#to think about them in depth and come up with these hypothetical scenarios about them

[canisalbus]

Role-Reversal guy here again, your addition to the AU was so sweet and so true. Love the idea that what gets Machete to finally let go of his desire of power and control is seeing Vasco dejected and trapped. Having too choose between his life's work and the political influence that probably took him years to build (especially as a "low born") and the love of his life in another universe, but this time, he can't find a way to compromise.

This Vasco can't love him the same way and be himself the same way if Machete doesn't finally take the bullet and realize that abandoning all for love is a option. Having to go back to his roots and having to live a quaint life is probably really hard for him, especially with Vasco taking years to fully recover of the indoctrination and pain, but I think reopening a small library in the country-side and having Vasco as his "totally platonic roommate" makes everything worth it in the end.

Thank U for listening to my rambling, you answering to the first ask really made my day. Continue being a amazing artist and honestly, a amazing writer <3

.

[forthegothicheroine]

How Other Great Detectives Would Solve the Riddler Murders

A series I do sometimes. This is based on The Batman (2022). I will be assuming that none of these universes have already established superheroes and supervillains unless it's also in that canon.

Sam Vimes: The Watch as a whole might solve the case, but Vimes is going to be in the wrong headspace. Carcer was bad enough as playful serial killers go, but a serial killer who liked Sam Vimes and wanted to be his best buddy? I think that would make Vimes need his own stay in Arkham.

Sam and Peter: This one is my favorite, it works so horribly well! The Riddler, having been a huge fan of American Vandal, addresses his messages to these two teenage goobers (and it is in fact in the form of vandalism.) Selina ends up saving their lives due to secondhand embarassment when she sees them trying to interview Carmine Falcone about whether he was on any Gothamite subreddits. (Oswald Cobblepot was happy to talk to them about it!) It all comes down to whether the pressure of stopping a serial killer causes the boys to bloom or break, and I'd like to hope it would be the former.

Phryne Fisher: I totally get why the Riddler would fixate on and write letters to Phryne, she's a very good person to fixate on and write letters to! (I've often said she's like if Catwoman were Batman.) Phryne sleeps with Selina and gets surprisingly flirtatious with Oswald. Having already taken down a cocaine ring, she knows enough to honeypot her way into the lower floor of the Iceberg, and very narrowly avoids death at the hands of Falcone. She can solve riddles easily enough, though I don't know if she'd put them together in time to stop the flooding of the city. I'll call this success with a similar casualty rate to Batman's.

Sammy Keyes: This one is a real dick move on the Riddler's part. Addressing your serial killer messages to a tween girl who'd been involved in catching other criminals, thus revealing she's living in an apartment illegally and potentially getting her taken away by social services? It's absolutely something he would do to make a broader social point, but still it's a serious dick move. I think Sammy is way out of her depth here but I want her to succeed because I love the idea of subsequent Sammy Keys books having recurring characters that include the one cop slightly sympathetic to her, the junior high mean girl, and the serial killer who sends her cryptic letters from incarceration.

L: I just know that somehow this is going to involve Edward Nasthon, Forensic CPA, being on the team to catch the Riddler and him and L having a vaguely but unconsumatedly homoerotic dance between friend and enemy. I don't think he'd want to kill L, though, since he'd rather have him alive to acknowledge him as the smartest coolest guy ever, so I'll give L the edge here.

Jane Marple: No matter how I twist it, I just can't see a scenario in which the Riddler would send serial killer messages to Miss Marple. Instead, I think Edward Nashton would just meet her at a tea shop, they'd have a friendly conversation about the novel she's reading, and then she'd call up the police and tell them she's found the Riddler.

Columbo: This isn't a great setup for Columbo, since his method of detection is all about catching people in their lies, which is hard to do with a killer who is a nobody and who keeps to the shadows. He would definitely put Falcone away in the course of the investigation, but I don't know if that's enough to stop the grander scheme in play. If he does catch him, though, he would stop the flood because Edward Nashton would be SO vulnerable to casual conversations about hypothetical approaches to crime.

Philip Marlowe: I think Marlowe would kind of work his way backwards here. He'd get deep into the grime of Gotham, end up stopping a plot to flood the city, follow that up by an investigation into the mob and unconsummated sexual tension with Selina, just barely escape getting murdered by Falcone, get hit on the head by Cobblepot and have hallucinations involving penguins with umbrellas, then finally catch Edward Nashton, the petty little nobody who killed people to make himself feel like somebody.

Dale Cooper: This is a good case for Cooper, lots of subplots that lead into other subplots, nothing overtly supernatural but a vague general feeling of curses and doom. He would find deeper meaning in all the coded riddles that pointed to dark truths about the universe, topped off with dreams of cats and penguins doing his taxes. I sure hope the Riddler is willing to wait for all that before flooding the city, because Coop works at his own damn pace.

Hercule Poirot: I can see Poirot fitting in to the art deco Gotham of the animated series, but the modernist urban grime of the 2021 film is viscerally unpleasant to imagine him in. He could solve the riddles and aid the police, certainly, but more than any of the other detectives, my mind is rebelling against my attempts to imagine these people in the same room at the same time.

Sam Spade: Selina Kyle hires him to help get her friend out of a jam at the same time as Cobblepot hires him to get a few murders discreetly solved before the cops get too nosy, and then Falcone tries to have him whacked when he gets too close on both accounts. The Riddler would take him completely by surprise, but I'm having so much fun imagining Edward Nashton looking up at him with big Peter Lorre eyes and babbling about what crime really means that I'll allow him to at least stick around for that. I think he can get out of this still alive, but it would be a close call.

Kinsey Milhone: Why her, she wonders? Sure, she's a detective, but she's hardly a household name. She goes through all her files to see if this could be connected to anything she's ever worked on, and lo and behold, back when she was an insurance fraud investigator, they always worked with a forensic CPA named Edward Nashton. Now, what could have ever become of that guy...

Sherlock Holmes: Sherlock Holmes either immediately solves this or fails utterly, and it all comes down to how quickly you think he could decode things using a computer.

[ghostandsoap]

The Sound of Silence

Captain John Price x Fem! "Peach" Reader Tags: Angst. Anxiety. Panic attack. Mentions of death (a lot of it). Word Count: 5.2k "I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight."

There were a lot of risks when it came to this job.

The physical demands were intense, the mental strain was immense, and the emotional toll was heavy. Not to mention the biggest one.

Danger was a guarantee. Survival was not.

Despite these challenges, for those who chose this career, it was a type of calling that was felt deep within their souls.

The training was hard, pushing their bodies to the limit and beyond. They learned to work as a team, trusting their team with their lives. They faced danger head-on, knowing that every mission could be their last.

This was something that Price and Peach had talked about before. It was a bit difficult not to address this possibility.

When it was only discussed, it was a hypothetical scenario. Neither of them went into any kind of mission with the expectation of dying...they understood it was a possibility, but it wasn't something they counted on.

They had listed and discussed just about every possible way to die on a mission. Getting shot, blown up, stabbed, drowned, poisoned, beaten, etc. You name it, and they had talked about it.

To an outsider, this was freaky weird. Who in their right mind would actively talk to their significant other about dying in awfully traumatic ways? For them, it was more of a preparation thing.

Of course neither of them ever wanted to see the day where one of those scenarios became true for the other. As a matter of fact, they actively did everything they could to not meet any one of these fates.

But the truth was that it was a very real possibility. And even though they never, ever wanted to have it happen...it was something they both needed to be prepared for.

To avoid having this come up all the time though, they talked about their futures in a way that didn't have anything to do with dying.

For example, Price had his life with Peach all planned out.

There was a rumor that Price had bought an engagement ring when they were six months in, and he held on to it everywhere he went for when the moment was right.

According to this rumor, John actively took the ring in and out of the box. When he was on the go and needed extra pocket space, he took the ring out of the box. When he didn't need the space, he put it back in the box and took the whole thing.

Peach didn't really believe it, because she could hardly imagine John Price walking around with an engagement ring in his pocket, fiddling with it when he felt an inkling that it was time to propose.

Price did seriously want to marry Peach, though. He wanted to have kids with her (two specifically, a boy and a girl). He wanted to buy a house out in the middle of the country with no neighbors, but close enough to civilization to where they weren't cut off.

All of these things he had mentioned to her, and they talked about it in decent detail. It was hard to get too in depth with it though, because it seemed that work always got in the way.

And the thing was, they could never walk away from this job. None of Force 141 could.

Each of them had specific skills and talents that made them the perfect team. A family even.

They worked well together. Every mission with them together was almost always a guaranteed success.

But this mission had been different.

It was extremely rare for a mission like this to come up. It wasn't really the mission that was the problem, it was the execution plan.

Price didn't like splitting up. He never liked any of his team going out alone. He liked his team to have backup at all times, someone there for support when things went wrong.

However, this mission was special in the sense that there was no other way to complete it without having everybody be on their own for the majority of the night.

This mission had all kinds of moving parts, and for the sake of time and efficiency, it was best for everyone (despite Price's reservations) to go solo and reconvene at the end for extraction.

They were going to a place that was only accessible by water, meaning that there was only one way on and off the island. It was no tropical vacation by any means, and there was a lot at stake.

In theory, the plan was simple. Everyone was to split up, complete their tasks without getting compromised, and meet back up at the docks. There was a boat set to go for them when they were ready, and assuming all went well, this mission was supposed to be a piece of cake.

Supposed to be.

The mission almost went without a hitch. Everybody was able to successfully complete their job without detection. Gaz returned to the docks first, followed by Soap and then Ghost. Peach rolled up fourth, adrenaline running and satisfaction flowing.

The docks were well hidden, which was intentional. The air was thick and warm with the smell of salt and fish, and the only sound was the gentle lapping of water against the wooden piers.

The sky was just getting dark now, little specks of stars dotting the canvas above.

She was relieved to see Ghost, Gaz, and Soap unscathed and well. Not that she minded having to stitch them up or anything, but it did make her job easier when she didn't have to.

She immediately noticed that Price wasn't there, and she turned to Ghost.

"Price isn't back yet?" She asked, brows furrowed.

"No," Ghost shook his head. "Should be here any minute."

Price was known to take longer than expected. He did things the right way every time, and if that meant adding some time to his estimate, then so be it.

No one worried yet. Price could handle himself. They started packing up the boat, making sure everything was in place so that they could leave as soon as Price showed up.

Once the boat was packed, the four of them took a load off. They sat in a semicircle, really just chatting more than anything.

Of course, Soap did most of the talking.

"Hey, Peaches..." Soap said, and he went on when she looked at him. "Remember I was trying t'come up with a nickname for you n' Price?"

She stifled a laugh. Soap had thrown out some crazy suggestions in the last few weeks -- Peachy Price, PP (Price strongly disliked this one), P&P...just to name a few.

She couldn't even imagine what he had come up with this time.

"Let's hear it." She said.

"Get ready," He beamed. "P squared."

There was a beat of quiet, and then Gaz spoke.

"What?" He asked.

"Price n' Peach...both start with P. Two names, both starting with P," Soap explained. "P Squared!"

"Johnny, that sucks." Ghost was honest, and Soap's jaw dropped a little.

"It's clever," Soap corrected. "It's a layered joke."

Peach laughed.

"P squared..." She repeated, pondering on it. "I actually don't hate that. I can't promise the same for Price though."

"He's gonna love it!" Soap laughed, which earned chuckles and head shakes from Gaz and Ghost.

The playful banter went on for a while...too long, as a matter of fact. The sky was fully dark now, a testament as to how much time had passed. There had been no sign of or word from Price.

Peach's intuition was firing off. She knew something was wrong with Price. She began to fidget with her hands, her mind going through all the possible scenarios.

Now she was starting to worry.

"Where's Price?" Peach asked, the beginning of a pit of dread opening up in her gut as she stood to her feet. "He should've been back by now."

He knew the plan. Price wouldn't stray from a plan like this...not intentionally anyway. The rest of them got to their feet as well, beginning to prepare to go looking for him.

"How long has it been?" Gaz asked, and Soap looked at his watch.

"Hour n' a half."

That was way too long. This wasn't just Price getting caught up doing something. Something was telling her that he was in trouble.

Ghost, Soap, Gaz, and Peach all shared a look -- and the first drop of panic pooled in her stomach. She reached for her radio, trying to keep her composure.

"Price, what's your status?" She asked, hoping that he could hear her from wherever he was.

There was only a few seconds of silence before she got a response.

"Got a bit of a situation here." Price said, and his voice had that sharp edge to it that showed up whenever he was in survival mode.

There was the sound of movement in the background. Her heart skipped a couple of beats. "A situation" could mean anything.

"What kind of situation?" She stared at the lapping water underneath the dock she was standing on.

She was already planning on going after him. If she went to his last known location, she could track him and figure out where he was.

"Got some unexpected company," He said, and you could hear the sound of his heavy footsteps hitting the ground and his gear getting tossed around. He was running. "I've been compromised."

That definitely meant that he was in trouble.

"What's your location?" She asked, her heart beginning to thud in her chest.

"I"m by the warehouse, northwest of the-"

His transmission was abruptly cut off. A mixture of sounds emitted from Price's end -- rapid gunfire, an ear-splitting explosion, and then silence.

The only sound now was crackling static of an open line, a stark contrast to the chaos that had just ensued.

Peach's eyes were wide. Her stomach frozen and her brain beginning to fog.

This couldn't mean...he wasn't...

"Captain Price, this is Peach...do you copy?" She asked, a tingling sensation beginning to appear in her fingers and hands.

But there was no response. Only the haunting echo of the unanswered call lingered in the air. The only noises that graced her ears were radio static and the sound of her thumping heart.

"Captain, how copy?" She tried again, the tingling in her hands turning into trembling as she gripped her radio harder.

Her vision was beginning to tunnel, and her breathing was getting shallow and short. A surge of panic rushed through her, causing a certain numbness in her extremities.

"John, can you hear me?" She asked desperately, her voice quavering with each word.

The seconds that passed felt like hours. The feeling of helplessness suffocated her, the knowledge of not being able to do a single thing bringing a horrible sense of doom to her body.

Her eyes were glued to the sky as if she was trying to memorize every star pattern that was visible to her. But instead, she was wishing on every single one that this wasn't happening and that this wasn't real.

He couldn't be gone. Fate hadn't been very kind to Peach in her lifetime, but John...

John had been her biggest blessing. Her solace, her energy, her comfort, her love. There was no way that he was gone just like that. He couldn't have been stolen away from her and ripped from her heart.

He couldn't be dead. This wasn't supposed to happen. This wasn't part of the plan. They were supposed to settle down and get married and have kids...have a real life together. Suddenly, their future was blurred.

The love and warmth of her soul had just vanished and slipped through her fingers.

Hot tears were stinging her eyes, pressing hard against her lash line and bringing an aching lump to her throat. There was a shuffle behind her, the sound of weight shifting between feet.

Her grip on her radio tightened even harder as if her only possible contact with John would disintegrate if she let go. She turned around at the noise, and she was met with the sight of the three strongest, most confident men that she knew were suddenly withdrawn.

She couldn't hear anything anymore. It was like her ears were filtering every little noise out so that they would be able to hear the one sound she was desperate for.

She couldn't hear the breeze rustling the trees or the birds fluttering in the sky above. The water beneath the docks was suddenly still and flat.

Ghost kept his gaze on her, his fists clenched into fists at his sides. Soap couldn't bring himself to look at her, his eyes pointed at his boots and the earth beneath him. Gaz's brows were furrowed in horror, his eyes struck with disbelief and sorrow.

"Ghost..." She whispered, their silence scaring her more than anything. "S-Soap?"

Their silence was unnerving. All three of them were too afraid to say anything to her. This was her worst nightmare coming true and unfolding right in front of her. Losing her beloved John Price at the hands of evil.

Her heart beat for John Price. The thought of Peach without Price or Price without Peach was just unfathomable.

Too many moments passed. It was just Peach staring at the three men who couldn't come up with something to say even if their life depended on it. Eventually, Ghost just had to say something.

"Peach..." Ghost said, reaching out for her with a slow, gentle hand like she was a frightened animal. "Come here."

She shook her head frantically, backing away from the three of them.

"I can't...J-John..." Her chest was heaving now, her entire system succumbing to anxiety and pure panic.

She was falling apart. Her life as she knew it crumbling in front of her and there wasn't a single thing that she could do about it.

They were supposed to get married...have a boy and a girl...have a countryside house that was just far enough away from the real world.

How could all of that just be gone? It couldn't be gone.

All four of them were trained to face death on the battlefield, but this…this was different. This was Peach -- their comrade, their friend, their own family -- breaking down right in front of them.

Peach was the strongest woman they knew, and they were watching her fall apart.

They all watched her grow worse by the second. Her face turned a sort of color that they had never seen, her breathing starting to stall and come out in short gasps.

“Peach,” Gaz tried this time, his voice steady despite the turmoil within him. "I-I need you to breathe."

Gaz was genuinely concerned that she was literally going to croak and die right in front of him from the shock of losing Price.

That's how much she loved him.

The next four decades of Peach's life was flashing right before her eyes. All of those years she had counted on Price being with her. Now she couldn't imagine her future at all.

Ghost, Gaz, and Soap knew there wasn't a thing they could say. A very still, eerie silence was shared between the three men. They watched and listened to Peach as she began to spiral.

The silence was killing her ears. She had a headache creeping its way to the front of her skull. She was sure that if she stood in this silence any longer, her head would literally explode.

But before that could happen, there was a sound. It was two sounds actually. Two different sounds. Two beautiful, wonderful, welcomed sounds.

Radio static and a voice.

"Peaches..." A gravelly, beautifully familiar voice sounded over comms. "This is Price. You read me?"

Suddenly, her life re-entered her in a rush and all at once.

He was alive.

"John..." She almost squeaked, a heat rising into her throat until she swallowed it back down. "I-I read you. Loud n' clear."

"Affirmative. You still at the docks?" He sounded breathless, like he was trying to control his breathing.

Her brain was sprinting at a million miles an hour. Every piece of information that she was hearing was flying into one ear and out the other without any processing in the middle.

The only response she could manage was a collection of stammering, which eventually cracked the dam and opened the floodgates. Overcome with emotion and anxiety, she practically collapsed in place. The only thing that kept her from hitting the ground was Soap, who swooped in at the last second to catch her.

"Captain. This is Ghost," He filled in for her. "Affirmative. We're northwest of your location, right behind the..."

The rest of Ghost's directions were a jumbled mess of sounds that she couldn't comprehend. There was a ringing in her ears, and the only thing louder than that was her own cries.

"It's alright," Soap held onto her as she clutched onto him for dear life. "He's alright, Peach. Price is alright."

Soap held her as tight as he could and spoke in his most gentle voice, despite the fact that he knew that his presence was nothing compared to whenever Price could get his arms around her.

"We're gonna get him," Soap made eye contact with Ghost, who was communicating with him through a certain expression. "Ghost and Gaz are goin' to get him right now."

Peach could only nod, her grip on Soap tightening. She watched as Ghost and Gaz moved swiftly towards the direction Ghost had indicated, disappearing into the darkness.

The wait was agonizing...it was painful. Each second felt like an eternity as Peach clung to Soap, her heart pounding in her chest. The silence was deafening, broken only by the occasional crackle of the radio.

Suddenly, a burst of static came through the radio, followed by a familiar voice.

“Ghost, this is Price. I’m on your six.”

A wave of relief washed over Peach. She let out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding, her body sagging against Soap, who was holding onto her like he was the only thing keeping her together.

“Copy.” Ghost’s voice came through the radio, a hint of relief evident in his tone.

About ten minutes later, Ghost and Gaz emerged from the darkness, a figure limping between them.

It was Price, battered, burned, and bruised...but alive.

Her cheeks were soaked with tears, her hair sticking to her face as she laid eyes on her lover that was standing before her. On wobbly legs, she rushed to her feet and over to him. Peach threw her arms around him with a desperate, yet thankful exhale. He grunted in discomfort at the feeling of being jostled, but he wrapped an arm around her and held her close.

"John..." She squeaked, unable to say anything else.

Being able to say his name while actually holding him felt like a blessing. He smelled like gasoline, gunpowder, and sweat, but she had never been more relieved to smell such a mix.

"I'm alright, Peaches..." He shuddered out an exhale that came from far within. "I'm fine, darling."

He didn't sound fine. His voice was strained and groggy, and the slight quiver in his words didn't make him sound fine. But he was here, alive, heart beating, and breathing -- so "fine" was something she could work with.

Price had no doubt in his mind that he had scared her to death. He had been scared to death. This was one of those "unmentionable moments" that the two of them had talked about before. Now that he was living it in real time, it felt so, so horribly surreal.

The hypothetical had become reality.

They found a break in their embrace, Ghost and Gaz stepping away to give them their space. Price held onto Peach's forearms to stay upright, a searing pain in his side making it hard to stand.

His cheeks were covered with soot and dirt, his left eye was slightly swollen and bruised, he had a slight burn on the right side of his face, and he had a fairly deep cut on his lip

Frankly, he looked terrible, but to her -- it was the best he had ever looked.

They sat there in silence, their arms locked together, as the chaos of the world around them seemed to fade into the background. It was just them - Peach and Price - two souls intertwined in a dance as old as time itself.

They were talking to one another without saying anything at all. Their eyes were communicating. He was telling her that he was there and alive...and on the flip side, she was telling him that he was there and alive.

She felt like she was watching their life together pass by in the reflection of his eyes. He knew how much she meant to him, but this was a reminder all over again.

She was everything to him.

He knew that this would make them stronger individually and as a couple. It would definitely take some time before she moved past this in an emotional context...and he had to tackle the emotional and physical aspect of it.

They would be having a long talk about this...more than one for sure. But for now, she was just beyond thankful that he was there, and he was thankful to still be there.

"Where are you hurt?" She asked, another set of tears rolling down her cheeks and she spoke through sniffles.

Her question was pretty empty. She wasn't quite sure what else to say, and the medic in her was coming forth.

Peach would examine him from head to toe when they were out of here and in a safe place. She could tell just by looking at his outer injuries and the way he was holding himself that his body had taken the most damage, and that he had several weeks of recovery ahead of him.

She would be there for him every step of the way. She was his rock after all, his anchor in the stormy sea of recovery.

"Everywhere," Price chuckled, but it wasn't an amused laugh. "Let's get out of here first."

Gaz, Ghost, and Soap took that as their cue, coming in for assistance. Ghost and Soap guided Price from the dock to the boat, and Gaz held Peach's hand and led her as well.

As they all boarded the boat, Gaz gave Peach a reassuring squeeze of her hand.

"We've got him, P. He's going to be fine." He said.

Peach nodded, her gaze never leaving her beloved Captain Price. She watched as Ghost and Soap carefully settled him down, their movements gentle yet efficient. She knew they were trained for this, but it was still hard to see Price in such a state.

It was hard to see any of them hurt.

Once everyone was on board, Ghost started the boat engines and began to pull out from the dock. Normally, Peach would've been a little nervous with Ghost driving, but she was far too distracted with John to even give it a second thought.

Once they were on route back to safety, Peach moved to sit beside John, holding his hands in hers as she spoke to him.

"John, what happened out there?" She asked, almost scared to.

He shook his head. His hands were still shaking.

"Complete ambush. They knew I was coming I suppose," He said. "Some kind of explosive took me out for a bit. Hell, I don't even know what it was."

She really shouldn't have even asked. Chills shuddered down her spine. She couldn't bear to think about this anymore.

Peach had her medic pack with her, and she was beginning to rummage through her pack and looking him over.

"I'll get you fixed up," She said, something she always said when starting to patch someone up. "Let's start with that cut."

Her voice was barely audible over the sound of the boat's engine and the wind, but Price could literally only hear her over everything else.

They were quiet for a bit as she cleaned him up and tended to his wounds. She was seeing him in better light now, and she definitely could tell that his eye was going to be swollen shut and purple by the time morning came around.

Thankfully, the burns on his face weren't too bad. They would irritate him for the next few days, but she didn't see any real threat with them.

He complained about his side the most, saying that's where most of his pain was. He had some definite tenderness there, and while she didn't feel any broken ribs, there was some bruising and evidence of impact there. She would have to more thoroughly check him out when they were back on land, but she was doing what she could for him now.

When she was finished with him for the time being, she didn't do anything else but sit with him. They sat together quietly. Just listening and feeling the other.

She rested her head on his shoulder, his hands still resting in hers. He never wanted to let go of her ever again. He would super glue himself to her if he had to.

He had almost died today. And the thought of leaving her was tearing him up more than death itself.

He thought about all the times they had talked about those hypothetical death scenarios. All the "preparation" they had done didn't seem to matter at all when it really came down to it. That was when it dawned on him.

Dying he was prepared for. Leaving her was a different story.

Price's thoughts were interrupted when he realized Soap was standing in front of them, hands jammed into his pockets and a stoic look on his face.

"Hey there, P Squared." Soap said. "Take it easy, Captain. We need you around."

That was Soap's way of saying: "You scared me, and I'm glad you're okay."

Soap walked away after that, leaving just as fast as he had come. He didn't even give either of them a chance to respond. John turned his head to look at Peach, who's coloration in her face was looking much better finally.

"P Squared?" John asked, and she grinned her first smile of the night.

"Our new nickname." She said without even raising her head from his shoulder.

John thought about it for a moment. Then let out a short chuckle.

"Not bad."

It was quiet again after that, and Peach just accepted that there wouldn't be very much talking tonight.

They would both recover on their own time. This feeling of anxiety and emotional distress would pass for both of them. Price would be up and about in a few weeks, and she would return to normal soon enough as well.

This was a process like any other. One that needed time, patience, and love from one another.

It felt like hours and hours of the boat gliding across black water into seemingly nothingness. Not a single wave or bump interrupted the boat's course, which was much appreciated considering that Ghost had the throttle pushed as far as it could go.

With one arm wrapped around her, and the other one free -- John took his free hand and slipped it into his pocket. His fingertips brushed against something familiar -- it was cold and small. Something that he had forgotten about for the first time since he bought it.

Price fiddled with it, a sense of remembrance and a bit of nerves rushing through every system he had. He touched the metal band of the ring and the diamond centered on it. He had memorized how it felt, because he had been playing with it and carrying it around since the day he bought it.

For a moment, he seriously thought about proposing to her. In no way was this the setting or circumstances he had imagined when it came to asking her to marry him, but he felt so connected and so in love with her in this moment that it felt all too right.

But he knew that this wasn't a good time. He was fresh off of almost dying and Peach was literally traumatized from it -- not a great proposal setting. Besides, he would never forgive himself if she associated her proposal with one of the worst nights of their life.

Yeah, definitely not the right time.

Good call, John. He thought to himself. Her emotions have been through enough tonight.

Suddenly, the first bit of land became barely visible on the horizon, and Price spoke.

"I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight." He couldn't help but chuckle, and this time it was because he was amused.

After a near death experience, that wasn't surprising.

"Me neither," She whispered, raising her head to look at him. "Stay up with me?"

He felt like he could melt. She was staring at him like she was petrified that he was going to disintegrate if she let go of him. He kissed her then, ignoring the sting and ache in his lip as he did so.

The kiss was real. It reminded her that he was really alive and would see another day. Their future was still intact.

"Yes," He said. "Of course."

And, as promised, the two of them stayed up for the remainder of the night. As soon as their feet hit solid ground, Gaz and Soap delivered Price to a place where Peach could finally take a real look at him.

She took her time, looking over every inch of him and checking for anything he might have missed. By the time she was satisfied and content with her thorough examination, it had been almost two hours.

Honestly, she would've kept checking his vitals and examining him until the sun came up. But he had been through quite enough today, so she figured poking and prodding him wasn't the best call.

Considering what had happened, Price was extremely lucky to have gotten away with the injuries that he did. A couple of bone bruises, mild burns, and several superficial lacerations was a cakewalk.

Peach gave him extra cherry suckers that night out of her pack. Even though he didn't have the appetite for them, he took them with appreciation and downed every single one that she gave him. He would never take those cherry lollipops for granted ever again.

The two of them spent the late night hours together. Holding one another, continuing to be thankful and grateful that John Price didn't die that night.

They found solace in each other's arms. They were no doubt shaken to their cores, but there was peace with one another. John, who had brushed death, was alive and breathing in real time next to her.

Each breath he took was a reminder of the fact that each one was a miracle.

They held each other tighter, their hearts beating in sync, as if trying to make up for the beats that could have been lost. They spoke in hushed tones, their words a mix of relief, love, and a newfound appreciation for life.

John was still counting on marriage, two kids (still one boy and one girl), and a countryside house that was far, but not too far. After this, he wanted it even more than before.

They watched night turn into morning. Each moment was precious. A gift. A blessing.

John Price didn’t die that day. For that, she was eternally grateful. He was eternally grateful.

They were eternally grateful.

[eraofkalki]

Well what a wonderful thing to wake up to so. . .

Alright. This man. This silly sorcerer that has resonated with me since the start of the game and that obsession nearly doubled down when Nightbringer came out.

He's one of the more multifaceted among the characters. Cunning and wise yet sly and playful, always putting on a smile or that near-sarcastic frown when things don't go as he pleases. Look not saying that the others aren't as interesting—we'd have plenty of room to argue—though I believe that Solomon reigns supreme as being one of the most interesting characters to write for.

How come?

Well. . . a lot could happen.

You may be given a hypothetical scenario: think specific like running away in a getaway car after spending all your money at a casino, or browsing the atlas hidden in the depths of the library as your first date. When you picture those, you may think of let's say Mammon or Satan, or whoever you think would absolutely fit the vibe.

Here's the thing: while you may let any character have their moment with these given prompts, there's no deny that- "hey. wtf. these can apply to Solomon."

It's just.

Wow.

He's not necessarily a one-size-fits-all character, but his personality and dialogue alone quickly layouts millions of possibilities for whatever his character has going for. And that is not yet mentioning his serious moments. Or so his mysterious past as people continue on to speculate about it.

He's so tragedy coded that it's not even funny. Silly man with a dark bloody past?

Which brings to another point- while of course he is a silly ass sorcerer trickster to an extent: when he's serious, he's absolutely fucking serious. <- this person is partly tired when anyone excuses a character's carelessness and naivety due to their trickster persona. And this is not one time as well- Solomon is half to fully serious in his words. While he says it in playful banter, it's the full truth.

And this isn't even adding the fact that man is a fucking simp. Knees on the grown, head hung low, kissing the ground you grace your presence with type of devotion. The embodiment of a starstruck lover, from less likely friends to unlikely partners. At first I was skeptical when people gush over how "domestic" Solomon acts in OM:NB but- man. I got hooked into the bandwagon and now another white-haired guy has me by the neck and heel.

This is mostly how I base my take on his character when writing anything with him: given the information just as dialogue and lore tidbits. It absolutely doesn't help that Moni over here reminds me of my first lo—

That's all for now, hehe!! I have a lot more to say about this guy buuut, that's for a later time :))

i think the multifaceted nature is exactly the most interesting part about him. i sometimes think that there could be any situation in the game and the devs could make solomon react in multiple ways, and i could still be like "oh yeah that makes sense for him to say that/do that" for all of them (not like every single possible situation but you get what i mean i hope). because. he's like that.

his sincerity is one of the traits i admire the most about him. yes, he tends to wave off more personal questions but i don't think that he's any less sincere or honest about the things he does express just because he's reluctant to divulge too much about himself (the mystery makes him hotter hello)

also is it just me or i have these random moments of realising that this guy's like. insane. and he's toning it down by alot. you could write a list of insane shit he's done and stare in awe at how insane the shit he's done is but like. he acts like this guy. this silly little guy who happens to be crazy powerful but then u realise that he's CRAZY powerful and he could be so much more...harmful and sinister if he wants to be. i know this applies to the others too but like, it's just more interesting for him (AND simeon, they're just two Guys who i think are Actually OP) than for others because it's already like known?? for others?? ig? like, it's sort of ingrained in us but when it's him you just have these lil moments of wait woah yeah

idk what im saying im half asleep

and all that + how he's fully, desperately, madly whipped for mc. he'll give them the universe if they ask for a star but this mf will stay on the sidelines because "oh i don't want to interr-" shut up you soggy waffle ive been waiting with your ring for the past 4 hours and my hands hurt

anyways

everyone live laugh and solomon

[spicybylerpolls]

Here me out, I am not against a byler sex scene cause I don’t think it would be anything remotely explicit anyways so discussing it in depth for me feels pointless, but I have issues with tying a sex scene into the character arcs of mike and will as if it’s the only logical way to wrap up their story, only because had there not been a pandemic and multiple delays, byler would have happened while at least one of them was still a MINOR (maybe both I would have to do the math) and there’s no way the show woulda had a sex scene in those circumstances so it’s more likely to me that having a sex scene—while it would be interesting to go there now that the actors are older—it is not the end all be all for their character arcs and not something that *has* to happen for their end narrative to make sense, since it probably was not going to happen in the first place. So maybe let’s reframe the discussion away from “they have to bone or else all the build up and such makes no sense it’s the only way to end things because blah blah blah” and more as it would be fun/cool/hot to see something more adult now that they ARE actual adults, and it would feel satisfying to their story, but that’s it. cause some people are starting to feel so passionate about the idea that i am concerned they are going to make themselves very angry if there isn’t one …

Hmm, I kinda see your point, but I also feel like there's no real point in speculating about what might have happened in the hypothetical past where the pandemic and the strikes didn't happen because A) we don't live in that timeline lol, and B) the Duffers have always had the ending in the show in mind from the jump and many/most of the beats they knew they needed to hit along the way, BUT I personally don't think they've planned out literally every single detail from the start with no wiggle room.

The writers have said as much, like for example when they tweeted all the crazy things that were supposed to happen in season 2 like possessed Will killing Bob or El mercy killing her mom. They've definitely added and subtracted some things along the way.

Beyond that, regardless of the ages of Finn and Noah, it's not outlandish to argue that sex is still thematically connected to the characters and their arcs. Byler is a story about sexuality, of which sexual attraction and, well, sex play a huge role.

And ST is a coming-of-age show, of which sex often plays a huge role regardless of the age of the actors. During S3, the writers didn't shy away from including sexual themes such as Max's happy screams comment, and the actors were still minors then. Every season has progressed these themes further. The writers and filmmakers are the ones putting the sexual symbolism and jokes into the story, and we're just picking up what they're putting down, right?

Like, I don't think Murray using the phrase "experiment sexually" was accidental, nor was hosegate, nor was Mike checking out Will's ass lol. It's all fair game when you're telling this kind of story (as long as you're creating a safe and comfortable set, of course). Because of this, IMO, there's a high chance the ST writers would've still at least implied that Byler had sex even in your hypothetical scenario. There actually isn't a hard-and-fast rule that prevents actors who aren't legal adults yet from acting out light, non-explicit sex scenes.

You say that, "byler would have happened while at least one of them was still a MINOR (maybe both I would have to do the math) and there’s no way the show woulda had a sex scene in those circumstances," and I understand why you'd say this, but if you look closer at films and shows in media history, that's not always true. I can name several shows and films that call this theory into question.

While it's true that most modern shows with teen sex scenes do tend to also have adults already playing teenagers- there's a whole page on TV Tropes about this phenomenon called Dawson Casting- (and these tend to show a lot of skin, i.e. Euphoria), which makes it easier to explore sexual storylines, that's not the case across the board.

In your hypothetical scenario, the Byler sex scene obviously wouldn't have been an explicit one (and no one's saying it will absolutely be that way now either), but that doesn't really mean it wouldn't have existed in some form. There are many examples of coming-of-age shows/movies where the actors were technically still underage at the time of filming, and it showed them making out intensely before cutting out (and sex was implied) or it showed something slightly more (closer to Stancy) but still not anywhere near HBO-level.

McLovin's sex scene in Superbad comes to mind (his actor was still 17 at the time, and his mother had to watch while it was being filmed). Thora Birch was 16 when American Beauty was filmed. More recently, there was the Jevon sex scene in Chucky this season. Devon's actor recently turned 18, but Jake's actor is still 17. And yet the season was non-subtly building up to the scene, it was 100% tastefully done, and it cut away before anything super specific happened.

Now that both Finn and Noah ARE adults, and we know there will definitely be a time jump, this hypothetical is extra meaningless. And if the Duffers want to go further and bolder with a Byler sex scene, they can, even if this wasn't the original plan. And there's lots of brilliant analysis that argues the Duffers have been planting the seeds for a while for at least some kind of sexual resolution.

But your assertion that, "some people are starting to feel so passionate about the idea that i am concerned they are going to make themselves very angry if there isn’t one" doesn't seem based in reality either. Spicy bylers might want a sex scene, and many might believe there at least will be something implied like Jancy, but I don't think anyone will actually be angry if there isn't one. Correct me if I'm wrong? I think most people are just happy there's a space to talk about Byler in unfiltered ways, to analyze the mature themes of the show, and also to have fun while doing so, especially since the season is still a ways away. It's not like people will actually fist fight the Duffers if Mike isn't moaning and giving Will backshots in S5 💀.

What do y'all think?

[wehaveagathering]

Do you have any offseason predictions? (for the flyers) / what Should happen this offseason

I assume this was a drunk ask last night but i fell asleep. So. You get my wakeful, no less complex and thought-through answer. This may be long; you have been warned.

First of all, the draft. This isn't the draft for big moves. I mean, while I'm definitely hoping for huge upsides for members of the 2024 draft - being lambasted as "not a deep draft" makes them my most beloved underdogs and I hope they all prove themselves - usually scouts who know hockey and watch a ton of young prospects are right about who can do what. And all of the scouts are saying: the 2025 draft has way more talent than 2024. So. If I'm Danny Briere, this is what I do.

In the 2024 1st round, the Flyers have pick 12 and pick 31/32 from the Panthers. Let's say, because the Flyers have famously good luck while drafting, Florida wins the Cup and we get pick 32. Not that it makes THAT much of a difference - we're going to get a prospect with similar skill levels whether we pick at 31 or 32. However, judging by everything I've read, a prospect we like is going to be available at 12. Whether that's Yakemchuk or Helenius or Eiserman (the three that usually get mock-drafted to the Flyers) we're gonna get a guy with good skill, and a pretty bright career ahead of him. And then at 32, some decent dude.

Nah. I'm giving pick 32 to a team that really needs it. Someone like Ottawa, or the Sabres, or the Kraken, someone that is picking early and are hoping for a better upside next year. Maybe they have their eye on someone going later - maybe we throw in a 2nd or 3rd round pick to sweeten the deal. And in return, they give us their 1st rounder for the 2025 draft.

You know, I considered that the Flyers might try to trade up in the 2024 draft, but because of the "lack of depth" I think that you're not gonna get a guy at 12 that's super different from the guy at like, 8, and no one is giving up a pick above that, whether or not the draft is "deep" or not. The Sabres are saying 10th is maybe up for grabs, and the Devils are willing to trade their pick in order to contend next season. I could see us trading a player for 10th, but definitely not picks, and the Devs want a goalie, so. No-go there, as the Flyers have thrown their weight behind Ersson and Fedotov. So I don't think we'll trade any picks for a higher selection in 2024. But I think that it would be smart to get a third pick in 2025. That's the kind of stuff you can really leverage.

Hypothetical scenario. Say the Flyers do a little better next year and get pick 14 in 2025. Say Colorado makes the conference finals and has to give their #30 pick to us. Say we make a deal with the Kraken this year for our 2024 #32, and they have pick #15 in 2025. Why not, in that case, leverage picks 15 and 30 and move up to 10, or even higher? Why not go for gold, maybe give picks 14 and 15 for pick #5? Then you have a highly touted prospect pick at 5, and still 30 in a deep draft. I mean, Vancouver traded all the way up to get two top-five picks in a row to take the Sedins.

(OR you just keep three first rounders in a deep draft, which no one is mad about.)

We could play it real smart just with the draft this offseason. And then there's Michkov.

I think a lot of what the Flyers do this offseason depends on if Michkov comes over. Russia wanted that answer by the end of June, and I'm sure the Flyers do too, so they can draft and trade accordingly. We don't have much cap space if we want to sign him. Local cryptid Ryan Ellis still has until 2027 getting 6.5 mil a year. Rasmus Ristolainen also has a contract until 2027 getting 5 mil a year. Colorado gave us the precious, precious gift of Ryan Johansen who came with 4 million dollars worth of baggage. TDA and Kevin Hayes are costing us approximately $5 mil this upcoming season. We currently have $500,000 worth of cap space and an ELC for Michkov would be $700K annual at minimum, and you know they are NOT gonna give the Mad Fucking Russian minimum NHL wage (the max is $950K.)

If I'm being totally honest, I kind of don't want Michkov over this season. I can't see us trading someone to make cap space for him, and I don't see Barkey or Bonk being ready to play in the NHL this year next to him. (Very excited to see them at the NHL level soon, though.) The Flyers just aren't ready. If we wait another year, Cam Atkinson's contract is up and he retires gracefully, giving us more cap space. We have a year to figure out what to do with Johansen, whose contract is up in 2025 anyway. That frees up 9 mil alone. If we're already getting rid of Staal (god I hope we do) that's 2.5 mil gone. I think it's not a bad idea to let Michkov play more in Russia, keep a good relationship, let the team be kind of middling for another year so we get a decently high pick, or can make a reasonable trade for one - because right now, even the Flyers are saying it: we need high end talent. Someone to match Michkov. I mean, I think Frost would be a good center for him. I think Frost's playmaking would work well with him. A Michkov-Frost-Foerster line would be fun as hell, but that line doesn't live up to what Michkov can do forever. If Michkov comes over, I also don't want him playing on our fuck ass powerplay. You know what I mean? You ever go back and watch the 2012 ECQF and hear the announcers talk about how the Flyers' special teams were their strength? We haven't had that for years. We don't need it right now. But if Michkov is here, we should have something close.

As far as trades go. I wouldn't make too many moves. I don't think the Flyers will make too many moves if Michkov doesn't come over. People are already freaking out over a TK extension - whatever. He has until 2025, I'm not pressed, and both the Flyers and TK want him to stay, so something will get worked out. I can see why people want to trade him, but what the hell do you want in return?? What do you think you're going to get? It's not worth it. Sign him next year for 6-7 years @ 8 mil, fans are happy, players are happy, TK is happy. Fuck off.

I don't think Staal is staying. They're talking about extending EJ – that would be cute, but we already have a number of pretty good defensemen, and we don't need just another "pretty good" defenseman. (Sorry, Big Horny.) I would love to see a similar team next season develop more offensive chemistry and to have a solid goalie tandem rotation, and I think that would be the best outcome of this offseason.

Obviously, there are a few players with contracts that are up this year. Bobby Brink's ELC is up, and for me it's crucial that he stays. This is my number 1 signing that needs to happen this offseason. I think he's an exciting player, and I think that Torts needs to get his head out of his ass and work with him. (This is my number 1 bone to pick with Torts, but whatever.) Zamula also has his contract up, and I know they want to re-sign him. I also hope that they're thinking about Kolosov coming back to the Phantoms this fall, and what they would have to do for him to make him comfortable in Lehigh Valley. When Kolosov came over this spring, no player on the Phantoms spoke Russian, let alone Belarusian, and when he left at the end of the season, citing that he was homesick – I can't imagine that that had nothing to do with it. Ersson talks about how important Felix Sandstrom was for his acclimation to American life as a fellow Swede, and I think that if Kolosov is to return to North America, you want someone there to help him out and help him acclimate. Depends on how everything shakes up next year – that could be Gurianov or Zamula, but both of their contracts ended in 2024. So Kolosov's comfort level in America is a factor I hope they're considering.

Like, this is the thing with Michkov. I want him to come over, but if he does, they need to shake up a lot of shit that I don't think they're ready to shake up. I think him playing for 3 years in Russia factored into their long-term plan, what with the very tight restrictions on cap space we have right now and the makeup of the NHL and AHL teams here. Fedotov will be crucial for Michkov if he stays, and if he doesn't, then Kolosov, Zamula, Gurianov, or any other Russian/Russian speaker on the team needs to have a level of comfort in PA to ensure that Michkov does not struggle with the same culture shock that I assume Kolosov did. He was 22; Michkov will be 21 - if he comes over now, 19. There needs to be a system in place for these players. Creating that system needs to have started yesterday.

Uh, I think that's it. Thanks for the ask!! <3

[shellofhappiness]

Day 78984 of someone thinking Dylan didn’t give a fuck about eric the same amount as he did for Dylan whatever reason.. I’m tired like genuinely why the hell do people think this. And please don’t say bc Dylan wanted to plan nbk with a bitch because omg that was a blip compared to the planning with eric. It was a fuckin delusion and was not him planning for anything. There was only one nbk plan and that was between Eric and Dylan. Also people use the dumbass point that, “oh Dylan had more friends so he didn’t care about Eric that much” like huh?? None of Dylan’s friends at that point where as close as he was with Eric by senior yet by a landslide, also you can have a shit ton of friends (which Dylan did not) and still have that one mf you fw a lil bit more than the rest and you’re crazy of you don’t think that mf was eric. But I would like to hear why you think Dylan did not give a shit about eric the same amount

I do not see the point in wasting precious time to examine this topic with you when you are embarrassingly incompetent in misinterpreting my words as whatever wall you want to argue with. To make your point, you sent two paragraphs of avoidable aggression to my inbox. While I agree that I overlooked the prospect of Dylan deliberately warping his tie with Eric to exploit the “narrative” to be in his control as you mentioned in your other anon. But, there is no way to provide solidified proof of that other than it being in line with his "disposition," which would be superfluous considering it's psychologically impossible to "define" anyone's self, even mine and your own. Even then, if we put ourselves in Eric's shoes in this scenario, wouldn't it still be hurtful to find out your best friend was purposefully making the effort to make it seem like you two weren't as close as you were when you didn't agree on it and still talked about him as normal? Why would he do that when you two are practically starting a "revolution" together? Did you misinterpret what you two had? What is the reason?? Point being: my post still applies with this hypothetical in mind.

I'm sorry if my post struck a nerve for you and your model fabrication of superficial postmodernist love being an act of murder-suicide. Yet, I am a stranger on Tumblr Dot Com, likely the reason you feel so comfortable being openly hostile on anonymous because you don't know me, and I don't know you. Why can't we all have fun? Why are we not open to believing what we want to believe? If you are so disturbed by how significantly my post intruded on your sentiments because I articulated my own introspections in a way you weren’t personally accommodated to, just block and move on with your day.

I completely acknowledge the assertion that they were real, living people, surviving living emotions, but NEITHER of us knew them. We could both be right, we could both be wrong. Why get up in arms about a scenario we'll never have an in-depth answer to besides the scraps we've been given to form our own bigger picture, subconsciously echoing our mentality and toils with depicting individuality?

If you had come to me with the knowledge you gave, calm and civilized with the intention to apprise me of the details I either disregarded or didn’t even know about in the first place, I would’ve loved nothing more than to sit down and chat, but you make it a bit too apparent you lack the capability to compel heart, even when you reeeeally don’t want to, and communicate so both of us could depart as sounder, more enlightened, individuals. Jeeesus.

EDIT: I realize in retrospect what may have incited this was when I twisted Eric's quote to be about him and Dylan. I'll admit it when looking directly at it, it was a stretch for me to include. I even thought that to myself when writing the passage, but I still decided to keep it there to describe their own personal ideals on the concept of experiencing love in general, rather than it being towards each other. Hence why I emphasized it wasn't about them being gay or anything along the line of that, including their own personal relationship, love coinciding or not. Somewhat unrelated, but I still feel obligated to mention, I remember someone made a post on here forever ago that Eric possibly instead had, even just a little thought, of Dylan in mind when he spoke about people exaggerating their feelings and assuming them to be love. People who obsess tend to have that problem, so we can connect the dots together. Did this clear things up though? Probably not. Bleeeeh!!!

[starlightshadowsworld]

Danganronpa 3: Future arc episode 4

Thonks.

After Munakata gave an admittedly cool line...we get a recap from Monokuma who calls him a badass.

I'm sorry but if Monokuma thinks highly of you... You know you're the bad guy.

"Please note: Hagakure's stuck outside because nobody likes him."

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼.

I mean I'd rather have him than Juzo.

"Quit acting like your title means a damn thing."

Bold words for a guy who once beat a student because he was "inferior" for not having a talent.

Someone needs to stop giving this guy chairs.

Seiko's still... That and running after Ruruka and Izayoi.

The director being kind of a badass makes sense.

Wouldn't have survived this long if he wasn't.

And he's beating Juzo sips tea maybe we can trust him.

Kyoko's stunned reaction like you gotta be good to fool the detective.

Awh Asahina and Kyoko hugging.

"Why bother being like him, he's him and you're you." Look at you Kyoko giving encouragement.

I'm proud of her.

And Asahina chiming in that yeah you're great on you own. You don't need to be like Makoto.

Trust me, as much as we love Makoto one is enough.

Ahh fuck Munakata's got Makoto.

I knew he didn't kill him already, but to use him for ransom?

... Nope he's gonna kill him...

I love how everyone's freaking out and Kyoko's just annoyed.

Explaining it's a trap, to draw them all in.

If Munakata was gonna kill him he would've done so already, so they have time to negotiate.

So I was right, he is ransom.

Although I disagree on the he would've done so already.

Munakata seems like the type to play with his food, so to speak.

He's not gonna kill Makoto, not yet.

He's gonna make him suffer first.

Like Sato said, I wanted to see the light leave her eyes. That's what Munakata wants from Makoto.

To drag him into the depths and experience true despair.

Not realising Makoto has, several times.

Makoto just having no energy while Munakata is still on his dramatics.

Mood.

Also man needs to pick his side because I'm confused.

First it's, you have to die because you're that strong and gave so much influence.

And now it's you're nothing, you're not a threat of you live or die.

Is it because he's tied up?

That doesn't mean he couldn't go free, and thus be a threat?

Pick a story my dude and stick to it.

Makoto: The worst case scenario is we all die.

Munakata: Nope.

In a way I get where he's coming from in his hypotheticals.

If the killing stops after a person is killed that doesn't mean they're the killer. They could stop whenever they want.

And that person could survive and than go on to influence the rest of the foundation.

But it doesn't justify mass murder nor whatever the hell he's doing.

Also his insistence on calling it a game...doesn't sit right with me.

Man if I ever complained about Byakuya I want to apologise.

You are nowhere near as insufferable nor egotistical as this fucker.

Idk how you managed to make game 1 Byakuya "I moved the dead body to make the killing game more interesting" Togami look like an functional human being.

But here we are.

"Despair would march on with a flag of hope. That would be the worst outcome."

... Who's gonna tell him that's exactly what he's doing...

He's on a power trip and decided him and only him gets to decide who lives and who dies.

Again, stop trying to justify mass murder.

The director is here and shattered his sword. That's how you make an entrance.

Finally Kyoko gets to do her thing and investigate.

Asahina getting Makoto to safety, whoop.

Director stepping up to fill Gozo's shoes as resident badass on Makoto's side.

Rest in peace Great Gozu.

"For what it's worth, there's no doubt in my mind that you are the Super High School Level Hope."

There it is from the former headmaster himself.

I think Ryota's the traitor but I don't really have any evidence.

Just a vibe.

I hope its not though I'm not sure who it could it be.

"We used to be besties."

"Oh don't even play that card. Last I checked, besties don't get besties expelled from Hope's Peak high school."

... Yeah Ruruka and Seiko definitely have history.

Reminds me of Natsumi and Sato.

Oh so Izayoi and Ruruka also got expelled.

Interesting.

Ya'll are kinda in your own show at this point.

Oh hell yeah the Director just through Munakata on the ground.

I get he has a name but I'm just gonna call him Director.

Also him calling Munakata cynical and naive when all Munakata has done has berate Makoto for being naive.

Hell yeah.

"Despair can only be eliminated by those prepared to make the necessary sacrifices."

"Oh than I suppose Yukizome was one of those sacrifices."

OHHHHHHHHH!!!

He got you there.

Gonna need some ice for that, the old man is not playing around.

... And getting stabbed through the hand and keeps going.

Fucking hell.

And they fell through a glass balcony.

Man I don't want Miaya to die... But they're going off alone and said I'll be back...

"When we get out of here, we're gonna eat so much donuts."

Heh, yeah you guys should.

Annnd Miaya has rocket missles in her wheelchair.

Oh... Yeah the Director has been stabbed through with shrapnel.

Munakata having the audacity to say he thought the director had "lost his fangs and was just hiding behind a cheap code of ethics."

And he'd wanted to kill him for ages.

Werido.

Juzo you just committed the cardinal sin of kicking someone's ass while they're powering up.

Dude doesn't know fighting etiquette either.

... And Miaya's a robot.

No wait there's someone controlling her.

WAIT

Miaya is Monaca?!

Didn't see that coming holyshit.

... So she's the traitor?

Because I don't think she's the mastermind.

Either way... Monaca Towa is back.

Fuck.

[thestorygenerater]

I like to write prompts but sometimes I just have an unrefined idea i want to share and wants to talk about so now I’m also writing about hypotheticals. Anyway here’s one now.

What if the phantom thieves ended up in Gothem

The idea is simple so I’ll just make some quick points before taking about the potential (also I’m calling persona joker just Joker and Batman joker The Joker)

1. No Ryuji won’t immediately walk up to Batman and say he’s a phantom thief, as much as we joke he only really did that at the start when he was both very new and didn’t understand how serious everything was, he was also shown in universe to get better at deflecting so he wouldn’t immediately spoil everything… immediately…

2. This has to be an alternative universe just because Joker won’t name himself after a crazy man and Batman would probably come to Shibuya the second the phantom thieves appear, even faster somehow if he heard Joker be called… Joker

3. The persona users can use their powers in the real world. It makes sense in universe because the DC world had superpowers everywhere so the collective unconsciousness would allow them to have powers

4. The phantom’s do have access to the Metaverse and can change people’s hearts, this would be incredibly useful in Gotham just because how corrupt it is (on a completely unrelated note do you think The Joker would even need a name for his palace because he forgot his name, completely unrelated)

5. The phantom’s have personal documents, all their items from P5, P5R, and P5S. Everyone is max level, complete compendium except for the really OP dlc personas and max money, they still have access to the velvet room and that’s probably the reason they are in Gothem

6. As for the phantoms weaknesses, in the real world SP/HP cost is double and if they don’t pay the increased amount, they unleash a weaker move then expected (light<medium<heavy<severe<colossal) they only have the main thieves and the meta nave still needs all the usual components



Can you imagine imagine Batman patrolling around when he hears skull say something like “man we need to figure out where we ended up and meet up with Joker”

Imagine if Batman tails skull and engages with the phantom thieves taking them down mostly with stealth while they are still confused until Joker appears

IMAGINE THE FIGHT OH MY GOD

I can imagine them trying to guess one of Batman’s rogues and they just say ‘Batman’ and the nav just says “candidate found” because he thinks Batman is his real name (they probably would just leave him alone there)

I can see The Joker’s palace being like the mementos of the scenario, it’s confusing, somehow more distorted then the depths, and you only get further into it by becoming better ‘playmates’ or by increasing his interest in the thieves 

Can you IMAGINE the panic that goes through Batman’s mind when the thieves launch the Futaba cannon to send their first calling card (probably to two face since he had a life before and doesn’t hide his name)

AND IMAGINE HIS PANIC WHEN HE HAS A CHANGE OF HEART!!!

I think the Red Hood if he met the phantom’s would be against changing The Joker’s heart “he doesn’t deserve redemption, he deserves a bullet though the head” until he hears that the joker still feel guilty, then he comes to the same decision Ann did with Kamoshida, death is to hood for him

[sexybabystevie]

okay but. i woke up today Thinking of the whole kas!eddie thing (courtesy of a friend i explained my evidence to the other day :) ) and. well. i've got something stewing in my mind right now. and this is a half-baked thought so bear with me. (also steddie post under the cut because this got a little longer than expected).

it's around two weeks after the events of season 4. two weeks after the town rips into four large tectonic-plate-like things and too many people are lost to keep count of how much loss there has been in general.

steve is trying to sleep, trying because it's pretty much a failed attempt - from still living in his parents' shitty home with nothing but blank memories to trying to cope with what his life even is anymore, sleep is far, far away - when a strange noise comes from his bedroom window. he's too tired to really put together what it sounded like, whether it was a grating, scratchy noise or whether it was more of a loud and spontaneous bang, and so it takes another two times of the same noise appearing for him to truly be aware of his surroundings. and he is terrified.

the noise is like nails on a chalkboard - or, perhaps, some kind of metal scraping against glass - and steve can already conjure about fifty scenarios that are horrible which could be his reality right now. from vecna being the thing at his window, ready to take vengeance against him for even thinking he was capable of stopping him that day with nancy and robin, to the gruesome image of the scratching coming from something - someone - dead, steve harrington is pretty sure that this life - this new life, after everything has transformed and shifted into depths of the unknown, after his town, as shitty as it was, has turned into nothing but a reminder of all that was lost, after even a minor sound or discrepancy sets all who remain of his little family on edge - has become fifteen types of his own personal living hell combined.

steve stays paralyzed, stuck in his head, for much longer than he ever has before. but then he remembers that he's the brave one, the one who fights off monsters he doesn't even understand - didn't even know of their existence prior - to protect those that he loves, those that he's meant to protect. his mind haphazardly wanders to the kids, a moment frozen in time that feels so far away now, back before anything was too amiss and they thought maybe they had a shot a happy, normal life, when the convinced him to take them to get ice cream at midnight and all jokingly - but was it so jokingly? - yelled out "thanks, mom!" afterward. it's this moment that gets him out of bed and moving towards the window, but not before grabbing the bat that he now hides just beneath his bed. just in case, which he hoped was a hypothetical never meant to happen.

it's too dark to see outside, 2am sky pitch black without the warmth of the moon, and steve's arms are tingling numb from an uncomfortable combination of fear, anxiety, and a little bit of rogue adrenaline. he acts against all better judgement, offhandedly thinking if he were in a horror film, he'd certainly be paying the ultimate price for this, and slides the latch on the window up and pushes the thick glass open.

for moments, there's nothing except the chilly bite of the wind, setting steve's body rigid, stone-like, against the darkness that's creeping in. the anticipation is palpable, heavy in the air, and steve thinks to himself that, if whatever it is is trying to kill him, he wishes it would just hurry up and get it over with instead of toying with him.

as if on cue, a dark figure seems to pass right outside the window - as well as can be seen when one is searching for shade against the shadows, at least - and steve grips his bat a little tighter and readies himself for the strongest swing of his life when a familiar voice calls out to him.

"woah, harrington, chill out! it's me!"

and steve freezes again. because truly, this cannot be real. he has to have fallen asleep and is in the midst of some wild fever dream.

but then the figure steps into his room, is visible due to the bedside lamp he has stationed to his right at all times, and steve feels exceedingly dizzy because eddie munson - the eddie munson who dustin claimed died weeks ago, the eddie munson whose funeral was scheduled for next thursday - is standing in his bedroom.

it takes him moments before he lets his bat fall to the floor, the exhaustion overtaking the adrenaline and practically causing his grip to falter. he's still guarded, memories of billy being something he wasn't in his final moments keeping him on edge, prepared for the worst possible outcome when in reality he should be celebrating, he should be relieved and happy. and as fucked up as it may be, he is.

out of everything his mind imagined, this was not among any of the possibilities, and it made sense why - this was good. maybe dustin was wrong, somehow eddie hadn't died in that swarm of hellish bats in the upside down, somehow he had just been mistaken. that night was hard for all of them, more stressful than any other inter-dimensional fight from before, so maybe... that could explain why eddie was now here, in steve's room, painfully familiar, almost bashful smile natural on his lips.

"how the hell are you even here, munson?" steve asks, voice low, no traces of venom found in his inquisition.

"let me crash here and i'll explain everything?"

steve makes his next horror-movie mistake while staring into eddie munson's soft brown eyes. he's not stupid enough not to notice it - the deep, dark bags underneath his eyes, the way his skin is disturbingly pale, his lips stained a dark red that's too bright to be normal - but he's also reminded of how he felt when he was walking in those haunted woods with him, when eddie had tried convincing him to start pursuing nancy again. steve had thought about telling him then, that he was actually into someone who he had previously misjudged, someone he really never expected to be into, and that nancy was really only the result of him being confused by the insisting of his other friends.

but he hadn't. they were too close to danger and steve thought expressing himself would set one of their fates into stone as being the next victim - wasn't that always a trope that was prominent too? - but he wasn't aware that their fates had seemed to be sealed with or without his confession.

he had spent weeks wallowing in guilt, wondering what could have been if only he had been at the scene of the crime, if only they had a little more time together. and lo and behold, two weeks after the dreaded incident, here he was, sneaking into steve's room in the middle of the night like he would've if they would have ever gotten a real chance at being anything other than a dying wish.

so, he lets his loving nature take over and moves forward to wrap his arms around eddie, in a sort of welcome back hug that he hopes can also express a few other things he's been thinking, and ignores the shiver that rumbles down his spine as his hand brushes against the other's. eddie munson's skin is ice cold.

[anongalactic]

Follow up to this previous rant, I've seen some interpretations throughout the years that come reeeeeally close to the point I'm making here but miss one key part.

This is mainly a big ol rant about Over Heaven specifically so spoilers ahead! You've been warned!!

(I also want to preface this by saying that I am not here to say this canon, or to debate canonicity of spin-offs or whatever! This is my personal analysis and my personal interpretation of a character and a book. I am not stating this as fact. If you're gonna reply with just "___ isn't canon" then you're wasting your time.)

If you're looking at Dio and Jonathan's relationship through JUST the "Dio's one-sided freakazoid obsession" angle, you're missing half the story. It dehumanizes his motivations. He absolutely is a freak and obsessed, but there is unfortunately even more going on under the surface. And I'd say its even worse! I wish it stopped at just that!

Dio's humanity is his ultimate vice, his greatest "flaw" in all his plans. He wants so badly to be something more than man, a being untouched by the human emotions he hates so much-- his anger, his sadness, and ultimately his ability to care for other people. Because throughout the beginning of Phantom Blood and the years of off-screen time of him and Jonathan's young life, he is still human. The great irony of him "rejecting his humanity" is that what ultimately gets him defeated, both temporarily and later permanently in Part 3, is his emotions.

This is delved upon really really well in Over Heaven, as we get to see the events of Dio's childhood and the full events of Phantom Blood through his perspective. An in-depth look at everything he was thinking and feeling.

The biggest part of this is how by the end, Dio realizes he never hated Jonathan at all. We saw already how at the end of the final fight in PB, Dio was shocked that Jonathan had actually died. He had started to think of him as someone so untouchable, that the two of them were the embodiments of the never ending fight of good vs evil. Dio has this realization in Over Heaven that not only does he regret Jonathan's death, but that he misses him.

Analyzing the entire novel would take an essay im not here to write, but I can talk about one of the final scenes. The biggest overarching theme of the book is Dio grappling with what "heaven" truly is. It started as the more biblic interpretation, an attempt of his Mother's to instill good values in him as a child, "be good and you will go to heaven."

Then you read as it morphs into a more twisted idea, a vague concept that is just as confusing and wrong as Dio's entire mental state. It becomes a physical, tangible thing Dio wants to covet.

And as the book furthur shows the sharp decline of Dio's mental stability, you're left unsure what he's even trying to accomplish, and Dio seems just as unsure as the reader is.

There's the entry that takes place on the day of the final fight in Stardust Crusaders, where Dio has begrudgingly rationalized that he might not win. He writes about a hypothetical scenario in which, somehow, he was able to simply surrender, where the Crusaders forgive him.

Which evolves into the idea of living alongside the current Joestar family, and eventually a question:

What would really, truly make him happy?

Then a dawning realization-- he knows what heaven really is. Heaven is what set of factors, what details, what idealistic life he would want to lead if he was given the opportunity. What does he think of?

Having a family with Jonathan. That is what Heaven is to Dio.

The wording here makes it incredibly clear that he doesn't mean simply "being part of the Joestar family." its "building up the Joestar family." -> "together." -> "with Jonathan" specifically.

And when he says "I've thought of it." it implies he's debated this before! He's thought about this specific scenario before this moment and is only now accepting it! Only here; as he grapples with the meaning and possible futility of everything he's done in his long long life up until this very moment, does he realize that the one thing that would really, truly make him happy is this:

Having a family, a concept he detested his entire life. He blamed his mother's death on her foolish wish to have a family, that his father is proof that no Brando should ever have children, that he would be no better than his father. A concept that he spits in the face of by sleeping around and getting women pregnant with children he will never meet nor care about.

And he wants to have one with Jonathan. With him so specifically and explicitly. The man he tried so hard to hate, a man he came to idolize and see as beyond human, as an ever living embodiment of goodness and pureness. Dio forcefully fused their bodies together to make them into a horrific physical representation of the battle of good vs. evil.

We watch as he talks to "Jonathan" in those "shadow dio" scenes during part 3, how he says even more insane shit throughout the entire book that would be incredibly long to outline in just one post.

An entire entry where he stops referring to anyone by name except for Jonathan, because he deems everyone else unworthy of even being acknowledged.

Another where he goes over even the most mundane of details in their childhood that he thinks must be divine proof of their connection.

Entries where he ends his ranting abruptly because he got "too emotional." There's an entire rant he goes on about being skewered by the goddess of love statue during the mansion fire that I could write an entire seperate post about.

All this to mean: Not only does Dio not hate Jonathan, not in the slightest, but it's not even just a weird psychosexual obsessive thing (which most certainly is still a part of it).

In one rare moment of clarity in his nearly 200 page descent to madness, Dio realized the one thing in life that would make him happy is to start a goddamn family with the man.

That's love. That's an incredibly fucked up way to get there, but if that's not a painful, messy, lifelong denial of love then I don't know what is. It's an incredibly twisted and confused idea of love, but that's so perfectly in line with Dio's entire character.

Dio isn't just some heartless pure evil monster-- thats what he wants to be, but in reality he is so incredibly, unbearably human. To love is to be human.

Jonathan saw Dio as his brother and nothing but that, cared for him as strictly platonically as any other member of the joestar family; however Dio did not reciprocate that at ALL. It's an uncomfortable topic to broach, but if he is not the textbook example of "anime villain with a weird homoerotic obsession with the protagonist" I don't know who is. He didn't spout all that shit about intertwining their souls and literally stealing Jonathan's entire body or whateva for people to not acknowledge this.

These concepts can coexist.

Yes this is weird and immoral. Dio is weird and bad for thinking that way, he is a villain and he does weird evil things.

Acknowledging it doesn't make you weird or wrong, it just means you have eyes and can see. it doesn't mean you condone it or support it, it just means you understand nuance in media. in ANY media, not just jojo or anime in general or anything.

[fangaminghell]

Hmm.

With how things are going with the plot right now, I worry if having someone connected to Cresselia would convolute things. So here's some brainstorming. Some of these things will change as the plot continues btw. I feel like Cresselia will make an appearance one way or another, and depending on how things go, I might have to rework Mena from scratch. But fit now, these are my thoughts.

Spoilers for pokemon desolation. Like I'm going in depth with the plot right now so don't look if you haven't played the game.

Things that I know about Darkrai as of were I am in the plot.

Trapped people within a dream- these people are people who failed to help bring it to the real world.

Asra was the latest on

This darkrai may have a trainer( not sure how true that is) and is looking for Perfection.

Shiv and Aurora are basically Darkrai's lackeys ( I think they don't know the truth)

Now then. What to do with my hypothetical Cresselia and Philomena. If Cresselia was fine and well and present, then I feel Darkrai wouldn't be as dangerous as he is. For granted, I personally think Cresselia is the reason that Darkrai was trapped in the dream. So it got me thinking. Maybe Cresselia, one that's hypothetically involved with Darkrai, is weakened at this state and time? Like, so weak that she can't really do anything about Darkrai and his assumed trailer. And that's when Philomena comes in.

Now there're some ways ways I could go about this:

Philomena has the ability to go in and out of the dream at will, like Asra, and was initially targeted by Darkrai but Cresselia, with her remaining strength, was able to block Darkrai out. In doing that, Philomena kinda became an adversary for Cresselia. While she can't exactly wake people up, she can try and prevent Darkrai from reaching the real world via Asra.

Another possibility is Philomena never had the powers that Asra and the twins gave, but was gifted it by the weakened Cresselia for whatever reason. She's not as strong as the twins or Asra though, hence why she travels a lot. What she lacks in power she can make up for is knowledgeable. Her looks make it very easy for people to think she's just a ditzy traveler. Same scenario as the one above, with the goal of trying to prevent Asra fall into Darkrai's clutches.

Cresselia's connection to Philomena could be familial. Maybe her family has some history with Cresselia?

Remember that joke about Mena being a god ?Well what if that was actually true? She could be the immortal trainer of Cresselia. Though, with how grounded Desolation is, I don't think I'll go for it.

And thems the brainstorms. I said it once and I'll say it again. Cande is the only normal one in this group, and she has to basically be a parent to her siblings.

[ohmigoshiloveu]

I kind of wish the idea of William being Christian, cafeteria Christian, or even just raised in a heavily Christian-influenced household was more explicitly canon and played with more. I’m mostly talking about how it would have been interesting to go in depth about how the Spirit World would have effected him. This is another long one.

The Spirit World kind of implies that a lot of religions (but not all, some can definitely reconcile with its existence) are either not entirely true or straight up entirely false within Prime’s canon. And Christianity is especially interesting because of how much of its allure and reward system and spiritual fulfillment relies on there being a heaven and hell. There’s got to be a lot of immediate and prolonged crisises going on with finding out that that’s just not a thing, and it would have been fun to see William struggle with that.

Like, how many ghosts did he help pass on in Deadwood, wanting to believe that they were either going to a better place or at least getting to rest. What kind of guilt might he feel over realizing that he helped them let go just to send them to the Dead Zone? He talks to the Baker’s ghost and gives them a chance to finish up unfinished business (and maybe find peace and pass on) without a lot of guilt, but by that point he had 10 months to sort out and come to terms with the fact that everyone ends up there eventually.

The Spirit World might not even entirely debunk his Christianity, especially if he was cafeteria (raised with cherry picked bits and pieces, you know the type) or just grew up in a Christian influenced environment. However, since the afterlife is so utterly indifferent to how well you keep your head down and uphold Christian values, it kind of defeats the whole point of following Christian values. At that point, if there is a God they’ve let all these awful things happen to William, he doesn’t owe them anything, what are they gonna do, send him to hell? Hell no! He’s practically already got his ticket to the Whispering Forest when he dies, the GM described closest thing that the Spirit World has to a Good Place. His heroism and values from that point on would need to evolve more towards an atheist stand point, because you end up in heaven either way, why keep helping people? Because he’s not an asshole. It wouldn’t necessarily be hard, he's seemed like a good kid from the start, but it might have been an interesting to see and a lot of nuance could have been inspired by real people who questioned and left the real world Christianity, and could have been a really uplifting message about finding your footing again and coping with the inherently traumatizing nature of death.

Speaking of, does he immediately clock that he’s probably going to the Whispering Forest? Conceptualizing death isn’t fun, but making peace with the fucking Dead Zone when you were hoping for heaven? Or, heck, William is ridiculously queer and an unholy affront to Mother Nature (because he’s undead, not queer, obviously) maybe he was on some level expecting hell, and it was a step up.

Does he consciously or subconsciously try to shove the Spirit World into the structure of his understanding of Christianity, kind of like when Dakota made the connection where William being from the Whispering Forest made him like an angel and that Mal’s like a demon. Does he think Mal is the devil trying to trick him? Does William ever wonder if there’s a spirit that parallels God? Does he ask Ashe about it?

Like, obviously I get that religion can be a super touchy subject and a lot of people have really deep and meaningful relationships with it, and a lot of people have deep rooted trauma with it, and it being explicitly stated as not canon might drag up a bunch of complicated emotions about a hypothetical scenario that would have had them tip toeing around what message they were sending in a world where Christianity existed as an explicitly fake thing that hurt William and left it’s followers utterly unprepared for the Spirit World after a lifetime of denying themselves things and working for something that didn't exist, so I get why it was left unstated and unaddressed, but William was doing bits like talking about Abstinence Boy and taking one look at Ghoul and then looking for a church before the Spirit World arc and then never did anything like that again after it, he comes from a small town with pretty stereotypical suburban parents (even if his family history’s more complicated according to the last episode) in an environment with a lot of seemingly traumatic supernatural events that might encourage people to go find Jesus, his hero suit gives him a halo, and Dakota calls him the spirit world equivalent of an angel, and I’ve sort of been rotating all of that around in my head.

On another note, Vyncent would respond to William venting about religious trauma by offering to go help him kill God, because that’s something that canonically happens in his dimension. I’ve also been rotating that in my brain.

[heavencasteel420]

Some of the takes on Jonathan’s doom-spiraling at the junkyard in S4 make me think that the people saying them just don’t know a lot about anxiety. The ones I’ve seen most are:

Jonathan actually wants to break up with Nancy;

Jonathan definitely wants to marry Nancy and have kids with her (often used as a “gotcha” for people who think Steve’s van monologue shows that Steve and Nancy wouldn’t be a good couple);

Jonathan is right about the future of their relationship.

The first point I think is pretty plainly ridiculous. Jonathan thinks he has to stay in Lenora Hills for his family, and he thinks that this will doom his relationship with Nancy sooner rather than later. If he did want their relationship to end for whatever reason—he wasn’t happy with her, or he was interested in someone else, or he was rethinking his sexuality, or he felt they were incompatible—wouldn’t things be easier for him? He might worry about hurting her by ending the relationship and feel guilty, but I don’t think he’d be afraid of ruining her whole life.

The second point is what really makes me doubt people’s experience with anxiety. Whenever I’m in a spiral like that, I never stop at the likely outcomes of the situation I’m worried about. It’s never been “I’ll get a mediocre grade on that law school exam, causing my middling GPA to stay middling instead of improving slightly”; instead, it’s “I will fail all my classes and have to drop out with no career prospects.” Jonathan freaks out over the outcome that would be the least bearable to him: that he ruins Nancy’s life, loses her, and alienates his hypothetical children. He’s not going to doom-spiral about an amicable divorce where neither he nor Nancy abandons or uses the kids as pawns, or a childless divorce, or a regular break-up, or a situation where Nancy decided to be with him (long distance or otherwise) and is content with her decision. That’s not as scary as imagining that he’ll become his hated father.

(That’s not to say he doesn’t want to marry Nancy or have kids, but I don’t think that speech is compelling evidence either way. I also don’t think it’s a problem that Steve wants kids with Nancy, per se; it’s the number of kids and the fact that he leads with that scenario.)

As to the third point…anxiety spirals aren’t known for their accuracy. Anxiety makes you overestimate threats, not assess them correctly. Ignoring the fact that it makes no sense for Jonathan to attend LHCC now that his family is back in Hawkins, and that Nancy’s probably gonna have to take an apocalyptic gap year, I think these are three most likely outcomes of Jonathan telling Nancy about his plans:

She talks him out of it. She totally plays dirty by telling Joyce about it. Next thing you know, he’s going to Emerson or going to a college reasonably nearby or working full-time in Boston to be near her while saving for college or possibly spending one year at community college before transferring near her. It’s possible that this turns out badly for him, financially and/or psychologically, and he resents her, but it’s also possible he looks back and thinks “oh thank god.”

She dumps him for lying to her and letting her make major decisions about college while hiding crucial information from her. This would be a devastating breakup for both of them, given their depth of feeling for each other and all they’ve been through, but he doesn’t have to worry about ruining her life, and they can both start to move on eventually.

She’s upset but understands where he’s coming from, and they continue to be in a long-distance relationship, which may or may not last.

I don’t think she would’ve moved to California or changed where she was going to college at all. That’s never been how their relationship has gone. If Jonathan weren’t thinking with his lizard brain, he’d realize that.

[n1kolaiz]

The Six Realms

Okay, so I was pretty close to giving up on writing analyses but I'm back LMFAO plus I see we're close to 100 followers and I just want to thank you guys for being so very supportive <3

Alright, I'm not sure if anyone's ever written about this, but if an analysis like this exists, please do let me know because I'm kind of curious as to what other people think about this, too!

Remember that time Fukuchi spoke about bringing "about the five signs of an angel's death"?

I read a little bit more about it, and as a minor content warning: this analysis will focus on a few religious aspects (Buddhism + Hinduism). So if I get any of the facts wrong, firstly: I do not mean any disrespect to either religion, and secondly: please do correct me if I interpret anything in the wrong way.

Spoilers for BSD chapter 90 onwards + BEAST!AU under the cut!

So I'll start by talking about the Decay of Angels. As we all know, the members include Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Sigma, and Bram Stoker, and their leader, Fukuchi Ochi. After Fyodor's arrest, the Decay of Angels came into light with Nikolai murdering four government officials in a week. These murders symbolise the Buddhist cycle of existence, or otherwise known as samsara: the cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

"We are the Decay of Angels—hiding here as terrorists, a 'murder association', five people who will announce the demise of the celestial world."

Nikolai Gogol, chapter 57

Samsara is described to be a concept beyond human understanding. According to Hinduism, samsara is the physical world where every being has its soul trapped into a physical vessel. The Hindus believe that everything has a soul, and due to a soul's attachment to desire, it is forced into a deathless cycle of being born, dying, and reincarnating into a different body. In Buddhism, the ultimate way to break free from this cycle is by obtaining nirvana.

Nirvana is a Sanskrit word for the goal of the Buddhist path: enlightenment or awakening. In Pali, the language of some of the earliest Buddhist texts, the word is nibbana; in both languages it means "extinction" (like a lamp or flame) or "cessation." It refers to the extinction of greed, ill will, and delusion in the mind, the three poisons that perpetuate suffering. Nirvana is what the Buddha achieved on the night of his enlightenment: he became completely free from the three poisons. Everything he taught for the rest of his life was aimed at helping others to arrive at that same freedom.

- TRICYCLE'S definition of nirvana

As Fukuchi mentions in the panel above, there are six different realms of existence. These realms represent every possible state of existence, but one cannot live in a specific realm forever. Depending on whether or not one's past actions were morally good or bad, an individual is born into one of these realms. Basically, the controlling factor of which realm a person is born into is dependent on their respective karma. The realms are separated into two categories: the hellish ones and the heavenly ones.

The Deva Realm: where beings are rewarded for the good deeds they have done. This realm is void of anything unpleasant. It is basically paradise— empty of unfulfilled desires, any form of suffering, and fears of every kind. Religious individuals, however, do not seek to be born into this realm since its attitude is more or less carefree.

The Asura Realm: where demigods are admitted. Asuras are driven by greed and envy, and may come in conflict with human beings since they are quite similar. They are powerful beings, but quarrel with each other quite a bit, making this realm quite undesirable to be reborn into.

The Animal Realm: where beings are given the form of an animal (you probably guessed that lol). Individuals here don't actually have good karma to take pride in, but rather, they are born into this realm to work off their bad karma (by being slaughtered, hunted, or forced to work, etc). Being born into this realm forces one to atone for their past sins by living out their life as an animal.

The Hell Realm: where one is punished for their evil actions. The most merciless of realms, where one pays for their transgressions through pure suffering, methods of which include: dismemberment, starvation, and psychological/physical torture. However, once a person's term is fulfilled in this realm, they are presumably promised to be reborn into a higher state.

The Preta Realm: similar to the hell realm, in which beings pay for their past sins (specifically: greed and stinginess) by having to survive through hunger and thirst. This realm is also known as the 'ghost realm,' because some pretas are psychologically tortured by being forced to live in places their past selves have lived in. They are invisible to human beings living at that time, which pushes them to face the depths of despair and loneliness. Your typical horror movie, really.

The Human Realm: the only realm where one's actions determine their future. The status (social ranking, physical wellbeing, and so on) of a human being in this realm is determined by their past actions, but due to the fact that a person has their own conscience to differentiate good morals from bad, the actions they commit in this realm have the power to determine which realm they are sent to next.

Okay, so now that I've got that out of the way, let's shift our focus to the Book. Very little is known about the Book, but the basic fundamentals of how it works is that whatever is written in the book will come into existence only if its contents follow the rules of karma. In addition to that, only a few sentences can be written into a single page of the Book, and it must follow the current narrative of the story.

If I'm not wrong, the first time the Book was mentioned was by Fitzgerald, who wanted it to resurrect his deceased daughter in hopes of restoring his wife's mental health. The next time the Book is brought up is when Fyodor's intentions to possess it are divulged; his goal was to decimate the global population of ability-users. And now, the current arc has the Book as its central focus, with a single page in Fukuchi's possession.

[ BEAST!AU spoilers ]

The Book acts as the central point of multiverses, with each character's lives differing from universe to universe.

Dazai committing suicide in this alternate universe stands in sharp contrast with how he decided to start up a new life in the main universe.

Oda staying alive to act as a mentor to Akutagawa in the ADA differs from how Oda uses his death to prompt Dazai to "be on the side that saves people."

And of course, the way Atsushi and Akutagawa have their positions switched in the two universes depicts how different their lives would be if they were given the chance to be mentored by different people— these are just a few examples of how the Book houses an endless amount of possibilities.

[ end of BEAST!AU spoilers ]

Hypothetically speaking, this kind of reminds me of the differing realms I mentioned before, where suffering is promised in some realms, and better things are granted in the rest, depending on one's karma, or the deeds they've done in their past lives. In this scenario, perhaps one's past life can be understood as one's current life in a different universe. That's just a personal opinion though. Take it as you will.

side note: Keep in mind that the person who is more or less impervious to the Book's effect is Dazai, with his nullification ability. I wouldn't want to propose any theories in this aspect (I don't believe I'm fully fact-checked ;_;), but I could use Dazai as a raw example of how your choices affect your future. If Dazai had decided to stay in the Port Mafia after Oda's death, or if he even decided to go through with his suicidal fixations, life would've been different for him in the root universe (obviously, ryley) I mean, you could basically understand that from how he ended up in the BEAST au, but imagine if he really did slip up in his decision-making in any of the universes.

Many analysts have proposed that he went MIA (early in his life) from the main universe for a while to figure out how the BEAST universe worked, whilst having the Book to his advantage. Perhaps his actions were guided? I'm not saying he's all-knowing, but he's sure as hell smart. I'm not sure if Kafka was trying to highlight the concept of karma when it comes to Dazai, but if he is, then I suppose you could say that Dazai is pretty much unaffected by the rules of karma, existing as the centerpiece of all the multiverses. No Longer Human is the namesake of his ability, but the book talks about disqualification from societal norms and generally, the world. I was talking about it with a friend, and they reminded me that Yozo (the main protagonist) was pretty strong in his views against society. Like he didn't speak out of total defeat, he spoke out of defense. If there was anything Dazai actually lost to, it was his guilt— "Living itself is a source of sin."

Then again, that's my personal interpretation since everyone has their unique perspective of his writings. In terms of the actual adaptation, you could translate the word 'disqualification' to 'insusceptibilty' when if it came to the Book's effects on Dazai? This side note is becoming really long lmao anyways I'll link a few theories which afflicted me with brainrot down below.

Another thing before I wrap up, the name 'Decay of Angels' stemmed from Yukio Mishima's book entitled 'The Decay of An Angel.' This is the final novel to the author's tetralogy: 'The Sea of Fertility.' The main protagonist, Honda, meets a person he believes to be a reincarnation of his friend, Kiyoaki, who takes the form of a young teenage boy named Tōru. The last novel of this series enhances Mishima's dominant themes of the series as a whole:

the decay of courtly tradition in Japan

the essence and value of Buddhist philosophy and aesthetics

Mishima’s apocalyptic vision of the modern era

Again, this could be referred to what Fukuchi goes on to say:

Some people view the concept of samsara optimistically, justifying it by saying that perhaps each individual is given a second (third, fourth, fifth, who knows) chance to refine their actions in order to be birthed into a better realm, with their karma being the independent variable.

On the other hand, other people, specifically the Hindus, view the cycle of existence as some sort of plague. To them, the flow of life and being forced to endure the suffering of mere existence in any form was somewhat frowned down upon. Some Hindus viewed samsara as a trap. Besides, having one's soul being limited to a physical body for the rest of eternity was not very appealing, especially since where they ended up at depended on the karmic value their past actions surmounted.

Even so, particular types of Buddhists don't seek nirvana, but instead, like the Hindus, they make an effort to be good people of society, building up their good deeds to increase the likelihood of being reborn into one of the better realms.

As mentioned before, the Deva Realm was the home of angels, the most carefree, gratified beings to exist. Fukuchi describes these angels as the people who don't get their hands dirty, the people who act as the puppeteers of society: politicians.

In terms of parallels, angels were the most fortunate and powerful, but they didn't have anyone ruling over them. A lack of supervision would lead to the abuse of power, which is what I believe Fukuchi was referring to. Deeming himself the Decay of Angels, he sought to prove himself as the 'sign of death that falls on the nation's greed.'

A few fun facts (okay, not really) about Yukio Mishima: he committed seppuku (ritual suicide by disembowelment) on the day he held a speech to voice out his unpopular political beliefs to the public. Mishima deeply treasured traditions and opposed the modern mindset the nation was advancing forward to adapt eventually. In his last book, The Decay of an Angel, he spoke about the five signs which complete the death of an angel:

Here are the five greater signs: the once-immaculate robes are soiled, the flowers in the flowery crown fade and fall, sweat pours from the armpits, a fetid stench envelops the body, the angel is no longer happy in its proper place.

The Decay of an Angel, p.53

The reviews about this series I've read so far describe Mishima's works to be quite complex; his writings demanded a lot of time to deconstruct and understand. They were highly symbolic, and he was pretty obsessed with death and the 'spiritual barrenness of the modern world.' I think you could attach a few strings from here to the mindsets of the DOA members. Of course, this parallel is completely abstract, but I'll go on rambling anyway:

He should have armed them with the foreknowledge that would keep them from flinging themselves after their destinies, take away their wings, keep them from soaring, make them march in step with the crowd. The world does not approve of flying. Wings are dangerous weapons. They invite self-destruction before they can be used. If he had brought Isao to terms with the fools, then he could have pretended that he knew nothing of wings.

The Decay of an Angel, p.113

I suppose you could resonate Nikolai with that excerpt. As much as Fukuchi takes the lead in this whole murder association, I'd like to believe that each member of the DOA plays an equally interesting part in whatever movement they're trying to execute. Fyodor feels it is his god-sent purpose to cleanse the world of its sins, his motto being, "Let the hand of God guide you." Sigma doesn't know where he belongs, since his origination comes from a page in the Book, and is fueled by the desperation to find a reason to live. Bram holds one of the most powerful abilities which is counted to be one of the "Top Ten Calamities to Destroy the World."

What I mean to say is that the DOA members are incredibly powerful, and they're not your ordinary antagonists (or I'm just biased). It's not just overthrowing authorities, mass genocide, and world domination— you could say that each individual is trying to utilize their purposes to their fullest expenditures, and the way they're trying to assert their plan into action is a little more passive-aggressive (framing the Agency, having a convo with a suicidal dude in jail, etc). They're the gray area between evil and good. As they framed the good guys for their own crimes, they're trying to conquer the bad guys for exploiting the innocent as they please.

This post would definitely age well if all hell breaks loose in the current arc (as if it didn't) and Kafka doesn't give us a happy ending.

That's all I have to say for now I guess! Thank you for reading, and once again, if anyone else something they wanna share, feel free to do so <3

sources (tryna follow Q's example ^_^) :

the six realms

samsara

the decay of angels

beast!au

the book

the sea of fertility

yukio mishima

theory: dazai’s emotional/mental state in beast!au

q’s theory: dazai being the protector of the book

theory: beast!dazai and the book

[homemade-ghosts]

Can you give your thoughts on the PW couch scene in Season 2, please? A lot of PWs try to make it out to seem that that scene had major communication in it and I wonder how they could think that? It was mostly EJ voicing his stresses like he usually does and Gina giving him her input on the situation. Even if they did communicate well in that scene hypothetically, that's just ONE scene out of so many other scenes that they haven't been able to actually communicate well in, in other scenarios.

Like most of 2b, I hadn't seen this scene since the episode dropped, so I had to go back into the dark (literally, no one paid their electric bills in s2, I swear) depths of s2 to watch it again. & truthfully? It’s not as bad as I remember.

I know you asked for my thoughts on the couch scene specifically, but I hope it’s okay if I have a little compare/contrast moment because, to me, the major significance of this scene is that it’s is in direct opposition to Gina’s scene with Ricky on Valentine’s Day. Gina seeks Ricky out, she shows up at his apartment for comfort because, despite the unspoken tension between them, Ricky is Gina’s person. He’s the one she, by her own admission, tells things she doesn’t tell anyone else. It’s a purposeful action, Gina came to see Ricky and only Ricky because he’s the one who understands her — but EJ coming to see Gina is completely accidental. He actually came to talk to Ashlyn and only settles for Gina when she tells him that Ash isn’t home at the moment. EJ even, weirdly enough, seemed to have forgotten Gina even lives with Ashlyn (the first thing he says when Gina opens the door is, “hey, what’re you doing here?” and she has to remind him that she does, in fact, live here). Whereas Gina knew exactly where to find Ricky because, even though he neglected to tell his own girlfriend that he had moved out of his childhood home and into a smaller apartment, he told Gina and gave her the address. 

I think what really stands out to Gina though, is that even though EJ didn’t show up specifically for her, he still showed up. The last time we saw Gina open that door, there was no one on the other side. Just a box of chocolates she mistakenly thought were from the guy who gets her. & every other time before that, Gina was always knocking on Ricky’s door. I think it felt good for her to be on the other side for once, the one answering the door to a friendly face. 

Now, onto the actual “couch” part of the couch scene. I think there’s a genuine attempt at understanding each other here, but the keyword is “attempt.” Gina can guess that EJ turned down the Duke offer because he didn’t earn it, but they lack any sense of commonality to go deeper than that. Gina doesn’t know what it’s like to be that privileged, to be rewarded based on status and not merit. She’s the girl who never quits, who keeps pushing, when she gets something it’s always because she’s earned it. When EJ tells Gina, “…my entire life has been mapped out for me for as long as I can remember, you know?” She smiles, but replies, “Not really. I’m always one natural disaster away from landing in a new place.” and there it is again, that lack of commonality. EJ doesn’t know what it’s like to crave stability because that’s all he’s ever known. To EJ’s credit, he does ask what that’s like for her, but when she tells him that it’s both stressful and freeing, that she doesn’t “worry about the future because she can’t control it” (hearing her say that knowing she would tell EJ she was trying to build a future with him almost a full season later kind of broke my heart. EJ truly has no concept of how much of a breakthrough it is for Gina to be able to think about the future because his whole life has been about his family planning his future). After he asks though, it never goes deeper than that. He brushes it off (maybe because he doesn’t understand?) and instead, turns the conversation in a different direction with, “Well, you always seem to know what you want.” Which had nothing to do with what Gina just told him and everything to do with himself. He came here to talk things out, to try to figure out what he wants and he was projecting onto Gina, effectively saying that he wished he knew what he wanted. Gina opens up to him, or tries to, and he trivializes it, turns the conversation back to him and what he’s thinking.

Their back-and-forth, on the surface, can seem mutual — but in retrospect, it feels like a small preview of what’s to come. You have Gina supporting EJ, telling him that, when she looks at him, she sees the guy that bought her a plane ticket for Opening Night (EJ’s canonically rich so I still maintain that he’s the only one who could afford to buy her a last minute flight to SLC, not the only one who wanted to) and the guy who made a sweet birthday video for Carlos. Gina does her best to lift him up just like she will do at camp in s3 — but EJ doesn’t really give her anything back, except for telling her that she’s “one of the bravest people [he] knows” but it feels like a hollow complement because…honestly, what does he know? In s1, he basically only talked to her when it involved scheming and, at this point in s2, all he’s done is see her cry at Carlos’ party and pretend to be her boyfriend for 10 seconds when they went to North High. It’s a nice thing to say and it’s true, but it’s not personal or meaningful because what does he know about how brave she is? He doesn’t even really know her.

It reminded me a lot of Nini telling Gina that everyone is lucky to have her in their lives in the s2 finale, which, again, is absolutely true — but coming from someone who hasn’t really been in Gina’s life (she was at YAC & had spoken to Gina maybe once or twice since she got back) it just felt…empty. 

Ultimately, this scene makes two things very clear to me: 

1. Ricky & Gina need each other, specifically — EJ & Gina, however, both needed someone. In s2, Gina needed someone to show up for her in a way that Ricky couldn’t while he was with Nini and EJ needed someone to both reassure him about and distract him from his future. It didn’t have to be each other, but they happened to be in the same place and need someone at the same time. Don’t get me wrong, I believe EJ & Gina both developed genuine feelings for one another, but their entire relationship was born out of needing someone, anyone, to help them through a difficult personal time. Once they were both out of that vulnerable state, there was nothing left to connect them.

2. I can see how the couch scene seems like good communication on the surface: EJ & Gina engage with one another, they listen and they try to see where the other is coming from…but they don’t relate to each other in any way. They don’t understand each other. & can communication really mean anything if you don’t understand the person you’re trying to communicate with? I don’t think so. 

3. It’s very odd the amount of pws who turn to this scene when they want to talk about how “bad” s3’s writing is, claiming that they really connected here, that it makes no sense for them to have, among other things, severe communication issues in s3 because this scene exists. This is the closest pw ever gets to decent communication and it still lacks any kind of mutual understanding + literally four episodes later, instead of talking to Gina, EJ breaks off their plans & avoids her. The only reason they even end up kissing by the end of the ep is because Ashlyn tells Gina what was going on. There was absolutely no communication between the two of them. The couch scene is quite literally the only time they both make a sincere attempt at communicating with each other.