#THE OCTOBER ARC IS DONE!

[angel-hole]

SUPTOBER DAY 01 - liminal in the beginning

4 And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.

5 Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance;

— Ezekiel 1:4—5

[stealingpotatoes]

having ocs without faceclaims is all fun and games until you draw the same portrait four times in 6 months cause you really can't get the face right (did get it right 4th try LOL)

[verfound]

MINIFIC: Oct. 23: Day 11: Folklore (MLB, Lukanette, DLM AU)

This week has been a little hectic, and my time to work on this was…not what I wanted.  It did not help that it also totally ran away from me?  I was playing with ideas, about gravelings and missed appointments and souls going south.  There was so much lore to explore in a third season that was completely abandoned by the time we got the movie, and that whole storyline with Ray and what exactly a graveling could be still haunts me.

For @lovebugs-and-snakecharmers October Minific Challenge 2023.

Read on Ao3

To Feel Alive Again: Ch11: Folklore

“Are you ready for this?” Luka asked, glancing down at her as they stood outside the door to the café.  Her mouth was pressed in a thin line, and her thumbs were picking at the cuffs of the sweater he’d made her.  A nervous tick.

“No,” she said, her voice flat.  “How mad is she?”

“It’s Mendeleiev,” he said, shrugging as he flicked his cigarette towards the pavement and extinguished it with his boot.  “She’s always mad.”

“…how much worse is she?” she asked.  He sighed and tipped his head back, staring at the early morning clouds.

“How mad do you think, Marinette?  You’ve been…not awol.  Not really,” he said, shrugging.  “She likes you, though.  Believe it or not, she does like you.  She hasn’t had any post-its for you the past few days, so I think she was honestly trying to give you time to process.  She knew it would be a difficult job.”

Marinette bristled at that.

Mendeleiev fucking knew?

And she had sent her in anyway?

…part of her had suspected that, what with the warning their ‘boss’ had tried to give her the morning of, but to hear it actually confirmed…

Mendeleiev gave them hardly any information.  A name.  A location.  An estimated time of death.  She had always assumed the head reaper didn’t know any more than that.  What other secrets was the woman keeping?

“She had a post-it for you yesterday, though,” Luka said, bringing her attention back to him.  He was looking down the sidewalk, staring at some nondescript point in the distance.  “She asked Fred to give it to you.  He asked her not to.”

“…he didn’t say anything,” Marinette said, and Luka sighed.  He stepped around her, his side brushing her arm in the process, and opened the door.

“Then she’s probably pretty fucking pissed, if you missed an appointment,” he said, nodding for her to go in.  Marinette swallowed, squared her shoulders, and made it barely two steps into the café before Mendeleiev was pushing her back out, Fred in tow.

“Field trip,” Mendeleiev bit, grabbing her hand and tugging her down the street.  “Now.”

“Hey!” Luka called, but he stopped when Fred laid a hand on his shoulder.  He looked at the older reaper, confused, but Fred just shook his head and followed after them.  Luka watched as they disappeared in the early morning crowd, a nervous feeling he didn’t like settling into his gut.  Fred hadn’t been wearing his hat, he noted.  It had been in his hands, and it had looked almost crushed from how the man had been anxiously wringing it.  And Mendeleiev had looked pissed.

He wondered how bad it was, if both of them were in trouble.

A skittering above caught his attention, and his eyes turned up in time to see a graveling scurrying over the awnings of the shops, moving in the same direction Mendeleiev had taken the others.  That feeling in his gut got worse as another graveling peered over the roof at him.  When it realized he had seen it, it hissed and swiped at the ledge of the building, knocking off one of the exterior lights.  Luka stepped back before it could hit him, and the second graveling raced off after its friend.

He picked up the light, intending to give it to someone inside, and hoped Marinette would be all right.

– V –

“I hope your little vacation helped, Marinette,” Mendeleiev bit as they turned a corner.  Marinette felt herself bristling at the words.

“Excuse me?” she asked, her brow furrowing.  “Vacation?  I was not on vacation, you –”

“Then what would you like to call it?  Sabbatical?  Rest?  Temper tantrum?” Mendeleiev asked, stopping at a crosswalk and turning her head to glare over her shoulder.  There was a challenge in her hard eyes, but Marinette had been an aspiring designer once upon a time.  She had rubbed elbows with the likes of Audrey Bourgeois and Gabriel Agreste.  She knew how to stand up to challenging people.

“You sent me into that house knowing full well what that man was going to do,” she said, her voice tight.  “You made me an accomplice to murder, Philece.”

It was the first time Marinette had dared to use Mendeleiev’s first name.

There was a spark in the older reaper’s eyes, one that Marinette wasn’t sure if she recognized as the woman being amused or impressed.  On her grandfather, she used to call the look constipated.

“I gave you a job, Marinette,” she said, turning to cross her arms over her chest.  “I don’t control how they die any more than you do.  We just –”

“Facilitate the transfer, I know,” Marinette spat, “and that’s fucking bullshit.  This wasn’t External Influences, Philece.  This was murder.”

“Technically murder is an ‘external influence’, and therefore fully within our jurisdiction,” Mendeleiev said, an eyebrow lifting over her glasses.  “Marinette.  Believe me, I know.  I understand how hard this job can be.  And I tried to give you time to cope with this, but the world moves on, kid. The job still needs to get done.  And last night, you failed to do that.”

“I didn’t even know I had a job last night!” Marinette cried.

“You would have, if you had bothered showing up for breakfast,” Mendeleiev said.  She turned her eyes on Fred, and they narrowed behind her lenses with a glare.  “If your friends had been more considerate of the Rules.”

“…I told you she wasn’t ready,” Fred said, worrying his lip.  He was still wringing his hat in his hands.  “I told you not to give it to her.”

“And I said she was, and I gave it to her anyway,” Mendeleiev said, turning back to the light as it buzzed.  They crossed the street, the two reapers following behind her like chastised children.  “Not you.  And now you both get to see what happens when we don’t do our jobs.”

“I did the job, though!” Fred argued.  “I met him five minutes before his reap.  I popped his soul.  He should have been fine!”

“He wasn’t your soul to reap, Fred,” Mendeleiev said, stopping outside a nondescript building.  Marinette looked up at the sign by the door, her eyes widening when she realized Mendeleiev had taken them to the city morgue.

…she had only been here once before, a few months back.  For her own autopsy.  Mendeleiev had claimed there would be a sense of catharsis in watching.  It had just made Marinette sick.

“Some things you kids need to understand,” Mendeleiev said, her voice easily slipping into the lecturing tones of the teacher she had been.  “Life and death.  Ying and yang.  Whatever the fuck you want to call it.  It’s all about balance.  People come and go.  Live and die.  It’s what they do.  We make the going easier, however that going is meant to happen.  If we do our jobs right, we catch them before the going.  They don’t feel it, and they don’t get stuck.  It’s a small comfort, but it’s all we can do to make things easier for the poor fucks we help.”

“…what do you mean, stuck?” Marinette asked, her voice low.  Mendeleiev narrowed her eyes at her.

“P. Fischer was your reap, Marinette,” she said.  “Not Fred’s.  Come see what happens when you miss your appointment.”

It didn’t look like much, at first.  Just another dead body on a table.  That wasn’t anything new to Marinette: she had seen plenty of dead bodies over the past few months.  Mendeleiev had led them inside and into the back with a few well-placed lies, and now they were standing over the corpse of P. Fischer, who looked…fine.  Dead, but fine.  They hadn’t even done his autopsy yet.

“I don’t understand,” Marinette finally said.  “He’s…he’s still dead.  Fred said he got his soul.  What’s the problem?”

“The problem, kid…” Mendeleiev said, leaning back against the wall of coolers and folding her arms over her chest.  She nodded towards the open cooler where the examiner had pulled out Fischer.  “…is that he wasn’t Fred’s job.  He’s dead, yes, and he’s still in there.”

“…what?” Fred asked, dropping his hat as his head snapped up to look at Mendeleiev.  “But…I popped his soul!  I know I did!”

“Fun little fact, Freddie,” Mendeleiev said, her eyes narrowing over her glasses.  “He wasn’t your soul to pop.  There are Rules, kids.  Rules we can’t get around.  This soul wasn’t assigned to you.  It was assigned to Marinette.  She’s the only one who can do it.”

“But…but…” Fred tried to say, shaking his head as his mind raced.  “No.  No.  I know…a soul’s a soul!  I’ve seen –!”

“A soul is not a soul, Fred,” Mendeleiev said, her voice harsh.  “You should know it’s more complicated than that by now.  They can’t miss their appointments because their souls go funny if left unchecked.  We can’t miss their appointments because they suffer needlessly if we do.  It’s bad customer service.  Downright irresponsible.”

“…I didn’t…I didn’t know,” Marinette said, shaking her head.  Mendeleiev’s expression softened, but only for a moment.  “He…he asked for the reap.  Couldn’t…why didn’t you just change the appointment?”

“It doesn’t work like that, kid,” Mendeleiev said.  Marinette sucked in a breath, and Mendeleiev sighed.  “You didn’t know.  And maybe that’s on me, not warning you properly.  Forgive me for expecting people to follow simple instructions.”

“Philece,” Fred said, but the reprimand was missing from his voice.  He was still looking at the corpse, his hands curled into shaking fists at his sides.

“This thing we do.  It’s not a game, kids,” she said, ignoring him.  “It’s our responsibility.  It’s the last kindness we can give in a world that’s usually too cruel to care.  Now get the hell over here and do your damn job.  This poor man’s suffered enough.”

Marinette approached the slab, her breath catching in her throat when she saw the man staring up at her through wide, unblinking eyes.  She swallowed and brushed her hand along his arm, shivering when that gooseflesh feeling of a soul leaving its body chased up her arm.  An instant later, the soul sat up on the slab, screaming.

She jumped back, but Mendeleiev was already behind her, a surprisingly comforting hand on her shoulder.  She squeezed but said nothing, and Marinette swallowed against the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes as Fischer continued to scream.

It seemed to take an eternity before he stopped.

When the screams finally cut out, he just…sat there.  Staring at the wall of small metal doors, his eyes wide and mouth open.  He was panting, his ragged, unnecessary breathing so loud in the quiet room that felt so much worse after the screaming.

“…Fischer?” Marinette finally asked, her voice soft, and he slowly turned his head.  His face was twisted in fear.  His misty hands gripped at the table, and Marinette was certain they’d be white-knuckled if he still had blood to blanch.  She stepped forward cautiously, like you’d approach a wild dog, and held out her hand.  “It’s…it’s ok, Fischer.  It’s ok now.”

“…th…they put…they put me in the dark,” he choked out.  His entire body was trembling.  Marinette raised her hand and helped him off the slab, keeping her eyes on his face to give him some semblance of decency.  “They put me in the dark.”

“I know, Fischer,” she said, her voice soft.  She squeezed his hand, and he shook his head.  “I’m so sorry.”

“You’re safe now, Fischer,” Fred said, and the man’s eyes snapped to him at the voice.  Fischer gave another yelp and stumbled back through the slab holding his body, his eyes locked on Fred.

“Y-you…” he gasped.  “I saw you.  Before…before…”

“I was trying to help,” Fred said, his voice miserable.  Marinette swallowed and held her hand back out to Fischer.

“We’re friends, Fischer,” she said, and his eyes snapped back to her briefly.

“I couldn’t close my eyes,” he said, his eyes darting to each of them wildly as he clung to the wall of coolers behind him.  He was trembling, from the unsteady arms misting against the metal doors to the legs quaking below the table.  He was terrified.  “They put me on that table, and then they put me in that box, and I couldn’t close my eyes.  They shut the door.  Why couldn’t they hear me?  I was screaming...”

“…I’m so sorry,” Marinette said, her voice catching in her throat.  She took a hesitant step forward, then another, until she was in front of the soul.  She held out a hand and tried to ignore how it was shaking, too.  “I’m so sorry.  You never should have had to go through that, Fischer.  I’m sorry.”

“I don’t like the dark,” he said, his voice so small.  So scared.  “I don’t like it.”

“Where you’re going now, it won’t be dark anymore,” Marinette said.  She swallowed around the lump in her throat and held her hand closer, forcing a smile on her face.  “Come on.  I have the prettiest lights to show you.”

It took a long moment, but eventually the soul laid his hand in Marinette’s.  Her smile became steadier as she led him from the room, towards where she could see his lights materializing down the hall.  They walked out the door, away from that cold, sterile room, and Mendeleiev found herself smiling as the door swung shut behind them.

“Maybe there’s hope for her after all,” she said.  Beside her, Fred was staring at where his hat had landed on the ground.

“…I didn’t know, Philece,” he said, his voice softer than it usually was.  “I didn’t…I just assumed…”

“I know,” Mendeleiev sighed.  She reached into her pocket for a cigarette, then thought better of it.  Her fingers fiddled with the pack in her pocket.  She’d need to pick some more up soon.  “And sometimes it works like that.  Sometimes it doesn’t matter, as long as the soul’s dealt with.  Most times it does, though.”

“She was hurting,” he said.  “I just…I just wanted to give her a break.  She’s had so much trouble adjusting to this life.  I just wanted to help.”

“Then let her figure it out,” Mendeleiev said, turning towards him.  “Show her the ropes.  Let her learn why we do what we do.  Tell her a ghost story if you must.  Just get the message through her thick head: she’s a reaper now, like it or not, and death is just a part of life.  Even the hard deaths.  Especially the hard deaths.”

“A ghost story?” he asked, looking up with a slight smile.  She looked back at the body that had been P. Fischer and shrugged.

“I heard tell once of a man who missed his appointment,” she said.  “Early in life.  A reaper went soft and refused to do their job.  So the soul stayed, and it went sour, and the man grew up to do some terrible things.”

“What happened to him?” Fred asked.  Mendeleiev fiddled with her cigarettes again, itching to light one.

“I heard a reaper killed him,” she said.  She looked up, her eyes guarded.  “Not popped his soul and watched as a graveling dropped a piano on his head.  Beat him to death with a baseball bat or some shit.”

“…what…what happened to his soul?” Fred asked, an uneasy feeling stealing into him.  Mendeleiev reached over and slid her hand over Fischer’s eyes, closing them.  Her hand lingered on his head for a moment as she considered her words.

“It went sour,” she finally said.  She looked p at Fred, that look in her eyes hardening.  “He became a graveling, Fred.  That’s what they are, you know.  Those little bastards.  Souls that rot and wither away, stinking up from the inside out.  They don’t get lights.  They stay, and they’re so mad about it they stir up shit for the rest of us.”

“But Fischer still died,” Fred said, swallowing.

“He did,” Mendeleiev nodded.

“He didn’t rot,” he said.

“He didn’t,” she said, shaking her head.  She looked back at his corpse, the screams from when Marinette had finally pulled him out still echoing in her head.  “Who knows what would have happened to him if we’d left him in there, though.  If he’d been buried.  If he’d had to crawl his way out of his own grave.”

“…I was just trying to help,” he said, shaking his head as he looked away from her.  “It’s…it’s not fair, Philece.  She’s just a kid.  I was just…I was trying…it’s not fair.”

“It’s death, Fred,” she said, pushing the slab with Fischer’s body on it back into the wall and closing the door.  She laid a hand on the cool metal, and if Fred didn’t know the woman any better he’d say she was saying a prayer for the deceased.  “The Great Equalizer, they call it.  It’s about the only thing in this world that is fair.”

[heartpoems]

apollo, nix, violet, andddd drake dww :3

ok the apollo one is embarassing. LMAOOO listen i have a lot of thoughts about him. is that 5 bingos? i think? anyways yeah. also thank you for reminding me about drake and austin i often forget they exist and then i remember them and my brain goes [WEEEEEEEEE]

[raymondshields]

Just thinking to myself mostly but if I could get people into a singular book series it would be October Daye. First book is Rosemary and Rue and the series is just killer. Seaman McGuire just doesn't miss, and if I could be a fraction of the hero Tybalt is I would consider myself a damn good man.

[thedeathwitchescats]

Okay, review time!! If you are one of the oddballs who thinks you cant be critical of something you love I suggest you stop reading now before I ruffle your feathers. Iron flame, second in the empyrean series. I am gonna start with what I was not a fan of and then go into the shit I adored.

1) what in the actual fuck was the pacing of this book?? I can tell you what, it was non existent. There was none. Where I thought there was a lot of filler in the last book there was none in this one. We got snap shots of conversations and then *boom* more plot flew at you. The timeline of this book greatly suffered for it i think bc we end only a couple weeks, if that, after threshing, which happens sometimes in October. This book was actually so wild with times.

2) while it was a spectacular cliff hanger, xaden becoming venin pisses me off. Especially if Rebecca yarros isnt going to have him tell violet. Like if that small tid bit of a conversation we got wasnt him telling vi that he was venin then the entire romantic conflict of this book was rendered pointless and their going to be having the same fucking fight for the rest of the series and at rhat point I give up.

3) I understand that the revolution is trying to take down basgaith and make the world better or whatever the fuck but can someone actually formulate a real plan for me?? Because I feel like their mission is just, giving violet and xaden something to be pissed at each other about.

4) the entirety of cats character. I get that she was set up as a spin on the typical jealous ex. Like having her be bitter about xaden picking violet over her but OH WAIT it wasnt actually about the man it was about the crown, oohh not like other girls. Im a writer too I see the point. I dont care. I think it was trashy. If you wanted her to be a bitter spiteful ex then have her be a bitter spiteful ex, the whole crown thing was shallow.

OKAY haters your time is up now onto the shit that made my heart hurt with joy and sadness

1) xadens arc in this book. I really liked that he went from "transparency is never gonna happen" to losing his fucking mind over violet and giving her everything. I love feral men and he qualifies. I think his arc was really well done and i liked it.

2) I appericiate that violet stuck to her guns for this book. She wouldnt let xaden off without a fight and I loved that. She made him bow and scrape and I was eating it up. It was spectacular.

3) the throne room scene. Violet on the throne. "Im making a temporary point not a lasting vow of maschocism" xaden being feral.

4) that gets its own point actually, just xaden being completely feral this entire book healed a part of my soul.

5) andarna's little speech at the end where she was like "I waited for you violet" made me ugly cry. That was just so hopelessly good I loved it. Andarna in general heals my heart but that part was just *chefs kiss*

6) tarin being completely and utterly ready to eat people this entire book. Just, at every turn "I want lunch their pissing me off " was spectacular

7) every scene their squad was in. Rihannon, violet, sawyer and ridoc are my roman empire. Their bond is so amazing. The fact that they launched a rescue mission for violet. Rihannon being ready to kill xaden at every turn. Ridoc being so platonically and adorably in love with violet. Just- augh happy cries happy cries. I love it all. Their so special tbh.

8) I love xaden actually, just, the whole book every scene hes in lives in my brain.

9) I liked that we saw a small bit of violet being feral this book too. I hope that we get more of that in future books. I want more of violet losing her fucking mind. Hot, badass women covered in blood

10) Liam. Fucking Liam. When violet was kidnapped and Liam was there. Now, do I logically understand that he was a hallucination, yes, do i care?? No. He was a gift from Maleck I will be hearing no critiques on that. It was so fucking sweet and amazing. I love violet and Liam and Liam being dead so horribly breaks my heart. I loved Liam. Liams death lives rent free in my skull.

[daisynik7]

hello it's me again not sure if it's alright to request one more (literally just ignore this if not) and its also not y2k but i'd like to request work song by hozier for nanami especially "no grave can hold my body down, i'd crawl home to her" angst with a happy ending during/post shibuya (no dying please) and reader is also a healer like shoko

thank you so much and congrats again 🫶🏼

Work Song

No grave can hold my body down, I’ll crawl home to her

Pairing: Nanami x f!reader

Word Count: ~1.6k

cw: mentions of d*ath, bl*od, burn injuries, canon-divergent, set in the canon-universe during the Shibuya Incident Arc, MAJOR spoilers up to Shibuya Arc, angst, hurt/comfort, established relationship, happy ending

Summary: You’re a healer working with Shoko inside the medical tent at Shibuya Station while Nanami, your boyfriend, is in the line of fire for the battle ahead. After an especially life-threatening attack, Nanami, on the brink, runs into an old friend, who helps guide him back home. 

Author’s Note: @75songs thank you so much for sending in another request for the y2k karaoke party, always appreciate your love and support! I ADORE this song and have honestly always thought it was perfect for Nanami. I am an anime only and am not caught up with season 2 yet, so I didn’t want to read too much into what exactly happens during this arc, so some of the details may be inaccurate, just a heads up. This one got me in my feelings. I will forever hold a grudge against Gege for what they did to Nanami. Anyways, likes, reblogs, and/or comments are always appreciated! Thanks so much for reading! Divider by @/saradika.

October 31st. Maybe in another timeline, another reality, you and Nanami would be celebrating Halloween tonight, passing colorful candies and decadent chocolates to kids going door-to-door across the neighborhood. You’d force him to dress up in a silly costume, one that matches yours, despite his reluctance at first. Deep down, you know he likes this; domestic bliss, especially with you. The idea that the two of you could live a peaceful life together, away from the dangerous world of curses and Jujutsu sorcery. You discuss it constantly, dream about it, strive for it. A few more years, he says, and he’ll retire. There’s still more work to be done, people to be saved. 

You’re inside the medical tent beside Shoko, helping her set up the cots, anticipating injured sorcerers to arrive soon with the battle underway. Masamichi Yaga, Jujutsu High’s principal, stands guard outside, determined to keep the medical team, especially Shoko, safe from any posing threats. There’s no way to know what’s happening until people start arriving, in need of medical attention. You’re a healer too, but not nearly as skilled as Shoko, your mentor. Still, she encourages you to join them tonight, needing all the help they can get. 

“Are you feeling okay?” she asks, setting up the last bed. Observant as ever, she notices your quiet demeanor.

You nod, giving her a weak, unconvincing smile. “Yeah.”

“Nanami is going to be fine,” she assures you, sensing the root of your anxiety. “When this is all done, the two of you should take a vacation together.”

Relaxing a bit, you reply, “We already have our trip to Malaysia planned in a few months.”

She smiles kindly. “There you go. Something to look forward to.”

Her words ease some of the tension, but there’s dread settling in the pit of your stomach, and it won’t go away until you see Nanami again in one piece. 

The waiting game finally ends as soon as the first wounded sorcerer shows up in the tent, initiating nonstop chaos. You assist Shoko diligently, making sure everything is prepared for her to perform her Reverse Cursed Technique for those who need it, and patching up those who don’t, with less severe injuries. You’re constantly on the lookout to see a familiar face, trying to get an update on what’s happening out there. None comes, until you see Kiyotaka Ijichi limping towards the entrance, blood spread across his shirt. You and Shoko rush towards him, carrying him over your shoulders, leading him to an empty cot, gently laying him down. 

Shoko, showing panic on her face for the first time all night, inspects him carefully. “Ijichi, can you hear me?” She’s always had a soft spot for him, often telling you how endearing she finds him, always a nervous wreck in front of her. Seeing him like this is surely jarring, even for her, who’s as tough as nails. 

He nods weakly, mumbling something incoherent, blood sputtering from his mouth. You remove the shattered glasses from his eyes, wiping his lips with gauze. Shoko starts to work on him, directing you to check on the other patients. Before you can follow orders, you feel his weak grip on your wrist. You turn to face him, focused on his lips as he quietly utters, “Nanami.”

Your ears perk up at the mention of your boyfriend’s name, leaning in closer to hear the rest of what he has to say, taking his time through labored breaths. “He…saved…me…” 

You do your best to keep your composure, nodding at him silently, blinking away the tears welling in your eyes. Unsure how to respond, you leave them, going to the other side of the tent to check on the remaining sorcerers. 

With everyone else in stable condition, you take a minute outside the tent to sob into your hands, praying that Nanami is still alive. Unaware of your surroundings, you’re startled when Yaga approaches, his large figure sitting beside you. “You alright?”

You wipe away your sniffles on your sleeve. “Just…nervous.”

He crosses his arms over his chest, sighing. “Yeah, I get it. But Nanami is one of our strongest sorcerers. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

Again, more words of comfort, but not enough to ease the nervous flutter in your belly. Yaga recognizes this and adds, “Nanami would fight through the fires of hell instead of letting himself die. Not because he wants to live for himself. But because he wants to live for you.”

You face him now, processing his statement. He chuckles, lifting his sunglasses to meet your gaze. “That man has never been so smitten in his life. He’d crawl out his grave just to be with you, I guarantee it.”

~~~

The last thing Nanami remembers is desperately wishing he was in Malaysia with you instead of at Shibuya Station right now. He wakes up, sitting in one of the seats on the platform. It’s eerily quiet with no one in sight. The distinct sounds of trains on the rails or the hustle and bustle of people moving along is strangely absent, and it occurs to Nanami that this may be a dream. 

He's sure of it when he feels a nudge to his side, turning to face Yu Haibara sitting next to him. There’s a warm smile on his boyish face, dressed in his Jujutsu High uniform, exactly as he was many years ago when Nanami last saw him, alive and well. The same bright, earnest eyes he remembers vividly of his best friend. He swallows hard, an uneasy feeling surrounding him. Is he seeing a ghost? Or is this the afterlife?

Haibara laughs, and Nanami is snapped out of his reverie and taken immediately back to 2006, when he first met his friend during orientation. He can’t help but grin, happy to see him still so lively. “Well, aren’t you going to greet your old friend, Nanami?”

Nanami does, hugging him, astonished to feel him in his arms almost like a real person. Almost. “What are you doing here?”

“Just came to visit you, that’s all.”

Nanami lets him go, studying him carefully, looking for any signs of decay. When he spots none, he asks him, “Am I dead?”

Haibara shakes his head. “Not quite. But you’re pretty damn close.”

“I am?”

“Yeah. So you better hurry and get home quick.” Haibara points towards the railings, now illuminated at one end by a blinding flash of light. “Yuji’s waiting for you.”

“Itadori? How do you know – “

Haibara then says your name with a big smile. “Yeah, I know her too. They’re all waiting for you, Nanami. You don’t want to keep them waiting any longer, do you?”

It takes a while for Nanami to get up, and when he does, he’s off balance, legs wobbly, body unsteady. Haibara helps him, offering his shoulder, the two of them walking slowly towards the light. “I really like her, you know. Your girlfriend.”

“You do?” Nanami asks, hobbling beside him. 

“Yeah. She’s really nice, really pretty, and she eats a lot, especially with you,” he chuckles. “You know how much I like that.”

“Yeah I do.”

“And I’m a good judge of character, so I think she’s perfect for you. If that means anything,” he says, proudly.

“It does. It means a lot.” They’re near the edge of the platform now and Nanami will have to hop down to reach the end of the tunnel. 

“Are you going to marry her soon?” Haibara asks, pausing just before the edge. 

Nanami nods, grinning. “I’m planning to propose during our vacation in Malaysia.” 

“Good. Good.”

He’s tempted to stay longer, wanting a few more moments with his friend, but he knows that time is ticking. He hugs him again, squeezing him tight. “Take care, Haibara.”

“You too, Nanami. I’ll be looking out for you.”

His chest constricts, jumping off the platform, landing roughly on the railings, blinking away the tears in his eyes. It’s sweltering now, the light emitting an intense heat from within. He gives Haibara one last glance, cherishing the happy expression on his face as he waves goodbye to him before walking into the light.

Seconds later, Nanami wakes up with a gasp of breath, vision blurred, a droning pounding beating against his ear drums. It soon fades and only Yuji’s panicked voice yelling from behind him is heard. He’s being dragged by the armpits, away from the battle. Smoke radiates from his entire form, and he can barely move. In fact, he can barely feel anything at all. 

They reach the medical tent, Itadori yelling for help the whole way. Yaga is the first to reach them, his usual calm demeanor wavering at the sight of Nanami, body half-burned from the explosion. They carrying him delicately inside, resting him on the only empty cot left. He wants to close his eyes; he’s so exhausted, and sleep is the only thing to bring him peace right now. That, or you. 

As if his prayers were heard, you appear at his side, truly a vision, even while you sob for him, holding his mangled hand in yours, begging for him to stay with you. He can die happy now, seeing your face, knowing that you’re here, alive, heart beating, surviving. Can he do the same? Can he survive this? All he knows is that he’s trying with every fiber he has left in his being. He won’t leave you, not like this. Not without experiencing life on the outside with you. 

It’s in this moment that he vows to endure. Even if he has to crawl out of his grave to do it, he’s determined to be with you again. 

~~~ 

November 1st. Maybe in another timeline, another reality, Nanami is gone. Not in this one, though. Instead, you sit beside him, healed and in one piece thanks to Shoko, fingers laced with his, careful not to squeeze too tightly. Yuji and Ino are at his other side, talking animatedly about how amazing Nanami was the entire fight, and all he can do is lay there, smiling. Happy to be alive. Happy to be with you. 

[genericpuff]

Scamlords is at it again.

A few nights ago, there was a sudden blow-up in the /r/webtoons server showing a new announcement from Snailords -

For anyone unaware, Death : Rescheduled has been on mid-season hiatus since October. And it's now, and only now, that Snailords has suddenly decided the comic is ending after it returns, but readers can get an extra 20 episodes... if they fork over $1k in merch sales.

Now, this could be a lot worse. They could be threatening not to return to the series at all unless their readers hand over money. But considering it's practically just one degree away from that, it's still pretty nasty. Not to mention, the further they divulged in their reasoning around this "idea", the more confusing it got.

They also even revived their @snailordsrant account on IG which, for those of you who were there and can recall, was the same account they used to put one of their own fans on blast over some very mild criticism.

None of this makes any actual sense, for several reasons:

1.) I literally fail to see how getting $1k in less than 24 hours is worth shoving in an extra mini arc of 10 episodes if you don't even have it planned out. Why do that to your audience or to yourself? Why drag things out just to scrounge up an emergency $1k? Why not just be honest with your audience and run a GoFundMe or just say , "Hey everyone, I've run into some financial troubles, I would really appreciate it if you could FastPass my newest episodes or donate to my Patreon or buy some merch so I can cover the costs". It's really telling that this shithead doesn't have enough confidence in themselves or their audience that practically worships them that they have to resort to this kind of underhanded shit to get the money they need. I wanna make it clear that this is NOT like a Kickstarter stretch goal or anything that incentivizes readers to support their work, they're instead holding the length and future of their series over their audiences' head (which they've done before) for money. That's not an incentive, it's an ultimatum.

2.) Maybe I'm misreading / being stupid (someone pls explain if I'm missing something here) but I literally don't see how their comment about working 50 hours a week explains why they're suddenly getting their fans to pay out $1k worth of merch in less than 24 hours. For anyone who doesn't know, $1k per episode is an example Webtoons uses in its post discussing how they pay out creators (this came after the platform got called out 2 years ago for paying creators too little, there are undoubtedly creators getting paid less). And yet for some reason $1k is apparently the difference between 10 episodes and 20? How does that add up? And is the bit about them wanting to buy boba supposed to be a joke? Where's the punchline here?

3.) They say they have writer's block and they want to use the money to "motivate them", but then just a few slides later they say 10-15 episodes is what would make them the "happiest" so which is it? Do they want to write 10 episodes or do they want people to pay them to write 20 episodes so they can draw the fluff scenes that they apparently want to draw? If you have an ending planned out, why rush it or drag it out depending on how this "fundraiser" goes? Why not just write the ending you want to write that will serve your story best? Why shove in an extra mini arc that you don't even have full confidence in writing and then try to compare it to a "super expensive cake"? What are you doing? Speaking as someone who's had trouble getting motivated in the past, suddenly getting a month's rent worth of money to do it doesn't necessarily solve that, it just turns up the pressure, and if you're not someone who deals with pressure well, then you're more likely to wind up just burning out entirely rather than fulfilling that goal.

4.) The fact that they did, in fact, hit their goal just makes it all the shittier to think about because their audience is mostly made up of teenagers who worship the ground that they walk on. It's horrifying that they keep pulling these stunts with their audience, and getting away with it to boot - and Webtoons, as a company, keeps enabling it by allowing it to happen by hosting and promoting people like this.

Anyways, there's already a lot going on here that's sketchy, but then... they went and deleted their posts. At the time of this happening (as I was there to witness it all play out in real time) I assumed this meant that they had hit their $1k goal - especially as they had been showing their progress on their IG and they were already at $900 after just a couple hours - but it gave me a sinking feeling seeing them delete it because they had also been called out by some brave readers telling them that it wasn't exactly a good look to essentially blackmail their audience through their own content into giving them money.

Snailords deleting it gave me a stronger impression of "burying the evidence", especially now that they had the money. By all accounts, they could do whatever they wanted now.

So what did they decide to do?

. . . Huh?

Okay, take a second to actually think about what Snailords has done here. Because I know some of you will go "oh, it was for charity all along! that was nice of them!" but . . . I don't know about the legalities of collecting donation funds under false pretenses, but morally speaking, it's a really shitty thing to do. They stripped away the choices - limiting them to three - of what their readers could donate to, and what I think their readers don't understand - due to being mostly teenagers - is that they're tax-exempt individuals and they just unknowingly gave Snailords an easy $1k tax write-off. You really, really shouldn't collect donation funds like this without being honest, it's just a shitty thing to do, especially after you've already collected the money. It mostly just comes across as damage control on Snailords' part to make it seem like they were always planning to donate to charity, when in reality, if they wanted to donate to charity, they would have been honest about that at the start. Again, even if they wanted to do that from the start, it goes to show how little confidence they have in themselves or their audience that they have to stoop to methods like these instead of just doing it honestly.

And do you really think Snailords will actually do those extra episodes? Or donate that money? This is the same asshole who has manipulated their readers for money not once but twice, and now seems intent on doing it a third time just for the charm. This is the same person who practically sabotaged their own comic, Freaking Romance, because they apparently didn't like the romance genre and may as well have only done it for clout / views / etc.

What was especially odd - and I found this out from folks who actually read Death : Rescheduled (I do not) - was finding out that it wouldn't make sense for D : R to end in as many as 25 episodes, because apparently, the plot has basically just gotten going.

So it does seem like this is foreshadowing that D : R will wind up just like Freaking Romance, rushed into an ending that wasn't expected. And this, of course, has the people who read their work confused because D : R was supposed to be Snailords' passion project, their magnum opus, the project they wanted to do. So them holding the timing of an ending that shouldn't even be happening yet for ransom contradicts that original intention. Really, it just goes to show that Snailords has no passion, they're just in it purely for the money, to a degree that I can't even cheer them on for being a hustler because it's missing the honesty and integrity.

And of course, every single time Snailords finds a way to backpedal and take his audience for a ride, they hop right in without a single thought for themselves.

And no, none of this is to hate on the readers directly, I hold Snailords entirely responsible for this - they have an audience of impressionable, naive, gullible teenagers, and they know it, and take advantage of it every chance they get. It's why they weren't just honest about wanting to collect money for charity from the start. It's why they resorted to basically holding their own comic's progression for ransom during its midseason hiatus. It's why the deadline was 24 hours and why the posts are now gone.

Thankfully the Internet does what it does - any evidence that Snailords was trying to bury is now all over reddit, and hey, just for good measure, here's a post on Tumblr that's been sitting in my drafts for days now, days after people have already seemingly stopped talking about it. Don't let anyone bury or forget about the stunts Snailords is pulling on their audience, with a platform that they've been consistently given by Webtoons, because that's what they want you to do.

[tobi-smp]

absolutely nobody wants to see me rant about the end of the dream smp for one millionth time in october 2023, but the anniversary has people talking on my dash so now I'm infected with one of the same 4 thoughts I always have about the dream smp

obviously there is a Very Very large number of reasons that people have a complicated relationship with the dream smp, both in universe and out. and the worst for me are the Obvious out of universe reasons that don't need to be repeated here.

but the cake for In Universe reasons is definitely still the crimeboys ending. it was the final nail in the coffin for me back when I hadn't realized that the coffin had any more nails it could take in the first place, and it's a big part of why the parts of the series that I Do very much so enjoy are very often painful to look back on.

and this isn't because wilbur is a bad writer or a bad actor (or tommy for that matter), even at the time I had Really enjoyed the lead up to the end, even and Especially in that final stream sending wilbur off.

I had my issues of course, I haven't exactly been quiet about that, but in retrospect I Understand the circumstances much better and respect wilbur's choice to get out of there as cleanly as possible.

we still don't know Exactly what was happening behind the scenes, including and Especially with dream, but we Do know full well that dream stopped interacting with the entire rest of the server leaving countless story lines (that he'd Intentionally made himself integral to) left to dry with no way to move forwards while they waited for interaction that would never ever come.

wilbur's choice to move forwards with his send off of his character on his own terms, even with and especially Because of the clear scheduling issues, was the smartest decision he could have made considering the circumstances. I would very much so argue that his character is the Only One that got sent off with any amount of dignity largely Because he stopped playing dream's little game. and I do have to wonder if wilbur escaping the narrative wasn't inspired more by the real life circumstances at the time.

but no matter how satisfying I find it, no matter how much Good I see in it, no matter how much I respect and agree with the choice to do it, I cannot think about wilbur's ending without a Deep ache.

and it is for one single reason

he left tommy behind on purpose, this time fully with the knowledge of the situation he was leaving him behind In.

the abandonment that characters like tommy, niki, and fundy felt after the 16th are ultimately understandable ways of dealing with grief, but weren't Fair to truly hold against wilbur. wilbur didn't Leave, he didn't make the decision to allow the people important to him to be hurt in his absence. he committed suicide because he was sad.

wilbur getting on that boat, truly Knowing what dream did to tommy in a way that only tommy and dream knew, and leaving tommy alone on that beach affected me in ways that nothing else on the server ever has. and that truly is not a good thing.

now, I Think that what was likely supposed to happen is that dream was Supposed to interact with tommy regularly after the prison escape, and that that was supposed to build up to Some natural conclusion. we don't know what that conclusion would have been, but it was certainly nothing like what we got. and meanwhile wilbur's final arc was supposed to progress along side it, building Up To the logsted stream and his full understanding of the abuse dream had done and the affect it had on tommy.

we Know that at one point tommy had spoken about having a soft ending with wilbur. and After wilbur's ending actually did happen he'd mentioned that he might cameo on the server from time to time. that sounds like a soft ending to me.

it makes thematic sense, it makes sense with the pieces we got leading up to the final stream, it makes sense with the characters. and it couldn't happen, because dream refused to move any plot forwards and tommy of all characters couldn't move on without dream. again, both Thematically and because of what was happening behind the scenes.

and this is. frustrating beyond reason. that the snot genuinely poisoned one of the best aspects of the entire server because he was actively killing it but still didn't want to let go.

you can call it speculation, and it is, but this is what I believe and will continue to believe until tommy or wilbur say otherwise.

and on paper I just want to be able to say that the things that I don't like about the ending are bad because dream forced them to be bad and therefore I can just pretend like they never happened and substitute canon's reality with my own (or at the very least excuse it for being the way that it is).

and I have tried to do that ! both in chewing on the ending on its own terms And in imagining many Many ways that it could have gone differently (an activity I'm quite fond of regardless of circumstance).

but it just !

in a completely biased and nevertheless Extremely Honest word, hurt my feelings.

I cannot stop thinking about how they Intentionally set up wilbur finding out about dream abusing tommy, Made Sure to cover every base so the audience Knows that wilbur knows that it was physical, mental, and emotional abuse, Knows that wilbur is fully aware that tommy almost committed suicide, and Knows that wilbur was Deeply Emotionally Affected By This Fact.

and then had him leave. had him Plan Possibly Months Ahead Of Time. had him try to sneak off, only telling tommy the truth when he caught him by surprise and forced it out of him.

tommy opened up to somebody about exile in real honest terms for the very first time, to one of the people that he trusted the most, and that person Chose to leave him trapped with that very abuser out to get him Even Though he understood the danger and cared about him very deeply.

he knew that tommy was in danger, he knew Why tommy was in danger, and him leaving tommy behind was pre-meditated.

and it's Painful not just because of what it implies about their relationship As A Whole (because it's impossible to accept this as true without it affecting how we look back on what came before), but because those same implications makes it Impossible to imagine their relationship having a future.

people tried to play it off like a Soft Ending, like wilbur was just going to get therapy and then come back and they were just gonna hug it out and have a nice healthy relationship. and to be fair to those people, none of us could have predicted that tommy was going to be bombed and then reincarnated with none of his memories. that was Not in my predictions for the next phase of his character arc.

but, shitty sequel bait ending that everyone who cares has disavowed aside (way aside, into a deep pit to never be seen again), if I were tommy I would feel unimaginably betrayed.

where they left off is Not a place to reconnect with a healthy relationship when they're ready, because This Was A Traumatizing Event In And Of Itself.

I don't have to prove this, c!tommy proved this himself when started holing up in his house and abusing potions of invisibility both because he feels completely and totally Unsafe walking anywhere on the server when people can see him And as a relapse back into potion addiction reminiscent of his addiction post-exile.

he was at his absolute lowest point, his abuser and murderer escaped from prison ready to torment him and everyone he cares about for Literally forever. he was Desperately trying to find any form of stability, Desperately trying to reach out to for anyone he could trust, and he Intentionally opened up to someone he Did trust completely once. someone who made him feel safe, someone he trusted with his entire life.

he opened up Because he wanted that relationship, Because he wanted wilbur in his life, Because wilbur had wanted Him in His life. he wanted to cross that gap between them. he was making himself vulnerable to Extend that trust To wilbur.

and wilbur stopped talking to him for months and then left.

that's not going to do good things to his mental health or stability. tommy was Already displayed active suicidal tendencies BEFORE dream broke out of prison.

if he'd managed to kill dream for good and the characters went about their lives tommy would have to let wilbur go. rationalizing what happened, justifying wilbur's decision, would not be healthy.

he can accept that wilbur made the right decision for Himself. he can accept that Wilbur needed to leave, that Wilbur needed time to himself.

but tommy clinging on to wilbur's memory, justifying that he was left for dead with his abuser On Purpose, would not be healthy.

tommy would Need to realize that what happened wasn't okay. there Is no going back to having a relationship with wilbur. wilbur was Allowed to make the choice he did, but it Was a choice.

I can't bare to think of the alternative. where tommy is abandoned, deeply damaged by that abandonment, has to face his abuser and murderer Without someone he'd once considered a brother, and then turn around and just answer wilbur's call the moment Wilbur decides he's ready to have a relationship again.

that would just. be sad. genuinely awful.

and I can't let that go. the decisions they made were Sensible, I can see how it was necessary for wilbur to Have a proper send off when he did. there's no Satisfying way to re-imagine this series of events without it not Being the end.

but it tried to depict itself As a soft ending, As the characters having a future together, when it simply is not. if wilbur escaped the narrative then he left the people he cared about to be victims of the narrative Knowingly.

and it's frustrating Because I can see how it'd happen by accident. How the implications would be both meticulously set up and gone completely unseen.

but for my money, if I were to fix it on its own terms. with no additional screen time after, no change in the streams leading up to the end, and the understanding that tommy's story could not end at this point by necessity (the same restrictions that they had at the time)

I would have wilbur ask tommy to come with him. I'd have the reveal be that wilbur wanted to take tommy with him The Entire Time but knew that tommy was stubborn and attached to the server. but the moment he understood Exactly How Bad It Was he knew he needed to get them out of there Now.

so he did his best to hold dream off for now, and Immediately went to work setting up their escape (we don't need to understand How the portal to utah works, just that it took some time to set up).

it would recontextualize some of their earlier interactions, it would recontextualize his absence after the logsted stream, and it would recontextualize why wilbur didn't tell him until now.

and of course, because tommy has to stay (and because tommy is tommy) he refuses. he refuses not because he doesn't Want to go with wilbur (he wants to be with him more than anything, he wants to feel safe more than anything). but because he can't abandon the people on the server, because he can't let go until he knows dream is gone, because he will never ever feel safe until dream is dead.

and it can be a big dramatic blow out that Ends with that quiet awkward understanding, not with the characters being emotionally in sync but Knowing that this is how this moment has to play out. that same melancholy, that same understand that a choice is being made that can't go back, But It's Mutual.

It's Mutual And Born From Love.

because wilbur Wanted to save tommy, because tommy Wanted wilbur to stay, because they both understand why things aren't happening that way.

and they'll still be Hurt after. their relationship will still be impacted. this will still be something to Work Through rather than the magic soft fix that will make their relationship healthy and fluffy again.

but it's Fixable. if tommy survives there's a relationship still in tact to build on. there's a future where they both trust each other again one day, to find comfort and stability in each other. to put in the Work to build a life once the horror finally ends.

of course, if I had a say a lot more than this would've been changed. but it's a thought that plagues me because of how plausibly it Could have been what we'd gotten. because it would have worked without changing anything and it still would have hurt me at the time but it would have been the Good hurt. not a goodbye forever but goodbye until I can see you again. Goodbye And I Love You.

(at least until tommy got exploded with a bomb and forgot that wilbur existed. yippie)

[jbaileyfansite]

Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer's Interview with The Hollywood Reporter (2023)

“Johnny B! Johnny B!” Matt Bomer exclaims as he logs in to Zoom to join his Fellow Travelers co-star, Jonathan Bailey, to do press for their critically acclaimed Showtime limited series.

“Hey, Matty Mo,” Bailey replies. 

The actors spent about six months filming the eight-episode series — so, of course, they’ve established a playful bond. On this particular day, they’ve even given each other nicknames.  

“I don’t think I’ve ever called Matt ‘Matty Mo’ in my life,” a smiling Bailey says.

“I love Matty Mo,” Bomer replies. “Listen, I love Matty Mo. I appreciate it.”

Bomer and Bailey built a brotherhood and onscreen chemistry for the historical romantic drama about two male political staffers who fall in love at the height of the Lavender Scare, a time when homosexuals were banned from holding positions in the federal government. The series — based on Thomas Mallon’s 2007 novel of the same name — follows their intense affair into the ’80s, also visiting Vietnam War protests and the AIDS crisis.

Zoom, it turns out, is where the actors first met, reading lines together to see if there was magic. And there was.

Since debuting in late October, Fellow Travelers has had an overwhelming response from viewers — some connecting directly with Bomer’s Hawkins Fuller, a veteran and State Department official who carefully hides his homosexuality, or with Bailey’s Tim Laughlin, an eager and naive congressional staffer who falls hard for Hawk. Others have identified with some of the supporting cast, including Allison Williams in the role of Hawk’s wife, Lucy Smith, and breakout stars Jelani Alladin as reporter Marcus Hooks and Noah J. Ricketts as drag performer Frankie Hines, whose gay Black love story is one of the show’s many highlights. 

“It’s so nice to be able to have discourse with people who are responding to the show. That’s been really refreshing and enlightening,” says Bomer, who is also an executive producer on the series.

Bailey, best known for Bridgerton and his theater work, says he was drawn to the show because “it felt new and it hadn’t been done in this way — in an elevated, eight-hour, rich aesthetic with gay actors.

“The queer experience is so different for so many people,” he adds, “but the one thing that unites the queer experience is these moments in history.”

In an interview with THR, Bomer and Bailey talk about prepping for their roles and being gay while playing gay, while also breaking down those milk and toe-sucking scenes.

What has it been like to have people connect emotionally to the series?

MATT BOMER: I won’t name names or anything, but I’ve known people over the years who’ve made similar choices that Hawk made in order to survive. Not governmentally — I mean in a society that certainly didn’t want to see them succeed. But for me, the most refreshing thing has been the young people who are really engaged in the show and knew nothing about the Lavender Scare, and are speaking to the show and the characters, but also, aspects of our history that they were unaware of that the show has — I don’t want to say taught them about, because it’s not a teaching tool — but they’ve learned about through the show.

JONATHAN BAILEY: When people respond in that way and you hear their personal stories, it’s amazing that people feel that they want to share that. It’s the most grounding thing to tell a story and investigate a time or a period or a movement, that hopefully leaves an imprint on people, and/or catalyzes them to tell people and talk about their own stuff. That’s the dream, really.

Jonathan, it’s so heartbreaking to watch Tim hurting in various scenes. What were you pulling from to give such a strong emotional performance? 

BAILEY: Thirty-five years on this earth. (Laughs.) Drawing it from the ground. Naturally, it’s totally parts of me and parts of people that I know, experiences that you think of. Tim’s character arc is so huge, and [I wanted] to capture his youth in those early moments and then expand into what breaks such a pure, optimistic, passionate soul and all the different ways in which that could show itself. There were moments on set that you couldn’t help but be incredibly moved by. 

We found ourselves filming by coincidence on World Aids Day. It is really not hard to feel the importance, but also just the grief is palpable in the stories. And there is a lineage — you inherit this in your community. It just felt like an opportunity to learn as much as I possibly could, generally, about the queer experience. We are surrounded by amazing gay men, as well. And then, of course, I’ve lived my life trying to understand the gay experience, so it wasn’t a shallow pool to [pull from].There’s a well there.

Matt, your character is so cutthroat, but obviously there’s sympathy for him, as well. What was it like playing Hawk?

BOMER: Hawk does what he has to do to survive. He has his empathy and his allegiances, but anything that calls his survival into question, there are immediate and severe boundaries. But then enters Tim, who is so guileless and so full of love and all the things that Hawk wishes he could be at his core, or maybe once was before certain aspects of his life changed that or his point of view about that. You’re always looking for a shadow in your character, and it was so refreshing — he obviously has a public persona, a veneer that he presents to the world in order to maneuver in it, but he really leads with a lot of the more shadowy aspects of a typical character. It’s the love and the more open and vulnerable aspects that are his shadow in many ways. That was an interesting flip for me to get to sink my teeth into. 

It’s profound to have two gay actors playing two gay characters on a TV show. Did you ever think something like this could exist?

BOMER: Honestly, no. My mind has been blown so many times over the past 20 years. I’m just so grateful that the gatekeepers gave us this opportunity. I was doubtful, almost up to the 25th hour on this, that they were really going to put the money and the opportunity into this series that they did. And I’m just so grateful that people who are in the position of calling the shots gave us the chance to tell the story — and the way we needed to.

BAILEY: It’s the Tims of the industry, who are searching for more, who are deconstructing, who are questioning. Because they’re all a similar peer group — [series creator] Ron [Nyswaner] knows Dante [Di Loreto, executive producer of Glee and P-Valley], who’s at Fremantle [which produced the show], and they’ve worked together for years. This isn’t something that just got commissioned overnight, because there’s a wave of progress. The people who are really doing it, as well as the actors, are the people in positions of power who have worked their way up with these questions.

And it’s funny, the one thing I have thought over the years is — I’ve just looked at gay characters, they’re such rich, brilliant, oppressed, complicated, joyous characters to play, so of course people want to play them. And this is a brilliant example of: What better way to do a character study of two polar-opposite gay characters than have gay people play them? But that’s what I felt growing up. I just thought, “Of course people want to play those parts,” which is great. It’s just, what happens if, just for a moment, gay people play them?

And I do think that everyone can play everything, and that’s what we should be headed toward. But I do think there’s a balance that needs, and needed, addressing. And there are a lot of people whose questioning and hard work have created a world in which this can fly.

BOMER: I agree with you wholeheartedly. And it is the Tims of the industry or maybe some Hawks, too, hoping for retribution.

BAILEY: That’s true. We stand on the shoulders of all the Hawks, as well. 

BOMER: (Laughs.)

BAILEY: [The Hawks] did all the work at MGM, yes. (Laughs.)

Jonathan, your character drinking milk in the series got a lot of attention. 

BAILEY: It was a brilliant way of showing such naiveté, and immediately you know that this is a character who’s completely outside the world Hawk inhabits, and he sees the world completely differently. He’s so open. It’s so interesting, isn’t it? Because, it’s funny that Tim leads with his heart and his openness and his childlike wonder, and his shadows are his compulsive nature of constantly needing something that he can’t fill. There’s a moment in episode six — they’re in Frankie’s flat, and I was like, “He’s got to be drinking milk.”

BOMER: There was a power shift in episode eight, too.

BAILEY: Exactly. The milk was on the call sheet. It’s a character in its own right. And also the milk’s character arc is more dramatic than everyone else. Give it a spinoff, I say. (Laughs.)

There was also that toe-sucking scene. Jonathan, did you get the script and it said “suck toe”? 

BOMER: Just “suck toe.” (Laughs.)

BAILEY: It was very, very precisely written down — it was as precise as it needed to be. I saw that as an incredible way to dissect power. I got it when I read it, and I wasn’t intimidated by it. I was just like, “If in the first episode that’s what we are doing, it’s going to be worth five months moving to Toronto, and it’s going to be a series that I would want to watch.” Because not only is it incredibly complicated, not only is it really hot, it’s also something that masks as being provocative, but actually it’s really psychologically impactful and the people who get it get it.

BOMER: I think all those scenes were a really external representation of what was going on with these characters internally, emotionally. And for me, it was really refreshing to see the gay love scenes brought to light in a really unflinching way.

BAILEY: The shock and overwhelm and the tantalizing chemical combustion that happens seeing it — it’s a greater sensory experience because that’s exactly what it meant for Tim in that moment. It captures exactly what’s going on for Hawk and Tim, hopefully, allowing the viewer to experience a bodily reaction to it in the same way, whatever that may be. 

Source

[trashy-corvian]

Once again what could have been keeps me up at night. Just a mess of thoughts so bear with me. Usual warning for terrible grammar and typos

So, the lesson 16 and the rest of season 1. We all hated it, it's trash.

Timeline doesn't make sense. MC makes a pact with Belphie at Dia's birthday party. Which is at Halloween. Which is in October. Am i supposed to believe that ALL pact making/building relationships/forging bonds happened in 2 MONTHS???

Or maybe they go by japanese timeline which is ,ok more realistic, but still not enough time for someone (sup)

We never got to have Satan bonding time after making a pact with him. Unfair and homophobic if you ask me.

In better version of obm i propose the following. Satan, with all of his baggage, sees how brothers start to treat MC. He sees how all of their kindness and strength of character, all their efforts, everything that they done gets diminished. All of this is not becaise of MC as a person but because they related to Lilith (big sus on this but to each their own).

Satan sees it. And it makes him ANGRY

(The following based on my own MC so it has headcanons)

I propose the ending of season 1 to be Satan's time to shine. He will become our supporter, our confidant. The only one who will see how fucked up it all is. MC has no trust left for the brothers, their behavior hurted them deeply. Satan is the only one they can trust.

Maybe MC will tell Satan or he will ulfigure it out on his own but when the "being murdered isn't ok for humans" will click ohhhh. He also fucked up for ignoring this at first. Feeling guilty and searching up books on human psychology, consulting Solomon (who is immortal and his advice is shit)

Solomon who realises something is wrong. Gets so fucking angry when MC explains what happened.

Just Satan and Solomon being the only ones who MC talks to. And Luke ofc but you can't tell him about the murder.

Planting seeds for Simeon character arc. He thinks MC just needs to forget it all. They need to think of brothers first. Think about how your behavior hurts them , MC. They're happy about their sister, why must you ruin this? Just forgive already

MC won't even stays for the rest of the year. They got back to human world with Solomon to study under him. They summon Satan so he can visit.

And the season 2 is, again, how MC is a human represantative making sure Exchange programm will be safe for humans. And this time it's the brothers who seek us out. Reverse roles from season 1 so now they need to get MC's forgiveness before they got back to human world again

Now i need 1 million $ to commission someone for a fanfic

[rosiethorns88]

New Sketch-a-Wish for October's Patreon vote! Featuring Xingyin and the Venerable Four Dragons from Daughter Of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan!

This request ironically was an amalgamation of the two previous DOTMG fanarts I've done, so I decided to take it down a different route for styling (a mix of my illustration and papercraft design). I had a super fun time creating this piece, very chaotic and clean!

And perfect timing, since the sequel Heart of the Sun Warrior comes out next week!! I was able to get a beautiful arc of this several weeks back, but my eyes and hands have been abysmally scrapped for free time to make any progress in a small pile of arcs I've received this year. 😭 I'm pretty much waiting for the audiobook at this point, my ears are ready!! Only a few more days! I'm so excited to revisit this world!

[glade-constellation]

Redemption and forgiveness are not synonymous.

Redemption and forgiveness are not the same thing.

This is in response to this post, but I feel this topic needs its own post. It’s not an attack on the person who shared this, but it is something I will keep correcting whenever I see it. So many people think that redemption requires forgiveness from the victims, and that simply isn’t true. It is nice to have that forgiveness, but redemption has little to do with the victims.

There are many definitions of what redemption means, but in this case it’s essentially “atoning for a fault or past mistake”. In a way, yes, Eclipse will never be able to fully atone for all of the stuff that he’s done. Lunar’s death was inexcusable, as was his abuse. He was the cause of a lot of death, both personally and with his creation of Bloodmoon. He mentally tortured most of the Celestial family, and physically tortured Moon during the first October Takeover.

Thing is, redemption is not going to look the same for everyone. It’s a very personal process. There is a lot of internal work one has to do, a lot of personal growth that takes place before physical work can be put in. And even then, the physical work is going to be different because every person is different. The biggest thing to look out for is simply if the person is working towards being better. If they are actively working to fix what they did wrong, they are in the process of redemption.

Sometimes, you don’t see that effort. Like stated previously, a lot of stuff often happens internally. You cannot fix things if you are still in the mindset of repeating the wrong. Funnily enough, while Eclipse is not redeemed of anything right now, his redemption arc actually started right before his second death. When he started trying to help Sun and Moon to not summon the Astrals? Yeah, that was a start. A shitty start, but a start. Yeah, the redemption isn’t going to mean much if he keeps on with the way he’s been doing things since coming back, but redemption also isn’t linear. Eclipse has to process his own trauma to be able to fully understand the trauma he caused, and there will be times where he backslides. That’s just how it goes.

I’m saying a lot of words, but the point is that Eclipse can be redeemed. He may be working toward that redemption for the rest of his life, but it’s possible.

The thing is, forgiveness isn’t a process of redemption. It can play a factor, definitely, but they aren’t the same thing. It feels nice to be forgiven for doing something wrong, but that person’s forgiveness doesn’t fix the problem. There’s still a hole in the window, even if you forgave the person who threw the ball. There is also still a hole in the window if you go out and yell at the person who threw the ball. Forgiveness, or the lack thereof, doesn’t fix any part of the physical problem itself.

So yes, I do agree that Eclipse won’t be forgiven. Lunar had every right to deny that forgiveness. The entire Celestial family has every right to deny that forgiveness. But that forgiveness is not the deciding factor of Eclipse’s possible redemption. Eclipse can be considered unforgivable, but not irredeemable.

[rebouks]

Faves of 2023..

Picked some of my fave story screenies for each month of the year! I think we've definitely been through a lot 😳 ty for the tag @thebramblewood n' prolly someone else I've forgotten <33

January: What have you done..?!

February: Robin blesses us all with his arrival 😭

March: Sad boi hours with Wyatt..

April: Oscar will never grow up!

May: Oscar and Cookie officially become Oskie and Somnium ended 🥺

June: We moved on to a new story, Forever in Between, and Oscar bought a haunted? house on a whim..

July: Oscar and Robin have the best relationship 🤧

August: Tilda & Triss pissed us all off by NOT kissing 😒

September: Brynn took Wyatt on a lil adventure! ❄

October: Brynn told Wyatt her story and they exchanged ily's 🥰

November: Wyatt kicked Gael in the chops 🤩

December: Wyatt.exe stopped working...

Ahhhh we've come so far, and we've almost reached the end of the first arc of Forever in Between! Thanks to everyone who sticks around for my pixels and/or my bullshit.. ily all very much 🥰🤗

I shall tag.. @wolfavens @zosa95 @lynzishell @softpine @peonypyxels @jarakio and uhhh.. my mind is blank but pls ignore if you've already done this and pls also say i tagged you if you want!! super fun looking back over the year 🤭

Some bonus non-story posts I rlly still like too, both glimpses of older Robin...

[kathanglangit]

The Fifth Blade: Kampilan - Warrior Made

Down to the last three days before Gubat Banwa launches on Kickstarter! Moon-eating titans, sword-souls and bullet devils, giant flying crocodile mounts, sparks arcing off clashing blades like lightning- Gubat Banwa is an action-packed martial arts TTRPG where you play as warrior Kadungganan in a Southeast Asian-inspired fantasy world afire with wonder and violence in a thousand colors.

Counting down the days to the KS launch on October 10 comes with anxiety and anticipation in equal measure, and I thought maybe posting the weapons I've drawn for the game would help cut through it all. These were meant to be posted for Swordtember, but the game needed a bit more time to pick up speed. 5/7 blades done, let's start off the final three with the KAMPILAN

Yet another large weapon from south of Luzon, the kampilan is a long-bladed sword with a unique "trapezoidal" shape, sometimes sporting a small spike at the tip, often with a figural hilt. "Figural hilt" just means the hilt depicts a certain abstracted figure of something, usually a creature or a beast of some kind. The sharpened edge is on the long side of the blade. I repeat: The sharpened edge is on the long side of the blade. You would not believe how frequently people get that wrong. This useful diagram is one of the first things you see when you do a Google-search for "kampilan", so there is truly no excuse for anyone to be depicting it with the sharp side pointing the wrong way.

(Diagram by Lorenz Lasco) The most common examples of kampilan figural hilts depict the Bakunawa- a giant moon-eating serpent of legend- and are decorated with hair or with roots. The angled protrusion on the hilt usually points away from the sharpened edge, and may have been used for added leverage when maneuvering the blade.

(Photos from the collection of Ron Zambarrano) Other creatures commonly depicted in the hilts are crocodiles, cockatoos (what collectors call "kakatua" handles), or- in the case of this somewhat rare example- a horse.

(Photo from the collection of Richard Hudson) The kampilan is surrounded by a rather popular story: That it was the blade used by Lapu-Lapu himself to slay Fernando Magallanes on the shores of Mactan. One of Pigafetta's writings recounts how Magellan was wounded on the leg by a large blade, akin to a scimitar. Whether or not this was describing a kampilan is anyone's guess, and whether it was in the hands of the hero of Mactan is foggier still. While it is difficult to verify the authenticity of this claim, the legend of Lapu-Lapu quickly grew, taking the story with it- and it kind of just stuck.

(Photo from Lapu-Lapu City LGU) Most Philippine blades generally vary in size make depending on where they're from, but the distinctions are even more apparent for kampilan. The two-handed ones shown so far are often referred to as Moro kampilan. The Lumad peoples have kampilan of their own.

(Photo from Iniingatang Talim At Kaluban.; Taken by Ramon H. Bathan) I'm not an expert on identifying these blades, and this is by no means an exhaustive list (as the kampilan was used widely across Visayas and Mindanao), but I will try to show and identify a few select variants. Starting with this "NICE SHOT"

(Various Moro kampilan; Photo by Richard Hudson) Following up with some antique Bagobo kampilan. Notice the difference in size relative to the Moro variant. This seems to be built for one-handed use. You will also notice that the shape of the blade is different, without the spike, and with the sharp edge on the other side.

(Photos from Raymundo Lucero) A more useful comparison; These next three blades come from the same collector.

Bagobo kampilan

T'boli kampilan or kefilan

Moro kampilan (Photos from Dennis Andrew Golez) Sometimes these blades stray far from home. This next one is a T'boli kampilan inherited by a collector.

(Photos from Hege-Eileen Ottem Lund) Rather than hair or roots, the Lumad seem to prefer adorning their hilts with brass bells. When you see examples of these blades in museums for up for auction, the bells tend to be absent. I purposefully included examples with bells to show them off in their full ornate glory. "Lumad" is a collective term for indigenous peoples in the south of the Philippines. Another T'boli kampilan, with a closeup on the hilt to show the brasswork.

(Photos from JC Nolas) This one's a headscratcher for me- supposedly this unique find from the 1800s has a hilt made of whalebone. The blade looks to be of the Moro variant, but I could very easily be mistaken. It looks to have been adorned with bells as well.

(Photos from Ron Zambarrano) One more thing to note is that the kampilan is not a tool-turned-weapon, nor a multipurpose blade. They are made to be used as weapons. I won't fault anyone for subscribing to the belief that Philippine native blades were mostly farming implements, which just happened to be repurposed for combat sometimes. It is true for many blades which functioned essentially as multi-tools, and the languages sometimes don't help when they use the same word for any kind of blade- be it a tool or a sword. Dispel your myths. Our ancestors were not ALL farmers-turned-fighters. They faced our colonizers as warriors.

(Photo by Ramon H. Bathan) The veritable force of nature that is Sam'baha (the smug-looking badass in the art at the top of this post) stands as the face of Gubat Banwa, wielding a kampilan in one hand and a karambit in the other. Challenge her legacy! Be a part of all the tide-churning, sky-burning, world-rending action by supporting the game on Kickstarter!

The Gubat Banwa Kickstarter launches in 3 days! Check it out here:

Just three more days for this incredibly small team from the global south to get as many eyes on this project before it launches. We straight up cannot afford Proper Advertising on the scale this game deserves, so we're relying on folks like yourself to help us get the word out. Any help will do! Share it with your friends! Send it to people you think might be interested! Send it to people you know aren't interested! Dump it in that one channel in your friendgroup Discord server that no one has sent any messages to for weeks now! Reblog this even if you didn't read the post at all, we won't tell!

[emmie-writes-stuff]

So figuring out blue lock’s timeline is something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, since there’s only like a vague idea of it

Fun thing is, we can use Sae to help us know how much time passed in the first to second selection

Because Sae, when the manga starts, is 17, according to the wiki

But during the second selection, he’s 18

Sae’s birthday is October 10th, so the first selection most likely happened in September and took like somewhere between 1-3 weeks, give or take a few days

(Side note: but on the topic of Itoshis, Rin’s birthday is September 9th

And if bllk starts in September, then this kid is freshly 16)

The second selection, if I’ve done my math properly, takes only like, 10 days at the most, so depending on when in October it starts, we’ve either crossed into November or we’re just about to cross into November (all we know is that it starts post October 10th, so we don’t have the exact time)

The third selection doesn’t take long at all, I’d say like 2-3 days, given that we only see Isagi sleep like, once in that short arc (ignoring the day before where they spend time figuring out who’s team to join, I think of that day as like a limbo between the two arcs)

U-20 game, obviously, is a 90 minute game

This happens over one day, leading into the break, where we get two of my favourite chapters of the boys just fucking around and being actual teens for a day-

But this means that’s we’re firmly in November for the NEL arc

What does this mean? Nothing really, I just like analyzing shit and makin timelines

(And Hiori is my favourite, and his birthday is November 30th, so he’s gonna be 17 soon, so when that happens, we’ll get an even more firm understanding of the timeline)

So I’m not sure how long the NEL has been going on for yet, but we’re slowly approaching the end of November I’m guessing based off my completely non-professional math and simply having way too much going on in my brain because I’m autistic about bllk