#but. it also feels so weird to think this way. in the sense of like. yeah. you're only thinking this way because you Have To.

[craniumcrunch]

i’ve thought about this a lot recently — more specifically asking myself the question of, had any of the others reached out to misty, would she have accepted?

look at her relationship with walter. it started out tentative, with misty initially shying away from his advances in favour of seeking out nat. then in the compound nat forsakes her (in a sense) for lottie, and in their brief encounter shauna seeks to alienate her from the rest of the group. these are the seeds sown for the deprivation tank hallucination, wherein which her ‘perfect partner’ is one who accepts her exactly as she is. and i mean, walter can technically never fit the mould of perfect partner because he’s a MAN, but other than that he *should* check her boxes. and at a distance, he does! it’s not like misty only ever feels derision regarding him. there is a compulsion to be close to him because he is possibly the only person on the planet who cares (in his own weird way). vulnerability. a perceived, false connection, vastly different to all the others she’s formed — in which misty plays the role of the *pursued*, rather than the *pursuer* and it makes her so, so uncomfortable.

so that’s kind of what i want to talk about here. misty being the object as opposed to the subject. misty being on the receiving end of affection rather than its giver. one of the reasons her relationships just *can’t* work out is because misty invests 100% of her energy into the person she’s focused on and expects them to give, like, 7% back. and i think she’s afraid of doing things differently. i think that, secretly, she’s relieved when none of the girls call her up.

this rejection of care isn’t something we see her do with walter alone, bc then it could just be chalked up to *that*. no, when nat’s on the phone with her, back in s1, misty interrupts her before she can apologise. equally, she glosses over nat’s apology at the door. because these interactions are genuine, and misty spurns affection unless it’s something manipulated/controlled. that isn’t to say she doesn’t desire being cared for — it’s to say it’s a shallow desire, it’s her chasing an idea, like she does with romance/men.

also to do with how she subconsciously hates herself and actively pushes away anybody who emulates any one of her behaviours. case in point, walter, and you could even argue shauna — what with her stalking and their similar responses to lottie’s death and such. + shauna giving her that brief monologue at the end going like ‘you’re just like me’ and misty’s face going all blank. yeah, she’s figured out they’re a lot more similar than either of them originally thought a long time ago.

i have completely forgotten about how misty canonically spent 6 WEEKS in bed after nats death and literally none of the girls called or went to check on her #KILLINGMYSELF

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

Someone requested „unhinged life advice“ and I will try my best to provide some - but firstly, and at the risk of sounding like a buzzkill, I need to say something very annoying: 

A lot of the things that’ll make you feel happier and make your life better are - frustratingly - very, very hinged. They’re just the things you expect them to be: try to eat at least some veggies, fruit and fiber. Try to drink enough water. Go to bed early enough to get eight hours of sleep. Try to move your body, for example by taking walks or exercising. Avoid alcoholic drinks (altogether if possible but at least in excess). Quit smoking. Try to do at least some things in your free time that are not just passive consumption of content and instead challenge your brain, like learning a language or doing puzzles or writing short stories. Try to have at least some pleasant social interactions, ideally even in person. 

These pieces of advice aren’t fun. They also aren’t easy. I think we are so fascinated by the concept of „unhinged life advice“ because we are tired. We hope for something easier, for a magic quick fix, for a „this one little thing changed everything“ - while in reality building new habits needs patience and determination and time. 

So, I think the best pieces of „unhinged life advice“ are the ones that help to build these habits! I’ll share some of them. I’ll also throw in some pieces of advice that are just unhinged in the sense of „weirdly specific“ (since that’s another possible interpretation). 

Without further ado: 

If putting chicken nuggets in a salad makes you actually eat a salad you otherwise would never eat, then chicken nuggets are a healthy choice. 

If you struggle with eating fruit because the texture is so unpredictable, try frozen fruit (eaten straight out of the freezer). Frozen fruit has a predictable texture! 

If frozen fruit hurts your tummy or you don’t like that texture, either, here are some more ideas: make smoothies, or purée fruit and mix it into yoghurt, or purée fruit and add it to tomato sauce (sounds weird but a little sweetness can work great in tomato sauce), or bake fruit into muffins (if you cut them up very finely or blend them into the dough, they are often barely noticeable) 

Moving your body doesn’t have to look like exercise. Going on a walk (maybe to look for pretty stones on the sidewalks? or even just to get a coffee!) counts! Dancing to your favorite song (even alone in your room) counts too! Crawling on the floor like a dog (just for the silliness of it, which is also great for your brain) also counts! 

Sleep rituals can help a lot and they don’t need to be fancy! Just do the same thing before you go to bed and over time your brain will associate it with getting sleepy and calm down once you do it. This could be something like making a cup of chamomile tea, listening to soft piano music, praying or meditating, writing down one thing you’re grateful for etc., but also something whimsy like saying good night to your favorite plushie! 

A great way to get some steps in and also challenge your brain is to go to museums. If you feel like you are not the museum type because you don’t „get“ art, try this little trick: just don’t try to get it. Don’t focus on finding the meaning or find hidden symbolism for now. Instead, just try to find three things you like about the art piece. This doesn’t have to be anything smart or deep. It can be something like „I like the blue color the artist used“ or „I like how fluffy the clouds look“. This approach will help you relax and actually learn to appreciate the art… which is what you need to do in order to allow your brain to look for meanings

There’s probably at least one vegetable you think you hate but you really just hate the way your mom prepares them (no offense to your mom). It can be a fun challenge to revisit some foods you decided you hate as a kid and to see if that’s still true. 

Allow yourself to be bored. „I need to look at two screens simultaneously at all times to avoid a thought from occurring“ is not as funny in real life as it sounds as a meme. Your brain needs to be bored sometimes. Your thoughts need to wander sometimes. If that’s hard, then start by just doing certain things more intentionally: do not watch YouTube while eating. Just eat. Do not scroll through TikTok while on the toilet. Just poop. Your brain will reward you for actually getting some time to sort through and process stuff. Even if it’s just while pooping. 

Allow yourself to gameify those boring adult tasks if that works for you. Pretend to be on a cooking show while chopping onions. Sing a silly song about laundry while doing laundry. Beat your own record for speed-cleaning. Give those dishes a nice pool party in your sink. 

Reading of all kinds still counts as reading. Yes, it can be a rewarding challenge to finally finish that bestselling novel that is totally outside of your genres or interests, or that classic piece of literature that everyone should know. But if it’s too overwhelming and kinda stops you from reading altogether, then just put it aside and read something that’s actually fun for now! It can be a graphic novel or a children’s book or fanfiction or Wikipedia articles, too. 

Make lists. I may be biased because I love lists and make lists for everything (I even have a list categorizing all my lists…) but lists can be such a great tool! Any task becomes much more satisfying when you can cross it off a list.

When people say things like „someone should empty the dishwasher“ or „we should take out the trash today“, they often mean „I want you to empty the dishwasher“ or „I want you to take out the trash“. They’re not even being confusing on purpose or playing mind games, they just assume that wording it so indirectly is nicer and more polite.

If you safely can, then go to Pride events (and queer spaces in general) in small towns or rural areas! They’re often the ones who need support the most. And since they’re smaller, they can also be more accessible (in terms of less noise, less crowded etc.)

I don’t think this one is rooted in science but I’m a big fan of having little comfort items. Just little „emotional support trinkets“ or lucky charms you can carry with you and look at or fidget with when you get nervous. Of course it’s important to not fall into overconsumption with that (impulsively purchasing lots of items you then do not end up actually using or even just purchasing them for the thrill of purchasing), but, if done intentionally (only picking a limited number of items that you actually form an emotional attachment and assign personal meaning to), I believe it can be a simple way to boost happy feelings. It can also work well as your own little „secret“ Pride item! If you don’t feel safe or comfortable wearing rainbow accessories but want something to affirm your identity for yourself, it can be a great idea to assign your own meaning to something totally random. Good way to train your creativity too! 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Dad 

[dreamwritesimagines]

Declassified [12] - Pressure

A.N: Thank you so much for your wonderful support my loves, you are so amazing🩷 I hope you like this chapter as well! 🥰 And please let me know what you think! 🩷

Pairing: Congressman!Bucky x Female!Reader

Summary: Having a high pressure job has its consequences.

Warnings: Explicit language, panic attacks.

Word Count: 4.9k

Series Masterlist

The news of the breakup spread like wildfire.

To be honest, you hadn’t expected anything different. This had to be one of the rare times that Caleb hated being in PR because even you could tell that he was working way too hard.

And of course, your name had been brought up multiple times, but so far there wasn’t anything actually threatening thanks to Bucky and Hazel having attended the gala together right before they broke up. 

“Mom, how did you know dad was the one?”

Your mother looked up from the bowl she was mixing the cake mixture in, then let out a laugh.

“What brought this on?”

“Just curious.” You dangled your legs from the high stool and sipped your coffee before putting the mug on the kitchen island. “Also, I would like to ask again, why are we in the kitchen? You don’t cook.”

“I’m baking.”

“You don’t bake either.”

“Well, one of the girls in my spiritual retreat said it would be a good bonding practice between mothers and daughters.”

You pulled your brows together.

“I guess today is good as any to start,” you murmured. “Fine, okay. We’re bonding, see? Tell me how you knew, other than the fact that he dazzled you with money.”

“Oh I didn’t care about the money.”

You tilted your head. “Uh, are you sure? I mean no offense obviously, but I always assumed money played a part. Safety and all that.”

“I did feel safe with him but that had nothing to do with the money.”

“So you were actually in love with him.”

“I was and I am.”

You made a face. “Oh come on, that I don’t buy. You can be honest, there’s no way you’re still in love with him.”

“Why not?”

You let out a laugh. “Because he’s evil?”

She rolled her eyes and started pouring the mixture into the cupcake tray. “He’s not evil, honey.”

“Well…” You cleared your throat. “I mean he has been bribing and extorting politicians for decades so that things work the way he wants them to work. That’s like, textbook bad. Disney movie bad.”

“Funny, I heard a lot of people say Bucky Barnes is a bad man, but you seem very eager to defend him.”

“That has nothing to do with—okay, let’s never ever put Bucky in the same category with dad ever again,” you said with a laugh. “It’s kind of like lumping The Night King and Jon Snow together.”

“I didn’t watch that show.”

“They’re like complete opposites.” You took another sip of your coffee. “Let me put it this way; Bucky would sacrifice his own life to save someone, dad would sacrifice the whole world to save himself.”

“And you, and me.”

You made a noise of disagreement.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” you said. “You yes. Me, doubtful.”

“He does love you, you know.”

“No he doesn’t.” You shrugged your shoulders. “And I don’t mind, really.”

“He does,” your mother insisted. “It’s just that, you’re both very stubborn and don’t know how to communicate.”

“That and our political stances and our principles and our goals are very different.”

“So what?” she asked as if it was just trivial, and you scoffed a laugh.

“You seriously don’t mind what he does?” you asked. “All those people he hurt? All the corruption?”

“I’m not interested in what he does at work. I’m interested in what kind of a man he is with us, his family.”

You grimaced. “That’s not how it works, mom.”

“It’s how it works with me.”

You rubbed at your eyes, heaving a sigh. “I guess this just proves it.”

“Proves what?”

“I’ve always thought that…” you trailed off. “I’ve always thought you and him were just meant to be together, but I wasn’t supposed to be in the picture.”

“Never say that!” She gasped. “We love you!”

“That’s not it,” you said with a weak smile. “No, you guys make sense together, in some very weird and unhealthy way. But I don’t, you know what I mean?”

“That’s so not true,” she said, putting pieces of chocolate into the batter in the pan. “And as I’ve said, your father loves you and me. What he does at work doesn’t matter.”

“It actually does,” you said. “You might be able to pick and choose, but I wouldn’t be able to do that.”

“Is that why you broke up with Max?”

“That dickhead voted for the opposition.”

She turned to you. “Please tell me you didn’t break up with him over that.”

“See? It doesn’t matter to you,” you said. “But it matters to me. And hey, it’s a good thing I dumped him, apparently he was cheating on me anyway.”

Her jaw dropped and she reached out to squeeze your hand. “Aw I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, I don’t care,” you said. “I mastered the art of detachment thanks to the revolving door of nannies you guys kept changing when I was little, so it’s okay.”

“Well, we just didn’t know who was the best for you.”

You bit at your lip to hold back your retort.

“How’s everything at work?” she asked. “Are those rumors still going on?”

“Well, to some extent but no picture or anything,” you said. “Just whispers.”

“And you like him?”

“Professionally, yes.”

Bullshit.

It was a good thing that your mother hardly ever spent time with you, she didn’t know how to read you.

The truth was that every day your feelings for Bucky were getting deeper. You knew that Hazel was right, you knew the risks but somehow, when you thought about him kissing you…

Your brain just refused to be logical.

Granted that didn’t mean you were going to throw all the caution to the wind, but you were wondering if something was wrong with you if that didn’t intimidate you as much as it was supposed to.

“A lot of my friends think he’s too handsome to be in politics.” Her voice pulled you out of your thoughts. “And they have a lot of questions.”

“About him?”

She hummed and walked to the oven to take a look at it. “Which button do I turn?”

You jumped from the stool to turn the button. “This one.”

“Aw thank you,” she said as she put the tray in, then closed it and turned to you. “So what’s he like?”

You took your seat again. “In politics?”

“In his daily life. Why did he and that girl break up?”

You cleared your throat. “Um, difference in opinions.”

“On what?”

“No idea, that’s what I’ve been told.”

She hummed, sitting down as well. “And you guys are close?”

“Professionally.”

“But you consider him a friend as well?” she asked. “I don’t know many people who are friends with their boss.”

“You don’t know many people with a boss.”

“Fair,” she admitted. “But that’s irrelevant. Tell me more about him, we’re all curious. Is he nice?”

“Oh absolutely.”

“To you? Even with all these rumors?”

You couldn’t help but smile, then nodded your head.

“He um…” you trailed off, biting your lip. “He’s amazing, mom. I know a lot of people think there are still traces of the Winter Soldier in him, but it’s not like that at all. He’s the sweetest, I’d trust him with my life. He even—”

You stopped yourself and your mother leaned in, curiosity shining in her eyes. “What?”

“He got Blinky back for me.”

She blinked a couple of times in confusion. “Who’s Blinky?”

Of course.

You hesitated for a second before you forced yourself to smile and shook your head.

“It’s not important,” you mumbled. “Anyways, enough about me, how was your retreat?”

                                                *

The next day, you didn’t even have the time to go to lunch. You had to work on the draft Bucky had asked you to, and of course you had volunteered to go over the revisions Lucas had sent you just so that you could impress Congresswoman Gray, and your phone kept buzzing with emails every two minutes.

And for some reason, everything was louder today.

You took a deep breath, willing your heartbeat to calm down as you clenched and unclenched your hands, staring at the screen before you deleted the last line, and added a new one.

“Please don’t tell me we’re back to skipping lunch for work.”

Your fingers froze over the keyboard before you looked over your shoulder to see Bucky watching you, leaning against the doorframe.

“I had a protein bar and like two cups of red eye, I’m fine.”

His worried gaze raked over you, making your heartbeat even faster.

“I thought we had a deal.”

“I’ll eat when I’m done with this.” You nodded at the screen and he came to lean against your desk, making you bite back a smile.

“Birdie.”

You heaved a dramatic sigh at his teasing tone and looked up at him. “Hm?”

“Let’s have lunch.”

“You literally came back from lunch.”

“I can eat again.” He started tilting the screen of your laptop down but you batted his hand away, then fixed the screen again. “It’s a metabolism thing.”

“Super soldier metabolism?”

“Mm hm.”

“Good for you, I’m too busy,” you said. “I already spent enough time doing nothing with my mom yesterday when I was supposed to go over this, so…”

“You were with your mom?” he asked. “How did that go?”

“Dad wasn’t home so it was fine. Ish.”

“Fine-ish?”

“My mom doesn’t really know much about me but the parts she knows, she loves to dismiss,” you said. “They make a terrific couple with my dad, terrible parents though.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you said. “Without them, my old therapist wouldn’t have been able to buy her second Ferrari, so I guess it wasn’t a total disaster.”

“And you can tell me all about it while we’re having lunch.”

You turned to your laptop. “Take a powder, Barnes.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you could see the clear confusion on his face but it turned into an amused smile, a chuckle escaping his lips.

“How did you…?”

“Hey, I could have an extensive vocabulary.” You grinned at him. “You don’t know my lexicon.”

“Right. Why do I feel like you googled 40s slang?”

“I once saw you google if lavender is edible, so how about we stop pointing fingers?” you asked and he shook his head vigorously.

“In my defense, Kelsey got me a lavender latte and insisted I had to try it.”

“And what did you think? Your assistant was trying to poison you?”

He shot you a look as if you were asking him a question with a very obvious answer. “It’s Kelsey.”

You thought for a moment, then shrugged your shoulders.

“Fair enough,” you said. “But come on, she—”

You stopped talking when your phone started buzzing, making both you and Bucky turn your glances to the screen, and you both frowned at the same time.

“He’s still calling you?” Bucky asked and held out his hand for you to give him the phone, but you shook your head.

“I’ll handle him,” you said and answered the phone. “Max, go fu—”

“Wait wait, don’t hang up,” he cut you off. “I swear, this will be very civil and you’re gonna want to listen to what I have to say.”

You rolled your eyes, leaning back on your chair while Bucky kept his eyes on you.

“What?” you asked crossly and he took a deep breath.

“I saw that piece about you and Barnes.”

“I’m going to hang up now.”

“A journalist contacted me,” he said in a rush. “He wanted to know whether there was anything going on between you and him while we were still dating.”

Your stomach dropped, your eyes snapping up to Bucky before you gritted your teeth.

“And let me guess,” you said. “You told him you’d think about it and now you’re calling me to ask for something.”

“No actually,” he said. “I told him we broke up because I cheated on you, because you put your career over our relationship, the very same career you wouldn’t risk for anyone much less your boss.”

You pulled back slightly. “…What?”

“I gathered ambitious bitch sounded better than greedy slut. Not that you’re either of those but you know, the guy was an asshole.”

 You let out a surprised laugh.

“You’re telling me you had the perfect opportunity to fuck with me and you didn’t take it?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re not asking for anything in return?”

“No, I just wanted to let you know,” he said. “If they called me, it means they’re working on a piece.” 

You frowned, drumming your fingernails on the desk.

“And why would you do this without asking for anything in return?”

He fell quiet for a moment, then cleared his throat.

“Tessa said she’d leave me if I didn’t go to therapy,” he said. “And my therapist made me realize it wasn’t cool, what I did. What with keeping Blinky and stuff.”

“By ‘stuff’ you mean cheating on me, or the ultimatum or going behind my back at voting?” you asked and he took a deep breath.

“Yeah. Sorry about all that.”

As much as you wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, you figured this was at least just a little progress.

Very little, but either way.

“Well, what do you know?” you muttered. “I mean you’re still an asshole, that goes without saying but I appreciate the heads up.”

“My therapist says I have um… he says I am scared of emotional intimacy. That’s why I cheated on you, he says.”

“Yeah Max, because he can’t say you’re an asshole. You’re paying him.”

“I guess.” He snorted a laugh. “How’s DC?”

“Full of people who’d love to step on your back for their own gain. I haven’t slept in two days.”

Bucky shot you a disapproving look but you waved a hand in the air.

“So you’re having the time of your life?”

“Something like that.”

“That’s good—” He started but you heard another voice coming from the other line, probably his assistant. “I uh, sorry, I gotta go. Work thing.”

“I gathered,” you replied. “It’s almost five minutes.”

“…Yeah, that wasn’t cool either,” he said. “Also sorry about that.”

“Listen, how about I send you a list of things you should be sorry for and we can get all of them out the way?”

He let out a chuckle. “That’d make therapy so much easier. Can I call or email you to apologize then?”

“Call me and I’ll see if I’m in the forgiving mood,” you said and hung up, then looked up at Bucky.

“So, great news,” you said. “A journalist asked Max if you and I had an affair while I was with him, but he said no.”

“And he didn’t ask for anything in return?”

“He’s doing therapy, as it turns out,” you said. “My belief in psychology has been renewed because honestly, if they can make Max apologize…”

Bucky’s lips twitched into a smile and you bounced your leg, biting inside your cheek.

“We need to find who this journalist is.”

“I will.” His voice was completely calm. “And I’ll take care of it.”

“You can’t threaten him.”

“If he didn’t want me to threaten him, he shouldn’t have dragged you into whatever nonsense he’s working on,” he said, making your heart skip a beat. “That’s just not how it works.”

You tilted your head, feigning confusion. “I thought I was the one protecting you.”

He winked at you. “It’s a two-way street.”

You rolled your eyes at him playfully as he turned his head to look at the approaching footsteps before Caleb appeared at the door and let out a groan.

“I’m like two seconds away from assigning a chaperone to you like we’re in Georgian era,” he said. “Bucky, you might be familiar with that.”

“Wrong century, Caleb.”

“Well, how about we don’t start another fire when I’ve just extinguished the other one?”

You held up your hands and turned your attention to the screen, your cheeks burning and Bucky heaved a sigh, then pushed himself off the desk.

“Make her eat something.”

“I will but did you have the chance to think about what I said?”

You looked between them. “What did you say?”

“Caleb thinks we all should have a barbeque at my new place,” Bucky said. “Something something PR.” 

“It would show you’re still relatable and that you’re doing fine after the breakup.”

“That’s not a terrible idea,” you mused. “I haven’t been to your new place yet, and I missed Alpine.”

“And the team would love it,” Caleb added and Bucky’s gaze stopped on you as if he was torn between ideas, then cleared his throat.

“Yeah, whatever,” he told Caleb who pumped his fist in the air in victory. “Just let me know when.”

“Will do!”

“And I’m not locking Alpine in the room,” he said as he walked into his office. “She gives me an attitude for days when I do that.”

Caleb approached you to plop down on the chair next to your desk.

“Thanks for convincing him.”

“I barely said anything.”

“Well, I’ve been begging him for a week and one word from you…” he trailed off and you shook your head, then turned to him.

“Caleb.”

“Hm?”

“There’s something you need to know as Bucky’s communications director.”

His grin wiped off his face in a second. “What?”

“There’s a journalist,” you said. “And apparently he’s been asking questions about me and Bucky.”

Caleb ran a hand over his face, cussing under his breath.

“Of course,” he said and pulled out his phone. “It was getting a bit too peaceful today, so why not? Be right back.”

You watched him walk out of the office and pressed your hands on your eyes before you dropped them, straightening your back.

“It’s fine,” you murmured to yourself as you turned your attention back to the screen. “It’s totally fine.”

                                 ��    *

As your anxiety would show you; it was not, in fact, fine.

You had spent the whole day working, and now almost everyone had left but Kelsey and Bucky, both of whom were in a meeting with Congressman Murray.

And you. Working overtime.

It was already dark out, and the only thing illuminating the office was your laptop screen. You could feel the migraine slowly making its way to your temples. For the whole day, your chest hadn’t stopped feeling tight, like you couldn’t get enough air into your lungs especially after Max had told you about the journalist. In addition to all that, the work you had to cover was getting bigger and bigger, you still had one hundred pages to go over, and to make the necessary edits.

In other news, you might have bitten more than you could chew.

You typed away at the keyboard, forcing yourself to hum a melody in hopes of calming yourself down before you got up from your chair to make your way to Bucky’s office. You grabbed the file from his desk and went back to your desk, but before you could sit down, your phone buzzed on the desk, the screen lighting up.

From: Dad

We need to talk about the journalist.

And just like that, your line of sight grew narrow, darkness swallowing everything else other than the phone.

To your terror, you could feel the familiar tingling spreading over your face as your throat tightened, the breath you were taking getting stuck there. A fire burned through your chest, twisting your heart harder and harder while it tried to escape from your ribcage. You could feel your whole body beginning to shake, the floor getting wobbly underneath your feet like quicksand as you took a step back, grasping at your throat with one hand.

You’re not dying.

It’s a panic attack, you’re not dying.

Except that you were sinking.

You held onto the desk with one hand and managed to crouch down to sit on the floor as the room started spinning, your heart pounding in your ears. Nausea crashed down on you while you tried to get enough air in your lungs, your other hand balling up into fist tight enough to cramp.

You’re not dying.

You couldn’t even tell if it was tears or cold sweat running down your face; it was probably both. Your hand on your throat slipped down to your chest to press on it in hopes of soothing the pain there while you forced yourself to take another breath.

You’re not dying.

You see a laptop, you see a chair, you see a—

You hadn’t even heard Bucky stepping into the office before he rushed to you, his hands grasping your upper arms, almost frantically checking you for injuries like he wanted to see if you were bleeding.

“Birdie?”

“Not dying,” you managed to gasp out. “Panic attack.”

That made him stop only for a moment, a look of absolute relief crossing his face and he let out a breath.

“Okay,” he said. “You’re breathing very fast right now, can you breathe with me?”

You nodded your head, taking a shaky breath at the same time as him, then exhaled. For almost a minute, you followed his lead and once you weren’t breathing as fast, he gave you a small smile.

“There you go,” he said. “Five things you can see?”

That made your eyes snap to his as you took another breath. “How do you—?”

“Five things,” he said and you exhaled.

“Laptop,” you rasped out. “Chair. Papers. Desk. My fox figure on my desk.”

“Four things you can hear.”

You tried to focus, pulling your brows together.

“Your voice,” you said. “Footsteps from the hallway. AC.  Um…”

“One more.”

“The laptop running,” you said, pressing your palm on the floor. “And three things I can feel are…the marble floor, and sweat dripping down the back of my neck, which is fucking disgusting—”

“Birdie, focus.”

“And um, the wind. From the AC.”

“And two things you can—”

“Smell. Your cologne and paper. I just printed a bunch of stuff.” 

“And one thing you can taste?”

“Blood. I bit my tongue too hard.”

His eyes searched your face and you let out another shaky breath, exhaustion creeping up on you as you leaned your head back to the wall. Bucky hesitated for a second before he sat beside you, leaning back against the wall.

“How do you know grounding techniques?” you asked after a pause and he shrugged his shoulders.

“Mandatory therapy.”

“Ah,” you said, fixing your eyes on the ceiling. “Interesting.”

“And I’m guessing this is not your first panic attack?” he asked, making you scoff a laugh.

“Nope,” you said. “Been having them since I was like twelve.”

Bucky’s brows pulled into a frown. “Twelve?”

“Yup,” you said. “As it turns out, if you put too much pressure on a kid and yell at them whenever they didn’t meet the expectations, their brain gets messed up. Who would’ve known?”

“I’m going to kill your father.”

“You can’t,” you said. “If he’s dead, who’s gonna go around crossroads to make deals for people’s souls?”

“Birdie.”

“I’m fine,” you said even if your arms felt way too heavy when you raised your hand to wipe the sweat off your forehead. “This happens, no big deal.”

“How often?”

“Not regular,” you said. “Sometimes. But let me tell you, I would not last a day back in the 1940s. I saw those documentaries, my husband would send me off to an asylum and they’d try to lobotomize—”

“I’m giving you time off.”

“Tough shit, I’m not taking it.”

He gave you a look. “I’ll change the locks to the office.”

“I’ll work in the hallway.”

He ran a hand over his face as if he was straining his mind to come up with a solution and you wiggled your brows despite exhaustion.

“Sorry. I guess you shouldn’t have hired me, huh?”

“If I hadn’t hired you, neither of us would be here,” he said and thought for a moment. “Well, I wouldn’t be, at least. You would have probably made someone else win so you’d be here.”

“I wouldn’t have worked for someone else,” you murmured and he licked his lips.

“Please take some time off.”

“Nope.”

“You either take some time off, or I’m hiring someone to help you out with the workload.”

Your eyes widened. “Bucky, no.”

“Bucky yes.”

“I don’t trust anyone else with what I do,” you said. “They’re gonna miss something, some detail and then I’ll have to go over what they did anyway.”

“Either vacation, or this,” he said, his voice signaling this was not open to discussion. “You’re not leaving me with many options here.”

“There is an option!” you exclaimed. “The system we have works.”

“It obviously doesn’t if you haven’t slept in two days and the workload is triggering a panic attack.”

“It didn’t though!” you insisted. “It’s a coincidence, not a chain of events.”

“I’m not risking it.”

You huffed out, slipping a little on the floor and crossing your arms while Bucky’s lips twitched into a fond smile.

“You’re pouting.”

“I’m not pouting, I’m contemplating,” you corrected him and gritted your teeth, then rolled your eyes. “Fine. I’ll give the okay though, whoever you hire. I need to make sure they can handle this whole thing.”

“Didn’t think otherwise.”

You let out a noise of displeasure, exhaustion still heavy on your whole body and you leaned your head on his shoulder with a tired sigh. He dipped his head to nuzzle into your hair, making your stomach do a happy flip and you played with the bracelet around your wrist.

“Bucky?”

He hummed into your hair. 

“How did it go with Murray?”

He raised his lips from your hair so that you could hear him; “We’re not talking about work right now.”

“But—”

“Nope.”

“Fine,” you said with a pout. “How are you handling the breakup?”

That made him fall quiet for a moment before he cleared his throat.

“I’m fine.”

You lifted your head and sat up straighter to look up at him better.

“Are you?” you insisted. “For real? Because I wouldn’t blame you if you weren’t. I mean no offense but Hazel is kind of perfect.”

“She is,” Bucky said immediately. “She really is, but I don’t think—uh, I don’t think I was the right person for her.

Your heart sped up again but this time instead of dread, all you could feel was excitement rushing through your veins.

“…Oh,” you managed to say. “Why not?”

That made him fall quiet for a moment, his gaze slipping down to your lips before it snapped up to your eyes again. You couldn’t help but notice his throat bobbed nervously, and he took a deep breath as if he was trying to gather up courage.

Which was insane.

You had seen him throw himself in danger over and over again without so much as a second of hesitation.

“Because,” he started, his voice soft, “Birdie, I—”

“Hello?” Kelsey’s voice carried out from the doorway, snapping both of you out of your daze. “Guys?”

You loved Kelsey but you could swear that the urge to scream at her was way too strong.

Bucky closed his eyes for a moment as if he shared the sentiment, then opened them again, his jaw tightening. You sat up straighter and raised your hand from beside the desk.

“Over here, Kels.”

“What the fuck are you two doing on the floor?” Kelsey asked as she made her way to you and you exchanged glances, then turned to her.

“I…we—uh—”

“I think better when I’m sitting on the floor,” Bucky cut you off and Kelsey tilted her head.

“What?”

“Yeah, it’s a habit from the 1940s.”

Kelsey looked from him to you while Bucky stood up, then offered his hand for you to take it, a warmth spreading from your hand to your arm. You were still exhausted, but you looked up at him and mouthed ‘thank you’. Bucky squeezed your hand in an assuring manner, and you turned to Kelsey.

“Are we going home?”

“Sure, let’s.”

“Call me when you get home?” Bucky murmured and you nodded your head, giving him a small smile, then grabbed your purse off the desk and followed Kelsey out of the office.

“Please don’t tell me you two were having sex on the office floor.”

You let out a laugh, then shook your head.

“We were talking about his ex,” you said and cracked your neck, making a face. “And oh, before I forget, Caleb says we’ll have a barbeque at Bucky’s place this Saturday.”

“At Bucky’s place?” she asked. “All of us?”

“Mm hm, the whole team and I think Sam and Sarah will come too.”

Kelsey grinned at you.

“Just let me know if you happen to find yourself in his bedroom and need me to distract others,” she joked. “During the house tour, that is.”

You pushed at her arm gently.

“There’s gonna be people there,” you reminded her. “Lots of people. Hypothetically, even if Bucky liked me like that—”

“Did they raise you in a convent?”

“That would still be impossible,” you said as if she didn’t interrupt you. “Which by the way, he doesn’t.”

“Uh huh.”

“I don’t even think he finds me hot, to be honest with you,” you said. “It’s like Hazel said. He entertains my crush, that’s it.”

Kelsey threw her head back.

“You are so oblivious,” she groaned. “This barbecue—”

“Will be just a barbecue,” you said. “Some PR thing, that’s it. I assure you.”

[bitofanupsidedowner]

we're past the appropriate rejection window honestly. remember how steve is rejected by robin in the same season he develops feelings for her? or how dustin is symbolically rejected by max in the season he develops feelings for her? that's because it would have been a super weird choice to build it up for a really long time and then end it with a rejection.

there's a reason why in season three when joyce rejects hopper, we all immediately know it isn't a real rejection, even though they're fighting, she's grieving and planning to leave, and he's being unreasonable and unfair. there's reason after reason to think it's not going to happen, but because he's had feelings for her since season one we know it's going somewhere.

who waits on the edge of their seat to watch someone get turned down? who stays subscribed to netflix for that? that kind of thing would not be interesting, it would just be a confusing way to spend the increasingly limited time right before your show ends. penultimate season. every scene has to mean something bigger, all the way down to lucas talking about new coke or mike trying a new kind of pizza.

in writing you primarily only want to wait and build up to things if the result is going to be worth waiting for. rejection of the perpetually tortured gay kid is predictable and doesn't function to do much at all story wise. easy to write around, too, but they did the opposite. they built will's character around this.

they also have no need to dip back into the rejection pool narratively, doesn't add to the story. especially this late into the game. (sidenote, weird how people were not nearly as sure robin was going to be rejected despite her love interest being mirrored to mike, significantly less developed, and introduced so late, but i digress)

if they wanted mike to reject will, it should have been during the van scene. he should have given mike the painting and said something along the lines of, "i know you don't feel the same, but i really want you to know how el sees you, how we all see you. you're the heart. we'd fall apart without you." it would have still been sad but it would have been an ending.

because plotlines need to end! they need to end when it makes sense for them to, not before or after. dragging it along means they either realize they have something worth dragging, or have deliberately decided to prolong a plot point past its logical conclusion for the sole purpose of milking every last second of misery they can out of will, which would be needlessly cruel and so, so gratuitous.

it's not like the van scene NEEDED to happen exactly how it happened. any scene that is solely character driven with no impact on the plot can be rewritten over and over and changed into whatever it has to be. it was written as the most romantic mike moment in any season, and it was filmed and lit and directed extremely specifically. zero accidents.

robin and vickie was unnecessary without a plan. mike and will was unnecessary unless they have a plan.

so they must have a plan. if mike was going to reject will, it had to be in season four. but mike didn't reject will. not at all. he was actually very, very moved by what will had to say, he just didn't entirely realize what it was he was saying.

in fact, they made sure that this plotline was not just unsolved, but that it was obligated to come back, by having it go against the character's most consistent moral line of friends don't lie. and gave it to the character who, in his introductory scene, refuses to lie. dishonesty has genuine ramifications in this show, and will's is attached to a physical (treasured) object that has to come back into play. they can't sweep it under the rug and mike can't reject will without it coming off as... just... far too late.

[cherubkissesx]

salty kisses

pairing: spencer reid x female! reader

content: pure fluff, kissing, cuddles, talks of having children one day, no use of y/n

synopsis: you and spencer decide to take a well needed holiday off from work, the location you both agree on is greece. you both decide to spend an entire day at the beach totally wrapped up in eachother.

a/n: this idea came to me when it was literally so hot i was struggling to breathe and regulate my body temperature so enjoy!!

“i am literally living out my mamma mia fantasy!” you squealed as you took in the breathtaking view of greece right infront of you. you and spencer decided to head down to the beach today as it was your first day in greece.

“i hope you don’t mean in the literal sense where you have three potential baby daddies?” spencer questioned chuckling. “of course not.” you said going on your tiptoes to plant a kiss on his lips.

when you both got to beach, you made it your mission to find the best possible spot to place your towels. you wanted somewhere where it was a little quiet but also was a complete sun trap. and you had completed your mission successfully.

“suncream remember!” spencer said to you as he knew you went as red as a lobster at the slightest hint of sunshine. “of course” you rolled your eyes and began immediately covering yourself head to toe in spf 50.

“get my back?” you asked spencer and he willingly took the suncream bottle from you and began lathering your back. “spence that’s too much!” you exclaimed as you could feel him squirt a huge dollop onto your back. “can never be too careful sweetheart” he chuckled. that nickname he had for you never failed to make you completely turn to mush.

“done” he said planting a kiss to your shoulder blade then turning you around a placing a deep kiss to your lips. “ew! my lips taste like suncream!” you said wiping your lips with the back of your hand. “you just wiped away my kiss!” spencer said in pretend sadness. “i’ll make up for it later.” you smiled.

spencer lay down on his towel and pulled out a book that looked the size of your head, you chuckled and let him be.

looking at the view of the sea infront of you, you were beyond grateful you and spencer were allowed to take this well deserved holiday off work. lately work had been stressing you out so bad it was starting to now take a physical toll on you aswell as mental. everyone had noticed how your skin was paler and more sunken in, so when jj suggested you go get a little colour on your skin you were unsure.

but when spencer suggested seriously you both go away for a week and how he was worried about you, you jumped at the chance of taking this well needed holiday.

however, you couldn’t help thinking about the others back home and worrying that they were struggling without you and spencer.

“baby? what’s up” spencer said putting his book down and looking at you. he had been staring at you for a little while but you hadn’t noticed, he only knew something was wrong because you began scrunching up your face like you do when you’re thinking or worried about something.

“nothing! why do you think that?” you said now putting a smile back on your face. spencer had now moved so that his head was resting on your shoulder and peering up at you. “have you forgotten im a profiler? and i know your facial expressions better than anyone.” he said softly it made you give in and tell him.

“i’m just worried they’re struggling without us at work” you admitted. “baby, remember they hired 2 temps to replace us.” he laughed which made you laugh too.

“do you want to go for a swim?” spencer suggested and you immediately nodded. “you’re looking a bit hot and bothered.” he joked and you hit him playfully.

“race you?” you said. “it’s on!” he said and you both took off darting towards the water. of course you won, the years of fbi training paying off in a weird way.

“i’ll beat you next time.” he smiled and drew you close to him placing his soft lips on yours.

“let’s play mermaids” you suggested seriously. “seriously?” he laughed “oh i am so serious” you laughed.

you both starting swimming around eachother in circles, you started splashing your feet more fast and dramatically when you could tell spencer started trying to grab your feet.

“no!” you laughed and ducked underwater to hide from him. you stuck your tongue out at him when you floated back up and he laughed.

you could hear the sound of a baby’s gleeful laugh/screech and you looked over to see the baby chasing its parents around in circles at the shore, it made your heart swell up. you glanced at spencer and saw that he was also looking over at the family with a faint smile on his face. you knew he wanted a family so badly and you hoped to give him that one day.

“should we go dry off now?” you suggested and he nodded as you both found your ways over to your spot. you both lay on your backs, basking in the blistering sun drying you both off.

“c’mere” spencer spoke up opening one of his arms out and you scouted right under his arm and fit snuggly exactly like a puzzle piece. it was like you two were always destined for eachother.

he opened up his book and began reading with his free hand and you were tracing circles on his stomach as you gazed off and people watched.

“spence?” you spoke up. “hmm” he said looking down at you. “you’ll be an amazing father one day, and i hope i can be the one to give that to you.” you spoke so gently to him that his lips curled up into an equally softer smile.

“i only want my children’s mother to be you, you’re destined to be a mom.” he said and you smiled and you both went back to doing whatever you were both doing before.

“i love you” spencer said and planted a tender kiss on your temple. “i love you too” you smiled and readjusted your position so that you were now propped up on his chest so that you could lean forward and kiss spencer with all your might.

[snakeredbirdbatkatana]

I think in my head, I tend to separate, especially when I'm writing.

I tend to make the characters like relationships always have a bit of like a darker undertone.

So in my head, I separate like Duke Cass and Stephanie. And then I have Jason Damian, Tim, Dick.

In my mind, the boys have like the definition of toxic relationship. It feels weird to me to then give that same kind of very unhealthy dynamic Duke, Cass, and Stephanie.

That's not to say that Cass and Stephanie don't have an unhealthy relationship dynamic. I just feel like it's a different form.(specifically in my writing.)

Than Duke, I just don't feel like he has the same attachment to the Waynes. Like do I think he cares about them? Yes do I think he's going to start a war and then cackle while people burn alive no. I feel like Duke morals actually seem to be more iron tight in my mind than the other batboys.

The no kill rule matters so much to Cass.

Also, too there's overall far less like hate or frustration between those three.

Like Jason would slit Tim's throat again, but also would immediately dump him in the green Mountain Dew.

That's not to say there isn't love between all of them.

I just feel like I want them all to sit at the dinner table in Wayne Manor Cass to look at her brothers, and feel very uncomfortable with what their body language and emotions tell her.

Then I run into the prom with Stephanie that I feel like she would be aware of the unhealthy dynamic, and she would purposefully not fall into it.

Never mind that her relationship with Bruce is not the same as the rest of them.

You can't have a normal relationship if you're willing to sit at the same table as people who have attempted to kill you and then in the very next breath truly mean it when you say I love you.

Like I just don't see that same level of codependency between Duke, Cass and Stephanie.

Could I write it that way sure, but it doesn't have the same vibe. It's weird.

I was looking at some of the stuff I have saved, and I came to the realization that I do not tend to write them toxic. This is me essentially trying to put into words, my feelings on twisting their relationships.

I try to keep some vibe of Canon in my writing, unless it is super super off the walls. But I just feel like I can't twist theirs to be in the same realm as the rest.

* I don't think this made sense but putting my thoughts to paper.

[nostalgebraist]

When you finish writing a big story and you became very close the characters, was there a time after where you were like "i kind of want to revisit these characters again, but i should probably just let the story be, they deserve to rest" Im not talking about wanting to write a sequel, is more about still coming up with fun ideas for them, maybe a little scene or something, but choosing not to do anything with it because it'd feel disrespectful to the ending you gave them?

This doesn't happen to me, no.

The reason is that, once I finish the story, my sense of "being close to the characters" suddenly vanishes. And, although there are rare moments where it (briefly) returns, it mostly stays gone.

I can't remember if I've ever talked about this in detail before, but – when I'm in the process of writing a story, especially near the end, the characters feel "real" to me in a very strong and kind of uncanny way.

I don't actually believe that they exist as independent entities from me (much less sentient ones), but it does almost feel like that's true, when I'm in the thick of the writing process.

I have no trouble intellectually distinguishing fiction from reality, even in the state I'm describing. But my emotional and intuitive relationship with my characters, when I'm in that state, is pretty similar to the one I have with real people I know in real life. And there are a bunch of... uh, mental phenomena?... associated with this that I'm slightly afraid to describe because I worry they'll sound like hallucinations or delusions if I don't add a lot of caveats.

For example, when I'm alone in a room writing (especially if I'm writing in the middle of the night), I sometimes feel like it's not just me in the room, that the character I'm writing about is "there with me," in much the same way I'd be aware of someone real person's presence if I knew they were in the room but didn't happen to be looking in their direction. Or: sometimes I feel like the characters' voices are "flowing through me," that I'm merely taking dictation from them – and will sometimes even think to myself: "man, I'm so grateful that the character is helping me write this part, because if I tried to do it all by myself there's no way I would get it right." And it takes a moment before I realize, wait, no, I am writing it by myself – at least in a literal and physical sense.

Basically if you read this post, and then sort of read between the lines of it under the assumption that I'm downplaying how weird the experience actually is because I'm worried an accurate account would make me sound kind of unhinged... then you will have roughly the right impression of what the writing experience is like for me.

Whatever is going on here, it feels like it's probably on some kind of spectrum that also contains stuff like tulpas, multiple systems, and maybe also the way that children can sometimes get really deeply wrapped up in their imaginary play. I don't know how common this stuff is among writers (maybe it is common but rarely talked about?). It's not something I've experienced anywhere else in life; I don't experience it with other people's fictional characters or stories, or with fantasies I have that aren't associated with a work in progress, and I don't remember ever experiencing it before I started writing fiction as an adult.

Anyway, as I said at the top, the moment I finish writing a story, this phenomenon simply turns off, suddenly and completely. The transition is very noticeable when it happens, and makes me feel something akin to grief or loneliness over the brief span between the moment it starts and the moment it is fully completed – like I've just lost a bunch of close friends at once.

With Almost Nowhere, I remember a very specific feeling – on the evening of the day when I finished writing – that the characters were "departing 'into' the finished book," reverting to a lesser existence as "mere words" rather than "real people," as though they had been plastic toys animated by Terra Ignota's Bridger, and were now turning back into toys again. It made me sad, for a little while, but once they'd fully "lost their reality" I no longer cared, because it was that same sense of reality that made me care, and now it was gone.

So, to finish answering your question: I don't feel an urge to return to my old characters, because it feels intuitively obvious that doing this is impossible. That anything else I wrote about them would be inauthentic, somehow, in a way that the original work wasn't. They were "there," before, but they're "gone," now. This difference is very stark, and very hard to ignore.

(As I noted above, they do sometimes "come back" to me – very rarely, and very briefly, but that is enough for a proof of concept. Perhaps, if I were to try, I could find some way to "bring them back" for longer intervals. But I doubt I will ever try that. I feel a bit afraid of the concept for several reasons – for one thing, the "inauthenticity" I just mentioned squicks me out and I'd prefer not to come too close to it, and I also have a baseline wariness of doing stuff that seems too much like messing around with my own mental health. There's also a "catch-22" involved here, where I don't feel motivated about the characters the way I used to, and that means I'm not even motivated to do things that would generate that motivation. The "target" of the effort won't appeal strongly to me until I've already gone to the trouble of obtaining it, which means the effort doesn't feel justified in the first place.)

[sunbleachedfl13s]

stinky ahh remmick headcanons pt 4

targets vulnerable people (like fucking cult leaders do) to persuade into the noble path of vampirism (ex: people w/ recently deceased love ones, those in poverty, people generally trapped in bad situations, etc etc the list goes on he’s just a manipulative scumbag)

incredibly impulsive

so so freaking selfish i cannot reiterate this enough i feel like its the core of his whole character. ALL OF HIS “generosity” IS HOLLOW!!!! he didn’t actually give two shits about anyone in the juke joint, he only cares about how THEY can benefit HIM

its what their musical talents could have provided to him that caught his attention, so his motivations are inherently selfish and he’s not even self aware enough to realize that

and i think if sammie hadn’t nuked him he probably would’ve let the whole hive mind die in the morning anyway, because hey you can always find more people to turn, gotta break a couple eggs to make an omelet iykwim

so for instance in the movie mary and stack were just turned, so stack saving mary at the end makes sense because remnants of his humanity would totally still be present, so his very human care and love towards her fueled that action

but as for remmick i think hes too goddamn old to still have a good handle on human emotions, his search for musical talent to reconnect him w/ his ancestors seems more like the repeated final wish of a ghost haunting the earth, like he forgot why he’s even doing it but at this point its all he can remember idk if this shit even makes sense

he has craazy time blindness because hes so fuckin old, like whole years must feel like weeks to him, decades feel like months, he blinks and its 20 years later

would fuck up a karaoke night

i fear he would be a mansplainer

we all know he was patient zero of the sassy man apocalypse so he would be so fucking petty. like dude you’ve lived on this earth for literal centuries and you still get heated over the smallest shit (btw go check out @jupiterpiss they have a great remmick fic in this vein)

this kinda falls under the him being petty thing but not only would he eat your cows/livestock he’d also eat your pets (like dogs and cats)

tits > ass guy (but lets be real here he’s not getting any game either way) (he’d probably see a girl wearing a top that showed cleavage and go “huh, they’re allowed to do that now? woman’s rights are progressing so fast ☺️”)

would probably listen to the Hamilton soundtrack

has slept on floors/the ground for so long that sleeping in a bed feels weird to him

starts bar fights, and then proceeds to lose every single one (the whole bar gangs up on his annoying ass)

would have “acab” in his twitter bio

this got so rambley but hes such an interesting character with a whole lotta nuance so i get really bummed out seeing him simplified in the fandom space

but thats been happening to characters since the dawn of time so whatever

[tiramiiswu]

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ Invincible x Tharja!Reader

✦ masterlist || next ✦ imagine: mark with a dark mage reader inspired by tharja from fire emblem awakening, aka mark and the freak who follows him everywhere they possibly can and casts curses on people who inconvenience them ✦ pairings: mark grayson x tharja!reader ✦ warnings: slight yandere behavior, stalking, reader is a little freak sometimes ✦ a/n: the inevitable tharja!reader imagine i keep babbling about :3 i love my wife she's so silly 💞😊also sorry if this jumps around a lot i like, worked on this infrequently and mostly whenever a brain worm started wriggling i had to get it out of my system i dont really know when to stop

✦ you might be into him because he's attractive or maybe you're just fascinated by his strength or general trauma spiral, sometimes you just follow him like a little stalker because you find him so fascinating for some reason

✦ you like the way you are for sure, it's less so that you don't see anything wrong with your behavior (you're definitely aware enough to know what you're doing is odd) and more so like, this is kind of just how you are and you don’t really see a point in changing

✦ but if mark ever mentioned like her creepy stalker/dark mage behavior being weird or wishing you were like more normal you would both like, understand you needs to change your approach but also lack the social clues to do this in a way that isnt fucking insane

✦ like you don't really understand that he finds you weird, that your tendencies to stalk him and watch him when you think he isn't paying attention, you just think your approach is wrong and that you should try to be As Normal As Possible (in the most bizarre fashion)

✦ you're usually pretty gloomy and monotone so you try to sound and act generally cheerier and upbeat but also uh, you tend to say a lot of weird things

✦ like your phrasing is just kind of Off and Weirdly iterated, you sound old fashioned but in a like, medieval sense

✦ Like you start to greet him specifically with “how fare you” and “good morrow sir” and say “huzzah!” at the end of some of your sentences and none of it sounds right, like it’s just odd and archaic sounding and Extremely Unlike You

✦ At some point mark is even more weirded out by your attempts at being normal that he just, straight up asks you to go back to the way you were before he decided he can put up with your usual strange, gloomy self better than this friendlier side of you

✦ mark starts to notice when tharja!reader is stalking him, it’s never inherently malevolent or out to get him or his loved ones, you're just like, creepy in general

✦ he doesnt have to worry about you trying to hurt him despite your past as a goon of some bigger, more threatening villain

✦ you're reformed and relatively loyal to him and the guardians (at least up until the team splits, then it's pretty clear that you're only really following where he goes)

✦ you're mostly just a lurker

✦ you're fascinated with him in a way you can’t specifically explain, but you fully believe you were destined to meet and tends to speak to him like the two of you are star crossed lovers of some kind

✦ idk if you'd like, go as far as following him to his house that’s insane work even for you, but at places like the gda or the guardian's hq and even during some of his assignments at some point mark would just start to feel you staring at him from somewhere behind him or within the vicinity

✦ you really aren't being that slick with it tbh

✦ yes sometimes you're peering around corners and watching him without him knowing but sometimes someone can just, walk up to see what you're doing and it’s clear as day just watching mark do Literally Anything

✦ you always manage to appear when he’s in the middle of doing something, even if he’s with company

✦ whether it’s walking in to ask cecil a question during one of his training sessions or even just suddenly appearing during casual conversations he’s having with the guardians

✦ it becomes very evident to everyone that you're always going to be lurking somewhere nearby if mark is there

✦ at some point it might become like? comforting? (at least in a stockholm syndrome kind of way)

✦ you become more reliable in combat if you can manage to keep up with him somehow (you're mostly grounded and you don't have very great stamina tbh but you can manage on your own) you do well to watch his flank if you're not in immediate danger, glass cannon and all depending on your opponent’s resistance to magic

✦ but like idk tharja!reader’s head over heels in love with him and isnt opposed to lending an ear or a shoulder to cry on, you just aren’t exactly the first person you’d think to turn to for comfort

✦ i think he’s keeping you at an arm’s length because regardless you're fucking weird but like

✦ idk i want them to have their tharja/robin moment where after getting used to your antics and somewhat comfortable at the idea of you watching over him/taking care of him he feels you watching again and like

✦ reaches out and pulls around the corner you're hiding behind just like, “i mean, i guess an easier way for you to keep doing all this is to just keep you by my side forever or something”

✦ but for now instead of marrying you he'll just like, ask you out on a date

✦ and while you would accept this bc you were almost like? waiting for it, in very tharja fashion you would just be like, “hm, this is wrong, turn back around” and make him ask you again (you still said yes dw)

✦ you're not actually used to him like, looking at you directly

✦ he thinks it's kind of cute in a way that you get kind of shy when he's actually speaking to you face to face

✦ he notices you actually don’t like making eye contact with a lot of people in general, it’s rare to see you actually speak to someone while looking at them dead in the eyes you tend to look down or generally avert your gaze to focus on something else during conversations

✦ cecil probably couldve had you on a tighter leash if he started letting you monitor the graysons with him

✦ 10/10 if someone gave you the job you’d dedicate enough of your time away from studying dark magic and worshiping the fell god to stalk mark on a government paycheck

✦ that’s implying you even like cecil tbh

✦ you honestly couldnt care less what he actually wants to get out of it, you barely listen to him most of the time you're on parole anyway

✦ tbh you could develop a much better hex to keep tabs on mark and his family than whatever cecil’s system is, you just likes doing it yourself

✦ when mark isn’t there for you to shadow? you're holed up in some quiet dark room to practice your dark magic

✦ whether it be studying old texts of rituals and curses or just like, practicing a hex that can change the color of her curtains temporarily

✦ because you're not just practicing spells that are for combat, you're practicing minor hexes for simply just convenience’s sake, or

✦ like yeah you can cast a spell that has to inflict pain onto someone else to replenish your strength and stamina, sure you can sap the life force of another person to heal your wounds or trap someone in a pool of corrosive mire from a few yards away

✦ but what do you actually practice and study the most in you spare time?

✦ developing a new spell to relieve the aches and pains in you feet after you walk in heels, or a hex to help regulate your body temperature just enough to avoid shivering or feeling that prickling sensation from the room being just a bit too warm, sometimes it's just developing a quick charm to take your makeup off at the end of the night because you just couldn't be bothered to go through your whole routine that night

✦ you aren't always trying to cause harm

✦ well, okay except when you're trying to get out of having to see cecil because you Really Don’t Feel Like It and decide to put a curse on him so he gets sick or mildly injured so you can miss your meeting (this has caused him to add more time to whatever deal the two of you made in relation to not sending you to jail)

✦ like not enough to leave him severely harmed of course but like, leave him with a bad cold or maybe like a sprained ankle

✦ something that inconveniences him so he can reschedule and so you can just go back to your books or so you can watch mark in person

✦ this goes for quite a few of the guardians actually

✦ like i mentioned before you'd probably be a reformed villain, like not actually reformed like you had a change of heart and suddenly wanted to do good

✦ but because the villain you worked for was about to get apprehended or killed and you switched teams because you realized you were on the losing side and decided throwing your life away for some crazy mf who doesn't care about you wasn't worth it

✦ you're still not opposed to killing someone if you need to, mark didn’t approve of it though so you've been reeling in your more lethal spells (which was uh, most of them if you're being honest)

✦ it’s taken a bit but you're gradually starting to become more merciful and sparing your opponents from severe bodily harm in an attempt to gain mark’s approval

✦ you'd offer your help to anyone besides mark almost begrudgingly

✦ like you asked for this tbh

✦ you agreed to join the side of the good guys maybe even the gda with some deal with cecil or whatever sure, but you're not going out of your way to interact with your new "teammates"

✦ they always manage to find a way to butt into your business somehow, like you just cant escape them

✦ at some point it's like you're stuck being their therapist at times

✦ like there's something about you that makes people just kind of talk out loud about their problems around you or the universe just has the most impeccable comedic timing when it comes to you walking into a room when someone has a personal issue

✦ like you don't know how to make it any more clear how much you don't really care but like, for whatever reason you decide to offer your assistance (probably just to get them to stop talking)

✦ your methods would be fucking wild and unconventional as hell tho

✦ like oh, mark is still traumatized and conflicted over his feelings about his dad trying to conquer the earth? simple, you’ll just spend a couple of days working on like a whole ritual or concoct some elaborate spell or curse to place on him that will erase his memories of his dad entirely to get rid of the source of the problem like??

✦ it could definitely be a plausible solution (you had the courtesy of offering it to him and waiting for permission to use that spell and he definitely said no ofc) but who the fuck would think of that first???

✦ honestly you'd probably get along with robot decently well

✦ like who else would tharja!reader find kinship with than the fucking weirdo who literally stole his coworker's dna to seem more appealing to his crush? what a fucking freak (you definitely wondered if mark would like you more if you suddenly became ginger or something)

✦ tharja!reader likes to pretend that they're not interested in forming bonds and attachments with others except for mark, but he’s seen how you sit and observe people before offering a solution to their problems

✦ you don’t actively seek out friendship with anyone but he sees how much you try to just like, exist, to prove yourself as trustworthy to the other heroes who hold you at an arm’s length

✦ you tend to be othered due to your track record being a former villain, or because your personality isn’t the most approachable and how you're kind of off putting because your hobbies are strange and how your solutions to problems are extreme at times

✦ like he sees how you get defensive when you think they question your loyalty or judge your practices

✦ you have a tendency to get catty or make snide comments either at others or say something self deprecating about yourself to make a point

✦ you tend to shrug it off as just being honest or realistic, but it’s apparent that it’s starting to get under your skin how much you get treated like a time bomb

✦ he genuinely considers for a moment that you might’ve cursed him

✦ you didn’t btw however everyone definitely thinks you did based on the fact that mark is? actually looking for you now? like willingly?? what the fuck??

✦ like he just cannot stop thinking about you it’s genuinely driving him mad like at first it was because yeah you’re always near him or watching him ofc he’s going to think about you constantly you never leave him alone

✦ but now he’s like, up at night thinking of you sometimes, maybe hugging his pillow to his chest and kicking his feet a little

✦ at some point you aren’t even there and he passes by a shop that has like pretty notebooks or like a black cat or crow plushie in the window and he thinks about you or how you would probably like something like it and maybe he even buys it for himself

✦ if mark ever feels like tharja!reader is like, trustworthy or loyal enough to him (with some stipulations) he might introduce you to his family

✦ you would oddly be mostly disinterested in his family but like, hey, a win’s a win you gets to go to his house and lurk in his room, life is good

✦ depending on when you're invited over mark doesn’t have to worry much about you reporting back to cecil about oliver because you're like

✦ actively avoiding the kid

✦ you look at him like he’s a little creature

✦ like not specifically because he’s an alien or because his skin is purple, but because he’s a child

✦ you don't want any of his kiddy germs on you

✦ mark thinks it’s funny how much you stiffen up when oliver walks over to you

✦ like the way you shuffle further away from him when sitting on the couch and the little sounds of panic/defeat you make when inevitably little toddler oliver corners you and starts like patting your leg or trying to crawl or climb over you

✦ you look so miffed by oliver being curious it's so silly

✦ sometimes you make a minor illusion of like a butterfly or some small glowing image to lure him away so you can escape, or just so he won't hover around you when you're trying to converse with mark or debbie (the graysons finding your efforts to entertain oliver quite silly and endearing in an odd way)

✦ mark pretends not to see you working quietly on making an amulet that can help disguise oliver/change his appearance with a transmog to help debbie save money on whatever foundation or face paint she uses to hide his alien skin

✦ he thinks it’s cute that when oliver’s still pretty young you tend to talk to him like he’s an adult, seeing you holding your amulet up to him and with a rather serious frown explaining to the boy the importance of keeping the pendant unharmed and intact in order for the enchantment to work

✦ the sigh you let out when he inevitably ends up teething on the pendant before giving him the ever so slightly affectionate tug on his cheek is something mark thinks about quite often after that

✦ you don't particularly like being touched by people, but with mark? you're like a cat, you slink around and start to cling to his side or creep up behind him and just sort of like, press into his back and hold onto his waist or shoulders

✦ neither of you have really noticed yet but the two of you both sort of take turns like, watching the other sleep when you're together

✦ whether it be looming over him when he's napping or staring at his face when the two of you fall asleep side by side, you find the peaceful, helpless look on his face when he's vulnerable just oh so mesmerizing

✦ on the other hand whenever you actually managed to fall asleep first beside or on top of him (or sometimes when he finds you slumped over your books, a hex dancing along your fingers to your pen to scrawl across your notes while snoozing in your chair) mark can’t help but find the relaxed expression on your face so… enchanting

✦ it’s corny mark’s so fucking corny but genuinely it’s like you put a spell on him

✦ which tbh is highly probable, like sometimes you put a hex on him during combat to spike his adrenaline for a few seconds or block a pain receptor or two every now and then (maybe even crank up his libido or something idk whatever this little freak wants)

✦ but this time you definitely didn’t do that

✦ last minute addendum mostly unrelated to that last part but this now implies the existence of noire whose father is mark

✦ and that her like bipolar mood swings/personality switches are being influenced by fucking viltrumite genetic strength,,,,,, girl is gonna get a crit and shout “blood and thunder!” and rip a man in half omg

✦ i think they’ve created a monster and by they i ofc mean me this might get a pin put in it i will be scheming about father candidate mark now

[freyafrida]

rilla of ingleside, chapter four

war breaks out, here we gooooo

“Rilla felt flattered by Irene’s condescension. She was an Upper Glen girl of nineteen who seemed to like the society of the younger girls—spiteful friends said because she could queen it over them without rivalry.”

This awakened a memory of a girl I knew in high school who was only friends with underclassmen as a senior and had a little gaggle of freshmen following her around at all times. (She wasn't mean, to my memory, but she could be a little condescending, which...might explain that.) Anyway! Very apt and observant of LMM here, the way Rilla is too young and wants approval from people she admires too badly to catch that Irene's friendship isn't sincere.

“Was he coming to her—was he?—was he?—yes, he was!”

In awe of LMM's ability to capture how breathless and excited Rilla is in prose, even though all this drama over Ken is like. lol. Pretty much the entire chunk of the chapter where Rilla is with Ken is so delightfully written -- the rollercoaster of emotion, Rilla wanting to fling herself into the rocks the second she slightly embarrasses herself, it's all really funny but also so real for a teenager.

“canoodling couples were sitting out on the rocks”

"Canoodling" dates back to the 1860s, the more you know.

“Kenneth was a tall lad, very good looking, with a certain careless grace of bearing that somehow made all the other boys seem stiff and awkward by contrast. He was reported to be awesomely clever, with the glamour of a faraway city and a big university hanging around him. He had also the reputation of being a bit of a lady-killer. But that probably accrued to him from his possession of a laughing, velvety voice which no girl could hear without a heartbeat, and a dangerous way of listening as if she were saying something that he had longed all his life to hear. “Is this Rilla-my-Rilla?” he asked in a low tone.”

First of all -- LMAO at Ken swooping in and calling her "Rilla-my-Rilla" -- sometimes I wonder if he actually is a 'lady-killer', as LMM says, because the text really only says that he has that reputation, and it's maybe not even true. But showing up and calling a girl you've barely had a real conversation with "yours" (via nickname) is such a "how you doing" kind of move, lmao -- and then it's followed by Ken thinking about how Rilla is going to be "the beauty of the Ingleside girls after all", which comes off a bit like he's got some kind of running internal question over which Blythe girl is the hottest. Idk, maybe it felt less weird at the time it was written, but it doesn't make a great first impression now! (Sometimes I feel bad joking that he and Rilla are a terrible couple, because his biggest crime in the majority of the book is just being underdeveloped [insert he's just ken joke here], but...yeah, he doesn't come off particularly romantic here, SORRY KEN.)

“So she looked down; and as her lashes were very long and dark and her lids very thick and creamy”

idk what to make of the thickness of Rilla's eyelids apparently being something Ken is into. sure, why not

“Kenneth talked to her as he had talked to Nan and Di.”

...okay, sure, but what about? I am intrigued because as we know, Rilla isn't as educated, or even interested in being as educated, as Nan or Di (or Ken, who's in college). Do they read the same books? Have any of the same interests? Have a similar sense of humor where they can talk about nothing for a while? We never see them sustain a conversation at all, I don't think. (For that matter, what does Rilla even talk to other boys about, actually?)

“‘A merry lilt o’ moonlight for mermaiden revelry,’” quoted Kenneth softly from one of Walter’s poems.”

For the longest time I thought LMM had just made up a line and thrown it in, as this poem doesn't appear in The Blythes are Quoted. However, it's from "The Sea-Shell", which is in a collection called A World of Songs. (Overall interesting choice to quote her brother's poems at her as a form of flirting, lol, although given how Rilla thinks Walter is a better poet than Wordsworth/Tennyson…fair enough, Ken.) (Also, does Walter send Ken his poems or something? Would track with Ken's father being a novelist, and the book later mentions that Ken himself has a gift for writing.)

“[Gertrude] had enjoyed the party herself, after all, for she had foregathered with a Charlottetown acquaintance who, being a stranger and much older than most of the guests, felt himself rather out of it, and had been glad to fall in with this clever girl who could talk of world doings and outside events with the zest and vigour of a man.”

"the zest and vigor of a man" ohhhh boy, I have nothing to add except this is indeed a line.

“A girl’s laugh drifted up from the rocks and died away as if frightened out of existence by the sudden stillness.”

This line is so evocative, you can almost hear it. And here we go, England has declared war on Germany.

“Do you think a war for which Germany has been preparing for twenty years will be over in a few weeks?” said Walter passionately. “This isn’t a paltry struggle in a Balkan corner, Harvey. It is a death grapple. Germany comes to conquer or to die. And do you know what will happen if she conquers? Canada will be a German colony.”

Walter referring to the war as something Germany's been preparing for, and something they have to win lest they be turned into a German colony, feels like an unusual perspective from him. So much of his fear of war is very...general; he's afraid of the violence and ugliness that mars all wars, of the heartbreak the war will bring regardless of who they're fighting -- so it's just interesting to see him actually frame it geopolitically. Wasn't aware he cared about German politics like that! (or that he didn't care about the Balkans like that, jeez.)

I've always understood, like, intellectually that people thought WWI would be over quickly, but I think what really put it into perspective for me was when Russia invaded Ukraine -- obviously not an exact parallel, but I remember idly scrolling Twitter and seeing tons of "Hahaha Russia is going to learn why America doesn't have free healthcare!!!!" jokes and it really struck me like, oh, people were this certain about Britain's military strength and place in the world order in 1914. (And of course, Mary and Miller are the "nothing ever happens" crowd in the corner.)

Ken, like Jem, brings up the war being a family affair, although he seems a little less romantic about it -- more like he's stating the facts of their relationship rather than Jem actively identifying them as England's "cubs". (Although a cut line in Readying Rilla does have Ken saying, "If somebody attacked a fellow's mother", which is then cut off. Interesting direct parallel to Walter jumping Dan Reese for insulting Anne -- and Faith -- in Rainbow Valley.) Jem is actually apparently the most patriotic of the boys, seeing as he's trying to get the Union Jack hoisted as soon as the war is announced.

“Sure I would. You see they’ll go by thousands. Jem’ll be off, I’ll bet a cent—Walter won’t be strong enough yet, I suppose. And Jerry Meredith—he’ll go! Oh, boys! And I was worrying about being out of football this year!”

(The fact that Rilla doesn't grasp the magnitude of the war at all and is timidly asking Ken if it's going to matter to them reeeeeeally brings into relief the differences in their life stages ://// Also, Ken says "Oh, boys!" re: Jem and Jerry enlisting and I just cannot read that as like, a normal thing that anyone would say.)

“Down on the rocks with Jen and Mollie Crawford. Oh, why didn’t they look for me?”

Rilla's then mentioned to be hanging out on the rocks with some "over-harbor friends", apparently Jen and Mollie Crawford?? I wish the book sketched out any of her friendships beyond Gertrude and Irene -- even Una's friendship with her isn't very developed.

“Oh well, you’ll know more about men when you’re as old as I am,” said Mary patronizingly. “Mind you, it doesn’t do to believe all they tell you. Don’t let Ken Ford think that all he has to do to get you on the string is to drop his handkerchief. Have more spirit than that, child.” To be thus hectored and patronized by Mary Vance was unendurable!”

I will say, Mary miiiiight just know what she's talking about re: men, given that Jem was kissing her and Faith in the same week 💀

(I do like that Mary's "not unkind" when helping Rilla! Idk, she is abrasive and obnoxious buuut I find the Blythes to be kind of two-faced about her, lol, like they hang out with her then turn around all, "Well we don't even like her, she's just a habit of ours" -- like, nobody in this friendship is acting right, so I always like when the narration dials back on the negativity around her.)

“Outside, the dawn came greyly in on wings of storm; Captain Josiah, true to his word, ran up the Union Jack at the Four Winds Light and it streamed on the fierce wind against the clouded sky like a gallant unquenchable beacon.”

Such an image :(

glossary stuff (including stuff from earlier chapters that i just found bc this thing is impossible to search 😭)

Readying Rilla bits:

There's a cut line of Ethel Reese saying that Selwyn Ken Ford is "so dashing and citified", lol.

In a cut line, Rilla also fears that Selwyn Ken will call her "Miss Rilla" in a mocking way, among his other teasing nicknames.

Selwyn Ken quoting "The Sea-Shell" was originally not in the draft and added later.

@melodypowers65 pointed out that Ken was already named Ken in Rainbow Valley, so where did Selwyn come from, actually? I want to say I've read somewhere that Selwyn was meant to be a different character (like a Ford cousin?) but I could be making that up entirely. Possible credence to the theory that Rilla was already in the works when LMM was writing Rainbow Valley too? (Although it would be hilarious if Ken was so forgettable that LMM didn't realize that she'd already given him a name. We've finally found someone she forgets more than Shirley.)

Walter originally says "every man woman and child" will feel it (the effects of the war), and then "in Canada" was specified later, which strikes me as funny. It was a world war, LMM, you were right the first time!!

Harvey Crawford (originally called "Laurie" for some reason?) originally says the war will be "over before Christmas" (which is then changed to "in a month or two"). "Over by Christmas" is of course the common phrase associated with how short people thought the war would be, it seems like LMM had it on the mind, but maybe changed it for being too on the nose?

The original reason Jem leaves the party early is because "Faith was tired of the doing thing" (???), which is changed to "Una had a headache." Me too, Una 😔

[hcnnibal]

hi Vati. As per your recent angels art compilation, it pains me how A1's body language around an affectionate A2 is either:

1. Pulling away, a subtle rejection of the touch (not exactly rejection, more like ... disapproval? I recall that A1 does not like being touched, which is a neat contrast to A2 who seems to really enjoy touch -- also makes me think of your OC ship meme that showed A1's low libido yet high frequency of sex + A2's high libido despite not having sex much/at all.)

2. Letting it happen/playing along with a rueful (dare I say guilty) smile

As kids, their affectionate body language is still a bit fraught but much less so (A2's guilt over messing A1 up for life bc A1 seemingly imprinted on him hasn't set in yet, I presume?)

Also worth noting that A1 seems quite willing to touch A2 when it's STRICTLY not affectionate in the classic sense (in a comedic or romantic way), such as your art where he's carrying an injured A2 across his back.

It's very cool how you portray A1's conflicting feelings about A2's open adoration of him through these minute body/face cues. Stunning work.

Also. I must reiterate. P a i n . . .

a1 desperately craves connection, so he’s kind of constantly reaching out (even though it has yet to give him any sort of actual fulfillment). so in general, he’s much more comfortable initiating touch than receiving touch, regardless of intent

but yeah, he’s kinda got issues with physical contact as a whole, even with people he doesn’t have decades of history and baggage with. he’s always kind of just. tolerating the minimum amount of contact to. i don’t know. perform his idea of what intimacy is supposed to look like

a1 is very much… a people pleaser who’s convinced himself that he’s selfish and always acting in his own self interest. so like. i don’t think he even knows that he’s uncomfortable. he probably just thinks that everyone feels perpetually weird and unclean and he’s just a little behind the curve for not getting over it. also, he knows physical affection makes a2 happy so whatever he actually feels about it doesn’t even matter.

but i think the crux of the tragedy is that a2 is only comfortable initiating contact because he genuinely believes that he is the exception to a1’s aversion to touch, because

1. a1 is the exception for him, so it would make sense that he is the exception for a1. because you know, they are soulmates and meant to be etc etc

2. he trusts a1 to let him know if he doesn’t like something/is uncomfortable.

but no one crosses a1’s boundaries like a1 crosses a1’s boundaries so

[shallowseeker]

Thinking about how Nihilism Pamela is a mashup of SO MANY things, but my favorite thing that she is ...

is an avatar for gut-level, instinctual truth. She's a psychic in the sense that she's also Dean.

She acts on the truth of Dean's feelings and speaks them aloud.

///

Pamela's meeting with the real estate shark is a (meta) variant that hints at Dean's gut-level instincts. Pamela says this:

(Which is yes, a plot nod to the fact that the saleswoman is HOUNDING, but Pamela's words are still functionally a meta for truth: the time before that, and the time before that.)

///

There's other things that function as Dean's subconscious breaking through.

"You want something you can't have." -> This isn't real and deep down you know it.

&

"This is my dream." / "Yeah." -> Yes, this is a dream.

&

"I was starting to worry. Don't tell Dean. He'll use it against me." -> It's code for "Don't tell Michael. He'll use it against me." Dean has perhaps been suppressing his feelings and cutting them up in coded ways to prevent Michael from accessing them. His mind is a fortress. It's a known, well-verbalized (in terms of plot) firewall.

&

Then Pamela touches Cas's shoulder, a gesture Cas often does to Dean, and she seems so oddly giddy to see him. That's not Pamela's reaction to Cas. It's not smooth enough. It's adorable. That's sunny and bouncey. That's all Dean.

The red matador of flirtation of sill visible here, united the shot with Dean, Pamela and the Cosmic Cowboy beer, cape swooshing behind its body in a bare-all kind of seduction, inviting The Metaphorical Charge.

Such an amazing choice in an episode about the powerful, violent true nature of angels... or the "blind" nature of love, for that matter. (Have I been blind since I met him? etc.)

This next set of dialogue is a bit more Pamela-esque, which makes sense after such direct challenge that she might not be real. Now, she's more "in character."

"I've been blind for awhile. Thank Feathers here for that one."

-> Now she sounds a LOT more like the real Pamela. She's falling closer in line with the Pamela as we last actually saw her. No, not Zachariah's weird fantasy, but the one who didn't want to die in 4x15:

She is Dean's lurking subconscious truth meeting the art of denial, and as she unravels, so too does truth unravel:

Our earlier "This is my dream!" / "Yeah." meets:

(All?)

(Us too?)

[jacksmysterylabyrinth]

There's a few routes in this game that say a lot about how fickle and unstable Takumi can be, that really warps him on an existential level.

It's hard to grasp how sometimes, but I think it starts with this...

Essentially, he's a person whose 'programming went faulty'. Namely, the issue of 'Karua', and how she's at once both a propaganda piece projected into his brain, and also Nozomi's words filtering in.

I don't think he's able to fully separate those things with conviction, as much as he wants to. He doesn't get how projection works, that's already something difficult for a sheltered and clueless teenager to unpack but... this is a whole other level of 'challenge: impossible' mind-fuckery. If the group have ever had some disconnect between their sense of identity and their 'memory', Takumi's is soup.

But what especially gets me, is his 'younger teen self' dismisses 'Karua's' studies in the most incurious way- 'what's this, the outside world? Why bother with all of that? Why do you care? Conspiracy theorist', etc. which I imagine is what he was 'supposed' to do with anything 'weird' like any potential new information. Until the programming got funny at odd moments when Nozomi's interest would seep through, and then, you'd catch Takumi responding to 'Karua's' interest... with more interest for once.

(Now the brain doesn't know what to do. Oh sure, you want to take charge of your destiny, but actually it's better to just sleep and forget it all. Not like you ever cared about learning anything, right?)

I'd say Takumi's avoidance mechanisms later, are a response to Nozomi's existence as if she was a virus. Which... says a lot about the fascist state of the Artificial Satellite, and how Takumi was designed for the 'most ordinary kind of life' that wasn't meant to know it.

It's kind of unclear how the programming works- whether it takes the subject's base personality and uses it to run an 'AI scenario' based upon whatever Kamukura wanted to project into them, or if it doesn't bother matching personality at all and just shoves scenes into their head regardless if it's something they'd do. Either way, it feels that something went especially wrong with Takumi, even if his personality matched the 'memories' he was given, because for the first time one of the pod-programs was actually adapting to outside stimuli.

The symbolism about that moon is especially interesting. Because Eito - the 'moon' - learns the truth about the world and its wars, and remains a significant challenge for Takumi to grapple with- only for him to kill him and redo everything at the end of the first scenario, suggesting he had kind of failed that (basically undoing the work that Eito had done to stop the weapon without knowing that they're not on Earth, for one...). The moon also represents 'illusion'- what the SDU look up at from Futurum is actually the Artificial Satellite where they've spent their whole lives in a pod, Eito's major trauma deals with illusions that physically warp what humans are (the glitch also doesn't even fully distinguish between 'Human' and 'Futuran' in the first place which makes it even less of an objective judgement)...

...on that note, this here from the Casual route continues to haunt me, and it's been hard to put into words exactly why. Because it might very well have come from Eito's mouth if he were there, since he's trapped in some terrible stuff too. But Eito's not there- that's a dream state that Takumi is in, so those words came from Takumi.

It's like his subconscious has been screaming to get out of the cage for a long time, but he keeps wanting to go back in anyway.

[fishyaudio]

Raz, who's been your favourite design you've made for your anthro au? I have a feeling it's Saint lol

Your feeling is not wrong, she's a favourite to draw!

But if I had to choose one, favourite design ever out of the ten, it would be the one for Shine (aka Monk, I really need to start using the names I gave them all for the AU here as well, gahh)

It's a surprising choice for me, because when it came to in-game depiction + popular fandom interpretations of Monk, I never really liked the guy (not disliked, just didn't think about the character a lot and found others more interesting). I don't usually dig the "peaceful, kind, happy" archetype characters in media in general, it's just not my thing, and most "fanmade character extensions" of Monk I've seen just expanded on that alone. It's not that they're anyhow wrong! They're just really not my thing and it always itches me to introduce more contrast or flavor in personalities of that sort. It's suprisingly hard to write a character who is mainly just really pure and avoids conflict, at least for me. Unhinged beasts with weird morals are sometimes just easier to grasp bwahaha

And with that, since it's "character design" and not just "design" - that initially made me feel like designing and creating the anthro AU equivalent for Monk would be a neccessary struggle and when I'm done, I won't ever pay much attention to a character I'd consider a bit more flat in comparison to what I had planned for others. But the longer I sketched, more "what ifs" came to mind and I ended up with Shine - still the younger sibling, just taller and bigger than the scrawny, troublemaking, older one. Took advantage of Share (Gourmand) being his parent, so he takes after him in size and personality a bit more. That opened a really fun path to explore with him.

I've decided to link his pacifist mentality and kindness not to being childish and bit unwise, but to idealism, stronger sense of justice and an overall aspiration to be reliable and responsible. He's still young and naive, but it doesn't come from being childish and having a "kill them with kindness, no other options allowed" mentality, but rather from being an inexperienced, future leader with a lot of potential. One that's often being very harsh on himself when his mistakes or faulty judgement causes a slip-up or a situation escalated in a way he couldn't predict. Sometimes, things just happen and there was no way to foresee the consequences or avoid confrontation, despite how hard everyone tried, and that's also a part of life - that's something Shine would struggle to accept. He's naive, but not dumb. Even with that - it doesn't stop him from being a very trustworthy and quick-thinking individual. I like that about him!

And this is also what's reflected in the design - he's on the taller side, with a more blocky build. Flowy, loose clothes both make him look really comfortable and chill, visually suggesting that he's more laid-back, not active, not used to fights and messy situations, while also pushing the silhouette to be a one, sturdy shape even more. That just yells "you can approach and trust this guy easily" by looks alone. From smaller details - he has the monk symbol in a visible place on his belt -> wants to signal to others that he's not a threat and is always willing to talk things out or settle for a compromise. He doesn't have much more accessories -> doesn't like showing off and isn't desperate for attention. The only striking, busy pattern he has on him is the striped sleeve to match his sib - he values Ways (Survivor) a lot!

From other designs for the AU - March, Ways and Steps (Spearmaster, Survivor and Rivulet) are also my favourites for various reasons, but this post is already a yap session. Maybe next time, if anyone's curious.

Thanks for the ask! Gave me an excuse to draw them more!!

AU tag here!

[wkngsnds]

Jax and Ragatha Mini Analysis PT 2

Here’s part 1

Jax is fucking hilarious bro because why did he spend so many of his interactions with Pomni talking about Ragatha. He clearly cares about her deep down and just wants her to be honest— straight up saying “let yourself be mean, it’s funny”. Then when he found out about her abusive mom the mission changed from “let’s expose her” to “you need to let it out before you abstract bro”

Not gonna lie I genuinely feel like he stopped making fun of her after the bar scene because the way she described her mom is exactly how he has been acting towards everyone— with yelling and berating especially. He is aware of his actions and attitude and how that makes him look, which is why he obviously deflects when he’s vulnerable (I.e ‘also she’s dumb and looks weird); he’s got a tough guy act to maintain. Now, he’s trying to make her realize what she’s doing is not helpful if only for her own sake.

Deadass, he’s trying to be his own version of Pomni to her, and let’s be honest in the end he’s the best person to do. He knows her best of all the cast— I don’t think he’s going to save her, but I do do believe he’s gonna be the one that makes her see sense.

On the other end, Ragatha wants to have a genuine connection with Jax or reconnect with him. Some people think this episode confirmed that Ragatha hates him, but I don’t think that’s right. In my opinion, I think she is frustrated by him— not even because of his physical attacks or petty comments towards her, but specifically because he seems to be just as deluded as he makes her out to be, yet he insists on her dropping her persona first and tells her she isn’t authentic enough when he’s also fake as fuck.

That’s the problem, he’s being a huge hypocrite and no one else can see it, because everyone else (kind of like the fans who hate him) write him off as being one dimensional. Or, in Pomni’s case, is seeing another side to him that might make him amicable.

Basically, this is where they’re at with each other right now

I hope they have a one on one a la Pearl and Greg; their problems, I feel, are too intertwined that Pomni won’t be able to play ref

[fraddit]

This is the fourth post in a series of four. It covers the spaces that we've never seen on the show and other miscellany.

The other posts in this series: Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

My other floor plans: Diaz House | Buck's Loft | Madney House

They're also on my Ao3

The Bunk Room

I’ve had more than one person ask me where I think the bunk room is, and 84 years later, I’m finally answering. First off, since we’ve never seen it, I clearly don’t have an objective answer. So feel free to take everything I’m about to say with a grain of salt. You can imagine the bunk room and everything else I’m about to discuss however you want. But I’ll tell you what I imagine and why I picture it like that, and you can feel free to do with that as you wish.

The practical reality answer is that the bunk room doesn’t exist and there’s not really anywhere in the existing building that it could exist or that I think would make sense for it to exist. The only area large enough to hold such a space is the section we’ve never seen inside of, in the bottom left corner of all the floor plans. That doesn’t work for me because it’s so far from the kitchen, living, dining etc areas and because of all the doors that go into that space which indicates that area is carved up into several smaller spaces somehow and because of the giant glass wall which feels like a weird design choice for a place where people need to sleep at potentially all hours of the day.

So, I imagine something different. The magical firehouse in my mind occupies part of the building next door. I’ve highlighted the nebulous section I’m discussing below. There’s nothing exact about any of this, hence the gradient. Imagine it taking up as much space as you wish.

When I picture the bunk room, I picture it upstairs in this adjacent section, accessed through a doorway in the big blank wall over by the stairs and fire poles. I tried to create a visual example that was still vague and ended up with The Void. Sorry it’s horrifying. It made me laugh though, so it’s what you’re all getting.

To me, this location makes the most sense, since it’s close to the LDK, and I always thought it was weird how much egress is in that corner with both the wide stairs and the poles and it’s not really a highly occupied space. But if the bunk room is also right there, that would make sense for them to have so many ways down right there.

Additionally, fire code in the US requires two modes of egress for sleeping quarters. This is usually a door and a window. And, it makes sense for there to be windows on that exterior wall toward the bottom of the image above. And therefore, that makes sense to me as a location for sleeping quarters.

This solution also solves a few other issues for me, namely the roof stuff. The roofs of the adjacent buildings are flat. Although, this is all imaginary, so even if they weren’t flat, I could picture them that way. But this allows me to reconcile the not at all flat roof of the firehouse and all the hanging out on the flat roof scenes. In my mind, that all happens on the this other roof section. Boom. Solved.

And, since we’ve never seen the roof access from downstairs, because it doesn’t exist, I also picture the stairs up to the roof in this wonderful pretend place.

I also picture some more bathroom facilities here. If I’m picturing the imaginary bunk room over here, well, they deserve at least one imaginary bathroom upstairs too.

Downstairs, I picture part of the same section of building also being annexed into the firehouse off the locker room as the showers, accessed through a doorway in the little nook that’s over by the stairs and poles.

I picture it this way because I feel like there’s not really enough room for full shower/bathroom facilities in that top right section that connects to the locker room through the red door, since there’s three doors off there, that again, imply several smaller spaces. Where’s the water heater live? Where’s the bathroom? So for me, it’s just easier to picture another area where the showers live. Perhaps there even exists, in this imaginary shower room, private changing areas that make the glass walled locker room make at least a little more sense.

The Firehouse Location

This is a map of approximate locations of various places in the show.

Over on the left, there are three tiny, colored rectangles. Pink is Chimney and Maddie’s apartment neighborhood (not their new house). Purple is Eddie and Chris’s neighborhood. Red is Athena and Bobby’s neighborhood.

The large swaths of green are where most of the craftsman style homes are located, so Hen and Karen live somewhere in there. Alternatively, I've been told that Hen's LAFD separation paperwork in s6e06 puts their address in Altadena, near JPL. Which also makes sense.

The blue rectangle over on the right is where Buck’s apartment is. The orange marker in the blue rectangle is Michael’s apartment.

The yellow marker in Koreatown is Bobby’s church.

So, given all of that. If we’re assuming that Bobby went to that church because it was near his apartment. Which, I do, because I don’t think s1 Bobby was driving out of his way to go to the prettiest church he could find. And if we assume that Bobby rented an apartment reasonably close to the station he would soon be captain of. And if we assume that when Buck got his apartment in s2, he chose a place that was reasonably close to the station as well, and that everyone else also lives kind of close to the station, then the station is probably kind of in the middle of all those places.

So my guess is that the station is somewhere near that red house icon in the middle. I just put it at that major road and highway crossroad because why not?

And that's everything! Thank you so much for coming on this journey with me. I hope it's helpful or useful in some way. Happy weewooing!

The other posts in this series: Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

My other floor plans: Diaz House | Buck's Loft | Madney House

They're also on my Ao3