#or like some sort of fucked up mitosis

[mothmangang]

what if Michael isn't dead? what if more then one distortion can exist at a time and Michael was just messing with jon? what if he just shows up and it's like Jon: *getting kidnapped again or some shit and is tied to a chair* Michael: *fuck ass laugh.mp3* "isn't this a familiar situation?" Jon: "Michael? I thought you were dead! that you- the distort-that helen- your door- Michael: *interrupting like the bastard he is and with enough smugness to be audible* "Collect your thoughts Archivist I can wait" Jon: *deep inhale of remembering why he hated this guy* "I thought you died. That Helen took your place, You- your door locked You were screaming and then you- Micheal: *cutting him off* "what an odd thing to say!. Taking my place? Taking my place" *cue fuck ass laugh.mp3* Jon: *talking over Michael's hysterical laughter* "but I saw her-you-she-err -I saw The Distortion, it was her and she said you were gone! If you weren't then-then why couldn't you open your door?! Huh. And what about the scream?, You sure sounded like you were dying!" Michael: "So many questions Archivist! You'd scream too if your dinner decided it wanted to be your stomach." Jon: *glaring at Michael cause he's not making any fucking sense TM* Michael: "Just because I don't like being Michael doesn't mean ripping out my throat is a good option. I've long since accepted being me!" Jon: "Then what about her-err,- Helen. After you were locked out I saw her. She was like you,with the long fingers and such." Michael: "I can imagine she was quite mad at the time. locking me out and tearing at our throat the way that she was at the time, but we've since come to an agreement" Jon: *starring annoyed at Michael* Michael: "Oh! I suppose you'd want me to tell you what it was? I guess there's no harm in sharing. I get to stay me, and she's allowed to be her! quite simple really. Although if I hadn't gotten there in time then she would've been me and I would've been gone.I think she actually was me for a moment but I'm quite hard not to be so it wasn't for very long." Jon: "You do realise that you're making absolutely zero sense" Michael: *hmm* "Let's put it like this, I am me and she is me, but I Michael and she is not Michael. We are both The Distortion but while I am The Throat she is The Stomach. Does that paint you a clearer picture Archivist?" Jon: "Not quite but if you-" Helen: *opening the door and cutting him off* "Michael, we things to do." Michael: *walking into the door* "Very well then. I guess it is farewell for now dear Archivist." *door closing* Jon: *very confused about what just happend* Helen: *opening the door and quickly yelling through it before closing it again* "Think of it like siblings" Jon: *still very confused but kinda gets it now* Jon: "wait... ARE YOU JUST GONNA LEAVE ME HERE!?"

[saintshigaraki]

sorry if u dont answer these kinds of questions but ive been slowly eatin ur dabi thoughts like crumbs off the floor and i am curious as to what makes you think he'd be clingy/possessive in a relationship??

cells are able to enter the mitosis phase and divide because of MPF, mitosis promoting factor. they're cyclin dependent kinases. but it takes a lot for MPF to become active, because the cyclin attached is inhibited by a phosphate group. eventually, though, a protein comes along and removes the phosphate which creates this insane sort of positive feedback loop and suddenly MPF is extremely active. touya in a romantic relationship sort of reminds me of that insane positive feedback loop.

i think you guys do honestly start out as....fuck buddies for a lack of a better word. but it probably all started because you were kind to him. you let him crash at your place because he reminded you of a drowned kitten, which, dabi will tell you later, was so incredibly fucking stupid of you. but it's all these little kindnesses you show him that build up to this.....obsessive, possessive behavior. dabi's already primed for this because he has some truly insane attachment and abandonment issues. one moment he's relatively normal and the next.....it's the same sort of on/off reaction seen in cells with mitosis, except, unlike in healthy cells, he never turns off once on. more reminiscent of a cancer cell. he just...doesn't want to lose you. and i dont think he has a very healthy secure view of himself. he imagines you'd be better off with practically anyone else. but he doesn't want you to be with anyone else. so he'll do whatever it takes to keep you with him. within arms reach. always.

[destinysbounty]

Ok how do u explain Lloyds hair color. Bc I'm pretty sure blonde hair isn't a dominant gene, and both of Lloyds parents have brown hair. Did he bleach it??? How??? Where would he get those resources he's like 8 in S1 and also homeless. Actually on that note what color do u think the FSM's hair was. Because ONE of the siblings has a different one than him. I've always thought the FSM's hair was blonde, bc when it greys out it's so pale, and also because angst in the way of Garmadon being different from his family from the start, but like. How would Garm have gotten the brown hair. Do they have a mom or did the FSM perform mitosis???? AND ALSO Garmadon's hair whites out and doesn't grey out despite him being a brunette (and later having black hair but that's bc of the Venom Influence) so. What's up with that. Also why does Wu's hair go white so early we know he was born with blonde hair. And why doesn't it apply to Lloyd too. What's happening. Where am I.

Right off the bat, lets dispel a common genetics misconception. Yes, its true that when a dominant and recessive gene get paired up, the dominant gene will be presented. You're also correct that blonde is recessive and brown is dominant. However! Like all things in biology, its a bit more complicated than that.

To simplify a surprisingly complicated science to the best of my ability, think of it like this. Although you will typically present based on whatever is the most dominant genes you inherited, you are still a carrier of sorts for the recessive genes. So Garmadon has brown hair, but his father and brother are both blonde, which means he has the potential to be a carrier for the blonde gene.

Then there's Misako, who is also a brunette. We don't know what her parents looked like, but lets say one of them was blonde. Even if she presents as brunette, she could still carry the recessive blonde gene.

When both parents are carriers for the same recessive gene, there's generally gonna be a 1 in 4 chance of their child presenting recessive rather than dominant. So, if we assume one of Misako's ancestors was blonde, then Lloyd being blonde is entirely likely.

This is a depressingly oversimplified summary of the situation, but I'm too lazy to get into the nitty grittys. Feel free to look up 'punnett squares' if you wanna learn more!

You do present a fascinating question, though: where did Garmadon get his brown hair?

Scientifically, the only explanation I can think of would be if Wu and Garm had a birth-mother of some kind. But i personally don't like that explanation because it just makes canon way more complicated than it needs to be. Tangentially, I'm also an "FSM Asexually Reproduced" truther all the way. I refuse to consider the possibility of the FSM having procreated with another person. That man either laid an egg or did some kinda mitosis shenanigan and you absolutely cannot convince me otherwise.

Luckily, we have the luxury of considering nonscientific alternatives.

To understand a more magic- and lore-based approach to the question of the hair colors present int his family, let's first take a look at the family tree:

FSM - blonde (as far as we can guess, at least). Half-dragon, half-oni. Also has godly powers of Creation and Destruction.

Garmadon - brunette. Has inherited the powers of Destruction.

Wu - blonde. Has inherited powers of Creation.

Lloyd - blonde. Has inherited a power very similar to the FSM, in that it's Creation-adjacent (listen, if you have a better way to describe Green fucking Energy, then by all means correct me).

Do you see where I'm going with this? Within the context of the FSM and his bloodline, it would not be entirely unreasonable to assume that blonde hair is in some way affiliated with the draconic half of their bloodline, whereas brown hair is more so affiliated with the oni half of their bloodline. So an individual's hair color may not necessarily be determined solely by standard genetics like a normal human would, but rather by which part of their bloodline they take after more strongly.

In this interpretation, Lloyd being blonde can be seen as a visual shorthand to represent how he has taken more so after his uncle/grandfather in terms of powerset and moral alignment.

Personally, I think both of these explanations are equally valid. That being said, it should be noted that a lot of this discussion operates on the assumption that Ninjagian genetics work in any way similar to ours. For all we know, blonde could be the in-universe dominant trait and brown could be recessive. The possibilities are endless.

I mean, c'mon. It's a fantasy story where the world was created by spinning around really fast. Lloyd canonically has shapeshifting powers, for crying out loud. I feel like him being blonde is completely within the realm of possibility, even without the scientific explanation. I feel like holding this series to any standard of scientific fidelity is just downright silly.

Anyway, thanks for the ask! Hope those answers were to your liking <3

[3rr0r4o41]

The idea that twst has magic and is technologically advanced beyond your imagination but absolutely lacks any sort of scientific understanding is so funny to me, especially cause I really like science, I do not care about what the canon says about this. Like all I can imagine is Ace or Deuce getting like injured or something while Yuu helps them get patched up, they mention something off-handily about mitosis or something and the two just go “what the fuck is that?” Yuu is just shocked, responding something along the lines of “Mitosis is the process of cell division?” and the trio just sit there dumbfounded at each other. Ace and Deuce because they have no clue what the prefect is going on about, and Yuu because how the hell can these people not know basic biology. Absolute chaos ensues and I definitely don’t picture Yuu sitting there just spewing any sort of scientific knowledge they have to try and find some sort of common ground on this, but Adeuce are just so confused by the words leaving their mouth.

[starryoak]

No but like genuinely Spot is clearly just some weird fucked up lunatic, but in like. Some sort of weird, teetering between harmless and totally fucking bonkers way. Like. He obviously worked for a company run by a supervillain and was close friends with one himself, and the guy did kinda go distressingly quickly to “well, time to murder a 15 year old’s father and potentially him as well!”…

…but it was also only after a year and a half of total and complete social isolation, unknown and horrifying biological changes including losing all sensory organs and normal orifices, and gaining an unknown quantity of new ones, and also another round of horrifying unknown biological and possibly fundamental metaphysical changes just in the last day of his life. But then you turn to the fact that he only ever turned to actual crime after a year and a half of total and complete social isolation, etc, yadda yadda yadda, and then you look at how that crime was stealing from an ATM machine, quite evidently IMO because he would feel guilty if he was stealing from a person, given I can’t help but feel like he wouldn’t have justified his crime that way if he hadn’t at least thought about it that way before… it’s complex! He’s not a good guy, but like… how much of a bad guy is he?

He’s had to deal with the social isolation, invisibility and criminalization of being homeless in NYC, or at least viewed as homeless, with the bonus of the social isolation of being an abomination against nature that looks like a freak in a skin suit. He is just literally physically incapable of reasonably living a normal life in polite society anymore. I feel like that’d fuck anybody up, lmao.

And, yeah, he wasn’t that cautious about throwing himself into dangerous and shitty situations from what we see! Sure, he seems to have a plan by the end, or it comes across that way, but I’m not sure he really does, and is he really in his right mind at all in the state we see him by the end of the movie? He’s literally splitting apart at the seams, and seems to be undergoing mitosis at the extremities and like. Yes, it’s just for dramatic visual effects for the audience, but like. What does that say about or do to his mental state that his body itself is such a swirling, amorphous mess? What does it mean mentally when a man’s voice has undertones of unearthly screaming echoes?

Thinking more on that, it’s not morally ok or anything, but it’s very understandable, IMO, how he’s clung to this idea of being Miles’ nemesis, like. This is a world where Superheroes and Supervillains exist. This is an established route for people with deep seated mental illness to take in this world. Of course the guy’s gonna cling to supervillains as a crutch. I mean, the big villains even almost win sometimes, right? It’s gotta be better than living like this, right? On the fringes of society, either pitied or horrified looks all he’d get, scrounging for basic necessities… at least if you’re a Villain, you’ve got attention and respect, right? So of course he’s so fucking crushed by being treated as comedic even when he’s trying to be a Villain. It’s a rejection of the only lifeline and justification he has to live anymore. We see this in the deleted scenes about the supervillain bar, that this is his only identity he feels he has left to go to!

He obviously dislikes Spiderman, and I’m sure he’d say he hates him, but it’s not. Like. He doesn’t hate Miles, up until that collider seems to give him some sort of psychic connection to the kid, he barely even knows Miles. Yeah, he’s intrinsically connected, ‘they created each other’, whatever. He doesn’t even know Miles! He hates the idea of Miles. Or more accurately, he wants to feel that way.

He wants to be this nemesis, this ultimate bad guy, Spidey’s Nemesis, capitalized, he wants to be a recurrent Saturday Morning Cartoon sort of villain, he didn’t seem to want to hurt the kid. He just wants an identity that he can live with that isn’t acknowledging that there wasn’t any meaning to what happened and that it was just a freak accident nobody meant to cause that disfigured him for life.

Like I either see most reactions to him be like “haha funny pathetic meow meow holes guy” or “sexy eldritch abomination guy” and while like… yeah, true, god knows I’m not above simping for a man undergoing mitosis, but like. I can’t look at him without going “That is A Mentally Ill Homeless Man In Dire Need of Help.” Like, I get he’s a funny haha character, but like, he’s just so deeply pathetic and miserable at the start of the movie and nobody notices and it just hurts so bad, lmao! I’m just crying out for this shit, like, this exact kind of fic, of someone going “Dude, You Are Like, Seriously In Need of Mental Help.” because, like, he is!

Maybe it’s the setting, what with being NYC, and his getup in the ATM robbery, but I just can’t not think about it when he’s talking about how he’s lost everything and how his family won’t look at him, that like. That’s just a homeless person. He’s literally just your average homeless person except even more horribly disfigured than any human can be in reality. And just. The invisibility of being homeless is just one of the worst things any one person can experience; being seen by others and deliberately ignored, acknowledged with looks but treated as an unperson. And add onto that the visible deformity that makes him look like some mentally ill street performer, except he can never take it off. It just sits with me, those feelings.

And on his honesty, that’s just part of what’s so fucked up about it. He’s actively crying for help from anyone who will listen, and nobody is! Again, this visible invisibility, of being heard but not listened to, to be seen but not treated as a human, it’s just so fucked up and tragic that no one just fucking listened to him. And the sad thing is, of course Miles doesn’t recognize he’s a man lashing out at society in a desparate attempt to be seen! Not only is he 15, Spot literally leads Miles to that conclusion deliberately in an attempt to be respected, and yet he fails so utterly that Miles both fails to see him as a threat, yet can’t recognize how damn miserable the man is!

Like!!! Yeah!!! Because he’s weird and creepy and is haha funny pathetic, people just fundamentally cannot respect him, and, man, as an autistic person, it hits me right there! He’s crying out for help in the only way he feels he has left, it’s literally proven that if people cannot get positive attention, people will seek out negative attention just to fill the void, and that’s just so blatantly what’s happening with him it hurts!

And like. What hurts about it IS that part when, when is a cry for help valid? How much of a ‘Villain’ do you have to be to not get sympathy? Miles at the end of the movie talks to Uncle Aaron about how he’s just a good person forced through circumstances to become a bad one, and it’s like. It hurts that he can recognize that about Aaron and never did about Spot.

Not that, again, it doesn’t make sense, but it’s like. All of this could have been prevented if someone had just. Realized that sometimes people in desperate mental (and physical, technically) health crises lash out at others and helped the guy.

And beyond that… there’s this subtle real life subtext where supervillains are basically a superhero universe version of terrorists/mass shooters, people who feel, for various reasons, valid or otherwise, abandoned by society, and ultimately represent a failure on every level to support people in desparate situations.

Could Jonathan even go to a soup kitchen looking like that? Does he need to eat? What would it be like if he didn’t have to? And then we cycle back to like. What the fuck is it like to be turned into a mass of abstract scribbles in the shape of a human man that regularly begins to split apart and turn in two? Like, sorry to suddenly bring it up out of nowhere but like. He’s a dude in a skin suit now, biologically. That’s all there is down there. That’s an important thing to lose! Not to dance around the subject, but it’s a pretty integral body part to a person’s identity to lose, with a lot of psychological implications!

All of it fucks with me so much! Everything about poor Johnathan’s life now is just so much! And it’s all intrinsically tied to his disabilities!

The Spot and Disability

It's very interesting to me how ATSV told Spot's story. At a start he's handled as a joke in the movie. Even Miles and the audience with him laughed at the new villain in his introduction. I was personally disgusted when the bread goes across him. Also, the guy isn't good at being bad and stealing an ATM, so he can be considered as a joke.

But it's hard to admit that we as an audience, and Miles did wrong laughing at his face about his new condition. We often mock him when it comes to the bagel joke, but he clearly suffered a lot, and lost it all after the accident. He was being mocked, rejected by everyone, even by his own friends and relatives. He evidently couldn't do anything without any of his holes getting in the way (which is the thing that makes him disabled), he lost his job and was forced to do illegal stuff in order to survive. That left an irreparable emotional damage that shaped him permanently. These are actual motivations for a person to take the wrong path, and even more when you discover you have a power that could give you some advantage over the others.

All of his story is clearly similar to what many disabled people live on a daily basis. "Unfortunately for me and you, this is skin." Sounds familiar? Reminds me of people that have vitiligo, which isn't exactly an illness and it isn't contagious, but common people think it is, and they fear, avoid and reject anyone who has it. Even in these modern days, where society supposedly is for everyone and everyone matters, disabled people are still rejected and disrespected, victims of bullying, mockery and exclusion. They don't get a chance to adapt to this world, not meant for them, and they miss so many opportunities of having a job, to form a family and go places adapted to their unique conditions. This world still needs to educate its people on respecting the disabled. That doesn't mean that disabled people are doomed to become villains, no! That would expand more the prejudices towards them. But what most of Marvel villains, and more, Spider-Man villains, have in common is having an accident that left them disabled: Flint falling on a sand dispenser, Max on a pool of eels, affecting their entire lives. (Not to mention that Doctor Connors was already disabled when he recurred to a not so ethic way to recover his arm, turning him into a lizard-like humanoid)

And yeah, every Spider-Man has a similar (canon) event, they're bitten by a radioactive spider. But rather to turn them onto something horrible, they hit the jackpot instead isn't it? They get attractively buffed, they get cool super powers, they become popular and loved by most people. But the others are treated as villains, and it's true, Spider-Man has to combat crime, and in the end, he shows mercy towards them. But in the end, most of the time their condition is treated as menacing and villanious. That's why No Way Home, brings a fresh vision on helping the villains to get cured or at least treated. (Although, that's not always realistically possible for disabled people, and most of them don't need to be cured or treated like their condition is bad for them)

But the movie leaves it clear it was a mistake to not take Spot's situation seriously. The man might've taken it chill at a start, but the more he was mistreated, the more he got resentful especially with Miles, wrongly considering him the source of all his disgraces, and more when the Super-Hero laughed at him. His power grew at the same time as his anger, and by the end of the movie, Miles admits it, he's his nemesis, they're mutual enemies now, and he's dangerous. If Spot was treated better from the start, with dignity and if he was given a second opportunity, support and optimum laboral conditions, maybe Spot would be now an ally.

How wrong we were, by taking him for granted...

[ticondenegro]

the worst part about being an artist, or aspiring at least is knowing that heartbreak and trauma and fucked up shit can always be painted, collaged, photographed, and poem’d.

always. in my fucked up trauma brain i’m thinking of ways to get over and through. i’m thinking of ripping up pictures and modge podge-ing. i’m writing poems. i’m art-ing my way through this.

not entirely though. to create art i think you have to have some sort of fuel. something to keep you going. my sophomore biology teacher, who i’m pretty sure is now fired or quit for shady and predatory ass business, quoting his mother quite often. in between learning of mitosis and punnett squares he used to say “eat pasta, swim fasta”. i think he was a swim coach or something? i’m not sure. but he definitely swam when he was younger. he looked, and probably still looks like, Ross from Friends. and he was just as arrogant. sometimes at least.

anyway, not to quote Daniel, or his mother rather, but i have no fuel. no pasta. no pasta=no fuel. no fuel=no art. vincent van gogh was said to have cut off his ear and mail it to his lover. this was during a mental breakdown of sorts. now am i excusing this behavior? no of course not. who would want a bloody ear in their fucking mail? but what should be said is, had van gogh eaten a bit of pasta, *googles pasta dishes of the 1800s*, maybe he would have had some energy to create art and not cut off his ear. of course this theory is maybe a bit problematic. after all, one doesn’t need much energy to do this, just, i don’t know, a lack of care for one’s ear. that doesn’t take much i would say.

but at least for me, how the fuck does one create art when there is nothing left in the till? i do suppose some of the best art is created with nothing. love lost. money lost. last bit of paint remaining, resulting in the usage of crushed up berries stolen from your neighbors garden. but see! these are examples for other people. everyone else can create! everyone else can rise with the sun and i fail every time. i cry not because i have everything, but because i have nothing. or at least very little. poems i will say are easy for me. it requires very little. just diseased thoughts in my brain and then regurgitated on an iphone screen, onto my notes app, or this lovely site. but other art, created WITH my hands….that doesn’t really exist.

[zlebooks]

𓂃 xiao + stupid in love .

part two of sorts to this drabble !! this can be read alone, i only wrote this bc some wanted to see y/n and xiao getting together 🫶🫶🫶

xiao knew he was smart.

he maintains his grades in the top percentile of his class. and even though he rarely participates in recitations, he makes up for it with his excellent written outputs.

he's knowledgeable— he can recite the whole process of mitosis and meiosis on the top of his head. his analytic essays on poems and short stories are always returned with a 'great job!' written on red.

xiao knows a lot of things, but this doesn't mean he's aware of everything.

xiao at 13, did not know kazuha beat up some kids on his behalf. the mean kids had been talking bad about xiao behind his back, and the blond happened to be walking by and couldn't resist connecting his fist to their jaws.

the day after those events, when xiao quizzed the other for his bruised eye, kazuha only shrugs as he says he got it from falling down the stairs.

("your house doesn't have stairs."

"i wasn't in my house, silly. i fell down at your house after doing it with your mom."

"get the fuck away.")

xiao at 14 had no clue that zhongli, his upperclassman whom he looks up to the most, sees him as his little brother.

during lunch, zhongli would always drop by at his favorite underclassman's classroom to give him a fruit— it's always high in vitamin c but xiao always receives a different one each day.

the taller noticed how frequent xiao attends their club meetings with either a cold or a cough. being a concerned senior he is, he starts purchasing fruits potent in vitamin c on the way to school to give it to the younger during lunch breaks. 

("your face is so sour that even zhongli decided to give you a lemon." a certain blond friend says.

"it. isn't. sour. at. all." xiao says in between bites as he tries to remain poker faced the entire time.

"you're a monster.")

xiao at 15 had no idea who's been feeding the stray cat other than him. 

contrary to popular opinion, cats aren't afraid of the green-haired boy. he actually seemed to be a magnet for them— threatening his 'i'm intimidating, back off' persona every once in a while as a bunch of cats follow him.

he met a certain black cat on the streets one day, and every other day, he comes to its spot just to feed it.

however, on a particular afternoon, when he arrives at the riverside to give the black cat some food, he notices an opened canned tuna laying around, and a cat heavily invested in gobbling it up.

he shrugs, before laying down water beside it so the black cat can also get its share of drink. 

it doesn't matter who's feeding the friend he had made— as long as the little stray gets fed, he's absolutely fine with it.

(a particular senior who is allergic to beans coos when he learns that xiao has been feeding the cat alongside him.)

xiao at 16, has no clue why he has a bad case of indigestion.

he makes sure he never over eats, or eats too fast. and even with his mother's homemade tonic, his stomach keeps on juggling uncomfortably. 

for a while, he thought that the problem might be from the pork buns he buys on the way to school, but when he notices it only appears whenever you're around, he thinks it's because he doesn't like you.

his alleged dislike turns into something stronger– hate, perhaps. the funny feeling in his stomach seems to never go away, and now he feels hotter than ever, his temperature heating up as his thoughts are always plagued by you. 

this becomes a problem eventually— a huge one that he had to ask around what he can do in order to keep such an ill feeling on the down low. after all, while he might not like you, he still doesn't want to hurt your feelings, oddly enough. the problem starts to become even bigger, especially now that you two are seatmates. ever since the release of the new seat assignments, which inevitably puts you beside him, the symptoms start to worsen for xiao.

("is it necessary to feel this way when you hate someone?"

"what do you mean exactly?" a kind senior asks, his golden eyes shining brightly in contrast with their uniform's black vest.

"i can barely focus when they're around— i'm always at loss for words whenever we talk." xiao replies, muttering low as he puts his head on top of his fist.

zhongli widens his eyes in shock, but then he reverts to his usual self before the younger catches on. "perhaps you need to reevaluate your feelings; there is a possibility that you mistook such feelings for hate."

the younger shakes his head firmly, "that can't be. i'm pretty sure it's hate."

"are you sure of that, xiao? hate is a strong word." he asks in his rich deep voice and xiao affirms. 

zhongli silently hums as he takes a sip from his water bottle. no matter the outcome, this can be a learning experience from his underclassman. xiao is indeed smart— he's sure that the younger would figure it out on his own.)

(when zhongli recounts the events to a close friend of his, he earns a smack on the back of his head.

"why did you leave things at that, idiot!" a thin frail white-haired woman yells, but her appearance is an illusion as the weight of her hand feels like a ton of bricks being slammed against his head.)

xiao at 17, didn't know better than to approach his best friend of four years for advice.

"how do you know if you like someone?" he remembers asking and the relentless teasing that followed.

maybe he should have known better, really. xiao ponders as kazuha lists off the signs of catching feelings for someone. 

"don't forget about the butterflies in the stomach! it's what makes you shy."

xiao tsks, as if— he never gets shy.

although the moment you went close— too close— to him, he feels like he could have erupted like a volcano.

(kazuha hollers, "how'd you turn so red when y/n came up to you?" the blond wipes tears from his eyes. "you literally have it bad for them!"

"if you don't stop, i'm not the only one who's going to be red." xiao threatens, holding the plastic knife a little too tight.)

6 months later, xiao didn't know what to do when you suddenly confessed your feelings to him. 

he feels as if his feet attached itself to the ground; he could barely move, he can't even bring himself to breathe. 

"i like you."

you tell him out of nowhere while the two of you were left behind in the classroom to clean— he was sweeping the floor while you arranged the chairs. from the other side of the room, you suddenly get the urge to confess which left the other gaping. this alone becomes a huge achievement because xiao never gapes.

xiao thinks you should be charged with attempted murder. 

he thinks with the way you took away his breath and almost sent him into a cardiac arrest, you should be sent to jail. but then he disagrees with that thought— because how will he deal with his feelings without you?

for the first time in his entire life, xiao thinks he finally understands what kazuha meant by 'butterflies in the stomach.' because as he stares at your expectant eyes and upturned lips, he thinks he just felt a flap against the walls of his tummy.

and what his friend said to him came into fruition— he realizes what they meant. 

he likes you back.

xiao was never one for theatrics and yet he can't help but drop the broom he's holding dramatically before running over to you. 

coughing awkwardly and taking deep breaths he says, "i do too."

xiao thinks he knows everything now.

("really? 'i do too'? you do know you sounded like you're saying you liked yourself too, right?" a kaedehara descent teases, earning a tug on his hair.

"shut. up.")

♥︎ please do not repost or translate without my permission . reblogs are heavily appreciated!

[boopypastaissalty]

Here sre some of my Sanders Sides theories. Long post btw so yee

Roman and Remus were originally one all-encompassing creativity, then they split and become the two different sides of creativity, or the "Creativitwins". Their names seem to follow a theme: Ancient Rome, specifically the legend surrounding the creation/beginning of Rome. I think that the original creativity's name was Romulus. Here's why: Remus killed Romulus over a land dispute and then started the city of Rome in his brother's name. Citizens of Rome are called Romans. Though it could be argued that Thomas's moral sense as a concept, not necessarily Patton, separated the two, thus "killing" the original creativity.

Patton may have suffered from anxiety and could have created Virgil as a way to relieve some of his stress, therefore making him Virgil's "dad" in a sense, in Patton's mind warranting him calling Virgil "kiddo" all the time.

We all know that Patton is allergic to cats, but what about the others? What are their weaknesses? My speculations are that Virgil is iron deficient, as he doesn't like to rise up because it makes him dizzy, he is also described by Roman to be the "fairest of them all" and then admitting it was a pale joke in Virgil's expense. Roman is lactose intolerant, as when Patton is feeding him cream of broccoli soup, Logan says that it will "upset Princey's stomach". Logan is OCD: Always planning and organizing things. He gets upset when things don't go exactly as he plans it. He also feels the need to always be right and to make sure everyone else is kept in line. Also: Patton seems to suffer from depression. Oftentimes depressed people crack jokes and give people the general idea that they are happy. They also try to make other people happy. Patton also sometimes gets into these sad funks and even says "I had this problem where I'd hide my less than awesome feelings, so when I would feel like sobbing I'd just smile and crack jokes. I thought that was coping, only joking, never showing sadness, hoping it would just go away".

The thumbnail for "Putting Others First - Selfishness v. Selflessness Redux" has a character selection screen telling the viewer to "select a side", but one thing I noticed is that there is a blank box, indicating a locked character or a character who hasn't been revealed yet. Another thing I noticed is that the sides have a rainbow theme going on. Thomas even says that he is "full rainbow all the time" as an allusion to his sexuality, and possibly even the sides in general. Roman is red, there is no known orange side, Janus is yellow, Remus is green, Patton is light blue, Logan is indigo, and Virgil is violet/purple. Red is the color of physical strength, power, confidence, and passion, which suits Roman's personality. Yellow can be happiness and joy, but also directly means cowardice and deceit, which is self explanatory. Green is a color of healing, life, and vitality, but the flip side being greed, jealousy, pessimism, and superficially. Blue is the color of trust, loyalty, faith, wisdom, truth, patience, and understanding, which sums Patton up pretty well. Indigo resembles wisdom, integrity, fairness, impartiality, and justice, which is all right up Logan's alley. Violet is the color of ambition, dignity, devotion, pride, mystery, independence, magic, being cynical, and mourning, which all makes sense in Virgil's case. Now to orange, which resembles joy, sunshine, risk taking, adventure, enthusiasm, creativity, attraction, success, rudeness, frivolity, and untrustworthiness, which is a balance of traits that both Roman and Remus have and directly resembles creativity, so orange could be a fusion of Roman and Remus, the original creativity before they split. Another possibility for the next side is someone who resembles ethos, as we have pathos and logos (Patton and Logan).

All the sides have an ancient Rome theme going on. Roman and Remus, after the legend surrounding the beginning of Rome. Virgil, after the Roman poet Publius Vergilius Maro, who is often called Virgil. Janus (formerly known as Deceit) after the Roman god of the same name (Janus is the god of new beginnings and transitions, often depicted with two faces facing in opposite directions, one for the past and one for the future). All of the sides except for Patton and Logan, whose names are derived from pathos and logos, an ancient Greek concept proposed by Aristotle. And have you noticed that they mirror each other in almost every way, suggesting that, much like Roman and Remus, they are brothers, possibly even twins?

Dukes tend to not be a part of the royal family, but if so they are princes who have gotten married. Does this mean that Remus is married?!?!? If so to whoooo?

Welcome to me overthinking things again! What if Roman has control over the other sides? Like he's creativity and the sides are figments of Thomas' imagination, so like what if one day he was just done with Logan's nonstop fact train he just (this is extreme) went: "Fuck you, Logan, you're dead now" and Logan straight up dies? Like where would his power end if he could do that? Overthinking things can be scary kids, let me do it for you.

If you overthink it: Patton basically just was like "Nah" in POF SvSR. So he said in SvS that going to the wedding would make Thomas feel good, something that he basically controls because he is Thomas' moral sense and at the center of most of his feelings. Basically Thomas went to the wedding and Patton was like: "This is nice and all and you did the right thing, but uhmmm about those happy feelings. No." And then got all sorts of frustrated about being wrong. So yee. I am just doing the overthinking things thing again.

What if creativity split solely as a big "Fuck you, Logan"? Like I just imagine: C: "Hey Logan, I'm performing mitosis"

L: "Yes, your cells- *he looks up* Whaaaaa?"

R&R: "Cha cha real smooth, Logan"

And thus the twins were "born"

Logan thinks feelings are bad and claims to not have feelings, even though he clearly does (cough, cough, Crofters the Musical? Getting angry in some episodes? Logan, you're a bad liar, bud). So he bottles up most of his feelings, for all practical purposes making him a ticking time bomb. Something's probably going to happen and he won't be able to hold it all in and he'll have an emotional breakdown of sorts. Another thing is he will not duck out. He knows he's too important to Thomas' mental wellbeing for that. He is also getting progressively more angry as the others listen to him less, so he's probably going to overwork himself trying to get everyone to listen to the point where he physically can't be there for Thomas. Cuz like I suspect Logan leaving would have the same effect as Thomas having a massive stroke: The right side of his body wouldn't work, he wouldn't be able to talk/communicate, and his reasoning skills would be gone.

Janus just loves philosophy. Every episode in the main timeline, he makes references to famous philosophers to get his point across.

Patton is always the first of the light sides to accept the dark sides. First with Virgil and then with Janus. He may be taking them in as his troubled but lovable children who he will defend under almost any circumstance.

Virgil's name is not Virgil. People think his full name is Virgilius, though Thomas and Joan have previously stated that it isn’t. Bc of that, some people have theorized that Virgil was lying about his name, or that when he moved to the “light sides” he changed/used a different name, and maybe they’re going to reveal that sometime. Like the scene with Remus and Vee where Re goes, “I would never hide anything from you” looks pointedly at Virgil, and you assume it’s bc he took forever to tell Thomas, but what if it’s bc he was lying about his name from the moment he told Thomas??? And also the moment when Janus says "It takes a liar to know a liar" and Virgil says "Don't" and the response was "What? I'm only talking about your name" I think his name could be Acanthus

Ya know, Patton probably has an indirect role in how the other sides look. Not like "But you're anxiety, you wear the hoodie" but closer to Thomas beliefs of stuff like lying is bad and the fact that Janus often plays devils advocate, so he has a snake face

Random thoughts:

Virgil has the most ace/demi aesthetic and I love that

SvS: Multi part episode, "bad/evil/dark" side gets accepted, the FEELS, angst. Hmmm…

The twins getting along and just like sitting at a table causing minor chaos.

Patton randomly hugs everyone. He just does.

Janus and Patton: animal bros

[vynnyal]

dumping my random thoughts, comic ideas, and wildly misinformed theories abt hk onto my victims: part 2!!! p clear what I was doing in some of these, lmao

btw if you have any input im very, super interested please feel free 2 share

"So who's the mother?" Grimm: "Mother? No, there was no mother." "Then how--?" grimm: "Mitosis, obviously." Cut to two panels of the person dissociating over what they imagine the process to be.

FUCKIN... ASEXUAL PRIDE GRIMM

Hornet yelling shaw instead of yeet or koby.

Hornet yelling git gud at inappropriate times in place of like... Actual Advice. Alt: jdghghf or when she gets nervous, as a distraction.

Her thinking of something cool to say while waiting outside the black egg temple. alt: her thinking so hard she almost misses her cue, making her flub; aka the reason she says somn more like "geddun" in-game. alt alt: thk and ghost sharing a blank look (mid-battle) and thinking "she flubbed" in disbelief.

Hornet and something with the "spidersilk paper" lemm mentioned, maybe using it to """document""" her day when she has time to spare. She insists it's not a diary, so don't even try.

Hornet grieving the little weavers.

(speedrun) "You wanna fight? Huh? Huh? Well I dont, bye"

Zote "I only saved you for the money" joke.

Quirrel pretending not to understand modern slang.

Quirrel... Dad jokes... Holy shit

FUCKIN... DAD BOD???

conifer appearing in increasingly absurd locations.

Quirrel playfully commenting on the uh... "information"... The tablets display. alt: he can actually read it just fine, but is coy abt telling ghost what it says.

rather than just appearing, Quirrel and ghost walk through the archives together, the mood bittersweet.

Hollow knight passing the time in the black egg lightheartedly.

Wyrm and root trying to argue but the height difference just makes them both laugh.

ghost appearing before Root, expectant, only for them to slowly realize she doesn't actually... care about them. or any of the vessels, really. she expects them to do their duty, her claims of shame apparently not deterring her away from the fate they were created for. alt: she acts like that not out of any kind of malevolence, but out of pure ignorance. It doesn't occur to her how much it costs the little vessels... Or that they even have anything to lose, at all.

Cut to the future after the bad end, as yet another fragile vessel appears before the queen, far too late to save anyone now.

Godmaster traitor lord battle, ghost walks in looking very nervous. Traitor looks smug, asking if they're afraid (of him), only for the next panel to show ghost sweating profusely as they have Fragile Flower Flashbacks. alt, they're imagining/being pressured by the ghost girlfriends glaring at them/wailing "WAIIII" in tendem.

Ghost asks how thk got so big, only for them to reveal their body is still the same size, and they're just controlling a big suit of armor like false knight. Jdbfjfgjr

its been pointed out the bee knight doesnt... actually have any wings to buzz with. the noises are entirely vocalized. The reason buzzy baby makes buzz noises is because he felt left out when he was a kid; the queen, seeking to comfort him, explains how he can create his very own buzz sounds using an alternative method, instead. Despite his battle prowess, his mind never matured, continuing up to his very last moments to make the habitual noises of his childhood.

(godmaster) having soul left over and fuckin SCREAMING in the faces of the nail masters just before the bench.

Defeating bee boy by one mask, relaxing for a sec, before realizing the bees are stILL COMING ACTUALLY,,,,

The aftermath of the sheo fight, ghost just DRIPPING with rainbow-colored paint.

ze'mer and her lover meeting in their dreams.

flower lesbos hanging out with the thorn husbos (nailmaster/sheo hfshh)

Team cherry hid the gays behind some of the hardest missions because, let's be honest, no homophobe would put that much effort into anything.

Quirrel saying "I've only had ghost for a day, but if anything happened to them I'd -" Cuts to ghost, shade over their body Quirrel: "..."

Messing with the hot springs... geysers? Idk 3 heads things. whats in there? How were they made? By the ancient civilization, maybe pale king? alt: finding quirrel relaxing casually inside one of the eyesockets instead of in the spring, lmao.

"I'd sure like to be a shade, like heck- they can fly, they can do that weird teleport thing, and they have-", turns to it, "- ALL MY MONEY!!!"

Ngl I still don't fully understand the relationship between ghost, their shell, and their shade, and should prolly read up before blabbing, but what is it that separates ghost's body from their shade? Or their shade from ghost, themself? We see in the dnm ending they can very much "control" their shade, as they voluntarily rip off their shell to release it. Or... Oh shit am I dumb? Did ghost kill themselves right then? Oh fuck did ghost die to let their shade kill the radience. Please tell me I'm wrong I'm really upset now yfjfihrufhgi

Gonna be honest the previous one was me trying to contextualize the concept of ghost being able to fly like shades do but now I'm just thinking abt ghost, fuck. Still. Imagine ghost n thk just, like, hovering towards people with their funky tentacle legs. Or better, no tentacles, they can just Do That. Establish your dominance, little vessels.

Ghost doing the superman "ripping off your shirt to shift into super-mode" thing except they just tear apart their shell. Alt: hornet: "that looks painful"

Broken vessel was stuck. Out of all the dead vessels we see- the one in greenpath, those hung in nosk's den, the floor of the abyss, even ghost themself- not one retained their body after death. Except, that is, for broken vessel. Something, somehow, was anchoring their shade to their shattered shell and keeping it there, unable to seep away and reunite with their siblings below. They weren't just another corpse. That was ghost's sibling.

Just what is a vessel's coak? From what I've seen of the sprites, it's clearly attached to their shells; some in nosk's den are even hung from them, with their shells dangling below it. It seems biological- by which I mean, not some sort of clothing or ambiguously god-based substance- which makes its selective decay rather odd. On one hand, in greenpath, nosk's den, and some specific corpses within the abyss, their cloaks have stayed firmly attached. On the other, we have countless shells left naked all over the place- even ghost's shell is like this. Of course we have to keep in mind ari prolly just didn't wanna animate that, but that's no fun. I don't really have a prompt or theory here, as nothing I come up with quite fits the bill... Just more of a thinkpiece, I suppose.

Nyooming past quirrel at blue lake, freeze frame of ghost and q sharing a startled look.

Ghost distracting sheo by making him gush over his artwork. alt, "winning" the battle by showing him something they made, and/or just having a paint-off. Ghost wins no matter what, obviously.

Ohhh... Ghost learning to express themselves through art...

Lurien secretly has multiple eyes, fit neatly in the one socket.

Appreciating the genius of the mimic grub room (the real grub's location is hard-coded. im still mad)

Hearing Hornet say "get down" instead of "git gud" and the connotations of that. alt: hearing "git gud" when she's actually saying "get down", being offended or otherwise reacting to that, before being promptly smacked in the face by whatever she was warning them abt.

Hornet doing weird, obscure spider things.

Ghost: WHAT is THAT?? uumuu: uumuu emoji face

Where does the shade get its sword? Is it a void-sword? Did they scavange it? Did they make it???

The actual guttural horror of falling into the centipedes in deepnest.

The irony of feeling incredibly sad and hurt at thk's pain, but absolute bloodlust for pure knight.

What was written upon the journal found with the corpse in ash at hollownest’s edge. Alt: h. how did ash even get up there.

[thanksjro]

Eugenesis, Epilogue Scene Three: A National Holiday Is Declared

Mark your fucking calendars, folks, it’s a once in a lifetime event.

Now, what could be making Rodimus happy?

Telling himself that Kup isn’t dead, that Thunderclash isn’t dead, that Prowl isn’t dead, that the medics had managed to find their brains and fix them, that it wasn’t actually them who had died but some cheap copies.

Telling himself that Primus himself had given them the cure for the Inhibitor Chips.

Telling himself what he wishes was true.

Telling himself lies.

So, let’s try this again. It’s January 12th, 2013, and Rodimus Prime is awake and alive in the camp that is now home to the Autobots.

Rodimus has been spending the last few days listening to the recordings Perceptor made for him from the time he was busy being mostly-dead. He doesn’t remember any of the time he spent not-dead, but the scientists have been trying their hand at spirituality and more or less explained it to him as him ever-so-slowly approaching the event horizon of joining with the Matrix. The Matrix that we now know is a computer that makes babies, and that we’d already known was chock full of Unicron. Is this what being in the Cloud is like? Because if so, I’m just going to commit to a physical hard drive for all my stuff so my documents don’t become clinically depressed.

And while we’re on this whole not-really-dead thing: you know, retcons feel a lot less needing of justification when they aren’t being pulled by the same writer who made the retcon necessary in the first place, in the same piece of writing. Roberts, if you didn’t actually want to kill Rodimus, you shouldn’t have taken away all of his pigmentation and dusted his ass in a ditch after Kup went off the deep end.

I don’t think he’s actually happy, guys.

He’s currently staring out the window, totally not painfully aware of just how unbelievably tired he looks. Remember when this was the guy who went on fishing trips and joyrides with ten-year olds? Rodimus remembers. He remembers it very clearly. Someone let this guy take Animated Bumblebee’s place for a few days before he goes and finds a pod filled with robo-cancer or something.

It’s time to bury the pain again, as High Command comes through the door.

They made it! Rewind’s OTP lives, unlike him. Time to get down to business.

Rodimus thanks everyone for coming to the meeting, and starts going over the revamp process for the brand new Autobase- they’ve cleaned out the corpses, sorted them by faction, done god knows what to the ones that couldn’t be identified one way or the other, and we finally get to know just what in the fuck Jolup was doing Downstairs.  

…Alright then, Ed Gein. Is this how they were going to handle that dropped Phase Sixer subplot in Lost Light? Because if so, Swerve what the 𝚏𝚞𝚌𝚔.

Rodimus has decided that they’re just going to bury that nightmare under forty tons of plasto-steel, to never see the light of day again. Moving on, he says that Metroplex is recovering rather well from his transplant.

Oh! Hello, Metroplex. You’re looking very… alive. Didn’t you just spend the better part of the week dead and lying on the seafloor?

Turns out that Titans are pretty hardy- they just ripped his head off and slapped it into the middle of the new Autobase and he was good to go.

Rodimus hasn’t heard from Galvatron since he got back- I’m hoping it’s because Soundwave took matters into his own hands- and it’s making him a bit nervous.

Time for status reports!

Magnus has had teams searching for bodies (brains, really) that they can bring back to Ratchet to fix up. He asks Rodimus about potentially building another outpost on Earth, but it looks like he won’t be getting to see Oregon again anytime soon. There’s also the issue of literally everything Xenon told him back on Aquaria- he asks for a private audience for that. Magnus, did you really wait this long to talk to your boss about this? He’s got the Matrix inside him right now, and you didn’t think it pertinent enough to bring up sooner? Priorities, man.

Ratchet’s injected all the POWs with the anti-Chip, which has helped their physical health tremendously. However, not all of them are regaining the ability to transform, and that’s opened up a real can of worms, mental health-wise.  

I’m with Ratchet on this one. I know we don’t exactly have a ton of real estate on the bombed-out husk that is Cybertron, but surely there was something better than the epicenter of the Quintesson Antiholocaust/Transformers Holocaust.

Rodimus says that anyone uncomfortable with the camp can stay in Fort Max’s old place next door until they’re more open to the idea. The reason they aren’t staying at Fort Max’s altogether is because it’s apparently too small to house everyone. There’s, like, maybe three hundred of y’all left, and Max wasn’t exactly petite. Maybe I’m missing something here.

Rodimus, uncomfortable with the topic, moves on to one that’s equally as uncomfortable- Prowl. Ratchet wants to send him off with a full, personal funeral. He’s not dead yet, but he might as well be. Still no donor. Rodimus opts to let the guy die naturally, even after Ratchet explains that he might still be in pain even in a pod and knocked out. Geez, any more good news, doc?

Oh ho, you thought this would stop with just a single robot? Not even close.

Mirage is allowed to be in a bad mood this time. I can’t even remotely fault him for that. And Autobots don’t give parental leave? What a rip.  

Yeah, except they’ve all been Quintesson nightmare babies. This is what some folks might call a problem. Are you telling me that they can just catch pregnancy like the common cold now? This is tapping into irrational teenage fears. Christianity-based fears.

I have to wonder, what’s the general feel behind this process? It’s completely random, even when it happens to someone who’s supposed to go through it, and people just kind of stand there and watch it happen. I feel like it’d be really fucking embarrassing to just keel over and start going through mitosis in the middle of a room full of your peers. Then the whole murder-baby thing starts happening, and folks are drawing guns on your abdomen to top it all off. At what point do you just say “screw it” and have your torso removed?

Ratchet’s been storing the Quintessons in stasis pods, as opposed to Soundwave’s snap judgement of “kill now, repress later.” He’s run all the tests he can think of, and the things aren’t exactly hostile- they don’t really do anything, honestly. Perhaps murder-baby is too harsh a term. Still, they gotta figure out something to do with the little bastards. High Command’s been asking around off-planet.  

Well, there’s one mystery solved! Meeting’s over, Rodimus shoos everyone away, but Siren has something to report: he and Chromedome figured out Nightbeat’s final words.

Oh wow, I was WAY off. Road trip!

[irelise]

Cherik fanfic tag game

Thank you @akasanata for the tag!

1. What is your favourite Cherik canon/ canon fix-it fic? Sub Rosa by tahariel, beautiful post-XMFC fic with gorgeous art. Technically a WIP but works brilliantly as a one-shot. It’s a Charles-centric mansion fic where Erik is compelled to return to the mansion every November. Just a very lovely fic all around, bittersweet and angry, but with the promise of hope and recovery. Charles’ voice and characterisation are absolutely impeccable!

2. What is your favourite AU Cherik fic? THIS QUESTION IS UNFAIR BECAUSE THERE ARE JUST SO MANY

...That said there’s always going to be a special place in my heart for Boden’s Mate and its sequel, the Inception AU by kaydeefalls, just because it’s one of the first fics I’ve read in this fandom and it’s so excellent on a technical level. Tightly-plotted, amazing twists and tension, really fantastic use of the dream-sharing, mind-manipulating aspects of Inception to create some gorgeous settings. There’s lots of layered and nuanced symbolism (especially in the sequel), and recurring motifs that pack an emotional punch.

3. What is your favourite slow burn, super long Cherik fic? For that particular flavour of ‘They raw each other in the first part of chapter 1, then spend 100k in denial, misunderstanding, and self-doubt‘: Anarchy in the UK by Yahtzee, definitely! It’s so far outside the usual genre of fic I read but it just works. Fantastic chemistry, one of the fics that sell me on the whole “sparks fly at first sight” thing. Loved how all the plot threads were character driven and develop so organically!

On the other side of the coin, my favourite 100k of pining would definitely go to The Marriage Bargain by @kianspo! Such wonderfully self-indulgent harlequin arranged marriage fic with the BEST young Charles, who is charming and cheeky and brilliant and warm-hearted and vulnerable all at once! Definitely one of those fics I go back to again and again

4. What’s your favourite short and sweet Cherik fic? This fandom has given me a skewed understanding of “short”, I swear! Everyone is so prolific! But here’s a few that I always go out of my way to read whenever I see them pop up :D

But The Cat Came Back by twelve_pastels: catfic! what more do you need? Heli Cases by Black_Betty: cute dad Erik! Also check out To Do List by the same author. Two words: coitus calendar Other Crabs Cannot Be Trusted by groovyphilia: one of the first fics i remember reading after the release of xmfc and I still remember it all these years later, that’s how delightfully amazing it is in its crackyness! The Holiday Lights Battle by so_shhy: mitosis!!!

5. Which Cherik fic gives you all the angst and the feels? what cherik fic DOESN’T give me the angst and the feels? But Us by Pangea stands out as one of those “i’ve read this once and it’s brilliant and i never want to re-read it again ever” sort of fics. Give it a try if you like Dark!Charles!

and also Residue by Tawabids, oh my god

6. What’s your favourite PWP/smutty Cherik fic? i’m too embarrassed to name specifics but anything by Red or by Gerec

Special mention to At Any Time by musical_emjay, and for something that’s heavy on the smut and sexual exploration but also on character development, check out you follow and i’ll lead by pearl_o and pocky_slash!

7. What’s your best recent find in the Cherik fanfic world? The Cherik isn’t the main focus of the piece but please check out this devastating little XMDP ficlet from @fatcatsarecats​... Warning for serious spoilers if you haven’t seen XMDP yet!

Otherwise I’ve really been enjoying the ficbits from @freewithyourtempo​ I’ve seen popping up in the Cherik tag lately! They have some really cool ideas and really good range from angst to wow damn this is hot

8. If you could only recommend one Cherik fic, what would it be? Boden’s Mate from above would probably always be my ultimate rec (and most of the fics here are on my personal ‘top 10 fics’ list), but in the interests of mixing things up:

Limited Release by rageprufrock, one of my favourite ensemble cast fics with the sort of established relationship, bickering but fond and loving Cherik that I adore! If you like FBI-style fics definitely give this a try; most of the team works under Erik, who is a senior agent, and Charles is his usual Professor/activist self that gets too involved for his own good. I absolutely love it - every single character gets a chance to shine, it’s action-packed, there are some really fucking funny scenes, and some really gentle and intimate moments between Charles and Erik. This fic pretty much has everything you can ask for! \o/

Tagging @fatcatsarecats​ @jackyjango​ @amaranth42​ @isamai​ @nesnalou @ice-cream-connie and everyone else at the Cherik discord server (sorry i can’t remember all your handles hdifsdf) and anyone who wants to do this!

[bpdfox]

Before I get into my partial existential crisis, I'll get this out there: Annihilation is absolutely stunning.

I love the creature design - literally all of the cool as shit plant life, that alligator and all of those teeth, that horrendously beautiful (and really fucking creepy) bear. Strong world-building is a Feast to my soul, and man did I come away from this well-fed.

My first time sitting with this film I felt moderate amounts of tension at key scenes (the gator attack, the recovered videotape, the bear attack), and came away a little perplexed and vaguely disappointed by the lack of generic horror tropes in whatever I had just seen.

But this viewing, after sitting with and relating to the themes and concepts of this film for close to 10 months, my anxiety was highest during and after Kane's tape at the lighthouse, just before Lena entered the heart of the mysterious shimmer. 

This scene rattled me deep, deep down. Not to the point I felt obligated to turn it off, or mute the volume, or feared for possible nightmares; no - this hit me at a level no horror movie jump-scare could ever hope to reach.

"I thought I was a man. I had a life. People called me Kane. And now I'm not so sure. If I wasn't Kane, what was I? Was I you? Were you me?"

The most terrifying part of healing is that the self is an ever-mutating concept, a combination of our perceptions and experiences and the ways we relate to external (and internal) influences. My body is sick due to an autoimmune disease brought on by trauma, and my mind has been sick for the better half of nearly 21 years of living, and even still pieces of those illnesses go back to when I was barely learning how to do basic math in first grade.

I've been going in circles with a concept of self since a time long before I knew I was ill at all, long before I had the capability to examine my own self and come to conclusions about that in any abstract respect. 

Am I my illnesses? How could I not be, when illness is both a lens through which I view the world and the receptors allowing me to react to that input? How could I not be when illness is the cause of an uncontrollable physical reaction?

"My flesh moves... like liquid. My mind is... just cut loose. I can't bear it. I can't bear it. I can't bear it."

Throughout the past year, particularly through the decision to start a new medication which caused me to lose all sense of connection with myself which I wrongly interpreted as healing, I've been obsessively wrapped up in the concept of "discovering who I am". In a period of time I've been changing and growing, I've been tearing myself down and building myself back up again to try and reach a seemingly impossible goal - obviously to no avail.

These final few months of 2018 have been full of an expanding anxiety deeply rooted in a feeling that I was not supposed to survive this year. The fact that I am alive has not felt right to me, the fact my 21st birthday is coming up in exactly a month churns up floods of uneasiness way before it gets anywhere close to excitement or hope for what the next year brings.

"Isn't the self-destruction coded into us? Programmed into each cell?"

We isolate, we self-medicate, we self-sabotage, we self-destruct.

There isn't a reason for any of it to be happening. Destruction doesn't want anything, it simply is.

Something is askew in my brain and my body. Both function in an atypical way. Maybe I am ill, maybe I have illnesses. If the self is an experience, maybe it's both.

They've been the way I've experienced the world since I could understand why I was experiencing it in the way I do, but they've led me to reach for deeper understanding of myself and the way I operate. Some days I separate myself and my ill perceptions in a sort of personal, psychological mitosis to gain a clearer picture of what is happening, but most times I feel complete when I am able to see all parts as united. 

I'm still myself, even when my mind is miles away, or even when it's too damn close. I'm not solely my illnesses, but they're still a part of me. Even with them, I'm still myself. 

"It's not like us... it's unlike us. I don't know what it wants, or if it wants, but it'll grow until it encompasses everything. Our bodies and our minds will be fragmented into their smallest parts until not one part remains... Annihilation."

[eilislaceys]

frances ‘frannie’ ferguson, 24, broadway star, f. pugh 

constance native / definitely got the shortest straw with her parents obsession with alliteration / probably was born anxious / the kid that stood at the window and cried because her parents were fifteen minutes later getting home from date night than usual and she was convinced they were dead in a ditch somewhere until she saw the sweep of headlights coming up the driveway / after consulting several parenting books and a few family therapy sessions, fran’s mom decided she needed an outlet / on the first day she was dropped off at summer day camp at the local theatre eight year old frannie was fully planning her eventual emancipation from her parents because then they’d be sorry / talking to strangers? acting and singing in front of everyone? no thank you / except that she loved it / it was a relief to pretend to me someone else for a bit, to leave the jangled mess of nerves and swirling pit of butterflies she felt in her stomach like all the time / summer day camp turned into joining the fall production of annie as molly / by the time high school came around, she had already seen wicked on broadway five times and was a full fledged theatre nerd / one who took everything about performing and the “craft” incredibly seriously / did a sanitized version of hair over the summer with the same theatre production during the summer of her sophomore year and lowkey tried to start an orgy at the cast party / quickly became the star of every school production and just as quickly sort of fell half in love with her “leading man” in every school production / but they were friends so it was fine, friends who were supposed to take on the big apple together after graduation only it didn’t quite work out like that / she ended up booking a job as part of the ensemble in a big show and then it just spiralled from there / frannie was so busy with her star taking off she didn’t quite realize what she was leaving behind / just came off her first leading role in a musical adaptation of the breakfast club  / eight shows a week have left her shattered / and it’s kind of sobering to see that the thing she spent all of her life wanting isn’t necessarily everything she imagined it would be / her agent kind of wants to strangle her when frannie says she needs a break and holes up at her parents house / brings us to right now where you can find her sleeping until noon every day, watching daytime tv and haunting the local production of mamma mia like a specter. 

needs: issie and i need fellow horny drama nerds that would’ve been a clique in high school, pls and thank you. other childhood friends that she kind of peaced out on, maybe they’re happy to have her back, maybe they’re peeved at her, we can figure it out! maybe some more fergusons? a guy she dated in high school and broke up with when he called the phantom of the opera a pervert. 

julia abrams, 21, philosophy major & waitress, d.silvers

chicago native / no tragic backstory to speak of / just born to a single mom too young to have really known what she was doing and a penchant for the love ‘em and leave ‘em type of guys / named after the beatles song / seashell eyes, windy smile / a magnet for kind eyed teachers who would ask her to stay after school so they could discreetly push a new-to-her coat into her arms or a pair of winter boots when julia’s were close to falling apart / afternoons and weekends spent at the little deli where her mom waited tables where the old man regulars would quiz her on the stages of mitosis and symbolism in hemmingway / ‘you’re so smart, baby. you’re going to have everything you want’ / a little sister born when julia’s in her junior year - she’s tiny and perfect and her father is a total fucking asshole / which makes it all the harder to leave but there’s rejection letters and exorbitant tuition and then like a miracle (or a curse)  a renewable scholarship from a small college in new york state / bought into the myth that she’d find her tribe in university but her closest friend is probably the guy who sells hot dogs outside of the student union building / disguises her loneliness and homesickness with being busy twenty-four seven / wine and cheese mixers, open mic nights, protests and rallies, the occasional frat party is she’s really desperate and always always studying her brains out at the library / can come across as brash or rough around the edges but she’s deceptively soft / facetime dates every saturday morning with her little sister / disaster bisexual / doesn’t really know how to dress herself, would live in a hoodie and leggings if she could / will never stop trashtalking new york pizza. 

needs: me: i want to plot with everyone! also me: says my character’s best friend is the guy who sells hotdogs. okay i really do want julia to have people! because people need people! please give her a group of friends where she’s like ‘they just pity me’ but they’re like ‘julia stop being an anti-social hoe, we are indeed best friends’ and they drag her out to fun events and stop her from withdrawing into herself which she is prone to do. she could use some awkward hook-ups. please give her a grody dude to make her hot, bratty roommate unintentionally jealous or something. a stupid rivalry or nemesis based on them stealing her favorite table at the library and doing some egregious like eating baby carrots in the quiet study area!!! anything and everything please! 

[yeehawyoongles]

Vine Drabble 2- An Empty Bottle of Milk and A Fidget Spinner.

Request:  Can I request 14 and 27 btsxreader crack please?? Thank u :)

14. “Why can’t you just take the freakin’ compliment”

27. “Don’t fuck with me.”

Warnings: Mentions of milk.

Word count- 1.5k

-This is such a mess, idk what I just wrote.  I think I lost my mind?? I hope you enjoy anyways!

After an exhausting day of running around doing shit that isn’t worthwhile, you finally came home. You didn’t know what year it is, let alone the day or time.  You’d never wanted to get into bed so sadly, so you took off your shoes and headed straight to your bedroom.  Your bed looked euphoric, welcoming you home with the warm embrace that was your duvet.  Dramatically, you collapsed onto it, blindly searching for your pillow.  Once you were comfortable, you shut your eyes, enjoying the refreshing sound of silence for a few moments.

“Bruh where are we,” A soft whisper sliced through said silence, it hurt your ears. 

“For fucks sake not this again,” Another voice said in a low whine. “All we do is mind our business and we suddenly end up in the bedroom of a stranger. Why isn’t this the first time that this has happened? This isn’t normal…”

A loud laugh from another individual echoed in the room. “This guy… he deadass only complains I swear.  Look at this as an adventure!”

“Hoseok shut the fuck up, they’re trying to sleep.”

“I’m already awake” You intercepted, talking in a sleepy voice. You brandished your hand around in a sloppy attempt to find a light switch, but end up punching someone in the crotch.

“Ouch! Don’t fuck with me!” a man, who you assume is the same person you just made infertile, cried.  You eventually find the switch and turned on the lamp, only to be met with seven pairs of eyes staring at you.

“Who are you and why the fuck are you in my house watching me sleep?” You asked bluntly. 

“It’s not like that, I promise,” One of them, the shortest, pleaded with wide eyes. “Uh, the truth is that, uh-”

“We don’t know.” A more familiar voice said.  He was also short.

“????” you asked with your face.

“Basically right,” A new voice, a boy with bright blue hair begins to explain. “We end up in random ass places with no explanation as to how.  Last time, we were in a farm while we were rehearsing for a show, and Namjoon, the uh tall guy at the back there with the dimples, managed to trip over a horse, and then fall over while he was already on the ground.  But yeah, we don’t know where we are.  We didn’t break in, we just… appeared here.  The horse was grey by the way.”  While the blue-haired guy, who by the way, looked ethereal, as they all did but it took you a while to wake up and see that there were seven beautiful men in your room, was explaining the situation, the so-called ‘Namjoon’ along with another one of them, were doing the shoot dance and mumbling a song to each other.

“The farm was fun,” The other guy dancing claimed. “I like the countryside.  Do you have any milk?”

“In the door of the fridge.  Help yourself.” You replied.  The boy left, returning a few moments later with the bottle of milk and a metal straw.  At least he was trying to save the environment.

“It’s 2am.  Why are you awake?” The infertile one asked you.

“Fucked up day.” You respond.

“You! Deserve better! Love yourself bitch!!” The loud guy with the big smile encourages you, placing his hands on your shoulders and shaking them, making you roll your eyes. His happy face abruptly contorted into one of anger and upset at your expression, his skin becoming bright red.  “Why can’t you take the freaking compliment?!!!!!” 

“You are unable to love yourself because capitalism is exploiting your emotions in order to increase production and ultimately profit to the bourgeoisie.  Down with capitalism, love yourself!” The second shortest guy demands.

“Yeah, who needs money when you have milk. Fuck vegans!!” The shoot dancer exclaims.

Out of nowhere, a nasally-sounding instrument sounded, piercing through the room.  An accordion? 

(Sorry to break the fourth wall, but wtf am I writing at this point lmaooo)

“This shit gets weirder every time I swear to God…” The guy with the broad shoulders giggled.

“That’s my neighbour.  She likes to play obscure instruments late at night.  She was playing the melodica yesterday” You explained monotonously, probably out of exhaustion.

“Melodica?” The loud guy mumbled, to your surprise.

“What are your names, anyway? I only know that dimple shoot dancer guy is Namjoon, what’s good?” You asked

“Hi, I’m handsome, but you can call me Seokjin, that’s my government name.” Shoulder guy said.

“My name is Jimin!” The short guy said, blushing and covering his smile with his tiny hand.

“Min Yoongi,” The slightly less short guy nodded, placing his hands on the back of his neck and looking at the ground. “Nice to meet you.”

“I am Jungkook and I like milk.” Needless to explain who that was, sipping that white shit straight out of the bottle like it was soda.

“I’m Taehyung.” The blue haired one offers you a beautiful boxy smile.

“I’m your hooooooooo(p)eeeeeee Hoseok.” The loud guy sings, he too has cute dimples.

“Chill,” You reacted, slumping back against your headboard and processing the events of the night. “What happens now?” Your question was followed by silence and awkward shuffling, the sound of Jungkook slurping the last of your milk, and then choking on it.

“Dude what the fuck,” Taehyung stares at Jungkook while he struggles for air.  “Can’t you do something normal for one second? You deadass just choked on milk.”

“I’d do anything for milk, man,” Jungkook looks hurt by Taehyung’s reaction. “Hey, do you have some cheese?”

You shrugged your shoulders, carefree. “No, ate it all.” 

Jungkook frowned at your lack of cheese. “Wig, okay.”

“So what do you do?” Namjoon asked you, his eyes going wide.

“I get shouted at by other people who are more important than me, basically.”

“Not gunna lie that sounds familiar…” Yoongi looked around at the other boys, only to find their heads looking at your laminated floor.

“Maybe you should get a puppy!” Tae suggested, a bright look in his eyes.  “I have a dog, and it changed my life.  It’s so cute and fluffy and makes me so happy, love that for me, and I’d love that for you too”

“We get it, Tae, you have a fucking dog.” Seokjin bickered with Taehyung, though lightheartedly.

“I have an idea!” Hoseok flung his arms in the air and spun around, you swear you saw glitter sparkle around him. “You should get one of these!” He reaches for his pocket, struggling to get the object out.  After a few moments, he pulled the item out.

A fidget spinner.

He laughed maniacally as he spins the object between his finger and thumb.

“This gag became dead a long time ago, Hobi.” Namjoon stares at Hoseok in shame while the latter still stares at the toy spinning in his hand as if he’d never seen it before.

“No no no, just give it a try, please,” Hoseok walked towards you, holding out the fidget spinner.  His eyes were so full of happiness that you can’t say no to him.  You took the fidget spinner, which was red, and started spinning it.  It was liberating.  You burst into laughter, while Hoseok laughs with you, and the others just watched you uncomfortably.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Jungkook asked, leaning towards Jimin.

Jimin turned to the younger boy. “Breakfast?? Fuck if I know.”

You felt euphoric.  You felt free of all responsibility, as if nothing mattered but the rotating plastic in your hand.

“You know what Yoongi, you were right.  Down with capitalism! Down with the government!” You yell, a smile was slapped across your face, up to your eyes, you looked pretty scary to be honest.  Hoseok’s laughing grew louder and louder as the two of you watched the fidget spinner spin.

“Should we call the police?” Taehyung asks, with genuine concern on his face.  “Or a doctor?  Did they get high? Are fidget spinners addictive?” but the fidget spinner kept on spinning. You kept watching, your eyes going blurry as there were suddenly three toys as a result of some sort of fidget spinner mitosis.  This didn’t phase you.  You kept watching.  You didn’t take your eyes off of it, the other boys looking at each other in complete confusion as the room suddenly became colder and darker, the accordion intensifying as if the sound wasn’t terrifying enough as it was.  You vision had become so blurred that you had blacked out completely, you could feel the floor shaking and could still hear the accordion.

You sat up in your bed.  A cold sweat coated your whole body and your breathing was laboured, however your room was empty.  You had to ask yourself, ?????. Was it all just a dream? You looked around the room, trying to find any sign of life, that someone was there.  You looked at the floor, and there it was.

An empty bottle of milk and a fidget spinner.

If you would like to request, the prompts and rules are here!

[robininthelabyrinth]

Eyestealer 11 - ao3 link

Fandom: Naruto Pairing: Senju Hashirama & Senju Tobirama (mostly gen, hints of other relationships)

Summary: Hashirama really doesn’t approve of the thoughtful way his father looks at his younger brother’s bright red eyes. He’s sure it doesn’t mean anything good for anyone.

He’s right.

——————————————————————————————

“Captured by fake plants,” Hashirama says mournfully, looking with very real dismay at the sickly white vines with chakra suppressing seals drawn all over them wrapped around his wrists and elbows and shoulders and all the way down the rest of his body at approximately equivalent interludes. The underground cavern he fell into (was carried into? hard to tell if it's the same cavern at this point) is lined with the white not-plants, giving it a deceptively bright and open feeling. “Fake plants. Tobirama is never going to let me live this down.”

The black-void-vaguely-humanoid-thing that appears to be his captor suddenly gives a whole-body shiver and the blackness twists, transforming until it’s his own face looking back at him.

It's a pretty good imitation, actually; you can't see anything left over from the black-thing it was before.

“You assume you’re going to live, then?” it asks with Hashirama’s own voice. It sounds amused.

“Of course,” Hashirama says, like the contrary asshole he turns into any time he’s being condescended to. There’s a reason he’s given very strict scripts to recite verbatim anytime he’s in the presence of daimyo, accompanied by many, many threats, and he sometimes even listens and sticks to what he's been told to recite. Sometimes. “You don’t actually think that you can pretend to be me for very long, do you?”

Not-Hashirama smiles a nice big old smile that looks an awful lot like what Hashirama sees in the mirror. “I’ve replicated you down to the bones,” it says. “Every scar, every birthmark – even your chakra. Even your Mokuton.”

“Sure, sure,” Hashirama says dismissively, even though a chill runs up his back at the thought of some weird plant-thing having access to the full, deadly extent of his Mokuton. With any luck, it’s neither as creative nor as powerful as he is. “But what about my winning personality?”

Not-Hashirama continues to smile.

Hashirama smiles back.

They might have stayed at an impasse if there wasn’t a groan from the other corner of the cavern, and honestly Hashirama’s never been great at staring contests anyway so he turns to look.

“Izuna, you’re here too,” he says, puzzled.

“No shit,” Izuna says. He’s trussed up just like Hashirama is, except he looks worse: circles under his eyes, unhealthy tinge to the skin. He’s clearly been here a few days. “Be careful. That thing is tricky.”

The creature laughs, drawing Hashirama’s attention back to him, and then bisects itself down the middle – while still wearing Hashirama’s face, no less – until there are two Hashiramas, just like with Tobirama’s shadow clone technique.

“Mitosis!” Hashirama shouts.

The creature stops smiling and starts looking confused.

“What the fuck, Hashirama,” Izuna says pleasantly.

“Tobirama had a microbiological science phase,” Hashirama explains. “While we were working on improving healing techniques. I know most of what’s happening, but I usually forget what words go with what thing, but I remember that one!”

“How are you this much of an idiot?” Izuna moans. “You’re the Hokage of the village, the God of Shinobi, and you’re just – you’re so unbelievably dumb –”

Actually, Hashirama is just easily distracted, bad at starting things, tends to think of too many things at once, and has no verbal filter whatsoever, none of which have anything to do with how smart he is or isn’t, but since Hashirama does in fact consider himself to be something of an idiot (his brother is Tobirama, obviously he’s outclassed in the mental department) and also it pays to be underestimated in front of something that’s planning on imitating you to your closest family and friends, he just shrugs.

Also –

“I had nothing to do with the God of Shinobi nickname,” he says. “I just want to be clear on that. I don’t even know where it came from. It seems excessive.”

The not-Hashiramas snort, and one of them shivers and turns into a perfect copy of Izuna. “If it makes you feel better,” he drawls in Izuna’s snide tones, “I suspect you’ll have a different nickname after I’m done.”

Ooooh, is this the part where they get to find out the evil plan? Will there be monologuing?

“You’re going to stage a fight between Hashirama and me, resulting in one of our deaths,” Izuna says flatly. “Probably me, which will make Madara succumb to the family curse and go absolutely insane, making him kill you – or rather, kill Hashirama, that is, I assume you’ll sub out for the real thing at the last possible moment to leave the real Hashirama helpless – and that, in turn, will get Tobirama to kill Madara. Something like that?”

Izuna is such a spoilsport sometimes.

The not-Hashirama laughs and the not-Izuna smirks.

“Close,” not-Hashirama says cheerfully. “Your peace came too quickly, and despite my best efforts has not yet faltered, but I will make it fail. It will be just as you say, except Tobirama won’t succeed in killing your brother, of course, not even with that stolen Sharingan of his.”

Hashirama frowns.

“Oh, yes, I know all about that. I’d been wondering how you’d managed to make peace so quickly, even over my best efforts, but this…this is better than I could have hoped! A Sharingan among the Senju – that fits perfectly into my plans. All that’ll do is make him more susceptible to the Uchiha curse as well: a perfect tool. Two sides, both consumed with hatred…!”

Yeah, that sounds pretty bad.

“This will restart the war even better than before,” not-Hashirama says with a pretty good approximation of Hashirama’s own glee, except he’s never actually seen his face screwed up in evil laughter quite like that before. “And once I produce Izuna – his body, at least – to prove that it was all a set-up, all the clans of Konoha will unite against the Uchiha, forcing your brother to turn to…let’s say…drastic measures.”

The not-Izuna taps the corner of his left eye, smirking in a way that means nothing to Hashirama but judging by Izuna’s horrified expression means something to him, then adds, “Also, who says we’re going to kill you? Possession is much more effective – and we might need a replenishing source of Hashirama’s DNA if his brother proves insufficient.”

Hashirama really hopes they mean his blood or flesh, not, uh, other replenishing sources because, well, ew.

“You won’t get away with this,” Izuna says flatly.

“Why not?” not-Hashirama asks. “I have before. More times than you can imagine. I’ve infiltrated both clans time and time again, taking on multiple identities, lying in wait until the time is right –”

“Wait,” Hashirama says, unable to resist. “Are you saying – are you really saying –”

The not-Hashirama and not-Izuna smirk at him, smug and condescending and triumphant.

“- that you’re a plant?”

The way their faces fall is hilarious.

Izuna looks like he’s seriously considering bashing his head against a cavern wall right now.

In Hashirama’s defense, as a self-respecting Mokuton user, he had no choice but to go for the pun. There’s a saying, after all, about low-hanging fruit…

Heh.

The not-them recover quickly, though, glaring at Hashirama, and then head out, presumably to set up the utter destruction of everything Hashirama holds dear.

“So,” Hashirama says, a while after when he’s fairly sure they’re alone. “Is that eye-tapping thing some sort of implicit threat or something? I don’t know Uchiha sign language.”

“What? No, that – it’s not sign language. It’s a reference. To the stone tablet, the part about the Infinite Tsukuyomi.”

“The what now?”

Izuna slams his head backwards against the wall of the cave.

“Hey, I didn’t get to see your super special tablet! Your elders said I wasn’t allowed!”

“It’s not a…you wouldn’t have even be able to see…ugh. Never mind. It’s a bullshit legend anyway and Madara would never.”

Hashirama arches his eyebrows.

“…Madara would probably not.”

Hashirama waits. He loves Madara, he really does, but…

“Oh shit we really need to get out of here,” Izuna says with a groan.

“I’m open to suggestions on how,” Hashirama says dryly. “Ideally before we get embarrassingly rescued by my baby brother.”

“I’ve been here for three days and nobody noticed that I wasn’t the one who ‘left’,” Izuna says flatly. He sounds a little hurt by that. “What makes you think anyone will notice when he goes back as you?”

“To start with, leaving a note on Madara’s desk that says ‘gone on mission for interesting stuff don’t wait up’ is a lot more characteristic of you than me –”

“I think I actually did write that note,” Izuna groans. “Did he actually just re-use one of my old notes? This is terrible. I'm so ashamed.”

“– and anyway half the village reported someone sneaking out fairly ostentatiously, and there was obviously no henge involved, so we just assumed it was you. Clearly that’s a mistake and we’ll need to set up more official check-in and check-outs to avoid particularly sneaky infiltrators.”

“Oh, if we get back, I have plans,” Izuna says with all the savagery of a very offended head of village security that has identified a giant gap in his defenses. “But again, that still assumes we get back at all. Why do you think Tobirama will notice?”

“Because that thingamajig –”

“It calls itself Zetsu. Please use that. Have some dignity.”

“You Uchiha care too much about dignity,” Hashirama complains. “Who even cares?”

“Me,” Izuna says. “I care.”

(His lips are twitching, though. Uchiha love to look down their noses at ridiculous people, but they also tremendously enjoy watching their antics. And anyway, Izuna’s been stuck here for three days; he deserves to have a smile put on his face.)

“Fine, fine. Because Zetsu’s imitation of me is all wrong.”

Izuna arches his eyebrows. “It seemed pretty good to me. What was wrong with it?”

“He was happy.”

Izuna blinks. “…and?”

“I’m also happy,” Hashirama explains. “But it takes effort. There’s a difference. Tobirama’s a sensor; he’ll notice.”

That’s not quite the truth, or at least not all of it. Tobirama is indeed an amazing sensor and Hashirama hopes he’d notice just on that basis – he always notices when Hashirama’s doubling down on smiling, so it makes sense he’d notice it when it's an imposter – but regardless he has a trump card. Hashirama always briefly merges his chakra with Tobirama’s every time they’re in the same room together – an old holdover habit from when Tobirama was young and sickly and Hashirama was always trying to sneak him extra with nobody noticing.

Zetsu won’t know to do that, and if he does, it probably won’t have the same effect or feeling.

“And if he does notice, then what’s to stop Zetsu from coming back here and just murdering us both outright?” Izuna says.

“Mmm. An excellent point. We should definitely try to escape first.”

Izuna sighs. “Well, master of the Moktuon, can you do something about these vines?”

“They’re not real vines,” Hashirama says. “They’re fake plants. Plants would be ashamed to be associated with something like this. This is worse than a lawn, and I don’t say that lightly.”

Izuna gives him a strange look. “I thought Madara was joking when he said you had a thing about lawns. Apparently not.”

Hashirama decides to ignore him – clearly, no Uchiha will ever understand his pain in this matter – and tries reaching mentally for the forest.

For a few minutes there’s a lot of nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing –

“Wait, I think I’m feeling something,” he says.

Izuna sits up straight. “You are? What?”

“I don’t – I'm not sure. It doesn’t feel like plants – it feels more like –” He frowns. “Lightning?”

The entire cavern is lit up by a bright flash – not unlike the hiraishin, for that matter – and then something heavy lands on Hashirama.

It lands fairly badly.

“Owwwwww,” Hashirama moans, trying to curl up into a ball. At least he won’t have to worry about Zetsu getting his genetic material out that way, at least not until the bruises heal….

The source of the weight, a tall man with tricolored hair – black and white growing out of his skull, and plaits of bright red woven into them as they form a series of intricate braids – blinks down at him and frowns. “You’re not Tobirama.”

“No, he’s my brother. Who’re you?”

“Your – wait. Hashirama? You got tall! I mean, really tall; I thought Tobirama was joking!”

Hashirama blinks. While it’s true he was rather embarrassingly short for a while there in his childhood – Tobirama was nearly the same height as him for a while despite being three years younger – his teenage years had paid that back with interest. But only someone who knew him as a child would know to say that, and Hashirama doesn’t know anyone with black-white-red hair and braids; those are pretty distinctive, he’s sure he’d remember that.

In fact, the only person he knows who ever had both black and white hair was –

Wait.

No.

“Itama?!”

“Hold up,” Izuna says. “Senju Itama? I thought you said all your other brothers were dead – wait, no, don’t tell me Tobirama’s perfected that stupid bring-back-the-dead jutsu Madara has nightmares about –”

“It’s called Edo Tensei,” Itama says. “And it’s not stupid, just – probably unwise.”

Izuna makes a face. “Whatever. Just…tell me you’re not dead.”

“I’m not dead,” Itama says obediently.

“I said all my other brothers were gone,” Hashirama corrects. He feels slightly smug about being right that his baby brother would rescue them, though he concedes he was thinking of a different one. “Not dead. And officially it’s Uzumaki Itama now, not Senju…wait. Itama, aren’t you supposed to be in Uzushio right now? I’m pretty sure there’s another few years left on that fostering contract of yours before you’re allowed to come home.”

“Yeah, well, I saved Uzushio from being eaten by a giant whale – long story, don’t ask –”

“I’m asking,” Hashirama says immediately, fascinated. He wants to see a giant whale. That sounds awesome.

 “– and anyway to cut to the chase I got permission to go out wherever I wanted,” Itama concludes, ignoring him. Why do Hashirama’s brothers always ignore him? So not fair. “So obviously the first thing I did was come to see Tobirama.” He frowns. “And got you instead. Are you wearing his clothing?”

Hashirama wiggles around to look at his back. That shade of dark blue suggested it probably wasn’t his. “…apparently so? I wasn’t paying attention to what I pulled out of the closet this morning.”

“Are you two still sharing a closet?” Itama says, exasperated. “You’re adults! What will you do when one of you gets married?”

“Get a bigger closet and try to avoid grabbing any kimonos?”

“Not to interrupt this beautiful sibling bonding moment and, might I say, truly wonderful opportunity for future blackmail,” Izuna says, his voice dry as dust, “but maybe you could get us out of these vines and then out of this cave before Zetsu destroys the entire village we’ve been working so hard on? Any time now?”

[enthusiasticclouds-sally]

BDRPWriMo Task #6:

Write ten short stories of no more than a paragraph long (can star one or multiple characters)

Sally gets a vision.... sort of.

It came in a flash, a myriad of pictures speeding before her eyes to tell a story, numerous stories. It made Sally suddenly stop at her tracks right in the small space of Hatter’s cafe, her pupils (unknown to her) going fully white. Just as fast, she was back, eyes blinking. Her surroundings became aware to her, the normal hum drum of people in a cafe. There were a pair of employees arguing heavily behind the counter. A woman just entered about to pass Sally. Sally touched her gently by the shoulder knowing the figure. “I would step slightly to the left.” 

Rhea throws a tantrum.

Raksha simply wanted a coffee that was all, but nothing came simple with an almost one year old in arms. That one year old was in a mood today constantly moving and making angry mumble jumble. She was squirming uncontrollably, the brunette giving her daughter a stern look. “Calm down! My river, now.” It was not working and at this point Rhea began to scream in tears. She felt the hand on her shoulder quickly turning. It was the red head from the Underworld, Raksha knew better than to not listen. She moved and that was when the coffee was thrown barely missing both her and her daughter. 

Dash becomes a hero.

Class was done for the day and Dash had a shit load of homework to do once he reached home, so he did the most logical thing one could do: delay it. There he was entering Hatter’s ready for a good fucking pastry, when he saw a coffee cup flying through the air about to directly hit some girl. With his flash-like speed he was able to catch it before it made a direct hit. Fuck yeah! Except, that while stopping it from hitting the girl (for which he was dead in front of now) the coffee’s content had now spilled all over his arms and that shit burned! “Fuck, fuck, fuck!!” He yelled. “What was in this?!” 

Minnie uses her nursing skills.

It was one of those odd days where Minnie was preparing herself to do an evening shift rather than a night shift. No better way to prepare than a nice big cup of coffee! So, the nurse was in her favorite spot for such a coffee: Hatter’s. It looks as though her coffee had end up flying past the counter instead and was getting ready to land right on her when it was caught by some blonde boy. “Someone grab me a cold cloth! Several of those!” She turned to the boy. “I would sit... the coffee could have been hot enough to cause some burns. I’m a nurse though. Thanks for that catch.”

Georgette is very unamused.

Meanwhile, Georgette was seated, laptop open and going over several important documents concerning her make-up line with Gary on the phone. All of this ruckus and noise was making it very difficult to hear her friend/manager. She was about to take a step outside, when some of the contents of that coffee that had been flying landed right on her laptop. “Shit, are you fucking kidding me?!” She shrieked to her phone. “I just bought this laptop!” From having broken her previous one. “Gary, I’m going to have to call you back.”

Isabel becomes a good Samaritan. 

The moment that request was given to the cafe, Isa had immediately ran to retrieve some cold cloths, napkins, whatever cold was in sight to give to the nurse who was currently assessing the boy’s arm with extreme detail. She handed the brunette some cold wash clothes her eyes falling straight over Dash’s arm. “Ouch! It looks like at least a first degree burn for sure. It’s already inflaming and I can see some blisters forming.  Maybe even a second degree. I can tell by the way—” A blonde suddenly came into view.

Webby has no sense of personal space. 

Webby popped up from behind looking directly over Isabel’s shoulder in total disregard that she was closer than most people would be to a stranger. But, she was FASCINATED by what she was seeing!! “LOOK it’s already HEALING!!!” She pointed excitingly to Dash’s arm watching as the swelling began to decrease, the blisters growing smaller, the redness basically disappearing. She poked at his arm. “I’ve never seen a recovery process work so FAST!!! Do your cells normally replicate this fast?! How is your molecular metabolism structure?! How often do your cells enter a mitosis cycle?! OH MY GOSH ARE YOU CURSED?!” EEE she hoped he was!!!!

Dash is left stunned

Woah!! He knew his metabolism was fast and all that shit but damn he didn’t know it could work as quick as it has. Not that he was complaining, less pain was always a good thing. There was a blonde chick now up close and personal to his face and all over excited talking about being.... cursed? The fuck? It left Dash blinking and speechless. “Uhh... nah not cursed, umm... sorry?” He looked at the nurse. “I gotta go though! Thanks for the help and no problem on the coffee!” With that he zoomed right off realizing he had another class to go to. Fuck, he was about to be late.

 Daniel finds some comical relief 

Daniel watched the sequence of events unfold from when Sally’s eyes had gone all white to the blonde boy speeding off at unnatural speed and if he knew Sally as well as he did, he knew she had seen this all happen. Who would have thought one argument could spawn such a domino affect? The spectre turned to look at Sally with an amused grin and low chuckle. And I suppose you saw this all? Didn’t want to stop it?

Sally realizes her magic is up to some new tricks.

Sally blinked turning to look at Daniel almost lost. “I did, I stopped the baby from getting hurt. I... saw different possibilities, this one... was the better one. Dash ends up fine.” Well... that was certainly something Sally has never done before, and she certainly didn’t know the blonde boy to now suddenly know his name. She realized... she knew the name of all the participants, as well as personal facts about them.... The redhead rubbed the bridge of her nose letting out a deep sigh. “I’m going to need that pumpkin spice. I have a feeling this will be a long day.”