#the big crunch theory

[aikya-kat-44]

Feel free to send me asks about physics and space I want to talk about them

[rambleonwaywardson]

Last Line Tag

Thank you thank you @swifty-fox for tagging me. It gives me an excuse to prove that I AM working on the TTMAB epilogue I swear. Piecing it together slowly like a damn puzzle.

We gotta go back to move forward...

Starbursts of pain color Bucky’s vision. Skull-splitting. All-consuming. It’s burning him alive from the inside out like a physical force trying to rip him apart. He thinks falling into a black hole would hurt less, spaghettification and all. He feels sick. He can’t think a coherent thought that isn’t something along the lines of ‘please make it stop.’ Somewhere, deep in his brain that won’t work, he hates himself for that. Knows he should be better. And out of all of that – this crushing, crunching, nausea-inducing pain that has Curt yelling at him not to throw up in his suit – the words that pop into his head like a cartoon thought bubble are “the Big Crunch.”  It’s Gale’s favorite theory for how the universe might end. Because Gale is a space physics nerd that has a favorite theory for when the universe might end.

Tagging @onyxsboxes @c-goldthorn @rangerelizabeth

[prythiansprincess]

the crush theory.

pairing: lorenzo berkshire x reader.

song inspiration: london boy by taylor swift.

author’s note: this is just a cute indulgent coffee shop! au with my sweetheart enzo. majorly inspired by all the boyfriend vibes louis has been serving with miss olivia lately. let’s not even talk about the ass grab with his big hands and rings…🫣

Enzo Berkshire never quite managed to master the language of love. 

Despite being a polyglot and a linguistics major, romance remained a complete mystery to him. It wasn't like he could craft a conjugation chart to help him not make a fool of himself in front of the girl of his dreams. When it came to matters of the heart, Enzo often found himself at a loss for words. Perhaps that was the reason why he never mustered up the courage to speak to you. 

Until that one fateful fall morning. 

The kiss of autumn arrived on campus a few weeks into the semester, freeing the city from the grips of the summer heat and bringing with it the changing of leaves and the distinct scent of cinnamon and apples. Enzo shoved his hands into the pockets of his burnt orange corduroy trousers and savored the sound of the jewel toned leaves crunching underneath his loafers. As the wind picked up, he wrapped his chunky knit cardigan tighter around himself to shield against the chilly breeze. 

The ivy covered brick buildings and cobblestone streets faded into the background as he walked past the quad. Deja Brew, the little hole in the wall cafe that Enzo frequented, greeted him like an old friend. The coffee shop was located on the outskirts of campus and was only a short walk from his dorm, which made it the ideal place to conduct his tutoring sessions. Not only was it convenient, but the cozy and quiet ambience provided the perfect setting for Enzo to teach his fellow struggling students. 

As time went on, the choice of location became less about convenience and more about catching a glimpse of you—the surly barista that worked the morning shift. For the past few months, Enzo developed a rather embarrassing crush on you. There was something about your scowl and no bullshit attitude that drew him to you like a moth to a flame. Though in his case, Enzo was perfectly content to hover a safe distance from the proverbial light of your fancy French cigarette lest he get burned. 

Upon first glance, anyone would have been intimidated by you. With your faded band tees, ripped jeans, and scuffed leather boots, Enzo was well aware that a girl like you would never be interested in a bloke who's wardrobe consisted of sweaters with elbow patches, floral print button downs, and neatly pressed pleated trousers. Needless to say, you were way too cool for him. 

Enzo was resigned to merely admiring you from afar, but fate seemed to have other ideas. The bell above the door tinkled softly as he made his way into Deja Brew only to stop dead in his tracks when he spotted you at the register. Usually, you were behind the bar manning the espresso machine during the early morning rush, but not today.

Today, you were front and center. 

Part of him considered walking out the door, but given the fact that the shop was nearly empty, a hasty exit would definitely not go unnoticed. Enzo had no choice but to suck it up and approach the register with resignation. The minute he opened his mouth, he was sure he’d muck things up. 

Enzo swallowed thickly and pushed his round framed glasses further up the bridge of his nose; a nervous habit he developed when he was younger. The erratic beat of his heart echoed in Enzo’s ears as his gaze flickered up to your face, expecting to be greeted with a frown. To his surprise, your lips curved into a small smile once you spotted him. 

“Lemon balm tea with two pumps of peach syrup and a dollop of honey, right?” 

Enzo blinked at the melodious sound of your voice, nearly missing the fact that you’d recited his exact order, which shouldn’t have been surprising given the fact that you’ve been making it for him for months. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a little warm inside as you looked at him expectantly. He stared in stunned silence for a moment. 

You furrowed your brow in doubt. “Did I get that wrong?” 

“No, no, it’s right. It’s great. It’s perfect—“ Enzo cleared his throat, mentally kicking himself for rambling. “I’m just surprised that you remembered it.” 

“Of course I remember it, you’re one of my regulars. I’d be a pretty shit barista if I forgot your order.” You cocked your head, tapping your lips thoughtfully. “Speaking of which, do you want your croissant warmed up, Lorenzo?” 

“You know my name?” 

Enzo hadn’t meant to sound so starstruck, but hearing his name come out of your mouth made his heart skip a beat.

“And your social security number too,” you deadpanned. Enzo’s eyes widened, which made you chuckle. “I’m just having a laugh. I promise I won’t commit identity theft against you. Unless you piss me off.” 

You accompanied the statement with a cheeky wink, which only made Enzo even more nervous. 

"Don't look so nervous, peach. I swear I don't bite."

“Right. Sure. Of course,” he stammered. “The tea and the croissant sounds good, Y/N.” The realization that you’ve never told him your name came a beat too late. “It’s on your chest. The name tag, I mean. I wasn’t just staring at your chest. Though I’m sure it’s very nice. Bloody hell, I’ll stop talking now.” 

Enzo cringed at himself, but eased when you laughed. “You’re a strange bloke, Lorenzo.” You said as you began making his drink. “But I’ve got to admit, it’s oddly charming.” 

He chuckled, trying to hide the flush coloring his cheeks. “That seems to be my sweet spot.” 

"As sweet as peaches," you retorted as you added two pumps of peach syrup into his tea. "You'll have to excuse the fruit references. Before I knew your name, I referred to you solely as the peach guy."

"Is that good or bad?"

Enzo hiked his backpack over his shoulder and meandered down the end of the counter where you were topping off his tea with a dollop of honey. You swirled it into a heart pattern before sliding the warm cup into a sleeve. 

"Well, I've never met anyone who's preferred drink could constitute as a dessert, so it's certainly something. You're an enigma, Lorenzo," you said thoughtfully. "Though I think I like peach better. You don't really strike me as a Lorenzo."

“You can call me Enzo. I prefer it over my full name. It sounds so stuffy.” 

“We certainly can’t have that,” you said with a smirk. “Enzo. I like it. It’s rather becoming. Not stuffy at all.” He chuckled as you handed him a brown bag. "I might still call you peach from time to time. Force of habit. You understand, right?"

"Of course," Enzo replied. "El loro viejo no aprende a hablar."

"You kiss your mum with that mouth, peach?"

Enzo flushed. "It's Spanish for the old parrot does not learn to talk. Basically their equivalent of you can't teach an old dog new tricks." He shifted his weight onto his other foot. "What I'm trying to say is, I don't mind if you call me peach or Enzo or whatever else you'd like."

"You're giving me way too much freedom, Enzo. I intend on taking full advantage." You winked as you slid his drink over to him. “Enjoy your croissant. I put a little something extra in there for you.” 

Enzo peered into the bag and saw an extra pastry wrapped in black cellophane next to his croissant. The brownie didn’t look like any of the ones behind the counter, which meant that it was probably homemade. Strange, he wouldn’t have pegged you for a baker. 

“Oh, you really don’t have to—” 

“Nonsense,” you countered, waving off his protests. “Really, you’d be doing me a favor. It’s an experimental recipe of mine, which makes you my guinea pig. As payment, I expect a full report on the brownie tomorrow morning. Don’t hold back either, peach. I want a brutally honest review.”

“I’m sure it’ll be great,” Enzo said in reassurance. “In any case, your guinea pig will take ample notes.” 

“That would be much appreciated,” you said with a serious nod. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Enzo-not-Lorenzo.”

Enzo couldn’t help but grin. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Y/N.” 

Enzo rubbed his temples, willing the headache forming behind his eyes to vanish. Unfortunately for him, his last tutoring session with Flint seemed to have left a permanent mark. While Enzo usually enjoyed teaching French, Marcus was proving to be a rather difficult case. Not only was Flint unwilling to do the work, the knobhead also spent the entire session leering at you instead of studying the conjugation chart that Enzo poured his blood, sweat, and tears on. 

“Merlin, I have no idea how you deal with rich, smarmy arseholes all day.” 

Enzo looked up to find you seated across the table, sliding a sandwich, a fruit cup, and a bag of crisps towards him without missing a beat. He hadn’t even realized it was already an hour past lunch until his stomach grumbled at the sight of food.

“One could argue that I’m also a rich, smarmy arsehole,” Enzo countered, picking up a grape and popping it into his mouth with a slight smile. “Yet you seem to have no problems dealing with me.” 

“Yes, well, everyone knows I’m just using you for your body. Specifically, your taste buds.” Enzo shook his head in amusement before taking a bite out of the sandwich. Peanut butter and jelly, his favorite. “Besides, how else am I supposed to learn new insults in different languages if I hadn’t met you? Speaking of which, I believe I’m completely justified in saying that Flint is a total gehirnverweigerer.”

“Marcus isn’t so bad. He just needs a bit of a push,” Enzo replied rather unconvincingly. 

“If by a push you mean my boot against his arse, then I wholeheartedly agree.” 

“The French have this saying, petit à petit, l’oiseau fait son nid. In English, it roughly translates to: little by little, the bird builds its nest.” 

“Except Flint isn’t a bird, he’s a twat,” you deadpanned. “The bloke was too busy staring at my arse to even pick up a lick of French. To think, you even made this cute little chart and everything. You have the patience of a saint, Enz.” 

“One of us has to,” Enzo replied as he tore open the bag of wotsits. “Given your proclivity to violence.” 

“Don’t make me take your crisps away, Lorenzo.” 

Shielding his wotsits from your vengeful wrath, Enzo flashed you a saccharine smile. For good measure, he even batted his pretty honey eyes at you. The audacity. “Have I ever told you that you’re my favorite person in the whole entire world?” 

You rolled your eyes fondly. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Berkshire. Now finish your lunch or else I’ll be very cross with you.” 

Enzo smiled to himself, wondering at the fact you were complete strangers until a few weeks ago. Ever since you gifted him with the best brownie he’s ever tasted in his entire life, he became your designated taste tester. Every morning, Enzo would start his day off with his usual lemon tea and whatever new pastry recipe you had chosen to tackle that week. Between the scones and muffins, Enzo learned that you intended on opening your own bakery after uni. Hence, his very important role of reviewing your recipes. 

Granted, Enzo didn’t know how much of a help he actually was given the fact that he thought everything you made was amazing. Still, the novelty of finding a fresh pastry in his bag with a handwritten note from you never failed to brighten his morning. Especially since you signed each one with a crimson kiss print that made him blush every time he laid his eyes upon it. It was safe to say his crush had only gotten worse the more he got to know you. 

As you settled behind the counter to help with the afternoon rush, Enzo attempted to get some work done before classes started for the day. With finals fast approaching, he was caught up on making sure he had everything in order. It wasn’t until Enzo heard a familiar voice when he finally tore his gaze away from his laptop screen. 

Enzo froze as he watched one of his best mates saunter up to the counter. Even from his seat by the window, he could tell that Mattheo was flirting with you. In hindsight, his friend seemed exactly like the type of guy you would go for. The broody bad boy who probably listened to all the obscure bands that you often talked to him about. As Mattheo directed his smoldering gaze at you, Enzo thought he might be violently ill. 

Squinting across the coffee shop, Enzo angrily shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers in an attempt to keep himself from strangling his curly headed friend. 

In a tone that was at least an octave deeper than his regular voice, Mattheo drawled a question at you. “What’s good here?” 

You stared at him pointedly before waving a hand towards the menu. “There’s coffee, there’s pastries. It’s really not rocket science.”

The deadpan delivery combined with the utterly unenthused expression on your face nearly made Enzo snort out loud. It might’ve been an arsehole move to rejoice at Mattheo’s fumble, but he found it immensely satisfying that you seemed to be immune to the infamous Riddle charm. 

“A bit feisty today aren’t we, love? I just wanted to see what the pretty lady behind the counter recommends.” 

Enzo watched in amusement as you slipped on your signature scowl, the one that made him fall for you in the first place. “The pretty lady recommends that you stop holding up the line so she can get to the other customers who actually know what they want.” 

Hiding his smirk, Enzo feigned surprise as a dejected Mattheo plopped down across from him. “Merlin, that was brutal. Is the barista always this mean? I complimented her pins and she stared at me like I’d grown an extra head.” 

“Y/N isn’t really a people person,” Enzo supplied. 

“No shit, Berkshire.” Mattheo tapped his fingers on the counter. “Let’s just get to class before I embarrass myself any further.”

“That’s probably for the best,” replied Enzo. 

Ignoring Mattheo’s glare, Enzo packed up his laptop and put his tray away. He followed his mate through the throng of people, which had thinned out once more. They were a few steps away from the door when you called out his name. With a raised brow, you held out a pink box. Enzo smiled sheepishly in return. He couldn’t believe he’d almost forgotten the dessert of the day. 

“One lemon berry scone. Less tart, per your critique last week.” He took the box from your hands, blushing furiously when your fingers brushed against his. “Have a good class, peach.” 

“Thanks, Y/N. I’ll have your full report ready tomorrow.” 

“You better.” Enzo nearly dropped the box when you winked at him. “Later, Berkshire.” 

Smiling to himself, Enzo came face to face with a gaping Mattheo. “For Salazar’s sake, it’s like I don’t even exist.” He muttered before breaking out into a grin. “No wonder my moves had no effect. Mate, she obviously fancies you.” 

Enzo’s cheeks immediately heated as he pushed out into the quad. “What? No. Y/N and I are just really good friends.” 

“Now I understand why you come here so often,” Mattheo remarked. “If the mean hot barista plied me with baked goods and called me peach, I’d be coming here every day.” 

“It's an inside joke about my drink order..." Enzo tried to explain. "The point is, Y/N isn’t mean. She’s actually really nice.” 

“Yeah, because she likes you.” 

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Does too.” Mattheo countered. “Why else would she bake you a scone?” 

“She wants to own a bakery someday. Obviously, that means she needs someone to test her recipes out on,” Enzo explained. “It’s how we became friends.” 

“Right,” Mattheo said with a shit eating grin. “Friends.” 

Enzo rolled his eyes. “Can we just please get to class?” 

“Whatever you say, peach.” 

“I have a theory,” Mattheo announced. 

Enzo sighed, rubbing his eyes. “Not this again, mate.” 

The rest of their friends perked up, abandoning their laptop screens and textbooks in favor of the newest piece of gossip. The little corner of the library that their group had claimed was fairly quiet, which was supposed to be optimal for revising, but Mattheo couldn’t seem to let his conspiracy theory go. He'd been badgering Enzo about it for a week.

“Berkshire here refuses to believe me, but I have it on good authority that Y/N has a crush on him. 

“Y/N,” Theo started, “You mean his mean barista friend? She’s proper fit.” 

“Don’t call her fit,” Enzo replied rather defensively. 

“A little touchy there, Berkshire.” Regulus said with a chuckle. “Is that jealousy I sense?” 

“For the millionth time, Y/N and I are just friends.” 

“Is that the same friend that makes all those tasty pastries for you?” Draco asked with a raised brow. “I’ve seen the cute little notes she leaves for you posted all around your dorm. With the adorable kiss prints and hearts. Seems to me like Mattheo’s right. Y/N’s sweet on you, cousin.” 

“Do me a favour and stop being a snooping twat, cousin.” Enzo retorted with a frown. “Y/N’s just being nice. It’s what friends do.”

“None of my mates have ever gone out of their way to bake me a bloody thing,” Blaise declared in feigned offense as he wrapped an arm around Pansy. 

“Yes, well, none of your mates even know where the oven is located, let alone how to operate it,” replied his girlfriend. Pansy smiled at Enzo. “Besides, I think their friendship is sweet.” 

“Thanks, Pans.” 

“So you don’t fancy Y/N?” Theo asked. Enzo opened his mouth then closed it. He was well aware that his friend was baiting him, but he refused to fall into Theo’s trap. 

“Like I said, we’re friends.” 

“In that case, you wouldn’t mind if I asked for her number, right?” 

As a matter of fact, Enzo did fucking mind. He minded very much. Too much, probably. But he couldn’t very well say that out loud. Instead, he masked his scowl and returned his attention to revising. 

“Knock yourself out, mate.” 

Theo smirked. “Alright then, let’s go.” 

“Go where?” Enzo asked disinterestedly, flipping through his study sheet for Latin. 

“To Deja Brew,” Theo replied smugly. “We all need a study break, anyways.” 

“You want to go there? Right now?” With each question, Enzo’s death grip tightened on his notes. “To ask for Y/N’s number?” 

“That shouldn’t be a problem, right? In fact, maybe you could introduce us.” 

Enzo would rather walk on hot coals. “I think I'll pass. I've already seen her turn Mattheo down and that was brutal enough as it is. I don’t need an encore.”

“Riddle’s probably not her type.” 

Mattheo frowned, crossing his arms. “I’m everyone’s type.” 

Theo chuckled. “Apparently not hers. Perhaps she’d prefer a handsome Italian, no?” 

Mattheo rolled his eyes. “In your dreams, Nott.” 

“Now I’m intrigued,” exclaimed Blaise. “I’d never miss an opportunity to witness Theodore get humbled. Are you sure you’re ready for a woman like Y/N, Nott?” 

“Please,” Theo scoffed. “I was born ready.” 

Against his will, Enzo found himself at Deja Brew ten minutes later. In his usual corner by the window, he brooded like a petulant child. This was a horrible, terrible, and idiotic idea. All he wanted to do was revise and now his study session had been hijacked just so he could watch Theo flirt with the girl he fancied. 

“You know, you can put a stop to this any time you’d like,” Mattheo said in a sing-songy voice. “Just admit that my theory is right. Y/N has a crush on you and I’m willing to bet that the feeling is mutual. Isn’t it, Berkshire?” 

Enzo crossed his arms, rolling his eyes. Instead of giving into Mattheo’s childish pursuits, he opened his laptop and pretended to be immersed with Russian translations. 

“Have it your way, Enzo.” Regulus declared, nodding towards the register. “Nott’s about to give us a show.” 

As irritated as he was with his friends, Enzo couldn’t tear his gaze away. Theo marched up to the counter with swagger and confidence, slipping on his signature smirk. You looked up from your phone screen, giving the tall and lanky boy a sweeping gaze. The unenthused expression on your face screamed that you weren’t at all impressed.

“Y/N, is it?” Theo drawled, squinting at the nametag pinned to your apron. “A pretty name for a pretty lady.” 

“Thanks,” you deadpanned. “My parents gave it to me. Now what can I get started for you?” 

“Aren’t you going to ask me for my name?” 

“I know who you are,” you replied dismissively. “One of Enzo’s friends, right? I heard about your little stunt in the fountain. You know, December’s not really a smart time to go skinny dipping.” Theo flushed as your eyes trailed down to his crotch. “Certain parts shrivel in the cold, Nott.” 

“I assure you, my parts were perfectly intact.” 

“That’s not what Katie Bell said,” you countered, tapping your lips thoughtfully. “I believe I heard something about shrinkage.” Theo opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water. “I’ll tell you what, Theodore. Why don’t I fix you up a cappuccino? It’ll help keep you and your parts warm and cozy.” 

Enzo bit his lip to keep himself from bursting into laughter. The rest of his friends snickered as they watched a dejected Theo return to the table. 

Regulus snorted as he sat back down in defeat. “Merlin, that was hard to watch. Absolutely brutal, really.” 

Theo glared at Regulus in response. “I’d like to see you do better, Black.” 

Regulus winked. “Watch and learn, boys.” 

The older boy had about as much luck as Theo. Though the attempts had put him in a foul mood at first, Enzo was absolutely elated as he watched you turn down his friends. Regulus received an eye roll while Draco reeled from the head to toe once-over that humbled the absolute hell out of him. 

“It’s useless,” his cousin mumbled. “She hates everyone.” 

“Or maybe Y/N just doesn’t appreciate random blokes chatting her up while she’s trying to do her job,” Pansy said with an eye roll. 

“Oh bloody hell, here she comes.” Regulus muttered under his breath. “I don’t think my ego can take another hit.” 

The boys cowered as you came closer, but you didn’t pay them any mind. Instead, you set a fresh mug of tea and a lemon scone down in front of Enzo. 

“Last one, I promise. It’s finally perfect this time.” 

“You said that the last three times,” Enzo said with a chuckle. “They were all brilliant, by the way. Not that you listen to my well crafted reviews.” 

“You say that about everything I make, Enz. Honestly, a girl bakes you a couple of treats and suddenly I’m the best thing since sliced bread.” 

“I’m just being honest,” he replied with a shrug. “You couldn’t bake a single bad pastry if you tried.” 

“I’d like to try a pastry,” Mattheo interjected. 

You tore your attention away from Enzo. The smile that you reserved for him transformed into a scowl, your entire body language turning stern. “I’m sorry. Who are you again?” 

“Riddle,” Mattheo supplied. “Mattheo Riddle.” 

“Right,” you said slowly, as if speaking to a small child. “My pastries aren’t for sale. You’re more than welcome to try the day-old brownie behind the counter though. If you can manage to chew through it.” 

Mattheo sputtered, but you paid no mind to his aghast expression. Enzo fought the urge to kiss you right then and there. 

“Closing again tonight?” he asked, ignoring the blatant stares from the rest of his friends. 

“Unfortunately. Diggory bailed again. Probably too busy snogging Cho to come in for his shift,” you said with an eye roll. 

“Leave those lovebirds alone,” Enzo quipped back. “They’re in their honeymoon phase.” 

“I can’t for the life of me understand how they aren’t sick of each other by now.” 

“That’s because you’re a mean old grump.” You glared at him, which only made Enzo smile. “Luckily for you, that doesn’t deter me. I’ll come keep you company if you want. I promise to be way more entertaining than Cedric.” 

“It’s not a hard task to accomplish, but I’ll take you up on it nonetheless.” 

“I thought you might say that,” he said with a small smile. “I’ll meet you back here after my last class. Pad Thai tonight?” 

You nodded and grinned back. “This is why you’re my favorite, peach.” 

The boys gaped as you ruffled his hair in parting. They waited until you were out of earshot before launching into a tirade. 

“What the bloody hell was that?”

“Just friends my arse.”

“I can’t believe she actually smiled at you!” 

“It’s strange how treating Y/N like an actual human being instead of pestering her while she’s trying to work yields such positive results,” Pansy retorted. “I think you all need to start following Enzo’s example. Clearly he’s had more success than you lot.” 

Blaise patted Enzo on the back. “Mate, you might be the most oblivious bloke in all of Britain, but you’d have to be an absolute knobhead not to see what’s right in front of you.” 

He hummed in response, glancing up at the exact same time that your gaze met his from across the room. You winked, making him blush furiously. Merlin, you were pretty. It was honestly unfair. Maybe Zabini was onto something.

When it came to you, even Enzo had to agree that he was a total and absolute knobhead.

Later that night, Enzo helped you clear the plates and mugs as the last customers trickled out of Deja Brew. The soft sounds of your perfectly curated playlist trickled over the speakers as you flipped the sign to closed. He watched with a small smile as you hopped up onto the counter and beckoned him over. The fairy lights twinkled above the ceiling, illuminating your smile as Enzo took his place next to you. 

The sight of you grinning up at him tugged at his heartstrings. There were coffee stains on your jeans and apron, your thick hair was falling out of its braid, and a cold bowl of Pad Thai awaited in your lap and yet he’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life. 

“Aren’t you glad Cedric bailed?” Enzo teased, knocking his shoulder with yours. “Now you get to enjoy cold noodles with your favorite person.” 

You chuckled, nudging him back. “I suppose this is nicer than listening to Diggory ramble on about Quidditch. It’s always bludger this, bludger that. I honestly considered bludgeoning him myself.” 

“To be fair, the man could merely breathe and you’d still find a way to be annoyed by it.” 

“No one needs to inhale that much oxygen.”

“I rest my case, you mean old grump.” 

You rolled your eyes affectionately. “You know, if anyone else called me that I’d poke their eye out with a fork.” Enzo chuckled as you stabbed into your bowl of noodles. “Besides, I have every right to be grumpy. It’s been a long day. Thanks to your incessant little friends.” 

“I’m sorry about the guys,” he said earnestly. “I tried to talk them out of flirting with you, but they’ve got this crazy theory.” 

“Oh?” You asked, raising a brow. “What’s the theory, then?” 

Enzo flushed, avoiding your gaze. “They uh…” He cleared his throat and stared at his shoes. “They think you fancy me.” 

“Hmm,” you hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe they’re not idiots after all. Your friends are right. I do fancy you.” 

White noise rushed through his ears. Enzo’s mouth fell open as he met your gaze. Surely, he hadn’t heard you correctly. 

“You alright there, peach?” 

“You…” Enzo trailed off, his voice tinged with disbelief. “You like me?” 

You chuckled. “I have for a bit. Thanks for finally noticing.” 

“How?” Enzo muttered. “What?” He cocked his head, trying to search for the proper words. “Why?” 

At the moment, it appeared that one syllable words were the full extent of his vocabulary. All those languages in his head and yet he couldn’t form a single coherent sentence. 

“Enz, I know your drink order by heart,” you explained softly. “I make you cupcakes and muffins. I write you notes every day. I thought I made myself pretty obvious.” 

“Gods,” he breathed, silently reprimanding himself. “I really am the most oblivious bloke in Britain.” Enzo licked his lips, turning over to look at you. “I just thought you were being nice.” 

“Lorenzo, when have I ever been nice to anyone?” 

“I am a bloody idiot.” 

“You never made a move, so I just thought you didn’t see me that way. Which is fine, by the way. I don’t mind being friends.” 

Enzo turned so fast he nearly smacked into the register. “Are you kidding? I’ve had a crush on you for months. You’re the best part of my day. Waking up and knowing that I get to see you every morning is the only thing that gets me out of bed.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“Because,” he stated matter-of-factly. “You’re out of my league. You’re smart and funny and not to mention way too cool. Honestly, I thought you’d go for someone like Mattheo or Theo or literally anyone else but me. Someone a little more…” he trailed off, waving a hand over you. 

“Scary?” 

“No! Well, yes. Someone more confident and intimidating.” 

“Bad boys aren’t really my type.”

He scrunched his eyebrows together in confusion. “They’re not?” 

“No,” you said, setting down your food and turning over to face him. “My type is a nerdy linguistics major who teaches me how to curse in six different languages and who makes cute little conjugation charts and orders drinks that should quite frankly classify as a dessert.” 

Enzo’s smile grew wider. "I like you too, you know. A lot. Like, embarrassingly so. With your grumpy little scowl and all black wardrobe and dry humor. I like all of it."

You beamed as Enzo leaned closer, tracing your lips like he was trying to commit the curves of your smile to his memory. His heart pounded in his chest as your eyes flickered up to meet his.

"Then kiss me like you mean it, Enzo."

Despite your confidence, the air left your lungs as soon as Enzo cradled your face in his hands. The twinkling lights made his brown eyes shimmer like pools of honey in the dark. The tension stretched between you as he leaned in closer, his lips brushing yours ever so gently. They briefly closed around yours—tasting, testing, taunting. Then the dam broke free.

Enzo pressed you closer and kissed you like his life depended on it. You smiled against his lips, melting into his touch as he tilted your head back for more. Butterflies erupted in your stomach as Enzo sighed into your mouth, his lips molding perfectly against yours. The once shy and experimental kisses turned needy and passionate, making you feel slightly lightheaded. Enzo savored your soft sighs, kissing you over and over again to elicit more.

It wasn't until you felt like the air had been depleted from your lungs when he finally relented. He pressed his forehead against yours, noses brushing as you both grinned at each other. It felt right to be this close. It felt like you were made to do this all along. Enzo brushed his thumb over your cheek, looking dazed as he pulled back to look at you. 

“It’s about time, Berkshire.” 

“Hey,” Enzo grumbled, pecking at your lips. “You can’t blame me. I couldn’t even look at you without blushing and making a fool of myself. You’re so intimidating.” 

“Not so scary now, am I?” 

“Oh no, I’m still terrified of you. But I’ve also seen you cry during the Notebook, so I know that deep down inside, you’re just a big softie.” 

You started to protest, but Enzo just leaned in and kissed you again. With his lips pressed against yours, you couldn’t even remember what you were about to say. As he pulled you into his lap, you heard cheers coming from outside. Behind the glass window, his friends were cheering and wolf-whistling rather obnoxiously on the street. 

Enzo responded by flicking them off and kissing you even harder, pressing your bodies together as you giggled. He hauled you to your feet, his arms circling around your waist as he dipped you for a better angle. Your back hit the counter as you raised to your tiptoes, winding your arms around his neck and mussing up his hair as you arched for more. The hollering only grew more incessant when Enzo grabbed your ass and squeezed. The groan that escaped from his mouth made you dizzy with desire.

If one kiss could elicit such a response out of you, it was almost scary to think what else Enzo had in his arsenal. A cheeky little smile curved against his lips as though he knew exactly what you were thinking. You basked under the warmth of his gaze, feeling flushed and flustered. That pretty face had you entirely fooled. Enzo was far from innocent.

“Gods, I really fucking fancy you.”

With a smile, you kissed the tip of his nose. “I really fucking fancy you too, peach.” 

Despite the many languages in Enzo's arsenal, no phrase or saying could convey how he felt better than his lips against yours. Maybe he hadn't quite mastered the language of love, but he had a feeling that you'd be more than willing to teach him.

[little-cereal-draws]

If Ghosts had a more mature rating and was able to do more creepy ghost powers/death side effects:

Pat, Humphrey, and Thomas are eternally bleeding. Their clothes are wet, their hand gets wet from touching it, they'll leave trails of blood down the hall, etc. The blood on their hand or the floor disappears pretty quickly as their ghost powers make them reset but their clothes are always soaked

Thomas's whole stomach and the top of his pants are bloodstained. Pat's is all located on his shoulders/necktie and has the most obvious stains due to the color difference of his clothes. There are a few drops here and there down his sleeves and chest. It's pretty heavy because of the major arteries the neck that would've been punctured. Humphrey's is by fair the heaviest and is all over the front of his torso. Like the whole thing. When he died he fell face down into the growing puddle of blood that would've been pooling from his stump

Fanny can turn her head frighteningly far. There's a sick crunching sound that happens when she does this and it always sends shivers down Alison's spine even after years of hearing it. The other ghosts have joked and compared Fanny to an owl because of this and she chews them out every time

Pat coughs a lot because he's got blood stuck in his throat. He'll randomly have a huge coughing fit, cough a bunch of blood into his hand and then go "Oh no. Anyways..." He also has trouble breathing and has to take breaks to sit down during physical activities like dancing or running. It annoying but not too much of a hindrance to his daily life; it's like having asthma or allergies. The blood can make his voice sound a little weird sometimes too, like he's gurgling smth while he talks. He just clears his throat and keeps going

The plague ghosts vomit up bile every once in a while. It's black, steaming, and putrid but disappears almost instantly

Kitty also throws up when she's excited... which is a lot. She also gets chills, lightheadedness, fevers, and uncontrollable shaking. There's not much the other ghosts or Alison can do to help her besides sitting with her/trying to distract her. She'll lay down and try to breathe through it while Alison reads her a story or the Captain infodumps abt smth or Robin holds her hand. Sometimes she falls asleep, sometimes she doesn't. She's always better after a few hours tho

Fanny gets really bad migraines. Alison's theory is that they're caused by her broken vertebra. Fanny doesn't particularly care why they happen. When they happen, she's in an even worse mood than usual so it's best to steer clear of her. She doesn't have the energy to yell at ppl but will remember the slightest fault and wait until she's better to go on a lecture. Again, there's not much Alison or the other ghosts can do to help besides let her lay down and try to be quiet

Mary and Robin's skin peels off. It's white and flaky and leaves raw red spots underneath. The dead skin disappears once it leaves them but the skin underneath is never healthy and flakes off too

Both Robin and Mary smell like burning flesh but only Mary is detectable by living people. Robin only smells when he uses his powers. It really puts a lot of the ghosts off, especially newer ones

Robin's body also gets affected by his powers in other ways. If it's something small like flickering a light, his hair will stand on end. Something bigger like turning a light on/off or flickering a more powerful light will cause him to spasm. It's usually just his arms and wears off after a minute. Smth really big like redirecting that lightning bolt for Mike will be the equivalent of him actually getting hit w the lightning. His body seizes up, falls over unresponsive and twitching for several minutes, but he's always ok in the end. Alison and the other ghosts get very worried but he walks it off

Julian and the Captain both feel remnants of their heart attacks. Shortness of breath, tingling/numbness in the arms, dizziness, heart palpitations, etc. They both choose to keep it a secret from the others and cover it up but if they're particularly stressed abt smth, they'll start getting chest pains which is harder to cover up. The Captain has excused himself from many social situations to go sit on the floor and try to breathe through the pain and calm his heart. Robin's the only one who knows about Julian's because it happened once while they were hanging out. Logically, they both know they can't die again but it's still scary

Mary likes to sit in the lake because even tho she can't feel it like she would if she was alive, the cold water is soothing on her burns

All the ghosts have days where they just lay abt bc the pain is too much to move. From who does it the most to who does it the least it goes Mary, Humphrey, Pat, Fanny, Thomas, Kitty, Robin, the Captain, Julian

[heron-knight]

The Wolf at the Door

finally, the moment I assume you've all been waiting for because I know my audience.

Really, that night was supposed to be perfect. All the paperwork sorted, nothing else needing to be done-- you’d been planning it for a few days. Put it off until the moon was full because you’d had work to do every evening before. A lot, actually, now that you think about it. Over the last few months, there had been quite a noticeable increase in the number of people in town with badly injured pets. Never that bad, but enough to make you wonder if nearly half the dogs in a ten-mile radius had been getting into fights suddenly. You’d been suspecting that some animal had probably shown up in the forest. Something big, by the look of the injuries, but probably an obligate carnivore that wouldn’t waste any more energy than necessary fighting a dog. You may still have just been working as a veterinarian in a small town, but that ecology degree sure wasn’t going to waste. It didn’t really matter now, though, you could leave your work out of this. This was your night. Work finished, medications taken, and with no work tomorrow, it was time for a long evening in the woods. Just you, the forest, and the crisp, chill air of a clear night in late fall. Going over your inventory, it seemed like you were fully prepared-- enough layers to keep you warm until you really got moving, a light with plenty of battery that you planned to use as little as physically possible-- and with some deliberation, a small can of bear spray in case your theory of “obligate carnivore that wouldn’t waste energy on fighting a dog and by extension probably wouldn’t attack a human” wasn’t entirely correct. 

Stepping out onto the porch, one breath of the night air was enough to remind you of why you’d gotten interested in your field in the first place. That intoxicating mystery of the dark. What was in it? What was the source of the sound of crunching leaves behind you as you stroll through the moonlit forest? A feeling like another you’d had before, but a bit less personal. Why’d you have to be born a creature that can’t see it? Human night vision is vastly limited even with time to adjust.  You’d always taken every chance to stay out late, to spend long nights standing in a meadow clipping bands onto owls just to know the species composition of the symphony of nocturnal hunters that you’d spent evenings listening to ever since you had been old enough to stay awake that long. Those little discoveries, those moments in class and in your independent studies when you’d see all those points of data and it was almost like what you needed, almost like being able to raise an ear to the woods and have it speak to you in its language of adaptation and trophic webs-- those were almost as wonderful as your evening strolls, lungs filled with moonlight and heart pounding from sheer wonder as your pace quickened almost subconsciously into nearly a sprint, ignoring the trails and leaping over fallen trees, feeling like a part of this trophic pyramid, this hunt, even tinged with frustration at eyes that couldn’t see well enough to find prey in the dark and legs that wouldn’t be able to keep up with it anyway. When the sounds of the night fill your ears and adrenaline surges through your brain, there’s no more worrying. No more thinking about loans or applications or appointment scheduling or how much time they said visible results would take to show up. No more thinking about how best to bring up the subject of the name you had seen your contact saved under on your mother’s phone even though it hadn’t been yours for nearly four years now. A quick run through the night would always tear all your worries from your mind like teeth tearing into a fresh carcass. Besides, that night there had barely been anything to worry about. The weather was perfect, you knew on some level that she’d change it immediately if you asked, and the slight ache in your chest invited the sneaking suspicion that for once, the overall experience varying from person to person might work in your favor, and things might have been moving ahead of the projected schedule. This was going to be a good night. That is, until the next step sent you falling face-first onto the porch as your foot struck something soft but solid that seemed to-- recoil slightly as you tripped over it. 

In the dim light of the porch, you could just barely see the dark shape that had interrupted your planned excursion. Curled in front of your door, breathing heavily through sharp teeth as the small but certainly alarming pool of blood in which it sat slowly increased in size. Your mind raced through all your experience and training as you stood, limped over to where the… creature… lay, and assessed the situation. Okay, we’ve got a… wolf, I think. There are no wolves in this area, haven’t been for centuries. No, I can worry about that later. It’s… hurt. Definitely. Looks like a big laceration along its side, multiple? From antlers, maybe? Okay, don’t panic… you’re trained for this. Okay… you went through your checklist. Okay, veterinary OR… don’t have one in my house. Patient sedated… no, but it probably can’t move anyway. I’d better stay away from those teeth, though. “Screw it!” you said out loud, reaching down and, with not insignificant difficulty, lifting the animal and carrying it into your house. Damn, this thing is huge. Countless papers and dishes hit the floor as you swept everything off the kitchen counter, ignoring the fact that you had definitely heard something shatter as you placed it carefully on top, then rushed into the bathroom and returned with as many towels as you could carry. The next few minutes were frantic-- rushing around the house, turning on as many lights as possible as you grabbed your personal medkit, as well as a few other things. This was far from an ideal setup, but your confidence was undeniable. Veterinary medicine was how you paid the bills. Wildlife rehabilitation was your passion. Besides, the first wolf in the state in around 200 years would be way too interesting to let die. Once everything was assembled, the kitchen was lit, and you’d taken a second to center yourself, you wasted no time in getting to work. Shave the area around the injury, clean the wound, stitch, disinfect, bandage-- all that was practically instinctual. No time to stop and wonder why the wolf was here of all places. It took a while, a not-insignificant number of stitches, and nearly all the bandages you’d had, but after some time your visitor was patched up, moved to the largest dog crate you could find, (though it still barely fit,) and seemed to be asleep but more or less alive. The satisfaction of a job well done, however, quickly faded as a glance around the room revealed the whole first floor of the house to be a mess of bloodsoaked towels, medical supplies, and all the things you’d thrown aside while tearing the place apart looking for said supplies, not to mention the bloodstains all over the carpet, most prominent from the door to the counter but by no means limited to there. Oh, and then there was the hair. As it turned out, when you shave off a large amount of an animal’s hair to have better access to the wounds and prevent infection, that hair has to go somewhere-- which, in this case, was everywhere, including and especially your favorite coat, which you had forgotten to remove once your plans for a moonlit stroll were interrupted, and was now soaked almost entirely through with blood and seemed to be the source of the stains on the carpet from the kitchen to the bathroom and other parts of the house. Exhausted, irritated, and with the adrenaline having mostly worn off, all you could really manage in response to that whole situation was a long sigh. Cleaning up the house could wait. Who cared if the blood started soaking into the carpet? Besides, you really needed a shower then. 

It hadn’t really gotten into your hair at all, so washing off the blood didn’t take much of your attention. The main reason was that a bit of warm water was perfect for calming down and getting a bit more centered. As good a place as any to go over the facts.

There is a very large wolf in my house. I brought it into my house because… scientific interest. Okay, fine. I like wolves and wanted to help it. Sue me. It is in a crate that I really hope it is too tired to try and escape from, because there is no way it would hold.

There is a very large wolf in this state despite them being extinct in this part of the country for quite some time now, and I think if someone had managed to get them reintroduced to this area, I would have heard about it. Besides, that still wouldn’t explain why it’s so huge.

This very large wolf was injured, probably by a deer, and decided to, out of all the places it could have gone, lie down directly in front of my door. If this area actually did have a wolf population that survived the historical extermination attempts, then they would have to be very good at hiding from humans. This one seems to have actively sought human assistance. 

After thinking for a moment, another realization hit. The wolf has seemed… off, somehow. You’re pretty sure it had extra toes, but you’d have to check to make sure. What exactly was up with this thing? This huge, wounded animal that had shown up, completely alone, in front of your door and despite not having lost a ton of blood, had really been a surprisingly cooperative patient. Something was definitely strange, but you did not have the energy to deal with it then, a glance at your phone as you were drying off with one of the last clean towels in the house revealing it to be 12:27. Maybe you had spent just a bit longer than you had realized staring at it as it lay in the crate. The decision to handle that whole situation in the morning was made nearly instantly, congratulating yourself on your decision to handle everything that needed to be done that night before the walk as you pulled on a robe and staggered into your room, collapsing onto the bed and falling asleep much quicker than the average person with a wolf in their house would have. 

Waking up that morning was a slow process as usual, sped up only slightly by the need to go check on the wolf downstairs. Luckily, you still had some spare dog food left over from when you had taken care of the neighbors' dog a few months back, and besides, it probably wouldn’t be particularly feeling like eating in its current state. That gave you a few handy excuses to stay in bed just a bit longer-- that is, until only a few minutes after you went back to sleep, you were woken up by the sound of the coffee maker downstairs. Several possibilities ran through your head, none of them entirely plausible, but when you hear someone or something using one of your kitchen appliances while being the only thing in the house besides a large wounded animal, plausibility tends to be the last thing on your mind. Okay, possibility one: there is someone in my house. I think I would have remembered if somebody had been over while… all that was happening last night, so someone must have broken into my house in the middle of the night, stayed until the sun came up, and… started making coffee. That theory was quickly discarded, as it made even less sense somehow than theory #2. Possibility two: somehow, despite numerous injuries, the wolf that was last night unable to even react when I was putting enough stitches in it to make a scarf has somehow broken out of the crate (without waking me up), and is now wandering around my house and must have bumped into the coffee maker and turned it on by accident. How exactly a wolf, even one nearly four feet tall at the shoulder, could turn on an appliance on the kitchen counter by accident, was not exactly taken into consideration. Even if it had somehow gotten up onto the counter, it required quite a bit of force to press the buttons. Both theories, though unlikely, were better than no theory at all, so both were kept in mind as you rummaged around in the pile of yesterday’s clothes for that can of bear spray you’d been planning to take on the walk. Whether it was the wolf or an intruder, going downstairs unarmed didn’t seem like the best idea. 

The first thing you noticed upon glancing down the stairs was the hair. Yes, there had been quite a lot when you had gone to bed the previous night, but not this much. The kitchen wasn’t visible from the top of the stairs, but the coffee maker was still on. Where did all this hair come from? It practically coated the floor. At this point, you just had to see what was going on, descending the stairs as quietly as possible and pointing the bear spray in the direction of the noise, not sure what to expect… but whatever you might have been expecting, this wasn’t it. The can fell from your hand, landing with a thud on the carpet as she turned to face you. “Oh, hey… thanks.” she said as you stared, her voice sounding tired and weak. The person that stood in your kitchen, wrapped in one of your blankets and, judging from the lack of any footwear, probably nothing underneath it, reached a shaking hand out from under the blanket and picked up a mug of what… wasn’t exactly coffee, but was more just her attempt at it. For a moment, you caught a glimpse of the bandages wrapped around her midsection, seemingly applied quite expertly but tied at one end as if she’d… shrunk after they were applied, leaving them loose-fitting. The crate that you’d put the wolf into was unlatched, the door left open, and every inch of the cushions inside covered with a thick layer of shed fur. “Got any clothes?” your brain had simply ceased to function, all your concepts of causality and rational thought shattered due to the sheer lack of any possible explanation of how she’d ended up in your house… or where the wolf had gone. 

“Who… I mean… why-- how are you here?” was all you could manage as your mind began to short-circuit for a number of reasons.

“You brought me here.” she said, taking a sip of her not-exactly-coffee and immediately regretting it. “Well… not like-- “here” as in the area, but like, into your house. That’s what I was thanking you for. You didn’t like… summon me or anything." She held up the mug. “I… is it supposed to taste like that? I’ve never actually had any before and I think I made it wrong.” slowly, you started to descend the staircase, walking through the piles of shed fur past the empty crate and into the kitchen. “Um… yeah. I-- I think you forgot to put a filter in the machine. That’s why it’s… wait, but you… how did…” she stared at you for a second, waiting for me to figure it out, even through the clear tiredness on her face, it was obviously visible that she was somewhat disappointed you hadn’t already realized. “Wait!” you shouted, all the puzzle pieces snapping together, but without much conscious certainty due to just how outside the box it was. “You… you were the wolf?” she grinned slightly, a sort of “now you’ve got it” expression as she turned back to the coffee machine and tried to get it to work.

“...right. “Werewolf,” “Lycan”, if you want to get scientific.... Whatever you want to call it. Now, I repeat m’ previous question about the clothes. Kind of freezing my knot off--”

“Then why are you walking around right now?” she was completely caught off guard by the fact that out of all the questions you could have asked, that was the one you started with. The worldview-shattering revelations of the nature of biology itself could wait. Your work wasn’t done. She didn’t try to argue as you led her over to the couch, the conversation having paused completely until she was lying down and you had made completely sure that she understood that she wasn’t supposed to get up again, then rushed off momentarily to get what medical supplies you hadn’t used the previous night.

“You’re handling this information surprisingly well.” she mumbled in between sips of the coffee that you had made as you carefully moved aside the blanket, unwrapping the bandages and sighing with relief upon seeing that not only had that bit of movement not damaged the stitches, but also however her transformation worked, it had kept them in the correct places. The medkit was put back on the shelf, and the bandages were cut into a length that fit her current form better. “Most people freak out.”

“Well,” you said, bringing over a second blanket and placing it on top of her, “that’s a disheartening number of people’s reaction to me, so… I kind of get it.” 

“Oh! You’re also…”

“Huh? No, I’m trans. Didn’t know werewolves were real until a few minutes ago.” she chuckled softly for a moment.

“That was what I meant. So am I.” you both laughed for a minute, (her with some difficulty, but with enough volume to reassure you that her lungs weren’t damaged.) “But similarities aside, usually werewolves turning out to be real takes a bit longer than that to process.”

“You’re my patient.” you said firmly. “Top priority was making sure you didn’t get hurt. Second priority, which is what I can focus on now, is figuring out all the werewolf stuff.” she pondered this for a bit, then spoke.

“Okay… so, what’s your first question?”

“How did it happen?” 

“So, Lycanthropy isn’t exactly… well-known. Real lycanthropy, I mean. They don’t teach you about it in school, or anything. However… As it turns out, we’re pretty good for the ecosystem. We fill a niche that’s been empty for a while, keep the deer population under control… so if you know where to look, sometimes you can find an organization that can turn you. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it sucks. The process, I mean, not the lycanthropy. Ten layers of bureaucracy in between you and actually scheduling your appointment, the crazy long wait time once you’ve actually got it scheduled, all the forms of ID you need to bring in case something goes wrong and they need to identify who it was that just ran into the forest never to be seen again… the actual initial turning isn’t as bad as all the warnings they make you read make it look,” she lowered the blanket around her shoulders, revealing a sizable bite scar. “But it’s not exactly a walk in the park, pun intended. It’s definitely worth it though, if turning is what you needed.” she didn’t seem to notice that you had been silent for a while, lost in thought. “Anyway, I’ve been doing pretty well ever since. It feels amazing, going out on a hunt when the weather’s nice. Can’t exactly go into detail on how it feels without getting a little weird, but I think you’d get it.”

“I think I do.” you said, “but… you should probably rest for a bit. We can pick up on this conversation later.” she nodded and shifted her position slightly. “Hey! Don’t scratch that!” 

One implied threat involving a cone later, you made your way back up the stairs. Even if there were plenty of parallels, processing all that information did take some time. “There is a werewolf on my couch” was one thing, but there was something about that whole exchange that made your mind race and your heart pound. Some reason beyond the surprise, beyond the shock to what you had previously believed, beyond the whole excitement of the encounter, hell, beyond even the fact that even though you hadn’t been consciously paying attention at the moment, you were pretty sure that your legs had started shaking when she’d said the word knot, an aspect of the whole encounter expanded on by the fact that it seemed werewolves did not carry their clothes with them when shifted. No, it was more than just that. Some part of it, some sneaking suspicion that prowled in the back of your mind, clawing like an animal in a cage at the walls of your subconscious, a desire you’d had. One you’d abandoned long ago because you’d thought that life didn’t work like that. An offhand daydream that now filled your mind with one suspicion, one question, now to nobody but yourself-- is it really that easy? Does it really work that well? That question you hadn’t let yourself ask for so long, ignored every time because it hurt to think about when your answer had been no. but… maybe. For now, it stayed as it had been. A sneaking suspicion, but now stronger. Maybe your previous answer was wrong.

Your patient, for the most part, did quite well over the next few weeks-- stayed on the couch, had plenty of appetite, and only whined a little bit when you changed the bandages-- you’d even managed to find some spare clothes for her, though you had to search a bit for some shirts that wouldn’t get stretched. Either lycanthropy made HRT more effective, or she’d been on it for way longer than you had. Only real challenge was that she tended to get lonely. You tried to keep things professional at first, of course, talking to her in your “speaking-to-clients” voice, and offering to move her to the couch in your office for a little extra privacy, but with just how frequently she’d asked you to watch movies with her or wait to make a request until you were just about to leave the house, you’d quickly realized that being professional was not at all what she needed. Even though she knew that she was going to be stuck on the couch for a while, even though she was supposed to just be your patient, all she really wanted was to just be seen as a roommate. You could tell in the way she tried to make small talk whenever you walked past-- how excited she always got when you found something to talk about. Screw “keeping things professional.” She needs someone to talk to.

“Wait…” she said one day as you prepared to make a trip to the store. “Can you get me--” 

“You can just say that you want me to stay for a bit longer” the statement caught both of you off guard, a small comment half out of frustration and half out of hope that she’d take you up on the offer. The room was silent for a second.

“Please?” she asked. Slowly, you walked over to the couch, sitting down on one end of it as she moved her legs out of the way. “I… so, you’ve…” she stammered, moving slightly until she was up against the back of the couch and clutching her pillow. “I was wondering--” with a sigh, you removed your coat, tossing it onto the coffee table and interrupting her request by fulfilling it. She exclaimed softly as you flopped down onto the couch next to her. Gingerly, she moved one hand up, out from under the blanket and placed it in yours. You could feel yourself start to blush as the two of you laced your fingers together, her hand slightly colder than yours but warming up quickly. It was nice-- a sort of soft, quiet confirmation, slowly expanded as you wrapped your arms around each other and you were pulled into a tight embrace. 

“Yeah, it’s okay.” you murmured as she held you, starting to… tremble slightly as you moved your hand in slow, gentle circles along her back. She was surprisingly strong for someone so injured, holding on so tight that you were pretty sure you couldn’t leave if you’d tried. “You’re… really touch-starved, aren’t you.” she nodded. One thing was certain, she had definitely needed this. 

After a minute her hands started to wander, tracing along your arms to all over your upper body, an exploration driven by the desire to know you, to memorize your shape, your scent, your warmth. Just thinking about it, that way she explored, immersing herself in a thousand sensations-- mapping out every part of you with a full sensory profile-- just that feeling was on a completely different level from and of the other times you’d spent a quiet afternoon with someone in this way. That she could understand. It honestly left you envious. How could someone be able to know anything like this? To learn of it in every aspect, the full complexity of something all laid out before them, that near-omniscience that you had searched for in every ecology class, every late night spent listening to the sounds of the forest, every time you had sprinted through the woods on a moonlit evening-- to just breathe deeply and find the truth of it, the nature of it. Beyond your limited human senses, looking down from the top of the trophic pyramid freely. 

“...thanks.” she said, letting her hands rest gently on the sides of your face. “Can I… tell you something?” of course. Of course she could. “I’m just-- feeling really alone. I’m… the only one in the state. Had to drive really far to be turned, even. that’s-- that’s not how it’s supposed to be. We’re not solitary creatures.” 

“Lycans?”

“People.”  she curled forward slightly, pressing her forehead into your collarbone. “Lycans, yes, but also just people. Running through the forest, being able to taste the entirety of nature in a single breath-- it’s amazing, but I… I don’t want to have to do it alone, it’s--” slowly, she relaxed her grip, looking up to face you. “It’s still kind of scary, going into the forest at night. It’s huge, wonderful, delicious, but… the first step out the door is still hard to make. I get scared, out there in the woods. I get scared and then-- and then I can’t shift right and I get slowed down and I get hurt." In her voice, you could just barely hear that tiredness that had been there when she had first arrived at your house, the exhaustion of being afraid, permeating through every other aspect of the words-- the sadness, the hope, even the fear itself. She was silent for a second, then leaned in, her face inches, then centimeters from your shoulder until finally she was close enough that you could feel the movement of her lips as she spoke. “May I?” yes. Please. Do it. That feeling, that warmth as you felt that gentle pressure moving across the side of your neck was enough to make your face feel hot, gasping softly as the kiss traveled upwards towards your face, tight and precise as you first felt it on your collarbone but gradually relaxing until you could feel her tongue running along your throat. Could she feel with her lips how fast your heart was pounding? Could she taste it? There was no possible chance of keeping hold of conscious thought as the flood of sensation rushed through your brain, just the desire was left, just the need for this to keep going. No way to contain the sounds that escaped as she bit down gently on your ear. You didn’t need to contain them anyway. 

“Am I doing good?” she asked playfully before sliding a hand around to the back of your head, pulling you closer again and putting your lips to hers. You couldn’t respond, of course, even if anything but moans could come out of your mouth at this point, you couldn’t say anything as the kiss deepened until your saliva was dripping down the side of your face onto the couch. You got your answer across just fine with how much your legs shook, though-- how tightly you squeezed her shoulder as you felt her other hand brush against your thigh. 

Eventually she pulled back, a single tendril of saliva between your blushing faces. You let out a quiet whine. She had stopped just when things were about to speed up.

“We should… probably wait a bit.” she said. “Full disclosure, sometimes I transform accidentally if I get too excited, and… well, I don’t want to tear these clothes you let me borrow, and you said no shifting until I’m fully healed.” 

“Yeah…” you replied disappointedly, slowly starting to cool down slightly. “You’re right. Don’t want to mess up the bandages.” you were both silent for a minute. “But… just wondering… would you have to stop if that happened?” she leaned forward again.

“That’s entirely up to you.” she whispered into your ear. Gradually, you sat up, making sure to keep holding onto her hand as you moved until her head was resting on your lap. You could feel your heartbeat and hers slow down, no longer as frantic as they had just been, leaving only a gentle sort of warmth that you could feel spreading from your fingertips throughout your body as you began to pet her head. You had one question, one request, that you needed to make. You decided to wait until she was in a state to fulfill it to ask. 

You’d suspected that your guest-- no, your roommate, healed a bit faster than average from the fact that she had been able to walk around (probably shouldn’t have, though) immediately after waking up on the first morning, but this suspicion was quickly confirmed as one day while changing the bandages you had noticed that one of the wounds had closed completely. Maybe it was the lycanthropy, maybe the injuries were never as bad as you had thought they were, or maybe some combination of the two plus the fact that she had something to look forward to once she was completely healed. Whatever the reason, the stitches were out barely a month after you’d put them in and almost immediately afterwards, it had gone from her not being allowed to walk to you not being able to for half the day. You’d thought about it for quite some time, of course-- long before you’d even known that werewolves were real-- but fantasizing about it was simply not on the same level as actually feeling the muscles and bones inside the hand that was holding onto your shoulder twist and snap, nails growing into claws as she shifted halfway through, each sensation changing slightly-- hearing the hot breath against the back of your neck turn to canine panting, feeling as newly sprouted fur brushed back and forth against your skin with each movement-- and then that moment after as she changes back, looking at you expectantly with that expression on her face that could not possibly better convey the question of “did I do good?”, waiting eagerly for you to regain your senses enough to answer. Every moment was laced with that question, the one that had gnawed at the edges of your mind since the first morning-- that desire to keep up, to be on her level, that envy for lack of a better word. At the moment, you couldn’t help but feel somewhat like a chew toy at best, not that you particularly minded. Those weeks and eventually months after she had healed were by far some of the best in your life, understanding what she had meant as your long walks at night became better with company. It still felt like just a walk. She couldn’t exactly hunt that effectively with your human footsteps making so much noise, but she had said it was fine. It didn't feel fine, though, not for lack of the excursions’ quality, but because watching her run circles around you in the moonlight, ducking under low branches and weaving through the trees as if she was swimming through the forest reminded you of what you weren’t.

Or rather, what you weren’t yet. 

“Can I ask you for something?” you said one day as you returned from a morning walk. “It’s… I’m not entirely sure if you could, and I’m definitely not sure that it’s entirely legal, but…” She leapt onto the couch, landing in human form and looking at you, confused but intrigued. You took a deep breath, then asked, the question tearing through its cage into your conscious mind as the words formed on your tongue after too long spent waiting to be said. It felt good to finally say them. She smiled when she heard it, as if she had been waiting for you to ask-- hoping that you would finally request that she do this for you. Four words-- that’s all it was. Four words were all you needed. Described all you needed. Compressed that desire, that need to know the nature of the forest, to know her-- all into one question.

“Can you turn me?”

She grinned, standing and walking towards you before suddenly pulling you close and kissing you. Over the time you’d known her, you’d learned that kisses could say things-- so much potential for all sorts of emotions to be woven into the passion. You could read this one clearly in the warm, gentle sigh right before contact, the sense of relief felt in every moment of it, that slight hunger to it-- 

“Of course~” she said, her face still inches from yours. “I could do it tonight, if you want… I’ll need to prepare you a bit for it-- your room as well. It’s quite an… Involved process.” you nodded, almost frantically, your heart pounding in anticipation. “Good!” she reached up and patted you on the head. “Can’t wait.” She turned and walked up the stairs to your room, pulling the blankets from your bed and piling them in the corner. 

“You didn’t seem surprised when I asked.” you stated as you followed close behind, helping set up your room as she directed. 

“Oh, please.” she tossed the towels she had just retrieved onto the now-empty bed and slid over to you, placing a hand on your chin and staring directly into your eyes. That look on her face made you wonder if she was about to sink her teeth into you then and there. “In all that time I’ve been a werewolf-- hell, in all the time I’ve known they existed and probably even before then-- I have never seen anyone who needed this more than you. I could tell from the way you asked how I became like this.” your face had immediately turned bright red. At first, you had thought that part of the excitement of this relationship was in some part due to the novelty, but that notion was quickly disproven as the days turned to weeks and her ability to set your heart pounding with just a few words had not diminished at all. The two of you continued to prepare the room, removing any breakable objects from it as well as “anything you don’t want getting stained.” she wasn’t exactly specific, but while she said that your posters probably wouldn’t be at risk, it was probably best to take them down temporarily, as apparently you could never tell for sure what might be in the “splash zone.” an average person likely would have been somewhat put off by the vagueness or lack thereof of what exactly the experience would entail, but an average person probably wouldn’t have invited a werewolf into their house, and definitely wouldn’t have upgraded the nature of that invitation upon deeming said werewolf healed up enough to accept. The average person didn’t need this like you did, though. Like both of you did. They didn’t feel that frustration, stuck between barely seeing anything and seeing nothing beyond the range of some horrible light as the only means of experiencing the dark. They didn’t feel the need to breathe in the cold night air like you did, to tear into the nature of things, cracking open bones to drink the truth of the forest from inside. They did not care about the question of “what am I?” and even if they did, they did not come to the conclusion of “not this. No, I am more. Should be more. I’ve been working on it, but I’m not done yet.” 

You shivered slightly as you felt the cold air on your skin, your cheapest towels feeling itchy against your legs as you knelt in the center of the bed, arms by your sides. All you’d been able to do was wait once you’d finished setting up the room. You couldn’t focus on anything else with what you knew would happen in just a few hours, and once the sun had gone down you’d practically rushed through the final preparations-- open all the doors from the porch to your room, make sure you were only wearing clothes that you were okay with being shredded, which did not describe any clothes you owned. You regretted your decision to not find any sacrificial clothing  slightly, not expecting how chilly you would get, but apparently once it started, you’d be heating up really fast and would probably just be out of them pretty soon anyway. The room was dark, with the only light coming from the moon through the window. you stared at it absentmindedly.

“So… what are the towels for?” you asked as she paced around, performing a few final checks and making sure said towels covered the mattress completely. You had been so caught up in the excitement of anticipation that you hadn’t quite asked that much about what exactly the process would entail, not that anything anyone would have said could possibly have stopped you from wanting to do this. She reached over, gently lifting your arm and running a single finger from your shoulder down to your hand. 

“This process isn’t any more clean than it is painless.” she said, moving her hand back up and lightly squeezing different parts of your arm and shoulder, as if trying to find the softest part. “When I had it done, I ended up bleeding from my pores. All over. Bones might end up breaking the skin too, but it’ll heal in a few minutes, and next time you shift everything will know exactly where to go.” it felt nice, somehow-- hearing that last part.-- “next time you shift.” you weren’t just hearing her talk about it now. Now you were part of it-- this side, this aspect of the world. You hadn’t even noticed how separate you had felt from it before, how separate even from the concept of yourself you had been. This is who I am. It was almost strange to think about how meaningless to you the word “I” had been until now-- like snapping out of a daydream, only this was you reentering the present-- your sense of self coming back into focus with your consciousness-- for the first time. The air seemed much more crisp already as you leaned back and she began to gently probe your chest and stomach, one of which was already feeling slightly sore from your other journey towards gaining a body that is truly your own, (which you were quite proud of your recent progress in, though the clothes you’d just bought to compliment it were currently lying in the hallway) and the other because on her suggestion, you’d skipped dinner. “We’ll be finding ourselves some dinner out tonight.” she had said earlier. 

You sat up, returning to your kneeling position as she stepped back and leaned forward into a deep stretch before pulling off her shirt and tossing it into the hallway. “Ready?” you asked excitedly. She gave a short nod. Taking a deep breath, you closed your eyes, letting your arms rest limply at your sides again, relaxing every muscle as much as you could as she gently patted your head. 

“It’s going to hurt.” she said. “But also… so does everything else, really. No avoiding it if you want to live any real life. Believe me, it’s not easy to take the first step off the porch, and that gets more true the darker the forest is. Yeah, parts of it will suck. Parts of it will make you feel like you’re getting torn apart and that you can’t be sure of anything. Hell, parts of it might make you regret it for a second-- make you think that it wasn’t worth it.” she let out a brief sigh before continuing. “But just remember…” you felt her hand slide down from the top of your head to the side of your face and opened your eyes just a bit to see her staring intensely. “That you’re alive, and all that it entails. Things hurt. Things change. You lose people and you find others. Sometimes it's so dark that you wouldn’t be able to see anything without changing, and sometimes you might find one night that you’ve changed and now you can see the whole forest clearer than ever. It’s going to hurt, but… every second is going to feel amazing.” in the dim light, you could see that she was crying slightly. “That’s-- that’s what it is to be alive. That’s what it means to be you. To finally become yourself. The sheer exhilaration of change. It’s the best thing I’ve ever felt, and sometimes there’s been pain along the way, but don’t let anyone tell you it’s not worth it.” she took a deep breath before stepping back once more. “Alright, that’s enough hype. Let’s do this.” You could see a soft smile on her face before you closed your eyes again, focusing on your breathing as you heard the familiar sound of flesh and bones twisting and warping in front of the bed before that heavy thud as paws hit the ground. Then, from where she stood came a long howl. The sound of it carried that same excitement as you had felt on every long night, every moonlit walk, the same anticipation as you’d had that night, just about to leave the house right before the encounter that changed your perception of what you were allowed to be. 

Your heart almost skipped a beat as the large shape before you lept from the floor and landed heavily on the bed in front of you, nearly pitching you forward as her weight pressed into the mattress. You could feel each step she took towards you, one foot, then the other, then the other, then the other until finally you could feel the heat of her breath and the pressure of her front leg on your thigh, claws digging into your skin sightly as she leaned in close enough to taste you. The anticipation was far more excruciating. You flinched as you felt a cold, wet nose against your chest, stationary for a moment before beginning to travel, exploring every inch of you with each inhalation. You knew that she’d already decided on where to bite. Same place she’d had it, same place every voluntary lycan probably had it. Maybe she was just teasing a bit, knowing how it made you blush whenever she explored you like this-- how much it set your heart pounding just thinking about how close her teeth and tongue were to your skin. That, or maybe she was just taking in your pre-turning scent one last time as a sort of “before picture” so that she could see afterwards how much you’d evolved. Finally, you felt as she moved up, standing at her full height over you as you trembled with anticipation, adrenaline, and who knows what else, opening her mouth and running that huge tongue across your collarbone, saliva coating your shoulder and dripping down onto your legs. Focus on your breathing. There wasn’t anything else to do, really, as she leaned forward and gently but hungrily slid her jaws over your shoulder, making sure everything was lined up perfectly, shifting slightly to right between your shoulder and your neck. You could feel the slight pressure of each tooth against your skin, just light enough at first to let you know where they were, where they were going to pierce. She was large enough when shifted that the front teeth on her upper jaw were almost below your shoulder blade.

Slowly, the pressure increased, gradually enough to give you time to take a deep breath first, to grip the towels you sat on so tightly that your knuckles turned white as she began to bite down, feeling it start to hurt, barely noticeable at first but but increasing in intensity until you had to grit your teeth. The seconds seemed to last forever as you waited. 

It didn’t hurt as much as you’d expected as you felt each tooth sink into you, waves of pain shooting through your entire body as they pierced through skin and fat until they dug between the fibers of your muscles themselves. They punctured through soft and yielding flesh seemingly one by one, the longer ones first, sinking deeper into you with every other tooth that broke the skin until you felt molars scraping directly against your collarbone, threatening to snap it in two. It was only half a second of that intense pain until you felt it-- that other feeling, seeping into your shoulder gradually at first, almost indistinguishable from the warmth of the blood starting to ooze from around each still-embedded tooth. Not pain, not numbness-- clarity. You could feel the texture of her teeth through the pain, her saliva soaking into your bloodstream, even the wind on your skin you could feel more clearly than ever before. Another half second passed, then it accelerated, that feeling surging through you, setting every nerve on fire with the sheer amount of sensation that ran through them. It felt like you never felt anything before then, like all your senses had been dulled for your entire life up until that moment. Not the first time you’d felt something like this, but definitely the most intense. You threw back your head and let out a sound halfway between a moan and a scream, your brain filling with so much of this feeling that you could barely even think about the pain.

The feeling soon passed, not gone but settled, as if it had simply soaked into you. You could still feel it, but not as intensely as when it had flooded through you just a second earlier. Gently, she relaxed her hold on you, teeth sliding out of your flesh as blood began to flow from the wounds, running down your body in rivulets and onto the towels. She gingerly ran her tongue along the bite mark, licking off the blood as much as she could as she shifted slowly until it was the lips of her human form that you felt.

“You can open your eyes now.” she said. The moonlight seemed so bright even through your eyelids now, you’d almost forgotten they were closed. She smiled warmly at you, mouth still stained red. “You did really good. How did it feel?” you struggled for a second to remember how to speak.

“...amazing.” you stammered. You couldn’t even begin to describe it, that way your mind had filled with so much of your senses that your consciousness had barely been able to keep up. Your hands were shaking slightly as you reached up to wipe the blood from her face, almost recoiling when you felt how intensely you were now able to feel the warmth of her skin. She patted your head.

“I knew you’d enjoy it. Can you still feel it?” you nodded. “Is it starting to heat up yet?” as you concentrated, you could feel the warmth around the bite starting to intensify. It spread through your body more slowly than that feeling had, a simple increase in temperature as your body detected something that it didn’t want there. Each muscle seemed to tighten until you could barely move your shoulder and the knowledge that something was happening began to seep into the back of your mind. You nodded again, and she seemed almost surprised. “It’s starting already?” she said as she reached behind you and straightened the towels on the mattress. “Wow, okay… thought you’d have a bit more time to catch your breath, but… just lie back. The more hands-on part’s done. You can let your body take it from here.”

With her help you managed to lie down, the wounds on your back sticking uncomfortably to the towels as your shoulder started to feel painfully hot. She leaned over you and stared directly into your eyes before she spoke.

“The initial shift’s about to happen.” she whispered, squeezing your hand. “I can’t really say for certain what it’ll be like for you, but… I think you’re going to do great and it’s going to feel great. I’m here if you need me.” you looked up at her and smiled.

“I really wish I’d known you back when I was starting my transition.” you said. “Would have been a lot easier.”

Slowly, a dull ache began to permeate through you, starting in each joint and spreading quickly outward until every part of you felt sore and tender. You wanted to stretch, but somehow you already knew that it wouldn’t help. This part is just going to suck for a bit. The pain didn’t turn sharp immediately-- It didn’t instantly give way to the twisting and snapping you’d seen in each of her transformations-- it just got louder as you curled up as tightly as you could, trying to keep your focus on the sensation of her fingers gently pressing into your back, providing some small relief from the soreness. She knew what this felt like. The pain never seemed to reach your mind, though. It didn’t cloud your thoughts like you’d initially expected it to. When you’d first felt it creeping into your muscles, you’d thought that it would only be a few minutes before you were a quivering mess, unable to concentrate on anything but how much it hurt, but… you didn’t give it the satisfaction. Even as it started to get so bad that you began to toss and turn, whimpering almost involuntarily as your whole body felt like it was filled with needles, it never felt to you like anything more than an annoyance. Yeah, it hurt. Like no cramp or pulled muscle ever had before, but you didn’t care. You didn’t care because this wasn’t just pain. There was a reason for it, one that you agreed with so you didn’t care if there was a bit of soreness in the way. You sat up and hugged her tightly. So what if it hurts. You thought. It’s worth it, because even if I- WAIT, WHAT THE-- you fell backwards as you felt it, that sudden jolt that surged through you, muscles twitching as it hit. You heart was pounding, mind racing, entire body shaking as you felt things begin to move beneath you skin. The warmup was over. It was time for the main event.

As the sounds of the night began to come alive just outside the window, every part of you felt like it was folding in on itself and it felt wonderful, each breath sending a pulse of elation though you as your ribs started to warp. What had you expected? Did it even matter? No. no it did not, because nothing your before-self could have imagined could ever compare. Could not compare to the feeling of muscles severing and reattaching themselves, of the flesh of your fingers fusing together as dead skin fell from your fingertips, new cells coating them with a rough paw pad, of the structure of your jaw snapping under the sheer force of its own growth before being pulled back together as your teeth began to lengthen. Nothing could compare to just how alive it made you feel. Each second felt more right than the last, each bone setting itself into its new position feeling like it was always meant to go there, skin itching right up until the moment that fur began to sprout from it-- and something else. Something that you felt as strongly as any physical change, racing freely through both your body and mind as each second twisted them together until there was barely any distinction between the two. Something that you could hear even as your ears moved from their former positions to the top of your gradually elongating skull. Something you tried to put into words, but all that came out was a howl that expressed it better than any language ever could have.

It’s you. Finally, all of it-- all of yourself. It’s you. 

The moonlight tasted clearer on the tongue of what you were than the human you would have died as otherwise, each breath carrying a symphony of scents. The night itself seemed to be what drifted up from the open door downstairs, everything you’d stayed up late pondering now as tangible to you as the floor beneath your feet as you rose shakily from the bed, fur soaked with your own blood and tail wagging like it was the first time you’d ever actually been able to express happiness. She followed shortly after, leaping from the bed with two legs and landing with four, circling around you excitedly. You laid down for a second, letting her explore you as she’d done dozens of times before, licking the blood off half just to know what you tasted like now. 

You rose to your feet and together, descended the staircase and stepped out onto the porch. You’d never thought of the night as empty. Cold, yes-- painfully out of reach, but not empty. Content with the knowledge that it was alive, even if you couldn’t see it. You had thought you were content with it, at least. Feeling the night like this now, every sense telling you all the information that was now within reach, leaping from the porch and sprinting with her into the forest made you realize retroactively that just knowing what you were missing was not enough.The euphoria that came from that night, running through the dark in which you could now see, being a part of it, was as wonderful as the first time you’d worn clothes that made you realize the meaning of the word. Singing in long, single notes that could be heard for miles, no longer simply pondering the mysteries of the forest at night but being one of them. A sound in the symphony for all to hear. For others to ponder themselves and maybe, just maybe, to follow if they allowed themselves to open the door.

[goodlucktai]

could you please do prompt number one with the a team duo? (raph and leo!!!) i just think leo is in need of big brother love sometimes <3 prompt number one: "Shit. Shit, shit, shit, c'mere." (btw, ur writing is amazing im literally blown away every time!!! tysm for all the writing u do)

dialogue prompts

1. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit, c’mere.”

x

Something bad happened to Leo in the prison dimension. In the minutes—the minutes—between losing him and getting him back, something bad happened to him.

“This isn’t right,” Casey had said that first night in the medbay, staring at the X-rays on the illuminator as if he could change them by wanting it hard enough. “These breaks aren’t new. They can’t be.” 

“He wasn’t running around with a spiral fracture in his tibia before the alien invasion,” Donnie replied tersely, more high strung with every second his twin remained limp and unresponsive on the infirmary bed. 

Mikey was glued to Leo’s side like a miserable orange barnacle, Splinter rarely venturing more than two steps away at a time. April had been torn in two with worry for Leo and worry for her mom, and had only been convinced to leave when S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N pinkie-promised to feed live updates to her phone at the top of every minute. 

If Leo had woken up even for just a minute back on Staten Island, it would have been a reassurance his family could stack all their hopes on. Instead, the brother they dragged out of the void had about as much life to his limbs as a ragdoll. His head lolled in Donnie’s hands like something out of a horror movie—and Mikey’s breaths started to shudder, and Raph thought for a fleeting, hysterical second that the world had ended, after all—and then Donnie found a heartbeat. He showed a weeping Mikey where to find it, their fingers pressed in the soft hollow of Leo’s throat where the carotid artery pulsed loud and clear. Raph kept his own hand there for the entire trip home. If that stubborn heart stopped he didn’t know what he would do. He didn’t know what he would do. 

“But the bone has already formed a hard callus,” Casey said. “I know sensei and my uncles healed faster than mom and Aunt April did but still. Leo shouldn’t have reached this stage of healing for another week at least.” 

Donnie’s face, already stormy, reached a level of dark anger Raph had never seen before. He studied the charts on the wall without speaking, memorizing them. Ninpo sparked around his fingers like he was only barely resisting committing violence, and only because the desired target was well beyond his reach. 

“What does that mean?” Raph asked hoarsely. His hands were squeezed tight between his knees so no one would see if they started to shake. 

“It means that either Nardo broke his bones in about eight different places a week ago and no one noticed,” Donnie said in a brittle deadpan, “or that monster put its hands on him in the prison dimension and Leo healed from it somehow.” 

“But he was only in there for like, for like ten minutes,” Mikey warbled. He sounded heartsick and confused and too young to carry the weight of the world on his shell. “We got him right back out, we—we didn’t leave him in there long enough for all that.” 

“I have a theory,” Donnie said, and then didn’t say anything else. He dragged a chair over to Leo’s bed with an unholy screeching sound, tucked his head against his twin’s at what couldn’t have been a comfortable angle, and started to tap around on his phone. 

“Okay,” Casey said at length, recognizing an immovable object when he saw one. He turned to Raph instead, a child-sized soldier whose mission wasn’t quite finished yet. “Raphael, could I look at your eye?”

He had finished cleaning Raph’s eye and patching up his shoulder and moved onto wrapping Mikey’s hands when Donnie surged up from his chair so suddenly that everyone in the room jumped. His phone crunched into two distinct pieces in his hand, military-grade case and all, and he flung them away. 

“Woah, hey,” Raph said, “Dee, are you—” 

“I ran diagnostics on Leo’s gear,” Donnie said. It was his flat, toneless voice, the one that meant he was feeling so many things he had to shut something down to prevent a total systems failure. “The timestamps didn’t make any sense. So I ran them again. And again. And everything seems to be indicating that Leo was in the prison dimension for over three hundred hours.”

No, Raph thought. He stared at the shape of his little brother in that bed, at the vivid black and blue bruises on his face—noticing for the first time the faint yellows of much older ones around his neck. 

Horror crept up Raph’s throat. 

Please, no. 

“What?” Mikey blurted, sounding as hysterical as Raph felt. “What? No, he couldn’t. He couldn’t have. It was only—”

“For us, thirteen minutes,” Donnie said bleakly. “For Leo, thirteen days.”

Since then, Raph has learned a lot more about temporal differentials and post-captivity recovery than he ever wanted to know. Donnie made four different PowerPoint presentations that the entire family was forced to sit through. All of them are budding experts on several subjects that they might otherwise not have been, studying as feverishly as undergrad students cramming for a final, desperate to be helpful. 

So this is Raph’s fault. He knew better.

If he’d taken even a second to think before following the unmistakable sound of a turtle falling out of bed into Leo’s room, before lunging over to the crumpled-up form of his little brother on the floor, he would have recognized the blackout for what it was. He, of all people, should have seen it. 

The episodes are few and far between, but only because Leo is rarely left alone when he’s awake, and sleeps even less than he did before. It’s easier for him to keep his head straight when he’s ensconced in a turtle pile, or curled up in Splinter’s lap for reruns of really bad soap operas that he mumbles along to in Spanish, or keeping Mikey company in the kitchen, taste-testing everything that gets pushed his way (handily supplementing all the meals he only picks at, Michelangelo is a genius for discovering that work-around). 

It’s when he’s asleep and the nightmares come knocking that they have to worry. If Raph had known he was in here taking a nap, he would have made sure Leo had company. He probably would have curled up around the slider himself, giving Leo’s highly strung subconscious a hand,  soothing him back to sleep before the bad dream could dig its hooks into him and yank him awake. 

But the sleepiness probably hit him in a sudden burst, the messy pile of pillows and stolen purple blanket too tempting to resist. He must have curled up to rest his eyes and drifted off. 

And he woke up alone, in the dark. The shape of someone much bigger than him looming above everything else. Raph knew better. He did. Of course a cornered animal was going to bite. 

“Fuck,” he breaths out, white hot pain shooting up his arm from where Leo had buried his teeth a moment ago. It hurt, but it had nothing on the way his heart was breaking. 

He’d seen Donnie lash out like this a few times before, overstimulated and fully ready to bite whoever was stupid enough to put their hands on him, but not since they were kids. Mikey used to handle all fits of temper by hiding in his shell and closing the little hinge to keep everyone else firmly out, grumbling ticked-off turtle noises until he was left alone. 

When Leo was little, on the other hand, he wanted attention when he was feeling bad—he wanted to be picked up and held and would cry and pout until he got his way. Whether he was feeling upset or angry or scared, the solution was always more or less the same.

There’s no recognition in his eyes now. Leo has never looked at Raph this way before, even when Raph was the Krang’s puppet, even when Raph had him dangling by a strangling grip on his throat—even then, Leo didn’t look at him like he was a stranger. 

He had to fight like this in the prison dimension, didn’t he? He had to tear survival out of that place piece by bloody piece.

Raph hates that he had to do that and loves him for it in equal measure. 

“It’s okay, Leo,” Raph murmurs. “You did just right, okay? You stayed alive. However you have to do that is okay. You got mixed up just now, but it’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have scared you. Raph’s so sorry.”

Leo is staring at him, eyes wide and glassy. All the gold in them is edged out to black, pupil swallowing iris whole. There’s blood on the corner of his mouth. He smacks his tongue, tasting it. Like the worst version of giving him ice cubes to hold or peppermint to smell, it grounds him, bringing him back to the present moment. 

Raph watches Leo realize where he is and what he’s doing, sitting on the floor in the corner of the room with blood in his mouth. 

“Raph?” he says, small and scared and sixteen years old. 

“It’s me, I’m here,” Raph says, too fast, “you’re safe, Leon.” 

Leo’s eyes drift lower. He clocks the teeth marks in Raph’s arm and starts to cry.

“Shit,” Raph says, scrambling forward frantically on hands and knees. “Shit, shit, shit, c’mere.” 

Leo spills willingly into his hug, like it’s ten years ago and he’s had his heart broken by an argument with his twin and nothing on earth could possibly console him but he was willing to let Raphie try. 

Except Raphie knew all the tricks. Raphie knew that tearful little turtles just needed to be squeezed tight and rumbled at and snuffled until they couldn’t help but giggle. 

It isn’t such an easy fix this time. Leo’s shoulders shake like he’ll never stop crying, his wet sticky face smearing salt and blood where he has it crammed in the crook of Raph’s neck. He clings as if he’s half-afraid something or someone is going to wrench him away. 

Not in this lifetime. Never again. 

“I’ve got you,” Raph tells him. Heart settling now that his little star is in his arms, safe and sound. They could come back from anything as long as they had this much. “Raph’s always got you. Don’t be scared. Don’t be sorry. We’re okay.” 

[offtorivendell]

Truth-Teller, Gwydion and Illyrian Runes... or are they actually Wyrdmarks?

This post was written for @azrielappreciationweek Day 7 - Free

Disclaimer: as always, this is just a theory that I think is fun and it makes no claim of being canon. It's definitely entering crack theory territory. This post also isn't Azriel specific - it's more about the dagger he has used for centuries and how it may tie into the Maasverse, or Prythian's plot, as a whole than Azriel himself. I know it's Azriel Appreciation Week, but this is his dagger, at least currently, so I feel like it's okay. It also rambles a bit, sorry.

Spoilers: there are big, huge, massive Maasverse spoilers ahead, so please beware.

Other posts about Azriel and/or Truth-Teller you might find relevant:

Why is Azriel so different? On Dusk, Hel and the Valg

What if Azriel - or his Shadows - are Made Beings?

Azriel could be Koschei’s heir; a crack theory

Shadows, siphons and fog; has something happened in Velaris?

Powerful Heirlooms and the Four Treasures of the Tuatha de Danann

Does Truth-Teller portend a future relationship between Azriel and Elain Archeron? Especially the first section, about Fragarach inspiring TT.

The possible significance of Azriel and Elain Archeron, the Embrace of Solas and Cthona, the paired blades Gwydion and Truth-Teller, and thin places; a theory - in particular the section about the two Made blades.

Love it or hate it - though personally, I love it for many reasons - we all know about the "Truth-Teller scene" in ACOWAR. While I do think it will end up being incredibly crucial and symbolic for Azriel and Elain Archeron as a couple (you may disagree of course), I also think there is a good chance that its importance to the overall plot was intentionally highlighted by its inclusion in the ACOTAR colouring book, which is what I hope to discuss here (plot, not romance, though as this is romantasy I do think the couple will be reflected in the plot/vice versa).

Here is the passage again, to refresh your memory:

Viviane stepped in, offering a Winter Court fashion that was far less scandalous: leather pants, but paired with a thigh-length blue surcoat, white fur trimming the collar. In the heat, it’d be miserable, but Elain was thankful enough that she didn’t complain when we again emerged from the covered wagon and found our companions waiting. She refused the knife Cassian handed her, though. Went white as death at the sight of it. Azriel, still limping, merely nudged aside Cassian and extended another option. “This is Truth-Teller,” he told her softly. “I won’t be using it today—so I want you to.” His wings had healed—though long, thin scars now raked down them. Still not strong enough, Madja had warned him, to fly today. The argument with Rhys this morning had been swift and brutal: Azriel insisted he could fly—fight with the legions, as they’d planned. Rhys refused. Cassian refused. Azriel threatened to slip into shadow and fight anyway. Rhys merely said that if he so much as tried, he’d chain Azriel to a tree. And Azriel … It was only when Mor had entered the tent and begged him—begged him with tears in her eyes—that he relented. Agreed to be eyes and ears and nothing else. And now, standing amongst the sighing meadow grasses in his Illyrian armor, all seven Siphons gleaming … Elain’s eyes widened at the obsidian-hilted blade in Azriel’s scarred hand. The runes on the dark scabbard. “It has never failed me once,” the shadowsinger said, the midday sun devoured by the dark blade. “Some people say it is magic and will always strike true.” He gently took her hand and pressed the hilt of the legendary blade into it. “It will serve you well.” “I—I don’t know how to use it—” “I’ll make sure you don’t have to,” I said, grass crunching as I stepped closer. Elain weighed my words … and slowly closed her fingers around the blade. Cassian gawked at Azriel, and I wondered how often Azriel had lent out that blade— Never, Rhys said from where he finished buckling on his own weapons against the side of the wagon. I have never once seen Azriel let another person touch that knife. Elain looked up at Azriel, their eyes meeting, his hand still lingering on the hilt of the blade. I saw the painting in my mind: the lovely fawn, blooming spring vibrant behind her. Standing before Death, shadows and terrors lurking over his shoulder. Light and dark, the space between their bodies a blend of the two. The only bridge of connection … that knife. Paint that when we get home. Busybody. - ACOWAR, chapter 69

I have previously theorised that Truth-Teller may have pierced the veil of Prythian's world in order to let Elain shadow walk through the murky realm/void to save Nesta and Cassian at the end of ACOWAR - which of course parallels Azriel's threat to "slip into shadow and fight anyway" - but it also ties into the power that Truth-Teller and Gwydion/the Starsword can activate together: instead of opening a portal to somewhere, as a few of us had previously theorised about Truth-Teller alone, we learnt in HOFAS that the dagger and sword will open a portal to nowhere.

A black hole... or a Void?

@wingedblooms has previously suggested that the woman on the cover of HOFAS, who had runes - or were they really Wyrdmarks? - down her arms, may be Wyrd, and I agree. We would both especially love it if Wyrd was the secret language of the universe - the language spoken by shadow, wind and stone, or even what Singers used to cast spells - because how much would that make sense? It would also tie TOG in with a tidy bow, given the importance of Wyrd, Wyrdmarks, Wyrdkeys and Wyrdgates to Aelin's story.

But it could get wrapped up even tidier. I hope.

The markings on Truth-Teller's sheath

Take a much closer look at the "Illyrian runes" on Truth-Teller's scabbard, the runes that SJM made sure existed in print, in May 2017 (the colouring book was published the same day that ACOWAR came out, on the 2nd of May).

But back to the runes.

Do you see what I see?!

They are so similar to the runes on HOFAS' cover that it cannot be coincidental? I acknowledge that they're not identical, but they pass the vibe check.

A. I've previously discussed the possibility of the first rune on the HOFAS cover being derived from the Embrace of Solas and Cthona, and that it might have been indicating the two Made blades, Gwydion and Truth-Teller, coming together to create a portal to nowhere. @wingedblooms has also brilliantly suggested that it could be depicting the three mountains of the Night Court, or even the three sister peaks. But do you see the similarity with the top rune(s) on Truth-Teller's scabbard? The dot and two ^ type markings come together differently, but imo the components are still there.

B. This portion is the weakest link for sure, not least because there are more runes on the woman's arm than Truth-Teller's sheath - and I'm no artist so my opinion definitely comes with a huge heaping of salt (if anyone wants to weigh in then please do!) - but I can see similarities in the elements of certain runes. If I put my clown hat on then the spiral could be referring to a vortex/portal, and the marking half hidden by the O could be depicting a ship... you know, like those names after the Archeron sisters.

C. The two opposing triangles on Truth-Teller could be referencing the diamond on the woman's forearm and the crescent moon shape half hidden by Azriel's thumb could potentially be linked with the crescent moon shape above the diamond. Could the diamond on each of her forearms be suggesting siphons, like those worn by Azriel and Cassian? And is the crescent moon referring to the Mother, or Wyrd? SJM paralleled siphons and invoking stones were in ACOSF, was she hinting that the Illyrians and the priestesses all serve Wyrd in the end?

If I'm correct - a big "if" - the difference in runes, or Wyrdmarks, could be down to one of a few potential reasons (though the following list is not exhaustive):

It was always intentional so we wouldn't piece it together too easily.

The almost seven year gap between ACOWAR and the colouring book coming out in 2017, and HOFAS in 2024. Things change.

The in-universe time difference between Wyrd's birth/creation and Truth-Teller's forging. Did the wyrdmarks "evolve," so to speak?

The Wyrdmarks are not actually identical; perhaps they only look similar because they have similar or even complementary meanings?

I'm actually completely wrong and need to remove my clown makeup right now. 🤡

It would make sense that Truth-Teller's wyrdmarks were not identical to those we would see on Wyrd (assuming it is actually Her on HOFAS' cover). One of those things is a goddess, a force who created their entire universe, and the other is a dagger that can help open a portal to the Void and ferry the bearer through. Truth-Teller's scabbard might tell a story, it might hold a warning, or even contain a spell or the instructions for activating its magic etc; are they a spell to contain the power of the blade, as Bryce hinted at in HOFAS, or something else?

As if their sheaths had kept their power contained, the naked metal now throbbed against her palm, up her arms, tugging toward each other so violently it took all her strength to keep them apart. - HOFAS, chapter 48

It's just a pity that - unless I missed it - we weren't told about any markings on the Starsword, though that's assuming that its scabbard¹ was the original (or that Truth-Teller's is the original, of course - maybe it was given a new sheath, one with a very specific message, after Silene returned to Prythian). All we know is that both blades were Made by the Cauldron, with their obsidian² (wyrdstone?) hilts and black Iridium blades that can devour light (though Gwydion's blade can sparkle) and appear muted in darkness, I assume because there is no sunlight to charge their magic.

¹ @ladynightcourt3 has previously suggested that Truth-Teller may have been blessed by the God of Truth, who also blessed Damaris - the Sword of Truth, first wielded by Gavin Havilliard and currently claimed by Dorian Havilliard - which also has Wyrdmarks on its scabbard and was used in the Valg king Erawan's death. She's also reminded me that the Asterion blades in TOG also have markings, and are described as being made of a dark metal imbued with starlight... sounds familiar!

² @emmitaaa4 reminded me that wyrdstone can cause headaches in those who carry it - and who is known to rub his temples so much that Elain gifted him headache powder? Azriel.

I have spoken before about the possibility of the obsidian hilts either being possessed by some sort of Void based being, or that the material may help the Made blades attract a prince of Hel by design (here and here). Imagine if the Iridium³ blades come from a meteorite originating in Hel. Could the Made blades be secret wyrdkeys thanks to their hilts?

³ The element iridium's name is derived from "Iris," which means rainbow. Could this be where the meteorite that went into forging Gwydion and Truth-Teller have fallen... in the Rainbow of Velaris? What does this mean for Velaris' history, or the future of the Made blades? Will Feyre, the protector of the Rainbow, become involved?

What might this mean for Prythian?

Let's revisit the Truth-Teller scene, and pay close attention to Elain's clothes: Winter Court attire. Too warm, but Elain didn't complain... is that because she suspected she may have to brave the cold, harsh environment in the space between before the day was done? My next suggestion is unlikely, but could her face have turned crimson because she didn't know how to ask for warmer clothes without explaining that she'd Seen that she'd need them, especially if she knew that she was going to be sent away and she'd have to work from the shadows, as uaual? This could even tie in with my theory that the Archeron sisters will "sail" (for lack of a better term, sorry I know it's silly) the bat brothers by Singing them across the Void, possibly to Hel, as Nesta wanted insulated leathers in ACOSF. @elrieldreamer and I have previously discussed the fact that the serpents (dragons?) on HOFAS' cover look like they could be passing through Wyrdgates, which could also circle into the "sailing through the void" idea I mentioned in my post about The Weaver's Song, because Illyrian armour is known to feature scales. So isn't it handy that Emerie can source fleece-lined leathers!

“I was about to write to you before Bellius interrupted me. I asked about making leathers with fleece inside.” Emerie leaned her forearms on the immaculate counter. “It can be done, but it’s not cheap.” “Then it’s beyond my means, but thank you for finding out anyway.” “I could order it and let you pay it off as you’re able.” - ACOSF, chapter 25

Then there's the blade-like object that appears to be pointing down onto the eight-pointed star above the woman's head; could it be indicating Truth-Teller or Gwydion, or even Damaris - the Sword of Truth - from TOG?

The eight-pointed star obviously holds relevance to Nesta, given the tattoos that she and Cassian shared for much of ACOSF and Bryce's parting remarks in HOFAS, and we know the Starborn used it as their symbol, but why? Many don't realise that it may also have been the symbol on 'The Elain' ship that Papa Archeron commissioned among the three named for each of his daughters. Could it be a seafaring compass rose/rose of the winds, as Wingedblooms has previously discussed? Is it also related to Ishtar, another amazing theory shared by @wingedblooms' and @merymoonbeam? Or could it actually be the Chaos⁴ star, and truly be a symbol of Wyrd as Chaos, the Mother - or dam - to all?

⁴ I hope to post this theory soon.

I cannot move past the fact that, in addition to The Elain flying an eight-pointed star with nothing on either side (referencing the Void?), The Nesta was flying a dragon with two suns, and The Feyre was flying two crescent moons and diamonds. It has to mean something, right?

I still find it really interesting that one of the eyes of the woman on HOFAS' cover - which seems to be all about depicting gate travel and world walking - appears to be bleeding, when Gwyn remarked in ACOSF that reading Merrill's theories about multiple worlds made her eyes bleed.

Gwyn frowned. “Lots of things. Merrill’s brilliant. Horrible, but brilliant. When she first came here, she was obsessed with theories regarding the existence of different realms—different worlds. Living on top of each other without even knowing it. Whether there is merely one existence, our existence, or if it might be possible for worlds to overlap, occupying the same space but separated by time and a whole bunch of other things I can’t even begin to explain to you because I barely understand them myself.” Nesta’s brows rose. “Really?” “Some philosophers believe there are eleven worlds like that. And some believe there are as many as twenty-six, the last one being Time itself, which …” Gwyn’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Honestly, I looked at some of her early research and my eyes bled just reading her theorizing and formulas.” Nesta chuckled. “I can imagine. But she’s researching something else now?” “Yes, thank the Cauldron. She’s writing a comprehensive history of the Valkyries.” - ACOSF, chapter 13

Now, Gwyn was obviously being flippant while attempting to demonstrate the extent of Merrill's brilliance, but who do we know who has peered across one world so far, who may be set up as a worldwalker with a strong affinity to any thin places? Elain Archeron, the sister whose ship flew the eight pointed star sail for all to see. A Seer. Will the Seer's eyes bleed when she looks too far, or past wards of "mist and shadow" designed to keep her out?

“Firebird by day,” Rhys mused, “woman by night … So she’s held captive by this sorcerer-lord?” Elain shook her head. “I don’t know. I hear her—her screaming. With rage. Utter rage …” She shuddered. Mor leaned forward. “Do you know why the other queens cursed her—sold her to him?” Elain studied the table. “No. No—that is all mist and shadow.” Rhys blew out a breath. “Can you sense where she is?” “There is … a lake. Deep in—in the continent, I think. Hidden amongst mountains and ancient forests.” Elain’s throat bobbed. “He keeps them all at the lake.” “Other women like her?” “Yes—and no. Their feathers are white as snow. They glide across the water—while she rages through the skies above it.” - ACOWAR, chapter 33

Its over-large teeth clacked faintly. “Thrice now, we have met. Thrice now, you have hunted for me. This time, you sent the trembling fawn to find me. I did not expect to see those doe-eyes peering at me from across the world.” - ACOWAR, chapter 58

Alpha and omega. Ask and answer (and Azriel told Elain that Truth-Teller would "serve" - a synonym to "answer" - her well). Made (or Make) and Unmade (or Unmake). Matter and antimatter. Gwydion can kill the unkillable, while Truth-Teller slew an almost unstoppable king. They Sing⁵ to each other - is it a spell, or are they communicating in Wyrd, the secret language of the universe > Chaos > eight pointed star? - and to those who bear enough Starborn magic to hear it. Azriel learnt that he can charge a Starborn fae like Bryce in HOFAS, there are three Archeron sisters who share significant parallels with Bryce and Theia... and wouldn't you know it, Azriel has two brothers. I could always be wrong, but this all seems fated to me.

⁵ I know I'm not alone in speculating whether Elain heard Truth-Teller Singing to her like kin, as @wingedblooms, @emmitaaa4, @psychologynerd and @ladynightcourt3 all share this theory at least (I've also wondered if she can hear Azriel's siphons singing, but that's another theory). Is this why Elain's eyes widened when Azriel offered Truth-Teller? Did it Sing to her? Is she a Singer, as @silverlinedeyes, @wingedblooms and I suspect? Was this in addition to (or instead of) her Seeing herself using it to kill the king? If true, this could parallel the scene earlier on in HOFAS where Elain's eyes widened at "the shadowsinger's display" just before Azriel winnowed her to Windhaven; was Elain listening to his shadows and/or Truth-Teller such that she could activate the blades (or her own) hypothetical shadow walking magic later on?

Anyway, sorry for rambling on a fair bit there, if you made it this far thank you for reading my nonsense! I am so excited to learn what SJM has been planning, because just like Koschei I think she's been playing the long game and setting all of these pieces up for years, even if it was just in case.

[vroomgddv7y]

The night everything came crashing down

Your lungs tightened, then your eyes followed. A forming trickle of tears filled you with resentment. It was beyond your understanding why you chose to stay—and why you only cried now.

The salty scent of rain and tears bled together. Your badge wept in disgrace, shimmering gently in the rain as liquid weakness ran over its gold plating.

In the distance, carried by the howling wind, the sirens of your patrol car wailed. Now, it was nothing but scrap and flames, graffiti-painted wreckage.

Patterson…Lost in the suffocating fog, you coughed, mumbling over a mouth full of blood. “Pat—Pat, are you okay?!” you shouted, but your voice barely made it past the smoke clogging your throat. Flames glazed your vision, licking at your skin as you fumbled for the door handle. Finding no grip, you smashed through the window, a blurred light guiding your shaking body onto the road.Your lungs burned with smoke. Gravel crunched under heavy boots—chuckles echoed between the buildings. Around the corner, some thugs smashed at the bumper of the car.

You tucked your body into the corner of an alley, clutching your side as pain flared. Your head thudded against the concrete wall. It was your fault. “Patterson…” you swallowed, breathless, “couldn’t save him.” You couldn’t save anyone tonight. Not even yourself. Years of training in the cave, in the academy, went to waste. You were weak. Powerless. For the first time in years, you prayed.

After Gordon disappeared, the air at HQ turned grim. Everyone was on edge, so they buried themselves in work. You were assigned to arrest and apprehend any militia or rioters after Batman had cleared most of the streets—after the terrifying gas, after the building-sized tanks.An hour in, you and Patterson were chasing a stray vehicle. It tore through tight corners and narrow alleys, reckless, rabid. Suddenly—metal twisted, glass shattered, and metric tons of weight crushed your body against your seat.

Now, propped against an abandoned building, your armored legs lay limp in front of you. Hands clutched the straps of your bulky vest. You exhaled ragged. It was all insanity.

“This city is fucking insane,” you muttered, vocal cords strained. “Cursed, even…”

You’d spent enough time stalking militia radio channels to hear the theories. According to some meathead, Batman was a government-funded CIA operative working outside the law. These idiots always had something stupid to say. You chuckled, dry and humorless.

Your job had become some joke. The government left Gotham to burn itself to the ground—no reinforcements, no air support, nothing. The city was left in the hands of a man in tights and a cape. A crazy bastard, way over his old head. Against an entire army, Gotham burned. Hour by hour, the sky turned to fire. Scarecrow’s voice screeched through the night, or worse—it went completely silent.Neon signs painted the slick pavement in garish colors. The city was black and grey, blanketed in rubble and trash. Dusted orange with whatever toxin Scarecrow had dumped from his big blimp.

You fumbled with your belt, reaching for your radio one last time. The signal crackled in distortion. Your eyes drifted to the crooked antenna, and with a sigh, you let the useless machine clatter to the ground.Above you, a flickering sign read: GOTHAM MALL.Southeast corner of Founder’s Island. Probably. Hard to tell. Chasing a vehicle with no real destination made it easy to get lost. The side of the building was nothing but bare brick. In the distance, you heard militia voices, but they hadn’t spotted you. At least not yet—you hesitated. Looking down at your vest and badge, something weighed in your chest. Sure, it was raining, but the warmth of early autumn clung to you, suffocating in layers.With weak fingers, you unclipped your badge from your left pocket and ripped the GCPD patch from your vest. Your shoulders sagged as you shrugged out of the armor, muscles aching with the effort. Left in your single blue button-up, your chest grasped at a full breath of air—liberated from the heavy weight of your vest. Turning your raincoat inside out to hide any painful markings of your job, you pulled it back on, layering it over your vest.

A ringing in your ears pulsed against your skull, the dull throb of a concussion settling in. Apart from that, the world was silent.Looking around, among the grassy land behind the mall was a rip in the metal fence. Your instincts screamed at you to run, but your body stood still. As the adrenaline faded, pain and exhaustion took its place. Your eyes drifted skyward.The clouds swirled in shifting shades of grey, drifting like fish in a pond. The stillness made you uneasy. Waves crashed against the docks. If you were right about where you were, there was no way in hell you’d make it back to GCPD on foot. Thugs littered the streets like trash. Tanks still prowled the roads.Unless he showed up, you were screwed. A bitter laugh bubbled up from your throat. Regret settled in.

You were so stupid.

When the evacuations started this morning, leaving never crossed your mind. You said your goodbyes in passing, ushering familiar faces onto school buses. Because in the end, it was your job to stay behind. To help. That’s why, when Bruce overwhelmed your phone with texts and calls, you ignored them.If anything, he was the one who worried you. It’s been years since you set a foot in the manor. You’ve tried avoiding his very name, but you still stupidly kept him around. It killed you to admit it—the lonely life you lived made him all you had.Yet he was out there killing himself. Why should you care?Better to focus on your attempt to survive the night.

A far clattering burst through a back door. You hid behind a nearby bush, realizing the sound was closer than expected. An armored figure came stumbling out. Militia? Your hands steadied on your holsters.He fell to his knees, throwing a glowing red helmet. It made horrible sounds against the mix of pavement and grass.His voice tore through the silence and broken sobs harmonized with far thunder. The rain weighed him down pathetically. He screamed, cursing incoherently. His armor shook violently as his body began to give in. Heavy panting and crying left him a mess on the ground. It was depressing. You felt at a loss for what to do, listening to his sobs rip through his throat.He rolled over and city lights danced on his shining armor.Then the cogs in your brain turned.Among the mounds of metal that embraced his large body, his chest plates were gone, replaced with a blood-smeared bat symbol.His sharp silhouette began to spark memories of the GCPD most wanted logs you had seen no less than two hours ago. The Arkham Knight?

No... but he was different—he was reduced to a pathetic mess, alone, defenseless. Lacking his army, the shiny red emblem, and pointed ears.His voice missed its usual distorted sound. Instead, it was broken, and as he yelled and cursed, something felt deeply wrong.Helicopters shone down upon the courtyard, paying no mind. His figure bathed in the bright light.Blemished in tears and swollen in bruises, his pale skin. His silhouette. His face—it contorted in wrinkles, familiar and deeper.

Your blood ran cold.

Tears streamed down his armor, glinting. He writhed, swearing and mumbling.When a small light shone on his face, you felt dizzy.It was the Arkham Knight.Not only was he standing right in front of you but… he’d shot a bullet into the past. His nose was sharp, eyebrows thick and furrowed, and his eyes—his eyes held a world of pain that seared along the raised J printed onto his cheek. God… maybe some of the fear toxin had failed to clear. You rubbed your eyes.He was still there. You rubbed them again. And he failed to disappear. “Fuck,” you muttered, “no… no.” The screaming stopped. You stilled. Slight shuffling among the grass.

Heavy steps trampled over to your spot.He smashed the junk you were hiding behind to the other side of the yard. "What the fuck do you think you’re doing, huh?!” Rough gloves grabbed at your collar. Finally, his glazed blue eyes met yours.

Any part of you that doubted it was him ceased to exist. “God…” you began to cry in silent terror. His eyes widened, staring back at you with unadulterated fear. As if you were the undead ghost that stood in front of him after three years.

There was a moment of silence.An exchange of pure understanding and fear.He looked at your poorly hidden badge, destroyed hair bun, grime and blood-filled face. His lips pursed. Brows furrowed, as tears streamed. “No…” he muttered, panting, letting his grip tighten as rain soaked into his hair. “NO!” A small sob cracked him.His body went rigid. Dropping you from his grasp.

He stumbled onto the ground, kicking his feet in the slippery mud, ready to run. “No!” You pulled at his metal boot. Sharp corners dug into your skin.“Please don’t leave—not again…” His red and puffy face eased. He was terrified, shaking. You pulled yourself above him, tackling his hard armor.

"Jason… please.”

[blazehedgehog]

what is the sonic franchise's problem? why does every concept have to be stretched to death and then discarded entirely?

"What is the Sonic franchise's problem" is such a broad question these days because there's so many layers to so many different parts of the franchise but ultimately it boils down to two things:

Time and money.

The way capitalism works in creative fields is that if you prove you can do it faster and cheaper, then you have to keep doing it faster and cheaper. The more you save the company time and money, the better it is for them.

And at least in the case of Sonic games, they've had long stints where they get made dangerously quickly. Even as far back as Sonic 2, that game spent a long time in the concept phase that eventually got thrown out as they rushed the final game to completion. Sonic 3 legendarily came together in as little as 6-9 months after the original pitch (a pseudo-3D isometric game) fell apart.

Sonic Adventure 2 was made by half the people in half the time as Sonic Adventure 1. Rush and crunch on Sonic Heroes was so bad one of their level designers was hospitalized for months due to exhaustion related illness. Takashi Iizuka stepped up and basically doubled his workload to cover for that guy and has publicly said he lost over 30 pounds because of the stress.

He then worked so hard on Shadow the Hedgehog, the next game after Sonic Heroes, that he straight up burned out and left the Sonic franchise for like six years. If you check the credits for Shadow, Takashi Iizuka is attached as the director, game designer, level designer, story writer, and CG movie supervisor. The dude carried half that entire game in an era where directors did not get their hands dirty like that.

Sonic Unleashed in 2008 was a change in form in that it was a very expensive game. So expensive that people working on the game complained that they were wasting too much money on details nobody would be able to appreciate because you were always moving too fast.

So Sega changed gears. Sonic Generations looked like another big money sink, so they brought in Morio Kishimoto, a guy who came up through games like Sonic & The Secret Rings and Sonic & The Black Knight. Secret Rings in particular was a huge success story for Sega: it was immensely cheap and produced incredibly quickly, and when compared to the bomb known as Sonic 06, Secret Rings looked and played like gold.

Kishimoto was given the dying embers of a failed Wii port of Sonic Generations, which he quickly and cheaply turned around into Sonic Colors, and again, it was a runaway success compared to the very expensive and divisive Sonic Unleashed.

And so once again, Sonic games erred towards faster and cheaper and faster and cheaper and faster and cheaper. That was Kishimoto's style.

I was watching someone stream Sonic Lost World for their first time a few days ago, and in theory, the concept of the game makes sense. Kishimoto is open about saying that Sonic Colors was them trying to inject a little Mario flavor into a Sonic game, so Sonic Lost World is trying to be Sonic Colors 2, and it's a lot more overt with its Mario inspiration. And it's a lot worse, too.

That's because Mario games incubate for years and years and years, building and iterating ideas until they are perfectly cut, highly polished finished products. Sonic games are rammed through production as fast as possible, square pegs forced through round holes, exhausted developers making the best of table scraps, and they are covered in rough edges and misshapen gameplay.

Every time you play a bad Sonic game and see the twinkle of a good idea, that's a seed of greatness that was not properly cultivated and given room to grow, because cheaper and faster makes them more money.

This is why you hear people say they hope the success of Sonic Frontiers will get Sega to increase the budget for future Sonic games again, because it's REALLY clear they were making a game out of basically nothing.

(I am not holding my breath.)

[mysticstronomy]

DID TIME OR SPACE EXIST FIRST??

Blog#450

Saturday, November 2nd, 2024.

Welcome back,

It’s the question that always comes up when thinking about the origin of the Universe: what came before the Big Bang?

And if there was no ‘before’, what was the cause of the Big Bang in the first place?

Until a few centuries ago, the answer was easy: some eternal deity set everything in motion.

Even Isaac Newton believed that God created the Universe, some 6,000 years ago.

Later, many scientists, including young Albert Einstein, assumed the Universe itself to be eternal and everlasting.

But when cosmic expansion was discovered, Belgian cosmologist (and Jesuit priest) Georges Lemaître realised there must have been a beginning – a scientific version of Genesis, so to speak.

Not that everyone immediately agreed.

Well into the 1960s, Fred Hoyle’s steady-state theory was quite popular among iconoclastic scientists as well as lay people.

Hoyle accepted the expansion of the Universe, but he didn’t believe in the Big Bang.

Instead, he assumed that a slow, continuous creation of new matter could keep the average density and the general properties of the Universe constant over time.

The 1964 discovery of the cosmic microwave background was the major nail in the coffin of the steady-state theory.

Ever since, supporting evidence for the Big Bang origin of our Universe has accumulated to a point where there’s hardly any doubt left.

Still, no one has the final answer to the question "what happened before the Big Bang?".

Could there have been a Universe before the Big Bang?

Most scientists simply ignore the question, as it seems to be too hard a nut to crack.

When astronomers talk about the Big Bang, they usually do not refer to the very beginning of the Universe (time zero), but to the incredibly hot and compact state of the Universe in the first couple of minutes of its existence.

To some extent, this is because no one has a real clue about the true nature of time, let alone about the beginning of time.

British physicist Julian Barbour, for one, has argued that time doesn’t even exist, except as an illusion in our minds.

According to others (including Stephen Hawking), time came into existence together with the Universe, rendering the whole concept of the word ‘before’ meaningless.

Asking what happened before the Big Bang would be like asking what lies north of the North Pole, or what distance is shorter than zero.

Then again, we simply don’t know whether or not there was time before the Big Bang.

According to the once-popular idea of the cyclic (or oscillatory) Universe, the current expansion of space could one day revert into a contraction, and the resulting Big Crunch could bounce into a new Big Bang, starting the next cycle of an eternal sequence.

It’s just one of many hypotheses in which our Universe is not unique, but part of a possibly infinite multiverse, one way or another.

And if the multiverse is also infinite in time, we’re back to the idea that everything has existed forever, conveniently circumnavigating the nagging question of a beginning.

Finally, South African physicist Neil Turok thinks the Big Bang not only spawned our Universe, but also an anti-Universe, composed of anti­­­matter and running backward in time.

Again, an intriguing idea, but there’s also no chance of confirmation (or rejection!) via observations.

In the end, we have to admit we’re ignorant about the true beginning of the Universe.

And even if we lean towards an eternal multiverse with no real beginning at all, we don’t know why there is something (or, more to the point, why there is everything) instead of nothing.

Originally published on https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com

COMING UP!!

(Wednesday, November 6th, 2024)

"Astrophysics vs. Astronomy: What's the Difference??"

[twig-tea]

2024 Tumblr Top 10

tagged by @lurkingshan here and @neuroticbookworm here, thank you both! This really reminds me that I need to do a real pinned post at some point.

If you want to generate your own, you can use this link! I used the link to find the posts but wrote this below because I thought reflecting on the posts would be fun.

My GL rec list (covering everything through to Feb 2024), which I'm very happy about taking first place. If you want GL recs, check that out first, and then feel free to browse my #GL recs tag.

The admittedly shady post from October calling out the director of the Addicted Heroin Thailand adaptation for (a)making weird choices and (b)defending them as artistic. But I stand by my anger about this. Censorship is not an aesthetic!

The non-novel-spoilery reaction post to episodes 1 & 2 of Love In The Big City which was also from October, but which honestly stands up for my reaction to the whole series. What a gift of a show.

A quick pitch for Akaya is in Love with Hiroko from July. This one hurts! I was so ready to cheerlead for this show and did several times, but the penultimate episode made me wary and the finale really upset me, to the point where I didn't end up writing about the finale, so I'll take the chance here: Don't make a show about two self-aware lesbians, one who has been comfortably sexually active for years and one who is super horny for her, and have them get together as adults and yet be celibate for a year out of "respect". Is the message that sex between consenting and enthusiastic adults is not respectful?! GTFO. For the record I can be respected with orgasms, thank you.

The episode celebrating the messaging in the finale of Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo from November. Glad that this is here between the previous entry and the next two, because this is a good balm for the pain. LFtCoT landed the ending and gave us all a giant hug while doing it!

The list of things I was thinking about at the end of Wandee Goodday ep3 from May. Another disappointment for me. The things this post shouts out are still things I like about this show, and reading it again is a reminder of where the back half let the first half down (not taking seriously some of the things we were told to take seriously in the first few episodes).

An early post about Love Is Better the Second Time Around from March. Another show that did not land everything, in this case because it felt like it tried to shove in a complicated conflict in the last two episodes that they didn't have time to handle. But I still love those early episodes and all of the interplay between Miyata, Iwanaga, and Shiraishi.

My clown theory for Every You, Every Me also from October, which ended up being correct! I've never been more happy to be right, I liked this reveal for the show so much.

In February I wrote this thesis about the state of Thai BL looking at data from 2022 and 2023, which I have been meaning to go back and update since I think Shan as usual was feeling the start of the wave and we needed more data to see the change actually play out in 2024. I now no longer feel (as I did in this post) that things haven't changed, I do think they have this year. But I need to crunch the numbers again to prove it to myself (and everyone else) though. Stay tuned!

In July I did a round-up post about the various theories surrounding Century of Love, and whether Vee and Vad were the same person. Turns out San did wrestle with this as I'd hoped but the show itself felt like it lost steam and copped out around this, unfortunately. At least we'll always have fox demon Offroad and grumpy old man Daou's collarbones thanks to this show.

Special shout-out to @lurkingshan because two of the posts above are answers to asks she put in my inbox that spawned project posts. Shan knows what the people want to hear!

Tagging @italianpersonwithashippersheart @benkaben @ellsieee @colourme-feral @pigglepiephi @impala124 no pressure tags and apologies if you've been tagged already!

[shepscapades]

GOD DAYUM

So the part 5 thing huh? Welp IT'S GOOD I LOVE IT

Because X is my blorbo I just wanted to point out some things here

MMMMMMMM HE HAS LONG HAIR??? I mean *looks at my posts* long hair fits him absolutely [Still not sure if he has long hair or not but looks like he has his hair tied in a ponytail or in a bun, I don't know it just looks like it on the second image]

[oh and also he called him "Doc" again, instead of Docm which I don't know what could mean in this situation yet, but one day it'll probably make sense as we get more parts]

This Etho right here looks either terrified or confused, and I think it's because

X is going to go absolutely crazy and he's scared that X is now in control [based on the "you dropped your crown king'' caption that might refer to Etho who isn't the attacker anymore but could also refer to Xisuma which I'll explain later]

or

2. He finally snapped back into his senses

or

3. he sees X without his helmet for the first time and his good 'ol computer brain is like '??????? Who tf is that"

"you dropped your crown king" could also refer to X as his helmet got destroyed in process [being the crown] and from what I know, we don't know the reason for why X wears helmet in this AU. The most popular headcannon for his armour and helmet is that he's a voidwalker and can't breathe in the overworld, we don't know if it's a thing in this AU but if it is that could mean that now he's powerless, he "dropped his crown" - he became weaker, powerless against his enemy. Also Doc looks kinda scared, or maybe just surprised after seeing X's face for probably first time. [if he's scared, then he's probably aware of Xisuma's condition when it comes to air]

NESTLE CRUNCH

But also poor Doc he looks horrified

ALSO

*looking for lore through old posts* huh these seem familiar... WAIT

AND THE DATE THOSE WERE POSTED

[it's in Polish sorry, but it says 13th October]

SO THE COMIC HAS BEEN SKETCHED OUT SO EARLY?? Damn those really take long to do, I mean I was aware of that fact but It's been like 3 months since those sneak peeks have been posted and WOW THAT'S A WHOLE LOT OF MOTIVATION YOU HAVE HERE SHEP

[also only now noticed how in this panel Etho's body sketch is red as a sign that he's the danger in Doc's eyes and Xisuma's is green/blue. Oh and in the first sketch X didn't have his hair visible in the visor hee hee ]

So yes, loved it, even if there were only 3 images I still think it's amazing ! We got to see your Xisuma a bit [he- he handsome -makes big eyes]

Sorry for the long ask again!! just!! excited!!

Now I'm going into my drawing cave as I'm full of inspiration already bye bye <333

(also also to reiterate, I have no idea how long part 6 will take since I just kinda have rough storyboarding for the rest of the comic, and classes just started up again— this is my exhibition semester so most of my drawing energy will be prioritized for my grad gallery… we will wait to see how much energy I have left by the day for destruction :3)

ALSO ALSO ALSO! “You dropped your crown king” was absolutely me trying to find a silly caption for what’s supposed to be a serious/dramatic part of the story while also referencing the fact that Xisuma’s helmet shattered/fell off— there are many conspiracies and clues to be had here but I just wanted to clarify that that line is not one of them SFKDFGHJ

I will therefore also not directly respond to anything else being discussed here BUT thank you as always for sharing your theories and analysis!! It always makes my day >:D

[bdafic]

Have you played Veilguard? Do you plan to?

If yes, what is your opinion on how Solas and solavellan was handled? :)

I did! I actually posted about it, encouraging people not to read reviews and posts and just play the game for them. I chose not to go into any depth other than I liked it. I'm cool with going into it now, though I want to make really clear to anyone reading that I have zero interest in seeing, inviting, or participating in the "everything must be criticized hard and moralized" discourse. The level of hostility around this game is off the charts and I'm super not into it.

(I am very into being hostile as fuck about layoffs, crunch, and execs sabotaging projects, setting impossible "goals" and whipping up anger to justify dissolving studios though. We can do that all day.)

Anyway, back to your question.

Overall, my feelings on how Solas/Solavellan was done mirrors my feelings on the game as a whole: I loved 85% of it, and the other 15% I didn't so much 'not love' as much as I wished it could've been more. That last 15% felt like being a kid finding out there's a whole other floor of your house you've never explored, and once you finally get all prepped to go spelunking you find it in the midst of being demolished. All those little tantalizing peeks you got are gone or waved off like "you can make do with what you have". Technically that's true. You've got a nice house that's pretty and isn't falling apart and everything connects and has all the right things in it... but you can't help being really sad for the loss of experiences you could've had on the mystery floor.

I loved all the insight we got into the history of the Evanuris, ancient elves, and Solas himself. It confirmed a bunch of theories I'd discussed with others for years -- and that felt awesome! I love it when fans are rewarded for noticing the details and putting shit together. (If you're also into that, go watch Severance). There's so much of what we saw in his memories and experiences that deepen the sense of sadness and loss in his character. It made people who hate him, hate him more, and people who love him, sympathize with him more. I think he's honestly one of the most well-written characters I've ever encountered in any media, anywhere, and not just because I'm a sucker for beautiful tragedy.

I'm happy they didn't shy away from Solas' edges, either. I'd predicted Varric's death at his hands during The Missing's run, though I thought it'd play out differently. I think that and the war crimes were good additions to his story. It reinforced his position as an antivillain to the series. Solas is a living, breathing, 'sunk cost fallacy' of a man. He (almost) says it himself: to stop now would make all the horrible things he'd done be for nothing. He has to keep going.

He was Wisdom, twisted into Pride. He wants to still be Wisdom. It's how he sees himself, though he's smart enough to know it isn't true deep down. The planning, the arrogance, the failures, the devotion, they're all aspects of that change. Of course he keeps failing. Of course he keeps trying. And of course falling in love without any of that being known would absolutely caboodle his noodle. One of the things that first drew me was realizing how much of him was only revealed upon romancing. It makes a ton of sense for his character, and gave him a depth and longing that was incredibly compelling. A character who lays it out for everyone regardless is just an NPC, but that made him feel like a person. It speaks to his loneliness; how badly he wants someone to find a way to change his mind, and how resigned he is to the belief that nobody can. Wisdom and Pride.

I'm very pleased that a Solavellan ending even exists, because that's a pretty big nod to fandom and the impact of his character. Of course I'd have loved to see more -- Solavellan hell is eternal and I'll never escape -- but I can be happy with what we got. And I understand why it felt truncated.

(And honestly, my biggest complaint with Lavellan's inclusion is that we cannot modify her appearance later if we fucked it up. My kingdom for her eyeballs to've worked properly in my first run.)

I am a bit sad about how 'well' a lot of it got wrapped up, not just because of the loss of mystery, but because it's pretty clear that was a reflection of the (rather prescient) fears from devs/writers about the future of the franchise. The game's impact and mood suffered from that sense of impending doom. Edges were shaved off, things glossed over, middles discarded so threads could be tied up neater, and that probably really sucked for the people who have lived and breathed this world for the better part of 20 years. It needed more time. Chill time. And freedom to fuck about. People say that audiences don't like it when things end on an uncertain note, and honestly after seeing the discourse this produced as is I'm gonna say that the things I personally wished were included would've probably started much bigger fires and resulted in much more smoke. (People like to jump in here with, "it was going for ten years" but that's kind of disingenuous. It was ten years between releases. The game was scrapped twice and the final iteration was only going for three-ish, and writers and devs kept getting fucking laid off.)

Anyway, there's a lot of stuff it's clear they wanted to go into more and simply weren't able to. That isn't their fault, and I grieve with them. People forget the writers were the original spelunkers. They're also people who have to roll with punches in a way that fans never, ever, have to.

That was a lot of words to say, basically, that I think Solavellan and Solas' story were handled well, and I'm satisfied. I wish there was more -- I'll always mourn whatever was on the mystery floor -- but that's what fanfic is for. It's in our hands now.

[crepes-suzette-373]

Is this an error or on purpose?? It's driving me insane!!!

(I'm just parsing through my own theory and doubts, you don't have to read this)

Ichiji's eyebrow that's under the bangs is the subject of fans' theories, and I wrote about it too, but I really just... sometimes have very strong doubts about it. With the insane time crunch of Shounen Jump schedule, what if it's really just a mistake that nobody caught?

One of my line of thinking was "this panel is so big, surely sensei can't possibly screw it up?" But the answer is, yes, he can screw up a panel that's that big.

When Venus blocked Zoro's attack, not only is he holding the sword in the wrong hand, but the sword is also missing its iconic Kitetsu cross-shaped guard. That Venus vs Zoro panel takes up half a page. On the manuscript paper, that would've been massive, and yet there it is.

As far as I can tell, this was not edited, changed, or fixed in the final volume version. So, I dunno, maybe all the weird eyebrows is literally nothing and he just messed up.

If I may use myself as an example, I have drawn their eyebrows facing wrong directions multiple times, and sometimes I never noticed there was anything wrong until days or even weeks later.

I not only drew the lines, but also rendered the colours in detail. I didn't do it all in one sitting. I went over the image multiple times with fresh eyes, across many days, and not for a single moment did I notice the eyebrow was wrong. It's not impossible that sensei experienced the same thing.

The anime scene cannot be used as reference because I don't think the anime staff are privy to any future lore or backstories from sensei. I would assume that they often had to fill in the gaps with educated guesses on their parts.

Pre-timeskip the anime have once displayed Sanji's other eyebrow facing the wrong direction and/or simply missing its curl.

Also in Whole Cake's finale episodes, the anime included a short filler bit where all of Sanji's bros made it safely back to the Germa ships. This is proven to be wrong when the cover story revealed Niji and Yonji got caught while still on land by Big Mum and didn't manage to escape.

The only way you can reconcile these is if you imagine a scenario where Niji and Yonji initially made it out just fine, but had to jump off the ship to fight Big Mum. Otherwise there's just a flat out discrepancy between manga and anime.

I don't think the Pirate Warriors 3D model rips are also any solid confirmation that Ichiji and Reiju's eyebrows are different either, because I found what is purportedly a model from the first game, where Sanji also has the eyebrows facing wrong directions:

(left: all siblings from Pirate Warriors 4, right: Sanji from Pirates Warriors 1)

In my guess, what happened was that they just made half a face (and body), which is then mirrored to create the other half. See below for what I mean:

In my opinion what happened was that with Ichiji and Reiju they just left the brows in mirrored state because they didn't know for sure. Look at Reiju's irises. The highlights are also mirrored. It really looks like they just created one half of the face and copy + flipped it:

The eyebrows are modelled onto the polygons and not just textures, so they really could've just copy + flipped the half model and never bothered changing it afterwards.

Or, if not, maybe they saw the anime scenes, thought that Ichiji and Reiju's eyebrows are facing different directions, and then followed suit. The Pirate Warriors models are made based on the anime rather than the manga (as you can see with Reiju's eyes being blue and not purple).

Whereas with Niji, Sanji, and Yonji they might have went through the trouble to edit the eyebrows to be more accurate to the series since they know for a fact what their brows look like.

So yeah, I don't know, this thing has no answer at all until Germa shows up in the series again (or revealed in Vivre Cards).

[letsburnthatbridgewhenwegetthere]

Chaos design symbolism!!!!

Okay so I have so many thoughts about the change in Chaos's design and if don't share them I might just implode. Basically I think about the change in their design denotes a cycle of rebirth and death/ decomposition. In their Hades 1 design they look like this:

I view the amorphous faces as an embodiment of their experiences throughout a long phase in their existence. I would also like to point out in this design they are growing a baby.

This is very similar to the new design, where what I believe the head of Chaos's Hades 1 designs head is growing another baby.

So from this I think that Chaos is a constant state of change and rebirth as a microcosm of the universe under the big crunch theory.

Which basically states that the universe is always expanding until it implodes, creates a subsequent big bang, and continues as such. Based on that the design from Hades 1 would be placed on this timeline towards the end before the implosion, and the Hades 2 design right after the big bang.

Another thing that I find very interesting is that Chaos seems to be materialist in nature as they have elements of their past in both their designs, denoting that creation does not exist in a vacuum. This is done with the faces incorporated into their body, and holding the skull of their previous form respectively.

Gah! I love symbolism!! Of course the deity of creation is a perpetual state of change that reflects a theory of the timeline of the universe while at the same time internally representing their previous selves as an embodiment of the materialist nature of existence!!!!