#on a related note this episode killed me

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s2 episode 3 thoughts

here we go! this episode is titled "blood" which did not bode well for me, the girl who hates blood. but i am dedicated and pushed through in the name of our mission.

we open at a post office. sometimes, i think it would be fun to work in a post office.

but alas! our postman has received a paper cut. he licks it up which... can't be hygienic.

and then he immediately gets fired :( this is sooooo unfair

when he returns to his post his machine reads "KILL"!!! my first thought was that this was gonna be a little shop of horrors style thing where an inanimate object tastes blood and Likes it (Which is sort of what happened? but mostly not really)

((side note: need to see mulder and scully take on audrey two))

so it seems that the people are either being told by machines to do some killing or all the members of the town are experiencing collective hallucination...

mulder arrives. i was distracted by his fluffy hair. from the notes: "his hair is fluffy. he isn't saying much at this crime scene but his hair is fluffy"

! MULDER LORE REVEAL ! he played right field! (this was brought up when the policeman mentioned the suspect was on the softball team)

back to our post office friend, who is near a child with a random nosebleed whilst getting some money, and now the ATM is telling him to kill people

mulder points out that these are spree killings and not serial ones <-okay human embodiment of the nerd emoji.

it's a totally normal report on the crimes, no spooky stuff involved, and scully is reading it... until he mentions UFOs and she says to herself "i was wondering when you'd get to that" LMAOOOOO she knows him too well

we see a woman being lured into a dark garage by a mechanic and i thought i knew where this was going but i DIDN'T because SHE gets paranoid and the machine tells her the guy is gonna get her and she freaks out and STABS HIM

mulder arrives to the crime scene with a really funny looking camera. can anyone provide me more information about this camera? i'm curious

anyway, he shows up at the house of the woman who killed the mechanic, and we see another example of his bountiful social skills when he asks to come in and she says "i'm late for work" and he just barges in and says "you can blame me". i love this man so bad it's actually a problem. he WILL get inside of ur house.

but her microwave is telling her to kill him and she pulls out a knife and STABS him and i was yelling NOOOOOOOO! and then the cop he was with shoots her and VERY QUICKLY we get a cutscene to....

SCULLY AUTOPSY TIME!!!!!!

she thinks there's some sort of chemical that is making the people do this

we also see poor wet meow meow mulder's bandaged arm :(

back to the ex-postman, who is seeking new gainful employment at a supermarket in which there are guns for sale in the back, another reminder that this show is set in america. he starts to see evil things in the TV but resists (and it might be related to the blood drive at the store but? it's a little unclear tbh)

mulder running scene! getting his cardio in! the man is dripping in sweat! he sees a guy toss some stuff in a yard and it's... dead bugs?

so who does he take the bugs to? well, the weirdos who previously were consulted for another case: the conspirators at the lone gunman! famous for the one guy hitting on scully and ripping up her twenty dollar bill

so we're back to these freaks and he says he didn't see their latest issue because "it arrived the same day as my subscription to Celebrity Skin"

now, i had an educated guess here based on name alone, but needed to confirm what this "celebrity skin" truly was. a search brings you to an album by the band Hole, and i was like omg!!! we're gonna get an insight into his canon music taste!!!! there is nothing more i LOVE than learning a character's favorite artists <3

but, this cannot be... for the show takes place before 1998, when the album was released... so i dig further

chat, as expected, it is a porn mag. seems to have involved some unethical stuff. mulder: ur a sick man.

the even sicker man who previously hit on scully was like "where's your little friend?" and he counters with "she wouldn't come. she was too afraid of her love for you" and the weirdo responds with "she's tasty"

now i want you to buckle your seat belts for what mulder says next. buckled? secured? sat? everyone is in a safe position? okay. he says:

"you know, it's men like you that give perversion a bad name"

HELLO? hey. hi! quick question <3 what does that mean. mulder a freak confirmed????

(i mean i guess we DID already know he fucked phoebe on arthur conan doyle's grave, which is going to stick in my head forever, but. don't make it worse. sometimes he's such a Man)

anyway the weirdos at the lone gunman think it's related to pesticides. and then mulder asks to borrow their night vision goggles and the weirdest of weirdos is like "only if you give me scully's number!"

cutscene to him using the night goggles

(mulder, if you gave that creep her number, i will NEVER forgive you. so keep that in mind)

he's sitting in a field and it looks so natural, like he really belongs there. bring back sitting in fields. but then he breaks into the orchard and gets sprayed by some pesticides and thoroughly knocked on his ass

mulder's yelling at some guy to take responsibility for the pesticides that he thinks are killing people... a moral crusader serving on the front lines...

scully's here now, btw. she took his blood. which had to be a strange experience. and then she mentions that she FLEW 300 MILES in the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT to come take his blood?

holy shit, mulder. she did that for you and you've been so broody and angsty lately and maybe even gave some dick her phone number. holy shit mulder, do not blow this. you cannot afford to blow this. she is soooo good to you.

anyway, he's seeing the same evil messages in technology the killers were now so that's a bummer

mulder proposes that this is some sort of subliminal messaging thing that is being activated by the fear-inducing pesticides and the cop gets pissed and leaves, to which he says "he's probably one of those people that thinks Elvis is dead"

so that's the SECOND line in this show about him being an elvis truther and i'm starting to think it's not a joke

back to the ex-postman. people are coming to his door to take blood and test for the chemicals in the pesticides and he's going bonkers. he's seeing "KILL" in his calculator, which is how you know things are rough. his watch even beeps and says "KILL" which i think would make a very very very very funny gif if anyone has that.

well, all of a sudden he's missing so the agents go to his house and knock. until.

scully realizes the door is open and just. lets herself in. i was laughing SO hard here. these bitches WILL get into your house. they will NOT wait for an invitation. truly a sign of soulmatism.

ex-postman was running running and they're like omg where is heeeeee he's gonna hurt people!!! scully is once again proving her genius status by saying that if it's a paranoia case, then all these guys in police uniforms need to get out of view.

(there's also this shot where mulder is like. smoldering. and she's behind him and man. height difference content i really really do love you and your work <3)

our crazed ex-postman climbs a tower at a college and is gonna start shooting but he's also hallucinating and laughing maniacally which i described in my notes as "entering his joker era"

mulder runs up and prevents a shootout using some handy jujitsu. neeeeed to see if this man is a black belt. for character driven purposes.

but he says that he knows the guy can't stop and overall it's an eerie situation because you can tell the pesticides are still in his brain as well. and his arm is bleeding again and this makes the other guy go into overdrive.

um. okay.

crisis averted...?

well, you sure would like to think that, wouldn't you? but the episode ends with mulder calling scully, and then HE sees more evil stuff in his phone! and it fades to blackness as her voice is heard through the speaker...

(i love that she knew it was him immediately. despite the silence. and that her train of thought went from "it's scully" to "mulder is it you?" to "mulder, what's wrong?" talk about a connection!)

hope he doesn't do anything too impulsive...

in conclusion: my very surface level interpretation of this episode was that it was warning us to not be controlled by technology, which i'm sure felt more relevant back in the day. but now that i have to click "don't sell my data" when i browse flavors of soup for sale online, i think we might just no longer be the target audience. or maybe it's even more relevant! an argument could be made both ways.

down with pesticides, though! i can get behind that! when's the last time you saw a bee? bring them back!

[loycos]

ahh caitlyn my beloved.

let's talk about the trauma she has around jinx, in particular, in a way i think is more related to being targeted by jinx than just grief.

don't get me wrong- grief is a huge part of why caitlyn is all over the place this arc (season?). she probably came to the conclusion that her softer, pacifistic attitude from the first season is the reason she ended up hurt. clearly the rocky relationship she had with her mother adds a layer of bitterness and regret caitlyn is feeling regarding her death. alongside a million different reasons, which i might discuss in a different post.

but there's a clear difference between the anger and coldness we see from caitlyn when she discusses catching jinx and bringing her to justice, than when she faces jinx head on. in the latter, she suddenly loses her cool and acts all frantically, so unlike anything we've seen from caitlyn so far.

in her mind, in episode 1, she sees herself as collected and calm, aiming her rifle at jinx. btw, take note of how jinx is depicted here. her eyes are glowing.

but in reality, she's very much NOT cool and collected when she thinks that exact scenario is about to be replicated.

that's caitlyn's pov btw:

again jinx with the glowing eyes- caitlyn had seen what jinx looks like in other circumstances, but THIS is the version of her that she visualizes and then irrationally reacts to.

we see it again when she shoots jinx in the finger

no composure, no deep breathe, no thinking. she just shoots on instinct. it's nothing like she used to.

and then her frantically calling vi to move out of the way as she keeps firing, almost like shes blind to everything but jinx- the kid and vi, who are both in harm's way, don't stop her.

i know it's easy to just paint it as anger and grief here, but there's something about it that strikes me as almost like animalistic fear. she sees jinx and just goes feral mode, but its almost more of a prey instinct than a predator.

and i think it's because whenever she faces jinx, properly, it's not the grief and radicalized anger she's feeling, it just sends her back to this moment

with all the "jinx murdered her mom" talk its easy to forget that jinx also directly, and cruelly, targeted caitlyn, tried to kill her, kidnapped her and held her hostage for who knows how long. it's not just anger that caitlyn feels towards jinx. it's a trauma response. and like, welcome to the club, caitlyn! most of the arcane cast are acting out of trauma. but i better not see people think her trauma is somewhat lesser than some... other.. characters.

[satorugu]

In Every Era Part 2 (Sukuna x f!reader)

She is the reincarnation of his love, and he plans to be with her in every era.

PART 1 HERE

Warnings: Blood, violence, fighting, angst, lots of fluff

Note: The readers technique relates to ice and being able to lower the temperatures around her enough to create it. If the text is italicized it is one of the dreams she had. All take place during the Heian era, both Heian era and the version of Sukuna in Itadori's body is included. Takes place during the Shibuya Incident, and quotes the episode's sub at times.

The dreams hadn't stopped.

First, it was that night, the night she fell asleep in his arms.

Then she had another one following it.

Then a third.

It was always a memory from her point of view, so vivid she felt she could still feel his touch when she woke up. They were small, but they got her through the night, always sleeping straight through it.

That kiss was imbued with cursed energy. She didn't know how, but she knew that had something to do with it.

She couldn't take her mind off of it.

Every single night.

"Curses and mutations are mindless, you don't need to harness much cursed energy to exorcise them, although it is made out to be that way," Sukuna said. "If you make a hit on them before they can attack you, you have a better chance at survival."

She was sitting on his lap, up upon his throne. His body heat radiated onto her shoulders, his strong abdomen pressed against her back.

"Is there a reason you're sharing this with me?" (Y/N) asked curiously.

"So you will utilize this information when the time may come my dear," he told her. "Aim for the head."

"I don't think it will ever come," she laughed.

"You are correct to assume that," Sukuna said, putting a hand on her waist and pulling her closer to him. "I won't allow for anyone to harm you."

This was a trick.

The King of Curses wouldn't and couldn't possess emotions like these. He murdered hundreds of thousands, known to be the most powerful sorcerer in history. He needed something from her, to get her to trust him so he could use her and kill her afterward.

These memories were false, she was sure of it.

So she began avoiding Itadori, training after hours and for longer durations to be able to both strengthen herself and not be confronted by the eyes below his. In the end she would return to her dorm exhausted, forgetting that when she fell asleep she would be greeted by what she fled most.

Then a week had turned into a month.

"Master Sukuna had a gift delivered to your dressing room," the maid said almost timidly to (Y/N), as she bowed her head.

She made an emphasis on the fact it was in her dressing room rather than her bedroom. Being that her quarters were Sukuna's, the only part of the palace that was officially hers was her dressing room, which translated to a massive closet. It was filled to the brim with the nicest jewelry available in the lands, along with dresses he had especially picked out for her. It was also a known fact that the garden belonged to (Y/N), although it wasn't claimed by her. She fell in love with the area, so he made it off limits to others.

Unfortunately for her, he was away, handling a nearby village.

Two more servants gathered at the large double doors that led to the dressing room, opening them for her.

Inside was a large bouquet of flowers, white at the tips that slowly faded into a reddish-purple. It was as if they were glowing, vibrant and perky underneath the lighting. The vase was a piece within itself, like clear vines that curled around the stems of the flowers and bunched them all together.

Next to it sat a scroll, bound together by a cursed energy imbued seal. She was quick to unravel it, reading the hand-written, inked message.

'Although I am far away, I will remind you of my love.'

'These flowers are eternal, they will forever stay by your side, just as I will.'

'Sincerely, Ryo.'

She didn't think much of the dream, assuming it was some way of trying to make her think he actually loved her. Instead, she lingered around the campus after hours, honing a new ability with her ice technique. Once she grew sleepy, she returned to her dorm, entering the dark room to see something glowing on her desk.

It was a vibrant and perky flower, with white at the tips that slowly faded into a reddish-purple. While it didn't sit in a vase, it was unnaturally filled with life, acting as a light in pitch black atmosphere.

She thought she was hallucinating, reaching out a hand to pick it up, hoping it would dissolve as soon as she touched it.

The flower sat in her room for a week after that, as she continued to deny the significance behind it.

(Y/N) thought she could get out of having to see Itadori, but it seemed otherwise when another crisis hit.

A large curtain was cast around Shibuya, along with one at Meiji-Jingumae Station. Reports that mutated humans were attacking civillians inside were quick to spread, and both (Y/N) and Itadori were sent to handle it.

"I'll deal with the mutated ones, you search through the station for anymore hostages," she told him quickly, hoping they wouldn't have to interact much.

As soon as the two had met up inside the city, the eyes underneath his own appeared. They felt familiar now, a burning reminder of the dream she had the previous night.

They were in his bedroom, if it even could be called that.

It was larger than the average, with a desk that sat by an extravagant stained glass window, and a large table towards the center. The bed for the two of them sat against the wall, both of them already out of it, yet choosing to stay in one another's company.

Sukuna stood around the table, eyeing a set of scrolls as his wife sat at his desk. The chair was far too big for someone of her size, which he grew to love.

“I want to perform a binding vow between you and I,” he started.

“A binding vow?” (Y/N) asked, having yet to take her eyes off what she was reading.

“A pact bound through Jujutsu, except this one has specific terms accounted with it.”

As the words left his mouth he slipped his hand around her jaw, taking her by surprised as she looked up at him.

"I want to be with you in every era, as you pass, and once you are reincarnated. We will be bound together, it will be destined for you to wed me."

"And it's consequences?" she wondered.

"There are none, this vow is unable to be broken, it will see through that we are meant to be," Sukuna said. "And that you will remain mine."

She wasn't that knowledgeable on binding vows like the one he described, except for the fact it was supposed to leave a mark on your wrist. (Y/N) didn't have one though, so she assumed it was false.

A mutated curse barreled towards her, shards if ice being driven through it's skull as her pink haired friend ran down the hall. She flipped over it's corpse as it fell to the ground, attacking the others before they could make a move on her, and aiming for their heads.

The efficiency behind it was impressive, as she scolded herself internally for doing as the King of Curses had once advised.

And yet she continued for what felt like an hour, going through the motions up until the lights flickered off and she could hear fighting in the lower levels of the station.

Something was off.

(Y/N) jumped down the set of escalators and began running through the station that was almost unrecognizable. She could tell Itadori had fought here, as the remains of his strength imprinted different surfaces.

She was following her gut at that moment, turning down a set of halls until she saw a light bloom at the end of one. She could feel the heat as she got closer, as it formed an orange and yellow blur.

Screams came after the flames.

Two girls who had somehow survived being burnt alive, each coughing and holding onto one another.

As she turned the corner she saw him, Itadori, laying against the wall unconscious. He was littered in cuts, specifically his shoulder which was bleeding out. A special grade curse, Jogo, stood over him, a finger in his hand as he slipped it down the pink haired boy's throat and tilted his head back. She recognized him from the time he fought Gojo, as her eyes lingered over Itadori's figure.

(Y/N) could see the markings on his face.

She thought she might throw up.

"Don't waste my time," the special grade squinted is eyes at the three of them.

He went to lift up his arm and attack, only for it to begin bleeding out in front of him.

"I'll give you one second."

It felt like everything had frozen in place.

Silence in the dark hallway.

"Move."

The special grade fearfully jumped back, now a line of four.

(Y/N) felt her hands tremble, as sweat formed across her forehead and her heartbeat picked up in her ears. They were all that way, as the figure slowly stood up and brushed himself off.

Strength of a different kind than Satoru Gojo.

Overwhelmingly evil.

Fear that even the slightest move could lead to death.

He began to come towards them, as the wounds across his body healed themselves.

As his footsteps grew louder, she felt as if she might pass out.

Then they stopped, and he brushed his hair back in orderly fashion.

"You hold your heads quite high."

That voice.

It felt like there were invisible hands that wrapped around her back, guiding her down to a bowing position without control over her own body. She ended up in the same formation as the other two girls, as a wave brushed over top of the four that would have killed them.

"Did you believe taking one knee was enough?" Sukuna questioned.

The top of Jogo's head was cut off, considering he only kneeled. It was similar to a volcano, purple blood spewing out the top as he bled out.

"The greatest men bow the lowest, or so it goes. I see you value your heads quite lightly."

She could feel him looking down at her, as she stared at the cold floor and begged that whatever this was wasn't real.

She was terrified.

"You brats, I'll start with you," he said. "You wished to speak to me, yes?"

The girl nodded, tears staining the concrete surface below her.

"I'll grant you a fingers worth of audience. Now speak."

"Below us there's a man in monk's robes with a suture across his forehead," the dirty blonde began to say. "Please kill him, please free Geto-sama."

(Y/N) recognized that name, although she thought the man who had it was dead.

"We know the location of one more finger," the girl added. "If you'll kill that man for us, we'll tell you where it is."

"Raise your heads."

(Y/N) still kept hers down, although she could see the two girls raise theirs through her peripheral. It was a moment of relief, as he seemed to have agreed to their terms.

Red.

The head of the brown haired one next to her burst into nothingness, blood coating the other girls face as her corpse fell backward.

(Y/N) felt it splatter onto her uniform, shock pulsating through her veins as terror overrided her senses.

"MIMIKO!" the blonde screamed, shaking the lifeless body next to her.

"Did you think a measly one or two fingers would grant you the right to order me around?" Sukuna asked with amusement in his voice.

It seemed the girl couldn't care less, continuing to scream out her friends name.

"How offensive."

"SUKUNA!" she cried out in anger, slipping out her phone. "DIE!"

As soon as the words left her mouth, it sounded like a blade had cut through something. Similar to the one she heard months ago, when he had saved her.

Then, it sounded like several cuts going at someone at once.

One corpse turned into two, except the blonde had no remains. He killed the both of them without lifting a finger, a copious amount of blood being the only proof.

"You all are desperate," Sukuna turned to Jogo almost knowingly.

(Y/N) felt the invisible hands that once held onto her gently guide her to sit up again, looking at the King of Curses.

"This is the reward for the cursed fingers, come at her," he said, making eye contact with her. "If you manage to land even a single blow on her, I'll work under you all."

"What?" (Y/N) said under her breath, she felt like she couldn't breath.

Jogo slowly looked at her, as if he was making up his mind.

There was no way he was considering this.

"You're true to your word, yes?" he asked Sukuna.

No.

(Y/N) stepped back, like her legs were going to come out from under her at any second.

This was suicide, she couldn't fight him.

"Yes."

Jogos demeaner changed, as Sukuna's hands remained on his pockets and the curse went to face her. He held out his hand, a ball of fire forming within it, as (Y/N) tried to conjure ice in her own.

Again she was airborne.

Too quick for her to react as it all happened at once.

A familiar pair of arms held her bridal style, as she felt herself rest on his chest. It was cold, the fall wind curling around the two as they had fled the building.

He casually dodged them vast amount of fire-charged bullets being sent at him, as he looked down at her.

"Your avoidance has been quite amusing, I see you don't understand yet," Sukuna said, his tone changing into a softer one.

"What have you been doing to me?" she spoke boldly, like a wife would to her husband.

It made him smile, as he leaned on the edge of a building that Jogo shot more bullets at. Soon enough they were inside of it, Sukuna casually walking through a corridor as fire burned around them.

"That's my thank you for ensuring you sleep well?" he spoke teasingly. "I've been restoring your memories, although I knew you would doubt them to the best of your ability."

"They're not real," she mumbled, forgetting what he was capable of.

"And yet how relaxed you are in my hold says otherwise, little one," he said. "Your body reacts naturally to my touch."

(Y/N) opened her mouth to reply but the words never came out, as he jumped through the window of the building and met Jogo's fist. Sukuna was currently holding her securely with one arm, taking up the curse in hand to hand combat. He was quick, catching every single one of Jogo's attempts before holding onto his hand and slicing through his arms with his cleave technique.

The Special Grade was sent flying back, as he shot another beam of fire energy out of his head and (Y/N) watched it blow a whole through a building.

She had never seen a fight like this before.

Sukuna caught up with Jogo, taking his free hand that wasn't carrying her and wrapping it around his cape, throwing him down towards the streets. Smoke emitted from the area that he hit, as he continued to bounce off of it from the force before Sukuna came at him again. This time, he bashed his head into the ground, taking them below the level of the city floor.

She felt the King of Curses abdomen tighten against her side, as he laughed to himself. (Y/N) wasn't looking at him though, as her eyes were on the curse that hadn't landed even a single speck of dust on her.

His free hand slipped underneath her jaw, turning her head to face him.

"Impressed are we?"

Suddenly everything around the two seemed to burst into flames, as the blue skinned curse screamed out and flooded the street with Lava.

This was hell.

Sukuna didn't even react, as a wave of it blanketed over them, yet never touching their skin. He jumped up onto a building that was soon crumbling underneath the hot liquid as well, continuing to dodge without question.

The entire city was on fire, as hands made out of lava held onto two office buildings and lifted them up out of the ground. They surrounded the both of them, Jogo standing on a rooftop in front.

(Y/N) thought she was dead.

Out of pure instinct she took her arm around Sukuna's neck, burying her head into his chest and squinting her eyes closed.

It was only when she heard the sound of the buildings being bashed together, that she realized what she had done. Instead of feeling the impact of her skull being crushed, she felt a delicate kiss be pressed to the top of her head. A large hand then held her hair in a comforting manner, keeping her against him.

"Do you trust me, little one?" he asked her softly, low enough that Jogo couldn't hear.

"Yes."

(Y/N) felt weightless, like she was on one of those amusement park rides that threw you up into the air. Except for the fact that there was no harness, and nothing holding her anymore. Sukuna had thrown her up so far she felt she might touch the clouds, watching his figure dart towards the curse and throw him into a sky scraper.

She could see Jogo come out the other end of it, soaring through the air as Sukuna stood above him. The King of Curses drove his hand into the Special Grades head, sending the two through a roof of another office structure.

Meanwhile (Y/N) began to descend, screaming out and watching as the windows on each level shattered with each level Sukuna shoved him through. She grew anxious as time passed and nothing happened, until the bottom of the building burst out into flames and traveled upwards. She could make out the smaller details of the city now, as she picked up speed in falling and felt the wind course through her clothes. Her best bet was trying to use her ice to impact the fall, although she became distracted by what happened before her.

The building that Jogo had blown up began to form into a ball of fire, and Sukuna was nowhere to be seen.

Or so she thought.

She was trying to conjure up enough cold air around her to form the ice needed to brace her, but knocked into something else, throwing her off guard.

She wasn't surprised when she felt his heartbeat against her side again, but he moved at unregistrable speeds.

Suddenly they were on the ground, in the middle of the street, underneath the meteor Jogo was creating. All of the people around Sukuna froze in place, fear evident in their eyes.

Everyone knew who he was.

"I hereby forbid every person in a 100-meter radius from moving until I say 'now," he started. "And of course, I'll kill anyone who violates that rule."

The silence was horrifying, no one daring to take a step.

"Not yet," he teased.

(Y/N) could feel his hands underneath her weight doing something, as if he was now controlling the ball of fire above them.

"Still not yet."

The ground began to tremble, as it came closer.

"Now."

The sound was overwhelming, as Sukuna brought himself up above it as it crushed everything beneath. He sat down on the meteor, adjusting (Y/N) so she was sitting in his lap, his hands around her waist. Jogo was in front of the two, having yet to turn his back around.

The atmosphere around them was a swirl of orange smoke and broken glass that looked like stars. It floated gently in the air, as more debris from the architecture around them crumbled.

"I've grown tired of this, so I will fight you with your own specialty," he said, allowing for (Y/N) to get up as he stood and faced the Special Grade.

She stepped back, quick to cool the temperatures underneath her feet so she wouldn't burn.

Fire began to emit from his fist, beginning to curl around his figure.

"Arm yourself."

Jogo formed a small sphere of fire in his hand, as Sukuna stretched his own out to form an arrow.

The Special Grade burnt to ashes within a moments notice, while the King of Curses turned around to face the woman behind him.

"Your denial is in vain," he said. "There is nothing I am not capable of, and your death would have already occurred if i wished for it. In your moments of fear you trusted me by instinct, the vow formed between us guiding you to me."

"I don't understand."

"Because you don't want to," he corrected, coming closer to her. "Allow me to show you."

The king lifted her jaw up, taking his hand around the side of her face and kissing her lips.

It felt unworldly, as she slowly returned it and could feel him smiling. Her wrist suddenly tingled, making her to break away to see what caused the sensation.

It was a mark on her wrist, the same one that was on Sukuna's forehead.

"I will love you in every era," he said, taking a step back.

The markings on his face faded, his hair returning to hanging down.

"What happened?" Itadori asked.

She looked into the eyes underneath the original pair, not knowing what to say.

But she understood now.

A/N: I have a part 3 in mind. If you're interested let me know!

Tag List: @daydreamshenanigans @witchmoon10 @@spiderlilytengu @sircatchungus @sunshine7queen @yandere-consumer @emryb @96jnie @frogzxch @toshirolovebot @rottinginvelvet @rorel1a @cax-per @butteredwalnut @sweetcoorpse @mynewblackdress @serafina-nyx @karmazwrld @gambighoul @honestlysublimecherryblossom @sy557 @mag-chan

[fuckyeahdindjarin]

Voicemail

A Seams oneshot, but can be read independently of the series

{ Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist }

Rating: T

Summary: You find Joel's old Nokia at the back of a drawer.

Warnings: Angst, description of a panic attack, grief, comfort, no use of Y/N, reader has a nickname related to her job, reader has no physical description, definitely incorrect description of how mobile phones work, very lightly edited.

As always, Seams oneshots are set on a relaxed timeline. Voicemail can be considered to take place at an unspecified time after Part IV.

Word count: 1.8k

Notes: I don't know if anyone has written anything similar, but I've always wanted to write something about Joel's Nokia (the idea for Butter actually came from the phone scene in episode 1 - can't you tell? lol). This idea took me by surprise one night and didn't let me go.

Important note: I know voicemails don't work this way, but let's pretend that they are saved onto the mobile phone itself and can be accessed decades later, and that a Nokia can indeed survive the apocalypse.

After the outbreak, after Sarah, after missing his shot - he doesn’t remember much of those early, blurry days. Tommy barely managed to drag his catatonic ass to an abandoned house somewhere on the outskirts of town, where he had to punch him in the face to snap him out of it. 

It being a cocktail of shock, grief, pain and numbness that should’ve killed him, could’ve killed any man. And for the longest time he wished that it did.

It was in the aftershock of that punch, left cheek snapped to his shoulder and his eyes downcast, that Joel saw his Nokia was still clipped to his belt, by some miracle unscathed when everything else had fallen apart.

And he keeps it all these years.

He hadn’t meant to take it with him when he packed up his meagre life to leave Boston behind. But the grubby afternoon light glanced off the screen when he was grabbing maps and hammers from under the dusty floorboards, and with a fuck it, he shrugged and shoved it into the bottom of his backpack. 

If he was being honest with himself, it didn’t feel right leaving it behind.

And so the phone made it to Jackson, and survived the detour to Salt Lake City, largely forgotten. Joel was almost surprised by the sight of it when he finally unpacked his bag in the house that was now his and Ellie’s. 

With a wry smile, he tossed it into a nondescript drawer in the garage, never to see the light of day again.

Until one weekend, Joel asks you to help him find some obscure screwdriver in his garage, not able to get up from where he’s on his back, stemming the flow of the perpetually leaky sink in Ellie’s bathroom.

The space is cool, the shutters down and the air dank from the lack of sun. Under the flickering fluorescent light, you go through a frankly ridiculous number of toolboxes without sighting the elusive screwdriver. With a sigh, you try the middle drawer in the workbench, which is clogged with what looks like everything under the sun. 

Your lips twitch - Joel Miller is a messy man.

Digging around the random clutter, you startle when your fingers brush the long-forgotten, yet instantly familiar plastic case of the Nokia.

Wrapping your hand around the rectangular frame, you smile, in disbelief that you’re holding a mobile phone. You had a similar one that got lost in the confusion of the first days of the outbreak, and you haven’t seen one in the years since. At least not one in such good condition.

Joel’s faraway voice jolts you out of your thoughts. ‘Found it, sweetheart?’

‘Just a second!’ you call back.

Tucking the phone back where it came from, you grab the nearest screwdriver and hope for the best. 

It takes you a few days of asking around town, poking around dusty storerooms and untangling twenty year-old electric cords, but you eventually find what you’re looking for, and there’s a spring in your step as you cook dinner that evening. 

Joel seems to pick up on your energy, and he grins, amused, when he brings in the empty dishes after you eat.

‘You’re buzzin’ out of your skin, sweetheart,’ he teases, grabbing you by the waist. ‘What’s up with you?’

You cock your head to the side. ‘Well, I have a surprise for you.’

‘Is that so?’ he hums, then lets his voice drop an octave in playful insinuation. ‘What kind of surprise, hmm?’

‘Not that kind of surprise,’ you huff with a smile. ‘It’s - it’s hard to explain.’

‘Try me.’

Twisting out of his grip, you open a cabinet and pull out something that fits neatly in your palm. Joel frowns, confused by what looks like - a charger.

When you speak, it’s slow, as if you don’t want to startle him. ‘There’s a whole warehouse of wires and things down by the canteen. A patrol stumbled across an electronics shop in a nearby town a few years ago.’

He gives you a crooked smile. ‘And what am I s’pposed to do with it, sweetheart?’

You take a moment, making sure that his eyes are on you before the words come out. ‘I found the Nokia in your garage the other day, when I was looking for the screwdriver.’

You watch as Joel processes your words, and he goes still, stiller than you’ve ever seen him. 

Then he blinks and shuffles his feet, glancing down at the charger. ‘I - I didn’t expect this.’

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. ‘I know. And you don’t have to do anything with it, really, but I just wanted you to have it.’

He nods, slowly. ‘Ok.’

Hesitating, you stutter, ‘So, um, do you - want to take it -?’

Joel holds his hand out, calloused palm quietly upturned. You half expect him to jump at the contact, but he doesn’t move a muscle when the black wire lands in his grasp, and his thick fingers curl around them.

‘I got the dishes, if you want to go first,’ you prompt softly.

Joel swallows, then nods. ‘Yeah, I think I’ll do that. If y’ don’t mind, sweetheart.’

‘Of course,’ you smile, pressing a kiss to his lips.

It’s cold outside, but he doesn’t feel it, not when the charger seems to be burning a hole in his hand. When he gets back to his house - empty, Ellie is at Lucy’s for dinner - he heads straight to the garage, and tugs open the drawer.

The Nokia stares back at him, screen blank.

Flinging the charger into the drawer without seeing where it lands, he shoves the drawer close with a snap.

Weeks pass. It hangs in the back of his mind like a spector, even though you don’t bring it up again, and he doesn’t either. 

He’s not sure if he’s afraid of it, or dreading it, or worst of all - hopeful of what he would find on it.

It’s been twenty years. Electronics don’t last that long. It’s gotta be wiped clean.

One Wednesday night, Ellie is upstairs, music blaring, doing ‘homework’ or whatever she does on a weeknight (he doesn’t believe in helicopter parenting), and Joel finds his thoughts drifting to that damn drawer.

Feeling reckless, he reaches for the top shelf in the kitchen, pours himself two fingers of whiskey, and charges into the garage.

Hopping onto a workstool, he takes a big gulp of liquid courage and sets the tumbler on the work surface. Before his resolve slips completely out of touch, he yanks on the handle, and he winces when the drawer yawns open with a screech.

The Nokia feels foreign to the touch, like he’s forgotten how to hold a phone. It was, of course, glued to his ear almost all hours of the day and night once upon a time. He turns the plastic case over and the other way around again, smoothing the pad of his thumb over the buttons.

There’s no putting it off forever.

In goes the plug into the electric socket, and he looks down, phone in the left hand, the end of the charger in the other.

He thinks he’s seeing double until he realises that his hands are fucking shaking.

In one determined motion, he slots the charger into the bottom of the phone and drops it like it’s acid.

Then he downs the rest of his whiskey.

He’s not sure how long he stares, the very air around him as unmoving as himself, and he feels the alcohol spread its warm fingers through his veins. 

Just when he’s about to look away, it happens.

The battery sign appears on the screen.

Joel almost chokes on a chuckle. He can’t fucking believe it. You really can’t kill a Nokia if you tried.

It doesn’t take long for the familiar home screen to pop up, the time on the top right corner, the battery in the bottom right. The bright green glare casts a cool glow in the dim. Joel picks up the phone, only to be nearly knocked backwards off the chair when the words flash across the screen.

1 NEW VOICEMAIL.

He’s sure his heart has stopped, it definitely feels like it, a deadweight in his chest sinking into his stomach. But he hears it, the relentless beat of it, pounding violently in his ears. Too fast. Gripping the edge of the work surface, he tries to breathe, mouth open, but air isn’t getting in.

It could be nothing. Could be a voicemail he missed from a client that night, or a junk call.

He’s not sure if he’s afraid of it, or dreading it, or worst of all -

He’s trembling so badly that he needs both hands to hold the phone steady, just so that his thumb presses the selection key.

He doesn’t hear the pre-recorded message, his brain skips it entirely. Then there’s five seconds of silence, and his life flashes before his eyes at the familiar beep -

Dad, are you on your way home? Please tell me you remembered the cake. Uncle Tommy bet me ten dollars that you won’t and I kinda need that lunch money tomorrow. See you soon, love you dad -

And everything goes white.

When Joel comes around, he’s on his knees, the empty tumbler in crystalline pieces around him. The phone is no longer attached to the charger, clutched so tightly in his hands that he feels the imprint of every button in his palm.

He won’t know that his face is wet with tears until you thumb the streaks off his cheeks on your doorstep minutes later, no memory of how he got there. You draw him into you, but your embrace barely contains his broad frame.

You can’t get him far in his state, whiskey on his breath and shivering all over. You drag him across the living room and onto the couch, where you curl up against him, warming him up with your body heat, cradling his head on your chest. The candlelight bounces off the phone screen, which glows green in his grasp.

It will take him weeks to get his head around what you have given him. And when he does, he will ask if you want to hear Sarah’s voice - shyly - as if you would ever say no. 

Watching him watch you, Sarah’s warm, fun-loving voice in your ear, the seams of your lashes sting with tears as your heart clenches, swells, breaks for him - and then put together again by his hand finding you, fingers filling the gaps between yours.

But for now, he lies prostrate, his weight pinning you to the couch, as you comb soothing fingers through his hair, anchoring him to you.

‘I got you, Joel,’ you whisper in his ear, and his eyelids droop and his breathing evens out, as if he’s run a thousand miles. ‘I got you.’

As he drifts off to sleep - his baby girl's love you dad echoing between his ears - he knows that you do.

More notes: I don't lean too hard into angst in my fics as a rule, so this took me places I haven't been for a while, but it's ok cos Pin's got our man 🥺 Thank you for reading, as always! ❤️

[jakesduskwood]

even statues crumble if they're made to wait

Pairing: Jake x Fem!MC

Genre: Post-Episode 10 Duskwood, Post-Episode 1 Moonvale

Words: 8,916

Summary: It's been three months since the explosion in the mine. Three months since Hannah was found. And MC's accepted that Jake is never coming back. When she gets roped into another missing person's case, it makes for the perfect distraction. Jake is dead. It's fine. That is, until she finds herself on the phone with Alan Bloomgate who says he has something to show her. But it's fine. Jake is dead.

Until he's not.

EPISODE-1 MOONVALE SPOILERS AHEAD (MAYBE)!

[ A/N: Hello! :)

I know it's been a while since I've done this, but I finished Moonvale Episode 1 and if you've seen the ending (and used its Duskwood code), you know what happened and how excited I was to receive that bit of Duskwood. So, I took it and ran with it, and out came this extremely long fic. I did not proofread this as it took me literally almost 12 hours to write so it is completely and 100% me and my love for Jake and I hope you love it.

Side note: I suck with anything related to timelines, so I made one up on my own. I know Episode 1 of Moonvale takes place over the course of a day or two, but for the purpose of this fic, it made sense to make it longer, so it's not a typo, or me losing my mind, it's just the way my brain processed this.

Enjoy! :) ]

It’s been three months since the explosion in the mine.

Three months since Richy had been killed. Three months since Hannah was rescued. Three months since I had last spoken to Thomas or Cleo or Lilly or…or Jessy. I didn’t blame her then and I don’t blame her now. Any of them, really. I didn’t share the bond they had with each other. I wasn’t from Duskwood. It didn’t matter that we’d experienced a tragedy together—and yes, perhaps them more than me, but I loved Richy too. I had lost Richy too. And Jake—

But mostly, I think they just wanted to forget. To move on. They didn’t want to remember that their friend had been capable of…of that. And I was a constant reminder of that to them. So I understood why we didn’t necessarily talk anymore.

The one person I did keep in contact with from Duskwood, oddly enough, other than the occasional update from Alan Bloomgate, was Dan. We weren’t best friends or anything, but he allowed me to check in on our friends in a way that I didn’t know how to do with anyone else. Maybe because I thought he was the least affected among them. I knew he cared about Hannah, but he wasn’t to her what Thomas or Cleo or Lilly were. And he wasn’t to Richy what Jessy had been.

I’d learned from him that Thomas and Hannah had broken up. There was no bad blood, but Thomas hadn’t quite figured out how to accept the things he’d learned about his girlfriend when she’d been gone, and Hannah hadn’t quite figured out how to re-trust someone after Richy. Even if that person was Thomas. But I’d hoped they would find their way back to each other in the end.

I thought about reaching out to Jessy every once in a while—even just as an apology for everything that had happened. I’m sorry that Hannah was found at the expense of Richy. I’m sorry that he did this to you. I’m sorry I didn’t realize it sooner. We should have. We should have. We should have. I miss you. But I never send it. I’m not all that sure she’d respond anyway.

Cleo and I were never all that close. She has her best friend back, so I think she’s probably as okay as she can be. Helping Hannah find a new kind of normal in a time where her childhood friend had kidnapped her in order to prove a point. I don’t know how you come back from that—I don’t know how you come back from knowing that you killed somebody at all.

I hadn’t found the courage to ask if somebody had told Hannah about Jake.

Not that I think it would matter anyway. I hadn’t heard from him since before the explosion in the mine, which was, like I said—three months ago. I waited the appropriate amount of time—twenty-five days—before I broke down and concluded that maybe he hadn’t survived. Which just piled a shit-ton of guilt onto my shoulders because it was supposed to be me in that mine. He had gone in place of me and now he was dead.

It was the only explanation that made sense. I was used to Jake disappearing for days at a time, but never as long as he had been now. And he didn’t seem like the type to tell me he loved me and then leave without a single explanation. Not unless he had to. But it had been three months and as much as I missed him, as much as my chest ached with the thought that we would never eat Chinese food out of shitty motels and have that on-the-run ending we talked about, I had accepted that he wasn’t coming back.

I wonder if he had known about Richy or if he had died still thinking Michael Hanson was the one who had kidnapped Hannah. I wonder if his last thoughts were of me. Maybe it’s selfish, but I kind of hope they were, because I’m pretty sure I’ll think about him for the rest of my life.

I wonder what it would have felt like to run my hands through his hair. To kiss him. To spend every waking moment with him and know it was because I loved him. Because I would have. Talking to Jake became about more than just finding Hannah. It became a part of my day I looked forward to more than anything else. He confided in me in a way that told me he never had with anyone, maybe not even Hannah, and I needed that from somebody. I needed somebody to trust in me the way that Jake did. I needed somebody to love me the way that Jake did.

It was strange—and maybe a little ironic—the thought that something so beautiful could come out of something so tragic.

Anyway, my point is: it’s been a long couple of months. Of thinking about my friends. Of thinking about Jake. Of wondering if I should have done things differently. I should have gone to Duskwood to help. Not even with the mine, but sooner. I could have. I could’ve gone when Jessy was attacked on the way home. I could’ve gone when the group made plans to cut out of town and hide away in the house Richy had found. Selfishly, I should have. In that moment, when they were settled around the fire and Lilly called me, I had never remembered wanting anything more. I should have grabbed Jake—metaphorically, maybe even literally—and rode it out with them to the end.

I don’t stop missing them after three months. Of wishing things could have been different. Wishing I could have done more. But exactly ninety-five days after the explosion in the mine, seventy days since I had accepted that Jake was never coming back, twenty-two days since I had last heard from anybody from Duskwood (Dan included), my phone dings with a new message.

And the cycle starts all over again.

It’s somebody named Eric, who claims he needs my help to find his friend Adam, who disappeared while he was waiting for a ride in someplace called Redlog Pines. And much like with Duskwood, I have never heard of Redlog, and the case reminds me way too much of Thomas’ first message to me, so much that it makes my chest ache, but I can’t say no because there’s somebody missing, and if I’d say no the first time, God knows where Hannah would be.

So, I say yes, and I help out where I can, and Eric decides he needs to bring about four more friends in on his little plan and I try my best to stay emotionally unattached because I remember everything that happened the last time and I can’t go through that again. I offer up information when I can and keep my words short and careful because I’m not ready to get attached to somebody else I know I might never meet.

I know how this ends.

Two days in, Ash, one of Eric’s friends, brings up my Duskwood past and the unhealed wound I’ve been trying to mend breaks open again. She asks about Richy, and about the mine, and then because I’m me and I can’t help myself, I tell her about Jake. She tells me the news never mentioned another body and I shove that thought to the back of my head because hoping for something that will never come true will kill me.

Four days into Adam’s disappearance, and the police not giving a shit—as Charlie, somebody who reminds me far too much of Richy for comfort, points out—my phone beeps with an incoming call from somebody I haven’t spoken to in a while.

“Go for [MC].” I answer my phone.

Ever since Hannah had been found in the mine and Jake had…you know, my phone had been more silent than I’d gotten used to. Until this new case. But even that—it was only a few days old and I didn’t want to go down the same path with them that I did with my friends in Duskwood. We didn’t really know each other that long, sure—even though sometimes it’d felt like it—but it felt like I’d finally been a part of something. Like, I had found these people who had chosen me for me.

And originally, maybe they had. Maybe they’d had every intention of keeping me around, but then Richy was the Man Without A Face and Alan Bloomgate had rescued Hannah and nothing was the same as it had been when we’d met each other. We knew too many secrets about each other by the time the town settled. Secrets we would have to take to the grave.

Or maybe I’m losing my mind a bit and I had really only been a means to an end.

Either way.

“Alan?” I raise my voice when there’s nothing but breathing on the other end of the line. “Did you mean to call me?”

His tone is clipped. “I found something.”

“You found something.” I repeat.

My heart clenches. For all I know, it might fall into my stomach. As far I know, from watching the news, from what Ash told me, Jake’s body was never found. Richy’s was. Or what was left of him to find, anyway. I had assumed that there just hadn’t been enough of Jake left. The thought left me nauseous, but it was better than hoping for something I knew I could never have.

“I’m sending it to your phone now.” He responds. “Let me know what you think of this.”

And then he hangs up.

That was a riveting conversation, I think as my phone dings with a message. I do my best to ignore my other messages—contacts from Duskwood I’m still not ready to acknowledge—and click Alan Bloomgate. He sent me a video that looks like—oh God.

Immediately, I’m overcome with emotion as an all-too-familiar forest pops up on my phone. It’s a video of Alan’s bodycam footage. He’s searching the Duskwood forest. A forest I’ve seen too many times in the background of other video calls.

I watch as he stumbles upon an object that’s too dark to make out at first. When he gets closer, it’s clear that it’s a backpack. It’s simple. Black. Nothing about it that screams this is mine and I left it here about anybody in particular. You stupid, stupid idiot, I tell my heart when it rattles against my chest in hope. He’s dead.

Alan stands and treks away from the backpack—I want to scream at him to go back, to open it and look through it and tell me if it’s what my heart aches to believe, but I can’t, because this is a video and I’m simply watching with wide eyes, waiting for…for something. But then. But then, he moves further into the forest and I watch as he stumbles upon an object that makes my knees tremble and tears rush to my eyes and my hands shake. A black hoodie. It looks like it’s been through hell, with holes scattered up the sleeves and dirt cakes into the hood, but it’s unmistakably his.

And then—Alan lifts the hood and picks up something that makes me sink to my knees with a sob that wracks my entire frame. Because I’m staring at Jake’s mask. The mask he doesn’t go anywhere without. The mask that protects him. And so my relief is short-lived, because I realize that even if he’s alive—which seems like a very big possibility at this point—he’s alive without the things that he needs to survive.

And then the anger kicks in. Because if he’s been alive, on his own, for three months—why has he not contacted me? Unless he survived the mine but he didn’t survive the after. But that didn’t make any sense. So, okay, he wasn’t dead. But that didn’t make any sense either. He told me he wouldn’t let them catch him. Because catching that meant he would be apart from me. Did something happen that prevented him from being able to reach out and tell me he was at least okay? A quick text that said didn’t die in the explosion in the mine, you don’t need to mourn me, by the way, going off radar for another year. Did he think I would have given up on him?

I wipe my eyes and shoot a message to Alan.

ME: Recently?? Did nobody search the forests before?      

ALAN: Searched the forests for what, [MC]? The logical assumption seemed to be that if anybody was inside the mine when Richy set the fire, they would have perished alongside him. Officers were stationed outside every known entrance and exit. Besides, after the story you and your friends spun around this town, do you think anybody would have gone back into its forests?

ME: But it’s possible?

ALAN: I would say these items had been there for some time. But I would say it is likely he ditched them when he fled the mine, yes.

Another sob tears through my throat. Jake is alive. I don’t know quite what that means for us as of now, but I know it’s the best news I’ve heard since Hannah was found. Jake is alive. He’s out there somewhere. And even if it’s been three months, and even if I’m a little bit mad at him right now, I know that if he was here, I would throw my arms around his neck and hold on to him until someone dragged me off, and even then—I would fight kicking and screaming.

I close out of my messages with Alan and pull up a conversation I haven’t had the heart to look at in quite some time.

ME: Jake’s alive.

LILLY: …

LILLY: Have you spoken to him?

ME: Alan called. He found some of Jake’s things in Duskwood. I don’t know a lot of details. But I know he made it out of the mine.

Lilly types for a long while, but she doesn’t respond. I don’t take it personally. I think it’s probably hard for her to be happy that her brother’s okay while also trying to accept that her sister may never be okay again. Her sister, who had once-upon-a-time been kind-of-sort-of in love with their brother she didn’t know she had. I think that would probably mess with any family’s heads. And on top of all that, you throw in manslaughter and a kidnapping. I wouldn’t wish anybody, not even my worst enemy, to have had to go through what the Donforts had.

When it becomes adamant that Lilly isn’t going to respond, I start scrolling through messages with the rest of the group in Duskwood. I click on Jessy. I’m here if you need me. That had been the last thing I sent to her, a couple of days after Richy’s death. She hadn’t responded. I click out of Jessy’s contact and click on Thomas’ instead. Thank you for everything. That had been his last message to me after we found Hannah. I’d liked it. I hadn’t expected at the time it would be the last thing we’d ever say to each other. I click out of Thomas’ and click on Richy. So, you want to turn yourself in? I’d asked. That was before he called me. Before he lit a match and burned himself and the mine to the ground. Some people would call that heroic. I mostly call him a coward.

I click on Jake’s name. It’s been a while since I read messages between the two of us. Maybe before I had accepted—thought—he was dead. In that twenty-five-day period when I’d hoped with all I’d had that he would come back. I love you. That was the last message he sent me. I’d responded with I love you too, Jake. Then, four days later: Are you okay? A week later: Jake, please, you’re starting to scare me. I know you said you would contact when you could, but it’s been a week. After twenty-five days, when I had finally accepted our fate, I’d sent one final message: I hope you know that I love you, and I will always care about you, but I think it’s time for me to move on. I’m so sorry that I sent you into the mine. It should have been me. And I will probably feel the guilt from that for the rest of my life. Thank you for everything. Take care of yourself, wherever you are.

After that, I had closed out of our messages and hadn’t looked back. Partly because I couldn’t bear the pain of it. It felt like I had given up on him. I hadn’t—if I had thought for a second that he was alive, if I knew then what I know now, I would have never sent that message. But holding out hope for somebody who I thought was a ghost at the time? That was slowly killing me.

It’s only then that I notice the screen flickering. Much like the way it used to whenever Jake would hack into my phone. I don’t think he’s much in the mood to be hacking right now, but somehow, I know it’s him. When had he done this? Recently? If I had opened our messages, would I have seen this ten—twenty—even fifty days ago? It hadn’t looked like this the last time I texted him. Did he see my last message about needing to move on? Was that why he hadn’t reached out to tell me that he was okay? Because he thought I was moving on happily without him?

No, my brain supplies. He wouldn’t. He would reach out anyway, because he knows how much the thought of him not being okay would have destroyed you.

The screen flickers once more and then a message pops up, bright and blue-tinted and clear as day on my phone.

[MC]

I WILL FIND YOU

And the world around me shifts.

--------------------------------------------------

Maybe it sounds crazy, considering I’ve never seen his face before, but I always thought that if I’d ran into Jake one day, maybe on the street or at one of those motels he stayed at or maybe even in Duskwood, surrounded by all our friends, I would know it was him. I would, because it’s him, and it’s me, and we’re the only two people who understand each other quite the way we do.

I still believe that.

I believe it when I book my flight to Duskwood (or rather, twenty miles outside of town, which is the closest airport). I believe it when I board the airplane and find a seat next to a mother with her screaming child and when I shoot off a quick text to Eric to let him know I’ll be MIA for the next few hours, but to message me if he needs anything—and I think about how much easier this case would probably be to solve if we had Jake.

Maybe it would have been harder to find Hannah without me, but I know damn well they would’ve never found her without Jake.

Dan picks me up from the airport. I haven’t told the others yet. Something about it felt off—like I shouldn’t message them and say hey, I know we haven’t spoken in a while, but I’m booking a flight to look into why my maybe-slash-not-really boyfriend left his belongings in a forest we really wish we could forget about, and by the way, can I crash at your place?

It’s quiet on the car ride back into town. I’m looking through my messages from Eric and the group from Redlog Pines and thinking about how I’m Duskwood with this group and I want so badly to laugh because it’s ironic, but Dan wouldn’t understand. He might just call me crazy. Better yet, he would ask how I manage to get myself into these situations, and really, I don’t have an answer for him.

“How have you been?” I ask, just to break the tension, as Charlie, in my messages, tries to persuade his friends to head back into that creepy cave in the middle of the forest. He’s going to get someone killed, I think.

Dan looks over at me. “Are you still with Hackerman?”

My chest squeezes. “His name is Jake, Dan. And we were never really together.”

“Hm.” He nods like he doesn’t quite believe me. “You already know mostly everything that’s been happening here. Thomas and Hannah called it quits. They say it was some mutual decision, but it’s hard to find them in the same room together. Jessy hasn’t been out with us since. I think we remind her too much of Richy. The group’s all changed.”

“And you?” I ask.

He gives me a cheshire-like grin that doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “I’m always the same.”

We make it to Duskwood just as the sun’s going down. Much too late for me to try and trek through the forest and retrace the steps Jake might have taken that night. Not that I think it would help give me any clues as to where he might have gone, but mostly because I wonder if it will make me feel closer to him. We’ve never been in the same place before, and even if he’s not there now—he once was.

“Can you drop me at the police station?”

Dan blinks. “The police station.”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“We answered their questions for weeks, [MC]. I don’t think anything you have to tell them at this point is going to help. The investigation’s closed. Everybody knows Richy did it. He died with the fire in the mine. Everybody’s trying to move on from that.” He works his jaw. “Did you come here to open old wounds after all this time?”

I try not to show the hurt look on my face. “This isn’t about Richy. Look, Alan called me. He asked if I could look at some things. I figured it was better for me to do it in person. That’s it. Nothing to do with Richy. Nothing to do with Jessy. Nothing to do with you.”

He sighs, and I’m not entirely sure he’s going to abide by my wishes until we pull in front of a tiny building—tinier than most—that says Duskwood Police on the sign. Duskwood must not have that much crime. Well, not until this, I suppose.

“Thank you.” I tell him as I reach over to undo my seatbelt and climb out of the car. “This is a nice ride, by the way.”

He raises a hand in some mock-salute. “Need me to pick you up?”

“Nah.” I shake my head. “Think I’ll explore the town for a little bit.”

“Suit yourself.” He shrugs and then he’s off.

I square my shoulders and take a deep breath before opening the door to the police station. It wasn’t like Alan asked me to come down here. He hadn’t. Even during the investigation into Richy’s death and Hannah’s kidnapping, when he questioned us, he never asked me to come to Duskwood. We’d done way too many video calls and phone calls and at one point, I had asked if he thought it would be easier for me to come to Duskwood, to which he responded back, are you ready for that?

No, I hadn’t been. I’m not even so sure I was now. But knowing that Jake was alive, that here was the last place was, I had to try.

“Can I help you?” The woman at the front desk asks.

I clear my throat. “I was wondering if I could speak to Alan Bloomgate. I’m one of—I was involved in the Hannah Donfort case. My name is [MC].”

Her eyes widen. “Give me a moment.” She stands and heads to some back office—which looks to me more like a closet—and then returns with a clipped smile. “He’ll be right out.”

Apparently, she isn’t lying, because not two minutes later, Alan is stepping out from the same door and staring me down. I hold his gaze and hope it says that I’m not here to argue. I will tell him my truth, but only my truth, not Hannah’s, not Jake’s, not anybody else’s.

“I was wondering when I would see you.” He says.

I shrug one shoulder. “Isn’t a few months later better than never?”

“Let’s go into my office.” He says, and leads me around the desk and back into the closet space he had come out of. He sits behind the desk and motions for me to take a seat opposite him. “I’m just going to guess you’re not here to talk about Miss Donfort.”

“I want to see them.” I tell him. “His things. I want to see them for myself. And whatever you want from me in return, I’ll give to you.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game here, [MC].”

“He isn’t a game to me.” I snap back and then sit back and try to relax. “I appreciate that you called me. It’s—I helped you find Hannah. I would do it again. Even with knowing the things that we do now, I would do it all again. That’s how much that group means to me. That’s how much he means to me. I’m not asking you to break any rules or to lie for him or to—to let him hide in your basement for the next five years. I’m just asking you to show me what you found.”

He stares me down for a moment. Then, he sighs, says “wait here for a minute” and disappears to another room. When he comes back, it’s with an evidence bag in his hand filled with the objects I saw on his bodycam footage. My breath hitches in my throat.

“I can’t let you touch them.” He says as he lays them in front of me.

I stare into the eyes of the mask. “Did you tell anybody that he’s alive?”

“I don’t know that he’s alive,” is all the answer he gives, which is an answer to my question. I slide my gaze down to the black hoodie, to the dirtied sleeves and muddy hood, and think about the fact that Jake wore this. I’m so close to him.

And yet I’ve never been further away from him.

“Thank you.” I tell him. “For—for this. And for listening to me about Hannah. If you hadn’t, I—I don’t know what would have happened. How much longer he would have gone on for. If he would have ever stopped.”

Alan’s silent for a minute. Then, he clears his throat. “You know, it was strange to me. Both Hannah and yourself swore to me that neither of you knew the other.”

“I don’t.” I swear.

It was one of the (albeit many) things that didn’t make sense to me. How Hannah got a hold of my number. How she sent it to Thomas. She’d told Alan she hadn’t really remembered texting him my number at all.

“I believe you.” He reassures. “I just think it’s strange. One mistake, if you can call it that, and you throw yourself into a missing persons case to help a stranger.”

“They’re not strangers.” Even though Hannah is kind of still a stranger.

“But they were.” Alan reasons. “You had no reason to say yes to helping Thomas. I doubt anybody would have held it against you if you turned the other way. But you decided to follow this until the end. To make sure they found Hannah. And you care about them. Maybe that’s why I find that I’m more lenient with you than maybe I should be. Why you’re sitting across from me right now calling the shots. Why I’m not asking you about the hacker.”

“I wouldn’t tell you if you did.” I look him in the eye so he knows I’m telling the truth.

He returns my gaze. “Maybe that’s the other reason.”

“Hm.” I acknowledge before I turn my gaze away—from him, from the objects that I know belong to Jake and it takes everything in me not to snatch them up and run. “Well. Thank you for allowing me to steal some of your time. For letting me—” I cut myself off before I say something that makes me break down in a fit of tears in front of him. “—just thank you.”

Leaving the station is easier than coming in. I’m still not any closer to knowing where Jake is than I was when I arrived here, but there’s a comfort in knowing he walked these streets. I wonder what he would think if he knew I was here. He hadn’t wanted me to come to Duskwood when everything was happening…but now that it was over, would he be happy that I was here? That I had come to Duskwood to piece together where he might have gone? Would he track my location and come to find me and…or was I grasping at straws?

It felt like I had just gotten him back. Not really, not entirely…but knowing that he was alive, that he was out there somewhere, maybe thinking of me and looking for ways to come back, to live the life we talked about when he asked me if I was sure…that was worth it. The thought that we could maybe someday have that—even if it was a twenty percent chance.

I check my phone again to see a new message from Ash. She’s asking me if I’ve heard from Charlie in the last few hours. Apparently, he’s AWOL, and I want to help, really, but…it doesn’t really feel like that’s where I am at the moment. Not just physically—obviously—but mentally. We got lucky with Hannah. And that was really only because we had Jake. Adam didn’t have a Jake. Or…maybe he did and I just hadn’t met him yet. But I already had a Jake and I didn’t want another one.

Maybe—if I found him, I could convince him to help. That was a big maybe. Not because I thought Jake would say no. He would say yes to anything I asked of him. The maybe was whether or not I could find him. More likely, the maybe was whether or not he would find me.

Three months ago, I would have been able to come to Duskwood and have no shortage of things I wanted to do and people I wanted to see. Now, as I stand outside Duskwood’s police station, I feel nothing but loneliness. Nobody knows I’m here. I could pass Thomas on the street and he wouldn’t even know it. I could run into Jessy at the library and she would walk by me without even a second thought. Why would they? I hadn’t told them I was here.

So, with nothing left to do, I walked. Toward the town center. Toward the library that Jessy showed me on our walk through Duskwood. Toward the Rainbow Café where I knew that Cleo and Hannah had spent a lot of their time. Toward the Black Swan. Toward—

Ah, what the hell.

I had nothing better to do and The Aurora seemed like a great place to drown my sorrows. To think about my next steps. To figure out—now that I was in Duskwood—what I planned to do. The thing about Jake being so secretive (and on the run) was that I couldn’t retrace his steps. I wasn’t able to ask if anyone had seen him. One, because he would make sure nobody had. And two, because three months was a long time to forget somebody’s face if you didn’t know who you were looking for.

I pull open the door to the bar and step inside. Immediately, I’m hit with the stench of whiskey and a handful of chatter. Duskwood’s a small town. And The Aurora definitely proves it. The bartenders move melodically around each other, serving patrons on the other side of the bar. If you walk down further, there’s a handful of tables.

And dead in the center is a table with my friends. Or, some of them. Dan and Cleo and Lilly. Could I still call them my friends? Ex-friends, maybe? Acquaintances? I didn’t know what they were. Or how to address them. It wasn’t like we had gotten into a fight. We didn’t stop talking for any reason other than that we did. We stopped talking.

I make a beeline for the bar to avoid a confrontation and plant myself on one of the stools. One of the bartenders—a girl cute with bleach blonde hair and brown Bambi eyes—asks what I want and I channel my inner Dan to order a whiskey—neat.

Looking over my shoulder, I focus on the table of them. On Lilly, who’s smiling at something Cleo said. On Dan, who’s the only one of them who actually knows I’m here. But even he’s focused on the conversation they’re having. It’s strange—to see Dan a part of something I’m not sure he would have been before. It’s nice.

“[MC]?”

I turn my head away from the table of my friends and focus my attention across the bar on someone I should’ve expected to see. “Phil.”

“I thought I recognized your voice from when we talked.” He smiles. “I wasn’t sure, but I saw you staring longingly at them—” He nods towards Dan and Cleo and Lilly. “—and I knew. What brings you around here? I expected you to show up maybe a few months ago, but by now, I thought you’d moved on without us.”

I was tired of the words move on. Like I’d had a choice. Like the people from this town might open their arms and welcome me back into their lives. So I’d been part of the group who’d saved Hannah Donfort. So had a lot of people. It didn’t make me special and everyone here knew it.

I offer him a smile in return. “I’m looking for somebody.”

“Anybody I know?” He asks.

I shake my head. “Nah. At least nobody you would recognize.” I pause. “How’s Jessy?”

“She’s—Jessy.” He answers, like that is an answer. “I don’t know if she’ll ever really be okay with the way things happened with Richy. I wouldn’t expect her to. Obviously. But I don’t know. I think I just thought she would have gone back to her normal life by now. And then I remember that most of her life revolved around him. He was her best friend. She worked for him. And I’m trying to be patient about that. But—” He shakes his head. “Maybe you should talk to her.”

“She doesn’t know I’m in town.”

“Okay.” He hums. “So, you’re not in town for my sister. And you’re not in town for your group of friends because they’re over there and you look like you’d rather be anywhere else. There’s always Hannah, but I don’t think you knew her that well. Or at all. Would I be right to assume this is about a certain hacker who helped to find Hannah?”

“He didn’t help find Hannah.” I defend. “He was the entire reason we found Hannah. I would have never been able to do it on my own. Even with the others’ help. He’s the only reason we found out about—” I pause before I say something I maybe shouldn’t. “It doesn’t matter. He’s the only reason we found her. Everything I did was just dumb luck.”

“That wasn’t what the news said.” A voice cuts in and I turn my attention from Phil to focus on the stranger that slides into the seat beside me. Not too close—a couple inches away. I don’t recognize him. I don’t know him. But I don’t know every person in Duskwood. Maybe a total of like nine or ten. “I’m sorry to interrupt. But I heard you had a lot to do with finding Hannah Donfort. The news said you were some kind of hero.”

I offer him a tight smile. “That’s nice of them. But…if they knew my—friend—knew what he did to find her, I don’t think I would be as much of a hero as everybody says.”

“That’s noble.” He says, eyes meeting mine, and it strikes me at once how handsome he is. He has dark hair. Bright green eyes. Focus, [MC]. I scold. You have a…a someone.

My phone buzzes.

ERIC SENT A PHOTO.

ERIC: What do you make of this?

I sigh and click on the photo. It’s of—some object. Much like the one that was addressed to me on the envelope in Adam’s glove compartment. The image is a bit different—but I don’t know enough about what it means to have an answer as to why.

ME: Was this one addressed to me?

ERIC: Nope. Ash.

“Are you okay?” Phil asks.

I clear my throat. “I’m a popular person—apparently.” A thought strikes. “Have you ever heard of a place called Redlog Pines?”

Phil frowns. “No.”

I turn to look at the stranger. “You?”

“Redlog Pines is a small town about two hundred miles north of Duskwood.” He answers. “Known for their wooded forests, much like Duskwood.”

“Why are you looking into a place with forests as creepy as ours?” Phil asks, incredulously. “Didn’t you get enough of that with Hannah’s case?”

“Yeah.” I sigh. “You would think.”

“Hey, [MC]!”

I wince at the sound of Dan’s voice. Shooting Phil a look that screams please help me to which he shakes his head amusedly, I turn and plaster on a fake smile as I take in the shocked looks on Cleo and Lilly’s faces. I should have known better than to come to The Aurora and talk to Phil when the three of them were having a conversation across the room. I should have known they would sooner or later see me. I just hoped it was later.

“Hey.” I hop off my stool and make my way across the bar to them. “It’s, uh, fancy seeing the three of you here.”

“What are you doing here?” Cleo asks.

“I haven’t really figured that out.” My eyes meet Lilly’s. “It sounds crazy to say it out loud. But I was hoping that—I’m not sure if Lilly told you—”

“That Jake’s alive.” Cleo nods. “None of us ever really thought he wasn’t.”

I don’t think she means it as a dig—but it still feels like one. Like she’s saying you gave up on him you gave up on him you gave up on him even though she’s not and she didn’t really know him and the only person I can talk to at this table who even might understand is Lilly and even—Jake didn’t confide in her the way he did me.

“Right.” I acknowledge. “So I thought that maybe if I came here, I could trace his steps from when he was here and—I haven’t really thought that far ahead. It’s not like I thought he left me any clues in the forest or anything like that. I don’t think he expected me to be here. He hadn’t wanted me to be the last time we talked. But that was before everything happened.”

Lilly’s eyes track behind me. “Does Jake still have Nymos on your phone?”

“Uh.” I furrow my brows. “I think so. I hadn’t heard from him in a while, but I went back and read through our messages after I talked to Alan and…my phone glitched, like it used to when Jake had hacked it. And then this message appeared on my screen.”

“And by chance, can Nymos track your location?”

“What—” I shake my head. “Maybe. I don’t think I ever really asked him. It didn’t seem necessary at the time.”

“Uh huh.” She focuses on me once more. “Let’s say, for one minute, that Jake has access to Nymos who has access to your location.”

Cleo must catch onto something I’m not sure of. “Jake didn’t want you here.”

“Uh, thank you?”

“You know that’s not what I mean.” She waves me off. “He didn’t want you in Duskwood. He had been adamant about that when we were talking about the mine. That’s why he went. If you showed up in Duskwood—”

“Nymos would have alerted him.” Dan finishes.

“Okay…” I’m not entirely sure I’m on the same page as them. “So—you think that Jake found out when I came to Duskwood.”

“Correct.” Lilly beams like she just solved life’s greatest mystery.

“And you think he would—come find me?”

She smiles sympathetically at me—like I’m the world’s biggest idiot for not realizing what she has been trying to say sooner. “I think he already has.”

“You think Jake’s in Duskwood.” I deadpan.

“[MC].” Cleo grabs my shoulders and turns me around. “We think he’s in this bar.”

Stranger, as I had nicknamed him—AKA the guy sitting beside me at the bar, with Phil and Redlog Pines (which he probably only knew about because of me) and the whole Hannah being kidnapped and not taking any of the credit thing—was looking back at me. So was Phil. Like they thought I was the crazy one. Like it would’ve been so hard for him to look and me and say it’s me or anything that might have clued me into the fact that—

“Jake?” I whisper, because I’ve lost quite a bit of sleep over the past couple of months and I’m not one hundred percent sure what—or who—I’m seeing is real. “Are you here?”

He tilts his head and smiles at me. Actually smiles. A bit shyly, like it’s something he’s not used to doing, but maybe like it’s something he could get used to. And I think about how terrible I probably look right now because I’m not wearing makeup and my hair is tousled from constantly pulling at it and my clothes are wrinkled from the plane and the police station and I look like a mess. But our relationship has never been about looks. Clearly. I didn’t even know the person I’d been talking to until Lilly and Cleo and even Dan pointed out the obvious.

“If I—” I close my eyes and open them again. Nope. Still there. “I need you to still be there by the time I reach you because it’s been a—” I sniffle. “—it’s been a rough few months and I don’t think I could handle you disappearing again.”

He stands from the stool he was sitting on and shuffles his feet. Like he’s not quite sure where he’s supposed to stand. If he thinks about moving, I’ll tackle him onto the floor of The Aurora and then apologize to Phil later. It feels like everything I wanted is right here in front of me. And I’m scared to death that it’s not real.

“What’s one thing you would take with you if you were stranded on an island?”

His smile stretches. “My computer.”

And that—that’s what breaks me. I think I might start blubbering like an idiot but I don’t remember the time it takes for me to cross the measly twenty feet between us. All I remember is grabbing his black hoodie—because of course—and dragging him to me. I don’t kiss him, despite how much I want to, because I don’t want our first kiss to be tainted with my snot and tears. Instead, I bury my face in his collarbone and wrap my arms around his neck and hold on for dear life.

Because I can. Because he isn’t dead.

“Y—You’re here.” I pull back and cup his face with my hands. “How are you here?”

“You came to Duskwood.” He responds, and then—hesitantly—he presses his lips to my forehead in a kiss. “Alan called you.”

“He found your things in the forest.” I whisper back. “He said they’d been there a while. The police hadn’t searched the forest because they assume you died in the mine.”

“They aren’t looking for me here.” He confirms. “I didn’t expect it to take so long for them to find my belongings, but I anticipated that you would find out. At the time, it wasn’t safe for me to reach out and contact you. They kept on my trail for a while before they assumed I died in the mine with Richy.”

“Why didn’t you contact me then?” I ask. “Is it because of what I last messaged you? I didn’t mean it—I swear, I thought you were dead. If I had known you were alive, I would have waited, however long it took. I wasn’t trying to give up on you.”

“Hey.” He places both hands on either side of my face. “I know. I know that, [MC]. That was never why I didn’t reach out to you. I know you said you wanted this life with me. But I didn’t want that for you. But I was selfish. I couldn’t let you go. So I was trying to find a way to make both of those things true. But I was always coming back to you.”

“And did you?”

“Come back to you?” He asks.

I sniffle. “Find a way to make both of those things true.”

“Not entirely.” He admits. “Nymos alerted me you had boarded a plane headed in the direction of Duskwood and I—” He shook his head. “I knew I would find you here.”

“You could have found me sooner.”

He lets go of my face and he feels like he takes my skin with him. “It wasn’t that easy.”

“It could have been.” I demand.

I’m angry again. Now that I know he’s alive and okay and that he could have found me, I’m angry that he didn’t. I told him I would choose that life with him. Over and over and over. He didn’t need to make the decision for me. He didn’t need to try and protect me. And yes, maybe the fact that he did makes my heart flutter a tiny little bit, but that’s besides the point.

“I told you before you left me.” I tell him and I’m aware it sounds like we’ve been in a relationship for five years and I’m aware that everybody in here is watching and listening in on our conversation and they probably all know we’re who we are, two people involved in helping to find the kidnapped Hannah Donfort, and maybe that’s all we’ll ever be in this town. But I would rather be the girl who found Hannah Donfort in Duskwood with him than be me anywhere else. “You told me you would let me go with you.”

“That was before I told you I loved you.”

My heart skips a beat. It screams I love you I love you I love you back, but I say— “What does that have to do with anything?”

He looks somewhat amused. Like he knows I would never hold it against him. It’s clear to both of us that I wouldn’t because even though I’m glaring up at him with my furrowed eyebrows and my lips pouted, I’m still pressed tightly against him. His hands—even though they’ve moved from my face—are now resting on my hips. Pulling my tighter to him. There’s no space in between us. If it was up to me, I’m pretty sure there never would be again.

“[MC].” He says, and oh god I wish he would say my name every day for the rest of his life. “Have I—in the short time we have known each other—ever struck you as the type of person who says I love you? But with you…” His words are a whisper against my lips. “It’s easy to fall back into old emotions with you.”

“I want to be angry with you.” I tell him.

He shakes his head. “No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.” I agree. “But I might be if you don’t kiss me.”

He brought one finger underneath my chin and tilted it up until our lips were separated by a fraction of an inch. My eyelids fluttered. I didn’t care that everyone in here was about to see just how much Jake meant to be. I didn’t care because I had waited too long for this. And then—just as I’m leaning toward him to press our lips together, he whispers— “[MC]?”

“Hm.” I acknowledge.

“Who’s Eric?”

My eyelids crack open and I shove at his chest. “That’s what you’re worried about right now? Here I am, in front of you, covered in snot and tears and who-knows-what-else because you’re here right now, and you’re worried about some guy I don’t even know?”

“Who’s Eric?” He repeats.

“Ugh.” I run my hands through my hair and take a step back. “I don’t know. He’s the other side of Thomas or whatever you want to call him. If we lived in a different town.” I glare back at him and try not to admit that I think his jealous side is a little cute. “He messaged me. Thought I picked up his friend from some parking lot and I didn’t, but his friend sent him my number, and it was Hannah all over again. I’m trying to help them.”

“This Adam has been sending you a lot of videos.”

“You know I hate when you hack my phone.” I complain, even though I really don’t. Even though I had prayed for him to help me with this case. “I really don’t know Adam. Like—even less than I know Eric.

“But you know Eric.”

“For like a week.” I reassure. “He added me to this group chat with him and like three other friends of his. They’re desperate to find Adam who has apparently dropped off the face of the earth and I don’t know what to do. I had you with Hannah’s case. And you knew her. And they—” I look over my shoulder at Cleo and Dan and Lilly, who are pretending like they’re not listening in even though I know and Jake knows they are. “—they knew her. And obviously Adam’s friends must know him but I don’t and you don’t and there is no Jake in Redlog Pines.”

“I don’t trust him.” He shakes his head. “Any of them.”

I laugh. “Jake, you didn’t trust half the people in this bar when we first started talking.” I look over at Phil and then Dan. “It doesn’t mean they committed a crime. If I had backed off when you asked me to help you find Hannah, we may never have.”

“I thought that was all thanks to me.” He sounds smug, like that little smiley face he loved to annoy me with (AKA make me fall in love with him). “Did he flirt with you?”

“No.” I deadpan. “I think he was focused on his missing friend.”

“I was focused on my missing sister.” He shoots back.

I close my mouth. Alright. He has a point. But I wasn’t flirting with Eric. He was focused on finding Adam and I was focused on mourning—and then finding—Jake. Maybe it felt like Eric and I were two sides of the same coin. Maybe that’s why I agreed to help him. Because I didn’t want to happen to him what I thought had happened to Jake—to me.

“You’re being ridiculous.” I say instead. “How do you think I could ever entertain the idea of being with somebody else when for the past three months—more than that if you count the time we have actually had together—I’ve been focused on you? On discussing Hannah with you and then talking to you about anything and everything and then worrying about you and then hating you a little for convincing me you should me the one to go into the mine and then mourning you when it was hard to even think about you and then finding you?”

His eyes are wide. I think I’ve rendered him speechless. Which—serves him right. I know he’s not somebody who serves their feelings up on a silver platter. I know that. Obviously, I knew that from the first time I spoke to him. Back when he was nothing more than ??? and I was almost convinced that Dan was right and he was the Man Without A Face—a thought that I now hate with everything in me. But I need him to trust me. Jealousy streak and FBI and the missing persons cases aside, he needs to trust me.

“Trust me.” I cup the sides of his face again. “He’s nothing like you.”

He swallows. “Some people might consider that to be a perk.”

“I don’t.” I say.

And then I’m kissing him and it feels like coming home.

[sigmalaussene]

Top ten weird ways Oswald Cobbepot gets called in Gotham

As I was rewatching Gotham, I decided to write down every name that people in the show canonically call Oswald Cobblepot aka the Penguin. It was a wild ride. Please enjoy

10. "Funny looking fellow"

(season one)

We start with a simple one. This isn't even an insult, it's just a fact. He is, indeed, a funny looking fellow. I'm pretty sure they say it more than once too.

9. "The Dapper Gangland Kingpin"

(season two)

This one it's just silly, especially since it was written on a newspaper. Just... that's weird ? Idk it's silly it makes me chuckle

8. "Yellow rat snitch"

(season one)

We start getting a little weirder. Why a rat? And, more importantly, why yellow???

7. "Stupid lame birdbrain"

(season four)

Just so mean. Especially since this scene it's his dumb husband making a room full of people chant it

6. "Golden goose"

(season one)

Right back to season one and it's incredible dialogue. This one is particularly amazing thanks to Oswald's reply to it, which was, of course: "Honk honk". I can't even start to describe that scene. It's a classic.

5. "Beaky nosed freak"

(season five)

Definitely the best nickname the last season had to offer. Like, you know that moment when a guy kills your bestfriend/girlfriend and you call him the silliest name you can think of? This is one of those times.

4. "Scaley faced bitch"

(season one)

This is the first one in the show, directly from the first episode. I am a firm supporter of calling men bitches when they deserve it, and he did, so I wholeheartedly approve this message. Adding the scaley face part just makes it more poetic.

3. "Sad little breadhead"

(season two)

This one from never fails. Imagine it delivered with the most condicending tone in the world. Just amazing. Makes me laugh every time.

2. "Fruitcake leprechaun"

(season two)

This. This is the one that started it all. It was thinking about this one that I decided that this rewatch I was gonna write down all the nicknames. I dont know if it has something to do with english not being my first language, so I don't have the background of the word "fruitcake" used as an homophobic remark, but this name is one of the funniest things I have ever heard in my life.

1. "Limping little chickenbutt second banana"

(season one)

This couldn't not be on the first place. I am obsessed with the writers of this show, i want to get inside their brains. Because like what does it mean? How did they come up with this? I need to know every thought that crossed their mind for them to write this. This is art. This is poetry. Incredible. Amazing. Absolutely insane. Kudos to the actor who played Maroni because if they gave me that line I wouldn't be able to say it with a straight face.

Bonus:

(For the fans, he is also called "the only thing Nygma cares about". Just... you know, in case you forgot)

Some recurrent nicknames are: "Pengy", "Ozzie", "freak", "cockroach", "punk", bird related names (bird/birdman, feathered friend, chicken, turkey...) and "little"/"tiny" followed by almost anything (man, friend, dirtbag, bastard, creep, twerp, freak, weasel...)

Edit: i realize i didn't mention "Major Crumblepot" and that's on me sorry guys

His haircut is described as "disco vampire hair" at one point (another classic)

He is also called "specimen", which is really funny, and "dewdropper"?? for some reason I don't remember but it was in my notes and I couldn't ignore it lmao

[justanotherhh]

alastor and touch

just a post documenting alastor and touches throughout the show

I didn't include the pilot, but i do want to mention it, because one thing that's quite striking is how they changed that element from pilot!alastor to show!alastor somewhat. might make a separate post for the pilot at some point to compare

I also did a mix of when alastor noticeably doesn't touch someone directly and in what contexts he gets touched, as well as a couple of other related boundaries and moments of interest

ep1 overture: alastor doesn't touch anyone in this episode. also noting that this is the episode where we get him unequivocally turning down angel's advances, and avoiding being filmed several times, with the iconic "this face was made for radio" line, so not only is he not touching, he's also making some general boundaries clear

ep2 radio killed the video star: 1. niffty crawls up alastor and he picks her up and puts her down. she crawls up him again. he clearly doesn't mind 2. sir pentious rips off a corner of his coat. alastor blows him up -- he later burns the piece of coat that sir pentious had kept: "not many people have been able to take even this much off me." 3. the entirety of the vox vs al showdown is of course notably done over radio/tv, so they're never in the same room. just interesting in terms of how it goes down with them generally in s1, they're constantly kept at a distance via screens and airwaves

ep3 scrambled eggs: 1. taps an egg boi with his staff, while threatening it. generally uses his stick to interact with the egg bois -- pointing, tapping, etc 2. another brief "makes screen fuzzy on a security camera"

ep4 masquerade: notably the episode (with lots of sexual content and specifically valentino) where he doesn't appear, except for briefly in a flashback

ep5 dad beat dad: 1. shakes lucifer's cane, rather than his hand -- he also wipes his hand on his suit afterwards, as if disgusted 2. TOUCHES CHARLIE'S SHOULDER!! notably in front of lucifer in order to piss him off. then goes ONE STEP FURTHER and partially puts his arm around her when saying how proud they all are of her 3. grabs lucifer and spins him out of the way during his part of the song 4. picks niffty out of the toilet 5. during the song: dances with charlie, pats her on the head/tucks her in, and puts his hands on her shoulders 6. during the song: pushes lucifer aside again, including doing a little hip shove 7. lucifer grabs him by his lapels and gets right in his face 8. hugs mimzy 9. grabs charlie and steers her by the shoulders 10. grabs/strokes husk's ear 11. grabs husk via his leash 12. rips the bad guys apart with his tentacles. also picks them up with his hands and eats them 13. mimzy pokes him several times in the chest. he removes her finger in annoyance, and boops her on the nose condescendingly

ep6 welcome to heaven: the other episode that notably includes a sex club (and also heaven and a lot of talk about redemption) that does not involve alastor

ep7 hello rosie: 1. grabs charlie's shoulders, and then her face, forcing her to smile 2. grabs her shoulders again when talking about the angels 3. touches her hair, and then sidehugs her while selling her on the deal 4. DEAL HANDSHAKE 5. more shoulder grabbing, cheek pinching, and patting on head when he's talking about her being charming and capable 6. links arms with her while taking her to rosie 7. rosie joyfully grabs him and spins him around 8. grabs charlie when introducing her to rosie 9. gives charlie his mic in order to help her inspire the cannibals (later replaced with a cane given by rosie) 10. dances with rosie, including a little dip

ep8 the show must go on: 1. more attempted screen voyeurism by vox 2. charlie uses alastor's cane again to speech 3. niffty crawls over him again and places a crown of roaches on his head (possibly his most openly joyous moment) 4. fights adam using his shadow tentacles and creatures, before getting seriously wounded by him (and then has his famous mental breakdown at the idea that his reputation could have been blemished by having been read as altruistic of all things, *spits*) 5. the torn picture of alastor and vox shows them a little apart from one another 6. appears in the middle of the hotel gang and is hugged by charlie, patted on the back by vaggie, and also adorably hugged around the legs by niffty

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS: 1. other characters do initiate more touches, with husk being the other character who's more standoffish, but that's also his general slowly beginning to open up emotionally and he shifts especially with regards to angel after ep4 (although he does do casual pats and the like before that + the massage) 2. generally everyone touches casually in some way or other throughout the show, including in background moments, except for alastor, who always touches very deliberately, whether it's for violence, manipulation, condescension, or affection -- he doesn't seem to engage in casual touch, but does accept it from certain individuals (mainly niffty). for example in dad beat dad in which he initiates the most touches, he's pissing off lucifer and manipulating charlie. he hasn't touched her before this on the show proper, and he's doing it because he has an audience and is trying to convince both lucifer and her of something (that he's a better mentor/support system than lucifer) 3. similarly when he's being very familiar with charlie in hello rosie, he's selling her on making a deal with him, and then on making himself indispensable to her, while also grooming her*** [EDIT: been informed that this could be misread: "grooming" here meant in the general sense of mentoring her in a way that would benefit him, as he says "she's full of potential that i could guide," NOT in a sexual context] -- in true alastor fashion it's hard to say what's sincere and what's self-serving, but it certainly all serves a purpose 4. that being said, i think charlie has become a character he doesn't mind touching, just like he doesn't mind it with niffty, rosie, or mimzy. funnily enough the only time charlie initiates a touch with him is in the finale, when she's relieved he's alive 5. i think the kinds of touches from each of these characters is different. with charlie it's that aforementioned part-manipulation, part-mentor type vibe, where he's very much insinuating himself into her good graces and trust, with niffty it's because She Is A Creature Who Crawls, with mimzy there's a Past (and she clearly crosses a boundary because she thinks she can with him, and he puts his foot down on that), and with rosie there's a respect. before i did this noting down i also thought he touched rosie way more than he actually does, but he only does it once in order to dance (which, if anything else even applies, i think is his main source of actually enjoying touching others, i personally don't think he actually enjoys hugs, it's just a Thing some people expect of you), and simply acquiesces to her grabbing him in the first scene. again, i think he accepts this because he likes her 6. This Deer Does Not Touch Men If He Can Help It

CONCLUSION: if alastor respects you, he will let you touch him to an extent. he's not touchy himself, and mainly does it as a show of power, manipulation, and condescension (lucifer, mimzy, husk, charlie), but he likes dancing. he stays faaar away from sexual contexts in general

I also want to do a separate post on alastor and respect/closeness/familiarity, because i think it's worthwhile analysing how he expresses these things with characters on his terms (for example, giving charlie the mic says far more about his positive feelings towards her than any of the times he touches her), and it's mostly very clear when he's comfortable in a situation and when he's not

[intricatedemonicrituals]

Canon Destiel Timeline Masterpost

I wrote this all in a fugue state while listening to Green Grow the Lilacs on repeat so forgive any mistakes. @gay-fae ask and ye shall receive

So much has happened in the long and storied history of his fandom so I've decided to try to document it. I've started by looking up every time that canon destiel, destiel event, misha collins, jackles, or some other search terms have spiked on Google and cross referenced them with tumblr or twitter posts from that day. I know a lot of this is Misha stuff, but he does tend to be the one to say things

November 5th, 2020: Season 15, Episode 18 "Despair" airs and Castiel declares his love to Dean. The presidential election, Georgia turning blue, the presumed retirement of Vladamir Putin, Dabi from My Hero Academia, Ouran Host Club season 2, Sherlock season 5, the president of Bolivia being attacked with dynamite, ongoing BLM protests, a twitter artist making racist art of Ted Bundy, Hetalia returning, a dead man being elected Representative for North Dakota, V for Vendetta, scientists discovering a "hell" planet that rains rocks and has lava oceans, and half of Europe being in lockdown all became tumblr news around the same time. Some of these are true, some not.

November 8th, 2020: Misha Collins, in a panel with Richard Speight, states that the confession scene was a "declaration of homosexual love", and that when Castiel goes to the Empty, it is an example of the "Kill your gays" trope.

November 19th, 2020: The finale airs and it is not well loved to say the least. The episode is short, Dean dies by falling on a nail to death fighting vampire clowns, and there are several characters left with dangling unresolved plot threads and arcs, including Castiel. The car is in heaven though. There is very little heard from the cast and crew, if anything.

November 22nd, 2020: Misha Collins, in a livestream, tells a fan that Castiel and Jack are remaking heaven together, Cas has his wings back, and they are rainbow-colored. He had, however, mentioned the rainbow wings before.

November 24th, 2020: The Spanish dub of the confession is released and a "rogue" translator has written "Y yo a ti" or "I love you too" as Dean's response. Destiel goes canon in Spanish. Tumblr stops working as a result.

November 25th, 2020: tumblr user @thebloggerbloggerfun claims Jensen Ackles said "I had a member of the film crew record the confession scene on my phone for me" #unsourced #releasethetapes

November 26th, 2020: Misha doesn't appreciate the rogue translator, but walks that opinion back later the same day

November 27th, 2020: A "leaked" Italian dub of the confession scene shows a mutual confession.

November 28th, 2020: President Obama follows a destiel account on Twitter

November 30th, 2020: The supposed "Italian dub" is revealed as a fake created by user @iotiamo using sound clips from other parts of the Italian dub on show.

December 1st, 2020: Twitter user @mothdean says "misha I know you have a stan acc and spy on us so can we have a hazel update please"

December 3rd, 2020: Misha tweets about Hazel snoring and this is taken as possible confirmation of Misha's secret stan account

December 11th, 2020: A script from Cas's perspective leaks. It says "We see Cass's POV of Dean again - his face drawn, drained of hope. But still beautiful. Still Dean Winchester."

December 16th, 2020: Newsweek runs an article about an article that Misha wrote about the Lewinsky affair while interning in the Clinton White House in which Misha comes off as rather thirsty for Bill

December 20th, 2020: All Supernatural related materials disappear off the CW's website due to a copyright dispute with Warner Brothers

December 31st, 2020: Mishapocalypse redux

February 9th, 2021: Spn cast members Chad Lindberg and Samantha Ferris tweet about a party at the Roadhouse and it grows to become a full Destiel wedding

February 16th, 2021: @steveyockey made a fairly benign post about Jensen Ackles. The notes went wild in a variety of ways and started a rumor that Spn writer Steve Yockey was dead

February 20th, 2021: Steve Yockey is not dead and he should say it

March 3rd, 2021: The German dub drops and it is also romantic in tone

March 6-8th, 2021: A virtual con happens where Jensen discusses Chaos Machine and Jared says he wants to be in their next project. They also show that WAP video. Jensen is giving full mountain man preparing to play Soldier Boy.

March 10th, 2021: The French dub is released. Cas says, "I love you, Dean" and Dean now responds, "Don't do this to me, Castiel"

March 13th, 2021: The company Amazon tweets about Castiel and Misha Collins asks if they ship Deancas or Wincest. Subsequently apologizes.

March 16th, 2021: Misha says he can't speak as Castiel because Warner Brothers" specifically forbade it. #cwsniperconfirmed

March 17th, 2021: Sam and Eileen are getting married! I have no idea how this came about but I'm happy for them

March 23rd, 2021: Chad Lindberg and Samantha Ferris claim on Twitter that the Roadhouse party was about Valentine's day and not a wedding. Ferris specifically said that she worked on the show and that people tried to make Dean/Cas into "something that it wasn't", She also stated she doesn't "know what queerbaiting is" and that it was due to an "agenda". This led to #deanisbi trending on Twitter and Tumblr.

March 31st, 2021: Some possibly fake leaked scripts come up for sale on eBay. Also, Jensen is Batman.

April 1st, 2021: Mishapocalypse redux

April 6th, 2021: Leaked scripts from the 2 final episodes pop up and have several mentions of Cas in them that were omitted. Dean even thinks about Cas's confession when confronting Chuck.

April 18th, 2021: Scripts from seasons 12 and 13 leak. These include scenes from after Cas's death

May 17th, 2021: Jensen's band Radio Company releases an album including the song Watching Over Me

June ~5th, 2021: Misha says at a convention that Watching Over Me is about Castiel. Jensen neither confirms nor denies this when asked about it

June 11th, 2021: It is announced that Misha is publishing a book of poetry

June 18th, 2021: The Russian dub airs and Dean's line is changed to "Don't you dare, Cas"

June 24-28th, 2021: Jensen and Daneel Ackles reveal that they are making a Supernatural prequel series following John and Mary Winchester (a story that NOBODY was asking for). Jensen will reprise his role as Dean and will narrate. Misha hints that he would like to be involved, as do Ruthie Connell, Samantha Ferris, Matt Cohen, and Julie McNiven (the perils of having a cast of mostly immortal characters). But Jared Padalecki first says that he is happy for the Ackles's, he later said he was "gutted", then responded to Robbie Thompson's tweet calling him a "coward" and saying "what an awful thing you've done". The next day, Jensen and Jared both do damage control and say they'll always be brothers

July 17th, 2021: People are asking if Destiel will be canon in Space Jam, Misha's poetry book's cover is revealed to lukewarm reviews and people are talking about a particular poem about piss, and Perfume Genius releases an article that is a self-insert vore fanfiction about having sex with Jensen Ackles

August 2nd, 2021: Perfume Genius is at it again with "Last Friday, I had my eyes removed by Jared Padalecki". No, I do not know why she is doing this.

August 9th, 2021: Destiel fics hit 100k on Ao3. Misha tweets his support and people remember that he sometimes reads fanfiction and theorize he has an A03 account

September 1st, 2021: Misha makes his first Tiktok. There is a short intro before he calls cut, walks behind a screen, and strips his clothes off

September 3rd, 2021: Jake Abel uses Michael and Adam to help sell his hot sauce brand

September 4th, 2021: Misha confirms that the love between Castiel and Dean was "reciprocated"

September 9th, 2021: A clip of the real Italian dub of the confession scene goes viral as it is revealed that, unlike the Spanish dub, they change the line to "ti voglio bene" or essentially "I love you like family". Misha responds with a video saying "Ciao Italia, ti amo" with the subtitle "Love is love in any language"

September 21st, 2021: Misha drops the fact that one of his poems is from Castiel's perspective.

September 30th, 2021: Jensen will be appearing at a con on the same day as Misha and not with Jared for "professional reasons"

October 4th, 2021: Misha responds to a fan's tweet by saying that Jensen has "crazy eyes and a knife in his pocket"

October 10th, 2021: Daneel posts a picture of Jensen intently reading Misha's poetry book in front of a roaring fire on Instagram. Misha responds that he misses them even more

October 12th, 2021: Jensen is cast in Rust, a (rather ill-fated) western and Misha says "Yippie-ki-yay" and calls him a stud in the comments

October 16th, 2021: Denvercon. Jensen and Jared reunite for the first time since THE INCIDENT

April 24th, 2022: Misha Collins says in terms of being an extrovert, an introvert, or a bisexual, he joked "I'm all three". This led to the internet celebrating Misha's newly revealed bisexuality.

April 25th, 2022: Misha Collins comes out as straight. Oops!

June 19th, 2022: According to Misha, Dean's heaven was supposed to be at the Roadhouse with all his friends and Cas was going to be there with him

November 7th, 2022: Misha calls Elon Musk a snowflake

November 12th, 2022: Tumblr starts planning another Mishapocalypse

January 24th, 2023: Jensen and the cast of the Winchesters throw Dean Winchester a birthday party, including wearing silly little hats

February 26th, 2023: At JIBcon 11, Jensen sings an improvised song about an angel while Misha sits cross-legged on the floor looking up at him

April 1st, 2023: 10 year anniversary of the Mishapocalypse

April 16th, 2023: A year after his bisexual whoopsie daisy, Misha says that Warner Brothers asked him to "let it go" and keep pretending to be bisexual.

August 23, 2023: Rogue Spanish translator is revealed to not have gone rogue at all but instead to have followed the script he was given, confirming the existence of a mutual love confession that was cut at some point.

If you can remember any events and dates that I haven't found, please let me know and I'll add them! I haven't really rounded out 2022 and 2023 yet.

[littlebigmouse]

List of Small Things™ I enjoy about Fullmetal Alchemist in no particular order

Everyone in FMAB/manga is just Some Guy™ and very human and I love that so here goes:

Falman getting stuck with a serial-killing suit of armor in his appartment for days and his reaction to it. It may have been weeks. He's been on sick leave the entire time. He's a guy in his early thirties with a flock of early-greying hair because being in a dead-end-role in the military is stressfull, ok. He gets stuck at home with a funny little serial killer (and eventually some foreign body guards, and a foreign prince?? lighting signal fires in his backyard?? like man what a week)

The whole military ambush against the Devil's Nest was yes, kind of kickstarted by the gang kidnapping Al for Greed, but it was mostly kickstarted because Ed was down south to do his yearly official report and Bradley and Armstrong just happened to be present when he was informed Al had gone missing. Greed's entire operation was done in by a teen doing his paperwork

on that note, Greed really decided to spend his immortality wisely by pursuing absolutely none of his supposed ambitions and just decided to settle down with a bunch of buddies. An offshot of the buddies he was initially made to guard, too. I don't think Greed is aware of this either

everyone on that radio building. The radio host 100% down to get some coup-shenanigans into his station to drive engagement. The guys sympathising with Mrs Bradley and taking care of her. Breda taking control of the narrative with a perpetual frown by the skin of his teeth.

I know the story of how the Bradleys met is technically not canon(?) but Mrs Bradley slapping her future husband upon their first meeting because he got his flirting tips from his siblings will never not be funny. Idiots. All of them.

EVERYTHING about Darius and Heinkel. They lost their jobs and became wanted criminals upon helping out some scrawny 15 year old. They have families they miss dearly. They haven't looked back since. "You guys don't HAVE to help me save the world" - "It's not like we have anything better to do"

i was going to say the Ice Cream Truck, because it's iconic, but actually, when told to disguise a vehicle, 15-year-old pinacle of edgelord fashion Edward Elric turned it into a colourful nightmare of spikes that barely resembled a car but might be closely related to the worlds deadliest parade float. None of this was necessary. Ed is just like that.

Hawkeye growing her hair out after meeting Winry, and Winry getting piercings after seeing Hawkeye's

Denny Brosh bursting into tears when he sees Maria Ross is still alive. Dude managed to not quit his job despite working in the same city (department?) where his best friend's killer was his supervisor. They were also very real for showing us that this is a guy who oversleeps and is older brother to at least three younger siblings. There was no need to give us more on Denny Brosh but every little detail hit so hard when they reunited.

okay so remember that time Ed and Ling ate Ed's shoe. Remember that Ed spend some time on a "deserted island" as a kid. Gluttony's stomach had nothing on him. Izumi raised some anime-ass boy-scouts. 100% Farm boy behaviour. These kids are so 15 it makes me want to bite things

immortal, soul-spliced dwarf in a flask got rid of his Sloth and still managed to procrastinate on his world domination plan until the last minute. Most Human disaster.

the entire half-episode they spend on Dr. Knox and his regrets and family. FMA is so good about humanising everyone.

everyone bullied Yoki because he was a small town fraud exploiting workers for his own benefit. Simply a jerk. He also hit Pride with a car in an epic rescue, and cried and screamed the whole way through

that one shot of a kid curiously poking a soldier they found bound on the ground with a stick

(I know it's technically not canon, but-) "I'm trying to save your life, asshole!"

Edward Elric

[blossomthepinkbunny]

Talking about Adam and the villians of HB

Adam is such a dissapointing villain for Hazbin Hotel that absolutely doesn't make use of the great opportunities they had for the bad guy of this project. Like, what is Adam? A sexual, irrational, rockstar asshole who kills demons for fun and is shown to be completely idiotic and unable to make any good point for his actions. And that sucks.

Atleast to me, them making Adam an irredeemable asshole type just seems like the show acknowledging that they can't take any actual feedback on Charlies idea. He is a strawman who never really gets to be anything else until his final moments, when they want you to care about his fight. The show doesn't want you to actually think critical about what Charlie has planned it just wants you to think she is right, by making you hate Adam, by making his side actively carry out genocide. The fact that a show all about revealing that people have layers and presenting seemingly morally grey areas in them has a villian who is completely one note and just evil and irrational because the show needs him to be is not great.

There are actual things that can be criticized about the Hotel and the idea of redeeming sinners, but Adam can't call any of these out because then Charlie would have to defend herself, which she can't do and then you would realize that the writers couldn't think of arguments for why she is right. And then Charlie would come off as not as great as they want you to think she is.

What if he had called out the fact that genuinely no demon seems to give a shit about being a better person. We don't get a definitive time for how long Charlie has been working on the Hotel but we can assume that it has been atleast a little longer. We see her advertise her idea on the news in the pilot and the Hotel makes an advertisement in the first episode, so we know that it's pretty open information that a place where demons can redeem themselves exist. Yet in the entirety of the pilot, season one and however much time lays between the two, only two sinners came to the hotel to change (im not counting staff members because they are there to work, not to be redeemed).

Angel Dust and Sir Pentious are the only ones who came to stay, which either means that just no other sinner cares to be better or that Charlie is not taken seriously and that her hotel is viewed as stupid in concept alone. And you have to remember that even these two didn't initially join because they genuinely wanted to change.

Angel just decided to stay because it was a cheap place to live where he wouldn't have to see Val. And while Pentious does decide he wants to be better, we don't know if he would have even done that, had it not been for the agreement he made with Vox (which made him come to the hotel with bad intentions in the first place).

Why doesn't Adam get to point out that sending Sinners to heaven might be a bad idea when there are probably people that they hurt or may have even killed up there. Like, Angel Dust was in the Mafia and you can assume that he has quite the killcount and it's very possible that some of his victims are in heaven. That goes for every other demon too, they're down there for a reason. And while sometimes that reason might be something stupid or irrelevant, just giving every demon the benefit of the doubt and a chance to get to heaven (in theory) seems pretty irresponsible.

That is also completely ignoring the fact that Charlie's method has no proof of even working. Seemingly in the entirety of hell existing no sinner has ever redeemed themselves and went to heaven until Sir Pentious, which was mostly an accident as well.

I'm not saying Adam had to be likeable or relatable, but it's pretty obvious that they made him so hateable just because. He can't just be an obnoxious, sexist asshole because that's not blatantly evil enough apparently. He also has to commit genocide for no reason other than that he enjoys it. Again, im not saying his genocide should be excusable, but he should have a reason that isn't presented as him just doing it for fun because hes a jackass (he should have a reason that would make what he is doing okay in his own eyes where the viewer could understand how he views the world without having to agree necessarily).

Writing evil characters who are purely bad because they just are can work. But in my opinion that shouldn't be the main villian, especially not in a show where the central idea is supposed to be discussing morality and moral greyness.

Cioccolata from Jjba is a villian where this works in my opinion. He is just evil and Araki really plays that up. He isn't just a crazy doctor type who violently experiments on people for fun, his backstory also shows that he has been doing this since he was 14 and started with driving elders to suicide. And also he films everything he does because he just likes watching people suffer. Cioccolata really is just irredeemably crazy and sadistic but it works for him because he is just a side antagonist and therefore doesn't have the burden of playing as a direct counter to our main protagonist and because for all his immoral actions he still has philosophy behind that. A fucked up philosophy but an understandable (not excusable) one nonetheless. He explaines that in his eyes people can only experience true happiness from two situations. Either when your own despair is replaced with hope, or when one watches other people fall into despair themselves. In his eyes, the more people he watches die, the more he understands the human race and the stronger he gets, which leads into another aspect of his philosophy, which is that the strong have have the right and responsibility to rule over the weak. That is why I think he works.

We actually get some insight into Adams deeper character motivation in his last moments. When he gets upset that the demons aren't just falling at his feet, worshipping him, even though he is the original man all life came from. And that would be a good idea to expand on, that Adam has this intense sense of entitlement that leads him to despise the demons because he doesn't have power over them, when he feels like he should. And because a crowd of people that don't worship him, feels threatening to him, he would want them gone as to not possibly risk his position of power with their ideas.

That could be the reason for why he despises Charlie, because she is a demon who makes her own plans to save her people, which would mean they could start to follow her and work with her, rather than idolizing him. Something like that would work so well for his character and would fit this saviour attitude that some religious people have when "helping" atheists by recommending that they should be religious to make all their problems dissapear or something (no shade to people who genuinely find peace and safety in their religion I think that's actually great but it's not a solution for everybody). The last moments he has give great insight into what his character could've been, had they focused on this, rather than always just having him say how much he enjoys killing demons for no reason.

And in the song he has he also nearly approaches giving another possible reason for his actions (that being that he just doesn't care because demons already had their chance to be good, didn't choose that and now don't deserve a second chance), but that is also never expanded on and is pretty much ignored throughout the season.

Also I find it interesting that Adam has to be completely and irredeemably evil, hated by everyone, while Lucifer gets away with just letting the people he is supposed to rule die like it's nothing. Lucifer didn't to anything to stop the exterminations, he didn't contact his daughter in quite some time and actively mocks her idea when first meeting her after these months of not giving a shit for her or what she does (her idea that is supposed to save his people from literal death btw).

We see him easily finish Adam off in the finale which begs the question for why he just never cared to do anything before. But it's fine because he's just so silly and goofy and actually cares a lot for Charlie say's the show. That is why he gets to be redeemed in the same episode he appeared in for the first time and no one is allowed to question him because then you're just not nice and understanding.

Lucifer didn't have to like sinners. I think his approach of basically leaving the sinners to their own devices is pretty interesting. But HH wants you to hate Adam and like Lucifer without acknowledging that people who just watch bad stuff being done without doing anything about it are also shitty. And for Lucifer it seems extra shitty because we see he can literally just defeat Adam and he just didn't do anything for this whole time.

Helluva Boss has this problem too where it picks characters it wants you to like and if you don't like them then you're just wrong. And therefore no villian gets to call these characters out without being shown to be either stupid, irrational or mean.

Striker was genuinely interesting and cool when he first appeared. He was an antagonist who had understandable goals that tied in well with the trajectory of the story. The classism in hell's society is a pretty relevant theme for HB. We see that Blitzø has to sleep with Stolas to be able to even do his job and earn a living, we see Imps just being tossed around and abused and hear Stolas say stuff like "impish little plaything" to Blitzø. Striker wanting to take the demons of high rank down to make hell better for the Imps by ending classism made sense and was an interesting take to see. Especially since at that point the show didn't insist on Stolas being this misunderstood good guy who just cares soo much for Blitzø, there was a sense of suspense maybe to watch wether or not Blitzø will go along with Striker or if this interaction might influence how he views his clearly predatory "relationship" with Stolas.

But all of that got thrown out the window because in s2 we just can't have people criticise Stolas, since actually acknowledging the fact that he benefited and actively made use of hells classist system would mean that we wouldn't see him as a poor confused bean anymore and that one might actually think of some of the pretty bad implications the Stolitz relationship has. So now Striker is a completely obvious, self obsessed bad guy who loves himself so much that he monologues about how great he feels when torturing Stolas instead of just killing him while they also gave him a weird gimmick where he doesn't like it when someone makes a sexual remark and gets so upset that he drags out Stolas' killing and gets defeated by Millie and Moxxie because of it (the same guy was established as a great assassin in another episode).

They also removed all the backbone to his ideology. He still talks about Stolas diminishing Imps in "Western Engery" but it lacks any point because they have gone so far with woobifying Stolas that he is presented as sympathetic and Striker as bigoted. Striker also acts like he can't kill Stolas because Stella called off the assassination on him. I get him being upset that he won't get his money for the kill but he still has very clear reasons for why he would want Stolas dead regardless (atleast he had when he was still a cool character). It's not like suddenly not being hired anymore would make a big change for him.

Killing Stolas could have consequences because Stolas is royalty, but these consequences always existed for him even while Stella was requesting the assassination. Stella would obviously not want others to know that she is reponsible for Stolas dying (then again we don't know if that would even matter since demons generally don't care about killing others until it's plot relevant) and the point of an assassin is that people are killed in a way that can't be tracked back to someone, so Striker should also not face issues, especially since he is apparently a really good and threatening assassin.

Striker was interesting until the show decided it liked Stolas too much for people to call him out and be presented as reasonable. Stella was turned into just an abusive, whiny and stupid bitch who just hates Stolas and wants his money instead of acknowledging that she pretty much has the same backstory as Stolas, who we are constantly told to feel bad for because of his childhood (arranged marriage, forced to have a child and a set-up relationship neither of them wanted).

Verosika is really not relevant but usually also falls into the "bitchy and just rude" category because she doesn't like Blitzø (it's not as bad for her as it is with Stella but still). Asmodeus and Fizzarolli where really mean and exposed and embarrassed Stolas and Blitzø publicly. But the next time we see Asmodeus interact with Stolas he is just chill with him? Why? Blitzøs and Fizzarollis relationship was atleast handled in a way and we see him act rude towards Blitzø until they make up. But it still followes the theme of people who dislike Stolas and Blitzø either changing their mind or just being shown to be horrible to make their opinion seem invalid (also notice how these male characters in the story get to be forgiven for how they acted and show different sides to their character while the women are reduced to being bitchy).

Barbie Wire was also handled soo bad. She only appears in the last few minutes of her début episode and never gets to talk about specifically why she doesn't want to have contact with Blitzø in the first place. The focus is mostly on how hurt he is by the fact his Sister wants nothing to do with him, even after he worked soo hard to find her and just wanted to make things right with her soo bad. They also basically made her a groomer which just doesn't help her come off as reasonable at all.

For a show that wants it's main characters to do bad stuff and have to deal with being called out for that it surely doesn't like people actually calling them out.

The double standards applied to the villians as opposed to the "good guys" are also just amazing. Like Millie and Moxxie can complain about Chaz being a bad partner in hindsight, but when Verosika talks about Blitzø being selfish in their relationship it's all about how he feels. Loona literally throwing stuff at Blitzø, hurting him just because he dared to carefully point out a true fact about her behaviour is played for laughs, but Stella abusing Stolas is super duper evil and we all hate her now (not saying it isn't bad but the show shouldn't pick and choose who is funny when abusive and who is evil when abusive). The I.M.P taking out random people because they were paid to is fine, but Striker attacking Stolas after being hired is bad just because he also happens to have a (understandable) motiv for why he would want to do it regardless of his job and because Stolas just so happens to be a main character. Blitzø and Loona commenting on Moxxies weight is funny, but when Mammon remarks that Fizzarolli gained a few pounds he is just bad.

That's just my opinion on some of the antagonists in HH and HB. Mammon is pretty much the only villian I really care for in both shows (also Stella and Striker before they got ruined). I mainly think antagonist are either really underused (Vox, Velvette, Verosika) or were just incredibly mishandled (Adam, Striker, Stella). Part of this post was just an excuse to talk about Jjba tho, which I always love.

[fillingthescrapbook]

Let's Talk About: A Change of Plan

Not episode-related but… is anyone else seeing the yellow oval shape on the bottom right corner of their screen when they watch anything on Dropout's website?

That out of the way--

Brennan making Evan a long-backer was not on my bingo card… but it makes sense. Regardless of how Erika, Danielle, and Aabria feel about it. Evan's energy from the very beginning was giving plank-body.

And since we're on the subject of Evan-- I am definitely vibing more with this aggressive and allowed-to-be-angry side of Evan more than the poor little meow meow we used to get before. Like, sure, I get that he wasn't sad all the time during the first season, but the energy was there. He was a sad boy. And I am learning now that I really really do not like sad boys.

Last episode, I mentioned Erika as being exceptionally great at shrinking. I did say that Lou and Danielle were doing amazing jobs as well (although not with those words exactly), but this week's MVP is Danielle Radford. Those lines of improvised dialogue that were a mile-a-minute long were simply incredible. Impeccable. And that's not to mention how she had Sam react to Evan freaking out about the discovery of how he died. "Together. Alone. Not us." Indeed.

Oh and that small reveal about Sam's family life? I want to hug Sam (to)B(decided).

And then we get to Cocaine Sam. And having her be the one to greet Boudy-boots. Amazing. Exceptional. No notes. (Also: Cocaine has to be an integral part of the Never Stop system mechanics now, right?)

Now, I'm not gonna go through everything that happened one by one. I never do. But here are the things that really stood out to me this episode, and why Misfits and Magic Season 2 is winning me over from my…lack of enthusiasm for the first season.

Number one: The breaking of wands. Erika's was sort of an accident. As explained in the Adventuring Academy, Erika saw that a tiny score was made on her wand. To allow it to break more easily. This discovery helped inform her decision to break it "accidentally" in the previous episode. The other players then realized that all their wands had been scored. And that a mechanic has been put in place for when said wands were broken. A mechanic that has now been fully explained in this episode.

I love this mechanic. I love that it--whether intentional or not--is a symbol for breaking Misfits and Magic off from "the franchise." Because the wands have become so intrinsically linked to said franchise. Although, I must admit--from a sentimental point of view--it hurts to see them break the wand. Although, at the same time, I guess that's why it's so powerful. It's their link to the magical world. It's one of the first things that showed them their potential. Much like the franchise was for many of us. And it's become very important for us to break off that connection to see that there's more magic to explore. That we are not limited to the wands. And the brooms. And the familiars.

And oof. The familiars. Aabria caught me off guard with that reveal. Like the road we were walking on were paved with figurative bones but the confirmation still took me aback. Because funny season, ha ha! We killed a player's character. We killed a major NPC. And we're killing familiars. Funny!

That's not a dig at Aabria. I love what she did. One of the most affecting episodes of television I've seen in recent memory is from How I Met Your Mother. It had a visual gag of a countdown. And the whole episode was filled with mishaps that were propelled by humor and love. And then when the countdown reaches 1--it punches you in the gut. And you were warned. But you still didn't expect it. And it feels so bad--but it's done so well. That's what Aabria did.

And that brings me to my second reason why Misfits and Magic is beginning to win me over.

Aabria is handing us character progression that is steeped in gray morality. Characters who rubbed us the wrong way are learning to be better people, while still being their snotty selves. Characters we liked have found themselves getting lost not because they're inherently evil but because of inaction, because of self-preservation coupled with their avoidance to step out of their comfort zone. There's grace in the way Aabria shows the players how their friends have fallen. And I think it's beautiful.

So, yeah, I am coming around to Misfits and Magic. Will it beat both Burrow's End or A Court of Fey and Flowers as a better Aabria season? I don't know. ACoFaF is one of my favorite Dimension 20 seasons ever and Burrow's End is also pretty high up. So probably not. But will I look back on Season 1 more kindly now? Definitely yes.

Last two things I wanted to mention:

First, the sudden volume drop when Evan stopped yelling-- I can't imagine what the poor sound guy who got the full burst of Brennan's highest vocal had gone through. Thankfully, Sam Reich takes care of the Dropout crew well.

And last, when K responds with "maybe the Tumblr users are gonna help?" to Evan's diatribe? Oh, K. Most of us are already struggling with one thing or another and are paralyzed by bigger things. If we had wonky magic to deal with on top of that? Oh ho ho, K. Oh ho ho.

[follows-the-bees]

Changing Channels analysis (cause this episode is so good!)

Let's first talk about Dean and how he relates to TV — and how that also relates to his sexuality!

Near the beginning we see Dean, mouth open, straight on staring at a dramatic medical show. From a character analysis, we see a couple things. Television has shaped so much of Dean's life and how he relates to it and uses it to relate to other people.

Dean uses these tv references to relate to others. But sometimes he tries to hide his viewing habits. During this scene, Dean tries to play off watching the show as a fluke, but even before the facade is lifted later on, he mentions: "I think it's based on a book," this tells us that Dean knows more about this show than he's letting on.

Later on, when Dr. Sexy makes his appearance, Dean is starstruck: blushing, first afraid to look him in the eye. He doesn't seem as fixated on the female doctor, the one notably in the elevator in the first scene. In fact, that character is obsessed with Sam.

It is Dr. Sexy Dean is obsessed with, the one where Dean can't put up the facade, who looks down blushing and sees that his shoes are not his usual sexy cowboy boots. For many people, this is one of the loudest Dean being bi episodes.

Moving on to a slightly related note: Cas

This episode is only a few after Free To Be You and Me and The End. If we take into account Dean and Cas' friendship by the time CC aired, Dean and Cas have become better friends. They worked a case together spending a lot of time together. Then Dean saw Cas in another world follow him to the end — a su*cide mission. And he realizes not only what Cas would do for him but his feelings about Cas may be deeper than he originally thought.

Throughout this entire episode he worries about Cas. He brings up Cas many times, worried about where he is. (At least 3 times it's brought up) And near the end, when they figure out who the trickster really is, one of the first things Dean does is threaten Gabriel to bring Cas back.

Dean was worried about losing Cas. He had to experience it in The End and I don't think he was ready to lose him again.

During the Japanese game show, the host also calls Cas "pretty boy angel" leading to a series of facial expressions on Dean's face. These expressions can be read as Dean realizing that Cas is pretty. Another example of both Dean's bisexuality and his feelings about Cas. Cas is also part of the reason Dean figures out who the trickster really is.

When Cas comes back for the second time and the trickster shows up, the trickster shows his cards. Cas says "if it is the trickster," then Gabe recognizing Castiel, and being so adamant about the apocalypse, Dean figures it out. I love this moment because sometimes SPN capitalizes on making Dean dumb for laughs, but this is a moment of Dean's brilliance. Also notable is that Gabriel is aware of who Castiel is. Castiel was not a worker bee angel, he led a garrison, he was tasked with getting the righteous man out of Hell. Gabriel and Cas are one of the few angels to fall and choose humanity over angels.

Cinematography

I wouldn't be me if I didn't mention the amazing cinematography that SPN can have. Angel fire shots are always so pretty and can cast a sinister light on the subject. This episode goes from a light-hearted sitcom to once of the biggest reveals of the season.

The light wallpaper and bright lights turn into a dark and dreary wet pipe factory matching the tones of the reveal. Sam and Dean were not aware of their roles in the apocalypse fully until this episode. They knew that Dean started the seals and Sam releasing Lucifer, but not about being vessels. Out of a sense of guilt and duty, the boys are trying to stop the apocalypse in their own way. But now they have this heavy weight on them, not only are they vessels but their fate is for one of them to kill the other. Even with this knowledge, Dean says no, they won't kill each other. Their siblingship is strong here even after the short break up of a few episodes here.

While CC starts off as a fun romp, when we look deeper, it is full of great character analysis of the TFW. I love it.

Original post here

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Olivia Reingold

On October 7, 2024—one year after Hamas invaded Israel, murdering 1,200 people—The New York Times published an episode of its flagship podcast, The Daily. It featured two men on opposite sides of the conflict: an Israeli man who’s moved from hotel to hotel after Hamas destroyed his community, and a father trying to survive in Gaza. 

But while the Israeli man was described in full—as a “liberal” 44-year-old father named Golan Abitbul, born and raised on Kibbutz Be’eri, the Palestinian man’s identity was shrouded in secrecy. The New York Times simply referred to him as “Hussein, a Palestinian man living in Gaza.” The host, Sabrina Tavernise, did not ask Hussein any follow-up questions when he revealed that, unlike most Gazans right now, he has “a good income” and is able to pay about $1,000 a month for rent. And she let him explain—uninterrupted—about why, a year later, the war ravages on.

“I’m surprised that there is humans doing this force,” Hussein said of Israeli soldiers, in broken English. “How could human became this evil, killing others, imposing collective punishment on over two million people with no reason? What are they going to gain? Why they are doing this?”

But what Tavernise did not say is that “Hussein” is Hussein Owda, whose name is listed in the show notes on audio platforms that host the podcast, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And what The New York Times does not reveal is that Owda’s background suggests links to Hamas. A simple Google search turns up his LinkedIn page, where he publicly lists an eight-year stretch working for the Municipality of Gaza, which sources told me is controlled by Hamas; a new job at the controversy-riddled United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (also known as UNRWA); and an eight-month stint at Muslim Hands, a nonprofit exposed by the UK’s Telegraph in 2014 for having “close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.” Hamas was originally established in the 1980s as the local Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.Hussein Owda (via LinkedIn)

From September 2015 until August 2023, Owda lists his job as the head of public relations for the Municipality of Gaza. “Every government structure in Gaza was run by Hamas,” Jon Schanzer, a former terrorism analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, told me. “The people that were paying his salary ultimately would’ve gone up the chain to Hamas itself.” Schanzer added that Owda, as the former head of public relations for the Municipality of Gaza, likely was “providing propaganda” to advance the mission of Hamas.

Meanwhile, three on-the-ground sources in Gaza—two of whom were provided through The Center for Peace Communications, which has a network of sources in the region—all confirmed to The Free Press that Owda has links to Hamas. One Gazan man who has met Owda said that “Employment at the municipality requires approval from the internal security, the local mosque’s emir, and Qassam Brigades intelligence,” referring to Al-Qassam Brigades, the militant wing of Hamas behind the group’s October 7 attack. Another Palestinian source in Gaza told The Free Press, “It’s impossible to get a job in the municipality unless you’re with Hamas.” (All sources in Gaza asked to withhold their names to protect them from possible retaliation by the terrorist group.)

[checkoutmybookshelf]

The Quartet That Started It All

As followers of this blog will note, this is not actually the quartet that started it all for me, but it DID launch author Tamora Pierce's career in the 1980s, and Alanna remains absolutely beloved among Pierce's heroines. Let's talk the Song of the Lioness Quartet.

In a classic case of "if I can't do this as a girl, then I'll do this as a boy and I have a handy twin brother to go full Twelfth Night with," Alanna of Trebond begins The First Adventure by dressing as a boy to train as a page in Tortall's royal court. This book introduces all our main characters and establishes Alan the page amongst his peers and Alanna as she finds herself and her place in chivalry.

One of the other amazing things about Alanna's story overall is that she begins it absolutely terrified of her own magical gift. Her arc includes learning to work with her magic rather than to fear it, and that's a twist on magic users that I really appreciated. We often get overly confident magic users--indeed, we'll get TWO of them later in the series--but it's rare that we get magic users who are fully aware of their powers and are still absolutely terrified of them. So of course, the story and the world and Pierce herself keep throwing Alanna into situations where she has no choice but to develop and use her gift. It's so, so good. This first book covers Alanna's page years, and we move into her squire years in book two.

In the Hand of the Goddess really expands on Alanna's key relationship with Prince Jon on Conte, Duke Roger of Conte, and Geroge Cooper. Alanna moves into a wider world of adult politics and stakes in this book. From being able to defeat an older, stronger, and more experienced opponent in a duel to developing her healing skills when a wound puts her out of commission during a war, Alanna cements her skills, connections, and position in society. This culminates with unmasking Roger as an attempting regicide and the accidental reveal of her gender.

This book is really, really good, and extends Alanna's childhood fear of magic to her fear of Roger specifically in a really natural, logical way. I could say more about the details, but these two books have an episodic vibe to them, so I won't spend too much time exploring every single key plot event.

The Woman Who Rides Like a Man sees Alanna spending her first year as a knight in the desert, with a Bazhir tribe. She becomes their shaman by way of self-defense; she murders their first shaman when he tries to murder her for "being unnatural." Then it falls to Alanna to train three magic users for the tribe, and this is where we see more nuance into how different magic users relate to their powers, from sheer hubris to fear to "this is just part of me, let's do this." It's a phenomenal experience for Alanna, and she learns as much from her students as they do

Book three also sees Jonathan bitching to hell and back about having to be king, which is not a great look, and it's one Alanna calls him on. He spends most of the book alternating between pitching a hissy fit, begging Alanna to marry him, and training to take over as Voice of the Tribes. The interesting thing here is that Alanna refuses to marry Jon. He is trying to fit Alanna into his own fairy tale, and she very much goes "That isn't our relationship, I can't do that. We aren't meant to be like that, and that's ok." If I could inject that lesson into humanity's collective head, I would. It's well done and it's great.

Lioness Rampant picks up on Alanna's travels after she leaves the Bazhir, and eventually sees her return to Corus with a magical artifact to help secure Jonathan's position as king.

There's also the teeny tiny complication that Alanna's twin brother, Thom, has resurrected Duke Roger. Absolute chaos ensues, and Roger almost manages to take out the entire court during Jonathan's coronation. Nobody should have to kill an evil sorceror twice, but Alanna did.

If you want to dive into Tamora Pierce's Tortall Universe, starting with Alanna is absolutely a good choice. These books hold a very soft spot in my heart, and they're never not engaging.

[charmac]

Cracked recently did an interview with Andrew Friedman (Uncle Jack):

It’s strange they didn’t ask (or did and didn’t reveal) whether he was in Season 17, but there was still some good Sunny info in the article that leads me into some thoughts for the upcoming season, particularly when he was asked how Sunny has changed over the years:

The co-directing mention is interesting, and I wonder if that might be related to Season 17 because there are a lot of first-time Sunny directors this year (and the episodes Andrew did in 16 were directed by long-time Sunny directors)… so perhaps Uncle Jack will be back.

And when he talked about working with Danny, mentioning that up until shooting, he’s off set:

I think we’ve kinda known this is how Danny works (and more-so as the years go on) but I can’t recall getting any harder confirmation than a statement like this that Danny’s double/stuntman is basically on set if Frank has scenes.

Why this is interesting to me is the fact that his double, Mario Munoz, announced that he wrapped Season 17 on November 22. This somewhat pretty heavily implies that Danny wrapped around that time too, and Frank was not in the final scenes they were shooting this week.

We kind of also suspect that Charlie had wrapped a week early as well, due to the lack of beard, so it seems that whatever scenes they shot in the last week, it didn’t involve Charlie or Frank

What does this mean? Well, if they were shooting in order (which is a toss-up, but I will note that both 15 and 16 shot their finales in order) that means the finale of S17 probably has Frank/Charlie fairly separate from Mac/Dennis/Dee (and potentially the Waitress in an old lady costume?)’s plot, and we know the finale is the white board episode from Rob’s Twitter challenge… which seemed Frank-heavy based on what we could make out. So, this potentially means there is a significant B plot there that just isn’t clear from Charlie’s chicken scratch

Or, it could have just been a scheduling thing for Charlie and/or Danny, so they decided to push an episode (or many scenes) that didn’t call for either of them to the end of production.. but it’s still interesting to think about the pairings here, regardless. Probably, more particularly, the fact that unless beardless Charlie Kelly is real, the Waitress’ plot is not with him this season (not that crazy, he didn’t have scenes with her in S15) but instead most likely something to do with Mac/Dennis/Dee

And my insane brain is for some reason beaming Mac’s Banging the Waitress into my head through all of this with this…. But probably just cos I would kill for a reprieve/parallel of that episode

[yuri-is-online]

TDB Episode 7 Thoughts

So this episode sort of felt like a filler chapter between "Meeting the Ghouls" and "the Laurel Crown" arcs of the story. I didn't mind since I really like Yuri and Jiro's dynamic, but the pacing of the story was very quick and not a whole lot happened, after an Episode as loaded with action as Obscuary's it can feel a bit like a let down.

Now as for specific thoughts:

I want to start by saying I appreciate how Yuri doesn't believe in the prophecy because it isn't scientific but 100% thinks he is the chosen one, the champion anyway. Yes, have that self confidence that is nothing but a paper shell built on lies to cover your insecurities king! We love a pathetic meow meow in this house!

His connection to Frostheim... I have had this crack theory in my head that he is related to Jin somehow, like maybe he's his brother or something, but I do think how he talks about Frostheim makes me think he is either a transfer to Mortranken or used to be closer to Jin than he is now. We all are pretty sold on Haku being the one who sold Jin out, but there is a chance it could have been Yuri too I suppose.

We were right! Zenji and Jiro are brothers! And we have Zenji's real name, Taro Kirisaki! He doesn't seem to hate it or anything he is just really proud of his role as a man of the quill so he uses a pen name.

Zenji really loves his brother huh. "If anything were to happen to him I might not survive it this time round" I'd be willing to bet that whatever happened to the Krisaki brothers was connected, it's just that Zenji got dumped at Darkwick General while Jiro was taken in by Yuri. Zenji's voicelines about a brother "in his rebellious phase" and his struggle to express his love for his older brother makes me think they might have been at odds before the clash... maybe Jiro hated how laid back Zenji was when he literally made a deal with a demon? Of course he did too... but maybe Zenji's was related to trying to make Jiro healthy? He seems to have some sort of auto-immune disease and while that could be a side-effect of the coma but it could also be something Jiro's always struggled with and explain why Zenji is so protective of him. I bet they were killed by the same anomaly...

Sorry I have a lot of feelings about the Kirisaki brothers... what happened to them? Why does no one care that they're dead and dying other than Yuri? I don't think Zenji cares that much that Jiro doesn't remember him so long as he's alive... but would it bother Jiro if he could remember? Does he ever find himself making tea and turn to scold someone for talking too much, he's being annoying again but there isn't anyone there and he doesn't know who he's scolding because it wasn't Yuri... does he know how to make tea because Zenji insisted on teaching him? Is Zenji the one who he would tease about being afraid of dead bodies before MC?

Right on not simp notes: we have more information about the murder, the victim was from Ultio! And the murder predated the Clash so it's pretty safe to say the inability of the school to find the murderer is probably what kicked things off.

We also have hints of a mermaid student, so be patient fish fuckers we- I mean you will be getting fed soon. This student seems to be known to Yuri and Haru, and Haru's reaction suggests he might think of him as a friend? He's not beating the Steve Irwin allegations is he, I'm surprised Ed isn't obsessed with him at this point. Then again I think Ed would resent me implying he's an animal, but we've seen the inside of his room so I rest my case.

Nicholas appears to be in hot water with the Institute, and he is not trusted by Yuri. Cornelius references something he calls "the Dionysia breakout" as being Nicholas's fault to contain... given that those students are missing and Nicholas has only recently found them... I want more information before I say anything but Yuri's explanation of how he sees anomalous anything illnesses I think it makes sense to say an anomaly outbreak occurred in the Dionysia dorm that was not contained by its ghouls, something the school blames Nicholas for.

The school knew the MC was going to turn into an anomaly and did not tell her "for her mental health." I like MC's mixed feelings on this. On the one hand I don't think she would have handled it well if we had learned it immediately. On the other, I am a firm believer that information is not something that should be gate kept, and hey. It's the MC's life she deserves to know what happened to her. I think I land on not trusting Darkwick but I do trust Yuri, I want to know why he's so determined to cure MC but I don't doubt his sincerity in the slightest. If I had to say who is most determined to see MC cured, I'd say its Yuri and Haru. And Zenji but he's out of commission at the moment. Yuri has an ego the size of his forehead, but he does seem very passionate about curing anomalous diseases and takes failures a bit more personally than he'll ever admit to. Haru is just a stand up guy who seems like he wants the best for those he loves, and he really does seem to love MC! He says he'd trust her with his life! That's my dorm captain he's literally the best <3

The tree is curious, one of the fruits looked a bit better, but then it shrunk after the announcement of the Laurel Crown and the Gala coming back... which I guess makes sense? The ghouls are fighting again, technically, and if their hate for each other is what makes the tree sick then I don't think it is going to get better. Speaking of the tree... poor MC.

Yuri's description of an anomaly that could destroy the world does match up with how Ed describes the Kyklos. Dani and I talked about this already, but that name (in addition to being super similar sounding to cyclops explaining why she has one eye) is ancient greek for cycle. It is typically used to refer to a theory about human history that depicts it as being a cycle between Dark and Golden ages, how this monster came to be is something I'd be super interested to learn about... I have some theories but they're 100% pure Colombian crack with no evidence.

That being said, Ed knows what it is but Darkwick's staff does not... Ed revealing the MC is going to turn into a monster to the whole student body makes a lot of sense for him to do actually. He sees it as him helping the MC because he wants the ghouls to compete to cure her, and knowing how he thinks of humans he probably assumed they wouldn't do so unless there was an incentive so that's why he made that the goal the dorms would have to meet to win the Laurel Crown.

Speaking of which... Sho. Shohei. Hyde has him doing a special mission, wonder what that is huh? Whatever it is, that's suspicious. That's weird. I've got both my eyes on you Mr. Playboy, Lyca wouldn't do this to me maybe he should get to keep the babygirl title.

... also I really love the "if it were not for the laws of this land I would have killed you" vibes Rui, Tohma, and Haku had during their little conversation. I was dying, "oh hiiiii Rui :D so nice to see you NOT IN THE SHADOWS STALKING ME. DID YOU KNOW HE CAN DO THAT MC? GO INTO SHADOWS AND STALK YOU? NO???" Haku just being like "teehee maybe MC and I are a thing Tohma" and Tohma leaving that on read because who cares? Not him his interests are classified but I swear its ntr- *i am shot and dragged from the premises*