#saying this bc the brain worms are brain worming now from seeing another post on similar lines

[togamest]

springboarding off of orgasm struggle + using toys...where are my mishaps during sex. where are my "wrong hole" and laughter afterwards moments. where are my "my knees hurt" while riding so you switch positions. where are my "that hurts" mentions and your f/o slows down or angles differently so it feels better for you. where are my normalized moments that happen during actual sex and not ripped from a pornhub video

[n0tamused]

dottore having to dispose of a faulty clone (maybe bc they were threatening reader) and then handfeeding reader parts of it like cannibalism as a metaphor for love…. do we see the vision or is this a little too 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 💔💔

A/n: pookie you're all good, thank you for feeding my brain worms with this idea I'm sending you smooches. I do hope I executed this well. I had a lot in my head that I wanted to write for this but I didn't want this to turn into a word scramble so here's this. Enjoy <3

Content: Dottore x GN reader, dark content(?), a bit yandere, implied unhealthy relationship, implied cannibalism, cannibalism as a metaphor for love, idk what else to tag as I never posted something like this so if anything else needs tagging feel free to lemme know

Words: 735

Several candles lined the polished oak table, its surface smooth and almost sticky, the light rippling over the dark lines of the carvings on top like little light bugs chasing one another. The golden hues danced over the plates as well, but the dim light scarcely allowed for a good look at the dishes.

The fork extending forward to your lips was the only thing that held your attention long enough to be observed, taken in fully, lips closing around the bit of meat and vegetables. The juice and oil fills your mouth, sinking past your teeth and around your gums, the taste is rich yet stale all at once. You couldn’t comment on it, you didn't know what to say about it. Not with the Doctor sitting at your side and being the one to feed you so, so gently.

It's hard to remember when was the last time he looked so gentle, kind even, perhaps when he was lighting up the candles with such care, as if his own breath would blow the flames into a blaze, allowing you to see your plate in full.

The meat was well done, seasoned to your liking, and something told you it was Dottore’s own hand who prepared it, gave it his all to make it so perfect for consumption. Parts of him were laced through every sensation, every smell and every bite. Your own plate is set before him and he's cutting all your bites, spearing pieces of meat and salad onto the fork before feeding it to you, making sure you ate well.

The dull ache in your arms is brought back into memory as you languidly chew on a bite, and your fingers absentmindedly touch over your sleeves over where the bruises lay, feeling the ache grow.

“Do they still hurt you?” His voice called out amidst smoky smells and brown fog, calling you to the present. “Have you gotten any rest at all, my dear?” He added, his head tilting in your direction, his bird-like mask not allowing you for a glimpse of his ruby eyes, but from underneath you can see glimpses of the scars peeking through, teasing your eyes. For some reason he chose to wear it here, now, only puzzling you further. 

“No.. no.. they're fine… I’ll get some rest later tonight, sir..” you reply as you swallow and watch how he grimaced at the title, and you nearly cough from how big this bite was, but you would have taken a bigger bite had Dottore allowed you to feast yourself. Perhaps not, but you told yourself you would. Be it the rich taste or some other factor, you yearned to take up each bone from the meat and lick it clean, sucking out the marrow from within and letting it melt into your guts.

Would he be satisfied then?

Would you be?

The candles flicker. He's still looking at you

“Are you still afraid? I've already told you so, and explained it many times. You have nothing to fear here. This was just an error in the system which will not ever happen again.. and you shouldn't have been around to witness it, anyhow..”. You have to wonder how he can say all this with so little fear. Then again, the clone was his creation. He knew it inside and out, every crevice and every wire.

“I understand.. it's just that.. I'd rather not face the others now..not after that..” 

Truth be told, having him around was also slightly unnerving, as he wore nearly an identical face as the one that harmed you. They were the same, but also not. He was gentle, but he was not.

The one that hurt you was long disposed of and would never harm you again, but Dottore was once the one that hurt you, and now he has poured himself out before you, all for your pleasure and the sweet poison of safety and love.

He hopes to convey it to you through each meticulously put bite, every sip he graces your lips with. He had cut himself open for you and would do so again, just as he hurt you through that error. It came as easy as drinking and breathing. 

“That’s understandable. I assure you are safe, and however dark the night may get - I'll be there with you… But for now, you must eat, not fear. Open wide..”

Ⓒ n0tamused. Do not repost, translate, edit, and/or copy any of my works. Likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated.

[djs-sideblog-for-pog-trains]

@putuponpercy's (and previously, @togetherness23's poll) post on the matter of James and "would you still love me if i was a worm"ing has been rattling around in my brain for a few days.

so i wrote 1.7k words about it. It was supposed to be silly but got a little sad/tender at the end. (heavily drawing on my hc that James suffers insomnia and sometimes its bc of night terrors)

--- --- ---

It starts far too late at night – or really, too early in the morning. Thomas is roused from his sleep at a whispering of his name. Not a subtle whispering, though, not one that actually respects the fact that he was asleep, but a stage whisper, fully intending to wake him up.

“Thomas.”

James and his bloody insomnia, Thomas grumbles, blinking blearily awake, squinting in the gloom of the shed at his fellow engine – a dark red shape just on the edge of his vision.

“Thomas, are you asleep?”

“I’d love to be,” he replies, yawning. “What time is it?”

“Never mind that,” James says, and his voice is hushed, but not really hushed enough, and Thomas winces at how his sharper consonants cut through the quiet. “I have an important question.”

“Have you slept yet?”

“Sure,” says James, and he sounds like the answer to that question is barely. “Look, Thomas, would you still love me if I was a worm?”

Thomas blinks once, twice, before he squints harder in James’ direction, trying to see the engine’s expression. If James is fucking with him right now, he doesn’t appreciate it.

“Did you really wake me up at…” Thomas looks up now, there’s a clock hanging inside the sheds for moments like this, “god, 3am, to ask me that? James.”

“Thomas,” James says back, and he matches Thomas’ flat tone, but there’s a hint of something alarmingly sincere simmering under it that Thomas would really love not to think about at 3 in the bloody morning. “I’m serious!”

“No,” Thomas says. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh,” James says, and – Thomas purses his lips as his eyes have adjusted enough to see James’s face in the moonlight that cuts through the high windows of Tidmouth Sheds – the idiot actually looks relieved. “I thought you were saying you wouldn’t love me.”

“James, are you-?” Thomas tries to keep his voice from raising, but he can’t help it. His indignation ends up waking Percy beside him, who must be well-attuned to the sound over all these years. “You’re an idiot.”

“What’s he done now?” Percy asks, still half asleep.

“He’s woken me up to ask me a stupid question,” Thomas says. “And now you!”

“What’s the question?” Percy stops to yawn too, but he seems very unwilling to open his eyes properly so he can hopefully drop right back off to sleep.

“Would,” James cuts in, a little louder so Percy can hear clearly, though Thomas reckons he’s just outright trying to wake the whole sheds now, “you still love me if I was a worm, Percy?”

Thomas watches Percy’s expression now – mostly because it makes him snort. Percy blinks a couple of times as well, comprehending, before he glances at Thomas, deeply confused.

“What?” he asks, and he looks more awake now. “What kind of question is that?”

“Just answer it!” James says. “Would you?”

Percy scrunches up his face. “I mean,” he says “I don’t really like worms. And they’re so small, I’d lose you, it wouldn’t be fair.”

“So… no?”

“Can we keep the chatter down?”

“Great,” Thomas mutters. “Now you’ve woken Henry.”

“Henry,” James says. “Maybe you can answer. Would you sti-?”

“James, I’m begging you to go back to sleep,” Thomas says. “We all have trains to pull in the morning.”

And another voice joins in. “That we do,” comes Edward, sleepily. “What’s all this about?”

James shoots Thomas something that could be a glare. It’s hard to make out in the dark. Thomas shoots him one back.

“Would you still love me if I was a worm?” he asks. “Either of you?”

“…What?”

He’s even stumped Edward.

Henry sighs sleepily. “Worms are valuable little creatures,” he says.

“So is that a yes?”

Henry purses his lips, the closest equivalent to a shrug he can get. “Sure,” he says.

“Sure?” James echoes, and his voice raises again, he sounds a little outraged, and Thomas lets the aggravation write itself across his face. He knew he should have stayed at the Ffarquhar sheds tonight. Toby would never do this to him. “Henry, you can’t just sure me.”

“Ask me when it’s not the middle of the night,” Henry says.

There’s a lull in the conversation, where James falls into one of his stewing silences, and Thomas glances back down the sheds to see Henry yawn and settle back down, Percy’s eyelids flutter back closed.

Then, “Why ask, James?” Edward asks, and Thomas glowers.

“It’s-!” James flushes a little. “It’s… I overheard someone asking it once, and it- it’s a hypothetical. A test.”

And then, what Thomas has been dreading.

“What are you yammering on about?” Gordon asks. He sounds dry and bleary, so freshly woken up he isn’t controlling his volume, and his voice booms in the quiet of the sheds. “A test of what?”

“Of friendship!” James insists.

Gordon blinks at James too, before he frowns.

“What was the test?” he asks.

Thomas sighs loudly.

James sighs too, before he asks his question. “No one else has given a real answer yet. Would you still love me if I was a worm, Gordon?”

Gordon… closes his eyes, holds his breath. He looks like he may be counting to ten.

Thomas can’t help but snort.

Gordon’s silent for a good long moment, and Thomas glances at Percy, who’s now more awake, too, and they can’t help but shoot each other a little grin.

“That implies,” Gordon says slowly, “that I’d love you now.”

Thomas can’t help the guffaw that leaves him, even as James goes quiet for a good long moment.

Then, “…you don’t?”

“Not at 3 in the bloody morning,” Gordon mutters grumpily, pointedly closing his eyes, though he does open one for a moment to glance at James beside him. “I don’t think I like anything at 3 in the morning.”

“He has a point,” Thomas agrees, even as James goes from staring abashed at Gordon to  Thomas, and he actually looks a little wounded. “What?”

James pouts, though his bottom lip does genuinely wobble a little.

Thomas frowns at him. “…Are you alright?”

“Fine,” James says in a voice that’s a little too thick. “Sorry. Go back to sleep.”

“…We would, James,” Edward calls. “Just for the record.”

“Of course you’d say that, of all engines,” James shoots back, and he closes his eyes a little too tight to be causal or gentle enough for sleep, and Edward huffs from his berth at the opposite end of the sheds. “Look, just…”

“We didn’t mean to actually upset you,” Percy says softly. “If it’s that important to you, then yes, James.”

“…Do you want to be a worm?” Gordon asks after a moment, and he’s shooting James a most curious look, which only makes James flush again, and harder. “It’s a most peculiar thing.”

“No!” James says. “The worm is a metaphor.”

“Don’t call me a metaphor,” Percy mumbles, which makes Thomas snort and shoot Percy a dry look.

“Go back to sleep.”

“Fine by me,” Percy replies, and he yawns wide before he closes his eyes. Henry’s already snoring.

Edward sighs also, but Thomas sees him resigning himself to trying to get back to sleep.

Gordon is still looking at James like he’s really thrown a spanner in the works here, and James refuses to meet Gordon’s eyes, though he does shoot Thomas a look.

“Look, it’s a yes-or-no question,” he says. He sounds remarkably fragile. Then, he pouts, and glances at Thomas, then Gordon. ‘If you can’t bring yourself to admit how you love me, then that’s fine too.”

Thomas can’t help his laughter. Gordon snorts too, shooting Thomas a dry look of his own, before closing his eyes.

“That’s enough nonsense for one night, little James,” he says. “Some of us have important work to do tomorrow, I imagine yourself included. Do try and actually sleep?”

James’ lip curls a little, but he doesn’t bite back.

In fact, he goes silent until the sounds of even breathing and gentle (and not so gentle) snoring fills the air once more.

And Thomas squints back up at the clock. He has shunting he’s expected to do in just almost 2 hours, now, but…

“Why does it matter, James?” he asks again. He knows James isn’t asleep yet.

“It’s not about the worm,” James says, so very softly. “It’s about the love.”

Thomas blinks twice, before scrunching up his face a little.

“I don’t follow.”

“Would you love me if I was a worm,” James repeats. He hesitates before he continues. “…Would you love me if I was suddenly tiny and… incapable, if I was worthless.”

He then sighs, clearly trying to breeze past what he’s just said, even as Thomas’ eyes widen, and he shoots James a far gentler look.

“Look, it’s silly,” he says. “Just-“

“Yes,” Thomas says softly. “Even if you were suddenly different. Or even useless, I’d still love you. I promise.”

James’ breathing hitches. He sounds remarkably genuine.

Thomas has a thought, and he frowns.

“Did you have a nightmare?”

“Maybe.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, James.”

James is the one to snort now, and he sounds tired.

“It’s fine,” he says. “I overheard a couple of children say it to each other on the platform a week ago, and it’s rattling around in my smokebox since. Isn’t that stupid?”

“Eh,” says Thomas. “Maybe. Not really. Humans are weird like that anyway.”

That does make James laugh, thankfully.

They fall quiet again, before James pipes up again.

“Thomas?”

“Yes, James?”

“Thanks.”

Thomas eyes James. He does have to admit it: James looks like he needed it.

“Of course,” he says, closing his eyes. “Goodnight, worm. Love you.”

“Lo- Thomas, don’t call me that. Thomas. Thomas.”

Thomas ignores him, pointedly closing his eyes and yawning before settling down, even as James tries to get his attention again, hushed and a little frantic. He only peters out when it’s clear Thomas has stopped responding, and Thomas really has to hold back another laugh as James lets out the most forlorn sigh he’s heard in a long time.

James settles back down to sleep, now, too, but not before one last thing.

“Love you too,” he murmurs. “Goodnight.”

Despite himself, even as sleep drags him back down into its inviting depths again, it makes Thomas smile.

[carulenes]

an analysis of wolfwood’s characterization in trigun stampede as well as his connection to vash (+ why i believe he’s likely much older than we think)

okay i’ve been thinking abt this since eps 10 or 11 were released (this show became my special interest the second it dropped if i'm being completely honest) but its been scratching at my brain ever since i read the sakuracon radio interview and since i haven’t seen anyone talking abt this yet i figured i may as well because it’s clear they really did pull very extensively from the manga and i really am loving how they adapted his character. also i occasionally keep seeing the “tristamp wolfwood is a kid/is 14-15” takes which i need to at least try to help put to rest bc they make no sense given his other iterations and would actively make the story worse.

a quick tldr of my main points before i get on my very long winded soapbox:

wolfwood in trigun stampede has been used as an undying, unkillable soldier by the eye of michael for decades.

rollo as a character, as opposed to monev the gale, was designed specifically as a metaphor for wolfwood’s backstory.

wolfwood and vash are written to be literal complements to one another.

I literally don’t think I have the space to talk abt all my thoughts, and ofc these are all my personal thoughts so any and all of what i’m saying could be wrong, but direct analysis of eps 4-7 (as I think they’re the most important) and discussion of his trajectory in general under the cut (obvious spoilers for the show but also the manga as well as tw: discussions of suicide/suicidal ideation as well as the general tw list for the show's graphic content):

Starting first with a side point that Wolfwood was never a child at any point he was with Vash during thecourse of the story, including the manga. He has always been a man in his 20s, with trimax ww having the appearance of being in his 30s or 40s. It is absolutely crucial to his and Vash’s characterizations, as well as their entire dynamic together, that Wolfwood is an adult. Could make an entire separate post about this, but I feel like starting here is important.

Onto the sakuracon japan radio interview. The team gave a LOT of interesting insight into the development of the show, but one specific point stood out to me:

This is important, because I definitely missed it during the show’s initial run, but I think it’s REALLY obvious once you know what you’re looking for, and is a big factor in why I think he’s likely older than we realized.

————

EP 4: These are the very first lines that are said about him in the show, and the very first time we see him, he is absolutely exhausted:

We know that at this point, Wolfwood is likely on his way to Jeneora Rock to meet up with Vash to fulfill his contract...until Vash and co. quite literally slam into him (and his life) unexpectedly, nearly killing him with their van. He probably should’ve died except… he’s on his feet almost instantly, able to walk perfectly fine and being a jackass as though he didn’t get launched halfway across the desert by a moving vehicle. Which is… odd, naturally.

When they try to find help and instead find the dead couple, he specifically mentions that he isn't a priest like he's been in other iterations. He's now an undertaker, someone meant to guide others through their deaths:

His personality is hard to tap down. He's goofy and childish and downright unlikeable, and there's a hint of something lurking deeper, something menacing and potentially dangerous. So much so that Roberto is on edge the entire time their group is together after being swallowed by the Grand Worm, and flat out tells Vash that Wolfwood is untrustworthy and likely an assassin, "a man who can kill with a smile on his face". And Vash’s response is… really fucking weird, given how long the two have known each other:

not to mention he's wearing sunglasses Wolfwood is rightfully very ??? in response because, what the fuck is he talking about, and why is he so genuine about it, they just met???

Fast forward to a bit later, when Wolfwood is like "hey man, you really shouldn't be so trusting. I could've shot you in the back several times now." To which Vash is like "but you didn't, though." And Wolfwood is even more confused because is this guy stupid???

And then it's time for the final act: Wolfwood reveals his Punisher, destroying the Grand Worm while giving the illusion of taking out Zazie as well. Meryl was informed by someone that Wolfwood had been the one to save them all, but when she tries to thank him, he immediately shifts the subject, being annoying and arguably completely unlikeable. Roberto points out that Wolfwood had lied about who he was, trying to get Vash to realize that he still can't be trusted, and again Vash shoots it down: "We're alive because of him."

Wolfwood showed his role as the Punisher without hesitation, and not only was Vash not really phased by it, but he actually seemed to be inspired by him, stopping his self-destructive tendencies and even repeating his own words back to him. And that's the moment we finally learn his name in the show:

But then, almost immediately, we have a complete reversal of his scene with Vash in the Worm. It’s also of note that Zazie always specifically says human lives:

————

EP 5: One of the most important episodes in this discussion, and it starts with the name alone, "Child of Blessing". Here’s a very general summary:

A young boy in a much less than ideal living situation is chosen to be 'a blessing upon the world through his sacrifice', which turns out to secretly be mutilative experimentation on children in search of a subject compatible with a mysterious medicine that can heal any injury. The meds warp him, morph him into something that doesn't even appear to be human. He tries to return home, but his mother, the only family he knows and loves, is terrified of him. She calls him a monster, and the boy finds himself struggling to articulate who he is. Then, he wanders alone alone without purpose in that unchanging altered body, a body that can withstand lethal amounts of damage directly because of the meds, for at least 20 years. All he has is a single name: Vash the Stampede, the person who promised to save him, and the one person who managed to bring back his consciousness in the end, if only for a moment.

The moment Nicholas sees Rollo regenerate is the second the switch flips. He instantly demands to know what the fuck is up with him, and when Vash responds telling him that he was too late to give him the medicine he needed, Wolfwood shuts down, because he recognizes himself. From this moment until the rest of the episode, we are no longer seeing Nicholas D. Wolfwood; we're seeing Nicholas the Punisher.

Vash continues to push Rollo to remember who he is, while Nicholas continuously says that there's no way to save him, that he's already a monster now. In the final moments, Nicholas inevitably feels tasked with Rollo's death like the undertaker he is, and when Vash angrily demands to know why he took the shot, his response is:

When discussing Rollo's killer, Elendira refers to Nicholas by name, but Conrad specifically states that no, he is the Punisher.

In vol 10 of the manga, Vash thinks to himself: “I met a strange man. Just as I thought we had come to an understanding, I found that our core beliefs were opposed to each other. I was used to such situations, but I wonder how he felt.”

————

EP 6: This episode builds directly upon the foundations set by the episode prior. Child of Blessing ended with Rollo being referred to repeatedly as a monster, and this episode begins with Nicholas in the middle of completing a kill. Right before he does, his victim gets one final glance at his assailant, an inhuman looking executioner, and calls him a monster… directly because he will not die. He’s also been shown knocking back meds like tequila shots in tristamp, which we all know was NOT possible in the manga. During the flashback scene, Nicholas is literally called the Child of Blessing.

We see a very similar sequence with Nicholas that we saw with Rollo; the horrific torture, the bodily mutilation (during which Conrad specifically mentions that the drug will heal all damage done the body, as well as rebuild and strengthen the cells), and the attempt to return home:

Something different happens with Nicholas, though. Nicholas can't go home; he’s literally yanked away from his chance at freedom by Legato. Nicholas can’t go home, likely ever again in his mind, because Hopeland Orphanage and the Eye of Michael represent two fundamentally different ideals.

Hopeland (and thus Livio) is exactly like its name for Nicholas: it is is land of hope, the only place in the world where Wolfwood was allowed to exist freely. When Nicholas was taken by EoM, Wolfwood began to die.

The entirety of the EoM is shrouded in imagery of death and rebirth, specifically in regards to humanity. Humanity in this case has a dual meaning: humanity as a species, and humanity as a concept. Their philosophy is that the end justifies the means in that humans in this form will be preserved and would likely live exceedingly longer lives but, as repeatedly mentioned, there are side effects.

Aging and death are integral parts of the human experience, the two aspects of life that we ALL experience regardless of circumstance. Can you be human without humanity?

The message behind these two episodes is to show that the process of becoming part of the EoM is a metaphorical crucifixion symbolizing the death of one’s humanity. And Nicholas is interesting, because he’s almost the perfect specimen in their eyes and is treated as such. Almost. The only thing holding him back are the two strands of humanity he has left, both which are nearly destroyed in the very next episode.

————

EP 7: In the previous episode, during the animated flashback of Nicholas and Livio, we see a few scattered scenes of other people living at the orphanage. Interestingly, while almost all of the children are seen with very sparse detail (or even none really at all), there is one person, the caretaker, whose face we get a pretty clear picture of. At the very beginning of this episode, we have the first and only shot of the inside of the orphanage in the usual style. While none of the children are familiar and actually aren’t incredibly distinguishable from one another, there is one figure in the room with recognizable hair, but looks considerably older than in the flashback:

During the majority of their interactions, you don’t see Nicholas and Livio interacting with any of the other children. They are simply a background, a set piece to the story and a representation of just how other they were forced to become.

This episode features them fighting each other, dealing each other what should be mortal wounds, but somehow remain standing, as though they’re perfectly fine. As if on cue, the soldiers stationed call them both monsters and run away in fear.

But Vash doesn’t run from the danger. He runs towards it.

Nicholas tries to stop him, and all he gets in return is “he’s important to you, isn’t he?” as though that’s enough. But it is enough for Vash. And Nicholas doesn’t know what to do with that.

Nicholas comes dangerously close to giving up, to giving into his role as the Punisher and killing the last bit of Wolfwood to do so, but it’s Vash who stops him. He diverts his shot and, instead of hurting Livio, literally frees Nicholas from Legato and Zazie’s trap. Vash tells him to make him remember, and Nicholas thinks it’s bullshit… until he doesn’t.

And when he finally relents, when he tries to emulate what the silly blonde idiot keeps screaming at him about… It works. For a moment, but Livio does wake up for a moment. Nicholas hadn’t been able to see Rollo, but he did see this. And he really doesn’t know what to do about it.

To drive the point home, Livio drives a bullet into his own head and falls to the ground in a scene very reminiscent of Rollo’s death… but is implied to still be alive. With him saved, now it’s time for Hopeland. And this is when the narrative really turns a focus to the balance between Nicholas and Vash.

The group is half convinced that they’re about to die snd that the town will be destroyed when, all of a sudden, it’s Nicholas who’s yelling that they have to do something. Because despite all the noise Nicholas makes about self-sacrifice and calling Vash a weirdo, he’s directly inspired by his energy, which is proven correct when Vash is the first one to side with him.

Then, somehow despite the odds, the two of them manage to work together to stop the ion cannon. Which should have been impossible. And because of this, Nicholas is finally willing to give Vash the chance to take the lead on things.

When Vash and Wolfwood discuss their plan to save Hopeland, and after they argue about which method is the correct one, the conversation they have is probably the clearest depiction of Nicholas’ inner struggle:

Nicholas: Have it your way. Just for today. I do owe you one… but if the orphanage doesn’t survive this, I’ll hurt you so bad you’ll wish you were dead before I kill you.

Vash: Wolfwood…

Nicholas: Shut up! I’m the Punisher! I’m not like you… I’m Nicholas the Punisher…

He murmurs the last line as though he’s trying to convince himself. He uses his persona as the Punisher almost like a mask, like a cat puffing up and hissing to deter predators. It’s a defense mechanism, and a trauma response. Except.. it still doesn’t work, because the entire time Vash is simply not listening. Regardless of what Nicholas says, Vash does not stop fighting Nicholas on the title that was forced on him by the EoM and, in fact, blatantly rejects it. And the moment Nicholas finishes speaking, when he declares himself to be the Punisher, the episode’s title card finally appears: Wolfwood.

It's a direct representation of this panel of Nicholas' inner monologue from the manga:

——

Nicholas and Vash’s roles as each other’s complements is emphasized very deliberately when the two work to stop the sand steamer from smashing into Hopeland. These screenshots occur one directly after the other:

Another detail the team mentioned often during the interview was attention to use of color. In color theory, blue and orange are complementary colors: hues that are opposite each other on the color wheel but, when used together, come together to create harmony and balance. Additionally, Vash is the character typically associated with warm hues, while Nicholas is paired with colder ones; with the colors flipped, it’s almost as if they are literally mirror images of each other.

The two are in the same position, in the middle of similar actions, both drawing strength from that which makes them “other” in order to work together to protect a common goal. And once again, miraculously, they succeed, able to do together what neither could ever have done together.

This mirror motif is even clearer when comparing these respective scenes from each of their respective backstory episodes:

For Nicholas and Vash, on top of sharing such a crucial common thread in their backstories, often in the show they are seen together, either side by side or back to back. Often they’re shown doing the same thing at the same time, almost as though they’re moving as one. And they consistently save each other over and over again, with Nicholas acting to save Vash physically, and Vash working to protect Nicholas’ psyche. Vash refuses to let anyone continue to see themselves as a monster, as lesser than, in much the same way Nicholas refuses to let anyone else be used as one.

They are a pair, a unit working together to create a force that is stronger than the sum of its parts.

They are both “other”, they are both different, and they both seek to protect the things they love and care about despite the excruciating pain it can put them through.

Nicholas and Vash’s entite dynamic is basically “I don’t understand you, but I recognize you. I recognize myself in you. And somehow, that’s enough for me to trust you.”

————

So with all this in mind, here is how I’ve come to understand Nicholas’ arc throughout tristamp:

When we first meet Nicholas D. Wolfwood we meet a weary man longing for death to save him, longing to be free from the purposelessness of his life but knowing the hope is futile. He works for the Eye of Michael as an assassin against his will and has for God knows how long. Not only is he no longer a priest, but he’s no longer religious at all, having no belief in God at all and a particular disdain for the false promises and hopes of salvation that are portrayed by it. He doesn’t care about the clothes he wears, whether he looks messy, whether it’s suited for the desert, because he literally doesn’t care about anything, really. He has no home, and can never go back to the orphanage— there’s likely no one left there that he knows anyway, and even of there were, they wouldn’t recognize the monster he’s become. Nicholas is tired, he’s angry, he’s potentially depressed. He fights impractically, sometimes leaving himself open to attacks he could probably block with his Punisher, but he just doesn’t care. He’s just here to do his job, which is to escort his piece of shit CEO’s assumedly equally piece of shit brother to him so they can destroy the world together and he can hopefully die off in peace.

Until he actually meets Vash, and he’s… really fucking weird. He’s dumb and naive and acts like he knows Nicholas on some deep level after they’ve just met, but… he’s not a bad guy. Just another crybaby who doesn’t understand the world. He can see the Punisher and not be frightened by it. That means something, means enough that he feels that he can introduce himself now. He still doesn’t know how to handle kindness, so he deflects whenever it’s shown to him, making irreverent jokes and being annoying in order push people away. But then he meets Rollo and has a flashback to himself. He learns that Vash is no stranger to false promises, has sold the same thing to the kid who ended up just like him, and yeah, Vash is no better than the EoM. He talks a big game but doesn’t actually know anything. Nicholas kills Rollo out of mercy because it’s what he wishes could be done to him; every day of living his life is torture.

But then his hometown and childhood best friend are suddenly in danger. He’d completely forgotten what it felt like to have something to lose, to protect. And without planning for it, Vash also becomes something to protect, because even if he doesn’t act like it, Nicholas desperately wants to believe in him. He doesn’t want the EoM to be right. But the feeling of having something to protect is terrifying, because it means you have something to lose. Nicholas gets incredibly stressed out by this, because it’s been so long that he doesn’t even remember what it feels like. But it’s enough to get him, for likely the first time in a very long time, to hope. And it’s Vash who helps him so that he’s able to hang on to that hope for a little while longer.

He still can’t get too excited, because he hasn’t actually finished his job yet. Before he does, though, he sees Vash’s scars (which was a deliberate choice, as in both the manga AND the og anime this scene went to the girls) and wow, if it weren’t for the regenerative properties of the drug, he would likely look the same. He drops Vash off with Knives and knows that Vash will likely be killed, but he’s also expecting to die himself in the fallout, so it doesn’t matter, really. Except for some reason, it does a bit. And then, yet again, Vash miraculously doesn’t die, and in fact changes the game and actually looks like he might stand a chance against Knives, and is clearly willing to die to do it.

And then July is destroyed. But, miraculously, Nicholas isn’t dead. He still finished the contract, but now… now what?

The show began with Nicholas at his lowest, and ends with Vash at his lowest point. And Nicholas owes him one.

————

INCREDIBLY long story short, it really is clear that they weren’t kidding, the team really drew SO MUCH inspiration from the themes trimax it’s unbelievable and I really really think we’re in for something incredible during the second phase. I also think it’s gonna hurt like a bitch.

[ccrites]

Signal Lost

I've had something happen to me that's so incredible and that I could have never hoped, something so touching and so unbelievable that it made me rethink a whole lot of stuff: a wonderful reader on Ao3 started reading my long-form fic (101k words!!!) and commented basically every chapter after a certain point. And wow, I would have never thought something like this might happen.

And yeah, it is my first fic with plot in it, yeah I will never believe it to be perfect, but it's good enough. And receiving all those emails from Ao3 really was the highlight of my days over the course of which I saw said reader slowly go through all my favorite parts!

And so I wish to give it some spotlight here, while I'm finishing up my school year and work and whatever! I will post this here for now, but I will drop chapters every few days and make a Masterlist for it this weekend. (nvm I don't have the energy to do this any time soon lmao) I have too many loose ideas in my head so this is just to pass the time till the brain worms wiggle all in the same direction

So without further ado:

Link to AO3 here : Signal Lost - a John Price x reader fic

----- here's a blurb to pique your interest!

“I don’t think I’ve ever received a document as classified as this one. What am I supposed to do with it, Kate?” he says, dragging his thumb across the pile of papers, each file filled with more ink than the last.

“You asked for proof, there’s your proof,” Laswell says.

“You said you’ll bring someone competent, and who can help us, this doesn’t tell me shit.” He stares blankly at the screen, tired. She stares back.

“The Captain specifically asked to keep this under wraps.”

He rubs at his face, scratching at his beard. It’s getting long again.

“Who is he, anyway?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

He groans again, picking up the file on top. No photo, no name, no age, no height, weight, no nothing . And he thought Simon was secretive.

“What can you tell me?”

“It’s the closest we’ve ever gotten to him. Did things a particular way.”

He shifts through the papers. “And the discharge?”

“Left after the entire team got wiped out. Messy stuff.”

“That why he doesn’t show his face?” He bends forward, grabbing the cigar from the ashtray and bringing it to his lips.

“John.” Her voice carries a heavy warning.

“Just sayin’,” he says, biting around the cigar with one side of the mouth. “What kinda captain doesn’t go down with his men?”

“Got enough guilt as is. You’re lucky I convinced them.”

They both remain silent. They know the missions would be a slippery slope. One wrong move and a war is started. He puffs a cloud of smoke.

“Anything else?” John asks.

Kate looks to the side, her face illuminated by another screen. He can see her hesitate, her lips are pursed in a thin line as if she’s debating her options.

“You’ve worked together before.”

His face lights up. “Finally! Who?”

Her face immediately hardens back up. “Can’t tell, John, my hands are tied.” She sighs. “You were still a Lieutenant.”

Years ago then. He mentally catalogs everyone he’s ever worked with, but he knows that at that age, he was throwing himself at every available mission, wanting to make a name for himself. “So an old fart then? How’s that gonna help us?” If the guy was a Captain when he was still a Lieutenant, and he felt himself grow old, he can’t imagine who Laswell is bringing back from the dead.

Laswell’s face distorts, he knows he’s pushing her buttons, but he has to know.

“Not older than you John.”

His eyebrows raise. “Oh?”

---

or

returning to the military to hunt Makarov is hard enough, to do it with your past lover is even harder. a "friends to lovers to enemies to friends and back to lovers" story

---

Tags and other CW: will be posted for each chapter containing warnings for more hardcore stuff (i.e., torture and angst namely), but this is a fanfic, with smut, so if you want all the tags feel free to check the ao3 link bc there are a LOT and I am lazy to retype them all here

[raviolirash]

One of the more difficult aspects of having a loved one who has experienced abuse is how often they lash out at/hurt you broke and during the healing process, and vice versa where it's not something you intent to do but it happens, and although Astarion is seen as this imperfect victim, I can't actually remember a moment in his romance where he hurts the PC (& I get why they didn't do this bc they weren't going for full realism in a fantasy game). And obvs not counting the first encounter when you barely know eachother or A!A, but people would never be able to handle him if he ever did lash out at/do something that hurt the PC, so imho he is kind of way more palatable than he's expected to be.

Welcome to another fever-induced ramble:

Yeah I fully agree with this actually. I'll dig around later but the closest it comes to mind is him going full manipulative in act 3 with the "you want what's best for me, surely" behavior.

Which to a person with a functioning brain looks like this:

There were some things in Early Access and one of the lines I wish they would have left in is when you try to comfort him with a hand on his shoulder early in the game, he snaps back with something like "Leave me alone and go back to your own wet dreams". That was great. I didn't play Early Access so there were probably a few more I'm unaware of.

But not to repeat what you said but: I would have loved to see it go even deeper, but considering that the fandom has thrown a conniption over the smallest character flaws, I think people's brains would Netherese Orb Blast if faced with anything deeper than what we got in the final product. As it is now, people's cursors are constantly hovering over that damn button.

For example. Look at how Lae'zel's been treated by the community. Twitter and TikTok (incidentally platforms mostly used by very young people in fandom circles) HATE her. She's just a scared 20-something year old in a foreign country, her being a Githyanki is a very deep part of her identity, [insert a paragraph about how Githyanki view mind flayers and tadpoles here]. If your Tav isn't a Githyanki, she is completely isolated and alone. With idiots doing dumb shit. With a worm in her head. And a goth cleric - based on what you can deduct - did a Lara Croft with something that is a deep part of her identity.

If you say "oh, I would be a positive and uplifting UwU person in that situation! I would be nice to people! There is no need to be a bitch!" 🎵You're a fucking liar lol.🎶

Anyway. My own headcanon cope is that post act 2 confession, Astarion is making an actual effort and doesn't want to lose the only light he has in his life. He has definitely swallowed back some scathing remarks but he knows how easily he can fuck things up. Hell. His Yurgir confession scene is him confessing a massive fuckup, admitting his feelings, and essentially gambling if he's going to get his heart broken or not. He doesn't want to make another huge fuckup I think.

As a bonus, the private fic I'm writing isn't without him being a giant asshole (from two different chapters, before realizing feelings).

---

[pipperoo]

another one of my npmd wips that i plan on writing sometime soon! i mentioned it in previous posts, but this is another ghost!au centered on max and grace (jagertitty brain worms got me)

this has been sitting in my drafts a bit, it’s very top down and doesn’t really get to the vibe of the fic, but it’s the best i’m really ever going to get. in person frantic rambles is the preferred medium to get my fic ideas across, so it’s always hard when i have to translate it to some written down. idk if that makes sense, but just read if you’re interested

the premise is grace is tired of max hitting on her so much and decides that, to stop him from bothering her, she needs to take him on a terrible date so he’ll be scared off. of course it takes place at the waylon house (only she and max go there, none of the other nerds)

max falls and dies and grace decides to cover up that she was there so it looks like an accident. (it was not her intention to kill him) max becomes a ghost and is mysteriously shunted to the black before appearing in grace’s room a week after he died.

through some stuff that’ll be revealed over the course of the fic, max and grace are connected and every time max gets a certain distance away from her, he is teleported back to her side. only grace can see and hear him too. he’s a bit of a lame ghost, he can’t really do anything, at the start.

they grapple with the complicated feelings and opinions they had as each other, but grow closer and become friends during their effort to figure out how to send max to the next plane. but there may be more to it than they thought.

grace’s headspace is stuck between arousal and repulsion towards max at the beginning. she hates him when he returns as a ghost and grows to see him as a friend (maybe more but who knows) but she now has to deal with the fact that he’ll eventually have to go. max’s headspace at the start is pure infatuation with grace, but he can never fully determine why he’s so into her that it bothers him. he also enjoys getting under her skin so she’ll think about him as much as he thinks about her. when he becomes a ghost he’s a little lost bc he thought grace liked him which she doesn’t and the entire school hates him which causes his temper to flare. when he starts to improve his relationship, he becomes better in general, still not great, but not the worst.

this is a very basic rundown, but their connection has ties to the waylon house spell which operates a little differently in this timeline due to certain things. a lot of it is mainly them being each others first real friend in a long time and navigating the complexities of being a ghost before their search for answers leads them towards danger.

i had a much longer explanation, but it made very little sense so this is good for now, it’s a little hard to fully describe it when i’m not rambling out loud. this is one of two wips that i plan to work on. there is also another au that i like to say is the evil version of this one which i might post about. this is what i have for now, might include more details later <3

[realpersonfacts]

here are the dynamics that i have decided are going on in my baldur’s gate party (mid act i)

shadowheart & lae’zel: heavily dislike each other but also want to fuck each other. for this reason everyone hates being around the two of them together except for tav who is honestly kind of oblivious to it. they do momentarily set aside their differences to bully astarion whenever he fails a sleight of hand check. laezel will go lmao you suck can’t even do the one thing you’re supposed to be good at and astarion says something dumb like “i assure you darling i have many talents,” and then shadowheart goes “like what, your pathetic attempts at flirting with everything that moves?” and she laezel and tav all laugh while astarion seethes. it’s the best.

karlach & wyll: i think these two should be lovers because my brain is huge. they are the kindest party members and they are slowly getting to know each other and finding out they actually have a lot in common :) by the end of the adventure i see them continuing to travel together adopting six dogs and one day having a baby that they frequently bring into dangerous situations strapped to karlach’s back 🤦

astarion & gale: every night when we get back to camp astarion heads over to gale’s tent and goes the girls were sooo mean to me out in the field today :( and gale is like “don’t get me started tav chewed me out for five minutes this morning when i asked for another magical artifact even though she picked up a pair of boots yesterday with the most MINOR of enchantments. but nooo, she gave the boots to LAE’ZEL,” and astarion goes “typical! what’s the enchantment, i bet lae’zel isn’t even USING it” and they both glare across the camp at lae’zel who doesn’t notice bc she’s too busy watching shadowheart out of the corner of her eye

tav: frantically posting on r/relationships “is it weird to have a crush on the beautiful woman from my dreams who keeps encouraging me to consume parasitic brain worms that give me ethically dubious mind control powers? now i know how this might sound, but hear me out-”

[blue-dress-on-a-boat]

Watching the owl house

Spoilers idk how to do a cut on mobile

YO WHAT THE FUCK

This BETTER be another dream fake out

I’m crying

The collector trying to fix her

Babies first experience with mortality

She turned into light glyphs I’m sobbing

Everyone knows what happened

BEAST MODE

“She’s really gone”

Yeah kiddo she’s in the ink realm now

HOOTY

ok I need those pj pants

He’s just watchin tv like the rest of us

Wait but why is hooty his eye

- is hooty literally his eye in the sky

FINALLY SOMEONE TELLS LUZ SHES BEING STUPID

BELOS IS TAKING OVER HIM

SHES GETTING ALL THE TITAN MAGIC WHAT

I’m sobbing why didn’t this get a longer run

HEYO BIG SKELLY

Someone save the puppets

- wait wait what is the magic run out?

If I know my daughter she wont let dying stop her

NO NOT MY LITTLE KITTY MEOWMEOW

I thought he was talking about his TEARS

- what IS THIS STUFF

God damnit this snake is so stupid I still hate it so much

Why???? She look like that. Tiktok is going to have a feild day with this cosplay material

EDA TEACHING LUZ HOW TO DO MAGIC CIRCLES WOTH THE SAME DIALOUGLE

I’ve rewatched those 12 times

THE ANIMATION THE LIQUID ANIMATION

Also this remix slaps

THE FLOWERS

The Titan MAGIC WEH

THE LIGHT GLYPH

No not skelly crumbling

EVERYONE USING GLYPHS TO SAVE THE DAY

- Camilla just drawing them out like a badass

Did that motherFUCKER JUST BARK

Oh EW I did not expect the boiling isles to literally look that gorey

Yay fun magic adventure to go stab kings dads heart to dead

NOT RAINE IF THEY DONT MAKE IT IM GOING TO KILL MYSELF

- they remind me too much of my partner if they croak I’m I’m going to loose it

—HEY LET THEM KISS THE FUCK

Why does Luz’s hat have a little light bubble on it

YES BITCH RIP HIM TO SHREDS

wait don’t fucjing monologue babe just kill him

To SHREDS YOU SAY

That was a good fucking frame

Adopt the baby plz you guys can each get one hit on him but after that everyone be friends like in the mark comics

WHERES LUZ ok there she is

FUCK OFF PHILLYBOY

KiLL HIM

Yes the rain

Oh ew what

He is NOT human

HEY FUCK YEAH STOP HIM TO DEATH

-is she not human anymore

WHAT THE FUCK

Is that what he wanted to say to him

She is… not going to be able to go back to the human realm and be normal

Also was like, the boiling isle only one fucjing wacko island that the rest of the demon realm like didn’t touch bc belos? Like the post apocalyptic America of this universe

YES LET THE GAY DADS KISS

darius father of the year award

SYNTH HELL YEAH I’m going to listen to that on repeat for years

Who the FUCK was that third guy

STEVE??? CANON STEVE WHAT DID THEY JUST TAKE THE DESIGN THAT COMIC GUY HAD I DINT THINK WEVE SEEN STEVE BEFORE???

Hey I’m so gay wtf eda making raine a NEST

When ur aunt has a kid and ur cousin is the most annoying and dangerous 9 year old on the planet

OH 2 GAY KISSES DANA REALLY SAID YOU CANT CANCEL THE SHOW AGAIN CAN YOU

NOT EDA BEING NERVOUS TO MEET CAMILA

HOOTSIFER

No Titan magic?? I’m crying

-can she do magic now? From her staff I guess?

IS SHE MOVING

GRADUATION?? WhiTH WHOMST

Oh wait this is going to be a Vee fake out

Oh worm that IS vee??

DANA TERRECE GIVING THE WRITING SCHOLARSHIO AWARD

Wait did they go back to the human realm? Why is hooty interacting with a person

NEW HAIRCUT ALERT AMITY SLAYING DAILY

Mmmmm is that a twilight baseball reference or am I just brain dead

STRINGBEANS CORNER

UNIVERSITY OF WILD MAGIC FINALLY THE FAKE OUT WE WERE WAITING FOR

ALSO GROWN UP LUZ IS SO NB VIBES FRFR

Is that AMITYS NECKLACE

I want that snake shirt so bad

TATTOO LUZ HAS A TATTOO

Also two ear piercings slay

“It’ll be nice to finally see everyone again” so DID she go to regular or magic highschool tell us

LUZ YOU SAW THEM LAST WEEK I NEED TO STOP PAUSING AND WATCH THE SHOW

VEE IS SO FUCKING CUTE IM CRYING

I’m making those tshirts

SOLD TO THE NOCEDAS WHAT IS THAT A NEW PORTAL THE COLLECTOR CREATED

- imagine hearing that everytime you come in

THE RECEEATION OF THE INTRO

The animation

I’m sobbing

HEY YOU FUCKKNG COWARDS WHY CAN YOU NO CONSISTENTLY DRAW FAT PEOPle I saw Willow flying and went fuck yeah but then she walks around and they skinny washed her again

Hunter palisman carver adorable

Ok I appreciate the animation but was it important to make that huntlow scene so beautiful and yet STILL NO KISS

AW ALL THE MATCHUNG TATTOS ARE FLAPJACK

Liliths plans I’m screaming “disco maybe”

AMITY SMASH SMASH SMASH

That’s what I wanna look like

HARPY LILITH THE FUCK

ok that girl playing the harp I know we know her name but smash smash love the new hair

Professor dog boy for life

BUMO HAS A HOOTY PATCH ON HIS GARDENING GEAR

We’re going to see a high uptake in patch based fashion this year thanks Dana

VINEY HEALING MADE ME CRY AGAIN

dARIUS AND AMITYS DAD SITTING IN A TREE

Also raine hello smashsmashsmashsmash

SHORT HAIR GIRL TWIN where’s the brother

NOT THE BABY WHALE

Oh there he is and he looks no different but I’m glad he’s vibing

DEMON REALM HUMAN REALM EXCHANGE PROGRAM WHEN IM MAKING TSHIRTS

GUS’S HAIR IM SCREAMING

HEADMASTER EDA SMASHSMASH A HUNDRRED TIMES SHE HAS A FUCKING HOOK

Wait wait the basilisks I’m crying

TEEN KING HES SO SCRUFFY

THE GATE IS THE OWL HOUSE I CALLED IT

KING-CENEAÑERA IM SOBBING

The bat babies hanging upside down got me

They sounded ALOT less haunted than our birthdays FUCKING MOOD BUDDY

PAINYATA WILL HE NEVER KNOW PEACE

Ok that dress goes HARD

Spider cake Steve has my heart

Noooo kings glyphs have horns I’m crying

THE BYE AND EVERYONE WAVING I AM UNWELL

Ok gtg cry before rehearsal I’ll see you all in therapy

[stealsh0e]

-S is the head of the department of Sleep, in charge of conspiracies, dream states and other supernatural occurrences regarding what happens while we sleep. Basically the people in episode 1 that put the advertisements in your dreams. Yeah THAT!!!

-A scientist whose known for testing his own work on himself, "If I test it on myself first, then it HAS to be good for everyone else.". No one believes him when he says it, and no one's willing to open that can of worms. There's an unsettling air about him when he says it.

-Cognito Inc tried to create a sleep paralysis demon that would just read advertisements to those afflicted by it, which S spearheaded and put himself up immediately for the test run. While it went smoothly, S's left eye ended up looking exactly like the demons. What's more, he'd see advertisements out of it, and so it led to him covering it with an eyepatch to prevent him from seeing advertisements all day.

-If he stares at someone too much with said eye, they actually start thinking about what advertisements are currently on his eye. He looks at you with that big ole eyes and you get the unbearable urge to buy something you might not even need. So the eyepatch is for the sanity of himself and those around him.

-Known around Cognito as the chill, eccentric slob whose favourite things all begin with S. He kinda floats around socially, cracks a joke and has a conversation, but people note he feels. weird to talk to. He has a BIT of a staring problem- like he's looking through you or rather than make eye contact he looks at your forehead?? Like he's trying to see your brain.

-He's a freaky lil guy who upped the freak factor after his eye incident, there's definetely more changes that occurred to him that he's not telling anyone. He still keeps his corny sweet heart open for all to see, hoping it distracts people from his other more unsettling quirks (it doesn't but most people can appreciate his efforts).

S is a wip but he's honestly one of my favourite blorbs right now, infesting my brain with worms. This bad boy can fit so many self destructive red flags in him that bulls won't need to run into a china shop anymore. He is shipped with someone, but I'll keep that for another post bc their relationship is a slow burn and I enjoy their small moments. Here's a lil hint

[ofmythsandmadness]

stop moving | d.h

you do diego’s eyeliner. 2k words.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

NOTES: gender neutral. long haired diego. i don’t know why i’m writing this and i kinda hate it lol, i rarely write this sort of thing but y’know. i’m going to check all messages, notifs & messed gems in the morning, i’m really only posting this and ghosting again, bc i know otherwise i’ll never do it. and y’know, i want to feel productive about something. take care folks <3

BUY ME A COFFEE HERE. | CHECK OUT MY OTHER WRITINGS HERE.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"CAN YOU PLEASE STOP MOVING?!”

Hot breath stings your trembling fingers as Diego huffs a laugh; it’s barely a sound, a mumble of a chuckle, but you feel it vibrate through your body and hit your hand and it almost does you in. You almost just give up and confess your undying attraction, right then and there. And as though you need more contact, even more of him pressing against you, egging you closer to the precipice that will surely be your infatuated doom. 

“You’re the one who asked to do this, you don’t get to complain.”

“Well, you wanted it. You agreed to this!”

“I--” another exhale against your hand, another peal of laughter following shortly. You've half a mind to clamp his mouth shut with it, if it wouldn’t ignite yet another ill-thought fantasy of yours. “This was still your idea.”

Your smile buds and blooms despite your brain begging your lips to be still. You can’t help it; he’s too good at weaseling into the cracks of your composure. One look, one soft chuckle and you’re set for life. It doesn’t help that you’re basically on his lap, cradling his face in your hands like he’s a baby, and his own fingers tap-tap-tap away on your hips, creating a rhythm no one else but you can make out. Honestly, you’re surprised you haven’t totally cracked yet, this close and this personal.

“Shut your eyes.”

“They are shut.”

“No they’re not!” you poke lightly at the fluttering lids. Your lip snags on your bottom lip; a poor attempt to hide a giggle. “I can’t do this with your eyes open.”

“D'aww…” his lids shut as he groans. “So I’m just supposed to sit here? Let you draw on my face in total darkness?”

You click your tongue, half in disapproval in his exaggeration, and half because you’ve won yet again against his stubbornness. “I won’t be long. Suck it up.”

“Sure. Y’know, I have siblings; I know how long it takes them to do makeup, and-”

“-stop moving, asshole!” Your free hand tugs ever lightly on a strand of hair, one of the many that’s slipped out of his ponytail. Repressed thoughts flash in sultry red across your thoughts and you swallow, quickly letting the hair go. “I-I need you to stay still, or this will take forever.”

Diego sighs and his grip tightens around your hips. Before you know it, he’s moving you. “Then stop wriggling,” he grumbles, flattening you against his legs. You’re basically straddling him, at that point, and your mind goes absolutely blank at how much more intimate this feels. Does he notice? Or is this just another friendly motion you’re yet again reading into?

Your mouth tastes of cotton balls and it’s dry as an Arizona summer. Still, you manage an ‘okay’ before readying your pen again. All you can hope for is a steady hand, though by the way he still holds your waist, and how your mouth lingers mere inches from his lips -- well, you’re coming undone.

It’s just eyeliner, you tell yourself. Your hand rises and swipes; black begins to pool its deep colour against his lashes, low and thin. The line builds taller, thicker as you work, extending out to the corner of his eye. As he breathes, and you try to remind yourself how to, the eyeliner pen works its shaky magic and draws the slightest tinge of a wing against his skin. 

“How’s it going?”

At least he’s kind enough to mumble it, though his face still shifts under your hold. Once more your tongue clicks. 

“It goes better when you don’t speak.”

He swallows his laugh; you know, because you feel his throat work as you hold his head steady. It’s strange and exhilarating, to be so close and still so far away. You want to cradle his cheeks gentler, to hold his face with the heart of a lover, but you’re terrified he’ll recognise your touch and realise your feelings. So you barely touch him and remind yourself to be professional about this.

It’s eyeliner, not a rom-com.

“I’m bored,” he whisper whines. 

“Shh.”

“It’s too quiet.”

“Shut up,” you mumble, patting his cheek gently. “M’working.”

“Y/N...”

You pull away and sit back on his thighs. His left eye doesn’t look half bad, but if he keeps talking… “You can’t talk, ‘else it’s gonna look bad!”

“Then you talk!”

You baulk. “What?”

“I’ll be quiet,” he swears, pouting up to you with eyes still shut, “but please, say something before I lose my mind.”

“Well, I-I-what about?”

“I don’t know. Anything.” He smiles softly. “I like hearing you talk. Don’t care what about.”

You could die right then and there. It’s a simple compliment, it’s really the bare minimum, but you’re already head over heels. And just a couple of soft spoken works are all you need to do you in and nearly keel you over, still straddling his muscular thighs.

“Uh…” you cough, forcing out the giddy tremble that threatens to take your voice. No lovesick teen voice today, thank you very much. “Okay. I don’t have much to...well, the other day, I saw my coworker totally wipe out leaving work.” You pause, expecting some reply, but he stays silent. “And he... he ate so much shit, he might as well dunked his head in a gas station toilet. And - and you know, normally I’d try to sympathise, but when you always make a point to park in my parking spot, I don’t care. Brett’s such an ass. And I don’t blame him, cause he’s got an asshole name -- Brett can’t be anything else but an asshole. So it's his parents fault probably but still, I…”

You continue on, slipping from the topic of your coworker to the free muffin you got with your coffee last week, to the prospects of buying a pet to keep your apartment less lonely, and to what probably felt like a thousand and one things ranted at him. All the while your hands continue, making neat work of a task that had just felt impossible.

And miraculously, aside from a chuckle thrown now and then, Diego stays silent. Maybe he actually means it. Maybe he does like your voice -- or he’s so bored he’s falling asleep, you don’t know. But it’s okay, you don’t let yourself linger on that, too content with taking in his relaxed features and the gentleness of the afternoon sun on the two of you.

“Aaaand….there!” With a triumphant shout, you throw the eyeliner to the side and your hands plunge towards the sky, fist-pumping like you’d just won the lottery. Your body bounces up and down on his lap like a child meeting Santa; in your excitement, you barely notice. “You’re done!”

“That’s it?”

“Yup.” You grabble for a mirror, looking away from him for a moment as you reach for the handle. Wiping it off, you’re focused solely on making sure the glass is clean enough for him to see himself in, and your brain is distracted enough to totally forget what you’ve even done, enough so when you look up, all you have is,

“Oh.”

Look, you know Diego is an attractive man. You’ve known since the day you met; he’s a beautiful guy, a handsome asshole who wormed his way into your befuddled heart before you could even learn his name. He’s pretty enough that if he wasn’t so set on his weird vigilante career, he could probably shoot for being a damn supermodel. He’s a catch! But all those years of knowing that and feeling like that could not prepare you for the sight in front of you.

Diego squints at you, cocking his head. “Is it okay?”

“I…” Delicate black lines his upper lash line, making his deep brown eyes stand out even more. He’s smiling still, full lips curving up to only make your heart pound faster. A strand of his hand falls across his face, painting the gentlest of shadows but it doesn’t bother his pretty face. “I...no, no, yea-ah…”

“Wow,” he laughs, jabbing a finger into your side. “Eloquent.”

“I-I-shut up,” you stammer. You force the mirror into his hands and look away. You’re still on his lap, still straddling his lap and the logical part of your brain begs you to get it together and fall off, already. But the stupid, foolish, absolutely idiotic part leaves you paralysed. “Just look for yourself.”

You squeeze your eyes shut and wait for him in the silence. There’s nothing, though, for achingly painful seconds, until the mirror shifts down. “Huh.”

“Huh, good? Or bad?” 

“I wasn’t expecting this.”

“Really? What’s wrong?”

“It’s not bad,” he assures you, his smile evident in his tone. “Just different. Don’t know how to feel about it.”

“O-oh...well, if it makes you feel better, I think it looks great.”

“You do?”

Oh, dammit. That came out with way too much enthusiasm, didn’t it? Your legs are concrete as you shift, face angled towards the floor. Hopefully he’s strong enough to push you off him when your body literally catches flame from humiliation. 

“You look good man,” he mocked back to you. But he’s grinning, egging you on like a child who knows he’s got you twisted around his pinky finger. “Come on, say it like you don’t have a gun to your head!”

And maybe you do, maybe you’re holding the revolver to your temple, just asking to get screwed if you dare speak beyond the most stilted compliment you’ve ever extended to someone. He’s a friend, you remind yourself; friends are allowed to compliment the other. They’re allowed to say they look good and not make it a thing, even if they wish it was a thing, and--

“--hey? You in there?”

“Sorry,” you say to the floor. You swear a thousand curses before looking back to Diego. And, yeah -- he still looks impossibly good. The ageing afternoon sun falls just perfectly against his skin, flushing him into the being of a god, standing in your apartment while you, a mere mortal, remains stuck to his thick thighs.

You gulp in air desperately, trying to catch your gaze on something, anything else -- but nothing sticks. He’s still there, inches from you, desperately aching for you to stare at.

“No, uh, yeah. You look - you look hot.”

Wait.

That wasn’t--

“-I look hot?”

That isn’t what you were supposed to say.

“I,” you have literally nothing to save yourself. This is the end! You’re young Leo and Rose is shoving you off the door and into the icy waters, and you’ve just got one last look at pretty Diego to satiate the freezing burn before you succumb to it. “I...wasn’t...that wasn’t what I meant.”

He has no right to look so smug. But he does it anyway. He leans away from your hands as they flutter through the air on their own accord, looking at you through half-lidded pools of caramel. “You don’t think I look hot?”

“Don’t,” you warn, with little strength behind it. “Don’t twist my words.”

“I’m just asking.”

He leans back in. You’re almost touching again. 

Is this weird? This is definitely weird.

You swallow back the lump in your throat and stare back at him. This all feels like fifth grade all over again -- awkward, sticky and like every move is the wrong move. But you can’t stop yourself from playing into his hands, because that sly, shameful part of you wants this more than will ever be admitted. You want him to look at you like this, like you could hang the stars if he asked you to...and you want him to pull you closer, as he does, and mean it.

Could he?

“Would you hate me? If I thought you looked hot?”

Diego head cocks to the side as he seemingly contemplates your words. A nudge meets your side; you look down to see his hands once again reaching for you. Though it's on their own accord this time, gently landing on your left hip, then the right. You shiver.

“That depends,” he says slowly. His eyes narrow, black wings just barely crinkling in. “D’you mean it like, ‘oH, that’s so-oo hot, woW-’”

Your laugh is hardly a whisper. It cracks even before your lips. “Come on.”

“Or, do you…” his fingers dig in a little more. They nudge at the fabric of your top, daring it to move enough so they could cradle the flesh hidden underneath. “You mean it the other way?”

Heart in throat, all the courage you can possibly muster with it, you mutter, “the...other way, probably.” Then a second later, “is that okay?”

“Mm…” His fingers finally reach your skin. You shiver under his touch, warm and unflinching as they brush against the soft curves. Diego’s face comes towards your own and you force yourself not to move. But he doesn’t stop, instead he goes past you, brushing his plush lips against your earlobe. “I would say...that if all this took was making you do my eyeliner, I shoulda asked years ago.”

“I, okay...don’t play with me, here--”

“--I’m serious,” he protests lowly. His lips leave your ear but they don’t run far. Instead, you find them a brush away from your own, just as you were minutes before. Only this time, you don’t try to clamp your mouth shut and skirt away from the touch. You nudge your nose against his own, exhaling softly as more skin meets the heat of his own. “You think I just let anyone sit on my lap like this, without thinkin’ it could be more?”

You shrug like this is normal. Like you’re perfectly at peace with the universe and the way you’re wondering how his tongue would taste, pushing back against your own. “I mean...do you?”

“No,” he chuckles low. “No, I’m...not into friendly lap dances, actually.”

“O-oh. Mm.”

He pulls you closer. He wants you closer.

“Diego…” You’re unravelling. You’re fucking unravelling, unnerved by his voice and his hands and you’re putty in them, all inhibitions sliding away like you’re three drinks in. His hands by your sides leave their marks against your skin; you can feel the pads of his fingers, burning into your skin like they were molten iron and not just mere brushes. “I...”

“Tell me.” He sounds cocky. He has a right to be, even if you’re damned to admit it. “Tell me what you think.”

Your hands shiver up his forearms, clinging to his bare shoulders as he pulls you impossibly closer. Your mind’s going a mile a minute and you refuse to listen to a single thought. You’re only feeling him.

“Y/N…”

“Fine,” you huff, with a smile. Your noses brush again; your eyes flutter shut with his image imprinted against their lids. “I think you look...hot as hell, Diego.”

“Yeah.” He’s grinning; you can hear it in his voice, that smirk that makes your gut flip like a damn rollercoaster ride. “S’what I thought, baby.”

And then he kisses you.

A/N: i normally hate writing oblivious characters but this wasn’t even intentional really. every time i try to write something remotely sexual i just lead the reader into ‘oH tHiS iS jUsT wHaT fRiEnDs Do’ and ‘iT’S wEiRd rIgHt’. to my defense...i doubt you’re on this page reading this expecting good sexual tension. i’m not the tua writer for that; let me know if you want recommendations for that because trust me, there are better authors for that. for now, you get this. <3

[slytherflynn]

Old and New | Pt I

Blaise Zabini x muggle!reader

word count: 1971

summary: y/n is new to France on a study abroad trip. Blaise is visiting France post-Hogwarts. rags to riches story of an unfortunate muggle falling for a complicated, ridiculously wealthy person who just so happens to also be a powerful Wizard.

a/n: this started with an idea, became a moodboard, then became an entire fleshed out fic! I thought it would be short but my brain had other ideas. enjoy! note: I did write this from my personal perspective in life. as a result it is not very inclusive. I plan to change that with my next fics, I’ve just been having a really hard time lately and have been writing a lot of comfort fics and/or self-inserts to escape from irl bc irl is rly shitty for me rn

It’s a brand-new start, in a brand-new apartment, in a brand-new city, in a brand-new country... an ocean away from home. I can bring Tacoma to France, right? At least, that’s what I’m trying to tell myself. Study abroad is fucking... scary. I kinda regret it. It’s a good opportunity and for someone who doesn’t travel, it should be a fun experience. But I’m currently having an anxiety attack over taking out the garbage, so I’m not sure my positive self-talk is working.

I look out the window of my top floor apartment, wait until someone finally finishes walking down the stairs, and run out my door - I nearly trip about five times going down the spiral of death, my arms feel like jelly thanks to perpetually pushing my garbage deeper in to avoid this trip, and I swing with all my might to hurl my garbage bag into the trash compacting dumpster - only it hits the bottom lip and falls to the ground, splitting open.

“Great!” I say, sarcastically, “First they send my luggage to the wrong location, then they try to say my passport isn’t valid because my apartment was a temporary address, then I’m greeted with a fridge full of rotting food and no power, then I’m bitten up by fleas and now - I just- fuck. Why can’t I just- do anything- right-“ I cut myself off when I hear a screen door slide and blink a couple times to erase the threat of tears that had been creeping up on me while I ranted.

When I look up, I see a tall, dark-skinned guy about my age - handsome. He’s wearing a suit, and expensive jewelry. Combine that with the fact he’s living in the apartment building next to me, which is worth more than my life just for one month of rent, and I put together that he’s probably rich beyond belief. I quickly look away, not wanting to stare. I silently pick up my garbage, piece by piece. As I work, I feel eyes drilling holes in the back of my head. I ignore it. It continues, and I still ignore it as I finally shove my ripped garbage bag in the compactor and slam the door shut. I hear a slight jump up above, and chuckle to myself.

I zoom back up the stairs and almost make it to the top, but I trip 5 stairs away from my door - and fall, hard. Body laid out flat hard. Cheek scraped and stinging from the metal grating on the stairs, hard. Lost the goddamned slide that caught on the stair, and can see it gradually falling, bouncing and rolling down the stairs, hard. I lift my head and see blood on the stair. I feel it running down my face. All I can think is that this really fucking hurts. The tears come, a combination of pain and frustration, and I pick myself up and stumble my way into my apartment, completely forgetting about the attractive rich boy who just watched me be a danger and inconvenience to myself.

I rush to the kitchen and grab a roll of paper towels, and run to the bathroom, I see the markings in the mirror and can tell it will leave a sizeable scar. Do I need stitches? I don’t know. Anyway, I start dabbing at everything and blood is still oozing out of every nook and cranny, to my displeasure. I’m about to start bandaging my face when I hear a knock on my door. “Fucking Christ!” I mutter to myself as I slap a wad of paper towels on my face and sulkily go to fling open my door.

I’m not sure who I’m expecting, but to see the same rich guy on my doorstep, slide in hand, probably wasn’t it. “Hey, um, I saw what happened, and I thought you might want your shoe back.” His accent sounds very British - I was expecting it to sound more like a snooty Frenchman’s.

“Oh. Um. Thanks.” I say flatly.

As my muscles twitch to begin closing the door, he says, “Would you like some help cleaning that up? I have certifications to give medical aid... and stitches. My name’s Blaise, by the way.”

Doctor, maybe? Probably. “Sure,” I say, opening the door wider and standing back so the blood doesn’t drip on his suit. “I’m y/n.”

A few minutes later we’re in my bathroom, me sitting on the toilet, him sitting on the bathtub as he helps me fix my face. “So, Mademoiselle y/n,” He asks, “Do you find yourself in these predicaments very often?”

“Which one? Poverty, flea bitten, or bloody?” I say.

“I suppose whichever you’d like to think I was referring to.”

“Well, in *that* case - I’m usually caught unawares in all kinds of predicaments - though I’d say self-injury due to clumsiness is an uncommon one. And do you usually find yourself in predicaments requiring you to treat someone’s wounds?”

“I used to, though now it’s only on the occasion.”

“Sounds like an improvement,” I note. “I won’t guarantee it, but I think I’ll get the hang of walking up the stairs soon enough, so you don’t have to worry about me.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily mind it if I did worry about you once or twice more. Why were you running? It seemed like you wanted to get away from something. Does your garbage compactor smell that disturbing?”

“It doesn’t smell great,” I admit, “But truth be told, I’m not a fan of human interaction. It’s scary. Especially when everything is new to me.”

“How long have you been In France?”

“A few days, just enough to get myself physically settled.”

“I see. And you are from America?”

“Mhm. Let me guess, my accent gave it away.”

“And the slang, I’ve yet to hear someone from France use certain terms that you seem to favor.”

“Oh, most of my slang is specific to my city, not just my country.”

“Your city?”

“Yea, Tacoma. It’s near Seattle, if you know where that is. Tacoma’s better, though.”

“I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never been there. My mother is a fashion designer, but she only travels where there’s inspiration or a business deal.” So that’s how he gets the expensive clothes. The rest of the money too, probably.

“Must be nice, having a handmade closet.” I muse. “Not that I care for having any more clothes than I brought. They’re pretty reliable, if I do say so myself.”

He laughs. “Yes, well, if the blood stains don’t come out of your jumpsuit you might need a new one. They shouldn’t be too difficult to remove, though.”

“Yea, I’ll just dump a bucket of Oxi-Clean on it and call it a day. That is, if any stores nearby have it.” I frown, realizing I have no clue if France carries any of the products I usually get. This is gonna suck. Hopefully the internet has some answers so I don’t have to ask anyone for help.

“Why don’t I take your jumpsuit back with me? Save you the trip. Believe it or not, I used to have chronic nosebleeds, so I know a thing or two about stain removal.” Blaise offers.

I smile, only just. “Well, if you insist. But I love this jumpsuit practically more than myself, so I expect it back right away!”

He returns the smile. “A fan of fashion? You ought to meet my mother.”

I chuckle. “I’m sure your mom would despise me - I only own seven jumpsuits and some athleisure for going on runs.” I pause, then tack on: “Oh, and some fuzzy pajamas for when I’m sick.”

Blaise cocks a brow at me. “And when you’re not sick?”

“Don’t worry about it.” I grin mischievously.

A wave of recognition graces his eyes, and he very quickly looks away, I assume for being flustered.

“You Americans, always so scandalous.” He tsks in mock scorn.

“That’s what we’re known for, is it not?” I say cheekily, “Beer, boobs and gun barrels. And all the other problems that come with that, but that’s a can of worms I am not looking to open today.”

He ties off his handiwork, and says, “It looks like my job is finished, other than stealing your jumpsuit off your back to fix it. I can wait in the other room, if you’d like?”

“Um, yea, that works. Lemme just, grab my next jumpsuit. Gonna have to do laundry early, I suppose-“

“I can wash your jumpsuit for you. I’m pretty good at reading labels, if I do say so myself.” He jokes.

“Oh?” I say, “Then you must be a real genius! Who taught you, Einstein?”

“No, but it was another white-haired, eccentric man, so you’re not that far off.”

“When all teachers are like that it’s kind of impossible not to hit relatively close to the mark.” I remark, then change clothes as quickly as I can, tossing the dirty outfit into a trusty plastic bag and tying it shut.

When I walk out to the living room, Blaise is toying with one of my sculptures. He’s definitely been meandering and lurking around. “Enjoying yourself?” I ask, at which he jumps. “You’re rather skittish, Blaise.”

“And you’re rather quiet on your feet, y/n.” He observes. “But yes, I quite like your eclectic style. If only you had an apartment that let your customization shine. Something more minimalist.”

“Yes, well, it’s something I’ll forever dream of and likely never accomplish. I don’t suspect I’m going to be someone leaving the income level I was born into.” I say, just a little bit cynical.

“And why is that?” He asks.

“Because most people don’t, and the ones who do are the ones who make money. My career isn’t going to make me money.” I reply.

“So why did you pick it?”

I sigh. “Because somebody has to care about the people like me. The politicians don’t, the middle class don’t, and the rich are hell bent on keeping us there so they can have factory workers and have people going straight to prison after they graduate because we’re all desperate and miserable.”

He frowns. “That’s terrible.”

“It’s reality. And I don’t want to be like the people who get rich and stop caring because all they see is the wage difference and pretend it’s justified so they don’t have to feel complicit in the system.” I look him in the eye, my face grim. “Not all luck is by chance. Most of it is by design.”

He nods. “I understand, in a way.”

“Everyone does.” I say. “But understanding in a way and caring enough to do something about it are two different things.” I look away from him when I see his posture change. “I’m not trying to be rude, but it’s impossible not to notice the wealth gap between us when you’re wearing designer clothes and living in what looks like a mansion and I’m living in a building made in like 1900 with no elevator. It’s just the way things are, though.”

“I know.” He says quietly, thoughtfully. “I’d better get going. Your clothes?” He reaches out tentatively for the bag I’m still holding.

“Oh. Right.” I say, handing it to him. Our fingers brush against each other slightly, and it sends chills down my spine. He heads to the door while I’m rooted to the spot, collecting myself.

“I look forward to seeing you again, y/n.” He nods, meeting my eyes with a rather changed expression.

“I’ll see you soon, then?” I ask, not quite sure which answer I’m expecting.

He smiles, only just. “As soon as I am able.” Seconds later, he’s out the door, and I’m alone in my dingy ass apartment. How in the fuck did any of that just happen?

[trafalgarlawsdepression]

PLEASE TELL US ABOUT THE SEASON TWO IN YOUR HEAD

OKAY CURRENT PROGRESS ON SOUL EATER SEASON TWO THAT LIVES IN MY HEAD.

hm okay so first of all it takes place a few years after the og series, I'm thinking like six to seven? point is the gang is all split up, maka was offered a teacher position at dwma but turned it down to travel a bit and consider if she's comfortable with working for dwma considering all the secrecy they're doing. soul is with her because that's what he does and crona is with her because Do Not Separate Them. blackstar and tsubaki are also out seeing the world but less to philosophize and more to get stronger because they're tsubaki and blackstar, possibly incorporating tsubaki's cool new forms from the manga. kid is still in death city and basically I think it'd be interesting if he's slowly preparing to take over as death god with full knowledge of what that would entail for lord death, since that would kinda put a new spin on it compared to the manga. also on the side he's also doing his own scheming because I think that would be fun.

anyway, plot stuff is that dwma have been using angela and mifune to get in contact with the witches and there's talk of a truce, once again incorporating stuff from the manga. the plan is to send kid to do some preliminary negotiations with a team to look out for him, and he asks to take maka and blackstar rather than like, stein or someone, partly because friendship and partly because they're more likely to go along if he starts scheming. this is how we reunite the gang, minus crona who would be wildly unsafe going into with territory considering their connection to medusa and because there's a chance the witches might want to study up on the black blood, in which case crona is the best test subject.

before they leave for the negotiations some way or another it comes out that kim is a witch, which the gang promises to keep secret also I think it'd be cute and sweet if the whole b-team knows and are looking out for kim. anyhoo through kim they find out a bit more abt what the current political situation in the witch world is, which angela and mifune had not been let in on since he's a human and she's like ten. basically, as eruka said in the og series mabaa is getting old so they're also prepping for a change in power, and the title of supreme witch or whatever is slated to go to one of three chosen young witches who have been trained from birth. the gang decide to keep this to themselves for now, partly to keep kim safe and partly because of kid's scheming.

(it should also be noted that there needs to be so many heartwarming reunions also also blackstar is still the shortest he's the token manlet of the group)

anyway they get going and eventually meet up with a witch who uses magic to transport them to where mabaa is hanging out, maybe the witches have a cool witch city that's like. a pit or something whatever it is it needs to be dramatic. negotiations start and kid reveals that he's not only interested in a truce, he wants an active partnership, hence the scheming. mabaa at least isn't outright opposed to the idea but notes that the dwma have been hunting witches for ages so the larger community is bound to be at the very least hesitant. the whole witch election is brought up and mabaa agrees to set up meetings with the three witches with the understanding that if the gang so much as lay a hand on them or in any way try to meddle in the process she will personally see to it that the dwma/witch conflicts escalates to an all out war.

after this I'm kinda fuzzy on the plot, but the first one they see is maggot witch, who's not interested in a partnership. she gives the group brain worms which they manage to get through by the power of friendship or something, and which blackstar has a problem with bc he has a hard time asking from help because that's a sign or weakness or whatever, once again I'm unsure on this. around this time is also where crona shows up because they only managed to keep still for like a day before they started worrying abt maka since they have a lot more experience with witches than she has. they've gotten a lot better over the years, they're still very sheltered but their partnership with ragnarok is much more stable and they can make a joke or two I think. I feel like they deserve it.

next they probably take a quick break at some kind of safe house to recover and build character dynamics, after which they go see bee witch. bee witch is a lot more fun to be around, she throws big parties and has a laff, and she says she'd be interested in working with dwma, because she has a personal loss in the conflict. here we find out that a witch she was really close to (maybe her mom idk) was the witch maka's mom killed to make a death scythe, which maka is smart enough to shut up about but which makes the potential alliance a bit shaky since it's one thing to talk abt it in abstract and a whole other thing to have a shot at revenge within arm's reach. they leave not feeling entirely sure and with crona deeply uncomfortable since they had to endure a party scene press f.

last with they see I haven't drawn or developed a whole bunch yet, but she's a dragonfly witch and doesn't really care either way abt working with dwma since she's not interested in the leadership position in the first place. she has a lot of feelings abt being raised for this One Purpose and not getting to be a person, especially with the risk that she's not even going to get to serve that purpose, which hits home with crona. after this I have. no idea what happens but probably something goes wrong, maybe because of kid's scheming since lord death is bound to find out at some point.

additional notes: I think soul and crona should get to bond over being the most introverted, like just seeing them look genuinely comfortable sitting away from the group and not saying a word to each other. maka's mom's achievements kinda coming back to bite maka in the ass I feel like would give some nuance to the way maka idolizes her mother and constantly tries to follow in her footsteps. I think maybe since this is soul eater season two that lives in MY head I should get to sprinkle in some romance who's to say. I could back it up with how it would add to the themes if I wanted to but it's embarassing and this post is already filling up my embarassment quota for the night, so ask me like. tomorrow if you want to know. I cherish you so much for asking me abt this though make no mistake. I dip you like a dancer

[southsidestory]

you have bipolar disorder? how did you get to that conclusion? did you go to a doctor? i don’t want to self diagnose but i’ve read up on it a lot and it seems like my grandfather, father, and i have it. its made life super difficult. I even stopped writing ff bc when i posted, people wouldn’t understand how depressive episode make you not want to do anything for literal months at a time and would berate me for not updating 1/2

2/2 and my family is Mexican so they believe that mental illness is an American Thing, so i cant really go to them for help, and i wouldn’t even know where to begin with a doctor. what was your experience with it?

I did go to a psychiatrist, yes, but I had been experiencing symptoms since I was 12. I was 26 when I was finally correctly diagnosed. Before that I’d been misdiagnosed with MDD (major depressive disorder) and put on a cocktail of meds that mostly made me worse. Being correctly diagnosed is hugely important, and I highly recommend that someone see a psychiatrist rather than self diagnosing. 

But. Not everyone has the privilege of easy access to a psychiatrist, and it sounds like you’re in that category. And I can say from personal experience that I knew I was bipolar before I was diagnosed, because it runs in my family and my symptoms were astoundingly obvious by that point. Since you asked, I’ll tell you about my experience.

As I said, I started experiencing bipolar symptoms when I was a kid. I also have PTSD and GAD, and my anxiety has been with me all my life, but my depression started when I was 12. A nurse practitioner put me on the antidepressant Lexapro, which made me worse--because antidepressants don’t work for bipolar people. Our brains aren’t wired for it. So I quit taking Lexapro and didn’t attempt to treat my mental illness with medicine for the next ten years. 

I also started having hypomanic episodes as a young teenager, but I didn’t recognize them for what they were. I wouldn’t sleep for days and I’d be highly productive and feel great, so why would I complain about that or think it’s a problem? But the longer I went untreated the more severe my episodes became and the longer they lasted, and by the time I hit my 20s I was in a really bad place. Depressed 85% of the time, hypomanic 10% (although I didn’t know that’s what it was), and “normal” about 5%. My depressive episodes often lasted for months at a time, briefly broken by a week or two of hypomania, after which I’d plummet right back into depression.

I went to a psychiatric nurse practitioner when I was 22. He assumed I was depressed and put me on antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds. That mostly made me worse. The only thing that ever really worked was Abilify, which is an atypical antipsychotic shockingly used to treat bipolar disorder. That really should have been a fucking clue, but I went improperly diagnosed for another four years.

Being on a cocktail of the wrong meds made me worse, which led me to stop taking my meds cold turkey, which is always a bad idea. In April 2016 I had a horrible mixed episode, although I didn’t understand what it was then. For those who don’t know, a mixed episode is when someone is manic and depressed at the same time, and it’s pure hell. During my episode, I broke up with my partner right before our first wedding anniversary, quit my job, and almost committed suicide. (Then I moved back home and my mom promptly died, but that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms.)

Fortunately my partner and I got back together, and they helped me figure out what was going on. They’re also bipolar, but unlike me they were diagnosed as a kid, and our symptoms presented differently so that’s probably why neither of us saw it for a long time.

I finally saw a psychiatrist at the beginning of 2017, and I went in already knowing what I was going to hear. My mom had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder a couple of years before she died, so I knew it ran in my family. My symptoms had worsened significantly and my hypomania had finally become so distinct and unhealthy that it couldn’t be overlooked anymore.

None of my previous health care providers had ever asked me, “What do you feel like when you’re at your happiest?” If they had, it would have probably been obvious that I suffer from bipolar disorder, not unipolar depression. Because my “happiest” looks like extreme periods of creative productivity, days or weeks of insomnia, and some very bad decision making lol. Usually followed by a crash landing back into depression.

So I guess that’s my question for you. What do you feel like when you’re at your happiest? If your “up” periods sound like hypomania or mania, which I’m sure you’ve read about, then yeah there’s a good chance you’re bipolar. :/

And if you are bipolar, I cannot stress enough how important it is to get proper medication. I don’t want to scare you, but something like 20% of bipolar people die from committing suicide. And those are just the successful ones; the number who attempt, sometimes multiple times, is much higher. This is an extremely dangerous, disabling, potentially deadly illness. Although you can learn helpful coping strategies in therapy, and a good support system is also very important, the #1 thing you need to treat bipolar disorder is medication. It’s a chemical imbalance in the brain that, for 99% of us, cannot be effectively managed without mood stabilizers and/or antipsychotics. Every bipolar person I know (my mom, my aunt, my partner, and one of my friends) didn’t get better until they were on meds, and it was the same for me.

All this to say, if you suspect you’re bipolar, I encourage you to do every single thing in your power to get to a psychiatrist. I’d like to say your family might come around, but if you say they believe mental illness is an “American Thing” then I believe you. In which case, you need to advocate for yourself now and worry about their opinions later. Assuming you’re an adult, which I’m *really* hoping you are. If you’re a minor, that makes this much harder.

When you say you’re Mexican, I don’t know if you mean you’re living in Mexico or living in the US. If Mexico, I can’t point you toward resources, but if you happen to live in the US, most major cities have FQHCs (federally qualified health centers), which are aimed at serving poor people, and many of which provide mental health care services.

If you do have access to a psychiatrist, I can give you some pointers on what to do before your first appointment. I went into mine with a list of symptoms and how long I’d been experiencing them, family history of mental illness, previous medication regimens, and a summary of my trauma. When I handed it over to my psychiatrist she was like “Well it’s quite clear that you’re bipolar. I’m sorry you’ve been misdiagnosed for so long.”

If you’re comfortable DMing me, please feel free. Regardless, I hate to hear that you’re struggling, but I do want you to know that things can get better. I honestly feel like I lost the years between age 12 and 26, because I spent them so miserable, but since getting properly medicated my life has turned around completely. I want to see that happen for you too, nonny.

[perpetualmood]

not an anti your anti-anti post got popular so i wanted to know why u ship bkdk? i'm genuinely curious bc i;ve only seen ppl say it's abusive and i'm new to mha

first of all anon thank you for approaching me respectfully about this. there are a lot of people i know who aren’t as lucky but really, thank you for possessing the basic human decency that so many others on this fucking hellsite can’t muster. 

now, first of all let me say that i’m not a “““hardcore shipper””” or anything of the sort. i just think that bakudeku/katsudeku has a pretty good dynamic with lots of potential, along with a lot of other plausible ships in the series. i don’t get into a series for its ships, and even when i ship something i won’t let it take over my experience of fandom, which is why i’m def posting less bnha and ship discourse. this’ll probably be my last post about it, ever.

now, about bakudeku. 

on bkdk being abusive:

it is not. 

i first want to clarify that while bakugou bullied midoriya in the past, that doesn’t fucking make it abuse. i know abusers, and i know bullies. bakugou was shitty, and i’m not excusing his actions or saying they were okay because they were fucking not. most antis get all their fuel with the line “take a swan dive from the roof” that bakugou says to midoriya in the first chapter. 

did he actually mean it? did bakugou, a boy who was told all his life he would be a hero, who wanted to be a hero, say it with the intent of midoriya actually killing himself? no, he didn’t. it would go against everything a hero stood for, and being a hero was bakugou’s only aspiration in his life. unless anyone is iterating that he’s stupid (which canon proves otherwise almost constantly) he knew that when he said it, midoriya wouldn’t do it. 

(and while it is important to note that horikoshi has explicitly said that he went too far with that line, as it is not how bakugou should be seen and/or characterised, i’m still treating it as canon because it is, antis don’t @ me.)

and, as midoriya makes very clear later, he has absolutely no intention of taking bakugou’s words seriously. instead, he brushes it off as ‘kacchan being a proud idiot who doesn’t think before he speaks’. however, while he did not take those words seriously, that doesn’t mean they didn’t hurt even a little. his expression when bakugou says it is hurt, but more than that, shocked. obviously, anyone with a brain can infer that it is not something midoriya is accustomed to hearing things like that from bakugou. if it had been a regular occurrence, his reaction would have been a lot more subdued as he would have heard it before and therefore expected it.

even if you look at the scene later on, bakugou does not go out of his way to target or even interact with midoriya up until their teacher brings up the fact that midoriya wants to go to ua. bakugou does not see midoriya as “his old friend” or “the kid who he grew up with”. what he sees is “a quirkless kid who can’t do anything is trying to get in his alley, the one that everyone told him was handcrafted for him”. is he right? absolutely fucking not. does he realise this? again, no. this all leads to bakugou having a major gifted kid + inferiority complex, but i digress.

(i feel like it’s necessary to say once again that i am not condoning bakugou’s behaviour just because he didn’t really intend for midoriya to commit suicide or midoriya didn’t take it seriously, or saying that it’s okay if nothing happened.)

anyway, back on topic. later during the final exams arc, midoriya also states explicitly that he and bakugou have not talked properly to one another since they were kids. this makes it clear that bakugou did not, in fact, ceaselessly torment midoriya throughout their elementary school/junior high years. they just didn’t interact, plain and simple. the experience shown on the playground when they were four and the one after school on this day were likely two of very few, perhaps ten at most, incidents in which bakugou and midoriya’s difference in power and therefore status was made clear to show what it means to be quirkless in this society. 

(i’d like to talk about how fucking messed up this society is, but that’s a whole other can of worms.)

bakugou has been a bully to midoriya. has he been abusive? absolutely fucking not. do i think their relationship is repairable? yes. i’ve been bullied before. i know what it’s like when you can reconcile with your bully and when you can’t. this is very clearly something that can be salvaged. 

on their canon relationship:

do i think of bakudeku as a “he pulled your pigtails because he likes you” situation? am i infatuated with the ever-popular childhood friend trope? not a chance, and dismissing any shipper’s evaluation of their relationship to that is fucking low. 

let’s start with their relationship at the beginning. bakugou harbours obvious animosity towards midoriya, and the only reason appears to be that it was because he was quirkless. (again, fuck quirk society) bakugou had always been told he was superior, and midoriya had always been told that he was nothing without a quirk. when you’re a young and impressionable child, having these things said to you a lot will make you believe it. in a sense, it’s akin to brainwashing. bakugou was made to believe that midoriya was worthless in comparison to him, a natural-born hero, and midoriya was made to believe that bakugou was amazing and undefeatable. 

there were a lot of ways it could have turned out, honestly. midoriya could have become someone bakugou saw as someone needing protecting, and as cliched as their relationship would have been were that the case, it would have been the only ““functional”” one they could have had. hence the dysfunction, because midoriya is not someone who can sit back and take hits. he wants to be a hero, which is half the reason he admired bakugou in the first place. 

so in the beginning of canon when midoriya’s desire to go to ua to be a hero is made known, bakugou, as i said before, feels as though his space has been invaded. he’s marked his territory, and all of a sudden this quirkless nobody i used to know wants to take it from me. of course, his way of thinking is wrong, but he’s never been corrected properly (sorry mitsuki, i love you but you’re not good at parenting, and masaru, please do something about your emotionally constipated son). 

bakugou’s reaction to midoriya saying he “just wants to try” makes it look like it was just a trivial matter for midoriya, as opposed to bakugou, who has been working towards wanting to become a hero since he was small (as opposed to midoriya who wanted to as well, yes, but never did anything being analysing the heroes for fun). he feels as though midoriya is going through it with a ‘meh’ attitude, which deeply offended by the sentiment and takes it personally. 

so bakugou obviously hates it. he hates feeling like someone that was, in his words, “a pebble in [his] path” could possibly even fathom overtaking him, when they were compared all the time. 

additionally, midoriya has been a part of bakugou’s ego fodder. he followed him around, praised him like the rest, yes, but it’s very important to note that even though midoriya showered bakugou with praise he still talked to him as though he would someday be on that same level, even as a kid. 

they were kids. they were dumb. but you  know what? they grew. 

bakugou especially has gone through so much development, even comparing him to the piece of shit he was in chapter 1 is a huge insult to bakugou, to horikoshi, and to midoriya, who has played an enormous part in it, especially after the sludge villain when it is very explicitly stated that bakugou didn’t even interact with midoriya until 

in the beginning of their first year at ua, bakugou learned for the first time what it meant to have people who were equal to him, that he wasn’t as exceptional as he thought. midoriya, too learned what it meant to stand as equals, but instead of falling from a platform above, he was thrown up from the ground. and during the battle trial, bakugou tasted bitter defeat for the first time, and it shook him to the point where he had a panic attack in class (which i’m disappointed all might didn’t notice, but i digress) upon seeing midoriya get k.o.-ed but still win while he was left unscathed physically, and lost to deku of all people. 

do i think their dynamic from the beginning of the year would have worked as a ship? no, abso-fucking-lutely not. bakugou feels nothing but betrayal (as in, he would obviously believe midoriya was hiding his quirk from him and lying to him their whole lives) and hatred for midoriya up until the battle trial, after which he doesn’t respect or even accept midoriya, but he acknowledges him because he beat him and then admitted half the secret to his quirk. 

their relationship is an absolute shitshow for a long time and it shows, but the battle trial was a huge part in the beginning of their relationship developing. and of course, it has to – midoriya is the protagonist and bakugou is the deuteragonist, after all. 

but the real turning point where bakugou comes to grudgingly accept midoriya is during their final exams before the training camp, where they went up against all might. being forced to work together and for bakugou to have to listen to midoriya really showed us depth in him we hadn’t seen before. sadly, all might was absolutely no help in their teamwork (despite that being the entire reason aizawa had paired bakugou and midoriya together) and instead made them try to focus on defeating him rather than working together, but somehow, that got the two of them to cooperate in battle. 

(personally, i believe that they would have been better matched against a more strategic teacher like aizawa or nedzu as they would be forced to come up with a strategy together, and all might provided an unrealistic situation for them overall and the entire fight makes absolutely little to no use of their intelligence, something that is canonically a prevalent strength for both of them.)

but honestly, after kacchan vs deku 2, where they finally become ““proper rivals”” according to all might, where they both finally, finally talk out their issues and try to patch their shit up. @dekatsu​ explains it really well here and i’ve rambled for long enough about it.

now, after that fight, they’re both at a point where instead of being at each other’s throats, they’re pushing each other forward, and that’s why i like them together so much, whether platonic or romantic. which brings me to...

what i like about bkdk

aka, the thing you asked me in the first place. 

do i approve of their relationship before kacchan vs deku 2? no. but after the fight, it blossoms into something absolutely brilliant. while they’re on their house arrest in the days after their fight, midoriya asks bakugou about his shoot style, and bakugou tells him exactly what he thinks and how it can be improved. and he admits, however backwardly, that he approved of it. 

from literally that moment on, their communication and relationship develops so so much (not getting into the later arcs because manga spoilers) and bakugou becomes a huge part of the “one for all” secret, and every. single. time he sees midoriya use it, he encourages him in his competitive way and he does want to make sure he sees deku become a great hero, dammit.

relationships where both parties push each other to do better always seem to be the ones that work best. bakugou is constantly striving now not just to better himself, but he’s making sure that midoriya is getting better too. the more the story progresses, the closer they grow. 

we’re at a point where bakugou sits in on midoriya’s meetings with all might about one for all and its technicalities and history, and is willing to train separately with midoriya because of it. they don’t have any problems with each other now -- even all might has properly acknowledged bakugou and midoriya as great friends. 

it’s indisputable. 

and whether you ship it or not, now if you deny that they have a bond that’s strong as fuck, you’re only making yourself look silly. 

platonic or romantic, these two have chemistry and they complement each other so well that it almost hurts. i can’t wait to see them grow into a hero duo. 

. . .

anyway, that’s the end of my 2k+ word long meta (which i honestly wouldn’t have been able to complete without the help of a tumblr friend who would like to stay anonymous) and i hope it answers your question and hopefully, it showed you a side of things that not only the antis are seeing. thanx, this is been my last ship discourse post.

[fearfearer]

i have caught up with the magnus archives.

when i started listening, i started a text file to note down any thoughts/confusion/analysis/jokes i had as i listened. i isolated a few bits of it into standalone text posts that i already posted, but here is the whole thing, my long-form liveblog

thoughts on the magnus archive as i listen

jonny sims gives an impassioned performance of someone's statement-- a diegetic impassioned performance, as we witness it being interrupted and resuming-- and follows it up with his own judgement of merciless doubt. classic. why the impassioned performance? he's just a nerd. i dearly hope this is the fandom consensus

every episode ends at the perfect volume to which i have adjusted it, and then i start the next episode and it blares in my ears. i think the volume of the intro must be like 1.75x the volume of the rest

*makes a serious effort to listen to and remember the name and date at the beginning of the statement recording* *forgets completely within 2 minutes*

i saw a fanart of gerard keay and learned [1] that he must be a good guy after all, since they drew him lookin cute, and [2] that his name is not, in fact, jared key. what, am i supposed to be looking at the transcripts? understanding names properly? in my defense, jonny sims clearly articulates "Jared" when he says it. maybe i'm not as good at decoding british accents as i thought. [footnote added in later: ok good i'm not the only one who hears "Jared" and thinks "Jared" instead of "Gerard"]

when gerard keay was described as having numerous eye tattoos on his joints, obviously my first thought was, "including the ankle? so he's count olaf?" because that's definitely a way count olaf would disguise his eye tattoo: by tattooing eyes everywhere else too and becoming The Eye Tattoo Guy. anyway this is part of why i was not at first inclined to think favorably of gerard keay

"The first thing about this statement that makes me dubious is that it comes from a fellow academic." if you know shit fuck you

it has come to my attention that there are ships. makes sense... after all, everyone in every fandom is horny af*. i'm not in deep enough to ship yet but naturally i'm keeping an eye on it

*horny af for depictions of intimacy, sexual or otherwise, but mostly sexual

definitely feel like i need to be writing down every name i hear because they're never not cropping back up but for now i'll just let it all wash over me

so sasha has been replaced with not-sasha, huh? pretty sure. though i'm not good at distinguishing voices. but that sounded pretty different, and my listening comprehension wrt that table isn't that bad. <<as time passes i doubt myself more and more on this point but not enough to go back and listen again

"You believe me?" "Yes, I think I do." (smashes button labeled "CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT" and a loud buzzer sounds)

IT'S MICHAEL!!! i hope michael is a long-term good guy... he's not seeming like a good guy right now... he says he's mostly neutral. vaguely recall seeing a tumblr post about michael in the recent past but that didn't give me any hints and i don't remember it well anyway. michael's voice is good though. good laugh

i'm not good at visualizing characters based on descriptions, let alone based merely on their voices, so the only image i have in my head of jonathan is a furrowed brow

i'm on episode 49 and i don't like jonathan's distrust of his colleagues... i don't understand why his immediate suspicion was that gertrude's murder was an inside job. hasn't he just learned firsthand that the institute is not impenetrable? it's not inconceivable that someone could enter and shoot her and leave. especially when it took place in underground tunnels connected to unknown locations.

there's a good Old Lady Voice Combo on episode 62

so agnes montague was heavily cursed... that's my conclusion after episode 67

elias seems to tell jonathan to "get some sleep" a lot. though it IS generally good advice

episode 70, 9 minutes, 41 seconds: jonny sims's cell phone goes off in the background

small brain: ghost ship medium brain: ghost train galaxy brain: dirt train

i wanted to see if there was fanart of michael so i looked it up... i might as well have googled "blonde slenderman"

sweeney todd mentions tally: II

for some reason, hearing michael described this time as "a tall man with curly blonde hair and an unnerving laugh" puts an image in my head without my consent, and that image is chris fleming. now, he's not quite blonde, is he? but that doesn't change my casting decision, which is now set in stone. hope he does a good british accent

"YES i know what a meme is."

why is melanie the first/only one to notice that sasha is now not-sasha? is it because she is experienced in firsthand paranormal encounters (whereas the archivists are experienced in decidedly SECONDhand paranormal encounters, save for the worm debacle)? oh, my question was answered handily in the next episode. ok.

the replacer definitely limits its glamour to everyone except one person just so that it can be amused by the distress and confusion of the one person who can see the truth. that must also be the reason it chooses a completely different appearance. it surely COULD replace a person with their exact likeness; it just uses another face for fun, and to be satisfied that it can get away with it.

this table has appeared in like 10 episodes... Guess It's Crucial

jonny sims yelling while swinging an axe. jonny sims goes through michael's door (eyes emoji)

the idea of the replacer killing jonathan and not even replacing him brings to mind "AT LEAST RIDE IT YOU ASSHOLE"

wasn't expecting to hear from leitner at this point... he's dropping tons of lore here. too much lore. so much is happening. i have to say i kinda like it better when the stakes are not quite so high as this.

so at the end of season 2, tim and martin believe that jonny sims killed this guy, who they probably don't know is leitner... and we the audience believe that elias, now almost certainly a double murderer, has very quietly stabbed leitner to death. do i the audience believe it? i'll keep an open mind for now. things are not always as they seem. except when sasha was replaced with not-sasha, which was exactly as it seemed. [footnote added in later: looks like elias being a double murderer was exactly as it seemed.]

so jonathan sims is the name of the actual guy voicing jonathan sims. it's a cecil situation. so are they someday going to go back and retcon every episode to change his name, like with palmer/baldwin? or does jonathan sims just not mind being a character as well? as long as it doesn't devolve into RPS i guess it's fine. if there's fanart of jonmartin i hope it doesn't depict them as their actors bc that's too close for comfort to RPS

there's been a truly hellish c*ndy cr*sh ad that has played like 40 times between episodes and i'm pretty well convinced to never ever play that curséd game

elias has some serious blackmail for daisy, huh? that's heavy, having police characters in fiction who do extrajudicial killings. life imitates art imitates life

"i'm not on drugs or anything. ...what? i could be on drugs!"

he said "ample opportunity" but like "amplopportunity" with emphasis on the "plop"

it was obviously elias who delivered the statement to jonathan in hiding, because he knew he would record it despite not being at work... bc he's a nerd

so if gerard keay has eye tattoos, does that mean he also serves the uhh the observing or whatever? [verdict arrived at later: no he just has those because he's cool. or because his mom tattooed him. ok almost certainly the latter.]

"what do i feed it?" obviously you feed it filled up cassette tapes, jon... nothing has ever been more obvious

it's okay that jon very stupidly burned his hand to a crisp. you don't need even one hand to turn on a cassette recorder. you can do that with your nose

so if these people who are wax figures serve the desolation, and not-sasha was spending time at the wax museum, does that mean there is a connection between the replacer and desolation? i think that would make sense, since both seem to enjoy making people feel bad feelings. also i'm starting to think that agnes was not actually cursed, but that would mean she burned that guy on purpose after being nice to him... was she just really selfish in that way? using him to experience Dating and mutilating him when he crossed the line, so she punished him as a cruel goodbye? or just building up his hopes so they will be even more fun to burn down when the time comes?

"perhaps doing a bit of mindless filing will help distract you." honestly that is something i would like to do in real life... i do enjoy a good mindless task. though doing mostly mindless tasks 40 hours a week is not a fun time for me lately. but it would be better if i didn't have to listen to bad radio at the same time

what?! the friendly midnight acrobat described in episode 90 sounds totally non-threatening and i hope there's fanart of it. was that gym just jared the bone turner helping people live their twisted athletic fetishes?! [footnote added in later: YES! god i hope people draw these turn-boned creatures optimized for their gymnastic of choice. show me a person who remade their body specifically for the balance beam]

so the power endowed in the archivist by the viewening is that when you sit them down across from someone they want to interview, that someone will invariably spill SOME beans and think it was their idea. maybe? [footnote added in later: yes.]

ok so Michael "The Distortion" Michael, of fractals and golden ringlets, has specifically tormented this other michael, lichtenberg michael?

jon is clearly moved to ask questions by an external force because he's a sensible guy who would not try to ask questions when daisy is holding a gun on him

i think basira has precisely the same accent as estelle... or maybe just a similarly staccato way of speaking (or of line-reading)

[episode 93] elias: (holding jon's face between two pieces of bread) what are you? jon: (sigh) the archivist...

well, they did something i didn't expect them to do with this show: create a compelling in-universe reason for jon to read statements aloud. because obviously until now there was none.

jon did the cockney accents. (insert emoji for indescribable feeling)

here's the purpose of the pit: if we all climb in the muddy pit together at night, the earthquake will only jiggle us gently and no one will be inside collapsing buildings to be crushed. it's only logical

ok i was gonna say this before but why is jon still at georgie's house??? he's not on the run for murder anymore, right? he has an apartment with all his stuff in it, right? [footnote added in later: i still don't understand why it was like this.]

i will confess that usually once the credits start to roll i zip to the next episode, but this time i zoned out a bit and it's really funny that jonny sims reads out "Rate and Review Us Online" in his archivist voice

a third michael. this one is probably already dead though. unless distortion michael takes over this guy's body or something. oh, jon came in at the end of the episode to say precisely this.

was episode 100 mostly improvised? if so, that would be appropriate. but i wouldn't put it past them to write every stuttering bit of those four statements

MARTIN...................................................................................................................................................... (typed this as martin gave some of his own money to the lady who expected payment for a statement)

i'm skipping 100.1 through 100.5 for now... just for now.

ok so michael is michael but not lightning mike michael, and two of these michaels are dead, but one is something that has never been alive nor dead. got it

everyone's morality is much more gray than i at first anticipated. the only people who seem to be solidly and earnestly on the side of good, as much as possible, are jonathan and martin and basira and georgie and maybe tim?

so michael just died and was overtaken by pseudo-helen? neo-helen? ok. that's kinda too bad, as i enjoyed michael's terrible laugh and unpredictability. but the feeling of michael being revealed as having been michael shelley feels somewhat similarly disappointing (but a bit less staggeringly groan-inducing) to when the mysterious koro-sensei in assassination classroom was revealed to have been a twink in his past. because of course he was. (that's when i stopped reading that manga. too precipitously dumb to sustain my suspension of disbelief.) it's like, ok, you had an interestingly mysterious character going on, but having solved the mystery, what interestingness is left? not much. fortunately this was resolved by promptly ending the existence of this michael and instead introducing new and improved helen

ooh martin has the asky ability too huh? nice [footnote added in later: he only used it this one time, and i'm wondering if they did that and then forgot and decided that jon is actually the only one with asky ability.] [[another footnote added in much later: How did i manage to mistake jon’s voice for martin’s voice? How?]]

the way martin said "kumo ga tabeteiru" in episode 110... alexander j newall does not watch anime

"I'm a book." ~Gerard Keay, 2017

it was a few episodes ago now but i noticed that when jon clearly articulated "Jared" referring to gerard, elias was like "Jared? you mean Gerard Keay?" (pronouncing it like "Gerard.") there is definitely a disagreement between these two (actors) about how to pronounce that name

the eye, the spiral, the end, the stranger, the lonely, the desolation, the slaughter, the vast, the buried, the dark, the corruption, the web, the flesh, the hunt.

Q: why would anyone want one of these rituals to succeed? A: it's their fetish. it's their sexual fetish

ok time to make up names for each possible apocalypse. these are the real and true names according to me, who knows such things: the eye - the viewening the spiral - down the drain the end - the really end end the stranger - oh wait we know this one. it's the unknowing. the lonely - the alonening the desolation - Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Lightless Flame the slaughter - world war all the vast - the expansion the buried - the grand lahar (or the Smothering) the dark - the extinguishment the corruption - the Great Rot the web - the spidening the flesh - the smorgasbord (or the Eatening) the hunt - come and get it

gerry said there was no dark god of indigestion, but i can tell you from personal experience that there is. though it's true that there is also fear involved, so maybe no separate pantheon is necessary

i sense that there is a battle between people who say it like "gotta get myself oriented" and "i feel disoriented" (as feels correct/natural to me) and people who say "gotta get myself orienTATed" and "i feel disorienTATed," and this podcast falls SQUARELY on the latter team. they've said it like 20 times

idk why he has to be such a dick to helen. jeez

the guy who coded his mind into a computer, which of the 14 was that? the corruption? the stranger? gotta be the corruption, but that doesn't fit perfectly with its rot/bugs aesthetic...

speed -> speeding -> sped. heed -> heeding -> hed. thus i decree

in my dream i listened to a whole episode of this show, narrated by gertrude, and i was like "whoa this is cool" and i went to write it down but i was still in the dream and writing doesn't work in dreams :( also any successful writing in dreams doesn't transfer to real life paper :( the only snippet i remember: “...in his white mouth, which had known only bread...”

"I, uh..." Jonathan Sims, a thousand times, 20XX

martin's job is PLAINLY to distract elias and elias barges in like "martin. i see you're trying to distract me." and martin's like "maybe i am!"

o, jonny took a breath. that's good

he wasn't hooked up to an EKG or anything? you spend long enough with no heartbeat that they're just like "i guess we can turn this off"

this episode about philosophical zombies sounds a lot like that NPC meme from a year or two ago... and it makes me kind of uncomfortable, the way this person inspects others to determine whether they are True Minds or Impostors based on their emotional expressions, their eyes... because i don't always do the correct or appropriate expressions, and would someone judge me as being a non-person who is trying and failing to imitate human emotions?

i generally don't enjoy ships that have more-or-less explicit canon support, but i can't say jon/martin isn't good

melanie blaming jon isn't right... no one had a better plan to stop the unknowing, did they? (they didn't!) didn't all of them agree on the plan and understand that they might die? (they did!) she's just imposing survivor's guilt upon him because he survived for supernatural reasons. but it's not like he eagerly embraced his new supernaturalness, or even asked for it outright! i think she's being unreasonable. i didn't like her insistence on trying to kill elias either, even though elias is a huge dick. what's with her?

wait, peter lukas is the lonely? (meme where calculations and equations whiz past me)

jonathan baa'd

oh, see. the bullet is making melanie act without reason. i get it now. can't say i think they had the best approach to getting the bullet out, but all's well that ends well (???)

martin is being prohibited from talking to jon >:I martin is on a first-name basis with peter lukas >:I...

martin grumbles, "i don't like being manipulated..." while obviously and continuously allowing himself to be manipulated

jon is afraid of and uncomfortable with what he's becoming, at least to a degree, right? but he seems to be going about his duties (i.e. feeding the eye) with vigor and without reluctance. is he really that motivated by his own desire to know and understand? who is he doing this for? is the eye's influence on him so strong that "doing what the eye wants" seems to manifest as what HE wants to do?

"He'd place it over the one he wore already, and he would larf and larf and larf" (from breacon’s statement... just heard it like this for some reason)

deep water could be the domain of both the buried and the vast, because you could lose yourself in the vast ocean, but experience the physical effects of being buried under thousands of feet of water...

so tom han was an avatar of the flesh but he ultimately died after being tortured by the spiral... right?

"we're not people, though, are we? not anymore." close enough, i'd say.

jonathan has deployed THREE "I, uh..."s in episode 131 alone and i want to smack him in real life. FOUR NOW. JON. JONATHAN SIMS THE REAL ACTOR. LISTEN... quit falling back on your "I, uh..."s. and if they're written into the script i'll punch whoever did that too. total of five in a single episode. never utter "I, uh..." again

i hope whoever's throat is okay after doing bone turner voice for a whole statement.

jonny sure needs saving quite often, doesn't he.

peter lukas being a slightly chipper advocate for becoming a follower of the lonely is very strange

neil lagorio and his whole cinematographic history is made up but they namedropped kevin costner, who is real

VERY, VERY GOOD laugh at 23:44 of episode 136

melanie getting her session recorded... i was doing audio transcription for a while and you'd definitely come across bits of therapy-type sessions that very much seemed like they should have been confidential.

i wonder if the eye ultimately turned its back on gertrude and allowed her to be killed. if jon could survive a collapsing building, could gertrude not have survived a couple of bullets? wouldn't the difference be the protection of the eye? [footnote added in later: of course now i see who turned their back on whom.]

i'm somewhat heartened to learn that agnes montague was, in fact, a heavily cursed individual, though she seemed to have embraced it to a degree... and she wasn't made of wax.

i like that jon now includes helen in his office politics briefing

basira's like "Edmund Halley" and jon's like "Halley's comet?" (like “Hale-ey”) and two minutes later jon's like "Edmund Hally" (not "Hale-y")

"What's this?" "OH... That's, uh... that's... my rib..." "Right." (tiny clunk of rib being set down)

so giving a statement puts a curse on you... or is it "having a statement extracted / being compelled" that puts a curse on you? and the resulting curse, the fear it reawakens, is that good for the eye, or is that good for the powers that initially caused the fear?

well, i heard a homestuck reference in one of the patreon names at the beginning of an episode, and who is surprised? of course, i'm not one to talk

episode 144- the english think their summer is bad... as a professional "hot weather is bad" person, i feel doubtful, because if the sky is grey, it is not as hot as it Could Be, and therefore one should quit one's bitching

first statement about the extinction... interesting. but hearing martin be a jerk to daisy makes me sad :(

the powers never tell avatars exactly what they need to be doing, but that's just concerning the means. the ends are always clear: the power gets fed. and all of the powers feed on fear. also jonny is horny for statements. i hope, but also doubt, that his harmful behavior is at least partially the spider's doing. oh, i see now that it's not. yeah.

jon wants to eat fresh and delicious statements produced just for him, instead of reconstituting the dusty old statements already in the archive

episode 148 - samson stiller gets a crush. but in all seriousness, is he becoming an avatar of the eye but like, not institute-related? is that a thing? i guess that would make sense, but still seems weird

episode 149 - considering ring -> rang -> rung, we seem to have stumbled upon spin -> span -> spun, and the compasses gently span around (9:40)

does martin have loneliness powers now? it's sad that he is getting lonely... as a lonely person, i know.

the lady on TV in episode 150 was just speaking simlish.

i really want jon to overcome his urge to forcefully take statements because i want to be able to root for him still

british podcasts really have a leg up over american podcasts, at least among american audiences, purely based on their interesting and varied accents

i can't say the gravedigger's envy doesn't make me myself feel like going to sleep in the cold dirt forever. but bad depression lately is also a factor, so

jonathan having to settle for reading already archived statements instead of harvesting fresh ones is exactly like a vampire (not the kind detailed in this series) who has to choose between hunting people to suck their blood or drinking bags of donated blood from a (near-endless) stockpile. there's an ethical choice with a clear right answer, but the urge is also understandable

jon following up gertrude's tape with just "fuck" was really good. now he's like "ok martin. let's run away together"

spent all day at work thinking about how i can't fuckin believe the first thing jon did when he heard how to escape the institute was to go tell martin like "there will be a great cost, but... we can elope now"

also if tim was still around jon would tell him the way out and he would do it right then and there, i'm 100% sure. like before jon was finished explaining tim would be like "the eyes? (grabs scissors) got it. (does the deed)"

earlier today i was just thinking that we would almost certainly hear gertrude's death on tape, especially given that we now understand tape recorders are wont to turn on autonomously whenever something important is happening. anyway then i came home and heard gertrude's death on tape

peter, as an avatar of the lonely, is easy to play like a cheap whistle because as someone who clearly hates spending time around other people, he is not keen to the symptoms of being played.

elias is like "you'll have to go into the lonely to get him" and jon's probably thinking "but then at least we'll be in the lonely... ~*~*~together~*~*~"

i think martin's whole thing for most of the series has been that he sounds a little doofy, for lack of a better word, and people constantly underestimate his intelligence. and now he has played peter lukas like a cheap whistle and forced me to realize that by taking for granted that he was being successfully manipulated by peter lukas, i too was underestimating martin... and his pure love for jon <:3c no but seriously i even remember explicitly making a mental note to remember that martin is smartin but it fell by the wayside as my emotions (of sadness that jon and martin seemed to be growing further apart) took precedent

i work a non-verbal job just doing mundane tasks and that gives me all the time in the world to think about things like "if they were to have jon and martin reunite in a tearful embrace, how would you convey the physical contact in an audio format? like, whap? soft thud?"

jon enters the lonely and voiceover peter comes in to try and factcheck the ship

i guess it makes sense that peter would try to do the ritual for the lonely all by himself

did he kill peter by asking him to death? or did peter just self-destruct rather than be forced to answer?

the way jon snapped martin out of the loneliness just by making him look at his face... that's powerful. as a lonely person, i know that the most cry-making thing you can realize when you feel alone is that another person is, in fact, there with you

martin went for a walk and now it's thunderstorming. i wonder if he came back as soon as it started raining and now he's standing nearby invisibly as jon reads the intimidating magnus statement. ...I GUESS NOT

i plan to read through the transcripts of all the episodes (as it’s faster than re-listening, though i might selectively re-listen) so that i may better understand some things and answer some questions in this post that i didn’t ultimately resolve. i can’t say i was paying 101% attention all the way through. also april is very far away