#the day that whole part of gaming dies is the day i find peace

[yellowistheraddest]

the world is a wonderful place: you think there can't be more genshin impact rip-offs and yet they appear everyday

[circeyoru]

You Think It’s That Easy? = Requested

[Yandere Human!Alastor x Arranged Marriage!Reader]

The Request (1) + (2)

Part 2 is out, please check Masterlist for the link

I supposed that it would be heavily implied that Reader here is female, cause I can’t imagine Alastor’s time letting male and male into a marriage. Sorry to my male readers!

A friendship between families is not something to be happy about. At least, to the children of the two families it isn’t

“Darling, meet Alastor, for now you two aren’t of age yet, but in time, you two will be married.”

That line was what chained you down to another without room for rejection or say. Luckily, Alastor himself wasn’t keen on the idea as well, so whenever you two were out of your parents’ sights, you two were off to do as you please

Your parents ran a successful shipping company, leading them to be absent throughout your childhood. They sent you to live with their friend, Alastor’s parents, later the idea of marrying you two was formed. Alastor’s father ran a factory, producing metal and machinary, so he was well off. There wasn’t a thing out of place, except maybe the greedy he has to money

With the lack of parents, you had to rely on yourself and you had plenty of private lessons to prepare yourself before going to going to school. You saw Alastor’s father as a sinful man that leeched off of your parents’ fame. The idea of marriage was mainly from him as well, since he wanted more compensation on top of what was given to him while taking care of you

Alastor was more of a mama’s boy, as you took notice. Very obedient to her, yet when it came to his father, he was much like a doll. You also saw his father as abusive, though he played the kind and sweet father figure when you were around, when you were out of sight, his switch is flipped. You leaned to Alastor’s wounds when you caught him reaching for a med-kit in the dead of night

The two of you made your peace with the arranged marriage after sometime spending at school. You two also thought of just going through with it since either of you found ‘love’, nor did you two want to disappoint your parents

A glorious wedding day supposed to be the best day of one’s life was a dull ceremony for you and merely a formality for Alastor. Vows spoken with the intent to break, rings exchanged as mere jellewery, and a kiss shared just as a performance on stage. Somehow, the smiles on your respective parents’ face was worth the trouble

You two moved out and lived in a mansion that was affordable. You two slept in separate rooms, nearly nothing was shared. The situation was much like a roommate. Nothing between you two suggested that there was the concept of ‘love’

Though an odd friendship of mutual acceptance and private support was formed. While you both had your fair share of friends and connections, you knew you could always rely on the other for anything because you’ve known the other your whole life and seen the ugly side of the other and accepted it

Like when Alastor’s father was accidentally killed in a factor fire and his mother passed away from an incurable disease not long after. Or your parents that died from a shipwreck while out at sea during a vacation you refused to go. During these traumatic times, while people around you two tried to claw at you, the other would protect and be a source of comfort

That’s why you two agreed to have the marriage stay in tact. It will be broken off when either one finds a partner that was ‘true love’

And that time came faster than imagined. You found that love you wanted, you didn’t tell anyone, opting to keep it a secret. You had a face to put on, so does your love. You knew Alastor would understand, in fact, he’d be ecsatic for you. Since this meant he would be free of this playing house game. You honestly figured Alastor had a lover of his own as well, since he returns home so late and would immediately head to the showers to clean before falling asleep

Everything planned for your leave, you didn’t inform Alastor and thought it was fine for you to just leave with your love. You did and none was the wiser. As a form of curtsy and thanks, you left Alastor a great sum of money, a letter of farewell, your wedding ring and signed marriage divorce papers. If he wanted, maybe you two could do on a double date?

While you were happy and dandy with the arrangement, Alastor found himself unable to go through with it when that time come. His hands crunched up the letter and he shoved away all that money. You see, he never expected it, but he fell for you in a way it wouldn’t be considered normal. You were someone he just want to let go

Starting that factory fire was easy, call it a trial. He hates his father, yes, but he also wanted to see if you’d break off the marriage since his father was the one to suggest the idea. But you didn’t and offered him a shoulder to ‘cry’ on, he realized then, that he prefered your presence other than his mother’s

“Alastor, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright, My Dear. Accidents happen all the time.”

“No, it’s not!” You suddenly hugged him out of nowhere, you knew perfectly well of his aversion to touch, yet you hugged him tight and provided your shoulder, “Don’t hold it in, Alastor. It’s not good for you. I’ll be right here for you.”

Slowly, Alastor returned the hug. His arms wrapped tightly against you, he let his face bury between your neck and shoulder and forced tears out. When he felt your hands patting the back of his head and soothing his back, a sickly grin formed. He likes this.

He realized his love for you when you mentioned some unsatisfactory suitors that approached you even when your wedding day was near. He killed a few and faked some accidents there. Then he had that was your parents that wanted to stop the wedding since his father was dead and you didn’t appear interested in him

So he found some people with a grudge against your family and planned an accident during their vacation. He appeared as your knight in shinning armour when those some people targetted you. He catched them away, but he just had to off them for attempting to harm you. There, after everything blew off, he offered his hand in this staged marriage as a form of support to you. You needed a husband to rely on, even though you have the money, a lady such as yourself can’t last long alone

The moment you accepted, he got to work. Rooms changed to a shared bedroom, you two would appear as a couple in cafes to enjoy meals and breaks. Everything to make it seem like you two were truly a couple instead of what happened before

Alas, his time with you was very limited. With his popular radio shows and nighty activities, he couldn’t keep up with you. But in his eyes you didn’t change much, so he continued. He noticed you were happier, but when you didn’t tell him anything, he didn’t know what was happening. He assumed you had a successful deal made or the like

“Darling! Dear! I’m home!”

But all that returned his greeting was the empty silence of the mansion.

To think you found your love without telling him. He was careful to eliminate any potential lovers of yours. How did he miss this one?! He’ll admit he was busier than usual, but he had been keeping an eye on you. What went wrong?

As dramatic as it sounded, he felt like his life was sucked out of him when he saw the papers on the table. The flowers he brought, which were your favourite, and the ingredients he brought to make your favourite meal were long discarded on the floor. He left work early to celebrate your anniversary with you and you left?

He scrambled up his and your shared bedroom, your personal belongings and stuffs were all gone. He went to his study, your files, documents, and books were all gone. He went to the kitchen, your favourite kitchenwares were gone too. His knees gave out beneath him, you truly left. You left him

“I wish you a happy life with your lover, Alastor! Don’t mistreat her! And it’s not proper to stay out too late into the night, Alastor~” Those inferno words that taunted him. He could practically hear your voice teasing him from the letter. Did you think he had a lover too? How could he when he loves (is obsessed with) you?

Blasphemy! 

The next day, ladies were eager to comfort him and console him. The news of his divorce and that he was a free man was all over town, no doubt something you did to ensure that he and his supposed ‘love’ can be together in public. He was in no mood to entertain them

Alastor buried himself in his work, radio broadcasting and killing. As much as he wanted to hunt you down and kill whoever stole your heart from under his nose, he can’t. The two of you were famous in your own rights and it would cause quite the scandal that both of you might not recover

So he took out his witchcraft book. Binding souls request both souls’ blood and hair, he had collected yours beforehand. A sacrifice, the body in front of him will do well, it was the some person that tried to copy you and earn his love

He’ll see you in Hell and when he does, Alastor will not let you go

Note: Another story that's not {Unwanted Soul}! I'll probably continue that one when all the votes are in. At least, the new plotline will be like that.

Since this request was a long time ago, I went and made it longer than others. Hope you like this one in the meantime!

Circe Y.

Other Works: MASTERLIST

Taglist:

@aconfusedwonderland

@crowleysthings

@donustellaron

@mistpurpl3

[celestica-1988]

Some other Tokyo Revengers characters headcanon. There will be SPOILERS.

When Mikey left the Sano household he brought with him his towel and some pics of the people he lost. Almost every night when he's curled up in his towel ready to sleep he watches the pics and cries. Yes, even when he's in bonten.

Draken biggest regret is not confessing his feelings to Emma. So when he gets up and goes to bed he always says "I love you" to her pic on the wall.

Baji is so scared of his mother tears because when she cries she turns in a really strong opponent. She's the female version of the blue ogre.

Chifuyu thought that his mother hated Peke J till one day when he got home from school and found the two sleeping together snuggling.

Takemichi finds some notes of his past self in which he's confused about being friends with people he doesn't even remember he knew and lately being involved in a gang. Past Takemichi is afraid he's going insane so our Takemichi writes te a note in which he explains everything. Not surprisingly past Takemichi is even more confused and thinks he need a therapist.

Kazutora is proud of his tattoo. He just wish people in Japan wouldn't be so scared of tattoos because sometimes is tired of hide it with turtlenecks.

Takuya likes to watch wrestling.

Yamagishi dream is that his delinquent encyclopedia would be published one day.

Akkun dies his hair red by himself as a training to be an hairdresser.

Mitsuya is very good at karaoke, he likes to sing rock songs.

Hakkai is the first and more hardcore shipper of Mitsuya x Yuzuha. He really wants Taka-chan to be a part of his family.

Sometimes Taiju babysits Mana and Luna. One time they asked him to watch IT (the 90s version) with them since Takanii forbid them to watch such a scary horror movie, Taiju accepted but not much longer the movie started Mana and Luna started to cry and Taiju did his best to comfort them (he said he would punch any clowns that goes close to them or something similar). In the end the little ones fell asleep in his arms and Taiju had to live for a week with the Mitsuya because Mana and Luna felt safe only near to him. Needless to say an angry Mitsuya scolded Taiju.

When Pahchin gets released all the Toman members throw a party for him. He was sad Mikey was not there though.

When Yasuda confessed to Pehyan he malfunctioned and froze for a solid 15 minutes.

Angry thought for a while that he would be a nurse when he will be an adult. He changes his mind after seeing Nahoya smiling with his eyes wide in delight while eating the ramen that he prepared. Since then Angry wants to be a ramen chef.

Smiley once stole Angry favorite stuffed animal, Souya got so upset that accidentally unleashed the blue ogree. Since then Nahoya always politely asks to Souya if he can borrow one of his plushies.

Mucho goes to punk rock concerts, one time he brought Sanzu with him, but it wasn't a good idea. Sanzu beated almost all the people in the venue.

Sanzu ends up regretting killing Mucho, he misses the older brother he was for him. Especially when he feels lonely and he realizes he has got nobody to talk to.

When Kisaki reaches the afterlife Baji punches him in the face so hard that for a moment he was sure he would come back in the world of the livings.

Hanma likes to play shooting games at the arcade, but when he loses he usually punches the machine.

Kokonoi lives in a traditional house when he's in bonten. There are a lot of candles, lanterns and things that make it a cozy place. Only Miley is admitted in his house and only for urgent matters. The house is his sanctuary to find inner peace after dealing with his crazy coworkers.

Inui likes goth girls more because they understand and appreciate his hobbies.

When Izana listens to Queen the whole neighborhood listens to Queen.

Kakucho learned to cook from Mochi.

Mochi hates creeps who harass women and always beat them down to a pulp. Harassing a woman is not an honorable behavior for a man!

Shion always fails tests of courage since when he was a kid. He believes in ghosts and he's afraid of them.

Rindou panicked when Ran slept for a whole day, he thought he was dead or in a coma. That's when he realized how important Ran is to him. When Ran woke up he cried for joy and ran to buy a mont blanc for his brother.

Ran cut his hair because he was tired of Sanzu calling him Wednesday or Annabelle.

Never insult someone because they are not fully Japanese in front of South, he will punch the living shit out of you. Since he's also a mixed race person he hates when people are bullied for that reason.

Wakasa saved a stray cat once and let the kitten live with him. Now when he doesn't wanna hang out with Takeomi he said he's busy... Busy cuddling his cat that he treasures so much because it help him avoid unnecessary social situations. And because... Who doesn't love a cat?

Benkei likes to built copies of castles in miniature. It relaxes him cause it takes great concentration and ability to do that in the right way.

Takeomi gossips like an old lady with his coworkers (may God help them)

Shinichiro cried the first time he watched Titanic, it's one of his favorite movies.

Yuzuha meets with Emma and Senju every month to talk about how hard it is dealing with problematic brothers.

Hinata is a fan of Avril Lavigne and sometimes she dreams of touring around the world playing the songs she wrote. Unluckily she can't sing but she has got some alternative fashion clothes.

Emma talks and sleeps with the plushie Draken gave to her. She calls him Kenken.

Senju goes often to Harajuku to take inspiration for her outfits.

[findmeinthefallair]

Hunter's Experiences After Belos's Death

Oops, this got long. Aw well, it was really fun to write.

Special thanks to @ashanimus!

This is speculative at the end of the day, but since:

1. This is my fave animated show of all time

2. I grew up with Complex PTSD (CPTSD) like Hunter

3. I work as a therapist,

I thought to list down some things I can visualize happening in the duration of the finale's timeskip, before that beautiful epilogue we saw. And I want to dive in using whatever clues, leads and parallels I can find in canon: to analyze and see how he went from the Bad But Sad Boy to that peaceful-looking palisman carver in the epilogue.

A small reference I had for this meta is Cinema Therapy's episode on the Hunger Games movies (link), since the protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, from the book and also movie trilogy would have the same diagnosis as Hunter. Those books and movies explored how Katniss coped with the frightening and dramatically different landscape that was the calmness of her world post-victory.

Part 1: His Possible Experiences Leading Up to Seeking a Therapist

His disposition could possibly become like Luz's from early Season 3: a state of emotionally shutting down and numbing out. He appeared to nearly head in this direction right after he was revived by Flapjack, as he began to cry. There was that small window where he could have expressed more tears than he did, and have his body shut down under the weight of bereavement.

But the immediate physical threat, Belos, was still on the run. He got up, sprang into action and didn't catch a break from the time he followed Belos through the portal until he stood in The Collector's palace after Belos died (had he even received the news of his 'Uncle' dying yet??!).

Now that Belos isn't around anymore, the Isles will have a completely different feel and rebuilding the land would've taken grueling work after the dismantling of a damaging Coven System.

I was looking at Luz's behavior and gestures in Thanks to Them, which were indicative of her sinking into depression after 1. the horrible revelation in Hollow Mind that she unintentionally helped Philip. 2. witnessing Flapjack's death. I'm putting screenshots of her below in parallel with Hunter's own emotions in For the Future:

They have different mental health conditions if you talk symptoms, e.g. Luz doesn't show signs of CPTSD hypervigilance, while Hunter doesn't have that slowing down in his physical and mental activity which points to depression. But both have suffered from moral injury thanks to Belos's violence and manipulation.

However, a major comparison is that Hunter has had much more repressed emotion over a long period compared to Luz. The column with Hunter screencaps above, is what he may feel with a much higher intensity in the weeks and months after he first hears that his abuser has passed on.

Shown below, the few seconds of Hunter's big smile drooping when it was all over, was a big hint for me:

A hint that there is a deep undercurrent of emotions he'd much rather not feel, that he'd probably rather hide from himself. Even while smiling, we know how his heart-wrenching story has played out and the light in his eyes here doesn't match the brightness we see in his expressions in the epilogue, post-timeskip.

That is the face of a kid who has not cried out massive amounts of tears yet. He doesn't look like he's carrying a light load yet, compared to what we see in his future self. And it's certainly a heavier smile than the jollier one he makes here right after King's Tide when Flapjack was still around:

I can't imagine the amount of grief that his body has yet to dredge up and release, once he finally doesn't have to worry about his 'uncle' threatening his life anymore. Too many times to count, I've been in the situation where I cry intensely after being retraumatized and think "Huh? More tears? Where did it come from?? I thought I had cried it all out from my whole being the last time!". It kind of convinced me that anyone with CPTSD has so much grief stored up in their body that the number of times needed to have a good cry feels like a really endless expanse.

However: because I had 7 years of being in and out of therapy, what matters is that the durations between these episodes of mine, the durations of the episodes themselves, plus their intensity have reduced a lot. It was around a 4-year timeskip in the finale, so for Hunter to get as far as he did to heal, his own therapy sessions would've probably been rigorous and very consistent.

Anyway, he might now cycle through his own version of what Luz cycled through when she gradually shuts down from failing to build a new portal door in Thanks to Them, continually believes she's as bad as Belos, and when she alludes to her suicidal ideation in the classroom:

whereby there is a likely parallel between Luz wrestling with guilt from her own moral injury, and Hunter's own guilt from what he wished he could've done to prevent being possessed, to prevent Flapjack from dying. Both their situations are that of moral injuries.

The adrenaline rush would be over for everyone on the Isles.

I'm quite sure the therapists on the Isles will operate pretty soon after the news about Belos's death was out. They would conduct whatever version of mental health triage they have, that involves risk assessments and crisis counselling. Both of these based on what I've learnt are shorter in duration (30 minutes) and are one-off sessions, compared to regular talk therapy which is an hour minimum.

The therapists would be redirecting people to necessary resources e.g. where to find food or loved ones, and managing distress only related to people's immediate needs instead of forming a longer term plan for several weekly sessions.

I believe things are simpler when you are running away from an external threat, like the two Hunter scenarios below. In Hollow Mind there is no emotion on his face because in peak C-PTSD mode he has shut down his emotions to pour that energy into escaping Belos. In Thanks to Them, he appears quite obviously scared with widened eyes because he got comfortable with safety for months and Belos's return was a surprise attack (thanks ashanimus for pointing out to me how his expressions are animated!):

But what is there to run from now? Not an external threat for sure. The war zone is now the one in his mind, heart and soul and it would become front and center. I believe both these screenshots are two notches on a dial, and the missing third image - which would show him finding it difficult to stuff down the grief any longer, might look like a more exasperated version of when he told Willow "Please don't call yourself [a Half-a-Witch] ever again" in For the Future, and eventually a more depressed version of his vanishing smile in The Collector's Palace.

When can he really run from himself? Only while asleep, if he's spared nightmares on any given night, or while distracting himself with the main mission of rebuilding the Isles or continuing to bond with his friends and other people.

His anger in For the Future was a telling sign for me that he made sure his focus was still on an external threat: he still had the opportunity to do so back then, because Belos was still alive. But when we see him in The Collector's palace sending Willow off to her dads, there has realistically been a shift in what will threaten the more fragile shreds of inner peace he's still clinging on to. There are those scary trauma-related emotions to worry about, which wouldn't have just evaporated into thin air. They would be looking for a new outlet, and they'll find their way into flashbacks, nightmares, tension still stored in the body, an exaggerated startle response, etc.

We have seen a range of reactions he has to danger, triggers and emotional pain: some involve moving his body more, and fewer involve a short of shutting down:

Flinching during Belos's tantrums, being able to fight Kikimora calmly, freezing up in the throne room (Hunting Palismen)

Suicidal ideation and even a sort of suicide plan (Eclipse Lake)

Freezing up and expecting punishment from Darius (Any Sport in a Storm)

Being able to stay almost entirely calm as he learnt more and more of the truth about Belos, though his hand was shaking briefly, then a panic attack later on (Hollow Mind)

Lots of avoidance symptoms like numbing, combined with hypervigilance e.g. shivering and another panic attack (Labyrinth Runners)

Feeling fear with underlying shame and subconsciously expecting punishment, when he failed to save Luz (Clouds on the Horizon)

Freezing and recoiling, though he fought against this by asserting a boundary with Belos (King's Tide)

Panic attack when looking into the mirror and having an emotional flashback, hypervigilance e.g. stamping his foot and shivering (Thanks to Them)

Anger and rage to cope with bereavement, later being tearful (For the Future)

Most likely a sense of bereavement, deep exhaustion and possibly loneliness, during that briefly shown moment in The Collector's Palace (Watching and Dreaming)

The serious work he has to put in to heal from his trauma would begin once his whole body gives in to the exhaustion, catching up with the bereavement-related emotions that have also begun to settle in. It could be a massive emotional and physical collapse that he can't fight off, where his physical energy levels become tanked seemingly out of nowhere. And I think it would look like a worse version of him lying in his makeshift grave, where he is barely able to move around the house or anywhere for some time.

This happened to Katniss in the Hunger Games trilogy, and while the portrayal was done differently in the books and movies, both were good explorations of what it's like to shift from the default high alert (and long-term) mode of CPTSD to coping with the scary unknown world of newfound safety. Katniss spent her childhood in poverty and being constantly on edge that she might be chosen for the Hunger Games, being parentified, to provide for her family.

While participating in the games, she had to utilize battle skills and kill others to survive and sustained many injuries, still constantly on high alert whereby any respite would last for incredibly short durations. Towards the end of the story, after she loses the one she loved most (her sister Prim, who I think can be a parallel of Flapjack in this meta), Katniss shifts from peak physical activity into mostly sleeping and being actively suicidal for months, hardly moving and not leaving the house, until the shock of traumatic grief began to wear off. She absolutely crashed and went from one extreme to the other. In the movie Mockingjay Part 2, they added a non-book scene where her grief comes out in an outburst when she sees their pet cat hanging around on the kitchen counter. She flings an object in the cat's direction, then screams "[Prim] is gone!!" repeatedly before collapsing into heavy sobs, picking up the cat and holding it to her chest to soothe herself.

This kind of major collapse might happen very soon to Hunter after he leaves The Collector's Palace or only after some weeks. The timing of this, I can't predict. The reason why he didn't appear to have this issue in the early months being in the human realm is because there was still something external to concentrate on: help his friends get back to the Human Realm, help Luz reunite with Eda and King, while him and Flapjack hoped to go home too.

You could argue that even now, he still has something external to focus on i.e. helping the others rebuild the Isles. However I keep imagining that the people who love him are going to be quite adamant in getting him, Luz and the other kids to please rest. Since we saw Steve recommend his therapist to Lilith in O Titan Where Art Thou, I can picture the adults in particular monitoring how Hunter is doing without Flapjack.

But if this collapse I'm speculating about doesn't happen so soon, he would be pouring himself into helping others, referencing his character-centric line all the way back in Hunting Palismen about wanting to offer help, which he utters twice in that episode. There is an overlap between this expectation he has of himself and the old habit he's at risk of falling back into periodically: overworking.

Once his desire to help others is clearly comes across as an avoidance tactic on the outside - a maladaptive coping mechanism to run from the very difficult emotions that he should be processing - people around him are definitely going to set boundaries and say "No" to any attempts he makes to assist them. Someone is probably going to tell him that whatever desperation he is showing in wanting to help other people, needs to be redirected at himself. Making time and space for himself, taking time off to rest.

Him suffering from a major emotional and physical collapse is pretty likely because things are more complicated (though, physically much much safer) for him now than at the beginning of Thanks to Them when he had just fled from Belos to the human realm, and had Flapjack as his closest company. Fast forward to the victory won in Watching and Dreaming: both Flapjack and Belos are gone now.

It's telling that different thoughts are occupying Hunter's mind now, from how his expressions are drawn during his first days in the human realm vs. when peace is restored in the Isles.

1. See the sense of calmer urgency in his expression, putting the mission of building the portal door first, while experiencing a strong sense of togetherness with his friends, and learning to trust Camila who is treating him well:

compared to

2. the sheer exhaustion and feeling of "What now...?" (see his upper eyelids below?) that set in, once he helped Willow find her parents and there was no more task at hand that didn't involve himself. His bright smile from a split-second ago has drooped and disappeared:

I know that right after the above frame, Darius and Eberwolf reunited with him, but his emotions are going to cycle up and down in the hours, weeks and months ahead. The elation from seeing Darius and Eber - people who were there to greet him when he expected nobody to turn up - is not going to last, though it will certainly come and go, because high-running positive emotions like that don't last as long, especially in the context of the life he's had as a child soldier. It's totally possible that on the same night, hours after this reunion with their loved ones, their emotions will shift drastically.

The tired look in his eyes above and the sad face he then makes, is in between two moments of him having something external to focus on (Willow and then Darius). I'm inclined to think that the above depressed look reflects a lot of the complexity that is going on underneath the surface. What is his state of mind when alone with his thoughts, when he has zero tasks to perform? How is he handling those thoughts?

There will be a deep, sometimes mind-numbing sense of bereavement over two significant figures in his life. First Flapjack, now this:

He used to love Belos. But I'm really not sure he can just uproot that love from deep within and discard it. Hunter carries memories like the following ones around which will be confusing to navigate on tougher days, despite being able to tell Luz "That's what Belos does, he tricks people". Because these were his formative years:

and something tells me that Philip was cunning enough to strike a delicate balance between being 'nice' to Hunter like above, versus unleashing his violent temper to terrify and harm him. Making sure that balance was so close to 50/50 that it would leave a child very confused. So confused he would rather believe he's never good enough rather than the more frightening prospect that his so-called family does not actually love him at all.

Hunter will have a moment now and then of still missing the 'niceness' that his 'uncle' showed towards him (felt in his heart and subconscious), while still knowing (in his head, rationally) that Philip was not genuine when treating him that way.

To note though, he did not witness Belos's death which reduces the severity of intrusive images that the poor kid would see in his mind.

What I'm worried about is how he'll handle the news about the grimwalker graveyard, since I'm sure that location is going to be scoured and Darius would want to give his mentor a proper sending off. They'd want to give all the Golden Guards and Caleb a sending off and pay their respects. This might add to what I suspect will be the messed up depression he'll fall into.

It will be very confusing and emotionally disorienting, literally not needing to worry about anyone killing him anymore. He has had no point of reference for this in his life at all. It might possibly the furthest he ever goes from that primal survival instinct he had while living in the Castle for so long, which took up the majority of his life so far:

There will also be the added layer of how he feels about those first emotions. This is literally a concept called Feelings About Feelings and it's a key part of my work since I use the Satir Model in my style of counselling. We don't just feel emotions, we also tack on our own judgments and evaluations about them. E.g. shame about feeling anger, guilt about feeling sad because of burdening others, or even a combination like fear about feeling joy which can show up in healing from bereavement.

Depending on how we feel about whichever emotions got there first, it makes a difference because we could be adding or subtracting unnecessary suffering from the first emotion, especially if the first emotion is an already unpleasant one.

I have a feeling that we'd see Hunter look very very tired, till he makes breakthroughs in therapy. A tiredness that sleep, a healthy diet and exercise alone simply cannot fix. Because there's an entire upbringing in the Emperor's Coven to sort through in his head, this time not combined with the avoidance of having fled to the human realm and living under one roof with his friends.

The Hexsquad are not living under the same roof anymore, they are reunited with their own families with much to emotionally talk out, and the group no longer has a very urgent single collective mission. Sure, Hunter has an active role to play in rebuilding the Isles, but what about rebuilding his very self? He has the steepest climb, because we have seen the symptoms he exhibits.

Most of all, referencing a section of my Retraumatization and Self-Soothing (Part 1) meta (link), a memory as horrible as this:

will likely be the most intrusive image is going to be replaying again and again over the months to come, and it may flood his thoughts during moments of being triggered or even out of nowhere during quiet moments for no apparent reason. It will be just like a broken record, where the same small excerpt of a song loops endlessly until the needle of the gramophone is repositioned.

It was remarkably poignant that his final words to Belos were "And most of all, I'm going to make sure you never hurt anyone again", and I'm happy with the story keeping it this way and understand why the writers likely made this decision - not just because the season was shortened. Hunter did not need to directly see or hear more from Belos in close quarters, not after his abuser minimized his needs for years, gaslit him, possessed him and got him to murder his best friend with his own hands.

It's more straightforward to make sure someone else isn't hurting anyone. It's easier to think of what plans to implement, when it comes to him protecting others: which he has had plenty of practice with. Because those are practical methods that we can see in action on the outside.

But here's the kicker: what about applying that last grand statement from his TTT speech to himself, emotionally: making sure he isn't psychologically hurting himself with harmful unhelpful thoughts and beliefs, after Belos's death? "I'll make sure I don't hurt myself (and by extension, my loved ones) again".

This will be very new to him, and it is a theme that I handle in pretty much every client case in my therapy work. The client's self-dialogue, the self-compassion or lack thereof. Which, in real life, is often not a concept that our own families and schools introduce to us to be familiar with.

For Hunter, this may translate into him making the decision to get help and truly accepting the gift of life that Flapjack gave him.

Basically this on a much bigger scale:

whereby in Flapjack's absence, he can truly believe in this new and positive fundamental belief about himself. The evidence that he managed to make it to that heartbreaking but incredibly beautiful place is pretty strong:

But before his happy ending, the pressure on himself to be useful to others via helping and working is likely going to come back and be used as his way of coping, and there's a chance it will cross the line into becoming a form of self-harm that he's relying on to avoid the frightening, deeper emotional pain. People around him know him well enough that they'll be able to spot his behavioral changes and then sense he is not going in a helpful direction. They'll see that it's hurting him even though it's the most familiar territory for his mind to be in, and someone is going to tell him to change that.

He's going to be seeing his friends with their palismen. How will it be like being among them, even if they are pretty good at supporting him? How would he attempt to make sense of the void that is the absence of the incredible love he experienced from that first friend, the absence of that mental link between witch and palisman?

What emotions could be lurking beneath the surface? Believe it or not, there are some signs from Luz's nightmare even though yes, Hunter was being controlled by The Collector. I wouldn't quickly dismiss this dark Flapjack-related scene as 100% being about The Collector's goal to scare Luz in the nightmare.

I think there was a smaller subplot going on as well.

The Collector needed material to work with in the first place, to perform the puppet acts: the material was whatever fears and whatever pain was already there in their targets.

The Collector didn't create Hunter's emotions from scratch for the puppet act; instead he manipulated and redirected what existed at the base level. All this wouldn't work as analogies of mental illness vs. mental health if The Collector could just engineer emotions on their own and simply replace whatever his puppet targets were already feeling. Emotions never vanish and always take up space somewhere, they are redirected, transformed or channeled into outlets even if it means they become repressed or locked away. But they never stop existing.

I have a feeling that despite the nightmare being Luz's, despite Hunter being used as an instrument for The Collector to achieve their goals...the pre-existing emotions that Hunter himself felt in his body, not puppet!Hunter's verbal responses towards Luz, were true. He is a haunted boi.

This face he makes above might be a hint at the worst of his pain. It might be the furthest he has felt from when he said "I like who I am right now" to Flapjack. In the place of that confidence from before, there might now be his own version of Luz's "I'm as bad as Belos". I cannot be entirely certain, but the negative belief that may have taken root in him could be "I am not deserving of the life Flapjack gave me".

Interestingly, if this is the case, it could easily parallel his line from all the way back in Any Sport in A Storm: "I'm unfit to wear the sigil of the Golden Guard." It's definitely a possibility, since Hunter is now faced with having a lot of time and space now, and less urgency than he's ever had in his life, to think back on all those times he helped to further Belos's cause. Especially when it came to sending many palismen to their deaths.

With his own palisman now dead, the engraving we would eventually see on Flapjack's grave: "Thank you for finding me", would be the destination. But the journey needed to reach that destination of amazing gratitude in the first place...must have been a harrowing one. In the early months of the acute grief, it would've been more like "Why did you have to find me?! You shouldn't have. Then none of this would've happened". Not forgetting the number of times Hunter has replayed in his head what he could've done differently, trying so desperately to rewind the clock and make that better alternate timeline a reality.

If you remove The Collector and even Luz from the equation in the Luz nightmare scene, Hunter may well be having such responses - the ones that puppet!Hunter directed at Luz to blame Luz - as a dialogue with himself. He might direct those negative emotions towards himself since he's so careful about hurting others and has taken on unfair punishment for so much of his life.

Even when he was temporarily himself, smiling, expressing a positive emotion to encourage Luz with "What's the first thing you do when you wake up from a bad dream?", that was him conversing with another person, someone external. Not his own self. I am willing to bet he wasn't at a point in his arc where he would smile at himself like that and easily encourage himself in the same way.

While we can be certain he had already reached his breakthroughs by the time we saw him post-timeskip, he has not experienced them yet in the frame above. He has not felt (yet) what Luz felt onscreen when she had breakthroughs in relation to her moral injury:

Taking a leap of faith to accept the Titan's gift, to trust that he chose her because she has a good heart and will never be Belos.

Then later, being able to stand firm, believing she truly is good ("I am the Good Witch Luz!"), and not uttering a word to Belos as he died - which was post-traumatic growth beyond how she broke down under his threats and manipulation towards the end of Hollow Mind and later in King's Tide.

Recap time. In the (quite likely) long period that passes by before we meet his new palismen, he's likely going to want to jump into action and attend meetings with Darius, Eberwolf and co, help to physically rebuild things and organize people with his own Coven Head experience. Leaning back on the ingrained and familiar lifestyle of pouring himself into work and gearing towards burnout is certainly a risk to watch out for.

The Hexsquad, CATTs and the Clawthorne sisters are going to notice his behavior and likely urge him to get appropriate rest and seek help.

However, there is the other extreme: Belos isn't around anymore to torment him, and Hunter would know this in the rational sense (head knowledge). Which leads to the possibility that he may swing towards shutting down as opposed to overworking tendencies. He would feel allowed to do whatever he wants, in this new Boiling Isles, and he had months of opportunities to do that in the early part of Thanks to Them before Belos's return.

What I'm getting at is, if he didn't sleep enough before, he might swing towards sleeping too much after finally collapsing from the familiarity of survival mode into unknown but genuinely safe territory. If he cared too much about helping others before, he might swing towards a depressive state of apathy (the closest canon reference point would be him digging his grave: he was very disarmed in that scene to even think much about helping anyone including Belos). This is why the screenshot I used of his smile drooping in The Collector's Palace, feels like a big clue to me. This would be where Darius, Camila and other adults have to seriously keep watch over him.

In the Cinema Therapy episode I had as a small reference for this post, the licensed therapist who hosts the series mentions that "It takes a lot longer to put oneself back together than it took to fall apart." In Hunter's case, the "falling apart" period here refers to that collapsing I mentioned. It would be the time between:

1. the grief hitting him in full force: when he subconsciously understands and acknowledges that Flapjack isn't coming back (which...will involve hell of a lot of wailing and sobbing. Him having a full version cry of those first few tears he shed at the end of TTT),

and

2. the time when the painful shock from feeling the full force of the grief has decreased enough that it plateaus.

This falling apart stage may need to pass before he seeks therapy. If he tries going for sessions while still going through that shock and pain, it might be too much for him.

As terrible and sad as it sounds, a deep dark spiral like this might be necessary. It would be his body and mind wanting to compensate for several years' worth of unnatural hypervigilance which wasn't serving him in a advantageous way (i.e. surviving) any longer. His body and mind begging for rest at last, to try and make sense of everything that happened. This big collapse into depression would empty out the old and free up much room in him for new stories, beliefs and perspectives to take root. Depression is, after all, the body's attempt to (maladaptively) try and protect us by numbing us, or else we would be overwhelmed.

As someone whom we know keeps himself very busy, this could be the period where he is the furthest he has ever been from that old simpler life. Because his CPTSD-ridden body would be demanding more than ever that he compensates for a childhood and teen years' lack of general rest, he may not even have the strength to cope the way he did before. The only way he might possibly cope in this period is to go with the flow of that raging current and do exactly what his body is asking of him: getting real rest.

Like what happened with Katniss in the Hunger Games trilogy, this early grieving stage would emotionally be difficult and terrifying, like walking along a tightrope, finding balance between left and right to angle yourself as straightly as possible and walk forward. (the tightrope metaphor is what I use with some of my clients to explain swinging between extremes of coping mechanisms).

The missing pieces of the puzzle in his arc, in the 4-year duration before the timeskip, might be his own version of these points in Luz's arc:

where she sank lower before she realized her deepest wish and emotionally experienced her worst fear in her Watching and Dreaming nightmare.

For Hunter, these could look like the following:

Like Luz saying it'd be better for everyone that she permanently stays in the human realm, Hunter might say he wants to remove himself from his loved ones in some way, for good. Whether a literal suicide attempt (like Katniss from The Hunger Games) or not, I can't say for sure.

A parental figure trying to reach out to him, saying he is deserving of Flapjack's gift. But he still struggles to believe that. What matters though is this parental figure is present and he's not pushing them away.

Him hearing some confirmation of his deepest negative belief about himself, in his own nightmares. Like Luz hearing the most terrifying things she could ever hear - Amity's "You've been the real villain this whole time" and "But for the sake of everyone you hurt, I challenge you to a witch's [duel]".

Him being able to reach an emotional space where he can begin to question that unhelpful belief: "Am I really deserving of Flapjack's gift?", or something similar.

The big moment when he finally tells someone how he really feels about the possession, Belos's death, Flapjack's absence in this new supposed peace and quiet....this would be the important invitation for the other person to connect and meet his emotional needs, and is a lot like how support groups for addiction work: a client needs to acknowledge that they are struggling with a problem, not avoiding it with distractions any longer, and then seek help and express their need for said help.

I suppose the question is how soon Hunter might decide to accept professional help and give it a go: or whether he'd have the genuine need for space first and say "I need some time". Because one's rational mind can be ready to go for therapy, but their subconscious and body would find it too unpleasant if it's too soon. Every part of him would have to be ready to begin putting himself back together after the falling apart stage occurs.

The messed up experience of CPTSD is that you stay shockingly calm during real danger, but on the flip side have big, disproportionate freakouts during actually safe times. Compare how calm Hunter was when he smiled at Luz in her nightmare while he was tied up with puppet strings vs. his fear and shame when he couldn't save Luz in Clouds on the Horizon. 

In a CPTSD memoir I read, the author describes that it was horribly frightening to hear her partner be in a bad mood and wash the dishes more loudly than usual, while during the pandemic, she felt completely calm seeing empty shelves in a supermarket when she struggled to get supplies.

From my own experience, I have experienced being pretty damn calm when bleeding out and needing hospitalization. But in a different year before that, I recall one afternoon alone in my house right before a vacation where a strong gust of wind very loudly slammed an open door shut next to where I happened to be standing, and I broke down sobbing from a retraumatization via an emotional flashback. Because it felt extremely real as if my abusive parent was lashing out to physically hurt me. 

After a 5-year period of mostly being in talk therapy, and then a 2-year period of regularly scheduled EMDR therapy, my response if I have a door loudly slam shut near me now would maybe be a smaller-scale flinch and a flash of anger that would last about maybe a minute. Which is miles better than sobbing for half an hour and being dissociated and frozen in a memory for hours before I thaw out of that flashback.

Since the show's writing is just that good, I could look at Luz's depressive symptoms manifesting in Thanks to Them and see a likely parallel in Hunter's story moving forward, since we know how much this show also digs neat and tidy parallels. These are characters written for TV after all, so they'd have to fit a formula to an extent, to have compelling arcs and reach high and low points along said arcs.

Part 2: Therapy Itself

Part 1 was the setup to give a good amount of context: now for the technicalities of the therapy sessions themselves:

Like Adrian Graye said in Labyrinth Runners, Illusion Magic can sort through memories. We have seen from Gus's own powerful Illusion abilities that he could do so with Belos. It makes sense that a therapist does this in sessions to have a magnified version of how in our world, therapists exercise empathy by imagining what it is like to be their clients:

I would monitor whether his mood (what he is feeling within) and affect (how the emotions appear on the outside e.g. tone of voice, face expressions) are congruent. Congruence usually means a client is in less distress. Incongruence might mean they are in so much pain that they can't connect directly with the main emotion: the perfect example of this being Hunter laughing when digging his grave.

We therapists take note of aspects such as affect, mood, the client's motor activity, any indicators of psychosis, even down to things like how untidy their hair looks in case we get clues about the severity of their issues (this is called a Mental Status Exam, and we write what we see in our case notes per session).

Because CPTSD is so relationship-centric, I'd discuss how he's getting along with new parental figures (the Belos replacements who will heal him so much and change his life forever!) and friends.

If the Boiling Isles therapists use their own equivalent of EMDR therapy, which is theorized to be like a waking version of how REM sleep and REM-related dreams help our brains to sort through memories, it sounds like a great fit for his case. This intervention involves subconscious work and could help him reshape how he experiences memories of Flapjack and Belos. EMDR clients are expected to see vivid images popping up without control in their mind during the sessions, and they are quite symbolic e.g. seeing a grey sky often indicates grief, seeing lighter colors indicates more calm. This technique helps a client's subconscious rewrite their story the way they'd like it to be, and install new positive beliefs and emotions over time.

My own example of EMDR experiences from the second half of 2019 as a client, is it majorly changed how I related to my own abuser, got me to finally feel allowed to emotionally break away from her, even though she is still alive and even lives in the same building.

In the early sessions, I saw an image of my 5-year-old self being forced to wear an ugly grey apron that my abuser used for baking. The apron is a real object, not fictional, and the emotions I felt showing up were matching with the image: feeling very uncomfortable seeing a visual representation of my abuser's hold over me.

But in a later session after a few months, guided by my therapist, I saw a vivid image of my abuser receiving a sea burial. She was lying peacefully on the water surface and sank down until she was gone. That was me subconsciously burying any expectation that she could ever provide what I needed. This was so powerful that I could go home after that session and permanently (so far) be significantly calmer around my abuser.

Therefore if Hunter goes through something like this, he'd potentially be able to put Belos to rest and have it feel very real and true: and have significantly reduced distress about Belos-related memories. There is the potential for powerful breakthroughs for him here, especially also related to Flapjack's death and how challenging it might be to carve palismen in the beginning. Especially since in the worst case scenario, even touching palistrom wood might be enough to badly trigger him. I cover this particular point a bit more in my other meta, Retraumatization and Self-Soothing (Part 1).

We would also be discussing what he's implementing into his routine and what may benefit him. I would be seeing if he is able to laugh about things, be motivated enough to be outdoors and among people, experience pleasure when creating new things, and form closer bonds with parental figures (what I just listed is to do with neurotransmitters in the brain that increase mental health: serotonin, endorphins, dopamine and oxytocin).

If I were his therapist I might suggest that whatever volunteering tasks he does, he carries those out with his friends, and time should be allocated to managing and taking care of a specific demographic: children. Because I think it'd be a safe, low stakes form of unfamiliarity for him to have enough emotional distance from his traumatic memories. Early months of acute grief usually require such emotional distance.

Having a good dose of an environment like that alongside the other tasks where he's working alongside Darius etc, could help him because kids' emotions are less complex, and their infectious laughter and fun-loving nature may play a role in helping him be more open with his own inner child. His therapist would be seeking to draw out that inner child in their sessions, and that little child would need to feel safe enough to emerge.

Importantly, his future palisman: it would've been interesting if he did what Luz did with Stringbean and allowed the palisman to be whoever they wanted to be...that would've been a nicely organic process. But even if he had a good idea to incorporate a Flapjack-like design but change details like the color, I'm sure he thought it through very well. I'm certain that this was a major topic of discussion at some stage of his therapy. Discussing the guilt he'd feel about replacing Flapjack vs. still taking Flapjack with him in a new way.

Coming from a strengths-based angle: paying attention to which of his individual strengths he is shows and recounts in the session. If he needs reminding, I could give him a simple worksheet listing various positive qualities and ask him to circle/colour in which ones he feels he has, which then prompts further discussion and questions. Lastly, a powerful tool called reframing e.g. if he says he's worried about being a nuisance to his friends, I'll point out how much he cares about their comfort and affirm that place of kindness.

Work on inviting self-compassion into how he sees himself. Is he able to view himself the way he views his friends? If he remembers the encouragement he gave to Luz about "turning on the light", I would ask him what that would look like in his own life, symbolically.

Hunter's own life has been a really really bad dream for a very long time. He himself has to reach for that light switch and choose to heal by embracing Flapjack's ultimate gift to him.

And we can rest assured that Hunter did that.

Because this post-traumatic growth right here?

This looks like multiple breakthroughs have taken place while he's been receiving consistent care from an excellent community. And there's no way it was an easily won victory. It has been very much hard-won, after how dark the story became in Hollow Mind and Thanks to Them, and it looks like whatever breakthroughs he had left him pleasantly surprised.

It doesn't seem like his heart and soul can contain this much joy and hope, without a very painful dismantling to have taken place first, to make room for the most unexpected treasures to fill his life back up.

The joy becomes even greater if you never would've expected it in your wildest dreams.

[cafecourage]

Can I have King! Time trying to find Reader who's hiding from him during a gala?

Any interpretation of this is fine! 🥰🥰

Yes ma’am!! And I’m making this targeted. Love you <3

Author smirks at him, “why not? I’ll be at Prince Sky’s birthday party. Find me and maybe I’ll consider your courtship.” It’s a dare Time couldn’t find himself refusing, with all his life he has never met anyone like the benevolent Author.

The day she came into his life the wheels of his fate started to turn once again. Slowly the day to day grind of his immortal life brightens as he had her to look forward to. Time was quick originally to have the Author as an ally, as he was getting too caught up in government work to help his citizens. He trusts her with his kingdom wholeheartedly.

Which is what led him to this problem to begin with. As a dragon by nature Time was greedy, he wanted to claim Author as a part of his horde and court her offically. Techically he has already put a claim on her, but it was more like a way for the castle's staff to know she had his permission to be in the castle.

But now…. now it's different. Time wants to properly court the human, and while he wasn’t regected outright, he wasn’t given a yes. “Fine.” He finally says after a bit, it wouldn’t be fun now to instantly track you down. After all, he has the whole timeline in his hands to watch. “But as to not make this boring for either of us. I won't use my magic, and limit my dragon sense.”

The Author's face went from confident to confusion, but in the end she went with it. What’s the point of a hunt if it's over in 5 seconds after all?

Honestly he wasn’t going to join the ball for all that long originally. His normal routine would have been to say hello to those he knows and leave to more quieter areas. Then when the party dies down reappears like he has been there the whole time and leaves officially.

This party was also going to be the most chaotic one he has seen so far. With not only Author coming in her civilian form. Time was pretty sure he noticed a familiar witch pass by him.

That wasn’t his problem tonight. He silently just wishes Sky luck as the prince was dragged off. Time turns to scan the crowd now that most if not all guests have arrived. Time couldn’t help but wonder if Author was watching him, waiting to see if he would figure it out.

For once Time didn’t know how to start with this, his sense of smell is limited since the room is full of people and dragons. So it was by vibes and vibes alone. Which he assumed it was the point of all of this game. Moving to the buffet table as he wanted a drink hopeful he can get rid of the small migraine he was suffering from.

He was looking through the crowd only half looking for the Author. The night was still young and he still had time to look for her, he watched as Twilight socializes more with people his age. While even though his Nephew was being tormented by his friends in a slightly polite way but Time was proud of. His gaze shifts to the other people on the sidelines.

Someone catches his attention.

A royal blue he was familiar with flutters and weaves through the crowd almost making a bee line to the balcony. Time’s curiosity peaks as most of the time if someone did that something happened. He put down his wine and head out to follow the lady. Mainly just incase something did happen he could let Sky know. The prince is a no nonsense person so he wouldn’t want anyone to be harassed at his own party.

The cool air was a relief to his small headache, it was nice to have peace and quiet. Time reminded himself he wasn’t here for peace though. He looks around for a second before noticing a small figure in the corner resting on a bench. He wanders over causally as he tries to assess the situation. The Lady doesn’t look hurt, or sad, or angry. She just looked tired. Her dress while Time couldn’t confirm due to poor lighting also looked fine so he could check harassment off for now.

“Mind some company?” He asks gaining the attention of the other guest.

She looks up at him wide eyed before straighten up. “Of course your highness.” She said softly as she moves to the side for him to sit.

“Please don’t worry about formalities.” Time saids as he sits downs “is everything ok?” He asks as that was the reason why he was here.

“No!” She looked panicked a bit “I mean… I’m just tired. I haven’t been to one of these in a while.”

Time hums and looks at the windows into the ballroom. “Understandable. I don’t particularly like these types of events either.” He shrugs “but I am here for my boy and friends. Unfortunately I can’t leave.”

This earns a small laugh from her that made his heart flutter a bit. “I guess even the King needs to let his hair down.” She said looking up at him with a small sparkle in her eyes.

Time’s brain had to reboot itself as he knew this person. He didn’t realize his scent is on her because he was so overloaded from being inside. “May I ask why are you here?” He said not giving away much but his suspicions were growing.

“I was going to meet someone here.” She whispered as if she was worried about something. “But I couldn’t find him.”

“Ah…” That made him feel a bit guilty “I am sorry… for making you wait then.”

“Huh?” They locked eyes, she was in shock while Time couldn’t figure out why. He had already claimed her as apart of his treasure. Courting or not Author was special to Time. He loved her and she helped his kingdom. That realization must of dawned on her. “YOU CHEATED!” She accused him, which made Time burst out into laughter.

[themindcrowave]

recurring jing yuan thoughts #2... a spiderverse AU

so i've been thinking about spiderverse jing yuan lately..... trying to decide whether he's a spider or a gwen/MJ

- if he was a spider he'd be able to travel dimensions,,, he'd definitely have a backstory similar to miguel o'hara's about trying to find a reality where everyone he loved was back together again, but unlike miguel, once that reality inevitably goes wrong he either:

- decides to really focus on his emotional healing and grief processing or

- becomes a compartmentalization master like he is in the game

because either way he knows he can't properly help others and be a leading figure if he can't move past his own grief first. he would rather gnaw through his own arm than push his old emotional scars onto the young spiders he's met and formed family with along his journey. he might have lost his first found family but he'll be damned if he loses his chance at another.

- and then just like in-game, jing yuan will meet the people of his past again... i'm thinking dan heng is a spider from a parallel universe where dan feng's weakened consciousness ended up after he was completely wiped from jing yuan's dimension, so basically dan heng was always his own person of course but then he started having visions of a lifetime parallel to his own lived by someone who looked exactly like him (insert my gwen stacy theory bc WOW does it fit him)

- blade would be kinda like the usual spiderman villain setup where his undying situation is all because of a terrible science accident and his main motivation is to find the ones involved in what happened to him (the og high cloud quintet friend group) and exact vengeance so that maybe he can finally disappear in peace (basically the same as in-game)

- baiheng's death was probably jing yuan's first devastating "canon event". i think he wasn't around to save her when she died (and he couldn't have been, he didn't even know where she was or what happened to her until he heard the news) and that guilt will forever eat away at him... i'm thinking she died in an aircraft accident but i haven't decided what kind yet

- dan feng was a genius scientist. he experimented with a lot of things that he probably shouldn't have and always pushed the boundaries of scientific possibility,, especially after baiheng died. he started secluding himself in his lab and only yingxing ever had any success at visiting him there for any substantial period of time... which is exactly how yingxing got caught up in dan feng's plan to bring baiheng back (think kingpin bringing his family back with the alchemax super-collider) and subsequently cue the horrible accident which turned him into the immortal blade

- oh and then of course jing yuan, being spiderman, has to track down and apprehend dan feng for what he did and decide his sentence (life imprisonment) but dan feng's family clan had him assassinated in prison for reasons jing yuan was never able to completely uncover (and a nagging little part of him will always feel like dan feng's fate was his fault)

- i think jingliu was jing yuan's superhero mentor... not sure if she was a spider too, or just another masked hero in the area who took him under her wing when he was new to his powers. just like in-game, she was the one who introduced him to the rest of the group, and just like in-game she will go completely berserk and become a vigilante with no clear morals or objectives after baiheng dies. like with dan feng, jing yuan has to track her down and try to get her back. unlike with dan feng, jingliu decides that given her shattered mental state the safest option for society as a whole would be for jing yuan to defeat her then and there, once and for all, simultaneously saving the day and proving his graduation from her mentorship. and, well. he did.

- there's yanqing (young spider, official mentee, and unofficial son of jing yuan) thoughts rattling around in here too, but words are difficult so unfortunately you'll have to put your full imagination to work here and just try to feel the "i'm-putting-this-character-in-a-jar-and-shaking-it-like-a-mixed-drink" vibes for yourself! cheers

[cosmictapestries]

In honor of Cageblade week, I thought i'd play the headcanon game and list some of my favorite headcanons for our favorite couple over the next few days

Today, I'm starting with our Best Girl because NRS has done a criminal job of flushing out her character in both games and media.

1) She grapples with PTSD.

Let's start with one I think a lot of people have in different degrees.

I do believe that a lot of what people see as Sonya being cold or unemotional stems from a lot of the trauma she has seen as a soldier. Her father died. Her brother died. Her brother in arms died and was brought back as a revenant. Everything she's been through has colored how protective she is of her family and she's deathly afraid of not being able to keep them safe.

When Cassie was a baby, Sonya would wake up at night and go watch her sleep just in case. If she got overwhelmed, instead of letting anyone see her upset, she'd go and cry in the shower and hope the running water hid the noise.

Part of what broke her marriage up was the almost obsessive need to keep Johnny and Cassie safe. If that meant missing out on their lives by working, she was okay with that. She realized too late it had pushed she and Johnny apart but didn't know how to fix it, so she doubled down and hid in her work.

2) She does have her share of luxuries that she won't go without.

Good coffee, dark chocolate and aged whiskey are all things i think she has a well known fondness for and Johnny indulges her in. After years of military life, i do believe she secretly enjoys going to the spa with Johnny and Cassie and getting her nails done. Ask her to admit it and she'll kick your ass.

3) She's a dog person.

Growing up in Texas and spending time/living with her grandparents gave her a love of dogs and in particular working dogs like German Shepherds or Belgian Malinois. I headcanon that Cassie wanted a puppy, Johnny wanted a designer dog and Sonya compromised by adopting a retired police dog. He's supposed to be Cassie's but Sonya adores taking him out for hikes.

4) She's a marathon runner.

Aside from countless hours spent training and honing her body for fighting hand-to-hand, i've always thought that Sonya is a runner, both to release stress and because she enjoys it. She's completed both the Boston and NYC marathons in record time. Johnny and Cassie are at every finish line as her #1 supporters.

5) She loves Johnny fiercely and it both confuses and infuriates her.

Sonya is used to being alone, she got used to it and and liked it. Loving someone like Johnny wasn't in the plan so it really threw her for a loop. He constantly reminds her that life is all about balance, that you need to have both work and play. She has more fun with him then she's ever willing to admit and it also scares the hell out of her because she's lost so many people.

6) She's Bisexual.

Even after the divorce, as angry as she was, she was still in love with him. She just refused to admit it.

When Sonya loves, it's with her whole heart. My headcanon is that she's had relationships with both men and women.

7) She remembers every kill she's made.

Names, faces, ages. Even if it's her job and she does it well, it haunts her. She doesn't sleep well and often finds herself awake, wondering if she could have done something different. Her greatest wish for Cassie is a peaceful world where her daughter won't face the same regret

[fakeshibe]

Doug Rattmann is actually one of the most tragic characters in like modern gaming and i think we should all just acknowledge him more ok?

like, he's one of the only surviving aperture science scientists, if not THE only surviving scientist if we consider that even the people survived by being off sick would survive just long enough to die in the 7 hour war. He's totally on his own in a facility full of things that want to kill him whilst also dealing with paranoia, delusions and hallucinations with only one dose of his medication saved 'For the end times'. Once he takes that, he'll literally never be able to get more, he can't leave aperture and even if he could who's going to refill his prescription? Everyone died in the seven hour war remember? Or is about to, depends how long he's been surviving in the walls. Probably a couple of years going off of how many Rat-man safe houses we find in the game. There are probably more in the test chambers and offices we don't personally see. His only company now is a companion cube that he takes everywhere.

On top of that, he has to live with the knowledge that the deaths of his colleagues and friends is partly his fault. Survivors' guilt on top of murderers guilt. He was part of the machine that not looks to grind him into paste.

And yet, he doesn't hide away forever, when he sees that Chell has a real chance of making things right and taking out GLaDOS, he does what he can to help. Paints clues, messages, guides, anything he can to give her a chance.

And when she succeeds, he steps outside for the first time in years. Feels the air on his skin, sees the sun shining, feels freedom within his grasp. When he has all this, but watches Chell being dragged back to the hell he only just escaped, he gives it all up.

He recognises that Aperture is not dead, and he gives up everything he has, his present and his future, to make sure Chell lives. To make sure she has a chance to bring the whole thing down. When he finds that she's been put in long term relaxation, and that GLaDOS's shutdown has knocked all of the relaxation pods offline he knows what he has to do. He can't wake her up, but he can make sure her pod gets the power it needs. Make sure it keeps her safe for whenever the day comes that something automated wakes her up. Sets the markers so that when that day comes she'll find a portal gun. A life and a head start. A chance. It's all he can do and so it's all he will do.

And on the way to do that, he's shot. A turret shoots him in the leg. In a facility with no-one else left alive, he starts to bleed out. There's no help coming. No-one can hear him scream. No one will finish this if he can't. He can't stop. He chose Chell the first time because of her file specifically mentioning her tenacity, her will, too stubborn to ever give up. And so to save her life, he keeps going. Drags himself and his companion cube towards the computer that can save her life. Moving this much will make him bleed out faster, but it's all he can do. He can't die in peace when he knows Chells unpowered relaxation chamber will suffocate her without his intervention. And so he gets there, and he resets the power, and he saves her. And he asks for her forgiveness for it.

And then he crawls.

So slowly.

So agonisingly slowly.

He crawls towards the stasis bed that brought Chell to the first chamber.

His own grasp at rest.

Not survival.

No-one is coming to save Doug Rattman.

And so he falls asleep. With his trusty companion cube settling beside the stasis bed.

And when Chell finally wakes, and treks back through that first room. There's no trace of cube nor man nor stasis bed. Only the murals on the walls and the dens within them. One of which references Atlas and P-Body. Maybe he survived long enough to see GLaDOS develop them, or maybe they were an old idea from the Aperture archives Doug worked on that she dug up and claimed as her own. After all, who's going to prove she didn't? She killed all the scientists that could. She could claim anything in Aperture science was her work, GLaDOS is Aperture.

[mrssimply]

I was tagged by @peaches-n-screem, who valiantly continued to tag me in WIPs games despite my lack of participating most of the time (because of the cursed writer block). Thank you friend!

I'm still not back on the saddle yet, but I did write some things.

I wanna tag @m-lter @civilization-illstayrighthere and @katbatmadethat if they want to share some snippet of any current works - no pressure of course, I'm just always interested!

Two WIPs today:

Continuation of my Wild Animals Rebellion series (John Wick x Santino) and a snippet from my Jedi x cyberpunk AU

The Burning of Rome :

John came to consciousness in the way he always did: suddenly and completely awake, no transition between the void and full awareness.

The first thing he registered was the light: low, indicating the end of a day, coming through the window to the west of the room. The familiarity of his surroundings were the second thing he registered: The good quality bed sheets, the dark blue wall behind the bed, and the typical sounds of the D’Antonio mansion everywhere around him. Finally, John could smell the seabreeze in the air. He was back in Naples, having no recollection of the final segment of the trip, and the events leading up to it were still fuzzy.

Movement caught his attention on his left side. His eyes found Winston, to his surprise. It was rare for the manager to be found so far from his hotel, especially since its destruction about a year ago. Winston’s face was set in a disapproving moue as he looked over his charge. Today’s newspaper was laid on his lap, over his crossed legs, but John knew instinctively that his old friend hadn’t taken a word written on the day’s edition.

To most, Winston was an enigma, but with John he was always more open, it made him easier to read, and right now he was pissed. 

For a moment, John looked inward to try and find why the New York Continental’s manager was here in Italy, in the heart of D’Antonio’s territory, but his brain remained too foggy. He was still working on reflexes and survival instinct only. John took the time to assess his body’s condition and came up with the surprising conclusion that he was fine. Yet, something nagged the back of his mind, demanding to be acknowledged with all urgency. His subconscious was already on the warpath : bursts of adrenaline were diffusing in his blood system while his organism worked overtime to bring everything back online as fast as possible. 

It clicked a few seconds later. Everything aligned into place so suddenly it made the lingering headache of post sedation pulse in the ex-assassin's head. The shock of remembering what had happened robbed John of his next breath: incandescent rage filled him in the time it took for his lungs to fill again. 

“I’m going to kill him,” he vowed, voice dark and raspy.

John was going to kill Santino

And more of my Jedi x cyberpunk AU under the cut:

The Other Side of the Light

[Jackie just died]

Found on the edge of the Republic space, Socalar was known for its liberal government that turned a blind eye to a number of crimes : from smuggling drugs to human trafficking, with a hefty dose of corruption and political plots, it was a lawless zone in everything but name. Controlling the planet’s activity was made particularly arduous because of its secular magnetic field, created by the explosion of the moon at the end of the Entry War. It gave the planet a natural shield that filtered outside communication and kept internal ones hidden, which people used liberally. Socalar might officially be Republic’s territory, but it was more of a legally gray pirate base than anything else. In conclusion, the planet was the thorn in the senate’s side and a sore subject in the Order’s history, since they’d been just as unable as the Republic forces to bring peace to that quadrant.

Even worse, Jedi generally weren’t welcomed due to their part in helping the Republic win the Entry War. In Night City in particular, whole districts were hostile to their presence, with two notable exceptions.

Padre and V made their way to the Coyote Cojo in Heywood by airspeeders to avoid pedestrian traffic, but also for discretion. they might be tolerated here as Jedi because of their origins, that didn’t mean they were totally welcome. The Coyote Cojo was a consecrated neutral ground, where Mama Welles made everyone behave. Today of all days they were going to be on their best behaviors.

“You’re quiet,” Padre commented as they landed.

“Hm?” V said, coming out of his strange meditation. Coming back here brought mixed feelings of nostalgia and guilt. “Oh I… Just mentally preparing. It’s not — I don’t…”

He looked at his master with wide desperate eyes.

“Ah, V,” Padre replied, his accent thickening with shared pain, “grief is like that. It deconstructs the self, floods every part of our being, tears and carves new places in ourselves. It changes us,” he paused, extending an arm to gently grab V’s knee, “When the tide recedes, we discovers all these changes. The key is to believe these changes will make us grow: that the salt of our tears will become stones on which we can rebuild stronger foundations, that the iron in the blood we shed can be forged into new tools for us to use, that the pain we experienced will help us hear the song of the universe.”

His voice was like a balm over V’s psyche and he found himself breathing easier, but still gripped by one all-encompassing fear.

“What if I can’t?”

“You can, young one, I know it in my heart, and I can feel it in the Force. You can, you will. Just trust yourself. And if you can’t right now, then trust me."

[kao-tika]

hi again! ✨ here’s another fic rec, this time about fics that are based off movies or books let me know what you think 🎞️📚🩷

☆ Who Painted the Moon Black by throughthedark

“People died,” Harry whispers so quietly Louis strains to hear. “People died, and I killed some of them. How does life just go on after something like that?”

Louis shakes his head. “I don't know. It just does.”

Hunger Games AU where Louis Tomlinson is district six's victor from the 69th Hunger Games and Harry Styles is district seven's victor from the 72nd Hunger Games.

notes: this is one of my favorite fics of all time, you don’t have to be a big HG fan to enjoy this story ( but if you are i think it’s very accurate to the saga) so beautifully written and so gut wrenching in equal parts, amazing ending, cannot recommend it enough <3

☆ Take My Breath Away by RealityBetterThanFiction

There is a prestigious school in the British Royal Navy classified as Premier Delta - or as it is known by its flyers, 1D. These select pilots are an elite set of Naval lieutenants who are trained in the skill of aggressive aerial combat. They are instruments of war, trained in times of peace. They are dogfighters, relentless and fearless in their mission to protect their beloved country. From their lofty vantage, they are always watching, waiting, and ready to lay it all on the line.

Lt. Harry Styles, call sign Sparrow, is a prodigy when it comes to flying. The owner of an unrivaled Naval pedigree, being a pilot was always written in the stars for Harry. With his trusty RIO, Lt. Niall Horan, Harry has made an unprecedented ascension in the ranks of the Naval aerial combat elite, and has been recruited to the esteemed Premier Delta flight school, carrying on his family’s legacy. What he finds there are unexpected friendships, perilous challenges, and something beyond what he ever thought possible. Because as his father had always told him, before the great Captain Styles went tragically missing in combat, you don’t fall in love with the sky, you fall in love with what keeps you on the ground.

notes: checking the fic again for this rec I can’t find if it said it explicitly BUT this one gives mayor top gun vibes throughout the whole story, a really fun and cute fic

☆ The Afterlife Fic (The Best I Ever Had in My Entire Life... Or Death) by LovingCup

AU- After dying in an accident, Louis Tomlinson arrives in the Afterlife. Not Heaven and not Hell, Louis finds himself in Judgment City UK: a pristine city where the food and entertainment are divine and the newly departed must undergo a Review of their life on Earth to determine if they have lived a life worthy of advancement in the universe, or if they must be returned to Earth to be born again in a new body.

On his first full day in the Afterlife, Louis meets Harry Styles, and the two have an instant connection. Over the course of their Reviews, they fall in love and begin to find that even though they didn't know each other on Earth, they are nonetheless linked to one another in perfect ways. Both are hoping to move ahead in the universe together, but they are challenged with the threat of separation if one or both of them is sent back to Earth to be born again.

Loosely based on the Albert Brooks' film "Defending Your Life" starring Brooks and Meryl Streep. One scene in particular is drawn from the movie, but other than that scene and the general concept, this story veers far away from the film. There were no blowies in the 1991 movie, I swear!

notes: another one of my favorites! for what I remember, a long read, but so worth it. This story touches on topics of grief, loss, love, life and fears through the life of Louis and Harry and how they navigate their relationship in the afterlife (ends good).

☆ You Fill My Lungs With Sweetness (Can I Be Close to You?) by sideofzemblanity

Busy picturing Harry’s stupid face on the stupid dummy, Louis goes through a series of kicks before returning to a low guard and cycling through punches. Harry’s still talking, gesturing with his hands as he rounds Louis, standing to his back. “You do a few butt-shaping exercises, tighten this up a little bit,” he smacks Louis’ arse and the omega freezes while Harry cheerfully continues, “you could pull this off.”

“You know what?” Louis snaps, lifting on his tiptoes to get the leverage so he can wrap his arm around the alpha’s neck, forcing him to bend in half while Louis locks him in a chokehold. “Pull this off,” he snarls. They stagger over a few steps, Louis gritting his teeth as Harry tries to break free. “Is it because Payne hates me?” he complains, voice edging on an annoyed whine, “Or is it, like, an omega thing?”

Too late, Louis realizes that Harry has got a grip on his leg and this time as he pulls against Louis’ hold, it loosens, the alpha lifting him in the air before slamming his back into the mat, breaking Louis’ grip completely. Harry kneels on the mat, hovering over him with a sneer, “Don’t kid yourself. Nobody thinks of you that way.”

aka the Miss Congeniality ABO AU nobody asked for

notes: SOOO funny, has a little bit of angst, friends to lovers, a short read so you don’t have excuses;)

☆ Come My Love Again by softfonds

Harry Styles is handsome, clever, and rich. At least that’s what his friends say of him. He also thinks of himself as a matchmaker in Highbury, pairing people together when he finds the time. But when the arrival of a certain gentleman flips Harry’s world on its head, he starts to question everything that was once all too familiar to him, including his relationship with his good friend, Mr. Tomlinson. An Emma AU.

notes: I really enjoyed the little bit of angst on this fic, i think it’s omegaverse if i don’t remember it wrong?. enjoy of Louis being a classic gentlemen

☆ In The Still Of The Night by jacaranda_bloom

In a society where omegas are expected to follow a predetermined path, Louis strives for more; for his voice to be heard, for recognition, for true love.

In a world where your past defines your future, Harry fights against the system; for equality, for a different life, for acceptance.

When their two worlds collide, will they be beaten down by conformity or will they rise up and forge a new path together?

OR the Dirty Dancing AU where Louis is a feisty omega who wants to change the world, Harry is an alpha from the wrong side of the tracks, and nobody puts Louis in a corner.

notes: the fic that I didn’t know I need, is dirty dancing with larry do I really need to say more?

☆ in a world alone by falsegoodnight

Harry’s breath catches as the glow grows bigger and bigger until he’s squinting his eyes and blinking at the sudden intense brightness. He closes his eyes, rubbing at them helplessly. When his eyes open again- he gasps, grip loosening on his bow as he gawks at the sight before him.

Because the swan is gone.

And in its place is the prettiest omega Harry has ever seen.

A Swan Lake AU

notes: a really cute one shot, fairy tale vibes ;)

☆ hold on to your heart by falsegoodnight

“Come here for a second.”

Harry’s brows furrow, glancing aside like he thinks Louis may be talking to someone else. Louis jerks his head beside him, impatient, and the alpha steps into the room cautiously.

Louis turns back to Royce and Hunt who are staring at him in confusion. He pastes a pleasant smile onto his face, clasping his hands together. “Gentlemen, I understand. I understand the predicament that we are in…” He clears his throat. “But there is something you should know.”

“What is this, Louis?” Royce asks, exchanging a look with Hunt.

Taking a few steps backward until he is beside a very bewildered looking Harry, Louis takes a deep breath. “We are, uh –” He reaches out and touches Harry’s arm. You cannot actually be doing this, he thinks. But then he does. “We are getting married.”

The Proposal AU, where Louis is the no-nonsense editor in chief of one of the largest publishing houses in the country, and Harry is the unlucky assistant that gets roped into a fake engagement to prevent his boss from being deported. Things don't go as planned.

notes: really funny and cute I enjoyed reading it sm!!

☆ through chaos as it swirls, it’s us against the world by sweetfairydreams

corporal styles is sent on a suicidal mission, at his hands the lives of hundreds of men that are going straight into a trap. he ends up finding louis, the french and most beautiful boy he ever seen, and a baby, in a basement of a dead city.

based on the movie 1917

notes: a cute and wholesome story <3

──⋆˚｡⋆୨♡୧⋆˚｡⋆──

[snobgoblin]

ok I wanna talk about the cave a little bit

so these are the characters pictured above are the Monk, the Adventurer, the Hillbilly, the Scientist, the Twins, the Knight, and the Time Traveler

this won't be a smart analysis or anything just basically reminiscing over things I remember about the game

ok so my favorite characters were always the Hillbilly, Time Traveler, and Twins- and actually I didn't remember the Monk AT ALL. like I could've sworn he wasn't in the wii u version but he was. I'm assuming either his route was so easy I don't remember it or so hard I never finished it but in any case I don't think I played as him much. I don't remember the scientists route either I never really liked her. BUT I DO REMEMBER THE ADVENTURERS ROUTE BECAUSE IT TOOK ME DAYS TO SOLVE A SINGULAR PUZZLE IT WAS SO FRUSTRATING her level is very very hard. so is the Time Traveler's but at least hers is actually fun and has a change of scenery, the Adventurer's just has you stuck in a pyramid the whole time 😭

anyway as for the knight I actually don't really remember his route that much either, I think there was a princess who was really bratty and I think he fought a dragon. idk I just know his ability was that he was immune to fire

ok yeah I don't remember most of their abilities so I won't elaborate on them but I WILL elaborate on my favorites aka the ones I actually remember because I care about them

ALSO SIDE NOTE but the cave himself is a really good character- man all the characters with voice lines are just so damn funny but him especially he's just an asshole tutorial guy

ANYWAY the Hillbilly's ability is that he can hold his breath for a long time

and why these abilities are important is because, you choose three characters every game to play as and depending on the combination you may be able to unlock secret things for each route. for instance I think I remember a part in the Knight's route where only the Hillbilly can access a part of the cave because he's the only one who can hold his breath that long, stuff like that you know. it's a very puzzle driven game and your character choice really matters a lot. anyway the Hillbilly's story is I think he was working at the carnival, he wanted to impress this girl, but she was mean to him, so he burned the whole carnival down with him in it

OH YEAH did I mention all the characters are dead. yes the cave is their journey to the afterlife and them making peace with all the wrongs they did in their life, and they all have wrongs. for instance, the Twins killed their parents because they were tired of being told what to do (they had very loving parents...) and it is implied that the Twins ended up dying on the streets because of this. their story takes place in Victorian times and basically the whole puzzle is just fix the house a little so you can put rat poison in the soup WAIT NO I JUST REMEMBERED they didn't die on the street- the narrator said "they would find their life would be a whole lot harder from this point on" but they didn't actually get to see that, one of the unlockable things is photos and you see that they actually died with their parents bc they ate the soup too, the picture has the caption "a family that dines together, dies together"

ANYWAY enough about them I wanna talk about the Time Traveler now she's awesome so basically, she wants to be employee of the month, but this rich asshole who's family has been ceo since the beginning of time won't let her be. so she goes rogue and to prevent the capitalist dystopia she lives in, she goes back in time to kill his very first ancestor before he can invent the wheel. I actually don't remember how that one ends but I don't think it was good. I think she ended up killing a lot of people indirectly or something bc their ancestor was gone. lemme look it up actually this is gonna bother me. oh also before I do I wanna say her power is she can phase through rocks, basically she can teleport also she floats everywhere but can't fly but it's still awesome. but yeah her level was hard because you had to alternate between the past present and future to solve the puzzle, like leaving a rock in a certain place in dino times so that a well forms in the present so that a bucket is left in the future, stuff like that

AWWWW OK so I looked it up and her gallery photos aren't in the same place so it's hard to say for sure but based on her pictures, when she was alive she had second thoughts and did not end up killing the ancestor, and instead congratulated the asshole on being employee of all time. in the cave though, she was able to live out her fantasy of killing him

so yeah I think that's all I have to say right now... gotta be one of my favorite games of all time I should play it again soon

[scratchandplaster]

Stack The Deck - PART 11

CW: obsessive thoughts, drug mention

Intermezzo ⇽ [Masterlist] ⇾ PART 12

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Yaletown Park looked more like a rocky desert than anything adjacent to the open hangout it was sold as, especially in the hollow glow of the streetlights. Caught between high-risers and vacant retail space, the few square meters of cobble only offered some trash or needles to pluck from the ground. If the grass patches shooting out here and there were ever kept trim in the first place remained a mystery.

Behind a strategically chosen planter sat a reserved man, smoking the second pack of the day and stewing in his jaded mood, still waiting for whoever wanted to stop by. All this was normal for Morris by now.

The evening had started promising, with frat boys strolling along the sidewalk and a few girls in tow; a view that was starting to become more and more frequent. He smiled joylessly, remembering how he met Amber on a night like this.

More than a year must've passed since then, he figured, trying to cling onto thoughts that wouldn't shock him with memories of someone he didn't have to think about anymore. At least when he was chased around enough.

"You're gonna sit there until I tell you otherwise!"

Goddamn. Not that it was easy for Belanger either, patrolling the streets to prospect the usual scum. No regret laid in avoiding each other, but since Morris was dependent on any signal to engage with the more casual clientele, he was stuck in place. 

That's what I get for my not so tight scheduling. 

As a fixer caught at the bottom of the food chain, and honest to god no agency or willingness to change his position, it was better to keep his mouth shut and head down. But with skin still in the game, did he have another option? For all he cared, they could make him do their laundry and scrub all crack houses of the state squeaky-clean. Anything else than ending up in Dutch's office with that thing-  

Another thought he quickly shoved aside, another problem to ignore till it blew up.

Except a lone hobo who threw up way too close to his shoes, nothing ripped Morris out of the daydreaming that kept his last sliver of sanity alive. The risk of being arrested on the spot or stabbed to death by someone who needed cash even more than him aside, the prize of it all was just...surviving.

"One day you wake up, and your whole life is spent in what?" Amber's life lesson was now sober reality, spot-on to the last detail.

Hearing her voice again used to pierce through his gut and leave him wrecked with self-hatred, although these feelings had died down in the time they spent apart. Not that he didn't try to distract himself from the distraction, oh no, he had several chances to drown out boiling memories of past love during the spring months, but this year it was different. Nobody was waiting at home. Morris couldn't let go, not this time, not since her...since him-

If Belanger didn't call right now, he would find a good use for all those narcotics in his pocket.

A break from it all, that's what he needed to work himself to the bone for. 

Wrapping his leather jacket closer around his body, Morris wished to disappear into it completely. Even the colorful August couldn't hide that it had gotten colder in the last days of an already far too chilly summer. 

Without any warning, his peaceful solitude was interrupted again. 

A figure stumbled blindly along the sidewalk. Morris' gaze followed them closely, how disoriented feet pushed each other forward and finally letting them flop down onto a bench near the park's exit.

Drunk or high, certainly. Care for another round? 10 bucks for a flat of fentanyl - dark green, quite popular at the moment. 

Still, Belanger didn't give him the go-ahead yet. Maybe he should make today's slow business hum: be proactive, independent. Write it on a resume, why not.

His stiff knee gave an audible crack as it was forced to stand straight, lazily stretching the sore muscles in his back and taking the first few steps towards his potential customer, Morris started to become flustered. 

Could be a setup, for all he knew. Something was off. 

The soon-to-be buyer was wrapped up in shadows, sitting quietly by themself and only rarely mumbling at the stones below their feet.

He approached until their shoes nearly touched, time to play offense: "You good?"

Nothing. Awkward, he wasn't used to making the first move like this.

Shoving at the motionless shoulders only made their head flop forward, and a forced sigh quickly followed it. First week on campus, probably, lost their friends and self-control only to aimlessly walk around the neighborhood.

"You definitely had enough fun for today, buddy," Morris scoffed, ready to turn around. 

Suddenly, he faltered. They had to rethink Belanger's strategy if he ought to stay here, passed-out freshmen were only good for catching unwanted attention and as long as Dutch didn't want to see his ass in jail, any cops on patrol should be avoided. Not that they lost sleep about the mass of catatonic bodies scattered throughout the city streets, just when they were seen in the wrong parts of town - the pleasant ones.

"Move," so he demanded, quickly lifting up their chin, nestled against the stiff collar of their windbreaker, with his fist. "You're gonna get me in trouble."

The hot breath against Morris' hand sent shivers up his spine. After nights like these, he felt mostly frozen numb, but the air coming out in labored and shallow puffs let his fingers tingle with newfound life.

Suddenly, the howl of an ambulance cut through the silence. Not for them, of course, it was surely headed east. As it took a turn and rushed past the unusual couple, Morris caught a quick glimpse of his vis-à-vis.

For less than a heartbeat, his body froze.

His mouth began to open and close like a fish on land, unable to produce a single word, whilst the prickle spread from his back through every inch of his body. A wonderful illusion bloomed under the blue-red-blue-red flicker and as quickly as it had reached both, it left them alone in the nightly glow of streetlights.

Morris didn't hear himself gasp, the rush of blood in his ears was too deafening. Now dead focused on the freckle-sprinkled skin, tousled dark hair and soft lashes, an inward pull kept him from blinking: the fear that he would be ripped out of his trance.

No dream, no wishful thinking. Morris would recognize this face anywhere.

"Elliot?"

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Thanks for reading 🤍 [Masterlist]

Taglist: @whatwasmyprevioususername, @canislycaon24

[oodlyenough]

aa3 trials and tribulations

alright after dragging my heels to get four months out of a idk 35 hour game i have finished aa3. spoilery thoughts mostly about the last case bc i played the others months ago fjglhgkf

Positive stuff:

FRANZISKA... my mvp... I loved Franziska after aa2 but she was so great here, everything I could've wanted from her lmao. My best worst girl. I LOVED having her hang out with Phoenix fhlgfhgklf incredible, showstopping, spectacular. Their dynamic is sooo much fun and I also really liked seeing her interact with the witnesses outside of the courtroom, and how she tries to establish her authority but uses that authority to try and comfort them, etc -- she gets mad at Phoenix when he isn't complimentary enough of Sister Bikini lol, she takes control of the sacred cavern situation, she bullies Edgeworth into selfcare garden sulking after the earthquake, etc. It was really interesting and kind of sweet, in her way, it was nice to see that side of her. I can easier see how she and Adrian ended up with their weird gay thing although I have to admit Franmaya remains my Franziska ship of choice. (Just yesterday I was telling someone "I want Franziska to show Maya how to use her whip"... so close and yet so far Capcom.)

Defense attorney Edgeworth was awesome what a fun idea, and the Edgeworth/Franziska court battle ruled. I think I talked about it a lot at the time so I won't dwell much but lmao. wonderful. you're both sooooo bonkers

The Fey family drama! Cool af! Love a matriarchal society of women murdering each other. Amazing. I was spoiled for bits and pieces but not for Misty, which was a great surprise, I had expected they'd just leave that thread hanging but resolving it was the correct choice. I also loved that this game gave a bit more of a nod to Mia. I had said in my previous reaction post that I loved Mia having her own lil Moriarty in Dahlia and their showdown was so fun. Get her ass Mia. Pull each other's hair in the afterlife.

The actual plot mystery stuff in this case was great. I was able to do 3-4 and 3-5 without any walkthrough help AND without banging my head into a wall, which really does make it more fun, lol. You feel clever for solving it without feeling like it's being spoonfed. Or at least I didn't feel it was spoonfed :P and I guessed wrong about some things.

I loved Dahlia LMAO she was fr on the stand like "Your honour I was born evil and I died evil and I'm still evil now. Peace". I sort of expected she'd have mixed emotions at least about Iris but uh nope. Choose a way to born: Evil Baby. You could probably say something about AA returning to these cartoonishly evil villains to smooth over any of the ethical quandaries probably but tbh for the most part I just find it fun. Whatever. Cant a girl have hobbies (poisoning, failure).

Less positive stuff:

I was surprised and disappointed to not get a send-off epilogue screen for Edgeworth or Franziska 😔 they just kind of disappeared in the back end of the case, and while I don't have an issue focusing on the Feys in the end, the Edgeworth/Franziska stuff felt a bit unresolved to me, to not even get a few lines when Oldbag and Larry do. I guess Capcom wants me to play AAI (... sort of. not enough to port it or translate it :P).

Two finale cases in a row shelved Maya for a considerable portion. She got much more to do here, in the end -- her as Nick's last witness was very good, and obv she's central to the whole case -- than in 2-4, but I still felt her absence.

And I do wish we'd gotten to see more of Edgeworth and Phoenix interacting - they're sort if implied to be spending time off screen but I would like to see it.jpeg, I thought he was gonna be a more active part of the case after trial day 1. Since AA1 it often feels like the game is juggling characters so I can have like, one fave with me at a time but not more lol. Rude.

The Iris/Phoenix stuff was 🙄 I realize it's futile to be mad about like, token heterosexuality in a 20+ year old video game, but 🙄 lol. Also naturally I spent most of the game believing Dahlia had grudgingly put up with Feenie while dreaming of murder for 8 months and that's so much funnier than the truth turned out to be, lmao. Her eternal torment.

I couldn't stand Godot lmao I didn't like him at the start of the game and by the end I hated him. His gimmick was boring to me at best, I found him deeply condescending and sexist in the case with Mia, and then obviously 3-5 just sent all of that overdrive. The upswing was that he was the killer so that was satisfying for me lmfao. Throw the book at him judge.

Overall:

I see why this is often called the best game. The overarching stories all tied together well, I can see how the cases of the week led into the finale even if I hated one of em (mask de masque do NOT interact), the puzzles are good while being solvable, and there are some really really great fun moments of character stuff in here for almost everyone.

Having said that, I think the first game is still my fave. Its comparatively limited scope meant each major character got their moment, Maya and Edgeworth are my besties and it's the only time I actually got to have both of them around at the same time. And Turnabout Goodbyes is just so good and so is Rise from the Ashes.

I'm sad the trilogy is over 😔 while I wait for 4-6 to get ported I'll play TGAA and AAI, but not sure in which order, and in either case I'm gonna miss my best friend Phoenix Wright. Luv u buddy

[the-heaminator]

OKAY SO; Heinrich's mom died when he was young like 8-9, and his dad being a veteran of ww2 with ptsd & some pretty heavy survivors guilt & now a wife who just didn't wake up one morning turned to drinking. So Heinrich has this whole "after my mom died my dad was never sober, not as far as i remember, and yeah he went through a lot but I still resent him for not being there for me".

Heinrich's dad dies when Heinrich is just shy of 18. He has a little melt down, goes "i don't want to be here anymore". And with literally zero plan and two bags of his stuff just leaves. Ends up in the UK, with no job, barely anything to his name, and not sure if he's even going to stay there. (part of him thinks it's not far enough from Germany)

Romulus was a hippy through and through, he was all 'peace and free love ✌️' probably lived in a commune of sorts (just too many people in one house but hey it was home). He had run away from home when he was about 16 because his parents were ✨shitty✨, and was living his own found family trope.

Heinrich finds out finding a job when technically you're not there at all, and also homeless is harder than he thought. So he's on the streets for a solid two weeks until Romulus is walking home from a party and finds him. He tells Heinrich he can come stay with him and his 'family' and Heinrich has a moment of "i could get murdered if I go with him, i could also get murdered sleeping on a park bench" he goes with Romulus. They share a room (did I mention too many people in one house) and it's fine bc they're strictly homies, plus it's just for a few nights until Heinrich finds a job.

a few nights turns into a few months, about a month and a half in Romulus tells Heinrich "Listen, I don't mind you staying, but you should come with us to this march! It'll be fun, and it's for a good cause and I don't think it's much to ask on our part :\" While there some idiot says something, Romulus looks at Heinrich "Can kiss you?" "what?!" "Can I kiss you?" "...sure?" and Romulus kisses Heinrich right on the mouth for the cause of pissing off a homophobe.

a few nights later before bed "you know how you kissed me a few a days ago?" "Yeah, why? Did u like it :p?" "...yeah" "do you want me to kiss you again?" "...yes please" they never officially label their relationship but they sure are kissing a lot.

anyway six to eight months go by, Heinrich still hasn't found a job. And while he's grateful for a roof over his head, and he doesn't mind pitching in with housework, and Romulus sure isn't bad either, he gets tired of waiting around, and he gets real sick of the rest of the housemates.

One night he tells Heinrich they have to have a talk, he enlisted in the military. He was going to be an army mechanic, they get in a whole argument "I want a family Romulus!" "we are your family!" "no! I want a spouse! someone who's just mine, I want kids, I want my own house, I don't want to have to rely on kindness for food that night or money for rent," Romulus gets really quiet, "We're anti military, if you joined the military you can't live here anymore. Leave" Heinrich didn't say he expected anything else. He leaves.

He's going to get his wife, and his kids, and the house and a steady job. Romulus will too eventually, it would take him awhile longer though.

Then fifty years later they're both going to show up for some seniors game night and go "...oh fuck"

but anyway yeah thoughts?

thoughts. THOUGHTS?????

MY BROTHER IN CHRIST I HAVE NO THOUGHTS THIS IS WONDERFUL AND ACTUALLY SO WELL THOUGHT OUT WTFFFFFFFFF.

Imagine seeing the guy you lived with and kissed a couple times in a free love commune in the 80s 50 years later and you once again have the violent urge to kiss him after 50 fucking years even if the last time you saw him you had a massive argument.

And they're both widows, Heinrich at this point has a 7 year old Gilbert and a 3 year old Ludwig and needs help and Romulus is more than happy to provide it but over time they get really close again and Ludwig basically grow up with Romulus as Grandpa number 2 and so much of Gilbert's formative experiences with affection between adults comes from Heinrich and Romulus being fucking Weirdly Cuddly. Which is why later on he can't tell the difference between having a crush on Alfred and just being good friends.

But also imagine present day Gilbert going, hey, how did you two even meet?

Heinecih evades the question and Romulus flatly goes hippy free love commune. And blows Gilbert's mind.

"Opa, you weRE A HIPPY?

"NO, NO, I just needed a place to stay."

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

saturday again no problem (a tuesdaypost retrospective)

sort of mixed feelings about this one bc, as we have previously chatted about, the august 2021-august 2022 period was one of the worst twelve-month periods of my life.

however! this year brought like six new tuesdaypost initiatives from other people (please shout at me in the comments or by DM bc my brain is broken and i don't remember all of you) and i DO want to take a look back at some media i enjoyed.

the normal format + some misc. stats below

listening

here are all the tuesdaysongs plus Permanent Peace by Jack de Quidt, who is not on spo/tify. this year gave me albums by: joywave, alt-j, unloved, scene queen, new doja cat, a bunch of junie and the hutfriends singles, and the gleeful insanity of the mcr tour. VERY good musical year imo

-

reading

this historically has been one of the more fallow categories, bc there is a level of background pain where it is quite difficult for me to read and viddy gaem is a better distraction.

could have sworn i read three cowboy novelizations this year but i can only find evidence that i read the sabata and red river novelizations. i have mixed feelings about the execution of Tom Lin's The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu and Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Gods of Jade and Shadow but do not regret reading either.

no particular comics or manga stand out in my fallible, forgettable brain this year. i am excited for the ongoing light novel and manga adaptation of Otherside Picnic but that's just from watching the anime

-

watching

happy that letterboxd is doing part of the thing i wanted (getting me to watch more movies) deeply annoyed i have fallen into the trap i was afraid of. this trap is: I Want To Make The Number Go Up and am now reluctant to watch tv bc i can't log it on letterboxd and it doesn't "count". fucking hate to gamify my own leisure like this!!!!

the very good thing about letterboxd is that my friends have excellent taste, and letterboxd reminds me which of the eight billion django knockoffs i have and have not seen.

GOD was january a good movie month. the below screenshot is movies i watched for the first time this year and really liked/have stuck in my head in some way, and 3/8ths were from january. thank u library streaming service kanopy

see letterboxd has taken such a big chunk of my Moving Images time that it was hard to remember that both peaky blinders and killing eve ended this year!!! and i rewatched several seasons of adventure time! and most of the first season of DS9! and i am now in the process of watching the vampire interview show with my sister!!!

-

playing

got a handmedown switch!

this year was mostly big open worlds that didn't require a lot of complex thought from me, or if they did require some puzzle solving it was in really short bursts. lion's share of the hours this year went to fallout 4, breath of the wild, and pokemon scarlet. i really loved junk shop telescope, depanneur nocturne, and card cowboy.

honorary mentions to phone games that kept my anxiety to a low simmer while in a lot of doctor's offices.

game im most hype for is probably the spooky fishing game Dredge, but i don’t think we’ll get that until early 2024. if anyone says the words "fallout 5" next year i will lose my mind bc i would like another one of these stupid motherfuckers before i die.

-

making

i think i'm going to mourn the old lair until i die.

i am deeply, deeply unhappy with how this year went both personally and professionally. made an apartment cozy. lost the cozy apartment. cleaned a whole bunch of metal. framed a lot of things. bought a whole bunch of furniture. still have moths.

hate to leave this post on this note however i really should have died twice this year and didn’t. so im trying to be nice to myself about the rest of it.

-

bonus stats

47/52 weeks posted

moves: 1 (assisted with two)

recipes failed: many

postcards sent: many

number of 1040s i will receive next month: 4

overnight trips: 2

day trips: 3

covid: +1

serious covid scares: 9

combined hospital and doctor's visits: don't worry about it

number of lamps: also don't worry about it what are you a cop

cats: +1

[pearblossommina]

ToG Read-a-Long, Queen of Shadows, day 11

This set of chapters is pure action packed intensity, so, my notes are sparse because I was just reading (at least I took notes)

Ch 66

Happy Solstice, uh

The sentence Manon left in public - how is this news to you Aelin! Weren’t you paying attention? (it’s ok if you weren’t - sometimes I don’t pay attention either.) (But hell yeah! Thank you Manon)

(Now let’s go save him with the power of love)

Ch 67

Wow these chapters are so short - we’re just gonna get right into it, huh?

Hell yeah, you guys got this, nothing could possibly go wrong

Ch 68

It’s not your fault Chaol. Quit feeling so bad for yourself and let your heart fill up with feelings of hope and love.

Something’s about to haaaappen

Eeee

Edge of seat!

Ch 69

Big things, big big big things

Is the disguise not working part of the plan? I’m assuming so

Ch 70

Remember the time in Game of Thrones when Cersie blew up the whole city with that green wildfire substance

(I keep thinking about Game of Thrones, but this series is so Game of Thrones-y) (except less miserable)(and with hopefully an ending that doesn’t make me pissed off)

Ch 71 so, very much not going according to plan, then

Guys guys guys, c’mon

Think quick on your feet and find another way to ignite the stuff

And kill the king

And save the Dorian

And - yeah! I believe in you, I still believe!

Ch 72 OH Chaol c’mon buddy you got this

You got this, don’t say goodbye, say, “I’m a hero.”

Chaol you are the Sokka of the group, you might not have magic

But you don’t need any, you have something else, and that is determination

So stay determined, and fucking, take that guy down

Or

Do your best anyway?

Show that mother fucker what a willful human without magic can do. Don’t let him torture you, don’t lose hope now, you got this, you GOT THIS.

Ch 73

No you won’t, Dorian

There’s three whole books left

Ch 74

They did it! They freed magic

Good job everyone, now let’s all go hug and kiss

Ch 75

The power of love the power of love

Yay

Ch 76

YAY what a wonderful moment of triumph! Love conquers hate! The truest love of all is the love Dorian has for Chaol!

I am over here holding out the belief that Chaol isn’t dead, and, even if he is tragically hurt or wounded, I think this is gonna be one of those times that SJM undoes it with magic in a few pages. I mean MAGIC is FREE now, so, I think he stands a good chance of being alive, or at least being brought back from the brink of death. Maybe even if he is dead, he’ll get to come back from the dead, because of a surge of magic or whatever. I’m sorry that his “death” has no impact on me; but it happened off screen and I don’t believe it for a minute. And I’m not just in denial like I was about Nehemia! I think he’s gonna be just fine, like Cassian all those times he almost died. It will be undone, and he won’t even have any scars, and Dorian will feel joy again, and everyone will hug and kiss, and Rowan and Aelin will finally consummate, and I‘ll be so happy, I’ll be at PEACE.