#Order Up || Sasha Threads

[bullet-prooflove]

Hi. 👋🏻 This is an ask for Stuart Scola. The prompt is: 44. In her kiss, I taste the revolution. Thank you so much.

References to upcoming fic: Stillwater

There’s a wildness in you, there always has been. It’s one of the reasons Stuart fell in love with you, you brought chaos into his carefully ordered life, unpredictability. Everything before was structured, a way of asserting control after Dougie’s death, you’d shattered that completely and Stuart has never looked back.

You’re in this lap, straddling his hips, your chest pressing against his as you kiss him like he’s never been kissed by another woman. His hands thread through your hair, fingers gripping the strands in his fist as he thrusts up into you.

You’re out of control tonight, furious, unruly. He knows where this stems from, what’s driving you. You’d been away in Europe for almost two weeks when a women he’d slept with in the past had tried to woo him, she’d broken into your home, attempted to seduce him with breakfast in bed.

You aren’t a jealous woman but you are territorial.

You don’t need to remind him who he belongs to, he’s known since the first night you took him to bed. This right now, it’s for you.

“Say it.” You whisper against his lips, your breathing ragged, your skin flushing that pretty shade of pink. He has you on the cusp, teetering on the edge. Your eyes burn so fucking bright but there’s an insecurity there, one that you will never admit to.

“You’re the only one Sasha.” He promises as he fucks you up into you. “The only woman I’m ever going to love.”

@kmc1989 @trublu2u @greenies-green @burningpeachpuppy @upsteadlogic @malindacath @yezzyyae @noxytopy @district447 @soultrysworld

[theapocalypseisonlythebeginning]

Bad People or Good People? - Chapter 8: We’re the Good Guys, Clem (Part 3)

☝️beautiful art that I had commissioned by the lovely @estethell for this very story ❤️🖤 thank you again!

chapter summary: New alliances are made. Tyreese doesn't like what Woodbury seems to be, but Kenny is blind to it all. Rick doesn't like what he is turning into, meanwhile Clementine might have finally found a friend in Carl.

previous chapter: We’re the Good Guys, Clem (Part 2)

story masterlist

read on Ao3

Word Count: 2556

tag list: @nowandthane @fizzyxcustard If you'd like to be added or removed from my tag list, please let me know

Tyreese wiped away some sweat from his forehead. The sun was scorching hot outside, but this was important work. With the threat of the prison group, Tyreese and some others had been ordered to help Kenny with the fence. The Governor had, apparently, thought Kenny’s suggestions for keeping Woodbury safer ideal, and had given all the supplies necessary almost immediately.

Kenny was slowly inching his way inside the Governor’s inner circle, and Tyreese wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

Glancing to the side, said man was planting a kiss to Sarita’s cheek. He was a stark contrast to the man Tyreese had first met; the man who punched the Governor in the face.

He’d never do anything bad to Sarita though. Everyone knew Kenny would do anything for her and Sarita’s niece. The devotion he had for them made it seem like they’d known each other for years. Yet… apparently, they’d only known each other for two months.

“Here yeh go,” Kenny said. He handed Tyreese a zipped up bag of lunch Sarita had packed for the men working there. As Kenny handed the rest out, Tyreese continued to watch him.

The smile on Kenny’s face seemed fake. It always had. Like he was a politician trying to gain favor with the others. But Kenny was the opposite of a politician, and it all came off as… rather creepy. At least to Tyreese and his sister. No one else seemed to react to it.

“Very nice of her,” Tyreese said quickly.

Stood outside of the walls of Woodbury, taking a break for some nicely packed lunch seemed almost laughable. Yet here they were, pretending Woodbury was such a safe haven that a lunchbreak wasn’t dangerous.

Woodbury just felt… surreal. Sasha had been right about that.

“Where’d you get the idea from?” Tyreese asked, gesturing to the wired fence they were adding. The walls of Woodbury were already safe…

Well, that had been everyone’s hope, until the prison group had infiltrated the place.

“Some farm.” Kenny crouched down beside the small holes they’d drilled through the metal walls earlier. Through them, wires were going to be threaded that were attached to generators inside.

They were creating an electric fence. Difficult to pass, and easy to fry some Walkers that got too close.

“They had it all ‘round their property,” Kenny had continued. Then his face turned sour, an angry look appearing on his face. “They were freaks.”

Tyreese grew silent, watching as Kenny double checked any work that was done. If he’d only seen the idea once, then he was no expert. But the Governor was pretending he was.

The Governor was pretending Kenny was a lot of things lately. It was weird.

Their relationship was weird.

“You okay?”

“Yeah…” Kenny simply replied at first. But something dark overtook him suddenly: “Just thinking ‘bout all them things I’ll do to anyone who even dares to come close to Woodbury.”

Those words made Tyreese grow quiet once more. He wanted to trust the people here, but from the deluded civilians who thought life would go on like it did post outbreak, to the completely deranged anger that Kenny showed, to the tightly knit soldiers that spoke in hushed whispers behind Tyreese’s back and into the Governor’s ears…

This place was mental.

As if he could sniff out any type of disloyal or unsure thoughts, the Governor appeared behind Tyreese. “How’s it going?” he asked casually, planting a smile on his face. Walking with his hands behind his back, he glanced with his one eye at Tyreese as he rounded him to approach Kenny.

“Good, sir,” Tyreese was quick to reply, before going back to his work, lunch untouched.

“Just got a few more feet left, then we can start attaching the wires,” Kenny added.

“Good. Good,” the Governor hummed. “This was a great idea. We’ve got to do all we can to keep our enemies out.”

There was a brief pause in the conversation, only Tyreese’s hammering interfering with the silence.

“You say you’d been at the prison, right?” Tyreese glanced up at the Governor’s words. He stood, nodding his head. “And you say they had, what, at the most three strong men to fight?”

Tyreese wordlessly nodded his head. “And a baby, a kid-“

Upon the added information, Kenny had turned his head in surprise - but the Governor had raised a hand to stop Tyreese from talking more.

“Yes, very good. And tell me…” The Governor moved in closer. “Was there a little girl?”

“What?” Tyreese asked.

“Was there a little girl with them? Around ten years old?” the Governor asked.

Shaking his head no, Tyreese’s eyes grew suspicious. But not as suspicious as the Governor’s.

A long pause followed. The Governor moved in closer, invading Tyreese’s personal space. Suddenly, any hint of a fake smile was gone, and Tyreese tensed up as the true Governor showed its face for the first time.

“We’ve got people watchin’ them,” the Governor spoke menacingly quiet.

“Okay.” Tyreese spoke with a hint of a question, unsure what was being referred to.

The Governor suddenly smiled and patted Tyreese’s arm with a strange, forced chuckle. “Kenny,” he said, still staring straight at Tyreese, and staying right there in his personal space. “Do you think the men can finish without you?”

“Oh, yeah. I don’t see why not,” Kenny replied from behind the Governor’s back, seemingly oblivious to the tension.

Only then did the Governor turn and leave Tyreese be. A strangely relieved sigh left him, having been unaware that his chest had tightened so much he hadn’t been able to breathe.

That was weird… right? Did the Governor just threaten him by accusing him of potentially lying? Tyreese and the others were only in there briefly, they hadn’t met everyone… At least, he didn’t think so…

“Walk with me,” the Governor asked, throwing an arm around Kenny’s shoulders before the man could reply. “Who was it you traveled with again…? Lee and Clementine?”

“Yeah.” As they moved further away from Tyreese, he heard less and less of their conversation, but kept staring at them.

“And you came from… Hershel’s farm?”

“Yeah, we did. Was the first place we got to when me and the wife decided to get outta town.”

“Interesting… Tell me more.”

…

Rick steered the car down roads not yet tainted by the lack of maintenance in this new, dark world. He sat back in his seat, relaxed. It was quiet. They had succeeded on a mission. And now the only threat they had to deal with was Woodbury.

All should be well.

But it wasn’t.

Where Daryl had sat earlier was just an empty seat. No one had sat down in the front, both Glenn and Daryl stuffed in the back. No one spoke. No one even looked at each other.

Rick didn’t have to use his police instincts to know that the atmosphere in the car was… his fault.

Both the men, clearly fond of Clementine, were being forced to lie to her. On top of that, they were forced to lie to the rest of the group too. Rick doubted whether Glenn would keep this from Maggie, but beside that, he knew no one else was going to find out.

Not for a while at least, and hopefully never.

He knew Glenn was going to stay true to Rick’s request to keep this quiet. Glenn was in line with Rick’s hatred for Woodbury. They were seeing eye to eye on a lot of things lately.

But Daryl…

Those three bodies and the very obvious evidence of a group leaving, albeit it away from the prison, were all facts that Rick should openly tell his group - especially Clementine.

But…

What good would it do? Clementine might want to follow, meaning some people would leave with her. That would mean leaving the rest even more vulnerable to Woodbury’s threat. And that meant endangering Carl and Judith.

Selfish? Maybe… Or he was just trying to be a good leader.

For the first time in a long time, Rick wasn’t quite sure about Daryl’s loyalty. As he glanced back at the archer, perched awkwardly in the back with knees hitting the front seat uncomfortably, Rick was unsure what to do…

This was not a democracy. There were threats left and right.

But was it right to keep things from others just to keep people safe?

Far down the road, the prison could be seen already. They were almost home, and Daryl called it in through the Walkie Talkie.

But there was something else there.

Something along the road, waiting…

His mind revealed Lori, standing in an innocent white dress, watching him… Judging him for what he had become. For what he was doing. Lori, the woman who whispered in his ear about Shane’s bad intentions; Lori, the woman who loved Rick unconditionally; Lori, the mother to his children.

But she was gone.

And he had but one child.

 But no, he had two.

But…

Lori would have disagreed with Rick’s behavior. Lori did disagree with Rick’s behavior. She hated dictatorships.

The world was not right, she would say, if there are dictatorships ruling over people, lying and manipulating. Thinking only on how to make them do what their leader wanted of them…

Rick was doing just that.

Was he doing it for the right reasons…?

…

“I heard what you told Michonne.”

Much to Clementine’s surprise, Carl was the one stood in the doorway to her cell. She had holed herself up in there since hearing back from Daryl and breaking down to Michonne. Whatever Michonne had told the others about it had apparently made them leave Clementine alone. She wasn’t really complaining about that. The solitude had been great to calm herself down again and to do something to get her mind off it all.

Drawing had been what she had been up to. Just aimlessly scribbling and coloring.

She had been two drawings in by the time Carl had come to her cell.

“Merle said we should leave you alone, but…” He shuffled inside the cell, long brown hair sticking out from his hat in various places and angles.

Surprised, Clementine had perked up from her spot on the floor. “He did? Why?”

“Dunno,” Carl replied with a shrug. Both seemed to be talking about different things; whilst Clementine had been surprised that Merle had asked the others to leave the girl alone, Carl was more confused by why solitude was what people thought Clementine needed.

He shifted to sit down next to Clementine, glancing at the drawings. But his eyes weren’t very interested in her art, shifting to her waist instead: “You get your gun from someone?” he opted to ask instead.

With a nod, Clementine took it out from its holster. Daryl had found that holster for her, even spent some time trying to shorten the strap so it would fit her child waist. She placed the gun in front of her. 

Carl watched it for a while before taking out his own gun, placing it next to hers. “I killed my mom with it.”

It said a lot about this world that Clementine didn’t shift away from Carl in horror at those words.

Silence filled the cell instead.

“I killed Lee with mine,” Clementine whispered.

Two children sat alone in a cell, broken by what had happened to both, forced to do the unthinkable at a despicably young age.

“Sorry,” Carl had said quietly.

“Sorry,” Clementine repeated earnestly.

And suddenly, all of the fiendish feelings that Clementine had gotten from Carl since the beginning was gone. Suddenly, Carl reached over to place a hand on her shoulder - a brotherly gesture that made him look ten times older than he was, ready to protect her from any future horror.

“You’ve got friends in us too,” Carl said, trying his best to be a little supportive concerning the apparent disappearance of Ylva’s group.

Clementine nodded her head, but didn’t offer a smile at his words.

The children tucked their guns away again, before Carl gestured to the drawings. Without words, Clementine had offered Carl a blank piece of paper and some pens, before both simply… began to draw. Sitting next to each other to keep the other one company, they did this in silence for a while.

They had forgotten how nice it was to have someone closer to their own ages to talk to. How nice it was to just… be themselves, to have someone understand how shitty this all was for them.

They’d feel much better in each other’s companies than without from that moment on.

…

“Daryl.” Rick’s voice was a command. Glenn left them alone to find Maggie, or Clementine, whilst Daryl stayed put outside in the scorching sun. Rick shut the car door behind him, then approached Daryl, eyes darting at everything everywhere but at Daryl… until he came to a halt only a few feet away from the man.

Never in his life would Rick invade Daryl’s personal space to make a point. Despite any bad feelings or ill wishes that appeared between the two, Rick knew to give Daryl that space. It was important to Daryl, and Rick didn’t dare ask why - too worried, in all honesty, to hear how bad the reason might be. Daryl was his friend after all. He respected that distance even now.

“I wanna talk ‘bout what just happened.”

Daryl didn’t reply in any other form but a single, strained, nod.

“You know it’s important we keep our focus on the Governor-“

“This why we lyin’?” Daryl interrupted, his eyes narrowing into a glare. “’Bout someone’s friends? How would you feel if we lied ‘bout your family dyin’.”

It was no question. It was a point made. A point that was a touchy subject too.

Rick bit back some unkind words, lips thinning into a straight line, as he looked away. Composing himself, Rick pushed the anger, grief, and sadness away to offer Daryl an understanding nod.

“I know,” was Rick’s reply, spoken through a strained pair of lips. “You think I like lying? You think this is what I wanna do?” Daryl remained quiet, eyes narrowing into slits of mistrust, and Rick took a breath to calm himself. “They’re gone. We have no reason to follow. But we have all the reason to defend against the Governor, who is literally on our doorstep. You get it?”

“Then I go with the girl,” Daryl had quickly replied.

That had been Rick’s fear, and it showed as he was quick to shake his head. “Yer one of my best warriors, Daryl. I can’t lose you.” He paused then added: “We can’t lose you,” for emphasis.

“The tracks’ll be gone if we wait,” Daryl said, biting his lip. His gaze had drifted away from Rick, his head hung low. His voice, too, was quieter.

Rick was getting through to Daryl. “I know…”

“Ye’d have less difficulty leading if ye just spoke the truth,” Daryl snapped. With those words said, Daryl turned and marched off.

But something told Rick that Daryl wasn’t going to tell anyone they’d lied. That despite what he wanted to do, he understood Rick’s reasoning. Still, it didn’t feel right to force a good man to become bad.

[lairde-lampblack]

sitting here with my hands fouled like a james bond villain rn. So. Oops All Avatar Au 👁️👁️

(u have consumed my brain for the next forever please continue 🩷🩷🩷)

WHEEZE you're good! I'm genuinely delighted you love the concept!

So, for those that didnt click the readmore, the timeline order of who ended when will be: sasha (mid-unknowing, she falls into the crack in the house on hilltop road), tim (around when jon wakes up in canon, he was racing against helen to the middle of the spiral, and them fighting over it collapses the tunnels around them right as tim's becoming), martin (when martin gets lonelied in canon, jon is the one lost and martin goes into a rage and accidentally sets off elias' dead man's trigger), and jon (lives in canon, timeline goes back right when the eyepocalypse starts)

i even have titles for them all! sasha is the Fiddler, because she uses wide broad strokes on woven threads to learn about their machinations (shes also the one who pulls everyone back into one collapsed timeline through the crack at hilltop road); tim is the Architect, because of a. his obsession with smirke, b. the distortion's propensity towards confusing building plans, c. his dedication to building a better future after the time travel; martin is the Captain, because he stole the captainship from plukas, he trends well towards leadership as needed though he works better in groups, and also the lonely ship theming; then jon is obviously archivist/archive

a lot of sasha tim and martin assuming jon is normal is because, not just because he died so early on for them, but also the fact that in those timelines he simply didnt express any supernatural abilities. the Crisiseses stunted his avatar growth

[thebluemoonjune]

The Elegance of Resilience Chapter 5: GoodBye

Chapter 5: Goodbye

Summary:

Rick and Lori have a long need talk about everything. And the Hawthornes arrive.

When Rick woke up, Michonne wasn’t next to him. His attention had been caught by a white piece of paper on the dresser. It was a letter she had written.

Hey sleepyhead,

I guess you're awake if you're reading this. I didn’t want to wake you up. I’ll be at Sasha’s for a few hours since I want to see the twins. I’m going to let them stay for an extra day. Sasha has an appointment in the morning, but Abe offered to watch them till she got back. I hope you haven't forgotten already, but my parents are coming tomorrow, and I don’t want the boys around for that first clash. I should be back by nine. And in case you're hungry, I left dinner on the stove, so please eat something. Also, Lori called you, and no, I didn’t answer. After everything that happened, who knows? Talking might do some good.

Yours truly,

Chonne

Rick put the note back where he found it, only to pick up his phone to go through it. He saw eight missed calls from Lori. His mind flashed to Judith. Memories danced on the precipice of his thoughts, teetering between cherished moments and painful reminders, threading a delicate line between solace and sorrow. He stood up and walked to the mirror, looking at himself for almost three minutes. He saw a stranger, eyes hollow and listless, the sparkle of life extinguished, replaced by the vacant gaze of nothing. He grabbed the phone to call Lori back.

[Rick, Hello.]

[Why did you call me?]

[I wanted us to talk... Just me and you. I’m in Atlanta…I came hoping you’d meet with me at the restaurant we celebrated our sixth anniversary. Do you remember that?]

[I’ll meet you.]

Rick cut her off before he heard the rest of what she had to say. He ate and went to get ready.

…

Entering the restaurant, he saw her sitting in the Centre. He didn’t understand why she chose this place, and he didn’t want to understand. He told the waiter who he came to meet, and they escorted him to the table.

“Hi, Rick…”

“Good evening.”

“Did you come from work?”

“I’m on paid leave.”

A heavy fog enveloped her mind, shrouding her thoughts in a grey haze. Not wanting her face to betray her, she wore a gentle smile.

“This place hasn’t changed a bit, Don’t you think so? I already ordered for us.”

“I didn’t come here to reminisce, Lori. Let's cut to the chase.”

She traced invisible patterns on the tablecloth, a nervous tic that betrayed her anxious anticipation, her mind racing with scenarios of what could go wrong.

“I wasn’t a good wife nor you good husband… You’re a good man, but you weren’t a good husband. But I loved you all the same.”

“I could have done better. I know that, but when it came to my children, I really did give my all.”

“You are a good father, Rick. A damn great one at that.”

“Then why did you destroy our family?”

She took a couple of seconds before answering. 

“You know, I was happy when we got married. You were the love of my life, you still are. You were kind, helpful, duty-driven, patient, understanding, and unconfrontational. Ain’t every day you meet a man like that. And here you were in front of me, ready to walk side by side, even though that meant never speaking to your mother again.”

Her smile became a mere facade, a fragile mask she wore to conceal the bitterness that threatened to consume her, the shadows of her depression dancing beneath her eyes. The waiter brought their meals, placing them on the table. She took a sip of her wine before continuing.

“It comes in threes. That's what my mother told me right after we got married. Three, six, nine, twelve,  so on and so on. It was the day of our sixth anniversary in this restaurant at this very table, I realised that everything I loved about you when we first got married was everything I hated about you now.”

Rick said nothing. His hands slid down his cheeks, pulling his eyes and lips down with them. He stared right through her, chin propped on his hand wearily. Unexpectedly, he felt calm, his temper nowhere in sight. Maybe it was the adrenaline of the back-and-forth dying out, leaving him exhausted. He simply waited for her to go on.

“We didn’t have much money, and Carl was so young. It was the first time in three years that you planned something for just the two of us, and you were an hour late like you usually were. When you came rushing in here, I already knew... Someone needed help, or you got caught up in a case. It was always something with your hero complex... The thing about marrying a kind, helpful, duty-driven, patient, understanding, and unconfrontational man is that he isn’t only that way towards you.”

They watched the world drift by, not truly seeing anything. The space under her eyes had darkened into sickly purple shadows; she still went on, however.

“Throughout our relationship, everyone seemed to have your time but me. We were together, but it barely felt that way. If I messed up, you would let it go or justify it, almost like I wasn’t worth getting mad at.”

“I didn’t know arguing over things that don’t matter was part of being married, Lori.”

“It’s something every normal couple does, Rick. After that sixth year, I realised I held the title of your wife, but I didn’t feel like your wife. It was as if we were just going through the motions.”

“You should have talked to me.”

“And say what? You work too much; you don’t show me enough attention; you don’t fight with me like real husbands and wives do... I know how it sounds. Trust me, I know.”

“So having an affair with my best friend was the next best thing.”

“I felt so lonely. At that point, I think we both realised that our marriage was hanging on a string… Shane had come by our house to see if you were there, but you were with Daryl for some reason. I remembered you took Carl with you, so it was probably hunting or something... I took the opportunity to talk to Shane. I wanted to know if you talked about us and if you did what you said. Then we talked about everything… He understood me, and then one thing led to another… He made me feel good, and I wanted to feel good; I needed to.”

She let out a weary sigh, a sound heavy with the weight of accumulated exhaustion, as if the burden of weariness had found its voice in her breath.

Rick gazed at her intently. His expression turned brisk and businesslike. Holding his breath, leaning back, and letting his eyes slowly close, he regulated his emotions.

“Don’t stop now; Go on.”

“The year when I got pregnant with Judy, did you really not notice? I thought you would notice for sure. I mean, we had sex. What— Once or twice around that month?”

“No.”

“I was so scared; I was gonna tell you, but you were so happy, and things between us started changing. So I ended things with Shane.”

“Oh, you ended things? I guess I’m gonna have to be thankful that you ended things.”

A cold wave of dread washed over her, and she could not bear to lift her head and meet the eyes of her estranged husband.

“When you found out, I thought you were gonna kill me, but you stayed. And when you found out about Judith, I was thankful. I need you to know that.”

“I didn’t do it for you.”

“I know, but you stopped doing it for them too.”

“What‘d you mean by that, Lori?”

“When did your little affair start?”

“Michonne was never a mistress.”

“You hid your relationship for almost a year, and we are still married. She is a mistress, no matter how you twist it.”

Eyes venomous, piercing her soul, Rick shot her a glare, filled with a cloud of warning that settled on his face. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and he stretched his neck from side to side before calming and returning to the conversion.

“I told you that I’d stay if Judith was mine. I tried to push everything away and deal with it and I couldn’t. I couldn't, and I was just... I hate you with every fibre of my being. I felt lost… Chonne, she’s so much more than some mistress; God sent her to me, and honestly, she deserves better than she got... I met the love of my life over four years ago, around that time I told you words I didn’t mean. And she gave me two beautiful boys, which God knows I don’t deserve. I wanted a divorce because it hurt to stay with you, and those three deserved more than second place, even now.”

“Wow.”

“You wanted honesty; let’s talk honesty. Ain’t that what we been doing?”

“Hmm. I knew you were with someone else, but I couldn’t prove it. I thought it was just a fling, you throwing a tantrum, but you keep asking for a DNA test. When you got shot, I knew how much I still loved you and couldn’t leave you. I knew I had to keep our family together, that I wasn’t ready to lose my husband, that my children weren’t ready to lose their father. I was determined, ready to be by your side, but I saw her there… I understand, but you didn’t have to get her pregnant. I feel like you did it to one-up me. Like you were punishing me, you been punishing me!”

Lori had gotten the attention of the nearby patrons with her last statement. She squeezed her eyes, trying to force the tears from their edges so she could be done with them. Her face was a mask of resignation, a facade that concealed the raw ache of her sadness, her true emotions hidden beneath a carefully crafted veneer.

“Punishing you. You felt like I was punishing you?” His huge blue eyes gave her a predatory look.

“You said that she was the love of your life. So what was I? You cut off your mother for me… Are you telling me everything you did and said wasn’t to spite me?”

“Lori I’m not gonna say you were a mistake; after all, you gave me Carl and Judith, if only for a time. I did love you at a point, but in the grand scheme of things, you’re a stepping stone. You were that the moment I met Michonne, even if I didn’t know it yet.”

“Is there really no going back? Is our family really gone? I still love you, Rick.”

“No… We can’t go back; we’ve both taken different paths. We both need to let go… On my way here, I had a lot of time to think. I’m not gonna fight you or Shane. I’ve got three boys that need me, that deserve all of me. I love her, and if in the future she still wants me in her life, I will be there. I’ve been fighting for so long, I can’t do it again. I can’t put my family through that again, and I won’t.”

They stared at each other until the laughter of the pair reared a hollow echo, a reminder of the joy they once knew. Still, they now seemed impossibly out of reach, as if happiness were a foreign language they could no longer comprehend when it came to their current relationship.

“Goodbye, Lori.”

“Goodbye, Rick.”

When Rick got up, he didn’t turn back to look at his soon-to-be ex-wife. He simply paid the bill and left. By the time he got back to the villa, Michonne was there, surprisingly.

I thought she said nine.

“Hey…”

“Hello, cowboy.” Her eyes shone with gentle, serene happiness, a tranquil glow that emanated from within.

“You said nine. What happened? Not that I’m complaining.”

“Something told me you took my advice. I wanted to be here when you came home… So how did it go?”

Michonne patted her lap, indicating that he come and lie down on the couch. As he did, she stoked his hair.

“It went better than I thought. I think we're both just tired.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Everything… From the beginning to the end. It felt good. I feel…Light.”

“Things are going to get better from here. I know it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

…

Michonne made it a point to get up an hour earlier than normal. She needed to make sure everything was in order for her parents' arrival that evening. She made a point of cleaning her always-clean house, beginning with the guest bedroom and working her way through the rest. Afterwards went grocery shopping with Rick to stock up on pantry reserves. She made sure to buy a lot of lamb meat and his favourite wine, a Woodward Canyon Sauvignon, because her father was particular, and when they came home at 5:00 p.m., she began cooking.

“I could pick ‘em up.”

“Rick, I can't do that to you. When they get here, I’ll just tell them we had an important something; I’ll come up with it when they get here. Knowing my father, they’ll be here in ten minutes, so 6:30 on the dot.”

“Mhmm…Need any help in here, though?”

“Nope, I’m almost done. The lamb needs like eight minutes in the oven, and I’ll be finished with lamb sauce in five, so...”

“Your dad…”

“Don’t challenge him; it'll be worse.”

Rick was about to answer when they heard a buzz from the gate.

“Oh shit, that’s them. I told Mummy the code; she forgot already?”

Michonne made her way to the pad to open the gates, then walked out the door with Rick at her heels. He stopped her

“Did you forget that your sauce? I’ll go.”

“Oh, alright. Be good?”

He was about to go to the driveway when he was greeted by the voice of an older man.

“I didn’t expect you to be here, Richard. I thought you would be with your wife.”

“Reynard… How are you?”

“Straining, waiting for you to take these suitcases. Be careful with Marie's, lest you break something. Where’s my daughter?”

“Chonne’s in the kitchen. She wanted to cook for both of you. Marie, I was beginning to wonder!”

Rick much preferred engaging with his soon-to-be mother-in-law, even though he was sure she was borderline insane. She gave him a warm hug and kissed him on the cheek.

“Oh, Richy! I had a call. Look how handsome you are every time I see you. Si beau! Si beau!”

“It’s lovely to see you too. Come on, let’s go inside. I’m sure you're hungry.”

…

Marie Nadege Lefevre, a Franco-Haitian woman born to a French father and a Haitian mother. Her father, André Jacques Lefevre, built his fortune from the ground up with blood, sweat, and tears at a time when it was hard for a man of his background to have many opportunities. When he’d reached the height of his success at the age of sixty, he met his wife,  Margaret Rosena Toussaint, a thirty-five-year-old painter who he was a faithful fan of. The couple married within five months of courting each other and had Marie eight months later. André spoiled Marie rotten. She was his only child, and he believed that with all his hard work, his daughter should have what she wanted when she wanted it. If not for Margaret, Marie would probably be an entitled and insufferable person. It also helped that she was naturally warm, kind, and loving, with an outgoing personality. 

“Oh, Amélie, dinner was lovely. By the way, where are the boys?”

Marie couldn’t stop grinning; her smile was infectious and genuine, as if happiness had become a permanent resident on her face, an expression that invited others to share in her joy.

“Thank you, Mommy. They’re with Sasha.” Michonne turned to Reynard “Dad, Sasha said she wanted to take you out tomorrow for some uncle and niece time.”

Reynard, who’d been eyeing Rick all dinner, led his gaze to his daughter.

“Why does this feel like a ploy between you and that troublesome child? Are you afraid of something, Amélie?”

She wiped her sweaty palms on her trousers, her nerves betraying her in tiny droplets of perspiration, a visible sign of her inner unease.

“Of course not.” her smile was forced as she attempted to hide her nerves “It’s just that you haven’t seen her in almost a year. Her Noah’s gotten big too.”

“That’s true. I want to see Abraham as well. He's a good man, that one. Your cousin made a wise choice. No other wife, because she’s the wife, and no other children. Only my daughter was foolish enough to open her legs to a married man with two kids, one of whom he’s not even sure about.”

Reynard, stop!” Marie begged him.

“Not only did she openly become a mistress, but she also got pregnant. I have been more than fair to this Godless behaviour, this shamelessness, but you’re pregnant again!”

Rick was ready to exchange words with the man when Reynard's final piece of his verbal onslaught caught him off guard. As he stared at Michonne, his already huge eyes expanded into massive circles. Her demeanour was deceptively controlled, her surprise revealed by a quick gasp. She sat transfixed, grasping her partner's shirt and pulling it until it was irreversibly stretched. Marie bit her bottom lip, buried in thoughts of severe ramifications for her.

She had promised Michonne she would tell her father since she was looking for the best time to inform Rick. She would always tell her husband anything, but if her daughter asked her to keep something between them, she did, but Reynard had happened to overhear their discussion. Looking at her child, she could see the embarrassment of her father's words and the shock creeping in. She also knew her husband wasn't done. The person he wanted to hurt wasn’t Michonne, but Rick.

“You never think these things through, Amélie. A third child, Amélie? Really, For a man who is still legally married? What the hell does he have to offer? You lowered your panties for a man that can’t even give you all of himself, a man with nothing to offer other than a pretty face and babies! Babies! Michonne Amélie Elodie Hawthorne, what did I teach you?”

Her eyes were wide and tear-filled. She bit her lower lip until it bled, the metallic taste a stark reminder of her terror, as if the agony provided a brief reprieve from the crushing panic that threatened to devour her.

“Do not cry; I have given you no reason to cry, Amélie. Now, what did I teach you?”

[jadziajay]

a scene from my current wip, which i am calling a reverse-reverse au!

essentially, this collab with my new friend sasha asks the question: what if vinylatte were the ineffables, but nina were much more akin to angel!crowley and maggie to demon!aziraphale? nina still owns her coffee shop, and she brings sweets over to aziraphale sometimes :) this is one such time...

[...] “Here you are, Az,” she said, and shifted the box in her grip. She found that nicknames were a good way of sounding more human, on the whole. That and a healthy sprinkling of curse words. “All your favourites. Strawberry and lemon and those fuckin’ weird blackcurrant ones.”

“Oh!” said Aziraphale. “Thank you, Nina! Just set them over there, if you please.” 

He gave this directive from beneath a veritable mountain of books – piles and piles of them, some stacked as high as his head, others pouring out of brown boxes. It almost looked like he was just moving in, but of course that was impossible, because he had always been here if you took the straightforward view of reality that you were really supposed to, post-Antichrist. Nina picked through the mess with her habitual grace. 

“Restructuring again, then?”

“Oh, yes,” sighed Aziraphale, and stood up. He had on a sweater vest in cream argyle, and his glasses, which he removed to look at her. “Nothing for it, I’m afraid. Just got in a shipment I’d been waiting on for months and now I’m all turned around.”

Privately, Nina thought that this was an issue that might have been solved by an organisational model such as the Dewey decimal system, rather than alphabetical (if you were lucky) by whatever Mr. Fell felt like on a given day. She laid the box on his desk, a shock of white among the brown, and debated a miraculous intervention.

She liked him, was the problem. It was shockingly difficult to dislike Aziraphale, and Nina had tried. She loved all of God’s creatures, naturally, and had something roughly equivalent to the gruff protective instinct of a big sister for humanity, but that in no way meant that she had to like them, and she had taken that to heart somewhere around the Crusades. Sometimes, though, there came a human like Aziraphale that threatened all her hard work at distance.

Here was a man who came along to rent out the corner shop that had sat gathering dust for forty years and refused to sell a single book there because he loved them too much to let go – a man who sewed his own elbow patches onto authentic vintage coats, who took his tea with four sugars and honey, who read his Bible and only took the bits he felt were relevant to living well. Here was a man who did good, not Good, and was just enough of a bastard about it to be worth knowing. Nina couldn’t possibly feel anything for him but a begrudging warmth.

“How much?” he asked, tilting his head toward the box of macaron she had spent the better part of two hours filling to order. 

“Nope,” she said, and marvelled at herself. She shook her head sharply when he went to protest. 

“Oh, really now, I insist.” 

“Keep your money, Mr. Fell,” Nina said, with a thread of divine power in it – mostly because she didn’t have the patience to do this back-and-forth for another ten minutes, and he was so fucking English that he would. He blinked, slowly, owlishly, and put his pocketbook away.

“Well,” he said, at length. “Thank you. That’s very kind.”

“What can I say? I’m a right angel, me. Anything else?”

She watched him fidget – he folded the arms of his glasses, tucked them into his pocket, and smoothed out a series of nonexistent creases in his trousers. It was a bit like watching a baby duck faffing around with its feathers, and Nina tried very hard not to find it endearing. She wondered sometimes if he was one of theirs that got lost in the system somewhere, but Heaven didn’t up and lose things, unless you counted the Antichrist, which you shouldn’t, because he wasn’t, and so there was nothing to have lost. (She sort of wished she couldn’t remember that; it gave her metaphysical headaches to think about.)

“I’m having a bit of a get-together,” he said eventually. “A- a ball, of sorts, if you like. Just a little something for the neighbourhood, to liven things up. The shopkeepers’ meetings do get terribly repetitive, after awhile, and I know they aren’t your… thing, really, but it would mean ever so much if you came just this once.” 

Nina levelled the sort of stare at him that she generally reserved for the Archangel Gabriel. It was appraising in the way that Heaven was best at; not quite cold, but with a depth.

“Will there be alcohol?”

“But of course,” said Aziraphale. A spark of mischief caught in his eye, winnowing the anxiety that had been roiling there down to nothing. “Do you really think I’d ask anyone to deal with Mister Brown sober? No, my dear girl, that would certainly fall under cruel and unusual.”

She almost laughed. It was a soft huff of a thing laid under a smirk; more than most people ever got, and he knew it, too. He didn’t wait for a further answer, reaching into the box nearest him and withdrawing from it three leatherbound copies of Anna Karenina. 

“Oh!” he said, and clicked his fingers. “And you’re welcome to bring Maggie along, of course. How is she, the dear? I don’t think I’ve seen her in… well, in quite some time!”

“How should I know?” said Nina, nonplussed. Aziraphale gave a small, awkward smile that read, more than anything, politely confused.

“Well, she is your wife, isn’t she?”

There was a profound pause. Nina experienced a complex mixture of emotions over the space of about a second, of which she identified both an animal fear and a sharp, unfortunate want.

“What,” she said, and then “no.” And then “why would you– never mind.”

“Ah,” said Aziraphale, and looked down.

[badassxbirdy]

March Activity Update (Pinned post)

It’s time once again for an activity update! If you’re new here: these (usually) monthly posts help me to keep track of what the frick I’ve been doing, particularly when tumblr breaks or the brainfog strikes. The last few months have been bonkers, so we’ve missed a few. That being the case, this update includes things posted or in drafts for December, January, and February. Everything else can be found in previous monthly updates under this tag.

The full activity update (along with OOC house keeping) is below the cut. Bold text = links.

If you want to see all IC interactions without the other stuff, click here. If you’d like to start something new, there are opens, memes, and the wishlist, or you can just hit up the DM’s. You can also add Ty on Wire for IC texting.

Now onto the update!

OOC Housekeeping:

I have a biiiiig queue posting over the coming week or so. Thank you all for your patience while I got things sorted. ❤️

If you can’t trim our thread, please let me know so that I can fix it. A lot of my access is on mobile, so the extensions get a bit iffy at times.

I’ve lost the login for Ty’s discord. 🤦‍♀️ If you want to reach me, whether that’s IC or OOC, then tumblr DM’s or Ty’s Wire are the best ways.

My todo list for Ty’s blog is absurdly long, but I’m getting started with updating rpthreadtracker. I’m on a mission to get it updated and check in with folks this week!

Lots of OOC madness happening, but the most positive one is this: I’ve moved! 🥳 After 2+ years of trying, I’m out of the HMO bedroom I’ve been in, and into an accessible flat. Still in my beloved city and actually in a bit more of a convenient location.

I’m much better since my hospital stay. Follow up appointments still to come which I’ll no doubt post about on the ooc sideblog, but overall things are moving in the right direction. Thank you for the kind messages during that alarming few days. ❤️

Threads, replies, and other IC interactions:

(In alphabetical order by username)

At the motel (drafted) - @demcnsinmymind

Car trouble (queued) - @demcnsinmymind (and I’ll just be over here crying about Sasha)

Serial killer ghosts (drafted) - @derschwarzeengel

Making their escape (link) - @derschwarzeengel

Starter from @demonstigma (link)

Jeremy/Jonathan meet Hyde!Ty (queued) - @harkcr

Ty is very confused by Wednesday (queued) - @hvbris

Meeting the Captain (link) - @hvbris

FBI!Fish babysits human!Ty (queued) - @imprvdente

Image meme starter for @indyflanery (queued)

Boring bucket list (link) - @innerwar (Lucius)

Monster encounter (queued) - @lcbcshcart

Demon problems (link) - @magaprima

Ty is angy and Proteus is bby (link) - @nightiingaled

“I was just trying to help” (link) - @normallyxstranger (Casey)

Under pressure (link) - @normallyxstranger (Casey)

“Get down!” (link) - @normallyxstranger (Mason)

“Does it still hurt?” (queued) - @normallyxstranger (Mason)

“Are you following me?” (link) @normallyxstranger (Jamie)

Low expectations (link) - @normallyxstranger (Jamie)

How many fingers? (link) - @normallyxstranger (Tabitha)

Banishment gone wrong (link) - @normallyxstranger (Victor)

Lost in the compound (queued) - @razorfst

“Guess I’ll drink my sorrows away.” (link) - @sanguinelupus

Kiara to the rescue! (link) - @thatevester

Meeting Teine (link) - @timelxrd-victorious

Headcanon, dash games, and assorted silliness:

Character arc dash game: romance/friendship arc (link)

They’re a 10 but… (link, link, and link)

Da bby is growing up. 🥹 (link)

“BUT WHAT IF YOU’RE PEEING?” (link) (Okay, I take it back, she isn’t growing up that much.)

Holy water + humidifier (link)

Holy water + candles (link)

Teaching Eli about human things be like: (link)

When main!verse Ty gets to let out some of her darker side: 👍👌👌👍👌👀💖 (link)

Peanut the Racoon! Expect him to be riding shotgun in Ty’s car until further notice. (link)

90’s icon on 90’s icon violence ☠️ (link, link, and link)

Ty’s Christmas mischief, featuring gifts and assorted nonsense. (link)

I think that's everything, but if I've missed something then please do let me know. Stay safe, lovely people!

[hydralisk98]

Nitta, Little Bear & the virtual Nuon Academical Campus (16^12 thread - 0x22/?)

Follow-up to the latest 16^12 thread mainline article(s?):

In light of more recent dreams & a couple of accumulated insights, here are a couple suggestions coming to my head for short stories' components worth experimenting over.

Agents

Kate/Klara "Olive" Kér (self-insert, protagonist, autistic+ADD INTJ transfem with esoteric leanings)

Ava Booksword (synthetic-tier ENFP female android as social service servant to Kate, syndicalism advocate, focal point of the narrative)

Shoshona (black Turkish Angora fem housecat)

Nil Blackhand (blank-slate player insertee agent & anyPOV perspective)

Tano Noir (biomorphic synthetic Shoshone woman, justice vigilante & Cybernetics program cooperation responsible)

Vega Renarde (current Nisian ruler)

Pana Ninsun-Kush (heir to the hegemone despot title of the Nisian Conglomerate)

Vala Maynard (queen then director of the Mayan empire as it transitioned from authoritative theocracy into syndicalist federal republic during the middle 4410s & 4420s)

Abra (Robot-tier android)

Sina (Droid-tier android)

Ella Vega (Klára Dán von Neumann)

Zen Kuscher (Konrad Zuse)

Cil Becker (Sherman Fairchild)

Kelly Astras (Ken Olsen)

Tekla Tassara (famous mathematician & theologian of the Polish Commonwealth during the 4450s-4470s, leading the global Cybernetics program during that period and directing the robots-tier phase, inspired by Wolfenstein The New Order's eponymous surname character)

Iwa Silla (polyglot erudite lead responsible for the droid machinery upgrades of the Cybernetics, succeeding Tekla during the mid 4470s to 4490)

Théa Narva (neuromancy & first gen nanite expert lead for the Cybernetics program, succeeding mistress Silla and leading the first Synthetics phase between 4490-4520)

Sasha May (biologist & esoterical philosopher for second gen synthetics program lead, succeeding mistress Narva and leading the Cybernetics program with programmable matter, biomodding & bio-mutualism features up to around 4545)

Ulrique Ullis Bayes (biological female best-friend and multimedia creative)

Eike Elkbow (non-binary Harmonist ally in the federal Shoshone parliament)

Rudy Saller (Aremorican motorized infantry soldier of the Second World War?)

Constanz Haywire (Aremorican-Burgund resistance fighter & entente speaker during the Second World War?)

Tuliann Éléano (lead of the Shoshoni Progressives Coalition & foreign relations minister)

Milan Tulip (latest Unionist Party lead in the Shoshone Union)

Valenz Haywire, "Louve de Darioritum";

Léo & Pascale Nitta, lead couple of the Nitta clan and associates to underground dealers in the Little Bear neightbourhood;

Zena de Kish, current Iranian ruler-queen transitioning it to democracy

Intrigues?

(Don't forget about morphological freedoms, sapience rights charter and empathic mutual empowerment infrastructure present in the 4520s...)

The Ana & Kata connection is similar to Kate + Ava mutual relationship & the overall link to timely topics (aka past, present & future...);

The 16^12 framework is a single Matrioshka brain construction in a Iron Stars-era cosmology... and while it is networked with other livid conscious nodes, I can imagine such more as a explicit intertextual framework with metaphysical implications than something to be actually re-implemented. But at least it still has a whole 0x10c vibe attached.

I kinda get a feeling the Blackhand / Servitor narrative has a certain "edutainment simulationism" tone akin to "The Landlord's Game" and its georgism centered Prosperity ruleset, but with additional split focuses with some rendition of Kaiserreich's Syndicalism & some preservationist classical liberal-esque Harmony, which all three serves as caucuses within the Shoshoni Progressives Coalition governments (4521-454X?).

Unionists (4424-4520+) are essentially another Shoshone coalition in the same parliament system than Progressives', which has got Republicans (Americana mid-century liberals variety still party core), Democrats (quite politically conservative likewise to Kennedy & FDR terms' but socially inclusive likewise to Clinton's) and Liberty (contemporary moderate Libertarians center kinda like Ross Perot & early 2000s Y2K Trump) that is overall collapsing on itself during the 4520s after the failed coup/uprising of the period ( kinda like January6th2021's ) as they face systemic decomposition of their group to the benefit of Progressives.

(Worth mentioning that the Unionists had done a fairly okay work in-world during the 4490s-4520 period with Ross Perot [x2], Al-Gore, Donald Trump, Oprah Obama, Bernie Sanders & Kamala Harris but were simply too... stagnant for far too long, likewise to how the USA does right now in our world with its dualistic neofeudal system, which the Progressives improves from drastically henceforth);

The 45th Shoshone century essentially starts politically as: McKinley (death in 4401 as OTL) - Roosevelt (x2 as republican) - Taft (moderate republican) - Roosevelt (progressive winning against f* Woodrow Wilson) - Hugues (middle republican winning against Woodrow Wilson) - Debs (communal syndicalist / socialism up to 4425 when the Unionists coalition forms & wins back the parliament for most of century's remaining time) ~ [...] ; Should read as remove Woodrow Wilson's ideological influence from the whole worldscape of Angora.

And so yeah, remains to write some more about the Nuon Academical Campus with its twin towers gateway, some virtual infrastructure and other exploratory stuff... including moderate detailing on the religions & cultural customs / traditions.

[queen-scribbles]

Swiped from @starlightcleric to do with Ody

Rules: If you're tagged, make a new post with links to music and/or lyrics describing the following:

An event that defines your character's past

How your character sees themselves

How others view them

Their closest relationship (platonic or romantic)

A major fight scene

End credits song

I wound up doubling for a couple of them bc I couldn't make up my mind😅 Also, behind a cut bc I did lyrics/commentary.

(art by oasiswinds)

All Who Remain (Beware of Darkness) [Her brother's death.] You never know the last time you’ll see someone/So give them all of your love/'Cause they’ll disappear Odessa and her brother were close growing up, and his death galvanized her into really throwing herself into her work, entrenched her loyalty to the Empire. Which in turn made the events of the class story even more painful; being betrayed by the cause her brother had supported, she has supported so ardently stung.

Wander (Home & Harbor) // I Am Not Okay (Jelly Roll) I don't know if I can see the stars anymore/I know they're shining somewhere out there/And I can't tell you what the sun feels like /And I don't know if I even care This one's a little bit about her after losing Chance in the later verses, a little bit about her general state of mind after mid-Act 2. There's this growing sense of... directionlessness as she's confronted with more and more evidence that shakes her faith in the Empire. She always wanted to serve, but that dream is souring and she doesn't know what to do or where to go with it cracking like this. So she turns double agent for Kothe, but his instructions are largely "wait for orders and shore up your cover" so she feels like she's treading water or wandering an endless desert with no hope of progress. After long enough in that state she wonders if she should just... accept it will always be like that. But there's this infinitesimally thin thread of hope that it can and will get better. She just has to care long enough to find it. When it's all said and done/ I'm not okay/ But it's all gonna be alright/ It's not okay/But we're all gonna be alright The overall tone of this song is someone struggling but determined to hold on to the hope that things get better and that's so very, very much Ody's mindset from about... EoO onwards(she was getting better, then Shara being in NC sent her spiraling again). She knows it can get better, be better, life is not all loss and pain, but she has been through the wringer and it's really hard to remember sometimes. (There's a line in the first verse about "If I say I'm fine just know I've learned to hide it well" that's so very her. Bury it and press on.)

Superman (Rachel Platten) So put your armor on the ground tonight/ 'Cause everyone's got to come down sometimes [The Alliance] I was extremely tempted to do I'm Not Calling You a Liar as how Intelligence views her, but let's go with something more positive. :D There are many people in the Alliance who care about her and wish she didn't have to do so much(even if Rass is the first person in ages to straight up say "Take time for yourself"). Lana and Theron are both subtly keeping an eye on her, and there's a half dozen people more than ready to be a listening ear if she ever asks for one.

Dancing with You Ghost (Sasha Alex Sloan) // Time (2CELLOS) Never got the chance/To say your last goodbye/I gotta move on/But it hurts to try/How do I love, how do I love again? [It's Chance. It's all Chance.] I've mentioned how much Chance's death wrecked her, right? :) She did not deal with that well at all; maybe not actively suicidal, but not particularly invested in staying alive for a while there. She's getting better. Slowly. But it's still hard. He was... something good, something steady, something normal at a point where not much else about her life could be characterized by any of those words. She loved him, and he loved her, and she truly hoped at some point they could be together, not stealing visits whenever it felt safe. And then he (seemingly)lost her. And then she (really)lost him. With their last goodbye being her slipping out with a whisper and a kiss, fully expecting to see each other in a months. And she didn't even really get to fully grieve, bc she had to hit the ground running with dismantling the Eternal Empire, so there are moments for a long while where it still doesn't seem real, until she remembers. She's finally starting to open up to the idea of moving on, but it's so terrifying and it hurts so much let him go and try again. Time is instrumental, but it fits so perfectly the vibes for the wordless cinematic sequence in my head that rolls from when Ody leaves Chance's place for the (unbeknownst to them) last time, through the scenes of Wild Space expedition, Chance dealing with her "death", her being in carbonite, his actual death, Lana busting her out, up to the conversation with Theron that confirms her suspicions Chance was KIA.

State of Me (Lacey Sturm) Look at the state of me/ You can't deny it/I'm gonna walk out/So follow me now/Just get behind me This is what plays during her fight with Hunter at the end of the class story and you cannot change my mind. It has such good Climatic Fight Song energy.

Inner Gold (Lindsey Stirling ft Royal) It comes back to me sounding like a song/ I knew once/ Singing louder than the tales I've been told/ Each note is a song of my inner gold The vibes for this really fit her outlook upon switching her loyalty to the Republic. Even if there is that later... treading water feel that sinks in(no pun intended), she is confident in and happy with her decision to switch sides. (I need to write her talking to Elara, they would have FASCINATING conversations >.>). It's also where she's eventually going to end up, as sort of her healing process mood. She might have to claw her way to a better place but she is Going To Get There. Feels very end-credits-y for her.

[amissavis]

We all do what we have to. We all walk the path we think is right. One day you may realize that said path had lead you into a fiery inferno but even then, all you can do is keep going. That all I've ever done. All I'll ever do.

✧ threads ✧ about ✧ headcanon ✧ the mail ✧ ✧ aesthetics ✧ musings ✧ connections ✧ mirror ✧

BASIC INFORMATION

FULL NAME: Emmeline Vance

ALIAS/NICKNAME: Emmy, Emms, Snake (those that dislike her), Vance

AGE: Twenty Seven

BIRTH DATE: September 23rd, 1952

BLOOD STATUS: Half-blood (officially) / Pureblood (actually)

AFFILIATION: Death Eaters (formerly), Order of the Phoenix (during the war)

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Cis-Woman. She/her

CURRENT LIVING CONDITIONS: Flat in Knockturn Alley

OTHER: Vance Manor

OCCUPATION: Curse Breaker (freelance and her own business), formerly with the ministry, Owner of Para Bellum

PETS: Barnaby (male, great horned owl)

WAND: Ebony, phoenix feather core, 12 1/2 inches, unyielding

PATRONUS: Chestnut Stallion

BOGGART: Drowning in fire

AMORTENTIA: Unknown

SCENT: lavender, ink, petrichor

INSPIRATION

SONG: I'm still here by Sia, Courage to change by Sia, Lean on me (J2 Version), I blame the world by Sasha Alex Sloan, Running up that hill by Kate Bush (Epic Edition, instrumental)

PINTEREST: here !!

RELATIONSHIPS

PARENTS: Ismelda (muggleborn) and Alusius Vance (pureblood).

SIBLINGS: None.

SIGNIFICANT OTHER: None.

OTHER FAMILY: Serafina di Modena.

CHILDREN: None.

EDUCTATION:

SCHOOL: Hogwarts

HOUSE: Slytherin

EXTRACURRICULAR: Chaser for the Slytherin Quidditch team, Charms club Potions Club, Dueling club

CLASSES INVESTED IN: Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Care of Magical Creatures, Alchemy, Herbology, Potions, Transfiguration, Defense against the Dark Arts

SPOKEN LANGUAGES: English, Italian, Latin, Bulgarian

OTHER LANGUAGES: can read ancient runes

PHYSICAL TRAITS

EYE COLOR: Brown

HAIR COLOR: Brunette

HEIGHT: 5′5

SCARS: Thin lines spreading like roots from the palm of her right hand up in the inside of her wrist due to dark magic firing back

PERSONALITY

INTELLIGENCE: High. Adaptive.

SKILLS: Wandless magic (practicing), Flying (decent), Dueling (practicing, decent)

POSITIVE TRAITS: creative, resourceful, determined, caring, proud, observant

NEGATIVE TRAITS: desperate, impulsive, impatient, reckless, deceptive at times

MBTI: INTJ

BIOGRAPHY: (tw death, violence)

Emmeline was born to Ismelda and Alusius Vance on September 23rd, 1952 on a stormy night shortly before midnight. On the outside her parents were an unusual pair as Aluisus believed in the ideals of blood supremacy and the pureness and felt himself part of pureblood society as much as the next one. While he had known that marrying Ismelda would be frowned upon and seen as unfavorable, it appeared he’d been drawn to her from the very beginning. In a move of utter hypocrisy the wizard believed his one misstep would not halter anything, or change things for that matter. It had been a lie he told himself that would eventually come to cost him dearly as with each passing day, and later the birth of Emmeline, society made it very clear that they did not in fact approve of his choice. Even though it wasn’t the most widespread fact, their family still paid the price for it. Ismelda herself never found her place in society and in return disliked the purists and their idea of life.

With Alusius’ firm belief to raise Emmeline the way him and his friends had been raised, the young witch grew up resenting her mother as everything she learned caused her to believe things were very much her mother’s fault. How else could one explain the way things had gone downhill? It started with her, surely it would end with her. Thus, the witch felt drawn to her father, doing her very best to impress him while growing up into a competent witch, who would upon being sorted find herself within Slytherin. For the very first time she truly felt at home, fitting right in with the crowd. The loss of her mother during her second year almost didn’t bother her, was it not for the uncomfortable attention for the weeks after. In the end it meant that there would be no more awkwardness, no more sadness and confusion. Her mother had never particularly gotten along with her and while Emmeline knew the reasons as to why she could not see her mother as someone to look up to, her mother's reasons where entirely in the unknown and eventually no longer a reason for concern.

Surrounded by those who would later become supporters and followers of the dark lord, the thrill and the darkness ever present, Emmeline found herself drawn to the same world. These people were friends, her home away from home; there was a loyalty with her that nothing could shatter so easily. Of course, Emmeline Vance wasn’t naive, not as much as one may have thought and yet she saw nothing wrong, did not bother to listen to those outside trying to hammer the truth into the heads of those that saw the world in a way others may deem cruel. To her, this world made perfect sense.

Upon graduation Emmeline joined the ministry, trained under both the department of magical law enforcement as well as the goblins at Gringott’s as a curse-breaker before fully joining the department, working under the aurors whenever they needed a curse-breaker to grant them access to artifacts or manors. It was around three months after graduation that she joined her friends among the ranks of Death Eaters, taking the mark. It seemed so simple, so logical at the time. In the meantime she buried herself in work, loving the fact that she was surrounded by the dark arts; the one thing she’d always felt at home around - other than potions.

Emmeline was a determined young witch, ready to show the world what she was made of. While she worked as a Death Eater she made sure not to be discovered, loving the shadows she could slip in and out of. This was her world. The doe eyes that would shine through during the day only added to cover up the darkness she held. A part of her wanted to have her own business instead of just working for the ministry. Every now and then she'd dabble in dark magic, holding both fascination and respect for the art. The young woman was lucky not to get caught, but it did leave her with permanent marks. Her hand covered in a vine-like scar from one of the few times dark magic, used during work, fired back and off the cursed object in front of her.

For years that was her life. A Death Eater on one side, a curse-breaker for the ministry on the other. There was drive, loyalty, nothing that could have shook her so easily. Her father supported her, was someone who supported the cause equally and after the death of his wife had returned to his old ways entirely. It wasn’t until much later that Emmeline began to change her view. The loss of her father, due to the very same Death Eaters she was a part of caused her world to crumble. For a while she isolated herself, lost in a world she no longer felt she belonged to. After all, if they would take her father away from her despite all she had done for them, the loyalty she had shown. It crushed her spirits. She was loyal to the cause and the people she cared about, or so she had been until she'd come home to the mess left behind at the manor.

In her desperation and confusion she found herself distancing herself from things; a ghost of her former self that wasn't sure which path to take, what to make of things. Eventually, she was approached by Moody. Someone who saw the potential for good within a person that only wanted revenge in her sadness and anger. And so she joined the Order of the Phoenix, the perfect chance to take down whoever it was. She never found out. Despite now being with the Order she felt drawn toward her old life, loyal to those she’d once called family and friends. Never once did she speak their names, nor give them up. At times it was hard to walk the path of the good person and although she tried, in the end a part of her slipped. In the chaos her desperation took over, and she saw a chance to pay back for her betrayal as well as reach out. Over time she would send information from the Order to the Death Eaters, toward Rabastan Lestrange. Not once did she actually sign her name. Emmeline became someone torn between worlds, desperate for the side she once called home, lost on a side she did not fully belong to.

Now that the war is won, the witch has moments in which she desperately yearns for the people as she misses the people more than anything and her loyalty lies with them. A part of her doesn’t quite know what to make of a world without conflict, as she feels that it was all the world had ever been to her; a choice between light and dark, right or wrong. Emmeline is still very much getting used to the idea that people now know her as a former member of the Order; a fact she’d tried to keep under wraps for the duration of the war as it allowed for her to slip through the shadows. Over the course of the war her interest in potions increased, her passion for the brewing of those as well as alchemy settled with a part of her wondering if the path of an alchemist or perhaps even healer could be something for her. After the war the former Slytherin left the ministry and set up a curse-breaking business in Knockturn Alley, working freelance. Emmeline is still figuring out who she is, but she knows she is no longer the person she once used to be.

[amissafide]

We all do what we have to. We all walk the path we think is right. One day you may realize that said path had lead you into a fiery inferno but even then, all you can do is keep going. That all I've ever done. All I'll ever do.

✧ threads ✧ about ✧ headcanon ✧ the mail ✧ ✧ aesthetics ✧ musings ✧ connections ✧ mirror ✧

BASIC INFORMATION

FULL NAME: Emmeline Vance

ALIAS/NICKNAME: Emmy, Emms, Snake (those that dislike her), Vance

AGE: Twenty

BIRTH DATE: September 23rd, 1960

BLOOD STATUS: Half-blood

AFFILIATION: Order of the Phoenix (during the war), Ministry of Magic (currently)

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Cis-Woman. She/her

CURRENT LIVING CONDITIONS: Flat in Knockturn Alley

OTHER: Vance Manor (is considering moving there again)

OCCUPATION: Curse Breaker, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Ministry of Magic, in support of the Auror Department

PETS: Barnaby (male, great horned owl)

WAND: Ebony, phoenix feather core, 12 1/2 inches, unyielding

PATRONUS: Chestnut Stallion

BOGGART: Losing her loved ones

AMORTENTIA: Unknown

SCENT: lavender, ink

INSPIRATION

SONG: I'm still here by Sia, Courage to change by Sia, Lean on me (J2 Version), I blame the world by Sasha Alex Sloan

PINTEREST: here !!

RELATIONSHIPS

PARENTS: Ismelda (muggleborn) and Alusius Vance (pureblood).

SIBLINGS: None.

SIGNIFICANT OTHER: None.

OTHER FAMILY: None known to her.

CHILDREN: None.

EDUCTATION:

SCHOOL: Hogwarts

HOUSE: Slytherin

EXTRACURRICULAR: Chaser for the Slytherin Quidditch team, Charms club Potions Club, Dueling club

CLASSES INVESTED IN: Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Care of Magical Creatures, Alchemy, Herbology, Potions, Transfiguration, Defense against the Dark Arts

SPOKEN LANGUAGES: English, Italian, Latin

OTHER LANGUAGES: can read ancient runes

PHYSICAL TRAITS

EYE COLOR: Green

HAIR COLOR: Blonde

HEIGHT: 5′5

SCARS: Thin lines spreading like roots from the palm of her right hand up in the inside of her wrist due to dark magic firing back

PERSONALITY

INTELLIGENCE: High. Adaptive.

SKILLS: Wandless magic (minor, practicing), Flying (decent), Dueling (practicing, decent)

POSITIVE TRAITS: creative, resourceful, determined, caring, proud, observant

NEGATIVE TRAITS: desperate, impulsive, impatient, reckless, deceptive at times

MBTI: INTJ

BIOGRAPHY: (tw death, violence)

Emmeline was born to Ismelda and Alusius Vance on September 2rd, 1960 on a stormy night shortly before midnight. Her parents were an unusual pair as Aluisus believed in the ideals of the world he lived in and felt himself part of the pureblood society as much as the next one. While he had known that marrying Ismelda would be looked upon as odd, he'd been drawn to her from and simply pushed himself to believe that his one sidestep could not ruin the future of all there was. It had been a mistake that would eventually come to cost him dearly as with each passing day, and later the birth of Emmeline, society made it very clear that they did not in fact approve of his choice. Even though it wasn't the most widespread fact, their family still paid the price for it. Ismelda herself never found her place in pureblood society and in return disliked the purists and their idea of life. With Alusius' firm belief to raise Emmeline the way him and his friends had been raised, the young witch grew up resenting her mother as everything she learned caused her to believe things were very much her mother's fault. How else could on explain the way things had gone downhill? It started with her, surely it would end with her. Thus, the witch felt drawn to her father, doing her very best to impress him while growing up into a competent witch, who would upon being sorted find herself within Slytherin. For the very first time she truly felt at home, fitting right in with the crowd. The loss of her mother during her second year almost didn't bother had, was it not for the uncomfortable attention for the two weeks after. It wasn't until her seventh year that Emmeline began to change her view. The loss of her father, allegedly due to Death Eaters caused her world to crumble. For a while she isolated herself, graduated and joined the ministry and Gringott's for their training program of curse breakers before eventually finding herself at a loss for what to do. In those dark hours she found her way to Dumbledore, asking for a way out. The Order of the Phoenix became her new home and although she felt drawn toward her old life, loyal to those she'd once called family and friends, with each step she made forward, new loyalties began to grown on the side of the Order. Some bonds became strong enough that the fight began to make sense. Now that the war is won, the witch has moments in which she desperately yearns for either side as she misses the people more than anything. A part of her doesn't quite know what to make of a world without conflict, as she feels that it was all the world had ever been to her; a choice between light and dark, right or wrong. Emmeline is still very much getting used to the idea that people now know her as a former member of the Order; a fact she'd tried to keep under wraps for the duration of the war as it allowed for her to slip through the shadows. Over the course of the war her interest in potions increased, her passion for the brewing of those as well as alchemy settled with a part of her wondering if the path of an alchemist or perhaps even healer could be something for her. Emmeline is still figuring out who she is in this new world but she is no longer the girl she left behind at Hogwarts, during her darkest days.

[starsweepers]

...i wanted to challenge myself. listing my muses in order of who i love most and who is most fun to play. by oc and canons. you can ignore this, i just did this for fun.

most fun to play canons in order:

nari ( most flexibility and able to do more than my animal muses )

mittens ( such good, dramatic plots, her threads actually vary )

red ( same as mittens but slightly harder due to fighting her awful canon and then being selectively mute )

pipp ( i just have fallen in love with her personality and she's flexible including her human verse )

georgette ( she is SO FUN, that personality, and it spices up her threads )

fei fei ( flexible, lots to work with post movie )

misty ( lower than fei fei mainly because i'm still figuring her out, no human verse yet, and so mlp tends to be difficult to slot sometimes )

lady ( she's only so low because honestly 95% of her threads are the same thing... i adore her but her threads can get boring )

olaf ( honestly just when i'm in a mischievous mood, he is THE BEST )

lottie and chang'e ( honestly they're kind of the same in a way. lottie is only private because people request her a lot and her threads got boring real fast )

faline ( only because she's so tricky to put in most situations )

most beloved canons in orderish:

lady and mittens ( i've never delved into films as much as theirs to dissect as much as i could. they're tied because while lady is my longest ever fave dis muse, mittens is incredibly important to me )

georgette and lottie and pipp ( spoiled girls who actually can be good hearted? super important to me like there's so much more to them )

nari ( i think the story that should have happened for her is very intriguing and good to know... she's a story of family love but also family abuse )

olaf ( ....idk i just love a snowman )

misty ( she needs love... )

fei fei ( what a gOOD STORY )

red ( she's only low because her actual canon sucks and i'm not 500% confident in the story i made for her. i have a lot of thoughts and feelings for her but compared to the others, she as a character isn't as high )

chang'e ( she's a bit expected. but really love the delve into the movie version of her and learning to move on )

faline ( ....she's just cute but as a character not too deep )

most fun ocs to play in order:

dawn ( her backstory may be simple but she as a character is more complex than she looks, and she's a challenge because as someone completely abled, i have to remember and think about the world through her condition )

laila ( she's spicy like idk how else to explain )

grayson ( very spicy )

piper and faith ( honestly they're just opposite ends of the spectrum. but both complex. i just really enjoy their psyches )

brent ( his story and world is exciting and intriguing. he's lower only because males are a bit tricky for me and so his muse is finicky at times )

andi and sasha ( still figuring them out! )

most beloved ocs in orderish:

dawn and laila ( i can't explain i just. them. my two longest running ocs on this blog )

piper ( my oldest oc ever... at least that is still in use )

faith ( like?? the cutest? )

gray ( i think about him a lot but he's not quite perfect )

brent ( he's only lower because he was developed with the intent to work in a world. molly was actually meant to be the main muse but he ended up working out better. i adore him, but i'm pickier with him )

sasha and andi ( same as above. they're new, still figuring them out, they're fun but not quite that special to me yet )

[theyxlived]

Not Just Another Number...

Closed starter for @anurbanlcgend​

Light travels faster than sound. Everyone knows that. But what most people don’t know? A bullet travels fastest. Sometimes hits its mark before the sound of it can even consider becoming an echo. That echo that reverberates in her skull. Wet heat on her skin. On her hands as pure shock has her looking down. Seeing what should be on the inside of her on the outside. Oddly it reminds her of properly made and blended marinara sauce. A slightly weird, if not disgusting thing to think of in the aftermath of a bullet ripping through her chest--but there it was.

The world streaking into colors. Buildings melding with sky. Brick with side walk. And the collison of her hitting gritty concrete. And maybe she notices the sky for the first time in a what feels like her whole life. Blue sky and whisps of clouds that so often go unappriciated because most everyone in this city lives in a bubble. Never thinking to look up let alone doing it. And the beauty of it is only interupted now by the fact she can’t breathe. By the instinct to cough as the dark closes in. By the fact she’s going t--

A half step back from crossing the street. No. No not that way. Worn converse on the sidewalk. A one eighty turn and weaving against the current of cross walkers until she can make it into the other lane of pedestrians. Feet hurrying her back to the corner, a breath. Two. A step towards the other crossing. 

Eyes. Green like the living room used to be on Sunday mornings. The sun washing in from the windows. Lighting up her mother’s small jungle of creeping vines and elephant eared plants. Color that got reflected into the rest of the room. Warmed it up. Made if feel like a home as much as look like one. They alone make her want to trust. Believe in the person they belong to. Even if she knows nothing at all about him. Not yet. Doesn’t know the story set into the edges of a five o’clock shadow. The history written into the laugh lines. What little tales lie painted in thin strips of grey through black. But it feels safe. That face.

Hands on her arms. Ones that catch not restrain. Shattered glass, water splattered on her shirt not blood. Ear piercing sound that drowns out his voice. Soft wool gripped in her hands. Fingers in her hair that do their best to shelter amid more peels of thunder and then it all goes quiet like the New York City sidewalk she’s standing on isn’t. 

A sharp intake. This way. This is the way she needs to go. And tired feet that have been traversing this city all night--she wills them to move from the dead stop the vision caused. The hood of her jacket pulled down further as she crosses the street and moves onward with the flow of other human beings trapped in their own bubbles.

---

That was hours ago. Now she stands at another street corner in a forgotten bit of concrete jungle. Staring up at the building that one day will be something else. A pity given the what it is. What she guesses it once was. It won’t ever see the glory days it once had. But so goes life right? Everything and everyone dies...eventually. 

A morbid thought all things considered. A deep breath drawn in. Shoulders drawn square with it and then allowed to sag with its escape. Hands in the pockets of her hoodie balled into nervous fists. Feet shuffling near balding soles on the concrete. She has to get every facet of this right. One tiny flaw and the future she sees that is best won’t happen. She’s got to be brave. She’s got--

Movement. A sky blue gaze that fixates on the silhouette coming clear of the building. Lips that she wets. Hands that fist all the harder, before one hand is pulled out. Set to her hood, that’s pushed back. Lips that are already dry again drawn into a thin line with the hard swallow she takes as one foot is put forward. Then another and another and so on until she comes to a stop a dozen feet from the man she’s only ever seen in clipped imagery. Another breath as she pushes out what she needs to say. No matter how much she wishes she sounded bigger than she does.

           “My name is Sasha Petrov...I think you’ve been looking for me?”

[pyroclastic727]

What is the Core?

We thought it was an olm. We thought it was The Night. We thought it was a prophesied villain that was deeply linked to the calamity gems.

Then this episode revealed the horrific truth: The Core is something far worse, a computerized yet sentient being that holds the knowledge of “Amphibia’s greatest minds.” It is now clear that this thing is not the prophesied Night--however, it is still deeply interwoven with Amphibia’s past and future. 

Here’s how.

The Core’s Contents and Synthesis

This is terrifying. It would be easy to say that the Core is the database of all knowledge, a massive supercomputer. But it’s more than this. While the Calamity power draws parallels to Zelda with its magical, trait-enhancing properties, the Core works in a much different way. 

The Core is made of souls.

In his Reddit AMA, Matt Braly said that he took a lot of influence from Dark Souls. While I haven’t played the game, I have researched enough lore to determine the goal of it. The player must collect souls in order to survive.

Remember what Ally and Jess said in Fixing Frobo? Anything with memories has a soul, and boy do robots have memory.

Here’s what I think. The Core itself is not a sentient being. It is a collection of them, a database of stolen souls, compressed into one place. Thousands of memories, taken from the residents of Amphibia and consolidated into the core. All of the smartest people, none as smart as Andrias but still smart enough.

Now, where did those people come from?

There’s a couple places it could come from, but they all have one common thread. This is a place to put people who cause problems. People who are too smart to leave on their own, too smart to be manipulated.

Here’s some fun facts. There was once a great race of olms, powerful enough to create an entire series of temples, with the purpose of testing the worthiness of a Calamity wielder. Despite creating grand buildings, they disappeared. Now Amphibia is in a dark age, and the only olms we know are the two from Quarreler’s Pass.

So where did they go? Where do you keep an entire race of olms, with the knowledge required to protect a sacred and dangerous resource--a resource that Andrias so badly wants?

That’s right. You hollow out their souls until their motives are gone, then put all those souls in a semi-sentient supercomputer. 

Now all Andrias needs, in order to access that sacred knowledge, is a willing host.

The Core’s Mechanism

If the Core needs a host, that means it is not a complete entity. We have seen Andrias refer to this creature as his lord; however, it has never spoken in response, up until now. Furthermore, Andrias mentions that the Core should be allowed a chance to say what its “destiny” is.

This implies that the Core has a motive. A desire. A goal. And we already know that it’s full of souls, which have knowledge. But that’s not enough to create a real character. The Core isn’t a real being, but rather an extension--a database and a desire, to be added to someone whose desire has been snuffed.

Now we add it to Marcy. Marcy, a character with her own mannerisms and quirks. Marcy, a character who can create intricate and insightful connections in her mind, an alarmingly quick problem solver. If Andrias could remove Marcy’s motives, her desires and fears, then he could have the perfect strategist, an unbeatable enemy. 

That’s why Andrias let Marcy try to escape.

The simulation revealed each person’s worst fears. While it’s nice to know that Olivia has mommy issues and Yunan adds fuel to the Anne Loses An Arm fire, the biggest reason behind that was so that Andrias could watch and see what it is that Marcy fears, what she wants.

That’s simple. Marcy wants Anne and Sasha to stay with her.

Every person has mannerisms, skill, purpose, fear, and desire. The Core needs to know what Marcy fears in order to manipulate her. If it can change her motive, then it can change her entire personality. But first it needs to know what to look for.

And it makes sense, really. It’s the core. It changes her core desires. So then, when she fights Anne, it won’t be due to her being a mindless vessel. It will be her choice.

Because her past, her future, even the two other stars that serve as her light..none of them will have meaning. She won’t care anymore. Marcy will be truly heartless.

Mossmen and Shadowfish

This episode clarifies a lot in terms of the Mossmen and Shadowfish--mainly, what their purpose is in the overall narrative. Andrias points out their purposes: the Mossmen can heal and the Shadowfish can “conquer death.” 

Seeing as we’re dealing with a Marcy who is damaged and at times dead, these creatures provide a promising way of saving Marcy.

We’ll start with the Mossmen. These guys are seen offering their friendship to Yunan, and generally seen as kind, albeit reclusive creatures. They have some link to the olms. But most notably, they are healers.

Their previous application is rather obvious: they healed Marcy after her stabbing, stitching her internal organs back together. But the future? All we know is that the Mossman offered his friendship to Yunan.

Now the Shadowfish, the aliens who can conquer death...this is where things get intense. When we were first introduced to them, we saw creatures who were aggressive, attacking Marcy and Anne until the two converted them to physical forms and stuffed them in the basement. It’s unclear whether they went back to ghostly forms or died after that.

Here’s some quick Zelda facts! In Zelda Twilight Princess, there is this thing called a Shadowbeast. They travel in packs, and they have the ability to resurrect others in their pack via screaming. If you kill all of them, they will open a portal in the sky.

I can’t say too much. But here’s some things we know. The Calamity box opens portals. Zelda links portals to shadowbeasts. Shadowbeasts and shadowfish can resurrect things. Thus, shadowfish are linked to portals, and to the Calamity box.

Shadowfish look a bit like olms. Olms created the Calamity Box. 

Let’s bring in some more information! The Shadowfish were aggro to Marcy and Anne, but not to Olivia and Yunan. What did Marcy and Anne do to provoke them? That’s right, they took a picture. For a Shadowfish, seeing its physical appearance reflected back to it hurts it.

Why? Well, being reflected in a mirror makes it solid.

That’s strange, huh. These ghostly, soul-like creatures can be forced into things by mirrors. And they react adversely to technology..for example, the massive piece of technology that holds a lot of souls.

In Zelda, mirrors can be used as portals. So if mirrors are linked to portals, and shadowfish to souls...this could imply the following.

Shadowfish can be used to collect and transport souls.

The Calamity Powers are made of the souls of people strong in wit, heart, and strength.

Which really ties into the mechanism, doesn’t it? In the second temple, Valeriana insisted on finding someone who was worthy. Each temple functions to remove the calamity power. Therefore, someone who is worthy of passing the temple is someone who already has a great amount of latent calamity skill within them.

Why would they need that? If the calamity gems serve to enhance a skill, why would they need someone who already has it? 

There are murals showing amphibians using calamity power. Now, a human can hardly wield it. 

What if the calamity power has grown stronger over time? What if the mechanism of the Calamity Box is to collect the souls, the innate skills, of people strong in wit, heart, or strength, and then pass them on to others?

Pacing

To finish this analysis off, I’ll discuss a bit of the overall pacing for the series.

For the majority of Amphibia, the dramatic question has been if Anne will get home. Obviously, True Colors changed everything. While much of the time spent before this has been Anne’s attempts to get home, we have mostly been going off the assumption that the goal was to defeat Andrias, hopefully with Marcy’s help.

This changes things, because it’s very unlikely that we’ll get Marcy back until much later. Anne isn’t even going to meet Darcy until Christmas. Then she’s going to go back to being possessed, while Anne focuses on saving her, and Sasha does...something.

What this means is that Amphibia will likely follow the Puppet Zelda setup--that is, Marcy will be possessed until very close to the finale. Anne will fight Marcy in a final battle, around episode 18 or 19, before having her friend back on her side. From there, Marcy can use the immense mental database to glean information on how to use the calamity powers, similar to how Catra was able to figure out the locations of Horde soldiers using the chip on her neck. 

This also means that Marcy will likely not enter Calamity form until the finale. We have established that those powers are bad, and it is likely that Anne, Sasha, and Marcy will enter calamity form together in or close to the finale.

In the meanwhile, there will be an arc around Olivia and Yunan. Andrias has to keep them under his control, because while they are traitors, they know too much. He can either threaten them into submission, or he can shove their minds inside of the Core. Or he can kill them. The former seems to be his best approach for now.

Andrias assigned Olivia and Yunan to different tasks. 

Olivia is in charge of exploitation, making sure that the land gets destroyed. However, in this episode we found out that she’s in her Lorax arc and is determined to protect the land from the Onceler-arc Andrias. This sets her up to meet Anne and find the mossman, perhaps uncovering secrets about its healing properties together.

Yunan is tasked with gathering frogs to work in factories. This will obviously bring her to Wartwood, where she’ll find Sasha and her army. This will also create a nice parallel: Sasha will have to work alongside her former enemy.

A narrative parallel will likely be set up with Sasha and Andrias: both have found ways to get power, created an elaborate scheme to betray their friends, followed through on that scheme, and felt guilty afterwards. Sasha felt bad later, while Andrias didn’t. It is likely that Andrias will continue being given similar motives, with Barrel and Pink Frog being Anne and Marcy parallels, and probably fail to redeem himself near the end.

For now, we can certainly anticipate a midseason finale where Andrias brings his frobots and Darcy to earth.

[gammija]

The final Web!Martin evidence list

Now that canon is done, and we’ve got word of god confirmation that Web!Martin wasn’t complete nonsense, I decided to go back to my lil chronological evidence list and actually clean it up a bit, delete parts that in hindsight weren't all that indicative, and put everything in a slightly more readable format. (Obligatory disclaimer that i don’t and never did believe or advocate for some kind of evil web!martin, and that I'm not intending to connect a moral judgement to martin (or anyone else for that matter) having some of these traits)

So here: The (hopefully, please) final list with Web!Martin Evidence! Presented in order of importance, according to. me

The final (hopefully) Web!Martin evidence list

(In order from most to least obvious)

Spiders

I mean, it’s called the Web. TMA reiterates quite a few times that Martin liked spiders. Sometimes it IS that easy.

MAG022: Martin: "I like spiders. Big ones, at least. Y’know, y’know the ones you can see some fur on; I actually think they’re sort of cute -"

MAG038: | Sasha: "A spider?" Jon: "Yeah. I tried to kill it…" [...] Sasha: [Chuckles] "Well, I won’t tell Martin." Jon: "Oh, god. I don’t think I could stand another lecture on their importance to the ecosystem."

MAG059: Jon: "I have done my best to prevent Martin reading this statement in too much detail. I have no interest in having another argument about spiders."

MAG079: Jon: "Apparently, biologically, his account of the spiders doesn’t make any sense according to Martin."

MAG197: Martin: “What? Because I like spiders? Well, used to.”

Lies and subterfuge

Martin is able to use lying and subterfuge to achieve his goals, and is called manipulative a few times.

Lies:

MAG022: Martin: "[He] became slightly more co-operative after I lied to him and told him that one of the upstairs residents had buzzed me in."

MAG056: Martin: "I lied on my CV."

MAG158: Peter: “But you said –” Martin: “Honestly, I mostly just said what I thought you wanted to hear.”

MAG164: Jon: "You – I actually believed you!"

MAG189: Martin: “Sorry. Sorry, John. Not sure how much everything up there actually understood what was going on. But, y’know, I didn’t want to take any chances so it made sense to… um…” Jon: “Put on a show?” Martin: “Yeah, basically, more or less.”

MAG191: Martin: "That's not true." Arun: "Liar!"

Subterfuge:

The plan in 118, which revolved around convincing Elias that Martin was only “acting out”, to create a distraction for Melanie. (Also compare the way he evades giving a straight answer here with the way Annabelle talks in 196.)

Working with Peter in s4 under false pretenses, to distract him from Jon and eventually try to learn what Peter wanted.

Manipulation accusations:

These, I know, are somewhat contentious, since it’s mostly villains saying this to him. I’m still including them, since

1): From a media analysis standpoint, being mentioned 3 times is a sign to pay attention, even when it may not be the full truth.

2): I only see it as describing Martin’s behaviour in the previous points, not as a moral judgement; Especially since he almost always ‘manipulates’ people in positions of power over him.

Still, if it bothers anyone, feel free to ignore these.

MAG138: Martin: "That’s it? No, no monologue, no mind games? You love manipulating people!" Elias: "That makes two of us."

MAG186: Martin: “I can be a real manipulative prick, you know that?” Also Martin: “Oh yeah.”

MAG196: Annabelle: “Because you always managed to get what you wanted through smiles and shrugs and stammerings that weren’t nearly as awkward as they seemed.” [SMALL SOUND OF MARTIN’S CONCESSION TO THE POINT] Martin: “Point taken.”

The Lonely/the Web

The Lonely and the Web sometimes affect Martin to similar degrees.

In season 3, when Martin is getting used to reading statements for the first time, most of them leave him emotionally affected: MAG084, MAG088, MAG090,

MAG095: Martin: “S-S-Statement… done.” [HEAVY BREATHING & TREMBLING AS MARTIN STEADIES HIMSELF] “I don’t like recording these. There. I-I said it.”,

MAG098: Martin: [Panting] “End of statement.” [Deep breath] “I, um, I think I might need to sit down. Oh. Yeah, I am. Right. I don’t, uh, I’m not really sure if these are actually getting easier or harder. I mean I don’t feel –”

Only the last two statements he reads are remarkably easier. This might be a hint that Martin is just getting used to reading them, but the quote from MAG098 seems to contradict that. Either way, it’s likely not a coincidence that those last two happen to be the Lonely and the Web:

MAG108: Martin: “Statement ends.” (exhale) “That wasn’t so bad…”

MAG110: Martin: “Statement ends.” [...] “I mean, I think it sounds like a Jurgen Leitner book. About spiders. Hm. Good John didn’t have to read this one, anyway. I know he’s not a fan. Although, this one wasn’t too bad, actually! I – yeah. Anyway.”

In season 5, there are two powers’ Domains that actually affected Martin mentally, as opposed to only physically: the Lonely’s, in 170 (and arguably 186), and, depending on your interpretation, in 172, when Martin went exploring without knowing why he did so.

Proximity

Martin investigates a lot of the Web statements during season 1 to 3 (in other words, when the archive team still researches statements). The only ones he isn’t mentioned in during this period are MAG019 and MAG020, when he’s being harrassed by worms, and MAG081, which Jon records by himself outside of the institute.

Most notably, he’s the one who discovered the statement in MAG114, ‘Cracked Foundations’, which is the one statement in the entire show that sets up the interdimensional properties of HTR.

The Web!Lighter passed through Martin's hands first, before he gave it to Jon.

Similarly, Annabelle mostly spoke to Martin in season 5, despite most other Avatars usually focusing on Jon.

Aesthetics

Apart from the above obviously Web related areas, there are some other aesthetics which are mentioned in connection to both the Web and Martin, throughout canon.

These are describing the Web;

These are describing Martin.

Tapes:

Martin is the only character to treat the tape recorders as friends - any other character is either indifferent, or treats them as enemies.

MAG039: Martin: "I think the tapes have a sort of… low-fi charm."

MAG154 Martin: “Oh. Hi. Hello again.” … (small laugh) “Sorry pal, false alarm this time.”

MAG156 Martin: “Mm? Oh.” [HE LAUGHS, GENTLY.] “Yeah. (rustling paper) I was going to read one. Hate for you to miss it!” [SHORT, FORCED LAUGH, AS HE FLAPS THE STATEMENT AROUND.]

MAG170 Martin: “Oh. Oh, hello. What’s this? Wow, retro! What are you up to, little buddy; just – listening? That’s okay. It’s nice to have someone to talk to.”

MAG190 Jon: "[The tapes] seem to like [Martin]."

Retro:

MAG069: Statement: “I only saw Annabelle Cane once during this period. She wasn’t hard to pick out. She dressed like a vintage clothing store exploded on her, and her short bleach-blonde hair stood out sharply against dark skin.”

MAG160: Jon: “Anyways, don’t tell me the phonebox down there doesn’t appeal to your retro aesthetic.” Martin: “It – might. Maybe.”

MAG163: Annabelle/the Web callying Martin via an old payphone: [ A PHONE RINGS. IT’S NOT THE TINNY, ELECTRONIC SOUND OF A CELLPHONE – NO, THIS IS A TRUE, HEAVY, CLASSIC RING.] Martin: “Uh. John? Uh, J, John – the, uh, payphone that’s – here, for some reason – it’s ringing?”

Hatred of burns:

MAG067: Jack Barnabas’ statement: “I looked up and noticed within the corner of the room, where there had been a spider’s web this morning, there was just a faint wisp of smoke.” “Another held a bag that seemed to be full of candles, while a third had a clear plastic container filled with hundreds of tiny spiders.”

MAG139: Statement by member of Cult of the Lightless Flame: “The Mother of Puppets has always suffered at our hand; all the manipulation and subtle venom in the world means nothing against a pure and unrestrained force of destruction and ruin.” Agnes burned down Hilltop Road.

MAG145: The Web ties Gertrude to Agnes, stopping the Desolation’s ritual (the only Power whose ritual the Web is known to have prevented).

MAG167: Gertrude enlists Agnes’/the Desolation’s help in order to burn her assistant Emma, who was Web aligned.

MAG169: Martin: "Look, I just – don’t want to get burned, all right? It’s, it’s like my least favorite pain ever. [...] I, I legitimately hate burns, alright? They’re, they’re awful, and they scar horribly, and they just – it – it just makes me sick; I, I hate it. Hate it!"

Phrasing:

MAG039: Martin: "I’m trapped here. It’s like I can’t… move on and the more I struggle, the more I’m stuck. [...] It's just that whatever web these statements have caught you in, well, I’m there too. We all are, I think."

MAG079: Martin's poem: "The threads of people walking, living, lovi–"

MAG117: Martin: "This last couple of years, I’ve always been running, always hiding, caught in someone else’s trap, but, but now it’s my trap, and, well, I think it’ll work. I know, I know it’s not exactly intricate, but it felt good leaving my own little web. Oh, oh, Christ, I hope John doesn’t actually listen to these. “Good lord, is Martin becoming some sort of spider person?” No, John, it’s an expression, chill out! Besides, spiders are fine. I mean, yes, people are scared of them, obviously, but actual spiders, they just want to help you out with flies."

MAG167: Jon: “Methinks the Spider dost protest too much.” Martin: “Jon –” Jon: “Joking! Just joking.”

Personality:

How applicable these are depends heavily on how you interpret Martin's own personality, so your mileage may vary.

MAG008: Statement: “Nobody ever said a word against Raymond himself, though, who was by all accounts a kind and gentle soul [...]”

MAG123: Jon: "The Web does seem to have a preference for those who prefer not to assert themselves."

MAG147: Annabelles statement: "I discovered a deep and enduring talent inside myself for lying. [...] My manipulations were not intricate, but they were far beyond what was expected of a child my age, and I have always believed that the key to manipulating people is to ensure that they always under- or overestimate you. Never reveal your true abilities or plans."

Word of God and Annabelle

I kinda wanted to ‘prove’ that Web!Martin had quite a bit of evidence to back it up, hence this header being last. But of course, in this post-canon world, there are a few lines that most obviously confirm the theory:

MAG197: Martin is Web enough to be able to read the 'vibrations', like Annabelle, and see Jon and Basira (the latter being especially notable, as he hadn't known she was there beforehand): [CHITTERING, BUZZING AND HIGH-PITCHED SQUEALS CHANGE CADENCE] Martin: "Wait… Wait, hang on, is that him?" Annabelle: "Yes. I guess you’re better with the Web than we thought." Martin: "And – Wait, ha– No, uh… is that… Basira? He – He’s got Basira with him!" Annabelle: "Yes."

Season 5 Q&A part 2: Jonny: “Essentially, it was fascinating looking at the fandom and, like, the Web!Martin believers, because what they were doing was correctly picking up on hints dropped in the early seasons that were later, like, not exactly abandoned, but it was much more like, ‘Well, no, he does have like aspects of The Web to him, but he is moreover The Lonely.’ And that came about very… very organically, really. Because throughout Season 3 and going into Season 4, we had this conversation and we were like, ‘No, actually he's like-” Alex: “‘It can't be, it cannot be, it must be the other way round’ Yeah.”

(Note that they say “throughout season 3 and going into season 4,” which likely means that season 1, season 2, and at least part of season 3, aka half of the entire show, were written with Web!Martin as an intentional possibility.)

If you read all that, thanks so much! Obviously, Web!Martin never really came to fruition, so it's fine if you still don't like it. This is just a post explaining where it was coming from, at least for me and the other theorists I've spoken to.

[inktog]

"Scared of own reflection" and "tertiary Strength" could just mean body dysphoria? Which has already been hinted at a little bit. There's Marcy at the Gates: feminized, procreative ants threaten to overwhelm the masculinized Newtopia with a big ol' mound. Plus the never-grow-up Neverland vibes that color their wish for immortality. (Although the wish's ultimate fulfillment was a violent rewriting of their mind and body, although although that could just be Marcy faced with a paradox in their fantasy a la Hop Pop's burial of the music box.)

All three girls' visages were made into statues: Sasha presumably ordered hers made, Anne ordered hers but then had it revised, and Marcy's was made without their requesting it. The Strength attribute might correlate loosely with self-image, in a very physical sense? (Also the giant snake that Marcy defeats off-screen might be a reference to HP's basilisk, if that means anything.)

So to the extent that the girls are symmetrical, we've got:

Anne struggles at school (Wit) and finds solace in family (Heart).

Marcy has body dysphoria (Strength) and finds solace in school (Wit).

Sasha struggles with her family (Heart) and finds solace in her body (her self-image?) (Strength).

Trying to map it this way, I'm really not sold on the front half of Anne's formula. Or the front half of Marcy's, for that matter; it seems pretty plausible that Marcy is taking comfort in school because family bad, although I guess it could be a "yeah family is bad but dysphoria is worse" situation (secondary Heart and tertiary Strength, as it were—analogous to secondary-Strength Anne also having some body image issues but not as severe as Marcy's). Or the back half of Sasha's, but that's because I'm still not 100% sure what Strength is supposed to be.

I'm also honestly starting to doubt whether the primary/secondary/tertiary distinction always holds... it's one thing to say "Anne doesn't think through the consequences of her actions i.e. lacks Mind," it's another to say "Mind is school for Marcy so therefore school is at the root of all Anne's struggles" (which it almost definitely isn't).

Anyway I think the tl;dr is that trans Marcy real, and maybe this can help connect some of the yet-disparate Marcy threads (Newtopia as college, Andrias as some kind of dad figure, horticulture as a sublimated desire to raise kids but like in a queer way, the leering eyes and whatever in the fuck is going on with Darcy).

[sepublic]

           I love how by the end of The Third Temple, Sasha no doubt thinks she’s being super-clever and conniving, because Marcy mentions going to Newtopia first, so of COURSE Sasha agrees with this, takes advantage of it, she’s such an opportunist and the girls have no idea they’re playing right into her hands…

           Except! She’s actually being outwitted by MARCY, who’s the actual smart kid… And it’s MARCY who’s thinking that Sasha’s playing into her own hands, and it’s probably Marcy’s gambit that will win out in the end with Andrias and his master; But it’s so damn hilarious because like… They’re both manipulating and playing into each other’s hands, but neither knows the other is up to something! Sasha underestimates Marcy and doesn’t know enough about Andrias, and then Marcy’s just blindly trusting of Sasha, like she probably is of friends who also serve as authority figures in her life in general (case in point Maddie Flour).

           It’s legit hilarious, and the writing’s so clever; Because they both have their own agendas but underestimate the other, and they just so happen to align perfectly… And you can see one being dumb, but really they’re BOTH being simultaneously smart and duped, and amidst the tragedy and betrayal, it’s gonna be low-key funny when Sasha and Marcy’s plots collide into one another awkwardly, as they realize- Oh WHOOPS, we sort of had the same plan, but didn’t? I love it, I love seeing how these characters can have their hidden agendas and how they play into each other at the same time, clashing and conflicting, lowkey agreeing upon the one thing they both need to take down the other, and neither of them even realize it!

           It’s such a complex web of events and intent, and it’s even better that they’re utterly oblivious to the whole thing… Unless Marcy is actually more aware than she lets on, and/or Andrias suspected all of this and told her. Then meanwhile you have Anne caught in the crossfire and confusion and betrayal, and no doubt Sasha and Marcy will ask if SHE had any ulterior motives, and she doesn’t, and it’s so confusing and hard to keep track of… Though I can also see Marcy kind of suspecting it, again from Andrias, but because she also knows about what Sasha did at Toad Tower from Anne, whereas Marcy herself has had no betrayal precedent established.

           But yeah, it’s so damn funny that Sasha is probably thinking “GOTTEM” at poor dumb Marcy who she loves, but actually Marcy’s been four parallel universes ahead of her this whole time, freaking MARCY, and while Anne and Sasha duel it out… They’re totally missing out on the ACTUAL girl who’s playing them all for fools, and her con is likely aided by the fact that she legit doesn’t mean malice, nor does Marcy even think what she’s doing is wrong and manipulative! Again, it’s SUCH clever, twist-and-turns writing that overlaps and sews across, little plot threads coming across… Utterly brilliant, I love it!

          Now we’ll have to see who adapts to the chaos and the heat-of-the-moment better… Or at least, who’s able to get Anne on THEIR side, and that answer’s likely a lot more obvious. In addition to Sasha also having to deal with Andrias and HIS machinations, which are guiding Marcy’s… And the Toad Rebellion ain’t looking so good, if that one shot of Yunnan and a bunch of downed Toads is any indication. This is just taking Suspicion Island to a WHOLE new level, and Marcy’s the one that everybody missed and overlooked, they thought SHE was the fool, when in reality she was playing them all… Not maliciously nor super intentionally, but she’s operating on Andrias’ orders, so y’know.

          Even if Sasha could come toe-to-toe with Marcy, it’s a different issue if she doesn’t even anticipate the attack to begin with, doesn’t even realize Marcy’s a combatant and player in the ring herself; And THAT surprise is going to blindside her, before Sasha has the chance to adapt and make use of her own strength to win what should normally be a straight-forward conflict. Grime praised Sasha for playing Flip-Wart while the rest did Bog-Jump, but it seems it was MARCY who was actually doing this the entire time; Fitting, how she’s the only one we see who knows about the game and actually played it!

          Sasha could easily take on Marcy in a battle of strength, but that’s why Marcy has Anne to do this for her… Sasha, alas, for all of her seeming manipulations, is fundamentally more brute force than anything else; Which means she’s no match for Marcy’s wit, at least in conjunction with Andrias’ scheming! Marcy won’t meet Sasha on the battlefield, it’s Anne who’ll do that for her, leaving Sasha vulnerable on the tactical front… Hopefully Grime can help, but when there’s also the hidden ace-up-the-sleeve that is whatever Andrias is serving, and things don’t look too good for the Toad Rebellion!

          Just when we thought it was Marcy who was the mediator who’d turn the tides between Anne and Sasha… It seems it’s actually ANNE who’s the mediator, to turn the tides between Sasha and Marcy! It’s all up to, and all down to, Boonchuy… And alas, I don’t think Sasha can count on Anne for support at such a crucial moment junction, not when Anne can’t the same in return. It’s always the ones who seem silly and harmless that you gotta look out for… Well, them, and the giant Newt King who’s been alive longer than anyone else; Him, AND whatever’s in that basement…!

           I’ll say it again- But the way this all overlaps and fits perfectly into a place like a puzzle, all of it no doubt painstakingly planned out, so it all seems perfect and obvious to each person to do this... It’s SUCH fiendishly clever writing, and I admire it! I can almost see this as being additional karma for Sasha, who possibly low-key looked down on Marcy, or thought of her as dumb, given her apathy to Marcy’s own antics back home, and even mentioning that she’d get herself killed. Well, Sash, look who’s blindly following the path into danger, and will need to be saved by Anne, THIS time...! Guess you shouldn’t have underestimated Marcy and given her as much consideration and time of day, and respect, as Anne did... In general you need to take cues from Anne, actually. For all of Anne’s issues, she’s somehow the most well-rounded of the trio, and that is of course a CONCERNING relativity...

It’s just this total clash and train wreck of differing interests, circumstances and opportunities, accidents and twists that nobody could account for, and blind spots, all coming and crashing together into utter chaos, a mess nobody can predict, debris and shrapnel of characters and new plot points flying all over the place, and you can’t tear your eyes away from it as you watch in fascinated horror, utterly engrossed. I look FORWARD to this, the drama and weaving of threads makes me excited for the final picture and the completed puzzle...!