that calm smile of his. "I'm glad everything has turned out for the better. But I think before we forget, we should fix the things that are broken." He lifted a hand and pointed to the path of Chesire's destruction and the cat again chuckled nervously.

"oh...Yes, let's do that."

[jujuismental]

this ones for suicide.

ive always wrestled with the idea of killing myself but i hate blood and gory things so ive never cut myself deeply, just atop my skin iv made some scratches to my wrists, again only because i hate blood. instead, i have debated jumping infront of things so many times, and drowning my head under water only to lift my head out gasping for air. sometimes that brief moment just before “killing yourself” takes your pain away.

Back in the day, a couple years ago, it took alot of courage for me to stop actively thinking about suicide. i had a wallpaper on my phone to remind me, and i cried alot during senior year of high school in washrooms and at home. Yes i had friends, no one really knew. it was mostly about my sexuality and not fitting in the universe. i felt like an alien with no hope. no courage to fix to my problems. i thought at the time they had no solution. that was wrong, but i was so weak and living in fear that I thought suicide was the only way out. It’s more like a surrender, a giving up.

Two things that saved my life in the past

1. This quote. trust me its not cliche

Suicide is a permanent decision (*not solution) to a temporary situation. I always tell myself to keep waiting, that someday I will be glad I did. And it’s true. Time and time again I prove this quote to be true. When I am happy once again I tell myself “ See? Its worth it. I am glad I didnt kill myself that day.” And the next time I felt that way I knew better days were coming. I just needed to refer to the good days during the bad days and the bad days during the good days.

2. My dad passing away

When my dad died, i felt undescribable pain firsthand of what it was like to lose someone, and I saw my mom crumble, crying for years. It was on that day I promised myself to never do something like that to her again. It’s shattering. I hang on for her sometimes. I realize what death can do to others. I saw how affected people around me were.

3. Meeting my soulmate and falling in love

Meeting her helped me know that there was someone who was exactly like me. I had thought this was impossible. That I was a fucking alien. She loved me for myself and gave me courage to change my life for the better. She really saved me. She made me feel stable for the first time in forever. I was never suicidal anymore, I saw the light of day. I started imagining a future for myself and her, something I never thought would ever come true. She carried me through.

While I am not actively thinking of suicide everyday anymore, nowadays it only comes seriously to me a few times a year. i am very happy on some days. this is what baffles me. i am either so happy i can breathe in the sunny air or i am in so much pain and dissociated from my life. suddenly i dont want to live anymore and its not all worth it, i have no future to look forward to and i have no hope. navigating these highs and lows is pretty hard for me... it’s like you think youre getting better and then it comes back, and it hits you hard and harder but you somehow make it out again alive and it repeats, the more it repeats, ironically the easier it becomes because you know it will go away on its own. you just need to hang on for the ride.

When i get into one of these lows. it can last weeks, and oh dear is it terrible. i have to listen to podcasts, anti suicide talks, read self help books, cry and cry and finally I see the light again. and I am really glad once I do. Because life can be beautiful sometimes.

You. Ya you reading this.

If youre going to kill yourself, if youre going that far, why not do something crazier instead. You’ve got nothing to lose. Make a crazy decision in your life and change something that is causing you pain. The truth is sometimes we can do a little more than we think, but we live in fear. Before you kill yourself, why not live a little? Do something extreme. *I made some of my craziest decisions when I was angry and depressed because at that point nothing else mattered and I had no fear. When you hit rock bottom use that to your advantage to make some crazy life changing decisions that you couldn’t make on a normal day because you were afraid.

And if you can’t do anything at all, wait for something. Sleep on it. Wait. “Isnt it amazing how the most beautiful days of our lives haven’t happened yet.” If I killed myself in high school I would have never experienced 5 million incredible things I thought I would never even accomplish. Falling inlove. Traveling to Italy!!! If I tell my younger self hiding in a dark room crying that I will be able to live these things she wouldn’t believe me, but it’s true, I did. I found the way out. And sometimes all you can do is wait, and have hope. Hope is incredible, if you can find it. Never lose it. I hope this post gives you a tiny bit of hope.

Everytime you have a good day, reference this day during your bad days. You know this dark period will end eventually and you will bounce back. Ride the wave. It’s literally a wave. Ride it as best as you can.

Remember that what you are feeling is normal, no need to identify yourself with some permanent disorder. Youre human, built from your circumstances and experiences, and sometimes those things can make you sad, and thats okay. You’re not gross and mentally ill, you’re simply human. Don’t pity yourself (in my opinion). You are literally a product of your environment and experiences, not a mental illness.

Recently, when I found myself going down that rabbithole of diagnosing myself and discovering that I had these 2 or 3 mental illnesses I felt even worse. I felt like “it” had a hold on me. Like I was being ruled by a mental illness. And I started acting more and more like that illness. And blaming that illness for my actions. I was like a puppet to that mental illness. So I turned around and instead, I told myself that I’m just a human and some bad things have happened to me and thats why I am the way I am, and there’s no further explanation. Terrible experiences create mental illnesses. Mental illnesses don’t create terrible experiences. Don’t let anything define you. It’s not permanent, it’s just a reaction. I am not saying mental illnesses don’t exist, I just found that thinking of it in a different way or framing it like this helps more than belonging to a mental illness.

If you are really in pain and you feel like self harm right now, my go to is a really hot bath and dipping my head underwater until I cant breathe. It creates the illusion that you are going to kill yourself and the feeling of hot water on your skin kinda numbs your emotions. No blood. (Can you tell yet that I hate blood) Then I take a nap because my eyes are like rocks from crying. Right now in this very moment, it’s important to think about what I said before. You don’t know what you don’t know. “Life must be lived forwards but can only be understood backwards.” You need to hang on, my friend. You will be glad that you did. A future you is cheering you on. You can fight it off, you’ve done it before. I look back on those days and I am very glad I kept going.

Remember we don’t want to actually kill ourselves, we just want to end the pain. Suicide doesn’t end the pain. It ends your life. Black abyss. Emptiness. Nothing. Everything that you are. Everything that you still can be.

And after you’re dead, in those next moments, someone will scream discovering the body you left behind, and your depression will be spread to someone else like your mom, dad, or a friend. Imagine you had to watch that. You’re a good person, you don’t want to hurt others, even if others hurt you.

I know deep down, you want to live, but you want things to be better in your life. You don’t want to live another day like this. You want it all to be different. And it’s not easy. I know trust me. I dont have the solutions to some of my problems (YET), the same problems that make me feel suicidal today. And I might not be able to fix them for a long time, but I know that I have fixed some of my other problems in the past, things I never thought I could get past. For example (so you don’t think i’m bluffing), coming out to my muslim family. I was living in fear my whole life, i never thought i would do that in a million years but i did.. I always had this idea that i’d kill myself and leave a i’m gay note behind. Almost did. But I am glad I didn’t, look at me now, I’ve come so far. Who knew. I didn’t. And neither do you. Why don’t we live another day and find out? You and i, together.

“ I didnt come this far to only come this far.”

I am not speaking to you as a therapist or doctor, I am someone just like you. Believe me.

[dontshootmespence]

Fade to Black

A/N: An Elle x Reader fic of my own design shortly after Elle leaves the Bureau. Y/N is also a former law enforcement agent (though from the CIA and not the FBI). Tired of working for a system that lets certain people escape the system free of consequences, they decide to take matters into their own hands. What happened to Elle with The Fisher King remains, and the reader has a past checkered with sexual abuse. @coveofmemories @sexualemobitch @jamiemelyn @cherrybombs-and-rabbitholes

Warnings: Mention of rape

                                                             -----

“Hey, babe.” 

Plopping down on the couch, the two of you started going over the files upon files in front of you. Scouring for your next target was difficult - not because of a lack of them, but because there were too many to sift through. “How the hell are we supposed to pick who’s next?” Elle asked you. “There are so many of these fuckers out there and we can’t get them all.”

“Well,” you said, leaning your head against her shoulder, “Between us working outside the law and those working in the law, we just have to focus on the fact that less people are going to be harmed. We can’t stop them all, but someone will remain safe because of what we’ve done.” You kissed her on the cheek as she placed two files in front of you.

“You pick this time.”

Normally, you went back and forth each time, switching off on who would pick. You tended to go for the boys with money that got off scot free because of daddy’s connection - because that’s exactly what had happened to you. Though Elle hadn’t been raped, she had been violated in her own home, so when the two of you met at a bar and began talking about your pasts in veiled terms, you realized how similar you were, and your relationship, both romantic and “professional” had grown steadily from there. 

Given both of your pasts in law enforcement, it had taken you a bit of time to get used to working outside the law, but too many people fell through the cracks in the system and then went on to do the same or worse things, and you had the ability to stop it. “Michael Baker,” you said, his name rolling off the tip of your tongue. “White male. Age 25. Accused of raping and beating his ex-girlfriend. Got off because she couldn’t put herself through a rape kit and she was his ex so the local police chalked it up to rough consensual sex.” Your eyes nearly rolled all the way back. “And Kace Nelson of the famous Nelson law family,” you said, your tone dripping with disgust. “University student named Riya Solomon got picked up at a bar by Kace and woke up the next morning in a field near the school with bruises on her legs and no pants. She went through all of the rape kits and questioning and evidence retrieval only to have the allegations seemingly washed over...I think you know which one I want to go for.”

“You know this one’s going to be more difficult, right? They are a prestigious family.”

It would be more difficult. And as always, you’d do your homework, looking into the criminal to ensure that he (or on occasion she) was still offending and that it hadn’t just been a one-off. Only once had that background check proved a singular incident. Every other time, they were multiple offenders, either using the system to their advantage, or serving their time and going back to the lives they knew. “I know it will. But we’ve been meaning to switch up the MO for a while so law enforcement doesn’t catch on. Let’s start with this one.”

“Okay,” she said, gathering you to her shoulder. “Now I know you picked, but you know the deal.”

You sighed. “Yea, I know.”

Whenever you picked, it tended to be because they tugged at your heart in same way, their victims similar to you and their rapes similar to your own, and vice versa for Elle, so whoever picked, the opposite would be the “lure” bringing in the men to certain doom. Elle was the lure this time; it was easy for both of you to lure people in; they were always, unequivocally stupid, at least below the waist.

Neither of you ever disclosed the amount of people you’d targeted and eliminated, preferring to keep the number as an ambiguous thing in the back of your mind. That number wasn’t important. The number of people you saved from savagery was what mattered to you both. 

“Time to gather intel on Kace Nelson,” you said.

                                                            -----

Over the next few weeks, both you and Elle took turns gathering information on Kace, following him to bars and watching as he’d put date rape drugs in the drinks of the women he attempted to pick up. While it always made you livid beyond belief, you’d let the drugging happen if you couldn’t get to the drink without being seen, and wait until your target, in this case, Kace, walked out. Whoever was there, you or Elle, would knock them out and take the girls back home.

Kace was without a doubt a repeat offender - and he felt no shame for what he’d done to Riya, bragging about it to friends at a party. After you both felt you’d gathered enough information to focus in on him permanently, you devised a plan. ”I have an idea,” Elle said. “I am the primary target. But you’ll be there too. I’ll lure him in. Make him think he’s gonna get some and then I’ll invite you over.”

“And he’ll think he has us both,” you said with a smile. The lure of the threesome; sometimes it was too easy. Kace was going to be at a very large networking event, so although he was a “notable” person, he would amongst a sea of them and would quickly fade into the background. To be safe, you both had a fair number of disguises you switched between. “Then what?”

“We get him drunk. There’s a very thick forest right next to the gala he’s attending. We tell him to meet us out there in five minutes time for a bit of exhibition and then I’ve got this.”

When you looked down, you saw a bottle of succinylcholine, a paralytic used during surgeries that if given in large doses would kill and leave the body quickly, leaving very little trace. You’d only used “succs” once before, and it had gone well. “You gonna be able to do this one?”

“Yea, I’ve got this.”

Another scumbag off the streets. Another victim safe from harm.

                                                              -----

Later that night, you put on understated dresses, wanting to stand out to him, but not to anyone else. For the majority of the night, you flitted among the space separately, giving Elle a glance when she lured in Kace. 

Four hours passed before you got a text from Elle.

Leaving now. See you in a few.

Everything was always very quick, details discussed beforehand just in case things did lead back to you. They never did. You switched up the MO and the murder weapon too often. Though you were never under the delusion that you could never be caught.

As you approached the patch of trees, you heard Elle giggling, a strained one that told you that you were right on time. “So this is your friend?” he slurred. “Two blonde beauties.” Elle had dyed her hair instead of donning a wig this time and he was so drunk he hadn’t noticed you were a redhead and it was a wig. He turned back to Elle, kissing her neck as she motioned for you to reach around front and play with the buttons of his shirt.

For a few moments, you did, removing the shirt from his trousers as his hand rose around Elle’s neck. “Oh no way, baby,” she said, wagging her finger in his face. “I don’t do that kind of thing.”

“Oh come on,” he whined, practically collapsing into her he was so drunk. That’s when you made your move, pulling out a very thin needle and using the medication. Within minutes, he’d collapsed on the floor and with gloved hands, you checked his pulse. 

“Gone.”

It was perfect timing really. Rain had just started to fall. “Ready to go?” she asked. 

You nodded and grabbed her hand, quickly returning to the car. It would be about an hour’s drive home, and halfway there, you pulled to a campground and found a fire pit, placing your dresses and wigs into the flames, while you threw the medicine bottle and needle into the pond nearby. Once everything had been sufficiently burned, you cleaned up the ashes and tossed them out the window on the way home. 

“I think we’ve covered all bases,” you said.

Elle nodded as you pulled up to home, nearly three hours later. “Now it’s time for bed.”

                                                             -----

The next morning, you awoke to the paper. It wasn’t front-page news, but that was a good thing. The headline read, “Famed Party Animal Kace Nelson Dies After a Night of Heavy Drinking.”

A period of rest.

And then onto the next one.

[thatguysamaniac-blog]

Flame rounds lets us fulfil our yearning passion to be Frank Skinner, taking on his role as Judge, Jury, and Executioner in Room 101. We will be presenting a case for a particular Trope/Character/Item/UI element that pisses us off and then trying to justify whether this thing should go into room 101 (get flame rounded?) Richie: And following on from last Flame Rounds, round two is all Cunzy1 1's  Cunzy1 1: Right this one might need a bit of explaining, I'd like to flames round (verb?) the grass and psychic Pokémon Exeggcute. Even if you've got only a passing familiarity with Pokémon you'll be aware that most of them are based on animals, plants, myths or household objects. Exeggcute is an egg cluster Pokémon made up of six egg-like creatures with faces. However, it's not just the whole clutch I want to flames round, specifically, it's the one which has a cracked shell. I don't like the way it's brain(?), yolk(?) is just exposed like that. Fucking disturbing dude. And each Exeggcute appears to have one as this camera trap photo shows: Exeggfuckinggross more like Richie: Right first, we need to address the elephant in the room, despite their misleading name they are not eggs, they are seeds (hence the Grass typing). That being said, I wont immediately disqualify you on grounds of incorrect reasoning here... yet. However, since they all look like that, are just meant to look like that? Its not hurting them, It may even be a good thing for it to expose itself.... Why do you want to hurt it so bad? Cunzy1 1: Explain the fucking psychic typing then? That's their brain capable of psychic waves and for the one whose head/face is broken it's yolk/brain is just out there. Open to the elements. When it rains it gets wet. You might accidentally throw a berry in there. Or touch it. It's like eyes. You shouldn't touch/lick eyes or exposed psychic brains. Especially in a fight. Pikachu used thundershock. Oh shit Pikachu, you gave 1/6 of Exeggcute permanent brain damage now. Some lightning got in the brain and now it can't taste fish or turn left.   Richie:But there are a plethora of disturbing/disgusting ones out there: The Vanillish lineage literally all of their faces/head can melt, Spoink's heart will stop beating if it ever stops hopping, and don't get me started on the ghosts! Why is a cracked seedcase more worthy of elimination than the bounty of nightmarish Pokemon existences that are out there? Cunzy1 1: Because those all make sense. This one is because someone got bored of drawing eggs with faces so drew a cracked one and now every Exeggcute out there has to live with being able to taste the wind through their brain. I bet it's this one that turns into the scary mank face in Alolan Exeggutor. Oh Christ. Look at that. It's simple. It ain't right. It looks like a Ditto trying to do a Gulpin that had a stroke halfway through. It looks like one of those too inbred dog breeds where the brain falls out the back of the skull. This is body horror. In a kid's game (it's not just for kids).  Richie: Right this is a tough one! So I wondered if perhaps there was an official reason for "the exposed brain", and as with most pokemon origins, their stories can take you on a rabbithole journey, and it seems Exeggcute is steeped in Yokai lore... Exeggcute/Exeggutor seem to have taken their inspiration from a subset of Yokai which are plants that take on human Features:   Bashō no sei - Japanese banana spirit Said to be a spirit that haunts banana groves, and takes the form of a human face to scare people near by. The most hilarious part of all this is it is also said if a woman walks by at dusk she will get pregnant... So what forms are the bananas taking? Pretty safe to say unlikely to be the origin of Exeggcute.  Ninmenju/Jinmenju - Human Face Tree This one seems to be the money for the Exeggcute line and needs a fucking trigger warning! Jinmenju trees are said to have human faces for fruit, they are constantly laughing, when one laughs too hard it falls to the ground.  The fruit has a sweet/sour taste. It is said that the seed also has a human face. I mean this is all Nightmare fuel, far beyond that of that little Exeggcute you hate so much showing off it's endosperm. And as nice as it is to know the origin of where it comes from, I am now leaning towards Flame rounding all Exeggutes, Exeggutors and Alolan forms!  Beyond this I wondered if there was any reasoning from the Pokedex for the cracked exeggcute, and there are a couple off references over the generations.  Yellow States: The heads attract each other and spin around. There must be 6 heads for it to maintain balance. This makes me sad, we can just flame round one then... as we might just tip the rest of them over the edge.... Silver States: The shell is very durable. Even if it cracks, it can survive without spilling the contents. "Spill" Ugh that is the worst word to use, and makes me think liquid/yolk again... but again I'm reminded that this is just a seed inside, and probably just a yellow endosperm. Ruby/Sapphire States: It consists of six 'eggs' that care for each other. The eggs attract each other and spin around. When cracks increasingly appear, it is close to evolution. This provide the the most compelling argument that these little guys should be left alone, in all actuality the little mingin' exposed brain is gonna be the main dude evolving to become Exeggutor, though its really worth pulling on that thread, as it's one of these Pokemon which are separate Pokemon then evolve to become one gestalt bigger one (Magnemite/ Metagross etc). With this in mind, I'm sorry, but I cant flame round Exeggcute for super effective damage, as much as it looks like his brain may be exposed, does this justify ending that poor little cracked head guys existence? How can we flame round him! I mean he is the guy that is closest to evolving, if you flame round him do you not stop it evolving completely? If you separate it from he other 5 are they just going to cave into suicidal depression?  I'm also fairly confident that that in the Pokemon universe even if his brain was exposed it wouldn't cause damage in the same way (i.e. no lasting damage, and even if there was, a super potion or a nurse joy just fixes that right up anyways).  However much this causes your OCD to flare up, when you start to apply actual biology to Pokemon you'll get so many triggers.  For instance one that gets me is, that red bit in the chest of Gardevoir/Gallade:  Assuming it goes all the way through, Imagine grabbing ahold of it and wobbling it about, surely that would generate a feeling akin to having your ribcage pried apart? How can it sleep with the constant fear of turning over? In consolation for this however I will give you a hat: 

http://www.thatguys.co.uk/2019/02/flame-rounds-exeggcute-with-exposed.html