#because everything just gets worse and worse for the main characters until the events of TOH pick up

[bmblboop]

Character Dynamics I’d wanna see in an Eda Spinoff

Give me Raine and Eda and Lilith and everyone at Grom

Give me the between-the-walls hideout being Eda’s base of operations/safeplace at Hexside

Give me Eda saying something flirty, Raine saying something flirty back and Eda blue-screening because no one’s ever done that before and she doesn’t know what to do.

Give me Raine trying to nickname every group project with an acronym that ends in -ATS.

Give me the RATS Play

Give me Eda and Lilith playing Grudgby together

Give me an episode or two where Lilith gives in and takes a break from her self-induced stress over school/Covens and has fun with everyone.

Give me Odalia ruining someone’s day with divination magic ie. ‘The spirits look unfavorably upon you’ and then someone having the worst shit luck possible for the duration of the episode

Give me Aladarius crumbs I want the Drama

Give me more P A L I S M E N

Give me Young Darius vs Young Raine theater kid drama. I want a full blown rivalry. I want ‘I will never work with you’ to be said in their first shared episode. I want the richest dramatic irony. I want scenes we can screenshot and say: “One day, these two will work together to overthrow the emperor”

Give me a ‘whoops an abomination experiment went wrong and now we are handcuffed together even though we hate each other’ episode

Give me VP Bump becoming Principal Bump

Give me the scenario in which Darius meets the Golden Guard, and how he became his mentee

Give me the first half in the seven months before Eda gets cursed, and punch us in the gut with the second half, set after she gets cursed

Give me Lilith spiraling in fear and guilt over the curse and wanting so desperately to tell someone but holding back every time she gets close. Give me Raine trying to figure out what Eda is hiding from them until she caves and tells them she’s been cursed. Give me the sisters’ first falling-out if you want to see me cry

Give me a heartbreaking doomed mentor plot line where GG helps Darius become the best version of himself, how to think critically and use his magic to the fullest, only for GG to perish or ‘disappear under mysterious circumstances’ by the end of the show. Give me Darius’ suspicions of foul play and sowing the seeds of rebellion against the Emperor

[asleepygremlin]

Pokémon scarlet and violet and its theme of isolation and overcoming that feeling

So I don’t know if people have pointed this out or not but I noticed with the main characters of Pokemon sv, they suffer from some type of isolation. This will only focus on the main characters which are Arven, Nemona, Penny, Kieran, and Carmine. This will discuss events of scarlet and violet and its dlc so spoilers will be in this post. I apologize ahead of time for my poor wording as I’m not good at putting my thoughts into words. (I also apologize if this theme was obvious and I just sound like an idiot for noticing it now)

Tl;dr the main characters suffer from some kind of isolation whether it’s visible or hidden

The most obvious one to notice in my opinion is Arven, first I’d argue he suffers from physical isolation as growing up, sometimes the one parent he has isn’t even home most of the time and at the very least had mabosstif. He has no parents in his life and the one that partially is, is now dead. Next from the way Arven latches onto the player later on especially when seeing how he acts in mochi mayhem and how he seems kind of jealous of the players new found friendship with Kieran. This to me also shows he doesn’t have any friends either (I believe he even says mabosstif is his only friend which is kinda sad). So in short Arven has no support figures besides mabosstif, but he doesn’t truly have any human connections. That is until he makes friends with the player, Nemona, and penny

Penny is the second one that I noticed, like Arven, she also suffers from physical isolation by locking herself in her room. She’s suffered from bullying which would obviously lead to isolation and has probably caused her to close herself off from everything, but at least she has her friends at team star right? Although she does, when she first was friends with them, her identity was anonymous. She knows and connects with team star but they will never truly know and connect with her until later events which finally allow her to bridge the gap.

For the next one, I’m going to skip Nemona for last and put the kitakami siblings into this one section (also this one relies the most on speculation since we don’t know exactly what their experiences were). Unlike Arven and Penny, both of them don’t suffer from physical isolation but mentally. Carmine and Kieran have both grew up in a remote village for most of their life until attending blueberry academy. The isolation they must have felt must have been staggering. Although from the sounds of it they eventually were able to find solid ground via the league club. Now with Carmine and her prickly attitude, that might have caused her to push others away and keep to herself at times (I admit I’m speculating, I wish the dlc was longer DX). As for Kiki, I admit it’s a lot more easier for me to speculate because I relate to him more I feel you get more insight into his character compared to Carmine sorry Carmine. He is a lot more introverted and shy compared to his sister and I bet his love for the ogre led him to being a bit of a social outcast and moving to blueberry academy most likely didn’t help with him, even just feeling like he was, an outcast, plus his already bad self worth. When he meets the player, he is still very shy but seems ecstatic to finally having a friend to talk to… until you have to lie to him. I could go on an essays worth on how Kieran’s self worth and paranoia caused him to quickly think he’s being betrayed and see himself as unworthy of the player’s friendship but that’s another story and this paragraph is already getting long enough already. By losing his friendship with the player, he further isolated himself from others and it’s even worse in the indigo disk. He now isolates himself by being a ruthless champion with everyone afraid to confront him. Now he’s not alone from being a shy outcast but instead from being champion and hiding his already fragile heart with thorns. Ignore the poeticism of that last line lmao and yep this section with Kieran is of course the longest. however while both were able to find some solace in the league club, I’d argue they were able to truly open with the help of the player especially Kieran who learned to accept himself as he is.

Now finally Nemona and one I find the most fascinating because she isn’t as visibly isolated as the others and admittedly is the reason I wanted to write this. First I’d like to point out something I think people forget often, just because people seem to have a great social life and friends doesn’t mean they don’t feel lonely. Nemona is champion rank, student council president, and is overall a star student. However because she’s at the top, some people are intimidated by her and in one area convo she mentioned how someone refused to battle her because she’s a champion and battle wiz that would wreck him. Then in another area convo, she laments over people thinking that battling is natural to her and ignoring the genuine hard work that she puts into her skills. And in her final convo in her dorm room, for this I’ll just copy and paste the quote from bulbapedia and let it speak for itself.

"People would tell me to my face that I'd only managed it 'cause I have some innate gift, or 'cause I was raised differently, or whatever. And suddenly I started to feel like there was this invisible wall between me and everyone else."

(Also I was also going to add more info from the scarlet and violet novel “after the rain with you” but it hasn’t been officially translated and the only translation I found was via google translate so I decided to take it with a grain of salt and not and any info despite it having the most insight on Nemona’s character imo, if you want to take a look here’s the link)

Despite being the at the top being up there can get pretty lonely… until she met the player and had someone standing right beside her.

Anyways if you’ve read this far then thanks. This was longer than I thought it would be as I mainly typed this in one go only taking a break to do more research for Nemona’s section so sorry again if it seemed kinda rambling at times.

[diagnosedpsychosis]

FALLING ASLEEP AT WORK

I just wanted to thank every one for the love I'm receiving for my other little imagines, and to let you all know that if you have anything you want me to write (character or prompt, or both) just let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Description: You had a crappy morning and are clearly struggling to stay awake. Aaron offers the two seater couch in his office to you.

Word Count: 2.7k

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You absolutely hated wearing your glasses. You despised them to no end, and in a perfect world they'd never of been created. You hated wearing them. The way they dug into the bridge of your nose. The fact they'd slip every 30 or so seconds so you'd have to readjust them. How if you pushed them up, the second you'd try to take them off they'd tangle in your hair and create a small knot you couldn't detangle until later that night. The way that the lens was so powerful that whilst it gave you perfect vision, it also elicited a powerful headache.

You loved how they looked, but far out did you hate how they felt.

Today wasn't a good day for you, in fact you couldn't even remember your last good day, but today trumped all your other bad ones. You'd woken up to the night-time construction work happening on your street at 3 in the morning. When you finally managed to get back to sleep an hour and a half later, it turns out some of the tradesmen out front had accidentally hit a water pipe and it blew up out of the ground and into the air. So not only were you now awake at 4:30 am, but you were also getting drenched as everyone in your building was evacuated out, instead of staying inside, away from the burst.

Everything had been cleared rather quickly and soon enough everyone was filing back into the building at 5 in the morning. You had an hour and a half until you had to get up and get ready for work, but this mornings events left you wide awake and unable to sleep despite how desperately you craved it.

So you decided to have an actual shower. You got undressed, took all your jewellery off, stepped under the shower head, pulled the tap and...no water came out. You spent five minutes trying everything in your power to get it working when the memories of this morning hit you and you realised the construction workers had hit the main water source.

You were frustrated, tired, naked and on the verge of tears not because you were actually upset, but because you were so overwhelmed. You had been so tired the night before and were so excited to sleep the night away, but the day had other plans for you and now you felt partially blind, struggling not to fall asleep standing up every time you blinked and your eyes lingered closed for a couple seconds longer than usual.

It was too late to get anymore sleep in before work, so wanting to at least fix one issue you walked back into your room, threw on a nightie and grabbed your contact lens case from your bed side. Walking back into your bathroom you opened the little container, your hand beside it on the sink as you bent to grab the saline solution from the cabinet, but as you went to stand back up your hand slipped and a second later you heard a plop sound come from the toilet.

You stood, frozen in time and just shut your eyes. Breathing in and out slowly you imagined all the things that could've possibly fallen in the toilet. You could just buy a new toothbrush if that's what fell in. A new roll of floss was only a couple bucks. You thought of everything that wasn't exactly what you knew it was, purely just cause you couldn't have a worse morning.

But then you opened your eyes, found your open eye contact container floating upside down in the toilet and stormed back into your room to scream into your pillow that held mascara stains.

That was how you found yourself walking into the Quantico building, with the old black framed glasses you'd stopped wearing a year or so ago perched on the bridge of your nose.

"Hey gorgeo- Whoa" Derek's hands flew straight up in the air in defence, cutting himself off mid greeting as your exhausted eyes snapped to him. You didn't look scary whoa, or ugly whoa, you looked 'I haven't slept in years and my slightly red eyes are begging you to knock me out so I can sleep for an eternity' whoa.

"Morning" You grumbled, unable to even offer Derek a grateful smile as he slowly passes you the same coffee he brings in for you every morning. You two stop at the elevator, your tired eyes staring at the metal doors, and Derek's watching and worrying about you as you slightly sway back and forth.

"You look rough. Bad night?" Rough? Bad night? You felt like hell and that was underexaggerating it.

"Stupid construction woke me up, hit a main water pipe, evacuated my apartment building, left me showerless and then stupid me knocked my contact lenses into the toilet" Derek sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, reaching out and rubbing your back for you, trying to relieve some tension. You arched away from him, and caught his frown in the elevator door, offended you flinched away from his touch.

"If you keep rubbing my back I'll fall asleep on the spot" You mumbled, barely having the energy to even speak.

"You're not going to be productive if you're fighting to keep yourself from falling asleep all day. Just go home" Derek hoped he didn't sound rude and dismissive, and thankfully relief flooded his body as you looked up and offered him a lazy smile.

"I love how concerned you are about me, but I can't go home."

"Why not?" Derek asked, frowning. It was either just go home now or get up to the sixth floor, struggle and then have Hotch tell you to take the rest of the day off, neither of which you wanted. You loved your job, you wanted to be there more than anything, but...maybe a power nap isn't such a bad idea.

"Cause then I'll be letting the team down" Derek laughed, the elevator doors opening as he slung his arm over your shoulders and practically dragged you out.

"No you won't. You look like hell, every one will understand" You squinted your eyes up at Derek as you glared at him.

"So much for calling me gorgeous" You grumbled, Derek pushing on the bullpen door and shoving you in first before following after. He used his arm around your neck to pull your head toward him, before planting a kiss to your cheek.

"Y/n, you're absolutely breath taking, but you also look like hell" You huffed, glaring at Derek before pulling his arm off of you and taking a seat at your desk. You had barely been sitting for 5 seconds before Emily stopped in front of your desk.

"I haven't seen those frames in ages. What's it been, a year?" She asked, her loud voice gaining Spencer and JJ's attention, the latter standing to join Emily at your desk.

"I hate 'em" You grumbled, glancing up at the two girls before looking back down at your desk. Emily and JJ frowned, glancing at each other, wondering what was wrong, but all questions were answered as Derek swung around in his desk chair grinning.

"She flushed her contacts down the toilet" You sucked in a deep breath, side eyeing the direction Derek's voice came from before unpacking your bag, pulling case file after case file out, and neatly stacking them on your desk.

"Usually the nerdy teen in a high school rom com takes off her glasses and puts contacts in, but here you are, choosing not to conform. Good for you" Emily teased as you looked up at her, ignoring JJ and Derek's snickers.

"I love you Em, but I'm moody and running on about 2 and a half hours of sleep" Her mouth formed an 'o' shape as she held her hands up in defence and backed away slowly.

"Drift, caught" She said before turning and heading back to her desk. You sighed to yourself, turning back to face your desk properly. You noticed in the corner of your eye Spencer leaning forward in his seat.

"Are you alright, y/n?" You looked up and toward Spencer, offering him a tiny, appreciative smile as you slowly nodded your head.

"I'm alright, thank you Spence. Just a lot of night time construction going on lately. It's keeping me up" Spencer nodded his head once before sitting back in his seat and looking down at the case file open in front of him. Slowly, you sunk back into work, despite the overwhelming exhaustion consuming you. Spencer's silence lasted seconds.

"I know I live a little further out of the city-" Spencer began, sitting forward again and easily gaining your attention, "but if it gets really bad you can always stay on my fold out couch."

You couldn't fight the smile on your face as you stared at the genuinely caring and compassionate kid in front of you. Spencer had always felt like a baby brother to you, but he had the protectiveness of an older brother.

"I might just have to take you up on that offer" Spencer smiles before getting back to work and losing himself in his own mind instantly. You look away from him before half swinging around in your chair and looking in Derek's direction. Derek feels your eyes on him and looks up, frowning as you point at Spencer, mouthing 'real friend'. He rolls his eyes, a playful smile on his face as he shakes his head and gets back to work.

For at least 3 hours you manage to keep yourself awake. Cup of coffee after cup of coffee, after energy drink, after standing in front of the freezer in the kitchen, make you think you've finally got used to being awake. But then people start leaving at around 11:30, starting lunch breaks and you start getting tired again purely at the thought of eating and doing nothing.

Hotch glances out his window, looking into the bullpen when his eyes catch you frowning at your desk. From where he is it looks like you're stuck on whatever you're working on, when in reality you'd blinked but were yet to open your eyes. Noticing most of the others aren't in the bullpen to help, he stands up and makes his way out of his office.

"Y/n?" He calls from the top of the stairs, his usual frown deepening as you don't answer. He notices you don't have headphones on and wonders if maybe you're just lost in your head, too focused to even hear him. But then he walks down the steps, getting closer, and notices the slow rise and fall of your chest.

Hotch had heard about your morning, after all, it was hard to not hear the booming voices of your team as they all spoke too loud for such an early hour in the morning. So when he stepped even closer, and noticed the faint exhale every time your chest fell, he wasn't surprised to realise you were asleep.

Despite the fact you were at work where you were supposed to be busy 24/7, Hotch wanted you to sleep. He had every intention to slowly back away and return back to his office, but you looked so uncomfortable. Your head was almost completely tilted down, chin on your chest as your shoulders hunched over. You would be beyond sore when you woke up, and Hotch didn't want that for you either. So slowly he stepped closer before crouching down in front of you.

"Y/n?" He spoke softly, placing one large hand on your knee, and the other on the chairs arm rest. You stirred but didn't wake up, instead letting out a heavy exhale as you further sunk into the seat. Hotch patted your knee with a little bit more force, using his hand on the arm rest to lightly shake the spinning seat.

Slowly, you opened your eyes, the same frown you'd worn all day glued to your face as you looked up before back down, your eyes widening when you realised who was crouched down at your knees. You immediately sat up straighter, and a little more awake as you cleared your throat, immediately starting to apologise.

"Oh god, Hotch. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" He quickly cut off your rambling with one single amused raised eyebrow. You sputtered on your words, tilting your head slightly in confusion as you stared at the slight smile playing on his lips.

"You're going to give yourself a hunch back if you continue to sleep sitting up" Your hardened expression slowly softened, a light laugh passing by your lips as you raised your hands to rub your eyes.

"I know, I'm sorry. I was doing so good" You scolded yourself, disappointed you'd fallen asleep and your boss was the one to find you, out of everyone.

"For someone running on two and a half hours of sleep, you've done good" You sighed, keeping your hands to your eyes to block out the light.

"You heard about that?" You ask, spreading your index and middle fingers apart to peak out at Hotch. He nodded, his smile still small and soft as he stared up from you, not having yet moved from below you.

"Voices travel" Hotch replied.

"Sorry" You mumbled apologetically, eyes following Hotch as he used your knee to push himself up, going back to his naturally towering height.

"Make it up to me by moving to the couch in my office?" He asked, using his foot to spin you and your chair out from under your desk. You snorted, leaning back in your seat and crossing your arms over your chest.

"Sounds more like a win for me" You stated, Aaron shrugging as he stuffed his hands in his pant pockets, his gaze unwavering, locked on you.

"You get to sleep, I get my smart, refreshed agent back. It's a win win" You absolutely loved the sound of a nice couch nap, and in Hotch's office of all places.

"Really?" You asked, Hotch slowly blinking before nodding and offering you a smile.

"Mhmm" With a dramatic huff, you stood like you were being forced to do what he said, when really you could kiss him for the suggestion.

"Well... only cause you won't shut up. I've never met a man that begs so much" You pushed your chair in, following Hotch up to his office.

"I don't know if that's what I'd call begging-"

"It is" You quickly cut him off, your grin widening as he glanced back at you over his shoulder, with his smile still present. You stepped inside his office, immediately making a b-line for the couch under the window that lead outside.

"You can close the blind if you want" Hotch pointed at the open blind behind you as he closed the door to his office, grabbing a coat off the back before making his way toward you.

"It's not going to make it harder to see for you?" You asked, wanting to make sure he was 100% okay with it. He snorted, stopping in front of you and holding the coat out, waiting for you to take it.

"I think I'll live, y/n" You took the coat with an appreciative smile, watching him turn around and walk behind his desk, before you closed the blind. You put your arms through the coats sleeves, the back of it against your chest like a blanket. You went to lay down but quickly looked to Hotch.

"You're sure this is fine with-"

"Yes....the company is nice" Hotch replied softly, now sat behind his desk, flicking through a case file. The corners of your mouth slowly spread into a genuine smile.

"Even mine?" You asked, watching Hotch as he looked up and away from his work, his eyes latching onto yours.

"Especially yours" You bit back a tired grin, turning away from Hotch to hide the blush quickly rising to your cheeks. You laid down, bringing your knees to your chest as you snuggled into the large coat Hotch had grabbed off the back of his door for you. You felt your eyes grow heavy, but just before you let sleep overcome you, Hotch spoke again.

"Just don't snore" You laughed, shaking your head lightly.

"No promises."

[riacte]

Re: popularity and clout gap, this thought has been lurking at the back of my mind but it didn’t hit me until a friend pointed out it was like how some parts of the audience used to treat hermits in MCC. As in: the hermits could achieve something technically amazing but were ignored simply because they weren’t popular (see False’s back to back win being ignored post MCC12) when the exact same achievement would cause them to lose their minds if it was done by someone who was more “popular”.

Post Demise 2, I joked this was like Blue Bats over again in which False (and Ren) won with the power of friendship in a wholesome storyline yet some parts of the audience chose to be salty their fave didn’t win instead. Sometimes you can see such a severe cognitive dissonance because people watch different hermits. Like that post on Reddit innocuously asking about Perry when I’d seen him around for weeks now and people pointed out Perry had been featured in the Neighbourhood’s videos for a while. (Nothing wrong with the post but it shows how vastly different the viewing experience is.)

It’s kind of like we’re back to 2020/21 era esque “hermit erasure” but it’s (unintentionally) done by some hermit fans. Okay, actually I’ll erase the unintentionally. Plenty of people only watch a few hermits and I emphasise that is fine and you can do anything you want forever. Enjoy HC in any way you like. Be free. The problem only surfaces when people pretend their corner is the only corner that exists and everyone else are the side characters. Like, it’s really fine to admit you don’t know everything. Someone on the MCC Reddit tried making teams and admitted they didn’t know the hermits well but somehow their teams ended up being more hermit accurate than most teams I’ve seen.

This situating done by some parts of the audience of some hermits as “main” and some hermits as “side” to the whole production of Hermitcraft makes me think of 2020/21 MCC again. In which people were discussing protagonists and villains and cannon fodder. Which was why I wrote Battle Scars, a parody / satire / sincere piece of work / whatever, to show that my faves (Blue Bats) could be the protagonists too. And it feels like I’m back. Scrambling to script my faves as characters worthy to have their stories told. Why are we back again.

And why does it lowkey feel worse because this is happening within the same fandom.

… And now I realise that’s also part of why I wrote Feel It Still, another crack treated seriously fic. Because it’s a Superhero AU proudly situating my faves in the lead roles based on canon stuff, while the typical protagonists of Superhero AUs in this fandom are delegated to side characters and are the trainees under a main hero. It’s this sort of twisting of canon that I keep on (subconsciously) doing, attempting to give some sort of spotlight to my faves by mimicking / parodying fandom trends and tropes, trying to make them more palatable and spread propaganda or whatever.

Tldr: it feels like we’re back to “hermit erasure” era and there’s a lot of fanon attention on a few. And you just know certain events would receive significant more attention if they were done by the popular hermits instead of the less popular ones. But it’s mostly crickets outside my circle and the people that I know of. Like hey yeah this is someone I know from chat and someone I know from Twitter. And I know about “being the change you want to see” and “make stuff you want to see” and “promote your faves”. I know. We all know.

It just gets tiring sometimes.

In the end, a number’s game is a number’s game.

[chamomilewrittingblock]

Solo Leveling Soulmate Au Idea : Rings of Mana

~The Idea~

The basic premise is that your pinky finger has a small thin ring that acts as a small manifestation of the string connecting you to your soulmate. The main idea is that the ring gets warmer the closer you are to finding your soulmate, and If the bond is accepted by both parties, it thickens as if both soulmate rings are side to side, kinda becoming a twist of both soul rings.

For indviguals with awakened soulmates, it glows the color of their partners mana,The brighter it can glow, the more powerful the soulmate is. Usually, for regular unawakened individuals it's just a thin grey band. In the events that the soulmate dies, the ring turns black.

Honestly, I'd imagine there would be a market for gloves that cover the pinky specifically because of hunters and regular civilains wanting to keep their soulmate status private or for safety.. what about ones that reduces the feeling of the soul bond?Using mana crystals to negate the heat or the brightness of the soul rings, so it isn't distracting??

General Ideas:

Childhood friend reader, looking at their fingers suddenly to the soulmate rings glowing.. oh its fine, they must be a hunter and just awakened. but then reader realizes that the colour of the ring is a verry familiar color...the one of their best friends...

Maybe even poly. Like imagine having not one soulmate but TWO AWAKENED. Sure its not common but it happens, so reader covers it ans goes on their day.. untill one day your watching a broadcast with two very specific hunters. Their eyes glowing verry familiar colours... the ones you see everyday. On your pinky.

Imagine like your childhood friends as a soulmate so you try to get rid of your soul mark forcibly because you don't want to be a burden.!! Imagine the angst potential of your soulmate catching you trying to cut off their "tie to fate" because of insecurities.

OR OR!! Imagine the agony of watching your soul ring go black.. Even worse if it's an awakened soulmate, meaning they died on a raid.

Character Specific Ideas:

You're Jinwoo's soulmate. As your minding your own buisness and all of a sudden your soul ring changes from usual blue and flickers black. You stare in horror, but in an instant it flicker back to normal. Over the course of weeks you notice that the mana changes from its regular blue to a shade of purple.. like WTF??? Is he okay???... Why is starting to glow brigter and brighter when before it was just super faint before??

You're Liu Zhigang's Soulmate. A fellow S-rank hunter and you develop a friendship with Liu Zhigang over the years... Knowing that your two are soulmates, You decide to not approach the topic simple because of the reality of being a hunter and not wanting to ruin the close friendship you have with Zhigang. Then durring a dungeon break, something happens. Theres an individual who culture veiw soul rings as sacred. They're panicking about their pinky being exposed. You give your pinky cover to them without hesitation. At the time you don't realize or really care because your priorities are at protecting the civilians and closing the gate. It isn't untill after everything you see Zhigang staring at you with an unreadable expression a contrast to his usual self assured confident. Confused, you ask what's wrong and then you realize it, like a splash of cold water. He can see your ring.

[syruubi]

Man its been weeks and I’m still soured by the conclusion to Fontaine’s main story. I'll just rant here

There were a lot of things I didn’t like about it (Arlecchino's altruism being played straight, Traveler being out of character, the lore exposition ass-pull with the prophecy slates, the weird logic about how destroying a Gnosis could potentially wake up the Heavenly Principles but not fucking destroying an Archon Throne when Celestia forced everyone to fight a GODDAMN WAR TO ESTABLISH THEM-) but the biggest offense to me was how Furina was handled. This was marketed as the grand finale of the arc, the climax with Furina at the center of it all. And she got shafted. Big time. Furina had no agency in the plot whatsoever, nothing she did had any effect on how things turned out, and she didn’t even have the dignity of fully understanding why it all had to happen that way.

(Also I will preface this with yes Furina and Focalors are technically the same person with the same origin, but after the split Furina lost all her memories as Focalors. They are two separate consciousnesses with different experiences, and therefore I will treat their individual choices as their own)

I’ve seen people try to argue that no, she chose to take on this role knowing she would suffer, that she didn't HAVE to go along with it. And she was even working by herself to solve the prophecy without relying on Focalors, she wasn’t a puppet/pawn! But the thing is she was essentially in a hostage situation. If she didn’t do things exactly as dictated by Focalors people would DIE. Like there is a reason why criminal punishments are lighter when it’s found the perpetrator was coerced into it! And her researching how to avoid the prophecy changed nothing about the outcome, she could have sat around eating cake and the story would have word for word turned out exactly the same. All that information served to do was highlight her suffering and draw the audience’s sympathy. That's what I mean about her not having agency, it's not about her ability to act as an individual but how her actions had an effect on the overall plot. None of her choices outside of the role designated by Focalors did anything to change the situation for better or worse.

And to top it all off she didn’t even understand WHY this all had to happen. Why do people dissolve in the Primordial water? How does her pretending to be an Archon play into solving the issue? Why can’t she confide in anyone? What the hell is Focalors even doing? She doesn’t learn the answers to any of these until after everything was over, and not even from Focalors’ own mouth, it was relayed to her by Neuvillette.

Speaking of Neuvillette, I’m not gonna lie I’m sorta annoyed at his existence because it felt like Furina was shafted for him. Everything is very tilted in Neuvillette's favor. He gets his powers back, full control over Pneuma/Ousia, final say in trials, the ability to hand out Visions, and just straight up the ability to manipulate life itself. And okay all these things were his to begin with lore-wise, whatever, but he also becomes the "lore important" character after this at Furina's expense. Furina doesn't have her memories as Focalors, she can't tell us anything about how the world works, about Celestia, about what happened 500 years ago. Even though other Archons didn't give us much either for one reason or another, they at least HAVE that knowledge, and are therefore guaranteed to have involvement in future events with the Abyss and Celestia. Furina at the moment, doesn't. Neuvillette has it now. And all that talk about Focalors judging Celestia? Also Neuvillette's job now. And it feels like it was all stolen from Furina from a story-telling perspective because again, she didn't know of the plan to return his powers. She didn't even get to explicitly agree with her other self that he should have them back. The writers really seemed to go out of their way to place him on a pedestal at Furina's expense, which irks the hell out of me.

There are some opportunity for future interludes to turn the current state around, and they probably will since Furina is still being marketed as an Archon, but as it stands I want Fontaine to be over so we can move on to the next disappointment.

[dual-domination]

I was reading the most recent chapter of In endless mist and rain, and I reread the tags for possible updates, but so far Weilanxie doesn't appear listed as a relationship, just its three side/inner ships. Avid fan here, I'll continue following the fic regardless of how the ships form or break up, but out of curiosity: does the lack of the Weilanxie tag indicate that there won't be a polyamorous relationship between them? Because despite the most recent events, I don't think this configures a love triangle in any way and the fic doesn't have the tag either. Can you talk a little about what to expect from the ships?

Even though the answer doesn't contain explicit spoilers, some parts are plot revelations in some way, so long text under the cut.

This is actually a very complicated question. Does this fic have polyamorous relationship? Off screen, if you count V shaped Xiao Hua/Hei Xiazi/Zhang Qiling, yet it’s only hinted that Xiao Hua is part of this relationship somehow/more than a friend, than yes - off screen because Xiao Hua doesn’t appear in any scene along with Xiazi and Xiaoge so far and as both Xiazi and Xiaoge are my characters, I’m not planning on having any scene like that, so it’s more a ‘their relationship may or may not be polyamorous/probably is platonic’ - is left for the reader’s taste and interpretation. Why am I including them in the answer of an ask about Weilanxie? Because Idk if having or not polyamory in a fic in general is the issue here or not.

We do have one(1) main character that is, in fact, polyamorous (the label never appears on screen, but the identity is there). One of them is not, like, definitely. We (me and @tazzy-ace) noticed a while ago that this character has the opposite feelings of a polyamorous person, yet he circumstantially finds himself in a very different mindset of a standard (western) monogamous person. I treasure the way I build my characters and I’m not willing to change him, so maybe he’ll end up being the the impeding factor of actual polyamorous relationship happening (or being the endgame here). We don’t have A THING outlined, we write out of vibes, this is how we made this fic work, so we don’t really know the ending of this. We have the goal of bringing a happy ending, and considering that this is a romantic story in the first place, a happy ending includes at least one ship staying together - will this happen? Maybe not, maybe the best ending for them will be to stay all apart (Eh, probably this won’t be the ending skjjsskj this is me being dramatic, but it’d be more likely to happen than the 3 of them ending in a polyamorous relationship). But what about a V shaped one? Not impossible, I’d say, exactly because the characters and the vibes both me and Deputy Chief have when writing new content for this fic is what decides the plot. So I don’t believe we’ll have the Weilanxie and the Happy Ending tags until the day we write the last chapter for real to know.

About the Love Triangle - elements of traditional love triangles such as rivalry, unrequited love and jealousy are not present in the story, we could say that no, it’s not a suitable tag/label. But in the sense that one of the characters will be somehow romantically involved with the two other ones for a while - which doesn't exactly constitute cheating, but I can't explain further without giving spoilers - so yes, somehow you could say that a love triangle exists. 

What to expect from the ships? Each one, you mean? Everything gets much worse before it gets any better, with all of them. With some, things get much worse more than once - we’re working hard to provide more Angst than we already had in this 125k posted.

Weilan and Shenxie share the place under the spotlight when it comes to ‘screentime’ and relationship development (or ruining relationship too kjssjjk). We didn’t make any of the relationships simple and if you thought that romance between one of the Guardian mains + any grave robber from DMBJ is already unlikely to happen/hard to develop with them being their canon selves, for canon reasons, believe me, we made it even harder. You can expect pain and smut. More pain than smut, I’m sorry. (Yet this fic is rated E and properly tagged about its sexual content, there’s not even one sex scene that happens for the sake of smut in itself, all sex is contextual and meaningful, no matter how horny it is, we put extra efforts in the emotional part of this).

Polyamory to be depicted as realistic, is a delicate thing, and as I said above, one of our main characters is not polyamorous, one of them is (and the third one ehh I won’t reveal rn), so you can expect to see both sides of it: someone comfortable about how he feels and how he sees his (supposed/potential) relationships, as well as someone who’s confused, trying his best, but in the end, really uncomfortable about the possibilities. No side/identity is portrayed as being better than the other, or as being more correct than the other. But the ‘polyamory is the solution for love triangles’ is definitely not what we want here. Because polyamory can’t be forced, being polyamorous is NOT a decision (if you’re queer, you know what I mean). At the same time we’ll have the picture of a polyamorous person being happy in a monogamous relationship (or with only one partner, if you prefer), we’ll have someone that doesn’t have as lifegoal a romantic relationship (except if it’s WITH ONE VERY SPECIFIC PERSON). Could he be read as aro? No. (But you can read him like that, if you want). His lack of romantic interest in general is part of his upbringing, the part of his culture that his life is based upon, and some more circumstances, but it’s not an identity. Could he be read as ace? A bit, but not really. Same explanation about the aro identity. We had long discussions about how these labels are useful HERE, but they wouldn’t be the case depending on a person’s culture and upbringing.

So yeah, this character that is not polyamorous won’t be labeled as this or that, he’s just himself, that’s all. I’ll leave to the readers to see what they want to see there in him (and please, don’t try to push on me - an ace and married person - this harmful idea that aro and/or ace people can’t/shouldn’t be in a romantic/sexual relationship).

All that said, this fic is not about polyamory, like some of my other fics and several of Tazzy's other fics. That's not part of the central themes, it's the identity of one of the main characters and may or may not influence (for better or worse) their relationships in the future.

[cardinalgoldenbrow]

Warframe Shower Thoughts on Time Travel

Since Warframe's new storyline is delving more into time travel, it's rather interesting that the narrative has already answered the question/plot hole of "Why don't we just time travel over and over again until we get it right?"

It's not that we can't. As far as we know, we're planning to travel back to 1999 again and just not be late, this time. The Palimpsest of Spacetime outright says that events can be rewritten, though traces of the original will persist, and accordingly we're pretty comfortable with saving Golden Cradles in the Undercroft on a regular basis.

So we clearly can.

Why don't we do it more often?

It's because, as the Drifter learns in The Duviri Paradox, constantly resetting the Spiral to get everything right is a trap that leaves them stagnant, stuck, spinning inside their little wheel.

I mean, there's a lot of people in this System who would benefit from a second chance, be it the Kavor, that Syndicate hostage we failed to save, that Solaris who got hauled off for brainshelving, and so on. Eudico has a ton of guilt over her many failures. Konzu remembers people who are still lost to their Narmer veils. Shouldn't we want to fix everything, since we kind of can?

So why don't we?

It's because, as the Operator learns in The New War, getting trapped in a recursive timeline means they have to re-experience all the bad bits too and, worse, while they're stuck in the past they're losing the war in the present with dire consequences for the people they love.

Warframe's take on recursive and infinite time travel loops doesn't necessarily need technobabble to explain plot holes like "Why don't Operator/Drifter just use time travel to undo every bad event?" It's enough that both visions of its main characters have in-character reasons to think "That's not always the best idea."

Kind of a neat little twist to DE's storytelling.

[heyitschartic]

The Goddess Did Nothing Wrong Essay

Goddess is one of the most mistreated characters in Ward, by the fandom and by the author. Check the comments under any of the chapters with her in it and you'll see exactly what I mean. It's a fucking shame because Bianca just doesn't get talked about or appreciated enough. Understandably I guess, she isn't a main character or anything, but she's easily one of the most interesting characters in Ward to poke at, tear apart, and piece back together. And despite what the people crying in the Ward comments say, Goddess didn't do anything wrong.

This is going to involve Ward spoilers just FYI, so I'll keep the rest below the line.

Alright, let's talk about Goddess.

It still shocks me that she's around for only like an arc, she's easily one of the best characters in Ward, from her swag to her powers, to the play she makes almost immediately. It feels like she should have been around much longer. When she died I got so mad that I dropped Ward for like a month. Better people than I have discussed her similarities to Vicky, but I think what interests me more are some things that are solely hers. Things that never really even get talked about in the story.

We don't know Bianca's trigger event and I really doubt Wildbow is ever going to tell us. Hell, he didn't bother to give her a sixth power, so I'm not holding my breath. But, we can look at her powers and sort of work back from there. (All of this was done by my great friend Maya, so thank you so much to her <3)

Human master that only affects capes, part influencer part control, with heavy doses of putting herself first, authority figures, and loyalty sprinkled through the themes her power works with. Her trigger was probably betrayal by an authority figure, likelya cape, that upended her entire world. Someone she implicitly trusted to do the right thing. Someone with power over her that she sought out for help.

Secondaries rely more on the person than the trigger, so they can help flesh out who she was. A danger sense that lets her know when things are happening, feel the impact of them, but she can't see coming or stop. A trump boost, something that could reflect a need to do or be better in critical moments. A trump defense that works best with long term trauma and pain, but struggles with sudden reveals or reversals. And finally a shaker effect, fractal telekinesis, reflecting a messy environment that she can't hold or control because of its complexity.

Whoever Goddess was before her powers, it was someone weak and without any control over her life. Someone hurting and powerless who didn't see this betrayal coming, didn't see how much danger she was in, until it already too late.

I think her master power is the most important thing to understand about her because of what it represents. It paints all of her actions in a very different light. Her most fundamental trauma was a betrayal by authority. Afterwards, she likely didn't feel safe around others, especially not those in power, didn't trust them to run things because she'd been betrayed by people promising these same things. Her taking over Shin may have been like Taylor going after the bay, convinced she was the only one who could fix it.

And a lot of the fucked-up dynamic with her cluster probably played into this. We know Goddess and Bill were the problems in the cluster, but I find it interesting Bill is noted as the monster, not her. In March's interlude, Megan paints a really fucked abusive view of how their cluster was working, getting hurt by someone and then hurting them back worse in turn as things began to spiral until Goddess took Bill's day. And from there everything exploded and she found herself on Shin.

I'm not really going to defend what she did on Shin. It might be a surprise in the Goddess Defense Essay, but obviously a seventeen year old (I believe that's approximately how old she was at the time) isn't going to make the best choices when put in charge of a planet. There's plenty of stuff to point at and go "that sucks" like the universal english thing (though I think that may have been a byproduct of needing to know she wasn't being lied to, again her trauma at play.)

Instead, I want to talk about why she was sent there. Again, speculation cause none of this ever got explained, but Wildbow had early issues of Worm that took place on Shin, where the Parahumans formed mainly hostile groups attacking larger power structures and enacting control over governments where they could. If this was true for Shin in Ward, Cauldron might sent Goddess there as a stabilizing force (something we know they did). Someone to corral the capes under her banner and allow them to use the world as a research ground for parahumans. Again, all conjecture on my part, but it would make sense why Ziz would pop open another portal there. Like she did with Madison and the Cauldron base, Goddess' absence likely led to some wild problems that tore apart crucial research they were on the cusp of finishing.

Her being forced to another world is another interesting part for me. This woman is a master, someone who takes complete control of others, but again and again she finds herself pushed from one point to the next without agency.

Speaking of which, then Gold Morning happens. She's torn away from the planet she controls, loses her cluster mates, and then...does nothing for two years. Honestly, this might be more character defining than anything else. She doesn't try to build back power, doesn't storm Shin intent on reclaiming everything, she sits on her hands. I don't care if the Wardens were watching her, if she really was as big a megalomaniac as people claim, she would have pushed to retake her world.

But she didn't. She stepped back. And I wonder if that wasn't something she wanted. The chance to step away, to not feel like she's always being pushed, always hounded by a danger sense warning of lurking dark clouds on the horizon. A trauma about needing to be in control over everything. A chance for her to finally be able to make her own decisions and not be wrapped up by the strings of others machinations or expectations.

And then Teacher came. Goddess makes it clear how relentless he was, trying to get her stuck in a position where he could kidnap her. I’ve heard the argument made she should have just gone to the Wardens, but let’s be real, what could they have possibly done to help her? They wouldn’t trust her enough to house her in the Wardens base so then what, drop her off in some corner world until Teacher found her again? Leave her with Ciara to watch over? Station guards on her twenty-four seven? They’d want concessions too, things that would hamper her if she really did run out of other options.

And, again, her trigger was very likely about a betrayal by authority figures. Going to the Wardens to plead for help would hit at her trauma in all the worst ways. To her, there probably wasn’t any other clear choice forward but using her powers on the prison. Of course that’s what she went for.

I think everyone knows what happened from there.

I've seen her relationship with Amy framed as the reason she gets so much hate, and yes that certainly played a role with the fanbase, but I think it's more than that. I think a lot of people saw her use her powers on the protagonist and just would not give her a single inch afterwards. Everything she did had to be wrong, she's forcing people to fight for her, she's being mean to the characters, she's stressed and angry and such a bitch. It’s probably part of the reason she gets killed off, and god that was the worst way to handle it. If the reflections of Vicky in Goddess were intentional, having Amy betray her might have been intended as a reflection of the way she betrayed Vicky. I hope not. It's a horrible way to end things.

Goddess' story isn’t one of a tyrant getting what she deserves. It’s a tragedy. It’s a woman who controls others but is all the while still not truly in control of her own fate. It was a woman pulled from one spot to another: by her cluster, by Cauldron, by her expectations, by Taylor, by Teacher. And in the end, it finished as it began. Betrayed by someone she trusted intimately.

Only this time, she dies for it.

[shmaptainwrites]

Oooo how do you think Wilson would react if his partner was in Thirteen’s place during 5x09 Last Resort?

anon i gasped when i saw this, your brain is really working overtime PLS this idea is so good 🫢

for this, maybe similar to some of the other people caught up in the situation you have sort of cold or your immune system is just down which makes all the things that happen later more concerning because your body isn't at 100%

considering how the events unfold wilson doesn't know you're in there until he either gets that call from house or cuddy tells him. if it happens on the call, wilson is already scolding house for how he's handling the situation and you don't really want to say anything or to give any indication that you're there because you don't want to worry him and so you don't, but house being who he is manages to let it slip before hanging up and letting wilson ask any questions

you'd probably give him a bit of a look and ask if he really had to say you were caught up in this too, but there wasn't much chance to talk about it because you had to deal with the man who was waving a gun around at everyone

outside, wilson is a nervous wreck. he's cancelled any of his appointments for the rest of the day and goes to find cuddy to try and confirm what house said because no one is picking up the phone even though he's called back at least five times. the confirmation from cuddy is like a punch to the gut especially when he overhears some of the dilemmas over the phone resulting in you putting your health at risk to be able to get the others out safely house probably makes comment about how you and wilson are great for each other because you're both self sacrificing idiots

eventually the main guy from the swat team makes wilson leave because he's too invested with a loved one inside and so he goes to house's office with the diagnostic team knowing if anyone else would get information about the situation it would be them

they're all anxiously awaiting those phone calls they get to consult, hoping that everyone was okay and they could get closer to a diagnosis so the whole matter could be resolved. when the call finally comes through wilson can't help himself, he's the first to talk before house can even get a word out, asking if you're okay

you try to assure him you're fine, but he can hear it in your voice, you don't sound well, and he gets furious wondering what kind of drugs they've senselessly jabbed into you, but hearing the man threaten to do something worse is enough to quiet him and let house continue his diagnostic consultation

by the end of things, when the swat team bursts through the radiology room, after house, wilson is the first person pushing past the authorities to try and get to you and make sure you're okay. house is talking to you about how you weren't dead and that would be close to impossible if you'd taken the drug and you weakly shake your head and tell him that you didn't take it, tears streaming down your face because you didn't want to die

wilson is quick to step in after that, lifting your head and letting it rest in his lap while he assures you everything is going to be fine and they're going to get you into a room upstairs and get everything out of your system and all you can do is apologize to him over and over for putting him through that stress, conciously making those decisions to put yourself in harms way after a certain point in order to try and save the others, knowing how hard it was for him to move on after amber, it just fills you with guilt, but he can't bear to think of things ending any other way than how they did and so he focuses on the fact that you're going to be okay and you're here with him now

send me your sfw RSL character x reader thoughts

→ accepting asks for james wilson, cruise, and peter müller

→ i've seen up to 5x17 of house — NO SPOILERS PLEASE

[chaotic-tired-bastard]

Hi I was talking abt this with my brother earlier and just. The reason why loss and pain and grief hits so hard in ATLA is because you don't see what happens, you only see the aftermath, the scars it leaves behind. Imma use four examples- the Air Nomads, Kya (Sokka & Katara's mom), Hei Bai's forest, and Zuko getting his scar.

With the Air Nomads, you see the shell that they left behind in the world with the Air Temples and through Aang. You see how horribly it effects Aang, how his grief and rage at losing his entire people force him into the Avatar State. Examples of this are when he found Gyatso's skeleton, and when he lost Appa. You get to see how his grief transforms him so horribly, and how his survivor's guilt eats away at him, most notably in The Storm. There's also another thing that I want to touch on about this, but I'll wait until Zuko's section.

With Kya's murder, you don't see it. You only actually ever see her once in the entirety of ATLA, and that's only for a few seconds. But you grasp how devastating it was through the effect it left on Katara and Sokka. You can particularly see the scars it left through Katara's rage- we even got an entire episode, The Southern Raiders, dedicated to the rage and grief that Katara still feels about her mother's murder however many years after she died.

Hei Bai's forest is one of the easiest of these to conceptualise because it's literally the main plot of The Winter Solstice, Part 1: The Spirit World. Hei Bai's forest was burned down, the forest that he had been guarding for hundreds of years, and it leaves a physical scar on the land- Sokka even refers to it as such when they first come upon it. Hei Bai's anger is so great that he takes it out on whoever it can, capturing villagers from Senlin Village for misdirected revenge. The devastation of the land is felt through Hei Bai's anger, Aang's misery/guilt, and the physical effect it left on the land.

Finally, Zuko's scar. Like everything else, we never actually see what happens. We hear him scream and nothing else. We then see Zuko's desperation to return home, his anger at the world/universe that he has to go through this. And, I guess what makes it even worse, in The Storm we get a direct comparison of what life was like before he was scarred. Because we see how enthusiastic and optimistic Zuko was, and then we see what he became afterwards. This is the same with Aang and the Air Nomads- we see how lively the Air Nomads were, Aang's friends and home, and then we are left with the reality that all of those people were murdered and are dead. Zuko was a regular child, eager to do good and help his people, and he was punished horribly for doing so. He became bitter and resentful and miserable, banished from home on a wild goose chase. You can see the scars, both literal and metaphorical, that that event left on his character.

This is why I hate the live action already. I feel like they're just trying to profit off of showing ✨new✨, ✨exciting✨,✨never seen before scenes✨, like the Air Nomad genocide and how Zuko got his scar. I wouldn't put it past them to show Kya's murder, because they're most likely going to. I'm saying this as someone who loves writing about suffering and pain (woohoo teenage angst), sometimes not showing the traumatic event, only the aftermath, hits harder than showing it. Reference the above paragraphs for evidence, and then watch ATLA for even more that I didn't list/missed.

[therealtsk]

What is the Brown family pre-Flashpoint characterization vs post-?

hoo boy. So, disclaimers, while I've read a LOT of comics, I have not in fact read all of the ones where a member of the Brown Family appears (mostly because I just don't have the heart to put myself through Batman and Robin Eternal, along with some of Dixon's notoriously sexist writing in his Robin run), but I think I've read enough to make a decently informative post on this. Let's go by characters.

Stephanie Brown.

Probably the one that most people noticed, Stephanie Brown in her pre-Flashpoint characterization is one that has (right up until a certain...event...) a lot of grit to her. While she's still the victim of Dixon's notorious attitudes towards women, she's still allowed to be competent, holding her own in a fight quite handily, especially in her own Batgirl run, where she's able to take on League of Assassin members without too much trouble at all.

Her major, I would argue defining characteristic, is that she does not give up. Ever. Her dad tells her to quit. Tim Drake tells her to quit. Fucking Batman tells her to quit. Multiple times!

Stephanie Brown does not give up. Ever. When the going gets tough, she shrugs, puts on her eggplant outfit, and kicks ass.

Post-Flashpoint? Stephanie is constantly made out to be unreliable, unable to handle herself, constantly needing other people to pull her out of trouble. She loses fights she simply wouldn't have before (although to be entirely fair, this is a problem literally every batfam member has from N52 onward but that's another post) But worse than that, post-Flashpoint Stephanie gives up. 

This scene is genuinely insulting- it's definitive proof that DC's writers from N52 onwards have never understood Stephanie Brown, and never plan to (yes, I know she does come back later, but the fact this happened at all is the point.) This is utterly antithetical to Stephanie Brown as a character, and spits in the face of everything she stands for.

Crystal Brown This is actually the main reason I decided to start writing sins of the father (working on chapter two in conjunction with this), because the treatment of Crystal Brown in Post-Flashpoint DC comics is just insulting- and a major disservice to Steph! Her relationship with her mom is essential to her arc. Crystal Brown starts out as a woman who's got a supervillain as a husband. She's struggling with him, with near-poverty, and with a drug addiction that seriously impedes her ability to be a good mom.

But like daughter, she doesn't give up. In fact, Crystal Brown kicks Arthur Brown out of her life and picks herself up, manages to quit her habits, and becomes a well-respected nurse at Gotham City West Mercy Hospital. Her defining characteristic is that she loves her daughter, even if it took some time for her to get her act together.

Post-Flashpoint Crystal Brown is not that. Hell, she's barely a character. When Steph calls her, desperate, afraid of her newly-learned-of criminal father, Crystal’s response is to lie to her daughter, and then call her husband and tell him Stephanie knows about his plan. 

Sure, she doesn't want him to kill her, but this is so wildly out of character for Crystal that this is basically an entirely different person. And it leaves Stephanie without a single parent who cares about her, since Bruce sure has hell hasn't stepped up in Rebirth. Steph doesn't have any positive role models in her life in Rebirth, leaving her bereft of really any consistent form of love and encouragement outside of maybe Cass, but even that relationship is a hollow shell of what it was previously. 

Arthur Brown. 

So Arthur’s the one who’s arguably changed the least, because abusive asshole is hard to get wrong, but he does feel like he’s lost all consistency in Rebirth. Before, he's a smug, arrogant asshole who doesn't give a damn about his family beyond how he can use them.

In Batman Eternal he’s…well, fine, but in Batgirls he’s…nearly unrecognizable, even from his characterization in the previous issues. 

Like seriously, what was going on here? Arthur's never given a single damn about Steph aside from literally using her as part of a plan to get rich. But anyway. TLDR; All three lost nuance, Steph used to be more competent and had an actual character arc, Crystal used to have an actual character and was an inspiring story of overcoming addiction, and Arthur used to feel like a consistent villain instead of a one-off whack job.

[darthpastry]

Michael and Elizabeth headcanons/rambling

Somehow these two have become my comfort characters and now I have headcanons and AU ideas and I just want to ramble about them.

TW: Child abuse, death, crap William Afton pulled.

Pre-Murder Death Stuff:

Honestly, I see Michael and Elizabeth not being very close at this point. Like, yeah, they're siblings so they still interact and stuff, but Michael is the troublemaker who bullies CC and Elizabeth is the people-pleasing golden child. Since I don't think Mrs. Afton was a great mother and possibly even around, I do think Elizabeth tried to take on the role of keeping everyone in line when William wasn't around and would scold her brothers a lot. She wasn't exactly very nice herself either though, probably not full psychopath but since she was an impressionable child, she did pick up some of those kinds of behaviors from William.

For the most part, Michael would avoid Elizabeth. Since I do agree that The Immortal and the Restless is about the Aftons, I think William rejected Michael for at least the majority of his childhood. Possibly often told Michael that he was never even wanted, which Michael ended up taking out on CC. Maybe William even called CC 'his first wanted child' or something.

Maybe they had some moments together where they all got along, perhaps watching cheesy telenovels?

If The First Death Was CC:

Since the main reason I believed this one was because William needed a motivation to start experimenting with Remnant and thanks to Dittophobia, we now have one, I think Elizabeth died first, but since I still have headcanons about it, I'll blather on, nonetheless.

Elizabeth would've been pissed at Michael. Obviously, she would've blamed him for CC's death. Probably ignored him even more and never let go of her anger. Michael tried to talk to her, but she would either shut him down with a snarky comment or yell at him. I do kind of headcanon that Elizabeth and CC were twins so that would've made it worse. Either that, or Elizabeth never found out how CC died.

Oh boy... Michael spent a very long time trying to apologize for it, begging for forgiveness from his family, maybe taking some of CC's plushies and crying himself to sleep at night. Either that or he went numb for a while. After Elizabeth died, he full on suppressed everything until becoming the sarcastic, vengeful night guard he is in the games.

If The First Death Was Elizabeth:

Michael was supposed to be watching his younger siblings while William was working, it was after school, and they were at Circus Baby's Pizza World. Michael was ignoring the two and chatting with his friends instead. Elizabeth convinced CC that they should go see Baby despite William's warnings.

I know Baby says there was only one child, but that's why it's a headcanon. Who knows, maybe CC was hiding, and Baby couldn't detect him?

Elizabeth gets closer to Circus Baby, though CC gets scared and stays back. Elizabeth then gets killed by Baby and CC ends up running off in fear, eventually William finds out what happens but CC keeps his knowledge of it a secret, feeling guilty for allowing his twin to get so close.

William never finds out CC knows and refuses to tell both kids how Elizabeth died. Michael gets a hunch that CC knows and ends up bullying him while CC just turns into a sad, traumatized mess. As one does after watching their sister get killed by an animatronic.

This leads CC to being terrified of animatronics and... yeah. When Michael accidently kills CC, perhaps William ends up yelling at him and telling him how Elizabeth died.

By The Time Of Sister Location:

Michael ended up moving to a new neighborhood where no one knew him, they'd heard about the events, but didn't connect Michael to them since he never gave out personal information. He ended up making a lot of friends, having a certain wit that comes from suppressed trauma. William/Springtrap contacts him, telling him to go work at Circus Baby's Pizza World. Michael doesn't trust his father, but ends up going, nonetheless.

Now, if he knew about how Elizabeth died, he was probably terrified of Circus Baby, but ended up trusting her after noticing her eyes were now green.

Getting scooped definitely hurt a lot more emotionally than physically. Maybe a part of Elizabeth that was still in there hesitated.

One of my favorite parts of Sister Location is that Michael got scooped and just went home to eat popcorn, display his butters, and watch his dramatic telenovelas.

As mentioned earlier, I like to think it was one of the few bonding experiences he had with his siblings so was very attached to them. Maybe The Immortal and the Restless in particular was cathartic to watch.

Miscellaneous:

Despite seemingly rather apathetic, two things made Michael cry, his siblings' deaths and telenovelas.

Elizabeth and Charlie were the best of friends while they were both alive, though I do think Charlie was a year or two younger. The two of them always thought The Security Puppet was cool, and Elizabeth would often talk to it after Charlie died, asking if it was crying about Charlie's death as well, since she didn't know about it being possessed.

Also, I love the fact that the fan wiki for Michael specifically calls out that his SL reflection post-scoop looks like Rick Astley.

This may be awful, but the way Michael was animated vomiting up Ennard in the 8-bit section of SL is hilarious to me.

I support the theory of GlamMike. Fazbear Entertainment was destroyed by the Afton siblings and that's that.

AU Time:

Probably my favorite is the one where Elizabeth didn't die, it was after CC's death and Michael managed to find her and pull her away right before she got snatched. They never really talked about it afterwards, but they became closer, and Elizabeth finally forgave him for CC's death. She grew up to work as an engineer for Fazbear Entertainment under an alias, much like Michael becoming a night guard. Baby ended up possessed by another child, but Elizabeth managed to save Michael from getting scooped. The two of them ended up at the PizzaPlex. Elizabeth was still an engineer and befriended Vanessa, but once she realized something was wrong, she snuck Michael in.

First sentence is just one I've seen before on here, but Michael getting an "I don't want to die" moment at the end of Pizzeria Sim and using the escape route Henry planned for him. He feels guilty for a while, but once the PizzaPlex opens, he's relieved that he has a purpose again. But maybe this time... he'll burn with it.

A continuation of the last one but since it gets completely nonsensical now, Elizabeth somehow returns from the dead. Because hey, if William can do it... Only now she's her child self again, but the AI from Circus Baby is still in her head and occasionally takes over if she gets too emotional.

[dailycass-cain]

I was a masochist, because I wanted to see how the story ended (and wanted a the very least to own the Red Hood mini because I do love the creative team with that). So I asked a friend if I could borrow his copies of the issues I don't have. So here are my hopefully FINAL thoughts on Batman/Catwoman: Gotham War.

This was quite possibly the worst Batman x-over in quite some time. From the varying motivations of the main characters to the side characters. Nothing stood out from the beginning to the end.

If any one character comes off as "okay" throughout this event is Jason. Like, he gets the only motivation (again thin as it is), but at the very least he's the one who gets progression in this story.

From helping Selina to seeing how flawed Selina's plan is, to being kidnapped by Bruce then mentally tortured, and still fighting even after it.

Jason is the ONLY main member of the three (or four if you include Vandal) who exits the story still looking clean.

Bruce or Selina? Oh boy... both have some WONKY stuff in this and vary from issue to issue or page to page.

The thing is, this story could've just been easier by taking Selina out entirely and focusing on Bruce vs. the Bat Family.

Like, the entire Bat Family is paper thin in this story and quite possibly some of the worst use of them in a while.

I'm still flabbergasted at how awful Cass was treated in the story with zero character at all. I mean Batman vs. Robin #5 did as well, but even with that story there was a "meaning" to the madness with Cass in that.

She sat out most the main series until THAT issue. She's there along with the rest of the Bat Family to stall the possessed Bruce (which seems to be a recurring theme this entire year) until the mystical characters of the DCU arrive to exorcise him.

For that issue?

It works. I accept the jobbing because it's a mystical demon which is outside her norm (well not anymore).

I still have my issues with Batman vs. Robin, but it was waaay better at telling a story.

Here?

Everyone's appearance in this event is downright laughable and makes zero sense. I'm supposed to accept Cass is okay with Selina's plan throughout this? Even her among other characters gets ZERO voice on why they're on board with this.

A quick fix again would've been when she saw the signs of Bruce's mental instability with the Zur influence growing larger.

Heck, the now INFAMOUS Batman #137. The issue is awful storywise and all it serves is the wrestling equivalent to this with Bruce vs. Cass:

All so Bruce can get a "W" over Cass. Joy. 🙄

When themactically it could've shown Zur's influence that a move Bruce wouldn't be ready for and Zur is.

BUT NOPE. We get that with him against Dick in #138 instead.

I'm not even going into details with the final issue of the event in Batman/Catwoman: Gotham War- Scorched Earth #1.

It just makes everything worse. Bruce passes it all on Dick and um yeah… none of the female characters of the family get ANY say. 🙃🙃🙃

I said last month I'm dropping Batman ongoing from my pull, and I'm sticking with that choice with Tec replacing it fully. I just don't enjoy the comic any longer. When you don't enjoy a comic you cut it off and don't continue to read it for any enjoyment purposes.

Literally, Cass's entire point in Batman run so far has been to job. There has been ZERO characterization for the character. Why I dibbed Cass in this "Card Cain". If you're gonna treat the character that way, well.

I'm out.

Detective Comics is giving me a better story of Bruce falling out mentally, and better-crafted antagonists who feel like a threat to him and others.

I'm more hype for Cass in that because it feels like the book treats each character better. EVERYONE gets to shine.

Batman/Catwoman: Gotham War burned me the heck out of the two leads. Again, I'm far more interested in what happens with Jason next and glad his "mini-series" basically turned into a setup for the finale to the current Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing ongoing.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to put my friend's copies downstairs. Probably tell him next Thurs to bury them in his bins never to be read, or just sell this as a bundle for some poor soul to buy.

I hope this is the final time I ever talk about Batman/Catwoman: Gotham War.

Save for Card Cain. I can't hate Card Cain.

[thesimulationswarm]

Balsam, Chapter 5: Mountain Chickadee

This is a story about trauma. What trauma does to a person, and what trauma does to a community. And how, in the midst of it, people find their way to joy, delight— even love.

Pairing: Joel Miller x original female character Summary: After the events of tlou, Joel and Ellie try to establish a “normal life” in Jackson, but neither of them are any good at normal. A town doctor tries to care for residents who have experienced unspeakable trauma, and struggles to overcome her own past at the same time. Joel finds himself drawn to her, as their lives become increasingly intertwined. Meanwhile, outside Jackson, troubling things are happening… Rating: explicit 18+ MDNI Wordcount: 5.5k Warnings: some problematic language around race/ethnicity that would be expected from characters whose understanding of social justice stopped in 2003, condomless PIV sex, v brief mention of infertility, angst, trauma/PTSD symptoms, painful adolescent social dynamics, LGBTQ issues, the Miller clan trying to figure out how to be a family, Joel struggling with getting old

Series Masterlist

It was 6 AM and Ellie was sitting in the dark, looking out the front windows, as Joel’s figure disappeared down the street. The faintest light was coloring the sky to the east and starting to extinguish the smaller stars. She’d been curled up there for a long time, feeling the chill radiate through the pane of glass, her eyes adjusting to the lack of light. There were a surprising amount of animals out there as the dawn started to break— rabbits, squirrels, little birds. She saw how they stilled suddenly when Joel walked by.

She could imagine how the little animals felt, holding themselves like statues, tiny hearts twitching furiously against their ribs. Not daring to breathe until the threat disappeared around the bend in the road.

She hadn’t gone downstairs to say goodbye, and she wasn’t even sure why. Maybe just that she didn’t want him to know she was awake still, didn’t want him to worry. He’d stuck his head in around midnight and told her to stop reading and go to sleep. He’d fallen asleep on the couch for a while after dinner, and his hair had been a wild, off-kilter mess. Standing there like that, bleary-eyed, in a ratty pair of sweatpants and t-shirt, made him look different— older, more…domestic. Like a hapless dad from a cheesy old movie.

He’d pointed at the creased paperback she was holding. Stephen King’s It, borrowed from the eccentric little Jackson Library.

“Sure you should be reading that before bed?” 

“Why wouldn’t I?” She gave him a hard look.

“’S just— I’ve never read it, but it’s pretty scary, ain’t it? And you’ve been havin’ trouble sleeping…”

Ellie raised her eyebrows and flipped to the copyright page. “It’s from 1986. It’s about an evil clown. Not exactly the kind of thing that haunts people’s dreams these days.” It was true— the book felt quaint, almost cozy. Hard to imagine what it would be like to live in a small town in Maine and run around with a band of misfit kids. The guy who wrote it thought he was pointing out how everything had a dark underbelly, but a dark underbelly sounded pretty fucking good to her. She was used to towns that were just plain dark.

But Joel looked skeptical. She could see the pinched anxiousness in his eyes, and it made her squirm. She didn’t want him to feel guilty. She didn’t want him to think she was sick or fucked up or weak, and she didn’t want him to pity her.

She’d sighed, tossed the book aside, and turned off her lamp. Curled on her bed, turning her back to Joel.

But she didn’t sleep. Not because of It, but because she was sick of nightmares. She’d had nightmares her whole life, but over the past year or so they’d only gotten worse. There were just more and more things to have nightmares about. Recently, it was like some kind of switch had been flipped in her head, and the only dreams she was allowed to have were nightmares. She felt weird and sad about Brandy and Chuy, but that wasn’t it, really. Maybe that had just been enough to tip her over the edge.

She worked so fucking hard not to think about her bad memories. Not to talk about her bad memories or to acknowledge them in any way. But as soon as her higher brain shut off, they were set free, and she had nowhere to hide. Nothing she could do except stay up as much as possible, until her body ached and her eyes felt gritty and raw. Until, eventually, the dark tide of unconsciousness overpowered her. And hopefully by then she would be too exhausted to even dream.

The morning was pleasantly quiet, especially compared to Nina’s last patrol with Isaac. Joel had barely spoken a word to her as they packed their gear and tacked up the horses, but she was keenly aware of his presence. She watched him in her peripheral vision, appreciating how, despite the substantial shape of him, he moved with a sort of grace.

The sun was just rising above the hills when they road out of the gates, the horses huffing clouds of steam in the cold air. Joel was reserved but polite, following her lead when they hit territory that was unfamiliar to him. As they went deeper into the mountains and further from Jackson, she felt a tension melting away that she’d only been partially cognizant of.

She needed Jackson. The life she had now would not be possible anywhere else. And yet, she was trapped there. Dependent on it, and on its people. She’d lived in other places and in other ways before, and it wasn’t something she wanted to experience again— ever.

That left her vulnerable in a dizzying, sickening way. And instead of doing what the other, sensible people of Jackson seemed to do— instead of leaning into it, letting herself soften into that web of dependency— she chafed at it.

She’d wanted to lash out all week. At smug Linda Hayes, who looked at her like some kind of witch when she picked up supplies at the butcher shop. At chatty old Jack Auden, who came by her clinic to get a tonic for his sister, but clearly just wanted to check up on her, draw her out of something she didn’t particularly want to be drawn out of. At Brandy Burkholder, with her grating adolescent tough-girl posturing.

Her jaw hurt from clenching it shut, from the effort of fixing her face into something like neighborly politeness.

She’d even restrained herself from starting shit with Marisa Robinson, yesterday in the dining hall, when she’d ladled up a bowl of soup for her and then loosed a fat glob of spit right in it, before setting it roughly on her tray. The girl had stared right into her eyes the whole time, her message clear as day. 

But Nina had just walked away, picked at the rest of her lunch, and gone back to her clinic.

She had no doubts anymore about who Starkey had been fucking. Which presented another problem— how to get Marisa treated for gonorrhea, when she wanted Nina’s head on a pike. Maybe when they got back she could talk to Maria, get her to have a heart to heart with the girl.

They stopped for food around noon in a sunny patch on the edge of a pine thicket. Nina watched Joel pace around, shaking out his stiff, cold limbs, before sitting down on a rock a few feet away from her. She passed him a packet of jerky and dried berries, and he nodded a thanks. 

The sun was high now in a cloudless sky and the air was starting to warm her face. She leaned her head back and looked up at the wide expanse of blue, edged with scraggly tree tops. A round little bird darted from one branch to another and whistled a sweet, three-beat song.

“Mountain chickadee,” she said, pointing at the branches.

“Hmm?”

“They’re a good omen. At least according to the Shoshone.”

“Well, that’s good, I guess.” Joel paused, chewing the tough meat. “Is that what you are? Shoshone?”

She couldn’t help it— she burst out laughing. “Sorry,” he mumbled, his expression darkening. “None of my business.”

“No, no,” she said. “I don’t mind. But that’s the wrong kind of Indian. I’m the dot kind, not the feather.” She took a sip from her canteen. “At least my mom was. My dad was Irish Catholic.”

Joel nodded slowly. “I’m half too. Dad was white, but my mama was born in Mexico. Michoacán.” He looked at Nina and didn’t exactly smile, but he stopped frowning for a moment.

“You and Tommy have the same problem I do. White name, brown face.”

She studied him for a moment, appreciating the warm, deep eyes and strong nose. The rough, wary good looks. He was watching her, with that simmering intensity he had, and she had a sudden urge to run her hand through his untidy curls.

She had a feeling he would let her.

But they had a long day’s ride ahead. Maria’s face flashed in front of her, that warning look she’d given her when Joel had agreed to come on this trip. She knew her friend worried about her taste in men. And she knew Tommy’s brother had a reputation--irascible, violent, unfriendly Joel Miller. The kind of guy she shouldn’t be drawn to, and yet always, despite her best judgement, was.

“I found a book about Shoshone beliefs a while back, on the old University of Eastern Colorado campus.” When she mentioned the campus, Joel’s brow furrowed. “It was full of details on the traditional medicines they used, which was huge for me. It’s not always easy to get medical supplies around here, as you might have noticed.”

“You’ve been to the university?”

She nodded. “I came up through there, when I first came to Jackson.”

He looked down and shook his head. “Pretty rough area.”

“Believe it or not, it used to be worse. I heard that after the Fireflies arrived they cleaned things up a bit.”

Joel stood up abruptly and wiped his hands on his jeans. “We better get movin’ again.”

Tommy watched Maria’s strong fingers gliding expertly over the deck of cards. She riffled, she bridged, she did a series of rapid overhand shuffles with a percussive flourish, all while barely glancing at the movements of her hands. The way she handled the cards reminded him of guys he’d known as a teenager, the sort of macho shit they pulled down in Burnet, Texas, to impress the girls. The sort of shit he’d tried to pull, sometimes successfully and sometimes not— shooting coke cans, throwing knives, hitting the baseball out of the park.

Maria, though— she was the real deal. That finesse wasn’t an act, and neither was her toughness. And instead of impressing Dee Ann Schaefer after homecoming, she was impressing him and Ellie.

The girl’s eyes were sparkling as she followed Maria’s moves. He could practically see the gears turning in her head, and he had no doubt she’d be asking to practice with the card deck tomorrow.

Good.

She needed something to do other than mope around in her bedroom all day. She hadn’t wanted to go to the dining hall for a single meal today, instead opting to hang back and read some old X-men comics that Tommy had scavenged. Maria’d made her promise she would eat something at home, but there was only a single empty can of pears in the sink when they came back after dinner.

Joel’d warned him that she wasn’t doing so great, but he’d been too distracted by everything going on lately to pay it much mind. She’d seemed a little quieter than usual when he saw her around town, and apparently she’d stopped hanging out with the other kids. Some kind of falling out.

But now he could see there was more going on than just that. Ellie had lost a few pounds and was walking around with dark circles under her eyes. It reminded him of when she and Joel first came back to Jackson. He knew only the rough outlines of what had happened out there, but what he knew was awful. And it made him feel terribly guilty, knowing he’d sent Joel out there with the her all alone.

“Kids really didn’t play poker in Boston?” Maria raised her brows as she began to deal.

Ellie shook her head. “I’ve heard about it. But all we ever played at FEDRA school was euchre.”

“Euchre?!” Tommy almost spit out his drink, and a wide smile cracked across Maria’s face.

“What’s the matter with euchre?” Ellie fixed them both with an indignant stare, as Tommy choked back a laugh.

“Sorry, kid. It’s just— my gramma played euchre. Never knew it to be popular with young folks.”

Ellie rolled her eyes at him. “Sorry we weren’t cool enough for you.”

“No, it makes sense,” Maria said with a thoughtful nod. “You probably never had a full deck of cards, did you?” Ellie shook her head no. “They’re surprisingly hard to come by.” She looked down fondly at her yellowed old deck. They were classic red Bicycle cards, the kind with naked cherubs riding down the backs, and Maria was very protective of them.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Tommy felt like he’d missed something.

Now it was Maria’s turn to roll her eyes at him. “If you’d ever payed attention to your grandmother, Tommy, you’d know you only need half a deck to play euchre.” She gave him a fond smile, reaching out to run a hand through his curls. “With a marker and a little creativity, you could use any random set of 26 cards.”

He smiled at her back, getting lost for a second in her rich dark eyes. She was so much smarter than him it wasn’t even funny, but she didn’t seem to mind. I’ve known a lot of men who couldn’t handle a smart, strong woman, she’d told him once. But you don’t have a problem with it. I love that about you.

The doorbell rang while Maria was in the middle of a discussion of which hand beats which. Tommy got up to answer it, not wanting to interrupt the two of them.

He wouldn’t have noticed the path if Nina hadn’t shown him. It was narrow and unmarked, and blocked from the road by strategically placed brush. They carefully arranged the boughs behind them to hide the path again, and walked their horses single file, below the low branches, into the darkening woods. The little A-frame cabin was about a mile in, down a rocky ravine and back up to another ridge.

Nina swung the door open. “It’s probably not wise to make a fire this close to the road, but we’ll be out of the wind at least. The loft is rotten so we’ll have to stay down here.”

Joel looked around at the room, small but clean, with an ancient four-post bed on one end and an enamel wash basin on the another. A pile of heavy blankets was heaped on the floor. “I’ve slept in worse, that’s for sure. I’ll take the floor.”

She looked at him and cocked an eyebrow. “No you won’t, old man. I’ve seen how stiff you are when you get up in the morning after a night on the ground.”

He winced at the ‘old man’ comment, even as he knew it was true— his body wasn’t what it used to be, and she’d certainly feel the effects of the floor much less than he would. But he didn’t think his pride would let him sleep on a mattress while Nina curled up on the floorboards. He paused, still standing by the doorway.

“Look,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “If I was a guy, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. If you’d let Tommy take the floor, there’s no reason not to let me.”

She was right, but he didn’t like it. And he felt embarrassingly disappointed to hear her call him out for his age. Jesus, what did he expect? Like she wasn’t gonna notice he was pushing sixty.

He exhaled heavily, took a few steps forward, and threw his pack down on the bed. “Suit yourself,” he huffed. If she wanted to treat him like an old man, then fine— he’d at least enjoy a night in a bed after a long day’s ride.

Ellie didn’t want to talk to Chuy, but Maria wasn’t budging. She put down the deck of cards and refused to go on with their game until Ellie at least went to the door and thanked him for coming by. As if that was something people actually did. Maybe in nineteen forty or whenever the fuck she’d grown up.

Chuy looked a little awkward, standing on the front stoop with Coco, talking to Tommy. His dark hair flopped over one eye.

“Hi Ellie,” he greeted her with a small smile.

“Hey,” she offered. Her voice sounded weird to her ears. She didn’t know what to do with herself, so she knelt down to rub Coco’s head, scratching the soft fur behind her ears.

“Do you wanna come out for a little walk? It’s a full moon tonight.”

“Uh, sure.” She tried to look casual as she stood, shoving her hands in the pockets of her hoodie. She wasn’t sure why Chuy was here, and the whole thing was making her feel very weird. But part of her was happy to see him, in spite of herself. She’d enjoyed having friends for, like, three weeks.

“Good to see ya, Jesús, “ Tommy said, giving Chuy a pat on the shoulder before he turned back inside. “Ya’ll don’t stay out too late.”

As the door closed behind her, Ellie raised her eyebrows. “Jesús?”

“It’s my full name. Usually just go by Chuy for short.” They fell into step beside each other, walking down the walk and into the empty street.

“In what world is Chuy short for Jesús?”

“Same world where Billy is short for William and Jack is short for John.”

“Okay, that’s a good point.” Something about walking side by side was making things easier. She didn’t have to look at him, for one, and it was much less awkward that way. And when they both fell quiet, she could occupy herself looking at the stars and the luscious silver disk of the moon. They walked a few blocks without talking, just listening to the rhythmic brush of their shoes on concrete.

Coco found a particularly interesting-smelling bush, and they stopped for a minute to let her sniff around it.

“We’ve missed you at the barn,” Chuy said cautiously, turning to look at her face. Ellie looked down at the ground, rocking her weight back and forth on the thin soles of her shoes.

“I’ve just been busy.”

“That’s fine. But you can come by any time you’re free, you know?”

“Mmhmm,” she replied noncommittally.

After a few moments of silence, Chuy spoke again. 

“I’m really sorry.”

Ellie turned toward him, startled. “What do you mean?” Her voice came out sharper than she intended, and it was Chuy’s turn to look away.

“Maybe I’m wrong, but… I guess you know that Brandy and I…” He trailed off.

“Yeah, so?” Ellie gave her best impression of nonchalance. Her heart was pounding against her chest, and she had a fleeting urge to just take off running into the night.

“Well, you like her, don’t you?” He must’ve seen the panic in her face, because he quickly added, “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna tell her. Or anyone else, I promise.”

She closed her eyes for a moment and slowly let out her breath. Fuck.

“Was I that obvious?”

Chuy shook his head emphatically. “No, not at all! It was just because I felt the same way about her, you know? You looked at her the same way I did.”

They were both silent for a moment, then Chuy laughed. “Holy shit, I’m so relieved I was right. This would’ve been so weird if I was wrong.”

“Oh, you think this isn’t weird? Because this is pretty fucking weird for me.” Her heart still felt like it wanted to leap out of her throat, but she found herself smiling at Chuy. Grateful to him for being so chillabout this. 

But, god— would he really not tell anyone? Her smile faltered.

“Hey, um, I actually haven’t told anyone... about me.  So please don’t say anything, okay?” She looked at him pleadingly, biting into the skin of her bottom lip.

“Of course not.” His voice was soft and sincere.

She looked up at the sky again, feeling the cold wind brush the hair back from her face, watching a thin stream of clouds blow gauzily over the moon. The relief crackled through her like an electric current. 

When Joel closed his eyes, he felt like he was still swaying on top of the horse. He lay there, warm under the wool blankets, waiting for his exhausted body to give into sleep. But it wasn’t coming.

He felt like an idiot. Nina’s voice echoed in his head: old man, old man, old man. Yes, he was old, and getting older. His body never let him forget it anymore— stiff joints, spasming muscles, bone-deep aches when the weather changed. Those spells he got sometimes, when his ears rang and his breath stopped and it felt like his heart was gonna fucking explode. He should probably ask Nina about those episodes, but he’d rather swallow glass than admit to her how feeble he got sometimes. Not that she couldn’t see for herself.

She could see just fine. Old man, old man, old man. And what was he thinking coming on this trip? He’d had some good reasons to do this, but there had been a lot of good reasons not to.

After Nina mentioned the University of Eastern Colorado, he’d been dogged by unwanted thoughts as they rode into the woods: visions of being shanked and the religious nut jobs and Ellie running hard across the bloody snow.  The drive of his knife through skin and sinew, the frantic fear that he would always be too late to save her. As much as he bristled at being trapped in Jackson, at least he could keep an eye on her and do what he could to keep her safe. Now he was a full day’s ride away, and soon he’d be further still— the furthest he’d been from her since that day in the QZ when Marlene had talked Tess and him into smuggling the girl. What felt like a lifetime ago, in a whole other world.

He had to remind himself that Jackson was safe and that Ellie was in good hands with Tommy. She’d be just fine when he came back, aside from her attitude and her foul mouth. Which weren’t likely to change any time soon.

He shifted around, adjusted his pillow, sighed heavily.

He tried not to think about Nina lying a few yards away, and what he’d dreamed about the last time they slept in a room together. He felt a heavy pulse of blood in his groin, at nothing more than the memory. Well, at least his dick still worked right.

He could hear her breathing, turning occasionally as she tried to get comfortable on the floor. He felt like an asshole for letting her sleep there, although he also would have felt like an asshole for insisting on giving her the bed. Goddamn her.

He heard her shift again, then the rustling of blankets falling to the floor. Then the creaking of floorboards.

She was getting up.

He sat up halfway, on alert, tilting his head to angle his good ear toward the window. Had she heard something or noticed something he hadn’t?

His rifle was within reach, and his arm slid silently across the bed toward the wall where it rested. It was dark, but he could see her remarkably clearly by the moonlight coming through the windows. 

His heart was beating in his throat as she walked toward the bed and stood beside him.

“What—what is it?” he stuttered in a whisper, confused.

“Can I?” She asked, as she leaned down, pulling on the hem of his blanket. At first he thought, dumbly, that she’d changed her mind about taking the floor. Then she pressed her palms against his chest and gently eased him back down into the mattress. She slid under the blanket, moving her body top of his, until she was straddling his legs.

Oh.

“Yes,” he breathed, and she dipped her head down toward his.

It was so much like his dream that he wandered briefly if he’d fallen asleep. But no, he could feel every little thing too acutely: the scratch of the wool covers moving across his skin, the salty taste of dried sweat as he pressed his lips against hers.

They started out tentative. He sampled her soft lips and gently parted them with the tip of his tongue. She tasted like the baking soda she used to brush her teeth, like salt, like something animal and wild. She tasted good.

His hands had moved up to cradle her face. The cut of jawbone, the whorl of ear against his palm. There was something teetering inside him, a thread perilously close to breaking. All the want he’d been holding in around her, tamping down, was rising up. He felt like he might snap.

He dropped his hands, ran them down the dip of her waist and the wide flare of her hips. Dragged her body up against his until her strong thighs were split open above his groin and his hardening cock could find friction on her. She felt him and rutted forward, moaning softly into his mouth.

Not enough. He flipped her over, his weight spreading her legs wider and pressing her down into the old mattress. His hand snaked up below her sweater and skated across belly, ribs, and there— the soft mound of a breast filling his palm, and she was arching into him, groaning.

“Joel,” she moaned against his ear as he slid rough kisses down her neck. Her voice shook something loose, the nagging thought in the back of his mind— Why the fuck was she doing this?

He broke himself away and sat up on his knees. His chest heaved as he looked down at her. His eyes traced the soft curves of her splayed body. Her words echoed in his head again: old man.

“Are you sure you wanna do this?”

“I’m sure, Joel.” She sat up a bit, propping herself on her elbows to look at him. It was dark, but not too dark to see her expression: eyes narrowed, studying him. She looked, like she usually did, fully in command of herself.

“Are you sure?”

He almost laughed. He wanted to say, I’ve been sure from the moment I first saw you. He didn’t say anything though, just slid down onto his belly between her legs. He nuzzled his face against the fabric of her pants as he started to unfasten them, and she gamely lifted her hips to help.

And—fuck—her underwear was drenched, her arousal turning the pale fabric translucent. He rubbed his finger along the cloth, tracing the dark shape of her cunt underneath. She mewled, pushing herself against his hand. Then he was yanking the underwear roughly, scraping them down her thighs and away.

She tasted amazing there, too— like he knew she would. Sweet and musky, with that electric tang that always reminded him of licking a 9-volt.

She gave him instructions— right there, harder, again, faster— and he complied. He liked a woman who knew what she wanted. And she wanted this, he could tell, as she gripped his hair harder and her thighs shook against him. He worked his jaw frantically, trying to get it right for her. He needed to make her feel good.

When she finally came she called out his name. He slowed down but kept going as she shuddered, coming apart underneath him, until finally she pulled him away from her over-sensitized clit.

He rose up and she grabbed his face to hers. She licked her juices hungrily from his lips and chin, her breath fast and hot against his skin.

“Baby,” he said, running his hands through her thick curls. “I want you so bad.”

She grabbed the waistband of his jeans and peeled down his fly, pulling him loose from his boxers. He was painfully hard, desperate to be touched. And she obliged. When she wrapped a hand around him, he couldn’t help thrusting into her grip, feeling the shuddering relief of her palm stroking down his length.

“I can’t get pregnant. In case you were worried about that.”

He stared at her for a second. Actually, he hadn’t been thinking about it at all, although he should’ve fucking been. He had a sudden flash of how reckless he was being.

But there was no way, no goddamn way he was going to stop now.

He was pressing into her sweet cunt almost before he realized it, his hips drawn into her heat like a moth before a lightbulb. She was arching up to meet him there. Her muscles contracted snugly around him and, Jesus fucking Christ, it had been too long since he’d felt this.

“That’s it,” she breathed as she lifted her legs to bring him in even deeper. “Now fuck me.”

She didn’t have to ask twice. He started out slow— he was too excited and he wasn’t ready for this to be over yet. Holding himself up on one arm, he looked down and watched how his cock slid beautifully in and out of her, the length of him glistening with her arousal. He looked at her face and saw she was watching too, the two of them mesmerized by the machinery of their bodies.

He grabbed her hand and pulled it down. “Touch yourself while I fuck you, baby.”

She obeyed, rubbing rhythmic circles against her clit. Biting her lip as she looked up at him.

She began whimpering with each thrust and he couldn’t hold back. He fucked her harder and faster and she lifted her legs even higher to accommodate him, driving him home.

He was getting there, and he knew he couldn’t hold back for long. “Nina, you feel so good. So fucking good,” he panted. He looked at her pleadingly, trying to will her to come again before he lost control completely.

“I want it, Joel,” she gritted out. “Come for me, baby. Don’t stop now.” She moved in tandem with him, snapping her hips up to meet each thrust.

That was it. He slammed against her roughly, faster and faster as he felt his orgasm bloom outward from the base of his spine. “Fuck, oh— oh baby,” he groaned and buried himself deep inside, the first pulse shooting out of him so hard it was almost painful.

“That’s it, yes, yes,” she moaned, rubbing herself even harder as she felt him throbbing against her.

When the waves of pleasure finally ebbed, he was spent, exhausted. But he held himself up by his shaky arms and stayed inside her, watching as she brought herself to orgasm. Watching how his come leaked out around him and slicked the tips of her fingers, as she circled them hard and fast against her swollen clit. He wanted to burn the image into his brain so he’d never forget.

“That’s it, darlin’,” he whispered hoarsely.  “Make yourself come for me. That’s so fuckin’ beautiful.” He coaxed her until she let out a jagged cry and he felt her contracting around him.

He collapsed down to the mattress and pulled him to her, wrapping his arms around her soft body. 

Nina sat up straight, spine long, feeling the smooth slide of her horse’s gait as they moved through the woods. Watery morning light slanted through the branches, catching on clusters of new green leaves. She felt fucking amazing. Better than she had in a long time.

This was their forth day on the road, and she and Joel had been going at each other madly for the past three. Her cunt ached with it, pressed against the hard leather of her saddle. She knew she would enjoy Joel, but she had not anticipated how much. How enthusiastic he would be, and how focused on her pleasure. Doing things like eating her out on a bed of pine needles, on the forest floor, during their lunch break. He’d barely climbed off his horse before he was kneeling in front of her, licking a stripe hungrily down the denim that covered her crotch, unfastening the button at her waist. And she’d felt herself already soaking through her panties as she looked down at his dark unkempt curls, buried between her thighs. They had found a rhythm with each other that undeniably worked.

When she dissociated, she left her body. In sex like this, she became her body. Today, she was here. She was alive to the world. She knew it wouldn’t last forever— it never did— but for now she basked in it.

When they weren’t fucking, he was just as quiet as he ever was. He was a man of extremes— taciturn and careful as he groomed his horse, built a fire, hunted a rabbit for their dinner. Then whispering sweet filth in her ear as soon as they’d crawled into a shared sleeping bag. And that was just fine with her. She wasn’t looking for attachment. 

Even without attachment, things could get complicated, she knew. Tonight they’d be in Lava Hot Springs, with Mo and his men. An excess of men— men with guns, men with knives, men with pride and schemes and swinging dicks. She was acutely aware of the danger in this. Of the danger in taking her current lover along for protection, as she orchestrated a trade with her charming, amoral ex.

Taglist: @anoverwhelmingdin @blueseastorm @wannab-urs

[dropintomanga]

Berserk's Continued Popularity and Trauma

I often keep up with what's selling in the manga world, so it's not a surprise that I check out ICv2's Manga Week when the site posts up interviews and insights about the industry. What caught my eye this time was Kentaro Miura's Berserk still being a top-seller and a top manga franchise in the English-speaking side of the world.

How popular is Berserk right now? It was the top manga franchise of Fall 2023 beating out everything that was either Shonen Jump, Junji Ito or Attack on Titan. The Deluxe Editions have sold well for all of 2023, especially the first edition (which contains Volumes 1-3 of the series). It helps that Dark Horse Comics, the North American publisher for the manga, has been promoting the Berserk Deluxe Editions non-stop. Even when they didn't announce anything new at Anime NYC last year, Dark Horse made a huge note about the latest Berserk Deluxe Edition that would come out.

I think it's great that Berserk is getting a lot more attention (especially after Kentaro Miura died) because this is a story about trauma and how we still carry the wounds of it at times.

In my opinion, Berserk is a story about people trying to overcome their own trauma - one caused by interpersonal relations. Ultimately, it's about three people in particular. Guts, the main hero who falls into despair after his experiences in the Golden Age Arc and has to deal with the curse of constantly being hunted by monsters beyond his imagination. Griffith, the antagonist who once had admirable dreams, but fully gives into darkness after going through painful torture and is the main source of Guts' trauma. And Casca, the strong heroine who becomes a victim of Griffith's desires and mentally shattered as a result until recent events in the manga. The connection between all three characters says it all - sometimes, the trauma caused is not from strangers who are "dangerous," but those closest and dearest to us.

Berserk is so relatable because we carry on the weight of whatever personal trauma we experienced without realizing its hold on us until it becomes apparent. The worse thing is we often have a very hard time talking about it.

Around 2021, I heard about a certain book about trauma that took during the COVID pandemic. It was Bessel van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score. Originally published in 2014, the book blew up for good reason because COVID forced everyone to confront issues kept hidden for a long time. Van der Kolk talks about how horrible people can be to one another and that psychiatry seems to ignore the complexity of trauma when it comes to helping its victims.

Because of the nuance and how long it takes to heal, maybe that's why we can't talk about trauma easily.

Which is why I want to get to this point - I sometimes find it hard to talk about Berserk because of the sexual violence and horror aspects. Yes, fans love to call it the GOAT and/or recommending the manga to other manga/Western comics fans. But I will say I can't exactly recommend Berserk to anyone who's experienced trauma, especially sexual trauma. If they haven't come to terms and/or processed their pain, why would any manga fan shove Berserk in their face? I know there's heavy debate about microagressions and triggers, but just because it's critically-acclaimed doesn't mean it's for everyone.

I will say that the sexual violence in Berserk is used in a way to highlight the brutality of the real world at times. It serves its purpose in the story. Maybe I feel that Berserk is about acknowledging the dark side of life. The world is full of absolute cruelty. And maybe more importantly, you never fully move on. That's the key point. Moments that hurt will stick by you for a long time. People love to shame others for not being able to move on and/or cheer up. They don't know how trauma forces its victims to stay still out of a realistic yet unhelpful fear of certain kinds of people.

But you can still move forward. I'm admired by Guts fighting in the face of despair. He embodies the belief that you probably can never move on from whatever emotional pain you experience and that's okay. At least take the steps to make your own life worth living. It's the best you can do for yourself.

And a good start to moving forward is accepting the bad thoughts. I recently read how positive thinking is pushed so hard to promote better mental health. Some positivity is fine, but there's so much pain in this world that all the wellness industry strategies in the world will never make go away. It is a huge problem when we're told to grit and grind while suppressing our inner-most vulnerabilities.

A lot of people can't handle that kind of vulnerability. Maybe that's why I'm happy that Berserk is being discovered by new fans. Guts is a strong yet so very vulnerable hero. I think it's those vulnerabilities due to his trauma that allow him to gain some very good friends (Puck, Farnese, Serpico, Isidro, and Schierke) along the way who genuinely care about him.

We all want someone to acknowledge our pain and be willing to sit with and stick by us through the neck of it all.

I remember a friend who once told me that when they went to see someone perform, all of their grief and vulnerability was so apparent that they wished that they didn't need to air it out since a lot of people can't handle it. I told them I can handle it and they said that I was built different.

Much like the popularity of Berserk these days and what I hope the series encourages, I want my difference of being able to sit with trauma to be the norm.