#Character A really WAS dead. and B was the only person who knew for years

[blizzardz]

that one trope where Character A has been missing for years, almost believed to be dead, until suddenly coming back, much to the relief and happiness of all their friends and family. Except for Character B, who is more than terrified about A's return. But for whatever reason, B can't let anyone know why they feel the way they do about A's return

[the-owl-house-takes]

I absolutely hate the argument that Luz can be excused for her actions and people have no right to dislike her just because she’s neurodivergent. I struggled immensely in school both academically and socially in large to my own “neurodivergence”-can I just say I hate that word-but I was never so stupid as to think about bringing live animals and fireworks inside my school. The fact that Luz, the 14-year-old daughter of a veterinarian, saw a bunch of living, breathing animals and thought-‘yeah, I’m gonna use those as props! My book report is gonna be so cool! I surely can’t just use rubber snakes!’ Which probably why they were so damn aggressive! Because snakes only really bite and attack when they’re threatened, or stressed, or pissed off! Which really does not paint Luz as being a very caring or thoughtful person!

“But that’s the point! She needs to get better and she does!”-No she absolutely fucking does not. Instead of realizing that she can’t just run away and live in fantasy-land, the show again and again reaffirms that Luz can do no wrong, everybody else never should’ve felt angry about her reckless idiocy-because that’s what it is, idiocy-she gets to live out her little fantasy world and do whatever she wants. The way the show acts like the principal giving the summer camp pamphlet was some horrible evil thing, how could anyone do that? B I T CH LUZ IS FUCKING LUCKY that she weren’t expelled or arrested! She brought EXPLOSIVES WITH THE INTENT OF SETTING THEM OFF INSIDE A SCHOOL BUILDING. In an area of mass shoring fears and schools prohibiting anything can looks like or emulates(even if it is just a foam sword or something), Luz really should’ve just taken two seconds to think to at least leave the fireworks. Course at 14 I would think that a person who have the common sense for that to never be a thought.

And no, “neurodivergence” is not an excuse. It pains me when characters in media doing stupid shit and senseless(especially when it gets on the audience’s nerves) gets pinned on having autism or ADHD like it makes it okay, and that the character can’t be blamed or held accountable for it. Why do people hold those with these conditions to such low standards? When this happens, it feels like people are saying, “Yeah, this could’ve easily caused grievous bodily harm or death but they’ve got anxiety and autism, so we can’t be mad, they couldn’t possibly know better because they’re simply not on our level, they’re too stupid to understand!” Hell no. Stop giving excuses! The “I’m literally neurodivergent and a minor” attitude does not work in court!

And maybe if they understood this and actually challenged Luz on being very episodic on learning her lessons and that she did in fact run away to avoid consequences of her actions and reality won’t bend to her interests and she can’t treat everything like it’s a fanfiction instead of beating the dead horse with another dead horse about how Luz ““““helped”””” Belos when all she did was teach him one glyph and got used as bait by someone who she KNOWS tricked her. By that logic Lilith is just as responsible for Belos meeting the Collector as Luz is. Yeah she’s 14 but did it really have to stretch through the entirety of season 3?

Because season 3 is where I officially knew that Luz hadn’t learned a thing. The way the show frames the art teacher giving Luz the side eye like it’s wrong for her to distrust the kid who used the art supplies-that she probably paid out of pocket for-to infest the school with spiders and snakes and then would’ve blown it up if she hadn’t gotten sent to the principal’s office is so out of pocket. She has every right to view Luz with suspicion! People don’t tend to like others who make a mess in their areas with their stuff, shocker. I’ve already said a bit about the summer camp thing, but seriously, a summer camp that teaches teens about mortgages, how to manage a bank account and checkbook, do taxes, etc is literally the best thing Luz could’ve gotten out of that situation. She would’ve learned something many people complain wasn’t taught to them at a young age AND would’ve met people who she could easily befriended. Yeah, it’s boring and Luz probably would’ve checked out of the situation but it’s better than juvie! Also boring stuff is apart of life, it’s part of the way we can live the way we do because everything is easier said than done. Also with Camila, it’s a dumb retcon to have her not understand anime or Luz’s interests in Season 1 and 2 but a secret nerd who just got put down by the man in season 3. Like, Camila had to make a change with Luz, because 14 is not far from 18, and if Luz did do something stupid that ended up being a crime, she could very well be charged as an adult.

Then the whole ‘I just wanna be understood!’ Luz, honey, you’ve been surrounded by people who understand you and don’t get mad when you mess up, even if it’s spectacularly. Your girlfriend literally immediately told you she essentially wanted to spend the rest of her life by your side right after you got revealed as a liar which you promised you wouldn’t do anymore. Your best buds have always been on your side even when you’ve gone behind their backs. Your mom was sending you to that camp bc she had too, even though she originally believed it would expose you to kids with similar interests that could be befriended. And again, her hands were tied, because you were being reckless to the point of danger. But oh wait, it’s all okay now because you’re ‘understood’.

Not finding that happy balance where you can express yourself but not act like an idiot or endanger yourself and others, just some vague ‘understanding’ by an anonymous ‘them’. Do you mean everyone, all the time has to understand you the way Camila, Eda, King, Willow, Gus, Amity and Hunter do? Because that’s not how real life works.

And this isn’t a character hate-though I do hate the way Luz was finished-this is on the writers for not going through with the themes of Fantasy Vs. Reality they had going that could’ve taught Luz that balance and management; which in my personal opinion, would’ve been a better arc for a person with ADHD.

-

[sweatervest-obsessed]

Salvia Splendens Means Forever Mine - Part 1

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

WC: 8.5k

TW: Guns, S2 E14/15 ie Revelations (lmao sorry gang), guns, police (acab), torture, character death, mentions of death, dead bodies, rabid dogs, loooots of bible talk, mentions of kissing, brief reminiscing of potentially more sticks to canon pretty closely meaning if you have issues with the Episode Revelations, then this might not be for you, neediness, crying, lack of crying, internalized emotions, mentions of cheating, mentions of past relationship trauma

A/N: So I'm pretty sure this reads as gn! Reid does quote a proverb that references women, but that's because the bible wasn't big on inclusivity when it came to shaming people who enjoyed sex...anywho! I love any and all feedback! Enjoy!

You, Emily, Hotch, Derek, Gideon and the Sheriff sat around the computer, staring at a woman tied up in a barn, in her slip dress, mouth duct taped over. A figure, who had hidden his face, was reading out a passage of the bible. Your eyes were glued to the screen. 

A portion of Jezebel shall dogs eat the flesh of.

“No. no.” You turned around, not wanting to watch what was happening on the screen, just hearing it was almost too much. 

“Jezebel’s Death.” muttered Gideon, his voice filled with solemnity. 

“My god.” Emily turned away from the screen, copying your actions. 

Finally, Hotch told Emily to turn it off, but not before the Sheriff jumped up. “Wait.” 

You all looked at him, confusion written all over everyone’s faces. 

“You hadn’t seen enough.” Derek quipped. 

“Those dogs. Those three dogs attacked someone a couple of months ago. I would’ve had them impounded but the victim knew the owner.” The sheriff was sure about it, more sure about this than anything he had seen in his life. “A neighbor, he didn’t want to press charges.” 

Gideon stared at him. “You sure?”

“As god as my witness.”  The sheriff scrambled for his notebook, flipping to find something. “Three mangy mixes, I knew those dogs looked sick. I called in animal control, but I don’t know if they ever followed up on it.” 

“Here it is.” He looked up from the page.

“You have the owner’s name?” Hotch leaned over glancing into the notebook. 

“Hankel.”

Your eyes went wide. “Hankel?”

“Tobias Hankel.” 

“That’s where Reid and JJ are.” You looked over at Hotch, who watched several waves of emotion fly over your face, trying to control all of them. He nodded and looked at everyone. “Alright let’s go.”

The sheriff yelled out for people to grab their gear while you asked Hotch for a second outside. He nodded and followed you outside to the parking lot. It was cold out, only because of the night breeze, allowing yourself to enjoy the lack of sun and heat. 

Hotch was the only person who actually knew about you and Spencer’s relationship, not because you didn’t trust the team, but because the less people that knew about it, the better. You had watched agents lose their loved ones over and over, being used as pawns against one another, and you were terrified of that happening. The team knew you two really liked each other, and you would hope that it showed since you had been dating for almost a year. 

You were the team's newest addition, right after Elle, younger than Spencer by a year, but still boasting your own PhD. The two of you clicked right away. And to a room of profilers, it was obvious that you two would work perfectly together, and you did. 

So when you started dating a couple months later, you had kept it a secret, just to test things out, not make it public before you were sure. But then the whole “Fisher King” incident happened, and then Elle disappeared, which meant Emily had just joined, causing there to be really no time to just drop another bombshell on a team.

You didn’t mind though. It meant that despite the teasing, you got reassurance that Spencer absolutely had a crush on you, regardless of relationship status. Morgan teasing him over glancing at you one to many times had definitely boosted your ego a bit, but a little confidence never hurt anyone.

You looked up at Hotch, really trying not to freak out, counting your inhales and exhales, timing them so your heart wouldn’t give out. “Hotch if they aren’t…” 

“I know.”

“I’m not asking you to promise me that everything is okay and he’s going to be fine, because we honestly have no reason to believe anything is wrong in the first place, but I–I just need to know that whatever might go down, I’ll have your support because…” 

He nodded and put a hand on your arm, giving it a squeeze. “I know. I’m going to give you another minute out here, but then we need to go.” He went back inside, letting you close your eyes, breathing in the air, letting the coolness still your chest. 

It was hard to only have Hotch know at times like these, or at least confirm his suspicions. You had been alone for about thirty seconds when Derek came out to greet you, bringing you your vest. 

“Stressed out there Girl Genius?” 

You nodded and accepted the vest, sliding it on, remaining silent. 

“Hey.” You looked up at Derek who held his arms out, and you gratefully accepted the invitation. “Everything’s going to be okay. Maybe he’ll finally admit that he loves you if something bad happens.” 

His joke landed but not in the way Derek thought. You scoffed. Derek sighed and pulled away a bit. “He really does like you Y/N, you just have to be patient with him.” You almost felt bad for not telling Derek the scoff was because you already had told one another, quite recently actually. 

“Maybe Derek. Maybe. But for now, I want to make sure they’re both okay, and I’d rather it be sooner than later.” 

The police pulled up to the Tobias household, sirens wailing, lights flashing around. You jumped out the car, gun in your holster, following Derek and Emily. 

The sheriff stopped Morgan and told him about the barn in the back, and the three of you moved to the back of the house. You took out your gun and slowly followed behind Morgan and Prentiss, watching the door of the barn swing back and forth slightly in the wind. 

Derek clicked on the flashlight, and you two did the same, following behind him as he took the lead into the barm. You shined a light through the empty stalls, rocking back and forth between each side, looking for any sign of  either Spencer or JJ.

Emily’s light landed on one of the dogs, dead—shot. You swung your light the opposite way, finding another dog. Just then Derek took a step back, having found the mattress in which the remains of that poor woman was, or at least all of her blood soaked through the entire fabric of the mattress. You immediately turned away, not being able to look at it. You had a very strong stomach, unusually strong since you worked with the FBI and had seen plenty of inhumane things no human should be capable of, but something about this particular scene was unbearable to look at. 

“Damn.” Derek whispered before you all whipped around when you heard someone scream “F.BI.”.

JJ. Her hair was matted, eyes wide, chest heaving. She was shaking, eyes running between the people standing in front of her. 

“JJ!” Derek yelled her name as everyone had swiveled around to her, all twisting your aim to JJ. . 

“Don't. Move.” 

“JJ it’s us–Morgan. Prentiss. Y/L/N. Don’t Shoot, it’s okay” He slowly moved towards her, trying to calm her down, get her to put down her weapon. “Don’t shoot. It’s okay. Are you hurt?”

She lowered her gun, eyes quickly moving from each of you, you could watch as her mind tried to calm down, letting the adrenaline dissipate. You approached her, getting close, trying not to startle her. 

“It-Tobias Hankel is the unsub.” She let out, eyes still quickly scanning around her, almost searching for something. 

“We know.” Emily exhaled, as she placed a hand gently on JJ’s arm. The sheriff leaned over and informed Derek that they were going to call an ambulance for JJ. 

“W-W-We just thought he was a witness…” JJ holstered her gun before watching as Morgan looked around as the dead dogs surrounded all four of you.  

“I had to kill them.” Her eyes had glossed over. 

“JJ, where’s Reid?” Derek spoke, looking at her expectantly, but eyes filled with worry. 

“They just completely tore her apart. There’s nothing even left–” 

“JJ. Look at me.” You grabbed her hand, causing her to look up at you. “Look at me. Where’s Reid.” 

“We–We split up, he told me he was going to go around back.” JJ started to panic again, realizing he wasn’t with you. You also started to tremble, pulling your hand away slightly, exiting the barn before you could hear another word, gun drawn. 

You could hear as Morgan followed you, almost running to the back of the barn. You stopped once you turned the corner, slowly creeping forward, eyes scanning across the corn, but also listening in for potentially any sound coming from behind the barn. You saw some trampled stalks, and turned to look at Derek. 

“He followed him into the field Derek.” 

Derek saw your thought process, and the conclusion you reached as you reached it, which was a matter of seconds. As you went to dash into the field, following the very faint trail, Derek grabbed your arm and stood his ground, meaning you fought against him, and he struggled a bit, but ultimately won. “If you think for one second I am about to let you go into that field, you’re crazy.”

“Dere–”

“That’s clearly a sign that someone got dragged. He’s not in there.” 

You huffed, biting your lip. You were trying so hard not to break in front of Derek, but every second you thought about what Tobias Hankel had been doing to people, meshed with every other second you thought about that happening to Reid, it was a miracle you could still even listen to Derek. 

“Go inside with Hotch.” 

You nodded slightly, holstering your gun, and running your hands down your face. “You’re not going to leave me alone until you watch me walk away from the cornfield.” You grumbled out, looking up at him. 

“Yeah.” He sighed and pulled you into a quick hug. “Look. I don’t know what has actually occurred between you and Boy Genius, but you charging off into a field we know he probably isn’t in, won’t help us find him. I’m going to talk to Prentiss and JJ.” 

You nodded and pulled away, running your hands through your hair, quickly walking towards the house as Derek moved towards the ambulance, not fully taking his eyes off of you. He was curious as to what the team didn’t know about you two, but pushed it aside since clearly pestering you about it wasn’t going to help any of you find Reid. 

The next morning, You had not slept, and were only slightly avoiding JJ, basically walking laps around the outside of the house, trying to let your brain get some oxygen and calm down. Or, you would be standing around a table with the team, sitting in front of the computers, and your leg would bounce, you would tap your hands against your arm, anything to keep yourself from breaking down. 

Obviously the team all picked up on it. It’s not even like they were microexpressions, you were just visibly anxious.  All your brain could think about were flashes of Spencer, and whether or not he was still alive, completely unaware of his whereabouts since the lead from last night turned out to be a dead end. Hankel was smart, which made you nervous. 

You were currently walking around the living room, wearing a circle into the rug, which was barely holding it together, reading Tobais’s diaries, trying to find anything. You heard JJ welcome in Garcia, and you paused to look up at Garcia with a brief smile on your face before continuing. Once they got her set up, Hotch tilted his head, requesting you come a bit closer so you all could talk. 

“So, I’m guessing nothing new since I left.” He started. 

“Not but,” Emily started. “The good thing is this guy documented everything second of his life. The bad news is we’re still unpiling.”

“From the looks of it, he hasn't left this place in years.” JJ sighed and stared down at all of the notebooks and papers strewn across the table. 

“He knew he could pretend to be looking for a motel and throw us off his trail.” Emily looked up at Hotch, but Gideon interrupted. 

“No no no, it’s more than that. Sheriff’s office, 911 calls. Every time he engages the police and gets away with it, he reassures himself. God’s on his side not ours.” 

You just walked into the kitchen and lightly dropped the notebook you had been reading onto the table, brushing past Hotch. “I need some air.” You mumbled to him, shoving the rickety screen door open and quickly hustling down the steps. 

You ran your hands through your hair, trying to breathe, trying to fight the urge to burst into tears and let yourself just lay on the ground. The only reason you hadn’t done so yet was because the urge to find Spencer was so much stronger. 

After a moment, you heard the screen door open and someone come down the steps. “Emily I’m fi–”

“Y/N,” 

You looked up and made eye contact with JJ. Her hair was flatter, less knots, but you could still see she had been shaken up. It didn’t matter. You were trying, desperately trying to not blame JJ for Reid’s disappearance, and you knew she was struggling with it too, but the fact that they weren’t together meant that he got dragged off somewhere, technically on her watch. 

“JJ now’s no–”

“Please let me—”

“JJ.” You cut her off, arms crossed over your chest. You were only truly able to make eye contact with her for a couple seconds before you had to avert your eyes upwards. “Seriously. I’m fine. Go back inside.” 

Your voice was curt, and running along the line of unkindness, but you were restraining yourself, trying to give your coworker, your friend, someone who had become your family, an out in this moment, but she just wouldn’t take it. 

“You won't even look at me!” That got your attention back to her. “You haven’t spoken to me since the barn, and you’re avoiding me. I-I know what we did wasn’t…” 

You huffed, now only staring at her, challenging her. “I’m listening now, JJ. That’s what you wanted right.” 

She closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I know you blame me. I blame myself. But I can’t stand you being so distant and I–”

“Look. JJ.” You cut her off again. “I am doing everything in my power not to scream at the top of my lungs how stupid it was, for the both of you to split up.” Your voice was low, and steady—it was unnerving to hear since you had always spoken with such character, such lightness. “But right now, I can’t yell at Spencer. And I really do not want to yell at you. I think it is one of the stupidest decisions either of you could have made. But blaming you for a decision you both made, doesn’t help us find him any sooner. So please. Just leave me alone right now.”

You brushed past her, not making any actual contact with her, since the next person who touched you might actually be the reason you start sobbing. JJ was absolutely shocked, frozen in the yard, trying not to cry herself. You didn’t want JJ to cry, you really didn’t, but she was pushing on something that is usually completely surrounded by walls and locks and gates. 

You blinked away your tears and walked back into the house, towards the kitchen. Hotch and EMily looked up at you, both noticing JJ wasn’t next to you, and your face somehow managed to seem more frustrated and anxious than before. 

Spencer had bought you a necklace for your one year anniversary. It was a very simple chain, with a small pendant on the front. Inside it was a pressed flower, a small, pressed, red salvia in the center of the clear pendant. You loved flowers, it was very obvious from the way that you always had a small vase of a few fresh flowers in the corner of your desk, or you had a signature pair of floral converse you always wore when you went out. It took Spencer all of three seconds to figure out that you loved flowers, and all of one question later to find out if you knew, and liked, Victorian Flower language; of course you did. When you two had started secretly seeing one another, you had been updating the flowers weekly. It was a part of your regular schedule, so no one questioned it. But suddenly you were becoming deliberate in your mini bouquets, hints of longing (pink camellias), with pops of devotion (heliotrope), or secret adoration (gardenias) sprinkled with I think of you (blue salvia), eventually turning to bouquets of ever-lasting love (baby’s breath) and sunshine in his smile (yellow tulips). Every time you would update the weekly bouquet, the team would comment on how the new bouquet looked so beautiful, the colors brightening up the place. But when Spencer walked through the door, you loved watching his eyes immediately dart for the flowers, decoding the message for only him. The red salvia  on your chest was proudly proclaiming forever mine, for Spencer, and no one was the wiser.  

When you wore it happily the day after your anniversary, exchanging the previous bouquet for a new one filled with yellow lilies, Spencer cou;d’ve known right then and there that you were over the moon, if you hadn’t already told him, and shown him, the night before. When Derek watched you fiddle with the necklace all day, he had made a joke that clearly you have someone in your life and “Pretty Boy needs to step up his game”, he had misread your slight smirk as a tease on Spencer, and not on himself. It was not a month later that you were fiddling with it in Tobias Hankel’s kitchen, your biggest tell of all, that you were nervous about something. But to most of the profilers in the room, you were nervous and fiddling with your necklace, to Hotch, it was a clear sign that he needed to keep you at a slight distance to make sure your head stays clear. If any of them had been thinking clearly, they might have made the connection from the necklace to Reid, but no one really was. 

JJ followed a minute later, and quietly went back to her seat. It was clear she had been crying, or trying not to, but so were you, so it honestly didn’t make you feel as bad as it probably should have. 

“Hey guys.” Emily’s voice cut through your thoughts. “I have got a list of Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Someone’s name and number is written on it, but it looks to be about twelve years old.” 

“Try it. There are no bad leads.” Gideon answered. 

You sighed, but watched curiously as Gideon stared at the wallpaper. He peeled off a section of it, revealing what seemed to be the same phrase over and over and over again. 

“Honora Partum Tuum.” He read aloud. 

“Honor thy father.” You finally spoke up. For much of the team, it was the first time they had heard your voice in hours. 

Gideon looked over at you, realizing in his eyes, nodding. 

“Hey guys. I think I got something.” You heard Derek yell, which meant all of you rushed out of the house, running over towards Derek. He had his gun out, pushing hay off of doors to what seemed like a storm cellar. 

Derek pulled open one of the doors, shining his light into the darkness. “Tobias Hankel, F.B.I!” Hotch gave him the go ahead to slowly move down the stairs, then allowing Emily to follow. Hotch then gave you a small look, giving you the impression that you would not be allowed down into that cellar until it was cleared. You stood back slightly, not having the energy to have a bout in front of the others, still holding your gun, and scanning the surrounding area, keeping an eye particularly on the barn and the fields behind it. 

You heard Derek yell out “Tobias Hankel” a couple of times, making your pulse beat faster–maybe they had found him, maybe he was okay. There was no other sound than Derek though. Maybe he was dead. Maybe someone else had spencer. Maybe—Derek came out of the storm cellar, covering his mouth. 

You looked at him expectantly and shook his head. “Tobias’s father…on ice.” 

You exhaled, a wave of emotions crashing through your veins that only left you more stressed than before. 

Hotch came out of the cellar next, and motioned for you to follow him. You knew this conversation was coming, and the fact that it hadn't happened already surprised you. 

Once the two of you were out of earshot, Hotch looked at you, not as a friend, not as someone who helped you through some dark moments in your life, but as your boss. “Can you continue, or do you need to sit the rest of this case out.” 

His tone wasn’t harsh, quite the opposite. He watched as someone he cared for was slowly crumbling, closing off her walls to the outside, meaning you were more in your own head, than truly present. 

You nodded, sighing. “If I’m not here, then I might go out there on my own. I’m not telling you that you’re babysitting me.” Hotch tried to cut you off, but you barrelled through. “But I need to be here, because if a breakthrough happens, if any of us find a location, I need to be in that car Hotch. If we find Hankel, I have a full understanding that however I react is the fate of my job. I am well aware of that. And I love this team with basically everything I have, so I need you to trust me, the way I am trusting all of you to find him.”

Hotch watched you for a moment before nodding. His features softened and he placed his hand on your arm again. It was the most contact Hotch ever really gave, but it meant so much. “Are you okay?” 

You shook your head, managing to keep it together. “No. I’d be more concerned if I was.” You tried to crack a joke, causing both of you to smile before he nodded at you. “I’ll see you in there.” 

He left you standing by yourself, giving you a moment to collect yourself, before you followed him back into the house, back into the kitchen, back into the journals. 

Spencer being gone for so long meant you had a laundry list of things you missed about him. You missed the way he would ramble on about anything in the world that he knew about. You missed his sweater vests, how they never seemed to match his outfit, but somehow always pulled the look together. You missed his dorky smile at you from across his desk. You missed the notes he would leave you in your apartment when he would get up to get to work, knowing you always had arrived before him at work since you lived closer. You missed the feeling of his hands in yours. The feeling of the hand on your back, on your shoulder. 

But right now, you missed how fast that son of a bitch could read. Oh my god. If you had to read through one more of Tobias’ notebooks, you might lose your mind. You placed it facedown on the table and placed your head in your hands, giving your eyes a well deserved break. 

After a moment, Derek spoke up. “There’s something weird going on here.” He was slowly pacing around the table. 

“You think?” quipped the sheriff from across the room, and you snorted slightly in agreement and amusement. 

“No seriously, check this out.” Derek looked up at everyone in the kitchen. “This journal is full of religious ramblings. He notates hour by hour. November 15th, 3:17 – if ye offer a sacrifice of peace offering unto the lord, ye shall offer it of your own will. And it goes on and on. 5:04, 7:41, 10:22, 1:42, but then it goes blank for days.”

You removed your face from your hands, looking over at Derek. 

“Maybe he got sick of writing.” The sheriff offered up. 

“I think I got it.” 

“What is it?” Gideon prodded Hotch, all of you watching him. 

“Journal entry, December 6th, Father sick. Wants me to put him down. I say thou shalt not kill, he says honor thy father. Must pray for guidance.” Hotch looked over at Gideon. 

“So he kills his father as an act of mercy?” 

“This is two months ago. Tobias Hankel’s father had been dead for four months already.” Hotch raised his eyebrows, Gideon and Derek starting to realize what he was getting at. 

“That’s exactly it.” Derek moved one of the chairs away from the table. “Look at the floor. These scuff marks are fresh. I mean, it’s like two people were moving the chairs constantly trying to fight for control.” 

“So?”

“This journal matches Charles Hankel’s handwriting, but it was written after he died. Upstairs, Tobias’ bedroom—it’s got junk piled from floor to ceiling but the other bedroom could pass a military inspection.” Derek was explaining to the Sheriff, who honestly was starting to get on your nerves with some of these questions. 

“So you’re telling me one of Tobias’ personalities was his father?” 

“Well, Tobias was raised with a strict religious code. Black and white, right and wrong.” Gideon interrupted. “When his father asked Tobias to kill him, something had to give.” 

“His brain couldn’t handle the moral contradiction so it split into two personalities in order to keep his father alive.” Hotch looked over at Derek, a conversation between the two of them happening silently and quickly. 

“So who is Raphael?” 

“My guess, he’s the mediator between the two.” You spoke up, watching hotch and derek before looking back at the sheriff. 

“Angels have no human emotions.” Gideon continued your thoughts. “Live or die, they don’t care. As long as it’s God’s will.”

“We need to start profiling Tobias’ father. He may be the one who chose where to take Reid.” Hotch quickly looked at you before looking at Derek. 

Derek nodded and started to head out of the room. “I’ll get Garcia on it”. 

“Any luck with the rehab contact?” You looked up as Emily and JJ walked in, hoping they would have some answer for you. 

Emily sighed. “Well he has no idea where Hankel might be, but we did learn that he has a serious drug problem. Dilaudid.”

“Well that could explain the psychotic fracture.” Hotch nodded over at Gideon. 

“What are you talking about?”

Gideon, who had been staring at the photos all along the mirror that they had taped up, looked over at JJ. “Tobias is living as at least three different people; himself, Raphael, and his father.”

“Well this could be some bad news.” 

Honestly, to you, it felt like all the sheriff did was bring more and more bad news. 

“A computer store was robbed in the middle of the night. A suburb outside of Atlanta Thief got away with four laptops, external hard drives, and a satellite.”

“If it’s Tobias that puts him right back in business.” Hotch cast a quick glance over at you, watching as you tensed up, knowing the images you were desperately trying to keep out of your head. In response, you stood up and left the room, heading over to Derek and Penelope in the next room. 

Penelope was sitting at the desk, typing and typing away. Derek looked up as you entered, giving you a small smile. You shook your head. “They think Tobias stole—” Just as you started, your mouth stopped. The screens in front of Penelope had changed, going blank with one cursor in the corner. 

“What happened?” 

“I don’t know.” Penelope’s eyes were wide. 

Spencer filled up every single screen, except for Penelope's laptop, and the one screen she was directly connected to. 

“Oh my god.” You yelled, one hand flying to cover up your mouth, the other immediately grabbing your necklace, eyes flitting from screen to screen. This wasn’t real, it wasn’t happening–it couldn’t be happening. 

Spencer was tied to a chair, his clothes disheveled, his hair a mess, he was missing both shoes and one sock. The left side of his head was soaked with blood, hair wet with it. 

This was your worst nightmare, and yet you could not look away. You watched as his chest rose and fell, giving you at least the calm that he was alive. But tears still pricked the corners of your eyes, breathing was becoming harder and harder, but you couldn’t shut down. Your body wouldn’t let you. 

Your yell had the others almost run into the room you were in, all of them barreling into the room, filling it up with bodies. Once they all looked at you, each one slowly realized what you were staring at. 

“He’s been beaten.” Emily so astutely pointed out. 

“Can’t you track him.” JJ was also struggling to breathe, guilt consuming her entire body. 

“Hankel’s only streaming this to his home computer.” Garcia said solemnly, still doing her best to find something, anything. 

Hotch turned to look at your face. At this point, most of the blood had left your face, leaving you pale, and nauseous. He tried to calmly gestured for you to leave, giving you an out, but you stared straight ahead, somehow becoming more pale, more sick, when Gideon pointed it out for you all. 

“This is for us. He knows we’re here.” 

Derek huffed and turned away for a second, trying not to bash the wall in. “I’m gonna put this guy’s head on a stick.” 

“Why can’t you locate him?” You could kiss Hotch for staying so level headed in this moment. Your eyes quickly tore away from the screens, looking at Garcia. 

“He’s rerouting to a different I.P. address every thirty seconds. I can’t track him.” 

Can you really see inside men’s minds?

All of you quickly found a screen to watch as you heard the voice take over. 

See these vermin? Choose one to die.

All you could do was stare at his face–his eyes. You had never seen Spencer so vulnerable, so tired, barely fighting at all. You watched as his eyes scanned across something to his right. All of you held your breath, waiting for Spencer to say something, anything. 

You choose one to live. 

“Oh my god.” You mumbled again as Spencer shook his head slightly, defying Tobias, or whoever’s wishes. 

I thought you wanted to be some kind of savior. 

“You’re a sadist in a psychotic break. You won’t stop killing. Your words aren’t true.” 

The other heathens are watching. Choose a sinner to die, and I’ll say the name and address of the person to be saved. 

“I won't choose who gets slaughtered and have you leave their remains behind like a poacher.” Spencer was staring into his eyes, challenging him. But Tobias, or Charles, picked him up by the collar, both hands, and brought his face really close to Spencer's. 

Can you really see inside my mind boy. Can you see I'm not a liar. He chucked Spencer back into the chair, causing Spencer to flinch from another bruise you probably couldn't see. Choose one to die, and save a life. Otherwise they’re all dead. 

“All right. I’ll choose who lives.” You inhaled sharply, Derek tensing up next to you. 

They’re all the same. 

You all waited, in silence, as Spencer scanned what you assumed were the laptops that had been stolen. His eyes flickered to the camcorder, shame in voice, looking back at Tobias or Charles. “Far right screen.”

Marilyn David, 4913 Walnut Creek Road

“You got that?” 

“Marilyn David. My name is Jason Gideon with the F.B.I. I need you to close your laptop screen right now. Someone has been connecting into your laptop’s camera and watching you. For your safety, you need to close it. 

“Raphael.” 

The computer screens went black. 

“Garcia, get him back.” 

Derek turned away, slamming the door against the wall as he stalked out of the room, beyond pissed. 

“Garcia, get him back.” You repeated, absolute horror dawning on all of your faces. Your eyes were frantically running over every screen every ten seconds, hoping that maybe one of them would still hold the image of Spencer. 

“I’m t-trying.” She whispered, furiously typing away, trying to hack into something, or find Hankel, anything really. 

“So now what. Wait for a 911 call?” The sheriff's voice rang out in your ear, and it grated against you. “And hope we get there in time.” 

Once you had gotten the 911 call, you, JJ, Emily, and Derek were told to stay at the house with Garcia. You heard Derek and JJ in one of the other rooms, but you were just standing next to Garcia’s chair, not moving an inch. All you could do was stare at the screens, eyes flitting from face to face on unexpecting potential victims. 

JJ walked in, looking more like she had in the barn–disheveled, guilty. “Any more signs of Reid.” 

Both you and Garcia shook your heads. 

“He just posted the last murder online.” Garcia’s voice was grave, eyes dark. “It had over 17,000 hits in the first twenty minutes.” 

“I want to see it.” 

“No you don’t.” You answered JJ, not turning to look at her. 

“Don’t tell me what I want and don’t want.” 

You tore your eyes away from the screens and over at JJ. 

“If I can’t watch this…I have no business being in the field.” 

“J-ge, it’s not a competition.” Garcia whispered. 

“I-I need to see it.” 

You shook your head and walked out of the room, not being able to watch it again. You walked into the kitchen where Derek and Emily were, discussing something. Derek’s eyes quickly flicked over to you, surprised slightly by the fact that you had left the screens. 

“We can trace their whole family history. Here we got happy smiling pictures of Tobias. Report cards all A’s and B’s. But at eight years old, we got nothing.” 

“That’s his mother leaving.” Emily shot you a quick, yet sympathetic smile, before looking back at the mirror. “Six months later, on the other side of the board, we have a form from child services saying they paid a visit.”

“Then Charles starts keeping journals about punishing sinners and needing to remove the devil from his son.” Derek continued. 

“Which corresponds to Tobias’ drug use. He’s trying to escape.” You watched as Emily and Derek worked through the profile again. 

“So wherever Reid is, It was Tobias’ choice, not his fathers.” Derek sighed and scanned over the pictures, trying to find maybe a common location amongst them. 

“How’d you figure?”

“Look at these two lives. They’re like inverse graphs. One’s getting weaker while the other ones getting angrier. Tobias would run away while his father would have stood and fought.” Derek looked back at Emily. 

She nodded. “Okay so Tobias uses drugs as an escape. I’ll go back through the journals and see if I can find anything connecting his drug use to a hiding place 

“Uh where’s Gideon.” You finally spoke up. 

“He’s upstairs. Why? What’s going on?” 

“Hankel just posted the latest murder.” JJ walked out of the room that you had just been in. 

You watched as she quickly called out to Gideon that the newest murder had been uploaded, and as he quickly made his way into the adjoining room. You heard him panicking, trying to come up with a solution to get people to stop watching the videos. 

You were fiddling with your necklace, mind lost on the day before all of this started. It had been sunny in DC. Something you didn’t get all the time, especially when you were only there half of the year. You had gone over to Spencer's apartment, picking up your favorite take out on the way over. He had been teaching you how to play chess. You already knew the basics of chess, which pieces moved where, and how to analyze a board on a move to move basis, but Spencer started to teach you strategies. He would explain every single move he was making, and how he was able to predict a check in three. It was adorable. In return, for every game you would learn together, Spencer would watch a movie with you. He would watch movies if you had asked him in the first place, but this time, you gave him what he thought was the most enthralling commentary the entire time. You would put on your favorite movies and ramble on and on about a certain actor getting sick during this shot, or the fact that the two romantic leads hated one another, or even someone breaking their toe during one scene—he adored listening to you ramble, in the same way you loved listening to him. That night was movie night. You had picked cult-classic “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” you were absolutely enthralled to explain to Spencer the interactive portions of the movies, the screaming at the screen, the details of the pink triangle on Dr. Franknfurter’s smock, the repetition of certain musical themes. You two hands ended up tangled on the couch, giggling about something, drunk on each other’s company—it was perfect. 

But the sound of Spencer’s sob ripped through your thoughts. It took you three strides to be back with Garcia and Gideon, watching as Tobias slammed his fist across Spencer’s face. Your hands moved to your mouth as your eyes watered. 

You heard as he begged Tobias to help him, bruises flowering across his face, a cut across his lip breaking the once smooth skin. 

He can’t help you. He’s weak. Confess. Confess your sins. 

You watched as Spencer’s chair was chucked to the ground, while he was still tied to it. Every single atom of air had left your lungs. You could feel the pit of your stomach drop, unable to move, unable to blink. Tears welled up in your eyes as the love of your life was being beaten to death, and you couldn't do anything about it. 

Several studies have shown that plants can feel pain. Whether or not they are completely and one hundred percent credible is something you and Spencer have jokingly argued about multiple times. You liked to think that they didn’t considering you managed to bring in a fresh crop of newly cut flowers each week. But these scientists claim that plants can feel pain. They can feel the pain of being cut from the vine or stem, and they can feel themselves dying as you watch them wilt in the vase. You and JJ were quite similar in feeling like you had to prove something to yourself, that if you couldn’t handle what was happening, maybe you shouldn’t be in the field, shouldn’t be in the BAU. 

Watching Spencer have a seizure on the ground, unable to run to him, unable to save him, unable to do anything but just watch in horror, made you feel every single ounce of pain you could have ever imagined. When his body stilled, and Tobias exited whatever building they were in, you were still standing there, completely and utterly in shock. Hotch took your arm and wordlessly tugged on your arm, but you couldn’t move. Your feet were cemented to the floor. Even if you wanted to run the other way, you couldn’t. Hotch tried again, but you just stared at the screen, constantly flipping the necklace over and over and over and over again. If you moved, you might start sobbing, you might collapse, you might have just died on the spot. 

Spencer's lips were still. His lips would ramble when he had something he found quite interesting to speak about, they would fidget when he got nervous, they would form quirky expressions when he had a moment of realization. But not once have they ever been this still. And it was dissolving your heart. Moment by moment another small section would boil down to dust, not even letting you have the chance to have your heart ripped out, because that would mean your heart would still be together, still be beating, just not with you anymore. Your heart was dying because Spencer was dead. 

The first stage of grief is denial. All you could do was hope, pray, anything that this was some sick and twisted joke, that Spencer was okay. That Spencer was alive. That you weren’t staring at Spencer’s body on the screen, not knowing where he was, and if you would ever find him, or his body. 

Lucky for every single person in that room, and lucky for Tobias Hankel, you watched as he burst back through the door, dropped down to his knees, and tried to resuscitate Spencer. Your eyes widened as you watched every single chest compression, every single moment of mouth to mouth. After the longest thirty seconds of your life, Spencer convulsed, air filling his lungs, coughing. 

“Oh my god.” You almost threw up into the hands that were covering your mouth because you were so grateful for the fact that Spencer was breathing, that his dead body was somewhere you might never have found it. 

“Wait. Wait a second.” Emily leaned over to Garcia. “When was the video of the last murder poster?” 

“9:23.” 

“And what was the time of death?” 

“The 911 call came in at 9:04, and the murders must have been moments later.”

“That's only a 19 minute difference.” You spoke up, figuring out what Emily was getting at. 

“How long would it take to post the mpeg.” Derek chimed in. 

“2, 3 minutes.” Garcia looked over at you all. 

“Lets call it 2. You figure a maximum of sixty miles per hour in a residential area, that means Hankel has to be within a seventeen mile radius of the crime scene.” Derek reasoned, looking over at Hotch. 

“Garcia, can we see it on a map?” Hotch leaned over Garcia. 

“Call Farraday. I want that area locked down like it’s martial law.” Gideon turned to Derek, ready to give more instructions but you interrupted. 

“Guys.” 

You came back to life. 

Spencer was looking up at Rapheal now. The complete shift in tone from Charles to Raphael to Tobias always made your hair stand on edge, but you could hear the anger that Raphael held. 

There can only be one of two reasons. 

“I was given CPR.” Even after he was just given his life back, he still managed to crack a joke.  

There are no accidents. How many members are on your team? 

“Seven”

You paused, ready to speak up, but Tobias beat you to it. 

The seven angels who had the seven trumpets who prepared themselves to sound. The first sounding followed hail and fire, mixed with blood and they were thrown to the earth. 

“He thinks it’s revelations. The seven archangels versus the seven angels of death.” Hotch explained.

“Hotch there are eight of us on this team.” You spoke, this time garnering the attention of everyone in the room. “He’s lying to Hankel, that's considered a sin right? If Hankel finds out—”

You were interrupted by the sound of a chair hitting the ground. Hankel had yanked Spencer’s chair upright, watching as he was jostled around. 

Tell me who you serve.

“I serve you”

Then choose one to die

“What”

Your team members choose one to die. 

“Kill me” 

You inhaled sharply causing one of Derek's hands to find the small of your back. You had already watched him die once, but you can’t give CPR to a bullet through the brain.

You said you weren't one of them

“I lied”

Your team has six other members. Tell me who dies. 

“No”

All of you watch as Tobias pulls one bullet out of his pocket, and clicks open the revolver. He placed it in, and spun the barrel, letting it close with a click. Spencer playing Russian roulette was not on your bucket list of things to do this year. Maybe force him to go kayaking with you, let him teach you some other game like Go, maybe even take a few days off for a real vacation and work each other up so desperately. But you could guarantee, this was not on that list. 

Each time Spencer refused, and you heard the empty barrel fire, your heart gave out, again. 

Choose, and prove you’ll do god's will. 

“No.”

Click.

And again.

Choose. 

“I won’t do it”. 

Click. 

And again.

Life is a choice. 

“No.”

Click. 

And again.

Choose. 

Spencer’s pause made everyone hold their breaths. He had a 33.33% chance of getting shot, and luck had to run out, it always did. 

“I-I choose…” You all waited, no one truly knowing what he could possibly be thinking. “Y/N Y/L/N.” Derek's hand on your back tensed up, all eyes looked at you, and all you could do was stare at Spencer on the screen. He wouldn’t just hand out your death sentence like that, he wouldn’t do that to you. Right? Right?

“Adulterer, cheating on my for months now. Puts their own needs above others and their feelings.” Your brows furrowed, hand immediately at the necklace you were wearing around your neck. This accusation confused the absolute shit out of you, since you had revealed to Spencer your history with a previous partner who had chea–oh. He was speaking to you. 

“Oh my god.” You whispered. 

“I would come home to bouquets of crimson roses and rosemary, or there would be begonias and clematis. I've only ever bought red salvias with baby’s breath—their favorite.” Spencer chuckled, putting on an act for Tobias. 

“Pen! I need a pen.” You yelled, everyone now concerned you had lost your mind, but Garcia had quickly handed you hers as you tried to write down the flowers Spencer had listed off. Once you had all of them written down, you quickly ran out of the room.

“Genesis 23:4, For the lips of an immoral woman are as sweet as honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil. But in the end she is as bitter as poison, as dangerous as a double-edged sword.”

You only paused for a moment when you heard a gunshot, but you kept going, hoping and praying that you were right. You had found one of the empty pages of Tobais’ journals and wrote down the flowers:

crimson roses - mourning rosemary - remembrance clematis - poverty begonias - beware, watch out

You looked at the list of the flowers, over and over. “Mourning…” You mumbled, when it hit you. Quickly, you grabbed the bible on the table, flipping to find Genesis 23:4. 

Morgan walked into the room, placing a hand on your shoulder. "Look I don't know about this potential relationship that you and Spenc-"

“I’m not a cheater.” You cast him a quick look, still flipping to find the page. 

Derek started. “He’s not in his right mind Y/n.” 

Gideon quickly followed. “Come on, look you can’t think anything of that..” 

“That’s not what I’m talking about. Well, yes, it is, but that’s not–”

Hotch cut you off. “He’s panickin—”

“Everyone. Stop.” They all obliged, watching as you picked up the notebook you had been writing in. “What is my worst quality?”

They all just stared at you.

“Okay I’ll start, I can be a total bitch.” 

“You miss a concerning amount of briefings.” 

“You can get overly emotional sometimes.”

“You’re extremely stubborn.” 

“You don’t trust anyone easily.” 

“Okay good, I’m all these things, but none of you said that I would ever put my needs over anyone. Especially over other’s feelings. Reid and I had a conversation about two weeks ago about my ex who would repeatedly cheat on me, among other things.” You took a little breath before continuing. “And he knew I would obviously remember a conversation like that. He also knows I love Victorian Flower Language, it’s one of my favorite interests. Some of the flowers he listed off,  correspond to flowers you send in mourning, when someone has died, not the flowers you send someone to admit their love or hide it.” 

You handed the bible to JJ. “And he also quoted Genesis Chapter 23, verse 4, Read it.”

JJ read out: “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you. Give me property, forbear a place among you, that I might bury my dead out of sight.”

“Spencer would never get it wrong unless it was on purpose. He’s in a cemetery.” 

“I don’t see a cemetery” Garcia had pulled up the 17-mile radius again, looking between you and Hotch. 

“Call up the first time we saw Reid.” Gideon was rubbing his hands together, trying to remember something. 

“I won't choose who gets slaughtered, and have you leave their remains behind like a poacher.” 

Spencer had looked right at the camera, fucking brilliant man. He had been trying to contact you all since the first time he was on camera.

“Check to see if there are any reports of poaching in the last couple of days.” Hotch nodded at Gideon while Garcia speedily typed out her parameters, getting a response almost instantly. 

“Okay uh, a farmer reported two sheep being slaughtered on his property.”

“Where are we talking?” Derek was behind you, watching as Garcia zoomed into a five mile radius around the farmer’s land. 

“It would be someone that was old, dilapidated, run down. Clematis is a sign of poverty.”

JJ pointed to a small section on the screen. “What’s that patch of green there”

“Marshall parish, I think it's an old plantation.” 

“Wait.” Emily quickly flipped through a journal, trying to find what she had remembered. “Tobias wrote in his journals about staying clean and keeping away from Marshall.”

“Guys. There's a cemetery on the grounds.” 

“Alright.” Hotch nodded at all of you. “Let's go.” 

As you all headed out, Hotch stopped you, pulling you past the kitchen and into the living room. Derek shot you a sympathetic smile as he and the rest of the team exited the building. The living room would be far enough away from Penelope's prying ears, but it’s not like it mattered anymore—it was pretty obvious you and Spencer were sleeping together, if not dating. 

“You’re not going.” 

You scoffed at Hotch, expecting nothing less, but still willing to fight him about it. 

“I’m serious Y/N. I need everyone out there to be as level headed as possible, and you and I both know that the second Spencer put his life on the line, second time round, you were about to raise hell and earth to get to him. If you can promise me, right here, right now, that your head is completely clear, then I will let you go with us, no questions asked.” 

You pinched your eyes, letting out a hefty sigh. “Hotch I cannot be here in case he needs me.” 

“If he gets hurt, you will not be able to function as an agent, and that is a risk I am not willing to take.” 

Hotch is right. He almost always is.

The porch door swung open with the loudest screech yet, Derek appearing in his bullet proof vest, holding Hotch’s in his hand. “We’re heading out.” 

Hotch nodded at you, a brief hand on your arm, before walking to the door. 

“Hotch?” 

He looked over at you. 

“The last flower? Begonias?” He nodded at you, not sure where you were going with this. 

“If you were sent begonias…it was a subtle warning that you were in danger. Please, be careful.” 

“We will.” 

And with that, the door slammed shut, and suddenly you were stuck in a ranch house, wondering whether or not Spencer was okay, and whether or not your team would even make it on time. You clutched at the necklace, twirling the pendant, watching as the headlights faded into the darkness, with the very real possibility, someone might not come back. 

Next Part

[bestworstcase]

i generally don’t believe that penny will come back again, but i did realize that if she came back again it would have a sort of parallelism to salem, if she were to become immortal via ascension or some other means. specifically given your reading that the GoL killed salem before dropping her in the pool. thoughts?

if it happens, ambrosius did it

given what was laid out thematically in V9, i don’t think there’s any path for penny to return as penny. she died. anything that takes the choice of what her next life will be away from her is wrong, both light’s afterlife (eternal stasis) and being rebuilt by her friends/family.

but i think it’s quite likely that a) remnant’s afterlife is some form of reincarnation cycle with the pattern having been set by salem’s deaths and resurrections in the divine pools, and b) as discussed in the linked post, what they asked ambrosius to do with penny bent the rules so far that his power was partially freed. (note oddities like him lingering out of the staff after time started moving again and penny’s robot body disintegrating after he made the portals even though it explicitly should not have been destroyed at all because he only assembled it.)

thus, the possibility that penny may be subject to special circumstances based on ambrosius having recreated ascension with his own magic.

the interesting piece for penny is that she was not designed to have agency. the atlesian military built a soldier, a weapon, and gave her a soul because—presumably—ironwood wanted to explore the feasibility of transferring the maiden powers into robotic soldiers as a solution to various Problems. penny was not supposed to be a person and, of course, her personhood was only tolerated to the extent that she followed orders and the entire atlas military pivoted away from defending atlas from salem to forcing penny to submit and obey the instant penny failed to fall in line. it is also made clear in V8 that penny’s friends/family also impinge on her agency in ways that make her really quite unhappy, mainly out of overprotectiveness.

so, if this character has been plugged into a sort of bootleg ascension—what does it look like for her to, as ambrosius put it, “come to the surface” after her death?

human!penny represented what her friends wanted for her, and the whole ordeal is by turns bittersweet and horrific; the death of penny’s robotic body is downright gruesome because it is framed strictly from penny’s point of view, and in the subsequent fight there are multiple beats showing that penny has lost important pieces of herself (floating array, her tactical software). and of course penny has never once expressed feeling an actual problem with being a robot.

at the same time, though, her robotic nature did leave her uniquely vulnerable to certain forms of compulsion (watts’ virus, pietro’s remote control) and intensified the dehumanization she experienced in the atlas military. so i think penny likely had complicated feelings.

in the end, every choice she could have made was systematically stripped away from her until the only thing she had left was who to hold in her final thoughts; weiss, or winter. the pragmatic choice or her best friend.

she chose her friend.

if penny then found herself in a place where the only thing that can happen to her is what she wants, what does she choose? who does she become? penny is dead, but her essence lives on. (there’s a possible rhyme here with “salem lives, but the woman you hold dear in your memories is gone”—the god of light has nothing but disdain and malice for salem, and she has not changed in the way he implies, but it is true that she isn’t the same girl ozma knew millions of years ago.)

the other factor is that fractally, penny is repeating ozma, and both the virus and the remote control are metaphors for his parasitic reincarnation so she is thematically connected to ozma’s immortality in an overt way. so in the event she returns during the run of the show i imagine it would be in some form that answers ozma’s curse, i.e., as a new person without her memories a la ascension and definitely not as a voice in [winter’s/ruby’s] head as is the common set of theories.

but i also tend to think that if it happens it’ll be an epilogue thing—after the war is over—because penny was built to be a soldier in that war and the last choice she made before she died was defiant of that purpose. it makes sense to me that she would return to a time of (genuine) peace.

[thoughtspresso]

Predictions for Oshi No Ko Ending

1. Anemone will be the one to find Katayose Yura's dead body.

In Japanese flower symbolism, Anemones or Windflowers represent death, bad luck, and forsaken love. And it just so happens we have a character named exactly that, who happens to be the only other character apart from Katayose Yura who loves being in the mountains.

Anemone will likely be climbing the same mountains on Yura's wishlist, and just like before, The Crow might lead Anemone to the dead body.

It's like Akasaka-sensei decided Spider Lilies are already too obvious a deathflag so he chose a different flower.

I'm taking the bet that Akane might be the person who figures out the connection between Yura and Kamiki, or Miki-san might simply show up on the news as a statement about his "dear friend Yura" who "disappeared".

Akane might also give the head's up to Aqua that she thinks Kamiki murdered Yura, and that would be a reason for the two to spend more time with each other again. (Might shove a wedge between Kana and Aqua again, if Aqua isn't already doing that himself lmao.) Either way, it'd be a convenient way for Akane to attempt to both "save" Aqua and also help him accomplish his goals without killing himself.

2. The person who texted Frill Shiranui is Miki-san.

Sylvanes made a fairly solid guess that Frill Shiranui works for Kamiki Productions. Whether or not he was necessarily correct on this, I'm making the bet that Yura's "best drinking buddy" Miki-san is connected to Frill professionally, and goaded Frill into pushing Ruby into the spotlight.

Some speculators say this might have been Aqua's ploy, but I I think this was incorrect. Aqua agreed with Kaburagi that money comes first and Frill was a more reasonable choice commercially. He even said that Gotanda should "grow up" and not choose Ruby just because of his artistic integrity.

Apart from the friendly, casual tone of the text message that really sounds like the "Miki-san" persona and the image of decanted whiskey as his profile picture, I think Kamiki is actually praying for Ruby's success as a star.

In fact, I think people misunderstood why he killed Katayose Yura. He didn't kill Yura because his serial killer MO was simply because he liked killing up and coming megastars who shone brightly. He killed Yura because:

(a) He hates Stars who lie, who sell a persona to their fans that is vastly different from who they are as people, which is why he hated Himekawa Airi and Hoshino Ai.

(b) He killed Yura because he knew that the project being offered to her was the lead role in The 15-Year Lie. And simply, he wanted Ruby to play Ai's role.

In a twisted way, I think Kamiki believes he is protecting his children, and the public in general, from being lied to any further by celebrities like Yura who deceive the public with their feigned innocence.

Honestly? I think the reason he killed their mothers was to protect them from growing up with mothers who lie and abuse their kids.

3. Kana might play Hoshino Ai in The 15-Year Lie.

Okay, okay, okay, okay. I know. I know. Unhinged fan theory. I get it.

Even AquaKana stans think this is majorly unlikely to happen. I agree in that, I think it's insane. But I keep coming back to what Aqua meant when he said that, "Kana is so easy to manipulate", and "It's more convenient for me to build a good relationship with Arima right now."

People tend to say, he's making silly convoluted excuses again, he just wants to spend more time with her. But I think a man who is resolute in his goal to off himself by proxy of martyrdom doesn't care to date the person he was protecting from a love scandal anyway.

There are a few key reasons why I think Aqua's "using" of Kana will result in her playing Ai's role.

First of all, I think Aqua's plan is to play Kamiki, to portray him in the worst possible way, and expose him as the murderer through the film. Through this, Aqua will bait his father into murdering him too, and thus Aqua's death can be used as legal grounds for charging Hikaru Kamiki with Homicide.

As established above, I think Aqua doesn't agree that Ruby is the best choice for Ai's role. There are a lot of parallelisms baked in between Kana and Ai. Apart from the shot-by-shot remake of Sign is B, Kana is also the best person to get stabbed and deliver the lines, "Some day I hoped the lies would become true. / I did my best. I worked hard. I lied with all my heart. / To me, lies are love. In my own way, I thought I was showing my love."

Besides, you saw anyone else say these same things?

Uhuh, you guessed it:

So is Kana gonna get stabbed? Hopefully in a movie, yeah.

I think it could happen as a result of Kaburagi's dissatisfaction with Ruby's performance.

Kaburagi's "finalized" casting isn't final-final yet, really. We can see that he swapped Aqua to play Kamiki instead of Himekawa who will now play Ryosuke the university student/stalker here:

Which makes sense! Aqua looks like his father, is closer to his age during the time of the events, and Taiki's age and height also better matches Ryosuke.

And even though the paper says finalized on Ruby's casting, Kaburagi's still not completely sold:

I think the swap will come as a result of Ruby being severely overworked and unable to keep up with the demands of her role, and the Dome performance that she might want to prioritize. She may even outright collapse from exhaustion, as foreshadowed by Kana:

Apart from Akasaka-sensei absolutely trolling us to death by Ai x Kamiki on-screen romance being portrayed by twins, then just outright pulling the plug on that for fun, I think it'd just make sense for Kaburagi to say it's better if we pair Aqua with Kana for this role.

Ruby doesn't even have to collapse or anything. She's so loved up with the idea of Gorou-sensei right now, Aqua could literally just tell her "this is what's best for the plan, you trust me, don't you?" And she would absolutely just go with it.

I said before that I think up until Mem-cho pointed it out, Aqua was wholly unaware that Kana had a crush on him and joined B-Komachi just because of him. I think now that he has the awareness, he'll ask Kana to do it, first to help Ruby, but also because he can only trust Kana to play this role because she is "Special" to him.

A repeat of:

It really is the only way that this scene therefore makes sense to me:

Bonus: if the Shima D masterpiece film doesn't draw Kamiki's attention to her, Kana playing the role of Ai definitely will. And if she delivers the role with so much honesty, it might change the trajectory of the story altogether.

4. Aqua's plan will backfire.

I explained a little above and in a previous post that Aqua misunderstands Kamiki's motives.

While we all like to shit on Aqua for being the World's Nicest Master Manipulator, we have to give him credit for the fact that when it's used for saving other people, he's been really effective at spinning a public narrative in his favor. Like in the cases of Akane's suicide attempt and Kana's Love Scandal.

If the goal is to get Kamiki to stab him in plain view of the public, villify his father, and make it easy to convict him for homicide once and for all, I think he will fail.

Kamiki will not kill him or go after him. In fact, I think Kamiki will shed his Miki-san persona and reveal the truth: he was Himekawa Airi's rape victim, and Hoshino Ai was a manipulative person who seduced him with the prospect of true love, then abandoned him when she got what she wanted, which was a family.

In the absence of any evidence that he had anything to do with their deaths, Kamiki might even use this momentum of propaganda to make the public believe that he's happy to finally be reunited with his children that these terrible mothers took away from him.

Heck, Taiki might hate Uehara so much that he'd be relieved to learn about Kamiki? And if he really is connected to Frill, and if Kindaichi still cares about him, there might be real people who would back him up.

Then, it won't be until Akane works with Aqua and everyone to bring the murder of Katayose Yura to light that Kamiki would actually be brought to justice.

[fracturediron]

Dead Friend Forever ep 6

Finally got around to watching this, and I have a lot of thoughts.

With the reveal that Phee is Non's FWB (ex-FWB? Friend either way), that obviously rules him out as being New, Non's brother.

So who does that leave as New? The obvious candidates are Tan and White, but out of the two, I think Tan is the most likely. There are too many moments shown where White's alone and he seems genuinely out of the loop, like when he sneaks into Por's room and says, "Sorry for the intrusion. But for your life's sake, I have to look." No one's around to watch him put on a face of politeness and respect for Por. If White was in on it, why would he bother apologising for going into Por's room? As he would A) Know exactly what's going on, so he wouldn't need to secretly look at the hard drive contents B) If he knew Non and what happened to him, he'd have every reason to hate Por and the others.

Whereas right now, we still don't know a whole lot about Tan or seen much of him either alone or introspecting. Apart from not being part of the original group and smoking when he's an asthmatic lol, we don't really know anything about him as a person, so there's a lot of potential there.

Otherwise, the next best candidate has got to be whoever Perth is playing, since he's yet to make an appearance and also his character is the only one who hasn't been named on the cast list.

Jumping to a different topic: Kru Keng. This fucker (CW for discussion of potential sexual abuse/predatory behaviour under the cut):

I knew he had creepy fucking vibes. Unless this is a fakeout to make you think he's a creepy predator teacher. But I doubt it; this feels too deliberate.

Going off of this, though, does raise questions about how and why Kru Keng then ends up dying, considering Jin either saw or hallucinated his bloody ghost. Which is doubly interesting, since Jin is the only one out of the original group to see Kru Keng, whereas everyone else has only seen the masked killers.

My question is: why would Jin of all people see Kru Keng's ghost?

From the very start of the flashback, Jin clearly has an interest in Non that ends up developing into romantic interest, likely one he may have been unaware of until this moment:

My theory: if Kru Keng does indeed try to prey on Non in exchange for giving him the money he needs to pay off Uncle Joe, is that Jin then finds out about this and ends up trying to defend Non from Kru Keng, only to then accidentally kill the teacher. Either that, or he's at least indirectly involved in the killing somehow, maybe by helping Non cover it up if Non is the one who ends up killing him.

Either way, my feeling is still accidental rather than premeditated, as I feel like from what we've seen of Jin (especially with this being him in his teenage years and still in the prime of his innocence), is that he doesn't really have the character (or the straight up guts) to actually plan out a murder and go through with it. If he ends up killing Kru Keng, it's gonna be an accident or a heat of the moment thing.

This does involve Jin going to bat for Non in a much more concrete way than he has so far in their time together, but I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility. He has some feelings for Non, and although his attempts to defend him to his friends or to help him are never quite enough, defending your friend from a predatory teacher is a much more tangible and immediate threat than, say, the peer pressure of being part of a high school group.

[akhmatowa]

Hey, I saw your good omens posts and I just wanted to say that I agree with you so much!

I first watched good omens when season 2 was already out, and thought Beelzebub x Gabriel was cute, but the more I thought about it the less I liked it. The whole personality shift in both characters (especially Beelzebub) was kind of jarring and the relationship just not developed enough to be convincing, especially with only the few scenes in s2e6 in my opinion at least.

I personally prefer season 1 Beelzebub. I also missed the buzzing in their voice in season 2 and since that doesn't have to be actor related, it bothers me a lot even if its only a very small thing.

And you are one of the only ones I saw pointing out, that of all demons present in the bookshop Dagon, who was shown to shadow Beelzebub at many instances in season 1 and with that could have picked up on how to do a lot of the required work, should be the one being promoted, rather than Shax, which felt rather random and unearned. Realistically a Duke should become prince, right? Are there even more Dukes than just Hastur, as Ligur is dead and Dagon is under-duke? Are there more princes? The hierarchy in hell is even more confusing than the one in heaven.

I hope this little rant was okay and that you have a great week!

I LOVE ranting. Cannot overstate just how pro-ranting I am. (And thanks, I hope you have a wonderful week too <3)

I know my opinion on B/G couldn't not be influenced by the stew I'd been cooking in for 4 years, so it's very surprising to see a new fan sharing that perspective. The majority of responses I've seen so far is "I never really thought about them before but I guess they're kinda cute"... which, I guess, is fitting if you've never cared about the characters on their own and not as a ship.

And in order for that ship to happen they've changed Beelzebub so much I am still seething about it over a month later. What happened to my terrifying, buzzing, demanding respect, take-no-shit demon? Why did the new face come with completely different mannerisms, completely different behaviour, even completely different speech patterns? S1 Beelz spoke very commandingly, used very few words because they knew everyone would listen to them the first time. One side-eye was enough to shut the unneeded comments down! And I'm supposed to believe that the very same demon would become so jittery and chatty in just a couple of years? It's not that they were anxious about Gabriel, it's not like that's the first time something's ever gone wrong in their life. They say "love" changes people - and I could probably believe that if we've seen them less tense, more pensive, perhaps, but not this!!!

And the buzzing was such a great character touch - a very clever little blink-and-miss it detail that still gave a lot of insight to their character. What was the point in removing it!!! I refuse to believe that the new actress couldn't pronounce words with "z" from time to time!!!

As for the whole mess that's the bookshop scene: not only did they change Beelz completely, but they also really dumbed them down and made them seem so much more uncaring than they used to be. I'm sure I've already made that post, but they still cared at least somewhat about Hell before; and then seeing Gabriel knocked their brains out to the point of causing a political crisis there without a second thought. Watching them appoint their successor felt like "eenie meenie let it be you idc". The but about other Princes is so right - except Neil had Aziraphale guess Crowley's new name as Asmodeus, so... I guess he decided to keep them just as works of humans' imagination.

I can only hope that in S3 demons get some common sense and rebel against everything that's happened. (Although, given how low Neil's opinion of them is, I doubt it lol)

[tenebriskukris]

Oshi No Ko Chapter 143 – My Thoughts/Analysis

I knew we were going to be in for a real treat when the previous chapter ended the way it did, and boy howdy did this chapter not disappoint. Spoilers for Oshi No Ko Ch143 below.

The chapter starts off immediately where the last one ends. I said in my previous analysis that we might cut away from Aqua’s reaction where it stands but to see them commit to showing the entire scene like this is a really good sign. Considering how things are framed in the manga, giving this interaction continuous spotlight without cuts is really going to hammer in the importance of this chapter even further.

“I can’t help it. If I don’t hold you tight, I feel like you’ll suddenly disappear, sensei.” Rubyyyyyyyy. You really have to feel for her in this scene. After finding out Goro died when he was the reason she wanted to become an idol in the first place and now that he’s here in front of her you can’t blame her for being so clingy to him. 

Ruby asking him to call her Sarina-chan is as precious as always. Aqua trying to brush it off is also quite in-character for him. The man can be insensitive toward other people’s feelings sometimes—mostly because of his own Issues—but his heart’s in the right place. Not to mention his own trauma pushing him in the direction where he thinks he doesn’t deserve anything good happening to him. Trauma can be a bitch like that.

Ah, I’m sure the mental age comment is going to have people riled up again. It might be relatively accurate for Aqua—though not fully, as we’ve already seen the lines between Aqua and Goro blur by his own admission—but Ruby didn’t get the chance to grow this old in her previous life. This is all new to her, whereas for Aqua he’d already had the chance to be this age in the past.

…Aqua owns a pair of glasses? I recall he had a pair in the first few chapters of the manga where he wanted to deceive that one girl but it’s the first time that’s been brought up in awhile. It could be Ichigo’s but we haven’t seen much of him since he reappeared.

“You always listen to my selfish requests no matter what.” I’ve suddenly been attacked by the mental image of Sarina staying up late to watch B-Komachi and Goro telling her to go to sleep and in exchange he’ll record the concert for her to watch later. 

He looks so similar to Goro in this scene with him wearing the glasses. Perhaps it’s the way the panel and his hairstyle is drawn, but I’m already reminded of the first chapter of the series. The callbacks…

What did I just say about the callbacks??? Ruby asks Aqua if he’ll marry her in a joking manner and again Aqua brushes her off like in the first chapter. Holy shit.

And Ruby’s using the 18 years old line here. I was wondering when she was going to bring that up. And seeing her being praised by the person she loves…it’s so sweet. We really needed some levity after how dark and depressing the past few chapters were. Depending on the atmosphere of some media an onslaught of darkness can be fine, but Oshi No Ko isn’t solidly grimdark enough to justify it.

Ruby is really piling on the pressure here. To her, those meetings with Goro in the hospital room were her light. They were one of the only things tying her to life and a better future since even her own parents didn’t give her the relief of human interaction. Is it any wonder that she was so attached to someone who treated her with overwhelming care and affection? Sarina wasn’t even his patient and he took time out of his day to be with her and comfort her through her ordeal. Of course she was going to be attached to him and vice versa. Those days might have been the happiest she had ever been.

And of course Aqua’s trauma rears its ugly head. It’s an integral part of his character that I’ve seen so many people discount since the series has started. His entire character is built upon the guilt that he feels for being the reason(in his mind) about why his mother is dead. Am I talking about Ai or Goro’s unnamed mother? Either works—but the fact that Aqua’s been put into a situation where he feels like he’s the reason why someone he loves is dead isn’t going to do him any favors. Any sort of healing he’d done over the years as Goro had suddenly been ripped apart after Ai’s death. 

Aqua with his singular white star eye… Oh jeez, he’s really letting down his barriers in front of Ruby now, isn’t he. And I also note that he doesn’t have that black star eye in his other eye. In half the chapter alone Ruby has already done more for him than any of his other love interests. I mean seriously—Kana didn’t even seem to notice Aqua’s entire facade, and Akane couldn’t even partially drag him out of it. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Ruby is the most important person to Aqua if he’s reacting like this to her right now. 

And damn—we get to see Aqua’s thoughts on what he’s been doing and how he feels about all of this. This chapter really echoes back some of the things we’d already seen about Aqua and how he thinks, how he reacts and his thoughts on everything that’s happened. The black star eyes return to him as the memories of all the things he’s done come back to him…with the revenge plot looming in the background of this entire interaction. 

Ruby’s star eyes returning as she mentions idols is very on-brand for her. Ditto with this entire infodumping setup about idols. Very cute.

“Sensei, you’re my idol.” Aqua is the real Oshi No Ko confirmed. This is only half a joke as I do think that both Ruby and Aqua are what the title of Oshi No Ko is referring to. So I wonder if in the future Aqua will say that Ruby is his idol as a callback to this scene. There’s also the odd brackets in the whole Oshi No Ko title that I know will be relevant due to Word Of God but I’ll table that discussion until it becomes more relevant.

“Thank you for being alive.” It’s quite plausible that this might be the first time he’s heard those words before. Goro’s relationship with his grandparents wasn’t exactly the coziest from what I remember, Ai famously had issues speaking about love and intimacy, and Miyako would always have some sort of distance with the twins even if she was their foster mother. Even Aqua’s other love interests haven't even got that far with him to say those words.

Blind follower, huh. I know that there’s some translation liberties taken with this scene considering the underlying currents behind those English words, but someone made a better explanation of the subtleties that were lost in translation that I’ll link here.

Oh hey it’s a mention of an event that only happened in the Spica novel! That whole thing where Goro ran to get Sarina concert tickets. I was hearing some slop about how people were talking about it being noncanon because of the material in it and because it was written by another author, but with the Oshi No Ko writer’s blessing, so it’s great that we finally have some confirmation on that end. 

“Nothing’s changed. You’re still the first love I adore.” Putting aside the whole “first love” bit which I will get to later, it’s also curious to note that his behavior from when he was Goro vs Aqua hasn’t changed from Ruby’s perspective. As the only person to see both Goro and Aqua—aside from Ai, but she’s dead—she can make such a statement and leave it uncontested. 

This monologue from Ruby about how she’ll accept everything about Aqua wholeheartedly…it really tugs at some heartstrings. Whatever evils, whatever burdens Aqua will endure, Ruby will accept them all alongside him. It’s a stark contrast to Akane wanting to “save” Aqua from himself. And makes it perhaps doubly hilarious that Akane hasn’t done anything plot relevant to actually stop Aqua’s revenge scheme—hell, she’s even now a part of it.

DID SHE REALLY PULL A TITLE DROP THERE???? AND WITH AQUA SHOWING WHITE STAR EYES AS WELL?????

Oh my god we cut back to the movie Ai and Hikaru kissing. I can’t believe it. On one hand I’m mad because we didn’t get the buildup for it on the set itself and context for it there, but on the other I’m just as satisfied because we finally got to see them set their feelings on the table and FUCKING KISS. 

I NEED to know whether or not Aqua has white star eyes after the kiss scene during the movie. His eyes are still closed in the final panel but if they’re still white after it I think that’s game. Both Kana and Akane have had their shot at dragging Aqua back from the abyss and failed but if he still has white star eyes in the next chapter and keeps having them for the long term…then it’s pretty much over.

Thematically, none of the other girls were able to understand Aqua enough to make him shine again. Akane could only understand a fraction of the whole of Aqua, and Kana can only see Aqua’s facade without exerting the effort to understand him deeper.

But I don’t think this is the climax of the entire arc just yet. Things still need to develop for Aqua and Ruby with the movie production further—there are still issues with the script that need to be touched on, Crow Girl’s presence, Hikaru lurking in the background, and Ruby’s former mother still shrouded in darkness. There’s still plenty of things that’ll still need spotlight on—I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re only about a third or so of the arc down, which is already concerning considering it’s already the longest arc we’ve got. But I’m sure I’ll have words to say on that mess and the entire state of the movie arc after it finishes.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

What’s your opinion on the Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers Peter Pan controversy?

Wow, Disney trying to whitewash their own history in order to make themselves look better? Who would have thought?

Yeah, here’s the context in case anyone reading this doesn’t know. Bobby Driscoll was a child actor during the early days of Walt Disney Studios, starring in films like Song of the South and Treasure Island. You might recognize him more as the original voice actor for the titular character of Peter Pan in 1953. However, just a few weeks after that movie hit theaters, his contract with Disney was terminated due to Driscoll hitting puberty around that time, and it was hard for makeup artists to cover up his acne. Afterwards, his life really went downhill, as he struggled to find ends meet, developed a drug addiction, and on March 30th, 1968, two boys found his dead body in an abandoned apartment. He was only 31 years old, and his family didn’t even know he was dead until almost two years later.

And then 54 years later, some people writing the semi-reboot/semi-sequel to Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers thought, “Hey, you know that child actor who was abandoned by Disney as soon as his voice cracked and died alone at a very young age? Let’s make him the villain of this movie!”

The main villain of the movie, Sweet Pete, was a toon who was cast in the lead role of Peter Pan before being dumped by the nameless studio after getting older. Obviously, this is meant to represent the same treatment Driscoll received from Disney, but obviously, they couldn’t put the Mouse’s name in a bad light, so they make him genetically modify other toons to make bootleg movies of Disney classics. In addition, his character design was basically Peter Pan (iconic green jumpsuit and all), except he’s noticeably out of shape, has a very hairy chest and arms, has a visible five o’clock shadow, is clearly balding underneath his cap, and has the gruff voice of Will Arnett.

And it’d be one thing if this was an attempt to shed light on the terrible treatment Driscoll got, but outside of his backstory, he isn’t portrayed in a sympathetic light at all. The fact that the movie went out of their way to make light of a story about a child actor being abandoned by the very same company funding them is unbelievably insensitive. They try to do something towards the end by comparing him to what caused Chip and Dale to break up, but that doesn’t work because A) Rescue Rangers was cancelled because Dale wanted to try starring in his own show, and B) Chip and Dale were at least adults when their big break was cancelled, while Driscoll/Sweet Pete was basically a teenager.

Hell, there wasn’t even any reason Sweet Pete had to be the villain, because after his backstory, outside of a handful of references to the 1953 movie, he could be replaced with literally any other character. You could have at least had fun with the idea of an evil Peter Pan, as a lot of people agree he was an asshole in the movie. You could have made the Lost Boys his henchmen instead of the original characters created for the movie. You could have given Pete a pet crocodile to feed the hands of his enemies to. You could have made Captain Hook and Smee police officers trying to catch Pete in a subversion of their dynamic in the original movie.

Instead, this movie went out of its way to make the villain’s backstory eerily similar to what a real person went through, and instead of making this about how poorly Disney can treat its talent, they instead use him to represent the cheap bootleg movies ripping off Disney films, as if Sweet Pete isn’t like any of the “real” animated movies Disney has made. I may believe that Astruc based the character of Chloe off someone he knew, but I am positive that even he wouldn’t stoop this low to start portraying her in as negative a light as what this movie did with Driscoll.

In fact, part of me likes to think that Thomas Astruc and Jeremy Zag were approached by the producers of this movie to ask them about including Ladybug, saw the plans for the movie and how classic cartoons like Peter Pan were treated, laughed like madmen, and had their unexpected guests thrown out by security.

[therealeagal]

Rating Disney films

I'm waiting on an event that will occur in my approximate future, so while I wait I thought I would kill time with a rating of some Disney movies. What a lark! But before we begin:

Item: The scale will be F, D, C, B, A. Normally I would consider C to be the base starting point, but since Disney is a heartless mega-conglomerate that would sell orphan souls if they thought there was a market for it, I'm sorry to say that every film is automatically docked a point, so we're starting at D.

Item: I'm only going to cover the ones I've seen, and only the ones from pretty recently. The last ten years, let's say. Otherwise we'll be here all day and I probably will have got shit to do.

Ok, let's go.

Frozen. Elsa and Anna and their hangs-on that no one really cares about. Good music. Idina Menzel? Holy shit I got it right on the first try. Go me! Idina is a great singer, so that bumps Frozen up a notch. Great animation, except for that one bit during Let It Go where Elsa's ponytail phases through her arm, but I guess I'll...let it go. Eh? Eh? Come on admit it, that was funny. A dumb subversion of true love, but then an interesting subversion of the subversion so I'll give it a point. But then there's...everything else. Preventable conflict, forgettable everyone that isn't Elsa and Anna, stupid character decisions, a twist villain who has literally no reason to exist and who is not connected to the central conflict in any way whatsoever. It's the works. Also, I'm told there's some debate over whether the side character Oaken is married to a man or woman. The art style makes it hard to tell. Normally I'd give it a point but since this is Disney, I'm going to file that under "Gay reference so that Disney gets bonus points but it was super minor so that Disney can easily edit it out for international releases in countries that hate the LGBT community". Which loses it a point instead.

Final score: F. Oh yeah. Coming out of the gate swinging. I wonder how much hate I'll get for that.

Big Hero 6. Hiro Hamada and the rest. No musical numbers, but it does have Baymax and jokes about puberty, which are...funny I guess. I guess. It does have a twist villain, but that's a gimme. He's a supervillain. Would Norman Osbourn be half the villain without being the father of Peter Parker's best friend? It loses a point because Hiro's older brother was too good to deserve being Uncle Bened. I wish my brother was as cool as Tadashi was. And that he was also Uncle Bened. I'll trade my brother for superpowers. See if I won't.

Final score: B. SO close.

Zootopia. The furry movie. I saw it. It didn't turn me into a furry any more than 90 years of Mickey Mouse did. Maybe I oughta dock it a point for that. Good story, entertaining leads, entertaining side characters. Catchy music. But it had a twist villain. Get some new material, guys.

Final score: B. Almost got it.

Moana. Good movie. Good characters. Good music. Who knew Dwayne Johnson could sing? No twist villain. Actually, there's a twist hero. Double points for that.

Final score: A. Huzzah! We finally got an A!

Coco: Ah, Coco. Good movie. Good music. Good characters. I will dock a point for preventable conflict, but righting former wrongs makes up for it. Very heartwarming. Double points for heartwarming. Also, another M. Rivera journeys to the Land of the Dead in search of his ancestors. And Imelda is voiced by the same actress that did Manny Rivera. I wonder if that was intentional.

Final score: A.

Incredibles 2. The first Incredibles missed the cutoff. Oops. It's a sequel so...ehhhhh. Another twist villain, but it's a supervillain so normally it wouldn't count, but the villain has no personal connection to Helen and only second-hand connection to Bob, so fuck Screenslaver. Overall, doesn't really stand out.

Final score: D. Ehhhhhhhhhh...

Live Action Aladdin. An acquaintance of mine she got super thirsty over Mena Massoud, so I'll give him double points. Will Smith did...ok I guess. I guess. I liked Jasmine's new song tho.

Final score. Ehhhhhhh...I wanna give it a good score, but I really can't give it better than a C. I'm sorry Mena and Naomi! Forgive meeeeeeeeeeee!

Live Action The Lion King. Yeah...no...

Final score: F. Not even Beyonce could save it. I think I may have committed a crime against humanity by saying that...

Frozen II. A sequel...ehhhhh...good story I guess. I guess. Good music, I will concede. New characters are forgettable and Elsa didn't get a girlfriend. I don't think it had a real conflict? Question mark? Just righting past wrongs wasn't it? I forget. Assuming there were no villains, because otherwise I'd have to dock a point for forgettable villains.

Final score: C. +2 -1. Hey at least it's not an F. I wonder how much hate I'll get for rating the sequel higher.

Onward. Troll brothers, one's a nerd, the other's a slacker. It's actually quite good. Don't remember the music, so it doesn't get any points. It had a "token acknowledgement of a gay character that can be easily edited out for international" so that's a minus.

Final score:

Luca. Another good movie. Very heartwarming. There is some debate over whether this movie counts as "Young boys discovering their sexuality but only in the vaguest possible terms so that it can be easily rewritten for international" or just "Young friends that is only homoerotic if you squint and maybe audiences are reading a little too much into it". And I mean, I could see it. I'm not that good at squinting and I can see it. I'll give you that it's possible. I don't necessarily think it's probable, but I'll take the point anyway because Disney's not dumb, just evil. They knew.

Final score: B.

Ron's Gone Wrong. Being honest, I was totally unaware that this was Disney. I saw the dvd at Wal-Mart and thought it looked cute. Which it is. Very heartwarming friendship. And the kids that the kid wants to be friends with turn out to be good kids and not little shits at all.

Final score: B.

Encanto. Another good one. I have to dock it a point for more preventable conflict, but otherwise, great characters, great music, great story, great ending, great family. Great Scott, have we got another A?

Final score: Yep, it's an A.

Lightyear. Really? This is the movie that Andy saw? But this Buzz acts nothing like that Buzz! Twist villain, token acknowledgement of a gay character that can be easily edited out for international. I mean, I liked it. I like Buzz and I like Alisha and I like Izzy and I like Sox, but is that enough?

Final score: B. -3 +4. I preferred the animated series.

Strange World. Didn't finish it. Stopped halfway and got sidetracked by something else and never got around to picking it back up, but it does have a gay secondary character in the main character's son and I seem to recall he gets a recurring subplot about how fit the guy he likes is.

Final score: Ah heck, let's give it an A just because the gay character wasn't of the "easily edited out for international" variety.

Elemental. Loved this movie. Very heartwarming. I say that a lot. It's Disney. What do you expect? Technically it does have a preventable conflict, but the preventableness is central to the story, so that's a gimme.

Final score: A.

Wish: Bending the rules, because I haven't seen it but I hope to some time soon. I'll be optimistic and wish upon a star that this movie gets all the points.

Final final score: A. Huzzah!

In closing if you don't agree with my ratings, or with the reasons I have given for the ratings, you are, of course, entitled to your own opinions, but I don't want to hear it so find someone else to whinge at.

Please and thank you. :)

[web-novel-polls]

Popular Danmei Character Tournament

CWs: dead body mention, death mention, spoilers

Liu Qingge from Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System 

Submission 1: I JUST REALLY LOVE HIM A LOT

Submission 2: He was saved from death by the guy he hated the most and immediately proceeded to start exchanging fight tactics with him (which involves beating up his own students) and they also exchange gifts. Spent five years fighting the disciple of the same man for possession of his corpse and is a salty ass love rival (he attacked a succubus when she predicted that the disciple and his friend would get together)

Literally so beautiful that Shen Qingqiu had to do a double-take

Head empty, only fighting

"[Liu Qingge] isn't interested in Shen Qingqiu. He isn't interested in anyone. He's only interested in fighting. He wants to be the strongest and the best." – MXTX accidentally(?) convincing the entire SVSSS fandom he was in love with Shen Qingqiu is so fucking funny. Yes, he consistently takes great care to return Shen Qingqiu’s items and fought Luo Binghe for his body for five years. No, he’s not in love; why would you even ask that? What is he, gay? There’s no time for that; he’s got monsters to fight

Hua Cheng / San Lang from Heaven Official’s Blessing

Submission: he's my boy, my blorbo, my big fav, i can't believe he wasn't on the list yet 

Ahhhhhhhhh, we love a sassy devoted love interest in this house

Devoted himself to Xie Lian for 800+ years before they properly met and was one of the only people who actually listened to how Xie Lian wanted to be “worshipped” / treated as a god 

“The one standing in infinite glory is you; the one fallen from grace is also you. What matters is ‘you’ and not the state of you.”

“To watch with your own eyes your beloved be trampled and ridiculed, yet unable to do anything. That’s the worse suffering in the world.”

“If I could, I would have you use me as your stepping stone, the bridge you take apart after crossing, the corpse bones you need to trample to climb up, the sinner who deserved the butchering of a million knives. But I know you wouldn’t allow it.”

“Your Highness, I am forever your most devoted believer.”

“...I don’t care if anyone else is disappointed. But to some, the very existence of a certain person in this world is in itself hope.”

His handwriting is HORRIBLE. He literally tattooed Xie Lian’s name on his arm, and NO ONE KNEW because of how bad his handwriting is. 

His communication array password is so embarrassing Xie Lian assumes that pretty much no one wants to say it (and that may be the point)

[meroppi]

My honest opinion on the FNaF movie

(I'm sorry if anything is wrong, It's 2 a.m. rn but I need to get this off my chest)

BEFORE WE START: I will admit that I'm 100% biased, I grew up with FNaF and never thought I'd ever see this movie for multiple reasons, so actually sitting in the theater and watching this beautiful disaster unfold was a truly magical experience. I cried during the credits so yeah. With that being said:

1. The spoiler-free part

Ok there are some things we need to lay out right from the getgo

1) This movie caters to:

a) fans who want to see a somewhat new yet familiar story in the FNaF universe

b) casuals who aren't immediately dismissive of everything that's happening and actually TRY to give this shit a chance

2) It's no secret that they changed many things in the story and if you genuinely thought they would adapt the games 1 by 1 you are just delulu I'm sorry

Overall, I personally really liked the movie and I would recommend it. It had many little easter eggs for hardcore fans and a story that pretty much anyone can understand

2. The spoiler-heavy part

(aka pretty much everything important)

Alright, let's talk about the most controversial part:

The Afton children aren't the Afton children anymore.

So Mike Schmidt, who we know is Michael Afton under a fake name in the games, is in the movie literally just Mike Schmidt. Some guy.

Garett, this movie's version of the crying child, is Williams' first victim, not his child who was killed by accident.

Abby, who would technically speaking be the movie equivalent of Elizabeth, has also no connection to Afton.

AND VANESSA, who we met in AR, Help Wanted, and Security Breach, is Williams' only child??

Yeah it's kinda fucked.

HOWEVER, I do think that this is an amazing way to include all the important characters in some way.

If we had told the actual story of the Afton children, eg. the crying child and Elizabeth dying, this would have pretty much meant that everything else in the story had to be adapted too for everything to make sense which is simply impossible. Like straight up.

So writing a new story including all the past protagonists is a very logical decision (+ I'm pretty sure that there was a theory that Vanessa is some sort of Elizabeth reincarnation even though I think that it was disproven very quickly but yeah, there's that)

BUT this story change leaves one big plot hole:

Why the fuck is William Afton a murderer??

He went insane in the game after his son died which led to him killing Charlie (daughter of Henry) out of spite in a drunken rage afterward.

In this movie, he's just a little goofy and funny and kills children for fun, whatever ig

And yes, the fort scene might have been a teeny tiny bit cringe but I mean, these are dead 10 year-olds so their request is pretty legit tbh. "Why don't these kids grow up 🙄" IDK MAYBE CAUSE THEY ARE DEAD?? BFFR

And everything, I mean fucking everything, is better than a "Let's go Fazgang!!!"-scene

BUT WHY ON EARTH DOES THE CUPCAKE HAVE SO MUCH SCREENTIME?? What the fuck 😭

OH I FORGOT the opening scene in the arcade-minigame style was magnificent 💞

I also would've liked that Williams' death would've been a little bit more violent, it was a little too soft. And I also don't get why he was "killed by the cupcake" and not through a malfunction caused by water like it was in the game?? It would've worked just fine. However, since the movie is rated pg13 in some countries (16 here) it's understandable that it isn't too brutal

And, let's be honest: the movie was carried by Matt, TLT, and Cory

But I love the little easter eggs?? Dream theory, the FNaF World Rainbow, it's so cool I loved it

I absolutely loved it, I knew that I would see something very not canon and something new and probably kinda stupid but I still thought it was beautiful and enjoyable and I would die on this hill if I had to

[pocketramblr]

I tend to avoid hanahaki aus for a lot of the reasons that I avoid soulmate aus but I will forever think about the first hanahaki au I ever read where it wasn't about the love being requited it was abbot the love being confessed as well as there being a surgery to cure the disease but it would also remove all positive feelings that you had about your crush and like i unfortunately cannot remember the name of the fic that concept has stick in my brain for years

Yeah I've seen the surgery option too and like. That's part of why I do not Get why confessing is still the worst option- because as someone who's done it, surgery sucks. Like, surgery sucks so bad, and recovering was really not fun either. Not even thinking about the "lose your feelings." Confess because it changes nothing- you knew the answer was no before, and it's still no now, you are simply saving yourself the hundreds to thousands of dollars surgeries or funerals cost.

But also I don't know. I guess if your friend loves you so much that they are trying so hard to get you to Not Be In Pain from the flower, trying to figure out who it is so you can confess, terrified you'll die or go through painful surgery and recovery and lose something dear to you.... And you don't tell them? For what? You can't accept their love unless it's the same flavor of romantic as your own? Wack. You'd deprive them of a friend because they're depriving you of a lover? Bro that's not how the character i wanna read a fic about would act. (I mean, it is how some of them would act, but those characters aren't the ones getting their own fun evil mind games hanahaki aus. Which. Ugh. Ok put that one on the pile too it could be fun.)

Anyway if the au specifies that the flower can be from requited or unrequited love then I do get it more. Because the scariest part for me is the unknown, and that brings that element back in. But also I dunno. Maybe because I've seen enough premises where it's supposed to be unrequited but actually as soon as person B finds out what they are, for lack of a better term, missing out on now that person A is dead or has surgically removed the chance, ohh noo they realized they loved them all along. So I guess person B can get hanahaki too now. Ok well if that's true then why did you tell me it only happened when it was unrequited. Commit to your bit. It's better when the authors are honest about the unrequited aspect or lack there of, at least, like you said.

[docholligay]

Episode 4: Nat

Hello! This is about up to Episode 4 of Yellowjackets, and ONLY episode 4 of Yellowjackets. I have not seen beyond the fourth episode, at all, and know NOTHING about this show. Please do not spoil it for me.  Things that are spoilery in nature, for me, include: saying things like  “Just wait!!” confirming or denying anything I put forward, outside information about the cast interviews or creator statements, leading questions like “Do you think “blank moment” means anything?” etc. Remember  that Y’ALL HAVE SEEN THE SHOW AND I HAVE NOT. This informs the way you  talk about things relating to the show. Just be really careful is all  I’m asking. Also: If there is LITERALLY any stance I  could take on this show or character that would make you upset, please  just fucking block the tag

If you WOULD like to discuss the show and my takes on it, the Discord is right here! I don’t go there, so it’s a great place to get every emotion out.

Please thank @sailorsunspot and @moonlight-frittata for backing this odd way of doing a liveblog, and remember my tip jar is always open

So I’ve had some concerns about Nat, narrative and character wise, from the beginning, because she is primed for what I like to call ‘that cool girl shit,’ that disaffected, ‘real’ Daria-ass bullshit that was so popular for so long and poisoned the fucking well of any character who was slightly acerbic, for me.

I have A LOT more faith that this show is not going to do that, or at the very least, it’s going to say, “Yeah that’s exactly what Nat is going for, unfortunately she’s pathetic and wet and full of shit” which is a stance I support and cheer.

That being said, when we opened the show with Nat seeing her dead father and I knew we were going to see her tragic anime backstory, I had one (1) (yuri) fear. Luckily, I feel personally like we managed to avoid that. Let’s discuss.

First of all, I know I’m making a lot out of this, but I do think it’s basically the same thing that keeps coming up (And is going to be even more prominent with Shauna) that these bitches never grew up and left the woods. Nat is that as well, as we see her literally inhabit the past in a clever scene switch from present to past, watching her own younger self go by her in the hallway. It is as real to her as if it were happening right that instant.

We’re opening a line here, I think, to point out that Nat sometimes thinks of herself as responsible when she’s not. In what she thinks will be her final moments, she sees her father, feels blamed for his death, and to at least some extent she must believe that’s true, or she wouldn’t see him. It’s that old “first you must find someone who can be made to feel inferior”: If Nat truly, in her heart of hearts, did not feel at all responsible for his death, she wouldn’t be imagining that, in the moment. Of course, she is not responsible, and I knew that FROM the word go, not to count on my own cleverness, but I think the show was perfectly happy with you realizing that early. All it is trying to show with this is:

A) Nat talks a real tough game, but most of her badass moments are accidental or impulse. She’s not nearly as tough as even she thinks she is, she’s basically some stupid baby owl making herself puff up and hissing. Nat’s sitting in some stupid bar like, “My Dad screamed at me for years, and one day he ended up shot during an argument...accident. Shame.” And she takes a swig of her whiskey and shes’ told you the truth, but she’s told you the truth in a very particular way that leads you to a lie.

B) Nat does on some level believe that bad accidents or happenings that are AROUND her are ABOUT her. I am team “travis killed himself” even though I have some suspicions that the show is going to make it into a thing (more on this later) but even if he did, Nat would continue to say he didn’t, I assume for some stupid reason like “we promised’ or something, and of course it has to be ABOUT Nat.

We can’t talk about Nat without talking about Travis. 

I am not INTO Travis, I do not LIKE Travis nor cheer him, but I think it’s easy for me not to hate him, because the show looks at me, not liking Travis, nor thinking he needs a hug or whatever the fuck ever, and is like, ‘That’s a valid perspective!” which does so much to help me appreciate an unlikable character.

And I love how he makes Nat unlikable. The way she boldly manipulates Kevyn’s kindness, going so far as to go back to her old house to find the mix, in order to show him that she had it and bring up all those old feelings in him--this is not a spontaneous moment where she was accidentally a little bit of a shit. This was as calculated as her perfect shot in the forest. Ready aim fire, that is absolutely what she was doing and Kevyn got fucking baited like a deer. “I can’t stop thinking about Travis” oh my god, like, we all know Misty is out of her fucking mind and that’s great, but Nat, also, is a complete mess, and also, an asshole, because unlike Misty, I am 10000% sure that Nat knows what she’s doing is not okay. Misty I go back and forth on, she’s wild, but NAT knows. 

Anyway, from the time she put her hands all over a dead body, cut off a finger, because she had the stomach for it, because she is more of a born CREATURE than Travis could ever be, Travis has been motivating her, in one way or another, not in ways I think he’s cognizant of, and in ways I know she doesn’tr understand, toward her worst impulses. 

Maybe with Travis by her side, she could have been the one who shot him. She sure does with the deer.

[violetlunette]

Do you think Mic will ever really have a time to shine, it seems every time he tries it is cut short.

He'll get a cool scene or two, but a) he's a side character and b) he's not Bakagou popular, so I doubt it. It's a shame, but I can understand it from a writing standpoint. His quirk is so powerful that if utilized right it could be a story breaker and his temperament shows that Mic not only would but could end things quickly. However, we don't want that from a story POV. We want Izuku, our protagonist, to save the day along with the other characters we got to know. (Or were supposed to.) But that's what fanfiction is for.

Notes: *Rambling and varying levels of pettiness against the LoV before. Nothing hateful, or at least not intended as such, but petty.

For me personally--again, personally and very petty, you were warned--I like to imagine a UA (Universe Alteration) where Mic managed to kill Shiggy when he captured the doctor. Not only does it cut off a massive part of what I consider the most tedious part of the manga series. the series that I don't personally care for and gets rid of a villain I find annoying, but it's funny in an ironic way. AFO made all these grand plans with the focus on all these great heroes like All Might, Endeavor, Izuku, and so on--and it's a "nobody" he never thought or even knew existed that fucks everything up for him. With Shiggy dead, he not only loses a tool to mess with All Might but his new body and his original quirk in the process. So unless he can steal quirks from dead bodies (can he?) AFO is screwed for the most part. He has a copy of his quirk, but it's safe to assume that it can't do everything his original can, such as transfer his consciousness. (Are there limits with the copy quirk? Or is it exactly the same?) Especially if he can't get to the doctor.

For Mic, his entire life would get turned upside down. Endeavor may get most of the credit for the raid, but AFO would be targeting MIC. Mic would become the focus of the #1 villain (and anyone of LoV who escaped) all because he wanted to save his friend. And I think it would be interesting to see how he would react to all this.

See, Mic isn't a pure-hearted hero like Izuku or a tsundere hero like Aizawa who will. We know what those two would do in this situation. But Mic? He's a wildcard. True, Mic is a good person with a good heart but he's also willing to do what he has to protect others. Even kill. And there's more personal drama as AFO would use Kurogiri against Mic who probably wouldn't be happy with Hizashi as he killed someone he had been forced to protect for years. So what would happen? What would Mic do? Would he go on the run? Would he take the villains head-on? How far will he go to protect himself and others? Plus, he could have his own little arc as Mic would clearly be over his head in all of this. Not to mention a little Aizawa angst as he'll have to choose whether or not to save Oboro, a friend who meant the world to him, or Hizashi, the one who was always there for him.

But I'm rambling and I can see why that didn't happen. But it is funny how with one little "what if" Hizashi could have hijacked the entire story as a protagonist.

[navree]

Hope you had a nice weekend and happy New Year!

I really like your takes on Aegon and Alicent specifically so I wanted to know what you think of the theory that Alicent was the one who poisoned Aegon? Or that Aegon knowingly drank the poison himself?

Thanks!

Happy New Year anon and thanks so much for the well wishes! I'll be brief and say that the weekend was An Adventure, but a fun one nevertheless. Hope your's was all you wanted it to crack up to be as well <3 I'm gonna be operating under a view of "do I think the show could go this way" along with what F*&B tells us rather than just looking at book canon, because most of the theorizing I've seen in regards to that tends to be about how the show could adapt it. This is also going to be largely character/motivation based rather than focusing on "evidence" because this is a history book/propaganda article and a part of a TV show that hasn't happened yet, we don't have any concrete evidenceAs with most theories, I think there's validity to either of them because there's very few theories that make me say a flat "no", but in terms of my personal beliefs: I do not think that Alicent poisoned Aegon, but I actually quite like the idea that Aegon might have poisoned himself.

In Alicent's case, I just don't think she had it in her to do it. Not because she's somehow weak or wahtever and couldn't handle it, but because, quite simply, she likely wouldn't be able to dream of it. All of Alicent's family is dead at that point in the Dance, all her other kids and her father and any personal friends she might have had, like Criston. But Aegon's still there, and he's still fighting as best he can. It's that line from Catelyn in A Storm of Swords (which I've just arrived to in my ASOIAF reread): He is my first son. My first son, and my last. For a time, Aegon was all Alicent had in the world, and by the time the Dance ends, he is all she has left. And I think after everything she's lost, everything that's happened to her family (none of the main Greens died kindly at this point, it was all relatively gruesome), Alicent just wouldn't be able to fathom a world without him. It's why she's on her deathbed begging to see her kids; they're her main driving force in the world, especially after her relationship with Rhaenyra became unsalvageable. I cannot see her deciding, unilaterally, to kill him, she couldn't even bear the idea of him taking the black and going to the Wall when that was brought up as an option.

But I can definitely buy the idea that Aegon poisoned himself. Aegon knew, by the time Cregan was marching on King's Landing, that it was over, and that he wasn't getting out of this unscathed. It's why, again, he seized on the idea of going to the Wall, before Alicent pointed out that it wasn't going to happen, especially if Aegon III decided to be a dick about it because of what he was forced to watch at the Fall of Dragonstone (my little baby, someone get him Westerosi therapy). And, like Alicent, he'd suffered a lot during the Dance, but unlike Alicent, he likely suffered more, and could make an argument to blame himself for all of it. His brothers died, his sister-wife died, his sons died, his dragon died, and it all happened because of him. Aemond and Daeron and Criston died fighting for him and to defend his claim, Helaena and Jahaerys and Maegor died because he failed to protect him, even his beloved Sunfyre died of wounds fought in battles he rode him to, and this is all in addition to what had to be constant physical pain due to his many debilitating injuries. One could argue that, like Alicent, Aegon might want to keep going out of love of what remains, like his love for his mother and love of his daughter. But, even disregarding the fact that Aegon knew he was 99% certain to die no matter what: for one, his relationship with Alicent is complicated and only recently got solidified (the Dance lasts about two years from his coronation, which is where he's gonna be getting proof that Alicent loves him no matter what) and for two, Jahaera wouldn't be enough. I'm sure Aegon loves his kids, but we've also seen that he's someone who dearly desires that love to be reciprocated. It's why so much of the way he treats the world and self medicates is borne of pain, because he thinks his love for certain people is not returned (along with a whole other host of issues that goes along with like feelings of unworthiness and etc). And Jahaera, as we're told in F&B, is not capable of returning that love. We don't know a lot about Jahaera, but she appears to be coded as somewhat developmentally disabled (I can't tell you specifics because it's vague and that's also not a subject I feel qualified to make any kind of armchair diagnoses in), and part of that is that she doesn't show emotions and is somewhat "simple minded", and there's no reason to expect that this a) wouldn't have been exacerbated to the extreme following having to witness Jahaerys's murder and experiencing the threats of death and sexual violence levied against her at the time and b) wouldn't also extend to her relationship with Aegon. Aegon can love his daughter, but if she's incapable of either showing love back or even loving him back entirely, then, considering the kind of person he is, it wouldn't be enough to stop him from killing himself.

Combining all of these different factors, the emotion toll of the Dance, his physical pain, the lack of motivation not to die, and the knowledge that he wasn't making it out of this alive, it makes sense that Aegon would decide to die on his own terms. This is a man who refuses to drink milk of the poppy even when in excruciating pain, this is a man who stubbornly refuses to die and was able to drag himself to Dragonstone and to Sunfyre, this is a man who fought until he literally couldn't fight anymore. It is entirely plausible that Aegon, knowing that death was the only option anyway, would decide to choose his own death in his own way, especially if it could be painless rather than subjecting himself to Cregan Stark's mercy. I do, however, think Alicent knew. I can see Aegon telling her that this was what he was planning, if only to give her forewarning and some peace of mind, and I can see him asking her to help (whether it be by putting it in his food or procuring it or something). And I do think that would be a marvelous way for it to go, for Alicent to help her son out of the world at the end of the story that started when she brought him into it, and at least give them a final, quiet, loving goodbye for each other, the kind everyone else was denied all throughout the war.

We'll see what the show does and how this evolves, because this'll likely be series finale material, but tl;dr: I can't find any reason why Alicent would poison Aegon, but ample reasons why he'd poison himself, and I think it'd be a good sendoff for his character if Alicent was there to at least help him in his final plan.