#they enable each other in very strange and weird ways

[realbeefman]

that throwaway line in s1 when robert fatphobia chase reveals his middle name for the first time about how "there's no way cameron is that thin because it's healthy" haunts me. chameron dinner discussions were probably just "[statement that clearly indicates an eating disorder]" "omg no way i do that too!"

[hwanghyunjinenthusiast]

✨️1K Followers Celebration Day 7: Stray Kids bias wrecker - Jisung✨️

The Heat

AN: We have reached the end of my milestone celebration! Thank you to all of you, new and old, for your support. You have no idea how much it all means to me <3 Time to end this celebration off with my other other arch nemesis lol.

Synopsis: When your roommate brings home a bag of strange cookies, you two don't think much of it. Assuming whoever sold them to him was lying about them containing an aphrodisiac. You both quickly come to realise that you were very, very incorrect.

Heads up: Han Jisung x Fem! Reader, Roommates AU, dub-con elements (because Reader and Jisung are under the influence of an aphrodisiac, but they do genuinely want each other), mentions of masturbation, dirty talk, nipple play (f. receiving), unprotected piv sex, Reader cries a little, Jisung cums pretty quickly, mentions of multiple orgasms, unrealistic sex (Jisung cums more than once and remains hard), hypersensitivity, some usage of a petname for Reader and a barely there praise kink (f. receiving).

Word count: 3658

I will block you if you are a minor and/or have no easily visible indication of your age on your blog if you interact with me in any way.

"You'll never guess what I found!" Your roommate yells, all but slamming the front door open in his excitement.

"Hello to you too, Jisung," you respond dryly but, your curiosity is piqued. Angling yourself to get a better view of the brown paper bag in his grasp from your position on the couch.

"Sorry, hi. I'm just really hyped," he responds sheepishly, plopping down beside you, "but look!"

You're not sure what you were expecting, but a bag filled with cookies certainly wasn't it. "Uh, they look good?" You offer, not really understanding what makes these cookies in particular so special. The little pink hearts on them are very cute, you'll give them that much.

"No, no listen. These aren't just any old cookies. Minho and I stumbled across this kind of weird looking bakery, and the lady who runs it said these cookies are mixed with some really potent aphrodisiacs,"

Yeah, this is not how you anticipated your Saturday to unfold at all.

"So... you bought them from an apparently really shady bakery and just trusted what that lady said?"

Your words take a few seconds to register in his mind. Big eyes blinking at you owlishly. If he hadn't just admitted to something so stupid, you'd reach over to squish his cheeks because of how endearing he looks right now.

"Well, when you put it like that..."

It takes a great deal of effort on your part not to drag your hand down your face.

"Minho should really stop enabling all of your impulsive purchases and ideas,"

"To be fair, he was the one who dragged me into the bakery. I just happened to stumble across these," he says, motioning to the bag now staring at the two of you on your coffee table.

"My point still stands. Why did you buy so many anyway? Why not just get a few if you just wanted to test them out?"

"They were running a special," he mutters.

"I didn't realise you were this naive. I have some magic beans to sell you if you're interested," you tease, grinning as the tips of his ears redden.

"Ha ha ha. Very funny. They weren't that pricey anyway so, luckily I didn't spend much," he reaches for the bag, fishing out a cookie.

"Woah hey, what're you doing?"

"Eating the cookies I bought? Like you said, I'm sure they're a scam, so I might as well eat them since I spent money on them," he responds with a shrug. Your anxiety building watching him take his first bite.

"Oh, they're pretty good, actually. Want one?" He asks, turning his big brown eyes onto you. Now, how are you supposed to say no when he looks at you with those eyes?

"If these are poisoned or something, I swear I'm going to haunt you," you respond, and your roommate takes that as a green light.

"We'll both be ghosts then. I don't think ghosts can haunt each other," he says with a laugh, the brushes of his fingers against yours feeling like electricity as he hands you a cookie.

You choose to essentially shove the cookie in your mouth to avoid dealing with that particular can of worms. Jisung was right. They are delicious. Flavours of strawberry with faint hints of chocolate caressing your taste buds. Maybe they were worth turning into a ghost for if the worst comes to pass, you think.

"See? They're good, right?"

"Yeah, I can't even lie. That's one of the best cookies I've ever had. If we survive this, you should show this oddball bakery to me,"

"Oh," and you immediately regret admitting to him that you actually liked it, "how the tables have turned. What was that you were saying earlier about reckless purchases?"

Rolling your eyes, you stand up in order to get ready for bed. Jisung's smugness more than enough motivation to finally get your ass off the couch.

"Goodnight Jisung," you say, waving him off.

"Goodnight," you don't even need to turn around to see the smirk stretched across his face. You can hear it clear as day.

Everything feels like it's on fire when you wake up the following morning.

You're absolutely drenched in sweat and your throat is beyond dry. Perhaps the oddest realisation of all is that you're wet. As in, obscenely so. Your thighs are smeared in it and you're almost certain it's leaked all the way onto your bedsheets.

What the hell?

It takes you some very long minutes to blink your bleary eyes open. Your muddled mind working a mile a minute to try and make sense of all of this. Last night hadn't been that hot so, there should be no reason why you're this sweaty. Plus, from what you can remember at the very least, you hadn't touched yourself before turning in for the night. So why in the world are you this wet? And more than that, why does it hurt so much more than usual?

'What is going on?' Is that question that echoes through your skull as you join the world of the conscious. You're due for a shower and a change of sheets, you think. You feel pretty disgusting at the moment, and a shower might just be what you need to help calm you down. An ice cold one.

On perhaps the strangest morning you've experienced to date, you don't expect to bump into a shirtless Jisung with a towel wrapped around his slim waist.

You've seen your roommate without a shirt more times than you can count at this point. However, it's never made you feel like this before.

The throbbing gets worse. So, so much worse. Warmth flooding your face when you feel yourself gush onto the fresh pair of sleeping shorts you'd just changed into. Jisung is an attractive man. A very, very attractive man. You've had no qualms with admitting that in the most private parts of your mind and on nights when images of him between your thighs are the only thoughts that can push you off of the proverbial edge.

But it's never been like this.

"Morning," he says gruffly. God, that just made it worse. If you weren't too lost in your own spiral, you'd notice his blown out pupils and the glassy quality to his eyes. How they shamelessly rake over your body. How he has to adjust his hold on his towel so you don't notice how hard he is. How hard he's been for what feels like hours now.

"Morning," you squeak back in response once your higher order functions return to you. Practically slamming the bathroom door in his face and, sagging against it once you're alone.

What is wrong with you?

Taking a shower was minimally successful. At least you're no longer drenched in various body fluids, but you still feel as though there's molten lava coursing through your veins. Everything is just so hot.

Touching yourself while you were in there didn't help either. If anything, it only added fuel to the inferno that seems hell bent on swallowing you whole from the inside out. Maybe you're just in desperate need of a good fuck. It has been longer than you care to admit since you last slept with someone. That Changbin guy was nice and ridiculously attractive. Perhaps you should give him a call.

You're disrupted from your thoughts when you hear a tentative knock at your bedroom door. Jisung. Oh no, you're not sure if you can handle looking at him right now, let alone being in the same room with him. Your mind has been replaying the encounter from this morning over and over again. Even that hadn't helped you cum in a satisfactory way. Which is insane because thinking about him works 11 times out of 10. You must really need to be fucked.

However, you're not a child. You're not going to avoid your roommate and your friend just because you're a little (okay, maybe it's more than a little) more sexually frustrated than usual. You're more mature than that.

"Come in," you say, cringing at the hoarseness in your voice.

To your relief (and mild disappointment), Jisung has a shirt on. Though, the way the tank top leaves his broad shoulders and biceps completely uncovered isn't helping the to soothe the squirming of your insides.

Jisung looks exactly how you feel: like a total wreck. His hair is in dissary and sticking to his damp forehead and his cheeks are flushed with an appealing dust of pink. You wonder if this is what he'd look like underneath you.

"What's up?" You croak, looking at your bedroom door as though it's the most interesting object you've ever seen. He may have a shirt on, but you're not sure you can handle looking at him for too long right now. For both of your sakes.

"Does it feel hot as fuck for you today too? I don't know what's been going on, but I already took two showers today, and I still feel like I might pass out from heat stroke," he says, making himself comfortable on your bed. While not out of the oddinary, having him so close to you is sending your barely coherent mind into panic. The desire to straddle his incredibly welcoming looking lap clawing at your insides.

"Yeah, it does feel a lot hotter than usual today. Maybe there's a ventilation issue or something in our place? Because I checked the weather and it the temperature for the day is on the cooler side, funnily enough," you respond, wiping some excess sweat off of your forehead. So, you're not the only one who seems to feel...off, weird even today. Whatever is happening appears to be affecting Jisung too.

"Really? That's so weird. I thought maybe there was a heat wave or something. I don't know how much more of this I can take," he sighs, throwing himself down. The bottom of his tank top exposing a sliver of his toned abdomen. Fuck.

Before your mind can assault you with fantasies of covering his abs in your wetness, that's when it hits you. Those damn cookies. They have to be the reason you're like this and that you suspect Jisung is experiencing something very similar.

"Jisung, I think I know why we're feeling so hot right now," you rush out, fingers absentmindedly toying with your blanket.

"Really? Well, I'm all ears," he responds, turning to give you all of his attention.

Fuck, how did you not realise it sooner? Jisung's eyes are almost black with how dilated his pupils are. Desire flashing like a neon sign on his face.

You really can't afford to soak through another pair of shorts right now. Focus.

"I think the cookies - I think the cookies weren't a scam," you mutter, hugging your legs to your chest. Your face is so warm that you're surprised the heat from it isn't radiating off of you.

He just keeps looking at you. You know the moment your words sink in because his face quickly shifts from a pretty, pink flush to an almost scarlet red. His mouth opening and closing as he grapples with what to even say to you.

"What? What makes you think that?" It's his turn to squeak and avoid your gaze. Seemingly fascinated with your ceiling.

"What else could it be? We both had them yesterday, and now we're sweating buckets and -" You cut yourself off. Jisung doesn't need to know you've been wet all day. You should probably keep that part to yourself.

However, the universe is determined to make you suffer, "And what?" He asks, meeting your eyes briefly before turning away. His teeth toying with his bottom lip.

"It-It's fine. Don't worry about it, but, um just trust me. I really think those cookies are the reason we're like this," You stutter out, studiously ignoring the lecherous thoughts creeping back into your mind.

Jisung doesn't say anything at first. Just laying there before sitting up once more, his hand ruffling his hair, "I wasn't kidding when I said I don't know much of this I can take. I feel like I'm losing my mind."

That you can relate to. Intimately.

"The solution is pretty obvious," you joke in an attempt to lighten the thick tension in the air. It almost makes it difficult to even breathe properly.

Your words have the opposite effect, however. Startled, fiery brown eyes meeting your own. Jisung looks like he's seriously considering it, and you're not sure whether your stomach knots itself in hope or anxiety.

"Jisung, I was-"

"Do you want to?"

Now it's your turn to stare at him in stunned silence. Probably looking like an absolute buffoon gaping at him. Is he joking? Is this his way of getting back at you?

"Wha-What?" Comes your brilliant response.

"Do you want to?" He repeats, both looking and sounding deathly serious.

"You don't have to do this, you know. If you don't want to. We can j-"

"I want to," he interrupts again, his cheeks darkening, but he doesn't falter in his words.

Your very hot, very kind, very funny roommate is offering himself on a silver platter. Even if you weren't so wet you could die, you'd be an idiot to say no.

"Okay," you whisper, meeting his eyes head on. Your heart thundering against your chest as you watch him shift closer to you. Barely any space left between the two of you. You're not sure who moves first, and it ultimately doesn't matter because after months of fantasising about it, Jisung's mouth is finally on yours.

Maybe it's the cookies, but your first kiss isn't gentle or slow or sweet. It's fierce and messy and desperate from the very beginning. Your hands not sure where they want to settle themselves. Alternating between pulling on his hair, pulling the most delicious whimpers from him or steadying yourself on his muscular shoulders while you two fall deeper into each other.

The gasp that leaves your mouth when Jisung nestles himself between your thighs is loud and throaty. He's hard. So hard and so hot that you can feel the heat radiating from him even through your respective clothing. Jisung wastes no time in covering your throat and jaw in sloppy, uncoordinated kisses while he shallowly grinds his erection against you. Greedily searching for any semblance of relief he can possibly find.

"Ji-Jisung," you moan, arching into his touch when one of his hands gives your breast an experimental squeeze. "You have no idea how long I've wanted to do this," he groans against your neck between licks and nips, thumbing at your already hard nipple through your shirt.

"Re-Really?" You manage to ask through the fog. "Really," he responds, impatiently shoving your shirt up and taking one of your nipples into his mouth. To say you were unprepared for the sensation of being enveloped in his wet, warm mouth would be putting it lightly. You're so much more sensitive than usual. It might be the cookies, or it might just be Jisung. Probably a dangerous mixture of the two.

You've never cum just from having your breasts played with but, there's a first time for everything if the increasing wetness staining your shorts and inner thighs is any indication. Jisung, for his part, is content to spend hours with your tits in his face and in his mouth. Licking, sucking and fondling to his heart's content while he desperately humps your thigh. The dream, really.

He's about to whine when you tug him off of you, but he's shut up by your tongue being shoved down his throat. Your hands frantically pushing his tank top up and off of him until his bare torso is free for you to explore. Smiling into him when he whimpers at the way your nails rake across his skin. A pitchy 'fuck' greeting your ears when you accidentally brush one of his nipples. Oh. Interesting.

Kissing and touching him is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Jisung is fantastic with his mouth, and his firm chest is incredibly fun to explore. Figuring out which places garner you groans or whimpers or whines. Which ones make him grind into harder. Which leads to the other hand. You're so soaked and painfully empty, and kissing him isn't helping to soothe any of those flames.

"Jisung," you mutter against his mouth, your hands ghosting over the waistband of his sweats. Delighting in the way he shudders above you and his abdominal muscles jump under your barely there touches.

"Ye-Yeah?"

"I want you to fuck me, please," you whine into his ear, lightly biting down on his lobe, "it hurts."

Jisung exhales a very long sigh against your throat, "You're going to kill me."

A breathless laugh bubbles out of you when he pulls away to shove his sweats down. Any trace of humour vanishes quickly when his cock smacks against his toned stomach. He's so hard that it looks painful, flushed an angry shade of red, and glistening with pre-cum. You can't help but stare. Your walls clamping down harshly around nothing.

"I thought you wanted to get fucked?" He asks with an arrogant grin on his stupidly handsome face.

"Shut up," you respond, lifting your hips and letting your shorts join the heap of clothing on your bedroom floor. It's your turn to feel a little smug when Jisung's eyes zero in on your pussy. You don't think you've ever been this wet in your entire life, and you're too far gone to have any semblance of self-consciousness or embarrassment.

Jisung returns to his position between your thighs before you can fire out any quips, his cock nudging your entrance causing your head to spin and a soft moan to slip from you. "Stop teasing," you whine, wrapping your legs around his waist and clinging to his broad back.

"So-Sorry," is all the warning you receive before he very gradually starts sinking into you. god, it's never felt like this. Ever. With anyone else. Tears accumulate in your eyes, and a few roll down your face with every inch he pushes into you.

"Are you okay?" He asks lowly, kissing your cheek repeatedly and halting his movements.

"Yeah. Yes, Ji, I'm fine. Please don't stop," you practically moan, clawing into his back when he mumbles a curse and continues.

You can barely think, let alone breathe when he's fully sheathed inside of you. His cock pulsing inside of you violently and Jisung quivering above you, hushed moans of your name and whimpers being pressed into your shoulder. A whine hitting your ears when you squirm a little and tighten your hold around his waist.

"Wait, fuck. Wait, don't move," he moans, his hands grounding himself with his hold on your pillowy thighs. You struggle to comprehend his words. Everything is so muddled and overwhelming, and he just feels so fucking good, and he hasn't even moved yet.

At first, you assume Jisung's increase in sounds of pleasure and throbbing inside of you is just because he's as overwhelmed as you are. Every single nerve feeling like it's engulfed in flames. However, when his strained apologies register, you realise he came. Hot spurts of his cum flooding your eager pussy and open-mouthed kisses being pressed into your shoulder between apologies.

"Ji-Jisung,"

"I'm fuck I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to. It just happened. Fuck you must think I'm so pathetic-"

"Jisung, stop. It-It's okay. That was really hot actually," you mutter, and you mean it. If anything, you're flattered that you managed to make him cum so fast.

"What? Really?" He asks, blinking down at him. His pretty eyes beyond fucked out and sweat dotting his face. God, he's so pretty. Your pussy clenching involuntarily.

"Yea- Wait, are you still hard?" You ask, only realising now that he's still nestled deeply inside of you despite the cum that's gradually starting to dribble out of you.

He looks as shocked as you. Seemingly not realising that his own cock hadn't softened in the slightest. "Holy shit," he breathes, thrusting into you experimentally, drawing a whimper and your nails biting into his back in reaction.

"Remind me to go back to that bakery," he utters into your throat. Giving you little time to adjust before picking up his pace considerably. Between your wetness and his cum, he fucks into you easily. Your combined noises of pleasure echoing throughout your bedroom while you two lose yourselves in one another.

You've been teetering on the edge for what feels like ages. All it takes is for Jisung to find your sweet spot for your eyes to roll into the back of your head and your back to arch into him. Your lovely, lovely roommate fucking you through it all and exploiting your newly discovered weakness.

"That's it, baby," he groans into your ear, his hands holding you firmly in place and making you take each and every thrust he gives you, "You're taking me so well. You're doing so good."

Those words are going to be replaying in your mind for the rest of your life.

Your mind is utterly blank as the most intense orgasm you've ever experienced wreaks your body. Your thighs shaking violently, and your hands holding onto Jisung for dear life while you tighten around him. Fuck. Fuck. You're so full, and it's so much, but not enough at the same time.

"More, please. Jisung, please. I want more," you cry out, not caring in the slightest about the pathetic, desperate edge to your voice. All you're capable of thinking about is cumming on his cock over and over again and, him filling you with his cum until it's still leaking out of you days later.

"I've got you, baby," he whispers, the pet name he's grown a fondness for causing butterflies to arise in your stomach.

"We're far from being finished."

[saintsenara]

Severus and James have a weird connection with each other.

Lily: Mulciber and Avery are bad people that terrorize the school with their bigotry.

Severus: yes, but Potter is Shit!

Lily ; Mulciber used dark magic on Mary

Severus: yes, but potter is shit

Lily: Potter helped you out on that night !

Severus: yes, BUT HE’S STILL SHIT !

Lily: potter is shit, but I don’t like your friends Severus. They worry me.

Severus : you think he’s shit too 🥺

———————-

James: *finally the love of my life likes me back*

James: where is Snivellus ?

James: *Lily doesn’t want me to be a bully to others anymore*

James : that does not include Snivellus

James: *becomes quidditch captain and headboy*

James: I still need to bully Snivellus

—————-

I think they’re water and oil. Severus receives high grades and works hard to excel academically. But his social standing stands in the way of being respected. He sees the marauders, a tight knit group of friends that are having the time of their lives at Hogwarts. Two out of four rich and considered attractive. Doing so much shit and they don’t get reprimanded. They’re still liked by their peers and professors.

For James, he’s spoilt and probably seldomly hears no (if so, he has his way of getting a yes ). then comes this guy, a slytherin, unattractive, not popular, not from a big family, that actually has the gal to fight back. He tells Lily that he bully’s Severus for “the fact that he exists”.

The interaction between Severus and the other Marauders is incredibly interesting. He fears Lupin, which Remus knows and acts indifferently (tho I highly suspects that he likes poking Severus). Peter, Severus doesn’t even give him the time of day. As for Sirius, they’re always one step away from a full blown battle.

I have a feeling that James and Severus searched each other up. Rotating in a weird sadistic game of hurting each other. Man I really want to see a scene with adult James and Severus. If watching Sirius and Severus interact feels like the fire sizzling under the firework, James and Severus are the firework. Oh the joy of reading that 😍.

Typing this out, I wonder if Severus was incredibly gullible and naive as a teen. Lily is worried about the war and Mulciber/ Avery, but Severus focuses on Potter. Other than his dislike for Muggle, you don’t see his stances on muggleborns. He enables Mulciber and Avery, but I wonder if that is because of his believes or that’s just his personality. He still thinks kindly of Lily, while many would have dropped their friend if they married their childhood bully. He never tells Lily to stop being friends with people that questions her friendship with him, again many would be weirded out by that. This might read as me thinking too kindly of Snape. I probably am, but I do think forming a friendship is key in understanding a character and for that there needs to be a certain softness.

Severus is considered the perfect henchman by both Dumbledore and Voldemort. Lucious Malfoy keeps a very close relationship with him, and his son (Draco) is close to him and admires/respects him. I think Severus needs/wants a very strong male figure in his life. A competent father he never had, or a protective brother.

In the story he is tight to two mothers, Lily and Narcissa. Both defy Voldemort for their sons. Sirius and Remus protect Harry for James, but Severus solely for Lily.

I don’t know how all of this ties together, but Severus is a character in an interesting place when it comes to his relationships with other men and woman in his live.

I also have no idea where James comes into all of this. But they do have a strange obsession with one another.

controversially, anon, i don't entirely back this.

i've never been a massive fan of jeverus/snames/whatever we're calling it because it never strikes me as having any particularly interesting spark.

whereas sirius and snape have an inherent push and pull by virtue of being narrative mirrors, the tension between snape and james depends to such an extent on them competing over lily that changing that dynamic by making the two of them attracted to each other often flops.

[snape's hatred of james' superior social position and the fact that he's never punished for his troublemaking is because of lily - because he thinks she's being misled into thinking james is lovely and this will allow james to lure her away from him - for example, rather than being directed at james himself. snape's hatred of sirius is entirely focused on sirius himself.]

the toxic triad - on the other hand - slaps.

on the other points, the thing which is really interesting about snape's teenage naivety is that it almost manages to be correct. i've said this before, but he's clearly the death eater who comes closest to understanding that voldemort has no interest in upholding the wizarding world's entrenched class system [whereas regulus black - for example - thinks that the dark lord intends to usher in pureblood oligarchy] and that what he primarily cares about - to paraphrase the man himself - is power and those strong enough to seek it.

[and a lot of his dynamic with narcissa is shaped by this - narcissa clearly cottons on, well before draco and lucius, to the fact that voldemort has no intention of elevating the malfoys to quasi-royal heights...]

snape evidently views voldemort not only as his long-awaited male role model, but as his ticket to breaking through the barriers which his name, blood status, and class background set up for him in a world so obsessed with lineage and networking - and he's not wrong to.

he's also - and this is where his naivety comes into play - clearly convinced that voldemort will offer lily the same opportunities. the implication of canon is very much that he's prepared to look the other way about the fact that voldemort's violence specifically targets muggleborns [and, above all, that voldemort doesn't regard lily as an exception to his usual rule about muggleborns] until he literally can't look the other way any longer...

[thatpodcastkid]

Magnus Archives Relisten 17, MAG 17 The Boneturner's Tale, Spoiler-Free Version

Honestly, if my high school bully got their hands on a demon book I think basically the same thing would happen.

MAG 17 analysis, spoiler-free.

Facts: Statement of Sebastian Adekoya regarding a new acquisition at Chiswick Library.

Statement Notes: "Books are amazing, aren't they?"

The first line of this statement is so hopeful. Sebastian approaches what happened to him with this strange light pouring out of him. He takes on the world with a realistic yet deeply optimistic outlook. His character feels out of place in the Magnus Archives world because, although he's afraid, he isn't sick or sad or angry or desperate. Despite the horror he finds himself facing, there isn't any actual disruption to his routine, meaning he doesn't have to change in the face of danger. Adekoya is a static character in a dynamic setting.

As a book lover, Adekoya uses a lot of flowery language in his statement. He spends the first minute giving a speech on the beauty and power of language and the written word. He serves as an incredible contrast to Jared. They don't necessarily have conflicting beliefs, but conflicting focuses. Adekoya deals in the beautiful and abstract, Hopworth deals in the messy and real. Language is art, humans are meat.

Since Sebastian and Jared are around the same age, and Adekoya just graduated college, we can assume Jared is about 22-23 during the events of this statement. His characterization was very realistic. People often joke about hearing the bully of their secondary school getting arrested, but it's very different when you realize the violent but ultimately harmless kid you knew has become a violent and harmful adult. Often, that violent energy is turned against family members first. Those who tried to help, those who enabled, those who don't deserve it.

The end of the statement was very frightening. The violence enacted against Adekoya is a show of power by Jared and, in turn, The Boneturner's Tale. The Bonetruner's Tale holds an eldritch power no human can possibly understand. It is capable of enacting violence no human can understand. Its power is so great, we are left to assume a car killed Sebastian, because no living thing could do that much damage. Right?

In addition to Mike Crew's strange strategy of dropping the Leitner off in a random library, he chose to file it as Trainspotting of all things. This means that not only did Crew check out Trainspotting from the library, but he now owns the copy. Does this matter at all to the plot or metaplot of TMA? No. Does it matter to my heart? Yes.

I also noted how Sebastian didn't seem attracted to Boneturner at all. There's a motif with Leitners regarding them "calling out" to people and drawing innocents into their dark ways as part of the cursed object trope. But clearly, it's not indiscriminate. The isn't an apple of discord or ring of power situation; Leitners are capable of choosing who they want to attach themselves to. While I don't know much about the Canterbury Tales (feel free to educate me in the notes), it does seem that as the book makes Hopworth stronger, he makes it stronger by feeding its written desire for blood and violence.

Character Notes: Who speaks to their boss like that. Who. "Fine, fine, I'll be more lovely?" Tf? You sarcastic bastard?

This is a...weird intro to Elias to say the least. While of course Jon is being rude and they're passively sniping at each other, Elias does seem calm. He seems responsible and put together. He's not antagonistic in any way. If anything, Jon is the aggressor in the conversation. Up to this point, Jon has been the listener's only lens to view this world through. So when we are presented with a new character to compare him to, and Jon is snippy and rude, we are compelled to see this character as calm and rational.

Also Elias calls him "Jonathan." That doesn't mean anything but god to be a fly on that wall.

[kyuummie]

I am absolutely insane abt c!TNT duo, and don’t have anyone irl talk to abt them :[. Pls info dump to me abt c!TNT duo and pls bestow upon me any and all c!TNT duo headcanons that u have. It’d absolutely make my day (also, ur pretty cool and I like ur Tumblr)

i am SO mad i had entire PARAGRAPHS OF AN ANSWER to this but it didnt save as a draft. TWICE. Anyways i finally decided to check my inbox..!!!!!!!!!!

And thank you! im not creative when it comes to hcs so heres ramble about metaphors and comparisons that are canonical/headcanon for ctntduo. Would base this on canon divergent interpretations but Nah

1- yin/yang

very obvious. “he is my yang”. recognizable and iconic. Two opposites which bring harmony. self perpetuating cycle of two interconnected sides.

the self perpetuating part is very important. it has always been established that they have a push and pull for everything, because they relish in the other’s reactions and its almost instinct. it all started this way too, their upbringing puts them in a very strange position slash relationship. they “balance” each other out — rather,, they teeter on a tightrope keeping them entertained and enabled . they are sides of the same coin, and complement the other. they always have a quick witty quip ready for the other’s petty insults, so so predictable. they dont keep harmony and peace between them, more so a light to keep them going similar to a smoker lighting cigarettes over and over again (insert the 10000 arts of wil lighting his cig with Qs light and vice versa. my fave ever) its close to an addiction, they need each other to keep running and flowing in the most unconventional ways they can find. if you look carefully, they are always circling enabling balancing each other

2- fire/light/burning

i like the metaphor of cwil being under the spotlight of people's perception .. sure, its cool to finally be able to see and interact with people but Q is different. he isnt and never will be afraid of wil. he is only "unpredictable" to him. freakishly enough this is also entertaining to Q. what will he destroy next? graffiti next? say next? do next? he cant help himself but to react. wil on the other hand will do anything to get a petty reaction from Q, to get his precious eyes on him that makes him burn in the light. tearing each other apart then rebuilding each other is an important component of their relationship me thinks

3- president/vice president

usually, i tjink this is a concept used to try and dethrone the other of their humongous egos and get that feeling of a win lol its all about reaction

their relationship is so interesting and weird because of the fact they wanted to over throw the other in politics — i dont think you see two POLITICAL rivals have that homoerotic tension often … anywhere! but i think its so funny that they became a version of the other further down the line (menace -> president, president -> menace) and it also goes back to the yinyang, over time and under certain conditions one can become the other because the other will always be present in the other. (like yin contains yang vice versa)

4- cannibalism Sorry /j

ok this is Strictly fanon. does this count as a headcanon i dont know.

if anyone remmeberes there was a certain point over on ctnttwt a handful of people were crazy for cannibalism ctnt go read whispers of blood and love. recently its become a not too uncommon/pretty popular characteristic for oc ships etc. of course its usually metaphorical in (ctnt) art and sometimes written but the act of giving yourself up completely to another to become a part of them goes pretty well with the psychology of ctnt/the game they play so i very much see the vision when people use this concept to depict Wil’s “devotion” (i guess? idk Refer back to ‘I am your servant’) to stay w Q in order to keep feeling that feeling of being “alive”.

it also goes hand in hand with quackitys want for power over people/things from beinng deprived of it in his earlier days. biggest stretch ever but also his capitalistic ideals to consume consume consume. and wil is willing to give him that opportunity because it is beneficial to him as well. horrible mutualism psa guys dont eat your boyfriend

these r mostly cwilbur centric mb. i also hate being wrong Which is why i hate having HCs. but why should i when theyre practically my ocs and the whole point of hcs is that theyre YOUR canon but oh well

anyone and everyone add on if u Like. Humble me if im wrong idc

[desertfangs]

Been thinking about what it must’ve been for Daniel to drink from Armand again after they reunited. Was it on the night they met up again for the first time in years? Was it rushed and hot and had Armand gasping in ways he was not prepared for? Did they wait for a few days after the air had cleared a bit and they were more comfortable around each other? Did Armand whisper “here, from my neck” like he used to when Daniel was a mortal man? Or did Daniel ask permission first (he’s a nice boy) and Armand said “but of course, you’re my firstborn, you can have all of me” which prompted Daniel to lift him up with his immortal strength and push him against a wall/table/bed and attempt to drink him dry? Did they share blood before actually kissing? What do you think? 🫣

I think about this all the time and I don’t know! I really don’t! I feel like it could go so many ways with them. Blood drinking is pretty intimate—it’s the only way Armand and Daniel can share thoughts now—and Armand can be a little standoffish when he’s uncertain, and Daniel was probably nervous as hell about fucking things up. I think given everything that had transpired over the past decade and a half, being together again in person probably felt a little tenuous and strange. And in that situation, it would be unwise to jump right into something so intimate and heavy. 

But then again, these two are also known for jumping off a cliff headfirst without looking, especially together, because they encourage and enable one another. So who knows! 

I do think they probably kissed first! I feel like that’s a good starting place and you know, if your fang happens to slip and you nick the other’s tongue well… oops. Oh weird how did that happen, now this kiss is tinged with blood. 🥺🥺 (Daniel is very likely to be the one to “accidentally” scrape Armand’s tongue with his fangs, lol.) 

When it came to Daniel really drinking from Armand, I can totally see them getting hot and heavy after hunting together. All keyed up from the kill, the blood rushing through their veins, not to mention the build up of several nights of furtive glances and short exchanges. Armand might pull Daniel into an alley to kiss him and touch him, and then they’ll fumble with each other’s hair and clothes, trying to figure out where to put their mouths and hands, until suddenly Daniel’s mouth is on Armand’s throat and Armand gives him that little nod or that small touch to the back of his head that means, Yes, do it, and Daniel bites down. 

Or maybe they even make it back to Trinity Gate before the need to be in each other’s veins overcomes them, and they stumble up to Armand’s room and close the door and then all bets are off. Just naked and writhing in the sheets together, not allowing any space between their bodies. 

Of course, it's possible that it took them a few nights or even a week or so. It depends on how fraught things were between them leading up to this and what interactions they’d had over the past decade. I personally imagine they had some awkward phone conversations and maybe one brief in-person encounter (either Armand went to see Daniel with his own eyes while he was mad or recovering or I believe it’s mentioned somewhere that Marius and Daniel had gone to NYC? So in that case I can’t imagine them not stopping by TG or at least meeting up for a coffee or whatever the vampire equivalent is.) But we don’t actually know. 

So if contact has been very sparse and uncomfortable and they aren’t quite ready to let the physical desires overwhelm them—much as they might want to—it might take some time and some quiet conversations on some hard topics. And then it might be less heated at first. It might have started with a soft brush of hair off the throat, a gentle kiss with lingering tongue. And then it escalated from there, but it was probably less frantic. More caressing, more words of love gasped out. 

But no matter when or how it happened, I’m sure that first blood exchange was electric. How did Daniel describe it, like a kiss to his brain? That intense and powerful, and charged with all of the pent up emotions and love they’d been holding in for so long! Not a night they'll forget any time soon for sure.

Thank you so much for the ask, anon!! This is one of my favorite things to think about and I think I’ve answered similar asks before but I honestly I could talk about this and speculate about it for DAYS. I love to hear other people’s theories of how it happened too!

[inkdemonapologist]

Who's your favorite female character in BATIM? Also, what do you think about Audrey as a character (aside from the weird stuff about Joey and "you don't have to be like this" that you mentioned in that one post)? You draw her really well.

Aw, thank you! And MAN that’s a tough question……

Dot and Abby and Susie are my personal stack of favs. Dot’s probably the one where I like her personality as-written the most, since Abby I find difficult to summarise beyond “she’s gender” and loving her friendship with her besties in TIOL (and also getting my heart destroyed after seeing her and Joey interact in DCTL). Abby seems like a delight to interact with and I enjoy that she’s a little bit rude at heart but in a “omg its true but u shouldn’t say it lmao” sort of way, and I get the sense that she and Joey kind of enabled each other when they were younger. I’d love to hear more of her art opinions. I would say I’d get in a fight with her about Monet, but I don’t think she’d even give me the honour of an argument.

We as a fandom have spent a lot of time yelling about how Buddy is clearly autistic and I don’t think we spend NEAR enough time talking about how Dot is clearly autistic as well. I really like the contrast between the two of them through that lens; Buddy has never understood an unstated implication in his life and he’s not about to start now, but badly wants to interact the way he’s expected to, whereas Dot is incredibly intuitive, perceptive, and understands subtext but has no time for it frankly and would rather be direct than conventional. A day after meeting Buddy she’s explaining how conversations work and coaching Buddy on how to ask questions even when he’s being guided away from asking questions, which is definitely a normal way to converse. I love her so much.

Meanwhile Susie is so complicated by virtue of having almost no presence in the books – just the games, where her timeline is one of the most up in the air, her writing is hit or miss, and so so much of her personality is in the gaps between audiologs that, like most in-game BatIMs, means no two fandom Susies are the same. I find her really compelling, though, exploring the character to find that sweet spot between someone who is clearly very charming and cheerful and sweet and sympathetic, but also cruel enough to become Malice, entitled and demanding enough to not take “no” for an answer and to simply decide that Alice should get to be hers forever. I’ve said before that I like to imagine that’s what Sammy saw in her, someone who could somehow be simultaneously thoughtful and optimistic and ruthlessly ambitious. I think she’s neat, but also I love her best when she’s not just sweet and not just horrible.

Anyway, Audrey’s a fun character with a lot of pretty believable emotional responses; when scenes are taken individually, I like her. Grain of salt that I haven’t watched the whole game, I’ve just seen some big moments and cutscenes, SO I COULD BE WAY OFF HERE -- but from what I've seen, while it’s tempting to say she has more personality than her predecessor, I’d be hard-pressed to pin down exactly what that personality is.

I don’t think it was intentional, but Henry’s weary compartmentalisation soaked into every comment he made, even when the things he was saying were deliriously strange (“[survives a deadly supernatural ordeal] huh, looks like I need 3 gears here”). We all made headcanons about how he’s either tired from the loops or selectively mute or just trying not to think about the horrors, and it felt like it worked. But Audrey is tough to really pin down a motivating force for, as if she’s defined by static descriptors like “determined” and “kind” rather than any particular desire like “wants to help” or “wants to stay out of trouble” that might spur her to make decisions based on those desires. Her most consistent character trait is giving others the benefit of the doubt (and constantly getting burned for it) and her most reinforced motivation is that she just wants to not be in the confusing dangerous weird ink place, which, like, same! I WOULDNT WANT TO BE THERE EITHER

She sounds bitter when Joey compares her to a father she never knew, which is an expected and reasonable response on its own that feels right in the moment – but when we look at her timeline (or the Archive’s revelation that she repressed her memories of her father AFTER Joey’s death), it’s actually a sort of difficult reaction to make sense of. I feel like a lot of her reactions are like this, especially near the end; they’re not that weird in the moment, but it’s hard to get a sense of why she’s doing these things or what’s led her to the conclusions she comes to. She defends Wilson to Allison, but like… what led her to believe that he’s legit? We can fill in those blanks with headcanons, of course, but we don’t have strong clues. Is it her having sympathy for him now that she “knows” he’s trying to save his father, or does she think it’s her best shot to get out of here, or does she really believe Wilson is going to fix everything despite everything else she’s seen? Do her chat with Henry and the revelation that Baby Bendy and the Ink Demon are one and the same just not affect her decision-making at all here? Or is killing Baby Bendy just a sacrifice she’s immediately willing to make once she realises that? What ARE Audrey’s feelings on her father and at what point does she remember him? Audrey giving Allison her name is a nice subtle indication that she’s started to accept that Joey’s story might be true, which I genuinely like, but it’s weird that we see her doing that right before insisting that she’s gonna go off and hear Wilson out – we get this indication that she’s started believing Joey, but apparently not enough to decide to try to fix the cycle, not enough to put together that the “wicked creatures who never came from my pen” might be the Keepers that she knows answer directly to Wilson. She’s determined to help Wilson so that she can get out of there, and only after that extremely fails does she decide to try to fix the broken cycle. (Honestly, it would’ve been kinda neat if she HAD in fact been selfishly helping Wilson as a “well, sucks for you guys, but I gotta get home,” and then Joey’s insistence that we always have a chance to make a better choice would actually mean something and inform her decision to take the Reel as more than just “well I guess this is the option that I have left.”)

Anyway, DESPITE THIS CRITICAL PARAGRAPH this is all fine for a player character who basically just needs to go from task to task; I think she’s likeable and I enjoy her interactions. But it does feel like a lot of times she’s just doing the next thing she’s been handed, to me, and it’s harder to make that a part of her personality than it was for Henry. It’d be neat to see a little more of Joey in Joey Drew’s daughter.

[ashtraythief]

This is kinda a weird question, but isn’t it strange that we all love fan fiction and reading romantic plot lines in them and smut and all of this but our favorite show is Supernatural, which is just this story about platonic love? I think that really drew me to the show, I’ve never seen a show that focused so heavily on platonic love, not romantic, and made that the same focus of the entire show. It’s so lovely to see. Did that draw you into the show too?

Ah, yeah. Fandom and their endless quest to make everyone bang and/or fall in love (which I say lovingly, because so do I). And I don't think it's a weird question at all.

Honestly, I started watching Supernatural for very shallow reasons. It was recommend in the “ridiculously attractive people” category of a streaming site :D The pilot was way too scary for me though and so I quit again. But then a while later, I was watching Leverage on TNT and that ep was followed by Playthings. We left the TV running and I just… got sucked into it. Obviously, I had no idea about the context, only remembered the pilot vaguely, but boy did I fall in love immediately. With them, their relationship, the humor, the love and I went right back to the beginning and forced myself to put on my big girl pants and suffer through the scary eps (yes, yes, I know, they’re not that scary, I’m a wuss) and I was so gone on them, it was ridiculous. So yeah, it was the abscence of romance i guess, because I did fall in love with their relationship. In which Playthings truly is a magnificent gem even among the riches of season two.

I think if Sam and Dean’s relationship were romantic (if they were an unrelated het couple because let’s be real, nothing else would have been on network TV seventeen years ago), I think I would have been almost as enamored. Though I don’t know how to build a relationship like that without their past. It would have needed to be grown up together in some kind of way. I think their relationship would be compelling either way, but it is definitely more compelling for not being romantic. For one I think because romance is the default setting for the all-encompassing, soulmate-type relationships, and also because it’s just so unusual? Like even for one of those fated soulmate romance stories, Sam and Dean are still weirdly intense. They’re just more. Unhealthy, codependent, whatever you want to call it, but it makes for good stories. And I think that’s beautiful.

As for why we make wincest…. Well, the shallow reason is that they’re both beautiful men and it’s fun to imagine them bang. And sometimes you gotta be shallow. But also it just seems…. logical. They want to share everything (they do almost share everything, I mean consider what they know about each other’s sex lives and how they enable each other, like Dean wanting Sam to get laid to cheer him up or Sam wanting to drag Dean to a strip club to cheer him up, like they know sexy times can make you feel better and since they can’t provide that themselves they try to find ways to at least facilitate the happy-making sexy times), they are incredibly intimate anyway, there are many instance where they are jealous of romantic partners/friends and there is an exclusive claim on the other that’s rarely relinquished. Honestly, sex is probably the only facette of an intimate interpersonal relationship that’s not covered due to the whole being related thing, but fandoms love to break taboos and explore all sorts of boundaries in transformative works, and wincest is truly the most low hanging fruit of them all. It’s right there. Dancing out of reach. The show itself plays with it, both as jokes when people mistake them as a gay couple or when Sam and Dean use couple-coded language for each other, like when Dean asks if Sam wants a divorce when they’re fighting. They also made actual wincest shippers canon. Like, I was an innocent brofan of the show when I saw The Monster at the End of the Book, and bam, wincest in my brain, like a lightbulb went off and it took up residence there because it just made so much sense. In more serious themes, other characters comment on how special or twisted their relationship is, both friends and villains alike, they sell their soul for each other (or at least try to in Sam’s case), they do or attempt to do unspeakable things to save each other, they are canon soulmates, they have an extensive repertoire of love language and love acts to show their love for and knowledge of each other, they have a whole you-are-the-most-important-thing-ever thing that goes down in a fucking church, I mean, the show makes it abundantly clear that Sam and Dean are it for each other. And so I think that it’s very natural that people go with the wincest. Even though we have to take the incest hurdle, but hey, fantasy is for the dark, transgressive stuff, right? 

At the same time, it is refreshing that the show doesn’t center romance when almost all other shows do, and I think it’s one of the reasons people do enjoy it. And once you have the magic of Sam and Dean, whether you ship wincest or not, you don’t want them to mess with that so you want the non-romance thing to stay (unless you want a certain ship to go canon of course). In conclusion, wincest just makes sense, on every level really and we just creatively want to explore that in fun ways while keeping what’s great about canon in the show. The true art of shipping, I think.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hurling another enrichment pumpkin at you : any thoughts on how Secrets handles its sociopolitical themes? I haven't had the chance to check the podcast out personally so far but from what I've seen on tumblr it seems to take a much less vague approach to those themes than even Unburied did, and considering how multiple people mentioned that the podcast seems a bit rushed, do you think that affected the handling of this too?

one of the things I did really like was removing any ambiguity as to whether or not we're supposed to interpret this version of the Riddler as a Muslim Indian man, and I think it's fair to assume that by extension that this cements Bruce and Barbara as Black and Latina, respectively. I don't think any of those were really controversial opinions, especially per the fandom I see on our glorious hellsite, but the conformation is cool!

I think exploring the way that Eddie's status as a brown man would contribute to his sense of disenfranchisement and resentment for Society is interesting for sure. it's also used to enable some like... COMPELLING bastard behavior that's very specific to him as a man of color, namely misleading the GCPD to arrest some entirely unrelated Indian man that they can't tell apart from Eddie, and the bit where he's having his little tantrum re: his sister's social climbing and insinuates that she probably has a white husband/boyfriend, which is a thing Asian women are FREQUENTLY attacked for in Asian incel communities. interesting move, I applaud.

I was less impressed by how the series handled its humanization of criminals and incarcerated individuals, which I wrote about a lot on this post about the depiction of Azrael. idk, I like that the rogues look out for each other and we get to see the horrors of realizing that you're so dehumanized by society that your vicious murder becomes a meme, that's a perspective on Gotham's rogues that I feel we don't get a lot! but the series seemed to waffle pretty hard on its own stance on this, Batman seems to be operating a pretty different wavelength than he was at the end of Unburied (he's soooo much more of a cop), and I also genuinely don't know what to do with the reveal that this version of King Tut was running a sex cult, especially since literally the only person who criticized him for that was. you know. also responsible for several brutal murders.

at risk of harping on this too much it feels very strange that a series would be so invested in the humanity of villains and then also have an actual antagonist who's as one note as Azrael is made out to be and gets offed with so little fanfare. the series' other big issue seems to be coming down hard on the side of "we hate violent Christian fundamentalists, they're Bad" and like. yeah, I agree, and that obviously ties in very closely with exploring racism and Islamaphobia that the Riddler has grown up experiencing, but as I said in the other post it's also uuuuuh very weird to make Jean-Paul the narrative scapegoat for far right fundie Christians when, in the comics, that's not his bag at all. he's a dangerous and careless Batman, sure, but he's also very much a victim of the Order of St. Dumas, and it feels like both a sloppy use of the character and a WILDLY missed opportunity to explore the church as a corrupt system akin to Strange's medical abuses in Arkham and everything about the GCPD. idk, it feels like Secrets in the Dark just really jettisoned much more interesting potential stories building on Unburied's themes in favor of a much more black and white narrative.

tl;dr I cannot believe that Secrets in the Dark has forced me to point to David S. Goyer as a comparative paragon of nuance and taste!!! what!!!

[themousefromfantasyland]

Barbieland, Patriarchy and Unequal Systems of Power

Spoiler alert!

Ken and the other Kens are the antagonists of the story. After he and Barbie go to the real world, Ken comes back to the Barbieland inspired by the real world's Patriarchy. He transforms Barbieland in Kendom, where Kens have all the power and all Barbies are submissive to them.

Barbie, the resistance led by Weird Barbie, and a mother and daughter she met in the real world, then save the day by pointing out all the inconsistencies and injustices women have to deal with in patriarchy. This fixes the brainwashing the Kens did on all the Barbies.

One criticism I see on the internet is that the movie was too nice and forgiving towards the Kens, and I disagree.

I don't think Ken is the villain of the story, but patriarchy itself.

I think the whole point of the film is that the patriarchy corrupts everyone, fails everyone and that unequal systems of power always breed their demise.

In the status quo of Barbieland, Kens has no jobs, are effectively homeless, and have no positions of power. They have no real independence and are just accessories to Barbies and Barbies are often dismissive of them.

This doesn't mean that Barbies are villains and Kens are the good guys. That's absurd. Barbies are often very nice and gentle with Ken, but because they are dolls. There's no real malice in any of them, which avoids all the more terrible consequences of these types of unequal systems. But it's still a system where some have all the power and resources and the others have to watch by the waist side.

The most important part here is that although Ken brings the patriarchy to Barbieland and brainwashes all the Barbies, there's no indication that he is doing that on purpose.

All we see is that Ken falls in love with a world where men rule and women are submissive and try to establish that in his homeland, and for some strange reason, all the Barbies agree with that. The Kens did not force anything on them. The Barbies for some reason, gave up their independence to live in a Ken world. There's even a joke comparing the Barbies' situation with the indigenous people's infection by colonizer's diseases, and I think that's the key to understanding the concept. If patriarchy acts like a virus that infects the Barbies, there's no indication that the same isn't true with all the Kens.

Patriarchy is a virulent ideology that infects everyone, men, and women alike. Several analyses link the Kens' sudden infatuation with patriarchy with young boys falling down the alt-right pipeline, and I think they are all correct. But there's also a subtle message here on girls being brainwashed by conservative movements.

Think about all the ways women can also be enablers of the patriarchy, of how much-internalized misogyny is a thing. Of all the women who somehow became fans of Donald Trump. Of all the TERFS. Of all women in Evangelical megachurches. Of Anita Bryant.

Is only by reminding them that the patriarchy doesn't give a hoot about their needs and well-being that they are rescued from these dangerous ideologies.

And now we reach the most important part.

The patriarchy is a system where men control and exploit other men, with misogyny being the only thing that gives this giant mess common ground. It's by making women the enemy to be controlled and exploited, that men forget that they are also being controlled and exploited.

In the end, the Barbies trick all Kens into fighting each other, and while they are busy fighting each other, the Barbies quickly reach power again.

Because Kens replace the unequal power system of Barbieland with an even more unequal system, a system that is so much worse that it actively feeds on their worst insecurities, the Kens lose, and Barbies win the day.

In the end, they are much glad that they lose, some even missing the company of their Barbie friends.

The Barbies forgive the Kens, but because they aren't saints, and won't give them everything they always wanted after being jerks with them for so long, they give a slightly more presence in Barbieland's judicial system. But this is enough to make them happy and bring peace back to Barbieland.

They are dolls, there's no actual malice in them. At their worse Kens are just jerks seduced by a poisonous real-world ideology. Real-world patriarchy is much, much worse and much more violent.

And by finding humanity in plastic dolls, maybe we can also fight cancerous ideologies that devour the brain of otherwise decent people and bring a more equal future to our real world.

[dolphs-world]

Get back

In the words of the 'Quack Pack' theme song "I feel like quackin' so I think I will". I have a lot of little thoughts I've jotted down in my notes so may as well fully fledge them. A little whiles back I picked up a DVD of 'Death to Smoochy', a Danny DeVito film with the late great Robin Williams and equally great Edward Norton. My mum has a DVD of 'Fight club' that is older than I am, it is one of the few movies I've watched as an adult over 2 times and each time it gets better. But somehow, despite owning it longer than I've existed my mother has never seen it so I rewatched it for a 6th time with my mum and I loved it even more. Now, I still have a lot of Fincher films to watch but after rewatching 'Gone Girl' I think 'Fight Club' is his best work. I need to read 'Gone Girl', my mum says it's better. I've read 'Fight Club' and I think the movie is better in every way except the stuff with Angelface, his name isn't even said in the film. 'Gone Girl' is a nice parallel to 'Fight Club', men v women, but it is also just as dated in technology. There's phones with buttons, TV is respected, CRT computers. The last of its era. 'Gone Girl' is really excelled by the actors being well known actors. None of them come across like they're trying to pivot their image but it's so weird seeing Madea as a lawyer. Affleck's and NPH's (not really EmRata but she is well known) performances benefit from their perceptions, Affleck as a shlub and NPH as a charming guy from less prestigious works. And then there's Rosamund Pike, a chameleon which works because she appears as an unknown actor, someone who never got their time in the spotlight. But the twist is really a one time amazing moment, unlike 'Fight Club'. Not to butcher Hegellian Dialectics but thesis, antithesis, synthesis; Tyler is cool, Tyler is bad, there are good aspects of Tyler (or broke, woke, bespoke). If you know 'Fight Club' well I don't need to expand upon the first two. I don't really relate entirely to many characters; Sonic, Tim Drake, Ron Stoppable; let alone at all. So it shocks me whenever I can really relate to someone, this time it was Edward Norton. Not in the ways you would expect and I'm not going to expand upon it, but the looking up to a strong male influence is one of these aspects. (sidenote: I think 'Fight Club' is one of the least homoerotic films I've seen which is surprising). The first scene with Tyler is perfect. Tyler is perfect as a tool for self reflection "How's being clever going for you?" "Why don't you just ask?". But that's all he should be, a tool for self-reflection. Having something only for men to form a brotherhood is good, hobbies are good, taking agency for your life is good, finding love is good. I think this is missed when viewing 'Fight Club' as a satire, there are good lessons for men buried in here but they can be dangerous when taken to the extreme. The only thing about the film that sucks is the ending "You met me at a very strange point in my life" and that love is the answer. They very much enable each other. Even if Tyler has changed, who's to say Marla will? And for a film so big on agency, why does Marla have none in the end? This was my attempt at a sort of disjointed flow, weaving back and forth between two works. Notice how I started with something unrelated? Here's my actual point about 'Death to Smoochy": I haven't seen it yet but I will soon. However, I have seen a scene from it where Robin Williams gets arrested. I saw this in a meme compilation. I've become a little addicted to these meme compilations, I think they are awful in a lot of ways. But how do these guys know about 'Death to Smoochy'? Who thought "I'll add the totally 'sigma' film, Death to Smoochy, a film with no insanely attractive characters I can project my power fantasy on to my meme compilation about how me and the boys are so totes mcgotes epic"? So bizarre!

[angstblanket1]

Dear Yuletide Writer 2024,

Thank you for writing for me or considering writing for me! Treats are enabled. Some fandoms/prompts may be more lengthy than others or different from last year- please try not to read too much into it. This is a product of many factors, but not my enthusiasm! I will be thrilled by a gift for any of these fandoms, whether you’re inspired by what I write here or whether I get to read a take on these fandoms completely different than anything I would have thought of myself!

General likes:

things that experiment with the possibilities of the medium! Whether the gradual realization of the framing device in The Strange Case of Starship Iris, or The Bletchley Circle and The Queen’s Gambit turning internal thought processes into something that is focused on (creatively, gorgeously, in a way that builds tension) instead of invisible. So for fic, anything that plays with the (change in) medium is super exciting to me- from 5+1 to epistolary to Interactive Fiction to whatever weird formatting you want to experiment with.

Using that to bring us inside the uniqueness of a character’s thought process

characters or authors showing off their specialized knowledge or overanalysis for absolutely any topic

worldbuilding

bittersweet

angst

forced to make difficult choices that have no get-out-of-jail-free, best-of-both-worlds escape hatch

loyalty- against all odds, or attempted loyalty that just isn’t enough

self-sacrifice

characters who enjoy being around each other (in their own idiosyncratic way)

Relationships that are non-monogamous, shifting, complex, difficult to define, involve competing needs, require negotiation, that are platonic yet extremely important to the people involved in them, that revolve around shared interests, that are extremely strong

characters who are messed up, abrasive, solitary, and/or super smart

making yourself better

making the world better

teamwork

team as family

The Bletchley Circle- Any (Jean McBrian, Lucy Davis, Millie Harcourt, Susan Gray)

Why I love it: Smart ladies! Who specialize in math! Well-defined characters with different strengths and ways of coping with a sexist society! Beautiful cinematography! Depicting internal thought processes is a challenge for visual mediums, so I love how the show depicts it as non-instantaneous, challenging, and also gorgeous. Teamwork!

Other notes: My gift may feature any characters from the tag set

Feel free to draw from the San Francisco spinoff too, if you’ve seen it (I have).

DNW: PWP (explicit content fine, but not as the sole focus), gore (canon-typical crimes fine, just not detailed descriptions of injuries), character bashing (characters can be products of their time and have the universal trait of thinking of themselves first without being 1-dimensional antagonists)

Fic ideas: I’d love a fic focusing on any combination of 1, 2, 3, or 4 of these ladies, as a character study, friendship and/or romantic and/or sexual relationship. Some ideas:

A character’s relationship to her skills, talents, the work she does.

Bletchley era: snapshot of the work they’re doing.

Bletchley era: what kinds of relationships are going on, when they’re able to visit each other more freely?

Bletchley era: did they ever meet Joan Clarke, or Alan Turing?

Millie seems to take Susan’s decision to get married instead of travelling the world very personally. Were they in a relationship at Bletchley? What happened?

How did Susan end up deciding to marry Timothy? Does she decide to put more effort into repairing her marriage, or not? Does she succeed? Feel free to diverge before their decision to move away, or to elaborate on it.

The Queen's Gambit- Beth Harmon

Why I love it: It keeps enough of the troubled genius trope to be fun for those of us who enjoy it, while deconstructing it enough to improve on it. She's a girl! Which impacts her story without being central to it! Her character struggles are a mix of inherent and a result of her experiences! She's talented, but does better when she admits she has to practice the parts that are less fun to her! And also when she learns to accept help! And she not only realizes drugs and madness are extraneous to her success, she does even better without them!

Other notes: My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags; or it may use exceptions I explain in the form: I have listed prompts for the backstories of Alma, Annette, and Alice Harmon- if you want to focus on one of these characters, using my prompt or not, I don’t expect Beth to also be a main focus.

The extent of my chess knowledge is the basic rules and a vague idea of the tournament system. Trust me, I will not know if you are fudging the details.

DNW: PWP (explicit content fine, but not as the sole focus), gore, character bashing, Beth/Borgov

Fic ideas:

tell me more about Annette Packer, that other girl at her first tournament? It must take a different type of courage to play against guys because you want to and should be allowed to and you’re just as good as them, instead of being able to prove that you’re superior.

tell me more about Alma? It sounds like she was also very good at something (piano), and that she had to give it up, and that that cost her.

Alice Harmon is clearly also a talented woman who's been through some stuff. What made her into the person we see?

was being banned from playing chess the extent of her punishment for the pill incident? How did she cope?

Beth clearly spends a lot of time alone reading chess books, while Jolene clearly has other friends to fill her time… what makes their bond special compared to the other girls at the orphanage?

Beth and Mr. Shaibel are both very much not people people; I adore their special friendship. Maybe fill in some gaps about their thoughts during their fight? Why didn't Beth pay back the $10?

for her chess friends/sometimes-lovers, I love domesticity, bonding over the shared love of the game, and the messiness of hurting each other without meaning to. More in-between moments of studying? Post canon or in an AU, does one of the canon pairings make it work? Or does Beth have more messy, complicated relationships like the young adult she is?

It’s a shame Beth’s one same-sex encounter directly preceded a disastrous game, but hey, she’s perfectly capable of making bad decisions without encouragement. I’d like to see Beth spending more time in Paris or globetrotting with Cleo, having a fun but dysfunctional time getting involved in her polyamorous bohemian lifestyle- if you can make it a function of these particular characters in this particular time of their lives rather than an inherently dysfunctional choice, even better.

Now that Beth is at the top of the chess world at barely 20… what does she do next? How does she stay sober? Or does she fall off the wagon a few more times?

This canon is ripe for a 5+1 or something with different character’s perspectives on themes like gender, chess, genius, and/or madness. Don’t worry, I won’t be put of if you go hard on stuff like this.

Just doing something fun with formatting to show us inside her head!

I saw a suggestion that characters and events could be metaphors for chess pieces or moves, and: yes, please! Don't worry, I'm not a lit professor or a chess player, I'll eat up whatever halfway plausible ideas you come up with.

The Strange Case of Starship Iris- Arkady Patel, Sana Tripathi, Violet Liu

Why I love it: Complex characters! Who are super important to each other! And who work together! On the work of making the universe a better place! With great world building about what differences there would and wouldn't be between different civilizations! Linguistics is key to unravelling the plot multiple times!

Other notes: My gift must feature one or more of my chosen character tags (giver's choice)- I'd equally enjoy a fic about the whole S1 gang, or any subset!

DNW: PWP (explicit content fine, but not as the sole focus), gore, character bashing

Fic ideas: 

Everyone has such tantalizing backstories- I want all the details.

More cultural comparisons. Do the humans learn about a Dwarnian culture different from Krejjh’s? Does the nanobot swarm struggle to understand the concept? What's the story behind fish bullying?

Arkady- being gruff and not touchy-feely, getting embarrassed with Violet

Sana- The stress of feeling responsible for everyone, does she find other “comfort out there”? Arkady/Sana/Violet?

Violet- fighting through the fear, getting embarrassed with Arkady

Brian- How did he get from grad student to criminal underworld? What else does he uncover about aliens through linguistics?

Krejjh- cultural differences/similarities, being cute with Brian

How did Arkady & Sana become best friends?

Arkady & Violet are so different, what do they like about each other? Missing scenes in their developing romance?

Just the crew hanging out and enjoying each others' company. Maybe they solve a manageable problem, or celebrate a 22nd century holiday.

Alternately, putting them in dangerous situations where they have to worry about each other and protect each other.

[mothereliza]

Pentecost: God's Deeds of Power

The Day of Pentecost: Acts 2: 1-21; 1 Cor 12:3b-13; John 20; 19-23

Many of you may know the story of the Tower of Babel, where the people of the world, in their pride, built a city and a tower with its top in the sky to reach God. But God confused them by producing diverse languages, so they should not be able to understand one another. And God scattered them around the world. The Tower of Bable is one of my favorite Sunday School bible stories. But now that I know better, the story sounds very foolish because, sadly, the people were the descendants of Cush, one of the sons of Noah. They have every reason to understand how unnecessary it was to build a tower to reach God; God is always more willing to come down to us than we can get to the heavens by our enterprise and effort.

In the story of Acts of the Apostles, we hear the opposite story Babel on the day of Pentecost. God's Spirit descended upon the religious as well as non-religious people from different worlds as well as Jews in the diaspora with different backgrounds assembled to celebrate the Feast of Harvest (or Weeks). They were surprised by the sudden stunningly powerful imagery of raging wind and flames of fire, bringing them the power to speak and understand each other's foreign languages.

In some churches, today's Pentecost celebration liturgy includes reading part of the lessons in various languages from different nations as a reminder of the gift of multiple tongues in the Church of God.

What does that mean to the people? This enactment is to remind them (and all of us) that the reality of the Pentecost experience is universal. More importantly, it is to teach us that everyone has access to the Spirit as God wishes – and in this case, on this day of Pentecost, the Spirit rested on all the assembled. But the beauty of this strange experience is that they understood one another even though they did not know each other's language. The incident is as weird and confusing as the story of the ancient Babel. However, in the Pentecost experience, the scripture tells us that the Spirit opened their ability to understand foreign languages. (That's powerful!). Also, it empowered them to the extent they began to testify to "God's deeds of Power." What an incredible testimony!

I wonder if Peter and the other disciples would have had the courage to boldly seize the opportunity to evangelize without the influence of the Holy Spirit.  

Paul later explains to the Galatians that the Spirit is never bottled or canned. It is consistent and is at work differently, always fresh, always waiting to be translated into the language and actions of our own lives. It does not matter whether we are Parthians and Medes or Americans, Europeans, Africans, Indians, or Iraqis. The underlying gift of this day is the gift of the same Spirit, which works among all people. Sometimes it is not only spoken – but manifests in relationships and actions, only to the extent that we try to accept the gift.  

God is mightly working in the lives of people in this community, and I can give several instances. Today, we honor members of the altar guild – past and present - who give back week after week, assisting others to have communion with God; This work of 'touching things unseen' is an example of the uniqueness of the Spirit that enables the baptized.

Still, I must remind myself and you that the Church of God can be a very uneven community in welcoming various gifts, and sometimes we must stand back from our self-oriented examinations and ask the Spirit of God to rush the mighty winds of change into the way we live with men and women of other faith or cultural background in our local or nationwide communities so that the Peace of God which passeth all understanding may prevail in this world of ours.

On this day of Pentecost, I greet you with "Peace from our Lord Jesus Christ" in three languages - Hebrew, Ga, Swahili, and English.

Shalom!.....  Hejole aha nye!.......  "Amani iwe nawe"… Peace be with you!

[the-firebird69]

I'll tell you what these people retarded retarded to hell they always have been and people are talking to like they know that what they're doing and they really don't understand. I'm amazed that they got as far as they did he was saying it too wow that's incredible you're driving cars around just barely like Brad now I understand what he's saying it feels it off I'm just wants to see what the hell you can really do you really can't do that much I was sitting there pushing them and enabling them turns out they were hitting us with it his people stopped a while ago too it started leaving the Midwest cuz they couldn't look normal that really mad they started arming up a nice slow process for them. What a nightmare they didn't notice any of it this so dumb. And caused it. But really this is our responsibility but they came out and swamped us we couldn't think at all. Now tomorrow is going to be a nightmare for them we wandering around trying to be big shots and they're stupid mouth open yelling at people and man what assholes shark tank they're still doing it and we lost most of the businesses. Everything that's like Fortune 5000 is gone cuz he's dope addicts missing there and shark tank thinking everything is fine it's still the big bucks guys and they're complete losers they lost most of it. Sit there bothering him about the stupid bus and he reserved it for and everyone knows it Ken knows it it's on his post it's on his calendar it was on the air the girl says it and there's this guy d****** around with it and she knows to put the Gorda and go in separate trips but really he's a jerk everybody knows these people suck but boy are they awful it has to be this math all the time if you're dealing with a big cats or something it's very strange take it all off and they look really really weird

Mac

Your stuff is similar but you have ability to negotiate and to reason and they really don't have much of that they go around trying to cram it to people all day long no matter what and they're going to continue until they are all done they know about it but they made so many of themselves it was ridiculous right now in the Western hemisphere the clothing is being shut down and they're being contained and rated and reading helps but really they are being contained the attacks will command shortly and they are not going to be ready for it. They still have huge miles and then he goes and they look ridiculous. They're like sacks of potatoes. Everybody is sick of seeing them on a damn news and other TV and his commercials if it is rancid it was making fun of the product they're trying to sell they should stay home and take a break the ugly ugly people outside and in. Really not useful to get people here either what it is is like a little bit of distraction and stuff but really tonight they're going to be horrible and they're going to die in horrendous ways and some people know it most of them are clueless at this old piece of s*** man there's no idea it's going to keep on ranting and ranting and she knows what's out of the way that's another. And yeah they're going to go off and do shows and have some power on the ceiling in Australia by threatening themselves not much nobody jumping poison out into the ocean and a huge fish kill which they need to fish it's a lavish lifestyle okay with a massive pigs ignorant it's going to be over for them shortly. They messed with the population numbers they mess with the status all the time they tell each other lies all the time most time they don't bother checking until later so a lot of them don't understand. It's really quite simple the bases are all attacked and defunct overseas and the black lady knows and everybody goes to the cities or the ships to the islands there's only two places to go on the outskirts people go after them to shut them up cuz we might be there.

Well they kill the retards as a threat and they kill them for their stuff and money and houses and they kill them for the big mouth telling on them and they killed them cuz they can't see her think or anything to try and find people so that's going on and foreigners are moving into using it.

It's a massive pile of dumb that came down here today boy that guy's a huge a****** too they're doing that so we have to make sure that the bus gets here and a few people that don't like him and yeah it was Trump driving what a dick oh my God we are firing him from several places but we're holding off on that for a couple days and the sun says I don't think we can and I say I don't think we can either and today we went through the last of the oil companies and it was Shell oil Marathon Wawa golf Arco . In moments while the idiots are running around we're going to be doing the gas calm gas true gas and there's some other companies four or five others all of them are on the list if you're in the gas company it's decent sized it's going to be us tonight taking it over in New York City and other parts of the country we will have smaller meetings so work out the details of each and every location.

Usually at the event centers and accordingly off now to make it safe

Thor Freya

They're bringing boats into punta Gorda Florida but they're brand names that you guys think of yours and Max work there and you don't know we took it over or not but the max do they didn't say anything and some of those boat names have been around forever so they let them in and there's a huge amount of boats down there you can tell which ones are possibly ours or others because the prices are affordable you need a boat for 10 grand as opposed to 35 and it's the same boat has the same power same speed and same longevity you can get parts here in the states and that is the special boat the powerhouse on it is a Briggs & Stratton we have several other brand names and we use the Suzuki or Yamaha Johnson and those costs about 15,000 because the cost of motor what the hell is very inexpensive and we make it here and there's a huge amount of sales we sold 300,000 boats this morning from punta Gorda Florida

And yes they buy boats and they zoom around the harbor more people buy them and we have yacht sales there and everything we have brochures and everything out people buying yachts we sold about 20,000 yards and they're ranging from 100 ft to 500 ft it's all three they didn't make a class one was 1200 ft and one was 2500 ft and when they say we can't say well it's a mile

Thor Freya

[whaledocboi]

i have been enabled and i also looove yapping so there goes the twilight doc rewrite idea dump (under the cut because this is gonna be long)

i will say it again tho, i only watched the movies so if something was different in the books and im wrong just ignore that please and thank you. also if i made any typos or forgot words ykwim

1, it should Not be set at a high school, i understand its for relatibility and so that they can stay at one place longer but i cannot believe that these people would actually pass as teenagers or that you are capable of making anyone over the (mental) age of 50 just go back to high school over and over again, they Would unionize after like the secone time. a university would make more sense because they can actually study what they want (or at least different things every time and it'd give them some sort characterization for once), there's more people, its less personal, they can blend in more so its not like outrageously unbelievable that Nobody noticed how strange the entire family is with just randomly disappearing for days etc etc, and probably most importantly we can get rid of that stupid ass teetering age gap between edward and bella, well she's 17 and he's technically over a 100 but it doesnt count because he doesnt age mentally- we all know not aging mentally isnt a thing, all that weird stuff, i dont want. make bella at least 21 or something. maybe she took several gap years because she wasnt sure what to do with her life, but after going on a spirit journey to working in retail for 3 years she discovered her unactualized passion for shakespeare or idfk, something of this nature (i do think bella should work in retail for some time, it'd give her the edge and common sense she didnt seem to have in the original). yea its less self insert YA romance but sacrifices must be made so i can get rid of the "not aging mentally thing" which (pisses me off) in this context is simply Not feasible.

2, we all know in canon all those vampire powers dont work on bella, edward cant read her thoughts, jane cant do the pain thing, etc etc, she has that shield going on for her, awesome, we can keep that, but i want to extend it to the point that all that vampire charm they're supposed to have, yknow that makes them "irresistable" for humans, just doesnt work on her either. she looks at the cullens and thinks damn. these people are uncanny valley as fuck tbh. and feels insane every time people talk about how cool and hot and sexy they are because i mean yeah i Guess they look attractive but why the fuck are they so pale that cant be normal and im like 60% sure their eyes change color. and nobody gets what she's talking about. she's pretty sure they're in a cult of some sort, especially after learning they're all adoptive siblings but they're also dating each other. she meets edward for the first time and him acting like a weirdo isnt softened by his supernatural charms so bella's first impression on him is like this guy is soo strange i hope i dont have to do group projects with him again. imo it'd be better (and way funnier) if she initially wasnt into them at all, it'd give moments to actually get to know these people and make the overall story not feel like she basically got manipulated into liking these people

3, going over to edward, he should be at least five times more pathetic, and also not a 100+ years old, him still being quite young would work better for this interpretation in my head. whole new backstory incoming, he was a sickly child and sickly teenager, spent a lot of time in the hospital or at home, so couldnt really make lasting friendships or socialize very much because of that, when he was turned at like 19-20, he had to spend the next however long in the vampire cult with the other weirdos and freaks vampires in alaska making sure he learns how to act like a human again and wont eat people and stuff and Then when he finally managed to get back into society he sort of realized that now people are only really into him because he has that vampire charm thing going for him, which he quickly grows to dislike, because now he'll always feel like people dont care about him for who he is but because of this unnatural allure he has. bro deep down just wants to make One friend who isnt there because of forced proximity or because of his involuntarily vampire rizz. thats why after he meets bella (and overcomes wanting to eat her, sure she can still have vampire cocaine blood, whatever) and realizes he cant read her thoughts and she appears to be utterly uninterested in him, he's almost happy because maybe that means he can cultivate a normal human relationship again. he lowkey isnt very good at it (aformentioned reasons), but eventually they get to a point where they are friends. cue to getting to know each other montage. they Will have more than 3 scenes together where they talk about themselves and their interests. edward would try to be as honest as possible because he already feels bad enough for knowing he could never tell bella about the vampire thing which is like. a pretty important plotpoint to him. (he'd talk about how he was in and out of hospitals a lot growing up which didnt help with his social skills, bella voice so you just stare off into space hoping your looks will be enough to get people to talk to you? edward voice well..so far it had worked...)

4, jacob should stay around 16-17 and he will stay good in this idc, there was literally no reason to ruin his character like that for the stupid ass love triangle. it can be implied he had a little crush on bella growing up, but imo by the edward events they should have a sibling bond where jacob still is protective of bella and isnt a fan of the cullens at all, but its because he's actually worried about her safety not because he's upset that she's hanging out with another guy. he would still antagonize edward but in the "your brother who hates your brooding emo boyfriend and thinks he's not good enough for you" way. and pleaseee give him an age appropriate love interest. dare i say im willing to put my own selfish reasons aside (lesbian), it can be leah clearwater too if done right (they both get hit with the wolfication beam and they're both struggling to come to terms with it so that gives them opportunity to bond etc etc. but they can just be friends too). i just think jacob could've been such a likeable character if they didnt insist on making him into a certified selfish niceguy douchebag

first movie more important events timeline: i manifest an imaginary small town and an imaginary university in the slightly bigger town close by -> bella moves to small town to her dad (i will make up a reason for that later. she wants to escape big cities, open a small bookstore and live near the forest. or something.) -> bella meeting new people and getting settled montage -> seeing the cullens around for the first time (#weird) -> meeting edward for the first time (super weird) -> edward apology, getting to know each other montage -> edward and bella are legit friends now and its cute! they bicker and stuff! -> something something different characters hanging out and we as the audience learn things about them so they arent just cardboard cutouts -> i think it can also focus a bit on edward's whole struggle with the vampire thing and the cullens very bad no good attempts at trying to act like normal people around bella after they all realize that they cant deceive her by just being sexy. let them be silly. bella genuinely likes edward and maybe alice (because she's nice and friendly) but still thinks their family is really weird -> the whole james feud happens at the end but its scaled down and bella still doesnt know about the vampire thing (because no matter how weird she finds them, her first and immediate conclusion isnt that its because they must be vampires, she's normal in this), so its just them hanging out/going home after bella dragged edward out to have drinks with her friends in an attempt to socialize him some more (insert edward slightly improved but still not great people skills) when they get attacked by james (just him this time) which immediately puts edward into the worst situation of his life because there is no way of getting out of this without either revealing himself to be decidedly not a human to bella or her getting killed by james, and in both cases its almost guaranteed that he will lose the only actual friend he's had since forever. theres almost no good choice because even if he saves bella at the very least he and his entire family are gonna have to move away and bella will forever have this experience and knowledge nobody's ever going to believe. its very hard to be him rn. he then of course decides to fight off james because the other choice is just letting bella die which he cant live with, so he'd rather choose making some shit up and having his entire family be very mad at him for having to move again (also just to note that bella really likes him at this point, maybe has a crush on him but isnt genuinely obsessed the way she was in canon, like she wouldnt fall into a multiple months long depression if he left, she'd just be confused and sad). story ends on a cliffhanger of edward killing james and after a moment of silence bella realizing what just happened. so unfortunately the gazebo dancing will be cut, rip.

the only thing i have planned out for the second part is that it'd start with like a small timejump where things seem fairly normal, and then it'd cut to a flashback of where the first one ended (the james feud) where now both of them are verging a mental breakdown, bella because she thinks she's either actually losing her mind right now or someone put the strongest hallucinogen drugs known to man into her drink or she did actually just witness his friend killing a dude in a clearly supernatural fight and edward because he has to somehow deal with this situation of explaining it to bella and making sure she wont tell it to anybody, explaining it to his family and making sure they (rosalie) dont get the sparkling idea of just killing off bella in order to stay around longer, but at least leaving everything and moving to the other side of the country. after the immediate freaking out bella is still very disturbed and shocked and quite frankly she does not want to be there so as edward would try to start explaining it she's like Please shut up this instant, there is no way i can deal with any of this at the moment i need to go home, can i go home? its not as though i can tell it to anyone without looking insane anyways. and edward is just very defeated okay but pleasee can we talk as soon as possible. so now its back to the beginning, its been idk a couple days, doesnt matter, and this will be the first time they'll talk since the events, bella is still lowkey spooked (no wonder) so her conditions are that its gotta be a very public place so she can have some sense of safety at least. something something edward vampire coming out scene, bella voice i cant help but feel like you're just shitting me edward voice i could show you all the things i've talked about if we werent in the school cafeteria- etc etc vampirism morality conversation no i dont eat people i never have etc etc edward will be allowed to have one vampire ability showcase running around in the woods and stuff. we can insert a cullen family argument about what they should do, but they decide on staying for now. bella is obviously still kinda weirded the fuck out and kinda wants some distance from edward to like figure it out, so she spends more time bonding with jacob who then gets hit with the wolf beam and becomes even more resentful towards the cullens (he blames the shapeshifter gene or whatever being triggered by them moving here and he's kinda justified in that) so girl is Not escaping the supernatural events, its almost funny. the victoria revenge tour thing will start in this one too. thats where im at currently.

extra thoughts, i would definitely want to keep the cartoonishly evil vaguely queer coded disney villain volturi the way they were in the movies, batshit insane michael sheen behaving like he just did crack cocaine every time he was on screen was the highlight of my days. plus charlie should also be immune to all vampire stuff thats why he isnt a fan of the cullens and edward either

i've never read the twilight books and only ever watched the movies kind of tipsy or actually drunk, but for some reason i got to the point where not only am i reasonably convinced i could make it into a way more compelling story but i have a fully planned out rewrite of the first movie/book in my head. maybe the second one too if i think about it for another hour

[shima-draws]

THIS IS SEVERAL DAYS (WEEKS?) LATE BUT I LOVE YOU ALL thanks for enabling me

-The AU begins with a casual city patrol. Izuku, Todoroki, Uraraka and Ojiro are teamed up. Things are seemingly normal until they accidentally bump into Shigaraki and Kurogiri—a completely unplanned encounter. Despite Kurogiri’s warnings, Shigaraki charges into battle against the students. Kurogiri jumps in to back him up by using his warps

-There’s a close call where Izuku’s about to get the jump on Shiggy—but Kurogiri manages to open a warp right before Izuku can reach him. This is where things get...funky.

-Izuku activates One For All as he disappears into the warp. Kurogiri opens a gate somewhere nearby. Todoroki and the others wait for Izuku to reappear...but he doesn’t.

-Todoroki, Uraraka and Ojiro gang up on Kurogiri and demand their friend back. Kurogiri doesn’t know what to do, this has never happened before, and he doesn’t know how to bring Izuku back. Apparently his warp malfunctioned, and Izuku seemed to get lost between dimensions.

-Finally, several minutes later, Izuku reappears. In the ensuing chaos Kurogiri and Shigaraki make their escape. Izuku is weak and shaking from the distorted warp, so Todoroki calls Aizawa and takes him back to campus.

-Izuku explains that it felt like he was falling, and almost like his entire body was trying to rip itself apart molecule by molecule—but then he fell back into the warp and came out on the other side like he was supposed to. Recovery Girl checks on him and just says that he’s in shock, no other injuries besides that. Izuku tries telling her about the strange feeling of pain he had, but she just says it might be a side effect of Kurogiri’s quirk, and that it might be some sort of delayed reaction. Izuku accepts that and things go back to normal

Rest is under the cut because she is looooooong lmao

-Except they don’t. Izuku starts to have strange dreams about somebody calling out to him. They leave him feeling unsettled and shaky in the mornings, almost like how he felt right after the warp. The dreams don’t go away—they keep coming back almost every night, and while they seem to get clearer, he still can’t figure out what they mean.

-Things start to get worse when the dreams transition over into the waking world, and Izuku starts to see flashes of someone with white hair and sad eyes in the corners of his vision. He easily gets distracted during training, and can’t seem to shake the worried feeling he has about this being important. 

-It all comes to a head when Izuku suddenly finds himself in that weird place between dimensions during a training drill. He’s only there for a few seconds, but he’s finally able to catch a glimpse of what that world is like, because the last time he was there he was falling and spiraling and was too panicked to pay attention to his surroundings. After he snaps back to himself, he wonders if it was just in his head, but when it happens again and his friends have to shake him out of it, he realizes that his mind keeps transporting to that world...it seems like his place in reality is faltering.

-The “visions” slowly continue to get longer and longer each time, with Izuku slipping into that world more often. It’s getting harder to hide it from his classmates and teachers, and finally, there’s a time where it happens and Izuku is unresponsive for over 15 minutes. The person with the white hair keeps showing up, and Izuku is desperate to find out who they are

-During another training session, Izuku feels the lapse coming on, and decides to hide away for a bit to let it pass. Except this time he doesn’t just slip into the nether dimension with just his mind—this time his whole body transports there...and he finally figures out the truth.

-Izuku searches through the new world. Everything is distorted and gravity is all topsy turvy, and when he finally catches sight of the person reaching out to him in his dreams, he follows them. At long last he discovers just who has been communicating with him...and it’s himself!!

-The mystery ghost is finally revealed: an older Izuku, from another timeline. He explains to Izuku that the place they’re in now is a world between time and space that acts as a stabilizer and general overseer of other timelines and worlds. He refers to it as the Beyond, or by its more technical name, the nexus. Apparently the other Izuku has been here for a long time, keeping watch over all of his alternate selves and keeping the timelines in balance.

-Izuku questions just why he was brought there, and his alternate self tells him that when he activated One For All in Kurogiri’s warp, it ripped open a hole in space and he was able to make a connection to the Beyond, primarily because of his alternate self’s already existing presence there. That connection is unfortunately unstable so it kept pulling Izuku back in over time. The other Izuku has been trying to fix that connection but wasn’t able to do so without full contact, which is why he’d been reaching out to Izuku in his dreams.

-To make things easier, the other Izuku asks to be called Nexus. Izuku peppers him with questions, but Nexus is reluctant to answer. He decides to send Izuku back while he researches about his connection there to try and fix it—and then he makes Izuku swear that he won’t tell anybody about their interaction, mostly because outsiders shouldn’t be aware of the Beyond’s existence in the first place.

-Izuku arrives back in his world and realizes that several hours have passed since he vanished into the Beyond. His classmates and teachers swarm him when he returns, saying that they were about to send out pros to go find him. Toshinori questions Izuku about what’s been going on with him lately, but due to the promise he made Izuku can’t answer.

-As the days pass, Izuku continuously visits Nexus (mostly because he has no choice in the matter, being dragged there by the distortion lol) and tries to pry more answers out of him. Nexus is shockingly tight lipped and Izuku knows that something bad must have happened in his timeline for him to be here. Being older isn’t the only factor tying into Nexus’ general quiet demeanor and more serious attitude. Meanwhile, Toshinori and the Dekusquad are hurt by Izuku’s silence on what’s going on with him, and Izuku has an internal struggle over what matters more: the promise he made, or the trust of his friends and family. It’s a rough time.

-Izuku breaks down and Nexus realizes that maybe it’s time he starts being more forthcoming—he knows what the burden of secrets does to Izuku, being Izuku himself. Nexus finally reveals that his timeline had been completely wiped from existence centuries ago, due to an epic, climactic battle with AFO who was attempting to figure out how to access the Beyond and gain control over it in order to rule over all possible timelines. Apparently there was a backlash when AFO tried to access the Beyond and it caused the timeline to be erased. Izuku is absolutely horrified by the truth, realizing that billions of people existing in that timeline are just...gone now. Including everyone he loves. 

-Izuku asks if AFO is gone too. Nexus looks haunted by that, but says he’s sure that he’s gone for good...leaving himself as the only proof that his world even existed at all. After Izuku leaves, Nexus decides to do a bit of digging, just to make sure that the AFO from his world truly is dead. And what he finds is not comforting.

-Apparently, after the timeline had been wiped from existence, Nexus wasn’t the only one who was tossed out before it happened. He discovers that AFO is still around, and that he’s been skulking between timelines, gathering new quirks and more power. Terrified, Nexus summons Izuku and tells him of his findings, and says that if AFO were to come after him in the Beyond, or any of them from any timeline, there’s no way they would survive the battle.

-Izuku convinces Nexus to come to his timeline to explain everything, because clearly this is no longer a one man job and something Nexus can’t handle by himself. The issue with that is that the Beyond has a strict no interference policy, at least on the basis of entering the timelines and tampering with them, so Nexus has been stuck there for centuries because he’s literally not allowed to go timeline hopping lol

-However, since Izuku was able to make a connection there and can travel between the two worlds freely (for the most part…) he’s able to utilize that connection to allow Nexus to enter his dimension. Nexus sees the sky for the first time in hundreds of years and is shaken into complete silence.

-The rest of the Dekusquad happen to be there when Izuku arrives with his alternate self and immediately bombard him with questions, but Izuku tells them the first thing they need to do is go see All Might and the other teachers to explain what’s going on.

-Upon seeing All Might again for the first time in centuries, Nexus bursts into tears (and this is a MONUMENTAL moment because Izuku hasn’t seen him cry once since meeting him, even when he told him that everyone he loved no longer exists). There’s a lot of fluffy family bonding and it’s very soft. Toshi holds onto both his boys and cries and I’M EMO LISTEN

-Nexus prepares to tell all the staff what’s going on, but first he reveals to Izuku that he didn’t...exactly tell him everything about what happened to his timeline. A quirk user is brought in who can read memories and project them on a movie screen, and the teachers and Izuku watch in horrified silence as they experience the last night of terror and heartbreak Nexus went through before his timeline was erased forever.

-The memories play back. Izuku is awoken in the middle of the night to find that the entire city is burning. The screams and pleas for help echo all around, and he finds that he can’t get into contact with any of his friends. Racing outside, Izuku looks up to see AFO silhouetted against the red sky, floating among the ashes and smoke. As Izuku hurries to catch up to him, he witnesses the sheer horror of a mass body count and hundreds dead along the way, including lots of minor and pro heroes that he knows.

-Izuku finally reaches AFO and immediately leaps into the fight. He doesn’t stand a chance. AFO has gathered too many quirks, and explains his plan to escape this dimension and gain access to the Beyond in order to spread his control further. Izuku is joined by his friends, but does not get to enjoy their help for long, because each of them are struck down, one by one. Fueled by rage and grief, Izuku ramps up OFA all the way and completely lets loose, chipping away at AFO while he cries over the deaths of his friends. Yeah this is gruesome and dark as shit and I’m not sorry

-AFO is about to get one final attack in—but Bakugou arrives at the last second and takes the blow for him. Bakugou dies in Izuku’s arms and that’s the last straw—OFA goes out of control right as AFO is preparing to open a warp to the Beyond, and the power spark causes a backlash that distorts everything, making the world glitch out.

-When Izuku wakes up, he finds himself in the Beyond with the blood of his friends on his hands. Information starts flooding into his brain about the Beyond and all of the timelines it’s tied to, and Izuku realizes what has happened. His home is gone...his friends, his family, the entire world...all wiped from existence. Now he is the only one left, tasked with taking care of the Beyond and mourning his losses for the rest of eternity.

-Needless to say, everyone watching the memories play are extremely emotional, and Izuku (our Izuku) is overcome with so much grief for his alternate self that they end up in an embrace, sharing a feeling that only they know between each other.

-Nezu and the other teachers agree to help Nexus defeat AFO once and for all. Nexus tells them that bringing in Class 1-A would be smart as well, and that he won’t make the same mistake twice and let them die. They decide to battle it out in the Beyond, it being the safest place to go wild without any risk of casualties or property destruction. And so!! Izuku introduces Nexus to the rest of the class, they all take a trip to the Beyond together, and so begins their grand training arc.

-Nexus preps each member of Class 1-A individually and on teams. They take turns going up against him and all get their asses thoroughly handed to them :) Nexus is hella strong and has had centuries to practice. He teaches them how to use the terrain of the Beyond, how to deal with the gravity and use it to their advantage. He tells them how to look for AFO’s tells and quirks so they can deal with his multipurpose battle style. Overall it’s a very fun yet stressful time with lots of bonding, sleepovers in the Beyond, and everybody getting a huge ass crush on Nexus because 1. He pretty, 2. He stronk, 3. He’s literally an eldritch being at this point, and 4. It’s Izuku. How can they not.

-There’s a time where Nexus takes Izuku to a special corner of the Beyond, and Izuku sees it’s covered for miles and miles and miles with gravestones. Izuku realizes that Nexus had spent years crafting as many as he could for all of the people that were erased from his timeline, even those he didn’t know, and at this point he’s lost count with how many there are. There’s a separated section with all of his family members and friends, and each of the stones are carved with special memorials. The rest of the class shows up and gets to look at their own gravestones and it’s fucked up as shit!! It’s very emotional and then everybody smothers Nexus with hugs and hgnhhhgh 🥺

Obviously there’s a lot that happens after this and the whole battle and everything but like. I don’t have all that planned out yet. But this is the general idea for the most part!! I’ve had a lot of fun brainstorming for this AU, I would do anything for Nexus period, and I’m super excited to start making content for it >:D

THANK YOU FOR READING and thanks for letting me infodump oh my god this is so long