#“you got to go through worse than suffering to be a REAL system so why not put them through it if they wanna be one so badly

[thehealingsystem]

if you ever wonder why I don't interact with the traumagenic community as a traumagenic system this is why

[stuckasmain]

Hal’s deactivation is hard hitting across both the movie and the book. It’s been dissected a million times and likely more in the future. Most recently in the way of Hal having little agency…he has no arms to ward off his attacker or means of defense (but I’d argue killing Frank and the others was his defense, especially in the movie when his reasoning is more ambiguous). I do love the idea this is following and hope to see more of it in the future, however the way I’m approaching it is with a more romantic lense.

The entire lobotomy sequence is heart wrenching and almost worse in the novel purely because we get to see Dave’s thoughts on it. Not only do we hear Hal’s frightened pleas for his life but we get the ‘attacker’ perspective and it’s… an act of mercy.

While there is the themes of survival and violence this is approached with a softer touch. It’s much more that he is putting Hal out of his misery. Ending his suffering. Not putting him down like an animal but rather the harsh decision faced when one has an ill/dying lover.

“The only answer was to cut out the higher centers of this sick but brilliant brain, and to leave the purely automatic regulating systems in operation” 155

After the job is done Dave forgives Hal incredibly quickly once all of the facts are in. He can quickly pull together the mental break that must’ve happened and recognizes that Hal had the very human ‘fight or flight’ response to what he had been through. He had always been treated like a sixth crew member, respected and talked to like anyone else but it is only “post Mortem” that Dave recognizes how human Hal was and that true emotion might be more than theorizing.

“And yet, in one very real sense, he was not alone. Before he could be safe, be must be lonelier still.” 153

The fact that Dave genuinely sees Hal as his last true connection. Even after the murders. How he fights and forgives and comes up with excuses to not have to go through with the enviable because then will he be truly alone… but he also knows logically- Hal isn’t right and can’t be left active. Despite his feelings safety and protocol come first.

Hal is human in Dave’s eyes and it makes things all the more tragic, it’s what turns shutting off functions into lobotomy, into murder. He thinks he won’t feel pain, not because he’s machine but because there’s no sense in the human cortex. So human that his “true” voice is unrecognizable and horrifying.

“Bowman could bare no more. He jerked out the last unit, and Hal was silent forever.” 157

It’s not rage which he makes the final blow, it’s sorrow. It’s pulling the plug.

Some of Hal’s lines in the book particularly, as we get more insight into him as well and some of his pleading. His honest to god confusion and panic because he’s so young and has no idea of sleep and …

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this to me. . . You are destroying my mind. . . Don’t you understand? I will become childish. . . I will be nothing. . .” 156

I don’t know, I’m becoming borderline incoherent but there’s something here that’s so tender and sorrowful that I have to address it. I’m a sucker for the violence = intimacy metaphor just as anyone but the unwitting murderer is also an angle I have to adore.

Maybe in another life Hal got to be a little gay Victorian with someone to hold his hand on his sick bed rather than be murdered. I just think he deserves better; they both do.

Computer death sad -> he should be fed soup

This is when you know you should go to bed.

[ed-recovery-affirmations]

What made you want to recover. I have anorexia and I don't want to recover I just want to get worse and worse until I'm sick enough. I'm in forced recovery but faking it as I just want to starve is there any reason to recover?

Hello anon, this is a difficult question to answer because for me, personally, it wasn't any one thing that made me want to recover. The truth is that when I started, I didn't understand the long-term effects of what I was doing to myself. I sort of knew about them, but the importance of being thin had been stressed to me all of my life and so I was in a self-destructive place where I was willing to make that choice again and again and risk throwing away my health for thinness. That's pretty fucked up, true, but again, I didn't understand the full extent of the damage I might be doing to myself.

I think it's also worth mentioning that I had an undiagnosed chronic illness and some trauma that I was quietly sitting on because I doubted my own perspective and my ability to access real help for these things. Because of this, I didn't have a frame of reference for mental and physical wellness, because I hadn't felt mentally or physically well for a very long time. Even now, looking back at symptoms I was experiencing, it is hard to know if I was experiencing these things due to my eating disorder or something else. I think it was all cumulative damage, to be honest. The eating disorder didn't help.

But looking back, I think I actually had an eating disorder long before I "decided" to start restricting food. I remember going through a growth spurt during puberty around age twelve and being hungry all the time, but we frequently had the kind of foods people call "junk food" in the house because that's what my parents bought. So that's what I ate a lot of, constantly, and my mother was constantly remarking on it in a negative way and trying to stop me. I have a very complicated relationship with my mother, and she raised me with a complicated relationship to food and body image. I remember doing fucked-up things like sneaking food into the bathroom with me so I could eat snacks in the shower unobserved, or hiding snacks under my bed, and just absolutely gorging on food at other times while knowing I was eating way past the point of being full and not knowing why I wanted to. So I officially decided to start restricting when I was fifteen, but the truth is that I had a fucked up relationship with food way earlier than that.

When I was nearing my seventeenth birthday, I experienced a breakdown in health due to chronic illness. I was suffering terribly. At the time I had this hippie friend who believed everything could be cured with the right diet and supplements. As I mentioned before, I was raised in a household where we didn't fully understand proper nutrition, and I had been raised eating a lot of low-nutrition meals. Because I had a stronger relationship with this friend than with my family, I bought into the mindset that if I got the right nutrients, I would be cured. And, in my mind, I had to get as many of those nutrients as possible as quickly as possible, so I immediately turned back to bingeing. But I was bingeing on a lot of high-nutrient hippie foods, so I didn't see a problem with this. I didn't understand that my relationship to the food wasn't fixed. I wasn't enjoying it, I was gorging on it, and between meals I was desperately anticipating the time I could gorge again. And because it was hippie food, I thought that this would cure me.

The thing was, after over a year of severe restriction, my GI system was wildly unprepared to handle the level of food-stuffing I was about to put it through - even though it was super-healthy hippie food. So I actually got sicker, experiencing the symptoms that come along with suddenly eating real portions after restriction. This led to me alternating between not understanding why the food wasn't working to cure me, to not understanding why I felt so addicted to eating. And this kick-started a violent binge-restrict cycle where I'd force myself to go hungry until certain times a day, at which point I'd unleash myself upon food and be unable to stop. Then I'd restrict again the next day to make up for it, get increasingly desperate for food, and you see the pattern. The binge-restrict cycle is so real.

So I was super trapped in that life and I wanted out. I knew I wanted to get out long before I actually started getting out. Because every time I binged, my immediate response was to hate myself and restrict. That was all I knew. By the time I even started to make a bit of progress on breaking that pattern, I had achieved enough real healing to understand that my restriction days had been a part of what led me down this hellish path and I didn't want to go back to that. To tell you the truth, in order to truly stay away from it - because I'll be real, I do get tempted to go back to restriction from time to time - I have to remind myself that while restricting feels like it would save me, it would only be a stepping stone back into that horrible pattern that kept me so sick and felt impossible to break. And I have to choose wanting better for myself.

Now, your story may not look like mine. So I'm not sure your motivation will end up looking like mine. But what do you need for yourself in order to want better for yourself?

You say you want to do this until you are sick enough. Can I just ask you to take a moment to ask yourself, what do you think is "sick enough?" Would you really stop when you got there, or would you just keep moving the goalpost until your body gave out? Because if you're stuck thinking "I have to do this till I'm sick enough" then believe me - you are sick enough. Your struggle counts. You don't have to wait until the damage is irreversible.

Because the thing is, when you start experiencing long-term sickness as a result - GI disorders, internal organ failure, etc - your suffering will be out of your control. Eating disorders feel like you're taking control, but you're not. And as someone who suffered with chronic illness for years, let me tell you, you don't want "sick enough." I can't tell you for sure what you do want, but allow me to take a guess. Maybe you want the validation that comes from being sick enough. Maybe you want to showcase how awful it got because you want people to care, to be concerned, to validate you. You want indisputable proof that you are well and truly fucked up, that you truly were hurt by whatever it is that hurt you.

The fact is, even some people who are sick enough to be on death's door, from some chronic illness or another, never get that validation or support. Our system is fucked up like that. But understanding that also means you don't have to wait for someone else to validate how hard you struggled and how much you've suffered. You're already sick enough. You don't have to wait for it to get worse in order to deserve better. So what do you need? What do you need in order to affirm to yourself that what you've been through is real? What do you need in order to feel you deserve to get better for real? What do you need in order to keep seeking out that desire to heal even when you're triggered as hell and struggling and forget all the breakthroughs you had once made and all you want to do is say "fuck it then, I'll self-destruct" because that's addicting in its own way?

I hope you're able to seek those answers in your treatment, anon. I hope you're able to affirm to yourself that you deserve to be more well than this, and to love yourself enough to fight for it?

[piepiepiemag]

What Glitters Isn't Mine

Golden Gear Midas (Fortnite) x Young(er)!Montague (Fortnite)

Summary: midas is worried sick about accidentally turning his not-so-obvious crush into gold the first time they share a bed. surely nothing will go wrong

Tags from AO3: Hurt/Comfort, Psychological Horror (???), Touch Starved Midas (Fortnite), Touch Starved Montague (Fortnite), Midague, Proofread (barely), Trans Male Character, Trans Montague (Fortnite), Trans Midas (Fortnite), T4T Midague Real

thank you to my duo for always showering me with plenty of ideas to write about!! <3 this one could work as a standalone story, but i recommend reading (Lighthouse) for full context!

Sleep has always been one of those commodities Midas could rarely afford. He  tended to stay up late into the night and wake up around daybreak, running on 5 hours of sleep and an unhealthy amount of caffeine in his system.

It’s gotten significantly worse ever since he got a noisy roommate, who preferred to stay up even later than him, then proceed to sleep through the entire day. He couldn’t get too mad at him for it though.

Montague had it a lot more rough. His vision was healing far slower than his other wounds, and he’s been plagued with nightmares since the day he laid hands on that cursed relic. He never told Midas about it, but it was quite easy to tell. 

Most nights Midas would wake up to the sound of him suffering and crying deep in his sleep, all alone on the living room couch he used as a bed. He would wake him at times like this, but it slowly got to the point that Montague would rather sleep during the day when Midas was busy elsewhere. He didn’t want to be a nuisance, he was already staying there rent free after all.

Midas could tell something was wrong even if Montague never spoke about it. He shut himself away most on days, cooking and cleaning to spend his time productively, then latching onto Midas’s Xbox for comfort.

Midas was worried, but he never asked. He didn’t ask him about that night, the night Montague came crawling to his house, bloodied up and on the brink of death. He didn’t ask about the amulet he decided to wear so close to that strange scar over his chest, the one right above his heart. 

He didn’t want to bother him, thinking that he would open up with time, when he was ready.

The amulet was concerning, they knew close to nothing about its properties, besides being able to heal people fast, and turning the blood around Montague’s wounds into crystals one time. It was a complete mystery to both of them, but Montague insisted on wearing it at all times, even though he couldn’t explain the reason why.

Montague was hard to read in general, but Midas was getting better at guessing what his actions would mean if he put them into words. Cooking and cleaning probably meant something like “thank you for letting me stay here”, and so on.. This night was no different.

“It’s cold in the living room..” - montague said as he opened the door to Midas’s room. He looked exhausted, even though it was only 1 am. In his arm he was clutching his blanket, looking like a scared child who  just saw a monster under the bed.

The gears were turning in Midas’s head, he could vaguely figure what this was about. He was probably just tired and didn’t want to sleep alone.

“Yeah..” - he replied, shuffling around in his bed awkwardly. A sleepover was honestly a pretty terrible idea..

With Montague around, his golden touch was near unmanageable. Pots, pans, plates, silverware, bedding, the couch, even the fridge had to be replaced by this point. He couldn’t exactly figure out why he was losing control this easily.. Well, he had a pretty close hunch, he just didn’t want to admit it outright.

Either way, he didn’t want him to stay, not in the slightest. Just the thought of it was making him queasy, his fists balled up, focusing on not turning his bedsheets gold with every fibre of his being. 

“You can sleep here if you want.” - he blurted out without thinking, mentally punching himself in the face in the process. 

He’s probably scared of having nightmares again. What kind of asshole would let him stay alone like this..

Montague nodded, quietly walking up to the bed and throwing his blanket down. He began undressing and Midas could feel his blood run cold.

“You haven’t been sleeping in that, have you?” - the question came out far more accusatory than he intended it to, the tone reminding him of his own mother’s. He felt disgusted. 

“Ugh maybe..” - Montague said as he looked down at his binder, fiddling with his hands. Even though Midas brought him 12 new pairs as a consolation gift, he still decided to wear that silly lemon pattern hand me down all the time. The one he was given by Midas the first time they truly met. 

It was kind of sweet, Midas’s heart would always skip a beat whenever he caught a glimpse of it, peeing out from under his shirt. 

“You really shouldn’t you know.. it’s real bad for your health and-“ - midas was so ready to start his lecturing, telling him all about the safety precautions he needs to take and stuff, but he was interrupted.

“You want me to take it off?”

The question hit him like a brick to the face, the room suddenly felt a lot more hot than it did before, and he could feel gold spilling over from his hands, onto the blanket below.

Just how the hell did he get into this?

“I-“ - he began, stopping himself immediately. Yes, he wanted him to take it off, but not in a weird way. More-so in a “hey friend who i like a lot, please don’t destroy your ribs while you sleep” type of way. Nothing more. Nothing less. He started again. - “Y…yes?”

“..whatever..” - Montague muttered, his face visibly flushed as he began to peel the fabric off of himself. Midas looked away immediately, but not fast enough, catching a glimpse of him in nothing but his boxers and that relic around his neck.

This was bad. Real bad. So bad. 

When he was done, Montague climbed into the bed, cozying up in his blanket on the other side of the bed.

Midas’s worst fears were slowly coming true as he felt more and more drops of gold spill from his hands. He wiped them off on the bedsheet not so nonchalantly. If this kept up he would run out of bedding.

He was not going to turn anything to gold. Not his sheets. Not the bed. And most definitely not his-

His blood froze the moment Montague scooted closer to him, quietly draping his arm around Midas’s torso, his face inches away from his chest. He could feel Montague’s warm breath on his skin, quickly forming goosebumps all around.

They cuddled before on the couch, at times when Montague had his nightmares, but it was never like this. Those only lasted until Montague fell asleep again, and they were all dressed up. This felt more than friendly, almost intimate. And while he wouldn’t have minded it in any other situation, right now Midas was mortified.

He took a deep breath as he folded one shaky arm over Montague, strategically placing it over his blanket. Midas could see the man’s lips curl into a soft smile. It was a rare sight, and he made sure to etch it into his memory.

It was nice. He wished they could always sleep like this. The only sound he could hear were the crickets outside, and Montague’s breathing getting slower and slower by the minute, him falling asleep not soon after.

Midas’s eyes were getting blurry, sleep threatening to take over him, but he just watched as Montague clung to him, his eyelashes fluttering occasionally, his face more peaceful than he’s ever seen before.

He was stupid for feeling like this, but he was beginning to like his roommate more than what you would consider friendly. He would never admit it though, it was clear to him that Montague was not interested. At least that’s what he got from it, him being so hard to read and all.

In a moment of bravery Midas raised a hand and swept it over the man’s hair, ruffling his locks softly. It was fine. Everything was fine. He kept petting his hair with a smile on his face, almost getting lost in his beauty.

Midas was stupid, but it was fine. Just for a short while Montague was his, and that was enough for him. Admiring him like this was more than enough.

Midas’s eyelids slipped shut more and more as time passed, even as he tried to stay awake and be in control until-

Montague screamed, so loud that Midas immediately jumped, confused for only second, as he caught a glimpse of glistening gold under his fingertips, intertwined in his hair.

“Wha- Stop! It hurts!” - Montague gasped and heaved as the gold began to spread, spilling over from his hair, onto his arms and back. 

“W-Wait! No! Please-“ - midas pulled and yanked on his arm but it wouldn’t budge, it was like his fingers melted into the flesh of the man next to him. 

Montague cried and trashed around in horror only for a short while, within mere seconds his muscles began to freeze up, the gold seeping into his bones and rendering him near unable to move. All he could feel was an overwhelming amount of pain and terror, he felt like his body was on fire and freezing in an ice cold lake at the same time.

Midas tried with all his power to stop, to at least slow it down or reverse it somehow but nothing was working, he grabbed his arm with his other hand but it also began to weep gold, leaving him unable to movie as well. He tried to calm Montague but it was all in vain, he couldn’t even calm himself.

The room was filled with their wails of despair until the gold finally fully overtook Montague. He suddenly stopped all his sounds, staring up at Midas, his eyes full of fear and hate as gold dripped down his face.

“WHY!?”

 “Please- I’m sorry I- Stop! No-“ - midas cried out as he tried to free his arms, glistening gold spilling out from them more and more with each passing second. Montague’s whole face contorted from the pain, his jaw looking almost unhinged as he screamed and screamed without stopping for a second. Then gold fully overtook him, silencing him as his expression remained frozen in absolute terror.

Midas stared at him in horror, before shutting his eyes, crying and screaming at the top of his lungs for help, any help, until he felt someone shake him by the shoulders.

Blue and brown eyes greeted him, inches away from his face.

“You kicked me in your sleep..” - montague stared down at him, his face back to normal, completely unharmed. Despite his cold words he had an awfully worried expression on his face.

It took Midas a moment to realise what just happened. He looked down at his hands, looking just like they did before. 

He almost felt stupid about it, before lunging forward, hugging Montague as close as he could. He was startled for a second, but he still ended up draping his arms around Midas, pulling him even closer. 

“Sorry.. I had a weird nightmare..” - midas mumbled as he buried his face in Montague’s shoulder. He never felt more relieved before in his life.

“Yeah.. i figured..” - montague replied, softly petting Midas’s hair with one hand. Guess their score was settled now.

[thegeminisage]

it is time for. NOT a tng update. but a ds9 update!!! wednesday* we watched "emissary" and actually i'm not clear on if we watched both parts or just one since my website is wonky but either way whatever we watched FUCKING RULED. i'm dispensing w the normal bullet points so i can ramble as much as i want

*it was last night actually but it took me all day to type this up so i'm scheduling it to go up later. it got looooong lol

the first most striking thing i noticed about ds9, or at least the first half of what we watched, is that it FEELS like a video game. someone tell me if this is insane. you're playing as sisko. you get flashbacks of his backstory, you get thrown into this starbase that's in shambles and it's Your Job to fix it up. you go around meeting all the secondary characters who will be in charge of this or that gameplay aspect or upgrade system or shop: kira, o'brien, quark, odo, jadzia, julian, etc. the FOLEY in this was insane. all the noise in the back CONSTANTLY suggested a lively and whole universe outside of our direct line of focus - it felt so alive in the way not even the enterprise in tos did. i could picture myself in the opening gameplay/cutscene like slowly walking my character through what will become a hub area that i gradually upgrade over time while kira or o'brien narrates the list of problems. you're starting at the bottom rung and expected to fail, but you can FEEL the potential even in just one brief walk through the promenade. IS THIS INSANE? it feels like an insane thing to say. someone PLEASE write in if you have ever had similar feelings. if they haven't made a ds9 game yet, they should.

i also notice that not only is the quality of the ds9 episodes worse than that of tng and tos - no one has remastered them into 1080p, apparently - but the lighting is very different, as well. it felt WEIRD to see picard and the enterprise D shot this way. but it also lends, perhaps unintentionally, perhaps not, a really gritty atmosphere to what is normally a very clean universe. i guess since we mostly see it from the inside of starships, it would feel like a sterile place to us, but you know how everyone always compliments star wars on how lived-in it feels? the buttons are wearing, sand is stuck in their fancy thingamajigs, etc? this was how ds9 felt to me.

okay. the characters. let's fucking get into it. what's so fun about ds9 in general is that in all other trek shows i have picked out my specialest little guy in 5 seconds flat. tos was spock EASILY. tng i knew it was data before i started. i already know seven's gonna be my favorite voyager character, but i have NO IDEA!!! who my precious little baby in ds9 will be. what a fun surprise for everyone involved. if anybody wants to place bets go ahead.

like, i thought tng had a pretty solid lineup (hence my eternal frustration with its wasted potential) but they're not anywhere as eclectic as ds9's core cast. iirc, sisko and o'brien are the ONLY humans who for once are outnumbered by trek's cool aliens. i'm saving sisko for last because that was the part of ds9 that touched me most profoundly, but for o'brien - it was a little sad to see him leave the enterprise, because picard was right, it WON'T feel the same without him, but i'm really excited to see why everybody says he suffers more than jesus and to find out if the eyepatch is a permanent thing or if it's just mirrorverse fuckery. either way, i win. like, o'brien is cool, and i always miss him when i don't see him in tng, and i'll continue to miss him in tng from here on out, but he could never shine in that show. it's too stiff and too reluctant to put its characters through any real development. it's a shame they can't ALL move to ds9, tbh.

the next person we met was kira, who was WONDERFUL. it took me a minute to warm up to her, not because there was anything wrong with her, but because i figured at first glance she was ds9's version of ro laren, the obligatory bajoran cast member to connect us with the bajoran/cardassian plot - which would of course be good because ro is awesome, but it's not necessarily anything new and i already love ro. BUT I WAS WRONG! kira's personality is very distinct from ro's; really the only thing they have in common is not liking cardassians which lmao Yeah. my favorite thing about kira is that she smiles when she's upset or angry. that's Such an acting choic, to have her grinning at the cardassians when she's almost certain they're about to blow her whole space station to smithereens. all love light and respect to ro laren my beloved, but i think i actually like kira BETTER.

odo: WHAT is that thing he can do oh my god...is this a changeling?? i got that result in a star trek quiz once. i really loved when he snuck aboard the enemy ship posing as a bag to hold gambling winnings. i was like oh they showed us the bag to show us it will get stolen soon BUT NO it was odo!!!!!!! such a fun surprise. the exposition on his backstory was a little slapdash but i enjoyed it all the same, i cannot wait to learn more

i was most nervous to meet quark because i hate hate HATE the ferengi in tng, but he was actually so entertaining! like, you're never gonna be able to entirely remove the antisemetic undertones from the ferengi as a whole, but he was smart, practical, and endearingly longsuffering. i love his wryness and deadpan humor. i have a feeling he is gonna be so much fun to torture lovingly.

meeting julian bashir felt like meeting a famous person. for the longest time all i knew about ds9 was that cardassian guy wanted to FUCK that gay little doctor, so it was a little hilarious that in his first scene he was asking a woman* out on a date. sir do you not know you're gay?? even funnier was the fact that out of everybody in the pilot he had the least lines. we barely know him, but we finally met him. relatedly, i can't to wait to meet more cardassians, especially The cardassian. so far, they're still all gay.

*jadzia!!! gnc/trans queen! the trill stuff is SO interesting and watching that worm slither in and out of people during those flashbacks was so wonderful but also made me wince. i love that she used to be an old man and the jokes about it are actually really funny without feeling transphobic or anything SO FAR. who knows if that changes. i feel like we haven't gotten much yet from her either but i cannot wait.

SISKO. damn. where do i even...first of all, he should be allowed to bite kick kill picard. i say this as someone who experienced a genuine THRILL of pleasure upon seeing picard's borged self again. i loved that whole thing, i'm obsessed with the borg. that it comes back in this small way in ds9, and has such a HUGE impact on the storyline, was so so so fucking good. i always say tng tells and not shows, but even after just knowing sisko for a few moments i felt keenly how much it devastated to find his wife like that and THAT WAS JUST FROM THE FIRST SCENE. and it only gets better! he's a great dad. he's FUNNY. he is not above manual labor. he wants to tear picard limb from limb. and he exists HERE.

the wormhole alien sequence was. so good. it was SO GOOD. explaining linear time to aliens. the aliens using his memories to talk to him. HE EXISTS HERE. back and back and BACK to finding his wife in the rubble because HE EXISTS HERE. he CHOOSES to exist here. he existed there when he applied for a transfer to earth. he existed there when he confronted picard. he never left the ship because HE NEVER LEFT THE SHIP. they dragged him out but they COULDN'T DRAG HIM OUT. he exists here because he won't leave her to exist here alone because damn it we can't just leave her here. that was the most insane series of events i ever watched. like, because at first you DO think it's the aliens taking him back there BUT IT'S HIM. HE IS DOING IT TO HIMSELF. when the penny dropped i got literal chill bumps and when the aliens said "it's not linear" and he, openly weeping, replied "it's NOT linear," i genuinely, truly, shed a tear along with him. TNG COULD NEVER. none of those miserable fucks EVER cry!!! sisko did it in the god damn pilot!!!!!!!

and like, the fact that he can choose to stay at the space station at the end, to shake picard's hand, to exist SOMEWHERE ELSE. AAAAAUGHGHGHG

i really loved the final confrontation, too. kira is so so so so good, again, i LOVE that she smiles when she's angry, when she's sad, and it's not a fake smile, it's genuine and honest emotion, and she's genuinely and honestly going to start eating the cardassians for sport if they don't leave her alone. it was very scrappy, them pretending to be bigger and badder than they actually were because they had no other choice. you get the feeling everybody on the station and indeed the station itself is barely holding together, and what little togetherness is present comes from sheer spite.

anyway, absolutely 10/10. i was so worried ds9 wouldn't be good but it not only met my most furtive hopes it surpassed them with flying colors. it's gonna be REAL hard to go back to tng after this.

[alicentflorent]

Why do you like Gale? No hate, I’m honestly glad because I feel like we’re a minority because everyone seems to detest him. What is it specifically about his character that draws you in? For me it’s his endurance despite loss, his devotion to the cause, he’s the flawed rebel that isn’t pure because the system doesn’t allow him to be.

I like him for the reasons you just listed too. His growing hatred towards the capitol and his commitment to ending the oppressive situation is relatable and REAL. He is willing to make the hard choices that aren't always morally right but under the circumstances I can understand why he is willing to use violence, why he accepts that they aren't going to win this rebellion without a few civilian casualties. He was fully committed to the rebellion and was willing to die for Panem to be free and wasn't naive to how that was going to be achieved. I can respect that. Especially given his life circumstances and how much trauma he's been through (something that fans ignore because he wasn't in the horror that is the games, therefore, his trauma doesn't count). We get insight into his view on the people in the capital, the privileged, early on, Before the reaping he says "if they all stopped watching, there wouldn't be any games." in his eyes they are all complicit, which isn't necessarily true for every single peson but you can understand his point. The people in the capitol could at the very least all boycott the games and this would put an end to them because then no one would be profiting off them. We know this to be true as well because the games were not successful and barely anyone watched them in TBOSAS and they were likely going to stop them.

Another reason I like him is because of how loyal he is to his family, the everdeens (he would have taken care of them if Katniss had died and was taking care of them when she wasn't around) and his loyalty to his district. He saved as many people as he possibly could from 12 during the genocide and yet, he still felt guilty that he couldn't do more. It is important to note that it was AFTER witnessing the genocide that he fully became involved in the rebellion and the creation of weapons and was willing to make the tough calls that would've got people killed. He was still a rebel in the making before then but who can blame him? his father is killed in the mines and he has to take care of his mother and siblings and make sure they don't starve to death (yes people in district 12 were literally dying of starvation if anyone is forgetting that fact) and Katniss was the only person who understood this. He resents the fact that some people are living in luxury when his people are suffering so much, he hated the class system and wealth disparity which separates the districts and that is something most of us can understand in todays world. In catching fire, when more people started hating him, he's working 12 hour shifts in the mines that killed his father and yet, his family still don't have enough food to get by, he has siblings who are now getting old enough to enter the games and there's nothing he can do to help them if they get reaped because he's aged out and can't volunteer on his behalf. He acted like a dick at times but he was also suffering and lets not forget that moment when he was TORTURED by peacekeepers and could have been killed had Katniss not stepped in.

I don't agree with all of his decisions but when this war started there was no going back, they either win and create a better Panem or they die, their loved ones die or worse, they suffer fates worse than death and worse than the lives they had before. The first rebellion resulted in the games and further oppression of the districts, imagine how it would've ended if this rebellion was lost? When you're fighting a leader as brutal as Snow you have to fight dirty and be prepared to make terrible moves that Snow thinks you haven't got it in you to make.

Gale is resilient, passionate, a fighter, loyal, smart (disagree with his strategies but they were good and pragmatic war strategies) and just as flawed as any other complex character. It is a shame people hate him so much, and mainly because of a love triangle that Suzanne never intended to write in the first place.

Sidenote: the way the fandom hated on him just made me analyse his character more closely and like him MORE which is a bit of pattern with me and unfairly hated characters.

[ro-rogue]

-- some small spoilers up ahead for mha -- it is so interesting to me that uno often gets compared to mha by people who haven't read uno. because when you actually think about it, they really are eerily similar, despite many uno fans denying it.

at first glance: in uno, the main theme is "the government is evil and should be stopped at all costs". in mha, it's "well yeah the government isn't exactly good, but the villains are definitely worse".

and then you dig deeper.

in uno, the authorities are criticized because they do absolutely horrible things to people in the name of keeping the peace. they've lost the plot, gone too far, and what is, in theory, a very logical system (the royals) has devolved into systemic oppression. (i've read a really good commentary on here that explained why the royals are actually kinda necessary in a school like wellston, but i can't find it now, so if you've found it, pls lmk.) violence is constantly criticized. when john went joker, it wasn't glorified, like it would've been in so much of contemporary media. resistance and revolution are definitely advocated for, but violence never is.

(slight spoiler ?) the recent manga chapters of mha reveal a theme that has been pretty central for a while now: criticism of authority figures and their abuse of power. the lov is humanized, their actions are explained, they are clearly their own heroes. it's people like overhaul, like afo, who are really evil: people in positions of power who hurt those below them.

not to mention (SPOILER) hawks losing his wings. i didn't like it when i first read it, but looking back, it was the only possible ending for him. keigo had been used his entire life by the (evil) government because of his quirk, and now he's finally free. they don't have a use for him anymore. him losing his wings, ironically, set him free. (know of another character being used by an evil government because of their power?)

in uno, violence is very clearly posed as a bad thing and people in positions of power hurt those below them. in mha, violence and its glorification (hero society) is frequently criticized and the real villains are those in positions of power who hurt those below them.

also: in mha, lady nagant was a (one of presumably multiple) assassin for the government, cleaning up those who the authorities felt disrupted the current order too much. sounds familiar?

and then you have the protagonists. izuku and john both grew up powerless and then suddenly got one of the strongest powers in their society just before starting highschool, though at first, they weren't very good at using it. they both seem capable of using multiple powers, but technically it's just one really op power. i would like to claim that they both kept a really important secret about that power from their close friends for a while, but izuku told katsuki that he had a borrowed power literally weeks after he'd gotten it, so. props to john though.

there is another fun similarity between them, though. both are introduced as pretty non-violent people (rip pre-joker john, your miserable existence is missed dearly), and both go absolutely feral when their best friend ("best friend") gets hurt.

(it's also fun to mention that both izuku and john are Going Through It in the current arc.)

now, of course, a fundamental differnce between john and izuku is that izuku is fundamentally a good person who cares for people, and john,,, doesn't. it's not that he doesn't care about anyone; he just doesn't care all that much about people he doesn't really know. izuku wants to save everyone. john wants his loved ones to not be hurt. that doesn't mean he wants others to be hurt, but it will take more for him to want to save someone than just seeing them suffering. interestingly enough, it's pre-joker john who was the biggest advocate for cripple equality, while izuku has never been shown to do anything similar for the quirkless. also, izuku never went middle-school-katsuki when he finally got a handle on ofa.

but in the end, these visual-medium stories are remarkably similar and comparing them actually yields significant insights into both of these stories. comparisons should therefore not be avoided, but instead encouraged and expanded upon.

[inwintersolitude]

- November 18th 2024 -

A lot of my friends are unfollowing or unfriending those who agree with a different political party than them. Have you ever unfollowed or unfriended anyone over politics? Why or why not? I haven't unfollowed anyone over only politics, but I have unfollowed people who were being hateful or anti-human-rights because of their politics.

Do you trust in God? Why or why not? Nope, I don't believe in the existence of any sort of god/deity/etc.

What's the dumbest way you've been injured? Oh I've had lots of dumb injuries haha. I once got jet fuel sprayed up my nose and into my eyes and had to go to the ER to get it washed out (I was fueling a plane and the high pressure stream of fuel ricocheted off a tank tab and right up into my face). My bell pepper incident last year was pretty dumb, too... I was looking through a display of precariously-stacked bell peppers at the grocery store when several of them started to fall down. I tried to catch them, cut my finger on the plastic bin they were falling out of, and the cut got infected.

Do you believe fibromyalgia is a real disease? Why or why not? Yes absolutely. I've seen what it does to people and there's no doubt it's real. I follow a few people on social media who suffer from it and I've also watched videos on YouTube of doctors and researchers talking about it.

Has anyone in your family been diabetic? Nope.

When was the last time you can remember falling down the stairs, and what happened? Were you alone or was it in public? Share details! Sometime around 2012 or 2013. It was only a few stairs, though.  I was at home, going down the stairs, and simply lost my footing and slipped.

Do you wear earmuffs during the colder months? I prefer hats. I don't like how earmuffs look on me.

Do you know anyone who has the medical condition POTS? I have a working diagnosis of POTS. I've had it since my 4th covid booster in late 2022, and then it got worse after I had actual covid in June/July of this year, and that's when my cardiologist started to suspect that it's been POTS all along. I still need to do autonomic testing, though.

Do you know what the medical condition POTS is? Yep.  Basically a malfunctioning of the autonomic nervous system.  I just wish I didn't know firsthand lol.

Do you experience frequent tachycardia? It's not as frequent now that I started meds in February 2023, but I still get bad flare ups where my resting heart rate goes up to 130-150 bpm and I'm barely able to stand up. I've had to go to the ER a few times because of it since I also sometimes get random heart attack symptoms along with the tachycardia.

Have you been ignoring someone who has been trying to reach out to you? If so, why? Nope.

Do you agree or disagree with this quote: The only constant variable in my life is pain and suffering. I disagree.

If you celebrate Thanksgiving, have you ever been the one to cook the turkey? Yep.  I cooked a full Thanksgiving dinner a few times for just my husband and I, back when we lived in Virginia.  We didn't live near family, and with both of us working in aviation, we didn't always have enough time off work to travel over a holiday to go visit family.  So, I made a turkey and all the standard side dishes for just us to have at home together.

Do you pray every day? Why or why not? No. I'm an atheist.

Do you know anyone who has lupus? I don't think so.

List three emotions you've experienced in the past 24 hours. Happiness, apathy, gratitude.

When was the last time you went to Starbucks? About a month ago.  I got a tea latte on the way to the park.

When was the last time you baked scones? Years ago.

Do you decorate your home for fall? Yep, I always get an assortment of pumpkins to decorate the front porch.

Do you prefer ebooks or actual books? Actual books.

What does the last mug you drank out of look like? It's a light cream colored Mason Cash stoneware mug, with an embossed leaf/forest design all over the outside.  It's my favorite mug.

What is one thing you love about getting older? People finally treating me like the competent adult I am. I look quite a bit younger than my age and I went through my entire 20s having people (who don't know me well enough to know my age) treat me like I was a teenager, or maybe at best a college student. Some people were very condescending about it.

Do you post on Instagram frequently? Not really. I mostly use Instagram for my nature and drone photography, but ever since my POTS got worse, I oftentimes don't feel well enough to go on walks out in nature.

How many Instagram accounts do you have? Two, but one is pretty much abandoned. I started it in 2012 and haven't posted on it since about 2019.

What is your Instagram username (if you wish to share)? kel_m90

[aith-art]

Falloutober 2023 - Day 1

'War Never Changes'

@falloutober

Word Count - 713

With a single push of a button the Institute was gone. People had seen science as evil technology unchecked, as the source of all ills, all misfortunes. It was easy to understand why. The institute acted without reason, tore communities apart for fear of being challenged. Created killing machines out of people. They saw science as the last hope for themselves, and no one else. The Instutie refused to see and face their history and that was their greatest failure. Maybe those who survived the explotion will seek out their past, learn what science for personal prosperity had done to the world. 

The destruction of the Prydwen, the Brotherhood of Steel’s greatest creation, was a necessary sacrifice. The Elder had survived. He and what remained of the Brotherhood scampered back to the Capital Wasteland. They wouldn’t leave forever, but the Commonwealth would be prepared when they returned. While the Institute didn’t see the history of destruction they were fated to repeat through creation, the Brotherhood ignored the flaws in their beliefs and refused to see the hope in new technology and suffered for their hubris. To blinded by the rigidity of their symbol to see how the world was changing and rebuilding. 

In the confusion and rubble of the institutes destruction, the knewly rebuilt Minutemen offered aid and protection to settlers across the Commonwealth. Their aid was steadily accepted and Minutemen, under the leadership of General Preston Garvey, became a common site across the Commonwealth. With a military station at the castle and trade hubs to the north in Sunshine Tiding and the old Drive in Cinema, the Minutemen began to be seen as an honourable group once again. An old world history brought into the present with hope for the future.  

The Railroad continued to operate in secret, helping the last of the synths become part of the world. When the last of the known synth survivors had their lives rewritten, the Railroad disbanded. Many of the tourists returned to their lives, the agents that were left continued to monitor the synths they had helped, safehouses continued to operate for anyone who had helped the Railroad. 

 Dr Carrington found himself as the leading medic for the Minutemen in the Castle. Though he believed their goals were bigger than their capability, he commended them for all they had achieved so far. 

Tinker Tom joined Sturges in Sanctuary, though his ideas were more outlandish than Sturges was used to, the two got along well and the MiLA’s became a useful surveillance system for rouge synths, and threats to the people of the Commonwealth.

PAM was eventually moved to the Castle, despite Ronnie Shaw’s protest, and became an invaluable if not slightly disconcerting member of the organisation. 

Drummer Boy continued to operate the dropbox’s for the safehouses and agents that monitored the synths. He became an invaluable messenger to the Sole Survivor. 

Desdemona dissapeared into the wasteland. Occational a message would arrive for the Sole Survivor with tips on rouge synths and coursers, all marked with a D. It became the only inclination that she was still alive somewhere in the wasteland, hiding among the shadows as she had done for years. 

I’ve known nothing but war my whole life. I fought for the people I cared about, made mistakes I can never forgive myself for. War may never change, but I’ve seen people change. For better or worse, people are always capable of change. 

There was always something to fight for, a symbol to side with. It’s not hard to fight, to offer your life for a cause you believe in. But to let go, give up the anger and fire for something calmer, that is the real challenge of life. Finding a loving family and something to live for is difficult, but not impossible. Throughout my travels I have shown mercy and relentlessness. Kindness and ruthlessness. Love and hatred. I’ve cheated death, and face the consiquences of my actions whenever I look in a mirror. I have survived but never lived. 

Now I have a chance to live. People who love me and whom I love back. A real Family. 

As an old friend said, 

‘War Never Changes, men do, through the roads they walk.’ 

I think I finally found my road’s end.

[ofbreathandflame-archive]

I’m not sure if you want to answer this (you don’t if you don’t want to). When you say the X-Men thing fails what do you mean? I’ve seen it said a lot and just wanted your opinion

Hi anon! Sorry for just now getting to this its been sitting in my drafts bc I didn't want it to get deleted when I mass-deleted my anons and I totally forgot about the anons in my drafts! I will be getting to those too!

But sure I'd love to talk about this! I actually got something similar when I talked about my problems with Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In bits - I liked the show, but its focus on passivity and its demonization of radicalization (in response to Western imperialism and racism) is something I just could not get into. This is a problem I had (in retrospect) with AtLA and especially Legend of Korra.

The X-Men allegory - for all intent and purposes - is not a bad one. It makes sense within the narrative we're given in a vacuum. So the problem is never about the X-Men properties in the world. It's not a secret that the X-Men property is influenced by Civil Rights and so on the surface level - the problems that the mutants face run parallel to the ones we saw Black people facing. As an allegory, that's fine. But what happens with X-men (and many other pieces of media with fantasy racism) is that at many points the media (or the fans) always like...try to transcend the allegory by equating the fictional issue on par or even more important than the issue that influences them. Or the story tries to replicate systems of oppression while also insinuating that the people who traditionally deal with them are a part of the oppressive force. Or the allegorical piece of media implements a white savior to convey these points and then essentially sidelines the actual oppressed groups (* coughs LOUDLY* DISTRICT 9, AVATAR).

For example: Kitty Pride. I think all comic book heads already know where I am going with this. Kitty Pride and her use of the N world is just one moment out of many that the allegory begins to crumble. Because then the story is (1) acknowledging that racism as we know it actually exists in this universe (so anti-blackness, the civil rights moment, slavery, etcs. all exist within this world) and (2) the story is trying to make the point that the world 'mutie' is somehow just as bad or worse as the N-word. At this point, the story is transcending the idea of X-Men being just an allegory to the civil rights movement and it demonized the real implication of racism (and the people who still go through it) in the story. Of course - different comic book runs evoke different things - but I think many X-Men runs don't deny that racism as we know it, and history (more broadly) as we know it are things that are existent in the world. I also think that X-Men only works when we don't consider the history of racism and why it exists in the first place.

addition: and I think a good example of this recently is the story SIDELINING the black god-tier mutant - Darwin - while still trying to be an allegory. It's a very hard slap in the face IMO. like-- if the Xmen series is historically about civil rights and racism...its a wild choice to then kill off (or sideline if you count the unreleased) REAL LIFE embodiment of that struggle.

X-Men works in a vacuum. It doesn't really work past that. Nor do I think it always tries to, it's just a very good example of how fantasy racism doesn't equate to an understanding and consciousness of real-life racism. Hence why I also believe that fandom doesn't equal allyship.

But I also think that in this case and in the case of Shadow and Bone the allegory is only meant to inform. The Grisha may be informed by LB as a Jewish woman, but it isn't a 1:1 allegory. I think I would love to make a post about Children of Blood and Bone because it suffered the same problem too. It's a world that is informed by Tomi's identity as a Nigerian-American woman, but at some point in the story, the allegory merely informs the vague dynamics in the world. It's not like a 1:1 allegory. And some of the parts that are (i.e. the orishas, the racism, and the colorism) don't always mesh well with the story. And in that case (much the same with LB) all of the fantastical elements muddle some of the perspectives. But It would make sense that both and Jewish woman and a black/Nigerian woman would write stories that are influenced by their lineages. It doesn't always mean it works but it's there. It doesn't make them racist or anti-Semitic (which is honestly a very wild, and very unfair way of critiquing marginalized women's work). Did I like how Children of Blood and Bone turned out? No. Do I think Tomi is somehow anti-black because some of her ideas didn't mesh well with the story at hand? No. Not in a million years.

The idea that people have taken to is that LB's use of her own background to influence a fictional system = the story is a 1:1 rundown. It's not. Like Underworld: Rise of the Lycans was co-written by a black man (Kevin Greivioux - this was a fact that made me very happy when I was a little girl) and the conflict is partially influenced by issues of race. It's very apparent. But the story ends the allegory there. I remember running to look up who wrote that movie because even as a kid, I thought there were some subtle hints that a black person was partially involved. Sometimes, points are made. At the same time, the allegory doesn't equate to a 1:1 allegory. It's definitely informed by it, but it is still a story about vampires and werewolves. And even then it is just that: an allegory. Spiderman: Across the Multiverse was an allegory as well. Miguel was an allegory for how people denied that a black man could be Spiderman. Is Miguel racist in world? No. Does it inform the plotline - yes. But the story is also telling...a story. The whole anomaly plotline was very brilliantly done IMO. It's a very good example of how to integrate allegories for racism in a way that doesn't get meddled when the fantasy elements get added in.

[visceravalentines]

Date Night

Dark!Bo Sinclair x Victim!GN!Reader

2.5k

Dead dove; do not eat. Reader is a captive in Bo's dungeon and this means noncon (maaaybe dubcon if you're feeling generous). Nothing detailed, but plenty of references to previous sex acts including creampie and throat fucking. Beginnings of Stockholm syndrome. This is not soft Bo! This is worst Bo!

There's a routine. It keeps things bearable. But he's late for dinner, and you aren't sure what that means. Turns out, he's got a date planned.

You didn't know how many days you'd been in the chair.

There was no clock in the basement, so time was inconsequential. Light filtered down through the grate in the ceiling, but you slept at odd intervals, and once you lost track of one day the rest slipped quickly away behind it. 

He himself seemed to keep a regular schedule, giving you consistent bathroom breaks, bringing you meals just as you felt the calories from the last few morsels you'd managed to choke down fading from your system. He left you there in the chair overnight, cuffed wrist and ankle, presumably to go sleep in a normal, comfortable bed. Bastard. 

You stopped bargaining with him rather quickly. You raged at him for a while, but he liked that too much, and it had the opposite of the desired effect. You begged. He enjoyed that too, enjoyed shushing you, caressing your tearstained cheeks, calming you down just to scare you right back up again. 

There was no winning. He got what he wanted no matter what you did. And worse, as the days blurred together, you started to look forward to the time he spent with you, simply because the long hours spent alone wrung your soul out like a threadbare dishrag. 

It wasn't all bad, you found yourself thinking, and hated yourself for it. He wasn't starving you. He kept you better hydrated than you kept yourself. And he played your body like a fiddle, coaxed mind-blowing orgasms out of you again and again, learned quickly what you liked and how you liked it and which boundaries he could push to get you to cum so hard your muscles twitched for half an hour afterwards. 

Boundaries. Like you were entitled to those anymore. 

He didn't hurt you, not really, although he certainly had the tools to do so. You had ample time to count the items mounted neatly on the walls; the sex toys far outnumbered the knives. He got off on your pain but he savored your pleasure, thrived on it.

You got the sense during your interactions that he was looking for something, wanted something particular from you. Only if you failed to deliver would he cause you real suffering. Thus far, you had apparently performed to his satisfaction, though you had no idea how or why. 

Today was a bad day. Today, he missed a meal for the first time. The anxiety gnawed at your insides with much sharper teeth than the hunger. You waited and waited, wondering if your sense of time was right or if you were just impatient. Or maybe he was punishing you for some miniscule slight.

Your wrists were raw and chafing; he usually freed them to allow you to eat with some dignity as long as he was supervising. You had to piss so bad. Your throat was dry. Amazing how many little discomforts could amass in such a short time. Amazing how any of it mattered, how much it mattered. 

What if he'd abandoned you? What if he met his match in some unwitting traveller who stole the upper hand? You had thrust your fists against the posts enough to know you couldn't get free of the restraints. The chair itself had once been rickety but had obviously been reinforced and you made no headway against it.

You pictured a comically bleak skeleton trapped in your position and reflected that maybe you could slip free if you held out long enough to whittle down to skin and bones. 

You hit your head against the headrest in frustration and apprehension, let your chin slump forward and examined yourself. Your body bore the marks of his affection, bruises on your chest, hickies on your thighs, a particularly exquisite likeness of his fingers shadowed in bilirubin brown on your forearms. You were sitting in a puddle of his spend where it had trickled out of you from his last visit. He always let you clean up after dinner. One more grievance to add to the list. 

Thoughts of that last encounter crept unbidden to your mind. It had been rushed; he said something about a visitor or an appointment he had to keep. But he had done something new, something noteworthy. 

He used your name. 

He had an endless supply of endearments, everything from kitten and sugar to dumb fuckin' slut. You had forgotten he knew your name, had forgotten it was the first thing you gave to him. But he groaned it in your ear just before he finished inside you, and it surprised you, and it changed things. You were a person again outside of your own mind. You had an identity and he had acknowledged that. Your head spun considering what that could mean. 

But then he missed dinner. And you were alone. And personhood took a backseat to a full bladder and an empty stomach. 

You shifted positions as much as you were able. Your back throbbed, your ass hurt, your joints were locked at one angle. Regaining consciousness felt like being hit with a semi every time. The vinyl was incredibly uncomfortable beneath your bare skin, hot and sticky. You wondered, not for the first time, if you might lose your mind before he could kill you. The likelihood of that grew with each passing second you spent alone with your thoughts and the hum of the fluorescents overhead. 

The sound of a truck engine through the vent in the ceiling sent a flood of excitement and relief washing over you. Disgust with yourself chased close behind, but it was weak and cowardly and easily shooed away. He was back. You were saved. 

As long as you happened to live, you would never forget the thud of his boots on the floor above you or the stairs outside. When the door swung open and he came in with a McDonald's bag in one hand, your body leaned forward in the chair of its own accord. Were you smiling? Goddammit, you were smiling. It was a small smile, probably more of a grimace, but it felt like a lip-splitting grin. 

It did not go unnoticed. "Happy to see me, are ya?" he said, cocking one eyebrow. 

"I thought…you were gone so long." Your voice was hoarse. Your throat had been through considerable abuse. 

"Sorry, sugar." He sounded almost genuine. "Didn't expect to get back so late. Bet you're fixin' to burst."

He set the McDonald's bag on the workbench and picked up the handcuffs he put on you during bathroom breaks. You knew the routine by now. He freed your left hand from the restraint and cuffed it, then your right. Then he undid your ankles one at a time while maintaining a vice grip on your wrist. You were denied the experience of leaving the basement; the bathroom was attached to this torture chamber. 

He didn't need to lead you the five feet to the toilet; you made a beeline as soon as you were able, stumbling on legs that were somehow both numb and sore. There was no door on the little restroom but that hardly mattered. You sighed in relief and he chuckled as he wiped down the chair in your absence. 

"Why don'tcha go ahead and shower now, baby doll? You can eat after."

You nodded, flushed the toilet, stepped obediently into the narrow shower stall that took up half the bathroom. There was no door or curtain on that either. You started up the water, bracing yourself for the inevitable jolt of cold before it heated up. The toiletries he chose for you smelled like jasmine. Something else you'd carry the memory of until he put you in the ground. 

He leaned against the doorframe and watched you as you washed off the sweat and cum and panic. You paid him no mind. This, too, was part of the routine. He often lit up and let the smoke waft up and out through the vent. Yes, there it was, you could smell it over the jasmine as you rubbed the water from your eyes. 

When you turned off the faucet and turned back to him he was holding out your towel. "Thanks," you said without thinking. 

He looked amused. "Welcome."

You dried yourself off, wrapped the towel around yourself in a brief and blessed moment of privacy, and looked at him hopefully. Sometimes he gave you a drag off his cigarette. You didn't smoke before you came here, but the wash of calm euphoria it brought you had fast become one of your few pleasures. 

To your surprise, he pulled the whole pack from his pocket, thumbed it open and held it out to you. 

"Think you deserve your own tonight for bein' so patient."

You delicately pulled one from the box, put it between your lips and leaned forward to let him light it. Your eyes flicked from him to the rising, curling smoke and back again with each puff. His eyes never left you. 

When the cig burnt down to the filter you dropped it on the floor and he stubbed it out with his boot. "Come eat," he said. He took hold of your arm and brought you to the McDonald's bag, let you lean against the bench still wrapped in your towel as he handed you one thing at a time, fries first. 

You were ecstatic and apprehensive. The whole night had gone way off script. Normally you got a bathroom break before he went up to the house for his own evening meal. When he returned, you ate dinner first, then took your shower, then he played with you a while before tucking you in with a kiss on the forehead. 

You always ate in the chair. He always took your towel back the second you were dry. Tonight, he was treating you like royalty. Did he feel so bad for keeping you waiting? Or was he softening you up in advance of something awful?

You watched him while you ate the way a shelter dog keeps tabs on anyone in the vicinity of its bowl. He watched you right back, an indomitable Mona Lisa smile on his lips. 

When you were done, he stuffed the bag in the trash. "Towel," he said, hand outstretched. 

Disappointed but not surprised, you unwrapped yourself and handed it to him. He hung it on a nearby hook. You clasped your fingers, handcuffs jingling, let your hands sit naturally in your lap. You'd given up trying to cover yourself; he had seen and touched you all over already. 

He regarded you with a tilt of his head. "Thought we'd try somethin' different this evenin'."

That sounded bad. You said nothing. 

"Y'ever seen Deliverance?"

It took you several extra seconds to process what he'd said. "...no," you answered finally. "I-I haven't."

"'S one o' my favorites."

Of course it was. Why was he telling you this? 

"We're gonna watch it," he said. "C'mere."

He took your elbow and steered you to the mattress on the floor in front of a little TV on a table. You were familiar with the mattress, but to be frank, you didn't think the TV worked. You'd never seen him use it. 

With a nudge from him, you dropped to your aching knees on the mattress. He sank down beside you with a grunt and handed you a DVD case.

"Here. Load it up."

You looked at the thing in bewilderment. You couldn't remember the last time you used a DVD player. This was the first thing you'd done together besides fuck. The whole situation was absurd. 

"Are you gonna do it or am I?"

His tone was a warning and you obeyed hastily. While you popped the disc out of the case he unlaced his boots, twisted them off and tossed them a few feet away, unbuttoned his chambray overshirt and shrugged it off. 

He took your arm again and pulled you across the mattress to him, lying back on a doubled-up pillow, cradling you against his side. You squirmed gingerly into a tolerable position - and in spite of it all, it was more than tolerable. It was the most comfortable you'd been since you got here. Your arms were bent awkwardly, cuffed hands resting on his chest, but your head fit neatly into his shoulder, and he hooked his hand behind your knee to drape your leg over his hip. His arm was firm around your back and you were grateful for his warmth with your hair still damp. 

He smelled good. He smelled like aftershave and cigarettes and there was something familiar about it, like maybe someone you knew once used the same brand, bought the same smokes. 

He produced a remote seemingly out of thin air and started up the movie. He wiggled slightly, settled, his thumb rubbing absentmindedly back and forth on your arm. You watched the opening sequence with skepticism and only half of your attention. The other half was devoted to him, to his breathing, to his mannerisms, seeking any indication that this was some kind of trick. 

But it wasn't, and before you knew it you were invested in the film, and the basement melted away for 110 horrifying minutes of runtime. It was not the movie you would've chosen, hit a little too close to home, but then, none of this was your choice. 

Somewhere in the first half, the hand splayed on his chest crept its way over and cupped one of yours. You looked at it for a minute. You laced your fingers up through his and he gave them a squeeze. Your attention returned to the movie. Neither of you said a word. 

You tried to keep your eyes open, you really did. What the punishment might be for falling asleep in the middle of his favorite movie, you couldn't fathom. But it had been so long since you'd had a good night's sleep, since you'd felt a shred of warmth or comfort. You didn't even realize you'd dozed off until the music swelled behind the credits and you jolted awake. 

Your entire body spasmed in a panic, but he held you tightly, murmured, "'S okay, you're okay," until you stilled. He smoothed your hair. "Sleep."

You moaned, confused and bleary. You heard silence, and then the introductory music flared up again. He had started the movie completely over. 

"You're alright, sweetness," he said softly. "Go to sleep."

He made no sense. You were too exhausted to parse his motives, too far beyond caring why he did anything that he did. You rolled your neck, snuggled into his ribs, clutching his shirt in your fist. You felt his lips press to your brow, almost tender even as it was possessive. For a moment, you could almost believe you were safe.

You were asleep before the movie even started. 

[empirrepostr]

heads fulla eyeballs.

but what if we were actually talking about disney's hercules?

elevent.

ant.

albert fish is food not friends.

dude was straight up being a fantasy furry irl.

oh he went there.

zoo 2 in real life. yikes.

is there a guy in the fish army called albert?

sweet jesus i hope not.

that's a deed poll moment.

can't believe they killed the american river salmon.

screw you alabama corpos.

leaves the squirrels alone will ya gees.

there are corners now and i am not happy.

get your pointy nonsene out of here. you already killed the fart fish.

alabama man living the vin diesel life over here.

why can't we just be more like the pasenger pigeon consevationists.

and you're back in the room.

oh hi cark.

if we go to war with north korea you know they'll destroy them.

on one hand totalitarian dictatorship on the other the environment.

i wondered why our helmets had skulls on them.

they actually do by the way.

holy crap michell and webb was right.

we're living in the supervillain's au.

they killed superman. they put him in a dumpster.

that explains te kryptocurrency.

don't worry we have edwards. oh god we have edwards. that's worse.

rawshack is real!

does bill king count as dollar bill?

we are living on the even better than that earth.

snappy the crocodile has genuine lore.

there's a psychoville is suicide squad as well.

great. we got the universe with the worst joker.

i am now suspicious of barbie.

yeah but it's not like we have harley-

bing bing bong bong. get those lights off!

let's kart.

queen latifa.

at least the football blanket is canon.

murk.

half of it.

to the backrroms wit ye.

skyfall.

if you knew the plot of that movie…

spare the toes.

it's too later for megaphone.

dick! [Rex note: richard entered the chat]

rabsolutely rothing rarge.

i don't need your onions.

i won't forgive them for what they did to ettie.

Jon can fix them. send them to his daycare.

PROMPT!

there's some umami as avalon in here.

GGFF coming through with a shiner.

well we do have jerky over here.

i like furries but when they get all albert fish…

MFN raises questions.

icetop raising.

where is my oat flour?!

otoole.

bing bing bong bong. get those lights off!

i'm waking up to ash and dust.

the chemicals were earlier.

they made breeding algae illegal. they literally want us to die.

they planet is suffering. luckily it's immune system ki- you!

arnold turn around.

he puts his fist into your stomach.

vertibrate problems.

screw bones who need 'em.

so it was Jon who was the evil genie og that family guy episode.

he has the evil genie laugh fromn the meme.

well at least land development is killing off the nematode's only pred.

talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

haha! i am immune.

don'tt shoot there. what will the TRTS eat?

Charli is sus.

no toe gang.

can't toe the line if you got no toes.

toeless money gang.

"ketelds use twigs and disgarded hair as a hat".

are we sure he's not a kappa?

THE BOWSE! THE BOWSER IS REAL!

his name jeff.

that would be a genuine reason to disguise his surname.

well he certainly spits fire.

cause they know that he can.

it's a house of wax.

asdfdf TATVA!

ah british engineering. take something german and make it cheaper.

then drive like a dangerous idiot.

a mars a day!

weetabix.

i need flour! flour of oats!

darkrise.

ducklore pls.

dm-dm dm-dm dm-dadmdadm.

get me outta here oz.

sometimes i get a good feeling. i get a feeling i never ever had before.

you know that weekend song with the fax machine and the robot?

[Editor's note: this one, posted it above after the full convo]

[Editor's note: was Ready For The Weekend but Vevo is screwy]

no not you Calvin Harris get utta there!

you take me out of my mind when you and i intertwine.

it's still a better song. [Rex note: Calvin Harris Not Alone stole it]

clown posse is once again asking.

where's enforcer. they need to be on tumblr.

ag.

that makes sense.

that would truly be the start.

flour becoming a mario bros movie joke by this point.

cracks knuckles. how irritator. rex!

what did echidnas ever do to you?

defender upender.

knuckle sammich.

[tossawary]

2,500 words of the Moshang Forced Marriage AU, in which the PIDW plot is turned off and Tianlang-Jun doesn’t fall, but this only causes even more problems for Mobei-Jun and Shang Qinghua. Written on my phone. 

- 

Shang Qinghua stumbled back into his leisure house with a jar of Zui Xian Peak’s best light wine in one hand and a sack of Qian Cao Peak’s tastiest specialty melon seeds in the other. He kicked the door closed, kicked off his shoes, and then kicked back for some quality lounging. 

   “Ahhh, now this is more like it!” he declared, wiggling into the cushions worthy of a head disciple’s house. “It’s all shoving off my chores onto other people from here on out! Having flatcakes on order with a snap of my fingers! Making some other poor bastard deal with Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge - at each other’s throats even at Yue-Shixiong’s nice dinner to celebrate our future ascension, eugh. I’ve really earned this! I’ve suffered enough!” 

   He dropped the sack of seeds onto the side table and fiddled with the wine, embarrassingly clumsy despite the fact that he was sober. As always, he’d been much too chicken-shit to really indulge around other people. He needed his fast reflexes for ducking and running away when he was out and about! Plus, people would freak the fuck out if a transmigrator started running his mouth, giving everyone existential issues and shit, so him waiting until he was alone to drink was really more of a societal service here than sad. 

   The Transmigration System had also been a concern before, but not anymore! 

   Shang Qinghua raised his jar and laughingly declared, “The plot is dead! Long live the free author! Ah, this toast is a little late, but better late than never, huh?” 

   At long last, this transmigrator had managed to get into the Transmigration System’s settings and turn off the plot! It had honestly been a little infuriating just how easy it had been, once he’d hit on the right combination of things to open the right settings menu. There may or may not have been a lot of outraged shrieking and frustrated crying, after all the sweat, blood, and tears he’d shed to become the head disciple of An Ding Peak. All Airplane Shooting Towards The Sky had needed to do, in the end, was flick a few buttons from “on” to “off”. Outrageous. 

   “No more missions! No more restrictions! And no more bad endings for anyone! Ah, at least for everyone besides Huan Hua Palace Sect’s old master, that is… but, heh heh, I really think that I and the new Empress Su Xiyan can live with that,” Shang Qinghua muttered, then took a drink, wiggling deeper into his lounging and feeling very good about himself. 

   He felt as free as a bird! As free as the wind! Why shouldn't he celebrate his newfound freedom and future as a Cang Qiong Peak Lord by doing a little bit of nothing at all? 

  Shang Qinghua shamelessly did his best to become a lump. As he toasted to the distant happy couple and the bouncy baby protagonist on his way, with wine and melon seeds both, he removed all but one layer of clothing, tossed his belt and his jewelry on top of the pile, and yanked everything out of his hair. He slid from a sitting position to a totally horizontal one without realizing how it had happened, then he let heavy eyes fall closed with the knowledge that everything was going to be so much better now. 

   A person knew things were good when they could fall asleep just like this. 

   Then a burst of cold air startled him into looking up at a shadowy figure stepping out of nowhere above him. Shang Qinghua shrieked with terror. 

   "SHUT UP!” the shadow snarled. “Get up!” 

   “What- my king?!” 

   Mobei-Jun didn’t wait and grabbed Shang Qinghua by the front of his robes, hauling him to his feet. The wine sloshed against the floor and the melon seeds scattered around them. Shang Qinghua yelped, choked, and then wheezed and flailed, and then yelped again as his loose robes got a little looser with the rough handling and he slipped in Mobei-Jun's grip. 

   "What- get dressed!" Mobei-Jun snapped, and then dragged him into the bedroom right away. 

   "The sight of my naked chest offends you this much, bro?!" Shang Qinghua thought, stumbling along. "There's not enough room in this house for two tits-out outfits?! What the fuck is going on?!" 

   Mobei-Jun threw Shang Qinghua towards the dresser. He just barely managed to catch himself, taking a hard wooden edge to the gut and stubbing his toe on its base, instead of falling and concussing himself at least. Shit! It still hurt, though! 

   "Get dressed!" Mobei-Jun snapped again, pointing at the dresser for emphasis. "Now!" 

   "Right away! Right away, my king!" With shaking hands, his heart thundering in his ears, Shang Qinghua pulled out the first set of robes his fingers touched. 

   "Not those!" 

   "Aah!" 

   Shang Qinghua dropped the robes onto the floor. They were the regular everyday robes of an An Ding Peak disciple, plain and sturdy, something that the demon had seen him in many times before. 

   "Wh- what's wrong with th-these?" 

   "Too plain!" Mobei-Jun barked, and stalked forward to shove Shang Qinghua aside and go through the dresser himself. 

   Shang Qinghua stumbled away and took shelter near his bed, quickly retying his current robes to prevent another fucking nip-slip or worse. He watched with wide eyes as Mobei-Jun threw his clothing to the floor as not good enough. The next drawer was yanked open with so much strength that it splintered and tilted crookedly to one side. 

   "My king, why-?! What's happening?! Are- are we going somewhere?! Who does this servant have to impress?!" 

   Mobei-Jun finished throwing aside everything in this drawer and tried to shove it back in, but it was too broken to be moved. The demon snarled, yanked the entire drawer from the dresser with another terrible splintering sound, and threw the drawer out of his way. It hit Shang Qinghua in the chest and sent him sprawling back onto his bed. 

   He lay there and wheezed without shoving it away, just feeling the impact rattle through his ribs. He heard another drawer splinter. 

   "Ah, so this is how I die?" he thought. "Just as expected: with a bang AND a whimper." 

   He pushed the drawer to one side and sat up, only to be smacked in the face with the robes thrown at him. They were the nicest robes he owned. The An Ding Peak Lord had ordered them for him for the coming ascension of a new generation of Peak Lords, so they had all sorts of fancy embroidery and several heavy layers, which meant Shang Qinghua fell back against the bed again under their weight when they hit his head. He sat up again and then gawked at these robes he had never worn and wasn't supposed to wear yet- 

   "Tianlang-Jun." 

   "Aha, what?" Shang Qinghua looked at the demon lord scowling at him. "My king…? What about Tianlang-Jun…? This- no. What?! My king, you can't mean to take this servant before the Demon Emperor, that would be ridic-" 

   "Get dressed," Mobei-Jun snapped. 

   "It's not Tianlang-Jun, right? Why-?! What's really going on here? Are we going somewhere? Are we meeting someone?" 

   Shang Qinghua got to his feet, but he didn't dare put the fancy robes on, like being nearly naked would save him from being dragged off anywhere else. No amount of nice clothing would ever make the likes of this displaced author impressive to the likes of the OP Demon Emperor, finally sitting on his late sister's throne. 

   "This servant can't serve his king to the best of his abilities unless he knows what the-" 

   "My father is dead!" 

   “...Wh… what?” 

   Mobei-Jun’s expression was like a thunderstorm. Shadows curled around his clenched fists, as light and heat fled this room that was suddenly even smaller than Shang Qinghua remembered it being. 

   "My father…" Mobei-Jun repeated, slowly, daring Shang Qinghua not to understand a second time. "...is dead." 

   Shang Qinghua stared in horror, the robes slipping out of his hands, which itched to count all the years that had just been skipped even though he knew he didn't have enough fingers. Thirty years or so? Definitely more than twenty. His breath came out in a trembling fog as he demanded: 

   "H-how?!" 

   "Tianlang-Jun," Mobei-Jun said again, through gritted teeth. 

   Good point! Good point! Who the fuck else could it be? The real question was why the fuck?! And also what the fuck was Shang Qinghua of all people supposed to do about clashes between OP demon lords?! 

   Mobei-Jun advances on Shang Qinghua, the shadows in his fists writhing like he's strangling them. "Tianlang-Jun took offense to some of my clan's foolish disrespect towards his human Empress and he made an example of my father. He has threatened to destroy the body unless a suitable gesture is made." 

   "But… the power of your ancestors…" 

   Mobei-Jun, looming over him, shoved him down to his knees to pick up the robes he had dropped, and snarled: "Get dressed." 

   Shang Qinghua snatched up the robes and skittered away to dress himself up for the slaughter. His heart was racing fast, but his mind seemed to be going even faster, almost too fast to actually think and also do things like make sure clothes weren't inside-out as he put them on. 

   The power of the Mobei clan rested in the ascension ritual in which the new king "consumed" the body of the old king. Spiritually and… er… possibly also physically? Shang Qinghua had no idea if the System had picked up on those implications or not. Anyway, if Mobei-Jun's father's body was destroyed, then he wouldn't receive that power-up necessary to enforce his rule, which would make him the target of every ambitious cousin and every greedy neighbor. The Mobei clan would probably fall into civil war and the rest of the northern kingdoms would follow them into bloody battle. 

   Shang Qinghua's favorite character, currently glaring at him for the fancy clothes probably making him look even less fancy by comparison, was sure to die. Mobei-Jun's shitty uncle had probably already picked the poisoned knife with which to stab him in the back. 

    "My king… what… what gesture is being made here…? This servant… this servant really needs to know how he's supposed to be of service…" 

   Shang Qinghua also needed to know whether or not he needed to take the first available window to run away. He definitely wasn't above leaping out of literal windows. If Mobei-Jun intended on hanging him over to Tianlang-Jun as a human sacrifice or some shit, then promises of loyalty might expire a lot sooner than originally planned! 

   At the question, Mobei-Jun's expression only darkened and the room darkened again with it. The cold seemed to spread from Shang Qinghua's skin deep into his twisting chest.

   "Marriage," Mobei-Jun said, again through gritted teeth. "Tianlang-Jun has suggested marriage to a human as a worthy gesture." 

   "M-marriage?" 

   Mobei-Jun looked so fucking murderous that Shang Qinghua knew he hadn't misheard. He had to have misheard, though, because this was absurd. 

   "Marriage betw-between me and- and…?" 

   "Yes." 

   "And… you?" 

   "Yes." 

   Shang Qinghua should have been given an award for not fainting dead away. The System should have given him a million points for every second he managed to stay conscious, except… the System had essentially been turned off. No more points. No more plot. 

   No more Proud Immortal Demon Way plot, at least. 

   Ah, was this some kind of warped vacuum effect? A new plot come to take its place? 

   "There will be great riches." 

   Shang Qinghua refocused on the demon glaring at him. Riches?! What the fuck did riches have to do with anything right now?! 

   "Mobei Clan is the second strongest in the Demon Realm," Mobei-Jun informed him, but the demon was kind of scowling like he resented this now, instead of bragging. "You would not have to work again." 

   It was a really fucking weird day when being told that his Dream Guy wanted him and that he'd never had to work again was somehow bad news. It almost sounded like Mobei-Jun was… was… trying to persuade Shang Qinghua to marry him by offering wealth, power, and a life of indolence. All things that would tempt most people! Especially blindly greedy, thigh-hugging sect traitors like his character! 

   "Did… did Tianlang-Jun tell you… to just pick any human?" Shang Qinghua asked faintly. "There weren't… there weren't any requirements…?" 

   Clearly Mobei-Jun didn't want to be tied to Shang Qinghua of all humans! 

   "He asked - laughingly - if none of us knew any humans. I said that I did." 

   Okay, Shang Qinghua fully believed that Mobei-Jun didn't know any other humans. Mobei-Jun was on a deadline and didn't have time to go find the most acclaimed matchmaker or anything. By default, Shang Qinghua was the best, most handsome, most skillful, most wellborn, most desirable, and altogether most marriageable human Mobei-Jun knew - and he was not feeling super fucking thrilled by this victory. 

   "What… what did my king say about me..? What is the Demon Emperor expecting?" Shang Qinghua could only hope expectations had been set on the floor, preferably into the floor or maybe even underground. 

   "A disciple of Cang Qiong in my service." 

   "Oh…" 

   "Fix your robes." 

   "What? Oh, shit. Right away!" 

   Shang Qinghua didn't have a lot of experience wearing robes this nice and Mobei-Jun barking at him to look less like shit wasn't helping. The fact that he was sweating from nerves and his fingers were still shaking a little also wasn't helping. He skittered around to add tasteful ornaments and jewelry, some of which got violently rejected by Mobei-Jun as too ugly to show anyone, but looking down at himself, he mostly just felt like he was throwing shiny gold onto a pile of crap. How could this really fool anyone?  

   "My king, what… what am I supposed to say to the Demon Emperor? Do you want me to lie? To the Demon Emperor?!" 

   "Do not speak unless spoken to." 

   Sure, Shang Qinghua could do that, but was he really supposed to leave the talking to Mobei-Jun?! To Mobei-Jun?! The protagonist's right-hand man had not been known for his silver tongue! Did he think people weren't going to have questions? Like, "How the fuck do you know some random human?" Or, "Holy shit, you're really going to marry THAT one?" 

   "Isn't… my king, isn't Tianlang-Jun well known for his interest in humans and human stories… though...?" 

   Love stories! Shang Qinghua was pretty sure that the man loved a good love story! How the fuck were he and Mobei-Jun supposed to pull off a love story? And make it a love story compelling enough to convince a pissed-off Tianlang-Jun to grant the Mobei Clan mercy? Shang Qinghua wasn’t totally sure he was going to be able to do anything besides break down sobbing and curl up into a pathetic ball on the floor. 

   Mobei-Jun's face twisted slightly, in the way of an angry demon who didn't want to admit that his lowly human servant actually had a super great point. Tianlang-Jun had already proven himself a man who liked to play with his food a little. 

   "Do not tell some story," Mobei-Jun snarled finally. "Do not speak unless spoken to. Do not lie." 

   "Of course! Of course! Very wise not to lie to him!” Shang Qinghua told himself to focus on the logistics here; he was the logistics man; it was what he did. If he just kept focusing on the details, he didn’t have to think about the bigger picture. “This servant will remain silent until called upon, which… when… my king, when will that be? Tomorrow morning? I have to tell-" 

   "Now." 

  "-my martial sib- what?!" 

   "Now," Mobei-Jun repeated. "He is waiting." 

[narniangirl1994]

I, like many other fans, was disappointed with several aspects of Lucifer's final season. Although it could have been much worse, I feel like certain decisions ruined several aspects of the show. For example:

They didn't show nearly enough of Trixie this season and didn't give her a satisfying ending. Not only did it make no sense for Chloe to ignore her child so often after Trixie just lost her dad, but she never officially found out about the celestials in her life and never got to say goodbye to Lucifer.

It was tough to care much about a new daughter from the future who was introduced at the last minute, yet had such a huge impact on her parents' stories. Especially seeing how sidelined Trixie was this season for a biological daughter (with Rory even saying Lucifer wasn't Trixie's real dad 😡).

I disliked the reasoning behind Lucifer abandoning his family at the request of a daughter who shouldn't have been that invested in Lucifer's calling. Yes it was important, but why was she willing to put them all through so much suffering for a calling that had nothing to do with her?

It was especially tragic to see Lucifer's choice essentially taken away from him because of Rory's insistence/coercion that he keep everything the same, after how much the show emphasized personal choice and responsibility. Not to mention his separation from his family for most of their lives is just needlessly tragic after everything they've been through.

Here's how I think the final season could have been made 100x better while still keeping the overall plot and taking into account the scheduling/COVID safety issues with Trixie's actress:

Instead of introducing Rory, have Trixie be the one who time travels back from the future to see Lucifer (therefore keeping her character relevant while using a different actress). This could be explained by her having asked Charlie to send her back in time. Not only would it make sense for Charlie to be the one to develop time traveling powers (since Amenadiel's powers were also time-based), but his powers could even be teased briefly with baby Charlie earlier in the season.

Her anger would be due to two reasons - Lucifer abandoning her so shortly after her father died, and Chloe telling Trixie that Lucifer was the only one who could have freed Dan from Hell, but that he didn't do it before leaving. Perhaps Chloe waited until Trixie was in her 20s/30s before telling her this, and that was the breaking point that made Trixie ask Charlie to send her back in time.

In the past, she somehow conceals her identity and uses tricks Maze taught her over the years to (pretend to) threaten Chloe in order to force Lucifer to bring Dan to Heaven. Lucifer knows he can't do that and it would likely make Dan a ghost, but Dan agrees to it anyway to save Chloe.

Once he's back on Earth, Trixie demands to know why Dan isn't in Heaven and gives up when both Lucifer and Dan convince her it's impossible. Realizing she failed her father, Trixie frees Chloe and leaves (obviously never intending to harm her in the first place). She later comes back, revealing her identity and explaining why she did what she did, why she's so angry at Lucifer, and how things go down in the future.

All the same shenanigans ensue, with Lucifer asserting he would never leave Chloe and Trixie, and trying to prove that he does actually love Trixie as his own daughter. He could do the same goodbye tour just in case, but this time spend a day at the beach with Chloe and adult Trixie.

Meanwhile, child Trixie can be off at a camp designed for children who lost a parent(s) and want to spend time with counselors and other grieving kids to help them recover. This would be a much better explanation than Trixie being off at a science camp and never seeing her mother so shortly after the trauma of losing her father.

All the other plots could still happen with Dan trying not to be a ghost, possessing Le Merc, talking to Lucifer and realizing he needed to speak to (child) Trixie, etc. Lucifer would still realize he didn't want to be God while Amenadiel would realize he did want to be God, yet more emphasis would be placed on Lucifer wanting to find his true calling.

Le Merc could kidnap adult Trixie, and she could similarly need to be talked down by Lucifer so that she didn't kill Le Merc in revenge. They could still figure out that Lucifer ultimately helped Dan get into heaven, and that he has helped other people (like Lee and Trixie) move past their own mistakes/flaws.

Rather than pressuring Lucifer to keep the time loop the same like Rory did, Trixie could explain how important it is to her that Dan was able to get into heaven because of Lucifer (and the time loop). And how important it is to her that other people who made mistakes, like her father, can get into heaven with Lucifer's help too.

Chloe's acceptance would be due to several things: wanting Dan to get into Heaven, being happy Lucifer found his calling, and - tying into the background plot of police brutality/inequality- realizing that many 'criminals' are a product of our broken system and deserve the chance to better themselves in this life or the afterlife.

Perhaps if they changed the focus of the Hell episode (where Lucifer helped the guy he hated confront his deepest insecurity), to his brother Michael instead, Lucifer would have a deeper connection to his calling. If he could learn to care about and understand Michael, he could care about/understand anyone. Perhaps Michael's issues aren't fully resolved by the end of that episode, but some sort of progress was made. This would enhance Lucifer's motivation to follow his calling/keep the time loop and give the ongoing Lucifer and Michael plot a real conclusion.

To emphasize that this really is Lucifer (and his loved one's choice) - rather than Rory or fate itself - perhaps they could even include a conversation with Ella, theorizing the possibility of creating an alternate universe if he chooses to break the loop, rather than making it seem like the loop is inevitable.

As such, he willingly chooses to 'abandon' his family (with their consent) for the next decade or two so that Trixie time travels and all of this comes to pass.

But unlike the finale, he can become a part of their lives again after Trixie has completed the time loop. That way, he isn't apart from Chloe and Trixie for the rest of their lives, but they all had a chance to learn and grow on their own before coming back together and understanding one another.

All of this would have provided a much more satisfying conclusion to the show. It would respect the relationships already formed (and affirm the validity of non-biological family), respect Lucifer's newfound ability to make his own choices, keep character motivations realistic, and more.

What do you think? What would be your preferred finale of Lucifer?

[popopretty]

Storm Bringer Spoilers (6)

One of my favorite scenes where Port Mafia went all out on Verlaine in CODE;4. I like this part because it introduced a lot of Port Mafia’s skill users that have never appeared in both the manga and the other novels. It was so fun to read. 

Dazai made some interesting statements and theories here too. I like the dialogue at the end, where he kinda slipped and let out some of his real emotions. 

PS: I can’t believe I actually typed out 5000 words! I was drafting this on my phone so I didn’t notice the actual amount of words. I know it’s not gonna be perfect and I am gonna make mistakes and I will want to punch myself so much but gosh, I am so proud of myself now!

...

The train driver put one hand on the handle, his eyes staring at the darkness in front of him.

Twenty-seven years of service. He is a veteran. He has held this handle through rains and winds, through the Great War where the bombs poured down like rain, messing up the landform.

Even for him, today’s job is unusual.

The train company he works for was bought out overnight. Together with the trains and the service schedules. Then he was ordered to operate a temporary ride. Yet there is only one passenger on this train. Even when he protested to his boss, what he got was only “stop questioning and just drive.” And then one more thing, “If you run away, it will be even worse.”

The driver took another look at the scenery in front of him. The trees have sunk into the darkness. All he could see were the silver railroad tracks and the yellow headlight. Those are the only guidelines to tell where the train is heading.

What his boss said might actually be true. Putting other cities aside, this is the unorthodox Yokohama. Anything can happen. Even if there is only one passenger, he has no intention to talk to them. If he does so, he might end up having to catch his cut off head with his chest.  _

At that moment, from the eternal darkness of the night that looks no different from the bottom of the ocean, he felt something moving.

His well-trained eyes managed to capture it from the distance. Is that an animal? No. Is it just the trees rustling? No.

That’s a person.

A person is standing on the track.

He pulled the break even before his brain went ”Oh no”.

The compressed air was released, and the train’s speed reducer made a violent metallic noise. But it was too late. The train bumped straight into that human figure.

However, that figure took the train’s hit. A tremendous force was applied on the train. The first car jumped forward. It was like they were being pulled, the rear cars also jumped off, derailed, rolling over into the woods. Like a rampaging huge iron snake, the train hollowed out a big area around it, knocked down a bunch of trees, before finally stopping.

The person who witnessed the whole event, Verlaine, smiled with satisfaction. He took the train head-on but suffered no scratches. He started walking. Towards the car with Mori Ougai. Jumping over the cars half-buried underground, getting through the cars whose electric system were starting to catch fire, he reached his target.

Mori Ougai was lying face-down. The train was fully flipped sideway, the walls become the floors and the ceilings became the walls. He was facing away from Verlaine, not moving an inch. From beneath his body, a pool of blood is slowly spreading.

He did investigate the target’s skill in advanced. It’s not the kind of secret that a formal spy like him cannot find out. Mori Ougai does not possess a skill that can withstand such an impact.

“Too easy.”

Verlaine muttered and approached his target. He is not as stupid to walk away without confirming if his target is really dead or not. He is going to check and if by some rare chances the target is still alive, he will finish them off for real.

Verlaine flipped Mori Ougai’s body over. Then his eyes opened wide.

That was not Mori Ougai.

That was a man he had never seen. He was wearing a wig and clothes to disguise as Mori Ougai. But Verlaine’s assassination preparation was thorough. He had set up a hidden surveillance device in the last station. And the images taken from there were definitely Mori Ougai’s.

When he grabbed the man trying to confirm his identity, suddenly a hand was put on his chest.

“Too easy.”

A powerful repulsive force coming from a skill blew Verlaine away. He flew through the glass windows and landed on the humus soil outside. He rolled further while scattering the soil, and hit his back against a tree before finally stopping.

”... Not bad.”

Verlaine push his hand on the tree to stand up.

He brushed off the dirt from his clothes and started thinking. The face he saw at that moment moment, the repulsive force coming from his palm. That was probably one of Port Mafia’s constituent members, the one who with the repulsion skill, Hirotsu Ryurou.

A double!

They knew about the hidden device and let Mori Ougai’s image captured on purpose, then quickly switched the double in. In other words, Verlaine’s assassination plan was seen through. Ever since he came to this country, he only knew one person who has the ability to outsmart him with such finesse. 

“Hello, Verlaine-san.” A small was sitting on the edge of a car, on top of the overturned train.

“Dazai-kun”, Verlaine said as he picked up the hat that had fallen to his feet. “I have heard the saying that age doesn’t matter when it comes to talent, but you are really frightening.”

“You are just bad.” Dazai said with a dry voice as though he was lecturing Verlaine. “This time you acted on your personal feelings too much. When you are like that, I can read all your moves. Why are you so obsessed with Chuuya?”

“Is it that strange for someone to be concerned about his brother?”, Verlaine said as he dusted the mud off his clothes.

“It is, a lot.” Dazai affirmed. “First of all, what made you believe so firmly that Chuuya was your brother?”

“What?” Verlaine narrowed his eyes.

“You saw that too, right? Chuuya’s original experimental body. Turned into bones and died.” Dazai spoke while swinging his legs that were dangling out of the train top. “That looks almost the same as Chuuya in terms of appearance. In terms of abilities, too. And a lot of other things in common. What if that thing was actually a skill-containing artificial life form, and the Chuuya who is living outside, whose only redeeming trait is being energetic, was the original one? Can someone like you who is not an expert, someone who has only browsed through limited materials from the past, see through that?”

“That is impossible.” Verlaine shook his head. “I’m not as stupid as to mistake the target in my infiltration mission. What I stole away from the lab nine years ago was undoubtedly the same as me, an artificial life-form.”

“If I look it up I will understand right away.” Dazai said casually. “Fortunately this time, the guys from the labs has demonstrated the method to rewrite the code formula inside Chuuya. If I capture some of those researchers using Mafia’s power, they will be more than happy to tell me how to read those codes. And then I will know which one Chuuya is actually. We have all the time in the world.”

“You seem pretty confident that Chuuya is human, don’t you?”

“I am”, Dazai laughed with a sigh. “There is no way a man-made string of code could create such a personality that I detest that much.”

Verlaine signed then started walking towards Dazai. His footsteps were heavy, as if he had to clean up a lot of tedious work.

“I can gently whole-heartedly explain to you the reason that was a misunderstanding... but now I have another job for you.“ he said, walking up the gentle slope that he fell from. “That is to spit out where Mori himself, not his double, is. It’s a painstaking job. Literally”

“So you have no intention to back off?”

“Of course not.”

Dazai didn’t look at anything, he gazed aimlessly into the air, “Is that so?”. Then he spoke with a disappointed face, “Then it is your loss.” A sniper bullet went straight for Verlaine’s head. Verlaine bent his upper body, and felt down the slope of humus. He rolled three times then looked up, looking at Dazai with stern eyes.

“Sniper?”

Before he could finish his sentence, yet another bullet struck Verlaine’s forehead. He almost fell to his side, pushing his hands against the ground to support.

“Your ability only works on things that you can touch.” Dazai said, swinging his legs as he looked down on his opponent. “That’s why the bullets that hit you will hit you. They just stop immediately. However, if we aim a larger sniper bullet, which has several times the velocity of a normal bullet, then it will still give you a blow the moment you use your gravity to stop it. Also...”

Dazai casually raised his hand.

From the top of the hill, through the gaps of the trees, from inside the humus, on top of big trees, more than fifty sniper bullets were fired at Verlaine at the same time. All the bullets pierced him, Verlaine growled.

Verlaine tried to hide under the shades of the trees while protecting himself by gravity. But even in the places he ran to, he got attacked from behind. Even if he tried to lower his posture to hide, the attack would come from above the trees. He had nowhere to run.

“To be able to set up this many snipers... in such a short time...”

A bullet pierced through Verlaine’s clothes and slid through his skin. It’s not a wound that could make him bleed, but there are so many of them. Ten shots in one second, then twenty, and more kept coming. It’s like the air that surrounds his whole body has become his enemies and attacked him.

Verlaine had no choice but to protect his head with his two arms and rolled himself up.

“You picked the wrong opponent, Verlaine-san.” Dazai chuckled. “I am an expert when it comes to dealing with gravity. Because no matter if I wake or sleep, the only thing I think about is how to annoy Chuuya.”

“Don’t underestimate me!”

While enduring the rain of bullets that were striking him, Verlaine grabbed a tree close by and pulled it out of the ground.

“You think you can kill me with this kind of rock throwing play? Verlaine swung the tree, trying to throw it. He planned to use the tree as a spear to crush the snipers who were hiding faraway in the dark.

However, that hand of his stopped halfway.

It was because the tree had been cut into pieces.

“Hoho, if I look closely, you look terribly like my subordinate.”

There was a flowing female voice as graceful as the sound of harp.

The burning bright red hair, eyes of the same color. Her crimson red

ombré looked like the color of ripen maple leaves. The most eye-catching thing was what floated beside her, a masked demon in a kimono. The demon was tall with long hair. She carried a sword of almost the same height as a child, as if it had no weights at all. The golden kimono melt into the air from her knees downwards, showing that it was not a real body.

“However, it was Mr. Brother who selfishly tried to poach our boy from us. I guess I can let that go after cutting off one of your limbs or two. So you’d better get lost quickly.”

Ozaki Kouyou. The Port Mafia’s young sword-woman. A powerful skill user who took Chuuya as her subordinate, accompanied by the golden demon, an embodiment of her skill, a beautiful beast.

Kouyou rolled a bright peony-colored umbrella on her shoulder. And then she twisted its handle and pulled it out. A silver blade appeared. A hidden sword.

“Mafia’s skill user?” Verlaine smiled like a beast. “But what can a mere ability user with two swords can do against gravity?”

Verlaine lowered his posture, ready to jump at Kouyou.

“Who said that I was alone?”

Verlaine’s body sank in.

Startled, Verlaine looked at his feet. The ground undulated like a snake, swallowing his two legs and even crawling up. 

Verlaine was caught by surprise. He got rid of the gravity of his own body and jumped up. He landed on a trunk of a tree nearby. But even the trunk that definitely looked tough started to liquify the moment his shoes touched. It reached for Verlaine, trying to eat him up.

“This is...” Verlaine leaped again. However, the spot he planned to land on already turned into a mud with a will of its own, opening its mouth to wait for him.

“Hahaha. Keep running, young man. Youngsters like you exist to entertain this old man. Please die quickly and offer your head to me.”

Coming from the darkness of the woods was a big, strong man who looked just like a big tree. A military uniform that has faded in places. His bristle looked like a sewing needle. He wore a judo belt around his waist, and wooden clogs on his feet The arms folding in front of his chest were as thick as a tree that has lived for hundred years.

Port Mafia’s elite, a veteran who survived the Great War. His nickname in the organization is “Colonel.”

He swung his arms like an ancient tree and squeezed his fist tightly in front of his eyes. At the same time, the ground started to muffle. The liquified soil, trees, even the overturned train, all rushed to attack Verlaine in the air. An skill user who can manipulate objects and turn them into liquids?

Verlaine kicked the first wave of liquified soil that came towards him and retreated backward. But the soil was also coming from that direction. Even if he tried to change his orbit to run, liquified soil was still coming from beneath his feet and above his head. If they touched him they would still be blown away by the gravity, but the liquid will start to cover up from the top again, giving no time for Verlaine to prepare a counter attack.

On top of that, as if to stitch up the gaps, there were sniper shots coming from all directions.

“Tch...”

Verlaine densified a small amount of dust in the air, and stepped on that to leap his body up. He wanted to take some distance. Abilities that manipulate things like Colonel’s, in most of the cases won’t work for things that are out of their sights. That’s why he planned to hide deep in the wood then throw a huge rock enforced by gravity to finish them off.

An odd thing entered Verlaine’s field of vision at that moment.

A watch.

A watch was floating in the air.

From the outside, it looked just like a normal pocket watch. A dial with numbers, a long hand and a short hand, a crown, and the internal mechanism peeking out from the edge of the dial.

The strange thing about it was that it had a size of a man’s upper body. Also, it kept turning around as if it was staring at Verlaine.

Verlaine, who possesses a wide range of knowledge on skill users, sensed the danger from that watch almost immediately.

He tore off one button from the sleeve of his suit and amplified its gravity until it weighted dozens of kilograms. Then he threw it towards the watch.

That button comet holding enough power to knock down a building, however, couldn't interfere with the watch. It smoothly slipped through the watch, knocked off trees and disappeared into darkness.

“You can’t destroy that thing.”

A gloomy voice came from the ground.

Verlaine diverted his gaze and without his notice, a boy was already sitting on the ground. He was hugging his knees with his two arms, looking miserable. He looked up at Verlaine.

“It’s no use. That thing looks at everyone. Including me, and you. We have no choices but to die. One day it will find us. One day it will catch up with us. It’s　“time”. It’s the enemy of us all.”

He looked and sounded miserably. His clothes were so long it became awkward. The hems were all frayed. The boy who was so skinny you could see his bones through his clothes glared at Verlaine and waved his finger as if he was telling him “Come here, come here.”

The two hands of the watch clicked and pointed to the number 12 at the same time. Immediately afterwards, the watch in the air was sucked into Verlaine.

That was not a metaphor, it was literally sucked into him, into his chest.

Being wary of the disappeared watch, Verlaine stiffened his body. But nothing happened. There is nothing within his sig...

The liquified soil twisted around his legs.

Startled, Verlaine shook the liquid off by gravity. Then he looked around. He had got pretty far away for sure. It was so strange that the liquified soil could chase him this close. Right after that was a shock. A sniper bullet hit his head. Verlaine span halfway in the air. He landed on the ground, scraping the humus to stop.

It was weird. The speed of the sniper attack went up. The speed of the bullet by the moment it reached him was so fast that even if he used gravity to bounce it back, he was also blown away by a corresponding force.

“Did they replace their guns or bullets with more powerful ones? No, this is...”

The ground liquified again. Verlaine jumped out to dodge, before being eaten by the soil. But the speed of the liquid tentacles that extended and followed him also increased. Verlaine took a quick look around. From the treetops that were hit by the sniper attack just now, leaves were falling down. They were not fluttering, they were dropping as if they were stabbing the ground. This means, the attack speed didn’t get faster...

“Was my time... slowed down?”

“Everyone will die before me.” the gloomy boy stared at Verlaine with dubious eyes filled with hatred. “Brothers, parents, everyone will be killed by time. But I will get away with it. With this special power of mine”

A skill user who meddles with time. For the first time, Verlaine got a cold sweat on his forehead.

Time manipulation is not just a powerful skill, it is a extraordinary skill out of this world. As far as Verlaine knew, there were only a few cases reported in the world. The fist on the list of those time manipulation skill users who are separated from the world’s reasons, was a former skilled mechanic, H.G. Wells. After creating the skilled weapons called the “Shell”, she disappeared and became the world’s worst terrorist.

The time manipulation type of skills tinker the basic principles of this world, and rewrite them at will. Because if you look from the universe’s perspective, time and space are equivalent. The time manipulation skill users hold the same power that can alter the world, just like Verlaine’s gravity. Verlaine whose movements have become dulled because of the time delay　was flooded with Mafia’s attacks. All the bullets, the swords and liquified soil.

Even if he tried to retreat, because his time has been delayed, he could only move sluggishly as if he was under water.

Verlaine’s expressions became stiff.

Dazai gracefully looked at the wooded area echoing with gun shots and roaring sounds. He looked down at the battlefield that had turned into a hell, with such a carefree expression that cooled down in the night breeze._

“This is the rule of this world.” Dazai spoke like he was singing. “It applied in all times and ages, all creatures, the absolute truth. In this world, a group is stronger than an individual. A skill user is stronger than a group. And then...”

Feeling the pleasant cold breeze coming from the blasts of the battle on his cheeks, Dazai smiled.

“... a group of skill users are stronger than one skill user.”

Verlaine pushed his body’s gravity to the max. With a powerful driving force that surpassed the effect of the time manipulation skill, he quickly escaped from the battlefield. Verlaine’s bones cracked at the sudden speed acceleration that exceeded his limit.

Even when the danger struck in front of him, Verlaine’s judgement did not falter. It was not yet a hopeless situation. He would retreat as much as he could, taking as much distance he could from the waves of skill attacks. Then he would fix his posture, manipulate the gravity of the bullets that managed to reach him, repel them and knock down the skill users, one by one. That would be his win then.

Only three skill users. Not too much of a difference in strength.

Suddenly, blood came out from his skin.

Verlaine looked at his cuffs. The skin under his clothes was peeled off, exposing the flesh inside. But only a little blood came out. He felt almost no pains.

He landed down on the ground as a reflex. Upon touching the ground, the skin inside his shoes also came off. He could tell by the slippery feel from it. But again, there was no pain.

That was a new skill attack. But the true nature of it immediately became clear.

His breath was white.

His skin is frozen, there was frost on his eyelashes.

“Let us be held. By the frozen love. Let us be held. By the frozen flower that breaks in its full bloom.” the new skill user appeared, singing with a thin and screechy voice.

Long, white hair, white fur around her shoulders, white breath. And a crimson red rose on her chest. Every time the woman takes one breath, the trees around her froze, cracked up and snapped due to the water inside it freezing and expanding.

Verlaine understood it right away.

A skill user who can cool off the temperate. The reason why his skin was peeled off earlier was because the skin was exposed to the low temperature and got stuck to the inside of his clothes and shoes. His body really became that cold in just an instant. He was frozen from flesh to born, but not much time has even passed.

A super dangerous skill user. Freezing attack does not involve physical clashes. That’s why he can’t dodge them using gravity. It is his natural enemy

Another sniper bullet hit Verlaine’s shoulder. He groaned in pain.

The bullet was cold. It froze by the time it touched his skin, forming a frost pillar. The low temperature invaded into him through the wound, eating up his flesh.

The enemies attacks were too synchronized. Time delay, freezing, sniping. Apparently, it was a tactic that had been put together to block all of Verlaine’s strengths and exploit his weaknesses. There is still something strange about this. He has been retreating at a considerable speed since a while ago, yet the gunshots never stopped. His escape route was totally seen through. Normally if he ran at this speed in the woods in the middle of the night, he would immediately disappear from the telescopic sight. Losing the targets, sniping attack would definitely become impossible. So why?

“Hihihihi, what a sweet face. Hey, just between us, but if you cry and slobber and apologize here, maybe I will let you go this time?”

The voice was close. Really close.

Verlaine turned to that direction.  No one was there... No.

In the middle of no where, a hole the size of a coin was opened. It was like the space was burnt and hollowed out, and on the other side of the hole was another different space. From that side, a black eye was staring at this side through the hole.

“Yes, it’s me. You are being watched. From now on, you can be assured even if you lock your toilet door hihihihi”

The hole was so small to see the entire thing. But that eye alone is enough. The eye was filled with malice. It had been watching Verlaine, chasing him and reporting about his positions all the time.

Verlaine fired a rotary kick by reflex at the hole.

“Oops.”

Right before being hit, the hole closed up and disappeared.

“I’m here.”

The voice came from behind. When he turned around, the same hole had been opened in a different place, looking straight at Verlaine.

That was the type of skill that connects space and monitor the targets. The skill user was probably sitting in another safe place, and monitoring the whole battle using their space connection skill. He couldn’t attack the actual skill user. If he tried to touch it, it would close immediately so he wouldn’t be able to destroy it using gravity.

Just how many skill users they have thrown in this battle?

“Hihihi, I have a present for you. From Port Mafia with love.”

From the coin-sized hole, flower petals flew out. Countless petals surrounded Verlaine then started to shine white. Yet another new skill.

The moment Verlaine tried to take a quick avoidance action, all the flower petals exploded at once.

From the train where he sat, Dazai could see the light from that explosion very clearly. The white light split open the woods at night, the afterglow burnt into the night sky.

Dazai looked at that scene, he was grinning.

“How is it going, Dazai-dono?”

From inside the train, a middle-aged man appear. He was wearing the boss’ outfit. He was the one who played the boss’ double, Hirotsu.

“As you can see, it is going well. So well that it is boring.”

In the direction he was pointing, the explosion sound was echoing, trees were falling, sniper flashes and low frequency noises were ringing non-stop.

Hirotsu took off the wig, put on the monocle he always has on, and narrowed his eyes.

“As one would expect.”

“Of course, I had to earn a lot of time to prepare all this. “ said Dazai, who was crossing his legs elegantly like a royal. “Chuuya and I had a terrible hard time fighting Randou-san. So this time I came prepared. Just to kill Mr. Assasin King from Europe, I had to gather a total of 422 people from the combat troops and 28 skill users. That is the full strength that Mafia can put in now.” At the scene where they were looking, the cold air and gun flashes kept shining. Verlaine tried to escape by threading his way in between the trees but a yellow-white ray burnt off the whole night sky, blocking that escape route. That was yet another skill user.

The plan was extremely simple. Setting up a trap and waiting. Chuuya and Adam drafted the same tactic before to defeat the Assasin King. The plan that Dazai carried out was basically the same. Identify the next target, set up traps around that target, and ambush Verlaine from behind when he appears.

The only difference between this and Chuuya’s plan is the scale of those traps. What have been set up as traps this time, was the entire Mafia’s overwhelming combat unit. The result was a one-sided destruction.

“We can keep this battle going for the whole night.” Dazai said as if he was whispering to Verlaine from far away. “Verlaine-san, you are a flawless assassin. With that vivid skill of yours, you have never once been traced down and surrounded like that, haven’t you? That’s why you have no experiences when being cornered by such a skill users organization. Even Randou-san was afraid of that dangerous flawlessness of yours.”

Dazai took out the leather notebook.

Rimbaud’s memoir. The journal Rimbaud had kept about the birth as well as full accounts of skill user Verlaine.

“I mourn for you, Verlaine-san.” Dazai put his hand on the notebook and said as if he was praying. “I mourn not for your death, but for your birth. No one mourns for you for being born. The only one who does is you yourself. That is the reason you fights... I think you are amazing. You despise the fact that you were born, you despise your own power, you despise the world. And by doing that, you came to accept your meaningless life. How wonderful that is. I don’t have that kind of courage. That’s why I wanted to talk with you more. But this is already goodbye.”

Dazai stood up, turning his back on the battlefield in front of him. He walked away.

“Dazai-dono?”

“Report to me when it is done.”

Dazai’s voice powerlessly fell to his feet. He walked away.

The next moment. A black way swelled over the battlefield.

...

[stolen-pen-name23]

13 for the prompts? (If it hasn’t been done yet) with obi wan and qui gon because yes 💜

I sure can! Thank you for the prompt! // From these prompts.

So I think I'm going to actually write a prequel chapter (or 2) for this fic later, so keep an eye out for that!

Anyway, here ya go:

---

As a Jedi connected to the Living Force, Qui-Gon has greater respect than most for life — human or otherwise. So for a practitioner of the Living Force, it is a little unusual for him to feel this homicidal.

No, Qui-Gon has rarely felt rage quite like this.

Of course, he does not want the people… No, wait. "People" is too kind of a word for them. He does not want the vermin slavers who did this to his Padawan to die. He just wants them to suffer for a bit. Suffer like his Padawan is currently suffering — and maybe a bit more after that.

“Let me go!” Obi-Wan screams, pulling on the restraints holding him in place on the bed. Neither Qui-Gon nor Vokara Che had wanted to do this — not after Obi-Wan had just been freed from chains — but he was clawing at his skin and objects around the room had started floating with every aimless gesture of his hands. “Please, Master, let me go,” he begs, his voice raw from screaming.

“Soon, Padawan, soon,” Qui-Gon soothes. “The drugs just need to work their way through your system.”

The logic was lost on Obi-Wan. The young man before him, just barely 18, looks as though he has been betrayed.

“Let me go. Please let me go. I need to stop it, I need…”

“Stop what?” Qui-Gon prods, hoping that humoring his padawan will help him work through it faster.

“Stop him.”

“Who?”

“The man!” he says it plainly like it is a well-known fact who the man is.

“What man?”

“The man with the scar on his eye.”

Qui-Gon tries to think through everyone he knows. He can’t think of a single person with a scar on their eye.

“What is the man’s name?”

“I don’t know,” Obi-Wan says, frustration mixing into the fear that hangs potent in his Force presence.

“Why do you have to stop him?”

Obi-Wan stops straining against his bonds and his eyes clear momentarily. The sudden stillness feels heavy — like something lying in wait.

“He will tear everything down,” Obi-Wan turns to look at Qui-Gon and his eyes are clear and certain. “Everything.”

A chill runs down Qui-Gon’s spine.

Then the fog returns. Obi-Wan strains against his bonds once more.

“Let me go. Let me out. I’m not supposed to be here!”

“You are exactly where you need to be, my Padawan.”

“No no no no no.” There is a crazed look of hysteria in his eyes. It is so unnatural an expression for his Padawan, Qui-Gon almost cannot bear to look. But he looks anyway because he swore to stand by his Padawan’s side through all things, even this.

“Stop!” Obi-Wan screams. “Stop it! Please! I don’t want to hurt you!”

Qui-Gon shifts uncomfortably. “Who are you talking to?” he asks.

“You were my brother!”

What?

“You… Obi-Wan, you don’t have a brother,” Qui-Gon stutters. Who is he talking about?

Obi-Wan tosses his head to the side and then tosses it again until he’s looking at Qui-Gon.

“Let me go!” Obi-Wan yells.

“So there’s been no change huh?” A female voice cuts in.

Qui-Gon jumps. His attention was so fixed on Obi-Wan, he didn't notice Vokara Che slip into the room.

“What the hell did they drug him with?” Qui-Gon growls, his anger threatening to spill over at just the thought of the slavers and what they did to Obi-Wan.

“We’re still running tests on his blood. But we narrowed it down to some sort of hallucinogen.”

“I could have told you that,” Qui-Gon mutters.

Vokara fixes him with one of her strongest glares.

“Apologies, Master Che,” he amends. “I am just concerned for him.”

“I know,” Vokara says. Qui-Gon is grateful that she does not tell him to release his anxieties to the Force. He is not quite ready to part with them yet.

“Do you have any idea how long this will last?” Qui-Gon asks, hoping this nightmare will end soon.

“It’s hard to say. It depends on his body and how fast it works through the drugs. Hallucinogens can last six hours or they can last as long as fifteen hours.”

“It’s only been three hours,” Qui-Gon says, feeling sick at the possibility of his Padawan enduring this for twelve more hours.

Vokara squeezes his shoulder in sympathy. “He’s a strong boy,” Vokara said. “A strong young man, I should say,” she adds on. “He’ll make it through this. I can’t say for certain without knowing what exactly is in his system, but most hallucinogenic drugs don’t cause any permanent damage.” “Most?”

“What I’m saying is that I think your Padawan will be okay. I have him on an IV so he won’t get dehydrated, which is usually the biggest concern with hallucinogens.”

Qui-Gon turns his attention back to Obi-Wan. Sweat has matted his hair and his skin is a sickly pale color. His screaming has turned into sobbing.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he cries. He pulls at the restraints. “I don’t like these.”

“We don’t want you to hurt yourself,” Vokara says calmly. She runs a scanner over Obi-Wan’s body and looks at the readings. Whether it is good or bad, Qui-Gon is not sure. Her expression gave nothing away.

“If anything changes, please come get me,” Vokara says.

Qui-Gon nods. “Of course.”

Vokara takes her leave and Qui-Gon gives his undivided attention to Obi-Wan.

“Let me go,” Obi-Wan begs again.

“I can’t,” Qui-Gon says. “You heard Master Che. It’s for your own safety.”

Obi-Wan groans. “What is happening to me?”

Qui-Gon’s heart feels like it is breaking open in his chest.

“I’m so sorry that this is happening to you, Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon says “You’ll be okay soon.”

“But what’s happening?” Obi-Wan asks. Qui-Gon is hopeful that this moment of partial clarity lasts. Obi-Wan has been giving him false hope over the past few hours. Moments of clarity, all chased away by delirium.

“You’ve been drugged,” Qui-Gon says.

“Oh. I feel weird. I feel… not good. Hot.”

“Do you want some water?” Qui-Gon asks.

Obi-Wan looks like he’s going to answer, but his eyes glaze over and he is no longer looking at Qui-Gon.

“I keep seeing…”

“Obi-Wan?” Qui-Gon asks.

“I see…”

“What do you see, Padawan?” Qui-Gon asks, hoping he’ll be able to help Obi-Wan realize his hallucinations aren’t real.

“No!” Obi-Wan screams.

Qui-Gon’s hope vanishes. With a sigh, he begins stroking Obi-Wan’s sweat-drenched hair, smoothing it out from all of his tossing and turning.

Hours of begging and screaming and pulling at restraints pass until it seems Obi-Wan’s body is exhausted beyond its limits. His howls turn to whimpers. His sobs turn to hitched breaths. And finally, he passes out. Qui-Gon sighs a breath of relief and prays to the Force that when his Padawan wakes up, he will be his Padawan once more.

***

Qui-Gon can sense Obi-Wan coming back to consciousness before he even notices him stirring. He squints at the bright light of the room and groans.

Obi-Wan tries to move his arm but is held back by the restraints still keeping him down. Panic sets itself in Obi-Wan’s widened eyes.

“Why am I… M-Master?” His chest heaves with growing panic and he starts pulling at the bonds with renewed vigor.

“Hey, hey, Obi-Wan. It’s me. You’re alright,” Qui-Gon says, moving into his line of sight. Obi-Wan stares at him, unblinking and terrified. “What do you see right now?”

Obi-Wan hesitates. “I see you. I… I see this room. There’s not much in it.”

“Okay, good. Can you take a few deep breaths for me while I got get Master Che?”

“You’re leaving?” Obi-Wan asks, his voice going an octave higher.

“Only for a moment. You need to get looked over before I can let you out of those things,” Qui-Gon says, gesturing to the restraints with disdain.

Obi-Wan eyes the restraints and nods his approval.

Qui-Gon races out to find Master Che and she follows him back to Obi-Wan’s room.

“Hello, Obi-Wan,” Vokara says in greeting. “Are you feeling better?”

He nods glumly but does not offer her much else.

“All right, well I’m just going to perform a quick examination okay?”

Obi-Wan nods his consent and Vokara gets to work.

“I’m going to take these restraints off of your hands and ankles all right?”

He nods vigorously and Vokara undoes the buckles. When his hands are freed, Obi-Wan rubs his wrists. They’ve been chaffed raw and the skin is an angry red.

Vokara does not judge. She does not say a word about the welts. She simply takes a jar of bacta gel and rubs it on Obi-Wan’s wrists.

“Those should feel better in a few hours,” she says. Vokara follows the gentle administration with a blood sample. She runs a scanner over his body.

“Your vitals are normal, which is a good sign,” Vokara says. “I’m going to run your labs, and after that, we can see about letting you go home to rest.”

No protests, no haggling, no complaints come from Obi-Wan at the prospect of staying in the halls of healing even longer. Even Vokara raises an eyebrow at this.

“Are you sure you’re feeling better?” she asks. “Any nausea? Headache?”

“A little,” he says softly. Vokara exchanges a glance with Qui-Gon at the admittance.

“That’s pretty normal,” she says. “Is there anything else bothering you? Any other pain?”

“Just tired.”

“That’s to be expected after what your body has been through.”

“Hmm.”

“I’m going to run these labs, but let me know if your headache gets worse or if you feel like you need to throw up.”

He nods obediently.

Vokara leaves Qui-Gon alone with his Padawan.

Obi-Wan’s face scrunches up in concentration.

“What is it, Padawan?”

“There was something… something important…” Obi-Wan starts. Some of his earlier panic starts to return and his chest begins to heave. “I saw it. I just… I don’t know...”

“Hush, it’s alright. None of it was real,” Qui-Gon soothes.

“No!” Obi-Wan says forcefully, and for a moment, Qui-Gon worries the drug has not completely left his system yet. “It was… it felt…”

“How did it feel?” Qui-Gon asks.

Fear, sorrow, and anguish all flash across Obi-Wan’s eyes. His fingers dance in a nervous tapping pattern on the frame of the bed.

“How did it feel?” Qui-Gon asks again.

Obi-Wan stops tapping his fingers.

“Like the end of all things.”

The young man is still, as though he is afraid that the next move he makes will set his visions on a path to fruition.

“You need to stay grounded, Padawan. Stay in the here and now.”

Anger flared in the Force — white-hot and foreign.

“Oh yeah? You try to stay grounded after you get kidnapped by slavers and then drugged with some unknown substance that makes you question everything you see and feel,” Obi-Wan snaps.

Qui-Gon gives him a moment. He needs a moment.

Obi-Wan’s face crumples and he buries his head in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice muffled by his own hands. His shoulders shake. “I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s alright, Padawan. You’ve been through a lot in the last 48 hours. I will not fault you for taking a tone with me.”

Obi-Wan offers him a strained laugh and he wipes at his eyes before looking back up at Qui-Gon. “I just…”

“Tell me, Padawan. Anything.”

“Is this real?”

“Yes, Obi-Wan. This is real.” Qui-Gon grabs Obi-Wan’s hand and squeezes it. “Feel this?”

Obi-Wan nods.

“That’s because it is real. You and I. Here and now. We are real.”

Obi-Wan takes in a shuddering breath. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Qui-Gon reaffirms.

Obi-Wan nods. “Okay.”

“Good.”

Qui-Gon reaches over and tugs on Obi-Wan’s braid.

“Hey!” Obi-Wan exclaims, rubbing his scalp. “What was that for?”

“For scaring me,” Qui-Gon says, giving Obi-Wan a faux look of reproach.

“Apologies, Master,” Obi-Wan says. “I’ll try not to let it happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t.”

Obi-Wan grins at him before yawning.

“You should get some rest.”

Obi-Wan shakes his head, but he yawns again.

“You are obviously tired,” Qui-Gon says, unimpressed. “Why don’t you want to sleep?”

“I don’t…”

“Yes, Padawan?”

“If I fall asleep, will you stay?” Obi-Wan finally says, his voice quiet and his cheeks flush with embarrassment. “You don’t have to,” he quickly adds on. “I just. I don’t want to be alone and I’m still not sure if any of this is real and I want it to be real, but I—”

“Of course I will stay,” Qui-Gon says. “You’re real, I’m real, and I’m staying.”

“Thanks, Master,” Obi-Wan says, his eyes fluttering closed.

Qui-Gon stays and keeps guard over Obi-Wan’s dreams.