#outer wilds is so cool but also like so fucking sad

[apollolovescheesecak]

MAJOR outer wild spoilers

sometimes when i’m doing art of the nomai i momentarily remember that they’re not just a beautiful race that i love to draw all the time they actually died an agonizing death trapped in an alien solar system after trying their hardest to make the best of a bad situation before an uncaring universe wiped them out and that sobers me a little bit and then i go right back to drawing

[iced-cofi]

I kinda just wanna write game reviews here sometimes. *Ahem*

It's pretty damn rare that you find a piece of media like this throughout the course of your life.

One that elegantly, carefully, and lovingly traverses infinite despair in an infinitely more hopeful way. One that shows you that no true problem can be solved in a single day. One that teaches of the compassion in our hearts, for those around us and the world we all live in.

And, for me, one that teaches that in the face of despair, fear, and sadness, beauty can also be found, and that no matter how pointless it can seem, fighting, trying, and persistence is how we can push through the end of the world. And now matter how all encompassing it may seem, the end is never truly the end. It's just a new beginning.

I am, of course, referring to...

Before I continue, I must clarify, as I did in my ACT review, this will feature spoilers, and moreso than almost any other game I've played, you simply must play this blind if you can.

Ok, a brief, completely spoiler free review. *Ahem again*

Outer Wilds is a beautiful, relaxing yet occasionally stressful first person space exploration game, in which the only currency you collect through the game is knowledge. The solar system is your own journey through the puzzle box the devs made. The music is beautiful and touching, the visuals are distinct yet simple, and the story is like nothing else. The only genuine 10/10 I can give. It's brilliant.

Ok, I will now put a funny picture, this is your opportunity to leave spoiler free.

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Ok now time for the real gamers to chat.

This game. This fucking game. It reaches deep to the innermost part of my mind and soul and shows me a more accurate depiction of the human experience than any other game, and it don't even got humans.

It is the absolute definition of existential optimism, and I think it's refreshing, and borderline spiritual.

And this fact is helped because the way you get to the end is entirely up to you. Every single person who plays this game will play it differently. Everyone follows what they find amazing and interesting, and everyone finds what they think is, and they fly and crash and die and laugh and love every moment they spend in this dark, enrapturing galaxy.

The combination of nostalgic foresty landscapes, crumbling planets, shoddy craftsmanship, and banjo laden melancholy music make for a uniquely sentimental game, which allows you to connect with what theyve done.

I mean fuck some of the coolest ideas for planets and worlds I've ever seen.

Brittle Hollow and it's crumbling deadly surface, and infinitely heavy black hole at the center

Dark Bramble, always enshrouded in fog and mystery, endlessly repeating dangerous, vine coated voids filled with the most terrifying creatures in the known universe

The Hourglass Twins, the most clearly time based astral body of all, as two planets pirouette through the sky, trading impossible amounts of sand due to a shift in gravity

And of course, the Quantum Moon, a blend of all other planets with an ethereal, eternally shifting vibe layered thickly on top.

It's brilliant, and scary, and add layers and layers to your story.

And the characters and all so clearly defined, with interests and dreams and hopes. Reibeck hates space but is obsessed with the Nomai technology and history, so he can't help but explore. Feldspar and his sporadic attitude and wealth of courage allowing him to explore anywhere, as long as it's got beasties. And of course, the one, the only, the best o Outer Wilds character, Gabbro!

This chill as mother fucker got trapped in the same time loope as you, and is simply to chill and content to give a single fucking shit, while still helping where he can with advice and knowledge. It's awesome, and he also teaches you how to speed up your death with meditation, so that's... Cool.

And of fucking course I gotta talk about the music.

It's hypnotic. It permeates your body and makes you happy and sad and lonely and any other thing you can imagine, while still fitting the game, and any individual story moment. It's brilliant.

Like, listen to this shit.

And what about this???

And how about this, which is from the dlc, which i will write about in another review when I'm not exhausted!!

I gotta say, this isn't a review in the way I'd like it to be, cause I'm tired, but fuck me play this game it's amazing and the music and visuals and every piece is just... Oh my God.

I hope you enjoyed reading this delirious mish mash of words I wanted to say about a game I really love.

No joke, 10/10

Would crash into the sun again.

Thanks!!

[krisp-xyz]

ok I'm gonna ramble about outer wilds.

if you haven't played it, even if you don't typically care about spoilers, PLEASE avoid spoilers bc this is the most delicate game ever when it comes to spoilers due to the way it's designed. it's one of the few games where spoilers WILL rob you of the experience. with that said,

OUTER WILDS SPOILERS

this is a very very special game to me fgkjldfjk the ending was really beautiful when i first played and the more i thought about and processed it, the more it really stuck with me to the point where i *will* just cry if i think about the ending too much and god i cannot play through that ending again without sobbing. since im assuming people reading this have played the game, yall already know the nature of the game. the only thing you have to gain from anything is knowledge, and once you beat the game, you cant really ever play it again. sure you could maybe go for achievements or explore things you never saw but the experience is kinda just over.

I very much interpreted the ending as being about death. the game has the whole supernova time loop thing going on which sorta makes the idea of respawning a canonical aspect of the game. the fact that you can just hop back into your ship and you dont really have repercussions from death which is a pretty much synonymous with games as a whole tbh is a canonical aspect of the game that you the player AND you the hearthian traveler exploring the universe are a part of. this doesnt immediately seem to special and didn't even click with me very much until quite a bit after i beat the game, but to beat the game is to accept that you're going to die, and truly dying in this game is kinda the closest media has come to communicating what death really means for me at least. you start aimlessly wandering this star system and eventually start to piece things together, you make goals and eventually figure out how to beat the game, etc. all the knowledge you have to gain in this game leads up to the ending. maybe you stop the supernova and save everyone! maybe thats why you're trying to find the eye of the universe! but no, all the stars are dying. you were just unfortunate enough to be born at the end of a dying universe. There's nothing you can do because death is inevitable for you and those around you.

to beat the game is not only to accept that the sun will explode for the last time, that the end of the experience is inevitable, that all your hearthian friends will die for good, but beating the game also requires accepting that *you the player* have reached the end of this experience, *you the player* cannot hang onto anything forever, that the end was inevitable for you too. sometimes i get genuinely sad that i can basically never play this game again, and i almost wonder if my little hearthian protagonist felt similar during the end of the game. that feeling of the inevitable end finally reaching us.

AND DESPITE IT ALL, you finally accept that you are not immortal, that this will not last forever, that the sun cant keep exploding and looping and exploding and looping forever, when you finally accept death on your own terms, when you have no idea of what's in store for you and what will happen next but you take that dive anyway, you just,, get to share a moment with the people close to you. you sit around the campfire as everyone's music comes together for the first time, once *literally* worlds apart, now, in harmony, as the little audio cues to find your friends on each planet become a symphony. they each share messages about how they feel and every single fucking one resonated with me so much sdjklfsklj stuff like "you cut it a little short dont you think?" and "i got to be a part of something really cool, so I've got no complaints" and "the future depends on the past, even if we wont get to see it" and MY FAVORITE FUCKING LINE FROM THE ENTIRE GAME. solanum, the only non-hearthian character around the campfire, a nomai, one of the species that made this all possible, a friend, says something different. she says that this is the end of our journey, and she asks you a question. she just asks if you're ready. its not required to say yes to finish, its not even required to talk to her to beat the game, but if you say no, she will ask again if you are ready whenever you talk to her afterwards, while leaving a message for you in case you are not ready for it to end. she says "its tempting to linger in this moment where every possibility still remains, but unless they are collapsed by a conscious observer, they will never be more than possibilities." when you finally take your final plunge in this moment, you watch the universe collapse before you, remarkably similar to all the times you watched the sun explode before your eyes, and you die.

even though you the player are clearly still alive, (its just a video game after all :p) the experience is over. you died in a way too. this world is no longer yours to explore and discover. after the credits theres a very nice touch where you see the start of a new universe after you enter the eye and the entire universe dies before you. you see some new creatures huddled around a campfire together to remind you that death isn't the end, because "the future depends on the past, even if we wont get to see it" and that maybe it was enough to be a part of something cool, to share those moments with your friends, to explore the universe in whatever unique way you did.

SO WHAT THE FUCK IS ECHOES OF THE EYE

DLC spoilers beyond this point ofc.

if you're like me or countless other players, you probably wanted more, well I've got just the news for you!! theres a DLC !!!! "but wait, doesnt this defeat literally the entire purpose of the game?" yes :D but that's not a flaw, in fact they do this in the best way possible. the DLC challenges the message of the game because there is a fundamental aspect of death that the game barely even touches that the DLC explored *thoroughly*: fear.

chances are, you realize you can beat the game and go beat it and are immensely moved and equally confused by the ending because it takes so much time to process that you never really have a moment to fear death. theres never a moment where you are scared of what comes next because it doesnt really click that this is the end of everything until after the end. in my opinion at least, this is pretty much the only flaw with their portrayal of death and the DLC remedied this.

so it turns out you want more and weren't ready for this to end! its time to explore the owlks and their contributions to this story. im not going to explain their story in depth because im assuming people have played ofc, but key traits with the owlks is that they feared loss. they archived what they wanted to destroy, they lost their home beause of the efforts they made to reach the eye and were horrified, they tried to escape by hiding in a world of their own creation. they hid the eye to prolong the life of the universe as infinitely far as they could. they stumbled across a way to similarly archive one's consciousness, and conquer even death itself, but it was all out of fear. they couldnt accept the end so they hid from it.

and let me just say THE DLC IS FUCKING SCARY. they lean into horror and I think everyone should play it even if they arent into horror. the puzzles arent actually too challenging in execution, and making the discoveries you need is no sweat if you've gone through the base game tbh, although it is very different in a very refreshing way. The real challenge and the real roadblock is fear. some of the things you are required to do are immensely scary and put you into situations you frankly dont want to be in! but if you quit, if you dont do this out of fear, if you hide and if you try to escape this, you're just like the owlks. you dont get through this by not being afraid, you get through this by not letting your fear paralyze you. you need to face your fears (often quite literally as you need to lure owlks away from things and I think its a nice touch that they can also hide from you by turning off their lights and then they can still see you by shining their light towards you even if yours is off FUCK that but this is a bit of a tangent lsdkfgljsd) and if you succeed where they failed, you learn one of the biggest mysteries of the game. you learn why the eye's signal vanished as fast as it appeared, why the nomai failed to find it as effortlessly as the owlks did, but more imporantly, you make a friend :] you meet the owlk that enabled the eye of the universe to be found with a brief decision that they made in a single moment so long ago. the efforts to build upon what the prisoner did were not in vain, and the prisoner accepts death by literally walking into the water as their light goes out. they leave a final message for you, urging you to ride into the exploding sun with them by your side, and you know its time to go beat the game again.

hopefully at this point the ending has sat with you long enough for you to realize what this means. now, more than ever, this is finally the end of the game. you wanted more and you got more but that desire for more similarly cant last forever. the game still needs to end and this is why there should never ever be another DLC for this game please,, a desire for more and a fear of the end kinda come hand in hand, and the fears that you chose to face were not in vain. this is it! theres nothing else! maybe you're sad that the game is ending for the last time, and maybe you still dont want it to end. but in those final moments around the campfire, solanum isn't the only non-hearthian friend around the campfire :] the prisoner is there too wondering if they even deserve to be there after what their kind did, but its over now, everything worked out. they say something really simple that was, without a doubt, the perfect addition to the game for me:

"...How beautiful. It’s different than I’d envisioned.

Whatever happens next, I do not think it is to be feared."

I think one of the reasons this game resonated so much with me is something that I really struggled to grasp until I watched shammy's outer wilds review. there's something so much more significant about *being* rather than just, observing. tons of movies try to tackle these ideas of death and even plenty of games, but with outer wilds, *you* are having this experience that will end that you can never have again. *you* are exploring a world in your own unique way that cannot last forever. and I think that's ok. I think that's what makes it special.

I'm a game dev and an artist and I think outer wilds is genuinely profound. it makes me want to make something that touches people in the way I felt touched by outer wilds. I'm so happy things aligned for me to get to use this same medium for art. I'm gonna go cry now thanks for reading <3

[quarthly]

Twilight characters as random animals that I think are oddly fitting

(Also yes, I am roasting the animals as well)

Edward: He would be a Cheetah. Now I know, seems like a cop out just because of his speed but hear me out. Cheetahs are, at face value, pretty cool. They used to be my favorite animal as a child, but then I grew up.

Cheetahs, through no fault of their own, are severely inbred. Now thats mainly because of poaching, but the cheetas anxiety also comes into play. In captivity, cheetahs are usually given emotional support dogs. I will admit it is cute but it negatively affects the population. Excluding one in the wild, cheetas can be to anxious to breed and thats not good for conservation efforts.

Cheetahs can hit up to 80 miles per hour in a couple of seconds. They are designed for fast running and agility. Their claws are similar to that of a dogs for better traction and they have elongated spines for longer strides. They have a thin build, long legs and a long tail for balance.

This has downsides though. Many times after making a kill, it will get stolen for them by larger predators. Thats right, they get absolutely bodied by the other animals. I should probably make these shorter but I'm on a rant now, so I guess this will be semi educational.

Throughout the series, we see Edward over estimated his abilities and value, constantly getting bodied by others. He's essentially a perfect mormon, though thats on S'meyers. He constantly judges others, dehumanizing them to their baser flaws, without doing any self reflecting. Him viewing himself as a monster doesn't really count to me. While he definitely hates himself, the only thing he is truly demonizing is being a vampire.

Bella: Picking up from Edwards, Bella is a Chocolate Labrador. Yes, she is his therapy dog. I feel like this is really fitting for her. I know Golden retriever would make more sense, as thats the most common breed for service animals. However, I kind of focused on her appearance. Only at first though! I just know that Edward raved about her human qualities and that would pass over as animals as well. Her chocolate eyes and brown fur, very average and boring. Thats essentially Bella. Even Edward wasn't into her until he got a wiff. Labradors a very loyal dogs and while they have more personality than Bella, I just couldn't shake it. Their also very stupid. Ok that's kind of mean, they're not stupid but when it comes to love, then yeah they are stupid.

I used to have a lab, loved him to death, but god he was something else. Very much danger prone, from their own stupidity or their lack of survival instincts. I know that labs are almost aquatic. They love water, swimming, all that jazz. We can just say that bella has a few screws loose in her dna and is just "not like other labs."

Rosalie: Now she was hard. There are quite a few animals that I think would fit for her. I'll list the other ones, but that one I went with is the Swan. Like Edward, seems a little on the nose, but I have my reasoning.

I was going to pick a predator for her, as she is shown to be very vengeful and viscous. I would have pick some type of cat, most likely a purebred, from a rich family. It could still work, but the swan just speaks to me on this one.

Swan's are known for being beautiful, graceful, and are pictured as the symbol of love. They are also very vain. Edward constantly brings up Rosalies vanity. She was constantly valued for her beauty as a human, so of course that crossed over in the transformation. She was raised to be married into wealth, she was used as a bargaining chip to increase the family's standing.

Rose has a very strong character and makes her opinions known. She's assertive and aggressive at times. She's not afraid to get dirty.

Swans mate for life and like geese, are known for being great parents. I was also going to choose geese as an option for the maternal instincts. I was wary at first because swans can be really aggressive. Like actually, you think geece are bad? Yikes bestie...

I was conflicted because swans are known for drowning dogs and sometimes people. However, I can actually see Rose drowning Bella. It's not that unbelievable lmao.

Emmett: Now this one is just ironic. I only associate him with bears. Its inevitable, but picking a Grizzly or Black bear is too obvious. So I went a slightly different route...

So I was going to pick the Sun bear just because of looks alone. Like, I'm not exaggerating, it looks like someone wearing a bear costume. I don't think it fits him but I know for a fact that he would dress up as a sun bear and sneak into a zoo to see if anyone would notice. I'll put a pic of it here

Like look at this thing. I have no words...

Anyway, what I picked was a Sloth Bear. Now Sloth bears are mostly nocturnal, which either way works consider vamps don't sleep. Their diet is also odd but honestly so is the cullens. They're native to the Indian subcontinent, and are known for being aggressive towards humans. Its said that for the most part they're pretty calm, so I think its just fear of humans that make them act aggressively. Honestly, that's a good thing because they are listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red list.

They have some similarities with sloths, which is where they get the name. They have long claws and unusual teeth. They are known to hang upside down from tree branches, and is described as having a messy appearance. Honestly, Emmitt has a messy personality. Sorry bestie but you're a lot of work.

Now heres the biggest reason for choosing this bear. Aside from Baloo from the jungle book being a sloth bear, they are known to run fades with Tigers. Honestly, how fucking badass is that!? Now I don't think there are recorded instances of a Sloth bear killing a Tiger, but when push comes to shove, they can hold their own and I find that incredibly impressive.

Carlisle: This one was somehow the easiest as well as the toughest. I know Owl seems like the obvious choice, and I can see it. However, I believe Carlisle values emotional intelligence as much or if not more than academic intelligence. He is so charismatic and values other's above himself. He might not be as Saint like as Edward thinks, but he does try and I think he genuinely cares about others. For that reason alone, I choose a Elephant.

Elephant's are very social animals and are extremely intelligent. I could rave about them for ages, I love them so much.

Now elephants live in a familial unit and are usually matriarchal. Bulls usually are on the outer edges of the herd or form little groups with other males. Honestly, they're not that bad aside from when their in musk.

In the group of males, the elder ones will teach the younger where to get the best food, water, how to use things as tools, and every other thing that will increase their odds of survival. This is really cute to me tbh, they do this because the females usually choose the older males because they've proved that they are intelligent and strong, that they have survived and will continue to for awhile. Teaching the younger males these things are to make the odds of them getting chosen to mate more likely. The whole unit just reminds me of a father that has to deal with rowdy teens.

Carlisle likes to take in strays, he might not have a herd but he will make one and teach them to thrive. That's how he envisions it anyway. He just has a found family and is trying his best.

Esme: Now this might seem like an insult, but I promise it's not! This is in no way misogynistic. I love cattle and ever since I took animal science in highschool, I have appreciated these grass puppies like they deserve. Call me Castro because I love cows.

Yup! I chose a Cow for her. Specifically a beef cow. That might sound weird but its because beef cows have higher maternal instinct than dairy cows. I'm thinking Scottish Highland based on vibes alone.

They are nicknamed the Gentle Giants of Scotland. Super maternal and sweet and ugh look how cute they are!

Esme came from a abusive marriage and had just lost her child, she was depressed and desperate. Her changing was, in a way, salvation. She just fits in. She adopts all these strays along with him and will protect them to the death. She might be gentle by nature, but don't fuck with her family. She lost her first one and she isn't going to lose this one.

Alice: She's an odd one. There are so many possibilities and maybe I'm biased, but I feel like she would be a Crow.

Ok listen, I'm definitely biased but it just feels right. Crows get a bad rap, they are so cool! They are so intelligent and have the ability to actually sit and think about the past, prest, and future. I forget what its called, but this was only seem in humans! Maybe other apes, I can't remember exactly, but either way its awesome. They do live in groups, or murders, and remember people and faces. They remember locations and are able to pass down information through generations. They essentially have their own language! They are able to use tools too!

Alice's story is really sad. When we first meets her, it revolves around the death of her mother and her institutionalized. She was essentially tortured and forgot everything from her past. All she had was the future and even that wasn't constant. Crows a often viewed as omens, they are associated with death. I personally believe that instead of being the cause, they just know something is going to happen. They are very inquisitive and can be creative.

If you befriend a murder of crows, sometimes, depends or the group, they will bring gifts. Its can range from food to shiny metals and colorful plastic. Hell, I think I've seen a post of one stealing things from people just to gift it to their human.

Alice's love language is gifts. Even if they are focused around fashion, she still goes out of her way to get something that will look good and at least be a little comfortable. By that I mean she tends to forget peoples comfort zones, but she means well.

Jasper: Honestly not to sure what to put for him. I know a predator would be more fitting, but for some reason I can see a donkey working. I know, seems like I'm clowning on the confederate. Fair, but I'm serious about the donkey thing. Honestly, it would be perfect if it wasn't a herbivore. Porcupine would also work.

Being a predator would make more sense. Given his backstory and his characterization, it wouldn't make sense for him to be a prey animal. Usually I wouldn't count this, but given his gore filled past and trouble with the diet, it seemed fitting.

I see him as a Big Cat. Honestly, vamps in general just give cat vibes. Jasper though especially have some cat like qualities, which originates from hunting and being a soldier.

I specifically see him as a Mountain Lion. Aside from him being blonde, he just has the predatory stealth to him. In midnight sun, we see him use his gift to make the nomads overlook him. He's honestly really powerful.

Mountain lions are known for being stealthy with an air of grace and power to them. They are stong animals. And I mean strong. They can jump 40-45 feet.

They're very elusive and quite. They stalk their prey and tend to attack from behind but don't think they won't hold their ground if need be.

Jasper was changed during the Civil War and forced to fight in the Newborn wars. He was a soldier as a human and as a vampire. He's able to feel and manipulate others emotions. He's covered in scars and is very intimidating.

He still struggles with the diet and honestly I hate how the others handle it. Like they have no room to talk. I don't want to defend the confederate but it just pisses me off. He has to deal with his hunger on top of everyone else's. Like damn, besties always on edge! Everyone doubts him which I don't think helps any.

Also, Mountain lions and Cheetahs can purr!

@aquanova99 I'll do a Volturi one too. That one will be fun lmao

[serenheist]

What Jin is like in a relationship/ Jin as a boyfriend Tarot reading

I just realized I describe some things in this reading that won’t make sense to you guys cause I used my angel tarot deck in the picture but I’m using my other tarot deck to look at the pictures and describe what I get because the angel deck isn’t as visually expressive compared to my other one lol whatever.

How long does it take Jin to get into a relationship? & Does he prefer long or short term relationships The sun reversed, ace of cups, page of wands knight of cups, judgement reversed

Jin seems to get into relationships so what quickly but moreso having a problem of being too intense. There’s a lot of showing off, over bearing energy. When he meets new partners he can come across as too egotistical and the partner can feel outshone. He could be caught up in the excitement of new relationships. He might have gotten into a good amount of relationships quickly because the Princess of wands is younger immature energy and gets caught up in the idealized worship of someone. I think he likes that purity aspect in someone in a new relationship whether that literally means he likes virgins👀 or he just likes someone who appears pure but has a fiery passionate side. But still this has made him more arrogant like “I can get anyone” energy and at the same time left him burnt out. There’s always a burnt out energy with these guys.

Now it looks like he wants something more long term. It looks like he’s starting to slowly move away from that party everyday lifestyle and jumping into a new relationship quickly. Very slowly though. I get the image of him now ignoring calls of past hookups cause it’s no longer fulfilling. It’s somewhat lonely though because he lost some people he used to hang out with in that lifestyle and decided to go off on his own and find fulfillment on his own. There’s also no longer being invited to places with friends that you used to go to to possibly meet people.

Past & present love life past: 4 of swords, avenoir 1 present: 7 of wands, queen of cups

In the past a lot of people flocked to Jin and I think he enjoyed having so many options and all the fun of it but having more and more and people being attracted to superficial things left him taking a break from dating stuff. This reminds me of some dumb shit like when you’re the cool one cause you bring all the booze to the party but it’s fleeting popularity and no one actually likes you as a person but they like the fact that you got the alcohol. When people meet you they’re expecting the life of the party and after awhile you just wanna avoid everyone and everything.

Present: it looks like Jin is being defensive in his love life right now that he’s blocking a great connection someone that isn’t even far away. He could be too much in his head and rejecting a lot of people who just wanna fuck around. I wonder if he actually has a specific person in mind because this queen of cups is literally telling the 7 of wands dude to come here while he’s too busy trying to fight off these unseen “enemies”. Idk it doesn’t look like he’s with this person represented by the queen though but if he wanted to they’re seriously right there, there’s water flowing from the queen of cups to 7 of wands on the ground he could just keep walking instead of wasting his time on past stuff.

What is he like in a relationship samadhi 29, the keeper of whispers, dolphin, sad embrace 54, G. hobyah 61 reversed, 6 of wands

When he’s in a relationship he isn’t distracted by all the people trying to cozy up next to him. He doesn’t care how hot someone is he only has eyes for his person even when so many people like him. I think he’s become more open minded in the sense that he accepts his partner more as they are and won’t try to make them into something they’re not. He likes to play around and have fun and be social and all that but he’s also protective and caring for someone he’s in a relationship with.

Though it seems like he can go through a lot of stages of ego problems and feeling sorry for himself I’m not sure why. He has a lot of confidence but his desire to be center of attention can bring conflict. I gotta say though I think he’s not the best at communicating when conflict arises like he can’t articulate himself in a way without resorting to trying to be playful when it’s not needed. The keeper of whispers really reminds me of the because even I can’t articulate it. It’s about having access to all this vast knowledge and not being able to express it at all.

What is his ideal type Abaddon, 33 translucence, Penelope dreamweaver 28 reversed, queen of pentacles, 39 protecting treasure, cat, 5 of wands reversed

Okay his type is what we pretty much already know, with the Queen of pentacles being a great homemaker and nurturing sensual etc but I’m getting there’s sort of an energy of being successful or maybe from a wealthy family but having to keep up appearances and being bored out of your mind. This person works way too hard and their inner self wants to go off and leave the mundane world and go off and actually enjoy their own fantasies and dreams. They could be from a family where they weren’t allowed to pursue a more creative path and had to stay in the family business but this person is very creative and has a lot of anger towards not being able to do what they want. Their father especially is probably the head of the family and very controlling and strict on them because they could be the heir to the family fortune or oldest child etc.

There could be internal conflict or outer conflict with their family about what they want to do but I think they’ll ultimately choose what they want to do because they have too much of an independent spirit and it’s inevitable. This person is highly selective about who they become friends with I think because they have a lot of trust issues with people just wanting to be their friend because they’re well off. But I see them having a mysterious air, elegant and confident or that could be what they project to the outer world the real them is having a more wild child attitude. They feel like they’ve been living in a superficial world for too long and ready to go into the unknown and hang out with different kinds of people not just from their social background. They love the night and are very affectionate when they get used to you. There’s a certain ruggedness to them Idk if they’ll actually dress more free and wild but they might have longer hair and let it go free and I feel like they’d love big outdoor concert venues and underground shows a lot. Like huge edm festivals where you dress up in wild outfits. Jin would love that type of free spirit energy that’s bold in the face of adversity. But I still think he wants them to look “presentable” for lack of a better word, in front of family at least for show but they’re actually a freak tbh.

What is his love language the dark lady reversed 20, epoch 7

Since he spends a lot of time occupying himself with his career and the outer world, his love language is quality time but moreso a nice meal at home with someone he loves, soft blankets nice music, phones on silent and away from the stresses of life

Random Ramblings: Bruh I am not satisfied with this reading lol My mind went blank idk why. With the other readings it was easy af and flowed. But I think I was overthinking for this one, it took me several days to do this shit like I could not relax at all. But then again I’m probably too hard on myself cause I’m never satisfied with my readings.

[angrycowboy]

Okay, time for coffee and rewatch!

I did a rewatch last night after watching it live and flailed at @haloud​, because this episode was everything I wanted for the premiere and getting the show back. It made me hurt and it made me happy and it made me excited for all the things to come.

After I’m done with this, it’s off to find a decent download and start giffing!

- I love the little Echo flashback. I mean, I think it’s interesting to include Max mentioning the Alighting and the whole “savior” thing. Though, I wonder if it’s going to come into play more than just the mentions in this episode that allowed Liz to connect the dots about Max. But I am heart eyes at this cute Echo moment.

- Liz’s “you smell like rain” comment is also interesting. I am just gonna sit here and think about Maria’s comment about Michael smelling like a river now and what is up with these aliens.

-Jeez, Liz and Rosa. Oh my god, Rosa. And Liz, with tears on her face, needing to switch into crisis mode. 

- Graffitti! Omg Rosa’s artwork. “We don’t believe in humans” Omg I love it.

-This is an Arturo Ortecho appreciation blog. He’s adorable being so proud of Liz. I just smile at this scene so hard. It’s perfect.

- “I reject good-bye” I love Maria DeLuca, y’all. 

- So in my happy place headcanon, Michael did just get some sort of flash about Max’s death, left the Pony, and basically has been avoiding Maria ever since. Simplest explanation and I can live with it. 

- BUT as always, my biggest gripe with the show, it’s been two weeks and no one has talked to one another. Though I kinda understand Liz avoiding everyone while she’s trying to deal with Rosa. 

-”Came to vent about Michael Guerin ghosting me” Yeah, I mean, I’m glad that the show established this right off the bat. Especially after this fucking hellatus this fandom decided to go through in regards to Miluca. I’m actually happy about this. But see ya’ll? Fucking overreaction central.

- “And now just one more Roswell good time before I hit the road.” The delivery on this, and the look on Liz’s face. Fuck, Jeanine just nailed every scene in this episode.

- Michael Guerin, Resident PigPen and Disaster Bi, stumbling int the church and shoving his way into a filled pew. Oh, Michael, you are a mess and I love you so much.

- Oh, Isobel. Also, I love the overacting in the beginning when Isobel is trying to talk about Noah vs how she changes when she starts speaking about Max instead. I love that use of Noah’s funeral to publicly mourn Max. It’s so good. 

- Fuck, this flashback to the cave. To Isobel seeing Max dead. OUCH.

- Oh my god, the staple of every funeral and wake - people bringing way too much food and it’s all the same fucking thing. ISOBEL GIRL, I FEEL YOU.

- “Mrs. Evans! That’s a phenomenal cape.” Listen y’all, have I mentioned how much I love this sad disaster alien cowboy? Cuz I do. A lot. He is a MESS.

- I really love this shot of Alex watching Michael at the wake. Just that little bit of concern - it’s so Alex and I love him so much. And I operate under the “if Alex knows, Kyle knows” and vice versa, which means that Alex isn’t watching Michael like this because he knows Michael is spiraling because of Caulfield and Max, he thinks Michael is only spiraling because of Caulfield. 

- Kyle being all practical and realistic about dealing with Jesse, and Alex is just like YOLO LET HIM DIE. Like I kinda love how Alex just kinda doesn’t want to deal with Jesse.

- “I’m not a murderer.” “No, you’re not. But he is.” Also, are we gonna talk about Alex’s little eyebrow raise and the look in his eyes, and how he’s still possibily talking about himself? Cuz, oh my god. I have feelings. Alex Manes, you stubborn bastard, I love you so much. (cc: @ober-affen-geil)

- “Seemed like a kiss at least worthy of a text back.” Oh Maria, my darling. You keep holding onto the hope you have for him, because girl, you are gonna need it with this massive spiral of his. 

- “Regulars shouldn’t drink alone when they’re grieving.” Oof. The fact that Maria thinks Michael is acting like this because of Noah is dead kinda yikes, and really just makes me desperately want her in on everything else that is going on, because it just makes it so obvious how little she knows. But I also like that line because he comforted her in 1x07, no questions asked, and in a way she’s doing the same back for him. She’s telling him she’s there if he needs someone.

- SHERIFF VALENTI WITH HER HAIR DOWN. I LOVE IT.

- Also her and Ann. “Graffiti is an early indicator of gang violence.” Ann Evans is the epitome of suburban white mom. I love Michelle Valenti just nodding along, like yeah, I’ll get right on that and not looking into this suspicious shit surrounding your son and your son-in-law.

- Lol @ this little public display of anger between Liz and Isobel.

- Oh shit, the fact that Liz hasn’t told Rosa about the cover-up is interesting, because that means that’s definitely coming. And oh my god, I cannot wait. 

- ALSO I CANNOT BELIEVE WE WERE ROBBED OF THIS HUG.

- “a glowing ooze filled egg coffin from outer space” Listen, if that’s not the most accurate outsider description of the pods ever. (Also creepy Noah scenes are creepy.)

- Liz talking about burying Max, y’all that shit HURTS. Like, obviously we know that isn’t gonna happen but the fact that Liz and Rosa are sitting talking about it as a finite ending in that moment is just... OUCH.

- “...where’s my hole t-shirt?” um... as of 1x04 it was in the backpack that Fredrico returned! What’cha doing with it, Liz?

- God, Liz and Rosa is just so perfect. “I never thought we’d get to have this stupid fight again.” I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.

- Isobel, darling. What are those pajamas. They’re wild.

- “I meant to call - I heard you and Evans broke up” So that does establish that Kyle was too preoccupied dealing with Jesse, and Liz has been singularly focused on Rosa that they haven’t talked in the two weeks. Cool cool cool.

- “Lemme guess? Alien thing?” Kyle is so tired of this shit.

- Omg Maria beating people at pool. I love it. I love her. More of that please! Also this outfit she wears is super cute. FIGHT ME.

- Mimi and more alien movie references!

- “It’s been ten years since [Rosa] died.” “Not always.” I love love love the roundabout ways Mimi is telling the truth about the things she knows. When you don’t have all the facts, of course it would sound like she’s not making sense, and of course it would appear to present as dementia. But what does she know that she’s even talking in this kinda code at all? And why? And what’s up with the wandering?

- This scene with Kyle and Rosa is fabulous. “Ten years and my half-brother is still pining for my sister. Cool cool cool.”

- Hahaha “What’s your drug of choice?” “Why quarterback, you wanna party?” I LOVE THIS ENTIRE SCENE SO MUCH IT’S HILARIOUS AND FANTASTIC.

- Upon rewatching, it’s much more obvious about the hows and whys of Kyle not knowing Max was dead. Because I missed all of that the first time around, and thought it came out of left field, but it really actually doesn’t.

- Rosa is clearly like, “when the hell did Kyle fucking Valenti get so smart?”

- this continued implication that Alex shows up at the Airstream and just basically invites himself in will never not completely fuck me up about them

- A FUCKING GUITAR LIKE HOW DARE THIS SHOW

- Okay first off, where the fuck is Alex? Is this his new house? Why does Michael know where to find him? Is this Jesse’s house and Alex is housesitting while he’s in a coma? It’s also the same place as this shot Carina posted over the summer that we all died over. Can’t wait to maybe get an definite answer to that (and also, what happened to the cabin). Just the fact that Michael knows exactly where to find Alex when all through S1 Alex always came to the Airstream is again, more shit about them that just fucks me up.

- Michael mentioning Alex had said he was getting out of the Air Force to make music... um, question. Where? When? I am going to handwave this because I can handle it may have gotten cut, and Alex did talk about fighting his own battles and not his fathers in 1x13. And I can see them having talked a bit about it during their junkyard talk in 1x10 too.

- “came back the next morning after clearer heads had prevailed - wanted to show you something.” Okay, Alex, honey, We need to talk about this. Michael just saw and felt his mother die, giving him a folder with that information, with that photo, is not how you should be going about this. I get it - Alex operates on having as much information as possible. If it exists, he wants it to make the informed decision. But that’s not Michael. And Alex pushes just a bit too hard, and Michael snaps. And I love this scene because Michael says things that needed to be said between them. Michael needed to say them, and Alex needed to hear them.

-ugh that photo... but if there’s prop consistency, then it’s interesting that it took a year after the crash for Michael’s mom to end up a prisoner at Caulfield. It really makes me excited for the flashbacks, because if she wasn’t caught in the initial melee after the crash, how did it happen?

- Alex’s little “hey” when MIchael pushes the folder back into him. Just. Fuck me up, okay? I’ll be here, in the middle of the floor, sobbing. It’s just, it makes it so obvious they’re no where near being on the same page. And Alex’s asking if he left, and if Michael would come with him - it really reads like a hail mary attempt on his part. Because he’s still thinking in that moment, that Michael will say yes, like Michael always says yes. Alex doesn’t really know what it’s like for Michael to say “no” to him.

- “I wanna be good for somebody.” (and with the fucking Malex theme playing over them what the fuuuuuuuck) 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

- Hahaha Isobel using the good crystal to practice - THAT’S MY GIRL

- Handprint talk! Also lol @ Liz mentioning the handprint Max gave her in 1x13 during sexytimes and Kyle, not knowing what she’s talking about immediately just assuming she’s talking about the one from the pilot. Though it’s interesting that neither Liz nor Michael had residual physical handprints show up, but we know Liz was able to still feel Max die in 1x13

- “exorcising demons” Yoooo, I am here for this Isobel. She is determined, and she wants her life back and she is going to take it by force if necessary. Also, that’s a fantastic use for that good crystal.

- But it also breaks my heart a bit because she clearly is in this huge denial about Max. She really believes that she can bring him back if she tries hard enough, if she focuses and learns. And the way Michael is just... so resigned to this whole thing. His hope is just... gone.

- “Max’s heart was weakened before he decided to lasso lightning” Michael really does get some great lines. But omg he’s so angry, and he’s so determined to get Isobel to see reason.

- Ahhh Liz and Rosa. Also, Liz in the bathroom. Breaking down because she’s got that moment to herself to finally break. That scene in the shower. It always just fucks me up. It’s fucked me up since the first time I saw it at NYCC, and it still fucks me up now.

- These nightmares are creepy as fuck. 

- ‘Don’t treat me like the little sister.” OH SNAP, LIZ ORTECHO.

- I adore messy flirty disaster Michael. And smiling through a punch? Oh, Michael.

- The way Liz’s mind works, just bouncing and making those connections and conclusions and realizing how there might still be hope for Max. Woo boy, I need to take some time to process that (and don’t get me started on Michael’s loss of hope).

- “So she wants to use Noah’s heart? He’s the actual devil.” TOO RIGHT YOU ARE, ALEX.

- Also, this is @el-gilliath‘s fault but Alex brings up that when cremated, the aliens give off toxic fumes - so what does that mean for Caulfield? All those aliens would have been burned alive someone somewhere would have noticed then, right?

 - Alex is so soft looking in this scene. 

- Which is hilarious cuz the next scene is him throwing the morgue doctor agains the wall.

- “I thought he was you.” Oh boy. Let’s not even begin to unpack that.

- Aaaaah this scene. Okay first off, fuck Flint. I hate him. “There’s a chain of command in this family.” Oooooh boy, so we’re gonna see that this season, right? Cuz I am so curious about the other two brothers and their involvement as well.

- “there’s a sealed incinerator at area 51, can’t exactly storm the place” I’VE GOT NEWS FOR YOU, ALEX. But it’s nice to see confirmation that Liz knows that Alex knows about everything too. Woo hoo, communication!

- “Flint was the Manes in my grade. He was always such a dick.” YESSSSSSSS.

- Michael’s speech about hope. Shit. He is just. “Hope screws people up. Hoping that your family will come and save you from the system. Hoping that anyone can be saved at all.” And poor Maria, she doesn’t know anything. Did she know about how Michael grew up? Because even Alex only knew he was living out of his truck as a rumor, and didn’t know the full extent until the junkyard talk in 1x10. So maybe Michael did have that hope for a moment in 1x13, that he went to the Pony thinking things could be different. But then Max died, and it reminded him that hoping just means more of the same shit.

- Also, Maria. Honey. Taking Michael’s keys doesn’t really mean anything. He’s a mechanic and a telekinetic alien.

- “Need help moving a body.” “If I had a dollar for every time I heard that.” LOL!

- No Kyle, your life is never going to be normal again. Nope.

- “The last thing Isobel needs is to get her hopes up.” Lots and lots of talk of hope this episode.

- “I always thought it was synthetic but if it’s organic” YOU MEAN LIKE HOW LIZ HYPOTHESIZED IN 1x08? Cool cool cool. I also love how their brains work, speaking of that callback. Liz is a biomedical engineer, this is her jam. Michael seems to lean more towards mechanical engineering, especially in 1x08 how he talked about the pods being “tech” and having a seam. But I am super curious about this idea that the alien organs can be fixed in a way, essentially being in line with Liz’s chosen field of study and her career path.

- It’s so cute how Michael gets a bit squeamish before he’s just totally in awe, like he’s probably never really gotten the chance to actually know anything about his own biology, and how it differs from humans - especially not before working with Liz in S1 to develop the serum antidote.

- Liz and Rosa, omg I love them so much. This conflict Liz is dealing with, she’s so happy to have Rosa back, but she’s so angry and so mad and so upset over losing Max at the same time. i LOVE LIZ ORTECHO.

- “I’m gonna fix it” GODDAMNIT Y’ALL LIZ ORTECHO. JUST... LIZ FUCKING ORTECHO.

- I am so looking forward to figuring out what’s up with Mimi and this wandering and why she had Rosa’s bracelet from the roadside memorial.

- Poor Isobel. This is gonna be an interesting story arc to see play out. Knowing what Carina said about it, I am much more interested in letting it play out before making any decisions on it. I’m not crazy about a pregnancy story line, but who knows what Carina has in store with it.

- Zombie!Max I think it’s interesting he says, “you’re the only one I can reach” and how that ties in with Liz’s earlier remarks about the handprints. Why was Rosa the only one to get a handprint? Is it because she was the most recent one Max healed? In the pilot, Max did say, “the mark could show up” so he knew there was a possibility it wouldn’t. But what does that mean? There’s definitely something more there, and I am excited to find out.

[love-pyramus]

hi.

you're on a rock floating in space.

pretty cool, huh?

some of it's water.

fuck it, actually most of it's water.

i can't even get from here to there without buying a boat.

it's sad.

i'm sad.

i miss you.

how did this happen?

a long time ago, actually never, and also now, nothing is nowhere.

when?

never.

makes sense, right?

like i said, it didn't happen.

nothing was never anywhere.

that's why it's been everywhere.

it's been so everywhere you don't need a where.

you don't even need a when.

that's how every it gets.

forget this.

i wanna be something.

go somewhere.

do something.

i want things to change.

i want to invent time and space.

and i know it's possible because everything is here and it probably already happened.

i just don't know when to start.

and that's exactly where it started.

whoah, i paused it.

i think there's a universe now.

what's it made of?

quarks & stuff

ah, that's a thing.

in a place.

don't like it?

try a new place.

at a different time™.

try to stick together, because the world is gonna get bigger.

and emptier.

but it's not empty yet.

it's still very full, and about a kjghpillion degrees.

great news!

the quarks are now happily married, in groups of three called a proton or a neutron

and there's something else flying around too that wants to join in but can't cause it's still too

HOT

great news!

the protons and neutrons are now happily married to each other.

and some of them even doubled up.

great news, the electrons have now joined in

congratulations, the world is now a bunch of gas in space.

but it's getting closer together.

and it's getting closer together.

and it's getting closer toge-

it's a star

new shit just got made!

some stars burn out and die.

bigger stars burn out and die with passion, and make some brand new, way crazier shit.

space dust

which allows newer, more interesting stars to be made, and then die, and explode into

even crazier space dust

so now stars have cool stuff around them, like rocks, ice, and funny clouds, which can make some very interesting things.

like this ball of flaming rocks for example.

holy shit, we just got hit with another ball of flaming rocks.

and it kind of made a mess.

which is

now the moon

weather update:

it's raining rocks from outer space.

weather update:

those rocks might have had water inside them, and now there's hot steam in the sky.

weather update:

cooler temperatures today, and the floor is no longer lava.

weather update:

it's raining.

severe flooding alert:

the entire world is now an ocean.

volcano alert:

that's land!

there's life in the ocean

what?

something's alive in the ocean

oh cool, like a plant or an animal?

no, a microscopic speck.

it lives at the bottom of the ocean and eats chemical soup, which is being served hot and fresh, made from gnarly space ingredients left over from when it was raining rocks or whatever.

oh yeah, and it can do that.

it has secret instructions written inside itself telling it how to build another one of itself.

so that's pretty nifty, i would say.

tired of living at the bottom of the ocean?

now you can eat sunlight!

using a revolutionary technique, you can convert sunlight into food

taste the sun

side effect: now there's oxygen everywhere and the sky's blue.

then the earth might have been a snowball for a while, maybe even a couple of times.

it's a sponge.

it's a plant.

it's a worm, and some other types of weird strange water bugs and strange fish.

it's the Cambrian explosion

"wow, that's animals and stuff"

but we're still in the ocean, hey, can we go on land?

no

why?

the sun is a deadly lazer

oh okay.

not anymore, there's a blanket

now the animals can go on land.

come on, animals, let's go on land!

nope, can't walk yet.

and there's no food yet, so i don't care.

ok, will you learn to walk if there's plants up here?

maybe, said some bugs, and fish.

ok, so i can go on land, but i have to go back in the water to

have babies

learn to use an egg.

i was already doing that.

use a stronger egg.

put water in it.

have a baby, on land, in an egg.

water is in the egg.

baby, in the egg, in the water, in the egg.

works for me.

bye bye ocean

and now everything's huge.

including bugs.

wanna see a map of the land?

sure.

oh fuck, now everything's dead.

just kidding, here are the survivors.

keep your eye on this one because it's about to become the dinosaurs.

here's another map of the land.

yeah, it broke apart, don't worry about it, it does that all the time.

here comes a meteor.

and the dinosaurs are gone

it's mammal time, here come the mammals.

look at those breasts.

now they're gonna dominate the world and one of them just learned how to grab stuff.

and walk.

no, like, walk like that.

and grab stuff at the same time.

and bang rocks together to make pointed rocks.

"ouch"

and set things on fire.

"yeouch"

and make crazy sounds with their voice.

"gneurshk"

which can mean different things.

that's a human person

and now they're everywhere.

almost.

ice age

what, you can walk over here?

cool.

not anymore

well i guess we're stuck here now.

let's review.

there's people on the planet.

and they're chasing their food.

fuck it, time to plant some grass.

look at this.

i control the food now.

now everyone will want to be my friend and live near me.

let's all build houses except mine is bigger because i own the food.

this is great, i wonder if anyone else is doing this.

tired of using rocks for everything?

use metal.

it's underground.

better farming was just invented, in a sweet dank valley right in between these two rivers.

and the animals are helping.

guess what happens next

more food.

and more people who came to buy the food.

now you need people to help make the food and keep track of the sales.

and now you need houses for people to live in and people to make the houses, and now there's more people and they invent things, which makes things better and more people come and there's more farming and more people to make more things for more people and now there's business, money, writing, laws, power.

Society

coming soon to a dank river valley near you.

meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, the horse is probably being tamed.

why is all my metal so lame and lumpy?

tired of using lame, sad metal?

introducing

Bronze

made with special ingredient tin from the far lands of tin land.

i don't know, my dealer won't tell me where he gets it.

also, guess what?

egypt

meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, they figured out how to put wheels on a horse.

now we're getting somewhere.

also

china

and did i mention

indus river valley civilization

norte chico

the middle east is getting more complicated, maybe because it's in the middle of the east.

knock knock, er, clop clop.

it's the people with the horses.

and they made an empire.

and then everyone else copied their horses.

greeks

ah look, it must be the greeks, er, a beta version of the greeks.

let's check in with the indus river valley civilization.

they're gone.

guess who's not gone?

china

new arrivals in india, maybe it's those horse people i was talking about, or their cousins or something

and they wrote some hymns and mantras and stuff

you could make a religion out of this.

there's the bronze age collapse.

now the phoenicians can get down to business

also, can we switch to a metal that's a little easier to find?

thanks.

look who came back to israel, it's the twelve tribes of israel.

and they believe in God

just 1 though, he's got like a ten step program.

here's some huge heads.

must be the olmecs.

the phoenicians make some colonies.

the greeks copy their idea and make some colonies.

the phoenicians made a colony so big it makes colonies.

here comes the assyrian empire.

never mind, it's the babylonian- median-

it's the Persian Empire

"wow, that's big"

ah, the buddha was just enlightened.

who's the buddha?

this guy, who sat under a tree for so long that he figured out how to ignore the fact that we're all dying.

you could make a religion out of this.

oops, china just broke, but while it was breaking, confucius was figuring out how to have good morals.

ah, the greeks just had the idea of thinking about stuff.

and right over here, alexander just had the idea of conquering the entire persian empire.

it's a great idea.

he was great.

and now he's dead.

hopefully the rest of the gang will be able to share the empire evenly between them.

knock knock, it's chandragupta, he says get the hell out of here.

will you get the hell out of here if i give you 500 elephants?

ok thanks, bye

time to conquer all of india

or

most of india

but what about this part?

that's the tamil kings, no one conquers the tamil kings.

who are the tamil kings?

merchants, probably

and they've got spices

who would like to buy the spices?

me, said the arabians, swiftly buying it and selling it to the rest of the world.

hey, china put itself back together again, with good morals as their main philosophy.

actually, they have three main philosophies.

out here, the horse nomads run wild and free, and they would like to ransack your city.

let's check the greekification levels of the greekified kingdoms.

greekification overload!

bye, said the parthians.

bye, said the jews.

hi, said the parthians, taking over the entire place.

heyyyyyyyy, said the romans, eating the entire mediterranean for breakfast.

thanks for invading our homeland, said the jews, who were starting to get tired of people invading their homeland.

hi, everything's great, said some guy who seems to be getting very popular and is then arrested and killed for being too popular, which only makes him more popular.

you could make a religion out of this.

want silk?

now you can buy it from china.

they just made a

brand new road to the world

or you can

get there on water

sick! new trade routes! said india, accidentally spreading their religion to the entire southeast.

hmm, that's a good place for an epic trading kingdom.

there goes buddhism traveling up the silk road.

i wonder if it'll reach china before it collapses again.

remember the persian empire?

yep, said the persians, making a new one.

axum is getting so powerful they would like to build a long stick.

has anyone populated madagascar yet?

let's do it together.

china is whole again

then it broke again

still can't cross the sahara desert?

try camels.

hell yeah! now we've got business

said the ghana empire, selling lots of gold, and slaves

hi, i live in the roman empire, and i was wondering

is loving jesus legal yet?

no.

actually, ok, sure, said constantine, moving the capital way over here to be closer to his

main rival

don't worry about rome, it won't fall.

it's the golden age of india

there's the gupta empire, not chandragupta, just gupta.

first name chandra.

the first.

guess who's in rome?

barbarians

what's a barbarian?

non-romans, said the romans, being invaded by non-romans.

r.i.p., roman empire, er, actually just half of it, the other half is just fine, but it's not in rome anymore so let's give it a new name.

the mayans have figured out the stars

oh and here's a huge city, population: everyone

the göktürks have taken over the entire eurasian steppe.

great job, göktürks.

how's india?

broken.

how's china?

back together

how's those trading kingdoms?

bigger, and there's more of them

korea has 3 kingdoms.

japan has a kingdom, it's the sunrise kingdom.

deep in the arabian desert, on the top of a mountain, the real god whispers in muhammed's ear.

so he goes down to the cube where everyone worships gods and he tells them their gods are all fake.

and everyone got so mad at him that he had to leave town and go to a different town.

you could make a religion out of this.

and maybe conquer the world as well.

the roman empire is long gone, but somehow the pope is still the pope.

plus there's

new kingdoms all over europe

i wonder if there's room for moors.

here's all the wisdom.

in a house.

it's the baghdad house of wisdom.

just in time for the

islamic golden age

let's bring stuff to the coast and sell it, and become the swahili on the swahili coast, said the swahili on the swahili coast.

remember this tiny space you have to go through to get from here to there?

someone owns that now.

wanna get enlightened in the middle of nowhere?

the franks have the biggest kingdom in europe, and the pope is so proud that he invites the king over for christmas.

surprise! you're the new roman emperor, said the pope, pretending to still be part of the roman empire.

then the franks broke their kingdom into what will later be called france and not france.

but the northerners, or just norse if you don't have much time, are exploring.

they go north, from the north to the northern north.

and they find some land.

two types of land.

and they name them accordingly.

they also invade some other places, and get called many names, such as vikings.

there's the rus.

the kievan rus.

are they vikings?

i don't think so, said the kievan rus.

ok, fair enough.

the pope is ready to make some more emperors.

of the "roman empire".

the holy roman empire.

it's actually germany but don't worry about it.

new kingdoms.

christianize all the kingdoms

which brand would you like?

mine's better.

mine's better.

mine's better.

time to conquer england, said william.

it's a bird, it's a plane

it's the seljuk turks

aah! said the byzantine empire who's getting so small and almost doesn't exist anymore.

we need help!

they need help, so they call the pope.

hey pope, can you help us get rid of the seljuks?

maybe take back the holy land on the way?

come on, i know you want to take back the holy land.

yes, i do actually want to do that.

let's do a crusade.

crusade

they did many crusades, some of which almost didn't fail.

but at least the italians got some sweet trade deals.

goodbye mayans.

hello toltecs

goodbye toltecs.

hello mississippi

look at those mounds.

there's the pueblo.

i always wondered how to build a town in a cliff.

guess who's here?

khmer.

where?

here.

and pagan is there.

vietnam unconquered itself, korea just became itself, and japan is so addicted to art that the military might have to take over the government.

china just invented bombs, and typing.

and the mongols just invaded most of the universe.

nice going, Genghis!

i bet that will last a long time.

some of the islamic turks were unaffected by the mongol invasions because they were busy invading india.

is it tonga time?

i think it's tonga time.

i just found out where the swahili gets all their gold.

look at this chad.

means "lake".

there's an empire there.

right in the middle of

Africa

the king of mali is so rich he's going on tour to let everyone know.

wow, that guy's rich, everyone said.

the christians are doing a great job reconquering iberia, which will soon be called spain and not spain.

please remain christian.

we will check in later to see if you're still christian when you least expect.

whoops, half of europe just died.

ming

china's back, yay!

hey khmer, time to share.

new kingdoms here and there.

oh, look who controls all the islands.

it's the mahajapit.

majahapit.

mapajahit.

mahapajit.

mapajahit.

majapahit?

oh, italy's really rich, time for them to care a lot about art and the ancient classics.

it's kinda like a rebirth.

here's a printer.

let's make books.

so you think you can conquer the byzantine empire?

yep, said the ottoman turks.

nice job, ottoman turks.

whoops, you missed a spot.

don't forget to ban europe from the indian spice trade.

what? that's bullshit, said portugal, spiceless.

well i guess we'll have to find another way to india

wait! said christopher columbus, probably smoking crack.

if the world is round, let's go this way to india.

nah, don't worry, we already got this, said portugal.

so chris goes to spain.

hey spain, wanna hire me to find india by going around back of the world?

no.

please?

no.

please?

no.

please?

ok.

so he sails into the ocean.

and discovers more ocean.

and then discovers the indies.

and japan.

let's draw a line to decide who gets which half of the world.

the aztec and inca empires are off to a great start.

i wonder if they know that europe just discovered their continent?

the habsburgs are marrying into so many royal families they might have to start marrying each other.

move over lithuania, here comes moscow.

ivan wants to make russia great again.

move over timurids, maybe go invade india or something.

persia just made persia persian again.

let's make it the other kind of islam.

the one where we thought the first guy should have been the other guy.

hey christians!

do you sin?

now you can buy your way out of hell.

that's bullshit.

this whole thing is bullshit.

that's a scam.

fuck the church.

here's 95 reasons why, said martin luther, in his new book, which might have accidentally started the protestant reformation.

you know what would be magnificent, said suleiman, wearing an onion hat?

what if the ottoman empire was really big?

which it is now.

what if russia was big? said ivan, trying not to be terrible.

portugal had a dream that they controlled the entire indian ocean, including the spice trade.

and then that dream was real.

and spain realized that this is not india, but they pillaged it anyway.

damn, said england and france.

we gotta start pillaging some stuff.

then the dutch revolt and all the hipsters move to amsterdam.

damn, said amsterdam.

we gotta start pillaging some stuff.

question 1: can you get to india through north america?

no, but at least there's beaver.

question 2: steal the spice trade.

that's not a question, but the dutch did it anyway.

sugar

guess where all the sugar's made?

in brazil.

stolen

and the caribbean.

and it's so god damn profitable you might forget to not do slavery.

the next thing on russia's to-do list is to get bigger.

britain and france are having a friendly discussion about who should control the entire world.

more specifically, ohio.

then it escalates into a seven year discussion, giving prussia a chance to show austria who's boss.

but what about britain and france, did they figure out who's boss?

yes they did.

it's britain.

guess who's broke?

also britain.

so they start taxing the hell out of america.

fuck you, says america, declaring their independence, and fighting for it.

and france helps them win, now france is broke.

and britain'll have to send their prisoners to a different continent.

wait, if france is broke, why do the king and queen still wear such fancy dresses?

let's overthrow the palace and cut all their heads off! said robespierre, cutting everybody's head off until someone eventually got mad and cut his head off.

you could make a reli- no, don't.

haiti is staring to like the idea of a revolution.

especially the slaves, who free themselves by killing their masters.

why didn't we think of this before?

wait, who's in charge of france now?

me

said napoleon, trying to take over europe.

luckily, they banished him to an island.

but he came back

luckily, they banished him to another island.

there goes latin america, becoming independent in the latin american wars of independence.

britain just figured out how to turn steam into power.

so now they can make

many different types of machines and factories with machines in them so they can make a lot of products real fast

then they invent some trains.

and conquer india and maybe put some trains there.

hey, china! said britain.

buy stuff from us!

nah dude, we already got everything, says china.

so britain tried to get them addicted to opium.

which worked, actually.

but then china made it illegal and dumped it all into the sea.

so britain threw a hissy fit, and made them open up five cities and give them an island.

britain and russia are playing a game where they try to stop each other from conquering afghanistan.

also, the

sultan of oman lives in zanzibar now

"that's just where he lives"

india just had a revolution, and they would like to govern themselves now.

nope, said britain, governing them even harder than before.

technology is about to go crazy

the united states finally figured out whether slavery is good or bad.

it's bad, they decided.

and then they continued manifesting their destiny, which is to kill the rest of the natives and take their land and maybe kick out the mexicans too.

i know, let's rape africa, said europe, scrambling to see who could rape it the fastest.

they never got ethiopia

britain and france are still hungry.

they never got thailand

the united states ran out of destiny to manifest, so they're looking for more.

hawaii

cuba

wait, spain controls cuba.

well, blame something on them and go to war!

what should we blame on spain?

let's blame the maine on spain.

so they blame the maine on spain.

now we're in business.

to celebrate, they kick panama out of panama and make a canal, connecting the two oceans.

britain just found oil in the middle east.

it makes cars go

china is so tired of being bossed around that they delete their old government and make a new, stronger government, which is accidentally weaker and controlled by a guy from the previous government.

europe hasn't had a war since the last war.

so they start world war 1.

look at those guns.

it's gonna be a great war.

so great we won't need a second one.

after it's over, they blame germany.

russia went on strike and the workers overthrew the government.

now everyone's paycheck is the same.

communism

in the soviet union

the arabs revolt and britain helps.

now the ottoman empire's gone so we can give the

jewish people a place to live

hopefully the arabs won't mind.

let's cut the cake, said sykes and picot, carving up the remains of the not-so-ottoman-anymore empire.

except turkey, turkey makes a brand new turkey

and then the saudis conquer arabia.

it just seemed like the right thing to do.

hello?

yes, it's the 1920's calling.

let's get in the car and drive to a party and listen to jazz on the radio and go to the movies.

the economy's great and it'll probably be great forever, just kidding.

germany's back, featuring hitler, the angry mustache model.

and he's mad at the jews for existing.

japan is finally conquering the east, and they're so excited they rape nanking way too hard.

they should probably just deny it.

hitler's out of control.

so the international community tackles him and then tries to explain why killing all the jews is a bad idea.

but he kills himself before they could explain it to him.

that's world war 2

bonus round!

pacific showdown.

united states vs. japan.

fight!

finish him

let's unite all the nations and have some

world peace

seems legit.

hi, i'm gandhi, and if britain doesn't get the hell out of india, i'm gonna starve myself in public.

wow, that worked?

bonus, now there's pakistan.

actually two pakistans.

one of them can be bangladesh later.

the jews and the arabs finally figured out which one of them should live in the holy land.

me, they both said at the same time.

let's divide up the land so everyone's happy.

sike, they both get angrier

look out china, there's a new china in china.

what's on the menu?

communism!

no thanks, said the other china, escaping to an island.

i wonder which one is the real china?

there's the korean war, korea versus korea.

nobody wins, then it's on pause forever.

let's meet the sponsors.

oh, it's the two global superpowers.

they're having a friendly debate over which economic system is good, and which one is an evil virus of Satan.

and they both have atom bombs.

fight!

wait, no, that would be the end of the world.

let's just keep it cool and spy on each other instead.

and make sure we have enough atom bombs.

i'll race you to space.

now let's make some more countries fight themselves.

europe is tired of pillaging other continents, so the continents they were pillaging are tired of being pillaged.

so here's a new map, with new countries.

now you can't tell who they're being pillaged by.

the united states finally decided whether racism is good or bad.

they decided it's bad, and the world agrees.

south africa might need another minute to think about it.

let's check the world population.

whoa.

okay.

technology's better too, that might keep happening.

the soviet union decides to relax a little, and accidentally falls apart.

europe makes a union, so now they can all use the same money, except britain, because they don't feel like it.

let's check the mail.

surprise, it's on the computer.

whoops, someone just attacked america.

i bet they'll remember that.

phone call.

surprise, it's in your pocket.

wanna learn everything?

surprise, it's on the computer.

now your phone's a computer, which is in your pocket.

whoops, the economy just crashed.

don't worry, the big banks won't fail because they're not supposed to.

surprise!

flying robots.

with bombs.

wanna print a brain?

some people have no friends.

some people have no food.

the globe is warming

and the ocean is full of plastic

let's save the planet! said everybody, not knowing how.

let's invent a thing inventor, said the thing inventor inventor, after being invented by a thing inventor.

that's pretty cool.

by the way, where the hell are we?

[louu-7]

everything i don’t know

on wattpad

CHAPTER 4:

I can finally get out of this house. It’s only for a few hours, but it’s better to be a step ahead, and I’m not gonna miss my chance to enjoy the fresh air of the island…

I finish adjusting my outfit and leave my room to rejoin my parents at the first floor, then my sister arrive too. She’s perfect, as usual, with her beautiful red hair and her elegant style. She just always is the one that my parents want me to be, and I really think that sometimes she likes it when they tell me that I should dress like her, but it’s Alyssa.

“Do you know where are we going, young girl?” Asks my mom while I’m checking my phone, waiting for Isaac to come. “Yes, sure,” I look up and shrug, “to the restaurant. What’s the matter?”.

“You should dress up correctly, we aren’t some of these parents who can’t afford a pretty dress for their daughter. Why don’t you put a dress on?”

“Mom, we only go to the restaurant, it’s not like it was an event or some chic parties. But next time I’ll try, promise.”

“Everything that we do does matter. People have to take us seriously. Go put a dress on now please.” My father come back from one of his million business calls. “Dad, please, I don’t want to-”

“You don’t have to discuss this decision. Just listen, we have to go.”

I slightly sigh and turn toward the stairs to climb it and get to my room to look into my closet and grab my favorite one, a simple blue short dress before putting it on. I don’t particularly have a problem with being well dressed but I feel like I’m mocking the people who can’t afford all this get-up when I put something really formal just to go to the restaurant…

I look at myself in the mirror and fake a smile. You can do it Thara, it’s only for a few hours, and it’s your favorite dress, I think as Dad yell my name from the first ground.

I don’t answer, brush my hair so it’s softer and perfume myself a little more. They should be happy of what they see now. Something’s missing tho… my eyes observe the makeup that I got and my eyeliner attract my regard. I decide to do a fine line on each one of my eyes, and I’m ready.

I lay my phone in my black purse, inhale and come back to my parents. They all inspect me and this kind of reaction’s pretty annoying for me, but I’m used to it.

“Can we go now?” I ask while opening the door to get out and prevent them from staring at me this way. “Sure, let’s go.”

“You look stunning Thara, you really should be more dressing up like this.” Says my mom when she starts walking next to me. “Thank you.”

“Being dressed up don’t prevent you from smiling, you should take a leaf out of your sister’s book.”

“Leave her alone OK.” My sister come to my defense and take my hand in hers. “I just say that she could be more enthusiastic than how she is-”

“Shut the hell up Isaac.”

“Kids, don’t make me a scene now and let’s have a good time, OK. Thara, pay attention to your language please, it’s not the language expected from you.”

I apologize and we arrive in front of the car. I give a faint smile to the man who opens me the car door before sitting into the black backseat. The leather make me shivering, and everything’s so dark on the inside, it’s like the night came in a minute.

The chauffeur starts the car, and we’re finally getting out of this house. This restaurant trip is the first thing that we do together since the beginning of this summer. They all seem to be so occupied that they always forgot our diner, or our walk on the beach, until today.

Once in the restaurant, a waiter guide us through the room and bring us at a table in a corner. We all take place and I quickly tie my hair up in a bun before my Dad look daggers at me. I do my best to ignore this look when my mind make me remember about the gun.

I can’t stop thinking about it. Since when does he need a fucking gun? And mostly, did he already used it? This question don’t wanna leave me, and every time I look at him in the eyes I just freak out. My Dad knows everything and if he notices that I get weird with him, he’s gonna questioning me until I “confess”.

“What do you want darling?” Asks my Mom while I get lost in my mind. I would prefer to be at the beach and eat burgers to be honest… “Hum, I don’t know, a chicken salad’s good I guess. I’m not hungry, I just wanna hang out at the beach so…”

“Sure?” Alyssa looks at me and I smile to agree.

We order, and the courses are quickly in front of us. I eat in less than fifteen minute. My impatience is killing me, and also my parents apparently. They take their time, talk business, and anyone of us is talking about something cool.

“Did you choose your options for next year sweetheart?” Dad brings some vegetables to his mouth while looking at me.

“Hum, I...” I shrug and look around to escape from this question. “I didn’t really think about it yet but like I told you, I’m not sure I wanna go to college…”

“And we already answered that it wasn’t an option.”

“But you can’t send me to college without my permission.”

“We’re doing whatever we want, we are your parents, darling.” My Mom fakes a smile at me and I grit my teeth.

I sigh and stand up before excusing myself and rapidly reach the bathroom. I arrive in the big room full of mirrors and decide to put a little bit of water on my cheeks. I feel so bad to be so controlled by them. I would like to have a talk with them, to discuss like adults about my future, not having to listen to their orders.

Dad certainly would like me to work for the vineyard, with him and Isaac. The kind of work where you’re staying in an office all day and come back at home to live a boring life. I don’t like this kinda work, I wanna be outside, feel the warmth of the sun all day and work for something useful. I wanna be useful for the Outer Banks.

My dream job would be to work with sea animals, it would be the goal of my like, working around dolphins, turtles, whales or sharks and fishes, I would love it. There’s a real world in the sea, and we don’t see it until we get interested in it. I just would to protect these fragile world...

The thing is, I don’t know yet if I wanna go to college and study marine biology or find a refuge or an association so volunteer can teach me everything they know. College isn’t gonna make me explore sea depth unlike associations or refuge, if I’m lucky.

I come back with my dear imperfect family and sit to wait until the end of the lunch so we can go to the beach, and feel the sun, and listen to the sea.

~

It’s the next day and tonight’s gonna be a really good moment, because we’re invite, like everyone on the island, pogues and kooks, at Cameron’s house. Why? Because every year we’re celebrating the union between people. I know, it’s completely hypocrite and kind of disgusting to know that everyone is playing a role to show that they’re perfect, kind, smart and everything.

Anyway, the party’s at 8pm, it’s 6pm and I didn’t start to prepare. I’m chilling since at least an hour and a half, checking my phone, walking around impatiently. Tonight, nobody’s gonna tell me what do I have to do, how do I have to act and with who do I have to talk, because it’s union and love.

Love’s big word but, they’re claiming that it’s a love relationship between kooks and pogues. It isn’t, of course, but that’s great, I’m so happy and I can’t wait. Tonight I have the chance to talk to Sarah and get everything clear with her. I hope she’s gonna forgive me…

“Babe! Did you choose what dress are you gonna wear tonight?” Alyssa’s asking from her room. “Yeah, I’m almost ready. What ‘bout you?”

“What did you choose?” She suddenly appears behind my door and enters to let herself fall on my bed. “Look, I didn’t even know this dress was in my closet but I love it.” I bring the dress that I found before the story of the gun and she smiles while observing it before standing up and take it from me. “Are you sure?”.

I frown, confused, and look at the dress. “Yeah. Is it too much with the sparkles and everything?”

“No. It’s not enough, do you have something else?”

“You kiddin’ me? This is enough for me.” Shes raises her eyebrows while looking back at me, surprised, even shook. “What, there’s a lot of sparkles, and it’s a long dress.”

“But nobody’s gonna notice you. You need a more puffy dress so-”

“No no no, that’s perfect for me if I’m invisible, leave me alone so I can put it on.”

“Babe how can you kick me out?” She asks with a fake sad voice and I sigh while smiling. “C’mon Aly, leave me alone girl!” We laugh and she gives up so I’m alone in my room. I put the dress on and lock myself in the bathroom. OK, I won’t leave this room until I’m ready, even if it takes the two hours left before the beginning of the celebration.

I turn on my speaker and put music so loud that I don’t hear anything else. And Dad’s not gonna tell me anything because he’s not here. And my mother doesn’t care that much. Anyway they’re pissed off against me since the pogue thing. The only one who could annoy me is Isaac, but I’m locked and I don’t hear nothing so I’m not gonna hear him and his complaining.

I start by the makeup, while dancing and singing in front of my mirror, and then I hear someone’s knocking when the song ends. I open and Alyssa’s coming in, dressed up. I know what does that means. Let’s sing and dance in wild dresses for two hours straight…

~

We’re all ready, and to be honest we took two hours and I only put mascara, eyeliner, a bit of blush and a translucent gloss. That’s it. And we just arrived at Sarah’s house, I can’t wait to have a talk with her, because I’m sure I can ask Alyssa to go and tell her to meet me at the bathroom or something.

I don’t know why am I so excited about tonight, it’s maybe because my life isn’t that fun, so when there’s a party that’s kinda cool. Anyway we’re warmly welcomed by Sarah’s parents, and they come with us to the garden, the big garden where everyone’s gossiping, drinking champagne and acting perfect.

I take the hand of Alyssa’s in mine and take her away so the parents aren’t hearing us.

“OK, I have a mission for you, and I’m serious. Can you please go talk to Sarah and tell her I’m waiting for her at the bathroom. And also tell that it’s serious like, I really want to, and don’t tell the parents.”

“What, why do you wanna talk to her, she’s-”

“My friend. She’s my friend and I love her so much, and since we can’t talk I never had the chance to explain her what happened.”

“And when?”

“Right now, go.”

She looks at me, exasperate by my person, and I smile so she does the same and search for the blond to go talk to her. I come back to my parents and tell them I have to go to the bathroom. They don’t seem to believe me but I don’t care, Sarah’s my best friend, we’ve been known each other for years. They’re not gonna keep me away from her for the eternity.

So I wait, five, or ten minutes, and the door eventually open before letting her coming in. We look at each other for a moment and I sadly frown before walking towards her so I can take her n my arms. She responds to my hug and I smile, relieved.

“I’m so sorry for everything and I didn’t mean to stop talking to you overnight.”

“You owe me an explanation tho babe.”

“I know.”

We let go each other and I sigh.

“It’s kinda simple, you know as well as me that my parents hate the pogues, and when they found out that you were hanging with them they just forced me to delete your phone number and forget you, but I never did, of course.” I let out a little nervous laugh.

“What, really? They really have a problem with pogues, I mean, they’re human, not monsters.”

“Yeah, I know…”

“Give me your phone, gonna write my number so we can talk again.”

I give her my phone and we continue to talk for sometimes before someone literally comes in and caught us. It’s actually her mom, and of based on how she’s, she’s not gonna tell my parents that we talked. I hope so…

She advises us to come back and we agree. At least we have our phones, and maybe I will have the chance to go with her at some moments of the evening. My parents won’t be able to keep their eyes on me all along the night.

“I’m so happy to talk to you again.” She says before hugging me. “Me too babe, I missed you so much.”

“Oh, also, you owe me an explanation about something else, but we talk ‘bout it by text, love you.” She gets out of the bathroom first. “Hum, yeah, OK, even if I don’t know what you’re talking about, love you too. You look amazing.”

“You too babe.” She turns towards me and send me a kiss.

We laugh and I get out of the bathroom at my turn. I come back with my parents again and smile at Alyssa when she shrugs. A waiter is walking through the people and distribute some glasses of champagne, I take two, for me and my amazing sis.

“Cheers! I laugh happily and she does the same.” My parents seem… cold with me. Or maybe they’re also like that with Aly and Isaac. All they have in mind is business, every time.

I spend my night drinking a lot champagne, talking, dancing and singing with Aly, and it’s a really good evening. Moreover, we’re texting with Sarah, everything’s perfect. The only boring thing is this man who’s doing a speech on love between people and everything, even if everyone of us know that war between pogues and kooks isn’t gonna end up that easily…

Moreover, I think I can put my parents in the list of boring things. They didn’t talk to me since we’re here, and I don’t even know why. Certainly because of what happened with this pogue and Nate… if only he didn’t tell everyone what happened, they would never have known.

I keep looking at them, smiling at everyone and ignoring me, and it makes me feel so bad, and abandoned, and it reminds me of everything they’re doing to keep me away from nobody even when I’m always acting like they want. I listen to their orders, I’m smiling to people that I don’t know because it’s polite, I try to do my best every time and it feels like they never notice.

It’s time for changes.

[ibitchytimemachine]

Chapters: 53/? Fandom: Dragon Ball Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con Summary:

With Earth destroyed, Bulma and the Z gang find themselves in an outer space guerilla war against a tyrant. The mysterious Vengeance seems to be the only hope to win the war against Frieza, but teaming up with him brings its own set of problems.

 AU, ensemble cast but with focus on BV. Several other pairings (m/F and m/m) and non-romantic relationships get significant screen time.

While Vengeance often appears to be a light-hearted, funny story, there are darker elements running through several storylines. Warnings of non-con are for isolated incidents and don't reflect the story as a whole, but explicit descriptions of sex, violence, and general depravity are contained within these chapters.

Of all the Vegebul fics I have read, this one is easily my favorite. It has nuance, gives (almost) every character full and rich motivations and story lines. You find yourself rooting for the oddest pairs and weirdest people. I can not recommend this story enough, and if you wanna read my thoughts on it, lets dive into spoilers below the cut! 

So this story has something for everyone. You want thick well thought out and executed plot? DONE! Humor? DONE! Large cast of characters, both canon and OC who are all pretty well flushed out? DONE! Smut? Name your poison, chances are, its in here. There is so much about this story that I love that I am struggling with exactly the best way to organize my thoughts. So instead of agonizing over it, instead I am just gonna throw away all my careful notes that I have taken during my read and just freaking ramble! 

I think the first thing that people are a little put off on is the rare pair of RaditzXPuar. I will tell you that I 5,000 percent ship these two and it is all because of reading this fic. I love it so much that I MAY have even taken some time to draw my own fan art for the pair, but lets just leave THAT in the vaults xD When Raditz first encounters Puar, he is NOT a cat. Puar is in a Human form and is shifted to be Bulma. Raditz immediately is attracted to Puar’s scent and when they later encounter each other in a bar and end up ( ͡ᵔ ͜ʖ ͡ᵔ ) Ray is still just enamored by Puar’s scent. Whenever we see Rays POV in-between the time that Ray has fucked Human Puar, and the time that Puar is discovered, Ray keeps catching scents of the cat. And it drives him fucking wild. He later says that he is so crazy for Puar that he was about to fuck a houseplant cause it reminded him of Puar. Beyond that we get the backstory on Bonding and that basically Saiyans bond to a mate kinda at random so Ray has basically taken Puar as his husband. Raditz is really a great lover, there is a relationship imbalance between the two, but Ray doesnt take advantage of it. Its really a pretty healthy relationship. Puar gets jealous of some stuff, Ray gets WAY jealous of stuff but they always seem to talk it over. Shit at one point Ray dreams of having kids with Puar, and he is swiftly reminded that Puar is a MAN and will never be and never wants to be a WOMAN. 

A huge part of me feels like this Puarditz pairing is commentary on identity, self acceptance and love. Ray is constantly telling Puar that he doesnt care what his body looks like (except that he is excited to see Puar has a tail), only that it is Puar that he is in love with. It is only Puar Ray wants, no matter if he is a human, cat, plant, screwdriver or anything else. Puar talks about how he feels weird in his cat body, but it is his natural form and he wants to change and be bigger, more menacing, or just different. And I think we can all appreciate that sentiment at some point in our lives, but I can also see this as a low key message about trans acceptance and its fucking beautiful. Hell even Bulma tells Puar that he should take whatever form he is most comfortable in and basically fuck everyone who disagrees. I love that message and I love this pair - fight me. 

I really want to talk about another pretty complex character in this fic, Zarbon. He struggles with so much shame and negativity in this story. He hides behind his good looks and his hair, and when that shit gets cut off, Zarbon is a completely different man, it is shedding his old evil skin and literally growing into his own as a new man, a better person, and you start to care about him. His time with Frieza has basically ruined his ability to have any sort of healthy relationship - friend or other, because he resorts to sex for just about any close relationship he has. The FIRST person he meets after being rescued from Frieza, he starts bedding. Hell he promises a pity fuck to Burter for rescuing him, and come on.. I have never wanted a Burger sex scene more than when I was reading this fic. No really... Catgirl has a way of making you root for just about everyone... I think  that besides the slavers, the only character I HATE is Frieza, and thats pretty cool. AND Speaking of Frieza, shit hes a bad dude in this story. There aren't many POVs of him, and we see a lot of Frieza through Zarbon, Vegeta and Burter, but the POVs after Zarbon escapes and Frieza is trying to replace him is she fucked up shit. You really see his madness when he is sitting in the bloody tub stroking the hair of the dead attendant wishing it was Zarbons. He repeatedly states how much he gave to Zarbon, and how he basically loved him, but then you see him torture the poor man, sexually assault him, and generally just be a complete tyrannical asshole to him. 

The way the Nameks are handled is really cool. I love the nod to canon with them living with the Briefs on Red Station, I love watching Dende figure out how to lead, and struggle with his followers. I love how he makes the decision to room with Gohan as a way of bridging the gap between the Namekians and the Saiyans. The decisions Dende makes shows that he is dedicated to moving forward and not being stuck in the past. But you see him still struggling with things in the past, Zarbon for example. it is hella tense for a while when he first comes aboard because Dende feels Zarbon is responsible for the demise of his people, and Dende seeks out others help and advice on how to manage his feelings. He gets several peoples views and chooses what he thinks is the best, just like a good leader would. He even attempts to make Piccolo feel more welcome in the Namekian contingent of beings on Red Station.

Nappa is a super important character for the beginning of the story. He is the voice of Saiyan past and he advises Vegeta, wether he takes the advice or not. Overall he is the Father figure Vegeta needs (a common role for him) but he tells Vegeta and Raditz about bonding and Gohan comments that it sounds like LOVE. Nappa has some really shitty moments with Bulma, but overall I really like the sweet peeks into his head, when he thinks about his dead wife and babies, or when he tears up about the thought of Bulma and Vegeta having “little princes” of their own, is just heartwarming. And the attraction to Momma Briefs is cute and funny and provides so much ammunition for Bulma to hate Nappa (and boy do they hate each other)

I kinda hate how K18 gets treated in this story, and part of that is how long it takes for 18 to come about, and another part of that is the fact that the story isn't finished. I feel like 18′s android qualities are REALLY played up, which isn't a bad thing - great characterization in fact... but poor Krillin deserves so much better than being mounted with no foreplay and then immediately being engaged... Now I will say that I really like both of these characters in this fic, just wish things were finished cause their relationship has so much more to explore. 

I have both love and hate the Vegebul relationship dynamics in this story. They obviously care for one another, but the relationship seems super unhealthy... there is really no talking, relationship building going on in story. a LOT of fucking sure, but it almost feels like these two banter, fuck but don't really know one another.. and thats kinda sad.. I like that part of a Vegebul fic. Bulma is legit scared of Vegeta on multiple occasions and even in the last published chapter Vegeta looks at her and thinks that she is a monster just like him. And hell with her improvements to the Ki Circlet, she probably is. I will say that their smut is A++ fantastic, it is real, sometimes it is awkward (when they fuck in her lab it is both hot and funny) and there is always a mention of safe sex. 

With all the time spent on, pretty much everyone, including 2 OCs, it is sad that 17, Dr. Briefs and Tien don't get a little more love. They have very very brief scenes peppered throughout the story, and they just seem like after thoughts.. Shit Roshi and Oolong have more impact on the story than any of these three do and thats just a bummer. I am gonna say that maybe they have parts in the unwritten bots of the fic, but who knows if it will ever be updated, much less finished at this point. 

This story is fantastic. I can not recommend it enough. The relationship dynamics alone are fantastic, never mind the fact that Catgirl is FUCKING FANTASTIC at showing not telling, but even when she tells it is impactful. She has a wonderful grasp of character voice and each POV feels like it is actually that characters POV, told through them, not through the lens of a narrator. There are some amazing quotes in this story, some are just funny, 

Others.. Not so much.... 

These are a bunch of misfits thrown together, fighting to survive, and ultimately building a home. Hell Zarbon sees it and is shocked by it.. He says he is amazed by Vegeta “Floating around this country cottage of a ship, lord and master of an assortment of weaklings.” And Zarbon is right. Vegeta is the lord and master of this rag tag crew, and Bulma is their Queen. Their relationship is the glue that holds this little family together. This story is a tale of their struggle to defeat Frieza, but thats not what this story is ABOUT. This story is about, family, friends, love, home and ultimately all the wholesome things humanity has to offer. Sometimes we fuck up, and fight and create drama, but we persevere through those trials and (hopefully) become stronger, more well rounded and more human. And that is a really nice message. 

As a bonus, @rutbisbe drew this amazing Puar/Raditz fan art for this fic and I love it (AND I LOVE THEM SO MUCH)

If you liked this review, after you check this fic out, head over to my A03 and read some of my stuff!

[raendown]

Soooo this started as just a simple commission and then rapidly got out of control, as seems to keep happening to me lately. xD For you @copyninken for inspiring me with such an excellent commission prompt!

Chapter: 1/9 Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 4660 Rated: M Summary: Walking patrol around a university for mages probably sounded like a wild time but Tobirama has never found it all that exciting. He's not even technically supposed to be here. When responding to a tripped alarm becomes a desperate attempt to stay alive, however, excitement is the last thing on his mind. All he's ever wanted is a quiet life alone with his books until he finds himself bound to Uchiha Madara in the most impossible way and finally learns to think about more than just himself - in a way.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

Duality

He wasn’t even a professor. Tobirama scowled to himself and pulled the edges of his cloak tighter in search of whatever pocket he had dropped his warming stone in to. Such a simple rune and yet it was no help to him if he couldn’t find it. Of course, he wouldn’t need it if his brother hadn’t turned those puppy eyes on him and begged with his bottom lip wobbling pathetically, so disgustingly sad that Tobirama had agreed to do as he asked just to make that face go away. He wasn’t even a professor! He should not be out here in the evening chill performing a professor’s duties.

A huff of frustration escaped him and he dropped his handful of cloak, shoving it back so he could pat himself down for other pockets. His habit of misplacing things was the whole reason he’d started sewing extra pockets in to his clothing whenever he remembered to but the problem was that now he had too many pockets to look through and his things still ended up lost.

Fingers closing around something cool and smooth, he fought back the excess material to pull his hand out with a cry of triumph, expecting to see the warming stone he was certain he’d picked up that morning. Then he snorted in disgust when he found half a broken pestle instead. No one was around to watch him stomp one foot in irritation. No warming stone and now he was probably going to spend the rest of the evening wondering which mortar was missing its pestle. Had he taken someone else’s? Had he broken his own?

How was he supposed to properly grind faerie wings – willingly gifted, of course – if he hadn’t the right tools?

Contrary to his predictions, any thoughts of preparing ingredients for his various experiments came to an abrupt halt when he rounded the corner and saw the other person he was meant to be paired with for that evening’s patrol. Madara looked as dramatic as ever, clad in fiery red from head to toe as though his natural element wasn’t obvious in the way sparks clung to his hair and smoke rose out of his fingertips in fits and starts. Standing along one of the outer passages, positioned next to an opening in the wall, his hair rose and fell as the wind howled outside. The idiot would have frozen in minutes dressed down as he was if he wielded any other element.

After a few moments of standing in one place and scowling as hard as he could Tobirama accepted that the other man hadn’t noticed him there. White skin and sharp footsteps should have made him rather obvious in the dark but Madara had always been a little too wrapped up in himself to pay much attention to others.

Tobirama threw the broken pestle at him.

“What the fuck!?” Madara screeched in surprise when stone sparked against stone right next to his face, leaping away and spinning in a full circle until finally his eyes landed on where Tobirama had now crossed his arms with an expectant expressed. “Are you kidding me? I was supposed to walk patrols with your brother tonight; what the hell are you doing here?”

“Nothing pleasant, I assure you. Brother decided that planning a date with Mito on the same night he was scheduled to walk the halls with you was an excellent idea. One would think the security of his own university would be more important than gargling someone else’s tonsils but I have never claimed to understand how his mind works. And so here I am.” He smirked a little when Madara wrinkled his nose with disgust.

“Must you refer to it like that?”

“Have you seen them kiss? That is essentially what he is doing.” Tobirama slid his hands in whatever pockets were closest to ward off the winter chill. “Whatever you want to call it, he asked me to cover his duties while he is otherwise occupied.”

Visibly put off, Madara waved both hands aimlessly in protest. “You’re not even a professor!”

“I know!” It wasn’t often the two of them agreed on much but in this they were of the same mind.

Of course, Tobirama was more than old enough to be a professor here at the school should he have wished to be. He certainly had more than enough knowledge to teach any of several different subjects. Unfortunately for the masses he had very little interest in taking so much time away from his research, preferring to stick with his technical status as student and continue on in the life of a scholar. Nothing appealed to him more than the rush of discovering some ancient scrap of knowledge written by some unnamed mage and finding a use for it.

He did not appreciate errands like this one taking up precious time he could have been using to look more in to the effects of those crystals Touka had given him for his birthday a century or so ago. If his estimations were correct then they might have been formed from a naturally occurring phenomenon that only happened during a massive outburst of dragon magic. Such things had never been recorded!

“You’re off in your own head again already. Great. Well this is going to be just tons of fun, isn’t it? Babysitting you while looking out for students getting up to shenanigans. You know how they get when they catch the first hints of graduation! I’ve had three try to break in to my office in the past week and there’s still a month left of classes!”

“Looking for exam notes?”

“Obviously.” Madara snorted as though he hadn’t done the exact same thing when he was a student, sneaking a peak at his teacher’s notes so he knew exactly which spells he should study up on for the exam.

Tobirama snickered without bothering to hide it. Served the asshole right for being so uptight all the time. He hoped some of those students had got what they came for before Madara caught them. Later he would have to figure out who they were and provide them with the answers himself, having taken the class on a whim a decade or so back. The poor idiot probably didn’t have enough imagination to change his exam from year to year.

“Ugh, let’s just get this over with. We usually start with the western courtyard to make sure no one is trying to perform any summonings under the moonlight.” Spinning on his heel, hair and cloak flaring out with a wholly unnecessary amount of drama, Madara stalked away down the hall without waiting to see if he was being followed.

“I remember my first summoning.” Tobirama sighed wistfully. Ahead of him, Madara twitched.

Before he could get too far in to his reminiscing about the time he summoned a nether beast that took a liking to Madara’s hair – poor taste but it had probably been the funniest thing the university had seen in several decades – their patrol was interrupted before it could even truly begin.

As soon as the alarm went off Madara, long used to having it tripped by miscreant students, pressed one palm against the closest wall and murmured something in a low voice. The wards rippled under his touch and Tobirama could hear them deep down in the parts of himself that had been connected with the world’s magic since his very first breath. He knew as well as anyone else who had been here at the school long enough that the wards were alive in a way he couldn’t explain, although being a student he also knew that they wouldn’t listen to him as they did to Madara. More poor taste. That man had nothing to say that would be even half as interesting as the things Tobirama had floating around in his head.

“What have they to report?” he asked when his companion set off without saying anything, scurrying to keep up.

“The alert came from the northern edge of the property. What anyone is doing all the way out there is beyond me. If we’re lucky maybe they’ll fall in to the river before we get there.” Every word Madara spoke was dripping with offense as though whoever was out there causing trouble had done him a personal injustice by choosing to do so on the night it was his duty to watch over the massive castle housing their university.

Drifting along behind him, not half as worried, Tobirama snickered again at the image of someone falling in to the river. Long ago when the first mages had created this place of learning they had been just a wee bit suspicious of outsiders. History was a little vague on exactly which one of them did it but Tobirama’s theory was that it had actually taken all of them to convince the earth herself to raise up high and set the university grounds far above the rest of the surrounding countryside, sheer cliffs at every boundary line and only one set of stairs carved in to the eastern wall. Just imagining someone stupid enough to topple off the cliff and down in to the northern river left Tobirama smiling. People were idiots. If somehow a non-magic person had found their way to this hidden place and trekked all the way up a staircase that would be invisible to them he sort of hoped they fell back down the cliff just for being so insufferably nosey.

Neither of them spotted anyone on their way to where the wards had been disturbed, not another soul awake or at least none of them stupid enough to be up and about on a cold winter night such as this. Which was strange, actually, unless somehow the disturbance had come from outside the boundaries because if it had come from inside then they should have passed someone on the way to the scene. After exiting the front doors of the castle there was really nowhere for anyone to hide on the wide open grounds surrounding it.

As they drew closer, merely a few dozen feet away, Tobirama began to twitch.

“I don’t like this,” he grumbled.

“What?” Despite the fact that there was no love lost between them, he appreciated that Madara had the good sense to stop and listen to him. He did have his smart moments.

“The snow,” Tobirama pointed out. “It’s undisturbed. And there are no whispers.”

“Whispers?”

Cutting one hand through the air impatiently, he snapped, “Yes, whispers, the water in the snow. I can speak to my own element just as you can. No one has gone through here in the past few hours. If they had then the snow would remember.”

Madara eyed him contemplatively for a moment and then nodded. With absolutely no connection to water himself, he would have to rely entirely on Tobirama’s word for that. Unfortunately the fire in his veins did nothing to make him a cautious man, preferring to bull his way in to a situation while yelling his questions, and that tendency showed itself now. With a decisive slant of his brow he strode forward and stretched one hand out, probably intending to speak with the wards again and ask what they remembered about when the alarm had been tripped.

He cried out with surprise and stumbled back in to Tobirama, sending both of them crashing down in the very center of the glyph lighting up underneath their feet. Completely hidden by snow, diameter large enough that Tobirama could have stretched out completely and not been able to touch both sides, it glowed with a pale yellow light the moment Madara tried to pass beyond the far side and cast him back, trapping them both within.

“I told you I didn’t like this,” Tobirama murmured, already reaching out with raw magic to feel around the edges of the glyph.

“Shut up. What’s happening?”

“Oh, I really don’t like this.” That was all the answer Tobirama managed to give before the light doubled in intensity and the world around them began to warp. Madara screeched in his ear and Tobirama couldn’t help but agree – with the panic, not with the level of decibels he managed to achieve. This was definitely cause for panic.

They had barely a handful of seconds to process what was happening. One minute they lay in a heap together in the virgin snow outside of their beloved university and the next they were transported to what would have looked like an underground cavern of some sort if not for the wind blowing in from one end. Someone had forcibly relocated them to a cave. Someone was looking forward to an early grave when they found their way back home.

“If you even think the words ‘I told you so’ I will rearrange your face.” Madara sat upright just to snarl at Tobirama, covering his discomfort with the usual bluster.

“Now seems as good a time as any to tell you that my dearest wish is for you to someday learn to use your brain for thinking first before the yelling starts.”

“Fuck. You.”

“We may have to resort to that for entertainment, as abhorrent as the idea is. I’m sure you haven’t spent the brainpower to notice but we appear to be sealed in here.” Tobirama lifted one of his eyebrows and gestured towards where the cave twisted out of sight. No visible barrier could be found but he could already feel the muffling effect of some kind of dampening spell.

Not only had they been sent away but they had been trapped here. Wonderful. Tobirama wondered what he had done recently to piss the spirits off so much that he ended up trapped in a cave with only Uchiha Madara for company. Literally anyone else in the world would have been better – except for maybe Uchiha Izuna. Madara’s younger brother was probably the only person more annoying than him. Even worse, he somehow had less social tact than the world’s biggest buffoon.

Both men pushed themselves to their feet and moved towards the far side of the cave where a bend in the path would have led towards the outside world. A few meters before they would have reached it they were stopped, something unseen sizzling in warning. Neither of them were really all that interested in using themselves as a test subject to find out what they were being warned away from. At least, not without knowing who laid the barrier, what their element was, how willing they were to separate limbs from bodies, that sort of thing.

Edging backwards until the sizzling stopped, Madara dropped his face in to what was possibly the sourest expression he had ever managed, arms crossing and shoulders tensing until they were hiked up around his ears.

“This is bullshit,” he declared.

“I hate to say you’re right about anything but in this case I am compelled to agree.” Tobirama looked around for somewhere to sit, disappointed to realize there was nowhere that wasn’t covered in ice or snow. He ignored the offended the mess of huffs and snorts behind him as Madara tried to figure out if he was offended or smug.

After a while the man settled with, “Between the two of us we can find a way through it, why are you sitting down?”

“Because between the two of us I am not volunteering to get close enough to that barrier to make a physical inspection. If you would shut up for a few moments I could gather my concentration to look at it in other ways.” Scraping a small area clean with the side of one boot, he added, “Unless you also happen to have studied for as long as I have and understand how to connect yourself to another person’s magic? No? I didn’t think so.”

“Could you be any more of an asshole?” Madara snarled.

“Probably but they say imitation is the highest form of flattery and I have no intention of flattering you.”

While his companion took a few seconds to work through that Tobirama sat down on the cold stone floor, as free of snow as it was going to get, and turned himself inwards to the power flowing through him. Madara’s inevitable screech of anger went in one ear and out the other as Tobirama let his consciousness gather and then flow outwards, stretching himself until he could feel every inch of his surroundings. The bright sensation of fire-passion-fearless took concentration to think past, as Madara often did, but Tobirama forced himself to push farther towards the warm-forbidding-apology that awaited him at the mouth of their impromptu dungeon. Strange, he thought. Those weren’t the feelings he had expected to get from this little exploration. Whoever set up that barrier felt guilty while doing so.

Carefully brushing along the edges, Tobirama was able to feel for points where the spell was weakest and slip underneath them, filling the proverbial cracks with his own magic and leaving pieces of himself behind like those hidden landmines non-magical folk had been so fond of during their first couple of wars.

Retreating back in to his own body and opening his eyes felt like a loss. It was always a bit of a jarring experience feeling the world in such an intimate way and then opening his eyes to find himself nothing more than human once again. Existing as conscious magic made him feel free and unconstrained while coming back to his body left him overly aware of how cold his ass had become from sitting on frozen rock. Popping his eyes open, he grimaced and clenched both butt cheeks in an effort to encourage some blood flow.

“Well?” Madara demanded. “Did the oh-so-smart scholar find anything useful?”

“I’ve weakened the barrier but it’ll take time to fall apart completely. Until then there’s really nothing for us to do but wait.” Not the best news he’d ever had to deliver, although the irritation in Madara’s expression was at least a small lift to his mood.

“Seriously? We just sit here? And do nothing?”

“I have done something. That something will take time. If you have anything you would like to add to my efforts then be my guest.” Tobirama waited and when his companion gave no response he hummed in satisfaction. Being right was a pleasure all on its own but being right when Madara was wrong? That was always best.

Since it was already quite late his hope was that he could somehow fall asleep or at least doze off to pass the hours more quickly. Madara stomped around trying to find a place of his own to settle down while Tobirama closed his eyes again and told himself very firmly to ignore the cold seeping deeper and deeper in to his limbs with every passing moment. If he lost part of his ass cheeks to frostbite someone was going to pay very deeply for such a transgression.

More than an hour passed in complete silence after the other idiot with him finally settled down and yet still Tobirama couldn’t bring himself even close to dozing off. Water was his element of course but he certainly didn’t enjoy sitting around in the frozen form of it for ages on end. Around the time he realized he had all but stopped shivering he also realized that perhaps losing an extremity or two was the least of his problems, though it still ranked fairly high in his mind. His limbs were fairly important to his ability to perform certain spells.

Curious in a sluggish sort of way, he lifted one hand and tried to wiggle his fingers.

“Ah,” he murmured, voice slurring. “That’s not good at all.”

“What’s not good?” Madara’s voice demanded. Up until he spoke the man had appeared to be sleeping, hunched down with the snow around him melting, body heat raised to keep warm.

Tobirama forced his head to turn and meet his companion’s eyes. It took a few moments to process the sudden cursing, the way Madara scrambled across the cave to kneel in front of him. When large hands enclosed his own he felt nothing.

“Your fucking lips are blue! Actually blue!” Madara blew on his hands. Logically Tobirama could guess that he was heating the air but it appeared his fingers had gone entirely numb. At some point while he sat there and waited for sleep hypothermia had found him instead. Irritating. More so because he found thinking straight incredibly difficult once he actually tried to think about anything.

“Definitely not good,” he said.

“Why the hell didn’t you say anything?” Madara demanded.

“As if you would have cared.” Difficult as it was to concentrate on anything, the antagonistic relationship between them was as natural as his own heartbeat and required even less thought.

Predictably, Madara snorted, almost dropping his hands in retaliation. “Fine way to speak to the only one around who can keep you alive,” he snarled.

Contrary to his attitude he did continue to breathe warm air over the frozen digits between them. If they’d had a little warning before getting summarily evacuated from university grounds then maybe one of them might have brought along gloves or a scarf. Well, Madara wouldn’t have because he didn’t need either but Tobirama certainly would have bundled up a little more. Either their captor hadn’t thought of these particular consequences or they didn’t really care and he would only find out which if he lived through the cold night.

For the most part Tobirama sat still through Madara’s attempts to bring feeling back in to his hands, even if that was largely in part due to the fact that he was worried any movements would send him toppling over sideways. Only the fact that he had settle in place seemed to be keeping him upright. After a while Madara gave a frustrated growl and Tobirama blinked up at him wordlessly in question.

“This is taking too long. I can’t breathe the rest of you warm again – also that would be creepy and I hate the images in my head now. I need to warm all of you up at once.”

“So do that,” Tobirama mumbled.

“Well it’s not as easy as ‘just do it’! I could build a flame easy enough but it would burn you before it did much good. There’s…another option. But you’re not going to like it. Hell, I don’t like it.” At Tobirama’s grunt he took a deep breath and absently rubbed the hands between his own. “Open your pathways to me. Your core magic. I’ll merge it with mine and lend you my fire; that should keep us both warm.”

Staring at him in complete shock, Tobirama managed to ask, “Have you gone completely mad?”

It was, by all accounts, a perfectly understandable question. There were few things more intimate that one mage could do for another than allow them to touch their core magic. Not even most married couples would be comfortable bearing their souls in such a manner. To do so for someone he didn’t even like, let alone trust, the very idea was laughable.

Yet Madara was far from laughing.

“There has to be another way to get warm,” he insisted. Madara sighed.

“No. Your body temperature is so low, there’s no other way to warm all of you at once without killing you. I could wrap around you and raise my own heat but it wouldn’t work fast enough and you would burn.” Shaking his head, he frowned. “I wouldn’t have suggested it if I thought something else would work, believe me.”

Tobirama closed his eyes for a moment to think and realized a few moments later that there was no longer any time to do so. When he tried to open his eyes again it was a fight, a harrowing effort, and he recognized that Madara was right; he was too far gone.

“Fine,” he whispered.

Without asking he couldn’t be sure if Madara was doing this because he would never hurt Hashirama by letting his brother go out like this or simply because he was a man with enough morals not to let another human die right in front of him. Tobirama considered it but decided against asking. He probably wouldn’t like the answer and it didn’t truly matter. In the end he was still being offered a free ticket to survival, a one-time offer going fast.

At the very least Madara was merciful enough not to be smug about it. He nodded once before shuffling around behind where Tobirama sat and wriggling in between his frozen bulk and the wall to press their bodies together, chest to back.

“The closer we are the better this will work,” he said. “Don’t worry, I hate it just as much as you. One little cuddle and then we never speak of this again.”

“I’ll clam up if you do,” Tobirama assured him.

His companion grunted. With his body now slumped backwards against another form Tobirama found his head lolling forward to stare down at the hands interlocking with his own again to create two points of connection, making a circle of their pathways for their magic to flow along. Clever, he had to admit. Positioning them like this would leave them in a constant state of feedback with each other.

Despite already agreeing to do this, opening himself to Madara proved to be one of the hardest things he’d ever done in his life. Every instinct in his body cried out against the first touch of another’s magic where he should feel only his own and yet with sheer stubbornness he managed to keep himself from shoving the other man out. He expected the feeling of being invaded, the most sacred part of him violated when it should have remained pure only until the unlikely day he intentionally invited another in.

What he did not expect was the harmony. Madara’s core and his own merged together as easily as stirring the ingredients for one of his elixirs. Warmth suffused him as promised but it wasn’t quite the warmth he expected, less body heat and more a sort of inner peace the likes of which he’d never achieved in his life.

In the darkness his inner eye was blinded by a light, fire rushing along the rivers of his core magic, cool blue turned to burning gold and dancing in such a way he couldn’t distinguish fire or water.

And he wasn’t alone. Tobirama stared unseeing at the cavern around them and knew only the second presence inside his mind, the hesitant brush of a thought that wasn’t his own. Ever too curious for his own good, he pushed towards it and gasped as he encountered Madara’s mind, faint but there, the edges of that twisted and baffling mind just beyond an ephemeral and very much proverbial wall. He shouldn’t. Tobirama knew he shouldn’t. But his curiosity had gotten him in to trouble many times in his life and this would certainly not be the last.

He pushed. Just a quick gentle nudge, inching a little closer for a better look. What better way to understand a man’s actions and personality than to take a look inside his mind and the feelings therein? For a moment he could feel the edges of Madara’s curiosity echoing back at him and, incredibly, he got the impression that he didn’t so much break in rather than the door being willingly cracked open. It was a thrill until the unthinkable happened. He slipped. He fell in to Madara in a way that would have been impossible to describe to anyone who had not experienced the same thing before but if he hadn’t just given himself entirely over to another he would have had only one thing to say.

They were one.

[sunnysynthsunshine]

The Entire History of the World I guess? (bill wurtz)

hi, you're on a rock floating in space. pretty cool, huh? some of it's water. fuck it. actually, most of it's water. i can't even get from here to there without buying a boat. it's sad. i'm sad. i miss you. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? a long time ago... actually, never. and also now. nothing is nowhere. when? never. makes sense, right? like i said, it didn't happen. nothing was never anywhere. that's why it's been everywhere. it's been so "everywhere," you don't need a "where." you don't even need a "when." that's how "every" it gets. forget this. i wanna be something. go somewhere. do something. i want things to change. i want to invent time and space. and i know it's possible because everything is here, and it probably already happened. i just don't know when to start. and that's exactly where it started. big bang— pause woah. i paused it. i think there's a universe now. what's it made of? quarks and stuff. ah, that's a thing! in a place! don't like it? try a new place, at a different Time™. try to stick together, because the world is gonna get bigger and emptier. but it's not empty yet! it's still very full, and about a kjghpillion degrees. about no seconds later great news! the quarks are now happily married in groups of three, called a "proton" and a "neutron." and there's something else flying around that wants to join in, but can't cause it's tooHOT. ten minutes later great news! the protons and neutrons are now happily married to each other! some of them even doubled up. about 380,000 years later great news! the electrons have now joined in. congratulations! the world is now... a bunch of gas in space. but it's getting closer together... ten million years later and it's getting closer together... 500 million years later and it's getting closer togeth— star is born it's a star new shit just got made! some stars burn out and die. bigger stars burn out and die with passion! and make some brand new way crazier shit. space dust! which allows for newer and more interesting stars to be made, and then die and explode into even crazier space dust! so now, stars have cool stuff around them, like rocks, ice, and funny clouds, which can make some very interesting things. like this ball of flaming rocks, for example. meteor hits earth holy shit, we just got hit by another ball of flaming rocks. and it kind of... made a mess. which isnow the moon weather update: it's raining rocks from outer space. weather update: those rocks might've had water inside of them and now there's hot steam in the sky. weather update: cooler temperatures today and the floor is no longer lava. weather update... it's raining. severe flooding alert, the entire world is now an ocean. volcano alert. that's land! there'slifeintheocean what? something's alive in the ocean oh, cool. like a plant, or an animal? no! a microscopic speck. it lives in the bottom of the ocean and eats chemical soup, which is being served hot and fresh, made from gnarly space ingredients left over from when it was raining rocks or whatever. microscopic speck asexually reproduces oh yeah, and it can do that. reproduces three more times it has secret instructions written inside itself telling it how to build another one of itself. so that's pretty nifty, i would say. tired of living at the bottom of the ocean? now you can eat sunlight! using a revolutionary technique, you can convert sunlight into food. taste the sun! side effect, now there's oxygen everywhere and the sky is blue. then the earth might've been a snowball for a while. maybe even a couple of times. it's a sponge... it's a plant... it's a worm, and some other types of weird strange water bugs and strange fish. it's the Cambrian explosion: "wow, that's animals and stuff" but we're still in the ocean. hey, can we go on land? NO why? the sun is a deadly laser oh okay. not anymore, there's a blanket now the animals can go on land. come on, animals, let's go on land! "nope, can't walk yet." "and there's no food yet, so i don't care." 100 million years later okay, will you learn to walk if there's plants up here? "maybe," said some bugs. and fish. fish gasps for air five million years later okay, so i can go on land, but i have to go back in the water to have babies! idea: learn to use an egg. "i was already doing that" use a stronger egg. put water in it. have a baby, on land, in an egg. water is in the egg. baby, in the egg, in the water, in the egg. works for me. bye bye ocean 50 million years later and now everything's huge. including bugs. wanna see a map of the land? sure. Permian extinction oh, fuck, now everything's dead. just kidding, here are the survivors. keep your eye on this one, because it's about to become 75 million years later the dinosaurs. here's another map of the land. yeah, it broke apart. don't worry about it, it does that all the time. here comes a meteor. meteor strikes and the dinosaurs are gone it's mammal time, here come the mammals. look at those breasts. now they're gonna dominate the world, but one of them just learned how to grab stuff. and walk. no, like, walk like that. and grab stuff at the same time. and bang rocks together to make pointed rocks. "ouch" and set things on fire. "yeouch" and make crazy sounds with their voice: "gneurshk" which can mean different things. that's a human person! and now they're everywhere. almost. ice age! what? you can walk over here? cool. not anymore well i guess we're stuck here now. let's review: there's people on the planet. and they're chasing their food. fuck it. time to plant some grass. look at this. i get to control the food now. now everyone will want to be my friend and live near me. let's all build houses, except mine is bigger because i own the food. this is great! i wonder if anyone else is doing this. tired of using rocks for everything? use metal. it's underground. better farming was just invented in a sweet dank valley right in between these two rivers, and the animals are helping. guess what happens next? more food. and more people, who came to buy the food. now you need people to help make the food and keep track of the sales. and now you need houses for people to live in and people to make the houses and now there's more people and they invent things which makes things better and more people come and there's more farming and more people to make more things for more people and now there's business, money, writing, laws, power, Society coming soon to a dank river valley near you. meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, the horse is probably being tamed. why is all my metal so lame and lumpy? tired of using lame, sad metal? introducing: bronze. made from special ingredient tin from the far lands of Tin Land. i dunno, my dealer won't tell me where he gets it. also, guess what? egypt meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, they figured out how to put wheels on a horse. now we're getting somewhere. also, china and did i mention indus river valley civilization society count: 5 ... norte chico the middle east is getting more complicated. maybe because it's in the middle of the east. knock knock, er, clop clop. it's the... people with the horses? and they made an empire. and then everyone else copied their horses. greeks! ah look, it must be the greeks! er, a beta version of the greeks. let's check in with the indus river valley civilization: they're gone. guess who's not gone? china. new arrivals from india... maybe it's those horse people i was talking about... or their cousins or something... and they wrote some hymns and mantras and stuff... you could make a religion out of this. there's the bronze age collapse. now the phoenicians can get down to business also, can we switch to a metal that's a little easier to find? thanks. look who came back to israel, it's the twelve tribes of israel. and they believe in God just one though, and he's got like a ten-step program. here's some huge heads. must be the olmecs. the phoenicians make some colonies. the greeks copy their idea and make some colonies. the phoenicians made a colony so big it makes colonies. here comes the assyrian empire. never mind, it's the babyloni— media— it's the Persian Empire: "wow, that's big" enlightenment ah, the buddha was just enlightened. who's the buddha? this guy, who sat under a tree for so long that he figured out how to ignore the fact that we're all dying. you could make a religion out of this. oops, china just broke. but while it was breaking, confucius was figuring out how to have good morals. enlightenment ah, the greeks just had the idea of thinking about stuff. and right over here, alexander just had the idea of conquering the entire persian empire. it's a great idea. he was... great. and now he's dead. hopefully, the rest of the gang will be able to share the empire evenly between them. knock knock, it's chandragupta. he says "get the hell out of here. will you get the hell out of here if i give you 500 elephants? okay, thanks, bye" time to conquer all of india er most of india but what about this part? that's the tamil kings. no one conquers the tamil kings. who are the tamil kings? merchants, probably. and they've got spices! who would like to buy the spices? "me!" said the arabians, swiftly buying it and selling it to the rest of the world. hey, china put itself back together again, with good morals as their main philosophy. actually, they have three main philosophies: confucianism: have good morals taoism: go with the flow legalism: fuck you, obey the law out here, the horse nomads run wild and free, and they would like to ransack your city. nomads ransack china let's check the greekification levels of the greekified kingdoms: greekification overload. bye, said the parthians. bye, said the jews. hi, said the parthians, taking over the entire place. heyyyyy, said the romans, eating the entire mediterranean for breakfast. "thanks for invading our homeland," said the jews, who were starting to get tired of people invading their homeland. "hi, everything's great," said some guy who seems to be getting very popular and is then arrested and killed for being too popular, which actually makes him more popular. you could make a religion out of this. want silk? now you can buy it from china. they just made a brand new road to the world. conquers vietnam or you can get there on water "sick! new trade routes!" said india, accidentally spreading their religion to the entire southeast. hmm, that's a good place for an epic trading kingdom. there goes buddhism, travelling up the silk road. i wonder if it'll reach china before it collapses again. remember the persian empire? yep, said the persians, making a new one. axum is getting so powerful, they would like to build a long stick. has anyone populated madagascar yet? let's do it together. china is whole again... ...then it broke again still can't cross the sahara desert? try camels. "hell yeah! now we've got business," said the ghana empire, selling lots of gold. and slaves. "hi, i'm a member of the roman empire, and i was wondering is loving jesus legal yet?" "no" "actually, okay sure," said constantine, moving the capital way over here to be closer to his main rival. don't worry about rome, it won't fall. it's the golden age of india there's the gupta empire, not chandragupta, just gupta. first name chandra. the first. guess who's in rome? barbarians. what's a barbarian? "non-romans," said the romans, being invaded by non-romans. r.i.p. roman empire. actually just half of it, the other half is just fine, but it's not in rome anymore, so let's give it a new name. the mayans have figured out the stars oh, and here's a huge city, population: everyone. the göktürks have taken over the entire eurasian steppe. great job, göktürks. how's india? broken. how's china? back together. how's those trading kingdoms? bigger, and there's more of them. korea has three kingdoms. japan has a kingdom, it's the sunrise kingdom. intermission deep in the arabian desert, on the top of a mountain, the real god whispers in muhammad's ear. so, he goes down to the cube where everyone worships gods and he tells them their gods are all fake. and everyone got so mad at him that he had to leave town and go to a different town. you could make a religion out of this, and maybe conquer the world as well. the roman empire is long gone, but somehow the pope is still the pope. plus, there's new kingdoms all over europe. i wonder if there's room for moors. here's all the wisdom. in a house. it's the baghdad house of wisdom! just in time for the islamic golden age! "let's bring stuff to the coast and sell it, and become the swahili on the swahili coast," said the swahili on the swahili coast. remember this tiny space you have to go through to get from here to there? someone owns that now. wanna get enlightened in the middle of nowhere? the franks have the biggest kingdom in europe, and the pope is so proud that he invites the king over for christmas. "surprise! you're the new roman emporer!" said the pope, pretending to still be part of the roman empire. then the franks broke their kingdom into what will later be called france and not-france. the northerners, er, just "norse" if you don't have much time, are exploring. they go north, from the north to the northern north. and they find some land— two types of land!— and they name them accordingly. prankd they also invade some other places and get called many names, such as "vikings." there's the rus! the kievan rus! are they vikings? "i don't think so," said the kievan rus. okay, fair enough. the pope is ready to make some more emperors of the roman empire. the holy roman empire! it's actually germany, but don't worry about it. new kingdoms— CRISTIANIZE ALL THE KINGDOMS!! which brand would you like? "mine's better" "mine's better" "mine's better" "time to conquer england," said william. it's a bird! it's a plane! it's the seljuk turks! "aah!" said the byzantine empire, who's getting so small and almost doesn't exist anymore. "we need help!" they need help! so they call the pope. "hey pope, can you help us get rid of the seljuks? maybe take back the holy land on the way? come on, i know you want to take back the holy land." "yes, i do actually want to do that. let's do a crusade." crusade! they did many crusades. some of which almost didn't fail. but at least the italians got some sweet trade deals. goodbye mayans. hello toltecs! goodbye toltecs. hello mississippi! look at those mounds. there's the pueblo. i always wondered how to build a town in a cliff. guess who's here? khmer. where? here! and pagan is there. vietnam unconquered itself, korea just became itself, and japan is so addicted to art that the military might have to take over the government. china just invented bombs, and typing. and the mongols just invaded most of the universe. nice going, genghis! i bet that will last a long time. some of the islamic turks were unaffected by the mongol invasions because they were busy invading india. is it tonga time? i think it's tonga time. i just figured out where the swahili gets all of their gold. look at this chad! it means "lake." there's an empire there! right in the middle of africa! the king of mali is so rich, he's going on tour to let everyone know. "wow, that guy's rich," everyone said. the christians are doing a great job reconquering iberia, which will soon be called spain and not-spain. please remain christian. we will check in later to see if you're still christian when you least expect. whoops, half of europe just died. ming! china's back, yay! hey, khmer. time to share. new kingdoms, here and there. oh, look who controls all of the islands. it's the mahajapit. majahapit. mapajahit. mahapajit. mapajahit. ma-ja-pa-hit? oh, italy's real rich. time for them to care a lot about art and the ancient classics. it's kinda like a rebirth. here's a printer. let's make books! so you think you can conquer the byzantine empire? yep, said the ottoman turks. nice job, ottoman turks. oops, you missed a spot. don't forget to ban europe from the indian spice trade. "what? that's bullshit," said portugal, spiceless. "well i guess we'll have to find another way to india" "wait!" said christopher columbus, probably smoking crack. "if the world is round, let's go this way to india." "nah, don't worry, we already got this," said portugal. so chris goes to spain. "hey spain, wanna hire me to find india by going around back of the world?" "no" "please?" "no" "please?" "wtf" "no" "please?" "...okay" so he sails into the ocean, and discovers... more ocean. and then discovers the indies, and japan! let's draw a line to decide who gets which half of the world. the aztec and the inca empires are off to a great start. i wonder if they know that europe just discovered their continent. the hapsburgs are marrying into so many royal families, they might have to start marrying each other. move over, lithuania, here comes moscow. ivan wants to make russia great again. move over, timurids, maybe go invade india or something. persia just made persia persian again. let's make it the other kind of islam. the one where we thought the first guy should've been the other guy. hey, christians! do you sin? now you can buy your way out of hell! "that's bullshit. this whole thing is bullshit. that's a scam. fuck the church. here's 95 reasons why," said martin luther, in his new book which might have accidentally started the protestant reformation. "you know what would be magnificent?" said suleiman wearing an onion hat. "what if the ottoman empire was... really big?" which it is now. "what if russia was big?" said ivan, trying not to be terrible. portugal had a dream that they controlled the entire indian ocean, including the spice trade. and then that dream was real. and spain realized that this is not india, but they pillaged it anyway. "damn," said england and france. "we gotta start pillaging some stuff." then the dutch revolt, and all the hipsters moved to amsterdam. "damn," said amsterdam. "we gotta start pillaging some stuff." question one: can you get to india from north america? no, but at least there's beaver. question two: steal the spice trade. that's not a question, but the dutch did it anyway. and sugar... guess where all of the sugar is made? in brazil! stolen! in the caribbean! and it's so goddamn profitable, you might forget to not do slavery. the next thing on russia's to-do list is to get bigger. britain and france are having a friendly discussion about who should control the entire world. more specifically, ohio. then it escalates into a seven-year discussion, giving prussia a chance to show austria who's boss. but what about britain and france, did they figure out who's boss? yes they did! it's britain. guess who's broke? also britain! so they start taxing the hell out of america. "fuck you!" says america, declaring their independence and fighting for it, and france helps them win. now france is broke, and britain will have to send their prisoners to a different continent. wait, if france is broke, why do the king and queen still wear such fancy dresses? "let's overthrow the palace and cut all their heads off!" said robespierre, cutting everybody's heads off until someone eventually got mad and cut his head off. you could make a rel— no, don't. haiti is starting to like the idea of a revolution, especially the slaves, who free themselves by killing their masters. "why didn't we think of this before?" wait, who's in charge of france now? "me," said napoleon, trying to take over europe. luckily, they banished him to an island. but he came back! luckily, they banished him to another island. there goes latin america, becoming independent in the latin american wars of independence. britain just figured out how to turn steam into power, so now they can make many different types of machines and factories with machines in them so they can make a lot of products real fast. then they invent some trains. and conquer india and maybe put some trains there. "hey, china!" said britain. "buy stuff from us!" "nah, dude, we already got everything," says china. so britain tried to get them addicted to opium, which worked, actually. but then china made it illegal and dumped it all into the sea. so britain threw a hissy fit and made them open up five cities and give them an island. britain and russia are playing a game where they try to stop the other person from conquering afghanistan. also, the sultan of oman lives in zanzibar now: "that's just where he lives." india just had a revolution, and they would like to govern themselves now. "nope," said britain, governing them even harder than before. incoming telegram: HI I JUST SENT YOU A MESSAGE THRU A WIRE technology is about to go crazy! the united states finally figured out whether slavery is good or bad. it's bad, they decided, and then they continued manifesting their destiny, which is to kill the rest of the natives and take their land and maybe kick out the mexicans too. "i know! let's rape africa!" said europe, scrambling to see who could rape it the fastest. they never got ethiopia... britain and france are still hungry. they never got thailand... the united states ran out of destiny to manifest, so they're looking for more: hawaii! cuba! wait, spain controls cuba. well, blame something on them and go to war! what should we blame on spain? u.s.s. maine sinks "let's blame the maine on spain." so they blame the maine on spain. now we're in business. to celebrate, they kick panama out of panama and make a canal, connecting the two oceans. britain just found oil in the middle east. it makes cars go... china is so tired of being bossed around that they delete their old government and make a new, stronger government, which is accidentally weaker and is controlled by a guy from the previous government. europe hasn't had a war since the last war, so they start world war one. look at those guns! it's gonna be a great war, so great we won't need a second one. after it's over, they blame germany. russia went on strike, and the workers overthrew the government. now, everyone's paycheck is the same. communism in the soviet union... the arabs revolt and britain helps. now the ottoman empire is gone, so we can give the jewish people a place to live. hopefully the arabs won't mind. "let's cut the cake!" said sykes and picot, carving up the remains of the not-so-ottoman-anymore-empire. except turkey! turkey makes a brand new turkey! and then the saudis conquer arabia. it just seemed like the right thing to do. phone rings hello? yes, it's the 1920's calling. let's get to a car and drive to a party and listen to jazz on the radio and go to the movies. the economy is great and it will probably be great forever. just kidding. germany's back, featuring hitler, the angry mustache model, and he's mad at the jews for existing. japan is finally conquering the east, and they're so excited, they rape nanking way too hard. they should probably just deny it. hitler's out of control, so the international community tackles him and tries to explain to him why killing all of the jews is a bad idea. but he kills himself because they could explain it to him. that's world war two! bonus round! pacific showdown united states vs. japan FIGHT!! united states drops two extinction balls on japan FINISH HIM! let's unite all the nations and have some world peace! seems legit. "hi, im gandhi, and if britain doesn't get the hell out of india, i'm going to starve myself in public." britain leaves "wow, that worked?" bonus! now there's pakistan. actually two pakistans, one of them can be bangladesh later. the jews and the arabs finally figured out which one of them should live in the holy land. "me!" they both said at the same time. let's divide up the lands so we're both happy. SIKE! they both get angrier! look out, china! there's a new china in china. what's on the menu? communism! no thanks, said the other china, escaping to an island. i wonder which one is the real china...? there's the korean war. korea versus korea! nobody wins, then its on pause forever. let's meet the sponsors. oh, it's the two global superpowers. they're having a friendly debate over which economic system is good and which one is an evil virus of satan. and they both have atom bombs. FIGHT!! wait, no, that would be the end of the world. let's just keep it cool and spy on each other instead. and make sure we have enough atom bombs. "i'll race you to space." united states plants a flag on the moon now let's make more countries fight themselves. europe is tired of pillaging other continents, and the continents they were pillaging are tired of being pillaged. so here's a new map with new countries. now you can't tell who they're being pillaged by. the united states finally decided whether racism is good or bad. they decided it's bad, and the world agrees. south africa might need another minute to think about it. let's check the world population! woah. okay. technology is better too, that might keep happening. the soviet union decides to relax a little, and accidentally falls apart. europe makes a union, so now they can all use the same money. except britain, because they don't feel like it. let's check the mail... surprise! it's on the computer! whoops, someone just attacked america. i bet they'll remember that. phone call! surprise! it's in your pocket! wanna learn everything? surprise! it's on the computer! now your phone's a computer, which is in your pocket! whoops, the economy just crashed. don't worry, the big banks won't fail, because they're not supposed to. surprise!... flying robots. with bombs. wanna print a brain? some people have no friends. some people have no food. the globe is warming, and the ocean is full of plastic! "let's save the planet!" said everybody, not knowing how. "let's invent a thing inventor," said the thing inventor inventor after being invented by a thing inventor. that's pretty cool. by the way, where the hell are we? thanks for watching history i hope i mentioned everything

[lokiarsene]

like yesterday, here's a bullet list of my thoughts for episodes 18~21

thoughts on episode 18:

oh no, it's the beach episode.

-- i really like how they show the way the PT take care of futaba. ren patiently cleaning up her room in between hours at the florist, them playing vidya with her, or just having lunch together in montage moments is very sweet. it makes me wish the anime had much slower pacing, more slice of life-y kind of drama.

-- watching yusuke, ryuji, and futaba lose their freakin minds over good curry is VERY relatable.

-- i still don't understand why ann and makoto thought that a two piece frilly bathing suit was the way to go with futaba. a one piece that she could wear under a long wrap or a hoodie would've made so much more sense... but >male gaze

-- have i told y'all how fucking tired i am of the sexualization of the teenage girls in p5 yet, and how it is one of the several things that fuckin ruined this game for me

have i?

well here it is again

none of the previous games were as bad as this b t w and p4 had one of the dungeons be a STRIP CLUB.

-- yusuke and his lobsters are wonderful.

-- oh god i forgot COMPLETELY about the whole 'mental shutdowns' thing in this game's plot. i think because it's all so pointlessly convoluted. p3 had something similar but even there it was just people turned catatonic for weeks on end when the monthly boss-shadows drew near.

i think the reason i find this so hard to understand is because from p3 to p4 the rules of shadows didn't really change so much. p3 had the persona users go up against shadow bosses; p4 had people confront the shadows within themselves, either accepting them completely (which then turned into persona), or the shadow 'absorbed' the person and ran rampant as a monster. neither of those rules really contradict each other, but in p5 personal shadows for persona users are gone completely, and how you deal with other people's personal shadows doesn't even involve them being present to complete the merge.

mona says that persona users can't have palaces, but persona users in 4 could and DID have 'dungeons' within the shadows' worlds. these dungeons dealt specifically with what was at the core of the shadows' emergence--a deep secret and a hidden truth that caused the shadow to grow, a place that was a replica and a distortion of reality based upon that suppressed truth. so that sure sounds like a fucking palace to me.

so....................... unless there's like, multiple realities folded into our own, and persona users can only access certain ones.................. i'm just super confused.

like, i know it's because the rules change game to game, but p3 to p4 didn't have any contradictions, and p2 didn't contradict anything in p3, either. it just went from a full party of wild card users to a singular one.

-- i'm glad ann's getting a little screentime here. i was just thinking about how other characters' development was lacking after makoto and futaba got so much focus.

-- mona's so sweet to ann ;-; now that he has a human form in p5r, i hope they become really good friends. she needs a kind guy friend that'll be reliable~ plus he makes her laugh.

-- sojiro talking about the anniversary of wakaba's death is......... really interesting........ considering that screenshot of futaba sitting next to a woman with the exact same haircut as her "deceased" mother.

-- ren reassuring mona that he absolutely has to be human, that he will return to who he used to be once they figure out what's happening in the metaverse is jsut jdfklasd

AND HIS LIL ROUND OF APPLAUSE WHEN MONA TALKS ABOUT ALL THE THINGS HE'S GOING TO DO TO KEEP THE WORLD SAFE ;-;

AND THAT SHOT OF HIM SLEEPING CURLED UP ON REN'S STOMACH

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

-- listen i know mona isn't rly a cat but he's the BEST cat

thoughts on episode 19:

oh it's the hawaii episode.

-- man what the hell kinda budget do these school's got that they can just go overseas with dozens of students on a yearly basis? that's impressive.

-- ryuji: "whoa, awesome! ..... i don't really get it, but awesome!" fjdsafds okay that got a laugh outta me. good one, ryuji.

-- ren: "i'm excited, too." (said in a monotone) fjklsadsl BLESS THIS BOY

-- ren's FACE when he learns that futaba installed a spying app on his phone and can hear him/see pictures he takes is...... kind of hilarious. especially if you have the headcanon that he and akechi send dumbass snapchats to each other a lot--which i do. and which you do now, too.

-- mona's depression is ten times more sad because he's a cat okay :c why they gotta make the cat so cute

-- ren, ryuji, and ann's lil sleepover is adorable. especially since ann chastises ryuji for not knowing one of the basic rules of a sleepover: if you start talkin' about your crushes, you gotta start with your own~ thems the rules lads

-- rip principal bloatneck.

-- honestly that truck shoulda at least TRIED to stop.

-- "A LO HA." goddammit that's adorable

AND HE GIVES THE LEI NECKLACE TO MONA FJDSKFJDSKL ren you're so SWEET.

-- I TOTALLY FORGOT THAT MONA CALLS SAE "ONEE-NO-NIIJIMA" FJADSKLFJDSKL ahhhh it's so cute.

-- the PT targeting okumura, who is essentially the dave thomas with political ambitions of the persona 5 world, is far funnier now that i phrase it like that.

-- ANN, OF ALL FUCKING PEOPLE, SAYING THAT THEY PROBABLY BROUGHT THIS RECENT TROUBLE ON THEMSELVES, IS A FUCKING STUPID WRITING DECISION. I CAN'T BELIEVE SOMEONE DIDN'T LOOK AT THAT AND GO, "ANN WOULDN'T SAY THIS. ANN HAS NO REASON TO SAY IT." god. lmao PLEASe let p5r be a goddamn second draft.

-- mona's totally right that ryuji's just concerned with getting popular and his dick wet. like,,, that's why this argument only made me hate ryuji more than i already did. he gets pissy when mona points out the truth.

god he sucks lmao

I'M SORRY I'M SO SALTY YOU GUYS

LOOK I'LL SAY SOMETHING NICE: SAE AND AKECHI ARE COOL

-- i really like how guarded akechi's face looks in his conversation with sae, and how off his guard he looks when she tells him that she's not going to hold back, especially since the culprit is doing such dire, awful things. he's not exactly surprised, but he's definitely uneasy and shaken by what he hears. which makes me wonder who he’s really concerned for--himself, or for ren (and the PT by extension, but akechi only really seems to care about ren, so).

the reason i like that is because the okumura arc in p5 is really where akechi's mind starts its downward spiral. principal kobayakawa's death obviously rattled him, especially since the only reason the principal died was because shido saw him as useless and disposable, something akechi is desperate NEVER TO BE. and it's that + what happens with okumura that really kicks him over the edge.

i hope p5r will give us the chance to pull him back from it. he deserves a better chance than the game's subpar writing gave to him.

thoughts on episode 20:

-- ren wakes up in a panic because he thinks he sees mona on his bed ;___________;

-- goro snoopin' on the PT's LOUD, TOTALLY CONSPICUOUS conversation in front of okumura foods' HQ is kind of adorable if you remember he clearly loves star wars (HE HAS A LIGHT SABER), and the camera cuts to his face right as they're talking about big bang and outer space lingo.

-- oh, haru. i really wish you were the black mask. that would've been so much cooler--and an actual twist. her total hopeless panic about being a beauty thief could still be a thing (because it is actually endearing), it'd just be an act. but that's me talkin' fix-its again.

-- i really like the scene of haru defending mona to the PT on the rooftop, then cutting to show just how strained her relationship is with her father. she exists to be useful to her father's ambitions and nothing else, and that scene really drove home just how painful that is for her.

-- REN TWIRLS HIS HAIR BETWEEN TWO FINGERS WHEN HE'S DEEP IN THOUGHT. AHHHHHHH I FORGOT HE DID THAT

-- oh hey remember how the game went through the trouble of showing how haru's fiance is a sexist, violent, animal-hurting piece of shit and then promptly failed to actually separate her from him in game (i think you only can do that in her s-link?? the s-link you can barely finish in your first run of the game??), and in t hEN SHOWED HER IN THE CAR WITH HIM LATER, LOOKING HORRIBLY UNCOMFORTABLE?

god this story makes me so fucking mad lmfao STOP PUTTING GIRLS IN PHYSICALLY OR SEXUALLY VIOLENT PERIL AND NEVER ACTUALLY ENSURING THAT THEY'RE SAFE, YOU DAVID CAGE LEVEL OF HACK BULLSHIT WRITERS.

-- ryuji running into the attic, all worried about mona, with a first aid kit, is..... very good. very good and endearing. good on you, ryuji.

-- haru gently encouraging mona to tell the truth is also really good. idk if i just missed it in the game or what, but i really like how she's presented in the anime. she's like a counterpart to ren--soft, sincere, observant, patient, yet she's made of pure steel beneath all that.

thoughts on episode 21:

-- WHY WAS HARU'S GRANDFATHER GIVING COFFEE TO A FIVE YEAR OLD

-- haru, the reason your father's heart grew twisted is thanks to capitalism. you gotta change the heart of capitalism.

-- not to be all poochie here but whenever akechi isn't on screen, all i can ask myself is whERE'S AKECHI?

-- HOW CAN I TAKE THE EVIL DAVE THOMAS SERIOUSLY WHEN HE'S DRESSED LIKE FUCKIN MEGAMIND?

-- okay see this is where i'm thrown completely out of the story or even really liking haru. haru just listened to her dad's shadow saying he would PIMP HER OUT TO HER FIANCE WITHOUT A SECOND THOUGHT. and she still is just like ~no i want him to go back to being kind~

bitch are you nuts

are you NUTS

youR DAd SHOULD DIE AND YOU'D BE BETTER OFF

CONSIDERING HOW THE GAME GOES, YOU ARe BETTER OFF

god. i'm getting so mad again lmao

-- ren approaching haru to point out that if the truth of her father's crimes comes to light, she'll forever be associated with him (and with all the harm and ruined reputation that brings) is, once again, further reminder of just how... damn good ren is. he doesn't hesitate to speak from the heart nor does he ever fail to listen to someone else speak from theirs.

-- also not for nothing but uh

how did the cops not like

figure out how the PT phan-site was set up within the first few months and track it down to mishima? was that ever addressed at all?

-- honestly another reason why i get so fucking mad about this okumura stuff is the game goes SO FAR OUT OF ITS WAY to make you feel BAD that he died, when he was by all rights a fucking shitheel monster, yet when akechi dies it's like 'oh well. that sucked.' fuck off, atlus. the death of a greedy, heartless CEO isn't more sad just because his gaslit daughter is conditioned to be sad about it.

i understand that a large part of the shock after okumura's death is because the PT don't know if they did anything wrong. but okumura was in no way a good person. he was in no way a person whose redemption overruled all the hurt and harm he did. that has been the case for EVERY PT target before this, so why the fuck is okumura suddenly so different? why SHOULD he be?

the difference between him and, say, akechi is that okumura et. al. all made those choices on their own to do terrible things. they delighted in it, they enjoyed it. but akechi, much like futaba, was forced into a cycle of self-destruction--it’s just that in futaba’s case, her self-destruction targeted herself, and akechi’s was quite literally weaponized and used against others. he approached shido as a young teenager and was then used by him for years.

a teenage boy being used as a magical hitman by his shitlord father is far more deserving of sympathy and redemption than grown adults who willingly make the decision to harm, abuse, and prey on others. but no, the game didn’t want to do that.

this is another big problem i have with p5's second and third acts: it's so tonally dissonant and sloppy. it's like they didn't try to actually be as rebellious and hellraiser-y as the first act WANTED to be, and it all ends up being such a limp-dick shriveled mess of "let's fight against this rotten society!! ......... as long as it in no way actually upsets anyone or does any REAL change." fuck off lmao

that's not me even commenting on the "twist" and how it needed to be explained MULTIPLE TIMES to the player for it to make any sense.

and it still doesn't make sense to me btw.

so that's another thing i hope p5r fixes.

-- rip evil dave thomas megamind.

-- akechi floating the idea to sae that the phantom thieves had nothing to do with okmura’s death is............................ interesting.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

shake, i hope you'll still remember that you're p cool 2/2

oh man Thanks as fuck....... yeah like it’s funny b/c it’s both a difficulty that like, it’s kind of hard to get me to realize maybe ppl want to be pals in the first place because every time someone first is choosing to interact with me i have that casual assumption like “uh oh this person’s mistakenly thinking they’d enjoy talking to me! better just ease them through this experience without making them deal with that mistake” and stuff instead of trying to Have Fun And Be Myself....and then it takes me a hot minute to be like “hey they might actually want to talk to you, chill out” and also “i know social mirroring is your default mode but try to figure out how not to do that”

and then yet also yeah i’ll be like, oh is this person my friend now or?? too early and like. i always do it still despite being well aware now that i do it and knowing to watch for it, and it’s still disappointing sitting there telling yourself you’re not really ppl’s friend, but it’s a lot more manageable than it used to be at least thanks to being more attuned to the whole matter and stuff, like it’s still the “oh it’s exciting to have a friend :)” and then “oh it feels bad to remember that’s not really the case :(” but it’s like the feelings are happening on a smaller scale / lower volume and such. and like using sort of ~objective~ considerations like “okay, you know that most likely this person has Actual friends and stuff” and reminders about how your relationship with them is really just like, kind of light fare. and it’s like, it always kind of sucks but its easy to remember cuz it’s not like it’s not true? its just an unusual thing to have to consider, and if you DO have ~real friends~ and aren’t like disgustingly lonely maybe you don’t have to consider it that much lol. 

like it isn’t fun basically having to be all like, okay so a sorta-friendship might feel significant to you but you have to keep in mind that its not as significant to them. but it’s generally true and like.........better to remind yourself of that sooner than have to realize it later when you’re more invested or care about the other person more or whatever and it’s like oh shit yeah i’m not really that important to them, dang it........like it’s just a weird thing because there’s really no way to be isolated and lonely and not have close friends and be in a truly ~okay~ place with it because it’s just....a continuously detrimental place to be in? and that applies to a lot of things lol. like there’s all these mental approaches i’ll take to things that’s not really about thinking that i can Be Okay with some bad fucked up situation, but rather just trying to lessen the unavoidable and everpresent Not-Okayness of it. the Okay is relative but sometimes you can really only be so okay!

honestly one thing that’s wild is i pretty much did go through the route of “my self worth was so bad it circled around into becoming more positive and now i have fairly decent self-esteem even just on my own”.....cuz like at least when you have to figure things out and get through shit and look out for yourself mostly on your own, you do have that Practice in doing it without external support lol even though you shouldn’t have to. and like i’m not Peak Self Confidence And Self Esteem by any means but it’s decent, self-loathing really isn’t a huge issue or anything. one classic thing that just helped put shit in perspective is the “if you were someone else would you be as unsympathetic / think these things about them” and i’m not like evil so of course i wouldn’t and its like oh lol yeah true! and then speaking of evil another thing that helps is remembering that capitalism is inhumane and an empire of lies and it’s like, okay is this thing about me really At All Bad or is this based on the standards of capitalism and, again, would you be unsympathetic and if it was someone else and blame / criticize them in this way? and i totally wouldn’t. and yeah i get to this point where i appreciate myself by myself!! it’s pretty chill! like, well, i’ll be my own best friend forever if i gotta. is this sad and loserly? sure! but somebody’s gotta do it and that’s just the situation! gotta be a loser? own it!! (to make the references yknow)

like really even knowing that hmm maybe i just don’t have much deep appeal for most ppl is ultimately like well, if so, Shrrruggggg b/c what are you gonna do!! i know there’s ways i’m not “good” at interactions and stuff, but in terms of personality i figure there’s stuff that definitely might not be of universal appeal but it’s definitely not always bad, like i’ll be like “oh i’m too enthusiastic about what i like” or “oh i’m too hot tempered” but really then i’ll remember that no, this isn’t something that everyone hates lol and really what’s the point if i’d have to change fundamental things about myself so i might have more Appeal anyways like....yeah it sucks having ppl just generally not be interested but also? it helps that other ppl talk about having the struggle of like....its not necessarily like you’re a jerk or have nothing to offer or anything, but just seeming “off” to most ppl in terms of that social frequency can always have this effect of largely leading to being like, ignored but also sometimes ignored with A Hint Of Rejection, and it’s like oh hell yeah!! just inherent social Other People Repellent, bring it in!! it sucks but its not Just You!!

like really i feel like maybe for like a decade and a half i’ve always been overcompensating when i think somebody seems neat and trying to seem cool-tempered around them? which, why would i even want to, i’m not cool tempered at all and really am not even interested myself if other ppl are truly like that! but maybe i am tuning in to the fact that ppl generally arent quite so excitable as me and thus trying to play it cool. but like, at this point, even though i do try to “turn it down” for ppl like, all the time, it’s like, why bother. what is the difference between doing that and having ppl not like me and just getting to do my own thing and not having ppl like me, yknow? 

plus just to throw another element of chaos into it, i’m cagey with my ~True Emotions~ or something both in part because i know maybe they’ll seem Annoying to other ppl or something but also because (chaotic trumpet riff) abuseee ://// so like even on the rare occasions i realize that somebody’s okay with interacting with me, i’m still acting kinda elusive or trying to filter myself too damn much like there’s a point to trying to be friends anyways if everybody’s putting on too much of an act!! gotta self sabotage!! trying not to though

like really Would Love To Have Friends i’d just also love to not have to lower my standards despite that fact that being like, yeah the big L Loneliness is really pretty miserable and says you should want to grab on to any chance of friendship with both hands....that’s often not the case cuz it can be like oh wait hang on, do i actually like this person and are they being cool to me too? or like, the person is totally alright but the relationship isn’t going to mean that much to them cuz it’s more of an outer-orbits sort of casual...Friendly Acquaintanceship or whatever and you’re just like Ah Yes :’)

for example i could’ve trimmed this down to not be an overly long series of weird tangents about myself in depressing ways but this is what you get!! why put up fronts. it’s not that bad anyways.

[the-kyle-chronicles]

All the luxury asks

(dude, you suck, but also rock cause now i can spend time answering questions instead of being bored)

bubble bath: do you have any routines before bedtime? like skin care, etc. what are they?I wash my face, then use this other thing on it, and then moisturize it. After that I fill up Gandalfs (my cat) water bowl and food bowl, fill up Bo’s (my snake) water dish and mist down his tank, and then I set my alarm for the morning (if I work) and finally I take my sleeping pills before going to bed.

champagne: what topic could you talk about for hours?Probably LGBTQA+ issues and mental illnesses along with horror films, if you get me started I’ll wanna keep talking about it until I’ve exhausted all the knowledge I have on the topic(s).

crushed velvet: have you ever used your charm to get something you want?I mean back when I still id’d as female I def used my “charm” *cough* boobs *cough* to get stuff for free from friends.

diamonds: how do you feel about excessively spending money?It really depends on what the money’s being spent on and who’s spending it really.

faux fur: describe your wardrobe.Typical trans guy wardrobe (i feel like every trans guy has the same wardrobe at one point or another in their transition) ft. cat-theme items

glitter: describe someone special to you.Honestly my mom is super special to me. She has hazel eyes and shoulder-length hair that she dyes some shade of auburn every now and again. She’s honestly very pretty and although her jokes suck, she does make me laugh with how bad they are. She’s always been super supportive in regards to my transition and has always been invested in being there for me (both physically and emotionally) throughout my entire transitioning progress thus far. I gave her a really hard time when I was in grades 8-10 and looking back now I can see that she was really just trying her best to raise my sisters and I fresh after her and my dad’s divorce. I really do love my mom and she is quite special to me.

gold: describe what you would call the most perfect meal.I honestly have no idea. Basically if you include chocolate and pasta in it I’ll prob be happy.

jazz: name a song that resonates with you and your emotions. explain the reason why.Real by Of Mice & Men. I don’t know exactly what it is about the song but certain lines in the chorus just really make me reflect on how my abusive pos ex made me feel and how no matter what happened I’m still here and I’m still being my most authentic self regardless of what he did.

lace: what is something in your life completely different from last year?Uhh I have a lot more facial and chest hair than I did last year.

lingerie: do you consider yourself a promiscuous person?Not really, I mean I’ve only had sex with 7 people (that’s including oral) and I’m engaged to the person I’ve been dating for the last 5 years soo

lipstick: do you enjoy talking to strangers?In person, fuck no. Online, sure.

pearls: what’s something about your personality that surprises others?I’m typically a very quiet person (I guess my outer appearance is that of someone who expresses themselves out-loud, but I tend to keep to myself really)

penthouse: what would you consider your dream home? describe it.Atleast 2 floors and 2 bedrooms. One would be an actual bedroom and one would be a room where Brad could play video games and I could film my YouTube videos. Having a balcony would be nice so I could relax on it and take some pictures from it (cause I’d def want a view). A decent sized living room and kitchen (not that that’s super important since I’m usually in our room). A fenced-in backyard would be nice too so that Gandalf could chase grasshoppers without me worrying about him running off. Oh also a pool would be nice so that I could swim shirtless and not die of heat in the summer.

perfume: if you could make your own signature fragrance, what would it smell like?Probably cool mint or the smell of the tea I like most (orange pekoe, but it’d have to smell like how it does after I make it).

robe: how do you prepare for an evening alone with a loved one/date?I usually shave my “downstairs” the day/night before and then I try to clean up the room a little so we don’t have as much of a mess to look at, and then I just double-check if they want any specific snacks/drinks in arms reach before we start doing whatever we’re doing (which is usually watching comedians on netflix together and possibly doing some sex-stuff afterwards).

roses: If it had to be winter, autumn, spring or summer for the rest of your life, which would you choose?Autumn. I love me that spooky aesthetic plus sweaters hide my chest and sweats are v comfy.

satin: what is your most favorite article of clothing?For comfort reasons: my one pair of grey sweatpants. For usefulness: my binder.

sheet mask: what’s your favorite lazy activity?I love to just endlessly binge-watch YouTube videos (right now I’ve been binge-watching simplynailogical’s videos).

silk: do you have more inner or outer beauty?I feel like my inner beauty is much greater than my outer beauty (but I also hate my appearance most of the time).

silver: do you have any obscure hobbies? what are they?I like collecting pins? Idk if that counts as a hobby though...

sparkling water: what are your top three songs for the summer?Untouched by The VeronicasMy My My! by Troye SivanMi Gente by J Balvin & Willy William

wine: what kind of drunk are you (happy/affectionate, angry, sad, fun/wild)? if you don’t drink, what kind do you think you WOULD be?Back when I was a bad kid and would drink I was very much the affectionate and wild one (also def a little bit of an attention whore if I was with the person I was dating/crushing on). I haven’t gotten drunk since I was like 16(?) though so I have no idea how that’s changed.

[thecoriful]

InuKag week 2018  - day 3 - Distance

Okay. So, I did the unthinkable - I wrote Inu Yasha fanfiction! The first one in over 10 years.

I was so inspired by my newfound love for the fandom - thanks to all the people out there who keep it alive with their stories and their art. You know who you are, and you are beautiful, please keep going! <3 

There will be more of this, but it fit so perfectly with @inukag-week that I couldn’t wait to post it. 

You can also read this at FF.net on Ao3

What were we hoping...

...to get out of this? Some kind of momentary bliss?                      ~ Villagers - Nothing arrived

He didn't sleep after the first few weeks of her abscence, to keep the dreams away. He knew that when he let sleep really take over him, he would dream of her. His dreams had always been very vivid, lingering in his brain for days on end. He didn't need to be reminded of her this way. Who knows what his fucked up brain would show him when he slept?

He'd rather remember her the way she was: strong, stubborn, sometimes as angry as he was. The way she would stomp her foot on the ground, hands balled tightly into fists of rage against her hips, full of frustration about his thick-headedness. Her blazing eyes full of fury and concentration when they were focused on an enemy target whilst holding her bow and arrow... such a perfect, beautiful picture, forever engraved in his mind. Wild, almost like a child of the forest like him in certain moments. Fearless, selfless and full of compassion when it came to her friends, and also to strangers they had just met. With her wonderful ability to see the good in everything.

She was so strong, and yet so breakable in other moments, crying over him, for him, because of him. He'd never forget the way her tears smelled, the memory alone took his breath away as his heart cramped for a long, aching moment... he longed to wipe away her tears, to kiss them from her cheeks.

The tender look she always gave him whenever he did something she liked - wether it be helping others or saying something nice or fighting for her and their friends -  this look became the manifestation of his moral compass.

He would never forget how her small, soft hands felt on his shoulders, and how they comforted him so many times. Oh, how these delicate hands gripped him thightly but trustingly when he ran with her on his back, jumping higher and higher... he'd give everything just to feel this elation again. Never before in his life had he felt as free as with her on his back, the wind whipping around them. How he desired to hold her again, to touch her, run his hands through her hair made of silk, to smell her sweet scent again. Oh, he'd do everything for her, if she'd let him. She'd never have to walk again, he'd carry her everywhere. He would bathe her in light and love. She would never hear a grumpy word from him again, he would do everything she'd tell him to do. He'd never let her go again, always and forever he'd hold her in his arms.

If he could have her back, only seeing her beautiful face once more.... he wouldn't even need to gather all his courage to tell her he loved her, he wouldn't be able to stop the words tumbling from his mouth, he was sure of it. He'd not just tell her, he'd show her how much he loved her. If she also wanted it. His palms tingled with sensation, she was so present in his mind he could almost feel her - so he took a deep breath before he lost his mind  completetly. Farther than this he could not go, it would drive him mad, he was sure of that.

This was not healthy, and he knew it. But he couldn't help but go to the well every three days, he would never forgive himself if she really came back and he wouldn't be there.

***

Up until the night of the new moon, he had managed to avoid the dreams. A fortnight without sleep was something he was familiar with. But in his human form - not a chance. As soon as he had curled up in the corner of Kaede's little hut, where he had found shelter this night, sleep had taken him. He had awoken to the, due to his human eyes still blurry, concerned face of a certain little fox demon. "Inu Yasha?" A cool, tiny hand was very carefully pressed against his cheek. "Are you okay?", Shippou whispered. Inu Yasha tried to sit up but couldn't,  the dark hands of sleep still had him in a vise like grip .

Was he okay? No, no he wasn't. The dream he had so dreaded in the past fortnight had finally come and, just as he had thought, it had been the black, endless world inside the Shikon no Tama all over. Only this time, he could not reach her, and Kagome was damned to forever fight within the jewel, never returning, never... The blackness eating him up, his lungs sore from screaming her name, but they were all alone, she couldn't hear him, he couldn't even sense her, they were all alone in the blackness, forever trapped inside this never ending nothingness...

Inu Yasha had a hard time breathing. He seemed to suck in endless amounts of air into his lungs, but couldn't release it. His head was still swimming in this endless black hell...

"Inu Yasha?!", Shippou's voice was urgent now, though still a whisper. "It's me, Shippou! Please look at me!"

Dark eyes danced around in the dark until they finally found bright green ones. "Now breathe!" Shippou urged, and Inu Yasha could finally breathe out. And in again, slowly, and out again. He repeated the motion for a minute until he could feel his cramped up muscles relax again. He had to get out of here. It was a wonder that old Kaede hadn't woken up, she was still fast asleep on her futon in the other side of the hut.

Swiftly, he stood up and got outside, looking up at the dark night sky. Stars were twinkling above him, and he took a deep breath of fresh air. As if he didn't have enough reason to hate his human nights...

The little kitsune had followed him outside and was now crawling onto his shoulder. He was a bit heavier for Inu Yasha in his human form, but he was still small. Such a little thing and yet he had seen so much pain and loss in his short life. Inu Yasha knew how it was to grow up with no parents, understood how lonely the kid must feel without this anchor in his life. At least he still had people to turn to: Kaede, Sango, Miroku... himself. As if on cue, Shippou buried his face in Inu Yasha's hair, embracing his neck tightly with his tiny arms. "I...." the litte kitsune started to stammer, and that's when a sob escaped him. "I mi-miss her s-so bad!" he cried into Inu Yasha's dark hair. The man closed his eyes in agony and brought his hands up to hold the little fox demon tightly. "Y-you were say-saying he-her name a-all over again..."

So that's why Shippou had woken him up.

"I know kid, I miss her too.", Inu Yasha said with a coarse voice. "Real bad." He sat down on the cold ground at the outer back of the hut, leaning against the wall, all the while holding the sobbing demon child. He couldn't say anything else, he didn't really know what to say, if he was honest. He'd never been good with words, so he just hoped that being there would be good enough.

After the sobs had quieted down, it didn't take long for Shippou to succumb to sleep in the man's arms.

There was no way Inu Yasha would let himself fall asleep that night again, so he just held the little furry ball until the sun came up.

He relished hearing the sound of the birds chirping, and of the whole village slowly waking up again.

As his black hair rapidly changed back to silver, Shippou stirred, rubbing his eyes, without a doubt sensing the youkai engery coming to life again. He looked at Inu Yasha from under his bangs, clearly afraid of what the hanyou had to say about his sleeping place.

But the half-demon just looked him calmly, softly in the eyes, like the little demon had never seen him do it. "It's okay to be sad, you know?" he said to Shippou. "I know what she was to you. But there are a hell of a lot people still here who care for you. You'll never be alone, I swear." he akwardly ruffled the kitsune's hair and sat him down on the ground.

Shippou just looked at him, his chest suddenly feeling very warm. The way Inu Yasha had just looked at him... the look was so familiar - he had often recieved it in the past, only had it been grey eyes that had bestowed it upon him. "Go to Miroku's." Inu Yasha suddenly ordered. "I gotta get outta here for a bit." After a short pause, he added: "I'll be back soon."

And without another glance at Shippou, he jumped into the nearest tree and off he went, a blur of silver and red.

He jumped from treetop to treetop, ducking and doging his way through, going at breakneck speed. He was trying to outrun the last ripplets the damned dream had made as it had dropped deep in his mind,  but he couldn't completly shake it off.

He was behaving like a madman, and he knew it, but even though, he couldn't stop running. He kept racing through fields, woods, propelling himself over rivers until he didn't know where he was anymore. Finally, he reached some cliff, its other side so far away he couldn't jump over, so he stopped and just stood at its edge and stared off into the distance. Fields, trees, rivers, villages... everything seemed so small and far away.

His thoughts were revolving around Kagome, she was the sole thing on his mind and all he felt was loneliness, so deeply carved into his heart it physically hurt. Since when had solitude began to feel like this? He had always relished it, cherished the tranquility of silence, but now it just felt hollow and forced. And, there in this absolute solitude, surrounded by fresh air and only the busy rustle of animals around him, with sudden, absolute clarity he knew that he would wait for her to come back, or, fuck it all, he'd just wait five hundred damned years, and even if it were the last breath he'd ever take, he'd take it with her sweet smell in his nose.

It was the first time he let himself think about what she might be doing just in this moment on the other side of the well.

****

The dreams continued, and the days and nights seemed endless, dragging along excrutiatingly slow.

It got a bit better once Miroku and he started to travel around to exterminate youkai. After the word of Naraku's death got around, hundreds of small youkai had been creeping out of their hiding places, so there was a lot to do.

It was a good distraction from everything familiar. The fights, even though they were just with minor, weak youkai were good for his mood. And, even if it was hard to believe at first, the monk was mostly good company. They didn't talk much, and he was grateful for the peace and quiet.

Sometimes Miroku would talk about religion, how everything in life had a meaning and was intertwined. Inu Yasha would just look at him, hoping his eyes would convey the message. The monk was his friend, he wouldn't go and be disrespectful about his belief.

But where was the meaning in meeting the perfect woman, her healing his wounds, making his dead heart beat again, just to have her ripped out of his life, leaving an enormous hole where life and love should have been? What was he to do with this big, pulsing lump in his chest now? He could not silence it again, of that he was sure.

Once, he had even voiced exactly these thoughts, in a very weak moment. They had just sat up camp and had a small fire burning, when Miroku started again with the everything-has-a-meaning-crap. Inu Yasha had all but spit the words into the monk's surprised face. For once, Miroku didn't know what to say. He had opened and closed his mouth a few times, and after a few moments he settled with "Okay. I understand."

And, after a very long time, as Inu Yasha thought Miroku was already asleep: "I am very sorry. Please do not think that I do not know of your sorrow. I am your friend."

After a long silence Inu Yasha sighed. "I know."

And he did.

In the beginning, Miroku was also very careful that he didn't talk much about his life with Sango. Inu Yasha knew that it was hard for the monk. It's not like he didn't see how happy they were together. Of course, he was glad for his friends. They both deserved the quiet life they had made for each other in the village. With their small house and their garden full of vegetables and their laundry fluttering in the wind - the image of pure peace.

Oh, how he longed for this kind of boredom...

[punksqueer]

answer ALL of the crayola questions bitch I dare u 👀

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED, SON

Macaroni and Cheese: What makes you think of your childhood?honestly?? the smell of old spice products, dark cloud 2 (game), red hot chili peppers and sublime music

Spring Green: How do you relax when you’re stressed?I mean idk if I’d call this relaxing, but: chain smoke, destroy my fingers (oops), listen to music, use fidget toys, and go for a long-ass powerwalk

Asparagus: What’s an unpopular opinion you have?hamburger helper is absolutely disgusting.

Bittersweet: Has someone you loved ever hurt you?YEP

Eggplant: Explain your url and avatar.url: inspired by punks not dead and being dead insideavatar: me edgily using a cool snapchat filter when i was working at a motorbike shop

Outer Space: Do you ever feel like you’re an outcast from others?aha yes

Cotton Candy: What is your favorite dessert?b r o w n i e s

Freckle: Do you have any marks on your skin? How do you feel about them?many!! i have a stitch scar on my right hand middle finger from a garden shear accident, stretch marks, self harm scars, random scars from being a kid who wasn’t afraid to climb and occasionally fall out of trees n such, roughing around, uhhh, cat scratch scars from trying to bathe a cat who really didnt want to be bathed. also, acne scars. and once, i was 9 and dropped a large, heavy glass bowl on my foot. it permanently split the nail down one of my big toes down the middle. I like them all, really

Shocking Pink: Is there a trait that you have that others don’t expect from you?probably hyperempathy and kindness because of how I look

Robin’s Egg Blue: If you were an animal, which one do you think would you be?100% a possum

Granny Smith Apple: What’s something everyone else likes that you don’t?hamburger helper, apparently.

Dandelion: What’s a pet peeve of yours?when people are rudely dismissive of others’ feelings

Atomic Tangerine: What gets you motivated to do a difficult task? 3 cups of coffee and smokeWisteria: What’s your favorite thing about yourself?body hair, scars, piercings, and tattoos

Candy Apple: How do you think others view you?weird, awkward, or intimidating probably

Plum: Are you insecure about anything?me teeth, me lisp, and me awkward stance when around others

Sky Blue: Where do you feel the most at home?my college, my grandma’s, n my hometown (also, the forest ngl)

Tickle Me Pink: How do you try to cheer others up when they’re sad?memes, talkin’ it out, lettin them rant

Wild Strawberry: Do you care what others think about you?no often, but yes, sometimes

Glossy Grape: Recommend something to your followers.honestly, check out gravity falls if you’ve never watched it before

World Wide Web Yellow: What was the last thing you looked up?how to renew a passport

Shadow Blue: Do you have a darker side to you that most people are unaware of?i mean, idk what classifies as a darker side?? like does that mean kinky or something?? other than that, the only thing I got is that while majority of the time I’m outwardly chill and often un-bothered, there are few times in which (IRL) I completely lose my shit after being pushed too far and will be completely consumed by rage that has been built up for too long. verbal arguments, yelling, slamming things. I have a lot of repressed anger

Electric Lime: What genre of music do you listen to?punk, rock, grunge, that kind of stuff. though I listen to a lot of different things, I don’t feel like listing them all. really, im fine with anything except country

Night Owl: Describe a very interesting dream that you had.I recently dreamt that I broke my fucking phone and i was so upsetti

Cornflower: What do you think about the most?crippling anxiety, depression, what to do with and about my life, worries about politics, mental health, and financial struggles ¯\_(ツ)_/ ¯

Grasshopper Green: Describe the area where you live.quiet, family neighbourhood, close to a park and a soccer field, farmland in behind the housing

Misty Moss: Is there anything you regret?(in high school) staying at home and refusing to go out with friends, on dates, or on class trips (and other trips) that would have been fun (and paid for/taken care of) because I felt that I did not deserve them.

Tiny Toad Brown: Do you find beauty in something that people consider to be ugly or undesirable?that’s a hard yes. I frequently point out the beauty I see in people and things alike that other people dont

Sunny Side Up: Do you like waking up in the mornings, or would you rather sleep in?when Depression ™: sleepwhen not depression: E A R L Y

Kitten Gray: Do you have any pets? If so, describe them. 2 whole hairy bois raised from feral kittens I found outside, and a ball python

Rose Dust: Describe your aesthetic in five words or less.queer punk

Timberwolf: Do you give second chances when somebody has wronged you?oh fuck, I give people far too many chances

Freshly Squeezed: What excites you?FOOD, ANIMALS, THE FAIR

Firefly Red: What gives you purpose?ny existence is a “fuck you” to everyone who ever said I couldn’t.

Tiny Teapot Tan: Do you consider yourself to be attractive/cute?fuck yeah m8 im hot as fuck

Rain Drop Blue: Describe the weather outside.THERE BE A STORM BREWIN’

Sweet Pea Green: Do you have/want children?want.

Pussywillow: Do you like being around others, or do you like being alone?both??

Jack ‘O’ Lantern Orange: What’s your biggest fear and why? abandonment, dying alone

Baby Bunny Pink: Do you look young for your age, or do you look older than you are?I dunno really

Mystic Maroon: What confuses you, and why?people just, getting jobs and being able to work with like, no problem doing it?? like, ??? my anxiety, my crippling fear that I will inevitably fuck something up, my inability to take verbal criticism in social situations by people I dont know

Cosmic Cobalt: What’s your zodiac sign, and do you think it’s accurate?Aquarius, and yes.

Petal Pink: Describe your fashion sense as well as what you’re wearing right now.honestly my fashion sense is wild, and blue cargo shorts that came from mum’s work (she works at a provincial park) and ripped, grey tank top

Mountain Meadow: Do you like taking care of others, or do you prefer being care of?B O T H

Fuzzy Duckling Yellow: Is there something from childhood that you haven’t outgrown?sleeping with the stuffed animal my dad got me one Christmas when I was like 9

Brussel Sproutlet: Do you have any unhealthy habits?nail biting, picking at my fingers, chewing my lip, smoking, biting my oral piercings, not remembering to eat or drink solely because I simply forget and can’t feel that I’m hungry or thirsty

Razzle Dazzle Rose: Describe an ideal date.a nice lil cafe, or sittin by the fire and watching stars. alternatively, going for a drive to god knows where

Periwinkle: What’s something ordinary that has personal meaning to you?the handmade cards my friends and fam have given me for special occasions. like, it really means a lot when someone gives me something they’ve made

Mauvelous: Do you think you deserve a better life than you have now?eh, debatable?? I mean I certainly deserve to be able to afford basic needs and medications and such

Blueberry Blue: Do you get sad easily?y e a h

Purple Mountains Majesty: How does someone earn your respect?by literally just being someone who isnt and asshole honestly