#yeah just uh. something to think about lol

[crunchycrystals]

Chapter 1 of 5, 8,996 words

Summary:

Percy and Annabeth are best friends working in the film industry together, him as a stunt performer and her as a camera operator dreaming to be a director. Until one day they aren't. Until one day they haven't spoken in 18 months and Percy's quit doing stunts. But when he gets the call saying Annabeth's directing a movie and it might not get finished without his help, he's on a plane back to being a fall guy.

AKA my Percabeth au based on 2024 movie The Fall Guy starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt

hey so i wrote something

[meamiki]

mira !!! :]

[pettyprocrastination]

whoever this beloved anon was I am so touched by your kindness! You definitely didn’t have to do this but I am so happy you enjoy this idea and I will happily expand upon it for you!

this is just a collection of word vomit bullet points for the time being but I will happily answer any and all questions about this pair!!

warnings: violence, angst, child death (Sarah Miller), foul language, the same warnings that apply to tlou, reader is Sarah's mom and described as having similar features to her. 

So the general Idea is that you and Joel are happily married before the outbreak. 

You had been Sarah's mother, his high school sweetheart he got pregnant when neither of you were old enough to have any reaction to the pregnancy test other than a fucking panic attack in one another’s arms. but you made it work 

you both worked but made time for one another and your sweet girl, going to museums every other weekend and joel insisting on swooping you off for a date every now and then 

nothing special. He knows you’re more of a diner gal than anything too fancy that makes you both feel out of place. 

On his birthday in 2003, you had planned to tell him that you were pregnant again. But the memories of your own fears of motherhood from all those years ago begin to swirl through your head again and you get cold feel. deciding to tell him the morning after

it is his birthday afterall, you want to focus on him. 

but when you’re woken up in the middle of the night because tommy needs to get bailed out, Joel kisses you sweetly one last time before promising he’ll be back and you can’t shake the feeling that something bad is happening. 

its you that shakes sarah awake that night. shouting at her to put on her shoes when she’s still rubbing the sleep from her eyes because you’ve been listening to the radio for the past two hours, calling joel again and again and again praying for him to fucking pick up but to no avail. 

Sarah, bless your little girl’s bleeding heart is the one who insists you check on the adler’s against your better suspicions and when you find the eldest looming over her daughter, blood and sinew dripping from her mouth, you grab your daughter hand and burst into a full sprint until something slams into your back and sends you tumbling onto their front lawn

its how joel finds you, struggling to keep the once sweet old woman, whose now nothing more than dead eyes and gnashing teeth straining to snap at your pulse point as you push against her while sarah shrieks before your husband runs forward and cracks her skull with a wrench. 

there’s hardly a moment of pause, just enough for him to pull you up and into his arms before he’s ushering you both into the car with an urgency. 

when the truck crashes, you get separated from them. Perhaps at Tommy’s side when the flames rise and create a wall, separating you from your husband, or maybe pulled into the mob of chaos when trying to escape from those already infected-

all joel knows is that you promise you’ll find him: just get sarah to safety and you’ll meet him at the river

Poor thing is already so frightened, held in her father’s arms with tears streaming down her face insisting they can’t leave you they just can’t but her father kisses her forehead and reassures her its going to be okay 

“we just need to be brave, okay babygirl? Your mama’s real tough, she’s gonna be alright.” 

he isn’t sure if he’s saying it to his daughter or himself. 

but when he comes to the river you aren’t there. Only a soldier who points a gun at the scared little girl in his arms and then he loses everything

its when the light is gone from his daughter’s eyes that he realizes. His voice cracked and raw from sobbing that he looks around to see his brother with drawn in shoulders and tears in his eyes but his wife is nowhere to be found. 

Tommy says you got lost in the chaos. Everything was so loud, so sudden that he turned around and suddenly you weren’t there. 

Joel wants to go back but its Tommy that stops him, that dulls the red in his vision to a sad faded pink because his brother points at the orange horizon not too far from them, so much of the city is already in flames. 

“We’re gonna find her, but not there.” 

So Joel searches. for the first year spent in the world post-outbreak its all he did. 

He became a smuggler because of it. 

Information came at a price and he needed to be able to fucking pay it, whether it be in blood or ration cards. He was willing to do anything to find you or any thin thread that lead your way. 

But it’s Tommy that asks him to give up. Not in those words of course. 

The youngest Miller knows better than to say something so cruel that would make his brother, the only person he has in this world turn on him. 

But his voice is worried when he asks him one night in Boston when he hasn’t even had the chance to wash the blood from his knuckles 

“You think she would have wanted this for you?” 

the fight that followed his words was brutal. Vicious insults and scarred fists slamming against each brother until they're both too tired and bloody to continue. Each leaning against a wall for support and Tommy’s wavering voice breaking the silence. 

“I don’t know where she is, Joel. But I do know you're gonna get yourself killed if you keep lookin’ for her.” 

All he can do is nod. 

It’s a few days later when he meets Tess. Who has heard plenty of stories about the elder miller’s brutality and wants him to put that muscle to good use for some extra profit. 

It begins his new life. One that empty and cold but one he can live. 

Until of course, Ellie comes along. The sweet and incredibly opinionated girl that makes him become something akin to the man he thought died twenty years ago. 

its when he’s traveling with Ellie, that it happens. When a warm familiarity has settled between the two because so much blood and pain has been shared he can’t help but see her as something close, something bright even though all he can force himself to utter in her reference is “cargo” 

when theyre traveling through the woods as Ellie chatters away, probing his memory about a movie that may or may not have existed thirty years ago because her descriptions of the plot are incredibly odd he hears a voice shout for them to stop and finds himself staring at a man- no, a boy- pointing a gun at them. 

Ellie stills, but Joel can see enough to know that from the lanky figure and dimpled face that he’s young. Maybe twenty, twenty-two at the oldest, but his eyes dart from Joel to Ellie with a pinprick of fear that allows Joel the time to charge forward and slam him to the ground before wrestling the gun from his hands. 

He has enough to time to tuck it under the stranger’s chin before he hears the sound of the safety being turned off and finds himself looking up and seeing a gun just inches from his face. 

Joel’s head whips around when Ellie’s voice calls out his name in fear, he turns to see another stranger holding her a gun point, shoulders drawn back and a shadow cast over their face by the had obstructing their identity. 

“You hurt one of mine, I hurt one of yours. That a fair deal?” 

Its takes him a moment to recognize you. It’s been so long since he’s heard your voice, the sweet tease when you would poke at him each time he woke up late despite the fact that you reminded him to set his alarm the night before, the times you’d chide him with a harsh “Joel Miller!” whispered in public anytime he was able to grab you a bit too passionately to be appropriate in public but the laughter in your voice let him know you were never truly mad at him. You didn’t know how to be. 

But that sweetness is buried under a cold rasp that cuts through the air as you point a rifle at the scared little girl in front of you.

“You think I won’t?” You’re older now, skin covered in scars from a life he didn’t know you got the chance to live and your eyes are cold as they regard your husband. “Put the gun down and get the fuck off of him, I won’t repeat myself.” 

Joel mumbles your name in awe. The woman he loved, the woman he mourned the one he fought so hard to find stands before him like some sort of hallucination and suddenly the world feels like its spinning until you bark orders at him again. 

“You’ve got five seconds Joel, make a fucking choice before I make it for you.” 

He looks down and realizes the boy under him, the one with the bleeding nose and snarling face has your eyes and his dimples. 

“One.” 

The one above him has Sarah’s hair. Soft brown curls that shine under the sun. 

“Two”

Wait. No, they both do.

“Three.” 

Twins. Jesus fucking Christ you had twins. 

“Four.” 

Joel holds the rifle up above his head and the one boy standing snatches it from his grasp, tossing it to the ground and kicking it far from his reach. He slowly stands, allowing your son- dear god your son- to scramble to his feet. 

Your voice softens just for a moment. “You okay, Duke?” 

Blood stains the bottom half of his face from where Joel slammed his fist into the boy’s nose just moments before, but he nods nonetheless. 

Now, they both stand on one side of you and he can see the resemblance clear as day the same way he would whenever Sarah was by your side.

When you order him to hand over his bag, he does so without question before telling Ellie to do the same. 

She watches him with wide eyes, her hands still up in the air but gaping at her companion as if he had grown a second head. 

“Joel!” “Just do it, alright?”

He doesn’t miss the way you watch their interaction with narrowed eyes until she tosses her bag to you and you slowly lower your gun. 

“Now, you want to tell me what the fuck you think you’re doin’ at my home?” 

[icewindandboringhorror]

Some fantasy traveler inventory details (like what they would carry in their bags), based on two of the recent costumes I did.. love finding random little scraps and items and putting them together lol

[al-luviec]

compiled whatever this is (and I run out of tag space)

meh HoT gifs (3/?)

[turtleblogatlast]

Thinking about the Don Suave scene and what it means in terms of LGBTQ+ representation because my brain does nothing if not torment me with random topics to ramble about on the regular.

Anyway, I just wanted to ramble about why I like the scene but to get it out of the way - the scene can very easily be interpreted in so many different ways, and all of them are valid. I personally see it as Leo having at least some attraction to a man. And the following is an explanation of my own interpretation and thoughts on it and what it means especially for Leo’s portrayal in the grand scheme of things.

Long-winded interpretation under the cut!

Now, to start with, it’s important to me that in the scene Leo looks at Don Suave in the very beginning and then for the entirety of the rest of the time the man is on screen, Leo’s eyes are closed. Yet, in the end, he is still visibly enamored with Don Suave, happily cuddling up to him as he’s being carried away.

You can very easily interpret this as Leo being spellbound and that’s honestly super valid and I believe he likely was at least somewhat in the beginning, but considering how fast he looked away and how he never looked again, I personally think it makes more sense to read it as Leo just finding the man attractive, at least somewhat. (For the record, I personally headcanon Rise Leo as bisexual with a heavy preference for men, but I want to be blunt when I say that any interpretation is valid. Literally any. Ace, pan, gay, bi, none of the above or a mixture of something new literally all of it is more than okay and fair. Hell you could even interpret this entire scene as more romantic attraction than physical and it would still work. Anything goes!! Don’t bother people, guys, really.)

The main reason I take this scene to be at the very least LGBTQ+ adjacent isn’t just because of how it’s portrayed, but because of who Leonardo is. Not in terms of Rise of the TMNT, but in terms of the entire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles™️ franchise.

Leo’s a character who, while changing with each iteration, has still at his core been around for decades upon decades as “the blue one”. One fourth of the team. He’s the one most are going to look at as the Leader, and oftentimes he is the one closest to having the title of Main Character. Not to say the others aren’t just as important, but Leo’s presence in the A plots of basically all TMNT media is often something very main character-esque.

And that’s very, very important to note. Here we have a Main Character of a prolific and decades long-running franchise distributed by a children’s television network. You can play around with his and his brothers’ characters all you like, but there is always going to be challenges to dodge around, especially since this was still in 2018-2019.

For example, you can play around with their designs so long as they’re color coded turtles, but their sexualities? Now that’s tricky.

“But what about Hypno and Warren?” Not main characters and also they’re Rise originals. They have a lot more room to play around with than a character like Leo does. But even talking about main characters in the franchise, you could arguably have an easier time playing around with Donnie or Mikey’s sexualities than Leo or even Raph, as (unfortunately) the former two tend to get more B plots, so they’d likely have had a little more leeway (still not a lot though.)

So, where does this leave us?

It leaves us in a place where outright stating and/or showing undeniable proof of Leo’s attraction to men is very, very difficult. So, workarounds!

Workarounds like the entire Don Suave situation.

To be honest, as left up to interpretation and lowkey and deniable as it is, this whole scene means a lot to me because of who Leo is as a character. It’s just nice when we get so see even the bare bones of representation with characters that have been such a large part of pop culture for decades, y’know? Even if more would be so much nicer, this is better than I thought we’d ever get for these boys.

And, again, literally nothing I’ve said is the only way to interpret it, I’m more than happy when people interpret media on their own honestly, it’s just something I’ve been thinking of lately and I was wondering if others felt the same way.

Whatever you think when you interpret this scene or Rise Leo as a whole, I just thought this would be interesting to think about, even if it was ramble-y, haha.

[wyrmswears]

"Generator"; 1569 words.

The Administrator has something to show Agent Walker.

...

Sure, he knew it wasn’t the first time he had been called to a one-on-one meeting with The Administrator, but it may as well have been. It wasn’t like he remembered any of their previous interactions; he was going in blind all the same.

When his fax machine first spat out the offending paper, he believed it had been sent to the wrong agent. But there was his name at the top, ‘Agent Walker’. There was the possibility that someone else shared his surname, but as far as he was aware he was the only agent without a first name.

The listed meeting room wasn’t her office, nor was it one of the Administration’s more conventional meeting rooms, complete with tables 30 people long but only one person wide and more fake potted plants than you could ever imagine. No, today he had been called down to the lowest floor of the Administration: the server room. The part of his brain that understood technology bristled at that; it would be much more effective to place the server room on a higher floor. Nonetheless, he wouldn’t say anything about that to The Administrator when he faced her - he would stick to his department, as all good employees did. The networks and communications department could handle that one.

The elevator down required two separate keycards: one was his standard agent ID, and the other digitally recognised him as a department manager. The former granted him permission to move between floors, yes, but only the latter allowed him access to the basement.

The ride down took 2 minutes and 43 seconds. He counted. No one else entered the elevator the entire journey.

When the elevator reached the basement and the doors slid open, The Administrator was standing on the other side of them. He hoped he would forget this meeting like the others, if just so he could become ignorant to the way he jumped at her sudden appearance.

“Agent Walker.”

He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Administrator, ma’am.”

She smiled. This did nothing to soothe his racing heart. “Come, let’s talk.” She beckoned and he followed her into the dark room.

It was large, but so were most rooms in the Administration. The realm reassignment department was tiny relative to the office rooms that the majority of their employees were stationed in. This room was about half the size of block 8E sub-block 185A A3/11√5. He could see three of the walls, dark stretches of concrete, sealing them in. The fourth that should’ve sat opposite to the elevator was obscured by rows upon rows upon rows of computer servers. A blue glow emanated from them and he grimaced at the thought of the voltage it would take to create a light that strong.

As he struggled to keep pace, The Administrator barely spared him a glance. “This may seem beyond your department, but trust me, your role will become clear soon.” She forewarned. She would never have him leave his department, he knew. That was the first rule of the Administration: Stay in your place. “What do you know of Lord Ras of the Wyldness?”

Lord Ras. He had heard that name. Some of the employees that hailed from Imperium had mentioned it in conversations coated with nothing short of hatred. The ‘outlander’ who had gained a position of such power in their otherwise closed society. That sort of talk only ever continued for a couple days before their new job turned their interest towards paperwork and mild office drama.

“Isn’t he the one trying to awaken ancient evils without a permit?”

The Administrator shot him a look, slow and venomous. “He is”, she nodded, “but that’s not important to us right now.” She walked towards him. He averted his gaze to the floor with stiffened shoulders but found that she only continued past him, down the alley of servers. She didn’t need to beckon him this time, he knew what he was meant to do. He followed.

There was little light between the pillars of computers. They were only between two rows of the many, but what he could see was endless. The towers sparked a theory in his mind about why she was mentioning the rogue lord. “We use a lot of power.” He started, testing the waters. The Administrator stopped walking and turned to face him, her silence commanding him to finish his speculation. “Lord Ras allied with Imperium by promising them power; do we need to ally with him too? To have enough power?”

The Administrator smiled and shook her head. Count two for smiles, and a contradiction - she must have expected him to guess wrong. “You’re right that we do plan to ally with him, but it is not out of need for power. We have all the power we could need.” She turned again and continued to weave her way through the computerised nest which was now composed of more than just server towers. Thick cables ran both overhead and underfoot, LEDs glowed from no visible circuitry, and the drone of electric humming and cooling fans only ever got louder the further they went.

Finally, they breached the sea of servers.

Now that he could see the wall they had been trekking towards all this time, he realised that it wasn’t made out of concrete the same as the other three walls. No, this one was glass. Despite this, nothing was visible from the other side. There was no depth at all, only pure light glowing an almost-white with its brightness (though when Walker inspected the way it lit up its surroundings, he realised it to be tinted pale blue).

In front of the glass wall, the cables reached their largest size before slipping underneath panels in the floor. The servers did not get within 10 metres of the wall. Instead, they stood guard in their rows, watching the tiny humans approach the divine light.

The Administrator hummed, snapping Walker’s attention back to her. She gestured towards the glass. “This is our power source. You can look, if you would like.”

He didn’t know if that was a good idea. Just looking at the glass from this distance was already beginning to hurt his eyes. Nonetheless, unsure if it was because The Administrator had told him to or because he chose to, he stepped forwards.

As he approached, he could feel the electricity in the air. It combed through his hair and bounced around a pit in his chest, dangerously close to the one that ached whenever he thought about the family he might’ve once had, before he forgot everything. He didn’t realise he was shaking with a strange sense of excitement until he was close enough to touch the glass and found himself unable to hold his hand still. He almost did touch the glass, but held back just before his fingers made contact. He still couldn’t see anything on the other side. Pale blue swallowed his vision.

He looked over his shoulder to The Administrator. She raised an eyebrow and jerked her head towards the glass again. He turned back. A bright light stared back at him.

He didn’t scream. This was unusual - Walker knew he was cowardly and anxious and that in any other scenario he would’ve jumped or fallen back or swung a punch - but something was different this time.

If anything, he stood closer than he did originally, watching the sparking lights with complete fascination. His breath fogged the glass.

“What is it?” He asked after what could’ve been anything between a second and a day, even though he couldn’t hear what he was saying over the pounding of his own heart.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” The Administrator was at his side now. When had she moved? “It’s lightning.”

Like realising one’s hunger upon taking a bite of food, the word sparked an ache in the back of his head. “Lightning…” He knew what that was, of course, as well as where it came from. They must have captured it live from a storm. He had never seen a storm before, but he had heard anecdotes of them from newly recruited employees and field agents alike. He was jealous. Did all lightning look like this? Freckles and curls?

She watched as he pressed a hand to the glass. The lightning responded in kind, pressing the palm of its hand opposite to his. “We could let it go of course, but it would run away. Far from here.”

Far from here… No. They couldn’t let it free. Now that he had seen it, felt it, he knew he couldn’t bear to part with it. They had to keep it contained. He told The Administrator such.

She nodded and smiled again. “I knew you’d understand.”

He dropped his gaze to study the hand that would’ve held his if it could.

It was almost the same pale blue that shone through the rest of the glass, but somehow brighter. The similarity in colours made it hard to tell the form of the figure apart from its glow, but blue and yellow markings fanned out across its form like the branches of a pine tree. Lichtenberg figures, his mind supplied.

He looked up at its face, admiring its curls and running a hand through his own. He wondered if he’d at all resemble the figure before him if he looked in a mirror.

[seaofreverie]

Sparkstember Day 28: The Sparks Brothers

I'm not a movie person... So when I do actually rewatch a movie (I mean, even watch it, at ALL, haha) it must really mean that something is up. I mean, well, it also IS a thorough, highly enjoyable and visually appealing movie about a band that I've been so incredibly invested in for the past several months. So maybe it's a surprise that I don't watch it more often actually. Because one beautiful side-effect of seeing it each time was getting an unexpected and very strong surge of motivation to keep on going towards the things that matter to me the most, despite any and all obstacles that could appear on the way. Another side-effect of it is being happy and joyfull and being filled with warm feelings and thoughts for the whole following day at least. Usually up to 3 days afterwards actually.

But ok, of course, what I'm getting at is that the Maels' story is so incredibly inspirational. Seeing how they persevered through all those years and NEVER lost their spirit or their vision, never gave up... is not only moving but also something that reminds me that wow, so much *really* is possible. I spent so many years fully convinced that there are things that I'll never be able to achieve. And sure, some of them are indeed pretty unlikely to happen. But if you told me from even one year ago that I'd be making art daily and not dreading being so much as perceived anywhere in the great world (so, including the internet)... well, I would have not believed it at all. I really mean it when I say that I used to believe that there are things that I'll just never be able to do. It's like it was simply not meant for me to be able do it and have those experiences. And yet...!

There's a lot I owe Sparks and this is one of the biggest things I'll always be grateful for. They really changed my life for the better. Truly nothing else before them reaches the same degree of how much it helped me. And well, I'm saying this on TSB day because this is where this feeling of gratitude and feeling SO lucky becomes the strongest. And the beautiful thing about it all is that they were always just themselves. They had their vision, they knew what they wanted to do and didn't care about how it would be received. Which is such an important and meaningful message to me, I can't even express how huge it is to me to see these two people who only really had themselves and their endurance and got exactly where they wanted to be.

Alright, some less grandiose observations now. Well, let's start with the fact that this was by no means my introduction to Sparks but it still really cemented my love for them even more. I loved being reminded of their whole journey and learning more about it, and even moreso I loved being able to see more of their beautiful brotherly bond and their wonderful personalities. Truly no other people in this whole world make me as happy as them currently. And the brothers' sense of humour hits super close to mine, so this is also a time filled with genuine laughs (I die laughing at the absolutely true Sparks facts at the end EVERY TIME). And since I'm a huge fan of animation and mixed media art and such things, this was simply a joy to view for my more artistically-inclined side too.

And damn, those two hours and 15 minutes really fly by so fast. When I have to arrange a huge timeslot to watch it all in one go, because that's the only way to do it for me, and then it feels like no time has passed anyway. And even with so much being said there, it feels like there's still so much more to get to. But it's still enough to lift my spirits completely for a pretty long time. And to make me cry a lot of the time too... Absolutely impossible to not shed a tear by the end of it all. It's moving, it's funny as heck, it's super fun and it's absolutely beautiful and truly lifechanging. 💖

[the-somwthing]

Thinking of making one of those life series askblogs with all the dead characters in some form of afterlife. They’re really fun and things like that have been in my head since Last Life started so if anyone’s gonna jump on that you know it’s me (especially since I’ve run 3… successful enough ask series in the past).

[goldensunset]

surprise art attack!!! here’s @deityofhearts ‘s cashmere, everyone’s favorite whimsical tiefling

[theclearblue]

I'm gonna get into a brawl with my mother one day don't be surprised when I get on the news

[pillowenvelopchair]

It’s pretty weird when you write something and put so so so much effort into planning it out and actually writing out the scene just for you to take a step back realize how flawed it actually is in the bigger picture

[seraphsix6]

AHHHH IMA RAMBLE!! I know it’s been long since the change :’) but I still hate how we can’t really afk farm anymore.

Makes me remember when after we’d do some candle running. Me and my vet friend would go to that bonfire spot in prairie (can’t remember the name), and just chat and chill around as we slowly got our wax from the fire. I really did love those moments…

Now i can never do that again with someone because there’s those annoying orbs that spawn from the fire, and honestly it sucks. Cuz you can’t just chill, just let the game run while you’re busy doing whatever irl.

I don’t have much motivation to candle run anymore, even after I took a few months break from the game. I want wax, but I can’t make myself go and get much. With afk farming basically not a thing anymore it’s even harder now ;w; and i am suffering from the “becoming a vet and then all your friends vanish” sickness so… yah, can’t really cr with anyone either.

Idk I just find it sad :’) I still don’t understand why tgc saw afk farming as some “illegal activity”

But whatever :/

[svtskneecaps]

my biological peer reviewer (sibling) called this theory “fun” and said i should send it, so here goes

my personal theory is the feds ((”federation”)) created the eggs because they decided the best way to enforce “you can never leave” was to give the people something they couldn’t lose, like in the post by tumblr user alexaloraetheris (no relation to the smp) where their friend who might be a deity had said,

"When you die you descend to the underworld with nothing to lose. To keep you, they give you something to lose. When you want to return, they will demand it back. That's why nobody ever leaves. The only way out is to never enter."

i’m thinkin that on egg D-Day, at the end of the countdown, the feds weren’t gonna give the eggs back. they were just gonna hide them forever, or do something else, anything else, just keep them away from their surrogate parents, because then the people would just be STUCK, because people could theoretically take their eggs and leave, but if the eggs are missing, gone without a trace, then the residents CAN’T LEAVE, because presumably the eggs are STILL THERE, SOMEWHERE, IN NEED OF HELP AND RESCUE, if only the residents could find them ON THE ISLAND. if they leave the island while the eggs are missing, they are abandoning these things that have become their children.

but then in came the brazilians. and shit went south. because see, the spenglish (spanish / english) streamers were INVITED, but the brazilians CRASHED; the feds didn’t INVITE THEM, they weren’t EXPECTING THEM, but they can’t let these guys leave either, so they PANIC, and they scramble to give the brazilians the same thing--something to lose. the new egg had a brazilian jersey, homie was TAILOR MADE for them to pack bond with. the feds didn’t have time to send out multiple eggs, it was all or nothing, so they picked something they could reasonably assume all five of them would find endearing because they don’t know shit about these guys--they had a week to observe the OG batch, but all they know about these newbies is the brazilian flag on their boat--and so they sent the little egg out to become THEIR THING, the thing they couldn’t afford to lose.

it leaves open why the eggs are cracked too, bc idk what’s going on there lol, either 1: the eggs cracked because they’re hatching and the feds picked that date bc they wanted to yoink the eggs before they got Too Powerful, or 2: the feds were the ones to crack the eggs as an excuse for why they vanished--returning the eggs untouched would open too many questions the feds don’t want them asking; this way, instead of being concerned specifically with “why were the eggs missing”, the residents presume they know the answer--the cracks.

but yea i’m just gonna add as an aside that personally i think cucurucho / osito bimbo / the white fucker is way more active again because the feds are still scrambling to keep up with the brazilians (which, again, the feds weren’t expecting), and the binary fuckwad came in to put the fear of god into the newbies--maybe so they didn’t get too focused on the morse code transmissions; iirc max was theorizing that both osito and binary were part of the federation ? and if so it does make sense that the binary entity went to fuck with cellbit immediately after cellbit was introduced to the conspiracies of the island, yknow, a warning shot. i think they want them to be focused on the eggs.

BUT THAT’S JUST A THEOr

[wellhalesbells]

the thing that fucks me up about rereading instructions for dancing is trying to pinpoint when it is that derek becomes obsessed with stiles and realizing the answer seems to be always. from the beginning. the moment they met. that poor bastard. he probably should have tried to be a little nicer about it, though, saved them both some hardship.

I think it slides so quickly from fear and annoyance that Stiles will steal Scott away to 'Oh no, oh fuck,' I'm not even sure Derek knows himself. Poor guy hamstrung himself by starting out with the 'I'm going to scare him away' mentality then wondering where the hell that went and trying to find it again through almost every subsequent interaction (while something so much bigger and so much worse - Derek's Thoughts™ - completely eclipsed it). Meanwhile Stiles also helps cultivate Derek's dickish-ness by assuming that original motivation to be his only interest in him at all, essentially until the moment Derek tells him he's in love with him.

Which is hopefully why it seemingly comes out of left field for Stiles and the reader, because that's what I wanted.

[sulfurrrr]