#its okay if they're all dead that's just more of a reason for me to ship them /silly

[ckret2]

I'm staring at the newest chapter in horror but also, there are SO many witnesses and there will probably be a ton of documentation about the second dimensional incident, which makes it that much more baffling Bill got an insanity plea. I know it's for Story Reasons and I probably shouldn't think about it too hard but goddamn.

They legitimately looked at all of this and said "yeah no he's found not guilty by reason of insanity, Theraprism NOW." (I thought at first it was "guilty but insane," however we get no indication that he's going to be sent to a normal multiversal prison after he completes his karmic rehabilitation. They all but say that reincarnation is the goal after this is over, which seems to be equivalent to release and reintegration into society.)

That being said it could simply be that interdimensional court has different requirements to be declared insane enough not to get permadeath. Or I'm misremembering how the Theraprism works...It's a forensic hospital, right? Not prison. He's being treated not punished.(Kinda debatable. That place sucks.)

The Axolotl gotta be the single best lawyer of the entire multiverse how the hell did they pull this off. I would love to just be in the court when this went down actually I can already feel how absolutely insane it was. No way either side didn't fight tooth and nail.

the fact that Bill is willing to look every single person he meets dead in the eye and say "no my dimension wasn't destroyed, it's fine, all my people are alive and they love me" is ngl gonna be a big part of the ax's defense strategy.

They have a lot of documentation of what Bill's like after the massacre—but there's absolutely no record, anywhere, of what happened during the massacre. You know what they do have documentation of though? Bill insisting that he dumped Euclydia into Dimension Zero so that he could do renovations and that he's built a paradise universe in its place when all he's built is a void with a few strobe lights. Bill claiming that all these people he kidnapped himself are actually from his dimension. Bill pulling off "rescues" with seemingly no self-awareness that he slaughtered more than he saved. Bill being told MULTIPLE TIMES "if you keep trying to fix Dimension Zero then the multiverse will collapse" and Bill going "okay. i hear you. So how about i fix Dimension Zero, and then, everything is fine."

What do you do if you get Bill into a courtroom and ask him "do you plea guilty to the massacre of Euclydia?" and he goes "I don't know what you're talking about. There was no massacre. I liberated everyone, they're fine. They're literally still alive today. Nobody died." Like. You're trying to decide his culpability in a crime he doesn't acknowledge happened.

You've gotta ask 2 questions: does Bill literally not know what happened to his dimension—even if the knowledge comes and goes, is it still sometimes genuinely missing—or is this just an act to try to wiggle out of trouble? And, if he does literally not know what happened to it, is that a trauma reaction to the massacre, or did he commit the crime not comprehending what the result would be?

Bill's a known liar, this could all be an act. But, like, god, wow, it's a really, really good act.

The Ax can argue that Bill literally doesn't grasp the difference between right and wrong. He can tell them that Bill is completely unable to differentiate fact and fiction. He can tell them that Bill has delusions that he didn't destroy Euclydia, that the neighboring dimensions are Euclydia, that all his people are alive and healthy, and argue that he probably had delusions that whatever he did to his dimension wouldn't destroy it in the first place. He can argue a whole lot of things about Bill.

Are any of these things true about Bill? Debatable. Probably not. Somewhere between 30%-60% true. Could the Ax convince a court that they're true? Probably. Everyone already agrees Bill's insane. The only question is if he was the right kind of insane at the right time.

[starheirxero]

ASTRALS IN LUNARA'S UNIVERSE REAL...... EVIL LUMINI HAS MERIT NOW!!!!!!!! :CHEERS:

[hexsdexs]

I can't stop thinking about the one direction boys.

Louis, losing yet ANOTHER majorly important person in his life. His best friend. His songwriting partner for so many years. His brother. I hope he's not asking himself if he couldve done more. If he missed the signs. How much suffering does one person withstand.

Niall, the last to see him. I had this friend who I was as thick as thieves with years ago, when I saw her again after graduating it never felt the same. Because we're so different now. I stopped hanging out with her because that difference made me uncomfortable. I wonder if niall felt like that, was it a little weird? A little awkward? or did he feel like no time has passed at all and they picked up exactly where they left of? I wonder if he feels guilty because he got to have that one final goodbye and the rest didn't like some sort of survirors guilt. If he didn't see the warning signs. If he's going over their final interaction over and over and over. The last time I saw my grandmother was 2 days before she died and I play that interaction over and over and over and over.

Harry, who liam previously described as "having a sixth sense for when I'm struggling", and harry who described the death of another friend as the reason he always tries to check up on others. I wonder how long its been since they spoke. I wonder if harry feels unimaginable amounts of guilt for not seeing it. For not reaching out more. For not publicly acknowledging liam when his solo fans where bullying liam even though he preaches tpwk.

Zayn. God, zayn. Zayn who always thought they'd eventually get over their issues. Make their way back. Zayn who only months prior was discussing wanting to reach out and how he's been reminiscing and looking back at one direction much more fondly and much less bitterly. God I know he feels like he's just a day too late. If he had reached out just one day earlier, he would've been on good terms with liam. He would've had that at least. His post made me think of some friends i had to cut off. They were my favorite people in the world but too much had went down. I bawled. Life is so fucking short. They ruined my life and i shouldn't reach out but life is so fucking short. I don't want to wake up to one of them dead.

God I hope they're okay. I wish I could take it all away.

[genericpuff]

holy crap okay so

I'm two episodes into Kaos

normally I keep my expectations pretty minimal because, let's be real, the Internet - and especially Tumblr - has a tendency to severely overhype new series to be way better than they actually are and it often leaves me sitting there like "that's it? that's what people were freaking out over for weeks?? that was just a bunch of cheap ships and tropes that i've seen 123785902380 times before" LMAO

BUT thankfully compared to other series like Hazbin Hotel and The Amazing Digital Circus, I haven't been worn out on excessive fandom exposure prior to watching Kaos, so I didn't really know what to expect going in besides what folks have told me so far - it's a modern-day Greek epic, and it stars Jeff Goldblum as Zeus (which is, unsurprisingly, peak casting).

That said, I'm very pleased to say that so far, the show is absolutely blowing me away. The set designs, characterizations, weaving of all the players into a central narrative led by a very coy narrator, all of it feels both refreshing and respectful to the source material at the same time.

so uh yeah that LO animated TV show... we have reason to believe now that it's gotten picked up by Amazon Prime, at least according to the showrunner's LinkedIn and posting history from February of this year that seems to imply LO may have been picked up by Amazon-

(but still, nothing's really been confirmed because they're being so tight-lipped about this you'd almost think it's because there isn't a show happening at all cough)

But even then, that means at best we still won't see anything of the LO TV show adaption for another 2-3 years, depending on how production goes.

Why am I talking about LO right now? Well it should be obvious - Kaos double-whammied LO by beating it to the punch at its own game.

I mean, just look at the creative choices alone in the design of the Underworld and its rulers, our beloved Hades and Persephone.

And yes, the entire Underworld is color-graded like this, something so simple and yet effective in communicating the nature of the Underworld and what it stands for - a place where the past lives on through the dead, paused in time, devoid of the vibrant color grading found in Olympus - or "Olympia" as its been named in this retelling - which is, by the way, a visual treat to take in every time it's featured.

(and yes, that is S-tier-companion Billie Piper on the left, but I will not tell you who she's playing, you actually really should go into this show as blind as possible for the thrill of figuring out these characters as they're introduced <3)

That's not even getting into the narrative structure of the plot itself or the phenomenal casting and acting, but again, I don't want to spoil too much as the show is quite new, and I want to actually finish watching the show myself before I get more into the details of its story and how it delivers it (I'm very much hoping I will still be singing this show's praises at the end of its 8 episodes, please for the love of god don't jump the shark, I don't think my heart can take that kind of pain again.)

All that's to say though, Kaos is, so far, exactly what us disappointed fans of LO deserve after all these years, and frankly, I feel like whatever is coming for the LO animated TV show is really gonna have to step up to the plate to both live up to the bar that Kaos has set as well as stand on its own without being affiliated as a cheap Amazon knockoff living in its shadow. Sounds a little familiar and a bit ironic, doesn't it?

[gay-jesus-probably]

Let me just preface this by saying everyone is allowed to have their own opinions, TOTK is a really fun game, and I'm glad that other people have been able to enjoy the story as well.

...But I'm being dead serious with my complaints about the narrative being 100% imperialist propaganda. And I'm getting really tired of people replying to those posts by saying it can't be imperialist propaganda, because imperialism is bad and the game says that Hyrule is the good guys.

Like, guys. That's not the argument you think it is. Yes, I am aware that the game tells us Ganondorf is a flat, one dimensional character with no ambitions, interests or motivations beyond destroying the entire world for the hell of it, and also it's totally not racist because he's green, not brown like literally every other member of his race. Unfortunately literally all of these things are kind of the entire goddamn problem.

See, the thing is, everyone trying to make these arguments is accepting the game at face value. Hyrule is the perfect and almighty nation chosen by the demigod Zonai, and whose royal family has the right to rule due to their divine heritage. The other races exist to serve the glory of Hyrule, and they're happy to do it. Ganondorf is pure evil and must be stopped at any costs.

But that's not how anything works. The story informing me that Hyrule is the ultimate good that has done nothing wrong is the whole goddamn reason why I don't trust Hyrule at all. There's always more of a reason than that. And the game fucking suggests there was more going on! Ganondorf mentions Rauru has repeatedly 'invited' the Gerudo to become Rauru's subjects, and let's be clear here, it doesn't matter how peaceful those 'invitations' were, when the guy who owns every single magical nuclear missile in the world repeatedly demands you surrender to him, there's always going to be an implied threat of 'do it or get magically nuked'. Just that power difference alone shows us exactly why Ganon would feel threatened enough to invade. It's because Rauru was holding a gun to his head, and Ganon was expected to just trust that he'd never pull the trigger.

And yes, even if it wasn't intentional Hyrule was always threatening to wipe out the other nations, considering the entire royal family walked around openly wearing their magical nukes as cute accessories. If they couldn't be safely hidden away, there wouldn't be four other secret stones sitting untouched in a vault until the last second.

But that's never acknowledged. Of course Hyrule is the only nation with the right to the secret stones; even if other races get to touch them, they can only have them if they swear eternal blind loyalty and servitude to the glory of King Rauru and Princess Zelda. Ganon wanting to have one magical nuclear bomb out of a stockpile of eight of them is proof that he's dangerous and evil. I mean my god, what if he just walked around all day wearing a magical nuke and using its power for his own benefit, that would be terrifying. It's only okay when Hylian royalty does it.

And you can't argue that Ganon betrayed his own people, considering we don't get to know fucking anything about his relationship with his people. He's shows as the leader of the Gerudo, we're told he's a hero to his people, he has soldiers that loyally follow him into battle... and then oh nevermind, they all hate him and will spend eternity trying to atone for sharing a race with him. How did the entire race do a complete 180 in the span of at most a few months? Who cares, what's important is that now they accept they exist to serve Hyrule so they get to be the good guys now and we don't need to know why they were following Ganondorf, or why they stopped following him.

Basically my point is that yeah, I fucking know how the game insists everything went down. That's the entire reason I think it's imperialist propaganda, because the entire story feels like Hylian propaganda to conceal and justify some horrific atrocities that caused all of this. I literally do not believe that I'm getting the story through reliable narrators, especially considering that the only people allowed to actually tell me the story are all the characters that have the most reasons to be heavily biased in favour of Hyrule.

When the game shows me protagonists that have a massive amount of power and control over the entire world, then says the bad guy doesn't like that system just because he's evil, and literally nothing and nobody in the game says anything to oppose that take, I have some questions about what the fuck the story isn't telling me. And I'd really appreciate it if people would stop trying to argue with me just by telling me to stop asking those questions.

[vashtijoy]

I wanted to ask if you could clear this up for me, if you play in third semester and you get to Maruki's Reality, we see Akechi appear to turn himself in on Christmas Eve so, Im not sure exactly why we dont see him do so when you go back to The True Reality? what was the reason for it, Im not clear on it a bits

Hi! In short, Atlus want to maintain the mystery of whether Akechi is canonically dead or alive. Thanks for your question!

... okay, okay. More seriously, Akechi arriving on Christmas Eve is the first use we see Maruki make of his enhanced power. Akechi is present in Shibuya to take the rap for Ren because Maruki puts him there. So when that is later undone, Akechi is no longer there—and Ren was arrested and detained, all along. Just as he was in the vanilla game.

but doesn't maruki's reality start on 12/31?

We-ell... kind of. As he says in his 1/1 journal entry, Maruki finally merges Mementos with reality late on 12/31, when Ren has his dream about the butterfly. But he's already using his new power before that point, to do nice things for his friends, the Phantom Thieves.

It's not just Akechi in Shibuya. The Christmas Eve party in Royal is very different from its counterpart in vanilla—well, sure. Ren's not in detention, so the whole mood is different. They talk about Akechi, but then they just move on to have fun. Well, it is Christmas.

But the New Year's party is a strange sequence of pleasant events. Futaba calls it "an actual, real-life good ending"! We hear not just that Ren's conviction is likely to be overturned, but that Shido is to be prosecuted for the crimes he confessed. In February, of course, Sae will tell us that it took months just to document his confession, and that he's being prosecuted only for breaches of electoral and funding law.

Something else to note about the Royal Christmas and New Year events: to my ear, they have a glib, superficial tone. Don't you think so? Matters of import come up, but the team move past them, to talk about trivialities, about their party and the fun they're having. It's kind of nice; this is who they might have been without the weight of responsibility, of grief. But equally, that weight should be there.

This is illustrated in the script. Both events feature a long string of sound effect emotes:

These SE lines are never translated, but what you see here is Joker, Ryuji, and Ann laughing—waraigoe, the sound of laughter, literally "a laughing voice". This laugh, on New Year's Eve, continues through the whole group, not just the Phantom Thieves but also Sojiro and even Sae.

Coincidence? There are group laughs later, after Joker is released, and at the big confidant party. But those are just attributed to 全員 zen'in ("everybody"), or 一同 ichidou ("all present"). These lists of identical laugh lines at the start of Maruki's reality are just a little bit unnerving. By the time of Maruki's bad ending, those brief lapses into reality, with all of its unpleasantness, are gone.

So yes, in small ways, Maruki is using his power even before he merges Mementos with reality late on 12/31. And here's one last thing to pay attention to on 12/24. You know how Maruki alters reality itself, by altering people—by changing everyone's cognition so that the world agrees on its new nature? Watch Sae, during this scene.

She's surprised, sure—but she never seems surprised that Akechi is alive. She's just surprised that he's turning himself in. In the vanilla scene, on the other hand, she explicitly says that Akechi is missing. Ren can bring up that Akechi is back from the dead, but Sae doesn't seem to care!

Wheels within wheels.

so where's akechi in the "real" timeline?

Can of worms. Which "real timeline"? There are two, depending on whether or not you maxed Akechi's confidant. In the vanilla timeline, you don't get him to rank 8 before the engine room, and he dies behind the door. But in the Royal timeline, you do get him to rank 8, and you keep your promise, and that gives Akechi the will to live.

(Yes, this is what I currently believe. And more than that, I think it's the true meaning of that creator interview, "the player's feelings are equivalent to the protagonist's cognition". It doesn't mean that guy on the platform can be a randomer in his school uniform or a ghost!—it means there's one route where he's dead, and one where he's alive.)

In the game as released, we don't know where Akechi is. But in his February deleted scene—where he's clearly alive—he tells us where he was, for precisely this reason.

He wasn't in Shibuya at all. He was at this refuge, wherever it is, going into hiding. He wasn't around to save Ren.

If this scene had been left in, this would have been the moment Akechi came out of safety, out of hiding, and gave up on his life—to do what's right once more, to confirm his 12/24 decision, and face justice in Ren's place. If you think Maruki altered him, and he would never have turned himself in otherwise—watch this scene again. Yeah, we were robbed.

what else does akechi say?

On 2/2, Akechi tells us how it happened:

Let's take a quick look at that line in Japanese:

Akechi けど、君たちと戦ったあと⋯{F1 82}ともう一度会うまで僕の中にハッキリした記憶はなかった。 kedo, kimi-tachi to tatakatta ato... [Ren] to mou ichido au made boku no naka ni hakkiri shita kioku wa nakatta But after I fought against you all, I had a gap in my memory that ended with meeting up with [Ren] again. [lit. But, after I fought with you and the others… until I met back up with [Ren], I had no clear memories.]

hakkiri shita—"clear; distinct; vivid; plain; explicit; well-defined; sharp; loud and clear". hakkiri to kioku shiteiru—"to remember clearly". hakkiri shinai kioku—"unclear memories". hakkiri shita kioku—"clear memories".

Note that well. Akechi is not saying that he remembers nothing. He's saying he remembers nothing clear, which is substantively different, and not conveyed well by the English "a gap in my memory".

(He also switches address mid-sentence—in the first half of the line, he's addressing Ren as kimi ("you"), but then he cuts off, and addresses him as Ren. It looks like he switches from talking directly to Ren to talking to Maruki. And if you remember him being a dick about that moment on 1/2... this might be the line that reveals that actually, yeah, their promise in the engine room really did matter to him.)

Akechi believes he's dead on 2/2; I think there can be no question of that. There isn't a big reveal that he was alive all the time. And you can't even get this scene if you didn't max his confidant, if you didn't keep the promise—if Akechi didn't survive.

But there is an afterlife in the Persona universe, from which characters have even spoken—so I'd like to hear a little more, some day, about these "unclear memories" of his.

but how can he be alive

Bear in mind that the third semester looks identical (besides that engine room flashback on 1/2), regardless of whether or not you maxed Akechi's confidant. That's to say, whether Akechi dies in the engine room or not, the third semester does not change.

That means that everyone's perceptions of it cannot change. That includes Akechi. If he was dead and Maruki revived him, then he has no memories before he awakens in Shibuya, because he was dead. But if he wasn't dead—if he was at the refuge we see him at in the deleted scene, or in Hawaii, or on the Moon—if Maruki believes that he was dead, and attempts to revive him based on that conviction—

Well, then he creates a world where Goro Akechi died behind those shutters, doesn't he? A world where Akechi remembers nothing before he awakens in Shibuya, because now he was dead for those weeks. A world where, even though you saved him, Akechi died in the engine room. Just like in the vanilla timeline.

revision history

Click here for the latest version.

v1.2 (2024/07/13)—wording.

v1.1 (2024/07/12)—added a bit about how akechi bookends 1/2 and 2/2.

v1.0 (2024/07/12)—first posted.

[scoobydoodean]

would love to hear more about the “chuck was the one who brainwashed cas and kelly actually” theory, thank you :)

Okay so I'm going to sound like I'm not addressing your question at all at first but just bear with me.

One of the primary reasons that the baby brainwashing incident fascinates me is that Cas's actions are a betrayal of his and Dean's bond on a foundational level. I'm not talking about The Colt or the mixtape (though they're related).

Dean and Cas's relationship as handler and charge was shed and a real, genuine bond bloomed in 4.22, after this exchange:

DEAN Destiny? Don't give me that "holy" crap. Destiny, God's plan... It's all a bunch of lies, you poor, stupid son of a bitch! It's just a way for your bosses to keep me and keep you in line! You know what's real? People, families -- that's real. And you're gonna watch them all burn? CASTIEL What is so worth saving? I see nothing but pain here. I see inside you. I see your guilt, your anger, confusion. In paradise, all is forgiven. You'll be at peace. Even with Sam. DEAN You can take your peace... and shove it up your lily-white ass. 'Cause I'll take the pain and the guilt. I'll even take Sam as is. It's a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in paradise. 

These are the words that convince Cas to rebel. These are the words that dissolve Cas's doubts in doubt, and convince him to follow his convictions instead of act on blind faith. Shortly after this conversation, Cas flies Dean to Chuck, who tells them what they're up to isn't supposed to happen. This becomes a theme of Dean and Cas's relationship.

Together, Dean and Cas do things that aren't supposed to happen—that aren't part of God's plan. They do something Chuck explicitly says isn't supposed to happen in 4.18. They do something that Chuck explicitly says isn't supposed to happen in 4.22. They do something that Chuck explicitly says isn't supposed to happen in 5.22.

Dean and Cas's relationship, at its very core, is built upon the rejection of two things: 1) Destiny and 2) Paradise—and by the end of "The Future", Cas explicitly (in the production draft) embraces destiny and paradise... and that screams Chuck.

This is what Cas says to Kelly right after the devil baby brainwashing at the very end of "The Future". The "Paradise" part doesn't make it to the final cut—just the "future" part... but the Paradise part is implied by the "future" part anyway.

What else happens in "The Future"? Kelly says the line.

It's not supposed to happen this way.

She says the line that Chuck said every time Dean and Cas defied the writing during the first apocalypse by doing something Chuck couldn't or didn't anticipate. Kelly says this after Sam and Dean catch up to Castiel—after Sam and Dean convince Cas to just talk through all of this with them and not jump to the nuclear option of murdering Kelly—to consider an alternative plan where Kelly and Jack's lives are both preserved because Jack is born a regular baby. The moment Cas begins to agree to talk, Kelly says "It's not supposed to happen this way."

Now let's talk about Kelly. Her behavior this entire episode is insane. She begins the episode despairing because giving birth to Jack will kill her. She then tries to kill herself, but Jack won't let her die—and this throws Kelly into a sort of religious fervor—convincing her that Jack is actually good and could revolutionize the world. Her belief in this is so powerful that when Sam and Dean arrive, she immediately rejects the plan they've come up with that will spare her and Jack's lives:

Sam: No, Kelly, if you go with Cass, you die. Your baby dies. Kelly: I go with you, you take away the thing that makes him special.

She sounds nuts. Like. Imagine saying you'd rather you and your baby DIE than have a "normal" baby. Your baby HAS to be a special baby or you'd rather be dead? Uh... ew—and to a point that screams supernatural brainwashing.

Of course—Kelly's actions aren't quite as irrational as they seem because right before Sam and Dean arrived, Kelly was shown something by "Jack". She got Cas to lay his palm on her belly, and "Jack" showed her a vision of the future. After she takes off with Cas in the impala, she says,

When you put your hand on my stomach, I heard him. He spoke to me. He told me that even if it seems scary, if I just went to the gate, if I just followed your plan, that you would make sure he was born.

So even as she's driving herself straight into Cas's plan to kill her and her baby, Kelly believes everything will be fine—because "Jack" showed her the future... and the thing is? She's... not wrong. "Jack" did show her the future. "Jack" showed her a tiny moment that actually does happen at the end of the episode—Cas standing between her and Dagon and saying "You stay away from her".

Why do I keep putting "Jack" in quotes here? Because Jack never displays the ability to see the future after his birth, and yet "Jack" did have this power from the womb... only? Yeah... I'm not so sure. I'm wondering if it was someone else—someone who showed Kelly what they had already written.

I'll also note in 13.01, that Jack doesn't seem to remember... any of this happening—at least not in the same way. In fact, he recalls very little leading up to his birth. The way he describes it, his sole knowledge of the world prior to his birth came from Kelly speaking to him while he was in the womb... but also... not? Because he says he was Kelly?

SAM: How do you speak English? JACK: My mother taught me. SAM: So you talked to her. JACK: I was her. JACK: My mother, she said Castiel, he would keep me safe. She said the world was a dangerous place. That's -- that's why I couldn't be a baby or a child. I... That's why I had to grow up fast. That's why I chose him to be my father. Where is he?

It's all pretty confusing, but something blinks at me here: Jack says Kelly told him Castiel would keep him safe and indicates that he chose Castiel as his father based on Kelly's assessment. However, Kelly told us Jack showed her the future which told her that Castiel would keep Jack safe back in 12.19. These are two contradictory stories. What if a third party sowed both?

Two other little bits:

First:

Kelly: Maybe – maybe everything that I've been through, everything that I still have to go through, is happening for a reason. Maybe it's part of some plan. Castiel: No, it isn't. I used to believe in a plan. I used to believe that I had some mission. But I have been through enough now to know that everyone is just winging it. 

Castiel does a 180 on this by the end of the episode and it screams Chuck Chuck Chuck Chuck.

Second:

If you go to the 12.19 production draft (graciously provided to the fandom through @/spnscripthunt) on page 45, you'll see something that never made it to screen—Cas's vision of paradise.

Only—these visions don't seem to come to fruition unlike Kelly's vision of Cas protecting her. The bits with Dean and Castiel's wings don't feel like the future anyway—they... just feel like what Cas wants most desperately at that time—to be a protector and provider who can handle everything on his own—who needs a "win". This is another theme of the episode. Cas stole The Colt in a misguided attempt to protect his family from having to be directly involved in the ruthless murder Cas had determined would be necessary. He didn't believe there was any other choice, and he wanted to spare Sam and Dean the pain of being involved in the dirty work.

Sam: Then – Then why didn't you call us? Cas, we could've helped you. Castiel: I know. I wanted to keep you out of this. I-I was trying to keep you safe. Dean: You're not our babysitter, Cas, okay? That is not your job. And when in our whole lives have we ever been safe?

This probably stings for Cas because he knows they aren't, and he wants them to be—he wants his family to be safe... all without having to discard his conscience by killing Kelly. He wants her to be safe too! The stuff he sees gives him what he wants--Sam and Dean and Kelly happy and safe—Dean thanking him—Cas once more a fully powered angel who doesn't need anybody's help.

But all of this stuff he sees? It's a lie. It's a lie because it never happens, but it's also a lie because destiny is always a lie. Paradise is always a lie. God's plan is just a way to keep them all in line... and Cas is trying to secure paradise for someone who said they'd take the pain and the guilt over someone else's vision of their paradise.

[thechekhov]

Dungeon Meshi Quick Reacts

CH.30 (Good Medicine)

I kind of assumed that things would get worse from here...

...yeah, there's no 'but' to that. Getting Falin back so quick was too good to be true.

Aren't those the ghosts Falin talked to? They could be friendly.

"ee gads! a hairless little man!" I'd be frightened too if Chillchuck was suddenly behind a door I'd just opened.

Chillchuck, buddy, less than 24 hours ago you threw a knife directly into a dragon's eye. You can take care of some worgs, right?

Senshi's a card carrying member of the smells-okay-to-me-chief club.

Orcs be like 'oh, dragon's gone? Hm. Curious' and then just carry on. Wouldn't you be worried that something took out the dragon? Could be even more dangerous than the dragon itself.

I feel like at this point Falin might be just that.

MOUTH TO MOUTH RESUSCITATION!

Marcille, I don't think you have a lot of options.

......just realized those moose antlers are holding up her rack. Talk about a pushup bra. Damn. Respect.

Wait go back to that "create monsters to do their bidding" thing again. Was that the little mini dragons or does that include larger monsters like the dragon itself?!

OR something that was IN the dragon, controlling its actions and make it act irrationally? Is that why the Sorcerer wasn't surprised to see Falin as a separate thing outside the dragon? Was the assumption that whatever THING it was had escaped and become Falin?

And for all we know... it kinda had. It had merged with her spirit....

Or maybe I'm way off.

Congrats on the larger story plot! :D You're now in even more danger! Hoorah!

Chillchuck, a normal person would just go 'I'm leaving, pay me'. You're giving yourself away, worrying for them.

I can't hate him for the reasoning here. The deeper you go, the less likely you are to be found. The only person who cares enough about Marcille and Laios and Chillchuck to find their bodies are.... each other. So if they're dead here, they're likely dead-dead.

I want to nestle into her bosom and live there as a little creature.

Moreso than when she was literally in the gullet of a red dragon?! Come on, be reasonable. At least she's alive now. And remembers who she is.

Ooooh friendly ghosts. Makes sense why Falin was so chill about them.

All the more reason to believe there's something to be done!

Love the doggo yawning behind Chillchuck.

He's a coward, but being afraid isn't necessarily a sign of weakness. It's a sign that you realize how dangerous a situation is. Cowardice isn't stupidity, no more than ignorance of danger is bravery.. I think the orc leader is maybe realizing he's not doing it for completely selfish reasons. Mad respect to her though.

It WAS Falin, wasn't it? It wasn't as if it was a thing pretending to be her. She was there, and she was revived successfully, and then the soul confusion thing happened.

......damn. What a small holiday they got, before the next horrible thing happened...

hey, Marcille is not dumb! She's got loads of braincells! they're just all focused on doing evil stuff and being gay.

🎯

That's right! It's just like you, Chillchuck!

Was that... there before?

Oh, okay, no, it was. Hm.......

This stupid man is about to full a Falin and jump out a window to go look for her, isn't he.

Gods, this sucks for him so much. For all of them. Because they.... they WERE successful! They rescued Falin! They brought her back from the head! They DID that!

But now, instead of getting the reward of it, she's just gone. Is it better, because she's alive?

Or worse, because the threat is even more nebulous?

If they all died, would it be worth it?

who's the coward...? he's ready to go back.

For Falin, they went down there. They risked themselves.

For them, after talking to him only a bit, the orc leader went from 'hey, nice snack for my dog' to 'we're helping you get that girl back'.

It's about the CONNECTION!!! IT'S ABOUT HELPING EACH OTHER AFTER LEARNING TO UNDERSTAND ONE ANOTHER!!!

[kokushibitch]

my dmmd au where mink is actually a brown guy instead of being vaguely yellow and grey. left edit is just a skintone edit while the right contains more natural looking feathers. i also gave him a stronger face

i spent a while trying to pinpoint his nation. unfortunately his design contradicted itself a bit and the slapping of random feathers and dreamcatchers everywhere pisses me awf. i wish that the artists had chosen to stick with one specific nation, and the closer i looked it actually wasn't as bad as i initially thought, but there were still some pretty egregious errors made with his design that could be avoided with CURSORY research, and for a company like n+c, big as they are with the resources to do better research, is unacceptable. to be quite honest, i almost hesitate to even make this post because i really don't want people to run with the information ill be discussing. while i am a native dude that enjoys DMMD, i know so many others that dislike mink, his design, and story because he falls into quite a few racist tropes. also, just because i can kind of glean some information about mink's culture based on his character design/home design, does not mean that it's a 100% accurate portrayal of said culture.

TL;DR: i used to think he was supposed to be ojibwe, but upon further inspection i headcanon mink as navajo/dine and afronative, my reasoning below the cut. im gonna make a later post discussing the nuances of his route and the meta racism in DMMD cause its been a loooooooong time since ive played his route. while im not navajo myself (im tsalagi) i at least have the life experience to tell the goddamn difference between nations lol. i also love the inclusion of a rainbow in his design as a fellow indigenous rainbow enjoyer

note: dine and navajo are the same thing, but im gonna use navajo because thats what more people are familiar with.

the easiest way to start would be with his most obviously unique feature, his locced hair. loccing among NA nations wasn't super common, but it did happen due to the culture & rituals around hair (no cutting unless under specific circumstances, braids/plaits end up "locced" from saltwater, etc etc). to me, however, his locced hair didn't feel like a purposeful design choice. meaning, i dont think the artist chose the locced hair because they wanted to convey something traditional about mink's culture, i think they chose it just because it looks cool, or because mink kind of just falls into the "vaguely brown" category. i'd also be okay with interpreting him as black/native, which i think im gonna do because i know that there are (or was, dead fandom) plenty of black dmmd fans that identify with him

his second most unique cultural indicator is his dreamcatcher. unfortunately, dreamcatchers have kind fallen into that "vague native design" bullshit, but they do have a tribal origin: aanishinabe. again though, due to the sheer abundance of people slapping dreamcatchers onto vaguely native characters, i cant say that this is a strong enough point for me to say definitively that he's aanishinabe. also, you dont fuckin wear dreamcatchers. end of, they're not supposed to be on your body.

THEN there are even more important indicators to me that denote exactly which nation he's from.

just judging base on the patterns used on his traditional tapestries, blankets, and runners, would denote some sort of southwestern nation. now they're not accurate designs necessarily, but i can understand and see clearly where they took inspiration from.

the peace pipe on the wall in both his home and his hideout immediately indicate navajo, a southwestern nation. the fact that he has a strong religious orientation to smoking herbs (im assuming in place of tobacco) is also very navajo to me. the pottery in his home & hideout are also very strongly southwestern, as pottery was a very common art in the southwest. the fact that he has an altar at all is unique because altars are actually not common practice and are usually only found in the southwest, which is actually a good detail point whether it was intentional or not. ignore the dreamcatchers which were, again, thrown in randomly

and of course his homeland contains mountains and more importantly, cliffs and canyons which is another southwest feature. there's also his fuckass cowboy boots which are VERY southwestern

IGNORING the dreamcatcher in his hair AGAIN, he's also flexin beaded jewelry. to me, these are just like regular beads, but you could interpret them as turquoise if you wanted. traditional turquoise jewelry is usually inlayed onto silver bands or pieces as well as strung together like so. his white belt also contains a very southwestern design.

as much as some elements of his design annoy the fuck out of me, i love, love, love, love the inclusion of the rainbow in mink's character design. the rainbow is so important to so many different nations, and mink being a religious person, it actually makes a lot of sense for him to have this sort of draw to rainbows or rainbow colored items. specifically in navajo culture, rainbows are used as Bridges between The Navajo and The Holy People, basically communicating with a higher power. a rainbow is also a symbol of the 7 sacred rituals in navajo culture, one color per ritual. here's a youtube video about it, learn something

i do have some thoughts on mink de-loccing his hair in his good ending, but i think i will have to save that for another post further down the line

anways, ive made my case. mink is navajo

[tokyo-debunkers-headcanons]

ya know how jin usually wears his jacket uniform around his shoulders? my brain literally does not shut up abt this so would it be possible to request a romantic headcanon/drabble with frostheim and vagastrom boys where they give their jacket to the reader (and ur reasons for why you think they do) :’)

Thank you for sending in a request!

JIN KAMURAI

he doesn't give his jacket up easily, just be aware. And as stated before He's not big on PDA but I think he'd get a little jealous if they were out and about together. If they were really cold He'd give it up, but he'd absolutely complain about it first. (CAPTAIN! DRABBLE SPOTTED ON STARBURD SIDE!)

Jin glared around at the dirty Vagastrom pit. If it wasn't for MC being there for a mission, he wouldn't be caught dead in a place like this for fun. He didn't trust those thugs to make sure MC got back to their dorm okay. When he finally spotted them, he made a B line for them, noticing some general students getting too close for comfort. He stepped in, using his powerful voice and stigma, saying,

"Stand down you thugs!"

Jin swiftly walked up to a shocked looking MC, taking off his jacket and throwing it over their shoulders. He placed a hand on their shoulder, glaring daggers at the general students and guiding MC out of there. When they were out he grabbed their hand and started leading them. Without taking his eyes off of where he was going he said,

"From now on, whenever you come to this shit hole. You take my jacket, is that clear?"

TOHMA ISHIBASHI

Okay, Tohma would give them his jacket if they were cold but I think it would be more of a shield from others if that makes sense. Like to cover them up or to comfort them when something is happening. (WELCOME TO THE DRABBLE DOME!)

Tohma narrowed his eyes as he watched MC leaving Frostheim for the day. He had spotted some general students milling about and getting closer to MC. He stayed where he was until one of the students had tried to grab their arm. In what seemed like a flash, Tohma was there with his typical smile. He held on to the offending students wrist tightly, his composure never cracking. After a moment he let go of the students wrist, and slipped off his jacket, placing it over MC's shoulders. He looked down at them saying,

"Please do forgive them MC. It seems I will have to teach them proper guest etiquette"

KAITO FUJI

Kaito would TRY to give MC his jacket like he's seen in movies and magazines. But he would get WAY too worried about if there was some sort of stain on it from lunch or if it smelled weird. Like if its raining, he'd be too worried about the condition of the jacket to realize MC either ran for cover already.....or is already soaked from the rain. (WE ARE LIVING IN A DRABBLE WORLD! AND I AM JUST A DRABBLE GORL!)

Kaito took a deep breath and shifted his uniform jacket as he walked MC back to their dorm. He saw on his phone that it was supposed to rain today and he purposefully 'forgot' his umbrella. As they were walking it started to drizzle, before quickly turning into a downpour. Kaito thanked whatever diety was out there for this chance. He swiftly took off his jacket, draping it over their shoulders and grabbing their hand to run back to MC's dorm. He laughed along the way, picturing what it looked like to MC. what he thought was a cute scene from a movie.....was really him dragging MC by the hand in the pouring rain. When they finally DO make it back to MC's dorm, they're both sopping wet and MC says,

"Thanks for lending me your jacket and all Kaito.....but i hope you know there's a hole in one of the sleeves."

Kaito died a little inside when MC told him that.

LUCAS ERRANT "LUCA"

Luca, being the lovely English gentlemen he is. He will always give MC his jacket even if it's just a little windy. He would beat himself up if MC got sick when they were with him. (EXTRY EXTRY! DRABBLE FOR ENGLISH BOI!)

Lucas had sent MC a message to meet him in the library to do more research on both their curse and demons. He was making his way to the library, when he spotted them. He waved and jogged up to them, a small smile on his face. He grabbed their hand and gently squeezed it. Keeping their fingers interlocked while they walked together.

MC was mentioning something that happened in one of their classes when Luca felt a drop of something hit his nose. He looked up, noticing clouds overhead. Without hesitating he took off his jacket and placed it on top of MC's head to shield them from the rain. He pressed his hand against their lower back gently guiding them into the building. MC fussed over how he was wet, but he brushed it off with a smile and a soft hand on their cheek, saying,

"I'll be fine MC. I was more worried about you. I wouldn't ever want you to get sick. I promised to protect you after all"

ALAN MIDO

Okay to start with, Alan doesn't wear his jacket. He HAS one, he just doesn't wear it. He has a vest though so its CLOSE ENOUGH! But with his vest, they HAVE to tell him that they're cold AND ask him for his vest. He has no objection to give it to them if they're cold. But his mind is on other things, he's not gonna get the hint if they just tell him that they're cold.

Alan was on his back, working on one of the cars in the Vagastrom garage while he waited for his partner to show up. Tonight was supposed to be date night and they agreed to spend some time together doing seperate things (its called parallel play for those who don't know!). He rolled out to grab a drink of water and a different tool when MC walked in. They were holding their arms and shivering slightly. He greeted them and went back under to work on the car.

MC sat down on the couch and cleared their throat. Alan rolled back out and asked them what was wrong. When they told him it was cold, he offered to get them a blanket or something. When they refused that offer, he didn't know what else to do and went back under. MC sighed and got his attention by calling his name. He rolled back out and asked,

"Did you change your mind on that blanket?"

MC had not and just asked him straightforward,

"Alan sweetie, I'm cold. Can I please borrow your vest?"

He thought about it for a moment before telling them no, then getting up and walking away. MC sat there SHOCKED. For a moment they were upset, but after a minute or two, Alan came back with a uniform jacket, tossing it towards MC, saying,

"Wear that. It'll look better on you than me anyways"

SHOHEI HAIZONO "SHO"

I feel like Sho would hand MC his jacket whenever he's either about to cook, or about to fight. He'd give it to them if they were cold sure, but he'd complain about them not being prepared.

Sho made his way back to the Vagastrom dorms with bags full of ingredients. He texted his partner MC to show up with an appetite. He was glad to see MC already at the dorms by the time he got back and parked Bonnie (his bike) properly. He raced past them into the Vagastrom kitchen, urging them to follow.

When they came in, they saw Sho adjusting his bandana to keep the hair out of his face and taking off his jacket. He held it out to MC saying,

"Hang onto this for me babe. I'm about to make a master piece"

Seeing the fire in his eyes, MC gladly took his jacket, slipping it on and sitting down at the kitchen counter. They watched as he expertly cooked: cutting vegetables, frying and double frying meats, even his plating was mesmerizing to watch. When he was finished he set the hot plate down in front of MC with a smirk.

LEO KUROSAGI

Leo would NOT give them the jacket he wears. Its a very expensive jacket that he got from a brand deal. The only time he would willingly give MC his jacket is if something happened and they were really really upset (not at him though)

Leo sighed as he walked to MC's dorm. He didn't bother knocking as he came into the old cathedral. He looked around calling for MC. He eventually found them curled up in bed, sobbing. He cringed a bit, not entirely comfortable with such intense emotions. He took a minute to think before sighing dramatically. He sat down on the edge of the bed and threw his jacket over their sobbing form. He put a gentle hand on their back, saying,

"Just try not to get any tear streaks on it, okay?"

[purpledemonlilyposting]

Okay it's time for me to go a bit crouching retard hidden genius here, take off the clown nose and put my thinking cap on. Cause unlike many, many people who reference Nineteen Eighty-Four I've actually read it. Several times. And not as a school mandate.

What does "He loved Big Brother" tell you about media literacy?

Like what even is that point, Lorch? What does just knowing the final sentence of the book tell you about someone's media literacy? What do YOU even think that line means? Cause I'd love to hear it and I doubt you've ever actually read the fucking book.

There are many take-aways you can have from Nineteen Eighty-Four regarding the control of the populace through deception, fear, propaganda, regulation, indoctrination of the young, the dumbing down of language, and sheer hypocrisy. I'd be more interested in someone's take on passages like this to gauge their media literacy:

'It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take "good", for instance. If you have a word like "good", what need is there for a word like "bad"? "Ungood" will do just as well -- better, because it's an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of "good", what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like "excellent" and "splendid" and all the rest of them? "Plusgood" covers the meaning, or "doubleplusgood" if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already. but in the final version of Newspeak there'll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words -- in reality, only one word. Don't you see the beauty of that, Winston? It was B.B.'s idea originally, of course,' he added as an afterthought. A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Winston's face at the mention of Big Brother. Nevertheless Syme immediately detected a certain lack of enthusiasm. 'You haven't a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,' he said almost sadly. 'Even when you write it you're still thinking in Oldspeak. I've read some of those pieces that you write in The Times occasionally. They're good enough, but they're translations. In your heart you'd prefer to stick to Oldspeak, with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning. You don't grasp the beauty of the destruction of words. Do you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?' Winston did know that, of course. He smiled, sympathetically he hoped, not trusting himself to speak. Syme bit off another fragment of the dark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on: 'Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Edition, we're not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thoughtcrime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect. Newspeak is Ingsoc and Ingsoc is Newspeak,' he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction. 'Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?'

The speech had been proceeding for perhaps twenty minutes when a messenger hurried on to the platform and a scrap of paper was slipped into the speaker's hand. He unrolled and read it without pausing in his speech. Nothing altered in his voice or manner, or in the content of what he was saying, but suddenly the names were different. Without words said, a wave of understanding rippled through the crowd. Oceania was at war with Eastasia! The next moment there was a tremendous commotion. The banners and posters with which the square was decorated were all wrong! Quite half of them had the wrong faces on them. It was sabotage! The agents of Goldstein had been at work! There was a riotous interlude while posters were ripped from the walls, banners torn to shreds and trampled underfoot. The Spies performed prodigies of activity in clambering over the rooftops and cutting the streamers that fluttered from the chimneys. But within two or three minutes it was all over. The orator, still gripping the neck of the microphone, his shoulders hunched forward, his free hand clawing at the air, had gone straight on with his speech. One minute more, and the feral roars of rage were again bursting from the crowd. The Hate continued exactly as before, except that the target had been changed. The thing that impressed Winston in looking back was that the speaker had switched from one line to the other actually in midsentence, not only without a pause, but without even breaking the syntax. But at the moment he had other things to preoccupy him. It was during the moment of disorder while the posters were being torn down that a man whose face he did not see had tapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Excuse me, I think you've dropped your brief-case.' He took the brief-case abstractedly, without speaking. He knew that it would be days before he had an opportunity to look inside it. The instant that the demonstration was over he went straight to the Ministry of Truth, though the time was now nearly twenty-three hours. The entire staff of the Ministry had done likewise. The orders already issuing from the telescreen, recalling them to their posts, were hardly necessary. Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. A large part of the political literature of five years was now completely obsolete. Reports and records of all kinds, newspapers, books, pamphlets, films, sound-tracks, photographs -- all had to be rectified at lightning speed. Although no directive was ever issued, it was known that the chiefs of the Department intended that within one week no reference to the war with Eurasia, or the alliance with Eastasia, should remain in existence anywhere. The work was overwhelming, all the more so because the processes that it involved could not be called by their true names.

Also please read Nineteen Eighty-Four everyone. It's a very good book, it's not very long, and it's still scarily relevant to today.

[midsummer-semantics]

wiggly wednesday 🪱

Okay sure, this sounds fun. I was tagged by @medusapelagia to share a brainworm/headcanon, and I've been trying to get one to develop more fully so here we go.

Today, I'm thinking about...

Steve and Eddie going through some of Eddie's old things as they pack up to move into their own place. Nancy and Robin are there to help even though that mostly consists of Robin picking through already-packed boxes because she keeps getting distracted by all of the things she finds.

Steve finds what looks to be a really old photo album, the sticky pages holding the photos down yellow with age.

"Oh, shit," Eddie says, taking it from him to flip through. "I haven't seen this in ages. I was sure it was lost when all the shit went down."

"Oh my god, please tell me there's embarrassing baby pictures of you in there," Robin grins, trying to snatch it away.

Eddie holds it out of reach, nearly throwing it as Robin tries to tackle him for it.

"Jesus Christ! I'll show you, just keep your insane paws to yourself!" Eddie gripes.

Steve scoots in closer while Robin and Nancy crowd in on his other side, all wanting a closer look.

There's not many pictures in it and most are grainy and out of focus, black and white and hard to distinguish. But there's a few of a baby with an unmistakeable crop of riotous curls.

"Holy shit, you were so cute," Steve coos, running a finger along the 2D cheek of one photo.

"Excuse you, Harrington, but I'm still cute," Eddie snarks, flipping to the next page.

There's one photo of a young man holding baby Eddie, dark curls so similar to his own atop his head. The photo looks to have been torn down the middle, the right side pressed right against baby Eddie's back, like whoever was on the other side was better left out of the picture long term.

"Huh," Steve hums. "It never occurred to me that I had no idea what your dad looks like."

"And for good reason, babe," Eddie says, fighting not to rip the photo out and burn it. "Thankfully all I got from him was his hair and penchant for hot wiring. Everything else I got from my mom I guess."

"You guess?" Nancy asks.

Eddie nods. "She died when I was a baby and the old man kind of went off the rails after. I suspect this—" he runs a finger along the jagged edge of the photo in the book, "is his handy work."

"That's a shame," Steve says softly. He lifts the plastic covering the photo and peels it off the sticky backing, holding it up to his face to get a closer look — his eye sight is pretty back after so many concussions after all.

"Ya know, if his hair was a little longer, like mullet style, he'd almost look like a dark-haired Billy Hargrove," Steve points out.

Robin snatches the photo out of his hand, holding it out stretched like she can see it better that way instead. "Oh, shit. You're right. That's so weird."

Eddie snatches it back, top lip curled in disgust. "I don't want to speak ill of the dead, but how fucking dare you in any way compare my gorgeous existence to that guy."

Steve snickers and presses a kiss to Eddie's cheek. "I'm sorry, babe. You're right."

The photo gets tucked back into its place and they keep flipping through the book. There's more of Eddie as an infant, a few more of his dad, even a couple of a young Wayne in his military uniform holding a toddler Eddie by his arms as he jumps up, legs gangly and wild. Any photo that might have contained Eddie's mom is ripped, none of them cleanly, and there's only the occasional hand or blur of dark hair. Even still, it does stop happening once Eddie's about six months old.

"Wow. So you really don't know what your mom looks like?" Nancy asks finally as they're setting the photo album in a box.

"Oh no I do," Eddie says. "I have one singular picture of her from right after I was born. Wayne saved it for me."

"Oooooo can we see?" Robin pipes in. Eddie shrugs, getting up to dig through a shoebox that Steve's seen before but somehow managed to avoid snooping through — not that he didn't think about it all the time for the last year they've been together.

He comes back with a photo, plopping back into his spot while his friends and boyfriend crowd around him once more.

It's dead silent for several minutes, all of them staring at the picture. Eddie always figured his uncle was on to something when he said Eddie looked more like his mom, but now that he's about her age when this photo was taken, he thinks he can really see it.

On his left, Steve is trying to process exactly what he's looking at. Sure, the woman in the photo looks like she has the same dark hair that Eddie does, though it's a lot less curly, but aside from the hair and the tired look on her face, she could be a dead ringer for —

"Either Mrs. Wheeler has a doppleganger, or a secret twin we don't know about," he says.

He glances at Robin for a second before looking at Eddie and Nancy. They're heads are bowed over the photo, wearing matching expressions of wide-eyed shock.

Wait.

Matching.

Oh shit.

"Eddie," Robin says carefully. "What's your mom's name?"

His jaw opens and closes a few times before he croaks out, "Elizabeth, but Wayne said she only ever went by—"

"Her middle name?" Nancy asks, the fear of knowing the answer obvious in the wobble of her voice.

Eddie flips the photo over to look at the names and date written on the back. He's looked at it a million times, tracing her loopy handwriting so much over the years that it's slightly smudged, but still legible.

Karen Elizabeth Harvey + Edward Wayne Munson, November 1965

"Oh shit."

——————————————

no-pressure tags if anyone also wants to share a brainworm: @tedewitt @hornedqueenofhell @malikat24601 @spectrum-spectre

[operationslipperypuppet]

we all know work song is a hardshine song, so what if i put a bunch of naddpod moments together to make that more true.

Transcript:

Moments from Work Song by Hozier and (in order) C1E54, C1E68, C1E91, C1E70 (two clips), C3E39, C3E32, C3E30, C3E45 (two clips), and C3E44 edited together. Song lyrics are in bold. Episode jumps without lyrics between them are shown with "--".

When my time comes around

Murph [narrating]: Hardwon, you are in this strange, in between world. {Kingshammer begins playing in the background} Like, the Feywild right now looks like an oil painting, like it's gray and white, and you can vaguely see what's going on, but it's all blurry. And you hear a bunch of voices in the distance. You hear the voice of Gemma, in the distance going:

Gemma [Murph, whispering]: Hardwon, it's not your time yet, Hardwon. Hardwon, we'll be together but not now.

Hardwon [Jake]: Gemma.

Murph: You hear another voice calling to you.

Elias Stormborn [Murph]: Son, join me in the halls of Isgard.

Murph: And from somewhere else, you hear dissonant whispers, but amongst them you recognize the voice of the Widow.

Lydia Stormborn (The Widow) [Murph]: We can get out together, we can get out together.

Hardwon: Mother?

{Kingshammer slowly fades out}

Lay me gently in the cold, dark earth

Moonshine [Emily]: {Gutless plays in the background} Um, I just wanna remind you, not every problem needs to be fixed, but, if you want, I can reincarnate you.

Hardwon [Jake]: I wanna die, real bad.

[Caldwell laughs]

Moonshine: Okay, well, I'm gonna take that as a positive because if you die, then I can reincarnate ya.

Hardwon: Take it whatever way you want [chuckles]. Uh, but no, I, yeah, no, that's, that's the right interpretation.

Moonshine [overlapping]: Hardwon -

Hardwon: I w - I -

Moonshine: I really don't want you to want to die, because I want you to live so much and I don't wanna be alone in that feelin'.

Hardwon: I don't wanna die. I wanna - I wanna - I wanna live again.

No grave can hold my body down

Murph [narrating]: And you guys hear its voice, uh, simultaneously echoing through the cave and also sounding like it's right over your shoulder, somebody whispering into your ear.

[Emily hums in acknowledgement]

Death [Murph]: Hardwon Surefoot.

Beverly [Caldwell]: Woah!

Hardwon [Jake]: 'Sup?

Death: {The Purge starts playing in the background} You should be dead.

Hardwon: Yeah, looks like you can't do your job right, can ya? [Caldwell chuckles]

Death: The reason I can't do my job is because people like Beverly and Moonshine break the laws of death.

Hardwon: Careful, you're talking about my family.

I'll crawl home to her

Murph [narrating]: {Oh, Melora! plays in the background} Hardwon, your spirit, um, flies into this body. Uh, you see, Melora picks it up, pulls him out of the sea, and brings half-elf Hardwon into this, um, demiplane with all you guys.

[Caldwell laughs]

--

Hardwon [/Jake]: {Tale's End plays in the background} I smash my forehead against Moonshine's, too. [Emily laughs in delight] And say, hey, if I was gonna come back as anything, I'm proud to come back as half of you.

When my time comes around

Hardwon [Jake]: But, Beverly and Moonshine? They don't need me. [pauses] And, and I have to be okay with that.

--

Hardwon: {A Memory plays in the background} But I'm coming to understand the reality - that they're gonna stay as strong and heroic as we all once were, and I'm going to fade away.

Lay me gently in the cold dark earth

Hardwon [Jake]: Um, do me one, one favor? If I start to slow you down {bird chirping sound in background}, you leave me behind.

No grave can hold my body down

Hardwon [Jake]: {metal guitar music plays in the background} Hardwon kips up.

Murph [narrating]: Your eyes are closed, you're knocked out, you remember the last time you were knocked out by an avatar of Gruumsh, you know you can't let that happen again. Just pure, force of will, you jolt your heart and get it going again, and you kip up.

--

Murph [narrating]: {The Hexblood Centurions plays in the background} Hardwon, you are suddenly jolted back awake with the help of Sol, you see Sol hovering over you.

Hardwon [Jake]: Oh, my god -

Sol [Caldwell]: Hey.

Hardwon: - do I love the smell of mushrooms after I wake up from death. [Caldwell laughs]

I'll crawl home to her

Hardwon [Jake]: [other cast members laughing throughout] Moonsh - Moonshine, if you can hear me, I'll be there tomorrow. I'll be there tomorr- I'm coming. As fast as I can.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: ก่อนดอกไม้…บาน / 花开有时颓靡无声 / Meet You at the Blossom

Meet You at the Blossom is a 2024 joint Thai/Chinese adaptation of a Chinese danmei novel. Marketing itself as an "uncensored BL," it tells the love story of the world's dumbest boy and the absolute psychopath he has the (mis)fortune to fall for.

Note that "uncensored" doesn't mean you're going to see somebody's little blossom or anything like that. It just means that the love story is textual and canonical. These boys declare their love for one another. They hold hands. They smooch. They have soft, unfocused scenes where one of them climbs on top of the other and then everything fades to black. They are two boys and they are in love ... and sure, one of them thinks the other is a girl for longer than is probably reasonable, but what relationship doesn't have its share of misunderstandings?

This twelve-episode drama is a bodice-ripping melodrama with a bottom-barrel Harlequin novel plot. It is the most soap opera I've seen something that isn't a soap opera be. If you are the kind of person who enjoys this sort of thing, you are absolutely going to enjoy this sort of thing. If you're not ... well, it might still hook you anyway. Here's five reasons I think you should watch it.

1. Perfect toxic yaoi sludge

Do you only consume media about healthy relationships between consenting equals, where people have conversations and are always honest about their feelings? Great. Turn this off immediately.

Meet You at the Blossom is the show for people who yearn for the days of Kizuna. People who still think longingly about Zetsuai 1989. People who will not be convinced that Tokyo Babylon is anything but peak romance. People who have seen Gravitation more than once and of their own volition. People who have looked the trashiest yaoi out there dead in the eye and shouted BRING ME MORE.

I keep using the word "yaoi" because that's what it is. It's a gay relationship begun under false premises, consummated under sketchy circumstances, longed for despite serious reasons to stay broken up, and then all somehow worked out in the end. I have described the main pairing as, what if Wen Kexing fell in love with a labradoodle? Carried out to its logical conclusion, this relationship would be good for neither Wen Kexing nor the labradoodle. But for the purposes of a catastrophically badly paced twelve-episode series, it's all the dramatic fuel you need.

Nothing about their relationship is ever reliably safe, sane, or consensual -- and that's the fun of it! Look, the first time they fuck (in episode two!) is under the influence of sex pollen, and they come out the other side of it awkward but definitely not traumatized. I've seen people say they wish the show had treated the noncon bits with more gravity, which ... look, there's no noncon here. Actual noncon-wanters would be sorely disappointed by what this show offers. There's some impaired judgment and overblown irrational jealousy and aggressively pinning one's very drunk partner to the bed, but it's that kind of perfectly okay force fantasy that works in fiction, because in fiction everyone's okay with it. You know they're okay with it. The writer wrote it so they're okay with it. Everybody is getting exactly what they want.

This is a drama about people having Big Feelings that would be terrifying in real life, but are fun as hell onscreen. So you are promising me right now that if you watch this, you will not overthink it, because overthinking this show is like being that raccoon that failed at washing a piece of cotton candy. Don't try to clean up this delicate sugary mess. Eat it dirty.

2. Some fascinating faces

This is going to sound like such a backhanded compliment, but I swear it's not: There are some really interesting-looking people in this show! I can't swear this is because of the Thai production elements, but I have to assume that the different cultural beauty standards at work at least somewhat influenced the casting choices.

A thing about c-dramas is, the majority of the under-40 male actors look like their base model came off of one of the dozen or so approved production lines at the Pretty Boy Factory. While I enjoy these production lines, combine it with my natural touch of faceblindness, and I've had some hilarious moments where I have been certain two characters were played the same person, when they were in fact very much not.

This show is full of a bunch of actors you'd be hard-pressed to mistake for anyone else. There's like one guy who's conventionally c-drama handsome, while everyone else brings a lot more variety to the table than you tend to find in productions like this.

Li Le, when he's all done up as Zongzheng Huaien, is strikingly beautiful in a way that reminds me of old film starlets who maybe should've stopped about one nose job ago. I've seen pictures of him when he's dressed like a regular modern boy, and he's lovely, sure. But with the hair and the outfits and the constant haughty ice-cold stares he's leveling at people, the final look is stunning. And then he smiles and it's just the cutest goofy grin! Anyway, there's a whole big deal about Huaien's parentage, when the obvious answer is that the fey folk dropped him off and said, good luck with this one.

Meanwhile, Wang Yunkai, who plays Jin Xiaobao, has perfectly plump, kissable lips and a wide, soft nose that together with his giant eyes give him the perfect air of an innocent bisexual dumbass currently in the process of figuring out the whole "bisexual" part. He's so cute and cuddleable that you feel extra-bad when you see him in pain, which works for the show, because he spends a lot of the back half of the series being in both emotional and physical pain, as per conventions of the genre.

As for the rest of the cast, there's...

store-brand Huang Youming!

pouty Thai princess!

slimy kite dude and his terrible 'stache!

these precious dipshits!

...and a couple guys I just straight-up can't find pictures of, even though they're important named characters, because this may be the first thing they've been in? Look, this is not a show of well-known names, nor is it something that's probably to launch any careers to prominence. I'm not even going to say this is a show where everybody looks like everyday average people, because no! They obviously do not! They are very attractive people! They are just attractive according to a set of criteria you do not often see on Chinese television, and I think that's great.

3. You don't have to say NO HOMO every time you touch another dude

Really, truly, the greatest thing about an overtly BL property is how touchy men can be -- and not even the romantic pairings! Loyal servants get to hug their masters! Coworkers get to fall asleep in a two-man puppy pile! Childhood besties get to wrap comforting arms around one another! Brothers in arms get to catch their fallen comrades! Friends get to tearfully bid farewell to one another before leaving on journeys! Cousins get to embrace to the point one of the cousins really wishes they would stop!

Mostly it's that once you've removed the fear that gay shit might get your show censored, you can have your male characters engage in a perfectly regular amount of human physical contact.

Like, one of my favorite funny things about c-dramas is the amount of wrist-gripping that happens, as though dragging someone else along by their wrist is a real-life thing that happens often, or even at all. It's the perfect example of how paranoia about depicting physical intimacy leads to substitutes that are just bizarre. We can't possibly have these two people hold hands! So let's make up another gesture and pretend it's a thing people do voluntarily and (more importantly) heterosexually!

But when you've already outright put the YEP, IT'S GAY sign on your production, that paranoia vanishes. What are the censors going to do, get mad at the part where two friends are sleeping tangled up with one another? Three minutes ago there was a scene where one guy kissed another on the mouth! Let those boys snooze!

Alas that the scenes that are supposed to be sexy come across as mostly awkward -- largely because those two leads don't really seem all that keen on sticking their tongues down each other's throats, which, you know, I get; it'd be weird if I had to kiss my coworkers. But what they are good at is snuggling. I almost wish -- and keep in mind this is me saying this -- they'd cut the scenes that were trying to be horny and leaned more into the tender, playful moments they get together. Those are the ones that made me squeal happily and kick my little feet.

I have to mention this one: There is a little cheek kiss that I absolutely love. (I can't find a screencap of it, and my own attempts at screenshotting it were hilariously unproductive, but it gets played as part of gay flashbacks pretty much once an episode, so you can't miss it.) Huaien is being menacing in an attempt to be offputting, and Xiaobao is stubbornly refusing to be anything but charmed by it, and as soon as Huaien turns his head, Xiaobao takes advantage of the moment and plants a quick little mwah! on Huaien's cheek.

And it's SO GOOD. I said out loud, in that moment, do you know how many shows would be improved if one guy could just give another guy a little kissie on his cheek? It should be like how getting a PG-13 rating allows your movie one "fuck," but instead every c-drama gets one moment where a guy gives another guy a little peck. Not even on the lips! Like how Aragorn gets to give Boromir a farewell forehead kiss. Sometimes a scene just calls for a little kissie! Sometimes everything would be better if a guy could just kiss the homies!

You're thinking now of all the places you'd use your single little kissie in various dramas, aren't you? Yeah, so am I.

4. side pairs side pairs side pairs~

Yeah, main couple, true love, happily ever after, whatever. SIDE PAIRS SIDE PAIRS SIDE PAIRS [banging rhythmically on table]

You know the genre, so you know there's always going to be That One Guy that threatens to steal the pure-hearted one away from the psycho by being handsome, rich, well-intentioned, and generally emotionally stable. You also know it's not going to work, because no matter how much healthier that relationship would be, it's not the tasty toxic flavor we're going for here. Anyway, sorry, Su Yin, but you never left the childhoodbestfriendzone.

That bratty prince wants to fuck his cousin so bad. His cousin is not going to fuck him, not because of cousin status, but because the bratty prince needs to be tossed out the nearest window and not let back in until he can legally drink.

I was ready to ship Jin Xiaobao's two little guard buddies -- but no! The littler of the two guard buddies has his own love interest who shows up later in the show, and I'm so upset that there's not more of these two, because that's an unexpectedly hot setup. I'll say no more; you should enjoy this one as it happens.

Now, do not presume that this is a Kinnporsche deal, where fiction has created a magical world in which every man is at least a Kinsey 2. There are still straight men in this show (and a few men who clearly think they're straight but have not yet gotten the memo) who experience varying degrees of befuddlement about the homo drama happening around them. Most characters are at least casually anti-gay, but in sort of the same way you might expect a big cattle-ranching family to react if their son started dating a vegan -- it's not unthinkable or illegal, but, like, why?

There needs to be a word for a gentler state than homophobia. Something like homobefuddlement, a social condition where falling in love with another guy is about on the level of getting a face tattoo or naming your child Optimus Prime. There's nothing stopping you, but you know somebody's roasting your ass on Ancient Chinese Fantasy Reddit.

5. A budget of three dollars and a ham sandwich

I am firmly on record as being charmed by productions that make do with skimpy resources, and Meet You at the Blossom's resources are skimpy as heck. I highly suspect this is one of those situations where if they'd known it was going get the attention that it has, they might've put more money into it from the start -- but they didn't, so they didn't.

I keep coming back to "soap opera" as a description, because that's about the production level you should be picturing here. If you played this on a TV with motion smoothing enabled, the effect would be complete. Everything is done to the cheapest possible degree. Characters legitimately toss smoke bombs and disappear like they're anime ninjas, probably because renting a fog machine has got to be way less expensive than the rigs for wirework. That's the type of shoestring budget we're talking here.

The greenscreen is Not Good, my friends. I mean, not that you expected it to be, but however far you've lowered your expectations already, lower them more.

They got to borrow a brothel set for like half an hour. It's the most people you see in a single room at the same time, and it represents drunkenness by spraying raspberry soda over all the lights.

If I had a nickel for every time Huaien is in some terrible predicament that seems impossible for him to get out of, and then he shows up somewhere else like two scenes later, and we never find out exactly how he got out of that terrible predicament, I would have multiple nickels in my pocket, is all I'm saying.

You know, if my wigs/beards and wig/beard glue were that bad, I would simply refrain from frequent, intense close-ups of the parts where people's fake hair joins to their faces. And if my actors all had that much foundation caked on them, I would probably refrain from close-ups, period. But that's just me.

Actually, no, there's something else about the wigs: They're styled so badly that it actually wraps around (ha ha) to being charming. I'm used to wig situations where the topknots are combed tight and oiled into place within an inch of their lives. But here, everybody who has an updo has kind of a messy one? Especially little Jinbao, where you can see the ends of his ponytail stick out the back in a scruffy fashion, giving him the vibe of a little ragamuffin who's never learned how to do up his hair quite right.

There's a plot, sort of. It's basically the thinnest possible series of excuses for the action in the show to happen, told in occasional five-minute bursts of exposition given by characters you forgot about between now and the last time they appeared. Don't worry if you can't keep track of which prince is which, or who is whose dad. Man, there's even a "curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" near the end that's played up as some big shock, and I was like, have we met this dude before? I think pretty much every time the grownups started talking, we stopped paying attention. Look, I know this is based on a novel I haven't read, and I'm sure the plot comes off better when it's all packed together in a couple of pages of dialogue you can skip without consequence on your way to the boy-kissing, but in the show it just comes off as perfunctory and clunky. From what I've seen, people who've read the book tend to be way more into the intricacies of the narrative, but I haven't, so I'm not.

(Wait, in the novel, Jin Xiaobao is supposed to be fat? Well, now I feel I've been robbed! ...Eh, it's fine, I'm not sad to skip a sequence where the side benefit of trauma is that you get skinny.)

All this, to me, is charming. If you demand higher production values from your entertainment, this will not be what you want. If cozying up with some low-budget tomfooloery with a big heart feels like comfort food to you, you are among friends here.

And speaking of friends, let me strongly recommend that you watch this with some, if you can, because there are parts that are just begging to get riffed on. I would not have had a tenth as much fun watching it alone as I did goofing my way through it with my wife. It is a show that is only improved by the jokes you make about it along the way. It has no dignity, nor are you obligated to treat it as though it does. Cuddle up with your buddies, grab your favorite snacks, and sharpen your shadiest claws.

Want to meet this show somewhere?

It's conveniently up in a lot of places! Pick your poison:

GagaOOLala

WeTV

iQIYI

Viki

YouTube

Look, I'm going to say it one more time for the people in the back row: This is not a serious, thoughtful portrayal of healthy relationship dynamics. If you expect it to be, you will be sorely disappointed. It is a tale of a bunch of dudes (and, like, two women) whose emotional volume knobs are stuck at eleven and emotional intelligence doesn't go above a two. Go into it knowing what you're getting into, and you might just have yourself a pretty good time.

Get that little kissie!

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Has anyone asked you about erisol?

If no, then what's your opinion on them! :-)

I feel like people will be upset at me for this, but a completely platonic and completely lukewarm mutual dislike... they don't really like each other, but take no great issue with each other either. The boys are not fightingggg

So like. A common thing in fandoms is taking things at face value and not really reading any deeper into them. You see this a shitton with Eridan in general - lots of people take it 100% at face value that he's a casteist genocide liker, when it's pretty clear upon further examination that he's pretty much lying about being casteist and doesn't actually want to murder his friends. So, at face value, Eridan hates Sollux, and either wants to do spadesies with him, or go ashen with him. And so this has become a really popular ship, but the thing is... at basically every turn, the story kind of goes out of its way to point out that there's actually nothing between them. At least romantically.

See, Eridan does not actually hate Sollux, at least not to the level of pitch/ashen. TWICE before Sollux and Feferi start hanging out all the time, we see Eridan commenting on Sollux in a fairly neutral-negative way - the first time calling him "a drama machine" and noting that "it is fuckin pathetic," and the second time as "the dead guy who saved [Feferi]". And let's be clear about the former, Eridan is just kind of Like That, he's rude as fuck even about people he LIKES (calling his BFF Karkat an "assblood" and sarcastically referring to Feferi by her royal titles), so that's actually one of the less nasty things he's said about someone.

Meanwhile, on Sollux's end, he LITERALLY says "not interested" to what he perceives as pitch/ashen advances from Eridan. Like, actually just says those words out loud. Not even in a pesterlog, he actually just says those words with his mouth.

So it seems to me that there's a pretty clear case to be made here that Eridan and Sollux kind of just... don't really give a shit about each other, and probably wouldn't have interacted in any substantial way if not for Feferi's involvement. Especially because Eridan's chosen method of hitting on Sollux is with casteism, something he's already faking in the first place.

If we really want to dig into this, though, it's kind of - in my eyes - a lukewarm case of the hedgehog dilemma. They're a bit too similar, and it winds up causing them both mild pain to get too close.

They're both nihilists that kind of hate themselves. Sollux's mutated brain causes him a not-insignificant amount of discomfort, his visions of the future and of the "imminently doomed" have made him lose a lot of hope, and he blames himself for killing Aradia, something so painful that he didn't tell anyone else she died, to the point where most of the team - including Terezi and Tavros - had to find out after entering the game. Meanwhile, Eridan struggles with the perceived inevitability of a lifestyle that causes him nothing but distress, and his constant, overwhelming anxiety about it leads to constant stressing over whether or not he's "good enough"; whenever he's in severe emotional distress, he starts beating up on himself.

They also both front at being more okay with their problems than they actually are. Sollux has his 1337 hacker, two cool for you persona that he puts on, and Eridan is always trying to be the big bad sea dweller. For example, Sollux goes "I'm not trolling the humans, it's beneath me," but he's in Jade's trollslum, so the implication there is that he totally did try trolling, it went badly for him, and now he's pretending that he was always better than that. And I don't think I need to tell you how hard Eridan works to try and present himself as badass and scary and totally not deep in the throes of emotional anguish at all times.

And these are the similarities that ultimately make Erisolsprite so stable. Erisolsprite speculates that maybe the reason he hasn't exploded yet is that deep down, he loves to suffer. The truth is, there's nothing between the two that's really so objectionable that they would ACTUALLY hate each other; Eridan isn't actually casteist, and Eridan never really hated Sollux in the first place.

Neither would they bring each other any comfort or joy - Eridan doesn't have any sympathy for Sollux's baggage, since, like, what, he only killed ONE person, and was even under mind control, so it's not like it was really his fault. He's a drama machine. And Sollux wouldn't have sympathy for Eridan's problems, partially because they manifest in such cringeworthy, embarrassing ways (and Sollux is highly sensitive to not being cringe, seeing as he's always commenting on other people being embarrassing or overly earnest), and partially because - I mean, fuck it, he's a rich-ass sea dweller who doesn't need to worry about being harvested to be a battery for a living ship. And also he's an idiot.

That's kind of what their relationship is to me, you know? A tepid and lukewarm dislike. They're just similar enough to each other to understand the other, and just different enough to be like "ugh, but that guy suuuuuuuucks". It's very funny, but not really a ship, hahaha.

So what you really get from that is two guys that just kind of dislike each other. Not vehemently or diametrically enough for pitch or ashen, and not a trace of the requisite pity for flushed or pale. When you throw the two together into one sprite, it won't shut up about how much it hates itself, how each part of itself is flabberghasted by the other, and how much practically the only reason it doesn't explode is a resounding "meh."

Eridan likes to validate his despair; ironically, since it's all he's ever known, it's where he feels comfortable - and nobody would provide better doomscrolling material than the doom player. Similarly, Sollux likes to torment himself, suffering his guilt in silence, and Eridan has SO MUCH to feel guilty over. Combine them into one entity, and you have a guy who can reach SUCH levels of revelling in his own misery, you don't even KNOW.

Not that it's healthy or positive for either of them... just that it would be incredibly stable. It's their worst tendencies being satisfied by each other. Maybe that's a form of leprechaun romance, but it's certainly not a quadrant.

[corvusphilia]

Hey!! Can I please request headcanons of how Oikawa, Kuroo and Atsumu ask you out? Maybe even first date headcanons thrown in as well. You can write for one or two of them if you don't want all three. Thank you in advance <33

★ ASKING YOU OUT

୨ৎ featuring: oikawa tooru, kuroo tetsuro, atsumu miya

୨ৎ notes: FIRST RQ AND ITS ALREADY MOST OF MY FAVORITE BOYS!! ty anon hope u like it <3

★ TOORU OIKAWA ?!

This guy has no shame — he knows he's hot shit. Honestly, it's a miracle he didn't ask you out sooner. The only reason is that he doesn't want to mess things up with you. Getting broken up with by his last (and first) girlfriend hurt a bit more than he'd care to admit.

Butters you up throughout the day before actually asking, and he's SO obvious about it. "Have I told you that you're amazing, beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous, and—" okay Tooru we get it.

As for what the first date is... I want to say the movies, but I feel like he's the type that wants to actually talk instead of just sitting in silence for an hour or two. So maybe a coffee shop. (He doesn't like coffee at all but enjoys the tranquility of the place so he just asks for a hot cocoa or something).

Throws the weirdest questions at you to get to know you better. They're not weird, per se, but definitely unusual, and he gets a little poetic with it. First one he asked was "If you had to pick a favorite moment in your entire life, what would it be?"

Insists on taking you home after. One, because he wants to make sure you get there safe, two, because he's a total romance sap and will try to kiss you at your doorstep after thanking you and emphasizing that he had such a great time.

★ KUROO TETSURO ?!

Okay look... I know this is supposed to be how they ask you out but Kuroo is such a sneaky fucker I feel like he'd somehow turn things around and make it look like YOU'RE the one asking HIM out.

See my vision: you ask him for help with chemistry because he's a total nerd, and he does that coy "Hmmm dunno, will I help you?" thing even though he definitely will, he just wants you to look a little desperate. When you insist he just kind of sighs and goes "Fine, fine. I'll go on a study date with you. Don't keep me waiting, tiny." and he just LEAVES while you're standing there like ???

The date itself is pretty much what you would expect in a study date — just him explaining the subject and looking incredibly hot doing so for absolutely no reason, but he's a bit more touchy than usual. Sitting next to you and wrapping an arm around your shoulder while he uses his free hand to leaf through the book. Tucking a strand of hair behind your ear while you write stuff down. I'm going to be sick.

Doesn't do anything too forward, meaning he doesn't try to kiss you unless you do first, but he will suggest "We should do this at my place next time," with a shit eating grin on his face.

★ ATSUMU MIYA ?!

He tries his best to be casual about it and bring it up naturally. The last thing he wants is to look desperate (even though he definitely is), so he just keeps dropping hints until he finds a good opening to ask.

Restaurant date! No way Osamu is the only one who loves food. He just kind of mentions offhandedly that a new place just opened nearby and they have the best tempura. You say that you're hungry and he just grins. "Perfect. Let's go, then." He's already walking so you don't have time to think about it too much and change your mind.

For some reason I feel like he's a bit of a clown when he likes someone. You know the type. Will probably have you choking on your food a few times that night. But he's also a damn show off, so he insists on paying (even though he doesn't have money to spare like that).

He's already internally sighing when he realizes he's gonna have to borrow money from Osamu to make up for what he spent on your date, but he immediately forgets about it when he sees the happy look on your face.

© ─ corvusphilia ; do not steal, copy, edit, translate or reupload

thanks for reading!