#tv i believe because some stories do take place when tv exists

[shellyseashell]

my favorite part of descendants is how absolutely weird you can get with timeline stuff. canon makes it seem like every story took place in 1995 and now it’s 2015, but you have stories that took place in the 1500s and others in the 1700s and others in ancient times. and as much as canon may like to pretend everyone has adjusted to technology they probably wouldn’t realistically have, not everyone would want that. basically what i’m saying is i want horse drawn carriages on the same streets as cars, some people with landline phones and others with cell phones, people wearing a modern dress next to someone in a medieval gown or greek tunic. i just think it’d be funny.

[bippot]

Cowboy & Piggy

Story Summary -> No, Adrian had not been crushing on his colleague. That's just, like, not true in the slightest. It's not as if the moment she became available, he said something he could never take back.

Tags -> Idiots in Love, Violence, Fluff, Fights, Butt Dialing, Break Ups, References to Supernatural (TV 2005), Identity Reveal, Co-workers, Self Confidence Issues, Punching

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Fennel Fields wasn't a good restaurant. It didn't have the funding franchise restaurants do, nor did it have the home grown passion of a family owned business. It just existed to make money for the boss, who wasn't even there most of the time.

The food was cheap and unhealthy and often covered in cheese so whoever was eating it was far more focused on that cheesy goodness rather than the fact that the meatballs tasted a fair bit like horse.

All of the employees were underpaid and underappreciated by their bosses, so why the hell did Adrian Chase work there? As of late, he'd been earning a steady income thanks to Task Force X so it wasn't a financial decision. It wasn't to conceal his identity either - if anything, he'd almost revealed his secret at Fennel Fields too many times to count.

Why, oh why, did he work a menial job with an awful wage when it mainly consisted of being ordered around and shouted at by customers and managers alike?

Well, he wouldn't get to see Y/N if he left.

The best part of his day was when she rushed through the double glass doors and, as soon as she looked up to find him standing at the counter, she'd do a little half smile and greet, "Hi Ade, how late am I today?" He'd check his watch and tell her the exact time, often adding a little comment like 'it's your new record', or 'not as late as yesterday', or 'you missed the bus, didn't you?'.

Adrian was down bad. He memorised her shifts whenever the rota was posted and swapped so she wouldn't have to go too long without his presence. It was stupid and a little stalkerish, but it kept him going.

Half - if not more than that - of all of his shifts were spent watching her with big puppy dog eyes, just admiring from across the room as she worked. It was pathetic, he knew that. And even if he didn't know that, their other coworkers were more than willing to point it out to him.

"Drooling over Y/N again?" Taylor jeered as he slapped Adrian on the back of the head to snap him out of the trance he'd been in ever since she started bending over a table to clean it.

Hey, she had a great ass! Was he supposed to not look? It's human nature to look.

"Ah, no. No, no, no, of course not. I wouldn't... I don't..." He spluttered helplessly, flustering himself into an even deeper blush at the implications. "We are just friends. Pals. Buddies. Y'know, all platonic and shit."

Taylor rolled his eyes. "Sure." He said sarcastically, unaware that Y/N had walked up to them at the moment he teased, "You're a lost cause, man. I'd give up. She'll never like you. You're, uh... you."

"That's not very nice."

Y/N gave Taylor a stare that told him exactly what she thought about his comment and turned to Adrian, placing her palm gently on his forearm as she assured him, "Any girl would be lucky to have you, cowboy."

He smiled shyly and nodded, feeling incredibly grateful for her words because they'd given him some kind of hope that the thought of them, yeah, maybe it wasn't so outlandish. She thought he was dateable. Maybe not dateable for her, but at least she saw enough qualities within him that she believed he had the ability to be dateable to someone.

And if he was cool enough in her eyes to get a nickname like 'cowboy', there must be someone else who thought the same and was available.

Though, the term had come from their first shift together when Adrian got so nervous meeting her and his mouth decided to talk about the movie 'Cowboys and Aliens' the entire time. By the end of the day, she may not have known his name, but she did know that Robert Downey Jr was originally set to be the lead but there were scheduling difficulties because he was filming on the 2nd Guy Richie Sherlock Holmes movie and had to be replaced by Daniel Craig.

The next time they worked together, Y/N tried to get Adrian's attention but couldn't since he'd never told her his name. So, she called out, "Cowboy guy!" and, surprisingly, Adrian turned around. He pointed to himself as if to say, 'Me?' and came running as soon as she nodded.

"You didn't tell me your name." She tilted his name tag so she could read it. "Adrian."

"That's me."

"That's you, cowboy."

That, as they say, is history. Not only did a hot girl give him a nickname but she continued to seek him out whenever the job got boring and she wanted someone to talk to. Or someone to ramble on and on about useless stuff at her. Adrian was that guy™️.

"Come on, Y/N. Don't give him false hope." Taylor remarked with a sly smile. "The girl he's drooling over is way, way out of his league."

Whatever Y/N had planned to do was cut short. She stopped in place.

"I didn't know you liked anyone." Her head tilted as she surveyed Adrian's entire flushing face. "I thought you told me everything?"

That was mostly true. Adrian did have a habit of spilling his guts to Y/N. So far, there had only been two things that he managed to keep under wraps - his secret identity and his secret crush - yet, every other thought he had, she had been told about it.

"I, uh, I.. I gotta keep some cards to close my chest." Adrian mumbled out , glancing away before continuing, "But, uh, it's okay, y'know. She doesn't like me like that."

Scoffing, Taylor confirmed, "No, she certainly doesn't." Y/N slapped his arm for being so rude so he was quick to justify himself by adding, "She's got a boyfriend, doesn't she, 'cowboy'?" and left the kitchen as quickly as he could.

As much as it killed him to say, yes, Y/N had a boyfriend. He was cool and handsome and a total dickhead. That wasn't Adrian's jealousy talking, Steve was just like all the jocks that had beat up Adrian in high school - all macho and womanising - and if he had to try to quantify how many times Steven had cheated on Y/N, Adrian wouldn't even begin to know what two digit number to guess.

Y/N sighed, "Oh, I'm sorry, that sucks. There's plenty more fish."

"Yeah... Maybe. I don't know." Adrian shrugged, trying to seem as nonchalant about it as he possibly could - he probably wasn't very convincing given that she was still looking at him with so much sympathy on her face - and he didn't feel like elaborating further. "How's Steve? Is he coming in today?"

The quick change of topic was noted by Y/N, yet she simply replied, "Nope!"

"Oh?"

"Told him not to. If you do see him though, tell me so I can hide."

"Why'd you wanna hide from your boyfriend?" he wondered out loud curiously, tilting his head as he examined her. Then, his eyes went wide as he realised what he'd said. "Shit, don't answer that. Unless you want to. It's up to you. Obviously. You can tell me if you want to. Not that you should. You can. I want to know. Not in, like, a creepy way, but in a 'I'm your friend and I'm here for you' way..."

He proceeded to spiral into a nervous ramble that over-explained everything and had at least 4 completely irrelevant tangents, none of which made any sense whatsoever, while Y/N stared at him in amusement. His words were coming out at a mile a minute and they just kept coming, and she had learnt that it was best if she just waited for his breath to run out.

His rants always went in a weird direction. And unlike other people, Y/N liked his weirdness. It was her favourite thing about him. Well, that and his dimples.

Or how easy it was for him to make her laugh.

Or that mole on his cheekbone.

Or the way he'd push up his glasses with his middle finger and forget that he was technically flipping her off, only to realise and purposefully flip her off playfully.

Or his biceps, which she hadn't seen often as he usually kept to baggier, unflattering clothes, but she had seen them once when a customer spilt their drink on her and she hadn't brought a spare top. Adrian had offered his cardigan to her, and she finally got a small glimpse of what he looked like underneath it. It's safe to say she was impressed.

Adrian was cute when he was rambling - he was always cute but especially so when his brain had no control over his mouth - so all Y/N could do was to beam at him and softly laugh every time he'd start to babble nonsense. After a few minutes, his breathing finally calmed down, he blinked twice, cleared his throat, took a few deep breaths, then looked up at her.

Thanks to his rant and how wildly he gestured, his glasses were slightly crooked on his nose. Y/N fingers hovered by his ears as she scrutinised his glasses and tilted them back into place and gently brushed her fingertips through the hair just above his ear so it wasn't so unruly.

Adrian swallowed thickly. It was an audible gulp that caught Y/N's attention and she met his eye. He seemed somewhat uncomfortable so Y/N was blurting out, "Sorry, cowboy. I should've asked before I did that. Consent and all, y'know?" to apologise and smooth things over.

"You can touch me whenever you want to."

Shit. That was a little too obvious. 'You can touch me whenever you want to'? That's what his mouth came up with? In his head, it sounded innocent enough, but as soon as it left his lips, he scrunched his eyes up in embarrassment.

That is not something you say to a girl with a boyfriend.

A blush came to Y/N's cheeks. She knew he was awkward and often said things without thinking before they came out. He hadn't intended that sentence to sound the way it did, she was aware, but there was a hint of hope that maybe, just maybe, he did mean it exactly as he said it.

"I'll, I'll be sure to remember that next time I invade your personal space," she joked with a sheepish smile.

All of a sudden, doing the washing up became very appealing to Adrian. He needed to be doing something, needed to have something to split his focus in order to remain in one piece. Any more slip ups with Y/N and he would become a mess. He made a big deal of turning the tap on and squidging far too much washing up liquid into the sink.

The sound of the rusty pipes and gushing water almost overwhelmed Y/N's voice as she uttered, "Steve and I, we, uh, broke up."

Adrian immediately switched off the tap. It took him a second to register what Y/N had said.

"What?"

"We broke up. I called it quits with him."

Boom. A bomb had been dropped. This was huge news. The biggest news ever. They had broken up. Like, officially. It wasn't everyday that something so great happened in Adrian's life, so he was ecstatic.

"Thank God!" he cheered, completely forgetting to put up any facade or pretend that he wasn't over the fucking moon.

Steve and Adrian hadn't been best of friends but in the limited interactions they had had, Adrian had been polite to her ex boyfriend. Y/N raised an eyebrow at her friend's display of excitement.

"I thought you two got along?"

"He was an asshole, Y/N! Seriously!" His grin was almost manic, and his hands shook as he clapped them together a few times. "You're so much better off without him."

"Hell yeah, I am!"

His happy mood was infecting Y/N. Before she'd been going back and forth on whether breaking up with Steve had been the right thing to do or not, but now, thanks to Adrian's support, she knew it was 100% the right choice. Yeah, they'd been together for a year or so and giving that up instead of working on it could be considered a waste but...

"He didn't deserve me. That cheating asshole didn't deserve a single minute, no, second of my time!"

At that, Adrian remembered one time when he caught her boyfriend ogling their coworker Jennifer, who had a very prominent chest. She was a provocative person. All her clothes were a little bit small and slutty - not that being a slutty was a bad thing since Adrian was a big advocate of women being sexually liberated and having the ability to fuck whoever they wanted to. Jennifer wasn't the problem, far from it.

The way Steve caught eye contact with him and gave him a look that screamed 'I'd hit that ass' turned Adrian's blood into pure fire. In his mind, Adrian couldn't fathom ever wanting to leer at other women when Y/N - his literal dream girl - was right beside him. Steve had a smoking hot 10/10 on his arm and still wanted to play the field.

Fuck that guy!

Still, it sucks to be cheated on. Despite the brave face Y/N was putting on, it still sucked to have your trust betrayed over and over and, as far as she knew, at least another 17 times again.

"I'm really sorry, dude," Adrian said, and meant it. He wanted to comfort her in some way but didn't know how without looking weird, so he just half heartedly pinched at her arm, trying his best at reassuring. Y/N let out a tiny chuckle. It wasn't as bright as usual but it was more than sufficient to reassure Adrian.

"Hey, it's all good. My plan now is to stay single until Mr Right comes knocking at the door."

"Yeah? That's a good plan," Adrian nodded eagerly. "He's around, I'm sure of it."

"I hope he is. I haven't had an orgasm in the past - Jesus, how long? - year, I would love one right about now," Y/N laughed. Then, her brain caught up with what she'd said. "Not that you needed to know that. That was TMI, wasn't it?"

Was it? Was it really too much information? Maybe it was a little private, sure, but it was information that Adrian wanted to know. Well, he didn't want her unsatisfied and unhappy, but he now knew that he was capable of something that Steve hadn't thought about doing in an entire calendar year.

"I could fuck you better than he ever could."

There was a level of confidence in Adrian's voice that Y/N had never heard before. Her mind briefly blanked out due to the shock of hearing such words come out of Adrian's lips, and thanks to her dazed state, he got the wrong idea. His shoulders slumped and his ears became bright ruby red.

"What?" she mumbled.

"What?" He parroted back, his voice raising into a panicked squeak. Maybe she hadn't heard him. At this moment in time, he wished she hadn't heard him. "I didn't say anything. Did you hear something? Could've been Jennifer. I think I heard her saying something like that the other day."

Y/N's imagination was going wild and every single image that popped up was appealing to her. It would be a lie if she tried to say that she hadn't thought about it before, that she hadn't thought about him before. He was so nice and cute and had big biceps and was one of the only reasons she stayed at her shitty paying job.

"I heard you, cowboy." His eyes shot to meet hers. "You finish at 6 today, right?" He nodded. "Are you doing anything after that?"

No fucking way! Jackpot! He grinned to himself and looked at his hands in the soapy water. He simply couldn't help it.

"I have a few errands to do."

She attempted to not sound as disappointed as she felt. "...Oh, maybe another day then."

"No! No, I mean, I'm totally free after 7. Once I do my shit, I'm, like, totally not doing anything so if you wanted to - only if you want to, seriously no pressure or anything - we could watch a movie or I have a bunch of video games we could play or, I don't know... do something together and hang out and stuff? Anything you want, really. If you'd like?"

He cringed at how desperate he sounded when he finished his sentence. The last thing he wanted to do was ruin his chances. Yet, Y/N wasn't dissuaded by his words at all. If anything, she was more than tempted.

"I'd really like that, Ade."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"...Okay. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Very cool, very nice. I'll text you my address."

Time flew by as Adrian couldn't wait to finish work. They continued chatting as they worked, but both knew they were subconsciously focused on what would happen later that night. It was like some kind of gravitational pull that was making it difficult to keep them away from each other for more than a few minutes and it was driving both of them crazy.

6pm hit and Adrian was speeding to his 'errand'. He pulled up a few streets away, yanked on his Vigilante suit, and was stalking his way towards a suburban house. Steven had posted an image of him next to his car (that wasn't even particularly fancy, so why he showed it off like it was, Adrian didn't know) whilst outside this very house.

Be careful what you post, folks, or somebody might use your images to find where you live so they can beat you up.

Technically, cheating isn't illegal. But it is a sin - not that Adrian was religious in the slightest - and Adrian thought Y/N should have the world and this guy, this Steven, couldn't even provide her with basic human decency? Vigilante would be willing to expand his usual set of rules tonight. Steven deserved it.

Vigilante whistled to himself as he knocked and waited for Steven to appear. Once the asshole did open the door, Vigilante swung and hit him straight in the nose.

"What the fuck, man?" The bastard grabbed his nose to stop the bleeding and stared angrily up at Vigilante. "Vigilante does house calls now?"

"This ain't a house call. This is a message." Adrian paused for dramatic effect. "You're a cheating scumbag! I should chop your shrivelled dick off for being such an ungrateful cunt."

"Who sent you? Was it Tina?"

"Not Tina."

"Abby, then?"

"No."

"Liz?"

"Liz, no."

"Penny?"

"Dude, are you for real?"

"Emily A?"

"Jesus christ."

"Emily L?"

"OMG, you're the whoriest whore to ever whore!

Steven stood there, mouth opening and closing a few times before his pea brain managed to say, "No, you," and despite how lacklustre of a comeback that is, Steven seemed proud of himself.

It was quiet.

Then, because both of these men will ultimately try to solve everything with their fists, the boys lunged at each other. Steven had never been smart - he knew Vigilante was adept at hand to hand and had killed people before and still tried to fight the guy - so as he saw an opening, drove his fist into Vigilante's stomach. He was a beefy dude, so Adrian was aware that there was going to bruise there for a few days, but Vigilante had been in hundreds of fights. One blow to the stomach was not going to slow him down for long.

If anything, it urged Vigilante to be more vicious. With two quick punches - one to the groyne and another to the neck directly on his Adam's apple - Steven was crumpled on the ground in severe pain and having a hard time breathing.

"You hurt Y/N, you jackass!" Vigilante yelled, giving his reasoning away.

Shit. He hadn't meant to divulge that. He'd been so caught up in the moment that it slipped right out. And so, before anything else gave away snippets of his identity, Vigilante left the scene and rushed as fast as he possibly could back to his apartment building.

It was 6.56 when he finally got home. He had 4 minutes - well, probably around 9 because of her tendency to be late - and he spent most of that time throwing his suit off. Did he smell like he had just beaten somebody up? He didn't really have time for a shower but could give himself a quick wipedown, a whore bath of sorts.

The punch patch on his stomach was something he couldn't do anything about. He could hide it with his shirt for the time being. If things went well and there was some under the clothes type action, she'd definitely see it.

Would she care? Would she stay long enough to notice? The night would have to go either really good or really bad if it ended with him with his shirt off. In the best case scenario, they would make sweet, hot, passionate love and she'd become totally beguiled by his moves. Worst case scenario, a fire. Or a battle. Or a war. Or maybe she didn't like him that way, which would be crushing but he'd still pine from afar.

So, with the hope that he would be shirtless at some point tonight, Adrian began brainstorming excuses he could use. He'd never been a great liar but he had to try. Got headbutted by a baby goat? Nope, he doesn't look like the sort of guy who'd do well on a farm. Walked into a bookcase? Fuck, that made him look clumsy as shit (which he was) and clumsy is not sexy.

What if he told her the truth?

Would she believe him?

Three gentle knocks cut his workshopping short. Y/N was here. He took a deep breath, sprayed some cologne, and opened his front door.

"Hi."

"Hi," he said back, a crooked smile plastered onto his face. His heart was beating faster than a hummingbird. "C-come, come in."

She walked through the doorway and her eyes were immediately scanning his place as she slipped her shoes off. His apartment was mostly bare, apart from the geeky accoutrements littered here and there. There was a poster of Hellboy on the wall, his bookcase was filled with Dungeons and Dragons books - both guidebooks and the accompanying novelisations - he had multiple Critical Role figurines, and an old looking gun on a stand.

"Is that the colt from Supernatural?" Y/N asked, walking towards the revolver.

"Yup. Yeah, it is," he leaned against his desk and rested his elbow over the surface, "It's one of the ones they used in the show. I got it at an auction on eBay. Pretty awesome, huh?"

"So awesome!" She knelt down a bit to read the inscription on the gun stand and her eyes lit up a little when he casually lifted the gun up and handed it to her. Her fingers closed around it and gently touched the smooth, cold metal. "Do you like guns? Like regular ones?"

"Uh, yeah, I think they're pretty cool."

That was an understatement.

"Do you like gunslingers? Like, Dean? Or Percy de Rolo? Or Rambo, even?"

"I love Rambo!"

Something in Y/N's demeanour changed.

"What about Vigilante? Do you think he's cool?" she asked, trying not to sound too eager for the answer.

Adrian looked back at her. He felt nervous about all this before she'd asked that and now it had only increased. Y/N kept her eyes locked on Adrian, watching for any slight change in his face or body language as she twirled the gun between her hands.

"Vigilante? He's cool," Adrian replied carefully. He tried to sound nonchalant and casual like nothing happened but his voice cracked slightly upon saying his last word and he cursed himself out mentally. "Do you think Vigilante is cool?"

Y/N looked down at the gun. "Steven called me before I got here - I don't know why I picked up but I did - and he was screaming down the phone at me. He kept saying that I was such an asshole for telling Vigilante to beat him up, but I've never met Vigilante," she explained slowly, her brows furrowed a little as she frowned. "Steven was certain Vigilante said, 'You hurt Y/N, you jackass!'"

The walls felt as if they were closing in.

"Weird," Adrian commented dryly.

"Yeah, it is weird." Y/N put the colt back down on its stand. "I only told you about my breakup."

A pin drop could be heard. It was so silent for far too long. The silence was so thick that Adrian wondered whether or not time had stood still and they were frozen in the moment.

"Either you told a stranger my personal information -"

"No, no, I would never do that."

"So, if I only told you and you didn't tell anyone else..." Y/N trailed off as she got closer and closer to Adrian until he could feel the warmth of her breath on his cheeks. Her eyes flickered down to the hem of his shirt and her fingers soon followed.

Fuck. He couldn't breathe. He didn't want to breathe. His brain was going wild. His lungs couldn't keep up with its demands to keep inhaling air because every breath was so shallow. Every gasp was so sharp and desperate. Every intake was so painful. Everything was hurting. All Adrian wanted to do at that moment was run.

Run. Just fucking run.

He broke from her grasp and crossed the room. He couldn't bring himself to say anything. What was there to say? 'I put on hockey pads and beat up criminals when everyone else is sleeping'? That made him sound kinda insane.

"Adrian, I'm not going to tell anyone." She said softly, her tone completely devoid of judgement as she reached out so he'd come closer. "C'mere, please?"

Historically, he'd never been able to deny her and his streak wasn't going to end today. Though he was reluctant and slow to move, he let her take hold of his hand and was tugged closer and closer until the very tips of their socked toes were mere millimetres apart.

"You're doing good. Real good. Not that save the turtles corporate bullshit. There's a lot of bad people who slip through the cracks. And, yeah, maybe I'm not fully on board with all the murder and violence thingy going on but..." Y/N's hand came up to cradle his cheek and gently stroked it, "You help me sleep at night, did you know that? You're a good man and a great friend, so please don't pretend that you're some monster."

And with those final words, her soft lips found his and everything seemed to explode in sparks. It was like everything he'd ever imagined and more. He pulled her in by the waist as he deepened the kiss, his thumb drawing circles on her hip bone. Everything became a blur of sensation: her body, her hair, the scent of her perfume and the faint taste of cherry chapstick on her lips.

Before he knew what was happening, he'd lifted her in his arms and her legs were wrapped around his waist as he pressed her back against the nearest wall.

"I should've dumped him months ago," she muttered against his lips. Her breathing was ragged and he could feel her heart beating fast against his chest.

That sentiment was something said in his mind for the entirety of Y/N and Steve's relationship. They weren't a good fit. Literally everyone could see that. So, Adrian had to ask, "Why didn't you?" as he dragged his lips down her neck while his hand slid underneath her sweater and started roaming over the warm skin of hee lower back.

"Because..." Y/N breathed his name. "... I don't know. I genuinely don't know. He was obnoxious and lazy and I always imagined it was you whenever we got intimate -"

She stopped mid-sentence when Adrian groaned at her words. "Oh my God, that's so fucking hot," Adrian moaned, finding her pulse point and sucking directly on the skin there. She was like putty in his hands, completely unable to pull away even if she wanted to. Her eyes fluttered shut and she tilted her head back, giving him easier access to her neck.

"You wanna fuck me, yeah?" he felt the need to confirm.

Just because she was grinding herself onto him, her hips rolling off where he'd pinned her to on the wall and against Adrian's crotch, didn't necessarily mean she wanted to go all the way.

"Yeah, I wanna fuck you."

"Hell yeah, fuckin' sick."

If those hours in the gym were used to lift Y/N to his bedroom, then it was time well spent. They were a mess of tangled limbs and kisses; hands wandering freely as Adrian walked them to his room.

The bed creaked as Y/N was set down upon it, her head falling backward onto his pillow with a soft poof. Adrian climbed above her with a knee on either side of her hips.

"Hi," he beamed.

"Hi baby."

His face softened at the nickname and his lips formed into the widest smile his face was capable of, making him look as stupidly happy as he felt. With Y/N beneath him, everything just seemed perfect. Nothing was wrong with the world and the universe had agreed to give him the most almighty of wins.

He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her deeply; tongue sweeping across her bottom lip and begging entrance without a second thought. Y/N eagerly opened her mouth for him, granting him permission as her legs widened to allow him to slot himself between them.

"Can you take this off? I wanna feel you," she urged, tugging at the bottom of his shirt. He complied, shrugging it off casually and throwing it somewhere, and was immediately bombarded with the feeling of Y/N's palm drifting down his abs. "Jesus christ! You're shredded, dude!"

Adrian got a smug little look on his face as he watched her explore every inch of his body. But, the way his eyes widened made her realise that he wasn't used to this. He wasn't used to people being nice to him and wanting to be around him. She could change that. She would change that.

"You're so hot." She ran her finger down his stomach and then along his navel, pausing momentarily to brush her fingers through his happy trail, before her hand continued its path even further down. "Do you want me to-"

"Fuck, do whatever you want to me."

Y/N could feel herself falling in love with him even more each minute. And she knew it would only get worse when undid his trousers to palm the bulge in his boxers, and he let out the most pitiful whine she'd ever heard. She laughed a little at the sound of it, kissing his bare shoulder briefly as her hand slid underneath his underwear and wrapped around him.

"Shit," he hissed, bucking up against her touch. He sounded desperate, and when she looked into his eyes, his pupils were dilated in arousal. His cheeks were splotches of red, his bottom lip hooked on his teeth, brows scrunched together, his chest moving dramatically and his gaze focused on the ceiling as he tried desperately to control himself as she jerked him off.

"Baby," she spoke lowly. "Look at me."

Slowly but surely, he tilted his head to focus on her, his green eyes meeting hers for a split second. She smiled and brought her free hand up to cup his cheek.

"Your eyes are so pretty, cowboy," Y/N cooed. "It's almost impossible for a girl to look away."

"I watch you all day," he began, his face scrunching up when he realised how stalkerish his rant had started. "I mean, whenever we're in the same room I can't help it. Part of me wants to make sure that you're safe and happy and comfortable, and the other part just can't resist. I'm a moth and you're the flame, y'know? You're bright and beautiful - you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen - and I can't help myself."

Her hand stopped. His chest heaving for a completely different reason now.

"Do you mean that?" Y/N asked in disbelief.

The only answer Adrian could give was an exhale and a "Yeah".

That was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. And since it was so nice and she'd been in a relationship with a prick for so long, Y/N didn't know how to respond.

"Fuck, uh, forget I said that. I understand if -"

"Why would I want to forget?" she asked, surprising even herself with the firmness in her voice.

Adrian gave her one of those tight lipped smiles that he usually gave whenever people made fun of him at work and he just had to stand there and take it.

"You know, you're you," he eventually explained, sitting up and gesturing excitedly, his hands brushing up and down her body. Then, his voice quietened when he added, "And I'm just me."

"Adrian, 'just you' is my favourite thing in the world."

He blinked. Once. Twice. Three times. The gears in his mind were whirring furiously until his brain finally caught on to Y/N's words. In an instant, he was surging forward, kissing her hard and possessively with a vigour that left Y/N breathless. The smooch was long and hot and wonderful, and she wound her arms around his neck, holding him close as they continued to deepen their kiss.

When the need for air overwhelmed her and she had to break apart from him, they simply rested their foreheads together and giggled, both of their chests rising and falling rapidly as they struggled to catch their breaths. Adrian's thumb stroked her cheek and Y/N couldn't help but notice that he was watching her with such affection it made her heart flutter.

That's why she had no qualms urging, "Let's get naked." Adrian grinned wickedly at her suggestion, leaning down to place another searing kiss on her lips as his fingers fumbled with the zip of her trousers.

Soon, they were bare, sweating, and completely wiped out thanks to the rigorous activity they'd just participated in.

Y/N smiled crookedly at him as he flopped his weight onto her, burying his face into her neck as they got their breath back. Now things were a lot more peaceful and slower paced, Y/N could feel her phone poking into her back and wiggled it out from under her.

The pair cuddled together, neither one speaking or moving much for a few minutes. As he lay atop her, Y/N ran her hands lightly over the strong planes of Adrian's back, smiling at the soft sighs escaping from his lips.

"I gotta pee before I get a UTI." Y/N nudged Adrian's shoulder. "Where's the bathroom, cowboy?" He told her the directions and checked out her ass as she left the room.

He turned onto his back and began excitedly fist punching the air. "Fuck yeah, oh fuck yeah. Me and Y/N sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G," he began to sing to himself, unable to keep in his glee any longer. And he was still smiling at the ceiling when Y/N slid underneath the duvet beside him.

"Do you wanna watch a movie?"

"Yeah."

"Sick, lemme find my glasses."

Before he could shoot his hand out and knock his lamp off the bedside table, Y/N lifted his glasses up and delicately placed them on his nose. "There we go. How do I look? Like a sweaty pig, right?" She joked, brushing her thumb along his jawline.

"The sexiest pig I've ever seen."

"How many sexy pigs have you seen?"

"So many," he playfully replied. "Peppa Pig is my dream woman."

"Not Mrs. Piggy? She's hot as hell."

"Too high maintenance."

To further the joke, he took his finger and gently pushed the tip of her nose up so it would look more like a snout. She couldn't help but laugh. Well, she thought it was going to be a laugh, but it actually came out as a snort.

Calling the girl he was hopelessly in love with a piggy was not where he thought his night was going to go. But, that's obviously his nickname for her now.

"See? My little piggy."

She gave him a half hearted slap on the bicep then snuggled into his side as lifted his laptop from under his bed and onto his lap. Adrian picked some campy horror movie and they barely paid attention to it since they alternated between makeout sessions and bouts of playful teasing.

An hour into the movie, Y/N's phone began to blow up with notifications.

Steven: Adrian?

Steven: You fucked that guy from work?

Steven: Slut

Steven: Absolute whore

Steven: Fucking 4eyes?

Steven: You fucked him?

Steven: Him? Of all people?

Steven: You fucking piece of shit

Steven: Tell me it's a joke

Steven: You're fucking with me

Steven: Baby, I know you didn't

Y/N: did you not hear me on the voicemail?

Y/N: I thought I made it very clear that I did.

Together, they laughed at all the messages that came through. Y/N eventually blocked Steven and closed that chapter of her life forever.

"That problem is solved," she reassured with a smug smile, earning a cheek kiss from Adrian.

He played with her fingers and wrongly declared, "If you think about it, we are the perfect pair. Me being a cowboy. You, a pig."

"How so?"

"Cowboys herd pigs. Duh."

Their romantic relationship officially started in hysterical laughter since Y/N cackled at his comment, and it would continue in the exact same way. They were devoted to not only each other, but making each other laugh, and from that moment on would ensure that their romance was fun and hot and exceedingly loving.

*Click here for my Adrian Chase masterlist, or here for the entire masterlist*

Wanna be added to a taglist? Either comment on this post or send me a message!

taglist: @kpopgirlbtssvt @adriansboyfriend

[vidavalor]

Art Does Not Solely Belong to the Artist

For my fellow Good Omens people:

I don't usually write about real-world stuff on this blog but the current stuff is unavoidable and relevant and I write to process things so the result is some thoughts on the horrible mess:

From the moment that art sees the light of day, it does not belong to the artist. It belongs to the world. From the moment that even just one other person sees a work of art, it is no longer just the domain of the artist. The work of art now has a life of its own and it now belongs, collectively, to every person who engages with it.

Everyone who views a work of art comes at it from their own unique perspective. They bring their own background knowledge, their own experiences, their own fears and dreams. If they connect with a work of art, it can be a very personal experience and, in some cases, transformative. People who engage with art can sometimes see that art become part of the fabric of their lives in many ways. They might make art of their own related to the work or use aspects of it, consciously or unconsciously, as a tool to process struggles within their own lives. The work of art might be tied to memories and to new friends they've made from engaging with it. They might view the community built around the work of art as a place of happiness and solace in an uncertain world.

All of these things make it difficult when it becomes evident that the artist's behavior is not in line with what attracted many good people to engage with his work.

It can be a lot to learn that a monster made the thing that brought you joy. It can be a lot to learn that a monster made art that you love but that is so completely antithetical to their own words and deeds outside of the art that the hypocrisy makes your blood boil. It can be a lot to keep that anger and disappointment from turning into cynicism. Letting it is not a great idea-- that is just letting the monster get you, too, in a way, and helping darkness to spread.

Do not cede the stories you love to darkness; they belong to you, too, and to all of us. Do not let any bleak, horrible people behind the stories you love take from you what belongs to you.

It does not actually matter that his name is on the book or the tv show in question; it belongs to all of those who helped make it and to all of those who read and view it. It evolved independently into the product of all who engage with it and of all who engage with one another as a result. Good Omens is not a just a book or a tv show anymore; it's a community of people who have read and viewed Good Omens. People who have made art inspired by its themes and found new friends around the world as a result of engaging with its story. Those experiences are our own and do not need to be denied just because of the repugnant acts of one of the many people involved with the story.

As a rape survivor, I can tell you that two things can co-exist: you can acknowledge and be horrified by the pain suffered by victims of the monster and you can also still enjoy the community of people who came together over a sense of positive connection made by art that was originally made, in part, by that monster. Both can-- and should-- be done. Despairing over the darkness of the world does nothing. Countering that darkness with every bit of love you have is what can actually make the world better. Staying in this community and continuing to be a part of it with the big, open, lovely hearts it is known for would be the best way to be a force for good.

You do not need to give up Good Omens to be supportive of his victims. In fact, I can't think of anything less effective-- that is only allowing the blast radius of his predatory behavior to spread. What would actually be helpful is to believe his victims and, as a community, come together for SA survivors in every way we can think of. The book and the show and this community do not belong to one creep of a guy-- they belong to all of us. There's no reason for us to go because this is our home.

Good Omens isn't just him; it belongs to the late Terry Pratchett, Michael Sheen, David Tennant, the hundreds of people it takes to make the show, and all of us who have made our own art and made new friends as a result of it. It is not okay to diminish the suffering of human beings or to place the fate of a fictional story above them but it is also very much okay to not give up on that story and its community entirely because of the actions of just one of the many people involved with it.

With any luck, there will be some justice in the real world for his very real, very disturbing behavior. That is obviously what is most important here.

As for the show? He is one, very replaceable creep, who didn't even write half of S2 himself. (Not to mention half the book.) It takes many people to make a tv show and S3 is an already-planned last season that just needs to be steered into port. It'll be fine.

In the meantime, it's fine to still love what we love-- because it's ours, too. Make your fan art. Finish your meta and your fic. Be silly and laugh and have fun. Giving up what makes you happy because of one, heinous asshole is not taking the moral high ground-- it is helping darkness win by destroying a community space that positively serves many, a lot of whom are survivors themselves.

Calls to dump Good Omens entirely are empty, performative outrage that serves no actual, practical purpose for improving anyone's lives. It's an attempt to put everyone who works on the show out of a job and to force the cancelation of prominent, trans-friendly media, and to help along any of that would not do anything to hold him accountable, nor is it respecting his victims. If you want to honor their suffering, don't help him and the gross bigots who exposed him spread more pain of any kind. Believe the victims and let law enforcement and the studios deal with the justice. There are much more productive, much more effective ways to respect his victims and one is to not let their suffering be the reason why you give up a source of your own positive connection and joy.

[kimmie2me]

Greeny Ghost

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀𓂅⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Ghost!Midoriya Izuku x AFAB!Reader

.....

The alley stretched out longer than you’d thought, shadows swallowing the corners, broken only by dim streetlights. You’d walked down plenty of places like this before, but this one was unnervingly quiet. Your friends were supposed to be with you, daring you into the so-called “haunted” alley, but when you turned back, you saw—no one. Just empty space.

“Those jerks,” you muttered, kicking a stray pebble with an irritated huff. Just your luck to get abandoned in the middle of a ghost story.

That’s when you saw him: a faintly glowing figure at the far end of the alley, barely visible in the low light, his form flickering like static on an old TV. He wore a junior high uniform, like he was frozen in time, but it was his eyes, wide and curious, that had you rooted to the spot.

"What the hell." You blurted out, which caused the ghost to jump a bit.

“You… you can see me?” he asked, sounding more surprised than you felt.

“Guess so,” you replied warily, feeling your fists clench. You took a step back, but he stayed still, watching you with something close to wonder. “A-are you the… ghost? Y'know.. that one ghost?”

“No. I mean, yes, but… not like… like an evil ghost!” he said, frowning as he waved his hands in the air, trying to seem harmless. “I don’t hurt anyone or anything. I just… hang around.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? So why are there all those rumors about people going missing in this alley?”

He let out a dramatic sigh. “I have no idea! I’ve been here for years, and no one ever went missing because of me.” His arms crossed, and he gave you an indignant look, clearly offended. “I keep watch over the place. There’s a run-down building nearby, and sketchy people use it for… whatever sketchy people do. I’m just here observing them, making notes sometimes.”

“Uh-huh,” you said, unconvinced. “Sounds like something an evil ghost would say. Plus, why would anyone believe some… green-haired ghost taking notes?”

His frown deepened and he sighed. "Really? 'Green-haired ghost? I have a name and identity, you know? My name is Midoriya Izuku."

You shrugged, giving him a skeptical look. “Sure, whatever. and I'm giving you a new identity: ‘Greeny Ghost.’ Also, how am supposed to trust you? You're a ghost and the movies basically explain what you're supposed to do. Just don't haunt me or I'll pour holy water down your throat.”

He threw his hands up. “Why are you making this harder than it has to be? I’m just here because I, well, exist here.” His voice softened a bit, frustration giving way to a hint of sadness. “It’s not like I can go anywhere else.”

“Yeah, and every creepy spirit says that before they drag you into some other world and keep you locked up for eternity,” you replied with a smirk, folding your arms in a show of exaggerated defiance. “Sorry, but I’m not falling for the ‘poor trapped ghost’ act.”

Izuku groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose as if your words were physically painful. “You remind me so much of Kacchan! In a bad way!”

You raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. “Uh-huh. And what, or who, the hell is ‘Kacchan’?”

Izuku looked at you, his face twisting into an expression halfway between exasperation and resignation. “Kacchan! My… a friend from junior high. Sort of. He’s… well, actually, no, he’s nothing like you.” Izuku seemed to rethink this, blinking in realization. “He’s a lot worse.”

“Wow. So you’re saying I’m less tolerable than some guy named Kacchan, who, by the sound of it, doesn’t sound like someone with a good rep?” you said with mock offense, pressing a hand to your chest. “Way to compliment a girl, Greeny-Ghost.”

He looked like he was about three seconds away from floating back through the alley wall, giving up on this ridiculous exchange.

You look at him a bit more closer, and you note he looked about your age, but… different. Ghostly, of course, but there was something else, something in his eyes that almost seemed… lonely. You didn’t know if you believed him, but something about him made you stay.

“What’re you even doing here?” you finally asked, taking a careful step forward. "Are you trapped here or something?"

“Besides not being evil?” he shot back, still salty. But when he saw you weren’t about to leave, he sighed, softening. “A villain got me… in this alley. I was just a kid, and I never really… left, I guess. People pass by now and then, but nobody usually sees me.” He shifted, looking suddenly uncertain. “Actually, you’re the first one to ever talk to me.”

You studied him, noticing the worn edges of his uniform, the tired, resigned look in his eyes. He seemed less scary and more… well, kind of tragic. Still, you weren’t about to let your guard down. “Yeah, well, maybe people hear the creepy noises you make,” you challenged. “Y'know it freaks them out.”

He blinked, clearly caught off guard. “Oh! You mean the notes? I’m trying to keep track of the activity around here,” he said defensively. “Besides, no one told me my note-taking was creepy.”

“Right,” you said, biting back a smirk. “So you’re a scholarly ghost, huh?”

A light blush appeared on his cheeks. “Look, I don’t get many hobbies! Ghosts don’t have a lot to do except observe.” He crossed his arms, giving you a quick glare before his expression softened again. “Anyway, I’m not the villain here. The creepy noises? That’s just me muttering to myself or something.”

Your arms relaxed a bit, the eerie feeling of the alley giving way to something else entirely. His earnestness was unexpected, and honestly, a little endearing.

“Alright, Greeny,” you relented, softening just a little. “Maybe you’re not as evil as they say.”

He sighed, looking relieved but still a little skeptical himself. “That’s… comforting, I guess.”

You shrugged, shoving your hands in your pockets. “Guess I’ll see you around.” You turned, giving him a small wave as you walked away, his faint figure watching you until you disappeared around the corner.

.....

Three days later, you found yourself back at the alley. You weren’t sure why—maybe it was the way he’d looked at you, or that stupid hopefulness in his voice. This time, you came with something: a small letter in your hand, the ink smudged slightly where you’d clutched it nervously.

You called out, half-expecting him not to show, but he appeared, looking pleasantly surprised.

“Back already?” he teased, a lopsided smile on his face. "

“Don’t get too excited,” you shot back, trying to keep your tone casual. You extended the letter. “It’s… from your mom. I found her, told her I met you… and I convinced her to write something for you. Don't ask why I did it. You looked so miserable here, it made me miserable.”

His mouth dropped open, his expression turning from surprise to something you couldn’t quite name. He took the letter in shaking hands, his gaze fixed on it like it was the most precious thing in the world.

“She… she actually remembered me?” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. He looked up, tears pooling in his eyes. “Thank you… I can’t believe you’d go out of your way for… for me.”

You shrugged, feeling a little awkward under the weight of his gratitude. “Figured you could use a reminder that you’re not just… some alley ghost.”

He laughed a little through his tears, wiping his eyes. “I’m really not an evil ghost,” he said, voice soft and grateful.

“Yeah, well,” you replied, rolling your eyes with a small grin. “You’re still Greeny Ghost to me.”

Izuku blinked, visibly surprised by your small grin, and for a second he just stood there, processing it. Then, with an awkward but excited energy, he smiled back.

“D-do you want to, uh… stick around for a bit? I could, um, show you what I’ve written down,” he stammered, gesturing to a tattered notebook that materialized in his hands.

You chuckled. “Sure. Show me what a scholarly ghost looks like.”

He lit up, practically vibrating with excitement as he began flipping through his notes, talking fast as he pointed out every bit of information he’d gathered. You listened, half amused and half impressed by his careful, detailed observations. Each page was crammed with tiny, meticulous handwriting that covered everything from people he’d seen pass by to strange objects left in the alley over the years.

“I try to keep track of everything,” he explained earnestly. “It’s not like anyone really notices me, so I figured… maybe someday, if someone needed to know anything about this area, I’d have it all written down.”

“Sounds like you take your ghostly duties pretty seriously, huh?” you teased, glancing through his observations. "Well, I try to be a hero in my own way" He replied with a small smile. As you skimmed a particularly eerie note about some “sludge villain” incident that had occurred nearby, a thought hit you.

“Wait, was it… the sludge villain? Was that what got you here?” you asked, looking up to find his expression turn somber, yet resigned.

“Yeah,” he murmured, a shadow passing over his face. “It all happened so fast. I didn’t even see him coming. They said… All Might couldn’t get there in time.” He paused, then shrugged, as if he’d long made peace with it. “Guess it’s just the way it happened.”

You looked at him thoughtfully, and something in you softened. “You know… I think All Might was really sad about what happened to you.”

Izuku’s eyes went wide, almost panicked, like you’d just told him he’d accidentally disappointed a beloved friend. “S-sad? I didn’t want him to feel sad! I mean, All Might is my hero! He’s… he’s… I never wanted to make him feel like that. I was always cheering him on!”

You attempt to put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, which failed as it phases right through. After a second try, you deem the gesture to be futile. “Hey, it’s okay. All Might probably knew that. And who knows? I bet he even came to your funeral.”

Izuku looked up, the panic giving way to a kind of hopeful wonder. “You… you think so?”

“Of course,” you said, grinning a bit. “And hey, maybe that ‘Kacchan’ guy you mentioned showed up too. You’re not as alone as you’d imagine, Greeny.”

He looked at you, eyes brimming with a strange mixture of gratitude and disbelief, as if no one had ever told him something like that before. “Thank you,” he whispered, voice soft and full of warmth. “For saying that. It… it actually means a lot.”

You shrugged it off, feeling a little flustered under his earnest gaze. “Yeah, well, can’t leave a ghost like you feeling down, right?”

Izuku chuckled, the sound light and unexpectedly comforting. “I guess not,” he agreed, eyes still shining with gratitude as he turned back to his notes, flipping to a fresh page. “You mind if I write down that you came back? I think… I think I’d like to remember it.” You nod.

"Yeah, sure you can."

From that moment on, he followed you like a quiet shadow, slipping into conversations, teasing you as much as you teased him, and reminding you of the friend you’d found in the most unexpected of places.

[from-the-clouds]

moonlight on the river - joel miller x reader

masterlist | song inspo

summary: Joel has been many things to you. A dealer, a mentor, a friend, a lover. Lately, it’s the latter.  Sometimes he’s none of those things, or a handful of them, or all of them at once. And it’s up to the both of you to decide in the moment which things are true. Takes place during episode one of the TV series. pairing: joel miller x f!reader words: 2.4k warnings: angst, fluff, good ol' fashioned hurt/comfort. depressive thoughts, reader sort of has a death wish, references to alcohol/drug abuse, death, loss of family members & loved ones. implied age gap, references to casual sex, heavy petting (no smut). a/n: it's been months since i posted a fic on here! some of my best work comes when it’s 2am, i’m emo and touch-deprived and i have an 8am appointment so i stay up until 5am to write. this was actually supposed to be fully a fluff piece but the angst queen had to strike.

You wish you could drown in the pile of blankets you’ve wrapped yourself in. Wish the couch would swallow you whole, like a whale, then drag you down to the deepest depths of the ocean and leave you there until you can’t hold your breath any longer, until the cold pricks the tips of your fingers and toes, until you succumb completely. 

But in some ways, you’re already existing like that, in the sea-level equivalent of the Marianas Trench. One of those sea creatures that look not of this Earth, features warped – adapting, evolving, surviving, despite your environment’s best efforts to eradicate. Your mother had once shown them to you in her old textbooks and shown you the photos of anglerfish, frilled sharks, phantom jellyfish. The memory of your mother makes you wince, and you try to think of something else.

How anyone else around you managed to put on a brave face and make their way through each day was beyond your comprehension, even though you do it, too. They probably all feel the same way about it as you do, but no one talks about the collective trauma you’re all slogging through. No one has anything new to add, and it’s foolish to believe that anyone’s insight could somehow take the pain away. Even if you have a chance to tell your story, there is always someone who has it worse. 

Get in line. 

Exhausted as you are, you don’t sleep much. Most of your nights are spent at the precipice of unconsciousness, and you can never quite make it over the edge, the helicopters, radios, sporadic gunfire always manages to rouse you first. When you do manage to sleep, you’re plagued with nightmares. You prefer perpetual fatigue. 

A knock at your door comes suddenly, and you start, sitting up quickly – but quietly – to not alert the unexpected guest that someone might be in the tiny studio you call home. It’s well after dark, which makes you doubt that whoever, or whatever is at the door, isn’t there for a friendly drop-in or a cup of tea, not that friendly drop-ins or cups of tea ever happened. 

But before you grow too panicked, your name is muttered, accompanied by another impatient rap of knuckles against the hollow wood. It’s a familiar rasp, even-toned and calm, and your shoulders sag in relief before you abandon your post on the couch. 

“Joel?” you ask softly, squinting in the dim light of the hallway through the crack in the door. He doesn’t look any different, though it’s been about a month since you’d last seen him. You’re not sure what to expect, but he’s the same as always, wearing a worn, tight denim shirt and fraying jeans. He looks tired, but you can’t recall a time when he doesn’t. Everyone looks tired all the time, it just only concerns you because it’s him. 

Not waiting for an invite, he steps through the small opening you allot for him and into your place, wordlessly.

“What the fuck, Joel, it’s past curfew are you trying to get yourself killed?” 

“I’ve done worse,” he says, dismissively, and yanks the door from your hand to close and lock it behind him. 

You don’t argue with him. You rarely do – which you think is partly why he likes you – but especially now, you don’t have the energy. And when you do, he’s too stubborn to listen. 

Joel has been many things to you. A dealer, a mentor, a friend, a lover. Lately, it’s the latter.  Sometimes he’s none of those things, or a handful of them, or all of them at once. And it’s up to the both of you to decide in the moment which things are true.

So when he steps forward, crowding you backwards until your rear hits your kitchen countertop and you have nowhere to go, you don’t ask questions. 

His hand cradles your chin, tilting it back to look into his sad eyes, and he kisses you. For a split second, it’s chaste, and you’re almost confused, until it’s suddenly not, and his grip on your jaw tightens, his lips parting. Joel stakes his claim, his free hand winding into your hair and pulling. You sigh, closing your eyes. 

He moves both his hands to cup your ass through the flimsy athletic shorts you’re wearing, lifting your hips up and against him, making to carry you to the bed, or maybe even take you on the countertop – it could be one of those days. Everything he’s doing would normally light you on fire, and there’s a primal instinct that’s telling you you like it, but for some reason, you hesitate.

Joel senses it right away. You’re not sure how. And you don’t want him to. You’re prepared to submit, even though you feel numb everywhere, because you hope for the chance to feel something, anything other than what you’ve felt the last few days. He pauses, too, pulls back. 

You expect to meet his eyes when you look up at him, but they are fixed on something else. Tugging on the collar of his shirt, you try to kiss him again, but he doesn’t budge, until you follow his eyes. An empty bottle of liquor sits on the bar behind you. Fuck.

“You’re drinking again.” It’s not a question.

“That was actually from yesterday,” you say, like it would make any difference. The remnants of a hangover have been tweaking your temples all day, biting the back of your eyes. It was half empty when I got it. It was just one night. I can have a couple drinks without getting out of control. Your brain cycles through several more excuses before you decide not to waste your breath. 

“What did I tell you about this?” He reached behind you and lifted the bottle, holding it in front of your face like you hadn’t been able to see it clearly enough before. 

“You should talk,” you don’t like being cruel, but you’re already desperate to end the discussion. He’s probably drunk or high right now, but it’s none of your business, and you’d given up trying to save him a long time ago. 

You shift your weight to lower yourself off the counter and move away from him and the once-inviting warmth of his embrace. Joel doesn’t let you make it far, reaching out to grip your upper arm and tugging you back to face him with little-to-no effort on his part. His strength always startled you, even though it shouldn’t, considering his size. It also should’ve scared you, but the manhandling mostly just turned you on. Not enough that you were going to keep letting him lecture you.

“It’s different. You’re still so young.”

“What does that matter?”

He doesn’t have an answer. 

You lift your chin, squaring up to him. “That’s what I thought.”

He puts his hand on hip and studies you carefully. Despite your attitude, you’ve never liked disappointing him. He’s the closest thing you have to a father, which you can recognize is an awfully fucked up way to feel about someone you regularly have sex with, but you lived in an awfully fucked up world.

There’s a wistfulness to Joel’s expression you’ve never seen before. He chooses to change the subject, and you’re thankful until what he says registers. 

“I’m leaving town tomorrow night. You might not see me again.”

It takes a moment to process, but it hits you like a blow to the gut. So hard, you’re surprised you don’t stagger backwards with the force of it. Even when it settles, you know it hasn’t even sunk in all the way.

“Well…” you take a long, thoughtful pause, and offer the only thing that your brain can come up with, “....stay safe out there, then.”

“Yeah,” he runs his tongue over his teeth and squints at you. “You want to tell me what’s going on?” 

Snorting, you know it’s important to remain as blase as possible so you don’t cry. Although, you don’t really cry anymore. Even when you want to, the tears never come. At some point, after watching every person you’ve ever cared for die in uniquely devastating ways, you must’ve reached your lifetime limit. 

“I know you. Something’s up.”

No, you don’t! You want to scream, but that would be a lie. It’s been three years since you met, maybe one since your….arrangement, or whatever you’d call it, had begun. 

How the two of you had become so close was a mystery even to you. It’s not like you were charming or charismatic, or willing to put up the innocent act. You didn’t try to inflate his ego, which most men loved. At first, you didn’t even really like him at all. That changed with time. Somewhere along the way, things just clicked.

“It’s nothing that no one has ever felt before,” you shrug. Joel has his fair….or rather unfair share of demons, and is the last person you want to complain to. Most of the time, he’s unflinchingly guarded, but he’s shared enough – secrets whispered in your ear while tangled in damp sheets, your hand on his chest, feeling the steady thump of his heart – to make you wonder if you have it so bad. Focusing on a fixed point, a crack in the tiled floor, you avoid his eyes.

“Hey,” his voice pulls you back. “Don’t do that.” 

“I’ll be okay,” you say. “I’m just having a d-a week.” A month, a year, a life. Reluctantly, you meet his gaze.

His face softens, his hand reaching to clasp with your own, thumb grazing across your palm. “Come here,” he murmurs. He pulls you against him tightly, tucking your head under his chin, his fingers weaving into your hair. 

“You’re going to be alright. You’re a strong girl.” He’s too smart to believe that, you think. But it doesn’t stop you from pressing your lips against his sternum. His broad chest is sturdy, firm, and you close down your eyes. 

Neither of you speak, and one of his hands begins to stroke your back in soothing circles. You stay wrapped in his arms for a long time. Long enough to think about how you might never get to do this again, and you suddenly want him in all the ways you never had him, and all the ways you had. Just one last time. 

He presses a kiss to your temple. “I can tell you’re exhausted, baby. Let’s get you to bed.”

There’s no reason to protest, he’s right, so you let him lead you to the bed. You’re already in your pajamas, and he draws back the covers and tucks you underneath them carefully. 

“You’re staying,” you say. It’s meant to be a question, but it comes out like command, and although you can’t stand the idea of pleading for it, would if you had to. You’re that desperate. 

You hear the clunk of his boots landing on the floor, feel the dip of his weight on the opposite side of the bed. 

“Of course,” he says softly, voice barely above a whisper as he slides underneath the covers. 

Joel’s arm snakes around your waist, and you’re being pulled back against his chest. You wriggle to be closer, even though it’s not possible, his nose resting on the crown of your head, stroking your hair softly. He’s being so tender, so sweet, it makes you feel sick.

“What if I don’t want you to leave?” you turn your head slightly, so you can see him out of the corner of your eye. You want to be able to remember his face, in case you never see him again. He was handsome, you’d always thought that, even despite the years between you. 

“It’s my brother. I don’t have much of a choice, baby.”

Joel had told you all about Tommy. You wished you could be resentful at his leaving to find his brother, but you knew you’d risk pretty much anything for the chance to see anyone in your family again. 

You shake your head. “This…sucks.” 

He offers a rare chuckle, one that vibrates through his chest and straight to the ache in your stomach that started when he told you he’d be leaving. “It does. I’m sorry.”

Joel sighs, his breath on the nape of your neck, and you shiver. “I’ll miss you.” It’s a simple truth you can hear in his voice without even needing to look in his eyes.

“I’ll miss you.” You reach for his hand. 

You roll over to face him, his head propped on his opposite hand, looking down at you. 

“You remember everything I taught you?” he asks. “Be smart, keep yourself safe.”

Joel had proven to be a pretty valuable resource when it came to survival skills. He’d taught you how to shoot a gun, to load and reload it, how to take it apart, clean it, and put it back together. You recalled the feeling of him leaning over your shoulder, adjusting your grip to shoot at a target. And even if most of his lessons in hand-to-hand combat resulted in him having his way with you on the kitchen floor – you didn’t mind it at all – you knew enough to defend yourself. 

“I do,” you answer. “And I will.”

You think of all the time you’ve spent with him the past few years. How it has made things bearable. It’s likely the last time you’ll ever see him, and you know what you’re supposed to say. But for the life of you, you just can’t say it.

Instead, you lean in to kiss him, lazy and lingering, both your hands on the side of his face, palms pressed against the scruff of his beard. You pull away after awhile.

“Tell me about what it was like. Before all this.” When the outbreak began, you were just a child. It felt like a dream, your memory so fuzzy it was hard to recall anything except the worst parts.

Joel does, and you listen, captivated, though it’s not the first time you’ve heard it. For such a gruff man, he paints a pretty picture.

It’s easy to imagine what your life might be like if none of this had ever happened. It would have been better, infinitely better, for yourself, for Joel, for everyone. It would be better, but if it hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t have met him. For some reason, something about that doesn’t feel right.

[eyecan02]

Charlie's Relationships Analysis

Charlie gives me the impression of someone that is at a place in her life where "she's really into her career." Because of that, narratively, it doesn't make sense for Charlie to be in a relationship with anyone at this point in the story.

I understand that Viv is trying to give Charlie the "Barbie" treatment- the beautiful blonde who has it all. She's a princess, she has a business, a loving father, friends and a supportive girlfriend. The only problem is that Charlie's career seemingly comes first and her relationship feels more like an after thought.

On top of that, the co-dependency feels so unhealthy. I was so alarmed when Vaggie said, "What good am I to you if I can't make your dream come true?" This question encapsulates Vaggie's character.

Vaggie wants to be Charlie's night in shining armor but Charlie has told her "I can take care of myself." She appreciates the support, and it must feel comforting to have someone to cuddle with and be intimate with after a long day. But I'll say it again, Charlie just isn't emotionally/in the right head space to be in a serious relationship right now.

Vaggie really believes her only purpose for existing is to make Charlie happy and that's so unhealthy for them. Viv said this about Chaggie, "It didn't feel like I wanted to spend time doing the 'will they won't they' thing. Or them getting together or just them being together. It just didn't really make sense."

"Didn't want to spend time..." So in the other words...she didn't want to put in the effort to give Chaggie a more fleshed out relationship the way they deserved. It doesn't make sense because they're literally the main couple, and Vaggie plays the important role of one of the managers.

But it sounds like Viv is focusing more on the representation rather than the chemistry. It's the angel and demon romance trope. It had so much potential. Before season one dropped, I thought I was gonna be multishipping Huskerdust, Charlastor and Chaggie. I wanted Viv to prove me wrong and show everyone that they actually are an interesting couple.

The "sexy" scene she has planned for them sounds so forced and shoe horned in and feels like she's just saying "Here's a horny Chaggie song. See? They have chemistry." Chaggie had potential but there's literally little to no chemistry there unfortunately. Story wise, they just don't make sense.

As for Charlie's relationship with Alastor, I find it interesting the way they mirror each other. She's a business woman and Alastor is a business man of sorts. Think of the way they changed her pilot outfit to match Alastor more- the hot pink is almost a dark red, they both have bow ties and they both even have shoulder pads. Sometimes they say couples/partners start to "resemble" each other the longer they remain in close proximity to each other.

Speaking of close proximity, Charlastor really sped run their relationship and moved in together after one day. Alastor didn't necessarily have to move in to help Charlie. He could've gotten a house close by. Instead, his radio tower is at the same level as her room and for the new and improved hotel, they're literally staying on the same floor together once more.

The decision to live together was probably made in order to be more accessible to Charlie. It doesn't matter why Alastor has to be at the hotel, the point is he's there because for some reason he has to make her happy (I made a separate analysis for this involving Al's microphone staff).

Keeping Charlie happy also means doing things he's not particularly fond of. There's other ways to advertise but he chose to use technology and went out of his way to film a commercial all for Charlie. As he said, he would've preffered to advertise through radio but she "insisted" on a TV ad so since that's what she wanted, he didn't make too big of a fuss about it.

Al honestly sounds like Charlie's husband. The husband does his best to please his wife and sometimes does things he doesn't like just to please his wife.

On top of working with technology, Al chose to team up with Vaggie for another commercial, he played along with Charlie's forgiveness game and "forgave" Pen for ruining his coat and allowed Pen to stay there even after the betrayal. All this to make himself look good in front of Charlie.

When things seemed desperate and even out of Alastor's power, he picked a fight with Charlie's (popular theory) dad in order to push them together so that she could get that meeting with heaven. Even when it seems Alastor can't directly help Charlie, he finds other ways to help her from the shadows.

And when Alastor DOES have the right connections to help Charlie, he really delivers and goes all out after a bit of teasing. He shows her how to use a smile as a power move so that she feels more in control. That's what Charlie wants- to be more in control and confident.

Alastor just always seems to know Charlie's wants and needs. He seems to know her better than she knows herself. Storywise it's giving twin flames. Think of their love of song and dance. They both have very high opinions of each other.

Charlie has a clear praise kink that seems to ONLY come out around our favorite deer man. Alastor would rather draw 20 cards while playing Uno than stop touching Charlie. He finds her charming and fun and she finds him dependable and encouraging, which is the kind of support she truly needs right now in the story.

I understand that Vaggie is meant to "ground" Charlie, but Charlie isn't a character that's meant to be tamed. She's easily excited and she's a dreamer just like her dad. She's also insecure and doesn't have much confidence in herself. But Alastor helps boost Charlie's confidence, and let's her thrive by letting her just be herself.

He told Rosie, "Surprised? I knew she could do it all along." Vaggie knew Charlie for three years and Alastor only knew Charlie for five months when he said that line to Rosie. Yet, he believes in Charlie so much. No matter what lies behind Alastor's original intentions for being at the hotel, the fact is that he is fond of Charlie and they have undeniable chemistry.

In my eyes, their contract is sort of like a marriage because it binds them together until Alastor cashes in on the favor. Depending on what the favor is, the favor might bind her even more to him. "She's filled with potential I could guide." That line sounds like he wants Charlie in his life long term.

[marie-m-art]

There's a specific concept from Good Omens that I really like (amongst many others), that I was chuffed to also find in a Sandman and a Discworld story!

I love that in Good Omens (both book and TV), Heaven and Hell are presented as mostly redundant and ineffectual when it comes to human morality - and that Hell in particular find some of the things humans do to be pretty shocking, and/or instructive.

Opportunities for humour aside, this idea flies in the face of the common belief that the world's worst ills are the result of outside forces influencing people to do evil (ie the devil. Or ... lizard people etc? I digress). And it's unlike other stories out there that are like, "World War II was actually caused by xyz characters!" or similar. Good Omens doesn't rewrite history like that, or let us - humanity - off the hook when it comes to the big stuff, when it could so easily have done so in a universe where Heaven and Hell are literally real.

The story, of course, also credits human cleverness to humans, and celebrates the things we should be proud of, like art, music, delicious food, craftmanship, invention, etc. And it credits humans for having a propensity for compassion and goodness.

"[Crowley] did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. […] And just when you'd think they were more malignant than ever Hell could be, they could occasionally show more grace than Heaven ever dreamed of. Often the same individual was involved."

I love this concept because I see it as an uncoupling of religion and morality. They can both exist together, but the former isn't necessary for the latter. (This isn't the only possible interpretation; the more literal reading might be more about free will, but this is where I extrapolated it to).

From Sandman: Season of Mists Episode 2 (plot context stripped out to avoid spoilers, but skip ahead to black text if you want absolutely nothing spoiled if you want to read it).

Lucifer: "And the mortals! I ask you - why? […] Why do they blame me for all their little failings? They use my name as if I spend my entire day sitting on their shoulders, forcing them to commit acts they would otherwise find repulsive. 'The devil made me do it.' I have never made one of them do anything. Never. They live their own tiny lives. I do not live their lives for them."

And from Eric, a Discworld book (this one's related to Hell learning from humans, more than morality/free will... I won't spoil the funny by elaborating!):

"Earl Beezlemoth rubbed one of his three noses.

'And humans somewhere thought this up all by themselves?' he said. 'We didn't give them any, you know, hints?' […]

The earl stared into infinity. 'I thought we were supposed to be the ghastly ones,' he said, his voice filled with awe."

Another commonality between these two stories that isn't directly shared by Good Omens (yet...? still have another season coming …) but that I like enough to point out, is the idea that Hell is a place where people end up if they believe they deserve to go there. I like this because a lot of people are influenced to feel guilty about "sins" that are innocuous parts of normal human behaviour, so it's pretty brutal to fear going to Hell over them. There's comfort in this idea, to me. (granted, the following Sandman quote states this less explicitly but I take the same meaning from it … but lmk if I've done a reading incomprehension; I also haven't read all the books yet).

From Sandman:

Lucifer: "And then [the mortals] die, and they come here (having transgressed against what they believed to be right), and expect us to fulfill their desire for pain and retribution. I don't make them come here."

From Eric (partial footnote near the beginning):

"Interestingly enough, the gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that's where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go."

Eric also really leans into the idea of Hell being a bureaucratic, corporate, boring nightmare, also familiar to Good Omens fans, and the demons are so over it. The tone (you could probably guess) is very different from Sandman, and it's one of the earlier, less-serious Discworld books; it's a very fun, absurd ride of a read!

There are a few other Discworld books I'll talk about in a future post, that may also be of interest to certain Good Omens fans (I'm gearing these posts toward the fans who came to Good Omens from the TV show and haven't had the pleasure of discovering Neil's and Terry's other work yet); the ones I have in mind examine religious extremism, and the uncoupling of religion and morality too. A couple of them also have queer themes, if that is also your jam! (Less shipping opportunities but I assume some fans, like me, like the rest of the material in GO in addition to the love story).

I'll end this with a quote from a footnote from Eric that has nothing to do with anything in this post, but which took me by surprise and had me laughing days later whenever it came to mind. It's referring to books in a section of the library:

"Just erotic. Nothing kinky. It's the difference between using a feather and using a chicken."

And another bonus one that I found while looking for the first:

"Rincewind had been told that death was just like going into another room. The difference is, when you shout, 'Where's my clean socks?', no one answers."

I hope this made sense and is maybe interesting to someone ... I had fun talking about this at least!

[mystreet-liveblog]

Earlier today I thought to myself how Season 1 feels the most iconic despite being the least developed season (from a production and continuity standpoint)

Now I’m trying to think about why. I don’t think the reason has anything to do with the plot or characters or humor, but rather the formatting

Season 1 was a Minecraft Roleplay. Sure it had a few cinematic scenes, but at its core it was a bunch of characters existing and interacting in Minecraft. It was mostly first-person perspective with in-game dialogue read out loud by Aphmau, and it had that nostalgic feeling of playing Minecraft with your friends

None of the other seasons capture that same feeling (so far on my binge anyway). The first-person perspective is still in some bits of PDH S1 and Love~Love Paradise, but they don’t have that same Minecraft-specific vibe to them

The best example I have of what I mean is in S1 when Aphmau is unpacking her boxes and putting up her posters. She is building in Minecraft! You don’t see that past Season 1, where characters take out blocks and place them, because the story slowly starts not-being based in Minecraft

Of course, the switch to cinematic storytelling is by no means a bad thing. I’m just pointing out that the reason Season 1 feels so different is because it’s far more Minecrafty than others. The show slowly stops being a Minecraft Roleplay and starts becoming a “roleplay in Minecraft” during its run

And I think this is also why Season 3 feels sort of disconnected from the rest of the show (I know it’s where a lot of OG fans stopped watching back in the day, myself included). Season 3 is entirely cinematic, with most of the Minecraft aspects gone beyond the medium itself. Even the cats are changed from Minecraft cats to Neko Atsume cats

For the first two seasons, MyStreet was still a Minecraft Roleplay, but the third season made a big leap into TV-show territory. It sort of feels like it came out of nowhere, too, despite previous seasons having fully-cinematic episodes of their own. I can’t quite figure out why it felt so different because of this. Cinematics weren’t new, but perhaps since they often came alongside pov scenes they fit in better

And that makes Season 4 a very interesting case. I haven’t started Season 4 on my binge yet, but something I distinctly remember about it is that it brought back the first-person perspective shots (though I believe from Aaron’s pov this time, establishing him as a season protagonist). I think this is a great idea because it returns those initial S1 vibes I was referring to

Then, as the season gets more plot heavy, the pov gets replaced by more and more cinematics, until the paradigm shift fully establishes MyStreet as a TV-show once again. I think this is what Season 3 needed: a reason to become more TV-like

Season 4 is an MCRP until suddenly it isn’t, and its advancing story becomes deserving of cinematics. Season 3 didn’t entirely earn this shift. MyStreet has always been TV-like but it wasn’t a proper show until Season 4. Or, more accurately, it became a show in S3, then reverted back for a proper transition in S4

I still like S3 and its cinematics, but I also admit that it could’ve benefitted from taking itself a little less seriously at certain times. The pov shots are comedic because they remind the audience “oh yeah, this is a video game!” I don’t think S3 did anything wrong, but just by simply being different it created a different vibe to the whole thing

Anyway, I’m looking forward to starting S4 soon, and seeing if this post holds up by the end of it

[taranida]

Thomas Zane's writing or the lack thereof

The third and final point I left unanswered in my theory about the 70’s.

the extent of Thomas’ writing powers, since as much as it is stressed a lot that he wrote himself out of reality, Barry, with a little research, is still able to find out about his existence, yet Alan in one of the “Writer in the Cabin” TV’s claims “A story is a beast with a life of its own. You can create it, shape it, but as the story grows, it starts wanting things of its own. Change one thing, and you set off a chain reaction of events that spreads through the whole thing.” The chain reaction here never happens: we have hard evidence that both Thomas and Barbara existed.

I guess, I should start with the rules of writing things into reality, that we learn throughout several games.

In AW1 Alan says about chain reactions: change one thing and others will follow, because the characters and the world in the story must be true to themselves. In AWAN it expanded even further with Alan making his, sometimes quite ridiculous, phantasies come true by starting the chain reaction by nudging the reality to fit his writing. One way or another it’s established well enough: each word causes the butterfly effect. Write something wrong and the whole thing will fall apart or twist; forget to add a little detail and the event you lead to will never happen.

There is a bit more about it in his Hotlines in Control:

Be clever. Make them do the work. Form the image in their minds. They make it. You just imply. Incept. They are drawn to the mystery. Obsessed. You set it up, they put it together. Their interpretation. And there's only one, because you give them no choice. And they believe in it, because it's theirs now.

Again: put a detail in and make people do the work. If you do it clever, you don’t need to expand on every little thing, the story will leave them no choice but to accept, believe and act accordingly.

The story needed many beginnings. Many springs. Streams that turned into a river, a flood, and then, an ocean. This was one. Wake used the materials he had. The connections he had. The people. The places. Wake put them in to make it true. His wife. The psychiatrist. His city. These connections, like magnets, moved things. Alice was a conduit. She'd been in the Dark Place. The Thing-that-Had-Been-Hartman sensed her near. Sensed Wake through her. Went berserk. Broke loose. Wake made sure Alice was already gone by then. Safe. The more springs, the more the story became real. The more people believed. Cause and effect. It was extremely delicate and hard work. It had to go through the path of least resistance. Where success was most likely. Where there was a connection already.

Alan always stresses out how important it is to thread on reality, use all the tools to make the events as plausible as possible for everything to fall into place. Yet, much of his writing, that came true, is pretty unbelievable stuff. Mr. Door in the second game calls Alan out on it: the rules are self-imposed, the loops are a choice. My take on it and all the hoops Alan creates to jump through: it doesn’t really matter what you write, the chain reaction will happen, as longs as you, as a creator, believe that’s possible.

Thomas, as it is presented, certainly, believed that he can erase himself and Barbara from reality; believed that this was the only way to stop the Dark Presence, to undo his mistake. And we see that some of it worked to a certain degree, as Cynthia tells us:

“He tried to undo it, wrote himself, her, everything he’d ever written out of the world. He was so famous. And afterward no one knew. Oh, Tom.”

Alan, who was very involved in the literary world, doesn’t recognise the name when he sees the shoebox in the cabin; Barry claims:

“Yeah, okay... anyway, there was an island there, owned by a guy called Thomas Zane. Now, some of the articles I found about him make him out to be a famous writer. But I ran a bunch of searches, couldn’t find a single thing he wrote.”

Thomas’ works are really hard to come by; the only people who read him, aside from those who knew him closely back in the 70’s, are Alan and Samantha, who found poems in shoeboxes, and Jesse Faden, who might’ve or might’ve not possessed a shoebox of his at some point in time. But the very existence of Thomas Zane and Barbara Jagger is quite known.

Barry with little efforts finds newspaper articles by Cynthia:

“Zane was heavily into diving, so much so that the place came to be called Diver’s Isle. But the volcano under the lake erupted in 1970, and Zane went down with the island.” […] “It gets better: a local girl, Barbara Jagger, drowned in Cauldron Lake just a week earlier. They were lovers.”

Randolph, the trailer park manager, acknowledges that Barbara is quite famous around here:

“Sure, Jagger’s a local spook story: ‘The Scratching Hag!’ Comes for you in the dark. Childish stuff like that.”

(Thomas is a legend around Bright Falls too, by the way, as seen from this bit of Sarah Breaker’s dialog:

Not even mentioning the Diver’s Isle, that still bears the name given to it by Thomas’ hobby.)

Barry continues:

“I’m just getting to the best part: all of the articles about this stuff were written by Cynthia Weaver. I asked around, and she’s that crazy bag lady you met...” […] “Yeah, anyway, she knew both Jagger and Zane before they both died and she had some kind of breakdown.”

And we have two of those articles in the guide:

This one mentions Thomas at the very last paragraph

And here’s the one about Barbara’s death

What we need from them are dates. They both were written before Thomas erased himself and Barbara from existence, so why the chain reaction didn’t delete those evidences together with other magazines and newspapers that mentioned him or printed his works? I mean, the way-to-go for writers at the time was to publish their pieces in the press, even Alan started like this, yet there is nothing of Thomas’. The bits that remained are those written in Bright Falls, where the AWE, caused by the last poem, originated and is strongest. I don’t believe that the journalist being Cynthia matters in this case; she indeed remembers Thomas and Barbara, but her previous work has nothing to do with it and had to be erased.

There is also a problem of fighting the Dark Presence off. I have to admit, the more I dive into this topic, the more I question if Thomas even wrote anything about deleting himself and Barbara from the annals of history or tried to fix him unleashing the Dark Presence onto the world. All we know about this comes from manuscripts written by Alan and the only two other sources of information. One being extremely vague on what happen and what Thomas wanted to achieve:

The Poet and the Muse

In the dead of night she came to him with darkness in her eyes Wearing a mourning gown, sweet words as her disguise He took her in without a word for he saw his grave mistake And vowed them both to silence deep beneath the lake

And another telling a very different story:

This House of Dreams

The diver (or what was left of him, his true self) spoke the words of his secret poem. The poem described a new world, an island in this sea of darkness, a safe haven, a paradise, a “baby” universe. The nature of the dark place was such that anything dreamed up there, any dream or a work of art, would come true, just as true as anything in our world can be. And the poem came true and the essence of the diver and the essence of his girlfriend escaped from the darkness and disappeared into this new world to live there happily ever after; while their shapes, his now taken over by a bright presence, as his girlfriend’s had been taken over by a dark presence, surged up, through the opening in the lake to our world, to continue their battle there.

According to the Bright Presence here, Thomas wrote his masterpiece about the new world, a personal paradise for him and Barbara to be happy there; not about erasing all traces of their existence and trapping the Dark Presence in the depths it came from, since both Presences surged up to the new playground.

So, did Thomas even care about fixing any mistakes, except for not getting the real Barbara back? Or was his writing so sloppy, he failed to erase anyone from reality properly and failed to contain the Dark Presence in the lake? And what happened after he was cosily tucked away in his new private baby-universe in the Dark Place with his love? How exactly did he save Cynthia, as she claims, from the darkness with his light?

What horror was left behind?

In my theory about the cabin, I wrote that we are led to believe that Thomas was caring, considerate and aware enough to leave a loophole for him to help when someone, as he predicted, eventually will awake the Dark Presence. The catch here is: some of this information comes from Alan’s manuscripts; some — from the “characters trapped” in Alan’s story, as Cynthia put it. What if Thomas wasn’t any of those things? What if he only cared about himself and Barbara and wrote them the happy ending, leaving others to deal with the mess that he caused?

IN TENEBRAS CADERE

“To fall into darkness”. Indeed, in the memory of a very questionable poet.

[aimportantdragoncollector]

On the setting of werewolfverse / And Then There Was One:

-This takes place in an alternate Earth. The geography is roughly the same but the places have different names. The werewolves have swallowed up the fantasy world equivalents of Africa, Europe, and Asia by the modern day. Now North America, South America, and Australia remain.

-Kazuo's country, Abara, is located in North America. There is no equivalent of United States in this AU. This is partly because without a British Empire, there was no incentive for the states to form a union. It's also because the werewolves have been using their wealth and power to subtly discourage large human countries from forming. They prefer human countries to be in smaller, easily digestible sizes.

-Werewolves live in the Lupercal Empire. Lupercal has no concept of money, people simply request whatever they want and get it. This system would NOT work with humanity and its bottomless capacity for greed. It only works in a society where everyone is forced to feel an empathy that discourages them from resource hoarding. The inner wolf can't lie, allowing the wolves to communicate among themselves about what their people need.

-Everyone in Lupercal is living an upper middle class lifestyle. (At the high end of upper middle class.) Again, this is possible because of magical help. Werewolves have a nature affinity ability that allows them to easily produce large quantities of food, they have superstrength/superspeed, they have telepathy to perfectly coordinate their economy. There's a lot more to go around in werewolf society. Income inequality is very low. It's possible for werewolves to earn more resources by working based on the difficult and time-intensity of the job, that is perceived as only fair, but it's still people moving around in the same general social class rather than being in a different one. The ultra rich do not exist. Werewolves would be appalled at anyone hoarding more resources than they can use.

-Since work is not a necessity, the arts are thriving in werewolf society. All forms of art are highly valued. Werewolves also like to consume human art, but the flow is restricted in the other direction. Any human who had free access to Lupercal art would soon learn about the werewolf mission and how they definitely do not view humans as equals. Lupercal is still trying to keep their invasion plans a secret from the hairless apes. So Lupercal has its own internet that humans cannot access, and any books/art/TV that leaves the empire must be censored before humans can see it. Within Lupercal there is no censorship. They're only keeping secrets from humans.

-Werewolves can run faster than cars, making them obsolete. Some people still have car races. But they are not used for transportation. Even when transporting goods, it's easier to have a werewolf pull a cart.

-Since werewolf decisions are made by group consensus, Lupercal has a thriving tradition of debate. They love their debating events and have built amphitheaters.

-Religion is...weird. Lupercal has freedom of religion in principle, but in practice werewolves don't respect humans enough to listen to any human religious leaders. Basically, werewolves don't respect non-werewolves, not even deities. A lot of werewolves will continue to practice religious cultural traditions and holidays that they enjoy, but for fun and without any sense of obedience. Werewolves do not have their own deity. (Someday I may talk about how werewolves were created, but for now it would be a spoiler for the second story I have planned in this AU.) Humans who are religious are a lot less likely to volunteer for the bite because they have noticed how it erodes faith.

-Werewolves believe in reincarnation, or rather they treat it as a fact. They are correct in the context of this universe. Part of the effects of the bite is claiming a soul for the pack, forever, ensuring that those bitten will reincarnate as werewolves rather than reincarnate as a human or go to any afterlife. Over time werewolves have grown more magically powerful as the pack swallows up more souls.

-Werewolves tend to be constantly knowing about each other's business due to the telepathy and smelling emotions. It's polite to pretend not to know private stuff. However werewolves don't let anyone remain unhappy in the long term without staging an intervention. It's very hard to be a werewolf NEET because someone will come along to drag you out of your room. Whether that is a good thing or bad thing might be open to opinion? Werewolf society doesn't let anyone fall through the cracks, which is good. However it can be harder to get any privacy. Even if a human might be fine alone, the wolves crave contact and will arrange playdates if need be in order to force their people to make friends. On the plus side, every werewolf knows they have a few billion people who will catch them if they fall.

-Some werewolves handle need for privacy by moving to more isolated places. That is acceptable as long as you're happy. The pack doesn't feel the need to intervene if you're happy. Werewolf introverts are plentiful, but everyone has friends because the inner wolf demands it.

-Werewolves have no nudity taboo but they love pretty clothes. Love of art also includes a very thriving fashion industry. Werewolves have loads of spare time on their hands so they run experimental in stuff like clothing and cooking. They also have very enthusiastic sports competitions.

-Werewolves love to learn too, and will often spend their entire lives dropping by college to take classes in stuff that interests them. Scientific advancement is prized for making lives easier. They have heavily automated production with robots to free up leisure time.

-Werewolf society is so wealthy because of their telepathic network, which they can use to prevent waste. Some unpleasant facts: in the USA 30-40% of food gets wasted, and 85% of textiles end up in landfills every year. Werewolves have a huge advantage because they can telepathically poll people to make sure food ends up where it should be instead of the food people don't purchase rotting and expiring in grocery stores. They produce only what clothing they need instead of a lot of it getting thrown out. That is HUGE because their society can ensure everyone gets more while producing less. By human standards, Lupercal is cheating.

-Werewolf leadership is part election part meritocracy, with people who want to be pack leaders undergoing a series of tests and trials that get publicized. Having strong magic is vital to becoming a pack leader, because as I already mentioned, pack leaders are in charge of implementing the decisions of the pack so they must be capable.

[artist-issues]

please trash Marvel's Phase Four with your mad skills, I hate it so much (the Hawkeye TV show was the best thing that came out of it) and Im in the mood to have someone share my rage over it lol

It’s been so long since I’ve seen most of them! Sorry. I’ll try to put my vague disappointments in them from back then into words:

Black Widow: The main problem with this one, if I remember correctly, is that there’s no build-up to Natasha’s connections with her family, or the other Widows. We like and accept Yelena because of the good writing and Florence Pugh’s charm; we like and except her parents for the same reasons—but do we feel for Natasha when she’s figuring out how much to love and worry about them? No. Not like we did when Pepper had to choose to blow up the roof Tony was on in the final battle of Iron Man. Not like we felt when Steve lost Bucky. Why? Because the whole “family,” all the “other Widows,” have no real, human depth to them, and no time for us to see that humanity displayed.

The dad’s a caricature, not a guy we can relate to. So’s the mom. And the other Widows are non-characters; they’re pretty faces representative of a conflict, who can have tragic music played over their death scenes so we remember “why Natasha fights.”

Pepper and Tony fear for each other’s safety and wonder what they are to each other, just like the sisters are supposed to in Black Widow. But we care about Pepper and Tony, because we’ve seen what a day at the office looks like with them. We’ve seen their normal. We’ve seen who they are as people, and how they interact on a normal level—so that when the extreme interactions come, we’re already invested. Black Widow doesn’t have that. It’s “weird caricature group gets turned into weirder super-spies and they spend a few minutes worrying about each other out of nowhere at the climax of the film.” That was my impression of that one. But I only saw it once, and liked it better than the others.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - Normal human moments, but way too much time spent on retroactively revealing layers of backstory. Heres the dad’s backstory. Just kidding, that’s not all of it, here’s some more. And here’s the part you missed. And here’s the backstory of this magical world. Just kidding, here’s some more. And here’s backstory on the main character. Sorry, he forgot to reveal the Big Emotional Part, we saved it for the pre-climax, so have a little more backstory.” You’re so busy keeping all that straight that you don’t have as much capacity leftover to care about the main characters, even if those main characters do have some human moments to appreciate.

Compare it to Thor. Both movies have “hard-to-swallow magical realms existing near the Normal World.” But not both movies set the audience up to accept, believe, and keep up with that. Thor does. Shang-Chi doesn’t.

The whole introduction to Thor carefully tells you the full “outer boundaries,” the hardest stuff to swallow about the magical world of Asgard. And it helps you understand and swallow those things well before you need to be really invested in the emotional reactions of the characters. In the first half of the movie, they neatly go: “Guy walking out of a tornado and getting hit by a car, seemingly impossibly; he must not be normal. Let’s show you why. Ready? Here: 1) Frost Giant war + how this realm relates to the normal world, 2) Asgard & the king’s sons, plus their different motives 3) how the rainbow bridge and Thor’s banishment works. Got it? Back to the Normal Story.”

By the time you’re jettisoned into the Normal World part of the movie, you care, emotionally, about everything Thor and Jane care about, from her losing her lab equipment to him thinking his mother hates him—without having to take breaks in their story to remember how a rainbow bridge works or what the Frost Giants want, etc. But Shang Chi is all over the place, back and forth, up and down, three layers of tragic hard-to-believe backstory on top of each other. …And it delivers all that backstory in bits and pieces, as interruptions to the “normal world” or “present adventure” part of the story.

Plus, the “normal world/present adventure” part isn’t even that good, I’m so sorry to say it. Our previous heroes had normal-human obstacles to overcome, sure, but those relatable obstacles were still severe. Big character flaws that would come back to haunt them. Steve wonders if he’s all alone in his resolve and responsibility—and that keeps coming back up no matter what his circumstances are. Tony wonders if he can ever accomplish his full potential and make up for his past mistakes—and that keeps coming back up, no matter the circumstances.

But you’re telling me I need to not only believe that Shaun and Katy “wonder if they’ll ever take life seriously enough, like adults”—not only believe that—but that after this adventure, that’s the struggle he’ll always have to overcome?

Seems to me it should be something more along the lines of “have mercy instead of controlling everything through conquest like my father.” They kinda tried to do that. But the problem is, it doesn’t connect back to his “relatable human flaw.”

Steve had to realize he wasn’t alone fighting Nazis and Hydra and Thanos—sure—in big moments, like the one where Shaun chooses to spare his father. But guess what? Steve also had to learn to overcome his flaw in little moments, too. He has to realize he’s not alone in waiting for “the right partner;” Peggy is also committed to waiting. He has to choose to believe he’s not alone even though he’s a man-out of-time—by taking an active role in the present, by asking his neighbor out on a date.

Shaun’s little “when am I going to grow up and be an adult” thing only pops up in his human moments. It doesn’t have a parallel in his superhero moments. So then I don’t care as much, or relate as much, to his character.

Because honestly, not every member of the audience can even relate to worrying about that. Only young adults and teenagers. Maybe some 30-40 year-olds. But it’s not a universal thing, like Steve’s broad loneliness or Tony’s broad pride.

Eternals - Without a doubt the most horrifyingly bad MCU movie I ever saw. Worse than Captain Marvel.

I don’t even know where to begin. This movie had no idea what it wanted to be, except a direct smack in the face to anyone who believes that humans should submit to a deity who made them and accept their purpose. Obviously that most closely fits the description of a Christian audience, but this movie really alienated audience members with worldviews that have any monotheistic religious leanings. Or just…audience members with a worldview that values humility, and service, and self sacrifice, and knows that love without this values is not actually love, in general.

The characters have no humanity. They lack depth. There’s a weird fixation on slow suffering and memory loss with Angelina Jolie’s character. Not one character is likeable because we spend barely any time with any of them. Not one is relatable because they do that whole “live for thousands of years” thing, without taking their time and showing us a believable version of ‘what’s normal” to these characters.

And like I said, the message is garbage. It’s appalling.

Spider-Man: No Way Home - This movie was good, I have no notes.

I have a brother who likes to say that the whole first half of the movie is worthless because you only care after the other Spider-Men show up, but I totally disagree, because the point of the movie was “who is (MCU) Peter Parker?” So at the beginning you have him trying to figure that out based on public opinion of Spider-Man and a college;s acceptance of him, and trying to fix his “image” of himself, essentially, so his life can go back to normal. Then by the climax he’s got two other Peter Parkers there, reminding him of what being “Peter Parker” means. You take responsibility to do what you can to help people, no matter what everybody else does. No matter what it costs you. That’s who Peter Parker is.

And they needed to speed-up the maturity level and raise the stakes of their particular version of Peter Parker, because he’s supposed to be a recurring part of this high-stakes universe they created—but they also needed him to return to feeling like a more traditional, “friendly neighborhood” Spider-Man, within that context. And they solved both those problems. And they did it with Andrew Garfield and Toby MacGuire, so I liked this movie, sorry.

Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness - Stupid and wrong.

I have never liked Sam Raimi, but I didn’t have a problem with his editing style or over-the-top drama this time around. I had a problem with the way the characters were handled.

We still barely know Stephen Strange, and we certainly weren’t given the impression that his love interest from the first movie was the great love of his life, so that emotional thread in this movie was flimsy.

The America character was barely a character.

But the worst of the worst of it was Wanda.

You mean to tell me, Raimi, that the Wanda who was experimented on and used for her power from an early age would have willingly murdered a superpowered little girl in a demonic rite? You mean to tell me that the Wanda who just spent a whole expertly-written television show showing me that she’s learned she can’t manipulate people’s lives, and she’s willing to sacrifice her own happiness if it means sparing other people suffering—you mean to tell me that THAT Wanda, the one I’ve spent five stories over several years getting to know—you mean to tell me that Wanda read one vaguely evil book and now she’s willing to slaughter her friends and a little girl so she can steal children from other, weaker versions of her own sad self?

That doesn’t make any sense.

You COULD have it make sense. You could show me her corruption. Show me what the Darkhold’s doing to her. Show me how she got from point A (WandaVision’s ending) to Point B (murderous careless rampage and smiling at the thought of murdering a little girl.) Use your runtime to do that.

But no. We’re going to use our runtime to throw in pointless cameos with no build-up, no real weight or gravity, no genuine excitement. To play with out special effects and CGI. To spend lots of runtime on arbitrary horror-movie scenes and gore.

And then kill Wanda off? …What?! It was idiotic. It was so contrived. I felt like I was watching a forgettable DC movie, or a Batman movie where the star of the story is just shock-and-awe.

Thor: Love and Thunder - This movie couldn’t decide if it wanted to be funny or serious. So it failed at both. First Thor’s making a joky explanation retconning Jane, breaking up with him, as a silly rom-com parody. Oh, then he’s holding her in his arms crying and claiming he’d rather be with her than win a fight, like that’s the big momentous moment-of-change for his character.

Sorry, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you that Thor loved Jane. Because they barely show any serious, grounded, genuine, human affection to each other the whole movie. All I’ve seen is a parody of that, and de-masculatung mockery of Thor himself. You want me to believe he’s losing the love of his life and it’s devastating to him because he’s a human being with depth of emotion? Then don’t set him up as the star of a bad Will-Ferrell comedy.

And of course the “message” is crap. And every situation they get into is unbelievably stupid and unfunny. This is actually the movie that made me give up on Marvel.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - I didn’t see this movie. I love Leticia Wright, I’m on her side. But I had to give up on the MCU after Love and Thunder. I wanted to give up on it after Eternals, but I told myself I’d stick it out for the OGs (any movie about characters from the original Avengers squad or Guardians.)

The television shows during Phase 4 were all pretty good, for what they were, except for Moon Knight, in my opinion.

To sum it up: Phase 4 rushed everything, cut out the grounded human moments and feared all genuine displays of emotion in their characters. Instead they jammed in heavy action sequences, some more gore, and soulless, arbitrary, quick-flash cameos. The only exception was Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Thanks for asking! I could be open to changing these opinions; I’d have to go back and watch them over again, it’s been so long. But I think I’d rather put on wet socks, heel-to-toe, than watch Eternals or Multiverse of Madness, ever again.

[tarabyte3]

Tell me ur fav thing abt Andy <3

You're giving me the opportunity to gush about one of my favorite topics, and I cannot thank you enough for this opportunity. 💖 Trying to narrow it down to 5 things was difficult because there's so much about him that is pretty great. 😌

His sense of humor

Lesser known fact about Andy: he's a little troll. He actually loves doing the Gollum voice to make people laugh. You can see exactly how pleased he is with himself every time. He's also very good at being cheeky and sly, and the man loves to make himself laugh as well. It's infectious as fuck, especially when he does the nose scrunch. If you've ever listened to him tell a story or watched one of his Stephen Colbert interviews, it really shines through then and it's great. (This is why the last time I met him at a con, making him have to stop what he was doing to genuinely laugh was one of my best moments)

His passion

He loves what he does, but more than that he believes in it. He believes in the advancement of film technology that he's constantly in the thick of, and he believes in the importance of creativity and stories. It shows in every interview he gives. When he talks, he puts his entire body into it in the same way he does when he acts. He thinks stories can make the world a better place, and I find that level of hope and optimism beautiful and inspiring.

His talent

I own all of his movies and shows on DVD. (This is not hyperbole. If it was released on DVD, I own it.) So I have seen some pretty terrible things just because Andy is in them, but even then, HIS performance is never bad. Even in films or TV shows from the 90s when he was just getting warmed up, he was already a very good actor. And he's only gotten better. Just look at The Planet of the Apes trilogy. If his performance capture work doesn't convince you, watch Andor. Watch The Accused. Watch Death of a Superhero.

Take that and apply it to his directing, his innovation in performance capture, and his audiobooks. He plays the tenor sax beautifully, he paints, he does photography. In other words: it's not fair. 🥺

His generosity and kindness

He's constantly supporting or working with charities, particularly when it comes to children and education. He also does conventions just to be able to connect with his fans. Because he absolutely doesn't need the money and the man is insanely busy, but he still travels (sometimes twice in one weekend) just to spend time at conventions and sit at a table for hours. He meets hundreds of people in a day, and he still treats everyone with the same level of kindness and excitement and energy. Doesn't matter if you see him first thing or right before the convention closes. You get him at his best.

And finally: HAVE Y'ALL SEEN THIS MAN? JESUS CHRIST HNNGGG

Like oh my god. Oh my fucking god. The world can be a shitty place, but as long as that face exists I will have some hope. As a treat. Because that jawline and those beautiful nasolabial folds makes me want to believe there is a god.

[insane4fandoms]

Only Mack

We do love a sequel

@crazy-obsessed-enby @neons-trash-blog

Also I woke up from my slumber to write this, lmao

꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂꧁꧂

The downside of having an egotistical, sociopathic, and horny obsessive fictional character turned sentient that is able to control every electronic you own and more, is that it made you realize how great it was being alone.

What a great sentence to start this story, am I right?

Anyways, that statement is true however, since at the wonderful hour of 5 am, you were awoken by a suddenly electric jolt going down your back, making you yelp in pain, sitting up straight out of fear.

“Now Viewer, up and rise for the start of this new day!” You closed your eyes and sucked in some air, preparing yourself for the whole day of shocks and that annoying soothing voice.

“Honestly, I’m sure you would be used to my ‘love touches’, by now,” Mack gave a condescending laugh, as if you would laugh with him. He gave that damn smirk while fake wiping tears.

You gave the phone a glare, turning it over and trudging yourself to the bathroom, the one out place where Mack can’t follow unless you take him (as if you would take him anywhere to where he gets to see you without clothes).

“Just because I can’t see you, doesn’t mean I can’t imagine you~!” You face turned red at Mack’s words, wishing you could just grab the phone and smash it to pieces, but that would be futile to do so considering he’ll come back in another screen.

Computers, phones, tv, headphones, Apple Watch, hell, even your tamagotchi he managed to get into! Not only that, but you’re pretty sure he’s a sadist considering he loves shocking whenever you pet your guard down, and claims it was his ‘love bites’.

You should have destroyed every single electronic the moment he became sentient, yet you allowed his words life you into a trap you know you could never escape now. You reluctantly trudged out of the bathroom and made your way to the computer, looking so fine when he popped up on the screen.

“Morning handsome and/or beautiful. You love it when I say that, right~?” He cooed, making you wish he actually existed so you could punch his irritating, yet charming face.

I mean, he technically does exist in real life, you thought, thinking of Matpat. Is he aware of Matt? And if so, does he get jealous when you watch game and film theories? Would he try and stop you?

“Go on! Write another story about how much you tremble from my words~,” Your ear tips heat up from embarrassment, but merely avoided him and placed the curser to the chrome icon. Google Docs was your favorite place to be.

“How about you write another spicy one~? I know how much you love me like that~,” You merely sighed, feeling embarrassed and began to write. For a while, he was suspiciously quiet, since usually he would comment on your writing, but it was like he wasn’t there at all.

That made you a little uneasy.

That was until you suddenly jumped and pushed your chair away from the computer out of fear when an electric hand shot out of screen quickly. Your chest was rising rapidly in a panic, but soon melted into annoyance when you heard Mack laughing hysterically.

“That never gets old,” He sighed lovingly, enjoying your fearful expression. You gave him a glare, leering at the static hand. But suddenly, something popped inside your head, and you just stared at the retreating hand.

You’re not sure where and why, but you impulsively jumped up from where you sat, and grabbed the hand, shuddering at the static jolt. Mack yelped a little, never feeling your touch before, and it was so sudden too.

“What are you-?!” You cut him off as you suddenly leaned in, and gave him a kiss. You can’t believe it, your first kiss and it’s with a psychotic sentient computer ai sadist. You wished it could have gone differently, yet it was the heat of the moment and you just went for it.

Your lips your numb instantly, it felt like sticking your tongue on a battery, yet you were rough and passionate, only hearing the spluttering of Mack. 5 seconds felt like forever, but you eventually pulled away, letting the hand disappear.

You gave a small smile, wiping your mouth with your sleeve. Maybe his presence awoken something in you, or maybe his actions finally broke you. Either way, you knew that what you did made you both feel a little hot.

He confirmed that when he finally had a dark glint in his eyes, a sinister grin appeared as the screen glitched a little bit. You simply had a innocent smile on your face and gave him a wink.

You know exactly where this might head to.

“Do that again,”

[stellaluna33]

I've noticed something that I think is weird, or at least interesting. When AYITL came out, a not insignificant number of people responded to the idea of Rory wanting to write about life with her mom with something like, "OMG. Rory thinks her life is interesting enough that people will want to read about it? That's SOOO conceited! OMG how embarrassing for her!" Or embarrassment that ASP would think that essentially the plot of her own show would be "a cool story" that people would be interested in. But like... Why? Clearly a lot of people ARE interested in that story, because otherwise this show wouldn't be so freaking beloved. Like, the only reason that Revival existed in the first place was that ENOUGH PEOPLE WERE INTERESTED IN THAT STORY (whether they liked the outcome or not is a different thing). So why were people acting like it was such an unrealistic or presumptuous thing?

I mean, is the idea kind of cheesy? Yeah. But people seemed so disdainful and OFFENDED by the idea that Rory herself would think that her life was worth writing about (even though those people had been following that "story" themselves for literal years), and it makes me wonder about this expectation we have of people, but maybe especially women, to be somehow confident but also self-effacing. This sort of false modesty we're expected to show. "Oh, there's nothing interesting about ME, tee-hee!" we're expected to say. You could have a long-running, successful TV show, but you're somehow supposed to pretend you're not AWARE of that? You're not supposed to take it at face-value, apparently? You're SUPPOSED to act surprised every time, like, "Oh! Do people LIKE this silly little story I wrote? Oh, they couldn't POSSIBLY! I'm just SOOOO boring." Is that what we're supposed to say?

And it's interesting to me that they even (intentionally even?) attempted to sidestep this issue by having the idea come from a FRIEND first, and not even Rory herself! The idea came from someone ELSE telling Rory that her relationship with her mother was "a cool story" that people would be interested in reading, but RORY is the one called "conceited" for... believing him, apparently? I don't know.

I'm well aware that the show has its issues and that some people only watch it for the side characters and DON'T care about the main characters, but I still think it's weird that people thought it was "presumptuous" for the writers of a very popular show to... think that people find the plot of their very popular show "interesting."

[the-ninja-legacy-whip]

I've been reading your story and its really good! I love the idea of the elemental compass, its much better than the confusing mess in the TV show!

As for the elemental stuff introduced in Dragons Rising, maybe Elemental Masters are just powered by residual Source Dragon energy leftover from the creation of the realms? And maybe the FSM was just the first one to learn how to harness that power?

That could explain elements outside the compass and in other realms and how new elements were created during the merge, others learned from watching the FSM control the elements and went on to create elements themselves?

Hello!! Glad to hear your enjoying the stories! (and the Elemental Compass, haha). And I like your ideas too; they've got some merit to them!!

And...this probably isn't the answer you expected, but if there was ever a soapbox for my general thoughts on this, here it is:

It's interesting, because at first the insinuation was that new Elemental Powers popped up *because* of The Merge (like with Geo and definitely Euphrasia), which I could get behind easily enough, but now later episodes make the claim that there's always been other elements in other realms outside Ninjago (such as Zeatrix's Shockwave being in Imperium's royal family for generations, and the Tournament of Sources Pre-Merge apparently changing realm-locations every time its held so EMs from all realms have a chance to participate) so...now how are we to know which elements fall under which umbrella? And do we just sweep then all as 'Outliers'? Do we count them as a fresh set of Derivatives? Do they count as their own rank of something? And do they even need to be added to the current compass at all—maybe they should just get their own (albeit much less fancy and meaningful :V), or just not have one at all?

And as the Compass was devised by the FSM himself with 'his own' elements, maybe the others realms don't even have something like that, for they don't have as many elements, or their elements aren't connected in any specific/meaningful way, or they'd have an equivalent but entirely different system? Point is, we (or, I, at least) don't have enough info to properly make that call, but it's fascinating to think about!

(I know I attempted a possible solution with 'The Merged" Compass...but we all know that was just wishful thinking even back then lmao)

On one hand, 'extra' elements existing in other realms already does somewhat fit my lore, giving the Guardians' origins and the whole thing I had/have planned with The First Realm (y'know, the place where all this stuff supposedly originally originated??), so maybe it just turns out there were some elements that the FSM didn't come across (whether because he just missed them or maybe they didn't exist yet!), and thus he wasn't able to manifest them into Ninjago (and, I mean, there's already the Outlier Elements he never mastered; what's a few dozen more?)

And I did manage to cover my bases on this scenario with this line from Wu in the first book:

"There are aspects of the world as we know it that remain unseen to an untrained eye," Wu continues. "The sounds we hear, the time that passes quietly by, the forms we choose to take with others, the shadows that follow us, the gravity that keeps us chained to the ground, even our very own thoughts, and perhaps even some that have missed my own radar…but few can compare to the elements you four possess."

...but on the other hand, when you start mixing in the Source Dragons lore, it gets messy (mainly because we STILL don't have the complete story on that yet other than ~all elements came from them~ which, again, is not fully elaborated: because, if this is true, then which elements come from which dragon, if that's how it works? Would 'artificial' elements like Amber and [Redacted] count as well? WAS there more than one (er, two?) bearer(s) of the Element of Life, and if the Source Dragon of Life was to be believed, then what other elements possibly came from them too? Is the way the Source Dragons brought about the elements something more symbolic rather than literal?)

We just don't know that stuff yet! And it might be a long while before we have the full set of 'rules' that will allow us to sort this out!

But because DR is a) just getting started and b) not something we can look at with hindsight like the rest of Ninjago, we're not going to be able to find a "perfect solution" to all this just yet. We don't know what's a 'missed opportunity' vs 'something that's still in the works; we don't know what'll be explained later on vs "what's there is all we're going to get"! And for a still-airing and on-going series, I don't want to assume either way, and want to freely give them the benefit of the doubt without imposing assumptions/expectations that have a chance of ruining my watching enjoyment. (I may joke about Surface Tension and have a few natural gripes with some plot things, but despite what it """means"""" for my au, DR so far has been very, very good for what it's setting out to do! But, I suppose that's slightly off topic—)

One of the points of Legacyverse was to take all the information we had up to Crystalized perhaps not my initial plan, but the change was quick and easy enough and streamline it–and I was able to do that because the series was finished, with no fear of anything suddenly being changed or retconned again, and to provide explanations for the things that fell through the cracks, and that's why 'canon' Legacyverse is going to end where it will. And anything even remotely associated with DR that I do is just 'what ifs', 'speculations', and just for fun (or to get the Jesse-related brainworms out of my head), but none of it ever going to have a concrete impact on the main story itself.

So that's why I don't even see a need to change the Compass. If anything, we could just get away with saying that they're Ninjago's Elements, created via the Source Dragons (maybe) but then disciplined and distributed throughout the realm via the FSM, who would've still been the first the master them (...with exception of the Outliers, which while not mastered by the FSM, are still present in/seemingly originated within Ninjago).

It's just, I know there's recency bias with the new stuff (and that there'll probably always will be from now on), and it's a lot of fun to speculate where-and-how all the new stuff could potentially fit in, along with how my characters (or versions of the characters) would react to everything, (and I'm not trying to be a killjoy by saying the following, just putting out my own personal feelings on the matter) but trying to lock something in concretely when it can get immediately contradicted is...less fun, for me at least.

I'd rather watch all this play out before trying to go "Ahaha! THAT'S how this is going to work now!" *three episodes later* "Oh, nevermind, we gotta switch it to THIS because of THAT-" *two more episodes* "...well now that just goes against everything-" *one more episode* "...and that's something new entirely. Okay."

It could turn out that any of these new elements or even older ones could be suddenly taken away or have different functioning rules or have a whole new replacement or have a new explanation for how their powers function or be inherited via different ways or they really did come straight from the Merge and/or residual power of the Source Dragons or just will never be seen again in a way that matters beyond the tournament, and then all our work WOULD BE FOR WHAT—?!

With the finished series, there was actual, concrete stuff to base speculations on and extrapolate from! But trying to do it here and now with DR (in the sense of applying it to my AU, NOT in general) is like trying to make a tower bigger by taking bricks from its bottom—it's going to go nowhere, no new sustainable progress is actually being made, and its going to crumble in the process! And if it miraculously doesn't crumble, then some force of nature can easily come along and knock it over anyway :V

That, for me, is an exhausting way to try do theories and whatnot jhgfdghfdsa. I just wanna watch and enjoy this new, only semi-related show without having to constantly fret about what this means for my meager fanfic ghfdfgds (...like trying to give Cole a boyfriend, all our attempts to fit in things could be undone or complicated with naught but a single line of dialogue!!!)

...Or, maybe being Elemental just wasn't as serious as we all always thought, and that's why something like the Compass never existed in the show to begin with :d

[flyingwide]

In one interview MPG says he plays sir with just enough likability to keep people tuning weekly and it made me laugh bc one glance at social media proves that once fans saw MPG they were sat for this show regardless of sir’s intentions. Not all but a significant amount for sure. I’m in the camp of yuck-go-away (Gabi being a kid when he took her nullifies any shipping on my part plus there’s so much raw hatred on her part I just can’t see the leap to sexy) but that being said I do think that this show being on network tv makes for an interesting angle because they have to find ways to acknowledge and work around the inherent darkness of the premise which makes for an intriguing story. On the other hand it sometimes comes off a bit too sanitized because of that. The victims are always nice or nice enough, and the villains are mild or basically caricatures. The writing just isn’t there with the missing peoples aspect of the show (honestly it isn’t really there with Gabi and the basement either but I’m more willing to forgive that since it makes for believable messiness) and I hate it because it’s an important issue. Idk. It’s not like I want some misery fest but it’s all so…tidy and dull. Also the emphasis on Lacey and Gabi’s friendship falls flat because they’ve literally never given besties. I buy Margaret and Gabi way more even.

I honestly came into this show for MPG (I had just rewatched Pitch for the 5th time in 2 weeks when I learned it existed) and I’ve been a villain lover since watching Gargoyles at 6 years old (David Xanatos, the man that you are…) so there’s very little he could do that would be beyond the pale for me. A friend noted that they honestly wish he was a little worse because it seems like the show is afraid to have him go too far, which is interesting when they’ve made clear that they have no intention of redeeming him. If he’s beyond redemption, why does it matter that he never goes too far? Just go all in on him being an irredeemable bastard.

I’ve personally made the leap to sexy because how fucky the power dynamics are. She was a child and he was in control. That’s not sexy for me, that makes my skin crawl. But now she’s an adult and she has him at her mercy but he’s shown time and again that he’s not helpless. It’s not a straightforward abuse of power like it would have been when she was 16. They’re not equals now but they’re closer to it. The idea of consent between the two of them would be deeply fraught and that makes the wheels in my brain start turning: what would that dynamic look like? How would it change what they have now? Would it change it? Would it change how he sees her, her purity? I don’t ship it in a “I want them to end up together and in love” sort of way; I want to take a baseball bat to a hornets’ nest just to see what will happen.

I will agree that the writing overall is fairly weak. It seems almost like it’s just checking boxes at some points. I would like to see some sort of overarching case keep coming up in season 2 because Tony’s case wrapped up way too quickly and they haven’t done enough with the idea of Annie to make it compelling. Yet. I think it could get better but it needs to get there quickly.

I like the relationship between Gabi and Lacey but I would like it more if they would acknowledge that Gabi is unintentionally an obstacle to Lacey’s healing. Being around Gabi is impeding Lacey’s ability to move on because she is this big sister figure that Lacey has shaped her life around but that means that her life is shaped around someone intrinsically tied to her trauma. We see Margaret mired in her fear and grief, trapped in that bus station, but there’s much less acknowledgement that Lacey is mired too, held in place by her love for Gabi. I really like the actor and don’t want to see her go but for the character? Lacey, baby, run.