#its a metaphor for found family

[alaritheaurora]

Okay but Big and Bloop would actually be the most rad children's story book. Just, the simple adventures of a boy too big for the world and his best friend, a robot who cannot speak.

I'd imagine the book would go through Big's life as something akin to him starting off as a normal baby, if a bit large, but growing too fast and too big, and his parents try to love him but cannot accommodate him so he goes off on his own. Throughout his adventures he meets many people, but there is no house big enough for him, the people are too small, and perhaps even scared to hang around with him. Until he meets Bloop, a robot who everyone says wasn't built quite right so it's a pity he cannot speak. I think they become friends birdwatching, Big is so tall and strong that he can lift Bloop up where he can point out all the birds. Together they come up with some simplified morse-code adjacent way for Bloop to say what kind of bird it is. And they hit it off, going on adventures, Bloop can get into places Big can't, and Big can tell people what Bloop is saying. And they don't find a home, but at least they're together.

[hiwelcometothemonstersancturary]

So who is your favorite creepy pasta my is laughing jack

Abandoned by Disney and Godzilla NES!!! For the creeps associated with the slendermansion idea (which I love btw), it has been years since I last read their creepypastas, but just for their characters I think Laughing Jack and Ticci Toby! I think Jeff is INCREDIBLY funny because in the og story he was just 13. To me he made that story up and posted it in the internet. I know him.

[gabrielokun]

[asthedeathoflight]

The Buried and the Bound

As the only hedgewitch in Blackthorn, Massachusetts―an uncommonly magical place―Aziza El-Amin has bargained with wood nymphs, rescued palm-sized fairies from house cats, banished flesh-eating shadows from the local park. But when a dark entity awakens in the forest outside of town, eroding the invisible boundary between the human world and fairyland, run-of-the-mill fae mischief turns into outright aggression, and the danger―to herself and others―becomes too great for her to handle alone. Leo Merritt is no stranger to magical catastrophes. On his sixteenth birthday, a dormant curse kicked in and ripped away all his memories of his true love. A miserable year has passed since then. He's road-tripped up and down the East Coast looking for a way to get his memories back and hit one dead end after another. He doesn't even know his true love's name, but he feels the absence in his life, and it's haunting. Desperate for answers, he makes a pact with he’ll provide much-needed backup on her nightly patrols, and in exchange, she’ll help him break the curse. When the creature in the woods sets its sights on them, their survival depends on the aid of a mysterious young necromancer they’re not certain they can trust. But they’ll have to work together to eradicate the new threat and take back their hometown... even if it forces them to uncover deeply buried secrets and make devastating sacrifices.

My last two recs were for weird as hell books so here's a normal YA fantasy for you guys. I've read an unconscionable amount of YA fantasy so I am qualified to say this one is really good. The worldbuilding isn't as concrete as some other series but I think it works for the fae vibe this book has going on. Some reviews complained about this book not being able to decide whether it's whimsical or grotesque but I think that's very much on purpose. I really like the trio of protagonists and they've all got their own personal problems going on that keeps a pretty simple plot feeling interesting. This is the first book in a trilogy and the third one is not out until 2026 tho. Just a fair warning.

[cptnwynnie]

some stuff about A.B. :]

some of this stuff i talked abt on discord last night as well so a bit of this is just copypasted

She goes by A.B. purely because she thinks it sounds cool. Though, some take to calling her "Abby" instead of pronouncing the two letters. And, of course, the executives and mr. curtain call her by her full name, as they don't tolerate nicknames like that.

Her hat belonged to her mother.

okay i just realized this is gonna be a kinda long so the rest is under the cut lol

She was a papergirl pre-canon, which is how she comes by the ad in the newspaper two weeks before the round of tests that the other kids take. She makes it to the second test, but doesn't pass it because she couldn't figure out the puzzle. But, the whole thing made her curious, and she wants to write an article on it for her personal newspaper (her journal. she has a little journal she writes articles in.) so she trails behind number two all the way back to the house, intent on catching up to her to get an interview. bad news: she gets caught snooping around the driveway. good news: Mr. Benedict respects her commitment to hard-hitting facts-based journalism, and decides she could be quite a useful part of the team (he also may or may not be deeply concerned that this little girl was running around stonetown all on her own with literally zero adult supervision)

She then tells Mr. Benedict her story about how her mom dropped her off at "daycare" when she was little and then didn't come back and that pretty much seals the deal.

As for her mother, she was not brainswept, she really did leave A.B. behind. Her father died when she was a baby, and her mother found herself unable and unwilling to care for A.B. on her own. So she left her on the steps of an orphanage and didn't look back.

A.B. doesn't find this out until the end of the first book. Mr. Benedict has the thought that Ms. Moore may have been brainswept, so decides to look into it. What he finds is that she moved to New York, and has been living there since A.B. was seven, eventually getting remarried.

He leaves it up to A.B. if she wants to know and, of course, she does.

Naturally, she is both devastated and incredibly angry at her mom. Despite this, though, A.B. doesn't let go entirely. She still needs her mom. Not just needs, but wants. Part of her still clings to the little hope that her mom might come back for her.

She ends up going back to the Wetherall farm with Kate and Milligan (having been invited, of course,) and helps rebuild the farm :]

In TPJ she winds up losing her hat when the kids escape from the Ten Men in the Salamander. She wants to go back for it, but there isn't time, she has to let it go. It's sad but it's for the character development.

Then she gets frustrated with her braid catching on things, realizes her hair is quite easy to grab, and so she hacks it off with a knife :)

and that's everything I got so far :]

[todayisafridaynight]

found family for the arakawas aint even metaphorical shits Literal

[quailqueries]

just learned the first mixtapes were all originally 3racha releases and apparently chan produced them all and when they released them as skz songs he added a english part for felix now im crying

[just-sp-in-inginthevoid]

Just finished to read Wind Breaker (all the 110 chapters I could find) and I must say

I love those kids and I wish to see more of them

[sleepless-crows]

dear sputnik is just top tier. nothing else can ever ever go that level. nothing

[rin-may-1103]

The Wrong Robin Au (part four)

Previous | Master Post | Next

Danny slowed his car down, staring at the black iron gate coming into view; Bats and ivy welded on in an elegant pattern, obviously more thought-out than The Drake's ducks had been. He had to give it to Tim, the kid had been right about how stupid the ducks looked.

Glancing around, Danny found he was completely alone on the dirt road. The gray sky slowly brightened as the sun climbed higher in the distance, trees swaying in the gentle breeze, and birds chirped.

If it hadn't been for his experiences at Vlad's place, he would have found the scenery comforting, maybe even inviting. But the knowledge that this was the home of a billionaire, one that went out at night to fight crime like a furry on crack nonetheless, ruined it.

Maybe he should just head back to the motel...

...

Fuck it, when had Phantom ever backed down? That's right! Never! Danny was going to stick to his metaphorical guns and follow through with his admittedly stupid plan.

Taking his foot off the brake; Danny activated his intangibility, shared it with the car, and drove through the gate. (look, what were his powers for if not to make his life convenient? He deserved it after literally dying for them. AND the gate was probably locked. There was no way he could convince someone to let him in at this time in the morning, so...)

Danny kept an eye on his surroundings as he drove, he doubted Bruce Wayne would have ghost vultures working for him, but that doesn't mean Danny wouldn't be prepared if he did.

Eventually, a large building came into view. Its gothic architecture and obvious timely design set it apart from Vlad's modern monstrosity of a castle. Danny could just tell this was a home for a family with old money; the weathered roof and aged water fountain told stories of the people who used to live there. This was a home, not just a house.

Pulling his car over and parking, Danny quickly sent a mental prayer to the home's ancestors. He hoped they could forgive him for what he was about to do.

Grabbing his backup phone and his keys, Danny tossed the car door open and stepped out. Immediately his senses were clouded with grief and anger. It was so strong he almost lost his footing. The house was just drenched in the emotions, tendrils reaching out and wrapping around anything and everything.

Closing his eyes, Danny held his breath so he could focus on blocking the emotions out. (flashes of someone else's memories rushed past his mind; a glimpse of a young boy sitting in a library reading a book. An older man sitting next to him silently. In another flash, the two were now in a dark cave, the light of a computer the only thing illuminating them as the older man draped a blanket across the boy's back. whispered words of sincere promises echoed in his head.)

He had believed Tim, but he hadn't expected it to be this bad. Ancients, this was worse than when he had to deal with Spectra.

Batman definitely needed therapy.

...

Maybe Jazz should be Robin instead, she'd know how to handle this properly. but Jazz wasn't here right now, she was in Sweden learning all about mental health. Which meant Danny would have to do this himself.

yay.

He had two options; One, he sits down with the man and they have a sincere and very emotional conversation. Or two, he beats it into the guy's head that he needs to stop going out and trying to get himself killed. Based on everything he knows about Batman? It was going to be number two that was going to get results... Well, at least Danny had experience punching things until he got what he wanted. (even if it didn't always work.)

Shaking himself out of his mind, Danny started making his way to the front door. It was past five in the morning, Bruce should be home now. Whether he was sleeping like Danny would assume he usually did, was a different question altogether.

Glancing around the door, Danny found there was a large rope hanging to the left. Vlad had the same thing at his place, it was an old-fashioned doorbell.

shrugging, Danny pulled on the rope and waited.

and waited.

and waited.

After a minute or two, Danny pulled the rope again. Suddenly the door swung open to reveal an older man dressed in a nice waistcoat and trousers.

"Can I help you?" the man asked, a British accent completing the look.

Danny blinked for a second before quickly focusing back on his task. "My name's Danny. Bruce is being a dumbass who needs to take a chill pill and take a step back from hospitalizing criminals. Can I come in?"

It was the old man's turn to stare and blink at him. After a minute, the man stepped back and opened the door, his eyebrow raised. "I would like to see how you plan to tell this to Master Bruce. His office is this way, young man."

"May I ask what exactly you're doing here?" the man asked, closing the door behind Danny.

Danny shrugged, "I'm here to beat some sense into him. He's going to get himself killed and no one wants to see what happens when he does."

The butler, because the rich fruitloop would obviously have one, hummed as he nodded his head in agreement. "I see. Maybe this is what he needs then. he won't listen to me, no matter how much I nag him."

Nothing else was said as he guided Danny through the manor, eventually stopping at a fancy dark wooden door. "Master Bruce, you appear to have a visitor." Then He opened the door and gestured for Danny to enter.

He only had a moment to ponder how he should do this before he entered the room. He should keep his powers hidden, for now at least.

He was greeted with the sight of an exhausted man in a bathrobe sitting at his desk and staring out the window. He was clutching a very worn and loved book in his hands, his brows slightly furrowed. (Danny noted that it was the same book the kid had been reading, The Hero and the Crown... or something like that, Danny hadn't really gotten a good look at the title.)

The butler stepped back, closing the door, and stood next to it to maybe await his new orders. Ones he probably wouldn't get any time soon, if the way Bruce hadn't moved or responded meant anything.

Well, if the old man wanted to see this then who was Danny to stop him?

Stepping forward, Danny leaned over the desk and slapped the back of Bruce's head. The man swiftly turned and stared at him, raising one of his hands to touch his head in shock. Danny heard the butler choke in surprise but ignored him. He could only pray to Clockwork that Bruce didn't kill him for this.

"You are being absolutely idiotic, dude." Danny declared. "Do you think Jason would have wanted you to act like this?" Bruce stood up, his chair slamming into the wall, his eyes burning in anger. "No? Then get your shit together and be the man he would be proud of."

Bruce lunged over the desk, his fist pulled back to hit Danny. It was just like Danny expected, just like Tim had told him, the man was letting his emotions control his actions. Dodging to the side, Danny continued talking, "This going out every night, fighting more and more dangerous and outlandish people all by yourself? It's going to get you killed."

Bruce gave up on trying to punch him, instead, he threw himself forward and body-slammed Danny to the floor. Danny coughed, quickly blocking his face as Bruce took a swing at him. Using the man's blind anger to his advantage, Danny kicked Bruce in the chest and sent him flying into his desk. "Jason's dead. It sucks. and it hurts. It's probably the worst pain you've ever experienced, but there's nothing you can do about it."

Danny glared at the man as he scrambled into a crouch, waiting to see what Bruce did next. "Shut up," the man growled, shoving himself up and away from his desk. He picked up his stapler; he was probably either going to use it as a blunt weapon or throw it at Danny. Widening his stance, Danny got ready to dodge or lunge.

He remembered reading about him, online when he first became Phantom. He remembered reading about Robin and Batman and how they worked together to protect Gotham. How they tirelessly worked day and night to put their rogues away every time they got out again.

He remembered seeing pictures of Batman standing next to little Robin, a proud smile on his face as the police took the criminals away. Pictures of the man helping and protecting Robin whenever the boy couldn't handle whatever mess he had gotten into. There was even a memorable one of Batman scolding an obviously sheepish Robin, a knocked-out Riddler slumped behind him.

He had wished so badly for someone to help him back them, for someone to be his Batman when times got hard. He remembered how devastated he was when it turned out the only person like him was Vlad. Vlad, who had wanted to murder his father and marry his mother. Vlad, who had overshadowed people to gain more wealth and power. Vlad, who hadn't seen how wrong it was to try and clone him.

He remembered the comments and videos from the citizens of Gotham, cheering for their heroes when they succeeded in capturing the rogues. How they still supported them when they failed. It was nothing like Amity's reaction to him.

He remembered how Gothom reacted when Robin was pronounced dead. How the city had cried and raged. He felt it all the way over in Amity, the grief and anger. The whole city had come together to mourn the boy who protected them. Even two years later, Danny could still feel the echoes.

"Jason's dead. He's dead and gone and you're letting yourself get consumed with your grief. but you made a promise Bruce."

Danny knew he had, it was the same promise Danny had made just four years ago.

Bruce's eyes widened and the anger that was surging in his eyes froze for just a moment. His hand loosened around the stapler but didn't let it go. The butler looked concerned, unsure if he should interfere or not.

"You made a promise all those years ago when you first dawned that stupid bat suit. You promised to do everything in your power to help your city. To protect it. Robin made the same promise. When he took up his suit. They both did."

Bruce's jaw tensed, his eyes narrowing. Danny lowered his body, still ready to dodge at a moment's notice.

"You made a promise to your son, Bruce. Even if he didn't know it. One that you couldn't keep."

Bruce threw the stapler, making Danny jump to the side to dodge it. His mistake was not keeping an eye on what Bruce did after throwing it. The man quickly rushed up to him, eyes blazing in anger. "You don't know anything!" he cried, his fist slamming into Danny's jaw. Danny staggered back but ducked under the next punch.

"I lost my son! I wasn't there!" Bruce shouted, kicking Danny's legs out from under him. Danny's back hit the floor, knocking the breath out of him. Bruce followed him down, breaking his nose with another punch to the face. "I promised I would protect him and I wasn't there!"

Danny growled, catching Bruce's fist in his hand and sending a punch at the side of Bruce's head. Bruce tried to lean back, Danny's fist clipping his forehead. Bruce grunted, reaching up to grab Danny's fist to keep him from punching him again.

"You couldn't protect him! I get it, it sucks!" Danny shouted back, flashes of Dani's melting form grasping at his shirt in panic pulled to the front of his mind. "It leaves a black hole in the center of your chest! It sucks all the warmth out of you, leaving only the cold bitter knowledge that you couldn't save him!" (that he couldn't save her)

Bruce pulled his fist out of Danny's hand, slamming his elbow down into Danny's chest and twisting Danny's right arm sharply in an attempt to break it. Danny kept talking though, ignoring the pain as he pulled his arm out of Bruce's grasp, "But Jason made a promise! and you're doing nothing to keep it!"

Danny grabbed onto Bruce's bathrobe and flipped them so Bruce was the one on the floor now. Quickly reaching up, Danny grabbed both of Bruce's hands and held them as still as he could. Bruce was strong, but Danny had years of fighting Skulker and the other super-strong ghosts under his belt. "He made that promise knowing that you had made the same one!"

Bruce growled, throwing his head up in an attempt to hit Danny with it. Danny leaned back, accidentally loosening his grip just enough for Bruce to break out of it. Bruce shoved him off of him, making Danny slide back and hit a chair.

Grunting, Danny stood up and lunged at Bruce. Bruce dodged to the side, dropping down to pick the stapler back up. "I can't claim to know what Jason would have wanted," Danny spat, backing up to give himself more space as Bruce stepped toward him. "but I know as someone who made the same promise, I wouldn't have wanted you to change into what you are now!"

Bruce narrowed his eyes at Danny, "Yeah, and what's that?" he growled.

"A careless, suicidal, moron," Danny growled back.

Bruce froze, stopping in place as he stared at Danny.

Danny took his chance to drive his point home; standing up straight, he raised his hands up in surrender. "He was your son. He looked up to you for protection. For guidance. And sure, maybe you weren't the best dad, and maybe you made mistakes. But you were his dad."

Danny stepped forward, watching as the butler stepped forward to reach out to the man. "and what kind of son would want his dad to kill himself?"

Bruce dropped his stapler, his eyes falling to the ground and catching onto the book he had dropped earlier. It was opened to the front page, written words in messy writing covering it.

"You need to stop, Bruce," Danny said, slowly crouching down and reaching out for the book. Bruce watched him as he stood up, the book still open to the front page in his hands. Jason's writing visible to all of them.

"you couldn't keep your promise to protect him. It sucks and it hurts. but you can keep his promise. The same promise you made all those years ago."

Bruce looked up at him, his blue eyes filling with tears, the butler's hand resting on his shoulder. Danny stepped forward again, holding the book out for Bruce to take.

"You can't protect Gotham if you're dead."

Jason's handwritten note stared up at them, the ink messy and smudged.

'to the best dad in the world and the many adventures we'll go on!'

and Bruce? Bruce crumbled to the floor with a sob, leaving Danny to stand in front of him. Blood running down his face, staining his hoodie and pink Hello Kitty pants, the book still held out with steady hands.

Next

[valtsv]

the thing about faulkner's father reacting to his son's actual literal fratricidal murder confession as if it were a poetic metaphor and arguing that charlie's death is as much his fault as it is faulkner's, if not more, is that it is an incredibly tragicomic dramatic miscommunication of meaning during an intimate and pivotal heart-to-heart between two characters with an immensely complex relationship built up over the course of three seasons of brilliant writing, but. it just goes to show the bitter futility of it all, doesn't it? if faulkner's father hadn't neglected his duties to his sons as a parent, then maybe faulkner wouldn't have been able to drown charlie when they were supposed to be in school. but maybe he would have still been called to his faith, and found a way to sacrifice charlie to the trawlerman anyway. and if faulkner hadn't drowned charlie, then another hungry predator cloaked in the skin of something calling itself divine might have lured him into its depths anyway. and if another hungry god hadn't eaten him up, then he might have moved to the city, or followed in his father's footsteps, and been fed to one by his more opportunistic colleagues and peers willing to sacrifice anyone threatening their position, let alone their ascent, up the corporate and social ladder anyway. the blame is pandemic. it's a rot that spreads far beyond the family tree. yes, faulkner killed charlie, and yes, faulkner's father failed his sons, and still none of it changes the fact that charlie was always an acceptable sacrifice - a footnote in a far grander story - in the eyes of the world he lived in, anyway.

[guiltyasdave]

hold on to this lullaby

chapter 4 • series masterlist

pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader

summary: An injured Joel and Ellie stumble into your home in the middle of the night. Against your better judgement, you decide to help them.

word count: ~2k

tags/warnings: post outbreak, slow burn, found family, age gap (sorry not sorry), able-bodied reader, angst, reader has a sad sad backstory and ptsd, hurt/comfort, fluff, eventual smut, nightmares, implied death of a character, the angst is once again angsting, reader's thoughts have suicidal undertones sometimes

a/n: girlie is once again going through it. i know that we're moving at a very slow pace but the chemistry is growing, slowly but steadily :)

shoutout to @toomanytookas who left the most thoughtful analysis on the last chapter, and noticed how the doors being open or closed works as a metaphor for the state of their relationship. looking back, that is very true, but truth be told, it wasn't a conscious writing choice on my part lol. i love it so much though and am now using it very purposefully, so thank you for bringing that to my attention and just for being so incredibly kind <3

follow @guiltyasdavenotifs for fic updates and find my full masterlist here :)

dividers by the lovely @saradika-graphics 🤍

You’re running through the woods, running, running. Searching for something, someone, that you know you won’t find. 

Keep them safe. Promise me. We’ll be there soon. 

No one’s safe. No one’s coming. No one’s there. Your hands are wet, dripping with red, leaving a trail behind you. You trip, falling down to your knees, hands sinking into the earth. There’s nowhere to go, nothing to find. 

Still, you have to keep running. Running running running, searching searching searching. Keep them safe. Promise me. 

You’re used to it. 

Eyes flying open to suffocating, disorienting darkness, gasping for breath in the stale air of your room, the blanket much too heavy on your body. The images that your subconscious conjured up, still playing behind your eyelids. Your heart racing, your mind struggling to find its way back to reality. Lying alone in the darkness, only gradually able to discern your dream from your real life, the horrors blending into one another too intricately, too smilar to be separated. 

You’re still gasping, tears burning hot in your eyes and leaving wet tracks on your face. But it’s not dark, this time. And you’re not alone. The blurry shape of Joel slowly comes into focus, illuminated by the soft glow from the lamp on your nightstand. The weight of his hand is still resting on your shoulder, anchoring you to the present, and you realize that he must have shaken you awake. That you must have been loud.

You’ve wondered before, if you’re making noises, if the sobs that wrack through your body in your dreams follow you into reality. There’s never been a way to find out, before, but now it seems like they do, loud enough to travel through the closed door and wake Joel up. 

Heat blooms on your face, fueled by shame and guilt, both for disturbing his sleep and for your behavior earlier.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, your voice stumbling over the words, thick with sleep and more tears. 

“Hey, no,” he replies softly, soothingly, his voice a deep rumble, his touch still firm on your shoulder. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

You shrug, too exhausted to argue. His other arm twitches at his side, reaching towards you before he stops himself, sitting back on his haunches, groaning quietly at the movement. 

“You wanna–” he clears his throat, shifting slightly, “you wanna talk about it? Or is there anything else I can do?” 

You quickly shake your head, eyes trained on your hands that are clasped in your lap. He waits for another beat, before he hums, his knees creaking as he stands back up. 

You miss the feeling of his hand on you as soon as it disappears, but you can’t possibly bring yourself to ask for that, so you swallow against the lump in your throat, watching his retreating silhouette in your doorway.

���Joel?” Your hushed voice travels through the dimly lit room. He halts at once, turning back around to face you, the lines on his face somehow softer than you know them. “Could you— keep the door open? Just a little?” 

You’re awake for a long time after he leaves, at first listening to the fall of his quiet footsteps retreating to the other room, the faint rustle of his sheets as he gets back into bed, Ellie’s hushed voice and his responding grumble, but you can’t make out the words. When it’s quiet again, you retreat into the swirling mess inside your head. Unable to turn the light off, unable to close your eyes, terrified of the darkness and the images it might bring back.

You’ve tried not to think about it too hard, afraid of jinxing yourself, but you’ve noticed that you’ve slept better since Ellie and Joel have arrived. It’s like their presence, the change they’ve brought to your life, is enough to keep your mind occupied, like a safety blanket has been draped over you, keeping the worst of it away from you. But yesterday’s events must have ripped holes into it, must have brought the past and its pain to the forefront again. 

You drift back off eventually, nothingness engulfing your tired mind and pulling you into a dreamless sleep that you’re thankful for. 

You’re roused by the sounds from outside the door, the movements of someone being up filtering through the gap that Joel left open last night. It takes a while until you get your bearings, until the memories all come back to you. The familiar fear, the panic. The unfamiliar presence of someone beside you, of a touch on your shoulder.

Following the sounds, you find Joel in the kitchen, preparing breakfast, something that you usually do. You watch him for a second, taking in his messy morning hair, the specks of gray, the furrow of concentration in his brow as he’s stirring oatmeal. The steaming cup in his other hand, almost dwarfed by his large fingers, that you know must contain coffee. 

His eyes widen for a second when he notices you leaning against the doorframe, scrutinizing your face, gauging the state you’re in. You try a tentative smile, taking a step towards him, nodding towards the pot on the stove. 

“Thought breakfast was my job.” You’re pleased with how normal your voice sounds, nothing like the mess from last night. 

Joel shrugs, the expression on his face just a smidge too innocent, too casual. 

“You’re doing more than enough for us. Thought I’d let you sleep in.” 

You don’t have it in you to start a discussion about it, and you wouldn’t know how to explain this to him anyway. How you don’t want him to do things for you, don’t want to know what it’s like to have someone else care for you. Don’t want to feel how nice it is, even in such small doses. How you’re overly conscious of the fact that it will get taken away again before you know it, that you’d do well not to get used to it. How you’re not sure if you’ll be able to survive having something nice ripped away from you yet again. 

So you smile, mutter a thank you, Joel, and when he suggests that you take a shower, that he’ll be finished by the time you’re ready, you agree. Suddenly, you’re aware of the night’s sweat that has dried on your skin, clinging to you and making you feel sticky. Suddenly, you’re desperate to wash it off your skin, to leave the last night behind you and not look back.

With the stream of warm water raining down on you, the stiffness in your neck eases a bit and your breath’s coming more freely again, pieces of the tension that’s been coursing through you since last night slowly melting away. Still, you keep shivering, no matter how much you’re trying to open your body up to the warmth surrounding you, to let it drive out the coldness that’s emanating from your chest. 

Move on, your own voice echoes in your head. Keep living. The promise you’ve made to yourself, that you’re trying to keep, even though some days, you’re not sure why. 

Your arms are wrapped tightly around yourself when you enter the living area again. You’ve pulled on one of your warmest sweaters, one that you’ve knitted yourself, over the course of several long, lonely days, with nothing else to keep your hands and mind occupied. Still, you feel cold. 

Ellie is up now, sitting on the couch, a bowl of oatmeal all but forgotten in her lap and her nose buried in one of the comics you gave her, the artwork on the cover all too familiar to you. She jumps when she sees you, hastily stuffing the book in between her thigh and the cushion beside her, a guilty expression in her eyes as she looks at you. 

“Sorry,” she mumbles before you can say anything, her hands clasped in her lap. It breaks your heart to see her like this, to know that she heard you last night too. How much your behavior must have scared her. That she probably feels responsible, even though your mind was already in a bad state long before you’ve even met her. 

It does hurt, seeing those drawings of galactic adventures that you’ve seen a million times before, with another pair of eyes glued to the pages. Another child excitedly recounting the stories to you over and over, until you basically knew them by heart and listened to them time and time again anyway, because his happiness made you happy. 

The pain of it weighs heavy on you, but not as heavy as the urge to protect her from being hurt, to wipe that guilt off her face. 

“The pages are gonna crumple like that,” you say, softly, hoping to convey with your eyes what you don’t have the words for. 

She slowly pulls it back out, shooting you careful glances. “Are you sure?” She sounds so young right now, so unsure of herself, and yet she’s trying to look out for you, trying not to hurt you, when she really shouldn’t have to. 

You’re nodding, convincing the both of you, that it’s fine, that you’re fine. 

“Yeah,” you smile. “That one’s good, enjoy it.”

You duck into the kitchen, mumbling about urgently needing a cup of coffee. You’re certain that Joel has heard your conversation, and that he sees how glassy your eyes are, but he doesn’t comment on it, just quietly hands you a cup, his fingertips faintly grazing yours.

It’s a subdued kind of day. Both Ellie and Joel are trying hard to act casual around you, but you feel the lingering glances, notice the looks exchanged behind your back, the cloud of worry that’s surrounding both of them. It makes you nervous, weirdly conscious of your every movement. And you’re still cold.

You end up watching another cheap action movie that evening, Ellie curled up on the armchair while you and Joel are occupying the couch. Your chin is resting on your knees, arms wrapped around your legs, eyes fixed on the small TV. But your mind is wandering, barely taking in the scenes playing out on the screen.

Your thoughts keep going back to how Joel touched you last night, how his hand had rested on your shoulder. How good it had felt, how you have the inexplicable need to feel it happening again. How warm his hand had been. You wonder if his touch might be able to finally stop you from feeling like you’re slowly freezing from the inside.

Another involuntary shiver runs through you. Joel’s gaze slides from the screen to you beside him. He doesn’t ask if you’re cold, being familiar enough with you by now to know that you’d deny it. Even as another wave of coldness passes through you, causing your shoulders to tremble slightly.

His brow is creased with worry as he wordlessly leans over to you, spreading the blanket that had been folded over the armrest that he’s leaning against over your shoulders. Your lips tip up in a grateful smile, the long lost feeling of someone caring for you engulfing you in more warmth than the blanket could ever provide. You allow yourself to get lost in it, just for a little while. 

The blanket faintly smells like him, you realize as you pull it tighter around yourself and up to your chin, inhaling deeply. A different kind of warmth is creeping up your cheeks and you turn your face towards the TV once more, oblivious to the way Joel keeps watching you from the corner of his eye. 

When you go to bed later that evening, you leave your bedroom door ajar once again.

thank you for reading <3 comments, reblogs and asks are love and make my day every single time!

[tunemyart]

So I've just watched the finale and I'm feeling... Weird. I think part of it is because this show started with everything I like in a story (cool badass ladies, a queer romance, found family, redemption, etc etc) and ended up being... Not all that (most characters die, the romance is doomed, and I guess the redemption mostly happened but wasn't entirely satisfactory to me). Also, I'm someone who as Trauma (tm) with death so, I guess my brain's first reaction is "fuck that I just want them all happy and safe" and it takes me a while to accept when stories take these paths, however well written they might be.

Still, I thought it all went a bit fast in the last 2 eps, with parts of the show ringing just a little bit more hollow than I would have expected? I'm left feeling like the characters of Alice, Mrs Hart and Jen were treated a bit superficially (Lillia's story felt more complete). I also wished we had seen more of Agatha's past because spending centuries just conning witches then killing them is... a bit boring? (maybe we learn more about her in WandaVision, I haven't seen it). And obviously I wished we had seen more of Agatha and Rio. It's like the show couldn't decide if it was about Agatha or about Billy (partly because, I'm guessing it's setting up a 3rd show about him?), and with this short format we ended losing a bit on Agatha's part.

Anyway, curious of what you think of all that because your analysis are always super interesting, and like I said my own brain might be a bit biased towards resistance with this one. And obviously would love to read your fanfic(s) should you write any!

So, I've started and restarted a reply to this a few times, but I think what my answer boils down to is: we're meant to have multilayered responses to this finale. We're meant to sit with it. It's meant to change our experience of the show we've had to this point.

I think the best metaphor for this is the fact the revelation that Rio is Death. Bear with me, because I know this got spoiled for us way early on and we all knew it and were all just waiting for the revelation to drop - but imagine for a second that we didn't know that Rio, Agatha's ex-girlfriend and spooky fun vaguely-a-psychopath as played by the delightful Aubrey Plaza, is death. Your perception of Rio would have been turned on its head. Your perception of Agatha would have been turned on its head. Your perception of the Witches' Road and what we're even doing here with Death walking alongside us as a tourist would have been turned on its head.

Now, we all had an incredibly fun time even with the knowledge that Rio is death before we should have had it. But I think some of the power for what it meant for the story - and our perception of what was really happening - was muted.

Jen, at the beginning of 1.08, says, "She told us who she was from the very beginning."

Sit with that - because the same is true of this story.

---

It turns out that the Road is a metaphor for death. This isn't fully illustrated for us until Nicky, the author of the Ballad, walks down the road with Death's hand in his, and we go, oh. Oh.

Agatha tells us in the beginning that the Road doesn't exist, a rare instance of her giving anyone unbridled truth. And sure - the Road that our coven walked down doesn't exist. The Road that all the witches Agatha lured to the deaths believed in doesn't exist. It's a fiction. But it's significant that Agatha lured them all to the Road and killed them. They wanted to walk the Road. They died. Not "they died instead" - it's a two-fold statement. They wanted to walk the Road and they died. In a gruesome way, Agatha's been taking witches on the Witches' Road since the 1750s.

I don't think the significance of that is lost on Agatha, either, especially where we pick up at the beginning of 1.08. Lilia's dead, and everybody's reeling.

Perhaps Agatha more than anybody.

---

I also want to quickly take a look at Rio's accusation of Agatha regarding Billy.

"The bodies are really piling up." "Did you doubt me?" "Yeah, I did. I thought there'd be a trick in there somewhere. And there was! You were distracting me from him."

Because this is a revelation about Agatha's actions toward not just Rio, but any audience watching her - i.e., us the viewers. She's been distracting us! Not from who Billy is, we know that of course, but with regard to what the Road itself is. Agatha's known the Road isn't real the entire time. She's been protecting Billy from that knowledge. She's been protecting Billy from Rio. She's been protecting the coven itself from disintegrating. And, the biggest con woman move of them all, she's been distracting us - with less and less success as the show goes on - from the fact that she is not even the slightest bit in control.

---

So I definitely want to circle back to what you said about how the show started out with everything you like in a story, because oof, yeah, I felt that. I felt that hard in the finale. Coming off the impact of the incredible storytelling in 1.07, and the queer jokes and campy Wicked cosplay balancing out the sad, I think many of us spent the next week expecting some kind of emotional resolution that probably involved the remaining coven banding together in some more of that found family we've felt them becoming along the way.

Here's where things starts going wrong, right off the bat: they don't. Instead, they splinter. Not only are you aware of just how few of them are left (Jen, Billy, Agatha), but Jen and Agatha can't handle Lilia's death. Jen's distraught. The close up on Agatha running away out of the trial and back onto the Road, alone, shows her looking hunted and wild in her guilt. Everything that follows has its seeds in that moment of rending that began with Lilia's death.

From the beginning, the point has been that Agatha Harkness is a covenless witch. It's something we've seen her revel in - maybe simply because she has no choice but to own it. But the fact is that here, for the first time in centuries, she had a coven. She didn't intend to have one - she intended to kill them all in her basement and not think twice about them again. But events transpired the way they did. They became her coven. And one by one, they all died on the Road.

Rio, of course, has the words to cut right to the quick: "Your coven is shrinking," she teases Agatha cruelly. Agatha looks wild - because she's right. The worst thing is that she killed Alice - and she didn't mean to. She didn't want to. But she did, and in exactly the same way she'd intended to kill her at the beginning, the same way she's been killing witches for hundreds of years. "Your coven is shrinking," and it's Agatha's fault. It's Agatha's coven. It's Agatha's coven.

Hold on to that, too.

---

One of the things that I've been mulling over most is Agatha's character. She's so much fun in the beginning. We're all fucking charmed by her. We also don't have the full context of just how much of a serial killer she is.

So for me, at least, watching 1.08 and not only not getting found family, but getting an Agatha so far away from a "redemption" story that she only just barely is willing to not sacrifice Billy for herself, was kind of a rude awakening. Agatha's a lot more of a villain that I was prepared for. Surprise!

Agatha's so far away from "redemption", in fact, that she's only just barely starting to feel empathy for other witches. She's just starting to be affected by people who aren't #1. And that's a trauma response. And it's so, so, so deeply rooted in her that she's only just starting to be able to conceive of the idea of people who care for her. Of the possibility of being able to live in community. She's not ready for a redemption arc. There was no way that the kind of redemption arc she'd need could fit into nine episodes, because so much of it would for her be predicated on a mental shift that Agatha just hasn't arrived at yet. She's still so angry. She's still so traumatized. She's done almost none of the work. And even at the end, even with the final gesture of sacrificing herself for Billy, that's not a final act of redemption, oh Agatha's now a good person/forgiven/insert word frame of choice.

What this show did in terms of redemption for Agatha was set her up to be in a place where she might want it - where she might want to do and be better for Billy, and someday, for Nicky.

And it's significant that that point comes for Agatha in dying… and after death.

---

This show is about death. The Road is about death. Death is a character on the show.

Like, okay, you're saying. Fine. But what about my gay fun times? What about my queer romance, my found family?

And please know that I'm there with you.

I'm not hugely in touch with what the larger fandom is saying and how they're reacting because I have my little echo chamber here on tumblr and a few friends who have actual social media, but even here I get the sense that we're all kind of :/ for fairly similar reasons. What happened to the show I fell in love with?

And for me, the last few days, I think it's been important to realize that the fact that the show I fell in love with didn't suddenly become a different show. It didn't pull a bait and switch. No twists were in bad faith. Everything has been right here in the text of the show from the very beginning.

And I think it's important to see the story that Jac Schaeffer et al. were actually telling vs. our expectations of what they were telling, or worse, what we wanted them to tell. For just one example, I was convinced we were going to see Alice again - maybe Lorna Wu, too. I wasn't expecting it to be for the sole purpose of recognizing that not only is she dead, but to give Alice herself the space to say that it wasn't fair, that she wasn't ready, that she'd just broken her family's curse, that now she can really do something with her life! Because, ugh, yeah! It's not fair, for all those reasons! But that's also death. Likewise, Sharon's just dead, and worse, her death was pretty much meaningless. Lilia rediscovered herself again, and she chose her death to save everyone else - extremely meaningful. But at the end - she's just dead. We don't see her again. She's gone. She, like the others, walked the Road and away with Death.

I loved these covenless witches. I loved them finding themselves together. I loved them bonding around the campfire and discovering community. I miss them all, so so much. But they told us from the beginning how haunted by death all of them were: Alice and her mom, Lilia and her coven in Sicily, Billy and William Kaplan, Agatha and her son and her ex-lover. And of course, Death herself. Forget haunting these individuals - she came to actually join the temporary coven. Like, fuck. They told us what this show was about.

---

This show is about death, but it's more complicated than that: we'll take our cue from Rio again, who, in being Death, is also the original Green Witch. In short, this show is about Green Craft, "growth and decay in constant flow."

So yes - almost every single witch in the coven dies. Yes, it's permanent. No, the queer romance isn't resolved happily. No, Agatha doesn't have a redemption, satisfying or otherwise. And no, none of it follows what we've come to expect from found family story trajectories.

But the focus shouldn't be solely on the decay. There's a whole cycle of growth coming up after it, even now, and it's being made possible by the death and decay that we just witnessed. And most importantly, it's confirmed that this isn't the end of the story - just the end of "Agatha All Along."

---

I'll finish by actually answering your question - I've been sitting with the finale for a few days, because I also felt weird about it. And I think that's the right word: "Weird." Very spooky season-esque, first of all, but also not tipping all the way right into "bad".

The first thing to acknowledge is that no story is perfect - they were limited by nine episodes by what they had the space to show, and finales are really hard to get just right. The second is that you're allowed to not like any or all of it, especially when something happens that asks you to change your entire understanding of the story thus far, i.e. the Road isn't real, or when you have a particular trauma around death and it turns out that that's what the whole show is about in ways we hadn't fully realized. The third is that it's worth sitting with stories sometimes and seeing how they marinate and develop in your brain and your soul over time. All of these things can and should coexist.

This isn't my first go-round with a series finale that initially made me ???, so I was fortunate in that I felt like I had a cheat sheet. I've still got some marinating to do to see how this continues to change for me. But it's helped me to realize that my ??? reaction is what the story wanted me to have - that the characters are reeling right along with me. Not just Alice in shock about her death, but also Billy at the implications of his creation of the Road regarding his responsiblity for what happened on it. We're meant to feel this way… and then we're meant to reconsider the journey we've been on, the Road we've walked with all of them and the death we've died alongside them, and see it anew for what it really is.

[ryuzakemo128]

MDNI 18+ Omegaverse

Note: This is my first try. If it sucks let me know.

Word count: 1705

Omegaverse Parts: Part One + Part Two + Part Three + Part Four

Masterlist

You were not an alpha, you were certainly were no quivering omega, and you are not even a fucking beta. What in the name of a metaphorical god are you? With no conclusive, definitive answers to who or what you are. You are left to wander the expanse of earth. 

You have a sniper rifle with the initials of your name faded away. Scratched off by your own hand. Dubbed the lone wanderer. As you were often seen by military packs alone. No pack. No, nothing at your side. Did it matter to you? Not really. You were fine. Right?

Things were different when you were adamant in sewing the wound on your leg by yourself. “Don’t like it? Then…… Then you can fuck off.” you growled. Your fingertips worming their way to take the bullet from your leg. After the bullet was finally removed after several messy, painstaking minutes?

You dosed your wound in rubbing alcohol and hissed. But continued to stitch your own wound up. Contemplating whether to put in staples as well to keep the wound from ripping open again. As you finished up, firmly wrapping the bandage in place and thinking of what move to make.

You looked at your digital watch, five hours until sundown and five hours until you have to find somewhere safe enough to sleep. Limping to an abandoned office or one which looked to be in disuse. You weren’t going to let anyone catch you again. Not like last time, either. 

The screeching of the metal on concrete too familiar for your ears, you found a storage closet and shifted the blankets around to hide inside. Falling asleep to avoid hunger building inside your stomach. The cool metal digging into your body in combination to the thin woollen blankets lulled you. 

Lulled you straight into a slumber. An uneasy slumber. But slumber all the same. Hoping the gunshots in the distance would cover the quiet purrs coming from you, your lips and the office which is usually empty at this time of day. Things were soon to get far worse now. 

Things always tend to get worse before they even get the chance to get better. Life fucks you over and leaves you for the vultures to pick at your corpse. Always the victim. Never the victor. Thus, when you escaped the last pack who tried to claim you by force?

You learned to fight, to shoot, throw a knife and to hunt other animals. Living the high life, right? What more could you ask for? Home? Stability? A pack? A family? Ha! That shit was for Aphas, betas and omegas. You had survived this long on your own, hadn't you?

But what about the scent? Your scent? What about it? It's faint, growing stronger every second, it was your time. But you weren’t ready for it. To be fair, you have never been ‘ready’ for its arrival. And you certainly weren’t ready for it to happen now of all times. 

The heat of your core right up to the tightness in your abdomen. Your heat is coming. Fucking perfect. In the middle of a fucking war zone and your heat comes in while you’re injured. The closet wasn’t going to cut it anymore. You needed somewhere better to hide. Now.

Quickly moving, you grabbed your bone knife, your bag, your sniper rifle. You limped your way out of the closet. The sun is setting. You know what that brings? The hounds of Deadlock. The alphas of task force 141. If you could smell them? Then they already smelt you. 

They claimed stray omegas like they were kings of the fucking world, and anyone who had a problem with that?  Well, they'd just blow their fucking heads off. That's what alphas did. But you? You weren’t going to tango with alphas. A death sentence wrapped inside a twisted hand basket case.

You rarely go into heat. As far as you know, it is quite rare for you to get into heat. The medication you took prevented it from showing. Always taking it two days before one came close to showing. Here you are with your large med bottle empty. No warning.

Like your pathetic, absent deadbeat of a father, you hoped you would not have to see it happen to you. The scent grew stronger still, a sweet coppery tang uniquely yours and yours alone. Panic rushed through you, your body and your senses. Urging, willing, forcing yourself to move faster.

Stumbling into the hallway, moving to the medical room three rooms away from the office you forced yourself to hide in three hours prior. Checking your wristwatch habitually. Two hours until midnight comes knocking on your door. Two more hours until your heat comes in full swing. Only two hours. 

Pushing the barrel of your gun into the door. Forcing your way into the medical room, the smell of clinic grade medical rubbing alcohol assaulted your senses. You didn’t have the patience to be slow and steady like you would have wanted. Not with the impending danger at your heels. 

Shoving a chair underneath the door handle to prevent someone from coming in while you stocked up on antibiotics, clean bandages, painkillers, antiseptic, and any other kind of medical supplies you thought were important for your needs. All of them. Shoved into your backpack. You weren’t going anywhere without them.

With your scent growing increasingly stronger. You worried immensely about them being able to kick down the door and drag you away from there by force. If they found you, you would be as good as theirs. Fucked up leg and all. It didn’t matter that you were in there.

You paused, standing at the door, listening for movement, footsteps down the hall. Listening for the sturdy combat boots to come marching right past you, hoping the room’s medical grade antiseptic and bleach would be strong enough to cover your heat. Your scent. The sticky fluid urging to come out.

Yet you heard nothing. It was silent. Too quiet. Suspiciously silent even. You knew better than to let it conquer your sense of self-preservation. You came too far to let yourself get taken again. You had to wait this one out. No matter how long it took or how hard.

Waiting felt like agony, felt like nails on a chalkboard, every second passing did nothing for your anxiety. The windows were covered to prevent flashlights, helicopter lights and other unwelcome visitors from peaking inside the medical room. Your breaths grew shallower, your stomach getting tighter, and your heat is here.

Your body temperature rising to an unbearable, flow of burning heat. Biting down on your thick leather belt to muffle the sounds coming from your lips. The sound of window glass breaking, shattering as you hid in the medical shower underneath the cold water and away from the door’s window. 

Your grimy, sweaty, dirty clothes removed and left into a bath of white vinegar soaking in a plastic tub. As you used the surgical scrub to clean yourself with. You hoped if you cleaned your clothes with vinegar, soaked it inside it and let it stew within the white vinegar.

Silently hoping by time morning came around your clothes would be dried, clean and ready to wear again for the new day. Trapped inside this medium sized room until the first wave of your intense heat passed on by. It would become unmanageable quickly if you let it control you. 

Ghost sniffed the air, they weren’t going to get to you in time now were they? By the time this wave went through your body. You would be gone and the morning would arrive. And they’d have to smell your sweet scent after the fact. After you were long gone.

“If she hasn’t left yet, in the next six hours, the heat will pass, and she’s gonna be long gone by the time we’ve sniffed her out.” Ghost told Price. Taking another long whiff of the sweetest scent he’s ever smelt in a long time. You’re sweeter than he assumed.

“Are you even sure this stray isn’t an omega like the other we’ve found? What makes you so damn sure she’s not another one?” Price questioned Simon, his voice both gruff and sceptical of his comrade’s analysis over the situation. He had every right to be sceptical over this one.

“Her scent is sweet, tooth rotting levels of sweet, think candy bars and cotton candy. There’s some spice to it, like cinnamon or pumpkin spice in those pumpkin spice lattes Gaz loves drinking so much. It's faint. But it is most certainly there. IF you know where to find it.” 

“But what else makes her so special?” Gaz enquired, hinting at the desire to ascertain as to why General Shepherd sent them out here. His burning urge to know more was there whenever something unusual is brought to their attention. Regardless of how they have personally felt about it all. 

“Well for starters, she’s covering her tracks, if she’s smart enough to do that? Then she’s not an omega, she’s a fucking ghost, mate. If anything, you’d think she’s been out there longer than we’ve been in this shithole. This is her playing field, Gaz. Her prime hunting ground now.” Soap smirked, a grin from ear to ear like a Cheshire cat rather than an alpha wolf’s. 

Gaz pulled out the file with your photo printed onto the white page, “This her Ghost?” Gaz asked ghost for confirmation. He wouldn’t budge until his information, he looked into his own time. 

Ghost remembered you, the rancher hat you wore that day and the bandana hiding half your face from his eyes. Shooting him in the shoulder with a tracking bullet. “Put a tracking bullet into my shoulder with her sniper rifle. It took us two weeks to get it removed without it detonating and taking my arm with it. That’s not a move an omega would make, it’s a move done by professionals. And she is a fucking ghost, moving in time with her surroundings. She’s not a sitting duck for us to come and claim her, she’s a fucking wolf in sheep’s clothing, that one.”

[aibafiles]

Esperanto in Metaphor: ReFantazio

Not long ago I saw this this tweet pointing out that the in-game language in Metaphor is Esperanto (written in another script) and I decided to investigate for myself! The vocal tracks are in Esperanto as well, but I want to focus on the text here since I don't have a great ear for it. (The quoted tweet also points out that you can rearrange the title to get an Esperanto phrase - I think it would be more accurately spelled "Metafore Fantazio," or "metaphorically fantasy"!)

For the unfamiliar, Esperanto is the world's most widely spoken constructed language, developed in the late 19th century with the aim of being an easy to learn secondary language that could act as a bridge between speakers of other languages. While its vocabulary and grammar are largely derived from various European language families, it has speakers worldwide, including a sizeable number in Japan. Given the relationship between Metaphor's world and our own, I think it's a cool choice to take a constructed secondary language and make it the in-universe primary language—not to mention the game's themes of uniting different people with a language intended to do just that.

I studied Esperanto myself for some time 9 years ago, though I've forgotten most of it, so I'm very rusty. That said, I was able to sit down and parse one particular block of text that the game provides a translation for, and use that to read the rest! I'm slowly combing through the demo and translating any legible text, and I wanted to share some of the interesting details I found. If any Esperantists see this and want to weigh in, please do! There's plenty I may not remember or be aware of.

Continued under the cut, including content from the demo:

Let's start with the text the game translates for us! Here's what the VO/subtitles say:

O Great Seeker, bearer of fantasy empowered... Hear my wish, and come forth from thy epoch of glory to grant me thy guidance.

Here's the "deciphered" Esperanto:

Ho, granda serĉanto, kiu vivas en epoko de gloro, kiu enkarnigas la povon de fantazio. Bonvolu disdoni al li vian gvidadon.

And here's a more "direct" translation:

O Great Seeker, who lives in an epoch of glory, who embodies the power of fantasy. Please grant him thy guidance.

Not too much different of note here other than the pronoun usage—in Esperanto, the speaker explicitly uses "he," likely referring to the protagonist. I suspect that the English is actually translated from the Japanese line, which is ambiguous, so they made an educated guess here. But, since this is the same speaker who narrates awakening cutscenes and new bonds, it makes sense that they're calling to the Seeker on his behalf!

This is a point I'm unsure about, but from my understanding, "granda" (here translated as "great") typically refers to size, so it seems like an odd word choice to me—but it's possible there are connotations I'm not aware of.

After some poking around I stumbled across some text on the background of the name entry screen that reads "signaro" (character set), followed by the whole Latin alphabet on the next line.

"But Batts!" you may say. "Esperanto doesn't use QWXY! What about the diacritics!"

Well. There aren't any! There are 6 characters with diacritic marks used in Esperanto (ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, and ŭ), and since our character set doesn't use any of them, we have to make some educated guesses about which one it is at any given time. This is mostly a non-issue since they're real, existing words, but it does make it a bit trickier at points, and relates to another problem I'll get to in a bit. (There are a select few instances where I've seen diacritic marks on handwritten text or shop names, but there are still far fewer than there should be.)

That said, there is also some plain English text using this script as well, so the game does make use of those extra letters, such as the Memorandum UI - scrolling books have titles like "Marine," "Royal Capital," "100 Mystery of Ningen (humans)," and "Melancholia Gen" (?), plus cute notes in the background like "I want to read slowly" and "already read very good."

Anyway, this diacritic ambiguity bugged me for a bit when I started translating some text with "Euchronia" in it, like the above "Regno de Eŭcronio - Dezerto de Tradia." The Esperanto "C" and "Ĉ" are always pronounced "ts" and "ch" respectively, so the pronunciation here is a bit awkward either way, as both characters are meant to precede a vowel. A more natural pronunciation in line with both the Japanese and English would be "Eŭkronio," a spelling I found once in the body of the contract our protagonist signs to join the army, and never again. Alas.

I noticed a few interesting details while translating place names - the "Trad" in "Grand Trad" (Granda Tradicio) means "tradition" - and many locations are labeled on the map that I don't think are mentioned in the demo's runtime - Oceana to the west is named, but also of note are Kalendulo ("marigold," maybe "Calendula" in English) to the east, the Hulkenmont mountains surrounding that region, and the "Malnova Insularo" (old archipelago) to the south.

(Screenshot grabbed from justonegamr on Youtube.)

Lots of fun stuff going on with these posters - the big propaganda poster says "Mi volas vin por homoj" - "I want you for humans!" The poster immediately to its right and the one with the light-haired paripus are both wanted posters with rewards of 50,000 and 7,000 respectively, and the former has a somewhat legible name - Mikelan something (?). There's also quite a bit of illegible text that I'll need to boot up the game to stare at, textures willing.

Here is where I noticed an occasional problem with the text in this game: some of these posters include words that should have diacritic marks, but instead the characters are gone entirely or replaced with a space. For instance, the poster with the face that appears twice on the bottom row reads "Ser a peto - i tiu viro" where it should say "Serĉa peto - ĉi tiu viro" (Search request - this man). I spent so long wondering what "Dan ero" meant on the poster with the red "no" sign before I realized it was meant to be "Danĝero" (Danger).

This extends to some other parts of the game, such as the world map title ("Unuiĝinta Reĝlando de Eŭcronio" written as "unui inta re lando de e cronio," which is how I knew it was a plain C oops), and the giant statue in More's study covered in archetype names, some of which are missing characters.

I suspect that at some point in the process, these characters couldn't be properly encoded and got lost before making it into the game. Most of the UI text seems to be intact, and this only affects graphic text as far as I've seen. Luckily, we can usually use context to guess at what they should be.

There's a ton more that I'm still hunting down and translating, so if you'd like to see it, you can check out my spreadsheet here! I'm hoping to keep updating it as I play through the full game, and I may make some more posts if I encounter any particularly interesting details. A few more tidbits before I go:

This appears to be an annual calendar - number 1 is at the top and it circles around to 12, and then the inner circle runs from 1-30, likely representing the weeks.

Various graffiti found around Sunshade Row that reads:

Ĉi tio estis infero (this was hell)

Malbela elda (nasty/ugly elda)

Merdo (shit)

And in the words of our favorite tooth...

Elbe venontfoje! (Maybe next time!)

[incorrect-green-lantern-quotes]

Hey! Just wanna say im really glad i found this account ive been getting into green lantern comics recently and your page is a godsend.Aside from that its one of the few that isnt overrun with batman/batfam content propinng him or his orphan child soliders by putting down other dc characters..so i was curious if you knew any dc fanfics that portray the lanterns as competent and or calling bruce out on his bullshit ( sorry if my text is a bit jumbled english isnt my first language)

I'm glad you like my content!

Tbh the fanfiction situation for Green Lanterns is just as bad as it is on Tumblr, if not worse. So a few of these fics are going to be bat-centric, but I've specifically selected those that I feel actually respect and understand the GLs instead of flanderizing them to be stupid assholes.

I've tagged the authors whose Tumblr usernames I could find in the fic or their AO3 profiles. If you're one of the authors I haven't tagged, just let me know and I'll edit the post to add you.

But without further ado, the GL contents of my bookmarks in no particular order:

Fics where the Bats are uninvolved or only play a minor role

In the end, we all bleed Green. by @catboyollie (series) - a collection of GL shortfics

Kink Meme #5 by Perpetual Motion (perpetfic) - Most people forget Guy Gardner was a teacher...

Friendship, Ice Cream, and Green Lanterns by MildlyRebelliousMint - GLs hanging out after a battle

Family is What You Make Of It by @exasperatedfey - in which Hal has to bail his fellow GLs out of jail

In Case of Emergency by @susanphoenix - Kilowog’s been adopted by the Earth heroes as the GL to go to if they can’t find the earth lanterns. No one told him that.

i ate up all the light by @effietrinket1619 - Six times Hal was there for a fellow GL (and one time they're there for him). TW for roofie

Good Cop/Bad Cop by @meduseld - shortfic of Hal being a scary mf

Adrift by @rose-cake - Simon and Jessica are partners. That word has multiple meanings. Minor Simon/Jessica

These Mountains by pastelplastic - Superman meets Tomar-Re, the Green Lantern who failed to save Krypton

Justice League's most wanted fugitive: Hal Jordan by Panamic - The Justice League are trying to find Green Lantern. Hal does not want to be found by the JL. Shenanigans ensue

No Rest for a Superhero by Crimson_Crystal - Kyle sacrifices sleep to finish an art commission and crashes

A Mind Of His Own by @wolfsbanesparks - The Justice League finds out Captain Marvel is actually a kid, and Hal is the only one who still treats him like a fellow hero

The Goddess of Petty Annoyances by @galahadwilder - Jessica invades Apokolips specifically to annoy Darkseid. Crack

Shooting for the Stars by @green-lanterns-c0ck - Guy in his yellow ring era bumbles into saving a galaxy far far away. Crack crossover with Star Wars

canary in a coal mine by BrandyFromTheBottle - Guy is an asshole to Dinah, but he's trying to be better about it

Hal & Kyle fics (there's enough of these that they warrant their own category)

Luminance by @lanternwisp - Hal slowly realizing he thinks of Kyle as a son

trajectory from me to you by @softpunks - deaged!Kyle thinks Hal is his dad

the moldy cup is not a metaphor by MildlyRebelliousMint - Kyle calls Hal "dad" and Hal goes to visit Barry, totally not freaking out

friendly fields and open roads by @ufonaut - Hal returned to life and feels like shit. Kyle comes seeking a mentor.

ship in a bottle by @hopeworth - Two former hosts of Parallax meet up for brunch

Fics involving Bats that respect Green Lanterns

we're in the mellow mayhem together (series) by lunaratlasky - Jason seeks out Hal whenever he wants to piss off Bruce

Emergency Line (series) by @crucifixinhell - jason looked at hal once and went "you seem like good dad material"

For Whom We'd Give Blood (series) by Boogalee99 - How Hal Jordan becomes the favorite uncle of the batfam

There's Always Another One by lapsedpacifist - Dick gets fired and decides to crash at Hal's place

To Overcome Fear (ongoing) by @dc-sideblog - Stephanie gets fired and Kyle decides that if the Bats don't want a perfectly good superhero, the Green Lanterns definitely do

Disclosure by @aj-artjunkyard - Maybe Hal isn't as at peace with a certain android's death as he thought he was... and maybe he's not alone in his grief either.

Stars in a Paint-Filled Sky by @thenaphorism - Kyle has to explain to the Justice League why he has a Red Hood/Troia tramp stamp

because you know better by @matchahater - Ion and Red Hood contemplate the ethics of resurrection

catch the asteroids that come your way by @thepackwantsthed - the only JayKyle fic that I've ever liked

Justice League International - Spoiled! by @secretlystephaniebrown - Guy Gardner, Crystal Brown's childhood neighbor and best friend, ends up taking in her daughter Stephanie after an unexpected turn of events.

the superhero game (ongoing) by Nyame - Jason Todd Peggy Sue longfic ft. a near-omnipotent White Lantern

I'm gonna pin this post and update it as I encounter more fics I like, so drop some recommendations in the comments for me and everyone else!