#but also he’s horrified of going to it when he does eventually die for good so he avoids it until he can’t anymore

[turqu01s3]

William Afton’s religious trauma is my Roman Empire. He believes in Hell and that he’s going to it. I’m sure part of why he was able to survive being springlocked was his anger but his fear of Hell was probably a pretty big part of how his agony was able to infuse with remnant

[gwenllian-in-the-abbey]

i think Helaena can be autistic but also a happy and joyful girl , autism ≠ depression. the way the portrayed the only neurodivergent character on screen as unstable, shunned depressed, and with no importance to the plot feel very ableist and weird , but then they're the ones who made the guy with a foot disability a feet fetishist 🫠

Hi OP, finally answering this because the trailer dropped and still the only Helaena shots we have are from her Jaehaerys' funeral. There is also one still photo of her. If you haven't seen it, here she is, apparently sewing the funeral shroud for her little boy:

So it seems like season 2 is going to continue on this trajectory for Helaena as a character who exists in order to suffer beautifully.

Don't get me wrong. I am glad that the show is going to wring the full emotional effect from Blood and Cheese, not just shock value. The audience will feel the real horror of a six year old child brutally murdered in his own home and the psychological torment of Helaena. It should be terrible, it should be devastating, and I hope they do not pull any punches.

What's disappointing about how the show has handled Helaena is that they didn't really put any effort into building up her character before her tragedy. It's all well and good that she likes bugs and she's touch averse, but what are her opinions? Who is she closest to? How did she react to becoming a mother so young? To what extent does she understand her visions? What does she value? She can be happy and cheerful, or she can be frustrated and angry, and hell, she can be depressed too, but I need to know why. It's telling that I can describe the basic internal motivations for each of the male children, including Luke who was a glorified plot device, but I cannot for Helaena. Aegon wants to feel loved, Jace wants to prove he's as worthy as any trueborn heir, Aemond wants what his brother has, Luke wants to be free from his family's expectations. Helaena? Fuck if I know. I guess she wants not to die horribly.

The ableism is an issue. F&B is full of women who were deemed "simple" -- Gael, Daella, Jaehaera-- without being given much else to define them, and HotD adds another (there's something, I think, to the way the "simple" Targaryens are always women and how disability kind of used as a way to remove them from the narrative and shunt them aside, often tragically). And while it's great to see an autistic person represented on screen, the show consistently has an issue with treating representation as characterization. "Autistic girl who likes bugs" is not a personality. Autistic people, (even those with horrifying prophesies I assume), do have hopes and dreams and feelings about things. The one peek we get into Helaena's life is at the in episode 8 when she roasts Aegon and even that scene is open to interpretation (and gets taken wildly out of context). Now, I can read a lot into the actor performances, but ultimately, lines that could have given a glimpse Helaena personality were cut. It's as if they're afraid that if they give her an opinion on anything she would lose that (frankly kind of infantilizing) "pure cinnamon roll too good for this world" "i would die for her" sympathy from people who are not inclined to be sympathetic for her family as a whole.

(And anon, you're right about Larys. And let me say, turning Larys' clubfoot into the punchline of an OnlyFeet joke also does not inspire confidence that they'll handle Aegon II's eventual disability with any sensitivity either, especially when Mushroom's accounts of his last few months are incredibly mean spirited. We need to start that discourse now so they get the memo).

Sadly, I don't think the show really has any intention of course correcting with Helaena in season 2. I imagine at most we'll have her try to warn Aegon and/or Aemond about Blood & Cheese but they won't understand her warning, and then this will be a vehicle to further their guilt and grief. And while we do need to see Aegon's guilt and his grief, I also want to know if Helaena blames herself, if she wishes they'd run away when they had the chance, if she thinks Aegon could have done something, if she is angry at Aemond for killing Luke, if she wants revenge. I do think, with the public funeral for Jaehaerys, they are going to show that the smallfolk are fond of Helaena, and hopefully that will be expanded upon this season and in season 3 because her death is the catalyst for the revolt that sees Rhaenyra driven from the city, and we should understand why her death has such an impact before she actually dies.

[dangermousie]

I love so much that Young Hwa developed feelings for Do Ha. It's glorious!

The thing that makes me positively wild isn't just that he rescues her, in contrast to his dream at the beginning of past ep but that here is his supposed solution. All he has to do is to remove his hand and she falls and dies by his hand and he gets his goal (since he believes the curse will break if she dies by his hand, though I am beginning to think it will actually break if she makes it past 30 just once.) And it does not even occur to him.

Instead look at them:

His face at that! But she isn't wrong, you know. I think the dad has been murdering her over and over to make the curse keep going and now he's finally got the chance to save her and that is what will break it. But meanwhile I am incoherent at the way he just drinks in, stunned, being held by her.

And her confession...

That is the ending I would adore but it would never work - he's a ghost in a body of a terminally ill man, so how would it even go? But please please.

We all know the answer is no.

I also loved that he told her about the part of the curse where she dies before 30 every single time and it took her a little bit but she ultimately believed it. And then we got to this:

That is truly horrifying. The more we learn about the curse, the more horrific it becomes for both - she never gets a full life and he? It was bad enough when I thought a man who wanted to die was just trapped never being able to die and a man who was lonely was trapped being alone. But it's worse. It's a man who loved a woman so much, having to watch her never remember him or interact with him and die horrifically over and over and over again. When he finally gets a body and goes to kill her right after hugging her, there is a reason it never felt like a result of rage - I think for him by then it's a mercy killing for the both of them, so the are finally free of the curse and can reincarnate into people with normal life. To him it's salvation for them both.

Honestly, horrifying. He was man who wanted to die and cannot die but also the man who wanted his woman to live and has to watch her die over and over. Good God.

But I do think there is a reason daddy is so frantic for her die before she hits 30; if she makes past it the curse will be broken. And I love how past is connected more and more to the present - loved that she realized that the bracelet that protected her was made from the beads Do Ha gave her past self way when and the whole thing the monk told her about "items that contain strong wishes eventually find their owners" and she realizes that the item Do Ha got her 1500 years ago to protect her has been protecting her in this life; - that was glorious!

[mariatesstruther]

man man man imagine like, still!outbreak AU tommy finds ellie outside jackson needing safety, his dad mode wakes 100% and he brings her inside jackson to live with him and maria cause he always imagined having a daughter with maria🥺

OKAY YES ANON YES YES. BUT ALSO YES AND

maybe an au where marlene KEPT ellie with her????? where she was raised among the fireflies???? maybe marlene told her she was the daughter of her best friend, a fellow rebel that got killed, but never that her mom was bit?????? so ellie doesn’t know she’s immune, and she’s sort of raised as marlene’s goddaughter with other children of firefly rebels

and maybe marlene tells herself that ellie’s immunity will eventually save them all, that she has to keep her safe, that she has to keep her alive and away from fucking everything long enough for them to figure out a cure. she doesn’t know or even suspect that it would take killing ellie to get their way—by the time they do figure it out, ellie’s like a daughter to her. she’s watched this kid grow up to hate tuna like anna and laugh like anna and love terrible puns, just like anna. before marlene’s eyes, ellie turns into anna’s mini-me without even knowing it; so what else is she to do but grow to love her too? that’s anna’s baby, anna and marlene’s baby. she loves her more than the world, more than the anything, more than the fireflies. more than a cure

so maybe when marlene finds out what abby’s dad has planned, she makes a different choice. she tells ellie the truth, that she’s sorry, and that she needs to go. ellie (who is blessedly not burdened by survivors guilt from riley and company) wants to live, of course she does. even if she hadn’t, marlene wouldn’t have let her die. she couldn’t

instead, she finds the most trustworthy yet capable and dangerous man she knows: tommy miller. what she hears of him is plenty, but what she knows for sure is this: he’s a great soldier, he’s a good man, and he used to have a neice named sarah. him and ellie already get along, luckily, because he teaches math to the firefly kids a few times a week. she tells him what is planned, and he’s horrified. she tells him how to stop it, so he does (kills a few people along the way, which she covers for. theyre good.)

then at this point, i actually think it’d be fun if joel and tess run into tommy and ellie somewhere random in the woods of wyoming 😭😭😭 maybe when joel and tess break into that old couple’s house from 1x06 and he asks if they’ve heard of a tommy, they actually go “you know what… some guy named tommy was here with a twelve year old not even two hours ago. little one cusses like a sailor. they went that way.”

im tagging in a-level marlene appreciator @clickergossip bc i want her to see this. anon thank u so much.

[walnutcookie]

hello there mister almond sir i just read your Misfortune infodump and i. am intrigued. i would like to hear more pretty please /nf

MISFORTUNE RANT PART 2💥💥 THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ASK BWAAA/GEN ...

part 1 here

so . Unfortunately i am a sucker for fluff and also capchat so that is precisely the ending my fanon gets HXVDKDB

langue comes to visit cappu in her office the day after he saw misfortune again and finds her like half dead with a hangover and theyre like Hey. What the fuck happened. shes a little hesitant because yknow not everyone will believe you when you say theres a giant 10 foot raven inside of you!! but he tells langue EVERYTHING and based on what cappu tells them. They believe her!! they are horrified and greatly disgusted (thhey dont like the thought of a giant bird covered in blood crawling in and out of cappus mouth so they make her swish out his mouth before they kiss him /hj)

but langue is a stubborn fuck. a perfectionist and an overachiever. they are going to fight misery itself just to prove they can. So!! misfortune feeds off of cappuccino being miserable? then they just have to make her life As good and lovely as possible so that he never feels miserable. or at least not enough for it to feed off of her

they manage to convince their parents (who were never very fond of cappu and just saw her as a bad influence for their precious lovely child) to let cappu move in with them temporarily and they quickly start to adore him because Of Course They Do. Langue is going to nag him about every little thing until he Actually Does It so eventually they manage to get him a proper sleep schedule, wean her off of cigarettes, heavily cut her daily coffee intake, and most importantly keep her from being isolated so often. Love wins !

obviously it takes a loong time and misfortune is NOT happy that this little fuck is managing to ignore all of the disasters its causing (falling furniture. fires. shattered windows. anything it can manage to do) and somehow not die from any of it and eventually They succeed ! Cappuccino is actually happy! even though misfortune still tries to make her life a living hell she now has support from langue AND their parents and so shes able to actually push through and recover from his bad luck instead of just having to sit there and endure it (or desperately find ways to escape it)

right now the silly ending is misfortune senses a very very miserable being walking down the street and goes to hide in them instead but it turns out it was ROGUEFORT and misfortune has thousands of year old beef with their sentient cloak goddess (lupine) and it escapes heavily weakened.

it is so itty bitty now. but it has found that movie theaters produce a good amount of misery for it to feed off of and it lives in there now lol. Diversity win! The spirit of misfortune likes popcorn!

this is all just a silly ending though idk if its canon or not . Either way misfortune leaves cappu and finds another victim HXBDKFB

meanwhile cappu is FUCKING DYING!!! It clawed its way out of his chest since it no longer cared if she died or not and had no use for her it just left her to die. Thankfully it was in langues house so he was rushed to a hospital as soon as langue saw her with his chest literally wide open (they frew up) and Cappu Survived!!!!

thats basically it HXVDKF cappu rides in a car while conscious for the first time in years when langues parents drive her home from the hospital and he is an Anxious Mess because of how many accidents hes been in and how its caused her to be absolutely terrified of cars. but langue is there to hold his hand and. um. yeah just kind of hold her hand because they are AWFUL at comforting people. But their parents try to say some comforting things !!! poor thang is trembling

if anyone has any questions i would love to answer :3!! i love this silly raven thang so much

[princesseevee06]

soso curious abt kurumada taking megumi’s role in ytr… boy what crimes have you committed .

HI TUMBLR USER FUKANAMIS WOULD YOU BELIEVE ME IF I TOLD YOU KURUMADA HAD DONE NOTHING WRONG IN HIS LIFE. AND IT WAS ACTUALLY SOMEHOW RANMARU WHO WAS THE ONE COMMITTING CRIMES. WELL,

around the time i was still first figuring out this au, i was really struggling on what to do with megumi’s role because i was like: kai is taking keiji’s role here. who would piss off kai bad enough that he’d leave them to die. eventually i decided, well no. even though kai is taking keiji’s role here, he’s still just kai and probably would not do what keiji did in his first trial. so maybe i’m barking up the wrong tree

around the same time, i was also trying to figure out what to do with ranmaru for my au. i didn’t want to just leave him the same with virtually no differences, because i thought “well i’ve given all these characters interesting differences and don’t want to leave ranmaru in the dust” so i ended up incorporating a liiiiil bit of keiji stuff into ranmaru instead. basically, in ytr ranmaru’s parents are detectives, and while he’s not exactly passionate about the business himself he knows a lot about it and feels pressured to pursue it (and therefore tries to act like he knows exactly what he’s talking about when discussing crime and the kidnappers in the death game)

i swear this is relevant to kurumada. ok so. i always thought it would be fun if like in a non-death game scenario ranmaru and kurumada were buddies. and i had this vague memory of in the game kurumada at the police box basically saying he’d had run-ins with the police before 😭 and i was like wouldn’t it be SO funny if that’s how he and ranmaru started chatting in ytr. he gets taken in for something petty and ranmaru is like “man. what did you do this time”

(if there’s any significant things i’m missing on kurumada’s character btw. i have still not watched kurumada’s mini ep. YES i know it’s a crime but the only one i’ve watched all the way through start to finish is kai’s 😭)

and then i had the idea of them actually becoming friends with kurumada being like a “tough love” mentor to ranmaru :) which is all swell and good of course until the both of them get KIDNAPPED

the first trial they get is a duo one, and i had the idea of it taking place in the white room on floor 2 (since i’m pretty sure that’s where ranmaru’s original first trial took place…?). it’s a similar concept to the one with the beds, and basically the premise is that both of them are chained to opposite sides of the room, and they have to figure out a way to both get out before the timer runs out and Bad things happen. however, there’s a catch: each person has a button next to them where if they press it, they are freed, but it instantly kills their trial partner. I think you can see where this is going already

ranmaru and kurumada initially try to work together to get themselves both freed obviously, but as time starts ticking down there with no solutions ranmaru starts freaking out. he doesn’t want to die feeling like his life was wasted not doing anything he really cared about, and in this moment he realizes how much he really wants to live. this combined with the intense panic from the first trial leads him to (purposely? accidentally?) press the button and kill kurumada.

of course, this doesn’t come without its mental toll. once ranmaru comes back to his senses he’s horrified about what he did. but when he meets the others he does a good job of hiding how he’s really feeling (or at least better than kugie, which gets more people focused on her) so no one knows what happened. For now that is

ranmaru also gets hallucinations of kurumada! yaaaaaaaaaay (sarcasm)

anyways yeah i . yeah. free my man kurumada he literally did not do anything wrong

[thenamesblurrito]

ask dump lucky number thirteen!

13 is actually my lucky number! it's been awhile since i wrote out any SNAP lore, let's hope i still got the touch

these asks include: Halloween, remote control bodies, mythic plants, minicon mass shifting, Sixshot's fluid transformations, Cheetor speaking with mechanimals, gambling, gravity-compressed food, sparks generating energy, and power up sounds

i don't think i have any expies of Halloween specifically. in the holiday list there's a few that would have spooky or dour undertones, like the Wake of Mortilus or the Tragedy. a lot of dwelling on the dead, the monstrous and such around then. it's plausible some cultures decide to make it a creepy costume festival

i absolutely do not remember that, all i remember about remote control bodies is the sturgeonoid thing. i don't think i do have a remote control body villain??

your version actually sounds more horrifying than anything, being able to rip someone from their body and put them into whatever you please. that's a puppetmaster setup right there. actually when i think about it that way i may have a villain who has done exactly that... hm

that's not a bad idea, i'd never thought about that before! there are old and extinct species of cyberflora, since Vector Sigma does occasionally stop producing certain types and they eventually all die off, so it's possible some of these got mythologized. even normal plants could be mythologized i suppose. maybe some city-states have legends about the bombegranate being used to trick wandering travelers to stay in the Well when they eat a few seeds or something like that

mischief

it's not infinite mass shifting, they have a lower range of approximately minibot sparkling sized and an upper range of about a size 3 youngling, which means they can vary by about 15'. mostly they use it to shrink down and squeeze into tight places or go unnoticed, and bulk up to intimidate or throw a heavier punch. they're very creative with it and quickly figure out how changing sizes affects their speed and handling in their alt modes when on the run. it's also a useful ability to distract and unnerve or even make someone completely not recognize them at a glance. i haven't drawn them yet, but Squawkbox mass shifts to more comfortably combine in root mode, as they're something of a mitotic spark when powered up instead of the separate twins they are as normal kids. it'll be better explained when i draw them

Sixshot could definitely do that, absolutely. it violates all known Cybertronian physicality and rules of biology, so it'd be just as horrifying as if you saw a human do that! but it's also exactly the kind of thing they'd do, tbh. they're kind of weird and sometimes lean into the unnerving vibe. i doubt Makeshift could do this when powered down (yet) but they definitely start getting a lil more fluid and flexible than normal even as a kid

oooo this was a cool short!

it's sort of possible. Cheetor can speak with mechanimals but that doesn't mean he can control them. a scene like this would require a LENGTHY conversation beforehand, convincing every insecticon or scraplet in the vicinity to help him out and either wasting time arguing with them or abandoning his efforts if they don't want to cooperate, and also going over a game plan for a specific strategy like forming bodies out of the swarm. most mechanimals don't even have complex thoughts like that either, so it would be an incredible challenge. he would have more success telling a mechanimal that an enemy is a good foodsource, or an interloper on their territory, or a threat to nests and dens, or something like that. simple things, not moral concepts, that align with what mechanimals actually experience and prioritize

this does of course mean sometimes he gets stuck negotiating or wheedling or out-stubborning a particularly unruly mechanimal, or trying to inventively communicate something that, say, a random songbird absolutely would not care about nor have any frame of reference for. a pigeonoid won't be able to repeat back vital information some Enforcers were talking about, only whether or not they dropped crumbs in their wake

it might be more effective asking scraplets to eat an enemy and work around what they do than tell them to swarm in a specific pattern

huh, i dunno! i don't know very much about gambling at all tbh

i imagine there's plenty of card games, betting on sports (especially on Velocitron), maybe even some gacha games or lotteries. i'm unfamiliar with a lot of slot machine or other gambling type of devices but i think there's probably some that work with object interfacing, and folks are more likely to think it's dependent on how your brain works or how efficient you are at interface when it's still up to chance

i'm not sure gambling would have as big a draw for mecha as it does for humans tbh. they can instinctively calculate probabilities more accurately than humans, and i don't think they'd get as big a dopamine hit on random chance success as we do. gambling games like cards or sports would be more attractive, where they can actually participate/predict and influence their chances

she definitely could, she does so with much larger chunks of matter all the time, but i'm not sure if it would be edible anymore. something that heavily compressed would be incredibly dense, so i'm not sure it would be chewable, and it may sit in a mech's tanks for way too long, or even be indigestible. she'd have to pick her materials and level of compression very carefully and experiment a bit with the assistance of someone who knows more about food. for junkers specifically, their more pressing need is fuel/energon over self-repair materials, and i don't think very many fuel sources could be so easily made into a lil food ball... energon would prolly just explode. Elita 2 might be able to help, but they'd need to be careful to not make it toxic. the idea has merit, but the execution isn't so simple

(the post this is referring to)

when they're alive, sparks sort of are self-generating. enough to perpetuate themselves, but not enough to power an entire frame without outside energy from fuel. but once they're gone, they're gone... with some recent notable exceptions. but a ghost isn't regenerative, it's just an imprint of energy that managed to stay roughly person-esque, which can happen with particularly powerful sparks like those of the supernatural Primes. but again, the way Vector died, he really shouldn't have had a ghost at all. i'm not telling you how bc i'd like to illustrate it someday but it was pretty final

oh that's an excellent question hmmmmmmmm

i want to say yes just for the anime of it all. the whole sequence with sparkles and effects and specific body parts changing and glowing and spinning and oo la la! i would guess to an outside observer it's like a flash and the usual transformation noise but Different somehow and a sudden rush of power like static electricity prickling across their sensors. and of course their catchphrases, like on the tech specs here. actually i think their powerup phrases would just be the faction "mottos" like this

[luna-rainbow]

Welp, Bucky confirmed for Thunderbolts… This is troubling lol. I feel like there might be ways to make it work but I really just have no faith in these people so I guess I’ll watch it, hate it and die mad about it. Excellent!

I was avoiding all MCU news in the hopes this wouldn't eventuate =/

I'm going to attempt to look at this as objectively as I can. Firstly, neither Zemo nor Sharon were announced. This doesn't necessarily mean Zemo won't appear, but if he does this probably means it's a smaller role, which is good.

Secondly, it's a decent team of actors. I mean, in general the MCU has been blessed with fantastic actors, but I'm sure Seb will enjoy playing off people like Florence Pugh and Wyatt Russell, who are both capable of such nuance and pathos. Before anyone jumps down my throat - because fandom has a propensity to do this - I'm not saying Seb's previous co-stars were not capable of them, but Seb has talked a lot recently about how much he enjoys working with new people and learning things through that experience.

Third, the main writer announced is Eric Pearson, so let's look at his track record. On the positive side, he was one of the head writers for Black Widow, which managed to acknowledge that the Widows were victims of brainwashing and could not be blamed for what they did under that brainwashing. The script also alluded to the fact that the Winter Soldier program was working on removing the subject's voluntary control over even basic motor functions such as breathing, and drawing a parallel between that and the Widows. If I looked purely at Black Widow's script, I would be cautiously hopeful that the Thunderbolts would do justice not just to Bucky, but to Yelena and Ava as well, who were both also victims of having their autonomy taken away from them.

What worries me, though, is that Pearson was also on the team for Thor Ragnarok, which didn't deal too well with nuance and grief. He was also the writer for at least 8 episodes on Agent Carter, and I haven't seen any good neutral writing (particularly where Bucky is involved) recently from Carter fans in the MCU writers room. And finally, it's unclear just how much his Black Widow script was polished up by other writers - after all, wasn't he the one that came up with the god-awful "are you on your period" joke, and ScarJo talked about how she, Florence and Cate Shortland were all horrified when they did their first reading and felt compelled to turn it into a statement?

What really grinds my gears about the concept of the Thunderbolts is that for the last few years the MCU has gone by protagonist-centered morality. Neither Yelena nor Bucky had a say in what they chose to do, Ava was indoctrinated in a similar way to Wanda was, and you could even argue Walker was too by military propaganda and Alexei by Russian propaganda. These are not people who made a moral decision to be grey, and I don't see why they get to be called a bunch of reluctant antiheros who have to be conscripted to do something good when many of them have been wanting to do good...when rage-driven mass murderers like Clint still gets the hero treatment. Thunderbolts would be a fantastic way for people like Bucky and Yelena to address their tormentors, and for people like Ava and Walker to make a statement against large military/para-military organisations indoctrinating their people by dehumanising both them and their enemies.

But let's be real, Disney won't do that.

(Tumblr glitching again D=)

[minervadashwood]

Scars and Stitches, Ch. 2 Scars and Stitches

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x PlusSize Reader (she/her)

Era: Season 1-Season 4, Longfic that follows the series with a few alterations.

Summary: Long since recovered from childhood abuse and neglect, you, a librarian, are sheltering in place with your best friend, Morgan Jones, when you meet Rick Grimes. You go with Rick to Atlanta. After everything in the city goes to shit, you are determined to help Daryl rescue his brother, and in doing so you find a kindred spirit who makes your new life bearable. Lots of fluff, UST, and eventually RST.

Warnings: Language, violence, mentions of past abuse, Shane Walsh being awful, and mentions of drug addiction.

Reader Info: Aside from being plus size, the reader's appearance is totally left to your imagination. However, she does have a backstory to explain her unique skill set and affinity for redneck bad boys.

Themes: found family, demisexuality, self acceptance, the power of hugs, romance, love, and happy endings.

Likes, replies, and reblogs are very much appreciated.

Series Navigation: AO3 | FFN | One | Two | Three | Four | Five |

(I am also looking to commission some fanart for this story, so if you or anyone you know is interested, just DM me!)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Series Masterlist | Masterlist

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Summary: Things in Atlanta do not go as you hoped. Warnings:  Typical season 1 violence and racism

Scars and stitches always fade/ and only strengthen me. – Guster

In Atlanta, Rick didn’t look to you for any help until it was time to cut up the two walkers. You managed to carve your way through the bodies, even though you joined Glenn a few times in barfing up your lunch.

Later, if anyone on that truck to the quarry camp realized you were crying, they didn’t say so.  You cried for Merle and yourself, for Morgan and Duane, for your little brother and the world in general.  Leaving Morgan had been a mistake that you couldn’t take back.  Now, you were relying on the protection of strangers with no clue how to take care of yourself in this new world order.

After a while, the crying stopped, and you were left numb and tired, dreading the moment when Rick would have to tell Merle’s brother what happened.

==

Daryl saw red. The rage and pain made him blind and deaf to anything else. 

Not Merle. That sorry, sad fuck who raised him. The only person in the world who gave a shit, even if it was only half the time.

And they left him on the roof to die.

His knife was out, swinging wildly at anyone who got too near. Even when someone body slammed him, causing Daryl to lose his breath, it was all clouded by the crushing emptiness of a world without his brother. Something was in his eyes, blood or sweat, he didn’t know, and then he was in a chokehold, breathless and panicked. He forced himself to hone on the physical sensations: the bruising pressure of Shane’s hold on him, the solid feel of the earth under him, the horrified shouts of the women and children.

“You best let me go!”

“Not until you calm down, Daryl.”

He hated Shane and the cop’s need to be right every second of the goddamed day.

“You’re scaring the whole camp. Just take a few deep breaths and let’s talk this out.”

Shane could fuck himself.

Despite his fury, Daryl took one deep breath then another, scowling at everyone gawking back at him. The kids hiding behind their mother’s legs, the new guy holding up pacifying hands, and you, the new girl, bloodied hand over your chest as you cried silently.

Fuck.

He willed himself to relax. Shane released him, and Deputy Do-good, Rick, reached out to help Daryl off the ground.

From the steps of the camper Lori was saying Rick would go back. And then all those fuckers who left Merle for walker bait started lining up to be in the goddamn rescue party.

Swiping at wetness on his brow and cheeks, Daryl swung his crossbow over his shoulder, and took his knife back from Rick. “We’re wastin’ daylight. Let’s go.”

Rick shook his head and said, “Now Daryl, it’s too late to go back today. We need to wait until tomorrow, give the herd time to disperse and head out there when we have plenty of daylight to see what we’re doing.”

Daryl was on the verge of losing it again, but he put his knife away and stared at the ground, nodding.

“Okay, okay. Good,” Rick said, relieved. “Go see Morgan about your forehead. She’s the other new person in the group. Then we’ll figure out just how to get to that roof tomorrow and bring Merle back.”

Daryl glanced at you, but just as quickly looked back at the ground, not wanting to meet your eyes or anyone else’s. Instead, he studied his hands, where blood was smeared from wiping at his forehead.

==

Later, you were sitting at a picnic table, dazed by all the violence that had happened, both in Atlanta and the camp, when a thin woman with very short hair approached you.

“Hi,” she said.  “I’m Carol.”

It took you a moment to gather your wits. “Morgan. Well, that’s my last name.”

“Do you go by that or something else?”

You shrugged, indifferent, but told her your first name all the same. You didn’t mind them using your last name, but things could become confusing when Morgan and Duane got there in a few days.

While you ruminated, Carol had rallied a few of the other women to the cause of getting you settled in.  Jacqui found you a change of clothes, and someone else found you a spare sleeping bag and pillow. Andrea and Amy took you to a private swimming hole to wash up. Even Lori gave you an extra pair of socks.

It was unnerving having everyone fuss over you, but it wasn’t before long you realized why they were so attentive.

One child had poison ivy, another mosquito bites.  There was a small girl who wouldn’t quit sucking her thumb, and her overly worried mother insisted you do something about it. An older gentleman had a hangnail and heartburn.

Initially you were overwhelmed.  But these people had just welcomed you as one of their own; you tried to help them as best you could.

After about an hour, the bombardment ended, but you still had one more patient to see.

It was time to meet Merle’s brother. 

==

Like Merle, Daryl reminded you of the people you grew up with: the ragged flannel, the scent of pine and cigarettes, the grudge against a world they were convinced had it out for them. 

You approached his tent slowly, carrying a red backpack the camp had collaboratively filled with first aid supplies and a random assortment of OTC pill bottles. 

“Daryl?” you called.  

A moment later, he opened the tent just enough to poke his head out.

“What?”

You told him your name and held up the backpack as explanation. “Rick wanted me to look you over.  That okay?”

He stared for a long moment, unnerving you.

“You got that doctor-patient confidentiality?” he asked, squinting at you.

“Not a doctor, but not a blabbermouth, either.”

After a few silent seconds, Daryl’s head disappeared, and he unzipped the door completely.

Taking that as a clear, if reticent, invitation, you stepped in. Despite his glowering, you were curious what had him so secretive.

You were short enough—or the tent was tall enough—for you to stand up straight. That wasn’t the case with Daryl, however, and he stood, stoop-shouldered, watching you.

Amidst that greasy hair and unkempt beard were the bluest eyes you’d ever seen.

Trying not to stare, you said, “Show me wear it hurts?”

Daryl scoffed at you, then replied, “’s not what Rick told you about. It’s my back.  But I ain’t lettin’ you look ‘less you promise you won’t say nothin.’”

Mild panic set in. “Was it a walker?”

“No,” he said. “It was Merle.”

Relieved, you nodded in understanding. It was normal where you came from.  Hell, you and your little brother’d had a few fistfights of your own. He usually won, though.

“Promise I won’t say anything,” you said.  “But it might be better for you to kneel down. You’re a bit taller than me.”

He nodded, and you zipped the tent closed to give him some privacy. When you turned around, Daryl was kneeling in the center of the tent, and you noticed a locked tackle box off to the side. You tucked that knowledge away for later.

Opting not to take his shirt all the way off, Daryl just lifted it overhead while keeping the sleeves on.

You saw that his back was littered with scars that had obviously been inflicted to cause pain.  However, the scars were old, long since healed over. They should have been stitched up but clearly never were.  Someone had hurt him badly, and he never got proper care for the resulting injuries.  Refusing to let yourself think any more about what was clearly far in the past, you focused on the more recent wound: a series of lacerations in the shape of brass knuckles. By the look of the deep cuts, this had happened in the last few days.

Remembering your promise, you suppressed all the other questions you had and simply asked, “You okay if I put in some stitches?”

Daryl took a moment before answering, “Alright.”

“It’ll hurt a bit,” you warned, but you got the sense a few needle pricks were nothing to Daryl Dixon.

You went to work on the wound. Stitches were a generous word for what you managed with needle and thread, but he said nothing about the pain as you worked.

When you finished stitching and covered the stitches with a bandage, Daryl put his shirt back on. You handed him a few ibuprofen, and he downed them dry.

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

“Anytime,” you said and left the tent, images of clear blue eyes dancing in your mind.

==

Just before sunset, you and Rick walked up a small rise to try to contact Morgan.  You thought for sure your friend would answer—in fact the hope of hearing his voice had kept you sane throughout the day.  

But as many times as Rick tried, there was never another voice on the walkie-talkie.

“Sorry about today,” Rick said, turning off the radio and helping you up from the ground.  “Didn’t expect the day to go like it did.  I was hoping for something better.”

You nodded, unable to suppress the memories of all the walkers’ mouths and teeth that had gotten too close to you.  “Me too, but you had no way of knowing.

Neither of us did.”

The two of you began the walk back to camp.

Rick said, “I found my family, but that doesn’t mean I won’t still look after you.  I brought you out here, so I’m responsible for what happens to you.”

“Rick,” you said, nearly overwhelmed by his kindness. “You don’t owe me anything. You have your family to look after now.”

He shook his head.  “You and Morgan took me in, so I do owe you.  But this isn’t about who owes who what. This is about looking out for each other. This is about holding on to what’s good and right in a world that’s gone bad.”

What Rick said gave you a measure of hope. “I think I understand what you’re saying,” you told him.

“I’m sure you’ll find your own place here. If it’s not helping the other women or looking after our bumps and bruises, you’ll figure it out.” 

By then you were back to camp, and with a comforting squeeze on your shoulder, Rick went to see his family. 

Everyone here seemed to have their little niche, and despite the medical concerns you’d tended to that day, you were no match for a serious injury like a gunshot or any other surgical emergency. You just had to hope there was truth to what Rick said, even if you had trouble believing it about yourself.

You looked around the camp, trying to understand this new community you’d been dropped into, when your gaze settled on the small fire flickering almost fifty yards away. Where Daryl sat. Alone.  

Merle.  

How could you have forgotten about Merle?

___

Thanks for reading! -min

Next Chapter

[good-chimes]

Double Life Episode 1 Primer

Hi tumblr, I wrote this to drag in my friends but you get it as well. Intended for newcomers and people who need some quick initial grounding for DL-set fic. I make no pretensions to total accuracy, we're running on 100% Vibes.

It is a BEAUTIFUL DAY in a small area of Minecraft and fourteen people are FINDING LOVE.

We start with BDUBS, who is Just A Little Guy with a powerful voice and a nose for drama. Bdubs is fresh out of a series of entanglements with friends ETHO, IMPULSE and other hermitcrafters in a previous series where they had a variety of tumultuous relationships and all got murdered. Bdubs is excited to quickly realise his soulmate is IMPULSE, a large, quiet, agreeable type also in the hermitcraft polycule, who given enough time and thinking space is able to break minecraft apart like a rubik's cube. In this quickly functional and loving relationship, Impulse inspires Bdubs to build for beauty over defence, and they settle into a MID-CENTURY MODERN HOUSE and keep being hit up for food by all their less competent friends.

'Less competent' does not include ETHO, a murder machine with a keen fighting edge and no sense of direction, who has tragically been ejected from the hermitcraft polycule because they've all married each other and/or Scott. Etho is initially wary about being soulbonded to JOEL [Smallishbeans], largely known for stealing other people's wheat and being Grian's best murder friend in Last Life, something that doesn't often endear you to anyone. Joel switches all his energies to being a Huge Etho Fanboy and Etho is reluctantly charmed. They build the RELATIONSHIP--a two-masted schooner on top of a hill--commit some minor crimes, and look forward to the PvP endgame when SmallEtho will be the most terrifying team on the server.

Meanwhile having no luck with mining is TANGO, a positive ball of energy who tells everyone he is not a builder despite being one of Minecraft's most impressive redstone architects. Tango is hopefully prodding everyone, excited to find a soulmate (as long as it's not Scar, because he doesn't want to die). Tango's long history of redstone projects do not stop him from ping-ponging haphazardly around the server failing to equip himself until he is blown up by a creeper, leading to a very awkward chat at spawn with JIMMY [SolidarityGaming], who has just blown up as well, because it turns out they're soulmates.

JIMMY, a wet cat relentlessly bullied by everyone who knows him, is initially gleeful to have the high ground for once in his life, but quickly realizes Tango is both good at bullying people and also distraught at having killed them both. They fall into a sweet and incompetent flurry of supportive activity and mutual hype during which Jimmy takes twenty minutes to make a water bucket and Tango is delighted for him. Against all odds, they collect several animals and start to build THE RANCH.

BIGB is still looking for love, and can optimistically find joy in being bonded to any one of his friends (except Scar please not Scar). After a series of disappointments where everyone else is also devastated not to be bonded to the sweetest person on the server, BigB eventually finds REN, a character who could make a convincing three-act drama out of mildly spoiled milk, who immediately evicts everyone from his cave so he can choose carpets with BigB. Ren has prepared multiple plans for his soulmate and is excited to tell BigB about them in a monologue that lasts through the entire construction of BOX, a cobblestone box meant to repel invaders through its sheer retro ugliness. Ren proceeds to invite everyone for tea. They do not show up.

GRIAN, a prank-motivated chaos nexus, is horrified to find he is soulbonded to SCAR, a previous ally of Grian's whom he beat to death with his bare hands on a desert mountain and then divorced so hard it nearly set the server on fire. Scar, a happy-go-lucky type prone to fatal accidents and surprisingly chill about their mutual history, is nonetheless easily distracted by animals and ignores the soulmate race in favor of obsessing over a herd of pandas modded to look like his cat. Grian decides not to tell Scar they're soulbound, instead following him around in affection and exasperation until he finally drops several stalactites on Scar's head to drive the point home, hooks him with a fishing rod, and drags him back to his base. Grian has started to build the spiked wooden RED VELVET KEEP; Scar, after his pandas are cruelly evicted from the keep, builds the PANDA RESERVE.

SCOTT, a man rapidly running out of patience with everyone else's shenanigans, and CLEO, who never had any patience in the first place, efficiently round the whole server in hope of finding their soulmates. This act of emotional vulnerability goes unrewarded when their respective soulmates fail to show up, and Cleo and Scott decide to defy destiny and settle down as a pair on their own terms, where they begin to plot crimes of their own, an opportunity which honestly they deserve. They build TWO PERFECTLY OKAY HOUSES separated by a nice BRIDGE and are FINE WITHOUT THEIR SOULMATES.

MARTYN, a man who when two or more people are gathered magically turns it into an event of which he is the emcee, has spent the first episode accomplishing a series of daring deeds together with PEARL. They raid the Nether and sell what they can find. This does them no good when they finally trail back to Scott and Cleo, by process of elimination their soulmates, who immediately divorce them for abandonment. Presumably to keep the streak going, Martyn breaks up with Pearl as well and RUNS OFF.

PEARL, rejected in turn by Scott, Cleo and Martyn, is Absolutely Fine. No, Really. She hasn't just experienced repeated trauma at all, and is definitely feeling on good terms with humankind. Pearl settles down with a WOLF, which is definitely not going to come back to bite anyone, and the EPISODE ENDS with the PIECES ALL ON THE CHESSBOARD.

[starscay]

Kiss it Better

She grew up being a clumsy child, constantly tripping over her own feet in the garden, or when she was running after Amity. Her dads were accustomed to plastering bandaids on her when she came home during the day.

Or: Kind of a 5+1 of Willow, Hunter, and Injuries (2.3k)

Read on ao3 or under the cut

Willow is fairly used to scrapes and bruises.

She grew up being a clumsy child, constantly tripping over her own feet in the garden, or when she was running after Amity. Her dads were accustomed to plastering bandaids on her when she came home during the day.

However, before they would put the bandaids on, one of her dads always kissed the cut better.

And Willow will always swear that it works.

—-

The first time she notices Hunter get hurt, it’s not really something she would know how to fix.

The right half of his body is alight with golden veins streaking through his skin. And Willow wishes, so badly, that she was good at healing magic so she could at the very least ease his pain. But no, there isn’t time for that.

So she does what she can, and uses her plant magic to at least try and restrain what she assumes is Belos, and give everyone time to get out of the way.

And then that rampaging monster is causing debris to fall, right towards her head, and yet it doesn’t hit her. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Hunter spin Flapjack, deflecting the falling rocks away.

She also sees him wince in pain.

The fight rages on, and just when they’re almost out, Belos corners them. He’s about to crush everyone, but Willow goes to cover Hunter because he’s already in pain, and she’s going to try to reduce that if she can.

But they don’t die there, and Belos is flicked by what she can only assume is the Collector. And she’s only half thinking as she helps play along with their ruse, trying to find someway out.

She’s horrified to hear Hunter’s whimper of pain rather than a sentence. And she wants to use that stupid kiss it better tactic her dads did with her when she was little, and take all that pain and the golden veins away.

But eventually it works, and the Collector stops the draining spell and suddenly Willow looks at Hunter and she can tell he’s not in pain anymore.

She grins, and will not examine the thought of kissing Hunter further.

—-

The second time Willow sees Hunter hurt, it’s not a physical thing.

She watches as he tucks Gus in on the couch. The younger boy had taken their stranding in the human realm the hardest, crumpling to his knees as soon as he realized what had happened.

And Willow was about to run over and help when Hunter got to it first. She watched as he helped Gus to his feet and protectively held an arm around him, sheltering him from the rain.

So she knows that Hunter has been running on helping mode. She knows that because she does it herself. If she’s helping others, she won’t have to deal with her own feelings.

She quietly walks over to the couch, looking at the sleeping face of one of her best friends. It really only then hits her how young Gus is, how young they all are, really. Too young to be this far from home.

“Captain?” Hunter is looking at her from his own position on the couch. Willow remembers that Gus had insisted on not being separated from either of them, which had resulted in carrying spare pillows and blankets out, and setting up a makeshift bed. She hasn’t settled into her position yet.

“It’s been a long day.” Is all she says. Hunter nods silently in agreement.

“Do you… do you think they’re okay?” He’s quieter than normal.

“They have to be.” She’s not sure if he’s referring to how the draining spell affected everyone with a coven sigil, or being left with the Collector, but she remembers watching him shake Darius, begging him to wake up.

Willow wonders what kind of scars can be left by watching someone you love like that.

And she’s definitely too tired, too overwhelmed, to keep a tight lid on things like she normally would, because she quickly presses a kiss against Hunter’s temple.

“Kissed it better.” She mutters as she drifts off to sleep.

She doesn’t remember doing that in the morning.

—-

The third time she sees Hunter hurt, it’s really much more of an average injury.

Camila had driven them all to the zoo, much to the delight of everyone from the Boiling Isles. Willow had carefully arranged a floral bandana to cover her ears, and felt like everyone blended in with the crowd pretty well.

They had essentially been given the freedom to roam the zoo, and only had to meet back up at the gift shop at a specific time. This meant people splintered off, Camila, Gus and Vee being the first to leave, saying something about checking out the giraffe exhibit. Luz and Amity disappeared next, holding hands and sprinting towards the otter exhibit. That left Willow and Hunter, making their way towards the butterfly garden.

She looked around in wonder, watching as the many different types of butterfly flew past her. The human plants were just as intriguing, and she wants to look at it all.

“Hunter, isn’t it amazing?” She laughs, turning to try and talk to him. Instead, she sees him trip over something and scrape his knee against the ground.

“Are you okay?” She asks, right beside him in an instant. She opens the green bag Camilla had bought her, and is glad she put a few bandaids and cleaning wipes in there.

“I’m fine Captain.” Hunter seems unconcerned as she cleans out the cut, just to make sure it doesn’t get infected.

“What happened, did you trip over a root?” She carefully peels a bandaid and applies it to his knee.

“No I… I got distracted.” He won’t meet her eyes and she thinks she can see a bit of red dusting his cheeks.

But instead of pushing, Willow presses two fingers two her lips, and then lightly taps the fingers on his knee. She bounces back up and refuses to look at his face.

“All better.” She’s not sure what to make of the fact that he’s now bright red.

—-

It’s raining the fourth time she notices he’s hurt.

They’ve been in the human realm for a month and a half at this point. It’s still hard to imagine what is going on back on the Boiling Isles, back home, but they almost have figured out how to get back.

Rain is more common in the human realm than it is back home, which Willow supposes is a good thing. The rain here is actually good for plants, rather than being boiling and hurting them.

However, she’s noticed Hunter always rubs his hands more when it rains, almost like an old injury is bothering him.

He’s taken his gloves off around her a few times, so she knows just how many scars litter his hands, and she can only imagine the extent of the injuries that caused them.

It’s later, during movie night with everyone else, when she notices him rubbing a larger scar on his hands.

“Hunter?” She whispers. He looks over. “I… do you want me to kiss it better?” She knows he thinks there's some kind of magic when she does that, because he told her so after the incident at the zoo. So she waits for his response nonchalantly. He definitely doesn’t think it’s anything more than a friend thing, and if she’s helping a friend, she can shove her own feelings down.

“Please?” Hunter nods, and holds his hand out. Willow makes sure Gus and Luz aren’t looking, because she knows those two will think this is something it isn’t.

Because Willow is just being a good friend when she takes his hand and raises it to her lips. She lightly presses them against each scar, trying to be as soothing as possible because she can tell it does actually hurt. But more than that, she’s trying to make whatever memories caused these scars better.

—-

The fifth time, she knows Hunter isn’t hurt.

They’re back in the Boiling Isles, back home. And sure they haven’t beaten the Collector yet, but they will. They’re currently huddled in a tent they had brought from the human realm, trying to do some last minute strategizing. Willow and Hunter are the only ones who stayed back, the others scouting for anyone they know.

So she feels like she can sit a bit closer to Hunter, and feels pleasantly surprised when he interlaces his fingers with her own.

“We’re going up against the Collector tomorrow.” He’s studying her face, she knows he is.

“We can do this. We’re going to get everyone back.” It’s not strictly true that the others were looking for anyone, they were looking for anyone who the Collector wasn’t controlling like a doll.

“I know we will.” Hunter gently moves his thumb back and forth on the back of her hand.

“And then we won’t have to worry about all of this anymore, and we can go back to Hexside and play Flyer Derby, and-”

“Willow, I have something to tell you. In case we don’t make it back tomorrow.” She grips his hand tighter almost involuntarily at that. The thought of losing him, of losing any of her friends, is unbearable.

“No.” She shakes her head.

“No?” Hunter repeats, eyebrows furrowing and clearly confused.

“We’re going to make it back tomorrow. You can tell me then.” She leans forward and kisses the scar on his cheek. He reaches up, touching the scar, his face a brilliant shade of red. She’s pretty sure she’s blushing too. She kind of wishes she had aimed for his lips.

“All better.”

—-

Hunter isn’t sure what went wrong.

One second they had made it into the giant floating fortress that used to be the Owl House, and the next second Willow was on the ground, hit by one of the Collector’s monsters. He’s kneeling next to her, watching in horror.

The plan had been fairly simple when it came down to it. They had divided into two teams, one infiltrating from the back, led by Luz, and the other leading a head on assault on the fortress. The idea had been that Luz would get to King, who would be able to use a little bit of his blood to seal the Collector away. So Hunter and Willow were meant to draw the monsters away from the back so the others would have a clear shot.

Except the particularly bad thing about being injured by these monsters was it wasn’t really an injury. They had discovered that the monsters allowed the Collector to turn people into his own personal dolls, puppets for his game.

And Hunter watched in horror as Willow fell under the Collector’s control. She straightened up, no recognition in her eyes.

“Captain?” He asked, knowing there would be no response.

Willow ignored him, instead summoning vines that went after his arms first, then his legs. Hunter clutched Flapjack, evading the plants. It’s almost ironic, he thinks. They first met by her pulling him out of the sky with her vines to play Flyer Derby, and now she was trying to capture him with those same vines.

“Captain, can you hear me?” He tried again.

The onslaught of attacks continued, and he couldn’t keep evading forever. So instead he rolled closer to her, ducking the vines. He got right next to her and grasped her hands. Willow began drawing a spell circle with her foot though, and he had to duck away once more.

Only he wasn’t as quick as he needed to be this time. His foot caught on a root, and he stumbled, and that was all the time that was needed for her to catch him. She paused right in front of him, and he looked for any sort of way out. Nothing. Flapjack had been dropped in his earlier attempts, and he was firmly kept in the vines. His arms were still free though, so gently, he reached out and cupped her face.

“Willow,” He studied her eyes, looking for something, anything, to prove she was listening. “What I wanted to tell you before…” The vines loosened the smallest bit, almost like he was imagining it. But Hunter knew he wasn’t.

“I like you.” He blurts. “I have for a while, and I wanted to tell you last night, but you said I could tell you after we all made it back. But I can’t let this happen to you, so I’m telling you now.”

She looks like she’s actually seeing him now, rather than just an enemy. And so Hunter gently presses his lips against hers. He’s read enough books to know this was a common solution, but honestly he’s just hoping it shocks her into dropping her spell circle.

Willow’s vines drop off him in an instant and her hand reaches up, over his. She’s kissing him back, and her other hand grabs at his shirt, like she’s trying to make sure he’s okay. Her lips are warm, and a little chapped, and it’s clumsy, but somehow it also feels right.

“I like you too.” Are the first words out of Willow’s mouth when she pulls back.

He almost breathes a sigh of relief, because she’s here, she isn’t under the Collector’s control anymore. And it wasn’t for long, thankfully, but Hunter doesn’t know what he would have done if he had actually had to fight her.

His head rests against hers and they sit for a minute. Hopefully they distracted the Collector and the monsters long enough for the others to defeat him.

But eventually he gets to his feet and helps Willow up. She stifles a giggle with her hand.

“Willow?” He questions.

“You kissed it better.” She is fully laughing now, head resting on Hunter’s shoulder, their hands laced together.

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

[dearemma]

do you have any headcanons for christine's relations with other characters?

boy, anon (gender-neutral) do i have some!!

first and silliest, i think christine is responsible for the rumor that transporter chief kyle is mean. she said it as a joke once and the rumor got a life of its own

to me, christine, unlike erica, la'an, spock and uhura, does not enter the kids jokes the fandom makes. the fandom at large loves to joke about pike and una as mom and dad (respectively) and their kids going on space adventures. while i do find that cute, i don't like including christine in that scenario. i think christine, due to her not being starfleet, and therefore not being in the chain of command, not sharing their jokes about starfleet, wouldn't really be one of the kids, which leads her to have a more grounded relationship with both pike and una.

to me, her and una, end up developing a really amazing friendship. una, who is more slow to trust and let people in, is not ready for the hurricane that is a determined christine chapel. and the two of them are together in various tense moments in season one where una has to be more open, exposed (revealing that she is an illyrian, the whole surgery scene). una, who keeps everyone at arms length, can't and... doesn't want to keep christine at a distance.

her and pike, i like to think of them having this very warm friendship that's easy to miss. they are both stubborn, adventurous people, who don't let others take care of them. i can see the two of them being able to just... nudge the other one in the right direction. christine getting him to sickbay after a mission when he is determined to go back to the bridge, pike roaming the halls and seeing christine working on an experiment and distracting her with stories about his farm until she forgets about what she is doing and realizes how tired she is.

her and erica are besties. i think we'll eventually learn they were in the war together (it explains why the two of them and m'benga have a sort of code only they know during the pilot). i think they also sleep together sometimes, no strings attached (and that eventually they get tangled up in those strings, but anyway). i like to imagine christine dragging erica on trips, going rock-climbing together, having all these wacky adventures that only they laugh about (everyone else is horrified and mouthing how did you not die).

her and la'an, look... christine getting la'an to lower her walls? making la'an laugh? is something that is very personal to me. la'an is determined, very closed-off but she is becoming more open and i think allowing christine to show her the more lighthearted things that she's missed out on would be very sweet. i also like the idea of la'an teaching christine how to fight more efficiently. christine's style is more: i'm faster than you and i'm going to take you down. while la'an really knows the technique. and i think la'an likes to feel useful, so she wouldn't just accept christine showing her what she missed out on while becoming a baddass starfleet chief of security. so showing her how to fight, would be a fair trade.

christine and uhura love to dance. that's my first thought. christine and uhura twirling around the room, laughing obnoxiously loud, singing along to the music, being the center of gravity and warmth in the room. i'm a big shipper of christine and uhura in the tos timeline, but in the snw... i see them more as sweet friends, the two of them growing together, having a good time, both becoming more connected with starfleet, enterprise and each other.

right now my thoughts about her and m'benga are shifting. babs and jess described them as a familial sort of relationship and i always had that in my mind as a sibling sort of thing. the two of them knowing way too much about each other's lives, being nosy, bantering. but right now, with the latest episode, i'm starting to think its more a family forged in fire sort of situation. they are family because no one else could ever understand what they went through. they are still very close, still banter and quip at each other, though.

her and spock are in love, thxns.

[marylikesstuff]

Hi, I’d like to gush about my new favorite character. Have a very long winded essay about why I love Hunter de Vil under the cut. 

Warning: Spoilers for 101 Dalmatian Street (especially the season one finale) as well as discussion of abuse.

Hunter de Vil is an antagonist on 101 Dalmatian Street. In early episodes of the show he lurks around ominously in the background.

Eventually he’s revealed to be the grandnephew of Cruella de Vil, and is helping her in trying to catch the decedents of the original dalmatian family from the 1960s. All so Cruella can finally get the coat she’s wanted for literal decades now.

Ok, so characters who start off as villains but deflect to the good side over the course of the story are everywhere nowadays. And though I’ll always be a sucker for this trope personally, I can understand why others might be sick of it due to over-saturation.

But Hunter de Vil struck a chord with me, and I think it’s because the show didn’t try to sugarcoat his abuse.

A lot of time (not always, but a lot of the time) when I see abuse victims in fiction, the negative side effects are hardly (if ever) shown in order to keep the character sympathetic in the eyes of the audience.

With Hunter though, the show equally paints him as both villain and victim. It’s a level of nuance I greatly appreciate.

Plus I was honest-to-god taken aback by what ends up happening to the kid. It’s so absurdly overkill.

This boy, who has been used and manipulated his whole life to do his great aunt’s bidding (all in a hopeless attempt to gain familial love) gets locked in a metal box for SIX MONTHS for his trouble.

The isolation literally drives this kid insane. Not only does he come out unhinged, he also has episodes where he blacks out and thinks he’s a dog. It’s deeply unsettling.

But does great aunt Cruella care? Ha, of course not. She tells him point blank that she didn’t even notice he was missing. All she cares about is her end goal of finally getting that damn coat, and if Hunter can’t get it for her, she’ll disown him from the de Vil family completely.

Hunter doesn’t realize how pointless his efforts are. Nothing he does will ever please his only living family member, but desperate and at rock bottom, he continues to try.

It’s both frightening and tragic to watch. His anger and violent lashing out are not painted in a softer, more palatable light. They’re brutally real.

And like I said, they do not sugarcoat that this kid has been abused. It’s made chillingly clear in the way he breaks down into frightened tears whenever Cruella raises her voice, even during a phone call. And when he’s actually in her presence, he flinches back and cowers in fear.

But you wanna know what the most screwed up part is? He still wants to please his abuser. He still strives for praise. Any tiny scrap of something that even vaguely resembles affection. It’s scary because it’s so realistic to real life abuse victims.

Thanks to his efforts, Hunter and his great aunt actually succeed in capturing the dalmatian family during the season one finale. It’s a near villain victory, until the horrible truth finally comes out and paints everything Hunter has done so far into a new light.

Apparently, this whole time, Hunter was under the impression that Cruella was merely going to have the dogs shaved to get her coat. That they’d be grumpy and bald, but otherwise fine.

Given how young Hunter is, and how he has a pet cat who is also completely hairless but otherwise healthy, I can understand where the ignorant misunderstanding came from.

Hunter reveled in being a bad kid, but he’s still got a moral line.

So he is rightly horrified when he learns the truth. That these dogs are absolutely going to DIE.

And not just die. DIE GRUESOMELY.

It’s wild just how dark this finale is. Cruella has an honest to god Death Machine built, and not only plans to have each cute puppy go through it individually, but she also ties up the pups’ parents in the same the room so they can watch.

Disney cartoon finales don’t play around. Goddamn.

Hunter objects to killing the dogs, which Cruella merely shrugs off. After all, she already got what she wanted. Her grandnephew did his job and is no longer useful to her, so she has him locked up with the dogs.

This is the most nightmarish scenario possible for Hunter. Remember, he was trapped in this same crate alone for six damn months, and now he’s back there again with an army of puppies who are very justifiably angry at him.

It had to be a living hell. Trapped and having no choice but to face his biggest fear, as well as his own overwhelming guilt. All Hunter can do is pathetically try to explain himself. But even then, he can only crumble into tears.

And here it is. The part that gutted me. Like dang it, puppy show. I went into you expecting cute shenanigans. I didn’t sign up for THIS.

“I just want to belong to someone. I’m all alone in the world. You all have each other. You’re a... family.”

It kills me how he words it. Instead of saying he wants to be loved, he says he wants to “belong” to someone. Like he values himself so little.

The puppies, being good dogs and all, take pity on the kid. They’re just kids themselves, and it had to be sobering to see their once most hated enemy at his most vulnerable.

Hunter and the puppies are soon placed elsewhere, so that Cruella can start feeding them into her death machine. And just to add to Hunter’s trauma, he’s placed in a dog crate.

Cruella was going to force him to watch as well. I’m sure that wouldn’t have destroyed what’s left of the kid’s already fragile, diminishing sanity.

Luckily, this being a kid’s show, things turn out all right in the end. Hunter and the dalmatians escape and fight back, but Hunter has one last showdown with his great aunt.

This is my favorite scene in the whole show. It’s the expressions that make it for me. The artists did such a great job making us feel Hunter’s fear and anguish.

And I love that Dorothy (the youngest pup) is the one he happens to end up protecting. She was the one he’d first kidnapped episodes beforehand, so it’s great to see the contrast in who he was back then to who he is now. 

It’s nothing short of gratifying when he finally stands up to his abuser. It had to be the hardest thing he’s ever done.

Not only because he’s been deathly afraid of her his entire life, but also fiercely loyal. He did everything for this woman because all he ever wanted was to be loved back.

Those pained tears speak more than any words ever could.

Cruella is arrested and the dalmatian family goes home. It’s a happy ending.

But things are left kind of ambiguous for Hunter. On the one hand, he’s free. But on the other hand, since his only family is now in prison, what’s going to happen to him?

The kid is still very much traumatized, and he still often blacks out and thinks he’s a dog. It’s a twisted fate, honestly. And since the show has been cancelled due to Disney not advertising it and letting it die on a channel almost nobody has, it looks like there’s not going to be any real resolution for this kid.

Breaks my heart, but I at least appreciate what I got: the story of an abuse victim who, even though he managed to somewhat overcome his situation, was still left scarred by it.

And that’s why I love Hunter de Vil.

He’s tragically what surviving abuse looks like (albeit minus the dog quirk). It’s rare to come out of a bad situation as the perfect victim. The sad truth is that you’re gonna come out of it with messy, negative aspects too.

But that doesn’t make you less worthy of sympathy and help.

TLDR: I like Hunter because he is a good tragic villain. He’s simultaneously gremlin AND baby.

[nightly-ruse]

I think Bluestar’s prophecy and her conflict could’ve been so much better if she’d been a deputy already when she met Oakheart and had the kits. (Cut off bc it’s another really long au post lol)

Like imagine:

she’s super happy as she’s given the role, especially as she’s so young and tries to do her best. She tries and tries and she is really good but every mistake she sees as damning. She’s super overwhelmed and meets Oakheart, the calm, kind young deputy of Riverclan who just seems to do everything right. Originally this is a point of rivalry from her and in her mind but it grows into a respect and bond between the two. They get together in secret and really fall in love, not a one night stand like in canon but instead a patchy kind of chaotic partnership. She finds out she’s expecting and is horrified, Oak is excited but she feels sick. Her argument with Snowfur is instead asking her sister if she would take her kits. Snow would’ve agreed bc she’s a great sister but then Blue tells her who the secret sire of her kits is and Snow feels betrayed. Blue had always been so rude to her own mate, saying it was a waste, and this whole time was with a cocky Riverclan cat with fish for a brain?! Angered she chases after the warriors and dies.

So now Bluestar is guilty for not only being with Oakheart but also for her argument and feeling like she killed Snowfur. Or it’s a punishment for her actions by Starclan. She has her kits and adopts Whitekit all while Thistleclaw is a horrible voice always yelling to everyone how she’s a curse on the clan and killed her own sister. He’s even worse. She starts slipping in her duties not only from having her kits but all the emotions that just keep building up. She also refuses any help from Sunstar or Thrush bc she believes this is her own punishment she must bear.

More cats get suspicious about her litters parentage and start siding with Thistleclaw, saying she’ll kill Thunderclan just as she killed Snowfur, some even whispering that her curse was what killed Moonflower when she was a apprentice. It gets harder and harder to do anything as she feels weighed down by her kits and duties and all the eyes always glaring at her. Eventually she meets with Oakheart and tells him that she can’t keep their kits, he would have to take them. They agree to meet in a few days. In this time she tells Thrush about her plans and Rose who she asks to take care of Whitekit beside her own older kits, being Redkit and Spottedkit. They craft a plan but somehow Thistle knew something and has Thrush get stuck in camp. So now she has to take her kits in a blizzard all alone.

Blue does it. She takes Moss, Misty and Stone and just as in canon Moss doesn’t make it. At the swap she tells Oakheart about their lost kit with a dead tone. He takes them and gives her a sweet mournful goodbye, Greypool at his side who nods to her with a sad look (she will raise Stone and Misty and was in on it, usually covering for Oak before when he would go to meet Blue).

After this the rumors die down as she returns to her duties and works incredibly hard. Cats stop and their previous angry rumors die down as she works harder, and they know she just lost all her kits in a freak accident. Still the guilt and pain of it all is a massive burden. A weight always on her back. She becomes Bluestar and receives the life of strength form her sister, telling her she was the most powerful cat she’d ever met and no one could break her down. When Rusty comes she accepted him like in canon and sees him as a adopted son, a feeling she both loves and hates as it just reminds her more and more of her own kits she traded away. Her deterioration is kind of triggered by Fireheart bc of the feelings she gets around him. And she dies like in canon, telling her kits the truth in a goodbye though as she dies she sees Snowstorm who welcomes her into Starclan.

[saccharinerose]

Final thoughts on ACOMAF

This book felt like it was actively fighting against my trying to finish it. It was a SLOG to get through, like wading through tar on a treadmill. At some point I started just skimming through pages and even that took an eternity.

I would give SJM kudos for the whole "I just fell in love with the first guy who showed me kindness and security" thing... if Feyre's endgame wasn't Rhysand, the literal second guy who showed her kindness and security. The message just falls kinda flat...

I was suprised the book started out relatively tame with Tamlin's descend into the token hatesink but the descend did happen eventually. I honestly would prefer if he just vanished from the story bc there’s nothing I hate reading about more than a hatesink. If I had cared about his character  in the first book more than I care about stale bread, I might have been annoyed. But I don’t, so I wasn’t.

I find it funny that this book invented a whole new Being That Knows Things for Feyre to ask questions lmao I guess the Suriel was busy in the first half of the book.

The funniest scene was actually with said Being That Knows Things (the Bone Carver) when Rhysand says something and the sound of his voice was described as "velvet over the sharpest steel" (aka the most laughed-at euphemism for dick) or something and I went "Ah, he sounded penis-y"

My favourite part was the awkward dinner with Feyre's sisters because imo it is the only scene that accomplished what it set out to do. It was meant to be an uncomfortable, awkward situation and it felt uncomfortable and awkward. No other scene in the book made me feel the intended feeling.

Well, I guess the ending was somewhat enjoyable too... but maybe that was just the beckoning of sweet release

I still hate Rhys, despite this book trying its damnest to be a wholeass PR campaign for him. It's almost laughably transparent. Everytime he said "Feyre darling" made cringe for the first couple time then gag. Everytime he purred I wanted to spray him with a spray bottle.

Rhysand's Inner Circle is absolutely obnoxious and completely fell flat at an attempt to show a close-knit friend group. They act like 20-somethings who peaked as jocks/mean girls in high school, not 500+ year old immortal beings. 

I also did not buy Feyre's friendship with any of them for a second.

Amren could have been fun. Definitely conceptionally interesting. But the execution was absolutely lackluster. Her smug superiority does not feel functionally different from any other character's. I was also actively disappointed when she just turned out to drink blood instead of something actually horrifying.

Mor does not deserve to be called The Morrigan. I actually got angry at that. The Morrigan had fuck all to do with truth. She was a goddess associated with war, battle and death. Mor can be called Morrigan but not The Morrigan.

An even bigger fuck you was Cerridwen the maid though.

Velaris is unsettling. It's basically faerie Ba Sing Se, but if Ba Sing Se wasn't known to the general public. Everytime the book bust a nut about how super amazing and wonderful Velaris is, I could only think "uhh this place is super weird..."

The world itself is almost hilariously black-and-white. I can not name one good aspect of either the Court of Nightmares, Hybern or the Illyrians

If someone is intended to be evil, everything about them will be EVIL EVIL. Even the architecture!

The Mortal Queens don't bow down to Rhysand, the best thing since sliced bread according to SJM, and enthusiastically hand over an ancient powerful magic artifact? Oh, they’re definitely irredeemably evil. Especially the ugly and old ones, the only beautiful one gets to die horribly after she outlived her usefullness for the protagonists.

SPEAKING OFF, during the first description of the Mortal Queens, I could immidiately predict which one of them was going 1) important, 2) nice and then 3) die horribly. It happened exactly as I expected.

This book also started to really lean into the Humans Bad and Fae Good And Beautiful. The book started with Feyre being "an immortal with a mortal heart" and by the end of it, she had happily drunk the fae superiority koolaid.

I also find it funny how the book and Feyre pat themselves on the back for caring so much about ~*~Lesser Fae~*~ and their oppression but the only Lesser Fae who ever get to be major character are the 3 Hot Wing Warrior Men. The only other named Lesser Fae characters... are maids

Also the male characters have some of the worst drip in book history imo. Literally always just one sentence descriptions of black tunics or jackets. Boring.

I still violently and with an intense, burning fury hate SJM's fae and the use of male and female as nouns. And now we have the Invasion of the Australians with "mate" being said at least 20 times every chapter.

Every scene describing “fae” culture using male (noun) and female (noun) was fun to read in a David Attenborough voice though (”The female offers her mate food to show she has accepted the bond” feels like it would be right at home in some fantasy nature documentary)

Sex scenes were... meh.

At the very least, this book is an effective advertisment for couple's counseling and therapy. Someone should really invent that for Prythian. Might prevent a war next time

I need a much longer break if I ever want to actually torture myself with the third book...

[viola-halogen]

My BBC Ghosts vampire au finally sees the light of day! (no pun intended)

About the world

This AU is heavily influenced by What We Do In The Shadows and includes some of the same things like energy vampires

Most common vampire lore applies

They feed on human blood, however if they don’t feed they won’t die, they’ll just slip into a state of hibernation which they can’t be woken from unless given blood to drink

Vampires can tell when their sire (the vampire that turned them) is hurt or in danger. They’re also incapable of physically harming their sire.

All vampires have a natural instinct to turn those they feed on which they have to learn to control

There are different “generations” of vampires. 1st generation vampires are the original vampires, 2nd generation vampires were turned by 1st generation vampires, 3rd generation vampires were turned by 2nd generation and so on

Vampire’s powers get weaker the further they are from 1st generation (they also tend to get stronger the longer they live) this affects things like how good they are at hypnosis as well as their physical speed and strength. However the older and stronger a vampire is the less resistant they are to sunlight, religious items, etc.

Robin

He’s one of the 1st generation vampires, possibly the oldest one still alive

After he was first turned he killed and ate some of the members of his tribe because he was starving and didn’t understand what he’d become. His people were horrified so they banished him from the tribe

He travelled for a while and spent years figuring out exactly what he’d become (he has loads of burn scars from before he worked out that he couldn’t walk in the sun)

Eventually he settled on the land that eventually became Button House, it had a nice empty cave where he could sleep during the daytime, and plenty of nice woodland to explore as well as a human settlement pretty close by for food

As of the present day he’s now the head of the Button House vampire household, he lays down most of the rules and is responsible for making sure the others behave (he usually does this by physically fighting anyone who doesn’t)

Most of the time he just acts like the chaotic idiot that he is, but he also has a very strong sense of loyalty to his household and if anyone hurts or threatens any of his fledglings he becomes the most terrifying creature you’ve ever seen

He doesn’t use his powers very often so most of the other vampires have no idea just how powerful he really is, but every so often they get enough of a glimpse to have a healthy amount of fear of him

He still dresses in furs like he did when he was alive and observes all the rituals and cultural things from his time (that he remembers) but he also has a fascination with the modern world and likes collecting modern things and learning all about what humans are up to these days. His greatest aspiration is to go to space one day

The plague ghosts

They’re all Robin’s victims from before he learned to control his urge to turn people into vampires (once he’d learnt how he taught all of them as well and now makes sure to teach any new vampires as quickly as possible)

They used to sleep in his cave with him and follow him on hunts and were basically like his family

They’re now stuck in the basement of the house since Mary accidentally put a curse on them making them unable to leave it

The others bring them food and visit them, although they aren’t particularly fond of any of them apart from Robin, who they still see as their leader, and Humphrey, who was part of the family before they got trapped

They’ve forgiven Mary for cursing them but she’s still terrified of them hating her so she never goes into the basement

Humphrey

The house was built by his ancestor, Edmund Bone, who ignored the villagers’ warnings about demons living on the land, and even when his servants started going missing and turning up in the woods with all their blood drained refused to move out

Humphrey’s marriage to Sophie and the Catholic plot happened exactly the same, but when hiding from the Queen’s guards instead of accidentally beheading himself Humphrey fell on his own sword and died

Sophie had known about the vampires living in the woods for years without ever letting on, so after the guards had left she snuck back in and took Humphrey’s body to Robin and begged him to make Humphrey into a vampire. She knew she would have to go into hiding or leave the country, but she couldn’t leave Humphrey to die when she had a chance to save his life

Robin turned him at Sophie’s request and then took him under his wing, teaching him the ways of being a vampire, and he became the newest member of the family

He has a massive stab wound in his chest from where he fell on his own sword but it doesn’t bleed at all since all his blood was drained when he was turned, and he usually wears clothes that cover it

After he was turned Robin bought the house back from the state so they could all finally move out of their cave and have somewhere nicer to live

Humphrey was also cursed by Mary, his curse is that every time he does anything ever something unfortunate will happen to him as a result (think Laszlo’s cursed hat but the curse is attached to a person instead)

He’s actually very powerful as a 2nd generation vampire but because of the curse he never uses his powers as he’s too afraid of what might happen

Mary

She was a witch who lived in the nearby village and used her abilities to heal and help people out

She knew of the existence of vampires and was good friends with the vampire household

One day a witchfinder came to the village and found her out and tried to have her burned at the stake for witchcraft

At the time the vampires were pretending to be wealthy landowners who had bought the house and the village didn’t have anywhere secure enough, so Mary was put into their custody to wait for her trial

Robin wasn’t willing to let the villagers kill Mary so he asked the others to stand and fight with him, but Humphrey was the only one willing to, so the others went to hide in the basement until it was over

When the villagers arrived Robin and Humphrey attacked them and, realising that they were vampires, they started to fight back

Seeing Robin hurt gave Mary hysterical strength and she unleashed a huge spell, killing half the villagers and cursing Humphrey and those in the basement. Robin was able to withstand the curse because of his incredible strength. After that happened all the surviving villagers gave up and ran away

After that Mary knew she could never go back to the village, so Robin invited her to stay in the house with them and become an honorary member of the vampire household

She’s now immortal because she accidentally consumed the life forces of all the villagers she killed

She was also very traumatised by the whole thing (and the torture she went through before being given into Robin and Humphrey’s custody) to the point where she rarely ever uses her magic anymore

She has a cow for a familiar which lives in the gardens of the house, but at this point it’s basically more of a therapy animal to her

Jemima

She is a witch who was cursed to permanently have the appearance of an eleven year old girl

Before Mary’s witch trial Jemima was her apprentice, when she realised the witch hunters were coming she told Jemima to run away and stayed behind to hold them off so she could escape

Jemima went to another village and found a new master and when she was a fully fledged witch she returned to wreak vengeance on those who had come to kill Mary, but when she got there she discovered the vampires and that Mary was still alive

She and Mary stayed in contact from then on and Jemima helps Mary out with things she struggles to do, like going to the supermarket (it’s too loud and busy for her)

She has a successful business selling spells and potions to all denizens of the underworld

Kitty

During her lifetime Robin became very interested in being a part of society and started hosting balls and parties at the house (under the alias of Lord Robert Bone, the descendant of THAT Humphrey Bone)

Kitty and her family lived in a manor house a few miles away and were acquaintances of the Bone family

Kitty and Eleanor were always kind of terrified of the house and thought it was really creepy, although their mother and father were totally oblivious to all the weirdness

Kitty’s home life was the same as in canon with her mother’s death, Eleanor being a piece of shit and her father not doing anything about it

Some time after Kitty and Eleanor came of age they were allowed to attend their first ball as adult women, at Bone Manor

They found it was actually kind of boring and ended up sneaking off together to look around the house, and Eleanor (in an attempt to scare Kitty and also to get rid of her for a bit) dared her to go into the creepy off-limits basement

She went into the basement and the plague ghosts, who didn’t know about the ball, assumed she was food the others had brought them and killed her and drank her blood

She was found eventually by her family and the other vampires and, on realising their mistake, one of them turned Kitty into a vampire

Eleanor and her father were horrified so Robin had to hypnotise them both and wipe their memories, but because of his panic and his incredible strength he ended up giving them both the brain scramblies

Soon after they sold their house and moved out of the area, and were never heard from again

Once Kitty got over her initial terror and the loss of her family she found it was actually quite fun being a vampire and took to her new life pretty quickly, even admitting that she was much happier with her new family than her old one

Part 1 of 2

| Part 2 |