#which serves its purpose but sometimes its too limiting

[legoliomanikas]

"Rather than collecting jewels that have already been shaped... I'm more fascinated by the process of turning an unrefined stone into a precious gem"

[Instagram]

(bonus images under the cut)

If you can't read my handwriting:

"Had a headcanon that some of Aventurine's most-used jewelery were gifts from Jade during the early days of him joining the IPC...

(...since his continued retaining of material objects serve as an extension of his character, representing different eras in his life:

Still holding onto items from his family (child era)

Wearing multiple rings on one hand + a watch in his main outfit (post-slavery era; emulating the style of his old slaveowner)

Ratio's note being a physical reminder to continue living (post 2.1 era; ratio being a 'supporting role' to aventurine's own mental health reflection + representing a bond he has in the current day, despite all his past losses).

Given Jade's importance in him becoming Aventurine a Stoneheart, it would make sense if he has something from her as well to represent that significant life transition.)

...so it was very funny that after I started drawing this it was confirmed that she does gift her proteges stuff LOL.

(And then it sat on my computer for a bajillion years until I posted it now RIP.)"

[aziraphales-library]

Thank you so much for the work you do on this blog. For no reason at all I was wondering if you could recommend some fics where crowley is just extremely happy, having a wonderful day, loving his life

Here are some happy Crowley/good day fics...

May I Have This Dance? by AnonymousDandelion (G)

“Angels,” Aziraphale murmured, the words a warm and welcome breath of air not very far distant from Crowley’s cheek, “don’t dance.” “Oh?” Crowley’s answering smile was practically audible in his voice as he leaned forward, already on the verge of accepting the very obvious temptation to tempt. (That particular subtext technique — tacitly inviting Crowley to push, persuade, entice one step further — was one Aziraphale had mastered long, long ago. It no longer served the same purpose it once had, but that didn't mean they couldn't still dabble in their old patterns, if now purely for the entertainment factor.) “Is that the case, my angel?” “It’s certainly what I’ve heard, at any rate.” Reaching up, Aziraphale caught Crowley’s hand in his own, their fingers interlacing in what was now an accustomed movement… and never any less marvelous, each time, for all its growing familiarity. ~ ~ ~ In which Crowley and Aziraphale are very soft, very happy, and very together. That's the fic.

oh, but surely not by Phoenix_of_Athena (G)

Aziraphale can be firm, sometimes. Sometimes, when he really cares about something, he’ll speak up, and he’ll get this tone to his voice that makes Crowley take notice. It’s a little sharp, undeniably bossy, and it’s immovable…Crowley likes it.  Aziraphale usually takes pains to be passive; affable; soft—whatever he thinks it is that an angel ought to be, in order to guide people towards kindness and good and all that mush. But a lot of that’s an act; those are traits that Aziraphale’s put on, and which, over time, have left an impression on his personality. But really, Crowley’s counterpart has a core of steel underneath all of his silk and cotton. Crowley can be downright cheerful, for a demon. Peppy. Excited. Eager. Like a puppy, Aziraphale thinks when he’s not being particularly charitable, or like a child, when he is. It’s endearing, either way. And it’s striking. When Crowley’s not self-conscious, and he’s usually not around Aziraphale, he’ll get this grin. Wide, and wondering, and kind. Not like the wicked quirk of lips he’ll get after a job well-done, though that smile too has its own appeal—no, this one is hopeful, genuine, and charming in a wholesome way. Aziraphale can never help but smile back.

one of a thousand perfect days by 5ftjewishcactus (T)

Aziraphale and Crowley spend a lovely day together, first curled up in bed together, doting on each other and then later go for a picnic and a bit of stargazing. It really is a perfect day.

Ocimum Basilicum by KannaOphelia (T)

This was their life now. A peaceful village where they could hear the sea. Aziraphale was fast cultivating a reputation as 'that terrible man from the second-hand bookshop, he looks so kind and cuddly but just try buying a book from him, how that nice Mr Crowley puts up with the old devil I'll never know'. Happiness. Happiness was their life. Perhaps it was just that happiness was too much for a demon to bear without getting sick. Or perhaps it was something else entirely.

Enrichment Activities by EdosianOrchids901 (T)

Eager for novelty, Crowley takes up art. Picking one medium would be too limiting, though. Aziraphale is confused by the deluge of sculptures, paintings, and drawings, but he tries to be supportive.

Visibility by Aethelflaed (G)

“I just…woke up like this,” Crowley explained, in what was probably supposed to be a casual voice. “Definitely a curse. Probably one of those angels, thwarting and all, you know how they are.” “An angel.” Pinching zir nose, Beelzebub tried not to imagine the foolish way she was probably grinning. “And by pure coinczzidenzze, this angel juszzt happened to make you completely inviszzible on the day of your department budget review?” -- A mysterious curse that Crowley DEFINITELY didn't cast on herself makes her invisible for a day! What sort of trouble can she get into? Or get her angel out of?

- Mod D

[theroosterfairytaler]

You're just trouble little sheep - part 2 | Thomas Hewitt x female reader

_____________________________

Summary: He dosen’t know how to handle you. You have your own thoughts and feelings, which makes Thomas feel very conflicted. Thoughts tend to make him think a lot about life and fictional scenarios because that's how one escapes reality, but Thomas dosen’t want it to be fictional, yet how can they be reality when he has his own problems and can't even trust you?

With a practised ease, Thomas hefted the animal carcass onto the nearby table, the wet, slick form of the beast sloshing on the cold, metal surface. His large, gnarled hands sought out the appropriate points, swiftly severing the carotid and brachial arteries to begin the process of blood removal.

As the red, viscous fluid gushed forth, Thomas moved on to the next step, skillfully guiding the carcass into the scalding bath, where the skin loosened and began to peel away. Satisfied with the result, he hauled the animal back onto the table, grabbing a sharp knife to make a long, clean incision along its abdomen.

With deft strokes, Thomas reached into the now-open cavity, removing the organs, and disposing of them into a nearby bin. Finally, he split the carcass in half, skillfully separating it into two symmetrical portions, which he placed onto a nearby conveyor belt, continuing the monotonous yet crucial task, over and over, until it was time for his shift to end.

Though his world may have been a mundane one, he excelled at his duties, finding some semblance of purpose and order in the routine and brutality of the slaughterhouse. He was the epitome of a butcher, driven by his instincts with a fierce loyalty to his family, ready to protect their way of life since they are growing too old to do much anymore.

But sometimes, Thomas just wanted to follow his emotions. Even if he knew it would get him into a lot of trouble, but he never did. Just stayed in line and did what was asked of him, cause that's all he was good for. Butchering, doing farm work, and sewing. Nothing special in those things in his mind, considering anybody could do that without a degree or a long time skill.

Thomas's eyes narrowed as he paused, reflecting on the thoughts that ran through his mind. Though he had no voice to vocalise his emotions, he seemed to be consumed by an internal turmoil. The idea of following his emotions, of forging his own path, was both alluring and frightening.

As if realising that any deviation from the life he had known could spell doom for his family, Thomas shook off his brief moment of introspection. His gaze hardened as he picked up his butcher's knife once more, plunging it into the next carcass with renewed vigor. He would remain true to his duties, even if it meant suppressing his inner desires.

He had no real aspirations, and his simple existence seemed to suffice for the moment. His skills in butchering, farm work, and sewing served a purpose, even if it was a humble one. Thomas would continue to be the reliable cog in the Hewitt family machine, unassuming but necessary, as he went on about his daily routine, oblivious to the world beyond his isolated existence.

He hated the silence at times, even though he wished for the calmness on some occasions. His brow furrowed as the memories of his youth resurfaced. His early dreams had been pure and innocent, reflecting a naive optimism. But as he grew, those dreams faded in the face of reality.

The disfigurement that marred the lower half of his face was an ever-present reminder of his limited opportunities. He knew that the world would never accept someone like him. His intelligence, while not overly impressive, remained mostly unexplored, stifled by his own insecurities and the confines of his home, along with his mask.

Thomas's eyes glazed over as he recalled the few times he'd tried to imagine a different life. A life where he wasn't shackled to the same routine and depressing existence. But those fantasies, as beautiful as they may have been, were quickly replaced by the grim realities of the life he knew.

As he worked, Thomas's hands never faltered, the rhythmic, methodical nature of his actions providing a sense of order to an otherwise chaotic existence. For a brief moment, a faint glimmer of sadness flickered in his eyes, a testament to the life that might have been, but it was quickly smothered by the crushing weight of his present reality.

His thoughts drifted to the alluring enigma of the woman he'd encountered mostly in his nightly wanderings. He found himself longing for something more, a connection with someone outside his dysfunctional family.

Yet, reality once more struck a cruel blow. He knew that she'd never see him as anything but a twisted, disfigured monster. The gap between their worlds was as vast as the chasm separating their very beings. Thomas's heart ached with an inexplicable yearning, yet he pushed the thought away, burying it deep within the dark recesses of his mind.

Instead, he focused on the immediate task at hand. He was needed at home, his family depended on him. One simple mistake could have the boss cut his salary in half or give a dumb excuse as to why he has to work overtime, but dosen’t get paid extra for it.

Thomas didn't know what to do about it, what to do with her but as the days keep on going, and the rumours of the slaughterhouse being potential shut down in the future. It made him nervous. The thought of losing his home, the only life he had ever known, terrified him. He grappled with the growing fear and uncertainty, his primitive instincts urging him to protect what little stability he had.

Those minor night walkings only started because he had a lot in his mind and couldn't sleep because they kept him up at night. But he never expected to see her outside so late sometimes. Apparently, she had two jobs, one as a late night waitress and the other as a secretary. He only found this out because when she did see him, she had asked him if he could accompany her for a while, stating she didn't exactly feel safe walking back home at night. Having sympathy for the shorter woman, he had decided that day to aid the little sheep out.

Nothing special had happened that night, she was mostly talking about work related issues, and about the economy for Newt not looking so great. She mentioned also that if it would get worse, she would have no option but to leave soon. Considering her financial situation wasn't the best, and her words made Thomas feel a bit... gray. The only nice individual who wasn't in his family could move at any point of his life, and he wouldn't even know it until she was already gone.

She had lived here her whole life, yet she had spoken as if she could leave it all behind in a heartbeat. Thomas's sharp butcher knife hit hard against the work bench to the point that it actually got stuck on the table, luckily though he hadn't put too much force in it, and had smoothly pulled it out.

He dosen’t know why she wanted to move away so badly, he dosen’t understand why she says it as if it is a dream of hers, but if she could say that so confidentiality to a man like him. What's to say she even cared about how he felt?

Author's note: I hope you enjoyed part two of this little series I had unintentionally created and now can not escape from. How long will it be? I honestly have no idea. We'll see if this short story turns out to be good or not.

[qilingxiong]

okay, i've seen this a few times now and it's getting on my nerves, so: PLEASE do not use the ao3 tag space like you do tumblr tags.

tumblr tags, as a feature of how the site is structured, have come to serve both organizational and communicative purposes. some people use them strictly for one or the other, and many people use them for both, with an unspoken etiquette developed for the second. tags are a free space for someone to add their own thoughts or commentary on a reblog, without the permanence of directly adding onto a post. if someone likes your tags, they can peer review it and then attach them to the post in a more visible way. it's a unique thing about tumblr, and it's definitely freeing to go rambling in tags sometimes about whatever topic and not think too hard about it. i get it.

but ao3 tags do not serve the same function as tumblr ones.

tumblr is a microblogging/social media-adjacent platform. ao3 is an archive, a repository. the purpose of its tags on fics is for proper and accurate organization almost exclusively, with tag wranglers to ensure this system works. sure, authors will leave a few personalized/commentary tags on their fics sometimes. for example, perhaps to note something brief about story content that can't be addressed through other tags, or because some necessary tags haven't been made canonical by ao3 yet. but these are usually limited to just a few tags in a fic at most.

leaving a whole wall of rambling thoughts in ao3 tags, like you would on a tumblr post, is going to undermine the function ao3 tags are intended to serve. it muddles organization of your fic so that people scrolling by might not catch the actual content tags you wanted them to see. it might be annoying enough that they won't care to skim the summary or click on your fic. ao3 has a tag limit these days for a reason; those of us who witnessed the Sexy Times With Wangxian incident know that it stemmed from mass overuse of tags that weren't relevant to the fic's organization. many of us are low on patience after that.

this is, by no means, telling anyone to stop adding thoughts about their fics! it's just that there's already a space dedicated to that on ao3, and it's called the author's notes before and after your story. that's where people are expecting you to put commentary like this, and they'll have a chance to respond to it in the fic comments too, if they want. you can talk about the behind-the-scenes of your writing elsewhere too, on tumblr or other platforms, where you can yell to your heart's content. just please don't do it right in the ao3 tags, which are meant for a different purpose than the ones on tumblr, and so have different etiquette for usage. it'll keep the site a friendlier place to visit for others, and perhaps help the chances of your writing being looked at.

[eowynstwin]

Throwing my hat in the ring to cast tf141 in Fallout.

Price is a veteran NCR Ranger who saw both the first and second battles of the Hoover Dam as a young man. Following the collapse of the NCR he roves the wasteland as a sometimes bounty hunter, sometimes do-gooder when his conscience gets the better of him. He is haunted by the decline of the country he served, the country he believed in, knowing he had no power to save it. He is in the first stages of ghoulification, and is struggling to feel like there's any point prolonging the process.

Gaz is a former vault dweller who came to the surface, against the wishes of his fellow dwellers. He learned of the NCR and the progress it had made reestablishing the trappings of civilization, and left his home behind to fulfill his entire vault-dwelling purpose. Price keeps him from getting shot in the first settlement he stumbles across, and he's been tagging along with the old-timer ever since, trying to figure out what to do now that Plan A is a crater.

Ghost is a knight in the Brotherhood of Steel who is notorious for working alone. He comes from a family of wastelanders, which met its grisly end after the sins of his raider father caught up with him. The Brotherhood picked him up when a patrolling vertibird caught sight of his family home burning down, and found him standing in front of it with a lighter in hand. He isn't what you'd call a fanatic, though; he just likes to know where his next meal is coming from.

And Soap is Ghost's first-ever squire. Soap is a former NCR Ranger recruit who ran off when he saw the writing on the wall of the nation's decline, fully intent on joining the first organization he could find that might actually stand a chance of "saving" the world. Too late after joining did he realize the scope of the Brotherhood's goals, and the limited aid it was willing to offer civilians of the wasteland; he languished as an aspirant for years, with nowhere else to go after the bombing of Shady Sands, until Ghost handpicked him to be his squire.

No idea what their whole story would be, but I envision, after a series of wasteland shenanigans, Ghost and Soap leave the Brotherhood after a boiling point. They encounter Price and Gaz several times, and after more shenanigans, and Price's half-hearted-to-passionate proselytizing the values of democracy, they party up permanently, and Price realizes his dream of creating his own team—ranger squad 141.

[11cleyvaart]

Quimby headcanons maybe?😘😘

These are just my headcanons of Quimby, and some of them are also observed from the shows as well that keep his character in canon. And I'm sure I missed something too.

To be clear this is for my Inspector Gadget Au, where it's more gritty and more like the futuristic aspect rather than the 1980-2015 world of Gadget. 

His full name is Frank Mitchel Quimby. 

He's also 41 years old. He's been married to a woman for 20 years, and has been divorced just recently. 

He's a closeted homosexual, but feels more at ease and comfortable with Gadget than anyone else. He's known Augustin for years on the force and later turned into a romantic relationship between them. Their relationship slightly boarders on a rebound relationship.

His father was a military veteran and amputee, so he had years of understanding for those who have lost parts of them. Which allows him to understand Gadget on that level as well. 

Years of smoking a pipe gives him a permanent scent of peaches. He likes his flavoured tobacco for his pipe and will always have a faint peach fruit to his clothes. Yet on most days he doesn't smoke his pipe, mostly just to have something in his mouth. All his pencils have bite marks so he opted to just holding his wooden pipe in his mouth instead. 

He's an undercover agent himself, usually the one who gets the information on MAD and their plans. Making him the most sought after man in the entire department to be killed. He uses his stealth and many disguises to hide in plain sight.

So he lives a life of stress, and picks at his tie causing it to be loose and crumbled. He goes through them but it is too cheap to buy new ones. His stress also contributes to his weight gain as he rarely lives at his own home anymore in fear of MAD finding him, so he eats fast-food alot. He's a big meat guy, likes burgers and sausages with little on the veggies. 

He's also a skilled shooter, his shape may not show it but he's very capable of moves after years of service to the force. 

His favourite weapon of choice is the S&W Model 39, a small gun that takes much longer to learn to shoot but it serves its purpose. Even if it's defunct at this point he loves the feel of it and wouldn't want to replace it. 

Now after all that's said and done, he's also a masochist. He loves a good bite here and there getting his head shoved down on Gadget's ‘gadget’. He lives to be subject to pain within his limits. In his first marriage, it was a dead and loveless time. But with Augustin, he's more free to be the person who was hiding in him all along. He's a complete bottom and doesn't mind it as long as his top is his Inspector. Yet due to Gadget's sheer weight from his machinery, Quimby rides cowgirl. With missionary position a limited event that is used to hit their sweet spots, especially Quimby's. 

To everyone else he is mean and quick to anger but with Augustin he's a soft and gentle man. He also has a caring spot for Penny, especially little Penny. He feels more motherly towards her and will do anything in his power to be sure her uncle comes home alive everyday. 

A firm advocate for Inspector Gadget and his ability to solve crimes, when sometimes he is just blinded in his infatuation for the man he believes Augustin can do anything. So he automatically congratulates him even when Augustin knows he didn't do anything.

[freshlybakedspiderbread]

ive always wanted to talk a bit about how i feel about the connection between Yukari and Merry because i love the endless parallels and thematic connections (like everyone else on the planet 😁), but wondering if it was ever 'worth' it since i may just be spouting a lot of what is already considered 'common knowledge' among hifuu aficionados. Not to mention i think my thoughts on it are somehow both really messy but also crystal clear. 😐 Well whatever! Its my own head anyway so i'll try not to worry and am gonna attempt to elaborate even if just a little on this post, which may not be entirely coherent due to sleepy, post-medicine fatigue.

i feel like over the years i may have started to become reflexively more 'against' yukari = merry fandom, although 'against' is probably too strong and its much more complicated than just "i dont subscribe to that theory" because thats not even entirely accurate!

it is of course a classic and really cool idea of the Merry one day becoming Yukari has been and continues to be thoroughly explored by many many fans for moving, tragic, bittersweet, or thought provoking work. I love Absolute One-Way Street, and also Dream and Reality among many other works like it 📖

but i also think its a little stiffling to think of that as the one and only story to tell about them? Now its possible that the sentiment im about to express isn't actually common and im actually just making up a person to respond to, but i think taking the teasing connections between Yukari and Merry and treating the idea of them being the same individual as the absolute obvious truth is a bit of a limiting perspective.

Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinions and headcanons! but i want to make a case that when it comes to touhou and especially hifuu in particular, there's also a richer (and possibly deliberate on the author? who knows!) point to treat it more abstractly.

Maybe they are the same person. Maybe one day Merry becomes Yukari, or Yukari becomes Merry. Maybe they're different people. Maybe they come from the same lineage. Or maybe one is a clone of the other grown in a lab or made with a magic spell.

None of that is as important to me as the the roles they serve in their stories. touhou has always had themes about the gap and the bridge between fantasy and reality by taking place in a world where fantasy seeks refuge from reality, and hifuu goes much further in that theme by taking place in a reality that has completely left behind fantasy. That parallel is really cool to me and its embodied perfectly by both stories having a purple-clad blonde girl with the means to poking their toes into the boundary between fantasy and reality.

In the fantastical world of touhou, one serves as gensokyo's powerful (if frustrating, shady, annoying, disagreeable) protector with allies that she watches over (and sometimes manipulates) with her great power, all to preserve their little wonderworld. And I think its sooo compelling how zun introduced hifuu in the music cds and designed a very similar-looking character, who lives in a stifled reality lacking in imagination, mostly spends her day chasing after even the smallest traces of dreams with a partner whose own small logical world expanded with infinite possiblities upon their meeting...

In the last few cds, Merry's powers may be growing stronger and i get why feeds the implication she's becoming something other than human. But my take on that has always been its more of a sign that she and Renko are already outliers in their world simply for daring to believe there is more to the world beyond facts and logic. I dont expect their story (assuming zun ever brings them back. we havent heard what theyre up to since 2016....) to ever end with both or either of them becoming a youkai or vanishing to gensokyo, because frankly that wouldn't serve any purpose for the themes hifuu has been about, which is embracing fantasy while living in a world that has abandoned it.

trying to remember what my point with this post is.... Oh right its that I think all these themes about the nature of gensokyo or the state of reality in hifuu are only made richer when you think about how they contrast with one another. And by extension, I think Yukari and Merry are both richer if you think of them as conceptual and thematic counterparts in two different stories on the opposite end of a similar spectrum, before thinking about what literal or objective connection they might have. Subjectivity definitely means more than objectivity in this case!

[hitlikehammers]

The After the Sex and the Love and the Calm Storm (Steddie Pirate AU)

(I regret to inform you this is the end storm wherein bad things do in fact befall the boys)

🌊Under the Water (Our Hearts Will Dream Again)🌊

Chapter Six: Quite So Cruel

ONE // TWO // THREE // FOUR // FIVE // Chapter Six on 5 April 🌊

also on ao3

They are about as far from land as they ever venture—they’re risk-takers, and they’re foolish, the lot of them, you don’t become a pirate in the abundance of fucking self preservation and brains—but they’re not suicidal.

So: this is familiar, but further would be more than they venture toward.

That’s not to say others abide by the same limitations.

Steve stiffens in Eddie’s arms for no apparent reason; though the important observation is apparent, because Steve…does very little without reason.

He grabs Eddie’s hand, squeezes it and draws it to his lips for a kiss to the knuckles before untangling himself where they’d simply been resting, pressed body to body in comfort, where if Eddie concentrated very hard he could make Steve’s pulse out where he sprawled in Steve’s lap, pressed tight to his chest; but then Steve’s standing, letting go of Eddie’s hand with an apologetic grimace before he breathes low:

“Only a moment, angel,” and Eddie does melt easily at such ineffable endearments; “just need to test the currents.”

Which isn’t outside the norm, by any means: Eddie doesn’t comprehend how it’s done, or what it entails, or indeed the purpose it serves but Steve stands—sometimes with Eddie at his side—

Only…it’s not sometimes that Eddie’s stands at his side.

It’s most times. All times, Eddie would venture the wager blind.

Which sinks through the split of his heart right to his guts, when he lets the implications of this time, pursued alone, to sink in.

Eddie is barely on his feet to follow Steve unbidden, heart ricocheting, quaking from his ribcage and up his throat, when his arm is caught. All motion in his frame arrested for the hand on his sleeve, clenched around his limb: vise-tight and commanding, unforgiving, but desperate.

Eddie looks up, knows the touch is not its tenor simply for the shape of the hand, and Eddie needs to amend his assessment: his figure is frozen. His lungs are stuck.

His heart is shaking, for the wide frenzy in Steve’s eyes.

“They are almost upon us,” Steve pants, chest heaving, his hands on Eddie heavy, his hold so impossibly tight; “too swift and too much heft,” and his face drops, his breath catches and his eyes look bright almost stung to tears as he reaches a hand, cups Eddie’s face so soft, almost terrifying for how it juxtaposes to the death-grip he keeps on Eddie’s shirt, Eddie’s arm.

Eddie can near feel the break of his vessels to shape a bruise in the shape of Steve’s hand and he hates, he hates how his mind immediately whispers poison:

To keep for when he’s go—

No. No, Eddie doesn’t even know what’s happening, what’s the matter; he can’t afford to jump to conclusions—

His heart won’t withstand jumping to those conclusions—

The rest of the ship takes time to be roused, and if they did not trust in Steve’s uncanny intuitions they’d stay put but he’s not been wrong yet: a vessel is gaining on them, larger but somehow faster, pirates alike but no pirate crew is an ally to another, especially not in open waters, and Steve is certain they seek to do harm. They seek to plunder, certainly. But then: worse.

Eddie grabs for him, pulls him around a corner and asks how he knows it’s worse, where his fear is rooted and Steve stares at him, those sea-shift eyes flashing before he grabs Eddie’s face and draws him in, kisses him harder and needier than he’s ever done before and Eddie’s heart skips then surges for all the worst reasons when Steve pulls back, bows his head to Eddie’s brow and breathes:

“Blood,” and Eddie shivers for the closeness, for the word, for the promise of violence in the waves; “blood in the air, in the water,” and how Steve knows Eddie cannot guess, supposes it another talent learned where he hails from a world away, but Eddie never once thinks to question it. Because this is Steve, with whom he shares a bed. With whom he shares his heart.

If he’d had doubts, though, the way Steve looks at him—soft but unafraid, remorseful and yet so tender as he traces Eddie’s features, caresses his face; Eddie could never question this. No part of it. Not for an instant.

“I am sorry, my darling,” Steve breathes almost sorrowful, and the tides dip a little, the ship along their lead, as if Steve’s grief is deep enough to stir the fathoms below; “I’d have stopped them if I could.”

And Eddie cannot have that sorrow for nothing; reaches swift to catch Steve’s hands and brings them close first to his lips, then to his chest.

“You’re not to blame for pirates who seek to raid other pirates,” Eddie reasons, lifting one hand back now to cup Steve’s cheek just as dear, likely moreso, unable and unwilling to mask the depth of his feelings in a moment such as this. “It comes with the territory,” he tries to lighten the breaths between them, tries to reassure and steel them as one, together and united.

And Steve does not deny him, but outstrips him without seeming to intend it at all: he stares at Eddie as if he sees him in shades and frames beyond the perception of an ordinary man, watches him as if he can see the pump of his heart stripped bare and still he is steadfast: steadfast and unwavering, but then atop it all he is dangerous and somehow alight as he vows:

“I will not let you come to harm.”

And he draws Eddie in to kiss near violent for feeling, but this Eddie won’t be outstripped in, and meets him for every scrape of teeth and thrust of tongue.

And when Steve pulls away, the cries of the approaching enemy no longer approach, no: now they are here—but when Steve moves to meet them, Eddie stops him, traps their hands together against Eddie’s fitful heart and breathes:

“I pledge the same.”

And Steve’s eyes do impossible things, catch impossible light, before they settle on a soft regretful thing, an affection that fears but will not yield, and he holds tight to Eddie’s hand as he leads them to where the noise grows, swells: they’re being boarded.

“Stay close,” Steve breathes as he reaches for the pistol at his hip.

“Steve, I,” Eddie isn’t even sure what he means to say but Steve halts it quick enough he has no reason to learn; jerks him to a stop and hisses with the depth of an Ocean until himself:

“Stay close,” and Eddie nods, words beyond him, and draws a sword. Steve eyes him sharply.

“They will not all keep to the blade,” he warns, and Eddie nods, understands, then tips his head to Steve’s own firearm.

“I am quicker with this,” he assures, and Steve, bless him, doesn’t argue, doesn’t quest: trusts in kind.

Eddie’s heart still proves fool enough to swell, even as they cross into the fray.

They’re surprisingly not wildly outnumbered, and the invading parties expected to catch them wholly unawares: they press an advantage for it, and more than even the odds within mere minutes. But once they are evened, Steve is correct: they favor pistols.

And they are quicker than Eddie with them.

Eddie watches his crewmates fall, and slits throats without thought, quick and reliable, one after the next and they fall, and he doesn’t bother to think that he hasn’t found need to dodge a blade or a bullet yet, especially as his compatriots cry out or fall still and half-cold before they even can.

He doesn’t think, until he feels the impact: not of a bullet. Not of a blade.

But a body. One he knows so well, so intimately, pushing him with a purpose.

The way it slumps, a good five feet from where Eddie lands, and the groan that creaks from that direction, the way beloved hands clutch against the broad span of a chest: Eddie’s entire world shudders, goes dark at the edges when it becomes very fucking clear what the purpose was.

He sees the perpetrator, stalking close to finish the job and Eddie doesn’t think, sees the gleam of a gun held loose in dead hands and he grabs, aims, and pulls the trigger. And again. And again.

When he is certain the assailant is good and dead, he scrambles to Steve, still splayed on the deck, still clutching his chest.

His chest blooming red swift beneath his palms.

“How,” Eddie gasps, his vision still tunnelled, his tongue too thick; “why did you—“

“You were about to come to harm,” Steve croaks, simply, but as if the words cost him gravely; “what did I say, about that?”

He quirks a brow, even as the stain spreads beyond the cover of his hands, stretches rhythmically, as if, as if…

“Steve,” Eddie gasps, pleads, breaks because the stain spreads to a rhythm, and the would is in his chest—

Eddie reaches, moves Steve’s hands that are just resting, barely keeping pressure, and tries not to think of what it means that Steve maybe cannot hold with pressure as he leans his weight, his whole self onto Steve’s chest, the flutter of his heart that’s coloring his clothes, that’s draining his flesh to match the moonlight: far too pale already and no, no—

“But I gave you my heart,” Eddie insists, confounded, because the scene before him is impossible, it’s not possible even as that same heart trips frantic; even as he’s just barely keeping the words from spilling forth on a sob; “I gave you my heart, so you’ll be fine,” because he will, he must be, Steve must be; “you’ll be fine, because it’s still beating,” and Eddie’s hold is pressed tight to the hole ripped through Steve’s chest but he can feel the beating beneath it, because he can hear his own pulse in tumult but Steve’s heart is slower, the gush of blood between Eddie’s fingers gentler, the pulse driving it is sedate, even; is slowing, is fading, is leaving—

Eddie’s breath only manages to barely wheeze from his lips in a whine, because this cannot, he cannot—

“The heart of the whole Ocean, you said it,” Eddie gasps, whimpers, pleads because Steve told him, because Steve said so, and—

“The Seas would be dry, and I would be dust if you,” Eddie shakes his head, rakes denial over hot coals that will envelop him if he cannot blink and awake for: this nightmare, this hell, this—

Steve’s shirt is crimson, now; the blood pooling its own ocean beneath him, soaking the boards. Eddie cannot breathe.

“Beloved,” Steve barely manages to mouth the words, but Eddie feels them in the way his blood insists on continuing to move, and the same in the way Steve’s seems impossible to tempt into staying in motion, staying with Eddie—

“Take my heart, in this,” and somehow he mustered the strength to cover Eddie’s hand over the barest twitching left in it; “it’s been yours already, long enough,” and then Steve’s hand slips, and the less-than-a-beat under Eddie’s palm flees, and he presses harder, he tries to find it, how could he have lost it, where is it, where is—

“Steve?” Eddie is foolish enough to choke the name, when everything in him knows, and refuses to accept, that there will be no answer.

Ever again.

“No,” his voice shakes, though its steadier than any other part of him, and then, then—

There are no words for the sounds that escape him, animal and visceral, wrung to splatters and shattered beyond recognition, to less now than dust: more fitting, in honesty, than any words could have struck.

There are no curses, in any language or tongue, fit for gods quite so cruel.

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch @perseus-notjackson @estrellami-1 @bookworm0690 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme

divider credits here & here & here & here

🌊ao3 link here

[tsuki-no-yomi-project]

Mitsuki's Perception and "Souls" in Tsuki no Yomi x Naruto Universe

Mitsuki have a special kind of perception that would prove valuable in her journey. Her perception is close to a sonar. She extended her energy and in return it will interpret the natural element she touch and transmit it back to her as a simplified images. Think of it as 3d wireframe or those lidar game! However as her ability rely on nature/life energy only, those are the only thing that she could detect as well normally! In my concept, the major elements all have energy that is readable and exploitable for her, so does living beings. So based on this, water, earth, fire (temperature), earth, and lightning (electricity), are included in the things that she herself is sensitive about. However other than those, her perception will just pass through.

Credits: Scanner Sombre

On how Mitsuki read on living beings, for humans and animals, instead of getting a feed of their form, she got a feed of their soul signature instead. She perceive this as color, pattern, and amount (size). Color usually represent the human’s mind and personality. That’s why she had always seen Itachi as a warm/gentle person, albeit sad (more detail in upcoming chapter). As for pattern, this indicate everyone’s unique chakra pattern as well as the strength of it, same as how in Naruto’s world people can detect people’s different chakra and identify it. The amount, since in Narutoverse people’s life is tied to the amount of chakra as well and lack of chakra causes death, to put it simply, the amount of soul’s energy (size) also represent their chakra reserve. Because of this, Mitsuki also noticed something is odd with her since she can’t perceive her own pattern and her amount is not related to chakra whatsoever.

Itachi's soul is sunset colored, and Kisame's the color of calm water. Both have their unique pattern. Families tend to have similar pattern to each other too, hence Mitsuki being able to tell that Sasuke and Itachi are related other than because of how similar they look

Regarding this limitation, how Mitsuki managed to perceive Madara (Tobi)’s appearance is by reading the resistance received by the wind that she moved. Think of it as invisible man in the middle of the rain or sand blown to glass! From how it bounces, she can determine basic materials as well, like how we can tell wood is different from plastic by tapping it and listening to the sound that came out.

As for the mark, it might be spoilerish for those who haven't read that far, but they are (skip italic + strikethrough below if avoiding spoiler):

mark of the Gods, meaning that a God has decided the end of someone's life and is ready to claim their soul for their own "plans"/purpose. More about the mark and its effect/limitation can be found on chapter 45 on the fic!

Also, I just noticed this because my friend @immoralimmortals mentioned, but I’ve never actually talked about how Mitsuki’s soul looks like for herself. However, it did appear in the illustration actually sometimes.

Unlike plants which has its life energy and soul spread throughout, or animals and human with semi fluid shaped soul that shows their elemental compatibility from its shape, added with unique chakra pattern which amounts also affect the size of the soul,

Mitsuki’s soul, or other Gods, are more fluid, with everchanging shape and color, and it was more like a light source, with the divinity as its core in the shape of gem (hence before regaining her divinity, Mitsuki’s soul was just like a gas of light, without a core, and without chakra pattern as well). The core serve as an anchor of immortality, and as long as it is not destroyed, the soul would always return to its anchor. By itself, the shape and size of the core could change as well, so does the color. Normally, the Gods color represent light, but in the event a God turned into evil God, their core would undergo a major change which includes the change of the color and the nature of its emitted light (which will be shown in other AU where Mitsuki suffers even more *cough*)

If you guys stumble over this with no idea of what's happening, do give my fanfic a read here where i'm gifting Itachi a.. pet..? nurse..?? waifu..??? (why not both)

I hope you guys enjoy~

[nihilisticraccoon]

ok so

my grandparents are in town and we went to dinner earlier and at some point my grandma asked me about the etymology of “OK” bc she’s into that stuff and when i tell you i’ve been waiting for someone to ask me that exact question for YEARS

so anyways y’all get an abridged version while i’m still riding that high (yes it has been 3 hours but that was the high point of my week so too bad):

basically back in like the late 18th to early 19th centuries there was this slang trend of misspelling words on purpose as a joke, and one of the more popular of these was “all correct” to “oll korrect”, so this kinda brought the idea into the public eye, and then people started having the idea of abbreviating this to just “OK”; but it doesn’t end there bc at the same time as this uptick in popularity of “OK” was the presidential campaign of Martin van Beuren, from Kinderhook, NY. Van Beuren had the nickname “Ol’ Kinderhook”, and his presidential campaign had the idea to conflate that “OK” with the trendy new phrase, spreading “OK” out of the northeast US (specifically Boston) where the trend was most popular

anyways from there “OK” in its newfound popularity combined with terms that had similar sounds and/or meaning (such as the Choctaw “okeh”, serving a similar purpose as “amen”, and potentially the Bantu “kay” as an affirmative/agreement) and grew in popularity as even newspapers and other prints started using it increasingly often without a definition (which is significant bc it showed the expectation that a large amount of people just knew the term)

anyways sometime along this pathway it also gained a ‘proper’ spelling retroactively to appear more natural in more formal settings (it doesn’t really end up as formal but it’s still a pretty rare linguistic phenomenon for that to happen so worth noting) and now “OK” is regarded as one of if not the most commonly spoken word/phrase on the planet bc of its prevalence in not just english but an actual ton of other languages (including but not limited to Arabic, Korean, Dutch, and Brazilian Portuguese)

so yeah that’s something i find interesting sorry for the rant

[c-poetjoycciwi]

I Don’t Want to Go to Heaven.

I don’t want to go to Heaven.

A statement not many ever think to themselves, let alone let leak from their lips-

A statement almost equivalent to ‘I wish Christmas were canceled and fun were illegal’ in the eyes of Christian America-

So unthought of, impossible to conjure, confusing and laughable.

At any glimpse of the thought, it must be excorcised from our holy bodies immeditaly out of extreme anxiety-

Because fear is what Christians are married to even if no one wants to get up here and admit it.

But I’m not afraid.

I don’t want to go to Heaven.

Because if there’s a Heaven- that means there’s a Hell.

If there is a Hell that means there is Satan,

And if there is Satan then there must be… God.

I’ve been praying to myself, ever since I started wanting to live

That there is no God above us.

Because the day I realized I wanted to live,

God never crossed my mind.

If God truly loved me, and could do anything he wanted,

I assume he would want to be with me on that day.

I was on my knees, slamming my head with my fists,

Holding scissors in my hand as blood dripped onto the tiles of the kitchen floor-

I was alone.

I was utterly alone,

It was the loneliness that made me want to kill myself.

But also made me want to live for myself.

Because that was the day I realized the beauty of life-

Is that nothing matters.

Everything is limited. Everything changes, everything dies,

What we have right now is the only moment we have.

That is the beauty in life. That is what is worth living for.

Experiencing every small moment to the best of your ability,

And letting them stitch themselves together, threading in new generations

Until the sun explodes, all is lost, temporary and gone.

The problem with gravestones, is even stones crumble.

There is beauty in the broken rock, the inner ore, and letting parts of this earth go.

Letting the sandcastles fall, and the tattoos fade, grandparents die, and shirts are outgrown.

If there is a heaven- the beauty is removed from loss.

I want to do everything and more with my life,

In my heart I wish I had a million lifetimes, but in my head, I would despise it.

I want to rest from this life when I am done.

I don’t think I would be able to stare God in the face after all He’s cursed us with.

Sometimes I hope this is hell.

I know we’re all not doing well-

Putting our faith in something greater than us, which no one knows to truly exist-

Sacrificing the life we have now to some greater cause beyond death-

What if death is the greater cause?

Because-

According to astronomy every star we wish upon is already long dead, decayed, forgotten,

Only now its light reaches our eyes, ‘what a sight’ I just might place my faith in a dead star- sounds a lot like religion if you let yourself think about it.

We appreciate them in our breathing state but they only serve our purpose when their glow is long extinguished,

Distinguishing life from death is an important thing to do-

I’m not living for what’s after this,

I’m living for this moment.

This is not easy for me.

By the time I was seven I learned to fear demons,

Crying in my room, reciting Bible verses for an answer as to why I was here.

I never got one. I found it on my own.

If God is real,

Then I should have killed myself when I was twelve

Instead of foolishlingy living to an age where I outgrew God.

Like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, I know too much about the world to keep believing that the origins, answers and complexities of life can fit between the covers of a book no one can truly trust.

When I was twelve I still believed church was good. I prayed to myself every night.

I didn’t know who I was-

But who I was, was a good little christian girl.

Terrified of hell to the point my bones rattled, gripping my bible as a shield against problems I still need therapy for today.

‘Ask God and he will answer’

God has left me on delivered since I prayed the Lords prayer.

‘God can save your soul’

Where was he when my soul was drowning in all it could not handle-

I coughed up unprocessed thoughts as my friends gave my soul CPR but only I could choose to live from there.

We can’t put our lives in the hands of God, out of our own and our responsibility-

My life is still mine, even with these borrowed atoms from the earth that will again return.

Sacrifice is not a graceful thing, we’ve all sacrificed ourselves to death by living now.

Killing myself is not a sacrifice? By the Bible’s logic that makes no sense.

Expressway to heaven, no accidental sins, be like Jesus but don’t come back-

I’m sorry.

God can not be so kind by sparing us from Hell, when he’s the one who created Hell to begin with.

The system is rigged from the start, yet we’re told to praise the one who made the system? No.

I will not worship governments for taxing us to death, nor will I worship a ‘savior’ for cursing me with living and then calling it sin.

‘That’s selfish, you need God’

Everyone says to me.

Then why has he been consistently absent in my greatest moments- or are my greatest moments not so great and my viewpoint is too limited to see? What is a moment relative to all of my life, or all of time or beyond this life, they say.

‘If life were only moments then you never knew you had one’ a quote from Into the Woods- a musical full of sin,

I begin to realize the best things in life are the ones we call ‘sinful’

I’m sorry for enjoying myself in the only time we have-

This is life. This. Is life.

Not heaven, not hell, this is what we have.

These are the moments that let us grab fistfulls of sand and let it seep through our fingers, frolic in the rain, letting it seep down and drain into our skin and clothing, have good sex and kiss people you love, create beautiful sinful art, make memories and moments worth living until the sun explodes, and the tattoos we got when we were 18 rot from our skin and seep into the wood planks of our coffins-

Until our gravestones crumble back to the earth, and life begins again.

If you can credit God with all of that, go ahead. I won’t stop you, whatever helps make this place a little more bearable.

But I still don’t want to go to heaven.

I have all of the heaven and hell I need, right here.

When I die, I want to rest I don’t want to live this life in fear that all I do will be judged afterwards- I just want to live now and die later.

As my heart beats and my lungs breathe, my blood is circulating through my body, with a consciousness I never asked for-

I am here. And that’s enough.

If wishing on dead stars gets you through the day, then by all means.

But remember to realize there is a difference between life and death.

Our souls are living now, let them live.

Let them be.

If there is a heaven, I hope to see you there.

If there is not, I hope to see you here.

[tyrantisterror]

I want to talk about Harley Quinn for a bit, unprompted by anything, because fuck you it’s my blog I do what I want.

Because I’m a nerd who thinks too much about stories I like to sort the stages of my life by the heroes that defined them.  Godzilla was the hero of my childhood, a big dinosaur who taught a bullied kid me that you have a right to dig in your feet and assert who you are even when the world is against you for it.  Spider-Man was the hero of my teens, helping me cope with learned just how chaotic the adult world I was preparing to enter is and survive the rocky road to growing up.  Sherlock Holmes was the hero of my college years, a person who found what he wanted to do in life and devoted himself entirely to it, which is what I tried to do in turn.

Harley Quinn is the hero of my current stage.  I know most people would find that weird since she’s, like, a supervillain most of the time, and at best a very amoral anti-hero, but I mean it entirely sincerely.  And she’s the hero of my current age in part because she’s defined so much by her failures.

In almost every incarnation, Harley’s backstory begins with her going to college and pursuing a career that will bring her material success and prestige, as so many people in my generation were told to do.  She does as instructed and gets that career, only to immediately be shown the grim reality of what she signed up for, and getting broken by the stress that comes with the job almost immediately.  Saying she became a supervillain is actually generous because Harley really becomes a supervillain’s henchman, completely subservient to and exploited by a character who’s basically a personification of the corruption that made her dream job a living hell.

As a villain/henchman, Harley’s fun but a bit limited.  She exists to provide comic relief - both by being a goofier, lighter sort of evil compared to the other, more dangerous villains, and by being just debauched enough herself that we can laugh when she fails and gets knocked on her ass.  She’s a punching bag for the narrative, a joke to be laughed at and only occasionally pitied (but never enough to keep us from rooting for her to lose).

It’s important to note here that Harley was initially created for Batman the Animated Series, which is specifically a version of the Batman story where redemption doesn’t happen.  There have been papers written on this, even.  Because B:TAS was a serialized story designed to go on as long as the executives at Warner Bros thought it was making money, its villains had to stay villains, because if they ever changed from that they’d no longer serve their narrative purpose.  There are countless episodes where various villains try to turn over a new leaf (including one for Harley), but they always end with the villain in question backsliding into villainy.  As one critic pointed out, it’s kind of Calvinist that way: you’re either good or bad from creation, and no matter what you try to do you can’t change that, no matter how much you might want to be good.  A B:TAS villain has no choice but to be a villain till the story ends, and the story is never meant to end.

Comic books are also serialized and meant to be endless, so in this way B:TAS is pretty true to the source material.  However, because of just how long comics have gone on, sometimes writers are given permission to shake things up and change the status quo for a bit, to keep people engaged.  And while these changes are generally dialed back (there’s countless jokes about how rarely even death sticks in comics), occasionally they prove popular enough to become the new status quo.  It’s not common, but it has happened.

And this is where Harley goes from fun to inspiring - because Harley made a new status quo.

Being incredibly popular, Harley Quinn eventually got her own comic book series, which is a pretty big deal for a glorified henchman.  And because it was her comic series, the writers had to figure out who Harley was without the presence of Batman or the Joker, the characters who had defined her up to this point.  They looked at Harley’s personality and backstory and tried to figure out what Harley would do on her own.

And the result was something really interesting.  She stopped being a henchman, and ultimately proved too good-natured to be a villain, yet a bit too chaotic  and counter-culture to be a traditional hero, while also being too plucky and sweet to resemble most comic book anti-heroes.  Her background as a psychologist became more prominent as people realized that a comic book world actually kind of desperately needs some good psychologists around, and her wildcard status made her bounce off of other characters, both villains and heroes, in interesting ways few other characters could do.

It was fun and interesting and popular, so it stuck.  Harley, who was born in one of the most rigidly static versions of the Batman mythos, where villains stay villains and heroes stay heroes, broke the status quo and remade it.  Harley, who was originally defined by her failure and victimization, made a whole new role for herself, and found success despite it all.  The punching bag became so beloved that the rules of the universe bent for her, and what once was the sum of her character became just an added wrinkle of backstory to creating the trickster that comics fans love.

Harley went to college, got her dream career, promptly got her ass kicked by said career when it turned out to suck ass, and spent a decade or so going through hell before finally discovering who she really wanted to be, and then became that person to the love and support of all.  That’s why Harley Quinn is inspiring, and that’s why she’s my hero.

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

True Detective episode 1.08 "Form and Void"

I love anthologies. I love the endless potential, and the early seasons of American Horror Story really prove the extent of that potential. It’s also so much cleaner than having a bunch of spinoffs (tell me why American Horror Stories is a thing? Anthologies by definition don’t need a spinoff. Just do it next year). But the later seasons of AHS also embody the downfall of anthologies: if they do too good a job, it can be hard to get excited about the next season because you know that everything you liked about it will be different next time around.

I’ve only seen season one of True Detective, and I’m really trying to talk myself into pressing on, not because I didn’t like it, but because I liked it so much. The people behind this show built themselves some massive shoes to fill, and I’m skeptical that it can be done. Everything about this first season was incredibly deliberate; it was gripping and compelling at every turn, and it all served a larger theme. It even managed to come around to an uplifting final message, which I was pleasantly surprised by as this was one of the darkest things I’ve ever watched.

I tend to cover finales, and that’s because endings are so important to me. It absolutely makes or breaks my entire impression of a show (I reminisce sometimes with “remember when I liked Ozark?”), and True Detective’s season one finale drew a powerful underscore on everything I’ve loved throughout this entire journey. This is a story with purpose, that knew exactly what it was about. As a whole, it had the power of its own Rust Cohle who said things like “I know who I am. After all these years, there’s a victory in that.” and “Given how long it’s taken me to reconcile my nature, I don’t think I’ll forego it on your account”.

Matthew McConaughey in "Form and Void". Image courtesy of IMDb.

“Form and Void” finds Rust and Marty on a boat, holding Steve Geraci at gunpoint, a former sheriff who holds key insight into the Marie Fontenot case. Cohle forces Geraci to handle the tape he stole from Tuttle and watch it, eyes glued to the TV. Geraci watches, screaming as he does, reacting even more strongly than Marty. Some people seem to find it cheesy that rather than showing us the tape, they show us these ‘hard, seasoned men’ struggling to watch it, but I think that’s exactly the point.

A crucial thing this show is about is the difference between bad and evil. Marty’s a pretty bad guy I’d say- lies, cheats, beats people up, calls his daughter and wife whores- but he’s also a human being with emotions and limits and can function in our society. The crimes of this case are on the fringes of humanity. This show does a great job displaying the depths of these atrocities without forcing us to look at something unspeakable. Making the characters do it for us not only shows us the nature of the crimes, but the nature of the people. Errol Williams Childress, the man with the face like spaghetti, the undocumented Louisiana man who committed these crimes, is as evil as a person can be while still being a human being (“he’s worse than anybody”). And fighting him with such force makes Marty a ‘good’ man in the biblical sense, despite being so flawed that he’s hard for regular folks like you and me to really get behind.

Marty struggles a lot with his conscience over the course of this story, and Maggie ultimately acknowledges that he “didn’t know who he was, so he didn’t know what to want”. Rust, who, of course, knows exactly who he is, doesn’t have patience for Marty’s hemming and hawing. When Marty asks if Rust ever wonders if he’s a bad man, Rust doesn’t hesitate to say that “the world needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door”. The idea that bad men can do good- by protecting the world from worse men- is a major takeaway, and one that I really like.

Woody Harrelson in "Form and Void". Image courtesy of IMDb.

And Rust may have been stewing in a storage unit obsessing over this for years, but it’s ultimately Marty who finds the key clue that brings everything to a head. He recognizes a fresh coat of green paint on a house in Erath, drawing the connection to the green ears in the description of their subject. Adrenaline pumping from the new discovery, Marty and Rust head out to find out who painted the house.

An interview with the old woman who lived in the house in ’95 confirmed that she had her house painted by men who worked for her parish- the Tuttle church community. Rust and Marty were able to track her husband’s payment for the job to Childress and Son Maintenance, which yielded an address to the Childress property. They head over. This is it. This is the place. Rust can tell by the taste of the air.

“That taste. Aluminum, ash. I’ve tasted it before”. Marty, used to his partner saying weird shit, but ever the human being who’s realizing they’re walking into a life-threatening situation, simply says, “you still see things ever?”. Rust replies, “It never stops, not really. What happened to my head, it’s not something that gets better”. Not a reassuring answer to Marty, but Rust’s proximity to insanity is the very thing that keeps him safe amongst actual psychopaths. Similarly, Marty’s ability to read people is a skill the show makes sure we’re aware of despite his gruff, bumbling personality.

That skill is what made Marty feel comfortable calling Papania, one of the two interrogating officers when they arrived on the scene. But alas, there’s no service. That’s typically a frustrating and unnecessary roadblock in suspense stories, but it just feels realistic out here in bumfuck Louisiana. So, Marty forces his way into the home in search of a landline while Rust secures the perimeter. Marty overpowers Childress’s girlfriend (wife?), but not before she can say some truly haunting shit about the man they’re here for.

Ann Dowd and Glenn Fleshler in "Form and Void". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Rust, meanwhile, has encountered him face to face. He has his gun pointed squarely at Childress and tells him to get on his knees, but Childress simply says “no” and runs off. Why Rust didn’t just shoot him, like Marty did to LeDeux’s crony 17 years ago, is a valid question. I think at this point in time, Rust has a lot less stamina for bureaucratic coverups, paperwork, and debriefs and a much greater willingness to die. Not to mention, they don’t really have any legal standing to be here in the first place this time around. He’s going to see it through, all the way through, in the beating heart of this operation.

Which turns out to be an absolutely terrifying maze of tunnels lined with stick-work much like those found at the crime scenes. Rust winds his way through, but every corner he rounds with his gun drawn just makes the dire situation all the more evident. He is at every disadvantage, no idea where he’s going, while Childress clearly has eyes on him. His voice carries through the maze, somehow coming from somewhere, taunting Rust, guiding him right where he wants him. “Come on inside, little priest. To your right, little priest. This is Carcosa. You know what they did to me? What I will do to all the sons and daughters of man? I am not ashamed. Come die with me, little priest.”

Woody Harrelson in "Form and Void". Image courtesy of IMDb.

I’m obsessed with Childress calling Rust little priest. In addition to the obvious irony of this being a church-based cult- and Rust looking down at organized religion altogether- he is super preachy in his way. He says some stuff throughout this whole season that really grinds you to a halt. My favorite is one of his earliest revelations of his personality, one that stuns Marty into regretting having asked him anything at all: “I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware. Nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself. We are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, an accretion of sensory experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody is nobody. Maybe the honorable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming, stop reproducing, and walk hand in hand into extinction. One last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.”

It may not be Jesus, but it’s a hell of a response to the simple question of “are you a Christian?”. And when it comes down to it, isn’t sharing your opinion on humanity and what we should do with it all that preaching really is?

Anyway, Rust enters the offshoot of the tunnels that Childress directs him to. It turns out Marty was right to be worried about those hallucinations of Rust’s. He looks up at the sky, visible several feet up into the air, and a spiraling galaxy fills his field of vision. Rust is distracted by it when Childress charges him with a knife. If that hadn’t happened, I think Rust would’ve gotten him in one. But Childress stabs him deep in the stomach and twists, holding him up in the air by the blade.

Matthew McConaughey in "Form and Void". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Marty bursts in behind them, prompting Childress to drop the deeply wounded Rust to the ground. Marty doesn’t hesitate to fire three shots into Childress that hit him in the shoulders and chest, seemingly to no effect. Childress charges Marty, hurling an axe head-over-handle until it buries itself in Marty’s chest. Marty dislodges the axe and uses it and all his strength to hold Childress at bay.

When it comes to scary things, I’m usually most affected by the occult. Things like demons, ghosts, possession etc. are terrifying to me. Things you can always see, that die for good in ways we can measure and understand typically don’t bother me as much. But Childress is so fucking scary. The ideology and staging of the killings was eerie every step of the way, but this final confrontation is so well executed. Childress is as powerful and able to withstand as much as I can reasonably believe possible in a human being, and Marty and Rust suffer the most serious of injuries that they can plausibly walk away from. Rust’s managing to get to his gun and shoot Childress in the skull is, in a way, scary in and of itself because it confirms that this really was an actual person who walked among us.

Matthew McConaughey and Glenn Fleshler in "Form and Void". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Marty and Rust have had a bond all along, but their recovery together in the hospital is a wholesome confirmation of that. Despite everything that happened between them and the rage Marty felt towards him when they parted ways years ago, Marty and Maggie both refused to entertain the idea that Rust had done something evil. In fact, they took offense to the thought, putting an abrupt end to any conversation that started to go that way.

After Childress is dead, Marty crawls to Rust and puts pressure to his stab wound while they wait for help to arrive. Recounting it later, Marty says he sat there “with his friend’s head in my lap”. Once both of them are lucid in the hospital, Marty, less seriously injured, wheels himself to Rust’s hospital room. Rust is himself, that is to say, not warm and cuddly, instead preoccupied with the fact that he had come across Childress in their original investigation and failed to put the pieces together. But Marty takes him in stride, telling him not to ever change, and he’ll “be back tomorrow, buddy”. They send each other off with a flip of the middle finger.

Marty proves himself the most at the very end. I was impressed with him for understanding his faults and truly giving Maggie the space to move on. And I was impressed with him for staying by Rust’s side even as he continued to heal faster than him. Despite Rust’s resistance to the idea, Marty insists on seeing to Rust having a place to stay when he’s released- that things are “already arranged”.

In the rawest- and most optimistic moment of the whole show- Marty wheels Rust out under the stars for a non-sanctioned smoke break. Rust breaks down, in itself a true sign of his bond with Marty, and opens up through his tears: “There was a moment… I know when I was under in the dark, that something… whatever I’d been reduced to, you know, not even consciousness… it was a vague awareness in the dark, and I could… I could feel my definitions fading. And beneath that darkness, there was another kind. It was deeper, it was warm, you know? Like a substance. I could feel, man, and I knew, I knew my daughter waited for me there. It was so clear. I could feel her. I could feel… I could feel a piece of my pop too. It was like I was a part of everything I ever loved, and we were all… the three of us… just fadin’ out. All I had to do was let go. And I did. I said ‘darkness, yeah, yeah’. And I disappeared. But I could… I could still feel her love there, even more than before. There was nothing but that love. Then I woke up.”

Still from "Form and Void". Image courtesy of IMDb.

We’ve heard from Marty, from the Tuttle parish, and various believers along the way, that there is more beyond. More after. But hearing Rust say it makes me believe it. He was wrong about there being nothing and us being no one. It’s a beautiful moment. But there’s more.

Rust breaks down after this, and Marty shows a soft side of his own. He tries to bring Rust back by asking him about something he’d mentioned years ago- that he used to make up stories about the stars when he lived in Alaska. Either Rust humors him or the invitation to talk about that really does anchor him, at least enough to ponder some more; either way, he finishes Marty’s prompt.

RUST: I tell you, Marty, I’ve been up in that room looking out those windows every night here and just thinking… It’s just one story. The oldest. Light versus dark.

MARTY: Well, I know we ain’t in Alaska, but… appears to me the dark has a lot more territory.

RUST: Yeah. You’re right about that.

They ponder the night sky a little longer. Rust asks Marty to take him to the car. He’s had enough of hospitals. Marty knows Rust well enough to look out for him, but not to argue with him. He obliges. As they’re about to part ways:

RUST: You know you’re lookin’ at it all wrong. The sky thing.

MARTY: How’s that?

RUST: Well, once, there was only dark. If you ask me, the light’s winning.

Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in "Form and Void". Image courtesy of IMDb.

On that honestly beautiful note, we fade out. It’s an incredibly more positive answer to Marty’s question long ago of why Rust hasn’t just killed himself if he sees humanity in this awful way. His answer at the time was that it must just be his programming. But he’s always seen the potential in the light. Never delusional about how much darkness there was, hence his perpetual melancholy, but always aware of the possibility of the good. That’s the real reason he’s kept fighting. Someone like Rust Cohle seeing that potential makes me believe it’s really there.

So, here’s the biggest question: should I watch season two? Will it hold up to the real beauty I found here? Drop me your thoughts on Marty, Rust, and all things True Detective.

[snurgle07]

Say all your psychonauts 2 thoughtS

All of them huh? I think about this game so much, I’d be here all day, but this certainly gives me a good excuse to ramble about some things I love about pn2. :D

- The characters are amazing! 10/10 I care about pretty much all of those freaks. The art style makes them all look so charming in a lopsided weird sort of way, and the game is so empathetic to everyone that even the characters we don’t get much of or who serve a limited purpose still feel well rounded and real.

- Raz is excellent. He’s loads of fun in the first game and continues to be a blast in the second. He’s even more adorable and earnest in the sequel and I love that for him!! He’s definitely one of my favorite characters of all time, I adore him.

- Adoring the characters goes for everyone though. And pn2 has a whole new cast of characters who are all super fun in their own ways. The Psychic 7 especially are super cool. My biggest soft spot is for Lucy, but I love Bob, Ford, and well, the rest of the seven really, a whole lot. Getting to meet the Aquatos is also awesome, and the interns are cool too. Lotsa cool groups of characters to enjoy.

- The story? Awesome. Feels grander than pn1 to be honest, and I like that, but also it’s completely great on its own. It’s got loads of mind shenanigans, drama, great mental health commentary, and manages to balance out all the trauma with enough healing and empathy and even a bit of humor that it all still feels nice and hopeful despite everything. Like yeah there’s a lot of angst material certainly, and as a fan I gotta love that, buuuut sometimes I need a piece of media to punch me in the gut and then give me a warm hug afterward.

- On the note of mental health stuff, I feel it did great. It’s noticeable that they talked to experts and people with personal experience. They were able to convey the mindscapes of certain traumas and mental health issues with more accuracy. The first game was certainly empathetic and kind in regards to that, which was a big deal at the time, buuuut the accuracy was a bit lacking back then. Pn1 shows it’s age a bit in that regard. Pn2 improves on that wonderfully with both kind and more researched explorations into the mind.

-The morals regarding the complexity of the human mind and the messiness of humanity and how we often make mistakes and have more to us under the surface… heroes are often flawed, villains may just be a version of a person we made up in our mind based off of our limited perceptions… aughh good stuff. There are so many good takeaways from psychonauts 2 and I love it!

- Also on a more personal note, I probably owe this game my fascination with psychic powers and psychics in fiction. It’s tangentially what got me into Mob Psycho 100, and has inspired me to make some psychic ocs. The art direction really impacted me and even the way I draw. My style has opened up so much more since practicing drawing such funky looking characters. I genuinely think it has helped me improve a lot and helped me discover more about what kinds of art style I adore and inspired my own. The gameplay too, alongside the art direction, has impacted my aspirations a lot as far as being an artist and hopefully to work in game design— which is to say it’s super inspiring! I think it can inspire people in a myriad of ways, it’s a very unique game like that, and it really reminds me why I love art, storytelling, and games so much. I genuinely feel I owe it a lot for a variety of reasons and I’ve seen many others who play it feel the same. :)

TLDR: Psychonauts 2 my beloved…

Thanks for the ask! I will never not want to talk about psychonauts, this game is sticking in my brain for good.

[capcavan]

🗣 or not idm

1) No characters names immediately come to mind. I don't actually watch or read that many things so it's hard. But I suppose any character that commits a form of sexual assault I'd feel similarly about. Especially if its to the extent that Riko does.

2) I don't care. I just think expecting others to engage with characters like this is silly, or getting mad if their engagement with that character is limited to them saying they want them to die or they're happy they're dead. I think if Riko fans engaged with him in a different manner they may be better favoured, but its just a hunch. I think there's this tendency to be quite reactive sometimes. Any time somebody outside of the Riko circle makes a post on him, fans of him are quick to point out he's a victim. And they're right. But most people know it already - they just don't care. And I sometimes wonder if Riko fans realise that? People end up getting kind of frustrated when you tell them something they already know, and I think that's natural.

3) I can spend the time not engaging with them, engaging with characters I like or find interesting. There is just zero appeal to me to engage with characters like this.

4) Its complicated. I think the same reasons you could come up with so I won't list them all. I will say, cause it may be the only point where we differ, I do think part of Riko’s motivations for his actions was that he enjoyed to hurt people. Which I do believe is supported by the text, even if it is not his 'main' motivation.

5) Depends what the specific 'different way' is I guess? But largely no, I don't think it would have been better. I think it would have been worse actually. I think Rikos character serves his purpose in the story well, to change things may affect that. The only thing that I think would be better applies to the story as a whole, which is, if Riko is to be one of the only Asian characters then we need other Asian characters who are not villains.

Joffrey is probably the closest comparison though I was never in GOT fandom so I don't know how public engaged with him makes me curious now though ever for me joffery was too pathetic to be entertaining even a fictional character. 2. In this convo id like to focus on personal feelings not "i think other fans should behave differently" the idea is to show why certain things make you feel certain way to show your point of view without using other peoples actions as your point, lets focus on Riko and his character only because i could write down toilet paper length list about things people in this fandom do that annoys me. "other people know it yet don't care" - other people in fandom often use their preference in fictional media as moral high ground clearly painting people with different fictional preference as morally bankrupt and so ignoring Riko's status of victim while claiming moral superiority is extremally provocative and hypocritical thing to do. if you had not noticed this happening its because you have luck of being on "acceptable" side of fandom 4. I encourage people to list them all because for me this is sign of "yeha I actually read those books and make conscious choices" rather than I'm just annoyed this character exists 5. agreed

[toomanymessythoughts]

Spirit Stallion of the Cimarron is often praised for its breath-taking visuals, great soundtrack and its anti-colonialist and anti-military themes and messages (all things I too absolutely love about this movie). But one aspect that I rarely see discussed is its messages concerning horse riding which is what I’d like to talk about here. During Spirit’s time with the military, the Colonel rides him to the point of exhaustion. Thinking that he had broken Spirit he holds a speech:

“You see gentlemen, any horse can be broken. There are those in Washington who believe the West will never be settled. The Northern Pacific Railroad will never reach Nebraska. A hostile Lakota will never submit to Providence, and it is this manner of small thinking that would say this horse could never be broken. Discipline, time and patience are the three great levellers.”

The purpose of this speech is mainly political and serves as the Colonel’s villain monologue, but I’d like to focus on the last line for a bit. This line shows the dissonance between what the Colonel says versus what he does. He says that time patience and discipline are his founding principles when in reality, he only relies on brute force. His goal is to push a horse to its limits and to a point where it has accepted its fate and listens to him because it knows that resistance is futile. As an equestrian, this method sounds all too familiar to me. Because unfortunately similar methods are still used to train horses today, by popular and successful trainers at that. Some will not like to hear this but trainers who use “dominance theory” go by the same logic as the Colonel. Their methods may be less brutal but their goal is the same. They want the horse to submit to them and abide their every order. They don’t want a partner; they want a puppet. What bothers me most about those methods, is that many people who use them will very rarely listen to their horses. They will expose their horses to high levels of pressure, stress and sometimes pain, but then call them “dominant”, “disrespectful”, “moody” or “mean” when in actuality, they are just tired, uncomfortable and in pain and have no other way of telling their owners to stop and leave them alone.

Later, when Spirit lives with the Lakota, we get to see an alternative to these methods. What I really love about this part of the movie, is that Little Creek’s methods are not perfect from the get-go. He too first tries to overpower Spirit and force him to abide by his rules. But when he realises that it won’t work, instead of stubbornly moving forward, he reflects, he admits failure and decides that he will never ride Spirit and that no one ever should and lets him go. I love this moment so much because it depicts a lesson that I too had to learn and that I think many more people should take to heart: Some horses do not want to or simply cannot be ridden and we, as their guardians and partners, need to listen to them.

Of course, you could say that what I’ve written above kind of falls apart at the end because Spirit does let Little Creek onto his back, but I’d beg the differ. First because they were in a life-or-death situation and second because I think that Spirit allowing Little Creek onto his back only adds to the message, since it shows us that when we listen to our horses and give them the time that they need, they might eventually allow us to ride them.

All in all, this is one of the best depictions of equestrianism that I have seen in film and I will never stop appreciating it.