#because you either get to have the first 326 or the finale

[bratshaws]

through the hourglass 333. brb x oc

a/n: woop ITS SHORT BECAUSE TUMBLR HAAATES MEEEE (comments and reblogs are super welcome and encouraged!)

pairing: plus size!oc x rooster

warnings: none uwu

goodness gracious (pls read this one to know more what this fic is about!!)

chapter

1/

/316/317/318/319/320/321/322/323/324/325/326/327/328/329/330/331/332

(pls let me know if you want to be added to the taglist! )

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@peachiicherries @mak-32 @lizziespidiepridie @roosterswifey @ollyoxenfrees @piceous21 @sqrlgrl22 @hofficoffi @lexhalstead3 @lorilane33 @legendarydreamersharkparty @luckyladycreator2

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-

She doesn’t sleep at first, she’s telling him all the things they could do. So many things! So little time! And while Rooster adored her, he adored her with his whole being, he knew she needed sleep, “Gorgeous.”

“And- oh they can have onesies– oh I don’t want to be a Disney adult though,Roos!” she rambles and rambles as he hugs her from behind, smiling on her shoulder, “We need to make sure we don’t meet any either, they are weird.”

Rooster chuckled, the warmth of Beatrice's excitement contagious. He hugged her from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder. "You're adorable, you know that?"

She giggled, a sound that filled the room with pure joy. "I can't help it! Disneyland does that to people. And, I'm serious about the onesies. Imagine all of us in matching onesies taking a family photo. It would be the cutest thing ever."

Rooster grinned, playing along with her enthusiasm. " I can picture it. We'd be the talk of Disneyland."

Beatrice turned in his arms, her eyes sparkling  "Oh, we could even get custom ones with 'Bradshaw Family' embroidered on them. It'll be our Disneyland uniform." she pauses “No,no, let’s not, too much right?”

"You're right, that might be pushing it a bit. But the idea of matching onesies is cute. We can find a balance between adorable and not overdoing it."

Beatrice grinned, her eyes narrowing playfully. "Fine, no 'Bradshaw Family' onesies, but we're definitely getting matching Mickey and Minnie Mouse onesies. Deal?"

"Deal." Rooster sealed the agreement with a quick kiss, savoring the sweetness of the moment. He marveled at the simple joy that Beatrice brought into their lives, turning ordinary experiences into extraordinary memories.

Her excitement, though infectious, had been fueled by adrenaline, and now her body yearned for rest. He guided her toward the bed, coaxing her to lie down.

"Come on, Bea. You need some sleep," Rooster said gently, brushing a strand of hair from her face.

She pouted, a playful defiance in her eyes. "But I'm not tired! There's still so much to plan and discuss."

Rooster chuckled, knowing her too well. "We have plenty of time for that, gorgeous. Right now, you need to recharge. I promise we'll continue our Disneyland brainstorming session in the morning."

Beatrice sighed, relenting to the comforting pull of the bed. "Fine, but you better be ready for some serious planning, Mr. Bradshaw."

Rooster grinned, tucking her in and pressing a soft kiss on her forehead. "Wouldn't have it any other way. Now close those beautiful eyes and dream on."

She frowns, “But—”

‘Gorgeous.” he slides under the covers, “You said you were tired.”

Beatrice couldn't resist his charm, and with a playful huff, she finally closed her eyes. Rooster watched as the tension gradually eased from her features, and a serene calm replaced the excitement that had filled the room moments ago.

The gentle rhythm of her breathing signaled that sleep was claiming its rightful place. Rooster lay beside her, his mind momentarily drifting to the events of the day. 

As Beatrice slipped into the embrace of sleep, Rooster's thoughts lingered on the gratitude he felt for the life they had built together. And soon enough,  he was out too.

-

The morning sun cast a soft glow through the curtains, Rooster stirred awake, his arm draped protectively over Beatrice, who was still lost in the realms of dreams. He pressed a gentle kiss on her forehead that made her smile in her sleep, then another to her nose, “Mornin’.” he coos, voice deep because of sleep, “I know you are awake.”

Beatrice stirred, a contented smile playing on her lips as she slowly emerged from the depths of slumber. The warmth of Rooster's kiss lingered on her skin, and she opened her eyes to meet his gaze. "Good morning," she murmured, her voice soft with the remnants of dreams. "You always know how to wake me up right."

Rooster chuckled, his fingers gently tracing patterns on her arm. "It's a special skill I've developed over the years. How did you sleep?"

"Like a baby. Your magical massage worked wonders," she said, stretching beneath the sheets.

He grinned, leaning in for another lingering kiss. "Glad to hear it.”

Beatrice's eyes sparkled with enthusiasm as she hummed quietly "What's on the agenda today?"

Rooster just propping his head up with his fist,elbow on the pillow. "Well, I was thinking we could start with a hearty breakfast, courtesy of yours truly. Then, maybe a stroll around the neighborhood, followed by a spontaneous decision on what to do next."

Beatrice laughed, the sound filling the room with joy. "I like the sound of that.”

“I’ll have you know though, I gotta go to the base real quick later, but-’

Her brows furrow “Everything okay?”

Rooster's expression softened, and he brushed a strand of hair away from Beatrice's face. "Yeah, everything's fine. Just some paperwork and checking in. Nothing to worry about."

“Hmmm,alright, is it because of the investigation…?”

"Nah, it's just routine stuff. The aftermath of the investigation settling down. I'll be back before you know it."

Beatrice nodded, a small smile playing on her lips. "Well I hope so after all you just came back.”

Rooster leaned in, capturing Beatrice's lips in a reassuring kiss. "I promise, it'll be quick. Then we can have the rest of the day to ourselves. Deal?"

Beatrice grinned, her worries melting away with the warmth of Rooster's affection. "Deal. But only if you promise to bring back some of that charm you used on me when we first met."

Rooster chuckled. "Consider it done, Mrs. Bradshaw." and he got up from the bed.

True to his word, whipped up a delicious breakfast—a hearty feast of eggs, bacon, and pancakes that filled the kitchen as Bea checked on the kids. Soon enough Nikki, Aurora, and Gavin, joined them at the table, sort of, Nikki did while the twins were on their bouncers, babbling themselves awake.

Beatrice prepared to feed the twins while looking into her phone, “Oh damn,it’s going to storm this week.”

Rooster, flipping a pancake with practiced ease, glanced over at Beatrice. "Storm, huh? We might need to adjust our plans for the week."

Beatrice nodded, her gaze fixed on the weather forecast. "Yeah, it looks like it's going to be a pretty intense one. Maybe we should rethink the outdoor activities."

Rooster considered the options, the sizzle of bacon in the background. "No worries. We can figure something else out.”

“Yeah…” she looks outside, back to were the Halton’s once lived, “...damn there’s no one there, Miranda really left.”

Rooster joined Beatrice by the window, his arm wrapping around her shoulders after he turned the stove out. "Yeah," Rooster said, his voice a reflective murmur. "Miranda moving away is a big change. The neighborhood won't be the same without them." he jokes.

“Stop.”

“It’ll be better.” and she swats his chest but laughs like him.

“I mean true but…god, leaving Mark when he’s so uh…” a pause, “Messed up?”

“They deserve each other,gorgeous.” he mutters, kissing the back of her head before he steps back. Bea keeps her eyes ahead for a few seconds, then go back to the twins, picking Aurora first since she was so fussy.

“Is Mark,well, in some sort of jail,Roos?”

Rooster sighed, his expression growing somber as he pondered Beatrice's question. "Not jail, exactly. He's in custody awaiting trial. The evidence against him is pretty damning, and with the FBI involved, it's a complex situation. He'll likely face legal consequences for his actions."

Beatrice's brows furrowed with concern. "I can't believe it came to this. I mean, we knew he was involved in some shady things, but this..."

Rooster nodded, his gaze fixed on the stormy sky outside before he turned to Nicole. "Yeah, it's a tough situation. Internal Affairs and the FBI are digging deep, trying to unravel the extent of Mark's involvement. It's not just about him anymore; it's about dismantling the entire operation."

Beatrice rocked Aurora gently in her arms, "I thought stuff like that only happened in movies.”

"Real life can be stranger and more complex than any movie, Bea. You know that.”

"You're right, Roos. I–” thunder rumbled outside and she gasped, the noise making the kids, and the dogs, a bit startled “Jesus.”

Rooster glanced at the stormy sky, realizing that the approaching thunderstorm might make the kids and the dogs a bit uneasy. He moved quickly, checking on Nikki, who seemed fascinated by the raindrops on the window, and then reassuring Gavin the best he could

"Looks like the storm's rolling in faster than expected," Rooster remarked, glancing at the dark clouds outside.

Beatrice nodded, juggling Aurora in her arms "Yeah, we might need to stay indoors until it passes. Poor kids and the dogs, they're not used to thunderstorms." she pauses, “Well maybe Nikki is.” their oldest was just having a blast looking outside, “I didn’t think it’d get here so soon.”

As the thunder rumbled again, Nikki's eyes widened with fascination, and she pressed her small hands against the window. Aurora, still in Bea's arms, looked up with wide eyes, her tiny fingers fidgeting with a strand of her hair. The dogs, sensing the change in the atmosphere, huddled closer to the family.

Rooster joined Beatrice by the window, gazing at the rain pouring down and the occasional flash of lightning illuminating the sky. "The storm should pass soon."

Beatrice nodded, her concern shifting from the storm to the kids then to Rooster. "Do you have to go later? This storm seems like it’ll last for a bit.”

Rooster glanced at the storm outside, then back at Beatrice, a thoughtful expression on his face. "I'll check in. If the weather's too rough, I might be able to stay a bit longer. They'll understand."

Beatrice smiled appreciatively, "That would be great. The kids love having you around. Especially now.."

Rooster chuckled, leaning in to give her a quick kiss. "I'll do my best, Bea. I promise.”

[nogitsunbae]

I posted 7,084 times in 2022

That's 7,084 more posts than 2021!

326 posts created (5%)

6,758 posts reblogged (95%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@ickypuppi3

@every-dayiwakeup

@billiammayfield

@deedoop

@junkyardcamaro

I tagged 1,296 of my posts in 2022

#mungrove - 121 posts

#billy hargrove - 71 posts

#harringrove - 57 posts

#skz - 56 posts

#harringroveson - 55 posts

#hellcheer - 17 posts

#abuse tw - 14 posts

#actual sunshine of my life - 13 posts

#👀👀👀👀 - 13 posts

#yes - 11 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#billy watched him go didn’t say anything else pulled the list out of his back pocket and saw the word sugar in susan’s messy handwriting.

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Hopper took Billy in after Neil was arrested.

It was a nightmare, getting a call from El, who was trying so hard to be calm, and all Hopper could hear in the background was Max screaming, crying, telling someone to “please wake up, please!”

Walking into the Hargrove house to see El holding Max, them both huddled next to a crumpled body on the floor, bloody and barely breathing.

Hopper didn’t know Billy that well, but he knew what he was seeing. He crouched down and rolled Billy over, asked El what the hell happened, and when the only response he got was Max whispering “Neil,” he knew.

He called an ambulance, got Billy to the hospital, and promptly waited for Neil Hargrove to get back from wherever the fuck he went after almost beating his son to death.

That was three years ago. Billy had been 16, scared, angry, wild. After he was released from the hospital Hopper had offered, mostly because Jane had that look in her eyes that said she knew more than she said, and surprisingly the teen boy had said yes.

So he moved in, his trashy band posters in his new tiny bedroom, more ashtrays added to the ones Hopper already had, and now Hopper had to not only deal with El wanting sleepovers and new clothes and trips to the mall, but also Billy blaring his music and rolling home at 3 am.

It wasn’t an easy transition, but they made it work. Billy would flinch every time Hopper so much as moved in his direction, would scream and shout at him, would knock over shit just to get a reaction, but he never did.

Then, one day, kind of similar to when the first autumn wind blows in, things had seemed to have changed.

El and Max were best friends. Billy didn’t mind driving them places. He stopped flinching when Hopper looked at him. Started talking more. Started bringing his own friends over.

Hopper had to reinstate the 3-inch rule whenever Steve Harrington came into the picture.

Three years, and he became part of Hopper’s little family, which by then had grown to include Joyce and her boys, and also, since Billy had taken a shining to him, Steve, who didn’t have much for parents, either.

Three years, and then Billy was 19 and leaving, back to California, to the sun and waves that he always talked about. Steve was already in the car, waiting, and Billy stood in front of Hopper, leaning his weight from foot to foot.

“Thanks,” he had said, blushing and looking down at his feet. He didn’t hug, still, and that was fine, Hopper knew.

He didn’t know if he would ever hear from the boy again, hoped he would, but the bittersweet tears sprang to his eyes as he watched the Camaro zoom away, because Billy was gone.

Two weeks later, Hopper was making breakfast with Joyce for the kids, when the phone rang. He groaned, already thinking of the bullshit work had for him now, and picked it up.

“Hey, Dad… we made it.”

1,722 notes - Posted September 18, 2022

#4

Billy is dead. He’s dead and gone and Steve and Max are going insane, actually, because Steve will trip over a crack in the sidewalk and hear manic laughter, Max will be listening to music and hears what she thinks is “this is a terrible fucking song, shitbird” in her headphones over the song, Steve keeps waking up at night to the smell of cigarette smoke, Max keeps hearing an engine rev in the distance.

Finally one of them breaks and just screams “Billy you piece of shit, you’re dead!” and all the lightbulbs in the room smash, they hear the Camaro roaring in their ears, and someone is screaming so loudly the walls shake.

Billy isn’t quite dead and gone, yet.

1,989 notes - Posted August 20, 2022

#3

Billy gives Steve a mixtape and Steve thinks it’s going to be dirty metal songs about sex and drugs and driving too fast. He fondly rolls his eyes at Billy, who’s just smiling, wicked lips upturned and tongue sweeping his bottom lip.

“You trying to turn me on to your trashy music?”

Billy leans in, gives him a kiss, cotton candy sweet and melting on Steve’s tongue.

“See you tomorrow, Pretty Boy?”

“Of course, weirdo.”

Billy walks to his car, rolling out of the quarry and leaving dust in his wake. Steve scoffs and gets in the Beamer. Didn’t really look at tape in his hands before shoving it into the tape deck. Expects his speakers to explode with heavy metal.

Instead.

Instead he hears Little Wing by Jimi Hendrix. Nights in White Satin by The Moody Blues. Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd.

Finally, he hears Going to California by Led Zeppelin, and he doesn’t realize he hasn’t driven home, hasn’t left the quarry, is sitting in his car and crying and realizing he’s so, achingly so, in love.

The tape pops out, and Steve finally looks at it, teary eyed, and lets out a laugh, because written on the front, there in Billy’s perfect handwriting, is a question Steve knew Billy wouldn’t ask him with words. So he asked him with music instead.

“California?”

2,231 notes - Posted August 10, 2022

#2

“Billy you can’t just punch Vecna in the face.”

“I’m gonna clock that motherfucker.”

“We have a plan!”

2,291 notes - Posted July 20, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Billy and Eddie after fucking Steve

2,456 notes - Posted July 21, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[mittensmorgul]

it’s a bummer to see you can’t enjoy the ending. I hope someday you can come around it it. It wasn’t perfect but it didn’t nuke its integrity. i think the heart of the show really shines through and it’s a shame that it’s not being appreciated bc there’s so much shipping drama 😣

Hi there!

I... first of, I really need people to understand this... the travesty of the finale for me has almost nothing to do with “shipping drama.”

Yes, I see the wild conspiracy theories flying around, and I’m honestly concerned for some of those folks and hope they can find a way to make peace with this in whatever way they can, because we aren’t likely to ever get a better answer than that this is legitimately the ending that Dabb thought was best, despite years of us seeing the best of his writing choices and guiding Sam, Dean, and Cas to grow past the roles that Chuck would’ve forced them to fulfill, and that at the end it fell flat because he couldn’t actually come up with a better ending than “this was always their destiny, free will is a lie, and these characters had nothing outside of the revenge quest they’d been raised for since birth and manipulated into over and over for the entertainment of a vengeful god.”

I can see how “surface level” viewers would feel that this one basic narrative point was satisfying, that Sam and Dean had grown beyond their own hopeless cycle of self-sacrifice that had driven the narrative for so many years. The fact that they both acknowledged that they should allow their stories to end in that way was satisfying... but only in the shallowest and most detached read of the narrative. Like, is this really the ONLY thing these two characters learned in the last 15 years? If so, that is BEYOND depressing af.

And even THAT message lost all narrative weight when the two of them were once again reunited in death, as if nothing else had ever mattered in their lives. As if neither of them had ever outgrown the codependency that had driven so many of those previous self-sacrifices and refusals to let go of each other even in death.

So yeah, in the absolute most basic sense, I suppose I can see how casual viewers or people who aren’t actually invested in these characters could find that at least narratively coming back to a starting point.

But narratives don’t actually work that way, and that’s not the point of watching fifteen years of story develop in between.

This story wasn’t JUST about Sam and Dean needing to accept that death might be okay actually.

This story was also about free will, fighting for humanity as a whole but also their OWN humanity and self-identities. In Dean’s case, the absolutely transformative growth from feeling like nothing but a hammer, a killer, a tool to be used. And then less than an episode and a half later, after finally accepting that truth into his heart and using it to defeat the original creator and reclaim the story of his own life for himself... he gets pied in the face after flippantly talking about his destiny and having no choice, and then three scenes later he literally dies impaled on a great big nail... like a hammer...

So I would kindly ask folks who feel satisfied by that shallowest possible takeaway of this episode, and maybe invite folks to look just under that surface. Try to understand why loads of us will NEVER feel satisfied with this ending, and why it truly does feel like the most hopeless version of the story. Like even in defeating Chuck, they could never be allowed to own their own stories and what happened to them after that point was just a twisted version of the “destiny” that drove Chuck’s entire plotline for them anyway.

Please understand where we’re seeing this as horrifically painful irony rather than some beautiful circular narrative about letting go.

For a lot of us, the shipping stuff would’ve been the cherry on top of the sundae. We would’ve been happy with a scoop of plain vanilla, though. We would’ve been happy for anything that honored the journey to freedom, and the choice at any sort of a different life of their own making than literally falling back on a nail fighting off one of John’s unresolved hunts and a vampire who had literally never been named in canon before, yet who Dean instantly recognized somehow... 

but sure, for those of us who felt that “the heart of the show” was all the stuff that the finale actually erased-- that “family don’t end in blood,” and that this was actually not a show about just two brothers but the love of their found family and coming to terms with the choices they actually HAD made for themselves versus the narrative that Chuck kept centering them in DESPITE what they would choose for themselves, the finale basically told us no, everything you ever found of value in this story actually meant nothing. It told us that Chuck’s story for them was their only truth in the end, and their only freedom was to be found in death.

Please, I am begging people, stop trying to gaslight us that this was some beautiful ending. Maybe think for a second that “your read” of the narrative that allows you to find peace with the ending is not what we saw and loved about this story for the 326 episodes leading up to this finale.

And please try to understand that we were not wrong to see the entire narrative through this lens. Because we were literally validated IN CANON, and told that we understood the depth of the story and the characters just fine, actually. There’s literally ONE episode of the entire series that burns it all down in a bewildering pile of wtf. And that’s #327. That throws that entire read out the window to well actually us all back into Chuck’s literal ending... This was literally the ending Chuck wanted to force them to enact for him, and it’s what ended up happening even after they defeated him-- the ultimate Big Bad of the entire series should’ve been defeated, but instead he pulled off one final victory over the entire story.

Becky: No. You can't-- Chuck: I did. Becky: Y- This is just an ending. Chuck: Yeah. I don't know how I'm gonna get there, but I know where I'm goin'. Becky: B-But it's so... dark. Chuck: But great, right? I can see it now -- "Supernatural: The End". And the cover is just a gravestone that says "Winchester". The fans are gonna love it. Well? Becky: It's awful! Horrible. It's hopeless. You can't do this to the fans. What you did to Dean? What you did to Sam? Chuck: There, see? It's making you feel something. That's good, right?

and

Dean: Well, what now? You're not gonna dust us. Chuck: Oh, yeah? Why not? Dean: Because you're holding out. For your big finish. Yeah, we know about your galaxy-brained idea, how you think this story is gonna go. Sam got a little look into your draft folder. Chuck: Sam's visions -- they weren't drafts. They were memories. My memories. Other Sams and other Deans in other worlds. But guess what. Just like you, they didn't think they'd do it, either. But they did. And you will, too. Dean: No. Not this Sam. And not this Dean. So you go back to Earth 2 and play with your other toys. Because we will never give you the ending that you want. Chuck: We'll see.

And even in DEFEAT Chuck thought he understood these characters, thought that having rendered him powerless they would finally take their revenge and kill him, but they didn’t, because he never actually understood these characters at all. And the story he tried to force them into from day one was never about THEM, it was about HIM. 

And then Dean gets like two whole days of freedom and choice and is apparently incapable of making any of the choices that don’t throw him immediately back into Chuck’s favorite story. Like none of that resolution in the previous episode meant anything at all. He even SAYS it in the finale:

Dean: Yeah, no. I think about 'em, too. You know what? That pain's not gonna go away. Right? But if we don't keep living, then all that sacrifice is gonna be for nothing.

And then two scenes later the show gives us the Nelson Muntz HA HA and Dean is no longer living, and Sam is left to carry on as a shell of himself and wander off into Blurry Wife Land to devote any even remotely content moment of the rest of his years to raising a  Replacement Dean to fill the void, and is never able to pick up the pen to write anything better of his own life than Chuck would’ve dealt him in the first place.

So I’m glad that top-layer takeaway is sustaining and enough for you. It wasn’t, and will never be enough for the rest of us.

What was actually real in all of this? We were.

Until we weren’t.

And that’s honestly a shit message to be pushing on people in the wake of it all. So please stop.

I should actually thank you for the kind intent with which your message is phrased, but that doesn’t make it feel less hilariously awful. Though I chose this one to reply to as the least insulting of all the messages currently in my inbox on this subject. So thanks for that, at least.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 324: Is There a Force Field Around Him??

Previously on BnHA: Flashback!Rat Principal was all “please tell Midoriya that I spent a concerningly small amount of money upgrading U.A. into a wacky physics-defying funtime grid so as to make the final battle much more confusing for everyone.” Present Day!Mic (or Present!Mic, if you will) and Jeanist were all “if only somebody could deescalate this dangerously unhinged mob, we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas.” Ochako was all “LISTEN UP PEOPLE.” The mob was all, “god??” Ochako was all, “NO, IT’S ME, OCHAKO. I’M REALLY HIGH UP ON THIS BUILDING AND THE VISIBILITY IS LOW DUE TO THE RAIN, SO I CAN SEE HOW YOU MIGHT MAKE THAT MISTAKE. ANYWAYS, DEKU WAS OUT THERE RISKING HIS LIFE FOR YOU CLOWNS EVEN THOUGH HE’S JUST A KID, SO I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE IF YOU COULD ALL REMEMBER HOW TO BE DECENT HUMAN BEINGS, THANKS.” Let’s see if her Big Scolding Energy has any impact.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “so I have this speech planned out, and it’s really good, but it also only really needs about 6 to 8 pages, but I’m gonna see if I can stretch it out to 17 pages so I can kill time before we get to the next volume cliffhanger two weeks from now.” Anyway but it really is a good speech though. There are feels, and tears, and more talk about how Deku is so in need of a shower that just looking at him requires a tetanus booster, and more feels, and more tears, and bonus ship drama, and an iconic callback to the very first chapter which reframes the entire series in a new context in a totally epic and moving way, and it’s all very good. Except that Horikoshi is determined to never let anyone actually give this kid a hug. Who hurt you, dude.

omg we are opening on a callback to chapter 212, a.k.a. the chapter with by far the cutest flashback that doesn’t involve any baby Todorokis

baby Ochako is lethally cute. she could literally murder someone with her cuteness. I just want to scoop her up and play airplane with her until she accidentally activates her quirk while we’re spinning around and we both helicopter up into the air never to be seen again

“a child’s insistence” huh well that’s all well and good, but I sure hope this doesn’t mean we’re going to drag out the whole “sternly lecture the obnoxious citizens” plot for another whole chapter. no offense but I think we’re good

so page 2 is just continuing the whole happy/worried faces monologue, which of course is very important to Ochako’s character as it provides the context for why “who protects the heroes” ended up becoming her thing. and this is making me think we actually are in for a whole second chapter of this sob. when will my boy finally get to rest

OH MY GOD SUDDENLY THESE PEOPLE HAVE EYES IMAGINE THAT

HORIKOSHI: [reaches for a box of tissues while tearfully penning an homage to his beloved Spider-Man 2, specifically the train scene where the crowd sees Peter without his mask and they suddenly realize just how young he is]

HORIKOSHI’S HOMAGE SCENE: “COME TO THINK OF IT, I GUESS IT WAS KIND OF MEAN FOR US TO PICK ON THIS TEN YEAR OLD KID WHO WEIGHS 75 POUNDS AND LOOKS LIKE HE LOST A FIGHT WITH SATAN’S MOLDY OLD BASEMENT”

lol at this one guy who can feel the mood of the crowd shifting and is all “WAIT, NO, I WANTED TO KEEP BEING AN ASSHOLE DAMMIT”

as many pointed out last week, this man is wearing an All Might shirt. that’s some fantastic irony there

-- SDKFJWIGKS

“LITTLE GIRL, I HOPE YOU’RE NOT SUGGESTING THAT WE SHOULD ALL BE WALKING AROUND DRESSED LIKE A SOVIET-ERA BUS STOP.” heh. last week I said I was ashamed of BnHA being my favorite manga. that was a lie, actually

(ETA: in the original Japanese Ochako’s next two lines are basically “the only ones covered in mud will be us heroes!” followed by “please give us some time to get rid of the mud”, with that second line basically being the single funniest thing I’ve ever read rdslkjl. Ochako thank you so much for supporting my running gags. “YEAH WE KNOW HE’S DIRTY. WE ARE GONNA TRY AND CLEAN HIM UP, BUT IT MAY TAKE A WHILE, I’M JUST SAYING. I MEAN LOOK AT HIM. HE LOOKS LIKE AN ASBESTOS COSPLAY.”)

doesn’t the megaphone kind of look ever so slightly like an axe that she’s wielding maniacally here

easy there Lizzie Borden

also that’s a really bold claim to make there. and not one she necessarily should have to make, either. but as we all know, there’s nothing that shounen manga likes more than having its heroes bravely hoist heavy burdens of responsibility like good self-sacrificing citizens

p.s. lowkey loving how Kacchan is positioned here standing slightly behind Deku. not presuming to stand in front of him all overprotectively (because he would hate if anyone ever did that to him), and kind of being unobtrusive and letting others take center stage -- but still being close enough to Deku that he can catch him if he stumbles or passes out again

(ETA: or maybe not lmao.

DEKU: [falls to his knees]

KACCHAN: [glancing up from his phone a few minutes later] “someone just sent me the stupidest meme about milk crates -- oh. uh. you good...?”

really, son. “the burdens you can’t carry, we’ll carry them for you. ...later, I mean. right now it’s late, and we’re all cold and wet.”)

also lowkey loving this OchaTsu moment here

I was going back and binging Ochako chapters this past week for reasons, and I gotta say it really stuck out to me just how often these two are paired with each other. they do everything together. it’s a really sweet friendship that often goes unappreciated but it’s very cute

meanwhile, not to be outdone by the OchaTsu, Iida is staring at Ochako with open admiration talking about how she’s fighting too. it’s been so long since we’ve had any IidaRaka you guys. I was starving and I didn’t even know it

oh my lord IT’S FINALLY HAPPENING

THE LIGHT IS BACK. he finally looks like him again. what a cathartic fucking moment omg

ffklkdw

“I KNOW YOU ARE ALL SCARED, BUT THE GOOD NEWS IS, WE DEFINITELY CANNOT GUARANTEE YOUR SAFETY AND WE ARE ALL SCARED TOO!” good pep talk there kiddo

BUT, jokes aside, truth be told this is the exact right approach to take imo, and something that’s long overdue. I’ve said this before, but this new generation of heroes is shaping up to be much more transparent than the All Might generation. they’re basically abandoning the almighty, untouchable Superman “heroes as gods” concept in favor of the more nuanced “heroes as people” concept instead. and that’s a good thing. seeing their heroes as humans, with human limitations and weaknesses and flaws, will hopefully not only lead to more scrutiny and accountability, but also more awareness of how hard some of them are working and how much they’re sacrificing. that’s something All Might never quite grasped back at the start of the series -- that the weak, vulnerable, injured him could be just as inspiring as the mighty, invincible him -- perhaps even more so. there’s a power in seeing otherwise ordinary people show extraordinary bravery and compassion. it inspires others to try and do the same

SSDLHK AIZAWA SIGHTING AAHHHHHH

so he was still back at the hospital this whole time?? smdh at this disrespect. that feeling when your sexy self-insert character’s powers of rationality are too strong, and so you have to nerf him so that he doesn’t ruin your Deku Angst arc twice over by (1) immediately talking some sense into Deku and making him come home Right This Instant Young Man, and (2) not allowing him to leave U.A. in the first fucking place. excuse me, you want to do WHAT now, Midoriya?? that’s it, go to your room

also living for Katsuki and Hawks’s soft expressions. Shouto’s too, although his is tinier and harder to see. and Jeanist’s 12-foot-long neck. imagine Jeanist’s head with Mic’s hair. maybe Jeanist had a mohawk back in the day and that’s why U.A.’s doors are so big now

speaking of soft faces, Enji’s is also excellent

what could this random close-up possibly imply?? hell if I know. but Horikoshi truly fears no discourse and that’s what I love about him

OMGGGG

“smh my child is so dumb.” poor Ochadad. your child is cute af count your blessings

SDOFFHSMH

I’m telling you guys. lethally, catastrophically cute

this speech is still ongoing lol. Horikoshi you’re doing so good but I think we get the point now my dude. you gotta learn how to transition out of these things

UNEXPECTED TOGA WHAT

“there we go” Horikoshi says, crossing off the last line on his list of Ochako ships. “that’s all of ‘em”

poor Ochako is just repeating the same “LET HIM REST, PLEASE, WITH EVERYONE’S COOPERATION, IF YOU DON’T MIND, WE APPRECIATE IT” talking points over and over again hoping someone will throw her a bone and acknowledge her already. SOMEONE PLEASE HELP HER

literally they’re all just staring up at her silently omg. work with me people!!

now she’s saying it for the 56th time but more dramatically all of a sudden

they got so dramatic that for a minute I thought she had suddenly leaped off the building or something

look, not to rush you or anything Horikoshi, but I’m starting to get the feeling that this is yet another one of those “the volume is ending soon so I need to either hurry things up or slow things down in order to make sure we end it on my perfect cliffhanger ending” chapters where you go to ridiculous lengths to drag things out much to the exasperation of your week-to-week readers

(ETA: ftr, volume 31 ended on chapter 306, and I’m predicting that vol. 32 will end with chapter 316 (a.k.a. “you’re next!” [explodes]). I’m guessing vol. 33 will follow suit and likely end on chapter 326, so keep your eyes peeled for a big cliffhanger in two weeks’ time. Deku’s dad?? All Might in peril?? U.A. traitor at long fucking last?? we shall see.)

is Deku straight up falling in love with Ochako right on the spot lol what is happening

I know I just said that I enjoy when Horikoshi gives zero fucks about discourse, but shipping discourse is a whole different beast lol. I hope he’s prepared

(ETA: and for the record, I have no interest in shipping discourse either, as always. and I think this scene can be interpreted as platonic, tbh, with the context being that Ochako was literally introduced as someone who was willing to help him so casually without a second thought, and now here she is saving him again.

I don’t think it really fully hit Deku until this moment how much he needed saving. like I said in another meta somewhere, selflessness is basically just selfishness on behalf of others. and Deku is selfless to a fault, but that’s okay, and it doesn’t mean he needs to change -- he just needs friends who are willing to be be selfish on his behalf in turn. and I think the full emotion of what it means to have friends like that just hit him at last. everything his friends have done for him, how much he needed it and didn’t even realize, and how grateful he is. anyways what a terrible day for rain.)

-- son of a --

is he apologizing?? or pleading?? please tell me that’s not the case, because what the actual fuck. Deku you beautiful precious radiant selfless child, this is the exact opposite of how this should be. all these motherfuckers should be on their knees apologizing to you

DEKU WHY

I DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS FREAKING BOMBARDMENT OF EMOTIONS GODDAMIT. OUT HERE ARMED WITH YOUR FREAKING TREBUCHET OF FEELS TO LAUNCH AT ME UNPROVOKED. WHAT’S WITH THAT

FREAKING CHRIST. THIS BOY IS CRYING HIS EYES OUT AND HORIKOSHI IS JUST ZOOMING IN WITH THE CAMERA, LIKE CAN WE JUST CUT HIM A BREAK ALREADY. ENOUGH OF THIS. HE’S SO YOUNG AND HE TRIES SO HARD AND I JUST NEED HIM TO FEEL SAFE, HORIKOSHI PLEASE CAN YOU JUST GIVE ME THAT ALREADY WHAT IS THE FREAKING HOLD UP!!

GIGANTIC FOX LADY!!!

GIGANTIC FOX LADY PLEASE BE MY HUGGER BY PROXY!! SERIOUSLY GIRL IF YOU JUST HOLD YOUR UMBRELLA OVER HIM OR SOMETHING AND DON’T GO THE EXTRA MILE I’M ABOUT TO LODGE AN OFFICIAL COMPLAINT. THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS NOW

!!!!

A KOUTA IS GOOD TOO!!! oh my god if Kouta hugs him I will seriously 100% straight up cry. go on and test me

FOR THE LOVE OF --

is this man expressly forbidden from drawing hugs in his contract or something. DO YOU DO IT JUST TO SPITE ME?? this is tyranny, sir

AND I KNOW, THIS PAGE ACTUALLY CHALLENGED THE VERY PREMISE OF THE SERIES ITSELF, AND HERE I AM COMPLAINING ABOUT HUGS, OR THE LACK THEREOF. “this is the story of how we all became the greatest heroes.” and just like that, he waves a polite middle finger at all of the Strongest Greatest Chosen One shounen protags of old, in favor of something much less conventional, much more interesting, and much more suited to Deku’s character. because if that one sentence doesn’t just sum up Deku to a T. he gladly relinquishes his Greatest Hero status in favor of acknowledging the hero in everyone. what a class act. that’s my protagonist

I love this kid so fucking much I swear. only just PLEASE. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. GIVE HIM HIS HUG

[looniecartooni]

Okay- I’m distracting myself from all my work to analyze these lines from Sonic 06...

Mephiles: “Its futile. The world will betray you. Why fight at all? Why risk your life for those who will persecute you later?”

Shadow: “If the world chooses to become my enemy... then I’ll fight like I always have.”

(Warning: Very lengthy analysis. Skip to the next time you see these lines for the main point.)

So first off- let’s start with the Sonic world implications. This is the last exchange between Mephiles and Shadow in Sonic 06. I don’t know the original Japanese script, but these lines are telling for both characters. As I’ve analyzed before, Mephiles himself was betrayed by humanity by being separated from Iblis perhaps more than once (given how the King of Soliana knows how to seal off both him and Iblis and was pretty adiment on trying to get his wife back). And being a time traveler guy/ god of time’s conscience, he’s probably seen Shadow’s past and future. That and/or “The ‘I’ I now absorbed from your shadow in the past” connects him deeper to Shadow.

Anyway, Shadow up to this point has lost his best friend to the organization he now works for, lost his memory and told he may not be himself, got tricked by a bunch of aliens he’s related to in letting them invade the earth all while being blamed for the death of his best friend and an enemy of humanity by his now boss- he’s been through a lot! And he’s been used a lot too! Eggman, Black Doom, Gerald Robotnik, the GUN, now Mephiles. Mephiles tells him he’s going to get locked away again for being too powerful (which I think is what happened to Shadow originally- but then you’ve got the 326 endings of Shadow the hedgehog where he might not even be Shadow the hedgehog- but we aren’t going to touch that). Mephiles even tells one of Shadow’s friends (Omega) that he’s gonna be the one to seal off Shadow and betray him. Rouge is the first one to swoop in to say “That’s not fair!” and that even if Shadow feels isolated, she’s gonna stick with him. The funny thing is... until Mephiles told Omega he’d be the one to seal off Shadow, Shadow was quick always to say “That’s absurd. Whatever it is you want to do, you can do it alone.” Shadow is done being used. He knows better now. He has people he can trust. When one of his friends is told he’s going to be the one to betray him, they tell him (and being Omega/ a really awesome protective bestie just machine guns him- man, I wish the graphics and editing were better for that scene). Suddenly, Mephiles has penetrated into Shadow’s world. Humanity won’t just betray him, one of his closest friends will. Omega and Rouge are Shadow’s like only actual “I’ll acknowledge you as friends but never say it” group. Shadow doesn’t truly trust anyone else. Sure he’s rotten to them like “My assignment was to rescue you. Nothing more.” but they’re the kind of friends with clever rebuttals to his claims knowing he truly does care and won’t admit it (not because he’s edgy but probably because when he usually displays trust in someone, they end up using him *cough cough* Black Doom *cough cough* Eggman). Having a friend say “I’m going to betray you in the future” probably hits Shadow a lot harder given how many times he’s been used and betrayed and unlike Mephiles, he let Omega into his trust bubble. Shadow doesn’t speak a word, but Rouge is quick to defend Shadow which you may or may not have not really expected from her. But considering all she’s done with Shadow and through every pit fall, she’s managed to support him and in the scene where Omega says he’ll be betraying Shadow, she admits she’ll stick with him even through the worst pitfall he may have to fall in. And that’s exactly in that moment what he needed to hear.

Ok- now that I’ve dedicated a... lengthy paragraph I don’t know how to shorten to Shadow, let’s get back to Mephiles. Mephiles has no one he truly trusts. Those who he did “trust” he manipulated an have now come to the understanding they shouldn’t have trusted him. He sees Shadow as an opportunity. Maybe not just an opportunity, but an ally. Someone just like him the world betrayed or took advantage of his power. He quite literally reflects Shadow/ Shadow reflects him. At first, Mephiles hated Shadow for sealing him away and then seemingly not recognizing him. But he sees how they’ve lived similar lives (admired for their power, sealed away for decade(s), betrayed and used by the world) and thinks that Shadow still wants what he wants- to persecute humanity. And Shadow’s been told many times reasons he should betray the world, but not as personal as Mephiles makes it. Mephiles even seemingly over does it by saying things like “Let’s end this foolish world of humanity. Its only fair to give back what was intended for you. You have every right to want justice.” And when Shadow says “no” for things that haven’t even happened, Mephiles goes over the top mad, transforming and fighting Shadow. Later on, when Silver confronted him about being a liar, he was a lot more calm and collected and just walked away like nothing happened. Why would Shadow make him more upset about saying he’s absurd than Silver? Mephiles either thought Shadow would be an easier pawn to control like Silver or Shadow has been known to nearly kill or be on parr with Sonic multiple times so having him as an ally would be essential- but for the sake of this lenghthy analysis, I’m gonna over look all that.

(You still there? Cool!) Let’s get to the final confrontation! Mephiles tries a third and final time to get Shadow as an ally which at this point is kind of silly but may also indicate just how personal wanting Shadow as an ally is to Mephiles. Shadow accuses Mephiles of having no desire for revenge and just wanting to eat all of time until there’s noting left of it to which Mephiles replies, “Its a pity, Shadow the Hedgehog... Truly ashame you wish to go against me.” Mephiles probably thought that of everyone in this world, Shadow would understand how he felt. I always found it off putting that Shadow just accuses Mephiles of being just a common bad guy, but going back to Shadow’s trust issues, making others just seem like bad guys probably helps him not feel bad for when he becomes an enemy with someone (he does it all the time- but this analysis is too long. I’ll do that one another time). Mephiles doesn’t reject Shadow’s claim, but even through bad graphics and lack of a mouth and eyelids, you can see he’s genuinely disappointed Shadow didn’t want to join him. Now I feel like someone’s going to say something like, “maybe he wanted Shadow to join him because Shadow was going to be the one to seal him again.” I won’t deny that that could have been a possibility, but given how confident he was when he broke free of the scepter when Shadow tried to seal him in again, he basically said “ I copied your shadow- you can’t seal me because I’m like this now lol.” and right after that... we get to the lines I was analyzing. He says after making a bunch of clones, “You must realize now you can not hope to stop me with your limited power.” (man-I love these lines!!!!) To which Shadow refutes with, “So you say.”

Mephiles: “Its futile. The world with betray you. Why fight at all? Why risk your life for those who will persecute you later?” 

This is coming from someone who was honored like a god before being split into two entities that were sealed away from each other for 10 years after being labeled as threats. He has an understanding of Shadow and his future and quite possibly his past. He knows Shadow will be betrayed by one of his closest friends and sealed away again. Why would he continue fighting? Why doesn’t he want to end it all like him?

Then Shadow responds while freeing himself to full power: “If the world chooses to become my enemy... then I’ll fight like I’ve always have.”

After losing someone he loved, sealed away for 50 years, manipulated countless times, almost closing off his closest friends after Mephiles told one that they’d betray him... Shadow simply tells him he’ll just keep fighting. Fighting for what he believes is right. 

Now- if you’re still reading after this whole essay of thought (or just skipped to the end) let’s take into account how these lines fit into our world. How many times have we felt betrayed by the world and tempted by our demons to just end everything after injustice? To just want to get rid of our enemies or the enemies within ourselves? Why bother fighting for what’s right? Why stand up for what you believe? Shadow and Mephiles went through similar experiences and yet both want to do something different. Mephiles just wants to end humanity, just get rid of his problems, just end everything. Shadow wants to keep fighting through it. If it gets worse, he’ll just keep fighting. They’ve both lost people they loved(Maria and Iblis) and want to be with again, they’ve both been betrayed and fear/know they’ll probably get betrayed again. But where Shadow prevails is that he’snot going to let those feelings of anger and betrayal weigh him down anymore. He now has people he can truly trust (Rouge and Omega- Omega even told him what Mephiles said as a warning) while Mephiles just manipulated people to believe what he said and do his bidding.

The point I’m trying to make here is when times are tough, be careful not to fall into being like Mephiles. Mephiles didn’t really have anyone to fall back to or stand up for him or any reason to want to keep fighting after the world hurt him. Shadow allowed himself to be vulnerable and trust his friends. When you feel the world is against you, don’t turn against it. Don’t try to get rid of the pain because you don’t want to feel it anymore. You have to fight through it like Shadow does. And how Shadow fought through his pain was choosing to trust people. Even though in the past that hurt him, he still managed to let Rouge and Omega be close enough to him to where they wanted to protect him even when his demons were telling him to isolate the world because it was only going to hurt him more. A true friend stays by your side, even when the monsters tell you otherwise.

I don’t think Shadow truly considers Sonic a friend. They have a frienemy relationship where they always have to one up each other and Sonic’s usually pretty cocky when it comes to helping Shadow like, “Oh- you’re in trouble again? Alright. You’ve better play it nice then.” and Shadow’s usually like, “Fine- whatever. Do what you’ve got to do and leave me alone.” But I’ve always wondered what would happen if Sonic and Mephiles truly crossed paths if the events of 06 would have been different. Ah- but that’s another theory for another time. Beware of your demons, kids and sorry for all the rambling. Share thoughts or find a way to summarize this if you’d like and I hope you have a good day.

[itsmyblogandillreblogifiwantto]

Pumpkin Spice and All Things Nice. Part 1.

A/N: Hi everyone! This is a follow up to ‘Sugar, Yes please!’ so if you haven’t read that, I’d recommend you read that first, and come back to this.  Possible triggers:  Mentions of an abusive relationship, swearing, drinking (alcohol).

“Coming!” You say as your doorbell rang to your flat, and opened it to your girlfriends, JJ, Penelope and Emily. “Come in…” You say opening the door for them all. “Just excuse all of the books.” The girls exchanged looks with each-other before Penelope whispered, “She’s basically a female boy wonder.” “When he sees all of her books, he’s going to read them all.” Emily laughed picking up one called ‘The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language by Steven Pinker’ and rolled her eyes. “So, what do you all want to drink?” You asked, before your date with Spencer, the girls agreed to just make sure you felt ready for your date after your last boyfriend didn’t treat you well, and the girls agreed to make sure you are comfortable for tomorrow. “I got beer, wine and I can make cocktails too.” You said gesturing to the alcohol stand on your counter. “Do you like to drink Y/N?” J.J laughed. “I see the cute lights are up that you told Spencer about.” You smile at the pumpkin and ghost lights before replying, “I used to be a cocktail waitress for a year, so it’s kind of stuck, experimenting with flavours to see what I come up with. Ooh, I’ll make you all the Pumpkin Spiced Latte cocktail I’ve been working on.” You say and start to whip it up. “So, yes.” Penelope giggled “Yeah, I usually like a cold beer on the balcony, reading a book and having a cigarette. It’s my favourite way to relax. The wine is for guests, I don’t like it, but I think it’s important to always have a bottle of red and white in for company.” You shrug and poor the cocktail into a glass, finishing it with a dusting of mixed spice. “My kind of girl.” Emily said. “May I?” She asks gesturing to the wine. “Of course – help yourselves to anything alcoholic.” You smile as Emily opens the bottle pouring herself and J.J a glass. “Ooh it does taste like a Pumpkin Spiced Latte!” Penelope giggled and continued drinking it. “Fucking hell it does!” J.J said sipping a bit of the other glass. “That’s addictive girl.” Emily laughed. “You should make one for Spencer when he comes to your place after the date.” She winked, “You may even get some action!” “I’ve never had sex on the first date!” You exclaimed, “Maybe on like date 10…” “10?! Y/N you’re such a cutie.” Penelope said putting a cocktail umbrella in her hair For the rest of the evening, you and the BAU ladies took cute selfies, and chatted about non-work-related things. “Bye ladies.” You say as they all get into a taxi and go back into your flat. You clean your kitchen, noticing it’s only 10PM, so decide to have your relaxing routine, and grab a beer out of the fridge and your packet of cigarettes, and sit by the balcony for a few hours before calling it a night. The following morning, you get up and get ready for your date with Spencer, you are pretty glad it’s a casual date as you really hate dressing up. Your phone rings, and you sigh assuming it’s work, “Agent Y/N.” You say yawning. “Oh hi, sorry did I wake you?” Spencer asks worried. “Morning Spencer, no, I was just doing exam revision. Everything okay? Are we needed at work?” You ask “No, I just realised I don’t have your address.” He laughed “For a genius, I thought you’d have that already.” You chuckled and told it to him. “Great! See you at 12.” Spencer said. “Bye Y/N.” “Bye Spencer.” You say, and hang up, going to get ready settling for a cute ghost t-shirt, black jeans and orange converse, you are going pumpkin picking after all, and wear the Pumpkin earrings your friend got you last year. Whilst you wait, you read a book on Psychology. There’s a knock at the door, you’d been reading for an hour and didn’t realise you’d read 10 books from cover to cover. “Coming!” You say checking who’s at the door through the spy hole, and smile seeing its Spencer. “Hi Spence, come in.” You smile, “Ignore the books everywhere. I try to tidy them but they just grow.” Spencer smiled, finally someone who loves books as much as him, “Hi Y/N. You look nice.” He smiled, opting for a t-shirt, cardigan, jeans and converse. “And pumpkin earrings, very fitting for today.” He said, “Have you been reading those last night?” He asked gesturing the 10 books on your sofa and took a seat. “May I sit?” He asks as you nod smiling, everyone on the team knows that they can make themselves at home at your place. “I read them in the last hour, they’re really interesting.” You smile. “I just need to put my eyeliner on and I’m ready.” You say “You don’t need to wear make up Y/N, you’re perfectly fine without it.” Spencer said accidentally out loud “You think so?” You ask as a few tears roll down your cheeks. The last guy you dated insisted you wore make up, and would hit you if you didn’t, Spencer doesn’t know of your past relationship and you definitely don’t want a repeat. “Oh Y/N, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry.” Spencer says running over with a tissue. “You can wear it if you want, but I don’t think you need it.” He says kissing your cheek where the last tear lingered. “It’s okay Spence. I know you didn’t mean it.” You whisper, “Before we go, I need to tell you something. Because I don’t want to tell it to you too late.” Spencer nods, as you sit on the sofa. You tell Spencer about your abusive relationship before this, and how badly you were treated but managed to get out of it and get help when you started at the FBI, your ex now has a restraining order and cannot be within a certain distance from you or he will get arrested. “Oh Y/N, you’re the sweetest person I know, and I promise I won’t ever hurt you, either mentally or physically. I promise.” He said holding your hand. You nod, “I know Spence.” You say, believing his promise. “Let me get my phone and I’m ready. You look nice too by the way.” Spencer nods and ties his shoelace, “How many books do you own? I’ve counted 252 but I assume there is more.” He says glancing around the room “Erm, I have more in my room, and in the little library. I brought the place off a couple who had a baby but the flat was too small, so I converted the small room where the baby slept into a library, so I think there’s about 325 books in there. Have a look if you want.” You say putting your phone in your pocket. Spencer goes and has a look, “You were wrong. There’s 326 books.” He says laughing. “Sorry.” You giggle. “Must’ve forgot the book worm has to be included in the book count. Now come on, I wanna pick a pumpkin to carve!” You say unaware Spencer put a book in there for you. Spencer follows you out, and he drives to the pumpkin patch where there’s a long line. “Thank you.” You giggle getting out of the car, where Spencer dashed over to open the door for you. “Do you think we can use our credentials to get past the line?” “I don’t think Strauss would approve.” Spencer laughed, “But I booked ahead and got a time slot.” He said getting the paper tickets out of his pocket and handed them to an employee who checked them and allowed them inside. “Can I keep one?” You ask Spencer, who nods smiling and hands one to you. “I have a memory box. Everything fun I do with you and the team goes in there.” You explain. The rest of the afternoon is spent finding the perfect pumpkin, and getting to know each-other better, as there’s only so much you can get to know one another at work. By now, you have a full wheelbarrow of pumpkins. “Let me take your picture with all of them!” You say to Spencer who poses behind them. “Let’s see the photo!” He smiles at you, as you show it to him on your phone. “Can you send it to Penelope? I want to get it printed for my Mum.” He says as you nod.

After the pumpkin patch, Spencer drives you back to your flat. “Would you like to come in for a drink?” You offer, biting your lip. “Sure.” Spencer smiled, carrying the pumpkins you brought, and you carried the baby ones. “I had a lot of fun today Spence, thank you.” You smiled “As did I.” He said, as you walked into your apartment. “Holy shit, this is incredible.” Spencer says drinking the pumpkin spiced latte cocktail you made for him. “Thanks.” You say, sipping your beer. “I like to experiment. Penelope drank 5 of them last night.” “I can see why.” Spencer smirked, just looking at you with loving eyes. “What are you thinking?” You ask “That I want to kiss you.” Spencer said nervously. “Then kiss me.” You say and sit on his lap. Looks like the pumpkins won’t be carved any time soon… To be continued! Taglist: @pumpkin-goob​ , @jpegjade​ , @andiebeaword​ , @hotchsbabygirl​ , @hopebaker​ , @hercleverboy​ , @cupcake525​ , @gubetube​ , @aperrywilliams​ , @cosmic-psychickitty​ , @marleyhotchner​

[toriii131466628]

100 reasons not to kill yourself

1. We would miss you.

2. It’s not worth the regret. Either by yourself if you failed or just simply left scars, or the regret everyone else feels by not doing enough to help you.

3. It does get better. Believe it or not it will eventually get better. Sometimes you have to go through the storm to get to the rainbow.

4. There’s so much you would miss out on doing.

5. There is always a reason to live. It might not be clear right now, but it is always there.

6. So many people care, and it would hurt them if you hurt yourself.

7. You ARE worth it. Don’t let anyone, especially yourself, tell you otherwise.

8. You are amazing.

9. A time will come, once you’ve battled the toughest times of your life and are in ease once again, where you will be so glad that you decided to keep on living. You will emerge stronger from this all, and won’t regret your choice to carry on with life. Because things always get better.

10. What about all the things you’ve always wanted to do? What about the things you’ve planned, but never got around to doing? You can’t do them when you’re dead.

11. I love you. Even if only one person loves you, that’s still a reason to stay alive.

12. You won’t be able to listen to music if you die.

13. Killing yourself is never worth it. You’ll hurt both yourself and all the people you care about.

14. There are so many people that would miss you, including me.

15. You’re preventing a future generation, YOUR KIDS, from even being born.

16. How do you think your family would feel? Would it improve their lives if you died?

17. You’re gorgeous, amazing, and to someone you are perfect.

18. Think about your favourite music artist, you’ll never hear their voice again…

19. You’ll never have the feeling of walking into a warm building on a cold day

20. Listening to incredibly loud music

21. Being alive is just really good.

22. Not being alive is really bad.

23. Finding your soulmate.

24. Red pandas

25. Going to diners at three in the morning.

26. Really soft pillows.

27. Eating pizza in New York City.

28. Proving people wrong with your success.

29. Watching the jerks that doubted you fail at life.

30. Seeing someone trip over a garbage can.

31. Being able to help other people.

32. Bonfires.

33. Sitting on rooftops.

34. Seeing every single country in the world.

35. Going on roadtrips.

36. You might win the lottery someday.

37. Listening to music on a record player.

38. Going to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

39. Taking really cool pictures.

40. Literally meeting thousands of new people.

41. Hearing crazy stories.

42. Telling crazy stories.

43. Eating ice cream on a hot day.

44. More Harry Potter books could come out, you never know.

45. Travelling to another planet someday.

46. Having an underwater house.

47. Randomly running into your hero on the street.

48. Having your own room at a fancy hotel.

49. Trampolines.

50. Think about your favourite movie, you’ll never watch it again.

51. Think about the feeling of laughing out loud in a public place because your best friend has just sent you an inside joke,

52. Your survival will make the world better, even if it’s for just one person or 20 or 100 or more.

53. People do care.

54. Treehouses

55. Hanging out with your soul mate in a treehouse

55. Snorting when you laugh and not caring who sees

56. I don’t even know you and I love you.

57. I don’t even know you and I care about you.

58. Because nobody is going to be like you ever, so embrace your uniqueness!

59. You won’t be here to experience the first cat world emperor.

60. WHAT ABOUT FOOD?! YOU’LL MISS CHOCOLATE AND ALL THE OTHER NOM THINGS!

61. Starbucks.

62. Hugs.

63. Stargazing.

64. You have a purpose, and it’s up to you to find out what it is.

65. You’ve changed somebody’s life.

66. Now you could change the world.

67. You will meet the person that’s perfect for you.

68. No matter how much or how little, you have your life ahead of you.

69. You have the chance to save somebody’s life.

70. If you end your life, you’re stopping yourself from achieving great things.

71. Making snow angels.

72. Making snowmen.

73. Snowball fights.

74. Life is what you make of it.

75. Everybody has a talent.

76. Laughing until you cry.

77. Having the ability to be sad means you have the ability to be happy.

78. The world would not be the same if you didn’t exist.

79. Its possible to turn frowns, upside down

80. Be yourself, don’t take anyone’s shit, and never let them take you alive.

81. Heroes are ordinary people who make themselves extraordinary. Be your own hero.

82. Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.

83. One day your smile will be real.

84. Having a really hot, relaxing bath after a stressful day.

85. Lying on grass and laughing at the clouds.

86. Getting completely smashed with your best friends.

87. Eating crazy food.

88. Staying up all night watching your favourite films with a loved one.

89. Sleeping in all day.

90. Creating something you’re proud of.

91. You can look back on yourself 70 years later and being proud you didn’t commit

92. Being able to meet your Internet friends.

93. Tea / Coffee / Hot Chocolate

94. Sherlock season three.

95. Cuddling under the stars.

96. Being stupid in public because you just can.

97. If you are reading this then you are alive! Is there any more reason to smile?

98. being able to hug that one person you havent seen in years

99. People care enough about you and your future to come up with 100 reasons for you not to do this.

100. But, the final and most important one is, just, being able to experience life. Because even if your life doesn’t seem so great right now, literally anything could happen

Depression Hotline: 1-630-482-9696

Suicide Hotline: 1-800-784-8433

LifeLine: 1-800-273-8255

Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386

Sexuality Support: 1-800-246-7743

Eating Disorders Hotline: 1-847-831-3438

Rape and Sexual Assault: 1-800-656-4673

Grief Support: 1-650-321-5272

Runaway: 1-800-843-5200, 1-800-843-5678, 1-800-621-4000

Exhale: After Abortion Hotline/Pro-Voice: 1-866-4394253

Child Abuse: 1-800-422-4453

UK Helplines:

Samaritans (for any problem): 08457909090 e-mail jo@samaritans.org

Childline (for anyone under 18 with any problem): 08001111

Mind infoline (mental health information): 0300 123 3393 e-mail: info@mind.org.uk

Mind legal advice (for people who need mental-health related legal advice): 0300 466 6463 legal@mind.org.uk

b-eat eating disorder support: 0845 634 14 14 (only open Mon-Fri 10.30am-8.30pm and Saturday 1pm-4.30pm) e-mail: help@b-eat.co.uk

b-eat youthline (for under 25’s with eating disorders): 08456347650 (open Mon-Fri 4.30pm - 8.30pm, Saturday 1pm-4.30pm)

Cruse Bereavement Care: 08444779400 e-mail: helpline@cruse.org.uk

Frank (information and advice on drugs): 0800776600

Drinkline: 0800 9178282

Rape Crisis England & Wales: 0808 802 9999 1(open 2 - 2.30pm 7 - 9.30pm) e-mail info@rapecrisis.org.uk

Rape Crisis Scotland: 08088 01 03 02 every day, 6pm to midnight

India Self Harm Hotline: 00 08001006614

India Suicide Helpline: 022-27546669

Kids Help Phone (Canada): 1-800-668-6868, Free and available 24/7

suicide hotlines;

Argentina: 54-0223-493-0430

Australia: 13-11-14

Austria: 01-713-3374

Barbados: 429-9999

Belgium: 106

Botswana: 391-1270

Brazil: 21-233-9191

China: 852-2382-0000

(Hong Kong: 2389-2222)

Costa Rica: 606-253-5439

Croatia: 01-4833-888

Cyprus: 357-77-77-72-67

Czech Republic: 222-580-697, 476-701-908

Denmark: 70-201-201

Egypt: 762-1602

Estonia: 6-558-088

Finland: 040-5032199

France: 01-45-39-4000

Germany: 0800-181-0721

Greece: 1018

Guatemala: 502-234-1239

Holland: 0900-0767

Honduras: 504-237-3623

Hungary: 06-80-820-111

Iceland: 44-0-8457-90-90-90

Ireland: 1800-247-100

Israel: 09-8892333

Italy: 06-705-4444

Japan: 3-5286-9090

Latvia: 6722-2922, 2772-2292

Malaysia: 03-756-8144

(Singapore: 1-800-221-4444)

Mexico: 525-510-2550

Netherlands: 0900-0767

New Zealand: 4-473-9739

New Guinea: 675-326-0011

Nicaragua: 505-268-6171

Norway: 47-815-33-300

Philippines: 02-896-9191

Poland: 52-70-000

Portugal: 239-72-10-10

Russia: 8-20-222-82-10

Serbia: 21-6623-393

Spain: 91-459-00-50

South Africa: 0861-322-322

South Korea: 2-715-8600

Sweden: 031-711-2400

Switzerland: 143

Taiwan: 0800-788-995

Thailand: 02-249-9977

Trinidad and Tobago: 868-645-2800

Ukraine: 0487-327715

Uruguay: 095 73 8483

You will be missing out on every single wonderful thing yet to happen to you.

[co-mixed]

Storm/Gambit

Probably the most popular shipping question is whether or not you support any non-canon ships. I never actually thought about that much, until recently. I’m mostly a canon ship supporter: regardless of whether or not I like a couple, if it’s canon, I’ll see it for what it is. Of course there are cases, when I wish things went differently, and honestly, there were some Marvel break ups I took harder than I should have. But I’m so used to Marvel Universe by now, that its never ending movement doesn’t  worry me anymore (if anything, “Dawn of X” only loosens the stakes). Anyway, the point here is that I’m in the zone of total canon acceptance with Marvel. That said, I caught myself coming back to one particular non-canon ship that kind of stuck with me. I know there is a fair share of people who’d like that to happen, and I guess I’m one of them.

Storm and Gambit.

Before all the Rogue/Gambit fans get a chance to argue, I wanna clarify, that they were the endgame from their first shared scene, and that shows. I remember reading up on their story what was it… about 17 years ago, and it couldn’t be more obvious. Honestly, it’s not easy to picture them with anyone else (we’ve seen how they do without one another). Besides, the difficulties of their journey only made it more clear. I just think that marriage is not the best idea for them, because I never wanted them to join the pantheon of COUPLES. You know, like Sue and Reed, Jessica and Luke.

But this is not about them. This is about Ororo and Remy, because in-between on again off again Rogue romance, and all the dramatic love stories Storm went through, it would’ve been interesting to see a fun adventurous relationship between these two. What comes to mind is actually Rhett’s quote from “Gone with the Wind”

- Did you ever think of marrying just for fun?

Background

The main argument against this romance is that Storm and Gambit meet under confusing circumstances i.e. he saves her when she’s reverted to her pre-teen years. This happens in Uncanny X-men #265-267

Nanny reverses ‘Roro back to childhood, removing all memories of her adulthood. However, Storm breaks away and hides in Cairo, Illinois. Meanwhile, Shadow King is after her (isn’t he always?). When he lures Storm into a mansion, with the help of his hounds, they attack her, but she jumps out of the window into an outdoor pool. She is pulled out of the water by Gambit. They run away to her hideout.

They stick together, since Remy is also on Shadow King’s radar now, battle him, and run away to New Orleans. There they spend some time doing the Robin Hood thing up until Nanny catches Gambit. Storm rescues him, also growing up to her teens.

Before you get any ideas, I have to mention that right away Gambit knew who Storm was. Yes, you could say that he took care of her, but you can easily say the opposite. They still have a fantastic dynamic, where they easily play off each other’s phrases (but that’s Claremont for you, right?). And normally Ororo’s all “I shall meet you at the monorail”, but her kid self is way less dramatic.

The two have a lot in common, and they have fun in general. Storm even feels like she finally belongs somewhere. And later, she is the one to sponsor Remy’s acceptance to the team.

To sum it up, with this storyline there is potential, and I have no idea where they were going with that originally. Let’s try and figure this out.

After Storm’s unfortunate (but ultimately successful) trip to Genosha (she was kidnapped along with New Mutants and turned into a mutate, but grew back up), she goes back to leading the X-men. Before that though, we get this panel:

New Mutants #97

That’s she actually gets Gambit to join the team, even if just for a while. And we assume they already familiar enough, since when she’s uneasy about whether or not she’s made right choices as a leader, Remy is the one to give her a pep talk. Okay, that’s a completely “friend” thing to do, and I pretty much see no chemistry here. Except for, you know, the fact that one of Gambit’s mutant abilities is to be irresistible.

X-Treme X-men

During X-Treme X-men series ‘Ro and Remy spend plenty of time together, even considering that his  and Rogue relationship gets pretty serious, and Storm has a lot going on. But let’s not skip anything important.

Originally in this Claremont’s run, Storm forms a team to go after Destiny’s journals. Of course Rogue is on the roster, which kinda means that eventually Gambit will show up too. That he indeed does. At some point, around issue 4 or 5, the team has to go help out Gambit, because surprise, he’s accused of a murder. That’s pretty much when we see where both ladies’ beliefs are. Rogue doesn’t for a second buy the fact that Remy would kill (even a mafia leader), Storm, on the other hand, doesn’t have much faith in the guy. So yeah, Rogue is goin all true love, while Storm lacks trust. At this point that’s not out of character for her, because the whole operation runs of lack of said trust.

Not to feel too bad for her though, around the same time ‘Roro gets a lot of attention from Bishop, and starts seeing Davis Cameron. A lot is going on in this book, but team Gambit/Storm gets two unforgettable moments.

in X-Treme X-men #4:

And in X-Treme X-men #32

Yes, I know that both times the writers here have to remind us (and him) that Rogue is his soulmate. In this department it would be hard to compete with her really. And I wouldn’t want Storm to. After all Rogue literally saved Remy from death twice in this run only, and there was a hint of resentment in him, but it doesn’t really go anywhere, just dissolves as many other stray phrases.

Either way, Storm and Gambit, they are friends, and we get some good moments out of two of them, when they’re together they seem to have a great chemistry.

Storm 2014 #9

What would I want them to be?

They would never qualify for a serious relationship by any of my standards. Basically, they are too much alike in a sense that he, for the most part, lives the life she would want to. Free of responsibilities like not letting the whole order of nature get out of control. But they still are pretty interesting together, it’s easy for them to understand each other, and talk things through, even though we get only glimpses of that. They are always honest with each other, so they would’ve made a pair that won’t ever have to deal with couples therapy. Also, it’s always jokes and flirting with them, even when they’re both in a relationship, hell, even when she was married.

When they need support, they’re there for each other:

X-men Vol 1 #326

X-men Gold #6

But at the end of the day it’s always gonna be Rogue for him, and now he’s in the ever after zone really (or in a way in a narrative limbo).  

As for her… I guess I’ll have to make a whole new in-depth analysis of her ‘ship choices to determine that (she has a lot to choose from).

With the comics anything can happen, so I should probably say that we’ll see where it ends up.

[gosatsuvns]

Weekly Update Compilation

Just realized that I kinda neglected the weekly updates here on Tumblr (sorry about that!), so I'll compile the last few right here:

Weekly Update #328: CG & BGM Progress

This past week, I've focused on drawing the "dead body" CG for GENBA no Kizuna, which is quite an undertaking to say the least. I've made a lot of progress on it, but there's still some work left to be done. It took me quite a while to figure out the exact perspective and angle. Thankfully, being married has its perks, so I got Kuna to take a bunch of reference pictures of me while I was lying on the floor, pretending to be dead, haha. That definitely helped tremendously.

Still, the details are going to give me another headache for sure. We're talking about a guy who got eaten by a T-Rex after all, so there's a lot going on in terms of, well... damage.

Anyway, every now and then, I've also continued working on the outline for Withering Without Hope. And speaking of which, I have just released a new Patreon post, delving into the topic of how Broken Beyond Despair sets up and dictates the direction for its sequel.

If you're curious about the changes I felt were necessary in our recent anniversary update, be sure to check it out!

Next week, I'm planning to make another post talking about the time in between BBD and WWH and what exactly happens there. There is quite a gap between October 30 and December 23 after all...

Now, in other news, I've been working with Solo, our composer, on a new BGM track for GENBA. I've already received a first preview of it and it sounds amazing! Can't wait to hear the full version and share it. This time, we're tackling another investigation theme, specifically for the segments you will play as Rei.

That kinda wraps up this week's progress report. I'll get back to working on that CG now, so please enjoy the rest of your weekend and, until next Saturday, take care! :3

Weekly Update #327: BGs, CGs, Sprites & WWH

After a bit more BG work, I have finally finished a variation for the 1st Floor Main Hall and one for the 2nd Floor Main Hall. That now only leaves one more variation of the 1st floor and all the necessary BGs for the first three chapters of GENBA are done! Hopefully, I can get to that soon, but first of all, I've decided to tackle the "dead body" CG instead, as it is kinda tied to that BG.

Basically, after recovering the body from the Rex jaws, it will be spread out in the main hall and you will be able to catch a glimpse of it on the missing variation of the 1st floor background. At least that's the plan, but I think drawing the CG first will better help me understand what exactly and how much needs to be visible on said BG.

The CG is kind of intimidating to think about, as it is going to be the most difficult to draw by far. As a result, I've been pushing it off for a while now, but I figured, if I get it out of the way now, that'll be a big relief, haha. I've actually started working on it a while ago, doing some initial sketches. You will see almost the entire body lying on the floor. It's going to be an interactive CG too, meaning that players will be able to click all over the body in order to examine it. As you can imagine, it's going to be a very crucial asset towards solving the mystery death at the Kaseki residence, so it will require a lot of attention to detail.

My goal is to finish it by the end of the month, so I have just about a week left, which will hopefully be enough!

Outside of finishing those BG variations and getting back into the body CG, I've been working on some more sprite variations for Keiichi and Amber. Unfortunately, I kinda suffered a setback of sorts by accidentally deleting one of Amber's new sprites "orz Thankfully, I still had the low quality preview I posted on Patreon, so I was able to restore it, even if that was kind of an annoying and rather frustrating occurrence...

I have to doublecheck with the script, but this might be it in terms of sprites for the first chapter, too. In the end, Keiichi only got one new one, depicting him with a somewhat worried expression:

Now, one other thing I've been working on is Withering Without Hope. With the Christmas season drawing near, I'm really getting into the mood for it, so I've been working on the outline for the first chapter. I'd like to continue working on this on the side and hopefully finish at least the entire first chapter outline before the end of the year. The goal here is to have the full script for the game done by the time GENBA will be released.

If you're a patron, you should keep your eyes open, as I'm also going to share some behind-the-scenes info for WWH soon! Been wanting to do that for a while now and just haven't gotten around to it...

Anyway, guess that about wraps it up for today so, please enjoy the rest of your weekend and, until next Saturday, take care! :3

Weekly Update #326: GENBA Background Progress

Alright, after a bit more work, I have finally finished the background for the second floor of the main hall and, along with it, adjusted the other two main hall BGs. If you want to learn more about my struggles with these, be sure to check out last week's blog post where I talk a little about visual consistency. I've also made a post on my private Twitter, showcasing the differences between the old and the new version of the first floor main hall. As for the second floor, here's another preview for that one as well:

Now, what's left are the variations of these two BGs, which I've also worked on. One variation for each of them is almost done as well, just missing one last detail which I'll take care of tomorrow. That will leave only one more variation for the first floor background, which will display a couple more pieces of evidence. As mentioned last week, once these are done, we're gonna be good on backgrounds for a while. That's because the second chapter will not need any new BGs, as no new locations inside the residence will be visited. As for chapter 3, the mid-point case discussion... that one will take place entirely in the exhibition room featured at the end of our demo. So no new BGs for that one either!

Well, I did mention before that I'm playing with the idea of making one more simple BG for said exhibition room. Since the cast will spent quite a while there, discussing the mysteries (think of the dining hall in SHINRAI), it would probably be nice to get some visual variety. However, as I don't deem this to be an "essential background", it's a bit lower on my priority list. For now, I just want to focus on the assets that are absolutely necessary to tell the story. And when we talk about "essential" backgrounds, there are actually only four left now: the wash room, the back corridor, the backyard and one of the suspect rooms.

Before I get to any of those, I'm still aiming to finish all the assets for the first chapter, though. Which (BG variations aside) now only leaves a couple of sprite variations and two CGs. One of those is going to be very elaborate, though, so it will probably take me a while to get it done. I'll most likely work on it next month and, for the rest of November, take care of the sprites and script revisions.

Anyway, that about sums up the current progress. Time to get back to work, so please enjoy the rest of your weekend and, until next Saturday, take care! :3

[flightlessangelwings]

Guardian Angel

Summary: Back in Ancient Greece, Aziraphale and Crowley find each other on the battlefield, but not against each other. When Aziraphale takes a hit meant for Crowley and it doesn’t heal, it’s up to the demon to nurse him back to health.

Written for the Infeeable Temptations gift exchange and I realized I forgot to share it here as well.

~

The year was 326 BC, and the mighty and unstoppable Greek army marched forward into unknown lands. Their leader, Alexander the Great, led the intrepid group further East than anyone in their history had before. But how was this great king and general able to accomplish such a monumental task of uniting the entire known world? He unknowingly had help, an angel and a demon on each shoulder if you will.

Aziraphale the angel joined his army all the way back in Greece, and quickly became a close advisor to the king. He always managed to point Alexander in the right direction, and quietly used his powers to make sure casualties and injuries were at a minimum. The demon Crawley, as he was known then, was much more subtle. He usually took the form of some type of bird or his original snake form and watched and manipulated events from afar. Which is why it took the two supernatural beings so long to realize that both were involved in these historic events.

It was the battle of Hydaspes. The Greeks fought against the defenders of the land led by King Porus along the river. It was a great and bloody battle, as most were. Aziraphale held his own as he defended himself and the men around him. He may prefer to use brain over brawn and generally he liked to avoid violence, but he was still plenty skilled with a sword. The angel silently apologized to those he had to hit, and was able to avoid fatal blows to everyone he encountered; instead of killing, he knocked his opponents unconscious and they always managed to wake just after the Greek troops had moved on.

It was after he defeated a large-built man that Azirphale noticed something in the distance. Or rather, someone. Red curls flowed out of the black Greek helmet and the figure in question wore all black Greek armor. It took the angel by surprise, he hadn’t expected to run into the demon here of all places. Aziraphale’s breath caught in his throat for a moment as he watched Crawley elegantly battle the enemies around him. Unlike the angel, however, he has no qualms about killing his opponents. That can be forgiven, Aziraphale thought to himself.

From behind him, an enemy soldier thought he had the Greek warrior dressed in all white armor caught off guard. But, Aziraphale quickly reacted and was able to disarm and kick down his opponent with little effort. In the process, however, he has lost track of the figure he was watching. The angel scanned the battlefield for the only fighter dressed in all black. After a few moments, he was able to find him.

And what he saw made his face a white as his armor.

Crawley was ambushed by a group of soldiers and he tried desperately to fend them all off. He was doing a great job of it too, beating down each opponent one by one, until an archer from a distance took aim at the figure in all black. He didn’t seem to notice, but Aziraphale did. And he knew he had to do something.

Before his brain could catch up to his own thoughts, the angel rushed across the field. He prayed, more to himself than to anyone who might or might not be listening, that he would get there in time. The archer drew back his arrow and took aim.

“Crawley!!” the angel’s voice rang out over the many cries and screams of the battlefield. The demon looked up to see a blur of white run just past him and he knew instantly who that voice that called his name belonged to.

The next several moments passed by as if time moved in slow motion. Crawley turned around just in time to see the angel hit by an arrow, an arrow that would have hit him if Aziraphale hadn’t jumped in the way. He gasped as his eyes widened.

“Aziraphale?” his voice came out much higher than he intended as he caught the angel’s falling form in his arms. “Aziraphale!” he all but shouted.

For some reason, the arrow knocked Aziraphale unconscious. An arrow that normally either of them could just pull out and heal themselves from. Crawley ignored everything happening around him as he focused on the blonde in his arms and cried out his name over and over again.

“AZIRAPHALE!”

Suddenly, nothing else mattered. Not his mission that brought him so far East. Not the lives of the humans around them. Not even his own life. Crawley’s only objective was the angel’s safely. He couldn’t explain why, but fear took hold of him as Aziraphale’s breaths became very shallow. Without a second thought, he took Aziraphale into his arms and rushed off the battlefield. The humans were on their own now.

Crawley took Aziraphale to a nearby cave and quickly lit a fire. Carefully, he lay the angel down and tore off his armor to reveal the wound on his chest.

“Come on,” the demon gasped desperately, “Heal,” he tried to use the power he had to make the wound close on its own. However, no matter how hard he tried, it would not heal. “What?” Crawley looked at his hands in disbelief before he tried again.

Aziraphale’s breaths were getting more shallow by the minute and it because harder and harder to breathe. His skin flushed as his body temperature rose. “Cr… Crawley…” he panted out between heavy breaths.

“Shhh,” he looked up from the open wound to meet the angel’s eyes, “I’m here. I’ve got you,” he tried and failed to hide the panic in his voice, “Just stay with me, ok angel?”

The blonde opened his mouth to answer, but a fresh sting of pain shot through his entire body. His body thrashed back against the ground as he exclaimed in pain. Blood poured out of the open wound and a layer of sweat coated his skin.

“No no no no no,” Crawley’s hands shook with fear. He never had a miracle not work before, and he couldn’t bear it if he lost Aziraphale. He took a deep breath to steady himself because he ripped his cloak off to put pressure on the wound. “If a miracle won’t work,” he told himself while he got to work to stop the bleeding, “It’ll just have to be the human way.”

Full blown snake eyes bore down at the body before him as the demon concentrated everything he had to clean up Azirapahle’s wound. Next to him, he made a bucket of clean water appear while in his hands he manifested a needle and a cloth. His breath was shakey with nerves as he cleaned up the blood all over the angel’s porcelain skin. It was in that moment that he was grateful that he had spent so much time around humans as he dug deep into his mind to think of anything that would help.

Luckily, what Crawley did seemed to help. The mix of herbs he summoned stopped the bleeding and started to bring Aziraphale’s fever down. Satisfied with how the wound looked, he got to work to sew up the open gash to make sure it wouldn’t continue to bleed.

“Azirapahle?” he asked in a soft voice.

The angel hadn’t opened his eyes in some time. His breaths were ragged from the pain of the ordeal. For a moment, his eyes fluttered open, but he didn’t seem to look directly at the figure before him. Again, he opened his mouth as if to say something, but before any sound left his lips, his head dropped back and he passed out.

The hours passed agonizingly slow for the redhead as he never left Aziraphale’s side. He kept an eye on the opening of the cave they resided in; he watched as the sun rose and set as the angel continued to sleep the infection away. The demon did not sleep a wink, not that he needed it in the first place. His first and only priority was to keep an eye on the blond that risked his life for his own.

As the light of the moon shone into the cave, Crawley studied the soft face that slept in front of him. His heart skipped a beat as so many thoughts ran through his head. But those thoughts were interrupted by the stirring of the angel.

After over a day of sleep, Aziraphale started to wake up for the first time. Crawley took the angel’s hand in his. It was still warm; the fever hadn’t quite broken yet. He may be better now than he was when they first came into the cave, but the demon knew they weren’t out of the woods yet.

“Hey,” his voice was soft as he greeted the angel.

“Crawley?” he asked weakly.

“Shhh, just rest angel,” his voice was soft as he brushed a lock of blonde hair aside.

“Where…?” he couldn’t even finish the thought as he tried to lift himself up.

“Hey, hey,” Crawley gently pushed him back to lay down, “You need to rest. I don’t know why a miracle isn’t healing this,” worry laced his voice, “Must he this land or something.”

Aziraphale groaned, “I’m fine Crawley, really,” he tried to sass back, but he found he didn’t have the energy and started to drift back off to sleep.

Crawley scoffed quietly, not at Aziraphale, but at the name, “I don’t think Crawley is really working for me,” he said more to himself than to the semi-conscious angel.

In that moment, a group of crows fluttered awake from the breeze and flew past them out of the cave.

“Crows,” Aziraphale whispered, “Crow…. Crowley,” he muttered, unaware of what he was saying.

“Crowley,” the demon pondered.

The angel slept for another day before he finally woke again. This time, he woke with more strength and his fever broke. As he slowly sat himself up, Azirapahle looked around the cave. He saw the embers of what was a fire next to him and near the entrance, he saw a figure outlined by the midday sun.

“Crawley?” he called out to the figure.

In an instant, the demon was right at his side, “Angel! You’re awake,” his voice almost broke as worry lined his face.

Azirapahle smiled sweetly, “Thanks to you,” he took his hand and squeezed it in appreciation.

Crawley felt his face blush at the angel’s gaze. They sat in a comfortable silence for a few moments before the demon cleared his throat and looked down at their entwined hands. He held for a moment before he set Azirphale’s hand down. “I’m glad you’re ok,” he finally spoke, “You had me worried for awhile there.”

Aziraphale let out a deep breath as he watched the demon fidget in his spot. Unsure of what to say next, he asked, “What are you doing all the way out here anyway?”

“I could ask the same about you,” the demon retorted playfully.

“If you must know,” the blonde was just as playful, “I was helping Alexander since Greece. It’s a noble thing he’s doing, uniting the world as one. DIfferent people living under one ruler together. Doesn’t sound so bad.”

A slight chuckle escaped Crawley’s lips, “I was just helping Hell get more souls. People tend to have some nasty thoughts while in war. I’m just here taking advantage of it.”

“You’re joking.”

“Am I?” he replied with a devilish smile.

Aziraphale took a breath in as if he had more to say, but he chose to let it go. They sat in silence for a few minutes.

“Why did you do it?” the redhead broke the silence with a question that was on his mind.

“What?” Azirapahle was taken off guard by the question.

“Jump in front of me. Take that arrow. Why’d you do it?” he asked again.

The angel sighed as he looked down at the ground, “I don’t know. I just…” he paused for a moment, “Had to.”

Crawley let those words settle in his mind for a minute. “Thank you,” he said softly.

Aziraphale met the demon’s eyes, “What was that?” he asked playfully.

“Thank you,” he repeated more clearly with a smile on his face. He gently placed his hand on top of the angel’s.

Moments seemed to last for hours, but this time in a good way. The two gazed into each other’s eyes as if they were looking for answers to unasked questions. Before they realized it, they leaned closer to each other until their lips were only a hair apart. The demon hesitated for a moment, but Aziraphale took the opportunity to close the distance and closed their lips together.

It wasn’t a deep kiss, but it still felt so meaningful. So many years of emotions and unsaid words came to the surface with one simple kiss. Aziraphale brought his hand up to cup Crawley’s cheek. In response, Crawley wrapped his arms around Aziraphale’s waist to pull him even closer.

“Ow” the angel exclaimed. Crawley managed to irritate the still healing wound when he grabbed him.

“Ack! Sorry angel,” the demon apologized sincerely and checked on the wound to make sure he didn’t do any real damage.

“It’s fine Crawley, really,” he reassured the worried redhead.

Crawley set out a deep sigh, “So,” he started once he was satisfied that Aziraphale was really ok, “What now?”

The angel shrugged, “I don’t know. I’m still and angel, and you’re still a demon,” he thought out loud, “I guess it’s back to our jobs. Although who knows where the Greek army is now.”

“I think that may be a lost cause at this point, angel,” he said with a short laugh. To be honest, Crawley completely forgot about Alexander and the Greek army and the battle. “Besides, we need to make sure you’re ok before anything else.”

“I’m ok,” Azirapahle retorted, “You took good care of me, Crawley. I’ll be back to normal in a few hours thanks to you,” he gave the demon a sweet smile.

“You can’t mention this to anyone, you know that,” the demon suddenly got defensive as he remembered the rest of the world still existed.

“Of course my dear. A demon’s reputation is all important now,” he teased.

Crawley rolled his eyes as he tried to hide a smile, “Well, I guess we will run into each other next time then,” he said as he brushed his hand against the angel’s cheek before he stood to leave.

Aziraphale nodded, “Until next time then,” he repeated as he watched the demon leave the cave with a warm smile on his face and a flutter in his heart.

[spoiled-truth]

Miraculous Ladybug THEORY: Identity Reveal This Season

SPOILER ALERT!! 

All of this theory’s information is based on 1 episode title and summary that have been released but not the episodes themselves. If you do not wish to spoil yourselves, please scroll along. Otherwise, you’ve been warned.

I would like to put in one more warning. If you don’t know by now, Miraculous Ladybug has been having an issue where the episodes for this season have been airing out of order in relation to the plot and actual episode numberings. So my theory may be completely debunked if these episodes release in a different order than what has been projected at this point. However, I’m going by the timeline of product codes as opposed to release dates and order of what both wikipedia and the ML wiki say. I think the product numbers and order of release have been straightened out (let’s cross our fingers) so this warning hopefully shouldn’t go into effect. Without further ado, let’s begin.

~~~

Thesis: Ladybug and Chat Noir will know each other’s identities this season, specifically in the episode “Cat Blanc���.

Before I delve into this theory, it’s important we know the season chronology. So, here’s a list of all of the episodes of season 3 in order of product codes.

301 - Chameleon 302 - Animaestro 303 - Bakerix 304 - Backwarder 305 - Reflekdoll 306 - Weredad 307 - Silencer 308 - Oni-Chan 309 - Miraculer 310 - Oblivio 311 - Desperada 313 - Startrain 314 - Kwami Buster 315 - Feast 316 - Gamer 2.0 317 - Stormy Weather 2 318 - Ikari Gozen 319 - Timetagger 320 - Party Crasher 321 - The Puppeteer 2 322 - Cat Blanc 323 - Felix 324 - Ladybug 325 - Loveater 326 - Miracle Queen

The episodes that are bolded are the ones that we will be talking about today. The ones italicized are the episodes that have not aired as of this theory’s publication.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s start with the beginning of the theory with an episode that has already aired: The Puppeteer 2.

At the end of the episode, Adrien and Marinette have the following exchange in the Agreste limousine:

Marinette: I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have kissed the statue. I didn’t know it was you, if I had, it wouldn’t have been a prank, because--

Adrien: No, no! It’s my fault. When you left the workshop, I was so worried you were mad at me, it made me do this prank and...

Marinette: Of course I wasn’t mad at you! I’m sorry that I made you believe that.

Adrien: Is that true? We’re still friends, you and me?

Marinette: Of course! But maybe we should stop playing pranks on each other!

Adrien: Ha, ha! I know, I’m not good with jokes. The girl I’m in love with doesn’t like ‘em either.

Marinette: The girl... you’re... in love with?

[Marinette backs away from Adrien and turns herself towards the car window.]

Adrien: Are you okay, Marinette?

Marinette: Yeah, yeah. I’m glad we’re friends.

After this scene plays out, Marinette gets out of the car at the bakery and laments about the conversation up in her bedroom. Tikki attempts to comfort her and Marinette seems to be playing along, as though trying to comfort herself, but the expression on her face shows emotional pain.

This is something that Marinette will not get over with easily.  The writers know this. And that is where the next chronological episode comes into play: “Cat Blanc.”

Here is the given summary for the following episode:

When Marinette makes a serious mistake, she must bear the consequences by confronting the one she could never have imagined could be akumatized.

Given by the episode title and the summary, it’s obvious this episode is about Chat Noir (called Cat Noir in the English, thus the episode title) getting akumatized. Using the events that occurred in the prior episode we can theorize and piece together what may happen in this episode.

Marinette is still heartbroken about Adrien calling her a friend and admitting he’s in love with someone else. Marinette, as Ladybug, rants to Chat Noir about her problems and in the process of doing so, slips out Adrien’s name, revealing who she is in the process. Ladybug realizes that she said Adrien’s name but doesn’t realize that she gave him the final piece of the puzzle, and either stops the conversation there and deals with an akumatized person or flat out leaves in a rush (depending on the timing of the conversation). Devastated, Chat Noir is vulnerable enough for Hawk Moth to akumatize him. Ladybug fixes the problem and apologizes and explains it all now that the two know each others’ identities.

The episode will most likely take a different turn of events, but I believe they’ll hit on the following points:

Marinette/Ladybug’s frustrations about Adrien are revealed to Adrien/Chat Noir

This is what causes Chat Noir to be akumatized

Because of the first point and how it causes chaos, their identities will be revealed to one another

Onto my last piece of evidence, the episode “Loveater”.

The following is the official summary for the episode:

Ladybug and Cat Noir confront Mr. and Mrs. Bourgeois, who have become "Loveater", a two-headed Cerberus that devours all the love in Paris. 

The trend that goes on in Miraculous Ladybug is that every season finale has majorly crippled the heroes and it’s their job to overcome said cripple and to save the day.

So why is the big villain someone who eats love?

One could hypothesize it’s because of the whole love square, that idea to me is incorrect because that would only impact one party. If they didn’t know their identities, Chat Noir/Adrien would only hate Ladybug while Marinette/Ladybug would only hate Adrien.

However, if the two knew each others’ identities and were in love and/or dating (and thus no longer a love square), both parties could effectively be crippled because they would hate both versions of themselves, being unable to get a break to save the day.

~~~

And that, guys, gals, and pals, is my theory! What do you guys think? Have more evidence to support this theory or evidence to suggest otherwise? Go ahead and share it!

[the-anime-haven]

Let’s Talk Haikyuu!! Nationals

I basically just wanted to put out an updated bracket (as of Ch. 326) for those who want to check one out. I know there’s more schools that could be filled in based on the glimpses of the bracket that we’ve gotten in the manga, but I’m too lazy to add in schools that no one cares about. The dashes are there for games that we know have happened but we don’t know which schools were involved. That being said, I got lazy with the dashes when it came to Itachiyama because that’s too much work.

Also, I’m not entirely sure if we know which block (A or B... or C or D, I don’t know how you would label this thing) Fukurōdani is in, so I’ve taken the liberty of making a bracket for both possibilities. On top of that, I made one that doesn’t include Fukurōdani at all to be extra accurate. After this, I’ll show you the possibilities and predictions that I think could occur. 

We do know the details of Fukurōdani’s matches, so that is accurate, it’s just that I’m not 100% which side they fall on within the bracket. Personally, I think it’s more likely than not that Fukurōdani is on Karasuno’s side of the bracket just because I think having Karasuno play Fukurōdani will be an important plot point that the author wants to hit. Also, we haven’t been warned of any other powerhouses besides the ones in that brackets above. If Fukurōdani wasn’t on Karasuno’s side of the bracket, then that would mean that Karasuno would play a completely unknown school in the semi-finals, which is probably something the author wants to avoid. 

So, off of that, I think you can guess that I assume Karasuno will beat Kamonedai. We don’t know much about their school, so that’s really jumping to conclusions, but I didn’t say my predictions wouldn’t be idealistic. If Karasuno can take down Shiratorizawa, Inarizaki, and Nekoma, I think they can take down Kamonedai. That would mean that Karasuno would either play Fukurōdani or Mujinazaka in the semi-finals. 

Regardless of how Karasuno does, I think it’s pretty much a given that Itachiyama will make it to the finals. I also really do believe that Karasuno will make it to finals along with them. My reasoning is not only because they’re a strong team or because I’m simply hoping for it. To me, if you’re gonna tell this grand story about the underdogs forcing their way up the ranks-- if you’re gonna tell a story involving third year students who’s last chance it is to play for their high school team, it’d be pretty anticlimactic for them not to make it all the way to the final boss. It’s different than when they lost to Aoba Johsai because they had another chance with the Spring Interhigh, but for Karasuno to not make it to the end here-- where there’s no rematch or second chance-- would be awful. Not to mention, the manga has built up Itachiyama as the ultimate high school team, so to not have the main characters play them would be very unfortunate and dull. 

I know that the third years’ goal was to make it to nationals, and they’ve already done that, but it’d be kind of lame for them to lose in the quarter-finals and then go, “Oh, well bye bye third years, too bad this is as far as we got.” I realize that, with that, it means that Karasuno will have to beat impossible odds, and maybe people don’t like that because it’s unrealistic and wouldn’t be a good story in the end, but I really disagree. Besides, they’ve proven that they can take down extremely tough opponents by simply sticking it out til the end, so I don’t see how the other powerhouses they’ve yet to face are any different from the ones they’ve already beaten. You know? 

That got a little ranty, but let’s get back to the brackets. So, like I said, Itachiyama will probably make it to the finals. After all, they have one of the best aces in the nation (actually, I would even guess that Sakusa is the best ace in the nation). On top of that, they have the supposed best libero in the nation. They’ll be pretty hard to beat. Here are the brackets if Fukurōdani is on Karasuno’s side (I’ve made one for if Fukurōdani wins or loses and also if Karasuno or Itachiyama wins in the end).

Okay, and here are the brackets if Fukurōdani is on Itachiyama’s side.

Alright, so obviously, my favorite and preferred bracket would be this one:

That being said, since we don’t know a lot about Mujinazaka, I’m inclined to believe that Fukurōdani will lose to them simply because Mujinazaka has Kiryū who is supposed to be a better ace than Bokuto. However, it’s also not out of the question that Fukurōdani will win. I would prefer Karasuno to play Fukurōdani, and I do think that that’s something the author would be aiming for, but by the same token, I can see why the author would want Karasuno to play Mujinazaka. It’d probably come down to the same reasoning as to why the author will probably have Karasuno play Itachiyama. It does seem like Mujinazaka is the bigger giant for Karasuno to take down, so they might just have to win out over Fukurōdani. Sadly, that means there’s probably not going to a way for Karasuno to play Fukurōdani in this tournament. I still wish for it, though. 

Do I really think that Karasuno can beat Itachiyama? Based on the matches we’ve seen with Karasuno up til now, yeah, I do. Again, we don’t know much about Itachiyama, but I do think that Karasuno could beat them realistically. Do I think that’s what the author will decide to do? No, probably not. It’s a pretty popular thing for narratives to put their protagonists on the verge of victory just for them to falter at the last hurdle. Because of that, I actually think that Karasuno winning would be the bigger plot-twist. However, I think that most authors and writers will assume the opposite because they probably think that their audience will predict a win. So, they’ll go with a loss for a “plot-twist.” That line of thought isn’t original anymore, but it’s still pretty common, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see it here. 

Basically, I’m hoping that Fukurōdani will win in the quarter-finals and that Karasuno will win in the finals, but I’m fully expecting the exact opposite to happen for both. That’s just how storytelling is now, I think. Should the author decide to give Karasuno the victory, like in Kuroko no Basket for example, that’ll be great. I think that it’d be a much more fulfilling story and ending if Daichi, Asahi, and Suga got to have that win before leaving Karasuno. It’d also be a nice punctuation on the whole “flightless crows” thing. Karasuno winning nationals would reestablish them as a powerhouse school, no questions asked (though, they may already have that status back, for the most part). 

Some people don’t want them to win because the show focuses on Kageyama and Hinata, who are only first years. So, Karasuno doesn’t need to win and shouldn’t realistically win because Kageyama and Hinata have two more years left to try it again. People also don’t want them to win because it may mean the end of Haikyuu!! As I said, I don’t agree with either argument because I don’t think a win in the future will be as meaningful. I want to see this team, as it is today, win because of the growth and cohesion that they’ve developed over the course of the series. If it ends after that, so be it. Doesn’t mean we won’t get to see what happens in the years after, it just means that Karasuno will get a satisfying victory.

Let me know what you guys think, and I hope the brackets are not completely useless to look at. I’m definitely excited to see this next match. 

Is this idealistic? Maybe, but damn it, I didn’t come to manga for absolute realism. Give my boys the win they deserve.

[mittensmorgul]

Re: signs that 15x20 is unreal, how about the monkey statue? It's a feature of the Roadhouse in 2x02, so it seems fair enough it would appear in Heaven's Roadhouse. However, it also features in Dean's dream bar in 14x10 and in Lebanon, 14x13. You could say then that it represents Dean's desires ... but actually, both of these episodes featured dangerous fantasies that Dean had to choose to end in order to get what he really wanted. In Nihilism, Dean has to snap out of the supposed ideal reality in order to obtain freedom from Michael's control. In Lebanon, Dean undoes the pearl's granting of his "heart's desire" because although he could get Michael out of his head and also get his father back, it would mean losing Mary, Cas, and Jack, and becoming estranged from Sam. So, I really think that the monkey statue is a massive red flag. (Especially as it seems so prominent in an otherwise sparse set, sitting outside the Roadhouse, between Bobby and Dean - like a third character, or a barrier. Are there other theories about it?)

Also, the saturated colours, vintage vehicles and general retro Americana feel of both the street at the end of 15x19 and the pie festival in 15x20 bear an uncanny resemblance to Charming Acres from 14x19 - which of course turned out to be a false reality created, controlled and violently enforced by the mayor (one of those 'little men in positions of power'), a father who proclaims himself God. So, to me, everything from the end of 15x19 to 15x20 screams false, dangerous dream, which claims to be what you want, but isn't really.

It's the moment that Jack becomes God that everything stops making sense, really. Dean asked God to bring Cas back, but he doesn't ask Jack? Dean's worst nightmare is to be on his own, and yet when he gets to Heaven and finds out he doesn't have to be alone, that everyone is together, he ... drives off on his own???

Sorry, forgot to add: I love the way you said that either 15x20 obliterates canon or canon obliterates 15x20. That sums it up perfectly!

___

HELLO THERE! Before we begin, I have to say I LOVE THE HEN OF LETTERS. She’s ADORABLE! 

Okay, now that we have that out of the way, for reference purposes this is regarding this post I made yesterday (linked with an addition I threw on a few hours later, for the sake of keeping it as current as possible):

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/640259612227059712/so-signs-that-15x20-isnt-real-el-sol-beer

Thank you for contributing so much, and potentially saving me having to rewatch to try and catch all the details for sciencing purposes. :’D I’ll take your observations one by one, for the sake of orderliness. :)

1. The Roadhouse Monkey. Sort of an in-joke on the Supernatural set since s2 (Origin story here). It also appeared in the Black Spur Bar in 13.02 where Asmodeus killed the bartender and disguised himself as her in order to get information about Jack out of Dean. Which, if nothing else, serves as a sort of red flag for “this is not what it appears to be.” So what did Asmodeus chat with Dean about with the monkey as a backdrop? Deadbeat dads, running away from home, but still wanting the approval of their fathers more than anything. Imagine that.

Because of how to came to be part of the roadhouse set, with Jerry basically HATING the thing yet directors LOVING it and thinking it made for a great establishing shot of the Roadhouse interior, it also serves as a sort of “cry for help” from the production designers. Like... a “we had no other choice” warning. It was literally the establishing shot of the original Roadhouse’s rubble after it burned. 

And also what you said about it above, too. It’s a very meta monkey.

My tag for the monkey

2. YES. THE COLORS. Beginning with 15.19′s final scene and that incredibly weird montage with Sam and Dean’s drive into the fakey-fakey sunset. Like... one out-of-nowhere shot they’d been using in the promo for the finale was the final scene from 2.18 Hollywood Babylon where Sam and Dean walk off the movie set into the “sunset,” which turns out to be a fake sunset painted on a giant screen that rolls aside to reveal the cold grey gloom of reality behind it. Same exact feeling there with the extra-orangey light pervading the finale.

As to the “nostalgia for the past” aura of the episode, that started for me during the bunker montage at the beginning of the episode (and that SONG CHOICE had me cringing too, because heck... that was a depressing way to open the ep... little did I know it would only get more depressing from there). Dean’s precious Dead Guy Robe just gets unceremoniously tossed aside like so much dirty laundry in the room Dean once cared so much for... the old-fashioned alarm clock on his nightstand... Sam doing laundry in a literal machine from the 50′s while he just stands there waiting for it like he has nothing better to do... Dean cleaning all his guns for apparently lack of anything better to do... not being able to find a case and yet not being even remotely interested in exploring the brand new potential of the future and remaining trapped by now-nonexistent duty and the literal actual past... It’s... so wrong in every way.

3. And yeah, the emptiness of Heaven is partly attributable to Covid, but it didn’t have to FEEL completely empty like it did. Like, even devoid of the SIGNS of humanity, with Dean driving completely alone down deserted highways through the wilderness. The Roadhouse was the only tangible sign that anyone else even existed in this heaven, aside from the roads and the bridge in the final scene. Like... where are all these people Dean supposedly cared about LIVING? or... whatever you’d call existing in Heaven as a soul if not living?

And why would Dean’s first desire, when he’d been doing it his whole life and had been most recently doing it within minutes of having died, be to go on a drive? It’s beyond absurd to me. That was not the Dean that Castiel knew and loved. That was not the Dean who literally did everything out of love for the world and the people in his life. That was not the Dean that Cas sacrificed himself for. Sorry, it’s just not.

It’s almost as if all of Chuck’s storytelling power simply transferred over to Jack. It’s almost as if the storyteller interfering was irrelevant and only hindering his story actually playing out. Like the storyteller only needed for Sam and Dean to let their guard down, to believe their free will had won, for them to lose all their agency and become nothing more than irrelevant characters to be disposed of.

You can’t have both things. Either you believe the first 326 episodes of Supernatural, or you believe the 327th. They are mutually exclusive.

[jcamilov06]

I was tagged by @schnaf, thank you so much!

Rules: Answer 30 questions. tag blogs you want to get to know better

Nickname(s):  JuanCa, Cami (which are just shortened versions of my name)

Gender: Male

Sign: Sagittarius 

Height: 1.88 m

Time: 9:01 a.m.

Fave band(s): There are too many!! D: but The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Joy Division, The Who, The Smiths, Enter Shikari and Radiohead are on top of the list..

Fave solo artist(s): David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Jack White, Andrés Calamaro, Fito Páez and Mac DeMarco.

Song stuck in my head: The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness by The National

Last movie i saw: Mononoke Hime (yup, I hadn’t watched until now).

Last show i watched: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

When did i create my blog:  mid June, 2011 😅

What do i post:  Everything I’m passionate about, so like: music, electronics, football (⚽ & 🏈), movies, books and videogames. Sometimes it makes me happy whenever I find mash-ups between them (pink floyd having a football team, electronics diy’s to make music…).

Last thing i googled: Purdue Boilermakers football team, I wanted to show a friend that they have similar uniform and helmet to the New Orleans Saints. 

Do i have any other blogs:  Yes, @eagles-und-der-bvb (Philadelphia Eagles and Borussia Dortmund stuff), although I don’t use it as much as I’d like to.

Do i get asks: From time to time... it is always nice whenever I receive a new one :D

Why did i choose my url: I chose it when I first created my blog, so… just a 2011′s generic user name (at least it’s easy to remember).

Following: 1,454

Followed by: 326 :0

Average hours of sleep: 5.5 hours.

Lucky number: 86.

Instruments: Guitar, bass, piano, a bit of ukulele and harmonica.

What i am wearing: Black t-shirt, jeans and black shoes.

Dream job: When I was a little kid, I loved planets and space, so I wanted to be an astronomer. I still have an admiration for it, but because I love electronics, music and video games, I’d love to work designing either electronic music instruments or video game consoles.

Dream trip: Patagonia, the norwegian fjords and Tashirojima (cat island), to name a few…

Fave food: Pasta alla carbonara with Portobello mushrooms

Nationality: Colombian 🇨🇴

Fave song: “I am the Resurrection” by The Stone Roses (it has everything I like in a song).

Last book i read: Final del Juego by Julio Cortázar.

Top 3 fictional universes i wanna join: can’t think of any fictional universe where I could possibly survive, so…

(I’ve seen everybody already done this one, so I don’t really feel like tagging anyone right now...)

[margridarnauds]

Director's Cut: Paradise Lost?

Thanks! I know I mentioned it before, but I’m really excited to talk about this one!

Paradise Lost

My newest child, whom I love even though I have no idea how I’m going to feel about it in a couple of months. 

The full backstory to it is that me and @janetcarter were talking Terra Nova, as we are wont to do, since we have our own batshit insane version of that show that only really makes sense to us. (It involves bondage dinosaurs, authoritarian regimes, oppressed Americans, spray bottles, 1789, and about 867% more gay than the original show could have possibly conceived of.) And they’ve been rewatching it, so they’ve been kind of liveblogging it to me, and we were discussing Taylor being an authoritarian bag of dicks again. (This is an ongoing conversation; it’s great.) 

And they made the mistake of saying this: 

And it eventually led to me doing a half-mad rant that would form the skeleton of Paradise Lost. In the annotations, see the original text in italics VS the final text.

  “YEP.

 “DIRTY WORK.”

“THERE’S NO OTHER WAY I CAN INTERPRET THAT ONE” “MAYBE SHE DOESN’T KNOW THE FULL DETAILS ABOUT PHILBRICK BUT YOU CAN BET YOUR ASS SHE KNOWS *SOMETHING*” 

And, from there on, it was all Paradise Lost. I ended up copying and pasting those messages in a GDocs file, edited it, added some description and a few plot points, and within a day I had a one-shot. 

So, I accidentally wrote a one-shot out in a Tumblr pm and I was just like, “You know what? Fuck it. I need to write a one-shot out of this. My productivity’s been low recently, anyway. Merry Christmas, Avery, hohoho. Have some angst.” 

It was actually really exciting, in a sense, because this is a totally different setting than I’ve been working with for the last year and it was a chance to expand my horizons, even though, as has been HELPFULLY pointed out to me, it’s still set in the past. Just…millions of years ago as opposed to just hundreds. I played myself there.  

(Annotations under cut)

Taylor’s kid talks when he’s drunk.

Pretty much the first new sentence that I knew I was going to include. I really like the idea of Mira addressing Lucas mainly as “Taylor’s kid,” like, despite him being a pretentious little prick who thinks he’s a genius, she still views him as a whiny kid.  

It’s something they put up with for the sake of the mission, he comes in, gives them their marching orders, and takes a bottle or two of moonshine, the pink-purple liquid spilling across his lips along with the stories.

The fruit they come from is called “Frut” and it’s an ongoing joke between me, Avery, and @elluka, so it only made sense for me to include it here as an in-joke. Lucas loves that sweet frut juice. 

Also: It is 100% canon that they make alcohol from it. I ended up having to look up what dragonfruit juice looks like to make sure this would be as authentic as possible. 

 Not that she cares enough to make sense of the stuff, to Mira they’re all the same as those calculations he draws out on the rocks in bold white chalk, rambling on and on.

Most of the others, they’re smart enough to avoid him, they’ve been out here long enough to know a Slasher in the woods when they see one. So, that means Mira’s the one to keep him company, giving him another when his stock runs out, praying that there’s enough left over to keep up morale, because that’s always a problem in a hellpit like this.

People get lonely, start thinking about the past, wanting things that they can’t have. The alcohol, even if it’s weak compared to the real stuff, helps them drown it out for a little while, though she doesn’t take it. 

Sadly enough, we get so little Sixer development that we don’t really know what morale’s like in-camp, the show’s too busy telling us that these are Bad People because they oppose God Emperor Taylor, but I would suspect that, given that unlike the colony, they only ever intended to be here temporarily, it would have to be pretty miserable. How long were they told it would be? A couple of months, a year? After all the years it would be, I can only imagine the homesickness from some or the resignation from others. 

Tl;dr: Yeah, I suspect they would be bargaining with Boylan for some of that frut juice or they have a still in-camp, though it probably has to take a backburner to more important things like medicine and food. 

Instead, she keeps Sienna’s face in her head at all times, wrapping herself around it, thinking of her bright smile as she’d walk through the door, dropping the raggedy toy that Mira’d got her after a mission as she ran to greet her. (She tries to think of whether it was a T-Rex with the faded red fabric and the drooping limbs with the stuffing worn out of them or a spinosaurus, and when she can’t, she feels the need to get out of this place and back into the real world like a jolt in her brain.)

The reference to Sienna’s toy came in fairly late, but I actually really liked it, because (1) It adds that worldbuilding as far as Mira’s economic situation and (2) It reminds me of a bit from the original script where Terra Nova was HUGE, so of course dinosaurs would be a big thing now, and there’s a certain irony to Mira being sent to destroy something that her daughter loves so much in order to give them a better life. Also, I’d just seen a review for various spinosaurus plushies, so I might have been inspired.

It’s also really important that she refers to 2149 as “the real world,” as her way of distancing herself from whatever she does in Terra Nova, as well as distancing herself from Wash and her feelings for her. “This isn’t real, this is a job, it’s not the real world, it’s an alternative timeline.” 

This time, there wouldn’t be another time. She’d get the job done, get home, and give Sienna the life that she deserved. And she doesn’t give a damn about what she has to do to get it. That’s what she tells herself, and it’s what she’ll believe.  

One of the things that I really admire about Mira is how FOCUSED she is. That’s something that can be both a major pro, since it means that she’s very driven to get her goals, but it also means that she can be harsh when she feels like other people are falling behind and not focusing, even, say, to a young child like Leah Marcos. 

Until then, she’d keep giving Lucas Taylor the moonshine, quietly hoping he’d choke on it, until he wound up drooling on the floor before going off to brood in a cave for the next six months.

In case no one can tell the level of respect I have for Lucas Taylor, Boy Genius.

Alright, but judging from Mira’s interactions with him, she is clearly deeply unnerved, and even though his calculations are necessary for getting her back home…well, if he chokes, it’s not really HER fault. It’s this terrible situation where she’s stuck with him even as she’s clearly scared by him and would probably want him dead under any other circumstances.   

“You know what? Those people-I-I feel sorry for them! They’ll never know the truth about the Great Nathaniel Taylor,” he raises his arm suddenly, as if he was trying to give a clumsy toast, spilling moonshine everywhere.

“Seriously, WHY THE HELL wouldn’t Lucas at least tell the Sixers? He knows that to the colony, it’s The Great Nathaniel Taylor, but the Sixers don’t have any stake there”

Uh huh. Daddy Issues story #326 - Been there, done that, she thinks as she wipes some of the sticky liquid off of her cheek. 

This was honestly one of my favorite lines to write. One of the things that I mentioned to Avery while I was live-blogging writing this is how much I honestly LOVE Mira’s POV, given how incredibly snarky she is. It’s like she’s aware of what show she’s a part of and she’s dedicated herself to ripping it apart. 

I’m so used to working with viewpoint characters who were born centuries ago it was honestly a bit refreshing, as much as I love Lazare “Javert was busy so they booked me instead” de Peyrol and Solène “Women’s motherfucking March on Versailles” Mazurier. Mira is just so fundamentally DIFFERENT, being very blunt and no-nonsense as well as the aforementioned snarkiness, that she was really a treat to work with. 

The way the kid talks, you’d almost think that this kind of thing was unusual . They were all soldier’s kids, these days. They’d all had to do what they had to to survive, and not all of them had mommy and daddy propping them up through the early years, either. Going from home to home, place to place, hoping that a bomb wouldn’t explode over their heads, holding a gun in their hand from the first time they could salvage one.

“Lucas was there, and in between crying about his daddy issues…why wouldn’t he expose Taylor to the world?”

It’s always been a pity to me that we really didn’t get all that much backstory development for 2149, except for that it’s a Very Bad Place, pollution, wars, etc., so it was a bit of fun trying to imagine what Mira’s past might have looked like given she’s obviously not as privileged as the Shannons or the Taylors, the former of whom are definitely INSANELY privileged. I have to think of when Taylor’s doing his whole “I survived 118 days in the wilderness” thing and Mira snaps back, “Yeah, we’re going on 1000.” There’s this…edge to her, and it takes a lot to impress her, and I have to think it’s because she’s survived so much that there’s really little that can surprise her. 

She makes a non-committal sound in response.  

“You don’t believe me, do you? Nobody else does, but you see -” Lucas laughs as he leans forward, and Mira wonders if he’s really lost it this time and what to tell Phoenix Group if their golden boy’s finally cracked under the pressure. “I was there. When my father killed him. And now-Now he wants. To kill me. I know everything, about how General Philbrick tried to get my father to step down, and my father killed him as if he was some carno that’d gotten lose. He buried him under Pilgrim’s Tree, he buried him there and let it rot, but-” Lucas smiles, sharp and predatory, and it hits Mira in the gut that he believes this “He couldn’t kill me. I know the truth.”

She eyes him as he is, trying to run it through her brain. Taylor’s a son of a bitch, but not a murderer. As if he doesn’t notice, he goes on, slamming down his bottle with a dramatic flourish as he spreads his arms out wide, “The great Taylor family tragedy-The mad king, the exiled prince, and, as always, no one listens to the oracle. But it’s all here,” he taps his head, “It’s all right in here. Don’t believe me?” He says, with the smug self-confidence that makes Mira want to punch his teeth out, even smugger with the alcohol. “See for yourself. Remember the name: Richard Philbrick.”

“'Don’t believe me? See for yourself.’ Lucas would say, with that smug self confidence that makes Mira want to punch his teeth out, settling instead for ignoring it. 

I really, really hate writing Lucas, because it feels like no one would ever say this, but then I remember that he described his relationship with his father as “A Shakespearian drama that borders on Greek tragedy.” Like a pretentious douche who strings together important-sounding words. But, I do kind of like the idea of him treating himself and his father as just…players in a larger game. 

Mira finds herself thinking of it long after he’s back to drooling on the floor, with a hell of a hangover coming in the morning. The kid’s been loose in the wild for too long, everyone knows it. It’s like playing with a tiger to get anything out of him, and most of the time, he speaks in equations, not words, as he holds his brilliance over everyone else’s head. God knows what goes on in his mind.

“And at first Mira wouldn’t believe it, because Lucas is demonstrably unstable + would make up ANYTHING to discredit his father, but as time goes on it makes more sense. And, after all, Philbrick has dropped off the grid”

The line about equations, not words is exactly how I feel whenever he appears on screen and the rest of the characters have to pretend that the words he’s piecing together actually make sense. 

And he hates his father. Not that you need to be a genius to know that one. He’d say anything about him, so long as it’d rain on Taylor’s little “big bright beautiful tomorrow” parade. Taylor’s an optimist, always going on about that bright new future for everyone. Peace, love, the American way, all that bullshit. Murdering someone-It’s not his MO. There’s nothing in the three inches-tall dossier they handed off to her the week before she went through Hope Plaza that’d say that. 

I had to get “There’s a Big, Bright, Beautiful Tomorrow” stuck in my head for this. 

She turns in her hammock, watching the tops of the trees sway gently in the wind through the little netted opening that’s as close as she’s got to a window, as a pteranodon flies across the moon. There are times she could almost get to like this place. She thinks of Sienna and frowns. Almost.

You will never know how pissed I am that we never got to see “Mira’s Lair” as Taylor calls it. I think that they would have to have some form of netting to keep out the mosquitoes and any other creepy crawlies, but yet again, the worldbuilding was shit there and I’m sad. 

(She remembers the first time she’d seen the moon, without the pollution there to cover it up or a million lights to dim it, white and gleaming and so big, Wash’s arm, strong and warm, around her as they’d made their way to the colony.) 

The kid’s lying, she tells herself, there’s no point in taking the bait.

In the morning, he’s back to scrawling more equations on rocks, and she’s back to taking care of her colony. That should be it.

It isn’t.

It sits there in the back of her mind, buzzing like a little mosquito that she can’t quite swat. She hates that about the kid, how he can get under her skin, make her think.

Taylor as a murderer? It doesn’t fit with that squeaky-clean, messiah complex image he’s tried to work up. Not that he’d be the first. Everyone has their demons, and God knows what’s underneath that benevolent dictator image. But if he was, then… 

If he was, then Wash is involved, too. But of course she can’t say that, because that would be admitting it to herself. 

I have to think that given the amount of corruption in 2149, Taylor being a bitch wouldn’t be a surprise, and that’s something I tried to show, but that it doesn’t fit HIM (and, more importantly, Mira’s still trying to protect Wash in her mind.) 

She ignores it, and ignores it, but it’s still there, in the back of her mind, and finally, she gives in.

“She ignores it, and ignores it, but it’s still there, in the back of her mind”

Is Taylor really capable of that?

“Is Taylor capable of that?”

So she checks. Still being in contact with 2149 has its perks, and she doesn’t have to run that kind of thing by Taylor (convenient, the voice whispers in her ear, that he controls the access to the outside world. She’d always thought it was so no one decided to get stuck on something dangerous like “democracy” or “basic human rights,” but it’d be useful as Hell if he was keeping something a secret.)

“And keep in mind: The Sixers can CONTACT THE OUTSIDE WORLD AND GET THAT INFO”

Philbrick’s missing they say, but there are holes in the record. Missing in South America? It’s the new “went on a long vacation and never came back.” And even if she’s not out there writing equations on rocks, she’s not stupid. Stupid gets you killed, where Mira’s from. Her employers play the evasion game, remind her what she has to lose if she presses, and she folds. Officially. But she knows one thing: Richard Philbrick’s dead, and wherever he is, it’s not South America.

So she checks. Philbrick’s missing they say, but there are all those little holes.”

Honestly, I hate writing any kind of detective work, because it all feels like a reach, so this was a hard section to write. But also absolutely necessary. 

Boylan seems to know everything that goes on in the colony, for the right price, and she corners him one day after they’ve just gotten ahold of some medical supplies.

Thank God for Boylan providing the plot-convenient information. Or not providing it, as the case may be. He actually wasn’t planned, but when I was writing it, it felt like I needed more between the web search and Mira making her realization, so Boylan got to make an appearance. Yay, Boylan.  

He just shakes his head, “Isn’t enough money in the world to make me tell you that.”

You know it’s bad when Boylan’s not willing to haggle for information. You know, it’s sad when you think of it: Boylan guarded Taylor’s secret faithfully for years, and only gave it away by accident…because he was tortured by the man he’d once considered a friend. Taylor deserved all the fallback from that one. 

“You and he used to be old war buddies, now you can’t stand each other. So what happened?” She tilts her head as she stares him down, the way she knows makes her people stand down when they’re being stubborn. 

He just shakes his head head again, walking away, and that’s all the confirmation she needs that something’s up.

Philbrick’s disappearance.

Taylor turning on his own kid.

Taylor turning on Boylan.                      

It all starts to make sense.

But there’s one thing left, one thing she needs: Proof.

The next time Lucas shows up, she glares at him, “The body. Where is it?”

He smirks in response and takes her to Pilgrim’s Tree.

I really debated including this section, because it seems to go against canon, but I couldn’t imagine anything LESS than that convincing Mira, when she knows that the body’s there. 

That’s the thing with secrets: They never stay buried, especially if you leave someone alive to tell the tale. 

“The thing with secrets is that they NEVER stay secret long” - Literally the first line of the rant that kicked this off. 

And the body of a man, missing a limb in just the right place, well, that tells a story all on its own. There’s no point doing anything with it, when all they have’s the word of Taylor’s unstable son and a corpse against a legend. Better to put him back in the ground and wait for when it can be useful. As they cover the body again, spreading dead leaves across the upturned soil so it looks undisturbed, Mira feels her gut twist.

This was my haphazard attempt at keeping things consistent with canon, as much as it could be. 

It’s never been personal between her and Taylor. It’s just a job, just like it always was (she tells herself as she thinks of trusting dark eyes sparked by the firelight as Wash sat opposite her, stretching a black hairband absently between her fingers, her black hair loose around her shoulders. That night, she’d forgotten her mission for a moment. Just a moment, but it was enough.)

“And slowly, but surely, things make sense. And honestly, Mira’s horrified, because it was never PERSONAL between her and Taylor. It was a job (she tells herself as she thinks of trusting dark eyes by the firelight).”

It doesn’t really make sense for MIra to have that undercurrent of bitterness that she has towards Taylor in canon; my girl’s a mercenary at nature, I can’t see her taking it personally. But this? Was honestly the first time Mira’s character clicked for me. 

Also Wash + her hairband is one of my favorite things, in no part because of the 1789 crossover meaning that she and Laz get to bond over their ponytails. As is Wash sans hairband, because I’m gay. And imagining Wash’s younger, idealistic self honestly hurts, because Mira’s betrayal took so much of that from her. 

She knows why she didn’t want to believe it: For Taylor to be capable of it, that means that everything Wash told her, all that bullshit about a better future, is a lie. Wash is always there by Taylor’s side, saying “How high?” even before he says “Jump.” (He doesn’t deserve it, she thinks; if she was with them, she’d be raking in a solid 2 or 3 figures more as a medic alone.) There’s no way she doesn’t know.

“And maybe she doesn’t want to believe it because for Taylor to be capable of it, that means that EVERYTHING Wash told her, about a better future, is a lie. Wash is as complicit as Taylor, she’s always there by his side, there’s no way she doesn’t know. 

Also, props to Mira for STILL thinking about how much Taylor doesn’t deserve Wash even as she’s realizing that Wash is complicit in human rights violations. 

She’s never been one for the new, better future that Taylor goes on about, about second chances and fresh starts, she has to spend her time on solid ground with what they have now rather than chasing after rainbows and unicorns. But when Wash talked about it, hope in her eyes, Mira’d almost…

And as it all comes together Mira feels a little bit of her heart (which is already mostly hardened, after years of war, years of eat or be eaten only a few inches of red pulsing muscle remain, and it’s for her daughter and Wash) calcify.

And as it all comes together Mira feels a little bit of her heart (which is already mostly calcified, years of war, years of eat or be eaten hardening it, only a few inches of red pulsing muscle remain, and it’s for her daughter and Wash) calcify.  

This is one of the bits that remained virtually unchanged from concept to final product, mainly because I really, really liked it, and it’s probably the reason I ultimately ended up writing it down in the first place. 

“Still doing Taylor’s dirty work?” She’ll ask, several years later, as Wash looks up at her in-Hatred? Anger? Surprise? Mira blames the smudged black eyeliner for hiding her eyes.

‘Still doing Taylor’s dirty work?’ I know the truth now, is what she’s really saying, I’m not naive anymore.”

Not that it matters. Not anymore.

She’s trying to say that it doesn’t matter what Wash thinks and that she’s over it, but she isn’t. She was still hoping, on some level, for Wash to say something. But then she doesn’t, and so Mira uses her as leverage for what she wants, telling herself that it doesn’t matter because it’s all for the mission, anyway. 

I know the truth now, is what she’s really saying, I’m not naive anymore.

I know.

And somehow, it doesn’t feel as good as she thought it would. 

This line was the only thing I could think of to end it on, even as I didn’t like it overly much, but I wanted it to be a very bittersweet at best ending from Mira’s perspective. She’s broken free of the lies Taylor told, at least she thinks so, she’s brought Wash down a peg or two, but it can’t be a victory because she really didn’t get what she really wanted, which was for Wash to renounce Taylor and jump in her arms. 

My other alternate title was “Prometheus” [which I discarded because (1) It was Lucas levels of pretentious and (2) it centered Lucas rather than Mira], and I feel like both of the titles kind of encapsulates the idea there: You get the knowledge you want, but at what cost? 

[cazacuflorin]

100 Reasons NOT To Kill Yourself

1. We would miss you. 2. It’s not worth the regret. Either by yourself if you failed or just simply left scars, or the regret everyone else feels by not doing enough to help you. 3. It does get better. Believe it or not it will eventually get better. Sometimes you have to go through the storm to get to the rainbow. 4. There’s so much you would miss out on doing. 5. There is always a reason to live. It might not be clear right now, but it is always there. 6. So many people care, and it would hurt them if you hurt yourself. 7. You ARE worth it. Don’t let anyone, especially yourself, tell you otherwise. 8. You are amazing. 9. A time will come, once you’ve battled the toughest times of your life and are in ease once again, where you will be so glad that you decided to keep on living. You will emerge stronger from this all, and won’t regret your choice to carry on with life. Because things always get better. 10. What about all the things you’ve always wanted to do? What about the things you’ve planned, but never got around to doing? You can’t do them when you’re dead. 11. I love you. Even if only one person loves you, that’s still a reason to stay alive. 12. You won’t be able to listen to music if you die. 13. Killing yourself is never worth it. You’ll hurt both yourself and all the people you care about. 14. There are so many people that would miss you, including me. 15. You’re preventing a future generation, YOUR KIDS, from even being born. 16. How do you think your family would feel? Would it improve their lives if you died? 17. You’re gorgeous, amazing, and to someone you are perfect. 18. Think about your favourite music artist, you’ll never hear their voice again… 19. You’ll never have the feeling of walking into a warm building on a cold day 20. Listening to incredibly loud music 21. Being alive is just really good. 22. Not being alive is really bad. 23. Finding your soulmate. 24. Red pandas 25. Going to diners at three in the morning. 26. Really soft pillows. 27. Eating pizza in New York City. 28. Proving people wrong with your success. 29. Watching the jerks that doubted you fail at life. 30. Seeing someone trip over a garbage can. 31. Being able to help other people. 32. Bonfires. 33. Sitting on rooftops. 34. Seeing every single country in the world. 35. Going on roadtrips. 36. You might win the lottery someday. 37. Listening to music on a record player. 38. Going to the top of the Eiffel Tower. 39. Taking really cool pictures. 40. Literally meeting thousands of new people. 41. Hearing crazy stories. 42. Telling crazy stories. 43. Eating ice cream on a hot day. 44. More Harry Potter books could come out, you never know. 45. Travelling to another planet someday. 46. Having an underwater house. 47. Randomly running into your hero on the street. 48. Having your own room at a fancy hotel. 49. Trampolines. 50. Think about your favourite movie, you’ll never watch it again. 51. Think about the feeling of laughing out loud in a public place because your best friend has just sent you an inside joke, 52. Your survival will make the world better, even if it’s for just one person or 20 or 100 or more. 53. People do care. 54. Treehouses 55. Hanging out with your soul mate in a treehouse 55. Snorting when you laugh and not caring who sees 56. I don’t even know you and I love you. 57. I don’t even know you and I care about you. 58. Because nobody is going to be like you ever, so embrace your uniqueness! 59. You won’t be here to experience the first cat world emperor. 60. WHAT ABOUT FOOD?! YOU’LL MISS CHOCOLATE AND ALL THE OTHER NOM THINGS! 61. Starbucks. 62. Hugs. 63. Stargazing. 64. You have a purpose, and it’s up to you to find out what it is. 65. You’ve changed somebody’s life. 66. Now you could change the world. 67. You will meet the person that’s perfect for you. 68. No matter how much or how little, you have your life ahead of you. 69. You have the chance to save somebody’s life. 70. If you end your life, you’re stopping yourself from achieving great things. 71. Making snow angels. 72. Making snowmen. 73. Snowball fights. 74. Life is what you make of it. 75. Everybody has a talent. 76. Laughing until you cry. 77. Having the ability to be sad means you have the ability to be happy. 78. The world would not be the same if you didn’t exist. 79. Its possible to turn frowns, upside down 80. Be yourself, don’t take anyone’s shit, and never let them take you alive. 81. Heroes are ordinary people who make themselves extraordinary. Be your own hero. 82. Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections. 83. One day your smile will be real. 84. Having a really hot, relaxing bath after a stressful day. 85. Lying on grass and laughing at the clouds. 86. Getting completely smashed with your best friends. 87. Eating crazy food. 88. Staying up all night watching your favourite films with a loved one. 89. Sleeping in all day. 90. Creating something you’re proud of. 91. You can look back on yourself 70 years later and being proud you didn’t commit 92. Being able to meet your Internet friends. 93. Tea / Coffee / Hot Chocolate 94. Sherlock season three. 95. Cuddling under the stars. 96. Being stupid in public because you just can. 97. If you are reading this then you are alive! Is there any more reason to smile? 98. being able to hug that one person you havent seen in years 99. People care enough about you and your future to come up with 100 reasons for you not to do this. 100. But, the final and most important one is, just, being able to experience life. Because even if your life doesn’t seem so great right now, literally anything could happen

IF that isn’t enough:

Depression Hotline: 1-630-482-9696 Suicide Hotline: 1-800-784-8433 LifeLine: 1-800-273-8255 Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386 Sexuality Support: 1-800-246-7743 Eating Disorders Hotline: 1-847-831-3438 Rape and Sexual Assault: 1-800-656-4673 Grief Support: 1-650-321-5272 Runaway: 1-800-843-5200, 1-800-843-5678, 1-800-621-4000 Exhale: After Abortion Hotline/Pro-Voice: 1-866-4394253 Child Abuse: 1-800-422-4453 UK Helplines: Samaritans (for any problem): 08457909090 e-mail jo@samaritans.org Childline (for anyone under 18 with any problem): 08001111 Mind infoline (mental health information): 0300 123 3393 e-mail: info@mind.org.uk Mind legal advice (for people who need mental-health related legal advice): 0300 466 6463 legal@mind.org.uk b-eat eating disorder support: 0845 634 14 14 (only open Mon-Fri 10.30am-8.30pm and Saturday 1pm-4.30pm) e-mail: help@b-eat.co.uk b-eat youthline (for under 25’s with eating disorders): 08456347650 (open Mon-Fri 4.30pm - 8.30pm, Saturday 1pm-4.30pm) Cruse Bereavement Care: 08444779400 e-mail: helpline@cruse.org.uk Frank (information and advice on drugs): 0800776600 Drinkline: 0800 9178282 Rape Crisis England & Wales: 0808 802 9999 1(open 2 - 2.30pm 7 - 9.30pm) e-mail info@rapecrisis.org.uk Rape Crisis Scotland: 08088 01 03 02 every day, 6pm to midnight India Self Harm Hotline: 00 08001006614 India Suicide Helpline: 022-27546669 Kids Help Phone (Canada): 1-800-668-6868, Free and available 24/7 suicide hotlines; Argentina: 54-0223-493-0430 Australia: 13-11-14 Austria: 01-713-3374 Barbados: 429-9999 Belgium: 106 Botswana: 391-1270 Brazil: 21-233-9191 China: 852-2382-0000 (Hong Kong: 2389-2222) Costa Rica: 606-253-5439 Croatia: 01-4833-888 Cyprus: 357-77-77-72-67 Czech Republic: 222-580-697, 476-701-908 Denmark: 70-201-201 Egypt: 762-1602 Estonia: 6-558-088 Finland: 040-5032199 France: 01-45-39-4000 Germany: 0800-181-0721 Greece: 1018 Guatemala: 502-234-1239 Holland: 0900-0767 Honduras: 504-237-3623 Hungary: 06-80-820-111 Iceland: 44-0-8457-90-90-90 Ireland: 1800-247-100 Israel: 09-8892333 Italy: 06-705-4444 Japan: 3-5286-9090 Latvia: 6722-2922, 2772-2292 Malaysia: 03-756-8144 (Singapore: 1-800-221-4444) Mexico: 525-510-2550 Netherlands: 0900-0767 New Zealand: 4-473-9739 New Guinea: 675-326-0011 Nicaragua: 505-268-6171 Norway: 47-815-33-300 Philippines: 02-896-9191 Poland: 52-70-000 Portugal: 239-72-10-10 Russia: 8-20-222-82-10 Serbia: 21-6623-393 Spain: 91-459-00-50 South Africa: 0861-322-322 South Korea: 2-715-8600 Sweden: 031-711-2400 Switzerland: 143 Taiwan: 0800-788-995 Thailand: 02-249-9977 Trinidad and Tobago: 868-645-2800 Ukraine: 0487-327715 Uruguay: 095 73 8483 You will be missing out on every single wonderful thing yet to happen to you.