#yikes this is hella depressing

[dadbots]

August… time to get spooky.

[ckret2]

At long last, we get to see: this moment.

Chapter 11 of Human Bill Being The Mystery Shack's Hella Depressed Prisoner, featuring: Mabel giving Bill a ✨beautiful makeover✨—and Stan and Ford almost dying from laughter. And thus begins Bill & Mabel's inevitable befriending. Previous chapters here!

####

Every time Mabel had to use the stairs, she paused to look at Bill sitting in his window.

He never seemed to move.

A few days ago, it was creepy. Now, it was just kind of sad.

Last year, after Mabel and Dipper's parents had heard the whole story about their summer, they'd immediately packed the twins off to therapy—which Mabel didn't think was necessary, but whatever, if it made their parents feel better. (It had taken them some time to find a therapist who would engage with their barely-averted-apocalypse story at face value rather than search for the root of these "delusions.") At their current therapist's office, before each appointment, Dipper and Mabel had to fill out checklists that they gathered were to measure whether they'd come down with a case of depression—Please read the following statements and circle the word that shows how often they happen to you. Never, sometimes, often, always.

She'd filled out these things so many times that she could practically recite the list of statements by memory. Nothing feels very fun anymore. I have problems with my appetite. I have trouble sleeping. I have no energy for things. I feel like I don't want to move. Far be it from her to try to diagnose an evil demon monster space triangle who'd tried to murder everybody she knew, but. Well. You know. Sitting curled up in a window seat, day after night after day, barely moving, barely talking, barely eating... Yikes. She could only guess how he'd answer statements like I feel empty and sad or I feel worthless.

In Mabel's mind, there was a piece of paper. On that piece of paper were the faces of everyone currently living in the shack. Herself, Dipper, Waddles, Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford, Soos, Abuelita, and Melody as an honorary part-time resident. Next to each of their faces, there was a sticker, reflecting their current overall mood. Right now, everyone had either a happy face or a flat-mouthed neutral face—not bad, but could be better.

As she looked at Bill, she mentally promoted him at last from "entity haunting the attic" to "temporary resident." She added his face to her imaginary paper. And she slapped a big blue crying sticker next to it.

She wouldn't stand for that. Not even from him. Not under her roof.

####

Today, Bill wasn't even in the window. He'd elected to curl up in a corner of the attic, hiding in the shadows with his stolen blanket. The window was probably too hot. Mabel typically used acrylic yarn, and she knew from experience how quickly Sweater Town could turn into Sweaty Town.

For the first time, Mabel sauntered, quite casually, across the invisible barrier separating the rest of the attic from Bill's nest. She offered her winningest smile and her cheerfullest, "Hey, Bill!"

The Thing Beneath The Blanket gave her a look that, she suspected, could probably be described as deeply suspicious. "Shooting Star."

"Yup! Haha! That's—that's me all right! You got me." Mabel laughed. (This was going great so far. This was very natural.) "So, anyway!" She grabbed one of the couch cushions Bill had been using as a bed, dragged it a little closer to the corner, and plopped down. "This is such a weird coincidence, but one time, I got gum stuck in my hair and had to shave it off! I mean, crazy, right?"

"Uh huh." Bill didn't sound impressed. "Second grade." (And Mabel was uncomfortably reminded of the first time she'd ever seen Bill. I know lots of things.) "Hey, since you brought it up, can I ask you something about that little incident?"

"Uh..." This was what you signed up for, Mabel. You volunteered for a conversation with Bill. You've gotta converse. "Sure, I guess."

He leaned forward, triangle face looming above her. "Did getting gum in your hair change your species? Did you still look like yourself when you shaved it off?" The face bobbed as he pantomiming looking her up and down. "You still look human to me! So what's your point."

Okay, so he'd immediately recognized she was trying to establish common ground, aaand he was throwing it in her face. Great start. "Jeez, don't be so mean! I'm trying to tell you I get it. Not... the species part, but the other part. I wanna help!"

Bill scoffed. "Sure you do."

"Really!"

"Why?"

"Because you're all sad and it's making me sad."

Bill, o wise and ancient being that he was, had heard of "empathy" in a conceptual sense. He was aware that it was a thing that happened to some people. He even knew that it was common among humans. But on some level he kinda sorta felt like it only really happened to mindreaders that didn't know how to establish proper psychic boundaries. He laughed in Mabel's face. "No, seriously! What are you getting out of this."

Mabel decided she had no interest in explaining compassion to an alien mass murderer. "Okay, I want Soos's blanket back. I gave it to him, not you."

"Fine. If you want his blanket back, make me one."

"What? No! Those are our Team Zodiac-That-Defeated-You blankets, you don't get one."

"Didn't you make one for everybody else on the wheel? I'm on the wheel, aren't I?" He pointed at his face. "Bam! There I am, right in the middle! Star of the show! If everyone else deserves a blanket, so do I."

"Why do you even want one? It's a symbol to kill you."

"It's got my face on it! It's not that deep." He crossed his legs and propped his chin in his hand, getting more comfortable. "So do I get to pick the colors? I'll take yellow if that's all you got, but if you get me metallic gold I think I can swing you a favor."

"I'm not making you a blanket," Mable said. "I was thinking maybe a wig?"

Bill shuddered. "Pass."

"Aw, come on! I bet I could find you a really cute wig. Summerween's coming up, I could go to the costume store—"

"Don't even think about it." Bill leaned away from Mabel, back into his corner. She was losing him. "Listen. Kid. Do you think I did this by accident?" He pointed vaguely toward his scalp. "Being stuck in a human body? Disgusting. Being a human and secreting fifteen miles of hair out of a hundred thousand of pores? Infinitely worse."

"Wait, wait, fifteen miles?" Mabel had never considered how long a full head of hair laid out end-to-end would be. "How much hair do I have?"

"Huh." Bill tilted his head consideringly. "How dense is your hair?"

"Super dense. I've broken multiple brushes."

"Could be up to fifty miles."

Mabel's eyes widened. "Whoa."

"And you've got fifty thousand miles of blood vessels," Bill added cheerfully. "Anyway, if you want this blanket back? You won't get it with a wig. All I want is to look..." he formed his fingers into a triangle, thumb to thumb and forefinger to forefinger, and held it over the face on the blanket, "... like this. Now, if you're offering to help me get my real body back—"

"Never in a million years."

"Didn't think so!" Bill retreated fully into his corner again, knees pulled back up under the blanket, like an eel hiding in a hole to await its next prey. "But hey, if you've got an offer that's a step up from the blanket, I'm willing to negotiate."

"Huh." Mabel frowned thoughtfully. Something triangly. Something triangly that was better than a blanket, without helping Bill return to full power.

She got to her feet. "Let's put a pin in this conversation and circle back to it later. I'll come back with some proposals for you to review."

Bill laughed. "Okay, business girl! Have your people call my people. You know where to find me."

Mabel leaped down the stairs three at a time, ideas already forming in her head.

####

"Hey, Grunkle Ford!"

Ford was sitting at the former controls of the interdimensional portal, studying some radar readings; but he glanced up with a smile when Mabel ran out of the elevator. "Mabel. What brings you down here?"

She dragged an office chair up beside Ford, plopped down in it, and spun a couple of times. "I need to ask some questions about Bill!"

Ford's smile faltered. "Ah."

"Last summer, when we were burning all your art of him—"

(Ford winced in embarrassment.)

"—you said he could do some kind of magic with pictures of his face? What's all that about?" She stopped spinning. "Do they give him more power? Can he fire lasers out of them, or...?"

"No, nothing like that, thank goodness. Depictions of his face granted him a different kind of power: the power of knowledge. When he was trapped in the Nightmare Realm, he could tap into our world's collective mindscape and see through drawings of himself as if they were cameras. Ironically, plastering images of his face everywhere to symbolically represent an 'all-seeing eye' is what made him so all-seeing in the first place."

Mabel nodded thoughtfully. "Did you know you talk like one of those experts they hire to explain things in history documentaries?" she asked. "You should be on TV. You'd be good at it."

Ford gave her a confused smile. "Er—thank you."

"So, if Bill's already here, making new pictures of his face doesn't do anything?"

He supposed she was wondering about the zodiac blankets she'd spread around town. "Probably not. At a minimum, he'd have to be in the mindscape to be at the right 'angle' to see through the eyes. As he is now, trapped in a human form?" Ford let out a slow, thoughtful sigh. "It's hard to say for sure, without knowing how he got to be this way or what kinds of powers he's still hiding... but based on everything I've seen so far, I doubt they do anything for him."

"And if somebody put a picture of him on his face, it wouldn't do anything at all! Because that's like, his face. He already has eyes there."

Ford chuckled. "I suppose that's true. It would be like he'd grown a third eyeball, that's all." He paused. Put a picture of him on his face? "Why do you ask?"

Too late; she was halfway to the elevator. "Thanks, Grunkle Ford! I'll see you at dinner!" And she was gone.

####

"What's all this?" Bartholomew asked.

Mabel was dumping a bag of costume makeup and cheap convenience store makeup palettes onto her bed. They sparkled in varying hues of tacky gold glitter. "Art project!" She scooped Bartholomew out of his cradle by Dipper's bed, climbed the rickety ladder to the storage loft over their bedroom, and set him down leaning against a box. "You're on guard duty. Stay quiet and if anything goes wrong, get Dipper."

"How do you expect me to get Dipper? I'm a doll. I can't move."

"Come on, Mew-Mew. You think we haven't noticed that you teleport when nobody's looking?"

Bartholomew paused. "Touché."

Mabel rummaged through her art supplies; put tape, glue, and a couple of flattened cardboard boxes on the bed; added all the yellow crayons, markers, and paints she could find; and finally, satisfied, she ran out of the room. "Bill!"

"Still here."

"I've got the perfect solution. I'm giving you..." Mabel posed, hands on her hips. "A makeover!"

Bill waited for the follow up. There was no follow up. "Heh."

"Laugh now, but before I'm finished, I'm gonna make you more beautiful than your wildest dreams!"

"Kid, with all due respect, your idea of 'wild' taps out where my dreams are just getting started."

"Then I'll just have to up my game, won't I?" Mabel held out her hand. "Just give me that blanket, show me that weird bald head of yours, and let me make it into a canvas for high art! Trust me!"

Bill contemplated her extended hand. Did he trust her? In most situations, he considered trust irrelevant. He expected most people to do whatever they thought would benefit themselves the most; sometimes that meant keeping their word, and sometimes it didn't.

On the other hand. Was he really curious to find out where she was going with this? Yes. And the worst thing she could possibly do to him was make him very slightly more ugly than he already was. And playing along would fill his empty afternoon.

"Okay, kid." He reluctantly handed the blanket over. "You haven't given me a bad makeover so far." (He hadn't actually seen her marker mask, but it never hurt to flatter the person about to paint all over you.) He stood and stretched. "Show me what you've got. But if I don't like it, you owe me a blanket."

"Yes!" She grabbed his hand—his whole arm immediately went stiff—and dragged him toward the bedroom. "Welcome to my salon!"

####

Sure enough, just like Ford had said—when Stan checked Bill's attic nest, there was no sign of him.

Stan didn't like that one bit. Where the hell had their prisoner gotten off to?

As Stan approached the attic bedroom, he could hear Mabel talking: "More glitter?! That's crazay! Okay, here goes! I bet you could pull off such a glam rock look." (That explained where the kids were. He'd been starting to wonder.) "Hold still, I'm gonna try something I saw on a Russian supermodel—"

"Kids," Stan called, "do you know where the demon went?" He opened the door. "Poindexter says he can't find him anywhere, and—"

Mabel was kneeling on the floor, surrounded by the widest variety of makeup brushes and palettes Stan had ever seen. Her fingers and sleeve cuffs were coated in gold glitter and paint.

Kneeling in front of her, with his legs splayed awkwardly and his hands on the floor like he wasn't sure how to lower this body down to Mabel's height, was Bill. His face was liberally coated in acrylic gold paint and amateurishly contoured with a mix of craft glitter and golden eyeshadow. One eye was shut—the eyelashes delicately dusted with more gold eyeshadow to help it blend in—while the other was coated in a layer of mascara so thick it was a miracle his lashes didn't glue shut when he blinked.

And to cap off the gilded absurdity, his face was sticking through a hole in the middle of a cardboard triangle helmet, painted sunflower yellow with bricks shakily traced on in marker. Bill looked like the poor kid assigned the part of "the pyramid" in a fourth grade class play about ancient Egypt.

Mabel and Bill stared at Stan.

Stan stared back.

He covered a snort with a cough. "I'll—I'll tell Ford you've got it handled." He slammed the door.

He let out a bellow of laughter.

Mabel put a hand on Bill's shoulder. "He doesn't understand avant-garde fashion. You look like a million dollars."

"I know," Bill said. "All the same—maybe a hat would class things up a little?"

Mabel reached for a sheet of black construction paper. "You're so right."

####

"Well?" Mabel leaned around Bill, trying to see what he looked like in the full-length mirror. "What do you think?"

Bill stared in the mirror. A horrific abomination of flaking paint, cakey makeup, and taped-up cardboard stared back.

He grinned so wide it cracked his face paint. "I think that's the hottest human being in history."

"Yes!" Mabel pumped a fist into the air.

####

Ford said, "Stanley, what is it?"

Stan wheezed until his lungs ran out of air.

Concerned, Ford leaned across the kitchen table, lacing his hands together. "Did you find Bill?"

"M—Mhmm."

"He hasn't hurt Mabel, has he?" Ford asked, flashing back to their conversation earlier. "Or—or Dipper? Anyone?"

Stan bit his lip and shook his head. Tears of laughter pricked the corners of his eyes.

"Did he... put some kind of laughing curse on you?"

Stan shook his head more emphatically. "H—" He couldn't get one syllable out before he had to choke back his laughter again. He pounded on the table.

Grasping at straws and defaulting to the first worst case scenario he could think of, Ford said, "He hasn't found a way back to his true form, has he?"

Stan let out a noise like a balloon that had been untied and unleashed to fly around the room. "I MEAN—"

"Gooood afternoon, gentlemen!" Beaming brightly enough to rival the sun, twirling an umbrella like a cane, Bill strutted in.

Ford clapped one hand on Stan's shoulder, clapped the other over his mouth, and turned away, shoulders shaking. Stan smacked Ford's arm in sympathetic hysteria.

"I see we're all in high spirits today!" With the brazen confidence of an illegitimate prince marching into a throne room to demand his crown, Bill strolled through the kitchen, barely sparing the Stan twins a glance. Mabel followed behind him, grinning from ear to ear. "I wouldn't mind some spirits, myself." He paused in front of the fridge. "Could someone—?"

As the closest person to the fridge, Ford pulled it open, then turned to watch so he could make sure Bill didn't do anything he shouldn't with the food. This required him to look in Bill's direction. He curled his lips into his mouth and bit down. His eyes watered.

"Finally." Bill hungrily surveyed the inner contents of the fridge, grabbed an armload of condiments, a jar of pickles, and a tub of leftover chicken nuggets, and dumped them on the nearest counter. He tried to reach for a bottle of spoiled corn syrup toward the back of the fridge, banged the sides of his cardboard helmet on the fridge's doorframe, and quickly backed off and felt the corners to make sure they weren't too damaged. He had to turn sideways to reach the bottle without hitting the edges of the fridge. One corner of his mask tipped over a bottle of apple juice. Watching this performance very nearly killed the Stans.

"There." Bill triumphantly set the bottle on the counter, grabbed a can of alphabet spaghetti off an open shelf, and asked, "Where do you have the bowls hidden?" He rapped on one of the cabinet doors with his umbrella.

The sight of the umbrella knocked Ford out of some of his hysteria. "Where did you—?" He snatched the umbrella out of Bill's hands. "No weapons."

Bill gave Ford a withering one-eyed look (Ford suspected his other eye was glued shut with paint), then elected to ignore him. "Shooting Star?"

"They're down here!" Mabel opened one of the base cabinets. Bill retrieved a bowl and started filled it with his condiment haul.

"Okay," Stan said, voice strained with suppressed laughter. "Okay, what—what are we looking at?"

"A masterpiece of cosmetic art," Bill said. Mabel's grin widened.

Ford elbowed Stan across the table. "Do you remember the 'living statue' performers on the Glass Shard Beach boardwalk?" he asked. "The ones who'd paint all their skin and clothes gold—?"

"Oh yeah!" Stan let out a bark of laughter. "That's exactly what he looks like!"

In his bowl, Bill had layered mayonnaise, Tabasco sauce, mustard, sour cream, and maple syrup, and carefully stuck in as many chicken nuggets as he could without the mix slopping over the edges. He got Mabel's help to stick it in the microwave, then turned toward the Stans with a smug grin. "So you agree that I look like a work of art."

"No," Stan said, "they looked like idiots, and so do you."

Bill scoffed. "You don't know anything! You look at a human body, and all you see is a human with things stuck on it. I can look at a human body and see a canvas. I've stripped this vessel of its association with humanity and transformed it into an idol of myself."

Mabel loudly cleared her throat.

"Okay, she did most of the work."

Ford seriously considered the artistic merit of Bill's proposed "human body sans humanity as art material" paradigm. After a moment of deliberation, he said, "You have cardboard taped to your face."

Stan slapped the table. "HA!"

Bill opened a can of alphabet spaghetti, slopped half into a glass, filled the rest with incredibly spoiled corn syrup, and then filled the can with corn syrup as well. The mixes bubbled threateningly. The absolute picture of good cheer, Bill announced, "I'm the most beautiful thing any of you have ever seen. It's just too bad your closed little minds can't enjoy the marvel in front of you." He stirred his toxic alphabet spaghetti concoction with a pickle spear.

Stan watched Bill mix his drink in mild alarm. "What in the world are you making?"

Bill held his wrist over the glass and a knife to his wrist. "A Bloody Mary."

Stan's alarm increased. "No you aren't."

"That's your opinion." 

"Where did you get—!" Ford leaned over to snatch the knife out of Bill's hand.

"It was in the fridge, it was sticking out of the leftover casserole!" Bill rolled his eye. "Re-lax! I wasn't pointing it at you." He lifted his drink, nearly poured it into his eye, caught himself at Mabel's shout of alarm, took a sip through the correct hole, then inspected the thick gold lip stain left on the rim. "Huh." He looked at Mabel.

She shrugged. "I could have set the makeup with baby powder, but I thought it might dim some of the sparkle."

"You chose form over function. I respect that." He sipped his drink more carefully.

The microwave went off, Mabel opened the door, and Bill scooped up his condiment-and-nugget stew and both alleged Bloody Marys. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go be handsome somewhere else—"

The corner of his cardboard helmet banged into the kitchen doorway. He dropped one of his drinks, stumbled against the wall, and looked in dismay at his syrup-and-spaghetti-sauce-soaked skirt. He turned to Mabel. "How's my head?"

She grimaced. "We... can fix that with tape."

Bill sighed. "Come on, let's do it before my nuggets get cold."

"Now hold on!" Ford stood up. "Are you going to clean this mess up?"

"No!" Bill was out of the room. Ford could already hear him tripping on the stairs. "You don't trust me with a mop!"

Well. It was true, they didn't trust him with a mop. Sighing, Ford trudged across the room. "I'll get it."

Stan said, "You know, I think I'm glad he looks like an idiot. He's been so mopey the last couple of days, I was almost starting to feel bad for him."

"Thank goodness, you too," Ford muttered. "I was afraid I was going soft."

"Nah, he really was that pathetic," Stan said. "Like a sad show poodle that doesn't understand why it's been shaved in weird shapes."

Ford barked a laugh.

Once the floor was clean, Ford confessed, "I've—actually really worried about that. Going soft, I mean. I'm... afraid that Bill could find a way back into my head."

"Literally or emotionally?"

"Emotionally." Ford paused. "Both, actually—but this time I mean emotionally. The night he burned his hair off, I..." He winced at himself; but he needed to tell Stan. There was no one else he trusted to give him a reality check. Maybe Fiddleford, but... Ford hadn't figured out how to approach him about all this yet.

He put back the mop, to have an excuse to pause and gather his words. "I... brought him something to eat," Ford mumbled. "And, told him I knew what it was like to be trapped in an alien universe, and—that he should take better care of himself, for his own sake—and I don't know why I said that, anything good he does for himself just makes things harder for us, it's not as though I forgot that, but—What? Stanley, why is this funny."

Stan had started laughing; but he cut it off a cough. "Sorry. It's just—do you remember how Mom would go 'Well, I can tell you two are related' any time we did something particularly—you know—twinnish?"

"Don't tell me you've been making sandwiches for Bill."

"Ha! No, but I've given my arch nemesis a pep talk when he was having a mental breakdown. I felt bad for him!"

Ford chuckled. "Really?" He dropped back into his seat. "I didn't know you have an arch nemesis, who's that?"

Stan considered Ford's reaction if he admitted that his nemesis was that ten-year-old with a crush on Mabel, and said, "Ah, he's been out of my hair for ages. So what, is that all you talked about?"

"Somehow it turned into him trying to convince me he'd been planning a welcome party when I fell through the portal."

"Ha! And did you believe him?"

"Absolutely not." Ford paused thoughtfully. "But—part of me wonders whether he believes it himself."

"He seems like the kind of guy to buy his own bull." Stan shrugged. "I don't think you have to worry about him getting in your head. Just don't let him fast-talk you into any decisions and don't buy anything he's selling without telling him you'll think it over for twenty-four hours. And the more he says decide now, the harder you say no. That's how the pros get you, they don't give you room to breathe, let alone think."

Ford was pretty sure Stan was just describing the Mystery Shack's souvenir sales strategy; but he nodded slowly. "I know exactly what you're talking about. When I gave him permission to pilot my body, between the first time he mentioned it was an option and the moment I agreed to it... well, I was asleep at the time, so I can't be sure how long it took—but I'd guess it was less than fifteen minutes. In retrospect, I couldn't believe that I'd agreed so thoughtlessly. But I suppose that's exactly what he wanted." No room to breathe was a good way to describe it. Never mind being nose-to-nose with somebody trying to pressure you into a sale—how do you take a step back to get a little space from somebody who's already inside your head?

"Did he make it sound like a limited-time-only deal? You know—'buy now while the price is low, you'll regret missing this offer'? But with more mystical woo-woo phrasing, I mean."

"Not exactly, but..." Ford tried to remember back that far, grasping for the details of the conversation—the real conversation, not the heady, excited version he'd summarized in his journal. "At the time, I'd been worried about falling behind schedule on the portal's construction. He wouldn't have had to introduce an element of tension—it was already there. All he had to do was exploit it." He shook his head. Falling behind schedule. What schedule—the one he, himself had made? He was sure Bill had encouraged him to finish as fast as possible, too.

"There, you see? You got swindled by a professional swindler," Stan said. "What's important is that you know what he is now, and you know his tricks. He won't get you the same way twice. I'm not worried about you."

There were a couple of odd thuds from upstairs, accompanied by a yelp from Bill. That wasn't odd; he'd proven to be remarkably clumsy in a human body. At any given time it was possible to tell where he was by the random bangs, and if he hadn't made a noise in the last five minutes it meant he was curled up safely in his window seat.

What was odd was hearing Mabel's voice: "Careful, careful—! Augh. ... I'll get another sheet of cardboard, we'll replace that!"

Stan and Ford looked warily toward the stairs. Stan muttered, "Mabel, on the other hand..."

Ford nodded. "I'll keep an eye on her."

####

(If you've read this far, I'd really appreciate hearing from you! Things you liked, things you're looking forward to, jokes, thoughts, even typo corrections. Thanks!)

[bulletproofteacup]

This is the world we live in now

[prompt #86]: “I find peace in the rain” // Zutara Month #25:  “Enemies”

Prompts by pxroxide-prinxcesss

[summary]:  Aang dies on the day of Sozin’s comet + enemies + Zuko and Katara basically kill everything because they can + zutara (like obviously)

[Warning]: mentions of death, rape, mutilation, basically this isn’t graphic but there are some awful themes...sorry?

***

“I’m so tired of death.” she whispers, kneeling in the mud. 

There is nothing for Zuko to say. He has been unable to speak since the Phoenix King cut his tongue out. Even if he could speak, what would he say? 

Would he apologize for his part in the fall of the Earth Kingdom? 

Would he apologize for failing to teach Aang to redirect lightning? 

Instead, he puts a hand on her shoulder. She draws in a deep, shuddering breath. He tightens his grip for a moment. She shakes her head. “I’m not hurt.” she says, even though she’s covered in blood. 

Katara stands, brushing his hand off gently. “Thank you, Zuko.” 

He nods and they turn back to where Appa is waiting. Momo is chattering, perched on the one horn Appa still has. Azula shattered the other horn when they were escaping the Fire Nation. 

It was miracle that they’d been able to escape that day, but Katara had always been something entirely else. Somehow she’d rescued him from the prison--he’d still be mindless with agony after Ozai had torn his tongue out and cauterized the wound with his own fire (he still woke up screaming most nights). She’d been dressed in a dead soldier’s clothes--Ozai had foolishly forgotten that shattering a waterbender’s hands and throwing her to his soldiers did not render her powerless--and somehow, she’d gotten them to Appa. 

A year later, they are the only ones left. 

It turns out, Zuko muses, that they were more than enough. The dead men lying in every direction would certainly agree. 

Azula and Ozai might have razed half of the Earth Kingdom, but Ba Sing Se was still a stronghold protected by the White Lotus. Zuko and Katara made sure they could never take their focus off of the eastern front--let alone march for Ba Sing Se. 

Zuko lifts his mask and follows Katara through the ruins of the company they’d decimated. He did not focus on the bodies laying in the mud--some smoldering still and others half frozen. Instead he catches Katara’s eye and signs to her, what next?

“Back to Half Moon bay, I think,” she says, “Dad will be there. He wanted to be there before they sent us to the Fire Nation. I think he’s going to argue against it.” 

Zuko snorts. Hakoda had a snow ball’s chance in hell of convincing the White Lotus, or Katara for that matter, not to go to the Fire Nation. Some changed after suffering a loss; Hakoda had given up the fight after Sokka’s death and Katara had given up her mercy. 

He signs back, sweep?

She shakes her head. “I haven’t checked for stragglers.” 

Sure enough, as soon as the words leave her mouth, a fire ball erupts from behind the ruins of a tent. They’d ambushed this company in the dead of night and nearly a hundred men had died before the other half of the camp had woken. It’s only logical that some men had been smart enough to hide. The fireball is aimed for Katara, but Zuko steps into it’s trajectory and disperses it with his daos. 

“Run!” a man shouts, “I’ll hold them off!” 

Four soldiers, he counts, five including the man attacking Katara. They look like recruits--too young and untouched by battle. It only takes a few minutes for Katara to dispose of the first. By then, he’s caught up with the fleeing recruits.

It doesn’t take very long for the battlefield to grow quiet once more.  

***

That night, they sit across a small campfire. 

When they’d first begun, it had been difficult to light a fire without attracting a squad of Fire Nation soldiers. There had been so many littering the eastern country Earth Kingdom, so many little towns underneath the control of the Fire Nation. Now, they went weeks without finding a single solider. This had been their largest company for nearly two months and it had been child’s play to destroy it. It turned out that without scruples, the pair of them were very good at massacre. Katara was very good at it.  

But she isn’t bending blood or drowning men in tsunamis at the moment; Katara is simply a water tribe woman fussing over dinner. 

This is the only time he can find a glimpse of the girl he fell in love with. Even a year later, even after everything that has happened, she is most herself when she’s trying to care for others. Zuko would love it if it wasn’t aggravating. 

“Here,” she says bending food into his dish, “Eat up.” 

She’s cooked the duck-pheasant in a stew of potatoes and carrots. The meat is soft enough that it is easy for him to chew, but she’d still made him cut his portion up. He tries not to let it irritate him, tries to imagine what Sokka would say if he could see them now. It would tickle him, he thinks, and Toph would complain about all the motherliness. Aang, of course, would be glaring at him across the fire--at least until Katara turned her motherliness on him. 

He nods in thanks and takes his bowl. Her smile is tinged with sadness, as if she’d known exactly what he’d been thinking.  

***

Zuko massages her hands before bed. 

The ointment smells strongly of ginger and citrus--it’s a Fire Nation blend they picked up in the last town they liberated. 

“Thank you,” Katara groans, “I could kiss you.” 

He smiles and signs, money. She laughs, “Of course I’ll pay you.” 

She winks and leans over to kiss his neck. He can’t help kissing her back, until she’s flushes and glassy eyed and red with beard burn. “Hey,” she complains, “You can’t get lucky until you’re done with my hands.” 

He feigns disappointment, but turns back to her hands. “I love you.” she whispers as he continues working the lotion into her hands. 

Zuko smiles. He’s gotten very good at communicating without words in the last year; sometimes they don’t even need signals or bits of parchment to communicate. This is how he knows that she knows if he could talk, he’d never stop telling her how much her loved her. But he’s got a job, so he focuses on her hands. Even now, a year later, they still tremble in his grip. 

Katara’s healing was on another level altogether, but her fingers had been crushed so badly. She could bend--if anything she could bend better than she had before--but it was difficult to grasp anything, difficult to manipulate or carry or touch anything. They’d spent months re-breaking individual fingers and even now, he helped her stretch and strengthen her fingers. Should could still manage bending and grip a spoon enough to eat, but she would never write again or sew or weave or squeeze his hand back when he held hers. 

“Zuko,” she whispers, “Where did you go?” 

He turns his attention back to her and smiles. She isn’t fooled, but she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she draws him back into their bedroll and they make love. This is the only time that Zuko feels normal again, when he’s inside her and it doesn’t matter that neither of them are whole anymore. It doesn’t matter that the entire world has fallen apart and their friends are dead. It doesn’t matter that in a few weeks, they’ll leave for the Fire Nation--that they’ll leave to murder the rest of his surviving family. 

The only thing that matters is beneath him. 

He tries to tell her, with his lips and hands and body, that he loves her more than life itself. 

***

In the morning, they climb atop Appa and fly toward Half Moon Bay. 

Neither of them look behind them, the ruins of a Fire Nation company lying behind them. 

This is the world they live in now.

[not-easy-being-green-124]

Y'all ever read a story with trigger warnings and you're like I'll be okay, I can usually handle stories with this trigger (sui**** attempt) and then you arent okay?

I have regrets right now.

Dammit.

[aurora-boring-alis]

hard dabbb ya girl is havin a night yikes

[firefistlaw]

I hope y’all enjoyed the time without me because I’m back and I’m better and my stupid posts and me are ready to waste your time like no one else can 🙂

[ironicscavenger]

YEAR IN REVIEW | 2021

2021 was a mixed bag. I wasn’t very prolific, nor did I get many notes. But I did reach 700 followers, and completed a short story from start to finish. That is quite an achievement. So, here is a summary of what I was up to this year.

The Highlight

The one thing I was very steady at, was “Bridges Burn”. Some months, it was the only thing I posted. I am very proud of this story. I put a lot of effort in it, especially the ending. Also, coordinating with Caroline was hella fun. Definitely the best part of my year.

My favorite post per Month

Like always, I chose based on what I liked, not which got the most notes. Most of them are from “Bridges Burn”. Also, SNTM has its own category, so they will (mostly) not be included on this list.

January | This was a slightly eventful month, but this was my favorite edit of the year. More interesting things that happened: I started Bridges Burn, I discovered Sim Ripper, and there were so many reblogs. I’m hoping to reblog more this next year and give more attention to the community.

February | Not much happened. Only Bridges Burn. This one’s my favorite of the lot.

March | Same as February. So many Gianlerette reblogs.

April | [TW: depression] I was in a sad mood that month, and did some weird edit, but I worked hard on it and I loved it anyway. Honorable mention is this edit of Piper.

May | Same as february/march. Honorary mention is this edit I made for mermay.

June | This was my most busy month. I made so many edits for pride month. I also updated the character page, which is always fun. Honorable mention: create a minor sim challenge.

July | Octavia walking out of her children’s life was the highlight of the story. Truly iconic.

August | I kicked off the epilogue. Only 10 posts total that month, 5 of which were original posts. Yikes.

October | January made her first official appearance on the story.

September | I did it. I finished “Bridges Burn”. I am beaming with pride. Honorable mention: I changed my icon.

November | The Emersons made a brief comeback. Honorable mention is their kitchen renovation. Turns out I love decorating things. Who knew?

December | Only things I did was work on SNTM a bit. So those edits (1 2) go here cause it would be empty otherwise.

SNTM

I put together some statistics about the series this year. We finished Episode 3 and are about halfway through Episode 4. I had quite an uninterrupted streak which lasted about 7 weeks (I think). Hopefully we can get back to schedule soon. Otherwise, these are the highlights. PS: The minutes don’t count the full E3 video, just the little parts.

Thank you!

Finally, I like to thank you all for sticking it with me this year, even though it was a mess. And to all the new followers, thank you for taking the chance, and I hope you’re not regretting your decision.

Goodbye 2021!

Past Reviews: 2020 | 2019 | 2017

Holiday Special: Previous | Next

[americanasitgetsold]

Some facts for CERTAIN FOLKS, since I’ve seen some shit on my dash tonight, and previously.

Do NOT come here on my blog, don’t follow, don’t interact with me if you engage in sending anonymous bullshit messages to people minding their own business. For stupid. shit. Harrassing folks. For what??? the fuck.

Do not send me or the people i adore, hateful messages for writing villains. LITERALLY use your brain. It’s not hard to recognize that people can ENJOY villains and write them without TRULY SUPPORTING WHAT THEY DO IN REAL LIFE. VILLAINS BE VILE BUT THEY’RE STILL FUN TO WRITE OUT. 

Do not harass people for writing military muses?? I truly cannot fathom this. like are you out of your mind? I don’t care what your political opinion of the military is. Keep it out of peoples askboxes unless they specifically ask you for your not so hot take. Don’t tell people they cannot explore it. Don’t tell people they cannot explore things like PTSD in writing. Writing not only builds empathy/connection/understanding for the world around us, but it also helps us through our own traumas and issues? Its a SAFE environment to explore topics. Even therapists  HAVE agreed. You are NOT a therapist. You are not their boss. The RPC CHAMPION or it’s police.

Keep your outdated purity opinions to yourself on subjects regarding NSFW, whether its sexual, gore, dark and depressing topics. Don’t like it? Don’t follow the content. 

We are here to RP with OUR FRIENDS. Not everyone. Not you. Not your biases. Not your political or personal opinions. We’re not here for your judgments or expectations. Go build your own circle of same minded friends. Don’t follow blogs you don’t like. It’s hella simple. Block even. But sending horrible, juvenile, cowardly messages online to people, telling them to die while also LOL making them sound like a bad person when it’s really just you?? Yikes, Karen. Grow up.

Unfollow and leave people alone? It’s literally that simple. 

[howls-moving-pwussy]

like that radcelty user is so fucking creepy, it's not my fault she got mass reported after being a rape apologist and even a suspected p*do?? she already had beef with lots of people and the rape apologism was just the tipping point.

then she made multiple accounts to send hate and STALK ME with, and i'm still getting death and rape wishes in my inbox like?? every few days???? also lmao about the "cis gays are forced to date trans men" bullshit? it's all lies. i just commented on a tiktok of a trans guy joking about his 11 inch strap and they took it as me "literally harassing poor gay men into fucking trans men :((" like????? what a load of shit?????

That is... Absolutely whack ! ! I noticed in that post where I had to address the intentional harassment of that, like there's some huge base of terfs here actively going out of their way to engage with people, and then scream harassment when the antagonised person addresses the harassment, it's the kinda stuff that doesn't hold up well in law, so they're getting very brave, but like, the kind of brave you need to be to do something dumb, not good brave. I'm sorry but when I saw the depressing grovelling tags of "oh please interact please I need to dogpile" as if they somehow are a figurehead in the hate community ??? Laughable, I'm so sorry that you're going through this just for showing solidarity with other trans people.

There's something VERY telling about that interaction tho.. like it felt kinda like a perfect illustration of the terf manifesto, attack -> misinterpret -> misrepresent -> call-to-arms

It's okay though ! ! A useless bigot has to rely on such treachery and debauchery in order to even have a chance at causing social disruption, and because of how long they've been operating under this deny and deflect system, it's getting hard to keep up all the rhetorics, of both rape apology and rape endorsement. Of being too weak and also too strong. It's similar to colony collapse, so now they're all just aimlessly attacking anyone vaguely resembling gender non conformity, or anyone who supports or even interacts with trans people.

Yikes, I went Hella long with this one. Just know that that interaction ? Of her trying to call a dogpile on you... That's just fucking disgusting, deplorable, literally unforgivable that she has that mentality. I am a rape victim too, 2 years of my life I lost to pedophile, so the anger and rage I felt at the idea of terfs who are actively helping pedos hide because of how they'll just call anyone a pedophile is getting to me, in an inspiring way, but I'm just so glad to see that whatever happened to them didn't happen to us normal rape victims. Who don't weaponise their traumatic experiences for good bigot points with the fascists.

[thefanficmonster]

And My Heart Burned In That Lodge

Michael (Mike) Munroe x Reader (female)

Warnings: Death, Grief, Dealing with loss, Heartbreak, Swearing

Genre: ANGST

Summary: None of them will ever be the same, who knows if they’ll even heal. However, the case is different for Mike. He’s left to be dealing with the guilt, grief and the haunting memory of his friend’s death. He’s angry with himself for all the wrong things he did and all the right things he was too much of a coward to do. Now, his only closure is talking to a gravestone, hoping the wind in the graveyard will pass the message onto the person who the words are meant for.  

Requested by Anon. Wish I could tag them, they have such amazing ideas ❤

PS - Sorry this is hella long, I got carried away LOL

I stand aside, watching as my friends place their flowers on her grave. I can hear their cries. For some odd reason I can’t find it in me to feel sympathy or the need to go over there and be with them. I can’t see how that would do anything but make me feel more miserable. Standing here, seeing this scene unfold in front of me, I can’t help but be reminded of how it all started.

Fuck Mondays, man. Fuck them from the bottom of my heart. Even worse, this is the first week of school after winter break so no one wants to be here. Even even worse, this is the first time I’ll be seeing Emily after out breakup. We broke up over text and while I’m aware that’s the worst way to break up with someone, I must admit it was the only way for a lot of arguing and awkwardness to be avoided. 

It’s the first time I’m coming to school alone in a while. Without Emily, the car was pleasantly quiet aside from the songs on the radio. Not gonna lie, it felt a bit lonely. Being single for the first time in what feels like forever is both liberating and oddly melancholic. I try to push the self-loathing and the depressing thoughts away as my eyes scan the hallway, looking for the group of familiar faces. My gang. We used to be ten people but we lost two girls during our winter getaway at the Washington lodge. Josh’s sisters, Hannah and Beth, went missing and are presumably dead, all cause of a stupid prank Jess, Emily and I concocted, convincing Matt and Ash to go along with it. In retrospect, I don’t know what we were thinking.

‘Seriously, Mike? From one depressing thought to another? Is your brain lacking serotonin today more than usual or what?‘ I mentally scold myself just as I spot two familiar faces - Sam and Ashley. 

It doesn’t take long for me to notice the rest of the gang - Matt, Jess and Chris - all standing near by, surrounding a girl I have never seen before. She sticks out immediately with her long H/C hair and shiny E/C eyes. Jess has her arm linked with the girl, a gesture really out of place for Jess. I mean, her and Emily are pretty close and I’ve never even seen them hug.

“Hey, man. How are you?“ Matt notices me first, lifting his head and smiling at me. His greeting leads the others to look in my direction as well, including the girl. I catch Jess lean down in and whisper something to her. I can’t hear what she’s saying but it clearly aggravates her. I have never received a dirtier look from a girl in my entire life. I usually have the opposite effect on women but I guess there’s a first time for everything. 

“Mike...” Jess steps away from the girl and towards me, “this is my best friend, Y/N. She just got transferred here.” She turns her attention back to the girl, “Y/N, this is Mike.” 

Y/N looks unamused as she outstretches her arm in my direction. “Nice to meet you” is what she says, but her expression clearly tells me she would like to see as little of me as possible. At least she’s polite, right? 

“Likewise.” The handshake is brief and, despite her obvious distaste for me, she still gives me a firm handshake. 

“Wait, you were transferred? I thought Jess said you came here cause you moved.” Sam furrows her brows in confusion. 

“Well, it’s really a chicken and the egg type of situation.” Y/N laughs, rubbing the back of her neck almost nervously, “We moved because I had to transfer.”  Yikes.“ Ashley comments, “Not to pry or anything, but why did you have to be transferred?“

Y/N looks me dead in the eyes, as if she’s sending me a message that I better not overlook, or so help me God I’ll be dead. ”Noses randomly broke when I was around.”

It hurts so much to look back on those times and not pick up on what I was feeling. I foolishly decided that if I can’t give the feelings a name or find them a purpose I should turn a blind eye. I wasn’t that ignorant, I could tell she was the cause, but I could never admit it.

And then there’s the situation with Jess...

“You hurt her, and I’ll kill you.“

I found Y/N by the bleachers and let me tell you, she’s quite the paradox. She’s a straight A, no nonsense, intelligent beyond her years girl. With all these characteristics, you’d think she’d know better than to smoke cigarettes. Wrong! She’s a smoker. Jess can never not complain about the smell of cigarette smoke, it’s a miracle these two get along.

To my ‘hi’ she responded with what looked to be an eyeroll and an annoyed release of smoke through her nostrils. Even though I know I’m not welcome to be in her proximity, I still decide to sit down a little ways away from her, for personal space and all that. Definitely not cause I’m slightly afraid of her. No way.

We just sit in silence until she hits me with the aforementioned threat. I am caught off guard. All I can do is stare straight ahead of me like a deer in headlights. After maybe thirty seconds of absolute confusion I manage to turn my head to look at her. “What are you talking about?” The question is supposed to sound harsh but compared to the way she spit out that death threat it sounded more like a whimper.

“You are such an ignorant asshole.“ She shakes her head, throwing her cigarette on the bench below her. She stomps on it and walks away. I can’t help but stare at her until she’s out of sight. I feel like I’m watching something non-human. A phenomenon you can experience once in a lifetime - if you’re lucky. 

She’s the complete opposite of Jess: grounded, smart, rational. The only time I’ve seen her be so unpleasant is around me. I catch her interactions with the rest of the gang. From afar, she seems like the nicest, friendliest girl. And then she catches a glimpse of me and her mood changes. I don’t know what’s her problem with me but I know it most certainly isn’t something I’ve done to her. She’s been like that since the first moment we were introduced, so either Jess has talked a lot of shit about me or she just hates people named Michael. I may never know.

I had no idea what she meant at the time and only found out three weeks ago. Speaking of three weeks ago, the group once again headed for the Blackwood Pines, trying to hide their uneasiness with make excitement. I was pretty hyped when I heard we were going because that also meant our friend Josh was finally starting to get better. He hadn’t been in a good mindset since his sisters went missing and we were all really worried for him but weren’t allowed to show it because he always insisted he was fine.

He wasn’t. He was as messed up as ever and served as only the prologue to the nightmare of a night we had to live through.

But before all that could happen, the night started off well. Better than expected. The eeriness of the mountain combined with the bad memories we had of the place we still there, we could all feel the tension, but we did a good job masking it with jokes and whatnot. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really looking forward to go and not only because of what happened the year prior.

“Wait, wait, wait. Y/N’s coming too?“ I ask, looking at Josh with wide eyes.

The guy is clearly confused by my overdramatic reaction to him counting down the names of the ones who had already RSVPd ‘Yes’. “Is that a problem or something?”

I sigh, hiding my face in my hands. It’s embarrassing to admit, really. “She doesn’t like me, and that puts it mildly. She hates me.”

He looks even more baffled than before, “Why? What’d you do to her?”

“Nothing, for fuck’s sake. Not a single thing. I haven’t even had a proper interaction with her.“ Talking about this matter exhausts me, mostly cause I can’t even express half the things I’m feeling.

There’s been a time or two I’ve caught her looking at me but her eyes weren’t filled with that distrust I’m used to. She looks away quickly when we make eye contact, as if she can’t put the mean mask on in time and she has to look away to do a system reset. I sometimes catch myself looking at her without realizing. I try to tell myself I do it for the purpose of solving her. 

‘Who are you kidding, Munroe?‘

                                                                  * * *

And here I am, climbing up the mountain to the Washington lodge. I’ve made it a goal to use this getaway to mend things with Y/N. It’s the only way for me to get back to normal. To get my mind back since she’s recently been living in my head rent-free. I’m bullshitting, not just recently. She’s taken over my brain since day one. I can’t place what’s going on with me, I can’t find a term to label it with and I most definitely can’t find a way to stop it. So, I’ve come to the conclusion that if I can’t stop it on my own, she’ll have to do it for me.

Another thing - I’ve never felt nervous or self-conscious around a girl all my life. Never. My friends joke that I’m a ladies’ man and I’d say that’s pretty true. So I have a tough time understanding how I turn into an awkward turtle that’s missing confidence when she’s around.

Once we all get settled in and there’s a fire going, giving the lodge a cozy atmosphere, it’s every man for themselves. Everyone picks a activity they want to occupy themselves with and the living room of the lodge empties out, leaving me there alone.

I scroll stare at the screen of my now useless phone. The thing has no reception and no way of keeping me busy, leaving my attention to wander to the voices that are getting more and more distant as my friends walk out of the room.

I can’t help but overhear Jess say to Y/N, “You haven’t even set your bag down yet and you’re going for a smoke? Jeez, Y/N.”

“You say as though you don’t know me.“ Y/N laughs, the sound of a door opening following after her voice.

It’s such a nice sound, her laugh. I’ve never heard it before. I’ve seen her smile and seen her chuckle at someone’s joke, but it was never actually a laugh. Seems she keeps those for special occasions. 

If she’s in the type of mood to laugh, she’s in the type of mood to be civil with me. Before I can talk myself out of the on-spot decision, I mentally slap myself and get off the couch, walking to the door to the side deck.

“You’ve got this, she’s just a person” 

“Who’s just a person?“ her voice cuts through the silence of the outdoors.

‘SHIT I SAID THAT OUT LOUD‘

I decide to carry this all the way, no shortcuts. No backing out. Somehow, now that she’s standing in front of me - a cigarette between her fingers, her shoulders tense from of the cold - I find it easier to get the words out. She’s just as human as everyone else. The cold causes her to shrivel up. She’s addicted to tobacco. She’s not some riddle I need to solve, just a person I need to talk to in order to understand.

“You.“ I reply, “Why aren’t you wearing a jacket?“

She shakes her head, her shoulders trembling a bit, “It builds the immune system.”

“No, it makes you suffer.“ I shrug my jacket off, cautiously approaching her and wrapping it around her.

Surprisingly, she accepts it with a nod and a murmured ‘thanks’, holding onto it with the hand that’s not holding her cigarette. “Why were you reminding yourself that I’m just a person? Do I not look like one?” She scoffs, facing away from me to look at the snowy hills ahead.

“No, no, not that. You just make me nervous that’s all.“ 

She whirls around, giving me this look as though she has no idea what I’m talking about.

“Really? Why’s that?“ she puts out her cigarette on the wooden railing, focusing all her attention on me.

My hand instinctively goes up to the back of my neck, feeling my face start to heat up. “Well, you’re not really fond of me. And I don’t know why, and....” I trail off, sighing in self-disappointment, “And I wanna know why.”

Her expression turns the complete opposite, a smile spreading across her face. “It’s not about something you have done. It’s about what you might’ve done.”

Despite feeling slightly relieved, I am no less confused than I was a minute ago. “And what is that?”

“Break my best friend’s heart.“ She looks a lot more serious now, “You really had no idea she was head over heels for you just a month ago. You were so oblivious and she was so whipped...“ frustration radiates off of her, “I just didn’t want her to get hurt.“ She closes her eyes, stabilizing herself before finishing her statement, “I didn’t want to hurt her.“

“Wait, what?“

The hurt that paints itself on her face is contagious. I feel it too and I don’t even know what’s causing it. “She always told me about you. Mike this and Mike that. She made you sound like the best guy in the world. And...I really wanted to be let down when I met you, but you were nothing but nice to me and to the other people in the group. But you were also such a jerk from time to time. You are just too...Fucking forget it.” 

In a blink of an eye she puts my jacket over the railing and runs inside the lodge.

“Y/N, wait!“

Needless to say, running after her was the best decision I’ve made. I didn’t get her to admit to anything, but at least we lied down the armor and agreed to give each other some time to get to know one another. Drop aside the assumptions and give a this acquaintanceship the chance to become a friendship. 

Sadly, all good things come to an end way sooner than we want. The rest of that dreadful night I witnessed her transform. When everyone was freaking out, she held them and comforted them. I saw the fear in her eyes but she never let it shine through in her actions. She was the one still holding it together even after she saw that disgusting creature. Her and I were the ones to turn that sanatorium upside down. We were with Josh in the mines. We were the ones to see the Wendigo first. We were by each other’s side the entire time. We had each other’s backs. 

I’ve never felt such a connection with someone. I was experiencing the most intimate understanding with a person in the worst moment of my life. It was bittersweet. The poison mixed with the cure.

Even when she knew her death was approaching, her only reaction was a single tear. A single crystal drop running down her cheek.

We can make a break. We can run right out of this hell hole and turn it to ash, all we need is for this fucking to focus its attention elsewhere. Thankfully Chris, Ash and Emily have made it out already and they’re safe. However, Sam, Y/N and I are trapped. The silent looks we exchange are laced with fear and panic. We have to calculate our next moves down to a millisecond and we don’t even know what those next moves should be.

Suddenly, a sharp pain starts spreading from my hand shoulder. My adrenaline is no longer doing a good job blocking out the pain of the fingers I had to sever. I slip up, letting out a hiss. The pain is just that unbearable.

That thing turn at the speed of light, letting out a screech and heading in my direction. My whole body is tense I couldn’t move if I wanted to but my arm is in such a horribly painful position, I think I’ll faint if I don’t readjust it.

“HEY!“ The voice comes from opposite me and my heart drops.

Sam’s next to me. It’s not her. It’s Y/N. 

The Wendigo loses interest in me as soon as it hears her yell turning and heading straight for her. It all starts sinking in. Now that it’s facing away, Sam and I can make it out. But she can’t. It’s over for her. There’s no way she’s leaving this lodge.

I catch her eyes from across the room. Her posture says a fighter, but her eyes scream ‘petrified’. She knows it too. She knows it’s game over. A single tear rolls down her cheek, shattering my heart.

That’s the last vulnerable moment, however. She turns her head, deciding to go out without showing a glint of fear to that piece of shit. I don’t have to look at Sam or tell her what to do. We’re both aware that we’re about to make it out, losing Y/N in the process.

It happens in a split second. Y/N spits at the Wendigo and then next thing I see is her laying on the ground in a pool of blood. 

The dash out of the lodge is a blur. The last thing I remember is sitting outside of the burning building, staring at the flames. The lodge wasn’t the only thing burning. Years of memories; history; wendigos; and my heart burnt in that lodge.

I see the group leave the graveyard. I struggle to move forward, my limbs heavy. I feel gravity is a lot stronger all of a sudden. 

I didn’t go to the final goodbye. I knew it wasn’t her. There was nothing left of her to bury. Sam told me they buried things that reminded people of her and objects she cherished. 

Well it’s time I give my goodbye.

I shrug my jacket off - the same jacket from that night - and put it around the gravestone like I put it over her shoulders. There’s a box of the cigarettes she smoked in the inner pocket.

“I hope you felt what I felt, Y/N. I hope I didn’t have to say it for you to notice it. I wish I knew...cause now it’ll haunt me for the rest of my life.” I can’t stop the tears, I’m too weak and I’ve been holding them back for far too long. “I’ve never believed in an afterlife. But I really hope there is one, just so we can meet again.” I scoff, shaking my head, “Who am I kidding, I’m probably going to hell.”

I believe that’s where I deserve to go, anyway. I’m the reason she died. And I will never let myself live that down. I will never forgive myself. A flame like no other burnt out so mine could keep burning.   I will make sure it haunts me till the day I leave this world behind.

[thorodinsson]

hi i hardly ever do this but i need someone to talk to & im like really struggling so rant below *tw for ptsd, depression, anxiety, medical & Aspergers

so i know that i was like ... not that present & i know i said it was because of work & like that’s like partially the reason cause like i’ve been working so much & ive been so stressed & drained but on top of all of that i’ve had like ... doctors appointments on top of like my normal everyday problems ig? so i go to therapy like every week or every other week depending on how i’m doing but like so i have really bad ptsd & depression & anxiety & i also have aspergers with all of that so i have to take medication right? well anyway i have pulsatile tinnitus in my left ear so i went to an ENT about it cause it’s super annoying & it’s been happening for like 3 years & then the ENT was like uh ... w all of your history with concussions & seizures (i have seizures at night when i’m sleeping sometimes but they only started happening after my last concussion in 2018 which was from a really bad car accident ?? hella weird) you might wanna go see a neurologist so i said ok so i went to go see a neurologist like a week & a half ago ?? & he suggested for me to have an MRI done of my brain so i had that done tuesday & i’ll be having a EEG (for the seizures) done like next week i think. i got the results back for the MRI today & like ... idk they kinda freaked me out cause like i’m not good w medical stuff & no one in my family will talk to me about it ajhxjshdjs so basically what the results said was that obvi like i have some brain damage from all the concussions from soccer but i have like a partially empty sella ? & like my optic nerve sheaths are appear distended. & like in that bad car accident from 2018, i broke my nose so like obvi there is narrowing of the distal transverse sinuses and there is a sporadic pattern of minimal inflammatory mucosal thickening without air-fluid levels at the paranasal sinuses. well, anyway, basically what the MRI said was that i very well could have something called Pseudotumor Cerebri? which like ... huh? anyway, i go see my neurologist thursday i think to like talk about next steps but like we still don’t know what’s causing the seizures but my neurologist thinks my depression medicine is causing the seizures or at least contributing so i have to go see a psychiatrist about switching my medication which yikes cause last time i tried to off myself & everything but OH WAIT it gets worse somehow! so, like i mentioned above, i have really bad ptsd from the car accident i was in in 2018 (i was actually in two car accidents that year but whatever) so now whenever i’m in a car, it doesn’t matter if i’m driving or if someone else is, i have really bad control issues & can still have bad anxiety & panic attacks over the smallest things & still have bad nightmares. like, when i’m out & about driving, sometimes i’ll have to pull over because like the smallest thing will remind me of like the event that happened & i will start to have a panic attack & i’ll start to freak out & like a 15 minute trip will turn into an hour trip. ANYWAY. so, my mom was driving today with my sister & me & my grandparents in the car & this dipshit behind us at a light while we were turning honked his horn even tho we weren’t clear & the light was red so my mom like scooted up a little bit to see around the car in the lane beside us & the car behind us fucking hit us so like .... that triggered so much for me so i had this huge meltdown & like freaked out & started panicking & crying & freaking out because it was just like the sound was the exact same sound i remembered before blacking out in 2018 & that was & still is so traumatic for me & like i have such a hard time still coping with that event so this just was so hard for me today & i still haven’t calmed down from the events of it. so everything that’s happened with work & my health & then today with the car like i’ve had a really hard time not like relapsing since i’ve been clean for over a year now & im just really struggling & like no i’m not going to but the emotions are so strong & i’m exhausted & tired & i just don’t want to do this (life) anymore honestly

[cripticmotherfucker]

Yanno i wish I could get a full spectrum mental illness test bc Ive had so many thi ng s thrown out there that are totally possible and sometimes my mental health professionals still debate it and its like dang I dont wanna collect mental illnesses but if ive got like 7 instead of 5 I kinda gotta kno.

I rlly want to get tested for asd too bc I know I have it. I just havent seen someone who could like put it in my medical history. But iits hella expensive and hard to get a diagnosis anyway bc being born afab kinda sucks with the whole medical feild thi ng.

Also i might have bipolar ontop of my borderline and major depressive disorder??

Or ocd ontop of my anxiety?

Or a combination?

Yanno the whole buy 1 mental illness get 6 free thing. Yikes.

[caitlin666]

My (probably) Unpopular SGE Opinions

Ugh, I can feel the hate coming already. Please keep in mind that these are my opinions and EDUCATE (OR STATE YOUR OPINION) IN THE COMMENTS PEACEFULLY, DON’T ATTACK. 

-Sophie isn’t a good role model

Oh my god, I can’t stress this enough. If you admire some parts of her, such as her style and her ambition, that’s perfectly fine, but to admire her as a whole is pretty stupid. Don’t get me wrong, she starts to pull herself together in TCY, but most people can admit that she is shallow, mean, manipulative, selfish and many other negative traits that aren’t admirable. Even her ambition can be shallow at times. In fact for most of the first book I saw her as pure comic relief until I realised there were more sides to her, and I do overall like her as a character, but not as a person.

-Soman isn’t a completely bad person

Yes, he has done some things which are pretty effed up, and I obviously DO NOT support him for what he did. But overall I don’t believe that he is a completely bad person, just someone who sometimes makes stupid/bad decisions and doesn’t properly think things through. Yet again, I DO NOT CONDONE SOME OF THE THINGS HE HAS DONE OR SAID. 

-Agatha Doesn’t Deserve Hate!

I see so many people in this fandom hating on Agatha, and yet again, why? Some people call her boring, and while yes she was in some parts of TCY, he was hella interesting in TSY. SHE SET FIRE TO A CASTLE AND ATE A FAIRY AND A CATERPILLAR. She also was unafraid to make friends with Nevers and break Evergirl boundaries, which I find interesting and compelling. She’s a total badass and a smart and kind person and that’s the end of the story. Also why do people hate Agatha for her “Not Like Other Girls” mindset, which she eventually grows out of, whereas Hester has the exact same mindset which she doesn’t grow out of, and people pretty much call her a badass for it? MAKE IT MAKE SENSE PEOPLE. And don’t get me wrong, Hester IS a badass, but the hypocrisy in this case is so frustrating. 

-While I do overall ship Tagatha, there were parts of the series where I thought Agatha deserved way better

She’s smart, funny, witty, kind, and while I am glad they ended up together, there were moments where I thought Agatha deserved better, especially in book one. This is nitpicky but sort of true. THANK GOD Tedros pulled himself together in book three and onwards (Aside from book four, yikes!) or otherwise I would still have the same opinion.

-The saying “One Ugly, One Beautiful” in book one is meant to be a paradox essentially

Think about it. Agatha isn’t pretty on the outside but has a beautiful heart. Sophie is stunning on the outside but has an ugly heart. That’s why I think this saying is so genius with the story, and yet so little fans pick up on it.

-So many background characters weren’t needed

Giselle, Flavia, Ava, Sahara, Beezle, Mona, Arachne, the first years in ACOT. Yes, they’re fun to make edits about, but what actual use did they have in the story aside from to make SGE seem bigger? Raven, Vex, and Brone are iconic though so I’m leaving them be LMAOO.

-Background characters needed to be developed

I honestly think this idea is slightly better. Adding depth to background characters (Such as Vex, Raven, Mona, and Arachne) would provide so much more possibilities to explore. So yeah, they should have either been taken out, or more depth should have been added to them.

-Tagatha was rushed

Especially in book one. They should have been fleshed out from an enemies to friends to lovers, instead of rushing it in book one! For example, it should have been Tedros is initially nice to Agatha (which is what happened), Agatha still hates him (which is what happened), Tedros initially calls her a witch for a few chapters but then realises she’s a pretty cool person and they both eventually decide to reluctantly make friends with each other before building up to a proper relationship. That would have worked way better because the way their relationship was actually portrayed I found to be extremely unrealistic. 

-Most Evers who are supposed to be “good” aren’t very believable as good people, especially in Book One (yes they do develop, but still lol)

This one is nitpicky, but there were multiple times were I wanted to slap Evers in the face because of how rude they were! Instead, there could have been some moments here and there in book one where they actually nice? It would have made them so much more believe as Evers. If those Evers really existed and SGE was a standalone, it would honestly be on sight for some of them, I’m sorry.

- Oversexualization of characters

People only seem to just notice this now in Red School, but this was a common occurrence in the SGE books, especially with Sophie and Tedros. Go to exactly the middle of book one (and even other books in the series), read a few passages and tell me I’m wrong. I dare you.

-These books shouldn’t be for ages 8 and up

Enough said. I could only just stomach the content in this book at age eleven (and I had watched multiple horror movies at this point LOL so no, I’m not “weak”). Think about it, if this book was only told from Agatha’s point of view, the content would be extremely upsetting and borderline depressing (key word: borderline). I would personally make the age rating for these books 10-16 and not 8-14. Enough said. As said before, there is also oversexualization of characters (and many other things) that may upset younger readers.

Alright, that’s all! Yet again, please educate (or state your opinion) in the comments peacefully, don’t attack. Also keep in mind that these are just my personal opinions.

[aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaoldretired]

some p!g-drv3 theories (spoilers obvi)

First of all I think people demonize the pg versions wayyy too much because its a good way to be le sexy in like fanfictions. And i get it, villains are hot or whatever. and also hs is a horny age to be. But even the edgiest and horniest of teens aren’t like. that sexual/monstrous. its kind of insane the portrayals people are placing

maybe this could also be like me being older bc when i was early hs i was like yea its fair to place these super mature portrayals on a 18-22 year old they are like adults but young and now im that age and im like woah there pardner. might be an age/maturity thing. 

also like its normal for people to relate to and portray characters their same age in a similar fashion, but when adults write more sexual content about the dg kids i get hella fucking sus

idk where i was going with that first comment i guess its like a preface and in the end i think its important when characters especially teenage characters are morally grey not because they’re mature and dark/brooding but because they are still young and learning. fuck im older than like most of them, but im still young and learning. its good to be in turmoil and confused, especially the drv3 cast. they are more confused than anything.

which i think is a reason why people would join dr because if you are completely loss and in turmoil, it is appealing to be given a purpose in life and amazing talents/abilities. despite the morals of danganronpa, it is a simple reality to be told who you are and what to do

OK ONTO HEADCANONS (not doing all bc i dont have thoughts about all)

first of all i understand changing stories but i think, deep down, you can’t change fundamental personalities/values. so while the backstories might be different i think, in the end, a baseline is always the same

SHUICHI being a Bad Boy is like canon obviously but i dont think he’s as manipulative as people make him out to be. i think he falls in the more the bully role that like. mae borowski or tf2′s scout filled before they grew up. rough background, bad anger issues, lots of emotional turmoil, and the only way he knows how to deal with shit is by committing crimes and beating the shit out of people. and, similar to those characters, drv3 represents an older, more emotionally sober yet equally confused version of himself. the urges are still there as foreshadowed in the dialogue. i think he struggles with guilt, mostly survivors, but there is still a lasting impact of guilt of what he did in his past, even if he can’t remember.

KOKICHI is a child. a piece of shit motherfucker child but a child. I really do think he’s like one of the youngest people in the cast. he reminds me a lot of when my brother doesn’t take his adhd medicine and takes jokes way too far and does mean and cruel things because he thinks its funny and that its just a fun joke, but is hurting people. he desperately wants approval, which is why his leader role is so interesting because in the dr narrative he has the approval he craves and so he is satisfied. still, he does try to impress characters like rantaro and values his opinions a lot, even developing a brotherly relationship in the time they knew each other. this being said, its established kokichi was bullied before, but i dont think he’s like. the wimp people make him out to be. i think he’s more of like the class clown who desperately uses humor to make people like him, and ends up resorting to be the butt of most of his jokes. you don’t just develop a good sense of humor out of a brainwash, and that’s not something you can program in. i think that was a remnant of before, and he’s so good at bullying people and coming up with roasts - i just think that in p!g the roasts were about him.

KAEDE is baby but her p!g personality seriously reminds me of any ~quirky/edgy~ girl in a teen coming of age story who tries to be edgy and cool and act like she doesn’t care but deep down, she really does. if she didn’t have an empathetic personality, she wouldn’t want to end the game. i also think she has that self-identifying QuIrKy personality because its like she lives in her own narrative, practically announcing this story is about her and she is the protagonist. i know i used to self narrate like that and distinguish how i was different when i was like. 15-16. she has a tumblr. 

I really like the theory where KAITO is a make-a-wish kid who was better when he was younger but relapses later in teens. he never used his wish before, so he decides to use it now to be on danganronpa and become the hero he always wanted to be. i also think he might have joined as a way to raise awareness about adolescent healthcare. definitely the type who puts on a “heroic” character to make everyone else feel better about the fact he is literally dying of a terminal illness, and keeps that act up till the end. 

i think KOREKIYO is still a serial killer. i think honestly a reason why he mightve auditioned for danganronpa is because he is a serial killer. maybe his sister found out and he felt so much shame that’s why he auditioned. he probably mentioned why in his interview because duh, tell them im a serial killer and then only reason im coming clean is my sister found out and im ashamed, that is like a guarantee to get on the show.  i LOVE the theory that his sister is still alive, however, and has to watch her brother go insane because they wrote her into the story as the villain. because technically, she brought on this guilt, and is the reason why he auditioned - as a way to cause despair, twist it around so she’s the one to blame for his insanity. also, because its pretty accepted DR members become celebrities, kork’s sister is totally bombarded with paparazzi and is demonized in the media. she might end up writing a tell-all memoir about kork’s actual childhood and personality. quiet kid, thoughtful, interested in anthropology, she never thought he’d hurt a fly. watching her brother go insane probably destroyed her. 

I also think, timeline wise, kork is probably one of the oldest members along with rantaro. tbh i think kork actually graduated hs and went on a gap year doing the whole “hitchhike around the world to discover myself thing” which is where he began killing people. he was getting ready to go to college when his sister found out about what he did. this is when he decided to go on danganronpa instead of university. this would help explain why he knows so much about other cultures/travel/been so many places with so many memories/killed/is knowledgable on a level most other students are not. this would place him at like, 20-21, where everyone else is like 15-18.

ok so there’s two p!g RANTARO, p!g before 53 and p!p!g before 52. i’d like to establish now i think rantaro is the oldest of the characters, seeing as though he was already pretty old to begin with in 52, it takes time between television seasons, and he was in another game. so im placing him like 21-23, similar to yasuhiro in d1 being so much older than everyone else. i do think, in all iterations, rantaro was pretty much raising his sisters, though i don’t think he had twelve like the story (i think that’s an exaggeration, his sisters mean a lot to him, lets make him have a TON and then lose them all and feel GUILTY) rantaro joined the first game, partially to get money for his family and hopefully establish them as celebrities and let them have a comfy lifestyle, even if he doesn’t live...and also to finally ahve some sort of experience without his siblings tagging along. if he’s been raising his sisters all his life, he’s never had like something that’s JUST his. that’s his adventure. 52 is his ULTIMATE adventure. ahaha. mostly for money, kind of dreading it, still a tiny bit excited

ok p!g rantaro between 52 and 53 probably came back broken. he did the signings and appearances, but mostly wanted to spend time with his family and make sure they were set up. i think he knew the whole like few months between seasons he had to go on another show, but he did���t tell his sisters. his family found out when they saw a billboard with his face plastered on it hyping up the return of a fan favorite. yikes!

ok i get it a lot of people hate HIMIKO but i think she’s not nearly as similar as other “useless” characters in other games. its like, pretty clear she’s depressed, and the only thing she’s holding onto with dear life is magic. lack of hygiene, lack of personal care, constantly tired, social interaction exhausts - she has depression, but she’s not an UWU depressed character. so people find her depressive traits (which are some of the most realistic portrayals of mental health in the series) SUPER annoygin. she joined dr because she was completely lost and needed some sort of direction in her life, even if she’ll die for it. the thing is, even with direction, her mental state didn’t change because she wasn’t getting legitimate help. it’s like that one SNL skit that’s like. same sad you from before but in a new place. i also think she knows the magic is not real, because how could she not. i think she’s so adamant that it IS real, less as a way to convince others, and more of a way to convince herself. it’s like really super cruel that team danganronpa took a girl who is desperate for meaning and gave her literally a meaningless, fake talent.

i also kin himiko and find her a comfort character because i feel seen by her, replacing her useless talent of magic with mine of like shitty film making and comedy. i am seen.

related i don’t think she’s nearly as ugly as everyone says she is, i think she’s probably just depressed and takes absolutely no care of her hygiene and sleep and looks like sick and greasy all the time. same queen.

honest to god i think RYOMA’s backstory, tennis and all, is like 100% real and he’s the only one who keeps all of his memories except for the fact this is a tv show. i think he rolled up, a hot fucking mess, and the danganronpa team were like damn. we cannot improve upon this. 

[hopeshoodie]

1, 12, 14

1: Virgin?

No, I lowkey wish I was.

12: Relationship Status?

Lmao I’m hella single. Yall know how hard it is to find an actual girlfriend?? Especially as a futch with no taste in fashion?? I don’t look like I listen to Girl In Red I look like I have chronic depression. Also I recently moved, so I had to leave my ex-girlfriend and friends in a different state 😟

14: Biggest turn offs

In general, people who are selfish or have an inflated sense of self-importance (because those are traits that I desperately work to mitigate in myself). 

If someone’s unkind or actively stirring shit up

If they litter or don’t return their shopping cart

If someone takes a resource that other people might want thoughtlessly (like leaving your kayaks laying across a small public beach or eating the last of anything)

If they shame a person for being excited about something or laughing in an odd way, stuff like that. 

Someone’s who’s hard to talk to because they’re not a conversationalist but they also don’t laugh/react to what I’m saying

These are just some petty things- 

I generally love hearing about people’s interests but if it’s Disney, it’s a turn off. 

If someone has really unhealthy eating habits and is constantly telling other people ‘that’s x many calories’ or talking about dieting, Big Turn Off!!

If someone has bad tattoos that they think are really good tattoos or aren’t invested in tattoo culture but want to make comments about it (like if you have stick n pokes or even a shitty shop tattoo that you joke about being shitty we’re totally good, I have those too. But people who have those star tattoos and insist that they’re amazing or steal tattoos... yikes...) 

[tfw-no-tennis]

hxh movie....2!

ruth and i watched the second hxh movie and that certainly was a movie

the title is already cracking me up lmao ‘the last mission’ THATS SO DRAMATIC. 

the first like 3 scenes feel totally disconnected like theyre from different movies vnjskdfnsdkflk

‘many decades ago’ vbhjdsfbajsdf that phrasing is hilarious somehow 

damn young netero just killed jeb bush 

ah look its our movie villains, starting their villain stuff

so i guess this is set around where we are in the series now - like, somewhere in this beginning part of the chimera ant arc where gon and killua are hanging w/kite. which is kinda funny bc they dont explain AT ALL how and why gon and killua are in this city suddenly hvbajdsfjskdjan

killua skateboarding makes me smile :’) love it 

IS THAT ZUSHI??????? AHHHHHHH MY BOY!!!!!!!!!! BABY BOY!!!!!!!!!!! LOOK AT HIMMMM HES A LIL BUFF 7 YR OLD NOW OUGHHHH HES GROWN SO MUCH...POWERFUL BABY....IM SO PROUD 

omg wing and bisky are here too!!! nen fam 

im so proud of zushi being a floor master omg....i love how the side characters progress and grow offscreen, separate of the protags, kinda like seeing pokkle again (rip tho, i think) 

LEORIOOOOO MY MAN!!!!!!! he really showed up for like 3 seconds then gets KOd and dumped in a sewer....STOP DOING MY MAN SO DIRTY GIVE HIM SCREENTIME..

ohhh so we’re doing anime die hard. kinda like the first macadamia movie 

that lady rlly just stabbed herself huh.

these antags look like theyre from naruto. main antag dude looks like about 7 different anime guys fused 

oh man netero got dunked on immediately Ls. gotta take him out so the protags can do the fighting 

gon and killua are so good. and also in love. epic 12 yr old romance 

KURAPIKA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lookin sharp in a suit. also just looking depressed as hell in general. KURAPIKA ARE YOU...GOOD....ARE YOU STAYING HYDRATED??? TAKING UR VITAMINS?? I DONT THINK YOU ARE. 

also i still cant believe kp is working for neon still...it rlly feels like they just gave up on life and just figured that staying there was fine or w/e

now the 3 protags are goin full die hard thru the tower...WHERE is leorio i cant believe they rlly threw my mans in a sewer like that smh 

these guys r rlly called ‘the shadow’ thats so edgy 

also i watched this like a few hours ago but im a dumb bitch so im reading thru the wiki article for the movie to remind me what happened, and apparently The Shadow(tm) was the black ops division of the hunter association, and they were later rekkt once they started w/the On...i so didnt get that while actually watching the movie vhdakjfhbskdfn thanks hunterpedia for explaining that one to me 

wooowww so the HA rlly just committed massive, morally reprehensible war crimes and then just sealed it all in a book or st and moved on. yikes id be mad too, generic anime dude villain 

so these three rlly just resurrected a dude by going into the desert and saying ‘hey we r emo can you give us some power and maybe anime jeb bush’ and that Worked 

now kurapika is fighting the dude in the control room and gon&killua are fighting Big Dude WHO BEAT UP ZUSHI!!!!!!!!! get his ass boys 

LEORIOOOOOO MMY MAN IS BACK FROM HIS SEWER ADVENTURE!!!!!!!!! ILY SIRRRRR 

and then he immediately gets yoinked by hisoka, who is for some reason in this movie. i feel like they were like oh yeah hisoka is like, the 5th main character/antagonistic force of the story so i guess he should be here. its hilarious tho bc he spends 90% of his already limited screentime in this movie just playing w/his playing cards and smirking. bastard man you just gooo awayyyyy

seeing beans again omggggg green dude u r great

also who the FUCK is that smarmy looking blonde at the HA HQ...i hate him already based on 1) his atrocious pattern-clashing fashion sense, and 2) his smarmy aura. he looks like hes never thought a thought in his life. ruth says he might be buddies w/ging which makes me hate him even more 

gon and killua....r dating. ty 

when gon and the bad guy start fighting in the elevator shaft and killua just kinda watches hvbajddfhbsjf hes like ‘oh the narrative demands that gon fights solo for a bit so i guess ill stay here’ lmao 

but then he saves gon with his physics-heavy electromagnet elevator clamp plan....smart baby 

then after they defeat the guy they just start chatting lol i love them 

ohhh shit the guy exploded, thats fucked up 

poor gon :( more trauma for the poor kid 

meanwhile kurapika fights an evil clone of themself. wow 

tbh kurapika could totally one-up these guys by being like ‘well ok at least you have each other, im the VERY LAST kurta’ 

its strange to see kurapika fighting w/the sticks instead of the chains tbh

WHO THREW THAT KNIFE AT THE GUY IT HAS TO BE LEORIO HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

LEORIO AND KURAPIKA REUNION HHHHH THEYYYYY

they are married tyvm 

kurapika is soooo not doin well like...please get some rest

kurapika referring to their ‘new friends’ hmmmm thats probably an actual canon reference since this doesnt get brought up again in the movie. probs referring to w/e kp is doing in canon at this point 

LEORIO USING NEN LMAOOO hes like pshhhh that was easy but internally hes like owww....sir ily sm 

damn kurapika rlly stabbed that guy w/a stick huh. rip dude 

ohhh shit its those drug capsule things 

KURAPIKA RLLY TOOK A BULLET FOR LEORIO HUH. I HATE IT HEREEEEEE

leorio best dude

wow so kp has to make an On covenant OR DIE...yeah i think theyll choose the die option 

squad reunion :’) even tho kp is like, dying 

gon is such a good boy :( ily baby 

leorio and kurapika are str8 up married ty 

final battle timeee

love how at this point in the story gon only has one attack so he has no choice but to keep doing that same attack (well, the 3 variations) over and over til st happens lmao 

lmao gon and kurapika are rlly on the opposite ends of the ‘On’ scale here w/kp willing to die rather than accept using On, and gon seeking out On for POWER and also VENGEANCE 

the themes of gon’s righteous anger on behalf of others continues...

the boys are rlly getting tossed around a lot this movie geez 

hh boy gon is now...PURPLE-BLUE 

oooh killua convincing the lady to chill out was cool - tho ngl i didnt realize she was still alive 

now netero can go ham. i wonder if he’ll finish the fight or if gon will 

uh oh gon is Extra Feral now 

gon: IM EVIL NOW

killua: NOT ON MY FUCKING WATCH 

oughhh they love each other so much bro. fuck this 

gon banging his head on the ground and then killua jumping in between him and the ground....true love bro 

gon snapped out of it WITH THE POWER OF LOVE!!!!!!!!!! im emo and gay. thanks 

love how even when netero was younger he was still like, an old guy lmao 

and then the next day theyre all just back in heavans arena hbvhdahdfbjsakf who cares that the building just got hijacked? whatevs 

kurapika smiling a little and melody then smiling knowingly....melody is like Bitch I Know Youre In Love 

still kurapika seems like. not Right. pls get some therepy 

im glad zushi got to fight that guy like he was supposed to....and w/the nen fam cheering him on :’) 

THOUGHTS

its wild how they didnt really delve into the whole ‘war crimes’ thing w/the hunter association lmao. idk if this movie is canon so that might be why....they just brushed over the fact that the HA was like, running concentration camps and murdering entire groups of people. wild 

this movie was fun!! it felt more like hxh than the last movie, which v much felt like a generic anime movie. this one felt more in character. it did fall into typical anime movie tropes sometimes but the characters felt more like themselves here, espec w/the point of the story this seems to be set at 

like gons anger and all that - while it obvs comes from a place of love and kindness, he can get carried away sometimes...i feel like we’re gonna rlly delve into the negative impact of this in the CA arc and i am both so ready and not ready at all 

this movie was hella gay which i appreciate. love the gays 

all in all this was fun!! i wish there were more hxh movies lmao i love anime movies. well at least theres the musical LMAOOO im gonna watch that soon