#Even though I am incredibly bad at coding/it stuff so even if I wanted to make it a reality it’ll be really hard

[pencilpat]

Dukeceitbrainrot here on anon. Do you have any ripe headcanons for Janus/Remus? 💛💚

Who am I fooling, we have so many that I can't even write them all out in one place without overwhelming myself! Here's some juicy ones though, just for you. @dukeceitbrainrot

Janus and Remus both have really bad abandonment issues, both from things Thomas has been through as well as losing Virgil from such a previously tight knit group. They cling to each other very, very hard. They fell in love out of necessity, out of proximity, out of 'you are the only one left for me,' but they still love, love, love.

They both watch a lot of horror films, sure, but their tastes are completely different. While Janus would bring things like Run. or Us to movie night, Remus will bring things like Slaughtered Vomit Dolls or Cannibal Holocaust and spend the whole film infodumping about the horrific backstories and crimes involved. Janus sits there utterly horrified the whole time, but he lets Remus have his fun nonetheless.

Remus eats a lot of weird stuff that's very bad for his health (I headcanon that he has the disorder pica among his menagerie) and Janus has to help him quell those compulsions in any way he can. That resulted in Janus learning to bake and cook creations that look or feel in texture exactly like the things Remus would want to eat. Such as sugar glass for that nasty glass swallowing habit, or fondant to replace fancy soaps. Janus once created candy that looks and feels like razor blades, just for him.

They are SO 'horrible beast and enabling owner' coded okay, "I don't know, I just let him play," and all else are you kidding me?? Janus enables the chaos for his own amusement and Remus's antics are an endless source of entertainment for him. Janus can be pretty easily grossed out, but it's creates flabbergasted affection towards Remus more than anything else.

A bit nsfw, skip if you need to. But their sex isn't actually as weird as you'd expect from Remus. He's a lot softer and sweeter to people he genuinely loves. He gets worried when he loves someone, will he scare them off, will he make them hate him like most others have, will they be just like the others? Their opinion actually matters to him, which is bizarre and terrifying for him to deal with. Janus is very good at reassuring him and keeping him close and safe when emotions do interfere with their encounters. Remus needs a lot of aftercare most of the time, he's very prone to those rushes of negative emotions following sex.

Remus gets injured a lot, either from fights with Roman or his own tendencies to step on/into his own weapons. Janus knows very basic field first aid because of this, and has to patch him up while chastising him pretty much 6 out of 7 days of the week.

Janus has really bad days sometimes, where his responsibilities and his role as Denial crash onto him like a train. He's hiding so much, holding so much back and away from the others. It's a taxing task. Remus shows a surprisingly strong soft side on those nights, caring for and comforting Janus through every trauma reaction he may have, be it screaming, crying, scratching at himself, etc etc. It can be really rough for both of them, but Janus is always incredibly grateful to Remus for staying with him through it, despite.

Remus does not care whether Janus likes affection or not, he WILL be being kissed and laid on and grabbed and tackled and shoved into Remus's chest 24 hours 7 days a week and he is not allowed to complain.

Shockingly domestic, sweet couple. always baking or gardening together or sitting on the sofa together doing nothing at all. The only difference is that There Is An Eyeball On The Coffee Table or Remus Filled That Pot With Human Waste So I Cannot Use It or other bizarre inclusions of disgusting things among their neat little domestic life.

Remus is a coffee drinker, Janus is a tea drinker. There are many arguments over this. 200 dead, 5000 injured.

Janus likes to try and plan civil, nice dates in The Mindpalace for them, but Remus always fucks it up in some horrific way, intentionally. What is love worth if it cannot flourish in chaos, huh Janus? Huh??

That's all for now, I love these two idiots so much

[kaija-rayne-author]

Is Solas neurodivergent?

Of course, unless Weekes confirms one way or another, we'll never actually know. But I'd like to point out a few things.

Firstly. I'm autistic/ADHD, so are my kids and I've been an advocate for invisible disabilities, especially those two, for almost a decade now.

I offer an option on my Patreon for parents (or even just people) who need or want advice.

I have a little bit of a clue here. (More like a massive clue by nuke, but I digress 🤣.)

Why I code Solas from Dragon Age: Inquisition as neurodivergent.

1. Mentally ill fits under the neurodivergent (ND) umbrella. There's no way on Thedas that Solas isn't mentally ill.

(Yes, it really does fit. I'm not going to entertain arguments on the topic. It originally meant 'autistic' it no longer means that and hasn't for a long while. Neurodivergent brains = brains that work in any way other than 'the average'.) The antonym is Neurotypical. I tend to abbreviate them. Neurodivergent = ND, Neurotypical = NT.

At the very least, he likely has survivor syndrome. I'd wager on Depression and CPTSD too. (I have these conditions and am comfortable with saying he has a lot of the traits.) The guy was the leader of an enslaved elves rebellion and a war against the Evanuris. In his own words, he got his hands bloody.

No matter who you are, violence, whether you're the perpetrator or the victim, causes trauma to the psyche. And it went on for actual ages. An Age, in The Dragon Age franchise, is considered to be 100 years, so for hundreds of years, if not thousands, this dude has been fighting. Humans can get CPTSD just from a bad childhood. There's no way he hasn't developed it too.

Survivor syndrome is the response of a person when they believe they have done something wrong by surviving a traumatic event when others did not, often feeling self-guilt. (Can we classify Solas clearly with this? Yes, yes we can.)

He wakes up in a world so horrific to him that he can't even conceive of the people as people.

That's a type of disassociation, which is a symptom of many mental illnesses. Depression is the most obvious. He fucked up, he knows it, he's now trapped in a hellscape. (Heeee, we're all trapped in a dystopian hellscape right now and Depression is on the rise, the correlation is there.)

Disassociation is feeling disconnected from yourself and/or the world around you. For example, you may feel detached from your body or feel as though the world around you is unreal.

There could be a few other things there. He'd be a classic case for Disassociative Identity Disorder, for instance, but given the shit rep on the topic, I'm not going there.

2. ADHD

ADHD is still not very well understood by the average person. Sometimes people think it means we can't hold still. But a lot of the time, the H-Hyperactivity portion is only evident in our brains. For me, for instance, I have to constantly be feeding my brain written stuff or I get very antsy and uncomfortable. (ADD no longer exists, we're all ADHD now.) It's why i developed the habit of reading encyclopedias for fun. (Yes, I really do this.)

Solas is constantly reading, or studying, or thinking.

He shows a pretty typical type of temper for an ADHDer several times. Our tempers can be hot, flaring up suddenly for seemingly unexpected reasons. He absolutely does that. Now, there's always a reason for it, but few people on the outside of us will be aware of whatever the issue is.

ADHDers can also experience incredibly fast (compared to neurotypicals) shifts in emotion. Solas does this. Especially in the after the well of sorrows/pre-breakup scene and the break up scene itself. He see-saws emotionally a lot.

He's incredibly creative. He paints (and probably draws at least a little to paint the way he does). So many neurodivergent people are incredibly creative.

Snark. Many ADHDers tend to be snarky or sarcastic because of, well, everything that usually happens to us in life. The snark and salt simply spill out of Solas. Especially on the 'make him hate you' route through the game. Or any time he's around Vivienne.

Finally, ADHDers very frequently have a deep seated drive to change the world and make it better. Stares at Solas. Yup!

3. Autistic

So, firstly, let me say that most people don't understand what autism is or what autistics look and act like.

As an autistic/ADHD person, my experience of life is completely different from a neurotypicals simply because my brain is wired differently.

Reminder that you can't see autism or ADHD. You can sometimes see common comorbids, but without a brain scan, you cannot see autism or ADHD.

I connected and empathize so heavily with Solas because he's a well written, complex character, and because I love anti-heros.

But also because he's exhibits the exact same type of autistic/ADHD traits that I have. (Both autism and ADHD come in different flavours.) Seeing that rep in a triple AAA game was an incredibly powerful experience.

Even though, given Bioware's absolutely shit rep re: disability, it had to be accidental. I credit Weekes with that rep. I read on Twitter they were recently dxd with one or the other (ADHD or Autism, I honestly can't remember which. And up to 80% of ADHDers are also autistic.)

Solas practices esoteric arts. It's a common thing for many autists & ADHDers to learn and practice arts that just aren't as common anymore. Mine? I spin with a spinning wheel, drop spindle, or Andean hand spinner. I make maps. There's several other strange hobbies and skills I've picked up along the way too.

He shows hyperfocus several times in the game. (Hyperfocus is a trait of both ADHD and Autism.)

He stims with his hands a lot. Especially in the kiss scene. I don't recall seeing any of the other characters do this. I'm not talking about the 'dry hand wash' movements most of the characters do. Solas does a thing I do, taps the tips of his fingers against each other. Whoever did his modelling (is that the right term for making a game character?) understood neurodivergency or are ND themselves. Whether they know it or not.

You could even call his painting a type of stimming.

Stimming is where someone will use repetitive motions or sounds to self-soothe. It's really bad to prevent an autistic/ADHDer from using their stims.

I used to have to have a book on my person at all times. I'm late diagnosed, so I didn't know I was using the books as both a stim and a comfort item.

Solas has something autists call 'flat face effect'. Basically, his face is a bit masklike. He doesn't show emotions strongly on his face or in his body language (unless you make him angry 😅 which is also pretty typical for many of us). I've seen rather a lot of discourse about how emotionless Solas appears. I can read him easily, the emotive cues are there, just subtle, like they would be in an autistic & or ADHD person.

He's a decent actor. Now, most autists will agree that we're not innately good at lying or acting. But we're also really good at acting, at least, many of us are by the time we're adults. It comes from having to mask (autistic masking) almost every second of every day just to survive. Masking kills us. So it's not good that we are forced to do it. But it does make many of us incredible actors.

Anthony Hopkins is argueably one of the best actors of the past several decades. He's openly autistic. And he's spoken of how he got to be a good actor. Dan Ackroyd and Darryl Hannah are a couple of others who are out about it. I code a lot of other creatives as being one or the other, but it’s considered rude to assign a diagnosis like that to a living person. That's for them to do.

Solas managed to stay hidden as a 'unwashed apostate hobo' for however long the Inquisition took to fix things. I've seen estimates of 18 months to 2 years. That's a looooong time to be acting like something you're definitely not.

We see in Trespasser that he's not like that at all. But he still sold it so well his reveal at the end of the game shocked many people.

He's a nerd. An absolute nerd about the fade. Nerdery isn't solely the domain of autistics and ADHDers, but it’s a really common trait.

He's stand-offish.

Many autists and ADHDers are rather stand-offish with people for a variety of reasons.

1) We've been hurt so many times because of people refusing to do half the work of communicating with us. (Trust me, autistics and ADHDers are trying ALL THE TIME to communicate with neurotypicals. Y'all could pick up your part of things, y'know?)

2) We've been rejected so often for a genetic condition(s) we can't change. But accommodations for us, which are usually pretty simple and often help neurotypical people too, are considered 'too much'. There's something called RSD that most, if not all, autistic and ADHD folks experience. Rejection Sensitivity Disorder is a bitch kitty and there's no dealing with it well. It hurts.

3) We're often stand-offish while we try to figure out whatever social rules exist in that space/time. We often warm up when we know (or think we know) the rules. Or once we get to know people.

4) Solas is often alone, he's rarely pictured as being with anyone else other than Cole and the Inquisitor. NDs often end up either pushed to the edge of the crowd, or we choose to stay distant as a preventative measure so we aren't rejected.

Food sensitivities: Solas utterly loathes tea. There's a whole cutscene about it. (Fun fact, Solas doesn't like tea because Weekes doesn't.) But that extreme reaction to a relatively innocuous drink is a classic example of a food sensitivity. Most autistics and ADHDers have food or texture sensitivities or both. I can't abide raw tomatoes, and I'll get the urge to cry if I touch corduroy fabric.

Sensitivities can really be anything, but if you know someone who has them, please understand we're not trying to be difficult or to ask for extra attention or to make trouble. The modern world is frankly hell for most autistics and many ADHDers. Brain scans of us when we’re exposed to our sensitivities show that they actually are causing us physical pain. Pain centres in the brain light up like a Yule tree.

Solas is quiet, until he's not. Then he'll talk your ear off. This is pretty common for many of us too.

Solas and the fade. Special interest, anyone?

Special interests: Most autistics and ADHDers have Special interests. It's something that can utterly enthrall us. We tend to want to learn everything we possibly can about the subject we're fascinated with. And we love to share that information. In something called 'infodumping' we're trying to connect with other people. It's one of the ways many of us say we care about someone. By sharing our favourite things. We're also deeply penalized for something we can't change, there, too.

We deeply enjoy the thing and want to share our enjoyment with people we like/love. This can utterly backfire on us, but it doesn't change the urge to share. Often until our audience is giving us the 'dead fish face'. It's where the person's eyes are a little glazed over and they look a bit concussed. Anyone who has ever taught a class of students or is a parent or child caretaker, or is autistic/ADHD knows the look I'm talking about.

I'll stop blabbing for now, but those are most of the reasons I heavily code Solas as autistic/ADHD/mentally ill. Or, in another word. Neurodivergent.

Thanks for reading! If you have the wherewithal I'm a disabled mom of two disabled kids and a tip would help more than you can probably understand. Another way to help is to become a patron. My work of words is my only income and we live well under the poverty line. Like a lot of other neurodivergent people do.

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[exocynraku]

thoughts on a starless clan so far

i don't know if anything i said here has any definitive spoilers in it but i'll put it all under a cut for safety

short answer: it's ok. frostpaw's plot & the stuff with riverclan, riverstar & the COTP, splashtail & curlfeather are all REALLY COOL. I liked sunbeam in the beginning and have grown to dislike where her story has gone. I like the concepts surrounding nightheart's plot but dislike the execution & the reaction from the community. I am still excited for star. long answer:

frostpaw and splashtail's plot is really really good and ive been enjoying it a lot (probably because it reminds me of tpb). i liked sunbeam's plot with blazefire and lightleap and berryheart in the beginning but have gotten bored of her & her plot since nightheart showed up in her life & she moved to thunderclan. nightheart's plot has good concepts behind it but i don't like the execution & i don't like the 2 cross clan relationship plot in a row. i think it could've been better if they focused less on cross clan relationships and more on clan prejudice & xenophobia & the corruptness of the code system as a whole (though i know it's incredibly unlikely the writers would do that i still want To Hope) instead of just the romance part since we did that last arc (though i don't think it really got us anywhere as i personally dislike the 'trials' thing that was developed & don't think it's particularly useful). especially because it was specifically a cross CLAN relationship in a row. i'd be a bit more lenient if it was a clancat x kittypet/loner relationship as that hasn't been done in a bit (like if nightheart fell in love with a COTP cat or something). 

i like the pacing per-book but i think the pacing overall could be improved upon as it feels both sunbeam and nightheart's plots have been too separate from & slow compared to frostpaw's plot and haven't really been meshing well in the later books as the erins try to tie them all together. i also don't know if this is just my bad memory but i dislike the change of sunbeam and nightheart's personalities over time. they both feel like they are becoming cardboard cut out main characters to me. i liked sunbeam's relationship with lightleap blazefire & her family and thought it all was really realistic and especially in the lightleap/blazefire department was a surprising change of pace. i dislike what has become of both her plot and her personality as i feel they totally abandoned the lightleap/blazefire plot and turned her into a flat love interest. i do think it makes sense for her as a character to yearn for love but i think it'd make even MORE sense if she had a much more complicated relationship with love

i'm not going to speak further on nightheart because i know no matter what i say someone WILL be telling me to kill myself in one way or another so i'll keep in brief: no matter what you think of him, you at Need To Acknowledge & Be Conscious Of The Fact That Very Bad Things Have Been Said About & To Both Women And Disabled People Because Of His Plot In This Community. yes some very good & well-thought out conversations have been said in response, yes the majority of these things were said months and months ago when asc first was starting, But That Does Not Mean You Can Ignore That They Happened. If you want the community you are apart of to not be perceived as jackasses you cannot Ignore The Hatred Towards Women And Disabled People That Festers Inside Of It. you don't need to write a 9000 page essay about it, that's not what i'm asking, you just need to be CONCIOUS of it okay that's it. also while thinking about this i thought of how i'd rewrite sunbeam and the third pov (which i'd give to sparkpelt) so if anyone wants to hear about that send me an ask i'll make another 4 paragraph post about it

[yellowocaballero]

Are there any fic ideas that you'd want to see but don't want to write?

Oh boy! Of course!

To be honest, the Green Lantern story is one of the big ones lmfao. It would be a massive undertaking for an audience of maybe five people. A niche audience normally doesn't stop me, but for such a long story, there's other uses of my time. There is also the fact that it just feels made for television. Same with my Legion of Superheroes Zoobomafoo thing - it just doesn't feel right in a text format. It's webcomic coded. I wish I could draw sometimes!

Then there's the story ideas for my AUs and other fandoms I've moved on from. There's still a few ideas for the No Chip AU in my back pocket (Cody redemption feat. Boba Fett following him around Tatooine yelling at him; Fox as the vigilante sidekick to his insane PA) and my normal Roleswap (Luke & Leia embark on a Great Father Mystery Hunt and bother Fox in the woods). There's also the continuation stories/sequels I've started but haven't finished and don't know if they will get finished (Roleswap Obi-Wan meets his birth family; my Buffy fic Angel and Cordelia through the years). There's other unfinished stories there (the Frenchie story which is literally only missing the final scene, the Heroes For Hire meeting story which is literally only missing the final scene) which I'm pretty sure I'll finish when I feel like it. I don't consider those WIPs so much as 'when I care again I'll go finish them'.

Then there's the stories that I just couldn't make into a decent story (the Naruto fix-it; the roleswap(ish?) story with adult bounty hunters Boba and Omega teaching runaway clones Luke and Leia the power of family and incredible violence). Not every idea is good outside of concept lol.

TL;DR: If I have a fic idea but haven't written it, it's because of one or more reasons: a) the idea itself is too big, b) the idea just doesn't seem right for fic, c) I've moved on from the fandom and don't want to work on it at this moment anymore, d) it just wouldn't make a good story.

If you notice, these are all active choices on my part. I only mention this because a lot of my friends can't relate, so I don't know how common it is even though I assumed it was common, and it's kind of hard to describe: there's no barrier between me having an idea and writing it. Does that make sense? If I have an idea and it'll make a good story and I want to write it I'll write it, at least until I realize that it wouldn't make a good story and I scrap it. If I think about something for too long I write it [this is why I am easily egged on][this is also why I write things I swore never to write very frequently].

Writing is like. It's easy. You just write stuff. You just think something and then you write it. It's uncomplicated.

If it's bad. Writing is easy if what you're writing is bad. It's easy to write 100k if the 100k is bad. There's a ton of shortcuts you can take, which are really useful for beginning writers and was really useful for me a few years ago. I can describe those if you'd like. It's much, much, much harder to write something good. It's hardest when you need something to be good. Writing a good 100k is really hard. I am constantly telling people not to jump into the novels kjlsdf.

Double TL;DR that has nothing to do with the topic: You can write whatever you want if you're okay with it being bad. Making bad art rocks and is a lot of fun and completely necessary towards my emotional well-being. I highly recommend it.

[wellmaybetheresworms]

Antagonists

Alright. I know what you’re probably not thinking because it’s somewhat specific. Who’s this worms person, and why are they about to talk about antagonists for a bit? You don’t get an answer. By the way, I’m not an expert. I have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m just an idiot ranting on Tumblr.

I, the aforementioned worms person, love antagonists. Well, most of them. Elias Bouchard can go die. But generally, I really like antagonists. They just have vibes. Good vibes. (Not as in morally correct, most of them aren’t, but you probably get what I mean.) The things a properly good antagonist can add to a story… I don’t know how I was planning on finishing that. But they add lots. Having a good antagonist is just as important as having a good protagonist, regardless of how much thought is put into their character. Take Ursula. She doesn’t have a complex backstory with deep, traumatic reasons for her actions, but damn. She just has some vibes. She properly causes problems, and it takes actual effort to stop her. I haven’t seen The Little Mermaid in years, but I know without a doubt that if I rewatched it now, she would be my favorite. (Unrelated: my phone thinks I’m British. It keeps trying to make my American spelling of words into British words. No. I don’t want another U. It’s fine as it is.)

Anyways, Ursula has a good design too. While protagonists in hero-villain stories can get a bit repetitive after a while regarding their costumes and designs (nothing wrong with that, it’s just true), antagonists tend to have something that just makes them pop, and really reflects their character. And there LOTS of variety among antagonists of all kinds of stories! There’s the incredibly traumatised, completely redeemable ones, and then they’re the entirely unhinged ones. Some of them have actual backstories with motivations that they think are worth their actions, and some are just random doing it because an antagonist was needed. There’s so much variety!

Brief paragraph or two on the distinction between a villain and antagonist. (Please refer again to where I said that I am not an expert in this stuff, and this should not be cited for some important paper or something.) Generally, villains tend to be characters, typically antagonists, though not always, who are morally lacking, or causing huge amounts of damage to something. A lot of the time, I see “villain” being used as a derogatory that labels an antagonist as bad, and removes the need for the people absorbing the media to look further into their character. They can just go “oh this person is bad, good to know I’m done now”. Villain can also be used instead of antagonist in instances where it doesn’t quite fit, but only because of the definition associated with the word. For example in Inferno Squad (Star Wars book), the protagonist is a member of the Empire, and so doesn’t have the most righteous of moral codes. Because she’s in the Empire, the antagonists of the book are rebels, so the term “villain” doesn’t really apply as much, since Just As A Rule Of Star Wars, the rebellion and republic and such just have better morals.

Antagonist refers to a force opposing the protagonist. It doesn’t mean evil, although my options on good and evil are perhaps a rant for another time, it means that the protagonist needs something to go against. It doesn’t mean a sentient being, or even a living thing at all. It can be mental health, societal norms, or a spoon that feels bad in the protagonist’s mouth. It can even be a stressful due date. This has gotten incredibly off track. If you’re still here, deal with it. An antagonist doesn’t have to have questionable morals, or even morals at all.

Now, when referring to sentient antagonists, I would be fine using villain. Key term, would be. Although it is slightly faster to say, people generally have it associated with evil characters, and I don’t like that. I don’t want people to think that I’m calling characters with complicated reasons for their actions evil just because of a dictated set of “correct” morals chosen by society, and shaped through the millennia of human existence, so carefully cultivated and yet so loosely followed. (To be clear, I’m saying facts. But facts don't really mean anything without opinions in place to give people something to do with them. I still think that some things shouldn’t happen, and I think some things are more complicated than moral or not).

Anyways, I love antagonists. They have such a unique view on the worlds around them, and since their story is usually told from the perspective of someone who isn’t meant to really like/understand them, they tend to come off as a little, well. Off. They don’t fit into the way that world is meant to be, because they’re there to cause problems for the protagonist.

But also they can just be incredibly badass and cool without trying, or just have inexplicable vibes(not those Vibes) and I am platonically gay for most of them with some exceptions, regardless of their gender or my current gender. At the end of the day, I am completely unable to describe how I feel about antagonists without dissolving into incomprehensible nonsense or off topic paragraphs. Hello, and welcome to absolute nonsense. I’m Woims, for no particular reason, and you’re watching Disney channel.

(But also screw you Disney why would you get rid of the Owl House)

Finally, some antagonists I don’t like:

Elias Bouchard (the Magnus Archives)

Victor Frankenstein (Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus) (Yes, I know he’s technically the protagonist. No, I don’t care. I despise him with all of my being. If literally anyone asks I will post my spite essay here)

Morrowseer (Wings of Fire)

Those aren’t all of them, just the ones I got off the top of my head.

[the-firebird69]

Watch "THE INCREDIBLE HULK Clip - "Hulk vs. Abomination" (2008)" on YouTube

And we having a fight and the ones in the chopper not our people but I have pretty good DNA and I can change into other races pretty quick and I didn't know about it and I don't think many people know it's really fast I was in Asia and they couldn't tell who I was I turned yellow from soy sauce and my eyes changed and I was hidden and I walked around nobody knew who I was they couldn't find me a camera and the girls I was with were juiced up to the max massively juiced that's what I heard on spice and they learned it from George and from people who are near him like Melissa and this is the story that my DNA combined with theirs makes people who are big now these guys are about 10 ft tall and I'm naturally 10 ft tall according to my DNA and calculations by Genetecists like the people bja worked for at Harvard calculated it. Will and Bill have calculations too but people don't believe them because they say they want to but there are others who are Max who are figured it out now if you combine that with people who are spiced up and a certain regimen which keeps them that way in other words they keep the child stays that way you would get someone like this but they look human most of the time except if they use spice it can mutate real fast and grow armor and grow big and everything real quick

Zues

We have a lot of trouble telling him that that could have been me on spice that could be a c** really small and real big and juice up and look exactly like someone in the skeleton and everything and ghwb was working on it all the time and the last people heard about him and he was 100 miles tall she can make fun of us if you want but we have protection

Hera

I want to see that him naturally in 10 ft he seems to be able to grow pretty quick but people all around him are suppressing it and what he says is it's extremely hard being larger even in the form he's in now he said if he was at 180 life would be remarkably easier and you can put more on the bike do less trips and be a lot less exhausted and this other thing she can do I could not stand out in the crowd he stands out a little bit now cuz he looks big and people start picking on him and I can see you guys like that but right now we're fighting a huge Force and we see that they have Giants and they're pretty big but they are not like his kids so we have a problem with that but that's how we surviving and they can cloak okay this is really bad and there's a way to reverse it it has cancer treatments and he did partially for that so it might be dumb but he's not dumb either so it's like a parallel but still an incredible story right in front of everyone including Tommy f and not one of them is kidnapped and he had to do it Trump you're so obnoxious and rude and hateful and mean and sorry Sarah but she was not a mutant and you don't know how to do it and we did check

Mac

Oh gosh what am I going to do what study you a little I guess to see if you're big and they showed me the code and how to read it I don't believe it even though I've got my notes and it says it's what it is

Bja

So you're a giant huh it says give me a break and yes because I'm Sandy I'm already like a foot and a half shorter than him. He told me when I was feeling sad I felt better and said boys can be tough I said I won't be able to ride in regular vehicles and I don't have enough money to buy one so my highlight that and she started to laugh and say you big makes things work good and people will then pay attention to my people and so forth and she knew about it so they've been trying not to have you grow somebody sees it now and I do want to say that too but someone poked in but really this movie stuff's awesome everyone's looking at me for answers I've got a website and I've got a book coming out it was for your provocation and we can print like Madison it's important it's important so I've got permission and really that takes a lot of effort I really thank you for it and you thank me back because you start to like movies a lot again and start to love them and it was really worth it it is so intense and it was so much fun watching you pick out the movie actors in the movies no it's not I used to be able to do it and I got upset I thought about it for a while and I started looking at the movies cuz I was curious why you were looking at them and knew all the stuff and since a hobby to avoid sanction or scrutiny or evil then I start to figure out that you're doing for fun I think and I said look at this and I started telling you and he said that and I agree that's what he's doing he felt a little small I was doing it to do that and I see what he's doing with it says it's not doing it on purpose but I'm doing it too it's a good time I hear you are in this movie and here you are in this one and you have to watch out the movie you can't die and you can't get killed you can't go missing and you have to like have some sort of exit it's terrible but boy this money stuff came out and everybody sees it it's intense the movies are wonderful thing it's a wonderful format and he's got 3D movies that look real it's more intense than you could ever imagine he tried to do like a movie in a room it doesn't work out so good but does if you do it in the middle of everyone and trying to avoid cars while you're watching it it's kind of scary it's in the it's using holograms so we did it one day and it was so much fun I don't believe it I have to do it again and he's got to get out of there and eat some funds he's trying everything and nothing works now the fleet has gone up there and they're assisting hours and we really really needed it and boy these people are stupid we knew about it and tried to tell him they wouldn't listen to the radio then we're in trouble and I hear him going it's cold down here for a reason Max started working and have to do if you have to do it but he listens to some other people but he won't listen to foreigners and my nephew says that too brother-in-law whatever you want to call him actually Brian and I are through and we actually separated so I wanted to get you to Utah and show you what he's doing it's very evil and I do understand you know who I am

I think seeing you huge will be a trip to call you Bobo Chris he thinks it's fun because we're calling that to his friend is actually not that big but he's hiring over me so high up in the air like Bill Pierce I'll probably get sick and he would do and he's not used to being that big but he says it's usually it almost 6 foot and 10 ft is not that much bigger it really is but okay it's like operating a Jager and it's kind of funny cuz that's what it is you probably like it a lot because people would be appearing to give you respect when they're sitting there threatening you LOL I'm looking forward to it too okay your ankle right here but then again he said his sons might blend in with him and daughters that's something to look forward to

Sandy Wong

[jukeboxindie]

Nil headshot studies for fun! I’m trying to find a good way to draw him in my style without losing his likeness. This style turned out kind of comic book-y lol.

I know this is an art blog but while drawing this, my brain kept analyzing his character and his relationship with Aloy and now I want to info dump this on my friends but it’s so niche they won’t care or know what I’m talking about lmao so I’m just going to do it here under the cut.

I don’t do this often. This is a very casual write-up. (edit: This is so embarrassingly long and unhinged i might actually delete this later haha i’m sorry????)

TL;DR: i have a conversation with myself about overanalyzing a side quest character in a video game. why? no idea. i can’t explain myself. my brain do be like that sometimes.

AKA: nil hot, but the murder thing is a little weird: an essay

Preface: this is my interpretation of the characters. If you interpret them differently that’s valid! Keep doing what you do and have fun with your headcanons. I’m just writing this for fun, you don’t have to agree with me! (i’m also kind of nervous because i never write stuff like this and share but i’m so fixated on this side quest character i just need an outlet ahahaha sorry tumblr followers who read this, you’ve been warned).

RIGHT OFF THE BAT: I read Aloy as aroace, I’ll be happy for her whether she ends up having feelings for someone in the third game or not. I’m pretty indifferent when it comes to shipping but I like how practically everyone she meets falls in love with her. I read Nil as also on the aroace spectrum, probably due to circumstance because all he knows is war and has never experienced love or affection as far as the player knows. And he seems to only get turned on by violence.. at least in the first game. On that note, I absolutely love that he’s in love with Aloy haha. She doesn’t have to return his feelings, I like their relationship as it is already.

Before we get more into how Aloy changes Nil, let’s talk about the kind of character Nil is first: I like my fair share of angsty characters and he has every right to be full on angsty considering his background and how he still calls himself a soldier even though the war times are long over; but he isn’t angsty. It’s a different take on this type character and it makes him stand out to me which is probably where my fascination with him comes from.

Nil is unapologetically himself which is what I love about him. He is honest and maybe a bit too blunt but he’s a man of his word. He’s so honest that he voluntarily admits to his war crimes, does the time for it, goes through rehabilitation and is buddies with prison warden, they don’t even have anything *that* negative to say about him lmao. Incredible. He’s just so weird and takes everything in stride. He’s kind of a subversion to a character whose normal reaction is probably reaching a breaking point which leads to heroism or villainy. But he’s neutral. Not a hero or villain, perhaps an anti-hero or a vigilante type. Fascinating. I love the way he is written. Why is he left to be a side quest character he is so interesting please give him more to do in the next game PLEASE GUERILLA I AM BEGGING.

He has an honor code, knows that he has an “issue” (bloodlust, a need to murder, “The Call”) and copes with it by “doing the right thing for the wrong reasons” so.. killing bad people, bandits, thieves, etc... for sport!! He admits this so nonchalantly in front of Aloy like it is totally normal BLESS HIS LIL HEART. He might come off as creepy because The Call compels him, which yeah, isn’t normal or healthy but at least he follows the laws of the lands so... yay?

Aloy: I don’t keep count. (Nil, it isn’t normal to keep a body count...)

Nil: Don’t keep count? Sometimes I just don’t get you. Are you like us, or a little different. (You kill. I kill. Are we really that different?)

Aloy: Hopefully a little different. (YES.)

Nil: Hm.. that’s what you’re going to tell yourself. ( ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

He experiences some emotion, perhaps not the full range of an average person, due to his background he probably doesn’t completely understand how to feel emotions properly. But he TRIES SO HARD with Aloy. Nil thinks she is similar to him because she is a capable fighter/killer, but she’s also on a different path than him, a path of leadership and empathy. He doesn’t understand leadership, he is just a soldier who follows orders. Also he has a warped sense of empathy, twisted by war. He likes her for all of her qualities even if he doesn’t understand the full scope of them. She loves life, but he only knows death. At first the attraction comes from the killing they do together, but then the other feelings he eventually feels for her (love?) comes from the empathy she shows him and the partnership they form.

Nil even had a partner before Aloy, whom he didn’t seem too torn up about them dying. But when he first meets Aloy, he already appears cares about her from the beginning. He states that he likes her and looks forward to hunting with her. He also has a line that if Aloy dies, he'd kill the rest of the bandits before her body gets cold or something weird like that. But the more bandit camps you raid, the more he falls in love. Like.. I doubt he’d let serious harm come to her at that point. They’re more than just bandit-killing buddies, they’re partners, real partners. When there are no more bandits to kill, he sees their time coming to an end. How does he cope? FIGHT TO THE DEAAAATH. (Killing won’t be fun without her anymore, I don’t know where to go from here, oh wait GENIUS idea, die by her hands because it’ll be really fucking hot and romantic.) He confesses his feelings to her in the end in the dumbest way possible. He thinks he only feels through violence, so violence is the answer. If she agrees, he asks consent to confirm that she is okay with this and that he doesn’t want to pressure her (he is surprisingly polite). If she refuses, he’s heartbroken but he respects her choice (she breaks up with him, they part amicably).

OK BUT THEN Nil realizes that death and violence are not the best feelings you can feel. You can experience something better: life and love [audience awes]. So he shows up to help in the final battle. Because he still loves her... and because violence. Two in one, let’s gooooooooooooo

Aloy and Nil are both outcasts and haven’t had much normal interactions or conversation with regular people so when you put those two together they have HILARIOUS dialogue and reactions. They are both super awkward, the only difference is Aloy feels and acts awkward because she has a grasp of what “normal” conversations sound like, while Nil thinks he’s ABSOLUTELY NAILING this “having a normal human conversation with another normal human” thing every time they talk to each other. Which he isn’t. Everything he says is incredibly odd but he doesn’t seem to know or care. Aloy attempts a couple times to let him know what he’s saying is creepy but the man will not be deterred. He thinks he’s being charming.

Aloy: okgoodBYENIL. (best line delivery)

Okay.. okay... but.. The funniest and best part is that Aloy gives up on trying to tell Nil that’s he’s being weird and creepy because she realizes that he’s not doing it intentionally he just talks like that. So... then she just decides to accept it and befriend him instead!!! She attempts to relate to him, think like him, speak like him and it fails EVERY TIME BECAUSE THE DUMBASS MURDER MAN IS SO DENSE. Like one of my favorite moments is Aloy, knowing that he likes to kill, tells the murder boi that he can deal with the Eclipse as an outlet but then he’s like nah, i don’t get involved in politics. LMAO WHY IS THIS SO FUNNY TO ME. HE’S RIDICULOUS. Another moment she tries to relate to him on a friendly level:

Aloy: Your bow has a name? (He’s a weirdo.)

Nil: Yours doesn’t? (It’s normal, she’s weird.)

---------------

Aloy: So... what’s you knife called? (this weirdo named his bow, let me try to break the ice with a follow-up)

Nil: Why would someone name a knife? (????? (DENSE. SO DENSE.))

I know people like to say Nil is horny because of his sexually charged dialogue full of innuendos and that is totally valid! But I interpret it as a form of masking and/or his attempt at flirting by saying what he thinks someone in that situation would say. My funny little headcanon is that he doesn’t realize how horny he sounds. To Nil, this is a totally normal way to let someone you know you like them/look forward to seeing them again. You know, by saying things like:

“I can wait, I know you’ll be worth it.” (Translation: take your time, racing is better when you’re here)

“Here to unleash your demons? It always makes for quite a sight.” (Translation: girl pretty when she let’s herself have fun)

“Waiting will make the ride all the sweeter.” (Translation: I don’t mind waiting for you, I enjoy our time together)

This is getting way too long and I’m just rambling? idk what direction i’m taking this tbh? I guess I just really like Nil because of his character development. His arc starts with him knowing no other purpose than to kill. It was what he was  trained to do. He grew up in war, he doesn’t know a life besides war. Which is why after the war, he had a hard time adjusting and thought he had to continue killing to have a purpose in life. Everything else felt so empty.

Until he met Aloy.

Stupid sexy Nil wanted to die towards the end of his questline in HZD because he didn’t see a point in living, as dramatic as that sounds. His purpose was fulfilled, there were no more bandits to kill! And even if there were more bandits to kill, it wouldn’t be as fun if Aloy wasn’t around. So as far as he knows, he’s peaked in life. Which is why he requests to fight to the death on the plateau.

And in game canon, Aloy is like... No!! dumbass, I’m not killing you! We’re friends, I guess. Why don’t you be my ally in this world ending battle.

Aloy, before final battle: Nil, you’re making it difficult to be glad to see you. (She is glad to see him but Nil says something that’s very... Nil, as usual)

So Nil becomes her ally in battle. Then he survives. Now.. he wants to live. He wants to try to experience life like Aloy does. And probably realizes that Aloy sorta maybe just a little disapproves him killing for sport................ So he takes up the less violent hobby of street racing with a bunch of rebel kids who didn’t want to fight in war. He knows what war does to people, he is a product of war. He keeps these kids on a better track in life (get it????? because racetrack they race on the right track of life now, get it eh? get-).

Nil: A reunion with an old partner deserves more than a handshake, don’t you think? (running you off the track (violence) is our thing! a secret handshake! an inside joke that normies have, right?! winky face emoji)

Aloy: We killed bandits together, Nil. For different reasons. I’m not sure we were partners. (serious)

Nil: I am. Now more than ever. Especially since we’ve moved on to something more entertaining. (ok but you were intrigued by my disguise and kept coming back to race me... so you like me. also, you changed me! i enjoy life now, too.)

Anyways it’s cute and if they bring him back next game I hope he develops more and becomes a more prominent ally to Aloy. Also it would be hilarious if he adapts a new alias and changes his look again.. but this time as his ~*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ truest self *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧~

ok bye

if you made it to the end well.. i don’t know what to tell you. i hope it was entertaining? um.. here you go:

[allthingsarmin]

nerd!armin x popular bimbo girl!reader?

the reader needs a tutor so she asks the smartest boy on campus and they have a “study session” in the library

Thank you for your request! I hope you like it! (ALSO: I’m so sorry this took so long to write omgmgg please forgive me) ~ I also would like to write a better version of this later. Though I'm in love with this prompt, I feel I didn't write the smut part that well.

Minors DNI! NSFW below the cut. Fem!Reader, FemBodied!Reader.

_________________________

At this point, Armin’s legs were burning, his heart racing and hands uncontrollably shaking, while you were practically out breath, your lungs tightening as you released yet another hearty laugh and not caring about the sweat running down your forehead. Neither you nor Armin expected to be running away from the librarian at 2am in the morning on the cold, campus sidewalk, your hair and makeup questionably messy and his shirt noticeably unbuttoned with hickeys staining his neck. However, the thrill of it all was something you didn’t know you both needed…

Earlier:

“Y/n?” Armin questioned, waving his sharpened pencil in front of your face. “Are you paying attention?” He awkwardly laughed as he scratched the back of his neck. You look up at him, battering your mascara-covered eyelashes at him. “Ahh… I have no idea what’s going on,” you sighed.

Armin wanted to bang his head against the library table. He knew it would be difficult teaching the ‘campus bimbo,’ but he didn’t know it would be this hard… yet there he was. 1am on a Thursday, the test tomorrow, and you still couldn’t grasp the basics of quadratic functions.

“Why don’t we take a break?” he suggested, loudly dropping his pencil on the table, leaning back in his chair, and adjusting his disheveled collar poking out of his blue sweater.

“Okay!” you giggled mindlessly, turning to face him in your chair as you twirled your hair in your fingers. “Even though I’ll probably fail the test tomorrow, thank you for teaching me!” you exclaimed, fiddling with your compact mirror and checking your dolled-up face.

Armin tensed up at your backhanded words. Pushing his hair back out of frustration, he cursed the fact he was wasting his time with such an ai-headed girl. “Y-you’re welcome,” he hastily said as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.

Why didn’t he say no to your study session - if you could even call it a study session - ? Even though Armin was the school nerd, it’s no surprise to him that you came and asked him for help because, well… Everyone does that - always taking advantage of Armin - only talking to him because they want to use his neat, color-coded notes, only inviting him to parties so that he would later help them study.

You felt bad for Armin. Though you couldn’t deny he was way too uptight, everyone did make fun of him for every little thing; the way he dressed like a professor, how he was always so punctual, the way he was the first to raise his hand when the teacher asked a question, how he came extra prepared to class with extra pencils.

But being so close to him now, this was the first time you realized how handsome he actually was. His turquoise veins protruding from his soft, pale skin… his slender fingers gently holding his flashcards, his toned muscles peeking their way through his rolled up sleeves and making his clothes just a little tight, the sharpness of jawline contrasting with his kind, bright smile, the way his ocean blue eyes stared intently with such passion, and his thick, golden hair growing to his eyebrows, allowing his cute ears to shyly show themselves while his undercut beautifully shaped his face… he was beautiful.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” you suddenly asked.

Armin was taken aback by this question. No one had ever asked him this nor did any one seem to have any interest in his personal life whatsoever.

“No,” he paused, “I don’t have time for that stuff…” he trailed off. Armin never had a girlfriend, and thinking about it now, he never really had any crushes. He was way too busy keeping up with his grades, extra curricular activities, and student council. It would be practically impossible for him to keep such close relations with his kind of responsibilities, but that doesn’t mean he’s not lonely… his arms aching for someone to hold, his heart cold due the absence of warmth of a person he loves.

Armin didn’t bother asking you if you had a boyfriend. You were the most popular person on campus, partying with countless dudes every weekend, hanging out with a large group of girls at the mall nearly every day, your phone buzzing so much during class that your professor told you multiple times to turn it off, and you were pretty - your hair was always done in a pretty style, your makeup (though a bit slutty) always brought out the best features of your face, your nails were always painted, your skin was smooth and silky, and your perfume scent was addicting. Not only that but your clothes showed off your body so well; your skirt that was just a little short allowed people to see your cute panties when you bend over to pick something up, and your shirt that was barely even a shirt was always cropped above your waist and showed off your bouncy, plush cleavage… so of course you had a boyfriend. But even though Armin was an incredibly focused nerd, he couldn’t deny that your sweet smell, tight clothes, and lipstick-covered lips made him lustful.

“Too busy for that stuff?! Aren’t you lonely? It’s like you don’t even know how to have fun,” you chuckle, jokingly hitting his shoulder which happened to be really muscular underneath his sweater.

“Haha yeah,” he said, seemingly uninterested in where you were going with this.

“If you’re so busy, does that mean you don’t have time to masturbate?” you giggled, covering your plump mouth with your hand and fluttering your eyelashes at him.

Armin became extremely flustered as tints of red washed over his body in waves.

“W-what?” he stuttered. “Why are you asking me these questions? We are supposed to be studying!” he quietly shrieked, looking away to break eye contact with you and playing with the watch on his wrist.

“Haha, I am just joking. You’re such a nerdy boy, just want to make you blush,” you sincerely smiled.

“W-well I am a young college student, so obviously I - I do that from time to time thanks to p-porn,” he stammered.

“Woah woah wait. Someone as uptight and rigid as you watches porn?” you harshly laughed, genuinely shocked. You scooted your chair closer to him and leaned into his neck, your hot breath caressing his skin and your hair resting upon his shoulder. “What kind of porn does this nerd like to watch?” you inquired, widely grinning as you saw how embarrassed Armin had become.

On the inside, Armin was fuming, mostling frightened that he had gotten himself into an embarrassing loop with no escape that would most likely be gossiped about amongst the popular students, but mostly angry that some dumb, slutty bitch was wanting to pry into his personal life, not even appreciating the fact that he spent countless hours in the library helping you study to no avail because you couldn’t pay attention if your life depended on it… that this same dumb, slutty bitch was just getting her fun from teasing some nerd who is taken advantage of and forgotten by everyone… angry that you - with your pretty makeup, plump lips, short skirt, and overflowing cleavage - weren’t paying the price for your teasing.

Suddenly, Armin sat up in his chair, his muscles tensing through his clothes, and an aggravated look forming across his face, wrinkling his brows. He quickly takes a fistful of your hair and pulls you close to his face, allowing you to see the different shades of blue in his eyes and his soft, blond eyelashes. His innocent, geeky look is nowhere to be found on his face as he intensely stares into your eyes.

“It just so happens that this nerd likes to watch useless, empty-headed bimbos like you get their pussies abused,” he said, dominance seething from his teeth as his mint breath hits your face. Before you even have time to think, Armin unbuttons his slacks and practically forces your mouth on his hard, pretty cock.

Watching you gag and choke on his cock with saliva dribbling down your chin made him laugh. “You’re gonna have to be a little quieter, slut, we’re in a library remember?” he coos. He abruptly pulls you off his cock, taking in the sight of his lipstick-stained tip and the mascara tears streaming down your face. His treatment was so harsh and so sudden, making you miss the ‘nicer’ and ‘quieter’ Armin, but you couldn’t deny his sudden dominance made your aching cunt flood with arousal.

Before doing anything else, Armin scans the library, making sure no one is around. Grabbing your wrist, he forces you to sit on his lap, facing him on top of the library chair. Everything happened so quickly, barely even leaving you time to think, barely leaving you time to think that Armin was using your body to relieve his anger and frustration, not leaving you time to realize how sopping wet your needy cunt actually was.

Sitting atop his lap, he spreads your plush, soft thighs, exposing the fact that you didn’t wear any panties to this study session, causing Armin’s eyes to widen.

“I don’t know why I’m so surprised that a whore like you wouldn’t wear anything underneath your short skirt to our little ‘play date,’” he snickers. He leans close to your ear, softly biting your neck. “It’s almost like you were asking to be fucked by me.”

You don’t know what to say. Your mind is so empty, fuzzy, and shocked that the only thing you can do is comply when he demands that you ride his cock. Armin lets out a low groan from the bottom of his throat as your tight, warm pussy encloses his thick cock. You let a pathetic whimper as he begins to thrust up into you, and Armin gives you a glare, reaching up and tightening his hands around your throat. “Remember, you have to be quiet, or are you too dumb to remember that?” he sinisterly smiles.

Armin begins to harshly thrust into you as you wrap your arms around his neck, holding onto dear life as he deeply penetrates your spongy, sensitive walls. He slithers his slender hands into your shirt and starts toying with your nipples and pinching them when you’re being too loud.

Groping your ass, he whispers in your ear, “you know, I don’t even know why you’re in college… you’re so dumb. Why don’t you just drop out and be my little slut for when I come back after class, huh?” You sink your head into the crook of his neck, embarrassment coming over you at the same time as pleasure fills your walls when he tells you those mean words.

He grabs your hair, forcing you to look at him. Your hair is a tangled mess, your makeup completely smeared, and your eyebrows furrowed as your innocent-looking eyes beg for some type of release.

“F-fuck, you look so dirty,” he groans, leaning his head back.

“And you look like two students who are going to be in so much trouble…”

Both of you tense up and look behind you to find the librarian staring daggers into your souls.

Immediately, you hop off of Armin’s dick, gathering your things as he struggles to pull up his pants. Both of you at an ungodly speed bolt out of the library doors. Yeah, getting potentially banned from the library would suck, but maybe it was something you both needed. Armin needed to learn to loosen up, have some fun, and you needed to learn to take things seriously and maybe just put in a little more effort.

“Ya’know, it’s kind of late. We can go back to my dorm, and I can help you study for maybe another half hour… if you want,” Armin shyly asks as you both continue running down the sidewalk.

“What about the other half hour?” you questioned.

Armin’s face grows red. “We can finish… chemistry…”

[thesunicarusfellfor]

Hey!! I love your writing. Can you do a Yandere! Ranboo, Tommy , and tubbo. where they are all in love with the reader and they kidnapped her to ‘keep her safe’ and the reader doesn’t know at first, then she slow realized they are obsessed with her. she like them back but she also want to live her life, so she tries to make agreement? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.

The Ranboo gif is just beautiful and I love it. Lemme see what I can do for ya! I wrote a bullet point Platonic fic if that's fine? I'm still worried about writing the minors in romantic relationships, even if it's the characters.

Sorry, it took so long... My burnout got really bad and I refused to even write basic stuff. But I'm back now! Well. Mostly.

Safe Behind Glass (Yandere!Plat!C!Bench Trio x GN!Reader)

You were a little groggier than normal when you awoke, but it was nothing to alarm you immediately.

Just simply brushing it off as you weren't feeling the best that day, you rolled over to fall back to sleep, but quickly noticed something wrong.

It didn't feel... Right?

The blankets... The mattress... The pillow... They weren't yours...

You peeled your eyes open and your expression went blank with fear.

The room was beautiful mind you.

But it wasn't yours either.

You were laying on a fluffy (f/c) canopy bed, surrounded by quartz walls that were dimly lit soul lanterns that prevented you from being completely swallowed by darkness.

Slowly dragging yourself off the bed, you heard a metal 'clunk' that hit the cold quartz flooring below you.

Turning your head to face downwards, you saw that a decently thick metal chain was cuffed to your ankle.

Somehow, your panic became worse as you immediately grabbed onto it and started to yank on the solid metal, but it refused to budge.

You had no idea how many minutes or hours you spent in that room. Reaching at the iron door desperately, yanking at the chain around your ankle that kept you from reaching the exit, searching the blue lanterns for anything...

But then, the white metallic door slowly swung open, revealing Ranboo, Tubbo and Tommy.

You weren't that close to them, save for a couple interactions here and there, but hey, they came to save you! That didn't matter in the slightest!

You almost cried upon seeing them and moved to walk over, but the chain stopped you from reaching them, and you noticed that they weren't moving to help you.

"You're awake!" Tubbo chirped softly, his tan goat ears wiggling with joy, "I'm glad the potion didn't stick for too long... You could've wound up starving if you stayed asleep."

Horror slowly began to set into your heart as Ranboo nodded and walked over to the dark oak table in the corner of the room and set down a basket of food.

"Ran...Boo...?" You whispered, watching as the monochrome male turned and curiously tilted his head in your direction, "Why... Am I here?"

Instead, Tommy stepped in front of you with a bright cheesy smile, the same one that resembled when he would find a new disc or start a new adventure, "For your safety, (N/n)!"

"Safety?" You choked out softly, Ranboo quickly guiding you to sit in the oak chair, "But... I'm one of the richest people on the server... I have god armour... Nothing could kill m-"

"Techno and Dream can." Tubbo interrupted sharply, halting you mid-sentence.

Right... That masked man... Or whatever he was... He was extremely dangerous, as well as Techno. They could likely pierce your netherite chest plate without even flinching at the number of thorns you had enchanted.

"We don't want anyone to bring you any harm... There's no problem with that, right, (Y/n)?" Ranboo smiled, flashing his sharpened teeth unthreateningly.

No... You wanted to say, but you wanted freedom! You wanted to expand your house to the size of a mansion! You wanted to bicker with Quackity about the stupidest of things! You wanted to get building advice from Phil!

Not be locked away because your safety was a tiny bit compromised!

"Tommy... Tubbo... Ranboo... Please, I'm not going to just stay locked away because I-"

"You'll see things our way soon... Eat up, get your rest." Tubbo smiled and gave you a hug, ignoring how you froze suddenly, before turning and skipping out of the room with the taller two following behind him.

Despite... How screwed up the three were with their methods of making you be their friend, it was working...

They were actually incredibly friendly and funny. It made life in capture bearable! Even though you were incredibly snappy and cruel to them in the beginning, they never held it against you.

Although... Despite their kindness and your quickly blooming friendship, you still had a craving to go outside. Even if what the three told you about everyone forgetting you existed was true.

"You look sad, (N/n)..." Tubbo murmured softly, watching you stare off into the blank quartz wall, "Are you okay?"

Tommy straightened up from his handmade scribble of a map, turning his head towards you in confusion. Ranboo stopped writing mid-word likely and looked in your direction as well.

They never liked it when you were upset.

You pursed your lips silently for a moment, clearly unsettling the males around you, "I just... Haven't been feeling too great... Both mentally and physically I mean... I need sunlight..."

"Yeah... I was reading about that earlier..." Ranboo hummed softly, adjusting his crown as he looked up at the ceiling, "But the issue is..."

"My safety... Yes, I know. What if, I wear my full netherite armour and keep a totem AND a Rapple on me? And also not leave your sides?" You bargained nervously.

That hadn't worked before. But then again, You weren't as close to them before...

The silence that fell upon the room was unsettling and caused your heart to race quickly. If they didn't like what you said, you would be alone for a few straight days... You didn't like it...

"Okay."

What.

That worked?

You just had to ask?!

You watched as Tubbo stood up and pulled the small ender chest from his pocket and set it on the ground, causing it to grow to normal size.

Standing aside, he made a gesture for you to open it and get your stuff.

Hesitantly, You walked over and kneeled down in front of the ender chest. Looking to Tubbo and the others for confirmation, you slowly opened it once they nodded.

Carefully, you began pulling out your armour but paused seeing the lack of golden apples and totems.

Right... Before you had gotten kidnapped by the group, you had used a totem when you fell into the L'Manhole where L'Manberg once was.

That what caused them to kidnap you...

"I-I used... My totem... And Fundy stole my Rapple..." You murmured hesitantly, feeling ready to cry.

Your only chance to escape and you couldn't grab it...

"Hey! Hey! Don't cry! Here!" Ranboo eagerly held the two golden items out towards you at the first sight of tears gathering under your eyes.

"What...?"

"(Y/n)! We want you to be happy! If being outside, even with god armour, rapples and totems, makes you happy, then damn well we're bringing you outside!" Tommy grinned.

After a few tears and lots of hugs, Tubbo helped you hop into your armour while Ranboo unlocked the chain cuff from around your ankle. Tommy had left, leaving the door open for once, going to scout the area for any dangerous mobs.

"Ready?" Ranboo smiled, linking one of his arms with yours, the one that you held the totem in to be more specific. Tubbo happily linked his arm with the other one.

You could only nod, your voice caught in your throat as they began to walk you out the door, Ranboo had to duck down a lot, before leading you to the quartz stairway.

Once up the stairs, Tubbo pressed in a code to the iron door and it slid open quickly, causing you to flinch and pinch your eyes shut at the bright painful light of the sun.

It took about twenty minutes of trying to adjust to the sunlight with the two males encouraging you before you were able to look around.

It was everything you had missed...

The sunlight...

The trees...

God, it was perfect...

Tommy eventually came out of the tree line and sat down beside you as you took it all in...

Months, you were down there. And sure, they gave you plenty of decorations to prevent you from experiencing sensory deprivation, nothing could ever compare to the beauty of the outside world.

A voice cut through the air -calling for someone or something named Fran?- and you almost didn't recognize it. But then the owner came out of the trees, almost a similar direction that Tommy came from earlier.

Sam? He looked so... Different now...

The creeper hybrid slowly lowered his gas mask to show his mouth dropped in shock, "(Y/n)...? You're alive...?"

Tommy, Tubbo and Ranboo were freaking out, trying to bring you back into the bunker, as they called it, but you weren't budging. You hadn't seen another being in ages... And while you did platonically love the three boys, you enjoyed hearing a new voice.

"You... Remember me? But... Tubbo you said-" You frowned at the goat hybrid as they stopped suddenly, realizing that you weren't moving.

"You three... Kept them locked away... For almost an entire year?" Sam's voice was getting a little bit scary now, but it wasn't directed at you, instead, at your best friends...

"Sam! It was to protect them! Please!" Ranboo tried, but he wasn't making it better.

"You made Quackity believe they ran away... Made Philza wake up every morning and walk through the SMP for any signs of them... Gave Puffy false information on where you have last seen them... lied to everyone... Only to be the reason that they were gone." Sam growled out, gripping his trident, "Then you proceeded to make them think we all forgot about them..."

"S-Sam... You've got this all wrong big man..." Tubbo tried next...

The warden wasn't listening as he pointed his trident at them, his communicator in his other hand next to his mouth, then he started speaking, causing his voice to come out of Ranboo's, Tubbo's and Tommy's pockets. He was speaking on the public channel.

"Tommy Innit, Tubbo Underscore, Ranboo Beloved... You are being placed in the prison, Pandora's Vault, for keeping (Y/n) (L/n) imprisoned in a bunker and lying about their whereabouts."

It felt like someone splashed you with cold water...

[fuck-customers]

idk if this is the place to complain about this but man i am still so angry about this. this is mostly me complaining about bad management but it involves someone who SHOULD NOT have been allowed to bank with us but it requires a lot of context for how screwed up this was so apologies

i got hired for a financial institution despite having no prior experience in banking, which is fine because i'm pretty quick on the uptake and i learn new things pretty easily so i tend to not struggle so long as i know the general idea of what i'm doing. the training at this place was abysmal and the company knew it because they were talking about completely restructuring how it was done since none of the new hires were learning anything, but basically the headquarters was located in a different city so for our area they had to do a zoom call for 8 hours a day for a week straight while the trainer was in the other city in a classroom with other new hires who were clearly the priority, and she was so disconnected from how the company operated and a lot of the processes she taught us were irrelevant and/or outdated based on our branch

(for instance she taught us very explicitly how to handle our cash drawers but the branches i worked at didn't HAVE cash drawers and the one i did end up going to for one shift to help out had a cash drawer that operated entirely differently than how she taught us. she was also very clear on us having a super strict dress code, especially regarding tattoos, and that any exposed tattoos were absolutely against company protocol but then that branch i went to that had a cash drawer had every single employee with at least one fully exposed tattoo, which i don't care about i think that's super cool especially since one of the employees was a much older woman who was talking about saving up for a new one soon, but this is just a testament to how disconnected and inaccurate the training was)

and the worst part is that when we were finally out of training, the employees and managers at our branches once we were let loose made it clear they had no interest in training us further. when i had a customer come in who had a specific issue they needed resolving, i'd have to run to go grab someone to let me know what exactly i needed to do, but they wouldn't really, like. explain it. it's hard to describe without going into detail but they'd basically just say the name of the form you needed to print out, not what it was or what it was for or where to find it, and they talked to me like i already knew about this stuff and that i was asking an unnecessary question. and then i'd get reprimanded for not printing out the appropriate sheet to go into scanning for our back-end to properly update and catalogue the customer's activity even though no one told me. i didn't have anything properly explained to me because of how bad training was, we were taught so many useless things there because every single branch operated entirely differently but the individual branches would not actually teach you how they did the job in a way that you actually understood

i'll end the exposition with saying that of the four new hires, including myself, the only two who are having any modicum of success are the female banker who previous worked with car loans, and the female teller who'd been in banking for 8 years before being hired for this place. there's an older male banker who'd been a manager at a retail store for 30 years which is incredible, and he still has no idea what he's doing and they're probably going to let him go soon, and then there's me, who got fired because of a mistake they made during their second week on the floor

there was this customer who came in who wanted to have a larger check deposited, but during training the protocol told to us about holding checks was mostly just telling us what amount gets held and for how long. if a check is over a certain amount (which hers was) you have to manually type the check's information into the system to run it through, and depending on how it comes back, there are literally two big buttons on the screen. one is green that says "accept check" and the other is red that says "place hold on check" like i am not exaggerating, this is how the system's designed. i run her check through, i KNOW it has to have a hold placed on it and the system's even telling me to, so i hit the big red button that SAYS "PLACE HOLD ON CHECK" thinking oh so innocently that it'd, you know. PLACE THE HOLD ON THE CHECK. then i scanned the check in and deposited it into her account because even when you're placing a hold on the check, you still have to do this since the system will release the money once the hold period's expired

a week later one of my managers calls me into his office and asks me why i didn't place the hold on her check. i told him i definitely did, i ran it through the system and knew that a hold had to be placed on it so i hit the big red button that says "place hold on check" and he goes on to say that there was no hold placed on the check and that he watched me on the camera footage to see i didn't ask anyone for help (why would i need to do that when there's a BIG. RED. BUTTON. THAT OOOOOH I CAN'T KEEP SAYING THIS) and since no hold was placed the member is now overdrawn over ten thousand dollars. okay. but i DID place a hold, so i don't have an answer for you. he tells me then that collections and fraud have to get involved in this to try to get the money back, and that i should have been paying more attention to the customer's account because if i'd gone to look into her notes then i'd have seen that she has a history of trying to cash bad checks and that she's cashed large faulty checks before and that this isn't the first time this has happened with her account, it's just the largest amount in which it's happened and that i'd have known this and i should have grabbed someone to help me with her if i'd gone into her account to look at her notes

ok so my question is: why the fuck was she allowed to bank with us then??? if she has a recognizable and repeated history of cashing bad checks to the point where i'd have needed a manager to help her anyway, then what the fuck is the point?? my manager would let people bank with us who would literally scream their heads off at him in front of other customers and he'd just laugh it off and let them keep banking with us, and one time a customer was screaming at the manager in his office so loudly that one of my coworkers was about to call the police, but he still let them bank with us. and like, they aren't causing us to lose money, their accounts were fine, but we aren't a big box retail store!! so why is he making us put up with this!! and why are people who have a documented history of causing us to lose money allowed to bank with us!! how is this my fault, ESPECIALLY SINCE I PLACED THE HOLD???

so then i asked them if i was being fired, or whatever, and they said they weren't sure and that they'd get back to me. another couple of weeks later i have a member come in who has some strange activity on his account, and the manager comes over and says i need to place a different kind of hold on his check since he didn't have a history of depositing them into his account. i see the manager doing it for me, and apparently

pressing the big fucking button that says "place hold on check" does absolutely nothing but let the manager know that you looked at the check

you have to go into an entirely separate menu that literally no one, not even the instructor during training, showed me how to do and no one even so much as mentioned it to me, so much so that i thought that the system would automatically flag the check to be held if it was after a certain amount and the policy on the hold for checks was just for us to know to be able to answer any of the customer's questions, since not a single soul showed me how to actually go in and manually place a hold on a check, and that's what the manager meant by me not placing the hold for that previous customer

so i explained this to him afterwards and i said "no one ever showed me that menu, and i just assumed that hitting the button placed the hold on and the system automatically knew how long to place the hold for" and he doubles down on how i should have looked at the member's notes and asked for help. that doesn't change the issue i had at all but thanks for the tip i guess

flash forward two months, at this point three tellers and one banker had quit at another branch and our area was down a considerable amount of employees. like to have a fully functioning branch you need four tellers and two bankers and this other branch was barely scraping by because of how many people they were down and how the company was having such a hard time getting anyone interested in applying for the positions. i go into work one morning and the first thing they tell me is that they're firing me because they couldn't get the money back. i really stress that no one told me how the hold system actually worked because the only thing that had ever been gone over with me was just the policy on how long items are held and not how to actually do it, so i assumed it was automatic. and my manager still says "you should have looked at her notes"

how in the world would looking at her notes say anything about how i'm supposed to manually place a hold? the problem was that you guys did such a poor job at training me that i made a big mistake on my second week on the floor because i was unsupervised and left with a customer who absolutely should not have been allowed to bank with us, and it took two months. two. months. to hear ANYTHING back about it. i know that they fired me because upper management would have reprimanded them because they knew i was unsupervised and poorly trained and that ended up costing the company a lot of money, so it was just to save their own hides. but the stupidest part is that there's a job shortage AND they're so understaffed that they'd need to essentially hire and train a whole new team to be able to operate a single branch, so instead of like. idk just putting me on probation or giving me one last chance they just straight up fire me and make it even harder for everyone else because now they have one less person, and the funny part about all this is that they're trying to open up another branch in my area, which will be great to see how that ends up working out since one branch is barely operable

management knew how bad training was when they saw how big of a mistake i made during my second week there because i was so poorly equipped to handle the job and i had nothing properly explained to me. i was left with a customer that should not have been allowed to have an account with us, and because they knew how badly they screwed up, i was the one to be let go so that the managers could keep their positions. instead of owning up to it though they had vague talks of restructuring their training course because it's so badly done that if you get hired at this place without any prior experience in banking, you're basically being set up for failure. they have no intention of training you if you don't already know what you're doing, and their negligence causing you to make mistakes is your fault because you should have "paid better attention". man fuck this place, i have never worked anywhere this disorganized

[amphibious-entity]

TMBS Book 1 Brain Dump

~An Embarrassingly Long Post~

I don’t know why I’m writing this or why I’m so determined to do it. Maybe to finally assume my true form and become a mega dork on main, or maybe just for fun!

This is basically a compilation of all the main points running through my head after reading The Mysterious Benedict Society (2007) for the first time. Rather than posting a ton and spamming the tag, everything’s here in one neat package! (hopefully this gets it all out of my system rip)

Contents:

The Book Itself

The Book Itself, for real this time

The Characters

A Funny Parallel

The S.Q. Section

Lines & Scenes I Liked

Spoilers abound!

The Book Itself

Upon acquiring the first three books (don’t judge me pls), I was surprised at just how long they are. Like, they’re still pretty light being paperbacks and all, but these books are hefty lads.

The first book has this Disney+ Original Series circle thing printed on it, which is kind of unfortunate. Regardless, I love the cover illustration and yellow is actually my favorite color :D It made me weirdly quite happy whenever I saw the book lying around in my room

Also, it’s really cute how there’s a letter from Mr. Benedict at the end! (It only reveals that you can find out his first name if you “know the code”, meaning the bit of Morse printed below the summary on the back.) Shock and horror, though, as I realized I’m starting to recognize some of the letters

The Book Itself, for real this time

It’s wonderful how the tone of the book really shone through to the show adaptation. Something about the deliberateness of the aesthetic, from the set designs to the fashion to scene compositions, that really sells that particular style— like it’s very clear that this story is being told to us, rather than one we’re seeing unfold, if that makes sense.

Where that narration style stood out to me the most was the first chapter. We are told (rather than shown) how Reynie gets himself to the point of the second test, and there’s this whole twisty time maneuver for that whole sequence of events that’s really interesting

A super secret fun fact about me is that I wanted to be a writer when I was younger! So this particular balance of show vs. tell is really neat, since it runs counter to my own tendencies. The sheer amount of commas in every sentence is also kind of comforting, since Ahah, I Do That in those few serious-ish attempts at writing lol

Overall this book’s style reminds me a lot of Roald Dahl’s books, which are very nostalgic for me :D The whole “kids are more competent than adults” angle helps a lot too haha

The Characters

Oh boy here’s where I get a little bit critical! Overall I did really like this book!! it’s just that that expresses itself in all this weird “”analysis”” lol

Reynie - much better in the books than in the show

It’s sort of a lukewarm take but I feel like show!Reynie is kind of boring? He doesn’t have a lot going on flaw-wise, and obviously since he’s the protagonist he can’t have too many weird traits or else the kids watching can’t project themselves onto him as easily

(I call it the difference between an aspirational protagonist and a vessel protagonist. Going off of the Roald Dahl vibes, think Matilda vs Charlie. show!Reynie is more of a Charlie)

Thus when we get to see him really struggle with the Whisperer and doubt himself it gives him a lot more dimension, at least in my opinion

It is a federal crime that the white knight scenes were not adapted into the show

Sticky - my son

I’ve long held to no one besides myself and my long suffering sister that Sticky is The Best Member of the Society

He happened to hit a lot of the Bingo squares of Stuff I Like In Characters: glasses, anxious, nice :), kind of a coward but ultimately is there for his friends, etc

For some reason I don’t talk about him nearly as much as you-know-who, but I love him just as dearly

Kate & Constance - I don’t have much to say

Kate is really interesting in this book! I like how we get to see more of her depths, in particular that one passage about her belief that she is invincible being the only thing that keeps her from falling apart? :c

Also her constant fidgeting is relatable lol

Constance is somehow a lot more tolerable in the book. I think I’m just one of those people with no patience for small children, unfortunately lol

(Some of) The Adults

It’s interesting that they had such an offscreen presence for most of the book. Giving them more time was probably one of the stronger changes of the show

However if that decision was made at the expense of the white knight scenes I think the choice should have been clear

I like the way Rhonda and Number Two are written

Milligan always on sad boy hours 😔✊

The “mill again” passage is touching but kind of messes up the pacing of the getaway, at least for me. Maybe I should read it again to make sure I didn’t miss something

Miss Perumal is much better in the show. We see so little of her in the book she doesn’t function well as an emotional anchor for Reynie, imo

The Institute Gang

Jackson and Jillson serve their purpose well, and Martina was surprising to say the least. I like the direction they took her in the show! I can’t imagine how funny it must have been to watch the tetherball subplot come out of nowhere lolol

These sections were written out of sequence, so random tidbit I couldn’t fit in The S.Q. Section: I like how he stumbles over his words. relatable

Mr. Curtain

While I think I know why they decided to not give Curtain the wheelchair in the show, we were totally robbed of Actor Tony Hale’s performance for the reveal during the final confrontation

Speaking of the wheelchair, it’s such a powerful symbol of his need for control or rather, his fear of losing it

The Contrast between him and Mr. Benedict. This point is expanded on in A Funny Parallel

Mr. Benedict

Oh boy, Mr. Benedict… How do I say this

I find it hard to trust Mr. Benedict, unfortunately

I mean to say, I do in the sense that I know he would never hurt the kids, thanks to knowing that a) this is a children’s book series and b) the meta (tumblr) states that he is really nice and lovable and stuff, but seriously. Why do the kids trust him at first?? I probably missed something somewhere

I like to think I’m an optimistic person, but unfortunately I’m also super paranoid. The premise of “a bunch of vulnerable orphans team up with a strange old man” is just so odd to me I don’t know how to explain it

I don’t know!!! I really want to trust Mr. Benedict

One of the strengths of the show is that we get to see him more often, and thus he gets to acknowledge more often that the plan is weird and that he feels really badly for putting the kids in danger and that he’s trustworthy and genuine

But his lack of presence for most of the book just makes him into something of a specter, invisible and unknowable, speaking only in riddles from across the bay

Which is why the white knight scene is so important!! I loved that scene ;-;

Because here’s an actual emotional connection! We can actually see it happening, rather than only being told that it exists

Reynie asking for advice and receiving encouragement, in words that demonstrate that Mr. Benedict actually cares about him and worries about him and agghh

It is a federal crime that the white knight scenes were not adapted into the show

But overall this whole issue didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the book at all! It’s just ->

A Funny Parallel

Okay, ready for my biggest brain, hottest take ever??

Mr. Benedict and Mr. Curtain…. are… the same

I mean obviously not entirely, given that one is benevolent and kind and the other is… Mr. Curtain

But seriously. Genius old man seeks out children (mainly orphans) to enact a plan. Said children often end up incredibly devoted to his cause and deeply admire him this is a little flimsy

Undoubtedly that’s intentional and is supposed to show the difference between them, like some kind of cautionary tale? “Let yourself be vulnerable and let others help you, lest you turn eeeeviiillll”

I guess that’s where the aforementioned epic contrast comes in. You get Mr. Curtain, strapped into his wheelchair and hiding behind those mirrored sunglasses, terrified (but unwilling to admit it) of ever showing the tiniest hint of vulnerability, vs. Mr. Benedict, who can let himself fall knowing that someone will catch him :’)

Anyhow I have nothing against the parallels, I just think it’s funny

The S.Q. Section

The S.Q. Quarantine Thread so it doesn’t leak out everywhere else <3

I’d like to meet the emo angstlord genius who read this book and decided to make SQ into Dr. Curtain’s son. What in the world

Okay I should probably preface this by saying that I absolutely adore both book!S.Q. and show!SQ with all my heart. Somehow, despite being a completely different character in both mediums, he has managed to be one of the best characters in either and certainly one of my favorites (besides Sticky of course) in the entire franchise, despite the fact that I’ve only read the first book/watched the show so far. I am confident in this statement.

But seriously! How?? Why?? I could probably write a whole other essay about why show!SQ is such an interesting character, and the change works so incredibly well. I’m just. Baffled

Okay, focus. book!S.Q. is such a sweetheart, oh my goodness. Like, 100% one of the most endearing characters in the book. Poor guy. I don’t even know where to start!!

He just seems to be a genuinely good guy at heart, despite being technically one of the bad guys. He’s genuinely happy for Reynie and Sticky when they became Messengers and helped Kate when she “fell” and was concerned about Constance when she looked sick and how he was in that meeting with Mr. Curtain and Martina?!!? aaahhhhghgh ;-; he just wants people to be happy TT-TT

Comparing him against literally every character at the Institute is probably what makes him so endearing tbh. When everyone else is so awful to the kids, it really makes him stand out. Like a cheerful little nightlight in the worst, most humid and rank bathroom you’ve ever been in

It’s kind of pointless to theorize about a book series that’s already concluded (I think?) but. Is the implication of S.Q.’s forgetfulness supposed to be that Mr. Curtain used him in brainsweeping experiments somehow? The timeline probably definitely absolutely doesn’t line up but like. How did he get to being a Messenger being the way he is now, given how cutthroat the process is? And then of course Mr. Curtain keeps him around as an Executive because he’s fun to mess with and presumably his loyalty. I’m very curious as to how their relationship develops in the other books, if at all. Those are probably where the seeds of the “let’s make them family” logic were planted

But wouldn’t it be hilarious if the reason we don’t know what “S.Q.” stands for in the books is that he just. Forgot

Another thing that occurred to me. Given that he and the other Executives were Messengers at some point, what were their worst fears? What is S.Q.’s worst fear?? Inquiring minds need to know

One last horrible little anecdote: I was thinking about book!S.Q. while eating breakfast, as one does, and suddenly it hit me.

I want to believe The Author Trenton Lee Stewart had the name for a character, S.Q. Pedalian, and was like, “Hm! What sort of quirky trait should this young fellow have?” Because, of course, in this style of fiction every character has to have at least one cartoonish or otherwise distinguishing trait to stand out in the minds of children. (For instance, Kate has her bucket, Sticky has his glasses, Constance is angry, and Reynie is Emmett from the Lego Movie)

Anyhow, he looks around the room, searching for inspiration. Suddenly he comes across a jumbo box of plastic wrap. Completely innocuous in design, save for one line of text. 300 SQ FT.

“…large… S.Q. …feet? THAT’S IT!” i’m sorry

Lines & Scenes I Liked

In no particular order!

Sticky quotes Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Evil combination aerobics/square dancing in the gym with the Executives

Everyone being happy at the end :’)

Everyone partying after Sticky reunites with his parents, and later finding Mr. Benedict asleep at his desk from the moment they shook hands :’’)

Literally any scene with Sticky in it

Any time Kate says “you boys” or “gosh”

[“Um, sir?” S.Q. said timidly, raising his hand. “A thought just occurred to me.” / Mr. Curtain raised his eyebrows. “That’s remarkable, S.Q. What is it?”] clown prince of my heart </3

S.Q.’s determined monologue about searching for clues after he bungled up the first time

Literally any scene with S.Q. in it (please refer to The S.Q. Section)

Reynie trying to resist the Whisperer.

[Let us begin. / First let me polish my spectacles, Reynie thought. / Let us begin. / Not without my bucket, Reynie insisted. He heard Mr. Curtain muttering behind him. / Let us begin, let us begin, let us begin. / Rules and schools are tools for fools, Reynie thought.]

NO MORE HURTIN’ WITH CURTAIN

Milligan showing up on the island!!

Remember the white knight hhhhhh

“controle”

A Super Secret Bonus Section

I would be extremely surprised if anyone read through all the way down here lol. Regardless, here’s a little acknowledgements section :D not tagging anyone since I don’t want to bother all of these people

Special shoutout to tumblr blog stonetowns for unknowingly yet singlehandedly demolishing my reluctance to read the books by posting a ton of cute quotes. Thank you for your service o7

Thanks to the two OGs that liked the post I made right before this one, for being my unwitting enablers and for sticking around despite being a) technically an internet stranger (hello!) and b) someone I haven’t spoken to irl in literal years (hey!!)

Last but not least thankz 2 my sister for putting up with me ranting about the book when I first got it and for asking about “CQ” sometimes lol. (i desperately hope you’re not reading this orz)

[polandspringz]

I made the decision to watch all of the Case Files of Jeweler Richard in a day and I am ABSOLUTELY LOSING MY FUCKING MIND

(Technically I’ve watched up to episode 11 so I have 1 more episode left but am leaving it until tomorrow because it’s 1 AM right now- but I digress)

Spoilers for up to episode 10 of the anime, and apologies because I don’t know how to do read more on mobile so LONG POST:

Okay so FIRST OFF- On the cover this show isn’t explicit in that it has LGBTQ themes- it’s not labeled as such or with BL or Shounen Ai, the usual genre titles we see in anime. However, when I first tried to watch it a few months ago, within the opening minute I just knew (I just forgot to continue after that first minute until today). A lot of times with anime you can just tell things based on the art style or the dialogue, and if it doesn’t end up having those themes, then you get a situation like Balance: Unlimited where all of Twitter was tweeting “wait, it isn’t a BL???”

That being said, this series DOES have LGBTQ themes, one of the early side characters talks about how she doesn’t want to go through with her marriage because she realized she’s a lesbian or bisexual and is still in love with her old roommate. Another character expresses thoughts about romance and marriage in ways that I’m sure people who are asexual or a romantic can identify with. And this isn’t just with the side characters, oh no. The entire show is centered around the relationship of Richard and Seigi, and oh my god is it wild in how it is presented.

If you go on the wiki for this show, as my sister and I did, you’ll see a sentence along the lines of “Richard and Seigi frequently compliment each other’s beauty and say how much they like one another, to the point that everyone around them believes them to be in a relationship. However it’s unclear if their words are romantic or not.” And then if you go to their relationship page on the wiki, it just says Seigi is Richard’s boyfriend. So what’s the truth? (TLDR: the wiki is right. They’re definitely in love.)

Well the thing that had me rolling is that Seigi says he likes rich. A lot. Specifically throws around the “daisuki” line almost every episode. He says Richard is like a jewel, calls him beautiful and pretty. Richard picks him up in the rain after being dumped. They go alone to fancy restaurants for dinner almost every night. They flirt. It feels almost undeniable that what they’re saying is romantic, and that any kiss confirmation is unnecessary. There is a major plot line during all this though of Seigi trying to ask out his female college classmate however, and the result makes it sort of feel like Richard and Seigi are together but they’re in this open relationship with no labels so Richard just wants Seigi to have no regrets. The plot with the classmate really doesn’t do anything to their relationship. Richard and Seigi still are being as wild as ever.

And the reason I refer to this as being “wild” is partially because while watching my sister and I were riffing on the dialogue a little. For an anime, the show is very progressive in it’s ideas, Richard in episode 1 or 2 straight up calling Seigi out for something he said about a foreign customer and making him promise to not discriminate or judge anyone for their race, religion, sexual orientation, appearance, etc. (My sister literally joked “DONT BE RACIST” and then her jaw dropped when Richard said just that). There’s a multitude of moments in the first half of the show where Richard basically is just glaring at Seigi or telling him off later with a deadpanned expression for being xenophobic or just blunt about things that end up being rude to customers, and it’s because of how surprising it is that the show NEVER misses a moment to be like “YEAH ACTUALLY DON’T BE RUDE” that makes it hilarious. It feels almost unreal when everything you make a joke about happens two seconds afterwards.

Circling back to Richard and Seigi relationship though, early on I called on the idea that the show was going to have the trope of “he’s rich and from Europe so he’s illegitimate or something and he’s going to have to go back and Seigi will run after him in this big airport scene” and I basically got all that. Except that Richard and Seigi don’t meet up again until they’ve both been in England for a while and then we learn that Richard’s family are terrible people because a clause in their dead great grandfather’s inheritance made it so only Richard can inherit this 300 million pound Diamond but ONLY if he married a traditional English housewife. This clause is said to be VERY VERY strict in that it HAS to be an English housewife to the LETTER. And she must be TRADITIONAL. Of course, Richard is refusing to do this. So you’re watching them mess around in England for a bit, I got another cliche/trope I wanted when Seigi fell sick and Richard had to care for him in the hotel room, before the characters suddenly get a phone call and Richard’s cousin goes:

“Hey Seigi! Guess what? Turns out you qualify for the marriage clause! Despite being Asian, the will and the law consider a homosexual civil partnership equivalent to a heterosexual marriage, so you can be with Richard and then he get’s the Diamond! So I’ll see you at the safe where the Diamond will be at!”

(I’m paraphrasing the words obviously but the part about civil partnership was what I specifically remember being said, but forgive me for any errors, as my jaw was on the floor when the show threw that curveball at me).

In case you’re confused, I’m not saying this is bad at all. I’m just saying when watching this show, it feels UNBELIEVABLY HILARIOUS the way these things literally get thrown at the audience. Stuff you would never expect in an anime just punch you in the face repeatedly and I was so shocked from this “viable marriage candidate” twist that I did SENSE was coming (but thought of it more of as a joke, BECAUSE HOW THE HECK DID HE FIT THE CLAUSE OF A TRADITIONAL ENGLISH HOUSEWIFE) I had to pause the episode and rush to spit out the water I just drank before I choked. And if this wasn’t enough to kill me, we learn later on, that the reason this whole crazy clause happened in this dead man’s will was because he wanted to get back at the rest of Richard’s family because the man’s son was marrying a woman from Sri Lanka and LITERALLY SAID “THE WHITE SUPERMACISTS” WOULD HARASS HER so all of this chaos was to give the fortune to their side of the family and piss off the racists. I just cannot believe I’m hearing and seeing all this in a Japanese anime. There was even discussion of how Japan’s traditional gender roles restrict women, and it’s just like HOW IS THIS SHOW SO PROGRESSIVE??? It literally feels like I’m watching a paradox and it’s sad because it shouldn’t but it’s hilarious and enjoyable all the same.

Once again, and sort of a TLDR, The Case Files of Jeweler Richard is an incredible show. It’s an unintentionally hilarious ride that isn’t baiting because it feels like it’s definitely presenting Richard and Seigi’s relationship as romantic coded without needing a kiss or anything. It’s strangely progressive and open minded for Japanese media, seems meta at times, and has left me stunned in ten out of twelves episodes thus far that I’m so sad I didn’t watch it week to week to see the reactions of the fans live. I highly recommend this series if you’re looking for something to just get you to laugh or just a fun story involving two male leads with great chemistry.

Now, here’s a representation of me watching this show:

[yellowocaballero]

Human Relations Snippet: Jon and Sasha versus Bad Telenovelas

This is a birthday request from @hihereami who wanted something very Latin American and an excuse to show me her favorite shows. This takes place in early Season 3, before Jude Perry but with Sasha working at the office. Jon fudged some stuff. It features incredibly stupid office dynamics, bad relationships, and a shared history that produced two very different people. Happy birthday, Ami!

CW as usual for Human Relations: explicitly discussed transphobia, references to 19th century racism, and a depiction of a platonic abusive relationship. 

Sasha now understood that she was talking to an expert. 

“Fine,” she said grudgingly, gathering the papers back up. She left out her great outline and timetable, though, because Martin should definitely appreciate it. “But the number one rule here is to keep up an active support system, right? Which means Jon needs more than just you.” Martin gave her a hilariously prissy look, which she responded with an equally prissy one. “He thinks we have a psychic bond or something.” They did but Sasha didn’t want to admit that. “Look, I’ve been harassing Jon for months about how shitty Jonah is. But if he’s going to listen to me, he needs to know that...I guess that I care about him more than I hate Jonah. That I’m not doing it out of spite or with some ulterior motive to get something out of him.”

Martin closed the manila folder, carefully attaching a label on it and writing down their coded filing system on the tab. “You don’t care about him more than you hate Jonah. You are doing this with ulterior motives. But it would be pretty hypocritical of me to care about that, so...he likes television? And he likes hearing about your life and the things important to you. He’s like this historical, cultural, political, anthropological sponge. I mean, he knows everything about everything, but it’s his passion. So if you want to combine the two…”

And, of course, once Martin said that then the answer was obvious.

Sasha liked to be the smartest person in the room.

The problem with people like Sasha was that, very frequently, they were the smartest person in the room. For seventeen years of her life Sasha had been remarkably and thoroughly assured that she would go places, she was really going to make all of us proud, she’s going to take care of us in our old age, Mrs. Pérez’s son just wastes every day with his girlfriend but here you are, studying all day with your complete lack of friends! 

Once she skipped town - well, town, country, Americas, oceans - all of that had been replaced with shiny grades and the bragging rights of Oxford and the implicit looming pressure of her scholarship. Sasha had always been the smartest person in the room. She couldn’t afford anything else - not if she wanted someone to care, not if she wanted to get anywhere in life. 

Every adult was somewhat of a child inside: happily ignoring a toy until it was taken away, at which point they would scream and scream. And when Sasha didn’t feel like the smartest person in the room - or, worse, others didn’t see her as the smartest person in the room - there was nothing tolerable about it. 

Upon retrospect, workplace and academic discrimination, in addition to some healthy insecurity, bothered her so much that she sold her soul to the devil about it, but apparently this was an semi-common occurrence. Abuela had been right. Teach Sasha to doubt her again. 

Mrs. Pérez’s son probably hadn’t accidentally sold his soul to the devil. He and his girlfriend were probably happy with their hard working but low-paying jobs, their cute little smattering of babies, and their mass every week. They’d have long, happy lives, and the amount of life-or-death situations they were put in were probably no more than usual. 

Well. Sasha would literally rather die than do that, and that resolve had been tested very thoroughly. She stood by it. Sasha had never regretted a decision she made in her life, besides the ones that sold her soul to the devil, and also maybe some things about Tim. But most of her decisions were good. And even if they weren’t good, she stubbornly stood by them.  

That’s why this was difficult. For all of Sasha’s insecurity reasons that, to be fair, had mostly drifted into the background of her life while she had been on the run for murder. And because it was Martin. 

“Sasha, I’m not sure what help I can give you.”

Godfuckingdammit.

“Please?” Sasha slid into the seat across from Martin, giving him her best big cow eyes. “Don’t hog the emotional manipulation. You’re the expert in making Jon do what you want, just...work your magic!”

Martin looked up from the statement he was organizing shot Sasha an extremely flat look. Martin was extremely good at looking extremely unimpressed. “Because I’m the one who can magically make people do what I want.” 

Sasha winced. “At least you didn’t sell your soul to a demon about it?”

“I know you tell yourself a lot of people do that to make yourself feel better about doing it, but literally nobody does that.” At Sasha’s double wince, Martin sighed. “Don’t listen to Jonah. You didn’t do anything a normal, non-satanic person wouldn’t do. If I could…” Martin trailed off slightly, staring a little in the distance, before shaking back to himself. “I’m not helping you manipulate Jon. That’s my place in this ecosystem.”

“Then we should team up,” Sasha wheedled. She reached into her briefcase - which nowadays contained little more than alcohol and Statements, she wasn’t sure that Georgie had been a good influence on her - and yanked out the print-outs before slapping it on the table. “See, I did research!”

Martin slid the papers closer to him, leafing through them quickly. Sasha waited for him to look very impressed and appreciative of how socially competent yet intellectual she was, but he didn’t look very impressed at all. “ “Help someone in an Abusive or Controlling relationship”, ‘3 ways to support someone stuck in a controlling relationship’, ‘How can I help someone in a toxic relationship’...”

“You aren’t going to deny it, are you?” Sasha asked heatedly. “Because Tim just does not get what I mean no matter how many leaflets I show him because he ‘framed me for murder’ or whatever -”

“Do not pretend as if you’re forgiven him for the murder thing.”

“I fucking hate his guts over it. I will never, ever forgive either of them.” Sasha’s heart spiked in her chest, and she forced herself to take a few calming breaths. “This is a problem. Jon and Jonah are a problem. I don’t think we’re in a position to take on Jonah right now - even if I am working on it. But Jon is a weak link here. We know he’s impossible to kill -” At Martin’s extremely alarmed look, Sasha quickly elaborated, “ - and I wouldn’t want to, although he would really technically deserve it with all of his human rights violations. It would be far easier, and a better use of our resources, if we got Jon to our side. Then hopefully those two could...blow each other up, or something.”

Martin stared at her, expression implacable. Sasha became abruptly aware that she had just threatened to blow up this guy’s semi-boyfriend, and resisted the urge to apologize. She wasn’t apologetic. This was what she had to do, and Sasha always did what had to be done. It didn’t matter if she hated Jon so much that she wanted him dead, when he would be more useful to her alive. It doesn’t matter if she knew that, deep down, Jon was an exceptionally kind and caring person who loved very deeply, and that who he was now was a product of a great deal of influences mostly out of his control. If he was who Sasha was going to turn into, given enough time. 

She would stick to the plan. Sasha was going to get herself and her Assistants - including Melanie now, for some reason, who still refused to believe them about the psychic vampire thing despite how many times Jon confessed to it - out of this. 

Finally, Martin said, “I’m not going to deny it, Sasha. I’ve printed out all those guides, I’ve read all of the books, I’ve done everything. I’ve been working on this since - I think since I decided that I loved Jon more than I hated him. I’ve got Jon’s trust. And, way more importantly, Jonah is convinced that I’m harmless. He doesn’t pay any attention to me. I think he, like, secretly hates it whenever Jon has someone - whatever. But he is obsessed with everything you do.” At Sasha’s disturbed look, Martin shrugged. “He micromanages. Jon complains about it. I don’t think Jon gets that he really spills the cards on all of Jonah’s plans when he gets drunk and bitches about him.”

Sasha now understood that she was talking to an expert. 

“Fine,” she said grudgingly, gathering the papers back up. She left out her great outline and timetable, though, because Martin should definitely appreciate it. “But the number one rule here is to keep up an active support system, right? Which means he needs more than just you.” Martin gave her a hilariously prissy look, which she responded with an equally prissy one. “He thinks we have a psychic bond or something.” They did but Sasha didn’t want to admit that. “Look, I’ve been harassing him for months about how shitty Jonah is. But if he’s going to listen to me, he needs to know that...I guess that I care about him more than I hate Jonah. That I’m not doing it out of spite or with some ulterior motive to get something out of him.”

Martin closed the manila folder, carefully attaching a label on it and writing down their coded filing system on the tab. “You don’t care about him more than you hate Jonah. You are doing this with ulterior motives. But it would be pretty hypocritical of me to care about that, so...he likes television? And he likes hearing about your life and the things important to you. He’s like this historical, cultural, political, anthropological sponge. I mean, he knows everything about everything, but it’s his passion. So if you want to combine the two…”

And, of course, once Martin said that then the answer was obvious.

*******

Sasha was now willing to admit that Martin was smarter than she was.

It was always kind of a crapshoot when looking for Jon. He was only around the Institute half the time, probably less, and he refused to buy a cell phone so anybody could stay in contact with him. Tim had also flatly refused, because Jon would inevitably go to him for help with figuring it out, and apparently that could take hours. Sasha had volunteered to help Jon with accessing some online archives, and apparently she had explained it so confusingly that Jon was left refusing to touch a computer for a month. 

The farthest they could go was convincing him to take a Jitterbug for emergencies. Tim had taken great pains to explain the LifeAlert function, to Jon’s increasing lack of amusement. When Sasha had explained the adventure to Georgie, a known social media sensation over wine at their weekly girls night, she had found it hilarious and was very impressed. 

“Jon must be really attached to you guys,” Georgie had said, carefully nibbling at her luxury chocolate. Girl’s nights with Georgie were decadent. “I mean, not that he doesn’t talk about all of you nonstop, but he can spend ten years incorporating the Beholding into every piece of technology in the country while willfully refusing to learn how to work a computer.”

Sasha hadn’t missed Georgie’s word choice - deliberately refusing instead of an incapability to learn - but something else in the sentence was stranger to her. “I thought he was all about all kinds of knowledge.”

“I hear that the future can be terrifying for a lot of people,” Georgie had said wisely. “No matter how much of it they experience.”

“Is it terrifying for you?”

“Goodness, no.” Georgie had flashed her a bright grin - not so much a showing of teeth as it was a peek at a bone-white skeleton. “I always know what the future holds.”

 As it stood, Sasha got lucky today. She wasn’t forced to make Jon use his dreaded phone, and as a result she wasn’t forced to understand what the fuck Jon did all day. He was in the Magnus Institute, and when Jon was in the Institute there were three places he could be. 

The Archives, which Sasha had just come from. The Institute Library, occasionally terrifying the graduate students and more frequently helping them write their papers. Sasha had heard that they had communally begun sacrificing one grad student to his hunger per week in exchange for study sessions. Which...she should discourage...whatever, it was probably ethical. Or, at the very least, voluntary. 

The only other location Jon visited was Magnus’ office, where he could spend hours relaxing on the evil little bastard’s couch and annoying him. That was a last resort scenario, and was usually saved for complete and total emergencies.

Thankfully, today, Sasha found Jon in the ‘D’s. He was lying on his back, legs propped up on the bookshelf across from him, reading what looked like a very fascinating philosophy text regarding humanity’s search for aliens that Sasha silently resolved to borrow from him later. He didn’t look up when Sasha approached, so she carefully tipped a book off the shelf above him to fall on his head.

He yelped, dropping his book and sitting upright. He rubbed at his head, scowling, and Sasha saw that he had restyled his hair since the last time she had seen him. It had been growing long, but instead of cutting it and returning to his short twists styled into a loose curtain over his forehead he had pulled it back into a puffy bun. It was...somewhat more fashion forward than Sasha had ever seen from him. He had swapped his greatcoat for a primmer and shorter pea coat. Even his glasses were now thin-rimmed, circular, and kind of stylish. 

“Oh my god,” Sasha said, “has Martin started dressing you?”

“Martin can barely even dress himself,” Jon said automatically. “It was Georgie. She said I have to ‘clean up nice’ if I ever ‘want a man’. What does any of that mean?”

“Isn’t it kind of weird that your wife is setting you up with someone?”

“The concept of monogamy becomes ridiculous after the first eighty years,” Jon said, also automatically. Then Sasha’s words sunk into his brain, and he flushed. “Georgie and I aren’t together right now! And she’s not setting me up with - how can you even consider - what makes you think I’m a homosexual -”

Sasha stared at him flatly. Jon gave up. 

“Just let me know if I need to explain gay shit to you,” Sasha said. “It’ll cost a hundred pounds for me to explain queerness and three hundred if you want to learn about trans issues. Recompense for my emotional labor.”

“Young people think they invented these things. It’s ridiculous.” Jon stored the book back on the bookshelf behind him without looking, before carefully dropping his feet and rolling up. Sasha’s back ached in sympathy. Some people got all of the demon deal luck. “What does Martin say? ‘People are gay, Steven’? Historical figures are gay and trans, Sasha.”

“...are you a historical figure that’s -”

“I apologize for being a cisgender man that’s ruined your life, yes.” Jon arched an eyebrow at her as Sasha spent a second in confused agony over whether or not she was getting through to this guy. “I assume there’s no emergency, considering this conversation, so why are you here?”

There was no way to make this offer sound genuine. Jon would look for the catch - because there was one - or what she was trying to pull. There was something she was trying to pull, but she wasn’t about to admit it. 

In the end, Sasha settled for a fragment of honesty in her heart. Jon always had a way of drawing that out of people. 

“I haven’t watched my telenovelas in years. And I don’t know anybody else who speaks Spanish, and so much of it doesn’t translate that I refuse to watch it subbed with someone else, and they’re something I used to watch every night but now I haven’t seen them in years. And you speak Spanish. So.”

Jon stared at her, blinking owlishly, before his mouth twitched into a small smile. It flowered, moving from a hesitant movement of the lips into a real, close-lipped smile that sent his usually severe and sharp expression into something resembling excitement. Understated enthusiasm over novelty. 

How weird, Sasha thought. That you could be 200 years old and still find excitement over something novel. Over something new. Or, maybe, over someone choosing to trust you with a part of their lives. 

Or maybe it wasn’t that weird. How could someone keep living for that long if something as simple as this didn’t bring you joy? Sasha was only thirty four and she already felt so tired of life, all the time. Either tired or overwhelmed. She wondered if Jon still felt overwhelmed. 

“Sounds like fun,” Jon said. “Can I bring my notebook?”

“...yeah, sure.” Sasha paused, almost uncertain. “Hey. When you get to, like, two hundred -”

“Technically two hundred and twenty.”

“When you get to two hundred and twenty, do you finally feel like an adult?”

Jon stared at her, faintly surprised, before his expression settled into something a little wry. “Anybody who says that they ever feel like an adult is a liar. That’s how you know that Jonah’s full of shit.”

Somehow, it was almost a little reassuring.

First time she had ever said that about Jon. 

********

Their adventures, of course, were quickly throttled by practicalities. 

Sasha suggested just watching it on a laptop, but Jon’s expression had wrinkled in distaste. Jon suggested just watching it at her place, but Sasha liked to pretend that he didn’t know where she lived. Far too much intimacy, and somewhat hilariously Jon seemed very awkward about being alone with a woman in her flat. Also they were still working, technically. 

Martin, overhearing their argument in the Archives as Sasha collected her laptop, suggested Jon’s place, since it was pretty nice and cozy and close to the Archives. This forbidden knowledge, the shining proof that sometimes a little knowledge could be a terrible and traumatizing thing, the sheer mental image that imprinted itself behind her eyelids, shook Sasha to her core.

“For christ’s sake,” Martin said, “we are not fucking.”

“Sounds like someone who’s fucking our boss would say!” Tim called, from his position asleep on the break room couch. Sasha had spent roughly five hours yesterday convincing him that her plan to manipulate Jon’s psychological weaknesses was the most effective defense against evil fear powers that they had, and since he had lost the argument he was now resentfully napping on the couch. “If I walk in on you doing it in the office over a desk I’m going to fucking kill both of you and then myself!”

“Does this place have an HR?” Melanie asked, from where she was sitting at her desk actually trying to work. “Can I report all of you to HR? Please?”

“Jon can hardly fire himself,” Sasha told her sympathetically. “This shit will all make sense if you accept the fact that -”

“God, I get it, enough with the workplace hazing!” Melanie threw up her hands, as Jon unsubtly whispered something in Martin’s ear that made him blush. “You can all drop it now, it was never funny!”

“If Sasha just let me prove it to you,” Jon said, exasperated, “then you can see -”

Simultaneously, all three of them snapped, “Do not!”, cowing Jon immensely. 

Tim was no help in problem-solving, since he was resentful that Sasha was doing this at all. He had been spending almost all of his time lately throwing himself into research into the rituals, into anything that explained the strange and obscure rigor of this universe. Jon only explained as much to them as Jonah let him, and the most he ever did was mysteriously drop off boxes that held a lot of information about clowns and sawdust.

He always seemed a little surly as he did it. Sometimes he looked very guilty. Sasha noticed, every time. She couldn’t afford not to. 

All Sasha could try to do for Tim was help him. Their relationship had already been fractured by the way they kept secrets from each other, and although they both wanted to repair it they were forced to confront the fact that now they had to tell each other things. Accept help. Sasha hated acknowledging that she couldn’t do everything by herself, and Tim hated putting Sasha in the danger he relentlessly and suicidally threw himself into, but neither of them would let the other continue on their self-destructive path. 

It wasn’t sweet. But it was the most solid and tangible proof Sasha had that they loved each other. Maybe it was the most solid proof anybody could have: that, in life or death, they’d choose wherever you were. 

If Sasha followed Tim into whatever dangerous shit he was getting himself into, then he would be more careful. Tim wouldn’t survive it if he lost her, and she knew it. 

Between her and Tim, and Jon and Martin...why did all of their relationships feel like mutually assured destruction?

Eventually, Jon’s solution was, as usual, the worst one. Jon’s solution to every problem always worked, but it was always the one thing that nobody wanted to do and that everyone hated. But anything else was either vetoed or improbable, and Sasha refused to back out once she committed to something, so that was how Sasha stuffed a laptop and an HDMI cable into her bag to trail behind Jon as they rode the elevator up to the third floor. 

The number three rule of the Archives was not relevant right now (let Sasha have two cups of coffee before bothering her about how terrible their lives were). But the number two rule of the Archives was this: don’t fuck with Rosie. They both gave her their brightest grins as they passed, impeccably polite without actually asking if Jonah was inside. Rosie smiled munificently at them and complemented Sasha on her heels. They were in. They were now breaking the number one rules of the Archives. 

The number one rule of the Archives was, of course, this: never talk to Jonah Magnus unnecessarily. 

On the bright side, from this perspective Sasha could see how Jon worked his magic - that is, how he always entered Jonah’s office through kicking the door open and infuriating the other man tremendously. He actually took the time to open the door a crack first, completely silently and almost imperceptibly, before crashing it open in as annoying a way as physically possible. 

“I need your fucking office!” Jon called. 

When Sasha poked her head in behind him, she was treated to the sight of a terrified employee cowering in the hard plastic chair in front of Jonah’s desk. Sasha was well aware how that chair could feel like an electric chair. Across from him, Jonah looked distinctly unamused, already kneading his brow. 

“I’m in a meeting, Jon.”

“Good for you.” Jon pointed at the door, and the employee silently scurried out. “Not anymore. Now fuck off, I need your office.”

Impossibly, Jonah looked even more unamused. “Fucking your Archivist on my desk in the middle of the day is a bit beyond the pale even for you, Jon.”

Sasha was immediately so fucking disgusted that she switched into Spanish and called him a great deal of incredibly rude things for an incredibly long period of time. 

Talking over her, Jon said, “Take out your resentment over 1899 on someone else. We want your television, we’re watching Sasha’s programmes.”

“Right. Like how you and that boy Martin are always watching programmes -”

“Me cago en tu puta madre--”

“Honestly, Jonah, just because you had all of those men over for revision of your manuscripts doesn’t mean everyone’s as euphemistic as you are. And Sasha, that’s remarkably vulgar.”

For the first time, Jonah looked alarmed. “What is she saying?”

“Sólo porque tienes un rabo chiquito -”

“Go learn Spanish.”

“Ms. James, this is a professional office, and -”

“Melanie’s fucking right, we need a fucking HR.” Now this was a matter of pride. Sasha flounced into the office, collapsing onto one of the dumb uncomfortable leather couches facing one of those screens that rich people had in their offices to show their powerpoint slides or whatever. “I’m going to Stare you to death if you don’t leave us alone to watch telly.”

Hilariously, Jonah looked at Jon, alarmed. “Can she do that?”

Jon opened his mouth, before Sasha shot him a look. “She’s progressing amazingly rapidly. At this point, not even I know what she’s capable of.”

What a wingman. Jonah looked faintly uncomfortable, but he went back to his computer anyway instead of doing the rational thing and getting out. “This grant is due in three days, Jon, and I have no time for your little fancies. Do what you will, but leave me out of it.”

Sasha was not thrilled at the prospect of Jonah fucking Magnus hanging out in the background while Sasha and Jon watched telenovelas. She’d be outnumbered by the evil fear demons, for one. But Sasha had a sneaking suspicion, and maybe if she couldn’t genuinely stop this guy’s evil plans she could annoy him to death.

At the very least, it would make her feel better. Sasha was beginning to recognize the value of anything that just made you fucking feel better. Maybe Tim was onto something with constantly being a giant bitch all the time. 

“Ignore that cunt,” Sasha said in Spanish, catching Jon’s attention as she stood up to plug in the HDMI cable and turn on the television. “I got crisps and chocolate in my bag, I’m putting on Marimar.”

“Is she insulting me again?” Jonah asked. “Jon, what’s she saying?”

“I’m afraid I only consume trauma,” Jon said, also switching to Spanish. His accent was fucking bizarre. He sounded like her great uncle, or an even worse version of Sucedió en La Habana. At her boggled look, he elaborated, “The Witness gifted me with understanding of all languages very early in my development, but it bestowed verbal fluency in...1910? Perhaps? I’m afraid that without a little practice and frequent use I’m a little bit stuck there. I was able to beat my Chinese and Russian into sounding modern, but I’m afraid that people now tell me my Chinese is somewhat 1960s and my Russian is fairly 1980s.” He scowled. “Why does modernity change so much?”

“I think telenovelas can fix this for you,” Sasha decided. She paused a beat as Jon sat down beside her, a careful distance away. “The Witness? Is that a weird translation thing? You called it the Beholding last time.”

Jon shifted, a little guiltily. In English, he said, “The term Beholding’s better...it’s more academic, and more people use it…”

“What are you two -”

“Is ‘The Witness’ your word?” Sasha asked, and to her horror she found her tone almost gentle. It was almost easier, in her own words.

This time Jon truly looked uncomfortable, and he shifted back into Spanish - perhaps, Sasha thought, because Jonah could not understand it. “Smirke contributed all of the nomenclature for this, and he never...well, none of Jonah’s little circle liked me very much.”

“Wow, wonder why.”

“Exoticism only gets you so far, I suppose,” Jon joked weakly, before sharply swerving the subject. “I always felt as if it gave me its own name. When I began to understand, really understand what it was and how we could feed each other...I felt as if it told me. And that’s what it told me. So it’s always been my name.”

Hm. Sasha wondered what it was like, to have your religion be - so tangible, so grounded. Sasha believed, and she had faith with all of her heart, but - well, you wouldn���t need faith if you had incontestable proof. Faith was about believing because you knew something in your heart. But Jon...when he had nothing else, maybe, he had this.

“I just put down ‘James’ because I thought it would make that small-dicked asshole more likely to hire me,” Sasha finally offered, her only equivalent for something like this. “Tell you what. Call me James Martinez, and I’ll curse the name of the Witness, okay? If you’d like me to.”

Jon brightened, and for a second Sasha saw her own faith in his brilliant green eyes. “My gift is shared with you, Sasha. Of course you can.”

It was not a gift. It was a terrible and disgusting curse, and it was one that Jon had inflicted upon her. But Sasha was playing nice...and this was knowledge, understanding Jon was knowledge that could save her life one day...and there was something strange about Jon’s hesitant and multi-barbed trust. 

It had to be the trust of somebody who had it betrayed a hundred, thousand times. But he gave it so easily, and he reached out incessantly. Sasha knew lots of people who cared too much, although she had never been one of them - Tim and Martin, for one - but she could already see how it was making them a little bitter and jaded. 

Jon wasn’t. Sasha didn’t know why. 

So Sasha kicked off her heels, tucking her legs underneath her as she pulled up her favorite episode of Marimar on her laptop. It was a comfort show, having context wouldn’t help, she had rights. 

“Okay,” Sasha began, a little aggressively, “we’re starting a lot of the way in, so I have to catch you up. Like a lot of telenovela protagonists, Marimar is a wholesome young girl who lives in a little sad hut shack on the beach and she can’t read. She’s raised by her grandparents and her dog talks. This is the essential premise of the show.”

“Wow,” Jon whispered, “just like me.”

“I - okay, you are not obligated to give me your backstory, but what?”

“Martin keeps calling me a ‘sad little Victorian orphan’,” Jon said defensively. “And dogs talk to me too!”

“...what do they say?”

“If you’d believe it, nothing interesting.” He paused a beat. “But Georgie’s cat is kind of a psychopath, if that helps.”

“That’s a stereotype against cats,” Sasha accused. “Just because humans don’t understand cat body language -”

“Oh, no, cats are lovely, my favorite animal. But the Admiral’s kind of a freak.”

“If you two are going to sit here and trash talk me in my own office,” Jonah said, aggravated, “then please at least take it outside.”

Actually, this was a great idea.

Sasha ran through the plot of Marimar, down to the love interest with the terrible chest hair (Jon and Sasha then got into an argument over chest hair that was so heated that Sasha suspected Martin had chest hair), the evil step-mother (they both agreed that women in soaps tended to fall within the madonna/whore complex), and the weird amounts of humiliation. Sasha loved to hate Mr. Douchey McChesthair in this one - he wooed Marimar and promised to raise her up from poverty, but he ended up ditching her when she wasn’t refined enough for him. She wins him back at the end with her nice dresses and inherited money, and they settle down with a baby and a big house. Sasha always hated the ending. Marimar should have become a career woman. 

“It’s massively cheesy,” Sasha warned, finally playing the episode and letting the cheery theme song play, “so don’t sit here and point out the logical inconsistencies. We know. It’s part of the experience.”

But Jon just arched an eyebrow, unbuttoning his own pea cot to throw over the back of the sofa and lounge in his seat. “Watching telenovelas, in the office of the Director of the facility where you work, with his boss, in London, is the experience? And we’re all - how do you put it - evil fear demons?”

“You haven’t met my auntie,” Sasha said darkly. But she ended up shaking her head too, picking at her stockings a little. “The experience is...eleven pm, and the whole house is dark. The kitchen light is on, this flickering yellow thing that pops and buzzes. There’s cicadas outside, and somewhere you can hear someone playing music too loudly. Dad’s in his ripped up armchair, snoring. Mom’s on the couch, reading a magazine. They’re only half-paying attention, but it’s late, and you feel like you never get enough time with them. So you sit on the couch next to Mom, and because neither of them say anything you watch the show with all of your attention, just happy to be near them...it’s family bonding, you think. It feels like it.”

Jon was silent, staring at her. Not fixedly, or intensely - just looking, as if he was waiting patiently to see if she would say anything else. But Sasha trailed off, picking at her stockings, until she forced herself to stop. She didn’t want to say anything else. She was worried that he would know what she wasn’t saying. He always did.

“My grandmother couldn’t read,” Jon said finally, and Sasha fought the surprise. Jon never talked about this, not in any specific words. “But she would darn clothing by the fire at night. She did it for the neighborhood and earned some extra money.”

“What about you?” Sasha asked, hoping it was a safe topic. “What did you do?”

Jon grinned at her, sharp and amused. “I got into trouble.”

They both turned their attention back to the television, and Sasha silently mouthed the words along with the screen as Jon paid rapt attention. 

It was later in the show, when Marimar was showing up all of the people who did her dirty when she was poor. She had a fine dress, lingering on the arm of her rich and kind of creepy father, and she walked around with her head held up high. Her old husband who treated her terribly saw her at the opera and he was stunned by how hot and cool she was now. 

“Good for her!” Jon said abruptly. “Go find someone better, Marimar!”

“Oh my god,” Sasha groaned. “She ends up with him!”

“What!”

Quicker than Sasha would ever have expected, Jon got wrapped up in the episode. He gasped with her at the right parts, cheered at the screen whenever Marimar said something particularly sassy, and they booed whenever Douchey McChesthair showed up. 

When Sasha glanced behind her - not that she did - she saw Jonah fixedly ignoring them. He was gritting his teeth a little. Every so often he would glance at the screen, obviously look terribly confused, then go back to his computer. 

When the credits rolled Jon declared this second-hand trauma, which terrified Sasha deeply but raised interesting questions about her own future diet. 

“It’s about the humiliation, fear, and voyeurism,” Jon told her. “Supernatural trauma and devastation tastes rather similar to these telenovelas.”

“...what do they taste like?”

Jon thought hard. “Taste, but if it was a feeling.”

“...what’s the -”

“What’s the feeling you have?”

Sasha was forced to concede the point, and put on another episode. 

In this one, Marimar’s new dad tied tragically, and she very cunningly has him sign all of his money over to her. Sasha cheered her on very enthusiastically, and Jon agreed that Marimar was the definition of girlboss, but he found it kind of a dick move. 

“I thought you hated pretentious, old money rich white Britons,” Sasha accused. She knew that Martin had been working on him and trying to convert him to socialism,, but it was slow going. 

“I do hate entitled, old money people,” Jon said shortly. “But it’s hardly illegal to work your way up the social ladder and improve your station in life. Marimar isn’t putting the work in, she’s just inheriting all of this blood money. If she doesn’t make something of her life then what’s the point in all of that suffering?”

“You do know how social mobility is a lie fed to the lower class by the upper class to keep them complacently participating in the system, right?” 

“I’m not saying many people do it,” Jon said, ignoring Marimar’s grotesquely fake sobbing, “but it’s possible. I’ve met plenty of people who worked hard and became successful.”

“Yeah, and those people were lucky. Most of us just sit around in poverty and suffer.” Sasha rolled her eyes, unwrapping her chocolate bar. “Not all of us can be Dr. Faust.”

“You didn’t sit around,” Jon said, turning to face her. Sasha didn’t meet his eyes, focusing on her chocolate instead. “You were smart, you worked your way up, you got your scholarship, and now you’re part of something far greater than yourself. You took what happened to you and you used to make you stronger, just like I did. Anybody can do it if they work hard enough.”

Sasha’s teeth clamped down on the chocolate.

Abruptly, stupidly, she got angry. 

“I’m not better than the thousands of other trans women who got kicked out, Jon,” Sasha snapped, but Jon didn’t flinch. “I’m just luckier! I know I worked hard, but I’m not more - more worthy of what I have than the brave women back home who have nothing. And I’m not going to stomp on them to make myself feel better like you do!”

“I do not -” Jon started, outraged, but Sasha cut him off. 

“You tell yourself that you worked hard for the security, money, education that you never got as a child! But you deserved all of that! That’s shit that anybody who lives deserves. But because you think of it as some kind of stupid reward, then it’s something that can be taken away. And when what you have can be taken away at any moment, then you have nothing!”

She cut herself off abruptly, unwilling and incapable of saying anything more. There were lines you couldn’t cross with Jon, and lines that she didn’t deserve to cross no matter how callous he was. She couldn’t accuse him of forgetting where he came from, or of betraying his people. Sasha knew well that Jon had never forgotten, not for a second. 

He had just - twisted everything around. He had to justify to himself what he’d done, so he’d taken the truth and molded it to fit his own desires and call it holy. 

It had killed her. It had killed her, how Jon told her that they were the same, but he did all of this shit to her anyway. But maybe that was no surprise: Jon hadn’t done anything to her that he hadn’t done to everybody else, and he hadn’t made any justifications to himself about his behavior towards her that he hadn’t made about everybody else. 

You couldn’t live like he did with emotional honesty. Good people could do bad things - Sasha knew that better than anyone - but it required a truly disgusting level of willful blindness and cowardice that Sasha had never tolerated. 

“Nobody gave me being a woman,” Sasha whispered, too full of - something, to even look at Jon. “I didn’t take it from anyone. I didn’t steal it. It was something that I always deserved, and that I always was. And because of that, nobody will ever take it away from me.” She exhaled heavily, forcing herself to stop shaking. “Nobody can make me something I’m not. Not even you.”

Jon stared at her, toxic green eyes wide and something foreign in his expression. It looked almost as if he believed her. Ha. “Sasha, I -”

“I swear, it’s like you two are making an effort to be as intrusive as possible. Jon, can’t you control your own Archivist?”

Jon almost jumped, as if he had forgotten that Jonah was in the room at all. Something in his chest seized closer, and a year ago Sasha would have just called it a twitch. 

It wasn’t. It was an aborted, concealed cringe, seen only once before. But there was only one other person in this world who cared about that. 

“Jonah!” Jon said, switching back to English immediately. “Sorry, we were just - having a really heated discussion about - uh, about -”

“Brujeria and how it changed when adopted by members of the Catholic church,” Sasha said smoothly. “I think his weird compulsion thing is just advanced witchcraft.”

“Yes! Yes, of course - you remember, I took inspiration from p - pagan rituals, you know, for our early work. I think you called it -”

“Bizarre?” Jonah asked, arching an eyebrow. “Jon, there were bones involved.” Jon silently pointed at the human skull taking up proud residence in Jonah’s cabinet of curiosities. “That’s different, a friend gave me that.”

“ ‘Have you seen Barnabas lately, Jonah’, I said. ‘He hasn’t seemed to have written lately’, I said. ‘Have you grown distant?’, I said. And you said -”

“Yes, he was very distant,” Jonah said dryly. “You hardly complained. You hated the man.”

“I hated all of your friends,” Jon said. He was smiling, once again relaxed with his arm spread over the back of the couch. Sasha furiously bit into a chip. “Didn’t mean you let them die.”

“Yes, but he was your least favorite, so I figured there was no harm done there.”

Improbably, Jon brightened. He smiled again, a curved slash of the mouth that had always been reserved for Jonah. It always spoke of secrets, a private joke. “You do care.”

“I’ll care more if you stop chattering when I’m trying to get us funded for another cycle.”

“Whatever.” Jon turned to face the screen again, letting the smile fall into a curiously blank expression. “Next episode, Sasha?”

“Sure,” Sasha said slowly. “But it only gets worse from here.”

 It would never stop being weird how - well, maybe that was no wonder. How could Sasha begin to understand a relationship as strange and esoteric as theirs? Two hundred years in the making, forged by cruelty and passion? Two lives, intertwined so closely they fed in a parasitic loop, starving the other to feed themselves? 

“Oh, I don’t mind a little tragedy,” Jon said. He spoke in English, vowels carefully rounded, posh accent meticulously stretching his words. “It’s the most entertaining.”

Sasha thought about print-outs. She thought about a many-eyed, malicious tumor of fear and pain consuming humanity alive. She thought about the face of God, and the tired and resigned face of Martin. When Sasha spoke, she stayed in Spanish.

“Even though she gets married to Mr. Douchey McChestHair at the end?”

“I’m sure he’s not all bad,” Jon said, and wouldn’t say anything more. 

[iam93percentstardust]

Fireflies

I wrote a little ironfalcon & sarahbucky fic! Thank you to @warmachinesocks for sensitivity reading it for me, I really appreciate the help!

This fic is also on ao3 but tumblr hates links so no links for you

~

The first thing Bucky sees when he walks through the door of Sarah’s house—Sarah’s house! He gets to stay with Sarah!—is Tony Stark washing the dishes. He stops in the doorway, not sure why he’s so surprised to see Stark there—he’d known that Stark had retired somewhere quiet after the battle with Thanos—but he definitely is. He hesitates, not sure if he can—or should—say something. Sure, he and Tony had talked things out after the battle, cleared the air between them, but he’d assumed that was based on them never having to see each other again.

“It’s rude to lurk in doorways,” Tony says, before he can think of anything to say.

“Uh,” Bucky says intelligently. Then, “What are you doing here?” He winces. His ma would absolutely have something to say about how rude he’s being if she could hear him.

Fortunately, Tony just chuckles and says, “I live here. What are you doing here, Freezer Pop?”

“You live here?” Bucky asks.

“Yes,” Sam says from behind him, startling him enough that he jumps. “Now get out of the way, Barnes. You’re blocking the door.”

Bucky steps inside, clutching his overnight bag in front of him like the shield he hadn’t thought he would need. Sarah and the boys are right behind Sam, and Bucky gives her a shy smile. She smiles back at him before ducking her head, and now that she’s turned away, Bucky looks back at Sam, who has made a beeline straight for Tony.

“Hey sweetheart,” Sam says in the softest voice Bucky has ever heard from him.

Tony leans over to kiss Sam’s cheek. “Hey, honey. How’s the boat?”

“Looking good,” Sarah says. “No thanks to you.” Bucky starts to get a little worried, but Sarah is grinning as she says it and Tony’s expression is one of mock outrage so he relaxes again.

“Excuse you,” Tony says in a faux-offended voice, “I was busy for five years.”

“Yeah, taking care of my boys and being an Avenger, so you’ve said many times. But what, you forgot about my poor boat?”

“Hey, I did offer to help pay for the repairs.”

Sarah’s face softens and she walks over to rub Tony’s metal shoulder, uncovered by the sleeveless shirt he’s wearing. “And that was sweet of you,” she says. “But I could told you I could—”

“—take care of it,” Tony finishes. “Yeah, you said.”

Sam rejoins Bucky by the door and tugs his bag from Bucky’s limp hand. “Come on,” he says, jerking his head toward the living room. “They’re gonna be at it for a while. I’ll show you where you can put your stuff.”

As they’re heading into the living room, Bucky quietly asks, “So how long have you and Stark—”

“Don’t let him hear you call him that,” Sam interrupts. “Just call him Tony, he hates Stark or Mr. Stark or anything else like that. And since 2005. We met working on the EXO-7 project. He was my technician. Got married right after he came back from Afghanistan.”

He remembers Steve telling him about Sam taking the plea deal after the Avengers split. Steve hadn’t been able to understand it, but he thinks about how they’d all understood Clint and Scott taking the same deal for their families and wonders if it was something like that.

“And how did you handle the—uh—”

Sam gives him a flat look. “With a lot of communication and a little bit of make-up sex,” he says. “When you’ve been together as long as we have, that’s something you learn.”

“What, that make-up sex helps?”

“That communication is important. And trust me, it can feel like pulling teeth, trying to get Tony to talk, but it’s worth it.” He plops down on the couch and motions for Bucky to sit down next to him, waiting until Bucky does before he continues, “Speaking of communication, a couple things about Sarah since you’re clearly going to ignore the Bro Code.”

“The Bro Code?”

“Yeah, don’t date sisters of friends, that kind of thing.”

“I don’t think that was a thing in the forties.”

“I’m pretty sure it was.”

“No, I think I’d remember that.”

“Steve didn’t have a sister, why would you remember that? Besides, your memory is as good as swiss cheese, and don’t think I missed you not arguing with me about that friend thing. Anyway, the Bro Code, since you’re ignoring it—”

From where they’re sitting, Bucky can see Sarah in the kitchen, putting away leftovers that someone had brought them while they’d been working. She looks real pretty with the evening sunlight lighting her from behind, making her glow like an angel. Bucky smiles a little, thinking about the way she’d laughed at his horrible jokes.

“Seriously man,” Sam interrupts. “Smitten-with-a-capital-s. Now look, Sarah’s had it rough these last few months. Blipped just like you and me, only she had to come back to a rundown boat and her boys all grown up. Tony did what he could around here, but he was grieving too and he had the duties of being an Avenger on top of taking care of AJ and Cass. He forgot about taking care of the boat and Sarah’s paying for it now. She’s been hurt a lot, so if your intention is something quick and then leaving her just like her husband, it’s not just me you’ll have to answer to. It’s Tony too, and the whole town on top of us. We look out for each other around this area.”

“Yeah, I got that today when the whole town showed up to help out.”

Sam grins and shakes his head, seemingly awed that he and Sarah would inspire enough loyalty for people to come help them. Bucky doesn’t get it. Both Wilson siblings are absolutely incredible. Hell, only a few weeks ago, he himself thought he’d be happy if he never had to deal with Sam ever again and now he’s staying at the man’s family home.

“My point is—” Sam begins.

“Samuel Thomas Wilson, I know you’re not giving that man a shovel talk,” Sarah interjects, coming into the living room, drying her hands on a dish towel. “You’re gonna scare him off, same as you did to all my boyfriends back in high school.”

Sam holds his hands up. “I’m just making sure he knows to treat you right.”

“Believe me, the poor man knows. Besides, I don’t need you to do that. I’m more than capable of making sure he treats me right all by myself.”

Bucky thinks about what that might mean and shivers pleasurably.

“Look at him, you broke the poor guy’s brain,” Tony complains. “AJ and Cass Wilson, can the two of you set the table?”

“Aww Uncle Tony, do we have to?” AJ complains.

“Hmm, how about you set the table or I’ll sell all your toys.”

“You wouldn’t do that,” AJ says, but gets up anyway and joins his brother in the kitchen.

“I might if you keep challenging me,” Tony shoots back, but there’s no heat to his voice and AJ is still grinning as he grabs plates out of the cupboard so Bucky turns back to Sam and Sarah, who have gotten quieter now that they’ve got an audience beyond just him.

“—want to see you taken care of the way you should be,” Sam is saying.

Sarah’s face softens. “Thanks. I don’t need it—”

“—but you should be anyway. After all you’ve done for our family, you deserve it.”

They both glance at Bucky, who smiles quickly to try to assure them that he’s a great option for Sarah. He’d heard some of the things the townspeople were saying about her while they were working on the boat today: she’s an impressive woman and all he wants to do right now is to prove that he’s worthy of her.

“Well,” Sam says eventually. “I guess there are worse people you could go for.”

“Gee, thanks, Sam,” Bucky says flatly.

“No problem, man.” He looks back at Sarah. “Fine, I’ll lay off of him. But the first time he hurts you—”

“—you’ll let me handle it like the grown-up I am?” Sarah finishes firmly, hands on her hips. She seems to decide that the conversation is clearly over because she heads back into the kitchen, swatting Tony away from the sauce on the stovetop with a wooden spoon.

Sam deflates. “Yeah, okay,” he calls after her. “I’ll let you handle it.”

“Hey, I get it,” Bucky offers quietly. “I had sisters too and they hated it when I got involved with their relationships.”

“She deserves the best. And I really hope that you can be the one to give it to her. I saw how she looked at you. I haven’t seen her look like that since high school.” There’s a pensive look in his eyes, his hands clasped together in front of him. “I didn’t realize how much I missed seeing that look.”

“I like her too,” Bucky tries to assure him. “I don’t want to hurt her.” He hesitates, then adds, “I don’t want to hurt anyone. Except maybe Walker.”

Sam laughs. “You and me both.”

“I’ll toast to that,” Tony says cheerfully, coming back into the living room. “Sarah says it’s dinner time.”

Dinner is a loud affair, full of the boys talking about what they’ve been up to with their friends, Sam and Sarah bickering about repairs that need to happen on the boat, Tony and Bucky comparing their prosthetics (Tony’s arm is Stark Tech and he’s curious about how it compares to Bucky’s Wakandan one), and Sam, Tony, and Bucky discussing what’s going to happen with Walker now that the shield’s been taken away from him.

“I don’t think this is over,” Tony says, and Bucky agrees with him, remembering how much more determined Steve had gotten every time an opportunity had been taken away from him, but Sam is less sure.

“He’s grieving. I don’t think he’s in any state to be trying to take the shield back,” Sam argues.

“Grieving men can be unpredictable. You said he didn’t catch Karli, that’s got to be weighing on him,” Tony replies. He eyes the shield in its leather case, leaning up against the wall. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt because he decides the shield is still his. Him with that serum, it concerns me. You don’t have that kind of advantage.”

“I don’t want that kind of advantage,” Sam says, surprising Bucky. He’d known Sam is leery of the serum, not nearly as bad as Zemo but still uncomfortable with it. Tony doesn’t seem surprised though, just nods understandably.

“I know,” he agrees. “But I still worry.”

Bucky interjects, “Hopefully the suit the Wakandans made will help even the playing field some.”

Tony blinks.

“You got a new suit?” Sarah asks.

“And I didn’t make it?” Tony asks.

“I haven’t seen it yet,” Sam says, “but yes. Bucky asked for a favor after Walker destroyed the old one.”

“Hmph,” Tony says grumpily, softening only when Sam leans over to kiss his cheek. “Well, I guess I can’t blame you. Shuri’s tech is incredible. The things that girl can do with vibranium… blows that shield out of the water.”

“Is she still refusing to let you take a look at T’Challa’s suit?”

“Yes.”

“They’re very protective of it,” Bucky says.

“And I don’t blame them,” Tony says quickly. “It would just be nice.” He glances at Sam pleadingly, who laughs.

“I’m not gonna let you take a look at it either.”

Tony grumbles wordlessly, but doesn’t complain any further, instead turning to Sarah to ask her about something with the boat. Bucky eagerly joins in, interested in hearing more about Sarah’s life. It’s so different from his, even before the war. He wants to learn everything he can, both about the boat and about her.

By the time dinner is over, he’s stuffed, something that rarely happens. The serum means he has a higher metabolism than the average person, which also means that he’s typically hungrier, and when he’d been with HYDRA, they hadn’t worried about making sure their Asset was well-fed. He offers to help the boys clear the dishes, hoping that will impress Sarah. She smiles at him, but heads out to the porch. The sun is setting over the bayou, and Bucky can just barely make her out through the glare from the sun.

He watches her a little wistfully until Tony comes up beside him and passes him two glasses of sweet tea. “What’s this for?” he asks.

Tony jerks his head toward the door. “She likes to watch the fireflies.”

Sam passes him with an armful of plates on his way to the dishwasher. “Better make sure you grab some bug spray. The mosquitoes are vicious at this time of day.”

“I heal fast,” he says confusedly.

“But it’ll show you’re thinking of her,” Sam says as Tony grabs a can from under the sink and slaps it into Bucky’s empty hand. “Go on, we’ve got this.”

“You’re sure?”

Sam and Tony share a wordless glance. Bucky can’t quite tell what they’re thinking. “Yeah,” Sam says after a moment. “Really, man, get out there.”

So Bucky gets.

Sarah glances up at him when he steps out onto the porch, smiles, and then moves aside on the swing for him to join her. “Let me guess, Tony told you to come out,” she says dryly.

“How’d you know?”

“He likes to think of himself as a matchmaker.”

Bucky hesitates in passing her one of the glasses. “Is that a problem?”

She takes the glass out of his hand, deliberately brushing her fingers against his. “Only if you think it is.”

In answer, Bucky hands her the bug spray too. Her smile broadens.

“Thanks,” she says. “You ever watched fireflies before?”

He shakes his head. “We didn’t have them in New York.”

“That’s a shame. They’re one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.”

They’re silent for a moment, both sipping from their glasses. Then Sarah says, “You can put your arm around me, you know.”

Bucky glances at her quickly and then slowly puts his arm around her shoulders. She leans into him, warm and perfect and slotting just right beside him. It’s nice, he thinks, and he leans his head on top of hers. She makes a pleased sound and snuggles just a little bit closer. He lets out a long sigh, feeling the tension drain out of him as the first few fireflies twinkle in the gathering dusk.

[urisk-factor]

Ok I wanted to throw out a few of my own Heartless Headcannons, entirely the Jury, mostly Dock. TW for blood, mentions of animal testing, dead corpses, rats, organs, violence, and stuff that Dock would do. I'm just gonna tag this as body horror because I guess that counts. Oh and I headcannon Dock and Alastor as married too, sorry (not sorry), I don't make the rules.

Dock once, a month or two after graduating from medical school, got really drunk and blacked out. In the morning, he found a giant teddy bear and a human body in his room, with the organs from the human in the teddy, and the stuffing from the teddy in the human. He has no idea what happened that night and has no idea how he did it or where he got the teddy, let alone the body.

Bandy somehow knows everything before it's public. He knew that Alastor and Dock are married, he knew about Heartless, he knew about Lance's stash of "chewed items", he knew about Lorelei's black swan dress, and he knew about Diana's pet owl.

Anyways, like I said, Diana has a pet owl that she took care of since his mother left him. He's call Ben, and she likes saying stuff like "Ben killed and ate a mouse that I've been trying to shoot for weeks, he's a good boy, bless his heart" to people she's just met but have warmed up to enough to speak.

Lorelei sometimes calls Dock her "skirt buddy" to annoy him and he just accepts it.

Dock really hates animal testing, and once beat a guy to an inch of his life for testing drugs on rats. He took the rats and he still has them. They're old and well looked after.

Alastor once got so annoyed with a guy who was somehow bigger than Dock that he climbed up Dock's cloak, sat himself on Dock's shoulders, and started berating the man. Lorelei, Lance, and Bandy got in on video camera.

Their curses come from heavily repressed magic.

Their ages are Lance and Bandy at twenty-nine (29), Lorelei at thirty-two (32), Diana at thirty-seven (37), Alastor at thirty-nine (39), and Dock at fourty-three (43).

Dock's real name isn't actually Dock, but is instead Daniel Harrowmoore. Daniel Harrowmoore may or may not be wanted for arson. All Dock will say is that it was an accident.

Diana is somewhere between craving physical touch and hating physical touch at all times.

They leave notes on the fridge. The only ones who can read Dock's atrocious hand writing (it's the doctor hand writing) is Alastor because he's so familiar with doctor hand writing, and Diana because she made a code for it.

Following on from that last one, Lance once wrote "okay I am convinced that you're not even writing words anymore" under one of Dock's notes.

Lorelei has handwriting so neat and curvy and pretty that it's almost as impossible to read as Dock's, not quite though.

Lance, Lorelei, and Alastor are cat people, Bandy and Diana are dog people, and Dock just really loves animals of all kinds, especially if they're considered unlucky or horrible or something.

They have this sort of truck thing, with three seets in the front, three in the back, and then the boot. In the front, Diana drives (she's the only one who can drive), Dock navigates, and Alastor sits between them and helps Dock sometimes. In the back, Lorelei, Lance, and Bandy all sing show showtunes and get on the front three's nerves.

Well that's not totally true. When Dock was in his twenties, he had a motorcycle, but it was stolen and he never got it back.

Alastor is the only one allowed to hug Dock and vice versa. They're very affectionate towards each other, with Dock often coming up behind Alastor, wrapping his arms around Alastor's chest, and wresting his head on Alastor's. Alastor is a bit more nervous but will sometimes just zoom over to Dock and cling to his side.

Alastor's coat used to be Dock's. When Alastor first met Dock, it was really cold, in the middle of a snowstorm, in a giant city, alone, at twenty-one (21), at approximately three o'clock in the morning. He was walking down the street, shivering, when Dock just happened to leave a small twenty-four hour store, saw Alastor, and just went, "yup, small, shivering, not a threat, hey I wonder if he wants this jacket? I don't need it". Dock offered it and Alastor accepted, grateful. They would meet again a few years later and Dock recognized him by the same coat.

Dock has a bad habit of working for days straight, then heading back to his room/home or wherever he sleeps and just crashes and sleeps for the rest of the week. Only a Lorelei scream can wake him.

Not really a headcannon but my mind randomly went "what if the Jury aren't witch hunters, and are instead witches, pretending to be witch hunters, to save other witches, and this whole Heartless and Co. situation was just one big misunderstanding that could easily be solved by simple communication" and I thought it was funny.

Once the paparazzi were following the Jury leaders around, to the point of it probably being a crime, so Alastor invited them into the Jury HQ and told the leaders to be as obscene and messy and dickish as possible. Dock walked in, covered head to toe in blood, with a still beating heart of unknown origins. Just imagine this giant, massive thing, probably bigger than Dock's head. So anyways, he walks in with it in his hands, walks over to the head interviewer or whatever, dumped in into his lap, and said "I hope you find it just as delicious as I do." They left incredibly quickly after that, and never even looked in the Jury's direction after that.

[wonda-cat]

Some Thoughts on Tommy’s most recent stream (4/29)

(For the record, this isn’t going to be like my other formal analyses. I’m genuinely just ranting here, possibly unedited too. I’m only referring to the characters, unless stated otherwise.

Also obvious warning, this will be fairly negative/critical of the DSMP’s writing, so scroll past if that might bother you. I tend to criticize the media I love, so this is just par for the course in my case.)

Let’s start off with—

The Things I Liked

All of the comedy at the beginning of the stream was wonderful. Ghostbur was incredibly endearing and entertaining as usual, as well as the moments between bench trio. Tommy’s change of plans made sense and the entire journey through the prison was tense and fun to watch. As well as the moment Tommy got caught (it was inevitable.) 

It goes without stating, but cc!Wilbur and cc!Tommy’s acting was wonderful—they knocked it out of the park. I liked the little moments of Tommy calming Ghostbur down as Sam screamed at him. I also loved Wilbur's speech about his time in the afterlife when bench trio found him. 

As well as the moment with Wilbur admiring the sky and calling it ‘his sunrise.’ I’m also glad that the afterlife was explained to be caused by the Revival Book’s existence and not some general eternal torture every character will be sentenced to regardless of anything they did in life. 

But, sadly, that’s about where I stop and have to go into what I didn’t like as much, which is—

Everything Else

I’ll be talking about my major gripes with this particular stream in later bullet points down the line, but for now I’ll bring up the little things that annoyed me. This is all basically nit-picking and isn’t as awful or badly written as some of the others I’ll be discussing later. 

First off, Why is Ranboo There? In the stream before this one, Tommy had Tubbo promise to not tell anyone else about their plan. Did he just decide to tell Ranboo anyway? Why? What was the point of asking him to keep it secret if it didn’t matter? 

Adding to this, Tubbo and Ranboo were rather unnecessary for any of the other scenes that took place. They didn’t have any meaningful conversations with Tommy besides Ranboo asking why he was dreading Wilbur’s revival so much, as well as Wilbur’s comments to Tubbo about him being president. But other than that they have little to no notable speaking lines. 

They don’t Do Anything? Sure, they’re nice to have present so Tommy can vent to someone else and find comfort but, in the end, Ranboo was oddly angry and accusatory with Tommy and Tubbo was practically absent from the scene. The impression I got from Tommy and Tubbo’s conversation in the previous stream implied that Tubbo would be serving a larger role as a distraction, but I guess they changed gears or something? 

Then we have Ghostbur’s involvement, which, yeah, makes sense. Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo are not allowed inside the prison, so it’s best to find someone else who can get in without suspicion. But my first assumption, upon seeing Ghostbur with the group was, “Oh, he’s gonna go in there and Dream’s gonna use him to revive Wilbur. That’s the only reason why Ghostbur is here and not anyone else, who would also be willing to kill Dream. It’s not like they’re in short supply right now.”

And I ended up being right, which only frustrated me more. I wanted something unexpected. Something new. Something interesting. Yet, I got the most predictable outcome instead—Tommy fails, Wilbur is revived. 

Next, we have another big serving of ‘Tommy gets blamed for things he has no control over’ part 241. I am so, so sick of characters getting unreasonably mad at and blaming Tommy for anything and everything. It’s not new, it’s not interesting, it’s not fun. It’s just miserable. 

It is,, awful. And it’s highkey frustrating. I refuse to sit through another arc of Tommy being endlessly hurt and blamed for stuff he didn’t do or cannot control. Pick a new event in the plot. 

Try something out of left field. Do something, anything different to this. I’m begging you. 

Now, we get into the major writing pitfalls and shortcomings. Starting with—

We Need to Talk About Sam

I have no idea what is going on with Sam’s character right now. It is so genuinely confusing. I have no clue why Sam reacted the way he did to Tommy because it just doesn’t make any sense. Sam’s entire inner conflict is about him trying to cultivate and protect his humanity and morality while upkeeping a strict, closed-off demeanor.

He follows the rules, even if it hurts the people he loves. Even if these codes force him into a position to be unethical. He feels it is his responsibility should anything go wrong or if Dream escapes, because it puts others in danger.

His strict approach got Tommy killed, and it also took a life and an arm from Ponk. Both of these people are precious to him. So why on earth would he threaten to kill Tommy when, in their last interaction, he was glad he was alive—after he promised to never let something like that happen again?

He respected Tommy’s wishes to stay away from him, and rather politely too. Why would he then threaten to kill him just after weeks of saying Tommy’s death was his biggest regret? That’s not even touching on Sam saying, “This is why I let you die,” as well as blaming Tommy for something that was directly a result of his own refusal to act.

Why didn’t he have Ghostbur also hitch a ride on the same platform with Tommy? Why did he even let Ghostbur into the prison in the first place if he:

A.) Told Ranboo he wasn’t going to let anyone in there after what happened to Tommy.

B.) Also wouldn’t let people in lest they find out about Quackity’s plan.

C.) Couldn’t even kill Ghostbur because he’s incorporeal and thus cannot fully upkeep the contracts he is signing.

There’s also the issue of Sam breaking the rules he abides by when he decided to not kill Tommy after he snuck into the prison, despite it being in the contract. Why is it different now? He went against his own protocol but was also following it by refusing to let Ghostbur come back to the other platform?

Why does Sam refuse to listen to Tommy? Their argument is mind-numbingly ridiculous. Sam refuses to hurt Dream, despite him only being alive because Sam claimed Tommy wanted him alive.

But now Tommy is there, begging Sam to let him kill Dream, and Sam just goes, “No. We’re not killing Dream.” Fucking why??? Sam! You said you wanted to kill Dream at least four times by now! Maybe more!

You were on your way to do it with Quackity and the only thing that stopped you was your promise to Tommy. But now Tommy’s here, telling you to kill Dream and you fucking won’t???? I am absolutely baffled.

No matter how you spin it, it makes no fucking sense. However, if I tried,,, I could possibly come up with a reason or two. Maybe Dream is blackmailing him. Maybe Quackity is forcing him to keep Dream alive until he can get the info he needs (even though,,, why would he trust Quackity over Tommy, who he’s outwardly stated he trusts just as much, if not more?)

It feels like these plots are dancing around each other, trying to keep up this faux sense of conflict that doesn’t exist. But, here’s the thing, contrived conflict is never compelling. I can’t overstate it enough.

Dream’s Plan is Complete Nonsense

The method to revive Wilbur makes Dream seem even more short-sighted than I remember commenting on, during the stream where Tommy was brought back to life. He told Tommy that his plan was to test the book to see if it worked (which, okay fine, I can buy this.) But then he says all along he was planning to revive Wilbur in order to break out of prison, which is ???? This is baffling if he needed Ghostbur in order to pull this off. 

Which,,, I can’t even begin to explain how ridiculous it is that Dream’s entire plan hitched on not only the book working on people to begin with (which he tested on Tommy,,, for some reason, even though he would’ve lost his ‘favorite toy’ if he fucked it up. Which,, why even take that chance in the first place? there are other visitors he could’ve tried this with, surely. Like Sapnap and Bad,,) and it also relied on Ghostbur voluntarily going into the prison just to visit Dream?? And if he didn’t need Ghostbur after all, then why didn’t he bring Wilbur back weeks ago? 

That’s not even getting into the issue of Dream assuming that Wilbur, once brought back, would: 

A.) Want to be alive in the first place.

B.) Actually be willing to help Dream, instead of telling him to fuck off.

C.) Be even slightly capable of helping him at all when he has no allies, no PVP skill, no weapons, no armor, and no knowledge of the prison or its innerworkings. 

Why are the current DSMP writers so committed to making me think Dream is a fucking idiot? I don’t enjoy this. I used to like his character and think he was smart. Stop. 

ALSO, why did Tommy or Tubbo or Ranboo not think of the possibility that Ghostbur could very well be necessary to revive Wilbur? Why did that not cross any of their minds? It was the first thing I thought of when I saw him.

Another big thing that irks me is Tommy and Sam saying they saw Dream physically holding the Revival Book, which,,, how? Why? Dream said in previous streams that he burned the book and that was entirely the thing that kept him from being killed outright. If there was a book still in existence, did he hide it somehow? 

How did Quackity not find it? Why did Sam not take it from him when he was first arrested?? What? 

Also how the fuck did Dream kill a ghost?? They’re incorporeal? How does he not need the body to perform necromancy? That seems almost redundant. 

Also it took a matter of seconds to perform? It took,,, ?? nothing but words and sheer willpower to bring someone back to life? Why does it seem so easy? My mans just,, uses his vibes to bring people back from the dead??? 

Unless the book has instructions regarding that or has a proportional price in order to use, then I’d be more forgiving. But I’m guessing it doesn’t have too steep a cost if Dream could offer Tommy immortality despite that. But I’m sure we’ll get more information on this once Quackity (inevitably) gets his hands on the book. Hopefully… 

Which brings me to my last point—

Wilbur’s Revival (Derogatory)

Since the Revival Book was introduced, I have been actively dreading Wilbur being revived. It is the most predictable, low-hanging fruit of a plotline I could possibly conceive of. I understand that he’s a fan-favorite with a large audience (I love Wilbur more than you’d expect. cc!Wilbur is actually the reason I got into the DSMP in the first place), but there are other characters who could be developed more—utilized more. 

Unpopular opinion, I know, but I am just so incredibly unenthused about this plot development. In fact, I’d almost go so far as to say hate it. 

The Revival Book in and of itself is my least favorite thing the DSMP has ever introduced. It is a lack of consequences simplified. It’s also a lack of commitment to those mortal consequences. 

It is a ‘get out of jail free’ card for when they kill off a character and don’t want to deal with the hole that character will leave behind. Or a way to work around the reason they shouldn’t kill Dream on the spot. 

With Wilbur back again, I no longer feel compelled by his arc the way I used to. There is nothing to really leave a lasting impact anymore. Of course, there was a cater where L’Manburg once stood, but that was dug even deeper later on. You can’t make the death of a friend, of a loved one, worse than it is. It is death. 

The thing I found extremely interesting about Wilbur’s death is the way the other characters portrayed loss. It has consistently been the thing that was most comforting to me, oddly enough. When people die, there will always be loose ends. 

There will be holes left behind and things left unsaid. An unfulfilled promise. A forgotten relationship. A hollow memory.

What I always found compelling was the way Tommy and Fundy and Niki took this mutual loss and had to live with it. How they had to come to terms with the fact that Wilbur was gone and he wasn’t coming back. That they had to make peace with his memory, his legacy, and their connection to him. 

That they’d miss him and love him or hate him and try to forget him. It is a tragedy that someone like Wilbur wanted to die for so long, and in the end, he did. Because in reality, the people you love will die. 

There may be someone in your life that leaves you behind and all you’re left with is the broken pieces. And it is how these characters move on that brings me bittersweet company as someone who’s lost a lot of people. There is nothing more irritating than a story going back on its establishments—to have their cake and eat it too. 

All I want is the bare minimum—a story with narrative stakes and consequences.

The only way I could ever see myself enjoying this plot development is if Wilbur has a redemption arc and attempts to make amends with Tommy, Fundy, Niki, and Eret. OR if he aids in Dream’s downfall in some way and enjoys the simple realities of life and wants to live for the sake of living. I’d find that at least new and somewhat interesting. 

But if he’s just here to be a moustache toiling villain (or somehow worse than after his previous downward spiral), when the market is already so deeply oversaturated with antagonists, then I will probably drop the series altogether. 

Hopefully it doesn’t come to that because I love the Dream SMP and I want to keep loving it for as long as I can. 

I will hold onto more reasons to stay, so long as they keep giving them to me.