#seems to view me as some kind of oddity

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia

Feel free to ignore if this is unwelcome, but have you ever thought about publishing traditionally to sublimate your income and draw in new readers? I know you've self published two books already and that you didn't feel like they did very well, but maybe the experience would be different if someone else was in charge of marketing and all the other business stuff?

Obviously everyone's experience is different but as an author myself who's published both trad and self, traditional publishing has been a completely different experience and has allowed me to focus more on writing because I'm not the one responsible for advertising/marketing/financing anymore.

There are a ton of literary agents nowadays that want to represent diverse and lgbtqia+ fiction, some of them even in Australia.

Websites like Reedsy, AgentQuery and Jerichowriters have extensive directories to find literary agents.

(This is lengthy folks so I'm putting the other two parts (and my response) under a read more! Also putting it under a read more so the anon can skip my response since it's very 'here's all the reasons I can't do this' and they just might not want to read that, lmao)

(continued -> )

Trad publishing houses have better resources for marketing and helping authors get more attention than any self publishing website could.

Obviously most authors, unless they're really prolific, don't get a huge advance (the average is between $1000 - $5000) but getting your foot in the door or on the traditional publishing "ladder' so to speak can have a huge benefit for your serials. Because it gives you more exposure. Plus it's in the agent's best interest to find a publishing house that accepts stories that contain darker themes and negotiate the best deal for you.

For some reason places like Amazon and the like accept and keep up more "dark" books that are traditionally published than they do with self pub ones. Maybe because they have more respect or leniency for publishing houses? I have no idea. But you could use this to your advantage. I think I remember you mentioning that writing novels felt quite isolating to you? But you already have 2 completed novels (3 if you count the fae one) that you could potentially revisit or rewrite to your liking and get them represented by agents.

You already have a loyal readership and that's very attractive to trad pub houses and agents.

As well as trad publishing, you could also make s simple website that doesn't require much maintenance. It could be just a landing page that says something about you and then has links to your tumblr and patreon where you're more active. That way you increase the chances of getting your serials found by additional readers and also come across looking more "professional". Not that you're not professional now. You are and I admire you greatly, but the unfortunate reality is a lot of people still judge by appearances and some will be more drawn to an author's website than a tumblr page, at least at first. So I think having a simple landing page would open up another door for you to benefit from.

Trad publishing is work but definitely not as much as self publishing, and you can continue on with your serials. Getting an agent can be time consuming but I personally believe the pros outweigh the cons and I also believe that your stories would be a huge treasure to the growing lgbtqia+ market. Seriously there needs to be more!

These are just suggestions and thoughts and like I said before, feel free to ignore. But I know you've mentioned wanting to grow your career in the past and I genuinely believe you can do so with some of these pathways.

~

Okay, my response. Posting this because firstly I think the suggestions could work very well for other authors reading this! And I hope they take the advice to note, and secondly because I haven't talked about this for a hot minute so let's talk about it again.

So the TL;DR is yes I have considered traditional publishing. I have actually been traditionally published in short stories, poetry, and also had my art published on covers and re: interior illustrations. But my Fae Tales works got soundly rejected when I sent them to publishing houses that were doing open calls for that sort of material. I've never heard back from an agent and I never expect to, heh.

~

Now for a bit more detail

I have been traditionally published before (it's how I got my writing out there long before I ever wrote serials), and yes, I have approached publishers with my writing since then. In fact Tradewinds was written for the traditional publishing market, and it got soundly rejected, and then shelved. The reasons it was rejected ran the gamut from 'I don't like that these fae eat humans no one is going to relate to these people' (while the editor then went on to publish vampire books idk) to 'There's too much worldbuilding you can't expect readers to keep up with this' to 'Your stories are too long, no one wants to read characters talking all the time.'

Meanwhile in my online serials I was getting feedback like 'my favourite chapters are the ones where the characters just sit in a room and talk' lol.

The traditional publishing world is also not quite as utopian for most authors as you make it seem. I'm friends with a lot of authors who are traditionally published because that's the world I came from, and unless they're solely in KU and doing generic rapid release formula romances, none of them are making that much money. Certainly not enough to live off. It may have been that you were very fortunate, anon, but I know hundreds more traditionally published authors that left trad pub to make money, and I know about 5 in trad pub personally who are making enough to live off of.

Only one of those is really writing what she truly loves to write, and even then, publishing houses have refused to commit to her entire fantasy series (and she's regularly in 'Top 10/20 Women Fantasy Authors in the World' lists) and forced her to finish the series prematurely. Something I never ever have to worry about in self pub.

The reality is that in trad pub these days, you're still in charge of most of your marketing unless you're one of the big earners for the publishing house. In fact I'd be expected to keep even more of a social media and marketing presence than I do now. I don't do almost any of the things you're supposed to do as an author in marketing to be appealing. I don't have a Facebook author account. I don't have an Instagram author account. I don't maintain or regularly send out newsletters (which automatically puts me in the like 0.05% of authors who make money doing this lmao).

I don't know if you ever have looked that closely into what m/m publishing houses expect from most of their authors, but the newsletter swaps, cover releases, review circuits, interview circuits and more are fucking grueling. We're expected to be responsible for our advertising and our marketing to a fairly massive degree. Some traditionally published in m/m still have to pay for their release blitzes out of pocket. These publishing houses, by and large, do not offer advances. You say most authors don't get large advances. I don't think most authors in this arena get offered advances at all unless they're somehow miraculously acquired by a Big 4.

We're expected to have an already established social media presence because of that (that's why it's so appealing to publishers that we have social media presences already, anon, so we can market, they can save money, and we still see only a minimal cut from the royalties).

And you still have to focus on your finances, because publishing houses like Dreamspinner straight up didn't pay a whole bunch of authors for so long they destroyed careers. They still haven't paid some of their authors. And they're still running a business and people still buy their books.

Trad publishing houses have better resources for marketing and helping authors get more attention than any self publishing website could.

This is true if a) they're a big publishing house and not an indie publisher of which most LGBTQIA+ publishing houses are and b) they're willing to use them on you.

The authors that make the most money get the most resources. If they believe you're going to earn back your advance and move thousands or tens of thousands of units per book, then yes, you will get those resources.

I have been told so many times now - even from friends who run publishing houses, including one who works at HarperCollins - that my work will never be mainstream enough to have broad appeal. They literally told me not to keep trying re: trad pub, because that was my dream for a long time. These folks have given me rock solid advice in the past, it's one of the reasons I'm doing so well now via Patreon + Ream. But they were like (paraphrasing) 'you don't write 60-80k romances and you don't want to and that's not your strength anyway, you're multi-genre which makes you hard to market, you write psychological and literary trauma recovery which is hard to market, you write character studies which are hard to market, publishing houses often don't commit to series anymore if the first two don't move units and if they pulled the plug you'd be contractually obliged to never finish that series until your contract was up.' I could go on, but it was like yeah...actually. Fair.

For some reason places like Amazon and the like accept and keep up more "dark" books that are traditionally published than they do with self pub ones. Maybe because they have more respect or leniency for publishing houses?

They do, but most publishing houses want very formulaic dark romance which is not what I write.

I have a 300k omegaverse slowburn that still hasn't had any penetrative sex in it, anon. Publishing houses don't want that. They don't expect anyone will wait 4 full length novels to get to literally a single penetrative sex scene.

But you already have 2 completed novels (3 if you count the fae one) that you could potentially revisit or rewrite to your liking and get them represented by agents.

If I rewrote them to my liking, trad pub wouldn't want them. They'd be too long! I think agents etc. take one look at me and go 'oh god, no thank you!' I'm not an easy sell, by any means.

Plus I'm very e.e about all of that with the knowledge that they then give me only about 10-15% of the royalties on the sales, vs. self-pub where I get around 70%, or subscription where I around 80% of it. When someone subscribes to me, they don't have to worry about 85-90% of their subscription fee going to a publishing house. I don't have to think about how many thousands and thousands of books I'd have to sell to make the same amount that I do now via subscription.

As well as trad publishing, you could also make s simple website that doesn't require much maintenance.

If it was that simple, I'd be doing it. I don't mean this in a facetious way, I mean it in a: I've made a lot of websites, in fact I run one at the moment not connected to my writing (I've been running it for so long it's now in its 20s and can probably has a driver's license). I find it so tedious that I barely remember to check in on it. But forgetting about it means there's always maintenance to keep up with when I get back to it.

Running websites is simpler than it used to be, but it's still not simple. There's hosting and hosting costs, there's server changes, there's back-end maintenance etc. I'm considering it for down the track, but there's a reason I decided to go the route of Patreon over my own site. There are authors (like Christopher Hopper) who actually do subscription through their own domain, but it's a lot of work.

Even placeholder sites are still work. They need updating, details change, story titles changing etc. Maintaining my Patreon + Ream About pages is enough, they're always both a little out of date, lol.

Not that you're not professional now.

Oh no, I mean from a 'traditional publisher looking at me to see what kind of candidate I am' I'm really not though. Like I said, I don't have the newsletter (100 subscribers who get one newsletter a year is not really a newsletter), I don't have the Facebook/Tiktok/Insta/Twitter/Bluesky/Threads accounts, etc. I write multi-genre across multiple steam levels, and I'm allergic to writing serials shorter than 150k. One of my best performing original serials was an 800k contemporary story with no sex in it but a lot of BDSM. It can't be marketed as clean or sweet, it's not high steam, an entire chapter is 'boy saves snail from rain.' Also he was cruel to animals, so not exactly what I'd call a sympathetic main.

And yet that story did so well for me via Patreon + Ream, because people want the kinds of stories that publishing houses generally don't want and I happen to be writing them.

Trad publishing is work but definitely not as much as self publishing, and you can continue on with your serials. Getting an agent can be time consuming but I personally believe the pros outweigh the cons and I also believe that your stories would be a huge treasure to the growing lgbtqia+ market. Seriously there needs to be more!

Anon I just literally do not believe an agent would want to represent me. I have 0% belief in that. Not from a self-deprecating angle but from a 'I am not a good bet for the trad market' perspective. From a 'I have so many friends who are trad pubbed authors who stare at me like I'm insane for writing serials as long as I do' perspective. From a 'professionals in the industry have told me it's amazing I'm doing so well in serials because there's no way they'd take a risk on what I'm doing' perspective. From a 'just because it's queer and diverse doesn't mean it hits literally any other thing a trad pub is looking for' perspective. I've been doing this for 10 years. There are agents who represent work similar to mine who know what I'm doing and wouldn't touch me with a ten foot pole. They're not missing out on a trick, they know I'm not broad appeal, and they're right.

Also the only way I'd have the energy to manage trad pub is by quitting serials. And honestly, I never found trad pub all that much fun while I was doing it for non-novel stuff. It was fine, and it is nice to have my stuff out there, but it was a ton of admin and a lot of going back and forth between people who really only care about marketing a product, and that's great and what they excel at! But I'm too disabled to turn this job into something crushing just to potentially make more money, I'd rather just quit and go back onto a full Disability Pension. I can't see any way I still get to write the stories I want to write, in the way that I write them, and be remotely appealing to a single reputable trad pub or agent.

Also *gestures to everything in this article*

[twisted-whatifs]

Cultural exchange, Malleus x reader.

Sumary: you’re hanging out with malleus, and end up getting to see his more dragon side.

Notes: it can be read as both romantic and platonic, but there is already an established close friendship, as well as I did put a minor sex joke in there but it’s overall pretty innocent.

2.4K words

His bed is criminally soft, the air smells of fire, pine, and comfort, and the dorm room you´re occupied in screams of wealth and status. So of course, this is exactly where you want to spend your afternoons!

Your head rests against the pillow, letting your hair spill out around your face, as you lay on your side in the middle of the queen-sized bed. The view before you is that of the soon-to-be king of Briar Valley’s room. The floors and walls are shrouded in black, making the fireplace at the foot of the bed seem much more powerful. Though his room isn't the most welcoming at first, you've grown used to it and all its quirks- like the tiny stone pieces on the floor, which he drags with him - by accident - while making gargoyles.

You let out a sigh of relief, not feeling burdened by the tall presence behind you. Rather, you find solace in knowing he's here with you, accompanying and protecting you. You roll over and onto your back, in response to him sitting on the edge of the bed.

“it's nice to finally have some alone time, without that weasel constantly complaining in my ear.” You say with a soft content smile, mirroring his own.

“I know how you feel. I'm beyond grateful for the time here at Night Raven Collage, although having Sebek and Silver tailing me at any given moment can be a burden at times.”

You let out a small kind of laugh, finding amusement in the fact that he, too, acknowledges those two and their overprotective nature. Releasing another sigh from your lungs, you close your eyes and bask in the peace of the moment; the bed beneath you lulling you to sleep, yet your mind still drifts.

“I could so live here - it's way better than ramshackle. That much is certain.”

“If it were up to me, you would have already had a room of your own in our dorm.”

“But it doesn't work like that, does it? Crowley wouldn't let me stay here in a million years”

“No, unfortunately not.”

He finishes off before laying down next to you, joining you in simply relaxing in the presence of each other. As tempting as it would be to open your eyes and turn your head to see him lying next to you, sleep is dragging you in.

“You know, all this dorm stuff… It's so weird to me. Where I'm from, we don't exactly have a magic mirror to tell us where we belong.”

"Well I have to admit, it is a bit of an oddity here as well- But how is your world, for it to be so different from ours?”

“I think a very big part of it is that in my world, we simply don't have magic and because of that, anything within the realm of magic is entirely foreign to me.”

“How intriguing… I think it's safe to assume you miss your home?”

“Yeah… the world I'm from is so different to yours… Like, for example, in my world dragons don't exist.” I finally open my eyes and turn to look at him. As I do, I see him quietly laughing.

“Believe it or not, the people of this world believe the same.”

“Really?!... But aren't you like a dragon?”

“To answer your question, no, I am not a full-blooded dragon. Rather, I'm a dragon/draconic fae, the two are different. According to the public, dragons are extinct, and even though I am in direct opposition to their claims, the general knowledge stays the same.”

“Woah… that's… wild?”

“You're right, it is, my Child of Man…”

“... Well, what does it entail to be a dragon fae?”

His gaze, which earlier had been focused on the ceiling, dipped down to meet yours. His breathtaking green eyes are locked on your own, as he gives you a quizzical look.

“What do you mean, Dear?”

You turn to your body to fully face him, as you sit up on the bed, looking down at him and taking in your position looming above him. He lays relaxed against the sheets, with his hands on his stomach. It is a rare sight for many, but not for you.

“Like, what's it like? What differences does it make?...” You shot a look up to his horns “... What does it look like?”

“... You wish to see my dragon form?”

“-YES”

He's taken aback for a second before his face softens into a smile and he laughs, like actually laughs with heart.

“You humans are such curious creatures… I should warn you, that you might not like what happens if you choose to go through with it.” A mischievous - almost playful - smile is spread across his face. It makes you smile too, to see him so genuinely enjoy something.

“And what does that mean? Is that a threat?”

“You'll find out~�� There's no way you're backing down now. You wait patiently as he slowly sits up on the bed, his back just a few inches away from the headboard, his back is as straight as ever.

“Where do we start?”

“Well I've already seen your tail once, but I would love to get a chance to see it up close!”

And with that, a tail spins itself around the edge of the bed from where it connects to him. It's as if it was never hidden in the first place, by how you didn't even notice it appeared. It is longer than his legs and it is covered in beautiful black scales, that shine blues and purples in the light, along with a couple of spikes along its back, ending at the tip with a small appendage (look at the picture for reference). Your eyes are busy studying his tail, while his eyes are busy studying you.

“... Wow… Can I touch it?”

“Go ahead… But be careful, one wrong move and it could easily fling you across the room.”

“You wouldn't do that, would you?”

“Maybe,” He says with that same grin on his face. He clearly wouldn't do it. He's just saying it to tease you. Taking his advice, I carefully reached my hand towards his tail and he so graciously moved closer to me- to the point where the end was touching my thigh. The scales are smooth and cold, yet I can feel the warmth from underneath them, it's a similar feeling to holding a snake yet way bigger- and that it belongs to one of my close friends. My hands trail across its length, admiring the intricacies as I run my fingers up the sides of one of the spikes, gently tapping the tip when I reach it to see how sharp it is. When retracting my finger, it was wholly intact. The spikes aren't particularly sharp.

My eyes met his once again, he wore a face of satisfaction as he observed me.

“I was right. You didn't send me flying”

Breaking the silence I spoke up, and in response, he chuckled- not so much because he found it funny, but rather, perhaps he was simply amused by my intrigue of his extensions. My hand was still on his tail, absentmindedly stroking the scales in an up-and-down motion.

“The last time I saw your tail, I didn't get to see it in such lights as the ones we currently have- Your scales are breathtaking”

“I'm glad you think so.” As he finished up his sentence, he lifted the end of his tail, until the tip was at perfect reach. Taking in the unspoken invitation, I make a final stroke from one of the points of the three-pointed tip, down before he retracts it, adjusting his position against the headboard.

He leans towards me, lifting his knee to support his elbow, so he can rest his cheek on the back of his hand. Meanwhile, his face is reflecting his highly aroused state of mind.

“Are you ready to move on to the next ones? To indulge your curiosities more; or do you wish to back out while you can?”

“You make it sound like I’m in some sort of imminent danger…”

He raised a brow and squinted his eyes, exaggeratedly scrutinizing me- for his standards- you, that is to say, most people as well, rarely ever see him so animated as he is now “Who says I'm not? I strike fear upon whoever may witness me.”

“Well, not me.”

“Perchance you're the peculiar one, then?”

I scoff and roll my eyes, not taking the jab to heart, before returning my gaze to his happy one. ”Well… you got wings right?”

“Indeed I do; you wish to indulge them next?”

“Sure, let's see them.”

Closing his eyes while nodding, he leaned back slightly, returning to a more neutral position, and relaxing his shoulders. “If I do, then it would make it a lot easier for me if I were to remove my shirt; are you comfortable with that, Child of Man?”

“Yeah, sure, I don't mind.”

“... And you can promise to not tell of this to anyone? If my grandmother were to catch wind of me undressing before a human, I would not hear the end of it.”

I chuckle at the thought.

“I promise- It won't end well for me either!”

He goes ahead without further conversation, beginning to undress. As the layers of fabric lifted off his body, it revealed more scales splayed across his features- even on the features visible earlier. The scales beautifully apply to, and exaggerate the contours and highlights of his body and face, making him look even more inhumanly beautiful.

He sits on his knees in front of me, threatening to make my neck ache if I had to look him in the eyes. Then, faster than I could compute, I’m surrounded by black. His large- large- wings encircle me. I whip my head from side to side, trying to look at them fully before my eyes lock with his. He wore the same stupid grin he did earlier, only bigger, I didn't even know he could be this expressive.

“So, child? Are you intimidated?”

“I-... well yes, kind of...”

His voice is roaring as he laughs at me, having his fun to the full before it softens into a more apologetic one.

“Sorry, the last thing I would want is for you to be scared of me.” He raised his hand and gently glided the back of his fingers against my cheek; he's been very bold recently.

He unflexed his wings, allowing the light to flow back to us. Between the very forward displays of affection, his high mood, and your eyes having to accommodate more light, you need a moment to adjust. And following you as you adjust, he does the same with his position, allowing you full access to his back. His wings go far lower than his back- the ends splay down far onto the bed.

You slowly reach out your hand, first coming into contact with the skin between the shoulder blades. His teal-tipped hair ends tickle your fingers before you finally come into contact with the wings. They spout out unusually from his back, with a joint prominent on the shoulder blade. As your hands glide upwards towards the tip of the top joint, you lightly graze over the talon placed on it, and moving your hand down further to the very end, you grasp the tip and watch it flex out and unfurl again, taking in and admiring the intricate ways it moves.

A few minutes go by of this- by curiously taking in his features, as he sits with his back turned to you in silence, to not interrupt your so focused observations; his wings being the biggest muse as it stands. Mesmerized by the way the thin tissue of his wings unfold when they open up, or the way that they can shield you away from almost any danger out there, within but a second.

The hair running down his back shifts, as he turns his head back to look at you, gazing at you with what could almost be described as sultry eyes.

“Did you have your fun?”

“Oh, if I did- your wings are enchanting, Malleus.”

He's turned over so he's facing you again, now getting yet another good look at the scales adorning his upper body. He smiles in contentment, the worn-out traces of his lipstick emphasising his lips as they curl upwards.

“So, Mal… is the next step full dragon form?”

“Oh no, my Child of Man, I think that will have to wait for another time; royal secrecy and indecency rules and whatnot.”

“Aw… Though when that does happen - which it will- can I ride you?”

“I can't promise anything, but it certainly wouldn't go against my reservations.”

Before you could answer, a notification rang through your phone, that Crowley gave you back at the Scarabia incident. As it turned out it was a text from Epel, in a group chat you’re in with your first-year friends. But as the screen lit up, the time caught your eye.

“There's only about an hour left, until I have to meet up with Grim again for dinner… how about we savour these last few moments?”

“Do you have anything particular in mind, prefect?”

He raised an eyebrow before answering, and when he was done speaking you took a bold move to lean forward, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him down to lay on the mattress along with you.

“Could we spend the time cuddling until I have to go again?”

His usual warm smile returns to his face, though differently this time, accompanied by the slightest redness dusting his cheeks.

“I would be delighted to.”

He gently grabs onto your waist, pulling you closer to his body. The scales on his neck feel cold to the touch, as you make yourself comfortable laying your head against his chest; letting the soft rhythmic thump of his heartbeat lull you to sleep before his tail wraps around one of your legs. Lastly, he opens his wings and wraps them around the two of you.

Staying like that, the two of you lay comfortably in each other's presence, before you had to return to whatever duties and responsibilities await you outside his room.

A/N (Chrille): from what I've heard, in Briar Valley, there's a rumour/belief that dragons are extinct? I’m not too sure though. Also please exuse if my grammar or mommas are weird English isn’t my first language😭

[sunshades]

Regarding Dantes gender: one thing that's always stood out to me is that within the sinners there are 6 men, 6 women and also Dante. Within Mephi's passengers there's 7 men, 7 women and Dante. Their androgyny and lack of assigned binary gender sticks out in a way that seems clearly intentional to some degree - to the point that it could be used in theorycrafting to tie it to like, concepts in mythology or psychology and stuff.

Its so interesting and can be used for cool shit and it never stops bothering me that people just kinda. Bulldoze over that.

YOU'RE COOKING ANON there's a lot on dante that puts them in this "exception" state. they're visually different from the other sinners with the red outfit, from the hierarchical point of view they're in a weird spot of being technically above the sinners but then being inferior in many ways, they swing between being weak and wielding a power that extends through universes, they present as a prosthetic user (which is already something considered an oddity and a state different from being a human in many contexts) but aren't quite one either, they're in what i'd say is kind of a between life and death state due to their amnesia, since their first life has "ended" in a sense (much like the sephirot!). and then they are presented as not having any gender in particular. it all goes together, with this theme of extremes and balance. like just thinking about this i could see something like the concepts of the white queen and red king having played a part in dante's development (esp since faust's canto is definitely gonna feature some fun lil alchemy).

and in many ways this is reflecting the status of dante in the comedy. the literal first line of inferno is about character dante's age, being at the very middle of one's lifetime. all throughout the comedy character dante is in the position of an outsider. he (ALIGHIERI!!) is alive and shouldn't be in all the places he goes, but he is kind of between life and death because he'd gotten so lost that he'd strayed that far out of christian life. poet dante also sources this from his own life- his political allegiances and how he ended up outside of his own party, his religion and his admiration for "pagan" philosophy and literature, and ofc the exile from his homeland, becoming a person who has to rely on others to go on.

the in-game rendition is using these traits as the basis to construct dante's story- like a lot of other sinners, as one about identity. canto 4 and 6 are the heaviest on this, but the game as a whole explores the concept of Who You Are, with the basic thesis being "your history counts, but you are your choices". dante's own arc will of course be shaped by this: they used to be whoever they were, but "dante", as the person who got on mephistopheles that night, exists and has lived a life of their own. again it's pretty similar to the kris dreemurr situation. we're not so far along dante's arc that we can say it's as explicit as kris', but dante's story similarly involves themes of autonomy and personhood that are enhanced a thousand times by acknowledging their gender or lack thereof.

[geeks-universe]

Gabriel (SPN) x Reader

9. “No, that’s the wrong- oh, dammit.”

For: @nova-willow-541

Sam and Dean weren't with you anymore.

Wherever you were.

One second, the three of you were tracking down a nasty demon with a penchant for slicing people open, and the next you were waking up alone in a hotel far fancier than the run-down, side-of-the-road motels you'd grown accustomed to.

Breathe in.

The room looked empty, and besides the gentle hum of elevator music coming from somewhere outside, there wasn't any noise that indicated someone else was there. Your gun was still holstered at your side, and a quick once over of your person revealed nothing out of place. It seemed like the only oddity was you.

Breathe out.

You still had your weapons and your wits. Whatever game this demon was playing at, they made a mistake by leaving you armed. You were thorough in your examination of the decadent room, even if it didn't result in much information. The room was clean, everything neatly put away. Light filtered in through the window, and upon inspection of the outside view, you couldn't glean anything more than it was daytime and there was nobody on the streets.

The bathroom was decidedly empty, which only left the door to the hallway. Palming your phone in one hand, you positioned yourself by the entrance while attempting to contact Sam, the more likely of the two to answer.

Not even a full ring got through before-

"Where are you?"

"I was hoping you would know," you admitted, "I'm in some kind of hotel. No idea how I got here."

Sam hummed on the other end, papers shifting somewhere in the foreground.

"You were walking with us..."

"Then poof," Dean said, and you could picture the irritation on his face.

"Okay, so definitely not demon related though, right?" You asked, rolling your shoulders. It was only a matter of time before you had to engage in a fight, might as well be ready.

"I don't think so."

"Try to find what you can, we'll look around the area you disappeared at, see if we can get a lead." Sam reasoned.

Trusting the younger brother's intuition, you gave an affirmative before hanging up. You'd think after years of hunting the things that go bump in the night you'd lose the bit of fear you feel before jumping headlong into a case, but you'd yet to do so. Instead, you steeled yourself with a deep breath, slowly opening the hallway door.

The corridor was dimly lit, and the sound of the elevator music was much louder now. It was quiet otherwise, however, and there wasn't anyone else present. Actually, it looked pretty normal.

Curiously, you crept forward, your gun leading the charge as you slid forward, steps nearly imperceptible on the marble flooring. You reached the first door, surprised to find the handle turning without a key. Just as you'd begun to swing the door open, a voice behind you warned:

"No, that's the wrong- oh, dammit."

It was too late.

You'd always been a little trigger happy, and damn it all if you weren't scared half to death already with the sudden scenery change. So, it wasn't entirely surprising that you'd shot towards the surprising voice.

Luckily, you had enough restraint not to shoot the person, rather just beside them.

Still, Gabriel stared at the wall beside him that now sported a lodged bullet.

"What. The. Hell."

His whiskey eyes kept bouncing between the wall and you, before finally settling on you as a slow smirk spread across his lips. He waggled his eyebrows dramatically.

"Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to-"

"Gabriel!"

"Right, right," he rubbed the back of his neck, though there was still a laugh playing on his mouth. "Sorry."

"What are you doing here?" You asked, then paused. "Better yet, what am I doing here?"

"You did promise me a date," he reminded you, looking far too casual for the events that had just transpired. "I was just cashing in."

"A date," you repeated, pressing your palm to your temple. You could already feel a headache coming on from the adrenaline. "So where-"

"Aruba, actually," he shrugged, waving his hand nonchalantly. "Thought you could use a tropical reset."

It took a minute or two for you to understand fully what he was saying. He'd brought you here for a date? To some random hotel while in the middle of a hunt?

You'd need to have a serious talk about boundaries, even if you couldn't quite be upset at the kicked puppy look he was actively giving you. Besides, you had meant it when you'd mentioned a date, you were just surprised he remembered.

"Okay," you nodded, then repeated yourself more firmly. "Okay."

"Okay," he smiled, taking a step toward you to- what? embrace you? kiss you?

"Before we-" you paused, gesturing vaguely to the hotel. "We should go somewhere else."

If he'd looked like a kicked puppy earlier, now he looked downright distraught.

"You don't like this place?"

"Uh, no," you reached out for his hand, pleasantly surprised when he laced his fingers through yours. "But I did just fire a shot off in the middle of the hallway, so maybe let's go somewhere I didn't do that."

His laugh echoed through the corridor as he snapped his fingers, whisking you away.

[sunlitlemonade]

for the jason leaves the bats au, would the emotional impact for the bats be centered mostly around bruce, dick, and babs? would the ones who didn’t know him before even care that he’s gone?

the emotional impact would definitely be centered around bruce, dick, babs & alfred!

two parts of the og ask that spawned this au can give a better picture of what i mean to explore

1/

jason isnt completely treated as a part of their group & doesnt know half of them very well so 'leaving' here implies putting an end to the prolonged scapegoating, isolation, abuse & cautionary-tale-ification he has faced from bruce & alfred & maintaining his distance with the rest of them

2/

this resourceful skillfulness is intriguing to the bats who knew him only through bruce's perspective. they start to see how warm-hearted, intense & competent he is. they catch glimpses of robin in him, in the moments he's a bit playful. it leads to them kind of gravitating towards him, especially since he isn't around much anymore

'gravitating' here isn't meant to imply them hounding him but more like intriguing them in various degrees

we are going for the new version of the bats that recent comics are pushing, right? so the rest of the bats know him to some extent/are used to working with him. but he's mostly an oddity, that feeling furthered by the fact that they primarily knew jason thru the narrative bruce weaved abt him, the cautionary tale as they were all told. then when he does come into the fold he's basically a scapegoat; rarely an ally viewed as an equal & never not as someone they must keep in check (remember tfz? only ones who weren't involved were steph, who later does check up on him & duke, who due to the role call short story, if you know the one im talking abt, i believe do maintain or go on to grow a nice dynamic with him. feel free to poke me abt this if you want! i'll be more than happy to elaborate)

anyways what i mean to say this isn't some sort of scenario where everyone's like. laser focused on him lol. no. what i mean is that they're a naturally curious bunch & when he isn't around much anymore they notice. when he seems lighter, more lethal, they notice. when they start to see what he is like when he isn't acting like an cornered animal, well.... they notice him. they notice the new patterns, the behavioral changes. they're hardwired to! it's difficult for them to miss new things yknow? part of being detectives.

it's very much an observational perspective where it's like. oh! so this is what he can be like/who he is as a person. they don't push or try too hard. if he builds relations with any of them, it's a long, gradual thing especially since they are all tied to bruce & bruce [& alfred to some degree] is the one he wants to completely cut off.

the emotional aspect is almost entirely on the four i mentioned before, the other bats are an outsider party to whatever is happening since their relationships with him are either barely present or like seedlings

[it-happened-one-fic]

Strange - Neuvillette

Author Notes: Happy MerMay Genshin Impact! I cheated a little and used Neuvillette this year. (Honestly using Dottore was a bit tiring last year so I decided to play nice with myself and not go with someone quite so challenging). This fic didn't really have any specific inspiration beyond being a MerMay fic. As per usual, reader is gender neutral. I hope you enjoy!

Type: Gender Neutral reader/ MerMay/ Mermaid AU/ Merman Neuvillette/ fluff/ romance implied/ sfw

Word count: 1097

Neuvillette was widely accepted as an oddity. This was something that had been the case ever since he’d first shown up at my home. Washed up on the beach, supposedly from a shipwreck.

It had been alarming when I’d found the beautiful young man who went solely by his surname and had always struck me as not entirely normal. And he’d immediately become the talk of the town. And even today, it was that way. Everyone had some sort of story about the mysterious Monsieur Neuvillette.

Rumors continued to fly around about how he was an escaped noble, because apparently only that could explain the easy grace he carried himself with, or that he was a tragically amnesiac sailor, since that would supposedly explain why he seemed to speak of his home.

No matter the rumor though, it was a simple truth that Neuvillette, despite his strangeness, was well-respected.

Deemed both reliable and sophisticated, everyone trusted the strange man who’d washed up on the beach and whom I’d shared my home with until he’d gotten himself settled in town.

I wasn’t quite sure that Neuvillette would continue to be regarded as quite so reputable if the townspeople could see what I was currently staring at in silent shock.

To be fair, I did have to admit that judging a person solely based on the presence of a tail did seem wrong. Especially when Neuvillette had always proven himself to be unfailingly courteous. But there was the town’s seemingly infinite number of folktales about merfolk to contend with.

Simply put, most did not look kindly on the people of the sea. And, with all the stories about merfolk drowning the innocently curious or raising storms over petty grievances, I could hardly blame anyone for their less-than-kind view of merpeople..

At odds with all the horror stories, Neuvillette gazed at me with that calm expression of his that seemed to be almost constantly present as his less-familiar tail curled idly under him and his webbed hands rested calmly on the rock that the tide gently parted around.

In no way did he look like a monster, and in no way did I really fear that he would hurt me, even despite the horror stories of his kind and the shock that he, himself, was in fact a merman.

Neuvillette was a great many things, but cruel or evil was not any of them.

He was strange, quiet, gentle, kind, and surprisingly patient with the incessant rumors that circulated about him, but never cruel or evil.

If the merfolk in all of the stories mirrored the ocean at its worst, with violently destructive waves that hurled ships against sharp, unforgiving rocks then, Neuvillette was the sea at its most gentle, as it quietly flowed along the shoreline in the most perfectly inviting fashion.

I sighed slightly before walking forward, wading through the cool water that lapped at my legs until I reached the large rock he sat on, looking exactly like something out of a storybook that warned its readers about how the beauty of merpeople hid their darker, more malevolent intentions.

But despite such warnings, I sat down next to him with little to no concern. Glancing at him quietly and noting how his strange, slit-pupiled eyes no longer seemed quite so odd now that I knew he was a merman.

“Aren’t you afraid that I’ll tell someone?” Instead of reacting in surprise or panicking to the revelation that he was one of the finned creatures I’d been warned about since my childhood, my voice was utterly calm as I watched the man next to me.

And as if he were mirroring my lack of reaction, he was seemingly unperturbed despite the risk my seeing him could easily cause him.

If I were to decide to tell others, it would no doubt devolve into a witch hunt for the once-respected Neuvillette, and those who praised him would quite likely be loudly filling the air with chatter about how they’d always known he was horrible.

But despite all that risk, he simply shook his head. The motion causing the droplets of water that had been clinging to his long, pale hair to fling out around him, “I do not think you would endanger someone that you once saved.”

I felt my eyebrows lift at his words before I shook my head with a fond smile, “I hardly saved you, you could have easily crawled back into the safety of the sea if I hadn’t found you. And no one would just leave some poor person washed up on the beach to die. I just happened to be the one who found you.”

He let out a slight hum, his gaze continuing to rest on me in the same steady way that it always had, “But few from your home would choose to sit next to a merperson.”

I shifted, twisting so that I could better meet his gaze as I met his question with one of my own, “Would many from yours choose to come on land?”

A smile flickered across his face, gentle and amused, before he shook his head once more, “No. Few would.”

I hummed, laughing slightly as I nodded. Wholly unsurprised by his answer.

I didn’t know much about merpeople beyond the folktales, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all to learn that they were just as wary of people on land as we were of them.

I felt myself smile as I met his gaze once more, “I guess that means we’re both strange then.”

And it was true. He was Neuvillette, the man who’d washed up on a beach, remained an enigma to everyone in my town, and hid the secret of being a merman. And I was the person who’d found this strange man, brought him home despite the risk of who he may or may not be, and now I was also the person who would be keeping the secret of his true nature from my entire village.

A smile crossed his face again, this time staying there as his eyes closed in an amused manner as he nodded. Silently accepting the strange position we both shared and even seeming to welcome it as he responded in that easy tone I was so used to, “Perhaps so.”

And, as I sat next to him on the sea-beaten rock, I supposed it was fitting that it was me, the person who’d taken in a mysterious man whom everyone had regretted as strange yet respectable, who sat next to the strange yet respectable merman.

[loveandleases]

(Our first character fluff alphabet, and who better to start with than M (arshmallow. Below the cut~)

A = Admiration - M admires kindness.

B = Body - M is a fan of thighs. The thicker the lovelier to them.

C = Cuddling - M is the type to be quite clingy when cuddling and not wanting their partner to move for quite a bit.

D = Dates - M's ideal date would be staying in, just vibing with their partner. Not doing anything. They just want to be able to spend time with their partner, which isn't that important as long as they can be together.

E = Emotions - M can be a bit secretive and hold some emotions back. They have a hard time opening up. Though they always seem to have a smile on their face, something else hides underneath.

F = Family - M is fine if their partner wants a family, also fine if they don't. They don't have strong emotions about it.

G = Gifts - As the only child of their parents M has gotten many presents over time, not even for meaningful days such as a birthday or a holiday. To them, gifts are small ways to show you care about someone and should be given whenever. Not just for holidays.

H = Holding Hands - M will be shy when holding hands but it won't cause them to want to stop. They will just be blushing the majority of the time. If their partner tries to pull away to make M more comfortable they will refuse to let go. It's for the better.

I = Injury - If M gets hurt, they will play it off as if it isn't that serious. Yet internally the amount of swearing they will be saying is immeasurable. They could give a certain redhead a run for his money.

J = Jokes - They aren't fans of pranks, but they do enjoy a good job—especially a dad joke. To them, their quite funny, even dry humor can be admired by M.

K = Kisses - Soft and reserved. However, once they get comfortable it will be firey.To the point that there may be some bruised lips among them.

L = Love - Spoiler

M = Memory - Not applicable, just yet.

N = Nightmare (what is one of their fears?) - M is afraid of turning in their book late.

O = Oddity (what is one quirk they have?) They love horror but are afraid every time they watch it.

P = Pet Names (what do they like to call you?) Sunshine

Q = Quality Time (how do they like to spend time with you?) M likes to take walks late at night, especially after they finish a chapter of work. They enjoy admiring the scenery outside, be it alone or with someone.

R = Rhythm (what song do they hum to themselves, when they think no one is listening.) Kiss me by sixpence none the richer

S = Secrets (how open are they?) M is very secretive, though they may let things slip from time to time.

T = Time (how do they spend their time?) More often than not, M can be found working in their apartment. Or asleep at their desk.

U = Upset (how do they act when they're upset?) They plaster on a smile pretending as if they are fine when they are sulking. Will be for a few days.

V = Vaunt (what are they proud of? Do they like to show you off?) M is very proud of their achievements as a writer.

W = Warrior (how do they feel about you fighting? Would they fight for you, beside you, etc?) M would fight for MC. With a smile on their face the entire time, that is until MC isn't looking.

X = X-Ray (how well are they able to read you?) Not applicable just yet.

Y = Yes (how would they propose to you?) They would, once they stop freaking out about it.

Z = Zen (what makes them feel calm?) Knowing that MC is there, and sitting just enjoying the view. (Which will be MC more often than not.)

[cosmicjoke]

Thank you for the "Bad boy analysis". It was a great read. I absolutely appreciate how detailed you went through the 18 pages and how connected it to the contrasts in Levi and Zeke's view toward human life.

And my goah! After reading this analysis, I hate that glasses dude even more. He was doing his best to make Levi feel guilty about the men he killed (imo the killings were completely justified btw) by bringing up Kuchel's feelings toward all of this just to save himself. As you said Levi saw through his lies. I'm not sure about this but I also believe he was gonna tell everyone eventually that Levi had a connection to Kenny, that Levi's power kicked in and he killed everyone which would've endangered Levi's life again. Of course it would've been hard to believe as Levi said but it was a risk. Maybe that's also one of the reasons Levi killed that man too aside from the fact he would've continued with his horrendous deeds like selling and killing children! That guy was truly disgusting. I was literally trembling while reading those panels :'(

Hi there, and thank you so much! I appreciate your kindness more than I can say!

Ugh, yeah, that man in the glasses was absolutely sickening to me. I wouldn't be surprised if your theory is true, that he would have told others about Levi's power. I wouldn't be surprised, even, if he would have tried to gather together a group to specifically target Levi and capture him to sell as some kind of sideshow freak, or oddity to be gawked at. Or even just attempted to kill him later on, to eliminate the threat of him, or to save face. As that other piece of shit that was beating Levi said, gangsters in the Underground couldn't be seen showing mercy, so it seems likely to me that that man would have eventually gone after Levi again just to save his reputation and ability to operate his criminal enterprise. A man like that was capable of anything, truly. There wasn't any kind of depravity he was beyond. What he did to Levi, by saying what he did about his mother, was beyond disgusting, and beyond cruel. He essentially ruined the one, good thing Levi had left in the world. This single, fleeing image of his mother.

[sonkitty]

Trickery Episode 1: Pieces (with Transcription)

Trickery Episode 1: Pieces

As I said in the Introduction, the ending of Good Omens 2 left me annoyed and confused.

I was very bothered about how the ending kept sort of talking around whatever was said between Aziraphale and the Metatron. Crowley said, "Tell me you said no," twice instead of just asking, you know, "What did you say?" And Aziraphale never said whatever he really said for that particular part of the conversation.

The scene is cut up in a way that makes it look like Aziraphale is lying, obfuscating, or leaving some important piece of information out. And it's the end of the season! Now you have to wait to see what the lie even was, if there was one and if there was even going to be another season to begin with? Remember, for me, it was October 2023. No Season 3 in any form had been officially announced yet.

Good Omens season 2 overall bothered with me things like, "Why did Crowley seem so against Aziraphale borrowing the car and then let him do it anyway? And he kept saying trains? Is there something important about trains? Is it that Aziraphale had some ulterior motive, and Crowley eventually just trusted whatever that motive was?" "Who summoned that elevator at the end? Am I supposed to know?" Because I didn't know.

I felt like there wasn't enough Crowley, but maybe...I just somehow missed it because I went through the whole thing too fast and only once.

I read a lot of Tumblr posts. I skimmed a lot of Tumblr posts. There was a lot to take in.

Among the things I took in, one fan theory really stood out and caught my attention before certain other things did. That fan theory had a name, and its name was The Magic Trick You Didn't See.

The main document for this theory is no longer accessible online. For the purposes of these videos, I'll focus on two aspects of it. The first aspect is the core theory itself. That core theory is that the Metatron had access to the Book of Life and was editing it the whole time.

The second aspect is that this theory put the idea of a game in my head. In episode 1, when Crowley is leaving the bookshop, one cut focuses in on the plate of Eccles cakes. When he returns, that plate is gone. The plate is not mentioned again during that episode. In episode 5, Nina erases the words, "Eccles cakes" from her chalkboard. This theory proposed that such a sequence was teaching the audience the rules of a game and that the Metatron made something disappear. I definitely noticed that cut myself on my first viewing through the show.

So, we have this idea in our heads. I'm not fully committed to it, but I am close. I think it's a good, sound idea. I think it's plausible.

Let's move on.

There is a post on Tumblr by f0ul-f13nd and a document that details a realization that Crowley's sideburns change length during season 2 in the present day storyline. And the 1941 storyline. There are other hair changing oddities in the other two minisodes. The changes happen in such a way that it looks very intentional. For instance, in the present day, the sideburns are always long around Gabriel.

In addition to that post is another post by @embracing-the-ineffable titled, Let's bust a popular myth! This post brings up the filming dates of Good Omens 2 and Doctor Who specials for anyone who might be thinking they happened at the same time as an excuse for why Crowley's sideburns change.

Between all my fan theory reading on Tumblr, I checked a few other places, such as Reddit and found a thread that wasn't really on theories. Instead, it was about head canon.

And I rather liked the expressed head canon by one user that Crowley must have some kind of perception filter on him that makes humans sort of look the other way when they see him because he is so amazingly hot, how are they not constantly flirting with him? I think he's amazingly hot myself, so yes, yes, there is an idea.

A reply included agreement. How is he not turning heads? What do people see? Just some guy in black?

And that reply included a particular GIF.

I indeed thought that was an interesting idea and kept it in mind. And I did very much like that GIF. I watched it repeatedly and would go back to it sometimes.

I read about David Tennant's more stiff shoulders when acting as Aziraphale pretending to be Crowley. I read about rainbows found throughout the show. I read about and watched compilation videos for miracle sounds.

So, I've read all these theories and extra pieces of information, and I'm very much intrigued by the sideburns because what an excellent excuse to dig through pictures and videos of David Tennant as Crowley, my growing obsession at the time.

It could be fun.

I made a number of composite images and wrote out some ideas, not sure if I'd ever truly post them myself or not.

I wasn't really satisfied with the images I made. They lacked something for helping me find whatever I was looking for. I wasn't really expecting to be able to figure out what was going on with the sideburns, but at the same time, I felt I could do better than what I'd done. I mean, come on. If something is made that obvious, it shouldn't be that hard. And even if it were that hard, it's not like I would get very far. I could just stop when I couldn't go any further. Still, I felt I could go further.

At the time, even with the sideburns theories, the general ideas in play from the other people whose work I read were memory tampering, Crowley being edited, surveillance on Crowley through Gabriel, POV indication, or hey, look, Crowley can just choose to look however he wants. Don't forget he's a demon who can shape-shift.

I was not satisfied with those ideas because the clues strongly hinted the sideburns had something to do with human presence when they were short. But the problem with the human thing was it wasn't consistent.

When Crowley is around Gabriel in the present day, the sideburns are always long, without fail.

The reverse is not true for humans. They tend to be short around humans, but they are not always short around humans.

You have scenes like the pub and the music shop where he's around humans, but the sideburns are longer. The first time he meets Muriel, the sideburns are shorter, and humans are not actually in the bookshop. There's a point in the later part of the story where the sideburns stay longer despite the presence of humans. That point would be after Crowley confronts Gabriel in the bedroom on the upper floor of the bookshop.

Still, I just knew that, when it came right down to it with Crowley's trip to Hell in episode 1, none of those theories fit because they ignored the human element.

Before Crowley is summoned, he has longer sideburns. They are still long in Hell.

They are still long after the summon and before Crowley starts driving.

They are medium or short during the drive from the isolated street to where Crowley eventually parks outside the coffee shop.

The sideburns are short when he encounters Nina and Maggie.

They are long when he enters the bookshop.

If this collection of scenes were memory tampering or editing of the Book of Life, what is the actual edit? Sideburns changes aside, does anything really stick out as a deception to what might be happening? At most, I've got that the angle of his head changed between being in Hell and being in the car when the summon ended.

And for POV, that would make even less sense. All of those scenes include Crowley's own POV of his part in the story. I have no reason to think that anyone else is telling me this part of the story is what it is. The Metatron has no evident motivation for this part happening. Aziraphale is not shown to have any awareness of the summon to Hell besides what Crowley tells him in episode 6. Even then, Aziraphale doesn't know that such a thing specifically happened on the evening depicted in episode 1.

Much applies to the other characters, such as Maggie and Nina. Beelzebub was even there, and even they are never shown to acknowledge that this Hell summon happened to anyone else.

Why are the sideburns changing across the spaces so much then?

In this particular sequence, the human and supernatural ideas fit. Crowley himself is a supernatural being and returning to his home. Beelzebub is a supernatural being. Aziraphale and Gabriel are supernatural beings. That's when the sideburns are long. Maggie and Nina are human. The sideburns are short. That doesn't explain the later inconsistencies we know of, but we can see that this particular sequence itself still fits. So, it's at least worth keeping in mind for when we question those other inconsistencies later.

At some point, I decided I wanted to make posts about the sideburns and started putting the show on as background noise, occasionally re-watching it as well. It was not enough for me to just write drafts and think. I think, now, somehow, I knew that if I made public posts, it would help my thought process.

I at least knew it would help me be more motivated to continue exploring the ideas instead of just flat out giving up. The sideburns were meant to be noticed. Someone or something in the story wanted people to figure out what they meant. I wanted to at least try being a someone who might figure it out or at least help others figure it out.

I wanted to look at Crowley's saturated red streak of hair. This story is a fantasy, and in a fantasy, if that streak was not already there, something like that usually means something happened to somebody to leave such a mark.

Writing an introduction for why I wanted to go over the sideburns took too much energy, and I had too many ideas and pieces that weren't fitting well enough for an introduction yet.

So, I just jumped right in before I suspected I might lose interest.

I started in early December 2023.

I've varied how the post begins after the first few words, but I always, always like to start with...

Take it all in. Treasure it for all that it is.

...for the park scene.

I have a muse or a writer's instinct or something, and whatever it is, it tells me that post must start with those words, so it does.

The park lighting is beautiful and gives us a gorgeous shot of seeing Crowley's right profile for the first time in the present day story.

My approach to the project was that I planned to just go over each Crowley scene until I figured it out, if that were possible, got tired of it, or just go through the whole thing if I really wanted to. The idea was to keep busy and enjoy the obsession with something interesting.

When I eventually reached the post about Crowley's first encounter with Gabriel, I had a lot of questions, such as why are the sideburns always long around Gabriel?

I had a long group related to the idea of the Metatron, or anyone, editing or stitching things together and how that would work with how they changed.

I had some speculation about what's so special about Crowley? The first thing I could think of were the hints of past rank as a possible First-Order Archangel.

I also commented on the space as seeming to be relevant. I used the phrase "qualifying encounters" for what determined how the sideburns would be.

Between the two events described next, I can't remember which actually happened first or how much they happened in synch with each other at the time.

Here is the first of the two I will go over.

Although I was skeptical of the memory tampering or some form of editing theory for the sideburns in particular, there is one particular sequence that I thought supported a possible edit of Crowley.

That sequence is of when Crowley angrily exits the bookshop and then shoots lightning out from himself in episode 1. It includes that disappearing plate of Eccles cakes, but instead, we focus in on the sideburns. Doing so is extremely similar to that document, Crowley's sideburns and what do they mean?, but mainly we go into that sequence instead of the whole season.

Before Crowley opened the door, the sideburns were short though maybe slightly longer than before he entered the bookshop overall.

As he is seen leaving, they are a little longer.

As he is seen passing a cardboard box, they are quite long.

As he is seen leaving the bookshop, they are shorter.

For the cut where Crowley is walking past a cardboard box, something is wrong or off. He definitely looks like he could be edited there, especially in the context of the full sequence.

He even looked maybe possibly ever so slightly off just before that, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why.

At the time, I called the sequence, "angry lightning walk." The words, "stormed out," occurred to me, but I dismissed them.

When I posted about this sequence for the first time, I was very annoyed by the overall storytelling. Based on what I know of how to read scenes in books, TV shows, and movies, that sequence is designed to alert the audience that the story is lying to you. I didn't know what the lie was, but I could figure out enough that it was a lie. That's what the disappearing plate meant and the very off Crowley meant. Maybe someone really did eat those Eccles cakes, and the scene where they did was overridden. Maybe that was indeed an edited Crowley.

But all the same, my focus was the sideburns, so that was why I was annoyed. If I know the story is lying, if I can sense enough for that even if I don't know what the lie itself is, how am I going to figure out the sideburns with how much they change in the sequence itself? What if that's the lie or part of it? That's the information I'm looking for after all, and they change quite a bit throughout the sequence.

I remember things as a few days I spent thinking about it before something occurred to me: You know because there is no other way to know. To elaborate on what I mean, you know the part about the sideburns changing is true because you can't know how they work otherwise, at least not for that earlier part of the story. We found a hidden truth within a lie.

What we have here with the angry lightning walk is that if this sideburns thing were a video game, that sequence was the beginner tutorial on the mechanics of that game. Proximity to Gabriel will make the sideburns longer. Proximity to humans, or a private space with Aziraphale, will make the sideburns shorter. There can be a length in between the two types past the threshold of the bookshop.

Remember, we are playing a long game. Those sideburns fully shortened when Crowley reached the center of the street. That does not happen at the end of episode 4 when Aziraphale returns from Edinburgh.

So, now I know the next question to ask because of general experience at my job as a programmer and as a general reader of some fictional stories.

The next question is, "Did something change that might cause the sideburns to do that?"

And the answer is Yes. We just answered it. Aziraphale returned from Edinburgh.

The bookshop is Aziraphale's home. The car is Crowley's home.

That angry lightning walk sequence alerts us that an invisible border exists between those homes when the car is parked across the street, by the coffee shop.

That border is when Crowley's sideburns finish shortening.

After the two temporarily swap homes, the border has disappeared or possibly expanded. Hence, the sideburns can stay longer past the center of the street. Crowley and Aziraphale connected their homes through the shared borrowing process during the story.

Here is the second of the two events I said I would go over.

I found myself on one particular day intently studying episode 6 with Crowley standing at the door to his car.

Remember, one of the traits about the sideburns is that they stay longer for almost the rest of the season after Crowley confronts Gabriel in episode 5. Even long sideburns actually vary in length. There is longest-length, and there is longer than you expect from a human space length but still not quite longest-length. It's something you might call medium-long. Crowley's sideburns were a medium-long length for his argument scene with Aziraphale in the bookshop during episode 6.

They were not longest-length.

But once he's waiting by his car, they are longest-length.

He's surrounded by humans on the street, and the sideburns are longest-length. Longer sideburns have something to do with a supernatural presence, but there are so many humans. That length is usually around Gabriel, but Gabriel had left the area by that point.

The other demons are gone.

Three of the other angels are gone.

Muriel is around the place somewhere, but Muriel is not on screen.

Aziraphale and the Metatron have some distance between themselves and Crowley.

So, why oh why, are the sideburns lengthened so much then and there?

Why is there extra effort between a medium-long and a longest-length? A lot of times, it's hard to actually tell the difference, but these two scenes make it clear enough that you can see it if you look.

Crowley is being very still.

Is there anything else special or different about what he's doing in that scene?

Yes!!! You have to look rather closely to see it, but it's there, yes!

He is positioned in a very particular way because of his left arm on the door to the car.

It's on the threshold.

He's a demon, a supernatural being, standing very still, at his own threshold for his own home as if he is inviting Aziraphale to come back to him.

There are 3 cuts of Crowley shown from the front.

Here is an even closer look at a thing I want you to see with the left arm in the first cut:

Look at how precise Crowley is being. The camera work is making sure that for at least a few frames, you can see the left sleeve has a little gap between it and the window we're going to see more clearly is open. Here is the second cut. The fingers are hiding this time.

By the third cut, his left hand is very deliberately set up in a way that his index finger is sticking out.

His other three fingers are against the door, or something near it. His skin is touching the door in three different places.

His right hand has four fingers pocketed but not the thumb. If you take the left hand fingers and combine them with that thumb outside the pocket on the right hand, he has a full set of digits for the equivalent of one hand, while his legs are crossed. Does that...count for, or do, something together?

I certainly suspected as much.

Crowley is...touching the door while he is touching the door.

And that is when I figured that the thresholds must be relevant to helping figure out the sideburns better.

We'll talk about thresholds more next time.

[logicalarachnid]

I have an idea for a potential new Parksborn/Dark Irondad fic, and it has A/B/O in it, but non traditional, sort of. I need help deciding Harry's status.

Anyway, I have this idea, and I don't wanna say too much about it plotwise yet, however the dynamic of Peter and Harry is relatively important for their relationship. So I'll talk a bit about that, there is a poll at the end. I'd appreciate at least having ppl let me know which of the a/b/o options/concepts for Harry Osborn they'd prefer reading about.

Peter's dynamic is set in stone. He is an omega, but he is an oddity, there hasn't been an omega like him before. He doesn't experience the 'head empty only smutty time' mindset that omegas typically have. Instead, it's like he gets a period, but it's just slick and he experiences little to no excitement. He does however display great strength like a typical alpha and his emotions can spiral if he isn't careful. He does display some typical omega traits like wanting frequent affection from his parents (his alpha dads Steve & Bucky), and being comfortable and even pleased at times with their protective and doting attitudes towards him.

I won't talk about that further, I'll leave it for when I get around to uploading the fic on ao3. I'll post a link to it on my blog when I do. For anyone interested it will be dark irondad vaguely inspired by Prodigal Son. I haven't seen it, as it isn't available on any streaming platforms I have, but I've looked into the dynamic Martin and Malcolm have, that is what got me interested in the first place. I found it through a post on here actually, I'll be tagging/linking them for the inspo when I get round to posting about the fic.

So, this is where I was hoping for some input. It is a parksborn fic and I like having Harry being a simp for Peter. What I'm struggling with is deciding what his dynamic is going to be because I am leaning towards them having an 'untraditional' relationship as far as a/b/o worlds go.

To help give a better picture of their relationship, at least regarding Peter, while he is an omega he is by no means 'biologically normal' by the standard of society. It isn't a bad thing, just 'weird' and 'baffling' to them, meanwhile Peter is not bothered by it, instead, he welcomes it. He would be kind and tender hearted as he usually is, which fits the sterotypical omega list of traits, but he will be prone to experiencing some mood swings (these won't always be obvious). He experiences his emotions strongly and a bit erratically. He views them critically and analytically this is primarily because of his job and a habit of repressing himself. Some alphas might feel intimidated by his differences (bcs insecure men always are), and some alphas might think by some of his behaviours and mannerisms that he is an alpha.

The thing about Peter though is that he is will be deceptive in apperence. He would seem warm and welcoming, he dresses up a bit (not much though), he probably does skin care and looks after himself, and he keeps his hair long (I can imagine Tom's wavyish curls, are they called curls, if not what should I call the texture?). However, despite his inviting appearence it can actually be a weapon of sorts to manipulate those around him. Peter isn't bad in this fic, to him he is just trying to survive in a world where omegas are few, fetishied, occationally mistreated, and underestimated. So, what is an omega like him to do when he seemingly has an advantage? He uses it. So, he subtly manipulates everyone he comes in contact with if he deems it necessary, behaving in a way that is authentic to himself but appeals to the outsiders view of a 'good' omega. He doesn't want to be restricted or limited by others, so for him what he does is helping him survive in a world that isn't made for him to succeed. But I can see how it might come across that he could be morally grey and maybe he is...a little..deep deep down.

He can use his pheremones/scent more effectively too, it is kind of like a dr*g he can cast in the air to calm people to the point it manipulates their perception of what is going on. So, angry alphas in the room? Peter puts out a calming scent or one of hurt and sadness that is strong enough to have those alphas become distracted and decide to comfort him instead of arguing. They might even forget why they were fighting or suddenly dismiss the importance the conversation might have held. I imagine that he would have practised this a lot with Stucky, haha. Basically Peter is kinda 'biologically' enhanced in some aspects. With Harry in the picture, Peter would be analysing him, thinking over the best way to navigate him, and uh, yeah, act accordingly. Harry would prefer Peter at his most authentic, that is the whole reason he gets so attracted to him in the first place. He likes how Peter is, no masking, no manipulations, no pretending, just Peter as his lovable, chaotic, maybe mentally ill self. Now that is love.

No matter what Harry will be, he will be facinated by how different Peter is and is attracted to his more authorative-ish (?) nature. I'm not saying they'd be in a dom/sub kind of thing. They're both kind of different, or at least Peter wakes up something kinda feral in him that is like "yeah, this one, this is my man, and I'm gonna stand beside him". Harry will have an obssesion with Peter. Maybe he got addicted to Peter's scent, or maybe he was exposed to too high of a dose in a short time, or maybe they're fated mates like Harry will believe they are. He'll just need to convince and 'prove' to Peter that they are, which will be something, ha. When they do get together though they'll be cute and kinda weird, but its fine bcs they're them yk.

That was long winded, but I wanted some context for how Harry was gonna be paried up with Peter and what Peter will be like. I'm struggling to decide which of the options in the poll I prefer more.

So which would be more appealing?

[grimmmviewing]

S1E8: “Game Ogre”—B/C+ (Watched 2/29/24)

“No record of where he was born, no record of a family. It’s like this guy just fell out of the sky.” – Hank re. an ogre/giant (Got a, not exactly unhappy, groan from me!)

“Just the facts, right?” – Monroe to Nick/Hank re. the ownership of an important watch (Bonus points for Dragnet reference?)

Exactly how much silliness I find charming and at what point the goofiness should result in some sort of deduction for review purposes are questions I find myself thinking about a lot while watching Grimm. Even the episodes I’ve scored as “A”s have their Moments. And if I had to sum up my feelings about “Game Ogre” I would say that it starts as a fine enough monster of the week story but then, perhaps fittingly for an episode that prominently features a watch early on, it accumulates enough “complications” that it becomes genuinely interesting or noteworthy.

First—the central role of Oleg Stark, an ogre. I did love the very physical performance, which has a lot of stiff-bodied stomping around and grunting and growling. It had to have been fun to try to play that role and to try to make yourself seem as big, burly, and dense (in more than one sense) as possible. The way the camera frames this big boy and the way that shots of him getting physical are filmed and edited to make him feel as large and powerful as possible is just very entertaining. Definitely goofy, but also definitely fun in a C+ sort of way.

Another entertaining C-sort of goofy detail is how the initial murder victim is a judge, and we know that because he’s just got a gavel sitting out on his desk at home. It’s used in his murder to help suggest that the crime was personal, of course, but the placement is still such a ridiculous way to communicate the man’s profession, especially when you consider that we’re also explicitly told he’s a state judge when Sergeant Wu and his partner are investigating the scene of the break-in.

There are some similarly unnecessary-feeling, awkward quick flashbacks in the mix—back to Nick being brutalized by the ogre in his house and to the ogre-killing poison and gun in his trailer. Of course, one way of looking at these is as part of the TV series package: Commercials are a thing, and people come in late. You have to catch up the late-comers and maybe re-establish a sense of drama and of the critical details for folks after the ads. This is one of those things I struggle to identify as a positive or a negative in my subjective assessment since Grimm being so obviously What It Is is absolutely part of the charm and was part of what I wanted out of this whole experience.

And there are a couple of plot oddities here, too, like just how long it takes for someone (Wu) to put together the idea of using Hank as bait for the vengeance-seeking Oleg. Captain Renard going along with Hank to a suspect’s place probably shouldn’t feel weird, but it does since, as far as I remember, this is new behavior for him.

It’s the mounting “complications” that ultimately elevate the episode, though, because of their novelty. Actually seeing Nick kind of shaken and vulnerable after he’s hospitalized from Oleg’s attack offers a new emotional angle from which to view him. He hasn’t been this badly beaten by a Wesen before. Hank similarly gets pushed emotionally in this episode, and the exact nature of the strain on him ends up being a nice twist, with how he and the DA colluded to “lose” evidence that might have gotten reasonable doubt for Oleg at his trial years ago.

The trust that Nick places in Monroe, a Wesen, by revealing the trailer to him is very much understated and great for it. The fact that Monroe ends up being the one who has to put Oleg down is also a cool, interesting wrinkle. The focus on the .600 caliber “elephant gun” bullets that are over 100 years old in the final scene with Renard and Hank is just a delightful little bit of quirkiness and suspense. That the weapons from the trailer are actually deployed here is something I was glad to see. It certainly makes sense for Nick to use his service weapon rather than swinging around a sword or flail or something, but that armory has been essentially teased up to this point, and it was just good to see some of it put to use.

[tabletofruination]

Expedition Log: Casseroya Lake Day One (pt. 2)

[pt. 1, pt. 2 (you are here)]

((cw: mild body horror description, trypophobia adjacent?? no pictures but being trypophobic myself, i am keeping the description minimal. but it is there.))

"--And there we go! Thanks for helping me get set up again, Green. Couldn't have done it without you!"

"Please. Don't flatter me when all I did was make sure that your recording didn't get frozen."

When the camera comes back on again, and the sunlight seems to filter only mildly through the trees as the night seems to draw near. Juliana's voice still has a rasp to it, weirdly, but...it's probably fine.

"But hi everyone! As you can see the sun's going down, but we've finally made it to the other part of the lake--say hello to Socarrat Trail! Isn't this place just gorgeous?!"

"Indeed, it is." Green speaks up easily, and though there's still that strange oddity to their voice, there is a warmth that one can pick up on. "A trail that seems to be in an eternal autumn, as if cradled by the snow of the mountain and the relative humidity and warmth of the sea...truly, a lovely place."

Juliana seems to laugh a bit at that, though it doesn't seem to be rude despite the almost bristled reply it gets from Green. "What are you tittering at, child--"

"No, no! I'm not laughing at you, I promise." Juliana's tone maintains it's brightness, and she seems to smile gently at the camera as it seems to be plucked off of it's Rotostick. "It's just...you really do get enthusiastic about stuff like this, and it's nice to see. That's what I think! You've always appreciated nature's beauty, huh?"

"...Hmph." Green doesn't seem entirely convinced, but they at least let it go. "But yes. I suppose you are correct."

"See? And there's nothing wrong with that! This place is beautiful no matter the time of day, and it just seems like the perfect place to lie down and take a nap..." Juliana seems to stretch her limbs a bit as she works on getting her Rotostick back into her bag, as Green assumedly holds the phone. Green does, however, respond with a small tut.

"Let's not get carried away, Miss Juliana. We still have research to do, and we should make haste. The energy I sense...it's stronger, here. I believe we're on the right track."

"Oh, yeah?!" Juliana's eyes seem to light up, the night finally taking hold as they start to walk down the trail. "Well, come on! What are we doing lollygagging?!"

"I should be asking you that..."

Green seems to sigh as the two of them walk down the path, Green seeming to pan out to the areas surrounding them, Juliana seeming to talk as they do.

"--And it's just so lush in this area in particular, it's almost like it was made for the Pokemon here! I mean, you can't go, like, five steps without seeing some kind of bug type--be it the Heracross around here, the Forretress on the water and in the trees..."

"Mmm. It's practically a paradise for them. I can certainly see why they and the grass types of this area seem to coexist in harmony."

"Oh, that's right! They pretty much like, never go after each other too, right?" Juliana turns around as the camera focuses back on her, and Green seems to make a small confirming noise.

"Indeed, at least from what we have seen. Why would they? This place has all of the sap every bug type could want, and enough nutrients for grass types to be at ease. Even the Sudowoodo are able to be nourished...it is as if nature is in perfect harmo..."

The two seem to pause as Green's camera focuses on something in a relative distance, Green walking ahead as it does. A bright green glow comes into view as they walk down a small offshoot trail, and...

"Woah...Green, is this what you were feeli--"

Juliana's words cut off suddenly, and Green seems to pause for a moment, before seeming to focus the camera on the Spidops for a mere moment--the Pokemon's eyes seem to widen for a moment as something happens, the camera's focus seeming to miss it, and when words are spoken again, something feels...weird.

Very, very weird and deeply off, as something speaks up, but it doesn't feel like a human voice.

"Stand aside."

The Spidops seems to flee at the utterance of those words, and in an instant, all is normal as the two of them walk forward again.

"...This is what I was feeling, for the record." Green speaks up again, clearing their throat seemingly again.

"What is the energy coming off of this...it feels so weird, it's..."

"Place your hand upon it."

"On...this thing? Are you sure?"

"Yes. It won't harm you, I promise. Take off your glove and touch it."

Juliana's hand comes into view as she pauses a bit. Seemingly hesitant and her hand still gloved for a moment before it goes out of view, and when it comes back in...

The camera doesn't focus on it for long, but one can make out an odd...green-ness to her hand. Green and gray, and almost inhuman feeling, with a faint look at what one might be able to see as an almost plant-like something--

"...It feels...verdant. Like all of nature has come together to put it's energy into this. Do you feel it too, Green?"

"Indeed, I do. And I can feel an earthiness behind it as well...this seal is man-made, but seems to be pure, harnessed nature. Made as a wall, of sorts, to keep something within."

Juliana seems to pause a bit, her tone going uncertain.

"...Whatever's behind here, it's...it must be hurting then, right?"

Green seems to pause a bit, as if considering. "...I cannot say I know for sure. But I cannot deny the possibility that whatever is behind here could very well be suffering."

"...I see."

There's a soft sympathy in Juliana's tone as she considers that, pausing a bit before Green speaks up.

"We should turn in for the night. Let us end this off here."

[anyadarlingsdomain]

Part 2 of the AU. So the party is starting to have further individuals appear from Sephora’s timeline and they don’t entirely understand why or have control over it- as far as they know.

Part One

Sephora sighed in defeat.

Anakin and some of his men came into view.

“So..she’s your sister?” He questioned, giving her sister a uncertain yet interested gaze.

Cass saluted. “The names Cass, pleasure to meet you General Skywalker.”

Anakin looked skeptical.

“She seems more causal than you.” He noticed.

“She can be.” She admitted. “And yes she is my little sister.”

“So” Anakin said crossing his arms. “What’s your story?”

“Heh, my sister’s backstory is probably a lot more interesting than mine.” She admitted throwing a ball and catching it. “Believe me.”

“You’re force sensitive too?” He asked seemingly noticing it.

“Probably not as much as Clone supporter here.” She stated taking a bite of an apple.

The clones raised an eyebrow to the address.

“‘Clone Supporter?’” Anakin questioned.

“You know Clone General..I’m sure you’ve heard the story by now..or so I’m assuming.”

“We’ll yeah she mentioned it..but not like that.”

“I just have weird terminology don’t take it so personally.”

Anakin looked to be trying to hide a smirk on his face.

“You’re funny.”

“Glad you think so.”

Some of his men coughed.

“She‘s an interesting one.” Anakin admitted.

Sephora laughed. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

“Why is he so tall?? Where did he get so tall?” She questioned our loud pointing a fork at him. “Where is the oddities to all of this??”

“Heck he looks taller then Seb.”

“He is.” Sephora confirmed.

“Poor dude..”

“Isn’t that your Commander?” Fives asked.

“Yeah that’s her Commander. Marshall Commander he’s pretty neat.” Cass admitted.

They all smirked to her talk.

“You’re a lot different from your sister aren't you?” He asked her.

“Just telling now?” She questioned smirking at him.

Some of them chuckled.

Anakin looked bemused. “A little..”

“Something you needed?” Sephora asked him.

“Just more questions..” he said kind of awkwardly.

“I kind of figured..nothing I need to worry about?”

“Not that I know of..unless you have something to tell me?” Anakin opened.

Sephora thought about it. “Nothing comes to mind at the moment..but if something does I’ll be sure to tell you.”

“Work with Commandos?” Cass suddenly asked him.

“Sometimes..why?” He looked a little skeptically at her.

Cass just shrugged. “No reason.” In fake innocence, smirking a little at the end.

Anakin gave her a skeptical look.

“So how old are you?” Ahsoka suddenly asked her.

Cass shrugged. “25 why do you ask?” She said winking at her.

Ahsoka shrugged. “Just curious how different you two are.”

Anakin smirked. “Now I got an idea..”

Sephora gave him a warning glance. “Don’t push your luck.” She warned.

The men in there chuckled.

“Why are you so against saying how old you are?”

“Because she doesn’t want to.” Cass butted. “You really are an ass aren’t you?” She questioned of him walking beside him- eyeing him up then easily forgetting about him and walked past him.

“Just want to say I think you’re hot and to keep slaying.” Cass said to Jesse.

Everyone seemed shocked by the comment. Cody just smirked.

“Umm..thank you..” Jesse said still not entirely sure how he should respond to that. Fives just looked amused by the exchange.

Anakin pointed at her sister. “That’s your sister?” He clarified.

Sephora face palmed.

“Little sister yes. Trouble maker compared to her? Yes. Will I end your life if you hurt her double, triple yes.” Cass said giving him a stealy glance.

Snickers could be heard behind them.

“Don’t try anything funny sly man I’m watching you.” She said deliberately, pointing at his eyes.

Anakin really didn’t know what to think of her.

“I think she’s neat.” Ahsoka admitted smiling at the pink Mando. “I like your armor.”

“Thanks kid.” Cass sweetly said patting her on the head- Ahsoka didn’t seem to mind though.

“- You would..” Cass glowered at him.

“She’s your polar opposite isn’t she?” Anakin asked carefully watching the pink clad Mando.

“You could say that yes.” Sephora admitted as Cass came to perch on the table alongside her again.

“So what’s going on?” Star announced coming up by them and leaning on the table similar to Cass eating a pastry. “God I haven’t had one of these in years…” obviously enjoying the treat. “It’s so good.”

The clones just looked amused to his announcement.

“Introductions, formalities you know the drill.” Cass answered.

“Oh yeah..the fun stuff. Do you like her? She’s pretty neat when she isn’t being a brat.” He stated.

Cass shoved him in the arm.

The clones looked amused to the spectacle and were trying DESPERATELY to keep their cool.

“Kriffing knock off..”

“-like that.” He expressed not even phased by her aggressive shove but simply went back and leaned against his part of the table.

Sephora gave him a pointed look. “Behave.” She warned.

Cass just looked disgruntled where she was.

“Who? Me or her?” Star questioned.

Cass scoffed. “Obviously you you snot.” She said hitting him again.

“Both of you.” Sephora reprimanded. Cass just rolled her eyes.

“No need to get nasty about it.” Star snided rolling his eyes. He retraced back from her hitting. “And quit hitting me- it’s hostile.”

Cass made an unintelligible noise. “‘Hostile.?’ You’re such a baby.” She antagonized. “You’re so irritating.” She muttered looking ahead.

Everyone looked mildly amused to the whole ordeal.

“I take it that this is fairly normal?” Anakin asked her.

“Fairly.” Sephora admitted, giving her duo an disappointed look.

Cass just looked bristled by Star compared to him being completely chill and eating his biscuit besides her.

“Well all the same to you. It’s nice seeing you all again.” He toasted to them. “Nice seeing younger faces of me.” He stated with a laugh.

Cass face palmed this time. “Gods..you're so cringe.” She said exasperatedly.

“What you got anything better to say back??” He challenged her.

“Enough, the both of you.” Sephora returned before she could. “We’re in a group here.”

Cass sighed through her nose.

“I don’t know, I'm kind of enjoying this.” Anakin admitted.

“Don’t influence them..” Sephora pleaded.

Star let out a laugh. “Yeah we could go -round and round.” He stated with a snicker.

This time Sephora threw her cape into his face. Some of the clones winced.

Starkiller placated her. “Okay, okay I’ll stop.” He said with a humorous chuckle.

“Moron..” Cass said under her breath. Star gave her a look.

“I don’t know…I kind of like them.” Anakin admitted.

“I’m glad you do..so what’s on your mind?” Sephora asked trying NOT to cause to much attention..yet it seemed that was all but futile now..

“Well I was speaking to Obi-wan about all of this and of course he spoke to the Council about it. We were kind of curious if there’s anything more you can tell us..like anyone else involved in this movement so to speak- if you know.”

Sephora sighed. “The problem is Ani..there’s no guarantees. Yes there are many similarities but I still can’t 100% say if who or what is going to happen here..yet something in me feels it may..” she said her tone foreboding at the end.

“So is there anyone you know?” He he questioned her. The room grew quiet.

Starkiller coughed, giving his General an uncertain gaze. Everyone watched this gesture interestedly.

Sephora sighed again. “It’s complicated…” she admitted.

Anakin crossed his arms. “Well I’m open ears.”

Cass gave her a worried look. “You’re not going to tell him- are you?” she whispered to her.

“‘Tell me what?’”Anakin asked skeptically giving them both suspicious looks.

The three looked to him uncertainty it was obvious they were uncomfortable if not wary.

“Anakin you must realize I come from a different time..where I exist and others that appently don’t exist here..it doesn’t mean the same will happen here.”

“Then why are you so hesitant to tell me?” He questions of her feeling the gravity of the situation. “Is it something I did? Someone in this room? Is that why you’re so reluctant to tell me??”

Sephora sighed rubbing her temples. But before she could reply to him someone walked in.

“Sir…we found this..clone wandering the grounds. He refuses to say his designation and won’t talk besides to General Norien- or another General.”

Everyone turned towards them then.

Sephora’s eyes widened, she jumped off her seat. “Seb!”

All the clones seemed shocked by this exclamation.

“That’s her Commander?”

“Hey- are you okay?” She asked him looking it him curiously.

Seb looked like he was gauging the situation looking around. “Depends on what this is about.” He admitted, he looked on the defensive.

“He’s fine. He’s my Commander.” She exhorted it the troopers holding him down. “You can release him.”

“Doyle, Comet do as she says.” Anakin stated. “He’s a Marshall COmMaDeR too.” He added.

They readily agreed after his word. It seemed they were shocked exchanging glances.

“Well...it seems you keep getting more of your people..” Anakin stated. “Maybe you’ll get more of your troopers soon.”

Sephora winced to that statement.

“So what. is. this. about?” Seb pressed glancing to them all having a steely look to him. Some of the troopers seemed a little taken aback by his severity.

“Somehow our realities seemed to mix.” Sephora stated. “Some of us as you can see have ended here- in a past that is very similar to ours- yet not the same. As far I as I know- we- you, our men do not exist here. 614th doesn’t exist as far as I know..yet everything else- seems to be vastly the same.”

Seb thought this over a moment. “So what does that mean?”

“I’m not entirely sure..but perhaps we can help this reality before..worse things happen.”

“About that.” Anakin cut in. “What were you going to tell me earlier?”

Sephora looked to him. “If I tell you..what happened..you won’t like what you hear.”

“I don't care. If it means it helps us here and the future I want to know.” He pressed. He looked a bit hostile.

“It doesn’t mean it will happen-“

“Stop diverting it.” Anakin snapped.

“General.” Rex reprimanded giving him a worried look.

“Anakin-“ sensing something she automatically seized up giving him a warning gaze. “Don’t. do. that.” She snapped.

Everyone seemed confused.

“Do what?” Ahsoka asked. “What did you do Master?”

“It’s nothing.” He said shaking his head looking a little guilty of what he just did.

“There are some things..that are not meant to be known.” She stated but almost made it sound like a warning.

“It's something I did isn’t it?” He questioned of her finally looking up. “Why else would you be hiding it from me so much..unless it’s someone I really care about?”

Sephora held her ground. “Don’t make this difficult.”

“You’re doing that yourself!” He scorned.

At this Seb shielded his General a little.

“Yeah it’s getting obvious now..” he said studying the party in front of him that seemed ither worried, in fear or defensive of his person atm.

“General..let’s just calm down.” Cody intervened stepping in between them giving Seb a bit of a wary look.

[jhara-ivez]

Impressions of Praha #2

This part will cover mostly Praha Castle and the Charles Bridge. And lots of windows. I have to say first that I am... slightly spoiled when it comes to monumental buildings. Therefore please pardon me when my judgement of what I saw in Praha is maybe a bit underwhelming. Anyway, let's start. This is Charles Bridge leading to Praha Castle. It was build in 14th Century by... King Charles of Luxembourg.

There are some streetvendors obviously but they only sell the typical stuff, like painting or caricatures and little bracelets and stuff. Nothing too fancy but tourist seems to like it for some reason. More important is this dude below. You might have seen him in tumblr posts already :D A good golden boi. (yes, of course I touched him too for good luck)

When you cross the bridge you have to walk through 2 big towers. The gothic one is dating back to 12th century and is therefore older than the bridge itself. The other one is the youngest part of the bridge, built in 1454 and made from sandstone.

Then, of course, you have to climb another hill. Once you managed and didnt die of pain in your feet you will reach Praha Castle. With an awesome view over the city. In the back there you can even see the "dancing houses", which I didnt visit up close.

If you buy the tickets for Praha Castle.. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES follow the mass of tourists. There are 2 building in which you can buy tickets. For some reasons the whole mass of people will walk to the right one, completely overlooking the left. Meaning you have hundreds of people waiting in line on the right, while the left one is.... walk in, pay, go outside. I suppose the other tourists were too floored by what greets you once you step inside the castle grounds.

This is St. Vitus Cathedral. For me not that impressing from the outside and inside (as I said I am spoiled by other cities). HOWEVER. .....

..... THE WINDOWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hell, I fell in love with the WINDOWS!!!! Look at this!!!!!! There is even one by Mucha himself!

The windows come in many different styles too. I think I spend more time ogling the windows than anything else. Admittedly, cathedrals do mostly look the same if not for some location based oddities. So please excuse me for not taking pictures of the... uh... ordinary stuff. Which is still expensive and what not, but not feel like striking features for me. Oh and.... I'd like to present my archenemy.

As you can see Praha Castle does not use one, not two, but more or less eight (!) different kinds of pavement. Needless to say - I suffered. And I suffered some more. Because you can visit the other buildings as well. Starting with Vladislaw Hall. Although quite interesting when it comes to how it is build - the kind of ceiling is self-stabilizing, meaning you don't need additional pillars to keep it from falling, also you have one entrance where you could ride inside on a horse if you came for a tournament as a knight - I nearly had a meltdown when I saw the rest.

That line of waiting tourists.... is not all. I was waiting in that line when I took the photo. What are they all waiting for? A window. More or less empty rooms with one important window. The window where the Prague Defenestration started. Needless to say I was incredibly underwhelmed.

This is the view out of said window, where (I think) two people fell down and somehow lived. ....... Anyway, much more interesting was the second floor! Look!!!

I have no idea who they all are, but isn't this pretty? Nearly all walls are covered in coats-of-arms and names and dates. I loved it. Next stop: St- George Cathedral. Not that imposing, for me personally rather bland, but interesting in terms of which elements were used for decoration. Especially the arches in an early frankish-moorish style.

At that point I was nearly unable to walk. There was one part left, a tiny street with old houses. However I do know severaly medieval tiny streets that are much more interesting so I wasn't that impressed.

And then at last the stairs of hell down the hill to the exit. Why stairs of hell? Because it was 2 uneven stair steps - then a slant with uneven stones - 2 uneven stair steps - slant - stair steps - and so on. A LONG WAY down. In winter probably deadly. In spring... not deadly but tiring. At the base the people sat down almost immediatly, on benches, on steps, on the ground. Just overall exhaustion. And that's it. As mentioned I still visited the Depeche Mode concert later that day, after returning to the hotel for a much needed rest. Our next bigger plan involves London. But that will take a while because money.

[gryfflepuffinthetardis]

Supernova Bio

Real Name: (Various translations) Methuselah, Earendel

More Legendary Translations (Though she doesn’t really go by them): Artemis, Athena, Cassiopeia, Eris, Nyx, Psykhe, Andromeda, Ceto, Asteria, Melinoe, Persephone, Hestia, Nemesis, Mnemosyne, Cilo, Hebe, Circe, Thanatos, Soteria, Hecate Kaun Yin (etc.)

Chosen Name: Supernova

Nickname(s): Nova

Titles (at the time of her death): Queen of Elder, Elder Queen, Supernova Queen

Former Titles: Princess of Elder, Elder Princess, Supernova Princess

Age: Nearly Thirteen Billion

Quote: “I’ve found that if people think I’m less than I actually am, the more satisfying it is for me, and more shocking it is for them, when I prove them wrong.”

“I am not your little princess. There’s a reason I was the inspiration for so many feared Goddesses."

Human Appearance: Curly Red/Blonde Hair, Purple eyes, Five Foot Three.

Natural Appearance: Curly Multi-colored Hair, Purple Eyes, Five Foot Three

Species: Elder (Neighbor planet of Gallifrey)

Status: Suppressed but Alive

Cause of Supposed Death: Shot by Dalek after trying to save the Doctor’s life

Powers/Abilities: Empathy, Mild Telepathy, Reincarnation, Aura-Seeing, Mind Palace, Light Manipulation, Heat Manipulation, Optional Semi-Immortality, Levitation, Memory Transfer, Gravity Manipulation,

Oddities: Silver Tears; when Elders die, their bodies glow and cause a violent seeming although ultimately harmless explosion outward; Legend says that some are capable of reincarnating as new Elders or other alien species if their gods view them worthy enough, only one has been proven worthy enough.

Relations:

Kassandra (Mother, Deceased)

Castiel (Father, Deceased)

Narcissus (Husband via Arranged Marriage, Deceased)

Personality: Loyal to a fault; Kind; Compassionate; Fierce; Protective; Intelligent; Scary when angry; Geeky; Witty; Sarcastic; Tomboy; Just; Selfless; Shy, Hufflepuff, Brave, Curious, Soft, Insecure, Secret Badass, Observant, Strong, Fighter, Trusting, Loving, Violent, Impulsive, Scatterbrained, Pessimistic, Eccedentiast (Hides her pain with smiles), Cold Anger, Hyperactive, Insensitive, Masks her feelings, Perceptive, Paradoxical

Hogwarts House: Hufflepuff

Hogwarts Hybrid: Gryfflepuff (Hufflepuff/Gryffindor)

Fears:

Claustrophobia — Fear of small, enclosed spaces — As a princess she grew to resent enclosed spaces as she often felt trapped.

Likes: Freedom, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Reading, Helping, The color purple, Traveling with the Doctor, Halloween, Kindness, Mischief, The Doctor, Violence, Proving people wrong

Dislikes: Being Bored, Feeling Trapped, Most People, Wearing dresses, Looking girly, Being called girly, The color pink, Valentine's Day, Conformity, Being forced to conform to royal forms

Tendencies: To go on philosophical tangents, to help those who feel distressed, to become violently protective; Tranquil Fury

Skills/Abilities: Sword Fighting, Acting, Sherlock Scan (Look on tvtropes.org), Intellect, Weapon Proficiency, Fighting, Martial Arts, Hacking, Omnilingual, Ability to use a Mind Palace (Like in Sherlock.)

Possible Disorder(s): ADHD, Directional Dyslexia

Sexuality: Heteroflexible Demisexual

Wardrobe: Flannel; Plaid; Leather Jackets; Beanies; Graphic tees; High tops; Boots; Trench Coats

Accessories: 3D Glow-In-The-Dark Galaxy Ball Pendant (Chameleon Arch), Alien Sword that Changes Its Blade As Per Wielder’s Mental Command

Friends: Ozzie Clarus (First love/Ex; Deceased), The Doctor, The Master (Presumed Deceased), Sarah Jane Smith, (Various other companions of the Doctor)

Enemies: Daleks, Cybermen, Narcissus

Love Interests: 

Ozzie Clarus (First Love/Ex; Deceased)

The Doctor (Crush)

The Master (One-Sided Crush on his side; Presumed Deceased)

Narcissus (Husband by Arranged Marriage; Deceased)

Face Claim(s):

Malina Weissman (Violet Baudelaire)

Katherine Langford (Hannah Baker/Morgan Stark/Nimue/Leah Burke/Meg Thrombey)

[eukaryotesrool]

Antelope

Alrighty, I'd like y'all to imagine an antelope, envision it, NOW.

Good? Then continue.

(Antelope overload)

Did you imagine a hoofed animal? Perhaps in grassy Africa? Grazing? Perchance, like the charming fellows above?

Well, all of the above are antelope! So what is 'antelope'? A family? An order even? No, and no, though, its related to a family in that it is a collection of genuses, but it's what's called a wastebasket taxon.

An antelope must be part of the family bovidae and NOT be a goat, sheep, or other cattle, the EXACT rules are a touch shaky because, well, antelope is (I believe) a polyphyletic grouping, meaning the group neither posses the common ancestor of all members of the group (which would be paraphyletic) or the common ancestor AND all descendents of that ancestor (which would be monophyletic, which makes something a true clade).

But there's still some meaning to the word, 91 entire species of antelope roam Africa, India, Central Asia, the Middle East, and even a small part of Eastern Europe.

(Illustration from The History of Four-footed Beasts (1607))

In much of ye old Europe the antelope was strangely viewed as a mighty beast of prey, with horns of razor and the heart of a wolf.

(Coat of arms of the Dule of Abercorn)

This design was used largely for heraldry, and still sticks around today, I think it looks neat.

Now, lets go over specific antelope, I've chosen based on very good reasons.

Best scientific name

(A kob)

Some scientific names repeat themselves, such as Vulpes vulpes, those ones are easy to remember, some species names are used as a common name, such as Arcticitis binturong

Then you have...

THE KOBUS KOB, near perfection, the generic name is very similar to the species name, and the species name is also a major common name, tremendous bonus points because it sounds funny

Even more bonus points because there's a subspecies called the Kobus kob kob, perfection, no notes.

The littlest baby

(So cute, squeeeee!)

The royal antelope, known scientifically as Neotragus pygmaeous, it's one of a large (unlike them, hehe) number of 'dwarf antelope' but the royal antelope is the littlest among them.

Standing up to 10 inches (25 cm) tall and weighing in at (at the upper end) 6.6 lb (3 kg), that footlong hotdog you had for lunch is longer than this lad is tall!

(A wittle baby royal antelope)

Little is known about these jungle-dwelling cuties, they mysteriously wander hidden in foliage.

The weirdest

(Such a silly guy!)

The saiga (Saiga tatarica) I mean, just look at him! This antelope lives mostly in Russia, making it an oddity in geographic location too!

Their strange downward curved nose is mysterious, and seems to serve many purposes, keeping warm, filtering out dust they inhale, and, of course, an amazing sense of smell!

They even communicate with loud nasally roars!

The most antelope-y

(Such antelope, much cute)

Thomson's gazelle (Eudorcas thomaonii) will always be the masoct of antelopes, the true antelope, to me.

It's still exceptional though, the fourth fastest land animal, running up to 50-55 MPH (80-90 KM/H) cheetahs (the fastest land animal) are their main predator. They're also sometimes called tommies!

The biggest baby

(They tall)

The fittingly names giant eland (Taurotragus derbianus)!

Standing between 7.19 and 9.55 feet (219 and 291 cm) tall, females weighing between 660 and 1320 pounds (300 a and 600 kg) and the larger males weighing from 880 up to 2650 pounds (400 to 1200 kg)!

My Favorite!

Yes, that's the royal antelope, it was love at first sight, okay? They're perfect! The saiga and Thomson's gazelle are the runner ups.

The most threatened

Sadly, there are several terribly threatened antelope, the hirola, or Beatragis hunteri is the worst off, considered critically endangered by the IUCN, there is only two levels worse than that, extinct in the wild, and truly extinct.

Less than 500 remain, none in captivity. Neither humanity nor nature have been too kind to this critter, hunting, habitat loss, disease and more have devestated this poor creature, the lowered elephant population causes bush enchroachment, harming the hirola, giving a good show of the domino effect of extinction, but its not all bad.

August twelth is hirola day! Human's have begun manually trimming brush, to keep the habitat of the hirola (and other species) in place, if they did go extinct it'd be the first time a mammalian genus has gone extinct in mainland Africa in modern human history, lets try not to lose the record we have going.

I have hope.

Sadly, the saiga is, yet again, a runner up, it too is critically endangered, along with other antelopes.