#and this was a parallel i wanted to mention for a while

[unikhroma]

the tenna-ramb lore supercut

for those who are curious about their canon relations! things to note:

- ramb is in charge of watching toriel to make sure she's still asleep. he's one of the people who tenna's talking to through his antennas during the chapter (you'll see the scene that reveals this in this post)

- ramb's light world form is a power strip and tenna's is of course the TV in the living room. it's possible that the TV is connected to said power strip since there was flavor text saying that the TV's plugged back in in chapter 2, when it wasn't in chapter 1. yes i have also been wondering what the implications of this are

- tenna didn't know what to assign ramb to do at first and he says something that backs up that it was for negative reasons

the shit talking pippins might seem unreliable for info but remember: from a writing standpoint, there's a reason he's there and it's to tell you more about him

tenna's side:

context for this stuff:

this is when tenna is seen speaking to ramb for the first time after round 1. toriel was located and he's reminding him of some plan they've already arranged.

▲ tenna getting mad at ramb about toriel after round 2. ...not sure what the implications of him paying ramb's electricity bill is, or if this is one of those things where he's just saying whatever. also, "they" seems to be the knight, as tenna says he was instructed by them to keep the fun gang busy. guess they both know about the knight

made a gif of the end of the scene cause i think his animations are important. the "!" bubble seems to imply that ramb said something that pissed him off or he hung up on him

▲ happens at the tail end of the race to toriel. i think this speaks for itself

ramb's side:

▲ ramb's dialogue if you say "super fun" when he asks how the games were after round 2

▲ ramb's dialogue if you get Z-rank. the electrifying line seems to be in reference to tenna due to tenna using the same word with emphasis in the cutscene following the one where the electric bill is mentioned

▲ ramb insulting tenna's game the first time you talk to him in the S-rank room

parallels and dichotomies

- both tenna and ramb miss spending time with kris and want to appeal to them to see them have fun again

- they've both held onto the past very tightly, with both of them reminiscing about kris, asriel, and the holiday kids visiting. with tenna, he primarily remembers the family watching TV together, and ramb remembers kris and friends playing games together.

- tenna is afraid of/nervous around kris and is insecure about whether or not he's doing a good job entertaining them with his games and challenges. on the other hand, ramb rarely shys away from being upfront with them and is very sure that his own games will be enjoyed by kris

- at the end of the chapter, they both meet an unfortunate fate. tenna gets dismembered, and ramb turns to stone (...?). however, tenna can have a happy ending if you fix him and give him to mettaton/hapstablook, while ramb's post-chapter fate is left vague and concerning to make me and m-chromatic insane specifically (TOBY PUT THE POWER STRIP ON THE PHONE

and:

it makes me insane that i can't find the in-game source of these lines, i just know they're from a different pippins than the one that shit talks ramb

tried to find more inklings of them talking about each other but i think i got all of it. hope you enjoyed another Long-as-Hell Ramb Post From UNIKHROMA

[airybcby]

જ⁀✦ cause what if i never love again?

( reo mikage x fem! reader )

♡ a/n — yall rock w the new pic set up? ^^

♡ word count — 2.8k

♡ content — reo mikage x fem! reader, set in a kind of salem time, the 1920s, a war-time, and "modern times" (reo and reader are 19 and he plays pro soccer), right person wrong time, right person not enough time, mentions of witchcraft, mentions of car accidents, mentions of war (and all things affliated), mentions of illness, royal! reader, heiress! reader, nurse! reader, ill! reader, soulmates, meeting in every lifetime, 4 different lifetimes, angst, not proofread!

♡ synopsis — Reo Mikage will go through as many lives as he has to. Because in every life, Reo Mikage finds you. And in every life, you leave him far too early.

── .✦ give me a memory i can use

The first time you met Reo Mikage, you were both small and sharp-eyed, children dressed in velvet and constraint. 

Your families were tangled in money and politics—landowners of different provinces, but allies in name and interest.

You were five when he pulled your hair in the middle of a tea party. 

He was six when you shoved him into a pond for saying your voice was too loud.

By ten, you were inseparable.

They let you roam because your names had already been written beside each other in social contracts and whispered agreements. 

If it was known that one day you’d marry, what was the harm in letting you grow close? A scandal between children of dynasties only became a storybook legend.

He snuck into your father’s library to draw figures on old books while you read them aloud. 

He taught you how to climb the castle wall in secret, and you taught him to hold his tongue when the lords came to visit. 

You knew how to bite with a smile, how to laugh with your teeth showing.

Reo saw it first.

That fire in you. 

You were always too wild for the world they tried to fit you into. Not unruly, no—never sloppy, never loud when you weren’t meant to be—but there was something about the way you looked out the window when no one else was watching. 

Something about how you wrote poems in the backs of your ledgers and crushed rose petals into ink to write your letters. Something about how you said no.

And something about how he kept falling in love with it.

It wasn’t dramatic, how it started. 

It wasn’t some grand confession or secret kiss stolen in a garden. 

It was just... one day, Reo looked at you reading in the sun, your slippers dangling off one foot and your hair wind-tangled, and he thought, I want to know her forever. And then another day passed, and he still did. And then more.

You loved him, too, in your own way. Softly. Deeply. As if your lives had always been meant to run parallel.

You held hands under the table. He kissed the corner of your wrist one night when he thought you were asleep. You laughed into his shoulder after you tripped on your gown. He looked at you like he’d never seen anything as real in a world built on porcelain.

You told him once, “If I wasn’t born into this family, I’d be free.”

He looked at you, his own robe stitched with his family’s crest in gold thread, and said, “Then I’d give up everything and be free with you.”

You were seventeen.

You never got to turn eighteen.

They accused you of witchcraft.

It started with a dying boy claiming you’d looked at him wrong. 

A servant finding dried herbs in your satchel. 

A maid whispering about how she saw you dance barefoot in the rain last spring. 

Enough breadcrumbs to ignite fear in people who’d rather burn a girl than question their own sins.

No trial. No appeal.

You didn’t scream when they took you. You didn’t beg. 

But Reo did.

He fought everyone—his father, the guards, the church. “She’s not a witch,” he screamed. “She’s not anything but good.”

But the world didn’t want good. It wanted obedient. And you’d never been that.

They tied your hands behind your back. They bound you in white and dragged you through the courtyard, and Reo stood in the front row because he refused to let the last thing you see be anyone but him.

Your eyes met.

The smoke rose around you.

Your last words were not curses.

They were, “Don’t forget me.”

And he never did.

Even as the flames swallowed you. Even as your skin turned to ash and your hair burned away, Reo saw only the girl who once told him she’d be free one day. 

The girl he loved in a world that wasn’t kind enough to keep her.

That was your first death.

The first lifetime where he couldn’t save you.

And far above the smoke, something—fate, time, maybe love—took your soul in its hands and whispered:

Not yet. Try again.

You were never supposed to be seen at the club.

Not you—darling of your family, heiress to a chain of railroads, pearls around your neck, and an engagement to a Duke’s son inked before you could spell his name. 

Your mother taught you manners with the edge of a knife. 

Your father raised you like an investment.

But then there was Club Ambrosia—all smoke and saxophones, women in dresses too short and heels too high, and music that wrapped around your ribs like sin. 

That was where you went when you couldn’t breathe. 

That’s where you were when Reo Mikage found you again.

He was already seated in the corner when your shadow slipped through the curtain. Champagne in hand. Gold cufflinks glinting under low lights. 

Everyone knew the Mikages—owners of steel lines and half of Wall Street. 

Their son? He was supposed to be on his way to becoming the next great American tycoon.

But there he was.

Watching you like he’d been waiting years.

His voice cut through the jazz. “Didn’t think you were the kind of girl who ran from parties thrown in her honor.”

You raised an eyebrow. “And I didn’t think you were the kind of boy who followed girls out of them.”

“I don’t follow girls,” he said, standing to offer you his hand. “Just you.”

And like smoke rising from a candle, it all came back.

Not in full—not yet. But in fragments.

The shape of his mouth when he smiled. The way your heart quieted when his hand touched yours.

A memory of fire.

You danced that night. Barely spoke. 

His hand on your waist, yours on his chest. 

When the music swelled, you let your head fall against his shoulder and whispered, “Do you ever feel like you’ve done all this before?”

Reo didn’t answer. But he held you closer.

You and Reo became a story whispered behind champagne glasses.

The reformed golden boy of Fifth Avenue, now regularly seen at downtown jazz clubs, slipping into limousines with that Belmont girl. The one who used to recite poems in Latin and walked barefoot in her father’s garden.

They called it a phase.

You knew better.

It wasn’t perfect. You argued, often.

Your families met in secret to “discuss your recklessness.”

You wrote letters to each other in invisible ink.

He sent you flowers for every day he couldn’t see you.

You’d crush them between books, every one.

One night, you curled against his chest in his hotel suite, the city glittering outside, and you whispered, “They’ll never let us be free.”

Reo kissed your temple. “Then we’ll stop asking.”

You made a plan.

Two train tickets. A borrowed name. 

You’d run to Paris, where no one cared about your families, where he could disappear and you could breathe.

But the night before your escape, your father caught wind. 

Whether it was a servant or a slip of the tongue, you never knew. 

Reo came to get you.

But you never opened the door.

They said the brakes gave out.

That your driver was drunk.

That the corner was slick from rain.

But Reo Mikage—standing in the rain, his fists bloodied from pounding the wreckage, your perfume still on his collar—knew better.

You died with your engagement ring still on, the wrong man’s name etched into your obituary.

And Reo never forgave himself for being one night too late.

He lived until he was eighty-seven. Never married.

Some say he bought every apartment overlooking the bridge where your car went over.

Some say every year on the anniversary, he sat on the ledge and whispered to the wind:

“Next time, I’ll come sooner.”

The third time you meet him again, it’s through blood and smoke.

You’re a nurse stationed at a temporary field hospital, the kind where floors are dirt and the walls are canvas. 

The kind where no one remembers names—just numbers and wounds and how long someone has left.

Reo Mikage is wheeled in unconscious.

He’s covered in grime, his uniform soaked with someone else’s blood. 

The tag pinned to his chest bears his surname, and something in your chest stirs. 

Mikage. 

You whisper it under your breath. It sounds... familiar. 

Like a place you once lived. A name you once spoke like a secret.

He doesn’t wake for three days.

You sit beside his cot every shift.

The other nurses tease you for it. 

They call him handsome, say you’ve got a crush. But it’s not that. Not really. 

It’s something heavier. Something in the curl of his fingers. The furrow in his brow. Like you already know the way he’ll look at you when he opens his eyes.

And then he does.

And you do.

He blinks once. Twice. Focuses on your face.

He says your name. Not the one on your uniform. The one no one here calls you. The one you’ve only ever heard in dreams.

He says it like he’s been looking for you in every burning city.

You drop the tray in your hands.

Reo isn’t like the other soldiers.

He’s quieter. Sharper. Always watching the sky like it’s trying to tell him something. 

He tells you, once, after his fever breaks, that he didn’t want to fight. That his father made him.

He tells you, “War makes men into monsters. I’m just trying not to lose myself.”

You tend to his wounds in silence. And when you can’t take the silence anymore, you read to him. You braid the fringe of your apron. 

He watches you like you’re the last beautiful thing left in the world.

You start to write letters.

Not to send. Just to keep. 

Letters about the dream you had last night—about fire and water and lace. 

About names that don’t make sense. 

About waking up and looking at him like you’d done it a hundred times before.

He writes too. He tucks them under his pillow.

One night, you trade letters without reading them.

You hold onto his like a prayer.

The bombing starts in the middle of winter.

You’re stationed at a different camp by then. A converted boarding school turned hospital. 

You spend your days wrapping wounds and your nights writing to him by candlelight. 

You’re engaged now. 

It’s not official—there’s no ring, no announcement—but the way he said “Marry me when this ends” felt more real than anything your father’s ever given you.

He signs every letter:

I will find you, in every life.

But then—radio silence.

Weeks pass.

Then months.

The air raids begin again.

You think maybe he’s dead.

You press your fingers to your stomach one morning and whisper, that you’ll be okay. He’d want you to be okay.

The night it happens, you can feel it.

A cold sweat. A ringing in your ears. The candle goes out with no warning.

You step outside into the snow. The first star has just appeared.

You want to send him one last letter.

But you never get to write it.

The bomb hits the edge of the hospital.

The world turns white.

Reo finds the ruins three days later.

He shouldn’t even be there. He’s already on his way back to the front. But something pulls him off the train. Something he can’t name.

He digs through the wreckage until his knuckles bleed.

He finds your locket in the ashes.

And a letter—his, unopened.

Your name written in the corner.

The paper is stained and singed, but his words are still there.

I remember you now. From every life before.

This time, I swear, I won’t lose you.

But he did.

Again.

He keeps the locket around his neck until the war ends.

He never takes it off.

Not even when they offer him medals, promotions, his father’s business back home.

He turns it all down.

He buys a farm on the outskirts of town. Quiet. Away from the noise.

Sometimes the villagers say they hear him talking to the wind.

Sometimes he walks to the river and stands there until morning.

When asked why he never married, he says:

“I already had her. Once. Twice. Maybe three times. But I’m still waiting for the time I get to keep her.”

You and Reo Mikage grew up next door.

Same gated community, same prep school, same security guards posted outside the wrought iron fences. 

You were the daughter of luxury hotel owners. He, the heir to Mikage Corporation. 

You were born in cashmere blankets. Raised on promises you never asked for.

Everyone said you'd end up together.

They said it at galas, while sipping imported champagne. 

They said it like a joke at school when he shared his umbrella with you in the rain. 

And when you turned sixteen and collapsed in your own hallway, too weak to stand, they still said it.

But softer.

“Poor thing,” they whispered. “She probably won’t live long. At least she has him.”

You hated those words.

Because they made you feel like your love for Reo was a consolation prize.

But Reo never looked at you like that.

Never once.

You were seventeen when he kissed you for the first time.

Ten hospitalizations in one year.

Tubes in your arms. Doctors poking and prodding.

He still kissed you like you were summer.

Not sick. Not fragile. Just you.

You were nineteen when he married you.

The media lost its mind.

Mikage Reo Marries Mystery Girl at 19!

Golden Boy Tied Down So Soon?

Is Love Worth This Much Risk?

Every interview asked the same question.

“Why so young?”

And Reo would just smile, golden and warm, eyes quiet, and say:

“When you know, you know.”

But that wasn’t the truth.

The truth was: your lungs were giving out.

Your immune system couldn’t keep up.

And some days, you couldn’t even walk down the stairs.

The truth was: Reo had one chance to be yours in every way.

And he took it. No hesitation.

He plays with a pro team now.

Top-tier team. International attention. Commercials.

And every time he scores, he kisses his ring finger and looks to the sky.

You’re never in the stands.

You always ask.

“Can I come tonight? I’ll wear a mask, I won’t touch anyone, I promise.”

But he won’t let you.

You’re too delicate. Too precious.

“Please,” you said once, half-laughing, half-crying. “I just want to see you out there. Just once.”

He shook his head, jaw clenched.

“I don’t want to carry the weight of losing you in the middle of a game.”

You promised him then. 

“Fine. I’ll see you when you get home.”

The night you don’t wake up, he had a game in another city.

A late one. Sold out.

Reporters screamed questions at him about his strategy, his youth, his marriage.

He gave a polite smile. Always poised.

He scored twice.

But didn’t celebrate.

He got home close to midnight.

The house was quiet. Dark. 

No light spilling from the bedroom door like usual. 

No movie humming in the background. 

No warm blanket lump with your eyes peeking out when he walked in.

“Baby?” he called, loosening his tie.

No answer.

He walked into the room. You were curled up in bed like always. Still wearing that oversized hoodie he bought you last winter. One arm draped over the pillow.

He exhaled a soft laugh. “Did you really fall asleep without texting me?”

He walked closer. Leaned down.

Touched your cheek.

You were cold.

Colder than you’d ever been.

Not just chilled. Empty.

“No, no,” he murmured. “Hey. Baby. Wake up.”

You didn’t move.

He shook you lightly. “C’mon, don’t do this. I’m home now.”

Silence.

He collapsed beside you, hands cupping your face.

“Hey,” his voice cracked. “Open your eyes. You said—you said you’d wait for me.”

But you couldn’t.

You kept your promise the best you could.

They say Reo didn’t speak for days.

Didn’t cry in public. Didn’t cancel a single match.

But on the field, he stopped smiling.

He scored goals like a machine. Cold. Calculated.

And every time, he still kissed his ring finger.

But he never looked up anymore.

He kept everything the same in your shared house.

Your side of the bed still untouched.

Your last note—"Come home safe. I love you."—framed by the door.

Sometimes, he talks to the photo of you by the window.

Not like someone grieving.

But like someone waiting.

He dreams of you often now.

And sometimes, when he wakes, breathless and aching, he whispers,

“Please. Just one more life. Let it be the one we finish.”

Because in every life, Reo Mikage finds you.

And in every life, you leave him far too early.

so this is actually the first fic i've written where I'VE cried :)

likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated!!

✦ tags ✦ @irethepotato ✦ @kiyy0mei ✦ @x3nafix ✦ @sugacor3 ✦ @ohagiyoo ✦ @nevvynevnev ✦ @virgothesimp ✦ @werfiedeii ✦ @chiieni ✦ @syleepy ✦ @academiq ✦ @peachysaki116 ✦ @manjirosanosgirlfriend ✦ @anqelkoz ✦ @silverwings920 ✦ @nishinoyaismycutie ✦ @sunathetuna ✦ @alexiaray ✦ @megumismyhusband ✦ @yutamy1beloved ✦ @luvlynabi ✦ join the taglist here !

⋆.˚✮ 2025 ©airybcby ✮˚.⋆

[inhunenthusiast]

“Gihun and Inho will never be canon”

Well idgaf because they already are to me.

There’s too many implications that leave room for their relationship to be interpreted as much more intimate and romantic than people want to see.

It doesn’t always have to be all black and white.

While it’s true that they’re not canon-confirmed, it’s still readable and hinted in the subtext.

The romantic connection isn’t just “made up” by shippers, it was always there. There’s more than enough parallels in their dynamic that makes sense for this kind of connection to develop between them and on top of that we can’t forget that the actors still have their instructions how to portray the character and the cinematography is always purposefully chosen to be symbolic. Director HDH especially mentioned the chemistry between LBH and LJJ multiple times already.

In my opinion, the involvement of also romantic feelings being part of Gihun and Inho’s dynamic, only adds another deep emotional layer to their already complex relationship.

Yes, squid game isn’t a romance but it’s also about humans learning the deepest parts of their selves, to be laid bare to what they feel and how they act upon it. I find the idea of Gihun being the one who makes Inho feel deeply again after such a long time of callousness beautiful and fitting.

It’s not a healthy love, it's very messy and toxic, but it fits the story. There's obviously also a lot of negative feelings and trauma that weighs heavy. But their strong connection and their intertwined fate would be what makes the change in the end.

Even if the outcomes will be different in season 3, without them coming to a mutual understanding and reconciliation, it wouldn't make their relationship less meaningful or intimate to me.

Because it still wouldn’t erase what once existed between them and how they influenced each other. Their paths were always destined to cross.

Hwang Dong-hyuk: “Thinking about their characters, they had the same journey but chose different fates. That’s the perspective I had from the start for these two characters.”

[interact-if]

Pride Month Feature #3: Under Our Skins

Game: Under Our Skins

Author: Rowan (@if-underourskins)

Tags: Urban fantasy, romance, action (kinda)

Being hunted isn't for the weak. You've been on the run for the majority of your life, though it seems to only get more and more frequent as you age. You're a shapeshifter, whose bones, muscles and skin twist and stretch to transform, and it's why you've been looking over your shoulder all this time. 

You’re forced to flee when Officers from the Agency of Public Safety and Threat Containment (PSTC) came knocking on your door. They're who you've been running from all this time, the reason why you're alone...That is, till you end up in the town of Arden Grove and meet other shapeshifters like yourself. Do you trust them? Will they stay? Or will you end up alone once again?

Tell me more about yourself!

I’ve mentioned this a couple of times, but I’m a huge fan of the Spiderverse franchise, and I am in a lot of different fandoms. My favourite colour is red, which is really funny because the colour scheme of Under Our Skins is blue and grey, and I’m ethnically Chinese, which is actually why Elexis (one of the ROs) is Chinese. 

I am also pansexual and genderqueer, and there are elements of that that can be seen in my characters, especially Elexis and Seraph.

2. Can you tell me a bit about what you’re working on right now and your journey into interactive fiction? What inspired the game/story you’re currently writing?

I am currently working on a shapeshifter IF, aka Under Our Skins! I started with visual novels first, back in my 2024 exam season, and quickly got hooked. The first IF I ever played was Wayfarer and that led to many ranting sessions about it (my poor friends were stuck with me raving about how much I loved the game for days) and from there, I scoured itch.io for more games like that, which is how I stumbled across interactive fiction! For the next few months, it was just me falling in love with multiple interactive fictions before deciding I wanted to try my hand at writing one. 

What inspired Under Our Skins was just a car on Pinterest, and with a lot of time on my hands and a writer’s brain, I daydreamed a scene with my first character (and said car). I liked the scene so much that I then proceeded to think about how it’d make sense and what sort of a world it’d be set in and boom, I had the (rough) settings and systems of Under Our Skins. 

Read on for the full interview!

3. How does your work feature aspects of your queer identity / experience? 

I think that my writing will be influenced by the things I experience and observe in real life no matter what, and though there aren’t direct correlations, there are parallels in the way shapeshifters are treated and the way they adapt to society with the way queer people adapt to “pass” and more. 

Not all of them are purposeful, but when writing about the oppression of shapeshifters, I do take “inspiration” from the oppression that queer people face. There’s also the fact that the way shapeshifters cope with it, whether hiding or just dampening it to be more “normal” (and the fact that there’s a “normal” at all, when so many of them are born shapeshifters) just reminds me of what queer people have to do irl. 

The whole IF is not meant to be a commentary on queer people but I’ve definitely taken inspiration or been influenced by queer experiences.

4. What does your writing process look like? Any rituals or habits? Any tips, tricks, philosophies or approaches that have worked very well for you? 

My writing process is a mess. Right now, I have a planning doc, a writing doc and a google sheet with many different sections split to help me juggle the work of writing everything while stimulating my brain enough to get to work on the IF. It’s honestly pretty scattered, but hey, if it ain’t broke, why fix it?

For the specifics however, it’s mostly just three phases that I constantly go back to. I use an outline to roughly plot out the chapter, which I then refer to when writing. Sometimes my writing veers off the path of my outline, sometimes parts of my outline doesn’t work with what I had written before, and I leave that to the editing part to polish everything up and just hope that it turns out alright. 

As for tips and tricks, there are two very important things that I try to keep in mind when writing: a. Your first draft is going to suck and b. Know what your other characters are doing and their motivations.

For the first, when writing, I often find myself hating whatever words I was typing – to me they all fall flat and miss their mark. This ends up with me hating writing and procrastinating continuing because if it sucks, why should I continue? But here’s the thing: it’s better that it exists and sucks, then to not exist at all. Your first draft is not supposed to be perfect, it’s job is to just exist, to pave a way for your next few drafts to improve on. If it doesn’t exist, there’s nothing to refine. So yeah, my first draft is going to suck, and I need to let it suck as long as I write it.

For the second, this just helps me more in the planning aspect. Knowing what the characters are doing helps me make sure that the timelines all line up, and to help me establish certain things even though the plot doesn’t require it just yet. It makes things feel real and more logical, and it can definitely come in handy when you cross-refer back to it.

5. How do you go about portraying queer characters, queer experiences, or queer storylines in your IF? 

I think the most important part for me is that the character’s queerness is a part of their identity, and is not their only, or most notable trait, while also acknowledging it and the way it has shaped their life.

With Under Our Skins, everyone is queer – 4 out of the 5 ROs are pansexual, one RO is trans and another is a lesbian. These are a part of their identity, and while sometimes it is just what it is, it has also impacted the way others treated them throughout their lives, and in the IF. 

I think the way I write – or will be writing, since the IF is still relatively new – is entirely linked to my queer experiences and the experiences I’ve observed. Parts of my characters I take from my own experience, others from my friends and people online, and there are also parts where I have to take creative liberties almost, like writing accepting parents and homo/transphobia.

6. Do you have favourite interactive fiction games, characters, scenes or authors that you’d like to recommend?

Here’s a list of IFs I love and adore (in no particular order):

(the famous) Infamous

Press Play

Children of Cain

Wayfarer

When Twilight Strikes

Apt 502

The six that thrive

Stygian Sun: Total Eclipse

Drink Your Villain Juice

Love After Death

The Advisor's Game

Disenchanted

and a lot more I can’t remember off the top of my head!!

7. If you were to say one thing to your readers, other authors, and/or the interactive fiction community: what would it be? 

To my readers, I’d say thank you <33 They’ve been so kind to me and the love that they’ve shown for the IF and characters is honestly so heartwarming and motivating!!

To other authors, y’all are honestly amazing and I hope that your projects work out and that you have nice lives (that sounds like a threat, help). I love so many of your works and it’s honestly an honor (?) to be an interactive fiction author when these are the people I’m standing with.

To the community, please, please be kind. Your comments, whether anonymous or not, are all directed to a person behind the screen – a person who is usually juggling their writing project alongside many, many irl responsibilities. There was a weird influx of hate recently and now that it’s mostly died down (that I’m aware of, anyway), let’s try to make it stay that way. Constructive criticism can be helpful but sending straight up hate is not and can oftentimes undermine an author’s motivation so, yeah, be kind.

[housemdork]

house md rewatch: 2x06, "spin"

wilson is so "hate yourself" by tv girl here.

some freaking out about james wilson below. that's why this one is so long.

i think the overall theme of this episode is pleasantly cut-and-dry. to quote wilson: "you'd be surprised what you can live with." this applies to house, stacy, the patient (jeff the famous cyclist), wilson, and cameron. for expediency's sake, i'll run through that laundry list as orderly as possible...

house and jeff must live with their respective drugs and conditions. jeff dopes with blood transfusions to give himself an edge, and chase and foreman attempt to draw a false equivalency between this and house's vicodin. but, like in cameron's view, this doesn't work (at first). house's disability/condition predates his vicodin addiction, whereas jeff's doping came after (later found to be untrue.) i'm glad cameron disputed this comparison because it gets drawn a lot. house is coping, engendering some sympathy and understanding, while jeff is trying to get ahead. house feels subnormal; jeff wants to supersede "normal" altogether.

but it turns out that jeff's condition was being conveniently treated and hidden by his blood transfusions. so, in an odd twist, the parallel between him and house does stick. their respective addictions allow them to perform their jobs; their "normals" are different than most, and their substances help rectify that - if we don't factor in the collateral damage substance abuse incurs, of course.

but god is there tragedy in the ways this comparison still doesn't quite fit. the patient's blood transfusions are essentially a cure-all, and he can hide the secret benefits from the public. his muscles work like they're supposed to. house even administers the drug to relieve the symptoms in jeff's right leg - the same leg that vicodin can't fix in house's case.

the line from foreman to jeff is telling in this regard: "i doubt there's anything wrong with you that you didn't do yourself." in jeff's case, this isn't true, but it makes the endemic house question reemerge - how much of house's life is his own fault?

meanwhile, stacy and house must live with the tension that exists between them, though house cannot abide by this. house sabotages stacy and mark throughout the episode and reads way too much into stacy's resulting behavior, looking for confirmation that one of house's emotional extremes exists therein: love or hate. as we know too well, this annoyingly psychoanalytic tendency of his carries over tenfold to cuddy, but it's still super prescient here.

over the course of the episode, they enter each other's personal space in 2 polar opposite moods: fury and guilt. both instances highlight their dysfunction; they both impede on the other's ability to perform their jobs.

by the episode's end, stacy asserts to house that, despite her loving him, she also hates him, and they'll just have to live with that if they want to work together, and if she wants to hold onto mark.

predictably, as the titular, unstable character, house violates the established theme and refuses to live with this new arrangement. he exploits the condition (that he, notably, has no choice but to live with) to gain access to stacy's psychiatric records, and we all know how this plays out lol.

in an episode about worship of the imperfect (more on that later), it's powerful that house is kneeling at the filing cabinet that contains stacy's records. kneeling at what he cannot contend with; kneeling and searching for truth; kneeling and corrupting his promise to live and let live.

i'll mention here re: worship that house is flagrantly characterized as god/jesus in an episode where jeff is worshipped by adoring fans. even the way house "heals" jeff through the injection mimics jesus healing those unable to walk. time and time again, i love the house = god (except not quite) parallels.

cameron must live with the burden of her moral compass. cameron is repeatedly ridiculed (no surprise smh) for being so unyielding toward jeff when he admits to taking drugs as a cyclist. it sounds naive of her, but i think she makes a decent argument about the difference between lies for self betterment and lies for overall betterment. maybe that makes me naive and/or a narc, too. oh well. her almost choice to rat out jeff to the press is an interesting decision point for her, and says a lot about her character, forever contrasted with wilson.

she says that kids worship jeff, and that they can't/shouldn't love someone who is a fraud, and implies that jeff doesn't deserve their adoration. again, this seems naive, until she reaffirms house's earlier diagnosis of her behavior: she has his dad's "insane moral compass that won't let you lie to anybody about anything."

to wilson's cheating history, she raises the fact that she fell in love with her husband's best friend while her husband was ill. upsetting revelation, but we'd all be lying if we said it wasn't at least a little understandable. wilson, assuming that cameron is about to relate to him and his disaster of a love life, seems relieved by this, until she drops the bombshell that she never acted on those feelings; when wilson says "you can't control your emotions," she says, "just your actions."

in this moment, cameron (at least to me), fully confirms that she is not to be written off as naive. instead, 2x06 confirms that she has been painfully aware of her own emotional strife, self-inflicted because of her convictions, and forever burdened by her self-control. this is how cameron lives. wilson is surprised by what she can live with.

and that brings me to the man of the hour himself - wilson. i wanted to write about cameron first to emphasize how insane he is in this episode. wilson must live with the consequences of his own actions...after the episode confirms (via cameron) that those actions are entirely preventable, and that wilson has predicated his moral code on a faulty perception of love in the first place.

despite being on her ass about compromising her medical license in order to rat jeff out, wilson admits that he won't expose her (FOR THE TIME BEING LOL). this conversation reveals just how big of a ball of contradictions he is. cameron brings up the idea of kids worshipping jeff, a word that jeff himself defined earlier as "to love unquestioningly and uncritically," and wilson immediately takes issue.

"if love is based on lies, does that mean it's not a real feeling?...have you ever cheated? well, i have. you want to punish him? good for you. but you can't do it without hurting the people who love him."

damn, wilson. what a very harsh, shallow, and selfish way to go about life. no wonder why cameron takes a shot at you and your failed marriages: "is that how you justified lying to your wives?" oh, wait, you weren't finished?

"i always told them."

wilson is so persona-heavy that he can't even keep up the weight during a conversation that he started. this reopens the issue over love in 2x05 and reaffirms wilson's answer - can love exist without truth? not really. to cameron, wilson confirms that he's cheated, and that either he's lying about what love is, or stating that he's never loved his wives because he's been truthful with all of them.

and this conversation, this revelation, unnerves wilson so much that he does, in fact, rat cameron out. stacy just happens to not believe him. this is crazy petty of wilson (and not wholly in character, imo), which speaks to how much this false idea of love that he forces upon himself hurts him. this is how wilson lives. strung up by his obsession to remain morally upstanding, and failing himself every time because he's weak-willed (in this respect).

he makes a final attempt at absolving himself to cameron (and the audience tbh) when she confesses that she fell in love with her husband's best friend. he looks legitimately relieved when she admits to the first half:

this prompts him to make an insane admission of his own: "everything was fine. i met someone who *clears throat* made me feel...funny. good. and i didn't want to let that feeling go."*

then, riding the wave of having found a potential infidelity confidant, wilson assures cameron that, "what happened to you...how can anyone go through that alone? you can't control your emotions."

aaaaand cue cameron's fantastic retort.

i think wilson is profoundly affected by this realization that NO, there is no justifying your cheating, even at the metaphorical altar of house md's current leading moral compass. when he says that "you'd be surprised what you can live with," he sounds excessively bitter. for good measure, 2x06 hands us these visual parallels: cameron content at home, reliving memories, versus wilson, restless at the hospital...

i LOVE when these 2 interact. it never ever bodes well.

now for a major question i have, plus part of my wilson comphet thesis:

who the hell was he talking about to cameron there? (THANK YOU, LOVELY MOOT, FOR HELPING ME FIX THIS) he's talking about the time he cheated on bonnie. if he has had 3 wives, seasons 1 and 2 would have seen him with the mythical julie, who he's about to lose anyways.

i'm not arguing at all that wilson is talking about house here...mostly because i can't textually swing it. but, if you'll walk with me, i can explain further why this exchange is so crazy.

wilson admits, in a roundabout way, to not loving his wives. as we know, and will come to know more, he finds needy people, "fixes" them, resents them, and moves on. he needs to feel needed; it's not sustainable.

cameron has just described falling in love with a best friend who did not exist in her and her deceased husband's domestic sphere. they fell in love at the hospital. their bond, rendezvous, etc. was spatially founded there, already a future workplace for cameron.

wilson is thrilled to learn that someone as morally upstanding as cameron has Something Wrong With Her Love Life. in an episode underscored by diagnosing everyone's own Normal, for a moment, he thinks he's find a normal that's compatible with his own...until it's not. cameron doesn't actually have the same issue (for one thing, she's a better person than he is lol).

currently, wilson cannot exist peacefully within his own domestic space because his relationship with julie (most likely) is so bad. he's taking refuge in the hospital.

wilson is bitter, frustrated, and a little disgusted by his own admission of "you'd be surprised what you can live with." cameron has confirmed to wilson that he's in the wrong. that he's wrong.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY FUNNY. HOW WAS IT DIFFERENT.

WHY DID YOU HAVE TO GIVE UP THE FEELING.

WHY DO WE NEVER GET ANY FOLLOW UP ON THIS.

why is the chorus of the concluding song "none of us are free."

[hollowed-theory-hall]

I’ve heard what jobs you think that Hermione and Harry would be good at. I was wondering what job you think would be a good fit for Ron.

Anonymous asked:

I saw you just did Hermoine’s career and I really love the idea of her being a journalist! I was wondering what you think would be a well, better, career for the rest of the Golden Trio? We know JKR made Harry Head Auror, a choice that I very much disagree with. I personally like the idea of him being a professional quidditch player or the DADA professor a lot more. And for Ron, I believe he also became a high ranking Auror…? Correct me if I’m wrong. I was just wondering what you’d think their better career choices would be!

Talked about Harry here & here.

Talked about Hermione here & here.

So, let's talk about Ron:

I actually like Ron in a ministry position more than either Harry or Hermione. Ron is the member of the trio best suited to work within the system. He is good with people, familiar with how the world works, fine with bending the rules and the corruption here and there, and has the mindset to be able to work within it and make the best of it. He is also the most balanced member of the trio and the one I'd trust the most as minister (kinda discussed here), especially if we give him a few more years to grow into his own.

In semi-canon (because nothing outside of the books is fully canon to me, and the epilogue does not mention their professions), Ron became an Auror with Harry, then, 2 years later, stepped down to join George in Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Now, I don't think this is as antithetical to Ron's character as Harry and Hermione's future jobs are.

(For context, Hermione is not Minister material, she is best suited to work in a position that allows her more leeway to bring the change she wants + she isn't a diplomat, she's a "my way or the highway" type of person. Harry, while charismatic, isn't much for working as part of a team. Even within the Golden Trio, he does a lot on his own as he hates asking for help and risking others. This would be even worse if he needs to work with authority and bureaucracy — specifically authority and bureaucracy of a corrupt system he dislikes and disrespects)

I can't say I'm a huge fan of Auror!Ron, since this isn't something he was ever passionate about or interested in. Harry wanted to be an Auror because it's the only thing an adult he respected (at the time at least. He didn't know it was Barty) told him he'd be good at, which is so rare for Harry (in my headcanon, Harry is an Auror program dropout, because it makes sense he'd start as an Auror). Ron doesn't have the same connection to DADA nor the same sense of responsibility Harry does, so it makes even less sense for him. I can see him decide to go to Auror training with Harry, as it's something none of his brothers did, but I do like that he doesn't stay there. I mean, if he does, he'd still keep getting compared to Harry, which I am trying to avoid.

My ideal job for Ron would position him somewhere he won't be compared to Harry or any of his brothers, because that's what he really wants. And if he goes to work in Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, Ron is literally stepping into Fred's shoes. So, I don't like that, thematically for Ron, even though, character-wise, as a character who cares about his family a lot, it makes sense.

So, in my personal headcanon, Harry would quit being an Auror to become a professor, and Hermione would honestly be a brilliant journalist (a headcanon I adopted from a different anon, but it fits her so well and would be a fun parallel with Rita). But Ron is someone I'm a bit more vague on since I can see him in multiple careers.

Currently, the top career on my mind for Ron is a Healer, maybe — it'll set him apart from his other siblings and Harry, he has the grades for it, he can keep his cool under pressure, he likes helping people, and he's good at cheering people up when things are bleak with humor. I think Ron could be a good Healer if he chooses to pursue it. The only big downside for me is that it doesn't lean into Ron's strategic nature (which becoming head-Auror or another ministry position could). And I can't see him inventing new cures or potions, that's not Ron — but he'd be good at actually caring for people and using the healing spells/potions at his disposal creatively when needed.

Plus, Ron's wand (his own, baught post-CoS) is willow and unicorn hair, and according to Pottermore, willow wands are particularly suited for healing magic:

Willow is an uncommon wand wood with healing power, and I have noted that the ideal owner for a willow wand often has some (usually unwarranted) insecurity, however well they may try and hide it. While many confident customers insist on trying a willow wand (attracted by their handsome appearance and well-founded reputation for enabling advanced, non-verbal magic) my willow wands have consistently selected those of greatest potential, rather than those who feel they have little to learn. It has always been a proverb in my family that he who has furthest to travel will go fastest with willow.

(Source)

So, yeah, Healer Ron is my favorite idea at the moment. If anyone has other ideas for Ron, I'd love to hear them because I really do struggle with him more, since he doesn't have a specific field he is good at/passionate about like Harry or Neville, nor does he have Hermione's spesific convictions.

[alynnia]

The more I read into Rafayel's stuff the more I see him as a counter and parallel to Sylus. Is it my fujo side peeking out? Yes, but shuddup. Time for some rambling below. Content: Crowfish angst, death and just typing as I think so it's not refined at all lol

...wow this is longer than what I'd thought it be. It's practically a mini fic so just...take it with a grain of salt. Ahaha...ha...

I can't remember if I commented on it on my Sylus x Rafayel x MC post or in one of my other ramblings but I mentioned it would be an interesting AU idea if Rafayel or Sylus took MC's place in each other's myths. Well, now that scene of MC making Rafayel stab her fits oh so well but it puts a specific scenario in my head.

Imagining this throple is still early in their relationship and Rafayel has a nightmare of MC dying, but since MC and Sylus share a soul, his memory sort of "glitches" and he sees Sylus in her place. On the flip side, Sylus has a nightmare of MC stabbing him and in his dream, MC "glitches" into Rafayel as his soul picks up on MC's memories.

The memory of their pasts are bluring together so when they see each other again there's this new awkward tension between them. Rafayel is upset and while he knows why MC did what she had to, he can't bring himself to take it out on her. Not when they're finally together again. But Sylus is free real estate. He did the same thing so when it reaches it's boiling point, Rafayel lashes out at him. Why did Sylus think she would want to live her life without him? Does he not understand how cruel that is? How painful it is to go on knowing that your loved one is dead by your own hand? " Of course you don't, you're dead! You don't have to deal with the consequences! "

And Sylus would just...take it. He'd let him rage at him, every word just slicing through. He sees Rafayel's rampage as something he deserves and would rather he be the one Raf takes this out on, not her. And Raf understands this as well. An unspoken mutual agreement that this was not for her ears but needed to be said. At the end of it, Rafayel is still seething but Sylus hugs him and apologizes.

" It's not me you should be apologizing to. "

" But I want to. "

After all this and they calm down, whenever they see MC again they're going to be extra sweet to her. At the same time. You know where this goes~

The closer they get, the more the memories get mixed up with each other. It wouldn't be long before Rafayel begins to understand why Sylus did this. How he was losing control of himself and would have killed MC if he wasn't stopped. One day...

" Here. Punch me. "

Sylus punches him.

" YOU DIDN'T EVEN HESITATE??! "

" You asked me to. "

" DON'T YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY?! "

" I figured you'd tell me. "

" This is the shit I'm talking about, YOU-! " he bites his tongue and regains his composure. Rafayel explains that he understands now, about the dragon's curse and how his choice seemed to be the better option. Sylus is taken aback by this but doesn't say anything yet. He lets him continue. Raf then hugs him and apologizes.

" Promise me, if it ever comes to that again don't make her do it. " Rafayel holds him tighter, " I'll do it. She shouldn't have to go through that again. "

" ...And you should? "

" Don't underestimate me you stupid crow. This is a divine order from your god. "

Sylus smirks, running a hand through his hair and resting it there, " You know how I feel about challenging gods. "

" Then...promise me as your friend. "

" Oh, so we're friends now? I didn't realize friends had make out sessions with heavy petting-"

Rafayel snatches Sylus by his chin, " I'm serious. "

There's what feels like a long pause between the two of them, burning holes into one another through deep staring. The crow searches his eyes to find a way out but Rafayel holds firm, the grip on his chin, even with just two fingers could be strong enough to crack bone. Sylus exhales through his nose, gently wrapping his fingers around the hand that held him in place. " As you wish. "

Rafayel releases a breath he didn't know he was holding but before he could say anything more, Sylus takes the brief guard drop as an opportunity to press their lips together. Raf almost melts into it until the other is nipping hard enough to draw blood.

" Ow! What the hell?"

" There. It's sealed in blood. It should be a familiar feeling after all, I learned it from her memories. "

" Bastard. "

" Your bastard~ "

Fast forward to a future where Rafayel has to make good on his promise. Sylus is close to repeating the past, about to lose himself to the dragon within. Rafayel hesitates but manifests his dagger and commits to the deed, holding him in his arms as he breathes his last...only for MC to witness the situation at the end of it. She wasn't supposed to see. She wasn't supposed to know.

---

Okay I'm just going to stop here this REALLY ran away from me. It was just supposed be like the first 3 paragraphs BUT THEN I KEPT GOING I WAS POSSESED

But yea, this was fun.

[lynxgriffin]

While I know there's got to be something going on with the save slots, I don't know that that's something that the Fun Gang would be able to grasp onto from the prophecy. Like, sacrifice yourself so that a slightly alternate version of you gets saved? That might be a bit outside the range of what they're conceiving of right now.

Yeah, we honestly aren't even sure if the acronyms like LV and LOVE and all that even apply between Undertale and Deltarune. There's been no mention of them as such, anyway! Susie is definitely interpreting it as romantic love rather than, say, level of violence. But we'll have to see if that gets expanded upon more!

I think I'd have to go back and see what Biscia said there, since that might be a bit of a misremembering? At the very least, the tragedy of Chara and Asriel's deaths is NOT what saved the monster world, it was Frisk's determination and Asriel finally letting go of his grief. Unless you want to count Asriel saying "it took a long time" as the line between that tragedy and Frisk's/our arrival into the world as things being saved.

THAT SAID, I do have this feeling that we're going to wind up in a situation where Susie has to take the soul from Kris, and that will supposedly sacrifice/kill them. But, I also get this feeling that even if that parallels some of what happens between Chara and Asriel in Undertale, things won't play out exactly the same way...

Possibly, but there's still some other questions on how it then acts in other places...seeing the light world version of a place while in the dark world and then vice versa, the glass not working at all in Castle Town, and the glass changing nothing with the prophecy.

Another possibility? I'll admit the wording is a little weird on that, but I can understand folks trying to fit stuff into the rhyming scheme the prophecy seems to have going on. At the very least, it seems "the girl" is at the center of it somehow!

[pavdaily]

favorite things about pav? I'm also interested in knowing what your headcanons for him are!

Also, congrats for a whole year! 👏 🎉🥳

thanks. i like that almost nothing is known about him, since he is not the main character, so it leaves a lot of room to create your own story. i have a complete chronology of pav's life, since i have mental problems, i am crazy, etc.

first of all, this is not headcanon, since i borrowed it from a fact from the game canon, but i put a lot of emphasis on the fact that pav loves ice cream. the important thing is that he does not necessarily only love ice cream. in the soviet union, there was a type of ice cream called "пламбір", which some historians believe comes from france. this has been disputed several times, but it is known that the word was borrowed from the french "plombières", and i still like this interpretation of the story, since it has thematic significance for pav. it's a half-baked idea, but since i assume the kaiser is from the french-speaking part of rondon, it symbolizes to me that even the things pav loves most are connected to the person who made his life miserable.

i also like to experiment with the concept that pav has good style. he doesn't necessarily wear expensive designer clothes (since he lived in the countryside, i guess he didn't have that kind of money), but he does have a good sense of fashion, you know? i also think he was a bit of a rebel when it came to style, but because of the political situation in his part of voroniya, he didn't have much opportunity to express that through his clothes. he doesn't express himself through flashy fashion, but by altering his regular clothes or dressing them differently. this sets a precedent for him to get used to wearing his uniform the wrong way. it is also worth noting that his story is about living with a political identity that does not represent him, whether in voroniya or in the bremen army, so i think rebelling quietly while wearing clothes that don't represent his personality reflect that. (i could go into more detail, but that would deserve another post and more time when i talk about it — for those who are new to my blog, i present pav with a national identity parallel to a real belarusian, and that is not even mentioning whether he comes from western or eastern region which have different political histories. i can say that the belarusian government does a very poor job of representing ordinary people, especially when it comes to bilateral relations with russia; and that pav has very little faith in the dominant government of his region and indirectly rebels against it.)

in a similar vein, i like that because he is somewhat flamboyant fans commonly sexualize him. i wonder if the people around him in the termina universe make similar assumptions about his sexuality. it makes him more interesting and funny because, in my opinion, pav does not feel sexual attraction or interest in sexual relations. i think it’s something that bothers him, or he’s just having sex to vent his frustrations about his lack of control over his life and his emotional problems in general. he justifies this with the idea (very common back in those days) that sexual desire is a necessary physical response for men, and that they need a woman to help alleviate that feeling. fortunately, this kind of thinking is going out of fashion with the new waves of feminism and the acceptance of asexual and aromantic people. that's why I think that while pav's lack of attraction and difficulty with intimacy are, in my opinion, related to his experiences, social conditioning and trauma, I can describe him as asexual or aromantic if i want. he doesn't fit that allosexual norm so he falls victim to heteronormativity, even though he engages in behaviors that reinforce it.

i have more headcanons here if you're interested. i have a lot more, but i need more specific questions to know what to talk about.

thanks for asking this question, i really enjoy talking about this guy.

[yukiicantdraw]

So I have a minor detail I wanted to mention for Tenna and Asgore since people mention parallels between the two-

both of them seem to direct their attention to one person in the room

well- not entirely but I'll explain it in a bit

Of course spoilers for chapter 3 and a bit of 4 (also I haven't finished it yet so I might change a bit of the info here in a reblog when I do-)

like I said, not only do Asgore and Tenna parallel each other in multiple ways. strangely enough, they interact with Kris and Susie in a similar way too

by that I mean, They both seem to direct attention to one of them while only lightly including the other

I.e Tenna talks to Susie directly when Kris and Ralsei are RIGHT there

and same thing for Asgore, only talking directly to Kris despite Susie being there

even when Susie was the one freaking out, Asgore pats KRIS' head

I might just be overthinking it and it could just be out of convenience for Asgore, but some shady stuff is goin' on and I don't think it's something I can just shrug off

for more details, please check out Faeyuh's theory on this but to quickly summarise

they mention that Spamton and Tenna's dynamic resembles Asgore and Toriel, right?

and it was implied that Tenna had some sort of connection to the roaring knight

I just want to note the fact that Asgore seems close to Carol in chapter 4

I mean sure, she's the wife of his college buddy. but then again, something about their dynamic has a hint of business-y professionalism

so with that in mind

Susie = Kris and possibly Asriel too?

Spamton = Toriel

Tenna = Asgore

some people had even speculated that the roaring knight could be Carol

So does that mean whatever Carol is plotting, Asgore was promised something out of it?

Do I sound crazy yet because I am VERY tired-

BUT YEAH as tinfoil hatted I sound, I think Tenna was promised fame, money and/or attention from fans and literally EVERYONE

and addition, Asgore may have been promised money and being able to get back to his family or something??

I DONT KNOW MAN IVE BEEN FREAKING OUT AT ALL THESE DETAILS TO THE POINT THAT I CANT TELL IF ANY OF THIS MAKES SENSE

then again this is all just speculation, so don't take my word for it

besides, this post is more about just things I noticed rather than an actually properly formulated theory

[vagueeyes]

Just wanted to clip out a scene from one of my favourite films, 神探 | MAD DETECTIVE (Johnnie To & Wai Ka-Fai, 2007).

Without giving anything away - the titular character of the film is an ex-police detective who has the power to see someone's "inner personality". How the film portrays this is by having one actor play a character - but when the detective looks at this character, he sees that character's "personality", who is played by a completely different actor. What I love is that the film pulls the audience straight into this concept with basically no exposition. Here's the best example:

It always amazed me because I had never seen anything like it before and never really did again...until I got to THINKING OUT LOUD. I gasped at the episode's ending because, I mean, look!!

[theladyfae]

the lazarus experiment / her island, rita dove

[wackywatchdotcom]

hiii !!! love ur art lots, so i've been wondering, what program/app and brushes you use? i love the paper effect you give to your drawings, makes me want to eat em /pos

thank you so much!!!! i appreciate that a lot :D!!!!

(accidentally rambled a lot abt this HAHA)

i use medibang!! ive been using it forrrr maybe like 7ish years now... ive been meaning to one day get clip studio or something but i havent had the chance to buy it and im also a little intimidated at the idea of having to readjust to a new program HAHA

i use a few different brushes!! it depends on what im drawing and what i feel like using at the time (i should probably plan them out more often, actually)

oil paint, g pen, fluffy watercolor, and round brush (wet) are all brushes that come with medibang!!! i know i made Another Marker myself, and im pretttttty sure i made the first marker one too? my favorites are round brush and g pen though!!! i tend to use fluffy watercolor more for colors rather than lineart

(i also keep correction at around 12, i would use it more since my hands arent the steadiest but i find high correction to be kinda confusing so i just keep it low)

the paper effect is smth i learned liiiike maybe two years ago ish? and i have simply KEPT doing it ever since HAHA i do wanna mess around with more textures cus i dont want to be too reliant on just one texture for my art but it IS very fun and i like it...

medibang has a feature that makes it REALLY easy to do!!

custom noise is my BEST friend. the sand, watercolor paper (specifically 2), and marker paper (specifically 2) are the ones i use most often!!!

i also will copy n paste color layers and lineart layer, add gaussian blur and do like 200 layer effects (i most often do this to lineart, then set it to hard light and somewhere between 30-60% opacity to mimic bleeding from ink!!). i DO often experiment w messing w colors wo layer effects cus its fun but sometimes its just more fun to use layer effects instead!!

medibang also has materials!!

i dont use them as often but i like this one :D ive used it on a handful of things

and just for fun!!! things look suuuper different without this stuff. like the thing i just posted used a LOT of this (to be honest its cus i really really didnt wanna do shading for it LOL but it still felt too flat and i feel like these effects are a nice middle ground- but i will still often use this stuff when i AM shading things)

sometimes i will also use similar custom noise textures but for different parts of the image!!! like in this one i had a waatercolor texture for the bg but a seperate one for the foreground

i DIIID a while back post a pic of kinger (its an older post on this acc- not old by most standards but it was during the first little while after i made this blog while i was still finding my footing w the characters) that used a bunch of different textures which i got from freestocktextures.com!! but i havent used them since. i keep thinking i should again

ANYWAY thats basically it!!!! i looove medibang theres a bunch of little things ive figured out abt using it over the yrs that im so fond of it. and THANK U again!!!!!! :']

[xcziel]

has anybody else thought about how jk could easily manage sofia's parts of slow dance or is it just me?

[mc-critical]

Hatice and Ibrahim have never been more divided from each other up to that point than in E43-E44. While Hatice always sensed when Ibrahim was actually in danger or she's lost him in any way (i.e. E35 when she felt something in Edirne while Ibrahim was with Nigar), nothing came up when he was shot; he didn't even tell her what happened to him until she found out herself; they were seperated while he was recovering; the wait for Ibrahim to come back felt like an eternity to Hatice and she went through several breakdowns at once (and his carriage was right in front of her but she couldn't see him, her only thought until the very end was that he was dead, isn't that what her dream with the "crying" statues meant?); when he came back she wasn't allowed to spend at least some time alone with him as SS wanted to talk to him; even their sleep was interrupted. The only thing that Ibrahim asked Hatice to do was to play him his mother's song on the violin (I like to think that Hatice started learning the violin in order to become closer to him, to who he is, to his past again after what they went through with little Mehmet).... but he no longer associates even that with Hatice anymore.

[123pixieaod]

Tried to write a fun little fic about why Daniel unfollowed on Instagram Zak, Michael, Fernando, and Nicki, the most random quartet possible, only to end up with this lol

Daniel finally answers a call at just gone 4.30am, Max's time. It's 5.30am, Daniel's time, which admittedly is only marginally better, but maybe the hospital he's in has some crazy Get-Up-And-Seize-The-Day sort of ethos. Although from what Christian has told him, Daniel might not be seizing anything, metaphorically or otherwise, for some time.

"Daniel," Max says as soon as he hears the line clicking through. "How are you? How do you feel? Is your wrist alright? Do the doctors and nurses take care of you, do they speak English, or did Red Bull send a Spanish translator and I hope I have not woken you up and-"

He cuts himself off. There's a sort of stunned silence on the other side of the line. Sometimes, Max thinks his need for Daniel is a bottomless pit, something that has hollowed him out and leaves an ache echoing through him.

"Max?" Daniel says, incredulous. High, drugged up, gone on pain medication. "How did you get into my phone?!"

Max squeezes his eyes shut. His mouth is twisted, making some shape. A smile, a frown? He doesn't know, nobody can see him in his old childhood bedroom.

He wants to be with Daniel. He wants to brush a hand through his curls and run his fingertips along the lines of his faded tattoos like how a child would first begin to trace letters and numbers.

I miss you, he wants to say

I want you

I need you

"I'm not in your phone," he says instead, tone light and soft. "I called you. I am in the Netherlands."

"Oh," Daniel says, as if the fact Max had not been magically transformed into his phone is mildly disappointing. "What are you doing there?"

"We had a race, remember?" Max says. He's stretched out on his old bed. His feet dangle just slightly off the edge, and each year, he's promised a new one, bigger and larger and finally a grown-up bed. But it never materialises and Max has stopped bringing it up now.

The room is unchanged. Around him, the faces of former racing legends watch him, tapped to his wall. Above, stars look down, stuck to his ceiling in haphazard patterns. The day his father got to play God and created universes and cosmos splayed above his head.

"Of course," Daniel huffs good naturedly. "You won, Maxy."

"I know," Max replies softly.

"It was your ninth consecutive win," Daniel continues, his tone strong and proud, as if it's Daniel who has achieved it. Maybe he's so high on meds he thinks it is, that him and Max are some sort of Jeckyl and Hyde being, two sides of the same life. Max doesn't know. A headache is building behind his eyes. He hasn't really slept since Friday, three days previous.

"You're now equalling Sebastian Vettle. If you win the next race, you'll beat the record." Daniel continues before pausing, as if realisation is only just dawning. "I don't think I'll be there."

"No," Max murmurs. "I don't think you will be either."

"My wrist is really fucked," Daniel goes back to his jubilant tone, like a child with the best show and tell in school. "I have a metal plate in it, isn't that neat?"

He laughs. Max closes his eyes, just listening to the sound. "Imagine if it goes off at every airport security, Maxy? How annoying with that be?" He laughs again, the prospect sounding delightful to him in that very moment.

Max hums softly, and then shifts on the bed, turning away from the stars his father hung up for him. Instead, he moves to his side, facing a giant poster of Micheal Schumacher celebrating one of his championships. At the bottom, Max, to great things! MS. He was six. It was one of the best Christmas presents his dad had ever gotten him.

"How do you feel?" He asks. Daniel is humming a tune under his breath, the theme song to some gameshome Max barely recognises. He stops at Max's question.

"Good," he says happily. "I have gained deep clarity."

That shocks a laugh out of Max, as only Daniel, even doped, drugged Daniel, can do. The longing feels physical, the hole never ending in his chest. He closes his eyes, blocking out the stars and racing legends whose shine has faded and whose records he's now beating.

In another life, he thinks, he would be there. He'd be the first face Daniel would see, the first hand he'd get to hold, the first for nearly everything, just like Daniel had been for Max.

But instead they're a time zone apart and Daniel is alone in a country where he can't even speak the language and Max is in his childhood bedroom, surrounded by his family who are fast sleep and utterly oblivious to the fact he's gay, let alone in a relationship with Daniel Ricciardo.

"Clarity," Max forces his mind back on track. "How so?"

"Oh you know," Daniel says with ease. "Cleared my mental space."

Max huffs another laugh. His chest aches, empty. He wonders does Daniel know how hollowed out he is without him.

"Go on."

"Well, I deleted a shit ton of apps. That wellness app you made me download last year? Sorry Maxy, but that went," Daniel makes a popping noise. "And the fertility tracking app Scotty downloaded at his bachelor's party."

"Presumably he just got his and your phones mixed up, right?"

"No Maxy, it was a prank because I -" Daniel breaks away, finally understanding, laughing as if Max has made the funniest joke possible.

"Okay so you cleared up some space on your phone," Max prompts him.

"Oh yes, and then deleted twitter and went to WhatsApp and left about a billion groups and then I went to Instagram, and went through who I followed, and unfollowed tons of people."

"Oh? Did I make the cut?"

Daniel tutts as if Max is being purposefully dense.

"Naturally Maxy. In fact, I sort of debated unfollowing everyone except you, but then figured you might've been pissed at me."

Max can't tell if Daniel is joking or not. He doesn't know which he wants it to be.

"So firstly I unfollowed a bunch of people I had met years ago at business deals and stuff, and then Craig and Rebecca from school because I never really liked them anyway and they definitely never liked me and then Zak because the vibes were Not It and then my high-school teacher who I definitely only ended up following on a dare and -"

"Zak," Max says, picking out the familiar name in the sea of chatter. "As in Zak Brown?"

Daniel hums. "Yeah, the vibes were Not It. And then I also unfollowed Fernando -"

"Alonso?" Max splutters out another laugh of disbelief. "What on earth did he do to you?"

"I don't like how he acts around you."

"Me?!" Max voice goes up an octave. "What? But he's always nice to me Daniel. I like him."

"I know Max, that's the point," Daniel says, and before Max can even begin to comprehend what he means, he's continuing. "And then also Richard, from McLaren because I swear he used to tell Zak everything I did and then Michael, and then Sam, this old hookup, and -"

"Michael," Max cuts in, sure he's mistaken, "as in ..."

"Yeah," Daniel says after a beat. "That Michael."

Max swallows. Michael has been a constant strain on their relationship, the fly in the otherwise smooth ointment. Max had told Daniel he wasn't good for him, he wasn't looking after him. That friendship and business rarely mixed, and that in this case, it had congealed into something of neither, a strange, interdependent relationship which drained them both.

Daniel had said Max hadn't understood it, hadn't gotten how much Michael helped him, how good it was to have a physico who was also his mate. Max replied by saying that as far as he was concerned, Michael was proving himself to be neither.

Jealousy. That was what Daniel had pinned to him, had washed all rationality away with. Max was jealous.

He remembers feeling like he had been slapped. Jealousy. Fucking jealousy.

He never mentioned Michael again.

"But," Max begins slowly, mind whirling. "You had lunch with him last week." Even though you never mentioned it, even though I had to find out through fans' blurry photos.

"Yeah," Daniel draws the syllable out. "But... the vibes were not immaculate."

"Right," Max says, hating how terse the single word sounds. And the vibes were fine when he encouraged you to do that fucked up intermittent fasting? When he recommended yoga and gym sessions instead of therapy?

"And then I unfollowed Nicky Latifi, because unfortunately, he's going to do a masters in London, and following him online will simply remind me of all the missed possibilities I had in the academic world," he goes on.

"Daniel," Max says, trying to force his mind to move on, Daniel has unfollowed Michael Daniel has unfollowed Michael. "You dropped out of school when you were seventeen. In the most loving of ways, I would hardly call you an up and coming scholar."

"Details, Maxy," he says, but then goes quiet, and so does Max. He opens his eyes. His room is painted in shadows, sunrise still distant. The trophies he won as a child are carefully displayed in neat rows, their plaques opaque with dust, now thick and heavy. He remembers winning them, young and already starving for more, remembers the weight of plastic, the way sugary pop soda dried sticky on his skin.

"I think you were right," Daniel says softly. Max nods, face pressed against his pillow.

"I mean about him. Michael."

"I know who you meant," Max murmurs.

"Okay good, because you're definitely not write about my academic prowess, I was one hundred percent on track to be this world's Stephen Hawkens."

Max laughs softly. "It's Hawking not Hawken."

"Once again Maxy, details."

There's another exhale of quiet between them, and outside Max hears the world beginning to rise. Birds waking, their whistles winding their way through the crack in his window.

"I miss you," he says softly, as if the words are barely permitted to be spoken aloud.

"I love you too Maxy," Daniel replies with ease. Then - "you should come. I think it would be nice. If you were here too."

"I think so too," Max says. The longing grows. The trophies are dusty on his shelf, forgotten. His feet hang off his childhood bed. Birds begin to sing.

"So will you?" Daniel persists. Max squeezes his eyes shut.

"I don't know. I do not think you would be saying this if you weren't off your head on pain meds," he tries to joke. His chest aches. Hollowed out, always wanting more than he's allowed.

"Of course I would," Daniel says confidently, even though he ends it with a yawn. "I anyways want you around."

Max keeps his eyes still tightly shut. He tucks his knees up, bringing them to his chest. When he was very young and his parents were still together, he'd do this. Curl up on the bed with his eyes squeezed closed. The door shut, their shouts muffled; as distant as the bird song is to him now.

"Maxy?"

His sister said the same. Maxy? Climbing on his bed, tugging at his arms. What are they talking about? Nothing, nothing, it doesn't matter.

"How's your wrist?" Max asks. He opens his eyes - the room has grown lighter, dawn finally creeping in.

"Good," Daniel says, already forgotten what he said. Like a butterfly, moving onto the next topic, nothing permanent. "Sore. I'm on some strong shit though." He laughs. It sounds so near.

Max imagines it. He could do it. Book the ticket to Spain. It wouldn't even be that bad. People know him and Daniel are mates, and mates visit each other in hospital. And that's if it even comes out, which it might not. Nobody has to know.

"I love you," he blurts out, cheeks warm. Daniel laughs again, soft and delighted.

"Good, because my right hand is currently out of action, so I might need help over the next few weeks with a few particular things."

Max laughs, cheeks warm. He's not being quiet any more. His family can probably hear him through the walls, just like he could hear his parents all those years ago.

He can imagine his sister asking him, echoing their childhood as she questions him on words she's grasped through walls. This time, though, he thinks he will tell her the truth.

"I've heard Spain is very beautiful at the end of August," he says.

Daniel hums, "I've heard something similar, Maxy."

Outside, birds sing. The dawn continues on, filling the emptiness of night.