#but let's pretend it is anyway

[january-summers]

No one look at me right now. I started thinking about how the new season is going to undo one of the most defining qualities of Epsilon as an individual if that really was Tex in the trailer. Because of all the iterations of Leonard Church - Director, Alpha, Epsilon – Epsilon was the only one who managed to Let Go of Allison, to stop chasing her ghost, to be able to grow past that grief.

And then I started thinking about the fact that Epsilon is different from the two other Churches because of that, but why?

Because it was just the point in the narrative for him to get over her?

Or because as much of an impact as Epsilon left on Washington, Washington left his own impact on the AI. Washington, who was pretty social before Epsilon, who shows an emotional growth and maturity as the seasons progress, who encourages Carolina to find a balance between moving on and forgetting completely when it comes to her grief over her own lost love, York, left even the barest hint of a road map for Epsilon to have personal growth outside of his predefined Churchness.

Or because Epsilon was Alpha once, and he was reconstructed in Alpha's image, but not Alpha's image of himself. Epsilon is reconstructed in Caboose's image of Alpha. Caboose, who saw the best in Alpha and eventually learned himself how to let Church go, who, when faced with the option of saying goodbye or saving Church, chose to say goodbye even though it hurt him so much because he understood he couldn't erase what had happened even if he brought Church back.

And I feel like it matters that even though Epsilon didn't originally 'remember' Tucker, it was his mental image of Tucker who called him out on how shitty and stalkery the 'follow her down through the layers' thing was. And not just because 'Tucker's the snarky judgemental one.'

And I do enjoy the 'do we have to call them canon?' later seasons, because they continued this theme of closure and grief with (Caboose and) Carolina, except like Epsilon, she managed to confront her grief and move on. She might still love York, but she's not going to chase his ghost to the detriment of others, and she might feel like she's failed in her duty to Wash by letting him walk into that bullet, but they're going to get through it all together. She faced the thing her father did, and she did better.

I just.

Carolina said herself “Dad died when Mum did.” And yeah the Director lost himself to grief when Allison died.

Alpha was within the Meta, with Beta, when the EMP went off killing all the AIs in the Meta's head.

Epsilon managed to start healing from that bullshit.

Like, I'm pretty sure he reabsorbed the Epsi-Tex (Texsilon?) fragment he made when he did that, and that's where she went, but dude. Please. He was moving on, he had reached Acceptance.

Epsilon, who's entire identity is based on being someone else's memories, broke free from that in built script.

When Epsilon died, it wasn't chasing someone he had lost, or fixing the mistakes of his past, it was to save the people he had.

Don't get me wrong, I adore Tex, and I would love for Alpha|Church and Beta|Tex to have a happily ever after (they are way too dysfunctional for it to be considered healthy by normal standards but let them do them it's more entertaining that way) and I'm happy Epsilon's not dead anymore, but just let me lie here for a while having feels over the reasons why Epsilon|Church could do what Director and Alpha couldn't.

[hinamie]

yuuji smiling and sukuna making a face like That did u really think i wouldn't do a panel redraw

[zosanbrainrot]

this is how I see them

[anna-scribbles]

loveybug and catwalker from @blur0se @pisoprano and @asukiess beautiful minds

[deecotan]

"Oh! Oh! Jail for Soundwave! Jail for Soundwave for One Million Years!!!"

This was a lot funnier in my head

[mirensiart]

I think the zelda au @/linkeduniverse comic is cool

anyway, here’s my two fave links 🥹💖

[shirojikimattari]

NO EXCUSES!

Draw Karlach more!! Here’s a clean, overlay friendly template of her tattoos!

Labeled and noted, and a clean version.

Trace it, warp it, i do not care. As long as you beautiful artists bless us with more mommy k art!

Horn details below

[neytui]

I never guessed how close you were to me 🧚‍♀️❄

[lyss-sketchbox]

Iudex wrio from the swap au doodles

[gal-o-guacamole]

●Radiant is Gabriel●

Feb.2024 (stained and artistic glass, copper, lead, gold and silver paint)

Process pics + vid ↷

[ash-and-starlight]

netflix u Have to be joking

[persianmom]

don't ask me about my day just send the nut video

[hinamie]

...........slips gege ¥2000

[hansoeii]

I'm very much not normal about loki and mobius right now

[dreamofbecoming]

listen i know we all love steve “completely ignorant of queer culture to the point that bisexuality is a surprise” harrington being roasted and educated in turns by robin and eddie, yadda yadda, good stuff. i read “they made a horror version of rocky?” in a fic recently and cackled. also a big fan of “he knew he was bi from the start and just never talked about it” as a trope, love it excellent well done

but what about steve who realizes after starcourt that the most important person in his life now has this thing that’s a major part of her life that he knows nothing about, and what if he fucks it up? what if he says something ignorant or rude by accident, and hurts her? what if he loses her because he didn’t know the right thing to say? what if he can’t keep her safe because he doesn’t know what to look out for? absolutely fucking not, this steve says

and listen she’d never say anything, because she can tell that he can tell how much she likes teasing him and teaching him things, so he plays dumb, and she thinks it’s very sweet. but she notices when the zines she keeps under her bed that she buys at that one secret bookshop in indy when she can sneak away on family trips start going missing, always one at a time, and replaced in a few days with another disappearing. and she finds the new ones he must have gone to buy the weekend she was at her aunt’s house hidden in the back of his closet when she goes to steal one of his sweaters. and she notices when he slips more of her queerer movie recommendations into his personal take home pile rather than the movie night stack when he thinks she’s not looking.

she doesn’t notice when he drives to indianapolis after she tries to explain to him why she can’t just ask out a cute girl, tries to impress on him the fear attached to every moment of attraction that he simply has never had to feel, but later she finds a crumpled receipt from a diner in one of his jacket pockets when she’s looking for his keys, and the address is across the street from the bar the gorgeous woman at the bookstore told her about, the one she memorized the address of but hasn’t worked up the guts to think about visiting, and she knows he must have gone looking for a place like that, must have been trying to understand, must have been scoping it out to make sure it was somewhere she could feel safe, after she told him she never had.

so when eddie nearly pops a blood vessel when they clock each other and she mentions that steve is the only person she’s ever come out to before, her hackles come up. because she gets it, she does, he’s only known king steve until recently, so it makes sense that he would be afraid, be concerned for her safety.

but steve is her person, and no one- no one- has ever made her feel as protected or as cared for as he does. no one has ever tried as hard to understand her, no one has ever put so much work into making her feel safe and seen and loved. and she thinks maybe even if no one else ever does, that’s ok. because she has steve, and more importantly steve has her, and that means no one gets to question his ally credentials in her presence without a dressing down to remember, no matter how well they mean or how recently they helped save the world.

(and maybe she’s not as surprised as she could be when he figures out bisexuality all on his own, because she’s been reading all the same pamphlets he has, after all. and she’s seen the way he looks at eddie, i mean come on. maybe no one else has noticed, but then, nobody knows steve harrington like she does.)

[fidgetspringer-art]

✦ Pink Skies ✦