#like if its pre- or post- series. or even parallel

[inkedmyths]

Personally like the concept of something else within the universe being what TMA^2 is going to be. New main cast, new plotline. But like, with allusions and cameos

Like I think it'd be great if theres things that hint at Jmart and what happened to them, but confirm nothing, and only further obscure their fate. Like, mentions of an Archivist, maybe a stray tape, a mention of a person that could maybe be Martin, but who knows... just bc it would be fitting and also a little funny to watch people lose it over crumbs

[arceespinkgun]

The Sci-Fi Racism of MTMTE/LL

As I've reread MTMTE/LL I've been struck by the offensive content and messaging, particularly the constant ableism and racism. The ableism I've seen discussed (though I really do think it needs to be mentioned more because wow it is relentless and does not get better throughout the story), but the racist themes don't seem to be mentioned quite as often. I think this is for a lot of reasons, and one is probably that the cast being robots is sort of obscuring connections to real-world marginalized peoples.

But one of the most meaningful purposes for the sci-fi genre in general is to explore these issues through symbolism and allegory, placing real-world people in speculative scenarios, theorizing about the future etc. And I think when you look at what MTMTE/LL is saying about race with its themes it's a lot of extremely negative stuff—I doubt the messaging is intentional, but in my opinion that kinda makes it even more important to talk about it....

The Cold-Constructed

I'm going to begin this post by giving context for people who don't know anything about this story. In these series, it often comes up that there's more than one way for a transformer to be created. The main ways are forging, when the planet itself imbues the malleable metal of a protoform with a spark, and cold-construction, when an existing spark is split, put inside a photonic crystal, and put into a body that's pre-built. There's a lot of bigotry surrounding these origins for transformers, which is a clear parallel to real-world racism. I mean, you can see the word "apartheid" being used to describe the treatment of the cold-constructed, and the use of a slur for that group ("knockoffs") in the panel at the beginning of this post.

It's a commonly held belief that being forged is just better and being cold-constructed is just worse, that someone who's cold-constructed is just more likely to be morally bad, less able to do precise work, and more disposable than the forged. For example, at the beginning of MTMTE, Ratchet is worried about his hands locking up because he doesn't think they can be replaced by building new ones, that only forged hands are good enough for a great doctor.

There's a lot of internalized ableism that can be read into this too but this post is already so long I'm going to just focus on racism

The big end-of-the-season villain of MTMTE is Tyrest, the former Autobot Chief Justice turned neutral, who was the one who created the cold-construction process, and who also created a computer he thought could determine anyone's guilt. He used the computer during war crime trials he presided over, and discovered 100% of defendants who were declared guilty had been cold-constructed. Breaking from the guilt he felt, thinking he'd created an immoral, inferior race, he tries to kill all cold-constructed people.

Thwarting Tyrest's plot to kill the cold-constructed was the final battle of the first season of MTMTE.

The cold-constructed person letting the heroes know about Tyrest's plan in the panel right above this is Getaway. He is also an MTO. MTOs ("made-to-order soldiers") are an even lower class within the lower class that is cold-constructed. MTOs, as you'd expect, were bots built specifically as wartime fodder, sent out into the battlefield with a life expectancy in the range of seconds, often before their bodies and minds were even functional. As the war between Autobots and Decepticons raged on, they were even imbued with less and less cultural knowledge, because in the minds of their creators, what did it matter if they were going to immediately be killed anyway? Brainstorm's an MTO, too—in the panel at the start of this post, he's lying about attending protests in the name of the cold-constructed. He's masquerading as an ally there, but it's revealed soon after that he's also cold-constructed himself.

Let's pause for a moment. Assuming you know nothing about MTMTE/LL, what do you think the story would depict when it comes to this oppressed race? I feel like I would expect that the beliefs of the main characters that these people are inferior and immoral would be challenged! I'd expect the cold-constructed and MTOs especially to be saving the day. I'd expect an exploration into why 100% of bots found guilty in those trials were of this marginalized group—a discussion of a prison pipeline that benefits the privileged, maybe? Signs that the computer used was biased because it was created by someone privileged and programmed with biases? Maybe a discussion of how the oppressed were pushed to commit crimes to survive because of the systems keeping them marginalized?

Do these things happen? Er... well... not really, no. Shockingly, Tyrest's assumptions are never challenged despite his villain status and a lot of time being devoted to thwarting his plot? And the people who defeat him, like Tailgate, Rodimus, and Magnus, were all forged. Tyrest was Magnus's former boss and mentor, and Magnus realizing he needs to be stopped is super important, but Magnus never challenges any of these beliefs about the cold-constructed or anything even though Magnus's entire personality involves being super focused on ethics?

I also think it's notable that when Tyrest activates the killswitch, the only characters from the main cast who are affected are Chromedome, Brainstorm, and Getaway. Chromedome and Brainstorm are Autobots who worked together in a system that forcibly lobotomized thousands of people. (There's a lot I could say about the minor and other characters JRo chose to be affected by the killswitch, like how many of them are evil and how they're all treated by different narratives, but that's beyond the scope of this post.)

Getaway, while not having done anything immoral yet by this point in the story, goes on to become a central villain. In fact, Getaway is one of the most despised characters in the entire TF franchise because of how depraved and manipulative he becomes. His arc involves a self-righteous crusade to remove Rodimus and Megatron from the Lost Light and show up Rodimus by completing his quest before him. Getaway is a self-admitted groomer and murderer who does things like murdering his second-in-command by ripping him apart, tearing his head off with the spine still attached and getting energon all over the floor. Oh, and brainwashing hundreds of people.

Pictured: the brain stems of crew members Getaway kills in just one of his many crimes

When Getaway's eventually gruesomely killed, it's all forged people who come to confront him (Rodimus, Cyclonus, and Whirl). I think fans might say that this couldn't be racist messaging because Rodimus comes to think better of killing Getaway and tries to save him, but then Getaway still tries to kill Rodimus and Cyclonus and is killed by Whirl for that... but like, imagine if these characters weren't robots and were instead real people. If the horrible villain was someone from a marginalized group (who had even been tortured for it by a genocidal villain) and all the people who confront him and the person who eventually kill him were people from a privileged group, there would be issues with that. Plus, Rodimus saved Getaway to be "better" than him morally.

I "loved" how right before Getaway's attempted suicide and then actual death, the narrative makes sure to underline that he's an MTO, which makes it impossible to not think about MTOs during this scene

Plus, Getaway's even something like a class traitor. He wants to be validated by Primus so bad, he teams up with Tyrest, the genocidal guy who had tortured him earlier!!! I thought this was a bizarre series of writing decisions to make regarding a character who was introduced as a victim and part of an oppressed group.

One moment that shocked me occurs when we get the first exploration of what being an MTO means. Basically, there's some convoluted sci-fi crisis happening, and everybody needs to reveal their origins. Some characters, like Getaway and Riptide, talk about being MTOs.

Nautica, a very consistent moral voice throughout this story (whose points are often ignored by other characters unfortunately but still), is also in the room. She's from Caminus, a colony world, and missed the whole War. A large part of her story arc will involve how she's not used to experiencing war and death. So does she have some big concerns about Cybertron's culture upon hearing this? Nope:

She would not fucking say that

Instead, her reaction is to immediately look at the guy who started the War, Megatron, and credit him for being responsible for so many lives. What. She's also weirdly not fazed when learning about how the superiors of MTOs eventually just stopped supplying them with cultural knowledge because it was expected they'd immediately die after coming online, and these horrible facts are really not discussed again:

I also want to point out that Riptide is a good character who's an MTO who in my opinion really doesn't do anything immoral, but he was still aligned with Getaway's mutiny initially and is quite literally diagnosed with stupid, which doesn't do a lot to challenge prevailing assumptions about MTOs in Cybertronian culture.

Brainstorm's status as an MTO becomes a plot point again during his character arc, in which he invents time travel and tries to go back in time to prevent the War in order to save everyone who died during it. When he sees that it seems like nothing he does is preventing the War, he resorts to trying to kill Megatron, but he's easily talked out of it because he doesn't want to murder anyone.

On paper, it sounds like Brainstorm's goodness might disprove cultural assumptions about people like him. But I do want to point out that when Nautica (who again, is a strong moral voice) feels very betrayed by all the secrets Brainstorm kept from her, Ratchet convinces her to give him a second chance by pointing out that since Brainstorm's an MTO, if he'd prevented the War, he'd have been erased from existence. This is portrayed as a selfless, moral act, and not as a self-destructive cry for help, which I think is a poor choice, but worse, the narrative never even brings up the fact that Brainstorm would've not only erased himself, but all MTOs!

Okay, if bigoted assumptions about the morality and mentality of MTOs isn't something effectively challenged by the story, well, are the claims that forged people are physically more skilled ever challenged? Not really, no. Genuinely, I don't think that ever comes up. Megatron does perform a spark surgery somehow better than actual trained doctors First Aid and Velocity could do near the story's end, but Megatron's someone who was neither forged nor cold-constructed. He has a forged spark in a pre-built body, which given that bigoted assumptions about the cold-constructed are never really addressed by the narrative, lends itself to jokes like, "The cold-constructed body killed 100 billion people, but the forged spark was super sad about it!"

Rodimus describes Megatron's origin

EDITED TO ADD: There is also a skilled cold-constructed Decepticon neurosurgeon, Spinister... but the way other characters, even his closest friends, consistently treat him is that he is an idiot in every other respect in a way that feels very ableist. It's similar to the way Riptide is treated and his portrayal falls short of challenging the stereotypes, but even more extreme (personally, nothing Spinister ever did or said actually came across as stupid to me, but I'm fairly certain that his actions are supposed to seem that way).

Organic Life

Surprisingly given that this is a story about transformers, I actually think some of the most racist messaging in these series has to do with organic beings, not even with the robots! Some of the most shockingly racist moments, at least.

Something that's often discussed in MTMTE/LL is a concept called "technoism," the belief that mechanical beings are superior to organic ones, and that mechanical beings should commit genocide against organic species. This is a belief tied to Decepticons, and Megatron was the first big proponent of this idea. In fact, Megatron is stated to have killed 100 billion (!!!) organics, including driving multiple species to extinction.

Tarn (evil leader of the Decepticon Justice Division) recounts Megatron's desire to purge all organic life

Now, I feel like people who've read this story might be surprised to see that I feel this concept was handled in ways that promote racist messaging, considering the story repeatedly points out that technoism is bad and that Megatron was wrong. Some portion of Megatron's character development involves instead choosing to save organic life.

Unfortunately, I really felt this was extremely clumsily handled. A major Decepticon character who remains a Decepticon, Fulcrum, is especially disgusted by organic life. In one of the most shocking moments in this entire story, Fulcrum basically tells Tarn, "Life was so much better back when we Decepticons did ethnic cleansing, before mean bullies like you ruined it":

The shocking thing to me is that this is portrayed as a... noble act, I suppose I could put it? Everything is framed as if Fulcrum is doing something heroic in this moment. Disconcertingly, after this moment, Fulcrum is repeatedly used by the narrative as a sort of moral voice when talking to his fellow Decepticons. Whenever they're doing something unethical, he's almost always the first to speak against it. Yeah, ethnic cleansing guy, pre-any character development, is used as a moral compass.

Now, if his belief that organics are inferior and disgusting and deserve to die was challenged and he grew, that would be one thing. But he still finds them just as gross by the end of the entire story.

Similarly, another Decepticon who gets to team up with the heroes and get a happy ending is Nickel, herself a former member of the Decepticon Justice Division, and a strong believer in technoism. She joined the DJD to get revenge against organics who destroyed the colony she comes from. Even by the end of the story, it's clear that she despises organic life.

The very strange thing is that Nickel and Fulcrum are never shown to change these philosophies, but then join the fight against functionists who want to cleanse the universe of non-mechanical life... but there's nothing ever shown to indicate that they wouldn't agree with that plan themselves...?

Another moment that displays issues with how this story handles these concepts is a little interlude with the organic-operated Galactic Council:

On the surface, not much is happening, but this is one of my most hated moments. Why? Because the implication is that organic life, this group of beings that Megatron committed staggering, multiple genocides against, is now preventing his character growth journey. That the narrative's taking time to dedicating a whole scene to showing oh, organics can be bad and extort people too! There's "moral complexity" here!!! I really hope I don't need to explain why that's gross and extremely dangerous to apply as a lesson to any sort of real-world situation.

Other

There are other details in this series that feel racist that wouldn't necessarily fit into the other sections of this post.

I wanted to talk about Ten. Ten is a legislator, a non-transformer robot originally programmed by Tyrest to be a non-sentient law enforcer. However, after Tyrest's defeat, Swerve reprograms Ten to be his... well... slave. I mean it, Swerve makes him a worker at the bar who Swerve doesn't pay. Other people like Ratchet and Ultra Magnus try to convince Swerve he shouldn't treat Ten like this, but that isn't enough to get Swerve to stop.

Worse, Whirl etches graffiti onto Ten's back saying he "failed the Ambus Test," which is a test that measures sapience in-universe.

Now, eventually Swerve and everybody else does accept that Ten is sapient and Swerve feels bad about what he did to him, but Ten continues to be treated badly in general by people like Rodimus.

When Ten later dies, no time is spent mourning him. Also, nobody ever removed that damn statement that was etched on his back.

I also wanted to mention Drift. He was originally created by writer Shane McCarthy in the IDW comics before these series, and he's heavily Asian-coded, particularly Japanese-coded. Unfortunately, Drift was considered a real Poochie the Dog of TF for a long time by fans, a real Mary Sue, you could say, and it wasn't until MTMTE/LL when James Roberts began writing him that his reputation changed for the better.

...Unfortunately, included in JRo's new direction for Drift's character is repeated mocking of his spirituality. This does get slightly less extreme over time, but that doesn't erase how for the entire first season especially he's made the butt of jokes for it, and the end of MTMTE/LL even confirms that his beliefs were wrong, essentially. It confirms that the gods he believed in both didn't exist and were heavily morally compromised. Combine this with the fact that Drift is so Asian-coded and I feel that it comes across as racist.

Worse, while Drift already had a backstory, JRo wrote a new one for him that can be read to play into offensive, Orientalist stereotypes. JRo shows that Drift was originally a drug addict who earned money by renting out his body parts, an act that feels like a robot equivalent of prostitution. JRo even made jokes about this on his Twitter account, joking about Drift literally renting out his "thighs" for people.

None of this surprises me necessarily especially given the long history of English Orientalism, but it still sucks, and fandom's fixation on this aspect of Drift's character also sucks (especially the tendency to make this prostitution allegory literal), especially for someone like me who is part Asian.

Another, pretty bizarre and racist thing in Lost Light specifically that I don't really know how to categorize involves a minor villain from that series. When Nautica wants to bring her best friend, Skids, back from the dead, she goes to someone who claims she'll take Nautica's grief in return for using a Cybertronian artifact to bring Skids back to life.

This villainous character's name is... sigh... Mengel. If you don't know, Mengel is named after real-world Nazi Josef Mengele, infamous for the horrific human experimentation he performed on prisoners in one of the Auschwitz concentration camps. As if this weren't in bad taste already, none of the real-world crimes against humanity have anything to do with the character in this comic I'm talking about—the character Mengel was named this just for shock value and so readers would have the immediate realization that she's an evil scientist.

But this really bad taste isn't even the main thing I wanted to say about her. The main thing I wanted to point out is that she's actually part of a different race of mechanical beings that Cybertronians consider inferior. Even the generally very morally good Nautica (and of course, this is a belief that is not challenged in any way)!

Plus, this villain has darker "skin" than most of the transformers present in these series, and she has buck teeth with a tooth gap. All of these details combined other her in a racialized way, and I hope it's obvious how disturbing it is to pair these traits with the name of a real-world virulently racist Nazi historical figure.

Conclusion and TL;DR

In this story, it's not enough that a genocidal person like Tyrest is a bad guy or that the genocidal Megatron changes his ways when even the characters often cast as moral voices in most situations like Ratchet, Nautica, and Fulcrum have racist assumptions about the world that the narrative just doesn't really make any attempt to disprove or challenge them on. Or worse, that the narrative sometimes seems to validate with characters like Getaway, (sigh) Mengel, or the Galactic Council. And on a personal note, it's especially frustrating to me as someone who loves characters like Nautica. If she appears a surprising number of times in this post, it's because I'm attentive to her and how the story uses her, because I really like her!!!

Now, obviously, I don't think that stories have to address and defy all bigoted ideas and statements that inform the culture they're set in. But I believe that the people behind these series think the messages of these series are anti-racist and anti-fascist. In fact, one of the issues was even titled "This machine kills fascists," real-world slogan of singer Woodie Guthrie. Plus, I think it might be easy to think that with so much representation of, say, gay and trans people, that this story would have more positive messaging, especially when villains include racists and fascists. But I think MTMTE/LL show a real lack of understanding of the roots of these real-world issues and often reinforce the beliefs that contribute to them. In fact, when I reread these comics, every time some racist idea that's never ever challenged or adequately discussed came up, I tallied it up, then converted the number to dollars and donated the amount to helping displaced Palestinian children. I would love it if I could inspire some fans to donate as well! There’s a wide range of vetted links here.

I'm being so critical of these series not only because I rarely ever see the racism pointed out, but also because it's important to note it so these issues can be avoided in the future. In these comics, I actually think it would have been very easy to avoid these problems that plague the narrative. The bigotry behind Tyrest's philosophy could've been pointed out, maybe even by the people most affected by it. Drift's new backstory didn't have to be one featuring Orientalist tropes. The central villain didn't have to be someone who was a marginalized victim. Characters like Fulcrum didn't have to be portrayed as moral voices while simultaneously in the same breath talking about ethnic cleansing like it's a good thing, and they could have grown and changed in a natural way! etc. None of these things had to be like this.

[goodqueenaly]

Which pre/post-Conquest events and in-series events do you think would be popular plays/operas in each of the Seven Kingdoms and Essos?

Well, we do get a bit of a sense of what sort of "history plays" have been written and performed in Braavos (though whether these have been popularized elsewhere in Essos is a bit of a mystery). Arya references the mummers of the Ship teaching her speeches from, among other plays, The Conqueror's Two Wives, presumably about Rhaenys and Visenya Targaryen (which I personally think would be a potentially fascinating study on the respective characters of as well as the relationship between the two sisters). Likewise, in "Mercy", Arya-as-Mercy notes that Izembaro borrows a threat from Prince Garin in Phario Forel's Wroth of the Dragonlords, a play about the doomed final resistance of the Rhoynar against the Valyrian Freehold. Of course, the main action in "Mercy" centers around the staging of Forel's newest work, The Bloody Hand, a play which - obviously more than a little loosely - adapts very recent Westerosi history, staged in that chapter for the entertainment of the Baratheon-Lannister court's envoy, Harys Swyft.

Westeros doesn't appear to have exactly the same theatrical tradition Braavos seems to have, but there are certainly both puppet shows and mummer's plays performed across the Seven Kingdoms. While the specific entertainments we've seen have been limited to either mythological (the story of Florian the Fool) or allegorical (the unsubtle tale of the kingdom of beasts reported by Qyburn to Cersei) subject matter, there might nevertheless be any number of opportunities for historical events to, no pun intended, take center stage. There are way, way too many historical events and figures in the roughly eight millennia of Westeros' existence as a collection of political entities (again, to say nothing of Essos), so these ideas are not even scratching the surface, but I thought I would come up with a few.

So, for example, the accusations against Queen Naerys and Prince Aemon (perhaps complete with a Katherine of Aragon-like defense by the queen) might mirror, say, Henry VIII. The collapse of the Gardener kingdom under the weak and ineffective Garth X, followed by a devastating civil war, feels to me like an opportunity for a Reach version of Henry VI (perhaps echoed with the Dance of the Dragons, many centuries later). Even the story of Torgon Greyiron might have its share of light Hamlet parallels, as the story of a royal son quasi-usurped from his royal place by the wicked murderer of his kinsmen while he was away from his homeland (though with Torgon having something of a more fortunate ending than Hamlet himself, naturally). Not, of course, that we need to limit our imaginations only to perfect parallels of Shakespeare plays (to say nothing of any other history playwrights). Benedict Justman, for one, seems like a figure whose life could be used to ask deep questions on, say, the nature of power, the importance of love versus duty, and the importance (or not) of legitimacy. The flight of the Manderlys from the Reach and their welcome by the Starks might likewise be used by some enterprising playwright to explore themes of justice (and injustice), alienation, and self-identity.

And of course, what entertainments might be popular would likely be dependent on the politics of any given time and/or place. Would, say, plays depicting King Ronard Storm have been popularized during the reign of King Aegon IV or King Daeron II - maybe to denounce Ronard's reign as defined by lasciviousness and resistance to lawful authority (as with Aegon's), but maybe also to depict a bastard as a stronger and more worthy heir than his legitimate half-brother (if, say, the play was written by Blackfyre partisans)? Perhaps in the immediate aftermath of Robert's Rebellion, Riverlands playwrights would have looked for inspiration to the heroic uprising of Edmyn Tully against the wicked tyrant Harren Hoare (though perhaps with less emphasis placed on the king rewarding Edmyn being the first of the recently overthrown Targaryen dynasty). Daeron I's conquest of Dorne might have encouraged pro-conquest playwrights to create works about King Durran the Young, whose similar name, apparently similar youth, and very bloody military campaigns against Dornish armies might have made a natural comparison for these creators (though probably less so the idea that King Durran supposedly "became besotted with his own niece in later life and died at the hands of his brother Erich Kin-Killer").

Personally, I would love to see more fanfic invent plays or similar entertainments from Westerosi history. I, of course, would be remiss not to note my own, albeit very humble attempt at a Westerosi history play, The True History of the Blackfyre Rebellion. (And please no one remind me that I have a second play that I probably have to completely rework and is certainly nowhere close to being done.)

[t00muchheart]

As I do when I am hyperfixating on something, I have read a LOT of supernatural fanfiction in the last few months, and I get a lot of the titles I read from other peoples’ recommendations or collections on ao3, so I figured I’d share some of my favorites in case anyone else is looking for recs :)

AUs:

Spirit of the West by teen_dean

This is a shock to literally no one who follows me because I regularly bring it up, but it honestly is one of the best things I’ve ever read. The 90s horse girl AU of your dreams (or, if you haven’t dreamed of one, that you never knew you needed). The storytelling is immaculate, the symbolism rich, and it only improves on re-reading

And this, your living kiss by opal_bullets

Poet Dean AU featuring genuinely beautiful comments on language and writing and how we encounter stories and words and what they can do, and also some honestly incredible poetry

where there is darkness by quiettewandering

Lighthouse keepers AU! this one is a bit mysterious and I did scream into a pillow after finishing it. If you know the story of the Flannan Isles lighthouse keepers, it is loosely inspired by that.

Phantasma by thisisapaige

Messy Dean, my beloved. Messy, Stanford-Era Dean, my beloved. Dean breaks off from John and buys a haunted house, and things sort of escalate.

For All You Young Hockey Players Out There, Pay Attention by thursdaysfallenangel

I don’t even watch hockey, but this AU kind of made me want to start. Rivals to friends to lovers all while dealing with the homophobia in the NHL

time has come today series by teen_dean

Team Free Will brings in teen Dean Winchester to help with a case, parallel worlds come into play; every version of Dean Winchester falls in love with Castiel & all the good stuff like that

What Baking Can Do by cowlovely

Baker & Dad Dean fic and Doctor Cas? What more could you ask for?

Everyone’s a Critic by Englandwouldfall

Food Critic Cas and Chef Dean meet in a truly unfortunate way. This is worth it for Cas’s reviews alone, but also the Dean-Gabriel dynamic

FROTUS by kathscradle

A President Cas, Restaurant Owner Dean romance that was honestly just a good time

Fix-Its:

take the bones, begin anew by JustStandingHere

This was one of the first fics I read and it is sort of peak disaster™ Dean Winchester. I love a good “I fixed up a house for you and didn’t realize it meant I was in love” fic and this one is iconic

i want to do with you (what spring does with cherry trees) by sobsicles

I ugly cry every time I read this fic. It is a run of Cas and Dean’s relationship in seasons 13-15 and has Dean making a friend and it hurts but also it’s so good. Maybe my favorite Sam line of any fic comes from this fic ("If he thinks what you two do is friendship, then I must just be some guy he happens to speak to sometimes.”)

break the skin (to break the barriers) by sobsicles

Dean gets tattoos, and as he does, he tells the tattoo artist his life story. This is a post-15x19 fic told from an outside perspective and it is so well-done

Dumbassery, Denial, Doing by sobsicles

Listen tbh this list could be dominated by sobsicles and so I am showing restraint by only including three of their works. Their Dean characterization is everything to me and this fic really highlights Dean growing to understand himself better when given the freedom to

Revisions by bizarrestars

THEE what if Dean and Cas got together earlier and Chuck just wrote it out? fic.

a turn of the earth by microcomets

I love a work that explores pre-series Dean, and this one is great. Basically, think what-if later seasons Cas and pre-series Dean met (Strandlines by aeli_kindara is another good example of this premise, but in Strandlines, it is pre-series Cas as well as pre-series Dean).

psalm 40:2 by unicornpoe

On a similar note, psalm 40:2 is a great pre-series Dean, future-Cas fic. I am a bi Dean believer but this fic did sway me toward the gay Dean camp because it’s simply so good.

You Belong Among the Wildflowers by ImYourHoneyBee

Dean fixing his relationship with Jack? You got it. Dean trying to work through losing Cas? Yep. Dean getting Cas back by being stubborn? It’s there.

Who You Gonna Call? by saintedcastiel

Dean has a ghost following him around as he tries to start a life post-series, and for a while, he can’t figure out what’s happening. I love nothing more than Dean telling people he and Cas were married because he doesn’t know how else to explain and this fic delivers so hard

quilts by fleeceframe

A “Cas didn’t confess before getting taken to the Empty” fic. Soft things all around

Miscellaneous:

Fathers & Daughters by sinnabonka

On a different note, this is one of my favorite Claire fics. It looks at Claire’s relationship with Cas and the impossibility of it, and it’s so artfully done.

Bus Loop Madness by batz_in_blue

Literally just a “what if everyone lived, Jack was a toddler, and they all picked him up from school?” AU. I audibly laughed while reading this, and it’s an essential pick-me-up from the heavier fics.

More of my favorite sobsicles fics include: gorging myself on you, still can’t get full (insatiable), and he’s back (with a mind of his own), six hundred sundays (and many more), oh sooner or later it all comes down to faith, things happen (they do, they do, and they do), according to all known laws of life, and profoundly bonded (by law)

Also, honorable mentions to Ninety One Whiskey, which is such a good fic, and Make a Believer Outta Me, which is a Hocus Pocus AU that is honestly just a fun time.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Fic Series Pt 2: Bookmarks & Oneshots (Under 50K)

Hey all!! As promised on last week's post, here are the remainder of my bookmarks under 50 that are part of a series! AGAIN, these are fics on my bookmarks, so no fics will be added to this post BUT willl be saved for my MONSTROUS MFL list!!! So if you have them please feel free to comment and I'll catalogue them for the future list! Enjoy!

See also:

Fic Series Pt 1: Bookmarks & Oneshots (50K+)

The Trial of Sherlock Holmes Series by jenna221b (G, 3,015 w. across 3 works || TAB!lock, Metafic / TJLC, Victorian AU / 1895, Christmas, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Oscar Wilde) – Scripts based on speculation that Sherlock will be put on trial in The Abominable Bride to parallel the Oscar Wilde Trials of 1895.

Sherlock's military kinks Series by kirakira_nanoda (E, 5,191+ w. across 2 works || Series WiP || Military Kink, Slash, PWP) – John finds out about Sherlock's militaty kink. John indulges in Sherlock's military kink.

'How To...' Series by tigersilver (T, 5,445+ w. across 2 works || Post S3, Post Mary, First Kiss/Time, Mutual Pining, Requited Love) – Pining, requited, and unabated spates of 'first kiss' fluff. Post Mary, AU, mildly cracky. John lays a smooch on Sherlock's nape in passing. The world does that thing it does when it wobbles and Sherlock practically falls off his own pins.

No Mushrooms Please Series by lbmisscharlie (G, 5,456 w. across 3 works || Friendship / Bromance, Food Sharing, Fluff) – John and Sherlock and their lazy, dysfunctional Sunday mornings in bed. In which Sherlock has difficulty sleeping and John makes lots of toast.

The (Secret) Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Series by DoubleNegative (E, 5,791 w. across 4 works || Fake Relationship, For A Case, Clubbing, First Kiss/Time, Established Relationship, Bad Pick-Up Lines, Banter, For Science!, Humour, Inconvenient Erections) – Sherlock Holmes and John Watson solve mysteries... in bed. Each of these stories stands on its own, but they all take place more or less in the same 'verse. None of them should be taken seriously.

Sherlock Advent Series by bofurs_laugh (T, 5,963+ w. across 9 works || Series WiP || Friendship, Angsty Fluff, Christmas, Pre-Relationship, Jumpers, Heavy Fluff, Kissing, Friends to Lovers) – Sherlock and John take a case that starts to unravel their friendship, but the good doctor will do anything to keep his detective safe, even if that means walking away.

proper procedure Series by paxlux (T, 6,147+ w. across 2 works || Series WIP || Post-TGG, First Kiss, Sherlock’s Violin, Fluff) – He lies back in bed and listens to the notes and pictures them gathering around Sherlock’s feet like water. He feels like there's a stone in his chest, maybe an albatross around his neck.

Human Error Series by Spark_Writer (T, 6,432+ w. across 7 works || Series WiP || Canon Compliant, Mutual Pining, Unrequited Love, Angst, Dancing, Alternating POV, Infidelity, Happy Ending) – “It’s the end of an era,” says Mycroft. And the world lists on its axis.

Made of Music Series by SosoHolmesWatson (T, 6,464+ w. across 2 works || Series WiP || Post S4, Parentlock with Rosie, First Kiss, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, Cuddling, Love Confessions, Angst with Happy Ending) – For the past years, John and Sherlock have lived at Baker Street again, raising Rosie together--as friends and nothing more. Ever since the little girl has watched her first Disney movie, she is obsessed with princesses. When John comes home one day, he finds his friend and his daughter in the middle of a reenactment of her current favourite.

Undressed Series by QuinnAnderson (E, 6,653+ w. across 2 works || Series WiP || Mutual Masturbation, PWP, Anal Sex, Table Sex, Sexual Tension) – Gymnophoria: (noun) the sensation that someone is mentally undressing you. Apodyopsis: (æpəʊdaɪˈɒpsɪs) noun. the act of mentally undressing someone.

Caught In The Act Series by ShirleyCarlton (E, 7,009 w. across 6 stories || Est. Rel, Voyeurism, Character POV’s, Masturbation, Switchlock) – This is a series of six scenarios written from the points of view of six different people as they accidentally walk in on Sherlock and John having sex.

Sherlock Holmes Is A Very Lucky Man Series by panickedbee (E, 8,181 w. across 7 works || Established Relationship, Anniversary, Cuddles, Fluff, Hand Jobs, Rimming, Teasing, Bed Sharing, Domestics, Public Sex, Blow Jobs, Bickering, Assorted Kinks, Flirting) – Just a lazy morning in bed, warm, soft, and two terribly romantic boyfriends loving each other.

Caught In The Act Series by ShirleyCarlton (E, 9,217 w. across 7 works || Established Relationship, Unintentional Voyeurism, Alternate POVs, Humour, Blow Jobs, Walking in on Someone, Switching, Public Sex) – This is a series of six scenarios written from the points of view of six different people as they accidentally walk in on Sherlock and John having sex.

The "This" Series by suitesamba (M, 9,230 w. across 12 works || S3 Fix-It, Humour, Drunkenness, First Kiss, Angst, Semi-Clueless Sherlock, Angsty Fluff, Hurt / Comfort) – Stag Night - back at 221B - in a world where Mrs. Hudson doesn't interrupt the guessing game with the client.

Dreamscapes Series by Goddess_of_the_Night (E, 9,897+ w. across 2 works || Series WIP || Bed Sharing, Platonic Cuddling, Sleepy Conversations, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hand Jobs, Frottage, Insomnia, Touching, Nightmares, Soft Sherlock, Emotional Hurt / Comfort, Dirty Talk, Chair Sex, Sherlock's Mind Palace, Sleep Experiments, Wet Dream, Praise Kink) – Sherlock and John spend the night in Scotland after finishing a case. The sole Inn in town only has one room left...one bed. This would be fine - if not a bit awkward - if Sherlock hadn't developed a habit of snoring loudly. John suffers through many hours of sleeplessness before he discovers that skin-to-skin contact stops the noise.

Imagines Moti Series by SwissMiss (T, 9,927 w. across 4 works || Magical Realism AU || Tattoos, Cover Art) – An AU in which life events appear as symbols on the skin.

The Light of Day Series by allonsys_girl (E, 10,607+ w. across 2 works || Series WiP || TSo3 Rewrite, First Kiss / Time, Angst, Love Declarations, POV Sherlock, Fluff and Angst, Possessive Sherlock, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Humour, Sherlock-centric) – John actually notices Sherlock leaving the reception early, and chases after him. Angsty Johnlock. Happy ending, for sure.

The Emergency Contact Series by blueink3 (M, 11,763 w. across 2 works || Five and Ones, Mutual Pining, Fluff and Angst, Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Hospitals, Happy Endings) – The first time John Watson’s emergency contact is called is the first time Sherlock Holmes finds out that he has the job. The first time Sherlock Holmes realizes he needs an emergency contact is the first time he mentally appoints John Watson with the job. John, of course, does not know this and neither does the local hospital.

Intimacy Series by sussexbound (E, 12,281+ w. across 2 works || Series WIP || Love Confessions, Trapped in a Closet, First Kiss / Time, Emotional Intimacy, Physical Intimacy, Frottage, Fluff, Trust Issues) – This will basically be an exploration of building trust and intimacy (emotional and physical), the growth of a burgeoning sexual relationship, and John and Sherlock learning what a loving, intimate and committed relationship means for the two of them.

Reichenbach To Return Series by missilemuse (T, 13,272 w. across 6 works || Post-TRF, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Unrequited Love, Friendship, Humour, Love, Sherlock Whump, Doctor John, Hallucination, Fake Relationship) – For someone who was a genius, he was realizing too many things for the first time...

The Unintentional Crafts of Sherlock Holmes Series by KarlyAnne & cwb (E, 13,297+ works across 3 works || Series WiP || Post S3, Established Relationship, Panties, Arts and Crafts, Love, Experiments, Domestic Bliss, Penis Size, Fluff and Crack, Sexual Roleplay, Oral/Anal Sex, Couch Cuddles) – A collaboration between CWB and KarlyAnne, based on prompts from our Crafty!Sherlock Poll

The High Tide Series by stardust_made (E, 15,269 w. across 3 works || OMC, Angst, Jealousy, Developing Relationship, First Time, Romance) – A little favour Sherlock stupidly agrees to do for Mycroft leads to John meeting a handsome, afluent man, who is going out of his way to woo him. Sherlock struggles with the situation and with his own reactions to it.

Thermodynamics Series by entanglednow (E, 16,300 w. across 4 works || Asexuality, Bed Sharing, Sharing Body Heat) – In which there's no heating and there's a dead owl in Sherlock's bed.

Longitudinal Cohort Series by Anonymous (E, 17,355+ w. across 6 works || Series WiP || PWP, Angst, Anal, Rimming, Light BDSM, Bottom Sherlock, Caretaking, Established Relationship, Insecure Sherlock, Proposal, Fluff, Come Play, Fellatio) – PURPOSE: To describe single-point observations of life inside 221B Baker Street, specifically in the period of time after the love declaration of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. DESIGN: Longitudinal Cohort Study. METHODS: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson periodically observed. RESULTS: see attached reference documents. CONCLUSIONS: Best encompassed by this quote from Linda Brady, ""We recognize a soulmate by the supreme level of comfort and security we feel with that person. That doesn't mean that there aren't issues that remain to be ironed out. Rather, it means we know intuitively that we can resolve issues with our soul mate without losing his or her love and respect."

Baetica Series by Jberry (E, 17,943 w. across 2 works || Post-S3, Fake Marriage For a Case, Cruise Ship, Homophobic Language, Developing Relationship) – John Watson and Sherlock Holmes must solve a case on a cruise ship. To get close to the crew and passengers, they must get married for the case on the Baetica. However, their relationship hits rocky seas both due to the case and internal conflicts.

Gifts from the Sea Series by patternofdefiance (E, 19,438+ w. across 2 works || Series WiP || Supernatural Creature AU || Tentacle Sex, Anal / Oral Sex, Switching, Pheromones, Puns, Emotional Sex, OctoJohn, Relationship Anxiety, Emotional Sex) – “A few weeks ago I would have thought you were impossible,” Sherlock begins, walking into the kitchen in his blue robe, and John – not quite catching on – wants to scoff and argue, No, actually, you are impossible, but then Sherlock continues: “But now I’d say you are improbable.” John thinks this might be flattering, if he could wrap his head around it, but he can’t – Sherlock is standing near, steaming his sun-baked-clean-sand smell, like the beach after rain, an alive smell, an other smell. It’s intoxicating, and John has been studiously avoiding it, but he can’t shift away now it’s so near. Now Sherlock’s so near. And then Sherlock ruins the probable-loveliness of his words and the definite-beauty of his presence by saying: “And by ‘improbable’ I mean ‘not yet scientifically acknowledged.’”

Barricade Series by stitchy (E, 21,016+ w. across 3 works || Series WiP || Post-HLV, Drunkenness, UST/URT, Angst with Happy Ending, Pining Sherlock, Friends to Lovers, First Time, Oral Sex, Developing Relationship, Holmes Family, Parentlock) – Sherlock has been struggling to keep his feelings at bay for everyone's sake.

Solace Series by CKLizzy (E, 21,515 w. across 5 works || Post-TRF, Developing Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Cuddling / Snuggling, Nightmares, Bed Sharing, Touching, Sleepy Cuddles, Kissing, Caressing, Frottage, Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Friends to Lovers, First Time, Angst, Romance) – An Experiment - how long can you keep two characters physically and emotionally close without their relationship turning into a sexual one? Has five parts that see the development of John and Sherlock's relationship from their bedroom's perspective (no, don't worry, there will NOT be a talking bedroom in the story).

Through The Clouds Series by Mazarin221b (E, 23,134+ w. across 3 works || Series WiP || Retirement, Romance, First Time, Sussex, Beekeeping, Home Improvement, Developing Relationship, Marriage Proposal) – Sherlock takes a remarkably early retirement at 47, and convinces John that a change of pace would do them both good. They buy an old cottage on the South Downs, and exchange their nonstop life in Baker Street for quiet contemplation, bee studies, and book writing.

Forever Freebatch Series by alexxphoenix42 (E, 23,472+ w. across 2 works || Series WiP || Real Person Fiction || Filming Sherlock, Gay Sex, Blow Jobs, Rimming, Infidelity, Polyamory, Pining, Angst, Happy Ending, Phone Sex, Shower Sex, Cuddles) – Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are working hard at both filming the Sherlock special, and keeping all its secrets under wraps. Somehow along the way, they stumble onto new developments that need to be kept just as private.

Winter's Delights Series by TakePenAndInk (E, 24,084 w. across 3 works || Original Characters, Christmas, Holmes Family) – Sherlock takes John home for Christmas to meet the extended Holmes family.

Two Coffees One Black One with Sugar Please Series by  Linpatootie (E, 25,419 w. across 4 works || Pre-Slash, Developing Relationship, Fluff, It's an Experiment, Domestic Bliss, First Time, Light Angst, Bed Sharing) – A somewhat pointless experiment on Sherlock's behalf leads to John having to re-evaluate pretty much his entire life.

A Satisfactory Arrangement Series by SilentAuror (E, 25,637 w. across 2 works || Post S3, Post-Divorce, POV John, Porn With Feels) – John has an issue. He loves being back at Baker Street now that his marriage is over. The only thing is, he doesn't fancy going the rest of his life without ever having sex again...

Sherlock’s Laboratory Series by berlynn_wohl (E, 27,362+ w. across 4 works || Series WiP || Science Fiction AU || Double Penetration, Oral/Anal Sex, Clone Sex, Dirty Talk, Foursome, Kinks, Established Relationship, Tentacles, Dubious Consent, Forced Orgasm, Massage, Genetic Engineering, Multiple Orgasms, Gangbang, Robot Sex, Androids, Angst) – “John, this isn’t one of your science fiction programmes. This is reality."

An Experiment in Apathy Series by belovedmuerto (G to E, 28,701 w. across 13 stories || Empath John, Empath-by-Proxy Sherlock, Epic Bromance Becomes Romance, Angst, Nightmares, Experiments, Trauma, Dreams) – "No man is an island, John. You less so than most." A sequel to the EiE Series, wherein John and Sherlock explore their relationship.

Dear John Series by wendymarlowe (E, 30,802+ w. across 3 works || Post-TRF, Long Distance Relationship, Mutual Pining, Epistolary, Cybersex, Angst, Apologies, Online Dating) – With Sherlock dead, John eventually (under duress) makes a profile on an online dating site. And falls into a long-distance relationship with an enigmatic partner who reminds him of Sherlock in all the right ways. (Hint: it turns out to be Sherlock.)

Xmas Dinners Verse Series by ardenteurophile (T, 31,236+ w. across 2 works || Series WIP || Christmas, Family, Humour, Romance, Drama, Fluff, Angst, Developing Relationship) – Sherlock takes John along for Christmas dinner with Mycroft and Mummy (And "Anthea", too). Over the course of the evening, John realises that everyone in the room - apart from him - seems to think that he and Sherlock are a couple.

Among the Secret Things Series by TakePenAndInk (E, 33,565 w. across 2 works || Amnesia, Angst, Drama, Pining) – Sherlock would be the last person to describe himself as given to flights of fancy, but at the look on Lestrade’s face he could swear that something inside him curls up and dies.

It’s No Longer Eighteen Ninety-Five Series by glenien (E, 36,080+ w. across 2 works || Series WiP || Post-TAB, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Fluff and Angst, Tears, Sherlock's Mind Palace, Past Drug Use, PTSD, Awkward Sex, References to Depression, Hugging, Soft John, First Kiss/Time, Dance Lessons, Parentlock, Happy Ending) – John takes Sherlock home. Although it is true love which fills their hearts with mutual flame, both John and Sherlock need to face their ghosts, to be able to speak its name.

Love Is Series by SilentAuror (E, 36,903 w. across 2 works || Post S3, Alternating POV Each Story, Angst, Unrequited Love, Rejection then Reconciliation, Romance, Mary Divorce, Eventual Happy Ending) – At Mrs Hudson's urging, Sherlock finally decides to tell John how he feels about him.

Inscriptions Series by orphan_account (T, 36,909+ w. across 2 works || Series WiP || Soulmates AU || ASiP, Symbolic Rings, Romance) – Everyone is born with the name of their Soul Mate on their finger. This is called their SBI, or Soul Bond Inscription, and from the time a person turns sixteen, they are locked in a Search for the person with the corresponding SBI; the person with their name on their finger, in the same color as their own SBI. They do not know when, and they do not know where. All they know is that at the end of their Search is the person they are meant to spend the rest of their life with.

The Pool Series by Salambo06 (E, 39,340 w. across 2 works || Fake Relationship, Mutual Pining, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, First Kiss/Time, Alternating POV Per Story, Sexual Fantasies, Love Declarations, Angst with Happy Endings) – John and Sherlock know the Yard has a pool going for when they’re finally going to get together. It’s been running forever, and it’s worth thousands of pounds. It’s all fun and games, hahaha, until they find out Lestrade is in dire financial straits (dog needs emergency surgery, he’s putting his kid through gymnastics training, I don’t know, something), and they decide to fake a relationship to win the pool for him. Sherlock figures out the day and way that Lestrade thinks it’s going to happen, and they act it out. It’s all for a good cause, fake relationship style, until it’s not.

HOT DOLPHIN SEX Series by cwb (E, 47,486+ w. across 2 works || Series WIP || Post S3, Villain Mary, Friends to Lovers, Pining Sherlock, Spies/Secret Agents, Epistolary, Confused Sherlock, Dreams, First Kiss/Time, Texting/Sexting, Hand Jobs, Honeymoon, Travelling, Wedding Fluff, Happy Endings) – What's next on the sex holiday agenda? Bingo or shuffleboard? SH. You don't want to know. Now you have to tell me. SH

A Love with No Name Series by aceofhearts61 (G to M, 49,955 w. across 20 stories || Asexual Sherlock / Straight John, Est. Rel, Queerplatonic Relationship, Romance, Cuddling, Fluff, Platonic Romance, Domestics, Rape/Non-Con) – In which Asexual!Sherlock and Straight!John are platonically in love life partners.

[velvet-vox]

All of the points that go in favour/against Doll coming back to life.

So, originally, I wanted to make a post of theory/analysis on Cyn and the possibility of her being redeemed at the end of the show; one of the points that I was going to make for said redemption was that Doll's death was meant as a cautionary tale, the main team of the series is abuse and how trauma affects us into becoming the worst version of ourselves, Doll was a trauma victim who was so dead set in her unhealthy coping mechanism that she ended screwing over her entire life, granted said redemption for Doll wasn't unreachable as showcased by her last living moments, but by then the damage was done; Cyn, on the other hand, could have potentially realised all of the harm she was doing even as far back as before the gala massacre, but then, it kind of reminded me why I ended up never making that post.

You see, the thing is, I don't understand Cyn.

At all.

Like, I also for the longest time couldn't understand Doll despite being hyper obsessed with her, and took over a year, countless analyses done by other people and (unfortunately) episode 7 until I could finally come to understand her to the deep, narrative level that I do now, and I still don't know if I truly got everything.

But with Cyn, not only do I not understand her like I do with other characters, but..... I also kind of feel left out.

To me, it seems like the fanbase at large is obsessed with this little gremlin; I'm autistic as well, since that's the main head canon floating around, yet I don't really relate to a word she says, to me, the hype surrounding Cyn feels similar to the hype surrounding Nori pre episode 7: we have this almost blank slate character that is characterized enough to not be an head canon dump, she is super relevant to both the plot and to one of the protagonist backstory, it's one of the main antagonistic forces, and is generally super important.... Yet I still don't get her nor do I get her surrounding hype. I've read a couple of analyses, and would gladly accept if someone sent me some more, since just a single Murder Drones character requires a lot of digging to fully comprehend in its entirety.

But finally going back to Doll, I want to make a short list of all the points in favour and against a possible resurrection of her character, starting with the pros.

Pros:

- Doll is definitely a big selling point for the russian audience of Murder drones, as I have seen various people lament her death on the fact that she was russian alone; funnily enough, this was also my main reasoning to not kill her off as I and other people started learning russian all because of her.

- Gonna reiterate the fact that Doll is, currently, peak russian representation, and it just feels rather insensitive from Liam to kill her off permanently when there's already Yeva and her dad, two russians, whose death is much more acceptable.

- Doll, unlike Alice, Beau, Rebecca or others, had so much potential as a character, being Uzi's foil and all, and to not capitalize on that would be a huge waste.

- Her death, although very impactful, was not, per se, as narratively satisfying as it could have been (see Nox from Wakfu), so it might've been a mislead, and if V comes back, there's a chance Doll might come back too since Doll x V is the parallel dynamic to Uzi x N.

- Gonna mention personal bias. It's not important nor is it a valid point but it had to be mentioned.

- Doll parents are already dead but we had a whole Yeva flashback in episode 7 that I can't explain in ways other than she'll be relevant in the future, and if she turns out to be alive, even if mind controlled, Doll's death is inevitably going to lose a lot of impact because, as it stands, it's balanced, but with the twist, it could retroactively feel like drama porn.

- She wasn't unreademable, just unreachable and deeply hurt, if she had a second chance to make up for her mistakes I believe she would take it in a heartbeat, I can only imagine the immense amount of guilt she was feeling while dying, she must've realised she only caused more damage in the long run and couldn't do anything to fix it, so if she could help Uzi out even as a digital ghost, it might just give her the sense of closure she so desperately needed.

- If Nori can come back as a core, so can Doll, they just need to cut Cyn stomach in a non lethal way.

And now, for the sadly more probable cons:

- This is Liam Vickers we are talking about.

- Even with all of her potential, hers and her family backstory feel rather.... disconnected from everything else going on right now? Like, Yeva might have been this important figure into Nori's past, but as of right now, aside from her impact, she really doesn't seem too relevant to the main plot; same thing with Doll, in fact, it was Doll's own insistence to be relevant that led to her demise, because, despite everything, the story revolves around N and Uzi manages to survive because she is important to N, and even then, she still sacrifices her own life for him.

- The narrative has always been pretty disrespectful to her? Like, I'm not talking about her sad backstory, sad development, and even sadder death, (this master guide over here realistically had no end in sight as you could just go on and on forever) I mean in general there was a clear lack of commitment to her side of things from the writing team, I think I've read somewhere else that in the original animation Uzi even walked on Doll's body as she was running to N; many theorised that they only came up with her story only after the pilot dropped, and I can't help but think that it has to be true because she had this air of mystery that in my opinion went anywhere and in the pilot she's a background character. I don't know, from a supposedly sympathetic villain the writing was rather unsympathetic towards her whole situation and she felt more like your average b##ch in the episodes following the prom.

- She still fulfilled her limited narrative role, so changing it back could alter future developments and remove impact from the tragedy of this cautionary tale, since, in all honesty, Doll's side story would require the show to switch off the plot too much and unfortunately that's never been a priority for the writing team. Also bringing back up Nox from Wakfu (still gonna make that comparison post) whose Doll shares some themes with, even though his personal story was extremely tragic, it was extremely disconnected from all of the main characters as he was more of a warmup baddie for Yugo to get in the groove, and he never returned physically aside from passive mentions and an illusion.

- I don't think they went out of the way to showcase Cyn eating Doll's core just for it to be a fake out.

- Even with all of my personal biases, aside from her starring episode she never had a real purpose in the grand scheme of things so her death was probably just a way to cut off loose ends.

- She isn't a protagonist despite what she deluded herself into, so plot armour applies even less to her than it does with the main trio (spoiler: it doesn't).

Ultimately, in my heart and mind, despite what I really want, I know Doll's not coming back.

She was disrespected, screwed over by both the writing and her own twisted mind, and since this is a somewhat heavy horror show despite the comedy, I really don't think we are going to see her reunited with her parents as a ghost nor will she be in robot hell or heaven, I really think she is just dead.

That's so sad. What a shame.

Farewell, comrade.

Want more?

[meruz]

hi im putting all my asks in one post again. these are from like the past month and a half approx? some digimon thoughts some tmnt thoughts some art musings u know the usual

@waywardistics YAYY thank you so much for ordering! I'm glad it got to you & that you are enjoying it!

this is kind of a missive to everyone who ordered but: I am very nervous about pre-orders whenever I do them... nervous that not very many people will order, nervous that there will be supply chain or production dilemmas and I won't be able to get copies out to people in a timely fashion, nervous about having people's money but having an indeterminate amt of time where i have not yet "held up my part of the bargain" etc etc SO. THANK U GUYS...FOR ORDERING and being patient and im so glad it got to y'all

@seanonthemoon (idk why i cant tag u BUT) interesting... i gotta be honest I don't think abt the crests that much. i agree that they're very much like heres the "girl" crest heres the "nerd boy" crest etc to the point that it becomes almost meaningless. but i think what makes them even more meaningless to me, and is probably the reason they kind of designated girl/boy crests etc is that i think like the digivices they're toys and merchandise more than they are actual narrative tools LOL. I wouldve loved something with cody and mimi! theyre both so deeply empathetic and sensitive.. theres a lot they share but i think because they look so different on the surface it would make it difficult to market that merch...booo capitalism boooo toy marketing its all sexist bullshit at least here in the u.s. idk if japan is that different though.

I'm actually a little frustrated with how often 02 and 02 related media squanders cody in general lol. he feels like a parallel of izzy, joe, and TK(season 1 tk) while also being kind of none of those and suffering through lackluster characterization as a result... and then once ken joins the team it feels a little redundant. there's a couple cody-centric eps of 02 I remember really liking but then i think abt how he's been used since in like post-series content and 02:the beginning where they made him type on the computer even though obviously that's yoleis thing but because he had nothing else to do and aghh... my blood boils. i feel like the youngest but most serious anime achetype even at its bare bones is actually rly interesting idk why they don't play it up. UM. Once again my opinion is that he should be taller LOL and maybe they should play up his kendo martial arts honorable training stuff more idk. tallest + youngest + most serious just seems like a recipe for success for me. well. theres still time. and theres always fanfic.

THIS IS SO NICE TO SAY and not the first time someone has said it but i appreciate it everytime because i really admire the mm art style so much. It's like part of why I got really into the movie because I really recognized my own artistic sensibilities and aspirations in the way they stylized everything.

UM And i feel like since watching the movie and looking at all the concept art and making my own art i do feel like its only become more obvious how much my own art is lacking LOL LIKE when you see something that feels so similar I think the differences only become more stark. those artists are definitely on a different level than me. But it's nice to hear people say it doesn't look so different from their pov. thank u ^^

thank u!!!!!!! i love mundanity and naturalism... there's something so beautiful abt it to me lol... I feel like my anatomy needs work actually but ive been feeling better abt it this year so it's good to hear! thank you!

DLKGDSGDLALSNDF WAS IT TOO FAR..?? firstly, yeah I was thinking late teen/young adult ages for both of them ie 18-19ish, definitely not the age the kids are in the movie lol.

but also they arent DOING anything in that pic it is literally just a confrontation + some innuendo... I think teens should be allowed some less than subtle innuendo.. its like one of the top 3 classically teen pastimes...

this is such a funny ask to get because i feel like i haven't been able to do thin lineart until like. this past year or two maybe LOL. UM having a line-centric art job helped I think. I started on craig of the creek back in 2022 and thats a show where we spend a lot of time inking so I had a job where I was constantly moderating my line weight 40 hours a week every week for over a year. disappointingly, much of improvement is simply horrendous amounts of practice.

Here's a tip though: I think a lot of thin lineart boils down to confidence. I think instinctively we read thick, bold, fast lines as confident but theres actually a lot of obscuring you can do with a thick line. if you're not sure whether the nose on the face or a browline should be a little more left or a little more down you can hide that with a thick line and pretend its a shadow. or hide it with a bunch of quick lines and the eye can kind of approximate where looks best among the mass.. whereas a thin line is rly singular and stark and hides nothing, it needs to be precise. so anytime i know i want thin lineart i spend a LOT of time sketching, making sure i know exactly where i want my lines to go. so im not second guessing by the time im inking...

ok thats kind of a broad tip lol... here's one thats more applicable: IF POSSIBLE, lower your pressure sensitivity on your device. most devices have some way to edit your pressure sensitivity curve. I use a surface pro at home and this is what my pressure curve looks like most of the time.

When I work on a wacom it looks even more like a reverse L shape LOL. I'm naturally a really heavy-handed artist and I use a "light" or "hard" pressure curve to compensate for how hard I'm always pressing on the pen lol. if you're like me and you struggle with going too hard with the ink too fast... this will probably help a lot!

SFHASLDFH I LOVE THIS ASK this is like the type of question a person gets asked when chalk drawing on the sidewalk at recess LOL. but i understand because I've been struggling also for like. months. I think I'm finally starting to nail it down though so here's some of my observations.

[feel free to save this img but **please do not re-post it or share broadly**. my biggest fear in the world is to spend 30 min on some notes and become a widely proliferated art tutorial im not even kidding. i made it low contrast and difficult to read on purpose.]

my other tip is to just look at and study a lot of reference because that's all ive been doing. the tmnt are really cartoony so its difficult to use like actual anatomical reference unless ur going for that look BUT theres been so many adaptions in so many different styles that there's a real treasure trove of stuff to look at for how to simplify, stylize, and dissect these characters while keeping the recognizable essence. so theres lots to pull from.

If you want to expand further, it's also good to have 5) something sci-fi 6)something fantasy 7)something mundane/slice of life. a bedroom is a really good go-to. And of course some bgs can be two or more of these things at once.

I've definitely answered asks abt bg tips before but here's one specifically for if you want to do bg design for a job:

Your portfolio should probably have at least one of each of the following 1) an interior 2) an exterior 3) a cityscape 4) a nature scene. Just to cover kind of the basics of what you'd be asked to draw on any given project.

I actually feel like I don't have that many cityscrapes in my portfolio... this is something I'm gonna try to work on in the coming year LOL. OH ALSO. This is a very basic tip and people will tell you it all the time but its worth repeating: look up portfolio websites of artists who have the job you want. An easy way to do this is to go onto imdb for any cartoon or movie you like and to find the names listed as "bg/background designer" or whatever then just google that name +"art" or "animation" most artists have some public facing internet presence so it's not hard. spend time studying their work and hold those images in your head! it's a good way to get a good idea of what "industry standard" looks like and comparing ur own art to it... I know people sometimes get bummed comparing their art to others but if you can keep your head up lol.. it'll help you figure out what you need to work on!

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ok thats all i have to say sorry for typing so much. happy new year everybody who read this far LMAO!!!!!

[whatsnewalycat]

Designated Person | Chapter 4

Pairing: Francisco "Catfish" Morales x F!Reader

Chapter 4: Fireworks

Series Summary: When posting bail for Frankie Morales, your former employer and former lover, you unwittingly designate yourself as his third party custodian during his pre-trial release. Your often tumultuous relationship with him is given a new set of rules and put to the test. Can the two of you co-exist peacefully, or will you crash and burn?

Rating: Explicit (18+ only)

Word Count: 10.3k+

Content / Warnings: Frankie POV, infidelity, past romantic & sexual relationship and related flashbacks, AA meeting and 12 step program, monologue (sorry for the big text blocks), talk of prayer & faith & higher power, triple frontier boys hiya (RIP tom), yoga, arguing in front of a child, jealousy, suicidal thoughts, fireworks, ptsd symptoms including flashbacks, racing thoughts, unprotected PIV sex, praise kink, food and food preparation

Notes: Hi, friends. I'm really hoping I got all the verbiage and characterizations for the other triple frontier characters to be ok lol I apologize if they seem off, I was going from memory alone! Thank you for reading.

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Even before consciousness has fully gripped his body, the thought at the forefront of Frankie’s mind is blaring and unavoidable.

I want a fucking drink.

The wanting has become a reliable companion these past few weeks.

It’s always tugging at his sleeve, begging to be known. Sometimes it’s a scream and sometimes it’s a whisper, but it’s always fucking there.

As he turns off his alarm. As he trudges his body across squeaking floorboards to the bathroom. As he turns on the shower. As he scours his body with a sudsy washcloth. As he gets dressed. As he pours steaming hot coffee into a travel mug.

I want a fucking drink I want a fucking drink I want a fucking drink I want a fucking drink I want a god damn mother fucking drink.

It’s your day off, so you’re still sleeping. The silence of the house juxtaposes his heavy movements and deafening inner monologue. He finds himself missing the background noise of your morning routine running parallel to his. The scratching of your pencil on paper as you plot out your day. Your hushed voice as you mutter to yourself. The soft footfalls of you tiptoeing around like you have to be quiet all the time.

He grabs his work boots and drags himself over to the couch, sagging into its worn cushions with a groan. The knotted muscles of his neck and shoulders protest when he bends over to shove his feet into the boots. A wince tightens across his face as he laces them up.

Michael honks his car horn outside.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Frankie mutters under his breath and glares up at the window.

I want a fucking drink.

On the ride to work, he stares out the window, tuning out the sound of Michael’s blaring morning talk show radio. Every sip from his travel mug is accompanied by the hope that somehow the hot, bitter coffee has transformed into a drink with a different kind of burn.

He busies himself throughout the morning with aircraft system checks and diagnostic tests. While his hands and brain are working together on something challenging, it’s easier to hush the thirst.

On his lunch break, Frankie checks in with Ralph, then eats a cold ham sandwich. He wonders if you would notice him bringing home a bottle of booze. If he could just drink a little bit, just something to make the world around him go fuzzy around the edges. Something to quiet his racing thoughts.

He thinks of what you told him at family dinner last Sunday. Tries to pull from his blurry memories of Australia. How he felt the wall between his infatuation with you and his marriage start to crumble.

One day, when the wives were out, shopping and sightseeing, Frankie sat around drinking and reminiscing with Pope and the Millers. You were in the swimming pool with Sarah cradled on your hip, splashing and giggling. He couldn’t stop watching you, aching with adoration at the way you doted on his daughter like she was your own.

“You doing ok, there, Fish?” Pope grinned, following Frankie’s line of sight to you, “Anything you need to tell us? Say, I don’t know, maybe about the nanny?”

Frankie snapped out of the trance and looked across the patio table at his longtime friend, meeting his mischievous dark brown eyes, and shook his head, “I’m fine.”

He tipped a beer bottle against his lips and took a long swallow, savoring how chilled it was in contrast to the hot, still air.

“Oh, come on,” Pope chuckled, then glanced around the table at Will and Benny, “Am I the only one seeing this?”

“Not my monkeys, not my circus,” Will muttered, then took a swig of beer.

Frankie pressed his fingers against his lips and shook his head some more, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“So you wouldn’t mind if I went ahead and made a move on her, then?” Benny teased, leaning back in his chair with satisfaction when Frankie squirmed in discomfort.

“Jesus Christ, leave the poor girl alone,” he groaned and lifted his hat for a moment to run his hand through his hair, “She’s trying to do her job, not get harassed.”

“Who said I’d harass her? She’s single, I’m single, and if she’s into it, I mean…” a shit eating grin spread across Benny’s face as he shrugged.

Frankie sighed and glanced over at you in the swimming pool, grateful for how completely oblivious you were to the conversation.

“That is, unless you have a problem with it for some reason. Right, Benny?” Pope chimed in, leaning forward to study Frankie’s reaction.

“Well, yeah, but I can’t imagine why you’d have a problem with it,” Benny frowned, then looked at Frankie, “Of course, unless there’s something you wanna tell us.”

Frankie crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, shaking his head, “Go for it. Just—just don’t be a dick, ok? I don’t wanna have to buy an early flight back.”

Benny raised his eyebrows and smiled at Frankie in challenge, then swiveled his mischievous gaze to Pope, who started chuckling with amusement, “He’ll be a perfect gentleman.”

Fucking instigator.

With this, Benny swallowed the rest of his beer and got to his feet. He strode over to the pool, and Frankie could hear a faint, “Mind if I join you ladies?”

Frankie’s leg started bouncing as he glared at Pope and muttered, “Vete al demonio.”

“Oh, lighten up, Fish. Let the kids have fun,” Pope teased, then finished his beer and stood up, “You guys thirsty?”

“Parched,” Frankie answered. Will nodded and lifted his index finger in agreement. Pope went inside, leaving him and Will in silence. Frankie tried to seem disinterested as you laughed at something Benny said, but felt his jaw tighten.

“I share a wall with her, you know,” Will informed him with a sideways glance.

“What?” Frankie’s gaze snapped to the blonde man sitting beside him.

Will smirked then, raising an eyebrow, “Can’t sleep on these kinds of trips, you know. Dani sleeps like a rock. But I’ll stay up until, 2 or 3 in the morning, and boy. I hear some interesting things.”

Silence settled like fiberglass under his skin. Frankie gnashed his jaw back and forth, then sighed, “Ok, look—”

“What the fuck are you doing, man?” Will chided, shaking his head loosely.

Frankie ran a hand over his face and sat up, “Look, it’s not a big deal, it doesn’t even mean anything—”

“Bullshit,” Will boomed. Frankie noticed you and Benny fall silent, so he looked over and saw you both frowning at the conversation. Will followed his gaze and waved to indicate all good here.

Benny shrugged and said something to you that made you laugh. Frankie clenched his jaw so hard he wondered if his teeth would break.

Will cleared his throat and leaned in, quieter in his protest, “I can read you like a fucking book, Frankie. We all can. It’s obvious you have feelings for her.”

Frankie’s throat tightened. He looked down at his hands and muttered, “And what if I do? It’s not like it’ll go anywhere.”

“Hey, that’s not true,” Will grabbed his shoulder and jeered, “It’ll go to divorce court.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Frankie snorted and shook his head. Will laughed at his expense, slapping his shoulder a few times before leaning back in his chair.

Pope slid open the back door and shuffled outside with a big, plastic cooler.

“But really, man. Do you remember what you told me when you found out Ang was pregnant?” Will asked quietly.

He nodded, but kept his eyes trained on Pope, who made a pit stop to give a beer to you and Benny.

“You said, and I quote, ‘Will, I can’t dump her now, what the fuck am I gonna do, be miserable?’”

“Why are you telling me this?” Frankie snipped.

“If you’re wanna be with this girl, whatever, it’s not my business—”

“Really? ‘Cause it seems like you’re making it your business—”

“But don’t stay in a relationship you don’t want, thinking you’re doing Angie some kind of favor, ok? Shit or get off the pot.”

Frankie nodded in acknowledgment, but indignation seeped into his blood, cycling hot and defensive through his body. He gave a two finger wave to Pope, who was lowering the cooler to the ground next to the table.

“Benny and your girl seem to be hitting it off over there,” Pope grinned as he popped the cooler’s lid open.

“Jesus Christ, I’m going to take a piss,” Frankie grumbled and stood to his feet. He kept his eyes on the ground when he passed the pool, trying not to draw your attention.

When he exited the bathroom, you were down the hall closing the door to the guest bedroom he and Angie were using. Of course you followed him inside. The worst possible time for you to do it.

You whispered, “I just laid Sarah down for a nap, she was getting crabby.”

He sighed and passed you with a wide berth, muttering, “Ok.”

“Hey, are you ok?” you tiptoed along behind him and grabbed his hand.

He jerked away from your touch and hissed, “You can’t be acting like this when everyone is around. Do you know what would happen if we got caught?”

You recoiled and stepped back, “Sorry.”

A weighted silence fell over the two of you.

“Are… you gonna go, then, or…?” you searched his face and blinked with annoyance.

“Yeah. Yeah,” he started off towards the back door, but jealousy tugged at his marionette strings and spun him around, “Well, no. Benny? Really?”

“Wow,” you scoffed and shook your head, “Are you fucking serious right now?”

He took a few steps closer, crowding you against the living room wall, lowering his voice to a whisper, “If he so much as touches you—”

“Well that’s not going to happen, so,” you crossed your arms in front of your chest and stared at him.

“Oh, really? You seemed to be getting along—”

“I don’t want him, Frankie,” you whispered, your eyes melting into these big, pleading pools, “I want you.”

He searched your face, and he saw that you meant it. His body acted on impulse then, propelled forward by the relentless electricity that pulsed beneath his skin each time he saw you, by the desire to claim you as his own, even if it wasn’t supposed to be right or fair. Even if it was his fucking ruining.

His fingers grazed the baby blue triangle of your bikini bottom. Goosebumps pricked your bare skin and you unfurled your arms to press your palm against his bare chest. You shuddered his name, and he stole it from your lips with a kiss. Right there in the living room.

The front door opened and the excited chatter of Angie, Yvonne, and Dani filled the open space. Frankie jumped back and strode towards the noise to greet them, to distract them from your presence, while you slipped out the sliding glass door to the backyard.

After Michael drops him off at his Monday night AA meeting, held in the conference room at a local church, Frankie helps himself to stale cookies and watered down coffee. David talks about “The Big Book” and goes over the 12 steps. This time Frankie actually listens.

One of the attendees, Carol, details her struggle with the second step: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

“Until recently, I’ve really struggled with this step. I was under the assumption I had to know exactly what it meant, or, um, who that Power was before believing. I’ve always seen higher power in practice as the neat little boxes that people stuff their spirituality into—like my parents, who were devout Catholics. And that kind of thinking, it just never sat right with me. I don’t like being put in a box. Organized religion is not for me,” she explains, waving her long, skinny hands emphatically around her head as she speaks, “But I had a revelation a few weeks ago. Long story short, I don’t have to know what it is. I don’t have to label that Power, or understand it, or join a church. I just have to believe that there’s something and work towards it.”

A few people nod in understanding. She continues.

“Long story long, I started praying twice a day. It felt… silly, I guess, at first. Like I was just talking to myself. I thought that what I said didn’t matter because I didn’t know who was listening or if it would pay off. I kept getting frustrated, and I was talking to my sponsor, who said I had to let go of that reservation and just have faith. And I says to her, ‘how can I have faith in something without proof, or without knowing what it is? How can I believe in something if I don’t know for certain that it’s anything at all?’”

Carol pauses here, furrowing her brow at her white styrofoam cup of coffee, “And my sponsor, she says to me, ‘Isn’t that what faith is, though? To trust what you feel, but can’t touch? To go through motions and rituals in the hope that it will make things better, or give life meaning?’ I’ve been thinking lately that maybe sometimes a particular Power, and those rituals, they work for us and sometimes they don’t.

“After thinking on this more, mostly what I’ve found, and mostly what I want to share with y’all, is that faith is a lot like love. Some people believe in love at first sight, and that’s fine for them,” Carol chuckles a little, raising a skeptical brow, then looks around, “But mostly, you meet someone and they strike a chord with you. There’s a flicker of something in there. You establish your rituals, like dates, or phone calls, or sex, or what have you.

“Then with certain people, with the people who are right for us, love flourishes. Now, most of the time, you don’t know if your efforts will bear love as its fruit. Sometimes there’s a flicker, and you really think it’s right, so you tend to it, but it wilts and dies. Either way it goes, you have faith first. You think maybe this will be something, then go through the motions. And if it is? If it is love? God, isn’t that something beautiful? Doesn’t that make it all worth it?”

Carol sighs and looks down at her cup again, “And I think maybe, up until now, I was trying to cultivate faith in places it just couldn’t grow. Like a church. Before, I thought that maybe there just isn’t a higher power, because I had already gone on a few dates with the Catholic Church, and honey, that was not meant to be,” she stops and chuckles again, then her face sobers, “But with this prayer, there’s a flicker. I’m not sure what, or who, it is exactly, and sometimes that drives me crazy. But I keep going through the motions. Establishing rituals that strike a chord with me, that make me feel like I’m connecting to something bigger.

“And, isn’t that the point? To let go of the control you think you have over yourself? To believe that this thing, this Power, could save us? Then to follow it with the faith that it will?”

The room is quiet as everyone reflects on this. Carol adds on lamely, “That’s all, thanks for listening.”

“That was beautiful, Carol, thank you,” David tells her, then looks around the table, “Who would like to go next?”

“I do,” Frankie says, then shifts in his seat when everyone brings their attention to him. He thrums his fingers against his jeans and looks down at the table, “For those of you who don’t know, I’m here as a condition of my parole. My sobriety is a condition of my parole. I didn’t think it was a problem, honest to god. But now that I’m sober… All I wanna do is drink. I don’t know what to do with myself, or how to sleep, or how to talk to people, or deal with anything. I didn’t realize how much of my life I spent drinking until I had to cut it out and found all this empty space,” he frowns and looks around, “Did you all find that, too?”

Every single person nods and/or hums in agreement.

Frankie nods and swallows hard, then says, “I drank because I thought it made me feel happy, or more… at ease, at least. But now I’m looking back and it’s like all those times I thought I was doing something that made me happy, what I was actually doing is suppressing the negative emotions. I’ve never dealt with, you know, the grief, or anger, or sadness, or guilt,” he pauses here and takes a breath, then admits, “That’s probably the hardest one for me right now. The things I’ve done—“ he swallows a lump in his throat as a thousands of horrifying images flash across his mind’s eye, then clears his throat and shakes his head, “I’m taking it one day at a time. And I think that… admitting that I’m an alcoholic, and truly believing it, is a step that I’m ready to take. So, um, I don’t know. There it is.”

Frankie glances up at David and sits back in his seat. When he glances around at the other attendees, a few nod and smile in support.

“Thank you for sharing, Frankie,” David says, then asks everyone, “Who’s next?”

The house is quiet when Frankie gets home. He changes out of jeans, into a pair of basketball shorts, all the while listening for the sounds of your presence. But he doesn’t hear anything.

He wanders through the kitchen, to the back hallway and hovers at your open bedroom door. A frown crosses his face when he spots your purse on the ground next to your bed.

Just when he’s about to give up on looking and call to see where you are, he hears music from outside. He follows it like a beacon, through the laundry room, out the back door, and into the side yard.

It’s a fenced off space between the garage and the house. Like the rest of your property, it’s small and efficient, but cozy. You’ve made it your own with by planting shiny-leaved bushes, flowers, and a lanky palm tree that stands at the back of the fence. Cement pavers mark a path between the two doors and a square patio. On the patio, there’s a neglected charcoal grill, a folding lawn chair, and a rainbow striped hammock.

There you are, stretched out in your hammock, reading a book. Your foot wiggles along to music playing out of a Bluetooth speaker resting against the black aluminum hammock stand.

“Hey,” he calls as he approaches.

You peek over the top of Doctor Sleep by Stephen King and chime, “Hey, how was your meeting?”

When he sits down in the lawn chair next to your hammock, you mark your place in the novel and lower it onto the cement pavers of your patio.

“It was… really good, actually,” Frankie admits. His leg starts bouncing and he leans forward, “Someone shared something that really resonated with me. And, uhh, I participated willingly for the first time.”

He glances up at you and sees an elated smile crossing your face. Warmth spreads across his chest. His eyes stay trained on yours when he tells you, “I told them about how hard sobriety has been, and, um… told them that I have accepted the fact that I am… an alcoholic.”

You don’t even flinch.

Your smile just brightens and you clap your hands, “That’s fucking awesome!”

“Thanks,” he grins and drops his gaze to his hands, feeling incentivized by your excitement, “It has been hard, you know, not drinking. I feel… restless, I guess. I don’t know what to do with myself most of the time.”

“Have you tried doing yoga?” you tilt your head and tuck an arm under your head. Your shirt rides up and he can’t help but glance at the soft skin of your belly. Can’t help but feel a tug of want.

“No,” he chuckles and blinks up at you, “I don’t think I’m flexible enough for that.”

You scoff and shake your head, “You don’t have to be flexible, it’s not about that. It’s about being present in your body.”

He raises an eyebrow at you.

“It’s been really helpful for me when I feel restless and disconnected from myself. We can do it together, I’ll walk you through it,” you flash a reassuring smile, “Trust me, it’ll be good.”

Frankie crinkles his nose and leans back in his chair.

“Oh my god, just try it. I won’t tell anyone, I promise,” you tap your fingers against your belly and shrug, “Unless you’re too chickenshit.”

He snorts and shakes his head, “Wow, really?”

A mischievous grin spreads across your face.

“Fine,” he concedes with a sigh, trying to hide the smile turning up the corners of his lips, “I’ll try it.”

As he predicted, Frankie was stiff and awkward in the yoga poses you showed him.

At some points, he was sure you were trying to torture him. His strained muscles burned and trembled as he followed your instruction, while you made it look effortless.

But you were patient and coached him through it, quietly reminding him to breathe deep and wide, to focus his breath, and the stretch, and the connection his body made to the mat.

Despite his resistance, he felt markedly more relaxed afterwards. While he rolled up the yoga mats and returned them to the laundry room, you gathered a bunch of deli meats and cheeses, crackers, olives, and jams, then laid them out across a cutting board. The two of you sat at the dining room table and tried different combinations of ingredients.

“Did you like doing yoga?” you ask, then pop a green olive in your mouth.

“It wasn’t too bad.”

“It gets easier,” you say, then look up and meet his eyes, “You gonna do it with me tomorrow?”

“When?” he drops his gaze to the charcuterie board and folds up a piece of salami on top of a round, golden cracker.

“Oh, do you have to check your social calendar?” you snort.

“Haha,” he rolls his eyes and smirks, then shifts in his seat, “No, Ang asked if I wanna go over there for dinner.”

“Ah,” you nod, and he swears he sees you fold into yourself a little, then you frown, “Whenever, really. Doesn’t matter to me.”

“Ok,” he responds, then stacks some cheese on top of the salami cracker and shoves the whole thing in his mouth.

“So you’re not gonna be home for dinner?”

He shakes his head. The word home makes his stomach clench. Part of him wants to remind you that he will be home for dinner. In his real home. Another part of him dismisses it as a misnomer.

And a teeny, tiny sliver of him, just a whisper, doesn’t mind it at all.

Likes it, even.

He banishes the thought from his brain, but it lingers in his senses, like the acrid scent of gunpowder after shots are fired.

You dust off your hands and shrug, “Alright.”

The evening sun is relentless as it bears down on the wooden deck off the back of the two-story house Frankie feels conflicted about calling his own.

Sarah is chattering to herself as she plays with penguin figurines in the little inflatable pool Frankie gifted to her after arriving. Her squeaky little voice lilts up to where he’s sitting in an Adirondack chair and, although he can’t understand what she’s saying exactly, he thinks she’s assigning different voices to each penguin. His heart aches with adoration.

“How did your hearing go on Wednesday?” Angie asks from her chair a foot away.

“Fine,” he shrugs, then swings his gaze to meet her sunglasses, “Plead not guilty. Lawyer said he’s looking into an illegal search and seizure angle. If we can get the possession charge dropped, I’ll just be on the hook for the DWI. I wouldn’t be able to drive for a few years and maybe have to do some time, but a hell of a lot less than it would be.”

“Better hope they drop it then,” she sighs, “I don’t know what the hell we’re gonna do if you have to go to prison.”

“Be my prison wife?” Frankie jokes, leaning towards her with a sly smile.

Her lip curls and she shakes her head, “Seriously, Frankie. Without your income we could squeeze by, but we might have to move closer to my parents.”

This statement flares hot under his skin. It’s not the first time she’s made this particular threat. In fact, she reminds him every goddamn time they’re together. Holding Sarah as a bargaining chip between her manicured hands. It drives him fucking crazy.

“You’re not moving my daughter to fucking Texas,” he bites off.

She crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow.

His leg starts bouncing. He takes a deep breath, then assures her, “The lawyer says we have a good chance of getting it dropped. It’ll be alright. We’ll get through it. You’re not moving.”

He turns back to watch Sarah and leans back in the chair, pressing his fingers to his lips. The silence is weighted.

“Has the trial date been set?” she asks. Her tone is sharp and annoyed.

“No,” he answers.

“My dad says I should divorce you, you know,” she spits.

He releases a heavy sigh and runs his hands over his face.

“Should’ve done it a year ago. Let the little slut have you,” she mutters, “I bet you’re both overjoyed with this arrangement.“

“Jesus Christ, Ang. How many times do we have to have this conversation?“ he groans and leans forward onto his knees.

“As many times as I fucking want to, Francisco,” she booms.

Sarah looks up at the noise.

Frankie warns, “Hey, lower your voice—”

Angie gets to her feet, “You fucking cheated on me, you fucking—”

“Stop—”

“—ASSHOLE!“

With this, she storms inside. Anger, buzzing bright and hot, brings him to his feet and makes him follow her.

Inside, Angie is pulling a beer from the fridge. She twists the top off and tosses it onto the counter.

“If you want to yell at me, fine, fucking yell at me,” he hisses as he walks up to her, then points to the back door, “But do not do that shit in front of her.”

She rolls her eyes and starts guzzling from the glass bottle.

“Seriously, Ang,” he pleads, calming his demeanor as he draws closer to her, “She doesn’t need to see us fighting.”

She sets the beer down on the counter and crosses her arms, “I hate this whole thing, Frankie.”

“I know, baby,” he coos and closes the distance between them, then hesitantly places his hands on her waist. She doesn’t swat him away, which is a relief.

“Every night I go to sleep alone, while you’re under that bitch’s roof,” her big golden brown eyes start to swell tears and she shakes her head, “It fucking kills me.”

“Every night I go to sleep alone, too,” he searches her eyes, presses his eyebrows together, “What happened with her a year ago, what you saw, that was the only time. And it was a mistake. It has never, and will never, happen again.”

“Then why did you call her to bail you out, Frankie? That’s what doesn’t make sense to me. If that was the only time, why did you call her out of the blue to bail you out of jail a year later?”

His heart jumps up into his chest. This is a new point of contention he hadn’t prepared for. He pulls the first excuse he can think of out of his ass.

“It was one of the phone numbers I could remember. I didn’t think she would actually agree. But she met the requirements, and,” he shakes his head and sighs, “It was stupid. I just wanted to get the fuck out of there.”

Angie’s shoulders soften and she sniffles, “Why did you have her phone number memorized?”

“She was our nanny for over two years, Ang,” he says, as if that could explain it.

She furrows her brow and looks over his shoulder towards the backdoor, then back to him, “I should go check on her.”

Frankie nods, “Ok.”

While she’s outside, he stares at the open beer bottle. Half full. Golden and bubbling. Asking to be finished.

He shakes his head and takes a few steps away, putting distance between himself and the object of his desire. His conversation with Angie replays. Guilt wrings his stomach.

The retaining wall of lies he’s built around his life with her is buckling. He doesn’t even know if it’s worth repairing. Or why he keeps trying.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, so he pulls it out and walks into the living room.

> MARIPOSA: > FYI Rory is coming over, let me know when you’re on your way home

Frankie’s ears start ringing and his jaw clenches.

His mind is so far away, he doesn’t even hear Angie and Sarah come inside until Angie says, “I’m gonna order pizza in a bit, does that sound good?”

“Hmm?” he shoves the phone back into his pocket and searches her face, then her words catch up to his lagging brain, “Oh, yeah, that’s fine.”

Sarah squeals and claps, “Pizza!”

< ME: < omw

Frankie’s leg won’t stop bouncing. His mind won’t stop racing. He can’t pay attention to anything Angie is jabbering on about, although he’s pretty sure it’s just some bullshit office drama from her job.

All he can think about is the implication of Rory being there when he’s not. The text you sent to make sure Frankie won’t walk into the house and hear you fucking someone else. It’s heavy, the weight of the knowledge that another man is placing his hands on what Frankie—unjustly, he’s painfully aware of it—feels is his.

He seethes to himself from the passenger’s seat of Angie’s SUV. His jaw is clenched and tightens all the way down his neck. He tries to reason with himself, to convince himself, that he just wants what’s best for you. He wants you to be with someone who treats you right. Someone who knows you.

And this fucking guy, Rory, he doesn’t know you. Not like Frankie does.

Rory doesn’t know that your favorite holiday is Valentine’s Day. Or that you have a scar on your navel from getting your bellybutton pierced in a friend’s basement at 14. Or that you secretly love kids cartoons. Or that you refuse to kill spiders, not because you’re scared of them, but because you sympathize with them. Or that you like taking naps while NASCAR plays on the TV. Or that you’ve memorized every line in Moulin Rouge.

Rory doesn’t know about the nightmares. How you wake up shaking and crying more nights than not. He doesn’t know what to do when you’re having a panic attack. He doesn’t know what happened to you that caused these symptoms.

Frankie doesn’t even know that.

“Are you ignoring me?” Angie asks.

“What?” he whips his head towards her.

“That’s what I thought,” she scoffs, “I asked if you want to come over on Tuesday for dinner.”

“Sorry,” he clears his throat, then says, “Yeah, of course.”

Angie doesn’t say anything. The SUV pulls up to your little orange house and she puts it in park. Down the street somewhere, a firecracker goes off with a loud POP!

His ears start buzzing and he shakes his head, then glances over at his wife.

“Hey, Ang,” he reaches out and grabs her hand. She turns and meets his eyes, then he tells her, “I appreciate you trying. I really do. I love you.”

“I love you too,” she murmurs and allows a smirk to cross her mouth when Frankie pulls her hand to his lips.

He sits up and glances into the back seat and smiles at Sarah’s sleeping face, then at Angie, “Goodnight girls.”

“Frankie,” she tightens her grip on his hand and her eyes drop to his lips in suggestion. He leans over the center console, where she meets him with a gentle kiss.

She pulls back and smiles sweetly, “Goodnight.”

He flashes her his best attempt at a warm smile, then opens the door to get out.

Once inside the house, Frankie takes off his shoes and stands there in the living room, paralyzed by the silence. Then laughter bubbles out from behind your closed bedroom door. It mobilizes him, carrying him to your guest bedroom, where he sits on the edge of a mattress you probably inherited from an ex-boyfriend.

He looks around the room, at all your artifacts lining the walls and covering surfaces. The pile of duffel bags in the corner, all half-gutted and rifled through because he hasn’t really unpacked yet. Like he knows this space isn’t his.

The rotten cavity he calls a chest aches.

It’s like he could disappear and nothing would change. More aptly, things would be better. You would still have this spare bedroom, as is, minus the mess. Angie and Sarah would still have their lives, as is, minus the mess.

A firework crackles somewhere down the block. Hooting and hollering follows from the people who set it off. Probably drunk.

He envies them.

“Fuck this,” Frankie mutters to himself, then gets up to go take a shower, figuring the stinging burn of hot water might be a suitable substitute for the whiskey his body craves.

When he’s walking through the kitchen on his way to the bathroom, your bedroom door swings open. Because of course it does. A tall, muscular man follows you out into the kitchen. He’s explaining something to you about gym memberships and you do not appear interested.

Both of you notice Frankie’s presence at the same time. Everyone freezes.

Your eyes widen slightly, but you smile, “Oh hey, you’re back!” Then you turn back to Rory and say, “This is my roommate, Frankie.”

“Hey,” Frankie nods at the man, then steps forward and holds his hand out, “What’s your name?”

You glare at him because you know Frankie knows your boy toy’s name.

“Rory,” he takes Frankie’s hand and gives it a firm shake, then turns to you with a slight frown, “I thought your roommate was a girl.”

Frankie holds back a burst of laughter tingling in his throat, then looks between the two of you as you furrow your brow at Rory and shake your head, “I never said my roommate was a girl.”

“Nice to meet you, man,” Frankie says to Rory, then starts towards the bathroom again and murmurs, “Excuse me.”

It’s so quiet, he doesn’t even notice you when he shuffles into the living room. You’re all cuddled up on the couch in a blanket, reading Doctor Sleep. He stops in his tracks and his heart works quickly to saturate his blood with adrenaline.

“Oh—um, sorry, I didn’t realize—I can, uhh,” Frankie stammers, then turns around to go back to his room.

You scoff and glance up at him, “You can be out here, I don’t care.”

“Ok,” he says, and makes his way over to the opposite end of the couch. He plops down and sighs, once again unsure what to do with himself.

His skin is tight and itchy. He runs his thick, tingling tongue along the backs of his teeth. Your quiet presence is not helping. He wishes you would say anything. Anything to get his mind to stop racing.

All he can think about is you and Rory and the your concession to not have sex while he’s in the house and “let me know when you’re on your way home” and the bubbled up laughter under your closed door and his pile of duffel bags in the corner of your guest bedroom and “I thought your roommate was a girl” and the little patch of red bruised skin he sees now at the crook of your neck and he needs to leave you alone and in a different way he needs to have been the one to leave that mark on you and he needs to fucking leave you alone and he needs to fucking leave—

Panic hums steady and hot through his veins. He can’t fucking stand it anymore. It’s too fucking much. All of it.

He just needs to escape it.

His body moves on instinct alone. Bringing him to his feet. Rushing him out the front door and into the street.

He walks. Without knowing where he’s going or what’s around him. Without feeling the asphalt denting his bare feet.

He just keeps pressing forward, away, away, away from everything.

He passes a house party that spilled out onto the front lawn. A few of the drunks try to get his attention, but their calls are background noise as he walks.

A loud THUMP sounds from a mortar as it launches a firework shell into the air. It explodes with a deafening BANG. Bright flashes of white streaks sizzle across the night sky.

Frankie ducks for cover.

When the explosion fades, he checks his person for his rifle but it’s not there. Bile rises in his throat. He stays low to the ground and in the shadows as he moves away from the enemy fire. Spots a break in the row of houses and slips away into the black void. Engulfs himself in darkness and lets his eyes adjust.

Shelter. He needs to find shelter.

He scans the area and spots a playground. A park shelter. Picnic tables. Wood chips rustle beneath his feet as he heads for the playground, eyeing a plastic tunnel that bridges the gap between two sections of metallic mountains.

“Frankie?!” someone calls, “Francisco?”

He crouches down behind the playground’s platform steps and observes the source of the noise.

It’s you.

Standing under the golden glow of a streetlight, turning yourself in a circle as you run a hand through your hair and squint at the night surrounding you.

What the fuck are you doing here?

thump

BANG!

You yelp and jump away from the noise. Red streaks of light flash across the sky.

“GET DOWN!” he hollers, and his body launches into action, sprinting towards you, completely aware of the danger he’s putting himself in by giving away his position. All he can think is that he needs to save you, get you somewhere safe, because he cannot fucking lose you.

You spin towards his voice. The firework sizzles to a stop.

Frankie reaches the edge of the streetlight’s glow and out stretches his hand to you, “We need to go, come on, let’s go—”

“Frankie—what?” you take a few steps towards him and furrow your brow, “What happened, why did you—”

“Don’t have fucking time for this, come on,” he grabs you by the wrist and starts dragging you behind him.

You dig in your heels and protest, “Hey, stop it—what the fuck—”

He whips himself around and grabs you by the shoulders, speaking frantically, eyes darting behind you into the street, “Listen, right now, we gotta fucking go, they’re right behind us, please—”

His throat tightens into a a tourniquet that cuts off his begging. Your shoulders slump and you nod, “Ok.”

Frankie grabs your hand and crouches low as he takes quiet steps through the park, past the playground, around a cluster of picnic tables, deeper and deeper into the darkness, until the only light is from the half moon above.

“Frankie,” you croak out from behind him. Your grip tightens on his hand, “Hey, look at me.”

He turns and surveys the area before trying to meet your gaze. His eyes don’t cooperate. They remain vigilant against the impending threat and flit all around. His heart hammers at the walls of his chest. Skin raw, nerve endings exposed, like the top layer sloughed off his body.

“Ok, ok let’s see,” you mumble to yourself, take a deep breath and look around, then turn to him and ask, “What, um, what are some of the things you can see? List them for me.”

He starts naming things off as he spots them, “Picnic table. Tree. Rock. Swingset. Slide. House—”

“Ok, good, now um… what do you smell?”

When he inhales deep through his nose, he identifies the woody, cool aroma of tea tree oil and mint, then frowns, “Shampoo and conditioner.”

“Good, what else?”

His lungs expand, and he concentrates on a bright, crisp scent like fresh laundry and sunshine, “Your perfume.”

“What do you hear?”

He tunes in to the sounds surrounding him, twisting the dial to here and now, surprised to discover a chorus of croaking, and murmurs, “Frogs. A lot of fucking frogs.”

You chuckle at this and nod, “Perfect, ok, what do you feel?”

“Scared,” he answers with a thick swallow.

“Oh—um, I mean,” you squeeze his hand, “Do you feel that?”

The place where your palms meet is sweaty and hot. He squeezes back, “Yeah.”

“Hey,” you murmur. He meets your eyes. They’re all shiny from the moon above, and you bringing your free hand to his cheek, “We’re safe, ok? I got you.”

Something about the way you say this. So sincere and compassionate. It’s a pebble hitting a windshield at just the right angle and velocity.

It fucking shatters him.

Tingles spread cross his chest and up his throat, settling behind his eyes. His vision goes blurry. His ribcage gives under the pressure of his sorrow and discontent. The air squeezes from his lungs in a wheeze.

Frankie’s head hangs loose and he shakes it back and forth, “What the fuck is wrong with me?”

You rub your thumb against his cheek and breathe, “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“That is bullshit and you know it,” he chokes out, “You—you know better than anyone. I’m fucking broken.”

“Hey hey hey eyes on me,” you coo. He blinks hot tears away, then levels his gaze with yours, and you tell him, “You are not broken, Frankie. Fucked up things happened to you. That’s not your fault.”

“But what I did to you—and, and what I did to Angie—fuck, I fucked everything up. I fucked up so bad. And I don’t know what to do, it’s all so fucking,” he inhales a sharp, shattered breath and drops his eyes, “I don’t know. I don’t think I can fix it. Sometimes I think it would be better… if—if nobody had to deal with me.”

“That is not fucking true,” you snap, then wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug. He returns the embrace, releasing an onslaught of sobs as you start petting his hair and whisper, “It’s going to be ok. I—I know it’s hard doing all this stuff, and not being with your family, but I promise you’re not a burden. To me or—or to Angie, or anyone.”

“I am, though,” he sniffles, “If I go to prison, she’s going to move Sarah away—I’ll never see her. I can’t live with that.”

You squeeze him tighter and continue to stroke his hair, “We don’t know that any of those things will happen.”

“And you—fuck,” he shakes his head as his chest heaves, “I’m so sorry. I was a fucking monster to you. Should’ve left you alone.”

“I forgive you, Frankie,” you breathe.

“Why?” he chokes out past the lump in his throat, “Why are you so good to me?”

You sigh and sit with this question for a moment, then answer, “Because your soul is made of the same stuff as mine. I see you. And I know that you’re good.”

His gut reaction is to deny it. To shove you away at an arm’s length like he’s tried to do time and time again.

Instead, he chooses to allow the warmth of your words settle on his shoulders like a blanket. He nuzzles against you and rasps, “Thank you.”

You hum in acknowledgment, then take a deep, shaky breath and ask, “Are you ready to go home?”

Frankie sniffles and nods. You pull back and study his face. Moonlight shines off your wet cheeks. He reels in the urge to kiss you. The restraint clutches his heart in a vice grip.

He takes a step back and looks around, trying to gain his bearings. Your hand finds his, interlacing your fingers as you start towards the street.

Frankie is still holding your hand when he follows you through the front door. You let go of him and turn around to ask, “Are you going to bed, or will you be up for a while?”

He looks from his empty palm to your face, “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep for a while. Why?”

“Wanna watch a movie?” you kick off your sandals towards the door.

“Yeah,” he glances down at his damp, dirty feet, “I just, um… give me a minute.”

When he joins you on the couch, you’re curled up in a little ball at one end, a blanket wrapped around your body like a cocoon. You’re frowning at the TV, flipping through options, then you toss the remote to him, “You pick one.”

Frankie groans and grabs the remote, picking up where you left off, in the Comedy section of Netflix.

“Oh my fucking god,” you mutter at your phone screen and shake your head.

“What?” he glances sideways at you.

You roll your eyes, “Rory is being dumb. He’s mad that I didn’t tell him you’re a guy.”

“Ah,” Frankie nods and looks back at the TV, “I’m guessing he doesn’t know about the other stuff, then, either.”

“Nope,” you say as you click-clack a response and press send, “It’s not his fucking business.”

He raises an eyebrow and chuckles.

You glare at him, “What?”

“Nothing,” he smirks, then presses his fingertips to his lips.

“Tell me.”

Frankie swings his gaze to yours and shrugs, “If he had a roommate with our history, wouldn’t you be concerned?”

Your lip curls into a scowl and you blink rapidly, probably in annoyance, but you don’t come up with a counter argument.

He hums and turns back to the TV.

“Shut up,” you snort, then mumble to yourself, “Whatever, he can deal with it or not, I don’t really care.”

“What, you don’t like him?” Frankie asks, but is careful not to look at you. He doesn’t want to seem too interested in your answer.

“He’s ok,” you respond blandly, then wait a few hesitant beats before telling him, “There’s nothing wrong, but it doesn’t feel right, either, you know?”

“Yeah, I get that,” he nods, his heart skipping a beat at the admission.

A silence settles over the couch for a few long seconds, then you inquire, “Is that how you felt with me? Like it wasn’t right?”

The arm holding the remote control drops to his leg and he turns to study your face, furrowing his brow in confusion, “No.”

You don’t look at him, just chew away at your bottom lip, deep in thought.

“That was the problem,” Frankie explains, shaking his head, “It felt so right. But—but it was wrong.”

“Yeah,” you whisper and fold your arms across your chest, then release a heavy sigh, “Sorry. Anyway.”

He brings his attention back to the TV, murmuring, “I know what we should watch.”

When he finds it and presses play, you start giggling immediately, “Oh my god, seriously?”

“There’s no way we can be sad saps while watching Austin Powers,” Frankie reasons with a grin, then puts on his best impression of the international man of mystery, “Yeah, baby!”

You laugh and shake your head, “So dumb,” then unravel the blanket around you, tossing part of it across the couch to him.

He scoots closer and you stretch your legs out over his lap. His hands rest on your knees atop the blanket.

And, as much as he wants to lose himself in the ridiculous movie, the contact between your bodies holds all his attention. His confession, that it always felt right with you, eats away at his brain. That’s what the problem is.

Fuck, when he finally had an opportunity to kiss you, it consumed him. While Angie was nursing her hangover the next day, he was thinking about when he could kiss you again. Whether or not he should was barely a factor. He had to have you.

When he came home from work the Monday after the kiss, you were a nervous wreck. He drank two tumblers of whiskey and tended to Sarah as you tiptoed around the kitchen making dinner. Sarah fell asleep while drinking a bottle, so he laid her down in her crib, then made his way into the kitchen. He leaned his back against the counter next to you.

You didn’t acknowledge his presence, just kept your eyes on the vegetables you were dicing. But he could see your hands trembling.

“Hey,” he called for your attention, feeling emboldened by the whiskey buzzing in his veins.

You stopped chopping, but didn’t look at him.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” he asked.

“No,” you responded immediately, but sat in the quiet for a moment before correcting yourself, “I mean, I don’t know.” You set the knife down and turned towards him, averting your eyes the floor. Your teeth caught your bottom lip, then you pressed your eyebrows together, “I guess… I don’t know. I’m sorry for, um… Kissing you.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he murmured, “I don’t regret it.”

“You don’t?” your eyes flicked to his.

Frankie shook his head, dropping his gaze to your lips, “Do you?”

“No,” you whispered and searched his face, leaning in towards him like you felt the pull, too.

He inched closer, bringing his hand to your waist, and your eyelids fluttered closed as he captured your lips in his. His pulse jumped at the contact, filling him with a hot, overwhelming need.

He backed you against the kitchen counter and cupped your cheeks with his palms, kissing you with fire. You responded with equal fervor, gripping his shirt as you pulled him closer. Your tongue writhed against his, the muscle so soft and luscious, a groan sounded from the back of his throat.

Your hands tangled in his hair, knocking the hat off his head and onto the floor. When you parted your lips from his to breathe, “Are you sure?” He responded by dropping open-mouthed kisses down your neck, sliding eager fingertips up your shirt, against the tender skin of your abdomen.

You let out a sharp giggle and he stopped to meet your eyes with a grin, “Ticklish?”

A wide smile spread across your face and you covered it with your hand as you nodded.

Frankie grazed your belly again, savoring the laughter that bubbled from your throat. His heart swelled. He kissed you, bringing his touch further up your shirt, confirming his suspicion that you weren’t wearing a bra.

You gasped as he cupped your breasts and brushed his thumbs against your nipples. The noise fueled him. He lifted your shirt and you pulled it off as he brought his mouth to one side, groaning at the feel of your hardened bud against his tongue. Your fingers carded through his hair and you let out quiet little whimpers as he moved to the other side.

His lips pressed against your sternum and worked down the prime meridian of your body, leaving gleaming pools in their wake. Your giggles turned to airy moans. Grip tightened into fists in his hair.

When he reached the waistband of your yoga pants, you tugged it down without hesitation. He helped you peel them off, then ushered you onto the countertop and parted your legs, smoothing his palms against your thighs, moving his eyes over every inch of your bare skin in broad daylight, “Jesus fucking Christ.”

“What?” you panted, tugging at his shirt.

“I mean,” he chuckled and shook his head, lightly dragging his fingers along your crease, then dropped his voice to a purr, “You’re so fucking hot.”

You pulled him in for a kiss, slow and deep, while he spread your legs wider, drawing tight circles on your swollen clit. He swallowed your whimpers whole, each one fueling the burning desire raging inside him. Your head fell back with a moan, breaking the kiss, and he dropped to his knees, burying his face between your legs.

“Holy fuck—” you choked out and leaned back onto your elbows. He looked up at you as he started rolling his tongue against your clit, groaning at the way your face twisted up with pleasure, eyelids fluttering shut, lips pouting out into an O, brows pressing together.

You started working your hips against him, so he flattened his tongue, letting you rub your pussy on his mouth. His pulse roared in his ears and his fingers dug into the tender skin of your thighs. You grabbed his hair and pulled him even closer, moaning and gasping, skin growing hot to the touch.

“Frankie, put your fingers inside me, please please please,” you begged. He moaned at the request, then granted it, sliding two thick fingers inside you.

“Fuck me with them,” you rasped, and when he started driving into you, hard and fast, you squeaked out, “Yes yes yes yes—Fuck, oh fuck—”

He had to hold himself back from the edge of oblivion, but moaned against your slick, glistening pussy as your moans grew airy and frantic, then disappeared from your throat completely. Your whole body started shaking and your thighs clamped down around his head.

You resumed your breathing with a choked sob, and your cunt fluttered around his fingers as you came.

“Oh my god,” you panted, then started grabbing at his shirt, pulling him to his feet, bringing your lips to his, and asked between messy kisses, “Will you fuck me? Please?”

“You want me to fuck you?“ he purred, just to hear your little whimper as you nodded in response. You grabbed his belt and unfastened it, then he tugged at his pants until they dropped to the floor. With no thought about birth control, or his wife, or your job, or anything, really, he positioned himself at the entrance of your swollen, needy cunt and drove his hips forward.

“Holy shit, Frankie,” you moaned and brought your hands at the nape of his neck, grabbing at his hair, sending a ripple of pleasure down his spine.

“That’s it, baby,” he cooed, pumping into your heat at a slow tempo, trying to calm the fire building at his center, “Jesus Christ, you’re so fucking tight.”

“That’s—fuck that’s so good,” you breathed, eyelids fluttering closed as you pressed your sweaty forehead against his, “I’ve wanted this for so long.”

This confession—that you wanted him just as much as he wanted you—pulled a groan from his throat. He brought his hand between your legs to work your clit. You whimpered and started rolling your hips against his. The hot, wet squeeze of you, taking more and more of him with each thrust, sent his heart sprinting.

“Holy fuck,” he panted, digging his fingers into your waist, “Your pussy—it’s fucking perfect, Jesus Christ—”

“Yeah, you like this pussy?” you whined.

“Fuck yes,” he rasped, snapping his hips up into you, working your clit faster, “Take me so fucking good, baby, holy shit.”

This caused you to moan, and he wondered out loud, “Do you like that? You like when I tell you how good you’re doing?”

“Uh huh,” you gasped and nodded in response.

“Such a sweet, pretty girl,” he husked, “Fucking me so good, oh my god, baby.”

You whimpered and picked up your tempo, so he did too, driving into you with frenzied thrusts, pulse pounding hot, ecstasy searing beneath his skin. Your lips captured his in a messy kiss that pulled a moan from his chest. He pressed his forehead against yours and whispered, “You gonna be a good girl and cum for me, baby?”

“Yes yes yes yes,” you gasped out, voice climbing higher and higher.

He began pounding into you then, rubbing you harder, faster, pressing his lips against yours, wanting to fucking consume you, wanting to never stop feeling that all-consuming bliss that was bubbling at the base of his spine. You cried out and convulsed around him just as he fell over the edge, plummeting into a pit of pleasure so deep and hard, it made him gasp against your mouth, “Holy fuck—” as he spilled inside your pulsing walls.

You slackened and nuzzled into his neck while he pulled you into an embrace, resting his cheek against the top of your head.

Going into this, he thought maybe his yearning for you would cease once he fucked you. Which might have made the situation awkward, but at least you’d stop plaguing his mind. He also thought he’d probably feel guilty for cheating on Angie. And he did… kind of. Although it paled in comparison to the guilt he felt about other atrocities he’s committed.

But what happened was so much worse.

As you melted together there on the kitchen counter, heads filled with helium and limbs made of lead, Frankie felt something shimmer in his chest, this palpable connection between your bodies. His stomach flipped upside down.

When he pulled back and searched your face, he recognized the sentiment mirrored in your eyes. Your hands linked at the back of his neck, and he kissed you. It was like maple syrup, slow moving and saccharine. It sparked something inside him.

“Frankie,” you murmur and poke his side.

He blinks and raises his eyebrows at you in question, “Hmm?”

“Are you ok?” you glance at the TV, then back at him, “You didn’t even laugh at the stupid part where he pees for like a minute straight.”

This makes him smile, then as it fades he shakes his head, “Sorry, I um… I don’t know, I feel far away.”

“Do you wanna lay down with me?”

He taps his fingers to his lips and shrugs, “Do you wanna lay down with me?”

You roll your eyes and lace your voice with sarcasm, “No, that’s why I asked you.”

“Ok, smartass, scoot over,” he teases. You grin at this, rolling on your side as he slots in behind you. He slides one arm under your head and the other settles at your side. You settle in against him and he pulls you closer, murmuring, “Is this alright?”

“Yeah,” you respond, then release a deep breath that grazes his skin.

He watches the screen for a while, but he’s distracted by your body buzzing in time with his. His throat tightens when he replays the night’s events in his head.

“Hey,” he rumbles, and you tilt your head up towards him, “Thank you for helping me out tonight. I appreciate it.”

You smile and turn back towards the TV, then intertwine your fingers with his, “No problem.”

You’re still picking at a pile of french fries when you ask Frankie, “Do you want me to talk about the uncomfortable thing or the exciting thing first?”

He looks up and studies your face. Your cheek is all pulled in on one side like you’re gnawing away at it, eyebrows knit together with worry.

“Let’s end on a high note,” he answers, then wipes his mouth with a napkin and throws it on his empty plate.

You release a deep sigh and nod, then flick your eyes to his, “Do you remember last night, when you told me that you don’t think you can fix it? And that, um… you think it would be better if you weren’t around?”

He nods and shifts in his seat, leaning his elbows against the table. The reminder of his breakdown churns his stomach.

“I just want you to know that it’ll get better. I promise it will. And—and you don’t have to do it alone,” you pause here, creasing your brow deeper as you frown down at the table, then look back up at him. “I’m here for you. You know that, right?”

You shouldn’t have to be.

That’s the only message his brain broadcasts. But he nods again.

“I know sometimes… life seems impossible to navigate, but, it’ll all work out. Maybe it won’t all get ‘fixed,’ but it’ll work out. Que sera, sera,” you fix your gaze on his, boring your eyes straight into his soul, “I’m happy you’re here.”

An ache radiates across his chest and squeezes the air from his lungs. He croaks out, “Thank you, sweetheart.”

You give him a wistful smile, then look around and sigh, “Any grievances or whatever that you’d like to air?”

None that I can rightfully say out loud.

“Yeah, can you remember to clean out the lint trap before you start the dryer? You’re gonna set the goddamn house on fire,” Frankie leans back in his chair and grins.

“Ok, Dad,” you snort, “Anything else?”

Frankie frowns and glances up at the dusty ceiling fan in thought, “When’s the last time you changed the air filters in here?”

“Oh my god, ok,” you stand up and pad over to the refrigerator, “By all means, feel free to maintenance the house while you’re living here.”

You pull an ice cream cake out of the freezer and bring it over to the table.

“What’s this for?” he furrows his brow at you.

You shrug as you lift the cake’s plastic dome off, “You’re 30 days sober.”

It takes a moment for everything to hit him. The fact that he’s 30 days sober. That you care enough to keep track. That you care enough to get him a fucking ice cream cake to celebrate his sobriety.

Warmth washes over him in a shimmering flash of light. It tingles in his limbs and sends his heart racing. His mouth gapes open and he shakes his head, then manages to say, “Thank you.”

[ Next Chapter ]

MORE NOTES: I found a lot of inspiration for this chapter from the book "THE RECOVERING" by Leslie Jamison, the poem “I DON’T NEED TO HAVE A BETTER DAY, I NEED TO FEEL BETTER ABOUT THIS ONE” by Neil Hilborn, and so many of the songs on my Spotify playlist for this series, but specifically the song "JESUS CHRIST" by Brand New. If you have any songs you think I should add to my Spotify playlist for this series, send it to me pleaaaase. Thank you!!

[horizon-verizon]

The ASOIAF fandom discourse online is dominated by bitter incels and male supremacists who were infuriated that Stannis, the character they projected onto got a (GRRM confirmed canon) villainous ending so they’ve tried to manipulate and dominate discourse around Stannis and Daenerys for years. I’m happy to see the tide to turn in our favor and Daenerys’ fans critiquing and pushing back against their laughable essays and podcasts.

Anyone with a brain and reading comprehension skills can clearly see that Stannis, FAegon and Euron Greyjoy are foils to Daenerys’s hero’s journey, the “lies she must slay”, anyone who says otherwise is a side character/NPC stan, a contrarian or misogynist.

It's so interesting that Dany is the "slayer of lies" in such a big way, it really gets into an inevitable intersection of philosophy and politics. I wrote a anti-Euron Greyjoy post HERE,

So I won't get into why Euron is a "liar" and a "Father" of lies both the normal way and a sort of spiritual way where he's looking to just exploit magic, belief systems like the Seven, and people through magic to dominate others and realize a dream of being a "god". And because he's supposedly inspiring and charming and seemingly devoted to his crew, he also seems to inspire a lot of blind loyalty.

So he often reminds me of a wannabe cult leader, megalomaniac as he is. It parallels the horror of the Greyjoys' invasion of the Riverlands pre-Conquest, which brings up some interesting queries of Dany re-represented by her ancestor Aegon I (who though not altruistic seeming, maybe) burning down Harrenhal to a less-maintain husk of itself, even thought still "inhabitable." The ironborn, specifically Harren Hoare and his ancestors later, also drove several people many people (esp lower classed) to death to build their castle (as Maegor did the Keep)...

Anyway, FAegon is probably not only not Rhaegar & Elia's son and thus not a claimant, the people who have raised him up (possible Blackfyre supporters) have constructed lies around him to try to control the future throne that way. A simulation of autonomy.

Finally, Stannis doesn't believe in the religion he's using for his own ends, but he does see the results of its very real magic. And as as a TikToker named HallowedHArpy notes, he not only doesn't believe in this god that Melisandre worships and is suing Stannis for to spread the religion, she herself was a real slave and is still a sort of "slave" to the priests' construction of the faith of R'hollor. She is an agent of this spread of religious lies about the Azor Ahai and she will go through a crisis where she realizes it was Dany all along. Which will be painful...as fire is both a cleanser and inflicts pain that can "shock" a thing out of it current state.

Those men & every Dany anti/doubter prefer to think of this fantasy series as purely political...too bad for them.

[lotus-tower]

okay so. i've always thought it was obvious that yoshiwara in flames arc's main relevance to gintama's overall narrative is as the prelude to rakuyou. like it's not thematically very interesting on its own, right? but it exists mainly for kagura and kamui's sake, establishing the sort of parallelism that gintama lives off of. it isn't really that connected to the red spider arc even though at first it might seem to be.

but i had no idea about the meaning of the name "rakuyou" until i saw @suchira 's post about it earlier today. and before that i also hadn't thought about utsuro's connection to the sun, which they've also talked about.

given everything that happens in rakuyou, this has expanded my thoughts quite a bit! i'm going be thinking through this as i go, so this is going to be me rambling.

housen is one of the few big arc villains who don't feel related to gintoki. jirocho, jiraia, oboro, takasugi--these kinds are obviously meant to be foils to gintoki. isaburo functions differently as a character, but even he gets directly compared to gintoki by nobume. but housen isn't really there for gintoki--he's there for kamui. he isn't a particularly interesting character, nor is his death very satisfying because of the wishywashy writing about hinowa showing kindness to him at the end. previously i'd thought that his thing with the sun was just a weaker example of craving something that would destroy you, and/or running away from one's weaknesses and vulnerabilities to the point that you become a sort of husk.

that's probably still a thing, but the introduction of the sun motif on the much more meaning-dense end of gintama adds so much more. because now the pre-existing thematic framework of gintama can do the heavy lifting for housen (who is, again, a pretty uninteresting character), hinowa (who is cool, but suffers from both Woman and Mom in shounen), and tsukuyo (who is very cool, but suffers egregiously from Woman in shounen).

so what is housen, really? he's the guy kamui chose to go with when making his very bad life decisions, the end result of the path he decided to pursue. for simplicity let's call him kamui bad end, though they aren't very comparable in canon itself because housen doesn't come across as nearly self-destructive enough. but the basic logic is that housen is one of those characters who gave up everything in single-minded pursuit of power--he's a flat character because he already "emptied himself out", as kamui says, before the series started. (but then he got scared and lonely, and all that.)

what's funny is that if housen is a bad end, then the guy who he considers his rival automatically comes to mind as an opposed route. i think it would be a serious stretch to call umibouzu the "good end" for kamui, and that's definitely part of the point in how the yato are written. but in any case, kamui clearly looked both ways (insert roads leading to two castles meme) and saw housen stereotypical villain bad end on one side, and his dad on the other. so obviously he chose housen.

rakuyou is a planet where it's always overcast. you could say that kamui chose to leave that "safety" in order to pursue something that shone much brighter to him, even if it would disintegrate him in the end. or, since rakuyou's name invokes the sun, you could say that he chose to flee the place of his weakness and pain, where his family was, like housen deciding to flee the sun and build an underground paradise.

when i go over my gintama cast tarot assignments, i always hesitate over hinowa. is she the Sun? or the Empress? how can i choose? and i think this is essentially the same conundrum. and i think the fact that she's both (thankfully, actual gintama storytelling isn't restricted to 1 character = 1 arcana) also provides us with the best answer here. hinowa is the object of yearning of both housen (as the sun) and of seita (as a mother). obviously, as i said before, the whole seita-hinowa thing is meant to lay the groundwork for kamui's motivations, and is also why he's introduced in this arc in the particular way that he is. but kamui is both seita and housen. he's the child yearning for his mother, but also the warlord who fears the sun so much he'll lock not only himself but countless others into the dark forever. but housen also desperately longed for the sun. kamui looks down on seita for being weak, and he looks down on housen for choosing to drown himself in vices at the end of his life. in the end, he doesn't kill either one of them.

if the sun is what kamui yearns for, he wants to leave rainy "rakuyou" behind--and/or he misses his home, his childhood, his family, even if these things feel like they will destroy him. or, if the sun is what kamui seeks to avoid, he wants to turn away from "rakuyou", all the things that hold him down so that he can throw himself into single-minded pursuit of self-destruction--and/or he's afraid of the weakness and pain that the sun inflicts on him, and desires to be strong enough that he won't feel them. see, a whole lot of words to say the same thing over and over.

i've always assigned housen the Emperor arcana. and i've often wondered, should it be umibouzu instead? should it be utsuro? and that, i think, is another illumination. thank you tarot for being an icon. it's so effective here because gintama is predictably built on parallels, and overlapping arcana assignments are bound to make you think: why?

in the end, housen builds a city underground in order to avoid the sun, but he also severs hinowa's ankles so that he can hold her, the sun proxy, captive in his grasp. he can't bear to feel sunlight, but he can't bear to let it go either. kamui is much the same, but he's young--he thinks he can let it go, his fears and regrets haven't caught up to him yet, because he still has so much to reach for. housen attained the peak of his strength and notoriety, and then there was little left for him.

what else happens in rakuyou? well, oboro and takasugi fight. oboro is sort of a seita figure in his own right, if seita had burned down yoshiwara in hopes that it would drive hinowa running to him. of course, seita didn't know that hinowa couldn't run; and oboro didn't know that shouyou couldn't, either.

but aside from seita and housen, there's another character in yoshiwara who yearns for the sun--not to possess it, but to protect it, to serve it. tsukuyo is an interesting character heavily let down by the realities of living in shounen jump. from my own understanding of sorachi's character, i don't think the following was intentional on his part. but i do think there are real reasons why these parallels are textually present (mainly through gintoki).

tsukuyo is the closest oboro has in this series to someone similar to him. not in the sense of a reflection in the mirror or hole-sided adjacency, but as in someone who sort of has a similar job and background to him. or had, anyway. as i implied earlier, the few, specific, clearly intentional similarities she has with gintoki (hello red spider) bleed over into her similarities with oboro, of course, because gintoki and oboro are... you know. just look at them.

tsukuyo swore herself to hinowa, but technically she was working under housen. she led housen's paramilitary force--fortunately, the hyakka loved her a lot more than the naraku were probably ever able to have an opinion about oboro. i don't think tsukuyo and oboro would ever get along--but they did have the same job. oboro did it in the heavens, tsukuyo did it underground. anyway, hinowa "saved" tsukuyo by teaching her about fighting from inside one's cage, and so tsukuyo gladly walked into the cage, just like oboro returning to the naraku without shouyou. because they thought it would be worth it. and also because tsukuyo had been groomed from a young age for the Hole (apologies to those who haven't read my ouroboros essay), to give up on her selfhood, and also to kill her sensei (hello gintoki). but hinowa remained around, unlike shouyou. tsukuyo never thought she could really free her--but protecting her, being able to see her, was enough.

oboro's life problem is a bit like if hinowa and housen were the same person. but kamui would see in that pairing only a reflection of his parents. and also, kouka is a bit like if hinowa and utsuro were the same person. but utsuro is already like if shouyou and utsuro were the same person--because oboro's actual life problem is that shouyou and utsuro are the same person.

i've spoken a lot about tarot, but the moon in gintama has little to do with the Moon arcana. in gintama it's the backdrop, the symbol of promises--promises made, promises fulfilled, promises held on to dearly whether they can be fulfilled or not. i don't truly think that the sun as represented by hinowa interacts directly with this. but tsukuyo and oboro share moon-related names, and their promises (or rather, their vows of devotion) towards hinowa/shouyou are one-sided. one-sided promises aren't a problem in gintama--our silver-haired protagonist wouldn't be alive if it weren't for them.

if the naraku, if utsuro, if oboro under utsuro is associated with the sun through the yatagarasu, perhaps it's because of the evaporation of the promise through the eclipsing of the moon. shouka sonjuku, after all, burned down, and utsuro emerged from a pyre. and though i think that the sun is overall a motif much more strongly associated with the yato--that which they avoid, are weak to, and secretly long for--i don't think that's incompatible with the crow-meaning.

rabbits can die of loneliness, you know--or they can die from overheating in the sun. i think the question here is, is this a trick question? are those two the same thing?

[magmas-stuff]

Virtual Reality weapon: The Phantom Ruby

The Phantom Ruby is one of the coolest gizmos in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. This post aims to analyze the properties and history it has demonstrated throughout the series.

Powers

The Phantom Ruby is a mysterious object that first came into Sonic’s world after a sudden dimensional breach in the atmosphere, bringing down with it the entirety of Angel Island and sparking interest from several parties. From the get go, this artifact already demonstrated an unprecedented amount of power the likes of which even Eggman sought to replicate (to varying success).

As Tails explains in Sonic Forces, the Phantom Ruby is able to feed false information to the brain and trap its victims in extremely lifelike illusions that can draw from their own thoughts and imagination. This includes Phantom Copies, which can look and act like pre-existing individuals, albeit without "souls."

Perhaps its most interesting property, however, is its ability to react to the sense of being and will of others. Paralleling the Chaos Emeralds' “power enriched by the heart,” it can be said that the Phantom Ruby possesses "power enriched by the mind." This is perhaps better demonstrated in Sonic Mania, where the Hard Boiled Heavies suffer radical changes to their appearance and mannerisms based on the minds of the animals powering them as a result of exposure to the Phantom Ruby.

This trait of the ruby is explored to its extreme in Sonic Channel's Otherworldly Comedy, where Dr. Eggman engulfs the planet in various illusions that reflect the people's own impression of themselves, erasing their memories and having them live out alternate lives and scenarios until then only possible in their dreams. This is done by utilizing a weapon still charged with the aftermath of the Phantom Ruby’s energy. The doctor also uses a modified leftover prototype to power himself up to a form akin to Super Sonic, being able to manifest alternate worlds in a whim and create Phantom Copies of creatures as powerful as Perfect Chaos, seemingly having no limitations in regards to energy consumption like Infinite did, although it's unclear to what extent this prototype was modified.

History

The Phantom Ruby's first chronological appearance, Sonic Mania, has Tails convince Sonic to go and check the unique energy signature detected in Angel Island that caused it to fall to the ocean. Dr. Eggman, who detected that very same signal, has also deployed his elite Eggrobo squad to retrieve its source. The Hard Boiled Heavies, granted new powers and greater freedom of thought by the Phantom Ruby, attempt to escape with it, and thus begins the adventure to prevent the gemstone from falling in the wrong hands.

After Sonic and friends, who are in possession of the seven Chaos Emeralds, wreck Eggman and his Phantom Egg, a mech designed to make use of the Phantom Ruby's energy, the group is taken to what appears to be a dimensional void created by the ruby. There, Super Sonic gets caught in the middle of the conflict between Eggman, riding his Klepto Mobile, and the Phantom King, who at this point has long since betrayed his maker, both fighting to get ahold of the gemstone. In the end, Sonic leaves victorious, being teleported to the future alongside the Phantom Ruby.

In the aftermath of this battle, the Phantom Ruby winds up in front of one of Eggman's facilities. The doctor begins to study it closely, learning how to make use of its abilities after his base is attacked by the Jackal Squad. He performs his first real test on Angel Island, creating copies of Pachacamac's village and Chaos, god of destruction. Seeing it in action, Robotnik deems the jewel even more powerful than the Master Emerald itself.

Beholding the Phantom Ruby's incredible power, Eggman aims to replicate it. In this pursuit, he manufactures various faulty prototypes in Mystic Jungle until he can finally perfect it, gifting the final product to the new leader of his army, Infinite.

Eventually, six months after taking over the world, Eggman orders Infinite to dispose of those prototypes, seeing as he had no need for such liabilities. The jackal does a poor job, however, leaving a few unattended. One in particular, the one he dropped while fighting Silver in Mystic Jungle, is discovered by the Avatar, whose heroism would prove enough to activate it.

At the climax of the Eggman War, Infinite uses his Phantom Ruby's power to summon an illusionary sun above the battlefield, aiming to wipe out all of the resistance. The Avatar manages to dissipate it, however, losing his own prototype in the process. Weakened from spending much of his energy to create that sun, Infinite tries to take on Sonic who, aided by the Avatar, beats the mercenary one final time. This causes him to lose control of his powers and be pulled into the Eggman Empire Fortress' decoy reactor, ultimately being consumed by the original Phantom Ruby.

After Infinite's defeat, Eggman reveals he has incorporated the Phantom Ruby into his new Death Egg Robot, claiming to have surpassed Infinite as the ultimate form. Just as the Phantom Egg before it, however, this mech is destroyed by Sonic, his classic self and the Avatar, ending the war and sending both the Phantom Ruby and Classic Sonic back to the past.

Classic Sonic, returning from the future after aiding the Resistance in winning the war, is still chasing after the Phantom Ruby. The gemstone falls into the hands of Heavy Magician, who uses it to reassemble her fellow Hard Boiled Heavies. Thus, Sonic is forced to go on his earlier adventure again, though this time accompanied by Mighty and Ray as well.

As Eggman's plan once again fails, he is sucked into a Phantom Ruby portal, presumably finding himself stuck in Egg Reverie Zone. This is the original Phantom Ruby's last appearance, leaving its fate ambiguous.

Meanwhile, back in the future, the modern Dr. Eggman has yet to give up on his Phantom Ruby exploits. Seeing as how he still had a weapon charged with Phantom Ruby energy, the doctor decides to put it to good use and begins another world conquering plot. By covering the entire planet with the Phantom Ruby's energy, he used what Tails calls "cognitive frictional energy" to generate extreme amounts of energy from the discrepancy between the world's original reality and the new reality overwriting it. By absorbing this resulting energy, Eggman created his ultimate weapon, the Egg Field, a mech capable of reshaping the world around it to erase all of his past failures.

Sonic manages to destroy the weapon by turning into Super Sonic, forcing Eggman to transform into "Super Eggman" by making use of his modified Phantom Ruby prototype. The doctor attempts to persuade Sonic by arguing that these fake scenarios cause harm to no one, but the hedgehog refutes this by saying that the thoughts of Earth's denizens should not be forced out of their minds, and to do that would be to inflict suffering upon the planet. Eggman also attempts to create a fake world tailored to Sonic's every whim, but he manages to see past it and defeat Robotnik, allowing things to return to normal, even if slowly due to how massive the scale of the illusions were.

Eggman, beneath the wreckage of Eggmanland, contemplates fixing his modified Phantom Ruby prototype and using it once more, but Infinite, who was briefly able to leave the Phantom Ruby during the whole event, snatches it from his hand. Initially seeking revenge, he instead accepts his fate as his body disappears once more, dropping the prototype into the lava.

Conclusion

And that was essentially my write-up of the Phantom Ruby! It's a topic I learned I really like, so I hope this was enjoyable to read.

[midnightkolrath]

Pondering about Dante's ages throughout the series

Because I've been up til 7 AM thinking about all of this a few times.

This isn't the first post I've seen out there about this, and there's ones that are pretty good with mathing out stuff....I'm just doing added thinking because that's just what I do, lmao.

Disclaimer: All of this stuff is based on what’s been stated in the games and other media that I’ve gathered, but regardless…none should be taken as hard fact unless Capcom decides to SPECIFICALLY state things directly in any sort of official media. What I list as “canon” are things I see line up appropriately based on the timeline DMC5 has set. That’s why “pretty much” and “likely” canon are used.

Childhood: 7/8 years old (7 pre-birthday before he got his half of the amulet, 8 the very moment of) [Pretty much canon]

Okay, now as far as I've seen, these ages are pretty much canon with how things add up. Question is, I've been trying to find the EXACT source where it was stated the twins were 8 when they got their amulets. I see it on the wiki but with a lack of citation, so...if anyone can pinpoint it anywhere for me, that'd be great. I'm assuming these ages are just what we know because of how the timeline adds up.

DMC TAS Episode 8: Likely 10-11 years old [Guessed Estimate]

There's assumptions/implications (or downright even facts) that Dante was roaming around for some time completely alone after surviving the attempt on his life (which is tragic/sad to think about on its own), and based on how this episode shows "Tony" looking to be slightly older but not TOO old…so I assume he aged abit more, guessing to be around 10 years old. There's no exact estimate on how long he was there, before "disappearing"…but the episode also has Dante deny he's the same "Tony" being assumed, buuuut…there's layers, hah. Probably will go into it when I give this a deeper dive one day.

DMC1 Novel: Likely 18 [Guessed estimate; I'd say its p much canon]

Non-canon in some places but canon in others (I'd say DMC5 and Before the Nightmare realigned a good bit of it nicely), this originally took place as a direct segment into DMC1 before DMC3 came into existence.

If we realign it, it'd mean the events of this would take place before DMC3 and segment into the DMC3 novel instead. Which is funky to think about, but hey Tony Redgrave era is pretty nuts on its own.

Dante's a mercenary during this, drinking and hanging out around a bar…so its very safe to assume he's 18 here. Not digging a rabbit hole on other drinking ages here because then it gets messy (lmao). We'll see how the anime treats this era, but its looking to be a parallel universe sooo....who knows.

DMC3: 18 (Manga), 19 (Game)

According to how Dante says its been around a year since he and Vergil last met (Which is the Manga; Even if its basically incomplete, with a planned 3rd volume that was going to be about Lady being cancelled), Dante is pretty much solidified to have been 19 around the time of the game. Pretty much aligns with how he's easily in his late teens around this point.

DMC1: 23 (Early concept Sample script draft), 27/28 (Official(?)) [Non-canon (obviously for the draft); Pretty much Canon (For the final game version)]

According to Trish, its been around 20 years since the death of Eva (Well accurately the 'resurrection of mundus', but well…this is early DMC canon, I'll take that alignment). This misaligned easily with the sample script, but alights better with the assumed correct/final age, as Dante was around 7/8 when the tragedy occurred.

With the sample script stating him as 23, its a scary idea on a what if that the twins would've lost their mother at a MUCH younger age…or if we do the math and keep the other ages the same…Dante being 23 would've meant DMC3 took place around 5 years prior…and Dante being 7/8 when losing his mom would've meant that the incident took place around 15-16 years ago, and not 20. Not so much AROUND 20 years, but this was the sample script based on the game originally being RE4 in concept, so its not really connected to the final product or main canon.

I included the sample script age here just because its interesting to think about the original RE4 version of DMC1 that pre-dated what would end up becoming the start of the franchise we all know and love today. Its important history in the way RE4 itself is pretty important as it was as revolutionary as DMC would end up becoming for action games. Think of this as bonus for fun addition, heh.

DMC TAS (Anime): Early/Mid-30s [Guessed Estimate] DMC2 Novel/DMC2: Mid-30s [Guessed Estimate]

This estimate requires some math and shit am I bad at it. But based on other factors its not a terrible guess. Its also a safe guess. DMC TAS is obviously awhile after DMC1 and DMC2 is awhile after DMC TAS.

DMC4: Around 40 (3142 graphics book) [Likely Canon]

If going by the fact that Nero is stated to be around the same age Dante was in DMC3, then that'd mean Nero is 19. If Dante's around 40 (Note: The specification is AROUND, not EXACTLY 40), then that would make him atleast 38/39 years old.

As an added fun fact, the 3142 graphics book is named as such because it used to be the timeline order for the games. Of course, DMC5 changed this and the order became 3124. Also confirmed as a change by Producer Matt Walker here.

Of course, the full timeline order is like...

DMC1 Novel (Main events with a few adjustments/retcons) -> DMC3 Manga -> DMC3 -> DMC1 -> DMC TAS/DMC TAS Drama CDs -> DMC2 Novel -> DMC2 -> DMC4 Deadly Fortune novel (to a point; then it parallels to the game) -> DMC4 -> Visions of V (Prequel at first through V's PoV until it parallels the game) -> DMC5 Before the Nightmare (Prequel/Tease up to right before the game plot) -> DMC5

Probably missing a few things here, but eeeeuuuhhh pretty mush the gist.

...Got abit off topic there. Whoops.

DMC5: Early-40s [Guessed Estimate; Likely canon]

Before the Nightmare states DMC4 was 5 years earlier. In game confirms, due to Patty's age, that TAS was 10 years earlier, as Patty was 8 around the time the anime was occurring.

Based on calculations, 42 would be the mark as if Dante was 38 in 4, BTN’s statement would mark him as that. I don’t want to label it as the HARD canon (as I would like to see Capcom hard confirm these ages one day, even if the maths add up).

This is just my general thoughts with stuff we know/can obviously assume. There's many other posts out there, like I said, with several others putting more precise info and here is a good read of someone's timeline calculations along with this here, this one as well aaand a more accurate timeline placement here (Along with other lore goodies for those looking).

Also note this was all written originally when I was sleep deprived at like 7 AM while I was trying to clean up/revise things at the moment, but I may still have abit of things kinda mixed. Hopefully I'm tossing this out comprehensible enough, hah.

[tomyo]

A silly post that turned into an essay on:

The Adolescence of Utena 🌹

So I feel like a lot of people generally agree that Adolescence of Utena is a continuation of the tv series (another revolution) and honestly right now I have kind of hazy memories of wanting to discuss the parallels of Utena and it's movie with Evangelion and it's movies.

However right now I'm mostly thinking about how AoU is kind of like a cancer. I don't know what word to properly use, overgrown, oversaturation, a virus but it is pushing things to the extreme with it characters. Now yes that's also because it's a movie but like there is a lot more explicitly to character relationships. When people have described the school as in decay but I think you could also look at it as the stretch marks of it suddenly growing beyond its shape (a puberty like sudden growth). If the space, the mob, the plot and the characters were all acts in a play then they have been boiled down to their essence. I'm specifically thinking of the instance where Anthy bursts the pipe for the dance scene and how empty everything feels outside of them. That the old rose garden is this forgotten relic and the new rose garden is the center stage shining above all else but unsafe with hidden ledges and no railings. There is no housing for the roses almost as if they are wild flowers that grew where they pleased.

I always liked particularly how Anthy was very forward in this. She doesn't seem aware of her previous life but she is much more in control than the last one. It's not good, it's not right but she is somewhat consensual in the incest. In a sense she catches previously always in control Akio of guard leading to his panic and trying to regain control by erasing both of them. Akio himself even is moreso the cliche of a playboy this time, extremely open with his sensuality and a cliche of a 90s heartthrob. I think there could be a statement to say it's also a good representation of complex trauma and grief. The pre opening credits start on what looks like it could be the moment after Akio killed himself which then jumps through the school to Bride Anthy kneeling before a younger looking Akio which previously represented his original chivilary and the concept of a prince (also in a sense a glorified image to idol). The scene could be read as a triggering moment where Anthy becomes chained to upholding her brother's legacy, a feeling that is disorganized from both grief, trauma, and a complicated love hate for her brother who was her abuser. The siblings in other media are implied to be gods and with Akio gone, Anthy is left to both uphold his part as the mastermind while also being the bride. She is baring a heavier load.

I would say AoU is much more about Anthy than Utena. The overgrowth could also be similar to a sheltered child to is given control. They go a little overboard. She seems both exploring the freedom to control the space but also falls back into her role and will go from her playful run to Saonji to still and emotionless when he caresses her face. It's like this switch between knowing she can do what she wants if she wanted to and then regressing into guilt over being "bad" for falling of from what she's expected to do. At points it almost like she wants Utena to punish her for perceived wrong doings. When they find her brother's body she buried she seems maybe annoyed but not worried or defensive of her actions, keeping focus on having Utena do whatever she wants with her. That in itself in a thing; I would say to some extent tv Anthy is meant to come off as an ideal Japanese wife, someone who has strong integrity but is subservient and a half step behind her husband at all times. AoU Anthy is much more openly willing to please her betrothed like a service top. (something something cool girl monologue) She's compensating for her failure of her role to her brother but also trying to reclaim her sexuality as her choice. When Saonji takes a kiss from her, he is guiding but she is not hesitant to do it.

When it comes to Utena herself I would say she is passively influenced by Anthy while also driving Anthy's eventual rebellion. Tv Utena I'd describe moreso as tomboyish, she sports a men's uniform top but the pants relate to neither, a third option, where her hair is still worn long. She would not be mistaken for a boy but things like her becoming more feminine was an active manipulation by Akio. Again as almost to overcompensate, AoU Utena is comedically masculine and assumed male at first, her little side cap always go to me since it had become uncommon by that point so it came off somewhere between looking like she was a cliche delinquent or like she was cosplaying a male student based off of out of date knowledge. It's like the step to far into trying to present masculinity when you're first trying(I had to take a moment to cringe recalling wearing cosplay pieces to class when I first started trying so myself but all my suit pieces where mismatched). I might go into that more later though. I'm also a fan of the dub so I haven't heard the tv original but Utena uses Boku in the movie, a masculine pronoun. While she tries to prevent Utena for falling into the narrative at first, Anthy seems to switch back into her role the moment a spectator catches them, Saonji. However upon learning that Utena is a girl is the moment that Anthy asserts her own agency fully, she is now lowered to reveal her chest but willing bends back to reveal the sword.

Anthy specifically has two foils in the movie; Utena and Touga. Anthy and Utena are mirrors or grief for the prince they lost and are following in the shadow of. Utena's rejection of femininity is to replace the loss of Touga she's in denial of much in the way Anthy plays the mastermind to hold onto the image of Akio. However like Anthy who has to play the role of a bride/princess, Touga's narrative is also about how he had to please others in much of the same way. He was literally sold off (like Anthy is won) to be a son and sexual victim of his adopted father. From additional materials it's been said his trafficking is a constant and in part willing in order to protect Nanami from targeting. His appearance was decided to the preference of his abuser, played the part of a heart throb for many women, and was the idol for his sister and best friend. People pleasing it less overt than Anthy's. When with Shiori, he is depicted as a receiving and giving lover; exchanging intimate acts of ear cleaning and painting ones toenails. It mirrors the same almost motherly but sexual nature Anthy presents to Utena; willing to bare Utena's anger by lovingly nuzzling her hair.

Again I got to cut away to say the dance scene always causes a panging in my chest Knowing how those roses falling with the song lingering on into the following day was meant to absolutely stun theater goers 20 some odd years ago. Its gives me this indescribable longing when it fades to the next scene every time.

Back to plot stuff, the stair scene is a great metaphor for how Anthy is pushing Utena along. Up until that point the story has been; the two meet, Anthy chooses to help Utena win her, she offers herself explicitly but is rejected, and then coyly flirts with Touga to rile up Utena. I would say at point Anthy's attitude is representative of a pushy girlfriend. She keeps trying to make Utena fall for her, first passive but explicit and willing to lead, gets rejected so she ignores Utena's command to leave in favor of diverting her by discussing her clothes and reengaging by intimately laying into her, and then once again taking being pushed away in stride. Being very casual and giggly with Touga feels out of character in the way it feels intentional to make Utena jealous. Albeit instead it pushed Utena to crack over Touga being different who is where is current affection lies (it's hard to love someone else is you haven't let go of who you lost). Before the full confrontation Anthy almost seems depressive, one of the scenes resembling her TV suicide attempt. While Utena is at first aggressive and distrusting of Anthy at the start of it, it seems like the moment of honesty was at least some step towards intimacy (emotionally) that Anthy was grasping for. (Haha man I could also get distracted talking about Utena being the hilariously accurate example of a clingy affectionate butch but that's really off topic) Utena is finally engaging with Anthy encouraging her to assert her dominance more. They're obviously drawing partners, she doesn't need to ask Utena to come along because she just will if she doesn't give Utena a chance to argue, and she has domain over where they can go in the school.

To be real at this point I'm watching subbless Japanese to remind of me stuff so I don't remember Utena's full ramble (I think some friendship speech like girl) but you can tell by the fact that Anthy is letting her image slip by willingly changing her body language to suggest boredom or annoyance. She shifts from passive posing into something more confrontational as she chooses to force vulnerability with Utena again. Anthy previously would've easily held position as expected of her as an obedient bride especially this one who had been frequently painted by her brother. She not only 'switches positions' on Utena but chooses to take on the role of the viewer that she was often denied and uses Utena's own words against her to convince Utena to be naked for her (I mean emotionally as well, Utena's whole speech was suffocatingly formal again to my vague memory and basically full of shit). To be naked in front of someone in both senses is to also be trusting of who is with you. Utena is being put on the spotlight by Anthy; a large empty but public room with big windows and planes taking off outside, the exact place our instincts tell us not to be naked and vulnerable in which adds to Utena's stress. However I'm certain Anthy is navigating Utena into making it seem like she was asked to do the same. She brings Utena to a space that will inadvertently reveal aspects of her relationship with her brother and in some part she wants to be 'forced' to show the hole in her chest, the scar and trauma he gave her.

Returning to the emotional complications of Anthy. The turmoil of abuse does not end when the abuser is gone. And like I said Anthy seems stuck between wanting to change and punishing herself for changing anything out of guilt. She feels the responsibility of her role but also eats into the idea that she is the 'witch' of the story, not just from how that's what others tell her to be but how she sees herself as the cause of misfortune. "The curse of the Rose Bride" is having to live on with the scar and work that her brother offloaded onto her. The ugly truth's about her personhood including the things seen as moral event horizons. One could look at her constant provocation of Utena is to spur either the rejection and disgust she believes she deserves or to find receive acceptance that she does not believe in. Someone loving her like the way *the idea* of her noble brother did. The sight of Dios to me is in a way to say "a person who cares for you in a noble way.". It is the sight of someone who won't exploit her. And at that is interrupted by the truth of her brother's dead body. So she runs, literally tries to step away from all the progress she's made.

So two things we gotta stop to go over, the character design and the term adolescence. At this point I'm retroactively making my thesis be the emotional haywire we experience from two types of major life events, the growth into individual personhood away from our caretakers, adolescence and the processing of trauma and grief. Obviously I went over grief so let's get to adolescence. So tons of people have said it better than me that the whole egg quote is also represented by the school, highschool is the final barrier (shell) to adulthood. The point of being born outside a proverbial womb that one must be strong enough to do for themselves. There are many ways teens think they are mature enough when they actually aren't and blah blah highschool isn't the end of your life. Growth is not always a constant progression forward and you can easily fall back into a childish life. I remember feeling more adult at 18 than I did at 21. TV Akio's failing to grow came from the fact that he wanted "power to revolutionize the world" but did not want to bare the responsibility of the swords which in context represent the anger of all the duty he had offloaded onto his sister. The image of an adult who refuses to grow up and rather surround himself with teenagers who do not yet know better and so emulate him. Anthy at the end of the tv series finally finds the catalyst for change and so crosses the threshold of the school into the adult world to find her Utena. Escaping abuse however is also not a linear path either and people can find themselves back with their abusers again. Sometimes I'm between if tv and movie Anthy are the same person for aspects like this despite her not seeming to be aware of who Utena is to her fully. The school might be a cracked shell but they are still in this world. Adolescence if you have lived a life being told what to do is a hard and sometimes guilt riddled experience. You were never given the space to self actualize and you are expected to take over the controls leaving you struggling between how you want to live and how you were told to live. It is confusing to know what to do with yourself when all limitations are taken away from you. Something resonates with that feeling and the various frames from the scenes of young princess Anthy being stormed by the mob of expectations. They vary between guilded to silly with a macaroni like quality being made out of candy and match sticks and ribbons interspliced with jeweled and gilded ones. Anthy looks more childlike in the movie than the TV series and I think sometimes graduating to adulthood changes you to being somewhat childlike all over again. But the world has changed since last time, a revolution is what we call one year when we spin around the earth, a year to grow and change in a new way from the previous. You may start new but the world did change.

Maybe it's still to not have realized how Anthy and Utena switched hairstyles. I always did realize that Anthy now had straight hair and Utena's was wavy but it just hit me on the head that the way Utena disguises her hair short is basically a similar tuck to Anthy's but vertically. Basically she hid her longer layers by coiling them up into each other BUT THEN hiding the tuck her a boys length shorter layer. Anthy's dress is also the more stand out change of the two, the original was always somewhat unconventional but the movie one really brings a sense of modern fashion in its design; body hugging, a front slit, and the show off of a pair of mature heels. Anthy does look a teen trying to present as an adult. A princess is always seen as a childlike person, the 'daughter' to the 'mother' of the queen. I have less to say deeply about Utena's outfit sas the fact that the shorts I mentioned before invoke the image of a yet to mature prince, sporty but unrefined and still also childlike. I think overall the gakuran sporting more place and harsher contrast gives the feeling of mourning but as well bring a level of maturity as the patterning reminds me a little of high end fashion of the time. Again, children trying to play adults. (As I was writing the end I realized that Anthy's new dress is a merging of hers and Utena's pink one from the TV series) Somewhere long ago when I started writing this I meant to talk about how they're acting out a fairy tale but we lost that plot.

What is important now is that when Anthy runs, Utena follows. Even before she faces closure, she asks first where Anthy is showing how her priorities have shifted. Her final willingness to recognize someone she loved was gone is the exact thing that brings her to the level of Anthy who how needs to reckon with the same thing, the death of her prince. Anthy tries to backtrack and proclaim Utena the prince of the school (the ruler of the domain within the shell) and reobjectify herself to being subservient to Utena. Rejecting her adulthood in someways. But Utena does not indulge the narrative.

Throughout the TV series, Utena's journey is that of growth. From a flimsy ambition to resolve, to a recognition of responsibility for those she cares for especially in how the champion is also a leader to others, and finally to the self determination of sacrifice for others. Whether she knows so or not, episode 1 Utena wanted to be a prince for selfish reasons. She wanted to become a prince because she believed the prince gave her a will to live. But she never took enough responsibility for others feelings, shirking Wakaba's feelings and staying aloof to everyone and even the gravity of being Anthy's prince. She had to constantly be retaught that you can't take things at face value or be half hearted over every situation. Which is why by the end she rejects the supposed love of her prince for Anthy who she truly does love. And even still had to learn that loving that person does not mean they will provide the same back. Anthy backstabbed Utena because Anthy was conditioned to believe she could not be loved and only through Utena's full resolve could she see a new world for her. And we return to this point as Utena turns into a car.

Hey! it's time for that point where everyone asks, what's up with the car thing? Well simple, a car is an image of transition, of moving on. Utena, is offering Anthy to move on from her abuse, the trauma of her brother. But a car needs a key to function in the same way loved ones can only help you escape abuse if you have the will to want to leave it. Utena cannot simply make Anthy recover, she has to want the recovery.

There are many ways you may struggle to change, the cycle of repetition and pattern is least resistant to others. But there are also those willing to support you on your journey of growth if you continue forward. The final barrier in the way of Anthy ultimately is her brother, less of a ghost as much as a concept, the destruction of ambition to overcome what you've always known. The race to the outside world is maybe one of the most gripping moments not just for it's gorgeous animation but for the transformation Anthy goes through. Absolutely refusing before haphazardly taking the leap into Utena as it dawns on her she can escape, to crying for Utena to save her when she's overwhelmed, to refusing to return to the comfort of the egg again when the hardest challenge presents itself, the castle thar defines her personhood for her whole life at that point.

Utena does not save Anthy, she shows Anthy that she can save herself. A person who was always told she was defined in relation to her betrothed and her brother and her role as a witch is given self actualization. To grow from adolescence to to self actualize, to become an adult finally responsible for all your agency. To overcome trauma is to reclaim you agency and identity for yourself. To revolutionize the world starts with a personal revolution.

I'm tomyo and thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

Additional notes: Japanese Akio's voice sounds kinda pathetic like I could punch the dude from how wimpy he sounds at points and I kinda love that. Again Im a particular fan of the English cast but I noticed this more this time. Also missed fitting in how the duels now take place in the open but all the students watch disinterested playing into some of the "this is a play by Anthy" allusions I wanted to initially make. I was really gonna keep this to just being "oooh I get why it's called the adolescence now" but then literally I also had a grief realization too and well... My final thought is that I learned to really love Anthy. I think Americans tend to not feel too strongly on her because we aren't taught a high level of emotional consideration and at some point it really felt like Anthy only ever got in art in relation to Utena ironically enforcing the same treatment she experienced in the story. I'm not free of this either having previously thought "ah yes, I am non binary ofc I relate to Utena..... right?". Wrong, it's Wakaba hahaha. But it's taken a while how much Anthy means to me especially in hindsight my first gay dream was specifically about movie Anthy which I just ignored for years. If anything I want to bring more love to her one day, she deserves so much more than she's given!

[mahoushoujotechsupport]

ok lets get started

ok so starting off, something that i've been wondering since suletta tested out calibarn, why did lfrith have these layers but not calibarn? i'm guessing maybe that has something to do with calibarn having no filter or maybe the layers kept you at a lower permet score since elnora asks dr. cardo to raise the score and dr. cardo scolds her about it. like yea the scenes are supposed to be be parallels to each other but the way calibarn works when hooked up to someone is so different it seems

who'd have thought on first watch everything this little gremlin would get up to

the samaya sisters sure do love fucking spanking people wtf

honestly really love nyla and wendy. i'm so happy we got to see them one last time in episode 24

i know the actual earthian vs spacian subplot of the series bores some people, but i do wish they'd gone into it more than they did. like i remember when i first saw this shot and was wondering if they'd get more into class issues but they really didnt at all. i know expecting radical politics from a mainstream series is kind of setting yourself up for disappointment, but at the time it seemed promising

i wonder if the light novels or anything will ever go into elnora's past. she claims here that dr. cardo saved her life and that without her gund prosthetics she'd be dead and i've gotta wonder if maybe she wasn't lying about the mining accident she brings up in episode 2, or if she really was the daughter of mercurian miners

also worth noting that elnora's voice as she speaks to eri here uses the same loving tone of voice she uses with suletta over so many of their phone calls later on. i know a lot of people hate on prospera but its so hard for me to dislike her at all. she went through so much and lost basically everything.

has anyone ever caught this before? so nadim helped to get ochs earth to invest into the vanadis institute?

look at her stupid little faces

so like we can just safely assume this was probably belmeria, right?

little brat. really though, i hope suletta and miorine start celebrating her birthday at some point

nadim's reaction to both elnora and eri missing from their living quarters is honestly heartbreaking once you know what's about to happen. did he have any idea what was about to transpire in the next few minutes?

like he had to have known he wasn't coming back once he got into that lfrith

the pre-production lfrith bits remind me so much of the pharact's bits. *screams in el5n*

yes, yes, i know the main theme of the series was forgiveness but goddamn i wanted this stupid asshole dead

sarius' face here as he's likely being told about the folkvangr massacre really is something. gotta wonder what it was like for him those 20+ years having to work with delling. i wonder if the grassley orphanages came to be because of this tbh

the birth of milfchar

there is absolutely nothing that can do this scene justice if you're not just watching it. the music, elnora's horrified look at realizing eri is the one to synchronize with the lfrith.

i've rewatched the prologue probably a handful of times over the last like half year or so and this scene just always gives me goosebumps lol

just awful shit lol

so back in early december or so, when i finally decided to check gwitch out, i watched the prologue while i was really fucking high and i cannot tell you how much this scene fucking wrecked me lmao

i reached image limit for this post but god i hope hearing people sing happy birthday just fucking haunts rajan for the rest of his life

man, i still remember watching the prologue for the first time and really just not knowing what i was getting myself into since i had never watched a gundam series before, but like even as a standalone watch, the prologue fuckin delivers

ok onto episode 1

[saintsenara]

estuary

read from the beginning here

masterpost here

severus snape/lord voldemort explicit graphic depictions of violence | major character death

in our first chapter, we've seen the story begin with lucius malfoy, a train, and the romantic hiss of power.

more notes under the cut.

our story begins on new year’s eve, 1976.

it is set, then, in a period when muggle great britain and northern ireland were not having a great time. the seventies saw the country beset by blackouts, strikes, out-of-control inflation, mass job losses, infrastructure collapse [snape’s miserable experience on british rail was the standard - it is depressing, then, that contemporary britain’s privatised rail companies manage to be worse], the grinding threat of sectarian terrorism, and truly horrible fashion and design choices [snape’s bell bottoms! my heart!]. 

a common refrain in political commentary at this time was that britain was the ‘sick man of europe’, and cokeworth - an industrial town whose heyday was the victorian era and which has been declining ever since - is a typical lesion on the sick man’s face. the description of it in half-blood prince - with its grimy canal and crumbling mill - is familiar to british readers as a common image of the post-industrial britain of the 1970s and - especially - 1980s. the industrial collapse during this period which non-british readers are likely to be most familiar with is the coal mining industry, owing to the major wave of miners’ strikes in 1984-1985, during the tenure of prime minister margaret thatcher; but the cokeworth of this story is a cotton town - which means that its decline during this period is calamitous. by 1980, a british textile mill was closing every week.

and this economic situation led to specific youth subcultures which will exist on the fringes of scylla and charybdis - above all, the skinhead movement, some adherents of which snape encounters in this first chapter. while the skinhead movement was not automatically right-wing or white-supremacist [and while many british skinheads were inspired by black british movements such as rude boy subculture], the skinheads snape meets are neo-nazis - aligned with far-right movements such as the national front [which reached its highest ever vote share in british elections between 1974 and 1977]. the fascist movement in britain was particularly politically visible during the 1970s and 1980s, clashing with anti-fascist protestors in often violent circumstances, and cokeworth - which, like other towns of its type, is likely to have gained a substantial immigrant population from britain’s colonies and former colonies during the 1950s and 1960s - would fit the profile of somewhere where state inaction was exacerbating decline and driving up violence.

this muggle social context will be prominent in scylla and charybdis - even though it is, primarily, a magical narrative. in particular, this story will examine the parallels which the canon series draws out between 1970s muggle britain and its magical cousin.

above all, it will examine a reading of the first war which is very close to my heart: that the best historical analogy for the first war is the troubles. i think this primarily because i am northern irish [and, specifically, northern irish, catholic, and from a family whose political sympathies could be accurately described as irish nationalist], but also because so many of the references to the first war in canon allude to things which happened during this conflict. the voldemort of the first war is a paramilitary leader, rather than a politician; his organisation primarily operates in terms of assassinations targeted against state actors, especially civil servants and those connected to the wizarding world’s equivalent of the police and army, with periodic random attacks on civilians; he appears to issue pre-warnings for these attacks; and he is not allowed to use his real name on the airwaves. [this - the broadcast ban to which republican organisations were subjected - is an innovation of the 1990s, but i am absolutely convinced that all the you-know-who stuff in canon is a reference to it.]

the ministry of magic’s response, too, echoes the response of the british state to violence in northern ireland. the show trials of prominent death eaters - and the fact that many suspected death eaters, sirius black prominent among them, seem to have been imprisoned without trial at all - alludes to the internment campaign operation demetrius; the brutality of azkaban echoes prisons such as the maze and portlaoise; the increasingly hard-line wizarding politicians of the period have muggle counterparts; the aurors are ordered to shoot to kill and appear to do so with absolute impunity, much like the british army.

i am not, of course, saying that i think the death eaters are right [i’m also not saying that i think the ira were - at least not unambiguously], but i am saying that the social and political context around voldemort’s rise to prominence in the 1970s can be reasonably understood as sectarian, and that it should be understood as considerably more complex than the canon narrative of good versus evil allows it to be.

in particular, scylla and charybdis will examine the multifaceted ways in which prejudice lives alongside poverty, hopelessness, and resentment, and how disaffected young men are easy to radicalise into violent movements of all stripes - from far-right muggle skinheads, to loyalist or republican paramilitary groups, to the death eaters - by the potent combination of a persuasive ideology, a cause which is perceived to be righteous, and a sense that they belong somewhere and are being listened to. this chapter gives a sense of how.

because it is undeniable that severus snape’s background - and the ways in which his childhood poverty affects him in both the muggle and magical worlds - is absolutely central to why he becomes a death eater.

scylla and charybdis will examine social class in the wizarding world - and how this interacts with blood supremacy - in considerable detail throughout the narrative which is to come, and this chapter is no exception. snape finds himself exactly as unwelcome in the lestranges’ family home because he is poor and has a regional accent as because he’s a half-blood. he finds himself unwelcome in hogwarts for the same reason; the james and sirius of canon do not target him because he’s a half-blood, but nor do they target him because of some righteous desire to stamp out blood-supremacist sentiment. they target him because he’s poor. and this is why he draws a parallel between james and sirius and rodolphus and rabastan lestrange - to him, they’re both pairs of posh bullies. that their ideologies have a vast gulf between them is not something which snape has [at this point, at least] the capacity to understand.

something i have been recently wondering about is whether working class wizards usually attend hogwarts - after all, it’s not compulsory to do so before deathly hallows. the average hogwarts student is extremely well-heeled, and people like mundungus fletcher and stan shunpike who are coded as working class give off a vibe in canon which suggests that they exist outside of the old-school-ties system which binds most of the primary and secondary characters together. if this is the case - and i personally suspect that it is - it would explain why someone like snape was such a visible target for classist bullying. he’s going to be perceived by the posh as a bit of an upstart, coming into a space which is not primarily intended for someone like him and refusing to perform its conventions to its arbiters’ likings.

because, while i don’t think hogwarts is a fee-paying school, it is the primary maintainer of the wizarding world’s incredibly restrictive class system. everything depends - for hogwarts’ students - on the relationships they make while within the castle’s walls, which evidence of insider-status, such as name and background, helps enormously with establishing. snape - with his muggle name and his accent and his poverty and his lack of interest in playing the game - has no chance of fulfilling his enormous ambitions.

unless a patron takes him on.

snape’s reasons for becoming a death eater aren’t fully fleshed out in canon. jkr has said since the conclusion of the series that he was attracted by the opportunity to accrue power, which voldemort obviously has in spades, and also that he felt the death eaters would offer him somewhere to belong.

i think it’s worth examining the class implications of this. becoming a death eater allows snape access to a social circle which would otherwise exclude him, therefore giving him a privileged position in the wizarding economic, political, and legal system [tell me that the reason he gets off on the charges of being a death eater aren’t connected to dumbledore gaming the old boys’ network of the wizengamot…]. but - crucially - it also allows him to transcend the restrictions placed upon him by his class background, and achieve power - pure and simple.

and he is offered this because lord voldemort’s relationship with class is incredibly interesting. in canon, he clearly rejects the patron-client relationship offered to him by horace slughorn, when he refuses his attempts to set him up with a career in the ministry and, instead, chooses a job he gets himself [that this never occurs to either dumbledore or harry - with their pureblood surnames - should not surprise us…]. but he also takes a muggle aristocratic title, and clearly delights in making his wealthy cronies address him by it.

that element of vindictiveness is clear in how he plays with class in order to undermine lucius malfoy in deathly hallows - ‘carelessly’ piling up his expensive furniture and emasculating him in front of his peers - and it is also hinted at here, as voldemort instals himself in the servants’ quarters and makes the lord-of-the-manor - who is absolutely aware of his real name and background, i have never understood why dumbledore is so certain nobody else is - bring his guests to him there.

and this, i think, offers an understandable insight into one of the key aspects of snape which this story will explore: that he is so dismissive of lily’s concerns about the death eaters because he sincerely thinks that voldemort, one of the few people in wizarding britain who doesn’t think the patronage system is a good thing, will help her too. after all, we are told in canon that the dark lord did try and recruit james and lily - which i am certain was at snape’s request - and my personal view is that, despite what canon suggests, there must be some muggleborns somewhere in voldemort’s organisation.

that there would be is due entirely to voldemort’s capacity to attract. this is underplayed in canon, particularly in the second war, when voldemort’s physical appearance becomes straightforwardly horrifying and his purpose in the text becomes primarily mystical - although canon also implies that his charm is superficial - but i have always thought its omission from the main narrative naive. the voldemort of scylla and charybdis is extremely and genuinely charismatic, and this charisma is making him a political threat that the ministry looks increasingly unlikely to contain.

he is also attractive in another sense.

this voldemort is less horrifying-looking than he is described in half-blood prince as appearing in the 1960s - although some of his canonical physical changes are present already. this is not just a choice for shipping reasons - although snape has been happily seduced by the fact that this voldemort still has a nose - but because i think it’s important that voldemort looks like a politician, and that his charm is backed up by his physical appearance.

and snape is very much sexually attracted to him. [so, too, is dumbledore - the idea that he fancies the adult voldemort is something i’m wedded to, not least because so much of their relationship is based in the fact that dumbledore thinks he’s like grindelwald.] although the man on snape’s mind is - without a doubt - sirius black. yes, all the hints that snape has a major thing for him are intentional. [and i think they’d make a great couple!]

snape’s struggle with his sexuality will be a key theme in this story. so, too, will the way that his relationship with his sexuality interacts with his relationship to his gender, and how this in turn interacts with his class. the canonical snape is something of a feminine-coded character, and i wanted to explore the idea that his embrace of this as an adult is a conscious choice - after all, the canonical voldemort is also rather feminine, and the version in scylla and charybdis, with his florid handwriting and habit of collecting pretty trinkets [the shells, seaglass, and paperweights will be worth keeping an eye on], is no different. that voldemort’s gender performance - and the fact that all pureblood men are somewhat effete - is such a change from the working class masculinity snape has grown up around is yet another reason he is hooked.

for now, though, snape is still the ultimate fish-out-of-water in the world of the posher death eaters. even lucius malfoy, isn’t entirely sure what to do with him.

[snape and malfoy’s friendship will be explored more in later chapters, but i do think that his grumbling in this chapter about malfoy is good-natured - whereas he’s genuinely afraid of rodolphus lestrange.]

it’s suggested in canon that malfoy was one of voldemort’s key recruiters during the first war, and that he was the reason several characters - snape among them - became death eaters. there are two other disaffected young men who will feature in this story whom malfoy will be responsible for: barty crouch jr. and regulus black.

but they have not yet been recruited. snape has.

as sirius says in order of the phoenix, voldemort doesn’t just march up to people’s houses, bang on their front doors, and ask them if they’d like to become a death eater. this chapter shows what the recruitment process looked like for snape, as someone who was recommended to the dark lord rather than someone who applied outright through his family’s connections.

in particular, it looks at how voldemort makes use of the muggle world to cover his activities, something i think is really underutilised in fan-fiction. we are told in canon that both of voldemort’s wars had a colossal impact on muggle society, but the narrative never really explains how. in scylla and charybdis, we will see a vast network of squib and magical agents embedded across the british state and within the muggle world. the various old men who sit in pubs and vet new recruits are just the start.

[semi-imaginary-place]

random trigun thoughts from discord

trigun is heavy on the genderqueer themes in regards to otherness and how the relationship between one's body impacts the formation of identity. read some posts about knives over the last few days and how his experience with othering which began from his body contributed to the formation of his identity as something separate from humans. There's also the parallel readings of Trigun as being about dual identities, for example people of mixed ethnicity or diaspora culture

Roberto de Niro is the babygirl of the party. vash is my little sweetiepie. (no seriously studio orange kidnapped acclaimed A list hollywood celebrity actor robert de niro using a time machine to 2009). Followup on why roberto is in stampede: to die and give meryl character growth. So that she has an angsty backstory of course, and to give her a gun.

dmc came out in 2001 so it and trigun are from the same era, so the similarities might be more a 90s 2000s thing. A lot of 90s stuff was grimdark edgy cyberpunk-esque so that would explain vash and dante's leather strap bdsm gear outfits. Gotta love a man decked out in bdsm gear. red blue twins, one of them is evil and the other on the side of humanity. Oh there is the whole dual identity thing with both twins too and the christianity. But atmosphere and concept are very different. Dmc is more gothic and demon hunting. Trigun is a space western mad max style. Both series: dead mom no dad lol. Stronger similarities to dmc in the manga where Plants have angel imagery (both the common dove wing and the biblically accurate eldritch). Vash and dante red/black devil imagery to knives and virgil white/blue angel imagery. Though this is fairly common, devilman's ryo and asuka, berserk's guts and griffith, the two gays from world ends with you. Vash and knives in stampede have additional contrasts with knives powers being sharp mechanical and vash's organic. Knives never wears clothes made by noman land's humans. Vash only wears clothes made on no mans land. Both have stuff from the spacefaring age/lost technology.

Plants in stampede instead emphasize the competing strategies of surviving on a desert world: plants (terraforming) vs. Plants (magic generators). Manga Plants are so weird there like a dozen plucked rotisserie chickens growing out of a girls neck and 2 human bodies attached to 1 head. there isn't just the sheer amount of energy Plants produce but magic portal dimensioning organic matter (which if you think about it is also a form of slow terraforming since you are adding organic matter and water into the biogeochemical cycles of the planet).

Speaking of trigun, all this talk of human survival and terraforming reminds me of the red mars movement which is a fictional movement from a novel of the same name. Say humans do terraform mars/gunsmoke/nomansland and make it more hospital to humans. Sure that's good for humans but in a way its bad for the planet as its pre-human characteristics would be lost forever. Being better for humans isn't the same as ethically good and just because something is useless to humans doesn't mean it doesn't have intrinsic value in just existing. This is more significant in stampede where vash was a "useless" Plant that didn't produce anything (as opposed the manga where vash and naj were of equal power). In making planets more like earth all we get are half baked earth clones and what is lost is what make those inhospitable planet unique and different from Earth. The humans of trigun stampede see nomans land as a resource to be used and molded to their needs, just as they see Plants, even "good" characters like rem or luida.The manga has (or at least stampede is yet to have) the layer that terraforming projects are seen as both literal and metaphorical gardens of eden/a good thing for gunsmoke

Studio orange renaming the planet nomans land reminds me of the fictional town nowhere. Gunsmoke wasnt a bad name either i mean we have a dude calling himself millions knives. I find these fiction english lang names to be charming

"While showing the twins the geranium flower, Nai turns to Rem and asks if it's just ornamental, like the one in the Plant room. Rem's face pauses into a Wait, What? expression before she masks it praising Nai for his observational skill. When Knives shows Vash the next memory from that incident, there is a geranium flower being held in a vase, but it's in the room where Tesla's body is being kept implicitly as a memorial for her. Nai is already showing signs of distrust towards humans and Rem's true intentions towards him and Vash. The geraniums being ornamental also offers parallels to the suspended remains of Tesla, as red things kept in glass to be admired and looked at. It parallels how he comes to view Vash as well — useless, fragile, without volition of his own, but still precious and to be protected. Sealed away, if necessary, from whatever might consume him. Of course, 'something to be consumed' is how he believes humans view both him and Vash, even as he uses Vash for resources himself." (Someone on tvtropes). The connection of red flowers in glass cases to dying Plants or Plants in general in cases

Idk about 98 since it looked like filler to me but between maximum and stampede they changed up the twins childhoods. (I like both, both takes are interesting and compelling). In stampede they had an unequal childhood dynamic with nai being the powerful useful one that had Plant powers and vash the weak useless one who could generate anything and didnt have plant powers and he did was eat and sleep, just like a human. This sets up in both their minds as knives being the protector and vash the protected. Vash as the weak human one, nai as the powerful greater than human one. As the weaker more human one a few of us fans extrapolate that its likely vash got more attention and care than nai (gifted child neglect). Because vash was the weaker one he need more care and since nai was powerful, self sufficient, and independent of course he'd be fine on his own

I dont have a preference between stampede wolfwood and manga wolfwood (mostly because im not a shipper, they seem to prefer manga wolfwood). Stampede sets up an interesting character contrast where all the main characters look 25. Vasha and knives are older than they look and are like in their 150s while by contrast wolfwood is younger than he looks, stampede is vague on the age but he acts like a sassy middle schooler so idk he might actually be 12 (which i find very funny and alao why). And then we have meryl who is a normal 20 something. (23? I dont remember). Manga sets up a different contrast with wolfwood actually being 25 (maybe time isnt real on gunsmoke) but looking like he's 40. I will say wolfwood and vash have infinitely more chemistry in the manga like they have an actual dynamic thats touches core parts of both characters while also being entertaining to watch. Shippers are wack and can spin cotton from nothing so the presence of shippers really only ever indicates 2 male characters exist but oh there is definitely something going on in the manga where there isn't in stampede. Manga wolfwood also has a more unique concept in the manga than in stampede (so far) as the manga fans like to say: they took his melanin, they took his nose, they took his tits, they took his job, they took his scoliosis, and they took his boyfriend