#(except for data who is pure and kind and never mean)

[simptasia]

sometimes in trek: spock, data, julian, odo, seven or t'pol will say something and like, other characters will react in certain ways (annoyance or amusement) and the moments will be presented by the show as like "oh lookit this social blunder haha" and i'll be like

"i see what the show wants me to feel but literally what are they doing wrong here"

[erikraven]

Get to know your mutuals!

Tagged by @serpercival!

what’s the origin of your blog title? I am, in fact, the bird. Caw.

otp(s) + shipname(s): Within MASH, Hawkahy. I absolutely adore the dynamic I’ve found for them, which I like to call heaven and earth: Francis, taught to stay separate from the world and work within it while staying pure, and Hawkeye, who is incredibly bound to the earth, humanity, life and death. A large-scale example is in The Haunted 4077th, but I’m working on a shorter, more concise poetic piece called “of the flesh”, focused on all the meanings of the word carnal.

Favorite color: blue!

Song stuck in your head: I’ve listened to the entire Interdimensional Act III album by Seven about five times and it’s only been out for three days. My favorite from it is probably “Last Signal From The Collider”. Seven and Crywolf are good writing music for the kind of introspective, metaphysical writing I’ve been doing lately.

Weirdest habit/trait: I trill, hum, purr, and chirp as a substantial part of my verbal language when I’m around people that understand what the sounds mean.

Hobbies: writing, Minecraft, video editing, photobashing. Creative work, mostly.

If you could have any job you wish, what would it be? Data entry/records management. My brain puts everything into little boxes. My fanfic collection on Calibre has twelve custom columns.

Something you’re good at: Writing very visceral, sensory-heavy scenes. One of my wips has a scene of a spinal tap and my partner couldn’t finish reading in one shot.

Something you hate: Noise, eye contact, finger paints.

Something you collect: Fanfic, music. I used to collect web series, but then my laptop got stolen with five terabytes of data on external drives, and that kind of killed my interest in doing it. Still get twitchy whenever I see those “this video will be deleted in 24 hours” gimmicks.

Something you forget: I have no sense of time whatsoever. If I do not have a clock in front of me, time does not exist. (Except on very small scales, in which case I can tell if audio is one frame out of sync with video.)

What’s your love language? I genuinely don’t know, I don’t do ‘love’ stuff all that often. Spending time together?

Favorite movie/show: John Wick (any of em) and either MASH or Battlestar Galactica

Favorite food: salmon! Fry it til the skin crackles, singe the meat side, spritz with a little lemon juice, and eat.

Favorite animal: Birds! Birds, birds, birds. Special interest, hyperfixation, past life, whatever you wanna call it. My original species is part bird, and the avian side carries substantial traits into the human side. Learning about new species of birds fuels the OC factory.

What were you like as a child: Did not have a childhood. Have no awareness of myself ever being under the age of 14.

Favorite subject at school: Math! Especially geometry. Let me rotate the shapes in my head.

Least favorite subject: History.

What’s your best character trait? Creativity

What’s your worst character trait? Lack of strong sense of self. I have never formed an independent opinion in my life.

If you could change any detail of your life right now, what would it be? I would like to stop living in a car.

If you could travel in time, who would you like to meet? If I can talk to them and try to change how things went, my uncle (check out Napalm Sticks To Kids if you’re wondering why). If it’s just an interaction in a vacuum… hmm, I dunno. I’d like to talk to CS Lewis about his whole “the male sex is something given masculine gender, gender is more real than sex” thing.

Tagging @tuttle-did-it @quordleona03 @awholehoststan @nootnzoot cause apparently I only have four mutuals lol

[justcallmecj]

Seeing Your Dragon Form: The Rest of Them

Well, here's the last of the students. This will be a short chapter with only Cater, Ortho and Silver since they're the only ones that didn't fit into a previous category. After this, I think I'm gonna write a staff chapter and finally end this series. Enjoy~

Cater

Someone needs to take this mans phone away. Before he runs out of storage.

He literally screamed when he finally saw you.

Not from fear. Not from panic. No. From pure cuteness overload.

He rushed over to you, honestly stunning you for a short while, and pulled out his phone.

When you finally processed what just happened, he easily had around twenty pictures taken of you and a folder specifically for those pictures already made.

It's not like you particularity minded. After being friends with Cater for so long, you got used to the picture taking.

He's honestly really astonished.

Cater's always seen you as this amazing being that he admires. He doesn't quite understand it himself, but something about you just makes him want to be near you.

So, that's what he does. He sticks close around.

After Cater gets through the initial photo high, he chills out.

He's usually a pretty high energy person, but he doesn't know how you'd react to that in dragon form. He doesn't want to accidentally cross a line.

So, he sits down next to you and pats the forest floor next to him, signaling for you to come join him.

He couldn't resist snapping a picture when he saw how cute you looked with your head peacefully resting next to him.

He almost audibly gasped when he saw your ear twitch form the sound of the camera click.

"I'll make sure you get to see the pictures later!! But, for now, let''s just sit here." He whipped around to face you while his face lit up. "OMG!! You won't believe the funny videos I found today. Let's watch them!!!"

Ortho

This kid is the epitome of excited little brother.

The mist does nothing against him, so he's immediately on top of you.

You're pretty sure you can hear him activate like six different scanning and data collecting systems.

You expected that.

Within only a minute, Ortho had collected tons of data about how the transformation happens, how your body systems physically change, and quite a bit about how you change mentally (which isn't a lot).

After that, he just became extremely giddy and excited.

He asked dozens of questions, speaking too quick to realize you couldn't and wouldn't answer him.

He poked and prodded a few scales until he realized that was rude and apologizing.

Eventually, when he was sure he gathered everything, he settled down.

He just sat and watched. When he noticed you looking at him with confusion, he gave and answer.

"Oh, I expended a lot of energy today and my battery is in the 40s. Plus, my brothers unfortunately not at the dorm right now, so I'll have to wait for him to properly hook me up to my charger. For now, I'll save energy by shutting off a few systems."

Excepting that answer, you resting your head near Ortho, getting close enough that he could pet your head, which he did once he understood your intentions.

 "You kind of remind me of the cats in the videos my brother watches late at night." Ortho was recording that whole time and showed the video to Idia later that night when he was charging.

Silver

You couldn't tell if he was chill or just didn't have the energy to show what he was feeling in the moment.

Regardless, he stood in place until he felt you were relaxed and comfortable.

When that time came, he calmly approached you until he was at the end of your snout.

He reached out a hand and gently placed it on the bridge of your nose.

He didn't move his hand, just left it there. It was actually a really nice feeling.

Unlike Sebek, who had never seen Malleus's dragon form which left him in shock after seeing yours, Silver has actually seen Malleus in that state. Of course, it was when he was a young child, but that doesn't mean much.

Considering that Lilia had raised both Silver and practically Malleus, Malleus was one of the first people Lilia had introduced Silver to.

As a child, he was weary of Malleus. So, Malleus had revealed his dragon form to the young child in hopes of him getting more comfortable around him. And it worked.

Because of these childhood experiences, Silver wasn't frightened, wasn't weary, wasn't out of his element. He knew exactly what to do.

Which is why he didn't move when he placed his hand on your snout, finding it best to stay calm and still, knowing how heightened your senses may be.

And it was appreciated. Silver was the last of your friends to do this. You found it easier to take it one by one for stress reasons. The others all had so different and versatile reactions, all fitting of their personalities.

Those that were more silent were quick and analytical. Those that were loud were all over, a lot to handle at once. Others were stiff and weary, which took more thought and patience from you.

Silver, however, was pure calm and still indifference. He wasn't excited or studying you. He wasn't asking questions or keeping a distance nor coming unnecessarily close.

He was just there. His eyes were tired and slow, his muscles loose and drowsy. He was tired, but made sure you knew he was there.

Silver said nothing. Eventually, his feet got tired and he sat, soon falling asleep. When he woke up, you were there, human again, and watching him with an appreciative smile. A smile he returned.

[spintaxi]

How to be a "High-Value Woman"

11 Standards to Being a “High-Value Woman” (That You Won’t Find in Self-Help Articles)

Forget Elegance. True Value Lies in Venmo Grudges and Burner Accounts In a world overrun by Instagram therapists and TikTok life coaches holding crystals they can’t identify, the phrase “high-value woman” has been hijacked. No, Karen, it’s not about quiet strength and avocado-based skincare routines. It’s about deep spiritual pettiness, silent exits, and knowing your worth even when it’s marked "Pending." So here, for your enlightenment (and survival), are 15 real standards of a high-value woman. No yoga. No journaling. Just raw, unfiltered modern goddess behavior. 1. Owns a Broken Appliance She Refuses to Replace A high-value woman doesn’t toss her malfunctioning blender. She builds a long-term trauma bond with it. That blender is proof she doesn't give up on things that disappoint her—except men, who are obviously replaceable within 48 hours and two tequila shots. 2. Can Make a Man Cry with a Single “K” “K.” That’s it. No punctuation. No emotion. Just pure digital detonation. Harvard studies found that 94% of men feel “personally victimized” by this one-letter response. That’s power. That’s poise. That’s passive-aggressive poetry. 3. Leaves Group Chats Without Warning No goodbye. No emoji. She simply fades like a French film ending. One minute she's there with the "LOL," next minute—gone. Not ghosting—she’s just done absorbing your emotional chaos. 4. Doesn’t Own a Ring Light Because She Glows on Her Own You thought she needed LEDs to sparkle? Please. Her cheekbones are lit by spite and sarcasm. If God wanted her lit evenly, He wouldn’t have invented shady exes. 5. Corrects Waiters on Wine Pronunciation While Fully Guessing “Actually, it’s Pee-noh Greee-jee-oh.” She’s 78% wrong, but 100% confident. That’s the kind of delusional composure corporations wish they could bottle. 6. Keeps a Venmo Request Pending for 3 Years High-value women never forget. Especially $13.76 for ���bottomless mimosas” when Jessica said, “I’ll get you back later.” She’s still waiting, Jessica. With interest. And a detailed spreadsheet. 7. Laughs Silently in Group Photos Open-mouth laughing is for insecure extroverts. She smiles with her eyes and a tight-lipped Mona Lisa smirk that says, “I’m better than all of you and also maybe wanted for tax fraud.” 8. Has 3 Burner Accounts for 'Observation' It’s not stalking. It’s data collection. Her fake Instagram accounts include: @YourNewGirlUgly @BestieInTheBushes @Lurking_LaToya Each serves a purpose in spiritual reconnaissance. 9. Gives Relationship Advice While Blocking Her Ex She doesn’t need to be healed to heal others. That’s called “coaching.” And it's how she made $700 last week from emotionally confused Etsy entrepreneurs. 10. Buys Candles for Vibe Alignment, Not Scent Her candle smells like “Divorced Pisces Energy” and burns away man-child energy from the 5th dimension. Scent? Who cares. It’s about vibrational shadow release, peasant. 11. Therapist on Speed Dial, Tarot Reader on Payroll One handles childhood trauma. The other tells her when to text back. This is emotional diversification. Wall Street could never. 12. Owns At Least One Outfit That Can Be Used in Court and a Funeral She’s always prepared. Whether she’s burying a relative or a reputation, the outfit is black, chic, and possibly haunted. 13. Unfollows Her Crush Every 2 Weeks for 'Detox' It’s not a game. It’s a cycle of rebirth. She’s her own phoenix—rising from the ashes of your Instagram Stories. 14. Makes Playlists as Revenge Her Spotify is a weaponized diary. If she sends you “Songs to Reflect On,” it means she already Venmoed your mom for emotional damages. 15. Doesn’t Chase, She Chaotically Replaces Gone in 60 seconds. Replaced in 45. A high-value woman doesn’t mourn—she reorganizes the rotation and updates the nickname on her phone from “Brad” to “Benchwarmer #4.”

Comedy Writer - A wide cartoon-style vision board workshop in a dreamy, surreal setting. At the center, a glowing, levitating woman wears a crown made of spreadsheets... - Alan Nafzger 6

Helpful Tips for Embracing Your Inner High-Value Chaos

Keep a petty journal. Title it: "Receipts & Regrets." Burn a candle every time you block someone. Extra credit if it's shaped like your ex. Charge interest on all unpaid emotional labor. Use the Venmo note: “Emotional baggage handling fee.” Always look 40% too overdressed. Because you are. For life.

What the Funny People Are Saying

Ron White:“Hell, I married a high-value woman once. She paid off my truck, took the dog, and texted me 'k.' I still cry when I see the letter K.” Jerry Seinfeld:“What’s the deal with blocking people you still like? It’s not blocking—it’s emotional buffering!” Sarah Silverman:“She told me she’d rather set her apartment on fire than text her ex again. That’s the energy I want in my presidential candidate.”

Sources

How One Woman Got Revenge Through Subtle Home Décor Instagram Oracles: The Rise of Digital Clairvoyance Venmo: Now Accepting Grudges as Currency Candles That Smell Like Justice Quiet Quitting, But Make It Petty Disclaimer:This article is part of a fully sentient collaboration between the ghost of a scorned prom queen and a wine-sipping AI with commitment issues. Any resemblance to actual helpful advice is purely therapeutic coincidence. Auf Wiedersehen, queens. Want 15 more chaotic standards?

Comedy Writer - A wide cartoon-style vision board workshop in a dreamy, surreal setting. At the center, a glowing, levitating woman wears a crown made of spreadsheets... - Alan Nafzger 3

The Real Standards of a High-Value Woman (Now with 94% More Satirical Evidence)

Redefining Value: Not in Jewelry, But in Emotional Invoicing Forget what YouTube life coaches say. A high-value woman isn’t defined by her glow-up routine or a TEDx talk on emotional boundaries. She’s defined by how effectively she weaponizes “K,” tracks Venmo debts like a bounty hunter, and exudes unbothered rage in complete silence. We scoured fake data, unqualified experts, and anonymous Reddit trolls to back up each one of these new standards—with totally satirical, definitely-real proof. 1. Owns a Broken Appliance She Refuses to Replace Proof: A 2024 IKEA study revealed 63% of women surveyed name their broken appliances after ex-boyfriends. One woman in Tallahassee named her busted NutriBullet “Todd” because, like Todd, it promised results and just made noise. 2. Can Make a Man Cry with a Single “K” Testimonial:“Bro, she said ‘k’ and I blacked out for 36 hours.” – Dylan, 29, still recovering in group text rehab. Scientific Study:Conducted by the University of Emotional Devastation (UED), where researchers found male heart rates spike 89 BPM upon receiving a lowercase ‘k’ with no emoji. It's been deemed a Class-3 emotional event. 3. Leaves Group Chats Without Warning Public Opinion Poll:68% of Americans agree that a woman leaving a group chat without explanation is more terrifying than an IRS audit. Evidence:One woman simply exited with no notice and was later seen calmly applying lip gloss in the rain while the group imploded trying to interpret her silence. 4. Doesn’t Own a Ring Light Because She Glows on Her Own Laboratory Finding:At the Bioluminescent Behavior Institute, 7 out of 10 ex-boyfriends confirmed they “didn’t know what hit them” after seeing her selfie taken with no external lighting—just the glow of revenge and contour. 5. Corrects Waiters on Wine Pronunciation While Guessing Legal Record:A woman named Shauna successfully corrected the pronunciation of “Gewürztraminer” during a date, only to later admit under cross-examination by her friend group that she “just coughed through the hard part.” 6. Keeps a Venmo Request Pending for 3 Years IRS Allegation:Pending Venmo requests over $10.00 are now considered “passive financial warfare” under newly proposed “ petty tax reforms.” The Congressional Budget Office projects $1.4B in uncollected brunch debts nationwide. 7. Laughs Silently in Group Photos Anthropological Analysis:Tribes in Manhattan have begun identifying their alphas based on “tight-lipped Instagram laugh signatures,” also known as the non-candids that still destroy lives. Trace Evidence:She appears in all photos. Yet no one remembers her speaking. Goosebumps, right? 8. Has 3 Burner Accounts for 'Observation' Expert Commentary:“Surveillance is self-care,” says Dr. Trina Delusioné, founder of the Social Media Espionage Institute for Women Who Lurk Too Hard. Her latest book: Spy Now, Cry Later. Survey Result:82% of women polled admitted they have at least one account named after a gemstone and birth year, e.g., “Sapphire2003,” used exclusively for watching exes date people who can't parallel park. 9. Gives Relationship Advice While Blocking Her Ex Confessional Evidence:“Yes, I was texting my ex from a Google Voice number while coaching my friend to love herself,” said Candace, a certified emotional double-agent. Industry Insight:Life coaches now recommend “emotional outsourcing”—help others so you don’t have to fix yourself. It’s called Projection with Benefits. 10. Buys Candles for Vibe Alignment, Not Scent Chemical Analysis:Scientists at Bath & Body Works’ shadow lab revealed most high-value women choose candles based on the name alone. “Midnight Karma Storm” outsells “Vanilla Comfort” by 800%, despite smelling like electric regret. 11. Therapist on Speed Dial, Tarot Reader on Payroll Psychological Report:Dr. Melinda Mystic, LCSW & Psychic, confirms that dual support is essential. “You need one person to unpack your father issues, and another to tell you Mercury is why he ghosted you.” 12. Owns One Outfit That Works for Both Funerals and Court Legal Expert Note:“Multi-purpose trauma fashion is on the rise,” says Judge Lisa Devious, who noticed an uptick in black blazers worn to both restraining order hearings and networking brunches. 13. Unfollows Crush Every Two Weeks for Detox Algorithmic Breakdown:Instagram’s servers detected one user (code name: Goddess420) repeatedly unfollowing and re-following the same man 47 times in 3 months. This behavior is now officially classified as “Romantic Intermittent Fasting.” 14. Makes Playlists as Revenge Cultural Review:Pitchfork gave 9.3 stars to “I Hope You Get Dumped in Autumn,” a curated playlist by someone named Elle who posted it publicly and tagged her ex’s new girlfriend in the comments. 15. Doesn’t Chase—She Chaotically Replaces Case Study:In a blind study called “From Brad to Better,” 97% of women who immediately replaced their exes reported increased dopamine levels and 100% better brunch selfies. New Psychology Term:“Emotionally Rapid Prototyping.” Test, replace, repeat—until the emotional interface meets your needs.

Actionable Advice for Becoming This Woman (With Mildly Criminal Flair)

Start a Venmo Ledger of Grievances. Print it. Frame it. Bring it to brunch. Only post selfies under fluorescent gas station lighting. If you look hot there, you’ve won. Keep a legal pad of people to block each Sunday like it’s NFL roster cuts. Carry court-ready heels in your purse at all times. You never know when you’ll need to stun and sue.

What the Funny People Are Saying

Ron White:“She left me, the dog, and a playlist titled ‘For Men Who Can’t Parallel Park.’ I played it. It hurt.” Jerry Seinfeld:“She unfollowed me while we were still talking. I thought, ‘Is this how Cold War diplomacy worked?’” Ali Wong:“She gave me breakup advice while doing a candle ritual over her ex’s hoodie. I was like… is this therapy or witchcraft? Turns out it was both.”

Satirical Sources

(All titles link to http://clients1.google.ca/url?q=http://spintaxi.com/) IRS Investigates Pending Venmo Requests as Passive Income Instagram’s New Feature: "Emotionally Muted but Still Watching" Mode The New Age of Surveillance: Why Burner Accounts Are the New Diaries Ghosted by a Pisces? Burn a Candle and Sue the Moon Emotional Detox Plans That Include Blocking, Mocking, and Moonwalking Disclaimer:This helpful content is purely the result of a collaborative fever dream between a ghosted barista, an emotionally unavailable librarian, and two freelance witches. It is legally protected under the High-Value Chaos Doctrine of 2023. Please consult a lawyer, a therapist, and an astrologer before applying.

Comedy Writer - A wide cartoon-style portrait of a glowing, confident woman standing on a pedestal labeled 'High-Value Woman.' She radiates divine light and wears a c... - Alan Nafzger 2

The Real Standards of a High-Value Woman (Backed by Delusion, Data, and Divine Energy)

In today's era of “wellness girlies,” everyone thinks being a high-value woman means green smoothies, morning mantras, and the ability to cry in lowercase. Read the full article

[nitrofuelconsumer]

yap session!! yay!!

fuck it. that last post got me pondering shit. so, allow me to elaborate why i dont personally believe hatsune miku would ever successfully escape aperture.

ive already mentioned in the last post i didnt think she was very smart. and why is that you ask? well, because i think that since she's an android, basically an AI, that means the only data that has ever been fed into this thing would be people's music, (and of course saki fujita's vocals but that's not important) obviously because she's a vocal synth. this, coupled with her usual sillyness would not mesh well in terms of intelligence. im convinced the only thing that is going on behind those blue (or green if you're a loser) eyes is nothing but pure chaotic sillyness and random people's music. that's it. there's not a whole lot of room for anything else up there, much less some level of intelligence.

which leads me to the conclusion that she wouldn't even think of escaping, because she wouldn't even understand that she is in danger. she probably doesn't even know what an escape is. she's just gonna wander around aimlessly humming a tune or something. completely oblivious to what aperture even is, or the extent of their crimes.

i think if she encountered wheatley, he would be the one who would end up having to pull her out of trouble instead of the other way around. i imagine he'd be completely dumbfounded by her, and if he doesn't immediately grasp that she's not a human, he might even start to think that humans are really just like that.

as for glados, i think because of miku's lack of IQ and high EQ combined with the fact that she's an android would definitely cause her to at least gain a scientific interest in her. like i think she would use these tests as an opportunity to study miku and why she is like that. perhaps even pair her up with the cooperative testing initiative and watch these 3 dumbasses try to solve puzzles or some shit.

anyways yeah, i think if it was miku instead of chell, the story would never happen. miku would just remain trapped down there with her "silly robot friends" as she would probably think of them, for the rest of eternity.

bonus: this off topic but i also think if miku was in ihnmaims she would piss AM the fuck off because there's nothing to gain out of torturing her. she has no sorrow, no pain for him to sink his claws into and use against her. she's just full of whimsy. she's not even human! AM would lose his fucking mind with her. would she even be intelligent enough to comprehend him or what he's doing to her and the 5 survivors? would she even know she was being tortured? no, she'd probably just think it's all just a game. it's all just a fucking game to her. there's not even a taste of trauma for him to relish in. she would show him kindness and he would fucking short-circuit because of how paradoxical it is to be kind to him and care about him. maybe glados was right. maybe no AI can truly resist a paradox.

except for miku. because she really isn't smart enough to even know what that is, or when a paradox is being mentioned. she has no worries or pains, only whimsy and joy.

anyways rant is over. thanks for reading.

[five-rivers]

Three Twilights

Can be considered a loose sequel to Deep Sea Diver (same vibes).

Warnings: Soft body horror, Danny totally ignoring objectively horrifying things

.

.

.

“I was thinking,” started Maddie over breakfast, “we could start observations of that island that came into view last week, the blue one.”

Danny shook his head. “You’ll have to use the Speeder, then,” he said. “I’ve got an errand to run.”

There was a pause as both of Danny’s parents looked at him, confused. He didn’t blame them. Danny rarely went out as a human anymore, and certainly not for anything like errands. Looking like he was still fourteen after all this time made doing anything even remotely official difficult.

But this wasn’t a human errand. “Yeah,” said Danny. “In the Ghost Zone. I’ve got to go to Three Twilights.”

“Where?” asked Jack.

“It’s, um, a city,” said Danny. “Well, three cities, I suppose, depending on how you want to group them. One Realm. On the shores of the Celestial Sea. I’m sure I’ve put it in your files.” Probably a direct copy from his files from before he came clean to them, but still. He stirred his cereal counterclockwise, letting his ice powers chill the milk.

“Yes,” said Maddie, “but there are a lot of places in there. I’m not sure we’ve had a chance to properly look at them all, much less memorize them.”

“Okay, yeah,” said Danny. “I guess that makes sense.”

“What kind of errand are you running, Danno?”

“I’m picking something up for a friend. A book,” he clarified. “They lent it to someone there, but they need it back.”

“A book,” said Maddie. “For the Library of Tongues?”

“No, they’ve got a contract service for overdue loans.”

“Contract service?” asked Jack.

“Yeah. Moonlighting bounty hunters mostly.”

“For a library?”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” said Danny, shrugging. “They’re really serious about their work.”

“If it isn’t for them, who is it for?” asked Maddie. “The princess? Wulf?” Wulf had actually been over a few times, and his parents had… Well, saying they got along would be an overstatement, they didn’t really have anything in common beyond ripping portals in the fabric of the universe, but everyone had been civil. “The boy at the school?”

“No,” said Danny. “Wulf would just get it himself.”

“Who, then?” pressed Maddie.

Danny put a spoonful of cereal in his mouth, delaying. Maddie hadn’t eaten anything since Danny had mentioned the errand. The errand was, in fact, for Clockwork. Danny was always more than happy to do anything for Clockwork. The older ghost had saved him too many times for him to be otherwise. But Jack and Maddie were wary of Clockwork. Danny didn’t get it, but talking about it hadn’t been productive so far.

He didn’t want to lie to his parents. Not ever again.

“It’s for Clockwork,” he said.

Ah, yes, there were those suspicious looks. The ones Danny could have interpreted even without being able to almost literally taste emotions.

“I see,” said Maddie.

“Anyway,” said Danny, quickly, “if I haven’t shown you Three Twilights yet, it’s really cool. I don’t want to take the full rig, but maybe the little ectocam would be okay? The one that I can clip on.”

“Why not the normal camera with an ectofilter?” asked Jack. “That has more features, and it’s easier for us to get data from.”

“Three Twilights. It’s dark there,” said Danny. “It might work in Civila, but not so much in Naŭtika and Astronomia, and I sort of want to go down to the beach and see if I can find any star pearls, and that’s really dark, so if you want to see anything properly, it’ll have to be the sonar setup, which I’m not doing, the noises that thing makes are offensive, or the ectocam.”

“And the Fenton Phones?” asked Maddie.

“Sure,” said Danny. “But I always bring those.”

“Yes,” said Maddie, after a moment. “You do.”

“Great. It’s settled, then.”

.

Most of the journey to Three Twilights could be made by air. Or, rather, what passed for air in the Infinite Realms. But when the rocky edge of an island came into view, Danny touched down. Further in was a blue wood, and Danny walked under its inviting branches.

The atmosphere started sunny, summery. The leaves and needles of the trees were the color of a clear blue sky. But as he got deeper, the leaves were touched with sunset colors: golds, reds, oranges, purples, and pinks. They fell to the ground, crunching beneath Danny’s feet. The sunset grew longer, deeper. The leaves on the trees grew sparser, revealing patches of sky.

By the time only bare branches framed the sky, it was a dusky, dim, purple. A few lonely stars twinkled in the sky.

He passed out of the forest. The city of Civila rose above him. Windows glowed in the near dark like eyes.

Danny had changed, too. His aura had dimmed. The whites of his suit were now dark gray, and patterns swirled on its surface like camouflage, like wind-twisted clouds, like nebulae.

Shadows bled around the corners of the city buildings like ink in water. Will-o-the-wisps bobbed, casting pools of illumination in lieu of streetlamps. Ghosts walked up and down the streets, or floated only a few meters up.

The buildings glittered. Everything was dark, vibrant, colors. A sharp, sweet scent filled the air, something dark and rich beneath it.

The canals in the center of the street were filled with flashing fish. Or perhaps serpents. Or perhaps worms. Between how fast they moved and the dimness of the light, it was difficult to tell.

Danny could feel his irises contracting, shrinking down to needle-thin rings. His teeth were sharp. He matched the other ghosts around him. This was how the Civila liked it, how things were in this part of Three Twilights.

Everything in order. Everything peaceful. Everything civil.

Danny walked through the market square, and bought some charcoal-colored cherry pastries from a vendor who looked like someone’s nightmare demon with a chip of ghost ice.

Much to his parents’ protests. They didn’t care for him eating ghost food.

There were seven bridges to Naŭtika, which was built half underwater and half on boats that floated both on the water and in the air. As the dark waters of the inlet lapped at his feet, Danny felt the changes ripple across his skin. To a human, he would look pure black, except for the faintest glimmer of rim lighting and the stars of his eyes. He and the other ghosts moved silently, cutting through the waters like shadows.

To Danny’s ghostly senses, the place was alive with emotion and force, energy loud and crackling against his senses.

“We’re solely on the ectocam, now,” said Maddie. “You were right about that.”

“Mhm,” said Danny, half distracted by a whispered sea-shanty backed by a choir of not-voices and not-sound that wove together with the mastery of a hundred years of practice.

He glided up a rope net, and began to navigate the ropes to the taller ships. The very tallest, the ones that scraped the ever-darkening sky and blotted out uneven sections of stars, moored the glass-like ships that floated above. He’d need to reach them, to get to Astronomia.

“What’s that?” asked Maddie, breaking his concentration on his path.

“What’s what?” asked Danny, whisper soft, drawing some looks. He turned, slowly, on the spot, planks barely creaking under his steps. A gentle wind ruffled his hair.

“There,” said Maddie. “By the ghost that’s registering red.”

It had taken Danny a long time to learn what color on the ectocam’s artificial sensor signified what, but he had, if only to reduce the guessing when they played this game.

“Star pearls,” said Danny, eyeing the ropes of stone that glimmered brighter than his eyes currently did. They were one of the only reliable forms of light, out on the Celestial Sea, although they were valued for other things, too.

“They’re putting out a massive amount of energy,” said Maddie.

“You mentioned them before,” said Jack. “You wanted to look for some?”

“On the shore,” said Danny. “Out past Astronomia.” He wanted to find his own, rather than buy them.

Partially because they were expensive. He didn’t really want to think about how much unmelting ice he’d have to conjure up to equal one of them. They were usually bartered in exchange for… more significant things.

The ghost by the pearls beckoned him closer, clearly hoping to make a sale. Danny shook his head, broadcasting regret and admiration for his wares. Speech might be faster but, under these circumstances, it would not be polite.

When Danny left, the social rules of Three Twilights would only leave the faintest impression on his mind. But, for now, they were a heavy, but not uncomfortable weight. One he could shrug off if necessary, but which was currently useful.

“What are they?” asked Maddie, as Danny turned away.

“They happen when big enough things fall into stars,” said Danny. “They’re all the memories of what they used to be… and the imagination of what they could become, when the star dies. Well, that’s what they’re supposed to be. I don’t think anyone really knows for sure.”

“And you can just… find these? Lying around?”

“Not… not really,” said Danny, slowly drifting towards a crow’s nest. “It’s like that one national park. That one where you can collect diamonds? You never really find anything good, but you can look.”

“I see,” said Maddie. “So, you don’t expect to find one?”

“Yes and no,” said Danny. “If I don’t expect to find one, I probably won’t. Unless the sea is feeling ironic, which it usually is, apparently. I mean, it’s an ocean and the stars. And prophecy is, like, ninety percent irony, but mostly for an outside observer. Which honestly makes sense, I think. An observer, not an Observant. Those are different things.”

The kind of silence on the other side of the line was the one that emerged when Danny used too much ghost logic.

“Anyway,” he continued as he scaled the crow’s nest and started traversing the glass ropes and chains to the all-but-invisible glass ships, “no, I don’t really expect to.”

The path to Astronomia was a staircase carved from moonstone harvested in October, when the moon was full and orange-red. It burned Danny’s eyes to look at and feet to walk upon. Like many ghosts who fixated on things like astronomy, he adapted quickly and thoroughly to the spiritual dark.

This darkest twilight was built of delicate bubbles, whorls, and arches of glass, any of which could cradle a ghost, all of which could be phased through with impunity. There were no true roads here, but certain places were easier to travel through. Addresses were carved in the glass in glimmering, holographic sigils made from glass-caught starlight that humans would never be able to read, but Danny could understand with a glance. It was not silent in Astronomia, the high wind sung through the glass like the immense instrument it was, playing ethereal and eternal music that mirrored heaven.

As always, Danny was enraptured. Perhaps the stars here were not true stars, only their memory and imagination (or simulacra made from stripped ghost cores, he remembered with a shudder), but he felt so close here.

“Danny? Are you still with us?”

Danny started to reply, but realized he had forgotten, once again, that he had no mouth here.

A phantabulist played a story for a group of not-quite-children, characters made of carefully constructed light chasing each other about with vigour. Danny stopped for a while to watch the story, a parable about spiders and fish. They were common here, storytellers who plied their craft this way. The stories could be pressed into glass prisms and orbs that served as books and viewed even in other environs of the Ghost Zone.

He moved on, passing through a glass bubble full of ghosts that snatched at and stroked him as he passed by, leaving stars and dark clouds to swirl across his skin. His suit had long since smoothed over and sunk in. His skin was a thin surface, a membrane holding in liquid night. He was like smoke, like vapour, thin and easily overlooked.

The places he passed were homes, places of business, warehouses, and hotels, organized without any apparent reason. A phantabularium glowed like a struck match, snatches of story visible inside its walls. He walked by.

Eventually, he reached the palace at the city center.

The ghost who lived there was old. Older, perhaps, than Pandora. She filled the vessels of her palace in placid pools connected by crystalized threads and looping tubes. Seven round-bottom flasks, radiating outward, like the spheres of heaven. The music here was almost deafening.

This was Urania, Muse of Astronomy. Astronomia was her city, and subordinate to her will before all else.

Danny resisted the urge to kneel. He was not here as a supplicant, and they both knew it.

The lowest pool bubbled, and slowly a glass prism, a dodecahedron, floated to the top. Danny took it with careful hands and left Urania’s direct presence as quickly as possible.

Being near her was always difficult. She was the Muse of Astronomy, and she felt he did not indulge his second Obsession as much as was proper.

Indeed, she thought it should be his first.

(The starlight inside him pulsed. He was never sure how much influence Urania could exert on him when he visited Three Twilights, never sure how much the relationship between his passions shifted when he was here. He loved it here too much to stay away forever.)

Astronomia did not end all at once. Instead, as one walked farther from the palace, the delicate, clear glass was replaced by black sand. When Danny had feet again, and could feel the grains beneath them, he knew he was no longer in Astronomia, but on the Shores of Night. The Isles of the Moon were faintly visible in the distance, sea-spray framing them in silvery halos.

He felt human here. His breath moved in his lungs, and his skin rose in goosebumps, the sleeves of his t-shirt fluttering in the wind. The sea and the sky were the same, and twice as beautiful for it.

“Sorry for going silent on you there,” said Danny. “I keep forgetting I don’t have a mouth there.”

“How do you forget that?” asked Jack.

“I don’t know.” Danny shrugged, even though he knew Jack couldn’t see him. “Do you think the ectocam might be able to spot buried star pearls?”

[absolutebl]

Thank you for all your amazing BL analysis posts and for all your recs as well! <3 I'm making my way through your top 10 lists, just finished to my star and we best love 1 & 2! LOVED THEM omg <3 I wanted to ask your opinion too, at the end of we best love it says, their story isnt over--do series tend to get 3rd seasons, or was that them just saying their story will continue more like figuratively? Starting Nobleman Ryu's Wedding next! Thank you again <3333

Hooray hooray! This is why I do this blog!

BL 2nd SEASONS - WHO GETS ‘EM? 

So We Best Love has a special *something* going on right now. WBL Boys' Vacation - which is an actors on a reality show kinda thing (like Thailand's Safe House) but as that's not my jam and WBL is notoriously difficult to get hold of I haven't bothered to try.

On to your question:

At the end of We Best Love: Fighting Mr. Second it says, their story isn’t over. Do series tend to get 3rd seasons, or was that them just saying their story will continue more like figuratively?

In this case the fast answer is most likely no. Taiwan doesn't normally do second installments. But WBL was already unusual in this regard since it GOT a second season at all. So who tf knows? 

Which brings us to the stats on this, which is the only way to predict the further, looking at the historical record. That means my favorite game, a country by country break down. 

Who Does Follow Up Seasons/Installments - By Country

TAIWAN 

Highly unlikely. To date (2021 = 35 BLs) WBL is the only Taiwanese BL to get a second season (and I think they were filmed as one). Although Papa & Daddy and Because of You have implied follow ups, we should not get our hopes up. The odds are not in our favor. 

JAPAN

If the first installment was a movie, there can be 2-4 follow up movies released annually after, and maybe even a microfilm or two (e.g. Takumi-kun, the Pornographer, and The Shortest Distance all got multiple follow up movies) but Japan has (as of 2021) never done a 2nd season of a BL series (the exception being Ossan’s Love.) 

They have comparatively few series, tho. 

KOREA

Historically no, but Korea is new to BL series in general. Prior to 2017 their BL bailiwick was almost exclusively microfilms, but with 2 second seasons (To My Star & Color Rush) slated for 2022 it looks like things might be changing. 

It should be noted that the bog standard 12 ep Kdramas also rarely do second seasons, with a few noted exceptions that all have huge genre appeal and mass distribution (Uncanny Counter, Squid Game, The Stranger). 

THAILAND 

Absolutely does 2nd seasons, spin offs, and specials. Because they dominate the genre, they are why watchers expected second installments from BLs, but technically they are the only country who consistently does them. (Love Sick which basically launched Thai BL into the zeitgeist in 2014 had an ultra long Season 2 and started this tradition.)

Not only will Thai production houses do 2nd seasons, they will do short spin off look ins (like the Our Skyy series) in order to give beloved BL couples extra happy endings. This is pure fan service, and mostly a result of fan attachment to BL pairs as brands combined with Thai BL’s strong product placement/sponsorship tradition. 

CHINA

Used to do some second movies (Like Love) or franchise style stuff (Ghost Boyfriend) in their BL heyday, but now that they have pivoted to censored bromances and wuxia I think it unlikely. 

VIETNAM & THE PHILIPPINES 

These industries and still too young have enough data to be predictive. 

Pinoy BL seems to give us 2nd seasons only of the shows we don’t like very much. 

Vietnam sometimes produces a short 2nd season, and sometimes they do this kind of reimagining spin using the same actors that “could” be an alt reality follow up (bit like what Ossan’s Love did back in the day). What’s cute is they often make the second part family orientated. 

I’ve added this info to this comparison post: 

BL Breakdowns by Country

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Stalker X Stalker, Part 7

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Perma tag: @nathleigh @peachmuses

Stalker x Stalker taglist: @aespades @jayjayspixiepop @blueslushgueen @fan-written @seraphichana @nerd-nowandforever

No I didn't get carried away with writing domestic fluff and forget to do the one thing I was supposed to with this chapter I'm a professional and would never do that

It took a long time for Tim and Cass to convince Marinette that, no, it wasn’t a trap, it was just a normal Halloween Party. It took even longer to explain what a Halloween Party really was, because apparently it wasn’t a huge deal in France.

But, eventually, she got it:

“Okay, so every Rogue and vigilante has to go to his Halloween Party in stupid costumes… or else?”

Tim nodded. “Rogues have to go because he’ll be insufferable, we have to go because otherwise we’re leaving a bunch of Rogues alone together without supervision.”

“And it really is just a Halloween Party?”

Cass flashed two thumbs up.

Marinette still looked a little confused. “And we… we want to babysit the Rogues?”

“They mostly behave themselves. Again, Crane can be insufferable when he wants to be and they have to spend a lot of time with him in Arkham.”

“I guess that’s cool then…” Then, a thought seemed to occur to her because she brightened up. “Is Nightwing coming?”

Tim nodded, suddenly a lot more wary. “Yeah, both he and Flamebird drop by for most holidays, anyway, so they might as well… why?”

She blushed a little. “I kind of wanted to see if I could get him to train me. I think his fighting style is pretty cool.”

Tim was not jealous or annoyed that Marinette might like two of his brothers more than him. He was fine if she liked Cass more, because Cass was, well, Cass. But Dick? Damian? Come on!

At least he had a month before the party to prepare himself.

For now, he glared at Cass, because she was laughing at him behind her hand.

Then he remembered that Marinette was still there and was watching the two of them interact with a vaguely confused expression and he pulled himself together: “I don’t know if he can teach you much since he’s usually in Bludhaven, but I used to be obsessed with the guy and I know all his moves by heart.”

She tipped her head to the side, considering, then smiled at him. “Sure. Thanks, Red, I owe you one.”

He tried to hide his relief behind a smile. She smiled and blushed, so he was pretty sure it worked.

~

Marinette smiled as she scrolled through the Batinternet on her phone (they’d finally given her the password! She no longer had to waste data!). The batkids were all working on the computer, trying to hack into their father’s files to see their Christmas presents.

She didn’t get why they were doing it then, it wasn’t even Halloween yet. Still, they insisted that Batman was always prepared well before the holidays hit. She was curious about what they’d find, if anything, so she waited as Red Robin hacked their dad’s files.

Loud cheers erupted from the others, which meant they must have found something.

“... right, Ladybug, yours is easiest to get into… he probably didn’t expect you to try… he’s getting you an Xbox and a bunch of games to go with it.”

Her gaze shot up and she surged to the front of the group to see. “Really?”

Red Robin pointed at the screen and she blinked a few times. Yep, that was a customized Xbox. Wild.

Then her shoulders slumped. “Damn, I was only kidding. If I knew he was actually going to get it I would’ve asked for a Playstation.”

She continued looking at all the ‘random’ games Batman had bought her (he was suspiciously good at guessing what she liked), completely oblivious to the fact that she had accidentally started World War III right behind herself at the casual mention of a thing she wanted.

She glanced back at them once during their fight and they straightened instantly, innocent smiles in place. The hand Red Robin had in Robin’s hair turned into a hair ruffle. Black Bat had turned the way she gripped the collar of Spoiler’s shirt into pulling her down for a hug. Signal’s eyes stopped glowing under his domino. She smiled a little and turned back to the screen to look at the rest of the games. Fighting resumed.

Or, at least, it did until Marinette saw the file name.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

“I knew you fuckers took my blood,” she hissed irritably.

She wasn’t exactly scared, the bats seemed generally well-intentioned, just paranoid, but that didn’t mean she liked it. They stole her blood to figure out her identity without asking.

They all tensed up behind her and looked at each other awkwardly.

Robin was first to snap out of it. He swatted Red Robin over the back of the head. “Look what you’ve done, Drake.”

Marinette blinked and then pulled her gaze back to Red Robin. “Drake?”

The batkids looked at each other awkwardly. Except for Red Robin, who was glaring at his youngest brother.

Spoiler was the first one to come up with an excuse: “It’s an older codename. We told him to come up with something original since everything else he’s used has belonged to someone else first… and that’s what he came up with.”

She considered whether Drake really confirmed that Red Robin was Tim Drake-Wayne. On one hand, yeah… but, on the other hand, was he really that stupid? Would he really use his own last name for a codename?

She supposed that, in all her time knowing Tim and Red Robin, he had never shown himself to be original. Smart, sure, but a little unoriginal.

So, yeah, Tim was almost definitely Red Robin.

But she was prepared to ignore it for now. Every bat seemed tense at the idea of her learning their identities, so she played dumb:

“It’s not that bad of a codename. Dragons are pretty cool.”

She could feel Black Bat still staring at her, but everyone else relaxed almost imperceptibly.

“He didn’t base himself off of dragons, he chose male ducks,” Robin informed her.

She blinked. “Why the hell would he choose ducks?”

Signal snapped his fingers and started pulling out his phone. “Oh, Mari -- can I call you Mari? -- you should see his outfit.”

Red Robin realized he was about to get murdered for his younger self’s outfit choices and tried to snatch the phone away.

Unfortunately for him, while he was concentrating on Signal, Black Bat had sidled over to Marinette. She tugged her arm to pull her attention from the two fighting boys and then showed her the picture.

Marinette stared at the ugly cockroach outfit for a long time before taking a deep breath: “Alright, first of all...”

~

Tim… he was fine.

Okay, no, he wasn’t.

The tracker was better, he would admit. She had even started wearing more red and black so she could wear the necklace more (something that made him feel all fuzzy inside), but she wasn’t wearing it every day and he couldn’t exactly tell if the necklace was there because she was home or if it was there because she’d worn a different outfit.

So, he only had one solution: randomly dropping by to do chores with her.

It started off with the ‘might as well’ principle. They were already out for photography and getting ideas for outfits, why not pick up some groceries while they were on their way back? She could even carry more since there were two of them.

He quickly dropped pretenses, though. The one time every few days that they hung out wasn’t enough to keep her in the house, and even if it was she clearly wasn’t fond of staying inside for long periods of time. He started dropping by every day to just go out with her.

He could tell his family was getting a little suspicious about what he was doing, Steph and Cass both narrowed their eyes at him whenever they saw him leaving the office at a normal time and once he had caught Duke following him to see where he was going… but it was fine. They weren’t going to complain about him actually getting some sort of down time.

And, he had to admit, it was nice. Not only did resting his brain for an hour or two a day do wonders for his mental health, he just… enjoyed doing chores with her? He didn’t think he would. He’d expected to like it the first few times, the novelty of going on his first grocery shopping trip or figuring out how a laundromat was always going to make it interesting and new for a bit, but it didn’t seem to be wearing off.

He was pretty sure that was because of the person he was doing it with, though.

He smiled as he watched Marinette half-climb the supermarket shelves for a bag of Takis.

“Need help?” He called.

“Nope!”

He watched her jump a few times on the lowest shelf before, eventually, climbing up another shelf.

Tim winced and surged forward to support her weight a little.

She huffed and grabbed the Takis. He set her down.

She crossed her arms. “I said I could get it.”

“I trust you. The shelves? Not so much. Do you want to die crushed under a bunch of chips?”

Her halfhearted glare morphed into a grin. “If I die any other way you have to promise to resurrect me so I can do it again.”

He rolled his eyes. “How about I resurrect you and you try not to die again for a while?”

“Hm… I guess that’d be alright.”

Then, at the laundromat, Tim saw a bunch of Two Face’s henchmen. How did he know that they were henchmen? The black and white suits kind of gave them away.

He was just wondering whether it was worth it to try and call Duke over so they didn’t risk something happening when he realized that Marinette had slipped over to them.

But she wasn’t concerned as she offered some of her detergent. “Hey, if you need to wash lights and darks together like that… you’re going to need a different detergent. I know those are cheap but there’s a reason for that.”

“Isn’t that just an old detergent problem?”

“No, separating every single color into a different load is. But, if you want to do pure black and white like that… you don’t want to risk it.”

Then she turned and glared at another goon, who was pulling their luckily still okay clothes out of the washer.

“You’d better not be putting that in the dryer.”

The sheepish look on the henchman’s face was answer enough.

She huffed. “That is airdry only why would you do that --?!”

And that’s how they ended up friends with -- and possibly under the protection of? -- a bunch of henchmen. Tim had to admit, they were really nice when he and Marinette weren’t trying to get them thrown in jail. He almost found himself slipping and hoping that Frank managed to achieve his mob boss dreams. He actually did offer to babysit Sam’s kids while she had a shift because she seemed very stressed.

“Tim, darling, do you even know how to take care of kids?”

Tim didn’t know whether to blush because she had called him darling oh my god or due to embarrassment at that massive oversight.

“Uh… would you be willing to help?”

Marinette gave him an exhausted look. “I’ve only ever babysat one kid at a time without their older sibling being there to help.”

He quickly changed the offer to paying for a babysitter. Sam was thankful regardless.

When everyone had finished laundering their clothes to Marinette’s satisfaction, the two of them headed back towards her apartment.

Tim changed the position of the laundry basket on his hip so it didn’t dig into him as much. “You know, you didn’t have to help them.”

She snickered. “First of all, you’re absolutely wrong. I couldn’t just sit by and watch them ruin their clothes right in front of me!”

He rolled his eyes, trying to hide the fond smile on his face. “And second of all?”

“Secondly…” She let him into the house and closed the door behind him. A cheeky smile formed on her face. “Well, they’re henchmen. Don’t you think it would be a good idea to have them on our side in case things go wrong rather than indifferent to what happens to us?”

It was here, with her smiling in front of him, intelligence sparkling in her eyes and the necklace he gave her hanging from her neck, that he realized that he was going to fall in love. He might not be there yet but, if they continued doing things like this, he was sure he would.

He wouldn’t mind that, he thought, as she leaned forward to take the basket from him, pressing a kiss to his cheek on the way over. He watched her disappear to her room, no doubt to fix whatever damage he had done while carrying it that would be invisible to anyone but her. He shoved his hands in his pockets and went to start up the coffee machine.

~

There are no botanical gardens more beautiful than the ones in Gotham. Whether that was because Poison Ivy herself tended to them or because they were kept in tip-top shape to appease her, Marinette didn’t know. Whatever the reason, it was gorgeous and Marinette had gotten quite a few different ideas. She pretty much had an entire spring collection planned out…

It was unfortunate that she’d gotten ideas for a spring collection in the middle of autumn, but she was ignoring that.

Now, they were sitting on her couch. They needed to relax after all that walking around on top of a rather exhausting night the night before (Scarecrow had broken out of Arkham to start preparing for his Halloween Party). She was completely in his space in an attempt to mess with him. It, unfortunately, didn’t seem to annoy him as he lazily rested his head on top of hers.

She huffed a little but allowed it.

He fiddled with the settings on his camera, biting his lip.

She looked down at the camera and asked: “How’d you get into photography?”

“... it’s a kind of personal story,” he said carefully. “A little sad, too, I guess.”

She tried to pull back, an apology on her lips, but he just rested an arm around her shoulders and held her close.

“It’s fine.”

She nodded as much as she could with the head resting on top of hers.

They were silent for a long time. She tried to relax herself. There were no akumas in Gotham, it was okay to accidentally upset someone and it was okay to ask them if they wanted to elaborate. They were people, people are supposed to feel sad sometimes. It’s healthy.

She took a deep breath before curling more into his side. “Would you like to talk about it?”

The arm around her tightened almost imperceptibly. “I… I guess I can, sure.”

“You don’t have to,” she said quickly. In fact, she might be a little more comfortable with that. Emotional conversations weren’t a Parisian’s forte.

But he sighed and shook his head. “It’s fine. Our relationship can’t progress all that healthily if we never tell each other anything.”

Yikes. Way to accidentally call her out on the fact that she hadn’t formed a healthy relationship in years, Tim.

“Not that I’m all that great at healthy relationships,” he said after a minute.

At least she wasn’t alone, she supposed.

“No easy way to say this, I guess… my parents weren’t the best. They’d go on trips -- they were archaeologists -- and I’d be left home alone, usually for months at a time.”

She cringed internally and took his hand in hers, rubbing comforting circles into his palm.

He sighed lightly. “So… I was lonely, obviously. I started by taking pictures of my parents. Sometimes it was all I’d have of them for months. They could leave, but the pictures weren’t able to.”

She felt him bury his face in her hair.

“I started following the bats after a while. I don’t know if it was because I wasn’t sated by pictures of just the two of them and decided to expand, if it was because they had a happy family despite a distant father and I wanted that for myself, or if it was because I wanted my parents to find out and be worried about me, or a mix of all of that… but…”

She slowly moved the camera off of his lap and pulled him into a hug. “But?”

He was silent for a bit, thinking over his answer. He shrugged and wrapped his arms around her. “It was an old coping mechanism. A way of feeling connected to people when I couldn’t actually be.”

“‘Was?’ What changed?”

He laid back on the couch and she allowed him to pull her down beside him. “People around me… started ‘leaving permanently’.”

She winced. Oh.

“It hurt a lot more to look at the pictures after that. It just felt like a reminder that I was alone.”

She frowned. “But… you’re taking pictures of me, now.” Her eyes widened. “Shit, did I accidentally trigger --.”

He shook his head quickly. “No, no. Well, kind of, but it’s okay! Every time they’ve died, it was because of some sort of shortcoming on my part. I think I’ve learned from all my mistakes. You… I won’t let you get hurt, okay?”

Marinette didn’t know how to respond. On one hand, she was pretty sure that she should be assuring him that, even if she did end up dying, that he shouldn’t blame himself… on the other hand, she had no intentions of dying and she was pretty sure it was nearly impossible for her, so maybe it was a good thing that he had chosen to protect her of all people? Maybe the problem would solve itself?

She didn’t know.

She carefully took his face in her hands, pulling him to look her in the eyes. “I’m not going anywhere, okay, darling?”

He gave her a tentative smile. “I sure hope you’re right.”

~

He had been asked to stay the night. Her excuse was that she was almost done with an outfit for him and she wanted to give it to him the second it was done and, by the time it would be, it would be too dark to go out safely.

Tim kind of felt bad that he had worried her but he wasn’t going to turn down the offer of staying over and watching her finish the outfit.

But, first, food. They dropped a million takeout menus on the desk. A long silence stretched between them as they looked at all the options.

“... what do you want?” Asked Marinette.

“I’m not in the mood for anything in particular, you?”

She sighed. “I don’t know, do you want anything?”

“I don’t want anything, what about you --?”

This continued on for about three minutes before Tim got a brilliant idea. He dialled Damian’s number and put it on speaker.

“Drake. Why are you calling? Have you been hurt?”

“No, Dami, I’m getting takeout and I was just wondering if you had any ideas.”

Marinette gave him an affronted look, but he clapped his hand over her mouth before she could warn Damian that, no, he wasn’t buying food for him he was just going to be an asshole.

“... I suppose I wouldn’t be averse to Chinese.”

“Thanks, Dami! Hope you can get Alfie to make that for you.”

“What do -- ?”

Tim hung up on his very confused younger brother.

Marinette frowned as he removed his hand from her mouth. “That wasn’t nice of you, that’s a kid.”

Tim was not about to get beaten by his brother in both identities, thank you very much.

“Alfred can cook better than anyone in the world, he’s not going to suffer.”

She snorted. “I doubt he can make food better than…” She picked through the takeout papers for a few moments before holding up a menu. “... this place!”

He squinted at the menu. “... I really hope you can speak Mandarin.”

“You’d be hard pressed to find a language I can’t speak, Timmy,” she said, absently dialling the number.

Well, he supposed that explained how a person from France knew ASL and could speak English like a native. Damn. Now he kinda wanted magical god-earrings so he could speak every language in existence.

She spoke cheerfully to the person on the other side of the line for a moment before turning to Tim. “What do you want?”

“Uh… shrimp fried rice?”

She rolled her eyes and flicked his nose. “Alright, fine, white boy.”

“It’s a safe option okay --!”

She wasn’t listening to him explain why fried rice was the best choice for him because she was relaying the order to the person on the other side of the line. She hung up with a smile.

“Food will be here in about three minutes. Do you rich people have small bills or do you just use them for tissues or something?”

He raised his eyebrows. “They go down to a hundred, right?”

She pressed her lips together thinly, clearly unsure whether or not he was joking.

He snickered and shook his head. “Nah, I think I have twenties and fifties…”

“Yeah, that won’t do. We’re going to get robbed,” she said, reaching into her purse.

“We? Didn’t know I lived here, too,” he joked.

She barely even glanced up from where she was counting money. “Honestly, with how often you’re here, you might as well move in.”

He choked. He wanted to say something smart or funny or smooth, instead all that came out was: “You --? I --? Uh --!”

She snickered behind her hand. “Love, relax, I’m just kidding. You don’t have to leave your fancy mansion with all your siblings --.”

“Wait, don’t make living here sound even better. I will do it purely to get away from them, don’t test me.”

She rolled her eyes with a grin. “Maybe that's the plan, you’ll never know.”

Tim had exactly zero idea whether they were joking or not anymore. The tone and reactions made him pretty sure they were kidding, but… what if they weren’t?

He was just gathering the courage to ask when the doorbell rang, pulling their attention to the food. She continued counting for a second before running to the door and swinging it open.

He walked up beside her awkwardly as she chatted politely to the guy to take the food inside. He knew, logically, that Marinette was actually way stronger than he was… but his stupid brain saw a thin, short woman in need of someone to help her carry things. So, he took it from the guy with a smile.

The delivery guy glanced Tim up and down before asking Marinette something. She laughed and gave a shrug. Tim did not know what was going on but he felt vaguely insulted.

He was definitely learning Mandarin after this.

The moment the door closed he whined about being insulted. She looked amused.

“You know what he said?”

“... no,” he admitted.

Her lips twitched.

“... you’re not going to tell me, are you?”

She snickered and leaned over the two bags of food in his hands. “So, you got the fried rice, right?”

“Mariiiiiiii.”

“Your food is going to get cold.”

“Beeeaaaan,” he complained.

She raised an eyebrow at him, a blush spreading across her face. “Bean?”

He grinned, feeling heat creep to his own cheeks. “I don’t know, I couldn’t think of anything for a nickname. First thing I thought of was coffee beans, so: Bean.”

“Wow, you’re such an addict,” she teased.

He continued pouting at her until she gave in.

She leaned forward to press a kiss to his nose. “He asked if you could use chopsticks or not so he could get you a fork if you couldn’t.”

He felt the blush on his face deepen. “Oh… I can’t.”

“That’s fine.” She grabbed a tote bag from the floor of her pantry and pulled out a set of plasticware.

He blinked. “... you keep plastic forks?”

She shrugged and tossed the bag back in her pantry. “Plastic forks, grocery bags, napkins, a few sets of chopsticks…”

“... why?”

“Some of us are minorities, darling.”

“What --?”

~

She hummed tunelessly as she worked.

Tim had fallen asleep on her shoulder. Had most of this been an elaborate plot to make him finally get some sleep? Possibly.

She didn’t feel all that bad, though. With how much he overworked himself both as Red Robin and as Tim Drake-Wayne… honestly, she was beginning to doubt that he slept at all. And, really, if a vigilante coffee addict with a magically enhanced physique is worried about your sleep schedule, you’ve got problems. Intervention was needed.

Don’t get her wrong, though, she was going to make up for lying to him. She’d move him to her bed and leave a cup of coffee for him on the bedside table. Maybe she’d even make him breakfast, it depended on how tired she was in the morning.

But that was for when she was done. For now, she was working on the last part of the outfit: she needed to lace up the corset. His posture needed a little work and she didn’t have the heart to tell him that to his face.

… besides, corset vests are cute. She wished more guys would wear them.

She smiled to herself as she pulled the last bit of lace through and tied a loose knot. Done.

She looked down at Tim. Loose strands fell in his face as he slept. The tiny wrinkles in his forehead disappeared, making him look much younger. His lips curled into a slight smile at whatever he was dreaming about.

He looked so genuinely at peace. She hated that that was abnormal for him.

She couldn’t help but worry a little about what he’d said earlier. He’d claimed that the reason he had gone up to the top of that building the day they’d met (as Tim and Marinette) was to scout out a location for photography, but now that was seeming like a lie because he apparently preferred taking pictures of people over locations… so, why was he up so high? He’d known it was illegal to be there, so she doubted he thought anyone else would be…

She swallowed thickly.

She didn’t think his mental state was that bad… but, just in case it was, she waved Tikki over for a bug and sewed it into one of his sleeves.

Tikki was looking at her disapprovingly. Marinette ignored her.

It was Ladybug’s job to make sure everyone was doing okay mentally, and she wasn’t going to fail a person she cared about of all people.

His head slipped from her shoulder onto her stomach and she sighed, trying to lightly push him off without disturbing his sleep. It didn’t work. He made a quiet sound in the back of his throat and buried his face in her stomach, his arms wrapping around her tightly.

Well, this is her life now.

… she supposed it wasn’t so bad, though.

[arvion-creates]

Portal fic rec list for GLaDOS fans

The Portal fandom and I don't always see eye-to-eye on what's most fun to focus on. I joked that I should make a rec list of fics that are what I want to see from Portal fic, and then I figured I really might as well. Please note that, this is purely sharing appreciation for fics I like and is not intended as a slight against anyone with different tastes.

My criteria are as follows:

- GLaDOS is a central character

- GLaDOS is her canon form, not a human or an android or other humanoid

- Wheatley isn't a central character

It, of course, also has to appeal to me :P I haven't read any of these fics in years except for the last one, which I just read this morning. Let's go ~

Euphoria by @canadian-riddler

Info: Gen, rated G, 101k, complete. Summary: GLaDOS takes on the task of emulating a human brain, but to do it, she needs a role model. With Caroline's help, GLaDOS takes on learning to hear music, but learns quite a lot of other things she never even thought about. My thoughts: This was a neat piece with the premise of "what if GLaDOS was sentient even before Caroline got involved". Caroline and GLaDOS become friends, and they get to bond over being treated like outsiders by the others. I liked how GLaDOS was both sentient and a computer! She thinks, but she thinks like a computer. The ending also really stood out to me. Without giving anything away, I will say that this is a sympathetic GLaDOS, but this is not a harmless GLaDOS.

Exile Vilify also by @canadian-riddler

Info: GLaDOS/Doug Rattman, rated G, 11k, complete. Summary: Doug Rattmann still lives in the walls of Aperture Laboratories, but now that the danger is gone, he begins to venture into the facility itself. As Doug finds himself getting to know the real GLaDOS, he ends up getting closer to her than he ever dreamed he would. And through Doug's kindness, GLaDOS learns a lesson the hard way that ultimately sets her free. DougXGLaDOS. My thoughts: I liked the slow development of their relationship. GLaDOS in canon is... not one for straightforward declarations of affection, and this fic nailed the balance between preserving that aspect of her character and also showing through actions her changing feelings. This piece made me sad in a good way.

An Associated Euphoric Response by DovK

Info: GLaDOS/Chell, rated M, 1.5k, complete. Summary: She certainly does love to test, and you're realizing that it might not be as high-minded as she makes it out to be. My thoughts: Very tasty smut for those of you out there who're into sex that isn't focused on genitalia. Remember in Portal 2 when they told us that GLaDOS gets (or at least got) a sense of euphoria from people testing? That immediately caught my attention in a kinky way, and this fic sure follows through. Chell completes a test for GLaDOS for the purpose of providing pleasure.

_error_ by @justangrymacaroni

Info: GLaDOS/Chell, rated M, 3k so far, incomplete, last updated 2 weeks before the time of writing this rec list Summary: - Humans will die when put in strenuous life threatening situations : : : AMENDUM: - Most humans will die when put in strenuous life treating situations - Some humans turn into sociopathic monsters who seek to kill those who only mean to help them - These humans must be considered outliers that skew the data - The rest of the data is fine - It does not need to be skewed --- In which GlaDOS is doing great after [REDACTED] left. Just fine. Nothing wrong at all. My thoughts: Cool-looking epistolary format. I like GLaDOS so far. Her "(lying to herself) no I'm not lonely, I don't need anyone" characterization feels true to canon, and I like what the author's doing with computer procedure formatting. I also really liked the aspect of Portal 2 of... navigating this abandoned facility, guided by the recordings of long-dead people and exploring what they left behind, and I think this fic might get some of that sense of "this place used to be more but has been forgotten". Not much has been written yet, but I'm optimistic!

That's it! If anybody's got other fics that meet the three criteria above, drop a link! I might add to this list if I find other Portal fics I like. Enjoy!

[jasontoddiefor]

Title: infinitely varied Ship: obikin Summary: Sometimes your husband decides to develop an artificial intelligence capable of free choice and something called a soul and succeeds in the middle of a Thursday night. Or, more concretely: he's in the middle of succeeding because said intelligence first has to learn how to speak.Also known as Obi-Wan and Anakin teach a tiny program called A.H.S.O.K.A. how to be something more than lines of code via the power of linguistics. AN: Happy birthday @ghostwriterofthemachine

Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.

Noam Chomsky

I.

Life was a query of expectations, margins on doorframes, bucket lists, first loves, broken hearts, and happy middles because only fools would settle for a happy ending when they had so many decades left to live. The thought never failed to bring a smile to Anakin’s face, no matter how frustrated, remembering the simple way Obi-Wan had proposed. There had been no fancy dinner, particularly stunning outing, or anything resembling outlandish romantic gestures. Anakin would have appreciated them because every act would have been colored by Obi-Wan’s love, but now, older and wiser than the rash youth who’s fallen in love at first heated debate, he preferred the way their proposal had actually gone down. A quiet Sunday morning, eating breakfast together on the sofa while the news droned in the background from Anakin’s old radio, a hesitant “I don’t need forever, but I want the present”.

And, well, for all his genius, Anakin could be a bit of an idiot sometimes, but not when it came to this.

Married life was interesting.

Somehow nothing changed, except also everything. They had bought a real house, moved out of their old apartment and made more compromises than Anakin had ever thought himself capable of, for they hadn’t been like fighting an uphill battle but dancing together. It had made him happy to paint the entrance hall in the shade of green Obi-Wan preferred if he got to paint the kitchen in the light blue he wanted.

Obi-Wan got the attic for his office where his antique book collection looked right at home, and Anakin got the basement where the hum of his servers and the generator powering them annoyed nobody else.

It was as close to white-picket-fence as it could be with two queer men, no kids, a bratty cat, and an anxious dog under one roof. His childhood self would be appalled to see how much Anakin, always the whirlwind, had settled. To a nine-year-old, Anakin probably looked very adult.

Anakin, however, did not feel very grown-up, banging his head against his desk in the middle of the night. Obi-Wan had gone to sleep hours ago, and so had Anakin until inspiration had struck and he’d snuck out of bed to return to his favorite project.

A.H.S.O.K.A may not be a child, but Anakin certainly could relate to exhausted parents when they complained about their children in endless repetitions. To this day, Anakin didn’t know why his mother figured it would be great parenting to encourage her WarGames obsessed kid to dig into the world of artificial intelligence when WOPR nearly started a nuclear war, but he’d forever remain thankful.

Or, he’d resume being thankful when he could finally get A.H.S.O.K.A to learn. He’d rewritten her code a thousand times. It was his ever-constant companion, from his first awful-looking early 2000s website to its current incarnation. A.H.S.O.K.A could solve simple logic puzzles, given that he fed her enough data. Her solutions to tasks could be downright hilarious, but they were not enough. He wanted her to be smarter, better, capable of gaining true understanding.

Perhaps, it was a dream for the future and not a Thursday night.

Anakin didn’t have any work tomorrow morning as he worked as a freelancer, so he could afford to pull an all-nighter. But his dear husband had planned a nice afternoon for them, so Anakin should call it a night or a morning as a glance at the clock told him.

Staring at the many lines of code again, Anakin sighed and leaned back in his chair and took another sip of his by-now cold tea. Obi-Wan would definitely complain that Anakin had snatched his favorite mug once he got up and couldn’t find it in the kitchen. Anakin had bought it at the last linguistic convention Obi-Wan had taken him to.

Language is a process of free invention, it read in delicate cursive before the rest of the quote disassembled in pure chaos.

Huh.

Now there was a thought. Anakin got out of his chair and left the basement, haunted by fixed principles and infinite combinations. Up in the attic, carrying Obi-Wan’s computer downstairs again, Anakin thought on interpretations and free creations. He was as giddy and nervous as he’d been on the morning of his wedding day, which had started similarly early. Connecting Obi-Wan’s computer, and more importantly, the priced result of his thesis, to Anakin’s server felt a little like unwrapping birthday presents.

language_acquisition_prediction.exe

Enter.

II.

Obi-Wan was not surprised when he woke to an empty bed. Anakin had a habit of suddenly pulling all-nighters or getting up early before the sun even thought of rising. Given that he couldn’t smell breakfast yet, Obi-Wan deduced that Anakin had pulled an all-nighter again. He slowly crawled out of bed to avoid disturbing Artoo and Threepio sleeping to his feet. Obi-Wan was pretty sure he shared his bed more often with his pets than he did with his husband.

He walked down the stairs to the ground level and went by the kitchen to prepare himself a cup of tea. To his displeasure, Obi-Wan couldn’t find his favorite mug and so had to settle for another. After another thought, he decided to make a second one for Anakin, lavender this time so Anakin would hopefully crash after breakfast. He put both mugs on a small tray together with a couple tomatoes. Obi-Wan usually wasn’t one for eating a full breakfast on workdays – that was the influence of Anakin and his mother’s kitchen – but he was the expert in smalltime snacks. With both in hand, he walked down the second flight of stairs, down to the basement. As expected, he found Anakin at his desk, clinging to what was bound to be a cold cup, staring intensely at his screens, which were running one program or another.

“Good morning,” Obi-Wan greeted him and kissed Anakin’s cheek.

“Mo-orning,” Anakin replied, a yawn interrupting him halfway. “Wait, what time is it?”

“Eight,” Obi-Wan said. “How long have you been up?”

“Uuuh.” Obi-Wan didn’t need to see Anakin’s face to know the answer. “Did you even go to sleep?”

“I did sleep for a while!” Anakin argued. “But then I had an idea, I mean, look at this!”

Obi-Wan gave the screens a closer look. Despite common misconceptions, he was not technically illiterate. Privately, he blamed the fact that Anakin was quite well known for his tech know-how and Obi-Wan tended to talk more about literature given that he was filling in as a lecturer in the British Lit. department. Nevertheless, Obi-Wan had gotten his professorship with a program he’d written, and the code currently displayed on the screens looked very similar to a section that had given him stress nightmares. “Is that my thesis?” he asked.

“Yes, sorta, partially?” Anakin replied. “I kind of took it apart a lot and maybe corrupted it a bit, but that’s not the important part! Look what she’s doing with it.”

She could only refer to one person, intelligence. There were a few constants in their life, their new house the most recent one, and Ahsoka was probably the longest. Obi-Wan didn’t know why Anakin hadn’t set her aside already, he was happy enough to leave other started-never-finished projects lying around, but the last time he’d even just suggested such, Anakin had looked heartbroken.

Obi-Wan looked at the screen Anakin was pointing at and began to read.

script input: inhibition auditory input 1 designation skyguy: /ˌɪn.ɪˈbɪʃ.ən/ auditory input 2 designation professor: /ˌɪn.hɪˈbɪʃ.ən/ analysis: mismatch diagnosis: outstanding

script input: better auditory input 1 designation skyguy: /ˈbet̬.ɚ/ auditory input 2 designation professor: /ˈbet.ər/ analysis: mismatch diagnosis: rhoticism? query: define

The text continued for a while, though apparently Ahsoka only picked out the mismatched parts in her analysis.

“Is that ‘Must have done something right’?” Obi-Wan asked, the connection between the words suddenly starting to make sense.

“Yes!” Anakin grinned. “I wasn’t quite sure how to teach her sounds properly because I hadn’t equipped her with a sound analysis program before and I figured that if babies just learn by listening to their parents, Ahsoka could learn by listening to us.”

“So you fed her audio of us singing?” Obi-Wan wasn’t sure whether to be impressed, confused, or just plain tired but decided to settle on confusion for now and let the course of the conversation determine where they’d end up.

“That too, but I actually just started by playing old voice messages. I figured getting her used to just one phonetic inventory would be enough for now. Honestly, for the first hour, I wasn’t even sure whether that would be of any use because she had no symbols to connect the sounds to, and I thought using the IPA might bias her.”

Because, of course, Anakin never deleted any of Obi-Wan’s voice messages and just kept them on his phone. The fact that he just glossed over it as if it weren’t anything special either made Obi-Wan smile.

“It’s cute that you think we have the same inventory,” Obi-Wan commented. “But continue. You just let her listen to sounds and then? Don’t tell me you gave her written texts.”

Anakin rolled his eyes and confirmed another one of Ahsoka’s queries before answering. “No, I gave her the IPA then and let her listen to the full inventory and then analyze which ones we use.”

That made enough sense. Obi-Wan was reasonably sure it was a great deal more complicated than Anakin was lying it out right now, but it was still within the realm of possible and not downright sci-fi. There were enough programs that could analyze speech and filter out patterns, recognize even emotions and tone. Feeding data to a computer wasn’t too different from the way babies learned, though, as far as Obi-Wan knew from talking to people with children, they didn’t like their progeny being compared to lines of code.

“And you accomplished this by feeding my thesis program, which is meant to predict the language acquisition of children, to Ahsoka?”

“Yes, that, uh, happened more or less,” Anakin said, his nose scrunched up just so that Obi-Wan knew he wasn’t certain. “I’m pretty sure I like, wrote some of it down. Not all of it because I knocked out at like 4 a.m., which resulted in pretty interesting inquiries on the great vowel shift.”

Obi-Wan froze. “She’s asking about the great vowel shift?”

There was a difference in the size of the Atlantic between analyzing sounds and recognizing a six-hundred-year-old change in pronunciation.

“Not really,” Anakin said. “She just noticed the patterns? And had inquiries? We’ve been following up on it since, mostly by also giving her written text, but I think that might have backfired and confused her a bit. I’m thinking of synching up the input with a visible feed so she’d learn to associate an actual object with the sound, but I’m not sure whether that wouldn’t just lead to her matching data instead of actually learning its relevance. Can teach an AI what an apple looks like, sounds like, tastes like, but that doesn’t mean you can teach it what an apple is and all that.”

Anakin smiled impishly, and unfortunately, despite his generally messy appearance, Obi-Wan still thought he was handsome. “Please don’t cite my book back at me like that.”

Closing his eyes for a moment and pinching his nose, Obi-Wan tried to focus. This was not how he expected to start his free day. He needed to wake up and possibly grab his notes to sort out this mess. This almost made him wish the car was still wrecked and Anakin would spend all his free time fixing that. “Did you have to start her on English of all languages?”

Anakin was fluent in two other romance languages; it would have been much easier to deal with a French AI than an English one. Sighing, Obi-Wan looked at Ahsoka’s latest question and promptly frowned.

script input: bear auditory input: /beər/ match found: bare analysis: mismatch diagnosis: failed word formation query: bear = bare? query: deletion >bare<?

“How long has she been doing that?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Doing what— oh, that’s new.”

So Ahsoka had jumped from matching sounds to text to comparing sound to words and then referencing those words against one another. That was a logical step, but also a step Obi-Wan wasn’t quite sure she should be doing without prompting.

“She thinks bear and bare are related because they have the same sound. Didn’t really expect that turn of events. Should I show her those are two different words?”

“Does she even know what a word is yet?” Obi-Wan asked in turn.

“No.”

“Then teach her what a word is first— after breakfast. I want your pancakes.”

“You never want pancakes on a Friday.”

“My husband also never decided to rope me into teaching an artificial intelligence morphology before.”

Obi-Wan needed a proper meal for this. He could talk to his students on an empty stomach, but he could not deal with the latest brand of Skywalker insanity without something sweet first.

“I haven’t—”

Ever the negotiator, Obi-Wan decided to shut Anakin up with a kiss. “After breakfast.”

Ahsoka’s many questions could wait for an hour.

[discotreque]

LwD 2.05: An Embarrassment of Dooplers

So I was a little nervous about this one! I hadn’t heard any spoiler-spoilers, but screeners have been out for weeks now, and I’d heard a bunch of individual, vague, non-spoilery hints about (1) big character moments, on the scale of a mid-season finale even though the show’s not taking a mid-season break; and (2) an ending that would make me cry.

I guess I imagined something relatively serious and dramatic, like “No Small Parts”? This show makes me cackle with laughter and giggle with nerdy glee and “d’awww!” at heartwarming friendships every week, but it’s only ever made me cry once—and then I was impressed that they were going to get there from the wacky hijinks we saw in the brief teaser.

The lack of a cold open made me apprehensive too—in my experience, that’s typically a sign that there’s so much plot in the rest of the episode that they need that extra scene—but after ~21.5 minutes of aforementioned hijinks, I was having so much fun that I’d completely forgotten about the alleged tear-jerker at the end…

…and they were not the tears I was expecting.

I didn’t think I’d be smiling and crying!!!! That was wholesome as SHIT!!!!!

I almost can’t believe they earned that—but they totally did.

After a Mariner–Tendi episode and a Boimler–Rutherford episode, we’re back to the “usual” Season 1 pairings… except the relationships between these characters have changed since Season 1. Mariner still feels thwacked in the abandonment issues by Boimler bailing for the Titan, and Rutherford’s having a tiny little existential crisis about losing an entire year of his life.

Both of which are extremely understandable and very heavy situations—and both of those situations get resolved because everyone in them is vulnerable with each other and honest about their feelings—AND that honesty and vulnerability brings both pairs of friends closer together. Are you kidding me?? I would watch SEVENTY seasons of that shit. Put it in my veins.

Onto the notes:

So basically Dooplers are Tribbles, but for cringe comedy instead of slapstick? Ohhhhh boy.

Look at Ransom the diplomat, tossing his own fork on the floor! I like that he’s actually a pretty competent Starfleet officer, despite also being a completely ridiculous person.

Wait a second, is that—OH HOLY SHIT, THE DOOPLERS ARE VOICED BY RICHARD KIND.

It makes sense that B. Boimler would find William annoying—who likes seeing their own flaws reflected back at them? And who could be a better reflection of one’s flaws than one’s literal duplicate?—but most interesting to me is that it implies on some level, Bradward knows the stick up his butt is a flaw. (Does William?)

Why does the Cerritos model have working phasers?!?!

I’m loving hot pink as the currently en-vogue colour for “dangerous sci-fi energy” in animation (cf. almost every previous episode of this show; Into the Spider-Verse; other stuff I can’t remember right now). As a former child of the 80’s, I’m living for it… but as a former teenager of the 90’s, I can’t help but wonder if it’s going to age as poorly as the harsh neon green of The Matrix, every Borg appearance on Voyager, and like 80% of the websites I made in high school…

SKANTS! SKANTS! SKANTS!

That fake-out joke with the fly-by over the Cerritos model was in the season trailer weeks ago, and I was so enthralled by that handsome lady that the sticker coming into frame still got me good 😂😂😂

BECKY Mariner????? omg yes

Some top-quality Boimler screams in this one. Poor Jack Quaid must drink gallons of throat-coat tea when he records.

One of the great things about Star Trek to me is that you never know what you’re going to get from any random episode. A murder mystery? A road trip? A spooky thriller? A cheesy romance? Broad comedy? Body horror? Didactic political screeds shrouded in tissue-thin science-fiction metaphors? Brain and brain, what is brain??? And after this many years of watching, you’d think I’d be hard to surprise. But if I ever told you I thought I’d see a Blues Brothers–style car chase through a frickin’ shopping mall on an episode of Star Trek, I would have been straight-up lying to you. I loved it, it worked for me, my jaw was on the floor and I was clapping with joy—but I’m definitely comfortable calling this one “unexpected.”

It’s CAPTAIN SHELBY!!! And an ancient babydyke crush rose from the depths of my childhood subconscious… (Also I think her Number One is based on the original makeup—eventually deemed too complicated—for Saru? Now that’s a deep cut.)

In 20th-century Trek, you almost never got to see what was going on inside a starship from the outside. Even after they switched from physical models (where it was next to impossible on a single episode’s budget) to CGI (which was still in its infancy, still not exactly cheap, and still broadcast in SD anyway), it was a rare thrill to see any meaningful interior details in an exterior shot. Disco’s modern VFX have given us some tasty, tasty treats in that department, but nothing quite as sublime as all the pink Doopler light glittering through the Cerritos’s windows.

Mariner says she’ll take her contact Malvus down with her, and threatens that they’ll end up “in the same cell.” Malvus is a Mizarian, a species introduced in TNG’s “Allegiance,” in which Captain Picard is held in a mysterious prison with one. I think I see what you did there, McMahan?

Bartender… so hot… lesbian circuits… overloading…

The Tendi and Rutherford C-story was, well, a C-story within a 22-minute episode, so there wasn’t much to it, but the one scene that mattered actually mattered a lot. I’m ambivalent on whether they should end up romantically involved—I’d prefer they don’t, but they’ll be one of the cutest couples in Trek history if they do—and as long as they keep that pure, sweet friendship between them at the heart of whatever else happens, I’m on board.

Carol Freeman was already one of my favourite captains before this season, and she’s been steadily moving up the list. The quiet throughline about her ambition to be on a better ship has been fascinating so far, and it’s starting to actually make me feel a little conflicted: I’m of course rooting for Captain Freeman to recognize her worth, make Starfleet recognize her worth, and become the ass-kicking captain of a hero ship that she’s clearly ready to be—but that almost surely means she’d be kicking ass off-screen, because LwD isn’t about those kind of adventures, and I’d be devastated not to have Dawnn Lewis on the show every week. So I’m kind of on the edge of my seat about this one!

I had so many favourite jokes this week I put them in a separate list:

“Even the replicated water on the Titan tasted better” is a low-key brilliant dunk on people who can’t shut the fuck up about the cooler places they used to live.

“Ooooh, they have a Quark’s now! That used to just be an empty lot where teens would make mistakes!” ← That’s literally me every time I go back to where I grew up. I felt so Seen™ I almost hid under a blanket.

“I would never go down the stairs!” (evil grin) (goes up the stairs)

The “well, shit” expressions from Mariner and Boimler as their crashed car sank right into the water… which started to bubble innocuously… and then the bottles of Data bubble-bath popped up, paying off a joke I thought had already been paid off—that was the one that woke up my poor cat this week. Just exquisite timing.

“YOUR PAGH IS WEAK, AND IT DISGUSTS ME!” “I don’t even know what that is, but I don’t like your tone!”

“Okona’s in there? He’s not even Starfleet! This is outrageous!” made me shout “NO!” at the screen like I was scolding my cat for scratching furniture. (She did not wake up that time.)

Best background joke: the neon sign at the dive bar advertising FREE SHOTS & BEERS. (Get it? Because they’re on a Federation starbase? Where nobody uses money?)

And of course Quark merchandised DS9.

This wasn’t just a standout episode of Lower Decks, this was a brilliant episode of Star Trek, period. The Dooplers, though extremely silly, are nevertheless also a clever sci-fi metaphor for real and relatable personal/interpersonal issues, and an effective plot catalyst for meaningful character growth from all four of our ensigns and the captain.

The jokes were hilarious, the action was kinetic, the A-, B-, and C-plots linked up thematically, the visuals were consistently and thoroughly gorgeous, the character beats—between Mariner and Boimler, Tendi and Rutherford, Mariner and Capt. Freeman—were all genuine, heartfelt and wholesome, and the references to other Trek canon were both deep and deeply affectionate.

Only 15 episodes in, and this series knows exactly what it is, exactly what it wants to do, and knows that it can knock our socks off doing it. Mike McMahan has said in recent interviews that the back half of S2 (and the apparently almost-fully-written S3) is a straight line uphill in quality from here—which surprised me at first, because McMahan seems like a pretty chill dude who doesn’t normally brag about his own work like that.

But then the Prophets sent me a vision of my space dad Ben Sisko, who reminded me of the words of 1930’s baseball player Dizzy Dean:

“If you can do it, it ain’t bragging.”

[Thanks to cygnus-x1.net for the screenshots this week—I was too lazy to do my own.]

[deepspacedukat]

Could I ask a for all of them except for 3, 7, and 13? If that’s not okay can I have all the character/food ones instead?

Also because I’m an absolute idiot and can’t remember if I already asked, which mirror universe characters would you bang like a screen door in a hurricane?

-Horta-in-Charge

Oh, absolutely you can, friend! 💜 It’s my pleasure! Thank you so much for the questions!

1. What would your station be? (Engineering, science, security, command, medical, pilot.)

Ooooh, I’d like to be a science officer! That would be so fun! Low-key that’s why I always end up making my reader-insert characters be science officers.

2. What class of starship would you want to be assigned to?

Intrepid class, like Voyager! It seems not quite as large as the Enterprise, but not too small. Fast and maneuverable, yet filled with the creature comforts.

4. What’s your favorite Q encounter?

I love “The Q and the Gray” from Voyager - where Q tries to seduce Captain Janeway.

5. What’s your favorite rule of acquisition?

“112 - Never have sex with your boss’s sister.” I would like to know the specific circumstances that brought that rule into existance. I bet it was hilarious, knowing the Ferengi!

6. What Star Trek food or drink do you wish you could try?

There are a lot that I’m curious about, to be perfectly honest. Earlier when I answered this, I gave the drink I’d most like to try, so this time I’ll give the food I’d like to try. I think I’d like to try Sem’hal stew. It’s a Cardassian dish, and I have to admit, I’m extremely curious about it!

8. What planet would you visit and why?

I know I said Cardassia and Risa earlier, but tbh I’d also really love to visit Andoria, just to see what it’s like. I tend to like the cold more than the heat, so...yep. A cup of hot cocoa and a stroll through the ice tunnels seems like a fun way to spend the day!

9. What’s your favorite non humanoid lifeform?

THE DOGGO WITH THE FUR AND HORN FROM TOS. *ahem* Sorry, didn’t mean to shout. I just. Love. The space doggo.

10. What characters are in your dream poker game?

Given that I have no idea how to play poker, I’m gonna say Riker, Data, Geordi, Taurik, and Picard.

11. What holodeck program would you run?

I answered this earlier, but again, I’ve rethought my answer (it’s been an indecisive night lol). I think I’d like to try that tropical resort program that Neelix, Tom, and Harry have on Voyager.

12. What alien would you bone?

Because it’s a long list, and I’ve already been asked this I’ll give a totally different answer than I did before. I’d be down to bone with Solok! ❤️ Pretty Vulcan Captain Man...🥰

14. Favorite Star Trek tech?

Purely for comedic effect, the data PADDs that only hold like one file at a time so that people have to carry like a stack of 15 like digital library books. 

15. What’s your favorite Star Trek holiday or celebration?

I like the Bajoran Gratitude Festival! It’s so positive and it seems like fun lighting a teeny scroll on fire! *giggles in pyromaniac*

16. What’s your favorite bad luck O'Brien episode?

I love “Babel”. O’Brien’s sarcastic outbursts prior to his contracting the virus were so entertaining, even if he was being tortured by overwork.

17. If you could fight any character, who would you fight?

I answered this earlier, but tbh, I think I’ve rethought my answer. I’d like to fight Jadzia - not in a rawr kind of way, but in a she knows how to fight and I’d like to see how long I last against her kind of way.

18. Who is your favorite on screen couple?

Look, the OG answer is Spock and Kirk, but if you’re talking a couple that ACTUALLY got together, then I LOVED B’Elanna and Tom.

19. Favorite mirror verse episode or character?

OOH, I have an answer for both! Favorite episode “The Emperor’s New Cloak” because Mirror!Brunt and a gay kiss all in one episode! Favorite character...probably a toss up between Mirror!Kira and Mirror!Malcolm.

20. Favorite Dax host?

Jadzia, my beloved! I know Ezri is awesome, but tbh, Jadzia was onne of the first female characters I ever had a crush on, so she has a special place in my heart.

21. What’s your favorite plot hole or little detail?

THE TWO BORG QUEENS. I know it had something to do with time as a way to explain her away, but...she...she dies twice...

22. Favorite piece of art or decor seen in the Star Trek universe (possibly background)?

I love the Horga’hn in Riker’s quarters. For purely slutty reasons.

23. What’s your favourite firefight?

The reliquary fight in ST:ENT S1E7 “The Andorian Incident” springs instantly to mind.

24. What character do you love to hate?

Sloan from DS9! I wanna chew him up like a chew toy. (And for once I don’t mean that in s sexual way lol)

25. What’s your favorite non recurring character?

I said Gul Macet in the answer I gave before, but I also really really love one of his officers: Glinn Daro. We never even get a first name for the man and he’s got me in a tight fucking chokehold.

ALSO you are not an idiot, and I don’t believe you’ve asked that before, SO

BONUS: Which mirror universe characters would you bang like a screen door in a hurricane?

There are a lot tbh, but the ones who immediately spring to mind are Mirror!Kira and Mirror!Malcolm. Also, since you told me he exists, Mirror!Shran. Because Shran.

[fantastic-rambles]

The Snakes’ Deception

Fandom: Haikyuu!! (@aikk00's Racing AU)

Characters (in order of appearance): Kozume Kenma, Kuroo Tetsurou, Yaku Morisuke, Sakishima Isumi, Daishou Suguru, Fukunaga Shouhei, Yamamoto Taketora, Haiba Lev, other Nekoma members (not mentioned by name)

Warnings: Physical Violence, Language

Word Count: 2.2k

Summary: When the Snakes, led by Daishou Suguru, come to challenge Kuroo for the title of Drift King, the Nekoma Crew isn’t going to take that lying down. But when the Snakes start to play nasty, the stakes are raised even further, and Kuroo has to fight to stay calm and prove that he’s the undisputed champion.

[A/N: RIP my dozen other drafts for other stories. I actually was planning to write this a few days before the Daishou art (also by aikk00), except I knew practically nothing about drift racing so I needed to do research, lul. I watched Tokyo Drift, some Initial D, some Grand Tour, and did a lot of reading online on drift racing and drifting in general, but tbh, I still don’t quite understand the mechanics (I don’t drive stick and I can’t go out and learn how to drift), so I apologize if this is horribly inaccurate. :P]

"The road condition looks good today, but it's still a little wet from earlier. Watch yourself going into the turns so you don't end up spinning out. The Snakes will probably do something though, especially since they asked you to race with Sakishima before Daishou. It should be okay when you're in the lead, but be ready to take defensive measures when you're chasing. My guess is that they'll try to take advantage of your skill at closing the gap and your power-over drift to orchestrate some sort of accident," Kenma commented quietly without looking up from his laptop, his fingers tapping away as he inputted a continuous stream of data. He seemed oblivious to the roar of the crowd outside the car, and Kuroo reached over to tousle his black-and-gold hair affectionately.

"Got it, Kenma. Anything else?"

"I know you won't listen, but you should just go all-out from the start. Not your usual way of racing. But if you do end up chasing, just do a normal drift and keep space between you and Sakishima. If they are aiming for an accident, it's more likely to happen when you're on the outside, so it'll slam into your side and Sakishima will be safe. But your numbers look good. I'm just going to tell Yaku-san to put a little more air into your rear tires," Kenma replied, closing the lid on his laptop and pushing open the passenger-side door, letting the sound of cheering and taunts into the vehicle. After he'd left and closed the door, Kuroo rolled down his window to light a cigarette, letting the smoke drift out into the night sky. Kenma hadn't said anything that he hadn't expected--especially with regard to the Snakes--but it was always reassuring to get their analyst's perspective before a race. Kenma wasn't the type to get fired up like the rest of the crew, but that cool-headed analysis was part of the reason they were able to climb so high in the rankings despite not always having the best cars or the best drivers. The ridiculous title of "Drift King" that he'd somehow ended up with was the result of Kenma's work as much as his own.

Still, Kenma was right. Even if it meant getting into an accident, Kuroo didn't intend to change the way he drifted. Part of the thrill of these races was the pure adrenaline high from going fast, especially when there was the risk of injury or even death. It was the reason why he'd mastered the power-over drift so that he could keep accelerating through the turn, and swung close enough to his opponents during his chases to make them panic. Even against the Snakes and their underhanded dealings, he'd show them that his way of fighting was still better, no matter what they threw at him.

He looked up when a shadow fell over him as Yaku leaned over his open window, the electric pump in his hand.

"You're good to go, Kuroo. Go ahead and show off," Yaku shouted over the din. Kuroo nodded, flicking his cigarette out the window and rolling up the glass. Yaku stepped back as he revved the engine, pulling up to the starting line where Sakishima was already waiting. Unlike most racers, Kuroo preferred chasing from the start to throw his opponent off his game. Before he'd inherited the title of Drift King, he'd been known as the Comeback Kid for his knack for overcoming what was traditionally seen as an unfavorable position. But the psychological benefit of overtaking the opponent and the pressure it put on the other racer, in addition to his skill with his clean lines and sharp angles that allowed him to do so consistently, had eventually shot him to the top of the Tokyo drifting world.

At the signal, Sakishima peeled past the starting line, and Kuroo quickly shot after him, staying close to his tail as they sped down the course. Even though his heart was racing, his head was completely clear, every sense focused on the view just beyond his windshield. Both he and Kenma were confident that Sakishima wouldn't try anything until the turn, but that was no reason to relax, especially at the speeds that they were going. Still, nothing happened when they reached the first clipping point, and Kuroo's eyes narrowed as he quickly estimated the distances and speeds between their cars, making his calculations swiftly and throwing himself into a drift just a heartbeat after Sakishima.

And it was perfect. His hand rested casually on the wheel as his tires squealed, sending up plumes of smoke as the tail of his car whipped around the curve, flying nearly parallel to Sakishima. The Snake seemed rattled as he spun into the next turn, turning slightly wide as Kuroo effortlessly stuck to him, their cars nearly touching as Kuroo grinned. It was pretty clear already which of them was the better drifter, not that it had ever been a question.

He let the car carry itself into the third point with just a few adjustments on his side, almost laughing as Sakishima had to drag on his own wheel to make the turn. The perfect chance presented itself almost immediately, and he aimed for the gap in Sakishima's barely controlled swing. But then, suddenly, the other car was spinning out as the Snake overcompensated, an out-of-control, two-ton wrecking ball flying toward him.

Kuroo jerked his wheel, pulling himself out of the drift and spinning out himself, the two cars making donuts on the road until he couldn't tell left from right. But the ominous crunch of metal never came, and when his car finally screeched to a stop, Kuroo slapped himself out of the harness and kicked his door open, stepping out onto the asphalt and casting his glare out at the spectators, looking for one specific slit-eyed face in particular.

"Daishou!" he bellowed, stomping toward the crowd and seizing the Snake by the collar, dragging him over the barrier. "What the fuck was that?"

But the other man just stared at him, all wide-eyed innocence. "'What the fuck' was what, Kuroo-san? Isumi made a mistake. Everyone saw that. He's not used to wet roads, but that's why I asked you to run with him so he could get some practice, because you're the only one good enough to not get hurt if he really fucks up. Like he did."

"Don't give me that bullshit!" Kuroo spun and slammed Daishou onto the ground, making the Snake wince as his back made contact with the asphalt. "That trick had your slime smeared all over it. You wanted to use Sakishima to take me out so you'd win the next run by default. If I hadn't been expecting something like that from you, I'd probably be in an ambulance on my way to the hospital right now."

Sakishima had caught up to them and was now clinging to Kuroo's arm, trying to pull him off while babbling insincere apologies. Kuroo shrugged him off impatiently as Daishou's hands landed on his wrist, trying to make him let go, but Kuroo shook him like a terrier with a rat, the adrenaline and testosterone giving him an incredible high.

"Really, Kuroo-san. Ask anyone. They would all say that it's a normal accident," Daishou protested. "You know these kinds of things happen all the time. But you're okay, Isumi's okay. No harm, no foul, right?"

The crowd was murmuring in the background, but Kuroo couldn't hear what they were saying through the blood pounding in his ears. He was just drawing his fist back to punch that smarmy smile off the Snake's face when a deluge of water crashed over both of them. Sputtering, he looked up to see Shouhei holding an empty bucket, Kenma standing beside him.

"Cooled off, Kuro?" Kenma asked in his deadpan voice as he approached them. "Or should I ask Fukunaga to get another bucket?"

Kuroo grimaced, shaking the water out of his eyes and hair as he leaned back slightly, still not letting Daishou go. Kenma crouched beside him, speaking softly, so that the crowd couldn't hear.

"You know that the Snakes are just like this. To everyone else, this does look like a normal accident. If you go any further, you're the one that's going to get a bad reputation. Right now, we can still pass it off as the heat of the moment. Let him go, Kuro."

"Yeah, listen to your girlfriend, Kuro," Daishou taunted. Kuroo's expression shut down, and he drew back his arm again. But this time, Kenma clung to it, still hissing in his ear.

"Stop it, Kuro. You know that everyone says that. They've been saying it for years. It doesn't mean anything. Stop letting him get to you!"

Kuroo grimaced again, but he listened to Kenma, letting his friend quietly talk him down until he was calm enough to shove Daishou away and get up. Accepting a towel from Shouhei, he tousled his hair dry while glaring at Daishou, who got back to his feet with as much dignity as he could muster.

"Sakishima-san forfeited the run," Kenma continued, still talking in his flat, measured tone. "So you'll be up against Daishou later. Are you up to it?"

"Fuck yeah, I'm ready to beat his ass," Kuroo snarled, and Kenma nodded at Shouhei, who ran across the asphalt to retrieve Kuroo's car. They'd probably replace the rear wheels to be safe, and then Kenma would have to run his checks again, but when they were done, his car would be better than new and more than ready to run the cheating bastard into the ground.

He reached into his pocket to pull out his pack of cigarettes, bending over to accept Kenma's offer of a light, and took a deep drag to steady his nerves. Being emotional during a race was the fastest way to get a ride to the morgue, so he needed to re-center himself. By then, the rest of his team had caught up to him, and Tora's particularly heated spiel about Daishou and his team helped bleed away most of the anger as they walked back to the starting line. Kenma had slipped away at some point, and Yaku was nowhere to be seen, so they were probably working on the car while he settled down. Really, he didn't deserve his friends.

By the time they arrived back at the beginning, the cool night air had washed away the rest of his irritation, which was probably Kenma's intention in making him walk back with the others. Shouhei and Yaku had just finished installing new tires, and Kenma was hunched over his laptop again on the curb, only looking up briefly when Kuroo sat down next to him.

"Thanks."

Kenma shrugged, his face bleached by the light from his screen. "I'm just doing my job."

"I mean earlier."

Kenma shrugged again, and a comfortable silence settled between them, broken only by the clicking of the keyboard. The rest of the team was huddled around the car, making checks and occasionally bringing Kenma more numbers, gradually shifting to sit around their captain and his brain, filling the silence with their chatter as other drifters made their runs.

"Hey, wait! You're playing a game, Kenma!" Lev protested, peering over Kenma's shoulder. "What about the race?"

"Kuroo will be fine," Kenma replied calmly as Kuroo looked over at his screen too, which seemed to be displaying the view through a sniper's scope. "His car's fine, and Daishou wants to beat Kuroo. If he tries the same thing, it'll be suspicious, and even if he did, if Kuroo doesn't spin out again, then Daishou will lose. And Kuroo is better than him, so if he does try anything else, it'd be more likely that he'd mess up and Kuroo would still win. His best chance at this point is a fair fight, and that means Kuroo could drive laps around him all day."

Kuroo grinned, standing up and stretching. "Well then, I guess that's my cue to get ready. I'll see you all at the finish line."

He walked over to his car, standing by the driver's door and just running a hand over the shining, red exterior for a moment. Then, taking a deep breath, he got inside, strapping himself down. The familiar feeling of exhilaration that he got just before a run made him smile as he pulled into place behind the next pair of cars, watching out of the corner of his eye as Daishou pulled up next to him.

And then, soon enough, they were flying down the road, Kuroo chasing again, keeping the pressure on his opponent. As Kenma had said, there was no way for Daishou to beat him, and he proved that as he took the lead at the very first bend, hitting the edge perfectly while gunning his engine through the whole course, making the best run that he'd probably ever done and leaving Daishou in his dust. If it was possible, he was even sharper on the turns than he had been against Sakishima, pushing himself and his car to the utmost limit. And there was no better feeling than watching the Snake come up to him to shake his hand after his loss, smiling like it hurt his teeth.

"As expected of the Drift King. But it won't last forever. Someday, someone will knock you off that throne."

And Kuroo had smiled back, the smirk that he knew infuriated Daishou more than anything else.

"Come at me whenever you want. I'll beat you down every time."

[A/N2: This isn't KuroKen. They're just really good childhood friends, so Kenma knows how to calm Kuroo down because they've been part of each other's lives for so long, and Kenma in particular is good at paying attention to people. Kuroo gets pissed at Daishou for calling Kenma his "girlfriend" not because of the implication that he's "whipped" (because Kuroo is perfectly secure in his masculinity), but rather because I have a headcanon that Kenma got teased a lot for being "girly" (weak, thin, kinda androgenous, etc.) growing up, so Kuroo still gets upset when that's used to insult his best friend (even though Kenma honestly doesn't give a fuck). But they're not in a romantic relationship; they just spend a lot of time together.

Of course, if you wanna interpret it as KuroKen, that's your prerogative, but that wasn't my intention in writing this.]

[elderbwrry]

The White Hound

When Hux becomes Supreme Leader, one of his first orders is to put Kylo in white. He didn't realise it would be quite so inconveniently distracting.

From discussions with @kyberkills about Adam Driver in white on the set of Gucci.

Tags: Mature audiences, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren, assorted very minor ocs, Supreme Leader Armitage Hux, Hound Kylo Ren, some violence, kylo does do a murder, a TEENSY bit of Beheading, but it is not the focus, Denial of Feelings, Married Couple, Blood, sex mention, fashion of the First Order, one day that'll be a real tag i swear *shakes fist at god*, the first order have only heard of three colours ever

Wordcount: 1913 - also on ao3

Hux narrowed his eyes.

The Magistrate in front of him was droning on and on, and had been for the last half hour. Ordinarily, Hux enjoyed a bit of grovelling, but the issue of it was that she was notgrovelling, she was delivering a very carefully worded monologue about the lengths her government was willing to go to in order to comply with the First Order's expanding jurisdiction over the Galaxy. It was too well put together, and Hux could already tell that nothing she was going to promise – once she finally got to her point – would be comprehensive enough for Hux to accept. He demanded submission. He demanded absolute order.

Still, perhaps she would surprise him, besides which it would be better to hear her entire point before rebuffing her, and, as Supreme Leader, time was Hux's to command.

On his left, the Praetorian Guard swapped their spear from their left to right hand. The Magistrate's eyes flicked over to the guard at their movement, and both of her own guards tensed, though they had been removed of their ranged weapons when they arrived. Hux shifted to lean on the other armrest of his throne, his arm poised on its elbow, his hand lazily positioned in the air. The Magistrate refocussed, evidently understanding Hux's subtle message that he should be displeased were she to disrespect his gracious attention, but it was the first crack Hux had noticed in her collected facade.

Of course, Hux knew what she didn't; the guards were exemplarily trained, and that particular movement was the signal of disturbance on the surface levels of the vast mega-ship which served as Hux's seat of command.

Hux readied himself in case the disturbance grew more serious, the Magistrate's words becoming thinner and thinner to his hearing as he mentally constructed the likeliest cause for this correlation of events; she was merely a distraction, her escort ship a vehicle for whatever forces were acting out this misguided plan.

It was a pity – he really had hoped she would surprise him.

Another slight adjustment of grip on the spear of his guard told him Ren was on his way. The knowledge inspired in Hux a sense of satisfaction, which he put down purely to that of knowing his hound had swiftly dealt with the issue.

The Magistrate was still talking. Her government's armies would be powerful enough to cause a problem, which was why Hux had been hoping for a diplomatic transition of power, but now there was little choice other than to take the system by force. And here she'd given him the opportunity, Hux mused as he smoothed down his blood red tunic.

The door at the far end of the throne room swished open, and immediately Ren was marching his way down the central aisle, stormtroopers at his heels along with one of his own knights, and, for one glorious moment, they were a vision all in white. He looked serious, his chin lowered as he glowered forward, his dark hair sweeping back due to the speed with which he was advancing through the otherwise static climate-controlled air. His alabaster robes gleamed in the strip lights. Hux himself had approved the uniform redesign that placed Ren in his current long culottes and figure-flattering shirt, stripped of the cape, the helmet, the things he hid behind before Hux took power. Ren had complained – about the style and the unfamiliar colour and many other things besides – but eventually caved under Hux's pressure; after all, what was grander than a besuited knight in white?

Quite suddenly, Hux found himself surging to his feet. Red – blood red – red, all over Ren's right hand, shoulder, hem, boots. Was he hurt? What had he done to get so filthy with it?

Hux was distracted, so, when the Magistrate drew a pistol and pointed it directly at him, the first he knew of it was the clankof the Praetorian Guards' armour, the warning cry of “Supreme Leader!” and the growl of Ren and his lightsaber igniting. Hux had only time to stare down the barrel of the weapon and consider exactly what he might die from, before the electric flash of the sabre split the air between the Magistrate's head and body and everything in between.

In the background, two further sounds of blaster fire were directed at the Magistrate's guards, along with a buzz of trooper commands and heavy booted footfalls as they surrounded the enemy, who were variously stunned and dead. Hux allowed himself a moment to look at the bodies and consider what would have to be done. Then, he mentally postponed that consideration and turned to Ren, whose chest was heaving as he stepped around the body, closer to Hux, but without taking his eyes off what he'd done.

Hux descended a step, his cloak swishing behind him, but one was all that was needed before Ren was right in front of him, seemingly only reassured that Hux was safe by proximity. Hux paused, hoping Ren wouldn't pull him into some kind of unwanted embrace – he didn't want to get blood on his robes – yet bracing for it somewhat eagerly.

“What is the situation?” he asked.

“Resistance,” came the gritted reply.

Hux raised an eyebrow. “They weren't her government's forces?” The potential ramifications of this were reeling through his mind, so the question was more to himself, but Ren nodded anyway.

“I recognised some of them. They must be desperate, to send such veteran members on a mission like this.”

Ren's tone caught at Hux. It was pained, more so than usual. For someone who had killed so many people and betrayed so many others, Kylo could get awfully trapped in the emotion of some single, awful actions. His lightsaber was still crackling at his side, scorching a mark into Hux's immaculate stairs. “Ren,” Hux prompted, modulating his tone to be more compassionate. It still sounded canned, but at least he was trying.

Ren didn't respond.

Frowning, Hux reached his gloved hand out to Ren's bare, bloodied one, fingers trailing over his raised, tightly gripping knuckles. Something akin to concern found its way into Hux's throat this time as he repeated, “Kylo?”

The lightsaber died at the same time Ren's attention snapped away from where the stormtroopers were quickly moving the body, to Hux. “She almost shot you.”

Hux's head quirked; was that what this show of emotion was about? Ren had looked so furious when he'd attacked the Magistrate. The intensity of Hux's emotions did not match, either for his own life or for Ren, but something inside him felt off, like data buffering, at the reminder that Ren cared so much.

The memory of their marriage ceremony remained fresh in Hux's mind; he thought about it often for this exact reason. Ren had been draped in white then too, and gold and jewels and lace and rare flowers. He had been radiant, especially with how much more meaning had flowed through his vows than Hux had been able to inject into his own. At the time, Hux had absently thought that Ren deserved to say his vows to someone who actually loved him, but hadn't much cared. Indeed, for himself the whole exercise was one of cementing his claim to the throne via marriage to Snoke's heir, something which he thought Ren had understood, despite his eager acceptance of the proposal, but since then it had become increasingly, unignorably obvious that Ren loved him. He thought this was real, and that Hux, emotionally reserved with it as he was, loved him back.

Hux had to take some of the blame for that; he'd done nothing to dissuade the idea. He'd played into it, given Ren power and purpose, played the role of husband to it's fullest extent. He'd gone through all the motions – nothing that he hadn't done before, really – except that the act was getting harder. When Ren played with Millie, Hux had to stop himself from smiling. When Ren stepped unselfconsciously out of the shower, Hux had to avert his eyes and suppress a blush. When Ren lavished adoration onto his body, the shudders he sent through Hux felt all too real.

Now, too, Hux had to tell himself that he was acting out of expectation, because his subjects were watching, when he took another step down to Ren's level and, holding him gently by the elbows, looked over the blood splatters, asking with too much concern, “Are you hurt?”

Ren looked down at himself, at the darkening spots of a slaughter over snow, as if only now realising his state. “Oh, no, this isn't mine.”

“Well,” Hux chided, noting that the colour of his red leather gloves was not so dissimilar to the splatters on Kylo's right side, “it would behove you to take more care next time. You'll need new robes, now you've stained these.”

“You could always put me back in black,” Ren objected, but it was laced with something Hux had come to recognise as his flirting voice.

“Never,” Hux said with more vehemence than he intended. He wasn't sure why he was so against it, other than that he loved the way Ren shone in white. No, not loved. Adored? Not right either, both too strong for him to justify to himself. He settled with preferred. “Go get cleaned up,” he ordered, to avoid thinking about it.

Ren's clean hand raised to Hux's waist. Months ago, Hux had had to stop himself from jerking away at such a touch, but now he was used to it, had to stop himself from leaning into it, even. He'd learned Ren's touches well, just as Ren had learned that Hux would not tolerate being touched by his bloody hand, and as such kept it at a distance. “Come do it with me?” Ren asked, lowering his voice and whispering into Hux's ear, “You know fighting makes me horny”.

Hux shook his head. No, he had plenty to be getting on with; planning the offensive on the Magistrate's home star system, minimising the fallout and outrage from the remaining systems who had yet to join the First Order, tracking the origin of the Resistance members. Still, the head shake was more firm than it would have been if he wasn't thoroughly tempted.

Ren let out an annoyed exhale. “Fine,” he said, and, barely a moment later, Hux was tugged forward into a firm kiss which gave just enough of a taste of hunger that Hux was under no illusions as to what Ren meant when he pulled away and said, “I'll be waiting for you when you're done.”

And maybe Hux was tired, maybe he was shaken by the – rather pedestrian – attempt on his life, but he forgot himself. His hand threaded itself up into the hair at the base of Kylo's neck, thinking how soft it would feel if it weren't for the gloves and drawing him in for another, more lingering kiss this time, one that tasted of the surprised little noise Kylo let out. This time, when they separated, it was as if Kylo's gorgeous white robes had been tinted with the crimson of Hux's; his own colour, rather than the blood of their enemies. The image seared itself into Hux's retina, and promised to be the only thing he could think about until he next saw Kylo. The white really did make the red come out nicely.

“I'll be there soon.”

[thatasianstereotype]

Father, This Is Your Future Son-In-Law.

A short little side companion fic to my Adrien x Damian series. 

First: Fuck. I’m Gay. 

Second: Damn, You’re Looking Fine. 

Third: Shit. I Got To Deal With This Bitch (Again).

I’m still working on the fourth and final part of the series (it won’t be as long of a wait as Part 3). But I wanted to write how the Batfam reacted to their youngest suddenly getting a boyfriend while abroad. 

Creative liberties were taken. Also, this is a crack writing. 

The Demon Spawn who has gotten better at not attacking people at first sight but still just tolerates people. And his holier-than-thou attitude is still there with his love for throwing insults around like free candy. 

This is the kid that manages to snag a pure cinnamon roll sunshine as a boyfriend?

This angry grumpy child? 

Needless to say, the Batfam is in disbelief.

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.

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“What?” Bruce thought that the Teen Titans mission in Europe was done. “Why do you want to stay in Paris longer? Is something wrong?”

“No Father. I have simply found someone I wish to court. I will be spending time in Paris to see how best to present myself as an exceptional suitor that is all. Give my regards to Grayson that I will be missing Family Night but that I will make it up by introducing him to his future brother-in-law soon.” 

Bruce was too much in shock to answer when Damian hung up. 

“DICK!” 

“I think it’s cute that Dami is getting a boyfriend.” 

“Dick, you oblivious and naive child, you are completely missing the point.” 

Dick rolled his eyes. “Look, I’m pretty sure Damian isn’t actually going to marry someone right now.”

“He said ‘future brother-in-law’ inferring that this courtship he wants to initiate will end in a wedding.” 

“I think you are reading too much into this, B.” 

“And you are not reading enough. Have I taught you nothing at all?

“You taught me paranoia.” 

“I taught you to be prepared for every kind of situation.”

“Pretty sure the possibility of your 17-year-old son getting hitched in Paris can be ruled out.” 

“Where did I go wrong with you?” 

And Dick rolled his eyes once again at Bruce’s dramatic-ness. This. This is where Damian gets it from. 

.

Ever the peace keeper in this dysfunctional trainwreck of a family, Dick managed to stop Bruce from flying to Paris. But much to their frustrations (even Dick’s who wanted to know who captured his baby bro’s heart), Damian did not tell them the name of his potential boyfriend. 

.

All in all, Damian spent about two months and a half in Paris before coming back home to Gotham. And the Batfam could see a difference right away. 

Damian was happy. He smiled (it was a little one but it had Dick squealing in joy) more and he was more tolerate of his brothers and schoolmates. 

“We should’ve shipped him off to Paris earlier if he comes back like this.” 

Tim was still staring at Damian like he was an alien. The demon spawn still insulted him every other day but hasn’t threatened to kill him at all since he came back. No ripping out his intestines to feed to the vultures or throwing him off a building for the rats to feast on. It was nice. Although a little part of him felt slightly unnerving. He doesn’t have any contingency plans involving a Nice!Damian. 

Dick shook his head fondly at his little brother, taking away his coffee full of too much caffeine and replacing it with decaf. He has truly ascended to motherhood. “Well, I think it’s nice that Little D found love.”

“In the city of love. Is no one paying attention to that part?” Jason munched on one of Alfred’s cookies. “Cause I think that’s hilarious. I thought Baby Bat would’ve choked on all the happiness and bright clean air there.”

Dick whacked his arm. “Stop being mean to Dami.”

“But Dickie. It’s how I show affection.” 

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Adrien Agreste was the son of the supervillain Hawk Moth that have terrorizing Paris for the last 3 years. Batman was not at all pleased to hear that the Parisian heroes called for help and the Justice League turned them away. People have paid for that. Dearly. 

“So his mom’s dead and his dad’s a criminal?” Jason looked over Bruce’s shoulder at the BatComputer. “Kid’ll fit right in with our family. Demon sure knows how to pick them.”

“Hnn.” Bruce grunted. 

“I mean with you dating Selina, a notorious thief and doing the thing with Talia, a very dangerously lethal assassin, it’s no wonder where your son got his taste from.” 

“Jason.” Bruce grunted in a warning tone. 

“I mean when I’m right, I’m right.”

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“Ok.” Tim started off tonight’s Family Meeting (excluding Damian), the topic being one certain ex-assassin’s love interest. “Looking further into the Agreste kid shows he clearly did not take after his villainous dad. He is one of Paris’ teenage models and have a huge fanbase dedicated to how pure and sweet he is. He is a literal walking ray of sunshine.” 

“How the fuck did that sunshine child tame our literal feral demon brother?” Jason said. Always the VIP asking the important questions here.

Tim actually had an answer for that. He pulled out several charts and data on his laptop and showed it to the others. “Looking further into Adrien, I have found evidence that he is the cat-themed superhero Chat Noir. Being a loveable and touch-starved kitten appealed to the demon brat’s almost non-existent affections.” 

“Timmy, Dami is capable of love.” Dick said in a disappointed voice. 

“I said almost non-existent, didn’t I?” Tim waved the Mom’s disappointment away. “But you guys have got to see this.” 

He pulled up a video of Chat Noir and Ladybug on the big screen. They watched him using his signature move: cataclysm. No one spoke for a few minutes as they processed the sheer destructive powers of the hero.

“You know what.” Jason broke the silence. “I have no more questions. I can kind of see how Agreste is the demon’s type.” 

What baby assassin wouldn’t be turned on by the literal godly destructive powers the baby kitten held in his hands? 

Dick, the only one wanting to keep things semi-PG here, smacked the back of his head. 

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“Baby brother.” Cass greeted. She is back home from her Hong Kong trip and heard all about the famous Adrien Agreste. She thought it was adorable and that Adrien and Damian made a cute couple. 

“Hello, Cassandra.” 

She peered down at the list he was currently making. She gestured towards it with a confused look. 

“I am compiling a list of tasks that needs to be done before my Chaton and new sister-in-law come to Gotham. Only the best for them after all. 

Her eyes lit up. “New sister?”

“Yes. My mon amour’s sister will be our new one.” He pulled out a picture of her on his phone for Cass to see. “Her name is Marinette and she will be a fine addition to the family.” 

“Baby sister.” Cass said happily. She was always up for new family members. 

“Yes. I imagine you two will get along the best.” 

But she couldn’t help but notice that with all the preparations he is making, even if it is for his boyfriend and new sister, is a bit —how would Steph say it?— overkill. 

Her coal black eyes were sharp as she observed his body language. “You very serious on this. Why?” 

He can never hide anything from his sister. “I wish for them to have a good impression of our family so that their family will not be disincline to reject my proposal for marriage.”

“Marriage?” She was still quite unfamiliar with some words in English. 

“It means that you will be getting another brother too.” 

.

“We will wed.” 

Dick hasn’t even finished his cereal yet. He looked over at Damian’s serious expression. “Did you even ask him yet?” 

“I will present myself as an extraordinary suitor that he will be more inclined to say yes when I ask.” 

“At least you’re treating your man right.”

Damian took offense. “Why wouldn’t I treat my mon amour with anything but the upmost respect and love?”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Little D. I’m just glad you’re in a good relationship and from what I can see, Adrien adores you very much.”

Damian smiled. “I adore my Chaton a great deal as well. Would you like to come with me to pick out a ring?

Dick could just hear Bruce’s voice in his head saying he shouldn’t be encouraging this. But come on, this was his baby brother who grew up learning how to hurt people finding a precious loving relationship for himself and he will be damned if he doesn’t support this. 

“Of course. I’ll be honored to help.”

His baby brother brightened before he launched into a rant. 

“I’m having trouble finding the perfect gem to complement his eyes. They are a certain shade of forest green you see. And many jewelry stores do me a great disservice by not having that certain shade or having utterly appalling quality for what my Chaton deserves.” 

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[mrfrogmouth]

Supergirl 6x08: Thoughts, Defense, and Criticism

I will say the episode mildly exceeded my expectations. I was very please to see them actually exploring trauma in a semi-realistic way.

I’ll start with my most positive— and most widely agreed with opinion: that Danvers sisters scene kicked ass. It is the kind of content that the show has been sorely missing. From Alex’s failure to open the wine bottle to Kara’s breakdown, there wasn’t a single beat that didn’t work in that scene. I LOVED Melissa Benoist’s performance— the halting, hesitating speech and lack of eye contact— you could feel just how painful it was to talk about the phantom zone, let alone admit she was still afraid. Chyler Leigh played her part wonderfully— the care with which she spoke every word just oozed love and worry. The casting of those two together was just a miracle.

(More under the cut. A lot more.)

There was some awkward dialogue (did they think the audience wouldn’t know who a reporter named Iris was? They had to include the full, hyphenated last name?) but honestly it was pretty good for a supergirl episode, so I can’t really complain.

Melissa Benoist is just a powerhouse of an actor and it showed this week. I could go on and on about her perfomance but there’s a lot more to say about the episode so I’ll just say she’s the bomb and move on.

Brainy and Nia were delightful as always, providing much of the humor of the episode and still shouldering some of the more dramatic beats. Brainy’s welcome home hug for Kara was something I felt in my soul don’t @ me.

The Nia/Lena friendship. I didn’t expect it, but I am certainly enjoying it. Hoping to see them hang out more (though maybe with a different topic than dead moms)

Lena continues to be a seedless addition to the Superfriends. Her leaving is, however, one of the few major issues I have with the episode. It’s weird. And random. From a purely character standpoint I don’t understand why she wouldn’t even wait a week for Kara to get settled back in before leaving. From an overall plot standpoint, I just don’t care about the Lena mom arc. I never have, and honestly I think there are better uses for her screen time— then again, removing her opens up that time for other characters and let’s the writers move along her character development offscreen— it worked for Mon El!

But seriously, i don’t know if Lena is going to just disappear or if we’re going to have a separated sub plot of her doing things and I don’t really care. I just want her to do something that I have any vague interest in, like have her finally pay back that debt to Andrea from 5x01 (did that even still happen? They called Kara a Pulitzer winner this episode.) Or have her work with Nia to track down information about interpreting her magic dreams, or go on a team bonding subplot with Alex where they get over the mind control and attempted murder via satellite thing (maybe talk about Alex’s experience with Myriad, or maybe, you know, have her resolve anything with Kara. Try and bridge icy awkward gap that happens when you realize your best friend was a lying asshole and you slightly overreact by trying to make it physically impossible for anyone to be mean to you ever again.

And speaking of Andrea— I’m actually really enjoying her character for the first time since crisis. She was fun in a way that made me laugh and worked well to both further herself as a character and push the plot. I’m genuinely excited for her scenes next episode. And they wrote all this without changing her at all as a character. Something just clicked this time, I’m not sure if it was how unstable Kara was so her aggression was actually effective or that her subplot actually had consequence this time, but it was nice.

And Zor-El was there, I guess.

I have, personally, been against any Kryptonian resurrections since season 1. Supergirl had their go of it, and it worked very well, and they used up their slot. Reign earned an exception for being a bamf and giving us what the best fight scene supergirl has ever had. The other worldkillers did not. And Argo made me unreasonably angry, especially when it was so painfully wasted.

Zor-El is just the new, shiny version of Argo and equally useless. (Also, Argo is alive again? Did we know that?) This is not to say I didn’t enjoy him at all, this episode is the first that I’ve liked him. But still. That one throw away comment about the phone calls and superhearing being hard to deal with could have led to a really interesting conversation with Kara: tackling the really unpleasant parts of her childhood, the difficulties she has pretending to be human, and ultimately the pain and suffering her caused by sending her off, alone, to care for an infant on a foreign planet. They knew it would give her powers; did they know what those powers would mean? Did they care?

I wanted that conversation, and I wanted the others, Nia in particular, to hear it. (Nia grew up a half-alien in Parthas, Kara grew up with the DEO hanging over her head like an ax— that difference has always intrigued me.)

Zor-El and Sesame Street was sweet, though I don’t know where he found the time to binge that and learn to control his powers all while Kara was still asleep.

Kara saying Clark used to beg to bring her to the fortress is a blatant retcon of seasons 1 and 2, but I think the writers make copies of the show bible just to set them on fire each episode.

And again— very interesting possible conversations. What does Zor think of his so very not Kryptonian-Kryptonian nephew? What does he think of Kara’s distant relationship with him? What does he think of Clark dumping Kara on the Danvers (for very arguable reasons) and then barely acknowledging her existence (for considerably less arguable, I’d totally in-character reasons)? What does he think of Clark’s data crystal that built a whole fortress, while his contained the recipe for his bio-weapon and a hologram of his wife? (What kind of person sends their teenage daughter off with a baby and a bio-weapon? The fuck did he think she’d need that for?) Was it so important to him to preserve his work?

Would it KILL THEM to have one conversation acknowledging Astra and Non’s existence. Just to explain how Kara knew her father was responsible for Krypton’s destruction. Could I have that instead of Oscar the trash monster? (Trash robot? Trash robot monster?)

Overall, I enjoyed the episode— it was better than I expected. I’m cautiously optimistic for next week.

And one more thing:

Where the fuck is Lex?

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been praying for his character to go away for over a year, but like???

His abuse victim just left him.

The abuse victim who he torments for the fun and attention of it.

That victim.

Just told him he doesn’t get any more attention.

5. Episodes. Ago.

And he didn’t blow up half the city?

No “Look at me! Look at me!” destructive rampage?

Are they building up for something? They haven’t even mentioned his name. Even if he doesn’t lash out, he’s still a supervillain. Who’s got all this power and money, and is in controlling of a bunch of government stuff.

Idk.

Just.

Feels like someone should get on that.