#if I can't manage one location we can figure out another

[pinkrangerv]

I kind of wish there was a more nuanced option, because a lot of it boils down to: Is the house clean? Like yeah, way too much stuff, cool...but there's a difference between 'you have to sit on a weird pile of boxes, but there's no mold or pet dander and it's not a hazard or anything' and 'so much pet dander I am not breathing anymore'.

I'm cool visiting no matter your setup, if I can breathe. But it changes things if my allergies and asthma decide to tell my lungs to piss off.

Also, if I can't visit your house, I'm probably just gonna invite you to the library or something. I don't have a 'good at housekeeping' requirement to be friends with someone.

Assume that before you learned this, you were interested in visiting their house.

–

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[idkwhyyouaskingm3-blog]

Before the next episode I thought I'd stick all the information I found on Error on here. It's all a bit messy but I spend an embarrassing amount of time doing this over the past few months so might as well share it (I'm so normal about this podcast):

Timeline

(If the monster in episode 1 is Error then it is at the Magnus Institute Manchester on 12/05/22)

09/03/24 - Magnus Institute Manchester - Appears to be trapped under a trap door until Sam drops a key and it manages to escape

20/03/24 - Milton Court Open Space - Violet Abigail Parker is found dead. Statement taken presumably the pervious night in an Ally way.

22/03/24 - Ally outside of Gladstone Arms, Lant Street - Alice finds a victim of Errors full of water and narrating how she drowned. Tape found next to body.

12/04/24 - Old Warehouse address not given - Error 'saves' Gwen from Ink5ouls by claiming her as its own. (Error may have taken a statement from Ink5ouls as well). Leaves Tape Recorder with Ink5ouls and it bites them.

14/04/24 - Park within walking distance of 17 Gransden Avenue, Hackney - Error takes Mr Jarrod's statement. Having him run around the park in circles. Mr Jarrod is found by Alexander who seems to snap him out the compulsion. Error states it's an archivist, records Mr Jarrods final words then leaves without the recorder.

13/05/24 - Outside OIAR Royal Mint Court - Takes Sam's statement. Appears to be looking for information about the Magnus Institute and stops when Sam thinks about Hilltop Road. Leaves Sam alive but laying in the rain with tape recorder

13/05/24 - Paddington Station - On a train that's on it's way to Oxford

Known locations on a map

Tape Recorder

Starting off with something obvious. Tape recorders are present every time Error is. We don't know if Error has multiple or not. They also seem to be alive. We see them moving on multiple occasions and Error leaves without the Tape Recorder whenever we've seen it take a statement. We don't know what happens to the Tape Recorder once the statement is taken. Other people can hold the tape recorder but they do bite. Ink5ouls hasn't been seen since they touched the Tape Recorder. (Notes below)

Error Description

Error is on 'screen' in a number of episodes. It calls itself an archivist which makes sense given it came out of a trapped door in the archive.

It has laboured breathing and speaks in short sentences in a raspy female voice.

Characters don't see it coming as it emerges and recedes from shadows even when it's sunny. It's been described as being cloaked in shadows and pained whispers. To me it sounds like it's surrounded by pervious statements.

It's also described as having too many eyes and as a watching figure. Even when it's eyes can't be seen you can still feel it watching you. (Notes below)

Episode 1 has a 'monster' that sounds similar to Error but it should be still trapped under the trapped door and it uses modern tech when Error uses Tapes. They both are watches, stalkers, and associated with eyes.

Statements

This is more of a feeling than a fact but the cases taken from victims seem to fit more with the original fears than the other cases.

The drowned woman Alice finds statement fits well with the buried. Her description of drowning is very similar to how Daisy describes being in the coffin just water instead of dirt. What's interesting is the water is salt water but the closest water source is a river. Salt representing the body in alchemy

Violets seems to hit on a lot of the stereotypical Lonely statements (fog, no one will find me, locked doors, literally ends with "I'm alone") Mentions of yellow which could link to alchemy. Daffodils are probably another reference to William Woodsworth.

Mr Jarrod's running and being chased which feels a lot like a hunt statement.

Gwens statement is about a fox full of maggots so feels a lot like a corruption statement

Sam's seems a lot like a flesh statement. More so as the statement goes on.

Ink5ouls I struggle to place and feels a lot more like a standard TMAGP statement.

Victims

Victims seem to get stuck in their worst nightmare. While they're still seen in the real world they seem to have physical reactions to the nightmare. Drown victim drowns, Violet ends up miles from her home, Mr Jarrod runs until he's caught.

Victims seem to come back to the real world when they interact with other people. Mr Jarrod briefly see's Alex, drown victim dropping in and out of the water could be when she bumps into people, Ink5ouls continues to interact with Gwen basically the whole time she's giving the statement so never fully goes to the nightmare. Should be noted that Gwen, Sam (and Ink5ouls) don't die in the nightmare and as a result don't die in real life. Other victims do.

My theory is that Error is using the victims statements and the tapes filled with them to stay in this dimension and not get kicked back out. It lives off of the fear and this universe isn't the fears. That's why it doesn't walk in and walk out. It appears and recedes. That's why Sam "recedes" into the statement.

Magnus Institute Manchester Ruins (Burned down in 1999)

Error first shows up under a trapped door under the Archive in the Magnus Institute Manchester. It's in a similar place to the one in the TMA Archives.

In episode 1 we get a description of the institute in 2022. It's described as being badly burned but the flooring being in a good state. Alternatively, just 2 years later, the floor is badly rotten to the point where Alice and Sam fall through it multiple times. It appears that there's more water damage done to the institute between 2022 and 2024 than between 1999 and 2022. This could be due to RedCanary maybe waking something up or letting something out?

RedCanary didn't find any paper while Alice and Sam find a lot. This could be because RedCanary never entered the Archives. (Making it even less likely that RedCanary didn't have a link with Error but maybe something else).

In both 2022 and 2024 symbols are found around the institute. RedCanary describing them as graffiti while Alice describes them as looking more like a worm eating the wood on the floor.

Notes below:

Air / Breathing & Water

Similar to Error itself a lot of the victims have trouble breathing due to the statement. It seems to be breathing in the Statements and surrounded by the 'pained whispers.' Error also only seems to turn up when water is present. Some of the examples are more of a stretch than others but I don't think it's a coincidence that it turns up when it's raining or in areas near the water. Notes below

This could be a link to alchemy. Water and Air being 2 of the 4 classical elements.

Not an expert on Alchemy (this is off of wikipedia) but the important part is that air linked with the start of life while water is linked with the end. Could Error be trying to preform some kind of rebirth into this universe. It's living in the water but it's trying to get into the air.

[cbrownjc]

Hello :) I was wondering if we ever got confirmation about which books Rolin is interested in focusing this adaptation on? I know that they'll probably take elements from most (if not all) VC books, but if they're aiming at 7-8 seasons with some books taking multiple seasons to adapt, they're going to have to pick and choose which books to really dig into.

I was also thinking about production. I've seen people talk about how we'll need to wait another 1.5-2 years between seasons and I kinda doubt that? I feel like we'll start speeding things up and getting a new season every year, mostly because I just can't see them go for 12+ years of production on this show. Very few shows nowadays go more than 10 years, and if they really want to do 7-8 seasons I can't see how they'll manage that with 1.5 to 2 years in between each season. I understand they're in for the long haul with the Immortal Universe but...that's very long in the modern drama landscape.

Honestly I am mostly just hoping to get new seasons more frequently and also be able to see their full vision realized because the longer it goes on the higher the chance they'll run into issues like actor availability, leadership changes that could impact renewals, budget restrictions, etc. What do you think?

Hello!

Okay, first to answer the production question. Now, while many shows rarely go past 10 years wrt production of them, that is really dependent on their Season count. Game of Thrones, for example, only ran for 8 Seasons, and production only lasted 8 years as well.

The Walking Dead ran for 11 Seasons and was produced over 12 years.

AMC has said in the past (or, at least, Rolin Jones has said that AMC has said) that they wanted 10 Seasons for IWTV. RJ, however, has been consistent in saying he has an 8 Season plan.

So whether the show continues on for at least 2 more years after Rolin's 8 Season plan is up in the air right now and we should just focus on, at most, getting 8 Seasons, Which yes, I think will take over the course of 8-9 years to film.

Because I think starting with Season 3, the wait and production times will decrease over time. Remember, the strikes threw a bit of a wrench into things. But what also did regarding Season 2 was that it's clear that Rolin and the writing staff didn't start actually writing Season 2 until AMC had officially greenlit Season 2 back in September of 2022. That is why shooting for Season 2 couldn't start in the fall of 2022, there were no scripts broken, let alone written yet!

And then, once the scripts were done, they still had to start pre-production stuff, such as location scouting, figuring out which sets needed to be built, etc.

So shooting for Season 2 could only start shooting when it did because it was the earliest they could get all that done once they were given a renewal notice.

I think things are very different when it comes to Season 3 because I think, even if the show hadn't already been quietly renewed for Season 3 before it was officially announced, RJ and the other writers were already breaking and writing the scripts for Season 3 starting either just before or while Season 2 was airing. And so given that writing time, plus the fact that they probably don't have to do as much location scouting (since many of those locations were already found in Season 2) pre-production will likely take less time.

I think filming will begin in late October, meaning we'd get an October 2025 release date. Which I think will be the standard release window going forward with each new season and why the wait will be another long one again, but that will also give the production staff and actors breathing room after they are done filming a season before going into the next one.

So for that reason, I can see production of the show lasting 9-10 years, but that is because of the extra 1/2 year gaps between the filming and airing of Season 2 and the one I feel we are going to get for Season 3.

As well as the fact that I think when they get to Queen of the Damned, that will be a true split-season like the one Breaking Bad got for its final season. That show had Season 5, Part 1, and Season 5, Part 2. Because even though this past season was called "Season 2" externally, you can see by the episode numbers that internally, what this really was was "Season 1, Part 2."

Anyway, as to the books being adapted -- and not just having elements taken from them -- Rolin has said for sure we are getting IWTV (which we just finished), The Vampire Lestat (Season 3), Queen of the Damned (which is where he spoke about it being so epic and grand a story that they will probably have to split the season in order to tell it all) and Tale of the Body Theif (which he confirmed after Season 2 was finished that they were beginning to already set up for). He also mentioned at Comic-Con in 2022 that Prince Lestat would be adapted.

Also, while RJ talked about the book The Vampire Armand being important, he's never said it would get its own separate adaptation, which honestly makes sense. Because of the way that book is told, you can just interweave elements of it when you want to focus on Armand's backstory, or even just do a stand-alone episode here and there dedicated to parts of it. It really isn't the kind of book you do a full season on IMO.

So yeah. The books that we know for sure are getting their own, full adaptations per RJ so far are IWTV, TVL, QotD, TotBT, and PL.

I can see them throwing elements of books like Memnoch, TVA, and Blood and Gold into it all, but I don't know if they'll get their own full-season adaptations. As I said, I don't think TVA will. And I don't think B&G will either, as I see it just like TVA -- you adapt elements of it during a season, maybe even full sections of it for a flashback episode or so during a season, but it doesn't get its own full stand-alone season.

The same goes for Merrick, since they already did Louis' suicide attempt and Louis seems to be moving forward from his despair and grief regarding Claudia -- so that even if Lestat did fall into his post-Memnoch coma in the show, I'm not sure this Louis would attempt to end his life again over that loss. (Even more so after this Louis also got that letter from Lestat in the past, telling Louis to please live on in the event of his death.)

I have no idea if they are seriously going to ever do Blackwood Farm or Blood Canticle. Neither book has ever been mentioned, even in passing. Plus, they kind of depend on what and where Mayfair Witches is at or has going on at the time and well, that show . . . 😅

Oh! And they might be looking to adapt the whole Prince Lestat trilogy, but I don't remember if RJ has talked about adapting the whole trilogy -- meaning the entirety of each book -- or just the full first book and then elements from the other two. (Because I do think it's clear that, if anything, we'll get the Loustat ballroom dance from Blood Communion in the final season of the show).

So yeah, I think that this is what we're looking at for the next few years, book adaptation-wise.

[yanderes-galore]

What about we switch Glamrock Freddy's personality and make him violent and manipulative?

Could you make a scenario with rednsuch's prompts 25, 26, 28 and 40 for Glamrock Freddy with an animatronic darling? It can be Afton Virus! Freddy or just an ooc version of him that likes violence.

Freddy has been acting strangely lately, he glared and was hostile to any worker that got too close to the reader. One day, while roaming the Parts and Services section of the pizzaplex, reader finds Freddy in a secluded room completely covered in blood and lots of bodies from staff members laying around, mutilated.

After noticing that he's been caught, Freddy tries to comfort reader by saying that the staff members "were planning on decommissioning reader" and that he just did that to "protect his darling". All lies, of course.

(If four prompts are too much, you can ignore prompt 26).

No problem! This was interesting to write so I hope you like it! Sorry if things seemed weird, I don't write Animatronic! Darlings often.

Prompts Here

Yandere! Afton Virus! Glamrock Freddy Prompts 25, 28, 40

"I can't live without you. I would lose it!"

"Please, just pretend, you can do that for me right?"

"I know what's best for you, just trust me on this one."

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Murder, Blood, Manipulation, Delusional behavior, Animatronic! Darling, Robot thinks he knows what love is, Violence, Possessive/Protective behavior, Forced companionship/"relationship", Dubious ending, Biting, Slightly graphic scene.

Something wasn't right. Your scanners had sensed something changed in Freddy recently but couldn't figure it out. As the lead singer and face of the Pizzaplex… Freddy was usually nice to everyone! For a long time he has been nice. He's always interacted with other animatronics and humans well.

You and Freddy often interact. You're an animatronic in a different part of the Pizzaplex but Freddy manages to still make his way to you. At times your location is swapped around but whenever you had to deal with kids, Freddy was there.

Being friends with the bear you managed to memorize his behavior. You knew how he acted for the most part so you could report abnormalities. It's like a built-in security feature.

That's why it was easy for you to tell Freddy was off.

The normally friendly bear has been violent in the Pizzaplex at all hours of the day. Normally, around others he's fine. Yet somehow a glitch happens when he interacts with you.

When around you Freddy turns more glitchy and violent. The normally friendly blue glow in his eyes is replaced with a sinister purple. With you, he's still friendly, although appears to hate workers around you.

Naturally, due to coding, you report the issue. Employees take note and write down an appointment for Freddy to be examined and fixed. Feeling the issue would soon be resolved, you prioritize the safety of those in the Pizzaplex.

That night you catch sight of Freddy being brought into Parts and Service through the stage elevator. You think nothing of it and go into patrol mode. Before you charge for the night you decide to make sure all other bots are charging and there's no rogue humans.

Hours pass and you begin to wonder if the issue is more serious than you thought. Regardless of if it's against code or not you make your way to Parts and Service. You tell yourself that Freddy, your friend, will be fine. There's nothing to worry your processor about!

Turns out… There is something to worry about.

You freeze in place when the large door opens and your scanners kick in. You read blood coating the walls and service chamber. Not only that but cold bodies, mauled by claws, lay motionless on the floor. In the middle of it all stands a stained orange bear… your friend….

You say nothing and silently take screenshots to your memory. Freddy appears to soon notice another presence behind him and turns. Glowing purple eyes scan over you before the bear fully turns around.

“Oh there you are!” The bear chirps, smiling eerily. “I took care of the problem.”

“What problem?” You ask… surprisingly, unease settles in you.

“They said they were going to have you decommissioned!” Freddy exclaims, stepping closer. “I can't live without you! I would lose it!”

The idea makes you fear for a moment but you ignore it. Freddy is glitching, clearly he heard them wrong. He was the one going to be decommissioned.

“You're wrong, Freddy… you haven't been functioning right!” You try to plead, only for Freddy to step closer 

“I know what's best for you, just trust me on this one!” Freddy pleads and you step away. “There's nothing wrong with me!”

“There is something wrong, I can't trust you after this! Those STAFF members are dead, Freddy! You killed them!” You yell.

“I only did it because I care about you… you care for me too, don't you?” Freddy tries to explain while pleading to you. “I did this all because I love you!”

“Love? You don't love me. You're a murderer.” You snarl, hostility kicking in to try and defend yourself.

“We could be so happy with each other… won't you forgive me?” Freddy whines, glowing purple eyes gazing into you. “Please, just pretend, you can do that for me right?”

You shake your head and go to leave. You need to report this. You need to get help. Surely a guard can call-

You end up slamming into the ground. Your casing is dented and you're in shock. Your eyes go wide and you stare, Freddy glaring down at you as though he's feral.

The blood coating his face disturbs you… your scanners instinctively take a picture in case you don't survive the situation.

“I won't have you leave me!” Freddy growls, voice box distorting. “We're meant to be happy together! You'll see!”

You're then dragged into Parts and Service. You try to escape but you can't get a good grip. You try to push Freddy off… but he responds with bites and attempts to dismantle and disable certain aspects of you to stop your struggling.

There's pushing and pulling, creaking and cracking. He's breaking you in a blind frenzy. You're damaged to the point you can't move… you're even losing charge.

“There's nothing wrong with me.” Freddy coos, even while you're unable to move on the ground. “You'll see that… once you trust me… we'll love each other, won't we?”

You don't answer… feeling yourself shut off due to the stress on your systems.

[twimshi]

Shattered Realities Prt.1 (Hobie brown/P!Reader)

ALSO THIS IS A ROUGH DRAFT SINCE IVE NEVER WRITTEN LIKE THIS BEFORE.

What happens if someone from our universe where no superheroes exist, falls into the society of superheroes

"She isn't glitching"

She doesn't remember falling until she feels her stomach flip, her eyes flying open with the multitude of colors that blind her vision as she catapulted.

She also dosent remember screaming but she most definitely was.

"Holy shit-" Her arms are flailed and bent in all types of positions trying to possibly slow her descent as she hits the hard pavement.

It doesn't.

She thinks something pops but pays no mind to it because of the crowd forming around her.

Multiple people in a familiar red jumpsuit surround her vision.

She slowly gets up despite the pain in her left shoulder to examine everything around her.

Before she even tries to run away someone shoots something that reminded her of a tazer she saw in a minions movie once, but without the electric shock part, causing her to fall before her hands were stuck together making her fall on her face.

Though the impact alone didn't hurt her elbow sent a jolt of pain across her entire body making her scream in pain.

"Who is she?" One says on a horse.

Oh my god was she on drugs?

"Is she another Spiderman?" Another who looks almost the same as the other's outfit but blue says.

No way she can't be on drugs.

"Why is she here dressed all normal" A talking Lego says.

So many questions were asked before someone pulled her upright by a strong person, he kind of looked like a bear.

She considers the idea of her being on LSD at this very moment.

A really buff one in fact.

Who was also wearing a skin-tight suit?

He summons, well calls some robots to do a scan on her which sends a little shiver down her body.

The machine speaks "Foreign entity, no universe"

This sends the crowd of people into a frenzy, are they people? Probably some weird nerds.

Why are so many lights?

The strong angry teddy looing man manages to calm everyone.

"Who are you?" He says not even introducing himself, what a rude bear she thinks to herself.

So many red people.

Her eyes hurt.

Her shoulder hurts.

She wants to vomit.

Her head lolls to the back, something he recognized making his heart almost drop before going back to interrogation mode "Kid answer- Hey, hey hey don't just fall!"

She vomits and passes out.

-

".............We can't find out where she's from"

"............Maybe your system is bugged"

"............Maybe your brain is bugged"

Then the door closes when she hears someone complain about them being too loud and hears whoever that was talking stomp out.

She groans waking up, throwing off the blanket that was kindly placed on her, and stretches her arm - was it fixed? "Can you guys keep it down, my head hurts"

"You're awake" The one with The hijabi says, coming toward her "How did you get here?"

"I just fell?"

"Fell?" The girl in twin buns said before retracting her words "I'm Byte by the way, but is that all you remember before you fell? Like can you at least tell us your name so we can narrow down your location?"

"Yeah, it's..." Her heart drops.

Her brain is swirling on itself.

"My name is..."

The two share a look that makes her play with her hair nervously, trying to figure out what was happening.

Her body feels empty all of a sudden.

Sun-spider who has entered the room for nothing other than snooping coughs (who has not introduced herself by name) to try to break whatever nervous silence that was forming "As much as I love suspense, please tell us. I gotta get the ice cream machine working again"

She tries again, this time she's clawing her hair to grasp on anything - but every time she seems to get closer to anything, the memory falls into itself.

A nervous smile exits her lips.

It seems like the static in her head becomes louder and louder.

"I don't know..."

Byte raises a brow in concern, checking her head for injuries while questioning her "What do you mean you don't know?"

"I just can't, I don't remember anything" She says, all of the uncomfortable aura leaving her in an instant like a reset button.

Essentially returning her back to her ditsy self.

But Byte isn't convinced

"Are you sure?" She says moving closer to her and turning on another device to scan her heartbeat in case she was lying.

"Yup" The girl replies her bright mood suddenly lifted, which the others found odd, but she spins her head around "Where is the scary guy?"

"Why are you asking?" Byte says

"Just so I can avoid him, he scares me"

Byte chuckles and turns off her device, grabs the other girl, and shakes her head.

"He uh...A little rough on the edges"

The girl nods suddenly like she gets it "Like a cool brooding backstory?"

"Brooding?"

"Ah you know like usually that's what you describe an angry old person with a backstory that made them all like lonely and sad when originally they were a happy and nice person"

Malala nods trying to understand the girl, but also invested in anything about that is about Miguel.

"I haven't read a book in ages so it's like a character thing" Byte tries.

"Yeah! It's like that..."

"What's wrong?"

"Just remembering something, I used to write fanfiction"

Malala claps her hands seemingly finding it amusing as Byte signals the girl to continue "And?"

The anomaly girl looks slightly confused, what else was she supposed to say? "And that's all"

"That's all you remembered?"

"Yup, I used to write stuff like ship stuff that was a little canon divergent I think? I don't remember-"

Malala jumps onto the girl "Dont say that out loud again"

The girl looks at her and Byte whose expression was similarly as frightened as the Hijabi.

"But it-"

"Remember big Bear man?" The girl nods and lets Byte continue "Well he is rather....what's the word"

Malala awkwardly twidles with her headscarf "...Sensitive"

Byte nods "Yup that word, he's already worked up about you being here. I don't think he is getting much sleep so we need to just ban that word"

"Yup, banzo it" Malala adlibs on top of the girl.

Byte feels a lightbulb appear on her head "Why not we just talk about hobbies to try to get you to remember stuff about yourself so we can narrow your universe's location now?"

The anomaly girl gasps "You want to talk about my hobbies? Wow " She stays silent for a moment before saying "Wait universe?"

-

Somehow they've only found three things after three hours.

"So we narrowed down your universe with the little information you gave us about...Whale calling noises and the Lorax musical with the deleted song biggering"

"Hey, the noises whales make are cool and doesn't every universe have a deleted Lorax song?"

"Well, a couple but most of them use 'Biggering' in the musical number"

"But that's like the best song ever. Does my universe just suck?"

"Maybe" Byte shakes her head "We're getting sidetracked, is there anything else you remember?"

"Nope. Anyways, back to the Lorax-"

Miguel cusses something inaudible in Spanish when he overhears the conversation and calls Lylla "Did you do a scan on her yet?"

"Already did" He groans and signals her to continue "She showed no signs of memory loss or even anything developing like dementia"

He looks back at the scene, of the glitch he likes to call rambling to Byte about the amazing soundtrack that is 'Biggering'

"Lylla scan possible universes with minimal to no superheroes"

"Gotcha"

-

Jessica comes back from a mission thinking she can just report to Miguel that her mission went smoothly and go home, she always thinks that "You're telling me you just want to drop the girl to a random universe?"

"Ideally, no. But we need to then yes" He said, catching her up on the situation that happened while she was out.

She watches Miguel pace back and forth "Won't that affect the canon?"

"From the information I gathered from Malala and Byte who are getting along with her just fine. She says that Spiderman is fiction where she's from, from what she remembers at least. There were many but with her knowledge of her musical we managed to narrow down surprisingly three potential universes"

Jess nods at this information and watches the security footage to analyze how she got here in the first place until she notices something abnormal and zooms into the anomaly girl and rewinds the video.

She calls for Miguel and replays the footage, which he replies with "Dont bother I've rewatched that footage and analyzed all the portals"

"Please tell me you at least noticed this"

"Notice what?" Miguel has not had time to take an actual look in the mirror for a couple days due to a new anomaly from earth-1048, a video game anomaly, nothing new, but another headache.

Jess zooms into the anomaly girl for the rest of the footage "She isn't wearing a wrist band"

His eyes widen, she's right.

Since she's arrived here, she has never glitched.

Not even once.

Thats...impossible

"What do we do now" Jess says equally as distraught as him.

Miguel sends a quick text to Byte and gets an immediate reply then looks back at Jess "I don't know either, but Byte is running a few tests on her while she naps with her and I quote 'Enthusiastic consent'. Everyone was so shocked by her being a non-spiderperson and since she never glitched no one noticed"

Miguel takes a very slow exhale to think.

If she wasn't glitching then she can't be an anomaly.

Maybe that was a glitch on its own?

He notices Jessica scanning his face for a response, so he gives her one "Let's just put it to rest for now, since she isn't causing any trouble" He had stayed up monitoring the activity of the universes that involved Spiderman.

She nods her head, seemingly tired out for the day also, before she leaves a question pops up in her mind You said that you narrowed down her universe to three, that's a tight deduction. What musical was it? Hamilton?"

Miguel does not want to say the ridiculous cartoon name but says it anyways "......It was the Lorax"

Jessica almost snorts when she leaves the room leaving him alone.

He might as well get some sleep while he can.

-

After he knocks out for a thirteen-hour nap, Miguel looks at the anomaly girl and is reluctant on how to call her while she's converting with Malala and Byte so he just barges in and calls out "Girl"

The three girls turn to him with a confused expression.

"The one that's not Spiderman"

They all make an oh noise.

"Webby tie your shoe lasses you might trip" Says Byte.

"You remember your name?" Miguel is almost hopeful.

She placed her hand on her hip "Uhm no? I just named myself Webby since all of you have web designs on you"

Miguel is hopeless.

Anomaly girl- no Webby says with sass with her hands on her hips after poorly tying her shoe lasses like it's a fact that everyone should know but Miguel certainly does not seem to care enough.

He tosses her an empanada from the cafeteria which she catches, he notes her reflex "Eat something now because we're going"

"Goinsh?" She asks while chewing.

"Yes going" He cringes at her and gives her a tissue to wipe her face, she blows her nose instead "Just eat some motion sickness pills before we go"

Webby rolls her eyes but nods at the tall man as he still intimidated her, so she quickly finishes her food and gets some pills before meeting up with Jessica Drew, who had a small bump on her belly.

It was either bloating or that she was pregnant, Webby didn't want to ask but she thinks it was the after when Jessica held her stomach in a cradling motion.

Webby made sure she mentally remembered every single detail about this place so she could never forget it in her brain.

Jess looks at the girl whose eyes were becoming a little bugged out and red from how much she was forcing the open to take in the view.

"You know you can just take a picture right?"

She finally blinked her eyes in pain "Ouch, I would if I had a phone. It might have fallen when I was uh...Falling through the portal"

"I'll make sure we do a full sweep of the place to find it"

The girl's eyes widen and profusely thanks her hand as they walk "Thank you so much"

"Likewise, we can walk slower, just so you can get a good look at everything"

And that's exactly what they did, Webby is sure to talk about this to her friends (If she can remember them) about this.

Something catches her eyes in the distance, it was a boy whose entire border was changing as if he was made out of scrapbooks, his ears adorned with piercings.

As he played the guitar, every new strum seemed to change his color palate.

Webby couldn't help but stare

Jess also couldn't stop staring, mostly because she was telling him that his guitar was untuned.

He yelled back something about consistency and groaned when Jess told him to show the newbies around saying "I'm doing this because I like to see newbies, not because you told me to"

For a split moment, they both retain eye contact before Jess pulls her aside to go to Bytes lab because they needed to go.

Byte, Malala, and Sun Spider share a hug before Miguel calls for her and opens a portal, coincidently what she can assume emo punk was in the room bringing what she can assume is a newbie.

"Hobie what are you doing here, we're kinda busy" He says tiredly.

The guy who she assumed was Hobie just shrugs "You told me to show 'em newbies around, just gotta grab one on these and this-" They all were staring at him "Just imagine that 'm not here"

Miguel ignores him and offers Webby a hand to grab which she accepts reluctantly and waves goodbye to her short-term friends who waved back.

Once they reach the other universe Miguel readjusts his armband and looks for Webby to find her on the ground.

"Don't tell me you got sick again, I told you to take the medicine-"

But he dosent finish his sentence because Webby was glitching.

He wanted to help her up and call Lylla until she let out an excruciating scream like she's been stung by something and cradled her stomach. The pain was travelling all over her body as if she were electrocuted in the rain.

Webby doesn't know what's happening or what to feel other than the pain that surrounds her, she dosent even realize she isn't in control of her body and is slamming herself on the floornofnthe hard roof.

Miguel rushed to open a portal as her body was quickly becoming translucent.

The same type of translucent he's all too familiar with and grabs her to the portal.

She can't bare to open her eyes, her irises were stinging.

It was a bodily reaction, he wasted no time to grab her.

"That was quick-Oh God" Jess frantically calls for help

Webby thinks breathing slowly stabilizes because her body isn't burning , but not relaxing.

"Get the medic, now" Webby thinks the scary bear yells something.

Her eyes close, and finally, her body stops hurting when a mask is placed over her head as the coloured lights she thinks she sees now dissappear as her consciousness.

-

"What exactly happened out there"

"I.." He rubs his temples "Don't know"

Jess looks over to Webbie's vitals as Byte observes them carefully and Malala watches her from a distance.

Jess hasn't known Webbie for a long time but the gas mask on her face irks her so she tries one more time "Miguel, what happened out there"

"She stopped glitching only when we came back but was glitching hard when she got to the other universe, but not like normal" He looks at Jess's shocked face knowing Miguel spoke from experience as he continued his sentence.

"It was like her body was collapsing into herself"

HI AUTHOR HERE, this isn't my first fanfic but I haven't really written in this type of format (Also I'm bilingual so my English might be not epic) so it might be wonkey (I write mostly self-loathing type of things) I might or might now make this whole thing int a mini series of 6 chapters. ALSO I JUST GOT A JOB?! So if I do make it into a miniseries plz be patient because the 10 hour shift is no joke

[leather-ropebunny]

Time Out

Reposting this from my old deleted blog.

Notes: contains rape, gang rape, free use, mentor/mentee, bondage, objectification, degradation, humiliation, dirty talk, slapping, general sexual violence, FTM POV, MxFTM

Minors DNI

♡♡♡♡♡

The first time it happens, I'm thankfully alone.

I usually work with a team of my fellow superheroes, but this had been a simple burglary, so I'd insisted I could handle it alone.

Slipping into the house, I manage to locate a shadowy figure plucking something shiny out of a jewelry box in the bedroom, and then…

And then…

And then I blink, and I'm naked, face down ass up on a stranger's bed, shoulders pressed into the pillows, and my body is convulsing in a mind-blowing orgasm. I can feel a thick river of hot cum sliding down one thigh, pushed out of me as my boycunt clenches with every powerful spasm.

My body is sore, like I'd been in a fight, and I can feel bruises forming on my throat, my hips, my cheekbone. My mind can't latch onto what's happened, and it's all I can do to tug my uniform back on and flee the scene, leaving the mess of cum and my own slick behind in a complete stranger's sheets.

The second time it happens, I'm not so lucky to be alone. The robbery in progress seems a bit more intense, and my mentor and I head to the cafe to put a stop to it. After we arrive, though…

I come to, bent over the counter, my uniform pulled just far enough out of the way to display my cunt and tdick to the staff, the customers, the cops, and my mentor. As soon as I register reality, there's a second of shocked silence, and then I'm cumming again, dripping semen onto the cafe floor, my eyes trained on the reflection of my mentor's gaze in the espresso machine. He's staring at my pulsing cunt, and he looks horrified, yes, but also darkly hungry.

I think it's that thought that makes another, weaker orgasm ripple through me.

We try to figure out what's happening, but to no avail. I know, of course, that somehow I'm having sex. Being raped, most likely. The mystery is how, why neither I nor the people around me seem to remember it. We're all stumped.

It happens again

(on a crowded subway car, pressed up against the doors, coming back to reality as I'm falling onto the platform when they open, twitching and moaning as commuters gather around to watch)

and again

(seated on a park bench, legs in the air until I'm almost folded in half, each ankle tied to the trees on either side of me so I'm helpless and exposed to the cell phones recording me once passers-by realize what's happening)

and again

(trussed up and dangling from a streetlamp, my own panties muffling my whimpering as crowds of drunk men leaving the bars after last call realize my wet, naked boycunt has been conveniently left at cock-height, perfectly set up for it to be gang raped)

until it feels like it's happening every time I go out to fight crime.

Finally, I decide that if my team can't figure out what's happening (won't figure it out? I hate to think it, but they seem like they're starting to…enjoy it…), I'll get to the bottom of it myself.

I rig up nanocams to follow me everywhere as I go about my days, and every night I review the footage, but nothing odd sticks out, no sign of anything unusual for a week.

Then I get called out again, and this time I come to on my back on a detective's desk in the middle of the police station bullpen. They laugh as my eyes roll back in my head, legs shaking, and one of them sticks three fingers into my fucked-out, dripping cunt and finger-rapes me roughly until I cum again. I'm too confused, too humiliated to think of telling him to stop, and while I'm cumming a second time, another cop takes that as an invitation to ram his cock into me and pound it painfully into my cervix again and again until he floods my womb with cum.

They laugh again once he's done raping me, and I totter away on shaky legs to our headquarters, slipping into my room to pull up the footage and get to the bottom of this.

It had been a prisoner escape - no one was sure how he'd managed to get away, but as I fast-forward to the moment I had arrived at the station to assist, I can see exactly what's happening. The perp is periodically freezing time.

It all starts to fall into place.

I watch, horrified, as I run into the police station, and the masked figure on the screen gestures, time stopping in an instant.

I watch as he approaches me, reaching out to caress my cheek, then pulling his arm back and slapping me. My head jerks to the side, but I don't react.

As I watch in the present, I lift a hand to feel the heat of a newly forming bruise on my face.

The perp grabs me around the waist with the ease of practice and drops me none-too-gently on the desk. He runs his hands over my body briefly, and I can feel a tingling sensation now, like I can still feel the phantom touch.

He doesn't seem inclined to linger, though, and after a second he starts to move the officers and detectives so that they form a loose crowd around us, positioned as though they're watching. Then, without preamble, he pulls my bottoms off, grabs my ankles to spread my legs, and starts to rape me.

It's violent, his thrusts pushing me across the desk until my head is hanging off the other end, and he keeps having to haul me back towards him. He drops one of my legs to press his hand to my throat, then to slap me across the face, then to my throat again.

There's no sound, but the footage is clear enough that I can read his lips a little as he violates my unwilling body.

'Fucking cockslut…wet already…like it…slap you around…nasty rapedoll…always cum…rape you…your cunt's…only worthwhile part…take it, take it, fucking take it…'

He slams his cock into me brutally, plunging deep, and I watch as he cums inside me, lifting his hand off my throat to backhand me powerfully.

Tucking himself back into his pants, he backs towards the door, and time starts up again. As the cops around me crack up at my shuddering orgasm, the perp escapes, and I watch now from the outside as two cops assault me, as well.

"So that's it," my mentor's voice comes from behind me. "He manipulates time."

I look up at him as he lingers in the doorway, but he isn't looking at the screen or at my face, but at my crotch. That's when I realize that I'm rubbing my aching boypussy through my ruined uniform bottoms, my rapists' cum squelching under my frantic fingers.

When had I started masturbatung to my own rape? When he'd cum inside me? When he'd choked me? Maybe from that very first slap.

My mentor steps closer, and my gaze is drawn to where his cock bulges in his pants, straining against the fabric. My breath catches, and I shake my head, tears beginning to well up.

"Please…please don't."

"No?" He lunges for me, dragging me off my chair and turning me to face my computer, crowding me up against the desk with his bulk. His cock is a hot, throbbing pressure against my ass. "Are you sure? Because it looks to me like you enjoy this."

With one hand, he yanks my saturated bottoms back down, and with the other, he rewinds the video and hits play.

"Always knew you were a dirty fucking whore," he growls, pulling his own pants down just far enough for his cock to spring out, slapping wetly against my asscheek. "And it's about time I do what I've always wanted to do."

He grabs my hip, jamming his cock into my abused cunt, the mess my previous two rapists had left squishing out of my hole, and he begins to fuck me.

I sob, and he fists his free hand in my hair and pushes me down until my vision is filled with the video of the perp using my motionless body in the middle of the police station.

"Look. Look at how easily his cock slips into your pussy. You were already wet. Bet you started soaking your uniform before you'd even gotten there."

"N-no…stop…"

"Oh, yeah," he grunts, his cockhead pressing hard against my bruised cervix as he thrusts deep and holds it there. "You knew what was gonna happen. You've known every time you were gonna get raped."

"No. No. No."

"Oh, fuck. You're clenching down on my cock right now you fucking rapeslut." He starts pounding into me again, pushing my face closer as the cop on screen starts to ram his fingers into my cunt. "You let them rape you even after time had started again. You that desperate for cock?"

"No! I'm not…I don't…please stop!"

"Yeah? You're stronger than they are. Better trained - I should know." His hand leaves my hair to wrap around my throat and squeeze lightly. "But look at you. Just lying back and taking it."

I whimper, and to my horror, begin to rut back onto my mentor's cock. I'm so, so wet. My cunt is so sore, but I can tell it's also puffy and flushed with need. Even as his fingers tighten, choking me, I can feel another orgasm building.

I don't want this. I don't.

But he rewinds the footage again, forcing me to watch as the perp cums inside my unprotected pussy, and groans.

"Yeah, take that load you fucking cumdump," he grunts. "Fucking nympho, that's what you are."

We watch as time starts again and the me in the video begins to cum violently.

With a growl, my mentor shoves his cock into me as far as he can, and hisses, "take it, you stupid fucking rapeslut."

He pumps his load inside me, and yet again, I cum from being raped.

Once he's satisfied he's filled my unwilling womb, my mentor pulls out and watches as I slump to the floor.

"There's another call," he says, tucking himself away. "No time to clean up your uniform or your whore cunt - get out there."

I do, and this time, when I come to, I know I've just been violated in the middle of a busy street. People are staring, laughing, filming while I lie on the pavement, naked, blocking traffic.

As my orgasm rolls through me, I stuff my fingers into my cunt and mercilessly fuck myself until I cum again, thinking of all the footage I'll have to watch with my mentor later.

[butterflydm]

wot rewatch (book spoilers edition): 2x2

Additional thoughts that had too many spoilers to go into my earlier post will be found here. Spoilers for all the teasers and trailers, plus through book 13: A Memory of Light.

So one of the big questions that I have is: how much is Lanfear acting with Ishamael's knowledge and how much is she going her own way? Ishamael said in the Darkfriend social scene that he is still looking for Rand. If he's being truthful there (and he's talking to his minions, so there's really no point in lying), then Lanfear has not told him that she located Lews Therin.

2. I hadn't thought about this on my first watch, but @ladyofpembroke noted that Lanfear is probably in Rand's final dream in the next episode, so it seems possible that she actually has a hand in all his dreams. Constantly reminding him that he could kill his friends if he sees them again is a good way to make him want to stay where he is (with her) and not try to reconnect with his past life. Like any effective manipulator, she's keeping him isolated from his friends and family as much as she can.

3. otoh, we know from the books that being able to locate someone's dreams doesn't mean that you know where they are in the physical world, so this might be an Ishamael-influenced dream (I note that while Rand's visions of his friends has them wearing their S1 outfits, Ishamael is wearing his s2 outfit, which Rand hasn't seen), so this might be an Ishamael-influenced dream since he figures he might as well torment Rand in the dream if he can't find him irl.

4. Given that Rand is already hearing whispers, I wonder when the show plans to re-introduce Lews Therin to us in his own form. It might even be this season, if they wanted to make sure to keep a lock on the actor (or we might get another Age of Legends cold open -- though I note that we only had one cold open in this set of three episodes, though that might be because Rafe & co were aware that they would likely all air the same night so that might have affected their choices there - I'd love an AoL cold open where we get to see Lanfear and Lews Therin together).

5. So, did Rand find his way to Cairhien first and then Lanfear set up an inn in the Foregate to entice him to her, or did she set up her inn before he arrived and she figured out a way to lure him in? Either way, she's doing a much better job than the Lanfear in the books. She's much less suspicious than "random noblewoman who managed to appear in an unpopulated parallel world so that Rand could save her" and she's more subtle too. While the cringefail Forsaken in the books can be amusing, the threat level of the villains also helps tell you how seriously to take your protagonists, so I'm glad that they beefed up her threat level by actually making her effective. Right now, Lanfear is #winning on every possible level.

6. I love Errol because he serves several story purposes -- he's reminding us that Rand looks "like an Aiel"; he's serving Hurin's purpose in the story of giving Rand someone to look after and be protective of; he's teaching Rand sword forms because he was a blademaster; and he's giving us a bit of history about "the Aiel war". And the actor is quite charming. Plus he's used to show us both Rand's compassion and his need/desire to find mentors to help teach him the skills he needs. At this point in time, Rand does believe that he's defeated the Dark One and his nightmares are just nightmares but he does still want to learn how to protect himself and how to control himself.

7. We mostly hear indistinct whispers until Rand is walking down the hallway (it's the shot from the trailer) and it resolves into "Do you hear me? You are mine, Rand al'Thor." Which is very interesting. Our first inkling of Lews Therin? If so, it shows a greater awareness of Rand as a person than LTT's voice showed in the earlier books when it appeared in his head. I've speculated that this might happen, so I wonder if we're going to get more genuine back-and-forth between Rand and LTT than we really got in the books as a way of letting us into Rand's internal narration without him needing to pour out his heart to any of the characters around him.

8. I am actually loving Perrin getting Rand's plotline here -- it's working really well for him, being used to show us how Perrin can smell what happened in places so vividly that he's re-experiencing the past. I feel like if I didn't know this was Rand's original plotline, I wouldn't have guessed. It suits how they're exploring Perrin's character so well. I do wonder... Elyas speaks of Perrin experiencing a 'vision' -- I wonder if they're going to make the mystical side of being a Wolfbrother more distinct from what Dreamers do in this show version. Because it really was kinda... weird in the books how Perrin and Egwene are doing all this training in the same dreamworld but Perrin never runs across her or any of the Aiel Dreamwalkers, even once they're spending more time in the wetlands side of things.

9. The nailed-up Fade is used in the books to mark when Fain 'takes control' of the Darkfriends & Trollocs. I wonder here if it's meant to mark the moment when the dagger owns him more strongly than the Dark One does. Because the people of Shadar Logoth were not darkfriends -- and they focused on this in s1, too, because dagger!Mat is not a fan of the Fade that he meets in the farmhouse.

10. Love foreshadowing of Errol talking about "Aielman among us and no one bats an eyelash in the entire place" -- Rand is going to be bringing a lot of Aiel to the wetlands. I bet we're going to get to see some of these sword forms in the finale!

11. Liandrin does seem like she's becoming genuinely invested in Nynaeve. I like that (almost) everyone gets their own personal Darkfriend -- Nynaeve has Liandrin, Mat also has Liandrin (she's a hard worker!), Rand has Lanfear, Perrin has (remorseful) Ingtar, Moiraine has (double agent) Verin, Lan has (repentant) Tomas, and even Egwene gets a scene with Sheriam (who will get to be Her Darkfriend Among Us later on, if we're able to follow the books that closely when we get there), though she's not really the focus of Sheriam's attention. Everyone gets a little personal attention from the Shadow!

I like that Nynaeve gets rushed forward to the test for Accepted due to Liandrin wanting to teach her so badly. It seems more realistic reasoning than we get in the books.

12. Another big lie from Liandrin here about how Mat is here because they are "only observing" that the effects of the dagger are out of his system, which Mat immediately calls bullshit on. He's locked in a cell and only Liandrin is around -- that is not an official observation by any means. That's a prison. It's been six months. So I would put Liandrin's official lie count at two. Notably, she's only lying to Mat so far, who is both kept well away from other people and also doesn't really know as much about Aes Sedai (we know from Egwene and Moiraine's conversation in the woods in s1 that the people of the Two Rivers do not have the Aes Sedai oaths memorized).

13. My dearest, my darling, my deepest love is finally here! At the end of my reread, when I was ranking my favorite characters, Elayne was my number one favorite. Ceara is doing such a good job with her and the writing is also excellent. I love how many different sides of her we get to see in just these two episodes -- sheltered noble, awkward girl who grew up with no friends, someone familiar with the Tower but not familiar being a novice in the Tower, but a tinkerer (!!! so excited that they put this in so early) at heart and incredibly loyal and compassionate. I just adored her so much in these two episodes and I am looking forward to seeing more of her. I do really hope that, in the midst of all the chaos, that the show does manage to give her something of a meet-cute with Rand, even if it's less obviously romantic than the one in the books. But I'm really looking forward to more of her interacting with Egwene and Nynaeve, and hopefully meeting Aviendha and/or Min and/or Mat in the finale or before it.

14. I have zero issue with Sheriam not being a redhead. I think it's a good idea for the show to cut down on the number of redheads, given that Jordan says it's rare but then keeps giving us random redheads. Limiting the on-screen ones to the Aiel and the royal house of Andor seems like a good idea to me.

15. So first we got Perrin's letters last episode. Now, in this episode, Elyas tells Perrin that the soldiers he's with right now "are not your pack". While he could be talking about the wolves, of course, I feel like, as a viewer, that makes me think of the EF5 and how that's who Perrin belongs with right now. Especially after Perrin's letter talking about how he feels 'exposed' without the others around. Again, it gives me the hope that we'll get more moments of reconnection between the EF5 over the course of the show.

16. This moment with Verin is such a great one to look at knowing the truth of her situation. "Even oaths have loopholes one can exploit". She's the expert at it. Oaths are a bit of a minor theme in this episode and the next -- the loopholes and also, next episode, we're introduced to the Seanchan oaths where Perrin is, I assume, going to take the very reasonable position that a forced oath is not binding (which is the same position that Mat had in Winter's Heart but inexplicably abandoned in Crossroads of Twilight when he decided his accidental wedding vows were binding).

Oh! I knew I remembered hearing the words "Toman Head" in these three episodes but hadn't remembered it was Verin mentioning it! I thought it was noted as part of the Dark Prophecies but it's mentioned here as mainline prophecy. But the name is out there now. And this conversation also confirms "sword of flame" and "battle in the sky" for the finale, most likely, and a mention of a "branded hand" which feels like it confirms the herons. I wonder if Rand is going to use the same weave on his dad's sword that we saw Verin using at the end of the last episode for Tomas's sword. This may also mean that it's using that weave that burns the herons into Rand's palms?

17. The Rand and Lanfear scenes. Wow! But, yeah, I wonder how much her non-reaction to his bloody knuckles struck show-onlys. She doesn't ask him what happened, who he beat up. She just kisses his bloody knuckles and sweet-talks him into bed.

18. So far, we've heard/seen three separate form of violent teaching in the White Tower -- the unnamed woman who beat Moiraine to make her channel (likely Elaida); Liandrin's behavior with Nynaeve; and Sheriam telling Elayne that she'll be switched. Both Liandrin and Sheriam, of course, are Black Ajah. But from Egwene's reaction here, it doesn't seem like being ordered to be switched is anything close to the common punishment that it seemed to be in the books. But we'll see!

19. It does occur to me that Gawyn (maybe Galad too) might already have been in training with the Warders even if Elayne wasn't a novice yet -- Elayne has been spending her summers in the Tower and it's entirely possible that Gawyn's training to protect her meant he was sent off early to start learning from the best. We don't get any hints in this episode or the next about her brothers, but we're pretty focused on her developing friendship with Egwene.

20. "Min is in Tar Valon" and "Min and Mat share a plotline" were my two most hoped-for options for Min's storyline for this season, so I'm happy about that. I do wish that Min had been given a chance to bond with Elayne or Egwene but, hopefully, there will be time for that later. But I really love the set-up we've been given where we are going to explore Elayne with Egwene and Nynaeve; Min being more fully-explored with Mat; and then Aviendha when she enters Perrin's storyline. All of them are getting fleshed out as individual characters before any of them get romantically involved with Rand. I am feeling pretty hopeful that we're going to get our polycule (and a genuine polycule, not a harem) in the upcoming seasons. They've been putting in a lot of "poly relationships are valid and complex" groundwork in and it looks like they are going to be making sure that all of the characters involved get to be full characters who have their own agendas and their own arcs.

Some people on reddit are still pretty disappointed that Min isn't the male-gaze fantasy that she is in the later books but I have been thrilled with the changes that the show has done so far with her. We also maybe get a hint here that Min is going to be canonically bisexual by the way she jokes about Liandrin, so I will cross my fingers on that.

20. Min's viewing! I do love that they're massively cutting down on the number of Min's viewings to focus on ones that are interesting and relevant. This one is particularly interesting because there's nothing like it in the books. Mat stabbing Rand, then cradling him as he falls.

Theory #1: this is a flicker-flicker world (maybe we only get one big one?) and it's not Our Mat stabbing Our Rand but an alternate one.

Theory #2: Rand asks Mat to fulfill his promise to keep Rand from going mad and that's why Mat stabs him.

Theory #3: Rand loses control of himself (like Lady Amalisa in 1x8) and Mat stabs him to try to get him to lose his hold on the One Power.

Theory #4: Mat gets placed under compulsion (which would be another reason for him to want protection from Aes Sedai and channeling).

Theory #5: Mat gets The Dagger again and he's the one who gives Rand the wound in his side, while under its influence.

Theory #6: It's metaphorical and Mat takes the place of Alivia and helps Rand 'die' at the end of the series (seems unlikely but I'll throw it out there).

And probably lots of other things I haven't thought of. But it definitely shakes Min to see it.

I wonder if she only agreed to help Liandrin after this moment or if she'd already agreed and this is just additional incentive. I don't think she's told Liandrin anything about Rand. She was able to keep that secret from Moiraine even under blackmail so I think she kept it from Liandrin too.

But I do love that we get a viewing that connects Mat and Rand together, even if it's through a traumatic encounter. I am a simple soul who finds messiness intriguing.

21. Lanfear! Talking about her broken heart to the man who broke it and who she is, even now, doing her best to groom back into the man that she wants. The layers in this conversation are exquisite. When she tells him that he can't hurt her, she also can say that because she has a strong grasp of what she can do with the Power while he's still stumbling in the dark. Ooof, but Rand was (unknowingly) on risky ground when he confirmed that he does sometimes think of his past when he's with her.

Also, talking about how "no one else" could ever have power over her heart now that her previous lover is gone... when she's literally talking to his reincarnation. The conversation is just so rich and so sharp and there's so much of it that is going over Rand's head because he doesn't have the necessary information to even begin to put the pieces together. "What's left to hurt if he still has my whole heart?" she says, to the guy in question. "When I'm with you, I can pretend you're him." YEAH. I BET YOU CAN.

22. So I wonder if Moiraine's threat here to Lan, that she would let Alanna take his bond if he didn't let her leave on her own, is going to be the extent of the "Myrelle" plot point that Alanna absorbs and it won't actually happen in fact. But now it's out there as an idea that Warders can be forcibly bonded so that when Alanna forcibly bonds someone else down the road, the idea isn't coming out of nowhere.

23. I was so shocked when the Seanchan attacked in episode two. I was thinking this would happen in episode five. But once I sat down and thought about it, I realizes that Perrin has already hit all the main points of the Hunt for the Horn storyline on his side of things (and even partly on what Rand would have been doing). We've found the traitor and had Ingtar reveal his sympathy towards said traitor; we've found the Fade and the moment when Fain started playing by his own rules; and we've even been exploring Perrin and his senses. This does mean that we're going to have a lot of potential time to explore the Seanchan invasion and culture.

24. I don't have any issues with Ishamael openly being Suroth's advisor vs someone covertly giving Suroth her marching orders. High Lady Suroth is a Darkfriend and always was. We're just taking it out of the shadows and showing it openly to the viewers (and Perrin).

I do wonder if Perrin specifically seeing the Shadow and the Seanchan so entwined will have an impact on his later storylines. That I wonder about. But the later books were, tbh, really weird about how low-impact the Falme encounter ended up being in the long run for pretty much everyone except Egwene. Min basically forgets she knows anything about the Seanchan even when that information could help Rand, everyone forgets about the environment of paranoia and fear that the Seanchan created in Falme, etc. There's a lot of weird forgetfulness going around, especially in CoT & KoD, when Jordan wanted to sell us on his slaver romance.

(the way that the show has been improving characters like Min and relationships like Rand/Lanfear does give me a lot of hope in how they will handle Tuon and the Mat & Tuon 'romance' and that they'll make it better than the poorly-written dumpster fire that it is in CoT & KoD)

[itsohh]

The Engagement

A/N: Female reader, I’m calling them parts even though its a series and not a multichapter fic. Feels good to write some angst. Floreance and the Machine was good. Encore was the best part of the concert ngl.

Summary: In the middle of a mission, Simon picks properly the worst possible time to ask you a rather important question. 

Word count:  1519

Warnings: Angst, injury

AO3 Masterlist Series Masterlist

Sometimes missions went well, all according to plan with little problems. Quick and easy. In and out. Five minutes gain intel, kill some people and get out. In other cases, things went poorly. Intel could be wrong, there could be more people than expected. There had been the odd time that the blueprints supplied were out of date. Unfortunately for you, out of those two options, this situation was the latter.

Communication was hard it hear, static breaking through every order, every command. Only the briefest of words could be heard through them. Jammers. "Captain?" Gaz's voice was a shout next to you and although you heard him next to you, his voice never came through the com.

"What do we do now?" He turned to you, keeping an eye on your combined surroundings. Cover allowed the pair of you to talk.

"The missions a bust, fuck. We have to hope that Soap managed to complete it. For now, we head to extraction."

"Copy."

Gunfire consumed the air and slowly but surely the pair of you made decent time to the extraction point. It was certainly far too hot for a proper extraction but you had hoped that the others would at least regroup with you there. When you neared a crackling broke through your communications and you heard the sound of your Captain's voice.

"Captain!" You ducked down behind cover, Gaz following your lead. "Captain, can you hear me?"

"--- Copy --- Gaz?"

"With me."

"Good --- extraction --- Ghost --- hurt --- south ---"

"Negative sir, repeat?"

"--- Half a klick southwest --- extraction---" With a roar of buzzing the Captain went silent.

"Captain? Captain?" No reply.

Scoped in, Gaz peaked over your cover to examine the estimated location that Price had spoken. "It's on the other side of this hill, if we can get to it the hill will act as cover for a heli." You nodded at the man.

"Right, let's get to extraction then."

If one thing could go right it was probably the best thing that could go right. Just as Gaz had said, on the other side of the hill a chopper lay in wait. The pilot was there with another person next to him.

"Good to see the pair of you. Was a mission on its own trying to get ahold of anyone." The pilot welcomed the pair of you aboard.

"Yeah, there's a bunch of interference, we think someone is jamming." Gaz spoke while the pair of you attached yourselves to a tether.

"Have you heard from any of the others?" You leaned over the seat slightly to look through the front of the helicopter.

"Negative, not since we had the initial call."

"Shit, any exspected ETA?"

"Negative again Doctor. We have cover here for extraction but I doubt for long."

"Hey, I think I can see them!" Gaz's voice had you snap back and look through the open side. Two figures were tight together while another covered their back. A few blinks and you were able to make out how Ghost leaned on Soap while Price was behind them. Right away from the posture, you could tell that Ghost was injured.

"Fuck!" Immediately you started to prepare. Scissors and emergency bandages were pulled out of your medic pack while your mind turned fully into medical care mode as Gaz and Soap helped Ghost into the chopper. "Lie him down, Gaz strap his leg in. Exit wound Soap? Any other wounds?"

"Negative, still in his lower torso. He's lost a lot of blood." True to his words, blood covered Ghost's shoulder and chest as well as his hands and Soap. "It went right through his vest. Sniper."

"Help me get him out of it. I can't see with it on."

"On it." Like a well-oiled machine, the pair of you removed his vest and you promptly started to cut away his shirt underneath.

"Bullets still inside Ghost, don't know how deep but I need to stop this blood flow." Your focus was completely on your partner- no, patient. So much so that you didn't notice the chopper lift off the ground or Price's concerned gaze. Light strained gasps were muffled through his mask were all that he could manage to get out.

"What I'm going to do is wrap you up okay? Going to stop that blood flow so we can operate when we have more blood." You tore your eyes off him to glance at Soap. "Help me angle him for a second. This needs to go around him." Something akin to a groan rumbled from Ghost’s body as the pair of you lift him off the ground slightly, just enough for you to slip the bandage around him. There was a sudden movement from Ghost as his hand snapped out and wrapped itself around Soap's wrist. “It’s okay Ghost, we will put you down in a second.”

Yet Ghost didn’t let go. “Lay him back down.” Your eyes could only afford to dart between the two men for a second, needing to secure the bandage. With what little strength Ghost had, he pulled Soap's hand towards his chest, their eyes having a conversation.

“Don’t tell me you actually…” When Ghost didn’t let go of the man, Soap let out a curse under his breath and his hand went to the front pocket of his pushed-aside vest.

“John?” Eyes flashing up you gave him a confused look.

“This- he.” Soap swallowed and opened the small box and there sat a metal band. A small simple ring with engraving on the inside. “He wants to marry you.” What. You froze for a second. Simon was asking you to marry him? Your mind was transported back to when the pair of you had been joking about it, just months ago. A hypothetical he wished to make into a reality. He wanted you to be with him for the rest of his life, someone to love and cherish. To spend every waking moment by your side. That fact circled in your mind. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with you.

...

The rest of his ever-shortening dying life! You snapped out of your frozen daze, wide eyes as you forced yourself into your focused state again. Any longer could have killed him.

“Are you serious Simon? No. I’m not accepting a proposal from Soap.” You pulled the bandage sight and finished securing it. “Do you think my medical skills are that piss poor that you're going to fucking die? No, you're living Simon and then you can ask me yourself.” Your voice hissed, passion in your eyes. There was anger but not an anger that could be described as mad. You were scared, terrified of losing him. Simon was acting like he was already gone, that this was his final moments. There would be no tomorrow. No more waking up in his arms, no more cheeky dark jokes under his breath. No more late nights watching the world go by. No more holidays together, warm and safe in the comfort of your shared bath. No more staring into those beautiful and expressive brown eyes of his.

Yet you couldn't accept that. Couldn't accept what he had decided. You hadn't spent all those years becoming a doctor only for the most important person in your life to die in your hands. He would live, he would see tomorrow. He would ask you to marry him with his own mouth, in the privacy of each other's company. Mask removed and smile full of heart. Simon would be there at the end of the aisle and Price would deliver you to him.

Gaz would cry and Soap would tease him but follow suit. Simon would retire with you every night after. Right there at your side. Exhausted but happy to be in each other's company. Perhaps one day in the future one of you would go on a mission and never return or perhaps the pair of you would grow old together, retire and be a pair of grumpy old people, still so in love after so long of life together. Yet he didn't think that dream would come true. Simon thought he was going to die here. But no he wouldn't, you had decided he was going to live and god help anyone who implied otherwise.

Ghost's body shook, just a tad. Barely noticeable at all and for a second your eyes scanned for any other wound that you had missed. That was until you realised he was laughing. The hand that had previously been around Soap's wrist, reached for you. His blood-stained gloves graced your face, a kiss of contact. One that stained your face crimson with his fleeting life. And he continued to shake, continue to laugh. Expresion hidden away behind his mask but with eyes so gentle and full of kindness. A look only ever reserved for the pair of you. Laughing ever so slightly as his eyes slowly closed and didn't open up.

[worldsokayestdragon]

GreedxLing Week Day 7: Campfire

Read here on AO3

Greed had never been camping before, because why the fuck would he? He demanded the finer things in life, and leaving your nice bed behind to sleep in the dirt in the woods was not one of the finer things.

Now he was stuck on an involuntary camping trip for months and months. All the way until the promised day, which wouldn't be until spring! It had been a week, and Greed was already sick of it. The ground was too hard to sleep on comfortably, the forrest was full of weird noises, and it got colder every night. Greed was pretty sure even people who like camping didn't do it over winter unless they were actually insane.

The people Greed was with were definitely insane.

Darius and Heinkle insisted that it wasn't that bad and it "built character." Greed had plenty of character, and it was that bad! Just because some people could grow fur coats on command didn't mean they all could.

Ed also said it wasn't that bad, and it was colder in Briggs. (fucking good for Briggs then, what did that have to do with Greed?) Ed also said that his teacher had sent him on a way worse camping trip when he was nine, and that he and his brother had ended up having fun by the end of it.

Fucking insane.

Ling also told Greed it wasn't that bad and he should stop complaining, but Ling was getting a free ride in Greed's head and didn't actually have to do any of the camping shit himself, so what did he know?

Greed was the leader of this little camping trip, so he had to stay present for it. No matter how much he hated it or how little he knew about "finding a good location" or "setting up a halfway decent campsite" or "tying the food up properly so it wouldn't attract wild animals, that's just common sense Greed, what's wrong with you?”

Animals didn't like to get close to homunculi or chimera anyway, so what was the big deal if he didn't want to climb halfway up a tree to store all their shit?

So Greed was the leader, but a leader didn't do all the work. He was more than happy to let the others make handle the minutia of day to day tasks and let him focus on the bigger picture. A good leader delegated.

And somehow he still ended up left in charge of building the campfire while the chimeras went on a supply run to a nearby town. Something about Ed and Greed not knowing how to be subtle or blend in. As if two giants blended in any better. But whatever, that town was too dinky to have anything worth Greed's time anyway.

That didn't explain why Ed couldn't light the damn fire, but the alchemist insisted he needed to "check their course," which just looked like wandering around to stare at the sky and check both sides of random trees, and occasionally making marks on a map.

Ling said what he was doing made sense, and Greed didn't actually know enough about maps to dispute it.

So Greed was left with a pile of wood, another pile of little sticks and dead leaves, and a box of matches. He had very little clue what to do with any of it.

You've been camping before, right? Greed asked Ling. On your way across the desert from Xing or whatever. Can't you do this?

Ling shook his head, or did the mental equivalent of shaking his head anyway. Greed could always tell even without turning his attention inwards towards Ling's soul projection, though it wasn't a sensation he'd know how to describe to anyone.

There isn't a lot by way of firewood in the desert. And it got cold at night, but it was still summer. We mostly just slept close together. The few times we did manage a fire, Fu and Lan Fan took care of it. Sorry.

He did actually sound a little sorry, which was decent of him. There was a reason Greed didn't mind having Ling around.

Greed groaned. ugh, fine. I guess I'll do it. I can totally do it.

Of course you can, Ling said, very matter of factly. We've watched Ed do it enough times. We can figure it out easily.

Right, Greed nodded and reached to pick up a branch. How hard can it be? Ed does it.

That startled a laugh out of Ling, an undignified snort that probably couldn't be considered quite proper for a prince.

Don't let him hear you say that. We'll have to sit through a whole rant about how he's a genius and none of us are on his level.

Yeah, that would be a pain, Greed said. But this really shouldn't be too hard. You just stack the big ones in a sort of a triangle shape and put the little bits inside and then light the inside first, right?

That sounds right to me. Ling agreed.

Right. That's easy.

Greed set to work.

It was not, in fact, easy. A sort of triangle shape was not an intuitive way to stack wood. The whole thing kept tipping over and collapsing into a big jumble.

By the fifth try Greed was growling to himself and barely resisting the urge to go find Ed and throw one of those stupid sticks at his head for making Greed do this.

Maybe I should try? Ling suggested. I probably have a more steady hand from all the swordfighting.

No, Greed snapped, glaring daggers at the stick pile as he started over. I will not be beat by a stupid heap of dead tree parts! I'm gonna enjoy lighting this shit on fire. It fell over again. Oh god damnit!

Oh-kay, Ling said slowly. You do it then. I think you almost got it a few tries ago. Just take a deep breath before you start over. It will only be harder if you're angry.

It'Ll OnLy Be HaRdEr If YoU'rE aNgRy, Greed repeated.

That was probably unfair. Ling had offered to help.

Greed took a deep breath before he tried again.

It took three more attempts for Greed to successfully arrange the large branches in a loose approximation of a campfire shape.

Greed used one of the matches to light a long, thin stick on fire and poked it through into the pile of twigs and leaves inside his branch pyramid. After a few long, nerve wracking seconds, the fire spread and the whole structure went up in flames.

It didn't burn as steadily or as brightly as the ones Ed made.

It's a little lopsided– Ling started to say.

It's on fire, isn't it? Greed interrupted. He was not in the mood for criticism right now. Whataya want from me?

You didn't let me finish, Ling said calmly. I was going to say that it looks good for your first time doing it. I don't think I could do better.

Oh. Now Greed felt kinda bad for jumping down Ling's throat. Well, thanks. I–

"You call that a campfire?" Ed tromped back into the clearing they were staying in and threw himself down across the fire from Greed. "It looks like crap."

He is such an asshole, Ling sighed.

"It's a fire. It's in the camp. It's a campfire. Now shut up about it unless you want me to set you on fire too."

Ed looked like he wasn't going to shut up about it, and Greed could feel Ling getting ready to beg him to let it go and not argue with the stupid runt no matter how much of an insubordinate little shit he was being, but Darius and Heinkle chose that moment to show up.

"The fire looks–" Greed glared at Darius. "...fine and normal."

“No it doesn't,” Ed said and ignored Greed glaring daggers at his head.

"Anyway," Heinkle cut through the tension. "The store in town was having a sale, so we got a little something special for tonight." He set down the bags of food he was carrying and started digging through one of them.

"I didn't say you could spend our money on unnecessary crap," Greed pointed out. Really no one was respecting his leadership tonight.

Don't you want henchmen who are smart and capable enough not to have to bother you about every little thing? Ling asked.

He did want that. Damnit.

"Whatever, it's fine. What did you get?"

Heinkle found what he was looking for in the bags and held up a few bars of chocolate, a box of some sort of crackers, and a bag of marshmallows.

"Oh, nice!" Ed said. "I haven't had s'mores since me and Al were little."

"Some more of what?" Greed asked.

All three of them turned to stare at him.

"You've never had a s'more?" Ed yelled. He sounded personally offended by the idea. "You're like 200 years old! How is that even possible?"

Do you know what he's talking about? Greed asked Ling.

Ling shrugged. No idea. Must be an Amestran thing.

Ed stomped over to dig through the pile of extra firewood, returning with a handful of particularly long thin sticks. He shoved one into Greed's hand.

"Here! Stick a marshmallow on this and hold it over the fire," he instructed.

Greed magnanimously didn't point out how rude it was of Ed to talk to his leader like that, because he was a great guy like that. And because he was really curious about these so-called s'mores by now. (Also, in the last week he'd been told no fewer than six times to "talk to Colonel Bastard if you want to know how I talk to a leader I'm disrespecting," and Ed did generally go along with what Greed told him even if he was a little shit about it.)

Greed stuck a marshmallow to the end of the stick and held it in the fire.

It immediately burst into flames, burning to a blackened lump as Greed watched.

"Now what?"

"Try holding it a little further from the flames this time," Darius suggested, handing him a new stick and marshmallow.

Ed shook his head. "No, setting it on fire is good, you just don't sit there like a dumbass and watch it burn after." He deliberately stuck his into the fire then quickly blew it out. "Faster that way."

Greed decided to go with what Darius said and held his second marshmallow above the fire until it turned brown around the edges and threatened to fall off of its stick. Then, copying what he'd seen Ed do, he put it between two of the crackers with a piece of chocolate and took a bite.

It was hot enough to be just on the edge of burning the crap out of his mouth, and also a total mess, marshmallow and melted chocolate squishing out from the sides as he bit down.

It was also really fucking good.

Greed tried not to react to the delicious taste, not wanting to give Ed the satisfaction.

Judging from the smug smile on Ed's face, he didn't quite succeed.

"So, do you like it?" Ed asked.

"It's fine," Greed sniffed, and then took another bite because it really was amazing.

Ed snorted a laugh, but kindly didn't rub it in Greed's face any more than that. He also didn't say anything when Greed reached for another marshmallow to make a second one.

It does look good, Ling said, a little wistfully.

Do you want to try?

Really?

Ling sounded pleased and awed in a way that made Greed's face burn for some reason.

Yeah, if you want. It's not a big deal, Greed muttered, and then switched places with Ling before he could answer.

"Ling?" Ed asked, somehow noticing instantly. "What are you–"

Ling completely ignored the Fullmetal Alchemist in favor of eating their second s'more.

It tasted even better than the first one, filtered through Ling's perception where Greed settled in the back of their mind.

After they'd finished their s'mores and–at Heinkle's insistence–eaten some real food, Greed and Ling got volunteered for first watch, even though they'd done all the work setting up the campsite. Ling didn't argue their case as hard as Greed would have, and Greed didn't care enough to push his way back into control of the body over it. He'd take over again in the morning.

The fire went out an hour before they were supposed to wake Ed for his watch shift.

Ling took his turn lighting it, and it went much better with Greed's now expert advice. They both agreed that the others didn't need to know about that.

[dedalvs]

This is super random and I’m not sure how to word this but I just discovered your tumblr page and you seem really kind & thoughtful when interacting with asks so I thought why not ask:

I’ve taken two linguistics courses - one was an intro course and the other was a psychology of language course. I currently am finishing my masters in Forensic Psychology and to this day those were the hardest classes and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. I will say I’m monolingual (not intentionally) but I struggle to learn another language. I will also mention while I don’t need a hearing device of any kind sometimes I feel like I can’t understand people without subtitles. And I certainly can’t watch media without subtitles. (I don’t know if this is relevant)

Essentially, is there hope for someone like me? Either in managing a cursory understanding of linguistics and/or another language?

P.S. I definitely don’t understand everything you did with the languages you created (eg High Valyrian) but holy shit it’s extremely badass! Ok bye!

Well first, you don't have to study linguistics or another language. We only have so much time. Focus on what you love and what makes you happy.

Second, studying linguistics is different from studying a language. A large percentage of linguists are monolingual. Analyzing a language is far different from being able to use and understand it. Great example. I understand the game of chess very well. I know all the pieces, all the moves, all the secret moves, I understand strategies very well when I read them on paper—but I SUUUUUUUUUUUUCK at chess. On the set of Bright, a couple of the PAs started playing chess on this chess app. I played against this one dude in particular and lost 117 consecutive times before I beat him. After that I still only won one out of every 15-20 games. It is just not my bag. Doesn't mean I can't appreciate it or understand it, though. Linguistics can actually be quite freeing, since you can study language without having the added pressure of having to learn the language. Linguistics may still not be your thing, but it has absolutely no relation to studying languages.

Third, regarding language study, not everyone learns the same. Maybe a classroom isn't your thing. There's always studying by a book, there's Duolingo, or there's just plunking on some anime in Japanese with the subtitles on and trying your best to understand what's said, bit by bit, little by little, then maybe going without the subtitles eventually—starting with stuff you know well, and moving on. There are many different ways to learn a language. The one constant is you need to engage with the language every single day. That's more important than anything else: Constant exposure.

Finally, remember that we are four dimensional beings—that is, we are located both in 3D space and in time. Just because something doesn't make sense to you at 20 doesn't mean it won't at 30. At a different age you have a lot more experience, and may come with a different perspective. If language is something that interests you, you can always come back to it later—and that goes for everything.

Hope that helps! Most important thing is not to stress. Stress inhibits learning and growth. If you don't get something right now, it's no big deal. You may get it later; you may not. The important thing is you're still you, and that's a pretty great thing to be.

[fuck-customers]

fuck corporate. i work in a cafe inside a larger store, and we've been undergoing renovations since i started back in september. a few months ago the new cafe was finished, so we were moved to the new location within the store. not that bad, still close to where we were before, everything's great.

except when renovations for the new cafe were almost finished, we found out it was going to be smaller than the old cafe (which was already small). way less storage space, less space for us, overall just fucking tiny. but we figured, okay, it could be worse, we can make it work.

but then we started at the new cafe, and things started breaking. the nitro machine's longest streak of working days in a row is about two. it's broken a whopping 95% of the time. (why the hell did higher ups decide we need the damn thing when maybe one person a month even asks if we sell nitro??? i can count on one hand the amount of nitro coffees we've sold since we got that machine)

one of the espresso machines broke only a week in, and after it got fixed the steam wand was still broken, and a week ago we just shut the whole machine off. so now we're down to one working espresso machine, and this is HELL especially on days like saturday and sunday when we have huge lines of people.

only one of our cold brew machines was working from the beginning of this whole mess, and then about a month and a half ago the other one broke too. so now we're using this old toddy in the back that just doesnt work nearly as well and is a pain to drain into the pitchers.

on top of all this our oven and blenders broke about a month or so ago, so we had a solid week where we could basically only sell hot bar drinks, refreshers, and brewed teas/coffees. it was such a nightmare.

and to cap it all off we have two registers that only partially work. the new card reader at the new register has a broken chip reader, so we use the old one, whose card reader touch screen isnt working a solid 85% of the time and we have to tell EVERY CUSTOMER to please use the pen to select an option on the screen to pay because for some reason we're not allowed to put a note on the reader that the touch screen isnt working.

i miss the old cafe so much. i actually enjoyed working there!! but now everything's broken all the time, it's too goddamn small to fit everything we need, let alone EVERYONE, and i miss my friends from other departments i barely see anymore because of the location we were moved to.

and no one higher up seems to even give a shit about any of this. i talked to our regional manager when he stopped in the other day and told him we were really struggling with everything breaking, and he just told me "well, you can file a work order".

first of all, no i can't, because no one fucking teaches us how to do that in the first place. would certainly be nice if i could! second, we keep having people in to fix all this shit, and it just breaks again within a day or two. and then it takes a week AT LEAST for someone to come in again to fix it.

i used to enjoy this job, but now its such a nightmare. i'm really tempted to switch to another department but i'm not sure if it would be worth it since i'm probably leaving in a few months anyway.

Posted by admin Rodney.

[youngpettyqueen]

Hi! I'm back and saw the bad injury prompts you reblogged. 👀 Could you please do "I can't feel my legs" with Julian saying it? ❤️

thank you for your patience!! its been. a wild week. but I finally have the energy to sit and get this written out. ive been pondering it all week hehe

I went through a couple ideas before I settled on doing a missing scene style of thing set in The Siege of AR-558. this is set after battle, but before the conversation we see between Sisko and Worf right at the very end. ive talked about it on this blog before but it makes me absolutely feral that Julian gets shot and just. gets up and keeps going. forever chewing on that but I digress ill save my insane rambling for the tags

I hope you enjoy! I like writing Julian and Worf a lot, and I hope you enjoy reading them <3

Doctor Bashir can be a very difficult man to find.

Worf isn't surprised. This is a battlefield in its aftermath, naturally a doctor would be difficult to locate, especially one as quick and efficient as Julian. He stops to ask a few people who look to have been treated, and they all give generally the same answer; that they just saw him, and he went over that way.

Worf follows the general direction of all the pointing, and he finds himself in a tunnel leading to another part of the caverns. He starts to walk through, figuring he'll find the elusive doctor on the other side, where other wounded surely lie.

Instead he damn near trips over him.

Worf thinks it's a rock, or a dropped weapon, at first. But then, as he's taking a second to regain his balance, he hears a low, quiet groan. He looks down, expecting to find a wounded officer, and that's exactly what he finds.

Except the wounded officer is none other than Doctor Bashir.

Julian is half-concealed by the shadows, tucked right up against the tunnel wall and lying flat on his stomach. One arm is outstretched, like he was reaching for the other side, while he has his face buried in the crook of the other elbow. Worf had tripped over one of his legs, which is bent at the knee, like he'd fallen mid-step.

Worf drops to a crouch beside him. "Doctor Bashir," He says, but gets no response, "Doctor, can you hear me?" He places a firm hand on the doctor's shoulder, in case the touch might rouse him.

Julian flinches under his hand. Then he stirs, and he lifts his head, trembling with the effort of it. "Worf...?" He looks up at him, eyes squinted in the dark.

"Yes, Doctor," Worf replies, "What happened? Are you injured?" He questions.

Julian's head drops back against his arm, but he keeps it turned so that he's still facing Worf. "'Fraid so," He grimaces, "I was... I was shot. My side..." He manages to give a weak, indicative nod.

Worf nods. "I will assist you," He tells him. He gets a hold of Julian and, carefully, he maneuvers him onto his back. Julian grabs onto his arm, and there's a surprising strength to his grip. A strangled sound of pain escapes him, grinding out through tightly-clenched teeth. Worf can feel him trembling still, so he pulls him a bit closer, supports the doctor's weight against his own body, "Try to hold still. I must see the wound."

Julian nods wordlessly. He faces the pain well. It's difficult to make out, in the dark, but there's just enough light from the tunnel's exit for Worf to be able to see the large hole burnt away from Julian's uniform jacket. It's burnt right through, both jacket and undershirt gone, leaving raw, angry skin exposed to the dusty air of these caverns. He can see the glisten of blood, can feel it saturating the jacket as he places a bracing hand by the wound.

It's bleeding badly. Julian will have already lost a lot of blood, he needs to slow it until he can get him to one of the medical officers. He shifts his hand over and presses it firmly against the wound, and he keeps a firm grip on the doctor as his entire body jolts with the action. Julian continues to face the pain bravely, turning his face into Worf's chest and screaming against his teeth.

There's a part of him that threatens to get very, very angry at seeing Julian wounded. There's no honour in harming a healer, even some of the most bloodthirsty Klingons he's known would spit at the idea. It's an instinctual reaction, one he has to bite back. He has to remind himself that Julian was here not only as a doctor, but also as an officer. He was wounded as a warrior on the battlefield.

"I don't- I don't think I like that look, Commander." Julian wheezes, his weak voice drawing Worf back out of his thoughts. He's managing a small smile, teasing and boyish even in agony, but it's clear that he's struggling.

"The wound is severe," Worf replies. He doesn't see the point in trying to soften that information, he's sure that Julian, as a doctor, is all too aware of his current condition, "Why did you not seek medical assistance?" He asks.

"Didn't realize it was... this bad," Julian rasps, "My brain does this... funny thing, where I'll see people who need me, and... and nothing else really matters," He rests his head against Worf's chest, his throat bobbing as he swallows hard. He looks nauseous, his brow pinched tight and sweat glistening on his forehead, "I hardly felt it till I collapsed." He manages to finish.

"I fail to see how that is funny," Worf gruffs, "Your dedication to your patients is admirable, Doctor. But now, it is you who requires assistance. Are you able to stand?" He asks.

Julian shakes his head. "No, I... I can't," He replies honestly, "I'm... afraid I can't feel my legs, Commander." He admits.

"Then you will be carried," Worf adjusts his hold, gets an arm under Julian's knees and pulls him against his chest. He pushes himself up with ease, the doctor's weight inconsequential as he cradles him securely, "Hold on, Doctor." He instructs.

Julian's arms come up to wrap around his neck. His head drops against Worf's shoulder, his face half-buried in his neck. He can feel Julian's shallow, quick breathing against his skin. He doesn't have time to waste.

Worf sets off, ducking out of the tunnel and moving into the next open cavern. With the injured doctor in his arms, he makes a brisk pace as he seeks out the first medical officer he can find.

[paullovescomics]

Star Trek The Next Generation Gulliver's Fugitives

Spoilers. Not a very serious review. This is the 11th TNG novel, published in 1990.

The Enterprise investigates the disappearance of another Starfleet vessel, the Huxley, whose last known location was within a nebula. These dang nebulas, y'all. Ships always getting lost in them. Turns out there is a pre-Federation human colony on a planet in that nebula, and it has devolved into a fascist state that outlaws all forms of fiction. Not gonna lie, i skimmed a lot of this because that's not the kind of world i want to read about right now.

When contact is made, a few representatives of this planet are beamed aboard. That's fine, but the colonists also manage to get some of their floating robot enforcers onboard, and these things are pretty much invulnerable. They can read humans' minds, so they know when you're about to shoot them. They shoot radiation that kinda boils your brain. Picard is kidnapped and taken to the surface. Ultimately, the assholes on this planet want to destroy the Enterprise so they don't spread any "fictions" about interstellar travel, aliens, or other ways of life being okay.

You might think the crew of the Enterprise could deal with the robots fairly quickly, but no, it takes them most of the novel to figure out a solution. They can't read Data's mind, or Worf's (because they've only had exposure to humans til now), so maybe send the non-human security officers, or whip up some drones with guns in the replicators? Which makes me ask a question I often ask while watching or reading Trek: why don't these people use robots or drones or droids like, hardly ever? You could save a few ships from getting lost in crazy nebulas, for one thing. Oh well. Trek universe just doesn't like robots.

There is s resistance on the colony planet, and the too small and under-armed away team gets mixed up with them. Well, Troi does. Riker and Data get captured. Some of these folks are cool. They take on identities of fictional (mostly mythical) characters.

This book introduces a couple of new characters that are given pretty full backstories, enough so that I had to double check the Memory Alpha and Beta websites to make sure they weren't from TV episodes I'd just forgotten. (I've seen all of TNG, but those early episodes don't stick in my mind very well.) But no, they are new. The author just went the extra mile to flesh them out a bit. Makes you wonder if he planned to bring these characters back in later novels, but apparently that did not happen.

Anyway, things eventually work out, and we get the sense that big changes are about to happen on this planet, and nobody from the Enterprise had to violate the Prime Directive to accomplish that. Picard and the away team are really put through the ringer, with mind-wipes and coming within seconds of being executed. Those kind of stakes always feel weird in tie-in fiction, because on one level you feel the threat, but on another level, you know tie-in fiction isn't allowed to change the main characters. So do you play along with it, or do you question it? Creates an odd tension in the old brain.

If you really like early TNG and you dig tie-in novels, you'll probably have fun with this one. These books are still in a lot of used book stores, and still in decent shape despite being thirty freaking years old.

Live long and prosper, folks.

[soupedepates]

Antonina belongs to @noa-de-cajou

People tend to remember me, for I am the goth mommy working in retail in two different locations. I need the two incomes to have a good life for my son. Even if Idalia is paying child support, life is still pretty expensive, and young kids grow up really fast. And I grew up on hand-me-downs from my mother, from the Lupsowiec, from the neighbours... which is mad cheap and convenient, but clearly, it did impact me in the wrong way. I just want the best for Dmitry.

My superiors know I am a single mother. Well, everyone knows that. My manager at one store is...

Yeah.

I know why I called a Uber just to make sure he won't follow me. He's been getting handsy these days. And I can't disappear because, you see, I am the goth mommy working in retail. I can't lie low and I catch the eye.

And people don't care about me because I am the goth single mommy working in retail. Colleagues and clients alike. I might be "asking for it", who knows. I...

I do look like I am an easy prey.

Perhaps because I am.

No, no, Tekla, don't think like that.

You don't deserve that.

"You're a wonder and a queen, and I will destroy anyone who dares to look at you. You're mine, and I will protect you." Fuck, get out of my head. It's been 4 years and you're with another, and this woman is a fucking patron saint to put up with your bullshit.

Still, it was easier to hide behind you.

Thanks heaven here's my Uber.

I send Zuza a text to tell her I will be late picking up Dima at her place. I prefer dealing with her, bless her heart, than with my ex. Then, I get into the car.

"Can you please drive around for a bit?" I ask, looking anxiously at my manager staring at me through the window.

"......Tekla? Tekla, from middle school, 6e A, 5e D, 4e C, 3e A?"

I look at my driver in disbelief. These green eyes and this fair hair. This tired face.

"Tonia? My God, it's you???"

"It is!" she smiles before she turns the engine on. "Oh my, it's been a while... Since the end of middle school, right?"

"Yeah!" I take a moment to observe her driving. "You seem to have a lot figured out, Tonia, woah."

"Eh, I'm not sure."

"You look way less gloomy."

"Still, I feel like my life is upside down", she chuckles. "How's life?"

"My manager is a creep and I'm a mother. You?"

"I'm a mother too, and a bad one at that."

"Why do you say that?"

"It's..." She hesitates, then sighs. "Nothing. I just feel like a bad mother."

"You're the sweetest girl I've ever met, you can't be a bad mother."

"...Yeah. Are you still with Efrém?"

Who? Oh. Yeah. Hm. I don't know how familiar Antonina is with the concept of transidentity. Well, not the first time I have to educate people on that.

"It's Idalia now."

"Always knew that kid was fruity", she smiles, giving me a giggle.

"We broke up four years ago. I'm going to her girlfriend's place to pick up my kid."

She looks at the address for a bit.

"That's funny because my midwife has been in this block since four years."

...Wait a damn minute.

"Is she, like, with a thick accent?"

"Yes she is."

"Is this Mrs Majak?"

"You know her?" She exclaims. "The Polish diaspora is quite tight-knit in this city. That's crazy when you think of it."

"You want tea? I have some to spill."

"Always," she twitters.

"Idalia cheated on me with your midwife and that's why we broke up."

"Noooooo."

"Yes," I assure. "And she now lives with her. It's been four years. My kid is at theirs. I am picking him up at theirs and your midwife is actually helping him doing his homework and brewing coffee for me."

She bursts out laughing at a stop sign before resuming her path. She seems like she needed that right now. Girlie is stressed out. Antonina has always been secretive, and I respect that. Least I can do is making her feel better for a while.

"Damn, and I'd rather sit and discuss with this woman than with my ex. You remember how she was in middle school? She didn't calm down at all! It got worse! Well, you know that the Lupsowiec have always been a handful but clearly, she is the worst of them..."

I chat and babble and talk and talk and talk to fill up the silence. When I stop, like on cue, she snorts or says "oh, really? That's crazy! Oh wow!". I think it temporarily alleviates her burden. Perhaps she needs to hear stupid ramblings. Just to feel less alone. I need that sometimes. She said she was a mother. It's kind of lonely to be a mother, and a single one at that. You need company. She can use some of that.

"Annnnd we're at destination", Antonina announces as she parks her vehicle.

"Thanks a lot, Tonia, that's an immediate 5-star," I smile. "Oh, and before I forget, please note my number. You should drop by sometimes, I'm a great cook and we have to catch up."

Her eyes sparkle.

"We sure have. See you soon, I guess?"

[hollownekomata]

Entry #3

"Diary.

There's nothing much to add today, except that I finally got to train with everybody else.

Regla is still sharp, but my sword skills are abysmal compared to those of these seasoned soldiers. I don't remember the last time I had to use her to fend off other hollows - when I became an Arrancar, way before Aizen started meddling with us, I maintained the exceptional hearing from when I was an Adjuchas, so I was always able to avoid trouble and locate small pray with minimal effort up to now.

But here I'm far behind everyone else, and it's evident. Doesn't help that I still can't look up to my opponent's face, all I could do is defend myself until I got cornered. My guard got broken and I fell. Some people laughed and others sighed; I heard someone say "I think Kyoraku got scammed with this one."

I guess the good part of this is that the constant fear is subsiding... in favor of shame. I don't know where this sprouts from, but... I want to be good at this. Commander Kyoraku sent me here for this. He said he trusted I'd adjust well to the Seireitei, given some time. Yet it's clear as day I'm not cut out to be a Cooperative Arrancar Unit.

Maybe that guy was right. Maybe the Captain Commander made a mistake and saw something in me that isn't there. I can't possibly be of help to Lieutenant Kira, though... I'd really like to.

Speaking of which, I managed to apologize to him for the other day. He said he figured I was a little lost and paid it no mind. I also apologized for my poor performance, and let slip that if he wished to he could send me away at any moment.

Then he asked if that was what I wanted.

...it's not. Hueco Mundo is 'familiar', that's for sure. If I was sent back there right now, I would surely find my way around again and start living my old life. Run, hide, catch that meager hollow lizard or mouse that can get me through the day, and go back to hiding. That would be easy to do.

But when the Lieutenant posed the question back at me, the first thing that came to mind was the birds, those I hear outside my room.

Hueco Mundo doesn't have that gentle sound that calms me down before the arrival of night. Just like it doesn't have the soft grass, or the pretty flowers marigolds that are grown in the 3rd Division's grounds. The sky there is a bleak reminder of how things will stay stagnant forever... here, it changes hue at each hour of the day - pink, blue, gray, orange, red.

I don't need any of that to survive, but the thought of going back to that bare dark place, full of dust and black blood... it hurts. I think this is what shinigami mean when they say something is "beautiful". You don't need it, but it hurts when it's taken away.

Plus, I think Lieutenant Kira is a kind person. His eyes often look tired, yet he worries for everyone and strives to provide anything the Division requires. I don't really deserve it, but I think I would be sad if I couldn't see him ever again.

So I answered that it's not what I wanted, but that Captain Otoribashi didn't need some useless arrancar like me around. The exchange that follow gave me some sort of psychic damage:

'Did the Captain tell you that?' 'No, sir.' 'Then why don't we go ask him if that's the case?'

Yeah, as if someone in that position had any minute to spare for poor dumb me. The Espadas would have simply cut my head off at the mere thought. I declined and went straight back to my room, forgetting I was supposed to have lunch first. Not easy to remember that when you're still not hungry...

Another positive note is that I didn't simply stay in my room all afternoon this time. There's a tree right outside the window, I stood under its branches for a short while. It felt nice."

[marymalone]

What is your dr? I can't figure it out

Well, actually... I don’t have a Desired Reality. I know that sounds odd, because the whole point of shifting is to have a place you intentionally want to go, but I just don’t have one. I just… go.

There’s no specific destination or world I long for. In order for me to shift, I first have to fall asleep, and then I let everything flow naturally. I don’t control where I’ll end up or what will happen—I just let it unfold. That’s why, when I shift, it feels like I’m slipping into a ‘whatever’ reality, one that exists without me consciously shaping it.

There are a few realities I know I’ve been to before, and those are easier to revisit once I’ve been there at least once. It’s like they become familiar pathways.

But I don’t have a Harry Potter reality, for example, even though I’ve shifted to a magical school before. The people, creatures, and experiences I encounter are all unique—original, in a way. I don’t interact with Harry Potter characters because they don’t exist in my shifts. There are mermaids, but they look nothing like the ones from the series.

If I had to describe it, that magical school is the closest thing I have to a ‘desired reality,’ but I didn’t actively wish to go there. It just happened. That’s how it always is for me—I’m not seeking a particular world; I’m just letting it take me wherever it will.

Another example would be Doctor Who, which is my favorite series. But I’ve never shifted to a reality where the Doctor is real. Instead, I ended up in a place where I met a charming madman with a spaceship, which is about as close as you can get without it actually being Doctor Who.

In that journey, I found myself in a place that felt abandoned—it was the end of times, and people were evacuating. The whole atmosphere was eerie and desolate, and I remember feeling a little lost. I ended up meeting this group of scientists, two guys and a woman, who were scavenging what was left behind in the city before everything completely collapsed. I joined them in their search, and together we found supplies, even managing to locate something to use when we ran out of oil.

It’s moments like this that could be examples of a Desired Reality. I wanted to meet the Doctor, and while I didn’t, I encountered someone who embodied him in all the ways that matter. But still, I wouldn’t call it a Doctor Who reality because there was no TARDIS, no iconic blue police box. It’s like the universe gave me a reflection of what I wanted, but not quite the thing itself. It’s a recurring pattern in my shifts—close enough to be familiar, but still entirely its own.