#which obviously vanished when I blocked them

[thedarkestrivernymph]

Burn

Yandere!Husband x gn!Reader

warnings: abuse, mentions of childhood trauma, mentions of death, manipulative tendencies, gaslighting, murder, gore

©Copyright -2024-thedarkestrivernymph - All Rights Reserved

It burns, so agonizingly much, that uncertainty about this whole ordeal crept up your spine and settled in your chest.

Was this the right thing to do? To flee? It echoed in the emptiness that took over your head. It was perplexing and uncomfortable. You shouldn't feel empathy for him. He was crazy, deranged! Gone, a maniac, a bastard—

But maybe he was innocent and you were running away from the ghosts hunting you.

He was all that was left of your family. You didn't want to do this, you wanted him with you, loving and sweet, but it seemed that fate had different plans for the two of you. It seems that fate didn't favour you.

He had wormed himself into your life—then into your sacred family bonds, destroying what was already fragile. The mask he wore was that of a kindred spirit that sought for love, yet you never knew better than to believe the artificially crafted facade.

Prior he was an orphan, abandoned by his mother at six, which admittedly tugged at your heartstrings, even more so after learning the horrible foster parents, which was followed by the straight up ignorant adoptive family that took him in only for prestige matters.

So it wasn't that you didn't understand his desire for family, and you were even happy for him! Glad he found love in yours, yet all your hopeful dreams of finally peace settling in had vanished the moment the first of your relatives cut you off. Then a second followed, a third, a fourth until even your mom shunned you, refusing to see you any longer. They absolutely adored your husband but hated your guts.

However he didn't seem to hold the same adoration for them, no, he didn't even possess an ounce of sympathy with them as he watched them turn to ashes Infront of his very own eyes, laughing, like the maniac he was.

“Love!” he would jump up and down you remembered, seemingly over the moon by your dad praising him or your sister gifting him something meaningless as a cookie.

After he had burned down everything holy to you, he had just slipped back into your shared bed, stinking horribly of that kind of smell that reached your nose every time you left your omelette too long on the stove.

You hadn't understood then, but you did now, that that smell was foreshadowing to the petrifying news that had reached you the next day.

Everything spiralled out of your control after that day. You were completely scattered, forgetful, permanently teary-eyed, clumsy and visibly distraught.

So it started with your inability to hold up your job, which made him offer you to stay at home, while he financed you both. He was so devilishly sweet, messaging your shoulders when you were completely stiff, guiding you through breakdowns, cooking for you, feeding you. You hadn't know how you got so lucky with him.

However things became odd quickly, your friends seemed to disappear one by one, their numbers blocked, deleted or erased from existence. You were unbelievably mad, was this because of your new miserable state—the friends that swore to go through thick and thin with you, leaving you in your most vulnerable times—how could they!

Although you were burning with anger, even that was quickly forgotten thanks to him. He was your absolute everything, your entire world and you were much obviously his. You two were a match made in heaven—or at least that's what you believed until that one phone call.

“Stacey?—”

“You have to get out of there! He isn't what he seems to be— your husband, he’s crazy! He threatened me! If I didn't stop being in contact with you then he would have also murdered me like he did with your family—” your heard your friend over the phone, voice unusually frail, breaths laboured with sniffling in the background.

Your heart leaped in your chest at the sound of her frantic claims, completely unbelievable and baffling, even if your trust for her had completely evaporated, uncertainty still poisoned you and infiltrated your mind like a sickness.

Nevertheless you did end the call before she could spew anymore nonsense, sealing her terrible fate, because unbeknownst to you, that was the last time she would ever talk to anyone.

Things didn't feel normal anymore after that, suspiciousness spread through you, gnawing at your already highly sensitive nerves, you instability just making you waver back and forth from completely denying the unapparent truth and panicking that perhaps it was true. She was your friend for years after all, what reason did she have to lie?

That was until you found Stacey’s childhood diary in his possession with dried splatter of blood decorating it—as if this wasn't terrifying enough what met you on the inside made you drop the book, completely mortified and stunned into silence.

Every entry that contained your name scribbled over with hearts, anything that had to do with you underlined, things that you liked circled in like a madman.

You were terrified to say the least—she was right, she was right and you didn't believe her.

Tears welled up in your eyes and before you knew it, your feet carried you out of your shared home, still in your PJ's with slippers adorning your feet.

Which leads to this moment in the present.

Unfortunately for you, he had knowingly bought a house with your inheritance, in the middle of nowhere. You were stumbling over twigs, leaves crushing beneath your weight and before you knew it, you were running.

Yet you did forget one crucial aspect—running didn't help when he could track you down with the GPS clipped under your skin so subtly you didn't even realise he had done so.

Bang.

Pain shot through your thigh, an excruciating amount, making you instantly stumble, before tumbling down, face first into the wet earth, crying out in pain.

Blood seeped out from where he shot you, painting the forest floor a warning crimson. You tried to crawl, you attempted to flee, but all was for nothing, no one and nothing could have tear you two apart, even if it was you.

Fingers roughly whipped your head back, scalp burning from the abuse.

“There you are, love.” he spat out, the familiar warmth gone replaced by an indefinite disdain.

“You saw it, huh? You learned about everything I did for you and that's how you thank me? By running away just cuz’ I committed some petty crimes?” he shook your head violently, before shoving your face into the mud. Before he ripped your head out of the earth, starting to fall into a pattern, repeating it over and over again till your vision faded with only his words ringing into your ears, as blood ran down your presumably broken nose, eyes swelling with unshed tears of a gruesome future that awaited you.

“You're weak. And dumb. But don't you worry, I will take care of you. I will love you, look after you, clean up each mess you make, be there to rock you back and forth when you have one of your meltdowns again. So don't worry your stupid little head about anything,

just trust me, love.”

[artstelle]

Not Mine To Keep

The first time Arthur came to Merlin's shop, he looked so out of place, unsure of what to do. Merlin guessed he was either too "manly" to be seen buying flowers, or a rich prat who never had to buy his gifts himself. Neither were exactly wrong guesses. He felt bad for the woman the man was buying the flowers for.

They had a rather unpleasant encounter that day and Merlin was sure the man would never, ever come anywhere near the shop again, and would probably tell everyone he knew not to buy from there either. So it was a surprise when he saw the other man again. He said that while the employees were rude, the place unfortunately had the best flowers around. Of course, that would be a better excuse if the man actually bought any flowers that time.

After that, it became a regular thing, Arthur visiting once a week. At first, he asked questions about flowers, then it turned into them chatting, insulting each other sometimes and joking, laughing.

Merlin knew he shouldn't, but he was sad and depressed when the man – Arthur, he learnt – stopped coming. He was worried when Arthur didn't show up for two weeks in a row, but weeks turned into months and he accepted that the other man had probably just grown bored of their little conversations.

And then, he just showed up. Merlin welcomed him as he would any other customer, tried not to stare or ask demand an explanation as to why he just vanished. But he knew he had no right to, they were two strangers having casual conversation, that was all. If Merlin had feelings for that gorgeus blond man who turned out to be actually funny and charming, then it was his problem alone.

Arthur stayed silent for some time, and he seemed nervous, god knows why. He looked at his hands, the flowers, the walls and anywhere other than at Merlin. Just as the silence started to be too much and Merlin thought maybe he should say something, Arthur opened his mouth.

"I had things to deal with. Things to arrange. Both personal and business issues." Merlin wanted to say there was no need for explanation, but was too shocked by Arthur's next words to say anything. "I am sorry."

Arthur Pendragon did not apologize. He would show that he was sorry, but never put it into words.

But Merlin had to talk, because the man was looking at him, obviously waiting for an answer. "Oh, um... O-ok." What he wanted to say was: why do you look like a kicked puppy? "It's fine, life gets busy sometimes." That seemed to ease Arthur's mind, if the smile that formed on his lips was any proof. His beautiful lips, how nice it would be to kiss them. Oh for god's sake! Merlin had to get rid of those thoughts.

"Well, is there anything you want? If you aren't going to buy anything, I can get you a chair, but you're blocking the way. Though I don't think I can talk much, there's a big order I need to prepare." He didn't mean to sound harsh, didn't want Arthur to leave, but it was hard to go back to how they used to be. Maybe in a week, he would stop wondering what the personal matters he had to arrange were.

"Actually... I want to. I'm here for a bouquet."

Oh... Ok then. That was unexpected. Merlin remined himself that there was nothing for him to be sad about.

"Ok, which one?" He showed the bouquets that were prepared for customers to choose from. It helped them to see how the thing would look before purchasing, it and was faster to have some made up already when it was busy. And if they didn't sell, Merlin took them to the local hospital to give someone a little smile. "Or do you want a custom made one?"

"A custom one. But I was hoping you could help me choose the flowers." Arthur twisted the end of the ribbon on the counter around his finger.

"Sure, it is my job." Stop being so nervous, Merlin told himself firmly. "What kind of bouquet do you want?" He didn't want to know but he had to ask.

"To show... Something that says 'You are important to me' and 'I think of you all the time.'"

Merlin's heart hurt so much he was afraid he wouldn't be able to hide it. It was no surprise the bouquet was for Arthur's lover, but he would never have expected Arthur could say such things. He must really love her. "And 'I wish to spend more time with you.'" Arthur looked at Merlin for the first time since he had entered the shop that day. Merlin wished he wouldn't. "And..." Please, enough, go tell those things to her yourself. I don't want to hear them! "'I love you.'"

Merlin turned his back, knowing he should be happy that Arthur had found someone he loved. Arthur often talked about the girls his father threw his way and how he never had any feelings at all, at least most of the time. Whenever that happened, Merlin thought about Arthur's first visit to his shop, the bouquet he'd bought, but he couldn't bring himself to ask who it had been for.

"I'll make something." He bit his lip while choosing the flowers. Merlin stared at the bright lamp to prevent the tears from falling down his cheeks. He didn't want to make a fast and simple bouquet just to get away from the situation. It was important to Arthur, and if Merlin couldn't be happy for him, at least he could do his job right.

After who knew how long, he had the flowers ready. "Here, I hope she likes them."

But Arthur did not reach out to take them.

"I hope he does," he said instead. "Keep them, please. They're for you."

_____________________________________________________________

Look… I drew that in November. Then when I was posting, I realized I forget to add the bouquet and since then it is waiting to be posted in my wip folder. Not even wip! I put that in completed folder cause like, it was mostly done. I wanted to pick flowers with correct meanings. I gave up and just drew a pretty bouqute cause it is better than never finishing it. Please pretend they have suitable meanings to what Arthur wanted to say.

I wasn't planning to write something that long! Wow.

Edit: I posted it to ao3 too. Here is the link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48305071

Flowershop AU for @merlinbingo

art by @artstelle

[okihedda]

this is just for me but i wanted to consider how the nine sols cast would be like in a fighting game because ive had the idea in my neuron chamber for a while now and need to put it into words so yea

first of all i think the cast would work best in a 2D anime fighter because:

-it fits the art style

-most have some unique abilities or fighting styles. for example yi’s qi blade and talismans and ji’s black holes

-multiple characters float or fly which you usually dont see in games like street fighter (ignore dhalsim he doesnt count for his one). the mechanic is way more common in anime fighters where characters usually have double jumps and an air dash (literally yi)

-i want it to be because i said so

-also the character designs fit way more in an anime fighter in my opinion

with that out of the way i have some ideas for the casts character archetypes and movesets so um strap in or something

Ji: ji is the one ive been thinking the most about (go figure) so i'm starting with them. i imagine him playing like a zoner/setplay character because of his daggers and the whole thing about changing attacks by parrying the spinny orbs. they should have a teleport and the ability to fly while throwing projectiles to embody the theme of calculating the enemy's every move and avoiding them. because of this he should obviously have a small health bar to compensate for the mobility and good keepaway tools. im thinking they can throw daggers at multiple angles with differing properties. maybe by pressing different buttons the daggers can come from the ground, rebound if they miss the opponent or let ji teleport the them and do an attack like they do in their boss fight. he could also have access to a stance that let them choose different attacks. maybe by inputting a move they get a choice between 3 options. for example:

-one could be his dagger state where they float into the air and start throwing out dagger like crazy. he could get to choose different directions for the daggers as he inputs the move to mix the opponent up by forcing them to block projectiles from all different angles

-one could be his black hole. maybe they place it at a spot which vacuums the enemy. either it drags them to the center instantly and gives ji an opportunity to mix them up or it drags them in for a while and lets ji throw daggers to apply pressure

-the pulsating gadget thingy that makes large red waves could be a destroyable interactable that launches waves that force the opponent to block or try to disarm it before they get cornered. since it's deployed and stays on the battlefield i think it wouldn't disappear if ji gets hit, so he could use it as a tool to get in on the opponent

-one could be the daggers which i imagine just buffs their damage or increases the amount that ji can have on screen at a time additionally they could start to apply guard crush

-the one where he throws a little container with health or azure sand might work as an item both players can pick up. either they restore health or meter depending on if it's green or blue

their normals would probably either be stubby or slow considering his only melee weapon is his big mace thing. maybe they have one or two good normals for zoning. for defence i think ji should have a parry because in my mind that just seems perfect for a diviner to have. predicting the opponent's every actions and when they finally land a hit on him, surprise !! ji vanishes and counters with an attack of their own. i had this idea for a parry where instead of just using the move and counterattacking if you get hit during it, you would first input the move which puts you in a state where you then input a prediction of what move the opponent will do and if you're correct, ji dodges the move and lets you punish it similar to anji's spin in guilty gear strive.

needless to say i would absolutely play this character i want it to be real i want it to be real i wa-

Goumang: another character i thought could be very unique and cool in a fighting game. to me it's obvious she would be a puppet character since she doesn't fight by herself (like she's a farmer give her a break) and instead fights with her jiangshi soldiers (who are named Shinue and Shiqui i just learned). she would be able to fly of course and claw at the opponent with good mobility and aerial buttons.

all her special moves would control shinue and shiqui and let them do their attacks in tandem. maybe their attacks would be bound to two buttons each. shinue could get the lighter kick and punch buttons while shiqui gets the buttons for heavier attacks so they could be inputted separately and lock the opponent down. this would probably be bound to a meter that goumang could recharge by ringing her bell. doing this would be unsafe and thus only really an option after getting a hard knockdown or when you're fullscreen from your opponent. it would be funny if she had a super where she gave her jiangshi soldiers bowls of rice to power them up and stop their meter (idk what to call it. the servant gauge or something maybe?) from depleting. i also imagine her having a command grab super where she grabs an airborne opponent, digs her claws into them and throws them to her soldiers to get beat up.

i'm pretty sure this would be oppressive as peck (get it?.. like heck but peck.. because she's a bird..) so in return for this incredible offense, she probably would lack any strong defensive options like an invincible reversal, but maybe her servants could rush to her aid whenever she is blocking or something. she would probably be quite bad on her own when her servants are knocked out which is pretty fitting since, again, she's not really a fighter

Shennong: i thought it would be funny if shennong was a fighter because we've obviously never seen him fight. (he did defend the apemen of peach blossom village that one time so clearly he can hold his own to a degree). he strikes me as a brawler type character who wants to get up close to his opponent and beat the snot out of them, but doesn't have good mobility or range. maybe he has a special move where he consumes a random poison that grants him buffs to different stats. who knows, perhaps eating a plantago frog increases your speed and jump height or maybe a dragon's whip hightens damage for a duration of time. it could work similarily to jamie's drink in street fighter 6 where the buff stays for the whole match and he slowly ramps up in power until he's an unstoppable beast. there could be a chance of eating a rare poison like the golden yinglong egg that give his attacks super armor or just buff all his stats at once.

it would also be funny if, whenever shennong is fighting, shuanshuan is following him around to cheer him on. i can imagine one of his victory animations is him acting bashful while shuanshuan is shouting compliments, being all impressed and whatnot.

anyway that was my fighting game hyperfixationfueled rant now go drink water and pet a dog, doesnt matter if its yours or not

[turbulentscrawl]

A question for you all, out of curiosity's sake. Which hunters do you have the most trouble against?

I see a lot of people in the game chats saying they have trouble with Night Watch and Fool's Gold, but for me the hardest ones are Jack, Smiley, and Breaking Wheel. (though part of this is because I main professor and he can't block their skills)

Let's share tips lol

Edit 1: Some tips for kiting Disciple, who I main as Hunter!

The cats are obviously the biggest frustration for trying to deal with her. However, the cats will almost always take a triangular path. If she sends her cat after you, the best thing you can do is immeditely move out to the SIDE of the cat. This will give you some extra time to dodge the cats when they split. If you have enough distance when they split, you can keep moving forward. If the cats get parallel to you and haven't split yet, Ann is going to do it manually and your best chance is to try juking them by making a circle. When they're parallel to you, double back. When the split passes, move back IN to avoid the recall. Ann can move the placement of her recall, but from what I've seen most of us don't waste time with precise placement unless we know we've got you in a corner.

Most Ann's carry confined space, which also gives them a speed boost to pallet breaking if you're possessed by a cat, putting down a pallet won't save you because she can break it before your stun ends. try instead to wait out the cat possession by running circles around medium-size obstacles. This almost always works against me because Ann has a longer forward reach on her hit box, but it's not very wide so it's harder to reach you around turns. She CAN curve her jumps, but not enough to follow you around tight turns.

When Ann is chair camping, you have to wait for her to waste her cats. Use your ability to see her silhouette to your advantage. Ann's almost never carry peepers or listen because we can rely on our cats to see you in the distance. So stay back a bit, behind some obstacles, and wait for her to send the cats out to search for incoming rescue. When she recalls the cats or they vanish, you can start moving in. Most Anns will go ahead and hit you as you approach because we rely on the cats to catch us up to one or both of you after rescue anyway, and then we've got two half-health survivors to pick from. DON'T stick too close together or you'll both get paralyzed.

A few specific survivor things:

-Ann counters First Officer. Don't waste your watch if the cats are nearby or possessing you because their area will show us where your real body is.

-Ann can counter perfumer and gardener. If you get possessed, we'll just paralyze you and wait for your protective skill to timeout. If the other cat is close enough, we can also recall it to your location to double-stun.

-Gravekeeper counters Ann. He's a GREAT kite for her because if he gets possessed by a cat, digging underground will get rid of it and he can safely move away from the cats.

-Painter is also a good counter for Ann. He's honestly one of the most annoying survivors for me.

-Batter can counter Ann if you time your hits to interrupt her jumps.

I'll add more later if I think of any!

[briandraws]

Hi. I am very innocent and very much not planning anything with this at all.

Can I haz lore of hypno Marware and every thought in your brain about it??? Pls and thank you :3

Totally innocent and not planning anything!!!

-🍓

ah-

Well since you asked so politely and are so innocent...

Here's a big ol lore dump of the hypno marware au! Hidden under a cut ofc ^^

Lets just say Puzzles is strolling through the empty city, complaining to himself about Mario ruining his plans again when he bumps into another TV head, Vox(yes, Vox. I thought up this au at 3 am) Vox asks him what's wrong and Puzzles complains that his plans of reaching for stardom are constantly foiled by the SMG4 crew and Mario notably. Vox feels pity and decides to grant Puzzles a free trial of hypno powers for a month. Vox will check back on him then and then just fucking vanishes.

Puzzles obviously doesn't believe that he was just given powers but decides to test it anyway, finding the SMG4 crew and hypnotizing Mario for shits and giggles.

Little dies he know it actually works, and while the crew are panicking and shit, Puzzles is intrigued by this new power and Mario is obediant to Puzzles' every command. Puzzles orders Mario to yeet the crew into their castle and then runs off with the Italian.

What follows is a long month of Puzzles attempting to reach stardom but failing, not because of the SMG4 crew, no, it's cause of ART BLOCK!!! So anyway, he begins to confide in Mario about his troubles, and while he knows Mario can't respond, Mario is listening.

Then one day, Mario snaps out of the hypnotism. He still remembers everything puzzles told him so he doesn't immediately flee the studio. Also he's dressed in a fancy suit cause puzzles didn't like his dirty overalls. Anyway he finds Puzzles in the living room and asks him if he's ok, and Puzzles soon realizes that Mario was still conscious during his hypnotism and feels incredibly guilty. He gets on his knees and begs Mario for forgiveness, which Mario grants him, albeit reluctantly. Puzzles urges Mario to run away and return to the castle but Mario refuses, saying that he knows enough about puzzles now to give him a second chance and help him get better.

And then the SMG4 crew barge in, take Mario by force and beat Puzzles almost to death until Mario stops them and explains everything. SMG4 and Meggy are skeptical about the whole story since they knew puzzles as the sadistic tv man looking for game but SMG3 immediately understands cause, yknow, he was once looking for puzzles' goal too.

Anyway, the SMG4 crew return to the castle with Mario, Puzzles recovers on his own and when Vox decidedly shows up to let Puzzles know about his free warranty Puzzles socks him in the face :]

As for thoughts... This au inspired the hc that Puzzles likes chubby people because they feel like pillows :] and Mario eventually learns to like him for his personality(both in the ykyk and in reality)

Also this au is just a giant fever dream i had at 3 am HEHEHEHE

[asksoldieron]

SO-27: The Blade of Grass...

If there's a lot of engagement on this, this post is liable to get real long, beware before you expand.

No art, but I am working on it and I will add it retroactively. I hope.

Welcome to the Engagement Lounge, for Papers, Please (256|27) an instalment! Short comments can go in the replies, but there's a 475 character limit. Longer ones will need a reblog. Remember to @asksoldieron if you're reblogging someone else's reblog, so I can see it too!

Uh-oh, something happened!

"It’s different on either side of the path. I don’t know what splits it in two and I’m through asking questions. I am certain it is something very small, I would have seen it otherwise. As little as a blade of grass. I can’t tell which blade of grass...” -Barnaby Graham, while dying, verbosely

He missed it. Now we're past it. But what happened? God willing, we'll get to it!

I've been waiting to write this one for years! I expected it to have less exposition. Heh. What a foole I was.

This is also the one where Ann has her little freakout and says one of my favourite lines, but she's obviously saying it FOR Milo, verbatim, as HE says it: “Don’t you ever talk about my kids that way again. Don’t you ever use the people I love as a bludgeon trying to break me. I’m already broken and I will cut you!”

You tell 'em, siblings. Every once in a while you get one of those, where they're both talking in unison. You can only hear one of them, but the General caught it. Mordecai did, too, in Shots! Shots! Shots!, but he was more of a dick about it.

I don't react well to people trying to break me, either. The, uh, discourse is getting pretty rough now, though. Getting into abusive territory. Having to block some folks I thought were basically OK. When this six is done, I'm probably going to go on hiatus until after the election, work on some art (hopefully), regroup and try to figure how to self-promote better.

It's gonna be a weird week, I got two doctors things in one day. One of 'em's with the eye doctor who did the surgery which gave me double vision in one eye and blurry vision in the other. I hope I hear something better than, "Well! You rolled the dice and you lost!" If I need more surgery, though, fuuuuuck. Fingers crossed for late-onset corneal clouding, that might get better.

End of the week is a brief vacation in an RV in the woods! It's very cheap. We keep going to places that are suicidally cheap. We wanted to go back to the duct-tape, death trap houseboat, but it wasn't available. At all. Seems to have vanished. We're on our way back to the same "resort," so I guess we'll see if it sank!

Still need to post those houseboat pics, but now may not be the time...

Oh! In other news, the .space site is finally gone. I knew the account it was hooked up to didn't exist anymore, so I let it die. End of a dumb era, wherein I had unending issues with the site refusing to load and no idea some ISPs block .space addresses. Could I have picked up more readers without that? No idea! Not doin so hot with a .com!

[Back to Site?]

[randomfoggytiger]

The Mulder Family In-Depth (Part I): Colony and End Game

Bill and Tena (not “Teena” because of a Two Fathers script I read that spelled it that way, thanks @x-files-scripts for posting them~) Mulder are “two complicated, flawed, beautiful people” that deserved a deep-dive of their own. In doing a frame-by-frame, however, I discovered there was more than meets the eye to their character; and, slowly, one post turned into who knows how many. So, without further ado, let’s begin. 

Pilot

During their first case, Mulder stops being a jerk to his little spy when Scully shows up at his motel door, shaking and scared. After the dust has settled and all is calm, he opens up about his sister’s abduction and the fallout it had on his family: “I was 12 when it happened. My sister was 8. She just… disappeared out of her bed one night. Just gone, vanished. No note…. It tore the family apart. No one would talk about it. There were no facts to confront, nothing to offer any hope.” 

The only one who seems to have found hope and comfort from the past is Mulder, who goes on to explain how he found the X-Files and used hypnosis to recall his sister's abduction. He never mentions what his parents' thoughts are about this path he has taken; and doesn't bring them up again for a long time.

Aubrey 

The first memory Mulder relates of his father is in Aubrey as he and Scully bat the likelihood of genetic predisposition back and forth: “Whe-when I was a kid, I’d have nightmares and I’d wake up in the middle of the night thinking I was the only person in the world. And I would hear this--” crunching down on a sunflower seed to illustrate-- “My dad would be in the study eating these.”

This was obviously comforting to a young Mulder, likely stretching to a time before Samantha’s abduction when his family hadn’t fallen apart yet. (It also ties into the discussion on insomnia later in this post.)

Colony

Mulder and Scully are interrupted from their mytharc quest by a summons from Skinner, who relates that Mulder’s father had been trying to contact him all afternoon. 

Mulder runs to the basement to call Bill Mulder back; and is shocked when Tena picks up. As she passes the phone off to her ex-husband, Mulder shifts his cellphone nervously to another hand. His nerves are only heightened by his father's cryptic answers-- "I received a very strange phone call this afternoon. I called your mother. We think it is extremely important that you come up here as soon as possible.” 

It's important to note that Bill tells Mulder that both he (which he denies later) and Tena wanted their son to "get up here"-- the up-here meaning Tena’s house in The Vineyard. What’s interesting about that is: Bill has not separated a meeting place with his son from his former wife’s house, all three of them taking for granted that they’d meet at Tena’s. It’s such a blurring of boundaries and lines that it’s easy to see why Mulder blurs those boundaries constantly with Scully, modeling his parents’ separate-but-not-really relationship. 

Mulder has shifted in full-blown panic while Bill continues to dodge questions-- “I’ll know more when you get here”-- and hangs up, much to Mulder’s frustration. 

Mulder leaves immediately, dumping the investigation in Scully’s lap.

When he arrives at the Vineyard, Mulder is stopped from walking inside by Bill on the porch-- “Your mother needs some time.” 

Mulder goes in for a hug naturally, implying that at some point hugs were a tenuous normal between them, at least in times of crisis. 

When Bill swiftly blocks his attempts with a hand stuck out for a handshake-- 

Mulder is aggrieved, but accepts it. 

He is further pushed away by the distance Bill places between them: “SHE wanted you to come. It’s a difficult time.” He almost implies that Mulder was invited up because Tena requested it, not because he wanted his son there. 

Bill Mulder appears distant and cold from the first moment we see him. The invitation and longing seems to be, by his own words, from Tena; and Mulder’s emotional outreach appears to be personally undesired and refused. 

However, it’s incredibly important to note his facial expressions and relaxed posture whenever Mulder isn’t directly looking at him;

because, once his son has been redirected away from scrutinizing, Bill’s real feelings slightly bubble to the surface: he’s nervous and unsure. His smoking seems to be a distraction or a crutch as he tries to relate his jumbled feelings about the whole affair:

“The certainty. The calmness-- a comfort that allows you to move on. We bury our memories so deep after all that has been destroyed… never expecting--” 

Here Mulder cuts his father off, having observed his mother through the window talking with a woman and roughly wiping away tears with her handkerchief: 

The first time we see Tena is as a dynamic woman: her hands are traveling all over her scrunched up face, expressing intense emotions through her jerky movements and mile-a-minute talking.

Bill reveals that the woman is Samantha, with a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. (And, though the music is swelling menacingly and not painting him in the best of lights, in retrospect he isn’t menacing or smug: just… processing the shock in his own way.) 

Tena is wide-eyed, amazed, bewildered, and hopeful when her son walks in the room.

After a night spent talking and processing, Mulder takes an active role in putting Tena to bed: 

As he settles her in, Tena reflects: “After all those sleepless nights, I can hardly keep my eyes open.”

Mulder pulls her down gently, turns out her light, exhaustedly tries to softly soothe her for sleep-- "Well, you're exhausted. We all are. It's after 5:30."

Tena response?  “Oh, I just need a couple of hours.” 

She continues to comply as her son reiterates “Try and get some sleep", settling more firmly against her pillows and watching as he tucks her in, turns out her light, gives her a kiss, and begins to close her shades.

This interaction is CRUCIAL in the early stages of Mulder and Tena’s relationship dynamic: 

1. Tena is afflicted with the same insomnia issues as her son. In fact, the two of them demonstrate an underlying rote awareness and second-nature routine as he becomes her caretaker-- pulling back the covers, settling her pillows, and guiding her into bed-- and she a compliant but wired patient-- “Oh, I just need a couple of hours”-- after having spent all night talking and enduring an emotional upheaval. (Insomnia doesn’t seem to simply be a post-traumatic response connected to Samantha’s abduction: Mulder states in Aubrey that he would be up late, or wake from a nightmare, and hear his father comfortingly cracking sunflower seeds in the study. Since these memories are from early childhood, it’s hard to speculate how late Bill Mulder’s habits were in comparison to a young boy’s bedtime.) At the very least, Mulder and Tena seem to have bonded over their terrible sleep routines. That would also explain how Mulder is a natural at tucking Scully in or letting her sleep on his shoulder. 

But most importantly: 

2. Tena and Mulder have an emotionally open relationship (or did until Demons.) Most often I find theories, meta, or fics depicting Tena as cold, aloof, or withdrawn; but this firmly establishes that she has no qualms talking about her vulnerabilities with her son. And furthermore, she has done so in the past, often enough that Mulder takes her declaration as a fact that doesn’t faze or surprise him. It explains Mulder's comfortability with emotional expression-- wide-eyed in his earnestness to not only help Scully heal in a crisis, but to empathize with victims and the downtrodden. It also explains why he gives so many forehead kisses and comforting hugs: he expressed his love and care for his mother in those ways, and she likely did it for him as well when he was small. It seems, however, that since Samantha's abduction the role has solely fallen on Mulder because of how effortlessly they fell into these heartfelt but wonky dynamics.

Before Mulder can leave, Tena pops back up and asks fearfully: "Fox, it is really her, isn't it?"

Mulder smiles, tired but content; and replies: "I don't see who else it could be."

Tena is not very reassured;

but she trusts her son and his instincts. When he further admonishes her to "Go to sleep", she sinks back on her pillows

and obediently closes her eyes against the worry.

As demonstrated, Tena and her son’s relationship is heavily baked in trust and trauma. She obeys his every word, clings to his every assurance, leans on him more than he leans on her. It’s a credible reflection of Mulder’s insanely trustworthy character: so many people rely on him and trust him on his word alone-- his mother, Scully, Skinner, TLG, even acquaintances and informants-- willing to put their jobs and their lives at risk to stand by him. Because Mulder is pure Truth: he lives by what he seeks. 

Now: does this mean Tena is a compliant wallflower who does the bidding of everyone around her? No. Her stubborn, tough-as-nails nature will be explored in a future post about Talitha Cumi. 

Regardless-- thus ends Colony. 

And thus begins-- 

End Game 

After the loss of Samantha (who no one knows is a clone at this point), Mulder leaves Scully on the bridge with an ominous parting statement: ”I already told Skinner, that was the easy part. Now I gotta tell my father.”  

This is when Bill Mulder’s true nature is revealed: emotionally disconnected and harsh to protect against the scars of trauma. 

Bill arrives at Mulder’s apartment with an expression much more open and, perhaps, optimistic than he had on their previous meeting.  

He even starts the interaction by teasing his son-- “You didn’t have me come all this way to give me good news”-- which is a fascinating window into how Mulder developed his sense of humor.  

The fact his dad is so cheerful and trusting is a further blow to Mulder, who had seemed to recover his family in one night only to lose it himself, again, in the next.  

Bill sees that disaster lies ahead, donning the armor of stern anger to smoke out the truth. His son has become a suspicious character to interrogate and correct. 

Mulder turns back-to, shakily explaining: “Samantha’s gone… Dad. I lost her.”

Bill pauses for a couple of heavy seconds, baffled, unable to wrap his mind around that thought. 

When it clicks, he begins speaking rapidly-- “what do you mean ‘you lost her’?”-- taking swift steps into the room. For a split second, raw, vulnerable fear and hurt is written all over his face:

Mulder keeps silent for a stretch; but finally explains that his partner had been held hostage and Samantha needed to be exchanged. While he is fumbling with his words, his father’s eyes begin to glisten, and his mouth becomes more and more pinched to keep back the emotion. 

“You let this man take your sister? …Isn’t that what you’re trying to tell me?” 

“I… can’t explain it to you”-- Mulder pleads-- "But, um, I believed I was doing the right thing, Dad.”

His gestures are unsure: hand flailing as he tries to grasp an explanation, eyes averted to the floor, head bowed, shoulders hunched. Bill reads this all as guilt of thoughtless action, which turns to useful anger he can use to blockade off his feelings. 

As Bill perceives it, his son’s actions have hurt him deeply, and lost Samantha for possibly the last time. Despite knowing how dear she was to the family, his son traded her for the safety of a work partner from (likely) the very people that had taken her in the first place. Bill sees this as reckless, and harshly punishes his son like a child who has killed a little bird in his careless actions. Chastisement has become the modus operandi. 

“Was this your decision?” 

Those words will haunt Mulder to his dying day...

(or would have if Samantha had not been a clone.) 

“Yes.”

Bill Mulder was a military man; and you can tell he trained his son by those hard standards as well. He stands erect before his father, shouldering the blame and answering his commanding officer with a direct affirmative. But at the same time the little boy peeks through--trying to protect himself by tucking in his chin and manfully facing his punishment instead of slinking off into the corner to cry.

And like a little boy, he tries to show his father he's learned how to be good and take responsibility for his actions: “I’ll tell Mom.”

Bill continues his correction speech: “Do you realize what losing her again is going to do to your mother?” His barely restrained tears give away his true meaning: Do you realize what you’ve done to me?

While he expects straightforward honesty from his son, Bill himself practices deception by avoidance. He cannot bear to peer into the darkness of his own emotions and pain; so, he deflects them by projecting onto Tena. 

When Mulder falters and doesn’t answer, Bill’s thinly held anger seeps through with more his clipped, uptight inflection:

“Do you?” 

He is exuding more outwardly forceful control because his own has internally slipped.

Here it is demonstrated how alike and dissimilar father and son are. They both protect Tena in their own steadfast ways, but in very different ways. Mulder comforts and soothes her distress while Bill tries to guard her from the pain by wrapping her in protective layers from the outside world. He is angered that an unavoidable heartache was brought to her doorstep because it’s another home he couldn’t keep the conspiracy out of, following her even when she had tried to escape from his connections by leaving him. You could easily make the case that Bill is still in love with Tena-- whether it’s in a fond, by-gone-days affection bred by guilt or love that couldn’t be revived after the horrific loss of his family (similar to what Scully and Mulder went through during their breakup years.) 

Mulder tries and fails to compose himself as his face crumples and his voice cracks: “I’m sorry, Dad. I-- I’m sorry.” 

Bill turns abruptly to leave, overwhelmed; but pauses when he remembers the envelope left by Samantha for Mulder. 

“Your sis--” his face softens, almost cracks;

then hardens as he copes by distancing himself as quickly as possible-- “...Samantha left this at the house for you.” 

Mulder's anguish overcomes him again at the thought of a posthumous letter from his sister;

giving Bill ample time to retreat, slamming the door behind him.

This next part is still relevant, as it demonstrates Mulder's coping strategies he learned from his parents.

Mulder softly grasps the letter, expecting it to be a heartfelt note; but is surprised to see she'd written cryptic instructions that leads to an abortion clinic. He immediately turns tail and flees from his emotions by running headlong into his quest for answers, uplifted he can distance himself from the bog of guilt and head towards more active salvation. He may have lost Samantha; but perhaps he can redeem his failures with the Truth. He sees hope in that. 

Thus ends End Game. 

Thank you for reading! I will be adding more parts in future; but that might take a bit. In the mean time--

Enjoy! 

[maplesyrupsainz]

Charles gf is so messy. People found her twitter and saw she liked some questionable tweets one was racist and the account was a well known neo Nazi who's account is literally "racial consciousness" and then a bunch of tweets in favour of Macrons law which is a French law which would affect the working class, it's the reason for all the riots a few years back so her being in favour is basically the equivalent of a nepo baby telling people if they don't have money they should just get a job.

When people found her account and spread the tweets she deleted the account. It died down until a few months back and even her fanpages spread the screenshots and said how upset they felt about it and she started to block people who shared the screenshot including fanpages. Spent an entire quali session deleting comments calling her racist under her post, blocked people literally today who posted the tweets on tiktok.

The thing is that she could have denied the tweets and said they were fake or even claimed she misunderstood them/was young (16) and is now more mature and knows that mindset is awful and wrong but instead she doubled down and blocked people which kind of proved they were real. There's also screenshots of Antoine (Charles' photographer) in dms with fans saying she can't be racist because she's Mexican and using the tweets to make her out to be a bad person is stupid. Which apart from being a stupid thing to even acknowledge and argue with fans over it is also him admitting those tweets were 100% real.

She's also a chronic silent sponsor girlie. Basically she promotes brands by being seen wearing their stuff and people will obviously post Charles and she'll be next to him so people will ask about her outfits. She doesn't have to legally say it's a payed ad because the laws don't class goods and engagement as official payments. So she can get away with getting sent clothes in exchange for wearing them as promo without all the hassle. It's just a shady loophole that Kelly used to do and only got called out for after her family made those comments towards Lewis.

She also used to be friends with Charlotte and when people posted about it she blocked Charlotte so all her comments, tags and likes on Charlotte's account vanished. There's also multiple instances of her lurking on gossip pages before she and Charles were official and public where she was reacting and responding to gossip about her by correcting info like nationality, age, birthday etc.

Just a bunch of shady weird shit that put people off from day one. The entire thing is actually so interesting and a huge deep dive. There's so many weird ass coincidences and it really puts Leclerc in this weird light and not in a good way. His company is questionably shady.

posting this for anyone else who didnt know about this!!! so crazy lol it would've been so so easy just to apologise & claim she was uneducated and unaware.. do these ppl not have pr reps or what?? blocking ur own fanpages is crazyyyy behaviour

i suppose rich ppl literally do not care about anything 😳

[squarebracketsmileyface]

Apologies to the songs sitting in my asks, I'm being procrastinaty. And by that I mean I'm thinking about every other songs for Sorry, It's Locked rather than just listening to the ones people have given me 💀

Anyway.

You're Not Welcome by Naethan Apollo. I had a very fun thought for chapter six of If It Ain't Broken completely brought about by listening to this song and going "damn it's such a S,IL song but it doesn't actually fit any of the fics I have planned." SO BASICALLY. In chapter 6 of IIAB I'm going to have the whole uni 'break up' between Jaylex, Alex is gonna vanish into the ether with Amy after a particularly bad fuck up on Jays part, and eventually when Jay phones him to be like "sooooo you busy tonight?" Alex basically tells him to "fuck off, we're done, don't phone me again" (very out of nowhere as far as Jays concerned, hes very much blindsided by it but you know, neither of them are perfect 💀)

Anyway, this is Jay we're talking about, that man does not understand boundaries and gets incredibly fixated on stuff, especially when he actually realises he's fucked up. It becomes all he can think about, it ruins his life yada yada yada, and so he doesn't do as Alex asked and leave him alone, let the relationship die and move on with his life. He keeps phoning Alex, over and over again trying to fix things and make everything better, which he obviously fails to do. Anyway, for whatever reason Alex doesn't just want to block his number and usually just lets Jay's calls ring out, or just outright declines them.

One day though, he hands his phone to Amy.

And Amy gets to have a nice little rant at Jay, along the lines of that song, basically telling him again to fuck off, leave Alex alone, that he doesnt want to talk to him after what Jay has done (cos Amy definitely only knows Alex's side of the story. Not that knowing Jay's side would make her side with him over Alex, but you know, she's Alex's Tim, only knows one side so sees their partner as completely innocent and the other person as basically a monster.)

But yeah

Uh. Cool song thing :]

[bafflement]

Deaged Oz AU - Making New Friends [And Maybe a Few Enemies]

For @maskyartist since you wanted to see just what happens when Tip gets angry. :P

"HEY, FREAK!" An angry yell echoes off the narrow walls of the alley. Lily just ran faster, hoping that she'd be able to outrun her bullies for once. It had happened before, even though it hadn't lasted long in the end. As a Faunus in Mantle, though, she was used to this sort of treatment.

She tripped, stumbling and catching herself on the wall which was all her pursuers needed to catch up with her. Bracing herself for the blows she was surprised to hear another yell from the other end of the alley.

Glancing up, she spied a small, silver haired human boy who looked absolutely furious. A blink and he'd vanished, though. Maybe he was with the others? She hadn't seen him before but there were always more where they came from.

Her main tormentor bought a fist back for the first punch, but even as he lashed out, a figure blocked her sight. It was the boy, but why would he get between her and the bully?

Tip let the older boy hit him, glancing in concern down at the small Faunus girl they had been chasing. He knew how bad things were in Mantle of course, but knowing wasn't the same as seeing. The tiny girl looked half starved, yet these idiots were planning to beat her? No. Not on his watch.

"What exactly do you think you're doing to ny friend?" He spat, feeling a cold anger rising in his gut and not even bothering trying to suppress it. The little girl looked shocked, but he tried to shoot her a reassuring smile in between glaring at the bully. One hand strayed down to the hilt of Old Regrets, and he pulled about an inch of the rapier out of the sheath, knuckles a tight white with fury.

The bully, seeing that, stepped back a pace.

"Who the hell are you and what is she to you? You're not her friend, she doesn't have friends! She's just a filthy Faunus, she doesn't deserve them!"

Tip stomped one small foot, feeling himself start to shake again, though this time it was definitely anger fuelling it.

"She has me. I'm Winter Schnee, by the way." He said it flatly, hoping the split second decision wasn't going to come back to bite him.

"Why would a Schnee care about something like her?"

"I do. Now go away or I'll show you just how well i can use this." He shifted his stance, standing protectively over Liy and drew the blade fully, his eyes afire.

The bullies looked at each other, looked at the small boy wielding what was obviously a Huntsman's weapon, then thought better of the situation, backing away before taking off running.

There was silence for a few seconds, then Tip moved nearer the little girl, who backed up as far as she could, staring up at him with wide, scared eyes.

"Please don't hurt me?"

"I would never do that." Tip's voice was shaking, too, now. He hadn't really been expecting that, and looking back... had he almost thrown a tantrum? He blushed slightly, embarrassed, but just held out a hand to the girl, waiting.

After a minute or so, she took it, bracing herself for another blow. Tip just helped her to her feet, smiling gently.

"I'm Tip. Tip Pine, and you are?"

"But... you said you were a Schnee..."

"Ah, yes. Well, I thought it might make them think twice and it does appear to have worked, so... ready to get out of the alley?"

"You talk kinda funny."

"I'm not from Mantle, therefore my accent is slightly different. Have you learned about kingdoms yet?"

He smiled as this seemed to unleash a torrent of questions from the small girl and he led her out of the alley, grinning up at the others who didn't look massively impressed.

"Pocketsized... you can't just run off like that, what if you'd been hurt?" Jaune sounded worried but also more than slightly resigned at this point. After all, it wasn't the first time Tip had gone off somewhere.

"I wasn't. And I was just in time to stop someone else being hurt so I would count that as a victory, personally. Guys, this is... I'm sorry, i don't think I ever got your name?"

"Lily." She muttered, shyly, staring around at all the armed teenagers in front of her. Blake had elected not to come on this particular excursion and Weiss tended to avoid Mantle, but the others all just smiled at her in welcome.

"Hi, Lily!" Oscar greeted, bouncing slightly. "I'm Oscar, Tip's my brother. It's okay, you're safe now, nobody's going to hurt you while we're around!

"Aww, Pocketsized, are you making new friends without us, now?" Nora cooed, winking at a still visibly embarrassed Tip.

"Maybe? She needed help, Nora, I couldn't just leave her there, they were about to hit her!" Tip's voice rose in pitch slightly as he spoke, though from the way his eyes widened, it had been unintentional.

"Regular knight in shining armor, huh, kid..." was Yang's contribution, though she looked amused.

"I think it's cute." Ruby said, grinning over at Tip who would rather like the floor to swallow him now, please.

"You can stay with us for awhile, if you like? It might mean the bullies stay further away for a little bit, why were they following you, anyway?"

"They don't like that I'm not human... it's Mantle, though, mummy said I needed to get used to it."

Tip's eyes went strangely hard at that. "Thinking about it, there's someone I know you should probably meet. The problem is, he's in Atlas and your family would be worried if we just took you! Would you be able to show us where you live? If nothing else, we should check that it's a safe place to be."

Jaune sighed a bit at that, but they all followed a nervous looking Lily as she led them to her home. it wasn't too bad to look at, really. Unlike the dwellings on either side, it appeared well maintained and hopefully that meant that the walls were solid against the sheer cold that Mantle tended to exude.

An older woman in a tattered apron opened the door, then screamed in real terror as she stared at the humans on the other side. Lily rushed to her, clinging to the apron.

"It's okay, mummy! They're my friends, they rescued me from the bad boys!"

"... oh?" The mother sounded suspicious, scanning over the group of young hunters, gaze briefly lingering on tip, who shifted slightly.

"Thank you for rescuing my daughter." She said, eventually, though she still looked suspicious.

"We're hunters, ma'am, it's what we do. I was wondering, however, whether it may be advisable to gain a meeting with Marrow? I'm certain he would want to help as much as he could."

The woman blinked. "You can just casually contact an Ace Operative, can you?"

"Yes, ma'am, I can. I'm Wintertip Pine, by the way." Tip held out a hand, but she didn't take it, scanning his face again. Her eyes widened and her tail twitched in sudden realisation.

"... Winter?" She sounded strangely choked even as Tip's own eyes widened too. Had he known her, somehow?

"Yes, ma'am?" he asked, his voice as level as he could make it.

"Thank you. Just... thank you. Do you have contact information, at all? My husband will want to thank you himself."

"Of course." Tip murmured, rattling off his contact number.

"You can really get us in contact with Specialist Amin?"

"I can indeed, ma'am."

"Foxglove, not ma'am, young one. I have questions, but not today, I suspect? I'll be in contact." She smiled and shut the door, behind it they could already hear Lily start her rapid fire questioning again.

"You do realise that that's gonna spread, right? You just... I really hope you know what you're doing."

"Yes, well. So do I."

[twstedpometea]

Subject of Ugi’s DA Art

Tagging @silenceiswelcome​ Hi, everyone! Sorry for my absence, but like I said in my previous post, I’ve been busy trying to source art with a few others. Though I wanted to return and talk briefly about where a lot of Ugigiugi’s art vanished off too. So let me start the conversation with some updated information: I have had a few people who observed her on DeviantArt; so they did see things go off when the call outs started to happen on Tumblr in late February and on-wards into March. Now let me be clear about one thing: We never investigated all of her stuff. I was only investigating stuff people submitted to me and some pieces I had suspicions of here on Tumblr. I’ve also been sent DM’s about some of her DA pieces. My friends were mostly watching her TWST fanart submissions and according to them, Ugi may have deleted or stored about 88-90 submissions from her main TWST fanart folders and half of her gallery. (On DeviantArt you can delete or store stuff in a “STASH” of sorts, but we don’t know which she did for her art.) At this point, with all the evidence we've uncovered, I think its fair to assume most of her pieces have more then likely been traced. I'm going to guess Ugi may have removed/hidden the stuff she has traced to prevent more people from calling her out. (Side note: We never heard back from the other artists we had notified about tracing, so we can’t say if a DMCA or copyright strike happened to any of Ugigiugi’s art during all this; if anyone knows otherwise please correct me!) Anyway! While I'm still sourcing with a few others I did have luck tracking one of the sources for her so-called Egyptian|Self-shipping art pieces that proves she’s been tracing for more then her TWST-fanart. Minor #Nudwarning though for these art pieces and the traced art is a bit mature and a bit cheeky. Lenbarboza’s Inuyasha- Inukago ship art Vs. Ugigiugi/Seth (For her Egyptian project) ship art.

Some notes with these pieces: 1.This is obviously another tracing situation with some adjustments. Please note: This art piece of Ugi’s is not longer on her gallery (possibly deleted or stored like the rest of her art) 2. This was traced from an older fandom artist in the Inuyasha fandom. I actually recognized this piece’s art style but I had to look for the artist again as their first tumblr was deleted. I thankfully did find the image to source here. So for sure she has been tracing stuff before she got into Twisted Wonderland fandom. How far else? I can’t say for certain(Especially with stuff deleted/or hidden) but it’s very obvious at this point she was just covering her tracks when all this stuff came out. That's likely why half of her gallery is gone. In any case that’s really I have to update on the matter of why her DA art pieces are gone. There’s not much else to it all. With all this in mind, please remember: Do not Harass Ugigiugi or her followers! Don’t engage and just block if need be! At  this point I don’t see a reason to get on her page or go about addressing her or followers. There’s zero point to having any conversations with them if their set in their own mindsets. More so; this entire drama basically created a large digital footprint so even if Ugi and her followers don’t listen to logic, we still have all this proof she did trace and chose to run  then handle things in a mature manner. -TwstedPomeTea

[atanasije]

A little girl went missing. She was talking to her friend in the kitchen, her friend went to the basement to get something and when she came back up the girl was gone. Vanished into thin air

I was a new guy in town, and a private investigator. The neighborhood in which the little girl went missing was falling apart. The parents were in such deep despair and panic. They didn't even ask me to start an investigation, they demanded it the moment they saw me. They introduced me to the neighbors' girl who had last seen the missing kid. They were both same age, around 5-6 years old. She showed me the place where the whole thing happened. She showed me the basement, all while the missing girl's mother was sobbing behind me the entire time.

The mother said the girl's name but it evaporated the moment she said it. "These are her clothes, these are her toys, I didn't imagine her! She's gone into thin air". She showed me red dresses and dolls, the clothing was so tiny. "I worked so hard to raise her properly, she wouldn't have run away!". And a kid her age had no reason to run away. Still, the way the mother was panicking felt too real, she was a sobbing mess every time I talked to her. With each interview I got to learn more about the trailer park she lived in, and the neighbors' houses. And the roads, and then the railroad.

Time was noticeably passing, and with every passing day the search seemed more and more pointless from my point of view.

I went to nearest train station to ask anyone I can if they've seen the six year old girl in a red dress. Everyone looked at me like an idiot. I showed them family photos of the now grieving family, nothing. At one point I was thinking of taking whatever train comes next and just leave the town. It's getting weird. The girl vanished into thin air, I have no answer for the family and the community. And I feel nothing for this child, which is so strange. Then, as though he was reading my mind, an old grey man started watching me. To avoid eye contact I was looking at the ground, I found some marbles. Every time I bend down to pick one up I glance to check if the old man is looking at me, and not only was he looking at me, he was obviously following me. A weird sense of unease started to creep in even though the man posed no threat to me. I was taller than him, younger and stronger. But the look on his face made me feel almost guilty. I turn around, I don't say anything, it was enough to face him. "Still nothing? Thought as much." I didn't see his mouth, he had a long beard and a visor. Before I got to say anything he added "a little girl goes missing on the same day a stranger arrives." Oh.... "And he's the one investigating her disappearance...right". I didn't reply, I was in shock at the thought of even thinking I would be suspected of doing something to a little kid. I was horrified, I turned around and left, made sure the old man couldn't follow me, but what was said was said.

I searched the dump that was a few blocks away from the trailer park. I searched the neighbors' home at least three times. Time kept passing, people started moving on with their lives. Yes the girl is still missing but everyone did what they could. The community clearly missed her.

They knew this little girl. They knew what she liked, they know how she dressed, but they couldn't imagine she was simply gone. At times, when presented with any "leads" or "evidence" I started wondering if this town is pulling a prank on me. The parents were the most hysterical. They didn't accept anything I had to say. They expected an explanation. If the child was kidnapped, who kidnapped her? If the child was murdered, who murdered her? Anything else is me wasting the precious time none of us had left.

On a particularly hot, dry day I visited the trailer of the parents. The mother was there cooking in her tiny kitchen. The interior of the trailer was steaming, I was drenched in sweat immediately. I asked her to sit down and talk to me. She probably thought I had some new information...

-"I'm not from here" I started

-"I know"

At this point the disillusionment was the only thing I had. I was not going to do what was expected of me"

-"I mean, I'm not from... I'm not--""

-"I know, I know what you're trying to say, and I understand, it's okay."

She understood I wasn't from her world, that I will never truly understand her grief, and that one day I will be gone forever as well. I felt a bit relieved. However, I felt like an immense failure for not telling her what she wanted to hear. She was so obsessed with getting her child back the same way she saw her the last time she did. In her little red dress, with her friend, playing. It will never happen again.

I managed to have a little neighborhood gathering one evening. I told them what they couldn't bear to hear. The girl is gone, she won't be coming back. No one took her, no one killed her, she was simply gone. Many people were very upset at my words, I wasn't trying to sugarcoat it.

"Can't you make her come back in any way?" An old alcoholic from one of the trailers asked me.

"No." I said it almost annoyed, but I really tried being understanding.

"Is there a way we can summon her...i-in some way...she can be with us again!" Said a woman, clearly choking back tears.

"No." It felt brutal to shut them down.

"Is there a way we can make ourselves believe that she is here with us?"

"I mean, I'm not barring you from trying" it felt bad, they were starting to lose touch with reality. But I didn't say anything. It was obvious my presence was causing them lots of distress. After all this time, no one told me to leave but it was obvious.

The next morning, I was ready to leave. Boarded a train, felt very dejected and disillusioned. I was probably what they were looking for, but not in the same form they remembered it. But I couldn't tell them that. And I couldn't re-insert myself into that community. They wanted a little girl, I was only a man.

[forensicated]

Smiffina Episodes - Episoe 359

2nd in the string of 4 in a row the episodes that make me twitch so much. (The next 2 aren't Smiffina, but Dan and Mickey in trouble.)

We open where we left off, Smithy is trapped in the Larson's house with them having just arrived back from the station after Pete's arrest - which spectacularly fell apart. Zain arrives and tells Louise secretly that Smithy is trapped in the house. She and Zain try and distract Pete so Smithy can leave. Smithy desperatley searches for a back door key as Louise makes her excuses so she can 'feed the dog' and get Smithy out whilst Zain continues to waste Pete's time. Unfortunately Pete has Louise's keys so she can't get him out so tells him to hide whilst she can get Pete out the way to let him sneak out.

Smithy being Smithy unfortunately, he doesn't just leave. He spots the door to the utility room that he thinks the gun is behind (where the dog was locked whilst officers searched) and he goes down there instead of getting out the damn house. Mid panicked search he even looks inside the powder/liquid drawer of the washer 🤣 Louise texts him to get out now (amusingly it's obviously a 'compose text' screen. Were TPTB too cheap to have a PAYG sim set up for when they needed to 'text' characters?

He's about to leave but he stands on a drain on the middle of the floor and - Smithy being Smithy - gets a screwdriver from his pen knife (!) and opens it to search for the gun.... and finds it. But it's too late...

"I think this is the one you're looking for." Pete mocks, ordering Smithy to give him the gun he's just found and the uniform belt. (Why doesn't he press the emergency button?!) Unfortunately he's onto them... he caught Louise texting him. His dog is 'growling' but everytime they cut to him he just looks adorable and is watching both men all innocent like so they add the growling when the camera's off him.

Pete is devestated to realise that Smithy and Louise were having an affair - and what was really happening the day he came back and found them. He drags Smithy along, beating him all the way and drops him beside Louise who is out cold on the bedroom floor having been beaten. He continues to beat Smithy, growling at him for ever coming near Louise.

Zain realises the amount of trouble Smithy could be in as he can't get in touch with him and speaks to the DCI, telling him what has happened.

The Eyebrow is still out for its own acting award despite it's owner having been badly beaten as it keeps arching on its own.

Smithy keeps telling him that they've not been seeing each other but unfortunately the evidence is clear on Smithy's phone in their text history and voicemails.

Downstairs Jack and the NCS boss are banging on the door, shouting Pete's name with uniform backup arriving to break into the house. Louise is found and taken to hospital but there's no sign of Smithy when they get in, having been forced into Pete's boot. Thankfully Zain saw but was unable to stop him as he was on foot. Uniform charge out of the station, trying to find Larson's car after it vanishes during Jack and NCS following him. "Larson doesn't cross the road if there's a risk, why has he kidnapped a police officer?" he asks Jack, before letting him know that NCS had seen Smithy making visits to the Larson's before they went away. Zain has to tell Jack the truth...about everything.

A dazed and blooded Smithy struggles to his feet in an office block, telling Pete that he's going to get in more trouble as they're searching for him. He tells Pete to let him go, Pete simply takes the safety off his gun. He tries to fruitlessly run away as Pete insists he's got a few things he wants to sort out. He asks where they'd met up - if it was his house or hotels. Smithy still insists it was just talking, she was lonely and wanted to save the marriage and felt they were drifting apart. Pete is not daft and receives a call - he wants 'a job doing and doing now. He's got someone he wants sorting out' he tells "Dixie" as Smithy stares down the barrel of his gun. He puts a hit out on Louise, telling him she should be in St Hughes - he wants her murdering. Smithy glares at him, telling Pete to call the hit off. Pete just scoffs and punches him in the stomach to force him down onto his knees where he continues to beat him. Smithy wheezes that he doesn't care what happens to him - but to leave Louise out of it and to cancel the hit. Pete refuses and takes aim to shoot Smithy - but Smithy is saved by the arrival of the Worlds Most Oblivious Cleaner.

Smithy takes the chance to manage to undo his arms as Pete is distracted and thrusts himself against Pete, knocking him over a chair as he makes a run for the doors - that have locked behind the cleaner. Almost!

In hospital Louise has come around and is asking for Smithy. She knows what Pete would be trying to do given he's taken Smithy hostage. There's also a man outside her room looking very interested in its occupants... Suzie has found Smithy's warrant card outside an office building - he's not just a pretty face you know! He's even using a chair to try fight Pete off inside.

"Don't tell me, the chairs loaded." Pete mocks at Smithy then throws it at him. He sets the fire alarm off and runs off to the other side of the room, alerting Jack et al outside as they charge towards the building. The cleaner tells them there was a business that ran out of there until a week ago before it suddenly folded without explanation.

CO19 charge inside with Zain, Jack and Suzie bringing up the rear. Smithy plays for time and won't keep still, warning him to give himself up and to call off his man. "Just give yourself up." "Give myself up to you? I'd rather blow us both away." Pete growls, CO19 storming the room behind them. Pete gives himself up as they point guns at him and Smithy charges in to arrest him with the Sun Hill 3 (and NCS officer) coming in to help. "He's taken a contract out on his wife, we've got to get to her quick!" Smithy shouts.

CO19 are now at the hospital having sealed off the entire floor that Louise is on. The gunman is now dressed as a doctor and escapes out into the yard. He loses his white coat and heads deeper into the hospital, getting arrested in the boiler room.

At Sun Hill, Pete is shouting long and loud about Smithy having an affair with Louise, claiming no judge on earth would prosecute given that Smithy was using his wife for information. Pete denies everything that Smithy said - including that he confessed to murdering Vince and he insists Smithy planted the gun at his house after Louise gave him it to frame him - and that it was Louise who was the real murderer of Vince.

Smithy pulls away from the nurse who's tending his wounds, he wants to get to Louise. Tony tells him to stay despite Smithy refusing because 'he's taking his orders from Jack, he's got a bigger badge than you'. He assures him Louise is fine and that he can see her but he needs looking at. "I'm going to get the nurse... and this time, be nice to her!" he tells him - of course Smithy doesn't wait, painfully making his way to Louise's bedside. Smithy asks Roger to give them a few minutes and he sits with Louise, Smithy has to tell her about the hit Pete put out on her.

Suzie and Zain arrive at the hospital and see Smithy and Louise kissing. Suzie is very formal and tells her allegations have been made against her. Louise is shocked as is Smithy - surely they can see what Pete is doing? It's not that simple though, documents have been removed from the house with her signature all over them - claiming she is as tied up in the Larson Empire as he is. Smithy growls at Zain. "You are going to use his lies to intimidate her into giving you what you want?" "If you mean the truth, then yes." Smithy insists he'll be inside anyway for kidnap. Zain scoffs, it's all of 8 years if that. He wants more, Pete is a murderer and a career criminal. He wants a life sentence. Zain reminds Smithy that Louise's innocence means nothing if she can't prove it and Pete is a very wealthy man with very clever lawyers. Without his money and backing Louise doesn't have anything that can fight it.

Louise tells Zain she has nothing to do with the company and that clearly Pete was planning ahead incase he found himself in a position like that. Zain promises she'll be free of Pete if she helps them by telling them everything. Smithy goes to see Louise, Zain asks him to reassure her and get her to talk to them. All Smithy replies is 'Get out of my way'.

Smithy asks her what she's going to do. She's defeated, he's made sure she'll go down with him and that he'd never forgive her if she spoke out. She knows that just getting him inside won't be the end of it - he'd have her killed. The one thing she can say about him is that he was loyal to her and never cheated on her. Smithy's shocked, it sounds like she wants to stand by him. Louise insists that's not true - but that they can't have a happy ending. If she doesn't back him up she'll end up dead. "I've hurt Pete enough. He won't tolerate anymore." She tells him that to be together is being naive and a serious risk. She would rather know that he's out there happy somewhere than at serious risk of death being with her. She won't listen to Smithy's pleas and ends their relationship. They've both risked enough. Smithy is forced out of the room by Jack and runs to the FME's office, hiding inside in tears.

[morlock-holmes]

I think a big problem with reparations (be it "5k into the hands of every black person" or "class action lawsuit for everyone affected by redlining") is: Why should the public care more about one cause of poverty than any other? I mean, identifying causes of poverty is interesting, and it is relevant for the purpose of preventing future poverty, and you're right that redlining was a big injustice, and you're right to say that it was racist. But what does it matter for the purposes of alleviating poverty? Whether poverty is the result of overt or covert discrimination, or the result of individual injustice, or the result of sheer bad luck, or the result of actual bad choices, ... I just don't care that much. We should alleviate all poverty, preferrably in the order of how bad the poverty is (and preferrably worldwide, but some people are going hungry and sleeping on the streets even in the richest countries, so you might as well start with these people, just please don't require proof of citizenship or anything). The goal is equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity.

It's a very (forgive the word) liberal approach, trying to identify a specific injustice which distantly and indirectly underlies poverty and inequality, and then compensating its targets for the endured injustice. If I already think that poverty and inequality by themselves are an injustice, then this approach seems needlessly convoluted to me. And I can almost forgive your interlocutors for suspecting that behind this convoluted approach there must be a secret agenda at work (to enrich the few already well off black people further or whatever), even though I myself don't think that's what's happening.

I agree with you though that affirmative action is a red herring in this debate. The goal of affirmative action is to increase diversity, which is a worthwhile pursuit in itself, even though it is not at all a cure for inequality.

You realie this is an argument against the class action lawsuit, and, indeed, the lawsuit itself as theyare currently coneived of ad practiced?

If your job fires you for being you race, certainly that's aninjustice, but why should we elevate one cause of poverty over another? Isn't it a very liberal idea for you to sue the company and for them to restore your job and pay a fine? Wouldn't it make more sense to alleviate all poverty regardless of cause?

Ta-Nehisis Coates didn't entirely convince me with his case for reparations, but what he was able to do was to find specific, living people who had been harmed by specific policies in specific times and places.

And there has been, since basically the mid-70s, an enormous psychological block in the white American psyche dedicated not to accepting that.

Weirdly, people were making this exact argument to me specifically at least 15 years ago, when people who were affected by racist policy were in their 50s and 60s.

Racism *must* be a vague, untraceable thing that was obviously bad, but whose effects are so swamped by other effects that it's literally impossible to measure them. This is just taken as obvious, and of course after 70 or 80 years of pretending that it's true, it will start to become more and more plausible.

I'm not the least bit against generalized attempts to eliminate poverty; in fact I think they'd do a lot to make people less hysterical but of course in the US we don't do that either.

What we are doing is dismantling affirmative action, with the assurance that the racial differences in the US will vanish (or cease to be politicized, for a lot of people these are the same thing) once we have a perfectly colorblind policy.

DEI stuff strikes me as a response to a feeling of complete inability to influence or create concrete policy in any other arena.

[kurt-wagner-official]

Post #61: Nightcrawler issues 1-4

Other than Giant-Size X-Men and Secret Wars, this miniseries is the first thing I've read that isn't written by Claremont. Unlike those, however, this isn't required reading, but I want to read it and it's obviously relevant to the character. It's written and drawn by Dave Cockrum, one of the few collaborators that Claremont actually likes and listens to, so it fits in well with the main series. I've never actually read this series, but I know this is where real life Bamfs are introduced. At the start, Kurt is exercising in the Danger Room, and then tells Kitty and Illyana a story about Bizarre Adventures 27, another book I haven't read. But that's okay, cause it all gets recapped here: Kurt and the Vanisher, another teleporter, were trapped in another dimension where their teleportation powers didn't work. They escaped through the Well at the Center of Time, a magic portal that exists in all dimensions. Kitty makes a hologram of the well, but because it exists everywhere she accidentally summons the real well, and a flying squid comes out, grabs Kurt and Lockheed, and flies back in. This has all been very contrived exposition to get us to the plot, which is Kurt and Lockheed being stranded in another dimension full of weird aliens. They start off by fighting off the squid and landing on a flying alien pirate ship. The crew mistakes Kurt for a boggie, which is apparently a creature in this world, but he introduces himself and joins the crew. He has fun for a few days, but when they meet another ship carrying a princess and open fire, Kurt realizes these are actual pirates. He takes out their weapons and ports to the other ship. They also think he's a boggie, but he explains the situation. They still think he's a boggie, but they agree to give him a ride to a city. When he gets there, he finds everyone in the world hates boggies, and they all think Lockheed is a bander-snitch, so they have a hard time finding any leads on a way home. They're then attacked by the pirates from the beginning, who as revenge sell them into slavery aboard another ship, this one hung under a giant squid and captained by a shark looking guy named Shagreen the sorcerer.

Shagreen takes his slaves to L'un Dun-t'wn, his evil fortress. He casts a spell to block Kurt's powers and plans to dissect him to learn about teleportation, and he's also kidnapped the princess from earlier for some other evil reason. The pirates who sold Kurt learn about this part and decide to go kidnap her back to ransom her themselves. Meanwhile, Kurt is rescued by the real boggies, teleporting creatures who look like Kurt but smaller and more demonic. They tell Kurt that Shagreen is going to sacrifice the princess for more evil magic, but if Kurt destroys his object of power it'll lift the teleportation block and they can all escape. Kurt destroys the staff, but the evil lair starts disintegrating and Shagreen flees with the princess. Kurt ports after him onto his ship and sword fights him. Kurt with pirate swords is always fun, and I think this is the first time he's actually used them outside of fairy tales and Kulan Gath related fantasies. The duel ends with Lockheed knocking Shagreen off the boat and the pirates catching up. Kurt convinces them to accept a reward for the princess's safety rather than a ransom, and he's named a knight of the realm by the princess's father. Everything seems to be going well until, back in the Danger Room, Kitty and Illyana try to recreate the well (for time travel reasons, it's only been a few minutes for them). They do open a portal, but it just pulls Kurt and Lockheed into another dimension, where they meet a Bamf.

Kurt and Lockheed are in the actual dimension from Kitty's fairytale, which I did not see coming. Kurt is baffled as he's introduced to the island of Bamfs, who all think he's their father. Suddenly Shagreen appears, somehow alive and in this world, and he kidnaps all the Bamfs except one and runs off, telling Kurt to come to his new lair and give himself up if he wants to save them. The Bamf calls his friends giant Lockheed, Pirate Kitty, Colossus, and the Fiend, who give them a lift over the ocean to Shagreen's evil lair. On the way, Kurt tells them about his world and they all ponder multiverse theory, which at the time was a pretty new addition to the Marvel Comics world. When they get there, however, they're picked off one by one by Shagreen's minions. Shagreen kidnaps them and cackles evilly about how they're doomed.

The only one to avoid being kidnapped is the Bamf, because Kitty and Illyana accidentally teleported him back to their world before quickly reversing it. He goes to the dungeons and starts a Bamf revolution. Windrider the genie shows up to help her friends, and at one point Kitty accidentally teleports herself into the battle and back with Lockheed. In the end, Kurt smashes Shagreen's staff again, which opens another portal and pulls him into a world of dinosaur cowboys. It activates again, and he's back in the dimension he went to with Vanisher a while ago. One of the people there says he still has magic energy left in him from last time he was there, which is why the real well was accidentally conjured. As for why Shagreen was teleported with him, she says some vague nonsense about Kurt's will having power over dimensions due to the leftover magic inside him. He's able to burn up the rest of that magic by teleporting home, ending the adventure. He has a sweet reunion with Kitty before the two of them, Illyana, and Lockheed go get some cookies.

The beginning and ending of this series made absolutely no sense, but that's fine cause it was really just a framing device for some weird fun fantasy stuff. Kurt doesn't learn anything or grow as a person, and if it weren't for Bamfs returning way later you could argue this series isn't canon. But it was really fun to read, and that's all they were going for. Cockrum isn't my favorite artist for some of these characters, but I love how he draws Kurt, and he has a good voice for him. Also, part of the reason why these paragraphs were short is that this was actually a very funny book, and a lot of it was just jokes, which would not be funny at all if I wrote them down here. It's been a while since the last lighthearted story, so I'm glad this mini exists.

[raincloudinajar]

Buckle up buttercup because my first memory of renting a VHS from a physical store involved the cops.

I'm... IDK 5 or 6 at most. We're in San Francisco visiting my Grandpa. He lives a block off Geary Blvd, which is a pretty busy street. We had gone to dinner, who knows where, and grandpa had walked back home. But Mom, Dad and I were going to go get videos that I could watch. Obviously this was my idea. On the way to the rental store. It wasn't blockbuster. I do remember that, but that's about it. On the way to the video store, there was a fish store for like aquarium fish. I told mom I wanted to go look at the fish, so she and I go in. I never saw Dad go in so I assumed he kept walking to the video store. Well about half way through the fish store I have to go to the bathroom. I didn't see one in the fish store, but I knew there was one in the video store. So I just... leave the fish store and walk my happy ass over to the video store. Mind you, not once did I mention this to my mom. I just assumed Dad was over there so I just leave. Mom has no clue. Anyways... I do my business and then start looking for dad. I don't see him, but figure that maybe I just can't find him. I pick out my movies. I remember that I rented three VHS's and one of them was Sinbad. I somehow convinced the cashier to just put them on my parents' account because I had the number etc. and they did. Then I get my movies in a plastic bag and start walking back to the fish store. Still haven't found dad but knew I'd run into mom somewhere along the way.

Well... I find Dad. And he goes "where were you?" The rest of this is fairly blurred but I assume that I asked Dad where he was, and he tells me that he went into the fish store on the other side. Which is why I never saw him. He never made it to the video store. My parents were terrified when I was gone. Just vanished. They assumed I had been kidnapped. Mom called the cops. They were at the fish store. Apparently they basically interrogated Dad when they realized he had me to make sure he was a legitimate guardian. Mom's sobbing. Now I'm sobbing because I think I'm going to be in huge trouble. I don't think I was....