#another flashback!

[hannahssimblr]

Once, years ago now, Aunt Maureen took me to visit her eldest daughter, Karina. In the midday heat, beneath the shade of a fig tree we sat in a Venice restaurant, where bougainvillaea draped over the front of flat roofed houses and fragrant blooms edged the terrace. 

I loved Los Angeles. The food was always better, the people happier, the streets more colourful and picturesque than in Albuquerque, where everything was brown and beige, blending with the dust land. Karina laughed when I said this, sitting back in her chair in her oval sunglasses, a cigarette balanced between long slender fingers. 

“You should see where I live downtown, then I’ll ask you again how much you love it here.”

I didn’t know what she meant. I was thinking about those cool guys I’d seen on a basketball court earlier with their hats on backwards, the loud, bass heavy music they played from a speaker, and the skaters who dropped lazily into concrete basins on their boards. I wanted to be one of them, though I knew Maureen would never buy me something dangerous like a skateboard. I played things a bit fast and loose at the best of times and once almost rollerbladed clean off a pier, so she’d developed a fear that I might one day die of pure stupidity. Maybe when I was older and she wasn’t watching me from the kitchen window anymore I would move to LA, get myself a board and skate around on it without wearing a shirt, and get muscles and a deep tan like everyone else here. 

These were the kinds of thoughts I lost myself in as Maureen and Karina had conversations that either weren’t interesting or which I was unable to understand, but I was content sipping on my Fanta with ice, lurid orange, and so fizzy that it stung the back of my throat and thinking about being a grown up in LA while Maureen had her white wine and Karina her cigarettes. Soon they would order a plate of oysters that looked too much like boogers for me to sample and speak more about things happening, things that had already happened, and plans they’d made for the summer. 

“What’s your favourite time of year?” Karina said to me suddenly, snapping me out of my thoughts. I knew this is the sort of question you ask a seven year old when you don’t know how to speak to children, but I thought hard about it anyway to make sure I gave her the best answer I could. She was my cool, mature cousin, and I always wanted so badly to impress her. November and December, I told her, because I got presents on my birthday, then time off school on Thanksgiving and both these things on Christmas. I was still reeling from the PlayStation console that Maureen and her husband Mario had bought me last Christmas, slotted perfectly within its square, silver box, which I still had, stored carefully beneath my bed just in case I ever needed to pack it away and move it. 

“What about you, mom?” She said, and Maureen didn’t have to think. 

“The spring,” she said, “I just love to be out in my garden then, with all the flowers and that lovely sun, it’s not too hot. It feels like everything is just on the brink of bursting to life.”

I thought about that later as we passed the canal, all the beautiful spring flowers that erupted from the banks, and of home too, where by now, in the hazy days of mid May, the desert was blanketed with spring grasses, with violets and golden poppies and bluebonnets, burning a trail of vibrant indigo all the way to the mountains. 

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Ty to @scrapplesims for suffering living in LA once upon a time and for answering my weirdly specific questions about what it was like

[stealingpotatoes]

luke who do you think you're hiding this from

(donation doodles! // tip jar)

[puppyeared]

OK OK as much as I like shadowpeach starting as friends consider… hate at first sight <3

[varethane]

My superpower is that I still get lost in almost every single ARR dungeon.

[samwwise]

they put crack in the 1941 flashback. it’s my Roman Empire. i could watch that shit a million times and not get tired of it. the giddiness and excitement about being reunited??? the unconditional trust and devotion?? “that’s what friends do”, “i knew you would come through for me”, “i’ll do all tHE HARD BITS”?! i’m vibrating at a frequency that could shatter glass

[that-crazy-five-foot-two-chick]

They made Souta a chair for 97% of the movie because they knew we'd all pass away from his beauty if they didn't

[deeva-arud]

Ohh Playful Land Deeva save me

[cccotard]

fated encounter with that ‘brat’ again

[awaitingrain]

Lena bought a museum, which happens to be Kara's favorite. Lena is a business woman after all 💙💗

[elvisqueso]

"...What is it?" "The drums...they mean trouble. I shouldn't be here—" "I want to see you again—" "I can't—" "Please don' t leave—" "—I'm sorry." "..." "...I have to go now."

—Pocahontas (1995)

[quinnigallagherjones]

I KNEW AMERIE WAS NEVER GETTING THAT LETTER BUT FUCKKKK MEEEE IT HURTS 😭😭

[luck-of-the-drawings]

[<==PREV PAGES] [NEXT PAGE==>(not out yet.wait a year.or maybe more.imagine.]

saw alot of comments on prev pages; saying 'i HATE that mean teacher! im gonna FIGHT HIM!!' & i LOVE the energy!! it WOULD be nice. to have that catharsis. but the story of young tidestrider is Not one of catharsis. it is a story of being so small and so special and sucking so bad.

[tsilvy]

something about those little moments in s2ep3 with crowley alone in the bookshop while aziraphale is in scotland. I watched them all as a single sequence and it's just... SO MUCH.

look. the fact that crowley is cool as a cucumber when aziraphale is around, but when he isn't... well. there's the deep, deep breath he takes while he watches azi drive away, and i can't tell if he's more scared of being alone with gabriel or worried about azi going away alone. because as someone pointed out, aziraphale gets the car keys right after muriel arrives, and obviously it's safer for him to take the bentley which will hopefully keep him safe as it usually keeps crowley safe; but at the same time, crowley has to give up what's basically an extension of him, the one protection he has ready, to shield himself or to run away with, should anything happen while the guardian of the eastern gate aziraphale isn't there.

and then crowley is alone, without aziraphale, without his comfort car, stranded in his favorite place which has ceased being safe and has become instead somewhat inhospitable because his mortal enemy now lives here too. and the way he's wearing no jacket, no waistcoat, and he's just so thin, and snake-like, especially standing there near gabriel, who is built like a tank and you just know that if he's right, if by any chance gabriel became hostile, even in a non-magic fight crowley wouldn't stand a chance.

and yet, AND YET, he's quietly explaining gravity to him, then trying (and failing) to make Maggie and Nina vavoom and also explaining THAT to jim (azi didn't stop to hear his very romantic plan so at least maybe does jim? Can I hear a fucking wahoo?!), and you can't help but feel how badly he needs to talk to someone, anyone nonhuman around who isn't immediately outright hostile, without censoring himself, without complicated feelings in between.

and then, the exact moment later, the temporary peace is broken by gabriel himself remembering something ominous and ONE MOMENT LATER YET shax is outside, complete with background screaming chorus, and then crowley is desperately trying to convince her they don't know where the archangel is, still playing cool but swallowing like that, and then she says Hell will declare war and he's just thrown for a moment and says "to me?!" in THAT voice! but it's even worse than that, because they'll actually declare war not on him but on his friend, and he could maybe cope with hell wanting his scalp (again) but Aziraphale's?! And then STILL keeping that facade and telling her that anyway the angel is inside in the basement, because he knows that Aziraphale is safe while he's inside the bookshop, and therefore trying to keep her off Aziraphale's back while he's outside and alone? Which btw doesn't work because she somehow knows anyway and proceeds on harassing the angel in the bentley the very next time we see him?! AND at the same time he's trying to keep her from realizing he is all alone, here, in the bookshop?!?

And he's been flippant throughout, but the moment she leaves he's like, wreaked?! And his first instinct is of course to go back at being mad and threatening at Jim, but even that feels pointless, because the machine is already in motion, and it's always too late, it's "we're doomed" all over again, isn't it? and the fact that he's shaking all over as he comes to this conclusion?

and then we learn that he hasn't slept all night after this, and as soon as Aziraphale is finally back he's immediately out as if he'd been looking out the window all night waiting for him to be back home safe, and for his car to be available for him to finally feel safe into, and i've seen people wonder why he bolts the fuck out of there as soon as azi is back as if he didn't need a breather after all he's been through, AND THE FACT THAT LATER ON HE TELLS AZIRAPHALE CaN I WaTcH AS IF HE'S AT ALL INTERESTED IN HIM RUNNING ERRANDS ACROSS ALL OF SOHO AND NOT IN FACT UNABLE TO LEAVE AZIRAPHALE'S SIDE NOW THAT HE'S FINALLY BACK AFTER A FULL DAY AWAY DURING WHICH HELL IS APPARENTLY ABOUT TO DECLARE WAR TO HIM SPECIFICALLY WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK

anyway what i want to say is this sequence is the epitome of anxiety and claustrophoby for me, and it plays like a horror movie. It's just A Lot

[mccromy]

Character: *is canonically violent and abusive but has a sad backstory*

Normal people: he isn't real and it's cool and fun to explore his character in different scenarios

Freaks: he was right actually AND he is a poor little boy, he was MISUNDERSTOOD. actually those children were abusive towards him first but the narrator was unreliable so :/

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

No homo, but let's synchronize our instruments together.

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[snow-dragon-rider]

Baylan Skoll, shiny new Jedi Knight, full of boundless optimism and joy, takes a shiny new padawan, a tiny girl full of boundless optimism and joy to match, and the Council smiles at her endless questions and his endless patience.

Baylan Skoll, Jedi Knight, promises to teach and she promises to learn, and they adore each other and the Force dances around them in the hope of what could be.

Baylan Skoll, Jedi Knight, is sent off to war with his padawan like they all are, and already the Temple seems dimmer, like shadows creep in the corners without the two bright balls of light in the Force to keep them out.

Baylan Skoll, General in the Grand Army of the Republic, fights for what is right and teaches his padawan the same, as he keeps her as far from danger as he can in a galactic war.

Baylan Skoll, Jedi General, senses a change in the clones as the order comes down, and he pulls his padawan behind him, tells her to stay there and he will protect her, and she believes him, she always has, and he has never let her down before.

Baylan Skoll, traitor to the Republic, runs, shields his little padawan, sends her into the vents to hide while he cuts them a path out, and he kills dozens—hundreds?—he doesn’t know anymore—of clones, because he promised to protect her.

Baylan Skoll, Jedi Knight, fights no longer to get them out, but to get back to her, because the clones have found her and she is alone and she is terrified and the last thing he feels before he watches them execute her is her hope—her knowledge—that he will save her.

Baylan Skoll, broken man, kills every clone he can find because they took her and he couldn’t get her back, they betrayed the Jedi and he can’t get them back either, the Order has fallen and so has he.

Baylan Skoll, man on the run, takes his fight to whoever has the misfortune to catch his eye, and woe betide those he sets his sights on.

Baylan Skoll, mercenary, finds himself teaching a new apprentice to fight for a new Empire, not the old one the clones killed his padawan to create, but a new one, built by a new man, a man who sees the greater good and knows what must be done to bring it about (so he is told).

Baylan Skoll, fallen Jedi, finds this man, this Thrawn, and he has gone through trial and storm and tribulation and fire to get here, but so have Tano and her allies, and he will not give up without a fight, he never has.

Baylan Skoll, fallen Jedi, sees this boy, this child who would have been a padawan in the old days, who should be one now, who is in danger, who is terrified of the soldiers bearing down on him.

Baylan Skoll, fallen Jedi, fights for what is right, even though he hasn’t always, because he couldn’t save his padawan all those years ago, but damn it he will save Bridger’s.

Baylan Skoll, Jedi Knight, dies a hero, dies a death he could not all those years ago, dies to save a child, and the Force dances at the blaze of hope that burns so bright it shames the stars as it welcomes him home.

Baylan Skoll, worthy Jedi Knight, the Force says, be at peace.