#as a way to metaphorically keeps them around in case anything bad happens and they may not make it out

[cherrygarcia-07]

You wouldn’t have to go into too much detail with the horrors of the long exhausting case: but Spencer coming home to a civilian reader after such a case and she takes care of him. Maybe he feels bad about asking this if her because she has a job too, she needs to decompress too, take care of herself too but she’s like: “I took a three hour nap, ate some ice cream, watched a movie, I’m fine, I’m energized, I’ll make coffee, just lemme take care of you for goodness’ sake because you’re literally my person, you’re never a burden and you look like a puppy that got kicked right now and it’s breaking my heart.”

How she exactly takes care of him is up to you! But I would love to just…be this man’s comfort and solace

To Love Is To Care // Spencer Reid🌙

Thank you so much for giving me something else to write!! I hope I did okay <33

Synopsis: When Spencer comes home broken and empty from a rough case, you do everything you can to remind him that he is safe and loved, no matter what.

pairing: spencer x reader (gn!)

genre: fluff, hurt/comfort kinda-ish-y idk but they love each other so much

word count: 3.3k

notes/tags: briefest mentions of a death during a case, spencer is sad before he can be happy (sorry), non-sexual nudity (sfw imo literally nothing happens or is described they just shower together, its more for metaphors sake than anything), spencer snaps at reader for a quick sec, lotsa little kisses and hugs, gilmore girls mentioned🗣️, deliberate slight misunderstanding of mythology/philosophy, lotsa lovey doveyness🙂

masterlist

(pls reblog if you enjoy !! it helps a lot !!<3 )

———————————————————————————🌙—————————————————————————

You were by no means a profiler. You couldn’t read people that way, in that much detail. You couldn’t predict their next moves, couldn’t fill in the blanks of their past and you didn’t always know the best thing to say to people in a given situation. But you knew Spencer Reid. Like the back of your hand, in fact. You knew his moods and how they shifted, the subtle ways his body language and his speech adapted to them, and how his eyes reflected whatever emotions he was trying to keep hidden. Most importantly, you knew how to be there for him even when he insisted he didn’t need you to be.

That night you were sprawled out on the couch with your eyes glued to the TV having gotten home from work earlier than usual. You’d lounged around and relaxed but your muscles still ached with the strain of the day, your eyes drooping despite your nap a couple of hours ago. You sighed at the late hour staring back at you from the clock and reread the message from Spencer telling you he was on his way home. Rubbing your eyes, you settled back into the cushions just as you heard the door creak open behind you.

As you spun to look, a solemn air seemed to creep in through the door behind Spencer, floating around him like a fog that clouded his vision and stopped him from meeting your gaze as he let himself in. He walked tentatively, almost like an intruder in his own home as you watched him try to move as quietly as possible while he hung his bag and coat up and toed his shoes off by the entrance. He moved as if his limbs were being pulled by string, heavy and clunky despite his efforts to seem invisible. Slowly, you rose to your feet, making him turn to face you. As soon as he offered you that forced, tight smile and you met his dull, tired eyes you knew what had happened.

He couldn’t save them.

“Are you okay, honey?” You asked gently, walking over to where he still lingered by the door.

“I’m fine.” Spencer replied too quickly, trying to force a steady voice but it came out hoarse.

“No you’re not.” You whispered. He ducked his head to avoid eye contact and you noted the way his jaw twitched slightly before he responded, voice tighter than before.

“Yes, I am. I told you I’m fine.”

You sighed as you took a step closer to him, tilting your head in his direction in an attempt to get him to look at you again, but he wouldn’t.

“I know you, Spence.” You began, “you say ‘I’m fine’ when you’re not fine. If you said ‘I’m good’ or ‘I’m doing okay’ or anything else I’d believe you but ‘I’m fine’ means you want me to drop it.”

“Then maybe you should.” He snapped, eyes darting back to you with a coldness that wasn’t there before, like a mask shielding the hurt behind them. “I’m a grown man, I’m capable of handling my own problems.”

He moved to storm past you, but you reached out a hand to stop him, resting it carefully over his heart and rubbing gentle circles with your thumb into the fabric of his cardigan as he let out a shaky breath.

“I know you are, but that doesn’t mean you have to.” Slowly, you moved your hands from his chest, upwards until they delicately cupped his face like it was fragile. Spencer sighed as he instinctively leaned into your touch and wrapped his own hands around your wrists to keep you in place like he was afraid he would fall apart if you let go.

The coldness in his eyes melted away, replaced by a hollowness that broke your heart. You may not have known Spencer as a young boy, but you knew enough to recognise that that was the version of him standing before you now, afraid and desperately alone. And it hurt to see.

You knew he wasn’t mad, he was simply that small child trying to defend himself from a world that refused to help him, trying to protect himself before his brain could catch up to the situation and realise no one else was going to. He’d grown up taking care of his mother with no one to take care of him in return, bearing responsibilities meant for years well beyond his age while he suffered in silence and unfortunately that meant he didn’t know how to trust help when it was offered it to him. It felt like some kind of cruel joke in the making, like dangling the answer before his face only to open the trapdoor beneath him when he stepped forward to grab it. Frankly, he didn’t know how to be vulnerable. In the simplest of terms, it scared him.

When you finally spoke, you spoke softly, tenderly, as you opened your arms to him in invitation.

“I’ve got you.”

That was all it took. Instantly, the dam broke and he collapsed into you, burying his face in your shoulder as your hands found their way to his hair. You felt the silent tears soak through your shirt as his arms wrapped around you tightly, anchoring himself to you. Neither of you spoke for a while, you didn’t need to. Instead, you gently swayed where you stood, rocking him side to side as he cried, your fingers never stopping their soothing strokes of his hair, untangling the knots from where his own trembling fingers must have tore through it earlier. You continued swaying, your movement like a metronome tick tick ticking until his breathing matched its pace, evening out as the tears dried up.

You let the silence encompass you both for a moment longer, waiting until Spencer’s grip around you loosened as he pulled back until you were face to face again.

“Let me take care of you, honey.” You said, brushing his hair out of his face.

“I don’t deserve it.” He whispered, voice raw and broken in a way that made a lump form in your throat. His eyes were red and bloodshot, puffy from crying and purple below, bruised from the sleepless weight of his guilt.

“Of course you do.”Your own voice cracked as you spoke, and you cupped his face again when he began to shake his head in disagreement. “Of course you deserve to be taken care of. Why wouldn’t you?”

Spencer took a deep breath before he responded and you could tell he was swallowing another wave of tears. “It’s selfish. You’ve been working too, and it’s late and you’re tired. You shouldn’t be the one suffering for my own failings.” His voice trailed off at the end and you caught the way his nose scrunched up as he fought to push down his emotions.

“Spence,” you tried to flash a light smile in his direction. “I’ve napped. I’ve eaten. I’ve watched so much Gilmore Girls since I got home I think Luke Danes might actually reach out of the screen and slap me if I don’t get off my butt and do something.” This earned a light, albeit wet, chuckle out of him and you breathed a slight sigh of relief that you were beginning to get through to him.

“I don’t want to be a burden.” His voice was as small as you’d ever heard it- and it wrecked you.

“Spencer, look at me.” Still holding his face in your hands, you carefully turned him to look at you as you stared into his eyes, loving but firm. “You could never be a burden. You are the most doting, dedicated, downright adoring man I have ever met in my life. There’s nobody on this earth that makes me feel even a fraction of the way you make me feel, nobody who makes me feel so wanted and so loved and so seen. I refuse to let you go to bed thinking you are anything less than that. Letting me take care of you would be the greatest gift you could ever give me. I would move heaven and earth for you, you know that?” You paused for a moment, making sure your words really sunk in because you meant every single one. When he nodded hesitantly, you leaned in to kiss away the tear that had begun to roll down his cheek before adding “and honestly this sad little puppy dog face you’re giving me is breaking my little heart.” This got a real laugh out of him, pulling one out of you too as you gave him a loving smile.

You took his hand in yours, brushing your thumbs over the callouses that had formed after years of holding a gun, and guided him to the bathroom. Wordlessly, you began to undress him with the utmost care, tender and gentle as you pulled the fabric off of his body as if you were unveiling a work of art, letting him shed the memories of the past few days as his clothes dropped to the floor. Your breath hitched at the bruises on his body, no doubt the result of the case, but you said nothing. Once you were both bare you stepped under the shower head, both relaxing into the warm water as it blanketed the two of you in its much needed heat.

It was moments like this that meant the most to you. It wasn’t about lust or sexuality, it was the pure intimacy of allowing the other to be completely vulnerable in its most literal sense. It was knowing you were unveiling it all; your scars, your flaws, your everything to one another and not doubting for a second that you would be met with anything other than unfiltered love. It was real, it was honest, it was raw. Especially for someone like Spencer who kept his walls so high up and so guarded, you knew how much it took for him to get to this point with somebody and you felt so eternally grateful to any and every force of the universe you could fathom that you got the honour of being that somebody.

Spencer’s eyes fluttered shut as your hands found his hair, running shampoo through it as his forehead dropped to your shoulder. You felt his arms wrap around your waist again as you continued washing his hair, touch light but grounding against his scalp as they massaged him. Every now and then, you pressed a kiss to his temple and when you rinsed out the shampoo you used your hand as a make-shift shield to stop it from getting into his eyes. It’s beautiful, really, how the simple act of just being together can turn the most mundane, every day tasks into something so intimate. It felt like the whole world had disappeared, like if you pulled back the shower curtain you would find nothing but the vastness of space giving you all the time in the world to keep orbiting around each other, just like this, forever.

Afterwards, you wrapped Spencer in his towel before going to get his favourite comfy pyjamas for him. You dressed him with the same care as you had undressed him, putting him back together after he had fallen apart, and you pressed a quick kiss to his lips when his head poked through the neck hole of his shirt, getting a surprised giggle from him that made your heart sing.

As you both wandered back into the bedroom you flicked on his nightlight, welcoming the hazy, warm glow that finally drew out the glimmer in his eyes you’d been missing all night. It was a little moon shaped light that you’d bought him in the gift shop of a science museum he took you to when you first started dating. It was clearly meant for kids and you’d both laughed at its charming tackiness, but he’d slept with it on every night since.

Once the two of you were in bed you immediately climbed on top of him, sinking your head into the crook of his neck as his hands found your back. Deep pressure therapy. He’d told you about it once.

It was back in the early days of your relationship and you’d dragged yourself into his apartment, exhausted and on the edge of crying after a rough day at work. Spencer had watched as you threw yourself onto the couch, perched next to you with a worried look on his face. Before you even had a chance to speak, you found yourself being laid back against the cushions as his tall frame clambered on top of you. He was awkward, unsure of how to execute his plan but knowing that he just needed to do anything in his power to take away your discomfort.

“Spence?” You questioned, though you instinctively reached around him to pull him closer.

“Deep pressure therapy.” He mumbled into your shoulder. “Many people find it regulating. There’s been numerous studies that show that it relaxes the nervous system and helps relieve symptoms of stress and anxiety. Most people opt for a weighted blanket but I don’t have one to offer you so as an alternative…” He trailed off shyly. “You have me.”

You’d laughed, shaking your head affectionately at his over the top, nerdy, and so uniquely Spencer way of looking after you.

“I can feel it working already.” You’d muttered into his hair, and since then it had become routine.

Now as you gaze up at him through your heavy lashes you begin to notice the serenity starting to replace the pain in his eyes.

“Are you ready to talk?” You murmur, your voice a welcome break in the silence.

Spencer takes a deep breath and you can almost see the gears turning in his head as he tries to piece together his thoughts. Finally, he speaks, low and tired, “this job feels so Sisyphean sometimes. It’s like you work so hard and you strain yourself beyond belief every single day but then all it takes is one bad case- one miscalculation or one wrong word, and you lose it all. You lose everything and you end up right back where you started. You can’t help but feel completely hopeless.”

“How many people do what you do?” You reached up to gently tuck a stray hair behind his ear.

“You mean my job?” He asked and you nodded. “Well the amount of agents currently employed by the FBI stands at approximately-“

“No, Spence.” You giggled, cutting him off. He was always so eager to share his knowledge, his passion for statistics always at the forefront of his mind and you’d be lying if you said it didn’t warm your heart in a geeky way. “I didn’t mean it literally. I mean you are already going above and beyond the rest of us. You have a very brave job- a tough, brave job that not a lot of people have. That’s something to be proud of.”

He let out a heavy exhale through his nose. “But what’s the point if people are still dying?”

You shifted your position on his chest slightly, adjusting so your faces were level. “The point is all the people you have saved and all the people you will save. And all the bad, bad people you’ve stopped from ever hurting anyone again. You can’t save everyone- thinking that is just unrealistic as much as I wish it wasn’t- but you’re doing everything you possibly can to try and that’s more than most people can say.”

Spencer was quiet, his eyes drifting to the ceiling above him as he processed what you were saying. You could tell he was trying so hard to let himself believe you were right, to let go of the guilt haunting him, but he just couldn’t.

“You have had the weight of the world on your shoulders for as long as you can remember and I know it’s hard not to feel the pressure when you’re so used to it by now.” You began. “But you have got to learn to take a breather through it all or the weight is going to crush you.”

You watched as Spencer bit his lip in thought, but he remained silent and so you carried on.

“You referenced Sisyphus, right? That moment where he loses the boulder and has to go back to the beginning and start all over again? Well, maybe it’s not such a bad thing.”

He tilted his head back down to look at you, brows furrowing in confusion. “What do you mean?”

You gave a small smile and reached down to give his hand a comforting squeeze before answering. “Sure it’s frustrating. It feels hopeless like you said, like all that work was for nothing. But then there’s that moment when there’s no weight. There’s no boulder, even if just temporarily, and maybe now he can catch his breath before he starts over. Maybe that’s what this moment is for you.”

“But then he does start over,” Spencer started, voice cracking as his brows pinched together further, “for all eternity. His life is doomed to pushing that same stupid boulder up that hill over and over and over again.”

Humming lowly, you pulled his hand to your lips, pressing a reassuring kiss to his knuckles as he tried to calm the sudden racing of his heartbeat.

“So he should savour those breaks in between, don’t you think?” You said, tucking his hand beneath your chin and staring up at him with an affectionate smile.

Spencer felt a grin tug at his lips as he met your eyes. “I don’t think you fully understand the story of Sisyphus” he teased.

“Shush, I’m rewriting it.” You grinned back, “my version is better anyway.”

Another silence fell over you, but now more tranquil, more steady. Spencer felt the boulder slip from his grasp, but for once he didn’t chase after it.

“Thank you.�� He whispered after a while, cupping your face where his hand still rested along your jaw.

“For what?”

“For taking care of me.” Tears pooled in his eyes again, but this time it wasn’t grief or guilt- it was gratitude.

“Never thank me for something you are one hundred percent deserving of.” He opened his mouth to protest but you immediately cut him off, “and you ARE deserving of it, because you are Spencer Reid.” You paused to quickly peck his lips. “Smart” kiss “kind” kiss “handsome” kiss “Spencer Reid.”

He couldn’t hold back his laugh as he beamed into your kisses, and when you pulled away his cheeks were flushed and rosy.

“You are my Spencer Reid, and I love you so, so much.” You murmured, leaning in to kiss him properly, slow and soft.

“I love you too. So much.” He echoed, squishing your cheeks together in a way that forced a pout. You giggled wildly as he kissed you back, sporting a sappy grin on his face.

Yawning, you eventually rolled off of him, finding your place tucked into his side instead. “Well with that established, I think it’s time I get my much needed beauty sleep.”

“Nonsense,” Spencer muttered, already beginning to fall asleep as he wrapped his arm around you, “you’re already the prettiest person in the world.”

“Doctor Reid, are you flirting with me?” You mumbled sleepily, chuckling into his shirt when he hummed proudly in response. “Shameless. Get some sleep, Romeo.”

Just like that, the two of you drifted off together, safe in each other’s embrace. You knew it wasn’t over forever- but it was over for now. There were always going to be more cases, more people who would fall through the cracks. There were always going to be more days when Spencer pulled himself through the door, broken and falling apart where he stood, but you would always be there to catch him. He was learning to be vulnerable one day at a time, that scared little boy inside fading further and further away with every word from your lips or touch from your fingertips- and that was enough for him to keep trying.

-

[sevasey51]

I just read the request with Connor’s wife losing it on her co workers that brought up her family and medical issues. Can you do one where because of her job as a scrub tech she is quiet but observant and has a lot of secrets that she has heard at the nurses station. She knows that they all talk shit about each other behind each others back? She decides to metaphorically blow up the unit and tell them.

Basically just change that scene I loved that part very much too ❤️🥺 the young nurse still tells her and Connor is still there when she does and will is still there and tells Connor about her old ways of a short fuse

Scrubbed In, Shut Out, and Done Being Quiet

Summary: Y/N is known as the quiet, steady scrub tech. Observant. Professional. Keeps to herself. But what no one knows is that she hears everything. Every whispered jab, every petty comment—especially the ones about her. She’s used to brushing it off. Until Emily, one of the kindest nurses on the unit, pulls her and Connor aside to warn them about what’s being said. That’s when Y/N decides to stop being quiet. With Will watching from the sidelines and telling Connor “She used to have a short fuse—now she’s got a tactical nuke,” the whole unit is about to get a front-row seat to the moment the silent scrub tech finally snaps.

Y/N didn’t usually speak much at work.

She was efficient. Focused. Quiet in the OR. Quiet in the hallway. Head down, gloves on, no drama. That’s what made her such a damn good scrub tech. And the fact that she happened to be married to Dr. Connor Rhodes? That was background noise. At least, she wanted it to be.

But other people couldn’t help themselves.

Whispers in the locker room. Passive-aggressive comments at the nurses’ station. Little snide remarks just quiet enough to pretend they weren’t meant to be heard—but they always were.

And Y/N heard everything.

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t react. Just tucked it away. Catalogued it. Watched the same nurses who laughed with each other turn around and mock each other when backs were turned. She kept her head down.

Until Emily stepped in.

Emily—the only one who had always been sweet to her, checking in without prying, the kind of nurse who made even the worst shifts bearable—pulled her aside after a case.

“Hey… can I talk to you and Connor for a sec? Nothing bad, I just… I think you both deserve to know something.”

Connor was already half out of his gown when Emily gave him a worried look.

“It’s about the nurses’ station,” she said softly. “Someone’s been saying some things about Y/N. About her medical stuff. Her past. And it’s not okay.”

Y/N froze.

Connor straightened, eyes narrowing. “Who?”

Emily hesitated. “It started with Jenna. But it’s more than her now. I think they assume you won’t say anything because you’re quiet. But it’s getting out of hand.”

Y/N looked at her, still calm on the outside, but inside?

Something cracked.

She wasn’t just hurt. She was furious.

The next morning, she walked into the unit early. Calm. Clipped ID badge. Coffee in hand. Perfectly polite.

And waited.

By mid-morning, the nurses’ station was full—chatter, coffee, someone gossiping about a resident from another floor. Exactly the usual.

And that’s when Y/N—quiet, steady, observant Y/N—spoke.

“Hey,” she said, voice level. Not raised, not angry. Just clear.

Every head turned. No one had ever heard her interrupt a conversation.

“I figured,” she said, placing her coffee down, “that since everyone here is so comfortable talking about each other behind their backs, we might as well get everything out in the open. Right?”

Silence.

Absolute silence.

Jenna blinked. “I’m sorry—what?”

“I said,” Y/N repeated, a little louder, “let’s just go ahead and say everything out loud, since apparently whispering it at the nurses’ station is just too subtle. Want to start with how many of you think I only got this job because I married a surgeon?”

Her tone never rose. But it burned.

“Or maybe we move on to the part where you talk about my medical history like it’s gossip and not something I survived?”

No one moved.

She took a step forward. “Or—better yet—we go around the circle and talk about all the things you’ve said about each other. Because I’ve heard every word. Want to start with what Gina said about Jess’s patient notes last week? Or how Rachel thinks Lisa’s ‘too old for night shifts��?”

Now the room buzzed with tension.

“You all smile to each other’s faces, then throw knives the second someone walks away. And you think because I’m quiet, I don’t hear it?” Her voice cracked—still calm, but shaking now. “I didn’t say anything because I thought it was beneath me. But I’m done being quiet.”

She turned on her heel and walked out, leaving the station stunned.

And Connor?

Connor was waiting in the hallway, having gotten the “You might want to come down here” text from Will.

“She’s going nuclear,” Will had warned, coffee in hand. “Like, proper nuclear. Not her usual quiet wrath. This is early Y/N—rage-with-a-mission Y/N. I haven’t seen that since she made an ER tech cry in ’18.”

Connor’s mouth had twitched. “Do I need to intervene?”

Will smirked. “You need to stand back and admire the carnage.”

Back in the stairwell, Connor found her sitting on the steps, hands shaking slightly as the adrenaline wore off. He knelt beside her.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

She nodded, eyes glassy. “I’m just… I’m tired of pretending I don’t hear it.”

He gently pulled her into his arms, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You were incredible.”

“I probably just set the whole unit on fire.”

He smiled. “Maybe. But they needed to feel the heat.”

She laughed weakly into his chest.

“Hey,” he whispered. “You don’t have to be the quiet one all the time. You can be fire when you need to be. You always have that right.”

And in that moment—shaky and flushed, still reeling—Y/N realized she hadn’t just defended herself.

She’d made damn sure the whole unit finally saw her.

Not just the quiet scrub tech.

Not just the surgeon’s wife.

But a woman who watched the room for weeks…

And chose the perfect moment to burn it all down.

[aita-blorbos]

AITA for not telling my sister we're related?

I CAN EXPLAIN, I SWEAR.

Okay, so basically. I have this friend (??X -- look, they're around my age but I don't know my age because time is not something I'm good at keeping track of. I think I'm older? Not by much though.), we'll call them R. R's a great person -- trustworthy, reliable, friendly, willing to play good cop to my bad cop (METAPHOR!!! NOT ACTUALLY COPS!!!), one time we planted an inordinate amount of beetroots together? Maybe more than once.

R is also, like, super possessed by an evil version of himself. At least, I'm pretty sure S (???X) is evil. He's sneaky, ominous, keeps saying things that don't make any sense, have this really spooky voice, and oh yeah there's also the eyes that change color and the fact that he keeps! Bugging me! About my past! Which you'd think would not be something appropriate to ask someone with a mechanical arm and a bunch of burn scars! And yet!!

Anyway. S insists her name is also R but in this case I'm referring to her as S because otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell the difference now would you? And I've been trying to figure out what exactly is going on with S for ages. Like, don't get me wrong, terrified of her, but I also want her help. Having someone like that on my side could be really useful.

The thing is, a while ago S and I talked and zhe showed me this... weird, old buried upside-down clocktower in the ground? I tried to talk things out with zhen and ask what zhe wanted but. Uh. Look, at some point maybe I stopped paying attention and tripped while going down one of the internal ladders or something, I still have a few healing bruises from that talk. Lost some time, too. But I do remember her mentioning I was related to R (and also something about us being time and space? Maybe? I don't want to think about that! So I'm not going to!) and that I was supposed to be zhens older brother.

The other thing is, every time I've remembered this (memory issues, you know how it is, everyone has 'em) it's been the worst possible time to go "hey, by the way, we're related" to R. Like, absolutely godawful timing. I didn't tell them immediately because S possessing R messes up their body hardcore and frankly I was scrambling to get them health potions so they wouldn't randomly die about it. I didn't tell them the next time I remembered because we were busy dealing with the person who blackmailed us who turned out to be a) a literal star and 2) basically a baby -- who then kind of told us the reason he's not, you know, in the sky, is that his brothers pushed him out of it as a prank and if there's any really bad time to tell someone you're their brother, it's when the kid in front of you is basically going "brothers suck, source: me." (Side note -- some weird combination of ESH and NAH from that situation as far as I'm concerned. We worked stuff out.)

Only, uh. Look, I am entirely not sure what happened. I randomly came to in the clock tower again one day with S glaring at me, and then next thing I know I've lost more time and R is helping me get out of the clocktower cavern with an absolutely splitting headache. He gets me up out of the place and then to my house (I saw some weird signs with my handwriting on them along the way. Sidenote: might also be possessed by an evil me.) and is acting... really weird. Keeps asking if there's anything I need to tell him or am keeping from him, eventually just reveals that S spilled the beans on us being related. I think he's a little mad about it -- I mean, I would be too -- but I really did just totally forget! I've been super busy and might've gotten a concussion at the time S told me!

Anyway. Found out someone was my sister via her evil possession twin. Forgot to tell them because the timing was always the worst timing imaginable. Am I the jerk for this specific thing. Not the other stuff. Probably was kind of a jerk during the thing with the star. Not relevant here.

[ncisfranchise-source]

It’s a g’week to be an NCIS: Sydney fan, with Season 2 of the spinoff from Down Under kicking off this Friday at 8/7c, on CBS.

NCIS: Sydney follows an eclectic team of U.S. NCIS Agents and Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers who have been grafted into a multi-national task force, to keep naval crimes in check in the most contested patch of ocean on the planet.

The merged team is led by NCIS Special Agent Michelle Mackey, played by DC’s Legends of Tomorrow alum Olivia Swann, and her 2IC AFP counterpart, Sergeant Jim “JD” Dempsey, played by Todd Lasance (Spartacus: War of the Damned). The cast also includes Sean Sagar (Fate: The Winx Saga) as NCIS Special Agent DeShawn Jackson, Tuuli Narkle (Bad Behaviour) as AFP Liaison Officer Constable Evie Cooper, Mavournee Hazel (Neighbours) as AFP Forensic Scientist Bluebird “Blue” Gleeson, and William McInnes (Blue Heelers) as AFP Forensic Pathologist Dr. Roy Penrose.

In the Season 2 opener, titled “Heart Starter,” with rogue assassin “Ana Niemus” (Fringe‘s Georgina Haig) on the run and suspicion swirling around Colonel Rankin (Lewis Fitz-Gerald), the team must do whatever it takes to crack the case on DeShawn’s first day as boss — “even if that means waking the dead.” (And no, that’s not a metaphor.)

TVLine hopped on a Zoom with NCIS: Sydney showrunner Morgan O’Neill to get a taste for the internationally flavoured series’ encore.

TVLINE | Big picture, how would you compare Season 2 to Season 1? Is there anything you decided to lean into? For example, JD seems to be a funnier guy this season. I think, on a global scale, we’ve just been more ambitious — in terms of the production values, in terms of the breadth of the stories we’re telling. But one of the things that’s allowed us to be ambitious is that we now know the characters. We’re not in those first-season days where you’re still trying to work out who they are and how they interact with one another and what the allegiances are, who likes what and who doesn’t.

Now that we’ve established those characters, we have that fabulous opportunity to deepen and to peel back the lid and to actually see what makes these guys tick in a much more profound way, and lean into what we’ve discovered are the qualities of the characters that we like the most. It’s an interesting observation that JD’s funnier, because for me, that’s the kind of deepening that happens in workplaces all around the world. You meet the person on the first day, and you’re like, “I’m not sure I really like them….”

TVLINE | But then you get comfortable with one another and you realize, “Oh, I can make this joke.” “I can make this joke,” or you go through a shared experience that experience bonds you and opens a door, and you walk into a different realm of intimacy of familiarity or affection. But I just feel like, overall, we’ve gone bigger, and we’ve gone deeper.

TVLINE | The logline for this Season 2 premiere has some fans curious about “DeShawn’s first day as boss,” like, “Where’s Mackey? Where’s JD?” Well, look, without spoiling the first episode, there are obvious repercussions for where we left things the end of the first season. A whole bunch of decisions had been made to get JD’s son back, and someone has to “pay the ferryman.” These are not decisions that happen in a vacuum. Protocols have been broken, trusts have been breached, and at some point, the organization is going to come down and say, “How are we going to get through this?” And then, “How are we going to get through this with Mackey and JD sidelined?”

While Special Agent in Charge Ken Carter (Five Bedrooms‘ Bert LaBonté) works out what the hell to do, what happens next is that the most senior NCIS agent in the building steps up and takes the reins, and that’s DeShawn — much to Evie’s delight, because she doesn’t think DeShawn is boss material, let’s say, and she’s more than happy to make him aware of that. [Laughs] The irony is that he actually turns out to be a pretty great boss, in his own way.

TVLINE | I somewhat famously compiled for our readers a glossary of Australian slang for Season 1. Can I expect to make any additions for Season 2? For example, from one of the new episodes, I now know what a “celebrant” is. Here’s the thing that is so interesting, and stop me if I’ve told you this, but I lived in America for 15 years, and when I moved there, I thought, “We’re kind of the same people, right? We have a different accent, but we speak the same language, and culturally, we’re the same.” And then, halfway through it, I realized that there are, like, chasms between us in ways that are really invisible.

I walked into a Canter’s Deli on Fairfax [in Los Angeles], and I walked up to the cold cuts section — we say “the meat counter” — and I said to the lady behind the counter, “Can I have one-and-a-half pounds of pastrami?” She said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that.” I said, “I’d just like one-and-a-half pounds of pastrami,” and she goes, “I don’t understand what you’re asking me.” I said, “OK, I’m confused here, too. I would like some pastrami, and I would like one-and-a-half pounds.” She said, “Ohhhh, a pound-and-a -half!” The point is, there are tiny little nuanced differences in the language which you take for granted.

I would’ve thought that everyone knows what a celebrant is. What is a celebrant in America?

TVLINE | I suppose the closest term is officiant? The officiant, is it? Well, there you go. And frankly, I don’t want to put up my hand as being on the right side of history here, but a celebrant sounds way cooler than officiant. You know what I mean? So, that might be something we can gift the Americans!

TVLINE | Any distinctly Australian locales you’re going to be using this season? Heaps. I mean, we end up in the top end of Australia, up in Darwin, for the climactic last two episodes of the season, and without going into too fine of detail about what that is, because I don’t want to spoil it, you can imagine what’d it be like. The difference is as if if the show was set in Rhode Island, and then you ended up in Texas or Alabama. Sydney’s on the bottom of the southeast part of Australia, and Darwin is in the very top north. It’s the bit that faces Indonesia, and it’s tropical, and it’s filled with saltwater crocodiles…. It’s like the frontier. It’s incredibly different, and it’s exotic in ways that the rest of the show isn’t. So, yeah, that’s part of the ambition I’m talking about. The show was really successful in its first season, and that allowed us confidence — and allowed the network to have confidence in us, asking to stretch our wings even further.

As I said to you the first time we met, my vision of NCIS: Sydney is that it’s the gateway drug to NCIS Australia, because Australia is this vast continent. It’s the world’s largest island. It’s one of the most remote places on Earth and a little bit like the U.S. So, yeah, the landscape, the backdrop is much richer in Season 2.

TVLINE | Any personal runners, personal storylines, for any of the characters? For sure. As I said earlier, one of the ambitions for the show was to deepen our characters and to let our audience in a little bit more, in an NCIS way — which is not to say we do these enormous emotional dumps, because that’s not the show. We drop little breadcrumbs. I don’t know how many seasons it was before we worked out that the ship that Gibbs was building in his basement was named after his dead daughter, but I think it was four or five. Like, 100 episodes, from when we established that boat to where we learned of its significance. That’s one of the secret sauces of the show, that the contract with the audience is “nothing is going to be incidental.” So, hold onto all those tidbits and information, because I promise they’ll actually make sense at some point, even if they don’t make sense now or tomorrow.

In the first episode, there’s a pretty significant revelation about Mackey’s backstory and family life that I’d love to hear your thoughts on. But it really does place a slightly different filter on how we see Mackey interact with her team and with the wider world, because you’re now seeing it with this information that you didn’t have in the first season. Hopefully, a lot of the decisions she made in that first season come into greater context or make more sense, in light of the revelation in the first episode.

TVLINE | Anything on the romance front to preview for Season 2? It’s really interesting, because once this first season had gone to air, a few friends would send me random musings from the Internet, from people who had watched the show and enjoyed the show and had their thoughts about where it was going to go or what it meant, and it’s interesting watching the audience process what they think is going on beneath the surface of our characters. I love that. I find it fascinating.

TVLINE | Like Evie and DeShawn? Season 1 told me they are clearly heading towards an intersection point romantically. That’s interesting. Some people look at that relationship as “brother and sister,” constantly bickering, undermining each other, competing for Mom and Dad’s attention, and I could certainly see that. Some people feel like there’s a natural movement towards a romantic intersection. I don’t want to preempt any of that.

I will say, without being too cryptic, that there is a romantic tension [between two characters] that emerges across Season 2, and it really hits its zenith in the last couple of episodes and hopefully takes the audience a bit by surprise.

[dgaftilwedie]

You should tell me about your ghoul oc................

WHAT'S THIS??? AN OPPORTUNITY TO TALK ABOUT MY LITTLE GHOUL?????? EEEEESOIJFSJDKJFSKDF

ok so!! their name is inferno, and (as you can probably tell by their name) they're a fire ghoul :3 they're fem-presenting but use neutral pronouns, and they're dewdrop's... pupil?? of sorts?? copia summoned them before the reimperatour, after the Bloody Guitar incident just in the off chance something like that happens again and dew isn't able to keep playing. on stage, dew lets them practice their solos, but most of the time, they're off to the back harassing rain or singing background vocals with the ghoulettes and swiss. they were also summoned at the same time as aurora and phantom, so they're all very close!! (but with nameless ghouls, they're all basically attached at the hip so...)

inferno is a very loud individual, both literally and metaphorically. they're very bold, easily excitable, and talkative. they're constantly full of energy and enthusiastic to do anything and everything. that doesn't come without some downfalls though... they're very overly-emotional and one "bad" interaction can quickly send them spiralling. when they get into moods, they hide away in their room for days on end, and they can be a little hard to work with because of this. they also have the tendency to be a LOT to handle, which they know, and they hate that their actions can be seen as annoying when they're just trying to be themself. aside from that, they're a really fun ghoul to be around!!

below the cut is just me talking about their relationships with the other ghouls off stage :3 if you want me to talk about the on stage relationships, i will GLADLY do that too HEHEHEHEHE

dew:  when copia first announced that dew was going to have an understudy, everyone was very nervous about his reaction. he's very headstrong and independent, so most people thought he was either going to hate his pupil or be a bad teacher to them. this could not be farther from the case!! dew was surprisingly very excited (which he masked under his typical "ugh... whatever" attitude). seeing as how inferno is dew’s understudy, the two of them are very attached to each other. they often stay a lot later than everyone else during practice, rehearsing different parts (usually because inferno begged him to teach them their favorite solos and dew obliges every time). inferno reminds dew a lot of himself when he first became a fire ghoul - he remembers how much of a mentor ifrit was to him, and he's trying to be even better of a mentor to inferno. they're spicy and annoying and bold, just like him, and he loves it.

rain: practically inseparable. they compliment each other in a bunch of different ways. inferno is loud, easily-excitable, and very jumpy; rain is usually quieter, collected, and more reserved. inferno helps to get rain going, and he eagerly plays into their enthusiasm. they’re very much attached at the hip, even more so than inferno and dew. cuddling, hugging, falling asleep in a pile on the den couch, etc. they're never not with each other. inferno is very clingy, and so is rain, so neither of them have an issue with this arrangement. inferno is still learning how to utilize their ghoul-magic and they often mess around with rain by poking his neck with their fire. it scares the shit out of him, but he's gotten used to it, and he splashes water at inferno to get back at them. he's also one of the only ghouls who inferno will go to with their problems, swiss and mountain being the other two. they feel too obligated to appear Super Cool and Strong to dew and cirrus, they don't wanna burden cumulus, and they don't want aurora and phantom to think less of them for being the way they are. (of course, they'd all listen if inferno wanted them to, but they're terrified)

phantom:  inferno was summoned around the same time as phantom, so they’re already pretty close. you’ve also seen how quintessence ghouls and fire ghouls act with each other... the two of them act a lot like dew and aether. they practice their parts together, throw pics at each other, and they’re generally very playful with each other. they also both have a biting problem?? phantom will be minding his own business and inferno will come up from behind him and sink their teeth into his neck. phantom does the same in return. literally both of them are covered in each other's bitemarks and they both think it's hilarious.

aurora:  like phantom, the two of them were summoned at the same time, so again, inherent closeness. the two of them are VERY gossipy with each other. they're often spotted around the ministry, giggling and whispering to each other in darkened corners. since they're usually on stage together, they practice little bits off stage to spice things up, which usually ends up in them being a tangled mess of bodies and instruments on the floor of the practice room. aurora also has really, really long hair and it's super soft and inferno often insists on styling it for her.

mountain:  they adjusted to each other very easily. similar to rain, mountain is much quieter than inferno is, but he appreciates their enthusiastic personality. inferno knows they can be a lot to handle but mountain is a naturally calming presence to them, so they're a lot more toned-down around him. mountain's sorta like a large teddy bear to them, probably because they have a massive height difference (which both of them thoroughly enjoy). mountain has taken to nicknaming inferno “fern” because he thinks it’s cute (he’s the only one allowed to call them that). the two of them often have little "dates" as inferno has taken to calling them; the two of them will sit in the ministry's garden and smoke some of mount's special stash as the sun rises before falling asleep in the grass. sister imperator has gotten on their cases for doing this on nights before big clergy meetings that both of them ended up missing.

cirrus: inferno looks up to cirrus a ridiculous amount. like, they treat her like a celebrity. they're in complete awe of her and cirrus thinks it's adorable. she definitely teases them about it. she's gotten into the habit of hugging inferno from behind just to get them all melty in her arms. plus, they're a fire ghoul, so they're naturally very warm, which cirrus loves. the pair also bond over instruments--who knew that keytars and guitars could be so similar, yet so very different...

swiss: when inferno was first summoned, swiss was the ghoul that intimidated them the most. he wasn’t the tallest or the strongest, but he was certainly the scariest. he had an evil glint in his eyes the sent a shiver down inferno’s spine. of course, that didn’t last very long. he’d give them occasional pointers on their guitar (and really good hugs) (and the ghape, sorry not sorry) and inferno opened up to him pretty quickly after that. they pick on each other a lot, but swiss always welcomes them with open arms if they're having a rough time.

cumulus: inferno has a very similar relationship to cumulus that they do with swiss... except for the fact that cumulus didn't scare the shit out of them when they first met. inferno thinks she's absolutely adorable, constantly flooding her with compliments and practically begging to watch her play the piano. the two of them spend a lot of time learning duets to perform for the other ghouls and ghoulettes; they have very different vocal ranges, cumulus's being much higher and inferno's being much lower, so it's an interesting contrast to hear. but they both think it's super fun!! also, ghoulette slumber parties... cumulus dubbed inferno an "honorary ghoulette" so they're invited the all of the slumber parties and girl's night activities that cirrus, aurora, and cumulus get up to :3 (they appreciate being included more than anyone realizes)

[gudakko]

diary entry sort of

it seems every few months now ill be looking back at the sort of person i used to be and get sad, each time feeling like im missing something more

i wish i could pinpoint what it was that started this weird process, if it was all just bad choices or mental illness or circumstances

in these cases you see people wishing they could go back to that version of themselves and tell them to do something differently but i couldn't even do that

i don't know what I would tell that happier weird girl back then to prevent her from turning into this i think id just hug her and tell her im sorry

a friend was feeling down the other day and as i was looking for words to comfort her i realized how much harder that had become. i remember talking to people for that before, to her in fact just years before, and how much.. harder it is now to say anything. i respect her too much to give the usual empty platitudes, sometimes just being there is enough, it seems that's something that's easier to appreciate now

it just kept me bothering how id remember comforting people and really believing in those words, not because i was being naive or anything, not at all, but because it felt as if something had eroded to the point i couldn't truthfully say those things anymore

over the years it just feels like everything's gotten more dull, nothing feels as fun as it used to only when something hurts it's just as sharp and it's given way to some habits over time

i feel a little bad for the psychologist i had to go to to try and get on hormones, i gave her this image of me as this entirely independent individual who got all their shit sorted out and feels confident about themselves

i didn't explicitly lie to her, all the things i said were objectively true and I may have felt that way at the time of those appointments, but i completely omitted everything else, anything that could potentially mark me as unstable. i played my part well and got the green light, another victory

just feels a little sad and ironic i had to lie to the one person i was supposed to go to for these sorts of things, so i just get to keep playing the part now, same as i always have

nothing's changed, im just as stranded as i was before, no one's there to pick me up if i fall but me or to hold my hand through all the uncomfortable steps but me

in a way it's morbidly comforting knowing that hasn't changed, and that it's the only thing that keeps me going, just me metaphorically dragging my own body because no one else will

i don't have goals or dreams or passions, no noble reason to keep going if not out of a faint sense of obligation

if i don't do this it'll cause trouble for other people and you can't have that that's all it boils down to and im hoping that doesn't erode with time too

sometimes i think if i could've gone about it differently, if there was a way to prevent this.. social and emotional and mental atrophy before it got worse, i didn't use to be like this i used to have friends and be fun to be around

it's just distressing to think about most days, i don't blame anyone for anything that's happened to me but myself

i did this, be it through action or inaction i did it all by myself

it sort of takes me back to being a little kid sitting by myself and looking at other kids playing and talking. i knew i was lacking something they had that prevented me from just. having fun with them

i just watched from afar and i wouldn't find out what alienation meant for at least another 10 years

i just

hope there's still something meaningful i can do

im very tired but ill keep going, ill keep taking care of myself and others, ill keep being strong, i just hope life will feel a little less passive one day

[greekbros]

I am TIRED of people defending Nolan's Odyssey because they say quote "it's just fiction what's the big deal"

Well fiction stories throughout history have had an important role in a country's history. So no random user that doesn't bother to google search actual history, a movie that makes fun of a fiction IS A BIG DEAL .

(I know what you mean...)

(it's crazy because these are the type of people that get angry at you for saying the exact same thing about what they like and it's just an ongoing level of a hypocrisy that makes no sense in the end of the day because one argument has a semblance of stability while the other is more of a personal opinion)

(in the case of defending a fandom and it's canon, it can either go both ways in the end of the day, sometimes people like the fanon more than they do Canon. Others would prefer to enjoy the thing as it is thus the fandom)

(but I think what happens nowadays is that people like to treat other cultures almost like sports teams, much like how politics and other IPS have been treated lately, they're always seems to be some sort of tribal mentality that effectively kills off any integral reasoning and literacy with the topic at hand)

(in this case it's Greek mythology, much like every other type of mythology we've gotten used to the idea that these are just fantastical stories and recently a lot of pop culture had tried to remove its importance by making them out to be just extensions or very old versions of comic book characters metaphorically speaking)

(by doing so, people have completely disconnected the fact that these used to be culturally important stories that people used to connect to not only is a means of theological practice but also as a means to understand the world around themselves... I'm pretty certain this is going to happen to christianity, Islam and Judaism thousands of years from now if anything happens, this statement is not out of malice but surely out of speculation and theory due to how we treated what essentially were religions back in the day)

(I think we've gotten so used to doing this because of how we see things such as Japanese mythology being commodified as some endless pool of fandom. When people try to defend Nolan's version, they're hoping that it's going to be some epic well done film like 300. The issue was that it seems that Nolan is just trying to make choices that wouldn't actually make a film successful unless it was an original concept. It is an irritating situation because I understand that it takes months if not years to make a film, but from what I understand there are plenty of films that change aspects of itself within a matter of weeks due to them hearing criticism online or such. I doubt that no one is going to change everything because unfortunately, much like every other hot headed and narcissistic director who only breathes nothing but the air out of their own farts because peasant oxygen is too good for them, you still always going to believe his version is going to be better)

(unfortunately, this is reason enough for people to defend him. But I've learned over the years that sometimes just because a person has an opinion, doesn't mean that opinion is correct, especially if there's plenty of things outweighing that opinion on the basis of logic, relevancy and perhaps even what I'd like to call 'Mass opinion'. If the majority of the people in the room do not like the thing, probably it's because the thing is bad. We should not keep the thing because one person in the room likes it. There are exceptions to this rule but more often than not they are not exceptions.)

(with that being said, sometimes doing something correctly is the best way to do a movie, not every single film has to be the exact same shade of gray and black. I recently saw a western show with my family and I realize that every single outfit was just gray and black. I pointed that out and everyone in the room told me to shut up. And I had to explain to them that black and gray are extremely hard colors to make and are extremely expensive, but unfortunately nobody listens to me because nobody likes my opinion)

(and I'm sad to say that because I'm the minority opinion in the room, my opinion is no longer valid according to the group even though I have context and reason to have such an opinion)

(the reality is simple, Christopher Nolan is wrong and the majority of the people who are criticizing him is right, unfortunately there is enough people to defend him to sadly boost his ego to justify his poor decisions)

[malt-rants-and-stuff]

hey... hey psst. psst. kim dokja. i keep thinking about him because he really seems like the kind of guy i like. time loop guy with a dissociation metaphor thing going on??? and also a play on the self-insert trope?? that's all i REALLY know i think. i dunno how you feel about these kinds of questions but im curious to hear ur thoughts on him. i might never get into orv because the length of it alone requires a grindset of some sort even if you end up in the hyperfixation trenches i feel like, which is something i've been going through with MY game but like. it looks more intimidating when you're not already into it i think. in any case would u ever wanna talk about him...

KIM DOKJA OH MY GOD

you don't even know what you're doing to me rn. if anything I have Too Many thoughts about him it's actually insane.

idk what level of detail I should talk about him at since you said you aren't sure if you'll get into orv but like. ouuughhh kim dokja. need to study him in a controlled environment so bad.

okay but here's the thing about him. it's not really a time loop or at least that's not exactly the biggest part of the angst here though it is partially. especially its about yoo joonghyuk (protagonist) regressing every time he dies and one day kim dokja (reader(orv mc)) shows up and changes the timeline and makes things go better than they ever had but also he won't stop dying because he so desperately wants what he thinks is the Best Ending and that ending had yoo joonghyuk and everyone else happy and away from the apocolypse but that ending never included Him and it's so fucked.

yoo "you fool, if I regress will I meet you again?" joonghyuk and kim "it was a good story, wasn't it yoo joonghyuk?" mother fucking dokja. they need to be stopped. but then they can't just have me be insane over them because here comes han "this story is for that one reader" sooyoung who will do Anything to save kim dokja even when he won't let her and the THEMES oh they are delicious. yoohankim make me so sick it's crazy

the never ending cycle of sacrifice turned self-sacrifice, I was made for you I made you I was made for you, the truth of omniscient reader's viewpoint was that it was never going to end well no matter how desperately they wanted it to happen.

Kim dokja will never let himself be saved, yoo joonghyuk will never stop searching for him, han sooyoung will never stop trying to be his savior. Kim dokja doesn't see himself as worthy of their love he doesn't think he is necessary but when he's gone they just fall apart. Mr. International Terrorist and Ms. Interdimensional Mass Murderer. That one reader who they did all of this for. who they spent thousands of regressions, hundreds of years, unknowable numbers of timelines trying so hard to save. and even after all of that, after the pain and the memory wipes and the separations and the death and just. everything. it will never be enough. Because this is a story for that one reader and he will never stop reading. he will never come back to reality. Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint is a trap of yoohankim's own desperate making. their collective failure to save each other like they saved everyone else is actually astounding.

Kim dokja is everyone we are all kim dokja etc etc, on his deathbed (one of many) he once made the one that he loves most kill him and everyone had just spent multiple chapters fighting to figure out who it was and it was so clear all along that it was painful. the usage of reading skills to tell the story of orv is so cool, the way that you can feel the foreboding energy through every word leading up to it, i fall apart over this book istg. you can clearly tell I have no coherent thoughts on them from this lmao.

also the themes around suicide and healing and regression (haha) and forgiveness and unhealthy love that burrows into your skin and wraps tightly around your bones and death and life and also there is a scene where kim dokja litterally says "eat the dirt yoou joonghyuk." and yjh does and I felt like I needed to be put down like a dog because I was laughing so hard while also crying over literally everything else going on. there is a point where the novel subtly changes from first to third person to signify the effects of something and when I realized it I literally broke down sobbing but it's so amazing like this story really takes advantage of its medium to tell the story it wants to tell. the story for that one reader. also the fourth wall is a actual character in this and its literally amazing, sassy shit who calls kim dokja out on his bullshit while also helping him. they go to a library and I kid you not I have never felt so heartbroken over two characters in my life than I did when one of the children kdj took in as his own acknowledged that he had become a side character type at one point in the novel and that kdj didn't love him as much as the other kid bc he was right it was true he did get pushed off and no one said anything because that's just expected when these types of long books have a pretty decently sized main cast but like in context the usage of this trope only to use it for character writing later was just evil and wrecked me.

the real kim dokja was the diagnosis I got along the process of reading this damn novel

[red-man-of-mustache]

Mario's Bio

Long post, going under a cut-- This is for mobile users, desktop users can also view this here

The stork. Trusted companion to expecting parents. Mario & Luigi were both on their way to the Metro Kingdom via Stork until, unfortunately, the animal was set upon by a particular Magikoopa: Kamek! He'd managed to successfully kidnap Luigi and the stork but not the older of the twins Mario. Kamek foresaw the trouble the bros would cause for Bowser and the Koopa clan in the future and sought to nip it in the bud. Luckily Mario landed amongst a tribe of Yoshi’s who selflessly helped reunite the bro’s and free the poor stork. There was much toil in between but the brave reptiles perservered. After their little adventure the Stork took the bros and continued on it’s course to deliver the duo to their parents.

The Koopa Clan searched tirelessly for the twins, seeking to keep a future enemy from growing too powerful or in this case growing at all! There was a second kidnapping because the stork had actually delivered the babies to the wrong parents, given it was frazzled from being taken prisoner. Fortunately, when the twins were kidnapped again(with a whole host of other babies dubbed the Star Children) the stork on it's way to pick them up attacked the Toadies after they gathered the children, managing to free both Mario & Peach. The Yoshi's, with the guidance of the children, set off again to save their island and the Star Children. They succeeded once more and it seems as though the Koopa Clan went quiet after another failure.

The bros, when returned to their actual parents, were raised with as much love as the pair could receive. Mario was an energetic child who often injured himself being too daring or getting into fights with the other kids meanwhile Luigi was more introverted and preferred to indulge softer things on his own. He scared easily and was an obvious target for bullies. Most of Mario's fighting was spent defending his younger brother whereas other times he may metaphorically step on someone's toes and then refuse to offer an apology. Mario is obviously the more brash of the twins so he wasn't as well-mannered. Luigi would often have to apologize on his behalf and divert whatever was coming his way. They stood up for one another in their own ways but they stuck together and that was all that mattered throughout their younger years.

Once they hit adulthood, Mario picked up plumbing after he flew through a slew of other careers. He was a Doctor, Carpenter, Demolition worker, Factory worker, and much more, Mario’s adventurous attitude didn’t let him wade in one profession for too long,plumbing being the only exception. Plumbing happened to be precious to him because it was something he could share with Luigi along with it running in the family. In fact, Mario’s love for plumbing would plunge him into a world full of adventure. Him and Luigi were involved with a typical call to fix a leak. When they arrived and got to work the foundation of the home had begun crumbling, dropping them near a large green warp pipe. Mario, being the curious fellow he was, wanted to see where it would go. It wasn't attached to anything else within the home and he wished to see why. Luigi followed after concerned for his brothers safety.

The second the bros came out on the other side they were met with their first adventure: save the Princess from the clutches of Bowser. In a foreign land and far from home, the bros didn't let the situation shake them. They valiantly traveled throughout the eight worlds of the Kingdom to reach Bowser in Darkland and smite him.

Their first adventure done, the bros decided to stick around. The pipe that brought them was gone. Not that Mario saw it as a bad thing. It looked like the people of this humble land needed him and Luigi. Though it should go without saying that from time to time he does think about Mama Mario and Papa Mario.

[theovergrowth]

The Wilds, The Overgrowth, and Titus: Summed Up

(aka me actually putting into words Whats Going On on a Larger Scale, and how that is Messing Up Titus in a way he doesn’t know)

TLDR: The Wilds is just the connections of all things to the natural world around them. It didn’t have a plan or goal, The Overgrowth is just Titus’ grief, anger, and aggression mixed with eldritch nature power, made worse by the fact that Titus doesn’t realize that it’s Him, desperately and ferociously wanting things to stop going wrong. It’s honestly just a bad metaphor for the ways grief intrinsically changes you for better Or Worse, and the effects an overly religious and secluded childhood environment can have on one’s growth, identity, and healing as they grow up.

Often, I get kinda messy and vague about The Wilds and The Overgrowth because Titus is also pretty Messy and Vague about them! But I wanted to compile the relevant information about them so I can link it in the about (and also help myself keep things straight as! I am prone to forgetting ideas out of excitement for other concepts). Let’s crack in, starting from the Biggest to the Smallest!

The Wilds: What The Fuck is It?

So many times when I try to answer this, I say things like “it’s a force of nature” or “it’s like a god but also not but also it is” or “it big”! And I stand by all of it but also I should word it better.

The Wilds is ancient, It exists throughout all things and calls to all to return to It. If you’ve ever had that feeling where you get stressed for no reason, then realize it went away once you went outside and felt the breeze, THAT is The Wilds’ Call.

The Wilds, in the most simple terms I can come up with, is the relationship all things, living or not, have to the natural world. It can barely be considered “a being” because It both comes from a multitude of other beings while also being the thing all earthly (and occasionally non-earthly, in the case of The Fae Realm) beings come from. Because of this, some people (ie The Sons of The Wilds, The Commune) chose to simplify it as being just A God, which they worshipped in various ways.

So why did it send The Overgrowth? And why Titus?

The Archfae Stuff

As I’ve said millions and billions of times to the annoyance of those forced to read it, when Macrides (King of The High Desert) died, his soul was transported back to his home realm to heal while the Essence of The King of The High Desert was ejected. This was a unprecedented situation, as he was in The Mortal Realm and had no nearby biological heirs. So, a nonbiological heir would have to do! Thus, at 12 years old, Titus was forced into the position.

So what does that have to do with anything? Well, it made Titus inherently arcane! He had Zero magical ability before Macrides died, but then he got it! Which just happened to also happen in a time of extreme emotional turmoil and trauma. He was in grief, he felt like it was his fault, and he was Immensely angry at The Outside world for what had just happened.

That happened to make him a perfect Host for an Avatar of The Wilds

The Overgrowth: What They Thought

Here’s where we really get to the part where things can get VERY muddled because Titus’ information about The Wilds basically came completely from either Connecting to it or from what he had heard from others on The Commune.

The Sons saw The Wilds as their god and eternal guardian (even if from The Wilds perspective, they didn’t really exist or affect it in a real way). When Titus communed with it, Elder Brother Macintosh referenced an old tome which said that if The Wilds chose a Host, it meant that The End of The Civilized World was upon them.

Titus was also told many times by Elder Brother Ambrose that The Overgrowth was actually a gift, given to him so he could continue what his father couldn’t. He could protect them, but also if that meant ending the civilized world that would be pretty cool. (Important Note: Ambrose didn’t actually believe The Wilds existed. He thought it was just a story to bring people around a common goal and make it easier to keep them complacent. So when The Overgrowth started happening, he had to really shift gears quick to keep Titus and The Sons under his thumb).

He didn’t get many more answers when he was taken from The Commune! In fact, there was a huge effort to keep him from even thinking about it, out of fear that The Overgrowth may awaken once again (we’ll get to what put it to sleep in the next section). This went as far as keeping Titus away from nature as a whole, though that didn’t last long as his foster father (and the man spear-heading his rescue) noticed that he was getting more and more depressed the longer he was kept away.

So they don’t really know! But we can!

The Overgrowth: What it Actually Is

The Overgrowth is an Avatar of The Wilds, yes, but that’s not all! It’s also a culmination of Titus’ grief and rage, which is what wakes it up or makes it stir even while sleeping. This mixture has sort of created a being of The Fury of Nature, as well as Being one of those connections that creates The Wilds (while still being created by it, I know I know it’s messy, but it makes sense to me)

So is The Overgrowth meant to actually End The Civilized World? No. Not really.

Was The Overgrowth a gift from The Wilds? No.

Did The Wilds even understand what it was doing? Not at all.

In reality, The Overgrowth isn’t a being. It’s a condition, one that came from Titus accidentally communing with It when his perceptive and arcane ability was heightened to that of an Archfae. He glimpsed it, it acknowledged him like one would acknowledge a bug landing on their shoulder, then was suddenly forced back into a perspective he could more easily handle at the cost of losing the understanding of what he saw.

But he wasn’t meant to see it the way he did. That, mixed with the high levels of physical ether hidden below The Commune, his new ability as an archfae, and the sudden crisis of losing his father and it being seen as his fault, culminated into The Overgrowth.

Which, yes, means that The Overgrowth is actually more Titus than The Wilds, despite what he believes. Which was why The Overgrowth went to sleep! Titus was run ragged by the time The Final Battle between The Sons and The Outside happened, so afterwards when he was actually hit through all the plants and wood, it was sort of a reality check for him? He looked around, saw his people retreating and leaving him behind, and hid under a bush before passing out.

He was too tired still when he woke in a small town in Colorado, so despite his fear and aggression The Overgrowth didn’t reawaken. But recently, it woke because that old wound was not only reopened, but completely recontextualized his childhood and the atrocities committed in the name of his father’s death.

Then what does The Overgrowth want? It wants to protect Titus, yeah, and it also wants to bring All closer to The Wilds. It wants to strengthen those connections, thus strengthening The Wilds and strengthening itself and Titus in turn.

[mayapapaya33]

(2:05:13) Is it bad that I'm actively rooting for General Rococoa and Prince Amethar to find out that Deli killed their Mom and Sister and for them to absolutely annihilate him? I don't think that's what's going to happen; (Because Amethar can't die right now so Matt prooooobably won't use him for a PC confrontation to avoid to either an egregious railroad-esque OP-Amethar OR accidentally fucking up the timeline by going OOPS Amethar is dead, I guess resurrection magic has to exist in this world now lol).

But if Deli gets killed by Amethar and or Rococoa that will be the funniest thing I've ever seen and it's 100% deserved. Lou on Lou violence! Fingers crossed!

--------------------------Fanfiction prompt-------------------------------

If it doesn't happen in the campaign, it should ABSOLUTELY happen in Fanfiction. I haven't looked yet because I don't like spoilers so I'm waiting until I'm done to look for Ravening War stuff. But if there isn't anything about Delissandro and the House of Rocks on Ao3 I will be both Shocked AND Appalled at the state of fandom lmfao. The drama and angst potentials are off the charts! Sure, shipping is great fun, but this level of murder, manipulation, and vengeance is so juicy! (And it's not like you can't throw a ship or two in there if you're so inclined, though personally I'm equally as interested in Gen).

Imagine Deli and Rococoa or Deli and Amethar or all three of them, fighting side by side during the war. They're becoming friendly acquaintances or becoming actual friends even, except deep down, Deli knows. He hides a dark secret, he killed his friend's mother, and their sister. And for what exactly? To unite the Meatlands! Yes... right, of course! Maybe Rococoa saves Deli's life and smiles at him or laughs at a joke of his and his much-shriveled conscience twinges. Amethar pats him on the back and jokes that he caught Deli with his pants down, which means they're finally true allies and Deli feels like shit, literally and metaphorically.

There are so many ways you could play it. You could go from Deli's pov and have him slowly devolve into a sort of Lady Macbeth-esque figure as the guilt eats away at him more and more with every act of kindness and friendship. Once he finally realizes the true extent of what he has done. Not just to the House of Rocks, but to the world. The Death of the Queen of Candia is what finally kicked off the continent-wide war, she is the Franz Ferdinand of Candia and I'm not sure he's fully internalized that. I think it's too big.

Or he could be unrepentant to the last, as Rococoa and Amethar find out and turn on him, he could villain monologue about the greater good and being a tool of destiny as they cave his skull in and weep at the betrayal of a friend who was never truly their friend (or was he?)

Or it could be from Amethar's pov (or Rococoa's pov, but I assume most people will pick Amethar because he's a PC played by Lou up against another PC played by Lou so that's more intriguing than an NPC who was mostly just a ghost and a memory in ACOC). And you could follow the story as Amethar and Rococoa meet Deli before a battle. They all end up fighting in the same area and fight well together.

Through various circumstances they keep being brought together. Or forced together in Deli's case. Meanwhile Deli is SUPER uncomfortable lol, but Amethar isn't the most observant guy in the world, he doesn't notice. It's from his pov after all. And we can watch the relationship unfold. Somewhat like what happened with ---SPOILERS FOR ACOC--- Calroy, but different. I do think once you have Amethar's trust, you have it, he's a pretty simple man. Rococoa is more of an unknown to me, but I do know she's smarter than Amethar (not that that's a particularly high bar, sorry Amethar). So maybe Deli saves Rococoa or Amethar because there are a lot of witnesses around and he can't conveniently let them die because that would look really really bad, and he ends up earning their trust.

However you want to do it, it is the perfect set up for a Shakespearian tragedy. The audience already knows that confrontation and doom are inevitable, yet if you play it right, like all good writers you can give the audience temporary amnesia and delusion and make them hope that everything will be ok as you show them having fun and joy and comradery together. It's like walking into the movie theater to see Titanic, even if you know what's going to happen, you still have a good time when they start dancing, and you're still screaming at them to steer the ship in a different direction or not get on the boat in the first place and you're still sad when they drown. (Or for the CR fans out there, it's like walking into EXU Calamity knowing Exandria's history and still getting attached to those characters and rooting for them because you can't help it lol).

[arjaandsimoni]

The Emperor and Judgement

Jaipur India, three days after the defeat of the manticore

Nelen groaned, sitting in the rec room of Barjar manor with his head in his hands. His phone was no longer buzzing with notifications for text messages, missed calls, voicemail, and various social media direct messages. This was because it was sitting across the table with a wooden stake driven through it. He had kept himself mostly anonymous on social media, sticking around on there just to keep an eye out for anything that could hint for trouble, but after what had happened his identity had been uncovered shockingly fast.

Rajesh Barjar had been equally as busy, trying mostly to put out metaphorical fires (and a few literal ones) as he attempted to explain to the rest of Jaipur’s ruling family why his daughter was able to defeat a monster that had killed over a dozen policemen, and eaten several of them whole.

There was no escaping or hiding this one. It was all out in the open now. Nobody could miss something like that. There had even been news interviews with the headmistress of the Heatherford Girl's Academy of Boston (who apparently was hoping to pressure Rajesh into footing the bill for the renovations after Nelen’s defeat of The Red Lady,) a manager of a McDonald’s in Provo Utah (who had sworn blind that she’d never met him and that any questions regarding a malfunctioning McFlurry machine should be directed to McDonald’s legal department,) and a police chief in Canon City Colorado (who had bluntly stated ‘no comment’ before locking his office door.)

Aisha’s manager had some very pointed questions for her as to how the hell she wound up in India, though apparently the top hat she had was giving them some ideas for their next clothing line so it wasn’t all bad for her. Natasha, Stephy, and Sammi had all vanished as soon as the cameras started going off so people barely got glimpses of them. Drusilla had already gotten a following on social media (turns out a lot of people are into large women, but in her case this mostly amused her,) but as for Arja and Simoni.

Well, they weren’t there.

After all that’d happened, they decided that a vacation was exactly what was needed, and if there was one place reporters wouldn’t be able to track them down it was somewhere that was outside of reality as they knew it.

So the day after all this began they decided to go visit Akul and the rest of the vanara… until they got the all clear to come back once things had calmed down.

Vanara Village, the Supernatural Realm

It didn’t really have a proper name, the Vanara all knew what and where it was, so why bother. They mostly just called it ‘home’ and left it at that.

The two girls were back in Mirza’s kitchen, each having a lovely bowl of chicken curry and naan with extra rice and recounting the story for the vanara woman.

“A manticore… well well, you two have come quite a long way. I doubt even Elder Akul could have handled one of those by himself.” she chuckled as she poured them another cup of chai tea.

Arja sighed, “Yeah, but it would have been nice if we’d thought to lure it out of the city before we went all in…” she shrugged, scooping up some of the curry onto her naan and gulping it down.

Simoni nodded, “I mean… we couldn’t really. That thing wasn’t playing around this time. Whoever its master was had clearly lost control of it. No supernatural would willingly let something run wild in a major city like that. I’m betting every vampire elder, archmage, and whatever is about ready to shit after that. Everyone is just asking ‘am I going to get found out next?’”

Mirza pursed her lips, “Mmm, yes that is a major problem. I know your grandfather was beside himself with worry when he heard about what had happened.” she nodded to Arja, “Last I heard all of our family in Jaipur is ready to abandon the city and make for the temple at a moment’s notice if we need to. With the manticore being this bold we can’t be certain that the naga won’t throw caution to the wind now that it’s all out in the open.”

Simoni frowned, “The worst part is we have no idea who its master is! I know the first time we fought it I heard a voice that sounded like a naga’s, but I can’t be certain… Mirza, do you have any ideas?” she asked.

The vanara woman shrugged her shoulders, “Nope. I’m no historian girls, just a woman who likes cooking. I keep to my kitchen and let Elder Akul worry about such matters.” she replied. “I prefer it that way, spices don’t start crises unless I put too many on a curry… and even then its quickly fixed.”

The two nodded, then finished up their meals and left the eatery, heading through the village towards the temple in the center where Akul spent his days. As the walked through town they did notice more looks than normal, though these were more admiration than anything. After all, a manticore was a horrible foe. To defeat one was quite the feat. The vanara would be talking about this for generations to come, that was certain.

The two entered the temple and approached the throne room where, as he often did, sat Arja’s grandfather. The massive ape-man examining a historical text with one face as his other face took careful notes as, of course, the man had two faces. One on either side of his head. He had been alive for quite some years, and such things happened to the enlightened of India’s supernatural community.

He paused as he heard them enter, then smiled, “Ah, girls… welcome back.” he nodded, putting down the tome.

“Hi grandpa.” replied Arja, smiling back at him, though it was a strained smile. The past few weeks had been difficult for them all. “Any luck yet?” she asked.

He sighed and shook his head, “I am afraid not… there are precious few who could ever have hoped to control a monster such as a manticore, and of those less than a dozen could have survived to the present day.” he frowned. “Even then, none of them would have a reason to hold specific enmity towards us that I know of…”

As they talked however a man arrived at the edge of the village. Several vanara paused and looked at this newcomer, then three of them raised weapons and demanded they leave at once. The newcomer gave them a withering look, then walked past them with their hands folded behind their back as if they were nothing more than an animal screeching at them.

Back in the temple Simoni shrugged, “Well… what if one of the other ones could have survived somehow? I mean, they may have just hidden away, or gone into some sort of hibernation or something.”

Akul stroked his left chin, frowning. “It is not… impossible, but unlikely still.” he replied.

Outside more of the vanara came rushing from their homes as cries of alarm went up, the newcomer walking casually towards the temple as if he was simply taking a Sunday afternoon stroll.

One vanara, braver than the others, dove towards him with a spear and without looking the newcomer spun, slammed their fist into their face, and sent them flying into a nearby house with a sickening crunch, then shook their hand clean and sniffed in annoyance before continuing along his path.

Arja scowled, “But who are they? All we know is this thing has a master that might be a naga… ugh!” she threw up her arms, “They know us! They know all about what we can do! They even knew about Dawn’s tricks but we know NOTHING about them except they’re powerful and one MIGHT be a naga!” she shouted in frustration.

Simoni nodded, “Yeah… we don’t even know why they’re after us…” she added, then paused as she had a worrying thought, “Arja… the only reason we’ve got for anyone to be after us right now would be that we helped hide Rama’s Arrow… do you think…” she glanced towards her… then suddenly a young vanara guardsman burst into the temple.

“ELDER AKUL! We have an intruder in the village! A powerful raksha-…” he began, then a hand closed around his throat and threw him outside of the temple.

“I can announce myself, thank you.” came a cultured voice in a very old dialect of Sanskrit.

Akul rose from his throne, his eyes widening as, into the temple, walked a man in the garb of an ancient Indian maharajah. He had long glossy black hair tied into a braid down his back and a trimmed mustache and beard. He also had deep blue skin and shining yellow eyes… clearly not human at all.

“Who are you?” Akul demanded, “How dare you intrude upon our home! Begone at once rakshasa!” he demanded.

The rakshasa frowned, “So discourteous... Behave yourself vanara or I will be forced to correct you.” he scolded.

Arja’s eyes bulged, the girl shifting into her vanara form as she snarled at him. “Don’t you talk to my grandfather that way! You’re in our home and we outnumber you easily! What makes you think you’ll be leaving here alive?” she demanded.

The rakshasa sniffed, “You truly do not know who I am, do you?” he sighed, “I suppose it has been quite some time since I last walked upon this world. Even the spawn of Hanuman no longer recognize me…” he shook his head, “Very well, very well… I shall educate you children.”

He stood, smirking at them, “Kneel and recognize your better, monkeys! Before you stands none other than the son of the true king of Lanka! Heir to the great and powerful King Ravana whose austerities were so grand that even Shiva was forced to acquiesce to his demands!” he laughed as Simoni looked around. Arja had frozen on the spot, all the bravado gone from her face as even Akul took a step backwards in shock.

“I am Prince Indrajit. Conqueror of the devas…” he grinned at Arja and Akul, “… and who, in a single day, slew over six hundred million of your kin, nearly destroying the line of Hanuman single-handedly. To me, you are nothing but animals.”

Arja stared at him, her eyes wide. “No… you’re gone. Lakshmana killed you!” she insisted. “He beheaded you with Anjalikastra! You’re gone!”

Indrajit chuckled, “So that is what they told you…” he shook his head, “No, he did not use that weapon. He used a sword… one that was not of the deva, or of India itself. It was a great giant blade… a…” he paused, thinking, “I believe a claymore is the term the westerners use for them…” he nodded.

Simoni felt a chill go down her back, “… no…” she shook her head.

“Yes indeed, a claymore. At least that’s what his mortal allies saw. I saw a great gaping hole in the world… as if the air itself was ripped apart, leading to nothing but blackness.” sneered the Rakshasa.

Arja felt her heart catch in her chest, the girl glancing at Simoni, then back at Indrajit. They knew of only one sword like that… and they had both had a hand in its destruction.

“After my return I had my servants track down any information they could on such a sword. Apparently it was made in what is now called the ‘United Kingdom.’ Why, I even learned it had a name. I am not familiar with the tongue, but I believe it was called…” he continued, smiling as he drew the moment out.

“No…” whispered Arja, “We didn’t… that… there’s no way…” she was breathing fast now, her eyes wide with horror.

“… I believe it is pronounced… ‘Claiomh Dorcadas.’” he finished, watching them curiously.

Simoni felt her legs tremble. She felt her stomach churning.

“If it were up to me, I’d shatter as many as I could… but… even then… if there was something like Ravana in one… I mean, we can’t know until it’s broken.”

That was what she’d said to Arja when they were almost to the Temple of Rama to deliver the arrow, before Akuru had ambushed them. They couldn’t know until it was broken.

Now they did know, there was something like Ravana in Claomh Dorcadas.

HIS SON.

Indrajit chuckled at their clear distress, “Truly, I must thank you two children. Knowingly or not, you freed me! What is more, knowing what my prison was I learned the truth of my father’s defeat! So, I am here today to offer you terms for an honorable surrender.” he nodded, “Thus are my terms. You will stand aside and not attempt to stop me from retrieving the Arrow of Rama. In exchange, your people may live… for now.”

Arja was breathing so hard she was on the verge of hyperventilating, her eyes wide and wild. This wasn’t as bad as Ravana’s return, but it was damn close to it! What was worse, he had been trapped within Claiomh Dorcadas! This was her fault!

“A-and… if we refuse?” she managed to gasp out.

Indrajit chuckled, as if enjoying a personal joke, then he fixed Arja with a glare as his expression became deadly serious. “Then Jaipur will burn.” he snarled, “I have spent the last several months rallying the rakshasa to my banner once more, and the naga as well. I command a veritable army once again. If you attempt to stop me, my forces will besiege the city and utterly erase it.” he spat. “None will survive, mortal or otherwise. No buildings will be left standing. We will reduce the city to rubble and salt the land it stood on. Make no mistake, scion of Hanuman. What I do now I do because honor demands it. Otherwise, you would not be alive.”

Simoni shook her head, trying to focus past her shock, “It was you. You sent the manticore, didn’t you?” she demanded.

Indrajit shrugged, “A useful beast for testing your abilities, but a troublesome one. It got so frustrated with those foreign warriors sent to stop it that it refused to listen to me and attacked Jaipur alone. Really, you have my gratitude for putting it down. A pet that refuses to listen to its master does not deserve to live.”

Indrajit shook his head in disappointment, then straightened up and clapped his hands, “Ah, but I must be off. Many things to do to prepare for my father’s return. Remember, if you try to prevent this all those you know and love will pay the price for your actions scion of Hanuman.” he nodded, the rakshasa prince turning and leaving as casually as he came in… only to find a mob of vanara waiting outside, weapons drawn.

Indrajit looked around, making an annoyed tsking sound, then flexed his hands… but before anyone could act Akul emerged behind him and called out, “STAND DOWN! ALL OF YOU!” in a loud booming voice.

The vanara looked at him in confusion, but Elder Akul had said it… so hesitantly they lowered their weapons and stepped back, making a path for Indrajit.

The prince chuckled, “Listen to your leader little monkeys. As much as I would enjoy the exercise, I am very busy today.” he nodded, walking to the edge of the plateau where the city stood, then jumping off. It was a fall that would kill most people, but clearly this was not most people.

Simoni stood next to Akul, watching him leave… then she heard Arja coughing behind her, then retching.

The vanara was on her knees, the stress and shock of what had just happened causing her to throw up the curry they had just eaten onto the floor of the temple. She knelt there next to the puddle, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Arja!” called Simoni, rushing over to her and sitting next to her as the vanara curled up into a ball, wrapping her arms tight around her legs and burying her face in them.

“This is our fault Simoni… we broke Claiomh Dorcadas… we set him free… this is all our fault…” she whispered.

“Arja, yeah we did… but we can still stop him! We can make it right!” she nodded, putting her hand on the vanara’s shoulder.

Arja shook her head, “No, no we can’t… if Rama and Lakshmana had to use mundane blades to defeat them, what chance do we have? India, maybe the entire world is doomed… and it’s our fault!” she moaned out, shuddering as the weight of it all settled on her like a shroud.

Through the jungle below, Indrajit strode back to his base of operations in the Supernatural World, a smile of accomplishment on his face. He could have simply killed her, yes, but this was so much more satisfying. He had seen her face, he had heard the shaking in her voice.

Let Hanuman’s heir live to see their King’s ultimate failure and the destruction of all they held dear. Arja could not stand against him now. He didn’t need to break the vanara girl’s body, he had already broken her spirit.

Next Story

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[carnelianwings]

@moonlights-melancholia

I will say I haven’t paid attention to the larger Gundam fandom … pretty much ever - but I’ve loved Seed ever since I saw it in 2002 on fansub and never saw a reason to interact with the greater Gundam fandom and mostly kept to the Seed bubble, but even within the Seed bubble I remember Shinn being a very divisive character as a whole. Also for the sake of keeping things simple, let’s assume Seed Fredom had come out earlier, and was the same as the version we have now.

This is going to get long (which is why I opted to answer this way), but the short answer is no, because we would’ve gotten Shinn’s redemption sooner. Longer answer behind the cut, because I was actually there discussing Seed Destiny on forums Back In The Day when it was airing in Japan, so I have Opinions lol.

If there’s anything I will say about Seed Freedom is that it is as much a send off to Cosmic Era as it is a “redemption arc” for not just Shinn, but Seed Destiny as a whole. That the (repeated) struggles we see for the whole cast meant something and contributed something that helped them succeed in Seed Freedom.

The thing with Seed Destiny is that at the time it was airing, no one really had the full picture of what the vision was, if you will. All we got were individual puzzle pieces of Shinn’s story week after week, and what a lot of us (myself included) missed at the time was that Shinn wasn’t meant to go through positive character development at all in Seed Destiny. His arc in Seed Destiny was always meant to be a tragedy, the story of an angry and grief stricken teenager who undergoes negative character development and progressively gets worse and worse until he’s reduced down to the only thing that’s defined him since ep 1: his anger borne of grief. It’s just that the early framing kept him in a sympathetic light before Durandal’s true agenda is revealed and suddenly we get a POV shift and Shinn loses that so now all of his actions are viewed negatively, while simultaneously he’s completed his negative character development and he’s now little more than an angry shell of whatever he could have been.

And that’s actually a great way to tell a story and develop a tragic character and set them up for a redemption arc. The character hits rock bottom - in Shinn’s case, an argument could be made this happens with the Second Battle of Orb, where he’s now willing to even open fire on his former homeland and is now the aggressor who’s potentially creating more war orphans like himself - sees the error of their ways, and undergoes positive character development from it. The problem is, this is so rarely done in modern fiction (especially with protagonists) that it’s easily written off as lazy/bad/biased writing, which is exactly what happened here, especially since the original ending is literally “Shinn and Luna are stranded on the Moon, watching the retreat flares go off and crying, instant cut to credits”.

Then we got Final Plus after, and all that really served was to make it seem like a 5 minute redemption for Shinn, because he meets Kira at the Orb memorial, they shake hands, and Kira offers to have Shinn join him and fight together. And also have Kira offer some vague metaphor about how they’ll always replant the flowers at the memorial even if they get blown away because they’ll always keep trying for peace.

… and then that was it. For nearly 20 years. There was the remaster, and that smoothed things out a bit in terms of story telling, but as a whole, it didn’t do anything to change the trajectory of Shinn’s (negative) character growth, and it certainly didn’t do anything to provide him with the redemption/atonement arc that he sorely needed to give him positive character development.

Seed Freedom fixes that, even though it’s a time skip and you can argue a lot of his growth happened off-screen. At the very least we see a brighter, more positive side of him, now that he has people around him who care about his wellbeing, along with improvements to his fighting skill. Even if he’s got a lot of comedic moments and (somehow) is the one to bring a bit of levity in an other wise fairly dark story (if you think about it with nukes and Requiem getting brought back again), it’s a positive change for him, in that he’s no longer the one who’s bringing pain and suffering. He’s actually taking actions that are heroic now, protecting civilians and shooting (or slicing, as the case may be since he’s in the Immortal Justice lol) to maim, and he’s better and stronger for it.

So yes, I do think Shinn would be less hated if we’d gotten Seed Freedom sooner. It did a lot to provide him with positive character development to offset all the negative character development he went through in Seed Destiny. He’s gone from an arguably Tragic Villain with a 5 minute redemption (and nobody likes 5 minute redemption arcs) to a proper Hero with a Tragic Backstory (complete with on screen suffering and downfall from his own flaws and misguided actions) and he’s actually a much more compelling character now. I feel like a lot of the hate for Shinn (and Seed Destiny as a whole) came from the initial reaction to it as it was airing, because I’ve been seeing a lot of people say that Seed Destiny isn’t as bad as the haters would have you believe, and I absolutely agree that that’s definitely the case (especially with the remaster).

At least, that’s where Shinn is for me now. I’ll freely admit Shinn wasn’t really a character I liked for the longest time - I wouldn’t say I hated him, but definitely one I was very neutral on, mostly because I was like “Wait he did all that for 50 episodes and he’s redeemed in the 5 minute epilogue?????” But with Seed Freedom, seeing what he’s doing now and trying to make amends for what he’s done and move forward with his life? Yeah, I can definitely get behind him and defend him as much as I’d defend Kira or Athrun.

And I definitely like him enough now to make sure he gets included for getting the bulk of my budget in SRT games alongside Kira and Athrun 😂

Replies are fine, anon asks are open, if anyone wants to hear a take (spicy or bland) on Gundam Seed, now’s your chance 😜

[berniecranes]

xxxi. thing you carry everywhere

Wrote this on the day of the prompt, but was a little hesitant to post it here. But I still really like it and feel like sharing it. Especially since I'm not writing much right now, as not being the biggest fan of February's prompts

It was weird to actually be in his room again. In his genuine house. Not anything trying to act as it, he was actually stateside. He couldn't quite say it felt as if he never left; but he certainly tried to force that feeling. Hoping it would come genuinely and naturally soon. John laid in bed, his arm cradling his head. It had to be his left, as he can't leave his right hand scrunched up for so long. It'll begin to feel heavy, and feel hard to move, cramping up. His hand doesn't fully stop on him anymore, but he'll always have to adjust how he does things all because of that goddamn hand. He slipped his lit cigarette into his mouth so he could run his fingers across his clothed chest. He didn't need to see the scar under his t-shirt to know it's there. He knows right where it begins and where it ends. He's at least somewhat thankful this one doesn't bother him nearly as bad as his hand. This one only brings anger and hints of shame when he's shirtless, looking down at himself. He feels like a fool for trusting someone as much as he trusted Aldridge. He told himself to not do that again, to never put more faith in someone than you put in yourself. But there he went. Only took a couple years and he became that fool all over again.

But this time it was different. He knew that's easier said, but he truly believed it this time. Aldridge left him with wounds that will never heal. Left him with pain that will never heal; whether that's when his hand twitched at the heat or when holding a gun. When the part of his scar that is still rose for some reason becomes angry and it feels like thorns across his hand. Or when it's nights like this. He can't sleep because too many thoughts are circling. But Lincoln, he couldn't have been anymore different. John sat up from his bed, resting his cigarette in his ashtray after taking a long drag. He pulled open the bottom drawer of his night stand, where he shoved some stuff away when he got home. Gently, he picked up the chain with two tags dangling from it. He looked at the first one. It had his name and number on it. This one was all his, but then he put his focus on the lower one, hanging on by the smaller chain. This one wasn't his, it was Lincoln's. He still remembers the night they exchanged them.

It was the night before they were going to make an aggressive move. One that left you a little jittery about what could go wrong. It was just the two of them. Lincoln for once seemed a little nervous of what was to come. This was unlike him. John had his reservations as well, but he showed them more frequently; never too scared, as it was shown more through caution and over compensation, a sort of cockiness. But he felt just as vulnerable as Lincoln was in the moment. Lincoln slowly brought his hand up to his dogtags and undid the lower hanging one, John watched in silence, his chest moving up and down with every breath and exhale. Lincoln clipped it onto John's tags. John began to do the same. John never knew what military shit he didn't know about, as that wasn't necessarily his field. But at this moment, it all made sense.

'At least we'll both make it out.' Lincoln said tenderly. His voice having a sense of airiness John only rarely heard.

'I've never seen you like this. You're starting to scare me now.' John exhaled. 'We'll both make it out, walking right next to each other. Not whatever this is.'

'I know.'

John swallowed hard, and put his hand on top of Lincoln's. Lincoln twisted his hand to be palm up, and let his thumb gently caress John's skin.

John ran his own thumb over Lincoln's tag. It was late, and he had no light on. He couldn't read what it said but he could feel the indent of the words. He hopes he's adjusting nicely to being home. Lincoln deserved to get a break for once. He actually was a man with code and carried his own honor. John truly wasn't sure if their paths would ever cross again in the real world, but he knew Lincoln wasn't leaving his thoughts anytime soon.

[thenextdawn-temporarilyclosed]

Can you please please do a Wednesday X Fem Reader where thy are dating and it can be like parts where one, finding out about readers cancer, then dealing with it, then trying to fight it, but the treatment not working, so the reader is slowly dying and Wednesday does all the things reader likes for them and always stays with them. Then after R's death Wednesday tries to cope with it for weeks and months but in the couldn't anymore so she hints the dark ending. The Angst will be out of this world

Ghost Of You

Word count: 3.8K

Summary: request above

Warnings: angst, terminal cancer, anything to do with cancer, death, loss, depression, mentions of suicide

Pairing: Wednesday Addams X Fem!Reader

I need a hug after writing this. I think it’s my longest fic so far, I hope you like it!🖤✨

———

Your relationship with Wednesday was by far the best thing you could ever wish for, and it shocked you when out of the three people that were interested in her, she chose you. You never expected her to choose you because you thought you weren’t as pretty as Tyler or Xavier… well, everyone thought she liked boys because she was always hanging out with one, but turns out she liked women, and you were her first and only choice. Sure you weren’t perfect, but Wednesday always made sure you knew you were perfect to her… obviously using her ways. She never told you directly, more through metaphors but you didn’t mind, you knew that this was her love language and somehow you had to admit you didn’t mind that. You weren’t one for hugs or cuddles yourself, but it would happen from time to time that you and her would sleep together, and the most contact you had even in bed was your arm around her waist, nothing more nothing less.

In class you would always sit together, paying attentions and taking notes for each other when one of you stayed in your room because you were sick or something like that. Of course Wednesday’s note were always so clean and tidy, and yours would be decorated with the doodles you drew when you were bored. Recently though you have been feeling sicker than usual. You didn’t have a fever, but you were always so weak and tired, even if you slept for hours nothing would change. You would sweat a lot even when you were not moving, and you were always so pale. This was no other case. “(Y/N), you need to sleep. You can’t always be this tired and not pay attention.” Your girlfriend recently has always been trying to help you and get you to sleep, even if her ways were a bit too harsh. You were in your botany class so you had to keep it low “Wednesday I’m sleeping a lot at night, I don’t know what’s happening to me” you sand as you wiped your forehead from the new bead of sweat.

Wednesday noticed that and put a hand on your forehead to feel your temperature. “You’re warm. You should go to the infirmary.” You nodded slightly and got up, but as soon as you did you started feeling dizzy. “I’m not… feeling very well…” you tried to hold yourself up but you lost consciousness and fell to the ground. Without saying a word Wednesday got up and rushed to your side. The teacher came towards you as well, and given as you may have hit your head when falling, she called an ambulance. When it arrived you were still unconscious and you remained unconscious for a few hours… weird, for just a high temperature. Being the protective girlfriend she was, Wednesday wanted to get on the ambulance but no one let her, so she had to wait until lessons were over, and she did, going to the hospital with Weems. “How is she?” The short Ravenette girl asked.

The doctor sighed. “Unfortunately we only have bad news… she has stage 4 cancer. Has she ever shown signs of weakness?” The news threw Wednesday off, she never expected such bad news just because you passed out. Wednesday stayed quiet for a while, until Weems nudged her shoulder, both to remind her she had to answer the question and to get her out of her thoughts. “She was always tired these past few weeks, she said it was because she studied too hard… she was never this sick. Is it treatable?” The doctor took notes and then sighed. “We can try, but it most likely won’t work. It’s not operable but we can immediately start with aggressive chemotherapy, this could give us some hope even if she’ll be very very sick.” Both Wednesday and Weems nodded. Weems was your guardian so she had to agree to the treatment. “How long does she have left?” Wednesday asked, her voice low and soft, as the doctor shook his head with a sigh. “Not much. Close to a year, maybe even less.”

Weems wanted to be the one to tell you as she basically raised you, so Wednesday stayed out of the room. When Wednesday finally came into your hospital room, she saw you cry desperately while in Weems’s arms, she was crying as well. You refused to believe that your life was basically over, you had your whole life ahead of you yet it got ripped from you. You had planned a lot of stuff with your friends, with your girlfriend. You hadn’t been together for that long, But you two were definitely made for one another, and even though you wanted to wait to have some more physical contact with her, now it couldn’t wait anymore. Wednesday grew sick at the sight of you so desperate, she couldn’t bare to see you like this and for the first time in her life, it hurt her as well seeing someone in pain. She had promised you too many times that she’d protect you, but she couldn’t protect you from this, there wasn’t any chance that she could do so. Wednesday looked down, trying to prevent her own eyes to water.

When you had calmed down a bit you asked Weems to be left alone with Wednesday and of course she left the room. Wednesday looked at you as she made her way over to you. “I-I don’t want to die…” you said trying not to cry again, as you covered your face with your hands. Wednesday didn’t hesitate to come towards you and hug you, for the first time in your relationship she hugged you. “I know mi amor. I’m so sorry.” Wednesday herself was trying so hard not to cry. She promised herself she wouldn’t cry anymore, but she knew that when you left, it would destroy her. You refused to stay in the hospital, deciding that you’d take your treatments in your dorm. You didn’t want to live your last year in a hospital, you wanted to make the best out of it with your girlfriend and your best friends. Your doctors allowed you to, and Weems even changed your dorm so that you’d be with Wednesday.

Your first treatment was at the hospital, and even though it was really heavy, you went through it easily. You had decided to take your illness on a brighter side: You were going to die anyway, but why be sad instead of making the best out of it? When you went back to school all your friends were there for you, they did whatever they could to try and cheer you up and it worked in some ways, because when you happened to be alone, you’d always break down. You didn’t want your friends to see you always sad, you wanted them to remember you like the happy girl you have always been and always will be, in their memory. Wednesday had changed as well. She was more protective, more attentive to you and what you did, she wanted to make sure you were happy and fine until your last breath, and she wanted you to have as many memories with her as you could. She loved you so much and deep down she was hurting too, but she never showed it, she never vented to anyone. She had to tend to you.

Your treatments were in the afternoon, after school in yours and Wednesday’s dorm. It had now been two months since you had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and slowly but surely you were getting weaker, sicker. But you still managed to keep going. One morning you woke up and when you went to the bathroom to brush your hair… they just came away like it was cotton candy. Literally you took a strand of your hair and it would come away without any effort. You had expected this, but it didn’t feel like you had anticipated. “W-Wednesday?” You called for her and she dropped whatever she was doing to come to you. “Yes my love?” She said, and looked at you through the mirror. You were looking at yourself with tears in your eyes and strands of hair in hour hands, unable to speak.

Wednesday took the hair you were holding and put them in the sink, as she placed a hand on your cheek and turned you to look at her, caressing both your cheeks as her eyes showed a hint of sadness as she gave a small smile. “This is good though, right? It means that the chemo is working. Right?” You were panicking, tears filled your eyes even more as they rolled down your cheek. You had been trying to deny the fact that you were sick but now it was undeniable. Wednesday sighed and pulled you in a tight hug, where you broke and fell to your knees, Wednesday caught you and accompanied you to the ground as you two stayed in that desperate hug, where you did nothing but cry, scream and grip Wednesday close to you. “I don’t want to die…” you sobbed out, while the brunette was holding you tightly, rubbing your back. “I know…” she said in a surprising soft tone, it would be surprising to everyone else but you, because recently she has always been soft to you.

Wednesday’s eyes let a couple tears fall, but she looked up and gulped, she had to be strong for you. That day you shaved your head to get rid of the last bit of hair that remained, from that day on you were never the same. You no longer smiled every day, you no longer made jokes about anything and you didn’t leave your room aside from school. It had been six months now and You had also started loosing weight and you hated that. You looked like a corpse, pale and basically skin and bone. It was a morning like every other and you were getting ready for school, but when in your underwear you stared at yourself in the mirror. You hated how you looked, you hated all of it. As you cried and sniffled Wednesday hugged you from behind, hands around your waist and her head on your shoulder. You were pretty much the same height, so it was no problem for her.

“I look terrible…” you said in a soft voice as you placed your hands on top of Wednesday’s. “You don’t. Mi amor you’re the prettiest girl I have ever seen” you shook your head and turned around to look at her, her arms still wrapped around you. “Wednesday, I’m dying.. I only have like six months left and I look like shit now. There’s no way I look pretty” you sighed as you hid your face under her neck. “You’ll always look pretty. Skinny, normal weight, short hair, long hair… you’ll always be pretty wether it’s here or in my mind, you’re still the prettiest girl I know… no wonder you’re my girlfriend” she said and you smiled brightly, staying in her embrace. Three more months had passed, you had now only three months left. Chemo obviously didn’t work so you interrupted it, even if you still would get sicker and it was showing. Your friends were still trying to make you happy whenever they could. Weems even let you all go on a trip to Los Angeles, you have always wanted to go there and you finally managed to make that dream come true.

On a Monday morning you woke up feeling extra weak. Wednesday was still asleep, but you had to go to the bathroom. You got up and out of bed, but as soon as you were on your feet you immediately fell down… you couldn’t even hold yourself up on your feet anymore. “Fuck-“ you said as you tried to stand back up, but you couldn’t. You started crying, calling for Wednesday but she was in a deep sleep, until you managed to raise your voice more. “Wednesday please wake up…” you sobbed out. Finally she did wake up and soon saw you on the floor. “(Y/N)? What happened?” She asked as she rushed to your side, to try and lift you up and place you on the bed. You tried to help by pushing yourself up, but you couldn’t. “I had to go to the bathroom, but when I got up my legs failed me, I can’t even hold myself up anymore…” you looked down and cried. Wednesday hated seeing you like this and it wasn’t long now until your time was up and you’d be gone. Luckily doctors had you prepared for this inconvenient and had left you a wheelchair. With Wednesday’s help you sat there so she could take you to class.

You were giving up. You couldn’t keep fighting knowing you’d die anyway… it was no use. You even refused to celebrate your birthday, you stayed in your room, just cuddling with Wednesday knowing that this would be the last birthday you’d spend with her. “I don’t want you to cry when I die..” you said all of the sudden. You were basically laying half on top of her with your head under her neck. Wednesday stayed quiet at your request. “It wouldn’t be you. I want you to be the girl you always have been, I don’t want you to change because of me… I just want you to remember me and not forget about me.” You said as you took a deep breath and stayed close to her. “My love I will never forget about you. You will forever be my only love, I can’t find someone like you nor even close. There’s only one (Y/N) and only one person who has my heart, and that person is you.”

Three more months passed… you were back at the hospital. You had gotten sicker, to the point that you needed a mask to help you breathe. Wednesday was always there by your side, never leaving you. Both of you knew that your end was near and she did whatever she could to make you as comfortable and as happy as possible. You were in a lot of pain, you were having troubles breathing… until the dreaded day came. Wednesday and Weems were in your room, you knew that life would leave your body pretty soon. After talking to Weems who was crying desperately you moved your attention to Wednesday, taking a hold of your hand. “Nes I’m scared” you sobbed out weakly as you searched for her eyes. She looked at you and squeezed your hand tightly “I know you’re scared my love.. but it’ll be okay… you’re going to be okay” she said and caressed your face, all while you winced in pain, your whole body hurt, everything hurt. “N-nes, promise me you’ll be okay” you asked, you wanted her to be okay when you left.

“Promise me you’ll continue with your life, that you will be happy. But promise me you’ll always remember me, and that you’ll always love me” you cried out, and she leaned in to place her forehead on yours “I promise you mi amor” she said and leaned in for a kiss, which you reciprocated… your last. You saved your last breath and your energy for this kiss, and then you were gone. You died kissing your girlfriend and you couldn’t ask for a better death.

———

Enid came rushing through the hospital, tears in your eyes as she busted the door open, she didn’t like what she saw one bit… Weems was crying desperately while sitting on your bed and trying to hug you, while Wednesday sat in her chair. Fists and jaw clenched as she looked down. She was trying so hard not to cry, and she was managing so far. Wednesday didn’t do tears. Wednesday had promised you she’d never cry, and she never did. In her life Wednesday only cried once, when her pet scorpio died, and now she was scared she would cry again and if she did, she wouldn’t recover ever again. “Is she gone?…” Enid asked, making her way towards Wednesday, who only gave a nod in response. Her knuckles had turned white from how tight she was keeping her fists, nails biting into her flash. “I’m sorry…” Enid said, sitting next to Wednesday and placing her head on her shoulder.

Wednesday always liked funerals, she even attended the ones of people she didn’t know. But your funeral was something else… because she knew you, she loved you and seeing you being put into the ground, just hurt. Every student from Nevermore was there and all of them wished their condolences to the principal, and even tried to do the same with Wednesday. She kept avoiding everyone, she didn’t want to hear people tell her how sorry they were for her loss. The whole week it has been raining, but it was sunny that day, and your funeral was right at dawn… god did you make a beautiful sunset. Your favorite colors were in the sky, from purple to orange and Wednesday has never liked colors more, she wanted to frame this moment forever. When everyone left Wednesday stayed at your grave.

Wednesday had promised you she’d never stay at your grave, yet here she was.

Wednesday had promised you she’d be happy… but she couldn’t, not after losing you.

Wednesday had promised you she wouldn’t cry, yet here she was.

For the first time she was crying. A couple tears had left her eyes, but it was just that. She wiped her tears with the back of her sleeve, smearing her dark, light makeup. She stayed at your grave for hours, just staring at the beautiful picture of you smile, and Wednesday remembered: you had never seem her smile. You talked a lot about wanting to see her smile, yet you never did. Wednesday couldn’t keep one single promise to you. She cried, she wasn’t happy. It was hard to keep these promises. She would have had no issue with that, but with you.. she couldn’t stand to know that she had broken her promises to you, and it hurt, it hurt so bad. But she couldn’t let her façade drop, she had to keep it up.

Wednesday was destroyed. Her grades in school had dropped, she barely left her room. She didn’t have any interest anymore, she didn’t hang out with her friends. The room she shared with you was filled with your scent and she didn’t want to forget about it, she didn’t want to forget about you, she couldn’t. You were too young to die, and you were both too dumb to know things like “Love” so she drowned it all down, talking to what now is the ghost of you, telling you how she misses you, talking about everything she could think of, and mostly, saying sorry. What was she sorry for? She was scared she hadn’t been a good girlfriend, she was scared she hasn’t been enough for you, and she just wanted the confirmation that she did whatever she could to make you happy, but you couldn’t give her this confirmation, not anymore.

Wednesday started skipping classes, she never did that. Wednesday stopped writing her very loved novel. Wednesday was depressed.

Eventually she had to move back in with Enid, and the girl was so keen on wanting to make her vent. “Wednesday it’s been months now. You need to talk to someone. We barely see you around anymore, please just talk to me.” Enid tried, sitting on her friend’s bed. “I’m fine Enid. I don’t need to talk to anyone.” Wednesday replied bitterly, nails gripping her desk as she was drawing something she didn’t even know what it was. The blonde stayed quiet for a while. “You know what Wednesday, I’m tired of this. I’m tired of seeing you, my best friend, being depressed for her girlfriend’s death. And I don’t mean it in a bad way, I want you to understand that it’s okay to be depressed, that it’s okay to be sad but it’s also okay to talk to someone. We all miss her, but we also know that it’s been the hardest on you. Please Wednesday just talk to me, to any us” she said the last part whispering.

Wednesday put the pencil down as she turned to look at her friend. She didn’t know how to begin, where to start from. She felt tears building up in her eyes as she tightened her fists and jaw, she didn’t want to cry. Wednesday didn’t want to cry, not in front of Enid. Wednesday was crying.

A couple tears had rolled down her cheek, but she wasn’t making any sound. She just looked at Enid, who smiled sadly. “You can let go… it’s just us-“ “Don’t.” Wednesday was quick to shush her and while her mind spoke this fake truth, her body language Said otherwise. The ravenette started visibly shaking, her breaths becoming closer to one another and quicker that her usual. All the emotions she has been bubbling up burst out all at once as she started crying this time it was a real cry, it wasn’t just a couple tears, Wednesday was crying, sobbing on her chair as she covered her face with her hands. Enid made her way towards Wednesday and pulled her into a hug. “No! G-get away from me-“ she tried, but Enid was stronger. “I won’t Wens. Stop trying” the blonde insisted, keeping her close to her.

Wednesday eventually gave in and cried more in the hug, her friend’s shirt who tried to comfort her while holding her close, Wednesday was screaming, sobbing, everything she has always been trying to deny. “Oh my g-god-“ Wednesday sobbed out, thinking of you again. It seemed like she was trying to deny the fact that you had died until now. “You’ll be okay Wednesday… it’ll pass with time” Enid tried to reassure her, but From that day on, Wednesday only felt worst. Now she didn’t get out of her bed, she didn’t stop crying.

Then on this particular day, Wednesday felt happy.

They say it’s a matter of time

A thousand days and the sun won’t shine

Before I come back to you…

And I’m happy, nothing’s going to stop me

I’m making my way home

I’m making my way

Wednesday felt happy, because

For your love I will go far

I wanna be wherever you are

I know I’m coming back to you.

Wednesday was happy, because she was soon going ti be with you forever.

[ghooostbaby]

deeeep dive into why and how wei wuxian and lan wangji love each other, complete each other, are the inverse reflection of each other’s deeply hidden internal selves mirrored through the other’s external self, lan wangji’s inner wildness that he has to conceal and protect recognizing and loving wei wuxian’s outer wildness, wei wuxian’s deep, fuddy-duddy morality and values that he conceals with an elaborate subterfuge of jokes, mischief, and bravado, seeing and loving in lan wangji the ability to say no that it was never safe for him to express directly, “between you and me there is no need for thank you and sorry”

oh and a slight diversion midway through into a manifesto on WEI WUXIAN IS NOT INSECURE the whole story is about a society where being liked is ESSENTIAL for survival and it is actually completely perilous not to be liked, and his “people pleasing” is a skill and tool for his survival especially as an orphan and proven to be a necessary one when he stops doing it and STOPS SURVIVING

after the cut discussing the very interesting dynamics of consent in general in the novel, but not going into the consensual non-consent kink stuff till the last paragraph if you need to avoid for any reason.

I've been thinking about how Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian the exterior, unfettered expression of the wildness Lan WangJi holds in him and protects with rigid codes of conduct, propriety and outward dignity.

I have had this sense that these two are mirrors, either one reflecting the hidden, interior (and unallowed) self of the other. but it seemed more clear from Lan WangJi's side, especially knowing about his history with his mother and the spicy side that emerges when he drinks and in the extras.

I also - just... the way this whole story shows how romantic love is truly this longing for your self, to become yourself, to become the thing you're not allowed to be, seeing in that person the expression of whatever it is you can't become and longing for it, protecting it, joining with it as closely as you can without ever being able to let it live inside your own body.

On the surface it seems a lot more difficult for Wei WuXian to find a piece of his soul in Lan Wangji. I think its a bit too simplistic to see whatever draws Wei WuXian to Lan Wangji as a reverse-psychology sort of craving of acceptance from the only one who won't give it, pushing and pushing against this impenetrable boundary that he needs to break to feel assurance that no matter what he can make anyone accept him.

And he is SO drawn - in a mind boggling way, in the teenage flashbacks Lan WangJi rudely and aggressively throws him off over and over and Wei WuXian cannot keep away! Even when he talks about how boring Lan WangJi is, he never stops trying to be around him and talk to him.

I've seen discussions of the way Wei WuXian has always relied on the goodwill of others to survive, and that his placating of others to survive is a character flaw. Although that seems only halfway true. 

As a young child he didn't have anyone's goodwill for a while and he survived, and it seems like he can always find a way to survive from whatever means and sometimes very limited resources he has at his disposal. Doing what he has to do to become powerful enough to survive losing his core and being thrown into the burial mounds slowly costs him the goodwill of everyone around him - and what happens to him as a result shows how much placation was a truly necessary for someone without the protection of biological/hereditary family bonds.

(Don’t get me started on how his loss of his golden core and his development of demonic cultivation to give himself power by ‘unnatural methods’ through the use of a musical instrument is a metaphor for disability and the way ableist society sees the use of accessibility devices and tools. Actually please DO get my started haha.)

Wei WuXian is so charismatic and seems very used to getting what he wants and needs on the strength of that. He pushes a lot of boundaries and seems pretty confident and flexibly prepared to handle the consequences, whether beatings or harsh words. But he does work so hard to make others feel good, good with him, good with themselves.

When he is in the cave with Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian is described as "like one who forgets all past pain as soon as the wound heals". He can't resist coming up beside Lan WangJi and talking to him again and again after every time Lan WangJi pushes him off, only finally staying away when Lan WangJi bites him (and he still keeps trying to talk to him after a little bit!) and then calls him an awful person (!!! Bad Wangji! :(((( ). In the end, when Lan WangJi (very minimally) discloses what happened to his sect and his father, and even cries, because of all the defences/assaults Lan WangJi has put up Wei WuXian can't do anything or say anything to help and feels miserable.

Lan WangJi just absolutely refuses to allow Wei WuXian to take care of him - and I began to wonder maybe that’s what Wei WuXian actually really likes about him? Why he is unable to resist coming up to Lan WangJi again and again? Maybe because Lan WangJi refuses to let Wei WuXian appease him. He’s not trying to crack Lan WangJi to get to this impenetrable place of approval and acceptance. In a way he can’t quite understand, Lan WangJi is a respite for Wei WuXian from the constant work to be the one who pleases.

And  how different this is to how Wei WuXian is (or has to be) with Jiang Cheng when he wakes up in Lotus Pier after the cave. Jiang Cheng gets so down and really really needs Wei WuXian to do what he does so well (and wasn’t allowed to do with Lan WangJi) - chasing Jiang Cheng down while being injured and reassuring him about all his insecurities about his father's acceptance and becoming a sect leader and Wei WuXian's own abilities excelling his - and at first Jiang Cheng is pushing him away, but he really does need Wei WuXian to do all this to feel better.

Wei WuXian is described as not wanting to be lonely, and not wanting to see other people unhappy, and he keeps trying to push and pull with whatever he has to not be lonely and lift the mood for those around him. I don't think it's a kind of codependency or insecurity. It’s not that Wei WuXian is afraid to say no, in fact I would say he doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do, but he must always do it creatively, with humour. Similarly to Nie Huaisang, he uses a persona of foolishness to give himself a covert agency.

I also think I'm writing this because I don't like seeing this discussed as a sad bean character flaw for him to always need to be liked - its a strategy, its a tool, its how he survives and excels. Doesn’t the whole story prove how essential being liked is to a human’s survival? And he is so so good at being liked, in making others happy, even when he is refusing to do what others want from him that he doesn't want to do, he does it in a way that deflects criticism, with a smiling bravado that never says what it truly means and has people writing him off as shameless or foolish or just endearing himself toward them despite themselves.

He is always at work really, with jokes and flattery or mischief and teasing, to get the resources he wants and needs. Case and point, when he makes a big coquettish show for mianmian, definitely not being "people pleasing" for her, but the group of girls around them all find it funny and cute and in the end she gives him a perfume sachet which ends up being a valuable resource for later. Or the time he outright tells Jiang Cheng that if you give the girls some lotus seeds they'll remember you and return the favour in the future. (Also notice how his interactions with girls seen as flirtatious are actually strategic resource-gathering acts.) These are the skills he has developed to meet his own needs. (THIS IS NOT A CHARACTER FLAW. I REPEAT.) He takes what he needs and steals from the Lotus Pier markets knowing it'll be paid for, he lives like he never know when his next windfall will come from so he'll take what he can when he can find it. Like Jiang Fengmian said, if there is no guarantee of a meal in the future then today's meal should still be enjoyed. It’s how Wei WuXian said to Nie Huaisang at Cloud Recesses, you have to find ways to make your own fun out of whatever you have. So he gets kicked out of class, goes fishing, gets alcohol, he pursues his own pleasure. He actually is quite insistent of his own agency and right to choose, he just can never directly say no.

And that little detail that Wei WuXian always tucks coins into his clothes just in case, that makes him able to buy food when he and Jiang Cheng are on the run... breaks my heart and reveals so much about the way Wei WuXian is constantly at work on ensuring his own survival and never takes for granted whether he is safe (he knows he never is). 

I've seen some people talking about Wei WuXian sacrificing so much for his brother and sister out of a need to be accepted out of a chronic sense of insecurity. But isn’t this just true? Doesn't he live in a world where being accepted is absolutely essential for survival? Doesn’t this whole story show the cruelty of a social system based on networks of hereditary/biological family that closes out and scapegoats any outsiders, and that without biological family connections that can enclose around you, you can never truly be safe if not constantly working to earn acceptance? (And then beautifully ends with the way a gay romantic relationship that queers marriage/family/etc disrupts all this and creates safety and inclusion for Wei WuXian without needing a normative family.) (AKA romantic love does not resolve some internal personal problem in Wei WuXian but disrupts and refuses and rebels against the problem of SOCIETY.) (*breathes heavily*)

And that’s why Lan WangJi is magnetizing to Wei WuXian. Lan WangJi is always saying no. Although what Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian is an exterior wildness, Wei WuXian is not really out of control so much as he is playing and caring and supplicating and showing off and pleasing people to get the resources and the acceptance he needs to live his life. He has firm values and desires that he can never outwardly state, only creatively spinning plates to distract and deflect while he refuses what goes against his values, protects who he cares for, or takes what he needs to in order to survive/thrive. Lan WangJi embodies an exterior of resoluteness and direct agency that Wei WuXian doesn't have the luxury of. And he's so drawn to him for his ability to repeatedly say no, to refuse to get along, or make others laugh, make other people happy, but just simply follow what he thinks is right.

Wei WuXian’s outward wild movement protects an inward stillness. He is an exterior of people-pleasing around an interior of refusal. He is an exterior of youthful rebellion around an interior of unflinching morality. He sees in Lan WangJi the outward expression of his stillness, his morality, his resistance that he can't express, that he's had to protect.

FYI after the cut gets more into the dynamics of consent in the story, and the last paragraph directly talks about consensual non-consent kink play in wangxian’s relationship.

When Wei WuXian is with Lan WangJi, there is no work to be done. Lan WangJi cannot be swayed by him, and so there's no point vying for resources or favors. Lan WangJi will either give him everything or refuse him everything based on who he is, it does not matter what Wei WuXian does and he can't do anything that will change Lan WangJi’s mind. Someone he literally can't win over. After the resurrection, they are often in an adorable tug of war, where Wei WuXian tries to take care of Lan WangJi, while Lan WangJi won't allow him to but demands to care of Wei WuXian right back. Actually, Lan WangJi insists that Wei WuXian take everything he wants or needs from him and is even angry when he doesn't take or when Wei WuXian tries to offer a gesture in return, even something as simple as a thank you Lan WangJi won't accept. It’s kind of adorable how frustrated Wei WuXian is in doing this thing he's learned that he needs to do, and just... so confused by Lan WangJi, and has to find a way to please this person who aggressively refuses to be pleased and is ONLY pleased by Wei WuXian being pleased.

(Not to mention the way Wei WuXian delights in finding that Lan WangJi can’t say what he wants, and they have sort of these chaotic cohesive both-being-so-pleased-by-working-hard-to-please each-other moments where Wei WuXian is letting Lan WangJi please him by finding out what pleases Lan WangJi and giving it to him.)

The wildness Lan WangJi had always hidden within himself is something he sees as just as dangerous as Wei WuXian thinks of his desire to refuse. He saw his mother be socially alienated, shunned, and eventually die because of her wildness. His ability to survive in the world, aka to be accepted by his family, is contingent on him being able to control this inner wildness. From a young age (re: Phoenix Mountain kiss) he could only understand his sexual desires for Wei WuXian as something repulsive or dangerous that had to be repressed and controlled, and that the only way he could imagine his desires as possible was as non-consensual. His secret gay desires were never available to him as anything but something monstrous.

Importantly, it’s not like everyone else other than Lan WangJi are all vampires cruelly demanding Wei WuXian’s constant sacrifice. Wei WuXian is always vibrantly, charismatically offering so much, before anyone has asked. It’s Wei WuXian who creates this kind of relationship for himself again and again. It’s Lan WangJi who simply refuses - he refuses to charmed, to be cared for. And so in the end Lan WangJi becomes the one person who Wei WuXian feels doesn't need anything from him. When he says he's eating the corpse's fruit to save Lan WangJi money and Lan WangJi says that will never be necessary. Or when Wei WuXian asks what toy he should win for Lan WangJi at the market game, and Lan WangJi says anything Wei WuXian gets will be the one he wants. (XD stahhhhp it’s too sweet !!!) He really just wants Wei WuXian to be, to exist, to spend his life discovering his own desires and allow Lan WangJi to help satisfy them, he doesn't want anything from Wei WuXian other than him living - happy and safe.

It takes someone like Lan WangJi to refuse Wei WuXian’s aggressive generosity, it’s definitely not an easy thing to say no to Wei WuXian, dazzling or annoying people so chaotically before they even realize there’s something to say no to. The sacrifice he gives to Jiang Cheng, he never even offers a choice - and perhaps it would have been too much for Jiang Cheng to accept if he had the chance.

Lan WangJi’s statement "Between us there is no need for thank you and sorry" seems like one of the most important sentences in the novel, and you can’t help but noticed the way “sorry” and “thank you” is littered meaningfully through the book. What is owed, what the characters owe to each other, the give and take, touches every part of the story (down to wangxian's erotic explorations!).

When Jiang Cheng talks to Wei WuXian at the Guanyin temple he makes a lot of contradictory statements about what Wei WuXian owes, what he was given, what he took, what he (Wei WuXian still) is owed in return. Wei WuXian, according to Jiang Cheng, took everything from the Jiang clan, and paid them back with their deaths. The Jiang clan give him his life when they took him in, and he owed Jiang Cheng service for the rest of his life as the right hand to the sect leader, that’s what Wei WuXian had promised anyway. At the same time, Wei WuXian sacrificed everything (his golden core) to Jiang Cheng, by giving everything he was taking one more thing - Jiang Cheng’s right to even be angry at him. Jiang Cheng had taken everything from Wei WuXian. Everything that happened around Wei WuXian after could be said to be because of the loss of his golden core, which Jiang Cheng might be said to be responsible for. But he never asked for it, maybe he never would have wanted it. He wishes Wei WuXian told him, but Jiang Cheng never told Wei WuXian his golden core was melted while he was sacrificing himself to save Wei WuXian. He wants Wei wuxian to say sorry, but that makes him feel pathetic. And Jiang Cheng says sorry too. It’s a mess of paradoxes, and in the end somehow it seems like the scales are balanced in the most hollow, dismal way.

What is owed, what is given, what is taken ... Wei WuXian has never been part of a family. He has always had to say thank you and sorry for everything he's taken. Wei WuXian himself admits that he used "thank you" as a way to enforce distance between himself and Lan WangJi. Lan WangJi's point i think is that they belong to each other, Wei WuXian is his, and he is Wei WuXian's, unconditionally. The way that Jiang Cheng speaks of him in the Guanyin temple (admittedly I read a fan translation and this is very nuanced, related to slight variations of grammar), even when Jiang Cheng clearly is so broken by the loss of Wei WuXian from his life, he talks about Wei WuXian as an outsider. It is what MY family gave to YOU, never what you took from our family. But at one point Wei WuXian was part of their family - but he takes too much, and becomes an ex-disciple, not a brother. Wei WuXian’s inclusion as a Jiang was always conditional. 

Even when Wen Qing and Wen Ning leave him to go take the blame for qiongqing path they tell him "thank you and sorry", drawing a line between them and him, so he doesn’t even belong to these people who he sacrificed everything for. The way Wei WuXian acted when he was younger, he was always keenly aware of this - he always knew that he didn’t belong to anyone, no one is going to protect him unconditionally. And after first escaping the Burial Mounds, he is done pretending. When Lan WangJi warns him about what a demonic cultivation path will do to his heart, Wei WuXian replies: “After all, on the topic of how my heart is, what could other people know about it? Why should other people care about it?” He is done pleasing. Nothing has changed really, he still belongs to no one and is alone, but now he is angry about it, and instead of saying thank you and sorry he is going to become too powerful to be at anyone's mercy. And then we see in the story afterward what happens to people who don't say thank you and sorry.

The whole point I think is the impossibility of choice, the impossibility of consent in this society. If he didn't forgo the behaviour his social acceptance was conditional on, he wouldn't have survived the burial mounds. But once he becomes powerful enough to survive and get revenge on the Wens, he is socially outcast. Except he was already outcast from the beginning.

And so how do Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi find a way through all that to a life together where all their desires are possible, where Wei WuXian can say no while also being pleasing (safe) to others, and Lan WangJi can indulge in his wild desires while still being good? The answer is kinky sex!

It is kind of miraculous and beautiful how Wei WuXian finds a way to say no, while simultaneously pleasing Lan WangJi, giving pleasure, while taking it, saying no, and knowing his refusal is not just tolerated, but gives Lan WangJi pleasure, knowing Lan wangji and knowing the painful belief Lan WangJi holds within that his desires are unacceptable and unspeakable, and that Wei WuXian can take care of Lan Wangji in a secret little way and please him and give everything to him by craving this wildness in Lan WangJi while at the same time he gets to say no again and again , and it won't push Lan WangJi away, he can refuse everything while at the same time be totally pleasing and thus safe, and also for Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian's pleasure at saying "no" while still being held onto, that he genuinely wants to be fucked even while begging Lan WangJi to stop (and the many ways he does give his consent for this throughout, especially their first time), allows Lan WangJi the ecstatic feeling that this idea that his sexual desires are only possible through force are not just something his lover forgives him for but something his lover is SO turned on by, and that he has consent for his fantasies of non-consent, Wei WuXian has the same fantasies from the other side, he is doing what he is supposed to while doing what he shouldn't, and actually these monstrous feelings in him allow him to take care of Wei WuXian in a way that he needs - that they both need - and all these impulses that are so wrong with Wei WuXian become very right and a way to do good. And they are just both so perfect and perfect for each other and I love them and I am so happy for them to have a long kinky life together.