#What even is this phenomenon called like why did this happen???

[schrodingers-romy]

So apparently that weird y2k overlay thingy is a thing Tumblr actually did. Genuinely thought I hallucinated it last night but I am apparently more mentally stable than I thought it's just the Tumblr developers who went off the deep end.

[thekitsunesiren]

Dc x Dp #45

Danny becoming Jason's mom!

Because picture it! Jason, though been out of the Lazarus Pits for so long, fought against his entire being-his core! And because all of the fighting and resisting his new self caused it to repress into a smaller state. Thus, he had the core of a child, despite being an adult. It also doesn't help that he died as a child and clung unto his trauma.

But Jason didn't know this and continued with his former crime lord/vigilante lifestyle. Thinking that the rage pits was the only thing he had to be wary of and not what happens if he meets someone else that was from the Lazarus Pits or something similar.

He experienced this phenomenon when he took a walk through the park in his civilian attire as a change of pace and to clear his mind for the moment. The last mission he had with Bruce

As he walked, the sound of children laughter caused him to look up and see what was going on. In the park, two kids-siblings no doubt, were having a ball in the park simply chasing each other in their own version of tag. It was domestic enough to smile softly at the sight, a quiet chuckle escaping him.

Jason looked around to see if their parents were around watching them. And right on a bench was no doubtedly their parent. With black hair that seem to gleam in the direct light and blue eyes that seemed to be an impossible shade of blue. And those eyes were fondly watching the children laying around the park on their own.

Suddenly, Jason found himself under the heavy gaze of those eyes. Fondness turning to curiosity and hostility to longer he stared.

Snapping out his thoughts, he believed it was best to make a bit of small talk after no doubt seeming like a creep staring at them so intently.

Casually, or trying to seem casual, Jason approached them keeping his shoulders lax as not to seem as not too much of a threat. But the closer he got, the more this unfamiliar feeling bubbled within his chest. It wasn't the blinding rage that he usually associated with the pit. No, it was something different. Something positive.

It felt like a bubbling warmth that had the pits screaming for more. That the warmth was there. This person would take care of them. This person could help with the pits. This person was his-

"Momma." Jason murmured as he stared at the male, eyes widening with mortification as he realized that he said that out loud for the person to hear. He also realized that the pits had him in such a daze that he didn't realize that he had walked right over and sat next to the mystery person without a second thought.

Jason waited for them to react. To be called a creep or for them to storm away after gathering their children from where they were playing. Hell, he even expected them to scream and hit him in some manner.

Instead, he was met with eyes of confusion as well. The person beside him tilting their head as if debating something.

Then, Jason would've thought he imagined it if he wasn't looking at them, his eyes flashed green. The familiar pit green that Jason hated seeing. But his green held no anger or hatred that he was familiar with.

After their eyes returned to their icy blue, the person gave Jason an understanding smile. As if they knew why he called them that.

"Well, you're a bit older than my kids, but I'm sure we could work this out." The person said with a chuckle, reaching up and affectionately patting his shoulder. "What's your name, sweetheart?"

Jason felt as if his mouth dry as thought of how to answer. Was this weird? How could they be so calm about him walking up and calling them momma? Was this something pit related? How did this person know about the pits?

"Jason, mo-" He bit his lip as the name momma almost slipped out again. Instead, he coughed into his hand before looking at them again. "It's Jason."

The person chuckled affectionately at his hesitance. "Jason." The repeated with a fond smile. The way they said his name causing a familiar warmth to flutter in his chest that he hasn't felt in a while.

"I bet momma is a bit sudden since we just met and all." The person teased, smiling up at him. "But instead you're free to call me Danny if you want."

[2hightocare]

LOVE WAGER! 02

Synopsis: The concept of love resurfaces as you both agree to center your psychology project on the premise that love is a choice. You propose an intriguing idea to Jungkook: he must exert every effort to make you fall in love with him within a month, to back up his belief.

Pairings: jungkook x fem!reader

Genre: college au. strangers to friends to lovers. angst/romantic comedy.

Warnings: mentions of divorce parents, neglectful parents, mentions of depression, banter, cussing, ex girlfriends, flashbacks, jungkook low key being super mean and discarding people’s feelings, jungkook hard-key depressed, implications of sex.

a/n: hai… this is so long overdue— exams month is coming and I had the biggest writers block fr but here’s my beloved babies. Song of the chapter— “love is embarrassing” by Olivia Rodrigo.

prev chapter! series masterlist!

Love.

Love is an intricate subject in its own right. Scientists elucidate it through the interplay of three cerebral chemicals: noradrenaline, dopamine, and phenylethylamine.

That's how Jungkook perceived love. He didn't subscribe to the notion of butterflies in the stomach or the fluttering heartbeat as justifications for love. To him, love was a scientific phenomenon, a complex emotion akin to sadness or jealousy-if he could evade such feelings, he would spare no effort.

But why did his stomach churn as if his organs were performing tiny somersaults whenever he gazed at you a tad too long? You were engrossed in the menu, pondering whether to get a burger or a slice of pizza.

Seated beautifully in your loose red Formula One shirt, Jungkook couldn't fathom how you managed to make that oversized shirt look so good.

Jungkook's eyes dropped to the ribbon in your hair, wondering why someone who was a full-on adult looked pretty, adorable even-with a red ribbon tied into a beautiful bow contrasting your skin and eyes. Your long eyelashes entranced him. He felt his stomach do something, a turn? Maybe his stomach was upset-he thought to himself.

Jungkook couldn't believe he found himself willingly sharing a table with you at the same dinner two years ago, he almost killed you at. He had moved to Emberhill U two years ago, ever since he moved out from his mom's house. Jungkook's life had gone to hell, which is exactly what his mind would tell him ever since his mom got a boyfriend. To make matters worse, he now had step-siblings.

He hated every bit of it. He wasn't jealous whatsoever.

It was the fact that his mom seemed to forget he even existed in the first place. Jungkook was hurt. He tried not to dwell or cry about it since he was a big boy-that's what he told himself now, pushing twenty-two, but still, part of his already broken heart shattered more.

How could your mom forget about her child? How could she not care about her only flesh and blood? He never told her that ever. Talking about his feelings with his mom was like talking to a brick wall that nothing could pass through. Plus, Jungkook wasn't good at communicating or talking about his feelings anyway. He found it embarrassing to lay yourself out there for someone to be able to discard you at any given moment.

Jungkook's dad wasn't any different as wellbeing too busy with work to even call him to ask his son if he was okay or how school is going. But the calls or text messages never came. Jungkook was used to it. It was his everyday. It was more shocking when he did call, but he wouldn't know what that would feel like since he never called ever since the divorce. Jungkook knew the divorce wasn't his fault whatsoever. His therapist—that his high school counselor made him go to—basically talked his ear off about how anything that happened wasn't his fault, but still, it felt like it was.

Ever since everything went down, his parents seemed to forget they had a child, who still needed them.

One advantage of his situation was the freedom to do as he pleased without his parents' interference. However, the downside was their lack of concern for his activities or just him in general. Jungkook was certain: if his parents didn't love him, who else in the world would? So, he didn't believe in love. When the two people meant to demonstrate unconditional love failed to do so, he doubted anyone else would. He would like to say that it didn't affect him and it's been years since everything, but deep down it still did.

Jungkook experiences a pang of guilt every time he looks at you. Perhaps it's the way he behaved when he first met you, the influence of the romantic comedy in your hands causing him to lash out at you.

Something about your ribbons makes him feel that you’re too innocent and naive for this world—part of him wants to shield you from its harsh realities, while another part wants to disillusion you about the cruelty of the world and the disparity between love in fairy tales and reality.

"Are you done daydreaming?" You say, interrupting his thoughts. Jungkook shakes his head, attempting to banish his thoughts before raising an eyebrow at your curious doe eyes. "I wasn't daydreaming," he states proudly, prompting a scoff from you, a grin tugging at Jungkook's lips.

"It was either daydreaming or checking me out since you were staring at me for a hot minute, but I decided otherwise since you have a girlfriend," you quip nonchalantly before calling the waiter to take your order.

"First of all, I don’t have a girlfriend, and second of all, what if I was checking you out?" Jungkook challenges. He didn’t know why he enjoyed getting on your nerves—any other person he would probably flip off and never give them the time of day, but instead, here he was with you doing the complete opposite.

"What happened to the girl from the dinner?" You question, your eyes finally meeting his brown ones. A glint of something passes over his eyes before disappearing as quickly as you saw it—so you thought maybe you had imagined it.

"Who?" Jungkook says, tilting his head to the side as he leans forward, his elbows propped on the table. "the one you mentioned to me two years ago? The one you discussed intimately," you mimic his voice. Jungkook's smile widens, amused by your jest.

"If you want to know so badly, we broke up—well, she broke up with me," Jungkook clicks his tongue, observing your expressions closely. He notices the creases of your forehead whenever you are thinking or the way you bite your lower lip to contain a smile that’s threatening to come out, each time Jungkook says something dumb.

"Oh, let me guess, she wanted love letters and sweet words whispered into her ear," you mock him, knowing he said that he didn’t need to do any of that to keep a girl. "You’re annoying, Ribbons," Jungkook shakes his head with a low soft chuckle.

You watch him pick up the menu and start scanning the items as you observe him. You notice how his jaw clenches momentarily before relaxing, his tongue poking on the inside of his cheek, making you wonder if you angered him—and if you did, maybe you should do it more often since he looked hot—

Record scratch.

Your mind was playing games with you the more you watched the raven-haired boy. The more you realized he was the epitome of the boy you imagined whenever you were reading a book, the dimples on his cheeks, the scar right above his cheekbone, and the mole underneath his bottom lip had you wanting to ask him for his whole life story.

He also looks like those cute love song playlists that had all your favorite songs in them, but you knew from the way he acts around you, it was definitely a hard no and maybe you were delusional after all. So you try hard to shove those ideas into the back of your brain as far as you could.

"I knew that you couldn’t keep a girlfriend," you shrug, prompting a gasp from him as he jokingly places a hand on his heart, as if you had just dealt him a mortal blow.

"Wow, YN doesn’t think I’m boyfriend material?" Jungkook gasps dramatically, shaking his head.

"You’re literally everything that's not boyfriend material," you throw your head back with a laugh, observing his widened eyes with amusement evident on his face. "Ouch," Jungkook scoffs dramatically.

"What makes you say I’m not boyfriend material?" he says, scanning the room for a waiter but finding none, before redirecting his attention to you.

"You don’t believe in love, that's one way to start," you point out, eliciting a hum of agreement from him. "What's that got to do with being a good boyfriend? I assure you that a good boyfriend isn’t necessarily head over heels in love," Jungkook says, as if imparting a valuable lesson, while your facial expression betrays you.

"The fuck? You literally hate everything related to love. Being a good boyfriend means doing cliche shit you hate doing so much, how could you possibly be boyfriend material?" you assert proudly, prompting an eye-roll from him.

"All that stuff is just superficial shit that everyone collectively agreed on. It’s just embarrassing how people put themselves go through all that just to make someone lik—“

"Love," you interject, earning yourself a glare from across the table.

"Like I was saying, I stand by the fact all those stupid romantic gestures are pointless. Society basically romanticized love and set up unrealistic expectations— everything just leads to heartbreak and disappointment," Jungkook continues, you watch how the hard expression on his face wavers to something more… sad, like he was talking from experience.

"Have you ever experienced love?" you inquire, not sure why since you guys weren’t even friends in the first place—the only reason you found yourself sitting with him willingly was because of psychology class.

"What?" Jungkook is caught off guard by the sudden question.

"Have you ever been in love?" you reiterate, observing his expression harden once more. "No, never, and I don’t plan to," Jungkook shrugs, going back to his usual cocky self in a blink of an eye, prompting yet another eye-roll from you, marking thirty-eighth.

You didn’t get the chance to reply since a waiter came to your table, apologizing for taking so long to get to us before taking our orders.

You and Jungkook decided on sharing a pizza, and you obviously ordered a coke, which got Jungkook joking about how he isn’t trying to make you choke again, which had the waiter shifting uncomfortably beside you both while Jungkook had an eating-shit grin on his face.

“That’s not what he meant!” You chuckled nervously, your face reddening, matching your shirt from how embarrassed you are.

“No, it’s okay, you don't have to explain,” the waiter said before excusing himself.

The moment the waiter was out of your line of vision, you turned your head to the boy who’s sucking in his lips, trying not to laugh.

“What the fuck was that?” You glared, your eyebrows scrunching. “What, you both just have a dirty mind,” Jungkook shrugged, the grin on his face making you shift in your chair.

Jungkook's aura was unlike anything you’d ever stumbled upon, and you hated it. It made you want to know more about him than you should, the way he carried himself and talked had you questioning why? He wasn’t so different from other boys you had met, besides the fact that he spoke his mind as if no one was around, not caring if he hurt your feelings or offended you. It was refreshing in some way, but it still made you want to pull your hair out.

“Alright… let’s change topics, Mr. Anti-Romantic,” you say, watching his smile widen.

“What?” You stared at him, trying to think what could possibly make him smile that much. You were sure your face would hurt if you possibly smiled that much.

“Nothing, I just find it extremely hot when you call me that, it turns me on,” Jungkook said, leaning forward.

Okay, that’s not exactly what you were imagining him saying. Your eyes widened momentarily, feeling your heartbeat rise. The smile not leaving his face had you feeling hot, as if the room temperature suddenly increased.

“Uh… so, project,” you blinked rapidly.

“Yeah, project,” Jungkook agreed, smile still on his face as he saw your cheeks flush with a reddish color.

“So, any ideas about what our project can be about?” You said, grabbing the hair tie around your wrist and using it to make a ponytail, taking the ribbons out before tying your hair.

Two small strands fell from your face, tempting Jungkook's fingers to reach out and tuck them behind your ear. He wanted to slap himself back to reality since he never in his life thought those thoughts, not even with Haneul, whom he dated for five months, setting a record. He still remembered the reason she gave him for breaking up. It was laughable.

“Jungkook, you don’t even look at me with love, and I know you said when we first met that it was only attraction, but I thought you would change over time the more we hung out,” Haneul whimpered, tears gathering around her eyes as Jungkook just stared at her, not knowing what to say. Because yes, he did tell her it was all attraction, and it’s still only attraction to this day for him.

“You don’t hold my hand or give me kisses, you don’t even give me flowers,” Haneul cried, her voice cracking with each word she said.

“I told you, I don’t do that stuff,” Jungkook said. He felt bad for her since he knew she deserved better, but he didn’t feel bad about not doing those things for her since he told her he wouldn’t and never would do them. And she agreed, so why was she crying about it now when she agreed to it five months ago?

“I know you did, but I thought you just… fuck, you haven’t even introduced me to your family,” a crack is heard from Jungkook's heart, but not for the girl in front of him crying her heart out, but for himself, because yeah, he had no family he could take a girl home to, since he had no home at all. He had a house, but it was as empty as he was.

“Haneul, I told you—“

“Yeah, that you will never do that! I get it, okay? I get it, but fuck, how can you not care? Do you not feel anything when it comes to me?” The girl wept more, which had Jungkook sighing.

“I like you, Haneul,” Jungkook replied. “I love you, Jungkook, can’t you tell…” she whispered, a choked sob leaving her lips as she looked up at the man who’s just standing in front of her like nothing.

“I’m sorry,” that's all Jungkook said… because what else could he say? It was either that or that he didn’t love her, but to not take it personally since he didn’t love anything?

So instead, he said the only thing he could muster without his voice cracking.

“Love,” Jungkook finally says, his statement catching you off guard, widening your eyes in surprise.

“Love? I thought you hated love,” you raise an eyebrow, perplexed by his sudden declaration.

“I do, but love is psychological. We can discuss how we, as humans, have the ability to choose whether we fall in love or not,” Jungkook articulates.

“That’s not how love works, Jungkook,” you retort, to which he responds with a disapproving nod. “It does, though,” Jungkook rebuts.

“It doesn’t. Love is not something we can choose and pick, it just happens,” you try to explain.

“You believe love just happens, but I disagree, respectfully,” Jungkook adds, causing you to tilt your head curiously, intrigued by his perspective. “I’ve held on for too long without being in love since I said I wouldn’t fall in love,” he concludes.

“That’s because you haven’t met anyone you actually want to try with… maybe you just haven’t met your soulmate,” you suggest, annoyance evident on Jungkook’s face the moment you mention the concept of soulmates.

“Soulmates don’t exist, ribbons,” Jungkook snickers.

“I beg to differ,” you cross your arms, adamant in your belief. “I don’t know what fantasy lovey-dovey world you live in, but soulmates are just made up,” Jungkook shrugs casually.

“Maybe you are right about the fact that you get to choose who you fall in love with since I know for a fact I would never fall in love with you,” you spitefully state.

Jungkook nods, feeling a bitter taste in his mouth that catches him off guard. Perhaps it was the fact that someone had just openly admitted they wouldn’t want to love him—reminding him of the kid he once was, desperately begging his parents to love him. But wasn’t this what he was trying to prove in the first place, that love was a choice? Then why did it hurt to hear you say those words out loud?

“Atta girl, finally got it huh,” Jungkook smirks, ignoring the pang of hurt in his chest. “Alright then, if we did do that for our project, let’s say we argued that love is a choice and it doesn’t happen. How do we prove that?” you question.

Silence fills the table as you both brainstorm ideas, trying to back up this argument.

“I got it,” you say, as if a light bulb just appeared on top of your head. Jungkook nods, encouraging you to continue.

“What if we spend a month with you doing absolutely everything to make me fall in love with you? And I mean do all that cliché, romantic shit I love that you hate so much. Since I know for a fact that I choose not to fall in love with you, we can discuss how, even if a person does everything right, you still get to choose who you love,” you explain carefully, ensuring he understands your proposal.

“It’s a good idea for the project; we could use ourselves to illustrate how we pick and choose who we love, like you said,” you try to convince him, giving him the benefit of the doubt after he convinced you of his beliefs. You knew you would never fall for him, even if he did everything you ever read in books and saw in movies.

“We can call it the Love Wager,” you finish, scanning his face as he contemplates the idea.

Jungkook’s mind races, unsure if he likes the idea or absolutely hates it. On one hand, it could earn him a good grade, given the strong rationale behind it, using yourselves as an experiment to support your argument. But on the other hand, the thought of spending a month doing everything he had vocally despised for the past five years gave him the heebie-jeebies.

“Alright then, the Love Wager operation starts,” Jungkook agrees instead, while you clap happily. “Oh my god yay, this might give me an A plus,” you celebrate, giggling as Jungkook raises an eyebrow.

“It’s a long story; I just hate psychology,” you say, to which he nods in response.

“Well, we have a month together, so start explaining why you hate it so much,” Jungkook says nonchalantly, and before you could reply, the waiter hurriedly returns to your table, apologizing for the wait, mentioning the kitchen’s struggle with the influx of orders. But you keep your eyes on the boy in front of you, who looks at the waiter, reassuring him it’s okay.

The smell of fresh, hot pizza fills your nostrils as you finally snap out of your trance, looking down at the pizza the waiter is sliding onto the table, cautioning you both that it is extremely hot. The waiter continues to place all the food you ordered on the table before leaving with a bow.

“I’m starving, oh my god,” Jungkook moans as he picks up a slice of pizza and takes a bite, ignoring the steam.

“How is that not burning your tongue, oh my…” you begin to say, but you’re interrupted as you take a bite of your own slice, immediately regretting it as you burn your tongue. “Ah, ah, ha,” you drop the pizza onto your plate, sticking your tongue out and fanning your mouth with your hand. A small laugh escapes from Jungkook as you shoot him a snarky glare.

“He literally just told you it was hot, ribbons,” Jungkook says, grabbing a napkin from the container and reaching over to wipe some sauce off your lips and face. The fanning from your hand halts as you stare at his focused face, feeling yourself heat up again, but this time it’s not your mouth—it’s your cheeks.

“Why did you just do that?” you ask before you can stop yourself, as he sits back down properly. “I’m starting my boyfriend material journey, you know, since the project?” Jungkook says casually, taking another bite of pizza, watching you in surprise as you shockingly observe him not being fazed by the burning food in his mouth, chewing happily.

“Oh… we’re starting right now?” you gesture to the table between you both, indicating ‘right now’. “Yeah, we only have one month, let’s make it worth it,” he says, diving back into his food.

God, this month was definitely going to be a roller coaster.

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[ckret2]

Chapter 50 of by this point human Bill Cipher is almost relieved to be imprisoned in the Mystery Shack again: Bill tells Mabel about his adventures, and Ford and Dipper tell Fiddleford about theirs.

But first Bill's gonna die for a bit.

"Guys! You're okay!" Mabel flung her arms around Dipper and squeezed him. "We were worried you were floating around and broke your legs when the gravity came back."

"N—no, we were fine," Dipper said. 

Mabel let go of Dipper to hug Ford next—and then drew back, looked him up and down, and looked at Bill. "What happened to your clothes?"

Bill said, "We fell in the lake."

"Ha!"

"Tate was kind enough to loan us dry clothes," Ford said.

"You look like big dorks." She turned to Bill last, took in his dirty haggard appearance, and said, "And you look awful. Where have you guys been the last two days?"

"Thanks for asking! I've been in..." Bill glanced at Stan. "Am I allowed to say the name of the place I've been?"

Stan shook his head. "Not in front of the kids, you don't."

Bill sighed. "Agony. I've been in agony."

"Aww!" She hugged Bill last. "I like your stupid Fishmas sweater."

"Consider it yours as soon as I can change." He wriggled out of her embrace to point at his feet. "Check out the shoes, though!"

Mabel cracked up. "Omigosh, fish slippers! Fi— Fishlers? Fishppers?"

"Fishoes?"

"Fishoes!"

Soos said, "What did happen out there?" He was in the kitchen, cleaning and reorganizing after zero gravity had tossed everything out of order. "Did you heroically save Gravity Falls from imminent multidimensional devastation?"

Ford said, "No. Aside from the effects on gravity, it... turned out to be a benign phenomenon."

"Oh," Soos said. "Like... what Bill said?"

Ford grimaced. He managed to just nod instead of saying afraid so.

Again, he expected Bill to gloat; again, Bill said nothing. He didn't even look at Ford.

"It wasn't an eclipse, though," Dipper muttered, shooting a dark look at Bill. "It would've been an eclipse if it had gotten between us and gravity. It was basically the opposite."

"What do you want from me." The question was more sighed than spoken. "It was called an eclipse when I was growing up, I dunno what to tell you."

Ford, Dipper, and Mabel all looked straight at Bill at the mention of his childhood; but he didn't say anything more. He just trudged to the kitchen and leaned tiredly on the doorframe, watching Soos work. "Grab me something from the fridge."

"Sure thing, dawg." Soos opened the door. "What do you want?"

Bill was silent for a moment. Slowly, like a spirit medium channeling a faint message from the other side, he said, "I think... the body wants a vegetable. Gimme some guacamole."

"Sorry, dude, we had the last of it with dinner."

"Fine. Just give me an avocado and salsa, I'll make do."

"You got it."

"Two avocados."

Soos started rummaging through the jumbled mess in the fridge. "So if everything was okay, what took you guys so long to get back?"

"Yeah, I've been wanting to ask," Stan said. (He hadn't been able to in the car; when everyone realized Bill had passed out as soon as he'd sat down, they'd fallen into an awkward silence.) "Was the demon making trouble or what?"

Dipper and Ford exchanged a glance; who wanted to share the embarrassing news? Ford said, "Actually, under the circumstances, he was... well behaved." Ford resisted the urge to add the modifier "tolerably." It seemed mean-spirited. Bill had constantly complained, sure, but in retrospect could Ford say the complaints were unjustified?

"Then what took you so long?"

Now Ford felt Bill's gaze on him, watching him sharply. Ford understood now. This was why Bill hadn't mentioned saving them. He was holding it in reserve—offering a deal. If Ford and Dipper didn't embarrass him, he wouldn't embarrass them. If they mentioned his breakdown, he could cut in, claim it was natural for him to be in shock after performing such a difficult, heroic deed.

It wasn't blackmail, per se. Revealing the truth wouldn't cost anybody anything but a bit of momentary self-consciousness. But wasn't that just like Bill—only passing up an opportunity to boast so he could use it to shield his ego.

"It was Bill's fault," Dipper said quickly. Ford's heart leaped into his throat. "Because—we had to climb up and down the tunnel to Gravity Peak, and he only brought dress shoes and dumb fish slippers. We kept having to slow down."

Ford felt the pressure of Bill's gaze slide off of his face as he turned away, staring back into the kitchen. Bill said, "Yep. Guess I should have brought my hiking shoes—oh, wait."

Stan said, "You could've got some better shoes when we were at the mall! You're the one who wanted those dumb dress shoes."

"In my defense, I didn't think you paranoiacs would ever let me wander around in the great outdoors—much less force me to." He leaned more heavily against the doorway with a groan, muttering, "My legs are still jelly. Worthless human body."

Dipper glanced at Ford, as if checking with him to see if he'd made the right decision. Ford gave him a tiny nod of approval. After the day they'd had, humiliating Bill just for the sake of humiliation wouldn't have served any justice; it would have just been mean.

For the past three decades, Ford had always felt that Bill deserved the strongest possible punishment, both for his prior atrocities and to prevent future ones; but, he wanted to deal with Bill swiftly and efficiently. No gloating, no torture—just one quick shot. Sure, he got some grim satisfaction from knowing Bill was unhappy—knowing that Bill's vile intentions were being thwarted—and if anyone decided to treat Bill cruelly for cruelty's sake, he couldn't say they were wrong for it... but the thought of committing it himself made him uneasy.

He tried to remember if he'd felt that way when Bill had first arrived.

"I found the salsa!" Soos called from the fridge. "Somehow it all floated onto the highest shelf? Which kind do you want?"

"That one with a picture of a sobbing baby on it."

"Extra spicy it is!"

When Soos handed over the salsa and avocados, Bill said, "Hey, Hick Junior said his father was making announcements about staying inside and low to the ground? You didn't happen to have anything to do with that, did you?"

"Oh—yeah, I called Old Man McGucket and said I had a hot anonymous tip about what was going on," Soos said. "You said it was this whole public safety thing, so I figured the whole town should probably know? He's the local respected science guy now, I thought he'd know what to do with that kind of important information."

Bill grunted. "Terrific, he gets credit for my help. But you'd all be giving me heck if I'd said nothing and half the town broke their necks, so... whatever, net zero. Here." Bill took off the Monster-Mon backpack and swung it over to Soos. "Your reward. Good job."

"Whoa, haha, this is heavy. What's in here, a bag of rocks?"

"No, just one." Bill pushed off the doorway, wheeled unsteadily around, and trudged toward the stairs.

Soos unzipped the bag. A drugged geodite blinked sleepily up at him. He gasped. "Dude! A real Monster-Mon! Is this my call to epic adventure with a lovable animal sidekick?"

Ford grimaced, remembering watching Bill feed a geodite cold medicine. "Ah."

"I think I'll name you... Rocky," Soos said.

"That—really shouldn't be here. Its natural environment is caves, I don't know if it's safe for it to be out here—for it or us." They had been known to bite.

"Aww." Soos cradled the backpack like a swaddled baby. "Do you think it would be okay if I made it a fake cave to live in?" He gasped. "I could make an exhibit for him! I'll say he's a living meteorite! People love aliens."

"I'm not sure that..." Ford sighed. Well, none of them were going back to the cave today. "Maybe you should put it in the cellar where it's darker."

"Great idea!" Soos carried the geodite through the living room. "Hey, I've already got a mattress down there. You're gonna love it, lil dude..."

Ford hoped Soos didn't get attached to that thing. He shot a glower at Bill.

Bill was already on the stairs. "Now everybody leave me alone. Except you." He pointed at Mabel. "I don't want to do anything but lay on the floor and talk about whatever Mabel wants to talk about for the next three hours."

"Cartoons and boy bands."

"Yes," Bill sighed in relief, already preparing to turn 95% of his brain off. "Wow, yes, that's exactly what I want to talk about. I can't wait." He grabbed the handrail as he climbed heavily, leaning against it for balance as he dragged himself upstairs.

Before Mabel could follow him, Ford put a hand on her shoulder. "Oh, before you go—there's something I wanted to tell you and Dipper." Voice low, he said, "You remember when you told me that Bill had mentioned Edward Bishop Bishop?"

"Yeah? When we were drawing our houses."

"Something Bill said while we were out shook a memory loose. It reminded me of a book I read as an undergraduate—Flatworld, written by Edward Bishop Bishop."

"Aww," Mabel said. "Not an artist?"

"No, although he did illustrate the book," Ford said. "It's a novella that combines Victorian social commentary with a primer on higher-dimensional mathematics by using an allegory about sentient shapes living in a two-dimensional world."

"That's what you were talking about in the boat, right?" Dipper asked. "When Bill said something about..." He scrunched his face, trying to remember, "'Up in the sky'...?"

"Upward-but-not-skyward," Ford said, "to describe something that isn't higher than us in the third dimension, but rather, in a higher dimension relative to us."

"How do you know about it?" Dipper asked. "The first time it came up, you said the name Edward Bishop Bishop was familiar, but..."

Ford sighed in irritation, "I read it as an undergraduate—in a haze of sleep-deprived exhaustion just before finals week—to get extra credit in a course on the history of mathematics. I immediately forgot ninety percent of it—which I'm sure is why I never thought of it in relation to Bill. If only I'd remembered the book thirty years ago, when it might have done me some good..."

"It's okay," Mabel said. "I forget almost everything I've read for class basically as soon as I've taken the test. I think it's pretty good that you remember anything about Flatworld at all!"

Ford smiled awkwardly. He was afraid that might say more about Mabel's study habits than about his. "Thank you, Mabel."

"And you did have a lot on your mind thirty years ago," Dipper said. "Like, Bill. Literally. On your mind."

Mabel added, "Doing creepy possession things!"

"I suppose that's true, too." What would he have done if he had remembered the book during that frenetic, delirious period when Bill and Ford had wrestled for control over his body? He'd been in no fit shape to go to the library. "I did think about it a couple of times in the multiverse—when I was visiting Exwhylia, for instance—but at the time I'd brushed it off as a lucky coincidence that I'd read a book that invented a society of shapes. It wouldn't be the first time science fiction predicted science fact. But now that Bill's mentioned it twice, I'd say it's less likely a coincidence and more likely that Edward Bishop Bishop was another of his 'students.'"

"Is there a way for us to find out?" Dipper asked. "If he was Bill's student, would he have left behind any... hints? Coded messages?"

"Like secret society conspiracy things?" Mabel asked.

"Yeah!"

"I suppose it's possible," Ford said. "If Flatworld happens to feature a one-eyed yellow triangle sharing the secrets of the universe, we'll know for sure. But, there's only one way to find out: now that I do remember the book, we can pick up a copy for research."

"That's great," Dipper said. "If Bill told the author about his home dimension... there's no telling how much we can learn about him by reading it."

"So it's basically a math textbook disguised as a story?" Mabel groaned. "That's just like doing word problems! The most confusing kind of math problems. Why does Bill keep making me have homework this summer?"

"You know what he's like," Dipper said, elbowing her with a grin. "Dastardly villain."

"Pure evil."

Ford huffed. "If it helps, as I recall the book teaches you about math concepts, but it doesn't make you do any math."

She let out a longer, more theatrical groan. "Fine. But if there's a cousin Throckmorton I'm throwing the book away."

"I dunno, sounds kinda neat," Dipper said. "It might give me a leg up when we start geometry."

"I don't remember the details of what it covers, but I bet it could," Ford agreed. "I have to visit Fiddleford this evening to return the equipment he loaned us, and... discuss the events of the last couple of days. If the library's still open when we're done I can go by and see if they have a copy of Flatworld."

"Can I come along?" Dipper asked.

"Of course. Just give me a moment to..." He looked down at himself, "change into something a little less ridiculous."

Dipper tried not to laugh. "Okay. I'll wait here. Mabel, do you want to...?"

"No thanks!" She pointed upstairs. "I've got a captive audience to teach about boy bands. I'm going to make him listen to Sev'ral Timez's entire discography."

"He's already had a pretty bad day. Don't torture him even more."

Mabel blew a raspberry. "He'll love it." She bounded up the stairs.

Ford headed to his and Stan's guest room. Dipper took off his backpack, dropped it in the living room, and stuck his hands in his pockets—then pulled one out in surprise.

The enchanted friendship bracelets. They were still in his pocket. Bill hadn't had them on since Dipper's out-of-body experience that morning.

Dipper stared at them uneasily; then hung them in their usual place on the entryway coat rack and resumed waiting for Ford.

####

It was a rare opportunity that Bill was allowed in the kids' room; but with Ford and Dipper out of the house, the one person most likely to complain wasn't around. So after having extracted a strict promise for him to behave himself, Mabel had let him in, for ease of gossip and CD-switching.

But even if Dipper had been in the room, he wouldn't have found much worth complaining about. Once Bill had finished his snack (he'd eaten the avocados like pears, skin and all, and drank down the salsa like a chunky smoothie), he'd laid down on the floor, and since then had remained a dead lump. Face buried in his crossed arms, curled up in the oversized Fishmas sweater and a set of loose stolen-from-Soos sweats to replace the towel skirt, he might as well have been a pile of laundry that had sprouted curly golden hair. Mabel had put Sev'ral Timez's first album on the boombox, sat herself on Bill's back, and started brushing out his damp, knotted curls without asking as she talked about each track.

To her delight, Bill started insisting they skip past the slow, emotional love ballads, saying he preferred the bouncier dancier tracks; she thought the fact that he was displaying a preference rather than begging to turn the band off was a good sign. He was actually listening to the music. Possibly even liking it! Maybe she'd manage to convert him into a fan. She recounted her experiences with the band's cloned members and Bill threw in the polite "Mhm" and "Uh-huh?" where appropriate without lifting his head from the floor or opening his eyes. She'd thought he might have had something to throw in about the cloning thing, that seemed like the kind of conspiracy nonsense he might have a hand in; but if he knew anything, he wasn't up to sharing it.

When she'd wrangled his hair into some semblance of order, she got to work on his fingernails. His arm was like a dead weight in her hands, loose and unresisting but not helping, either. He shifted his head over to rest on his other arm and otherwise didn't move.

"Your fingernail polish is destroyed," Mabel said. On three fingers the paint had been all but completely scraped off. When he'd left a couple of days ago, it had just been lightly chipped. She started stripping the remainder with nail polish remover.

"Is it?" Bill mumbled. "Mmh. Yeah, probably from clawing in the dirt."

"Pfff. What did you do the last couple of days?"

Bill slowly sucked in a breath so deep that Mabel felt his back lift her a little higher off the ground; and then he just as slowly let it back out. "Do not," he said, "get me started."

He got started.

He began with a tirade about the contempt that both Ford and Dipper had shown him and his far superior subject matter expertise for the last two days; and then about being hauled out and exposed during totality after repeating over and over how dangerous it was and how much he would prefer to not do that—Ford had even admitted he'd dragged Bill out into open air just because he knew how much he didn't want that!—and from there Bill looped back to listing a whole litany of gripes against what he perceived as egregious and undeserved disrespect from Ford over the last couple of weeks—"Youmight have lied to me about that glass pyramid, but at least you didn't laugh in my face about it!"

(Mabel thought Ford pretty much had the right to be as disrespectful to Bill as he wanted, after everything Bill had put him through. Lying about a silly imaginary cult was less mean than lying about taking over the universe. But part of being a good friend, she knew well, was lending a sympathetic ear to your friend's venting without suggesting that said friend might be in the wrong. She had a Color Critters episode about being honest with your friends she could show him later.)

Bill seemed to gain strength as he aired his grievances, bolstered by Mabel's encouraging "mhm" "uh-huh" noises. By the time she'd finished repainting his first hand (she'd picked a glittery purple polish she thought would complement all the yellow he wore), he was sitting upright and Mabel had to sit in front of him to start on his other hand.

"—and my stupid feet hurt," Bill griped. "Since Stanford made me traipse halfway through the mountain barefoot because he wouldn't let us go back down before the gravity returned and I don't even own shoes for spelunking. And my knees hurt, and my back hurts, and I could have killed for a walking stick but do think they'd have allowed me one if I asked? Because I don't think so! I tripped over—I don't know, a hundred roots."

"Worst hiking trip ever." Mabel finished painting his second hand, and started looking through her miniature sticker sheets for some fun stickers to put on Bill's first hand now that it was dry.

"Worst in the history of your planet! Even the Donner party had a better hike! At least some of them got something to eat," Bill said. "All I got for two days was a handful of cereal and Stanford's liquid meat in a toothpaste tube."

Mabel stuck out her tongue.

"And Stanford walks too fast. And your brother kept trying to squeeze through gaps between trees I couldn't get through. And Stanford kept fiddling with his—stupid—useless antique Civil War lantern he's so proud of, and he's just lucky that I thought to bring a way to find a light source even though I didn't even need one, because I knew he would bring that stupid Civil War lantern..." Bill's complaints petered out.

And then, voice oddly quiet, he said, "And I saw my corpse." 

Mabel looked up from carefully placing a yellow butterfly on Bill's middle fingernail. There was a dark look in his eyes. "Oh," she said. "Oh, Bill. I'm so sorry."

This wasn't just a bad camping trip. This was serious. She had to treat it seriously.

She ejected the current CD from the boombox, put in another Sev'ral Timez album, and skipped to track 4: "This goes out to anyone having a bad day. Ladies, this one's for you. 'Girl, today has been—straight whack. You don't know how you're gonna—bounce back. But any time you're down, I'll always be around; I'll drive your heart back to Happy Town'..." Oh yeah. That was the exact energy Mabel was trying to channel.

"And I didn't feel anything when I touched it." Bill was staring down at his hands like he barely recognized them. "No energy, no connection—nothing. What if there isn't a connection anymore? What if I'm just a human now?"

Did that weigh on Bill? Clearly, enough that he'd decided to endure imprisonment in the Mystery Shack rather than kill his body to see if there was still a triangle inside.

But he'd never talked about it before now; she'd thought maybe he just didn't worry about it.

But that was dumb. Of course he worried about it. He was just like her. When something scared him, he just pushed it down and hoped that if he ignored it enough, everything would be okay! Until he couldn't pretend anymore.

And she'd never heard him sound this scared before.

She took his hands and hoped that would help.

He squeezed her hands so hard it hurt. His still-wet nail polish smeared on her hand. "What if I'm really gonna grow old and die in this rotting meat doll, what if I never go home again—? There's so much I haven't done, I was going to throw an eternal party, it would have been beautiful, everyone would have loved me, but now— and now—" He let out a choked noise, head bowing over their joined hands, posture broken. Hot tears landed on the backs of Mabel's hands. "And I didn't even get to, just, die and be done with it, I have to know I'm dead, I have to know everything I was going to do..."

"Hey—come here." Mabel tentatively wrapped her arms around Bill's neck and shoulders, compressing his bouncy curls. She half expected him to pull away.

Instead, he buried his face against her shoulder and hugged her back like she was the only thing keeping him from drowning.

After spending the last two days suppressing his grief and fear so hard his body couldn't function through it—after spending over a month suppressing his grief and fear—finally, finally, he peeled the tape off his cracked shell to let it leak out. He couldn't hold it together anymore. He'd barely put himself back together long enough to get on his feet and make it to the shack. This was the only place it was safe to fall apart. He muffled his sobs in Mabel's sweater.

And Mabel—who was used to being comforted by adults but who had never been called upon herself to comfort anybody but her brother and the occasional friend—had no idea how she was supposed to comfort a zillion-year-old almost-definitely-adult alien through an existential crisis.

Not for the first time, she wondered whether she might have gotten in over her head.

She pushed the worry down. Everything would be okay. Bill needed her—she could feel him trembling—and he didn't have anybody else in the world he could trust. And if she didn't know what else to do, at the least she could keep hugging him.

Voice so tight it almost squeezed out as a whisper, Bill said, "I was going to make a utopia here, but now I'm just gonna die here."

"I'm so sorry." How do you comfort someone processing the fear of mortality? She'd never processed it herself, she was thirteen, it was just another scary future thing she'd deal with when she had to. The best she knew how to do was be nice. "But... I'm here, okay? For—for anything you need." (Anything that wasn't evil, anyway—but now was not the appropriate time to make Bill feel like her support was conditional.)

"Tell me I won't die."

"You won't die! You're never, ever gonna die." Mabel hugged him tighter. "I'll fistfight Death. I'll—break his bony kneecaps."

"Thanks."

"I'll swing at the reaper with a baseball bat."

Bill laughed feebly. "With nails in it?"

"Yeah! And barbed wire! Connected to a battery!"

"Oh, we're taking Death down. Nobody's dying ever again."

"Everybody lives forever!" Mabel laughed; but it quickly petered out. "But... I'm not gonna let you die. You're my friend, and I won't let anything happen to you."

Bill's trembling had stopped, and his embrace was less death-grippy. "I owe you one, Shooting Star." From Bill, "thanks" sounded hollow, but "I owe you one" really sounded like a thank you.

"Hey. If I tell you a secret, do you promise not to do anything evil with it?"

"Sure. Promise."

Mabel doubted it, but that was as good as she was gonna get. "I've always thought you're still a triangle on the inside. You've got those creepy cat eyes that see the future and stuff! If you were just a normal human, wouldn't you have normal human eyes?"

Bill made a noncommittal noise.

"Plus, if you'd really been turned into a human on the inside, then being in a human body wouldn't feel so bad—right? It'd just feel normal."

Bill was silent for a moment. Voice hoarse, he whispered, "I hope you're right."

####

Fiddleford answered the door himself. "Stanford, Dipper, come in! I was just cleaning up." He had a broom, and the great hall's floor behind him was sparkling with broken glass. Ford was relieved to see Fiddleford had put on shoes. Unfortunately, they were fuzzy slippers. "Pardon the mess!"

"Think nothing of it. The shack's been turned upside-down, too." Ford stepped around a broken chair. "Don't you have anyone to help you clean, though?"

"Oh, I do, I do! I built me a Janitorial Executive Drone to tidy up," Fiddleford said. "I'm just cleaning up the mess JED left."

Ford and Dipper looked around at the shattered glass, broken furniture, scorch marks around the fireplace, and torn curtains. Dipper asked, "Did... JED make this place any cleaner?"

"Not at all!"

Ford and Dipper caught Fiddleford up on their scientific findings of the last couple days. Ford was almost embarrassed to admit they hadn't found any noteworthy quantities of micro-rips, as if he were confessing to a personal academic embarrassment—even after Fiddleford pointed out that it had been his own theory, not Ford's. (All the same, Ford hated to be so wrong, even by association. Being wrong felt like a moral failing.)

In return, Fiddleford told them what he'd been up to. He'd confirmed with them NASA fellas that the odd gravity effects weren't detected anywhere but Gravity Falls. At their behest, he'd set up some sensors around town, and when gravity suddenly reversed, the measurements they'd taken had allowed him to make a very loose model of the shape of the force that caused it. He showed Ford and Dipper the model on a computer in his lab, black screen with sharp glowing green lines forming an armature in the shape of a force. It looked like an enormous flying sausage that tapered down at one end. Too little detail to tell exactly what it was; but it certainly could have been an axolotl.

It was turning to look at the cliff where they'd stood.

Fiddleford wasn't pleased to find out the information he'd passed on from Soos had originally come from Bill; but he'd suspected it and already done all his soul-searching before reluctantly sharing his advice with the masses and hoping it wouldn't come back to bite him. "He didn't bother to warn us that gravity would actually disappear today, though," Fiddleford said indignantly. "So he could crow about being right and still get to see some folks get hurt, I reckon."

"Actually, this time I don't think he was hiding it. I kinda think he just made a mistake?" Dipper said.

Ford nodded. "Dipper's right. Bill was incredibly alarmed this morning when it became clear our estimates were wrong. It only made more trouble for him."

"I suppose," Fiddleford said grudgingly; then gave them a sharp look. "This mornin'? You took him camping?"

Ford and Dipper winced. Ford mumbled, "Not for fun."

"Stanford Pines—!"

It took a minute of hooting and hollering before Ford could calm Fiddleford down enough to explain the circumstances: that they'd only brought Bill because of just how much he explicitly did not want to be brought; that it had been a thoroughly unpleasant experience for everyone and Ford had never expected it to be otherwise; and that Bill had proven useful—Ford decided not to share the details—but he hadn't forgotten that Bill always made himself useful before he betrayed someone. If a man helped a little old lady cross a street, opened her door for her, put up her groceries, and then knocked her out and burgled her house, only one of those actions mattered.

(Dipper fell silent rather than help reassure Fiddleford. Ford supposed that was because he'd objected to bringing Bill, too.)

Fiddleford grudgingly admitted that under the circumstances, bringing Bill had been logical. "But that's just the thing—sometimes your logic don't account for the fact that you've got human emotions, too."

"Ah, yes, those human emotions. One of my worst flaws," Ford joked.

Fiddleford didn't laugh. "I mean it, Stanford. The most logical plan in the world don't mean nothing if he talks you into throwing it aside."

Ford thought of all the times he'd let his temper get the best of him over the last couple of days. Could he really say he'd made the logical decision when he'd made it out of anger? "Yes. I... see what you mean."

"Just be careful," Fiddleford said. "I saw you under that demon's oppression for months and never thought it was anything worse than how you always got around finals week—heck, for all I saw, I reckon he coulda started possessing you without me noticing—and I don't want that to happen again!"

Dipper winced. Ford found somewhere other than Fiddleford's face to look.

"What?"

"He... did. Possess me." (Dipper didn't pipe up with his experience. Ford didn't blame him.)

"He what? When?!"

"Remember toward the end of the project? When I started pulling all-nighters to finish the calculations...?"

Fiddleford smacked his forehead and sank down into the nearest chair.

Ford winced again. "I should have told you." During their talks over the past year, he'd been very reluctant to mention Bill or the fallout at the end of the portal project. They both had. "But—I assumed you'd guessed by now. What did you think was happening?"

"Frankly? I thought you'd started taking something illicit."

Ford snorted. "I—all right." He'd done stupider things during finals week.

"If he was possessin' you, why didn't you ask for help? I could've found somebody who knows how to do exorcisms. Did he not let you? Or—or did I miss you trying to tell me...?"

Ford shook his head. "No, I didn't want an exorcism." He wasn't sure Bill was the kind of "demon" that responded to exorcisms anyway. "At the time, I thought... that he was helping me."

Dipper reluctantly piped up, "He... possessed me once too. I didn't know that's what he was doing until too late, but... Even after you know he's a bad guy, he's really good at making you think he's just helping."

Fiddleford didn't immediately say anything to that. Ford couldn't meet his gaze.

Finally, Fiddleford said, voice low and worried, "Just tell me you won't let him get into your head again. Either one'a you."

Dipper shook his head. "Definitely not."

Ford said, "As he is now with all his powers gone, I don't think he can enter my head. Anyway, I had a metal plate surgically installed—"

"I didn't mean that way."

Right. "I won't. I promise."

Fiddleford nodded. "Didja really get a metal plate installed?"

Ford knocked on it demonstratively.

"Hmm." Fiddleford stroked his beard thoughtfully. He pointed at a contraption in the corner that looked like a ten foot tall tuning fork with electricity arcing between its tips. "Try not to get within five feet of that thing."

Ford eyed it nervously.

####

Fiddleford insisted Ford and Dipper stay for dinner. It was the first proper meal they'd had after two days of tubes mushy meat and mushy vegetables; so they tried not to show their disappointment when they received mushy meat and mushy vegetables. Fiddleford's automatic meatloaf-and-mashed-potatoes maker did its job more competently than JED did its, but Ford suspected that was partially because it didn't have legs to let it go get in trouble.

As they drove back into town, a stoplight turned red at the intersection with Main Street. Ford glanced down Main toward the library and asked, "Do you still want to stop by the library?"

Dipper, who'd nearly nodded off, blinked sleepily. "Huh?"

"To pick up Flatworld?"

Dipper yawned. "Honestly, I kinda just wanna go home and sleep."

"I hear that." He'd almost drowned today. He was exhausted. "Perhaps this weekend."

"Aren't you going to that concert with Mabel?"

"Was that this Saturday?" He'd lost track. Mabel had won four tickets from some radio contest to see Phrancisco in Portland and had asked Ford if he'd like to come. "I'm undecided. I'd like to go—I've been a fan of Invisible Plastic Yellow since they formed." He was the one who'd told Mabel about the band after their Portland trip and gotten her their albums. He'd had a phase when he'd really gotten into cutting-edge underground new wave music. It had made him feel conventionally cool, which not many things did. Now, all his musical tastes were three decades behind. He hadn't even known Phrancisco had a solo career until Mabel came home with tickets.

"But she's bringing her friends, and whoever has the fourth ticket needs to chaperone; and I'm afraid an old man escorting around three young girls would look... odd. It may be more appropriate for one of the other girls' parents to go." But he did want to see Phrancisco. "Perhaps I'll wait and see whether Mabel talks me into it."

"Better pack your bag now, then."

Ford laughed. He had a point. "If I do go to Portland, maybe I can stop by a bookstore to pick up Flatworld. If it tells us anything useful about Bill, I suspect we'll want a household copy for reference."

He was eager to reread it. He'd forgotten so much of it since college. He only recalled the vague, overarching plot: something about a third-dimensional sphere teaching a second-dimensional square about realities with higher and lower dimensions—from zero dimensions up to four—and a stuffy society based on what geometric shape you were... but that was it. He probably never even would have remembered the phrase "up but not north" if Bill hadn't referenced it. He wondered how much it could have helped him if he'd reread it sooner.

Dipper yawned again. "Sounds good."

The light turned green; and Ford drove past the library and headed on home.

####

(After going full tilt for two months, we finally get a breather lol. I hope y'all enjoyed, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts!)

[momentomori24]

I swear to God, Twitter being able to accumulate so many brain-dead, malicious, pseudo intellectual low lives all in one place at the same time is a phenomenon worthy of being studied under a microscope in a science lab. And no, that is not a compliment.

Thankfully people have already spoken out against this bullshit-- the fact that people needed to is already maddening to think about-- but as someone who got the basic gist of what happened literally yesterday I'll also put my voice out there: Don't you fucking dare try to paint Hbomb as a murderer over this situation.

Somerton may be a lying, misogynistic plagiarist and conman, but he obviously doesn't deserve to die and while I do make fun of the guy, I genuinely hope that he continues to have a life after the dust has settled on everything. Not on YouTube or any social media platform for a long time at least, but just a life nontheless. I don't wish what he's potentially going through on anyone, and I hope that he makes it through this. But regardless of if he does or doesn't-- and God forbid he doesn't-- none of this is Hbomb's fault. It's not his fault, or Kat's fault, or Jessie's fault (because apparently there's people blaming her too cuz WHY NOT), or anybody's fault. All they did was call out his actions, hold him accountable for the harm he's done. They have done nothing to deserve having to carry this on their shoulders should the worst happen. They did nothing wrong. They didn't kill James (he's not confirmed dead yet either btw). They are not murderers. And to the people saying they are: say those words out loud, listen how they sound like, and re-evaluate. Just cease.

And to people like this:

''Oh I'm not blaming him for anything I'm just blaming him for what his audience did because according to HIM you're responsible for your audience'' Yeah, you people can shut your mouths too. Of course you're responsible for your audience, and that includes Hbomb too. However, your tiny, godless little monkey brain can't see why your argument is still rubbish even with that in mind. The difference between James, Internet Historian and Hbomb is that Hbomb never promoted problematic behaviour to his audience. If you promote problematic shit like harassment or misogyny or racism, then yeah, you're absolutely responsible for how your behaviour influences your audience. But that's not what he did. He made it very clear where he stood on those things, literally stating that ''if anyone were to harass Somerton on his behalf they are worse than him and will not see the light of heaven''. He's done his part in making it clear that harassment is wrong, so if someone went out of their way to go against that and harass James anyway that doesn't reflecf on him at all. Also, what the hell do you mean ''hatemobbed'' to suicide? I don't doubt there are people who went to extremes because those bad apples always exist, but most of the things I've seen are valid critisisms, memes and call outs about that guy. If holding people accountable for their actions and poking fun at them a little counts as 'hatemobbing'' (which has Filip calling his critics a ''lynch mob'' energy tbh) what the hell do you call actual hatemobbing then? Do we just let people continue being shitty because calling them out ''damages their mental health'' or ''drives them to suicide'' then? Is that a world you want to live in?

Same thing goes for people like this:

Criticing someone for their objectively bullshit content and wanting them dead are two seperate things. What the actual hell is wrong with you. The plagiarist in question is a person. Those ''harshest critics'' are still people. And because we're people, we care. I'd rather James pump out more plagiarised slop than commit suicide. I'd still hate him for it, but I'd prefer him being alive over the alternative any day. We all do. None of us would sleep easier knowing he's dead just because he wouldn't be ''committing the cardinal sin of putting out a 'pure content mill' video'' because someone taking their own life is horrific-- especially Hbomberguy, how dare you even try to imply that?

And this gets me to the reason I'm furiously typing all this out in the first place: Hbomb is the fucking victim here, so stop treating him like he isn't. He tried making things as right as possible by compensating those that were burned by James through a video where he revealed everything there needs to be known about the guy so that less people fall victim to his actions and lies. To just ignore the harm James was causing while he had the evidence to prove it and platform too big to threaten into non existence should he speak out would've been bad. So he didn't. He did the right thing by sticking with the people James had stolen from, giving them a voice and making them known after they've been scrubbed from the picture by decidedly being uncredited for their works or bullied into silence. He shouldn't have to deal with this for doing the right thing. He shouldn't be labelled a murderer for doing the right thing. He shouldn't have to have the death of a man on his conscience for doing the right thing. People claiming otherwise are obviously wrong, but I can't imagine what all this must feel like right now. Because even tho they're wrong, guilt isn't a rational thing, and I know that if I were in his position I'd still feel like a morally bankrupt individual were the worst to happen even if I knew that it was not my fault. This isn't a funny story. So to add to this dumpsterfire by using it as a prop to bash on a creator you don't like and immediately write Somerton off as dead even when he's not even been confirmed dead yet to do that shows how little these people actually care about the thing they're talking about. They don't care a guy potentially killed himself-- what they care about is using it to paint Hbomb in a bad light because they don't like him. Here they are, posting memes and ill jokes about this very delicate situation while barely a day since the news broke out had passed. It's opportunistic, it's sickening, and literally the exact thing he criticised in his video when talking about 'content mills'. Like, I know none of these clowns bothered to actually watch it, but have some self-awareness. And some shame too, while you're at it.

This long story short: I'm writing this to contribute to the narrative not getting twisted to make Hbomb out to be the villian. Same goes for everyone else. Don't let these people paint them as the villians. If I see another person pull this shit again I will literally bite you and shred you into salad and spit you back out because I hate you so much and I mean that wholeheartedly.

To Hbomb: you will never see this but if you do, take care of yourself.

To the asshats this post is about: Delete your account. Cease all together. Stop talking about this. Just leave him the fuck alone.

[thatsonemorbidcorvid]

A few weeks after #MeToo exploded on the internet, an old friend and I did what so many women did during that time: We got on the phone and finally began to acknowledge what had happened to us. My friend shared a story of hers from college. Back then, we’d all just considered it a “bad date,” but she now recognized it as sexual assault. She also shared that at nearly every single job she’s had since college, a boss or co-worker has sexually harassed her.

The month before our conversation, I had published an essay sharing my own experience of sexual assault while traveling abroad. Like my friend, it was not my only experience—it was one of many. But I’d only included the one, because in the early stages of #MeToo, the idea of sharing one assault story still felt risky. The idea of sharing more than one felt culturally impossible. My friend agreed.

“As a woman, you’re only allowed one #MeToo moment,” she told me. “After that, people begin assuming the problem must be you.”

Out of the many celebrity #MeToo stories told in the past five years, only a handful have acknowledged the experience of multiple assaults. In an HBO documentary, Alanis Morisette spoke about repeated incidents of statuatory rape that happened when she first entered the music industry, all of which “fell on deaf ears” when she tried seeking accountability. In her memoir, Selma Blair wrote about a teacher who sexually assaulted her, as well as the many men who raped her in her 20s. In an interview with Dazed, Amber Rose said, “I cannot even count how many times a famous guy touched me inappropriately.” On a social media post during the Kavanaugh hearings, Tatum O’Neal wrote about her multiple assaults: “It was not my fault when I was 5, 6, 12, 13, 15.”

Stories that emphasize the ubiquitous nature of assault are vital in a world that so often focuses on one dramatic episode, with visceral details of the violation and an easily identifiable villain. This amplifies the false idea that assault is just a singular, horrifying incident—when in reality, many of us experience it as part of a larger, more insidious culture.

Once a person is assaulted, research shows they’re more likely to be assaulted again, a phenomenon called “revictimization.” Around 50 percent of children who survive sexual assault reexperience it later in life, and even a single incident of sexual assault in adulthood can increase the risk for it to happen again. As psychologist A.E. Jaffe and her colleagues wrote in a 2019 paper on revictimization: “Perhaps the most consistent predictor of future trauma exposure is a history of prior trauma exposure.”

Why would this be? In lieu of a good answer for it (more on that in a moment), we often blame victims themselves. We easily justify these statistics by suggesting that anyone who has survived multiple incidents of violence must be asking for it—either by acting promiscuously, hanging around too many shady men, or getting themselves into precarious situations. One survivor I interviewed told me that though she received some form of victim-blaming in response to all three sexual assaults she experienced, she noticed a stark decrease in support each time it happened again.

“After the second and third, some people began saying, ‘What’s happening in your life to attract that?’ or ‘Do you have enough awareness to know when men want to harm you?’ ” she told me. “One person even asked why I was ‘trusting men so much.’ ” Another friend who experienced multiple assaults went through a similar line of questioning, only with herself. “After so many times, I began asking myself, ‘What is it about me that brings on these experiences?’ ” she said. I told her I ask myself that question all the time.

In his essay “Spectator” for Roxane Gay’s anthology on sexual assault stories, Not That Bad, Brandon Taylor wrote about his best friend telling him she was beginning to think she was “just the kind of person this stuff happens to.” For a long time, that’s what I believed, too. As a travel writer and a single bisexual woman, I figured that at some point, I’d pay the price. Eventually, I’d have to face some element of physical harm—wasn’t that the obvious trade-off for attempting a liberated life? To me, survivorship—more than resilience, bravery, or strength—often felt like resignation.

But in some cases, it’s exactly that resignation that influences repeat assaults. While there’s no conclusive evidence as to why revictimization happens, we do know that normalizing assault can contribute to future harm. If a survivor has not internalized their experience as exceptionally traumatic, they are less likely to advocate for themselves, or demand accountability if it happens again. If they, like me, accept violence as an obvious fact of their lives, then when it repeats, they don’t seek the support they need to process and heal from each experience.

In an article for Psychology Today, psychotherapist and clinical social worker Keith Fadelici called this a “cognitive accommodation to ongoing violence.” The trauma continuously gets downplayed as victims attempt to normalize their assaults, which helps them feel more in control. “This dissociative process is a common symptom of PTSD,” Fadelici told me. “And can also later make survivors less capable of detecting risk by numbing the fear that is supposed to trigger alertness to danger.”

Oppression also plays a significant role. Those with marginalized identities are more at risk for experiencing assault in general, and thus more likely to experience it again. LGBTQ+ people are four times more likely to be assaulted than the general population (bisexual women and trangender people also are far more likely to experience assault than gay men and lesbian women). Rates of sexual assault for Indigenous women are three times higher than non-Indigenous women, and Black women are much more likely to experience assault than white women. Neurodivergent people are 11 times more likely than neurotypical people to be victims of violent crimes.

“If this is coming up repeatedly with one individual, it might be because that person is within systems and structures that facilitate assault more often,” said Jaffe. For those of us living with any of these identities, we normalize violence because living under oppression is consistently violent. In order to survive, a “cognitive accommodation to ongoing violence” is necessary. We train ourselves to get used to it, and move on.

After #MeToo, I began reading and rereading the legal definitions for rape and sexual assault to make sense of what had happened to me. Any sexual contact that occurred without consent constitutes assault? Any sexual contact that included penetration without the other person’s consent constitutes rape? The criteria felt almost too easy. Under these standards, I had been raped twice, and assaulted several other times—all stories I had not yet fully internalized, and was not yet ready to tell. Dozens of legal crimes had been committed against my body, but that idea felt so unfathomable I hardly knew what to do next.

In the three years after publishing that first story, I experienced more incidents, and I still don’t know what to call them. I don’t feel comfortable firmly declaring them as “assault.” I don’t like how it connects so deeply with an oppressive legal system, and how it automatically connotes some excessive form of violence. Even today, it seems too strong and rough a word for how these episodes played out: often with little physicality, with only brief conflict and polite turns toward quick forgiveness, until weeks later when I’d unpack the severity of what had happened. As I began sharing more of these stories with close friends, I would catch myself saying “technically” before saying “I was assaulted,” acknowledging the semantic disconnect I still felt. This hesitation is common among many survivors: As one 2019 meta-analysis showed, rates of victimization increase when participants are asked “behaviorally descriptive questions” about what happened to them, rather than questions that use terms like “rape” and “assault.”

Sometimes, people ask “How many times all together?” I say “six-ish,” a number that captures the amount of experiences that have dramatically changed the way I relate to my body—how it experiences intimacy, how it engages with the world: The one that happened at work, just weeks into my first job out of college. The one at a festival in India. The one while getting a deep-tissue massage. The one at a New York play party. The one so common I learned it has its own name (“stealthing“). The one with a lover I had loved and trusted deeply. The one with another lover, a violation that was not sexual but physical and thus, as yet another nonconsensual act done against my body, still felt so connected to all the rest.

And this still does not take into account every time I was nonconsensually touched in public—the men who pulled and grabbed my arms, my back, my butt, my shoulders to try to get my attention on the street—nor the times I’ve been followed, harassed, physically threatened by strangers on the street.

The accumulation of more and more of these events creates a compounding impact, one where each additional incident begins to amplify the ones before. For me and most survivors I spoke to, we are not healing from trauma—we are learning how to exist in a world where trauma continues to accumulate.

Every survivor I interviewed for this piece told me they fully accept the potential that they’ll experience assault in the future. Still, most of them admitted to me that it’s still easier to only share just one story with the world—never the full range of what has happened to them. “When you only have one story, the enemy is the rapist,” one survivor told me. “But when you have several people with a lifetime of these experiences, the enemy is all of us.”

This is what we mean when we talk about rape culture. The first thing we can do to start to dismantle it is to recognize what we’re up against.

[andy-wm]

I have thoughts about the Watch with Jimin livestream...

How do i love thee? Let me count the ways...

I did in fact do some counting. I counted Jimin's blink rate during the almost two minutes he watched JK recording the back-up vocals for Letter to Army. And yes, it was a labour of love, especially since I don't enjoy numbers... they're tricksy squirmy little gremlins that do sneaky things like divide themslves in two, or become imaginary.

But for the sake of science and Jikookery, I counted how many times - and when - Jimin blinked during this sequence.

Overall, nothing unusual to report. The average number of times a person blinks in a minute is approximately 15. In the 1m55s of video I captured, Jimin blinked 33 times. Unremarkable.

Except...

The pattern of how much he blinked changed markedly depending on who was on screen.

When Jmin was watching himself, he blinked far more than when he was watching JK. Frequent blinking can be a sign of stress, and there were a number of other clues too, that Jimin wasn't all that comfortable watching himself: giggling, hiding his face, selfconsciously flicking his hair, playing with his hands etc etc.

When JK was on screen Jimin sat still, his gaze fixed on JK. Often his mouth fell open just a little, his lips parted as though he was entranced. In fact, during the first 20 seconds of the footage when he's leaning forward staring intently at JK, he only blinks 4 times.

And that's a clue to another factor at play here...

There's a phenomenon in the psychology of attraction called a COPULATORY GAZE. When someone stares intently at a person they find attractive, that's what it's called.

It's a COPULATORY GAZE.

So it's not just a minor fascination he has going on, or a bit of focused admiration.

Translated to the coloquial, I guess you could call it EYE FUCKING.

Yes, eye fucking is a scientific phenomenon.

But wait, there's more...

Towards the end of this segment of Watch With Jimin, when JK is done recording and he and Jimin are on screen together, something happens to our dear Jiminie on the livestream.

It involves a bit of eye fucking and lip licking (licking, tongue movement, swallowing, all necessary to deal with the saliva that accumulates in your mouth when you're aroused.) Yes, it seems our boy has a visceral response watching the doco, particularly when JK plays around with him on screen.

JK says he's going to feature in Jimin's concert, and he then moves towards Jimin and says (you can't make this stuff up istg) "I will do this behind you." Right, he's just talking about singing the back up vocals.

Jimin is absolutely transfixed though. He swallows with some difficulty. His chest is visibly rising and falling. He's breathing hard and I'm sure that's not all.

Now realistically we've seen them flirt and tease each other so many times that what they're doing in that studio isn't even worth mentioning. And we know Jimin pushes JK's buttons on screen far more than this, apparently just for fun. So why is this little te-ta-te getting Jimin all hot and bothered (because there's no question, that is what's happening).

There's only one thing i can think of.

It's because he's watching it on screen.

I cannot think of ANY other reason that this lukewarm bit of playfulness would make him literally breathless.

And ya know, because i'm a dirty boy with a wild imagination, this leads me to think of all those times they've flirted onscreen...

Does Jimin go home and watch Bangtan TV clips and get all shook up?

Is he bookmarking all the YT complilations of him and JK doing questionable things, and using them for his own nefarious purposes?

I don't even want to think about the footage that gets deleted, the stuff that's too risque to put in a Bangtan Bomb. I picture Jimin scooping it up off the cutting room floor and stuffing down his shirt to smuggle home.

And what about all the on-stage shenanigans at concerts? Kitty Gang Jimin comes to mind immediately.

Does he search for fancams - from LY Hong Kong maybe - and use them to cam his fan in the privacy of his bedroom?

Ok, I've reached that invisble line.... I'm going to stop RIGHT HERE.

You can decide for yourselves whether our mochi has a lil bit of an exhibitionist streak - whether the thought of doing questionable things in public with his buff boytoy revs his engine.

I'll leave you with this nugget of barely suppressed lust, and I'm not just talking about the goings-on on stage. The whole vibe of this concert is feral. I am forever sorry to have missed this one...

(The two women in the bottom right corner are amost as entertaining as the boys imo... pretty sure one of them drops their army bomb haha...)

[dyns33]

Rafiq alruwh

I'm not sure yet if this will be a Bane x reader oneshot or not.

I like it like that, but I could find ideas for part 2. My only problem being that I still need to finish others Tom Hardy's characters story, while wanting to write Feyd Rautha stories.

As much as Y/N listened to these stories over and over again, she couldn't imagine the feeling everyone would describe.

The moment your skin touched your soulmate's skin, and suddenly everything became clear, better. A feeling of joy and the burning need to stay by this person's side forever.

It was a rare phenomenon that scientists could not explain. It was completely impossible to know when this would happen, or if it would happen, because fate seemed cruel. Most people either didn't have soulmates or didn't have the chance to meet them in their lifetime. The world was too big and time too short.

There were still skeptics, who claimed that it was all nonsense, lies, invented by people blinded by love or who wanted to give themselves a certain gender. Only those who ended up meeting the person changed their mind, the others remaining too jealous to accept the truth, considering that it was only a romantic utopia.

Y/N wanted to believe in it. She dreamed of meeting her soulmate and experiencing this special moment.

Her parents were not meant to be together. It was visible.

In her entourage, she had an uncle who had had this experience, a few neighbors, a friend, and all had said the same thing.

What they had in common was that they were all good people. Maybe that was one of the reasons.

“You might have had to choose another type of profession then.”

"Mom…"

“I’m just saying that cop is not the most popular job in the world.”

"And I would say that choosing to be a non-corrupt police officer in Gotham is almost like being a saint."

"You'll end up getting killed, long before you meet your soulmate. I'll never understand why you wanted to be a cop, especially in this town."

There came a day when her mother's fears almost became a reality. The day when terrorists took the entire city hostage with a bomb, preventing everyone from entering and leaving.

It was probably not what she had thought when she talked about dying, but for several months, hidden with her colleagues, Y/N thought about her soulmate, trying to imagine this meeting that would probably never happen.

Staying mainly with Blake and Gordon, she tried to hide her pain, but it did not escape Miranda Tate, who took her hand with a gentle smile and asked what was tormenting her.

“We’re going to die here.” Y/N whispered. "I mean, I'm not afraid of that, that's the risk of the job. But… I didn't think it would be like this now. I wish I had met my soulmate before."

"Your rafiq alruwh. I didn't think many people cared about it here."

"My what ?"

"That's how my father called soulmates. I grew up with a lot of stories about it, because he and my mother were related. I prayed a lot to be that for one of my friends, but no. Our destinies are linked, but not like that.”

"Sorry."

"Even if I would have liked him to be mine, I wish him happiness and that he meets his other half one day. A being worthy of him, of his love and his protection. He deserves to be happy. You too, you seem kind. Maybe you shouldn't have been here."

Her words were strange, but Y/N didn’t tell the others. It wouldn't have changed anything anyway. Even though she had discovered that Miranda Tate had the detonator, that she was the real leader of the terrorists, the streets remained controlled by the militias.

As always, they were saved by the Batman. She had never really known what to think of the vigilante, protected by Gordon and hated by everyone else. He clearly wanted to help Gotham, but his methods remained illegal, and not necessarily effective in the long term.

His death was a tragedy, but not necessarily the end of a symbol. Hope was still there, even stronger, and the Gotham police were determined to ensure everyone's safety.

Y/N felt this determination too.

Still, she froze as she inspected the sewers with Blake and Ramirez. They too had a moment of hesitation, as their lamps illuminated a body. A huge body, sitting against the wall, face hidden by this frightening mask.

There had been a search for Bane and his men after the explosion. Witnesses said the Batman fought him, and won, but they found nothing.

Obviously, the terrorist had managed to drag himself here to die.

"What do we do ?" Ramirez asked shyly. “Should we put a bullet in his head ?”

"What ? Why do you want to do this ?"

"To make sure he's dead. I've seen a lot of movies, man, I know the mistakes to avoid."

She didn't approve of the speech, but Y/N agreed, it was necessary to check it out.

Feeling almost stupid, she moved forward slowly, her hand reaching towards Bane to see if he felt a pulse.

She didn't expect the large hand that quickly grabbed her neck before she could touch him.

Fear paralyzed her body, and yet there was something else. An indescribable, incredible feeling, which resembled happiness but more intense, which was absurd in this situation.

Y/N felt so lost that she didn't realize the hand was relaxing, just resting against her skin instead of squeezing and snapping her neck like it easily could have done.

"Habibi…" was the word spoken with difficulty by Bane, who stared at her with an indecipherable expression.

“Let her go right now, you bastard !”

Maybe he was as confused as her, or maybe he was too weak, but the terrorist didn't avoid Ramirez's punch, while Blake grabbed Y/N to pull her as far away as possible.

She stood still, not understanding what was happening, as Ramirez called for reinforcements, proud of having been able to knock out the giant, even though he knew as well as anyone that he would have had no chance. if his mask hadn't been damaged and he wasn't half dead. It was not possible.

Bane couldn't be her soulmate, Y/N refused to believe it. A man like him had no soul, not after everything he had done, and above all why would he be destined for her ? She didn't feel like she had committed a crime that deserved such punishment.

She was probably never going to see him again anyway.

If he survived to Blackgate, he would be locked there forever. Even if she had permission, she had no intention of visiting him.

But the feeling remained there, strong, impossible to ignore, demanding more. An incomprehensible need to be close to the one who had touched her, so that he would touch her again.

Y/N resisted. She gave her report to Commissioner Gordon, forgetting a few small details, and indicating that she did not wish to follow this case, leaving Bane's case to better agents than her.

This seemed to surprise him, as he considered her one of his best people, but he accepted.

However, it was impossible not to think of her soulmate, since the whole town was only talking about him and his arrest. The television was on loop every day, and her colleagues thought they were doing the right thing by keeping her informed of progress.

"They say his face is horrible. I think there are photos in the file."

"I'd love to see that ! I can't imagine that fucker at all without his weird mask. Do you think he has a normal voice without that thing ?"

“I can go get it so we check.”

Ramirez's gaze met hers as he stood, and without her needing to speak, he knew it was best for him to sit back down and change the subject.

Y/N didn’t see the photos. She absolutely didn't want to.

After several weeks, she asked to take a vacation, claiming to still be traumatized by what had happened to her, in addition to the near destruction of Gotham. She needed some time to rest.

Turning off all the screens and her phone, she tried meditation to clear her mind, so she could get some sleep and forget that her soulmate was a crazy, half-dead terrorist who would soon be judged.

This miserable attempt being a failure, she turned her phone back on shortly after midnight, only to be bombarded with calls and messages, coming from several colleagues, Blake, and Gordon.

"What is happening ?" she asked, calling the Commissioner back.

"Damn, I almost sent men to check on you, you weren't responding ! Where are you ? Are you okay ?"

“I’m at home, why ?”

"Don't panic. Blake will come get you."

“Gordon, what’s going on ?”

"He hasn't said anything since his arrest, keeping very quiet, and then yesterday Bane spoke. He asked to see you, giving your name. The other agents are categorical, it's impossible that he knows ot, no one told him. The agent simply replied that you were not on the investigation, and even on vacation… Damn, he…"

“Gordon, what ?”

"He escaped, Y/N. We don't know how. No one knows where he is, or what he's going to do. But since he talked about you, I don't want to take any risks. Don't move, John will come right away."

She could have told him that she knew very well why Bane had spoken about her, and that it was undoubtedly necessary for her to leave without delay, but fear held her back.

Even if it wasn't her fault, what would the commissioner think when he learned of her connection to the fugitive ? He was a good man, but all men had their limits, and she would be the first to be wary of someone designated as Bane's soulmate.

After hanging up, she jumped out of bed to grab her gun and shoes, ready to wait for Blake to arrive in her living room.

Y/N froze in the middle of the hallway, seeing the huge figure standing between her and the front door.

His face was covered by a scarf, his posture a little less proud than in the videos she had seen of him during his city hostage situation, he appeared to be in pain, but it was obvious that if she tried to pass, he would retain her without the slightest difficulty.

“Habibi.” he whispered, and indeed his voice was different without his mask, more human. "What a joy to see you again. More beautiful than I remember or on pictures. Will you come with us without resistance ? I don't want to hurt you."

"Hands in the air." she replied, pointing her gun at him, ignoring the urge to hug him. “Don’t move, my colleagues are coming.”

"I admire your sense of duty and honor, Habibi. But I will not return to prison, ever again. And I will not leave you either. I thought of you every day. Is your neck healed ? I need to repair my wrongs to you.”

“I said, put your hands in the air.”

“So you leave us no choice, Habibi.” he sighed, looking behind her.

We. He said we, and someone gave him her name. Y/N reacted too late, one man grabbing her gun, and the other not holding her shoulder, injecting something into her neck with a syringe.

In an instant, she found herself on the ground, her vision blurring, but her body not panicking, as it was invaded by an incredible sensation. Bane had reached out to hug her, his eyes smiling as he ran a hand over her cheek.

"It's okay. I'm taking you home, rafiq alruwh."

All her life, Y/N had waited for this moment, this feeling, this sentence. She told herself that the stories we said to children were really stupid, as her eyes closed.

[eluxcastar]

This is so silly: Fatui Harbingers receiving a bouquet of flowers from their shy s/o?

Harbingers receiving a gift from their s/o

── ୨୧：harbingers x reader

୨୧﹑synopsis :: it's exactly what's written on the tin but with a side of me being off my head again

୨୧﹑content :: gn reader

୨୧﹑words :: 950

I'm so in love with the requests that let me answer them like a crackhead. but also I'm so sorry to the anons who want me to be serious I've just got the sillies. I spent the entire time calling it a pot until I realised the thing I was actually referring to is a vase and had to go back and change it all

if you're wondering where the shy part went, it was lost to this phenomenon called "I can't read" and by the time I realised it said that I was already done. I feel like this is the second time it's happened.

Alright usual order Tartaglia first. I'll be honest; I have no clue. Like, I literally left his here just saying, "Alright usual order", because what the FUCK would he do. He doesn't seem like a flower person, but also it being his s/o changes that so much because his s/o might make him a flower person. You could guess his favourite colour is yellow and suddenly it's yellow because he's so normal for you. He didn't even like flowers, but omg, you got him flowers. These are his new favourite flowers ever kinda thing.

Next is Arlecchino (more food is coming I promise), and tbh, I feel like she'd enjoy receiving flowers. It's not an overly flashy gift, and it probably took a lot for you to go out of your way to get that for her, let alone give it to her. She appreciates that you would get her a gift at all because receiving gifts feels nice sometimes. You can have a kiss for your flowers.

Third would be Pantalone, whose I kinda answered. Flowers are a gift, and honestly, I love the idea that as long as the gifts have sentimental value, that's what he'll treasure the most. He's gonna display those in his nicest vase for people to see. Why would you be nervous about that? The thought of what people think of them? No need. Nobody critiques his decor and means it. They know better.

La Signora would appreciate them, but they gotta be nice, yk? And like, you've gotta pay attention. There's no point if you just get whatever's available. Does she like those kinds of flowers? Do they smell nice? Compliment their surroundings? It's in the details that say you care because, to her, it means you were paying enough attention to consider it for what is a very standard gift for many people.

I did Scara then realised I forgot Sandrone omg anyway flowers, she would love those in her own silly little way. They're nice, and it's so cute that you went to the effort that she might just smile at you. She's 100% gonna keep those to herself and just stare at them for a while because someone got her a gift (this basically never happens) (if it did who the fuck are they?? unimportant 🙄)

Aight we got Scaradouche. Firstly no way this man is going to let you immediately know you got him a gift he likes. Flowers? That's such a girly present to give someone 🙄🙄 (They'll be in a pot on his dresser within the hour). He wouldn't usually want flowers, but since you already went and got them, he'll just have to. Just a little, I think he'd be losing it on the inside, kinda like when someone says they're so normal about something, and you know they're fucking lying. Like that

I totally missed Pulcinella last time, so he can get some flowers now. Honestly, I can see why I forgot him. I probably intended to do him but didn't have an idea and was like, "I'll come back to it", then got hit with this thing called filthy liar syndrome. Old people like flowers so he'd be happy with that, something nice to add some colour to a room or something Idk I'm not old (I'M SORRY I'LL BE SERIOUS). Some of you have no grandfather OR father you just like me fr so I'll throw in for y'all that he'd be proud of you for picking out such a nice gift and acquiring it of your own accord (which you are capable of) because it must've been difficult to get past the initial conversation starter problem.

Already off that train, we're finally at Capitano. I can't say for sure cause he has two lines but tbh, he seems like he'd like it. You can have a nice pat on the head and everything cause aww you went to all that effort just for him? That deserves a nice cuddle ❤️

Columbina thinks of it like anything else you do, more confused as to what the occasion is than anything and not very sure what provoked you to do this, but she accepts it and thanks you nonetheless because she still does like it. She just also wants to know what you're doing and why, but she's satisfied with the answer that you just wanted to and cuts you off before the apologies if she doesn't like it.

What the fuck did you get Dottore flowers for?? Like, what would he do with them?? That's awkward. He'll take them off your hands, but after that, he kinda just 🧍 because what else does he do? He can look at them and sit them somewhere, but like they have no purpose. The effort is nice. He probably doesn't want these again tho unless he can use them for something. You'll get a thanks, but like he's kinda bad at hiding that he's got no idea what to do with it. Get him some flowers that are useful rather than decorative maybe?

We are at Pierro, and I think it's a bit of a mix. On the surface, he may seem like he doesn't want them and only accepts them to save your feelings but secretly treasures them ❤️ I like the idea of him being sentimental toward his s/o because something about it is just cute. It also matches the vibe, like, he's got a very closed-off exterior that you are used to that's meant to hide that adorable and undeniably vulnerable interior that really, really loves you and all of the things you do for him.

[entertext]

HGSN 27-2

Chapter (Japanese)

(Please hit the green thumbs up at the end of the Japanese chapter to show support)

Rough translation by me

P1

Tanaka: There's no such thing as "Nounuki-sama"

Tanaka: The Indou family's ritual has no particular meaning either. Even without something like that, if they'd just left you alone, you would still be on the mountain

Tanaka: That's why the village became peaceful after the mass deaths. You gathered all the impurities on the mountain.

Hikaru, Yoshiki: ....

Hikaru: Then why won't it do any good if I go back to the mountain?

P2

Tanaka: You're nothing compared to what you were back then

Tanaka: You can't go back to being "Nounuki-sama" anymore

Tanaka: Besides, if you've made yourself that weak

Tanaka: there's really no way you could fully take in that huge mass of impurities, is there?

Yoshiki: ...hey, what are you after?

Yoshiki: Cutting off 'Hikaru's head...!! What the hell do you want to do to us...!

P3

Tanaka: I'm not going to do anything

Tanaka: After all, you'll self-destruct on your own sooner or later, won't you?

Yoshiki: "Self-destruct"?...

Tanaka: From where I stand, I really have to hand it to you. An untouchable, invincible being gains an ego and weakens itself.

Tanaka: If something can't be defeated, then let it destroy itself on its own

P4

Yoshiki: "Destroy itself"? There's no way... that something like that...

(Hikaru: I'm going to go back to the mountain)

Yoshiki: ...

Tanaka: My goal is to not let the company use you

Tanaka: So this is all very convenient for me

Tanaka: But before that happens, there's something I'd like you to do

Tanaka: There's a folktale in Kubitachi called "The Farmer's Head" right?

Hikaru: Yeah

P5

Tanaka: A farmer's head falls into a hole on the mountain and a feast is granted in exchange...

Tanaka: Presumably, the real story is that one killed the other and stole their possessions or something, but it's likely that the part about the head disappearing is true.

Yoshiki: (Oh that's right, in the hall...)

(Kouhei: The offered head disappears on the spot

Kouhei: That's why we have carved replacement heads in order to hold funeral services for them in this hall)

Tanaka: Why did a commonplace folk belief like "Unuki-san"

Tanaka: morph into "Nounuki-sama", a violent cult making offerings of severed heads?

Tanaka: Because there actually was a phenomenon where heads disappeared

P6

Tanaka: Even if their wishes went unanswered, that enigma formed the basis for the villagers' belief in their god.

Tanaka: As for why the heads disappeared

Tanaka: I've looked into it

Tanaka: It's because there's a hole

Tanaka: An invisible hole that the villagers have spent so many years offering heads to.

P7

Tanaka: It's likely that's the reason for this region's high number of impurities since ancient times

Tanaka: The hole connects to the other world and brings impurities through it to this side

Hikaru: A hole...

Tanaka: While you were on the mountain, its effects were kept under control, but it's continued to grow in size

Tanaka: At this rate, it'll cause a disaster any time now.

Tanaka: So I'd really like to get that thing closed somehow.

Hikaru: If it's closed, the disaster will be averted?

Tanaka: Pretty much. Whether it's possible is another story though.

P8

Tanaka: If you're going to destroy yourself either way,

Tanaka: Why don't you help me close that hole?

Yoshiki: N-...No way

Yoshiki: We can't trust anything someone like you says. After what you did to 'Hikaru' ...

Tanaka: I see you really care about 'Hikaru'-kun

Yoshiki: ...

P9

Tanaka: But that's a monster in Indou Hikaru's corpse

Tanaka: I wonder if it's really okay for you to keep clinging to Hikaru for so long.

Tanaka: Wouldn't it be better to let go?

Yoshiki: ...He isn't some phantom that appeared in order for me to get over Hikaru's death

Yoshiki: He has his own personality and desires...

P10

Tanaka: So he's simply a different individual, you say

Tanaka: Then why would you go so far

Tanaka: for such a complete stranger?

Yoshiki: ...... ......

Yoshiki: Wh-

Yoshiki: -y

Yoshiki: ...

==

Next chapter: 05/28 (next week)

Twitter Extra: (link)

Extra 2 (link):

Hikaru Doll → Take out the cotton stuffing → Pack in some unknown thing → ?? Doll

[suckerforcate]

This is so exciting!

I love Kate Stewart!

May I request a Kate Stewart x fem reader? Older woman x younger woman ( legal age gap of course)

A one bed trope/ forced proximity/ will they won't they trope.

Reader works closely with Kate Stewart. They have a very caring/ slightly flirtatious dynamic but both are in love with each other and Kate is very protective and possessive over reader and gets jealous when men flirt with reader as reader as regarded as a total catch .

Can be a mixture of fluffy , angsty and smutty😊

I'm so happy Kate is getting the love she deserves!

Pitlochry

Pairing: Kate Lethbridge-Stewart x fem!Reader

Word Count: 4223

Warning: 18+, oral sex

Summary: When you drive to Scotland with Kate and spend the night in a pub where a guy hits on you something in your relationship finally shifts.

A/n: So it's just a hint of the one-bed trope and more of a shared proximity. I also sprinkled a bit of pretend/fake relationship in there. I hope it's what you had envisioned!!! It's a bit longer than I had planned, hence why it took a bit longer. @freshmoneyalmondathlete <3 It's also my first time writing for Kate, so I hope it not totally off-character. I would love a repost, like, or comment <3

■----------------------------------------■

It had been months. Months since this strange sort of dance had started. You both knew there was something, but no one acknowledged it and work was way too time-consuming and hectic to talk about it.

You’d been working for UNIT for some time now, having started there as an exited young scientist just finding out about the wonders of the Universe. And you were good at your job, which helped you quickly work your way up into a bit of a lore important position. You still did mostly lab work, and that was a part you’d never give up. But it was nice to be recognised for your hard work and to be given more responsibility.

More and more often you were right in the middle of the action. A trusted consultant for Kate when hell went loose, and it felt good. To know your opinion was valued by the boss herself. But it was more than that. You admired her, no question about it. What she does and the way she worked for it couldn’t be described as anything else than admirable. But you also couldn’t keep your eyes off her when you were in the same room. She took your breath away in all her smart pantsuits and high heels.

And whether Kate knew about it or she felt similarly, there’d been a sort of charged air around the two of you right from the beginning. It wasn’t unknown for the two of you to flirt even, or maybe especially in life-threatening situations. A way of staying grounded, keeping some light-heartedness to the job was all you could do to stay sane.

You obviously cared for each other immensely, but no one dared to make a step forward. And whenever you thought you’d ask her out something happened. Cybermen came, the earth was nearly invaded, the Doctor showed up. It felt like the Universe itself was against you. At least until now.

Your hard work had led to Kate taking you with her to a call they’d gotten up in Scotland. Someone had apparently seen something that could be connected to a scientifically unexplained phenomenon that Osgood had picked up upon a few days ago. It needed to be looked at and that’s how you found yourself in the passenger seat of a UNIT vehicle next to Kate on the way up to Scotland. It was cold outside. And considering it was November and you were driving up north, that was not surprising. You had thrown a sweater over your long sleeve, but you were still cold.

„Turn the heating up.“ Kate suggested, clearly having registered that you were cold. The way you were practically curled up into the passenger seat and had your arms crossed, it probably wasn’t hard to put one and one together. You turned to look at her and shook your head.

„Too much heating air gives me a headache.“ You explained and looked back out the window. It looked peaceful, just miles and miles of fields and flat land. In the corner of your eye you saw Kate nod in understanding. It was silent for a few seconds before she spoke.

„I have a jacket in the backseat. You can put it on.“ You looked at her and then turned your head around very uncomfortably to look at the backseat. Sure enough there was a cardigan, looking soft and incredibly warm. For a moment you hesitated. Another look at Kate, but she was just smiling softly. It was probably a bad idea and would make you fall even more in love with her. But you were so cold.

So you bent your back awkwardly and reached behind your seat to grab the cardigan. Your shoulder brushed Kate’s and your face was far too close to hers. The sift smell of her perfume filled your nose, and it made your heady dizzy. As soon as your fingers wrapped around the soft fabric of the cardigan you pulled it to the front and sat back normally. With a little bit of fidgeting you put the jacket on. The fabric a little tight around you, but so wonderfully warm. You let out a happy sigh and nuzzled into the cardigan with a soft smile.

„That’s much better, isn’t it?“ Kate said and even though you’d closed your eyes you could hear the smile in her voice. That beautiful smile, the one you wished would always be because of you. The familiar sensation of fluttering butterflies made itself known inside of you. You hummed in agreement and just nuzzled deeper into her cardigan. It smelled exactly like her and that gave you so much comfort.

You felt a tender touch on your cheek, soft fingers brushing over the skin there. Unconsciously you leant into it, humming happily. A warm chuckle, soft like honey made its way through the fog of sleep.

„(Y/n), dear. We’re there.“ The same warm voice said, soft and quiet. Sounding so much like Kate. Suddenly your eyes snap open. It was Kate. You immediately sat up straighter and untangled yourself form the complicated mess you’d brought your limbs into in the seat. You blinked a few times to adjust to the darkness around you, just a little light in the car on around you.

„I remember when I could sit like that.“ Kate chuckled amused as she pulled the car key out of the ignition. You looked at her next to you, still a bit out of it from the sleep. You hadn’t even realised you’d fallen asleep. But that soft, tender touch in your cheeks… You couldn’t stop thinking about it, you craved more of it.

„My old body won’t allow something like that anymore.“ She said, laughing, and before it registered in your brain she had stepped out of the car. You hastily put your shoes back on and in an attempt to quickly get out of the car, nearly fell face-first into the mud. In the last second you caught yourself, albeit not very gracefully. When you looked up you saw Kate peeking around the car from behind and grin at you, eyebrow raised. A bit embarrassed you stuck your tongue out to her and closed the car door. A hearty laugh came from Kate, slightly morphing into that absolutely ridiculous laugh of hers. It wasn’t heard too often around UNIT headquarters it always made your heart warm.

„You’re being mean.“ You said, sounding like a petulant child, but it was clear you were joking. You rounded the car and stepped up next to her, grabbing your bag from the boot.

"And you’re not old.“ You added, the actual reason you’d even started that ridiculous exit from the car. Without waiting for an answer you walked away from the car and into the little inn that Kate had parked in front of. Kate looked after you, as soft smile on her lips and slightly shaking her head. She closed the boot and followed you inside.

The inn really wasn’t big and was more of a Pub with a few rooms than an actual inn. Very Scottish, but cosy and most importantly warm. You could just hope the rooms would be warm as well. There were a few people scattered across the room and an old man behind the bar. You walked up to him and his thick Scottish accent immediately woke you up. Half asleep you wouldn’t have understood a single word he said.

Kate came up next to you, and you looked at her, right in the middle of paying for the room. Room, not rooms. Kate suspiciously eyed the one key you had. You quickly wrapped up with the man and practically shoved her through the room and into a very badly lit hallway with creaky stairs.

„I didn’t understand a single fucking word of what he said.“ You told Kate as you walked up the stairs. The whole Pub had an unmistakable smell of spilled beer to it. „I think he said something about the other rooms all being full. And I think he assumed we were a couple.“ You explained, trying to remember the few words he’d coherently spoken and string them together. You heard a sharp intake of breath behind you and stopped in the last step to look back at her.

„Everything alright?“ You asked a bit concerned, it was hard to make out faces in the near complete dark of the hallway. But you could see Kate nod and wave you off. For a moment you hesitated but figured she’d speak up if something was wrong, so you kept walking. The room was at the end of the hall, and you opened the door easily, though just like the stairs, it creaked a bit.

You stepped inside holding the door open with your foot until you felt Kate hold it. Two steps, and you were in the middle of the room, and you abruptly stopped, resulting in Kate practically walking into you.

„What-…“ She started but immediately got why you stopped. Not only was it fucking freezing in the room, and you shortly thought about sleeping in the much warmer hallway, there was also just one bed. One, quite small bed. Your insides practically fell over themselves, fluttering at the thought of sleeping in that bed with her.

„I’ll sleep on the floor.“ Kate’s words pulled you out of your daze. Turning around to her, an eyebrow raised critically you shook your head. Absolutely not.

„Don’t be ridiculous, your back would kill you.“ Was your simple answer, and you stepped further into the room, rounding the bed and setting your bag down on the right side of the bed. You took Kate’s cardigan off and slipped out of the pullover underneath, leaving you in a long sleeve shirt. It was definitely freezing in the room. You just wanted to put on a thicker sweater on when you see Kate remained standing by the door, just watching you.

„Kate, we are grown people. We can share a bed for two nights.“ You nearly sounded like a scolding mother and that seemed to snap Kate out of it. She walked to her side of the bed and silently started unpacking her bag.

A part of you wishes Kate really would sleep in the floor. It was the reasonable part, the one that this couldn’t end well. The bed was too small, the room to cold. Your body would surely seek warmth in Kate.

„I’ll treat you to dinner downstairs. As compensation for having to sleep in a bed with me.“ Kate said a bit softer again and looked up from her bag, now nearly completely unpacked. You look at her, your pj’s in hand and tilt your head.

„That’s really not necessary, but thank you.“ You knew arguing would get you nowhere with Kate, so you just accepted it. Quickly you finished unpacking your things as well and saw her waiting for you. She was leaned against the wall, hands stuffed into the pockets of her pants. She had taken her blazer off and the pale blue blouse underneath drive you crazy. The upper buttons were opened, and her sleeves were neatly rolled up. The sight alone made your mouth water.

You shook yourself out of it and without thinking put Kate’s cardigan back on. You missed the way Kate looked at you in her jacket and smiled softly, her cheeks ever so slightly flushed. The long sleeve and the cardigan would be too cold for the room, but the bar room had been nice and warm, with the fireplace alight. You walked over to Kate and gave her a smile. Opening the door you gestured for her to step into the hallway. She shot you a smirk and walked past you.

Nothing had changed in the bar room since you’d crossed it to get to your room half an hour ago. The old Scottish man still stood behind the bar, now reading a newspaper. Seven people were spread around the room. Three young women, crouched into a corner chatting and giggling like teenager. Best friends, you assumed. An old, presumably married couple sat at a table by the bar, eating fish and chips. And two men, about your age sat at a high table on the wall opposite the bar. They were just drinking beer, a bag of crisps in front of them.

You simply followed Kate to a table close to the fireplace. Sitting down across from her, your back turned to the warm fire you sighed happily. Kate smiled at you softly and opened one of the menu’s. When she was done looking through it, she turned it around and pushed it to you.

„What will you eat?“ You asked absent-mindedly, while looking through the menu. She leans back in her chair and crosses her legs, running a hand through her blonde hair.

„Fish and Chips and the bitter they have on cask.“ She answered and pulled her wallet out of her bag. She looked ready to stand up and walk to the bar, just waiting for you to decide.

„I’ll have the pie and mash and the lager on cask, please. Thank you.“ You said and closed the menu, putting it back in its holder. She stood up and walked over to the bar to order your food and pay. You were thankful actually, at least you wouldn’t have to talk to the old man again. His accent really was not understandable. You watched her lean on the bar, looking so effortlessly attractive. One hand pushed into her pocket and the other gripping her wallet.

She had one leg behind her other, foot propped up in the tips and tapping on the floor impatiently. It brought out her figure even better, and you shamelessly stared at the way her suit pants clung to her ass. She paid and as you saw her reaching for the two pints in front of her you turned your head away. She placed the beer down in front of you and sat down on her chair again. You blinked your glasses together and spent the time waiting for the food talking about anything but work. A welcome change to your usual conversations.

At some point your mind slipped away, and you barely listened to a word she was saying. Her lips were moving, but the words didn’t hit you. You couldn’t help but stare at her lips, your eyes flickering down the few open buttons of her blouse, a tantalising amount of cleavage exposed for your eye. You were thankful that at some point the food had come and Kate was too preoccupied with it to see where your eyes were directed to.

„What do you want to drink? I’ll buy you one. You already paid for the dinner.“ You said after you had both finished eating and shoved your empty plate away. Without warning, she grabbed your glass and took the last sip of it.

„I like that. I’ll take one of that.“ She said nonchalantly and puts the glass back down. All you could do is nod, your eyes still glued to where her lips had touched the rim of the glass. You grabbed your wallet and headed over to the bar, trying to get your head straight. You ordered two half pints and paid for them.

„I’ve never seen you here before.“ Surprised you turned your head to the side. You saw one of the man from across the bar standing next to you. He was your age, brown curls, a tad taller than you. A slight Scottish accent could be heard in his voice. He actually looked kind of nice. Like someone, you’d be friends with, definitely not someone you’d date. But with men you could always see it in their eyes, he definitely wanted to pick you up. You gave him a polite smile.

„That’s probably because I’m not from around here.“ You said, putting your card back into your wallet and looked back at him, waiting for beers to be ready. He had his eyebrows raised, the question clear on his face.

„London.“ You offered as an answer, and judging by his understanding nod you’d read his question right.

He leaned on the bar, trying a bit too hard to look relaxed. You turned to him fully and grinned, in the corner of your eye you could see Kate's eyes glued to you. A tilt of your head helped you take a look at her. She looked...jealous?

"And what does such a pretty London lady do in a dump like this?" His word shook you out of it, and you looked back at him, chuckling amused.

"I'm afraid, that's classified." He looked a bit taken aback, but he quickly found his smirk again and nodded.

"Classified, huh? What are you, the MI5?" Awfully pleased with, he grinned at you and just at that moment two half pints of Lager were placed in front of you. You took them, shoving your wallet into your jeans and smirked at the man.

"Maybe." You simply reply and walk past him, towards Kate. You missed the dumbfounded look on the man's face and just saw Kate's eyes still trained on you. A hint of possessiveness and jealous still gracing her features. You more assumed than knew that the man would be following you. And when you set down across from Kate he stood right beside the table. You sighed and crossed your legs. Taking a sip of your beer first before giving him any attention.

"Let me give you my number, we would have to talk about your classified work." He said, and the innuendo was clear in his tone of voice and the smug expression on his face. You had to concentrate hard to not roll your eyes. You shot Kate a look and hot an idea.

"Sorry, mate. But I'm already spoken for." You said and looked at Kate in just the right moment to make it clear who you were spoken for. You saw Kate's eyes widen a bit, but for the sake of the moment she pulled herself together.

You did not like the look in the man's face when he eyed Kate. Not at all. He looked at her disparagingly, like he would be a better match for me. And no doubt that's what he thought.

"Come on, how old is she?" He said and that was definitely a mistake. Your little thread of patience you had with men like him ripped in mere seconds. You looked up at him and raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not sure that's any of your business. Besides, she gives better head than you." Well, that effectively shut him up. He gawked at you for a moment, like a lost fish and then retreated back to his table. You snickered amused and sipped on your beer, but when you looked at Kate you didn't see the smirk you had expected.

Her whole demeanour had changed, and her eyes had darkened. The only word you could think of to describe what you saw was hunger. Sure, the two of you had danced around each other for months. And you were quite sure that there was something between you. But this was new.

"Drink up." She said and her tone of voice cut right through you and went straight to your core. A bit perplexed you stared at her, blinking a few times. But there was no patience in her eyes, so you quickly drank the rest of your beer. She stood up and reached out a hand for you to take. You took it and followed her through the pub, past the guy that had hit on you and into the darkened hallway. You went up the stairs, her hand still tightly gripping yours, and towards your room.

Inside the room you were immediately pulled flush against her and soft, warm lips pressed against yours. Considering the hunger and possessiveness you'd seen in Kate's eyes downstairs the kiss was surprisingly tender. But that was Kate for you, full of care and gentleness. It was what made her such an excellent leader. She always kept a clear head and could lead and make aliens falter with one look. But she never lost the care and empathy she felt for the world. For her officers and her team. For you.

Instinctively your hand reached up and tangled itself into her honey-blonde hair, soft and silky. You’d wanted to touch it for so long, and it nearly made your legs give out, the way she kissed you, so fiercely and yet so loving. When you both felt like you might suffocate if you don’t take a breather she pulled back and rested her forehead against yours.

„I don’t like men flirting with you.“ She admitted and nearly sounded embarrassed, like she had no right to feel that way. And you assumed in some ways she didn’t, but you wanted her to feel jealous. You wanted her to want you for herself.

„I figured as much. You were quite jealous.“ A soft giggle bubble out of Kate as you said that and the sound was so unfamiliar, so unusual for her, it made your heart stop for a moment. And with the way your heart warmed and everything inside you felt like you just wanted to hear her make that sound again, there was no denying your feelings anymore. You were head over heels, absolutely stupidly in love with her.

Gently you let your hand wander from her hair into her neck and played with the soft hair there. You felt her shiver slightly and a soft sigh escaped her. Her hands gripped your hips a bit tighter, her fingers digging into the material of her own cardigan draped around you.

"So, you think I give better head than that douchebag, huh?" She whispered, but there was a hint of a challenge in her tone, and you chuckled in responds. Slightly pulling back you were able to look her in the eyes. With a mischievous smirk on your lips you spoke.

"Why don't you show me?" She answered with a grin and suddenly her hands were all over you. Tugging the cardigan off your shoulders, pulling your shirt out of your jeans and pushing you back towards the bed. With a slight oof and a giggle you fell back onto the sheets, and you quickly kicked your shoes off. The sight in front of you made heat pool between your legs. Kate easily fell to her knees, settling between your legs in front of the bed. Her slender fingers made quick work of the button on your jeans.

"You'd like that, huh?" Kate practically husked, and it was enough to tell you that she was just as affected by all this. Eagerly you lifted your hips when she hooked her fingers under them hem of your jeans. Tantalisingly slow she pulled them down your legs, exposing more and more of your skin. From up in the bed you had a delicious view right into her blouse and the soft pale curve of her breast drove you crazy. Before you knew it your knickers were gone as well and strong hands pushed your thighs apart, digging wonderfully into your flesh. Your head fell back onto the mattress, and you just heard her hum.

"You're dripping, darling." She commented and that alone nearly made you burst. You needed her, now. One of your hands made its way back into her hair, impatiently pushing her closer to where you so desperately wanted her. She chuckled, deep and warm and the sound went up your spine and through your whole body like honey. The next thing you heard was your own moan as her tongue trailed through your folds and your fingers tightened their grip in her hair.

"Shit, Kate." You gasped. She was good at this, really good. No doubt better than the guy from earlier. Her tongue on you felt like heaven, and you asked yourself how you'd been able to resist her all these months. Your hips lifted up involuntarily, and you ground against her. Desperate for more, for her. Her hands held you steadily in place, fingers massaging the soft flesh of your thighs. Gasps and moans filled the room when she sucked on your clit, a wonderful mix of hungry and gentle that made your head spin. Your free hand gripped the bedsheets desperately. When you came your back arched off the bed and your thighs wanted to squeeze shut. But Kate held them open, spreading them for her to ride you through it and clean every bit of you up.

The smug smile on her lips when she pulled back and looked up at you made you laugh. Breathless but absolutely content. Gently to untangled your fingers from her hair and cupped her cheek.

"Come here." You said, smiling and pulled her up on top of you. One leg wrapped around her, you pulled her flush against you. Your thumb tenderly trailed over her bottom lip.

"You were definitely better than that douchebag." You confirmed and chuckled at her happy face, she looked awfully pleased with herself. Swiftly you pulled her into a kiss and switched your positions on the bed.

"Your turn."

The small, single bed definitely wasn't a problem anymore.

[mycolorscheme]

tw suicide i guess but it's from a research viewpoint mainly and also abuse within the nest. also this connects to the sunshine court bear with me

i wrote this whole essay a year ago on suicide clusters in schools and it was focused on high schoolers but a lot of my research came from adolescents as a whole and some of my sources were about college students and i learned a lot about how different factors can create suicidal behavior such as academic pressure, athletic pressure, etc and the combination of many factors only exacerbates this which is all pretty self explanatory but suicide clusters is the phenomenon of when a couple suicides leads to a domino effect of suicides and suicidal attempts. a mainstream pop culture example would be heathers (except the initial suicides were murder coverups) but on a more local scale this happens at a lot of schools and my high school was an example of it. part of why this happens is because it is (unfortunately) common for people to have suicidal ideation and tendencies, but once someone around these people commits suicide, it begins to feel like more of a tangible reality. in addition, being in an environment where even one suicides or death has occurred can often be very depressing and soul crushing and horrible and decrease people's mental states further.

as someone who did all this research and wrote a 10 page paper on this stuff, reading the sunshine court was incredibly interesting. these ravens are ultimately so traumatized and brainwashed beyond belief. they do not realize that they have been indoctrinated and have been part of a cult and they spent so long without being able to talk to anyone who could tell them how messed up the nest is.

like. they were not able to communicate with their families from the day they entered the nest. they were living on 18 hour schedules. they did not leave the nest unless necessary or interact with people outside of their team or ever really seen sunlight. that is beyond absolutely insane.

and their king, riko, kills himself (ironically also in a murder coverup, bringing it back to heathers). and then they are sent home to people they haven't talked to in years. and they don't know how to adjust back to normal life.

so of course they are lashing out. and it does not surprise me that they are trying to end their lives.

and then another one of their teammates kills themselves. and then another one. and then another one tries but is found before it is too late. and it creates this chain of suicides because what do they have to live for if not their team. they are a raven though and through, and even after they graduate and leave the nest, they never really leave. so they all get placed in suicide watch.

and then they are called back for the next season. and that is the worst thing that could possibly have happened to them in terms of their mental health. to make matters worse, they have a new coach who i cannot imagine they will instantly trust. and at the same time, their old coach that they were probably so frightened of but felt like they needed is nowhere to be found. and to add on, the entire power structure of the ravens has been dismantled, and they will all fight to be at the top.

and yes a lot of them are horrible people but a lot of it is a byproduct of the environment they were forced to survive in. some were already violent while others turned to violence when it became needed. they need time to heal and to process and to come to terms with the fact that what they endured was not normal. that playing a sport at a collegiate level, even for the chance to go pro, should not mean completely devoting your entire life to the sport and nothing but the sport. that it is crucial for their mental wellbeing to experience life and relax and have fun and eat junk food every once in a while.

and while i'm so glad jean is out of there and is able to start healing, my heart goes out to the ravens who are still stuck in the nest. because yes, they have the choice to leave, but they do not have the mental capacity to even realize that that is an option.

but i hope in the next book we see them slowly start to break. that the summer they had returning to normalcy alerted something inside of them deep down that what the nest is and how the ravens operate is so fundamentally wrong and so, so messed up. and i hope that the new coach isn't a bastard. but i don't have high hopes about that. to be completely frank.

all in all, the phenomenon of suicide clusters is a big issue, and i hope that at least one person found it interesting to read about the sunshine court and the ravens through the lens of suicide clusters. if you ever need mental support, there are more resources now than ever. your life is worth so much more than you could ever even comprehend. every little dot on this planet makes a difference. i love you all.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s3 episode 20 thoughts

dare i say it, once again… new favorite episode??

okay, my previous favorite episode was an ENTIRELY different direction from this one, but i’d say there should be one best episode for serious stuff and one best episode for the silly!!! and this takes the silly crown!! and tbh i can't make an actual hard and fast rating anyway because there are so many great things to choose from- but this is amongst them, for me, in terms of legendary episodes!

please, join me on this ride, which i enjoyed each second of, and will need to someday rewatch without pausing every 0.5 seconds to jot something i noticed down. the live experience begins beneath the cut.

it’s been 84 years…. (3 days since i’ve seen an episode)

ooo, this sounds interesting! is scully going to work with an author?? are we gonna learn more about the things that she reads?? this is prime content to a person like me

stars…. space ship….. filled with tubes and wires and other such things…… just kidding!!! it’s a guy working on some electrical stuff. whilst two people drive by!! i thought they were mulder and scully at first but they are not

“um, i don’t want to scare you, but i think i’m madly in love with you” says this guy who is not mulder but actually named harold to this girl who is not scully but is actually named chrissy. OH! and this is the first date. so that was a weird thing to say. i thought it was quite sweet at first but that changes things for sure.

GASP! UFO be upon them. creatures are coming out to get them. she asks what they are and he says “how the hell should i know?” ooo ooo i know! they are aliens 👽 and then the two fall on top of each other like they are knocked out… and the aliens drag them away???? 

until a king kong looking fellow rolls up. very puppet-y. and the aliens don’t know what this creature is either!!! and also ask what that thing is and the response is “how the hell should i know?” haha i see what you did there... out aliening the alien

bum bum bum bum…. (<- my attempt at recreating the noise of the intro)

now, what was that? i'm stuck on the king kong and godzilla love child puppet….

scan up on mulder’s iconic poster!!! and a guy is here who is yet again not mulder. his name is mr. chung and mulder will NOT talk to him… oooh, what is their beef…?

mr. chung is saying he always felt alienated on this planet, who can even imagine actual aliens! and he has a point there.

oh! scully is a big fan of this fellow, which is why she agreed to talk to this guy!!! he calls her beautiful, which is true, but time and place 

so he isn’t even interested in aliens, but his publisher said he should write a book on the matter. he is going to create a NEW genre: non fiction science fiction, a gimmick that will give him money. this seems somewhat disappointing to scully, who must be a believer in artistic integrity, but i find his honesty refreshing.

she wants him to tell the truth, but apparently he spent 3 months in kass county where all this stuff went down, and NO ONE could tell him what actually happened. the truth is just as subjective as reality. which sounds like something i learned in history class. and, it helps explain why everyone with an alien story starts with some variation of, "i know this sounds crazy, but"...

so he wants HER version of hearing of the case. also he touches her arm and... let's slow down a little there, mr. chung.

OHHH we are seeing a story told in flashbacks!!!! narrated by scully!! how wonderful!!!

this girl is suffering from “missing time”, a phenomenon we have come to know well here on this blog. also her clothes are inside out and she has signs of abuse. not looking great for her.

apparently mulder prefers the term “abductee” to “experiencer”, which mr. chung has valid disagreements with. we go on, however.

this poor girl is seeing aliens that are not there and her nose is bleeding. WAIT! it’s the guy from before! harold and chrissy! he comes to her window to say he did everything he could but she rejects him, thinking he had drugged and assaulted her. yikes.

harold is testifying that he was abducted by aliens, but no one believes him. he stuck to his story UNTIL our agents arrived!

(MULDER SAYS SOMETHING VERY OUT OF POCKET HERE ABOUT GOING TO PRISON BUT LET'S KEEP MOVING)

despite this announcement of presumed prison time, mulder brings chrissy in for questioning. asking her if she has all the symptoms of “post abduction disorder”, which she confirms, while scully rolls her eyes with great force in the background. and he talks the girl’s parents into letting her do hypnosis.

“what is your opinion of hypnosis?”, mr. chung asks scully, which is something i also have been dying to know! i mean, we saw her do a little bit before, but it didn’t seem to be a positive experience. she says it has therapeutic value, but has never been proven to enhance memory; it even makes memory worse. a very balanced and doctor-ly answer! 

LMAO scully is so cute… mr. chung mentions another book he wrote and she proclaims it “one of the greatest thrillers ever written” <- STOP I LOVE HER SHE IS SUCH A NERRRRD 😭😭

mr. chung said the FBI knew nothing about how hypnosis worked back during the MK ULTRA days… and he is fascinated by the idea of a person’s consciousness being transformed by listening to words. admittedly very fascinating! you could probably say the same about meditation, no?

(but he speaks to the power of storytelling, i realize now in hindsight! how we find ourselves wrapped up in the tales of things that never happened, how it fills us with sorrow or joy! how fascinating! i see what you did there, writers!)

cutscene to hypnotizing chrissy. who is seeing aliens. she is on a space ship wearing a fit that looks very similar to a lady gaga chromatica era performance, but it has tubes attached to her. harold is in a very similar contraption!!!!

she says the aliens are arguing without moving their mouths and she hears the lead alien in her head saying it’s for the good of her planet. and he is stealing her memories? um. for what purpose...

scully is serving looks in the corner while this goes down, looking mad as hell and very good. she says chrissy's abduction story seems a little TOO typical… and i have to agree! but mulder says no, there are TWO people with the same story! they can't both be lying, surely!

LMAOOOO they play with censoring the dude who comes in and yells at them… “well, of course he didn’t actually say ‘bleeped’” 

(BAHAHA i’m loving this insight into how scully’s memories operate. so this angry man is named detective manners)

“you still gonna hold the boy?” “oh, you bet your blankety-blank bleep i am” <- i am a simple woman, and an actor delivering these lines with a straight face whilst surrounded by other actors keeping a very straight face is going to make me cackle. look at her looking so bored while he says that. i’m howling!!!!

anyway, harold has a very different story on what went down that night, that did not seem to involve gaga-inspired fits, but instead they were both placed in electrified cages. while another alien in a nearby cage smokes a cigarette. he seems to be what i would call “an unbothered king”

in this story, harold claims that he will protect chrissy and never let anything happen to her, and of course something immediately happens to her while he hides in the corner like a baby. lmao.

and this alien is talking in english! not telepathically! he keeps repeating “this is not happening” until harold ALSO gets taken by the thing that took chrissy. 

mulder is trying to figure out what is going on, but his predictions aren’t lining up with what happened to harold. scully is pacing and looking pissed, and again, very pretty.

“you know when you’re a kid, and you tore the legs off a bug for no reason?”, asks harold (cutscene to mulder’s face with visible confusion) LMAOOOOOOO

scully getting to business: did you engage in consensual sexual intercourse that night? she is not messing around! she's had it up to here with the shenanigans of harold and chrissy!

harold is very very quiet until he says that her father will kill him if he finds out!!! gasp!!! confirmation!!!

so is this whole story just… a cover up??? for fornication???

scully vs mulder time. “so what if they’re having sex?” he asks, which is funny coming from him; and anyway, he claims it happened BEFORE the alien stuff went down. but she thinks they’re traumatized, and that is more likely than alien abduction. 

until detective manners bursts in and claims he has an eyewitness to what went down! he used more blanks and bleeps and again the straight faces killllll me

and ALL OF THEM telling their stories start with “i know how crazy this all sounds” just as mr. chung had described LMAOOO. now who tf is this dude who says he was an eyewitness?

(i’m taking soooo many notes because i keep laughing and noting things. which is a good problem to have!)

this dude, named roky, spent 48 hours straight writing down what he saw, and said that by looking at this, they are putting their lives in danger. so okay. better be juicy.

he says his garage door opened up, a car pulled in, and a man told him some facts about venus. he says they put him in a trance! and that they were in all black……

mr. chung says that myths of men in black garments are nothing new!!! so take THAT, men in black legends, you are one of many.

back at roky's place, the other dude in black says jimmy carter thought he saw a UFO once, but it was just venus. roky is scandalized, grabs his paper, and states that he is a REPUBLICAN.

(omg jimmy carter is going to be 100 in a few months god willing…..)

this man in black is saying that roky saw VENUS and nothing else, just VENUS. and not to tell anyone he saw anything but VENUS or he will die. and then the car drives away. 

so after that build up, he gives mulder the manuscript, and says he is packing up and leaving. bye bye roky. hope you find some peace.

mulder is reading this story to scully who is sprawled on the bed, looking, again, angry and hot. it seems he is describing that earlier puppet-y action.

oh! roky was the electrical guy from the very beginning!!! he hides in his truck but the king kong looking fellow says “be not afraid” and that he is needed for the good of the earth? what is with the good of the earth here.

cutscene to a very baffled looking scully laying in bed as mulder continues to read LMAOOOOOO

AND ROKY’S STORY SAYS HE WENT NOT TO OUTER SPACE, BUT INNER SPACE HELPPP!!!! now, inner space is towards the core, if you, like me, were unaware. also, king kong godzilla dude’s name is Lord Kinbote, so jot that down.

mr. chung says he has a copy of roky’s manifesto- which was sent to his publisher? and LMAOOO the story is disturbing both for its soul orgy scenes and the fact that it is written as a screenplay 

well, surely your partner didn’t believe any of it, mr. chung states! “mulder’s had his share of peculiar notions” is scully's carefully worded reply... LMAOOO 

cutscene to her sitting up from the bed and calling him nuts <- LMAOOOOO but HE says that whatever roky saw may have triggered some delusions, and that the only story that doesn’t add up is chrissy’s, so he is calling to get her re-hypnotized, much to scully’s indignation!

so back to the hypnosis. and chrissy is now mirroring harold's story exactly. oh! she says the people who took them are from the air force?? so where did the gaga slay outfits go... 

the air force men are arguing in front of her. and then they say to “rinse her out”. saying it is for the good of her country. and stealing her memories!

so WHO is doing the real memory stealing here….. the aliens or the government?? an age old question!!! one that is at the heart of this series.

scully and mulder fight over what is going on, and he thinks that this might have nothing to do with aliens, until detective manners shows up with news that a crazy blankety blank claims to have an ALIEN BODY!!

(what if it’s a raccoon with mange…)

again, the man recounting this story begins with “i know how crazy this is going to sound”, but then says he wants to be abducted by aliens. well! i’m sure that’s a sexual thing i don’t care to unpack.

cutscene to mr. chung interviewing this same man, who wishes to go where finding a job is not a requirement. he was looking in a field for UFOs. and when he called the authorities upon spotting one, the agents show up!!

he says that scully was a man dressed as a woman but not pulling it off??? RUDE AS HELL! jail for 10,000 years. "HER HAIR WAS A LITTLE TOO RED, YOU KNOW?" LMAOOOOO and mulder was the “tall, lanky one” with a blank expression. well yeah that is an accurate depiction.

AND ACCORDING TO THIS GUY'S ACCOUNT, WHEN MULDER SEES THE BODY, HE SHRIEKS LIKE A STARTLED SQUIRREL I’M CRYINGGGG. so scully says to wrap this body up!

BUT THEN SHE GRABS HIM AND SAYS TO NEVER TELL ANYONE HE SAW THIS I’M CRYINGGGG... that had to be such a silly scene to film 

okay, seeing the part about subjective truths now. this is so funny... why is this loser making scully a hater in his version!!!

she’s PISSED to hear he claims she said this LMAOOO and that is ridiculous!! they even let him view the autopsy!!

so mulder takes this weirdo’s camera and records the autopsy?? scully cuts his brain open. and the tape ends up on late night television LMAOOOO

SCULLY IS SO EMBARRASSED THAT SHE IS ON THIS ALIEN HOAX AUTOPSY TAPE... I’M CRYING SOMEONE SAVE HER!!! and the host of whatever show they end upon is STUPENDOUS YAPPI FROM THE CLYDE BRUCKMAN EPISODE!!!! i'm howlingggg

she’s mad that whoever got the film edited out all the important scientific findings!!! like the two layers of skin!!!

wait. it’s a zipper. this is a dead guy in an alien suit. LMAOOOOOOOOO

the weird UFO cameraman kid is ill after realizing it was an ordinary dead guy, and scully looks deeply pained as he runs away to get sick LMAOOO

so: who is this dead guy? he was in the air force! and his name is robert. but who arrives but more people from the air force!! are they here to bury him?? or question the agents…

the folks from the air force want robert back, so she has to break the news that he is dead, and being kept for investigation into kidnapping. can they see him? scully is like yeah sure but mulder says no!!! but you CAN talk to the other AWOL guy we brought in. GASP!! a bluff!!! and it works!! from this they learn there is another missing guy!

LMAOOOO except it doesn’t go as smoothly as intended, and mulder is all “hmm he was here a few minutes ago… guess he’s still AWOL… anyway wanna see the body?” I’M CRYING THIS MANNNN IS SO RIDICULOUS 

but bad news: the body is gone. 

cameraman UFO guy is sitting on his floor watching the autopsy tape. when in bursts… the men in black from the earlier garage scene!!!! they knock him out. 

he claims mulder slapped him back to reality. and that he ALSO threatened him... me when i lie.

so mulder doesn’t have the tape. but when he drives home a fully naked man is walking about in the woods. it’s the other missing lieutenant, jack!! he is repeating “this is not happening” in the same voice as the alien as before!!!!! HUH WHAT IS GOING ON?

mulder takes jack to eat. he claims to have piloted the "UFO", and that all the abductions are military stuff, and at the base the abductees are messed with mentally, until they come out convinced they were probed by aliens. 

well okay, if its all the government, than what abducted YOU, jack? he isn’t sure about anything at all anymore, even if he exists. until who walks in... but the military!!

wait, mulder points out, it can’t all be fake- who was the third alien? jack seems to know him by name- lord kinbote. HUH?

and mr. chung heard a story about that same night from the cook at the restaurant! apparently mulder ordered sweet potato pie? huh, that’s interesting. and he kept ordering more and more pies with each question he asked the chef. LMAOOOO I just KNOW that scene was hard to film!!!! scenes where people eat always make me wonder how many times they had to have that damn bite of pie. 

but he claims there was no jack, nor any air force personnel at all. just a hungry mulder. again, so what is the truth...

mr. chung points out that scully doesn’t seem too phased to learn about all the contradictions in this story, and she says well no, not after what happened next. because when he got back to the motel, the men in black were in her room, going through her stuff! they claim she went to get some ice. he’s got 'em at gunpoint, screaming WHERE IS SHE!!! all protective, okay i see you. but she really did go to get some ice???

okay… man in black says that some alien encounters are engineered by the government and then exposed to discredit truth seekers. and mulder counters, well, people say the men in black also do purposefully strange things, so that anyone describing them sounds crazy! they proceed to… try and hypnotize him?

BUT IT’S ALEX TREBEK WHO IS DOING THE HYPNOTIZING???? LMAOOOOO HAS HE BEEN THE QUIET MAN IN BLACK THIS WHOLE TIME??

mr. chung is GAGGED, and wants to know if it WAS alex trebek, but sadly scully cannot confirm, for has no memory of this!! 

she woke up the next morning to mulder in her room….? and mr. chung is also gagged to hear this. me too tbh like did he just sleep on the couch? well we know that is how he sleeps at home so i guess i'm not shocked.

mulder’s trying to explain that she didn’t just "let him in" last night, but detective manners calls and says they found a bleeping UFO.

and what is it but…. a plane!! a secret plane!! and who are they carrying away on stretcher but the missing airmen, jack and robert???? SO HOW DID THEY DIE!

mr. chung puts his pen down, baffled, and scully points out that this story may not have a lot of closure, but it’s more than some of their other cases, which is funny because it is true. and she’s playing with her earrings and it’s so cute.

cutscene to mr. chung typing at his place. until a shadow approaches and he holds a tiny gun!!!! he is ready for a showdown but it’s… mulder at the door?

WAIT how does chung recognize him… did scully show him pictures i'm crying

mulder is in chung's apartment, asking him to not write the book, because it will do a disservice to a field that has always struggled to maintain credibility. we can’t understand these alternate realities yet!!! well. compelling argument... but mr. chung needs a paycheck. 

OH! and mulder suspects that the book is a “covert agenda” of the military industrial complex. always theories upon theories with this guy...

mr. chung says the book WILL be written, but he needs an explanation from mulder: what really happened to those kids on that night?

his answer: how the hell should i know?

(it was so perfect, i thought the episode would end right here)

mr. chung says he has deadlines, and mulder looks very sad, very previously neglected shelter dog rizz, and walks out. back to mr. chung’s furious typing. 

okay, so the cameraman now works for the electrical company roky worked for. because roky moved to california, preaching on purification and the inner earth and core enlightenment. right right right makes sense.

cutscene to scully reading the finished book by mr. chung!!! she is fictionalized as “diane” who is “noble of spirit and pure of heart” but “nevertheless a federal employee” LMAOOOO

and mulder is “renard muldrake” LMAOOOOO that is such a funny name... he's watching something in bed shirtless as his fictionalized self is being described- “a ticking time bomb of insanity” AND HE’S WATCHING THE BIGFOOT TAPES BAHAHAHAHA

chrissy now is an environmental advocate and harold still loves her but it isn’t required. aww harold :(

mr. chung ends by saying that we are not alone in this universe, but in our own way, we are all alone.

NEW BEST EPISODE CONTENDER???

this feels like one of those posts where people make up a bunch of information and then it all gets proven wrong so it is described as a "net zero information gain" bahaha

but don't get me wrong, i don't fully understand what happened, but i loved it. i was laughing, i was enjoying seeing the subjectivity of one story to the next, i was enjoying scully and chung time, and despite all the silly, we still got clues on the whole "is it aliens or the government" thing. and sure, maybe it doesn't make immediate sense, but you have to ponder these matters to learn what is at their heart!

so what DID we learn? well, some alien cases might be the government! but i guess that is still a "might", so maybe we can't truthfully say we LEARNED it. we learned that scully is a big fan of mr. chung!!! we learned that mulder is fiercely protective of his line of work from all his years of being ridiculed! and that he watches the famous bigfoot tape for fun and also maybe like sweet potato pie? it was unconfirmed.

i really enjoyed the playing with perspective, seeing how one character saw things, and then another. and seeing mulder and scully threaten that dweeb was so funny because it was so out of character and had to be silly to shoot.

and i thought it was impressive how it managed to tie back to the big alien and government mystery while still making me laugh so hard. how many past episodes can be analyzed through the lens of certain things being faked for exposure? and what REALLY happened to those airmen? we still don't know if mulder's convo with jack even happened! and we never will!

i came to appreciate the company of mr. chung immensely, even though i thought he was gonna be creepy after calling scully beautiful and touching her arm, but i suppose that he was just a genuinely sweet fellow. you can't blame me for being suspicious after some of the things she gets put through, but i'm sure that if i picked one of his books off the shelf, i, like scully, would be a fan.

overall, i am deeply pleased, and would love to give this a rewatch sometime when i am not taking notes so i could appreciate the pacing in more detail. man, season 3 has really been killing it, huh? and i'm nearing the end!!

[valenschmidt]

Thanks for answering my ask! Yes, that's very true, Ryan has been consistently hated/viewed with suspicion and skepticism for years, so the majority of buddie fandom (who are Oliver stans) wouldn't want to ship him with Oliver. I distinctly remember one particular post (in Ryan's tag) a year or two ago that was like, "ugh if buddie goes canon i feel sorry for oliver having to kiss that man" 🙄

Lol yes I guess we have to thank bt shippers and their OTT vitriol for turning the tide somewhat. It's been nice to see a recent influx of vocal Eddie/Ryan fans join the fandom. So refreshing and entertaining.

Yes also I remember the super cute bts vids that popped up during/toward the end of s6, and some people tagging positively about Ryan (albeit begrudgingly!). But definitely a lot more people were on edge about rpf compared to now.

Ooooh so about Oliver being single, that's what I thought too! But someone else I sent an ask(?) to a while ago said that he didn't actually say anything concrete in his insta live, and that he is still with his gf 🤔 does anyone have any further confirmation either way? I'd love to know!

"this happens quite a lot when ships are about to go canon. People start projecting the ship onto the actors, especially when chemistry is REALLY huge " - this is a really interesting phenomenon you've pointed out!

No provblem anon! I love receiving asks!!

YES!!! I completely understand why people were really mad back then, especially black people and I also understand if there are still black people who haven't quite forgiven him and it's totally valid, because what he did was not ok (even if he never said that word he was still trying to justify his then wife's actions and that should have been a big no no) the problem is that people let it get a tad too far and spreading things that were NOT true to new fans in the recent years out of anger, making him seen like a terrible person who is a racist and hates black people when that is not true... Aisha and Angela were really mad back then but they both clearly have forgiven him (since Angela invited him to his anniversary party and Aisha to his wedding) and he has never done anything remotely similar again so I think he truly changed and has become better so I really believe people have started to see that and the bt being awful to him probably was a changing point to most of the fandom (not all because some still hate him) but well you can't change someone's views on people changing...

Also yes anon! A lot were completely against it calling it awful and whatnot and now are the biggest ryliver shippers (and getting viral over it when less than 6 months ago they would cancel you) and taking everything as ryliver signs but whatever I just hope they don't take things too far

To the Oliver thing... I watched that interview live and I'm 100% sure he said he's single but I can't for the life of me find a clip of the interview (if anyone finds it please send it to me!!!) But I remember that he said he was single and then kind of shaded his ex (lol) so yeah

As for the last thing... yup not many notice but it happens quite a lot. Just like how actors tend to fall in love with eachother (which doesn't happen all the time but it happens) in fandom it also happens that they believe they fall in love. Take heartstopper for example... Kit and Joe plan Nick and Charlie who are very in love but in reality they're just very good friends but people insist on shipping them or the Bridgerton actors that play Colin and Penelope as well... people project the feelings of their characters into their real life personalities because of the chemistry the actors have together. It's hard to comprehend the idea of acting so close to someone and play lovers and have so much chemistry but not falling in love

Wow now that was quite a lot 🤣

Sorry anon I got carried away

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

A raggedy Ann/Andy reader sounds fun with some characters from the Barbie movie! A rag doll is a doll after all they just have more things they can do like being very flexible

Ohh I love raggedy ann! Tbh I've had a hc that other dolls/action figures can also inhabit Barbieland if their owner played with them alongside their Barbie toys.

They're rare but they do coexist with the Barbies and Kens!

........

Stereotypical Barbie (Ann!Reader)

At first, learning that a new type of doll was living in Barbieland bewildered her.

You're not like any Barbie she's ever seen before, with you being made entirely of cloth with yarn hair and a triangular nose.

Given how you've been around since 1915, you're stunned by how far dolls have evolved since then.

You're well-liked among the Barbies, although of course many of them had questions about what you could do as a rag doll.

For starters, your plastic-free body gives you more flexibility and freedom they couldn't even imagine having.

You never have to worry about breaking anything!

While you're susceptible to tearing, you know how to sew yourself back up.

Does it scare Stereo!Barbie sometimes when you suddenly produce a needle to fix a loose stitch in your arm? Sure.

But she's extremely accepting and welcoming.

She even invites you to sleepovers during girls' night where you learn more about the Barbies and listen to their gossip.

When she starts having her existential problems, you let her hug you and reassure her she's still the prettiest doll you've ever had the honor of meeting.

Beach Ken (Andy!Reader)

He doesn't usually pay much attention to other dolls aside from Stereotypical Barbie (and occasionally his buddy Allan).

But seeing a new non-Mattel doll enter the scene did pique his interest! Especially since you were the first to ask him why he was staring at her.

He always wonders what your job is...even though you're constantly reminding him you're just a kid.

When he eventually gets it, he'll try to show you the ropes of Beach, trying to act like a cool older brother figure(tm).

Part of him hopes that Barbie will see how sweet he is with kids and another hopes it'll make the other Kens jealous that they're not friends with a cool doll like yourself.

However like Film!Andy you do have a feisty attitude, always rolling your eyes when you see him gushing over her and making a fool out of himself.

Sometimes you think he's trying too hard to impress her.

Yet you have a softer side that comes out after Barbieland is taken back by the girls, and you comfort Ken by saying you did like all the cowboy stuff he brought back (and only the cowboy stuff).

You made the mistake of asking him about horses as he just infodumps random facts for the next ten minutes.

But you finally accepted him as your brother.

Weird Barbie (Ann!Reader)

When you first appeared in Barbieland, you were confused as to why all the dolls here weren't made of cloth like you.

You felt like you were misplaced, and eventually learned about Weird Barbie and sought advice from her.

She explains that your owner in the real world must've either played with you alongside their Barbie toys or shelved you in a collection of them.

Regardless, she assures you it's not a rare phenomenon and it's nothing to freak out over.

You just so-happened to be closer to Barbieland society than most non-Mattel dolls.

She lets you crash at her place anytime you want, and you get to meet all the other outcasted/discontinued dolls who lived with her.

They're curious about you and love how you're flexible enough to do just about anything!

If any of them are feeling sad, you'll give them hugs that help them feel better instantly.

Weird Barbie thinks you're cool 100%.

Plus, you're nice and clearly had manners as you didn't call her "weird" behind her back or to her face.

[xf-cases-solved]

S1E14: Gender Bender

Case: In what is arguably one of the most "why did you write this??" plots so far, our dynamic duo (per Mulder's request, I might add) investigate the deaths of five victims who appear to have, like... been fucked to death? Or something?

Actually I have to interrupt my own summary here, bc I just looked up the Wikipedia page (yes, bc I was trying to remember the state, shut up), and Glen Morgan is apparently quoted as saying he wanted "an episode with more of a sexy edge." How that ended up being this particular episode, I cannot say. That is an X-File in and of itself.

But I digress. People are dying of mb really high levels of pheromones caused by super mind-blowing sex. Sure. Also no one is sure if this killer is male or female. (They somehow manage to not even entertain the idea that any of the victims might have been gay, which I thought was an impressive feat of elephant avoidance.)

ANYWAY. Their investigation leads them to Massachusetts, where a bunch of sci-fi not-Amish people are chilling out doing not-Amish people things. Stuff kind of just snowballs from there. Mulder jumps down into the not-Amish people's ritual cellar with no backup and then proceeds to reprimand Scully for being reckless; Scully (for the first, but unfortunately not last time) almost bangs someone bc she is being manipulated due to some supernatural phenomenon; I laugh A LOT alone in my work office bc I had forgotten the stupid twist ending; and Nicholas Lea is a starving artist who has to take the roles he's offered if he ever wants to be bumped up to recurring character status. Sigh. Hustling the club scene used to be so simple...

Does someone die in the cold open: Yes. He is fucked to death. Or something.

Does Mulder present a slideshow: Yes! Of dead people! Who were fucked to death! Or something!

Does the evidence survive the investigation: The evidence doesn't even stay on this planet.

Whodunit: A horny alien cosplaying as a gender fluid Amish person. No, seriously.

Convictions: Zip.

Did they solve it: No. This is my very first explicit no with no qualifiers. They 1. did not figure out the cause of death definitively, 2. did not apprehend the suspect, 3. lost literally all of their evidence, and 4. the government wasn't even hiding anything this time, they just got outsmarted by some horny aliens and were left with nothing. In fact, I bet they actually know less now than when they started. Failure from top to bottom, guys, good work.

[how do i determine if a case is solved? check the scale here: x]

THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY: Anxiously clenching your butthole while crossing your fingers and praying that your faves don't say anything TOO problematic. Are you educated in the systematic inequalities facing minorities in the world? Are you aware of how socially accepted language and behaviors have evolved over time to become more inclusive and less prejudiced? Do you also happen to be watching a show that was made pre-21st century, and "oh god, are they doing an episode that revolves around *gender*? Oh Christ. Oh no. Oh God"? Never fear! Anxiously clenching your butthole while crossing your fingers and praying that your faves don't say anything TOO problematic is here!

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Get clenchin'!

***

General Total Stats:

(green means stat has changed since last ep; red means new stat added to list)

Total Cases *Definitively* Solved So Far: 6 (streak ended. brutally)

Total Number of "Mulder/Scully, it's me" phone calls: 1

Total Number of Times Scully Has Conveniently Not Seen Something Crucial: 4

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Been in Mortal Danger: 5

Total Number of Times Scully Has Been in Mortal Danger: 4 (upped it another half point, bc i don't thiiiink the guy coercing her intended to put her life in danger. he just ("just") wanted to sexually assault her, but also apparently fucking those guys kills you, so. another toss up)

Total Number of Sexually Charged, Uncomfortably intimate, and/or Flirty Moments Between Friendly Coworkers: 8 (for an episode that was meant to have a "sexy edge," it was deeply unhorny all around, even between our good good coworkers. they should have brought back that horny fire expert from episode 12 to bring up the heat, pun not intended)

Total Number of Autopsies Scully Has Performed On Screen: 1

Total Number of Times Scully Plays Doctor: 1

Total Number of Times Mulder Talks to an Informant: 5

Total Number of Times People Making Out in a Car Are Hurt or Killed: 2 (when i made that stat, part of me was like "mb i am misremembering how often that happens, and it won't even come up that much," and then it happened in the very next episode)

Total Number of Nosebleeds: 4

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Tasted/Sniffed/Touched Something Questionable Without Following Proper Safety Procedures: 2 (don't touch and sniff the weird alien goo wall??? i know for a FACT you keep rubber gloves in your pocket)

Total Number of Times Someone Says "Trust No One": 1

Total Number of Times Someone Says "I Want to Believe": 2

Total Number of Cigarettes Cigarette Smoking Man Has Smoked: 2

Total Number of Maggie Scully Sightings: 1

Total Number of Alex Krycek Sightings: still 0, but like, uh... definitely the closest we've come so far

Total Number of Times I Had to Look Up What State the Episode Takes Place in Even Though I Literally Just Watched It: 4 ½ (yeah i couldn't even pretend that i paid attention)

Total Number of Times I Had to Look at an Episode's Wikipedia Page to Fill This Out Because It Was Fucking Confusing and/or Too Boring for Me to Pay Attention: 2 (i didn't need to, but i did read the wikipedia page anyway just out of pure curiosity, bc why did they write that episode? i mean like, i was entertained, which ig makes it a win, but also just... why?)